I spent my youth in a land I will call Caramore.  Life is simpler there, and moves at a slower pace; but, in spite of this, I hope a little of what I relate in these lines will be of some interest.  I suppose a description of Caramore is in order as it is highly unlikely that you have heard of it before.
        Caramore is a long narrow land lying between towering vertical cliffs, perhaps two miles or more high, and an impassible sea.  On Earth we would say, the cliffs lie to the south and the sea to the north, with Caramore, lush and green, running east and west.  The land is flat and fertile, blessed by ample rainfall, moderate temperatures, gentle breezes, plenty of rouark and a gentle solar star that varies little with the seasons.
        My people lived there in family units. Six to eight members per unit is common, with little friction between units, as a rule.
       
I came into a family of five, whose plot in the eastern end of Caramore backed up against the mighty cliff.  We had cooperative neighbors, and in fact enjoyed friendly relationships with several.  By the time the pace of this story picks up, have hope, my family had increased to eleven, an unwieldy number, but we anticipated no more additions in the immediate future, and a certain amount of attrition seemed likely.
    
The great cliff defined my dreams, commanded my imagination and dominated the stories of our oral tradition. Tales abounded of brave climbers on the paths, cut in the stone, that wound in and out of the massive vertical flutes up the face of the cliff.  Some paths, rumor had it, reached to the very top, though those who may have journeyed there never returned.  In the accounts, there is speculation about the wonders and riches the climbers may have discovered.  Like the others, when young, I too climbed these paths, though of course we ventured to no great height.
    
The Cliff would have been no more to me, a common toiler in the fields and solid family member, than a majestic mystery if not for my best friend; I’ll call it Richie.  Richie became a renegade.  It may not seem logical to you, but in the event of the loss of its family, Richie became a renegade.  The inhabitants of Caramore are survivors, so there are few renegades; in fact, no acquaintance of mine knew of any other.
        Like most renegades, Richie began to climb the cliff.  Richie would climb for days, even tens, searching for a way to the top.  After an unsuccessful climb, it would come back down and stay with us for a few days, about as long as socially acceptable, then at this or that neighbor’s, until it had built up its strength and resolve for another assault.
    
Having a renegade for a best friend was not a lightly taken role in Caramore.  I would go with Richie to its next climb early on the morning of departure.  Every evening during the climb I would dress in white, if possible, and stand in the open at the base of the cliff, looking up to see if I would spot Richie.  Richie would, at this time, try to gain a vantage point and wave a rag.  Usually I could spot Richie for two days, but not often beyond than that.  Once I observed Richie after five days, seemingly within a few hundred yards of the rim. Two days later, though, Richie waved from a much lower point, and came to our dwelling before the night center.
        It would have been impossible to assimilate Richie into our family; you see, there was a patriarch, and the others must be subservient. Richie could never be obeisant.  Then too the numbers were against us, as well as my training to be the next patriarch.  My hope was that the patriarch might soon pass on to me the responsibilities, retaining for itself only the ceremonial duties.
    
As I toiled in the fields, Richie would rest in the shade, and entertain me with its exploits on the cliff.  This suited me perfectly.  I gained a great deal of expertise on climbing without a bit of risk and only the exertion required by my agricultural endeavors.  Richie claimed that the lower half might be climbed quite easily.  One could start in any likely spot and expect to find hand-holds sufficient, if young and strong, to reach this height.  Above that point, only by luck could one choose a route to the top.  All seemed to lead to disappointing dead ends.  Evidence of cutting by those of old could be found as they tried to reach the heights, but they either got discouraged or rock fall wiped out their accomplishments.  Cutting tools in our time were rare, and certainly beyond Richie’s resources.
    
I procured a cutting iron for Richie.  If my patriarch knew of this acquisition, the iron would surely have been appropriated for the family, and my plan to become patriarch would have been delayed, if not destroyed completely.  I saw Richie off on a fifth day.  It planned to pursue a favorite route, one where the way seemed blocked by a short intermission.  Richie planned to recut these steps reconnecting the old path.  It seemed to Richie the path would then lead to the top or, if not, it could not be such a great distance that Richie could not carve its way to its goal.
        Though it rained, I spotted Richie easily the first two days.  I did not spot Richie again for three days. Then I spotted Richie at the same vantage point for two days, then never again.  I engaged myself in some stupidity, and that may, as much as anything, have been the reason.
    
