The Last Portal (10 page)

‘Would you like
ssome nice fissh?’ Cass offered. Like Duss, her face was tilted to
the side.

This must be
some peculiar mannerism unique to these creatures, Chris thought.
He could read only innocence and goodwill in her thoughts. ‘Yes,’
he said. ‘I’d love some.’

Chris was led a
short distance along the beach to where a column of smoke was
visible. Behind some boulders, a small area had been cleared and a
large smoky fire constructed, which was piled high with green
leaves. Several rows of fish were strung across the billowing
column of smoke.

Cass went over
to these fish and selected one. ‘Try thiss,’ she hissed, handing
him a large silvery fish with skin like leather. ‘Thiss iss a
delicacy among our people.’

She took
another fish and peeled the skin away with her teeth. Chris,
deciding not to risk his taste buds, dug his nails into the tail
section and found the skin peeled away easily, revealing a deep
smoky-brown flesh. Not normally a fan of fish, Chris picked off a
piece. It had a flaky texture and tasted a bit like beef. He took a
big bite, only to find it did have one characteristic of fish -
bones.

Cass pulled a
large tuber from the coals of the fire and presented it to Chris.
It had the texture of a potato and tasted delicious, like a cross
between a pumpkin and a sweet potato.

‘We’re on a
fisshing trip,’ Duss explained, as Chris greedily devoured his
fish. ‘But we don’t come up on the ssurface very often
anymore.’

Chris stopped
eating and looked across at Duss. He sensed there was a deeper
meaning to his words than mere polite conversation. ‘So you live
underground all the time?’ he queried, noticing for the first time
that the fingers on these creatures’ hands were partly fused
together, so they looked more like shovels than hands, and each
finger ended in a thick, sharp nail.

‘Yess, our home
iss the underworld,’ Duss continued. ‘We come up to the ssurface
for fissh and fressh fruit from the treess,’ Duss continued. ‘But
there hass been many bad thingss happening on the ssurface
recently. It’ss no longer a ssafe place.’

‘Yess,’ Cass
agreed. ‘No longer ssafe.’

‘What things?’
Chris asked.

‘Bad thingss.’
Duss shook his large furry head as though the memories were very
painful. ‘There hass been much fighting… much killing.’

Images crowded
into Chris’s head of burning villages, weapons fire, children and
women dying.

‘We don’t
really undersstand why it hass all happened,’ Duss continued,
looking across at Chris. ‘Do you undersstand thesse thingss?’

Confusion,
fear, horror; all these emotions Chris felt in the minds of these
creatures. They had witnessed terrible things and understood none
of them. ‘I don’t know much.’ He paused, not knowing what else to
say. ‘But I do know this planet is in heaps of trouble, and some
freak is causing it.’

Cass and Duss
continued looking at him, but he detected no understanding.

‘I mean…there’s
a dangerous person trying to control this world.’

‘Zelnoff?’ Duss
asked.

Chris stopped,
wondering if he had already said too much. ‘Yes, Zelnoff. You’ve
heard of him?’

‘Not until
recently,’ Cass said. ‘Then the ssurface people sstarted acting
sstrangely. Many fightss, killingss, whole villagess gone. We don’t
undersstand thiss.’

‘No,’ Duss
said, ‘we don’t undersstand thesse thingss.’

Chris nodded.
‘I think Zelnoff is trying to conquer Cathora. But he hasn’t won
yet. There’s still people fighting him.’

‘You mean
Kaloc?’ Duss asked.

‘Kaloc?’

‘We haven’t
sseen him, but we have heard he’ss ssome type of Guardian,’ Duss
said.

‘Yess, yess, he
hass sspecial powerss to fight Zelnoff,’ Cass added, looking over
at Duss as she spoke.

‘What powers?’
Chris asked.

‘We don’t
know,’ said Cass, ‘but I think he’ss fighting Zelnoff and trying to
protect the planet.’

‘Hmm…’ Chris
wiped his mouth with his sleeve and flung the remains of the fish
into the fire. ‘You know where this Kaloc lives?’

‘No one knowss
where he livess. We have only heard rumourss about him,’ Cass
said.

‘What rumours?’
Chris asked.

‘That he livess
ssomewhere around here, but no one knowss where,’ Cass replied.

