My depression was still with me. Without my girl, I had little reason to carry on living. It seemed like a perfectly natural thing therefore to step over the dead giant and squeeze through the narrow passage into the valley of perils ahead.
The valley walls remained narrow and created a passageway that ran for perhaps twenty feet. The passageway ended in a chasm with a sheer drop of some fifty feet. There was a rope bridge spanning the chasm and I studied it and the drop below before deciding to attempt a crossing.
Something was moving down there and it took me a few minutes to figure out what I was seeing. Snakes! There were thousands of them, all coiling around one another in a single, seething mass.
Like most people, I thought there was something sinister and particularly nasty about reptiles. Snakes were probably the worst and I gave an involuntary shudder as I stared down at them.
The rope bridge looked rickety to say the least and I had no idea how old the braids actually were. There was a simple decision to be made. Go back the way I had come? Or take my chances with the bridge? I decided to take the risk and stepped out onto the bridge.
Visions of some of the adventure movies I had watched on TV sprang to mind and I expected the thing to snap at any moment. I was ready, poised to leap forward to grab whatever I could, just like the action heroes always did. The bridge didn't snap though. No, but something else happened.
I was nearing the midway point, the point of no return, when I heard a flapping noise above me. I had been so focused on the snakes that my eyes had looked only downwards, never up. Now I did snap my eyes upwards, and saw that fantasy had become reality.
Swooping towards me were two leathery, spiky, dragons! Real, live dragons. Dragons that were spouting flame from their snouts. Dragons that were diving towards me, clearly intent on frying me to a crisp.
There was no time for conscious thought (I was out of practise in that anyway) and I simply ran forward as fast as my feet would carry me.
The other side of the bridge looked much like what I had just left behind, a narrow passage. I threw myself forward, over the last six feet, and scrambled up the passageway. I was not a moment too soon.
Flames followed me as I crawled forward and I kept going as quickly as I could until I thought I was far enough away from the opening that the dragons couldn't reach me.
The passageway wasn't a tunnel. The walls rose for perhaps forty feet, but there was then open sky above. The dragons were not giving me up easily. I could see them landing and their weight dislodged rocks which crashed down around me. Fortunately their gouts of flame couldn't reach me and that seemed to be making them madder than hell.
There was a further opening ahead, with the passageway running for a few hundred feet and I scrambled forward. When I was still fifteen feet from the opening, I could see that there was a second chasm and a second rope bridge.
My suspicion was that I was currently on a circular column of rock and that the chasm ran all the way round it. That would mean there were probably snakes under this second rope bridge and no doubt the dragons would be waiting for another chance to attack.
Just then there was another gout of flame from above, which let me know where one of the dragons was at least. A plan formed in my head and I made as much noise as I could backtracking down the passage the way I had just come.
Once I was satisfied that at least one of the dragons had followed me, I set off at a run for the second rope bridge. There was no time to hesitate and I burst from the passageway onto the bridge at full speed.
A glance downwards confirmed that there were indeed snakes below me. I did not want to fall! Most of my focus had to be on where I was putting my feet on the bridge, but I risked one look upwards. I almost wished I hadn't, as I saw one of the dragons swooping down.
It was clear that I wouldn't manage to reach the other side of the bridge this time before the dragon was on me, so I did the only thing I could ... I leapt off of the bridge and drew my sword.
By my reckoning this fight had to be over very quickly. I might be lucky and manage to defeat one dragon, I didn't fancy my chances against two and the other one couldn't be far away.
The first thing I did was something that tested my nerve. I pulled my arms in close to my side and plummeted downwards! My reasoning was that I needed speed to defeat the beast and this was the best way to generate it. The snakes came closer and closer. I was able to make out individual snakes in the coiling mass by the time I arched my back and pulled out of the dive.
'Puff' had been following me down, but at a much slower speed. When I started to climb, there was one opportunity for him to roast me, but my manoeuvre had caught him by surprise and he fluffed his chance.
The dragon's wings flared, as it stopped its swoop and tried to change its direction. By then I was already above him and I turned once more, diving to drive my sword through the top of his head.
The force of the blow had every ounce of power I could muster behind it. The sharp shriek from the dragon told me that it was a killing stroke and I didn't waste any time in hanging around to admire my handiwork. I flew as fast as I could for the opening on the other side of the rope bridge.
My experience of crossing the first rope bridge told me not to stop until I was far enough into the passage to avoid a blast of dragon flame. Surprisingly however, the second dragon didn't appear to be following me and I counted my blessings and scrambled forward.
