Chapter Five: Complex Problems and Simple Violence
Written by Jeff
Six boar people scurried up the rock walls along the edge of the cavern filled with verdant new growth. A bright red sun beamed down from an enormous mirror suspended from the ceiling by thick cords and the Gamle climbed up to where those cords were fastened. With perfect synchronicity, the boar people’s stumpy hands and barely-opposable thumbs worked together as a group to swiftly untie the knots from enormous rings protruding from the top of the rock walls. Both knots unfastened simultaneously, causing the mirror to swing down and out like a pendulum before coming to rest vertically above the soft, green grass. The light from the sun now shone sideways, brightly illuminating only half of the cavern.
More Gamle emerged from the surrounding caves with armfuls of meat, and though it was rotting and putrid the boar people didn’t seem to be bothered by the smell. They heaped the rancid animal parts into a pile in front of the mirror, arriving in single file and depositing their portion before going back down to an underground storeroom to get more. None of the living animals in the cavern dared to go and investigate the “food”; they were all huddled together in a dark corner, as far away from the mirror as possible.
As the Gamle finished depositing their pile, the gray-haired man emerged into the cavern as well, walking hurriedly and carrying a mirror. The handle was white and smooth, with a frame around the glass made of connected jawbones, the glass situated inside a halo of teeth. The man held the mirror close to his mouth and muttered to it softly, and as he spoke the glass began to cloud and become opalescent. At the enormous, now-vertical slab of glass, the man held the mirror in his hand up so that the two surfaces faced one another. Sunlight beamed off of the hand mirror and back onto the larger one. The man spoke softly to the glass and bones again and as he did the reflected sunlight began to change the surface of the larger mirror. It rippled and warped until a completely new scene was being projected through the glass. Instead of a sideways sun, the dangling mirror now looked like a towering entranceway into a thick coniferous forest.
Dozens of Gamle burst into the cavern from the mountain path outside and ran directly past the mirror and pile of rotten meat, paying them no mind as they scurried out the other side and down stone passageways. With everything in place, the rest of the Gamle in the enclosed meadow began to creep towards the back exit as well, waiting for the man with the mirror to give them an order. When he hastily exited the cavern without saying another word, the remaining boar people took the cue and ran away themselves, though only to the safety of the doorway. Several stood there in the dark, waiting, eyes flashing beneath bulbous brows.
Though it had been filled with life and the sounds of living only moments before, the cavern was now dark and silent. The birds did not chirp and the insects did not hum. For the Gamle waiting in the entranceway, the silence seemed to drag on and on. But then there was a rustling, and a stomping, and snorting. A snout poked through the opening in the mirror and sniffed, drawn to the pile of rotting meat. The enormous mirror stretched from the arching ceiling of the cavern almost all the way down to the grass - easily the height of ten men. The colossal boar that walked through the opening filled most of that space. Its features were distorted and angular; there didn’t seem to be a smooth, graceful line on its entire body. The head was massive and misshapen, so top-heavy it was a marvel the creature wasn’t constantly toppling over face first. Instead of two large tusks and rows of smaller teeth, this boar seemed to have only tusks, crammed in too tight and spilling over the sides of the mouth like they were gasping for air. This creature was an abomination, but one who looked carefully enough could see that there were small-yet-clear similarities between this boar and the boar people that lived in these caves. This boar looked like a monstrous version of a Gamle that had never evolved to become bipedal, instead evolving into some sort of giant, lopsided beast, that while formidable, clearly wasn’t an apex predator.
As the colossal boar munched away at its disgusting pile, several men crept into the cavern from the main entrance. They moved silently closer, hunched with hands on clubs, stone axes, and spears. They were hulking men, but compared to the boar they seemed comically small. Still, there was no fear in their eyes, and with one coordinating nod they heaved a volley of spears at the creature before it had any idea they were even in the cavern. Every one of the Ulvson spears found its mark, though the squeal emitted from the boar was one of surprise and not necessarily of pain. The creature shook most of the spears off in a single shimmy and rushed forward as 20 barbarians let out a united war cry and came spilling into the cavern.
