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jack[Please pretend there is some sort of framing narrative that justifies the title. Maybe this extract was acquired and tentatively filmed by a low-budget schlock horror director, or something. A day before the travellers reached the lowest grass-covered plain:]
...appeared nearly beneath us, panicking the stegoi. It had been waiting in the cleft of land for days, ready to spring. Now it deftly charged our mounts scattering them.
From the front it appeared almost as a human. It stood tall, about human height, but wider, the head raised until the front of the chest appeared nearly as a human torso. Besides the head, padded sloping shoulders covered in brightly dappled flaking scales, and the head's pointed green snout and dark-ringed eyes seemed like a double-size school teacher... But as it turned, it reminded me of an extended, sleek, petrol-fuelled komodo dragon. A ten foot body followed the front parts, sinuous, for as it charged it could turn in inches, the clumsy feet throwing it sideways and the torso curving nearly right round to accommodate the turn.
It concentrated on Johnson's mount, charging it and peeling away to harass our others. Johnson's and the professor's were running together one way, when Clive and I struggled to turn out mounts back toward them. It swerved and I realised it was keeping its flank away from Johnson, and that it could see the rifle, and well knew what the greatest threat we could present to it was. I watched the pattern of movement, and sensed the spot, about three-quarters up along it, which it manoeuvred to keep unexposed. But I could not bring the stegoi closer, nor really fancied my chances at tearing it open with my hand.
The dragon swerved again and I saw its face. A brave, solitary hunter, near success. But I saw a twinge of sorrow in its eye, and sensed the human soul animating was a little more than the dwindling bundle of passions, good or bad, we'd seen in other saurians. It had a human pride and determination binding it together, yet yearned for a purpose it had lost.
This shape, like the dragon vine, had never been known exactly in the world of life, but was an image some soul more coherent than the rest had conjured to express the remaining feelings it encompassed. It drew form from the saurian background, but expressed an individual pride and beauty. Still, it was the most human thing we'd seen in the land yet, if not the nicest, and even as it fought the sight touched my heart a little.
It was near to bringing the professor's stegoi to the ground, keeping Johnson's whirling so she was unable to bring the rifle to bear, when the professor hauled hers to the side, caromming into Johnson's. She snatched Johnson's rifle and with a look of fierce concentration hurled it overarm.
Her arms were not strong, and I was struck dumb for a moment, but less so than a moment later when away from the professor's strained concentration the rifle blurred into a bar of blue light. I snatched instinctively over my shoulder and my hand, faster than my eye, had caught the rifle, transported fifty yards in a moment.
I tossed it underhand across to Clive, always a better marksman than me, and urged my stegoi round away from her, circling the beast even if she would not approach any closer yet. The beast whirled to see me, and kept turning, but it was too late. Clive sighted smartly but carefully at the spot I'd seen before, and a second later the rifle expectorated, and the dragon shuddered, legs flying akimbo and splashing into the ground on the spot.
I'd thought that was the point to relax, but the professor tumbled herself awkwardly off her stegoi, and moments later was kneeling beside it, launching straight into a liturgy. It was the one for people you knew but did not get on with, or enemies slain in battle. "Love and hate no longer matter. I knew you well, and in your death I open my soul to the goodness in yours..."
She gestured urgently to us to join her, and puzzled but sincerely we did. Clive began a chant she knew in another language, and Johnson and I just bowed our heads to the professor's familiar but suddenly urgent words. "Strife and struggle no longer matter. Find peace in my acceptance, and I pray for you to find your feet so safely on the longest road to..."
Something stirred in the dead beast, and I realised the dissatisfied soul had found completion in this strange world, our abortive fight and acceptance after all. It shimmered, and a white glow permeated it, and then expanded. The carcass was lost to sight under a pale blue-white light.
"The Veil Écolumbine" I murmured. There was no cause for human speech. The soul was moving on, and having entered this world voluntarily, it found itself able to slip further into death as easily. You accepted it for what it was now, or not, there was no quibbling and asking what it had once been in life.
However, I saw at once why the professor had demanded the rites so urgently, more so than to ease one more soul along. I sensed the soul had likely gravitated into the valley from paths in the veils Ruginius or Glaucous -- souls found themselves in the Écolumbine only if they were sure of their destiny. But now it was content, had probably once been Christian, and this part of the valley abutted the Veil Écolumbine, and it was moving on. And in the light behind it, we strained to see, was an angel of the Écolumbine.
This was what the soul strained to say as it drifted from us. There was nothing to be said of itself, but it called back to us words from the angel, who had guided us into the valley in the first place.
