Yamara

"Pirate Isles? I've never heard of them, are they in the Sea of Lost Souls?" The girl asked me. "Oh, and that wasn't a spider, that was a silk crawler."

The elf seemed to be on to something, however, for she spoke up before I could ask what in the nine hells the Sea of Lost Souls was. "Magic? What is that? Do you mean psionics? Does none of the areas we speak of sound familiar to you?"

I shook my head, a little surprised by the possibility, but not to badly, since I already knew I was not in the same place I had been. I glanced up at the night sky, looking for the familiar constellations of Halador. My mouth fell open then, and I can admit to being totally caught off guard. "Farther..."

"What do you mean? You're farther from your home then you thought? Is it on the other side of the Sea of Lost Souls?" I had to give the girl credit, she really was trying to understand and help.

"Look," I snapped at her, "I have no idea what a Sea of Lost Souls is! I've never heard of any of these places you mention, and I'm really very lost here! And why in the nine hells is that sun so damned small?"

That got their attention. The jolly green giant stopped turning the spit and instead stared at me. The man stopped sharpening his great sword and did likewise. The elf's eyes widened as she figured out what I was about to discover. The girl was on the same pace as me though, she looked up and looked back at me in surprise. "That is Kurth, the smaller sun that is always in the sky. Yorinn has only just set an hour or so past."

Kurth? Yorinn? I had no idea what those names were. "This isn't Halador, is it?" I asked, my voice dropping to a whisper.

"This world is called Acathia," the elf responded gently, ahead of me and realizing what a shock I was beginning to go through.

"Oh wow," The girl said, playing catch up. "You're from another world! The soothsayers were right! Did you come from the sky too?"

"My name is Sandala, you are welcome to come with us if you like," the elf woman said to me, indicating I should try and ignore the girl.

"Yeah, my name is Brina, please come with us, I'll tell you all about Acathia if you tell me about your world!"

I was a bit annoyed by the girls enthusiasm. I caught the man scowling, and decided that the more I looked at him, the more he reminded me of a dwarf, even though he had no beard. Or any hair at all, from the looks of him. The giant / lizard / man just looked on with interest, but at least he was turning the spit again.

"I will travel with you, my name is Yamara," I said to them, trying to keep my mental balance.

Brina opened her mouth to say more but Sandala stopped her by leaning over and laying her hand on her arm. "Brina, Yamara needs to eat, drink, and rest some more, save your questions for later."

Brina appeared annoyed, but nodded and smiled at me again. I took another drink of water and found myself suddenly numb. I drank more and found that I had nearly emptied one of my waterskins already. I nodded thankfully to Sandala and laid back down to rest a bit.

"She's not having any of my water," I heard the man mutter as he went back to working on his weapons.

"Kryl, shut up you witless Acathian! Can't you see she needs our help?" Brina snapped at him, favoring him with a blistering look.

"Is that what humans are called here?" I asked, sitting up too quickly.

Kryl shot me a dark look before he got up and put his weapons back about his person and stomped off into the cold night.

"Nay, Yamara," Sandala explained to me. "Acathians may have once been related to humans, but for countless generations they have been bred for fighting, either in armies or for gladiators. Very tough, very strong, and very powerful, but as you can see, they can be rather difficult too. Kryl is a hard worker and a very reliable man to have at your back, but he's as stubborn as a nezmir."

Before I could ask my next question, Sandala laughed lightly and said, "Sorry, a nezmir is a giant lizard used to pull wagons and caravans. Very unreliable though, it's not uncommon for them to eat their handlers."

I nodded my thanks to her, then shook my head at all the new information. I finished off my first waterskin and laid my head back down.

"Don't worry about Kryl, he just doesn't like changes much. He's happiest when he has some hard work set out for him and nothing to slow him down." Brina said, smiling at me again and trying to make me feel at ease.

I nodded again, to caught up in my own thoughts to appreciate her good intentions. I glanced at the giant and said, "Alright, then what are you?"

"Arktan," The giant said, pointing with his thumb towards his chest. "I am Faradwim."

I nodded. Of course he was, it made perfect sense. I stared up at the night sky, wondering if one of the tiny dots above me was Halador and how I would ever get back there.

