Sand Glass (16 page)

I careful shut
the door behind me. It was surprisingly quiet, and a lot warmer
than I expected. I swung back the mask. There was a table on which
stood an unlit candle inside a glass flame guard, set into a metal
body. I stood my small camping lantern on the table and turned it
on, so I could examine the room more clearly. It was sparsely
furnished. The few pieces of furniture were wooden and fairly
roughly made. A bed that was made of a frame from which woven cords
made a basic hammock stood in the corner of the room. It was
covered with a pile of blankets. At the sight of the bed I suddenly
felt an overwhelming desire to lie down upon it and sleep. But
instead I sat on a framed chair by the table and drank a little
from my flask. I turned the lantern down to nightlight setting. The
chair was in fact very comfortable indeed. In spite of my resolve
only to stay until the storm had passed, and not to fall too far
into sleep; the warmth and the stillness eventually overcame me and
I slept.

I awoke. I
wasn’t immediately certain but I thought I heard a sound of a
seabird. My eyes were then fully open. Because my body was relaxed
and stiff I didn’t move straight away.

After making
use of the available earth toilet to relieve a very full bladder; I
tried to work out how much time had actually passed. The time was 8
am. But I had no idea on which day. A made myself a breakfast and
then set upon my journey. The land seemed flatter than it had
before and the curves were gradually becoming less and less
distinct as I walked into the distance away from the hut. The light
seemed very bright. And at last I came to little place where there
was a pile of stones. I looked around, and finding another loose
stone added it to the pile. I recalled once being in the mist
coming down off a mountain. This was what you did. You kept the
cairn stones piled up to help others find their way. I had not gone
twenty feet before a mist came down on me. There was no need for
the mask, and I had loosened my suit and the neck before I slept
and had not tightened it again. I stopped and didn’t move. The mist
came upon me thicker and wetter, and more troublesome than I had
encountered before. There was no point to indulging fear, which in
this instance could rationally be overcome. There was something
about the mist; something familiar. It was a country fog, not the
sort you would ever get in a town. This was fuelled my woods and
stream or by the sea. Suddenly unbidden, some wild hope rose in me.
From somewhere deep down inside. I yelled out ‘Jared!’ my voice
sounded strange to me. I feel the need to shout it out. ‘Jared!’ I
waited and listened, then called again. I had stepped forward a few
times and then the fog began to thin out. I took a few steps
forward again. I could see more of the surroundings. I could hear a
sound. What was it? I knew that sound. Familiar. Maybe even
comforting. Certainly restful. A distant sound of water moving and
flowing. Was it a waterfall or the sea? I walked forward some more,
and I was on a rocky plain. The temperature had warmed sufficiently
for me not to need my ice suit outer, but I didn’t dare remove it
just in case. As the breeze ruffled my hair the sun was setting
again. I carried on walking.

I came to a
cliff. Right there in front of me. It sprung out of the ground, and
rose vertically by some hundred feet or so. Dark and forbidding;
and yet darker and more forbidding as the light swiftly vanished
again. Having reached the face of the rock, I could go no further
forward so I took a left turn, and walked along the base of this
monolith looking for a way through. It was completely dark again,
and getting even colder. I put the hood up. The temperature dipped,
and remained frigid and terrible, I carried on walking. This was
it. Perhaps this last walk now. I could not go back. And it was
still getting colder. The thermometer in my ice suit sleeve marked
a small rise, it was climbing again. I found a gap. It was only a
few feet wide, and about fifty yards long; and there ahead was a
clear flat land that glowed with the moonlight on its earth. The
land seemingly smooth and toned in grey in this monochromatic
stillness. There was something familiar about the way the ground
rose and had a slight swelling to the distant banking. I began to
quicken my pace, and expectantly searched for landmarks or anything
I might recognise as a familiar land mark, as I hurried to the end
of this tunnel. I emerged and was overwhelmed with the stark beauty
of this land at night. I sniffed and could smell something; sweet,
acrid, and pungent, and a distant cool smell as a background to
this; a taste and there was a sound…. I knew it so well! I ran
forward into this new world choked with wonder; aiming for the
rise, wanting to see over it. And ready for the shot of light like
arrows across the landscape on this untrod smooth skin of earth, as
the herald of dawn began to hint in the eastern sky.

