Chapter 6

"We will get back."

"Well that's what you keep saying. Is it that difficult to accept the fact that we are now, thanks to your efforts, terminally lost?"

Hilderich was picking ineffectually at the withering bark of a large oak-like tree. The tree was slowly turning into ash, returning into the dirt one very small piece at a time. Hilderich was quite fascinated by what he was seeing all around him and that was probably why he had not broken down in hysterical cries since their mishap.

Which was also why he could blame Amonas for their predicament in a steady, calm, and somewhat detached distant tone of voice. Half his mind was infuriated close to bursting, because Amonas seemed to have had inadvertently stranded them somewhere. The other half of his mind was trying to make connections between the flora and fauna of the place they had found themselves in, and the various curatoria he believed he could remember having some kind of relation in part or in whole.

Indirectly this was Hilderich's way of coping with the problem in hand, partly to offset his mind and unburden it from the stress and the anxiety as well as what he had learned to consider generally counter-productive emotions.

On top of that he was actually trying to help in his own lateral way by trying to identify anything he might be able to. His efforts were based on the various curatoria he had studied or seen in his unfortunately short and, recent events not withstanding, uneventful apprenticeship. It seemed that apart from superficial resemblances and some generic common traits, he had arrived at no particularly useful conclusion. 'For the time being, ' he reminded himself silently and thoughtfully.

Amonas was sitting at a partly exposed root of a gigantic tree he had trouble accepting that was real even though he had been sitting right there on the same spot for the better part of an hour in silent and thoughtful perplexity. Hilderich had spared little of the last hour trying to talk to Amonas, or simply take notice of the man's face. If he had, it would have been enough for even the most socially inept, slow-witted and sentimentally detached human to understand that Amonas was deeply troubled. In fact he looked morose, and it was not without good cause.

Insects abounded in this humid environment, the likes of which he had not known existed, not even in the southernmost bogs and marshes. Sweat poured from their bodies incessantly, making their every movement a sticky, messy business. It was the heat that really got to them. The heat of the desert combined with the the moisture of a lake or river. It was as if steam rose from the earth in a constant, endless motion.

They had seen no river whatsoever from the top of the hill where they had emerged, and had come upon no body of water in their blind search so far. The humidity and heat of the place was overwhelming though; Amonas had expressed the sound opinion that they should devote most of their time and effort into simply staying alive for the time being. He had objectified that into finding a source of clean, fresh water, preferably before nightfall. Water was not the only thing that occupied his mind though.

It buzzed incessantly with the same recurring thought; that all this was indeed his fault, and Hilderich had been right to accuse him. His initial purpose when pushing Hilderich into that infernal pillar of light, a machinery truly made in its makers image, was to force him to see the truth. It had not gone as planned.

The first time he himself had stepped through that beacon of light, he vividly remembered how he had been instantly transferred into a huge, deep cavern with walls of solid metal jutting out of the bedrock. He had wandered through a meandering labyrinth of large metal pipes, interconnections and all manners of weird machinery and constructs the likes of which he could not believe were made by mere men. They had to be the work of beings akin to Gods or their dutiful servants. The scenery around him was indeed as if it had been wrought out of the Mythos itself.

He had seen words in Helican Pretoria he had not seen before dangling in the air around him as if they had been stamped with a thick ink of light on a giant spider's gossamer web. He had seen visions of gruesome death, savagery and bloody toil, endlessly replayed as if it all was a theatrical stage, and he was the sole viewer. He had seen the likes of the Patriarch and the Castigator conspiring against the people, orchestrating deaths and mass executions as if people's lives were mere numbers on charts, maps and reports. And he had seen the Patriarch vanish and reappear, wielding strange instruments of unknown origin that would have been deemed utterly blasphemous. Instead, he had wielded them like tools intimately known and regularly used. Apart from dangerous and cunning wolves he knew them to be, he saw the extend of their lies and deceit.

He had seen many things he could not fathom and explain. He had needed Hilderich to do that for him. Uncover some idea of the workings behind all that, perhaps use something against the Patriarch and the Castigator. He had seen so much more he needed to forget as well but could not, in fact dared not forget, lest the hatred for their jailers and captors, those madmen, would diminish ever so imperceptibly. He found out he lacked the words to describe the sickening mob of rulers who moved freely about like a sickle does unto stalks of wheat.

No such euphemism like dictator or killer would really suffice to describe them completely. He felt like he would have to leave that to someone else, since in the end he might not be able to slit their throats in person as he would have liked.

Without knowing he seemed to have been gripping his knife from its blade so intensely that he had cut himself: a small rivulet of blood and sweat ran down his wrist, droplets of rosy red falling down onto the constantly wet ground. Ever thirsty and never quenched, be it blood, water or both, these new lands seemed to feed on a man's desperation and sweat. His focus returned to the immediate reality around them and felt the sagging weight of the situation.

