Under the Green Sun of Slormor

by Bertil Falk

Chapter 4
Part 1
Part 3
appear in this issue.

Chapter 4:
The Moons’ Play of Colors
on the Opal Lake

part 2 of 3

Ardently we continued our endless climb upwards. Suddenly it was not endless any more. Above our heads it was dawn. We glimpsed the emerald-green sun, which clearly and distinctly spread its green shine. Thank God.

We both eagerly rushed up the stairs and stepped out onto something like a big terrace, separated from its surroundings by the mountain. A warm breath of fresh air swept over us. I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with air saturated with oxygen. And I realized that I had been breathing unsanitary mist ever since my arrival in this world.

Amazed, I beheld the view. Below us a small, round, opalescent lake glittered, about a mile in diameter. The water changed from hyacinth red to wine yellow and apple green, as though it were made of fiery opal. The rising green sun was reflected in the colorfully saturated water. It was a diaphanous play of colors, and we could clearly see the bottom of the lake; but no life, no fish, nothing moved in the clear water.

Only death!

Parvrin showed me what I had already seen. In the midst of the lake, a carcass was bobbing up and down: a red monster with three heads! We would not have to fear Skurkran. He would not bother us.

“What could have happened?” Parvrin wondered.

I, too, wondered.

We were on a shelf on the mountain wall inside an extinct volcano crater. The volcano was one we had seen in the distance before falling through the thin ground above the dried ocean bed. The bottom of the volcano, which was not more than three kilometers across, constituted a cauldron, which was like a valley.

Around the lake ran a beach with settlements. Small houses had been built out of congealed, blue and black volcanic lava. Some of them were like structures of glass; others were mushroom-shaped and filled with blebs.

All this I saw with my naked eye. The limpid air now enabled me to see details in building materials. The nearest houses were about thirty meters away. To the left, we noticed an inflow in the shape of a hole in the volcano wall some hundreds of meters away, and on the other side of the lake we saw a similar outflow, where the water disappeared into the mountain.

Boats had been pulled up on the shore around the lake. They were solitary square constructions made of lava. They were about three meters long by three wide, with sides half a meter high. I realized that they were simply rafts, but I did not know what they might be used for. There did not seem to be any fish to catch in the little lake.

Why had Parvrin brought me here? What did the little one mean? Had she gone nuts? I sensed a growing fury welling forth within me with raging power. She was highly dangerous. Her intention was to lead me to destruction. To kill her would be the best thing I could do.

She was standing there, smiling an unruly and enigmatic smile. Mysterious, eh? I looked round to find something to cut her down with. If I split her in two, then... No, that would be counterproductive. Maybe her race reproduced itself through fission? I must not lend a hand in reproducing her species. No, she had to be crushed and thrown into the lake. But I had nothing to crush her with.

I staggered and almost fell over the edge into the lake. Instead I fell down on my back on the plateau. From a frog’s eye-view, I saw Parvrin’s terror-struck gaze as she looked in all directions.

“The Invaders are coming!” she exclaimed.

Confused, I got to my feet. “I...”

“They set us at each other,” Parvrin says.

I realized that she was right and I turned away from her towards the invasion of my mind. The attackers withdrew when I summoned all my willpower, and I felt my rage change direction towards the invisible enemy.

I shivered.

Parvrin trembled.

“They wanted me to push you over the edge, but I perceived the attack and was able to shut myself off,” she said. “That’s what separates me from all the others.”

“What?”

“If I’m quick, I can close myself mentally and prevent all sensory impressions from entering when they attack.”

I saw a few beings of violet color coming out of the small houses and walking towards one of the rafts. They boarded it and sent the raft gliding out onto the water.

Could this really be the valley of the Invaders?

“Are they Invaders?” I asked.

“No,” said Parvrin. “The Invaders live beyond the lilac mountains.” Once more she pointed.

There, far away, above the snow on the edge of the volcano rose the lilac peak of a mountain. It was bathed in the emerald sunshine. And I knew was that we still had a long way to go.

“And who are the things on the rafts?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps common people forced to idleness by the Invaders. I think that they’re...”

“Those two don’t seems to be idle,” I said.

The raft had reached the cadaver of Skurkran. Now they towed it towards the shore. They landed and pulled the raft out of the lake, whereupon they began to haul in the body of the dragon. And I saw javelin-like objects sticking out of the carcass. One of them had gone straight through the left head and stuck there.

“Are they meat-eaters?” I wondered.

But it turned out that they only wanted to get rid of the body before it decomposed and polluted their clear, opal lake. Farther away, near the volcano wall, we discovered that some beings had dug a hollow. The dragon was dragged there and covered over. The handling of the dead Skurkran and his burial was a macabre element at this graceful place, almost too delightful and serene with its silence and tranquil uneventfulness.

Common people? I wondered.

“You look dreamy, Nameless. What are you thinking about?”

I contemplated Parvrin. The fresh air seemed to have done her good. As I had, she had let the hood fall down on her back. She looked fresher. She looked older. I wondered. Her neck that went straight down into her arms without discernible shoulders had taken on a green-shimmering color. Her dirty gray, dumb face had acquired the warm, green emerald color of the sun when it is at its zenith. Her black eyes, which earlier had only been alive were now more than that: they were lively. I wondered.

“I am thinking about the fact that in this world there is not only frowzy decay but also beauty and warmth,” I replied. I shut my eyes and turned my face towards the sun and let its diamond-green rays warm my cheek. “The question is: what can we do now?”

Below us, the beings had covered the cadaver, and I saw them coming in our direction. The closer they came, the more distinct their body structures stood out against the aniline-dyed strip of land. They were human, belonging to the same species as Parvrin, but the color of their skin was ultramarine. They were surrounded by a violet aura.

“We should avoid them,” Parvrin said. “Now that I see them at a close range, I realize that they are Belyrs.”

“Belyrs?”

“The guardians of the volcano lake are Belyrs. You’ve already seen them in action. How they cleaned the contaminated lake by salvaging the dead Skurkran.”

“They killed him?”

“No, they would never kill something or someone at the risk of polluting their lake. The Aldravers killed him. They live outside the crater. When they saw the triple-headed dragon of a race supposed to be extinct, they used their enormous bows to shoot it down.”

“Aldravers?

“A nation of hunters, living around the volcano.”

“Grass-eaters?”

“Cannibals.”

I shivered.

“What can we do?” I asked.

”Come.”

Parvrin walked back into the mountain. She sat down in the opening.

“We ought to be on our guard against the Belyrs. If they get hold of us, they’ll bury us alive. If the Aldravers get hold of us they’ll eat us.” She paused and added: “Alive! But there is one way out of here. Through the outflow on the other side of the lake.”

“There are two ways,” I said.

Parvrin looked at me, her eyes wide.

“Two ways?”

“At least,” I replied. “We can return the same way we came.”

“Then we’ll not get to the land of the Invaders.”

“Isn’t it possible to climb up from here on the inside wall of the crater?”

Parvrin looked surprised. “There are no stairs along the mountain wall,” she said at last.

I realized that she had never had heard that it is possible to climb mountain walls without cut-out steps.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“It’s no secret that there are no stairs in the valley of the Belyrs.”

She sat up. We discussed our problems and decided to bide our time until nightfall and then spy out the valley and see how it appeared in the green moonshine.

Proceed to Chapter 4, part 3...