Sliding Into Antar

The Black Bog

Chapter 9

IX

"These children… our children… are the ones who created all those illusions… the storms…the fireballs… the crashing meteor?" Max repeated in wonder, as they walked along the path following the children to wherever it was the children were leading them. "I'm impressed!"

"Me, too," Michael agreed. "And the way they tested us… They're no fools. They know how to survive. I like that!"

"I feel so sorry for them, though," Liz said sadly. "All they've been through… losing their parents… seeing them killed… then having to learn to survive on their own and having to chase Kivar and the shadowshifters away without any help. It's so sad!"

Maria sniffed and nodded. "I feel bad about scaring them now… when we were invisible."

Michael smiled. "I thought that was kind of funny."

Maria whacked Michael on the arm.

"Well, it was," Michael insisted. "Besides, they've already gotten over that… and anyway, they scared the crap out of us first. I almost peed my pants when I looked up and saw that meteor coming! And don't forget, we're here now, so we can help them."

Maria nodded… "Yeah, we can! That's right!" Then she thought about it and smiled… "I guess it was kind of funny… a little bit… when you think about it." She looked at the children leading them down the pathway through the woods… "I wonder where they're taking us."

"To feed us to the pawgors… for scaring them, probably," Rayylar said with a grin.

Jim laughed.

For the next two hours, the children led everyone on a long trek deeper into the Antarian wilderness.

"I've never seen these trails before," Michael said. "Where do they go?"

"I don't know," Max admitted. "I've never seen them either. Maybe the children made them."

Michael nodded. "Yeah! That's probably it."

As they walked on, everyone began to notice that the woods around them had become denser and denser; and in the last mile or so, everything had become quite jungle-like. In fact, except for the path the children were on, the woods were downright impassible in most places now.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say we were in the Nan-Torel," Max said in a hushed tone.

Jim nodded, looking around. "I've got news for you, Max. We ARE in the Nan-Torel."

"How do you know?"

"Those guma bushes back there… that's a species that I've only seen inside the Nan-Torel. The variety outside the Nan-Torel is different… and far less toxic."

If there had been any doubt in anyone's mind before, the sudden scream of a distant wild pawgor removed it definitively.

"They ARE going to feed us to the pawgors," Rayylar whispered, this time swallowing instead of laughing.

At that moment, Zorel held up his hand, and everyone stopped. Max immediately saw why. Directly in front of them was a large bog or marsh of very thick, soupy black water. It didn't look as thick as quicksand, or as hard to see, but it was considerably thicker than any water he had ever seen. And it had an eerie sort of luminescence. The whole place made Max shudder. Behind him, Liz and Maria and the others had already begun backing up.

Alex, however, walked up to the edge of the bog and peered into the water cautiously. As he leaned over to look, Zorel gave him a shove, and Alex fell into the bog, disappearing from view beneath the black waters almost immediately. Liz gasped loudly, and Isabel ran to the edge of the bog. She never stopped running. Maya gave her a shove, and Isabel kept going, right into the black waters. Immediately, she sank out of sight.

In total shock at what was happening, Max and Michael both put their palms up facing Zorel and Maya in order to protect everyone else if they needed to. But without a word, Maya stepped into the bog and disappeared beneath the water. Then Zorel leapt in and disappeared behind her.

"What the f is going on here!" Michael screamed, forgetting that he was among children, and at the moment not much caring. "Max…? Can we get them back? I'll jump in if you tie a line to me. There's plenty of vines around here we can use. Maybe this bog isn't too deep… we can find them."

"It's deep," Danyy said. "You won't find them. Come with me."

Danyy took Jim Valenti, his dad's double, by the arm and jumped, but Jim lifted his arm up high, leaving Danyy hanging over the black waters, his feet swinging back and forth. Then quickly, Jim snatched Danyy back with his other hand and held him there…

"Now you're going to tell me what is going on here, Danyy! I am NOT going to just jump into that bog with you… or be pushed in, either… and I'm not letting you or any more of the children jump in."

