Into The Ruins (43 page)

Realizing that travel wasn’t going to be possible for the next day, possibly two, they returned to the Outpost.  Jeen happily spent the next two days with her family, and the others attended to personal matters as well.  All too soon they were back in the desert, the storm having passed by.

They maintained the heading that they had been following previously, assuming that there had been nothing out here that would have caused Rigo to alter the course he’d been following.  Two days later they spotted a welcome patch of green in the distance.

“If they have magic you will be over matched,” Jeen objected, when Daria insisted she and Kaler make an advance scouting of the oasis before the entire crew rode up on it. 

“That assumes anyone there would see us,” Daria explained patiently.  “You know that I can move silently and without being seen far better than the rest of you.”

Jeen had to acknowledge the truth of Daria’s words.  She had seen her in action before.  The
Black Ghost
had earned her name all those years ago.

“What about Kaler?” Jeen asked.

“He’s had time to learn.  You and the rest wait here.  You would only give us away.  Kaler and I will leave the horses and have a look.  If all is clear, we will signal with the mirror.  From here you can make a
Bypass
directly into the oasis.  If we don’t signal, then stay hidden and we will come back and explain the situation.”

Reluctantly, Jeen agreed.  They waited what seemed an impossibly long time, eyes straining toward the distance patch.  She had almost decided that something had happened to her two friends, when the agreed to pattern of flashes was spotted by Kirl.  A very short time later, Jeen and the rest of the team lead their horses through the
Bypass
portal and stepped into the oasis.

“There’s no one here now,” Daria said, “but they’ve been here, just like the other places.”  She showed Jeen and the others the signs that revealed that more than their friends had visited this place.  Jeen Linked and cast a spell to verify no one was concealed behind an invisibility spell, but Daria, as usual, was correct.  The place was deserted.

She sent Burke back to the Outpost with the news of their finding the next oasis that Rigo’s team had found.  They were still on track.  Burke made the jump back to the Outpost.

Ela and a squad of wizards returned with Burke, once again forming a large group of those who knew of this place.  Satisfied, Ela and her team left, while Jeen and the others returned to Oasis Six where their supplies were stored.  They’d camp there, and start out again the following morning.

Travel beyond Oasis Seven was difficult, and Daria and Kaler reacted to the slow pace.  Even though word from Nycoh indicated all was well with Rigo, he was still a prisoner and his situation could change at any time.  They still had no idea where he was or how far they had yet to travel before finding him.  The chasms they encountered blocked forward progress, and repeatedly they had to detour and work their way around the deep splits in the desert.  Once, after more than a day of travel, they found their way blocked by a sea of molten rock.  They had climbed over a small rise, to find it was the outer edge of a large crater, filled with the sulfurous smelling brew that stretched impossibly far ahead of them.  At least they didn’t have to ride all the way back, being able to jump back to the oasis and then to the point they had turned north instead of south.  But it had cost them a couple of days.

Slowly, they worked their way around the deep cracks.  Once they spent almost two days to reach a point that had been within view of where they had encountered the canyon, but they hadn’t dared try and make a
Bypass
because of Daim’s warning about both ends being in the dead zone.  Another time they found a pair of inter-linked chasms, which took multiple false starts to work around.  Often Jeen would select a direction based on the flight of the birds that Rigo had indicated he often tried to follow.  Daria muttered that the birds gave no better direction than random choice.

“There,” Kaler said pointing.  His sharp eyes had been the first to spot the patch of green in the distance.  Soon it became apparent that they had finally found another oasis.  As before, Daria and Kaler scouted ahead, the others following when the all clear signal was sent.

“I don’t think they were ever here,” Kaler said when Jeen and the others stepped out of the
Bypass
to join himself and Daria, who was refilling her waterskin from the pool.

“Perhaps the weather erased any sign of them,” Burke suggested, looking around.  The oasis was small, and he could see that little was here.

“It’s possible,” Kaler said, “but I don’t think so.  Look over there.”  He pointed to a small cluster of the glowing flowers.  “If they’d been here, they would have eliminated those.  They have everywhere else they encountered them.”

