Chapter 13: Does the walker choose the path?

The dawn was crimson and ruled by horrors.

I found myself standing in a field, armies marching, destroying all that stood in their path. Holding my ground, my eyes beheld as they murdered what I could only call deer and stags, like the one Jake had killed. Children, adults, elderly; none were spared.

In the caves far beneath the earth, they remained trapped for a long time, suffering in the dark. They huddled as hope died away.

And, in the middle of it all, was a tangible darkness gusting forth from the earth’s depths like smoke out of a billowing volcano, forming into a pool of mist unseen.

It was power, raw and primeval. It pulled me ever closer, beckoning. I reached toward it, trying to touch it, the dark power. I wanted it. No, I needed it… to save my brother and myself.

So, I did.

An electrifying feeling surged through me in a wave, coursing through my veins. It was the feeling of impossibility becoming real. My heart pounded with strength that could shake the world. My mind clearer than ever conjured answers to all questions.

Do you want this? The pool whispered.

“I want it all,” I answered before it even finished asking.

And so it was.

“Wake up.” Someone nudged me. It brought coldness which caressed me back into the waking world. The singing and chirping of birds felt like an alarm clock pounding against my tired mind.

“Noooo,” I moaned and rolled over trying to get away from the intrusive smells and light. Dammit, I was beginning to really hate this. Walk all day, sleep, walk all day, sleep, like a goddamned vicious cycle that slowly tore me down into a quivering mess of aching muscles and fatigue. But, for my little brother, it would all be worth it.

Like the days before the blue mines – hell, before this world – I forced myself to get up.

There was something sizzling on the rocks circling the fire that still burned strong. Paul sat near the fireplace, looking at me. He seemed as if he had been up for a while now. Surveying the small cave showed me the lack of diamond dogs. I honestly didn’t know how to feel about that.

Glad to still be alive, I guess . That was true since my body still retained its status quo ante bellum, so Paul had probably gotten the clue about nightwatch and whatnot. But where the dog was now would hopefully remain forever a mystery.

“Good morning, Paul,” I smiled despite my uneasiness while stretching my sore back and bruised shoulder. Sleeping on the ground was something else I’d probably never get used to. I missed my bed so much during the past two or something months, though it wasn’t all that bad back at the village.

We ate the roasted meat Paul had gotten from who knows where. Wasn’t much without salt and spices, but still better than nothing. At least we spared some of our supplies, though as I’d said, Paul’s food supplies were just a snack for his frame. Blasted gryphons and their bottomless bellies.

Neither of us bothered to break up the campfire. It wouldn’t be able to do much harm in the cave’s confines. We only took what was ours, perhaps sensing that the dog would most likely return upon our leave. At least that’s what I hoped he would do. Though in my heart I knew he would follow us.

Everything packed, we were on our way once again. We rounded the hill until our respective walking appendages hit the road again. Soon the forest was behind us, the strange silvery trees waving us their goodbye. For a short moment I stopped and observed the malapropos, jagged hills.

There was power there. Now that Paul and I left the place, there seemed to be something missing, a strange feeling like I’d forgotten something important. Somehow, I knew it was there, tempting me with its untouchable presence.

“Go,” Paul called after me, now a few meters ahead of me. So, I turned, and the journey continued.

Days passed, blurred in an incomprehensible mass of light and dark that came and went, only few events happened during that time.

There wasn’t all that much to do in the broad daylight but walking and looking inconspicuous, which we didn’t really go into any details with. No longer did we bother to hide my presence. Sure, travellers we began to meet were aplenty. Though most gave us nary but second glances before moving on with their business, some glanced back, studying me perhaps. Couldn’t blame them. I’d be curious too. If anything, Paul did all of the talking again.

“Watch,” He said as we stopped beneath a lone tree on a small hill—acting like a beacon in the endless seas of grass and shrubs typical to steppi. We seemed to be leaving behind the lush green fields – sometimes cultivated with wheat or other sorts of cereals, and whenever it was corn we usually took advantage of it, getting us some more food for free.

