Chapter 13 - What’s For Lunch?

Gabriel had to stop and look himself over once he had broken through the cloud barrier. The hurricane-force winds that had knocked him around earlier had literally tripled. And to make matters worse, they now had rain. He had had to cover his face with his arms and fight his way past the weather. He had been pelted pretty hard, but was no worse for wear.

Any kind of visual orientation up here was useless. The cloud cover stretched in every direction all the way to the horizon. He had tried to face the huge expands of grasslands as he ascended, but the force of the winds had tossed him around like a toy. The sun, which was a very welcome sight, was directly overhead, giving no help at all.

There wouldn’t be any GPS, but what about a north pole? His watch had a compass built into it. Checking his watch... Gabriel rediscovered that he still didn’t have his watch.

“Crap.”

The wind at this altitude had begun to pick up, and he noticed the clouds below him had also changed their speed and begun to slow their passing.

‘That’s weird, I didn’t think... well crap.’ he though as he realized he was flying backwards with the direction of the clouds.

‘Okay Gabe, just pick a direction and fly with it. Might as well find the back edge of this storm.’

(better than) Mach 6 - Over 4,500 miles per hour.

Flying in the direction of the oncoming clouds, Gabriel pulled up into a near vertical ascent. Passing through Mach 1, his flight shields kicked in, pinning his wings to his back. The sky began to darken as he gained altitude: changing from light blue, to deep blue, to ultra-marine. The air thinned, giving him even more speed. As he leveled off, he could barely see the faint twinkle of stars in the sky above him, and the curvature of the planet below. Taking an educated guess, he figured that he was near Angels 100, and moving better than Mach 6. He could see more than 200 miles in any direction, and all he could see was thick cloud cover. Not a single speck of land or water in sight.

He flew onward. Either he would find a break in the clouds, or circle the globe trying.

The rain felt warm, and Noliea ran her fingers through her hair in a feeble attempt to remove the matted clumps. The herd has stopped to rest a while before continuing to the forest. Had any of them been in better condition they could have made the trek before the middle of the day, but they were in no state to do so at the moment.

“Leave them alone,” Shaniddia warned.

Noliea looked down at her wrists. She had started rubbing them again.

“I’ll make some soap when we get to the forest,” said Melinda, “The woodstones should be ripe by now.”

“Thanks,” Noliea replied. A bath. A real bath... with soap. She couldn’t remember the last time she had taken one.

“I don’t think there’s enough woodstones in the whole world to get this mess untangled,” said Rowena, inspecting the large knots in her own hair, “This knot is as hard as a rock.”

Other than Paul, Rowena was the only other member of the herd that had not come from Lendoren. She was also the only member of the herd who was a paint; her coat and mane being a random pattern of tan and white. Noliea wondered if Rowena would stay with the herd once they returned to Lendoren, or would she go back to her own kind.

‘Lendoren,’ thought Noliea, ‘Mom, dad, I’ve missed you so much.’ She had convinced herself that she would never see them again, and the thought of going home seemed nearly impossible. The thought also gave her renewed strength.

“Come on, everyone,” she said, getting to her hooves, “The rain’s letting up, and I for one could use a good bath and full stomachs.”

The idea of food got the herd moving at a renewed pace.

‘This sucks.’

Gabriel had been flying against the direction of the clouds for nearly half an hour. In that time, the scenery below had not changed one iota. Or had it?

Gabriel guesstimated he had traveled around two thousand miles. In that time, the cloud cover had always moved in the exact opposite direction, and he still saw no sign of land. It was if the storm had engulfed the entire hemisphere.

The clouds themselves looked like a mass of white cotton ribbons running in the same direction. But now Gabriel could discern a single anomaly in the cloud pattern: a single thin streak of gray that snaked it’s way perpendicular to the direction of the clouds. By the time he had noticed it, he had already flown past it. Slowing down, he pulled into a dive and went to get a better look.

Now he noticed that there was not only a line but also a large expanse of gray “dots” just windward of it. The dots were randomly scattered but they kept mostly to an area roughly twenty miles to the windward side of the line. Dropping nearly eighty thousand feet, he suddenly realized what the gray line was.

‘It’s a shadow.’

The clouds were ascending at such a steep angle here they caused a thin shadow to form. The “dots” were actually large craters created as the clouds dipped then rose again. Gabriel headed back the way he had come, and discovered that the clouds eventually cascaded downward several thousand feet before leveling off and continuing their journey. He had totally missed the ‘cloud waterfall’ because the sun didn't cast any shadows on this side.

