Danger on the Kerith

 Floating along on the Kerith, the day was lovely, with a gentle breeze…I lay on my stomach on the deck of the boat with my eyes closed, warm but not baking since the sun was behind the clouds. The scent of damp wood filled my nose as I lay with my cheek pressed to the deck. My arm hung the side, with my fingertips occasionally brushing the surface of the water as small swells moved past the boat. The breeze softly caressed my back. I lay there in complete relaxation and contentment, letting the warmth from the sky and the deck soak into my very bones. I could hear the wind rustle the sails a bit, some bird calls from the shore, and the gentle lap of the water on the hull. Nothing mattered right now except for the peace I felt.

Warmth, relaxation, peace, contentment…ummmm…I dozed a bit, not thinking of anything, just being for a while.

“She Wolf! SHE WOLF!”

I startled awake with my heart pounding, jumping up in a panic. “What!?” I gasped.

The man sailing the boat for me looked at me apologetically. “You must not let your hand dangle in the water in this section of the river. I am sorry to disturb you, but it really isn’t safe.”

I glared at him. “But it was safe before?”

“Actually, yes. It was a few hundred meters back when we entered the dangerous area. I woke you as soon as I realized where we were.”

“What’s so dangerous about it?” I grumbled, crabby from being yanked out of my comfortable state. I looked around me. The Kerith and its banks looked the same as they had earlier. I couldn’t see any difference that would make things dangerous all of a sudden.

The guide pointed back down the river. “Do you see that tall tree there? That is the dividing line.”

I looked back and saw an enormous tree towering above the rest of the vegetation like a giant. “What sort of tree is that, anyway? And what is it dividing?”

“We call it the Guardian Oak. It lives with its feet in the water. Its roots are incredibly long, and they go all the way across the Kerith, like a fence running underwater. The fire fish refuse to swim past the tree and its roots. It may be magic; we don’t really know. We just accept the gift of the Guardian Oaks.”

I was impressed; the Kerith was very, very wide here, and even as huge as the tree was, it was amazing that the roots traveled as far as they did. Magic? Probably. Then the rest of what he had said sunk in. “Fire fish?” I asked.

“The fire fish live in this part of the river. We think they are strange children of the volcano…I will show you why when we round the next bend. Just do not touch the water whatever you do.”

I looked up at the volcano. We were still many miles away, but it glowered over the whole landscape, with sullen clouds of ash surrounding its peak and dull red lava oozing down its sides. I wasn’t thrilled with trying to appease such an angry looking thing. And now I had its children, fire fish, to contend with? Just ducky.

“What do the fire fish do?” I asked the guide.

“Wait, and I will show you,” he replied.

I waited in silence, sitting on the deck with my arms around my knees, keeping well away from the sides of the boat. When we rounded the next bend, I could see a break in the heavy vegetation on the bank that was closest to the volcano. As we got closer, I saw that it was a cooled lava flow that had run all the many miles to the river. Then I saw that the river nearby was steaming slightly and even bubbling a little bit. There must still be lava moving underneath the cooled crust, or maybe a hot spring came up here.

The guide spoke. “The fire fish come out from here. Take this” and he thrust a large piece of fish at me, “and toss it in the water. Not too far, I want you to see what happens.”

I did as he requested, tossing the fish into the water near the boat. Almost immediately, the water there boiled and bubbled and the fish disappeared.

“Piranha?” I asked.

“No, they are fire fish. Do that again and then scoop with this net.” He handed me a small net on a long pole. It was really heavy and I saw that it was made of metal – handle, net, and all.

I tossed in the fish and then scooped as soon as the motion in the water started. I came out with a small, bright red fish flipping angrily in the net. The water clinging to him sizzled and burst into steam.

“A fire fish,” the guide said. “If you were to touch him, you would find your fingers burnt rather badly. They cook and eat any flesh that they sense in the water. No other fish will live here and the fire fish are usually hungry. Very, very hungry. Some fish will swim into the area by accident, and once in a while some careless animal will fall into the water and be eaten, but mostly the fish stay unfed. Yet they do not seem to die. They just wait…Some of the locals will feed them to keep them from becoming dangerously hungry. There was once a group who worshiped them as children of the volcano and makes sacrifices of pigs and cows on a regular basis. Me, I am just glad that the Guardian Oaks exist. There is another one just ahead that guards this end of the section.” He pointed and I could see the tree towering ahead.

“It would be awful if those things got out,” I shuddered.

“Once, someone tried to bring them out. They died as soon as they were put into the water on the other side of the Guardian.”

” Ugh! Good thing, too! That would be awful. What happened to the person who did that?”

“Punishment.” And that was all he would say on that issue. Then he continued, “Sometimes people will bring their washpots and things that need boiling to the edge of the water. They scoop out some water and a fire fish to boil it. As long as they stay here and use the water from here, it will work. The fire fish can be used this way. When they are done, they dump the fish back. It works.” He shrugged.

“The water here must be really hot,” I said.

