Category: Other Page 130 of 177

The yoal was the main vessel used for haaf (open water within sight of land, up to 10 miles from shore) fishing for cod, ling and tusk until the fish shoals moved further offshore at the end of the 17th century, probably due to climatic change.[4] Although yoals were not designed for the far haaf, Shetland fishermen continued to use them for relatively deep sea fishing with attendant accidents and loss of life until the introduction in the mid 18th century of the larger, heavier and deeper sixareen designed for fishing further offshore.

Source: Yoal – Wikipedia

While Benda and Tob were discussing in low tones what to do next, they heard suddenly from outside the kiwot somewhere nearby the sound of an oar splashing. They all froze, listening.

The gentle splashing continued for a time, until they heard what sounded like a small craft being dragged out of the water onto the beach of the tiny island upon which the lodge of the kumbios rested. As the boater pulled, he hummed to himself a tune which Benda suddenly realized he knew. His heart lifted. Without thinking, Benda joined in, singing aloud the words:

“We who go out upon the waters,
Let us return in good stead,
Nets full of fishes,
Nets full of fishes…”

The boater nearby on the shore turned and looked about him in all directions.

“Hearts filled with wishes,” he continued the next line, and chuckled.

“Little kumbios learned how to sing then, have they? Or be thou undine or some other sprite sent to torment a poor fisherman?”

“Neither sprite nor fairy am I,” said Benda from within the kiwot.

Tob was uncertain if this visitor was friend or foe, and cast Benda a disapproving look with his many small eyes. Benda merely shrugged, and mouthed the words, “What else are we to do?”

“If not a spirit,” said the fisherman, “then singer, show thyself to me, that I may see with my eyes, and hear with my ears how came you here to this lonely isle.”

Without hesitation, Benda donned his cloak, and dove into the watery door below the kiwot. Passing through, he swam free of the lodge’s cover, and turned to the shore where the boater had landed. He crawled up out of the water, once again soaked.

The boater turned with a start, as if he’d seen a ghost.

“No spirit nor fairy say you, but you speak from kiwot and come up out of the depths like a silvery ghost,” said the boater, looking Benda up and down. “Still, you are welcome.”

Benda in turn examined the boater, a man around his own age, dressed in the tribal skins and gear of the Squamat lake people. And he looked at the man’s tiny round boat, a coracle. It was like a large basket, covered in hide, barely large enough for one man, never mind two.

“I thank you for your kindness to such a peculiar stranger as myself,” Benda began.

From within the kiwot, the two kumbios dove out of their door, and swam toward Benda on the beach. Tob howled though, not himself a swimmer. He didn’t want to be left out of the action. The second kumbio hearing him, came back in, and lowering its head before Tob offered him its neck. Tob scrambled aboard, took a deep breath, and the kumbio dove back under again. They all went to join Benda.

The boater eyed this unlikely crew with interest but with wariness. He pulled out a pipe from his jacket, stuffed it quietly, lit it, taking a big puff, and offered it to Benda. “Smoke?”

Benda took it, inhaling deeply, and then broke out into a huge coughing fit.

The boater laughed heartily, and sat down then on a log on the little beach.

“I am called Velornix,” he said. “I am but a humble fisherman.”

Benda approached him, and sat down on the ground opposite Velornix. “I too am a fisherman,” he said. “But from far still to the south, a village near Cannaxus. And I am called Benda.”

The man’s eyebrows lifted in recognition. “Lake Cannaxid is not far off,” said Velornix, “but the city of Cannaxus – that’s another story.” He puffed on his pipe thoughtfully.

“And I am called Tob, Tob Gobble – at your service!” Tob broke in, impatient that no one seemed to be looking at him. He scrambled close to Benda (for protection, but pride would never allow him to admit that), and bowed with his usual flourish.

Velornix’s eyes twinkled in laughter, but none passed from his lips. “And I am at yours, my little fellow,” he replied with kindness.

The two kumbios frolicked and splashed in the shore, chasing and tumbling over one another.

