Shadowland

Chapter 11

Truth Revealed, Questions Answered

I am not Walter Disney, nor am I related to Disney in any way. The characters Simba, Nala, Mufasa, Sarabi, Kiara, Kovu, Zira, Vitani, Nuka, Sarafina, Zazu, Scar, Rafiki, Timon, Pumbaa, Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed belong to Disney. Mohatu and Thembi belong to other people. All characters in this story, not mentioned here are my own creations.

Shadowland, Chapter 11: 'Truth Revealed, Questions Answered' is property of Troy Wong, and is not to be resold or posted on any other site without my permission.

"I see something special in Hezakiah.

The prophecy speaks of an unusual shaman- as the 'chosen one', that will be more powerful than any shaman before him.

I am confident that when I am gone, he will make a great difference here."

-The Great Shaman Rafiki, of the Pridelands,

speaking of Hezakiah the Traitor.

A long, long time ago in a land far away, lived two cubs whose names were Kiara and Hezakiah…

Kiara and Hezakiah had been best friends since they had first met. They lived in a medium sized lion pride, and in that pride lived two other cubs.

Those two cubs' names were Rex and Helix. Rex and Helix were twin brothers, who looked exactly the same. They were also friends with Hezakiah and Kiara. The two brothers loved to play tricks on the grown-ups of their family, especially their parents. They would trick them into thinking that one of them was the other in the duo, and vise versa. They never got tired of it.

Being cubs and all, Kiara and Hezakiah's lives had been smooth for as long as they could remember. But awhile after they both turned five years old, their lives became very complicated.

Rafiki, the wise, and ecstatic shaman of maniacal wit that was a good friend of Kiara's father decided that Hezakiah had certain qualities that could be put to good use. He took Hezakiah away. Kiara became upset because of this, but no one else seemed to care. Not even her father, the King, Simba.

But she did not have much time to worry about that. Soon after Rafiki had left, a strange spirit attacked Pride Rock, which was the home of the lions. It had the power to control people, and it wreaked havoc.

At first, the King did not want to bother Rafiki, because he knew that what the shaman had taken Hezakiah away to do was very important. He thought that he and his pride could deal with the spirit by themselves. But they could not. Simba sent a messenger out immediately to contact Rafiki, and to tell him to return to Pride Rock to banish the spirit. He was the only one that could do it, because no one else knew how to.

The messenger returned to the lions bearing Rafiki's word that he would be over by the next day to help.

The next day came, and he did not arrive. It passed, and still he did not come.

But it seemed that he was not needed. The spirit was not causing anymore trouble. It was gone.

For ten lion years, Kiara and Hezakiah did not see each other. Life went on, and the imprint that the mysterious spirit had made slowly disappeared, like a hole in the ground naturally covering itself back up.

Kiara's fifteenth birthday came. It was time for her first hunt by herself. Her father had always been very protective of her, and had always sent his two annoying friends too look after her in secret. She hoped that this time he would not do that, and allow her to get the job done by herself.

Kiara set off, and soon found that she was not a very good huntress at all. Whenever she got close enough to give chase, the antelope she had been stalking would hear her footsteps and her sounds. They would run off immediately, and she would not be able to catch them.

Evening drew closer. Kiara was about to begin pursuit yet another time, but she could feel something was wrong. She waited. Then she found out what it was. A fire had been intentionally started. It was all part of someone else's big plan.

The princess was nearly lost in the blaze. But she was saved just in time by someone that she had met before, and had not seen for many, many years. It was not Hezakiah, but an Outlander. His name was Kovu, and Kiara's father had also met him before. He had been banished from the Pridelands a long, long time ago. But now he was back.

That was only because of his mother, Zira. Zira had been the most faithful follower of Scar during his reign. As a result, she was exiled by Simba, the rightful king, when he made his return after his ten lion year absence.

Zira's plan was for him to charm Kiara, and so become accepted by the King. When Simba's back was turned, he would strike, and be rid of him. Then, the kingdom would be his. According to his mother, the kingdom was rightfully Scar's. He had believed this, too, but he had not heard the whole story of the evil ruler.

Kovu, at first, was not accepted by the King. Simba recognized him. He did not feel comfortable with an Outlander around.

