by Ryan Hughes
"Hey, it works!" he said. "I can scan for poison."
"Really? Then maybe I can..." Her roll rose up off her hand and floated before her. "Yes! I can levitate things!" She snatched the roll out of the air and took another bite.
Jedra bit into his own and closed his eyes to savor the wonderful flavor. It was slightly sweet and nearly melted in his mouth. He hadn't tasted anything this good in all his life. He wolfed down the first roll and picked two more. Kayan did the same, and they continued their walk through the trees, munching the miracle bread.
A rushing sound had been growing steadily stronger as they walked deeper into the forest. When they grew closer to the moving white thing-it looked more like a long banner waving back and forth in the breeze now that they could see more of its length-he realized that the sound came from the same source. Something was moving across the ground. Something long and sinuous. Bits of it splashed upward, glittering in the sunlight. "No," Jedra said, stepping closer. "Impossible." But it was no more impossible than bread growing on trees. There before him, as real as anything else in this bizarre world inside the crystal, flowed a stream of open water.
It was about as wide as he was tall, and it poured down from right to left over a bed of rocks. It pooled up in a few places before spilling over, and when Jedra walked up to the edge of one of the pools he saw flashes of silver in the water.
"Fish!" Kayan exclaimed. "I've heard about them. They still exist in the hinterlands, I've been told."
Jedra reached down and stuck his hand in the water. It was cold, almost as cold as the frozen meat in Kitarak's cold-box. "Wow!" he said, jerking his hand back. It was just the shock that had startled him, though; the water actually felt kind of nice against his skin. He cupped his hand and dipped it in again, then brought it up to his lips to drink.
It was the coldest, freshest, cleanest water he had ever tasted. Jedra scooped up a double handful and drank it all.
Kayan bent down to try it, but she stopped when she saw her reflection in the water. "What the-?" She reached out to touch the image, then withdrew her hand when it broke into ripples.
"What's the matter?" Jedra asked.
"That's not what I look like," Kayan said. "Well, it is, but my nose is bigger than that, and my hair isn't that long, and-"
"You look great."
"I know I look great. I mean, if that's really what I look like." Kayan nodded to the water, which had returned to its mirror smoothness. "But I never looked like that before."
"Sure you did," Jedra said. "You've always been pretty." But now that she mentioned it, her nose was smaller, and her hair was longer than before. And her eyes were an even brighter green than before, too. He hadn't noticed it until now because he had always thought of her as beautiful.
Her tunic had changed, too. The cloth was finer, and it fit her body better. The neckline plunged lower than before, showing much more of her sensuous curves than she usually exposed by daylight, and it was shorter as well, allowing her slender legs more freedom to distract Jedra's gaze.
Curious, he looked down at his own clothing. He had put on a tunic similar to Kayan's this morning, but now his was tighter, too, tied at the waist with a silky cord. It was made of soft brown leather and had no sleeves, exposing his tanned and muscular arms all the way to the shoulders, which were broader than he remembered.
He looked into the water. The face that stared back at him looked a little like his, but Jedra felt the same disorientation Kayan must have, for it seemed much more handsome than he'd ever thought it before. His cheekbones were higher, more elfin than he'd remembered them, his mouth was wider with fuller lips, and his jaw was more rounded than before. And his sandy blond hair, normally unkempt, now looked merely tousled in a dashing sort of way.
"Wow," he said. "I'm different, too."
She looked at him for a moment. "Now that I think about it you are a little more handsome than usual today. But you're always handsome," she hastily added.
"Even when you're mad at me?"
"Oh, especially then," she said, blushing. She looked at her own reflection again. "This is wild. How could we suddenly become more beautiful?"
"The same way we found bread growing on trees and water running free right across the ground." Jedra held out his arms to encompass the whole forest, and he laughed. "This is evidently some ancient paradise. People must have come here to play in a perfect world."
Kayan bent down to take a drink from the pool. "Perfect is right," she said. "This place is incredible."
