THE STRANGE JOURNEY

Since his wife died his world was utterly undone. Nothing was the same for Sulimeth. The fisherman of eighty-three years gave up fishing and seldom even boarded his boat except as a place to slumber. The old man’s strength was spent as he watched his four grown sons lay their mother in the ground. Three weeks after Nunessah’s passing he abandoned his seacraft and took up residence in a small stone hut, with a leaking thatched roof. The house was far inland from the shore, away from sad memories and loss. The one-room hovel was no home without Nunessah in his life. His dog, her dog lay on her grave and refused to yield to Sulimeth’s pleading. Dog and master both were heartbroken, changed by what their world had become, a lonely place without his love and dearest friend.

One night before a cold plate of beans Sulimeth cried aloud, “Evishkah! Evishkah! Oh, Goddess of the cold Night Shade, this life has become too much to bear, guide me to your realm and ease my suffering for I am nothing without my Beloved. Oh, Lady of Sorrow what meaning is there for a man without his mate? Frail is this mortal existence – all is but a vein illusion of smoke without purpose. To do it all over again, I would but do anything to have her back in my embrace.”

Upon the heels of that prayer, a knock came at the shack’s battered door. Opening it Sulimeth saw a hunched man, hooded, and shrouded in a dark cloak blacker than midnight. Though the day was nearing dusk its light was not yet gone. The shadowy figure before him brought the suddenness of winter’s cold. The fisherman asked, “What is it you need old man?”

The reply came above a whisper, “At the behest of my Mistress am I to lead you to her. Come.” With that, the eerie figure turned aside quickly retreating to the road before the stone hut.

Perplexed by his speed, Sulimeth closed the door behind him, then turning back to the road found the old man had gone further ahead of him. The fisherman ran to catch up with the stranger as he topped a hill heading for the cliff village of Slavath. “Who is your Mistress, old man?” But his new companion remained silent as the last light of day faded, leaving only the sliver of a crested moon to guide their steps.

Up ahead the two strangers spied the nearing haunted woods of Kinderval with the Blue Mountain range looming behind it. Pointing, the shadowed figure announced, “She lies there, deep within her cave beyond the forest road, and there shall your answers be forthcoming,” then the cold figure added, “I am Cirvron her Messenger, he that brings her children before her feet.”

Sulimeth did not speak the many questions that arose within his pounding chest but continued beside his new companion, nonetheless. An hour passed as the chill of deep winter followed the fisherman, but knew it was only midsummer’s day after. “Before her, the Gate Keeper awaits your three answers for your coming. Be warned and be truthful without hesitation.”

“I – shall,” came Sulimeth’s slow reply.

“Before Kudgroth’s Gate, you must battle the zealous Beast who shall challenge your cause. The creature must be defeated by the living before the journey of the Dead is met.”

“Am I dead, Cirvron,” Sulimeth’s voice cracked.

“Nay, you are very much counted among the living. Indeed! The entirety of this venture is most strange even to the Neitherlings below. Come, remember this saying: Alone as a seeker in humility I come.”

Only in that moment did the fisherman catch the faintest glimpse of his companion’s face. “I see on your face that same comforting smile of my own, long-dead father, but how is that possible,” Sulimeth asked?

“You only see that which appeases your fear. Now, be at ease until the Zealton is fully formed before you.” The moon slid behind whisps of clouds, covering the stranger once again in shadows.

The gnarled olive trees and knotted oaks stretched far overhead as the road turned eastward. Beneath those jutting branches the moon’s resumed light shone elsewhere, but not for those two travelers who entered the midnight of Kinderval.

Soon they came to a break among the thick tree line on their right where a wide space between two, towering white elm trees stood. Sulimeth boldly took that entrance into the great forest. The woodland path was marked with pebbled, white river stones whose way soon became lost beneath a carpet of withered foliage and an endless entangling of roots underfoot.

His hooded guide said, “From here, oh son of Man, you go alone to face your fear and speak your truth. For alone is this way that all men must take who enter the realm the Dead.” Then Cirvron vanished among the surrounding shadows of the trees.

With his companion’s absence, the strange warmth of summer came over the fisherman who suddenly heard the sounds of tree frogs, owls, and crickets of the night. An odd peace came over the wanderer. Still, Sulimeth went forward. Seeing a thin branch lay across his path, he picked it up, using it as a staff to steady his way through the dark trunks. Infrequently patches of moonlight beamed in from overhead and to his surprise, even the stars dared to glitter above.

Many long hours passed without any change to his surroundings, and then Sulimeth smelt an overwhelming stench filling the air. The woodlands grew quieter and darker. It was then his clear pathway abruptly ended with two great olive trees. They stood like black, gnarled sentries whose emptiness between them was a silent void.

From out of their twisted bark’s shadowy nothingness fear took shape in the growing form of a hideous nightmare. The monestrous blending of various creatures, smoke and shadows, fierce looming eyes, and far-reaching limbs ending in clutching claws. The Beast roared, unlike any living thing! A shrilling screech caused all the nesting fouls to flee the forest canopy.

Sulimeth stood his ground, “My cause is just even amid this sinful world. You are nothing to me and my way leads well beyond you. Stand aside!”

