Chronicles of the Wolf: Of Wolves & Spiders

Chapter 16

By now you may be wondering why I was heading to the ocean. I did not really have a reason to. But I had not seen the ocean of this planet. Even back when I was on my home world, I had never seen the ocean. The closest I got to an ocean in my home world was Lake Ysyk, the tremendous lake that was in the Eastern Part of Kyzlbrahma.

Upon thinking about the lake, I pulled my pack off my back and rummaged through it. I pulled out a cloth and unfurled it and looked at a medallion that was inside of the cloth. The strange thing was the reason I was here. I did not understand this thing. It looked like a regular old medallion. However, I knew that it was not a regular medallion. This thing was cursed, and I was utterly terrified of it. I had seen this thing take a young perfectly healthy female Beghrest and leave her nothing but essentially bones in a matter of seconds. To make matters worse I was the one who had made it do that.

How did I do that? I can honestly say I have no idea. It was through some chant. The chant was something that I had learned from her, from Lacia D’Opidium. My ears suddenly turned in the direction of someone running towards me. I quickly wrapped the medallion back up and put my satchel back on my back. I had barely been able to do this when I saw a young boy suddenly dart through the bushes and stopped in front of me.

The boy stopped in his stride, and he looked over at me. He looked at me up and down and gave me the same sort of look as I had seen others look at me. As if he was trying to figure out what I was. The boy could not be older than perhaps 7 or perhaps 8 years old. He had olive colored skin, an odd color for someone who was of the Golordian race, no he wasn’t Golordian. No, he was something else. The boy had short black hair and he had something in his hands that he was keeping close to his heart.

He looked up at me as if deciding whether I was a bigger threat or whatever it was he kept glancing back at was a bigger threat. I listened out to hear what the boy was running from. It was a pack of soldiers. They were running, and they were gaining up to him fast. The boy looked back at the direction where the soldiers were coming from before looking one last time at me.

I had to act quickly.

I watched as the soldiers stopped for a second before a head soldier motioned the rest to continue running. I held the boy tightly in my hands with my right paw covering his mouth. I listened carefully and paid attention to the soldiers. I waited and listened. Soon they were about 20 yards away, so I let go of the boy before he ran off from me and turned towards me.

“Some way to thank me boy,” I said. I knew the creature could understand me. All these creatures of this moon seemed to have some sort of implant that was put in them that made them understand other languages.

“You can talk?” the boy asked.

“Of course, I can talk,” I said.

“What…what are you?” the boy asked with a hint of hesitation in his voice.

“I should ask you that,” I said. “You are no Golordian.”

“You can tell?” the boy asked.

“You don’t smell like them,” I said.

This was true the boy did not smell like a Golordian. But neither did those soldiers, now that I thought about it. I listened out for the soldiers again before turning back to the boy. I noticed that he was firmly grabbing onto something that he was clutching at for dear life.

“Why are those soldiers after you?” I asked. “Did you steal from them?”

“Not from them,” the boy said.

“So, you did steal something then?” I asked.

“I didn’t say that,” the boy said.

“Very well,” I said and hitched my satchel on my back and started to walk towards the Ocean yet again.

“Wait…” the boy said. “You never answered my question.”

“Neither did you Boy,” I said looking back. “Didn’t your parents teach you manners?”

“Yes…they did…but well they never told me about things like you before.” The boy said, and he sighed heavily when I looked at him with a c****d eyebrow. “My name is Walker.”

“Walker?” I asked, and he nodded. “I swear you furless creatures have the oddest names. I met someone named after a plant named Heather once, I was confused about that.”

“So, what is your name?” Walker asked.

“You’re not afraid of me?” I asked.

“Well you did save my life,” Walker said. “I think if you wanted to make me into a lunch you would have eaten me already.”

“True,” I said. “My name is Behemet.”

“Behemet,” Walker nodded and looked at me a couple of times before he nodded again. “Yeah I can see that that name fits you.”

“I suppose it would,” I said shrugging and fixing my satchel and started heading off towards the Ocean.

“Where are you going?” Walker asked.

“The Ocean,” I said.

“Why?” Walker asked.

“Because I had never been there,” I said.

“Really?” Walker said.

“In case you haven’t noticed I am not exactly from here.” I said.

“Is that why you aren’t recognized by my implant?” Walker said.

“Implant?” I said.

“I have an implant that tells me the names of races when I encounter them.” Walker said. “You just came up as a bunch of question marks when I saw you, I had never seen something do that before.”

“So not only does that implant translate languages but it also tells you what your looking at?” I asked, and the boy nodded. “Does no race depend on their native senses anymore?”

“Do you depend on them?” Walker asked.

“Of course, I do boy,” I said. “So, do you mind telling me why those soldiers are after you?”

“It’s because of this thing,” Walker said after he looked around and opened his hands. It was some sort of weird sliver of glass. Well it looked like a sliver, but I have seen things on this planet that look simple, but they were never what they seemed.”

“What the devil is that?” I asked.

Walker looked around again before he pressed on the glass. The glass suddenly lit up. He used his two hands and pulled the sliver apart. In between the two halves of the slivers was a projection that looked like a map. It looked like the one I had been using myself to get to this area, with the exception that this showed that city off in the distance, whereas mine didn’t.

“So that city exists on your map,” I said pointing at the city off the side of the ocean.

“It’s called Rhodesia,” Walker said.

“Why was it not in the map I had earlier I wonder,” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Walker said.

“Why would those soldiers want this map though?” I asked.

“Because it shows this,” Walker said he tapped on the projection between the two slivers and there was a strange glyph off towards the far eastern part of the world. The glyph was pulsating as if it was emanating something. It looked like an arachnid of some kind. But if this map was to scale it would have to have been several hundreds of feet talk.

“What is that?” I asked.

“My brother calls this glyph the Mark of Damus.” Walker said.

“And what does that Mark mean?” I asked.

“Well I have been doing my research on this,” Walker said. “This mark is an indicator of an ancient being named Damus. Damus was someone that controlled what was called the Shadow World.”

“The Shadow World?” I asked.

“Yes, from what I read this world is full of dark creatures.” Walker said. “The legend spoke of a Mask that would link the Shadow World to any other world.”

“A legend?” I asked.

I grew uneasy about this, just a few months ago, I had encountered what was thought to be legend. My life was never the same after. This was now a second legend that I encountered. I held my satchel close to me as the weight of the medallion suddenly loomed on me.

My ears twitched and turned towards a noise. I looked over and saw a bunch of soldiers suddenly drop down in a beam of light. I had never seen that before.

“Oh, hell they must have scanned the forest for me,” Walker said.

“Hey Colonel,” one of the soldiers said.

“What is it?” A man said as he suddenly appeared with a strange looking ribbon in his hands, if you could call it that. His entire arms were made of this metallic looking stuff. I had never seen that before. Then again there were a lot of things that I had never seen.

“What the hell is that?” the soldier asked point in my direction.

“Don’t mind it, kill it and grab the boy.” The man said who I assumed was the leader of the pack.