Chapter 34

“You look like death three times over, man! Did you even sleep?” Cici exclaimed when Kopius had finally made his way down from their hideout. He had not gotten a lot of rest, as the moonshots endurance rivaled that of a thoroughbred stallion. The cramped space didn’t help with his comfort level either. He was in need of a spa day but would settle for a hot spring if one were close enough. Taking the offered bowl of steaming breakfast from Cici, Kopius sat to eat in silence.

“Here,” Cici said after a few judgmental glances. He leaned over and sprinkled a pinkish powder onto his food. “This will wake you right up.”

Kopius eyeballed Cici for a moment and then eyeballed the food. He considered doing his normal thing to ask and/or prod as to the nature, contents and desired outcome of the pink powder. A reasonable course of action, really, he grumbled internally. He considered himself very fortunate to not have had any major digestive issues thus far—given his old fast food and gas station sushi diet—and wanted to keep it that way.

Ultimately Kopius chose to just eat his food. Not that he wholly trusted Cici or had a sudden lack of concern regarding food poisoning—he wanted silence. He needed sleep but would settle for silence. Like most mornings, Kopius felt consuming poison was a more appealing alternative to holding a conversation. Cici indicated that he would be over by the campfire and went about his business of snuffing it out.

By the time Kopius finished his meal, his morning ritual of hating the world had concluded and his mood lifted. Quicker than most mornings, Kopius noted to himself. Though his muscles were stiff, his mind had cleared, and that didn’t usually happen for a good hour or two after waking.

“Okay,” Kopuis grunted through some morning stretches. “What was the pink stuff?”

“That pink shit?” Cici joked.

Kopius just shook his head and continued on with his basic calisthenics.

“It’s called Night Owl. Comes from dehydrated chiliroot mixed with semen from a rowlcoon after they have eaten pepper seed for several days.” This all came out in a ‘’everyone is aware of this method’’ tone.

Kopius stopped trying to stretch away the previous night's sleeping arrangement and looked at Cici. There were so many things he wanted to say, but nothing came out. Questions upon questions wrestled for a turn to tumble out, but instead they were bottlenecking in his mind.

All he could manage was a deep breath.

Kopius placed his hand on his forehead like he was checking his temperature. After rubbing his temple a few times his hand slid down, spent an extra moment covering his eyes before gradually continuing over his nose, mouth, and then off his chin.

In that brief sequence of actions, Kopius had considered many things. Internal musings aside, his final conclusion was that enduring a morning conversation may be more beneficial than previously thought.

“I have so many—so, so many questions,” Kopius said with a dash of exhaustion. “I—I can’t even right now.” He finished by throwing his hands up.

After taking another round of hartshorn, they left their lofted hideout. Kopius and Cici trekked up the river with zest. Whether it was the known presence of moonwalkers or the invigorating effects of the Night Owl, the two moved with purpose.

The journey took them past more piles of bones, worthless gear, and poorly executed last stands. It was impossible to tell if the various groups of skeletons were all a part of a larger group losing people along the way, or if it was a bunch of smaller groups, each failing to make it much further than the last.

The Tessel, toxic as ever, had a smell that had grown from a passing fart to a steady flow of outhouse sewage. The rancid flavor of the aroma was tolerable if they kept their distance. With their noses held high, the two continued to power walk upstream.

“What do we have here?” Cici said with awe in his voice. The past several hours of vigorous walking were all but forgotten as the two spotted the headwaters of the Tessel and the lake that supplied it.

A large open space laid out before them. Where there should have been at least five or six hoodoos was a body of water. Roughly the size of two or three side-by-side soccer fields; the water was just as tainted as the Tessel.

The surrounding area had the same salted earth type look as did the Tessels shores. Plant life kept a healthy distance, leaving a wide space between the black, oozie water and itself. Besides large rocks scattered about, there were no signs of life—or death, for that matter.

A clear view of the daytime sky was more of a welcome sight than Kopius would have guessed. Having only seen the sky through the myriad of hoodoos for the last few days had given him a mild case of cabin fever. It really brought back memories of being in prison and only seeing daylight through bars for months on end. The reminder was never a sentimental one.