“Now,” said Velornix, “suppose you tell me how came you here, this most peculiar band, in this most peculiar fashion.”

“How I would like to tell you everything,” said Benda, “in good time. But I’m afraid ours runs short.”

Velornix raised again his eyebrows in a question mark, “Oh? How’s that?”

“Well,” broke in Tob, who felt (incorrectly) both subtly mocked and ignored. “You see, my friend here was caught by Xenarths, and then by a giant eagle, but with my magic, I managed to change him into a great fi–“

Benda eyed Tob sternly. Tob grumpily took the hint, and promptly shut up.

“Xenarths,” mused Velornix. “Nasty business, I’m sure.” He eyed Tob carefully, and Benda. The kumbios splashed and raced one another in the background.

“Now what’s all this about an eagle?”

“A giant eagle,” Tob corrected him.

“Please,” Benda said. “There isn’t much time. The eagle who is a man, a shapeshifter. His name is Murta. His eyes are everywhere under the sun. We are in danger here.”

On hearing this name, Velornix spat onto the ground. “Aye, we know this wizard and thief. We call him Zedeffed, the Ugly. He preys on our livestock, and terrorizes our children. It is he who incites the Holmats and pays the Xenarths to raid our villages, so he can push us out of our ancestral lands. If he is your foe, then I am indeed your friend, though I may not be your countryman. Aye, I will help you.”

“I thank you,” said Benda, a wave of relief washing over him. He eyed the sky carefully before continuing. “Let me just ask you one thing, though – one fisherman to another. How came you here today, to this place, at this hour?”

Velornix puffed on the last of his pipe, then emptied it. “I dreamt this morning that a great silver fish fell from the sky.” He stood up suddenly. “And I came here to catch it. And it looks like I have succeeded!” he laughed heartily, then pointed to his tiny coracle.

“Get in then,” he said. “We haven’t much time to lose. The morning mists will soon be lifting. I might not be able to get you all the way to safety, but I can at least get you away from here. Let’s go.”

“Now that you know the history of my people, the trunk of our tree,” Tob continued, in a mock oratorial pose, “let us venture forth onto that delicate branch which comprises my own family’s particular tale.”

Benda, who found that he was rather enjoying himself, despite his weariness and the apparent length of the cycle of tales unfurling before him, nodded in silent agreement. Tob began again.

“I am called Tob, Brother-Son of Otob, who was original of his people (we are only two), and through whom my lifeline passed, as a clone, before his passing. Otob was brother-son, unknown, and grown all alone, of Potob, of whom the tale of my people speaks. It was Potob who, out of fear of being eaten, leapt from the sack of Makkarin, our mother, and who burrowed deep into her footsteps, and for whom sleep would not come. His cries, lying there, awoke an Old One, in the form of a rat, who came to him and chewed upon him.

“When Makkarin arrived in brightness, the Old One in the normal telling of the legend hissed and fled. But in actuality, he choked, and spat first before he ran. For he had a mouthful of my great-brother-father, Potob. Neither Potob nor Makkarin in this moment of peril, had the presence of mind to notice, let alone collect these expelled remnants, and they went away, where Potob and his brethren and sistren were planted in the Great Fields, and the Children of Makkarin planted them forever anew.

“And yet, all alone, this blob of Potob’s flesh, following its due course, developed into a full clone, with a life of its own. His name was Otob. But without anyone to harvest, or plant him anew, he languished in loneliness. And his only companions were the Dirt People, who in the Wide Lands are known as Gobs. The Dirt People were not an advanced civilization. They had not even any language, or means of locomotion. Though they recognized and lived under that same brightness of Makkarin, they knew not even her name, and did not think to wonder about it.

“Otob, then, in his loneliness, over many long years buried deep below the surface, sent out his many rootlets, both eyes and fingers, to find the Gobs, to touch them each, and speak to them in turn, with what few words he as a clone had inherited from his parents. I say parents not in the sense as you humans or mammals use it — for he had only one brother-father of his lifeline, Potob — but in a chemical sense, in essence. For when Potob was bitten, and when the rat did spit him out as a separate entity, Otob took within him a trace amount of the poison which oozed from the mouth of the Old One. Thus he had two parents, one from whom he inherited the knowledge of Makkarin and her brightness, though dimmed from long ages without contact, and the other from whom he inherited a dark secret knowledge of the depths, and the ancient carnal desire for flesh and for consumption. It welled within him, and he recognized it not.