But Kovu soon did complete the first phase of his plan. He had quickly won Kiara's heart. But, against Zira's plan, Kiara had won his heart, too.

One day, after Simba had learnt to accept Kovu into his pride, he took the Outlander for a walk, to the site of the bushfire. During the walk, the King told the newcomer the real, full story of Scar. Kovu now despised his mother for lying to him, and training him, all his life to do what he had left the Outlands to do.

Then, everything went horribly wrong. Zira and her lionesses stepped out of the fog. It was an ambush. Simba immediately thought that Kovu had leaded him there on purpose. His trust had been lost again. Kovu was not able to help him. Simba escaped, and in doing so, he unintentionally killed one of Zira's sons, whose name was Nuka.

Zira was furious. She automatically blamed Kovu for the death of her son.

Simba was weakened. He barely made it back to Pride Rock, were he collapsed from exhaustion.

When Kovu returned to the home of the Pridelanders, begging for forgiveness, Simba was quick to give him exile yet another time. The people of the kingdom forced him out at horn-point.

Kiara was devastated. She had lost another, just like she had lost Hezakiah, so, so long ago. She ran away. That night, she found Kovu, and convinced him to return to Pride Rock to set things straight.

Zira decided to wage war with the Pridelanders the next day. If she could not take the kingdom by wits and cunning, then she would take it by force. Both sides soon met at the battlefield. They began to march towards each other, and then they broke into a full run.

As they fought, rain poured from the sky, flooding a dam that had been built in a certain canyon.

The two prides had been fighting for an hour when Kiara ad Kovu jumped in between them to stop the fighting. They explained that the two prides were both lions. They showed everyone else that it was foolish to fight someone that is on your own side.

Vitani, Zira's daughter, turned over to the Pridelanders' side. One by one, every single Outlander did the same.

But Zira would not. In her panic and rage, she leaped at the King, but was quickly tackled by Kiara. They claws at each other viciously, and rolled down to the canyon. The dam was so full of water that it burst, creating raging torrents down below.

Zira fell down the side of the cliff. While clinging on for dear life, Kiara offered to save her. The mother of Kovu stubbornly refused, losing grip and plunging into the waters below.

All the lions returned to Pride Rock, as one. Simba, after seeing that Kovu really cared for Kiara, and was not using her, allowed the Outlander into his pride, with all the other outcasts. They were one.

Life settled down again, for about a week. Then, Hezakiah returned from his ten years of shaman training. That is what Rafiki had taken him away for. He was destined to be the next shaman of the Pridelands. Now, he was very powerful in that sense. If him and Rafiki were to face-off, they would both be even matches.

Against Rafiki's will, he quickly went back to Pride Rock for the first time in so very long. There, he met Kiara. They discovered that their friendship had not grown weaker at all. If anything, it was stronger. Hezakiah feared that Rafiki knew where he was, or would soon, so he left in a hurry after a quick talk.

The next time he saw Rafiki, he was given the task of capturing a strange spirit that had been attacking the many creatures of the savannah. Hezakiah did not know it, for he could not remember it, but Rafiki did. The old shaman knew that it was the same spirit that attacked the lions when Kiara and Hezakiah were still young. He knew that it would be a dangerous task.

So Hezakiah was given an assistant to help him. That assistant's name was Ket. Ket was a very skillful monkey. He had some knowledge of the magic that Rafiki so frequently used, and so could cast some minor spells himself. He was the perfect companion for the lion, on the quest that would consume one more year of his life.

One lion year was close to its end since Hezakiah had been sent away from Kiara another time. He and Ket had been tracking the spirit all over the kingdom, but had not yet succeeded in capturing and banishing it. His task brought him to the Elephant Graveyards soon enough. There, he met a hyena with a difference, named Drawtt.

Drawtt's parents had been killed by lions for entering the Pridelands when he was very young, just because they were starving and wanted food to feed him. Drawtt was not dirty, or unpleasant, or vulgar, like most others of his kind. In fact, he was a pleasure to be around. Upon meeting and talking to him, Hezakiah began to doubt the truth of Rafiki's constant ill-speaking of the hyenas.

