The trees around the Pond shook, then parted, revealing the Shadow, upright as a humpbacked man, wide as a roving creature. Toruk knew of only one person who had ever seen the Shadow: his father. Tofer had told his son that the Shadow lived in the dark, skulking through the Forest like a thief, beginning at the first hint of evening dusk and well into the deep-purple hues of night. What it ate, no one knew. What it wanted was a mystery. But what it did, his father had revealed. The elder had said that one day he had witnessed the demented Shadow at work, angrily plucking the leaves of Forest trees for seemingly no reason, accosting Forest animals at whim, playing with them roughly, ignoring their cries, tossing them in the air as if they were but inanimate playthings, viciously kicking the baby hares who had strayed from their mothers, stomping on wild turtles, eerily laughing and cackling as the turtles' backs cracked beneath the Shadow's feet, picking up snakes and wordlessly snapping them in two.
“Be wary of it,” Tofer had told Toruk one afternoon, after teaching his son the truth of the Forest, that it in fact possessed no truth at all.
Beautiful, colorful days swiftly turned into flat black nights, he had explained to the young man. Trees bountiful with fruit one season died the next, leaving hunger in its wake. Predators who ignored human scent one day, gave chase the next.
And the Shadow was just as duplicitous, astonishingly both stupid and clever, Toruk had learned. The creature possessed clever powers yet used them for his wicked designs. As villainous as the Shadow was, he could not command someone to do anything, only suggest it. He could not truly impersonate the Voice Upon the Mountain, only pretend. In fact, the Shadow had no true power over the human, only a feigned one, for he was at his core, a liar, a cheater, the master of manipulation. His voice was always tinged with selfish anger, with impatient lust, with hate, urging poor souls toward a destructive action or thought.
“Don’t trust it,” Tofer had repeatedly warned his son.
The duplicitous creature was now salivating as it watched Toruk, its yellow beady eyes growing excited with demented joy, for the Shadow was the visible, physical manifestation of error, of wrong, of darkness, of every sort of violence. He was the source and summit of wickedness, the fullness of foolishness, the producer of stupidity and ignorance.
Satqin’s trees were now stiff with frost, breathless with many Forest animals, great and small, shifting lazily as they settled in for the night, the black beetles burrowing, the ants huddling in their underground tunnels, the small birds nestling their beaks into their chests to sleep, the raccoons gearing up for a night of foraging, the deer sleeping, the foxes napping in their alcoves, the caterpillars shifting in their cocoons. Yet the Shadow, the undertaker of death, was wide awake, standing as tall as he could on his hind legs, waiting for the right time to pounce upon Toruk.
Unbeknownst to both Toruk and his father, the Shadow was forged into existence some time ago when the Shadow was just an outcast, a wayward young man who had lost all human mannerisms and began roaming the earth as a filthy vagrant. The greater his frustration and hunger, the more otherworldly he became until he eventually morphed into an abhorrent soul. He strengthened as he fed on the most undesirable of attributes: greed, lies, indecision, laziness, even arrogance. Such attributes culminated in the formation of fantastic, evil powers until his unadulterated wickedness reached its ultimate height and he transformed into the Shadow. He lived as a bottom-feeder, surviving on filth, glorifying the inane, employing all of himself, his hands, his body, his feet, his head in foolishness, lies and violence. And after the Shadow had found solace in Satqin, he had conspired with the spirits of the Forest in hushed darkness, fomenting an accord, scripting into the Forest his corrupt ways and his master plan for ultimate destruction.
The Shadow’s original name was Nuru of the Fala family in Ulo. He had been born on a humble farm to loving parents and plenty of siblings. And he had developed as normally as expected. Nuru went to school and earned respectable marks. He had friends with whom he played a variety of fun games. He did his chores, obediently scrubbing the floor and clearing the dinner table each night to his parents’ delight. He had cared for his younger siblings, having possessed the required empathy and love to employ such tasks. He laughed. He skipped. He respected his parents. Nuru was in all respects a normal, compassionate child with admirable aspirations of becoming a doctor.
