Dunes
Even the fire finds in the sand its apprentice. Born to love us ever more. For even conquerors were wrought in dimness of light, born in blood and befriended the fire’s spark, without knowing the Sun, so they become the Second coming of one, no silenced or bound to be ever so. Illuming the world. They were going back, they are sprinting throughout the rich expanses, the belted regions and girdled reaches. Banded by the hemmed bounds of the unreachable and elusive lengths of the beauty that is untouched, that is unmarred, unblemished with nothing but the silence of the calmness, there was no more doubt, and if there was any misgiving, it was only the shortcoming of someone who didn’t learn to trust his instincts, and he did trust them now, Celegorm was sensing it, from the start, that it was something in the dune and its bottomless grains. But he didn’t react to it, until now, when it was time to swirl around.
To reel the memory back into himself, yes, it was the thumping sound, it was the clinking into the vastness that knew immensity, and the hugeness that never understood any powerlessness, yes, it was following, and that something was larger than life. Huan was still and dutiful, stoically going through all what his Master would tell him or steer in some other directions. They were coping fleetingly, but what will happen tomorrow? If it catches them upon their sleep? Hm, something was off and that off is what bothered them both. Celegorm got down, in his hunter gear, full and ready, he was the reflected silver beauty that is opposing the golden shine of the dune’s smaller hills, barrows and varying mounds. From the gloved hands, to the silvered armguards that are sashed with the patterned threads of the stringy and pearling singing of the needlework, around the stalwart waistband that is gilded by the inlaid gems, to the clasped and armored chest of the crested emblems, to the faceguarding suit for the manly niceness of the man, the son of the Spirit of Fire that consumes life when it is intended and the one that shall forever stay the Soul of the Flame, the very Ghost to Jon Snow. His son, and his child shall be the one that continues where the Sire halts, all is tied up, and only then he could see it, without any flowed cape or the cloaked plume, but with what he was here and presently, with the hunter’s boots under his guise.
He was the Huntsman that could recognize another one when it was shadowed by them. It was the one unalike any others, and just to be clear with it, the assassins are not hunters, they do hunt only their bounties and the prizes in what people may do after their work is done, but the truest of all Hunters, they hunt slow, they chase with the goal and the forbearance, as well as the collected and composed soundlessness, and it doesn’t matter for how long it will take, they know, that soon or before, it shall manifest, for that time, they must be braced for the impact. It shall be glorified one.
Huan could take it on himself. It was the veteran of the finest, old timer.
- What do you say, my old friend? – It is suspicious, and dubious, but nothing that we cannot handle. – It is maneuvering at first, and then, under, it goes with manipulating the sands of the higher hills, over there, those hillsides. It never travels without firstly being under one of those, and then, it is sliding down, going promptly and speedily, and up and down, aloft, and again, it is someplace between the middle portion to the rational rations of the bigger hummocks, then, it is going in even deeper. – What could that be? – The question is, can you take it down upon yourself? – Sure, why not. It isn’t the size that matters, the bigger they are, the harder they do fall, but what kind of technique it shall employ.
- Do you sniff it, is it famished or it is the sport? – Well, we were asking for some sport, didn’t we? Until we didn’t become one. – Oh, what satire of the life, it is something that it was ensuing ever since, and something that does follow me from my childhood. I am in love with it. – Tell me about it. – This is the desert scape, this is its playground, and we are only the guests. – Visitors is the better choice to be. – Hm, let us look around. – Why don’t you mount me? It is safer this way. – No, there is something that is immersing my attention, and I want to be prepared, as much as possible. – For some dream-like state? – Why not? After all, all dreams are the messages from the depths of our Higher Selves, why would this be anyhow different? We have no chance in getting this creature if we do not open ourselves to the inevitable. – Oh well – Huan’s own coat was the glistening majesty across the desert lands and the wondrously circled terrains of sands – if you say so, I do not sound myself lately. – You were a horse.
- The longest shape shifting ever. Just do not do it ever again, I would rather be the domestic dog than some other animal. – Horses are noble. – You are ruining the mood.
- This is the only way. – We will be eloping. – And we shall be groomed for it! These aren’t the glazed streets which are reflecting the moonlight, radiated beauties of orient or the baldachins of the Far East, these are the wilds and the wastes, and even some marshlands from the deeps of the fata morganas.
- So, waiting?
- There it is – he dropped himself down, closing his eyes, letting it come – just stay where you are, and I am perfectly persuaded that the sand creature shall exhibit itself.
