Tag Archives: Fantastic Travelogue

May 17, 2013

Home at Last – Fantastic Travelogue #19

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

Synopsis: I was hiking in the mountains of Korea when I found myself in another world. I met a young woman there named Ain-Mai. We eventually got captured, along with her brother Sing-ga, by a sorceress named Hengfel, who took us to her world. We got away from her and hid in the air tunnels of her fortress. Sing-ga died after being attacked by small spider-like creatures. Ain-Mai and I came in contact with a woman named Klista, who explained to us that she was part of the royal family of a race that used to own the tower where Hengfel was now living, but had been driven into exile by the invaders. She agreed to help us and with her followers, went with us back into the tower to find the key to get back to Ain-Mai’s world, and then to mine. There was a battle with Hengfel’s dragons, but we defeated them and used the stone circle to go back to Ain-Mai’s world.

Home at Last

We will standing once more on the stone circle in the forest clearing where I had first met Ain-Mai. It had only been about a week before, but it seemed like months. It was early evening and the clearing was deserted, which was just as well. Anyone who had seen us appear—especially Chirik in his current blood-soaked condition—would have been scared out of their senses.

“Is this your world?” Klista asked, and Ain-Mai nodded. “This is the only way for those such as Hengfel to come here, and I will take it with me and destroy it.” She held up the medallion. “When we leave, I would suggest you destroy this stone circle.”

“There are servants of Hengfel that are still here,” Ain-Mai said. “They will try to stop us.”

“They are now stranded here with no help from their own world. They will not be too hard to deal with, I think.”

I gave Ain-Mai a hug, not knowing the proper etiquette in her world. “I won’t forget you,” I said. “I am sorry for everything you went through.”

She kissed my hand. “Thank you again for saving me, in the room with the dragons and the cages,” she said. “I will remember you always.” She took off the bracelet that allowed us to talk and gave it to Klista, Then, with a final bow, she turned and walked away into the trees.

“Now I will bring you home and I can get back to more important matters,” Klista said to me in English. I said good-bye to Chirik and Bruce, and to the weird ghilzhi creature too, since he was there. Then Klista touched me on the shoulder and the world went black.

A moment later, there were trees all around, very much like in Ain-Mai’s world, although there was something familiar in the scent of the plants.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“I don’t know; somewhere in your world,” Klista said. “I just brought you to the area of your world that was closest to that last one. It’s probably near where you left. Will you be okay from here?” I nodded. “So,” she continued, “are you going to tell people about this?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, although I was already mentally planning how I would write the story.

She smiled. “That’s okay; yours is a skeptical time. No one would believe you anyway.” She held up her hand in farewell and then disappeared in a small flash of light.

It’s odd how you can get used to living in fantastic circumstances. Now that I was back, the sheer banality of my life seemed to come crashing down on me and I felt a bit depressed. I had gotten my original clothes before I had left Klista’s mansion and now I changed back into them. All except the boots, one of which was wrecked beyond repair. I was on a path and I limped slowly down it until I came to a Buddhist temple. I was hoping to sit down for a bit and relax before asking where I was, but my appearance caused quite a stir.

“Are you the foreigner that has been missing in the mountains for over a week?” one of the monks asked me. Once they found that I was, they asked all kinds of questions, most of which I could not answer without sounding insane, such as “Where were you this whole time?” Still, they brought me in and gave me food and drink. A while later, the police came and asked me most of the same questions, plus more. It seems that the owner of the lodge where I had left my pack had reported me missing. I put off their questions as best as I could or gave such incoherent answers that they eventually gave up and attributed my condition to shock. They offered to drive me to the nearest city to buy more shoes and catch a bus back home.

Just as I was leaving the temple, I noticed that the base of the stupa in the main courtyard looked familiar. It was an old carved stone circle about a foot high. With a thrill of excitement, I realized it looked very much like the one in Ain-Mai’s world. I pointed it out to the senior monk who was walking with us.

“That is very old,” he said. “It comes from before this temple was built. Why do you ask?”

“I think I have seen one like it before,” I said.

“Ah, then you are fortunate,” he said with a strange smile and bowed deeply. I left not knowing what to make of it.

Three hours later, I was sitting at a bus terminal, wearing new shoes in the biggest size they could find, which were still horribly tight on me, and thinking about my life: my normal, day-to-day life. I missed my wife and wanted to get home to her as soon as I could. She had sobbed when I called to tell her I was okay, something very uncharacteristic for her. I wanted to be there, to be able to put my arms around her and comfort her.

I needed to go home—wanted to too, of course, but still, part of me wanted to be back there. Back where I could flit to another world on a stone circle, where there was uncommon dangers and I had rescued a girl from dragons, even if I had paid for it later with pain and injury. No one might believe my story, but I know the truth of it, and I knew that it had changed me.

The End

1 Comment | tags: Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, Klista, other worlds, travel, travelogue | posted in Travelogue

May 13, 2013

The Battle of the Stone Circle Room – Fantastic Travelogue #18

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

Synopsis: I was hiking in the mountains of Korea when I found myself in another world. I met a young woman there named Ain-Mai. We eventually got captured, along with her brother Sing-ga, by a sorceress named Hengfel, who took us to her world. We got away from her and hid in the air tunnels of her fortress. Sing-ga died after being attacked by small spider-like creatures. Ain-Mai and I found our way to the outside of the huge fortress where we sheltered in a small hollow. I woke up to find a small winged creature looking at me. He brought us up the mountain and through a portal into a beautiful area where we were taken care of. A woman named Klista explained to us that she was part of the royal family of a race that used to own the tower where Hengfel was now living, but had been driven into exile by the invaders. She agreed, with the help of her assistant, Bruce Riansson, and someone named Chirik, to help us get home. Soon after that, Klista transported us back to Hengfel’s fortress.

The Battle of the Stone Circle Room

When I could see again, I saw that we were in the huge stone circle room in Hengfel’s fortress. Klista was already striding towards the far wall with Bruce Riansson by her side. Chirik was to one side, his warhammer poised and ready.

Ain-Mai was tugging at my hand. “Come on, we have to keep up with them.”

Klista evidently knew where she was going. She was heading straight for a narrow stairway along the side of the room. We were about halfway there when the first dragon noticed us. It flew up from one of the trenches that bordered the room, just to our left, and was about to keep going when it saw us. It curved in midair, coming at Ain-Mai and me with open jaws. Chirik was fifty feet away on the other side of us.