"And now we have it all to ourselves." Jedra held out his hand. "Come on, let's see what else the ancients did for fun."
* * *
The stream led down out of the forested mountains, new tributaries adding to its volume until it became a rushing torrent. Jedra and Kayan followed along its grassy banks, scaring up butterflies and birds as they swished through the tall stalks. The noise of rushing water made talk difficult, and the crystal clarity of mind-speaking was too jarring a contrast against the rich depth of sound around them, so they merely walked hand in hand and enjoyed the play of light and shadow amid more greenery than they had ever seen before in their lives.
Then, as they rounded a sharp bend in the river, they heard an even louder roar ahead of them. The water seemed to disappear into the ground just a little way in front of them, but when they drew closer they realized that it fell over a cliff. Cautiously, they stepped up to the edge and looked over. The river fell free for over a hundred feet, spray blowing away from it as it fell, then it thundered into a wide circular pool surrounded by rocks and trees.
Jedra looked out over the treetops and nearly fell off the cliff, for about halfway to the horizon stood a city, its buildings shining bright white in the sunlight, and beyond the city was more water than he had ever believed existed. It stretched from the sandy slopes beyond the city all the way to the horizon, and from left to right as far as they could see before cliffs and forest blocked their view.
I think it's the ocean. Kayan teetered forward, and Jedra pulled her back a few steps from the cliff edge. The view out there was too hypnotic.
What's the ocean?
It's where all the water goes when there's more than people can use it. The Sea of Silt used to be an ocean before the cataclysm, or so I've been told.
The Sea of Silt was a deep basin full of dust many miles to the east of most of the inhabited land of Athas. Jedra tried to imagine it full of water instead, and decided that it might indeed have looked something like this.
They watched waves slide toward the beach, grow taller as they approached, then curl over and splash into white foam and coast to a stop on the flat sand.
The roar of the waterfall at their feet kept them from hearing the waves. Jedra heard something, though. Puzzled, he turned his head, just in time to see a huge furry black beast advancing on them. It stood on four legs and had thick, shaggy hair that seemed to ripple as it moved. Its head was long and wide on a short neck, and multiforked horns stuck up from either side. It shook its head and bellowed again.
"Look out!" Jedra shouted.
"What?" Kayan couldn't hear him.
A monster! Jedra mindsent.
Kayan whirled around, just as the beast lowered its head and ran straight for them.
Jedra tried to halt its charge through sheer force of will, shoving it back psionically the way he might move any other object, but whatever effect he had on it was nothing compared to what it did to him. Before the creature's pointed antlers even came close, he felt his feet slip backward on the slick grass. His heart slammed in his chest, pumping pure terror when the grass ended and he skidded out over the sheer drop. Time seemed to stop. He hung poised in the air for an instant, long enough to look straight into Kayan's eyes and see the horror there before he plummeted toward the ground.
He was going to miss the pool. He looked down, saw the sharp rocks at the water's edge rushing up at him, and knew he was dead. He couldn't watch, but he couldn't clos
e his eyes either, so he looked back up at Kayan just in time to see her leap outward in a graceful dive, arms outstretched, her body silhouetted against the sky.
"No!" he screamed. Not her, too. If he could survive his own fall he could catch her, but not while he had nothing to push against.
Or did he? In desperation he imagined shoving against the ground with all his might, trying to slow his fall or at least push himself sideways into the pool, and at the same time he pushed upward on Kayan.
Impact never came. Jedra risked a look down and saw the jagged rocks, wet with spray and coated with moss, just a few feet below him. He looked up and saw Kayan hovering fifty feet above, caught in mid-dive with her arms still outstretched.
Then, without his willing it, she swooped away. Hah, I can fly! she mindsent as she arched her back and looped around in the air. Jedra was so startled he nearly forgot to hold himself up, but the cold touch of a mossy rock on his leg made him flinch away and leap upward again.
