Sons of Alcant: Book 1, #1

By Sonia Córdoba and Alberto Valverde

Medieval and current epic. Past and present. Light and darkness. God and Lucifer. The catholic church and secret brotherhoods. Love and terror. Murders and friendship. Immortality and loneliness. Heroes and villains. War and peace. Mythology and reality ...Mystery and adventure await you on the other side of the threshold of hell.
A thrilling, different adventure, full of scenarios that come alive at every page break, where nothing is as it seems. Sons of Alcant represents the eternal search of the human being, through the solitude of two immortal beings. A story that navigates between two timelines not giving truce to the reader, with a conductive thread so changing, that it goes from the most disturbing reality, to merging with the most surrealist fantasy.Even love can become the door to hell for man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Apr 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781071537664

Book preview

I

January 1, 1432

Alcant

«The memory of the heart eliminates bad memories and magnifies good ones. Thanks to that article we managed to cope with the past »

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The fall of the last leaves announced the arrival of winter, and with it the first rains. The wind dropped leaves lost in delicate balance, covering the soil with a layer ocher and Yellow to inviting longing. That night seemed placid, a gift he gave in rarely a spoiled autumn end. The sky rested exhausted after his last battle, showing a black mantle dotted with stars that shone from the depths of the distance, showing before the truce as if they were claiming a place and their own existence in the universe. The moon rose powerful, owner of the night; full, visible, full of luminosity and anger in equal parts for having felt humiliated by the fury of the Gods. Hidden to prying eyes by the dark embrace of the clouds, it was once again a beacon of the night; Traveler guide, enemy of unsuspecting and ally of lovers. A silent witness, mute and unattainable. Full of secrets, she was challenging. Exhibiting his power, l did not allow a dome green that made the tops of the trees it will eclipse your hours in the darkest gloom. In that land surrounded by mountains, leafy forests stems of time grew imposing, triumphant over the immense nature. In one of those forests, the closest to the city of Alcant, was a place, a small earthly paradise almost unknown to man. 

Was about thirty years when the fourteenth century lent itself to make way for the upcoming fifteenth century heralding the end of the Middle Ages, two boys just over ten years began what would become one of his best and unforgettable adventures of youth, offered for those territories that their parents conceptualized as sullen, zainos and hostile. A prohibited territory for the puericia of two children. 

After the great famine between 1315 and 1317, Europe suffered one of its biggest socio—economic crises, causing millions of deaths. An unusual time, wet and cold, after years of meager harvests, rotten crops and food shortages, produced a widespread famine that seemed never to end. Meanwhile, crime rose and, in the rage of religion, the prayers had no effect. The belief in demons danced devilish rounds.                                                                          

Now crime had been drastically reduced, the greatest danger being the vastness of the forest and the ease of disorienting and getting lost in it. That hodgepodge between mountains and steep terrain, extensive plains of green meadows surrounded by huge trees, collaborated to embarrassment. The mountains were dotted with hidden caves, and among the trees winding innumerable streams that converged giving rise to his death in a huge river: The Nerv. 

The river and the knowledge of its roots were the compasses that allowed to move safely through the distant and winding roads that surrounded the slopes confusing the wandering in its course. The difficult access and the unlikely encounters with the criminal acts of day laborers, dwellers in the bowels of the forest, were the reasons why Alcant and the surrounding area had become a haven of peace. This was helped by the army that guarded the entrance and exit of the forest. 

These were difficult times to which an uncontrollable epidemic known as the Black Death had joined: the most destructive pandemic of the Middle Ages. All this, together with the same compass of a devastating desolation, turned those lands plagued with demons by the atrocities committed by man for his survival, in a walk through the underworld; providing the forest with a dreary aura that grew as the stories became legends. Those forests were known as The Devil's Dwelling. 

Hundreds of people perished inside, victims of each other in the face of the possibility of leaving to The Dwelling. Good for the soldiers who guarded her impassively, well because most never knew how to get out. Fleeing, unaware of the place where they were seeking refuge, many daring tried to challenge her by penetrating her. 

A hundred stories were blamed on the forest. For years countless stories had been passed from parents to children as a persuasive method so that the unsuspecting did not enter their guts. They created instructive tricks so that young people, eager for emotions and adventures, respected the forest; stories with a macabre and rugged dye, of mutilated bodies everywhere, slaughtered, impaled ... Faces in which the fear of the last breath of life had been reflected; corpses piled up being grass of rats. A dantesque image even for the insensitive. 

It was never known why no one saw them leave, even when the soldiers abandoned the surveillance of that enormous security perimeter that they had guarded for years. 

