His hand is pained, then numbed, by the gelid trickle of water that runs across his palm. He leans down to sup from the delicate spring that dances down the rocky incline, dodging between sprouting patches of hoary grass and dark wildflowers. A brush of bitter cold passes his lips and elicits a sharp awakening between his teeth. Wiping his mouth with an old sleeve, he leans back on the outcrop and looks down the coastal panorama below.
At its zenith, the sky resembles a storm contained within a sapphire; a brooding steel that washes out into a soft white by the time it reaches the horizon. Then the sea cuts the colour in two and stretches its aquamarine permanence in a straight line across his vision. Its slight undulation comes to a head as tiny white horses make small crashes all along the curve of the shore.
The coal-black sand is thick enough to clog his vision, even at this great distance. He feels as though he could reach out and sluice his fingers between its fine but dense body, then retrieve nothing back from its uncaring void. It absorbs the swell of the sea, marking the edge of the coast with sodden black sand that runs alongside the dry core, giving it the impression of a long, curved blade.
The breach itself slices across two bodies of water; to the left, the saline infinity of the sea and to the right, the ethereal glow of a glacial river. At first, the broad expanse of its flow appears to be frozen below a layer of invisible ice and encapsulated within its unmoving form is a multitude of gradients, from the darkest black at the shallows, where the sand is most visible, to bright, crystalline blues at the meridian depths and, finally, a deep azure that suggests a fathomless drop within its unseen confines. The shock of this ghostly palette recalls memories of thunderheads, wherein lightning was trapped within a churning volume of pale clouds. But given enough attention, the man sees that the water is flowing, slowly and inevitably, towards a broad mouth and into the sea. It meets the openness at the tip of the beach, where the glacial runoff escapes into the ceaseless tides.
Beyond this, a jagged stretch of land pokes out into the territory of the waves. The black mountains are sharp as broken teeth, jutting up from a half-jaw sunk into the crust of the earth, the final remains of some ancient, colossal beast. Upon their surface, a mould of that same grey grass has grown across the dark, khaki soil that sits atop their stone foundations.
They shadow a freezing lagoon that sits trapped between the sky, the sea, the beach, the river and the land. That is where he is bound. It looks innocuous by contrast with the grand, stark phenomena of nature that surrounds it. A flat, monocolour pool of water that hardly flows with the current of the river that feeds it, nor ripple, shaded as it is by the range of mountains above it. But the man sees it for what it is. Its austerity does not disarm him, as it might others.
He knows what lurks within its depths.
He folds the musty old jacket and stuffs it into his pack. Then he stands, stretching out the feel of the drysuit, stuck to him like a second skin, feeling the restrictions of its movement. He will have to be limber and quick for what comes next. He shoulders the pack and the oxygen tank, adjusting their weight for the short walk down the incline. Then, when he is comfortable, he turns to the spear.
Its shaft seethes with intricate carvings that run the length of its ebony body. When the light catches it, the images appear to writhe between the shadows before the photons themselves are consumed within its black aspect. He runs a thumb over the flat of its head. The metal ripples with the delicate lines where a thousand folds and unnatural heat have tempered the flesh of the earth into an abomination of sharpness. It is colder than the water that burbles at his feet. It seeks to bury itself in warmth.
He feels a thin vein of ice extend itself up his spine, as he thinks about all the things that the spear has done. All the destruction it has wrought. Nausea dribbles in his mouth as a few, granular details congeal there.
But whatever the spear is, it is no worse than what sits at the heart of the lagoon.
He picks up the weapon from its emplacement in the hard earth and feels it shiver with anticipation. Then he picks his way down the incline, muttering to himself as he goes. ‘The time has come,’ he says, again and again.
Unflinching, the lagoon awaits his arrival.
Paddy Dobson
20th July 2020