The Boy, Going Down the Road Part 3.
Chapter 26: The Boy, Going Down the Road Part 3.
Somewhere Lost in the Dream...
Harry had traveled for many days after the incident with the strange man whose tongue he had cut out and possibly killed by either blood loss or bonfire if his writhing had sent him rolling into one.
As he walked, he considered to himself what he felt having possibly killed a man.
He supposed that he was expected to feel bad about taking a life, and some part of him had been...disturbed a bit, maybe, but most of that disquiet came more from how quickly and easily he had done it without second thoughts and without regret more then anything. Some part of him reasoned that he should feel...something, some sort of moral objection perhaps, but all Harry could feel was relief that he had killed the bastard before he had killed him, so Harry eventually just decided to focus on that fact and eventually shrugged it off. There was no point in dwelling on it. Harry was defending himself, that should be good enough reason and moved on.
The grass lands eventually gave way to scraggly bushes, which gave way to hot desert sand. It was so hot in fact that, as he moved steadily what he thought was West, (it was hard to tell as the sun seemed to be rising and setting from different directions each time).
Eventually, the desert gave way from golden sands to golden grasslands and bush, giving a sort of vague impression of an early golden summer setting.
One day when he was enjoying a lunch break with a meat pie from his dwindling supplies, he spotted a passing group of Emu wearing boots to protect their feet...Wait...
Harry froze and stared after them, rubbing his eyes.
Yes, his eyes weren’t deceiving him, he was quite sure that those giant deadly birds were in fact wearing dusty wellingtons.
Grumbling, Harry continued on, and when he spotted a flock of birds flying backwards, he decided that for his own peace of mind he would just keep moving forward and not think about it to closely (1).
Ooo ooo ooo
A few hours later, just as it was finally beginning to cool, the golden setting gave way to cooler tones of greys and blues and brief patches of green. Harry felt relieved when he left the strange fowls and occasional giant barns he spotted from a distance that he decided to ignore since they were off the path and looked like it would take a solid month to round the perimeter of each building, He let out a glad cry when he spotted a waterhole directly on his path.
Harry carefully checked the surrounding area, but didn’t spot anything of notice, and gladly fell down on the rocky shore and dunked his head into the blessedly cool fresh water, groaning in relief.
When he was relativity cooled, he picked his head out of the water and eyed the path. It stopped the edge of shore then continued on the opposite end some hundred feet across.
It wasn’t a particularly large swim, and Harry reasoned that he was likely still going to be on the path if he kept swimming roughly in-line between the two ends of the path. Harry nodded to himself, and began to strip.
Once all his cloths were off and stored away, Harry set his pack on top of his head and wadded out into the water yipping slightly at the cold, before his body got used to the temperature and felt quite refreshing. He even splashed his back with his tail happily as he traversed the short distance. He swam for a bit, using the excuse of the water in his path to finally take the chance to bath. It felt good to be clean!
He was just nearing the other end of the water hole, enjoying himself, when out from the concealing leaves of a Gum tree, a large blood red lizard with numerous spikes on its back jumped to the ground and ran up to the shore, waving its scaly arms yelling at him.
“Hey you! Get out of there!”
Alarmed, Harry floated a bit backwards, that just seemed to make the odd creature more frantic.
“Are you blinkerd!? Don’t go in deeper! Get your giblets out of there before...!”
Harry felt his back bump into something.
Harry slowly turned his head to find two large bulging milky white eyes staring at him from a mass of scales, fur, and an open maw big enough to swallow him whole (2).
Harry yelled and swam like he had never swam before as the creature opened its maw and began sucking up all the water with such force that Harry could feel himself being dragged backward in the current.
He would have gotten sucked in regardless if the red spiky lizard person hadn’t let loose with a boomerang, knocking the creature away just long enough for Harry to scramble to shore.
The attacking creature let out an unholy shriek, rubbing its prominent snout before it sank back beneath the water, muttering curses.
“Well, your lucky,” The lizard commented as it caught its boomarang, stowing it at his hip in a leather belt.
Harry wheezed, “how was I lucky? I nearly got eaten by a water monster!”
“Yeah, well your alive aren’t you? That and that particular Bunyip is a lazy sort, or it would have come out after you.”
Harry eyed the deceptively placid looking waterhole and thought to himself that yes, he was lucky.
Later that same day, Harry invited his rescuer to join him for a bracing cuppa, and the lizard agreed, though suggested that they retire to his campsite which was fortunately along the path. As Harry made tea and the two settled in around the campfire as the sun chose to set (in the North this time), The lizard introduced himself as Oolah (3).