Eventually all forgot and normalcy is Out Reset tio. Thefts, murders, disappearances ... All this gave way to songs by troubadours and stories of protective parents. The children, with attentive ears, witnessed astonished from the mouth of one of their elders, the story that this, the oldest of the place, offered. He had lived more adventures and had more to tell. While recounting with exacerbated theatricality and great fuss, the children listened with greedy eyes to speak of bloodthirsty beasts capable of destroying their victims with a single blow. He described in detail the diameter of the jaws and the size of the sharp fangs. The tension kept the children in an internal struggle, debating in the constant of hearing, or not, what the old man related. 

The people of Alcant returned to transit the forests with the security of yesteryear. The stories had become that, legends told in the dawn of winter nights to the bonfire of a bonfire in the center of the square. 

Except for those episodes, Alcant had always been a peaceful place. An almost impregnable fortress. The distance that had to be traveled until arriving became eternal. 

Although the battles were disputed far from there, the Hundred Years War, which for years followed by control of the continent between English and French, Alcant splashed indirectly, leaving sequel to what happened; there was no logical lag between the causes and the consequences. As in the rest of Europe, where authoritarian monarchies ended up imposing themselves, here also the power of kings increased in a pactist or equilibrium way. They went from depending on the hierarchy of a lord, to having a king who concentrated all political power. Of course, it was the same dog but with a different collar. By some strange branching in his family tree, it turned out that the lord was now king, and Alcant became a kingdom...                                                                                                            Children were not allowed to enter the forest. Respect for the elders and the stories they told was enough not to enter The Devil's Dwelling. But those two children were not like the rest. They had rebellion running through their veins. Students’ seasoned, intelligent and normal curiosity of the age, any story or puzzle was a challenge and an adventure to discover. That innate interference had brought them severe punishment and spanking. All in all, it wasn't enough to stop his crazy little heads. They took advantage of an afternoon in which the tutor of the school had felt unwell, and decided to investigate a little around, near Jop's house. 

Actually the idea was from Seb. 

Seb was fearless and determined, impetuous and very impulsive. His intelligence and cunning touched perfection. He was right—handed with the sword, sticks, or anything that could swing and serve to defend himself. Jop, more leisurely, cerebral and thoughtful, possessed the prudence that Seb lacked. So young, he liked to mature ideas well and their repercussions. He emerged as a skilled strategist in a game of the time, arising from the merger of three others: the chips on the boards, the chess board, and the movements of the *Alquerque.                                                                                                                                              Called Ferses — in its early name by which the queen was known in chess — , it required analyzing and assessing not only the consequences generated by possible movements, but also those caused by the opponent. This constant elaboration of planning a strategy depending on the degree of information that Jop had from the beginning, evidenced the elders for their agility of response. Jop was a good disciple in everything he intended, but the sword resisted him. He lacked Seb's spontaneous initiative to get into trouble, but in return he was a great mediator. 

Descendants of knights, his destiny was to join the ranks of King´s Guard. Although on occasions like that they already felt like one of them, willing to embark on adventures for the truth, to solve the wrongs and fight battles away from Alcant, to return victorious and count their exploits in loas. Or how they did justice facing thieves, criminals and people of the worst kind, imposing order and respect for the law. 

At that age preponderant in them clearly remarkable attitudes for that future they were working. 

* Alquerque: Base of the game that today is known as Checkers

They knew until the last recess of Alcant. They knew by heart the alien life of each inhabitant. What they most wanted was to be fifteen to enter the castle and finish their training.  

The only place they did not know so far, which led them to wish it impatiently. 

Apart, there was another to investigate. The one who kept more mysteries and whom they had only heard about in the mouths of others. 

Under promise not straying too, left the esplanade overlooking Jop´s house, on top of a small hill, and rum in some bushes under the thicket of lhe trees. Jop remembered that when entering, following a narrow path formed on the basis of so much trampling the grass, a stream flowed that constituted a pool to which his father used to take them to bathe and fish. After the first trees of the great tangle that formed the forest — the one that put each color in its place and gave life to an inanimate landscape —, they entered a territory decorated by a multitude of ocher leaves that rested on the ground and creaked in step. . They arrived where the treetops were linked in an endless embrace, giving the afternoon a subtle sinister touch but, in turn, relaxing chiaroscuro dotted with lights and shadows, turning that enchanted forest into a gloomier one. Despite the effort to find a silver lining through the gaps in the wilderness, just a few rays of light getting projected and vertically n could be left where noted. 

They reached the river, which was passing a couple of spans below the level of the grass hidden beneath the leaf litter. The erosion had caused those shores that served as a destination for excursions in summer. They decided to follow the course of the creek. They did not leave, although they should leave the shore to get around some obstructed passage because of the rebel growth of the vegetation, or some fallen trunk, directing them parallel between river and trees.                                                                     

Where they did not find the adventure that their children's heads and hearts craved, a discovery would placate any hint of disappointment. A small world to suit his imagination would become the largest of the secrets. 