The silk crawler was cooked fully soon. I was hesitant to try it, but I had to admit that it tasted pretty good. The meat was rather juicy, which made my mouth water more. I was well on the road to recover after my second helping of it. By the time we were done with it, I was ready to sleep some more. I still had so many questions, but my body demanded that I follow its orders first.

I never saw Kryl come back to the camp and stare long and hard at me. I never heard the four of them have a conversation about including me in their group, or at least Sandala and Brina arguing with Kryl about including me while Arktan just sat quietly and listened unless someone specifically addressed him. I had no idea of the decision they reached until I awoke the next morning to Brina's gentle touch on my shoulder.

Chapter 3

More shocks kept coming my way. First of all was our method of transportation. I rode with Brina in a large covered wagon. What was unique about it was not the wagon, though it was an odd design, but the mounts that pulled it called rasteers. Four large four legged insects were harnessed to the wagon, each roughly four feet high and eight feet long.

Arktan and Kryl both had leashes attached to immense lizards that were 16 feet long. The lizard, called an larassu, had a thick turtle-like shell on its back and belly, and a scaly and tough skin elsewhere. A large carriage was on the back of the larassu, called a howdah. Both Arktan and Kryl rode on their own respective mounts.

The larger sun, Yorinn, was just rising as I saw this, and already the day was getting so warm the sweat was beading up on my skin. For the time being I did not mind, for that meant that I had enough water in my body to sweat. In spite of the growing heat, Sandala had no mount. She carried her equipment, including several full waterskins, on her person. When we moved out she easily matched the pace of the mounts with her long legged stride. She made running look so effortless and easy I wondered at just how incredible a world this Acathia was.

Several hours later, amidst incredible amounts of sweat, I finally spoke to Brina, who had been chattering away at me incessantly the entire time. "How big is this desert?" I asked her.

She turned and looked at me, an amused look on her face. "Well, the badlands we're in now we'll be out of in another hour or two I think, which is good because that means we'll be entering the scrub beyond them and our mounts can forage for food, instead of relying on the stores we brought. Those larassues eat a lot of food too! My rasteers aren't that bad, they don't eat that much."

I filed away the information about the mounts for later use. She had not explained to me what I really wanted to know. "No, I mean, when does the desert end? You know, grass? Trees? Water... that kind of stuff."

"Well, um, we're heading towards the ruins of the ancient city called Guthmoor, we're hoping to find metal treasures there. We should be there in two more days if everything goes right, is that what you mean?" Brina said to me. "I mean, there's an oasis a few days southeast of Guthmoor, there might be some grass and trees there. And water, definitely some water."

I shook my head, "Wait a minute, you've been chattering about the city-states run by cruel tyrants, how slavery is commonplace, how Sandala is the descendent countless generations removed from some hero of her people named Tarolla, and how supposedly the last time visitors came from another world they came from the skies and it is only a legend spoken by the ancients. But you can't tell me when summer will end or how big this desert is?"

"What's summer?" Brina asked, glancing at me while she was busy guiding the rasteers. "It's always like this here. Always hot and dry. I have heard stories of great forests far to the north and the south and supposedly there is water aplenty there. But between you and me, I don't believe it. Just like all the rumored lost cities of gold and steel. But if you're from another world, then maybe those aren't rumors either!"

I had explained to Brina that magic had brought me here. A ruined wizards spell. I had not fallen from the sky as the mysterious legends she recounted. Apparently great ships had come from the sky, bearing her ancestors. There had been great battles and an eventual peace. She was kind of vague about it all, but I suspect that these legends were vague as well. Thousands of years is a considerable amount of time to keep a story straight, after all.

Brina paused a minute, considering something. I waited patiently for her to continue before I digested all of what she had told me. Finally she said to me in a tone that sounded like she was confiding a great secret to me, "My saber is metal! My father passed it on to me. Kryl has all those metal weapons too. He says he won his freedom in Borik as a gladiator, and continued to fight and won those weapons. Arktan has that steel two handed sword at his side too, but hit battle axe is just obsidian edged. And Sandala, she has a steel hand and a half sword that she once told me she got from her tribe before she left it. She was pretty drunk when she told me though, so she might have made it up. She uses it and that obsidian edged longsword, which looks more like a weapon made by elves to me."

