The Three Feathers - The Magnificent Journey of Joshua Aylong (17 page)

Joshua flew off Krieg’s back as they walked around the pond. The sound of a single peeper frog was the only thing they heard. They looked closely at the surface of the rock but there was absolutely nothing there. Joshua couldn’t even begin to think of where to start looking. It would take days, weeks even.

“Maybe we have to go back and into the spider holes,” the wolf’s thoughts cut through the silence. “That might be the only entrance. Deep underground.”

“If this is what it takes, what are we waiting for?” Krieg’s thoughts were filled with impatience.

“No, Krieg. There must be a way. We came this far. I do not believe that we should go back to the holes of the spiders.” Joshua tried to sound convinced, much more so than he was in truth. “The entrance must be here somewhere. We just have to find it.”

Joshua began to walk along the Wall looking for any sign of a door, an opening, something out of the ordinary. Grey sniffed the ground around the pond. Krieg seemed to have lost all hope of ever finding it. He stood, his head low, waves of misery radiating from him.

“If we do not find it,” he thought to them, “all of this was for naught. Everything we did up until now will have amounted to nothing. And I wish I would have died at the hands of my captors before you found me. For that is how I feel in my heart.”

Joshua looked at his friend and felt his heart break for him. Grey walked over and lay down next to Krieg. Joshua did the same. There was nothing to say. All three of them felt the other’s pain, felt the sudden end to their journey come nearer with every breath they took. Joshua dreaded the possibility that they would have to go through the spider holes. But maybe it was the only way into the mountain. He let the thought stand in his mind for a moment to see if it would gain strength.

“There is a way in.”

Neither of the three reacted at first. They were too immersed in their despair.

“And I know it.”

“What was that?” Grey thought to them.

“I heard it too,” Joshua replied.

“I thought it was you, Joshua,” Krieg thought.

“It wasn’t me,” Joshua answered.

“If it wasn’t you, who was it?” Grey got up.

“It was me.”

The three of them looked around. The thought was quiet, not so much a whisper but rather from someone who was very far away.

“Can you hear me?”

Neither of them could see anything.

“Where is this coming from?” Joshua thought. “Hello?”

“Would you please tell the mighty war horse not to move his front hooves? I’m right next to them and I do not wish to be trampled.”

Joshua walked over to Krieg and looked around his hooves. Krieg’s head was down and he was sniffing the grass.

“Here you are.” It was Grey who found him first.

It was the peeper frog. He sat next to one of the horse’s front hooves. He was so small, the three of them had to come very close to see him.

“You must be either very young or you are just very small,” Joshua thought to him.

“I am neither,” the peeper replied, looking up at them. “I am neither young nor small. For I am Broga, the guardian of the Porte Des Lioness.

“How old are you, Broga?” The wolf asked. “If I may ask.”

“If you must know and I know you must, Grey, wolf from the Ice Forest, I was present when Alda was born.”

The three of them looked at each other in disbelief.

“She was born right here in this pond under the protection of the lioness. I saw her fight her way through the thick shell of the egg she grew in. In fact I heard her singing before she came out of it. She sang then and she has never since stopped singing.”

Joshua felt hope returning into Krieg’s heart and into his own. He had no explanation for this. Nevertheless, this tiny little peeper had, within moments, given them back all the hope they had lost.

“Why should I not give you hope, my feathered friend?” The tiny frog looked up at them. “Have not you given hope to some, much larger than yourself? Hope does not judge your size and neither should you. Never doubt,
never
doubt that anyone with a fierce belief in his own destiny can’t reach for the stars, as far away as they might seem to be.”

Grey was the first to break the silence induced by Broga’s thoughts. “The vulture has captured the Pegasus, and the spiders she has resurrected have brought her deep into the mines below Storm Mountains. She demanded from us the exchange of the Pegasus for Joshua. We cannot agree to this, but we will and we must find Wind and free her and with her complete our journey to find the three feathers. For my friend has set out to find them and we have agreed to help him in his quest.”

All was quiet. All eyes were on Broga, the little frog, who looked from one to the other.