This time the passage did progress into a tunnel. I gave further thanks that I wouldn't be subjected to showers of rock from above. The light quickly disappeared though and I had to rely on my senses to move forward without stumbling. My fear returned, as I couldn't help but remember my last time in a tunnel, when I had been attacked by the Magates - the stone warriors.
Nothing leapt out at me however, and exhaustion was rapidly overtaking me. I decided that I needed to sleep. While I could stay awake for days by using the power, the past few weeks and months had taken a lot out of me physically. On top of that, the fight with the giant and then the adrenaline rush of fighting the dragons had just about wiped me out.
Finding a relatively flat spot in the tunnel, I curled up and fell asleep almost instantly. Despite my exhaustion, my sleep wasn't undisturbed. There were three distinct dream sequences that I remembered when I awoke some hours later.
The first was the shortest. It involved Charles and was from a perspective that made me feel as if I was seeing what he was seeing, hearing what he was hearing.
The sense of things was that there was some problem with the ruling council and it involved me! Charles believed that the council was somehow influencing things to make my life on Gael a misery, but he couldn't work out why.
The second dream involved my birthstone. I had managed to connect with Brenda through the stone in the past, but this time the stone was telling me that something bad had happened. There was no detail, just an overwhelming sense of foreboding.
This dream seemed to be in a continuous loop and it repeated and repeated for some time. Something was wrong. Something was wrong. What the 'something' might be, wasn't clear.
The third segment was the strangest, but it was also incredibly comforting and soothing. I was walking towards a stone circle. The circle was even bigger than the one I had visited often in dreamtime and there was a single tree growing at the very center of it.
The tree was a Hazeldew tree. I had never heard of such a tree before, but in my dream the name was clear. It was a Hazeldew tree, pure and simple.
I watched as the 'dream me' walked up to the tree and peeled away a small sliver of bark from the trunk. It was clear that this tiny sliver was important, but again, it wasn't clear why.
When I awoke, I was a little disorientated for a second due to the darkness. Once I remembered where I was, I was able to use my senses to figure out what was around me.
Before curling up I had placed six small stones on the floor of the tunnel in the shape of an arrow, pointing in the direction I needed to take to continue forward. My senses found them now and I relaxed in the knowledge that I wouldn't be doubling back on myself.
It seemed to make sense to try and figure out what the dreams were trying to tell me before carrying on, so I sat for a while replaying them over and over again in my head.
Nothing made any sense. There didn't appear to be any connection between the three sequences and there wasn't enough detail to work out what any one of them was about.
Having something to work on did have one benefit, though. Without fully realising it, my depression had begun to lift and my mind was in a much better state.
It appeared as if there were things that I needed to do, riddles that I needed to solve and slowly but surely my reason for living was returning to me. That was a startling realisation.
I returned to what the giant had said to me before he had died. Better men than I had tried to pass through the 'valley of perils' were his words and it now seemed important for me to understand what they meant.
What was the 'valley of perils'? So far it had proved to be perilous indeed - so it seemed well named. Why would men want to try to pass through it? How many perils did it contain?
As seemed to be the case so often Gael, there appeared to more questions than answers. I decided that this was one of those times when my 'rules' most certainly applied. I would need to stop worrying about things I could do nothing about! If there were more challenges ahead then I couldn't let fear hold me back. I would go forward and try to make sure I did all little things well in the hope that the bigger things would look after themselves!
With that final thought, I sensed where the arrow of stones was pointing and set off along the tunnel once more.
Several hours later I sensed a dim light ahead. It felt as if I had been walking for miles and I longed to see some light. I emerged from the tunnel into a round cavern with a somewhat higher roof.
The light was coming from hundreds of what looked like transformers that ringed the cavern. There were a number of skeletons lying on the floor and a large stone ball resting against the wall of the cavern opposite the tunnel I had just emerged from.
This was surprising to say the least! It had been made clear to me that technology was forbidden on Gael, yet here were hundreds of electrical components. I studied them, trying to find some clue as to what they were for, but could find no answers.
I did notice that the skeletons had one thing in common. Judging by the number of ribs they had, they had all been female when alive. My head was obviously clearing, because very quickly after realising the commonality between the skeletons I guessed what the transformers were for.
They were there to stop wizards from doing magic! The skeletons had to be the bodies of wizards who had tried to pass through the valley of perils, but had been unable to go any further than this point. I wondered why they hadn't simply tried to go back the way they had come?
