Terrineia

by Brian Whiting

  Alex smiled, “I will return so you can wonder some more.”

  “Hmm. I hope that is true. Goodbye, Alex.”

  “Goodbye, King Hu Va.”

  Alex and Alesti left the room with Hu Va watching on in silence.

  CHAPTER 16

  UNEVEN GROUND

  ALEX AND ALESTI were given the best juntards of the realm. Huge beasts at least twenty percent larger than anything they rode before. Together they pulled a small wagon with dried meats, fresh vegetables and fruit. Of course none if it resembeled anything he was accustomed to. There were also blankets, three bundles of firewood and two large containers of water. Alex managed to squeeze Symboli’s tank in with the rest of the provisions.

  Without further goodbyes, fanfare or acknowledgment Alex and Alesti began to ride north into the vast emptiness. Alex glanced at Alesti, she seemed very concerned. He closed his eyes, reached for her mind and dove through the cloud. He was immersed in a hesitant fear, as if stepping to the precipice. That feeling was pulsating and he withdrew.

  “Are you ok? You seem a little off.” Alex said after failing to figure out another way to talk about her about it.

  “I am ok, why do you ask?”

  “Oh I don’t know, I’d say I know you pretty well now and I can see it in your face when you’re bothered by something.”

  “Chances are we will ride out and be killed by ming. We likely die today, how does that make you feel?” she asked.

  To Alex it was just a vast desert of the unknown. To Alesti they rode to their graves. He said nothing, knowing nothing he could say would ease the kind of fear she was enduring right now.

  “You could go back and wait for me. You don’t have to come with me.” Alex offered.

  Alesti seemed to actually consider it piquing Alex’s interest. He gave her his undivided attention.

  “I’m serious, you could tell everyone else I gave you an order, that way you don’t appear to be violating the oath by being away from me.”

  Alesti remained quiet for a few moments.

  “I will come. If you die I will die, as I should have long ago.”

  Alex looked back towards the city. Only a few minutes had gone by and he wondered how far they had traveled already. He was surprised to see a small group of men following him a great distance behind him. He kept a watch on them and smiled when he saw one man stand alone while the rest continued. Knowing they followed, he slowed the juntards down just a little bit.

  “May I?” Alesti held out her hand. Alex removed his headset and gave it to her.

  “How are you, my friend?” Alesti began then laughed a moment later.

  Genuinely curious he ached to read her mind as Symboli never made him laugh like that. It was unintentional, or perhaps it was. But slowly over the next couple minutes his mind reached out to envelope hers and inside her cloud he felt a bubbling joy. Then he tried to be both inside her cloud and surround it by expanding his mind to encompass the whole thing. It wasn’t easy and required tremendous concentration.

  “How does Alex seem to you today?” He heard in her mind.

  She looked at him but didn’t respond immediately.

  “You know better than I.” She said out loud.

  Alex became excited once he realized he could hear her exact thoughts. The excitement caused him to lose focus and he found himself in the cloud again. It was difficult with the juntard moving under him but with some time he found himself in her thoughts again.

  “Have you thought of an answer to my riddle?” Alesti asked aloud.

  In her mind he heard a list of attempts which made her giggle.

  “No silly, a ball.” She said and giggled out loud and as she did, guilt began to worm its way into his heart and he forcibly withdrew himself from her mind. An invasion of the innermost privacy. He thought of the implications. He tried to remember past events that would have turned out differently if the other person could read his mind instead of working together or moving forward on a project. A girlfriend might might be overly self-conscious if she ever knew he didn’t like her middle toe.

  As they continued, the group following them began to dwindle as every so often one would be left behind. The color of the ground began to change, and now included small patches of subdued orange. Something red caught Alex’s eye and he stopped the juntards. Jumping down onto the ground he held out his weapon with four rounds left.

  Taking several steps away from the wagon he zero’ed in on the red object. Something resembling a fluffy lizard attached to a line of some sort. If he were on Earth he would immediately assume a prank underway. He glanced around, not a soul in sight. He kicked it and the red object scurried away about four feet. It was undeniably being pulled by a string or line of some kind. Alex could see the line but not where it led to.

  Trying as hard as he could he was not able to see its origin. His mind raced with thoughts of mutated ming able to traverse the hard ground. He began to back away slowly at first but at a elevated stride as he made it back to the wagon.

  “What is it?” Alesti asked.

  “Something weird.”

  “Should we go back?” Alesti asked. Alex watched as she gripped the lobes to turn the juntards around.

  The city was far, far behind them slightly obscured because of the hazy atmosphere. Thoughts of the people to the North came to mind and he pushed his fear to the side.

  “Let’s keep going.” He lightly squeezed the lobe of one juntard and they began moving. Looking back he tried to find the red object but was unable to see it despite the flat, fairly even ground and almost complete lack of vegetation. A chill went down his spine and deep down he knew he should turn back.

  As the day continued on, they continued forward. At one point Alex looked back and noticed the small group sent to follow him were nowhere to be seen. He figured they didn’t bring enough people to keep the chain going and turned back. His thoughts kept turning to the red object. The patches of orange ground became more numerous and larger the further they went.