Jeen knew he was right.  “No signs of anyone else?”

“None,” Daria said as she stood up from filling her skin.  “Rigo never came here.”

They all knew what had probably happened.  Working their way around the chasms, they had come out on the opposite side of them in a different place from where Rigo’s team had.  They had found an oasis, but not the one Rigo had visited.   They would have to go north or south, and some distance east or west to pick up their trail.

“Let’s go back and report.  We can have Ela bring the group out so they can find this one again, and we can consider the best way to proceed.”

As Jeen formed the
Bypass
that would take them back to the Outpost, Kirl burned the patch of flowers out of existence.  There was no point of leaving any of them alive.

Back at the Outpost a lot of information was exchanged.  Nycoh explained that the same indications of visitation had been found at a number of the oases in the cluster around Oasis Six.  From the notations in Ash’urn’s log, it appeared that only those that had been visited by Rigo’s team had also been visited by the unknown enemy.  That suggested very strongly that they either had Ash’urn’s notes and had explored after the fact, or had some means of tracking where they had been.  Three locations that Rigo hadn’t visited showed no sign of any previous visitors either.  It was both interesting and puzzling.

A long discussion developed when the matter of how to proceed from the current oasis which hadn’t been visited by Rigo’s team was considered.  Since he was mostly heading east, it was decided that they should bias their direction that way.  A careful examination of their notes showed they had drifted quite far south as they avoided the various canyons, so a northeastern direction was decided upon.  It was a gamble, and if nothing was found, they might have to regroup and adjust their planning.  The chosen path could well miss an oasis that the team had found, but hopefully some indication of their passage would be found. 

Before the group left to begin their explorations, Daim handed out replacement amulets, collecting their old ones.  He’d discovered an interaction between the Ruins and the magic in the staff that he thought would cause the original ones to degrade.  He voiced concern that the staffs that Rigo had taken could eventually fail, and they might have become stranded had they not been captured.  He’d made modifications that would make the newer ones immune to the effect.  They looked the same other than being a bit grayer in color.  He also explained that he and Nycoh when Linked with a half dozen others, could now produce the amulets.

Two and a half days after they had started off on the northeastern trek, they came upon signs that Rigo might have passed this way.  A very large patch of the dangerous flowers had been burned away.  The destruction had been recent enough that the ash was only partially scattered, and with a bit of searching a few widely spaced footprints were found in low spots in the sand.  The tracks suggested a far more easterly direction, and the eight members of the team agreed it was time to adjust their heading. 

By now the eight explorers had become close, the misery of the Ruins bringing them into a tightly knit team.  They had shared many days out here, and despite the frequent trips back to civilization, the trials of making their way into the unknown had forged strong bonds.  Jeen and her old friends Daria and Kaler had reestablished their old closeness.  Jeen had come to know Burke, and now understood why Rigo had spoken so highly of him.  The remaining three members of the group, who had been almost unknown to the others when they started, now were closer than friends they’d known for years.  Each knew he could rely on any of the others if the need arose.  Jokes were shared.  Many of them based upon events that would make the jokes meaningless to anyone outside the group.  Shara in particular demonstrated a quick and incisive wit.  Diny, the youngest, was a grumbler, but it didn’t mean anything.  He more than carried his share of the tasks that needed doing, and Jeen sensed he would be more dependable than others might expect should problems arise.  Kirl was the pensive one.  Initially the more talkative, as they pressed deeper into the unknown, he said less and watched and scanned the horizon more carefully than any of the others.  He sensed they were getting close to something, but couldn’t have told anyone why or what.

A couple of days travel brought them to another oasis, and they found indications that someone had been here.  There was no way to tell who, but given what they had seen thus far, everyone was certain it had been both Rigo’s party and whoever had been following them.  They jumped back to the Hoplani Farms, and then back all the way to the Outpost to report their discovery.

After a day of rest back home, they set off again. Heading eastward once again, hoping to find further indication of their friend’s passage.  They found nothing that helped guide them, but after five days of travel, Daria pointed toward the horizon. 

