Raidon Plains Pt 1 Len stood at the edge of the forest and stared across the Raidon plains. The golden, waist high grass swayed gently with the breeze, like ripples across a bronze ocean. The sky was a radiant blue, and the sun warmed the earth without hampering from the slightest cloud. Len could not detect a hint of bad weather. But nobody could predict the weather, and anyone that said they could was either lying or a fool, and anyone who believed them was just a fool. The Raidon plains offered no protection against a storm, and therefore were seldom crossed even at the narrowest pass. During a storm, anything that stood higher than the grass was struck by lightning. There were deep gullies that offered protection against the lightning and wind, until they filled with rain and turned into powerful rivers. Nothing on the Raidon plains could protect one from the awesome tunnel clouds though. During a bad storm, hundreds of tunnel clouds could be seen dancing across the plains, sucking at the golden grass. The grass had developed the unique ability to stay rooted, and it was virtually impossible to pull it from the earth. Len considered his options. He could take a chance and cross the plains in a full days walk if he didn’t stop to rest. Or he could travel around the northern tip, through the foothills of the Pradar Mountains, and add a week to his journey. His provisions were running frighteningly low and the Pradar Mountains were uninhabited and devoid of all but the fiercest species of wildlife, offering little opportunity to forage for food. Len couldn’t turn around, and they would be expecting him to head south. His only chance was to head west, to the Green Sea, where he could find help from a friend who lived in a small fishing village. There was no decision to make, and Len knew it. Take a chance crossing the plains, or die. It was as simple as that. Len grudgingly stepped into the grass and started across the plains, leaving the shelter of the Silverweed forest behind, it’s shimmering plants sparkling in the sun. Travel across the planes was not easy, even for one as imposing as Len. The grass was high and pulled at Len’s clothes, like hands trying to grasp him and keep him from crossing the treacherous land. It covered the entire plains, with the exception of the dry riverbeds. Around noon Len finally came across a riverbed that ran in the direction he was traveling. He made his was down the sloped sides to the bottom, some thirty feet down, and continued on his way. He could travel much faster on the dry dirt and walked briskly until the sun began to sink below the horizon in front of him. Len decided to stop briefly to eat and rest. He sat down on the slope of the riverbed and thought about how far he had come in the last two days, and how drastically his life had changed. He had the chance to live again and he knew that he would die before letting anyone take that from him again. When he resumed walking the sun had dropped out of sight, but still cast it’s crimson light across the sky. It would be dark in another hour, but Len would have to continue to walk through the night. He was uneasy about being so exposed and wanted to get to the shelter of the forest beyond the plains as soon as he could. Night crept across the plains and covered the golden grass – the only sign of life on an otherwise barren landscape. The stars were bright and there were still no clouds in the sky, no sign of any approaching storms. Len continued his trek in the enveloping silence. Nothing but the sound of his boots scraping across the dirt of the riverbed could be heard, not even the faintest rustle of the grass, not even the smallest mouse or insect. No night birds flew through the warm air. Len concentrated all his senses and could detect no other living presence. It was well after midnight when Len felt the air change. He stopped and concentrated on his surroundings, feeling the air with his mind, and could detect a change in the pressure and a slight drop in the temperature. The sky was still clear, but any change in the weather conditions, however slight, was cause for concern. Len continued on and soon felt a gentle breeze blowing in from the east. He picked up the pace, not knowing exactly how far he was from the edge of the forest. The riverbed continued directly west, but Len knew that it did not run all the way to the forest. That meant that he would have to cross the plains without shelter at some point. The breeze steadily grew stronger and Len frequently glanced over his shoulder, checking the eastern skies. His senses told him that he was in danger, and his instincts were rarely wrong. Soon he began to see flashes of lightning behind him. First they were pulses of light with no distinct form. As they grew closer Len could see the jagged fire rip through the night. The stars began to disappear and explosions of thunder grew louder. The wind came in waves, growing stronger by the minute. Len knew