The Colossus

             Jack’s wings sliced through the air as we journeyed deep into the mist. If Chiron had told the truth, the monster was center stage, ready to take on its challengers.

            With every breath I took, wind saturated with water was forced down my throat, until I was practically drinking in a lungful of air. Around me, colors had no value, and all the space was pearly white in the thick mist.

            I found that by turning my body inside Jack’s four long talons that were entwined around me, I could steer him slightly, guiding him through the mist.

            I heard a squawking from somewhere eastward of my position.  It was shrill and loud, echoing throughout the space. Jack tightened his grip on my body, and before I could even think, he shot off towards the sound, carrying me with him.

            My eyes watered, but Jack kept his black bird head low, blocking most of the cold air from reaching my face. We were in a dive bomb, shooting out of the sky, straight towards the freezing water below.

            “Jack! Slow down!” I called to him over the loud wind that rushed past our faces. Jack ignored me and sped forward until a small, winged black shape came into view through the cloud of white.

            It was Avra. Jack and I circled around her as she struggled with her bird/gargoyle.

            “Hey! You alright?” I called to her.

            The winged beast flapped hopelessly, trying to stay afloat while Avra clung desperately to its long coiling talons, her bow hanging loosely around her neck and the arrows in her quiver jumbled around inside their leathery compartment, one or two falling out and down into the depths below.

            “It’s just a griffin! I can handle this!” she yelled, grunting with effort as she tried to settle herself in the griffin’s talons. It was almost amusing to see her struggle like this, but the emotion was struck dead as a great bellow, like the one that had sounded before throughout the mist, rattling my teeth and reverberating inside of my body.

            “Stop you, you . . . you IDIOT!” Avra screamed in desperation. Suddenly, the griffon that had looked so pathetic before, now snapped to attention, apparently accepting it’s title. It wrapped its long finger-like talons around her body securely and strapped her to its feathery stomach, then its wings leveled out and it soared for a moment on the soggy air.

            Just as she regained her balance, something black shot out of the sky, straight past us, and back into the mist. I looked over at Avra to see if she had seen it as well, but she was busy wheeling her arms and looking down nervously, almost sickly.

            “Whoa, whoa!” she cried, the griffin doing its best to listen to her commands, but it was hopeless, she panicked at the slightest sign of a bank or flap of the wings.

            “did you see that!?” I called to her, zooming around her as Jack sensed my movements and propelled me expertly wherever I wanted to go.

            “Whoa, whoa . . . what are you talking about? Whoa . . !” she replied, her voice shaking somewhat.

            “Never mind, I’ll take care of it,” I said, “just try not to kill yourself.” 

            “Oh shove it!” she yelled angrily.

            I laughed, turning with Jack and flying off in the direction that the other black creature had gone.

            Soon, Avra was gone from my view, and I was alone in the mist once again, but this time there was a different feeling in the air, a sense of malice.

            I had gone only a short distance when I caught first sight of the monster called colossus. At first, I thought I was approaching a wall of some sort, perhaps the inner edge of a bowl in which all of this mist had settled. Then, it shifted slightly, like a figure behind a silk curtain in the dead of night.

            My heart immediately began to pound, my pulse quickened, adrenaline shot through my body and I began thinking of moves and counterattacks I could take from my vantage point. The massive black wall shifted again, then sucked downward with unimaginable speed considering the creature’s immense size.

            I arched my back, directing Jack to carry me downwards. I hoped I still had the element of surprise, because I would need it if I was going to take this thing down with a few flimsy arrows.

            I saw the black mirage again, this time below me. I strove for it, gripped my bow in my left hand and prepared to knock an arrow into the string.

            The monster must have been at least the size of a skyscraper, if not, bigger. It darted away again, so quickly I could barely catch a glimpse of it as it snuck off deeper into the mist.

            Cursing under my breath, I pursued it once again, bracing my eyes against the wet, heavy air. Suddenly, I broke through the mist, and what I saw, I will never forget.

