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Encounter with the Myreli, by Steven Gilligan

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Encounter with the Myreli is an extract from Elsewhere, depicting Jake’s first meeting with the strange winged humanoids of the world into which he has fallen. If you are among the few Silver Age dudes (official title) to have not yet purchased a copy of this stunning and scintillating novel, do so as soon as this sample has caressed your eyes!

As Jake walked the path through the high, shadowed chasm he saw in his peripheral vision something flying above him and to the left. He turned to look and just caught a glimpse of something before it veered away back over the lip of the chasm. It had been big but too shadowed by the dark ridge at the top of the chasm for him to make out any more. It had not been a bird though, he was sure of that. He stopped to look up but whatever it was, it had gone.

Jake could not see where the chasm was leading as it curved around and led away much further ahead. It was cooler in the shade of its high rocky walls, and the river had thinned out but surged beside him with great force.

A few steps ahead and Jake caught sight of another of the flying things, this time for a bit longer before it too flew back over the top of the chasm wall. It had broad translucent wings and the body… well, Jake thought for a moment that it looked like a man, but dismissed the thought immediately. There are no flying men in New Zealand, if that is where I am.

Jake walked on, his footsteps echoing around the chasm, when a gust of air from behind made him spin around and come face to face with the first person he had met since arriving in this land.

Jake gasped and jumped back reflexively.

Standing in front of him was a woman. She was tall, slender and beautiful with long silky greenish hair. Her skin was pale and she was wearing a black leather tunic festooned with sparkling metal studs. Projecting out, across her back, were a pair of iridescent dragonfly wings. She was staring at Jake with a surprised and fearful expression.

“You!” she said, her dark eyes wide with bewilderment. “It is you!”

Jake just stared at her wings with disbelief and a slack jaw.

“You have the mark. You are the Mark-Bearer!”

She dropped to her knees and bowed her head so that her forehead touched the adamantine ground. Jake stepped away and looked down at her back. The wings came out of tailored openings in the back of her tunic. Are they real? he thought.

“I beg your pardon?” he said. “But who’s Mark?”

The woman looked up, but did not look him in the eye. “I must speak with the Emerla. Ela and Oba speed you on your way to us.”

“What?”

And with that, her wings sprang into action and beat incredibly fast. She leapt into the air with astonishing grace and accelerated away down the chasm.

Jake could not move at first. “Wait, wait!” he shouted after her.

He ran down the chasm in pursuit. At the bend he could finally see where the chasm was leading, but he had lost sight of the winged woman. The high rock walls evened out and petered away and the landscape before him was the edge of a forest where the river veered away to the left. Jake looked from left to right; the woman was nowhere to be seen. He looked up, but she was not there either. He assumed that she must have gone into or over the forest, and as there was nowhere else she could have gone, except back over the rim of the chasm, Jake approached the trees. Still disbelieving what he had seen, he plunged his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. “What is going on?” he said aloud. He lit a cigarette and marched on with new motivation into the forest.

The trees were wildly overgrown with large leaves that slapped him in the face as he walked. Soon it became very dense, making the place look more like a jungle. The going was tough and he tripped several times over stray vines and creepers, but eventually he found a crude path.

The forest was alive with noise and Jake could hear a constant chirping and twittering as well as the sound of water running somewhere nearby. He could also hear the trees and plants around him, as if they were in constant uneasy motion. Everything felt very much alive.

He stopped to examine an unusual tree which reached so high that he could not discern where it ended. The bark of its wide trunk was pocked with small holes and the large leaves were green but striped in places with vivid shocks of purple. It was amazing to look at, and Jake would have liked to have spent more time here, examining the flora around him, but he pressed on.

After a while, his heart leapt as he spotted a clearing through the large trees and hanging vines. He stopped and crouched down to get a better look. There were many spacious-looking wooden huts constructed in such a way that they had a dome-like appearance. He could just see that these huts surrounded a larger, central hut and this one was completely spherical. And there were people everywhere, or at least he thought they were people. He could see more women like the one he had met at the chasm, and these too had dragonfly wings. The men-folk, all wearing long plain robes, had no wings and neither did the three or four children he had spotted. One winged woman was barking orders to a group of men. Jake estimated that there must have been around fifty or sixty people in this small settlement, and he waited and watched for a while, feeling slightly anxious and afraid, but never to the point where it threatened to overtake him.

Someone in the village spotted Jake in the trees and called out, “There, I see him. He has the mark.”