“Since the mines were sealed by the sky people, no one has entered them and it has been my task to guard the entrance since then.”

“How can the vulture get access to the mountain if she cannot come through here?” Krieg asked.

“The entrance was sealed so that no one was able to ever enter the mines again.” Broga’s thoughts were quiet, as if what he had to say was too important to be thought louder. “This gate, the Porte Des Lioness, was for the living. But in order to seal the entrance for the living, another entrance had to be opened … And that one is only for the dead.”

It took a few moments for them to grasp what this meant, what this would mean.

“Are you saying that in order for Wind to be brought into the mountain, she has to be dead?” Krieg’s calm thought betrayed the sense of despair that welled up inside him.

“Yes.”

The finality hit Joshua full force.

“We should try to get to her before the vulture takes her through the gate,” Krieg thought.

“I do not think this wise,” Broga answered. “For you will never reach them in time and if they are through the gate already, then you cannot pass through it yourself. You would have to come back here and then you would have lost too much time.”

“Broga, can you show us the way into the mountain?” Joshua asked.

The peeper looked at them. “I have been guarding this gate for over a thousand years. It has since then never been opened.”

“Has anyone ever asked you to open it?” Joshua asked.

There was a pause.

“Broga, has anyone ever asked you to open the gate before?”

“No. No one has ever asked me. Many have come here in their search for the entrance but left a few days later.”

“Because they didn’t know it was right here. They didn’t know the entrance was only visible from the Refuge and only if you were to stand right between the eyes of the lioness looking through the westerly window and beyond the small crack in the glass. No one knew where the Porte Des Lioness was. The ones before us were only guessing. Am I right? Broga, am I right?”

“Yes.”

“THEN TELL US HOW TO GET INTO THE MOUNTAIN!” Joshua was surprised over the strength of his outburst. “We cannot wait any longer. You MUST show us the entrance. Too much is at stake and we are worthy… Are we not? We are worthy.” With that last sentence Joshua seemed to collapse into himself. As if once he had thought the words, he no longer could believe them.

“You are worthy, Joshua. We are worthy,” Grey thought to them.

“We are worthy,” Krieg thought quietly.

There was silence. The thoughts echoed for a while in each of them. They had never spoken them like this before, never dared to. There was still a part within them that did not believe this to be true, but they did not have a choice. They needed to believe they were worthy. Joshua looked at his companions and saw the same determination in them that he felt in himself.

“I will show you the entrance, Joshua from the Great Lake,” Broga thought to them. “And I will open it for you. But you must know that once you are inside the mountain, there is no way back for you. You must face whatever awaits you inside. You cannot go back for I will neither be able to hear you nor will I be able to open the gate more than once. You must realize this and fully. If you do, I will open the gate for you right now.

“Do it,” Grey thought.

“Open it now,” Krieg replied.

“I want you to open it, Broga, Guardian of the Gate. In the name of the lioness I want you to open the door into the mountain,” Joshua answered.

There was a pause that in Joshua’s mind seemed to stretch into infinity. Too much hung in the balance for them to fail now. The stakes were too high for them not to succeed.

“So be it.” The frog’s thoughts reached them quietly.

With that, Broga hopped in between Krieg and Grey and up the incline toward the Wall. Joshua and the others followed slowly. When the peeper reached the Wall he went along it feeling with his hands for something in the stone. Then he stopped. It was hard to see exactly but it seemed that he pushed against the wall and a tiny piece of the rock moved inward. It looked like a door that was barely high enough to let the peeper stand up in. It was miniscule. Broga entered. What occurred next was as astounding as it was unbelievable. It looked as if the tiny peeper pushed against the rock. Nothing seemed to happen at first. Then suddenly a straight vertical crack appeared above the peeper that went up at least ten feet. Broga pushed. And now the entrance moved. It was a massive slab of solid rock. The little peeper pushed it and it seemed to slide to the side leaving an opening.

