River Of Life (Book 3) Read online

  The Power of Ages

  River of Life

  by Paul Drewitz

  Edited by Cynthia Johnson

  Illustrated by Paul Drewitz

  Text Copyright © 2014 Paul Aaron Drewitz

  All Rights Reserved

  This final book of the series is dedicated to the Lord God above who gave me the imagination to construct this world where many of my greatest adventures have taken place.

  Introduction

  I had this book finished before I graduated college. My senior year (Fall of 2009/Spring 2010) I was looking for agents to take this project off my hands, to publish and market it. I do believe that is every author's dream, for an agent to agree to represent them and turn their novel into the next best seller. And it is a great dream, but a hard one. I felt that I had completed my part of the job. I had written the book and now that meant it was someone else's job to finish the project. How little did I know that with the aid of current technology, I was going to become my own publisher. Finally I am able to deliver this book to the public. I hope that this story, characters and world will capture the imagination of you, the audience, and be an inspiration those who read. Here is the end of the story.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 1

  LONG plains of prairie grass gently swayed in the breeze. Gently, dust stirred up and drifted through the long stems. There were moments when the wind picked up, sending sand whistling through the air, blasting against the grass. Lizards and ground mice scurried. What caused them to move from their homes was the man who rushed through the grass, oblivious to what was around him.

  The man was huddled below a black wool cloak that clung to his back, sweat gluing it in place. Under his arm, held tight in his pit, was wrapped a package, also in black cloth. Inside, something hard lay hidden. If the man had taken the time to notice, the air was becoming impossibly hot. But fear, seen staring from out of his eyes, kept him rushing onward. His dark eyes protruded from his drawn face, his eyes forced wide open as if in a constant state of surprise.

  Constantly, he looked back. His feet sped faster and faster. Fear of something worse than torture, worse than death, drove him onward. The immediate threat that was before him was very real, dehydration. Yet something behind him was even worse than what he faced.

  The man’s face was long and haggard, with drawn lines of intense pressure carved into his very bones, hardly even recognizable as that of the face of a man. He paused for only a moment to take a simple sip from an all too empty canteen and listened to the sounds of the prairie. It was the same here as it was in the world of the mortals. The prairies were drying up.

  It scared the races of men that this death that consumed the world would not stop with the prairies, but soon all the meadows, valleys, foothills, and even the little shrub in the mountains would also be devoured. Rivers, lakes, and ponds had dried up, snowcapped mountains were now dull browns and grays where they had once been cloaked in green trees and crowned by snow.

  The ground flew past the man who was drenched in his own sweat. Nothing changed. The same landscape over and over again. Dry grass, wasting away with time. Slowly, gray hazy mountains to the south came into view. Demon’s Hoard, Hades Drop, and Devil's Cairn just a few of the names that ran through his aching mind. The man was all too familiar with what he faced, and fear struck through to the core of the warrior’s heart.

  These mountains were all but impassable. No physical trail led through them, and those who dared to climb would find drops that only eagles could glide down. Rocks, razor sharp, lay at the bottom of many pits. Those who tried to pass usually died. Yet there was one way, and he was going to use it. What he had been sent to do demanded that he use this trail and finish the mission.

  His aching legs locked up, and he fell forward. They had been tiring for miles. Often cramps would grip one muscle and then another until every step was terror as he force the muscles to stretch, to take the next step.

  His body was stunned from the fall, his lungs begging for breath. He simply sat for a moment. Then it again came to him. Drums, pounding, carried by the wind. The drums came in a slow, steady beat, pounding, reminding the man that what was behind him was not mortal, it would not tire, it would never stop.

  Along with the throbbing sound resurfaced the feelings of something forgotten. Feet and legs suddenly came alive, and the breathing lump of flesh was again flashing across the ground, making a blur of the bugs and desert reptiles that passed in his wake. A small ditch opened before him.

  Rocks and half buried boulders lay scattered in no particular pattern across the floor, rounded, flattened, and smoothed by the waters that flowed down when the desert torrents came. Bones lay everywhere. Within the bones, the man saw his family, friends, pets that he had known. His mind accused him of letting them die. These were their remains. He shook his head, trying to force the vision away.

  They were the skeletons of all breeds of desert animals, lying scattered among the rocks, bleached white by the sun, cracking as all the moisture was sucked from them. They were settled around as if a bone collector had laid his most treasured fossilized bones here to be a secret from society. No skeleton remained whole; instead, a wide assortment of bones were strewn where they had been discarded.

  Ignoring the change from prairie to this rocky ditch, the man continued to stumble forward, falling over rocks and bones. As the man trudged forward, the sides increased in height, growing straighter while the floor leveled off, making traveling easier. The grass ended, and only the wind-blasted earth, packed hard and dry, remained. Rocks, though, continued across the floor. Others jutted through the side walls, towering high and low, offering shade the fugitive could not stop to accept.