The river turned to the left in front of one, in principle, a small mountain that stood arid and steep from some point of the forest to penetrate the water. On the other side the situation was repeated. It may be that the same mountain approached the course of the river, crouched behind the lush forest, causing it to hit the rock as if it found a dike in the road. 

The river escaped between two mountains whose skirts outlined a threshold where water was forced to pass. Changing the green landscape to the gray arid, leaving the company of the trees for steep rock walls that watched menacingly. Shallow and far between banks, it didn't seem like a good idea to continue there; least go into the forest trying to surround the mountain and then meet him again. They did not know its diameter and, therefore, how much it would force to penetrate between the trees distancing itself from the shore. Maybe a few meters, but who knew if hundreds. Both options involved penetrating into unknown territory. They did not know when the river would recover the forest, nor where. Or if I would go directly to the Nerv later. Maybe the rock would end just beyond where the view reached. In that situation they understood how soon the forest could begin to be hostile and mysterious. They were barely a kilometer from Jop's house! 

It was the only area they knew about the forest, and they were already requiring a decision: wanting or not to continue an adventure that had only just begun, posing a challenge. That was not like exploring the narrow, dark streets of Alcant, or the surroundings of the castle. It was exciting, dangerous, unknown and, above all, forbidden. A tempting cocktail to succumb in temptation some free and curious spirits. 

They soon realized that their research mischief and little step to glory when they told their incursion into that dreaded place, had come to an end. 

They watched the water hit the rock, when Jop narrowed his eyes and frowned as he watched the water flowing strangely. Seb knew that look. His friend had seen something that caught his attention. And Jop was not one of those who warned of any lightness. On the contrary, the subtle was assumed by him naturally. In the training they received from strategy, consisting in boosting memory and accentuating reasoning ability, they were bored. Games of errors in which competed by obligation. When the tutor was considering it and the others had not started the challenge, he had assimilated what it was and solved it. Without instructions. It was obvious in his eyes. 

Despite their young age, they felt the challenge of the challenge. Sometimes they would go down from the castle to challenge the invincible child, as he was known. The Ferses had given him great recognition. His strategy and dominance did not go unnoticed by anyone, not even his father. Given the position of Edward Greenval II, royal knight of Alcant, it was not too funny that he was a reason for betting among the population. Jop and Seb had been entertained on more than one occasion. Jop's abilities had come and gone from word of mouth. Much merchants came to Alcant to give witness that filled impossible to satiate ego is counted and replenish when they were defeated by a child. That really hurt... 

Although his father did not like and some spanking had been taken as a result, Jop thought it was not bad that some of the poor people in the town took some money, food or material, to outsiders. He had stopped playing for a while when the opponent was a neighbor. 

A Seb, from an early age, is also interested rum ladies, something that would become a true strategist. Of course it was another type of ladies... 

As a little and stretched as skilled, as well as fast with his little wooden sword, the women soon began to get his attention. He foolish and plucked kisses on the lips of the girls of the town; I watched the maids and girls when they bathed in the barracks next to the Palace; he spied on couples when they kissed goodbye in the gloom of the alleys ... He flirted with women who the youngest could be their mother. 

Alenda, who was, said she was too young for those things. While his father, Thio Venom, was filled with male pride for the man he had fathered, laughing at the grace and occurrences he showed. Encouraged him to his friends that when he grew enjoy women without trying to understand them or to ignore their chicanery, because it could end up like him: a captain of the guard who was no more than a private in your own home. When he said this he looked with a smile of complicity at his wife, and she corresponded with another older one. 

He knew that his father loved his mother. I idolized her. He loved her from the first time he saw her. I used to tell her about it some other night, alone at bedtime, when Seb, spurred by that premature curiosity, asked how he met her. Her father would abandon anything to return home with her, with them. But first of all, he was a captain of the king's guard ... Especially in front of friends. Alenda, on the other hand, told her that one day she would meet someone, and then there would be no more women in her heart in the world. I would only have eyes for her. While attended and l advice of his father, he had a full life. Had fun. He had fun and enjoyed. A lot. Except for the occasional scuffle with the presence of a built—in husband, which consequently led to a problem. When things got too complicated there was Jop to fix it. Jop could be both the best possible mediator, and the best companion of arms he could wish to always have at his side. 

The day that happened what Alenda predicted, the day he met love in its purest state, that day everything ended. 

Or worse yet ... Where the light guided each of his steps, everything turned dark.                                                                      

Even love can become the door to hell for man. 