The Ulvson had never fought an enemy this big, but even in the face of a seemingly unbeatable foe, they attacked as if the battle was theirs for the taking. The boar did not move particularly fast while standing, so they were confident rushing in and hacking at its legs and then jumping out of the way when it turned to face them. But as the boar continued to fail connecting tusk slams with sideward swipes of the head, it soon began trotting around the cavern in wide arcs to gain momentum instead. Once it was properly moving, there was little its opponents could do to dodge if the boar locked them into its sights. Quickly, the Ulvson barbarians began to fall, speared by a single tusk through the midsection or crushed between several as the boar bit down. Regardless, the men fought valiantly - if stupidly - still believing that the impacts of their clubs or the tiny cuts incurred by their axes could eventually fell such an intimidating beast.
The rapid and continual death of the Ulvson warriors did nothing to dissuade those still standing, and when there was only one man remaining, he still charged at the colossal boar without a moment of hesitation. The barbarian raised his axe to the sky and let out a fierce roar as he sprinted towards the beast. Unfazed, the boar lazily reared up onto its back legs and then crushed the man into paste under its stomping trotter.
When all 20 of the Ulvson had fallen, the boar peered around the cavern to make sure no more pests were buzzing around before returning to its festering chum pile. As it finished eating, the Gamle in the entranceway began to slink back inside the cavern. The giant boar in the center of the room paid them no mind, but then the Gamle began to sing a chorus of sharp dissonant tones and the creature instantly became perturbed. Its snout bristled and it stomped down again in irritation, whipping its disproportionate head from side to side. The Gamle stepped in closer and intensified their discordant song, causing the boar to step back reflexively. The creature’s eyes winced and it let out a final dissatisfied squeal before turning and exiting back through the opening in the mirror.
Though muffled, the entire scene had been audible in the room where, Ja, Kaia, and Torv were being held. The Ulvson man had sat with his ear practically on the wooden door, desperately trying to rub life back into his drooping arm. Ja and Kaia were pressed against the back wall, as far away from the sounds as they could physically get. When the thunderous squealing and the shouting of men had ceased and was replaced by the Gamle’s unnerving song, Torv looked over to the others in confusion, but it was clear they were just as mystified by the noise as him. Then there was only silence, and Torv scooted away from the door and rested his back on the stone wall instead, head slumped and dejected.
The silence was broken by the sound of wood scraping against the ground as the door opened. The gray-haired man entered and stood in front of Torv and looked down at the brute sternly before addressing him.
“I think you should come out here and see what happens when you try to solve complex problems with simple violence.”
Torv stood and glared at the man, but followed him outside without protest. In the doorway, the man turned back and addressed Ja and Kaia as well.
“You can come and look as well, if you like. See what sort of nasty things can happen if you wander around in the wrong kind of places.”
Ja and Kaia rose to their feet and began to follow along, figuring it was best to do as they were told. The hide bags they had swiped earlier from the larder were sitting in the corner of the room, so they picked them up as they left, curious that their captors didn’t seem to care at all that they had stolen from the community. As they walked, Ja was puzzled by something he couldn’t properly articulate to his friend. He had understood everything the gray-haired man had said to Torv about complex problems and simple violence, and Torv obviously had as well. But Torv spoke a completely different language than them and hadn’t understood a single word Kaia had said to him earlier. Why did he understand it now?
As the visitors entered the cavern, they immediately recoiled at the putrid scent of rotten meat that permeated the air. Then they noticed the 20 bloody bodies littered across the meadow. The grass had been displaced everywhere in huge chunks by something that was clearly gigantic in size. The mirror was vertical now instead of on the ceiling, and instead of projecting sunlight down onto an idyllic scene it now merely reflected the opposite wall of the cavern. Torv walked over to one of his fallen clansmen and knelt down by him somberly, examining the wounds.
“Your people may be strong in this world, but that strength is relative,” the gray-haired man began. “There are forces at play here that simply can’t be overcome with brute strength. When others try to help you see a better path, the response to that kindness should never be violence. We have been unnecessarily patient with your people, and now our patience has ended. Do you see now that a different course of action is required?”
