The Fox Of The Mountain

On the side of a mountain there was a woodsman by the name Elembrow. He was a craftsman by trade but at present he was enjoying a day off with an afternoon of hunting. He had already notched himself a handsome trophy deer and was now pursuing a golden tailed fox which was extremely rare in the kingdom where he lived. He had followed the fox from the gentle river at the foot of the mountain and up the mountain-side in a swerving manner for a good portion of an hour. Elembrow had tracked the fox at an appropriate distance thus he was quite sure the fox was not aware of his presence. Currently he hid in a small raspberry bush and watched the fox’s golden tail shine in the beating sunlight.
He pulled back one of the bushes branches to get a better view of the fox, but as he did this the fox jerked its head in Elembrow’s direction and stared directly into his eyes. His location was revealed so Elembrow reached for his bow as quickly as his nimble craftsman hands could. The fox was in a momentary stun and its eyes were still locked, staring at Elembrow as the man prepared his weapon. The craftsman took advantage of this and fired a quick shot at the still fox. The arrow made contact with the fox’s back left leg and stuck firm in its flesh. The pain startled the fox and it went tearing across the mountain side.
Elembrow raced after it smacking tree branches out of his path as he ran. The fox and him had now reached a field filled with dandelions. As the fox continued to run away the small animal threw up a trail of floating seeds which Elembrow followed. He fired another arrow across the open field but it fell a few feet short of the fox. His pace started to slow as he grew tired from his upward climb. The fox’s determination to get away was too great and the hunter soon lost sight of the wounded prey. Elembrow was now both exhausted and discouraged by the failed chase and was in the motion of putting away his bow when he realized the fox had left a faint trail of blood in its wake. It was not a constant trail; merely a couple blood soaked patches which shone on the ground every dozen feet or so. For Elembrow though it was enough of a path to track. With new found enthusiasm he began his pursuit of the fox once again.
The trail led him to a part of the mountain that he had never seen before. It was covered with a sort of tree he was unfamiliar with. The trees shone with a metallic tinge and appeared to be bowing due to the slant of the mountain in which their roots were entrenched. The elongated soft leaves draped off the top of the trees in a way that resembled a head of hair which heightened the image of bowing. Elembrow slowed his pace as he felt a sense of uncertainty and hesitance in his odd surroundings. The grass was brown and coarse and cracked underneath his leather hide boots. The fox’s blood appeared black against the dark withered earth, like ink soaking into a ruined parchment discarded and forgotten. Despite the plea from his heart to turn back, his head would not accept defeat when so close to the goal. He followed the track for less than a minute when he came to a rock wall; its size was imposing as the wall of the mountain jutted straight up until it disappeared into a mist of cloud.
The face of the giant rock structure was flat and seemed unnatural compared to the jagged randomness of most mountain sides. Down the side of the rock a crack descended curving towards Elembrow. The crack widened as it slithered down the rock until it had ripped a length of half a dozen feet when it reached the foot of the rock. This is where Elembrow stood in awe of the massive wall and the natural doorway at his feet. The fox’s tracks went directly into the mountain crevasse. He stood at the entry and peered down the passageway which curved left a few feet in. This left Elembrow with no choice but to follow in the fox’s footsteps or turn back. Although he was afraid of the rock wall and what lay within it, he was also struck with a sense of curiosity that he had not known in years. He longed to know what could possibly be within this seemingly untouched split in the world that he had by chance stumbled upon, as if by fate. With that he readied his bow and took his first cautious step into the mountain.
The air inside the tunnel was much colder than outside and smelled odd to Elembrow like a jerry wire thistle or the metallic taste of silverware. The path turned and twisted through the rock and Elembrow had to light one of his few matches to the end of an arrow to craft a makeshift torch in the fading light. In any other situation he would have turned back and went home in such a strange and hopeless situation, but Elembrow was drawn in by the curious smell and followed the path deeper. After half a dozen minutes the path straightened out into a hallway stretching the distance of a wheat field. At the end of the hallway a small keyhole of light could be seen through a doorway. The metallic smell was now stronger and filled Elembrow’s lungs with every inhale. He started to jog as he neared the opening and his footsteps echoed within the hall creating a rhythm in time with his heartbeat as his pace escalated to a run.
Bursting through the doorway he entered a massive cavern of the likes no one had set eyes on in hundreds of years. The rafters of the room were like the sky itself creating a thousand foot high ceiling of stalactites that were hundreds of feet long themselves, but in the scale of the cavern they resembled oddly shaped cloud in a rock sky. From the floor erupted equally sized stalagmites that reached tall like structures of gods with such crystal beauty that light shone through them marking patterns all around. This light came from an immense crack in the roof which the sun beat through thereby illuminating the cavern and all its glory. However not everything in the cave was natural beauty, there were also structures of what Elembrow assumed to be Dwarvan by their inscriptions and style. These structures were grandiose in size and made of beautiful minerals from gold to ruby. Some of these were statues of great kings and warriors while others were fountains through which no water flowed. For that moment Elembrow no longer remembered why he was there or even who he was. He threw up his head and laughed in the company of such splendour. He had fallen to his knees upon entering the cave but now he picked himself up and ran through the cavern beholding too many wonders for his eyes to make sense of. At present a statue of a Dwarvan miner stood before him made of solid silver, it’s eyes open wide staring into Elembrow’s. The statue was beautiful but only the beginning of all Elembrow would find within the cavern.