This was a trick Kitarak hadn't taught them. Jedra wasn't quite sure how he was doing it, but somehow just the thought of rising was all he needed to make it happen. He imagined looping around the way Kayan had just done, and with stomach-twisting speed he whirled around in midair.
Kayan flew down toward him, arced around just out of his reach, and said, Bet you can't catch me! Without waiting to see what he would do, she took off in a wide circle, just inside the trees surrounding the waterfall.
Jedra reached forward with his arms and imagined himself following her, and suddenly he leaped forward, the wind rushing past him, blowing his hair back and flapping his tunic around his thighs. Slower! he thought, veering to miss a tree. He curved around, flying a tighter circle than Kayan in order to cut her off, but when she saw what he was doing she sped up and ducked around behind the rushing wall of water.
Jedra flew in behind her, suddenly shivering in the cold spray, but she was gone.
Up here, he heard in his mind, and he looked up to see her spiraling lazily upward around the falling river. He followed her and this time she waited for him, hovering at the top of the waterfall just beyond the drop-off, with over a hundred feet of air between them and the turbulent pool below.
He was almost afraid to touch her for fear the strange spell would break and they would once again plummet to their deaths, but when she reached for him he glided into her arms and they kissed.
Your hair is sparkling with mist, he told her.
So is-look! She pointed over his shoulder, and he turned his head to see the antlered beast that had chased them off the cliff, now munching placidly on the grass beside the river.
It's an herbivore? he asked incredulously. I got chased off a cliff by an herbivore?
What are you griping about? I jumped.
Jedra laughed. I thought you jumped off because I did.
Kayan looked at him with her head tilted to the side and a smile on her lips. There are a lot of things I'd do for you, but I don't think jumping off a cliff is one of them.
Oh. Well, how about showing me what you would do? He kissed her again, and she giggled.
Here? Now?
Anywhere, Jedra told her, kissing her again and again. Anywhere, anytime.
* * *
The bright yellow sun had moved across a quarter of the sky by the time they finally grew tired of flying. They had left the waterfall far behind and were now gliding gently down the long slope from the mountains toward the ocean. The forest had given way to open grassland, still peppered here and there with individual trees and clusters of wildflowers. There seemed to be no order to it; if anyone had planted any of this the gardener's hand had been concealed admirably.
From a hundred feet in the air the world seemed nearly silent. The ocean made a soft rushing sound, but it was so constant it was easy to forget the noise was even there. As they drew closer, though, it grew louder, and with it came a smell unlike any they had ever experienced before. It was a mix of wet sand, rotting vegetation, and exotic animals both living and dead.
A wave toppled over with a roar just as they landed. A gray-and-white sea bird cried out as it flew overhead, and a flock of smaller, long-legged birds ran back and forth right at the edge of the water. Jedra and Kayan stood in the sand and watched the constant motion for long minutes before either of them spoke.
"What are those birds doing?" Jedra finally asked.
"I think they're finding food," Kayan said. "See how they pick at the sand right at the edge of the water?"
Jedra's stomach growled. "I wish we could find some food," he said. "It's been a long time since we had those rolls."
"Yeah, I could use something more to eat. Something substantial." Kayan turned once around, scanning the beach. "Too bad there aren't any trees around," she said. "If there were, I bet we could coax one into giving us something else."
"Maybe we should fly back to the forest," Jedra suggested.
"Maybe. There must be something to eat here, though. The ancients wouldn't have flown back and forth every time they got hungry, would they?"
Jedra thought about that for a minute. "No, you're right, they would probably have food brought to them."
Kayan said, "That would be great, but I think we're the only people here." She laughed. "That's the perennial complaint of the rich-you can never find a slave when you need one."
Jedra laughed with her, but he stopped abruptly when a wave broke with a louder than usual rush and a hard-shelled, eight-legged creature crawled forward out of the foam. It was only a couple feet across, and most of that was legs, but it also had two enormous claws in front which it held raised while it advanced toward Jedra and Kayan.
