Land of Sky, Land of Rain (Chapter Two)

(Quick note: The first chapter can be found here: http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/post124654.html?highlight=#124654

I know it's been awhile since I posted... I really am shy about sharing my work on here, I just don't have much confidence in it. But a friend made me promise to post LoSLoR on YWS so he would start typing his story, and I said okay... so here I am. It is just a first draft, though the books had been finished for about a month now. Getting the typing done is the part that's a drag.)

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{Part II:Straw Windmills and Golden Streets}

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[Interlude One]

“We didn’t make it?”

“No. We had precious little chance anyway. Time was not on our side.”

“So the spell... failed?”

“No. It simply did what it was supposed to do.”

“Then…?”

“Exactly. Subject 13’s power has exceeded our efforts to contain.”

“Do we terminate it?”

“Of course not. That’s the whole point. We’re sending it to Hanora.”

“What? Why?”

“Considering the precedents, they will attack it, and it will strike back in self defense. Hanora grows weary of this war, and citizen unrest is spreading. With the fall of a city, we will be able to keep her fighting spirit up just a little longer… Kagami insists upon at least another year.”

“And so, Subject 13’s power?”

“Overloaded everything, yes. We weren’t able to remove it safely beforehand…”

“And that won’t affect it…?”

“There are chances of a powerful mental imbalance, possibly leading to insanity, but we’ll have to risk it. We got it out very quickly, so chances are slight…as long as it doesn’t find out.”

“So then, now that it has the power, it’s ready?”

“…Yes.”

Chapter Two- Straw Windmills

The first thing I notice is the ground beneath me.

Specifically, the fact that it is softer than concrete, but doesn’t feel all sharp and prickly, the way grass does. Or at least, the way dying, yellow Arizona grass does. For a moment, I just enjoy being there, in the calm and the quiet for a bit. I have a headache; I need to calm down-

But from what?

No, don’t think, don’t think about all that

Why though?

You just shouldn’t, that’s all. Just let me stay here, just let me lay in the soft grass for a little while longer

Grass? But wasn’t I indoors?

I force myself to sit up.

Well, Toto, I guess I’m not in Phoenix anymore.

The weather is calm, faintly warm, like a normal springtime or an Arizona February. Big blue sky, fluffy white clouds, a stretching field of impossibly green grass. It looks like one of those TV ads for vacationing in Ireland.

Okay. So…

How the hell did I get here? The last thing I remember is being in Social Studies, and then…

My memory comes rushing back to me, bringing back the empty room, the walls, the blood… and then nothing, blackness. My mind fights away the memory as if it’s poisonous. I feel a little sick. My head throbs, and I rest it in my hands.

Did I pass out…? I wonder. How did I get here, then? Someone must have… brought me here, I guess. But… how? Why? More importantly, who? The room was empty when I…

Again I get the feeling that I don’t want to think about it, that I should forget as fast as possible and get on my way. I stare at the ground. My first thought is one of faint incomprehension, and underneath that, a sense of rising panic.

I feel like I have to get out of here, like there’s something lying in wait, lurking in the corners of my vision and the shadows on the ground, coming closer and closer from behind me. My heart pounds, and I feel cold, physically cold, but wasn’t it warm here just a second ago…? The cold spreads through my being, piercing me, until I can’t ignore the sense of danger anymore.

I whirl around.

And freeze.

I had expected to see someone (or something) standing behind me, and, if no one, than another stretch of grass and blue sky.

Instead, I am looking at a town.

It is small, and circled by a haphazard wooden fence, exactly like the one around my grandmother’s yard, the kind of fence that is made of only two horizontal beams for each section, nailed between a few vertical posts about two feet high, the kind of fence that couldn’t keep out a blind, polio-infected rabbit, much less bandits or invaders or whatever they think it will save them from. There’s a three-foot gap in the fence, not too far from where I’m standing, through which a dirt road leads to the town. I’m using “town” in the loosest sense possible here, of course. The entrance is flanked with twin windmills, and then the road loops out into a circle that passes eight small houses, a large building that must belong to the mayor or something, and one structure that I suppose could be some sort of general store. I can’t see the possible general store so well because inside the circle (the dirt road is very narrow) is a farm. At least, I think it’s a farm. What they are growing looks like wheat to me, but hey, I’m an Arizona native, think I know how to recognize crops? So, it’s possible that they just suffer from an overwhelming infestation of cattails. Whatever. If it’s an infestation, then they are actually progressing quite well with getting rid of it. If it’s meant to be a crop, then they aren’t doing so good. Most of the field is bare, and the dirt is a sickly yellowish color.

As I scan the village, I notice something else. Far in the corner is a cluster of tall, bushy pine trees. Call me paranoid, whatever, but they look a bit suspicious, like they were put there to hide something. I tilt my head a little, and… oh! I do see something. A grey, stone tower, plain and unadorned, a little shorter than the pine trees, but about 30 or 40 feet in diameter. Weird… why hide that tower? Considering the thatch-and-mud houses on the road, it’s probably the greatest architectural achievement of their civilization.

I glance at a sign set up by the entrance. The signposts are withered and ancient, but the sign itself looks brand new:

Yoake Village

Pop. 72

Huh what? I blink. Then I pinch my arm. It stings. Not a dream, then. There goes my “reading to much weird fantasy” theory…

72 people? That makes the term “village” seem a little overly generous. Some of my classes at Boulder Ridge are bigger than that. Or were bigger than that. Speaking of which, just where is the school? I look around on all sides of me, doing a kind of stupid pirouette. No Boulder Ridge. Not even the slightest signs of civilization, apart from two-corners-and-a-traffic-light-ville over here.

Well, what do I have to lose? A town would probably be the most likely place for figuring out where I am and where I need to go. I take a step forward, and fall flat on my face.

Behold, you all now why I am always picked last in gym. I’m probably the clumsiest person you’ve ever had the misfortune to meet. As evidenced by this, I can trip over thin air, and do so with embarrassing regularity.

I glance over to see if popular legend has come true and I’ve actually become the world’s first person to trip over untied shoelaces. Instead, I realize my foot has caught something on the ground. I roll over, sit up, and, because I’m an idiot, I pick the object up.

It looks like some kind of sword. The scabbard is of a strange iridescent-blue metal, with a silvery looking flower petal design on at either end. I carefully take hold of the handle and draw the blade.

It slips from the scabbard with a satisfying metallic hiss, its bright, pale metal glinting coldly on the late-morning sunlight. The bladed and its hilt are unadorned, but it looks very sharp.

Alright then. This is getting we-ird.

Well, since it hasn’t exploded or started speaking of its own volition or tried to bludgeon me to death yet, I deduce that it’s probably not possessed or booby-trapped in any way, so I don’t put it back down. Hey, maybe one of the townspeople needs it back or something, you never know... and if not, well, hey, it’s a sword, for pity’s sake. I can sell it to the Smithsonian or something.

Well, that’s solved, at least. Now to see if I can get any real answers from the town itself.

* * *

Believe it or not, entering the town / village / smattering of itty-bitty houses isn’t quite as dramatic as all my hesitation made it seem. I simply walk past the big gap between the windmills. (Honestly, why do these people even have a fence?) Once there, I pause to look around again. It doesn’t look all that different from the inside.

“Halt! Someone cries, jumping out from behind the windmill on the left,

“Who goes there?”

I blink. What’s with the corny medieval-English phrases? This guy is dressed funny, too, wearing a gleaming coat of armor. I would rather like to ask why he looks like a cosplayer, but it’s probably not a good idea to bug someone who appears to be a guard, no matter how ridiculous and/or anachronistic he seems.

Wait a minute... guard? Why would a failing farm village need a guard?

“Halt!” he repeats, interrupting my thoughts, “State your name and business!”

Woohoo, it’s the library security guard all over again. Well, can’t hurt to be honest.

“Emma Bering.” I tell him, and... um... I’m lost.”

The guard gives me a decidedly skeptical look.

“Lost.” he repeats.

“Yes,” I say “And I found this town, so..." So far, so true. Which isn't to say anyone's going to believe me.

"Just where did you come from? You're dressed strangely."

No freaking duh. I can't help but think, looking down at my faded secondhand sweatshirt, faded secondhand jeans, and ancient, coming-apart-at-the-soles tennis

shoes. Even my fellow students think I'm "dressed strangely," so this guy who looks like he took a wrong turn heading to the San Diego Comic Convention is certainly not going to think I'm normal-looking.