Soon afterwards, Hezakiah encountered the spirit in the graveyards. After an exhausting battle, the otherworldly being was defeated, and destroyed.

Rafiki was soon alerted of the victory by none other than the lion of the hour and his trusty assistant. Hezakiah was hoping that he would now be able to see Kiara, but Rafiki did not allow it, for the shaman had seen something terrible in a prophetic dream, and wanted Hezakiah to keep away from her. To keep his apprentice occupied, he sent him on another mission.

But this time, Hezakiah did not obey. Without Rafiki knowing, he rebelled and headed speedily to pride Rock to meet Kiara. The two childhood friends then had the two best days of their lives as they did nothing but spend time with each other.

After those two days, Rafiki found out that Hezakiah had disobeyed him. He stormed to the lions' home, infuriated. Upon seeing his apprentice, Rafiki scolded him greatly.

Hezakiah was just as angry. His master had denied him the right to his best friend for eleven years of his life. Before Rafiki could do anything else, he disappeared; gone to the Elephant Graveyards he had been itching to do for a long time. Only Rafiki's words had kept him from aiding the hyena, Drawtt, but now, he simply did not care.

Drawtt was starving, so Hezakiah brought him food. He was thirsty, so Hezakiah lead him to safe water source. He was tired, so Hezakiah guarded him while he slept. He was sick, so Hezakiah cast a spell on him that got rid of his sickness.

Rafiki had made the mistake of following after him. After a week, they met again, and fought; magic against magic. They fought for hours. They fought until they had moved from the caverns below the graveyard to a little known corner of the area, where cliffs were abundant and dangerously well hidden.

In that little known corner, the Great Shaman Rafiki of the Pridelands was defeated for the bad of things.

Hezakiah stepped back and looked at what he had just done. He had killed his master, who had been like a father to him. In horror and extreme guilt, he ran back to the caverns, where Drawtt nervously waited. There, Hezakiah had a vision that revealed to him who killed the hyena's parents. He instantly remembered his first vision. His first vision that had told him the truth.

It told him that once, a long, long time ago, all animals lived in harmony, even hyenas, under the reign of the sovereign King Muroasha. Muroasha heard of a prosperous, sickness-free land, with endless food and water supplies, marked by a single green hill in its centre. He wanted to find it.

The hyenas would be the best for the job, so he set off with all of them to find the land. When things quickly went wrong, and they found themselves in a volcanic plain where the very air they breathed was hazardous to their health, Muroasha blamed it all on the hyenas, despite the fact that he had made most of the decisions when they had come to forks in the road, and when they had been in sticky situations.

The lion king escaped, leaving the hyenas for dead. When he arrived back in his land, he spread word that the hyenas were traitors and cowards. When the hyenas came back a month later, scarred and bruised, they were exiled with support from the mislead people, to the very land that they had come from; the land where elephant carcasses and skeletons had been disposed of for so long that there were mountains of them, everywhere.

The Elephant Graveyards.

Hezakiah was ashamed that he was a lion. The people of the Pridelands had been lied to for centuries. The hyenas were not traitors, or cowards, or anything of the sort. Lions were.

He told Drawtt that he would soon be back in his rightful land. Hezakiah tore apart the Pridelands with powerful magic, forcing the lions and almost all the other animals away. But in his anger, he had forced the hyenas further north, too.

On that shameful day, the Great Kings of the Past turned their backs in disgrace, on the holy land they had passed down to their sons and daughter for centuries.

The choking lava covered the land like a slow moving tide, covering and consuming everything. It covered the Waterhole. It burnt up the trees. It smoothened out any hills or small cliffs that were about the land. And it, in combination with the earthquakes, it caused Pride Rock to collapse. The landmark would later come to be known by the hyenas as Lava Den.

The lions and all other animals fled to the east, to a small valley, with a reliable water supply, and much sunlight. That valley became to be known as the Amber Valley.

The caverns below the graveyards that Hezakiah had called his home for the past few days collapsed on him. His spirit was trapped there, cursed to dwell the land forever, until released or banished.

After years, the hyenas made their way back to the former Pridelands. Now, it was a barren, leafless, wasteland. But water and food had returned.

