The Warren
After a length of time, during which he must have dozed off into a guilt-ridden sleep, he rose to his feet and walked back to the cliff where he had left Straye. To his bewilderment, she was not there. Twenty feet above the ground on the cliff wall where she had been was now a charcoal dark gaping hole large enough for a person to pass through.
At once Chiapos began to call out Straye's name but he was not getting any answer other than his own echo hauntingly returning to him after reverberating from the natural harmonics of the basalt rock that composed the cliff face. Somewhere during his sleep, she must have left him. For some reason, he suddenly felt more alone than he had ever been since he had entered this accursed forest known as the Tester. He called her name again and again in the hope that he might be saved from the deep low pit of morbid angst that was enveloping his mind as much as the Mammoth had enveloped Cenan.
Straye did not answer or would not answer. She was probably not even in range to hear his cries, he realized. And if she were in range, why would she want to talk to him? He had gravely disappointed her by admitting to his strange interaction with a woman that should have been long ago dead.
He looked into the forest that surrounded him on three sides and could not see any clues as to the direction that Straye may have run off in. He wished with all of his emotional guts that he had not said those words that betrayed her friendship and trust in him. Yet regrettably he was powerless to change the past, no matter how much he desired to take back his words. He was forced to have to build from what has gone on before no matter how difficult that may be. There was no point in trying to think away a transgression that already happened.
His attention was returned to that freshly created fissure in the stone wall above him. He had to ask why would Straye have engaged in such a weird activity as scratching a tunnel into a cliff? It made no sense to him. There was no reason that he could draw up to give answer to the bizarre behaviour.
The only conclusion that came to him was that Straye had gone into that peculiar warren that she created. What was she trying to dig out? What was she trying to dig into?
Chiapos concluded that he would have to go in there too if he was to find her or at least find out the reason for her digging. Reaching up he placed his two hands squarely onto the cliff and tried to have its coldness quell the surging vertigo that was already rising up in him even before his feet left the ground. Realizing that he could not completely eradicate his fear, he started his trek upwards and just prayed that he would not fall.
He worked his way up the cliff face making sure that his footing was secure as he gained altitude. The warren was at least twenty feet above the clearing’s floor and the angle of ascent was neckbreaking. The rock however offered good grips and secure footmounts and he had no trouble making the climb and soon he was peering into the opening of the hole his countryman had dug.
He was astounded at what he saw when he became eye level with the hole. Straye had chiseled away two cubic feet of the basalt and had broken through to a subterranean cave that had been hidden by the rock. How did she know that that cavern existed?
She must have known that the cave was there and somehow she must also know where it leads. How she would know this, he did not really take time to consider. The existence of the cave was not something that was spelt out in the Challengelore as far as he knew and he knew the tales better than she did. All things considered, Straye should not have known about the cave. Yet, it was obvious that she did. Perhaps he had underestimated his fellow villager.
This did not really bother him though. What did bother him was why did she leave without him? He resolved to himself that he would follow her into the cave and once he was reunited with her he would make a sincere apology to her for his unthoughtful treatment of her. He should be more careful with others’ feelings.
Looking into the cave, he gulped. He never liked closed in, claustrophobic places. They always made him feel on edge. Almost all of the stories in the Challenge involved wide-open places that were filled with sky and space once the Challenger gets past the confining trees of the Tester that is. This cave had all the outward trappings of being the antithesis to what his vision of what the setting of a Challenge should be. There were only two tales that involved subterranean locations. In the one story, the Challenger survived. In the other, the Challenger did not. What story would his story mimic?
When his hands reached the level of the cave’s floor, he took the time to turn towards the Tester behind him. It was one last effort to spot Straye out there amidst the trees before he hobbled into the dark substances of his nightmares. The only thing that caught his senses was the lack of natural sounds. There were no birds chirping, no frogs or toads croaking. The silence was enough to shout out at him. Something was wrong out there and he feared that it all had something to do with Cenan. The eeriness he felt from it made the cave seem suddenly more hospitable.
He hauled himself up onto the cave’s floor in one swift movement and felt no strain or exertion in his arms from doing so. This he found odd. Normally, such a physical feat would make itself known to him in some form of pain or complaint from his body. He quickly attributed it to Cenan's milk. What an absolutely amazing elixir it was proving to be.
Squirming his shoulders to fit through the cave's mouth, he was at once struck by the cold, dampness of the air inside and its stale, unappetizing odour. It was a black hole he was crawling into and he wasn't sure if he was doing the right thing. The cave's entire atmosphere was not the kind of place that he could picture the Straye that he knew would willingly enter. But where else could she have gone? She was the one who had uncovered it and the only reason that he could see for her digging the hole was to go into it.
Chiapos started to crawl on his hands and knees into the dismal darkness ahead of him. The floor of the cave was moist and very chilling to his palms. He discovered that the ceiling hung extremely low and that there was barely enough room for him to slip through using this method of locomotion. After about fifteen feet or so into the tunnel, he could no longer maneuver on all fours. The ceiling and roof were gradually converging upon each other and he had to resort to moving by the worm's means - belly and torso flat to the floor and wriggling the hips. His knees were thankful that they no longer had to be crunched against the rock but they were the only parts of him that gained any kind of relief.
With the flat of his body against the floor, he was exposing more of himself to the cold temperature exuding from the stone bottom and soon he was experiencing a bone-chilling numbness through his core. Not even some of the nights roaming the Tester were as freezing as this. His mind started telling him that the Straye that he knew would not have ever come into this abysmal place and that it was ludicrous for him to venture any further. She would not be up ahead.
Still his will would not listen to the protests of his mind and body. It kept prodding him forward in an almost unconscious manner. He was no different than an insect to the light. Yet, there was no light and his eyes were not adjusting to the dark conditions. In fact, if anything it was growing darker. There was only the promise of the darkness of peat and the coldness of icebergs ahead of him. And there was absolute silence. The only sounds that came to his ears were his laboured inhalations and exhalations and the rubbing sounds of his clothing against the flattened floor.
He soon discovered that it was easier for him to push his carrying sack and the Redeemer ahead of him and to allow himself to catch up to his belongings and then to toss them up ahead again. The intervals between release and catch were steadily growing longer which was a good indication that his senses were correct in judging that he was following a decline. To where was he descending? Why would Straye have chosen such a horrible place to make her escape? This cave must lead to somewhere - to where and what he did not have any inkling but he continued to move onward albeit at a snail's pace.
Then, there was a sound behind him. It wasn't a very loud noise but in the silence of the dark tunnel, it was voluminous enough to warrant a shock response in Chiapos. It was a scratching type of sound, it sounded like little nails running upon rock. Instinctively, Chiapos knew that it was a rodent of some kind - whether a tiny, meek mouse or an aggressive, territorial rat he could not ascertain.
It was not very far behind him - maybe a body length or two but it put him on edge. He did not care for rodents and had a slight, morbid fear of them, especially aggressive, territorial rats. But as he perked his ears, he could no longer detect any sound.
Feeling just unnerved enough, he forced himself onward into the darkness. He was hoping that the rodent was not interested in following him any longer.
And for a while, it seemed that way but about two minutes later, he heard the scratching again. This time it seemed that it was closer and he stopped to listen more carefully but the heaviness of his breathing served to drown out any other ambient sound that might have been present. He tried to get control of his wind by taking deep breaths and holding it in his lungs as long as possible. In the quiet before exhalation, he heard nothing and he started to wonder if his imagination was playing tricks on him.
