Chapter Six: Wilderness
Anthony stared down at the last of the fire stones. It sat in his hand looking back at him. He was agonising over whether or not to use it whilst the stone did not have an opinion either way. It sat silently waiting for the word.
Anthony was sheltered under an outcropping of rock. The beautiful scenery which his eyes had embraced whilst he flew through the air on the sorrow hawk was gone, now replaced by a bleak vista. What a difference a bit of rain and snow can make.
Kannis had never returned. Anthony had waited the three days, three fairly uneventful days which he spent worrying and pacing. After the deadline had passed, Anthony waited another day, then another and then another until finally his patience had snapped. He wanted to go home, back to the loneliness and the emptiness. This was not his place; he knew it, the trees knew it, the blasted magpie which stole his magical cup knew it.
That theft had been one of the reasons why Anthony decided to move on; that and the fact that he had started to question the rationality of waiting in the mysterious wood for the big bad wolf to come back, rather than doing what he should have been doing all along and running.
It was evening when the bird struck. Anthony had left the cup by his side along with the mercy dagger and the bag of fire stones when he went to sleep. He had no dreams but when he woke there was the sound of fluttering and flapping in his ears. He had looked up at the branches above his head and seen a gleeful magpie flitting to and fro along a branch. His glee no doubt resulted from the silver cup which it carried in its beak.
Anthony had leapt up and jumped for the blasted bird but to no avail. The magpie flew down under his arms, with the weight of the cup dragging him down, then past him haphazardly but happily off into the trees. Anthony had not seen him since.
Anthony had taken this as a sign, he'd gathered up his things and started to move. Kannis was well past his deadline and he had little inclination to wait any longer.
At first things had gone well, he'd found a little stream which he used to drink and then wash himself. He proceeded on for a couple of days thinking he would run across a settlement of some kind soon but he did not. He thought maybe he would bump into another person, preferably a human, but he met no one.
So he'd pressed onwards and upwards through the forest. Gradually the trees had started to thin and now he found himself here, halfway up a mountain, surrounded by rock and mist. The rain hammered down and was soaking him despite his being wormed as far into his little alcove under the outcropping as he could manage.
Kannis had evidently not intended for Anthony to spend a long time out in the wild by himself otherwise he would have supplied more stones. Though Anthony knew that was an assumption, for all he knew Kannis meant for him to starve out here.
There had been streams aplenty, but it was food that was becoming worrying. Having subsisted on a diet of mainly soup for a number of days it hadn't taken long for Anthony to become ravenously hungry.
His clothes were drenched and though he'd spent hours shivering under the rock he had now stopped and started to feel numb. Anthony had seen enough documentaries to know that this was a very bad sign. Deciding to leave later on until later on Anthony set the stone in amongst the few scattered leaves and twigs he'd scrabbled around for and said, "Fire", watching as the satisfying flames gathered and started to consume his fuel.
As he held his arms out to the precious heat he considered his predicament. The intention of moving up the mountain had been to get a bird's eye view of the surrounding area in order to spy out a settlement. A nice idea in theory had gone horribly wrong; not only had he not been able to see anything except for the endless expanse of trees, the weather had also turned and a thick mist had rolled in, making attempts at traversing the slopes tricky at best, deadly at worst.
The wind rushed around the mountain and threatened to put out his final fire until he placed a ring of rocks around it to act as a windbreak. Anthony thought back to the place where he'd first woken and not for the first time wondered if the only way out of this rapidly worsening dream was to go back there. The shrivelled bears had looked a fearsome sight and they had fired on him, but that was where he woke. Maybe that was the only place he would be able to go back to sleep.
But then he remembered the flight, the mountains alone from which they'd descended were thousands of feet, the giant trees thousands more. Without aerial transportation of some kind he had no chance of returning.
In darker moments he had considered the knife. Though there was a part of his mind that still thought this a dream he was no longer convinced. If he took his own life in a dream, as he had done many times, then he would simply wake, alone and cold with a pounding head and a guilty heart. But if what Kannis had said was true, if he had truly woken up on the other side of the dream, then what would become of him if his life blood spilt here? Endless darkness? Or something much, much worse?
He laid his head back on the rock and closed his eyes. As with every time he closed his eyes a kaleidoscopic slide show of images confronted him. This time it was Clara, dressed up for Halloween. She'd gone as a wolf in the final year. He could see her now in his mind's eye jumping around the living room, howling away. The sound was so real, so near.
Anthony's eyes snapped open, the images had gone but the howling was still very much present, and getting closer.