He slowed to sub-sonic speed as he neared the area where the clouds ended their near-vertical descent and began their long journey outward. At this range, he could see the clouds boiling and tumbling at the base of the ‘cloudfall’. The sheer immensity of the sight was breathtaking: A silent white waterfall that stood over a mile high and went from horizon to horizon. Gabriel felt very... small.

“Mountains!” yelled Gabriel, breaking the silence of the scene, “Of course!”

Rolling into a dive, Gabriel’s initial excitement was tempered as he faced the boiling mass of clouds directly below him. If it was raining down there, he would be tossing himself literally into a maelstrom. He considered flying into the ‘cloudfall’, but the idea of flying into the side of a mountain was not on today’s agenda. So, flying downstream a few miles, he descended into the clouds.

Once again, the turbulence knocked him around like a Brahma bull. This cloud layer was very deep, and just as he considered pulling out of his dive (for fear of slamming into the ground), he broke through the lower layer.

Smooth air once again flowed over his wings, and there was no rain in sight. He leveled his flight and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim level of light.

“Wow”

He had broken through the cloud layer over a large lake fed by a white-water river coming from the mountains. The mountains themselves were several miles away and Gabriel realized that he could have easily entered the cloudfall and had plenty of room to avoid hitting anything. What low ground that was visible was covered with vegetation, and forestland sheltered most of the area. As he headed towards the mountains, the cloud layer became turbulent. Gabriel realized that he was entering the area directly under the cloudfall. Flying lower to avoid the buffeting winds, he crossed under the boiling haze.

The sunlight coming through the cloudfall was noticeably brighter, making the scenery below easier to see. The mountains themselves were nearly devoid of any vegetation, and were medium gray in color. Most of them rose from the ground in a near vertical cliff. Huge spires of hex-sided crystals adorned the faces, and many more lay at their base.

‘It looks like the Flatirons.’ he thought, remembering the mountains near Boulder, Colorado. A twinge of homesickness crept in as he thought about the mountains back home.

Gabriel descended to around one thousand feet and followed the river towards the face of the mountains it came from.

‘Merek said that the mountains were ‘west’ of her city. If that’s true, and these are the mountains she spoke of, then the cloud layer is moving from west to east. So I’m facing west.’

It had looked so normal that Gabriel flew right over it without giving it a second glance. However, a moment later he realized what he had just seen.

‘A bridge!’

Banking sharply to the right in a wide circle, he came back around and landed in the middle of the structure.

The bridge itself was about ten feet wide by thirty feet long. It had been built at a point where the river was constricted by several slabs of rock. The thick wooden beams supported large wooden planks kept in place by wooden dowels. There was a slight bow in the bridge giving it an upward curve. The four corners of the bridge were large square logs that had been sunken into the ground. The whole thing looked like it could support several tons.

The path that the bridge was on did not look heavily traveled. Fresh grass covered most of the trail. However, shallow ruts were definitely visible, meaning that some type of wheeled vehicle had previously used this route. Gabriel checked the trail for several yards on both sides of the bridge and found no tracks of any type. A single black slug was the only animal he found.

Taking to the air again, he headed north.

“Look!” said Shaniddia, pointing.

It was a small stream, barely an arm’s width across. The torrents of rain had caused it to flow quickly, but it wasn’t the stream that the herd focused its attention on: it was the long vertical tubes of grass growing along its edge.

“Flute reeds,” said Alec.

The herd sprinted the remaining distance and descended on the stream like locusts. Firmly gripping the long thin plant, a slow gentle pull would dislodge the bulbous root from the loose dirt. Rinsing off any remaining sand in the stream, the entire plant was edible.

In a matter of minutes the banks of the stream were bare.

The meal was small and only served to whet their hunger for more, but it was relished like a feast. It was the first time any of them had eaten something besides field-grain since the masters had imprisoned them.

As they continued towards the forest the rain diminished quickly. Noliea looked back and could barely make out the city of the masters. The herd had not traveled very far and Noliea was not about to trust the masters at their word. She knew they would send guards to recapture them. Which reminded her of another subject.

“When we get to the forest I want everyone to stay off any trails they find. Since we're stll so close to the city, I’m sure the masters have set traps to try and capture any travelers. Also, we need to stay together. I know we could cover more area if we separated, but since we won’t be able to build a fire until tomorrow, Shaniddia is going to be our only source of light tonight.”

“Do you think we’ll have to worry about flesh-worms?” asked Henna.

“I’m not sure,” Noliea replied, wondering the same thing herself, “Considering the number that were killed last night, I doubt it.”

The herd entered the forest just as the last of the storm rained itself out. It was close to the end of the day and with the storm still making the sky dim, the forest was already too dark to see. Shaniddia took her place in front and let the brightening flow through her. The bright blue glow, having nobody to channel to, built up around her entire being lighting up the entire area.