“It's a pond,” Kopius stated and moved past Cici to get a better look.

“Ponds are not usually this big, though. It's more like a small lake.”

“Small lake, large pond; potato,potatoe. It’s all the same man.”

They took their time navigating the waterfront, being sure to keep a safe distance from the contaminated ooze. The pond looks harmless enough, but so do most things right before they try to eat you! Kopius thought.

He kept imagining a giant tentacle monster emerging from the depths, snatching both men like a pair of ragdolls before dragging them to certain death.

“What fills this thing up?” Kopius asked, gesturing to the pond.

“More river?” Cici answered with a shrug. “Could be deep.”

The two stopped patrolling.

“I don’t get it,” Kopius started, looking around like he was missing something. “We’ve seen, what, five, six sets of bones today alone?”

“Something like that,” Cici answered.

“Where are the monsters? All we’ve seen is a bunch of skinwalkers, that sesame street looking mofo, and a couple of moonshots making out.” Kopius shivered at that last part.

“Making out?”

“Yeah man, you know, rounding the bases.”

Cici shook his head. Kopius also shook his head at the reference.

“They were bumping uglies. Doing the damn thing. Hitting the high notes?”

None of these terms registered with Cici, so Kopius made a few thrusting motions with his hips and everything became clear. Cici even giggled a bit as he put two and two together with the other terms Kopius had used.

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“Wait,” Cici almost shouted. “Did you see two moonshots mating?”

Kopius nodded with a grimace.

“Fascinating,” Cici said with genuine intrigue.

“No. Not in the least bit… I can still hear it.” Kopius ended in a whisper, pointing to both of his ears. “It’s never going to leave.”

“I bet they use their ass-arms for it. But how?” Cici trailed off, ignoring Kopius’s paranoia.

“Does it really matter?” Kopius asked.

“Maybe it’s like two hands shaking,” Cici said while trying to simulate a handshake.

“Why?” Kopius practically pleaded.

“Maybe this…” Cici made chugga-chugga motions with one arm.

“If I tell you, will you stop?”

“There’d be no reason to guess then, would there?”

“I hate you.”

Cici smiled.

Kopius explained… and then he gagged.

“Seriously though,” Kopius said after washing away the gag with some water. “Has anyone ever mentioned this?” He gestured to the black fluid that made up the pond. “Seems like something that would come up.”

“No,” Cici answered with a thousand-yard stare, like he was thinking back on every conversation he had ever had about the quest.

“Had you ever heard anything about the Dreary?”

“No,” Cici replied, dragging out the ‘‘o’’ sound for a while. “But several stories I’ve heard make much more sense now.”

“Any idea how long this quest has been around?”

“Several generations or more, I would guess. Some say that the Twelve Days’ March was forged because the Tessel turned ill. Many others say the river turned dark after the path around was carved.”

“And the Twelve Day March is what?”

“Days’, Twelve Days’ March, and it’s the long way around I mentioned a while back. It traces from the north, through Cawbachu to the lowlands beyond the Valley of Shadows in the south.”

Kopius thought back before replying, remembering something about a safer path being carved around everything.

“Okay, weird. They couldn’t come up with a better name?”

Cici shrugged.

“You’ll have to tell me the story later. Back to the issue at hand, though,” Kopius said, getting things on track. “My whole point is, this quest has been around a few hundred cycles, right?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Hold up,” Kopius said as his internal math failed to add up. “How long is a generation here?”

Cici shrugged.

“Any guesses?”

“I don’t know, fifty, sixty cycles maybe. I know it varies by the race. Those damn Elves seem to live forever.”

“Okay, that doesn’t help,” Kopius murmured to himself.

By the time Kopius stopped being distracted by every other thing that Cici said, he managed to get his point out: that it had been too easy.

“Why haven’t others made it this far and then turned back to tell the tale of the black pond? If more people have attempted the quest, where’s all the bones?” Kopius rambled.

“What would any of that do to ease your mind?” Cici asked loudly, breaking through the never-ending list of questions.

“It would tell me more people—or Elves or Astrals or Ogres or whatever—that more people tried to figure this out.”

“More folks tried and failed, ya mean. We don’t know that this is the end of the quest. Maybe there will be a pile of bones somewhere that will help you feel better.”

