‘This is different, it looks as if the stone has been melted and run down the side of the place.’
‘But what could melt stone?’ asked an incredulous Kel, running his hand over the smooth glassy surface, ‘It looks as if it has turned into a liquid, run down a little and then suddenly gone hard again, but that’s surely not possible.’
Moss looked in a pensive mood for a while, and stroked the smooth glassy runnels of fused artificial stone.
‘Mec said we would find a lot of things that would be strange and unfamiliar to us, and this is one of them. I think this is a thing made by the giants of long ago, and something has happened to this end of it, as it is different to the rest.’ he paused for a moment, ‘The Death Sands are not far away. Let’s check the Direction Pointer to see where we are compared to the point where we turned back earlier on.’
They set the little bowl down on the floor, and the black stick swung around several times before coming to rest.
‘It’s as I thought,’ said Moss, ‘the Death Sands must be over there,’ pointing with an out stretched arm, ‘and this side of the place faces in that direction, so I think the Sands have something to do with this runny looking stone here.’
‘It must have been a greater hotness than the Greater Sun could ever produce, even on a very hot day, so what could it have been?’ Kel was now getting interested in the matter.
‘I don’t know, but Mec did say something about the Great Lights, perhaps they were very hot, and did this.’
‘Like the Streaky Lights we see in the forest top when there is a storm.’ said Kel, trying to relate the situation to something he knew.
‘Possibly, but maybe even stronger. You’re right, there is something about this place which doesn’t seem right, perhaps we’d better leave it now and go on our way.’
They retraced their steps until they came to the branch they came in by, and returned to the more familiar surroundings of the forest.
Using the Direction Pointer to make sure they were still on course, the pair set off to hopefully circle around the edge of the Death Sands, and then continue their journey south.
Two days later, while trotting along an unusually long branch, Moss called a halt.
‘Can you hear that?’ he asked, ‘It’s almost like the noise a storm makes, but it doesn’t stop. I can feel it in the branch, through my feet.’
The branch was vibrating very slightly to the rhythm of something in continuous motion and even the very air seemed to tremble as they looked around to see what was causing the disturbance.
‘I’ve also noticed this branch is getting very much thinner as we go along it, but as it doesn’t move it must mean that the other end has joined up to a rising trunk somewhere.’
‘I hope it has.’ rejoined Kel, not looking forward to retracing their steps for such a distance.
They continued along the trembling branch for a while until something made Moss stop again in mid stride. Silently pointing to large bulge in the branch and very quietly said,
‘Snapper Bag, and it’s big. I’ve never seen one this size, although I know they come in all sizes, shapes and colours.’
Before them, completely blocking their progress was what looked like a large piece of the main branch, which had humped itself up into a ridge.
‘We can’t get past that,’ said Kel, ‘there’s not enough space on either side of it to get by safely.’
‘We’ll have to move it then.’ Moss replied, more in hope than anything else.
‘Our Story Teller once said that someone had actually been swallowed by an extra large one of these, and his friends took a great risk by going around the back of it and slitting it open, dragging him out and throwing him into a very large Water Plant which was nearby. It saved him, and he lived on to a good old age, but was completely bald. The juices inside the Snapper Bag had dissolved all his hair and it never grew back again.’
Kel gave him a look which is usually reserved for tall stories, but Moss seemed quite adamant about it.
‘One thing in our favour, they don’t usually have teeth, just a bony rim around the edge of their mouths, so unless it can get a good grip on a large portion of one of us, we stand a good chance of escape should we get too near it.’
‘Just what do you have in mind?’ asked Kel, thinking the worst.
‘Well, we can’t risk going past it, to go back will take up a lot of time and energy, so we’ll just have to move it somehow.’
‘How can we possibly do that? It’s far too big to push of with a stave, even with two of us pushing.’ Kel was still a little worried as to what Moss had in mind, if anything.
‘I can see only one way of getting rid of our friend, and that’s to get him to take some bait on the end of a vine, and having swallowed it, try and jerk or pull him off the branch. I know he’s a lot heavier than us put together, but I can’t see anything else we can do.’
They both stood there, staring at the Snapper Bag, and the Snapper Bag stared back, without moving.
Moss went back up the main limb of the tree to look for a suitable vine he could cut down, while Kel went up a side branch searching for anything which would do for bait.
The vine was easily procured, but bait suitable for the Snapper was almost non-existent, as neither of them had seen any living creatures for some time, except the barrier in their path.
‘Don’t suppose it would go for a large fruit?’ asked Kel.
‘I doubt it.’ Moss replied, as they lay in wait for something to past them, ‘That