Our Beast became restless; it did that every now and then.  For several days it damaged crops and homes.  It had even been known to take a few lives.  The lair of the beast lay off to the east, where I gathered the coast curved away to the south.  I had never gone far enough to document this, though few lived closer than we.
        The dragons of your mythology, with many heads, claws, scales, tails, wings, and breathing fire, would be a comprehensive beginning to an inhabitant of Caramore’s imaginings of our beast.  Many, I am sure, saw it; though perhaps not at times of peak clinical observation powers.
        The beast, on its journey homeward, proved to be not much more than three times my size.  It moved slowly, smelled of putrefaction, and above all else, exhibited a high level of stupidity.  It had stopped to demolish a nearby neighbor’s hovel, putting to route the patriarch and much of its clan, who had climbed to safe heights in stout treelike plants.  The beast had completed its primary mission when I happened upon the scene, attracted by the panic-driven audible emissions of a fair young member of the family, Euglena.
        Euglena had been, by common practice, fastened to another of these stout treelike plants, that it might finish a mundane operation necessary in the preparation of meals, before wandering off to some more amusing pastime.
    
I intervened, delivering to the beast a forceful blow with my agricultural implement.  As the beast belatedly resumed its homeward trek, I shouted a few choice obscenities, an obvious oversight considering those assembled, and pitched a few encouraging stones in its direction.
        Euglena and the others remained respectfully and properly silent, but the patriarch made public proclamation of my heroism, and it began.  I received honors and offices.  My family received much wealth.  Festivities commenced and would last for tens.  Dignitaries and pilgrims came from the far end of Caramore to observe me.
        Of course, by tradition, on the lucky third day of the second ten, I would be sacrificed, that the less blessed inhabitants might be illuminated by my spirit, carried abroad by the smoke from my great bonfire.
    
Having a lot less heroic composition than accredited, I began to pick my way up the cliff on the fifth day of the first ten.  I hoped to follow in the footsteps of my best friend, Richie, whose assessments I found quite accurate, except it took

 me somewhat longer to complete a “day’s climb.”  At the end of the sixth day, I found where Richie had chopped out the new steps.  I also saw the overlook where it had signaled to me, but I decided against going out there.  The views ranged from adequate to superfluous at any place I could hold onto.
        During intervals of rest, I could look down on most of Caramore, a startling green strip between the grey rock and the dirty yellow sea.  The stain of the sea stretched to the farthest horizon—unbroken, save for an occasional cloud.
    
Legend has it our ancestors sailed upon this sea in ships of stone.  A perilous undertaking as it consumes both metal and organic matter, as well as having its moments of turbulence.  We are not much attracted to it.
        I didn’t see the lair of the beast, though I looked when my position seemed favorable.  I reserved most of my concentration for the vertical face of the rock above me.  I studied this as I pulled myself up ever so slowly.
    
Now and then, I found further evidence of Richie’s cutting.  It seemed to me this way would lead to the top.  At first I began to notice a little less steepness to the ascent, though still there remained more to go than I could ever have imagined. Then I began to find plants growing in cracks in the rock, with which I could aid my climb.  Some of these seemed to bear the mark of Richie’s passing.  Many times I thought I saw the rim just above me, but gained that height only to find another such point beckoning from above.
    
Caramore slid from my view below, leaving only the filthy sea.  Next I began to climb on a carpet of low-growing plants, similar to those that take over the places between, in Caramore.  Richie had chosen to make his way directly to the rim.  I veered away, a longer route, but I hoped it might give me a better chance to escape detection.  Weakened by lack of food, drink, sleep, and the great altitude, I succumbed easily to capture in spite of my plans.
    
The great plateau surpassed all legends about it.  I saw no suspension of the natural laws, no agricultural tools of hartick bone and no belts of fooerey, but in the population centers, they built their buildings tall, and somehow along their grand paths, the citizens propelled little carts.  In many places these paths were so wide that carts proceeding in opposite directions could pass without one or the other pulling to the side and stopping.  Even a cart that overtook another might pass the slower at an acceptable level of risk.  I am sorry, this is commonplace to you.  I got carried away by my recollections.
    