Joshua was the first to enter. He realized that the gate was as thick as it was wide, solid granite. The tiny peeper moved the boulder and even though Joshua could see the strain in Broga’s features, he could not believe that he was actually able to push it. Grey entered next, followed by Krieg. When the three of them were inside, they watched as Broga slowly pulled the gate closed. There were no good byes. When the door shut and it once again became invisible as if it had never existed in the first place, Broga sat down outside under the head of the lioness at the edge where the earth met the stone and thought about his life and what he had accomplished. He had opened the gate to the one who was destined to enter the mountain. He had fulfilled his life’s purpose. He closed his eyes and became very peaceful. After a few minutes he drifted off and fell into a deep sleep from which he never woke up.

18.
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There was no sound when the door closed. Joshua expected it to be pitch black but instead there was a slight glow that emanated from the surface of the tube-like tunnel they stood in. It was just high enough for Krieg to walk upright. Its surface was smooth and solid, similar to the outside of the mountain. Joshua followed the tunnel with his eyes but could not see the end of it. It disappeared far into the distance.

“Are you ready?” Grey asked.

“No,” Joshua answered truthfully and began to walk into the tunnel.

There seemed to be a slight downward pitch to it. The sound of their steps on the ground echoed through the semi darkness as they made their way ever deeper into the mountain. If the others had any thoughts they kept them to themselves. Krieg was limping slightly. The deep oozing cuts from the vulture had gotten more infected and Joshua was afraid the infection would spread the longer they walked. The low glowing that came from the surface of the stone around them illuminated the wounds and made them appear almost black. Krieg also couldn’t lift his head as the height of the tunnel didn’t allow it. Grey seemed fine. Nose to the ground, he concentrated on picking out any smells he could detect.

Joshua had lost all sense of time. He couldn’t tell if they had been walking for hours or just minutes. His talons began to hurt. The smooth granite was hard and unforgiving. He began to feel thirsty. He hoped they would get through this tunnel soon even though he had no idea what to expect on the other side.

“There is water ahead,” the wolf proclaimed. And only a short while later they came to a large puddle. Joshua gratefully drank from it. The horse and Grey did the same. While he drank Joshua looked down the long tunnel. He realized something that almost made his heart stop.

“Grey, how far can you see down into the tunnel?” He asked quietly.

Grey looked ahead, so did Krieg. The three of them saw it at the same time. The surface of the water mirrored the slightly glowing ceiling. The further they looked into the tunnel the closer the surface seemed to come to the ceiling. Far in the distance the surface of the water and the ceiling met. From then on the tunnel was submerged.

Joshua’s heart sank. He looked at his companions. But before he could form a clear thought and communicate it with the others, Krieg began to walk into the water.

“Jump on my back, red one. There is no use standing here. Forward is the only way to go.”

Joshua flew on the horse’s back. He had to drop his head and crouch down so he wouldn’t scrape along the ceiling. Grey began to swim next to them. Joshua watched him. Was this where their journey together would end? In a tunnel somewhere deep inside a mountain? Fear crept up inside him, tightening its grip around his chest. He had almost drowned twice. It was probably the worst experience of his life and he did not look forward to experiencing it again. As they drew closer to the point where the water met the ceiling, he tried to push away the overwhelming feeling of sickness that welled up in him. He had trouble breathing.

“Joshua,” Grey had a tendency to interrupt his thoughts at exactly the right time. “I will go first and see what’s down there and come back. Krieg will not be able to turn around in there.”

Before Joshua could give any thought to this, Grey disappeared into the blackness. The horse’s head stuck out of the water just enough for him to breathe. They waited. And waited. After what must have been an eternity Joshua couldn’t take it any longer.

“I will be right back,” he thought to the horse and with that, he jumped. Once under water, he began to use his talons to push forward but remembered very quickly that they were useless down here. The water was pitch black. The light on the tunnel’s surface was completely swallowed up by the water. He felt a moment of panic, but then he became very still. It was as if his mind stopped its activity. He forgot about the question of what would happen if he didn’t find an air pocket somewhere. He stopped thinking about Grey and he stopped thinking about his own life. And suddenly it was very clear to him. It was clear that he could do only one thing now. He opened his wings and pushed them downward and back, moving his body forward. After a couple of strokes, Grey appeared in front of him. His thoughts were panic stricken.