by Paul Kater
As if it is trying to surround us."
Darkness did. And not only that; at a certain moment it jumped the small camp and in one strike everything was dark. Very dark.
"Did someone remember to do something about lights?" the witch asked.
"Lux," said William, making the tip of his wand light up. Rebel had gotten something from a pocket that emitted light as well.
With these few sources of illumination, the group quickly prepared something to eat. William then set up some wards, just in case anyone or anything had plans for surprise visiting them in the night, and then the group went to sleep in their improvised sleeping quarters.
-=-=-
"William." The voice was a whisper. It was Hilda's.
"Yes?" He was awake amazingly fast.
"It's still dark."
"Perhaps it is still night," he assumed.
"No. Can't be. I am awake." Her logic did not seem to make sense, unless you knew Hilda. She'd wake up after the night, unless something made her wake up sooner. And everyone would know it if that happened. William knew her.
A wand-tip lit up. The others were still asleep. Hilda and William rose from their makeshift bed and tiptoed out of the tent.
"Crappedy crap. How is this possible?" the witch wondered out loud. "I mean, this looks amazing, but still."
A circle of thirty feet around the tent was still shrouded in darkness, while outside that border the daylight was making the most of the grey surroundings, which was pathetically uninspiring.
Hilda walked out of the darkness into the light. "It's just fine," she said as she came back into the dark, guided by William's shiny wand. "We should wake up the others and get on our way."
Easily said, and also easily done. After waking the others (phweeeep!!) , they first pulled their tent into the daylight, so they could see what they were doing without the help of William's and Rebel's small lighting options. William made breakfast and after that the beds and tent were shrunk and disappeared in a few pockets. Then they set off, in search of the people who had left the crude map and the puzzling message on the tablet.
Far and increasingly further behind them, the blob of darkness slowly faded until nothing of it remained.
29. Hello
Hilda and Kerna were studying the tablet, more specifically the map on it.
"Would be convenient if this thing would show us where we are," the witch commented. The area they were travelling over did not give any hint of that, so for her feeling they were flying blind with seven pairs of eyes wide open. Well, most of the time. The cats sometimes did the smart thing and closed theirs.
Kerna silently agreed with the witch. They had been going for a while already. So far the most significant change was that the concrete had vanished entirely. It had been replaced with fine grey sand.
"I think we're getting somewhere," William announced. "I see something new up ahead."
"Yes, I see it too," Rebel confirmed.
This news made Hilda, Kerna and Maurizio sit up and try to peek around the two in the pilot positions.
"What do you see?"
"Rocks."
"Grey rocks?"
"How did you guess, sweetwitch?"
"Everything out here is grey," the sweetwitch muttered, "even dragon's balls are more colourful."
"What colour are those then?" Maurizio asked.
Hilda shrugged. "Depends on how you paint them."
The captain was dumbfounded for a moment. "Paint? The balls of a dragon?"
"No. Dragon's balls," Hilda failed to enlighten him. She noticed his lack of comprehension. "Dragon's balls are a kind of rock you can find in the mountains behind the sea behind the forest, when you go west from where I live. They're egg-shaped and a lot of fun for children. They paint them in the most amazing colours."
"Oh. I see." Suddenly painted dragon's balls were a lot less exciting to Maurizio.
"Of course, the trick is to get to them. You have to get past the dragons for that."
"Dragons? You mean real dragons, with wings and snorting fire?" Maurizio was captivated again.
"You didn't get around a lot, did you?" Hilda asked him. "The fire breathers don't live in the mountains, Maurizio. The dragon's balls are where the Nobblebacks live, and the Draco Maximus. That means really big dragon. It also means really stupid, but not many know that."
"Rebel, did you hear that?" the captain said as he poked his girlfriend in the back, "she lives where dragons live!"
"Cut that out, Moro," Rebel snapped, "I'm not deaf and you're almost shoving me off this thing!"
"Which would be a very bad thing," William agreed as he brought the rig to slower forward movement. The wizard pointed down. "No falling off the rig please, that would look very bad on my resume."
"Crappedy crap!"