Torv did not look up or make a sound to respond, keeping his eyes focused on the wounds of his fallen clansman.
“You have seen what we are trying to achieve here in bringing the forest back to life,” the man continued. “I know you want this as well. Killing the Light Eater or the Gamle will not help you achieve this goal.” He waved his hand at the bodies littering the cavern. “I take no satisfaction in killing your people, but when they come here to attack us, we are left with no other choice. Your clan refuses to listen to reason; refuses to listen at all. Go back to your people and tell them what you have seen. Tell them the truth of what is happening in these mountains. Then you and your clan can decide: You can either be part of the solution, or you will be treated as part of the problem. If you simply leave us in peace, I will be fine never dealing with any of you again.”
Torv rose to his feet and let out an emotionless sigh. His eyes scanned over the bloodied bodies strewn about the cavern, taking in each one individually. Then, without turning to face the man at his side, Torv’s meaty hand shot out and latched onto his head, fingers extending past the man’s ears, completely engulfing his face. The man tried to cry out but no sound escaped the barbarian’s grasp. Even with his hand still numb and only a fraction of his grip strength, Torv effortlessly squeezed down and crumpled the man’s head with a wet crunch. As the man fell to the ground writhing and sputtering, Torv still did not avert his gaze from the field of fallen Ulvson warriors.
Though his skull was cracked and blood was oozing from every orifice in his face, the gray-haired man was still alive and conscious, and as soon as he hit the ground he began to kick and squirm away from Torv. He flipped himself over onto his knees and totteringly pulled the jawbone mirror from the pocket of his robe, coughing blood as he attempted to speak to it. He continued to stumble away and the barbarian seemed to have no interest in giving chase. But then the man began to wave the mirror in the air as he choked out words at it, and the space in front of him began to change. It was as if he were painting a new scene and the mirror was his brush, changing reality itself as it moved through the air. Torv only looked over at what was happening when Ja and Kaia audibly gasped at the appearance of a portal to a completely different place. The barbarian’s eyes narrowed as he saw the gravely-wounded man attempt to crawl through to the other side.
The gray-haired man tried to spring to his feet and run through the entranceway he had just created, but he only made it a few steps before crashing right back down onto his chest, sending more blood misting from his mouth. Then he tried to crawl, half of his body in the new realm and his legs still visible in the cavern, but he had barely budged forward again before Torv was at his feet. With seemingly no effort, the barbarian grabbed the man by his ankle and whipped him through the air and then bashed him against the ground like a wriggling trout.
As soon as the man’s body began to fly through the air, Ja and Kaia instinctively looked away, not wanting to see the horrific act of violence. Because they covered their eyes, neither saw the necklace the man wore tucked under his robes go flying off his body and land several paces away in the grass. Torv didn’t notice it either; once he saw that the man was properly lifeless, he peered through the portal disinterestedly for only a moment and then walked back over to this fallen clansmen.
Ja and Kaia looked at the portal and then at one another, speaking only with their eyes. Without seeming too curious, they began to creep over to the bizarre entranceway, avoiding the lifeless man’s body and peering through the portal to see where it led. It was night on the other side. The portal exited into a path in a ravine with rocky walls covered in lichens. There was sand on the stone ground and stars overhead and a warm breeze flowed through into the frigid cavern where they stood. Without the red sun projected from the mirror, this room now felt uncomfortably cold, as it had outside in the mountains.
Kaia turned away from the portal and hesitantly knelt down by the broken body lying on the ground. She held her hand by his mouth and nose and found there was no breath. Nearby, the jawbone mirror the man had used to open up the portal lay in the grass, unharmed. Kaia looked to see if Torv was watching before picking it up, but the barbarian had no interest in what she or Ja were up to. The glass was shimmering and radiating dull prisms of color, not reflecting, and Kaia could see a similar effect happening around the edges of the entranceway to the new plane. Before she could show the item to Ja, he spoke out to her first.
“Kaia, do you hear that?”