That is until the Voice Upon the Mountain called him. It had been a dark winter night when the then-young man Nuru was awakened at what he thought was the sound of his father calling him. But after investigating his parents’ bedroom and finding them asleep, Nuru had gone back to bed, dismissing the sound as perhaps a figment of his imagination.
Yet the Voice persisted, calling Nuru repeatedly until Nuru awoke and answered. The Voice had told Nuru that he loved him, that he had a special occupation devised only for him which was to live on Matla Mountain Peak and to serve humans as the Voice would assign. The Voice had promised to transform Nuru into a Galu within the Order of the Galu, a servant suitable for the Voice’s purposes. He had told the young Ulan that he would endow him with special gifts, both magical and physical, gifts that would enable him to serve the Voice’s people. The Voice had urged Nuru to agree. He had answered all of Nuru’s questions, telling the young Ulan that he would transform into a full Galu, like an angel, devoid of the need to eat, drink, or even sleep, filled only with the desire to love. He would be happy always, blessed with gifts of wisdom, intelligence, and beauty, shining brighter than any other Galu on the Peak. The Voice told Nuru that he would be called the Galu of light, the brightest of all Galus.
Nuru agreed, at first. He had quickly packed his bags that very night and bade farewell to his family the next day, insisting that a new life was calling him elsewhere and that he would return to visit when he could. With youthful exuberance, Nuru ran to the place the Voice had designated for him to go in Ulo. The young man stood there, excited, waiting for the mysterious Voice to appear.
And when the Voice arrived and took Nuru to Matla Mountain Peak, the young Ulan gasped in awe at the magnificence of his surroundings. He was immediately rushed into training to begin his transformation. He learned from other Galus and soon mastered his gifts within the Order of the Galu. He had even held close council with the Voice Upon the Mountain each evening, discussing great and small matters, expressing his love and devotion to both the Voice and his new life.
But it did not last. Soon after Nuru mastered his gifts, he refused to serve others. The Voice Upon the Mountain ordered him to go here or there, to assist this person or that person, to use his powers to make this or that happen, but Nuru refused. He reasoned that he was too intelligent, too wise, too beautiful to stoop so low as to serve an ordinary human. He believed that he himself was entitled to a crown, a throne, a palace, even Galus of his own. The Voice had begged him to reconsider his defiance, reminding him that it was he, the Voice Upon the Mountain, who had created him, who had transformed Nuru into the powerful servant that he was.
Yet Nuru remained adamant in his defiance. His love and devotion soon turned to anger and grumbling, then to bitterness, then to hardened hate. The darkness within him had become so great that he could no longer stand the magnificence that was Matla Mountain Peak. The glory on the Peak agitated his miserable spirit and blinded his eyes. He grew more and more despondent until a battle was waged, until the Voice summoned his obedient Galus to forcibly remove Nuru from the Peak and hurl him down the Mountainside.
When the battle was over and Nuru had lost his home on the Peak, he soon transformed again, this time losing his name and likeness to become a unique, otherworldly animal-like creature that is the Shadow. And so, the Voice developed a new plan, one that would allow the Shadow to retain his powers for a time, for to the Voice Upon the Mountain, the Shadow was indeed a menace but a useful one, a fallen thing he could use in his overall plan to bring all people to the Peak.
There the Shadow stood near the trees in all his fallen glory, watching Toruk.
"Toruk, shouldn't you come to me?!" he suddenly called in perfect Lijian, intentionally throwing his voice across the Forest to disguise his location.
"Who said that?" said Toruk, snapping his head in the direction the voice came from, shocked that someone in the Forest was speaking his language.
"You should come to me," repeated the Shadow as Rame and the hawks took to flight, squawking loudly with excitement.
"Who are you?" Toruk asked, confused, unsure of who was speaking and from where.
"I am like the Voice Upon the Mountain," declared the blasphemous Shadow.
"The Voice?" returned Toruk, turning around, for the Shadow was moving his voice, advancing it towards him menacingly.
"Toruk, you should really come to me!" snapped the Shadow, practically giddy as he watched Toruk search for the source of the voice.
“Who are you?” Toruk repeated.
“It does not really matter,” replied the Shadow. “You are going the wrong way.”
“But how do you know where I’m going?”
“Because I am like the Voice Upon the Mountain. I know all things, Toruk.”