  The ditch had become a narrow canyon. The floor transformed from hard, dry dirt to the soft, watery mud of a bog. Green fungi, mosses, kelp, and high towering plants came suddenly, unsuspectingly, out of reeking stench and slime. Fog rolled in and out of the towering trees, making visibility limited. Moss hung down from the sky. Frogs and toads could be heard croaking while mosquitoes and flies buzzed their own bothersome story as they flew around the fugitive’s head. An owl even occasionally hooted.

  The fugitive plunged into the sewage head first, but came up spitting the green slime from his mouth and nose. The toxic water was not even fit for a dehydrated man to drink. Drums again floated on the wind, carried into the canyon off the prairie. Taking only a few minutes for a short rest, the man started to wade through the only green he had seen for days. Snakes, worms, and huge reptilian beasts crept silently past, strangely leaving the barely alive creature alone. He pressed on, parting the water which came up to his shoulders, making his way slowly forward. Ancient monsters that had not been stirred for centuries were coming alive. Pockets of air, great bubbles of oxygen that had been trapped below the surface of the slimy water, suddenly surfaced, blowing a spray of water into the air as if a great whale lived below.

  Other more shallow canyons began to open to either side. The slime followed these new paths to destinations unknown to man. Creatures and monsters of magical might or just brute strength lived down these paths and grew to tremendous size. The m
an could hear the snores from one blowing through like a great northern wind, and the growling of another causing the water to ripple.

  The swamp, after a while, grew more shallow and turned to a bog where a variety of reed grew in great abundance. Then it dried. Just as the marsh had started, it stopped. Hard packed ground that had not seen liquid precipitation for years was what continued in front of the fugitive.

  He paused again, but only for a moment, and then was again passing down the canyon between walls that rose hundreds of feet into the air. The dead chamber continued on for several hundred more feet, and then a bend cut off the view from what was beyond.

  The man continued forward. Panting and heaving, his mouth was so dry he could not spit. His feet plodded as fast as he could push legs that had gone beyond the normal tolerance for something made of fragile flesh.

  The narrow canyon turned and twisted as it wound its way closer to the mountains he had seen earlier. The sun was high above, casting its beating, piercing rays down, cutting through the parallel walls.

  Side passages still continued to branch off the main corridor, but these were smaller. The stranger continued to follow the main passage. In some places, rock slides had started, loose thin slabs and shavings of stone breaking from the rock cliff above. These slides gave a gradual rise in some sections of the wall where it was not perfectly perpendicular. Yet it was still too steep for anyone to climb out, but only almost too steep for someone desperate to get in.

  A small stream had started and was now meandering along the path, keeping pace with its fellow traveler who now trotted along beside it. The stream cackled, happy to have someone to talk to. The stream’s beginning was a seep, which was fed with the poisonous water of the bog left far behind. As the water traveled down the floor of the canyon, it drenched the cracks and washed away the dust left by the ages, revealing colorful rocks and pebbles that at one time had been left to decorate the place that was unrevealed to most people. Now dust from the dead plains above covered and hid almost every part that had once been the glory and pride of nature.

  The floor began a steep climb, and the cliffs began to converge overhead, creating a ceiling. If he had been able to see out of the perpendicular canyon walls, the wanderer would have seen himself pass beneath the towering cliffs of the mountains which he had feared upon sight.

  Soon he could not see out, as the ceiling became complete as the two overhangs snapped together, blocking out all light except that which came through the back of the cave. As the man continued, the floor rose gradually, and the ceiling, although he could not see it, gradually fell. The water kept on rolling over the rocks in its amazing journey up the floor. The opening behind disappeared, and the traveler was left in darkness. The world smelled of mold and his feet echoed on the rock. The sound of his breath seemed to rush like the waves of the ocean in his ears.

  He stumbled forward. His elbows stuck out to feel for the wall as he could see nothing. The toe of his boot caught on a crack, and he took a quick unsteady step forward to avoid crashing to the ground. His boot came back to the floor with a clunk that echoed forward and backward. The man took each step slowly, feeling for a change in the height of the floor, trying to protect himself from tripping, tumbling to the floor, and becoming lost in the dark, turned around and going the way he had come. He did not want to find himself back at the tunnel's opening, looking back into the canyon, hearing the drums that much closer.

  Each step was slow and clumsy, his boot hitting the floor long before or after he thought it should so that each step resounded off the hard rock walls. Any creatures living in this cavern would know that he was there. He would not be hard to hunt with his ragged breathing and heavy foot. Once he even ran into the wall as the cavern must have gently changed directions. The hard stone slapped the man in the face so that his nose was scraped and started to bleed. He almost dropped the package he was carrying in his surprise. One hand had already gone back to grab the hilt of his sword before he realized it would only be the cavern wall he was attacking.

  Suddenly, the fugitive was back in the light, a bright demanding light that robbed him of his sight. He stood in a small hollow. The floor gradually fell from where he stood to create a sandy bowl. The stream continued its way down the side of the bowl, racing past the stunned figure until it came to rest in a clear pool that stood in the center of the room, where there was a small section where the floor flattened.

