A New Night

Priest of the Sleeping God

Writing this part of the tale is I, Romalla, priest and servant of the gods. I have been asked by the one formerly called the Sleeping God to account for my journey up the mountain where I promised to meet him. I told him that I trusted his ability to give an honest account of my escape. But he says that the words would be truer for anyone who might read this holy text if the account of my story came “straight from the horse’s mouth” and as experienced with my beliefs and perceptions at the time.

A reader should know, first and foremost, that a horse is a large creature from the spirit realm. It runs upon the ground at the speed of flight and carries the gods on its back. Bassello has even accounted for memories of multiple gods riding upon the same horse—which means that this creature is likely the size of the Gods’ Wall or perhaps half its size. Regardless of its exact proportions, one can be sure to trust that a noble creature who carries the gods on its back is a sincere and honorable being, making any words from its mouth next to divine. Thus, I will try to make this account as if it came from a great horse’s mouth.

On the night Bassello left in his quest to smite a demon and secure my freedom, I solemnly swore to meet him upon the mountain. For it is not the place of the gods to pause in their quests for justice, virtue, and protection of the innocent for the sake of a priest. Rather it is the role of a priest to further the will of the gods. As such, I had already determined to escape the demons myself.

So, escape was highest in my thoughts as the Queen of Demons held me in her talons and carried me toward a stone box. The stone box was small and quite comfortable, as far as personal caves went. She even placed a large stone at the hole’s entrance, preventing my escape. But, as the demons did nothing to perfection, there were several holes from which I could see out.

“Try to escape, and we’ll eat you,” the Queen said, putting her demonic thoughts into my head.

I ignored her, of course, as there is nothing to be gained by inviting conversation with malevolent spirits. Such beings, whether of the jungle or elsewhere, seek ravenously for control to fill the despairing void of chaos within their own hearts. So, instead, I began to silently scratch around the cave in search of a loose patch of soil to dig through. As I poked around, I felt a wave of imposed fear fill the tiny cave. Fear was foreign to me, indicating to me immediately that this presence had to be that of one of the demons who wished to punish me.

Bassello had taught me that my people’s song had the mystical ability to cancel out the darkness of their magic. This was undoubtedly because of the song’s holiness and purity, which demons simply cannot tolerate. For that reason, I spent a few hours humming and thinking up a song to block the fear from my mind. When it was finished, it went like this:

Bassello, God of Sleep, traveling through this Hell

Met two yellow serpents, with an awful smell

He picked them up over his shoulders, tied them in a knot,

saved a fruit-bat, from their clutches, and kicked them in the snout.

He traveled through jungle forest, filled with shadows dark

Until he finally found the demons, filled with foolish snark

They took his friend, held her captive, sent him on his way

to hunt the Demon of the Mountain, and cause its blood to spray

Now he travels to the Mountain, and there’ll meet both our trails

Else he’ll have to catch these demons and rip out their tails

I will admit that my judgment of which lyrics to use may have been overly antagonistic toward the creatures who kept me, given my perilous situation at the time. Bassello would later tell me that I have little sense of ‘self-preservation’ and that he was surprised that the demons did not kill me. But, like I said, one must not be intimidated by demons.

The song did have its intended effects. I no longer felt the fear that the demons were trying to force into my heart. The demon guarding me abandoned his post when I repeated the song for the twenty-seventh time. After that, I was left in peace to dig and pull at the rock for a while.

But it was not long before I saw an actual physical shadow cover the cave that they kept me in. A demon said, “Quiet the screeching! It’s making my ears hurt.” The voice that spoke into my mind was familiar. It was the small one that had wanted to eat me.

“Scraa, is that you?” I asked, looking through the corner of the rock and seeing a smaller-than-average pair of demon feet … or Hunter feet. So, for Scraa, I will allow myself to refer to Bassello’s term, Hunter. But not for the rest of the demons.

“Yes,” Scraa said, sounding confused by the question.

“Good,” I said. “Get me out of here, now.”

There was a pause on the other end of the rock. “But the Queen said that you are to be kept prisoner until the Walking Stone comes back with the head of the Hunter of the Mountain.”

