Hilda - Lycadea (21 page)

Hilda was more curious: she watched the
ground speed by and at a certain moment the strange concrete-like
material that made up the surface was no more than crumbles. They
had not seen anything resembling a house or pyramid in quite a
while. She turned a bit and noticed that nothing was following them
anymore. In the distance a few of the shuttles still hovered, but
for some reason they held their position.

"Maybe we can slow down a bit and look at
what's happening," Hilda yelled at Maurizio. She had to repeat her
words before he understood and she breathed more easily as the rig
indeed slowed down, after some shouting of the captain to William
and Rebel.

Kerna noticed the change in speed and
pressure, and peeked from behind her eyelids. Relief flowed over
her as she noticed that the rig was hardly moving anymore.

"I'm going to put us on the ground," William
announced. Little later they had landed.

"Okay, everyone, check yourselves. Everything
still where it belongs?" Maurizio said, cheerful as if a speed run
on an improvised flying rig was the most normal thing of the day.
"And that was some mean flying, you two," he complimented William
and Rebel. Rebel got a kiss for that too, something William gladly
missed out on.

Obsidian and Grimalkin were pleased to have
regained their freedom and started their own investigation of the
meagre surroundings.

"Nice flying, William," Hilda said. Her quick
peck on the cheek was very welcome with him. Then she rummaged in
one of her pockets.

Phweeeeeeep!!

"That is what these people in their flying
pyramids get from me. Nothing more," she said with a smug look as
she put the whistle away. "So... where are we?"

The witch pulled the tablet from somewhere
and switched it on. With the wood removed, it responded nice and
fast. "So, we had a map. Now, let's see..." She examined the map
for a while. Then she looked at Kerna. "Can you make sense of
this?"

Kerna took the tablet and together with the
witch she studied the map on the screen. "I think we are here."

"No. We have to be here. That is where the
pyramid stuff is."

"No. This is where the houses are. You are
pointing at where the screen is damaged."

"Crappedy crap."

William, Rebel and Maurizio let the two worry
about the map and followed the two cats around until Hilda was
convinced that Kerna was right.

Walking around was difficult, with the large
cracks in the shattered concrete. Further away they saw a stretch
of what looked like grey-green sand, dry and uninviting.

"We're quite a bit off track," the witch
informed them when the group had assembled again. "We're here" -
random stab at the screen - "and we are going there" - another stab
at the screen. "We say we have to go that way." Hilda pointed
somewhere behind her. She looked at Kerna for a moment, who nodded.
"Yes. We're going that way."

"Good, I appreciate that," said William, "but
I do think we have to patch up our rig a bit. We went quite fast,
and it was originally not designed for MACH 1."

"Mach what?" Hilda and Kerna asked.

Rebel and Maurizio laughed.

"No laughing at the witch!" Hilda yelled over
the outburst of joy. "You go fix whatever mach you have to, and
then get us out of here."

William and Rebel then faced a slight
problem. The flight rig definitely needed patching up but there was
nothing around to patch up with. The grey sand in the distance was
not helpful, and the crumbling concrete was faster in crumbling
than in being a concrete help.

Rebel stated that there was nothing she could
do, as she lacked the proper material. William tried to convert
some of the concrete into metal bands, but the material was
obstinate and did not keep together, not even after being changed.
It was interesting to see strips of metal fall apart like crumbling
concrete, but not very conducive to getting away...

William, Hilda and Kerna resorted to tearing
strips of fabric from their clothes. These were easily changed into
strong metal bands that were perfect for reinforcing the flying
rig.

"Do you have any idea why the shuttles did
not follow us over here?" Hilda asked Kerna as they watched the
work in progress.

"This is the forbidden land," Kerna
explained. "Some of the old legends say that there are dangers
here, real dangers that will come for you when you don't watch, and
they will kill you."

"Sounds like a bundle of fun," the witch
grinned. "So why did you come here with us, when you know about
these dangers?"