‘We didn’t know
anything about Zelnoff, or Kaloc or Guardianss until recently,’
Duss said. ‘Now there’ss rumourss everywhere about warss, people
dying, sstrange happeningss. We don’t know what’ss the truth
anymore.’ He shook his head miserably. ‘We don’t undersstand.’

‘No, we no
longer undersstand,’ Cass added, munching into her tuber with big
greedy bites.

Chris could
sense their growing frustration and despair. ‘Have you heard of
Batarr?’ he asked, finishing his tuber and throwing it into the
fire.

This drew an
immediate reaction. Cass stopped in mid-chew and looked across at
Chris. ‘Yess, yess Batarr iss another Guardian, I have heard people
talk about him.’

‘Well, he was
also on the fishing boat with me.’

‘He went
fisshing with you?’ Duss asked.

‘Arr…not
exactly. We were trying to cross the lake when the storm
struck.’

Both Nethral
were now watching him. Their furry eyebrows knitted into thick
lines across their faces. Chris felt the questions forming in their
minds.

‘We were trying
to find Zelnoff. Ah…I mean Batarr was trying to find Zelnoff.’

‘Sso doess
Batarr know where Zelnoff iss?’ Cass asked, her head tilted to one
side.

‘No, we were
hoping to find that out when we got here.’

Cass and Duss
looked at each other, but said nothing. Chris read surprise in
their thoughts, but nothing else. ‘Batarr was going to gather a
larger force on route,’ he added.

‘Ssoldierss…sso
he had ssoldiers with him?’ Duss asked, also tilting his head
sideways, indicating this was an important development.

‘Yeah… a few.
We were travelling in three boats…two sank. I was on the
third.’

‘And you were
with thesse ssoldierss?’ Duss asked.

‘Not me
personally,’ Chris replied. ‘I was just helping with supplies,
cooking, that sort of thing.’

‘You are very
young for ssuch a venture,’ Cass commented.

‘I had friends
that let me come along,’ Chris lied.

There was a
pause, while Duss and Cass tried to digest this information.

‘Sso you really
need to find out what happened to your friendss,’ Cass said
finally.

Chris
nodded.

‘We will help,’
she said, looking across at Duss.

‘Yess, yess,
you’re too young to do thiss by yoursself,’ Duss said. ‘We will
find your friendss for you.’

Chris felt
profound relief. ‘Thanks,’ he said smiling broadly, ‘I was hoping
you would say that.’

By the time they had
finished eating, the light was fading. Chris helped Duss and Cass
gather the rows of fish that had been smoking over the fire. They
were nervous about sleeping in the open at night and suggested that
Chris should sleep with them underground, where it was warmer and
safer. Thinking that they must know a small cave somewhere, he
gladly accepted. Instead, they led him to the back of a shallow
cave a short distance away and rolled away a large rock. Behind the
rock was a hole, just large enough to fit a child. Cass immediately
climbed in and signalled for Chris to follow. After some
hesitation, he followed, wondering what he was letting himself in
for.

The tunnel was
narrow and steep and he had to crawl on his stomach. Behind him,
Duss sealed the entrance, completing the blackness. But when
Chris’s eyes adjusted he could see Cass further down the tunnel
silhouetted against a faint light. The tunnel soon widened and
opened up into a cavern that rose high above their heads. This
cavern was lit entirely by what Chris would have called glow-worms
on Earth, except it wasn’t just the worms that were producing the
light. Numerous insects buzzed around the worms with bright
luminescent abdomens, and larger creatures, resembling insect bats,
flew amongst these insects with luminescent wings. Essentially, the
whole roof was a mass of whirling and darting lights.

‘Pretty, issn’t
it?’ Cass said, as she came up alongside him.

‘It’s amazing,’
Chris marvelled.

Cass nodded
that she understood. ‘Ssurface dwellerss don’t realisse what iss
down here, but under thesse mountainss are countlesss communitiess
of creaturess and plantss, and magnificent cavernss that glissten
with beauty, far away from the horrible thingss that are happening
on the ssurface.’

Duss appeared
next to them. ‘Yess,’ he nodded enthusiastically. ‘Thiss iss our
world, our people have lived down here for ass long ass time
itsself. We know thiss world and we protect it, and it protectss
uss.’

Chris stared up
at the roof until the pain in his neck forced his head level again.
‘How many caves are there like this?’

‘They’re all
like thiss,’ Duss said proudly, his voice raised an octave. ‘And no
one knowss, not even uss, how far they extend.’