And what if it was a mouse or a rat, he was a grown-up human being and he was an adventurer who had stood in the path of the Mammoth of the Tester. Little creatures with beady eyes that dared not see the light of the day should not be scaring him.
He convinced himself of his courage and swore that he would not become frettish because of a loathsome rodent - mouse or rat. And he started his crawl again and for the longest time he heard nothing and his sense of security was being augmented with the passage of time. The tunnel was beginning to feel roomier than it had before although it was far from being wide enough for him to get back on his hands and knees. He was still forced to crawl on his belly. Yet the floor was not quite as cold as it had been earlier. There was some perceptible warmth in the stone. What generated this heat he did not know but he was thankful for it. The extent of his misery was being lessened.
He moved along gradually and gainfully. The cave was still going downwards, yet it had markedly opened up as he progressed through it. There was still no light but Chiapos could sense that the ceiling was steadily getting farther from the floor and that the air was definitely getting warmer. He soon felt that he could get onto his hands and knees and crawl like a toddler through the cave. He had all but forgotten the rodent noises that he had heard before.
Once in the crawling position, Chiapos discovered that he was making greater and swifter distance. He could not imagine that Straye had gone this way by choice. He could not imagine any human being choosing to make use of such a horrendous passage. Yet, where else could she have gone? She made the hole, she had to crawl it.
Then, twenty minutes after going onto his hands and knees, he began to sense that there was a hint of light in the tunnel. It seemed to emanate in the distance far ahead of him. This gave him finally a sense of hope. He was going to make it though this horrible, dank cave. And as he moved forward towards the light, he started to think that it was not as terrible a cave as he had first judged. By taking each inch at a time, it was a survivable experience, maybe not an enriching experience, but certainly not a mortally dangerous one either.
The air was starting to feel fresher and not as oppressive. There was a definite warmth in the cave that made him forget that he was ever cold in here. There was enough ambient light in the cave now that he could start to distinguish the walls, floor and ceiling of the tunnel. He could see that they continued to grow wider further up ahead. Maybe shortly, he would be able to actually stand up and walk, he thought. This further served to elevate his spirits and caused a new spryness to come into his joints that made him move all the more swift.
Suddenly, there was a gnashing pain in the meat of his left calf. He could feel something crawling along his leg. He turned and swiped at it with his hand and heard a squeal hurtling into the background. The rodent had caught up to him! His heart was in his mouth from the surprise. He had thought that he had lost the creature.
And then it was on him again. And then another one and another one. There was a whole horde of these menacing rats about him and they were in a nasty mood. One had managed to fall into his hair and it started scratching and biting at his scalp. Chiapos cried out in outrage. Where did all these rats come from? He was writhing and contorting, trying to toss the livid creatures from his body. The air was alive with their enraged squeaks and hisses as they sought to overcome him and make him a handsome addition to their rodential caches.
Grabbing the Redeemer, Chiapos swung like a madman at his opponents. He could feel his staff crush the backbones of many of the creatures. But they kept on coming and were managing to penetrate his defenses. Pain seemed to come from every part of his body and he knew that he could not much longer maintain his level of energy. The rats would succeed in a battle of attrition against him. The Redeemer kept up its dashing display of prowess, killing dozens of the attackers in a violent flurry of slashes, but the rodents seemed endless in their numbers.
With blood dripping in his eyes from several gashes he received on his forehead and scalp, Chiapos strained to look forward into the light. It was so close but he could never make it there fast enough by his hands and knees. The rats would have no difficulty keeping up with him and maintaining their relentless attack upon him. He had to fight them here and now in the awkward position that he was forced to maintain given the contours of the tunnel.
He managed to pull out his axe and started using it against his assailants as well. He kept his legs kicking, his torso gyrating, and his arms flailing with the axe and the staff. The rodents were fearless however and they moved en masse upon him, many sacrificing themselves for the good of the whole. Here and there, a rat would elude the barriers and manage to make punishing contact with him.
Chiapos felt himself start to weaken, his energy levels seriously depleted if not spent. Was this how his glorious quest, his Challenge, would end? In a horrible, musty tunnel at the mercy of the largest collection of rodents that he could ever imagine? How did Straye manage to get past these voracious creatures? She couldn't have, he surmised. He had made a terrible mistake to enter this cave.
The rats were tireless and courageous in their siege upon the Rainwaterman. Chiapos did not know how much longer he could hold out. Anger had found its way into his mind. He was furious. He was not meant to die by rodent teeth. He smashed the Redeemer against the ceiling of the tunnel to emphasize his infernal disgust with his present circumstances.
A sudden, low rumble started to emanate from above him where the Redeemer had made its blow. It was a deep, deep, menacing sound like distant, approaching thunder. It not only filled Chiapos with fear, it somehow managed to frighten the rats as well. The pitch of their squeals changed in frequency and as fast as they had descended upon him they disappeared to whatever dark netherworld they were spawned from.
The grumble of the rocks above him grew in intensity and Chiapos knew that the tunnel was going to cave in in a crashing tumult upon him. He had to get to the area from where the light emanated. Moving as fast as he could while persevering the pains inflicted upon him by the host of rodents, he scrambled forward. Tiny pebbles were beginning to cascade from the ceiling upon the back of his head and on his spine.
There were loud crashing sounds exploding in the tunnel behind him and he knew that he could never go back the way that he had come. His entrance to this tunnel was now buried in rock. The gape between ceiling and floor was steadily widening but there was no guarantee that this was an escape route. The cave may come to an end somewhere ahead and he would be forever sealed within it.
Some larger stones from the tunnel in behind him where beginning to roll upon him. And there were some rats scurrying along passing him in their flight for life. These creatures that had so viciously attacked him just minutes ago were now the objects of his pity. Their fate may be the same as his.
There was enough light now for him to clearly discern some objects. The cave was opening up into some vast cavern about some hundred feet ahead of him. His chances of survival would be greatly increased if he could reach this spot. But the thunderous rumble was increasing in magnitude, interspersed by the crashing roars of where the ceiling had given out and these were getting closer to him all of the time.
He still clutched all the objects that he had brought along with him including the Redeemer. What kind of power did this staff wield? Was it the source of the explosions that were descending upon him? He could not ponder the question for more than a moment before a deafening crash felled the ceiling just where he was only seconds ago. The force of the falling rock kicked up a thick, suffocating cloud of dust that literally picked him up with the other debris and sent him hurtling forward at a breakneck speed.
If it had not been for his leg jamming into the wall of the tunnel and sending him into a tumbling roll, the dust might have carried him the rest of the distance into the cavern ahead. As it was, he still had another twenty feet or so before he reached it. No longer was it a glowing promise for the dust blanketed the light and made everything gray and indistinguishable.
His body hurt all over from his calamity, yet when he dared to move, nothing seemed to be broken. This surprised him for as a youth, he had been made to wear splinters for injuries incurred from far less violent accidents. Was it Cenan's milk again? He ambled his way forward into the dust, walking on both feet and with a bent back. The ceiling was moving away from the floor at a rapid rate but for how long?
There were still murmurs in the rock but they were no longer as loud as they had been and something told him that the worst of the collapsing was over. And then it was silent and he stood up erect for the first time since he entered this miserable tunnel. He felt great even though he was half-suffocating from all of the ash in the air. He still could not see anything, but it felt so good to be finally walking again that he paid little heed to what may be ahead of him.