"They are only legends. Many people whisper
that they are brought into existence to keep everyone near the
houses."

"Smart girl," Hilda nodded, "I appreciate
your thinking."

Kerna looked at the witch. "That does not
mean I am not afraid..."

Grimalkin and Obsidian came back from their
private adventure, all grey from the dust and the sand as William
and Rebel tested the last few connections they had made. Hilda
picked up Obsidian and patted the dust off him. After cleaning the
cat, she handed him over to Kerna and took care of Grimalkin.

The cats were not happy, but they endured the
treatment in silence. Being all dirty was not the way a magical's
familiar should be, and the dust refused to go away by itself.

"We'll see to it that nothing happens to you,
Kerna," she tried to reassure the young woman who held Obsi against
her chest. Hilda held up Grimalkin. "Now don't you look nice and
clean again?" she asked the cat.

"Meowww."

By that time, William had the rig afloat and
they all took their seats. Slowly the rig moved upwards. William
tested that everything was fine and stable, confirmed the direction
that Hilda and Kerna had pointed out, and then, together with
Rebel, he made the rig turn. "Here we go, folks."

The rig started moving, picking up speed
smoothly. A phweeeeep sounded over the desolate area.

As the contraption moved away, from under the
rubble slowly a dark grey head appeared. Two red eyes watched the
floating rig go. After a while, when the rig had gone out of sight,
the head sank back into the ground, without a sound...

-=-=-

For a long time, the companions flew over the
same boring grey land. The concrete was more or less the same, be
it also more or less crumbled. The grey sand sometimes came near
and sometimes seemed to fade away, as if some unseen sandy tidal
wave was playing its game.

"Do you have any idea how long we have to
watch this?" Hilda asked Kerna. She was getting more than just
bored out of her mind, and the lack of magic made it worse as there
was no way that she could play with the concrete and the sand. Or
even just help William fly the rig, even though she had to admit
that he and Rebel were doing a good job on that.

"Until we see something else," Kerna had no
other option.

"Oh. It'd better be soon."

William looked back at the witch and felt
sorry for her. He knew how she needed to do something and be in
control and all that, but he also missed the connection to her more
and more. As that was all he missed, he could not even fathom what
she was going through, having no magic to wield, "We're doing what
we can, Hilda," he said. "Want to ride up front for a while? I am
sure Maurizio will trade places with you."

"No. Just keep going and get us some place
decent," the witch grumbled, using her cat as a distraction for her
hands. Grimalkin suffered in silence.

"William. I sense something." It was Rebel
whose head jerked up and peered around.

"What?"

"I don't know. It's strange."

This was of course very disconcerting. A
woman as strange as Rebel calling something strange was never a
good thing.

"Do you at least know where?" Hilda
asked.

"Yup. Right in front of us."

Everyone did their utmost to discover
something strange in front of the rig, but nothing felt like
showing itself. The pilots even slowed down the rig, and William
made it lift up higher, with the idea that perhaps from higher up
they might be able to see something. This proved to be a smart
idea, and one that was done on time as well.

Below them, suddenly a small mountain of sand
and concrete rose up, and not just slowly like a mole would do. The
bulge seemed to jump upwards, as if it wanted to catch the rig and
its occupants. Claw-like paws stretched out from the sand-mountain
and reached up to the flying thing that suddenly looked very
vulnerable and breakable. One claw would be enough to cover about
ten rigs. With occupants. And there were two of those
monstrosities

The sand thing rose up to almost one hundred
feet high. William and Rebel threw the rig in a sharp turn, as they
were not high enough to avoid the monster.

"Crappedy crap!" Hilda was right."What is
that?!"

"Looks like one of the dangers Kerna
mentioned is real after all," Maurizio said. The captain was
fumbling in his pockets as if he desperately needed something from
one of them. "Madonna, where is it!"

