Potlendh

by David J. Wallis

  “Are we in a horror movie now?” Carl whispered to his sister and received another jab in the ribs.

  “Hello,” Uniqua greeted the woman nonplussed, which means that she was confused by her sudden experience. “Did you put up that sign?”

  “I did.” The woman’s voice sounded deep and far away.

  “Are you ‘Dying,’ or do you have another name?” Uniqua asked politely.

  “I am Forgotten. And so will you if you go any further.”

  “Why?” Karen enjoined.

  The strange woman did not answer. Instead, she looked at each member of the Group curiously. The twins remembered feeling like she was looking right into their souls.

  “Are you friends of the Dragons or King Kurt?” Forgotten asked. Apparently she was confused by the make up of the Group.

  “Yes,” Carl answered simply and then wished he had not.

  Forgotten took a step closer to him. In slow motion, she raised her left hand, curled her fingers palm up, and pointed her index finger at his chin. The tip of her sharp fingernail almost touched him.

  “Answer the question, boy.” Her tone was not menacing. Her whole appearance alone was scary, though.

  “We are friends of both,” Carl stammered. He did not like being afraid. What is more, he did not like showing anyone that he was afraid.

  “That cannot be,” Forgotten declared. “The Great War has divided the Island. The Lord of Power has punished those responsible.”

  “The war is over,” Uniqua informed the woman. “We accompany the child Dragon, Cassandra, to seek her parents. I healed King Kurt of his great hurt. He has renounced his kingship and gave the throne to his queen, Queen Irene.”

  The sound of a big wind came out of the woman’s mouth. “You must go no further. Turn back before it is too late. You will surely die if you do not heed my warning.”

  Then she disappeared as quickly as she had appeared.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE INVISIBLE BRIGANDS

  “Now, what was that all about?” Carl wanted to know, still feeling chills up and down his spine.

  “It means that we must be careful,” the Unicorn answered. “Very careful. I told you before that we might have to face some terrible dangers before we get to the Mountain of Power. I think we have been warned of that.”

  “Warning is a good thing, right?” Karen asked.

  “Knowing there will be dangers makes us prepared. A little,” the Unicorn added.

  “Forewarned is forearmed,” Carl said. “At least I think that’s the correct way to say it. Or is it, forearmed is to be forewarned. I don’t remember.”

  “Regardless,” Uniqua cautioned, “we must be prepared for anything and everything.” She looked around. “This is your last chance to turn back.”

  Carl started walking past the warning sign. “I’m going. I’m not going to let a ghost or spirit or whatever she was scare me.”

  Cassandra and her Bunny guards started to follow Carl.

  “How about you, Tiny?” Karen noted that the Giant had still not made up his mind.

  “There’s no shame in going back home,” the Unicorn told him kindly. “This is not your adventure. No one will think less of you if you return home.”

  “It’s not that,” Tiny protested. “I’m not afraid of anything. I just worry about my size. If I was bigger, I might be of more use to you.”

  “It is not size that matters,” Uniqua said. “It is what is inside your heart that counts.”

  The Giant seemed to brighten at her words. “I’m a brave and true Giant,” he announced. “And I’m going.”

  So it was that the eight-member Group was walking westward. They did not talk much among themselves, preferring to listen to every sound they heard. They kept looking around, expecting anything and everything.

  Every now and then, Tiny would point to his left at the mountains. He was in the lead, and his plan was to follow the mountain chain west until it ended and then proceed south to go around to the other side.

  All of a sudden, he tripped.

  “Gotcha!” a tinkly voice laughed. But none of the members of the Group could see the source of the voice.

  Then someone or thing pushed Karen, and she fell down. More voices started laughing. Carl was poked sharply in the back. His cry of pain seemed to make the laughing stronger.

  The Bunnies began hopping up and down, trying to find invisible targets to strike. But they could not find their opponents, and they were surprised when invisible fists punched them and bowled them over.