Jim's voice was stern and convincing, but his words were hollow, because there was little he could do and hold Danyy down at the same time. Even as he spoke, three more children nonchalantly jumped into the bog and disappeared. Then, to everyone's surprise, Tess walked up and looked into the water… then she jumped in and disappeared, too, with only a shrug.

"What is this… a suicide mindwarp thing?" Max yelled, spinning around to face the most likely source of any mindwarp that might be going on, Jiba. But Jiba just shook her head and jumped into the water, disappearing into the bog's depths.

Max and Michael rushed to push everyone else back away from the bog as far as they could.

"Something is going on here," Max said. "I'm going to find out what it is. Michael, tie a line around me. I'm going in."

"No way, Max," Michael said emphatically, tying the vine around himself. "They need you on Antar more than me. You're the king. Hold this!"

Michael handed Max the end of the vine and jumped in, not waiting for any possible objections. Immediately, he disappeared beneath the waters. Max felt the line playing out. It was a long vine, probably fifty feet at least, but it reached its end very quickly. Max held on till it reached the end then began pulling the line back up again. He noticed that it didn't have much resistance anymore. Then he saw why. When the end of the rope came out of the water, Michael was nowhere to be seen. In shock, Max yelled Michael's name, but he didn't expect an answer.

Immediately, Max spun around and grabbed the first child still standing there, which happened to be little Jayyd.

"Tell me what happened to Michael! Tell me what happened to the others! Where are they? How can I get them back?"

Jayyd shook her head. "They're okay. They're in the healing place."

Max stammered momentarily then released Jayyd… "The healing place? What's that?"

Jayyd turned and pointed with a little finger at the bog. "That's the healing place. It's where the pawgors go when they're hurt… to get well."

Max looked at Liz and Maria silently… then at Jim. Everyone was in shock.

"They call this the healing place?" Max asked again. Jayyd nodded.

"Does it make you better if you get hurt," Max asked. Jayyd nodded.

"How do you get back out?"

Jayyd pointed a little finger at the far side of the bog. "It's shallow on that side. You can walk out over there."

"But… but…" Max stammered, losing himself in a sudden flurry of thoughts and questions… "Why don't they drown?"

Little Jayyd shrugged.

"Have you ever been in there," Max asked. Jayyd nodded.

"Why didn't you drown?"

"There's air on the bottom."

Max looked at the others then at Jim… "I'm going in."

"Let me go," Jim said, "Michael's right. You're needed on Antar to run things. If they're down there, I can tell them how to get out."

Jim turned to jump, but before he could, someone began emerging from the water on the other side of the bog. It was Michael… and he smiled.

"Come on in, Max. You won't believe this."

Max hesitated for a moment; then, remembering that Jiba had already jumped in, he decided that Michael was real and not an illusion. He looked at Jim and shrugged, then both jumped in.

>>>>>>>>>>

For a moment, Max felt vaguely wet… but it wasn't a cold wetness. In fact, there was an odd "warmth" to it that seemed to radiate all through his body, making every nerve tingle in a surprising way. Max had a feeling of sinking, but it lasted no more than a few brief seconds, then he hit the bottom. Whatever this "water" was, one sure sank fast in it! Max doubted that it would be possible to stay afloat or swim in it even if one tried.

As Max hit the bottom, a hand reached out from somewhere and grabbed him by the arm.

Max wiped his face and eyes and looked around. It was dark… mostly. There was a very dim light that was probably being produced by something in the water above him. But then the area suddenly lit up. Max saw that Zorel was holding his hand up in the air, and it was glowing brightly.

"Why didn't I ever think of that," Max mused, shaking his head.

"Come with me," Zorel ordered, turning and walking away without saying anything more. Max followed. The ground, if that's what it was, beneath his feet felt squishy… not "wet" squishy, more like "soft" squishy. It looked like it was composed of a thick layer of some kind of mossy growth… or perhaps algae.