In The Bowels of Corvyx
If he would have taken the precaution of using the Redeemer to test the ground in front of him, he would not have taken that step that sent him falling deep into the open cavern. It took almost five whole seconds of a headfirst freefall before his body thumped into a warm, wet muck that quickly enveloped him. He was thankful that what he landed in was not the hard shale that made up the floor of the tunnel way up above. But as his momentum carried him through the subterranean quagmire it dawned on him that what he had fallen into might be well over his head. The ooze would fill up his lungs and he would never have the opportunity to breathe in air ever again. It would be horrific if his final demise would be to drown ignominiously in thick underground muds. He spread out his arms to break the downward motion of his descent. Like a hovering hawk he touched down softly on a solid bottom that supported his weight.
He corrected his vertical orientation and managed to stand up and found that he was chest deep in a brown, oozing muck at the bottom of a deep cavern. He looked up at the sinuous rocky walls of the cavern. There, about ninety feet above him, he could see the dust pour out of a small, almost indiscernible cavity in the wall’s craggy feet. That must have been where he came from and from where he fell. He could barely make out a thin strand of a rocky precipice that he had so injudiciously stepped over. He was very, very thankful for the buffering quagmire now that he was able to see what kind of tumble that he had taken. If this ooze were not there he would have surely been killed.
But how was he to get out of this pool of thick mud? It covered the whole breadth of the cavern’s floor. The bog from as far as he could judge was circular with a diameter of at least two hundred yards. He was standing about five yards from the nearest nearly vertical walls. They went straight up and appeared entirely unscalable.
There were no visible portals or fissures along the bottom as far as he could tell from which he could make a swift escape from this constricting mud that was beginning to crush his chest. His exit from here would have to be from somewhere up above. Moving about in the ooze proved to be tedious and extremely grueling and he could not be certain that its depth would remain at levels below his chin. His only choice appeared to be scaling the precipitous walls. He was not much on rock climbing but it might be preferable to spending eternity in a muddy subterranean quagmire.
He made his way to the bog’s edge. The exertion of moving in the mud was tremendous. Just lifting a foot to take a step required gargantuan effort and it took him several straining minutes before he got to the side of the pool. To his chagrin, the quagmire kept a uniform level and did not gradually climb up as the rocky face of the walls approached as he had wished. There was to be no easy wading out.
He looked up at the wall that he had to climb. It did not offer much in the way of handgrips and footholds. It was going to prove to be a very treacherous and vertiginous ordeal. Even a mountain goat would find this precipice challenging. Indeed the first place to achieve a foothold that he could see was some three feet above the level of the mud. Added to the four feet of thick, gripping ooze that he was engulfed in, Chiapos wasn't even sure if he would be able to reach this foothold. It was going to demand all the strength that he could muster and some lucky strokes of fate. He could not be sure that the rock that comprised the foothold would support his weight. Judging by the thinness of the outcrop that he had chose, he felt that he would be really pushing his luck. It might prove to be too brittle and snap under his weight.
There had to be another way of getting out of this hole. He looked at the rock face in the surrounding areas and discovered that none offered better prospects than the one that he had selected. This was truly a depressing situation for the Rainwaterman especially when he looked up towards that thin ledge ninety feet above. It seemed to circle the entire conical crater but other than the tunnel that he had come through, there did not appear to be any other routes out. And that tunnel of his was now completely sealed by the cave-in that the Redeemer caused. The only viable means of escape looked to be somewhere much higher than that ledge.
For the first time, Chiapos noticed where the light was coming from. Way, way up, he could see a tiny opening. Through this little slit, he could see a bright blue sky. It had to be five hundred feet above from where he was standing now and there absolutely did not look to be any possible means of getting up there. He was starting to come to realize that he may be trapped down here in the bowels of the earth forever with no hope of escape.
Why had Straye lured him into here? Jealous people are known to do vicious things but she could never have had this degree of jealousy towards him. They had a fondness for each other but they did no share that deep of a relationship to doom him to such a terrible fate once that relationship was soured. Straye would not have done this purposefully to him. Nevertheless, he wished that he had never made the remark about what had happened between him and Cenan. Reason told him that Straye did not act maliciously towards him. He had made an error in judgment, and it seemed to be a tragic error.
In the Challengelore there was the tale of Corvyx and his dog, Sasta. Corvyx and Sasta had somehow or another gotten lost in the Tester for more than a year. The people of Rainwater had given them up for dead until one summer day, the dog, Sasta, reappeared in the village in a very emaciated state. Corvyx's family tried to feed the dog food but it would not eat and seemed to want them to follow it somewhere. Sasta led Corvyx's sister, Cynda, to a mountain that at one time had been an active volcano far on the northern side of the forest. When they got to the top of it, the dog started barking into this fissure. And then suddenly Cynda heard an answer to the dog. It was weak and barely audible but it did call out "Sasta! Sasta, you have returned!" It was Corvyx from within the mountain. Miraculously the Challenger was still alive and through the efforts of the entire village they managed to make a rope long enough for him to climb out of the mountain. That mountain ever since was known as Mount Corvyx in honour of the Challenger who had survived inside of it for more than a year.
This had to be the very same mountain, Chiapos realized. This had to be Mount Corvyx, he thought, and like the original man who got trapped inside of it, he too was in that horrible predicament - a predicament made worse in that he had no trusty little canine companion to get help for him.
Knowing that it was useless to call for help, he did so anyway, crying out Straye's name. His voice bounced and echoed and reverberated throughout the cone of the volcano. It multiplied his number of cries and increased their intensity to the point that it seemed that an entire legion of blood-starved wraiths within the mountain were mocking the pain and the angst that he felt. Chiapos had to cover his ears and wait out the series of screeches that originated with his single plea for assistance.
The mimicking cries had to last over five fitful minutes filling Chiapos's heart with the uttermost despair that he had ever experienced. The cries of "Straye!" served only to remind him that she was not there and that she had abandoned him to live out his time in the belly of Mount Corvyx. And that time could be a very lengthy period if the potency of Cenan's milk was still active within him. He might be able to live forever because of Cenan but it was going to be a terrible, lonely and grueling existence in an environment that was showing that it had no mercy.
He looked up at the fissure crack five hundred feet above his head. The entire enclosure was concave and hollow and only a bird or more likely a bat would be able to reach the crack and slip out into freedom. Anything lacking the ability to take flight had a hopeless chance of getting through.
At the thought of a bird, Chiapos's mind turned at once to the shrill cries of the woodcock he had heard in his travails in the Tester and to Martok. If that young lad truly had the ability to transmute himself into a bird then being trapped in Corvyx would not be any challenge for him. He'd simply fly out. Chiapos wished that he could summon the boy. He didn't care that he might be an Aura in Ascension. He would gladly ally himself with Martok just for the opportunity of getting himself out of this mountain. It was an evil thought but Chiapos did not care. He was feeling far too desperate to live up to some moral code that might be archaic in itself. Cenan and the Mammoth were from ancient times. Their world was different than the world today. Their standards might no longer apply. Maybe it was time for a new Lord of the Tester.
Perhaps it was time for a new Aura to take on stewardship of the forest and the village. He remembered Martok's talk of the King and Queen of Malaga. Cenan had dismissed it all as the aura taking on the identity of a little boy who got lost in the forest eons ago. But what if the aura was talking of its own identity and that his town of Cresswell in the nation of Malaga was the land where the supernatural beings such as auras and spirits dwelled? The Challengelore had many stories of the Mammoth of the Tester and the Appointed Servant who attended to him, but it never had any tales of auras and of Malagans. The stories of the Challenge had a very detailed picture of the ancient world of Mallog’mor’ach naming many peoples and individuals and places and creatures, yet they never made mention of any of those places that Martok had spoke. Perhaps the young boy was telling the truth and was not some incarnate malaise seeking to destroy the world. Perhaps Cenan was wrong about Martok the way that Straye was wrong about Cenan?
