11 Deus Ex (1/2)
It quickly got too dark to consider travelling for a while.Night fell in the high mountains rather like a light switch.Blink. Dark.
The dragon was very faintly luminous as if something very bright indeed was inside her belly.There was just barely enough light to see by once Nelda's eyes adjusted.
The satyrs seemed to have no trouble at all.[Moon-sight?] and promptly continued their own version of twenty questions, but with more questions.
”Why did you god bring you back?”
”Why was that guy lying on the ground?”
”Why is your world so straight and square?”
”Why did the wizard's cup have a flat bottom?”
”Shhh, guys,” Nelda said.”The dragon's trying to sleep.
#
Nelda edged kind of close to the dragon to try and get some sleep.The dragon emanated a comfortable warmth and effectively repelled the satyrs who were understandably buzzing with questions.Most of which she did not know how to answer.
She woke at dawn from fitful sleep.She watched the dim light play across the colorful, semi-translucent surfaces of the crystals in the cave. And revealed a door opposite where she lay.
[Door?]
Getting carefully to her feet, Nelda clambered cross the width of the large cavern and stood in front or a clear, roughly human-sized arched doorway.
A cheerful clatter of hooves presaged the arrival of BugleHead.He also looked at the dark doorway and short section of down-sloping corridor visible through it.
”Well, that's convenient,” BugleHead said.”Do you think it's a way out?
”Or the way to the larder, or the latrine…. In any case, this was not here yesterday,” Nelda said suspiciously.
”We must have just missed it.”
”Missed an enormous doorway, that was right in front of us the whole time?”
”HoneyBeard often says I can't see things that are right in front of my face.”
Nelda had to concede that BugleHead's sunny disposition was unassailable.It was beginning to shine a light on why HoneyBeard was quite so grumpy. Peering down the side of the dragon, the giant creature seemed to be sitting with a slightly hunched back, as if there might be eggs under there.
”Can I ask a question now?” BugleHead chirped.
”Only if you do it very quietly.”
”Okay.What or who actually is your god?”
Nelda considered that for a while.If she defined the god he was asking about as the power that sent her from her world to this one, the god was quite literally in the machine. ”You know that big silver wall that was behind us, just under the gold puddle thing?
”Uh, I guess.”
”That was the god.”