Chapter 33: The Location of the Luhluhik

Yerdl was minding his own business, keeping watch with what he considered to be a steely gaze (it was more of a tin gaze), he paced back and forth and around the Caravamel.

All was at peace, the foolbears gently slumbering, dreaming of getting honey making creatures to make their nest amid their branches, the trickle of the jade river with an undertone of hard metal and the sounds of life and death struggles of prey and predator in the mushroom forest.

Above the fairybulbs twinkled merrily among the stalactites and blue-leaved upside-down oaks. The sounds of the life of the wild also came from there, and now and then some of the larger batlings swooped down to attack something in the mushroom forest.

Yes. All at peace.

Yerdl felt quite calm. He hadn’t felt so calm in a while, still, this was far from the worst journey he had experienced as a caravamellier. No, that had been when he had been a little kit, barely big enough for a decently sized pot! Yerdl smiled and stroked his chin with a finger while reminiscing.

So, he didn’t notice when something looked up at him out of the jade river. A smoothly domed head obscured by strands of wet silken black hair. Glowing from between strands of this hair was an orange eye, with a pupil shaped like a star. Curly red and black horns extended from the sides of the head. This head watched Yerdl as he reminisced.

Yerdl actually caught on quite quickly that something was amiss, and spun around to look at the being that was watching.

Both he and it were shocked, jerking back, though the black-hair quickly returned to inquisitively watching. Yerdl however pretended he didn’t see anything.

Not all creatures with glowing eyes possess great power, and not all beings of great power possess great power, but there was certainly not an insignificant number of such beings. Yerdl didn’t fancy the odds and hoped that if he pretended the one-eyed black-hair wasn’t there, it would lose interest. Not only that, but the head of that creature was around the same size as his whole body, which meant it had a whole body’s size advantage on him.

It was possible the head had no body or a tiny body, but again Yerdl wasn’t taking chances. He hadn’t a clue what the being was apart from anything else.

There was the sound of water falling down from something, then heavy wet plopping.

Yerdl risked a glance, he managed to do it at the same time that the denizen of the jade river was sneaking a glance.

The black-hair’s head was attached to a long serpentine neck, which in turn was attached to a body which was more than big enough to make Yerdl’s heart sink. A lump covered with a mane of black fur, the fur however changed to a lighter green and was far finer than the mane. The lump had four clawed flippers positioned such that if you looked from above, the creature would look vaguely like a blobby X. The claws were yellow and looked quite fierce.

The black-hair quickly turned its head away and waddled towards one of the foolbears. Yerdl turned pale. He saw its mouth. A large thing with big lips. He didn’t want to think what kind of sword-like teeth were hiding inside that mouth!

Thankfully, it seemed wary of the caravamel, Turmeric and even the frulids. It just pushed onwards cautiously towards a foolbear that, now Yerdl was paying attention, looked rather trim. The black-hair sighed as it reached the foolbear, still keeping its eye on the unfamiliar intruders.

It opened its mouth to eat.

It was at that moment, that dirge-like violin music ominously silenced the air!

It closed its mouth.

The music stopped and other sounds returned.

The eye of the black-hair frowned.

It looked around. Staring at the caravamel and its owners in particular. Satisfying itself that the music wasn’t returning, it opened its mouth again.

It was at that moment, that foreboding strings of music silenced the air!

It closed its mouth.

The black-hair stared hard and with no small quanity of accusation at the caravamel, yet it could see no instrument, and the music sounded far closer than that.

It opened its mouth.

Once more, the chilling song arose!

It closed its mouth.

Open.

Ill-fated musi-

Closed.

Open.

Doom-like ton-

Closed.

The black-hair looked like it was going to cry.

It tried spitting and retching a number of times, but all that came out was dark music.

Now it really was crying.

Yerdl simply watched all this, quite shocked. He was slightly relieved however. It seemed that the black-hair had problems of its own. It would likely leave them alone.

As soon as the thought was made, the black-hair turned its mouth towards Yerdl!

It opened it, and the music that foretold tragedy wafted out and oppressed all other sound.

There, right inside of the mouth of the black-hair playing with its bone tail on its stringhairs, was Grinnerel the Dark Herald!

“Cun wuu heeze het liss luhluhik oss hov mo mooth” The black hair said, her ability to speak being impaired the the presence of the Dark Herald inside her mouth.

Yerdl wasn’t quite sure what to make of all this, but he didn’t like it.

[Apologies for missing last week’s update, however, good news! By the end of this current month, I shall be finished the course I am on and we’ll be back to two updates a week!]