55
“Well, it's going to be a twelve kilo walk, which is about three hours there and three hours back. I'd like to get back before it gets dark” I said. “I'd love to use the car” Kent said wistfully, “but that much moving metal is too easy to spot, and Cobb's glamour might not be able to take its touch.” Damn, I hadn't thought of that. It meant before we could go across, we had to shuck any cold iron we had or the glamour might go poof. I really didn't want to try the bridge in the open. “Okay, let's shuck metal and get this done.” I said irritably. About the only thing I'd have for protection would be my feet and a few quick-and-dirty weak spells to blind or confuse aim, and I don't think they'd affect a dragon.
Cobb said, “Can you wait a moment?” He went over to his pack that he had lugged around since we got here and pulled a longbow and a quiver of silver arrows out, and laid them on the ground. A sword and two daggers were also produced from the sack, and a small silver shield the size of a dinner plate. “It si not much, but each of you may use what is here, I will carry the shield and sword. My accuracy with this,” and he motioned to the bow, “is at best poor, so if any of you can draw the bow, please carry it.”
“But won't this amount of metal be just as bad as the car?” Kent asked. “No, as was said before, the silver will not disrupt the glamour on the bridge, and we shall be able to cross without endangering any of the spells” Cobb replied evenly. “Well, then, can we get going please? I really don't like the idea of crossing this thing at night.” said Kevin irritably. We gathered up the equipment, Cobb taking the sword and the shield, I took a dagger, and felt ridiculously like I was in a fantasy movie doing it. Kent grabbed the other dagger, leaving Kevin the bow, which he picked up reluctantly. So equipped, our 'party' ventured out onto the bridge and towards the barrier.
The trip to the barrier was very uneventful, just listening to the waves roll underneath us as we traversed the bridge. The eerie quiet did nothing to relax any of us and when we reached the edge of the barrier, we all stopped just short and listened, trying to hear any sound from the other side of the opening. Nothing, except for the rolling of the waves, was heard by anyone. “Want to do the honors Fern?” said Kent. I took a deep breath, and Cobb stepped in front of me. Then Kent stepped past the barrier, while we all looked at him. He grinned back and said “I'm too old to run away fast. This way I get my choice of how I go first.” Morbid, definitely a morbid sense of humor there. We crossed the barrier, and nothing really changed except our knowledge we were on the opposite side of a barrier that no one had penetrated for sixty-odd years, and some of the early best had tried.
It made me wonder, really wonder, why we were able to do so when so many others who were probably as good or better, did not. I put it down to looking at the obvious and not trying to go head-on which a lot of wizards seem want to do. You may win big a flashy going head-to-head with a spell, summoning, or another magickar, but you also tend to lose very big when you do fail. Quite often it is the permanent, fatal kind of lose.
So maybe we were the first to apply sneaky or a sideways thought to the problem, but I doubt that too. There was an answer why, and it bugged me that I couldn't quite figure it out. We stopped about a hundred yards past the barrier and looked down. The waves here still rolled with the wind, and the noise sounded the same, but everything here felt more sterile, less life and more decay. The wind itself hadn't changed, but it felt greasy as it slid over my clothes and ruffled my hair. There was a general unwholesomeness that permeated everything around us.
We hurried our pace slightly and got to the shore of Prince Edward Island, and again we stopped to look around and record in our minds the place all our efforts had now led to. In a very real and eerie sense, this reminded me of Ahiah's vale, where my parents and uncle had died, and where we'd managed to break that glass bottle that Ahiah had made and used to such horror on people. Everything had the same feel. Grey, dusty, lifeless things that had been sucked dry of their essence by some unclean thing.
Cobb said, “Can you wait a moment?” He went over to his pack that he had lugged around since we got here and pulled a longbow and a quiver of silver arrows out, and laid them on the ground. A sword and two daggers were also produced from the sack, and a small silver shield the size of a dinner plate. “It si not much, but each of you may use what is here, I will carry the shield and sword. My accuracy with this,” and he motioned to the bow, “is at best poor, so if any of you can draw the bow, please carry it.”
“But won't this amount of metal be just as bad as the car?” Kent asked. “No, as was said before, the silver will not disrupt the glamour on the bridge, and we shall be able to cross without endangering any of the spells” Cobb replied evenly. “Well, then, can we get going please? I really don't like the idea of crossing this thing at night.” said Kevin irritably. We gathered up the equipment, Cobb taking the sword and the shield, I took a dagger, and felt ridiculously like I was in a fantasy movie doing it. Kent grabbed the other dagger, leaving Kevin the bow, which he picked up reluctantly. So equipped, our 'party' ventured out onto the bridge and towards the barrier.
The trip to the barrier was very uneventful, just listening to the waves roll underneath us as we traversed the bridge. The eerie quiet did nothing to relax any of us and when we reached the edge of the barrier, we all stopped just short and listened, trying to hear any sound from the other side of the opening. Nothing, except for the rolling of the waves, was heard by anyone. “Want to do the honors Fern?” said Kent. I took a deep breath, and Cobb stepped in front of me. Then Kent stepped past the barrier, while we all looked at him. He grinned back and said “I'm too old to run away fast. This way I get my choice of how I go first.” Morbid, definitely a morbid sense of humor there. We crossed the barrier, and nothing really changed except our knowledge we were on the opposite side of a barrier that no one had penetrated for sixty-odd years, and some of the early best had tried.
It made me wonder, really wonder, why we were able to do so when so many others who were probably as good or better, did not. I put it down to looking at the obvious and not trying to go head-on which a lot of wizards seem want to do. You may win big a flashy going head-to-head with a spell, summoning, or another magickar, but you also tend to lose very big when you do fail. Quite often it is the permanent, fatal kind of lose.
So maybe we were the first to apply sneaky or a sideways thought to the problem, but I doubt that too. There was an answer why, and it bugged me that I couldn't quite figure it out. We stopped about a hundred yards past the barrier and looked down. The waves here still rolled with the wind, and the noise sounded the same, but everything here felt more sterile, less life and more decay. The wind itself hadn't changed, but it felt greasy as it slid over my clothes and ruffled my hair. There was a general unwholesomeness that permeated everything around us.
We hurried our pace slightly and got to the shore of Prince Edward Island, and again we stopped to look around and record in our minds the place all our efforts had now led to. In a very real and eerie sense, this reminded me of Ahiah's vale, where my parents and uncle had died, and where we'd managed to break that glass bottle that Ahiah had made and used to such horror on people. Everything had the same feel. Grey, dusty, lifeless things that had been sucked dry of their essence by some unclean thing.
posted by JD at
8:32:00 AM
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