A chorus of howls was echoing around the mountain. For a moment he entertained the thought that it was Kannis, but something wasn't quite right. Kannis had not seemed like the kind who would howl, he was too well spoken, too... sentient? These noises sounded feral and wild. Even as he listened he heard the sound of tumbling rocks just beyond the outcropping.
Anthony picked up one of the larger burning sticks that lay in the fire and held it in front of him. Suddenly he saw a face through the gloom, the head of a wolf peering at him from the dark. “Kannis?” Anthony whispered hopefully. Two more heads then swung into view and as the beast moved further into the light Anthony saw that all three were connected to the same large body. Okay, not Kannis, he thought.
Anthony thrust the burning stick in the thing's face but, unlike all the wildlife magazines which he'd read back home had promised him, this denizen of the forest did not seem the least bit afraid of fire. The middle head snatched the stick from his hand, extinguishing the flame with its tongue, and flung it into the night which had fallen so rapidly upon them.
The beast came up to Anthony's chest and had powerful frame beneath its black fur. For a moment Anthony considered what might be easier, fighting three smaller wolves or one large one with three heads, but quickly realised that now was not the time for such considerations.
As he backed away from the flames the wolf followed him and then crouched as if to pounce. Anthony pulled the dagger from his belt and held it in front of him. Again the words glowed blue upon the blade, Mercy, it said, a mercy which Anthony prayed to receive himself. The dagger gave the beast pause, just as it had the bear, but this animal did not seem quite as perturbed.
It sat on its haunches and gave a three-pronged howl into the night which echoed around inside Anthony's head. It did not take long for the call to be answered. As Anthony had backed further and further away from the precious fire, so his eyes adjusted to the dark, and from it he saw more of the three-headed wolves appear. First two or three, then six, then eight and then too many to count.
Sweat poured down Anthony's back as they all advanced on him, snarling, swiping at the air, barely held back by the mercy dagger. He took more steps back, then a few more, then a few more still until his nerve broke.
Anthony had run only a few feet when the lead wolf crashed into him. The human went down under the weight of so much wolf, but fortuitously for him he fell just before the impact into a gully. Both he and the wolf tumbled down, the gully was icy and slippery and Anthony found himself sliding down it with the wolf just in front of him. He managed to reach out and grab a rock, and clung to it as he wa
tched the wolf slide to the bottom of the gully. He soon heard it get to its feet and began to climb back up slowly.
Anthony heard the rest of the wolves racing down the rocky sides of the slanting gully, then much to his chagrin it began to snow. Perfect, he thought. Anthony pulled himself up onto the opposite side of the gully via the rock to which he clung, then he had his first bit of luck, as transient as it might turn out to be.
There was a cave mouth, not a dozen feet from where he stood. Anthony ran for it, getting to the entrance and stumbling inside just as the first of the wolves started to jump across the narrow gully. Turning back he saw the snarling slavering beasts closing in for their meal before something shoved him to the side and he heard, “Move”, in a soft but decidedly cross voice.
The figure who had pushed him stood in the cave mouth which suddenly filled very rapidly with snow as if it were being squirted from a cannon of some kind. It took only seconds before the outside world was invisible. Anthony heard the wolves strike the wall of snow, but it was packed hard and they could but snarl and snap at each other as their prey slipped beyond their reach.
All Anthony could hear was the sound of his own breathing but he knew the figure who had miraculously filled the cave mouth must still be in there with him. “Thank you”, he said, breathing heavily.
After a pause the soft voice responded, “I would not be too quick to thank me. I have a fear that that was the only way out of this cave.”
“Oh well, I'd much rather starve than be savaged by wolves”, said Anthony.
“The wolves would be quicker.”
“Yes”, agreed Anthony, “but it’s the thought of them crapping me out somewhere down the road that really bothers me.”
The unknown figure chortled with genuine mirth before saying, “Quite.”
“I'm Anthony”, he said once he'd recovered his breath.
“It's nice to meet you Anthony”, said the voice.
“This is the part where you tell me your name”, said Anthony.
“Ah”, spoke the soft voice, “to be honest my people are not known for their naming. I am sorry if that sounds strange to you.”
“Well, I was just chased into a cave by a three-headed wolf. That's after I lost my magical dagger and my magical cup and used the last of my magical fire stones. A people who don't bother to give themselves names doesn't really strike me as strange as it might have a week ago.”
“It sounds like you've had quite a time of it all.”
“You can say that again.”
