Having never been through the drylands, the Glee didn’t really know much about the terrain and could offer no advice other than general guidance about the direction they needed to go to reach the area held by the goddess and her followers. Richard worried about what other surprises they might encounter in the vast trackless drylands.
As they went farther, many of the enormous peaks began to line up, with numbers of them joining in chains of towering rock making it appear that they were one long mass of rock wall rather than individual peaks. In some places the rock did completely cease to be individual towers, becoming long, sheer rock walls hemming them in. By their size and orientation across the landscape, those rocky outcroppings seemed to bend the wind, deflecting it off to their right, rather than channeling it through the drylands the way they had up until then. Those winds, while still hot, became heavy with moisture and felt stuffy. Richard could see the thick overcast being funneled past the walls of rock to head off away from them.
The uneven ground, littered with sharp, pitted, crumbled rock, was difficult to walk on. They all had to be careful lest they twist an ankle. He was worried that the Glee might fall and tear their suits of weeds, as well as their soft flesh.
As they came to the crest of the rising ground, they all slowed to a halt.
“There,” Sang called out, pointing off into the distance. “That place down there is where the Golden Goddess and her followers live. They like this place because it is near the mountain with the device, it is wet, and there is a lot of room for their great numbers to assemble.”
Richard nodded as he studied the landscape out ahead. It looked to be a low, swampy area, with abundant vegetation. It was indeed a vast area that would hold great numbers of Glee. In the far distance, he saw more of the tall, crooked tree trunks with the single, high clumps of foliage.
“When we get down there,” Richard told the Glee in a low voice as he scanned the area in the distance, “I want you all to stay behind me.”
“Why?” Several Glee asked in his mind at the same time.
“Because if things get rough, anything in front of me is going to die.”
That seemed to bring the seriousness of what they were doing into sharp relief for them. Richard urged them back a ways, out of sight of any of the Glee down below that might happen to look up. If they did look up, they would easily be able to see them silhouetted against the sky. Once back a ways, they all watched as he quickly strung his bow.
“What are you doing now?” Iben asked.
Instead of answering, Richard gave him a meaningful look and then nocked an arrow. Without a word, he drew back the string, let out a deep breath, settled his aim. He drew the target to him as he had long ago learned to do and then let the arrow fly. Even as the arrow left his bow, in his mind, it had already hit its target. Several seconds later reality caught up with what he was seeing in his mind.
The arrow went right through the head of a Glee sitting on a rock outcropping down closer to the swampy area. He had been looking away from Richard and his group, keeping watch from higher ground toward the only way they believed others could enter their home ground.
Watching the Glee crumple in the distance seemed to sober those with him even more. None spoke, but they glanced around at their fellow Glee, having never seen anything like it.
“That one was standing watch,” Richard whispered to them. “Had he turned, he would have seen us. We don’t want any of them to sound an alarm. We need to catch them by surprise.”
“We will let you know if we spot any others standing guard,” Iben said. A few others nodded their agreement.
61
“Where do they sleep?” Richard asked back over his shoulder after he had moved forward in a crouch and taken a peek.
“We like to sleep in beds of water weeds where it grows thick on the banks of the water,” Sang told him, “often with our legs in the water.”
“So then most of them will be sleeping right beside the areas of water?” Richard asked.
“Yes,” Sang said. “That is where Glee like to spend the night. It is comforting.”
Richard found the concept disturbing but didn’t say so. “But these Glee don’t eat the water weeds or the muscle snails like you eat,” Richard told them. “These Glee eat those like me. So do you think they would still sleep on water weeds the same as they used to do?”
Sang thought about it a moment. “Now that you mention it, I’m not sure. But I believe they would still want to sleep the same way as Glee have always slept. They still want to keep their skin wet, and stay where the boars won’t come.”
Richard nodded, thinking. He turned back and peered into the distance, trying to spot any of them sleeping at the edge of the water. Richard finally looked back at the others as they waited.
“The Glee who have been eating people from my world don’t eat the float weed anymore, so they lose the green sheen to their skin that all of you have.”
“Like that spy you found,” Iben noted.
“That’s right. All of you have that green coloring. The ones down there won’t have it.”
Iben nodded. “Now that you showed us that with the one you caught watching us for the goddess, we can easily know any who are followers of the goddess.”
“That’s exactly right,” Richard said, “so remember that if things get confusing in a battle. I don’t want any of you to accidentally slash those with us if some of you lose the water weeds wrapped around you.” After another quick look, he turned back to the Glee with him. “Is there a way to tell the goddess apart from the rest of the Glee down there?”
Almost all the Glee were nodding even as he was finishing the question. Iben stretched up, looking over the rise to be sure of the lay of the land, and then gestured off toward the swampy areas.
“I don’t see her,” he said.
“But how would you recognize her?”
“The one who calls herself the Golden Goddess hatched in a nest of eggs that had unknowingly been built almost on top of a rare plant,” one of the other Glee with them said. “It was the first thing she ate when she emerged from her shell. She then broke open the other eggs and ate her sibling offspring so that she could grow fast and strong.”
“None of you eat the other eggs in the nest with you, do you?” Richard asked.
They all looked horrified at the very notion. Just about all of them were shaking their heads, not wanting to be associated with eating their siblings.
“That is not something our kind does when they hatch,” Sang told him. “The parents would prevent it. I don’t know why her parents did not, but maybe she did it while they were asleep.”
“What does all of that have to do with recognizing the goddess?” Richard asked.
Iben spoke up first. “That rare plant growing by her nest, the one she ate when she first hatched, is somewhat poisonous. As a result, it scarred her skin and gave it a golden color unlike any of the other Glee. Also, she is big for a Glee, at least a head taller than any of us. Her whole life she has always used her size to torment and intimidate others.”