  “Get off my back!” Uniqua screamed. She began bucking her hind legs to try and dismount her invisible rider.

  Cassandra, out of fear, shrunk even smaller. And then she found herself held upside down. “Let me go!” she squeaked over and over.

  “Let me go! Let me go!” the voices mocked, and then a chorus of tinkling laughter erupted again.

  Tiny was also having problems. He swung his arms through the air. “They’re punching and kicking me. Who are they?”

  “Who are we?” the voices taunted. “Who are we?”

  “You can’t find us,” other voices began to sing.

  “This is fun!” still other voices cried. “Don’t you like to have fun?”

  Karen was fighting to keep her hair from being pulled. Carl was trying to get up off the ground, but someone or thing kept pushing him down and jumping on his back.

  Finally, Cassandra had had enough torment. “Let go!” she roared. Flames came out of her snout, and in an instant she expanded her size to that of a trailer truck.

  “Look out!” the voices cried out in alarm, and for a moment, the taunting game ceased. Apparently, the attackers were running away from the spitting flames that Cassandra was belching out in all directions.

  “Watch your aim!” Tiny warned as he dived for cover. A stream of fire shot over his prone body.

  Uniqua’s horn had turned blue as she tried to use here magic to make the attackers visible. She tried orange, then green, then red: nothing worked.

  When Cassandra had vented her anger, she became smaller, and the fire died in her mouth.

  “Let’s get ‘em!” a voice cried out, followed by a chorus of “Yeah!”s and “Get ‘em!”s. “How dare you spoil our fun!”

  “I wish we could see our attackers,” Karen shouted. She was now standing, her hair all awry. She was so angry, she wanted to really hurt someone.

  And as soon as she had made her wish, the whole world kind of changed. Out of thin air, twenty or thirty creatures suddenly appeared. Invisible, these creatures were an angry mob. Visible, they came to a screeching halt and fell to the ground. They started covering themselves and trying to hide.

  “Don’t look at us! Please, don’t look at us!” Real tears began to stream down their beautiful faces.

  And beautiful they were. Carl remembered them as like fairies depicted in books and movies. Their bodies and clothes alike were like gossamer, a very thin and delicate material that shown from an inner light. None of these Brigands were taller than a small child, but their bodies were perfectly formed. Their skin showed no blemish and positively glowed with energy.

  “That’s enough!” Uniqua barked. “Who are you? Explain yourselves!”

  The Brigands rose up and made a large huddle, careful to keep their backs to the Group. Their beautiful clothes shimmered like a hundred rainbows as they animatedly talked among themselves. Finally, one of the Brigands broke free from the huddle and glided towards Uniqua.

  “I am Helena,” the female Brigand introduced herself. “Please, do not look at me so. You will become jealous, just like all the others and then you will hate us.”

  “Close your mouth, Carl,” Karen whispered to him.

  Carl blinked his surprise at her. “I thought they’d be really ugly,” he whispered back.

  “‘Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder,’” Helena quoted.

  “True beauty is what is inside,” Uniqua counseled the Briga
nd, “not what’s on the outside. That was not a beautiful thing you did to us. It was mean, spiteful, and—” she searched for the right word, “—and very ugly.”

  Helena burst into tears. “It was only a game,” she cried. “We get very lonely out here. We get bored. We weren’t really going to hurt you.”

  “Yeah,” a braver voice from the huddle called out. “That Dragon nearly singed my beautiful clothes!”

  “Would have served you right!” Cassandra bellowed back.

  “Now, now. Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Uniqua told her firmly. “”Defending oneself is one thing. Trying to hurt others or hoping others will get hurt is quite another. The first one is okay. The second one is wrong thinking.”

  She turned back to Helena. “Please tell us your story. Why are you here? Is this your land?”

  “Is it all right if my brothers and sisters join us?” Helena asked. “We promise not to tease you any more. Now that you can see us, you could hurt us much more.”