            The skyscraper-sized silhouette I had been chasing after belonged to a monstrous pale green tentacle with odd brown barnacles spotted all over it; the things were as big as my body, yet they were dwarfed by the gargantuan tentacle. However, as I realized with great horror, the huge thing was only one of eight limbs, all of the same utterly massive size, sprouting out the back of a turtle so large, I couldn’t even fit it in my field of view. I could only look upon the thousands of slimy, mossy green scales and rolls over its body, its head stuck out like a spiky mess, hardly distinguishable from the rest of its horrifying body, the four huge flippers at its sides were large enough to land a commercial sized airplane on, maybe even two. I had to turn my left and right head to look at the lot of it. The colossus floated lazily in the air, not touching the clearly visible black sea below it, but staying just a few miles above it.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the creature however, was that in the middle of the mass of swiveling, wiggling tentacles that sprouted in a ring around the edges of its back, was a castle. Its turrets and towers were practically covered with thick green moss that wound between the cracks in the stones and bricks in the walls, then accumulated in clumps of all shapes and sizes upon its surface. It looked like a beautiful palace that would have been the dwelling of some wealthy royal family at some point in time, but had suffered centuries of rot and decay.

Jack and I stared at the colossus, flabbergasted at the sheer size of it. Around the creature, the mist swirled but never breached the perfect sphere it formed, like it had created an oasis of clear air among the immaculate fog. Though as I watched, a small steady stream flowed from the surface of the mist, into a gill like flap on the colossus’s pale, wrinkly neck, then the oversized turtle exhaled a thick stream of the white air that flowed back into the wall. Sunlight found its way through the top of the misty sphere that seemed somewhat thinner than the rest of the area.

I studied it carefully, trying to discern a weak spot, but it was hopeless. If I made it past the tentacles, I would have to deal with the spikes, and even if I could get by those, there was no telling if I could actually find a way to bring it down.

Suddenly, a tiny black streak shot directly at the colossus’s forehead. The arrow glanced fruitlessly off the turtle’s impenetrable outer skin. Then, a griffin shot out at the turtle and began to mercilessly fire the tiny black arrows at the monster. However, it was pointless, the powerful griffin and deadly arrows might as well have been a fly shooting bread crumbs.

The colossus took notice of it though, it bellowed so loudly that my ears popped and my body felt like it was being pushed from all sides. The griffin below was also affected. The arrows stopped flying for a moment and the black dot froze in the air.

I watched in horror as one of the tentacles was brought down mercilessly upon the defenseless griffin. However, the green mass didn’t move quickly enough to catch the darting creatures movements and I saw the black dot reappear after the colossus had returned the tentacle to its slow, bloated movements, entwining in the other disgusting tendrils.

I cast off, flying as fast as I could toward the other challenger, anxious to find out who it was, although, I guess I should’ve known it was Kale.

I pulled alongside him, Jack swiveling his wings to keep me level. I saw the determined look in Kale’s eyes, his blonde hair was wet and blown back from flying, his griffin was slightly larger than mine, probably for his extra foot of height.

As I came into his view, he looked at me coldly.

“Back off, I’m going to kill him,” he said, anger dripping from his words like poison, “If I couldn’t kill that damned bull, then I’ll settle for killing this damned turtle!” With that, Kale kicked off, screaming a war cry, his griffin emitting a shrill, caw alongside him.

I tried to stop the two of them, but it was too late. They had reached the monster, shot an arrow that bounced uselessly off its skin and fell to the depths below. An enormous tentacle moved with the incredible swiftness I had seen before and fell upon him, crushing him. He couldn’t avoid it this time, his body was broken, and Kale fell to the black, icy water with a tiny splash.

“No,” I whispered quietly to myself. We were descending slowly without the updraft we got when we flew. Jack whimpered in a strange cooing sound, urging me to move.

Then, Avra tumbled out of the mist. She was almost on the verge of tears as she squeezed her griffin’s talons for dear life, its bird face miraculously showing a slight hint of pain.

“You stupid, flying, piece of . . . oh, my god.” She gasped as the colossus caught her eyes, “What the hell . . . is that!?”