At that moment, I would never have believed that I had even punched one of these in the face if I hadn’t remembered it, and the experience didn’t make me any less afraid. I was about to run when Chirik leapt in front of us and swung the warhammer up and into the head of the dragon. The dragon seemed to evaporate in front of the hammer and a moment later, the headless body fell twitching to the ground.

“Stay near me,” Chirik said and jogged to catch up with Klista and Bruce. We did not need any encouragement.

“Up here is where the medallions used to be kept,” Klista said. “Let’s hope that they have not changed things.” She began to climb the long, curving stair and Bruce followed her. Chirik climbed next, so Ain-Mai and I followed him.

“Do you remember the pattern on the medallion that Hengfel had?” I asked Ain-Mai.

“I have never gotten a good look at it,” she replied. “Do you?”

“I think so; at least I remember a snaky pattern on it. I didn’t say anything, since I don’t know how similar they all are.”

We reached the top of the stair and entered a room. It seemed small after the huge emptiness of the stone circle room, but it was still as big as a large classroom. The walls were covered with medallions, hundreds of them, and while this was rather distressing, what caught my attention immediately was the large lizard-like creature crouched it in the middle of the room. It was bent over and glowed red and spoke with a hissing, sibilant voice.

“What are you doing here?” it asked. “Who are you?”

“You should know who I am, ghilzhi, or at least whom I represent. This is our fortress and our medallions and I am taking back what is mine.”

The creature seemed suddenly nervous. “I see that you have returned, my lady, but it is no good. Hengfel owns this fortress now and there is no resistance against her.”

“We will see,” Klista said. “Right now, in recognition of the ancient harmony between our races, please do not hinder us in finding what we need.”

“She will kill me,” the creature, which was apparently called a ghilzhi, said.

“Then come with us,” Klista said. “You can be an ambassador to your people, to join in the resistance.”

The ghilzhi did not say anything, but stood aside. Klista moved over to the wall and surveyed the medallions.

“I think I remember a little of what the design looked like,” I said, out loud. “It had a snake-like design on it.”

Klista nodded. “Okay, come stand by me and tell me if you see one that looks familiar.”

Although there were probably a thousand medallions on the walls, not all of them looked recently used. Most of them were covered with dust and only several rows near the door looked clean and bright. We started to go through these one by one.

“My lady, I hate to tell you that Hengfel has been alerted of your presence,” the ghilzhi said. “She is on her way to the room below.” Klista only nodded and continued to go through the medallions.

When we had gone through them all, there were only two that Klista had not been to before that looked like the pattern I remembered.

“This is going to be interesting,” Chirik said, looking out the door. “There is more than one dragon outside.”

Klista walked through the door and onto the stairs. I went through and looked down, bracing myself for the sight of five or ten dragons flying around. I almost gasped out loud when I saw that the room was filled with hundreds of dragons; not flying, but standing on the floor or hanging off the walls. In the middle of the floor was Hengfel, sitting on her huge, red dragon.

“Should we flee?” Bruce asked.

“Not yet,” Klista said. “I will give Chirik a chance to prove himself.” She started to walk down the stair.

“How dare you return here?” Hengfel called out. I first thought she was talking to me, but then I realized she was talking to Klista. “You have lost and now you come back with a handful of nothings, including a few of my slaves? Even with an army you could do nothing but die.”

“She called us slaves,” I said to Ain-Mai. She was radiating hatred towards Hengfel and did not reply.

“I don’t need an army; I have him,” Klista said, gesturing to Chirik.

A dragon launched itself off the wall above and plummeted straight towards us. Just before it reached us, Chirik leapt and grabbed it by the neck. He flipped it like a hammer and used its momentum to propel himself far out into the room. The dragons all leaped to the attack. Soon he had disappeared beneath the bodies, but I saw him kill five of them before he hit the floor.

Klista grabbed my hand and in a flash, Klista, Bruce, Ain-Mai, the ghilzhi and I were all standing in the center of the room, with dragons all around us. Klista held up one of the medallions and I felt a power growing around us. It worked faster than when Hengfel had done it, which was good. A nearby dragon had just started to charge us when we disappeared.

I almost choked as hot air seared my lungs. We were standing on a stone circle on top of a high peak. In the distance, volcanoes erupted constantly and lava rivers flowed in the valley below us. The air was thick with ash.

Klista concluded fairly quickly that this was not the right world and a moment I felt a vibration of energy go through me and the world went black.

We were back in the huge stone circle room, but even though it seemed as only a few seconds had passed, there were much fewer dragons. Then I saw Chirik. The warhammer was spinning so fast I could barely see it. The whole room was a scene of carnage and now most of the dragons that were left alive were up in the air, flying around in confusion or fleeing to the walls. Hengfel’s dragon was high in the air.

Chirik stopped when he saw us and walked over. He was a mess of blood and bits of dragon scales but he was grinning. He barely looked tired. Klista merely nodded and gave him a small smile.

“We will go now,” Klista shouted, “but we will return, you can depend on it. In the meantime, here is one world you will never be able to reach again.” Klista held up the medallion to Ain-Mai’s world. The last thing I heard before we disappeared was Hengfel’s scream of rage.

(to be concluded…)

6 Comments | tags: battle, Bruce Riansson, Chirik, dragon, Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, Klista, other worlds, travel, travelogue | posted in Travelogue

May 6, 2013

The Invasion Begins – Fantastic Travelogue #17

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

Synopsis: I was hiking in the mountains of Korea when I found myself in another world. I met a young woman there named Ain-Mai. We eventually got captured, along with her brother Sing-ga, by a sorceress named Hengfel, who took us to her world. We got away from her and hid in the air tunnels of her fortress. Sing-ga died after being attacked by small spider-like creatures. Ain-Mai and I found our way to the outside of the huge fortress where we sheltered in a small hollow. I woke up to find a small winged creature looking at me. He brought us up the mountain and through a portal into a beautiful area where we were taken care of. A woman named Klista explained to us that she was part of the royal family of a race that used to own the tower where Hengfel was now living, but had been driven into exile by the invaders. She agreed, with the help of her assistant, Bruce Riansson, and someone named Chirik, to help us get home.

The Invasion Begins

Ever since I had gotten lost while hiking and found myself in another world, there had been a lot of firsts in my life: the first time I had ever traveled between worlds; the first time I had ever seen a dragon; the first time I had ever punched a dragon; the first time I had ever ridden on a giant silky, white spider; and after meeting Chirik, the first time I had ever seen a giant.