The terrain thus slowly changed to accommodate to the slightly colder climate. Because of that, the farmlands became scarcer too. With it we lost a reliable source of food. I know, stealing is wrong, but really, most of the times the fields were too big for us to make any sort of dent in the wallets of whoever owned the fields. I also noticed that gryphons were, for some reason, really fond of corn.

This small hill with the lone tree overlooked a huge lake. The higher ground made visible a farmhouse on the other side of the lake with a small pier and an even smaller boat floating near.  Otherwise the land was silent, only wind sifting through the branches and leaves above me, soothing my aching body and troubled mind, though just a little. However, even that was enough, as with every passing day, the dread in me grew like a cancer.

Paul shot up into the sky. The strange sky that seemed so different from our world, yet so similar at the same time. The clouds, for example, were closer to the ground. One, two minutes was all Paul needed to touch them and… mold them?

Wait...

He freaking touched them, taking a huge chunk from it – almost as large as he was – and sculpting it with his bare claws. At least that’s what it looked like from the ground where I was. My eyesight was pretty good overall – something I’d inherited from my father and which didn’t diminish much even with all the time I’d spent reading books – but even so it was difficult to really see what was going on. What I’d seen was soon confirmed as he slowly drifted down to me, lying on the cloud as if it were a water lounger, steering his craft with wings to prevent it from flowing away on wisps of wind.

“What the fuck,” I mouthed to myself, looking at the impossibility before me. Then memories from the first month or so in this world reminded me of something. I’d seen this before, in the village, but I never paid it much mind thinking it was just my imagination. Plus I’d had a lot of other stuff to worry about.

Reaching out to the cloud, my hand and arm passed through it like it was nothing but condensed water and gases. Or whatever else clouds were made of. Yet, Paul was lounging on it like it was a couch made of cotton.

“This is amazing.” My mind was blown. One would think that after gryphons, magic, diamond dogs and exploding lanterns, I’d be less surprised over such things. But the truth was the opposite.

Paul took in my amazement with a playful grin. After a while, though, he announced once again, “Watch.”

He flew up, the cloud dispersing with a mighty puff of his wings, the remnants passing through me, clinging to my clothes in small droplets.

Annoyed, though excited at the prospect of more amazing things, I sat down onto the ground where grass didn’t grow, and I watched.

The laugh of youth filled the early afternoon. This, with the beautiful virgin land, the lake glistening with beams of sunlight, the constant warm breeze; it all washed away the ever-present feeling of dread I always felt completely. Once again, a heavy burden seemed to have fallen from my heart.

A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth as I looked up at Paul. He flew through the clouds, trailing wisps of mist behind himself; all whilst making daring dives and complicated stunts. Until, finally, he let himself relax completely and fell into the water.

I was still smiling as his head emerged and he started paddling back to the shore.

He again reminded me of a drenched dog, but way, way funnier. The wet feathers clung tight to his body as he wobbled up, until giving the signature shake of all animals that tried to get rid of the excess water on their fur and feathers.

What finally skipped to my side was nothing short of a fuzzy ball that just asked to be petted. The temptation was too strong not to, and Paul knew it all too well.

As my hand reached out toward him, he gave me a winning smile as he, full of pride, said more than asked, “Nice, huh?”

“Yeah.” I buried my hand so deep into his feathers I started to question whether there was anything else he was composed of. Paul seemed in heaven as I scratched his back, between his back all the way from his neck to the place between his wings. That one in particular seemed quite sensitive.

All in all, it was a good day.

Not two days after we set out from the silvery hills did we come across another village. Crouching in the high grass behind a few trees on a hill overlooking the… well, it wasn’t really a village; more a town. It was a lot larger than the lumberjacking village.

Not wanting a repeat of what had happened before, I didn't dare to approach any further. Instead, I let Paul handle our supplies. All I did then was crouch somewhere for a few hours while contemplating the meaning of everything around me—anything to take my mind off the improbable goal before me.