I shook my head at his foolish insolence. “And I’m telling you that Bassello doesn’t have time for that. He is on an important quest to reach the City of the Gods for aid.”

“You mean the Alpha Predators,” Scraa said with an annoying corrective tone. “They will not help Bassello. That is not the way of the predator. You don’t help other predators, or else they become weak. You make alliances only with those you can use.”

“That is stupid,” I said, correcting him, and rightly so. When there was no response, I huffed with annoyance at his lack of understanding and then explained. “For example, Bassello has only made me stronger with his challenging teachings and kung-fu. And I have made him face his greatest fear—the deplorable heights.”

“Kung-fu?” Scraa asked, suddenly sounding much more interested. I felt a bit insulted that he did not show as much enthusiasm at hearing the story of my helping the Sleeping God. But I was in too great a hurry to emphasize its importance.

“Yes, an advanced form of fighting, with which Bassello and I used to defeat a Golem!” I said and then paused in silence.

Speaking about the event made me remember Krogallo. I didn’t want to think about his death, that my teacher was gone. Or that, after we had passed over the Gods’ Wall, I could no longer hear the Spirit Realm. Even when I flew over the trees, there was no music or words, just a fuzzy, empty sound. The spirit realm sounded like waves crashing upon the rocks and creating seafoam.

For now, I couldn’t listen for his voice on the other side … but a part of me wondered if I would hear him anyways. In all my life listening, I had been unable to hear my father’s voice. So what made me think I could hear my teacher? It was possible that his priesthood would make it so that he could send his voice to me more easily. But I still wasn’t sure—and had decided that it was not something that I could help by thinking about before I could truly hear the Spirit Realms again.

“Is kung-fu how Bassello was able to keep the Queen out of his mind?” Scraa asked, bringing me back.

“Doubtlessly,” I said, feeling very sure about the matter. “And Bassello can also show you kung-fu if you give up your demonic ways and become one of the Night People. Now, let me out.”

“But … the Queen will be angry,” Scraa said, his tone quiet even though he was whispering into my thoughts. “She ... might even try to … kill me.”

“And?” I asked, not quite understanding this child’s trivial fear of death from that pathetic demon Queen.

“I don’t want to die, especially now that I know how to fish.”

Fish—yes! Bassello, in his wisdom, had taught Scraa to fish. This was why the miniature demon was not trying to eat me this very moment. I had forgotten about Bassello’s mercy on him and his teaching the Hunter to get food that was not me. And, at that moment, I remembered their promise.

So I said, “But you have promised Bassello not to harm me,” I tried my best to sound like the matter had already been concluded.

“So?” Scraa asked, sounding a little bit nervous—a little bit cornered.

“So, if you allow me to come to harm when you could have easily stopped it, then you might as well have harmed me yourself. But, as you have made a promise as a strong Hunter that you will not let this happen, you must now free me. After all, you aren’t the sort of weak demon who would wear a spiritual mark of cowardice for the rest of their life.”

There was no response for the longest time. Then, the rock began to slowly move, and I jumped out and flew just out of reach of Scraa’s tail. Not that I believed he would eat me, but I didn’t want him to panic and put me back.

“Wait!” Scraa said, looking more fearful than I’d seen any other demons. “What do I do now? The Queen will know that I have freed you.”

For a moment, I wasn’t sure what to do. My instinct told me to take off into the night sky directly toward the mountain. Surely I didn’t have to worry for Scraa; the gods would look over the righteous. But then, I knew that this wasn’t always true. It wasn’t true for Krogallo … or my father. And if Bassello had taught me anything, it was that it was my responsibility to care for others. I made my decision, though it was uncomfortable.

“Follow me and keep hidden,” I said while I fluttered in the air over him. Being sure to keep in his line of sight, I flew higher than any demon tails could reach. Not sure whether the way Bassello had gone was more guarded, I took the long way around the village. This took longer than I would have liked, but I knew Bassello would probably favor this. Eventually, we had left the village entirely, and Scraa was the only Hunter I could see below.