Bruce had left the room and returned a moment later, accompanied by a man at least eight feet tall, with long brown hair that hung down to his waist. It took a moment before I realized that his eyes glowed faintly green as well.

“Bruce said that the campaign was beginning at last, my lady,” Chirik said. He spoke out loud in an unknown language, but the meaning came through into my mind as well.

“Yes, are you ready?” Klista asked.

Chirik pulled a small hammer out of his belt, which grew into a seven-foot-long warhammer as he held it. “There is nothing else I require.”

“Good. Uh, get to know each other,” Klista said. She motioned towards us and walked out, followed by Bruce. Chirik sat down on the floor, cross-legged with the warhammer on his knees.

“What do you do?” he asked, looking at me.

“I’m a teacher,” I said, not sure what he meant. “I teach . . . language.”

“Do you know the language of our enemy?”

“No.”

“Then why are you here?” he asked. I still wasn’t totally used to the mental communication through the bracelets we were all wearing, but I could tell that he was blunt, but not necessarily trying to be rude.

“I got lost,” I said, feeling slightly stupid.

“We were captured by the enemy and escaped. He rescued me,” Ain-Mai said. She mentally told him the story, and I saw images of myself through her eyes as I jumped from cage to cage to get her and then fought my way back past attacking dragons. I should have been proud, but from her perspective, I thought I looked rather ridiculous and I started to blush.

Chirik chuckled and nodded in satisfaction. “Brave, but there is a better way.” He patted the warhammer. “You took a lot of hurt as well. How are you going to go with us, if you still cannot walk?”

I wasn’t sure about that either but I slid off the floating platform where I was sitting and tentatively tried a step. Most of the pain was gone and although I probably couldn’t have run, I found that I could walk around fairly well.

Ain-Mai and I sat with Chirik in the water-room for several hours. After a while, Chirik seemed to get lost in his own thoughts, none of which he shared with us.

“I am sorry again for what happened to Sing-ga,” I said, turning to Ain-Mai.

She just nodded and I could tell she was trying to keep her thoughts from me. Finally, she said, “It’s not your fault. None of the other men that Hengfel has captured have come back either. Sing-ga will not be any different so it is okay.” I thought this was odd logic, but I hoped she found comfort in it.

Several hours later, Klista returned with Bruce Riansson. She sat down and immediately put her feet in the water. “We are about to begin,” she said. “It will just be the five of us, although these two—” she motioned to Ain-Mai and me “—have no purpose but to go home. This is a quick invasion and a test, so if there is any fighting to be done, I am hoping you can handle it, Chirik.” Chirik indicated wordlessly that he would be overjoyed to do all the fighting himself.

I was thinking that we would have to start at the top of the tower, where we had entered this place, and make our way down the side and back through all the tunnels, retracing the path that Ain-Mai and I had taken. My thoughts must have been more transparent than I imagined, because Klista shook her head at me. “I don’t use doors and stone circles when I travel. We will go directly to the large stone circle room, and we will find which world to send you to. The system there uses medallions: one for each world it goes to. I know I have never been to your world before—” Klista motioned to Ain-Mai “—so I just need to eliminate all the ones I have been to and see what is left.”

“What if there are a lot you haven’t been to?” I asked.

“Then we will be there a while,” Klista said. “I have just spent the last few hours memorizing the medallion symbols for all 814 worlds I have been to. There is a good chance there will not be many more there that I have never been to.”

I shouldn’t have asked, but the question slipped out before I could stop it. “How many worlds are there in all?”

“About 48,000 that I know about,” Klista said, “but there will not be more than a hundred medallions there, I would think. Now, let us go. When we get there, you two, stay near me. We may have to leave in a hurry. Now hold hands.”

I took Ain-Mai’s hand and then felt Chirik’s huge hand clamp onto my shoulder. Klista touched Ain-Mai and Bruce. There was a flash and the room around us disappeared.

(to be continued…)

4 Comments | tags: Bruce Riansson, Chirik, Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, Klista, other worlds, travel, travelogue | posted in Travelogue

April 29, 2013

Klista’s Story – Fantastic Travelogue #16

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

Klista’s Story

“There is a lot that I want to learn from you, and perhaps some that I can tell you as well,” the regal woman calling herself Klista said. “Right now, let us go meet your friend.” She helped me from the bed onto a square platform that immediately started to float and then moved out the doorway and along the corridor.

“Is this magic?” I asked.

“If by magic you mean it works in ways you wouldn’t understand, then yes,” Klista said. She was striding along next to me.

We came out into the room with the falling water. Ain-Mai was there, sitting by the small waterfall. She had changed clothing and despite the scratches on her face and neck, she looked more beautiful than ever.

“It is good to see you again, David,” Ain-Mai said mentally, her thoughts coming directly into my mind. I noticed she had a similar bracelet on as me. I blushed, although I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps it was the shock of suddenly being able to talk freely after all our time together.

“It’s good to see you too. Are you feeling well?”

“I think I can say that both of you are not perfect, but are doing much better than when we found you,” Klista broke in. “Now, I need to know how you came to be on the side of the Eithelfeen, the tower where Drovoi found you.”

I told her everything I knew, from getting lost in the woods in Korea and meeting Ain-Mai and her brother, to getting captured by Hengfel and brought to the huge fortress with the dragons. Then Ain-Mai told her perspective on all that had happened. Klista just listened and nodded.

“I am curious how you got to her world in the first place,” Klista said, gesturing to Ain-Mai.“You didn’t mention it. Was there a stone circle, or did you have a certain item?”

“Nothing like that,” I said. “At least, I don’t think so. I was walking in the woods and I found myself in the other place, Ain-Mai’s country.”

“There are unstable areas, where world brush against each other briefly,” Klista said. “Likely there was a stone circle or a similar way of traveling between worlds at that spot, long ago.”

“Please,” Ain-Mai broke in. “Can you tell me who Hengfel is? She has been coming to our world for many years, taking our men and anything else she wants back with her. Can you stop her?”

Klista sat down on the floor and put her feet in the pool of water. Then she took a breath. “Before I tell you who she is, let me tell you who I am. I am the daughter of the rulers of the Zifliels. We have for a long time been ambassadors and diplomats between many worlds. Wherever we go, we establish trading posts and where there is a lot of trade, we set up the stone circles or some such thing to make movement back and forth easier.