"Right in front of your nose!" Hilda yelled,
as she could not see what he was doing. "Oh, right behind us now!"
she corrected herself after a fascinating yet nausea-evoking
manoeuvre that William had to perform. The sand-beast had grown
some more and was moving in pursuit.

Kerna sat in silence, her eyes large and
radiating fear.

While William handled the flying, Rebel
grabbed one of the small food packages from a pocket. "Can you turn
this into water?" she asked the wizard, who nodded as he made the
rig avoid yet another swoop of a claw.

"We have to get over this thing and then soak
it," Rebel said, "sand and water make mud."

Now that did make a lot of sense, but Hilda
was not certain that the sand on this insane planet would be aware
of that as well. "I hope so!"

Maurizio in that time had found what he was
looking for. In his hand was a very small object, as if he had
stolen a miniature pistol from a baby. This thing looked menacing
though, despite its size. "Hold still!" he exclaimed as he tried to
get a proper aim at the sand-thing.

Hilda suddenly realised the spooky thing that
entire battle was going on in relative silence. The sand did not
make any sound, the only thing they heard were their own voices and
the wind rushing by.

"Forget it!" Rebel said. She made the rig
jolt as Maurizio fired. A long blue flame bounced from the small
gun and as if guided by magic it found one of the long arms of the
monster, taking it clean off. The arm fell apart in just sand and
small rocks. The monster did not seem to mind or notice, it kept
charging.

Somehow they managed to get the rig over the
mountain of violent sand. Rebel tossed the package, William flashed
his wand for a moment, and then a large amount of water went down.
The effect was stunning to behold. At first the greyish lump of
sand only turned darker. Then, as if it took the sand a while
before it understood what it was supposed to do, its movement
became slower, and blots of mud flew around. Some of them reached
the people on the rig. Then, as the water reached the core of the
sand-monster, the mountain suddenly collapsed. All it left was a
large dark smear on the light grey ground.

"Suck an elf. That was... some sand."

"Too true. And I would prefer not to run into
some of that anymore," the wizard said as he steered the rig away
from the smear and down to the surface. "I need a break."

Once landed, they took some time to eat and
get their bearings. According to Maurizio they were still on
course, and Kerna was convinced of that as well. As there was
nothing the others could bring up against that, they proceeded in
that direction.

After a long flight William became tired.
Rebel said she was getting sleepy as well, so the rig was parked
and one of the inflatable packages was transformed into a large
tent. By the time they were done making camp, darkness was crawling
in.

"That's so odd," said Hilda, "I've never seen
darkness crawl in that way. As if it is trying to surround us."

Darkness did. And not only that; at a certain
moment it jumped the small camp and in one strike everything was
dark. Very dark.

"Did someone remember to do something about
lights?" the witch asked.

"Lux," said William, making the tip of his
wand light up. Rebel had gotten something from a pocket that
emitted light as well.

With these few sources of illumination, the
group quickly prepared something to eat. William then set up some
wards, just in case anyone or anything had plans for surprise
visiting them in the night, and then the group went to sleep in
their improvised sleeping quarters.

-=-=-

"William." The voice was a whisper. It was
Hilda's.

"Yes?" He was awake amazingly fast.

"It's still dark."

"Perhaps it is still night," he assumed.

"No. Can't be. I am awake." Her logic did not
seem to make sense, unless you knew Hilda. She'd wake up after the
night, unless something made her wake up sooner. And everyone would
know it if that happened. William knew her.

A wand-tip lit up. The others were still
asleep. Hilda and William rose from their makeshift bed and tiptoed
out of the tent.

"Crappedy crap. How is this possible?" the
witch wondered out loud. "I mean, this looks amazing, but
still."

A circle of thirty feet around the tent was
still shrouded in darkness, while outside that border the daylight
was making the most of the grey surroundings, which was
pathetically uninspiring.

Hilda walked out of the darkness into the
light. "It's just fine," she said as she came back into the dark,
guided by William's shiny wand. "We should wake up the others and
get on our way."