The Withered Land: Dragons and Marauders

Dragons and Marauders, Part Forty-Four

On the ground under his feet, wide patches of coarse sand the color of iron-smelt slowly swirled into twisting whorls while above him, under a sky peppered with dark clouds that resembled clotted blood spatters, the thin atmosphere spewed forth air that tasted like dust and desiccated vegetation.

He was not so easily fooled, however. The terms "ground" and "sky" were relative. This was not a true geophysical environment, as such an environ would normally be defined for human minds.

This was someplace else, somewhere else.

"Well, well, what have we here? Whatever has she sent me now?" The sound of those words did not ride the desultory, indolent winds that spiraled from under wispy cloudcover so much as pelt them, like hot sludge splashed up against a stone wall. The voice that spoke those words was hushed and hollow, the sound of a serpent aping human speech, draping each phonem uttered in a cloak of decadent malignancy. "Such gifts she provides, never intentionally, after all, since she does not know nor think to even concern herself with whereof she imperiously discards her victims, but she sends to me things, entities, beings, I consider to be gifts nonetheless."

Where was he? Who is it that was speaking? He felt strange. He felt, physically, strained and insubstantial, sensorily stressed, stretched thin, and the light that bathed the lunatic landscape surrounding him was anemic and unclean, as if infested by some indefinable disease. His techno-biologically genegineered power armor had instituted its extraplanetary environ life-support mode, making it clear that wherever it was he'd awakened, the place was hostile to human life. Additionally, his armor's gene-bonded, biocybernetic, neurotelemetric human systems augmentation unit, the Watcher-Brother, was in full combat-protection mode. He was apparently in extreme jeopardy despite the relatively inanimate calm his surroundings projected. There was death here.

He observed the surrounding panorama as if he peered through the haze of a membranous, translucent caul. As his vision adapted to the filmy, oppressive atmosphere D'Spayr quickly came to the realization he did not at all like what he beheld.

And he was getting damned tired of having to deal with yet another thing he didn't like.

"Enough gamesmanship. This is not an endeavor for the entertainment of spoiled children. Show yourself," the Knight demanded, impatience hardening his tone.

"You are not in command here," the voice said, an unspoken threat edging its soft sibilance.

"All that interests me is information on how to get out of here and back to where I was," D'Spayr said. "Who is or is not in charge, whoever has dominion over this place, or whatever other details of territoriality there may be are of no interest. Now, unless you have any strenuous objections, tell me how I can or what I need to do to leave here?"

"And what if I do have objections? What if I don't want you to leave here?"

D'Spayr fought to suppress an aggravated growl from escaping past his lips. "There isn't time for this silliness. I obviously don't belong here and just as obviously, you're no friend or ally of mine. Grant me passage out and away from this place and so we can save ourselves further unpleasantness."

"Ah yes, there it is. 'Time'. The typical Teshiwaurian preoccupation with the ticking of the clock..., What time is it? How much time will it take? How much time is there left? Time is so important to you and your ind and yet you barely have any cognizance of its true complexity or importance, only seeing it in terms of your own comings and goings and your schemes and desires. And the fact that you are living on a planet in a solar system where Time is actually broken, where it is fragmented, strangled and in disarray doesn't in any way color your perception of what's really going on around you... You truly are a short-lived race of pathetic and blind, angry little apes..."