that he was in serious trouble. He scrambled up the bank and into the grass. The implacable wind blew twice as hard and Len had to steady himself, leaning backwards against the cold blasts of air. He scanned the western horizon, looking for the shelter of the forest. He could not see in the dark with his eyes, so he searched with his mind, projecting himself across the plains until he reached the forest. The shelter of the tall trees was still close to five miles away. The storm was approaching fast and would overtake him before he could travel that far, but he had to try. The storm reached the eastern edge of the plains and Len could see the lightning begin to scorch the earth, striking furiously into the golden grass with vengeance. Thunder blasted like a drum roll, shaking the ground, and a curtain of rain so thick it was hard to breathe in, crashed onto the plains. Len sprinted through the riverbed. He was picked up and slammed into the ground by the wind several times. The riverbed would soon be full of water, but if he were caught in the grass when the lightning reached him he would be struck hundreds of times in a matter of seconds. His only chance was to reach the forest, and he knew that was not possible because in order to do so he would have to cross the plains. The riverbed was already turning north, away from the forest. He would try to stay afloat in the current. He would probably die, either drowned or sucked up into a tunnel cloud and ripped apart. But he refused to give up. Len stopped to rest and catch his breath to brace himself against the tumult. Minutes later the first trickle or water appeared beneath Len’s feet, lazily moving past him across the hard dirt of the sun dried river bed. The storm was still five miles away and moving fast. Len watched it close the distance as the trickle became a stream, steadily moving faster with each second that passed. Len’s stomach turned as he anticipated the horror he faced. He had never heard of anyone surviving a storm on the Raidon plains. This couldn’t be the end for him; he had come so far and endured so much pain and suffering to die at the hands of a storm. The water had reached his knees and he was beginning to have trouble standing, when the lightning began to strike the grass around him. It shrouded him in a brilliant blue light, with bursts so close together the night disappeared and he could see for miles. He was aware of the sound of water moving towards him, a horrible ripping sound, deeper than the constant thunder. The river water would reach him before the rain, in a furious rush. The wall of rain was closing the distance fast and Len knew he would soon be immersed and his life would be in the hands of fate. If he wasn’t crushed by the initial impact of the floodwater and he could make his was to the surface, he might have a chance to survive briefly. Suddenly Len saw the wave of water rushing towards him. He watched it clearly in the flashing blue light. At first it was a small white line stretching across the riverbed. As it grew closer, Len watched in horror as it rose above him, filling the riverbed and moving at breathtaking speed. Adrenaline rushed through Len, shaking his body. “I will not die! You will not take my life!” Len screamed in defiance of the storm and ran to meet the rushing wall of water. ******** When the water reached Len it towered twenty feet above his head, an impenetrable wall of white; an awesome display of power. Len jumped into the air as far as he could before colliding with the juggernaut, trying to get close to the surface. His feeble efforts mattered little. The water crushed his body and slammed him against the ground. The current almost ripped him apart. Len felt his arms and legs being pulled from his body and strained to hold himself together. He was twisted and tossed up and down and water flooded his body through every orifice. He had no control, nor did he know which way was up and when he tried to open his eyes the current pushed and pulled so hard he thought his eyeballs would pop out. It was impossible to swim to the surface. Len managed to keep his mouth shut and water out of his lungs for a minute, but the water was too powerful and seemed to have a life of its, existing to destroy anything in its path. The surging water pounded his face until his mouth opened. Water filled Len’s lungs immediately, assaulting the air and squeezing it out, and the oxygen in his body dissipated. Len watched everything go black as he felt himself dying. Suddenly Len was thrust up into the air. Instinctively gasping and coughing, Len managed to clear his lungs and breathe. The world slowly faded into view. Len struggled to keep his head above water, the strain depleting what little strength remained in his broken body. He felt almost no pain, but he knew that he was injured badly. Frenzied flashes of lightning revealed a nightmare landscape. Above Len, vehement black clouds collided and churned, generating