THE PIT

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. I've never spoken of it much, but it's a story that ought to be told. Now seems as good a time as any.

Like I said, there weren't always dragons in the valley. To tell you the truth, there really weren't much at all unless you count rock and cactus, a little spiky grass, sharp enough to cut you to the bone, miles and miles of sand, and heat. God, there was heat. Nearly everyday it got so that the shimmer coming off the ground would trick anyone who didn't know better into thinking they were miles closer to their destination than they really were, and the most foolhardy of them would stride out into the sand, confident and sure of themselves right up until the moment they figured out that they were about to die.

The valley didn't have a name back then, but most of the locals, what few of us there were, just called it "The Pit." It was just a span of hell, 28 miles wide, running north to south between the Jayro mountains to the east, and the Hays range to the west. North and south the Pit ran at least 200 miles, and as far as I know, no one had ever found a good way around. The Hays weren't too bad to get across for most folks, as long as you made it through before the snows. The Jayro was tough, high and craggy, with only two passes that anyone was willing to try. Your animals had to be stout, and you had to cull what you carried to the bare essentials to make it through the mountains. Quite a few folks tried. Some made it all the way across, but we buried a lot of folks who never should have left home. They keep coming, though.

It's the old stories that bring them. Legends that say that if a man can cross the valley and make it through the Hayes in one piece, that the land will start to gentle into a rolling prairie, choked with grass as far as the eye can see. At the end of three days walk, you come to the widest river anyone's ever known, but it's slow moving, and easy to raft across. It's the other side of the river that pulls at everyone. The soil is said to be black and fertile, the streams full of fish, game is plentiful, the water is cold and pure, and there is land enough for all. I can't say one way or the other. I've not made the journey myself, and as far as I know, no one who's made the trip has come back to put the truth or lie to the stories. Given the way the world is now, who would want to leave such a heaven once it's found?

If you wanted to get across the valley, you could try on your own, and more than likely, in a few days or weeks, someone would find your wagon, wheels halfway buried in the sand, the mules dead in the traces. There'd be a trail of footprints off into the sand. If you were lucky, they might follow the trail and find your body, dried to a husk, empty eyes staring into nothing. If the one following you believed in God, he might take the time to cover your body before he moves on. More likely he'll scavenge what he can from what you had and get moving again. I can't say I think it matters one way or the other.

The problem, of course, is water. It seems that no matter how well pilgrims plan, no matter how many barrels of water they fill before they start, the Pit will find a way to slow them down until the last life giving drop is gone. I've seen wagons broken down in a hundred different ways, anything from a broken wheel to a broken axle, or maybe a lantern was dropped, burning everything to the ground. Sometimes I'd come upon a trail of furniture in the sand. The first piece was usually nothing special, just a table or a chair that the family thought they could do without. I'd follow along and the pieces would change as they realized that their only hope was to lighten the load on the animals. I've found tall clocks and ornate beds, tools and pots and pans. People abandon possessions as they abandon hope, finding that there was little that they treasured as much as the chance of another minute of life.

My name is Ethan Kray, and I'm who you'd see if you wanted to make the trip across. Like my father before me, I could always find the water, wherever it was hiding. You see, water in the valley was almost never in the same place twice. Sometimes there'd be a wide pool that we came upon at the end of a long day in the sun. Other's it was a bare trickle falling from a crack in a rocky crag where there'd never been water before, and never will be again. My Pa told me that he just felt the water in his feet; an itch or pull that took him to where he needed to go. I felt that sometimes, but for me, it was a soft golden glow tracing a path in the sand that would dim if I got off track. I don't know why we were given this ability or curse, depending on how I saw it that day. Pa always thought it was some sort of magic, maybe passed down from the old times, and that it made it our responsibility to help folks across the valley safely. I really never gave it much thought. It's just the way things were, and the way we lived our lives. We never took gold or silver for our service, only taking what the travelers could afford. A good pair of boots were always welcome, or a bolt of broadcloth or a pound of seed, and a book of nearly any type was cause for celebration. We lived in a small glen at the base of the Jayros. The last good spring before you get to the Pit passes just behind the cabin that Pa built when he first crossed over the mountains. It was there I was born, and there my mother died before I was 6 weeks old. Pa wouldn't or couldn't leave her, so there we stayed. We had a few neighbors scattered around, but not enough to crowd us.

There's really not much to tell of my life. I suppose it was as normal as could be, given where we were. Pa started leading people across when I was 5 or 6, and I always went with him, having nowhere else to be. Probably that's how I got my feel for the desert, having never known anything else. It was just an every once in a while thing for a time, then, as more and more immigrants pushed west, it seemed that the trek became a never-ending circle, one trip starting as soon as the last ended. By the time I was 12 I was taking groups across by myself, thus doubling the number of people we could help, at least until Pa died, leaving me on my own. I thought of leaving then, and finding a new life for myself in the promised land, but I kept up with Pa's work as he would have wanted. I've lost track of the number of people who have passed through over the years. The only thing that they seemed to have in common was a longing for a better life, and the toughness to do what was needed to find it.