Oolah was on a journey of redemption. He described how one day, while he had been practicing with his boomarang to stave off his boredom, he had been visited by Galah, a beautiful bird that Oolah admitted he became rather enamored of from a distance over time. In an effort to show off, he’d added an extra twist to his release of this boomarangs and in the process on the return, accidentally sliced the top of Galah’s head off.
Oolah had been horrified by what he had done and frightened by the maddened agony of his infatuation, and unable to cope had run and hid under a bush. Galah had followed him and attacked him in his hiding place, seizing him and rolling him in the stiff thorns until they punctured deep into his back, still maddeningly, horribly shrieking.
When Galah had finally died, Oolah in his sorrow and remorse had painted himself in the blood from the wound and taken on the colour as a permanent part of himself, turning red. The spines he was cursed to forever carry in his back.
His actions had caused strife between their two tribes, and to appease Galah’s grieving parents, he was banished. Since then he had been looking for a way to atone for what he had done, sometimes working as a servant for one of the various denizens of the Dream, sometimes saving the odd hapless fellow like Harry from danger and so forth.
The two continued to converse long into the night, until they both retired for a companionable sleep.
When Oolah had awoken the next morning, it was to find that Harry had already left, but in a small envelop, Harry had left a message and a peach pit.
I can’t say that I can related to what you have been through, but I think your a good person (lizard person?). I think that this Gallah person you cared for would have agreed with me.
When you believe it to, plant this seed and eat the fruit from its branches. I hope it helps.
Harry.
Ooo ooo ooo
The landscape soon began to become rockier and Harry was very much wishing he could fly right about now, while at the same time thankful for those times he had ignored his flight capabilities to rock climb.
It wasn’t long until Harry realized that he found himself trying very hard not to get lost in what had to be the largest most complicated maze-like canyon he’d ever had the misfortune to not be able to fly over.
The path continued to take him deeper and deeper into the heart of jutting stone, bottomless pits, and gleaming minerals of all shades and colours, muted by dusting of shadows, thick and thin, as the sunlight was blocked by the rock.
There were other things in this place instead of rock.
Flashes of gold high in the sky often caught his eye. Giant Eagles with gold and white plumage bigger then a bus circled lazily over head. A few of them would occasionally spot Harry’s movements and dive at him, lethal talons extended, and Harry had been forced time and again to squeeze himself in whatever shelter he could and wait for the bird to lose interest before moving on (4).
At one point, the path gone in the direction of a cave opening. Harry had been relieved by not having to worry about the giant birds, but not long venturing steadily inwards, he began to notice movement on either side of him in the inky darkness just out of reach of his flashlight.
A sweep of the beam and Harry’s heart nearly stopped in startled fear when he spotted a bunch of tall, exceptionally then bipedal creatures that watched him eerily from crevices deep within the stone. Fortunately they didn’t seem bothered by him, but if he ventured to close open or two would swipe at him with a racket-like club and Harry would correct himself (5).
It was extremely creepy and he was almost glad to go back to worrying about giant golden eagles when he stepped back out into the dim sunlight.
The only other odd thing he encountered during his stint through the maze was the evidence of other people who had stumbled into this place.
This was from the presence of two skeletons in raggedy remains of what had once been nice old fashioned white dresses, clutching at each other, resting in a shallow hole just along side the path (6).
The only clue Harry had to who they had been was a golden locket that was dangling from a sharp jut of rocks at the edge of the hole. When Harry picked it up, an inscription on the inside read:
To my Dearest Miranda, Yours Sara.
There was a faded picture of a group of girls standing outside a school house dressed in white frilly turn of the 20th century cloths. Harry pulled out a small knife and carefully etched a series of symbols into the casing in the off chance that the spirits of the girls might be hanging around, and gently set the locket back where he had found it.
That sobering sight was the marker to the other side of the rocky canyon and he exited the place with no small amount of relief.
ooo ooo ooo
Sometime later...
At the edge of a forest a stocky bright red creature that looked like a cross between a devil and a toad snored contentedly under the shade of its favorite hunting tree.
The creature shifted slightly in its sleep, snores loud in the lazy warmth of an afternoon sun. Out of the bushes another just like the first creature stumbled out, clutching its belly and looking distinctly ill. The ill creature shook the former awake, who squinted beady round eyes open in annoyance at the disturbance to its nap.
“Now why did you have to go and wake me then?” the first creature grumbled in annoyance, yawning. “I’m sleeping off a Crocodile I ate for Breakfast you know.”
“I think I’ve gone and done it Larl,” The ill one groaned, “I’ve eaten something poisonous this time I know it.”
