The Land of Auras III

By John G. Makaron

Efdalin meets with the person he has been looking for. He finds out about the secrets of the mountain and his family more. Will the boy be healed in the deeps of the mountain or an inconvenient truth wait for him there?

• Language: English
• Publisher: John G. Makaron
• Release date: Jan 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005358211

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The Land of Auras

Episode III

John G. Makaron

Book Title Copyright © 2022 by John G. Makaron. All Rights Reserved.

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer if you enjoyed this book. Thank you for your support. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. 

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John G. Makaron

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Published by John G. Makaron at Smashwords

January 2022

Table of Contents

Marvellinna

The Beautiful

Anticlimax

Resurrection

The Wulf

A Stranger Within

The Hero

Back to the Village

The Quieties

Karatulla

The End(!)

Marvellinna

Efdalin felt better when he woke up the next time. He was cozy under an animal-skin blanket. He straightened up slowly; the dizziness had gone. The dimness inside had lessened. A large tree root had penetrated through the cave's earth wall, turned sideways, and returned to the wall. There was a single candle on it; its light was undulating sometimes with a slight airflow, disturbing the shades on the walls.

He kicked his blanket off; he was naked, his clothes at the bedside. He swiftly put them on; they were dry and soft. He felt better. The closest tunnel was brighter. His heart began to race. He shuddered convulsively, remembering that he’d entered the Wulf's Den. Nevertheless, this place was not like a creature's den; actually, the smell was pleasant this time. On the wall his bed planted by was some other writing:

Pain is insufferable under the full moon.

The words had been inscribed with the same calligraphy Efdalin had seen outside. The Wall that bore it was pure rock, hard to write upon; the person must have had plenty of time to do it. Upon reading these words, his curiosity prevailed over his hesitation. His memory was blank after entering the beastmaw, but the words on the entrance were still in his mind.

If you be in the Wulf's Den, there waits your cure then.

This time he distinguished the tools and devices he had seen in his previous wake. The space around his bed had been utilized for storing, more like with things that couldn’t be thrown away. He felt an ache on his left forearm. When he checked it on, a purple spot was near his elbow's bend line, a little prick. It was not like a bug bite, no bump, no itch at all.

He went to the tunnel’s glowing light to examine the prick, but the things at the walls attracted his attention eminently. Many tree roots —beautifully pruned— were used as natural shelves or abutments for the shelves of the walls, bearing fascinating stuff worthy of a second glance throughout the tunnel. Neatly shaped oil lambs were everywhere, lighting and releasing the pleasant scent that Efdalin has smelled. The walls without tree roots had deep alcoves of different forms, enclosed by wooden frames, more shelves in them carrying jars and things alien to the eyes of men.

At one of them was a jar, something floating in it, a mixture of two species: A frog's head, a fish's tail. He approached and looked closer until the thing moved its eye to look at him. The boy shuddered back with a flinch of amazement on his face and edged away.

Something resembling a mask was the next one. It was to disguise the face and prevent the owner from harming; or, more likely, inflicting it on someone else. Doubtful, a human being had worn it, for its protruded design seemed to fit something with a jutted face.

Efdalin saw many amazing things in every part of the cave, and despite himself, he looked at them for a long time. Therefore, it took a while to reach the other side of the tunnel.

The last thing he saw blew his mind up. A cage of two to two yards was embedded into one of the alcoves near the tunnel's end. At first glance, he could not see something inside; when he crouched down to see better, a growling came from it, a bizarre one, as if from a smaller animal than any growler creature, of which Efdalin knew. As he came closer to the very narrow iron rods of the cage, something maddened pounced at the rods: a mature wolf with everything but size no bigger than a big rat.

Efdalin reeled back and hit his shoulder to a shelf at the opposite wall. He turned and looked at the glass box that he almost broke. He was petrified; he was looking at a decapitated head, the owner of the mask, a few steps back. He gazed upon it for a long time, a very long time. As he could release his eyes off the head, he knew how Wulf looked.

Efdalin stepped towards the brighter area at the end of the tunnel. His heart was in his mouth with the growling he’d heard. The head in the glass box had manifested that Wulf was a far more terrifying creature than he’d imagined. The boy shuddered despite himself. It’ll not harm me. He wouldn’t summon me here to endanger my life, Efdalin thought.

Out of the tunnel, he stood in a large and long cavern room, where all the walls were shelved and loaded with books; the bookshelves were extending beyond the light could reach. The scents of the candles had enhanced their enchanting smells, which Efdalin liked; he felt good among them, as he always been.

On a large table contiguous to the second right-wall were many other exciting things to stare at, had