jack

...plashy, marshy, muddy banks. We squatted and councilled ... The professor began to mould grasses and mud and cane and string and a little bit of sorcery into a model of a small Pterosaur. This lost world was formed by a sufficient impression of will, creating a small veil between the veils Ruginious and Ecolumbine, and like the older veils it drew into it souls of departing dead seeking a path in the afterlife.

Souls suited to it took bodily form here, and only later found that it was a tragic dead-end, giving some respite but leading no deeper into the veils. For a few it was a satisfactory rest, happy to spend the last of their unshed desires here until they dwindled into oblivion, mostly content to have found an acceptable lot. But many seethed with repressed feelings they might have resolved, but called into a savage recreation and parody of a brutal world fed them more and more, becoming the most vicious saurians we had seen.

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In the base of the valley, it opened out into a grass-frond plain. The grass fronds waved level with our heads, and for a moment I thought it would provide a perfect cover, but J. Clive saw out thoughts and shook her head resignedly.

She slipped from her stegoi and stepped across to the beginning of the fronds, and shook them loosely with her hand, and we saw the tops wag violently from side to side. They were elastic, but so light any movement was transmitted clearly to the top, and Clive drew our attention out across the plain.

Small herds of taller herbivores wandered about, mostly armoured hump-backs and stegoi, with some larger beasts ambling purposefully, necks wagging. But in other places the fronds rippled enticingly, tracing the path of smaller creatures (smaller meaning, perhaps only slightly taller than an automobile).

We looked up, and saw pterosaurs gliding back and forth over the grassy sea, and after a moment realised they were tracking these ripples. Scattered tyrannosaurs strode about, singly or in pairs, and we realised they were following the pterosaurs. In the distance, we saw one hunter suddenly put on a burst of speed, and snatch up a giant speck of some grazing animal out of a presumed herd, and above the nearest pterosaurs began spiralling down, ( Read more... )

From the first post there were four characters, J Clive, Johnson, the professor, and the narrator. In my mind Janice Clive knew about animals, Johnson was an explorer/hunter and good with the rifle, and the narrator possibly military, at any rate the calmest, the strategist if anyone was, and the one best able to break a raptor's neck.

I'm bad enough at thinking of names to start with, so I deliberately didn't name the narrator, which fed into the slightly other-worldly feel. And also gives people less to remember :) However, last week I had extracts from the professor's diary, and today I had to refer to the narrator, which gave me the problem, by what name?

I could make one up, but it might be confusing and I didn't want to. Any anonymous reference would be appropriate, but what? I could stick to generic references "the wrestler", "the fourth", but that wasn't very satisfying. I could hark back to Three Men in a Boat and use "J", which I liked a lot but was impossible as I already had Johnson and J. Clive and another J would be confusing and ridiculous. I could go with "I" but that would be confusing with the pronoun, or "JJ" or another letter, but none sounded right.

Then I realised I had the perfect out, if I could make the reference appear in one of the elisions. Neat, no?

When I was writing this post, I invented the military connection, which sort of fit, she might not have literally been one when she was alive, but if it comes up again, I think "colonel" fits.

...not even ambulatory, but when we saw it, a vast virulent purplish green cup of leaves squatting on the hillside, oozing noxious vapours, yet surrounded by the lushest... a symbiotic relationship, predatory saurians learnt to deposit the remains of their kills in the digestive juices within, and in return the plant fertilised a vast region around, growing a garden of the most succulent fruits and ferns, a fall-back and source of extra nutrition for the predators, and bait for more prey...

...knew where I had nearly seen one before. I don't think it ever existed in quite this form... but was a curdle of possibilities combined into this nauseating but effective form in this world, complete with evolutionary... had trapped animals and fed them to the thing, and with it farmed the whole floor of the... until it was not clear if they had farmed it or it them... never saw it and passed through only briefly, but when we saw one in the valley, I realised what I had passed near before...

...walk, let alone fly, but like the most oppressive dragons of western history it had learned the art of squatting on a hillside and having people do the dirty work for it... dubbed it a dragon vine and hoped not to have occasion to use the term again... if we should uproot it if we could, and could stand the acids within, but the discussion...

...never knew what contemporary name these beasts had been classified with, their exterior was overlapping scales, reminiscent of the scales on a bird's feet, or an armadillo or crocodile... except that they were not firmly anchored, and could either lay flat, appearing much as the other scaled saurians or modern reptiles, or be raised away from the body... the erect form looked like hairs standing partially on end... I speculated that it allowed air circulation closer to the skin if the creature became overheated, or served to make them seem larger than they were when threatened, or both...