— What are you looking at, Jop? 

Seeing that he was still in the same attitude, Seb had been carried away by impatience and did not expect one of his eternal analyzes to end. Jop was one of those who liked to explain the solution, or to say this or that ... Why it seemed too obvious. But when he thought so much, he explained himself rejoicing in his knowledge. It was the only moment of vanity he allowed in his life. Never arrogantly. He needed to show what was interesting, instructive, revealing and a challenge to the layman. In a relaxed, entertaining and masterly way, he needed the spur of the discussion to give an air of drama to the endless and tiresome rant for less attentive ears. Years later I would placate this vanity by teaching strategy in the army. If you fought next to Jop the bloodshed would be less and the battle more comfortable, increasing the chances of victory. But yes, he liked to share. In Jop, vanity and ostentation were not a defect. I just didn't have them. 

Seb, although as good—hearted as he, would always be a lot more bragged in everything. 

— Hey! What are you looking at— He asked impatiently. 

— Have you noticed where the water hits the rock, rising to fall to the left and follow the channel through the mountains? 

—Yes, the water hits the rock ... it rises ... it falls again ... and continues. What a thing! — Replied Seb, raising his shoulders. 

—For grown running water should be the to get up to hitting the wall. 

Nor is it that he was very grown, because the water would barely reach the knees, but in comparison to other occasions he was tall. Usually it covered above the ankles and flowed placid or. 

— AND? — Seb asked with incredulous face, anticipating that the pertinent explanation was approaching — Sciences not now, please! Let me continue to thank in my soul who has served that murderous soup that has our guardian prostrate in the toilets ... Do not start now! 

Your eyes met with complicity and loud laughter unison echoed in the forest. It had just become clear that this excursion had not been entirely spontaneous.

— It was you! — Jop said funny. — But how? 

—After the morning classes, being the last to leave because Mr. Mills was reprimanding me, I have seen Mrs. Mills in the kitchen preparing lunch. Then I remembered that the other day Mr. Mills took a bottle of laxative from a shelf in the hallway, next to the kitchen entrance. I know it because it is the same as the one the apothecary prescribes to my mother for constipation — they both smiled — He threw a couple of drops in the tea while we were in the study hour. Well, while I was trying to throw a head... And after a while, he shot towards the toilet! 

—Yes, I remember that ... Then? 

—I went back on my steps, I noticed that Mr. Mills was picking up and tidying up the desks, I took the bottle, went into the kitchen and asked Mrs. Mills politely to give me some water ... When she went out to the patio to fill a glass in the bomb... 

— How much did you throw? 

—Let us say that Mr. Mills asked me to reflect on my attitude, and I am now offering him the possibility to reflect on his, sitting quietly in the latrine. I just hope that Mrs. Mills's good one has eaten something else, because otherwise the situation can be quite embarrassing! 

Both laughed imagining the thin Mr. Mills and his good lady, playing a position in the latrine. 

Jop regained seriousness and looked back at the water. Seb understood that the class was not over. 

—See what happens? — He asked pretending to implore an explanation as he raised his arms and looked up at the sky. 

—Nothing, only because of the rains the river falls with more force than normal, and yet, when it hits the rock, the impact does not make it rise in the proportion that would correspond. 

— And what are they, math? —Seb was lost. He didn't quite understand what Jop had meant. — Are you really not taking your mother's cough syrup? 

—It's simple, look at the other side.

Something so obvious that it had not occurred to him. He watched the other shore. The water beat against the rock rising above the level more than on the side on which they were. 

— And what happens? —Seb still didn't understand Jop's interest. It could not even be said that it was a curious fact. Jop stuff! 

—That part of the water is leaking below the mountain.

Seb, to whom any minimal and even none—existent invitation seemed apologetic enough to start fieldwork and move from observation to action, got into the water without much care, splashing Jop as he sank his boots and cloth pants until almost knee. He did not calculate the force that dragged the water well, and wobbled him almost causing him to fall. A small impulse, helped by the current, pushed him against the wall, sticking to the cold and wet rock. 

— Ha ha, how funny! —Jop laughed. — It must be freezing! 

—Not much. 

The pride above all. The water was frozen, especially in the first sharp contact. Those were the kind of things that Seb neither admitted nor admitted ever, and with which he then bragged compared to the other boys. If to prove it he had to bathe naked right there, he would do it without hesitation. Although then he was in bed for two weeks lost in blankets, with the apothecary's poultice crushing his face, giving off that disgusting and strong taste of eucalyptus mixed with God knowing what. 

He regained his balance by securing his feet to curb the force of the current. With the right hand was steadying on the wall while trying to duck he slouched. Making an effort not to lose balance, he introduced his left arm into the water, groping and following the stone surface. 