“I think we might be across,” she said.  Her eyes were sharper than the other’s, but within half a glass everyone could see what she meant.  A faint line of trees could be seen in the distance, and a range of bluish mountains beyond them.  Clearly, something was changing.  They had never seen anything like what lay ahead anywhere in the Ruins.

“It’s likely that our friends came across this land somewhere not too far from here,” Jeen suggested as they continued to ride eastward.  “Perhaps we should return home and think about where we want to enter this place.”

They discussed the matter as they rode, detouring toward a dust cloud behind a low range of hills that Kaler had pointed out.  As they grew close they heard screeches and shouts coming from the far side of the hills.  Carefully, they dismounted, and leaving the horses. Made their way carefully up the backside of the hills to have a look. 

“Great Risos,” Kirl said softly.  “They are fighting the Hoplani with swords on horseback.”

“The uniforms match some of those we have seen in the viewer,” Jeen noted.

“Their swords look like the ones the
Duneriders
carry,” Kaler added. 

After watching the soldiers fight the Hoplani, aided by a lone wizard carrying some kind of staff with a glowing crystal, Jeen signaled it was time to go.  They made their way back down the hill and once they had returned to their horses, opened a
Bypass
back to the oasis, and from there made their way back home.

“He’s near an ocean,” Nycoh said, the following day as they discussed how to proceed. 

“There was no ocean where we saw the soldiers,” Burke said.

“More than likely you found their interior border, much as Lopal is our own,” Daim suggested.  “Their ocean could be a significant distance away yet.”

“However will we find them?” Shara asked.  “If this land is anything like the Three Kingdoms, they could be anywhere.  We could search for years.  We can’t even reveal ourselves to anyone, not that it would do any good.  We can’t speak the language.”

“That might not be as big a problem as we assumed,” Nycoh said.  “I don’t know how they would have learned our language, but I’ve watched Rigo for hours, and both he and Ash’urn are obviously conversing with some of the people.  That suggests you might be able to as well.”

“Have you learned anything else?” Jeen asked.

“Only that their day is shifted almost eight glass from our own.  Even when I arise early and check, they are well into their day.  They also seem to go to bed while it is still in the afternoon here.  That yields some idea how far away they must be.”

After a full day of discussion, the plans were agreed upon.  The same team would continue.  More people at this point would simply make them more obvious.  They would wear clothing that had been made guided by the images and would hopefully make them less likely to stand out.  They would jump back to where they had been, then make their way northward some distance before starting east again, hoping to avoid any villages.  The goal was to find the ocean, and then work their way along the shoreline until they could find anything that looked familiar.  Jeen would bring the artifact along so they would have the images to compare.  Each night, they would make a
Bypass
back to the Outpost so progress could be reported.

The following day they all spent in the Three Kingdoms.  While they had passed through the Ruins, which were not infinite after all, the greatest dangers might lay ahead.  They assembled once again late that night and made the transition back to the oasis where they would make the jump back to where they had seen the soldiers fighting the Hoplani.

“Wait,” Jeen said, as Burke was preparing to make the last
Bypass
.  Look at the artifact.”  She had taken it out after arriving to see if anything had changed and that it still worked here on this side of the Ruins.  Since they didn’t know how it worked, there had been some concern it would lose the images they were counting upon.

“The symbols are glowing,” Daria said, seeing that several of the markings along the perimeter were now pulsing with a faint green light.

“There’s something else,” Jeen said softly. 

The others looked at her expectantly. 

“I am certain I can make a
Bypass
to where this image is coming from.  I don’t know how, but I can feel the image in my mind and although I’ve never been there and don’t know where it is from here, I can sense the
Bypass
would open.”

“You mean we don’t have to go searching for Rigo?” Daria asked.  “We can jump right to where he is now?”

“If this image is really real,” Jeen said.

“What are we waiting for?” Kaler asked, as he drew his sword.  “The image shows him outside in the open.  This is as good a time as any.”