  Uniqua nodded consent, and the Brigand huddle reluctantly joined Helena. Uniqua sat down on her haunches and nodded the other members to sit.

  “Let’s sit and be comfortable,” the Unicorn suggested. “Then all of us will feel less threatened.”

  “We used to live all over the Island,” Helena began her story. “We used to play among the trees, in the streams and waterfalls. We knew every rock by name. Even the mountains were friendly to us. But the Island grew older, and we grew more beautiful. You see, we don’t age. We can die, of course, but it is our nature to live forever.

  “Well, the other peoples and creatures started hating us. They resented our beauty. They didn’t like growing old and they hated our youth. Some became jealous of us and these horrible people started hunting us. They wanted to get rid of us because we reminded them of their lost youth and vitality. They wanted what we have, but we couldn’t give it to them. So some of these peoples decided that if they couldn’t be like us, they would just kill us.

  “At first, we tried to run and hide. We even tried to disguise ourselves so we would look old and less beautiful. But nothing worked. These mean peoples continued to hunt us down. We lost so many of our brothers and sisters. I can’t count how many have perished.

  “Finally, we came here. Then King Kurt started his war with the Dragons. The war stopped the mean peoples from hunting us, but we were still afraid that after the war ended they would try to find us again.”

  “Since the war ended,” Cassandra interjected, “and with the failure of the portals, we are rediscovering the Island. I think that all of the peoples of the Island have changed a lot.”

  “There is more,” Helena added. “One day, as the Lord of Power was walking through this plain, we asked a favor of him. Oh, he was terrible to look at. He was so angry at the time. You see, he wanted to punish the peoples who fought in the war, and his wrath was so visible. It almost sucked the light out of our beings, right out of our souls.”

  “That’s when you asked him to make you invisible,” Uniqua surmised.

  “Yes,” Helena nodded. “We thought it was wonderful to be invisible. No one could see us or find us or hunt us down to hurt us. But after a while, we couldn’t really see ourselves. We could see outlines of ourselves, but we lost the beauty we enjoy. Then—you know the rest. We can’t leave this place, and very few people come this way. And when someone finally comes along, we just want to play.”

  “You can’t leave?” Tiny asked.

  Helena nodded again. “Part of our deal with the Lord of Power was that as long as we were invisible, we could never leave this grassy plain.”

  “That’s terrible,” the Giant lamented, and a few tears formed at the corners of his eyes. “I wish you could all come to live in Big Head. We have beautiful things, but nothing as beautiful as you. We would love to have you live with us. I think you’d be really happy in Big Head.” He changed his tone. “And, if anyone tried to hurt you—” he thumped his right fist into his left palm “—they would learn real quick not to do that.”

  This invitation seemed to brighten the Brigands. “No one has ever said that to us before,” Helena admitted. “To be honest, we have always been very afraid of you Giants.”

  As Tiny laughed, thinking Helena was making a joke, Uniqua told Helena, “I doubt that you’ll find anyone kinder, more big-hearted than the Giants.” Tiny beamed with a toothy grin from her praise.

  “Then, we accept,” Helena announced. “There’s just one problem.”

  “What’s that?” Uniqua asked warily. She was expecting more trouble.

  “Well, during one of our games, we kind of captured someone,” Helena said sheepishly. She was embarrassed. “Maybe capture is too strong a word. After we finished playing, he wouldn’t leave.”

  “He?” Uniqua’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Prince Bot?” the Brigandess called. In the distance a dot approached very quickly. I could write “run,” but Prince Bot had no legs. He hovered over the ground. Apparently, he had very good hearing because one moment he was a dot on the horizon. The next moment he was hovering beside Helena.

  It dawned quickly on the Group that Prince Bot was a machine: not a hodge-podge of parts but a true robotic machine. He was barely three feet in height. His body was squarish, sprouting two accordion-like arms with claws or pincers for hands. Atop this body sat a semitransparent brown bubble. You could see several series of computer-like cards inserted into slots affixed to a motherboard at the base of the bubble. Processors seated on this motherboard gave him intelligence.

