EA#44:
Read From the Beginning or the start of Trial Two or Three or Four or Five or Six or Seven
The Mountain in the Clouds, Part Forty-Seven
“
Gumpelthwomp was standing above me.
“Magi man!” said the giant with a fondness in his voice.
I never would have expected this strange friendship the first time I met Gumpel.
But I was never so glad to see him.
“Gumpel, what happened?” I asked.
“Magi Man fall asleep,” the giant explained. “But Gumpel ok in cold snow. Gumpel walk Magi Man here.”
I looked around. We weren’t in the barrow lands anymore. But where were we?
“Where is here?” I inquired, partly to my friend and partly to the world, in awe.
The landscape was so unusual. It was as if a series of earthquakes had shifted the earth up and down, leaving pieces hanging like platforms above us, while others were below. Most of the land was uplifted as sheer cliffs of rock, with debris hanging loose along with the roots of the trees above. But some areas were also smoothed off by the flow of water from small streams which ended in waterfalls tumbling through the air.
It was so odd to be there, and difficult for the mind to comprehend how it could all fit together in that way. I’d never seen anything like it.
Gumpelthwomp shrugged his enormous shoulders. “Gumpel walk and see this. Gumpel like what Gumpel see, keep walking.”
“Ok,” I began, “but we are supposed to be finding Maniea and Giggazzibar. Did you forget? How does following your curiosity into this land help us?”
The giant stared at me for a moment before answering: “Because Gumpel know giant footprint when Gumpel see one.”
He pointed to the ground behind us, and sure enough I saw the massive imprint of a giant foot marked into the dirt. In fact, there were many, and they continued to lead in the direction Gumpel was looking.
I followed his gaze, straining to look up the steep incline before us on a thin strip of hanging land.
“Do you see something that I can’t from down here?” I queried.
Without a word my extra tall friend lifted me again in his hand and held me high above his head. I felt a little nervous up there, with little to hold onto. Even his large fingers were too big around for a good grip if I needed.
But it was from that vantage that I saw it. There was a castle ahead, grand and glorious in design. But like the landscape around, it too was deformed and cleaved into many pieces. It was like a jigsaw puzzle of stone and wood. And even though it was a strange work of architecture in its current state, something about it looked familiar, as though I’d seen it before.
Yes! That’s it. It looked just like the capital at T’hordale! But in a strange deformed way. I’d only been to the city of the titans once, a long time ago, but the building style of those proud peoples was undeniable. And those towers, even remixed, were so iconic from my memories as they peered over the hill lands.
It was odd to again see the intersection of Paelstor in this place I knew to be Neverwhere. I didn’t fully understand how it worked here, and things were never quite the same as back home. So I imagined that anything were possible.
Everything about this place was wondrous to behold.
“Well, Magi Man,” Gumpel suggested, “we are here now. Let’s find Giggazzibar!”
So he held me, lower to his chest now, and marched me up the hanging incline. My eyes could not help but drift over the cliffs to see a series of lands below, each one progressively further down than the last. I’m not one to have a fear of heights, but this gave me such a sense of vertigo that I had to avert my gaze.
I closed my eyes to recenter, and when I felt at ease again and opened them I simply kept my view straight in front of me as my friend walked us to the broken castle.
We were amazed to find that no one confronted us at the gate. The gate itself was split in two and we were able to slip right in.
Nobody was there. The inner ward was empty, as well. But the giant footprints in the mud proved that we were still on the trail.
As we entered the keep and the inner halls, we found it eerily quiet. It was only by luck that the repositioned parts of the building left openings wide enough and tall enough for even Gumpelthwomp to traverse within.
So we traveled the halls and searched the rooms we found. The great hall was empty, the barracks, too. The servants quarters were disheveled but also barren of life. Even the sanctum was dark and still, not a sign of its former holiness left to be seen.
We decided to search further inward and found a staircase to the basement. To our surprise this, too, allowed access for Gumpel. As we marched into the dark of the dungeon, I started to have a creeping feeling that something here was very, very wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end.
“Hello!” called my fearless friend. His voice resounded off the walls of those dense halls.
I thought, if only we were all two dozen meters tall, maybe we would be so bold.
While it was very dark down there, we had some semblance of light to guide us from cracks and slits in above us, formed by the repositioning of the building. Still, it was difficult to make out much more than the borders of walls and doorways.