When I turned to look at the tunnel, I found that another large stone ball had somehow rolled to block the entrance to it. How horrible! The wizards would have been stuck here, unable to use their magic to escape. My fond hope was that I would be able to move one of the stone balls, using 'the power' if necessary. The prospect of ending up like the skeletons that already littered the floor was not appealing at all.
A feeling of panic at possibly being trapped started to rise from the pit of my stomach and I knew I would have to try and move one of the balls before I felt much worse.
I chose the ball opposite the way I had come in, hoping to continue with my journey through the 'valley'.
To my surprise, the ball rolled aside relatively easily. Only a small surge of my stored energy was required to get it moving. There was welcome daylight flooding in through the passage that was revealed behind the ball and I moved forward quickly to get out of the darkness.
My affinity with the soil and nature in general came to my rescue at that moment. I was hastening forward into the sunlight when I forced myself to pull up at the very mouth of the cave.
There was something not right about the soil immediately in front of the cave-mouth and I knelt to examine it before trying to go any further.
The 'valley' was certainly full of surprises and I gave another shudder. What looked like perfectly fine, solid, ground was actually treacherous quicksand.
Anyone who managed to move the stone ball would probably have reacted just as I had - they would have rushed forward to get out of the darkness into the daylight. If they had done so they would have run straight into the quicksand and that would not have been a pleasant end.
The most likely people to escape from the cavern would probably have been 'royals' and I wondered whether their strength would have allowed them to escape from the sucking pit of cloying gloop.
My senses told me that the quicksand only extended for around ten to twelve feet. I was able to leap across it easily enough. So far there had been a four-armed giant, dragons and snakes, a technology filled cavern, and now there had been quicksand. How many further 'perils' were there and what was the point of them I wondered?
It certainly seemed as if others had made the attempt to pass through the valley. Surely that meant there was something worth having or reaching, at the other end? I decided that the only way to find that out was to carry on.
Nothing further happened, and I didn't meet any other obstacles for quite a while. It was actually quite a pleasant afternoon walking through the valley in the sunshine, but I kept my wits about me at all times.
It was my affinity with the soil that also gave me my next warning just as the sun was starting to sink behind the rocky escarpment of the right-hand side of the valley.
I had felt a similar feeling before, when I had flown over the soil of Scania - this felt much worse though and I wondered what could cause the very soil to have such a cold and deathly feel?
My musing was soon cut short when a patch of soil ten feet in front of me erupted upwards and a rotting, macabre corpse rose to stand in my way. The corpse held a sharp looking sword in its hand and I had no doubt it intended to use it. Further eruptions told me that this 'undead' was going to be joined by others, soon enough. I did the first thing that came into my head. I ran for it.
I had the suspicion that it was my physical presence that was causing the 'undead' to appear, but I wasn't hanging around to find out. A backward glance told me that they were following along behind, slowly it had to be said, but they were following.
Running full tilt, I was easily able to stretch the distance between myself, and the walking corpses. I was beginning to wonder exactly how much of a peril they actually represented when my next 'peril' appeared in front of me.
I had to stop running to study what I faced. There were a series of vents in the ground covering the floor of the valley. What appeared to be steam was shooting from them in what at first looked like a random way, but I soon saw there was a pattern to it. The vents ran for perhaps eighteen feet and then there was a narrower part of the valley.
This narrow section had jets of something coming out of the walls on both sides. There was a pile of bones against the left-hand wall, which suggested the jets on that side were not healthy.
Another glance behind me told me that the 'undead' were getting too close for comfort and that I would need to either deal with them or try to cross the valley ahead.
I thought furiously.
"All right. It looks like a test of speed with some lethal gas thrown in. I can definitely make it through the steam and I assume I just need to stay close to the right-hand wall and I should be okay?"
There was that word again. Assume. Mom's warnings had clearly left a very lasting impression on me. What if it wasn't the jets on the left-hand side that were lethal? Just because the bones were there, didn't mean that side was the killer?
I lifted a heavy rock that was by my feet and threw it over the steam vents so that it landed next to the right-hand wall. The jets immediately increased the volume of whatever it was they were pumping out. Then, as I watched, the ground tilted upwards and the rock rolled over to the left-hand wall to sit beside the bones.
"Damn!" I said out loud.
Another glance over my shoulder told me that the 'undead' were almost upon me and I had to make a move one way or the other. I decided to race forward, jinking from side to side to avoid the steam. I motored as fast and as close to the left-hand wall as I could.
The jets on that side didn't pump out any increase in volume and I made it through without any ill-effects. When I turned, the 'undead' were already clumping back to where they had come from and it looked as though I had managed to negotiate another two of the valleys 'perils'. How many more, I wondered?
