Eritopia

Into the Unknown

The King scuttled around his Palace like a prisoner released. Although Melos was gone, he half expected him to poke his great bearded face around a door and bellow orders.

He sent Spume off to manage the troops then called two captains to the stateroom. They told of how cold, hungry and restless the men were, and how the new recruits, lured by the promise of food and coin, were getting rebellious.

'Then make an example of them. Or, better still, tell them the time is now come.'

'Er, the time for what, your Eminence?' one captain said.

'Invasion. Siege!' Barnabas bellowed. The captains looked at each other.

'A war. A battle. We will be overrun if we do not take action.'

'But Sire, there have been no signs of an invasion. All we've seen are the wolf and his little companion.'

'Who you let escape,' Barnabas said.

'It was the dark one who allowed that,' the captain said. 'Even now four guards lie motionless, trapped in another world by that fiend's spell.'

'Spell? Nonsense.' Barnabas refused to see what was in front of him.

'Have you caught the wolf yet?'

'No sign, Lord. But we are searching every cell, every corner.'

'How can he have escaped?'

'Melos?' one captain queried.

'Dah!' Barnabas struck him around the head so hard the soldier dropped to one knee holding his face.

'Do not say that name again.'

****

Total darkness, and the gurgling of water.

'I can't go through there,' Not-Bear said.

The others stopped and looked at him.

'There's no other way out,' Martin said.

'Yes, but I can't go through there. It's darkness, tunnels, for some reason I'm...' he broke off.

'Wolf, what is it?' Jod asked.

They drew aside while the others waited by the open door.

'I meant to say, back at the quarries, that was bad, terrifying... for me... the tunnel between the caves.'

'But what is it? You handled it then.'

'I could see an ending. But this. We don't know what is down there. I need some light.'

'have you been in such a place before?'

'I don't know. I can't remember. But in dreams, often, I am in a black place with walls closing in, and something else.'

'Something what? A person?'

'A presence, something dark, chasing me without light.'

'Well, well,' Jod said. 'It seems you may have had a bad experience at some time.'

'That I can't remember?'

'Yes. Perhaps you were very young. And you do remember - it resurfaces in dreams.'

'But I always thought dreams were silly things, tricks of the mind, if effective ones.'

'Dreams are anything but. That they are our ways of dealing with thoughts and memories while we sleep.

'But what can such a dream mean?'

'I don't know, wolf, but it's a fear you need to conquer if we are to get out of here.'