It was all getting very confusing to him. He was in a mental conundrum as deep as the physical one that he occupied and almost equal to the depth of the depression that he had sunken into. No Challenger in the last five hundred years had ever found himself in so hopeless of a situation as he presently found himself in. Not since the legendary Gala had been encrusted in stone upon the peaks of the Fire Mountains half a millennium ago has any Rainwaterman found himself in such a dire predicament as Chiapos. Since her time, many had died or disappeared but he doubted that any could have slipped so far down the side of good fortune as he did. Would his name conjure up such sentiments of pity and reverence in his people as did the name Gala?
His thoughts were digging the hole deeper and he soon found himself in tears of self-pity. And once he started to moan his lament, he was avalanched with a hale of echoes that mercilessly tormented his lugubrious state. The sounds, distorted, twisted and wicked, bounced from any and all imperfections in the rock and so increased in volume that it caused the methane in the ooze that surrounded him to bubble out of the quagmire and add a further dismal element of discomfort for him to contend with. Smell. Unearthly and fetid. It was like a vast herd of buffalo had all decided to defecate in the same enclosed space.
Chiapos started to gag and feel his head go woozy and light. He felt that he was going to vomit but the nausea would not come to fruition. It stayed in an inertial state of impending convulsion. At once, he suspected that it was Cenan's milk again that lay at the root of his body being unable to behave the way that it normally does. Ever since he drank from her breast, he never hungered nor thirsted nor felt the need to relieve himself. Yet he knew that it wasn't true immortality that he had achieved - his gut reactions to the acrid gaseous odour attested to that. He suspected that if he decided to plunge head first into the ooze that he would eventually suffocate and die and through that dour method gain the flight that he needed to escape the bowels of Corvyx.
For a moment, he pondered such an act. Challengelore did not frown upon suicide and in fact, self-sacrificial death to abet others was often looked upon as the highest act of courage and character any human being could perform. Still, he found that the notion of killing himself was appalling and that it would be the antithesis to all that he had desired from the Challenge.
His immediate challenge, he realized, was to escape this trap. If he did so, he believed that he need not go any further along the road that he had set upon. He could go back to Rainwater and the villagers would be very pleased with his tale and the elders would decree his Challenge a success. This prospect gave him some hope for he was beginning to see beyond his immediate situation. If he could see past the here and now, there surely had to be a way for him to move past his present predicament. Somehow he knew that in hope there was the answer to his puzzle but how was he going to instrument this hope and parlay it into action?
The one way was not suicide. He was convinced of that. There had to be a way out of this quagmire and this mountain. Standing in this same spot was not the way out either. If the toeholds and the handgrips were not suitable here, they might be in some other spot and the only way to find that other spot was to go hunt for them.
He forced himself to move. He might have been standing where he was for almost an hour now he realized. He couldn’t allow himself to get lethargic. His body was ready for some movement and he started to wade through the thick, reluctant muck, his eyes keenly studying the layout of the rockface nearby. The diameter of this subterranean bog was more than he had initially estimated. It had to be closer to three hundred yards than the two hundred he had originally judged.
Many sullen hours passed as he trudged along the mudpit's perimeter, the ooze only grudgingly allowing him to pass. Never did he see anything that offered a better prospect than the first place he studied. Yet, this time he did not allow himself to get caught up in self-pity again, that would only attract defeat. He had to make his thoughts constructive rather than destructive.
But when he had finally worked himself around to the other side of the mud pool his feelings of gloom was beginning to overtake him again. He was near exhausted from the strenuous effort and in this weakened condition he was unable to foster any hope. Yet, instead of going into a fugue of hopelessness, he found himself growing fierily angry and he cursed out loud at the mountain. And when the echoes came back taunting at him, he grew even more enraged and he took the Redeemer and heaved it crashing against the rocky wall in a fierce blow.
The force of the strike sent a jarring tremble into the shaft of his staff making his hands smart from his grip. There was a loud, deep moan emanating from the rock walls that once again produced a boiling bubbling in the fen which once again released copious quantities of the rotten egg odour into the already stifling atmosphere. The foul smell added to his anger especially when he noticed that the Redeemer did little damage to the wall outside of knocking away some of the loose rubble. It did not have near the devastating effect that it had way up there in that tunnel that led him into this infernal place. He realized that he was not going to be able to smash a hole into the side of this mountain. Corvyx was made of stronger stuff than the walls of the warren.
And this infuriated Chiapos even more and in his fit of temper he just about tossed his staff into the centre of the mudpit. But as he was going through the motion he noticed that the Redeemer was striving to get airborne. It wanted to take flight. The staff was catching hold of the upward currents within the cavity and it seemed that it was not going to heed any gravitational forces that normally would come into play.
Curious, Chiapos waved the staff through the air again, this time keeping a much lighter grip upon the shaft. The Redeemer surged upward and actually felt that it was tugging at him to break free. It took some determination on Chiapos' part to retain the stick, the magical stick? When the momentum of his swipe came to an end and the Redeemer began to behave more in the manner of traditional wood, Chiapos wondered if this might not be his way out of the mountain. It was a notion strewn with fantasy but the ideas from reality were limited and he was ready to resort to anything.
It would take one gargantuan effort and it would also mean that he had to climb onto the rockface so that the Redeemer would not be held back by the sucking mud and it would be able to take true flight. It might indeed be possible. Hope had once again found a route to one starved for it.
He chose a spot along the rockface that offered a reasonable degree of footing and with an effort that took three attempts before becoming successful, he clammered out of the restraining fen and balanced himself precariously along the most meager shelf of the outcropping. Very delicately, he hoisted the Redeemer to his shoulder level and was about to swing it when his balance failed him and he fell headfirst into the bog once more.
Undaunted about the missed opportunity, he worked his way up again and had the same mishap befall him two more times. On his fourth attempt, with muscles fatigued from too much strain and spirits somewhat sunken, Chiapos was almost ready to try pitching the cast-off branch of the Tester into the eddies within Corvyx's bowels and forget about escaping at all.
But this time, the Redeemer gripped the upward currents as if it was a giant, unfurled sail. It lifted Chiapos' toes from the foothold and pulled him out above the muds. When all of his weight grew dependent upon the staff, the Redeemer seemed to give up and the Rainwaterman was pulled back again towards the stinking muck. But then suddenly the staff caught hold of a tremendous updraft and it began yanking its load upward with increasing velocity.
Chiapos worked his free hand onto the opposite end of the staff thus creating a more equal balance of his body under the magical Redeemer. The staff had become his wings and he quickly grew adept in steering it. He had watched hundreds of turkey vultures soar above the cliffs north of the village and he had seen how they made slight variations in the way they held their wings or pointed their feathers. This gave them the full range of speed, motion, and direction. He made use of what he had learned from the vultures and he was in control of his drifts through the turbulent eddies that swirled within the volcano.
He was gaining amazing altitude. The bogs were a hundred feet below him now. He was even higher than the height of the tunnel from which he had first fell into the almost inescapable quagmire below. Circling the interior of the cone, he made a swoop towards the tunnel to see more closely if he had had any other option open to him other than falling in the fog into the bog. The interior of the warren was almost completely blackened and he knew that there would have been little hope of getting out of the mountain through the way he came. There was a narrow precarious ridge at the warren's mouth that spanned out to follow the perimeter of the hollowed out mountain. This tricky path gradually ambled downward and eventually disappeared altogether. Apparently, that ridge never led anywhere. It was a dead end that would forever trap anything misfortunate enough to follow it. Why had Straye led him into what was obviously a hopeless situation? It made no sense to Chiapos.
