Book One: The Chamber of Thousands Caves
Chapter 5.- The lost cemetery.
The next morning they all left on an expedition to the top of the Anima´s Range. It wasn’t an easy trip; you could get there after a long walk through a steep path and after climbing a sheer wall of natural stone, the Aguila’s Gulf.
They were a family addicted to adventures and challenges, because a demanding issue made them goes forward. They had tied a security rope around their waists and this held them together. Pedro was at the front leading and Jazmín at the back closing the march caring that none of the children would fall.
Luli was taking Brownie inside her shirt. But between the button holes its little head peeped out.
The climb was not easy. At one moment when Pedro was feeling for a place to lean on, a big stone fell off and plunged into space, dragging others and creating a small landslide. Jazmin and the children were then about 12 yards lower down resting, and they had to stick themselves to the rock wall like suckers to avoid being hit by the stones. Luckily no one was hurt and so they continued their way to the top. When they reached it, the magnificent landscape highly compensated the daring adventure. The sight was wonderful: towards the south, one could see nearly all the sea coast. The soft contrast between the pine and eucalyptus woods and the sea in such a marvelous day, created a wonderful frame and for a moment they were touched. Without doubt in such landscapes one could clearly appreciate the creating hand of a superior being.
Towards the west one could see the Solis River
It was already almost and they had planned to have lunch at the top of the mountain. They looked for a stone to use as a table and they settled down to eat. After lunch they lied down for a short rest in the rugged and smooth grass that grew there.
Suddenly and unexpectedly a strong wind started to blow. They got up and saw that in the east a big storm was starting. Black storm clouds twisted up and at the same time advanced towards them. They managed to see how the shade of the clouds came inland destroying everything within their path. It was a tornado… and a big one. They assemble quickly at that time of the year. They are unpredictable and reach winds which are superior to one hundred and fifty kilometers per hour. And the worst place to be during a tornado is exactly where they were, in high and open place.
-Good lord! -managed to say Jazmin looking at the terrible spectacle.
-It’s coming towards us and it’s going to hit us strongly!, Let’s go! Let’s tie ourselves with the rope and start going down by the north side! -shouted Pedro to the group.
Quickly they tied themselves up and started running down the mountains. They hadn’t gone very far when the tornado caught them. The furious wind moved them to its will. They had lost all visibility and thousand of branches and rocks hit them everywhere. A stone, the size of a tennis ball hit Santiago straight on his forehead, leaving him unconscious, while a piece of trunk hit Jazmin on her stomach leaving her without air. Lucia also held her belly trying to protect Brownie.
The wind got worse each second and started to whirl around. Santiago
Pedro, with a great effort, managed to grab a big rock and quickly tied the rope to it. Very slowly he began to pull the rope and with it his family. First he brought Luli; afterwards, Tomi and the three of them tried to bring Jazmin that held tightly to the rope that joined her to her youngest son. The wind was very strong and they felt their strength was failing them. Suddenly Tomas untied himself and climbed up to where Santi was flying. He jumped and this time helped by the wind he managed to get hold of him. Tomi’s weight made them go down very slowly until they reached the ground. This time they managed to bring him to the big rock, but a new spur of wind lifted him up, this time it was Tomi and as he wasn’t tied it started to lift him up and distance him from his family more and more.
-Tomi, Tomi…, oh no! -shouted Jazmín desperately while she started running after him. Pedro caught her by the arm and stopped her.
-Jaz, no…, we can’t do anything for the moment, we have to wait until the wind abates -he said while he hugged her tightly.
The wind, just as it came it went. These storms were very strong but passed quickly. The anguish of wanting to know what had happened to Tomi controlled them, except Santi who remained unconscious. They put him in Pedro’s back, and tied him and started downhill. It was a quick descent, almost crazy: Luli crying, heart brokenly, Jazmín in complete silence, though in her face one could read; as in an open book anguish, pain, fear and hope. Pedro, went down hill saying all the time: We are going to find him…he has to be well…
When they reached the campsite they left Santi lying down under Luli’s care, they took the jeep and left quickly in search of Tomas trying to guess in which direction he could be.