“In one world, we set up trade with a small nation, not realizing that it was threatened by an even greater threat, the people that we now refer to as the Invaders. They seized the technology of the stone circles and used it to invade our world with their dragons and other terrible creatures. We defended ourselves as well as possible and although we are adept at traveling between worlds, they were the stronger fighters and eventually we were forced to flee our world to hide in exile in others. We destroyed as many of the circles as we could to limit the spread of the Invaders, but some survived, such as the great one in the Eithelfeen.

“The Invaders used it and others to invade more worlds. Some of them, like your Hengfel, are selfish and greedy and only use it to get more things for themselves. Others, however, use our network to continue the conquest. We fight them whenever we can, but they are almost always stronger.”

I found this background information interesting, but there was only one question I was interested in. “Do you know how I can get home?” I asked.

“I know where your world is and I do not need to use a stone circle to travel,” Klista said. “However, I do not know where you are from.” She indicated Ain-Mai. “In order for you to get home, you will need to go back to the room you came through and find the right medallion to get back to your own world.”

“What, alone?” I asked.

“Obviously not alone,” Klista said. “If it were possible for a single girl to break into the heart of the fortress and use the machine that is most precious to the owner, we would have no trouble taking it back. No, I will go with her; with you too, if you want to come. And not just us. I think I will use this opportunity as a test and if it works, then this Hengfel will never come back to your world again.”

Klista closed her eye. “Bruce, come out here, please.” Although I could hear her, the thought seemed to be projected farther away. A moment later, a man came out into the room. He nodded at us and smiled.

Klista stood up and began drying her feet. “Bruce,” she said. “Go call Chirik. Tell him to get ready for war.”

(to be continued…)

You can read more about Klista, Bruce, and Chirik here.

1 Comment | tags: Bruce Riansson, Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, injured, Klista, other worlds, travel, travelogue | posted in Travelogue

April 22, 2013

The Mansion in the Summit – Fantastic Travelogue #15

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

The Mansion in the Summit

The winged creature perched on the entrance to our hollow put its hands over its eyes and bowed deeply. Then it fluttered forward a few steps and took off one of its bracelets, offering it to me.

Ain-Mai woke up when I tried to stand and she gasped at the sight of the thing. I was nervous as well, but it kept offering me the golden bracelet, so finally, I took it. It mimed for me to put it on, but it was too small to put around my wrist and I had to stick it on four of my fingers.

That is better. Now we can talk, the creature said suddenly. The meaning of the words went straight to my mind, without it moving its mouth at all.

Who are you? I asked. It was strange to speak in my mind and have him answer there. I didn’t like it; it was as if someone was snooping on my thoughts.

My name is Drovoi and I am a diplomat in exile. At one time, we met with peoples from many worlds until we were conquered. I will tell you more later, but right now you are hurt and hungry. I will take you to somewhere where you can rest and get treated and then we can talk a little more.

Ain-Mai put a hand on my arm and gave me a questioning look. I took off the bracelet and handed it to her. I saw her eyes widen and I knew that she was conversing mentally with Drovoi. After a moment, she gave it back to me.

I have a transport coming to take you to our refuge, but we must hurry; the dragons are often about in the morning and I do not want to get drawn into a battle.

Because we were conversing with ideas instead of words, I got a mental picture of the “transport” just before it appeared. Still, it was a shock. A curved, furry leg reached over the edge of the hollow and a creature like a huge tarantula appeared. It was covered in white hair and its legs ended in small hands that gripped at the rocks as it moved.

You want us to get on that thing? I asked.

It is not dangerous and it will travel quickly where we need to go—much quicker than you can alone. Do not worry. See?

Drovoi took off his bracelet and held it against the creature’s head. I did not feel thoughts—only simple emotions coming from it—but I could tell that it was tame and amiable, with the temperament of a St. Bernard rather than a predator.

I let Ain-Mai feel this as well, and then we both hobbled forward and slowly climbed on its back. It was the strangest thing I have ever done in my life, even including my adventures of the previous week. The white fur was as soft as silk and it had a harness and back support attached to it. This turned out to be a very good thing as the creature began to climb up the steep side of the tower. Its leathery tail came around and held us in place so that we did not slip off its back.

We climbed for twenty minutes, the white spider-mount moving upwards steadily, never slowing or speeding up. The air began to get thin and the wind increased. I was freezing and my arms were starting to ache from holding on tightly. Drovoi had flown on ahead, it seemed. I looked down behind us and saw dragons flying around, thousands of feet below us.

Finally, we reached the summit of the tower and I could see that we were in the middle of what had once been a huge city. It stretched away for miles on all sides. There were other huge towers visible in the distance, but those had been broken down, so that only the lower parts were still standing.

Drovoi appeared from behind a rock. Please come in. You must be very tired, he said. The wind was screaming and threatening to blow us all off and we followed him behind the rock. There was a door, camouflaged to look like the rock. It was open, but I could see that the cave beyond it was only a few feet deep. Still, I followed Drovoi inside. He suddenly disappeared, but before I could even react, everything around me changed.

The wind was gone. The air pressure was normal again. We were standing in a wide room with a pool of water in the middle. The floors were smooth stone and water was falling from above. The air was bursting with the fragrances of flowers and fruit. A moment later, men and women came towards us and escorted Ain-Mai and me to separate rooms.

What came next was like being in a spa, hospital, and restaurant, all rolled into one. The men bandaged my injuries with cloths and medicine. Then they helped me change into clean clothes and served me all sorts of food that I could not even begin to describe accurately. There were meats and fruits and other things I could barely have imagined: foods that were like eating cold, flavored air or others that looked like square diamonds until they melted in my mouth in a burst of sweetness.

After I had been treated and had eaten as much as I could, a woman came into the room. She was tall and wore a red cloak, with long, dark hair hung down the back. She was beautiful, although her face had a timeless look to it. She handed me a golden bracelet that was big enough for me to put on.

How in all the million worlds did you end up on the outside of that tower? she asked and her eyes bored into me as if she was trying to read my mind.

It’s a very long story, I said, mentally. I’m not totally sure myself.

She was still looking at me very hard. Suddenly she said out loud and in English, “Where are you from?”

I had not realized it until then how long it had been since I had heard English spoken and my shocked expression must have shown my comprehension. She only nodded.

“You speak English,” I said, like an idiot.

“I speak many languages,” she said, “and I have been to your world before. My name is Klista.”