  They stopped and made camp as night approached. Camp was nothing more than a small fire and blankets on the ground. Through the night the winds picked up speed and blew dust and dirt every which way. Eventually it snuffed the fire out. In the dead of night all they could do was lay curled together and wait for dawn. Then the tremors started. The juntards were startled and ran in opposing directions, breaking the wagon harness. Their provisions were splayed across the area. In the darkness they could do nothing about it. At first they were more worried about ming, but as the tremors continued in irregular duration and without pattern they eventually relaxed knowing no animal was doing it.

  When dawn finally came, they woke to discover the color patterns in the ground were more pronounced than the day before. Only one juntard was visible from their location and was about one hundred or so meters east of them and appeared to be sleeping on the ground.

  “See if you can recover our things, I’ll get the juntard.” Alex said as he began walking, noticing the deeper orange ground was thick like beach sand while the tanned areas were more like soft rock, easier to walk on.

  “Alex, I have more experience with juntards, you should gather the provisions.” Alesti said walking past Alex towards the juntard.

  He stopped and quickly concluded that she was right. Reaching down he pulled up one of the extra blankets half buried in the dirt and attempted to knock the sand out of it. He also tried to look back towards the city. The tracks they made yesterday were gone and nothing was seen on the horizon. His foot struck the edge of Alesti’s death singer. He bent to pull it out of the ground and looked at her as she approached the lone juntard. Nearby Alex saw Symboli’s green tank sticking partly out of the ground, the smeared mud was sandblasted clean off, now only covered by a fine layer of sand.

  * * *

  (Orlock)

  The monotonous sound of the air mover was enough to put anyone to sleep. While he remained alert, Junior Master Orlock piloted the ai
r mover towards the electronic signal his people detected weeks ago, which initiated his first gleaming assignment. To his knowledge no one had gleamed so far away from the airbase. It took an overwhelming majority of power to just arrive and return from the location, with not much remaining for gleaming.

  His limited digital display indicated he would arrive in about fifteen moments. He stayed low to the ground to avoid the turbulent and powerful air currents at higher altitudes. He was grateful this area was extremely flat and there was nearly zero risk of hitting anything. Had he not been so low to the ground he would not have seen two lone individuals in the middle of nowhere. He swung the air mover around after he had passed them. A huge animal was seen running away from him as he approached slowly. At first one individual was chasing it but then stopped. Both stood or crouched and waited while he landed on a smooth patch of tan dirt.

  He was grateful the air mover had landed between the two individuals. He could focus all of his attention on the nearest one and hopefully complete his mission before the other was wiser.

  He readied his device and exited the air mover, the blades continued to whirl at a neutral speed, kicking up dust and dirt in every direction. The individual was attempting to cover their eyes when he activated his device which released a spring loaded dart into the abdomen of the individual. Moments later the person collapsed. It was not easy dragging the individual back to the air mover but he managed to do so without incident. Something green sticking out of the ground caught his eye and he added that to the air mover as well, nervous about what the other individual was up to he quickly shut the door and applied power to the blades which began to spin even faster. Within moments the air mover lifted off the ground and he piloted back to his airfield. He would arrive early, with extra fuel, and mission accomplished. All the things he had imagined going wrong on this mission had been for nothing. Pleased with himself, he looked back at his secured passenger.

  I don’t know what you were doing back there but I am grateful you were. I didn’t want to hurt anyone trying to capture one person out of thousands, he thought to himself.

  Looking at his timekeeper, he was glad they would arrive just as it was getting dark out.

  * * *

  (Alex)

  After having picked up the Death Singer, he looked around for arrows but didn’t see any. Looking further away as he was worried the arrows might have been carried away in the winds last night, but was unable to find them. What he did find interesting were the large patterns of colored sand, the transitions between colors was always sharp and seemingly with a purpose but he couldn’t fathom what that purpose was. He stayed on the tan patches as often as possible because it was always firm and easy to walk on, whereas the orangish patches were very soft and difficult to walk through, which seemed to be more of a problem the further they traveled into the empty lands.

  A familiar sound… So familiar it almost went unnoticed. But as it got louder his body went alert and he looked for Alesti. It took only a moment to spot her, she was chasing the juntard that had begun running away. The helicopter was perhaps only twenty feet from the ground as it flew past and circled back.

  Just when Alex thought Alesti was going to catch up with the juntard both her and the beast stopped almost suddenly.

  The helicopter was much longer than anything Alex had seen on Earth, the blades seemed far too long and wide. The dust and dirt kicked up again and it nearly blinded him as he was forced to look away. Without being able to look he felt the helicopter land via vibrations in the ground or maybe he imagined it.