Max had gone no more than ten steps when he heard someone calling him from behind. He turned around and looked. It was Liz and Maria, and right behind them were all the others.

"You weren't going to leave us out there, were you," Liz asked, taking Max by the arm. "I've followed you everywhere else, Max… across galaxies… through dimensions… I guess I'll follow you into the bowels of the earth… or Antar… or wherever you go, even if it's into a black bog… But we go together." Max nodded and smiled then put his arm around Liz, and they turned and followed Zorel.

"Aren't we going the wrong direction to get to the other side," Varec asked.

Max looked around and shrugged. "I've lost all sense of direction. Everything looks the same in here, so I couldn't tell you."

"We are," Varec said definitively.

"We're not going to the other side," Zorel said, motioning toward a rise just ahead of them. "That's where we're going." Zorel led the group to the rise and climbed up onto it, then he turned around and offered Max a hand, but Max was already on it. So was Jim; and very soon, so were the others. Zorel led them on into the crevasse that lay beyond the rise. Then, about a hundred feet in, he stopped and held his hand up, brightening the entire "room" with the glow from his palm. Max immediately noticed that Michael was there. So were Alex, Isabel, and all the other children who had jumped into the bog before them. The children moved to one side so that Max and the others could see, and Max gasped.

"Oh my God!" Liz and Maria both said at exactly the same time, sounding strangely stereophonic.

Max walked over to the hand-fashioned beds made of the soft algae-like growth and stared into the faces of the bodies that lay there… the faces of their doubles, the children's parents.

"We brought them here after Kivar attacked," Zorel said. "The shadowshifters caught us all by surprise. The shadowshifters can make themselves look like part of the wall, and when you walk by, they just come out of the wall and stab you or use their xenon-disrupting rays to blast your brain apart inside your head. You can't see the shadowshifters, then they just pop out and they're there. That's how they got our parents. We hoped the bog would bring them back and make them well again… but…"

"Are they dead," Maria asked.

Max shook his head. "They appear to be… but… they haven't turned into dust. They should have by now if they were dead. How long have they been this way, Zorel?"

"Two seasons… and three days."

"About seven months." Max nodded.

"They're not breathing," Michael said. "I already checked."

Max felt for a pulse in Liz's double. There was none. "They're dead… as we know it. But they're not… somehow… The bog or something in here must be preserving them."

"Can you heal them, Max," Isabel asked.

Max put his hands over Liz's double, trying to sense where the injury was.

"They shot her in the head," Andya said. "I saw it."

Tears brimmed up in Liz's eyes, and she hugged Andya to her. Then Andya began to cry. It was the first time they had seen any of the children cry, and it brought tears to everyone's eyes.

Max placed both hands over Liz's double's head and concentrated, closing his eyes tightly and exerting every ounce of energy that his body had in it… but it was more than he could accomplish.

"Her brain has been severely damaged. I… I can't fix it."

"But she's still here," Maria said… "I mean… she hasn't turned into dust. You said that yourself, Max. There must be SOME hope."

Max shook his head. "Liz is human, Maria… mostly. Anyway, she wouldn't turn into dust."

"Oh… yeah… that's right," Maria agreed dejectedly… "But the others haven't turned into dust either, Max."

Max thought then turned to Kryys. "Kryys… I know you've done the swirly atom thing before… you told me so… or somebody did. Have you ever tried to heal anybody?"

"Me?" Kryys asked, surprised. "I'm not a healer."

"Neither is my Kryys at home," Max said, "Not in the traditional sense as we know it… But he can heal people that I could never hope to heal."

"How?" Kryys asked.

Max sighed. "I really don't know how he does it. He just turns into millions of swirling atoms and passes through the person over and over. As he does, he repairs the cells in their body one at a time. I can't tell you how he does it, but HE doesn't know how he does it either. He only knows that, when he's in that form, he has a connection with the river of time and its eternal knowledge."