(to be continued…)

13 Comments | tags: Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, fortress, injured, Klista, other worlds, travel, travelogue, tunnels | posted in Travelogue

April 8, 2013

A Night of Loss and Grief – Fantastic Travelogue #14

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

Synopsis: I was hiking in the mountains of Korea when I got lost at night and came out in a strange valley. I couldn’t understand anyone, but I found out they knew Chinese characters. I met a young woman name Ain-Mai, and later, her brother Sing-ga. While I was there, a creepy woman appeared. Ain-Mai and her brother told me that the creepy woman was named Hengfel and came from another world. Hengfel eventually captured all three of us and brought us back to her world. They separated us, but Sing-ga and I got out and rescued Ain-Mai, although I got quite injured in the process. We took shelter in the air vents. Sing-ga went to find water, while Ain-Mai bandaged me and took care of me. Sing-ga finally came back, bleeding badly and very injured.

I had never seen anyone die before, but I was there, kneeling next to Sing-ga when he died. I heard his breath catch, as if he were choking on something and then it just stopped. I kept waiting for him to breath again, but he didn’t. Ain-Mai, on his other side, was starting to become frantic. She was hyperventilating and shaking him, calling his name. Finally, I reached out and touched her arm and she wilted, her arms falling down to her sides.

In the faint light of the moon and stars that was coming in through the opening, I could see that Sing-ga’s arms and face were covered with circular bites. If he had been attacked, how had he gotten away? And could there be things that were still looking for him? I wanted to get away, but I wasn’t sure where to go and I was in no shape to travel.

A light, skittering sound came from up the tunnel. Ain-Mai didn’t seem to notice. She was smoothing back her brother’s hair and crying softly.

“We should go,” I said. She paid no attention.

Something the size of a dinner plate flew out of the darkness at me. All I saw were thin, clawed legs outstretched towards me before the thing wrapped itself around my arm and I felt the sharp pain of it biting into my flesh. I shouted in terror and ripped it off, hurling it savagely out through the grating and into open space. More came leaping at me and I fought them off desperately, pure adrenaline overcoming the pain of my injuries. From what I could tell, they were like huge spiders, with clawed legs and a sharp-toothed mouth in the middle of their body. Even now, I sometimes have nightmares about those horrors jumping out of the darkness at me.

One got caught in Ain-Mai’s hair. She screamed, but it roused her to action and she fought back, lashing out at the monsters when they jumped at her.

“We have to go!” I shouted, not caring that she couldn’t understand me. I started to move in the only direction that was open to us, out the opening and onto the sheer outer side of the tower. I hesitated when it came to actually stepping out of the opening and onto the rough plates of the outer wall, and it was Ain-Mai who took the lead and held out her hand for me to come out.

I had just taken her hand when one of leaping spider-mouths latched onto my shoulder and bit in deeply. I writhed to get it off and felt myself slipping. Ain-Mai pulled me back to the wall and reached down to rip the vile creature off my shoulder. It gave a thin cry as it disappeared into the darkness far below us.

I did not wait to see if more were following us but gripped Ain-Mai’s hand and followed her along the ridges of the wall. They stuck out at an angle from the wall and were easy to hold onto, but they were also irregularly shaped. My right foot was bandaged and extremely sore, so I hopped along on my left.

The spider-mouths didn’t follow us out. I thought this was strange until I remembered poor Sing-ga’s body lying just inside the tunnel. I was sick with horror, but it came out as anger. I shuffled along, swearing under my breath, spitting out profanities with every hop. I’m not even sure who I was angry at: at the spider-mouths; at Hengfel for bringing us to that terrible place; at myself for getting Sing-ga and Ain-Mai caught with me and in doing so, causing his death. I was thankful for the calming effect of Ain-Mai’s hand in mine, which kept me from doing anything stupid.

We came to a hollow in the outer wall a minute later, which was fortunate because I could not have gone on much longer in my condition. It was probably a dragon nest at one point, but it was deserted and we collapsed into it. I put my back against the stone wall and tried to regain my strength and calm my mind. Ain-Mai slumped down by my side, sobbing. I put my arm around her and she drew closer.

Ten minutes later, she had quieted and lay still against me. I had my eyes closed when I felt her stir. The next thing I felt were her lips on mine. She was kissing me in a quick, breathless way, not romantically, but as someone desperately needing comfort in the midst of despair.

For a moment, it was as if time stopped and the Choice stood in front of me. We were alone together in an alien world. Ain-Mai had just lost her brother and was overwhelmed with grief. She needed me. As for myself, I was lonely and tired and she felt so good next to me that in that moment, I wanted nothing more than to abandon myself to her kisses and caresses.

But then I thought of my wife–by herself and worlds away from me. I imagined her going about her daily life, wondering where I was, hoping I was safe, and I realized that she was the only one I really wanted. Still, it was one of the hardest things I have ever done to pull away from Ain-Mai’s embrace. “I,” I said, and then took her hand and drew out the character for “married” on her palm. I guess she understood my meaning one way or another; she nodded and then put her head back down on my shoulder. She started crying again, very softly, and I put my arm around her again. I didn’t know what else to do.

The next thing I remember was opening my eyes to see the sun breaking over the far horizon. Ain-Mai was sleeping with her head still on my shoulder. Then I noticed with a start that a large bird-like creature was perched on a wall plate next to the hollow. It had wings folded behind it and small arms in front, each with a large golden bracelet on it. We looked at each other for a moment until it put its hands over its eyes and bowed deeply to me.

(to be continued…)

3 Comments | tags: blood, death, escape, Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, fortress, injured, kiss, monster, other worlds, travel, travelogue, tunnels, wife, woman | posted in Travelogue

April 1, 2013

Ain-Mai – Fantastic Travelogue #13

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

Synopsis: I was hiking in the mountains of Korea when I got lost at night and came out in a strange valley. I couldn’t understand anyone, but I found out they knew Chinese characters. I met a young woman name Ain-Mai, and later, her brother Sing-ga. While I was there, a creepy woman appeared. Ain-Mai and her brother told me that the creepy woman was named Hengfel and came from another world. Hengfel eventually captured all three of us and brought us back to her world. They separated us, and gave Sing-ga and I a drink to subdue it, but it had the opposite effect on me. We got out and I rescued Ain-Mai by fighting off dragons by punching and kicking them. We escaped into the air vents where the potion wore off, leaving me in terrible pain. Eventually we collapsed and slept.

I woke up, thinking that my wife was calling me, but instead I saw Ain-Mai bending over me, her long hair forming a curtain around my head. I tried to struggle up and almost screamed at the blinding pain that erupted from all over my body. I had never been in such total pain in all my life. I fell back, gasping and trying not to cry.