Though I did watch the village from time to time. I didn’t see much through the palisade surrounding the village, but there were a lot more gryphons bustling about, some even armored, moving about in squadrons of three or four along the top of the walls or on the outer town perimeter. Half of all the gryphons in the town, if I had to guess, were in the air. Something I had noticed was that the gryphons really loved their flying capabilities. On the road, we only really saw walkers if they had too heavy carts, they were resting, or they weren’t equipped by nature for flight.

Then, once Paul got back from his supply hunting, we’d set out just before it started to get dark. Normally, we’d have set camp way before then, but we both understood without needing words to not want to risk breaking camp anywhere near the town where others could find us. I had my reasons, but I didn’t really know if Paul was just going along with it or if he had his own, personal reasons.

For the next week, we came across two more towns, each larger than the one before as we neared the mountains. The terrain began to get more forest-like again, but the greenwoods and mixed forests gave way to rigid coniferous forests.

We took extra care to take a long roundabout whenever we approached the towns. We were a lot wiser now, Paul and I.

Once we were just breaking camp after walking with less pauses than normally because we couldn't find a good place to camp. The mountains on the horizon were nothing but black misty outlines by the time we found a relatively secluded place between a few trees near a small pond.

I’d had enough by then, wanting nothing more than to just slump down and sleep forever. My tiredness and sleepiness contributed to a slightly higher level of irritation, coupled with the need to weed out a small place so the annoying weeds wouldn’t catch on fire.

When the circle of stones was closed, the fire started, and the blankets spread, there was nothing more for me but to lie down to enjoy some well deserved rest. That’s of course when Paul came to me.

“Now we javotob,” he announced in a solemn tone before dropping into what I presumed was a fighting stance.

“Paul, not now,” I sighed tiredly.

“What?” He asked still in that solemn voice. He didn’t seem like he would stop doing whatever he was doing. I think he tried to look threatening, but to me he looked like the silly, cute gryphon he always had been.

Ignoring him, I sat down.

That’s when he attacked. Tackling me, I hit the blanket head on as my body was now drowned in a sea of soft feathers.

“Hmhml!”

“Yt javotob!” He yelled into my ear before jumping back, crouching into his predatory stance. He no longer looked silly or cute.

“Oh, it’s fucking on!”

And so we sparred, and we’d been doing so ever since.

The remnants of a town burned beneath the shadows of mountains.

I looked at the map again.

“Yep,” I clicked my tongue while folding the map. This was the last town before the mountain trek. Was being a crucial word here. From even this far, through the thin trails of smoke wafting up from whatever hadn’t completely burned down yet,  I could see that there was actually a visible, paved path leading into the mountains. Perhaps the trek wouldn’t take as long as I’d thought.

The town, however, was still a problem. Especially with the smell of blood, smoke, and dying hope. The stench made its way to us even as we observed from afar from a hilltop that cut from the forest like a teeth, letting us see all around us. The town itself was located by the base of one of the huge mountains in a large clearing that must’d only expanded over time. It wasn’t a large town, but from the remains I could see that it was quite important and wealthy.

Then there were the gryphons, armed to the teeth, circling like vultures around a dying prey, just waiting for the last breath.

Though we were far, gryphons had amazing sight. If I could see them, so the could see me. Not wanting to attract the attention of fully armed master predators, I slowly came down the hill and into the cover of trees. Paul looked for a while longer, then followed.

“Now what?” I asked. My knowledge of the accursed language grew faster every day.

“I go, you stay.” He might’d said wait instead of stay, but the meaning remained.

“No,” I shook my head. It was too dangerous.

But Paul, as always, had other plans. “Yes,” he hissed through a smile, and took off on those soft wings of his. They made for an amazing cover from the chill of the night, even if they covered only half of my body. I shook my head to clear it from thoughts of sleep. Tired again, body aching, keeping myself going through sheer willpower and my goal. Lately it’s been coming more frequently. The chill, the shivers. Unpleasant thoughts about what may very well come. Or may not.

For the third time, I shook my head, repressing the urge to just yell at the top of my lungs.

No, there would be no thoughts of the following dawns and twilights. Not knowing what else to do, I sat down and leaned against a tree. It was rough, painful. Good for keeping me from dozing off.