Larl rolled his eyes, “We’re Yara-ma-yha-who Prag, there’s not much that upsets the stomach of one of us, so stop going all hypochondriac on me and leave me to my nap” (7).
He was about to do just that when all of a sudden, his companion let out a horrible screech, and Larl’s eyes snapped open and his own screech filled the small wooded glade of fig trees as he beheld a bloody hand with a sharp dagger sticking out of the red bloated stomach.
Larl remained frozen, pressed against a tree trunk as one arm became two and were joined by a gasping head, then with a wet pop! A fully formed naked body covered in blood and digestive fluids burst out of the twitching corpse.
Larl immediately became so horrified and nauseated by the sight, that he regurgitated his own dinner. A dazed crocodile staggered away on stubby legs.
“Bloody hell!” Harry grumped, can’t a bloke enjoy a bath without some arse head trying to eat him?” The pre-teen stomped away, muttering curse words back to his camp.
The rest of the time in the small glade, Harry was left conspicuously alone.
ooo ooo ooo
Harry was thirsty, but then again, who wasn’t around this place?
The path had lead him to a vast dry riverbed so wide he could barely see the other end of it. Or at lest he thought it might have been an impressive river once, as it was so dried up, the bottom was cracked and peeling red clay interspersed with the bone white skeletons of fish, crocodiles, and things Harry was rather glad to not see alive.
The path when directly over the edge and directly through the heart of it, so shrugging, Harry hitched his bag and set off.
It wasn’t a quarter of the way across when his skin began to dry, and his tongue felt like sandpaper.
Gasping, he pulled out a bottle of water from his pack and opened the top to take a drink, only before the water could touch his lips, it suddenly vanished.
Harry tried moist fruit, a can of soup, but as soon as it was opened, all moisture was immediately sucked away.
By the time Harry was barely half way across, his lips were cracked and even the blood that welled evaporated.
Harry staggered and fell to his knees gasping in thirst. Harry was beginning to wonder if he was going to die in this place.
Then the ground began to rumble, and the rumbling grew in greater vibration. Something huge was moving in his direction. It wasn’t long before the sun was blocked out. Harry looked up and up blurrily as a large round green bolder the size of the Eiffel tower rolled in his direction.
As it rolled, it made a thunderous SLOSH-SLOSH sound as if a tidal wave were about to hit.
Harry didn’t have the energy to move, knowing it would be fruitless anyway, considering the boulder's sides bulged out on either end of the river, he would never make it.
The giant green bolder didn’t continue to roll though. It stopped a foot from Harry’s bent over form.
Harry blinked when he came eye to eye with a bulbous face. In fact, now that he had a closer look at it, the surface of the green bolder looked more scaly skin then rock. He could even see two front webbed feet sticking out from below the face.
This was no bolder but a giant frog!
The creature’s face sat ridiculously small in proportion to its giant body, like a tiny zit on one’s face. Then the creature opened its mouth and began to make sucking noises. Humid air erupted around Harry and he could even distinguish little droplets of water and he realized that the creature was sucking away the very moisture from his body!
His keen mind whirled. He pulled his last sealed bottle of water and opened the cap. Sure enough, the creature made greedier sucking noises and the water instantly disappeared into its gullet, confirming his assessment of his latest “oh-shit!” situation.
Harry knew he needed to do something quick before he was turned into a raisin. But what could he do against a giant moisture sucking frog?
Harry poked the frog hesitantly.
The green skin bent inward like a water balloon. The giant frog seemed unbothered, more interested in sucking moisture out of the air.
What he needed to do, Harry mused along the lines of that comparison, was pop this giant balloon.
He was just considering how best to do that, when his poking, about an inch below one of the stubby front legs, caused the frog to stop sucking. It made a disturbed croaking noise and Harry was startled with a face full of water.
Harry gaped, spluttering. He was dry quickly though when the frog then began sucking inwards again, re-absorbing the moisture it had lost.
Harry experimentally poked the spot again and the same thing happened, only this time Harry was able to discern a clear, brief, giggle.
Harry was hit with an utterly ridiculous idea, but at the moment he had no choice. Shrugging, because he had nothing better to lose, he reached up with both hands and began to tickle the giant frog under the arms.
The double, sustained onslaught was to much for the frog who let loose with uncontrollable laughter.
A wall of water descended on him and Harry knew no more after that.
An hour later...
Harry groaned as he came to. He froze when he found himself looking up into the faces of a wide variety of animals. Eagles, swans, Platypus, Buffalo, Wild horses, Koala’s, etc. On his chest, perched a large stern looking owl.