If the strange creature that had freed them was having trouble finding food then he obviously had not been in this forest. The Blessed Goddess had grown enough food in these woods to feed the entire herd for as long as they stayed. Even in the small areas they could see they found plenty of fruits, nuts, berries, bushes, roots, leaves, seeds, pods, vegetables, tree bark, mushrooms, lichen... the yield was enough for everyone to eat as much as they could hold.

They ate slowly knowing that they would get sick if they tried to stuff themselves too quickly. The meal lasted the entire night.

It was like flying in the biggest tunnel he could imagine.

Enough sunlight was making it though the clouds to allow Gabriel to see ahead of him for a few miles, and he could fly high enough to barely follow the trail below. The mountains to his left were spectacular; their resemblance to the Colorado Rockies was uncanny. Nearly every mountain had waterfalls and every valley had a river running eastward. The trail ran parallel with the mountains; with bridges spanning any rivers in its path.

Gabriel stopped to look at another bridge, this one spanning a small brook. It was only half the length of the first one he had seen but the construction was exactly the same.

‘I’m being watched.’

Gabriel learned to trust that feeling a long time ago, and wasn’t about to ignore it now. He fired straight up into the air looking below for any signs of life. He looked along the trail. He looked up the valley were the stream originated. He looked at the face of the mountains... nothing. Even the airspace in every direction was empty. Deciding that it was simply nerves he flew onward, never seeing the eight unblinking eyes watching him from under the bridge.

He was flying along at what he guessed was around two hundred miles an hour, not wanting to miss any details of the scenery or pass over someone he could ask directions from, and his strategy paid off. Below, he could see... well... he could see several somethings moving northward along the trail. Three of them were definitely centaurs. The other four or five couldn’t be identified at this height.

Guessing that swooping down on the group would not be the best way to make introductions, Gabriel flew ahead and descended to treetop level. Turning south, he doubled back a short distance and landed near a tree next to the path. He noticed there were both hoof prints and animal tracks heading south along the trail. But what interested him even more were several pits from freshly eaten fruit. Looking back at the tree, he spied a dozen pear shaped fruits. He picked up one of the pits and smelled it. The sweet aroma of peach filled his senses. Plucking one of the fruits from the tree, he hesitantly took a bite.

‘Boy that’s good.’

By the time he heard someone coming up the trail, Gabriel had finished five of the peach-ish / apple-ish / pear-ish tasting fruits.

As the three centaurs approached, he could see one was taller than the other two. There were also four large mounds of brown fur scurrying around with them. From this distance they looked like porcupines except that each paw had a set of long curved claws.

The centaurs stopped when they realized that the person on the trail ahead of them was not another centaur. The four creatures however made a beeline directly for him, honking like a flock of geese.

One of the shorter centaurs picked up a whistle from around its neck and blew a single shrill note. In typical doglike fashion the four animals ignored it completely.

“They will not harm you,” said the taller centaur.

Gabriel stood ready in case the creatures decided to prove the centaur wrong. He could simply take to the air if the animals attacked.

The four creatures encircled Gabriel, still honking loudly. He could now see that the ‘quills’ were actually long strands of stiff hair. The claws on each paw were so long they curved sideways and outward. And the claws were thick and blunt, obviously used for digging. Their faces looked like an aardvarks with small black eyes and long hairless noses.

One of the animals began to examine his shoes with its long flexible nose. The honking immediately ceased and Gabriel found himself the object of intense olfactory exploration.

“They like you,” said the taller one, which Gabriel could now see was a very old centauress, “You must have stepped in something they don’t recognize.”

She had hair nearly the same color as Gabriel’s, and her coat was a pale gray. She wore a brown serape that covered her human half, and a matching blanket on her equine back. On either side of the blanket were large woven baskets carrying what Gabriel guessed were roots.

{Actually,} said Gabriel looking down at the four animals, {I think they like me because I stink.}

The centauress’s eyes widened, “You speak Zeffra?”

Gabriel pulled the golden medallion from under his shirt, {One of your people gave me this. It translates my language into yours.}

The other two centaurs had walked up next to the centauress. Gabriel roughly guessed their ages to be somewhere around eight to ten. The girl had bright red hair and matching coat while the boy had dark blond hair and a brown coat.

The centauress walked forward while the two children stayed where they were. Gabriel was beginning to have a hard time standing still as two of the creatures had begun to dig under his feet.

“You’re a strange creature to me,” said the centauress as she stopped less than five feet from him, “I don’t think I’ve seen the likes of you in all my seasons of winter.”

{My name is Gabriel, and I am not from your world.}

“I am Mariah,” she said, and turned to point at the two behind her, “These are my descendants: Jason and Elena.”