He had to have faith in himself, he knew. He was a man of action and he had already decided to forfeit his life if it came to that. Others were capable of carrying out the same mission as he was supposed to. If he could not do so in the end, he only felt it was wrong for Celia and their unborn child. What would happen to them, if he were to perish?

She was strong of mind and will, that much he knew and was one of the many reasons he loved her so. But he could not so easily cast her adrift without a second thought; she had suffered such impropriety in her life already. He wouldn't be a man if he did not take her and their child into account. What misguided sense of duty could overcome his true purpose? A world and a future free of slaves in body and mind. No, he would not die in this place, he set his mind against that. He had a mission to do and a family to return to. He decided that all his thoughts from now on would form around these two things, and he'd cast out each shadow of a doubt like a drunkard from a barracks.

He looked up to the alien looking sky, so familiar but so different at the same time. He could remember his days of ignorance and blissful youth riding in the countryside, galloping fast and hard as if the world's end was rushing right behind him. The sky had a strange quality: a light blur or a haze of wonder. It looked as if it was merely a ceiling he could reach up and touch as long as he wished it hard enough.

He would keep his promises and find his way back, to make things right. He would free his fellow men. He would live his life anew, reborn, fresh and innocent as his firstborn would be.

He thought then that he had tarried on the matter for too long. It was time to act: they would secure any means of survival in this strange land and acclimatise themselves quickly. No one could know how long their journey back would take. They were completely lost, but he knew that nothing important ever happened on its own. They would have to have faith in themselves and their purpose, and anything would be possible.

Amonas thought to himself that it was Hilderich's purpose as well. He knew though that Hilderich could not have grasped the extend of the lies, deceit, and exploitation. His instincts and experience told him that he should be able to put Hilderich to some good use as well; the man who was a little older than a mere boy seemed to have some good qualities: he was smart and perceptive, suspicious but not predisposed, simple but not simple-minded. Amonas believed that Hilderich would do fine, that they would be fine.

There were some issues that defied explanations though and would probably be denied of one for a long time.

The suns seemed wrong, for starters, and that certainly said a lot about the grievousness of their situation. They appeared brighter than usual and smaller, the hue of its light a pale blue, as if a sickness had befallen it. That was what had caught their eye in the sky. But then there were the towers, or spirals, he wasn't sure how to describe them from all that distance. They seemed to be tall towers with double spires that seemed to form a roughly crescent shape, their base lost behind the thick foliage of the ever-present trees.

There seemed to be dozens of these huge constructs in regular intervals, as if an architect blessed with godly sight had deemed to place them all over the landscape which in itself was another peculiarity: as far as the eye could see the horizon was covered in shades of greenery, spotted in parts by yellow and red patches. It was as if there was nothing else to be found in these lands other than this hot and humid garden and its strange awe-inspiring structures. They sort of reminded him of giant bullhorns, if he had to describe them more plainly.

He had thought about broaching all these matters to Hilderich, but he decided against that for now. The detailed intricacies of their whereabouts, their actual location, the climate and topography of the region were merely academic issues if they could not provide them with a small shred of actual information that would lead them to somehow going back to Pyr, or any other recognizable place for that matter.

He was still absorbed in thought, his eyes piercing the tall canopy of thick foliage. The huge volume of the surrounding trees stood like rocky pillars between the sky and the ground. He was marvelling at their size when Hilderich literally slapped him back into the real world and felt his wet and sticky palm, his left cheek flushed red from the hit:

"Are you listening? Are you here? Gods help me, he was insane to begin with now he is catatonic! Amonas!"

Hilderich was shouting now, still thinking Amonas was day-dreaming or far worse, had finally lost his fragile mind. As he swung his hand back once more to deliver another slap, Amonas turned his head ever so lightly and looked him straight in the eye and simply said:

"Don't do that, please. No need. I must thank you, actually. I was thinking. I was, overly engrossed in thought I must admit. Were you calling out to me for long?"

Hilderich was genuinely surprised at such an ambivalent behavior. Had Amonas been catatonic he would never have responded and then he would have been left alone. With his survival skills and his latest round of luck, Hilderich was certain that he would have perished in this steamy cauldron. If Amonas was indeed mad, he would have probably gone berserk and snapped his neck like a twig in the best case scenario. It seemed now that he was neither. He had been simply, as strange as it seemed to Hilderich at the time, hard at thought.

He sat down in front of Amonas on the leaf strewn ground which was wet and muddy. A continuous hint of rotting vegetation waxed and waned in the faint wisps of air, a fitting reminder of what happens to idle life. Hilderich cleared his throat, toying around with a small branch, shooting idle looks at the ground before his feet. He asked with some reluctance:

"Amonas. This is real, right? This is not a trick, not some very elaborate way of forcing me to join whatever it is you meant to in the first place? Is it?"