For the first
time, Chris heard Duss laugh. ‘One can sspend oness whole life
travelling through thesse cavess and not find their end.’

‘So they extend
right under these mountains?’

‘Ssome ssay
they never end,’ Cass said. ‘They continue throughout the whole
planet. They are our home, our world.’

‘Yess, yess,’
Duss agreed with a certain awe, ‘Our world, our life.’

They showed
Chris to their camp in a corner of the cavern. For several hours
they continued to talk, while they drank an elixir distilled from
one of the many plants that grew in the underworld. Chris could not
identify the taste. It was sweet and tangy at the same time, with a
refreshing after-taste of lemons. He drank greedily as they talked
for hours about the history of the Nethral. Apparently, they were
the oldest race on the planet. Their fierce sense of independence
stemmed from their belief that they were the first species to
develop speech and a written language, and they lived in a world
and a society that was infinitely more beautiful and caring than
what had evolved on the surface. Considering what he had already
witnessed since his arrival, Chris found it hard to disagree with
them.

Eventually the
conversation waned and Cass and Duss turned in for the night. Chris
was given some blankets, although, unlike the surface at night, the
underworld was not cold. Cass and Duss bade him goodnight and he
was left to contemplate all that had happened to him over the last
few days. Yet, despite all these experiences, his last thoughts
were of Susie and Joe and his home back on Earth. He wondered if
his parents were missing him, or was Batarr right, and after living
weeks on this planet he could still be returned to Earth without
any passage of time. Either way, he still wished none of this had
ever happened.

When he awoke, Cass
and Duss were already busy preparing for the day’s activities.

‘It’ll be light
on the ssurface ssoon,’ Duss said, handing Chris some breakfast of
fruit and fish. ‘We musst make hasste.’

Unlike the
previous night, Cass and Duss had a more business-like manner. They
had already packed the supplies and waited impatiently for Chris to
finish his meal before they set off. They reached the cave just on
sunrise and immediately started for the beach. Since it was unclear
where on the coast the fishing boat would have landed, Cass and
Duss decided to climb a nearby hill which offered expansive views
of the coastline in both directions. By the time they were half way
up, however, it was clear that wreckage was strewn over a wide
section of the coastline. When they reached the top, Cass and Duss,
with their large sensitive eyes, immediately pointed to a distant
speck on the horizon.

‘I think it’ss
a fisshing boat that hass been beached,’ Cass said.

‘Yess, a large
boat definitely,’ Duss continued, shading his eyes with one of his
spade-like hands.

Chris knew
there was nothing wrong with his eyes, but he could see nothing
more than a dot on a beach. ‘Are you sure it’s a fishing boat?’

‘Yess, yess…
and the back hass been broken off,’ Cass said.

In the end
Chris had to put his trust in their superior eyesight. It took the
rest of the day to cover the distance to the boat. On the way, they
saw more wreckage and, much to Chris’s unease, the bodies of
several of Batarr’s soldiers. Many of these bodies had been partly
eaten; others were attracting the attention of scavenging animals
and bird-like creatures similar to vultures in Earth. All of the
bodies were already bloated from many hours in the water.

They reached
the fishing boat at sunset. The ropes that had been used by the
Wassin to tow the boat were still attached. Chris rushed on board,
but was disappointed to find that the cabin was deserted and all
the supplies had been removed. When he searched the gallery, he
found a note pinned to the table. It was written in Susie’s
handwriting and read:

Hi
Chris,

Somehow we survived, and the Wassin even managed to save some
of the soldiers from the other fishing boats. We have around 50
soldiers, including Altac and Sasli. Batarr says that he thinks you
are safe and somewhere along the coast. We searched until dark, but
found no trace of you. Batarr refused to search any longer saying
that his soldiers were too exposed on the beach and may alert
Zelnoff to his presence. Despite our complaints, he wouldn’t stay
any longer (we are both really angry with him). Sasli is still
looking for you.

Guess what, Batarr has a second key that is identical to
yours and also changes colour. Cool Huh. The bad news is we still
have to locate Zelnoff for him, so we have to leave for Mount
Caporel (we both wanted to stay and find you, but he wouldn’t
listen). Batarr is hoping to recruit more volunteers on the way. We
have left supplies under your bunk. Just stay here until we get
back.