The inhabitants of Gralanis look deceptively similar to those of Caramore.  While we prefer to dress in only a small scrap of hand-woven material tied about our middle, they cover their bodies from just below their sensors, down to and including their transporting appendages.
        I traveled in custody through this wonderland for half a day, arriving finally at a large, inhospitable looking building.  There I received a meal, such as might be prepared for the most junior subservient, after the fact of its greatest misdeed in Caramore.  Before I could finish, they hustled me off to a briefing.
        The inhabitants of Gralanis took no interest in my language, but I riddled out their tongue.  It peeved them that Richie and I had made our way to their fair land. A renegade in Gralanis is a more serious insult to society than in Caramore, with an actively enforced penalty.  They proposed to dispatch me as they had Richie.
    
I have no technical training, so I cannot let you in on that side of the proposition, further than my understanding of my orientation session.  Time and distance are useful concepts when dealing with simple problems, but they can be cumbersome when working with more complicated propositions.
        This civilization almost produced a marvelous machine.  With it they could travel over the broadest definitions.  It had its limitations.  Tracking and retrieval proved unreliable, and it took a great deal of testing and adjusting of the machine on an individual basis or, while bodies transported satisfactorily, memory loss of varying degrees often occurred, with the possibility of a complete loss of intelligence.  After a number of disappointments, these Gralanis inhabitants gave up traveling by this method, but being a thrifty folk, they pressed this machine into service for their deportation program.
    
After my orientation, they transferred me to a small nearby building, situated next to a complex of hideously shaped structures.  The machine must require power; the whole area seemed to strain to contain energy wishing to escape.  They put me in the machine.  The inner walls were plain and bare.  I waited a short time, hearing some activity going on outside, then everything went out of my head.
        I found myself here. My body is quite different now, transmogrified to an approximation of that possessed by the creature with the closest matching intelligence in my area of reception.
                                    ^  ^  ^
Today I am a human being, with a male orientation, slightly larger than average, with dark thinning hair. When asked, I say I am 45 years old.  I presume my memory retention is a fluke.  I didn’t notice any testing or adjusting.  I picked up the language here as easily as I did in Gralanis.  I guess I have that facility.
        For the first few tens after I arrived, I could easily be coerced, so I now have a wife.  We live in a flat and most interesting place called Kansas.  Tens are over in only seven days.  Occasionally the atmosphere becomes organized.  My wife has contrived to produce numerous, ingenious, oddly motivated offspring.  Other than that, things have not changed that much for me.
    
My agricultural implement has immense power, enabling me to rip up more land in a day than might be found in all of Caramore.  Mostly I grow wheat, averaging a few bushels an acre more than most, if not all of my neighbors.  I would expect as much, considering the superior knowledge of this trade I acquired in Caramore.
        My wife raises a number of the lesser inhabitants of this world, to entertain the offspring.  Now and again she forces me to kill specific kinds of these.  Other types are never killed, though they seem like suitable prospects.  This killing is accompanied by a great deal of slobbering by the younger offspring.  I find the task revolting, but in truth this body has a taste for strange things.
    
My wife doesn’t like me to reminisce about Caramore, especially around the offspring, although it is obvious they enjoy my stories very much.  They are growing up and will soon have offspring of their own.  These will come to me in turn, crying, “Grandpa, tell us about the ‘Beast of the East’.”
    
    
                       About the Author
     
        SIG member, Gordon Graves, lives in Seaside, Oregon, with quite a few spiders and a stray cat that, unaccountably, lacks interest in arachnids. She spends her time outdoors because, like all females, she has a propensity to arrange things and destroy artifacts.
        Gordon is a long-time contributor to Calliope, writing witty and wry letters to the editors, articles and short fiction.  His work has been published in a variety of small press publications.  His last appearance in Calliope was in Issue #120 (Summer 2008), where his short story, “Works Like a Charm,” won Third Place in Calliope’s 16th Annual Fiction Contest.
    

                           Copyright © Gordon A. Graves