I had a wife, for a while, and a son. Kate and Jim. I'll not speak of them except to say that they've been gone for 15 years now. Maybe when we've known each other a bit longer.

I changed over the years. I guess part of it was just age. The relentless sun reflecting off the desert sand had dimmed my eyesight and the same sand that I used to stride across effortlessly now pulled at my feet with every step. Most worryingly, my feel for the water was fading. The glow that had always guided me now disappeared for hours at a time, meaning that I could be leading people who trusted me to their deaths. It had always come back in time, but who could know when I would lose it for good? It was a risk I wasn't willing to take.

Really though, the problem was inside of me. I was lonely, and I was tired, and I had begun to realize that the end was a lot closer than the beginning and that all I had seen of the world was this godforsaken valley. I knew that I had helped a few, but it just seemed little to show for a life. I wanted more, and there was nothing more for me in the Pit. I had to leave or die.

Having made my decision, I did not wait. I packed a kit and a few small things too special to leave behind, then spent one last night in my lifelong home. The next morning, an hour before dawn, I left a note pinned to the door of the cabin, bequeathing it and everything inside to whoever found the note. I shouldered my pack and strode out into the darkness, eager to be going for the first time in years.

An hour brought me to the edge of the desert, and as shade and grass gave way to sand and nothingness, I was glad to see the golden glow on the horizon, steady and unwavering, brighter than it had been for years. The direction was slightly north of west, and I stepped off in that direction. Today, the sand, which had felt like quicksand for so long, was more like a paved road, leading me onward. I traveled for five hours till I came to my first stop. There was a depression in the ground with the sides sloping down about four feet. At the bottom, a tiny trickle of water bubbled up, creating a pool about a foot across. I went down, filled my water bag, and quenched my thirst. I decided to wait out the afternoon heat there, and quickly set up a canvas shade and settled in. Out of the direct sun and with the little spring next to me, it was cool enough for me to rest, and I fell into a dreamless sleep.

When I awoke, I judged that it was only an hour or so before sundown. I shifted my gaze toward the west, and there again was the life-giving golden glow, a bit more northerly than normal, but still west toward the mountains. I broke camp, and headed in that direction, hoping to find my next resting place before daylight. As the sky darkened and night fell, the temperature dropped, and I made very good time. Instead of staying steady, the life-giving glow seemed to intensify in the dark, beckoning me forward. On this night, my legs seemed young again, able to go on as long as I wanted, and I wanted to go, so I pushed through, pausing only for a bit of jerky and an occasional sip of water. The desert sky is nearly always clear, but this night seemed extraordinarily so. The sky itself was inky black, and the stars, millions of them, cast a steady, wondrous light, with no clouds to dim them.

It's hard to judge distance in the desert, and even more so at night, but I felt that I was getting near my goal just as the first hints of dawn began lighting the sky behind me. I paused for a moment to catch my breath. I could see that I would find water just ahead. There were two huge pillars of stone thrusting up from the desert floor, each of them at least a hundred feet high, and leaning against one another, forming a natural shelter where I would be protected from the heat of the sun. My golden beacon glowed from between the pillars, stronger than I had ever witnessed before.

A half-hour hike took me to the base of the nearest pillar. As I circled it toward the opening, I caught a falling star out of the corner of my eye. I looked up, trying to track it, and realized that it was not one falling star but three. Two of the three died out within seconds, but the third and brightest continued to fall. I watched as it traveled below the horizon and beyond my sight. I have never been one to believe in omens, but this seemed another good sign that I had made the right decision about my future.

I ducked into the opening and realized that the covered space was much larger than I realized. There was a pool of water covering much of the floor beneath the overhang, with the glow I had been following the whole night still shining from within. This had never happened before. I always thought the glow was coming from within me, an instinct, but nothing physical. This glow was obviously real, and seemed to pulse, almost in tune with my heartbeat. I dipped my hand in the water, and it was cold and tasted safe. I decided to put off any investigations or exploring until I got a bit of rest. I had a cold meal, shook out my blankets, and stretched out, using my pack as a pillow. As I drifted off, I heard a low, barely audible rumble of thunder sounding as though it were coming from miles and miles away. I fell asleep trying to remember how long it had been since I had seen rain this deep in the desert.

I'm not sure how long I slept. All I know is that I snapped awake with the full knowledge that something was wrong. I stayed still, wondering if someone or some animal was near me, meaning me harm. The smell of rain hit me, followed quickly by a flash of lightning and thunder much closer than I had heard earlier, and I relaxed. The thunder had been what woke me. I peered outside. No rain yet, but it would be here soon. I grabbed my gear and moved a little further back under the rock, and next to the wall of the shelter. The glow from the water was still there and provided enough light to get find a level spot.

