Into Darkness

60

The next day, after hours of walking, rocky areas began to break through the sandy ground. Here and there off to the sides, enormous rock towers also appeared to erupt up through the sand and thrust toward the sky. Their size made Richard feel very small. The debris that had gradually fallen as the rock decayed had accumulated over eons around their bases, creating massive slopes of scree that gradually became almost vertical near their tops. The way it rose up ever more steeply, it gave the rock monoliths a flared appearance at the bottoms, but it was really their rock faces gradually shedding material.

Between two of the towers off to their right, one of the moons between the massive rock mountains lit the billowing clouds that seemed to boil up from the distant landscape, the reddish color making them look almost like smoke from distant, raging fires. With those silent monoliths, that sand, the rolling clouds, and the moons, it was a frighteningly beautiful, if ominous, sight. The isolated islands of massive rock towers reminded Richard of the plateau that held the People’s Palace rising up from the Azrith Plain, except these in this world rose up considerably higher.

It had been a long journey from that palace, a journey unlike any other that had taken him to a different world. It was turning out to be a journey that could never see him reach home again. It was depressing to think that this world of sand, desolate rock, and in places stagnant swamps, would be where he had to live out the rest of his life.

Richard had to put those thoughts from his mind. Being distracted by turbulent emotions was a good way to die in battle. He had to stay alive at least long enough to be sure his home world would be safe from the Glee ever coming there again. He had to make sure that Kahlan and their children would be safe.

As they went farther into the drylands, he understood the fear the Glee had of this desolate place. While the areas where they lived were swampy, there was abundant life there, providing food and safety. For good reason they were most at home there. This was an empty place where it would be all too easy to die a very lonely death. If they died out here, it was unlikely that anyone would ever come along to bury their bones. Eventually those bones would be ground to dust by the wind-driven sand.

The one good aspect of what they were doing was that he could see why the Golden Goddess and her followers would never expect that anyone would come around this way into the place where they lived. They wouldn’t be expecting Richard, Vika, and the Glee with them.

“How are you doing?” Richard asked Sang.

Sang held his arms out, wrapped in water weeds with just the claws sticking out the ends. Water weeds were also draped over and around his head, so that his eyes could barely see out of his suit.

“I thought that you were foolish to think we could cross this land, but this way you thought to wrap us with the water weed is working. It is amazing for us to explore this strange dry land we have never seen before. My skin is warm and wet. I no longer fear that I am about to die.”

Richard thought that maybe Sang should reserve judgment until they met the enemy.

Areas of rocky ground breaking through the sand became ever more frequent, with large stretches of the rock joining with others until before long they were walking over jagged, uneven rock rather than sand. The rock was pitted and sharp. The terrain was even more harsh, and that worried the Glee with him. As they continued onward the rock seemed to tilt upward so that they had to continually climb the ever-rising, massive shelf of rock.

Having never been through the drylands, the Glee didn’t really know much about the terrain and could offer no advice other than general guidance about the direction they needed to go to reach the area held by the goddess and her followers. Richard worried about what other surprises they might encounter in the vast trackless drylands.

As they went farther, many of the enormous peaks began to line up, with numbers of them joining in chains of towering rock making it appear that they were one long mass of rock wall rather than individual peaks. In some places the rock did completely cease to be individual towers, becoming long, sheer rock walls hemming them in. By their size and orientation across the landscape, those rocky outcroppings seemed to bend the wind, deflecting it off to their right, rather than channeling it through the drylands the way they had up until then. Those winds, while still hot, became heavy with moisture and felt stuffy. Richard could see the thick overcast being funneled past the walls of rock to head off away from them.

The uneven ground, littered with sharp, pitted, crumbled rock, was difficult to walk on. They all had to be careful lest they twist an ankle. He was worried that the Glee might fall and tear their suits of weeds, as well as their soft flesh.

As they came to the crest of the rising ground, they all slowed to a halt.

“There,” Sang called out, pointing off into the distance. “That place down there is where the Golden Goddess and her followers live. They like this place because it is near the mountain with the device, it is wet, and there is a lot of room for their great numbers to assemble.”

Richard nodded as he studied the landscape out ahead. It looked to be a low, swampy area, with abundant vegetation. It was indeed a vast area that would hold great numbers of Glee. In the far distance, he saw more of the tall, crooked tree trunks with the single, high clumps of foliage.

“When we get down there,” Richard told the Glee in a low voice as he scanned the area in the distance, “I want you all to stay behind me.”

“Why?” Several Glee asked in his mind at the same time.

“Because if things get rough, anything in front of me is going to die.”

That seemed to bring the seriousness of what they were doing into sharp relief for them. Richard urged them back a ways, out of sight of any of the Glee down below that might happen to look up. If they did look up, they would easily be able to see them silhouetted against the sky. Once back a ways, they all watched as he quickly strung his bow.

“What are you doing now?” Iben asked.

Instead of answering, Richard gave him a meaningful look and then nocked an arrow. Without a word, he drew back the string, let out a deep breath, settled his aim. He drew the target to him as he had long ago learned to do and then let the arrow fly. Even as the arrow left his bow, in his mind, it had already hit its target. Several seconds later reality caught up with what he was seeing in his mind.

The arrow went right through the head of a Glee sitting on a rock outcropping down closer to the swampy area. He had been looking away from Richard and his group, keeping watch from higher ground toward the only way they believed others could enter their home ground.

Watching the Glee crumple in the distance seemed to sober those with him even more. None spoke, but they glanced around at their fellow Glee, having never seen anything like it.

“That one was standing watch,” Richard whispered to them. “Had he turned, he would have seen us. We don’t want any of them to sound an alarm. We need to catch them by surprise.”

“We will let you know if we spot any others standing guard,” Iben said. A few others nodded their agreement.