“Gumpelthwomp?” called a large female voice. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Giggzzibar!” my friend yelled back, almost deafening me.
“Gumpel, this way,” Gigga returned. “Hurry!”
The giant dashed down a hall where he perceived the voice to be, and rather than be left alone in the dark with that creepy feeling, I followed quickly after.
A few moments later I caught up to him. He was pulling and prying at some enormous iron bars. Behind them I could faintly make out the large form of Giggazzibar in the cell.
“Gumpel, hurry,” she begged. “They’ll be back soon.”
“Who will be back?” I asked. “We didn’t see anyone.”
“Who’s that human?” Gigga glared at me. “Is he with you?”
“That not human,” Gumpel vouched for me. “He Magi Man. He Gumpel friend. Long story. Tell Gigga later.”
“Who’s coming?” I asked again. “The whole castle was empty.”
“Castle not empty, human Magi Man,” Gigga still eyed me suspiciously. She didn’t seem to be one to be taken lightly or fooled easily.
I asked once again, “Ok, what are you talking about, then? Who is coming?”
“Not who, but what,” said Gigga with some finality.
“Gigga, you tell Gumpel what is it?” my friend chimed in to help me, while still trying to open the barred door.
“Gumpel, they awful. They dead, but not dead. They coming back, I know it!” The lady giant looked truly afraid.
Undead? I mused. There have been tales as old as Paelstor about such things, but no one has ever seen any. Or at least the accounts of such sightings are so rare and unbelievable, unproven, that no one ever takes it seriously.
Beware!
The voice called in my head. It seemed to suggest I might take it more seriously now. Great. Am I about to be proved wrong?
“You push, I pull,” Gumpel suggested to Gigga. So the two giants coordinated their great strength.
Gumpelthwomp had his heavy-handed grip on the bars and was heaving and grunting with such effort that his face bubbled over with veins and sweat and effort.
At the same time Giggazzibar placed her feet firmly behind her and leaned in to push the iron so mightily. The bars began to bend, emitting creaking and cracking noises. I stood back, as I did not want to be in the way when the two giants came tumbling down the hall.
With concerted effort and concentration, their hands and feet almost slipping, the iron began to budge. An opening emerged at the top where the bars detached from their locking mechanism. The breakthrough spurred them on and they kept at it.
Finally, with one last great shove, the door burst outward and Gigga came flying through the opening. She landed in a heavy, thumping heap on top of Gumpel, who was knocked to the floor.
The sound alone hurt my ears, but I also felt the reverberation in the floor under my feet. And wasn’t the only one to sense this.
“We’ve surely done it now,” Gigga said with a frightening knowing. “We better get out of here. They coming.”
As if she had summoned them herself with that warning, we immediately became aware that indeed something was approaching. It sounded distant at first, like echoes in the halls. Movements, shifting feet, low groans of effort. Nothing terribly sinister but it was unsettling and unfamiliar. And my expectation of the walking dead certainly didn’t help. The sounds alone almost certainly verified this very real possibility.
“Go!” Gigga cried out. “Now!”
The giants got up and began to run.
“Gumpel!” I yelled.
“Magi Man,” he said, stopping to come back and pick me up.
We ran again, back the way we’d come into the dungeon, through those dark, barely-lit halls. They were much more sinister now, with the feeling of a menacing threat approaching.
Up the stairs we went, back to the main level. We had not seen anything in our flight, but there was definitely a commotion of a large number of things in that place. While it came from nowhere in particular, more like all around us, the sounds grew in volume. I only hoped we’d left them behind and could make it out the front gate. Whatever it was, whatever they were, I was ready to get out of there altogether.
That creeping feeling ran up my spine again, stronger than ever. It made my entire body shiver in fear.
We burst out into the bailey, feeling ourselves nearly free. And that is when we saw them. The walking dead were swarming in the ward. Fallen titans and T’hors, peasants and servants, men and woman, young and old. They mindlessly walked towards us from every side. Then the ones from below the castle appeared, too, encroaching on us from behind.
We were completely surrounded. The zombies had us pinned. And worst of all was a couple of the creatures that burst through the walls on the sides. They were giants, turned undead as well. And they moved on us in kind.
It was hopeless. We had no way out. There were too many of them.
Gods, what now?
“
Thanks so much for reading.
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Blessings to you,
Matthew