The Sky Demons Part One: Journey

Chapter Thirteen- Shadows of nightmares

Tigre- Shadows of nightmares

A few days had passed since Asher and Senka returned to camp, Asher boasting about his new friend the wyrm-slayer and Senka looking very embarrassed. I felt some empathy for Senka, I’d be embarrassed too if I’d been nicknamed wyrm-slayer.

We had been travelling downhill through the forest, following a river that ran not far from the forest swamp Asher had been speaking of and which Asher had told us was apparently called the Fells Tributary. Eventually we reached the outcrop of eroded rock above and to the side of a huge waterfall where we were currently stood and which was apparently our first landmark. Yay.

“So which way now?” I asked. I peered over the edge, blasted by cold air and a spray of water, Nightshade squealed and pulled me back by the collar of my jacket.

“It’s okay Nightshade, I wasn’t going to fall off.”

“Stop tempting fate or it might push you, that would be the type of thing it likes to do.”

“It’s good I don’t believe in any of that sort of stuff then, isn’t it?”

Vapour prevented me from seeing the basin, but the bottom of the waterfall looked a really long way down and the rock and earth flanks were steep and impossible to walk on.

“Are you and Nightshade going to fly us down, Serry?”

“No, beyond the waterfall the forest starts to disappear and is replaced by fields of bracken and thorns that can’t be walked through. We’re taking a pass down and cutting underneath all that through an earth labyrinth.”

“And would you happen to know the way through the labyrinth?”

“The earth moves and changes where everything is all the time, every time you come to a split in the path, the wall of each tunnel has a symbol on it. You need to know the right order to pass through without ending up right back at the entrance,” explained Asher.

“How do we reach the labyrinth?”

Asher rummaged through his pockets and pulled out a roll of crumpled paper, he grabbed one end and the sheet unrolled and a wooden stick fell out.

“Is that a dowsing stick?”

“Sort of,’ said Asher, ‘made from a tree that is able to conduct ketan, but dowse’ sticks are used to find whatever materials are nearby, this one’s been aligned to the entrance of the labyrinth and nothing else.”

He held it up and closed his eyes, channelling his energy through it. Slowly the indents in the wood began to glow amber-gold until it reached the tip, Asher’s hand suddenly jerked to point diagonally away from the waterfall and to the right. He followed it, and we followed him for about five minutes until we were out of sight of the waterfall. On reaching a small clearing inside the forest the stick twitched out of Asher’s hand and fell- point first- onto the ground. The magic light of the dowsing stick caught like a fire where it fell and spread in a large and perfect circle across the ground. The glow intensified and then dissipated. Everyone stood in silence for a few long seconds.

“Well,” I said, “that was anticlimactic.”

Then the circular lump of earth opened up like a trapdoor, touching the forest floor with a heavy ‘thunk’.

One by one, everyone stepped into the tunnel. Asher got in last, the lid of earth covering the tunnel closing the moment his feet touched the earth. The glow of our clan symbols took over from the daylight outside and suddenly everything around me was tinged the colour of ketan.