He slowly began to open his right eye. He tried to open the left one but couldn’t: he felt a terrible pain all over his body. Groaning he slowly started to sit up. While he moved, he felt sharp points sticking into his body. As he got up he saw the place where he had been lying and realized it was a hillock of sharp stones all piled up tidily. He looked at it closer and discovered with horror that it was a grave.
-Where am I? Where are the rest? Dads…, mum…! -he shouted. But nobody replied.
He started to go round and realized he was surrounded by these graves. He got nearer to one of them, and he found, in some stones, some engravings he had never seen before, like drawings from a cave.
-But where am I? Am I alive? What place is this?
-You are in the lost graveyard…-sounded a deep and faltering voice.
Tomi lifted his sight and there he was sitting on top of one of these hillocks, trying to light an old broken wooden pipe, an authentic Charrua aboriginal.
-In the lost graveyard…? The graveyard of the aboriginals but how did I get here? -he asked.
-You fell from the sky…coff…coff, but the question is not …coff, but why…coff -he replied between coughs.
-You should stop smoking that pipe, it’s bad for you.
-Don’t worry about my health nothing can happen to me…coff…coff…besides it’s your health you should worry about.
-What do you mean? I’m aching all over and I’m completely bruised…that’s true, but I don’t seem to have anything broken. I think that after all I’m quite well.
-Silly, I don’t mean that… well actually yes, there is only one reason why you…coff, can be here. You are in the “threshold”, the limit between life and death.
-You… mean that I’m dead? -He asked very scared
-No, but you’ll surely be…coff…coff, the only way of coming into the lost graveyard is to find out if the moment has arrived for you to cross the threshold. And I warn you that nobody has been able to leave this place.
-Of course I’m not ready! The time has not arrived for me. I have lots of things to do yet! -he said desperately.
-But it’s not me whom you have to convince, it’s the graveyards guard… Dan-guar!
-And what happens if I don’t manage to convince him that I’ve got to get out?, would I have to stay here for ever?
-No, this graveyard is like the waiting room for judgment’s day, the day in which, based in your world’s deeds and actions and your attitude towards your fellowmen, you are judged and it is decided how you will spend the rest of eternity. Every human being has to go through here, when they die. But of course these procedures have become a little bureaucratic and delays are inevitable, there are too many files in the waiting list, so you may have a long stay here. I have been waiting 324 years.
-That long? But you are much worse off than in my country! My father always says that the judicial system is a complete disaster, but I don’t think they take that long.
-When you have eternity before you it doesn’t seem that long. Besides I didn’t lead a very decent wordily life, so I’m in no hurry. I suspect that here I’m better off that in any place I can be sent to -said the aboriginal.
The hours went by, night started to fall, and with great regret they decided to stop the search until dawn of the next day. It was very dangerous to go on at night.
They reached the campsite with a feeling of defeat, fearing the worst. As the hours had gone by they had started to loose hope of finding him.
Santi had already recovered consciousness and together with Luli waited for their parent’s arrival with news. He had an enormous violet bruise on his forehead and his head ached.
The news of the failure somewhat depressed them, but Luli denying the defeat encouraged them.
-Come on father, Tomi is very strong and hard! He is surely fine and looking for the way back.
-It’s my fault -said Pedro deeply distressed-. I should have jumped to save Santi instead of him.
-Not al all! This is nobodies fault. You were trying to save us all. If you had let go, we would all be lost among the mountains -said Jaz cheering up-. Besides, Luli is right. We must think that he is safe and that we are going to find him.
-Lets eat something and try and get some rest to start off at dawn -added Luli.
Of course none of them could eat a bite and much less sleep a wink. The image of Tomi being literally “sucked” by the tornado, and the uncertainty of not knowing if they were going to find him alive, tortured them for the rest of the night.
Tomi, on the other hand, had been walking for quite a while among the graves, towards the entrance in search of Dan-guar, as the aboriginal had instructed him. He could still hear his last words: “In this place your eyes see what your mind shows them”.
