In the Panther's Wake

Chapter 15

I can't see the man up ahead anymore so I speed up, pacing quickly, then accelerating into a gentle jog. I can hear his laughter bouncing off the walls, echoing in all directions, but I never see him. Eventually I come to the tunnel's end. It's blocked by a small wooden door. A white light, a natural light, slips out through gaps in the wood. Markus comes around the corner and I don't wait another second, I burst straight through.

We're in a vast cavern, as if the entire mountain has been hollowed out. At the top of the cavern there's a huge opening, above it a bright but hazy sky. The ground is lined with a thin layer of dirt and growing, absolutely everywhere, are bright red flowers.

"Poppies," Markus whispers.

They grow out of cracks in the walls and on the ground, strong and vivid over everything. To the left of the cavern there are bunches of pods growing on sticks. The man is hunched over the dry things with a tiny blade, slicing the pods open. I move closer to him and can see he's extracting some sort of sap, leaving it there to dry. He moves over to other pods he's previously sliced open and scrapes off some resin. He packs the reisn into his pipe.

"What's he doing?" I ask.

Markus is gazing around in wonder, follows my gaze to Garth. "He's smoking that sap from the dried poppies, that's what those pods are."

"Why's he doing that?" I whisper.

"A lot of soldiers smoked it. It's called opium. I read about it before. They usually use a special lamp that doesn't burn the poppies, just creates a vapour. This old man obviously doesn't have a lamp. He's just smoking it."

I watch the man pack the pipe and light it with one of the torches. He sits and leans back against a rock, puffing away joyously.

"It's addictive," Markus says, "Can make you a little crazy."

The man giggles and sniggers to himself, enjoying the bright light of the cavern. He seems to have totally forgotten about Markus and I, or doesn't seem to care that we're here. The sweet, flowery smell is potent and fresh, something I can't ever remember experiencing; the smell of something living, something that grows.

I turn to Markus and smile, "I can't believe it. How can they grow in here?"

Markus shrugs, looking dumbfounded. I lean down by a cluster of the poppies, touch the petals, run my finger down the stem. It's soft, crisp, and so frail. No wonder they can't grow out there on the harsh and barren plains.

The man gets up from his seat against the rock and moves towards us, barefoot on the thin layer of earth. He begins to speak, "Volcanoes—they stay fertile, long after all else dies!"

He leans down and picks up a handful of the dark earth, lets it fall through the gaps between his fingers. Markus and I both stand to face him and he steps closer, his back hunched low. He's barely taller than me, and I'm short for my age. He offers me the pipe but I shake my head.

"You boys have come far, should be dead, haha! But here you are, alive, still with your heads atop your bones!" He cackles and coughs, spitting into the dirt.

"How did you grow all of this?" I ask.

"Found a box full of magical seeds one day, long years past. The masked ones left it behind, the lions made sure they moved on fast! A sprinkling here and there, and nature cares, did the rest, haha!"

I gaze around again, still completely in awe of a sight I never even imagined I'd see.

The man turns and wanders back to his seat nestled in flowers. He leans back and starts to pack his pipe again. I notice a strange twitch that he has, a sudden ill glint in his eye, not quite right. But it disappears as fast as it came, leaving behind that wide, toothless smile.