The Tail Tales - Chapter 3 - The Valley of Flowers

Andy sat there for some time trying to figure out what had happened. He was a little dazed at what had happened and could not understand it at all. Ael remained standing by his side staring at the opening of the cave. The burst of flame had died down and all that remained was a thin spiral of smoke that rose up in the air over the opening. All other traces of the whole episode had vanished and Andy felt like he had dreamed it all. The hill side was curiously quiet in the morning sun which glowed yellow orange over the horizon.

They walked down the hill side to the plains where they had come from yesterday. As they came down, Andy saw what looked like a pathway leading off from the bottom of the hill. This pathway went in a completely different direction from the one that they had come from. In fact it seemed to lead around the hill, going back somewhere. The trail bent around the hill and then disappeared from sight. Andy was not sure whether to take this new pathway or retrace their steps back through the plain. He stood there undecided and tried to think of what he should do. In the meantime, Ael had continued walking ahead.

Suddenly she seemed to realise that Andy was no longer following her and turned to look for him. It was at that precise moment that her foot landed on a loose stone that rolled. And down she went in one rolling tumbling heap. Andy got woken up from his thoughts by her scream and saw her rolling down the hill. She came to rest at the bottom exactly at the place where the new pathway started. She sat up and shook her head as if trying to clear it. He ran down to where she was sitting and asked her if she was ok. She nodded her head without speaking, almost as if speaking was not possible at that moment.

He sat down besides her waiting for her to collect her breath. It was at that moment that his eye fell on the black stone. At first he thought that the stone that he had been carrying around had fallen out of his pocket. But as he put his hand into his pocket to check, he found that the stone was still there. The stone on the ground appeared to be another one just like the one he had, though a little larger. This was big enough that he could not carry it in his pocket. As he stared at it, the stone seemed to shake a little, almost like a vibration. And then, just as quickly as it had happened, the shaking stopped. Andy thought he must have been imagining it. He turned back to Ael to see that she was examining her foot which had a kind of gash on it just above the ankle. The metallic skin that had covered her leg had torn and so had the skin underneath.

Ael was running her hands over the metallic skin almost as if she was smoothening out a wrinkle in the fabric. As she did so, the skin seemed to heat up and glow. She continued the rubbing and slowly the glow from the metallic skin seemed to be working in some way on the gash in her leg. The glow seemed to transfer itself to the wound and slowly filled it up. She then stopped rubbing and the wound slowly started closing itself. As it healed, the skin expanded and closed the tear as well. In a couple of minutes, there was no trace of either the tear or the wound at all.

Andy had forgotten to close his mouth while he had been staring at Ael’s leg and now as she turned to him, his mouth still hung open in surprise. Ael asked him, “What are you staring at?” And he muttered “N-N-Nothing, just that your wound just healed by itself!” She said “So?” as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He took some time to understand and she helped by answering what seemed like twenty thousand questions that asked. It finally turned out that the metallic skin that she wore had a double use – it was for protection and healing. The skin was almost alive and transmitted healing radiations that accelerated healing processes till it was almost instantaneous.

After having taken his time to digest this information, Andy finally brought himself back to the present and the problem they were in. He left Ael sitting there and wandered down the pathway to some distance. He could see that the path was downward sloping, starting gently at first but when it turned around the side of the hill, quite sharply so. He stood and surveyed the way down and found that it was quite steep in places and then led off to a sheer drop where it disappeared into what appeared to be a cover of clouds, purple blue in colour. He could not see the end of the path. He assumed that the clouds were actually some sort of low level mist that was carpeting the ground. He turned and walked back to Ael. And found her examining the Black Stone. She turned it around and looked at it from all sides and then shook it. Almost in response to her shaking, the stone started vibrating in her hand. It shook hard enough for her to grow alarmed and drop it.

The stone continued to vibrate even after it fell on the ground – almost as if it were caught up in some kind of a tremor. The vibration intensified and as it did, it started emitting a curious yellowish red glow. The glow started in the centre; at the heart of the stone and radiated outwards. The vibration and the glow; both built up into some kind of a crescendo. As the glow seemed to consume the entire stone, the heart of the stone seemed to explode into a radiating shining ball. Within this ball, they could clearly see a creature of some sorts. It had a snout, a pair of fledgling wings and a tail with a pointed arrow end. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, the whole thing came to an end. The vibration stopped and so did the glow and the stone returned to its smooth black shape. Ael stepped forward and tentatively touched the stone, expecting it to be hot. But the stone was cool to the touch.

