River Of Life (Book 3)
Read River Of Life (Book 3) Online
Authors: Paul Drewitz
The Power of Ages
River
of
Life
by
Paul Drewitz
Edited
by Cynthia Johnson
Illustrated
by Paul Drewitz
Text
Copyright © 2014 Paul Aaron Drewitz
All
Rights Reserved
This final book of
the series is dedicated to the Lord God above who gave me the imagination to
construct this world where many of my greatest adventures have taken place.
Introduction
I had this book finished before I graduated college. My senior
year (Fall of 2009/Spring 2010) I was looking for agents to take this project
off my hands, to publish and market it. I do believe that is every author's
dream, for an agent to agree to represent them and turn their novel into the
next best seller. And it is a great dream, but a hard one. I felt that I had
completed my part of the job. I had written the book and now that meant it was
someone else's job to finish the project. How little did I know that with the
aid of current technology, I was going to become my own publisher. Finally I
am able to deliver this book to the public. I hope that this story, characters
and world will capture the imagination of you, the audience, and be an inspiration
those who read. Here is the end of the story.
Table
of Contents
LONG plains of prairie grass gently swayed in the breeze.
Gently, dust stirred up and drifted through the long stems. There were moments
when the wind picked up, sending sand whistling through the air, blasting
against the grass. Lizards and ground mice scurried. What caused them to move
from their homes was the man who rushed through the grass, oblivious to what
was around him.
The man was huddled below a black wool cloak that clung to his
back, sweat gluing it in place. Under his arm, held tight in his pit, was
wrapped a package, also in black cloth. Inside, something hard lay hidden. If
the man had taken the time to notice, the air was becoming impossibly hot. But
fear, seen staring from out of his eyes, kept him rushing onward. His dark
eyes protruded from his drawn face, his eyes forced wide open as if in a
constant state of surprise.
Constantly, he looked back. His feet sped faster and faster.
Fear of something worse than torture, worse than death, drove him onward. The
immediate threat that was before him was very real, dehydration. Yet something
behind him was even worse than what he faced.
The man’s face was long and haggard, with drawn lines of intense
pressure carved into his very bones, hardly even recognizable as that of the
face of a man. He paused for only a moment to take a simple sip from an all
too empty canteen and listened to the sounds of the prairie. It was the same
here as it was in the world of the mortals. The prairies were drying up.
It scared the races of men that this death that consumed the
world would not stop with the prairies, but soon all the meadows, valleys,
foothills, and even the little shrub in the mountains would also be devoured.
Rivers, lakes, and ponds had dried up, snowcapped mountains were now dull
browns and grays where they had once been cloaked in green trees and crowned by
snow.
The ground flew past the man who was drenched in his own sweat.
Nothing changed. The same landscape over and over again. Dry grass, wasting
away with time. Slowly, gray hazy mountains to the south came into view.
Demon’s Hoard, Hades Drop, and Devil's Cairn just a few of the names that ran
through his aching mind. The man was all too familiar with what he faced, and
fear struck through to the core of the warrior’s heart.
These mountains were all but impassable. No physical trail led
through them, and those who dared to climb would find drops that only eagles
could glide down. Rocks, razor sharp, lay at the bottom of many pits. Those
who tried to pass usually died. Yet there was one way, and he was going to use
it. What he had been sent to do demanded that he use this trail and finish the
mission.
His aching legs locked up, and he fell forward. They had been
tiring for miles. Often cramps would grip one muscle and then another until
every step was terror as he force the muscles to stretch, to take the next
step.
His body was stunned from the fall, his lungs begging for
breath. He simply sat for a moment. Then it again came to him. Drums,
pounding, carried by the wind. The drums came in a slow, steady beat,
pounding, reminding the man that what was behind him was not mortal, it would
not tire, it would never stop.
Along with the throbbing sound resurfaced the feelings of
something forgotten. Feet and legs suddenly came alive, and the breathing lump
of flesh was again flashing across the ground, making a blur of the bugs and
desert reptiles that passed in his wake. A small ditch opened before him.
Rocks and half buried boulders lay scattered in no particular
pattern across the floor, rounded, flattened, and smoothed by the waters that
flowed down when the desert torrents came. Bones lay everywhere. Within the
bones, the man saw his family, friends, pets that he had known. His mind
accused him of letting them die. These were their remains. He shook his head,
trying to force the vision away.