— Below is a hole, not very high but rather elongated, as if the rock rose a few centimeters giving way to the water. —He reached down and stretched his arm inward. —Yes, go under. — He said. — Here! 

— Where will the water go? —Jop's curiosity about natural phenomena was feared by everyone in science class. He even despaired of Mr. Mills's good. It must become a kind of underground tributary, because it does not seem to bounce off any interior wall. If it were a dead end, it would be filled and out again. It would be more suspicious, because the entrance would collapse when the water that wants to enter with the one that wants to go out collides and that hits the rock. 

—Yes, of course, it would collapse, —Seb said, nodding seriously, peeking out some slight little bones. Jop, like many other times, left his eyes blank and, sighing to have no remedy his beloved Seb, did not give much importance. 

—Maybe come out later and return to this same tributary through another similar hole. 

Seb, with caution, tried to pass across the river. As he slid along the wall had no minor problem, but when the left to cross the nearly five meters separated him from the other, he was exposed to an increased current by the sudden reappearance of hitting the rock, leaving wet. Jop understood that there was not much danger that the current would take him. Beyond a dip, there were too many protruding rocks to lean on and hold on to. Besides, the current was not that powerful. Although there was always the possibility of a bad and tragic fall. That risk factor that children never think when they do their pranks. Not even Jop. 

Soaked, hiding the spirit that seized his body, he reached the other shore. He leaned back, palms and back, against the inner wall where the water entered that stone and rock hallway. 

— Can you know what you do? — Jop's wild and sudden explorer exploits bothered him a little. More in the intrepid Seb. 

Jop never did anything that had not been premeditated, valued, and, of course, when working as a team, agreed. 

—Since we're here, and I'm soaked to the bone, I wanted to see if it comes out near here.

— Are you crazy? We don't know how big this mountain is. I could get out of here, or not to the Nerv. They could be groundwater or what do I know. I will not go or follow you one step beyond where we are. —He knew Seb's true purpose. The frustration due to having to see the adventure finished almost at the moment of starting it. They hadn't explored anything! They had just reached a few meters beyond the limits of the known. —You intend to continue. We cannot go further. We don't know beyond the tip of our nose, how to get into the river! My father kills me if he finds out! Your father kills you if he finds out! Go out and go to the sun to dry yourself. We will ask my father if he knows where the leaking water ends. 

— Come on! — Seb implored comically, imitating a smaller child — Just a little more! Please! The water is not so cold — Jop understood that situation surreally. There was Seb with the lips of a lilac tone and almost without being able to control the babble that caused the shivering, and yet he said that the water was not cold— We still have the whole afternoon before us. There is plenty of sun to dry our clothes. Nobody will know. Let's do it for the poor and by now surely exhausted Mr. Mills! That its decomposition has not been in vain!

Jop smiled. He never stopped teasing him with his occurrences. 

Seb knew that the way to drag him was that, to provoke the adventurous instinct he knew he had. He had demonstrated it other times by getting him relaxed and let go. Because if it was a matter of reasoning, it was clear that for Seb it was a losing battle. 

Being there right now, soaked and lying on his back against the side of a mountain that in turn was a riverbed as if he were in a tunnel filled with water ... well, very good idea was not the truth . His father would kill him for sure if he found out. 

But it was in the water. I have already done it. Same as Mr. Mills. Act that played in favor, because Jop always respected and supported the own initiative whenever it had an optimal result. She had had it. Wow I had it! It would cost him to overlook that detail. That he had played it to enjoy the afternoon off and enter alone for the first time in the forest. They were a team and I would very much appreciate having let him take that risk at all. They were in the forest. What else was a few meters away or if they were open to the bone. There would be nothing and no one who could save them from punishment for much redemption and good future purposes to which they appealed, if anyone's parents found out.

It was one of those occasions that perfectly explained Seb's character. I thought about things, yes ... only after having done them. The risk had been assumed since they decided to start that excursion. 

— Come go! —Seb pleaded. — When the body gets used, it's not too bad. You yourself say that your mother forces you to bathe often — Seb hated bath time; that he rubbed his body with that rough brush of bristles to remove the dirt he brought every night when he returned from his games. That was not the worst, but the effort that his mother put in that not only was clean but smelled good. He couldn't stand the smell of flowers he had left after being rubbed with that aromatic soap. It was humiliating. —We have eliminated Mr. Mills and allowed our partners to enjoy a wonderful afternoon. We have entered the forest, you have discovered something curious that has caught your attention ... We have the opportunity to snoop a little! The current is not so strong. If it doesn't take me, it won't move you! — Jop was a thick boy, without exaggeration; Seb was very thin and fibrous. — Come on! It is not dangerous, it does not cover too much and there are a lot of rocks to grab if we go with a touch... Besides, there I see them even bigger! We have found a mystery! Where will the water go? It's not dangerous. It is impossible to get lost. This is like a street full of water. What is seen from here passes between the two mountains. We would only have to turn on ourselves if we see any risk. Just a little, we go out and dry. Nobody will know. 

