part 3
Part 3
A light rain was falling as the sailors lower the boat, Everard checked that he’d secured all of his equipment once more and grabbed hold of the rope ladder. Ten minutes later he and ten armed men were eyeing the wooded land that began near the inlet they’d beached in. They fanned out carefully ensuring that they could see the warrior on either side of them as they completed a sweep of the area close by. The boat returned only once carrying supplies as well as a few more men then they were own.
The land was at once familiar and strange, it was clearly part of Amnor yet not a part any of them had seen before.
For eight hours they made their way inland and as they did oddities appeared and in some cases disappeared again. Remembering his time on a newly real island Everard kept everyone moving in case any of the carnivorous giant worms where present. Trees twitched as they passed and oddly stoneskinned animals chittered from the branches. Time and again they passed the ruins of villages, some of them where oddly familiar. After some thought the Protector realised they were identical to some of the hamlets nearer Armengar and he came to understand that out in the wilderness there would be the ruins of his city.
How far, he pondered, had the 14th taken his delusions. Where there catacombs underground full of unliving scrambling at unbreakable walls of magic. Did the ruined Armengar still have walls. Had his opposite managed to resurrect Helena as unliving, did some form of her stand besides his reflection, did he have Tara’s copy as companion or enemy?
Over the hours all of these thoughts and more skittered across his concentration yet he never let his awareness retreat from his surroundings. Slowly he began to piece together where things should be. The land was not a direct reflection it was distorted to an odd logic and it took some time to figure where ‘people’ would gather in this land.