Below them, in the sand, a kind of vegetation had slowly been emerging. At the very moment that Hilda uttered her well-known words, the green stuff had become quite an impressive layer of what looked like low cacti. The most ominous about them were the immense needles that protruded from the stems.
"No shit," Maurizio said, "you could make a nice sabre from one of those things."
"I think I know where we are," Kerna then said, pointing at the tablet. Her finger rested on a strip that showed a wobbly line with some scratches. "I believe that this ridge of plants is this line."
With the rig moving over the lethal green, everyone in turn studied the tablet. The general feeling was that Kerna could be right. She could also be wrong, but that was not so important. The important thing was that, if the woman was correct, they were hovering over the last known bit on the map. Outside that border, there was nothing drawn by the people they were trying to find.
"So once we crossed this gross stuff, we're flying into no man's land," Rebel said.
"Look behind you, kid, and convince me that we just came from man's land," Hilda commented. She had a point there, and she knew it.
"Let's first get over this stuff," William suggested. "I don't like the look of a load of daggers beneath us and us without very much protection."
For a while the vegetation underneath the rig did not change very much. A few comments were made about how their contraption was quite open at the bottom, and how large the possibility was that someone could fall down.
William and Rebel retorted that so far nobody had fallen out, "so please shut up about that."
The addition of the latter evoked even more comments, and as the group was debating there came an end to the green mass of knife-like plant extensions without them even noticing. The terrain changed into a rough, rocky surface with crevices in it that contained clear, running water.
Hilda was the first one to notice the change. "Hey you all, cut out the bickering and look down!"
Her words brought a moment of peace, after which a careful hooray-feeling took over. William agreed that putting down the rig here was a good idea, so they could enjoy some of the fresh water. It felt good to the group to be off the flying rig and walk around a bit, and the water was very good.
"I wonder when we will find some sign that we are getting close to the people we're looking for," Rebel said. "It's been a nice ride so far, but I'm afraid that one more day of flying around will get a bit boring."
The small group also stuck around for something to eat, and it was during a break from snacking that Hilda suddenly noticed some movement in the corner of her eye. She turned her head and looked, but there was nothing.
"Did you see that?" she asked, wondering why she did not see what she was sure of she had seen.
"See what?"
"The movement there," the witch pointed.
"Nope, didn't see anything," Rebel said. Kerna shook her head in silence, and also the men had not seen something.
Hilda scowled for a moment. Seeing things that weren't there bothered her more than seeing any of the weird things she had seen in her life. She picked up a sandwich, checked it for onions and - there it was again! She jerked her he
ad and - nothing. "Crappedy crap," she muttered, "I hate this."
"Wassup?" Maurizio wondered between bites. He knew it was not good to see the witch act like that.
"I saw it again! There!" More than just a tad annoyed she got up and walked over to where she had clearly spotted the movement. The fact that there was nothing that actually could move in that place was circumstantial.
"It was here," she was convinced as she stomped the rocky surface. The surface did not feel so solid as a rock as a rock should feel... "It -is- here," she decided therefore. Another stomp.
William had joined her. "Yes, I see the rocks move." He stomped the place also.
The surface responded by trembling, making the magicals jump to the side. A breath later, the rocky underground became a lump, then a mound and it ended its growth as a large bulky block of rock.
"Suck an elf," Hilda shared, "I knew I wasn't losing it."
Then the block of rock opened two large red eyes.
As the thing stood there, motionless, Hilda and William slowly stepped back a little. They were used to quite a bit, and so they knew it paid to be careful.
"Hey, Rocky, can you hear me?" Hilda then tried.
Rocky did not indicate in any perceivable way that he had indeed heard the witch.
"Hello? Somebody in there?" Hilda became braver, as the lump did not move. She stepped up to it and knocked on it. "This," she decidedly reported then, "is solid rock."
The sound of some pebbles scattering, further away, made the whole group look at the sound. Another Rocky emerged from the surface, as immobile and red-eyed as the first one.
"Somehow I have the feeling we stumbled on a nest of those," Maurizio vented his