{An honor to meet all of you,} said Gabriel, finally having to take a step as the ground beneath one of his feet gave way.

Seeing that the strange creature was having trouble standing, Mariah gave a sharp call and the four breks went running off into a nearby field.

“A stranger to my world, eh?” she said, coming up to him, “Well let's have a look at you.”

There was one thing Mariah wasn’t, and that was shy. She ran her hands across his chest, examined his arms, felt his hair, looked at his hands, moved his wings, and made him lift one of his legs to look at the bottom of his shoes. As she worked, she would occasionally make a humming noise that the medallion would translate as “Hummm...” or “Uh-huh...”. The two younger centaurs soon lost their shyness as well and were running their fingers through the feathers on his wings.

“Well Gabriel,” said Mariah as she concluded her examination, “You were right. You stink.”

“And you have twelve fingers,” said Jason, evidently agreeing with the elder on Gabriel’s stench.

‘Twelve?’ thought Gabriel reflexively looking at his hands. He half expected Jason to say, “Made you look!”

{How many do you have?} asked Gabriel to the boy.

Jason gave him a puzzled look as he held up his hands. “Ten,” he said with an obvious ‘duh!’ expression.

Gabriel saw that each hand had only three fingers and an opposable thumb. And a quick check revealed that both Elena and Mariah had the same.

“What are the things on your back for?” asked Elena.

{They are called ‘wings’,} he said to the freckled girl, {They help me fly.}

“Fly?” asked Elena, repeating the word.

Gabriel wondered if the medallion was translating the word correctly, {Um... Move through the air over the trees?}

The girl looked confused.

{Have you ever thrown a stone a long way?}

The girl nodded yes.

Gabriel noted that centaurs nodded their heads for yes and shook their heads for no exactly like humans did. Just another subtle effect of the nightmare.

{Well imagine if you could throw a rock, and when it got as high as it could go it didn’t come down for a long time. That rock would travel for a long way. My wings let me do the same thing.}

Now three blank faces stared back in confusion. A demonstration was in order.

{Watch.}

Gabriel turned around and leapt into the air. He kept his speed as low as he could, which was just under fifty miles an hour. He flew a circle around the trio of centaurs at about one hundred feet off the ground, causing the four breks to begin honking again.

“Amazing,” said Mariah once Gabriel had landed and the initial shock wore off, “And you don’t crash into the ground?”

Gabriel smiled, {I've crashed a few times. Nothing I didn’t walk away from.}

“How far up can you go?” asked Jason.

{Past the clouds.}

The old woman’s eyes twinkled, “Come with us Gabriel. I will give you a proper bath, and in return you can run an errand for me.”

The walk was around five miles back to their home. All three asked a myriad of questions, ranging from walking on two legs to why his eyes were blue. In return Gabriel discovered that Jason and Elena were Mariah’s great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren, visiting from their grandparents house a few days travel to the west. Jason said that he was older than Elena, explaining that he had ‘seen the season of fall’ forty-one times, while Elena has ‘seen the season of summer’ only thirty-four. He also found out his presumption was wrong: they were not brother and sister, only cousins.

{When you tell someone your age,} said Gabriel, {I noticed that you say, ‘seen the season of’, and then a specific season. I don’t understand that.}

“There are four seasons in the cycle,” Mariah replied, “spring, summer, fall, winter, then it repeats itself. When a child is born in the spring, we say that the child has seen the season of spring once. When the next season of spring arrives, we say the child has seen the season of spring twice. The count increases every time the same season passes.”

{I see. In my world, we count the seasons in almost the same way.}

“How old are you?” asked Elena.

{Well...if there are the same number of days in a season here as there are in my own world, then I have seen the season of fall forty-two times.}

The look on their faces was one of stark disbelief, “You mean you are as old as me?” asked Jason.

{I don’t know,} replied Gabriel, {how many days are there in all four seasons?}

“Five hundred, fifty-five and one half.” all three centaurs said in unison.

{How old are you?} Gabriel asked Mariah.

The old woman smiled. “I have seen the season of winter over two thousand, seven hundred and fifty times,” she said proudly.

‘Holy cow.’

{No Jason, I don’t think I’m as old as you. I think I’m much younger.}

Jason looked confused.

{We count our age the same way you do,} clarified Gabriel, {But our seasons are much shorter. In my world, the total number of days in all four seasons is three hundred, sixty-five and one-forth. That means, in your seasons, I’m only...}

Gabriel paused as he did the math, {Twenty-seven.}

“Younger than me?” asked Elena, amazed.

{I think so.}

“Elena, Jason,” Mariah said, “Go check on the breks. I can’t see them from here.”

