The Rosewood Prophecy

Chapter 28

                                                                         Aaron

"I get why it's called Dead Man's Chasm now," I said to Indigo. "Just look at these steep cliffs and desolate landscape. No wonder it's not a top priority on the tourist brochures."

"Be careful, Aaron," Indigo warned from behind as all the horses slowed and we paused to take in the surroundings. "One wrong step and we can all go tumbling in."

We were at the top of a dune, overlooking one of the places we'd have to cross in order to get to Devil's Peak. It was basically like a desert, except even the ground was cracked and dry, with nothing but dust and rocks and endless view of desolation. Thousands, or perhaps even millions, of years ago this place was ripped apart by natural forces, creating a giant chasm in the ground than ran for miles in either direction below us. Rock formations weathered by time soared into the sky, looking like the jagged teeth of a beast.

The chasm had widened with time, with rough cliff-sides that plunged down to the bottom, hidden from us by a mysterious fog-like substance. There used to be a river along the winding bottom, I was told, except it had dried up under mysterious circumstances. No one ever found out what happened, and no one bothered to find out. No one in their sane minds would even come near this place, much less hike down and investigate a dried river. Yup. We were definitely out of our minds.

"So, where to now?" Katherine asked Rachel. "Do we just keep continuing north or something?"

"Let me consult my maps." Rachel slid off the horse and pulled out the maps from her satchel, spreading them on a nearby rock. We all dismounted and crowded around, looking. Rachel traced her fingers along different paths before looking up at the rest of us.

"We follow the chasm," she said, pointing at the long chasm that ran across the earth. "If we just keep going that way, where the chasm is headed, we'll reach the Desederium Forest."

"And how long might that be?" Indigo inquired. Rachel looked at her maps again and did a couple of calculations in her mind.

"A few hours, give or take, depending on how fast we travel. And in a landscape like this, I would suggest we get out as fast as possible, because it's giving me the creeps." In a chorus of agreement, we all mounted our horses again, and with Rachel and Lucian in the lead this time, headed down the dune.

A dusty breeze would blow by every so often as we trotted single-file, parallel to the gaping chasm that ran across the land. We didn't go too near the edge, for fear of falling in. Every now and then I would spot the bones of some animal unfortunate enough to have died out here, and would be spurred to get out of here faster.

For a weird reason, Dead Man's Chasm was creeping me out too. The place was too quiet, too eerie, and too much death and loneliness was radiating about it. The deep gorge in the earth only added to that, because every noise was amplified in such a quiet place where only the wind howled at night.

No one felt like talking much. It was sort of like in a library, everyone was just quiet and following a mutual rule. Here, any loud noises seemed to disturb the unnatural silence that blanketed the area, and that felt even worse than the silence itself. The only sounds were the clip-clops of horse hooves against the hardened ground.

We must've gone for about three miles or so when a clattering sound made us all jump. We all reined our horses and stopped, alert and on the lookout for trouble.

"What was that?" Lucian asked in a hushed whisper.

"It sounded like...a pebble or something," Indigo said slowly, tilting her head to one side and listening intently.