“It was this like desire which his touching and soothing words awoke with poison in his adopted brother Gobs, who spoke not as humans do, in exhalations and tonal variations, but in great feats and feasts of consumption, inhalations of matter, pulling other entities into their bodies. Thus their language lived inside them, and they were dumb one to the other. And so it came to pass, that the Dirt People, who had truly become Gobs, did eat, consume, and devour one the other. And they grew in size, mass, and knowledge, for when they ate, they took inside them the words and wisdom consumed by the others.

“Over many long generations, my brother-father Otob, watched this happen. He greeted it neither with glee, nor with distaste, as he had no measure for it. But it seemed to him to mean that, over time, the Gobs became more coherent, more intelligent, and more intelligible. The touches of Otob’s eye-fingers, were met ever more with greater awareness, and the larger Gobs even let his roots pass within them, so that he could touch, and see, and communicate, with all the remnants of entities who had passed within, and which made up the collective being of the Gobs. In doing so, he felt less alone.

“There was a Great Gob, who was without a family or personal name, but who was the largest of them all, and who had eaten more than all the others. This Great Gob had become the closest companion of Otob, my brother-father, and Otob’s roots were inextricably intertwined in his mass. Through them, the two communicated in a language without words, of direct impulse, one to the other. And the Great Gob grew and grew as he consumed, feeding at the same time his companion, Otob, through the tiny mouths on his penetrating roots. So Otob grew too, but with none to take him out in harvest, or to split him up into brother-children, and plant them all anew. And with his size, his hunger grew too, as did the poison that the Old One had spread when he bit and spat him out and fled.

“Finally, there came a time when the Great Gob, and my brother-father Otob had completely grown together, fusing in mutual devourment. Thus was formed the first Gobble, when the Great Gob sprouted arms and legs terminating in rootlet mouths and eye-fingers, and lifted himself up out of the soil. Dirt People no more, he became a Stroller, on the broad open face of the Wide World.

“With his limbs, he strolled, eye-fingers blinking under the hot ball of the Sun. He learned to hide out in cool quiet holes and dells during the hot days, and prowled about at night amongst the other creatures, testing and stalking, probing who he could eat without much trouble. And eat he did other beings, Sitters and Strollers alike, most often in their sleep. For he was not a quick predator, capable of running and pouncing like the forest cat, nor patient with a sudden killing strike like the Heron who fished along the Great River. His method of consumption was altogether barbaric. He touched his prey with his tendrils, dusting them with a fine toxic powder which he extruded from his flowers, a trick he’d derived from the poison knowledge of the Old One. It sent them ever deeper into dream, and then he devoured them, quite alive and whole.

“Thus through many long nights of many dark ages, he grew, and grew. And as he ate, he consumed the knowledge of those beings he took within him, learning many secret twisted ways of things that lurk and slink in darkness. With it, he grew ever more wild.

“It so happened that his wandering pathway took him through forest, and over mountain, and fetid hill, until he came upon a village of men, asleep by their fires in their thatched huts, whose roofs were made from reeds of leaves grown along the edge of the Great River, and from which they made their boats. Finding them thus, he crept down and into their village, and with his slumber dust, did cause to be devoured all the occupants of one hut, a family of eight, including their dog. He made no sound, and crept back up to the fetid hills before dawn.

“When the people arose, there was much wonder and fear over the loss of this beloved family, one branch of the wider clan encamped together here, since many long ages. And from their surviving ranks, they elected by lot a man to perform the office of hero, to watch over and protect them the next night. His name was Lam, and he waited the next night by the dark of the moon, with only the stars to watch over him. His only protection was the simple tunic, and cloak on his back, and the long ritual staff of the hero, shod in bronze.

