Into The Ruins (18 page)

They could have handled the first day back in the Ruins differently.  Over the years a number of wizards had ventured a day or a bit more in many directions from the small oasis hoping to find something that would be of interest.  Those memories could have been tapped to make a quick jump away from their starting point, but Rigo elected to use the first day as a shake-out, seeing how the team traveled together.  It also served to allow the group to get comfortable with the harshness of the place while they were still close to a safe zone.  As expected, Ash’urn traveled better than a man of his years should rightly be expected to do.  Lorl was a bit of a complainer, and Orna very stoic about the discomforts they would be enduring.  Both had been in the Ruins many times, both when the barrier was being erected as well as in recent months as the constant war with the Hoplani progressed. 

“Which way?” Lorl asked when they shouldered their packs and prepared to walk away from the little oasis where they had left a large supply of food and clothing.  They would use a
Bypass
to return here for the night.  They could have returned all the way back to the Outpost, but Rigo wanted to get them used to the idea of staying in the Ruins this trip.

Rigo looked out into the orange colored sands.  The upgraded version of Ash’urn’s pointing device showed him the way back toward the chasm.  They knew not to go that way.  With nothing suggesting any difference, he was about to point due east, continuing the basic direction deeper into the Ruins when the squawking of a pair of the large birds caught his attention.  The pair had lifted off from the trees on the far side of the oasis and were now headed off into the desert sands.

“That way,” Rigo said suddenly, pointing after the receding birds.  It had worked for him long ago.  Lorl shrugged, and as a group they headed onto the sands, traveling in an east-northeast direction following along the track suggested by the now distant birds.  They had to be headed somewhere, Rigo mused.  Maybe they knew something important.  They had seemed at home in this oasis, so maybe they knew where another was located.

Rigo carried his old staff, and Orna carried the second one.  She and Lorl would share it as the need arose, but she had volunteered to be the one who had the extra load.  Rigo didn’t know if that was because she wanted to have ready access to her magic, something Rigo could appreciate, or whether she walked better with a walking stick. She certainly employed it that way now as they started out.  Of the two wizards, she was clearly the stronger, so Rigo felt the arrangement was the best.

All but Ash’urn carried one of the Kellmore Serangs on their back, the special scabbard sewn into their packs, which were also heavily loaded with water as they started out.  Ash’urn had declined the sword explaining he had never been much with weapons, and rather than lug the useless weight, he had opted instead to bring along a pair of his ever present journals.  Rigo couldn’t have said what he expected to find that would warrant recording, but knew the old scholar had a way of discovering things that turned out to be important later.

The morning went smoothly enough, and when they stopped for a break and a small bite to eat for their noonday meal, each of them attempted to make a
Bypass
back to the oasis.  It was no surprise that they could do so with the staffs at hand.  Others had been this far.  The afternoon led them into another of the fields of pointed crystal, and Rigo took great satisfaction in using
Brightfire
to blast a path through the deadly stuff, spreading his fan of magical energy to destroy more of the sharp points than would have been absolutely necessary.

“Whatever that stuff really is, it is aware of us and would close in if possible.  It is slow, but persistent,” he told the others. 

Ash’urn surprised him by not taking out his journal and sketching the crystals, but then he had been in this area before with Nycoh, and Rigo reasoned he probably had even taken samples that would be back at the Outpost.

They made good time over the slowly rolling hills the rest of the day, and when nightfall approached, they carefully noted their position, and Rigo opened a
Bypass
back to the oasis.  Ash’urn walked directly over to the pond and filled his hat with water, which he poured unceremoniously over his head.  Rigo started a small fire while the others washed up.  Then they prepared dinner, ate, and climbed into their sleeping blankets after sending a brief note back to the Outpost as agreed.  There was little to report, but they had agreed to send a note back each day, and a failure to do so would indicate a problem.

“Today we extend our range to see if we are going to be limited,” Orna said eager to be off the next morning.  They had already opened the portal that would take them back to where they had stopped the previous evening.  Rigo had watched for the pair of birds, but they had not returned the previous evening, which suggested they had to travel a very long distance, or they had a nest elsewhere.

“Lead the way,” Rigo offered, and Orna was the first through the
Bypass
.  Lorl followed, with Rigo and Ash’urn bringing up the rear.

The next four days varied little.  The Ruins were much the same as Rigo had come to expect when he’d hiked through them so many years ago.  The dead zone indeed extended without interruption, and without the offsetting ability of the staffs, they would never have been able to reach this far.  Fortunately, they could return each night to the small oasis to relax in the comfortable and welcome green surroundings.  On the sixth day, that changed.

“I can’t make a
Bypass
,” Orna said when they stopped for their noon break. 

“Let me try,” Lorl insisted, but he was also unable to do so.

Rigo tried as well, but he knew what would happen.  Making a
Bypass
was not a skill of strength, and if one couldn’t, it was unlikely another could.  He’d only wondered if his years of closeness to his staff might have given him more linkage to the device and thereby afforded him more ability.

“Now we know the range of the thing,” he said unhappily.

“It doesn’t matter,” Lorl said.  “We can daisy chain our way back.”

Rigo knew what he wanted to do.  He intended to open a
Bypass
to one of the points where they had stopped on previous days as they made their way here.  They could jump to that point, then open a second
Bypass
to return to the oasis.

