Cascade Rock

Part 4

Beyond the rock walls sheltering the cove, a gentle breeze pushed the mist across the open water in thick plumes and grasping wisps. The fisherman hoisted the ragged sails and steered the vessel toward the north shore. To their left, the sheer rock face dropped away as they sailed and a dense, leafy wood emerged. The wood's flora crowded the edge of the water where tall reeds whispered at the travelers' passing.

Ven rubbed his sore arms and looked out at the strange treeline. A dragonfly swooped by; its bubble-eyed head looked to be at least as large as his own fist, its body as long as his forearm. He was about to make a comment on this alarming discovery when a red streak shot out from the tall reeds, ensnaring the insect and retreating as quickly as it had appeared. Gazing through the stocks where the viscous blur had emerged, Ven saw two high-set, yellow and black eyes above a broad frowning mouth. The creature's throat ballooned out suddenly, making a guttural croaking sound.

Darl nudged him. "Was that a toad," his brother said as the boat continued to slip by. "That thing was as big as you are."

Ven turned to the stern. Something, swimming swiftly just below the water, had bisected their wake and disappeared into the reeds where the great toad had been seen. He heard something like two boards clapping together and then the blades of grass began to toss violently accompanied by terrible sounds of splashings and thrashings.

"How big did you say this leviathan was again," he asked the fisherman.

"That weren't the leviathan," the fisherman replied without even looking back to see. "Sounded like one of them great big water lizards."

"Right. That's not what a leviathan is?"

"Nah. Leviathan's too big to come this close to shore."

Ven looked out toward the center of the lake at the mist-covered dark water. It seemed suddenly forbidding and he felt grateful to be away from it. And yet within this tangled coastline lurked any number of perils. Trapped between the dark water and the dark woods, slipping ever forward toward some unknown doom, Ven shuddered.

They sailed on as the morning sun rose above the western white caps and the mist evaporated or swirled away and tucked itself beneath the overhanging boughs. They followed an endlessly twisting coastline that regressed into tendrilous off-shoots, bending and disappearing behind the encroaching trees; they swept by these off-shoots as if they were the dark alleyways of some seedy polis.

Ven slumped down on the bench and began to wonder if he had made a mistake coming out to this forsaken wilderness.

"You look glum," his brother said sliding in beside him and leaning against the boat's hull with one boot up on the bench.

"Just wondering if we're actually taking the best course of action," Ven said––and he was somewhat surprised by his own honesty.

"What do you mean?" Darl said. "I thought anything was better than facing 'the crown of teeth.'"

He made mocking claws with his hands on either side of his face as if to indicate some frightening mask.

Ven groaned. "How do you not know about the crown of teeth?"

"I do know about the crown of teeth," Darl replied with a defensive smirk. "It's a...crown...that the emperor awards to a loyal subject...and, for some reason, it gives him the right to terrorize people on the frontier."

"It's more than that," Ven said. "Why didn't you listen to the lore we were taught? It's fine for humans to change history when it suits them, but we hafkin have to remember. Otherwise, we'll believe the lies they tell about us. That we're worthless. Degenerates. We're homeless because we don't work hard. We wander the land because we're always running from the trouble we've caused. What they want to believe about us."