The two younger centaurs ran out into the field to find the animals.

“I find it odd,” Mariah remarked as they continued, “That a boy of such a young age carries himself like a man many times his senior.”

{My age is simply a guess,} Gabriel replied, {But even if the numbers are correct, my people consider me an adult. If I live to see the season of fall a hundred times, then I have lived an incredibly long life.}

“A hundred!” exclaimed Mariah, amazed, “That’s not old enough to bear children!”

Gabriel chuckled, {My people can have children when they are younger than fifteen. But most wait until they are in their twenties.}

The old woman sighed, “I cannot comprehend what life would be like with such a short time on this earth. You must think of me as some ancient fossil.”

Gabriel laughed. “Mariah, I have seen and done more in the time I have had than most people could only wish for. I have traveled to many worlds, met many people, and have seen more than I even though could exist. And today I will add to that list a wonderful centauress who’s own life spans almost the entire recorded history of my race.”

‘Unfortunately, you’re only a figment of my imagination.’

The house was not at all what he had expected.

With the rustic setting and beautiful countryside, he imagined a small cottage with thatched roof and Dutch doors. Even a log cabin wouldn’t look out of place here. Instead, Mariah and the two children lived in an earthen mound... right out of The Hobbit.

But Gabriel was not invited in. Mariah handed her baskets to Jason and Elena and told them to fix a meal while she led the two-legged stranger around to the opposite side of the dwelling.

“Do your people know what soap is?” she asked, heading towards what looked to be a stall.

{Do I smell that bad?} Gabriel asked, smiling.

Mariah wasn’t smiling. “I know that scent,” she said in a serious tone, “That’s the smell of blood. And you’re covered in it.”

The smile left Gabriel as well, {I... ran into a few giant worms that tried to eat me. I defended myself.}

Mariah was silent as they neared the stall, “You’re leaving out a few details, aren’t you?”

{I’m leaving out a great number of details. If you would like me to tell you the entire story, that will take some time. However the story does not have a happy ending.}

“It would not be proper for the children to hear.”

{No, it wouldn’t.}

They had reached the stall, and Mariah changed the subject, “This is a bath. Walk around back then hand me your clothes. I will soak them in this.” She indicated a wooden tub. “In there you will find some soap and a brush.”

Gabriel went around to the far side of the stall and found that there was no forth wall. The stall itself was built over a small stream that had obviously been diverted close to the house. Four poles held up strips of split wood starting about three feet off the ground, and stopping around seven. He was going to show a lot of leg. The wall farthest from the opening had some kind of ornate radial pattern in the center of it, with what looked to be eight thick boards radiating out from the middle. There were also eight round emeralds inlayed into the wood and set in a crescent pattern. As Gabriel stepped in for a closer look, the pattern moved.

{YEOWW! } yelped Gabriel as he jumped five feet backwards.

The sound made Mariah nearly jump out of her skin. “By the Blessed Goddess! What has spooked you young man?”

{Get away from the stall!} he warned, {There’s a huge spider in there!}

“A what?” she asked, puzzled. She turned and looked into the stall.

“Oh that. Silly critters, always eating the soap. Go on now, go home to your tree.”

The two-thousand, seven-hundred, and something year old centauress wrapped an arm around the massive arachnid and pulled it off the wall. Stepping out of the stall, she turned around and Gabriel could see just how big the thing really was. From the tips of its twin fangs to the end of its abdomen was better than four feet. Its eight legs had spread themselves out as far as they would go and made a radius over seven feet from tip to tip. The two black fangs were sunk into a brown oval about the size of Gabriel’s fist. The moment Mariah let the thing touch the ground; it bolted off into the grass, changing its color to a dark green in less than a second. And it moved faster than Gabriel could in a dead run.

Again Gabriel realized that he had let his guard down, and again the nightmare had manifested itself.

“That was a Strandon’s Fruitpicker. Great critters to have around. If you can coax two or three to live in a fruit grove, the place’ll stay healthy until the end of time.”

{That was the biggest spider I will ever see in my life,} said Gabriel, ready for a few hundred more to jump out of nowhere.

“Calm down Gabriel,” the centauress soothed, patting his arm, “They won’t harm you. They just occasionally sneak in here and eat the soap, that’s all. Why would something like that spook you so bad?”

{Because in my world they’re called spiders, and they’re usually around this big.} He held up his hand and indicated the distance with his thumb and index finger. {They’re predators; some of the best their is. They’re also highly poisonous. A single bite can make most people sick for days. And in extreme cases kill them.}

Mariah considered what he said. Although she knew they were harmless (and she had kept quite a few as pets in her lifetime), she tried to see the situation through this two-legged stranger’s eyes. But before she could offer any reassurance Gabriel began to laugh.

