The Empty Valley

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. It was never known what brought them and their glistening scales to the land. Whether it was the rains and the mists, or the storms and fires. But they always came - in their own time.

They would wind and snake across the valley floor amidst the earthen clay, wetting their bellies upon the riverbed. Their sapphire limbs would stretch before them, seeking the easiest path. But they were not here today. Or yesterday. Or the days and weeks and months before. I could find no dragons in the valley.

I had heard about the dragons of the valley from a local farmer. He told me of their myths and legends, of the long-forgotten serpentine paths. He genuinely believed that these great wyrms visited the valley. I was moved by his faith, as if it were simply a fact that he was repeating. I grew up on the books given to me by my grandmother. Books of fantastical worlds that held within them the might of magic, the lessons of the sword, and the promise of dragons.

I left my life behind and joined the local village. Small as it was along the water’s edge, the people made their prosperity by way of fishing. I joined them in their daily duties and pulled my own weight, even though I felt crushed by the life and the people I had left behind. I dwelt on that rarely as I didn’t leave many behind. I was an only child and had buried both my parents years before by way of natural causes. I had a few acquaintances from work and neighbors from my apartment complex but none that would miss me terribly.

From what I could learn the dragons would be brown, green, and blue - all depending on the season but none knew what that meant. The men of the village would say the dragon would enter the valley brown as the world, become blue with bliss as it ate the fruits of the valley, and would leave as green as the forest.

The women had a different tale. The dragon would hatch from the earth, covered in the clay and the mud. Angry that the world tried to reclaim its body, the dragon would summon the rains to cleanse its scales so that it could take to the forests with the mist to gorge from the land. Once the dragon took its fill, it would summon the storms and set fire to the world that buried it - and then it was gone again, only to repeat the cycle.

Old stories tend to have a chord of truth to them. Even the ancient stories of olden kings and queens, though aggrandized, would have originated with a once true story.

Seasons passed and I stayed. Many called me Worried or Stricken. I learned these terms were not endearing, but neither were they ostracizing. The folk of the village knew I was harmless and helpful, but found me to be a curiosity more than anything else.

When work was slow and the fishing season passed, I would spend days on end in the neighboring valley. Looking for any sign, old or new, of the events in the stories. Though I was no hiker originally, I was fairly athletic to start. In the early weeks, the valley would take out its wrath on me - body aching just from the descent. I would steadily find it easier to climb into caverns and explore - finding naught but natural works that would pierce the earthen world with jagged maws and slick, limestone stomachs. Dozens of these stone-walled caches searched but nary a creature found. Save for the bats, that chittered their panicked shrills as I disturbed their slumbers.

On this day that I came into the valley, I walked a path that would take me to the southern curl of the valley. I had avoided this tightly-packed terrain due to the crumbling mountainside. One wrong step on the precarious shale and exposed marble would trap an ankle or break a neck and I have only recently felt comfortable in my ability to survive the descent here.

On my way down, I peered to the sky and confirmed my suspicion of a cloudy day. This would be the last dry day before the monsoon season. Before the sky would gather its tears and flood the world in anger of the advancement of man and our pollution. The canyon would be flooded near-to brim for the duration of the season and would take weeks after to empty into the delta to the west, beyond the hundred-mile-long canyon. Though it held easily half again as much distance within its twists, turns, and bends.

I checked my water-skins and tightened my boots. I checked the ties of my packs and sacks that held my safety gear and food separate. I cinched my canvas poncho and continued into the yet explored section.

I marveled still at what I might find in my habitual search for the dragons. I probed the roots of trees for scrapings of claws or of tail. I contorted my body to explore rocky crevices for proof of spool or rest. Like always yet, none was found. Though I did find a black-and-silver speckled scorpion that hoisted its tail threateningly. It futilely prodded my layered-leather boots before scuttling into a crack too small for me to chase were I a predator to be so inclined.

I heard the first peen of thunder far away, drawing my sight to the far end of the canyon. Beyond that eastern wall of the mantle was the ocean. It was said that the man of the sky made a deal with the lady of the sea - in exchange for her water the sky would prey upon the fisherman that would steal from her home. People like in the village where I helped and was helped. Women like in the village that would teach the young girls to carve and prepare meals, to gather small game and tend the crops - for the men were too rough-handed as they told them. Men like in the village that taught their boys to tie knots in fishing twine, to repair nets and boats, and to respect the women - for it was them who brought them into the world and could take them out, as they were warned.

The storm was close but it would not rain in the canyon. Not tonight. I was halfway down the treacherous slope when I heard it. I didn’t know what I heard, but it was different. I dropped into a low crouch and silently crab-walked behind a propped up boulder.

I heard it again. A soft scraping sound, like a salt-crusted net dragged across a frosted, pre-dawn dock. It could be no two-tailed lemur, with their soft cloak of fur. It could be no blue-throated howler, they had all fled to warmer weather.