The sun had dipped completely out of sight and there wasn't much light left. I staved off my growing hunger by absorbing a little more power and then decided it would be a good idea to get some rest.
My logic was that sleeping close to the latest 'perils' would be safer than going any further in the dark. If I moved on I would run the risk of meeting something else, so better to rest now while I had the chance.
My sleep was full of the same three sequences as the night before, but a little more detail was added this time.
I discovered that Charles was aware that something had gone wrong when I had 'emerged'. He suspected that the council had interfered somehow, but wasn't clear yet how that had been done. My sense from him was that there could be further trouble ahead and incredibly, he thought it had something to do with Brenda.
My birthstone was still trying to tell me that something bad had happened. I tried to take control of the dream so that I could contact Brenda, but it wasn't possible and my efforts seemed to force the dream to recede.
Once again I was shown the circle of standing stones with its single Hazeldew tree at the center. I watched the 'dream me' walk forward and strip the tiny piece of bark from the tree and this time an image of Brenda also appeared.
All three sequences stayed with me when I woke up and now they all seemed to have a connection. From what I could figure out, the connection was Brenda.
Apparently the council in dreamtime was cooking up some kind of trouble that involved Brenda, I wasn't able to contact her through my birthstone and now there was some kind of link between her and the Hazeldew tree.
By now the 'valley of perils' had flung six different challenges at me. Having to deal with the mental and physical demands was undoubtedly helping to dispel my depression.
Admittedly, the better I felt, the more I was beginning to wish that I was anywhere but this valley, so that I could try and address the things my dreams seemed to be indicating were a problem.
There was nothing else for it however, but to continue on the way I was headed. The sun was up and it looked as if it was going to another fine day. Mostly that was lost on me, as I focused on remaining alert for the next peril to appear.
My path through the valley reached the edge of a fast-flowing river. A low stone 'bridge' crossed the water and I studied it carefully before risking a crossing. The 'bridge' was barely a foot wide and had no parapet, so I was walking carefully. When I looked into the water the shock was almost enough to cause me to lose my balance!
I saw Brenda struggling to swim to the surface. Her face was contorted as she fought to stop the cold water from flooding her lungs. It was clear the current and the undertow were too much for her and she was going to lose her battle.
My natural reaction was to dive in to save her. The valley had already thrown up a number of surprises however, and something nagged at me, telling that this was another ruse. I had no sense of Brenda being near, no 'feel' of her presence at all. That was simply impossible. If Brenda had been close, I was so attuned to her that I would have known. No, I was convinced that this was another trick.
No sooner had I come to that conclusion than a series of loud squeals made me look up and I saw a line of twenty rats scurrying across the 'bridge' towards me. These were the same kind of very large rats that I had come across once before and I was petrified of them.
Again something tugged at edges of my memory. I recalled that even the rats had a presence that I could sense when I had encountered them the first time. I wondered whether this could be yet another trick of the valley?
My sword was out and in my hand, but I didn't try to strike at the first rat as it reached me. Although I was braced for it to strike, nothing happened and all of the other rats simply disappeared.
Nothing else happened while I completed my crossing of the bridge. I had the thought that the bridge was able to conjure up a person's worst fears to either stop them crossing or to entice them into the river. Neither had worked on me because of my ability to sense creatures, but both 'images' had been extremely realistic.
The valley twisted sharply just beyond the bridge and when I navigated the bend, I saw the stone circle from my dreams standing in front of me. Every detail was exact and the Hazeldew tree was growing at the center of the ring.
Something told me that I should complete the steps shown to me in my dream, so I entered the circle and drew my dagger to cut a small sliver of bark. Inside the circle the feeling of comfort and security was immediately apparent, but I refused to drop my guard for fear that the valley would have another trick to play.
The tree was beautifully symmetrical and there was an almost magical or perhaps religious aura about it. The feelings I got from it were so strong that my approach was verging on the reverential and I made sure not to do too much damage when I took my piece of bark. I wrapped it up carefully and stashed it in my pocket.
On the far side of the stone circle I could see that the valley ended in a blind canyon, but a cave mouth was obvious in the rock. Logic suggested that I carry on, so that's what I did. The cave led into a passage that ran for several hundred yards and them I found myself once more out in the open air.
There was another surprise for me here, but a nice one this time and one that convinced me that I had indeed passed all the way through the valley of perils. Mòr Dubh stood lazily cropping the grass only a few yards from me and he snorted when he sensed my presence.
"It's about time, Sean. You've been gone for quite a while!"
Edited by TeNderLoin