I was
clambering up the small hill. Wading into the earth that rolled and
collapsed under my feet….. I was just about to see what was
beyond….But then… as quick as thought I was set upon!

I think I tried
to cry out, but a hand clamped over my mouth. I was powerless. And
a short time later tied up with ropes. The knots didn’t look easy
to do, or having any way of wriggling out of them.

My head was
hurting. I guess someone had hit me. But I didn’t remember. I tried
to concentrate on whether I could do the 12 times table or not,
then did a few sums in my head. Having been thus satisfied that I
wasn’t in fact concussed to the best of my non-medical knowledge, I
set about trying to untie myself. After a few futile attempts I
gave up. There was point on wasting energy. I was in another cabin
to judge from the size and shape of the room in the dim light that
the chink from the shutters admitted to the inside. This wasn’t the
same one as all those hours ago. It might have been a week even.
This one was bigger, and it was arranged differently. And this one
had no bed. I was tied to a chair.

You may ask,
was I scared? Well yes. Of course. But on another level there was
the certain knowledge that I could be the first explorer to see the
people who roamed these boundary lands on this extreme edge of sane
existence.

I must have
passed out and slept then; perhaps I was concussed after all. After
that there was lamp light and several figures in the room. They
seemed like giants. They certainly cast massive shadows on the far
wall.

‘Who are you?’
I shouted. All it earned me was a massive crack right across the
face.

‘You ask us?
You are weak, pathetic, and easily caught.’ A huge craggy face
moved into view, ‘Oh… One of the little people…’ the voice dripped
with such contempt that it made me wasn’t to physically vomit. I
felt that constriction in my throat. I tried to breathe and force
myself to stay as calm as possible. My head was still ringing, and
I didn’t think I had been out, but I might. I looked up again. The
giant was still there.

‘Who are you?’
I said again; reasoning that the crack had just been a result of
some girlfriend-related annoyance quickly put from one’s mind (I
really must have been concussed; that was NOT making sense).

He came closer.
The other figures ignored me completely. The proximity was
unpleasant and I began to wonder if they had some set formula for
dealing with people they didn’t like.

‘Little Man…
You are not in a position to make demands.’ And with one huge hand
he lifted me from the floor by the front of my suit. I was still
tied to the chair, the weight of which dragged horribly on my
limbs. Suddenly he slammed me back down. My head cracked backwards
and all my bones jarred. I gagged but nothing came up. I must have
passed out again, because I woke what must have been hours later in
the pitch black warmth of the hut. My eyes had already adjusted, so
I could just pick out the outline of the door. My whole body hurt,
and more ominously I had a dull ache in my left ankle. I tried to
move. Spikes of pain shot upwards through the leg. It was either
broken, or very badly sprained. Tears sprang unasked from the
corners of my eyes and ran down. I tasted salt. There was no doubt
now. I wasn’t going anywhere. I just wanted to be outside, to see
the sky again.

I called
Jared’s name as loudly as I could. But nothing happened. All this?
Did I end up back at Base with no memory? Had I ever got this far
but just didn’t remember? Or maybe I just disappeared from a south
coast cliff path and was never seen or heard from again.

Now the fear
sucked me down. Black oily, swirling dark…. I really believed I
could die and disappear and no one would ever know what had
happened.

As the dreadful
realisation of my predicament finally took hold, the large giant of
a man entered the hut. I was unbound from the chair and dragged
outside.

‘Is this what
you came to see, Little Man?’

He set me
roughly on my feet, and somehow I managed to stay upright.

I was standing
on a shore, where not far from me the sea rolled in with a tumbling
roar. It was beautiful and chaotic and seemed somehow larger than I
remembered. As if I was a little sea creature and the huge curls of
water would wash me away at any moment.