“You aren’t by any chance, here from Sareil, are you?” he says in an altogether different tone.

You aren’t, by any chance, going to let me answer your first question, are you? But something about the way he says “Sareil,” like it’s a curse word and he just wants to get the saying of it over with and get the taste out of his mouth, makes me think that the correct answer is “no.”

“No, sir.”

“Hm.” is the only answer I can get for that. The guard still looks skeptical. Well. This isn’t going my way at all. I have not idea what I’m going to do if he doesn’t believe my story. My best idea so far has been to point somewhere over his head, yell, “Look, a five-headed man on a donkey!” and run like hell.

“Listen,” I say slowly, “I just need to come into this town and ask for directions. Once I know where to go, I’ll leave right away. So is the interrogation really necessary?”

“We’ve suffered several recent Sareilian attacks.” the guard answers, which is, of course, a totally useless piece of information. Sareil... that was the place he mentioned before, so perhaps they are fighting with this village... over what, though? Half dead crops? Despite my clever and fascinating analysis, none of this is helping me obtain directions, none of this is getting me out of here...

“I can understand that.” I say, as calmly as I can manage at the moment, “but if I were here to break in to your village, wouldn’t I have done that already? I mean, no offense, but you guys aren’t exactly Fort Knox.” I point out the fence that’s low enough to step over, but high enough off the ground to crawl under, with a few of it’s beams rotting or splintering or hanging by a thread. To my surprise, but relief nevertheless, the guard nods and moves aside.

“You have a point.”

Silently thanking the 3rd grade English teacher who refused to let us go a week without writing a persuasive essay, I take a step forward onto the Yellow Dirt Road of Yoake Village.

The mayor’s house looks like my best bet. I’d guess an officially elected leader to be the most educated person in a farming village, after all, though, I’ve certainly been wrong before.

But standing in front of the edifice gives me the feeling that I should have picked somewhere else to start my noble quest. Not that it’s particularly imposing- in fact, it’s really just a two-story version of the other houses, only whitewashed so you can’t tell that the walls were crafted out of mud and cow you-can-guess-what. I just have a bad feeling about it, is all. The little Doom Radar in my head is going ”blipblipblip.” But, hey, it’s the only idea I’ve got, so I knock on the door.

Within a few minutes, it swings open. On the other side is a man dressed in something that again makes me wonder when I stepped into the 1400's.

“Er... sir? I was wondering if you could help me? Y’see, I need directions to a place called ‘Phoenix, Arizona’? I’m kind of lost.”

The door slams in my face. I can hear the sound of running footsteps through the house’s thin outer walls.

Ookay. Something else for my list of “things that don’t make sense today”

I’m about to leave and go find another random townsperson for help when I hear the sound of a clanging bell coming from the house behind me. Some kind of alarm…?

I don’t have time to wonder why this guy even has a method to raise the alarm in this beautiful town of “freaking nowhere,” because at that moment, a lot of people are coming out of the front doors of the cluster of houses.

A lot of people carrying pitchforks.

Great. An angry mob. Just what I need today. And of course, since the layout of the houses is roughly circular, I’m pretty much surrounded, and getting surrounded-er as they close in. From this angle, I can only see one avenue of escape. So of course, I take it without hesitation.

I dart to the left, cutting between the mayor’s wall and the nearest farmer, heading straight for the tower. The mob gets louder all the sudden, and I really can’t tell if that’s because I’m running or because I’m running towards the tower. Ah, well, no time to worry about it. I reach the shade of the trees with the footsteps still heard behind me. I run faster and faster, grabbing hold of the iron ring attached to the tall wooden door, and pulling with all my strength wrench it open. I slip through the crack in the door and give it a shove so that it swings shut fast enough to cut me off from the city of people who for some reason or other, want to kill me.

I don’t get much of a look at this room, though, because someone from the other side looks up in shock and cries, “What are you doing here? Don’t you know about the protective spells? You’ll be killed –“

I can’t hear the rest over the sound of a huge crash directly above us. A small shower of dust, followed by a rather bigger rain of rafter wood and stone, hits the floor with rather louder, more violent crash. I raise my eyes, oh so very slowly, heart thudding, to the roof above. My mouth goes dry as I look up to see, towering directly above me, white scales flashing, powerful wings flapping and sharp teeth snapping, the form of an enormous, serpentine dragon.

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