...The scales were vividly coloured, the bases concealed when they lay flat even more so, so the sight of a Pyranthus flaring his scales was unforgettable, iridescent colours flashed dizzyingly across his body and his head was surrounded in a ruff that was practically a plume...

...They ran on two legs, the legs whirring comically as if they orbited small circles about their knees, except when one was approaching one... could tell it was one of the bipedal dinosaurs, and the rough size, but I discussed it with Clive, dear Janet, and we agreed no residue of the marvellous scales was likely to remain... and of their most astonishing feature...

...a liquid spontaneously flammable in air, we experimented and once ignited it burned with a white fury... of two liquids, one which self-ignited on contact with the oxygen in the air, the other having a high ignition temperature, but which once burning not even immersion in water could extinguish, thus the creature was able to safely expel the mixture from glands under the mouth, but once anything had been doused in the aerosol there was no saving it... the pyranthus feasted on the charred corpse...

...were mostly very pleasant, curious beasts, which never ran with our enemies, but when we came upon a small herd, resting after a hunt of flock of another species we surprised them and several came forward to defend their herd... incantation was able to suck the vitality from the liquid before she was further... did not pursue us as we retreated, but we would surely have been lost if...

...obviously they did not quite breathe fire, but their jet ignited not far from their mouths and to all intents and purposes... not quite avian nor quite reptilian, just as dragons... a pack venting gouts of fire in full display array was a truly impressive sight but... were positively pleasant, one of the sights of the valley we felt would have justified the whole excursion, we respectfully and affectionately called them by the scientific name we had invented, and somehow "dragon" seemed unworthy both to them and the idea of a dragon...

Clive's sacrifice bought us another day. I cannot bring myself to write more yet, but her stegion was butchered, but we brought her out, lacking no more then most of a leg and part of a hand. She rides with Johnson, light-headed, and as we rode we mourned her injuries and faithful mount.

We had travelled for a day across the gentle plains of the valley, sweeping down from the low crests behind us before rising to the dizzying ascent of the craggy sides of the Mountain. I felt Hillary or Scott would have given his life to be where we were going, and yet I think we would have given ours not to.

In the late afternoon of the second day, Johnson's stego crunched something brittle underfoot. She covered us with the rifle, and we al dismounted to examine it.

Kicking aside grass and scrub with our boots, we revealed a vast set of bones. Even to my untrained eye saw they resembled that of a dinosaur forefoot of the more prehensile sort, except that firstly each finger, claw or talon bone (however they would be designated) was the size of a full-grown human, the entire foot being nearly the size of a stego; and secondly, one of the claws was rotated relative to the others, and with a shiver I imagined it closing, the scrape and clack of bone if the vast hand grasped blindly at long-dead prey.

I tuned back in to the professor's lecture in time to hear her confirming my diagnosis. The claw was opposable, and the technical jargon corresponded with that of a dinosaur.

Janice pounced on this weakness, and asked if it was certainly the remains of a live dinosaur, or might have occurred in some other (unspecified) way. But the professor was already busy answering the question.

Directing us to hold ready various tobacco pouches and canteens she had made us each carry, she produced from the packs on her stego a small bird, one of several she had captured and stunned before entering the valley.

Now with a typically academic regret -- I was sure Clive, Johnson or I would not have hesitated -- she efficiently snapped its neck and bashed it against the largest bone.

A flicker of orange and yellow light flared and disappeared, and the bones acquired a faint pearly glow. I was immediately reminded of mystical experiences in the opium dens of the orient, but the reassuring orange glow of the low sun gleamed overhead, and I was forced to admit the professor seemed to have had a point here too.

[Much of the follow paragraphs are smudged, as if the paper was handled brusquely when wet. Some fragments are clear.] ...d ancient race that [....] ...r time the mountain had been a [..] of mystical and [...] continue in the direction a... [....]

[......] shuddered [...] bone swung at [...] ...ggling to raise itself from the gr [...] ...rapped Clive, and Janice and I rushed forward to pry [...] no great sinews to provide that strength but [....]

[.....] ...scattered the ashes of the remains of our last few dinners, [..] the cremated remains of purified saurians [..] flared and went [..] heads to the departing spark of the bird, thanking it for its service.

We stood, breathing heavily, trying to grasp the import of what we'd seen. Clearly for no saurian nor mammal of this region was death the clear-cut dividing line we had come to know. But not even the professor had a clear idea of the differences between the even vaster saurians of legend and those now suffering whatever strange diseases of the mind we had seen.