“Otob Gobble paid little heed to this man, for he had seen many others of his kind (and always carefully avoided them), though the night preceding was the first time he had ever tasted human flesh. He imagined himself devouring this one too with the long stick, followed by the occupants of the next hut in the village. So he crept then with stealth down from the fetid hills, tendrils sensing in the dark for his prey. Such was his skill as a hunter that Otob Gobble was nearly upon him, before Lam was aware of the danger. The monster’s tendrils reached out to touch and dust the man’s arm with his poison, but Lam, who had been dozing, spun awake and away from his reach, and brought the long shaft of the staff down on the head of the Gobble. He cried out in pain, and in his panic, expelled great puffs of slumber dust from the orifices of his flowers, which trailed behind him like dirty, ragged hair.

“Lam, seeing this, covered his mouth with the edge of his cloak, and while the Gobble was still reeling, lifted up the bronze shod end of the hero staff, and barreling toward the monster, cleft it in its forehead. The Gobble reeled back in agony, having never been struck before by such a blow, let alone by a hero staff tipped in forged metal. The shock reverberated to his very core, and the staff broke in two. Lam too stumbled back at the force of it, and slipped, exposing his mouth to the slumber dust still pregnant in the air.

“Falling fast asleep, he did not see the marvelous disintegration of the hideous monstrosity which my brother-father had become, as the wound rent to pieces his mass, and out from his flesh poured the many bits and forms of beings who he had eaten and absorbed within him. Those who had been devoured most recently, in fact, like the family from the village, escaped still alive, though in a deep slumber still for a few more days . Others who had been eaten long ago were less lucky, and were expelled only as skeletons, or bits of fur, hair, and claw, which had been too rough for the Gobble to digest, but which he had been too greedy to expel.

“The Great Gob who had subsumed my brother-father was thus killed, releasing too poor Otob from his grasp. But so much had he grown in eating, and become intertwined with the Gob, such that he too was effectively killed in the fight with Lam. In the dawn light of the next day, the villagers gathered up their sleeping members, and took care of the few other dormant animals and critters who had been eaten recently, but who remained alive. And they put the rest, including the remains of my brother-father, roots and all (or so they thought) into a huge purifying fire, and burned it all for three days and three nights. And when the fire had ended, Lam the hero, and the sleeping villagers, and other recovered animals and critters awoke, and were sorely hungry. A feast was held, and all for them returned to normal.”

“A truly incredible tale!” Benda cheered at the end. “But if they burned the remnants, how then did you survive?”

“To this detail, I will now attend, my dear, dear friend. You see, there was a bit of root, little more than the tip of an eye-finger, which in the duel had broken off, and fallen under Lam’s foot. When the villagers found Lam and the others, they had left them be where they lay, and made up beds for them in the open, under the warmth of the sun, thinking this would cause their eyes to open. And as they gathered up the monstrous remnants, they neglected to find this root, which, after its nature, burrowed into the soil, grew, and formed a clone. The one and very same you see before you today. It is I, Tob Gobble, at your service.”

When Benda and Tob Gobble sat down in the grove so that Tob could tell his tale, Tob began by saying:

“To understand my story, you must first know the story of my people…”

Benda groaned inwardly, but did not let his knew friend know that he was tired of tales, and just wanted to finally be back home with his family. He put on a smile anyway, and Tob began.

[Editor’s note: the images which follow are copied from the ‘Codex Vegetalis,’ which is a book some scholars include in the Canticle of Barbaro (this designation is not universally agreed upon, it should be noted), and the only surviving copy of which resides in the archives of the Pantarctican Imperial Library. Re-used here with permission.]

Upon issuing forth from the cave mouth through which he had escaped the Black Water and Stone Sea below, Benda became immediately drowsy.

The sun shone down on him, and he blinked dumbly to see its rays again. It took several moments for his eyes to adjust to natural light again, and his limbs felt incredibly heavy. The cool breeze rose up from what he could now see was a large body of water not far off. He looked around. The cave opened onto a rocky ledge. And without climbing down, or otherwise exploring further his surroundings, he promptly returned to the cave mouth and dozed off for how long he did not know, half in the shade of the cave, half in the sun’s rays.