“May I?”
“May you what?”
“Say that again?” said the unknown figure, sounding confused.
“It's just an expression”, said Anthony, reminded once more of his stranger than strange surroundings.
“I see. One I am not familiar with, apologies.”
A silence followed. Anthony could hear the wolves pawing at the snow and yelping in anger outside. Their efforts seemed in vain, however, for they did not come through.
“I don't suppose you have one of those handy fire stones do you?” asked Anthony after a time, the darkness was adding to his misery, also the adrenaline was wearing off and he was starting to shiver.
When the stranger replied he sounded most contrite: “I do apologise, I had no idea you could not see. My own vision tends to stay the same no matter the level of light. I don't have a fire stone I'm afraid, they are an anathema to my people, but let me see what I can do.”
There were a few moments of scrabbling as if the figure was looking through a bag of some kind. Then a light started to appear, tiny at first but then brighter. It was coming from a small crystal which the stranger held in its hand, a hand that looked very far from normal to Anthony.
As the whole cave was illuminated, Anthony could make out his companion in his entirety. As far as he could tell the stranger was made entirely from snow. Not in the traditional sense of a man of snow, there were no bulky ill-defined limbs and features, nor were there any carrots to be seen. It resembled a man in every way, from the definition in its kindly face and the muscular shapes in its arms and legs to the outline of a tunic which it seemed to be wearing. But it was all of it from head to toe made from snow.
“Are you okay?” the snowy mouth asked, with concern showing in its snowy white eyes.
“So you are a...?” Anthony left it hanging.
“I am a Snowman”, responded the Snowman predictably. “And you, Anthony are a...?” he asked.
“Just a regular man, no snow involved”, responded Anthony, still staring wide-eyed at the all white figure.
“Ah”, was his response. “Well as you can see from my earlier deduction we seem to have gotten ourselves in a slight pickle”, continued the Snowman, lifting the crystal light up and shining it around the cave. It was not a large one; it only went back for a couple of dozen feet before descending into the ground.
Anthony looked at the doorway which was sealed tight with hard-packed snow a couple of feet thick. “That's a fairly handy skill to have”, he remarked.
“Thank you. I must confess that being able to manipulate the snow does have limited scenarios for use but I am pleased to have found one on this occasion. So, Anthony, if may I ask - are you a memory or an original?”
“Excuse me?” said Anthony raising an eyebrow.
“Are you a mortal dream or a unique dream? I know some people do not like to discuss such things, particularly the memory dreams, I understand their resentment so if that is the case then we do not need to continue.”
Anthony interrupted him, “I am not a dream. I'm real.”
It was the Snowman's turn to look confused. He furrowed a flaky brow and quizzed Anthony, “Probably a memory dream then, if that's the way you feel, and a new one perhaps? There is no need to feel bad.”
Again he was interrupted, “I'm not a memory. I'm not a dream. My name is Anthony Hallow and I am a real person. I woke up in a Mercurial Chambers and was taken from it by a talented jackal called Kannis, an intervention that I strongly regret as if I could get back there and on to the stone bed I woke up on I might be able to get back to sleep and wake up where I was supposed to - in my less than comfortable bed in London.” Anthony finished with frustration.
The Snowman pondered his words for a long time. In the end his response was to repeat Anthony's last word in a manner indicating that he was unfamiliar with it. “Lon-don”, he said.
“Yes, London”, said Anthony.
“I am not familiar with it.”
“Well it’s not near here. It's probably on the other side of the magical moon or something”, said Anthony, with a heavy dollop of sarcasm which failed to hit home.
“The magical moon? I am also unfamiliar with this place, where is it near?”
“I made it up in order to be facetious, let’s drop it okay?”
“As you wish”, said the Snowman. “Anthony?” he continued, tentatively.
“Yes?”
“This talented jackal, Kannis, did he tell you why he brought you here?”
“No”, said Anthony with a heavy sigh, “he was decidedly vague. He told me that the place where I woke was called the Mercurial Chambers. He told me the world was called Avalen, that I have been here many times before but have always slept and that he and his kind had brought me here for mutually beneficial reasons in advance of their cause.”
The Snowman rubbed at his chin thoughtfully: “The jackals are a disreputable people, their cause was likely something clandestine and mutual benefits likely not forthcoming.”
“I was beginning to think the same thing, which is part of the reason why I left our rendezvous point and struck out on my own, though I do have certain regrets on that score. I blame the bloody magpie.”
“The magpie?” asked the Snowman.
