What to do? she asked herself. Should she just shrug and accept that a light had appeared where there had never been a light before? After all, it was foolish to believe that she had seen all that the Land had to offer. Maybe this kind of thing was perfectly natural but merely infrequent. It was simpler to yawn, stretch, walk down to the river, doze for a while, wake, stretch again and catch a fish – perhaps if she was lucky something a bit more edible than a glassfish.
She stood there for a while in the warm, comforting embrace of the skyshine, irresolute, confused. What to do? What to do?
Then suddenly she knew. She could not spend another time of light repeating the same worn groove of existence. That light must mean something; somehow it was calling her.
She turned and went back into the hut. She had few things she could take; the Land was so warm and gentle she needed no more clothes than the strip she was wearing.
She wrapped a few of the food fish in varma leaves and placed them in a kind of satchel which she flung over one brown shoulder. She took no weapon for there were none in the Land. There was no need for weapons in a world where no creature threatened any other. She strode on, glancing up at the sky to admire the green and gold flying things as they circled high above her.
The hills seemed farther away than she had imagined; they had not appeared to get larger in her vision no matter how long she had been walking and she was forced to stop and rest much more than she had expected. Sweat began to trickle down her hitherto unblemished forehead and get into her eyes. With growing irritation, she wiped it away more and more frequently. It was almost as if the hills were mocking her by their refusal to get any nearer.
Why am I doing this? she said to herself on more than one occasion but for some reason she could not explain or understand she would find herself trudging through the clinging vegetation towards her intended destination.
At last the ground began to slope upwards and the Land’s lush greenery began to thin out and become patchy. The soft, fleshy fronds of the usual vegetation were slowly replaced by blackish shrubs which had a twisted, gnarled look about them that she didn’t like. As she was passing close to one she suddenly felt a strange and most unwelcome feeling in her thigh. It was nothing like she had ever known before and she went down on one knee with shock. She lay there for some time before venturing to see what had happened to her leg. To her amazement there was a thin red line from one side of the thigh to the other; a line which was slowly oozing a viscous liquid. She looked at the bush she had just passed and was astounded to see that its branches had small, sharp barbs on it, one of which held a drop of the same liquid that was dribbling down her leg!
This was unheard of! There were no such shrubs anywhere else in the Land and this new feeling – what was it? Then unbidden a word came to her from some hitherto unknown region of her mind and that word was pain. This was pain.
Pain. A short ugly word. She had never known pain before; until this moment there had only been the comforting warmth, the green glow of the sky, the darting fish on the gentle river. But now there was pain.
Yet somehow the feeling did not deter her. She looked at the hills, now close and rising relentlessly to hide part of the sky, and she felt a new determination to complete this weird journey. They didn’t look inviting, for even the thorny bushes became fewer and fewer until they were gone entirely leaving nothing but gravel and rock.
She stood up and immediately realised that the time of darkness was near and glancing up she saw the old familiar disc of blackness growing in the sky, banishing the pleasing green radiance. As usual, she lay down and waited for the warm darkness to enfold her.
And waited.
The darkness came but not the warmth. She soon felt another new and unwelcome sensation and was not too surprised when another new word swam inexplicably into her consciousness and this time the word was cold.
She found that cold was not too dissimilar to pain and that there was no way to escape it. So she lay there on the hard ground, covering herself with some strips from the few thornless nearby plants and waited for sleep to come.
And it did come but not before she saw the light in the hill again; now much larger and brighter.
And as she stared at it she thought to herself: Tomorrow I will find out what you are.
And she slept.
She became dimly aware that the time of light had returned and tried to rise into a standing position. To her surprise she found that her limbs were reluctant to move and felt stiff and – what was the new word? – yes, cold.
Nevertheless, she finally forced reluctant legs into a vertical position and scanned her surroundings. Immediately in the clear light she saw that in a cliff face not too far distant there was a large hole in the rock, an entrance into the inside of the cliff. But an entrance to what?
With new energy she threw away her empty satchel and continued her journey, feeling welcome strength slowly seeping back into her limbs. It occurred to her that if she was to spend any significant time in this new area she would need more covering over her body that had hitherto been necessary.
Finally, she reached the entrance and stood for a moment staring into it. The light did not penetrate far and both the floor and walls of the orifice were unnaturally smooth as if some power had carved them. For a dizzying moment a tumultuous doubt overtook her.
Go back! A portion of her mind called out, there is pain here!
She looked back over her shoulder. Below the entrance lay the Land, green and welcoming, an old friend where there had never been either cold or pain. She could see the river, shrunken now to a silvery thread in which at that very moment the glassfish must be darting.
Determination to solve this mystery reclaimed her and she stepped into the dim tunnel.
No sooner had she done so then there was a great rumbling noise behind her and she spun around to see a massive slab of rock slide down, cutting off the green sky and the green landscape.
There was absolute blackness. But only for a moment. Then the walls of the cave suddenly gave off a harsh yellowish light, throwing her surroundings into a mosaic of sulphur and ebony.
She stood completely motionless. It was obvious that this was merely the first event in whatever was planned for her.
She did not have to wait long. A section of the curved wall opened soundlessly and two creatures came out. They were very short, hardly reaching about her knees and, like most things she knew apart from herself, of a crystalline appearance. In the yellow light their bodies were of a smoky, sickly cast, as if pestilence lurked within. They had squarish faces, with lipless mouths stretching from side to side and some distance beyond.
‘Oh yes!’ the nearer one said as it approached her, ‘we have someone to play with at last!’ Its voice was high pitched and very shrill in a way that made her wince at first.
Both came up to her and stood either side of her, but very close so that each one could grasp a knee. Their grasp was cold and hard.
‘Yes, play with,’ the other said in an identical voice, ‘Play. We will like that.’
‘What – who are you?’ Shana finally managed to gasp out. The creatures’ appearance did not immediately disturb her but never in her life had she heard beings speak before. It was as if the stones themselves had cried out.
‘We are we,’ was the mysterious reply from both of the creatures in unison. ‘That’s all you need to know. Now will you play with us?’