As they worked at wrapping each other, more of the Glee collected the water plants needed. Before long they had an entire trade in full swing. The Glee found the wrapping exciting and interesting. None voiced any complaints. He knew that when they came to his world, if they became too dry, they could always activate their lifeline and return to their own wet world. Out in the drylands, they would not have that ability.
He was sure that somewhere along the line, they had to have figured out what he had in mind, and why he was doing this, but if they had, none of them balked or refused to join in.
As they worked, he realized it was building a sense of camaraderie, like soldiers working on their armor to get each other ready for combat.
He hoped they would maintain that sense of spirit when they headed out into the drylands, and even more so, when they met the enemy.
As they were wrapped, the Glee drew their lips back to show him a kind of frightening smile. He returned a similar smile, hoping it satisfied them despite his not being able to quite match the display of teeth.
Sang came up to him, completely wrapped from head to toe. “I am amazed by this, Lord Rahl. I thought crossing the drylands would be impossible for us, but I really think this will work. Not only now, but in the future, after we are rid of the goddess, this will give us a way to expand our world and discover new places and more food.”
Richard put a hand on Sang’s slimy shoulder. “I’m glad to hear it. But the day is wearing on. We must hurry. We need to get to the goddess’s followers while they are still there and before they leave to come here. We still have a long way to go.”
Sang nodded. “As you say, we must get started, then. You are right that it is a long way around through the drylands in order to get to the place the goddess holds. Unfortunately, none of us has ever traveled there, so we are not exactly sure of what that place is like or what we might encounter there.
“We will not be able to get there in one day. We will have to stop along the way tonight for some sleep for at least a little while, because it will be a longer day tomorrow and then tomorrow night we will arrive there.”
Richard looked around at all the Glee, wrapped in water weed, watching him. “You all look wonderful. Let’s get moving.”
59
Sang had been right. As the sun set and night descended on them, the two small but bright moons certainly did provide enough light to see by, especially out in the windswept drylands. Everything, though, was a different shade of gloomy, dark red that seemed to weigh down Richard’s spirits. He wanted to rub his eyes to clear away the bleak shades of reddish color to everything. He had never really appreciated color so much as he did after being in this place. He longed to see the simple colors of his world again.
Thick, heavy clouds frequently scudded past to sometimes obscure the moons, but when that happened they were backlit by the moons and in that way provided enough light to see where they were going. When the moons came out from behind the clouds, it was about as bright as a night with a full moon in his world. It was easily bright enough for their journey, especially in such an open, sandy landscape.
Although the ominous clouds scudding past looked thick and heavy, they didn’t bring rain to this desolate place, and didn’t look like they ever had, making Richard wonder if they could actually be more dust than rain clouds. If they did carry rain, he guessed that for some reason they didn’t release the rain they carried until they reached the swampy parts of this strange world.
Richard had thought at first that the sand would be hard to walk across, but he found instead that in many places it had been packed hard by the howling winds that left ripples in their wake across the face of the dunes. In other places, especially on the lee side of the dunes, the sand was deep and loose, making progress difficult and time-consuming. They hadn’t been traveling long and Richard’s legs already ached from the effort of walking through the places of deep sand.
Enormous, soaring rock peaks thrust up through the sand to impossible heights in random spots all around them, like islands in the sea of sand. The massive stone monarchs watched them pass at their feet. In places when they passed close to the stone towers it hid the two moons, casting them into gloomy shadows.
The rock of those strange peaks was so rough and rugged, composed of faceted, stacked, sheer cliff faces, that Richard couldn’t imagine they could be climbed. He was happy to instead make their way past in the shadows of those rocky peaks.
It looked to Richard that those craggy, monumental prominences of rock stood so tall that they often pierced up into the dark, ruddy clouds continually sweeping past, and that had over the ages caused them to crumble under the forces of wind and weather. All the decaying rock created both the sloping skirts of crumbled rock, and the sandy surface between each of those monstrous stone outcroppings. As the decomposing rock gradually and continually added pieces of debris to the low places between them, the wind tumbled it around and around, breaking it down, until it all turned to sand. Once it was small and light enough, the wind lifted it and carried it across the face of the landscape, shaping it into dunes.
Some of the dunes couldn’t be avoided without a long detour and had to be climbed. The windward sides were sloped gradually enough to be an easy climb, but the lee sides were often quite steep and the sand soft. They had to run down the steepest sections to keep from falling face-first. A few of the dunes were quite high. At the top it gave them a good view of the bleak landscape out ahead of them. From those views, Richard thought it looked endless.
That landscape greatly concerned the Glee, but in their wet wrappings of water weeds, they at least weren’t complaining about being dry. The weeds were tough and were proving surprisingly durable. Richard thought that they were surely mostly worried about fighting the followers of the Golden Goddess. These were not warriors, but they seemed to grasp the necessity of what they were doing and were so far willing.
Some of the followers of the goddess had already visited Richard’s world and fought the people there. Those that hadn’t yet had that experience were probably eager for it. The Glee with Richard were not at all eager to fight.
None of them carried weapons, but of course they didn’t need to. They had wicked weapons at the end of each arm. He had discovered just how skillfully those claws could handle the most delicate of tasks. He hoped that when the time came, they would also be able to fight with them. Their lives would depend on it.
As if reading his thoughts, Vika leaned close. “Do you think they will fight, or run?”
Richard leaned over slightly to speak to her in a low voice. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been wondering that very thing myself. I think, though, that their usefulness may actually be in the shock value they will provide.
“It’s a sure bet that the other Glee with the goddess will never have seen anything like these Glee all wrapped in water weeds come walking out of the drylands. I’m hoping that surprise will make them stop and stare. That hesitancy will give you and me the opportunity to get to the goddess.”
“You’re thinking, then, that if you can take her out quickly, that may take the fight out of her followers?”