  Birds cooed, an owl hooted, rabbits and mice could even be seen racing for a corner. Small, gnarly trees grew around the little stream, creating a bench for the traveler to sit on. The stream was by now clean and clear. It was cool, and as the traveler let it pass down his throat, he forgot about the horrible landscapes he had left behind him. This stream was made drinkable for animals and people after being filtered over the stones.

  His skin and eyes were so dehydrated that it burned as the water ran over his hide. Then it came back to him. The horrible throbbing of the drums. A slow pounding. It rang through the tunnel he had just come through, echoing off the walls and into this oasis, filling it with a slow dull throb.

  Quickly filling his water canteens, he looked around. Beyond the stream and trees lay grass that grew in tufts up against the rock mountain walls of the oasis. Directly in front of the tunnel through which he had come and through several yards of prairie grass lay another tunnel opening. It was an extension of the tunnel through which he had already passed. Running into it, he left the oasis behind, already a foggy image, a distant memory in his troubled mind.

  The ceiling and floor continued to grow closer, but now the walls also started to fall inward. The man felt as if the cavern was trying to swallow him, like it was going to eat him. Inside his mind screamed for him to race the other direction, back towards the oasis. Here the weight of the rock above him began to push against his back. He could feel in his mind the tons of rock that could shift slightly, barely making a impact in the mountain's height and shape. But only a simple slip in the fibers of the rock would be needed to fill this tunnel, crushing him and burying his package.

  He had faced ancient demons, little devils and ancient warriors and magicians who had been dead for ages. And yet he would be crushed below a mountain that had stood for ages, the man thought ironically. No, this mountain has been here for generations. It is not coming down now, he thought sternly, forcing his feet to move forward.

  Then it sat before him. A door only about four feet high and two feet wide sat in front of him. Outlined by solid stones, each resembling a human skull in torment, the formidable opening beckoned like a beacon to death. Now he remembered why his mind tried to force him to rush back to the oasis. It had not been the shrinking tunnel. It was this black pit, this void. Nothing in it but a world that tried to push his mind in every way conceivable. He could not remember anything in this pit that he had been able to touch, to feel on his way through it the first time. But he remembered coming out, his nose and ears bleeding, unable to see, crawling and gasping for air. But as the throb of the drums echoed down the corridor, the fear of what lay behind drove him onward. Through the black opening he rushed, not thinking, not looking, not breathing. He accepted what waited for him in the darkness ahead.

  The same man stepped outside a door on the opposite side of the dreaded mountains. Not over or through, but underneath the mountains was the passage that did not belong to the world of mortal man. Not many traveled it. Those who tried the passage under the mountains seldom made it through; none made it back. Many had become part of the treasured collection of bones at the beginning of the canyon.

  Yet he had made it through and back. Light could not penetrate the darkness of these caverns. The darkness of the tunnels was almost like ink that extinguished all flame that threatened to expose its worst secrets. Men got lost in those caverns and could die of thirst, starvation, dropping into any one of the many chasms, or finding oneself as the main meal for any one of the multiple breeds of beasts. A few had gone in with
enough fuel for light that they made it back, claiming that not far into the caverns there was only a rock wall, completely impenetrable. They did not understand, they had to put out their light to continue on. The only way to proceed was in complete darkness.

  Yet he had come out alive, although not unscathed. Somehow the monsters had left him alone, and he had not gotten lost or fallen into one of the multiple traps. The man did not even think of the object under his arm which was giving off intense heat. He had long forgotten that he carried it. He had not started this quest with it. It was something that he had picked up along the way. He hoped that it had been worth the time, the energy, the mental exhaustion, and the physical wear it had put on him to retrieve it. So far it had only been a burden, something heavy that he could not leave behind.

  He looked on sunlight and evidence of life, and sighed. What lay behind, he felt hopeful that it could not follow, but what lay ahead could be almost as bad.

  But here he could relax. Looking around, he realized that he had stumbled into a jungle, a rainforest. Great leafy trees hung everywhere. Trunks several times as wide as his waist were towering out of the underbrush like pillars to hold up a ceiling of foliage. Water dripped off of everything, clinging moss, the heavy humid atmosphere, and fog hanging in and drifting through the tops of the trees blocked out the sky. The rustling of wind and animals was a comforting sound that soothed the man's nerves. Out in the distance, the hooting and whistling of exotic birds could be heard at one moment only to be drowned out by the low vicious growl of some carnivorous animal.

  For a moment, the man looked around. Slowly, he began to realize that he recognized this world, this forest. Slowly it came back to him. This is where the terror had started. It had been months since he had been here, at that time hopeful, full of the spirit of adventure, arrogant and filled with pride. This had been his chance to prove himself, to prove his prowess as a wizard. He was the pupil of Erelon, after all. He should be powerful, prepared for this task. Days into the adventure and his mind had begun to fail him as the spirit world of the Humbas stole his memories.