The prevailing twilight and the permanent fog made him walk slowly and carefully, using all his senses to orient himself. The place was really gloomy, sinister, full of old graves, dry, worn out trees, the ground damp and full of puddles…The only thing left was to see the spirits rise from their eternal rest. For one moment he closed his eyes, trying to escape, though only mentally, from that place. He tripped and fell into a puddle getting soaked. His right hand touched something thin and hard. He picked it up and with a scream of terror threw it far away. It was the forearm of the skeleton. Quickly and without turning backwards he started running. In his escape he thought he heard a voice claiming: “Hey…! Who took my arm away?”
Finally he found himself in front of an enormous gate with iron bars. It was so wide that four cars could go through simultaneously and so high that he could not see where it ended. The bars were black and as thick as logs. They had on them figures of human and animal skeletons made in forged iron.
He looked sideways but there was nobody. He thought that maybe the guard had gone for a round along the graveyard. He felt he was lucky and ran towards the gate trying to open it.
-You won’t be able to open it, nobody can…, only Dan-guar can…!
The sun had not yet appeared in the horizon, but it had dawned. All night long they had been waiting for this moment, now they could start their search for Tomi again.
They all got inside the jeep and started on their way. The day before they had looked along the mountain tops, so now they would begin by the hill sides where more vegetation begins to appear.
Some morning birds flying, a few yards away, gave Luli an idea, and sitting behind them so they could not hear, she spoke to Brownie.
-Brownie, why don’t you ask your friends, the birds, to search from the sky?
-Luli, since yesterday afternoon all the animals of the mountains know what has happened, and they are looking, even during the night, helped by all the owls.
-And? Are there any news? -She asked anxiously.
-Not yet…
Tomi turned around as he heard a deep voice from beyond and there he was…, Dan-guar, the warrior of the night…, the guard of the graveyard.
He was a big and strong aboriginal, more than twice Pedro’s size. He was standing in front of Tomi, upright and proud, with his legs slightly separated. His body was hardened with many terrible scars; one of them, on his face crossed an eye and reached the lip. He was dressed and painted for war and had fitted on his head a skeleton of a bull’s head with enormous horns. Wide jaguar’s leather wristbands covered nearly all his arm, and necklaces made from big teeth of wild animals hung around his neck. In his hands he held an enormous spear, which it would have been impossible for Tomi to pick up, and an axe made of stone which seemed he had sharpened with his own teeth.
Fear took hold of him and to make matters worse the warrior seemed to grow more and more.
-This is going to be your dwelling place for the rest of eternity, you small human wreck, have you chosen your grave already? -the terrible booming voice sounded again seeming to come out of his stomach as his lips didn’t move.
-N…n…no, and I’m not going… to choose it, my time hasn’t come yet …
-I AM THE ONE WHO DETERMINES WHEN YOUR HOUR HAS COME…! -he shouted-. And nobody has ever been able to escape from here… well, except one, some years ago…but only one and he were much stronger than you.
His head turned into a ghostly bull’s head, while it increased in size. Fear paralyzed poor Tomi…He closed his eyes again wishing to be far from there, with his brothers, when a strange figure appeared and said over and over again: “Your eyes see what the mind shows them…only an enlighten been can defeat him…”.
A deafening shout brought him to reality. The warrior ran towards him waving his enormous axe and making the ground tremble under his feet. He jumped to one side and rolled over moving further away while the axe crashed against the rocky floor making a cloud of sparks and stones.
-You will have to do it better if you really want me to stay -said Tomi hesitating, but filled with a strange feeling of courage that seemed to burn his chest.
-You can run, but sooner or later I will catch you. I have all eternity to trap you.
-But I don’t! I want to get out of here and now.
Then, Dan- guar threw his spear to the little child. Tomi once again avoided it, but as the weapon passed by his side it stretched its iron point as if wanting to rip him and it did.
-Arghhh…! -groaned Tomi.
From his arm blood oozed, like water from a broken hydrant. The spear had made him a long and deep cut that Tomas now covered with his hand.
