The Disillusion Mountains

Chapter 11

    Nimma closed the journal. It was now dark so she read by firelight while Grant slept in the tent. Once they'd gotten deeper into the woods they decided sleeping in shifts would be safest since many large carnivorous animals roamed the mountains. She sat the journal on her knee.      

    The story of Regina after she arrived on Myras was well documented. Few, if any, outside the family knew much about her life before she came to Myras at the age of sixteen. The fact that she really was a witch and even fought in a doomed war to save her country weren't stories that had come down in the family. Until two years ago the Regina was witch thing Nimma had always assumed was slander created by the Towers.    

    Witches hadn't been seen as totally evil historically. There were plenty of tales of people claiming to be witches who'd been highly esteemed for their good deeds. Then there were the ones said to curse people for money and who committed horrible acts for no apparent reason.

    Nimma had been like most people believing that witches weren't real for most of her life. Once again the memory of her plane being shot down resurfaced. That was the day she'd learned magic was more than a fairy story. Regina had known from a young age. What startled her even more was that Regina had apparently been involved in a magical war. They had more in common than Nimma ever believed.    

    Once again Nimma took out the photo of Regina holding her daughter. Did nightmares of the things Regina had experienced haunt her as they did Nimma? Had Regina seen the faces of the people she'd killed, if she ever had killed, like Nimma? Were the scars on her face caused by combat like many of the scars on Nimma's body were?

    Nimma was about to put the photo back when something caught her eye. At Regina's feet there was a small animal. It almost looked like a shadow cat but it was too small. The cat was silver with white spots and was missing half of its left ear. Its eyes were so bright a blue that it looked unnatural. The cat was laying down calmly staring directly ahead. Weird. It had been extremely hard to photograph animals back then because the flash from the giant bulbs frightened them.

🌺

    "How far have we come?" Nimma asked.       

    "About five miles."  

    "A narrow path between two cliffs." Nimma muttered turning in slow circles while looking into the forest. They'd been making their way for two days along the compass reading Grant had taken when the sunlight showed them the way. The path was little more than a game trail and so far there had been no sign of any cliffs. The forest was pretty dense but Nimma didn't think something like that could be overgrown enough for them to have missed.     

    They were moving a lot slower than they could have been just in case. They'd gone off the path only briefly to investigate caves that might lead to what they were looking for but quickly turned back when it became clear they were not. Grant knelt on the ground and pulled out the water proof map. It wasn't very detailed as it had been compiled from multiple drone flybys but had longitude and latitude lines.       

    "We're still on course." Grant said after checking their position. "Shadow Cat Canyon is about seventeen miles away." Grant pointed at the long stretch of green forest between them. Four miles to the north a river cut through the mountains. Other than that shade of blue there was no indication of any rocky cliffs everything was green; forested area as far as the eye could see.

    Nimma shivered. The temperatures had dropped since the morning and from what she could see of the sky overhead they were in for some rain. Grant hadn't spoken aloud any doubts but Nimma knew the longer they went without finding cliffs the stronger his unspoken doubts would grow. Nimma pulled out the raincoat from her pack.

    Grant looked at the sky ominously. "I would like to make camp before that rain starts." Grant looked down at the map again. "If that river breaks its banks we're going to be in trouble."

    "Is that likely?"

    Grant clicked his tongue and considered. "Maybe. There's a snow capped mountain right above it and it's been warmer than usual for this time of year the past week and a half. The run off with this rain we're about to get could spell bad news. Right now we're here. If I'm reading this map right, don't worry I am," he winked and Nimma smirked, "there's a stretch of higher ground a little bit out of our way; but I can get us back on course once we pass out of the danger zone."    

    "Let's do it. I don't want to be caught in a flash flood. How much time will this eat up?"

    "A day maybe two." Grant put the map away and punched a sequence of numbers into his GPS. Nimma's GPS beeped once. "If something happens to me just follow the course I plugged in it'll take you down the mountain. Morbid but we can't be too careful."     

    "Smart planning." Nimma corrected. "Selmmie hasn't told me much about you." Nimma said as she followed Grant off the barely there path and into the woods. "You have a daughter who is with her mother while off on this dangerous adventure with me."

    "Are you asking if I'm stepping out on my wife?" Grant sounded amused but Nimma couldn't see his face.   

    "I guess I am."      

    "I'm not. Diana and I are divorced have been for about six years."   

    "What happened?"    

    Grant shrugged. "I thought we were in love but when things got tough money wise she jumped ship."

    "Ouch."

    "Yeah. I'd call her a few choice words for breaking my heart but I refuse to speak too badly about the mother of my child."

    "Where is she now?"

    "Up north with her new husband. He's a very rich doctor. She and I have joint custody but most of the time our daughter stays with me. What about you? Ever been married?" The rain started coming down in earnest. 

    "No. I saw someone when I was in the military over in Draconia but it didn't work out."

    "Why not?"

    "He just disappeared one day and stopped calling. I never knew why." Nimma told a half truth. Nimma was pretty sure she did know why but saying it out aloud with someone near enough to hear would make her look insane.

    "What a dick. Did you really like him?"

    "Yeah. I did."