A shriek from a bird tore the fog apart. Then, silence fell over the moors again. As they walked behind each other, they held hands - if not, they would loose each other in the mists. It hung over the moors like the shroud from a drowned bride, entangling the travellers and misguiding them to the swamps.
"I am tired," Maike said softly to her brother.
"I know," Wilfryd replied. "So am I. But we can't rest here. The tidal floods can reach this part of the land, and I don't know if it's spring tide. I haven't seen the moon for days. Besides that, the floods seems to come higher every month."
They walked on, close behind each other, following each others footprints, followed by hungry eyes, lurking from the puddles.
As the sun began its way to the horizon, the mists slowly disappeared. The woods became visible, trees stretching their empty grey branches out like the arms of the drowned. Now the travellers could see around, they began looking for a place to rest, a place to build a fire, a place to sleep. And, after a short while, they saw a kind of building in the middle of the moors. It seemed to be nothing more than a lot of vertical stakes and horizontal boards tied together, long deserted, overgrown with all kinds of plants, surrounded by reeds. A narrow pathway led up to it.
As they came closer, they decided to spend the rest of the day and the night there. They tied the horses to a nearby tree on a small dry grassy spot and made themselves at home on the half-rotten boards of the ancient building. The water beneath it stank and bubbled, but they were to tired to bother. If only they had...
After they had rested for a while, and the evening pulled up its black curtains around the landscape, they felt the hunger in their stomachs. Wendelmoed stood up. "I'm going fishing," she said. She took her equipment and left the rotting building. Maike followed her, keen to show herself as a capable fisher.
They left through the reeds, leaving the men behind in the low glow of the fire. It was still light enough to see the narrow pathway, but it took them a while to find a good pond to fish in. They sat next to each other, silently, concentrated, looking at the hook. Fish jumped from the pond, catching insects. Frogs sang in the surrounding woods. It was a very quiet evening and the two young women felt relaxed. After their long journey, they had finally reached a certain landmark, and it would only be a couple of days to the next settlement, and from there, with a little help from the gods, they could be within a month in Griins, their destination.
Maike caught the first fish, and soon after that they had a net full of fresh, tasty fishes. They threw back some of the fish for Nehalennia, then left the pond and walked towards the rotting building again. It had grown darker and the pathway was hard to see. Stars hid themselves behind the upcoming fogs, pale as ghosts in the night.
Wilfryd and Gijs had stayed on the boards, and built a small fire on a big flat stone that formed a kind of hearthstone. The fire was burning low, and the smoke filled the air with a strange, sweet mixture of wood and moor gasses. The two man sat next to the fire, and stared into the darkness. Wilfryd took care of his sword and Gijs recited psalms, whispering them away in the night. The crescent of the moon was covered with clouds, but lit a large part of the sky with a silver shining, delicately decorated with faint faraway stars.
A splashing in the water awoke the men from their businesses. They looked up, and saw a small boat coming towards them, over the darkened waters. The boat was small and had no sails nor rowers. It looked as if it were moved by the wind itself or maybe something under the water level. It parted the water slowly, pushing plants aside, drifting towards the building.
In the boat was a woman. She stood straight up, and held her hands close to her bare breasts. Her long red hair flowed around her shoulders as she removed her hair knot. She was naked, but didn't seem to notice the cold that the evening had blown in the air. She didn't seem to see the two men either, or the fire, or the building. She was like from another world.
"Oh please Lord have mercy," Gijs whispered, assuming he saw one of the pagan gods in front of him. Could it be Nehalennia? Freya? How could he see any of them, baptised as he was? He reached for the cross under his shirt, but only found a female idol, fat and fertile. How did that come there? He looked at Wilfryd with surprise in his eyes.
Wilfryd stared at the woman in the boat, his hands clung to his sword, swaying in the evening breeze. A dream came true, the most beautiful woman of the world had come to him, to please him, to take him. He was all forgotten about Gijs, who was next to him, and their two friends out there in the swamps.
The boat came closer and the woman smiled at them. They sighed. She stepped out of the boat and walked on the water towards them. "It is a true miracle," Gijs whispered under his breath. His hand held the idol, feeling that the idol represented the woman in the boat, a goddess of the best kind. He let his fingers gently lay over the wonderful curves of the idol.
"Peace, brothers," the woman said. Her voice was warm as the touch of the sun and smooth like honey. It rung in their ears and stayed in their minds. She stood in the water, her feet just under the surface, the water lighting up around her ankles. The air was heavy and increasingly filled with a sweet smell.
She stood there, in front of the two man, and licked her lips. "Tell me your dreams," she said, "I can make them come true."