He slept the sleep of the dead, but he knew he was not dead, and despite being nearly (or even possibly) turned to stone, he had returned to the land of the living. Or at least one of those lands…

What roused him finally was not the smell of the sea nearby, the crashing of waves, or the cry of the sea birds. It was the strange sound of a flute, horribly out of tune, arythmic, almost broken sounding, which roused him out of slumber.

He stretched, and opened his eyes, rubbed his ears, and his face, his cheeks, and his forehead, blinked once hard, and then again.

“What a horrible racket!” he muttered to himself. Gathering himself, he got up to search for its origin. A thin rocky trail descended the rocky ledge from the cave mouth. As it wound downward, there was revealed a green but scrabbly field, and beyond it a sea which Benda did not recognize immediately.

Round the final bend of his descent, the broken horrid tune grew significantly louder, until stepping out onto the grass, Benda thought he spotted its source. He sensed there was someone behind a boulder of medium height, too tall to easily see over. He crept over to behind where the boulder lay, taking care to stay out of the line of sight of whoever — or whatever — might be on the other side.

Try as he might though, Benda could not surprise the strange but wise little fellow who had sat down there to sit in the shade and play his flute. As Benda approached, from the far side of the boulder the music — if you could really call it music — stopped abruptly, and there was silence. Benda, crouched there, suddenly felt a bit foolish for hiding and stood up.

“Hullo there,” he said over the rock, and strode out around it. But he did not realize, that from the other side, the little fellow had also gotten up to get a look at the visitor who was trying to creep up on him unawares. And so, when each reached the other side, they found it empty.

“Most peculiar,” said the little figure wearing a wide brimmed hat, top slumped to one side. Most peculiar indeed. He held in one of several hands (actually, technically, rootlets) his little reed flute, which he had carved himself from a special type of reed that only grew alongside the Great River. Over his shoulder was slung a simple pack. “Most peculiar indeed.”

“I say,” Benda began, circling back the way he had come. Likewise, the little brown lumpy figure did the same in the opposite direction on his thin stalks-for-legs. Once again, they each found an empty space the other had just vacated. “Hold still!”

The little figure did so, and finally revealed himself bodily to Benda, bowing low in a pretentious and awkward but nonetheless charming manner. Benda couldn’t help but smile ear to ear at this ridiculous creature.

“Tob the Gobble, at your service,” he said, removing his purple hat with a flourish, and using the butt end of his flute to simulate the cane of a gentleman.

“Benda, at yours,” he said.

Returning his cap to his brown lumpy head, Tob remarked, “Just Benda?”

Benda shook his head, “Just Benda.”

“Hmm! Then, Benda the Just we’ll call you! Everyone needs a second name, don’t you agree?”

“I’ve had too many,” Benda admitted, still smiling at the peculiar little fellow. “Now I’m just me.”

“What’s one more for good measure?” the gobble said, twirling around merrily. “Hmm, that reminds me of a song,” he began, holding up his flute to what seemed to pass for a mouth on the little creature. He exhaled into the instrument with a strange sort of hooofting sound.

“Please, let’s just… talk for a while first,” Benda interrupted him, hoping to break off another long horrible peculiar little tune like that which had roused him from his sleep and brought him to this place.

Tob seemed to eye him from the many small root buds which speckled the surface of his hard-looking skin, and lowered his flute. “Music critic, eh? I see. What about jokes? Got any good ones? Don’t worry, I’ve got quite a few! Let’s see…”

“I’m sorry,” Benda said. “I’m sure they’re quite funny, and I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m not really much in the mood for joking or music. I’ve lost my friends, and I don’t know where even really I am. I’m just trying to get home to see my family again.”

“Tough crowd,” Tob quipped. “Let’s see then, a tale! A tell all! Whoohoo!”

Benda groaned, he realized, audibly. But Tob didn’t seem to notice or care, and just went right on going.