It took a moment for her own train of thought to stop and she listened carefully for whatever the young man might be hearing. The cavern was silent. She looked at him and shrugged.
“Something is calling to me,” he said. “It’s saying my name.”
Ja began to wander away from the portal, head cocked forward, listening carefully. He took small steps, moving in a meandering path as he honed in on the signal only he could hear, then crouched down when he had found the source. It was a necklace, with a cord similar to the one that held up the enormous mirror but only a fraction as thick. The cord was tied to an oblong, course-brown lump that looked like petrified wood and fit neatly in Ja’s hand. There was little weight to the thing and its texture was unlike anything he’d felt before. Ja muttered to himself, barely audibly, “What is this?” and an answer was spoken in the same whispering tone that had called him over.
“Tongue of Kathaka, first to speak.”
He looked at the thing curiously, turning it over in his hand.
“How do you know my name?” he asked.
“Not name,” said the tongue. “Purpose. Jaw. You are a Jaw. You may command the Tongue.”
Kaia had wandered over to where Ja was standing, holding the jawbone mirror and looking inquisitively at what the young man had found. Without thinking about what he was doing or why, Ja found himself holding up the cord and slipping it over his head. It almost felt like the necklace was placing itself on him.
“You are a Jaw,” the tongue said again. “Through Kathaka, you may speak the words that open the doors to all worlds. You may speak to any and all.”
Ja looked over to Kaia and eyed the mirror she held in her hands. He had seen and heard the gray-haired man speak to it before the portal had opened and knew just by looking at the jawbones that he could now communicate with them himself. But before he could say anything to the mirror or to Kaia, a loud, gurgling cough and gasp for breath echoed through the cavern. Ja and Kaia’s eyes shot to the body by the portal, but the sound hadn’t come from the gray-haired corpse. One of Torv’s clanmates was still alive, barely, and had regained consciousness. Torv was crouched by his side on one knee, hand placed on the man’s shoulder. They began to speak and it all sounded like gibberish in Kaia’s ears. But Ja understood every word.
“Sten, what did this to you?” asked Torv. “What could have killed 20 Ulvson warriors?”
“A creature most foul,” said the man feebly. “It was too large. Our weapons were like toys.”
“Why did you come here?” growled Torv, unable to mask his anger. “Why would you interrupt my Honor March?”
“Sieg did not consent to your March, Torv. You merely proclaimed it to be so and then left. You should have known that Sieg would never let you succeed in your task. Your brother’s children - and the rest of your family line - were slain as soon as you left the village.”
Torv’s eyes burned and he almost smashed what little life remained out of his friend simply for telling him the truth, but he chose to slam his numb hand into the ground instead. Of course Sieg would act with such dishonor, such treachery. Torv had acted on instinct and anger and hadn’t taken even a moment to think things through. His father had been Chieftain, and his brother should have been next in line. There was no greater threat to Sieg’s rule than Torv returning victorious from his Honor March.
“We came to kill the Light Eater ourselves,” continued Sten, seeing from Torv’s face that he was seeing the truth of things. “Even if Sieg did not consent to your March, he still could not risk you returning having completed it. We were instructed to kill you as well, but we all decided when we left the village that we would not honor this command. You have done no wrong to our people; you only wanted to protect your family. We were going to let you go.”
“Go where?” growled Torv. “To wander the tundra until I starve and die? No rival clan would have me, and I would not have them. There is nowhere for me to go now, except back to Sieg for vengeance.”
“Sieg keeps his closest men at his side,” said Sten. “Look who lies dead on this battlefield, Torv. It is those who would have fought alongside you; that is no coincidence. Sieg knew this mission to destroy the Light Eater may kill us all, and if somehow you survived, you would be left without allies to face him.”
“THEN I WILL KILL HIM ALONE!” Torv roared, but he knew that it was not true. He had been beaten. He had beaten himself. Torv looked down to Sten again, but the man’s face was still now with eyes glazed over. Torv closed Sten’s eyelids and then covered his own face with his enormous hands, still numb and prickling from the blue flowers, but he did not weep. He simply wanted an escape, any escape he could muster, and closing his eyes and burying his head in his hands was the best he could do at that moment.