There was a sudden flurry of activity and some of the villagers moved back in fear, but three came forward slightly to get a better look at him. One was an elderly-looking man with a light grey robe and a white beard plaited into two long braids, and the other two were women. Jake recognised one of the women as the one from the chasm. What’s all this about a mark? he thought, and stood up. He raised one hand in a gesture of friendliness and uttered a nervous “hello” as he moved free of the shelter of trees and into the clearing. The instant he did, the three people fell to the ground and prostrated themselves before him.

“Ah, hello,” he repeated. “I’m Jake.” He looked at the people lying face down in the grass and then at the rest of the gathered villagers, most of whom instantly scattered into their respective dome-like huts. “I was wondering if you might be able to help me, I think I’m lost. Could you tell me where I am?”

The woman he did not recognise turned and lifted her head slightly towards him. From what little he could see of her face Jake noticed that she too was very striking, but with strong, manly features and fierce shoulder length black hair.

“You,” she whispered in awe, but eyed him warily. “You have come to us.”

“I think you must have me mixed up with someone else,” he said with a half-laugh. “I’ve never been here before. Where is here?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “You have never been here, never been here before.”

The old man turned slightly to the dark-haired woman and nudged her sharply in the ribs. “Do not address him in such a manner, Marila,” he said through clenched teeth.

“He does not know, I can sense it. He does not even know himself,” said the other woman, the woman from the chasm.

“Heresy!” said the old man in shock, turning to face her fully. “Do not speak this way, it is heresy! He has the mark, he is the Mark-Bearer. It is foretold!”

At this, the woman from the chasm sat up. “I tell you now,” she said angrily, “he does not know.”

The old man sat up as well and looked at Jake. “What is your name?” he said gravely.

Jake was thoroughly confused and was beginning to think that this whole thing was an intricate practical joke. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I slept on the ground last night. I’m lost, I’m hungry and I really need to wash. I don’t even know how I got here really. I don’t have much cash, but I’ve got my credit card on me, so if you could just tell me where I am, and where there’s a nearby hotel or train station or something, I’ll be on my way and I won’t bother you anymore.”

The three villagers stared back at him in astonishment. The old man stood up and held out his hand. “Come with me, Mark-Bearer.” he said.

“Finally,” said Jake, and he followed the old man into the village, but did not take his hand. He led him past a cluster of the dome-huts, from where Jake could see faces peering out from the various openings, and towards the larger central spherical hut. The hut stood on a rickety frame of legs and a wooden ramp led up into the round doorway of the sphere. Jake followed the old man into the hut. It had no windows and was dimly lit by three glass-fronted lanterns. It was a mess of oddly-shaped items, old books and scrolls. In the centre was a low table surrounded by benches and brightly decorated cushions. The man gestured for Jake to sit down and he went over to a table to prepare something.

Jake looked around. As his eyes adjusted to the relative gloom, he could make out some of the items arranged on tables and desks around the wall of the hut. He saw a brass telescope, a hand mirror, what looked like a globe, several baubles and shards of impressive-looking crystal.

The old man came back and sat next to Jake on a cushion and placed two wooden cups on the table. He set down a plain-looking jug and poured steaming liquid into the cups.

“Remba,” he said. “Drink.”

Jake picked up a cup and sniffed it warily. It smelled a bit like tea and he sipped a little. It tasted like tea and it was good to drink something hot.

“Now,” said the old man. “I am Delumar ul-Kidu. I am the Emerla here, but I am curious to hear who you are.”

“I told you,” said Jake. “My name is Jake. Jake Carter. I was out shopping and I got chased and I ran down an alley and jumped in a bin to hide, but it must have had a big hole in it or something and I just fell through and landed on a bush in the middle of a field. I don’t know how it happened and I don’t know where I am. I don’t why the women here have wings. I don’t know who you are and I don’t know anything about a mark.” He talked so fast that Delumar had difficulty keeping up. “I saw some caves by the big waterfalls and there was some writing on the walls but I couldn’t read it and I didn’t know what language it was in. I haven’t eaten much since I got here, just some fruit and I’m really, really hungry.”

“Irea,” shouted Delumar, and a young girl, with no wings, scuttled into the hut. She had chestnut hair and round cheeks. “Bring food for the guest.”

This is a sample from Steven Gilligan’s first novel, Elsewhere – available to buy from www.amazon.co.uk.