That One Time I Went on a Quest

The Stone Graves

'Yes my lady, enough for a week at least.'

'Excellent.'

The gorge falls away, revealing a giant crater sunk in the middle of jagged peaks. Three obelisks – obsidian-black and bent inward, facing each other like clawed fingers – stand in a circle at its centre, each as tall as ten little giants standing shoulder on shoulder. Atop each one is a black statue, tarnished by the mountain air but still distinctive, the one on the right especially: fan-like harness on her back, a sword in each hand, crossed over her head in ritualistic triumph.

'Who...who are they?' I point at the statues, finger trembling.

Kathanhiel indicates them in turn. 'Kalarinth of the Earth, Ma'Tol the Hunter, and Ush'Ra the Godsmith, paragons of the little giants, personifying the virtues of faith, strength, and creativity.'

She is squinting, trying to decipher what lies in the deep shadow between the obelisks. The centre of the crater is a glassy black, like a single slab of rock polished and waxed; it's glaring painfully under the midday sun.

'There were people here,' she says.

'What? Where?'

'You see the tracks, on the fused ground? The white prints.' She points left and right, indicating what I couldn't see. 'People have passed through here recently. A group. Couldn't be the mountain folk – they're terrified of the obelisks. That leaves...'

'Our people? Maybe Iborus sent a party ahead to...uh...I don't know...'

'Perhaps.'

We approach the obelisks slowly, skidding on the pebbly trail that winds around the crater. The closer to the centre we get the more distinctly black the earth becomes, and more...stuck together, somehow. There is a subtle buzzing in the air, one that would not be noticeable if it isn't so deathly quiet. It's coming from everywhere at once. Sounds like...paper being crumpled or...glass beads being rubbed together...

A tent.

I rub my eyes but it's still there. A tent, with solid black canvas, sitting in camouflage under the shadows of the obelisks.

Kathanhiel has already seen it. Detaching Kaishen from her waist she tosses it to me, scabbard and all. 'Your sword, please,' she says. 'Remind me to stop carrying Kaishen. It's yours now.'

I give her my sword, a completely ordinary weapon made out of ordinary steel. As for her request...

'Do we have to fight?' I ask. 'If we just go around –'

'That spot there,' she points to the centre of the crater, 'is where we must make camp. I know not how these pillars function – not even the little giants do, not anymore – but those who reside between them become undetectable. It is by far the safest place in the Ranges.'

'Undetectable? You mean...invisible?'

'You shall see,' she says. 'Whatever happens, stay close to me.'

As we draw near the obelisks the air begins to turn warm. A gust of humid and inexplicably organic wind rushes forth with the smell of sand and decomposing vegetation. Some kind of hallucination, must be; there's not a single straw of grass as far as the eyes can see, and the earth is completely solid, fused together and not at all sand-like.

The tent only thirty paces in front of us yet the air shimmers all around it, as if it's not really...there? But it has to be. There are steel pegs in the ground, taut ropes, and a smudging of tracks before its entrance flap.

Stepping forward...

The moment I pass between the obelisks, the world...changes. No other way to describe it. One moment, a silent crater closeted by desolate mountains; the next, a symphony of roaring waves, and a tide of earthly stink: wet sand mingled with the nauseating odour of a rainforest shrugging off a summer storm.