“I thought you knew everything about the challenges.” I commented.

“Oh, shut up!” She yelled angrily.

A green blur descended from above, “Look out!” I screamed as the colossus’s mossy appendage was brought down upon us. Jack propelled me out of the way, and Avra’s griffon ‘Idiot’ managed to flap desperately around the tentacle as it whipped by us, Avra screaming in fear and Idiot squawking in annoyance.

I looked back at the gargantuan turtle, reawakened to its presence. Its menacing spikes puffed out and shifted, creating an image that was nothing short of intimidating. It gave off a groan, slow and powerful that echoed off the thick wall of mist. I looked over at Avra, but she still struggled with idiot, clamping onto him for dear life. She wouldn’t be much help to me in this fight.

I sighed, drawing in a deep breath, then took the bow into my hand, knocked an arrow as best I could, then, something inside me clicked. The arrow shot from the bow faster than a gun could shoot a bullet, directly at the beast faster than my eye could catch, and hit the monster directly in the forehead, between the spikes and down to the skin. A jet of inky black blood shot out of the wound like a tiny stream running through a jungle.

 It moaned in pain, but it wasn’t enraged, it was like I had just stabbed a tree with a toothpick.

Another tentacle was swung at me. Jack darted out of the way so quickly that I almost lost hold of the bow. It screeched at me, as if trying to tell me to hurry up with a plan. I glanced all around to make sure no more incoming tendrils of moss were coming after me, then shot down at the monster, thinking that maybe if I got close enough, the crushing tentacles would no longer be an issue.

Another tentacle swept across from the right. Jack avoided it, banking to the left and slicing through the air towards the edge of the mist. With wings beating hard, Jack flew me off towards the monsters left side which was covered in the deadly spikes.

Three tentacles simultaneously shot out at me, one sweeping across, and two falling from the sky. Jack took me over the one that swept across, skimming over the massive protrusion so close that I could smell the centuries of rot and decay that came off it. The others fell harmlessly past us.

Up close against the thick lining of spikes, Jack piloted me so I could shoot another arrow close up. I knocked it into the drawstring, feeling the dark wooden arrow as it brushed past my wrist. The arrow flew and penetrated the colossus’s hide. Blood spilled from the wound, but it was hardly even a drop in the bucket. I had several arrows left, and I wasn’t going to take this thing down by making it bleed to death.

The colossus moaned in pain again, causing the spikes along its absolutely enormous body to rattle tremendously, and then to shoot out at me.

They extended out like Spartan spears, five or six of them at once, blocking our path and threatening to impale us. Jack and I swerved and maneuvered them as best we could, dodging, rolling, banking, swerving in dizzying motions as we whipped by them, avoiding the pale blurs that narrowly missed our bodies. One emerged to my right, ripping my shirt and grazing my skin. Another ripped at Jack’s feathers, causing him to shriek in pain and lose altitude.

Another cut past my cheek, and I felt blood trickle backwards towards my hair, blown back from the wind that pressed against my skin. Then another managed to catch a large portion of my right leg. I screamed in pain as the spike cut through it, then ripped back out within the blink of an eye.

Jack cried in pain as his talons harnessing me to his feathery body were torn to shreds as another spike shot out, grazing my chest, splitting the skin and forcing a streak of crimson to spread through the white tunic I wore.

Suddenly, we reached the end of the spike field and were now flying along the monster’s bare neck. The green, slimy skin fell in rolls that cascaded the enormous tube that made up the creature’s neck. A slight draft pulled us towards the flap that protected the monster’s breathing hole. The pull turned stronger, sucking us into the monster itself.

“Come on you freaking bird! fly!” I yelled at Jack, urging him to escape the plunger-like suction of the breathing hole, but it was too late, Jack and I were sucked in along with the hurricane of mist through the scaly opening, and into the monster.

 

-

 

I awakened from a blackout, laying upon something wet. I opened my eyes with some effort as they were covered in some sort of slime. I rubbed it off, trying to stay calm as I gathered my composure. A low coo told me Jack was a few feet from where I sat.

