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Micro-fiction 050 – Custodian of Giants (Echoes series)

Akycha falls through to a hidden cave, on an Alaskan mountain-top. There, she discovers ancient giants, a custodian and time distorted.


Custodian of Giants

Alaska. Mount Sanford. Akycha ignored her father’s strict instruction to wait for him at this safe, snowy platform while he trudged ahead into the thin air of the mountain peak. For years they had explored the mountains of their region, but as she grew older, she began to yearn for discoveries of her own. Her father was obsessed with high mountains and geological surveys, but he always left her before the very top, worried, he said, about what he might find up there.

As he disappeared upwards Akycha sat down on the ledge and leaned against the Mountain, looking out at the vast stretch of snow, and the bright blue skies beyond. It occurred to her that people before, for thousands of years would have seen the same. It was one of the reasons she loved to come up here with her father, she felt connected to the past, seamlessly, and it seemed to revive her spirits, give her strength. She thought her father must feel the same but he was taciturn, and had been for as long as she could remember.

“Oh!” She had leaned back, “What’s that?” The impacted snow behind her shivered.

She stood up, turned quickly and looked for the solid white wall that now it had disappeared.

“Where’s it gone?” The section of the snow had slid away, leaving a tiny storm of white flakes around an opening.

“A hidden cave, really?!” She knew her father would tell her not to go any further.

‘Oh, What’s the point of being here if I can’t as well.” She pulled a torch from her belt and saw a gap with rough steps into a wider, dark hole.

“Good thing I don’t scare easily!” She ducked into the opening, satisfying herself that the first rocky step would not crumble.

“It’s almost warm.” She took another step, spreading the torch around, painting the walls with light.

“Symbols?” She peered ahead. “Never seen anything like that before.” She slipped out her phone and took some pictures of the walls where long stretches of ochre covered the surface.

She descended further, her light expanding as the walls separated, showing more of the ancient markings, and soon she found herself at the bottom of the rocky stair.

“So,” she whispered to herself, “these look like bodies being cast out of what, clouds? And here, tall people chasing children? Near the mountains, and then a stretch of water with everyone drowning?”

Her light swept around, following the story on the walls, until it fell across the end of the cave where she counted ten long figures.

“Oh!” She stood rigid, and mouthed to herself. “ I swear they’re moving.”

As she watched she realised they were swaying slightly, and at their feet a small body lay, with lanterns and a scattering of belongings.

“Hello, are you ok?” She whispered and took a step nearer, her fear wrapped in curiosity. Another step and what she saw overwhelmed her, her eyes reaching up to the rock ceiling, four times her height. And that’s where she saw the heads of the ten figures, their necks crooked at an angle, not sketched into the walls, but shifting slowly between the dark and her torchlight, their misshapen bodies, hairy, thick-legged like bears, reaching down to huge feet that dangled, their toes barely touching the cave floor.

A thin voice emerged from the body on the ground near their feet. “Do not disturb them. It takes so long to quiet their anguish.”

“You are ok?” Akycha stepped forward, and leant down to check, wary of the suspended figures.

“I am now, for you have come.” Eyes opened in what Akycha saw was a face of ancient flesh, beyond wrinkled, crowded with furrows and lines like the rocks at the base of the cave walls. Her voice was dry, punctuated with short, panting breaths.

“Do you have water? Can I help you.” Akycha looked around.

“Oh, I do have water, but it will not revive me.” She tried to lift her head, but it was as if she had settled into the rock itself. Akycha noticed other, similar rocks on the cave floor.

“I am Akycha.” She nodded.

“Oh, I am sorry for you Akycha. I am Thula, I have acted as custodian for over a thousand years.” Her thin eyes cast across to a wall on the opposite side. “Each year I have marked. And my predecessors have done the same.”

“I should call for help.” Akycha stood up, glimpsing at the wall, where the markings stretched back and upwards to the roof of the cave.

“You could try, but you’ll not be able to leave now. This place has great power, and already you have drawn from it, simply by entering. You are bound to this place. As I end, now you begin, so I’d better tell you about these ten giants.”

Akycha felt the dread well inside her. She retched. “But my father…”

“…will not notice your absence. Time is different here.”

Akycha looked down, tears excavating her sorrow. As they fell to the floor, she saw them disappear.

“These are the last remaining offspring of the fallen angels. Their bodies exist in our realm, but their minds dwell in a dark pit of boiling rock, forever tortured for their part in the wars between the giants and the humans, before the flood.”

“The flood?” Akycha looked bleakly at Thula.

“Indeed. I have inherited an understanding of the truth of the ancient stories in the walls, passed to me through time, by our predecessors.

“They are the sons of fallen angels, the sons of those once named as Turel, Tamiel, Gadriel, Gadreel, Rameel, Ramiel, Araquiel, Kokabiel, Ezeqeel, each named in the service of their God, but persuaded by Semyaza to ruin the creation of humankind, by forcing themselves upon the women, terrorising and destroying the new people. These giants are the product of those unions, an ancient malevolence visited upon us by those who should have protected us instead. The Great Flood wiped out most of humanity, and all the giants, except these who were drowned were cast into the sulphur of the pre-eternal volcano.

“So, here we are.” Akycha looked up at the gruesome giants, wondering at their existence.

“Indeed, and here they must remain. They must not escape. If they realise they exist within our realm too, they will awaken from the dream state in the other realm, and terrorise us once again.”

“So your presence protects the world, not the giants.”

“Oh yes, and many times you will have to disguise the mouth of the cave, or repel enthusiastic explorers.” Thula coughed gently, and whimpered.

“One last thing,” She slumped a little further into the floor, her cloak hardening. “Keep away from the hands of the giant at the end. I think that’s Semyaza, and he seems to have some awareness of the two realms. Don’t let him touch you, he’s strong and will carry out his purpose.”

Akycha watched Thula finally solidify, to join the other rock formations across the floor of the cave. She looked at the giants, and at Semyaza’s huge, twitching hand.

She shuddered.

[End]

Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher  and more. Also on this blog, These Fantastic Worlds.

Text, image, audio © 2020 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam and Elise Wells,  Logic ProX, Sound Studio, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, and Scrivener.


More Tales

There are many other great stories in this series, including:

Some background on the science behind Hunter and Bain’s adventures: Concepts of Time

And a carousel of 10 audio stories from the podcast with information about submissions.

Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts.