The Three Feathers - The Magnificent Journey of Joshua Aylong (8 page)

Wolf and eagle sat next to each other on a moss covered rock. The eagle was an impressive bird as it was about the same size as the large wolf. Grey gave out howls that, under different circumstances, would have been bone chilling to Joshua. The eagle let out long cries and throughout that, Joshua could hear their laughter in his mind. First he was stunned, watching them in disbelief. Then he couldn’t help but join in. He laughed long and hard and the joy of having found his companion safe and sound swept over him and he laughed until he sank to the ground.

“Tidings of a red rooster and his companions searching for the cave of dreams have reached us in the deep.” The eagle’s thoughts stood in Joshua’s mind and for a moment he felt as if he was lifted up high into the heavens, soaring there.

“You know of us?” Joshua replied.

“Yes we do. Sometimes legends become legends while they happen,” the eagle answered. “There has not been anyone searching for the cave of dreams within this lifetime and many before that one. The freeing of the Pegasus has set in motion an infinite number of possibilities that did not exist before. But be wary. There are forces at work here, my red friend, that will try to stop you from ever reaching your goal and there are forces here and inside the mountain that will do whatever it takes for you not to find what you are looking for.”

“So, it is real?” Joshua was surprised about his own question. Did he not think his dream would have a chance to become reality? He had to admit to himself at that moment that, for a while now, he did not really believe in his dreams anymore and that he had mainly been on this journey because of his companions.

“That’s why they are with you,” the eagle interrupted his stream of thought. “They are with you to keep your dream alive within you. Do not abandon it. Do not give in, whatever may occur. Hollow’s Gate, the Great Deep, is what you must conquer in order to reach the entrance to Storm Mountain, the entrance to the dark. For you must first face your nightmares before you can reach the cave of dreams.”

With that, the eagle jumped off the rock and landed in front of Joshua. He was easily four times Joshua’s size with white feathers around his massive beak and down his chest and light brown wings with dark edges. His eyes, Joshua felt, could see deep into his soul. He was in awe of the eagle but at the same time had the strange sensation that this awe was reflected back to him.

“Ayres greets you.” The eagle opened his wings and when Joshua thought he would take flight, he bowed his head deep before Joshua. Then he pushed off the ground and with a few powerful strokes of his wings, he was already high up in the air where he began to circle overhead, crying out several times.

Joshua, stunned and somewhat embarrassed, looked in disbelief from the eagle to the wolf who jumped down from the rock and came toward him.

“I’m so glad you are alive,” Joshua couldn’t contain his joy. “How did you… how is it possible that you live? And what in all the world does this all mean?”

“Come,” the wolf replied. “Let’s find some water and food and I will tell you everything I know.”

As they walked through the green pasture that was dotted with large trees with branches wide and low to the ground, Joshua wondered how he had heard that Hollow’s Gate was a dark place filled with creatures who avoided the light. What he saw now was a lush landscape with hills and valleys and—”

“Do not be deceived by its beauty,” Grey brought him back. “It is a place of trials and tribulations and its laws are completely its own. A day lasts seven days but one night lasts as long and you want to be as far away from here as possible when the sun sets in the eastern sky.”

“How did you survive?” Joshua asked.

As the wolf looked at him Joshua began to see an image of Grey falling through the sky like a stone. He passed through the fog and when the blackness came, for an instant there were memories of the wolf’s companion at his side roaming the ice forests in deep winter. The sting of loss the wolf felt at that moment lingered in Joshua’s mind like an echo deep inside him. Then the blackness was gone and the ground came closer and closer until suddenly there was a pull and a piercing pain in the wolf’s sides. Joshua saw the eagle with the wolf in his talons gliding down toward the ground.

“Did the eagle see you?” Joshua asked. “How could he see you and fly down to catch you so fast?”

“It has to do with the Gate of Time,” Grey replied.

“The Gate of Time?” Joshua asked.