[Me: annoyingly, some of this came together better earlier, but I can't remember quite how I put it. Never mind.]
...appeared nearly beneath us, panicking the stegoi. It had been waiting in the cleft of land for days, ready to spring. Now it deftly charged our mounts scattering them.
From the front it appeared almost as a human. It stood tall, about human height, but wider, the head raised until the front of the chest appeared nearly as a human torso. Besides the head, padded sloping shoulders covered in brightly dappled flaking scales, and the head's pointed green snout and dark-ringed eyes seemed like a double-size school teacher... But as it turned, it reminded me of an extended, sleek, petrol-fuelled komodo dragon. A ten foot body followed the front parts, sinuous, for as it charged it could turn in inches, the clumsy feet throwing it sideways and the torso curving nearly right round to accommodate the turn.
It concentrated on Johnson's mount, charging it and peeling away to harass our others. Johnson's and the professor's were running together one way, when Clive and I struggled to turn out mounts back toward them. It swerved and I realised it was keeping its flank away from Johnson, and that it could see the rifle, and well knew what the greatest threat we could present to it was. I watched the pattern of movement, and sensed the spot, about three-quarters up along it, which it manoeuvred to keep unexposed. But I could not bring the stegoi closer, nor really fancied my chances at tearing it open with my hand.
The dragon swerved again and I saw its face. A brave, solitary hunter, near success. But I saw a twinge of sorrow in its eye, and sensed the human soul animating was a little more than the dwindling bundle of passions, good or bad, we'd seen in other saurians. It had a human pride and determination binding it together, yet yearned for a purpose it had lost.
This shape, like the dragon vine, had never been known exactly in the world of life, but was an image some soul more coherent than the rest had conjured to express the remaining feelings it encompassed. It drew form from the saurian background, but expressed an individual pride and beauty. Still, it was the most human thing we'd seen in the land yet, if not the nicest, and even as it fought the sight touched my heart a little.
It was near to bringing the professor's stegoi to the ground, keeping Johnson's whirling so she was unable to bring the rifle to bear, when the professor hauled hers to the side, caromming into Johnson's. She snatched Johnson's rifle and with a look of fierce concentration hurled it overarm.
Her arms were not strong, and I was struck dumb for a moment, but less so than a moment later when away from the professor's strained concentration the rifle blurred into a bar of blue light. I snatched instinctively over my shoulder and my hand, faster than my eye, had caught the rifle, transported fifty yards in a moment.
I tossed it underhand across to Clive, always a better marksman than me, and urged my stegoi round away from her, circling the beast even if she would not approach any closer yet. The beast whirled to see me, and kept turning, but it was too late. Clive sighted smartly but carefully at the spot I'd seen before, and a second later the rifle expectorated, and the dragon shuddered, legs flying akimbo and splashing into the ground on the spot.
I'd thought that was the point to relax, but the professor tumbled herself awkwardly off her stegoi, and moments later was kneeling beside it, launching straight into a liturgy. It was the one for people you knew but did not get on with, or enemies slain in battle. "Love and hate no longer matter. I knew you well, and in your death I open my soul to the goodness in yours..."
She gestured urgently to us to join her, and puzzled but sincerely we did. Clive began a chant she knew in another language, and Johnson and I just bowed our heads to the professor's familiar but suddenly urgent words. "Strife and struggle no longer matter. Find peace in my acceptance, and I pray for you to find your feet so safely on the longest road to..."
Something stirred in the dead beast, and I realised the dissatisfied soul had found completion in this strange world, our abortive fight and acceptance after all. It shimmered, and a white glow permeated it, and then expanded. The carcass was lost to sight under a pale blue-white light.
"The Veil Écolumbine" I murmured. There was no cause for human speech. The soul was moving on, and having entered this world voluntarily, it found itself able to slip further into death as easily. You accepted it for what it was now, or not, there was no quibbling and asking what it had once been in life.
However, I saw at once why the professor had demanded the rites so urgently, more so than to ease one more soul along. I sensed the soul had likely gravitated into the valley from paths in the veils Ruginius or Glaucous -- souls found themselves in the Écolumbine only if they were sure of their destiny. But now it was content, had probably once been Christian, and this part of the valley abutted the Veil Écolumbine, and it was moving on. And in the light behind it, we strained to see, was an angel of the Écolumbine.
This was what the soul strained to say as it drifted from us. There was nothing to be said of itself, but it called back to us words from the angel, who had guided us into the valley in the first place.
[Me: annoyingly, some of this came together better earlier, but I can't remember quite how I put it. Never mind.]