“What the hell . . ? what is this?” I asked out loud, wiping the slime off of what was left of my tunic. As I spoke, the dried blood on my cheek cracked stiffly. I opened my eyes and found myself in complete darkness.

I felt the light brush of feathers on my arm as Jack rubbed against it. I raised my hand through the darkness to his soft head, and smiled to myself as he nuzzled it.

A strange gurgling sounded throughout the cavern. It rumbled and vibrated the squishy ground under me, I looked up, wide eyed and Jack clicked his beak nervously.

I got up, feeling pain shoot through my right leg as I limped forward, hands in front of me, venturing through the darkness, a slight ruffling of feathers echoing behind me. I ripped off a section of my shirt and wrapped it around the wound on my leg, wincing slightly as the grazing on my chest rubbed against itself. I took my first step, placing my foot down on something hard and out of place. I bent over and picked it up, realizing it was my bow, and my quiver was still attached to my hip, though it felt noticeably larger.

As I moved through the damp cave, my eyes began to adjust to the darkness and I was slowly able to make out objects and pathways that wound irregularly through the odd looking walls.

Another sound made its way to my ears over the moist gurgling of the inside of the monsters body, a squeaking sound, like mice that patrolled the insides of walls. The sound was ubiquitous, coming from everywhere at once.

It wasn’t frightening at first, but as it continued, getting louder then quieter then louder, it started to make me nervous.

Not that being inhaled by a giant turtle with a castle on its back didn’t make me nervous.

I passed under a low ceiling that drooped as if filled with liquid and entered a huge room that stretched up into a high ceiling. A series of pale ridges and natural formations in the tissue made it look like a staircase rose up to the ceiling. A long, thin pocket formed along the highest point above, and was studded with windows that allowed a few rays of light that fell down into the large space.

In the very center of the room, floating midway between the ceiling and the strange looking growths, a massive heart that looked like a bloated cantaloupe the size of a regular house, beat incredibly slowly. Thump . . . thump . . . thump. It echoed loudly throughout the wide expanse.

“What the . . ?” I started to say, then suddenly, the scratching, squeaking noise returned, even louder than before and I felt something sharp like a razor blade brush past my leg, scraping my skin down to the white. I backed away from the direction of whatever it was that had scratched me, and into the enormous room.

The thumping from the heart grew immediately louder as I entered beyond the contorting walls. The sunlight that reached my face was thread bare, but reflected brightly off Jack’s ruffled slick black feathers. He cowered behind me, his snaky tail tucked between his legs like a dog’s. I faced the mouth of the cave I had just exited, realizing how dark it was in contrast to the lit room. The squealing, squeaking scratching sound poured out, like a monstrous swarm resided in its depths. I pulled an arrow from my quiver and knocked it into the bow, drawing the string and raising it to eye level, then squared my shoulders and prepared to fire at any sign of movement.

The sound stopped.

It sent a cold shiver down my spine as the entire cavern went dead silent. I lowered the bow slightly and waited for something to happen, but the only sound in the entire place was the heart that thudded loudly behind me.

Suddenly, a clicking, hulking insect crawled out on six legs from the darkness. It was even larger than the heart that hung, swollen with blood behind me. It had to duck and squirm through the opening that the creature dwarfed, but when it escaped into the light, I could see it much better than I ever would have wanted to.  It had a mossy green shell like that of the turtle, but the black pincers that sprout menacingly from its green body were shiny and clean looking. The insect’s head had two enormous eyes that glittered brightly the same green as its shell. Dark, matted hair stuck out oddly from beaks in the insect’s armor. I didn’t know how the colossus survived knowing it had something as horrible as this living inside it, feeding off of it.

I let an arrow fly at the insect with speed enough to kill. However, the arrow glanced harmlessly off the insect’s armor and landed far away.

“Oh . . . crap.” I said, turning and running for dear life, my footsteps making sloshing sounds on the moist floor. The insect crawled after me, clicking its pincers threateningly. I climbed a nearby growth that rose oddly out of the ground. It wasn’t hard to scale, my hands sunk in to the grayish mass and created holdings that I used to climb higher.

