Journey to The Serpent's Coil

**Kerryanne Leach** · 4th October 2011, 08:56 PM

Even the mountains themselves are overrun by the forest, theirs is the same dense green that reaches up until it is lost in the eternal mists that shroud their peaks, but these are not the great mountains. The Great Shattered Mountains of the far north do not roll pleasantly before the eye, softened by their dense foliage, no, they rise from the forest, jagged and bare save for the lichens that cling doggedly to the rock above the tree-line. They stand like spears thrust to ward off a foe, or a village's perimeter fence protecting those within it's fold. There is a narrow passage between the peaks to the north-west, before the destruction it had been a well worn path, wide and an easy climb for the trading caravans of llama, now it was a treacherous route but the only one. It wends it's way above the canopy, through steep gullies strewn with loose rocks that shift relentlessly underfoot, dragging your feet ahead they pull you off balance, sending the unwary tumbling down into crevices so narrow as to trap a man. It is only the very brave or very stupid that tread the path alone.

As they breach the final crest they are awestruck by what greets their eyes. Dumbfounded, feet rooted to the bare rock, mouths gaping wide in surprise they struggle to take in everything their eyes beheld. Maybe four meters below their feet the ground was flat and green with the same undergrowth that thrived in the deep jungle. For thirty-five meters or more the land extended out and then came to a sudden, initially sheer drop, mirrored more than one hundred and fifty meters to the west. It was if the Creator had carved a great 'V' in the mountain. The apocalypse had caused them to spew their fiery life-blood to condense the waters into choking sulphurous mists as the rock was wrenched away, tearing away the rock, earth and trees where they had built their university, casting it into the sea. From where it had once been joined to the land was now a mighty gorge tens of meters deep, almost a kilometre wide at the top narrowing in it's descent to no more than six meters at it's nadir. The rock face was cracked, where the turmoil had pulled the earth up and away, exposing the strata laying diagonally from the base. Water spewed from these deep cracks, torrents cascaded from within the heart of the earth, as if she bled from the gashes inflicted. Waterfalls tumbled over her exposed rock-face, gathering as an angry, turbulent river that crashed through the narrow chasm as it made it's way to new stretch of sea that separated the land from the exiled university. And on it's very edge stood a solitary building. Huge, it's carved stone walls reached ten meters or more from the ferns that hid it's foundation, so well constructed that even the roof had not caved away, though tree and vine now thrust their way up through the stone.

They clambered down and strode purposefully toward the ruin, their excitement building with each step. Would they find the path down to the Serpent's Coil hidden within this ruin?What wonders awaited them within it's collapsed halls and corridors?

It was deathly quiet, no chattering monkeys, no bird-song, not even the incessant clickings of insects, and as the men became aware of the silence their stride lessened and their grip tightened on the weapons they carried.