“It is, both from the volcano and the fire fish. Here.” He handed me another pole, this one with a scoop on it.

I scooped up some water and felt it – it was almost hot enough to make tea with!

“It cools some near the edges, but not a lot. The fire fish like to swim near the edges, hoping for stray fish to eat – they keep the water plenty hot there, too.”

We were sailing towards the end of the section now. I was relieved; the fire fish made me uneasy. Then the wind stopped.

It didn’t just die off slowly. It stopped, just like that. We were sitting there, dead in the water in the fire fish zone. I heard a plopping noise, and looked around to see several fire fish jumping out of the river.

 I turned to the guide and he was as pale as a ghost. “I…I …I have heard legends of this happening…but I never…” He looked up at me. I thought he was going to faint. “They say that sometimes the fire fish get so hungry that they will use magic to stop a boat so they can have a meal. They make the wind stop for a sail boat, or the water swirl so a rowed boat cannot go anywhere. Then they will surround the boat and jump over it until they…well, until they can feed.” He gulped. So did I.

There were more fire fish now, and they were jumping closer to the boat and higher into the air. One bold fish tried to jump over the boat and missed. He flopped on the deck, sizzling. The guide swore and grabbed the net to scoop him out. He left a charred spot on the deck. Another one jumped and landed on the deck, and then another. We were in desperate trouble now.

I looked around – we were only a short distance from the Guardian Oak. I saw a large coil of rope on the bow of the boat and then I had an idea. I shoved the guide towards the bow and said, “Grab that rope and make sure it’s tied tight to the boat. Then give me the end of it!” I was rummaging in my magic bag from Enchanteur the whole time. It seemed like it took forever to find the wings. I put them on quickly and then ran to the bow, dodging jumping and flipping fire fish as I went. I grabbed the free end of the rope and took off.

I flew through a storm of fire fish, heading for the Guardian Oak as quickly as I could. I had to fly low because of the trees hanging overhead near the banks and I felt one of the fish graze my ankle as I flew. It burned immediately and I flew faster than ever, now dodging and weaving as I went to avoid the hungry fish, which seemed to be following me. I could hear them jumping and splashing back into the water below me. Another few got me, but then I was at the barrier and to the huge branches of the Guardian Oak.

I stood on one of the broad branches and looped the rope around the next one. Then, using the branch for leverage, I pulled. I pulled as hard as I could, leaning back and tugging, fluttering the magic wings for balance. The boat started to move. I pulled harder, moving hand over hand down the rope. I could hear the guide shouting – I hoped he was shouting with joy, not pain and fear. This was taking far too long. I was afraid there wouldn’t be anything left by the time I got the boat to the Guardian Oak. Pull, pull, pull, pull…Then I could hear the guide yelling, “Stop! You did it! Stop!” I had pulled the boat out of the way of the fire fish. The danger was over.

I collapsed on the branch, puffing with relief and exhaustion. I still didn’t let go of the rope – I was afraid the boat would drift back if I did.

I could hear the guide doing something down below, and then he called, “Come down now. I have moored the boat to the tree and we will be safe!”

I pulled the rope I had used to tow us out of danger from around the branch and tossed it down to the boat. Then I flew down too.

The boat was a mess, with charred spots and the smoking remains of fire fish everywhere. The guide sported a patchwork of burns, but he was grinning anyway. Now that the danger was over, I could feel my own burns again.

The guide hugged me ecstatically and then said, “The fish seemed to follow you when you flew off. Only a few stayed with the boat – it was strange. But it did save me and the boat.”

 I looked around again. It looked to me like more than enough of the fish had stayed.

“Come, let us pull the boat through the branches and over to the shore. There is a village near here that we can walk to. We will tell them about the fish. They can return with something to feed them with and then they can bring the boat to us. We can get salve for our burns while they do this.” The guide was putting actions to his words, and moments later we were scrambling ashore.

The path was right behind the trees lining the river bank and we were soon at a small village. The villagers were very upset that the fire fish had done this and quickly dispatched a party with some oxen that had been butchered the day before. I fished out some gold to pay the villagers, but they waved it off.

“This is our job,” they said. “We are supposed to keep this part of the Kerith safe…But it is odd. They should not have been that hungry so soon.”

Some of the other villagers brought us a wonderful salve for our burns. The village shaman was with them.

The shaman eyed me speculatively. “They may have been after something else. You may have been the target. You are a seeker, no? From Enchanteur?”

I nodded.

“It has been known to happen before. You are going to the volcano…” he stopped and just looked at me. It was unnerving. Finally he continued, “Sometimes it happens that other forces do not want the volcano appeased. You appear to have drawn the interest of some of these forces. Be very careful…They will not give up easily. The dragon fish will just have been their first effort.”

“Dragon fish?” My head jerked up.

“Yes – that is our local name for the fire fish. Why?”

“Oh boy!” I shuddered – and it wasn’t because it was hurting to smear on the burn salve, either.

-She Wolf © 2008