Again, the subtle scrape of beach sand as it scores the keel of a fish-boat. Just around the boulder. If I made my way there, could I see it? Could I finally see the dragon of the valley? Time stretched indefinitely as I edged ever closer to the opportunity.

A third time. Though now, undoubtedly, above me. The semi-overcast light of day suddenly darkened by a presence atop the boulder I thought myself hidden behind.

The choking silence gave way to a single gut-wrenching, soul-shattering, mind-breaking crack. My world careened sideways. Up became right, right became down, down became up, and everything was a dizzying swirl of color and darkness, of earth and sky. It felt like I hit every rock, root, and branch on the way down. It felt like a creature tore at me with tooth and claw in an effort to seize a doomed prize.

And then all was silent, save for the clattering stones that I loosened on my way down, mingled with broken twigs ripe with berry and seed. I laid face-down in the soft clay, my body screaming and strangely numb at the same time. I waited for the sound of the creature and my doom. But no sound followed.

I took my time rising, testing each joint mindfully for injury, but besides a few cuts and scrapes, I was fine. Bruised in both body and ego, but fine. I huffed a silent laugh at a mild comfort that no one else saw how clumsy I had been. There had been no dragon. No mighty predator would let its prey get away so easily. But of course - there weren't any dragons in the valley. Yet here I was performing my search as though it were a part of myself as I always had been. As was always my way.

Before I continued I had to untie myself from the shredded remains of my canvas poncho. I was thankful that it had protected me against the worst of the creature’s attacks, though it would hardly be of any assistance from here on. I draped it across a low-hanging branch for me to grab on my way back out of the valley floor. I brought it into this valley and I will be one the one to take it out.

The mid day wore on with fruitless endeavor. I climbed through dangerously thin crevices and over precariously balanced stones. I took meticulous care in eating and drinking ahead of hunger and thirst before either could weaken me. Time crept forward and it was the same as always: I could find no erstwhile clues save for the memory of the ever-taunting scuff of shale-knife across dried hide. It echoed in my mind’s chamber like the noon gong that clanged every day in the steam-city to the far south, weeks away.

Ever still as the day passed on, I made my way east towards the path that would round back to the canvas-draped tree. Local mountain goats made easy pathways as they foraged the fruits of the valley. I had mapped these trails a week ago from a distance and timed myself to be out of the canyon before the final rays of the day kissed the peaks goodnight.

A loud commotion deeper to the east erupted and some seasonal muck-dwellers scattered, their skittering claws loud in the reclaimed silence. I was still, awaiting once again the creature that haunted me with the memory of a stone pestle grinding against its mated mortar.

The sky had darkened more and the clouds bulged with full bellies, the man of the sky preparing his wrath. The lingering light of day shrinking between colossal thunderheads. A far-off flash of lightning behind the eastern wall of earth caused my heart to race for a moment.

No sound followed the earlier cacophony and so I continued forward, figuring it to be a squabble amongst the two-tailed lemurs. Many of them still remained this far down, scavenging what they could from the valley floor before the flood forced them to higher, less enticing branches.

Rounding towards a bend that would make a slight ramp up the canyon wall, I heard a sound that terrified me more than the rasping chafe of threshed barley across a wicker mat: plip!

The first drop of rain. I would have to hurry out of the clay-lined belly of the valley if I didn’t want to be caught by any unexpected flash flood. I ought to still have time.

I glanced to the highest peaks momentarily though long enough to notice that I had lost time. But when? I tracked the time by the sun-barren peaks along the northern crest and by all accounts I should have had four fingers of light still remaining - as measured with my hand outstretched, measuring the width of my fingers, a skill I had honed through the months of my searching.

The first rivulets of water came snaking down the winding trail, causing the clay to moisten and become soft. The slick earth clinging to my boots like eel-slime, threatening to hold me there for the man of the sky to punish me for my maddening, ceaseless search. It was much more effort to walk up the steady incline with the snaking eddies of water that pooled atop the clay-caked rocks. Once I cleared the midway point of the ramping trail it would be much easier as it flattened along the canyon wall back towards the southern trail. Back towards the canvas-draped tree.

A blinding flash of lightning followed by the deafening peel of thunder muddled my awareness. I didn’t notice the rock-slide until the first shale stones clacked across my feet. I was sideswiped by something hard and heavy, knocked off the thin path. Once again it felt like a coiling, serpentine creature attacking me, thorny claws tearing at my arms and face. As feebly as I could protect myself from the terror that beset me I could not defend myself from the slicing claws.

The floor of the valley punched the wind from my lungs with a sudden stop. As soft and malleable the clay had become from the increasing rain, it was still as hard as marble when falling. I scrambled to my feet, still gasping for air, prepared to fight off the creature that was attacking me - yet none was around. The burnt corpse of a sapling rocked beside me, its leaves blackened and curled, still smoking from the lightning that struck its greenling boughs. But no creature - and certainly no dragon.