“A tale it is then. It’s settled. It’s been a while. Let’s see… I’ll tell you a tale, not a tall tale, but not quite a small tale — let’s call it a little bit more than ‘little.’ A little bit (much) like me. In fact, it’s my tale, and I’ll give it to you, and then you, dear friend, can regale me with yours.”

“This sounds like it might take a while. Is there somewhere we might sit down?” Benda asked. “Somewhere out of the sun?” He looked up again at the sky, nervously beginning to remember the prying eyes from above, the eagle and shape-shifter Murta who had hunted him and his party like prey, driving them under-ground.

“Why, yes! I know just the place, Benda the Just, for just such a tale! Hooray! Follow me!” And off he went, playing his flute and dancing as they walked, stop only once briefly to interject, “A song for a walk, I always say! Hey, hey!”

Near the edge of the sea, where the rock ledge jutted out, they rounded a bend, and there was a grove of low trees. Benda sheltered down in it, out of the sun, and braced himself for what he suspected might be a rather long-winded tale from his peculiar, yet oddly charming new friend, Tob the Gobble.

“There once was a gobble named Tob,
who had started out life as a blob.

Then he sprouted some arms,
and learned him some charms,

And went through the lands as a stroller”

— Ancient Quatrian Poem: ‘The Legend of Tob’

They entered then the newly opened tunnel passage, which had been unlocked for them by a volumetric presence summoned by Benda’s strange experience in otherspace. The tunnel air was fresh, and the ominous yellow glow faded as they plunged deeper in.

At first glance, the tunnel was much like all the others they’d traversed through the ancient Lagom warren system, which extended below much of the Kremellian subcontinent — and perhaps beyond. Dema, the female golek, was the first to become agitated by a subtle difference. She chittered in their language, which Eradus translated.

“She says there are watchers in these walls.”

They went on, in the dim suffuse light which pervaded the passage. And they all soon became aware of it, as the watchers took solid form. Here and there, marked in the walls were petroglyphs of unknown age and uncertain origin. Strange faces, with empty eye sockets which seemed to watch them, and, Benda thought, mocked them in silent laughter.

“They are the blathmari,” Machef said to them. “There is nothing to fear. As the sylphs are to the currents and airs above, so are they to the veins of ore running deep below the surface. They look out from silent eyes that see not the passing even of our generations, let alone the footfalls of our trespass, for theirs is geologic time, and we to them are nothing.”

Benda marveled in silent wonder anew at these ancient, ageless faces. They passed on with a kind of reverence, their fears falling back down to baseline in this subterranean realm.

The tunnel began to slope gently downward, and before long, opened out into a dark cavern, into which no light penetrated. As they stepped out in it, and the last one passed the threshold, a torch on either side sprung to life. Together they cast a circular glow, outlining a small stone outcropping — a landing — and what appeared to be a vast black body of water. Upon that black water, floating docked at the landing was a small slender boat, of fine dark wood. As Benda approached it, two small lanterns — one each fore and aft — affixed to metal stanchions sprang also to life and light.

“The vessel knows its pilot,” Machef remarked.

Benda shook his head, looking from the sable golek over to Dema, Selef, and Eradus. “It’s too small for all of us. There must be another way.”

“Wayfinder,” Machef replied, “this is your way. The silver thread lead you to this place.”

“I won’t just abandon you all here. It’s out of the question. Let’s turn back.”

As Benda went to turn, Eradus blocked his way. He stood in the center of the passage, torches illuminated on either side, and the two goleks stood beside him.

“Benda Lost,” Eradus said. “I found you once before, with my brother on the beaches of Devera. I can find you once again, wherever you end up in this wide world, now that I know your voice. Of this, I have no doubt.” He smiled, and stretched his hand out to Benda’s shoulder, and they embraced.

“Take this with you,” Eradus said, rustling under the folds of his cloak. He produced the goblet of the old man in the Cloud Spire, Banarat. “You might need it.” Benda took it, and proceeded to scratch each of the two goleks under their chins. “I’ll see you soon. Take care of him!” he exclaimed. They chittered back loving goodbyes in their language.