"What is it?" Kayan asked, backing away.
"It looks like some kind of bug. A big bug." Jedra got ready to run, or even fly away if it looked like the creature would attack, but it merely crawled forward at a steady gait. It stopped about five feet from him, lowered its body to the sand and stretched its legs out, then it lowered its claws as well and stopped moving entirely.
Jedra heard a soft sizzling sound over the constant hiss of the waves, and a few seconds later he smelled a wonderful, buttery aroma of cooking food.
Kayan smelled it too. "Eeewww, disgusting!" she said. "It's cooking itself!"
"It is, isn't it?" Jedra stepped closer, fascinated. The sea bug's dark brown shell was turning red as it cooked. The creature was like nothing he'd ever seen before, but the aroma of its heated flesh made his mouth water. He was suddenly ravenous. "I wonder how you're supposed to eat one of these?" Kayan looked at him as if he'd just gone crazy. "You can't be serious."
"But-" Kayan stuttered for words. "But it was alive just a second ago! And it killed itself!"
"Yes, isn't that amazing? I wonder how the ancients managed to breed a creature that could do that? It would have to have some kind of psionic heating power, but the moment it died, the power would stop, so there would have to be some way to keep it going afterward, and-"
"Jedra, it isn't amazing, it's disgusting."
"It is?"
"It just committed suicide!"
He tried to see what she was getting at. "Well, yes, I guess it did. But it didn't look like it suffered any."
"That's not the point! The point is, it killed itself for us. I can't eat something that killed itself just so I could eat it."
Jedra held his hand out over the sea bug's corpse. It was now bright red, and too hot to touch, but it had stopped sizzling. "You'd rather kill it yourself?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Hmm. What makes that any better? When you do it, you're eating something that didn't want to die. At least this way we know the meal was its own idea."
"It's just-just-arrgh!" Kayan growled, turning away.
Jedra looked at the creature with his poison sense, but saw nothing dangerous. "Come on," he said, "we're hungry, and it's food. Let's argue about the moral implications later." He took one of the segmented legs in his fingers, bent it backward until i
ts hard outer shell broke, and pulled it apart. White, stringy meat stuck out the ragged end. Jedra wondered if it would be tough, but he'd eaten much worse in his life, so he blew on it to cool it a bit and took a bite.
The meat was soft and tender, buttery, and nearly melted in his mouth. "Oh, yeah," he said around a mouthful. "Mmm." When Kayan still didn't move to try any, he couldn't resist adding, "This is even better than halfling."
"You've never eaten halfling." She looked over her shoulder at him. "Have you?"
"Not knowingly, but a lot of what you buy in the market could come from anywhere." Jedra cracked the leg open along its length to expose another big bite of steaming flesh. "Here," he said, holding out the leg to her. "It really is good."
Kayan eyed the leg as if it might eat her. "I'm not hungry," she said.
Jedra shrugged. "Suit yourself. More for me." He bit into the soft meat and ate heartily.
Kayan left him to his meal and walked down to the water. She slipped off her sandals and walked closer, letting a wave wash over her feet.
"Yeow!" She jumped back as if she'd been stung.
Jedra dropped the bug leg and ran toward her. "What happened?"
"It's cold."
"Oh." He walked on down toward where she stood and bent over to run his hands through the receding water. It was cold enough to raise bumps along his arm. He cupped his hands and took a drink of it, but spit it back out. "Ugh, it's salty, too."
"What?"
"Taste it. It's salty." Jedra got a sudden idea and went back to the cooked water bug, broke off another leg, and brought it back to the edge of the ocean. He twisted open the leg and waited for the water to come back, then he bent down and dipped the creamy white meat in it. Now when he took a bite, it was perfectly seasoned.
"You're doing that just to get me, aren't you?" Kayan demanded.
"No," said Jedra. "I'm really hungry. You should try some of this, too."
"I can't."
She seemed sincere. Jedra lowered his arm. "Well, then, let's find you something else."