Pain radiated in waves from my left ankle, probably rolled and sprained from the fall. But I would have to wait until later when I was in a safer position to tend to it. I dared not remove the boot and check it, if it were injured the swelling would take over and my mobility would be even further hampered.

Soft squeaking barks got my attention from the right. A two-tailed lemur lay trapped beneath a large rock, cradling a black-furred arm. The poor creature probably had the misfortune of being near the tree when it was struck by the lightning that caused the earth-slide. I limped on over and leaned against the rock giving the lemur room to escape.

I watched as the gray-and-black lemur stumbled out from under the rock, one of its tails now with a visibly crooked twist to it. It hopped over to my discarded packs from the fall and robbed me of one. The way the pack bounced rather than drag and slide I knew it was my food pack. I could only heave a sigh knowing I wouldn’t have been able to catch the thief with my injured foot. I would have to make as much haste as I could, despite the pain. I picked up my safety pack with its ropes and crude-metal latches and turned south. As long as the boots stayed tight I would be fine.

The way back was easy enough, though by the time I walked a quarter mile back along the canyon floor. Though nearly an inch of water now rushed past my feet swiftly. If I was a man of omens and portents, I might have known the language to understand the words that babbled from the mighty brook. I would have been able to read the message scrawled before me in the brown sludge that wrote in hues and shades. So I continued on, without the knowledge of the dire prophecy that slithered at my boots.

I reached the edge of the southern rock wall with its cliffs tangled heavily with throttling vines and precariously-perched stones mounted by leaning growths of shrubbery and small bush-tree. I would have to use the leather climbing straps to assist: a whippy, leather-wrapped rope with a spoon-like flap at one end. The belly of the spoon-tip was lined with a rubbery phloem from a local tree to help with grip. I tied their connective harness around my waist and looped the stirrups to rest above the back of the knee; I would use these to catch onto the jutting stone lips and pull with my arms instead of climbing on my injured foot.

After securing the last iron carabiner, I looked to the peaks to judge my time. I had a quarter of a finger left. Not much light remained in the day and the shades of blues and purples were making the greens of the valley flora to disappear in my sight. If I couldn’t make out the clearest routes I would be climbing until morning as I navigated blindly through a labyrinthine corridor of thistle-bush and spike-seeded saplings.

The water was the depth of my hand, from fingertips to heel. The murky grasp of the water was much stronger now. The man of the sky was determined to bring the lady of the sea into the canyon, to expand her kingdom and influence, to defy the kin of the earth. The kin of the earth that would take from their vaulted vistas and aquatic homes.

A sudden and foreboding noise drifted my way. It was like hearing a gritty rasp against petrified wood. I turned to catch the creature by surprise and there it was! Nothing. Just the purple-black belly of the valley. Just the last sliver of light being yanked from the crown of the peaks. Blackness.

Sudden lightning spider-crawled along the bellies of the bloated clouds, lighting up the thinly-stretched veils within. They were a constant, strobing my reality in-and-out. In-and-out; like a stop motion film with too low of a budget.

Finally, I knew my doom was upon me. Standing there with two slack ropes in my hand, too entranced by the prophetic events spelling out my misfortune. First I heard it - the air-shaking bellow that threw me off my feet. Then I saw it, lit up by the coruscating sky. A rushing body of brown mass, crashing back-and-forth against the steep canyon walls.

I was smashed into the jagged stone wall with the muddy water. This was not supposed to happen; this was too much water to be from the storm. Unless it was the breath of a dragon, trying to drown me for my trespassing into its land.

I floundered for the surface and found air, my lungs rejecting immediate muck that breached them, my feet tip-toeing the ground. This was way too much water for the first storm of the season. It must be the dragon calling to the skies to wash its body - it was here! But what size body would need this much water? How could it have remained hidden? Each question was mocked by the pulsating bolts of lightning.

My enthralling questions were interrupted by a sudden yank at my waist. One of the spoon-flaps from my harness was caught on something. Something that was pulling me deeper in the rising water, further into the belly of the valley. I pulled at a knot and separated the doomed strap, watching as it was silhouetted by electric fractals.

I swam to the canyon wall and began my climb, the remaining strap was so waterlogged it felt like throwing a net full of the day’s catch with each throw. Each flick of the wrist gained me inches at first, my other hand clung to jagged stones with as much strength as I could muster.

My entire existence was pain. Pulsing heat from my foot. Shrieking fire in the muscles of my climbing hand. It felt like the very earth was attached to the rope I swung - that with every throw I only pulled myself closer to the leaf- and thistle-choked water. It was as if the scaly back of some great serpent bucked and eddied beneath me.