Jop still didn't seem like a good idea. It was not planned. In fact, they hadn't even imagined it. And it sure was freezing! He had done a bad deed going into that place and, whatever his crazy friend said, going a long way through the water would make things worse. At the moment they could say that they had only reached where the pool was. From there they didn't know what they were going to find. The idea was to browse and explore a landscape similar to the one they knew. Its prolongation, in fact. Trying to find the personal reward granted by the triumph of rebellion against the forbidden. 

—I will not go. Let's leave it, maybe another day we can find another access. Sam told me that his father usually takes them to the forest of his house, north of the city, to a clearing where they usually have lunch on Sundays that time allows. We could convince him to one day approach us, show us, and play there. It would be a place unknown to us. 

Seb looked at the water and, thoughtfully, looked up to ask in disbelief: 

— Who is Sam? 

— God, Seb! The redhead class. Sam Plazcan, Teodora's brother ... Teodora Plazcan! — Jop shouted, reiterating the girl's name. 

— Ahhhhh! — Seb said with sly smile — That Sam! 

Teodora Plazcan was seventeen years old. For Jop and Seb, a whole woman. His appearance did not go unnoticed by anyone, as well as his way of dressing, moving or behaving with the opposite gender. Nothing to do with his brother Sam. The poor was the antithesis of Theodora. 

—It wouldn't be the same! — Seb replied with annoyance. — It would not be a discovery, but rather a guided tour by that conceited redhead. It would not be an adventure, our adventure. We would not be adventurers or explorers. The only way to go with that would be if your sister accompanied us... —A look full of mischief crossed between them, and a nervous smile made them lose their moment for a moment. —Let's live it! — Shouted Seb, returning them to the dialogue of their small discussion. A controversy that led them on different paths. 

—I will not go there and follow you into that kind of tunnel.

—Okay, let's do one thing. Stay and watch that nobody comes. I will advance only a little more. Until you turn that corner. 

A few meters away, the wall on the side where Jop stood out like a belly that pounced towards the opposite side. And where Seb was, the mountain seemed to retract preventing them from touching. In this way, the channel through which the water passed widened to the left to continue to the right, drawing a that between the mountains. 

— For what...? 

—To take a look, to see how it goes... 

— Watch what?

— What not pass anyone. 

— And you can know what we fix with that? With a person who can think of stopping by and seeing us, our parents will find out. You will not pretend to hide me inside the forest and leave you there if I hear or see someone coming. How do I notify you? Scream? Up to this point we can give a more or less reasonable explanation, but how do we explain that you are in the dressed water? It is not a good idea!

— People are in the fields or in the market, and women in their homes! It's Tuesday, it would be a coincidence! How likely is it? 

—So much chance and probability that you and I will be here on Tuesday. 

—Goooo, just a little. It is all controlled. 

Seb knew that such discussions could be eternal and would not lead anywhere. He never saw him dismiss himself from a decision made. When he spoke he had already valued any option and his words were the best possible choice. But he also knew that he wouldn't stop it. So, almost without finishing the sentence, he began to advance leaning on the wall, bypassing the stones he was finding. Soon he began to turn to the left bordering the belly of the opposite wall, until he lost sight of Jop behind it. 

Jop was worried about controlled situations according to Seb. He didn't like the idea of ​​not seeing his friend. He was too stubborn not to advance a few more meters, and on top of it, with his comment on the water, he had awakened that little mystery in his head. Aware that he would not go very far alone either, he prepared to observe the belly of the mountain waiting for him to vaguely satisfy his adventurous spirit and reappear. 

After about three minutes he began to get impatient and shout his name, asking first, and imploring after he returned. There was no answer. The silence that was breathed, broken by the flow of water and the strike against the rock, caused the restlessness to grow. Ten minutes later he seemed to hear stones hitting the water as if they were coming off the mountain. Frightened, he shouted again, but instead of a heartbreaking scream a throaty sound emerged from his throat. He began to find himself nervous. It had been twenty minutes. It was debated in the constant running out to seek help, uncovering their incursion into the limits of imprudence, and heading directly to the wall of punishment that awaited them. If Seb came out of this. He kept mortifying himself, wondering again and again how he had let him go alone. What if something had happened to him? Fearful and nervous in his dissertations, suddenly it was he who heard a voice claiming him. 