  “Greetings, peoples of the Island,” he said in an electronic voice. “I am Prince Bot, at your service.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  LAND OF THE MACHINES

  It is story time again. When the Great War ended, not only had the Island changed but also its history. Since Uniqua enjoyed knowing the Island’s history, she was naturally curious about the Land of the Machines. Besides, she hoped to learn everything she could about the lands they were going to enter later. This way, the Group would be better prepared for the dangers that lay ahead.

  “A long time ago,” Prince Bot told the Group, “the Creators were shipwrecked on the Island.”

  “Another shipwreck,” Carl muttered.

  “Don’t be rude!” Karen admonished him.

  “I’m glad we weren’t shipwrecked,” Carl said defensively. “Just stranded.”

  “Please excuse the interruption,” Karen apologized to Prince Bot. “Go on with your story, please.”

  “They had a lot of computer and electronic equipment aboard this ship,” the Machine went on.

  The twins looked at each other, puzzled. “A long time ago?” Computer and modern electronic devices are fairly recent they thought. (I am old enough to remember the first televisions, when Walkmans were huge, and there were no such things as VCRs or DVDs or even iPads.) As they shared their thoughts, they wondered if the Creators had somehow come from the future.

  “They managed to save most of their equipment. But they could not contact the outside world. They thought that they might be staying on the Island for a long time. So, having nothing else to do, they started making things.”

  “Like Machines that could make other Machines?” Carl asked.

  “Not at first,” Prince Bot answered. “The first machine they built was a radio transceiver. They talked about satellites orbiting the Earth. My memory holds a lot of information about these satellites, but these memories do not compute. Time correlation between the Island and the outside world are asynchronous.

  “Somehow, the Creators came from a future time in their world. That is why they could not find any satellites in Earth’s orbit.

  “Because they could not contact anyone in their world, they decided to pass the time improving their machines. Eventually, after many years, they improved on artificial intelligence programs.”

  “Did they make you?” Carl asked, so full or questions, just like a typical boy. Karen w
as afraid her brother might want to take the robot apart.

  “No, no,” Prince Bot replied. He seemed to be devoid of emotions and was not offended by Carl’s questions. “I am the fifth of my kin.”

  “Do the Creators still live in Machines?” Uniqua interjected.

  “No. According to my memory, they managed to hail a passing ship. Although they were much older, they returned to their world.”

  “You mentioned that this happened many years ago,” Karen began, “and that you are the fifth generation. May I ask how old you are?”

  Prince Bot performed mental calculation. “Fifty Island years. It is easier for you to understand if I use Island years.”

  Uniqua snorted. “Time is not the same everywhere on the Island. So, we must assume you mean Machine time.”

  Prince Bot did not answer. Apparently he was computing all the different time zones that existed on the Island.

  “Yet,” Karen pressed, “you keep referring to your ‘memory,’ which would mean that you witnessed things before you came to be.”

  “My memory is inherited from the group memory,” Prince Bot explained. “At the time of my assembly, I was given a copy of all of the memory the Machines had compiled up to that point.”

  “How did you get captured?” Carl inquired.

  “I was leaving Machines.”

  “Huh? You didn’t like your home?” Carl quickly asked a second question.

  “‘Liking’ is a difficult concept for me,” the Robot answered. “I am different from the others. My programming is more advance than my kin. But I also have one flaw.”

  “No program is perfect,” Carl declared. “The computers on the oceanographic platform where we live were always going haywire. Most of the time, Scott was always resetting them.”

  “You speak truthfully,” Prince Bot agreed. “But my programming flaw is not due to the improvement of my processors or codes or any inherent manufacturing problems. It was unforeseen. My predecessors calculate that my flaw is a by-product of artificial intelligence.”