  After a tic of time he looked back. The juntard was chest deep in the ground, and he had no idea what was happening with Alesti as she was blocked from sight due to the helicopter. He unholstered a weapon and ran towards the helicopter in a dead sprint. Once he reached the helicopter he looked into the front part where it was assumed the cockpit would be located, it appeared empty. He immediately laid flat on the ground to look under it. He saw two pairs of legs one was pulling, the other set seemed limp or dead. Humanoid, he thought, at least they weren’t alien. Then it briefly fluttered in his mind that they were alien. Fear and concern filled his heart as he thought about losing Alesti. He looked down the length of his side of the helicopter for a door, but nothing screamed to him this is a door. Alex began to make his way to the rear of the helicopter. Then the engine revved louder, he knew it was taking off.

  The helicopter had six landing struts like upside down T’s, in two rows of three. Each appeared to be affixed to a shock absorber that connected to the body of the helicopter. The upside down T’s offered about a foot and a half of space between the edge and the absorber. Alex didn’t think for a moment if it could be done, or if it would work. He just assumed it would and didn’t worry about anything else. Falling onto his belly, he rolled onto the inside lip of the middle absorber and found something to hang onto with his right hand as the helicopter roared with power and took off.

  It surprised Alex how calm it was in his hiding spot, relatively speaking . Essentially, he was lying on his left side looking inward of the craft, using his right hand against the body of the helicopter to keep him in place. As they gained a little altitude he made an effort to look for the juntard but saw nothing. After a few minutes had gone by he was already hoping the flight would be short as he wasn’t sure how long he could hold himself in that position. Then a overwhelming sadness took him as he realized Symboli was left behind.

  CHAPTER 17

  BEHIND THE LINES

  (Alex)

  NEVER IN HIS life did he ever imagine he would be in this position. It must have been at least a couple hours since the helicopter took off. His body was numb, to the point he wasn’t sure if it was even working anymore. Unable to rotate his body, readjust his position, or even relax his extended hand. Everything burned and ached until it didn’t anymore and feeling nothing was the worse than the burning pain he had endured.

  Countless miles had been traversed. He watched the endless patterns of the empty lands continue on with progressive complexity until at one point the colors seemed to mix. Then the patterns returned and progressively got simpler as they continued on.

  After the fear of falling subsided he distracted himself with other things. Once again his mind returned to Earth, wondering what was going on back at home. He tried to imagine what he would have to do to save the planet from what was coming and no ideas seemed possible.

  Then it occurred to him to try and figure out how he was going to get out of this situation. Crossing the vast land on foot was ruled out immediately. He would have to steal the helicopter or find another form of transportation. It dawned on him eventually that he was wasting his time. Without knowing what he was up against he had no way to properly envision a plan.

  He began to think of the worst case scenario. Like what if the helicopter lands on a pad, which then descends into a huge cavern of highly guarded aircraft which he is then easily spotted and killed. What if the helicopter goes through some kind of screening process on return he will be spotted and then he wondered how his body would function right now since he couldn’t feel anything.

  Something caught his attention as the sun began to drop lower on the horizon. Buildings, much more sophisticated than the ones he had seen near the mountain, scattered far apart from each other with some kind of crops in between them. In the distance a city, more akin to a city Alex was accustomed to on Earth, complete with rudimentary roads and various sized vehicles.

  For the first time since they had taken off, the helicopter banked right. Alex rolled right out of his position as if the entire ordeal was a planned event. He remembered telling his hand to grip harder but nothing seemed to happen. His body flailed through the air falling the fifteen or so feet before finally crashing into a shallow field of water, which grew some kind of produce. When his body came to a stop and his senses returned, he wiggled his toes and his fingers. He began to laugh, but then a deep wave of exhaustion wrapped his body
and all normal concerns drained away. The one thing he was sure about was that he didn’t want to move his arms or legs. The water was soothing to his skin, and he felt he could simply stay there and hopefully wake hours later with no one the wiser.

  The sun was blocked out for some reason and he turned his head a bit to see what was happening. Towering above him appeared a man with a subdued bone crest. His feet were covered with boots mere inches on either side of Alex’s head. In his hand he wielded a wooden pole with two spikes of metal forking apart at the tip. Dead and dried vegetation clung to the metal to showcase its age and heavy use.

  “Hi.” Alex said in the language Alesti spoke, attempting a grin.

  The towering man had moved, that much Alex was sure about but then blackness.

  * * *

  Alex came to his senses and was immediately alert, instantly recalling what had happened. He was glad for his altered mind, as the sleeping or groggy effects of waking each day had long left him. Alert as he was, he kept his eyes shut. He cracked his right eye just enough to see between his eyelashes. He laid parallel to a wall. The smell of something pungent burning, or worse cooking, filled the air. Concerned he might be restrained he pretended to readjust his body while asleep and roll onto his left side.

  His side pained him terribly and he instantly regretted it. Unwilling to roll back he kept still and cracked his eye again. But closed it quickly when someone spoke.

  “I believe he will wake soon.” Said a female.

  “How would you know?” Asked a male.

  Utensils banging against metal reminded him of stirring a pot.

  “Where are the kids?” Said a male.

  “With my sister for the…” she said mumbling.

  Alex cracked his eye open again. He was shocked to see the female approach him looking at his face perhaps a foot away. He subtly closed his eye.

  “What happened to his crest?” She asked.

  “Must be shunned or gravely dishonored.” He replied quickly.