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A Strange Land

By Andrea Camoriano

Chapter 03

          Two hours after takeoff, Andwan was starting to have grave doubts about the reliability of Hannon’s sources.  She’d been flying due south nonstop since takeoff, and she had seen nothing that even remotely resembled a settlement, overgrown ancient ruins, or anything else that might’ve been man-made, even so much as an abandoned campsite!  And she had enough archeological training to know what to look for in order to recognize such things from the sky – it was a mandatory part of her education!

          The only thing she’d really discovered was that the further south she flew on the heading Hannon had given her, the harder it was getting to move her wings.

          In fact, now that she came to think of it, the farther south she flew, the more she felt like she was trying to swim through a vat of tapioca and porridge, with a slight static-electric charge to it.  She couldn’t figure it out – it was the weirdest – and certainly one of the creepiest – things she’d ever experienced.

          And I know weird, and I really know creepy, all things considered.  You’d think I’d be beyond surprise, given all I’ve seen . . . heck, given all I can do . . . but this does beat all.  It’s almost like someone doesn’t want . . . wait . . . wait . . . “Sano!”

          In an instant, Sano’s presence had joined Andwan’s in her mind.  “What’s the matter?  What’s wrong?”

          “The way this air feels, for starters – take a check!”  And she opened all her mind’s functions to him, letting him feel this flight as if he rode in her skin with her.  “Have you tried flying in other directions yet?  Should I be feeling like this?”

          Andwan waited while Sano pulled back from the link just enough to become airborne and try flying a few experimental loops.  Then he was back.

          “This is weird, Andwan.  It’s like I’m being herded away from the due-south quadrant!  It’s as if something is consciously trying to keep me out of there!”

          Andwan felt herself go cold all over at hearing her suspicions confirmed.  “What do you think, Sano?  Should I turn back?”

          “No; we need to find that settlement.  If the circumstances were different, I’d say yes, but, well, all things considered . . .”

          “Yeah.  Better to keep going.  Safer.  Only . . . herded?  Is that the right word?  Feels more like painfully-well guarded to me.  Really painful – it’s starting to hurt.  Could you please help me do a bit of blocking that way?  Please?”

          Sano could read the genuine pain under his sister’s words, pain that threatened to overwhelm her quickly – both from the lengthy flight and from the strange force barring her way.  If she fell, the pain would quite likely overpower Andwan and prevent her from rising to continue on as they both knew she must.  So he quickly moved to her pain receptors and began interposing himself between her brain and nerve endings.  He couldn’t cut her off from the pain entirely, lest he accidentally sever her connections to her flight muscles – nor, he knew, would she forgive him if he half died trying to protect her from the pain, though she would still love and honor him for it – but he could make it easier to fly.

          As soon as he started working his magic on her, Andwan shot forward.  Soon, however, she had another problem: A large flock of birds of a kind she didn’t recognize appeared with literally no warning a few yards above and ahead of her and began charging at her on a collision course with her head, wings and shoulders.  They were a weird species – as far as Andwan could tell, a bald-eagle’s weaponry mounted on a mallard’s head and body and the whole thing grown to the size of a half-grown Newfoundland and colored like a Doberman Pinscher.  However, there was one thing Andwan knew would make even the bravest attack dog put its tail between its legs and run, crying, for the safety of its kennel, and this was one thing her own Talents could suffice to give her: The sight of a dragon in full predatory hunting-flight.

          The birds were getting closer, and quickly.  She only had moments to pull off her desperate charade; all she could do was to hope and see if it worked.

          Quickly she recalled the way El Draco Loco, as he was now called, had stooped on her when she had uncovered the truth behind the murders at the theme park where she worked; even now, the memory of it still chilled her to the marrow in her bones.  Using that memory, she drew a Casting – an audiovisual, 3-D Minstrel’s all-senses illusion – of an enraged, hunger-crazed dragon.  Its mad eyes matched its scales, which were a mixture of vitriolic yellow and crazed electric pink.  Recalling the madness of the Minstrel’s Haven Murderer, Andwan’s illusory dragon screamed its rage to earth and sky, and charged, its primal scream still ringing strong in its throat.

          The strange duck-hawks didn’t stand a chance.  The dragon, as large on its own as the entire flock, barreled into its leading edge and began fighting madly.  Its claws were real enough to the duck-hawks, as were its teeth; they fell from the sky in droves, dead or dying of psycho-cardiac shock.

          Andwan watched as the last of the birds either fell to the ground or took to their heels, as the saying goes.  As she did, she noticed that the birds that fell turned into clumps of feathers, dirt and mud on their way down.  Golems!  She should’ve known!  She could only hope that the remains of the golems would prove to be good fertilizer, rather than a poison.  A mythology buff, she was, but a specialist on such artificial magical constructions as golems and homunculi, she wasn’t.