“Never mind”, said Anthony before changing the topic. “So you live here?” he said, gesturing at the cave.
The Snowman chortled at that: “Goodness no, I li
ve in Snowdell with the rest of my kin.”
“So what brought you up into the mountains?” asked Anthony.
“The weather”, answered the Snowman, who continued, “snow is unusual in Avalen. It has been absent for a very long time and as a result my people have been in a state of enforced hibernation. The snow has awoken us and I volunteered to scout out from Snowdell to see just how far it has fallen.”
“How far have you come?” quizzed Anthony.
“Almost two hundred leagues”, replied the Snowman, “which leads me to conclude that this is not an isolated regional falling, but that some ill has occurred in Fenn and that the Magister Elementis has either lost control or had a change of heart. I suspect the former given the blunt response which my people received long ago when we asked him to allow a little snow to fall so that we might live and thrive.”
“Fenn, the Magister Elementis, what are these things?” asked Anthony who was trying to take his mind off the cold which was biting at him from head to toe.
“What is Fenn?” said the Snowman, “goodness, the jackal really did leave you in the dark. Fenn is the capital of the world and home to millions of dreams as well as the current king who I believe is Fenn Corul Geddon.”
“The city is named after him?” asked Anthony.
“No, the city was named after the First Fenn who was Fenn Geddon, but since his day the other kings have adopted his name as a sign of respect and also to remind people from who they are descended. As for the Magister Elementis, he is tasked with control of Avalen’s elemental forces; hence he is not hugely popular in Snowdell. When we asked for snow he told us that is not how the Elementis Forge works and that it produces the weather patterns based on majority wishes not individual input, not that we believed him.” Having finished his explanations, the Snowman nervously asked, “Anthony?”
“Yes?”
“Are you okay? If you don't mind my saying, you have gone a strange shade of blue and your teeth are chattering.”
“I'm sitting in a cave having a conversation with a Snowman, so I am slightly out of my comfort zone. Yes, it is cold in here, would be the plain answer to your question.”
“I see. I don't really have any way to keep you warm, I'm afraid. I could cover you in snow which might insulate you for a while, though it might be hard to breathe.”
“I think so”, agreed Anthony.
“I think we are going to have to go out there you know”, said the Snowman, glancing at his impromptu door.
“Well”, chattered Anthony, “as I said before, I feel that either starving or freezing to death are both preferable to being eaten.”
“Though I agree in principle I must point out that leaving the cave does not definitely mean being eaten, whereas staying in it will most definitely lead to being frozen. I have heard nothing from the outside for some time and it is not impossible that the wolves have grown bored and gone to look for prey elsewhere.”
Anthony cocked his head and listened. The snowman was right, there were no more sounds of scraping and snarling. If the wolves had gone and they managed to reach the tree line then they could possibly light a fire.
He had lost his dagger during the tumble with the wolf but Anthony decided that the Snowman was right, it was better to try at least. He got unsteadily to his feet and said, “Let's give it a go then. But if we get eaten then I'm blaming you.”
“Fair enough”, said the Snowman. I feel that I should point out, however, that I am highly unlikely to be eaten, given that I am made of snow.”
The joke did not get a warm response from Anthony, who moved to the doorway. The Snowman said no more but moved up beside him. He put his white hands on the snow and began to move them up and down. As he did so the snow funnelled into his arm and disappeared. It took only about a minute before the entryway was clear.
The crystal light had been put out so both of them peered into the blizzard outside. The Snowman walked out first and motioned for Anthony to follow. Together they walked out into the snow. No wolves were present and so they started to make their way down the slope towards the trees. They'd gone about a hundred yards when Anthony thought he heard a sound behind him. He'd half turned when the wolf landed on him. He shouted and the Snowman turned back and started to run back towards them.
The beast’s middle head sank its teeth into Anthony's arm and pain exploded in his mind. Real pain, worse than anything the cold had brought, he felt it searing his arm and then he felt the blood start to pour from the bite. Then something strange started to happen. Anthony felt warmth, a heat from deep inside of him, a heat which became all of a sudden as painful as the bite on his arm. He cried out in blind panic and lashed at the wolf with clenched fists screaming, “No!” Then all he could see was a haze of colours.
When he came to he was being carried. Back up the mountain he could see the form of the wolf receding into the snow, the creature was twisted and broken and smoke was rising from its corpse.
Anthony looked down at his hand from which steam was pouring. He felt blisters forming and gently touched it with his other hand before lapsing into unconsciousness once more.