Next time you see a vykker, pay attention to its legs. It has stitches right around where its feet should be.
Anyhow, have another chapter.
Chapter 40
So what can I do? There’s no way out of the cavern ...
I need to distract myself. There has to be something I can do ...
I began clicking my four sets of claws. I spent about ten minutes clicking and clacking, and realized I was scratching all my claws at one of my ankles. I caught myself before the skin broke, and (barely) managed to stop myself.
I began humming, pacing around the equipment. It occurred to my mudokon mind to go and simply break the tools ... but then I’d simply have jagged pieces of knives to perform my impromptu amputation, which would be all the more pleasurable.
I found the best way to keep myself focused on other things was to stay in motion. And to clutch my elbows with the sharp tips of my claws. While it hurt, the urge to remove my feet abated a little, and I was distracted.
This went on for nearly an hour. It felt like a month.
I was shaking in the room’s far end, beginning to lose it. The vykker mind lost interest in the finger-poking, and needed something to be done. I think I considered taking two of the arms off along with the feet at some point.
That was it. I stood and hurried over to the table ... and as I reached for the nearest tool ... they were gone. My claw was a paw. A mudokon paw.
Okay, said the voice. That’s been long enough. You can go. Congrats, and good luck.
I froze. There was a total absence of masochism in me, and I felt somehow empty. It’s amazing how living with an urge for so long (or for what seems to be a long time) only makes itself apparent when it’s satisfied ... or when it disappears.
So for about ten minutes (later on, when I saw the outdoors again, it was clear that several hours had actually passed) I sat and wept, feeling only empty, hopeless, and alone. I considered scaling the wall to pull down a blade and finish it there. No promise, even to myself, was worth all of this emotional wreckage.
When I finally stood, I saw that the voice had opened a doorway in the far wall. I gathered myself and stood, still pretty depressed, and ambled out the door and into a long, winding corridor.
The walk was boring and long, and there was a definite downward slope to the tunnel.
An hour and a half passed ... and there I was. It had to be the final challenge: Sut. What was it Orion had said? There was an immense cold that shook the mighty and frightened the bold. Or something. Bah. It wasn’t so cold. It was refreshingly brisk, if anything.
The cavern consisted mostly of ... not entirely surprisingly ... a shaky bridge over a gap that had to be two hundred yards long. For our friends using metric, I believe that equates to around a hundred and eighty meters. I dunno. Check my math.
I carefully approached the edge of th pit, and a sudden rush of obscenely cold air rushed up at me, throwing me back. The brief glimpse I was afforded showed that the cavern’s bottom was so dark and deep, I couldn’t make out the bottom. There was a faint green light, but ... that’s about it.
But that cold wind ... wow. If that was a sign of the cold I was soon to face, then I had grossly misinterpreted the extremity of this challenge.
I was suddenly pissed. This was all too unfair. I had gone through too much. I probably would’ve been better off letting the sligs cook me up. Even if I did finish this quest, I still had Rotag to liberate before I returned to Tastee Treets. And with my luck, I might have Oblim to tidy up, too! And then, when I finally make it back to Tastee Treets, how was I going to get inside? The front door? Sure, I could become a glukkon, but where would I get clothes and a slig accompaniment? AND they wouldn’t be expecting a glukkon, so that wouldn’t fly, either! I was pretty much screwed. It didn’t quite matter. I hated Vladimir for being a dick and coming up with that plan. I hated whatever slig had shot me. I hated the slingshot-weilding muds for finding me. I hated Orion for encouraging my stupid ambition. I hated Boomer for calling to the other muds to meet the one who brought “Happy.” I hated Patch for showing me the paramite totem. I hated the Ferryman for not letting that slimy water kill me and save me trouble. I hated the mudokons who came to save me because they blindly wanted to come along and waste their time and effort on a worthless mudokon. I hated the cannibals of Styx for not eating me when they had the chance. I hated the grubbs and steefs I had met for not launching me to the valley below and crushing me with flaming boulders. I hated the wolvarks I had been told about for not finding me and shooting me. I hated the flaming monster in the volcano for yielding to me when he could have crushed me. I hated the spirits of the mudokons in the trees for just being bastiches to me. I hated Clog for taking pity on me. I hated that voice that haunted me in Bolgemal for not letting me cut myself when I had finally given in. I hated myself for being so stupid and ready to fight for my brothers, most of whom I actually didn’t know.
I took a deep breath and realized that I hated the glukkons for another reason: they didn’t provide us with more clothing.
I took a shaky step onto the bridge, mildly prepared for the blast of cold.
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