It seemed my plan had worked, so I sped up my flight toward the mountain. The occasional sound from branches and such below told me that Scraa was still following.

Suddenly, I heard a miserable yowl of pain. I turned and flew to where I had heard it

The Queen was there, towering over Scraa. I could see her looking him darkly in the eye—tail whipping ominously behind her. I had no doubt she was whispering terrible thoughts into his head. Whatever she told him made his eyes light up with fear. But never did he look up into the trees where I was. If not before, then this was certainly where I should have made my escape.

Before I could make such a wise decision, however, a righteous fury welled inside of me. Before I knew it, I had dive-bombed exactly as I had done at the Immortal Golem. I lifted my wings just before impact so that the air caught them and caused me to flip. Then I kicked the Queen with as much force as I could muster. Unlike the Golem, she was surprisingly light and fleshy. My blow knocked her off her feet and sent her skull crashing into a nearby tree.

My landing was not quite as good as it had been in practice, and I rolled along the ground before looking up and seeing Scraa standing over me. I hopped up, fluttered onto his back, and shouted, “Hurry up, go.”

It was a good thing I did too. By the way Scraa stood there stunned, I thought the poor little fool would have just waited there fretting until she woke. At my urging, however, he went onto all four legs and moved at a surprising pace. Soon he was sprinting through the jungle faster than I could have flown. Scraa was admittedly nimble, as well. Whenever he saw a low branch, he leaped onto it and began to jump from tree to tree until his path ran out, and he had to return to the ground.

We traveled like that for a long time. We didn’t stop until night came to an end, and the sky above me became gray. This was when I noticed his panting.

I pulled on his scruff and said, “We need to break.”

But Scraa kept running like he didn’t hear me.

“At least take it down to a walk to catch your breath!” I shouted and dug my claws in a little just to shake him out of it.

This scolding worked; Scraa slowed down and began to pant more heavily. I wondered if he would have kept at full speed until he had passed out or died from exhaustion.

Once he had slowed to a walk, I flew above the trees to check whether I could see any sign of Bassello or the demons. However, I saw only an infinite canopy of trees, the mountain, the Wall, and the City of the Gods overhead.

I descended and again landed on Scraa’s back. I could feel him trembling a little and that his walk was more of a forward stumble. I said, “I don’t think you’ll get up the mountain without sleep.”

“I’m not stopping,” Scraa said, letting out a low growl that could barely be heard over his panting.

“Then what? Keep going until you collapse, and they kill you?”

The muscles in Scraa’s back tensed, and I knew this had been unwise to say to such a fearful creature. Compared to the Night People, Scraa was big, strong, and had larger teeth. But his family were demons who didn’t even feed him. Nor had they taught him courage.

Among my people, such a thing would never happen. Children who lost their parents were taken in by other families or became apprentices to the village elders. Krogallo had always said that children left on the ground to fend for themselves should be cherished—lest they become like animals to survive. Now, I was seeing for myself the effects of what he had always talked about.

So I tried another approach, “I mean...” I said, trying to think of words to make him see that I was right without triggering his terror. “What if I keep watch? Then I could wake you before anyone found us.”

Scraa shook his head. “Not in the jungle—not at night. You wouldn’t even see them coming. The Queen is silent as a shadow.” I could feel his body trembling as I clung to his back.

I thought about the problem for a minute and remembered that the mountainous area ahead did not have as many trees. I said, “Then how about we stop at the top of the first hill. They won’t be able to sneak, and it will be daylight before we reach it.”

Scraa did not reply, however. He merely hobbled on silently through the thinning jungle.

Long after I thought he’d forgotten about the matter and gone on to thinking of fish or whatever these creatures thought about, he nodded. It took me a moment to remember that he was responding to my skillful persuasion. When I realized, I nodded as well and said, “Good. I will sleep while we walk and then keep watch when we get there. Wake me when we arrive and don’t get us killed.”

Scraa grumbled something impertinent, and I ignored his juvenile behavior. He was simply too foolish to understand the importance of listening to reason, especially from the mouth of a priest. I would just have to accept this until he had time to learn.

So, I closed my eyes and began to drift to sleep.