“Did I miss the humor?” she asked.

{I’m sorry Mariah,} he said, trying to regain his composure, {It’s just that the last few weeks have been quite a strain on my nerves. I just realized that I’m so stressed I’m practically jumping at my own shadow.}

Mariah seemed to see the tension ease out of him. “What you need is a good bath, and a hearty meal. I’ll go get you some more soap while you undress. Then I think you better tell me about these giant worms.”

With that she headed towards the house.

Gabriel was sure that the sight of two hairless legs standing in the stream was going to cause a lot of conversation in itself, and he hoped that it would distract her enough to let the discussion of the dune worms slip. So, checking the stall to make sure that the spider didn’t have a few foot-long cousins hanging around, he stepped inside and stripped.

The brush that was in the stall was evidently made from brek hair. The thick wooden handle was long enough for him to reach anywhere, even the backs of his wings.

“Here we go,” said Mariah, walking up to the stall, “A fresh orb of soap.”

She held a tan colored sphere over the top of the stall. “When you’re done with it put it on the small shelf in front of you.”

Well, it wasn’t Irish Spring, but it certainly got the job done. It lathered like ordinary soap, but more importantly it got rid of the smell he hadn’t been able to rinse away in the stream this morning.

“I sent the children to fetch some more fruit. They won’t be back for awhile,” said Mariah, who was standing just outside the stall.

{Then I presume you want to ask me a few questions that they shouldn’t hear the answers to.}

“I worry for the lives of my descendants,” she said, “While I have led a good life, theirs is only beginning.”

Gabriel didn’t like the sound of this. {Have you seen the giant worms I told you about?}

“I have heard mention of them by passing travelers,” she said, “About fifty seasons of summer ago a train of settlers passed this way heading south. They spoke of giant beetles invading their towns. And soon after people started disappearing. They would tell these terrible stories of worms that could swallow a person whole, and that there were more and more of them each season. I...” she stopped.

There was an awkward silence.

{I have seen these giant beetles as well,} Gabriel replied. {They are intelligent, and the ones I have seen have enslaved your people. I witnessed them execute two centaurs, but a healer was nearby and revived them.}

“I have never seen these beetles or the worms you speak of,” Mariah said somberly, “My first knowledge of these things was when the settlers passed here.”

{The ones I encountered were a long way away from here. It would take them a very long time to travel the distance.}

‘Assuming there are no oceans I missed.’ he added to himself.

“I’m confused,” Mariah said, “how did you make such a journey in less than two days?”

{I can fly above the clouds,} he replied. {Up there I can move much faster than if I walked on the ground. I can be anywhere on this world in less than a day.}

Mariah was silent for a time while Gabriel assumed she was digesting the concept.

“How did you get all this blood on you then?” she finally asked.

{Yesterday, I was attacked by several of the worms. They tried to eat me, and I defended myself.}

“Why didn’t you ‘fly’?” she asked.

The thought of last night’s events replayed vividly in his mind. Why did he get involved? For all he knew, Paul could have been a mass murderer who was finally getting what he deserved. And that overwhelming feeling of familiarity... that actually confused him more than any of the other day’s events.

{The insect people had...} he paused, and looked over the top of the wall down at the centauress. {Mariah, I will warn you... this is not a good story.}

Mariah nodded, “I want to know the truth.”

Gabriel proceeded to tell her about the city he had found, and how he had stopped Paul from being sacrificed, only to have him killed by a spear. He tried to be vague about the next day’s events, but Mariah would start asking questions and he eventually wound up telling her the blunt, not-edited-for-television version.

He had finished his bath at the same time he had finished his story. Mariah had been quiet for the last few minutes and he looked over the top of the stall to check on her. She had walked away several yards and had her back to him. Her arms were crossed around her midsection and she had bowed her head. It was the exact same posture Noliea had taken when she had called him ‘master’.

{I’m sorry if I have offended you.}

Mariah shook her head. “You have not offended me Gabriel. You have only spoken the truth. It’s just a little... overwhelming. I... I must see if the children are back.”

She headed to the house.

Looking around, Gabriel found nobody within sight so he stepped out of the stall and pulled his clothes out of the tub. They had been soaking in milky water that smelled the same as the soap. When he pulled them out, they were nearly as white as the day he had gotten them. The dura-armor cloth his clothes were made of had been through hell and back, and now looked almost brand new. He’d have to thank Franklin for inventing the stuff when he got home.

Donning his clothes, Gabriel flew for a few minutes above the house at high speed to dry his clothes out. When he landed, he found Jason and Elena just outside the front of the house; the look of wonder written across their faces.

