Katchka Magic

In the valley Man Who Eats Reeds came awake with a start, the end of a black dream already fading from his mind. As he gained his feet, the ground lurched under him, bringing him to his knees. Cursing, he again stood upright and scanned the horizon on the peaks of the hills surrounding him. As he watched, a plume of smoke began to rise from the crest of the northern slopes, spreading across the ridgeline faster than a mountain goat could run. Like a goat, the smoke seemed to leap from slope to slope, peak to peak, until Man Who Eats Reeds found himself surrounded by a roiling wall of gray and black. Now, there were flashes of red shooting through the growing wall of smoke. The smell of rotting eggs reached him. The ground beneath his feet began to jerk and vibrate continuously, throwing him on his face. The waters of the small creek that ran beside his campsite sloshed in a miniature parody of storm-tossed ocean waves. A growth of willows, bare branches whipping as if in a strong wind, detached themselves from the steep creek bank and collapsed into the creek with a dull thump. Fish rose from the water, leaping high into the air as if desperately evading some predator feeding just beneath the surface. He could hear a deep grumbling roar that seemed to come from everywhere around him. Man Who Eats Reeds was reminded of the screams of a dying brown bear he had heard as a boy while undergoing the rites of passage that would mark him as an adult and a warrior in the eyes of his people. As he rolled to his stomach and looked up, he was shocked to see tongues of red slowly creep from the pall of dense smoke now completely encircling the valley, moving toward him on all sides. There were flashes of movement in the grasses and trees in front of the advancing red spots, now becoming visible as glowing streams. A hissing, screaming sound made itself heard over the low rumbling, and as he watched, several geysers of white steam broke from the hillsides, throwing trees and large rocks high into the air. Frozen in place, he saw the flashes of movement resolve themselves into groups of the animals that lived on the slopes above him. As they neared, the groups merged into a single mass moving toward him, a tightening circle of fear-maddened flesh. As the animals approached, the streams of fire advanced inexorably behind them. Some of the slower animals were overtaken and overwhelmed as he watched, becoming brief puffs of orange flame before being completely covered by what appeared to be thick, glowing red and black mud that made crackling sounds as it came. The mass of animals grew more compact as the circle of fire and smoke tightened around them. As he stood there, dazed, he felt something slap against his legs, again and again. He looked down to see a horde of rabbits milling about him, scrambling and leaping, each one trying to gain a purchase upon its neighbor’s back. Their squirming bodies threatened to trip him and pull him down to drown in a furry tide.

Taking his medicine pouch in his left hand, he raised his arms and face to the lowering sky and began to chant a prayer, a plea for aid from the Old Ones. As he chanted, smoke and fumes began to dissipate in a circular area around him like a bubble on a bar of soap. Green flashes of light began to coalesce on the surface of the bubble, flickering and moving rapidly from one side of the bubble to the other. Man Who Eats Reeds could see the smoking fumes and the hill creatures continue to advance toward the center of the bubble, where he stood with his legs braced against the heaving of the earth. Occasionally, an animal would be struck by a flickering light and explode in a pink vapor of pulverized flesh. Still they came, pushed from the rear by the mass of fleeing animals behind them. The crush of bodies became more and more dense as they ringed him and pressed in, their instinctive fear of man forgotten in the race to escape the greater threat of the smoke and flames sliding inexorably down the hills behind them. Man Who Eats Reeds chanted louder. He pulled his sacred golden eagle feather from the bundle at his feet and held it skyward in his right hand. Emerald flashes grew from points of racing lights moving with increasing rapidity around him. More animals began to explode at the periphery of the bubble, but many more made it through. The entire bubble was filled with heaving bodies that were smoking and blistered from the heat, until there was no longer any place to stand. Animal climbed on animal, each desperately trying to escape from stamping hooves and snarling jaws. Each animal was caught in the desperate imperative to survive at any cost. Man Who Eats Reeds found his personal space growing smaller. He was scratched and bitten and shoved by agonized animals, but he somehow managed to keep his feet and continue to chant. The green splotches had now joined together, forming a shell around him and the stricken creatures that had massed around him. No more animals were getting through the barrier, but those in front continued to be pressed forward by those behind. Body after body exploded on contact with the green shell. A dense fog of pulverized and scorched meat formed a blackened crust around the swirling shell. Finally, all the animals outside the shell were dead, caught between the green bubble and the advancing lava. Inside the shell, the mass of bodies grew denser as the shell was compressed by the weight of the roasting animal bodies and the lava that continued to pile on them. The mass of bodies trapped with Man Who Eats Reeds pushed against him and heaped upon him until he was completely encased in struggling bodies. A terrible sense of claustrophobia seized him, and he shrieked like a child as he was crushed onto the ground by the weight of the furred bodies massed about him. He could no longer move, fixed in place by the bodies packed around him. He could feel his ribs crack as the breath was pushed from his lungs. Streams of urine and feces voided from the terrified animals above reached him and began to fill the bottom of the bubble, the way rainwater will fill a small hollow in the ground. As he choked and gagged on the offal, he gurgled a final prayer to the dark gods, promising eternal service in exchange for a chance to live.

Somewhere, beyond the reach of normal time and space, his prayer was heard and granted. But the universe has its own immutable laws that transcend even the workings of the local entities humans call gods, and Law One is that a balance must be maintained. So it was that Man Who Eats Reeds continued to live. So did all the animals in the shell with him, smothered and crushed together with him...alive, awake, in horrendous misery that went on and on. Outside the bubble, lava continued to flow until the floor of the valley was covered in a smoking moonscape where nothing green could exist. Time passed, and the denuded slopes were gradually eroded into the valley, forming a floor of rock and mud that was eventually colonized by hardy plants and insects. More time passed. Water springs, covered by the lava, finally burst under pressure to the surface, and streams were formed on the slopes of the valley, pooling in what would eventually be known as Coin