His cheeks were red with anger. With that same annoyance and biting his lips with pain he looked deeply into the warrior’s eyes for the first time. It seemed that the enormous being little by little started to shrink.
“Your eyes see what your mind shows them” sounded again in his mind.
-Come on little warrior! Can’t you cope with me? Your own size makes you clumsy and slow -he said completely out of himself.
While he spoke he started to loose his fear and his opponent who had evidently nourished himself from it, went on shrinking. Over and over again he dodged the blows, but he was growing tired and his rival, though he wasn’t big now, seemed to have a lot of energy left. Again he heard the voice:
“Only and enlighten being can defeat him”.
-Enlighten…? What does it mean? To be pure …, or very intelligent, that light emanates…and if it was that? -. Quickly he took his torch out of his rucksack and illuminated the warrior in the precise moment that it seemed he was about to finish with him.
From the torch came a very intense and concentrated beam of light, more like a lightening than a common and simple light from a torch. It was shot off with such strength that it made the little boy’s hand tremble making him feel an intense pain in all his arm, to such an extend that he almost let his torch fall on the floor. He didn’t though, his desperation was stronger and he clung to it.
The light went through the giant’s body and with a pitiful and prolonged howl he disappeared…leaving in his place a small potbellied aboriginal, short sighted and with a kind look in the midst of a cloud of smoke.
-Uy, no…! Not again…! If this goes on like this, nobody is going to take me seriously and the graveyard will be left without tenants…
-Who are you? -asked Tomi somewhat relieved and astonished.
-I’m Guardan, the administrator of this strainer.
-Well, I have beaten your Titan, so you must let me go… and besides your warrior’s treasure belongs to me.
-What treasure? -asked Guardan with surprise.
-Your warrior’s treasure. I have defeated him. The legend says that I can take the treasure of the fallen warrior.
-Ahhh!…the “treasure of the fallen warrior”. It’s not the treasure of our defeated guardian, but of a famous aboriginal warrior, called Tabare, who fought against the forces of evil maintaining the cosmic balance. Unluckily he succumbed in a terrible battle against the evil forces and died, leaving a legacy to his successor, whom the legend transformed into a treasure, but I wouldn’t really call it like that…
-Well, but it belongs to me…
-I’m sorry to tell you that it has already been taken away. The first one to defeat Dan-guar claimed it for himself. Of course he didn’t know what he was getting into.
-And who was the lucky one?
-That, I can’t tell you, Tomas.
-Well, at least I have been saved from the famous curse.
-I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve already got it in your blood -declared Guardan.
Tomi was astonished by what the graveyard’s administrator said and he thought of protesting or leaving a written complain, but he was very anxious to leave that place.
-Well, at least you’ll let me leave? Wont you?
-Yes you have won it, as you have defeated this trashy warrior that we have as a guardian. But you will have to help me open the gate, I can’t reach the lock, besides it’s been a long time since we greased the lings and they are very hard.
The gate’s key was similar to it, big and heavy. Tomi had to help him up, enduring the pain in his arm, so Guardan could reach the lock and together they pushed with all their strength to open it, the necessary bit.
-The fact is that we use it so little! -he justified himself as he said goodbye- I hope to see you soon, around here.
-Well, I don’t. Until never! -When Tomi was starting his way back, something occurred to him-. Guardan, can I make you a question?
-What? Make it.
-Have Mrs. Clota, Don Odorus Pondpork’s wife and Cobblestone and Stick’s mother been through here yet?
-Listen I shouldn’t be answering you that, but as you are not able to take anything away with you, I’ll go through my files. And he took from underneath a small loincloth an enormous lever arch file, which he couldn’t possibly have taken there.
-Well, actually no Tomi. They are not registered here and there are no reservations made under their names, at least for the next month or so; it’s a shame because we have vacancies. We are in the low season now, did you know?
The jeep jumped, bucking like a wild colt, on the rugged and rough field. The five pairs of eyes scanned for some sign of the lost child. Surprisingly Pedro had recovered and had calmed down, and showed great optimism on their search, as if he knew something.