{Do I smell any better?} asked Gabriel to the children.

“Your...things on your back.” started Elena.

{My wings?}

“Yes. They’re white.”

Gabriel grinned, {I told you I was dirty!}

“How did you get so dirty?” asked Jason.

{I-} Gabriel began, but thought better of telling the children all he had told Mariah. Even if these children were nearly the same age as he was. {I fell in the mud next to a river.} It wasn’t exactly a lie. The dirt on the riverbank he had awoken on had contributed to his filth. It just wasn’t the majority.

“Look!” exclaimed Elena as she pointed downward, “He has string going though his hooves!”

Gabriel looked down at his feet and saw that the laces on his shoes were visible from under one of his pants legs. {No Elena,} he said, smiling, {these are called ‘shoes’, and they are part of my clothes, not part of me.}

“Why are your hooves so long?”
“Did you fall in the mud when you fell out of the sky?”
“Why do you cover your legs?”
“Is it hard to eat with two extra fingers?”

“Jason... Elena...” Mariah called from within the house, “Maybe if you invited Gabriel inside for a meal and paused between questions he would answer them.”

Each of them grabbed a hand and practically hauled him into the house.

baroque -
A derogatory term meaning overblown, unbalanced style.

The interior of the house was a single room about ten feet in height by nearly forty feet in diameter. The room was a dodecagon; but one wall was the fireplace while another was the doorway he was standing in. The walls and floor were covered with large slabs of what looked to be granite, the gaps being sealed with a black mortar. The roof consisted of wooden beams that had been carved with all kinds of faces, landscapes, trees, vines... some very ornate, some were...well... bad. It had obviously seen more than one artist. The only furniture in the entire room was a single round table located in the middle, and several wooden shelves and cabinets along the walls. Those too had been carved, almost to the point of looking baroque.

Mariah was just finishing putting pitchers on the table. “Well don’t just block the doorway, come in!” she said with a smile. The smile was sincere, even though Gabriel could see she was still troubled with his story of the past two days.

The two children took him over to the table where they had placed several bowls of various fruits. The largest bowl was a thick clay pot in the center of the table full of water.

Jason was the first to start. Grabbing a round red fruit the size of a melon, he lifted it up above his head.

“Not on the table!” scolded Mariah, giving him a stern look, “How many times have I told you not to open those on the table?”

Looking guilty as charged, Jason pulled up one of his forelegs and brought the thing down sharply against his knee. There was a muffled ‘pop’, and Jason lifted the fruit back onto the table. Eight equally spaced cuts had formed around the sides of the skin. He handed it to Gabriel.

{You better eat one first,} Gabriel said to the boy, {I’m not sure what parts you can or can’t eat.}

“They’re called red melons,” Jason said, “When you hit them against something solid, the stone inside pops, and splits it into ten equal parts.”

{Ten?} asked Gabriel, looking at the eight slices still clinging to the center of the fruit.

“Every time.” said Elena.

{Jason,} Gabriel began, stripping off one of the slices of fruit from the melon, {I know this is going to sound strange, but how many slices of melon are on it now?}

“Seven.” Jason replied, not understanding the reason for the question.

{Ah!} said Gabriel, seeing the pattern, {And what number comes after seventeen?}

“Twenty.” the boy replied, giving him that ‘everyone knows that, silly!’ expression.

“Is something wrong Gabriel?” asked Mariah.

{The amulet I’m wearing translates your language into mine, and vice versa,} he said, {But I just found a flaw in the way it translates numbers.}

“Aren’t all numbers the same?” asked Elena.

{Well, the actual count is the same, but the way you group your numbers is different than the way I do it.}

Three blank faces stared back in confusion.

{Your numbers are in groups of ten, while my people count in groups of twelve. We have two more symbols for values than you do.}

“Why?” asked Jason.

{Well... why do you use ‘ten’ for your numbers?}

Jason paused a bit, then brightened. “Because we have ten fingers.” he said, holding up his hands.

{Yes. And why would I use twelve?}

“Because you have twelve fingers!” exclaimed Elena.

{Exactly. But the amulet isn’t translating the numbers correctly. You see, my people use the word ‘ten’ when your people use the word ‘twelve’.}

“Then what do you use for ten? I mean... what... oh, this is confusing.” said Elena.

{I agree,} said Gabriel, {But now that I understand the numbers, I can tell you than the word we use for the number after seven is ‘eight’.}

“Ate?” repeated Elena.

{And the number after that is called ‘nine’.}

“If your numbers are different from ours, then you must have figured your age incorrectly,” said Mariah.

{Let’s see... eight goes into fourty-two... your year if five hundred...which makes that....huh. That’s interesting....}

“What?” asked Jason.