“You are very lucky creature-not-of-here, we thought you dead, whoo-whoooo!” the owl spoke.
Harry made a mental note to add Owls to his no-eat list, and replied, a little dazedly, “Yeah, a frog laughing up a tidal wave will do that to a person.”
“We the various tribes of this area are in your debt. Every time we have been dealing with Tiddalik (8) and his water draining ways, we have had to come up with newer and newer material to make him laugh to release the water. I have to admit, for all my wisdom, I did not think of tickling, whooo.”
The others chimed in their appreciation. The owl claimed that they had found his body down river and had pulled him out. They had thought him dead at first, for surely how could one lone human boy survive something like that?
Harry had to agree. How had he survived that?
No one had an answer to that, and after refilling his water bottles, Harry was guided back to the path by his helpful and grateful rescuers and continued on his journey.
Ooo ooo ooo
The next place Harry found himself in was hard to describe. Mainly because it was overcast, dim and covered in thick fog.
His flashlight didn’t do much to cut through the mist, and he pulled out his favourite staff, keeping it at the ready.
It was disturbingly quiet where he was as well. He didn’t hear the chatter of speaking and non-speaking animals. No wind through leaves or bone brittle branches.
The path was smooth before him as well. Flat without any accent to denote soil, incline or even loose stone. All there was was the hint of waist high ash grey grass on either side of him.
Nothing rustled, nothing moved, and as he traversed. Harry’s heart thundered loudly to his ears in his chest, his body was so stiff with tension that he could feel his bones and muscles creak as he moved. His breath barely fell past his lips, lungs feeling goggled with cold anticipation, like being caught on the verge of a ready scream.
Each to loud scrap foot fall forward was a subtle jab in waiting for something to happen.
Only...nothing did.
By the end of it, Harry couldn’t understand why nothing had happened, and wished during his trek that something would, because that...that had been the most terrifying experience of his life, and yet, looking back on it years later, he could not describe exactly why he had been afraid in the first place.
ooo ooo ooo
When Harry finally cleared the last wisps of fog, it was, to his surprise, to find an old run down looking castle sat at the base of a mountain. Great black birds cawed random bits of gossip at each other:
“Cawwww! Good worms to the south! Caaaw!”
“Caaaaw! New chicks to feed never stop wailing! Caaaww!”
“Ca-ca-ca-caaaw! So that’s why you look tuckered then! Ca-ca-ca.”
Harry’s followed the path’s steadily rising trail up and upwards still, and he groaned when he saw that the doorway of the castle sat directly in front of it, the path disappearing inside.
“Well damn,” he sighed, imagining all sorts of potential creepy-crawlies investing the walls.
All to soon he found himself before to door. He debated knocking on the slightly rotted wood, but to his consternation and no little amount of trepidation, the door opened, though without the creak he had been expecting.
From what he could see of the interior, it was worn down, and dusty in spots, but not as dilapidated as the outside appeared. In fact, there was even a cozy looking little light in the distance. Harry shivered as a waft of warmth trailed over his mist dampened cloths, reminding him of just how cold it was outside.
“Well are you just going to stand there all day or are you going to come in already?” a gruff voice grunted.
Harry jumped at the sudden surprising voice and looked down to find a scruffy brown dog with a creamy white muzzle.
“Well?” the dog said testily.
“Er, sure if you don’t mind,” Harry replied and slipped past the door, not feeling reassured when it closed silently behind him, the click of the lock loud in his ears.
Harry hesitantly followed the canine, hand gripping his staff tightly.
The dog lead him into a sitting room that was just as old and worn as the castle, but was warm and well used. There before a warm fireplace near by a rug to which the dog unceremoniously flopped onto, was a thin old man with wild grey hair, large ears, and patchy ragged robes. Then the man spoke.
“ When people told themselves their past with stories, explained their present with stories, foretold the future with stories, the best place by the fire was kept for The Storyteller ,” (9) the man beckoned with a hand, and out of nowhere another faded though comfortable looking easy chair appeared before the fire, beckoning him to sit, “though I admit, I am usually the one who bares that title and that empty spot kept courtesy for my potential arrival at any fireside, it is so rarely that the roles are reversed.”
Harry took a hesitant seat, and leaning against his staff eyed the other curiously. At first he had thought him a man, perhaps another who had been unceremoniously swallowed by a giant snake and dumped in this place, but as he observed the man, pottering around with a kettle and a few slices of bread with cheese roasting by the edge of the fire being set into plates, he noticed that there was something in the shape of the large ears, the fold of skin along the temples, the ease of movement despite his seeming advanced age...or was it advanced? There was something ageless about him at the same time.
