Falling Into Shadow
In a darkened wood, by a roaring river, there lay a creature under a mighty oak tree. The beast's coat was of a silver hue, as she woke from a slumber unknown; her eyes opened revealing their piercing amber gaze. Her sudden awareness about the world around her raised questions she had not the answers to, flooding her weary mind. She grew frantic as she searched through her thoughts, not being able to find the answers to the questions of what, who or where she was. As nothing came to mind she stopped thinking and looked around. This only made her grow more frightened, as the wood around her was of the most unfamiliar type.
It was dark as a moonless night, filled with tall and mighty pine trees but as she noticed the strange woods about her she stated to see moving shadows pass by out of the corner of her eyes. Then a shadowy voice, that she thought was strangely familiar, started to encircle her but, she broke free of its grasp. At that instance she stared to run in a panicked state, not knowing where she was going. She realized as she was running, that through the small gaps in the trees a great mountain range with valleys and foot hills as far as the eye could see spanned all around. After running for a long time the immense weight of weakness came over the beast. She had not the energy to continue, so she lay down on the emerald carpet of mosses beneath her. No sooner than the time her body met the soft mosses, the same shadowy voice encircled her and the voice rang through her head.
"If you stop now... you will not be able... to get back up." warned the shadowy voice in a tone that was straining to speak at all.
"You must continue.... or you will fall into the void..." said the shadowy voice but the creature cut the foreign voice off.
"Who are you? What is it you want from me?" the she cried to the voice.
"If you wish.... to get out of this place... then you will heed my words. Continue up the mountain side." Spoke the same straining voice.
"If your heart is true.... the very earth itself will lead you... to three keepers of knowledge..., whom if you chose to listen... will help you find your way out here... and out of the dark." said the voice smoothly.
"Why should I listen to you?" the beast exclaimed as she jumped up on all fours.
"If you don't listen to me... you will be...lost..." A cold warning was in the voices tone.
"Wait! What is happening? Where are you? Who am I?" she grew frantic again as she could see the voice had some stake in her, but the voice was gone, and she was once more alone.
Afraid and beguiled by what the voice had said caused her to start to run, once more up the mountain side. The path through the pine barrens continued to ark ever upwards, but she ran on until the dark weight came over her again. As her pace slowed her head swiveled from side to side, her tongue lolling as she ran, as her maw swung left a bright, blinding, silvery-white light caused her to stop dead. It was then that she saw a brilliant ethereal stag in a clearing surrounded by the black, white, and gray shaded trees and rock. The sight of the great stag triggered a natural instinct in the beast that she was unable to resist, without knowing what she was doing she ungracefully charged the stag but as she lunged at it, she sailed straight through the stag. The stag, who stared at the beast with mocking smile in its eyes, a cold laugh issuing from its long muzzle.
"That does not work here, not in this place wolf, the thrill of the hunt stirs in you, but you must know that prey is not my only purpose." said the stag solidly.
In disbelief the wolf could not decide whether this creature before was real or just some phantom of her mind. She was none the less bewildered, causing her to call herself past her own instincts.
"Where is here? And why do you call me wolf?" she said impatiently.
"I call you wolf because that is what you are, you are wolf just as much as I am deer." The words echoed through the wolf's head, and memories returning to her, pictures of hunting great prey the teeth, paws and eyes of those who hunted with her.
"So I am a wolf." She exclaimed but the stag had disappeared. But she was not so disenchanted because that knowledge of herself gave her a great surge of happiness and freedom. It seemed the shadowy voice had not been lying after all, perhaps, she thought, I can remember all of what I have lost.
And so the wolf had began to run with a renewed vigor up the mountain side. This time the path arched upward and started to curl around a single peak, the vegetation falling away to reveal bare rock and snow, with an occasional boreal pines. But after a while of running she grew tired and she began to slowly lope through a tight pass between to cliff faces. This time as she stopped she saw a black raven perched upon the withered bones of some great tree, its limbs resembling twisted claws, legs and even tails mixed with skeletal ribs and spines. The raven's feathers were as black as midnight the shadows themselves seemed to blur and ebb from it as it moved down to the wolf. It shuffled through the light snows, its head dipping up and down, one eye always fixed on the wolf. Its eyes were strange, one was black as the void, the other pale blue and cloudy, the wolf did not know why but that blue eye ate at her.
"Friend, or helper, fiend or traitor.... Food you must have, an ounce, evens a small morsel? Something... anything, everything." Crowed the raven in tone, which was not unlike madness.
The wolf herself was hungry, and this only enticed her further.
"Do you know where I can find some food, kur?" she said slightly irritated.
"Meat... yes savory corrupted meat, sent by the gods... or by the demons... yes this way beast" the raven said in creepily happy voice as he skipped down the path and turned to the left.
She followed the raving little creature, and sure enough the raven stopped up ahead it beak pointed to swath of blood on the snow. The unfortunate beast was too covered in snow for the wolf to tell what it was. As she approached the carcass she quickly sank her teeth into its hind quarters.
