Eritopia

Path of Blackness

Fleg stopped. He had been rambling along, head down, following the trail of the others, when a wall of rock appeared in front of him.

His snout bumped into it. Startled, he stepped back. He looked straight up, then across to the left, and back to the right. It was a mountain of rock in the middle of nowhere. Had the others encountered it? He stepped back a further twenty paces and looked again. It wasn't as big now, he could see, more a hill than a mountain. Fatigue, and the shock of running into it, made it seem bigger.

Then something caught his eye. Over to his left, almost around the corner of the edifice, was the opening to a very dark cave. Its blackness stood out, a blemish on the otherwise unmarked stone. Fleg trotted over to it. If there was water in there, he reasoned, he could do with a drink. He faced the opening and put his head into the shade. It was cool inside. He sniffed and leaned in further. There was nothing but dust and stale air. He took a step and his body followed his head in. Then he realised he had made a mistake. When he turned back to check where he was, he couldn't see a thing. He had only gone a short distance into the cave, but the entrance had disappeared.

He started to panic, looked around and sniffed, nose to the ground, trying to see some light, a link to the outside. There was none. He scrabbled at the floor, hoping to dislodge stones, to break through to freedom. The hard rock was unyielding. Then, when his paws ached and claws started to bleed, he sat down. He did something he hadn't done for years and cried.

He shed great tears for his sins and for his mother. He cried for the daylight, his old friends Grap and Tang, and the other hyenas. He cried for fresh air, for his father, whoever he might have been, his brothers and sisters. Then he wailed for himself, the most pitiful tears of all. He wished himself back in some previous time when things might have been different. He would have tried to be a friendlier, better hyena than he was. Robbed of the light, his imagination took over, and the real folly of his adventure came to him. He should have stayed in the forest with his boredom and petty dreams of promotion. All he was going to do was die.

He sat there for a while, feeling sorry for himself. Then he realised there was nothing else to do. He had to move on, so he stepped into the darkness. He had come too far to turn back.

There was silence as he edged forward, feeling with his snout for obstructions. Although the hill had been small and the cave narrow, this underground space seemed vast. There were no walls or ceiling, at least none that he could feel. This led him to believe that at any step he could fall into a chasm, or a pit of seamless sides. Nor was he built for climbing, as he imagined the bear or monkey would be. They had climbed over him all right.

'Anybody there?' he called with his rasping hyena voice, almost regretting its volume. There was not even an echo, which surprised him. Then again, he had never been underground before. Now and then a breeze seemed to reach him from ahead, which spurred him on.

As Fleg trod this path of blackness, imaginary greens, reds and yellows flashed in his eyes. "What am I doing here?" was his silent lament. He was a mere soldier, a hopeless good-for-nothing lump of flesh and bone. His fancy slipped back to better times. Everything began to circle about his mother again, the times she had told him not to wander too far. Never failing to scold him for being late or untidy, for the blood spattered on his fur.

When she went he cried, mourning as was the custom but without a body to bury. Then followed freedom, a daredevil period when nothing seemed to matter anymore. There was no one to tell him off, no one to impress except his fellow cubs. There was only one hyena, during those confusing times, who took more than a passing notice of him. This was the General, the oldest of the pack. During gatherings he would sit at the edge of the circle, never commenting unless asked.