that I first learned of the nuts.
Spices and nuts are magic that even they have not lost. But his connection to the living may make him more dangerous to us, and to you. Thank you for the warning.
Is all chemical magic dark, like that practiced by my uncle?
Woltan’s aura darkened. Your uncle. It’s hard for me to remember that.
I’m not proud of it or anything.
Sorry. I guess there can be good magic of the chemical variety. There are many great and wonderful magics practiced by the dwarves, and the earth elves. And your sword for example, is an example of good chemical magic. But inside it is the strong force of the natural, the pixie you know as Carolina.
The sky above us was now lit by a few stars and a sliver of a moon.
We were walking at a quick pace. I still didn’t feel at all sleepy, and pushed my mind out to scan the forest around us. I felt nothing but trees and shrubs and small plants, in rich damp earth. But there was something strange, up ahead.
Up ahead of us, the forest ends, and I see… nothing.
We must be coming to the Stone Mountains. There nothing grows, and we must be careful, as no one will mistake us for trees there.
Is there any life at all there?
I have not left the lost city in all my life. Talk to Kara, or perhaps Ulrike.
I reached out my mind to Kara, and found her, a dozen feet ahead of us. I could see her aura in the night, then. Kara, do you know anything of these Stone Mountains?
Ahead of me, she stopped, and let the others pass. She fell in beside me. They are an ancient place. No one has lived there for hundreds of years. Nothing lives there now. They say a great magic blasted the place. Only on the far side of the stone mountains do I know the way, so we must go over or through or around them, I guess.
Through them?
They say there are tunnels that go beneath them. We Kriek have never needed tunnels… We travel by foot and by teleportation.
And nothing lives there?
No plant or animal. Of other things, beneath the earth, I know not.
We’ll be there soon.
Can you feel it?
I can feel the absence of plants. I can feel the plants all around us, and behind us, but ahead of us, there is … nothing.
Kara reached her hand out and touched my shoulder. It will do you well to be among our people again. If only this journey was just for your pleasure and instruction. We have so much to show you.
VIII
The sun was slowly rising when we walked out of the forest and to the base of the mountain. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. The stone road we followed became mere stone upon stone, and if we had not been following it for so long, we might not have even seen it.
In the forest it had been covered with moss and surrounded by trees — here it was nothing more than an etching in the stone under our feet. There were runes every ten feet or so. We had gone from lush forest to stone sterility. Everywhere that I looked in the early dawn, there was nothing but dead rock.
Nothing lived here. There was no plant life, anyhow. I reached out my mind in all directions and felt nothing. Ahead of us loomed a sheer stone wall. When I looked up, I couldn’t see the end of the mountain peak. Behind us, the forest was almost out of sight, and I almost stopped believing in it; I could no longer feel its energy and life.
The etchings in the stone brought us to a sheer face. There were stairs, broken and cracked, a few hundred feet away. But the faint path seemed to run straight up to the wall, as if the mountain had been put there afterwards.
Elias walked up to the wall and put his hands against it. There were runes there, I could see, and Elias had started touching them. But I paid him little heed. Something else was very wrong. I reached out my mind in all directions, and sensed nothing, but something was wrong, nonetheless.
The sun was now out fully and we were all squinting in the harsh white light of sun against white stone. Woltan was also looking around, as if searching for something amiss. My sword buzzed at my side, and I brought my hand down and grabbed the pommel. She came out almost without me pulling her. Above you, Anders, they are coming, sound the alert!
“ABOVE US!”