Ain-Mai took my hand and caressed it, murmuring soothing words like a mother over a child. It worked, at least enough to calm my mind. It was frustrating to have to lie there, when only hours before, I had been doing feats of superhuman strength and endurance. There is a price to pay for everything, it seems.

The light was greater than before and the tunnel was brightly lit. I noticed Sing-ga wasn’t there.

“Sing-ga?” I asked.

She pointed back down the tunnel and said slowly, “Govre hilisru swai Sing-ga.” I recognized the word swai as “water” from hearing them talk before and I nodded. He had gone to get water, I assumed.

We sat there in silence for a while. The floor near the open end of the tunnel was covered with a dusting of fine, brown powder and I pulled myself onto my side enough to write in it with my finger. “Do you have a mother?”

“I have a mother and father,” she wrote in Chinese characters. “I have two siblings, Hi-Run and Sing-ga.” She read each character as she wrote it so I knew the pronunciation of the names.

“Are you married?” I wrote after a moment. She shook her head and gave me a radiant smile that made my chest hurt a little, it was so beautiful.

“Do you have a mother and father?” she wrote after a moment. I told her about my mother and father and my sisters and as much about my life as I could back in Korea and when I was young. But I did not tell her I was married. It’s not that I was planning on cheating on my wife; the thought had not even entered my mind, but I remembered the smile she had given me and perhaps I thought she would act differently towards me if she knew I was married. I’m ashamed to say it now, but that’s what happened.

My throat was dry and screaming in pain for even the least amount of moisture. I had been holding out, hoping Sing-ga would be back at some point soon, but finally I mentioned it to Ain-Mai. She nodded and put a hand on my forehead for a moment, then stood up and said something. Then she was gone, down the tunnel, leaving me alone, in pain and dire thirst.

I must have dozed because the next thing I remember was warm, but blessedly refreshing water trickling into my mouth. I opened my eyes and saw Ain-Mai leaning over me. She had removed her outer shirt and had soaked it full of water. She squeezed it slowly into my mouth. Normally this idea would have seemed rather disgusting, but I gloried in the water and thanked her over and over again.

Next, she took off my boots and washed my right foot that had been scraped and torn by the dragon’s teeth. The right boot was barely there at all; pretty much all that was left was the upper part, still laced together, and a few scraps of leather. Ain-Mai torn thin strips from the bottom of her long skirt and wrapped them around my wounds. She had the gentle touch of a born nurse and I reveled in the comfort that her ministrations brought. She moved next to my hands, which were a brutal mess of dried blood and bruises. I couldn’t have made a fist with either hand if my life had depended on it. She washed them gently and wrapped them with more strips of cloth from her skirt. I stopped murmuring thank you and just closed my eyes and let her work. Later, I felt her washing my face, her delicate hands running gently over my skin. I remained still, hoping she didn’t notice my heart beating faster.

I woke up suddenly. The light outside was fading into black night and through the steel crossbars, I could see bright, blood-red stars hanging in the evening sky. I moved my hands and found them totally bandaged with strips of cloth. A deep scratch on my arm that I don’t even remember getting was also bandaged.

There was movement beside me in the dark and I realized that Ain-Mai was lying curled up next to me, her back against my side. I looked around for Sing-ga but there was no sign of him. I forced myself into a sitting position, ignoring the protests of pain from my body. I heard Ain-Mai wake up suddenly as well.

“Sing-ga?” I asked her. “Sing-ga? Where?”

Ain-Mai jumped up with a start. “Sing-ga,” she said—the worry evident in her voice—and started down the tunnel. I sat up, trying not to groan, and listened. The world had gone quiet; even the wind seemed to be holding its breath.

The next sound I heard was a distant scream that stabbed at my heart like a needle. I tried to stand, but fell down with a fresh burst of agony. Still, I struggled down the tunnel until I reached the intersection. In the cold light that filtered down into the tunnel system from behind me, I saw Ain-Mai appear, trying to support Sing-ga, who staggered and fell with almost every step. He was covered in blood and my heart seemed to freeze when I saw how much blood he was leaving behind on the stone floor of the tunnel. I took his other side and the three of us struggled back up to the opening.

(to be continued…)

1 Comment | tags: blood, escape, Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, fortress, injured, other worlds, travel, travelogue, tunnels, wife, woman | posted in Travelogue

March 25, 2013

Like Rats in the Air Vents – Fantastic Travelogue #12

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

Synopsis: I was hiking in the mountains of Korea when I got lost at night and came out in a strange valley. I couldn’t understand anyone, but I found out they knew Chinese characters. I met a young woman name Ain-Mai, and later, her brother Sing-ga. While I was there, a creepy woman appeared. Ain-Mai and her brother told me that the creepy woman was named Hengfel and came from another world. Hengfel eventually captured all three of us and brought us back to her world. They took Ain-Mai away and put Sing-ga and I in a room with a bunch of other men who all looked drugged. It looked a bit like a harem. They gave us something to drink, which made Sing-ga very sleepy but had the opposite effect on me. We got out and found Ain-Mai in a cage, hundreds of feet above the floor, in a room with thousands of cages. I rescued her, fighting off dragons as I did. We got away, but they tore my right foot up a bit.

I have never been on drugs, so I don’t know what it’s like to come down from a high, but after my experience in that cavernous, dragon-infested fortress, I think I have some idea.

Ain-Mai, Sing-ga and I were moving as fast as we could down the corridor we had come from, away from the room with the cages. I was in the lead and was at first thinking of going straight back to the round transporter room—just powering through everything and risking everything to get back right away. Then the pain started. This was troubling, since I hadn’t felt any pain since they had forced that potion down my throat, even when I was punching dragons in the face.

It started as a dull ache in my foot and hands and just kept growing. I looked back and realized I was leaving bloody footprints from my right foot where the dragon had ripped off my boot. After that, it only took a few minutes for the pain to grow to the point where I could barely walk. Sing-ga was still lethargic from the potion they had given him, and Ain-Mai was shaken up from being in the cage and being attacked by dragons, so none of us were in great shape.

The pain was starting to overwhelm my senses. I felt Ain-Mai take me by the arm and lead me to the side, into darkness. We were walking through a small, fetid passage, barely big enough to stand up in. The floor was rough and bolts of pain shot up through my injured foot with every step. After a while, we were in total darkness and felt our way forward with our hands outstretched. The air was moist and warm and smelled like mold.