“The Voice sent you?”
“The Voice does not need to send me.”
“I think you should leave me alone.”
“Oh, Toruk Tal, are you scared?”
Then the Shadow opened his mouth once again and this time, attempted to sound like the Voice Upon the Mountain. He doled out a litany of disturbing suggestions, throwing his voice all across the Forest, hoping Toruk would grow fearful.
"You're going the wrong way, Toruk!" the Shadow said. "You should come to me! Toruk, are you really sure there’s a Sacred Waterstone? Why didn’t your father find it? Are you really sure he was right? How will you ever find it, anyway? Don’t you remember that you’re blind?"
To Toruk, the voice sounded like the Voice Upon the Mountain’s but he was not so sure. There was a tinge of anger and despair in what he heard shouting across the Forest. It seemed as if whoever was speaking was frustratingly desperate, restless, fitful like a blind baby bird clawing and crying as it hatched. The sound was completely opposite to the Voice’s calm boom which always sounded to Toruk like an earthquake rumbling in the deepest part of the ocean. When the Voice spoke, he always left Toruk with a deeper sense of safety, of absolute certainty. But as this faux voice rattled off its strange, tormenting questions, Toruk soon became frightened.
Is that the Shadow? Toruk thought. How does it know me? It knew my name, what I was doing?! It spoke of my father. It knows that I’m blind. How? Toruk began to wonder if this was the moment the Voice Upon the Mountain was referring to when he told Toruk to “defeat him.” I really have to fight him? Toruk wondered.
He recalled the warnings about the Shadow from his father and Uncle Quinn’s description of the Shadow’s physical weakness, but Toruk was not confident that he could fight him. It was cold, dark, and he was alone. Save for Uncle Quinn’s rusty climbing tools, he possessed no weapons, not even a knife. He was growing tired and hungry by the hour and most importantly, he could not see.
There’s no way I can fight the Shadow, Toruk concluded. No way. How am I supposed to fight something I can’t see? Maybe the Shadow’s right. I am blind. I can’t even get out of Satqin. I’ve been hiking all night and I’m still in the Forest. And even if I get out of here, how do I make it up Matla anyway? It’s pitch black out here…and getting colder. I’ll freeze to death. I’m blind. I can’t even see. What was I thinking? Maybe Rona was right. I shouldn’t be out here like this. I should go back to Ceto. I can’t do this. I can’t-
"Toruk!" the Voice Upon the Mountain suddenly rang, his voice gliding upon a sliver of the Yuli Wind. "Do not listen to him. He is a liar! And he can be defeated. You can defeat him. A person worthy to distribute the Sacred Waterstone must be fearless in the face of the Shadow! Ij lemi! (I love you!)"
Then a sudden cold blast of the Yuli Wind lifted a nearby pile of dead leaves floating on the Pond and carelessly tossed them, the sound of which startled Toruk, successfully shifting his attention from fear to steadfast confidence in the Voice’s counsel, for it was the Voice who had sent the Wind.
As a true villain incapable of satiety, the Shadow was not finished with his ridiculous shenanigans. Instead of speaking in his duplicitous voice, he decided to shape-shift into a creature just as foolish as he was. The Shadow swiftly transformed himself into a ridiculous baby monkey, plopping its fake image on the ground in Toruk's pathway near the People’s Pond, looking at Toruk with its big baby eyes, whimpering loud enough for the young Lijian to turn his ear to the sound.
A monkey...in this forest? Toruk thought when he heard it. He had rightly never encountered one before, for his part of the world was much too cool for such primates.
"Not again," Toruk mumbled as he slowly backed away from the screeching animal.
Then the fake monkey held out his hand to Toruk, motioning for the young man to take it. But of course, Toruk could not see the gesture. He merely listened to the noisy animal, confused by what he was hearing.
“Get! Get away!” said Toruk, hoping to scare the animal away.
The monkey got to its little feet and moved towards Toruk instead, intending to touch him.
"Ma! (No!) " the Voice Upon the Mountain suddenly cried, his words soaring upon a sliver of the Yuli Wind. "Back away, Toruk! Back away!"