Both children and their mother were standing on the vehicle and shouted with all their might Tomi’s name to all and sundry.
An eagle flew over the vehicle carelessly letting out a high pitched squeal.
-Luli they have found him! They have found him! Shouted Brownie in its animal language, comprehensive only to the two children.
-Where? Is he alright? -Asked Luli .
-Over there, do you see that big dense woodland at the base of the mountains?
-Mum, Dad! He is over there in that woodland! -Said Santiago
-Where? -said Jazmín-. In that woodland over there? But that is too far away. Are you sure Santi? How do you know Tomi is there?
-It’s that…, well … faltered the youngster.
-We saw something like a brightness that came from over there -said Luli trying to help him, while she gave him a small nudge on his hip.
-What do you think Pedro, isn’t he too far away?
-Yes he is. But we’ve got nothing to loose. The truth is that we’ve been all over the mountain and I don’t know where else to look -he answered.
The woodland was about three kilometers away from where the tornado took place and from where Tomi had disappeared, but quickly and full of hope the went towards the wood. It took them about fifteen minutes to reach the limit of the leafy glade. One could not see it very well from far away but the trees were really big. It looked as if they had many years and to their surprise they made a rich conjunction of species: pines, eucalyptus, cypresses, palm trees mixing themselves in unique harmony. Luli guided Pedro to the entrance of the woodland as if she knew the way perfectly well. Of course they didn’t realize that Brownie was on her shoulder indicating the way in her ear.
After another eternal twenty minutes of going around in the woods, which were much bigger than what they looked, they reached a clear spot of a hundred meters of diameter. Exactly in the centre was a gigantic oak tree. It looked like the tent of a circus.
-There Luli, in the oak grove! There is your brother -said the rabbit.
-There dad, in the oak tree…! I think he is there! -said Luli staring without being able to believe what she had been told.
They got nearer with the vehicle, put the engine off, and slowly with respect “went into the tree”.
The branches made an incredible big space, and the light filtered rays that moved at the rhythm of the breeze
Luli ran towards the enormous trunk and started to climb.
When they had lost sight of her, they heard her shouts of happiness.
-Here he is… I found him…! Hurray!
From the bottom of the tree, the same shouts of happiness answered her. Immediately, she came down and ran to embrace her parents, though Tomi remained at the top.
-Luli…, Luli, where is Tomi? Why hasn’t he come down? -asked Jaz very frightened.
-I think he has fainted, but he is breathing. I couldn’t wake him up, we will have to bring him down.
-Immediately Pedro ran to the jeep and came back with a rope on his shoulder.
-Come on Luli, show me the way.
They went up again, up to where Tomi found himself. He looked asleep, with an expression of peace on his face, though very much hurt and with scratches all over his body. They put the rope around his body and tied him up. Slowly, very slowly they started to bring him down. Luli was next to him, taking care of him. When he got down, immediately Jaz huddled him in her arms and bathing him with tears, covered him with kisses.
As soon as Pedro was on the ground, they checked him up carefully. He was full of scratches. They saw that the sleeve of his shirt had blood stains. They tore it off and saw the terrible wounds perfectly healed up, as if he had always had them. He looked quite alright though he didn’t wake up.
While the parents took the little boy to the car, Luli got near the trunk of the tree and hugged it, or at least tried to, while she squeezed her cheek against the bark.
-Thank you, thank you little tree for taking care of my brother!
A strange energy started to go through Luli’s hands and filled her completely. She felt wonderfully well, in absolute peace. She slowly separated herself from the tree and went to the jeep, it was waiting for her.
She got in and they all rapidly started their way back. They had to take the child to the doctor quickly.
On their way Luli sat behind Tomi and hugged him so that the movements of the vehicle wouldn’t hurt him. She hugged him tightly and suddenly without any intention, the energy she had received started to reach the wounded brother. Slowly Tomi’s eyes started to open.
-Luli, Santi! I missed you! How wonderful to be together once again…