But it was not a hopeless situation any longer! With the Redeemer responding like a champion trained gyrfalcon, Chiapos soared ever upward towards the fissure above him at the very crescent of the cone. The diameter of the cavern was narrowing in an almost perfect symmetrical fashion. As he drew nearer to the top, he had some company. A thousand or more bats that had been sleeping by clutching to the ceiling of the dome were awakened and started scurrying about in a mad, unorganized panic.
Chiapos felt elated with the company. He had always admired the wee flying mammals with their wily aerobatics and their voracious appetites for mosquitoes. And now he was in their element. He sailed about the top of the Corvyx cone dancing with hundreds of bats, swerving at the walls and slipping past them with daring precision. He could not remember when he had been more excited or happy on this journey. This would be certainly one of the highlights of his story when he returned back to the village.
He didn't know how much time he spent in the company of the bats but one by one they left the confinement of the subterranean cavity and grasped the greater freedom outside the mountain. And Chiapos came to realize that his time inside Corvyx was coming to an end and that he had to get on with his Challenge. The Redeemer followed the trail of the bats and as Chiapos came upon the opening in the roof of the giant chasm, he heard a horrid, deep rumbling come from below. In the brief second that he looked downward, he thought that he had seen the same entity that had descended upon Cenan. An entity that was huge, rambling, and hairy. It was down in the mudpits stalking something. But then this vision was gone as Chiapos cleared the interior of the mountain and was squinting in the wide-open air. He had escaped Mount Corvyx!
In The Clearing
All below him were vast vistas of forests resting upon undulating hills. It was twilight and the sun had cast breath-taking hues upon the autumnal trees that made up the Tester. The sheer beauty of the sight quickly erased any feelings of uneasiness that the vision in the depths of the mountain had aroused within him. He was about fifty feet above the mountain known as Corvyx. The pines and spruces that hugged the dormant volcano’s sides gave it an aspect that hovered on serenity, clearly cloaking the hideousness that it contained inside. He wanted to get as far away as possible as he could from the mountain and he directed the Redeemer in a northerly direction where it appeared that the Tester would finally come to its eastern perimeters within five miles or so from where he now was.
But as he got away from the updrafts that breathed out of the fissure in Corvyx, the Redeemer quickly lost its ability to fly. Chiapos was not going to be able to be airborne the entire distance. He would still have to take on the Tester by foot for some distance yet and sleep another night under its boughs. So with great reluctance, he started to glide downwards towards a clearing about a mile ahead of him.
Even so, he did have to crash through some branches before he finally made a gentle contact with the ground in the clearing. When he landed, he could not help himself but to hoot out his jubilance at escaping the mountain. The historical human named Corvyx of the Challengelore had to depend on the loyalty of a small dog for his redemption. He, Chiapos, had made use of magic.
He kissed his staff, the Redeemer, in thanks. What great fortune it was for him to stumble upon such a magical totem in the middle of the Tester. There had been many other sticks and branches lying about the forest floor after falling from the canopy and this one did not appear to be any different than those others. What providence for him to select the one with the magical powers!
Where did the Redeemer derive its special powers? Could it have been from the Mammoth? Or maybe from Cenan? Or from one of the auras that she had made mention of? Chiapos could only guess. Tales of magic and the supernatural were rare in the Challengelore and those that did contain elements of the extraordinary often could never be duplicated in later Challenges.
Yet, how else could one explain a staff that could fly and cause tunnels to cave in from a single blow without resorting to the word ‘magical’? Chiapos could not reason it out. He was presently in the state of mind that it did not matter where the Redeemer obtained its unique powers. The only thing that mattered was that it had freed him. He would never discard the staff or part company with it again, that he swore.
He found himself in a small clearing among a stand of aspen to his northeast. That was the direction that he had to go. It would only be four or so miles until the Tester would finally give way to open country. But with the darkening hours of the evening, he knew that his eyes would not behold the splendour of large, open tracts of land until tomorrow. He was going to have to sleep in the Tester one more night. This small clearing seemed to be a better place to get his rest than what was offered within the forest proper.
He debated whether it was wise to sleep out in the open. Anybody who came upon the clearing would spot him since the grasses were very short and could not hide his bulk. Rogues such as Samarin may have seen him flying from the mountain. But, they would not have had the vantage that he had and known about this secluded little patch of grass in the midst of the overpowering Tester. In the end, Chiapos decided that it was a fair gamble to stay put.
There was nothing more that he wanted at the moment than a fire to give himself some light and some heat for the night. But flames, even wee embers, would be a blazoning beacon to any nefarious characters that may be in the vicinity. He would have to forgo that luxury.
Cenan's milk was still at work with his digestive system. He neither hungered nor thirsted nor had any idle cravings for any ingested item. This bothered him in that he had nothing to do to while away the hour or so before darkness. The only thing that came to mind was to sleep, yet for some reason, he did not have any special desire to do this either. His pragmatic mind told him that maybe he should not bother with resting at all and to venture forth into the Tester. But if he were to do this, he might run the risk of going astray in the night and to find himself further away from the edge of the forest than he was right now. He wished that the Redeemer would have carried him all the way out. From what he had heard about the lands north of the Tester, there was no haven and safety there for many, many miles.
He wanted to get back on route to the city of Tanejul. That city lay to the east of the southern portions of the Tester. For him to get there from the north, he would have to follow the perimeter of the forest for about a fortnight. The Tester, he realized, would never be more than a few miles away from him. This also meant that the denizens of this forest would also never be too far away. This thought did not rest easy with him. He truly did not want to encounter Samarin again, but even more so, he did not want to run into Cenan and the weirding demons that encompassed her mind.
She had not been bad to him, he realized. Maybe, she was even good for him. The powers of her milk certainly made his journey simpler. He did not have to worry about food and water. He was grateful to her for that. But, no matter what her motivations may have been, he had let her down if not failed her altogether. He may have even run away from her at the moment of her death. Whatever may have happened to her, he now could no longer face her and because of this shame, he hoped his path stayed clear of her. How was he to explain to her that the only reason that he left her was because of his adolescent fear of responsibility? Cenan was a responsibility, Straye was liberation.
Now, Straye was a different story. Why had she abandoned him? Why had she made it seem that she went into that warren? It almost killed him. What kind of animosity did she have towards him to do such a thing? It was truly inexplicable and it was the mystery that bothered him the most. Jealousy over his encounter with another woman could not be the reason. He and Straye were never that close.
And for the first time, Chiapos experienced a sudden chill. What if his countrywoman were abducted by a rogue such as Samarin or by the vengeful Appointed Servant or by the Aura in Ascension while he had slept? That would explain much of the mystery. All three would have been resourceful enough to make it appear that she had gone into the tunnel and thus leading him to his sealed doom.
But he had not seen any signs of the commotion that Straye most assuredly would have created had she been abducted. Nor did he hear anything. The abduction hypothesis was unlikely. Nonetheless, Chiapos could not rule out the possibility that Straye from Rainwater had been spirited away and if she were her only hope of rescue would be from him. No one else would know that she was missing.