Kryys looked at Max, and his eyes grew wide. Then he dissolved into a billion glowing, swirling atoms. For a moment, the "room" took on the brightness of a summer day, then the atoms swirled into Liz's body like a billion little atomic stars, passing through her head repeatedly. This continued for slightly over five minutes; then, suddenly, Liz's chest rose.

"She's breathing!" Maria exclaimed excitedly. "She's alive!"

Andya, Maya, JoLeesa, and Alyyx all rushed to her side, and Andya picked her mother's hand up in her own hands and held it next to her face, as tears rolled down her cheeks.

When Kryys had finished with Liz, he moved to Max's double, and the atoms began swirling through his head. Meanwhile, Max discovered that some of the victims had been stabbed, among them, both Alex and Isabel. Max placed his hands over the wound just below Isabel's left breast and concentrated. The wound began to close; and inside Isabel, the tear in her heart closed up. Max concentrated harder, and he felt blood begin to flow and new blood begin to form, replacing the blood that had been lost, as her heart began to pump again. Max took a deep breath and looked at his hands. He didn't know HOW he had been able to jumpstart the creation of new blood… or why the blood still there in her body was still as fresh as the day she had died. The only thing he could imagine was that this "room…" something in this room… or in the strange black water…

Max moved to Alex and pressed his hands to Alex's chest. Alex had been relatively lucky… if one can be "dead" and still be considered lucky. The knife had missed his heart. But it had collapsed his lungs, causing suffocation. This was easy for Max to repair, comparatively.

Kryys repaired the damage done to his parents, Michael and Maria, who had been shot in the head like Max and Liz, and Max "healed" Kyle, Jeliya, Tess, and Rayylar. Kryys repaired the damage to Jim, Kathleen, Varec, and Amy.

It took a total of a little over thirty minutes of continuous effort, but working together, Max and Kryys repaired the damage that had been done to every one of the parents. Now, they only had to wait. The swirling atoms coalesced back into the form of a little boy, and Kryys immediately collapsed onto the soft ground.

"What's wrong with him," Zorel asked, alarmed and deeply concerned for his younger brother.

Max picked Kryys up and handed him to Maria, Kryys and Zorel's mom's double, to hold. "He's fine," he said to Zorel, "Our Kryys went to sleep right after he finished healing someone the first time, too. It takes a lot out of him; he's still very young. He'll get stronger with time."

With nothing more to do but wait, the children sat down on the soft ground to rest, but soon, most of them had dozed off. Shortly after that, most of the group from the New Granolith had dozed off, too.

Then all was silent and still in the underwater room…

Zorel woke up to the soft touch of a hand on his cheek. He looked up into Maria's eyes, and she smiled. Somehow he knew instinctively that this was not the double who had come on the ship from another dimension. A grin spread rapidly across Zorel's face like a wildfire racing through a dry field… Then he saw Michael standing behind her, smiling.

"MOM! DAD!"

It may have been Zorel's exuberance… or it may have just been the moment… but Liz opened her eyes and looked around her to find her children all asleep holding onto her hands and arms. Andya had Liz's right hand in her hands pressed against her cheek. Liz smiled and kissed Andya on the cheek as she reclaimed her hand. That woke Andya up, and then the others all woke up.

"MOM!" Andya shouted, throwing her arms around Liz's neck and hugging her. Soon, all four of her children had her in their embrace.

"Where's your Dad?" Liz asked. Andya pointed to Max, who had not yet awakened. Liz leaned over to Max and kissed him on the lips. Then she lifted her head and looked at his face. Max smiled.

"He'll be up soon," Liz said.

Within minutes, the entire room was buzzing with joy and celebration as, one after the other, the parents woke up. The rest of the children and the group from the New Granolith had already awakened at the first exuberant screams from Zorel and Andya.

"Dad, these are our friends," Zorel said, indicating the group that had come in the New Granolith.

Michael nodded. "I know."

"You do?" Zorel asked, surprised.

Michael nodded then smiled. "I think I dreamed that they had come to help us."

tbc