Chapter 116: Chapter 116

“Are we sure it went in this direction?” asked Kelser.

“Yes,” I said. “It was pretty dark last night, but I’m sure I saw it go behind that forest in the distance.”

It was dawn on the morning after we’d seen the golden streak in the sky. Since I was worried about the immortals, I’d told the elders to squash their curiosity and ignore it for the night. A couple of them had protested wildly, saying it was a sign or something, but I convinced them it wasn’t worth it, especially this late at night. Even with the bright moonlight, finding something so small over such a large area would be pretty hard, especially with how cold it had been. We were better off sending search parties in the morning. Search parties that included myself and Kelser, the best magicians in the area.

“Are you sure it isn’t a sign from the ancestors?” asked Kelser.

“You don’t sound like you believe that,” I said.

“I don’t. But all the other kids said it was a gift from the ancestors for honoring you,” he said.

I chuckled. “Honoring me? You haven’t even made me any statues.”

“You want statues?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “No, I don’t. Anyways, I’m not sure if it’s a gift, a curse, or something that’ll be completely useless to us.”

“But you told me before that you knew what it was,” he said.

“I meant that I knew what it was in general,” I said. “But it could be many things in particular. It’s like saying I know something is a tree even if I don’t know what kind of tree it is. Does that make sense?”

“Sure,” he said. “Except trees don’t fall from the sky.”

We continued talking as we approached the forest. To be honest, it was more like a patch of trees that had grown around a small lake, but it was large enough to hide exactly where the streak had descended. The lake itself was probably a remnant of the river from when it changed course sometime in the past, which meant it would either dry up or the river flooded enough to fill it up once in a while.

Kelser and I were out with a large hunting and foraging party. There weren’t a lot of monsters on the plains these days, but some hunters had mentioned seeing a large shadow in the lake a week ago when they were out hunting nearby. Since there was a pretty good chance that the thing had fallen in the water, I decided we could use some extra eyes and water magic users.

Besides, we needed a lot of people to comb through the forest and to spread out over the plains behind it. I didn’t want to be searching for too long, since that would mess up the day’s schedule, so I was prepared to call it quits if we couldn’t find anything by noon.

“Wow,” I said as we passed through the thin line of trees and approached the lake. The lakeside was beautiful, like a scene out of a children’s fantasy movie. I half expected a feminine hand to reach out from the middle of the pretty blue surface, clasping a large sword and proclaiming me King Arthur.

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Actually, now that I thought about it, something like that would be creepy as heck. How medieval people hadn’t thought of that imagery as suspiciously diabolical was beyond me. Weren’t they the same people killing women for being witches? I remembered a friend of mine mentioning how those women had been the medieval equivalent of suburban moms recommending herbal remedies to their friends and family. Burning someone alive for telling you to rub aloe on your husband’s balding head was a little extreme but hey, maybe they should have held their breath under lakes and thrown up rusty old swords instead.

My own thoughts made me chuckle, which made Kelser ask me what was wrong, and I refused to explain. That entire train of thought had been too out there to explain! Honestly, I understood that most of the other people around me were tense and confused because of the golden streak of light that had shook them awake, but I was pretty certain it was going to be harmless. And now that the day had broken and the moon and red star were out of sight, I felt much more calm and relaxed.

Most of the tribesmen began fanning out through the trees while a group broke off to search the plains behind the little forest. Kelser accompanied me with a small group of advanced spell casters as we stepped up to the edge of the lake. Kann Imm and Kirs Nare, the married couple from some time ago, were both here with me. Both of them had turned out to be talented spell casters, joining the ranks of the advanced magicians of the Roja tribe, who had had a head start on everyone else.

“Alright,” I said as I eyed the water. It was pretty clear and I couldn’t see the shadow that the hunters had mentioned, but I wasn’t going to dismiss their report so easily. After all, the fact that I couldn’t see any fish in this freshwater lake was disconcerting. “I’m going to start by throwing a few things inside the water. If something shoots up, try to use magic hands to hold it down, or fire magic to scare it away. Sound good?”

The others nodded. I took a deep breath, grabbed a rock with my hands, and chucked it as far as I could. Plop. Ripples emanated across the surface. I stared, spells at the ready. After a while, I breathed out, and motioned for one of the accompanying Roja tribesmen to hand me the thing he had in his hand. He handed me the piece of meat, and I transferred it from my real hand to a magic hand. I then prepared my energy, and flung the piece of meat with a long magic hand attached to it, as far into the middle of the lake as I could.

Smack. The piece of meat hit the surface, the sound echoing across the little forest. I let the bait sink slowly into the lake, increasing the length of my magic hand as necessary. I couldn’t feel the water with my magic hands, and it took a lot of energy to maintain one so long, but I steeled my resolve and closed my eyes. I may not feel the water, but I would know when the bait was gone.

Slowly. Gently. Like a leaf falling off a shedding tree in the fall, the bait descended further and further into the lake. There were no currents, no big forces pushing it this way or that. It continued to fall for several minutes, as I prepared to dispel my magic at the slightest sign of trouble. The last thing I wanted was to be pulled into the water by an other-worldly Nessy.

I sighed in relief. It had been a good while. Thirty minutes, by my estimate. Either the hunters had not seen anything after all, or the thing was more afraid of us than we were of it. Either way, it was probably safe to search the lake, as long as we were careful and prepared for trouble. I began to reel in the piece of meat. It was still perfectly good bait. We could use it in a trap or something. Most monsters wouldn’t mind if the bait was a little soggy, I reckoned.

As I reeled in the magic hand, I heard a murmur from the people standing beside me. I still had my eyes closed, since I had been trying to feel for any changes in the water, but I opened them now. I assumed they’d been spooked by the ripples created by my rapidly retreated magic hand.

No, that wasn’t it. Kelser had his hands out in front of his chest, readying spells. I followed his gaze out to the lake, and dispelled my magic hands. The bait wasn’t worth it at this point. I quickly began preparing my own spells.

A mound of mud had risen an inch above the lake’s surface. Runny muck cascaded off the mound like murky rapids, with pebbles appearing from time to time like distraught kayakers. The mound grew larger and larger, until it was at least ten feet above the lake’s surface. At what looked to be twenty feet wide, this thing was absolutely massive. The lake itself must have dropped a couple of inches when this thing came out. I stared cautiously at the monster, hoping the fact that it had not gone for the bait meant it wasn’t carnivorous. We might be able to slowly win it over with other kinds of food, if the only reason it had come out was because we were intruding on its territory. After all, there was point in fighting something this massive if we could avoid it.

The mound grew further and my eyes grew wide. I shouted for the others to retreat. Whatever it was that had fallen from the sky was not worth this fight! A couple of confused tribesmen hesitated. I scolded them and gave them a glare. They began running without looking back. Kelser stepped back carefully with me, never showing his back to the monster. I could see the beads of sweat running across his forehead. I was probably similarly visibly distressed.

I stared at the monster again as its face emerged from the water at last. Two bright, beady eyes, covered in murky brown mud, stared at me. The huge mound we had seen emerge so far from the lake finally took shape into a pair of pointy ears and a furry head. The flowing mud cleared up the figure further. I held my breath, refusing to believe my eyes.

Above the monster’s eyes, were studded five star-shaped stones, burning red and flashing menacingly, intensified by reflections on the disturbed but clear lake surface.