- You are so certain of it?
- Unquestioned.
- Here goes nothing then – placing the monstrous head upon his furry paws, if someone should see him, he or she would be stupefied by a weighing size of Valinor Wolf, whose padded waistline was a bulk of monstrosity, so, it was surreally improbable, and not to opine of how the life was so much altered from the earlier transmutations, flowing even through these wastelands, for even deserts had more green than the rest of the world, yes, you cannot juxtapose it with any age that has passed away, this was the newly fangled one, and this one, featured and figured is to stay. The 4th one, when right away, something was transpiring. The smaller bump, and where is one, there is another one, the hump that is humping itself as though it was the serpent without wings, the great and the omnipotent, it was unearthly to see it in such a way.
He trailed it, tracking with his eyes of the wolf, they ate well, they brought enough for the half of the year, but still, the wolf’s ravenous hunger was in the great appetite, it was prevailing everything what he knows, the wolfing hungriness for the hunt. And after the trailing tiny bump, the other chunk and the other lumps were being camouflaged under the heavy sands of the dune hillsides. Till it wasn’t becoming huger and huger, it was even more than just larger than life, the absolute mouth was gulping down everything in its way. Huan was up, and so is his Elf.
- Fast, Celegorm, fast! – he lunged himself in the miraculous leap, measured in the atrocious sizing, Celegorm was on him, and both of them were sensing that underneath them, the whole sand mountains were moving themselves, and little by little, the head of the lobworm was in the spectacular dance opened wide, scheming to have them wholly, within its intrinsic tissues, inherently are embroidered the blood holders within the veins and lodes which were making the looping framework of the sizeable and grandiosely framed worm that was the King of Dunes like no other, and they had just encroached on the forbidden region of the unremembered zones.
It was magnificently impossible not to see it as something that has awoken just to have them glutted and digested with the entire bite that would be the panoramic and pleasing spectacle of the centuries.
To be ingested into the gizzard of the monstrously molded creatures of the dune sands.
Celegorm was holding fast and his dear Wolf is galloping through the nebulous extents of the indistinguishable scopes which couldn’t be depicted anyhow, but like the avalanching of the grains and its seeds, it was raining the sand, it was sieving him through it, and Huan had bounced as if he were the butterfly, right at the monster sized worm that was having its venom infused with the toxins of its membrane’s tunica.
Huan opens his jaws and he let out the high-powered surge of the bluish breath, it was blowing the ice crystals from its mouth, and in doing so, it was sedating and subduing the King of Dunes that had to close its widened cavern of the worlds and went deeper into the sand rivers which were moving alongside the complete shaking grounds, it was beastly to hear how it was quaked by the Earth’s tremors, and the sounds along with the moon like callings were sealing itself into the heartbeats of those who had listened. The shuddering of the dessert scape was something which Celegorm will never forget, Huan has done his duty, it was his, and through the channeled magic, they had foisted the King of Dunes to changes its trajectory, it was having another course, the other route, and it was bringing down the full dune hillocks beneath its rumbling horrors. It was the terror day, the one which he could never forget even if he wants it. The fearfulness of the stressed exertion made him anxious, something he never should feel as the Elf, but he did. Catching his breath as if he were the one who had to do the hardest, he only finished it, leaving him and Huan as victors. They could feel relieved, yet that is temporal, an ephemeral sensation that had no place in their conspiracies and intrigues of plotting their elopement, King of Dunes saw them as prey.
He glanced at Huan, who was as calm as the storm that is brewing from afar, brewing its thundering, rolling tentacles, it wasn’t over, it shall manifest as long as they remain, they will have to travel ever faster, he petted him, but this time, Huan didn’t lean into the touch, he merely grunted. He was displeased with himself. He undervalued the sand creature, he would never think, in hundreds of years, that he would come upon it, unto the being that had not bounds and had no rims upon its bloodcurdling and macabre-like beauty, it was grotesque indeed, as expected, but nothing like this, the silence was shared in between, there were no words, neither they were needing ones. Whatever they would phrase, it would be only less, for trails which it has left in its waking hour, could transmute the worlds upon the worlds, and the King of Dunes wouldn’t even beam about it, it would be the Vanquisher of Death, there is that legend of the Water of LIFE!
*
- What do you say about this? – Elf was still breathless after using his elvish magic to navigate the sand creature away from them. – Let us just say, this is the first time, I did fear for our lives.