“Time down here flows slower than on the surface. A week down here is but a day above. The Gate of Time lies in the middle between the two worlds. It is an area you pass through to reach the bottom. It is an area where time does not exist, where the past and the future are equally balanced in the present.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Joshua must have shown his confusion for Grey stopped and turned toward him.

“The eagles have their nests right below the Gate. They see through it and beyond. When I fell, Ayres saw me coming toward it. But because time flows differently above it, he saw me as if I fell very slowly. He recognized me and when I passed through the Gate, he caught me and brought me safely to the ground.”

“How do you know him?” Joshua asked.

“That, my friend, is a long story and one I am more than willing to share—after we eat.”

And that was that. They walked a little further to a place where water ran over a few large rocks to create a small pool at the bottom. Grey left for a while to look for game. The earth around the pool was soft and there were berry bushes at the edge of the water. Joshua, for the first time in days, could still his hunger completely. And weren’t there the nagging concern for Krieg and what was to become of him, he would have been content.

10.
M
IRRORS

“You don’t have to hide your food from me,” Joshua thought to the wolf when he came back. “I don’t mind you eating in front of me. You can’t be different than what you are.”

“And you can’t help feeling uneasy. So, I eat away from you and then I come back,” the wolf replied.

Joshua, as usual, could not escape the wolf’s logic. He knew better by now not to argue especially when it was clear that Grey was right.

“I have so many questions,” Joshua thought.

“I’m sure, in time they will be answered,” Grey thought back. “But what of Krieg and the Pegasus?”

“Last I saw, they had reached the steep path that lead to the surface. I know nothing beyond that,” Joshua answered.

“At least they are safe for now, it seems,” the wolf thought.

But his concern betrayed him and Joshua knew that this was a mere hope the wolf held and not a certainty. For a while there was silence between them and all they heard was the chirping of the insects and the soft breeze rustling the tree tops and the grasses in the fields.

“How do you know this place?” Joshua wasn’t so sure if he wanted to know the answer but he asked it anyway.

“I don’t. At least I don’t remember. Wolves and eagles have always formed close bonds with each other throughout the ages. I have known Ayres since I was a cub. We both came from the Ice Forests and in our youth there was a time when we hunted the great white tundra together. No game was too big for us. There were huge buffalo that provided food for a moon for both our families. Once we left the days of our youth behind, Ayres answered the call to become the Guardian of the Gate. He has lived down here since then. It is a solitary life but one that can bring great joys to those who fully embrace it. Sometimes what I believe to be my own memory turns out not to belong to me, but to him. But it is clouded and inaccessible most of the time. Once in a while I get a glimpse into what I know are not my own thoughts, but the eagle’s.

“It looks like you have questions of your own,” Joshua thought to the wolf.

“I do indeed,” the wolf answered.

There was a pause when Joshua looked at the wolf. He saw something in his eyes that at first he thought not to speak to him about again.

“Grey.”

“Yes.”

“You think about your companion often, don’t you?” Joshua realized that he probably should have left it alone but now it was too late to take it back. “You don’t have to say anything, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to burden you with my questions.”

Grey looked at him. “I think of her all the time, Joshua. I think of her when I first awake and when I go to sleep at night. I see her in the water and in the clouds in the sky. I see her everywhere. And yet, she seems so far away and unreachable and sometimes I think not to live if I were to continue to live without her.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Do not be, for you are a good friend and friends like you are harder to find than you think. It soothes my pain and helps so it does not devour me from the inside and feed on itself.”

They looked at each other for a moment longer. Then Grey let out a long yawn and slumped to his side. Joshua looked up into the sky. He realized that there were neither clouds nor fog. Strange, as from above you could not see down here at all. And while he wondered why this was, he suddenly became very tired and he fell into a dreamless sleep from which he woke with the sun in his face, warming his feathers.

* * *

When he opened his eyes, disoriented at first, Joshua saw a shimmering in the distance as if the light and air played a trick on his eyes.