"I guess mine has already come true, thank you," Wilfryd said slowly. His eyes were still on the woman, but now and then the background was moving in a weird way, the willows on the other side of the lake coming closer and nearly disappearing in brightly coloured fog. He blinked with his eyes, but the horizon, covered in the prologue of the night, stayed blurred. The woman bent over to Wilfryd - she was taller than the knight-to-be - and kissed him. He tasted a strange kiss, and it covered his lips with liquids, filled his mouth with mud, and he nearly choked on it, feeling heaven closing in on him...
"My dreams," Gijs murmured, his eyes closed, trying to place this woman in his life. Was she a goddess, or just something else? Maybe she was the Virgin Mother? He started praying to her, but his prayers weren't answered. Instead, he felt how her body leaned on his, how she moved her hand over his clothes, and how she kissed him with the smell of rotten plants. He fainted.
The creature was at least ten feet tall. It stood on his tail in the water, its shiny silver skin flashing in the moonlight. Fins flipped around, water went wild, and the deep shrieks from the animal shattered the air. Its mouth was big and broad, no teeth but a weak pink nothingness, gaping at the two men on the rotting building. Next to the monsters mouth were several long thin arms attached to the body, twisting aimlessly in the sky, whirling like the arms of a madman, a drowning man.
"I've never seen anything like it," Wendelmoed whispered.
"It's a Meerval," Maike said, "I've seen smaller ones, this one is huge. My mum always said, they eat children; this one could swallow a whole man!"
As if the Meerval heard her, it bent over to the men, its mouth wide opened. Gijs and Wilfryd lay on the boards as if they were sound asleep, they didn't even move during this attack.
"Nooooooo!" Wendelmoed screamed, and she ran to the two men, waving her arms, the twig she used as fishing rod hammering the grasses, her hair floating in the air with her speed, waving behind her. She kept yelling, waving her arms, hushing the beast away.
Maike ran after her, also carrying her fishing rod. They both put the twigs in the small fire, and treathened the beast with it, keeping the flames close to its body.
Frightened of the fire, the Meerval let go of his prey, and dived into the smelly water. As it disappeared under the surface, the bubbles it made exploded in flames. For a second, the whole swamp was lit by the explosion. Then the darkness returned.
Gijs and Wilfryd woke up from the explosion. The smiles on their faces quickly faded.
"What happened?" Wilfryd asked.
"You fell asleep," his sister told him.
"Yes, and then a giant Meerval was about to eat you," Wendelmoed added.
"You are kidding," Wilfryd said, but the look in the eyes of the two woman changed his thought. "You know, I had this strange dream," he continued.
"So had I," said Gijs.
"There was a boat on the lake," Wilfryd said.
"And there was a woman in it, with long red hair," Gijs added.
"How do you know about that?" asked Wilfryd.
"Guess I had the same dream. She walked over the water towards us."
"Yes, and then she kissed me. I bet she was the prettiest woman in Blato."
"Okay, guys, dream on," Wendelmoed told them. "You know, my uncle, who is a experienced traveller, once told me about swamps. There are gasses here that may change your mind, I mean, really change it and cause dreams. You two were just an easy prey for the Meerval who waited until you were affected by the gasses."
"Could be," Gijs said, "But we have been in the swamp for days. How do you know what is real, and what not? Aren't we dreaming all the time?"
"It is more like a nightmare then. Have a little faith, you priest. We have a land to save. I want to leave this place as soon as now, and sleep elsewhere." Wendelmoed took her things and walked to the place were the horses were. "Are you coming with me?" she yelled into the darkness.
***
Years later, Wendelmoed ordered her men to make a dam in the swamp. Large parts were surrounded by dikes, and the swamp dried up. A fertile land came into existence, but it would never get rid of the awful smell of the gasses that bring illusions. Its maincity was named Swampsterdam. The body of an extremely large Meerval was found under the market square, and in its stomach a small boat was discovered. In the boat lay the only partly decayed corpse of a young, naked woman, with long red hair, tied together in a knot. Around her neck, an idol of a fertility goddess was found. All these things were put in the monastery of Creyl, but burned by a certain elderly brother Gijsbrecht, who said that pagan goddesses shouldn't be in a monastery of the True Lord. Shortly after, brother Gijsbrecht left Blato and was never heard of again. It is whispered he died of a broken heart.
***
I would like to thank The Keykeeper here (and Moordrache, although this creature may be totally unaware of the fact that its role in this matter was crucial), they made me think of this story that started with only a few words: ...dragons on acid...
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© vanip 2000
(With greetings from swAmpsterdam)