They were the skeletons of all breeds of desert animals, lying
scattered among the rocks, bleached white by the sun, cracking as all the
moisture was sucked from them. They were settled around as if a bone
collector had laid his most treasured fossilized bones here to be a secret from
society. No skeleton remained whole; instead, a wide assortment of bones were
strewn where they had been discarded.
Ignoring the change from prairie to this rocky ditch, the man
continued to stumble forward, falling over rocks and bones. As the man trudged
forward, the sides increased in height, growing straighter while the floor
leveled off, making traveling easier. The grass ended, and only the
wind-blasted earth, packed hard and dry, remained. Rocks, though, continued
across the floor. Others jutted through the side walls, towering high and low,
offering shade the fugitive could not stop to accept.
The ditch had become a narrow canyon. The floor transformed
from hard, dry dirt to the soft, watery mud of a bog. Green fungi, mosses,
kelp, and high towering plants came suddenly, unsuspectingly, out of reeking
stench and slime. Fog rolled in and out of the towering trees, making
visibility limited. Moss hung down from the sky. Frogs and toads could be
heard croaking while mosquitoes and flies buzzed their own bothersome story as
they flew around the fugitive’s head. An owl even occasionally hooted.
The fugitive plunged into the sewage head first, but came up
spitting the green slime from his mouth and nose. The toxic water was not even
fit for a dehydrated man to drink. Drums again floated on the wind, carried
into the canyon off the prairie. Taking only a few minutes for a short rest,
the man started to wade through the only green he had seen for days. Snakes,
worms, and huge reptilian beasts crept silently past, strangely leaving the
barely alive creature alone. He pressed on, parting the water which came up to
his shoulders, making his way slowly forward. Ancient monsters that had not
been stirred for centuries were coming alive. Pockets of air, great bubbles of
oxygen that had been trapped below the surface of the slimy water, suddenly
surfaced, blowing a spray of water into the air as if a great whale lived
below.
Other more shallow canyons began to open to either side. The
slime followed these new paths to destinations unknown to man. Creatures and
monsters of magical might or just brute strength lived down these paths and
grew to tremendous size. The man could hear the snores from one blowing
through like a great northern wind, and the growling of another causing the
water to ripple.
The swamp, after a while, grew more shallow and turned to a bog
where a variety of reed grew in great abundance. Then it dried. Just as the
marsh had started, it stopped. Hard packed ground that had not seen liquid
precipitation for years was what continued in front of the fugitive.
He paused again, but only for a moment, and then was again
passing down the canyon between walls that rose hundreds of feet into the air.
The dead chamber continued on for several hundred more feet, and then a bend
cut off the view from what was beyond.
The man continued forward. Panting and heaving, his mouth was
so dry he could not spit. His feet plodded as fast as he could push legs that
had gone beyond the normal tolerance for something made of fragile flesh.
The narrow canyon turned and twisted as it wound its way closer
to the mountains he had seen earlier. The sun was high above, casting its
beating, piercing rays down, cutting through the parallel walls.
Side passages still continued to branch off the main corridor,
but these were smaller. The stranger continued to follow the main passage. In
some places, rock slides had started, loose thin slabs and shavings of stone
breaking from the rock cliff above. These slides gave a gradual rise in some
sections of the wall where it was not perfectly perpendicular. Yet it was
still too steep for anyone to climb out, but only almost too steep for someone
desperate to get in.
A small stream had started and was now meandering along the
path, keeping pace with its fellow traveler who now trotted along beside it.
The stream cackled, happy to have someone to talk to. The stream’s beginning
was a seep, which was fed with the poisonous water of the bog left far behind.
As the water traveled down the floor of the canyon, it drenched the cracks and
washed away the dust left by the ages, revealing colorful rocks and pebbles
that at one time had been left to decorate the place that was unrevealed to
most people. Now dust from the dead plains above covered and hid almost every
part that had once been the glory and pride of nature.
The floor began a steep climb, and the cliffs began to converge
overhead, creating a ceiling. If he had been able to see out of the
perpendicular canyon walls, the wanderer would have seen himself pass beneath
the towering cliffs of the mountains which he had feared upon sight.