Ael picked up the stone in one hand and with the other, unzipped some kind of a built in pouch on her metallic skin at her hip. She dropped the stone into it and the skin became whole again. The funny thing was that the stone did not show at all anymore – not even as a bulge in the metallic skin pocket or whatever it was. Andy stared at her hip where the stone had disappeared. Ael seemed unconcerned by all that happened and asked him “Now what?” Andy broke from his trance of staring at her hip and then asked her if she was able to walk. She replied “Of course. Where are we going?” Andy then led the way down the path, around the hill. They came to the spot where he had stopped earlier. By now the sun had climbed in the sky and with its light and warmth, had made a nice hole in the mist carpet that Andy had seen.

Only it was no mist carpet. It had indeed been a cloud cover and had been clinging to the side of the hill. Through the opening in the cloud cover, Andy saw that the pathway led quite a way down and that the “hill” they were on was actually some kind of a cliff that dropped off sharply into a valley below. Midway down the path, some kind of a stream cut across and then started running alongside the pathway. Andy looked at Ael and she said “Let’s go.” He started walking first and she followed. They descended down the pathway, walking down at first. Then as the slope started to become steeper, they sat down and climbed down using any kind of holds for their hands and legs. There were places where it was so sheer that they just had to slide down to the next landing spot. Ael almost missed her footing the first time they did this and came close to falling off. Andy grabbed hold of her hand and steadied her until she was stable enough to continue.

They clambered down like this until they arrived at the place where the stream crossed the path. Only, this was no stream. The water was quite fast and though the stream appeared shallow enough for them to walk, Andy was not sure if they would actually be able to cross it on foot without being swept away. As he stood there, Andy saw a big leaf, large enough for him to have sat on, coming down the stream. It bobbed and spun its way down the stream and soon vanished out of sight. He wondered for a moment at how such a large leaf could have existed. But the thought quickly vanished as he saw another leaf, even larger this time, coming down the stream. He called out to Ael and explained the idea to her. Both of them stood at the very edge of the water and waited. Andy hoped that this leaf would also come close to the bank on which they were standing. The leaf came down towards them, moved towards the opposite bank and then bounced off as the stream turned inwards and then came straight at them. Andy waited and at the last moment yelled “Jump.”

He and Ael jumped holding hands and they landed on the edge of the leaf. As Andy fought to regain his balance, the leaf started to spin around. The spinning motion pushed both of them inwards and they tumbled down into the centre of the leaf, landing in a heap. After separating themselves, they fought to regain their breath only to find that the leaf had now started moving faster down the stream. The drop was now almost completely vertical and the water was gaining a lot of speed. As they went through the first vertical drop, they almost fell out of the leaf which seemed to float in the air. At the last moment, they grabbed the edge of the leaf and held on for dear life.

The leaf landed in a pool of water and they got soaked in it. They just had time to pull themselves onto the leaf before it started its downward journey once again. There were seven such drops like this, each larger than the previous one. By then they had both got completely drenched, had swallowed quite a lot of water and were tired to the bone. They did not have time to look where they were at all during these drops. When they hit the last drop which was the largest one, Andy could no longer hold onto the leaf. As they fell, Ael still held on while Andy got separated from the leaf and went into free fall. He hit the water with a solid thwack that drove the wind from his lungs. As he went under the water, he started to lose consciousness.

Ael fell with the leaf and though she was jarred by the impact, she managed to stay afloat. She saw Andy landing in the water and waited for him to reappear. When he did not, she quickly jumped in to the water. She found the water surprisingly shallow. Andy was lying at the bottom of the pool. She grabbed hold of his hand and pulled him upwards. After getting him to the surface, she struck out towards the side of the pool. When she reached land, she found that lifting him was not that easy. She finally had to settle for pulling him half out of the water. Then she put her hands on his chest and pushed down once, twice. The second time around, Andy woke up sputtering and spitting out water. After a prolonged bout of coughing, he settled down and started breathing normally.