hundreds of savage tunnel clouds that covered the landscape as far as Len could see. The tunnels wound their way around each other, sometimes intertwining and then breaking apart, sometimes combining to form larger tunnels, in a perverse dance of destruction. These tunnel clouds were different, Len noticed. As they made their way from the clouds above they faded from black to a light shimmering color that looked metallic in the bright flashes of lightning, like sunlight reflecting off a king’s golden chain mail armor. Fighting to keep his head above water, Len realized why. In awe, he watched the tunnel clouds tear the golden grass from the earth and pulverize it into dust. Len looked downstream and saw tunnel clouds crossing the river. They danced back and forth, pausing to drink and then moving on. Len quickly became aware that being sucked into a tunnel cloud was a very real threat. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t keep himself above water much longer. His strength was almost exhausted and he would soon drown. Len watched as a giant tunnel cloud stopped in the middle of the river. He was being swept directly towards it. With what little strength remained in his mangled body he tried to dive down under the tunnel cloud, but the water pushed him back to the surface, carrying out its mission to destroy with help from the tunnel cloud. Len was snatched from the water by a crushing hand that sought to annihilate everything in its grasp. The force generated by the tunnel cloud was amazing. Len felt like a bug being crushed under a boot. The cloud tortured Len, not killing him, but grinding the golden grass dust into his skin and spinning him faster than any human had ever moved. It all happened in a brief moment in time, but Len accepted that his life was over and tried to find peace. He did not succeed. He wanted to live and fought the urge to die relentlessly. Then he was dropping through the sky, a patch of golden grass rushing to meet him, flashing eerily in the blue bursts of lightning. He could see the giant tunnel cloud behind him, moving away after spitting him out, and the river was close to his right. Len plummeted towards the patchwork landscape, amid an array of tunnel clouds and surging air currents that tossed him around like the river had only a short time ago. Through the relentless rain, Len could see the edges of the plains. From the sparkling Silverweed forest on the eastern edge to the Green Sea on the Western edge. The sinister Pradar Mountains rose to the north, like jagged tombstones in a forgotten gravesite, and to the south Len could see small villages dotting the sloping landscape. Mostly barren now but still spotted with odd shapes formed by the remaining grass, islands in a sea of barren land, the only life on the Raidon plains lay in ruins. The majestic golden grass that had survived centuries of cruel storms was gone. The first bolts of lightning struck Len when he was twenty feet from the ground, a profusion of scorching strands sent to incinerate him. The lightning inflicted pain on a different plateau from anything he had experienced. The exhausted muscles in his body contracted so violently it felt as if they had burst like balloons, leaving Len powerless to move. He felt as if he’d been thrust into an inferno hotter than the fires of hell. Despite the wind, Len could smell his own flesh and hair burning combined with the noxious fumes from the metal that had melted and fused into his skin. The lightning struck and released Len in a matter of milliseconds, but it stopped him dead in the air. Len, now on the brink of losing his mind, had just determined that he was still alive when the second bolts of lightning struck him. Again the agonizing electricity surged though his body with an excruciating wave of pain before he mercifully crashed into a small patch of grass that offered him a minimum amount of shelter from the bombardment of lightning. Len couldn’t see, but he knew enough to stay down. The lightning had blinded him and all he saw when he opened his eyes was a brilliant wall of white light. Miraculously he was still alive, but just barely. Len’s vision slowly returned and he could see the river, not more than twenty feet in front of him. It only took Len a split second to decide that his best chance for survival would be in the river. Bolts of lightning were flashing all around him, and in a matter of seconds he would be hit again, or torn from the ground by a tunnel cloud. Without hesitation he rose and with surprising speed, dashed towards the river. Flashes of lightning exploded around him, but he outran them and dove into the raging current. After a few very uncomfortable moments, Len floated to the surface. His body was drained and broken, but nonetheless, Len fought the current and stayed afloat. Soon Len’s body began to fail, and no matter how much he concentrated his energy, he knew it was over. It had only taken ten minutes after he