But the shadow took form and tossed the frail man aside instead. A weathered Fisherman of great age he might have been, but Sulimeth fought like a warrior in his youth! Beating and thrusting, pounding, and swinging against the dissipating smoke, which unyieldingly reformed and resumed its attack against him. Again, and again the man took brutality’s blow. With each clawing hit the man’s clothes were shredded. Again and again, he was beaten until his bleeding body stood naked. Then, standing one last time Sulimeth saw the massive creature lying upon the ground. Unmoving and defeated, the thing began to seep away into the ground like water on the desert floor until nothing remained of the creature in that moonlight.

Just beyond the gnarled gateway a troll-inspired; disfigured thing stepped out of the night’s gateway. Its red ember-like eyes blazed through the man before him, “Speak, creature, of the living – who are you with, why and for what cause hast thou cometh? I am Kudgroth, and none enter without my leave before my Mistress!”

Recalling the words of his guide, Sulimeth answered all three at once, “Alone as a seeker in humility I come.”

The goblin, half his size stared at the man for a long time, then sighed with grave disappointment, “It passes too easily from this life to the next, oh man with no purpose -- follow me.” The tiny figure turned back into the pitch void. Sulimeth followed. With staff in hand, the other followed what he perceived to be the curved walls of a cave. The tunnel was only measured by his steps which soon fell silent, “Come, do not falter now.” Came the echoed voice of Kudgroth far ahead of where Sulimeth could not tell. Still, he went on, tirelessly it seemed. The walls of the cave felt like a dirt pit, jutting rocks and jagged cut roots against the man’s searching touch. Numbness turned to unfeeling as the rough became a smoothed paved way, and what seemed like endless days later the walls grew wider and wider apart to where footfalls were all Sulimeth knew. If his steps slowed or stopped the only voice he heard was far in the distance like a faint whisper, “Come now, none that.”

On and on, without rest or sleep, without food or drink for all desire and sensation left Sulimeth. For his footfalls were all he knew and the urging to go on. So, he did. All he had in his thoughts was his past existence for nothing lay ahead, for him all had ended. “Come, do not falter now – she is here.”

Sulimeth’s reaching fingers felt the rough cave wall once again, and now even the roof overhead came down and brushed his head.

On and on he went as sensation came to his naked skin as he began to crouch beneath the narrowing tunnel that soon had him crawling on his belly with only outstretched arms to aid him to claw his way forward. Ever so slightly the narrow passage gave way to the faintest of a flickering light ahead of him. Sulimeth felt himself scratching his way out of his collapsed grave. Suddenly before him were two clean, unshod feet.

His nails scratched and clawed their way out of the earth. Sulimeth burrowed his way out of the side of an earthen wall, out into the expanse of an endless, underground cavern. Several arm lengths away from him there stood the beautiful figure of a nude woman. He quickly averted his eyes from hers, which were inspecting his nakedness, covered with caked-on dirt. Though Sulimeth had fully tunneled his way out of the wall he had not the courage to stand before the woman who towered over him, "Rise Sulimeth for you have come all this way for some cause, speak it now."

After the old fisherman, by trade stood up, he instantly covered himself with both hands, which the woman's smirk found amusing, "Just another filthy, naked creature whose rotting corps comes before me. It wants to beg forgiveness, or beseech its way into bargaining out of some misunderstanding."

Finding courage the frail man stood boldly with, "Nay, Vishkah, Caretaker of the Dead. In all my guilt I would deserve whatever eternity you would have for me, yet I am not yet dead and my course may be changed. My only barter request is to be a substitution for one newly come, my wife Nunessah by name." With his pronunciation it was then that his wife appeared, standing beside and behind the Goddess.

Suddenly the beautiful flesh of the naked Vishkah had become a horrid mass of half-rotting and half-scorched meat, she roared with a burst of fierce laughter that echoed throughout the cavernous hall. "There is always that one person who thinks they are more deserving than all the rest! Brief mortals who believe the lie that only they will never die, that it is always someone else's story. So you think you can switch fates with another? Eru gave you over to me."

"I am not dead and yet I stand before you as such, let it instead be my fate instead of hers, let me but embrace her once again, and then let fall whatever comes afterward. Make me your thrall, only release her."

The Goddess resumed her fair form but was now clothed in a gown of black. Her upturned eyes gazed sideward as if she were listening to an unheard voice, then to the small man before her, "So be it."

Sulimeth jerked himself upright, from the dining table, startled by an infant's crying from another room. Running to the bedroom he saw his wife sitting in bed half-beneath the covers, breastfeeding their first newborn son.

Bursting into tears Sulimeth raced over to her, collapsing beside the mother and child. He was weeping profusely. After a frightened moment of trying to console her husband, she asked, "I and the baby are alright, husband. Tell me true, whatever is the matter that has you so torn in this manner?"

Looking up at her with tears of great joy, Sulimeth began caressing the baby's forehead, "No longer am I a desperate old man dying without you, and pleading for the Keeper of the Underworld to exchange our fates, but I have returned to this very moment in time to relive a better life. Know beyond all knowing that I do truly love you, and here is all that matters!"

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