Through the opening, I could see the lightning putting on a show in the distance, zigzagging from the sky down to the earth in all directions, followed closely by crashing thunder. I felt safe where I was, knowing that desert storms are usually very violent, but over quickly. I laid back down and tried to go back to sleep. It seemed that no sooner had my eyes closed than I heard, or rather felt another roll of thunder, louder than before, and closer. The ground beneath me seemed to vibrate for a moment, stop for a second, then moved again, stronger this time. I realized that this was not thunder but a ground tremor that could turn into a full earthquake at any moment. I jumped to my feet and swept up my gear as fast as I could, all the time looking fearfully at the stone roof perched between the stone pillars. The ground was starting to shift beneath me, and I could already see streams of dust and pebbles falling all around me. I ran toward the safety of the open sky. I heard a grinding, shearing sound of rock scraping and glanced over my shoulder in time to see the overhang giving way in the back, swinging down and burying the corner into the ground and exploding rock and debris straight toward me. I tried to make it through the door, but with the ground swaying and rocks falling all around me, I was too late. I felt and heard something hit me in the back of the head, saw a bright light, and then, nothing.

The sun had already made its way nearly across the sky by the time I came to. I lay there for a while, blinking my eyes to clear my vision, and trying to remember what happened and where I was. My head throbbed just behind my right ear. I touched it gingerly and winced. Big knot and very tender. My fingers came away caked in dried blood. I pushed myself up, very slowly, stopping to let my head stop swimming as needed. I had made it all the way up to my hands and knees when I realized that my hands were buried in a patch of grass. I jerked away, nearly passing out again with the sudden movement. I turned my palms up, expecting them to be sliced and torn by the spike grass that I knew was all that grew out here. My hands though showed no injury. When I looked, the grass around me was lush and green and gave way to the touch. As my head cleared, I could see that I was surrounded by a whole field of the grass that seemed to be flowing out from between the stone pillars and extending 60 yards or so into the desert. One lone cactus sat totally surrounded by the grass. It was covered with flowers. Now, a cactus rose is not unusual, though in the Pit they are few and far between. This was not a cactus rose. This plant was covered in blooms from the ground to the very top. The blooms were different shapes, and colors. My, the colors. Imagine your favorite color, then imagine 10 shades even more beautiful. That will still not describe what I was seeing. In truth, I was afraid that I had been hit harder than I thought, and was hallucinating.

It was then that the smell overtook me. Gone was the normal, alkaline smell of the desert, acrid and dry, smelling of death and despair. Now my nostrils were filled with something wild and pure, dark and animal-like, something that I had no experience of, but that seemed familiar at the same time. It seemed complete. It smelled of life.

I could tell that the smell was stronger from the pool of water. I struggled the rest of the way to my feet and staggered inside. I first looked toward the roof to make sure it wasn't still dangerous. It appeared that the back corner had given way entirely, leaving a jumble of rocks and dirt where it had fallen. The rest of the roof seemed to have slid straight down and wedged itself even tighter than before.

The overhang was much lower now, leaving the opening very dark. The pool of water was still there, but different. Gone was the light that had drawn me here. The water that was cold and clear the night before was now dark, and I could see wisps of steam drifting from the surface. Earlier, I had been able to see the bottom of the pool, all white sand. Now, the water seemed endless, bottomless, and where it had been pristine, now it seemed to teem with...something. That overwhelming odor, uncomfortable and exhilarating at the same time, was definitely coming from the pool, and the beautiful green grass grew from the very edge of the water, pale and patchy there, but exploding with color as soon as sunlight hit it closer to the entrance.

I moved back into the sun and gazed out into the desert. I knew it had to be my imagination or my head wound, but the grass field now seemed to be even larger, extending another 20 yards out. I sank down, sitting on an outcrop of rock, and closed my eyes, wanting to run away, but knowing I was in no condition to travel. I really did wonder if I was dreaming, or maybe dead or dying, crushed beneath the rock. Maybe this was the path to Heaven readying itself for me.

I took a deep breath as something about the smell changed, or at least deepened. I heard or sensed movement behind me. I slowly turned my head and looked back into the darkness at the pool. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the shadows. Once they did, I knew I was awake. I knew this was real. I knew I was alive. I definitely knew I wasn't in Heaven.

The wisps that I had taken for steam now revealed themselves to be smoke, thick and blue. I could see a shape at the very back of the pool, but it was too dark to get a good look at it. It seemed massive, but it was as if my eyes wouldn't focus well enough to make sense of it. What I could see, about 2 feet above the surface of the water, were two brilliant blue lights, made all the more so by the darkness around them. The lights were about a yard apart and seemed to be swinging in an arc, back and forth, going totally out for a second every second or third swing. Finally, they stopped, and I could see the blackness in the center of the lights. Eyes. Not blinking now. Looking, staring right at me.