Chapter 20: The Canyon of the Encased Sleeping

It looked at first glance to be a pitch black endless canyon. Where the land of the fallen realm was icy earth just transformed into fathomless darkness.

This however, was once a mountain range.

These mountains collapsed inwards when the realm fell, though the mountains became pits, everything else on and within the mountains was covered in a darkness like rock. Plants, beasts, birds and bugs, everything became rocks so dark they could not be seen. Each one was asleep, each rock breathed out slowly in sleep, even if what was within had no breath. The breath was as a whisper and this whisper was a wind.

It was gentle within the canyon, but above? The sleep of those within the rocks turned to dreams, dreams of hunter and prey, of prey becoming hunter. The wind became gale. The gales battled, making a storm. Each day would bring a victor, but the magic of the fallen realm would return the breath of all those sleeping in stone with each new day, and thus the battle would start again.

Was this a consequence of the magic that created the realm? Was it the design of come cunning mind? Jadah did not think of questions like these. She had come with rather different questions in mind. Dwelling within the canyon was a being that could enter and leave the fallen realm as it pleased. A being Jadah hoped could give some answers.

Orapele Devourer of Obscure Things.

Jadah was glad that she was not an obscure enough of an existence for Orapele to consider devouring her. Rather than devouring… the greater danger would be that she’d not encounter Orapele at all.

She stood at the edge of the canyon and walked out. It looked like she was walking in the air amidst the darkness. In Kigan things have a propensity to form mazes and such. In the shadow-world of Awarth, this is even more apparent.

The motion, that is magic, creates patterns.

Checking her surroundings, Jadah pulled a lidded dish from her hat. The dish was in the shape of a cat’s paw. Within was a golden paste, a rather simple creation.

It was mostly just leaves from her hatbush and various paints. With a fairly plain brush, Jadah coated the soles of her boots with it. She stamped about a bit and with each stamp she did, she left a glowing foot-print. Satisfied she nodded her head and walked further into the darkness.

Normally one would have no sense of distance or direction while in the slumbering canyon. There would be only darkness all around and a person would be unable to tell walls from floor or ceiling. Jadah however seemed to be moving with distinct purpose, this was because she had known where to go ever since she had first set foot inside the canyon.

Outside she had not been able to hear it, but inside? Above the whisper of the sleeping rocks, there was another sound. Somebody was loudly munching, and cracking sounds came with each munch.

Jadah was following the sound of this eating.