The luminous lances from the sky would give me just long enough to see by. Throw. Pull. Boom! Cling. Then the sudden wash of light from the sky-fire. Throw. Pull. Ba-Doom! Cling. Again, the scuttling sheets of lightning across the gloom-shaded sky. Throw. Pull - sudden and blind weightlessness punctuated by a sharp pain in my other hand as it gripped for dear life.

I could hear the lapping of the beast’s maw as it slapped against the canyon wall, a mere dozen feet below me. I had gained ground in my repetitious haze. The sigh of relief was as short-lived as it arrived. A grinding pulse echoed mutely within the rock, rough vibrations the only proof of its passing. I stole a glance towards the sturdy rock of the mountainside that separated the canyon and the sea. Zigzagging arcs of lightning twisted beneath the clouds, giving me just enough light to glimpse as prophecy unfolded.

The shell of earth and stone that defied the lady of the sea her rightful domain of the lower valley floor was broken. Dark-blue waters surged through the gap, foaming from a sudden hunger, as if a great beast was looking for a meal.

Throw. Pull. Kra-koom! Cling. The rhythmic motions seemed easier as the pains in my body eased. Numbness. I could feel no sensation save the stinging sensation of beach sand on a rope-burn. I even felt the needles in the back of my throat.

I realized that it was because I was screaming, roaring my defiance to the forces of nature. I was presenting my refusal to yield, for I would yet see the dragon of the valley that had so tried to keep its presence hidden from me. I would survive this cataclysm even if only to fade happily after seeing the mythical creature that had so far attacked me with tooth and claw, with earth and sky - and I yet clung to hope, amidst the wind and the rain and the wrathful forces of the world.

Minutes passed as I climbed. Throwing without feeling. Pulling without feeling. Clinging to hope as my body was engulfed with invisible fire, a trick of the beast, and still climbed on.

I repeated this process for what felt like a cursed eternity. The world blinked in and out as lightning flashed across the suffocated sky. Light. Dark. Light. Dark.

I may have been numb but the shockwave that passed through me from the rushing seawater rocked my equilibrium. I was knocked into the rock wall but the grip of my climbing strap kept me in place, though I could feel it pulling against its limits. The water settled at my ankles and was steadily rising.

A few more minutes and I had run out of rocky outcroppings. I had reached the upper treeline where curved, thin-trunked trees grew from the seeds dropped by the lemurs. I grabbed onto a branch and disengaged the remaining climbing strap from the harness. Knowing I was halfway up the cliff did not fill me with hope - I was only halfway to safety. I was barely staying above the slapping wet tongue of the dragon of the valley and now the climb would be slower through the tangled mess of trees. Still my world blinked in and out. It was never until the next flash of lightning that I knew I was safe.

My head swam with a storm of surrealism, the layered green leaves shifting in-and-out with the lightning - shifting like the scales of a great beast. I focused on finding purchase with my fingers, trying to ignore the grinding I could feel in my foot. I reached out and grabbed with my hand, finding the next branch.

Krack!

The branch broke and I could see only the endless shapes of clouds laden with water backlit by the snaking veins of electricity. Gravity felt like it was suspended - long moments passed with agonizing slowness. Darkness swam around me and I kicked with every fatigued muscle I had. I recognized a dark silhouette coming towards me from above, arms outstretched with claws prepared to grab. Before the creature made it to me, I faded to a silent void.

Darkness. Silence.

A far off noise tickled at the edges of the silence. I had the vague sensation of swaying serenely. The pitch blackness was softening to a peach-hued brown. I became conscious of my breathing and the stiff, burned-out muscles almost refusing to work. I was face-first into a leafless bed of branches, bumping into the lip of a pathway.

I pushed through the cramping muscle spasms and pulled myself onto the solid ground; sweet terra-firma. I wasn’t sure what had happened after I succumbed to exhaustion. I took some time trying to stand up as nausea whelmed at my mind and stomach.

The sky became awash in golden light as the sun crested the mountain peaks behind me. With it the clean smell of a fresh rain, the pungent aroma of damp wood, and the earthy smell of wet stone. My legs begged me to stop punishing them, but I had to turn towards the thunderous roar that continued to echo with the coming of the dawn.

The azure-backed dragons glittered like molten, faceted seams of sapphire as they wound their way through the canyon. The morning light speckled through the weakened clouds that had only just begun fading. Great pillars of light danced across foam-tipped wings as the newly formed river wound its way further into the canyon and beyond - as if the rushing water were but the body of a singular dragon making its way through the valley.

It was said that they came with the seasons. It was said that they were brought by the rains and the mists; by the storms and fires. And here they were: great, cascading rivulets of crystal clear water snaking their way through the canyon. Graceful, swirling masses of them winding and dancing through the canyon. Eddies of great currents created by the sharp twists and turns of the canyon walls bellowed with delight.

The dragons of the valley had returned.