was struck by the lightning for him to exhaust his body, and more importantly his mind. The storm continued to pound the plains mercilessly. Len made several feeble attempts to reach the banks of the river and climb ashore, but his efforts were in vain. He could no longer keep himself above water, and he looked around hopelessly for something that might save his life. Upstream from him, he could make out a dark shape floating in the river. Was it possible that something else had been washed into the river, maybe something he could hold onto, Len asked himself. He thought that this was very unlikely and that his mind was probably playing tricks on him now. Len tried to slow his speed to allow himself to get closer to his hallucination. Len watched in amazement as a huge tree drifted towards him. The trunk was enormous and too large for Len to grab hold of. However, he was able to seize a branch, which was the size of a small tree, and drag himself up onto the rough bark. The tree that saved Len’s life was gigantic. The trunk was five feet wide and at least a hundred and fifty feet tall. The branches spanned the river, but had been much longer before being broken against the banks. Len immediately recognized the tree and knew that it was from the Silverweed forest. It was a magnificent Bloodwood, probably thousands of years old. Bloodwood trees oozed blood red sap onto their rough black bark in the spring, and during this time the Silverweed forest looked as if it had been host to a bloody massacre. The bleeding Silverweed forest is haunted according to many legends and travel there during the spring is perilous. Len wrapped both arms around the tree limb and everything around him seemed to fade away as he focused his energy on remaining on the huge tree, riding the current west. The storm continued. The torrential rain and unmerciful lightning pounded the Raidon Plains like the world was coming to a disastrous end. Tunnel clouds searched the ground for remaining life. But the storm was through with Len. He floated unhampered by lightning or tunnel cloud, and gradually regained a fraction of strength and awareness of his conscious self. Realizing that he couldn’t do anything to better his situation, he prepared himself to ride the storm out, however long it took. Len was used to waiting and he had adapted ways to carry on living in even the worst circumstances. He dove deep inside his mind, entering another world on a different level of consciousness, where he could rest and endure the long journey ahead. He was able to remain connected to reality and observe his surroundings from a window in his mind, and he would instinctively react to any change in environment that required his attention. Len could remain in this trance for days, turning hours into minutes, months into days, years into months. The control he possessed over his own mind allowed him to survive years of torture, and he was yet to realize his full potential. After a full days travel on the river, Len focused his eyes again on the real world in a panic, his instincts warning him of danger. If he had had time to look around he would have noticed the blue, cloudless sky above him. He would have seen the golden grass surrounding him, still rooted in the ground. The storm could still be seen to the east, heading west, but Len had outrun it in the speeding current. However, the only thing Len noticed was that the river and grass ended and he could see the Green Sea rising to meet the horizon beyond. The river had run all the way across the plains to the cliffs where it fell into the ocean. The river plunged over the edge and disappeared. The current swept Len towards the towering cliffs at a speed that allowed Len no time to react and save himself. As the tree dropped over the lip, Len jumped away from the towering Bloodwood, away from the crushing water, into the warm salty air. For a brief, merciful moment, time stopped its relentless malignant parade and the majestic world was silent. Hanging hundreds of feet in the air, Len could see the beautiful Green Sea below, its bright green water stretching to the horizon and melting into the deep blue sky. Thousands of swollen rivers cascaded off the plains into the sea at the foot of the cliffs, creating a maelstrom of currents and boiling water. White, frothy shapes bubbled up through gaping holes and were sucked back down by chaotic whirlpools. Huge waves smashed into the gray cliffs, biting into the rock, reshaping it and forming a new shoreline. Len’s stomach dropped as time ripped him from the sky and plunged him towards the fury below. With fierce determination, Len anticipated the power of the ocean that was quickly rising to meet him. Len crashed into the ocean, and finally rose to the surface. He was only above water long enough to take one final breath before a giant whirlpool sucked him to the bottom and out into the depths of the brilliant Green Sea.
Copyright © 2003 Michael S Upchurch |