"What about you?" Brina asked, suddenly eyeing my weapons with curiosity, not envy, "Do you have steel and metals where you came from?"

I had to laugh then, but I tried not to do so condescendingly. "Aye, we have metals aplenty." To show her I drew my shortsword and dagger, which reflected the sunlight from outside off their magically sharp blades. I also pulled my two throwing daggers out for her to see, surprising her I think because she did not know I had them hidden inside the cuffs of my sleeves. I also showed her my ring, though I did not take it off because I was afraid I might lose something so small easily, and it was very valuable to me as it afforded me magical protection. Finally I decided if metal was as rare as she made it sound, I might be a very wealthy woman. I opened the pouch at my side and let her look in it. I had 100 gold pieces in it, a small fortune on Halador, and apparently a vast treasure on Acathia, by the look of her eyes.

"Is that real gold?" She asked, shocked to see it. I nodded and her eyes grew somehow bigger. "You're rich! All that gold and steel, you could probably buy enough men to take over a city!"

I chuckled at that, and took care of my gear before asking, "I have several rare gems and jewels too, are those worth anything here?"

Brina laughed lightly, "Yes, they are, but depending on what you have, you're gold may be worth more. There's enough gold in your pouch to let you live the rest of your life in pampered comfort."

I opened another pouch and showed her the gems and jewels within it. A small part of me enjoyed showing off my apparent wealth, though another part marked her well and I knew if any of it was missing who I would confront first. My pouch had several agates in it, a few aquamarines, some black pearls, 2 opals, and my most valuable gems were 2 sapphires worth 5,000 gold each on Halador.

"Oh wow, that is incredible!" Brina said after she remembered to close her mouth at my pearls. She had never seen there like before. "I never thought I'd see that much wealth in one place!"

I chuckled and took care of it. Brina seemed lost in thought as she realized all that I had and how much it was worth on Acathia. I let myself reflect on the things she had told me then, and began to wonder if I would ever get used to the incredible heat of what appeared to be my new home. I was not even out in the sun and it was this hot, I dreaded getting out of her wagon.

"How do you survive this heat?" I asked after several long minutes had passed and I was finally growing tired of the sweat running down the valley between my breasts.

"You'll get used to it, really," Brina said, amused at my discomfort. "You're wearing a lot of clothes too, and dark colors, that's rare and, well, kind of stupid. Good gear at night I guess, but during the day, the darker your clothing, the hotter it is."

I nodded and considered my appearance. Tanned nicely from my time spent on ships, both pirate and merchant, I nevertheless wore a full suit of toughened leather armor, from my grieves to my tunic and long sleeves. And of course, it was a very dark brown in color, given to it from the time spent in boiling vats of oil that toughen and harden the armor. Further, my black boots came nearly to my knee, and the cloak that hung from my shoulders was made of black fur from a rare arctic beast as well.

I eyed Brina's outfit, the same that she had worn the day before, and considered my options. In my belongings I had a softer and lower pair of black boots called footpads boots, obviously not much of an improvement. I also had my black silk bodysuit I would often use for missions of stealth at night which was again, not an option.

"Look, I'm a few inches taller then you, but not too much, our bodies look pretty much the same, I have a bunch of spare clothes in that sack over there," Brina said to me after noticing my troubled look. I glanced at the bag she pointed to and after a moment of thought, walked over to it. I rummaged through it, examining the different things she had to offer. "Pick whatever you want, when we get back to Neewon, or wherever we end up, you can buy some clothes there, you sure can afford them! I have lots of clothes myself, I have a tendency to get myself into all sorts of different things."

I nodded at that, noticing she had all manner of clothing, from simple peasant clothing to rags I remembered well from my childhood to courtly dresses. Nothing as elaborate as what I had seen on Halador, but I attributed that to the inescapable heat of the world. I glanced at Brina again and remembered Sandala, both had outfits so revealing that in Halador they would be shunned for indecency in many places. Here I could appreciate the simplicity of it though, for I was near to passing out from the heat.