— Jop ... Jop ... you have to see this! Is incredible! 

Seb appeared after tummy could not see the path of the river, again glued to the opposite wall. He returned smiling as expected. Wet, exhausted, but radiant trying to get Jop's attention, who doubted whether he should partake of happiness or simply kill him with his own hands for the bad time that had caused him to pass. He was slow to react, trusting that the soul in suspense during the wait would return to his body. After all, Seb was fine. 

— Are you crazy? Where the hell have you gone? I've been about to meet you with our parents next door. I have lacked this to go looking for them. —Jop showed the thumb and index fingers of the hand about to touch. 

— Bah! I knew you wouldn't. You would never do that to me! You would have come looking for me before.

—Yes, it was another option. — He said in a weary tone. 

—There is no time for reprimands or explanations. You have to see this with your own eyes. Come on, follow me. You have to see it, —he repeated as his eyes allowed him to perceive the emotion that overwhelmed him. They glowed and opened until they almost left the orbits.

— See what? Where have you been? I will not go into the water if you do not give me more explanations. 

—Trust me. 

That was good. But there was no question, because the answer was that he did trust that imprudent. Even when they got into some mess and his mother Iduna asked him how being so smart he paid attention to Seb. His answer was always I don't know. I called it the irrational that gives meaning to the rational. The exception that confirms every rule. In addition, the truth is that in the end, for some things or others, they did not usually go out too badly. Above all, taking into account the proportion of pranks they had been doing together since the age of five, compared to the number of punishments they had suffered. That is, of which his parents had learned. 

Seb made hand prompts to go to him. 

— What do you trust? —It was always good to insist and try to reconsider Seb. — What have you seen? 

—It´s just here. Come on. 

—Here? It took you a long time... 

—I couldn't resist looking around a little. 

— Curious about what? Where? 

—Listen to me. You won't regret it. —Seb changed the intonation to a weak and mysterious one. — I have discovered our new secret lair. Come, we won't be long. I promise that today we will only see her. We will have time to return and enjoy it. 

The mystery could with him. Seb wouldn't let go or pledge if he wasn't going to see whatever he had discovered. He carefully entered the water. Seeking support, he adhered to the emerging mountain, imitating Seb. The water was cold but you could stand it. It could be he who controls the current and not the other way around. I didn't have that much strength. Seb is light as a feather, he thought. Confidence caused him a trick when he finished the wall and it was time to cross the river to reach the opposite. He lightly rested his support foot and the water wobbled enough for him to have to rest with his hand on a rock, splashing his face in doing so. 

— What's it not so cold? —River Seb. 

Jop arrived next to Seb, who, reaching out, reached him to help him. Even without letting him take hold, he said, tilting his head to the left: 

— Come on! 

He was supported by the rock, staying away from the center, where the current was strongest. Especially once the water coming through the funnel increasing the flow, forcing the river squeezes through the gorge between mountains. It suddenly narrowed more than a meter. They advanced until they folded around the belly protruding from the mountain. From where they were, the river ran through a straight and self—denying corridor for about thirty meters, then turn right at right angles. In front of them were several stacked rocks sticking out of the water, which seemed to have come off the mountain. Jop thought about the danger of a landslide over their heads inside that flooded canyon. 

—Lets go, this could be dangerous. 

—Don't worry, it's here. 

— Here? What is it here?  I only saw walled water that was rapidly lost to the right and that, by the way, entering that corridor had greatly increased its depth, covering them to the waist. 

— This is all? Is that why you made me penetrate to the bone? To see a street through which water circulates? I know Seb, I will not continue. I leave now. And you are going to do the same. Let's go out and dry our clothes. 

— Ah, my young disciple! —Seb adopted a comical and condescending attitude. Nothing in this world liked him more than having to be the one to explain something to Jop. He loved to make him angry, gloating about having detected something that had gone unnoticed for his friend. It was not evil, it simply amused him. He liked to push his fellow stumbling blocks off his feet a little. In addition, such events were not common. You had to take advantage of them. — Do you see something happening underwater and you are not able to see what you have in front of you, young student? —He wrinkled his nose and closed his eyes a little, trying to imitate Mr. Mills.—don’t tell me you can't appreciate what stands in front of you. 

Jop stopped looking down the hall and looked at the wall in front of him. The mountain was erected behind the rocks that had come off, abruptly ending a couple of meters above their heads, forming a small ledge to ascend again like a smooth wall. Except for this erosion, it extended to the left forming the corridor of gray stone dotted with some bush that challenged it by opening itself to life in that place. 

—Yes, we are like two stupid frets in icy water, leaning against a wall, about to catch a pneumonia inside a huge canyon formed by mountains.