I couldn’t
speak to answer the giant, partly from terror, and because my ankle
was giving me hell. The man really was a giant, but dressed in dark
cloth and what looked like leather armour. His hair and beard were
dark and straggly, and he carried a knife in one hand I saw (and
heard) other giants thudding down towards me along the shore line.
The chill and the freshness revived only the terror afresh. I
started to shake. There was no escape. I had gambled on the
illusion of choice and finally been beaten by it. And even if this
was an illusion, and in the end I found myself back at home, I had
failed in my quest.

They loomed
larger and larger and more terrible. And the sea was closer and
ravenous, as if the very waves were animated with a thousand blue
green hands, and hundreds of crashing rushing voices.

‘Let us make an
end of this!’ boomed one of the giants. They all laughed; a noise
that deafened me. I stared out towards the sea. There was its salty
horizon. Was this the end?

With a swift
movement as another giant scooped me up, and gripped me from
behind. The one who and brought me out of the hut held aloof the
huge knife that shimmered along its edge. They clambered with a
deafening roar, as the sea crashed its music all around. The bright
freshness of the morning air was waking me. And all I felt was
pain. My body a miasma of spasms and ominous aches. The first giant
looked at me again. And they were for a moment like stone statutes
in some terrible fairy tale; and I thought it might be okay after
all. I would wake up, and this would be an irresponsible dream. The
first giant stretched out his hand high into the sky, and I saw the
sun’s disk reflected in the flat of the blade. Why? I felt the
intent. And I saw my mean little self as if from above. They would
purge the land and this was what happened to some unwary travellers
who trespassed on land at the edge of forever.

Suddenly the
giant moved. It was he that swung the knife. For a fraction of a
moment the sun gleamed on its edge with a beautiful beam of light;
and then all of me was racing, racing…. Running like sand or water,
or dissolving like mist. As the point entered I gasped. And it
drove in further.

They dropped me
then like a used toy, broken and forgotten. The only mercy was that
their booming voices moved away and faded to nothing. I was
sweating and trembling, I was cold and raging hot. I could only
breathe by fractions of an inch. And my left arm felt paralysed. I
turned my head and saw the waves. Each rolling breaker sounded a
beat against the pain bursting in my chest again and again and
again.

It was then I
saw a figure, they were dark against the glassy waves, and moved
quickly towards me down the lapping line of tiny outer wavelets as
they reached up the beach.

The moments
stretched to hours. The pain went on and on. I was crying silently,
all I saw was blurred.

Gently someone
took my hand. I could see him.

‘I will
withdraw it….’

There was a
moment between the sounds of the waves where my eyes rolled back in
my head and my body convulsed. Then a warmth spread back into my
limbs. I opened my eyes. I felt the blood leak and flow. The pain
eased a little and after another minute became duller, more foggy
somehow.

He came and
slid his hand under my head and shoulders and raised me slightly.
My eyes focussed. My right hand was across my chest, and I saw
blood between my fingers. My blood. Seeping out of a wound that
would not heal this time.

‘Jared!’ I
gasped.

‘Yes. I am
here.’ He smiled down at me, ‘I won’t leave you. I will stay. You
are not alone.’

I tried to
breathe in but it was difficult. ‘I’m dying.’ I said with
effort.

‘Yes.’ He said
a brushed my hair away from my face to calm me.

‘How soon?’ I
could feel the leaking of things into the wrong compartments like
leaky cartons inside a shopping bag.

‘A few
minutes,’ Jared said, ‘and then you will leave this place.’

‘Where will I
go?’

‘Wherever you
want to go.’

‘I came to….
Bring you back, Jared. I’m….. here with Janey…. She’s in
Summerland. Where’s….. our Janey?’

‘Hush now. It’s
alright. She’s here. I will tell her. But later. She is sitting by
the shore of the sea.’

I heard the
waves. And Jared held me carefully in his arms like a wounded bird.
His bright warmth eased the sorrow, and cleared away the terror.
Now I was so tired of all this. I had come to the end. Somehow I
was glad, at least I had found him. But what would he do now? Could
he go back? What would happen to all of them? He seemed to
understand even though I had not spoken.