Once at the uneven peak of the mass, I looked back down to see the insect headed towards me, its head rose over the growth and I knew I wouldn’t be safe here. I looked over to the larger mass that towered up close to the heart. I made the split second decision and dove for it, crossing the narrow gap suspended in the air. Jack fluttered nearby, squawking shrilly at the insect and  urging me to move faster.

The top half of my body landed on the slimy protrusion and I sunk into it, making it easy to bring the rest of my body up. Looking ahead, a narrow pathway twisted upwards, around the growth towards the beating muscle above.

“Well, it seems one of the challengers has successfully made it to the lair of the colossus.” Chiron’s icy voice rang. “Things are just now beginning to get interesting.” He said.

 So the turtle wasn’t the colossus . . . it was this giant bug? I thought wildly. A snap next to me brought me back to reality, as the insect’s pincers shot at me in an attempt to impale me. I ducked out of the way and made my way up the spiraling path. All the while the insect snapped at me, raising itself higher and higher off the ground to reach me. A few times I narrowly escaped decapitation as a claw flew out and imbedded itself in the gray wall near my face.

I got to the top after a few more seconds of climbing and jumping over the mass of twisting slimy forms. The insect then began to climb up after me, sticking all six of its legs into the growth and moving up like a skilled mountain climber.

I was trapped. Jack flew circles around where I stood, screeching in panic, the monster almost upon me. The beating of the heart above me stayed slow, while mine raced a thousand beats a second.

Then, a sudden, stupid idea occurred in my head. I wasn’t a doctor, but I was pretty sure that if something punctures your heart, you’re pretty much dead without some kind of surgery. So in the split second between when the first horrible pincer gripped the top edge of the growth and when it brought its head up to look at me with its green eyes glinting menacingly in the light, I knocked an arrow, my second to last one, and fired it straight up into the giant turtle’s heart.

The effect was immediate. Black blood exploded all over the cavern from the tiny wound that suddenly ripped apart from the pressure of the inky liquid pouring out. The cavern began to sag and move in places, like the inside of an air mattress when you unhook the cap.

The growth I stood on started to shift and quake, throwing me off balance. However, the monstrous insect kept a firm grip on the slowly paling protrusion. I was exhausted, and had no hope of escaping this thing if it decided to attack. I closed my eyes and waited for something to happen.

Then, over the sound of the giant turtle’s deep bellows of agony that had begun to sound throughout the cavern, Jack screamed and beat his wings with tremendous speed, forcing my eyes open to see what was happening. He darted around the insect as it tried to swipe at him with its pincers. The colossus was fast, but it couldn’t compare with Jack’s 360 degree vantage points. Another claw let go of the wall as the creature tried harder and harder to swat at the pesky griffin that sped around and clawed at the chinks in the its armor when he could.

The ground shifted again, throwing me over to the edge of the growth, nearly falling over the side. Struggling to stay on, I grabbed fistfuls of the gray mass and managed to bring most of my body back over.

I could only imagine what this looked like from the outside as the formless shapes twisted and folded over each other. Then, the insect not a yard from me, finally let go with another claw, trying as hard as it could to bring down Jack, who continued to outmaneuver it. However, another quake in the pale growth proved too much for the colossal insect, causing it to lose its grip entirely and waver precariously in the air. I stood up, removing the last arrow from my quiver, knocking it into the bow and aiming for the insect. I let my arrow fly immediately, the black tip striking the gargantuan bug directly between its hideous eyes. It screamed in pain fell down to the floor that rolled like a raging sea below.

I dropped the black bow as Jack darted to me as fast as he could, wrapping me up in its talons and flying off towards the top of the windowed shaft. The ceiling around me began to collapse completely and as I looked down, a horrible shriek exploded from the huge bug as the thousand tons of flesh collapse upon it, crushing it into powder.