Somewhere in his thoughts about Straye, his mind crossed that chasm that separated being awake from being asleep. He dreamed of that other time he fell asleep the last time he had seen Straye. She was scratching away with her knife at the dirt and roots and lichens and mosses that covered the cliff face. She seemed to be in a pout over his disclosure of his encounter with Cenan but he was too tired to try and assuage her not to worry about it, that his loyalties belonged to her. In his dream all that he needed was sleep, yet all that he wanted was her. Sadly, needs take precedence over wants. But then in his dream he suddenly stirred, shaking the slumber tentacles from his mind with his strong desires to befriend his fellow villager. And as his dream eyes opened, he saw that Straye was still busy at her task. Yet there was something different about her, she seemed to be a foot shorter in height. The curvature of her body had lessened and became masculated. Inexplicable as it may have been, he still wanted to assure her that she was all that he desired. He called out to her, "Straye, I am truly sorry. I don't know why you should accept my apology other than that I promise to make the world a better place for you to live." The person working at the rockface turned around and much to Chiapos' dismay, this person bore the mien of Martok beneath the dark, long hair of Straye. At once, this demon’s silvery eyes glowed menacingly at him as if they were empowered with the most black of evil forces. Chiapos cried out in horror.
And then he awoke from this dream. He was in the clearing near the Tester's northeastern edges. Night had arrived and all was cloaked in the veil of its darkness. His breathing was laboured from the sheer terror of his dream. What dream was this that he had? It bothered his mind and he could not think clearly. Was this nightmare or revelation? Many dreams recounted by those who take on the Challenge often act as precursors to the eventual truths that are realized along the way. Was his dream one of these?
If it was, it meant that it was the impish Martok who had posed as Straye and had led him away from Cenan and the Mammoth. Cenan had warned him about the devilishness of the Aura in Ascension. Had he been duped by this cunning preternatural being? Had he been lured away from the Appointed Servant at the greatest moment of her need?
But, why would the Aura even bother with him? What kind of power did he have that would warrant the effort for this elaborate deception? He was nothing in the realm of magic while the Aura, the Mammoth, and Cenan were giants in that world. It made no sense for him to be baited away. It would have been just as easy for Martok to kill him or even just to ignore him outright. He would have been powerless to do anything about Martok's onslaught on the Mammoth and his Appointed Servant.
But was he powerless? His fingers were gently rubbing the wooden grains of the Redeemer. Did his staff give him some strength that when wielded would frustrate the goals of an Aura in Ascension? He had never seen or heard of a branch that possessed such magic as his Redeemer. Was it the Redeemer that Martok feared?
His mind was racing with hypotheses and theories to rationalize the peculiarities that he had witnessed. Each notion he came up with was usually countered with dozens of refutations that held as much validity as the notion. Yet, one thing remained strong and clear. One notion that he could not shake - that it was not Straye whom he had met in the forest. She had been acting odd and she never truly showed any sign of possessing the inside knowledge that he would expect her to have. He should have put her to the question of Cenan's Absolution to see if she knew the answer. The real Straye would not have left him alone in the Tester. The real Straye would not have been so jealous about Cenan. His dream was a revelation even though he could not be sure that it was Martok that was behind the deception.
But what of Cenan then? What had happened to her? What was he to do about her? He did not want to go back into the forest and find out. The memory of the Mammoth engulfing her and holding her in that strange state of stasis was very frightening. As was the memory of seeing that fleeting vision of that grotesque form in the bowels of Corvyx just as he was escaping its vile clutches. He did not know whether that eerie wraith was the Mammoth or not or if whether it was Cenan's confidante or slayer. These forces were over and above his ken. He did not belong in their arenas of influence. He was but a simple Challenger and oddly enough, he began to realize that the possibility of having a simple Challenge was open to him again. He did not have to concern himself with what had happened before but he could rather focus on what lay ahead. What lay ahead need not be obstructed by Martok, Cenan or the Mammoth. He relished this notion and he was eager to set out. He would still have to wait out the night. Another three or four hours and it would be dawn and then he could be on his way.
Sprawling himself onto the ground, his body was aware of every sharp tubular weed, every stone and every irregularity in the hardened soil. It was not going to be easy falling asleep again, he realized. He was in too much of a state of excitement and once again he thought of venturing out early. But it was still too dark and he did not want to run the risk of getting lost, now that he was so close to the edge of the forest.
Time drifted by interminably. The steady groan of the frogs in the trees was not the source of pleasure for him as Cenan had said that it would be. They were noisome and irritating. The unevenness in the pattern of their calls always pulled his mind from any comforting train of thought that he could find. Finally, he could not tolerate the arboreal amphibians any longer.
"Quiet!" he hollered at the top of his voice. And for a moment he did have the silence that he wanted. But soon one overenthused peeping frog started chirping to the world proudly announcing that it was alive. Another one joined in on the call. And then another. And another. And the original cacophony was quickly back in place as the amphibian dialogue was restored to its chatterbox state of hyperactivity.
This time Chiapos groaned as well as he realized the futility of silencing the Tester. It would always be a wild symphony of creatures with falsetto voices calling out to all else their joy in living.
He could not fall asleep again and he guessed that it might be only an hour before the first stirrings of sunlight upon the land. If he had had an appetite, this would have been an ideal time to make a filling breakfast. But he had no appetite except for the one to get himself going on the Challenge again. Each moment that he tarried was a moment in which the denizens of his uneasiness could be gaining upon him and make him carry out an adventure that he did not desire to carry out. And when this fear and the appetite to get moving became unbearable, Chiapos gathered up his belongings and started to walk in the northeasterly direction where he knew the Tester would at long last come to its perimeter.
It was very dark and the trees were just as thick here as they were anywhere else along this expansive forest. Roots, twigs, fallen branches, and stone outcroppings were all in conspiracy to make his route a grueling test of agility and balance. More than once, he fell to the ground banging his knees onto whatever culprit object that befuddled his progress.
After about ten minutes in the darkness, he suddenly became alerted to a steady, rhythmic crunching of leaves coming from behind him. He stopped but the crackling he heard didn't stop. It was getting nearer to him. Something or someone was following him. He felt his grip on the Redeemer grow tighter.
The King of the Woods
From what his eyes could gather from the low embers of light of his immediate surroundings, he realized that he was relatively in the open among massive tree trunks. He had to get himself some cover. Moving quickly and as silently as he could, he placed himself behind one of the behemoth trunks and wondered if this was the right thing to do. It would be light soon enough and whatever was following him would spot him. And if his pursuer were a beast it would have a powerful nose and sniff him out regardless of how well he could hide himself. Maybe he should instead be making as much distance as possible between himself and whatever was tracking him down.
The sounds of the footsteps were getting closer. He listened carefully at these crackling noises and felt reasonably assured that his pursuer was bipedal and not the possessor of four thick lethal limbs. He did not know if this was good news. An animal he knew definitely how to handle. The Redeemer had shown how much wallop that it possessed. Even a bear's skull would not be able to withstand a severe blow from his magical stick.
But what if it was human? That was a different story altogether. Human beings operate on a wide gamut of motivations. His tracker may not necessarily have any wicked intent although Chiapos realized that anybody that was chasing somebody else during the middle of the night would usually have less honourable aims than most humans would have in general. The Redeemer would have the same catastrophic effect on a human being as it would have on an animal he assured himself. Strangely, because of his staff, Chiapos did not feel quite as frightened as he normally would have been in a situation like this.