{Well, your four seasons are five hundred and fifty five days long. If I change that into groups of twelve, that works out to be three hundred and sixty five; the exact same number of days in four seasons on my world.}

“So your seasons are the same length as ours?” asked Mariah.

{Yes, which means that my age, in groups of ten, would be fifty-two.}

Mariah grinned, “Still a child.”

Gabriel chuckled, “Oh, to be young again.”

Jason and Elena completely missed what Mariah and Gabriel were talking about. They were still wrestling with the idea that twelve was ten and ten was a number they had never heard of. This two-legged stranger with ‘wings’ must come from a very confusing place!

The rest of the meal went smoothly, although Gabriel did have to convince them that he couldn’t eat anywhere near the amount of food they had prepared for him. By the time they were done he had learned at least two-dozen edible plant names and where to find them. He also noted that all the food was vegetarian, and decided to avoid any conversation that would discuss other food groups.

{The meal was wonderful,} said Gabriel after they had finished and walked back outside, {Now what exactly was this favor you wanted to have me do for you?}

The look on Mariah’s face softened for the first time since Gabriel had told her of the slaves he had freed. “See that valley up there?” she asked, pointing to a sharp “V” several thousand feet above the base of the mountains, “When I was young there was a trail that led up to that point. You would have to travel three days through canyons and riverbeds, then double back and head up the valley until you could stand on the edge and look down on this entire area.” She gestured around with a sweep of her arm. “In my day people would come from all over to journey up there and start a family. But around two thousand years ago a landslide completely blocked the trail, and nobody has been there since.”

{And you want me to clear the trail?} asked Gabriel.

Mariah chuckled, “An entire mountain fell into the valley. Even with your apparent strength I doubt you could clear the path. No, what I want to know is if you could go up there from this direction.”

{That shouldn’t be any problem.}

“Good. A short distance from the edge of the mountains you will find a temple. Inside the temple you will find a number of amulets like the one your wearing. I want you to bring me back the one my first mate and I placed there.”

{How will I know which one is yours?} asked Gabriel, wondering if an amulet could survive the weather for two thousand years. Even if he converted the time from base eight to base ten, that was still over a thousand years.

“It will have the number ‘one’ written on it,” she replied.

{What does the number ‘one’ look like?} asked Gabriel.

“Does the amulet grant you the ability to read Zeffrafin?” she asked.

Gabriel shook his head no. Pulling out the amulet from under his shirt, he held it up for Mariah to read, {I know that these letters are in your language but I cannot read them.}

Mariah held the amulet and repeated, {May this gift of peace bring understanding and happiness. Shirhon, Lendoren.} Her eyes widened. {Shirhon is the most powerful mage ever known.}

“What is ‘Lendoren’?” asked Gabriel.

Elena said something unintelligible. He realized the Mariah was holding the amulet, and it was no longer translating his speech.

{He asked where Lendoren was,} she said to Elena, {It is a city about a half seasons travel to the north.}

Mariah handed the amulet back to Gabriel.

{I believe that is the city I am looking for,} said Gabriel, {or one close to it.}

“I have not been to Lendoren in many years,” said Mariah, “But it is a splendid city to behold! The Blessed Goddess herself stays there in the season of summer.”

This surprised Gabriel. He hadn’t assumed that the religion of the centaurs included an actual physical being. Could the goddess be significant in this dream? Again Gabriel noticed that he had called this a ‘dream’ instead of a ‘nightmare’. He reminded himself of what happened the last time he had let down his guard.

{Hopefully, I will be at Lendoren before the end of the day,} Gabriel said, {but first I will retrieve your amulet.}

Mariah looked confused, “Gabriel the city of Lendoren is over fifty five... or in your numbers...”

{Just use your numbers I’ll convert it. And I understand the distance to the city, but I will fly there so the time it takes to get there will be less than half a day.}

All three looked skeptical.

{I tell you what. Why don’t I retrieve your amulet, and then you can see just how fast I can travel.}

“Can we go with you?” asked Elena excitedly.

{I sorry Elena but I’m not going to walk there. I’m going to use my wings like I did earlier.}

Elena looked crushed. Mariah reached over and tasseled her red hair, “Maybe someday we’ll go up the old trail as far as it lets us.” She turned back to Gabriel, “Why don’t we come back inside and I’ll pack you some fruits for the journey.”

Gabriel smiled, {I appreciate your kindness, but I should be back in less time than it took me to take a bath.}

Mariah looked genuinely shocked, “Can all your people move so quickly?”

Gabriel grinned, {Nope. I’m the fastest person there is.}

“Indeed,” Mariah agreed.

{I shall return shortly,} he said. And with that he spread his wings and leapt into the air.