Above me, the thin tube that housed the windows was beginning to shrink away, no, it was crumbling. As I watched, bricks covered in moss fell past us as we sped towards the light that came from the shrinking opening. With one final groan from the enormous turtle, the gap closed.

Jack and I exploded through the heavy wall, shattering the bricks into shards. I looked back as the enormous turtle I had previously thought to be the colossus shrank and fell to the lake of shadow, forming a massive maelstrom in the center. The castle on its back began to topple, crumbling into thousands of pieces, its tentacles curling inwards like the legs of a dead spider.

I had won. Avra screamed in triumph as I looked over at her, then gripped idiot again as she scrambled to stay in the air. The turtle uttered one final bellow as it collapsed into the maelstrom in the most incredible way imaginable, water crashed over its body as it was sucked down into the depths of the lake.

I was still breathing hard and suddenly felt extremely exhausted and yet, strangely happy. I took my deep breaths and piloted Jack over to Avra, then with my help, the two of us descended through the clearing mist.

The black water was being sucked down into a hole that had formed in the center of the lake. The turtle had completely vanished, evaporated into the air, turning into the mist that now fled the dark place.

The two of us landed on the dried, craggy earth. Our griffins unwound themselves from our bodies and fell, exhausted to the ground beside us. A collection of mist had accumulated in front of us. I knew who would step out, and I knew what he was going to say. However, my mind was stuck in a daze and I couldn’t think without my mind wandering to the absolutely incredible feat I had just accomplished.

“Well, that certainly made for an exciting challenge . . . very nicely done.” Chiron said, clapping his hands together lazily. “You two, and that other idiot child who hasn’t done a single entertaining this entire time,” he commented grudgingly, “will return to the finalist suites and prepare for tomorrow. This time, you will be granted a few more privileges than previous stays. Just remember not to wander about, or you will be removed from the game, regardless of standing.”

With that, Chiron walked back into the mist and disappeared. Dark shadows fell in front of us and covered us with their hands once again, blinding us.

We were led towards the rocky path that seemed somewhat dryer and easier to walk along than I remembered. The two of us were placed back into the boat, then felt a plop as another body, most likely the freckle faced boy, got into the boat as well. We cast off from the rocks and I found myself listening to the calming sound as the tiny waves bumped lightly against the outside of the little boat.

I knew we were going back to the Hotel Styx for another night of sleep, but I couldn’t pretend to know what would happen after that. These challenges had seemed to get stranger and more frightening with each passing night, and the finals were ahead of us.

The end of the line, I thought. Tomorrow would decide whether I become a dead man, or an immortal. I wasn’t prepared for it, even though at the start of the challenge I had figured I could play ruthlessly and take the title for myself. However, now I was unsure of myself.

I blocked it all out of my head. I would cross that bridge when I came to it. For now, all I could do was look into the wind, and hope that everything would turn out alright.

Author's Note

Ignore the grammar mistakes please.

Reviews

[TL Boehm]

stellar - simply stellar

[Drifter]

Hm, parts of it could use a little work. Other than that, it reads much like the previous chapters. Having done archery (and wielded a sword), I have to say that I enjoy those elements within this tale.

[aaaa]

I came to read your last chapter and decided to review them all while am I it. Pretty good. Can't wait for you to continue it.

[HorrorMaster]

Very good I enjoy it.

[WriterSki7]

So far, so good. Not much more I can say abotu this chapter. It's a lot like the others; same style, same envorinment; you haven't done anything bad, but you not necessarily getting any better, either.

[Star Wolf]

You have great story telling skills, this story kept me interested and reads smoothly, which is very nice.

[James Watts]

This a nice read. Kept me interested and moved along at a smooth pace. The imagery works well. After a good polish I don't see any reason why you couldn't submit it.

[jhed]

seriously i'm not into reading long stories but this is good..very detailed..

[Katie Louise Hughes]

I'm usually not enthralled with fantasy writing, but this is very good- it made me wanting to keep reading. :) I'm impressed by your descriptions, and overall imagination. Thanks!!

[The Analog Kid]

Nice details! I am thoroughly enjoying this.