"I know that you are out there Rainwaterman!" the voice of his pursuer called out in the dying darkness. Chiapos recognized the tone at once. It belonged to that rogue, the murdererous Samarin. Chiapos remained silent. He kept his breath in check lest its heaving revealed his location.
"You can hide for as long as you want but I will tell you now that I will find you." Samarin spoke from the night. His voice seemed to be drifting somewhat further away, indicating that he did not know precisely where Chiapos was. He continued to speak, "There's no point in you trying to run either. There are none better at tracking than Samarin of the Woods."
The distance between him and the highwayman was growing greater. Some tracker, Chiapos thought. His grip on the Redeemer was tight but he and his staff remained hushed.
"What you have done to my partner is a fell and hideous act, not to speak of its blatant cowardice," Samarin growled. Chiapos could hear him rustling amongst the leaves dozens of feet away from him. "Pitak did not deserve to die that way. He was young and in the prime of his life. He never truly harmed any one and yet you cut him down and butchered him like a lame cow, Rainwaterman."
It was apparent that Samarin was hunting for him and was trying to provoke him into revealing his position. Chiapos was not going to fall for this, although he was beguiled that the tracker would believe that he was Pitak's killer.
"And don't be thinking that you are going to get away with it!" Samarin said chillingly. He was turning towards Chiapos. "I know that you are here and you stand no chance of eluding me. Come out like a man, you spineless bastard. Come and try and defend yourself against me!"
For a moment Chiapos entertained the thought of complying with Samarin. The thief would be no challenge for the Redeemer. There was no reason why he needed to lie in waiting like a starved cougar ready to make the pounce. He could face Samarin like a man. But something inside of him told him to stay put. He might not like the outcome of a direct confrontation with his pursuer.
Samarin was moving slowly and steadily towards him. He could now just barely see his shadow amongst the trees. Samarin was a large man with big, burly shoulders and hulking arms. In his hands, he too, carried a weapon of sorts, a thick club that could crash through skull bones with relative ease. Chiapos held his breath. He did not want to be heard.
The rogue was now within five feet of him. He was poking around with his club. "Pitak was sound asleep when you pounced upon him. He never even had the chance to see who his killer was let alone defend himself."
Chiapos could smell the meats and spices from the man's breath and the odour of the swamp upon his clothes. He hoped that the bogs within Corvyx had not left its scent upon him. An experienced huntsman like Samarin would be able to pick up on that smell.
But Samarin walked right by him oblivious of the nearness of his presence. "Poor Pitak's father had died from Rainwater cowardice and now Pitak himself has become a victim of the same shiftless people. I curse Rainwater and all of its sons and daughters."
At that moment, Chiapos had his greatest opportunity to crash the Redeemer upon Samarin's skull. But the rogue’s charges of Rainwater cowardice made Chiapos relent. To attack Samarin through lurking would only prove the thief's biased words. Chiapos couldn't do it.
"I curse them all from the founders of the Challenge down to the starving new babies who even now try to suckle the milk from their haggard mothers' dried out breasts." Samarin's voice was beginning to be obscured by the tree that separated them. "But the one I curse the most is you, Chiapos, son of Chakka." His voice was thundering.
And then suddenly Chiapos felt the man's thick hands about his neck in a strangling hold. "You thought that you were fooling me, hey my naive one?" Samarin's breath was wet and hot and smelled of foul meats. His thumbs were digging deeply into Chiapos' throat and the Rainwaterman was losing his breath. "No one can outrun me especially in this bush. This is my stomping ground, Rainwaterman. I am the king here and it is my will that is the law!"
He did not loosen his choking hold. Even in the darkness of the pre-dawn, Chiapos could see the fire in the man's eyes. The youth started to struggle to break himself free but Samarin was a strong man that could not be easily overpowered. His mind was growing fragile from the lack of air. He did not know how much longer he could remain conscious.
And then he felt the tingle of the Redeemer in his hand. The suddenness of the attack and the forcefulness of Samarin's presence had left Chiapos not thinking. But now in the faintness of his thoughts, he remembered the staff that he had named so aptly.
Samarin was not aware of it and Chiapos hoisted the Redeemer up quickly and swiftly and with its butt end, he jabbed it into the back of the skull of his opponent. At once, Samarin fell forward from the momentum of the thrust, his bulky hands releasing their murderous grip and started scratching Chiapos' chest as they descended. The highwayman had collapsed unconscious to the forest floor.
Chiapos, too, lost consciousness from the ordeal. When he arose, it took him a moment to gather in his senses and realize where he was. The skies had lightened up considerably and he judged that he might have been out for as much as half an hour. The thick hulking body of the thief Samarin lay on the ground next to him in a motionless state. Checking the pulse in Samarin's wrist, Chiapos discovered that the man was still alive.
Something inside of him told him that he should let the Redeemer finish its job; that he would be sorry if he let this opportunity slip past him. But Chiapos could not bring himself to do it. He felt no pity for the rogue but to crush his skull would truly be an extreme act of cowardice. He was not going to let himself and the other villagers be maligned for doing such a deed even though he knew that Samarin fully deserved such a fate.
But then this display of mercy left the Rainwaterman with another decision that would be very difficult to make. A truly altruistic act would be to tend to the rogue and assure that his safekeeping was in tact. Leaving the man here in a comatose state was certainly inviting him to become carrion to whatever scavengers that may roam this part of the Tester. It would almost be as brutal an act as killing him outright. To nurse the man back to health and then seek a punishment befitting his crimes through the authority of nearby populations was the ethical thing to do. But Chiapos did not know how to revive such a man, nor did he know of any local populations that may have a vendetta to square off with this thief. He did not know what to do.
And as it was so often the case in his Challenge, the choice was taken away from him as Samarin suddenly stirred and began moaning on his belly. Using the Redeemer as a bar of leverage, he pried the rogue over onto his back. "You're not so powerful now, are you, O King of the Forest!" Chiapos mocked even though he was now regretting that he had not taken the time that he had to make good his escape from him. Samarin was going to be trouble.
Samarin groaned and complained, "It feels like my brains are seeping out of the back of my head."
"They should have been! The Redeemer had not finished its job!" Chiapos said, flashing the Redeemer in the face of the thief.
"Stop that!" Samarin growled. "A child like you should not be playing with weapons. Where did you get that thing?"
"I forged it in the bowels of Corvyx," Chiapos lied boastfully. "I call it the Redeemer because it will redeem my people to the glory that is rightfully theirs."
"It's just a broken bit of branch. Don't give me that malarkey. Metals are forged, wood can only be carved and it appears that your little stick has not even been given its first step in widdling and refinement," Samarin said, as he started to rise woozingly to his feet.
Chiapos swooshed the Redeemer over Samarin's head. Samarin fell back to the ground to avoid having his head bashed in. "My little stick was strong enough to dethrone you, King of the Forest. Ha!"
Samarin glared venomously at him. "I'll be using your Redeemer as kindling for your pyre before not too long, you stupid buffoon."
"You don't have an upper hand in our little confrontation as far as I can see, you petty criminal!" Chiapos laughed but he was worried inside about how this little confrontation was going to resolve itself.
"Name calling is one of many arts that Rainwatermen never excelled. They have no wits about them and they confine themselves to the most myopic point of view in all of Mallog’mor’ach," Samarin said as he carefully regained his feet.
Chiapos held the Redeemer at the ready. He did not trust his adversary in the least. "No need to further antagonize me, common thief, my opinion of you cannot get any lower than it already is."
"So what are you going to do with me, Rainwaterman? Are you going to kill me just like you did my partner?"