“Go then,” Machef said. “Follow where you’re lead, but be always wary, and know who you follow. Before long, our paths will cross again.”

Benda bade the others one more farewell, and stepped into the boat, which rocked slightly accepting his weight. There was barely place to sit, and no bench, so Benda simply remained standing, with his cloak wrapped about him, and the harp on his back. The boat slipped from the landing, and he didn’t look back.

The boat went from darkness into darkness. The only lights visible were the lanterns of the boat and their dim sorrowful reflection, making their slow way across the vastness. Benda had no visible landmarks against which he could judge their speed or progress. And there was no sound, but for a slight rippling of the water as the prow cut quietly through its surface. He stood perfectly still, and as his eyes strained to penetrate into the darkness, he fell into a light trance.

Though fully conscious of his body, his awareness dropped deep, deep into the blackness below him. And somewhere in that blackness, he perceived great dark forms which swam far below in the silent depths. A fear arose in him that they would sense him too, and he awoke out of the trance with a start, and looked around. All was the same, but he could sense still the forward motion of the boat as it cut through the black water.

He fell into a lull, until suddenly, without warning, the motion ceased, the rippling sound died down. The two lanterns of the boat sputtered and died out. Benda stood in total darkness, on a sea of vast proportions, with unknown lurkers in the deeps below. He trembled.

Benda’s courage began to fail him. His spirit quailed. He stood motionless, not knowing what to do. He lost all track of how long he stood there in that state. A dark and nameless panic began to set in.

Before it reached its peak, however, the barest glimmer of a light seeped into the place, like mist crawling in from the ocean. As he waited there, stone-still, he watched the light increase. And instead of a vast black water, there was revealed a great stone sea, complete with petrified waves, and ripples extending out in all directions captured as a solid. And he realized then, his boat had changed from fine dark wood itself to stone, being lodged now indistinguishably in the stone waves around him.

He marveled at this as the light increased, and at long last, motion stirred in his limbs again. He mustered his energy, and stepped out of the boat onto the stone ocean. Furtive footsteps were emboldened as they found purchase upon the surface of the stone waves, and he followed the light to shore. From there, he discovered its source, an illuminated passage issuing forth back into the world of light, the world above, and he climbed up out of the Place Below.

A curvi-linear folded bow with a single barred sinister descender, the meaning of this ancient Quatrian religious symbol is still the subject of much debate by scholars today.

The tunnel was filled with phantasmagorical images. Other voyagers on other voyages seemed to pass them by with alarming regularity, but without apparent substance. Most frequent were white luminous bodies, quadrupeds, who would intangibly flit along the tunnel walls without seeming to heed the party. Like cells in some great underground vein bumping and jostling along in the great rush of being.

Blue Zalthyrmian lights flitted too along the cave walls, which, Benda noted, passed now and again between smoothly carven stone, and a hard, almost fibrous substance. Though the lights seemed at times to form letters and scripts, their mysterious meaning was still inscrutable to Benda and the others. Though, he wondered whether Machef might not have rather more knowledge of that language than he lett on. No matter, it was Benda who had chosen the way. Where it lead, they would find out in due course.

After a time, the white phantasms — which Machef had confirmed to them were the spirits of Lagoms — ceased passing back and forth in both directions. Their lights went dark for a time in the passage, and then, all at once, they organized themselves in one direction — the way Benda and the others had come from. As the party progressed, the white lights seemed to be more and more furiously streaming toward, and then passed them.

“Should we… be concerned?” Eradus asked, to no one in particular.

“They flee a terror in another age,” Machef’s voice spoke inside them.

Just then, there was a low rumbling, deep, deep within the stone, and a dull yellow light appeared in the distance, accompanied by a smell of mustiness.

“A terror which we seem to flee towards,” added Benda.

Machef seemed to shrug as he kept on, “The way out is through.”

Eventually, the streaming figures in white slowed, and then halted completely. There was only the dull yellow presence, somewhere ahead of them, and the musty smell of air. And a feeling of dull directionless oppression. It made them tired, but afforded them no rest. The way out is through. Benda repeated it himself over and over as he lifted one foot after the other, endlessly heavy and dull, and thudded along.