Unfortunately for them, evil forces were still at work in the kingdom. A spirit had enslaved ten mandrills, brainwashed them, and rebuilt them to enslave the hyenas upon their return. Somehow, the spirit knew that the hyenas were coming back.

For centuries, life went on, and on. Amber Valley flourished. Although its creatures could not afford to waste food, they got by quite easily, and that was all they needed. On the other hand, the hyenas in the Pridelands grew weaker, and thinner with every generation. They were denied food when they were hungry. Instead, they were only given just as much as they needed to survive. No more than that.

The Pridelands lost its pride. Its ground cracked up as the water was drawn from it. It never rained. The grass stopped growing. The trees died. It was the Pridelands no longer. It was a tear stained, dry land. It was Shadowland.

The Circle of Life was lost…

xxx

There was no doubt that the four had fled as soon as they could. And there was no doubt that they did not make much noise at all. But the people that they were running from had noticed them so quickly that it was uncanny.

Sapphire did not want to look back. She did not want to see the grim, menacing faces of the mandrills again. She did not want to see them chasing after here. She did not want to see them raising their hands to the sky and casting their spells to ensure that she and the four fugitives with her would suffer a long, painful death, as Kalandro had explained. That hyena had made her just as fearful as he was. Or was it paranoia?

She just closed her eyes and prepared to face her doom, as she imagined the three that were running on both sides of her were doing as well. She waited while she ran, and her breaths became sharp and fast. She waited as the air that was constantly traveling in and out of her windpipe dried her throat, and it grew sore and rasping.

But nothing happened.

So, against all of her previous judgment and decisions, she turned back. But she did not see the mandrills casting their spells to destroy them, or anything of the sort. One of them was looking directly at her, but he was squinting, and doing nothing else.

She wondered why, until she heard the distant voice of another mandrill, coming from Lava Den, saying, "Do you see anything?"

The navy blue baboon turned back and replied, "No. There is nothing." He was not lying. He could not see them.

The four of them escaped that time. It had become apparent that something of great power was watching over them, and protecting them. The very thought of that sent tingles down her spine.

When they reached Utopia River, they explained everything to Rae, who quickly understood their predicament. He agreed to help them. He was now the new pack leader, who everyone loved. He was sure that he could go back in secret, and, one by one, convince the other hyenas that Sapphire and Coyle were wild dogs, and not lions.

And the next day, he did. They began to plan to overthrow the tyrants. Rae and Kalandro both acted as messengers, darting back and forth to deliver messages to both the hyenas, and 'wild dogs', for it was too risky and dangerous for Sapphire and Coyle to go to Lava Den, as well as for the hyenas going to Utopia River all together.

That night, when Sapphire looked up to the sky, she saw something that she had never seen before. It was like a bright gem, shining amongst the clouds, assisting the moon in shedding its light. She concluded, just before she nodded off the sleep, that it was just a firefly that was hovering in the air. It would fly away soon; doing whatever else it had to do.

But that was far from it. It was the first star to appear in both the Amber Valley's, and Shadowland's sky for hundreds of years. The Great Kings of the Past were turning back.

xxx

By nightfall, back in Amber Valley, the lions had gathered just two other forces to help them; Maloumba's tribe of elephants, and a small community of rhinoceroses that lived to the southwest of their Den. It seemed that they could only ally with those that did not fear that they would get eaten, so they planned to send the elephants and rhinoceroses out to get more allies the next day.

They had approached the meerkats, who quickly ducked into their tunnels to hide, not giving them a chance to reason with them. They had approached the wildebeests that had turned and run, thinking that it was yet another hunt. They had approached the antelopes, zebras and many other herd animals which had done the same thing. The hippopotami would not listen, nor would the crocodiles, that swam in Utopia Lake, formed by Utopia Falls. Wild dogs had barked and chased them away, and the one leopard that they found just ignored them, and stayed up in his tree.

Torres already knew of their newest plans. But he did not care. He believed that he was so powerful, in fact, that however many joined forces against him, he would not fall. He waited patiently in the Dark Lands, by the Abyss. He waited for his lord to return; the spirit of the canyon, and he waited until his pride thought that they were strong enough to face him.

It would not be long.