Toruk obeyed the Voice and immediately backed further away, causing the Shadow to fly into a sudden rage. In his wild anger, he forgot his feckless disguise and swiftly transformed back into his original monstrous body. Then the Shadow's yellow eyes glared at Toruk. Then the creature grunted. Then winter smoke puffed from his horrendous mouth. Then his wicked tongue emerged, long and snapping, loud enough for Toruk to hear.
The young Lijian turned and fled. His pace was swift but aimless, like a bullet shot from a trembling gun. He ran northward around the Pond while the Shadow immediately gave chase.
But after some time, Toruk eventually slowed to a hasty walk to catch his breath. The young man was tired, breathing heavily, confused, listening to the night, listening for the Shadow he could not see, for the creature had momentarily returned to his hiding place, quietly waiting for another the moment to easily capture Toruk.
When Toruk slowed, he soon realized he hadn’t run very far, for he was still in the area of the People’s Pond near a cluster of trees where bears slept, and foxes burrowed, and wild spiders crawled under scattered piles of dead wood, sharing their home with rattlesnakes and other unsightly pests. His father had warned him about this part of Satqin for there was much danger here. Tofer had told his son that the densest part of the Forest was a hidden place of pressing, of shamelessness, and of unrelenting violence.
“Toruk!” called the Voice, his words booming upon a sliver of the Yuli Wind. “Do not run away! Come back!”
But Toruk continued, searching for another path out of the Pond area. He tripped when his boot suddenly caught onto a nearby branch. His noise awakened slumbering jaybirds who commenced to jumping up and down on their high-timbered perches, screeching, creating a raucous, causing snow powder, iced leaves, and broken twigs to rain upon his head. In the frenzy, he ran mindlessly, slamming into a tree. One of its slim branches slapped his mouth, whipped his forehead, sliced the flesh near his right eye and drew blood.
"No!" escaped from Toruk's lips. Pain was instant, searing into his head, throbbing, tearing, blurring his vision. Bloody rivulets snaked down his cheek. Toruk stood there, stunned, touching his injured face. Blood? he noted awkwardly as if he could not believe it. It seeped into his mouth, dotted on his coat, plopped upon the frozen tundra. He was shocked by the minor cut.
Indeed, the corrupted Forest was feverishly mounting a collective resistance against Toruk, preventing him from escaping, enabling the Shadow, that nefarious night guard, to track him.
All morning, the sun had hidden behind clouds, filling the skies with gray, damp air, causing Toruk discomfort in breathing as he hiked. Deer, his steadfast friends who, in his youth, used to greet him with measured affection, had fearfully scattered when he approached. Birch trees had thrashed wildly as he pushed through. Spiders and snakes seemingly sought to terrorize him, looping themselves onto nearby branches and dangling before him, baring their little teeth, hissing loud enough for him to hear.
The Shadow soon reemerged to resume his chase of Toruk, figuring the young man’s injury would render him vulnerable. The Shadow’s feet struck the Forest floor with quick, thudded steps, prompting Toruk to once again flee as fast and far away as he could. He had planned to continue running northward along the Pond then through Satqin’s exit and back into Ceto where he would be safe.
But then, through the Voice’s hidden power, he sent Toruk a memory simply to communicate a present message, that is, to stand and fight. The young Lijian suddenly thought of the last thing he saw before he lost his eyesight. His mother’s sleeping face suddenly resurfaced to his mind. The image of her angelic countenance came in full color in Toruk’s mind, her round cheeks sallow with sickness, her closed eyes fluttering for what would be the last time, her full lips chapped from dehydration and sorrow, her once beautiful soft hair haphazardly mushed beneath her head like a wild nest of limp discolored straw.
She was the first in his family to have suffered from the poison, having at first contracted a cough, then a rash, then becoming bedridden with the strange ailments that were similarly plaguing others in Ceto. Toruk recalled holding her hand, whispering his vow that he would find the Sacred Waterstone, that he would continue searching the landscape with his father for the magical stone, that nothing would stop him until he found it.
“Voice u rijto. (The Voice is right.) I can’t leave now,” Toruk mumbled to himself as he ran with the Shadow huffing and puffing behind him, his mother’s beautiful dying face framed in his mind. “If I have to fight that thing, I will.”