Until, all at once, the tunnel opened up into another cavern, like the one they’d been in previously, but smaller. The walls here were adorned with murals too, but painted, not set in tile, and the paint was flaked and cracked, and crumbled away in places. Depicted were Lagom warriors in full regalia going to battle against… figures whose images had all crumbled and fallen into ruin long since. A foe without a face.

The yellow light here was suffuse and omni-present. The mustiness smothered the air, and Benda’s eyes searched the haze and rubble for their next passage onward. Tunnel entrance after tunnel entrance away from the main chamber were blocked in by rubble and stone. Nothing moved.

“Wayfinder,” Machef said. “Find the silver thread.”

“The silver thread?” Benda repeated to himself.

“The blue way leads not through here. Whatever it was the Lagoms fought near this place, the Zalthyrmians lingered and linger not still in this spot either.”

The silver thread. Benda did not know what that was, but he could feel the weight of its import beginning to grow in him. The goleks laid down to lick themselves, and one another. Eradus too sat down on the dusty ground, looking up at the murals of the armored warriors.

Benda went off a little away from the others, and faced the wall. He closed his eyes, crouched ever so slightly, bending his knees, balancing his weight into his hips and seat. His body swayed with his breath, and he was plunged into darkness. He let his hands come up from his sides, palms out and sensing, like two great ears that could touch the darkness. They tingled slightly, and Benda could sense the energy flowing through them.

As though pushed by an ocean wave, Benda’s hands rose up and came together in front of him, and where they passed, he felt a twinge. A something. A sensation of a sensation, very slight. His hands swam out in front of him, crossing and he felt it again, and again. It was a single point, then a thin stroke, a line of ephemeral filament. He tried to seize it, but his hands did not function in this subtle space as they normally ought. He had to orient, and retrain himself, as if from outside himself.

His two hands were his only being, and a third point, his heart. He thought then of Eril, the harp given him by the High Augur of Quatria. He imagined himself plucking its strings, and he knew then that this filament — this silver thread — was of the same underlying universal substance, if in another register, and on another instrument.

He felt then the silver thread extend outward from his heart into the darkness of this subtle space, where his two hands were the only embodied forms which existed. And the thread pointed off into a fourth place, the ray of the future. Benda finally managed to seize the thread in his two hands then, having inwardly tuned into its resonance. But he did not pluck it as he would the harp’s strings, for he knew that if he let it go to sound, he might not be able to seize it again. So he held tightly all the while with one hand, pulling, and alternating, pulling and alternating. The thread was very fine, and smooth, but seemed immeasurably strong. Benda was sure he could not break it, tug as he might on it. And tug he did.

The others resting there in the cave witnessed nothing unusual, and took turns dozing, or nibbling on bits of bread. Dema and Selef were soon snoring.

Benda continued to pull on this invisible thread, in his parallel world of awareness. And as he did so, he began to feel almost as though he were again a simple fisherman, pulling on a very long line, and knowing that on the other end, he must have caught something very, very big.

He strained suddenly, and either his awareness in that other space broke, or the line he pulled snapped. And with a start, he found himself tumbled over onto the floor on his backside. Machef opened his eyes and focused on him.

There was then a sound, subliminal. A rumbling. A feeling. Growing. It widened into the sound of deep horns sounding. The yellow light for a moment dimmed, and in their awareness all shadow and light swapped places. The world inverted. A trembling, the sound of hoofs, a horn blast — and a tunnel entrance on the far side of the hall burst open in an eruption of rubble and dust. A huge form passed out of it. Not even a form, a volume, invisible, without definite shape, or discernible character. It swirled into the chamber, around them once, and then vanished down the way they had come.

Their world returned to normal. The yellow light resumed, though the smell of mustiness now seemed to fight to pierce the dust newly set alight. There was an in-bursting freshness of air from the tunnel which had newly opened.

“Wayfinder,” Machef said. “You have found the way.”