The Coveted Treasure

Into the Rock Across Time and Space

We’re a long ways from where this story began at the docks. Tap here to visit the chapter list and start from the beginning. If you only missed the last chapter, tap here to go back to chapter 10.

Some veils are being lifted. However, not all shrouds should be removed. Without further delay…

The Coveted Treasure

Crust and dirt fell away from around Cole’s head.

His shoulders were still held tight in the terrible pod that had encased him and his dad and Jeddy. The standing fish things had slung a bunch of stuff at them and slimed them up. Then the slime got hard. What did his mom, or what he thought was his mom, call them? Tannites? Those things looked to him like some alien piranhas and the slender man got together and had a bunch of babies. Weird lights shot around whenever the Tannites were around. Sometimes the ground would light up, like a green wave would ripple across it.

Cole shook his head and saw he was in some kind of cave. More lights. He craned his head around and saw his dad trying to wrestle loose. Jeddy was behind him with his head hanging down. The cut on his face had stopped bleeding but down his neck and onto his shirt was a mix of crusted fish slime and blood. He didn’t look good.

As another green light wave flowed over the floor of the cave, the old geezer from the market fell to his knees in front of them.

“Zeke?!” Cole’s dad asked in surprise.

The old man stiffened, arched his back, and threw up on the ground in front of Cole.

“Sick!” said Cole as he turned his face away.

Old Zeke heaved once more. “Said I wouldn’t do that again,” he said as he wiped his bearded mouth with the back of his hand.

“Do what again, old man? How’d you get here?” Jeremiah asked.

“I’ve been to this place many many times, Jeremiah. Many times,” Zeke confessed. “We got to get you all out of this ‘fore them Tannites come back from a hunt.” He picked up a piece of rock from the floor of the cave and began to hammer at the hardened slime that held the captives.

“Hunt nothing, those things dragged us down into this hellhole.”

“This hellhole, as you say,” Zeke coughed as he spoke the words, “is the entrance to their dark temple. We at the mouth of Erets.”

“What are you going on about? You’re drunk.”

“Maybe. Drunk or not, I seen Erets.” As he pulled the hardened case away from the men and boy, he lowered his voice and said, “I drink to forget all this. I heard the song.”

“I heard them sing a song,” said Cole as he shook the crust out of his hair.

“I bet you did,” said Zeke as he cracked the last bit of casing from around the boy’s legs. “They don’t want you dead, you know. That’s why they cracked the case. Lettin’ you breathe and all before they left. You need to breathe and none of us are good to them dead. Didn’t turn you, though, I see. What’d they offer you?”

“I saw my mom,” said Cole. “It was her, but it’s like it wasn’t her. She was weird. I mean, she died, right? I thought she died. She got mad and freaked out. She never does that, or did that. I don’t know.” Cole put his face in his hands.

Cole and Zeke both worked to get Jeremiah free from the case, who then helped free Jeddy Lee. “Why didn’t those things kill us?” Jeremiah asked as he pulled the hardened slime away from his friend. Jeddy stumbled from the debris without saying anything. The cavern wall held him well as he composed himself.

“Like I said, they don’t want you dead,” explained Zeke. “They want you turnin’ into one of them.”

“That happened to David!” Cole interjected.

Zeke raised a bushy gray eyebrow. “Friend of yours?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that. He’s kind of a jerk, actually. But we paddled out to Tannigath in a canoe and I watched him turn into one of things right in front of me. He attacked me, tried to choke me out, and then jumped into the water.”

“They offered him what his heart wants. What a man covets, he becomes,” said Zeke.

“He wanted to become a Tannite?” asked Cole.

“Doubt it.” The old man’s voice softened. ”But what he wanted deep down in that heart o’ his tempted him. Desire of the heart, and all. It done birthed in him a dragon. That’s how the Tannites turn all men.”

“What about women?” Jeremiah had to know. “I saw them take my wife. I thought they killed her.”

“Oh, they take women, too. They don’t kill no one, at least they don’t set out to. Shhh! Listen!”

The glowing orbs in the cave began to flutter and a murmur echoed off the walls. Zeke spoke in a hushed tone. “Let’s go, but be quiet,” he said as he motioned them further into the cavern.

Smoke hung high on the cavern ceiling. “There’s vents in the rock. Tannites are like ants. They make passages everywhere.”

“Where’s the smoke coming from?” asked Cole.

Zeke led them deeper into the cavern. “See here. Just a further ways in.” Cole and Jeremiah kept up. Jeddy was moving but slower than the rest of the group.

A low fire burned at the edge of the passageway. Cole held his hand up to his nose. “Yuck!” Heaps of fish bones and skin and scales were scattered around the floor. Racks of fish were being smoked next to the fire.

“As I was sayin’, they do men and women diff’ernt. They bring the women off’rings. Gifts. Fish is all they got. Just fish, but they bring ‘em. Gotta feed ‘em. Keep ‘em happy.”

“Happy? Happy for what?”

“Gotta make the wives happy. You know that. You been married and all, Jeremiah?”

Jeremiah grabbed Old Zeke by the front of his shirt and pulled in him close. “You listen to me, old man. I don’t know how you know all this stuff. You never gave me an answer about how you even got down here. I don’t know a lot, but you’re not going to give me any lip about Lily.”

Jeddy perked up with interest.

Zeke let himself hang limp in Jeremiah’s hands. “Ahhh, Lily. That’s her name.”

Jeremiah shook the man. “What are you talking about?!”

Old Zeke nodded his head behind Jeremiah. “They come from Erets. One of ‘ems protected, I can see.”

Jeremiah spun around as Jeddy caught up with them. Cole stood in disbelief.

Five women in white walked toward them. Glowing mists of pink and yellow followed in the air, intermingling with the smoke from the fire. Four of women were walking hand in hand. Their long hair in beautiful braids, adorned with filigree crowns and ornaments. The fifth woman walked with her hands held at her side. Her hair was covered beneath a white shawl, and her face was kind and glowing. Not with the ethereal light of the spectral orbs, but with love and kindness.

“She the one Apkallu want the most,” said Zeke. “That one there? She deep in his heart.”

In the Depths of Erets

Cole Marsh’s path has brought him into places he never imagined existed outside the material world.

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Talk to y’all in two weeks.

~ J.P. Simons