“It’s not the bones,” Kopius shot back.

“Then what, you need a fight? Adversity will find you whenever it has the fancy. Try enjoying the slower times. They come by less and less.”

“Cici, man, it feels like I've been on tilt my whole life. My brain, for better or worse, likes to sit at about a hundred. I know you don’t know what any of that means, but basically, I don’t even know what the slow times look like.”

Before Kopius could dive down his personal rabbit hole of daddy issues, a singular bubble broke the surface in the center of the pond. The two stopped their incessant chattering, looked out at the pond, back at each other, and then returned their collective gaze to the ooze.

A second and considerably larger bubble popped soon after—followed by a third and fourth of similar size. They started coming in faster succession, now each a bit smaller than the last until their numbers were too great to track.

More pockets of bubbles started to pop into existence across the large pond, creating the impression that someone had turned on jacuzzi jets. For the moment, the bubbles remained stationary like small kettles boiling in their own spaces. Kopius took a step back, while Cici returned his mighty hammer to his hands.

“Fuckin’ tentacle monster, I knew it,” Kopius complained as he readied both of his own weapons.

“You know what this is?” Cici asked quickly.

“Of course I don’t!”

“What does your video logic say?”

“That we’re on our own.”

The bubbles, as if hearing their voices, began to move towards the shore nearest the two men. The progression was slow but steady—seven or eight groups in all. Kopius unconsciously started to shift weight between his feet, his nerves making him antsy. He felt like he was about to steal a base or lay down a bunt without getting the go-ahead sign from a coach. His anticipation grew, and he practically held his breath until the first set of bubbles reached the shore.

As the closest batch reached roughly ten feet from the shore, a smooth, rounded object broke through the surface. More of the same broke through until a total of five had emerged. They moved together, almost in unison. As they stalked out and the pond scum fell off, what they were became clear.

At first, covered in muck and pond funk, they looked like a child's version of how a mud monster might appear. When the mud and slop fell away, bone shone through. Along with deep, soulless eye sockets, five scantly clad skeletons exited the pond.

“Here are all those skeletons you were looking for,” Cici stated, shifting his hammer between hands.

A second set of bubbles made its way to the shore and four more skeletons came into view, each losing the goop, glop, and/or whatever else was tangled to the carcasses.

“I didn’t want more bones!” Kopius whisper-yelled. “More bones made more sense.”

With nine sets of walking bones in total, and what looked to be many more on the way, Kopius and Cici needed to get on the same page regarding their next moves. The half-stained, muck-laden skeletons gathered at the shore before spreading out single file, shoulder to shoulder. Armed with only the water-logged stench of contamination, the skeletons marched forward.

“Thoughts?” Kopius asked anxiously as the twenty or so feet that separated the two groups shrank.

“We should probably take care of this before we get outnumbered?”

“We’re already outnumbered,” Kopius replied, but Cici was moving, his hammer cocked back.

With only a short distance to close, Cici brought down the weight of his astralsilicate on the nearest skeletons head. It crumpled like a tin can under a falling piano. Bone fragments flew in all directions as if the skeleton was made from thousands of popsicle sticks.

As brittle as they seemed, the skeleton nearest Cici reached back and punched the big man square on the side of his head. Cici grunted and fell back but used the momentum to spin away from any more attacks. His motion brought him back around to face the skeleton, and his hammer quickly followed. The astralsilicate decimated the skull in a way that only a baseball bat going up against a gingerbread house would understand. The rest of the remaining bones crumpled in a heap on the ground.

Cici touched the side of his head and winced. The big man growled in frustration, wiping a few red streaks down his pant leg. A third skeleton stepped forward only to be crushed like the first. Cici spun and swiped at a fourth but missed, as the hammer couldn’t quite reach that far.

Off-kilter from the overextended miss, he fell partially towards the rest of the marching bones before the weight of the astralsilicate pulled him back away from them.

He stumbled in his awkward position and tumbled to the ground. He rolled away a few times—on purpose it looked like—popped up to his feet and into a fighting stance. The commotion was such that the skeletons lost any interest in Kopius and all turned to Cici.