With a great lurch the blood soaked corpse of a huge grey wolf sitting on its haunches let out a blood curdling scream.
"Kipcha!" the wolf screamed as its reddish tinged gold eyes looked at the other wolf in pain.
A great gust of snow suddenly struck the sitting wolf, which disappeared in flurry of white. 'No' the wolf's mind screamed and she rushed back up the pass that went ever upward, all the while the shadow of a raven on her back and a cackling laugh of a raven on the wind followed her. She new the wolf, his name was Khaz; tears welled in her eyes as the terrible image of the wolf she loved brought back to her the memories of him, and subsequently of her, her name rang in her head, Kipcha.
No sooner had the knowledge of her past been bestowed upon her, than a translucent blue-silver wolf, which seemed to be forged of fire of the same colors, appeared from the shadows and mists that lay around the rocks.
"You have accomplished much." The specter said.
"I am the seer of past and future and you have come to find out why you are here and where here is, have you not Kpcha?" the specter said.
"What happened to present?" she said snidely, before collecting herself again.
"Present, you don't need an oracle to see that, the only difference between your knowledge of here and now, and mine, are that I know the names of here and when."
"Then where is here." Said Kipcha, slightly angered by how the creature already new her name.
"Why this is the paths of the dead, dear sister." said the specter.
"The dead..." she broke off.
A great despair came coursing over Kipcha as the memory of her death came to her, she remembered falling into a river of ferocious white rapids, and icy blue water chilling her bones as it carried her away. She then wondered if Khaz had walked down this very same path. She lay down and began to cry but then the specter came again and said.
"Do not weep now, their will be time for tears, but you must continue this journey so you may find paradise. All those that have made this journey are waiting for you there." The specter said comfortingly.
"Up ahead you will see the gate to Hajar, the way to the paradise, where you will be forced to make a decision. There will be two balance guardians one of darkness one of light. They will ask a question. Whatever their question you must chose the one that creates balance any other out come will keep you here to be tested again, so chose wisely that is all I can say." The specter's voice faded.
With that the specter disappeared. Kipcha did the only thing she could do, keep going forward, there was no other direction. So she ran up the mountainside a final time, this time reaching the flat top with a stone arch, through the arc a natural bridge of stone spanned a seemingly bottomless chasm. On either side of the bridge sat a great stone statue. One of them made from stone as white as snow the other black as onyx marble, both cut in the shape of proud and fearsome wolves.
As Kipcha approached the span of stone, and its marble demons, the ground began to tremble, and the great wolves turned to face Kipcha as she neared the chasms edge. Their eyes alight in shades that seemed to reflect the skies of dusk light and dawn light. There was a great groaning and grinding of stone as the marble and onyx jaws fell loose issuing a terrible piercing howl.
"Kipcha..." Growled the white wolf.
"Grey wolf..." Snarled the black wolf.
"Redeemer...destroyer..." Spoke the wolves in unison. "Do you seek to enter the gates of Hajar?"
"Yes... I have no other wish." Said Kipcha exasperatedly.
"Then you must listen closely Kipcha Grey-Wolf..." The marble demons paused seemingly in thought, it did not last long though. "I cannot be smelt, I cannot be dealt, I cannot be touched, I cannot be felt. What am I?" Snarled the seemingly two-headed marble demon.
"To be intangible..." She thought aloud. "To be intangible, is to be void and to void is to be in darkness"
"And what is darkness" Came the black marble demon.
"Darkness...is nothingness." Said Kipcha in a voice that was hardly audible.
"Ti cael dehol call, and for that you are blessed." Came the white marble demon.
Kipcha simply nodded as a great weight was lifted from her, her weary paws taking her over the span of cold stone. There was a grinding of stone and once more the marble wolves lay still, and silent as the grave. The end was in sight, and as she neared the final footing of the bridge a great silver light engulfed the world around her, it was like being inside a cloud with tendrils of grey and white shadows encircling her. Ahead she saw clear skies, and she loped there as fast as her tired body would carry her. As she ran, she noticed another wolf in the clouds; he was on the other side of the expanse of silver light in the clear skies.
"Kipchaaa..." A familiar shadowy voice whispered.
"Khaz... Khaz is that you?" She loudly as her heart filled with joy.
"Come home Kipcha." Came khaz's distant voice.
No mater how far she ran, it was as if she could not get any closer to him. And as her hope faded so did the world of silver light around her, leaving her alone in the dark. She could not tell if her eyes were open or closed.
"Wake up Kipcha." Came a distant voice.
Her eyes slowly opened to the bright early morning light. There were the rich greens of ferns and moss followed by the damp mists that covered the grove. The sent of dew, and wet earth were all around her.
"Khaz... where am I?"
Khaz looked at her for a moment, his gaze strong and kind.
"Paradise"