Generally, Torv was not one for self-reflection, but as he sat hunched over Sten’s body, the barbarian realized just how many mistakes he had made since his brother’s death. Because of his brash actions his family had been slain, his friends had been sent to their deaths, and he was now forever an outcast from his clan. As he silently mourned this monumental loss, the sound of birds chirping and insects buzzing returned to the meadow in the cavern, even though the sunlight was gone. The sound caused Torv to pull his face from his hands and look around, remembering the strange place he was in, and then truly realizing how terribly he had messed everything up.
He had killed the gray-haired man in a fit of snippy anger, simply because the man had chided his insistence on using violence as a solution. The great forest was dying and this man was bringing it back to life; this cavern full of flora and fauna was proof to that. He had claimed that the Light Eater was not responsible for any of the destruction, and Torv believed him. There was no point in killing the Light Eater and completing his Honor March anymore. Even if he could somehow slay Sieg and become leader of his clan, Torv could never regain his honor for what he had done, whether his people knew it or not. In murdering the gray-haired man, Torv had likely doomed all of the Ulvson to a slow, withering death.
“What will you do now?” asked Ja. He had walked up closer to Torv but still kept a healthy distance between them.
Torv realized that the young man was now speaking his language, but was too exhausted to care why.
“There is nothing left for me in these lands,” said Torv. He looked Ja and Kaia over inquisitively. “Where do you come from?”
“Somewhere else,” said Ja.
“And how did you get here?”
“We have no idea. I think he probably knew,” said Ja, motioning to the gray-haired man’s body. “But we’re not going to get answers from him anymore.”
Torv let out a frustrated sigh and walked over to the body. Ja walked over with him.
“He said he came from another world, far away,” said Torv. “Said that there were more like him who could move between doorways.” He looked up at the portal. “That must be one of them. Did you two walk through one of those to get here?”
“No,” said Ja, fidgeting with the bandage on his hand. “We were brought here somehow because of a reflection that stuck to my hand and the stone these people use to suck all of the stars from the sky. We found another stone like it in a cave in our world.”
Torv’s eyes widened at this. Kaia had come over and was now standing behind Ja, observing the conversation between the two skeptically. She could understand everything that Ja was saying, but the brutish man was still just spouting nonsense words. Still, only hearing Ja’s half of the conversation was enough, so she stealthily slipped the jawbone mirror into her hide satchel.
“You came from a different world and found this man,” Torv repeated, slowly processing the information.
“Yes, sort of,” said Ja. “But I would say he found us.”
“There is no difference!” growled Torv. “Will there be more men like this one on the other side of the doorway?”
“I have no idea,” Ja said with a shrug. “All I know is that it leads to a place where he was trying to get away from you.”
Torv stared at the gleaming portal suspended mid-air in the grotto, then his eyes strayed back to his friends and he felt the sadness in his heart begin to be replaced by rage once again. Torv was an Ulvson warrior. Sieg had killed everyone he held dear. Even if it meant his own death, Torv must try and avenge them. His honor demanded it.
But then something new and strange happened inside of Torv’s mind: he considered the consequences of his actions. He thought of what the gray-haired man had said to him about the futility of trying to solve complex problems with simple violence. The man’s condescending voice echoed in his memory.
“Do you see now that a different course of action is required?”
Finally, Torv did see. It tore at the very essence of his identity as an Ulvson and a warrior, but he understood now that he could help and honor his people and atone for his mistakes in a different way than killing and dying for revenge. If there were more of these gray-haired men out there who could save the great forest, Torv was going to find them.
Without saying another word, Torv walked over to Sten’s body and picked up his stone axe, inspecting its edge and feeling the weight in his hands, then confidently strode through the portal and disappeared from the cavern entirely.
Dumbfounded, Kaia walked over to the portal herself and watched Torv pass from view down the path, then looked around at the cavern and stopped when she was facing Ja.
“Should we follow him?” she asked. “He might not be the worst ally to have, now that you can talk to him.”