I stripped off my clothing quickly, marveling at how damp it was from my sweat. Brina glanced back at me and I saw her eyes take in my body. At first she simply admired my form, something I noted but did not pay much attention to, then I heard her gasp slightly. "What happened to you? Were you a slave on your world?"

Ah, that explained it, she had glimpsed past the magic and seen my scars. She had the ability to look beyond the forest to see the trees within it that few people possessed. I admired Brina's ability to focus, and reconsidered her admiration of my body from lust to simple curiosity and respect.

"A slave of sorts, perhaps, but I did not think it so. Most of these are from the ungentle hands of men who abused me when I was younger." I said, leaving my past professions out of it.

"Ah," Brina said, thinking she understood me. I let her believe as she wanted to, for I did not wish to discuss my past with her without knowing her better. "Be careful to cover yourself when you leave the wagon, you are clearly not from Acathia, your skin is pale and the sun will burn you quickly."

I had always considered myself fairly well tanned, especially of late, but when I considered the skin I normally covered in comparison to the dark tan on Brina's body, I realized that she was right. I nodded to her and smiled, then proceeded to don some new clothing. I slipped on a halter top made of some type of cloth similar to cotton. It hung loosely on me, for while Brina was taller then me, she was also slightly skinnier. However, her breasts were larger then mine and that was what made the halter top loose. I did not mind, for it let the air flow between my breasts better, and perhaps any opponent I had would make the mistake of becoming distracted by my cleavage.

I went without boots or sandals, for mine were too large and hot, and she had nothing to spare. I eyed mine carefully, and decided that I could modify mine with a dagger and some needle and thread, which I had in my pack. I kept my belt with my weapons and pouches, refastening that about my waist. To add to it, I slipped on a loin cloth that reminded me of the outfit of a sultan's harem girl. I briefly considered doing a bit of a belly dance, then realized I was behaving oddly. I took a drink of water and moved to rejoin Brina.

"Those look good on you," she said when I had moved back to sit near her at the front of the wagon. I glanced at myself and smiled. Having my background, I had never been concerned with modesty. Indeed, I often used it, or a lack of it, to my advantage. Still, I felt oddly exposed on this strange new world, but given the alternative, I decided it would have to do.

Later that day, during which I passed the time by learning of Acathia from Brina or alternatively trying to doze in the dry heat, Sandala led us to a small oasis. The oasis seemed to mark the end of the badlands and the beginning of the scrub Brina had told me about. As we moved to leave the wagon, Brina held out a light brown cape to me and said, "Put this on, it will keep your skin from burning as quickly." I noted that she had said, 'as quickly'. I smiled grimly. In the days ahead, I knew I was in for some serious sunburns.

The water was hot and tasted of dirt, but I drank of it deeply. We refilled our waterskins and Arktan pulled a large barrel out of his howdah and also filled it. I guessed it to hold well over 100 gallons of water, and was amazed to see him sling a rope over it and his howdah then pull on the rope and lift it back into the howdah. It must have weighed over 900 pounds, and regardless of the rudimentary winch and pulley he had designed, to lift that much weight made me reassess how strong the faradwim must be. The mounts were led to the oasis next, which had begun to show signs of not being bottomless after we were finished with it. By the time the rasteers and the larassues were finished, the oasis was nothing but some muddy water less then an inch thick.

I eyed the oasis thoughtfully, realizing that if it could be drained so easily, then Acathia must truly be a world plagued by perpetual drought. The scraggly trees surrounding the hole provided some measure of shade, but already my face, arms, and lower legs were burning with the heat of the indirect sunlight. Overhead the smaller sun burned an angry red, instead of the warm and gentle whitish-yellow of the larger sun that I was accustomed to.

"The oasis will refill in a day or so," Sandala said, coming next to me and noticing my stare was directed at the muddy hole in the ground.

I started, realizing I was not adapting as quickly as I would like to. I was very vulnerable then, and it was good fortune for me that I found people with no wish to do me any harm. "That's good," I said, letting her think that was my concern. "I am still trying to learn about this world. This is a harsh lesson on how truly dry it is here, and how valuable water is."