Shantar, the giant rat. Ok, here it is, the story about Shanhtar. I first heard it from an old man, sitting on a bench on a forest path, enjopying the weather. I've written it down, and present it now to you all. It's pretty long, since it went on and on while I was writing, but I hope you'll still enjoy it. (Maybe you should copy it to notebook or a wordprocessor for easier reading). Trevon. Shanhtar, the giant rat. A long time ago, a time with more monsters and less people, there was a small village on the edge of the woods. The people of this village lived in fear, because one of those monsters was moving all over the country, and ate everything that moved. This was Shanhtar,the giant rat. Now, in this village lived a boy (I will call him Kilian) whose parents were eaten by that beast, and in his heart he vowed revenge. At the time he was grown up, he asked the smit to make a sword for him, and he went into the woods to seek Shanhtar and stop his brutal killings. He had no idea in which direction he should go, so he just choose one. Now he walked days and days, and at night, he slept in trees to be safe from Shanhtar and other forest creatures (the smith of the village had told him to do so:"You have a good sword, but you can't use it when you are a asleep"). One day, he suddenly heard a voice, saying:"Where are you going, young man?". Kilian startle, looked around and draw his sword, since the villagers had warned him for bandits, but he saw nobody. Then an old man appeared, also with his sword in his hand. "Let's see if you can use your sword, young man", the old man said, and they started to fight. Kilian was soon disarmed, and the old man's sword pointed towards his throat. If the old man would've been a bad guy, this story would be over. He wasn't, however, so the story will go on. "Not very well, I see", the man continued, "but I feel you have a noble quest, so I'll teach you. By bthe way, my name is Rengartas." The old man taught KIlian how to fight with a sword. It took him a whole year to learn everything Rengartas knew. After that year, the old man wished Kilian good luck on his way, but before he could leave, the man gave him an amulet. "Wear this", Rengartas said, "it'll help you", and he vanished. The amulet was a small bronze disk, with a question mark on one side, and a familiar looking face of an old man on the other side. Kilian resumed his quest. Only a few days later, he saw a large black tree in the distance. A cloud of fear seemed to hang around it, so Kilian decided to go on in another direction. However, after some time the tree appeared again in fromt of him, now a little bit closer. This happened again and again, and every time the tree came closer and closer. Kilian became frightened and started to run, but suddenly a wolf stepped out of the forest in front of him and changed into a woman of unknown age. Kilian immediately drew his sword, but every time he tried to hit the woman, she was somewhere else (mostly behind him). After some time, the woman (or what it was) started to laugh:"Heh heh heh, do you really think you can kill me with that?", she asked with a nasty voice, pointing to the sword. "Let's see what you're doing here, waving around with swords". Kilian felt shortly a presence in his mind. Then it stopped, as the woman saw the amulet. "Oh, the old Rengartas send you, that's good, that's good", she nodded. "I'm Nardasca, a witch, as you might have guessed. Normally I don't help travellers, I enslave them. But since the old man helped you, and you're going to kill that horrible Shantar, which ate my first slave, I will help you. I won't teach you as much as that senile old man did, but you have to stay here for a while, sweetie, and in the mean time you can make yourself useful. I'm terrible busy these days". Well Kilian didn't have much choice, so he stayed, although the jobs he had to do weren't very pleasent. For example, Nardasca had once turned a tresspasser into a rabbit, but she forgot to close it's body. So from time to time his intestines fell out, and now it was Kilians job to put them back, in the right order, otherwise the rabbit would have been sick, and the witch angry. It was the price for the information he got. He learned two important things: how to find Shanhtar, and how to defeat the beast. "Shanhtar lives in a cave, on an island near the cost. It's not far anymore, heh heh". When Kilian heard this, for the first time he was glad to be here, because here he was safe. "There is only one way to slay the accursed creature. The monster doesn't feel that sword more than you would feel a mosquito. No, the only way is to speak the name of Shanhtar in reversed order, at the place where the rat was created. Then you can win." "But how do I get to the Island?", Kilian asked, "and where has Shanhtar been created?" "That's up to you", Nardasca giggled, "you're the hero, not me! Now go". The landscape became unsharp and floated before Kilian's eyes. When he could see clear again, Nardasca and the black tree were gone. Instead, he heard and smelled the sea. Thinking of a big rat that could appear any moment, he decided to climb upon a tree, and wait. In the mean time he was able to study the sea and the island from his outlook. Two things became very clear: first, there seemed to be no higher lifeforms on the island than moss and amoebae; and second, the currents around the island were too strong to swim. After having seated in the tree for several hours, he suddenly noticed an utter silence. The birds weren't singing anymore, the breeze that had been there all day vanished: it was just if the whole world was holding it's breath. Then some large, brown hairy creature appeared between the trees. It was Shanhtar. The rat looked rather satisfied, so Kilian climbed down the tree and grabbed Shanhtars tail, for this was (in his opninion) the only possibility to get to the island. Shanhtar didn't notice, and probably thought that some piece of wood was stuck to it's tail. For humans, the currents were too strong, but definitely not for a giant rat. As soon as they arrived on the island, Kilian let the tail go. Shanhtar sniffed and smelled him, but luckily for our hero the rat was tired, and went into the caves to sleep. "And now what?", Kilian thought. He knew he had to kill Shanhtar soon, before the monster would wake up and would be hungry again. So he waited an hour for the rat to get asleep, before he carefully explored the caves. He had expected to see nothing in the darkness below, but he discovered that his sword shone brightly, and illuminated his way. He walked through small tunnels, where he could hardly stand up, and through giant halls. In one of the halls he saw and smelled a brown, hairy and very ugly monster: Shanhtar. The rat was lying on one side of the hall, blocking a tunnel which seemed to go deep into the earth, and looked dug out a long time ago. Somehow Kilian knew he had to go through that tunnel to reach the spot where Shanhtar was created. There was only one problem: there was no way to go around Shanhtar. Waiting until the rat would move was no options, since the rat had only one reason to move: to eat something, and the first thing available would be Kilian. The only other option was to climb over the rat, which also didn't appeal to him. He had no choice, though. SO he walked slowly towards the bad smelling monster, and climbed carefully, with fear in his heart, over the rat. Suddenly Shanhtar moved in his sleep and with a scream, Kilian fell. The rat awakened, sniffed and headed towards Kilian. He realized he had a problem, but he also realized that he was in the tunnel. So he got up and tried to keep Shanhtar away with his sword, while carefully stepping backwards. He didn't inflict any damage to the rat, but it prevented him from being hurt by it. The tunnel appeared to be a very long one, but finally he stood with his back against the wall, waving his sword in front of him. He was in a damp cave deep inside the earth, with all kinds of scratches all over the walls. Kilian was totally worn out by now, and he felt pretty hopeless. And while he still tried to fight, his whole life passed before his eyes. At the moment his life had reached the witch Nardasca, he remembered what he had to do, and he shouted "RATHNAHS". The world seemed to turn, and he was thrown out of the tunnel, into the caves. He staggered to the surface, and there was all kinds of life on the island. The world seemed to be much brighter: it was a world without Shanhtar, and all everything that reminded of Shanhtar, was gone and forgotten. However, Kilian found that he also was forgotten. Only the witch did still know, for she had protected herself with powerful magic. So, from now on, he lived in the woods, and taught passing heroes how to handle a sword... by Trevon Andarosel.