Soon he could not see out, as the ceiling became complete as the
two overhangs snapped together, blocking out all light except that which came
through the back of the cave. As the man continued, the floor rose gradually,
and the ceiling, although he could not see it, gradually fell. The water kept
on rolling over the rocks in its amazing journey up the floor. The opening
behind disappeared, and the traveler was left in darkness. The world smelled
of mold and his feet echoed on the rock. The sound of his breath seemed to
rush like the waves of the ocean in his ears.
He stumbled forward. His elbows stuck out to feel for the wall
as he could see nothing. The toe of his boot caught on a crack, and he took a
quick unsteady step forward to avoid crashing to the ground. His boot came
back to the floor with a clunk that echoed forward and backward. The man took
each step slowly, feeling for a change in the height of the floor, trying to
protect himself from tripping, tumbling to the floor, and becoming lost in the
dark, turned around and going the way he had come. He did not want to find
himself back at the tunnel's opening, looking back into the canyon, hearing the
drums that much closer.
Each step was slow and clumsy, his boot hitting the floor long
before or after he thought it should so that each step resounded off the hard
rock walls. Any creatures living in this cavern would know that he was there.
He would not be hard to hunt with his ragged breathing and heavy foot. Once he
even ran into the wall as the cavern must have gently changed directions. The
hard stone slapped the man in the face so that his nose was scraped and started
to bleed. He almost dropped the package he was carrying in his surprise. One
hand had already gone back to grab the hilt of his sword before he realized it
would only be the cavern wall he was attacking.
Suddenly, the fugitive was back in the light, a bright demanding
light that robbed him of his sight. He stood in a small hollow. The floor
gradually fell from where he stood to create a sandy bowl. The stream
continued its way down the side of the bowl, racing past the stunned figure
until it came to rest in a clear pool that stood in the center of the room,
where there was a small section where the floor flattened.
Birds cooed, an owl hooted, rabbits and mice could even be seen
racing for a corner. Small, gnarly trees grew around the little stream,
creating a bench for the traveler to sit on. The stream was by now clean and
clear. It was cool, and as the traveler let it pass down his throat, he forgot
about the horrible landscapes he had left behind him. This stream was made
drinkable for animals and people after being filtered over the stones.
His skin and eyes were so dehydrated that it burned as the water
ran over his hide. Then it came back to him. The horrible throbbing of the
drums. A slow pounding. It rang through the tunnel he had just come through,
echoing off the walls and into this oasis, filling it with a slow dull throb.
Quickly filling his water canteens, he looked around. Beyond
the stream and trees lay grass that grew in tufts up against the rock mountain
walls of the oasis. Directly in front of the tunnel through which he had come
and through several yards of prairie grass lay another tunnel opening. It was
an extension of the tunnel through which he had already passed. Running into
it, he left the oasis behind, already a foggy image, a distant memory in his
troubled mind.
The ceiling and floor continued to grow closer, but now the
walls also started to fall inward. The man felt as if the cavern was trying to
swallow him, like it was going to eat him. Inside his mind screamed for him to
race the other direction, back towards the oasis. Here the weight of the rock
above him began to push against his back. He could feel in his mind the tons
of rock that could shift slightly, barely making a impact in the mountain's
height and shape. But only a simple slip in the fibers of the rock would be
needed to fill this tunnel, crushing him and burying his package.
He had faced ancient demons, little devils and ancient warriors
and magicians who had been dead for ages. And yet he would be crushed below a
mountain that had stood for ages, the man thought ironically. No, this
mountain has been here for generations. It is not coming down now, he thought
sternly, forcing his feet to move forward.
Then it sat before him. A door only about four feet high and
two feet wide sat in front of him. Outlined by solid stones, each resembling a
human skull in torment, the formidable opening beckoned like a beacon to
death. Now he remembered why his mind tried to force him to rush back to the
oasis. It had not been the shrinking tunnel. It was this black pit, this void.
Nothing in it but a world that tried to push his mind in every way conceivable.
He could not remember anything in this pit that he had been able to touch, to
feel on his way through it the first time. But he remembered coming out, his
nose and ears bleeding, unable to see, crawling and gasping for air. But as
the throb of the drums echoed down the corridor, the fear of what lay behind
drove him onward. Through the black opening he rushed, not thinking, not
looking, not breathing. He accepted what waited for him in the darkness ahead.