"I did not kill Pitak!" Chiapos declared. "He was ravaged by some demon of these woods. No human could have desecrated another body as badly as what had been done to Pitak. Even you, Samarin, as evil as you are, do not possess the skills and strength to so deftly tear a man asunder."
"Poppycock, Rainwaterman, poppycock! The people of your village are well versed in the killing arts. You would not have had any difficulty in performing that hideous act." In the dawning light, Chiapos could see the fire in Samarin's eyes. Had he not been a vile vagabond, Chiapos might have believed that he was speaking in earnest, that he truly did believe that his partner had been killed by a Rainwaterman.
"I don't know how you have come about the biases that you possess about my people, but let me assure you that no Rainwaterman could have even conceived to do those terrible things to another human being let alone do them."
"Then who do you propose did such a thing to my partner? The Mammoth of the Tester?" Samarin smirked sarcastically.
"Not the Mammoth, but the one who would have the Mammoth's place," Chiapos replied, studying his adversary to see if there was any hint that he might understand what he was talking about. "I say that it was an Aura in Ascension that murdered Pitak, son of Ven."
"An Aura in Ascension? In all my living years I have never heard such nonsense!" Samarin scowled. "What praytell, is an Aura in Ascension? Something with a name such as that can only come from the silly parables that you Rainwatermen tell each other."
"To this day, the Challengelore has never made mention of Auras," Chiapos clarified.
"Then it is something that your tiny little brain concocted in response to the fear that you people have whenever you are outside the safe confines of your decrepit little village."
"Auras are not anything that I have contrived," Chiapos answered. "I have only learned of them through the wisdom Cenan imparted upon me."
"Cenan? The only Cenan that I have ever heard of was the bitch priestess to the Mammoth but she lived so long ago that not even the oldest trees in this forest would have ever cast shade upon her."
There was no trace of any deception in Samarin's words. This Chiapos found strange and eerie. Here was a man who had passed through the Tester frequently during his life and he had never come across Cenan. Was the woman so capable of keeping hidden that even an experienced tracker and woodsman such as Samarin would never come to know of her existence? And if that were so, why had she decided to appear to him? Was there something special about him? Too many extraordinary things have been happening to him during this Challenge. Was he foreordained to perform some miraculous act that would be a high water mark in the Challengelore, the story of his people, the story of Mallog’mor’ach? He could not recall any specific tales that promised some great day of reckoning for the villagers of Rainwater although many of the stories did hint that one day things would be much different than they are today.
"Is that the Cenan that you mean?" Samarin re-iterated. "The worms have eaten far more of your brain than I had at first believed!"
"It is that Cenan, Appointed Servant to the Mammoth of the Tester who has told me about the Auras," Chiapos verified, wondering if he was doing the right thing in telling such a wicked man as Samarin of what Cenan had imparted to him. The rogue certainly wasn't worthy of such venerable information. Yet now that he started, he had to continue. "She told me that Auras are denizens of the Tester and that they generally dwell peaceably and rarely if ever are seen by mortal beings such as ourselves. The Mammoth is himself an Aura who rules supreme over the others who are content in this relationship. But now and then one may become disillusioned and seek to usurp the power from the Mammoth. Sorely, such a case is happening these days! This Aura is said to be in Ascension and he would do anything that will strip the power away from the Mammoth. I fear that your Pitak got in the way of such an Aura and has paid the highest price possible for his ill luck."
Samarin didn't say anything at first but by the expression he held on his roughened features, Chiapos was sure that what he said was not being held in very high regard by the big man. He was ready to be ridiculed but surprisingly the rogue spoke anything but mockery. "You truly believe what you just told me, don't you?"
Chiapos nodded his head. "It does sound incredulous. If someone else had told me this, I would not believe it either. But I tell you, I saw Cenan with my own very eyes and there is no doubt in my mind that she is who she claims she is. As for the Aura in Ascension, I have met him myself. He was in the guise of a lost, little boy from a far away land called Malaga."
"Malaga is a far away land but not in distance," Samarin interrupted. "Malaga is far away in time. It predates the ancients."
"You know of Malaga?" Chiapos never would have suspected that the thief would hold such esoteric knowledge.
"Before I took to a life on the road, I was a teacher in Tanejul. I am very familiar with the lore of dozens of communities, including your own Rainwater legacies," Samarin replied.
"You were a teacher in Tanejul and you gave up that life to be a vagabond and a scoundrel? That I find hard to believe!"
"I used to teach others about the history of Mallog’mor’ach and watch them go out and live very fruitful lives while I remained at the monastery doing the same thing year in and year out. I was giving others stories about people who went out and lived their lives. Yet there was no story to my life and as I grew older I realized that if I didn't start making my own stories soon I would die without a tale to be associated with my name."
"So you left Tanejul and made your own stories but your stories came at the expense of others!" Chiapos charged. He was not going to let himself forget that this man stole and pilfered and lied and cheated and was likely Ven's murderer.
"By merely existing a person is taking from others," Samarin countered. "The food that you eat is food for no one else. It is food that would still be there if you were not born. It would be food for others. We can't help it that we lay claim to certain articles on this earth by the mere fact of our birth. But when a person starts to accumulate goods and property far beyond what he needs to live comfortably and is protected by the law to do so, that is not a natural way of existence. His possession of these things means that they are kept away from others who truly need them to survive. It is these people that I take from. Whatever I take, I do not keep. I redistribute. I make things more equitable. In my mind I'm making the world a better place, I am making a difference and I am making my own stories to boot. If I am labeled a criminal for these actions, I do not care. The ones who make this label are the ones that protect the greedy and allow them to feed off the sweaty backs of others. In the long sense, I have caused no harm to humanity. Indeed I may even say that more people benefited from my existence than were harmed. In the end does that not make me a good man?"
Shards of sunlight pierced through the trees to light up Samarin's face. For the first time, Chiapos could see him clearly. He was much older than he thought. He had little hair and that what he had was gray. His skin was leathery like a snake's and his charcoal eyes held the same evil serpentine menace. Chiapos felt instinctively that he could not trust this man even though there might be truth in his claims. Yet there was a dark seduction about the man, that he truly was some benign thief who only sought to right the ills of society. Yet again, this was the man who had tried to kill him just minutes ago. This was the man who spoke so negatively about Rainwater. This was the man who killed Ven and tried to lay the blame on the villagers. He could not afford to feel any empathy for Samarin. But what was he going to do about him? At length he said, "I don't care for you or your misconstrue d goals. You are a wicked man, Samarin, and I want you out of my life."
He lifted the Redeemer up and held it threateningly at the old thief. Samarin did not cower. He stood bravely perhaps knowingly up to him. This rogue had been around too many ruffians in his day to know when a threat was idle or when it was for real. It was Chiapos that was feeling the intimidation. "You won't hit me and you know it." Samarin said, reaching his hand out to the Redeemer and at that moment, Chiapos felt that he was being swept by a tidal wave pushing him into surrender.
But something remarkable and inexplicable happened. A fiery charge began to glow from the Redeemer's shaft. It burst out at Samarin, scorching his palms and making him cry out in pain. Yet, Chiapos, whose hand was also upon the staff, felt no pain. "What kind of demon stick, have you got!" Samarin wailed.
"It is the Redeemer." Chiapos said sheepishly. "I guess it knows who its master is!"
"That is no ordinary cane that you have there," Samarin said, rubbing his palms together to try and dull the pain. "It is Wood of Faerie!" His eyes betrayed that he was already scheming how to get the Redeemer away from Chiapos.
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