“I’m not sure if we should go through more of these doorways,” said Ja. “That man over there who died said all of these warriors were killed by a huge monster that came through one of them.”
“I’m sure the guy who opened this doorway wasn’t running away into a world full of big monsters,” said Kaia. Her eyes squinted. “Probably.”
“Maybe we should try to get back to our own world using the star stone,” said Ja. Kaia glared at him quizzically.
“Which part are you more excited to get home to, the blood cult or the vine monster?”
Ja didn’t bother giving that question a response.
“Well maybe we can just stay here,” he said, motioning to the grotto. “It’s cold, but at least there’s food.”
As soon as Torv had walked through the portal, the Gamle had begun to reappear from the stone entranceway in the back of the cavern. They were terrified of the Ulvson man, but they didn’t seem to be at all scared of Ja and Kaia, and began to inspect the state of their grotto as the two humans decided on their next course of action. More and more Gamle spilled into the darkened cavern, grabbing the cords on the bottom of the enormous mirror and beginning the arduous task of re-fastening them high up on the cavern walls. Other boars started dragging out the dead bodies of the Ulvson men and that of the gray-haired man, whose corpse they didn’t treat with any more reverence than the barbarians, even though he had been some sort of leader to them.
As they worked, the Gamle began to sing in unison. Not the low, droll song they had sung during the star stone ritual, or the grating discordant one at the end of the battle with the Ulvson to drive the monster away. This was a happier tune, more upbeat with a pleasant melody. Both Ja and Kaia stopped their conversation when the song began and listened in. Kaia was only interested in it for a moment before she was ready to continue the discussion, but when she looked back at Ja, he was staring past her, listening closely.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I can understand what they’re saying.” He picked up and inspected the petrified tongue that hung around his neck. “I couldn’t before, but I can hear that they’re actually speaking. These people speak through song.”
“What are they saying?”
Ja focused in and his expression soured.
“Clean, clean, in light we clean, but darkness purifies everything.”
As Ja spoke, a singing Gamle dragged the lifeless body of an Ulvson man past him, and hearing Ja repeat the words, paused and gave the young man a beaming smile. Ja nearly gagged at the stench of rotten meat wafting from the Gamle’s robes.
A few moments later, Ja and Kaia were walking through the portal.
On the other side, the night air was warm and comforting. They could still hear the Gamle singing, but then Ja heard another sound. It was the tongue.
“Close the door behind you.”
Perturbed, Ja dug the mirror out of Kaia’s hide bag and stared at it with confusion. He tried to remember exactly what he had seen when the gray-haired man had opened the portal, but it had all happened so fast. The surface of the mirror still wasn’t reflective, but instead opalescent and quivering. Not knowing what else to do, he simply held the mirror up and spoke to it.
“Close the door, please?”
The quivering light on the surface of the mirror grew and intensified and Ja held it up to the portal and moved it through the air like he was erasing a drawing in the dirt with his hand. The portal faded away and with it the singing of the Gamle, until Ja and Kaia stood silent and alone in the rocky ravine path.
FATE INDEX:
1. Nothing happens when something is supposed to happen
2. Character loses one of their senses
3. Protagonist finds a source of healing/resurrection
4. Protagonist’s identity is thrown into question
5. People begin to question their belief system
6. Charismatic megafauna
7. A great artifact of the past is found, calling to a new owner
8. Social faux pas has serious consequences
9. The inevitable end is actually a rebirth
10. A member of the community who was heavily relied upon disappears
11. Discovery of higher technology
12. Monotony is broken
13. Character has portentous visions of a world they don’t recognize
14. Body swap
15. Too many cooks in the kitchen
16. Bodily functions begin to cause eerie physical changes
17. Something a character thought was important turns out to be totally unnecessary
18. Life is too good
19. A dam breaks creating massive flooding
20. Cat eat food
Outcomes Used:
4. Protagonist’s identity is thrown into question
7. A great artifact of the past is found, calling to a new owner
Added outcomes:
Acquiring a new object has catastrophic consequences
(thanks to Johannes)
Traditional gender roles are switched
(thanks to Charles)