“I’d rather that be a last resort,” Ash’urn spoke up.  “You are thinking of making a
Bypass
that both begins and ends in the dead zone.  We hoped to avoid that.  Up to now, all of the
Bypass
portals we have used had one end anchored in a normal zone.  I’m not certain, but the risk of a corrupted
Bypass
is likely to be far greater for one like that.”

“Corrupted how?” Lorl asked frowning.

“Remember Koess? He was lost when a portal bridged a normal zone to a dead zone.  The staff has mitigated the problem for that combination, but asking it to offset any dangers from a
Bypass
with both ends in the dead zone is increasing the risk of something similar happening again.  Perhaps something even worse.  We simply have too little knowledge.”

Lorl looked at Ash’urn and shuddered a bit.

“What do we do now?” Orna asked.  “We can’t go much farther and still be able to walk back to a spot from which we can get back tonight.”

“We have a radius of this distance from the oasis we can travel,” Ash’urn said.  “We should explore other directions before we attempt anything else.”

“We have a couple of glass before it starts getting dark,” Rigo pointed out.  “Let’s head due south for a glass.  That will take us into new territory, while slowly reducing our distance from the oasis.  If we don’t find anything, or we don’t get back into range, we can then head directly back.”

The others agreed, and the troop started out on the new heading.  A glass later it was time to turn back.  Reluctantly Rigo turned toward the west and set off.  They had gone only a short distance, cresting a small hill when Ash’urn tapped Rigo on the shoulder.  Rigo stopped and turned to see what Ash’urn wanted.

“Over there,” he said when he had Rigo’s attention.

They were just topping a small rise, and Ash’urn had spotted something the others had missed.  Barely visible because of the blocking provided by the undulating hills, was a small patch of blessed green.  Given the distance and the apparent size, it was smaller than the oasis from which they had started, but it was clearly not just a small bush as Rigo had once discovered.  At least two large trees rose into the skies out of the patch of color.

Eagerly the party set off to investigate, and within a quarter glass walked into the small area, feeling the effects of the Ruins fall away as they did so.  Lorl was the first to attempt a
Bypass
, and even without the staff, he was able to open a path back to the first oasis.  He grinned happily. 

Rigo smiled as well.  They had gained a foothold.  Now they could use this as the new anchor, and have at least another six days of possible travel into the Ruins.  They had passed over land that would have been blocked to them without the staffs, and had shown there was hope of going much farther.  Clearly the oasis was not a single anomaly, something that had been questioned more than once over the years.

“Water,” Orna shouted from across the small field of grass. 

As one, the three men hurried over to where she stood.  The pond here was quite small, but it would have done them nicely had they not been able to jump back to the other location.  After another quarter glass, they had seen all they needed to. 

“Let’s go back to the first oasis, now called Oasis One,” Rigo said.  “I can’t see any advantage of relocating our stuff here.  The other is better, but in the morning we can jump here, and then set off again.”

Rigo opened the
Bypass
.  It was their agreement that every
Bypass
they actually used would be initiated with the staff in hand, even if both ends were rooted in normal zones as in this case.  No one was fully certain what effects the Ruins might be able to create, and it was better to take every precaution.

The next day, their explorations continued.  They walked and sweated and endured.  Another four days brought them to another oasis, this one larger than the one from which they had started.  The pond was smaller, but the trees and grasses extended a much greater distance, yielding a patch of normalcy that covered an area at least four times that of Oasis One.  They had found the new oasis late in the day, so after a brief exploration, they created a
Bypass
back to Oasis One for the night.

The following morning they returned to Oasis Three, which they explored while considering a move of their supplies to this new location.  Notes had been sent back to the Outpost the previous evening about the proposed plan.  They were about to jump back and begin relocating their items when Ash’urn waved them over to a jumble of rocks near the edge of the pond a short distance away.

“Fire pit,” he said when they approached. 

Rigo could see what Ash’urn meant.  It didn’t look like a normal fire pit.  There was no ash or remains of the fuel used, but the rock was dark and blackened.  It was also located under a natural pot formed by the rocks above.  Water flowed into a bowl formed above, creating a pool that was half a dozen hands deep and at least five paces across.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d guess someone has been using a fire of some kind to heat the water in this natural basin,” Ash’urn said.

“Through the rock?” Orna said doubtfully.

“It wouldn’t make sense to put the fire there otherwise,” Ash’urn pointed out.

“To what purpose?” Lorl asked.

“I can’t say,” Ash’urn replied.  “But the basin is conveniently located, and the flow of water into it slow so cooling water wouldn’t defeat one’s efforts.  I’m certain that was the intent.”

“What would they use for fuel?’ Orna asked.  “There’s no sign that anything here has been cut up for fuel, and there’s no ash.”

“Another mystery,” Ash’urn agreed.  “We also have no indication when this might have happened.  It could have been a very long time ago.”

A week was spent heading farther into the Ruins traveling in the same direction.  They used Oasis Three as their jumping off point.  In the end, they had to admit they were blocked when they reached the limit of their range and could not continue without violating Ash’urn’s warning about creating a
Bypass
that both began and ended in the dead zone.  They returned and began again, this time venturing due east.  After three more days they had found little of interest and were beginning to wonder if Oasis Three would be the end of their travels.  It was morning and they were about to head out once again when Rigo suddenly stopped and stared out into the sands.

“Maybe he can supply some answers,” Rigo said, pointing toward the Ruins at what the others had missed.

Riding in their direction out of the sands from the southeast atop one of the Hoplani was a small, orange colored individual with white hair.  Three other Hoplani followed docilely behind him, a long rope of some kind connecting the following beasts to the rider.