Croc stared straight across at the line of jagged green
peaks not a mile from him. Strangely, through the low points of the opposing
peaks, he could see another row of mountains just beyond like the jagged teeth
of a dragon. He even imagined another row beyond that, and another, as the
tales of his great ancestors told around the evening fire. Just how many rows
of long, deep valleys and razor-like ridges were there, he didn’t know. No one
knew. The furthest anyone had journeyed and returned was seven valleys; seven
versions of hell just like their own. He found it impossible to even consider
seven different microcosms each offering their own dangers, their own nuances
for survival. He was just barely able to brave the length of the valley on his
own, let alone a place wholly unfamiliar.
Turning his head to the north before rotating it back to the
south, he could almost see the entire length of the valley if not for the mist
which constantly shrouded the southern end. The south end held the low point of
the valley which collected the daily rainfall forming a swamp. In the stories
of the ancients, tales of lakes, open bodies of water not shrouded by dense
foliage could be found. This was not the case in their valley which struggled
to find fresh, non-stagnated pools of water. Therefore, he couldn’t believe
these lakes existed because no one in the past hundred years who had left the
valley and returned told of one. To Croc, lakes were the closest thing to a
myth he could imagine.
Swiveling his head back around, careful to limit his
movements, he took pleasure in this privilege. After all, this was the first
time he was allowed to journey above the tree line to view the world outside
the Devil’s Garden, the name of this thin valley which was his home. Being in
the open as he was, however, was not something his clan did. It was dangerous
to expose one’s self to the sky where all sorts of deadly creatures roamed.
Because of that, he sought out a stand where the rocks were still bigger than
himself and offered some protection, some camouflage. Twenty yards further up,
the rocks thinned to small boulders then gravel for a few hundred more yards.
Above that openness extended a sheer, rough-hewn wall of rock another quarter
of a mile up. With a slow turn to the north, he could see where the wall of
rock dipped down to just above the tree line, but there was still too much open
area to chance an ascent without being viewed. And being seen in the Devil’s
Garden almost always meant death.
Looking up to the sky wary of its predators, he saw the
oncoming clouds of the night’s rainfall. They were dark puffy entities which
rolled over the peaks like a dragon’s claw as the sun cast its last rays of
life on the neighboring chasm. Seeing this, Croc knew he had to start his
journey down to safely where he could use the common fluorescent moss to light
his way to the path. Once found, it was less than a mile to his village, a
series of caves near the valley’s floor. No one, however, spent time on the
valley’s floor if they wanted to live. That’s because there was no ground, just
sludge. This slurry could suck a man under within minutes if what existed in
the murk didn’t kill a person first.
No, the Devil’s Garden wasn’t a place for the incautious. It
was a place where alertness was mandatory and recklessness killed without
mercy. In his youth, Croc had learned that the hard way. It had been his first
experience with Geyser, a gray dragon inhabiting the tall peak at the north end
of the valley.