—That's the obvious young Jop. — Seb continued with his terrible imitation of Mr. Mills. — In front of his rookie hound nose! —Voucher. The mountain rises forming a kind of small ledge. 

—What do you want, to get on there?

— Yes...! Because it's not a shelf, —he replied, smiling mischievously. 

— How? 

— From this position it seems that the wall continues after entering itself, losing thickness to recover way up drawing a small bench with back, right? 

—Yes. 

—Well, it's not the same wall. I think it's not even the same mountain. In fact, there is a gap between them. It is the respective that they explained to us in class. 

— What respective...? The perspective! 

— And what did I say? Well that ... the perspective! —Seb was annoyed at that gesture that Jop made of not knowing what to do with him. — It reminded him of what his mother put when he looked up at the sky and, rolling his eyes, wondered who had come out. The mountain does not narrow in that section or erode forming the ledge. At that point the wall ends. The one you see and seems to continue upwards is another. Born behind it seems an extension but there is no such extension. Either that or you dear nature has made a hole right there. They are separated. —He returned to leave a moment of silence that would increase the tension and the joy of his exposition; He was enjoying—. The separation is enough for even someone as robust as you ... ha ha. 

— How are you so sure? Have you uploaded yet? 

—Throw a stone against the wall. Not very strong, do not bounce and return to us. Try to throw so that it is perched on the shelf. 

Jop took a stone from the river. He aimed at his target and threw the spoon style, as the girls did according to Seb. This would ensure that the stone was placed on the shelf, and if it fell, it would do so after bouncing off the surface and not on the wall. He threw delicately, and his gesture changed when he disappeared under the floor of that false ledge. 

— You see it? It has fallen behind. 

— How did you find out? 

— Does he miss you, huh? — He said. — To me to observe and stuff ... I have no patience for vigilance ... ha ha. Just when I get here, I don't know what I thought I was going to find ... Maybe, when I turned the mountain, the forest would return to normal and that would convince you to continue. Seeing this corridor and how disproportionate the canyon looks, I realized that it was stupid to continue. When I turned to return, I slipped, and when I leaned on a stone to regain my balance, the rock has split and I have a piece in my hand. Disappointed and furious, I threw the stone just down the ledge, so that it hit the back wall bouncing against the previous one, disappearing when I imagined it would come back. My first impulse was to cover my head. Then I picked up another stone, threw it in the same way you just did to test if I could deposit it on it, and it disappeared again. So... 

—So, you decided to go up, of course.

—I was practically forced to do it, ha ha! I was going to stay without knowing what was behind! —They both laughed. — Come, it is not complicated to climb using those stones as a staircase. Slippery, yes. So, eye where you put your feet and hands. Grabbed by his partner so as not to be dragged by the current, —Seb began the passage to the other side. Jop watched the pile of wet and slippery stones. —Do not worry. There is no risk. I tell you which ones you should upload. I know which ones are safe and well set. The only release there was, that I have eaten before. — Jop remembered hearing stones fall while waiting. —Follow me and climb where I climb, step on where I step, and hold on to what I grab. Once up we will reach the shelf without problem. I added a few stones, because in reality there is a small ledge wide enough to grab and climb. The best thing is that on the other side there is not so much height and it is easier to return. I have also placed a couple of stones like here. That's why it took me so long to return. I wouldn't have come down if I didn't know for sure that I would be able to go back up. 

They started the small ascent. Seb first. He climbed easily until he reached the top of the pile, where he jumped on the ledge with his legs hanging. Freehand he climbed until he sat on it, looking to the opposite side of the climb. Jop tempted the road much more. Remembering the places Seb had gone through, he climbed without incident. He reached the ledge. It was difficult for him to ascend, making a pulse with his arms while his legs tried to spur him up, kicking in pursuit of a surface on which to gain momentum. Seb was smiling. When he succeeded and sat snorting next to his friend, he made an indication hitting his shoulder and moving his head down to look. 

— Oh, by the way, I forgot, there you have your water! 

Indeed, under its feet the water flowed from the forest filtered through the mountain, in a parallel and hidden variant of the river that ran lighter and less abundant. Towards the right, at the bottom of that dark tunnel in whose only clear access to the sky they were,  could see the wall through whose bottom the water entered from outside, for a couple of meters to the left turn sharply in right angle, leaving another wall as landscape. He looked surprised at that place product of nature. He enjoyed every little discovery that the place offered. 

—And best of all, I also know where he is going.—Seb was pleased to surprise and, above all, see Jop's excited expression. Pleasing and making his friend happy was one of the two things he liked most in this life. — What is that perspective, huh? Haha. Come on, let's go down.

As promised, there