“Grey,” he thought as he couldn’t see the wolf anywhere.

He looked around. All was quiet. The image of a clear brook came into his mind with the wolf jumping in looking for fish until he finally caught one. That’s when Grey came around a small hill toward him. When he arrived he shook himself, spraying water everywhere. Joshua smiled in his thoughts.

“How far away do you think this is?” Joshua looked in the direction of the shimmering air.

“About two days, maybe three. Hard to tell from here. If we climb further up somewhere, we might get a better idea,” the wolf answered.

“Maybe we should go there,” Joshua thought.

“What makes you think that?” Grey answered.

“I don’t know,” Joshua replied. “Probably because I don’t know where else to go.”

“Sometimes what’s right in front of you is where you should go,” the wolf thought.

“And sometimes it’s just the opposite,” Joshua answered.

“I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

They didn’t know for how long they had walked but as they crossed fields of green and gold glistening in the sun and small creeks that lead into a marsh land and beyond, the sheer cliffs behind them fell further and further away. When the sun had reached the zenith, they climbed a small hill to find an area to rest in. Joshua’s inner clock was completely out of sorts. They must have been travelling for a few days at least, even though the sun had never set and was just today reaching its midpoint. As they looked down from the hill into the vast valley below, they saw the shimmering in the distance as if hundreds and hundreds of mirrors reflected the light and landscape around them, projecting it infinitely into one another.

By their estimation they were still a day’s journey away but as they walked down the hill and continued toward it they began to see two figures, about a half mile ahead of them, coming in their direction. realized that they were walking toward themselves. Joshua could make out his red colored shape shimmering in the sun. He saw the wolf next to himself and he saw the cliffs behind them far in the distance. He knew suddenly that he was looking into a tremendous mirror—at least twenty stories high and as wide.

“What is this?” Joshua asked.

“I do not know,” Grey answered.

Joshua, at that moment, had a strange and unsettling thought. “What if there is nothing behind this and all that we have been looking at this whole time was a reflection of ourselves and whatever lay behind us.”

“I hope you are wrong but I can’t escape the feeling that you might be right.” Grey could not hide the concern in his thoughts. “Let us be careful.”

As they came closer Joshua couldn’t shake the feeling of uneasiness that had crept up inside him. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all,” he thought to Grey. And then, in the mirror image, he saw the wolf bare his teeth and suddenly and without any warning grab Joshua’s neck between his massive fangs. Joshua let out a cry as he flew up in the air, realizing that what he saw in the mirror was not what had happened. Grey was as surprised as Joshua.

“Did you see that?” He asked.

“No. I just saw you fly up in the air suddenly,” the wolf replied.

“I saw in the mirror that you suddenly went after my throat…” The horror of the thought let Joshua pause.

“Joshua.” The wolf stopped and looked at him. “You must know that I would never do that.”

“I do know it, Grey.”

“Do you?”

Joshua realized that as sure as he wanted to be that his friend would never turn on him, he really wasn’t. There was always a small doubt in him as if he never could fully trust Grey, that he had to hold back and keep part of himself safe somehow by not completely giving himself over to his friend. Otherwise he wouldn’t have had a reaction such as the one he just had.

“Do you really ever know anybody?” Joshua didn’t realize how strongly he suddenly thought this to be true. What could have ever made him trust a wolf? As he thought this, he saw his mirror image suddenly split into two and he realized that they had reached the entrance.

“Are you sure you want to go inside?” Grey asked.

“No. But I do not believe there to be much choice. Do you?”

As the wolf looked at him, there was a foreboding in his eyes, as if both knew that whatever it was they would encounter on the other side of that mirror, would test the bindings of their friendship to the breaking point.

When they entered, it was as if the small opening disappeared behind them. It wasn’t so much that it was gone but rather it was multiplied and multiplied again so that it was impossible to see which one was the real entrance and which one was its mere mirror image. The ground they stood on was stone, deep black and polished swallowing light rather than reflecting it.