He realised that Ael had rescued him and muttered weakly “Thanks.” She simply smiled in reply. He closed his eyes and lay there for a while, getting his strength back. Ael, in the meantime, started looking around. She found that they were at the bottom of the cliff. The pool was in the middle of a clearing and the water in it was sparkling clear. She drew up a handful and tasted it to find that it was surprisingly tasteless. The sand on which Andy lay was whitish and crystalline. It sparkled in the sun glinting like a million small diamonds strewn around. She walked away from the water and found that the sand grew less and less grainy as she got closer to the shrubbery. It also seemed to change into an orange brown colour. The shrubbery itself was dense and the leaves shaped like hearts, light green in colour, almost transparent. She pushed the leaves aside to find that more of the same was behind it. The shrubbery was so dense that she could not pass through it. She decided to go back to where Andy lay.

Andy had recovered by then and was looking around too. He stood up and found that the shrubbery was taller than he was and that he could not see beyond it. He looked around for something to cut down the leaves with but could find nothing that would help. As he searched, Ael came back. She asked him “Have you lost something?” He said “No, I am looking for something to cut the leaves with so that we can go through them.” Ael then unzipped the pouch at her hip and pulled out what seemed to be a flat knife of medium length. Andy was once more surprised that the pocket could have held something like that without it being seen from outside. Ael noticed his surprised stare and asked him “Is there something wrong with my hip?” Andy answered “What kind of a pocket is that? It seems to be like a magician’s hat. Only you are pulling out or putting things and not rabbits.” Ael looked puzzled by what he had said and asked him what a magician or a rabbit was. Andy found after trying several times that he could not explain either of the words and tried to ask her instead as to how things that went into her pocket disappeared.

Ael replied that her pocket was really a small warp in space into which she was putting things. The things she put into the pocket actually were moved to a separate dimension and were stored there and she could retrieve them when she wanted. Andy replied “Cool!” To which Ael said “It does not have any temperature.” Andy explained to her that “cool” was an expression used to express admiration or praise. She seemed to understand. Andy then took the knife from her and started hacking at the shrubs. In a little time, he had almost completely made his way through the shrubs. He found that he could see through the last layer of leaves and that there seemed to be nothing on the other side. That is, he could not see anything particular except open space.

He hacked through the last layer and stepped forward only to find that his foot landed in empty space. He lost his balance and fell forward, rolling down a small slope. Ael met with a similar fate since she was following him close behind. They both rolled down a little distance and came to rest in what seemed like grass. Andy got up and dusted himself. He had got enough of rolling and falling for a long time and swore to be more careful from now on. He looked around and found that they were now at the bottom. He could see for what appeared to be miles. All around, there seemed to be plants with all sorts of flowers on them – flowers of many different shapes and colours. He could see the ones that were close distinctly. But as he lifted his head, the flowers appeared as though they were a carpet of multiple colours that kept merging into one another at intervals. The effect was quite dizzying and his head spun. He put out a hand to steady himself. And found Ael standing next to him. She did not seem to get affected by the colour and seemed to be quite comfortable looking at the coloured carpet around them. Andy shut his eyes and counted to ten. He opened them and found that he could now see the colours without getting affected. The trick was to look at them but not too hard.

As he stood there, Andy became aware of a peculiar smell. It reminded him of some medicinal herbs that his grandmother had used once when he had a bad stomach. The taste had nearly killed him. The same medicinal smell seemed to come from the plants around him. He felt suddenly nauseous and giddy once again. He ran back into the shrubbery and to the pool and drank some of the water. It helped clear his head and he then went back. He found that Ael was on her knees examining a greenish red flower. He shielded his eyes and tried to look at whether there was something beyond the flowers but could not make out anything.

Ael was fascinated by the flower that she held. The petals seemed to be having a life of their own, moving independently from the flower. This created a unique wavy motion that was almost hypnotic. She then noticed that the centre of the flower which was red in colour was somehow receding and exposing a hollow core in the flower. As she watched, the hollow core became fully exposed and seemed to be leading all the way down the flower into the plant. She leaned forward to have a better look when something small but sharp flew out of the hollow and struck her in the cheek. She felt an intense pain at the spot where she had got hit and a burning sensation that seemed to be spreading from her cheek to her entire face. Along with the burning sensation, a feeling of numbness followed. The sensation spread from her face to her arms and then her upper body. She found that she could no longer stand and fell forward onto the ground. As she lay there, she discovered that all her senses were perfectly intact but she could not use any of the muscles in her body – she could not blink, she could not open her mouth or speak, she could not lift even her little finger.