The Healer's Quest

The sun was the color of an opal, hanging high in the inferno red sky. She climbed up another dune of polluted black sands. The sand intermingled with the bone ash of millions of dead. Tiny shards of glass formed in the sands because of the extreme temperature.Struggled up and down dune after dune as the tiny shards made hundreds of micro holes in the fabric of her clothing and hundreds of tiny cuts to her flesh.

She only had her faith in stories.Stories of a place no one had ever seen, Ha - Toshba. She also had her heart; a small silver locket that hung around her neck.

So far, these desert lands had been the hardest part of her journey.

The trek through the old Citytown had been scary, but she could at least breath the air. When in the city she had been chased by large rodent-like creatures for about two miles before they became distracted by slower,weaker prey and gave up their chase. For a time, beings that looked much like her followed her,watching at a distance. She would occasionally see gold eyes staring out from the shadows of a broken thing slowly sinking into the earth. An elder had told her at one time there had been great structures of power built in the city by their ancestors. The cities had been full of them. She was not impressed. Perhaps what impressed her more was the massive vines thick with viridescent leaves that clung to structures dragging them down to the ground for the earth to consume. There had at least been clean water there; she had been able to refill her water bladder and reserve tanks.

She saw the tribe a few more times; usually they were looking down on her from the top of one of the broken things, but always from higher ground. Their weapons looked different than any tribes she had encountered,hers included. She carried a sleek staff of ironwood; this tribe carried what the elders had described as Subterranean weaponry. The elders obtained this knowledge, either from first-hand experience or had been directly given to them from the keepers of knowledge, the Subterraneans. This was before the underground times, just Godspores flowered, and great fiery mushrooms that greedily consumed the earth from which they fruited, killing every living thing for miles that fell under their flaming death caps. The survivors made their way into the caves, only to discover that the creatures who they thought traveled in great ships amongst the stars, were actually beneath their feet the whole time. These were the original Subterraneans; the keepers of knowledge her tribe had befriended.

Great underground battles ensued, until one day the Subterraneans returned to the stars, leaving this slowly dying planet. But that was before her time. She had only known the underground times with nothing but legends of great battles and the Subterraneans.

She had to be getting close to her journey's end. She looked down.Her goggles had filled with moisture which made it hard to read her respirator's gauge. Just enough air for a day but all that laid before her was black sand. According to the map she should've been there by now or at least near Ha - Toshba . She surmised this was wrong.

"I've read the map wrong," she said, to the sun, the sand, and the sky.

She slowly opened the silver locket and removed a minute piece of brown fragile-looking paper. She carefully unfolded it to reveal a tiny map that fit in her palm. She adjusted her goggles. The tiny marks became sharper and then focused. In ornate letters and with impressive craftsmanship the top of the map read: To the waters that flow from the mouth of Ha- Toshba. The map was just a crooked line. With her finger, she slowly retraced her journey from the caves; her home, down into the lonely gulp, through Robin's wood, then into the City Town.And now her finger stopped where she stood, in the black sands.

She focused the magnifier in her goggles to check the map's key.No, the map was right.She should be able to see it now. She slowly folded the map back into the tiny square and placed it gingerly into its home, then carefully snapped the locket shut.

Suddenly the silent dessert was filled with high-pitched screams. She wanted to run but didn't want to risk getting off track.The screams were making her dizzy and confused and now her whole body was shaking. She made for a line of taller dunes. As she turned to run she stopped dead in her tracks. The black sands began to part, followed by an enormous mucus-covered snout clotted with clumps of polluted black sands emerging from the dune. Simultaneously, dunes began exploding, leaving in their place what the scrolls call a Boardox.

They charged toward her from all sides. Great wiry red hair covered their bodies.The girth of their torso was prodigious. Their ugliness was untamable. Their red eyes were the same color as the inferno red sky, their hocks thick with muscle, narrowing as it traveled down to the hoof, like that of some goliath horse.

She took a chance and ran for the taller dunes. The harder and faster she ran the louder the screams of the Boardox grew.

It made her dizzy as she climbed the dunes. She felt like she was in a tunnel and almost fell backward, but knew if she did her new home would be in the belly of a Bomburdox. She shifted all her weight forward as the open end of the tunnel in her vision began to close.

She woke surrounded by lush green plants that smelled of sweet fruit, some so sweet they were nauseating. She could hear a great whooshing sound.

Where have I heard that sound before? she wondered. It was the river that flowed through her home in the underground that was poisoned.

After getting to her feet she realized she could've been killed, the ledge she had landed on was near the top of a crevasse.The rushing water she was hearing was far below her. She looked down to see a canopy of trees. Then she lifted her gaze and stretched out before her she could see nothing but the tops of green trees. She had never seen so many trees and smelled so many wonderful smells.

After some searching, she found a way down and some vines that looked strong enough to hold her weight. She began making her way down into the interior of the jungle.

It felt like hours had passed by the time she hit the jungle’s floor; the whooshing sound was near and almost defying. She followed it until she came to a clearing. Her eyes widened, a great stone face, the most beautiful face she'd ever seen, the face that belonged in legends of the great goddess of life; Ha- Toshba. Her stone likeness looked out over the paradise her waters created. A beautiful torrent of water rushed from her life-giving mouth.

She was so struck by the sheer size and beauty of the rocks, the rushing foaming pristine waters, and the magnificence of the goddess that she didn't feel eyes upon her.

They were hairless, covered with flaky white scales that seemed to her to be paint, and they had cold black eyes that didn't look away. They all held in their hands an effigy or doll that looked a lot like her or a member of her tribe. She was confused and wanted to run but there were too many and something told her she wouldn't be able to outrun them anyway. This was their home. She had foolishly stepped into their home and one never enters any tribe's land uninvited.

Just as their stealthy appearance had surprised her they disappeared as if by evaporation.She could have sworn they had turned into steam right in front of her.

This was it, nothing to go back to; her quest done. She would now have to bring the water to her tribe. They would not survive the journey here as she had. The ones who hadn't been poisoned by the river's water were too old or too young.

She made her way to the water's edge. Staring up at the Goddess, she removed all her gear, respirator, water bladders, and clothing. Now as pure as she was born into the world she stepped slowly into the cool clean water and evaporated. She is going home to bring healing water to her people.