I don’t how long we went like that, but it was probably about an hour. Before long, I was crawling on hands and knees. We passed shafts cut in the walls with water pouring down through them and even drank a little. The water was hot and tasted metallic, but it quenched our thirst. Ain-Mai was leading us now. I don’t know where she thought she was going, but we followed her instinctively, going further and further into the dark labyrinth.

We seemed to be in a system of air vents. They criss-crossed at intervals and strong, warm wind blew in from some. We heard snatches of sound from cross-tunnels: rumbles and roars as of huge machinery, and screams and yells of monstrous beasts, or something worse. The sounds rose and then faded and died away, like the turning of a radio dial.

At last, when I thought I could go no further, we saw light ahead: warm, tan daylight. It was coming from a cross-tunnel and a strong, dry wind blew out of it. We pushed against the wind until we came to the end of the tunnel and looked outside.

The opening was barred with a cross of metal, but we still could have squeezed outside if we had wanted to. We were very high up—at least 5000 feet, I would guess, and I looked out over a wide, desolate landscape. Far below were the remains of towns and cities, dry riverbeds still crossed by bridges, and roads bordering dead fields. Everything I saw was brown and withered.

As I watched, a dragon floated into view far beneath me. I craned my neck to see where it was going and saw that we were in some sort of monstrous tower, with walls that fell away almost straight down. The outside surface was covered with plates that stuck up, just like the cage room. Here I could see dragons hanging off them and I realized that was what they were for. The dragons used them to hang on and rest, like birds perching on a branch.

Sing-ga was already lying down on the passage floor. I mimed sleep to Ain-Mai and she nodded. She lay down in front of Sing-ga and motioned for me to lie down in front of her. I lay down on the hard floor and felt her warmth behind me. Just before I drifted off to sleep, I felt her hand on my shoulder. With that simple act of human contact, I realized how much I had missed it. Ain-Mai’s hand on my shoulder filled my mind with peace and helped to soothe some of the throbbing pain that wracked my body. Still, when I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of my wife standing far away, across an abyss that I could not hope to cross.

(to be continued…)

6 Comments | tags: drugs, escape, Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, fortress, injured, other worlds, travel, travelogue, tunnels, wife | posted in Travelogue

March 14, 2013

Cage Jumping and Dragon Punching – Fantastic Travelogue #11

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

Synopsis: I was hiking in the mountains of Korea when I got lost at night and came out in a strange valley. I couldn’t understand anyone, but I found out they knew Chinese characters. I met a young woman name Ain-Mai, and later, her brother Sing-ga. While I was there, a creepy woman appeared. Ain-Mai and her brother told me that the creepy woman was named Hengfel and came from another world. Hengfel eventually captured all three of us and brought us back to her world. They took Ain-Mai away and put Sing-ga and I in a room with a bunch of other men who all looked drugged. It looked a bit like a harem. They gave us something to drink, which made Sing-ga very sleepy but had the opposite effect on me. We got out and found Ain-Mai in a cage, hundreds of feet above the floor, in a room with thousands of cages.

I leaped, straight out over two hundred feet of empty space and landed on the top of the nearest cage. It was a crazy thing to do, but luckily my confidence in that accelerated state was equally matched by my ability. The cage started to swing as it reached its apex, I leapt again, bounding from cage to cage, towards the cage where Ain-Mai was trapped.

As I was jumping from cage to cage, I began to notice details about the room and cages. The ones I had landed on were empty and the bottoms were open on all of them, as if the bottom had split into four parts and fallen open. There was a wide lever on top of the cage that I could see was connected to the cage floor. The floor of the room far below was stained and splashed with red and tiny white bones were scattered wantonly around. It didn’t take long to put all these implications together.

This was the dragons’ feeding ground. People were kept in the cages until a dragon pushed the cage’s lever and the prey fell and died on the hard floor, far below. Then the dragon went down and ate them.

They’re like vending machines, I thought with horrified fascination. I am still glad that I never saw one in operation.

I was getting closer to Ain-Mai’s cage. It had stopped descending about ten feet above my current level, just five cages away from her. I couldn’t tell if I had been spotted or not, but I couldn’t turn back now.

Ain-Mai saw me just before I leapt onto her cage. The look of hope and amazement on her face was clear. I jumped and landed on the side of the cage, my fingers clinging to the bars. I tugged at them, but even as strong as I felt, I couldn’t tear steel bars away.

“Hold on!” I said, miming for her to hold onto the bars with her hands and feet. When I saw that she had, I climbed up to the top and stomped on the iron lever. The floor of the cage collapsed and Ain-Mai gave a little scream.

I was still just working off adrenaline and drug-induced bravado, which was probably good, since otherwise I would never have had the nerve to do what I did next. I climbed down the side of the cage until I was hanging from the very bottom. Then I reached inside, through the pieces of the collapsed floor, and grabbed onto the bars on the inside. I swung down and started climbing up the inside of the cage, next to where Ain-Mai was clinging on for her life. She was crying and holding onto the bars with a death-grip. It took me a lot of coaxing to get her to take her hands off the bars and scramble onto my back. Then she was on and death-gripping me around the neck instead.

She was pretty light, thankfully, but going back was much slower. There was a very tricky moment at the bottom of the cage. I was hanging on by one hand on the inside and reached out to grab the outside of the cage. However, with Ain-Mai on my back, we couldn’t fit through the triangular pieces of the floor that were now hanging straight down. I yanked and jerked us back and forth, scraping her back and my front pretty badly against the metal floor plates. Finally, what I had to do was relax and let myself hang down as far as I could go, all our weight on four of my fingers. Then, finally, we slipped through and I could start to climb up the outside again.

I had been too busy to notice before, but we had definitely been spotted now. People were shouting above us and I could feel the cage start to rise. I leapt off, just making it to the side of the next cage. My hands didn’t hurt, but I could see that they were pretty badly scraped and both were bleeding.

Then as if that wasn’t enough, here came the dragons. I guess they didn’t like me running off with their food. The first few just flew nearby, but then one came straight it us and I kicked it in the snout. I couldn’t jump as far now with Ain-Mai on my back so I had to get the cages swinging and wait until they were close to each other to jump across. It was slow going.

They were a bit like this, except with no ridge on the back and their legs were shorter. Source.

On the fifth cage, two came at me at once. I punched the one under its jaw and tried to kick the other one, but it bit into my hiking boot and ripped most of it off, tearing into the sides of my foot with its teeth. This was how things went for another five minutes or so. I fought them off as best I could and slowly, cage by cage, moved back towards the wall. I was mostly worried about Ain-Mai, that one of the monsters would come up from behind and snatch her off my back. I kept whirling from side to side, keeping them all in sight.