His host handed him cheese bread and a cup of exceptionally strong coffee.
Harry, who was down to the last dregs of food from his stock pile and been subsisting with the occasional berries (to afraid to hunt anything here because apparently here all the animals talked).
Harry took the offered food gratefully, though made sure to keep an eye on the man’s hands the entire time and made sure the man began eating and drinking first before he dove in.
Noticing this, The Storyteller mused, “You must have man interesting stories your self to wear such caution when dining with another.”
Harry shrugged, “I’ve not really been poisoned or anything like that, but I’ve sat around sketchy fires as well as friendly.”
The man raised an interested eyebrow, “My, my, what an eventful life you must lead.”
Harry hummed, “I guess that’s one way to look at it. Considering how I got here in the first place.”
“Oh?”
“Swallowed by a giant snake actually. I’m trying to get to this place called The Great Stairs, I was told by a pair of parakeets that it was the only way I could get back to where I came from.”
“How long have you been travelling the path laid out before you?” his host asked curiously.
Harry chewed thoughtfully then replied “I...am not sure. There are times where it feels like only a few days have past, then there are times where I feel as if it has been years.”
“That is the nature of dreaming young traveller. We can dream entire lifetimes in the space of a few breaths, or dream our entire lives away while awake without doing anything at all. That is the nature of The Dream.”
Harry frowned thoughtfully. It didn’t make much sense to him.
“Imagination is the fodder and will of dreaming you see. Fodder to which our unconscious will exerts over our conscious one like a sneak thief in the dark, and in tides of forces that wax and wane, dawn and set. Will is the agency of Consciousness, the will, whether mad or sane, to enact possibilities and either leave them harmless fancies, or attempt to make them real to suit our day to day needs and goals.”
Harry’s frown deepened as his mind pondered the words, then his brow cleared and he stared at the man with something between doubt and horror, “Are you saying that the only reason I haven't reached The Great Stairs is because I...but that’s just silly!”
“No one says dreaming is entirely sensible,” The Storyteller intoned dryly.
“But then...that would mean that...this entire time that I have been wandering around this place, following an endless path through danger after danger, was because I...did this to myself?!” the last was a horrified squeak.
The dog chortled from around his bone.
Harry slumped back in the chair nearly faint with his outrage.
“You subconsciously expected to face hardship and trial, and the Dream gave you exactly what you wanted, taking you along the path that you set yourself, brick by brick.”
“But the parakeet brothers told me I needed to follow the path to get to the Great Stairs!” Harry exclaimed.
“True, but then everyone walks a path in this place, and like many heroes that you heard in stories, you were afraid to venture away from the road, head forward, not looking back like Orpheus, for fear of losing the face of what you desire. But sometimes stories, as dear as they are, can be right for some and wrong for others.” (10).
The man leaned forward, and meant Harry’s eyes, “What if I were to tell you that should you leave the path, which in your case conveniently twists into my sitting room and right through my fireplace,” he gestured to the visible line of discoloration between Harry’s path and the dusty stone floor, which lead, sure enough, directly into the roaring flames, before he pointed towards an arch filled with darkness completely off the path at the far end of the room.
“You could continue to follow this path, yo uface the flames head on as is expected for young unsure protagonists. You may or may not burn, and afterwards if you do not, it may even lead you there, eventually I suppose, and perhaps you wont get burned along the way, or perhaps you will. Or you can step off the path, shun the heroic expectations, and go through that arch and be at your destination in but a blink, or you could fall to your death, or merely find a messy kitchen in desperate need of a good wash.”
The dog stopped chewing on his bone with interest as he watched their visitor get hesitantly to his feet and stared down at the edge of the path. Harry looked at the path towards the fire, then the looming arch.
Then the two watched as their guest seemed to struggle for a moment, almost leaning towards the direction of the flame, before hesitating, then slowly turning away and took a step off the path and set about purposefully walking away from it.
To his surprise though, instead of going through the arch, the boy instead paused half way, turned a sharp left, and without further ado, he thanked The Storyteller for his hospitality, gave him a peach, and climbed out of a nearby window.
The dog cocked his head in confusion, “What just happened? I thought for sure he would go through the arch.”
The Storyteller however lay the peach aside looking pleased, scratching his companion behind the ear and said “The paths we take my friend can either be laid for us, either by what we think is expected of us or by others, or we can lay our own. The window was never an option, but it was truly his choice.”
The dog grumbled, returning to his bone.
The Storyteller smiled again, pulling out a pipe and settled in for a relaxing smoke before bed.