          A quick glance around revealed nothing more coming at her from any side.  Good – it was going to take all her will and focus to finish this flight without braking for distracting external threats.  Her draconic Casting faded away to nothing; Andwan let it.  Maintaining that sophisticated an illusion while flying would’ve been tricky at the best of times, which these certainly weren’t; at the moment, that dragon was eating up resources she could scarcely afford to waste.  Therefore, until he was needed again, her Mad Dragon would be returned to cold storage, the energy that powered him channeled to reserves in order to make this flight easier.

*        *        *

          The rest of the flight couldn’t have lasted more than 20 or 30 minutes, but it felt much longer.  Despite having no more golems or other threats thrown at her, Andwan’s progress was hampered by the resistance in the air she had noticed earlier; someone had added more pudding to the mix and turned up the voltage running through it.  To get herself through it, she brought her Minstrel talents into play again: She began to play her favorite songs that provided a good, rocking rhythm to pump her wings to.

          Suddenly, however, the resistance vanished.  Andwan reflexively turned her music off in a squawk of surprise as, still compensating for a resistance that unexpectedly just wasn’t there anymore, her flight muscles gave a powerful shove that sent her tumbling end-over-end for some distance until she was able to regain control of her path and simply hovered.

          As she hovered there, looking around, a large, sprawling building, resembling nothing to her so much as the former monastery in which she and her family had once stayed during a trip to Italy, spread out below her like a highly-detailed rug.  As she stared, a voice suddenly echoed through her head.

          “Well, well, so someone finally made it through!  Welcome, youngster!  Come on in and take a breather!”

          “Who’s there?” Andwan fired back.  “I want to see my host’s face before I make any commitments!”

          And a pair of eyes opened in the building’s tiled roof, as well as a mouth adorned with a grin worthy of the Cheshire cat.

          “Happy now?  It’s been a while since I’ve had any visitors.  You’ll be completely safe – my word on that.  Have a bite!”

          But Andwan was still skeptical.  “Who or what on earth are you?”

          There was a sense of thoughtful contemplation as the intelligence below, staring up at her from the tiled roof, considered what words to use to explain itself; Andwan could feel it scanning her vocabulary for terminology she would understand.

          “Well,” it finally said, “I suppose you’d call me an artificially-intelligent or sentient monastery; I’m not sure which would be more correct.”  The intelligence sensed her confusion, because it quickly added, “I am a living being, as are you, but I have no true flesh-and-blood body.  Rather, I am a consciousness that chooses to live in a monastery.”

          “Literally, in a monastery,” Andwan remarked, and felt the intelligence break into peals of “laughter.”

          “Oh, well said, youngster, very well said!  Yes – I could choose to live anywhere, but most often, I choose to live here.  It’s safe here, and peaceful.”

          Andwan considered her situation for a moment.  Her wings were ready to fall off; her teammates would be worried about her; Sano, because of his pain-blocking for her, would be eavesdropping and worried out of his head about her; and she and her teammates needed a safe place from which to plan their next move.  A monastery seemed ideal; the monks would often keep a set of guest rooms for wayfarers to stay in on their way between Points A and B.  Quickly she attracted her brother’s attention and established a conference conversation with her teammates.  They agreed with her, and she put her hastily-made plan into motion.

          “You say it’s safe,” she stated to the intelligence.  “Is it safe enough for my teammates to come and rest for awhile?  We’re tired; we need a place to rest.”

          “Assuredly,” the intelligence hastened to promise.  “I will tell my inhabitants; they will have meals, baths, and beds waiting for you when you arrive.”  The face on the tiled roof had the same fluid expressiveness as any human’s that Andwan had ever met; its eyes glistened with excitement and its Cheshire-cat grin broadened.  Overall, Andwan had the impression of a small child bouncing off the walls with joy, excitement and enthusiasm.

          “All right,” Andwan sent back, praying she wasn’t about to lead her teammates into a trap and knowing her choices were slim to none.  “Let me call and tell them the way will be clear.  It will be clear, won’t it?  They won’t have to dodge an obstacle course to get here, will they?”

          “No; I’ll be clearing the path for them now; they’ll be here in only a few minutes.”  And the eyes closed, the mouth dissolved into flat blue tile, and there was no more hint of a face.

          Andwan now turned her focus inward to the bond she and her brother shared.  “Well, Sano, did you hear that?”

          “I did, and I passed it on.  We’re on our way!”

          A slight glimmer caught her eye; a lake was revealing itself to the west.  Andwan grinned, knowing Sano would sense it.  “I just spotted a lake; if the monks and the monastery say it’s okay, we may be able to get in a dip while we’re here!”

          A wordless song of joy from nearly a dozen minds caroled its way through hers, and her Time Teens, shape-shifted to allow for flight, appeared over the horizon, led by Nina, Ritis, and Sano.

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