Amonas bit his lip and outstretched his hands, an ornate ring of silver and copper catching the eyes of Hilderich for the first time. He seemed to draw some breath, and then paused briefly as if he intended to say otherwise before nodding in acceptance and telling Hilderich:

"It's real Hilderich. That is what has dragged me down in thought. I am sorry Hilderich, my intentions were quite different, and certainly did not involve both of us getting utterly lost, especially at such a moment in time. I know I have failed you so far Hilderich, so I will promise you nothing. I can only offer you my help in order to find a way home. We need to work on this together, whatever you might think of me so far. It was my fault, but I cannot undo it alone."

A bitter smile formed on his lips, and his head turned to look once more at the thick foliage, hoping to catch a glimpse of the strangely immaculate, perfectly cloudless sky.

When Amonas looked down again, he noticed Hilderich had fallen on his back giggling almost maniacally with his knees bent haplessly in a comical angle and his arms folded across his chest, clapping his hands vibrantly. Amonas face frowned quizzically. Hilderich's bizarre reaction to his statement had left him unable to understand or much less respond at all.

"You? You're offering to help me?"

Hilderich sat upright with his legs sprawled in a seemingly uncomfortable position, his hand pointing at his own face in sheer disbelief and his voice a falsetto. Suddenly his visage turned harsh and unforgiving, out of place with his normal self and then he raised an accusing finger at Amonas. He told him in a calm and studied manner, as if lecturing a lesser man of poor intelligence:

"Not to insinuate that you have done a very poor job so far, but please, indulge me. How can you ... Help me ... find a way home? Are you perhaps a magician like the ones that abound in the tales told to children? I think not, dear friend. If you were, then you would be in possession of a ridiculously cone-shaped hat. You would be talking gibberish even in your sleep, and you'd be constantly searching for your frog pills or something equally inane.

Another possible way in which you might be of help would be that you are in fact, a fallen angel of the Gods, who has yet to use his superlative powers in our favor because he is as ever trying to teach me a lesson in humility and religious awe, lest my soul be eternally condemned in the Catharterion, Damnation, the Twelve Wheels of Fire and so on. You seem to be missing the complimentary wings, shield, divine aura, and angelic face so I would say no, you can't help me like that.

I briefly considered that you might actually own this particular piece of land and are indeed dying to offload it to a dimwitted fool like myself who might mistake the extreme humidity, unbearable heat and overflowing vegetation for marshlands suitable for raising cotton, or something equally senile and outright dumb. Without trying to hurt your feelings or impede your vested interests in a manner most ungracious, I regret to inform you that I find your selling points lacking and will not be following up on your offer.

Now, unless I am mistaken in all of the above, and unless you are in possession of some pillar of light that does the opposite of what brought us here, I dare say we are properly doomed and good as dead and finished. Other more vulgar expressions pertaining to our present unfortunate situation come to mind, but I will not bring myself down to such inestimable depths of bad taste and linguistic ineptitude to use them like a debased wretch of lesser stature.

I will now formally state my predilections: one, that I wish to hang myself at the nearest opportune moment in order to escape further unneeded physical torment under these circumstances, and two, that I wish for my remains to be burned, as is customary under Law, even though I fail to see what a fat lot of good that would do."

All that Amonas could do, was blink wide-eyed at a loss for words. Hilderich was resting his hands on his knees cross-legged on the wet ground with an air of finality around him, as if he was a holy avatar that had just announced the end of the world.

Amonas shattered the uneasy silence with a question that was uttered in seemingly complete fascination. A glazed look of mock awe covered Amonas face and his gruff voice added tremendously to the intended comical effect:

"Are you sure you weren't studying to become a Minister?"

With that having being uttered they both broke down in hearty laughter, the strain of their situation and the accumulated fatigue almost vanishing as if washed clear away with one simple joke. An invigorating smile graced Hilderich's mouth before he answered in kind:

"Actually I had been thinking about it, but though I can handle the dramatics, I am not too keen on handing people over to the procrastinators for spilling oil or eating sugar on a Watchday."

Amonas thought there was a lot about Hilderich to muse over when time and circumstance would allow it, but there were other more pressing matters to attend to first.

"Hilderich, I'm sure we'll have quite some time to exchange tales and ideas. But we have to attend to our survival first. We will need fresh, drinking water. Something solid to eat, surely. Something that will not easily spoil in this heat and moisture. But our priority should be water. At the rate we sweat, we will surely suffer the most without it. And too soon for comfort, I would wager. And another thing I only now noticed. There's something peculiar about the shadows in this place."

Hilderich nodded, and then looked carefully around them at the barks of trees and small rocks and hanging green overgrowths. He looked at what one would call a glen if it weren't for the awfully wrong conditions and the green overarching roof made from ostensibly ancient tree branches. The canopy was a mosaic of green and brown hues, the greenish light of the sun adding an emerald glare to the columns of light that shot underneath where Hilderich could see the shadows standing still.

Indeed he noticed that the shadows had moved little or not at all since earlier. He couldn't be sure, but he knew it was at least strange and probably another indication that they were very, very, far away from home. He pointed at a broken log with his right hand, a tall outstretched branch casting its shadow on a peculiar half-gray, half-bleached stone.