He ran through abandoned buildings made of solid gold, picking up priceless jewellery laughing in an echoed loop as he went. In the first building he entered he found a crown with twisted golden spikes that curled into a tangled mess of thorns. He propped the crown upon his sweat soaked hair and the thorns nested above his scalp. He kept running in the seemingly endless paradise discovering many things he had not known possible to exist. He found a castle made of gold with dozens of battlements stretching towards the ceiling and turrets at each one of the castles corners which reached higher still. The bewildered and giddy man climbed a diamond staircase and a ringing sound resounded with every step. The staircase spiralled to a massive balcony with a railing made of silver studded with green rubies. From the balcony he could see miles in each direction. Surveying the view he discovered a lake that was so still its surface created a mirror for the caverns sky of a roof. Elembrow sipped from the lake and the taste was of pure metal but he did not mind, because he no longer felt the taste and smell of metal to be odd, in fact he loved it.
After he finished his drink he looked at his reflection in the lake and hardly recognized himself as he was lavished in such jewels and decadence that he appeared a different man than the humble craftsman who had entered the cave. As he regarded his changed appearance the shine of his ornaments seemed to diminish. The light no longer rang through Elembrow’s golden crown or sparkled off his diamond clad ring. This was not just self realization that ornaments are simply objects but also that the cave was getting darker, and quickly. Elembrow looked up at the crack through which the sun used to shine. But a sliver of light shone through; diagonally getting thinner by the second and then the sliver was gone and the dark engulfed him.
He stood in shock; as the transformation was too fast and now his mind tried to make sense of what had just happened. He yelled and it echoed in the vast emptiness that no longer seemed real. He stuck his arm out in front of himself but not the faintest sign of a limb could be seen. He smacked himself with the outstretched hand and the pain made his eyes water, the hurt throbbed from the bridge of his nose. He shouted again realizing the foolishness he had committed in locking himself in this inevitable paradise mirage. His newly discovered world had shrunk from everything to nothing almost as quickly as it appeared. The necklaces resting against his chest were now just cold heavy pieces of stinking metal resting against his shaking flesh. He took them off and threw them with all his strength. The clatter bounced off the walls of his brain reverberating through his skull, for Elembrow no longer lived in the waking world; all he could see was in the depths of his mind.
“Darkness always follows light”, he muttered, and then shrieked, “Always!” When the echoes of his anger faded away a silence came over Elembrow; the air was still like time itself was suspended.
He sat there in the darkness for hours, wondering if the sun would ever shine again. He tried to remember the way he’d came in for when the sun did rise, but he had been so oblivious in his discovery of the caverns riches that he had not even considered the possibility of wanting to leave the Dwarvan utopia. Then in the darkness he heard a scuffling to his right.
“Who’s there?” he called out nervously to the answer of no one. The scuffling continued and it appeared to be moving closer, “I demand you show yourself… Immediately!” Elembrow realized the ridiculousness of his request for whatever was moving around could be right in front of his face and he wouldn’t have the slightest idea. Elembrow stopped talking, maybe if I can’t see it then it can’t see me, he thought, all I have to do is be silent and it will move on. That was when Elembrow felt a soft breath on his face; the smell was of raw meat like when he bought fresh steaks from his butcher at home. He stepped back quickly and tripped to the ground. He scuttled backwards using both his hands like a crab. The ground felt hard and cold against the palms of his hands. Now the breath came down on him from above and he could no longer crawl backward for he had run into a rigid wall. Elembrow pressed his back against the cold wall and as his back hit the wall. He remembered the few matches he still had in his back pocket and quickly pulled one out and struck it on the wall behind him. The spark flashed and ignited the match. The light from the match revealed a face in front of him, the face of a fox. The match’s flame reflected in its glass eyes and illuminated the faint golden whiskers sprouting from its nose. Elembrow stared into those eyes and as he did his memories of the day flashed before him in the fox’s pupils, like a mirror into his mind. He remembered hunting the fox across the mountain side, he remembered following the trail right to the foot of the rock wall and he remembered entering the cavern. Then the match went out and all was dark once again. A rage built up within Elembrow like a furnace in the depths of his heart.
“Why you damn filthy fox! I’m going to wring your bloody neck”, he stood up and started swinging blindly. He could hear the fox scampering away but the echoes made tracking the noise difficult. “You’re the reason I’m trapped in this bloody, cursed place!” He took his frustration out on the air as he threw punch after punch stumbling forward, hoping to connect with the fox. The sound of his own footsteps and voice echoed within the cavern and he could no longer differentiate the fox’s steps from his own so he started running in haphazard circles cursing out into the air. Then the ground changed and before he knew what was happening he had plunged into a cold viscous liquid which now surrounded him.
Elembrow had run right into the lake that he had gazed his reflection in hours before. The liquid was no ordinary water, and as his lungs gasped desperately for air they were instead filled with the metallic fluid. As his lungs filled with the liquid it dragged him deeper down like a burden of great weight. Elembrow’s mind was a panic as his brain tried to process any way to escape the clutches of the lake. He could not think of anything. Normally he was a very good swimmer, but his body was now an anchor destined for the bottom of the deepest lake. He realized he would continue to sink and that hope was something of a fiction that no longer had a place in his slowly dying world. Elembrow’s mind was now as dark as the world surrounding him as he sank deeper and deeper into the depths of the lake. He knew he was going to die and he wished more than anything to see the sun. Then a light flashed from deep beneath him in the water; it appeared golden and shone bright. It was the first light he had seen in hours and it stung his eyes like a wasp. As Elembrow sank deeper the outline of the golden orb became visible. It was the shape of a head; the head of a fox. No, no it can’t be, this is madness. Then his eyes locked with the massive pupils of the golden fox’s head. Elembrow screamed though no sound could be heard. He could not turn his gaze, he could not shut his eyes, his body no longer obeyed him as he himself had now turned to metal like the statues he had seen in the cavern above.