I looked ahead to the wall and saw that Sing-ga was climbing up the plates on the wall. Idiot, I thought. There was no way he could do anything except get himself killed. He was moving painfully slowly. The dragons were still intent on me, but if they saw him, it would be like a drunk geriatric fighting a tiger.

I made a leap to the last cage, only to see a dragon rushing at me from below with jaws open wide. I manage to twist in the air to avoid getting my legs bitten off, but then I was falling. I reached out blindly and grabbed the dragon’s body as it went by.

There wasn’t anything else I could do, but this was danger of an insane level. The dragon responded by snapping its body violently like a whip, trying to shake us off. Ain-Mai was gripping my neck so hard it was cutting off my air. I reached around the dragon as far as I could reach and started squeezing it with all my strength. I heard a few bones crack and the dragon gave a roar. It slammed us against the nearest cage and then headed to the wall to scrape us off there.

It turned towards the wall, and there was Sing-ga, clinging to the wall and swaying like a drunk. The dragon seemed to forget about us for a second and went straight for Sing-ga, jaws open. Just as he got there, Sing-ga stuck out his hand and I saw for the first time that he had a piece of broken spear in his hand.

When had he picked that up? I marveled at the presence of mind he had to pick a weapon on our way out of the room. His hand was shaking as he held it but the dragon did not have time to turn away. The spear went straight into the dragon’s mouth and out through the back of its skull. I managed to leap from its back and grab the wall plates as it crashed down.

I learned something about dragons that day: they are cannibals. As soon as the dragon we had been clinging to plummeted to the floor below, the rest of the dragons sped straight down, fighting each other to get at the body first. Apparently dragon meat tastes delicious.

Ain-Mai slid off my back and onto the plates on the wall, but she was shaking so hard I had to keep an eye on her, as well as Sing-ga. Somehow we all got back down to the corridor. I was bleeding from my foot, my hands and several other places and the other two were exhausted and Sing-ga was still not doing well. My dizzying self-confidence was starting to dim a little, but there was nothing to do but go back down the corridor. So that’s what we did.

(to be continued…)

2 Comments | tags: cage, dragon, drugs, escape, Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, fighting, fortress, harem, hero, other worlds, rescue, travel, travelogue | posted in Travelogue

March 11, 2013

I am . . . a Superhero – Fantastic Travelogue #10

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

Synopsis: I was hiking in the mountains of Korea when I got lost at night and came out in a strange valley. I couldn’t understand anyone, but I found out they knew Chinese characters. I met a young woman name Ain-Mai, and later, her brother Sing-ga. While I was there, a creepy woman appeared. Ain-Mai and her brother told me that the creepy woman was named Hengfel and came from another world. Hengfel eventually captured all three of us and brought us back to her world. They took Ain-Mai away and put Sing-ga and I in a room with a bunch of other men who all looked drugged. It looked a bit like a harem. They gave us something to drink, which made Sing-ga very sleepy but had the opposite effect on me.

Sing-ga was acting like he was drugged. He was moving slowly and unsteadily and seemed to be having trouble staying awake. I was having the opposite sort of experience. Whatever they had forced us to drink had made me faster, stronger, and smarter than I had ever been before. It was the same liquid, so obviously, the stuff had a very different effect on my physiology than on the others. I honestly think that while I was in that state, I could have learned a language in a day. At least that’s how I felt.

I tried to explain to Sing-ga how I wanted to escape, but he was not in any state to communicate. Not that my plan was all that complicated: punch the guards and run out, try to find Ain-Mai, then get back to the circular room and . . . I honestly don’t remember now if I had an ending to that plan. I had a lot of confidence though.

The guards came back ten minutes later and I could tell immediately they were furious that we hadn’t changed. The lead one started yelling at us and lowered her spear at me. I grabbed it by the shaft and pulled it out of her hand. Then I cracked it in half. I can tell you, there is no greater feeling of satisfaction than snapping a two-inch-thick spear in half like it’s a candy cane.

It was on then. Forget getting me to change clothes—they were trying to kill me now. I ducked under a spear, punched the lead guard in the chest, probably breaking a few ribs. The other guards backed off a bit and then I was suddenly surrounded by guards, maybe fifteen of them. However, I could tell that some of them were illusions. They all moved the same way, like puppets on the same string. That must have been what had happened in the forest when I tried to escape.

Honestly, I don’t exactly remember much about what happened next, except that it felt really good. It was a confusion of ducking spears, punching, and kicking whenever I saw an opening. The next thing I remember clearly was the guards lying around, unconscious, injured and bloody. There was also a man on the ground whom I had apparently punched in my excitement. Oops.

None of the other men had really reacted, although they were all watching by now. I felt like uttering a William Wallace yell and leading this rag tag army to freedom, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen. So I grabbed Sing-ga and pulled him out the door, taking one last look at the defeated guards lying on the ground as I left. Man, I wish I had my camera!

I didn’t know where Ain-Mai was, but I went in the direction I had seen them take her. Sing-ga seemed to have recovered a little and was trying to keep up with me, although it was hard. I was probably sprinting. The corridor we were in was mostly deserted. I say mostly because every now and then, we would come across one of those funny little four-legged creatures about a foot tall that moved really slowly. We flew by them and they didn’t seem to pay us any attention.

The corridor ended before too long, opening into a monstrously big room and even as hyped up as I was, I stopped short in amazement. I couldn’t tell how big the room was—perhaps half a mile square and a few hundred feet high. It was filled with thousands of cages suspended by chains from the ceiling. A lot of the cages were empty, but I saw figures in some of them. At the same time, there were cages being raised and lowered from holes in the ceiling.

I didn’t know what to do. The corridor ended here and I couldn’t see Ain-Mai anywhere. Sing-ga was gasping and reeling behind me as if he had just run a marathon.

A cage began to descend from the ceiling, about two hundred feet away from us, and inside I saw Ain-Mai. She was crouched in the corner of the cage and a few strands of her long, black hair came out through the bars and floated in the open air.

I didn’t think hard on the situation; I just acted. The closest cage to me was about fifteen feet away horizontally, but also about twenty feet up. The walls were covered with overlapping plates that stuck out and gave a lot of good hand and footholds. I bounded up this, and then, when I was a little bit above the closest cage, I leaped.