Chapter 7: I
I was getting rather bored, actually, sitting against a log for about the eighth time today while the girls discussed which way to go. By “the girls” I mean, of course, Christine, Persia, Flora, and another Persia. Being lost is stressful for anyone. Being lost with a friend who has a multiple personality talent is…well. You can understand.
The only one not participating in the “discussion” was Ivy, who had decided right at the start that sitting on the log with me would be much more amusing. By my count she had already taken more than half of what was in my bag. I was all right with that; after all it was mostly shared food and other travel supplies. Less for me to carry. I grinned as I thought that.
“Hey, look at this,” she said, interrupting my thoughts, “Termite trails.” Nothing I hadn’t seen before. But the twisty paths in wood are interesting. More so if you aren’t lost.
I personally had an opinion about how to get at least back to civilization, if not actually finding the Avatars. But as usual, no one actually asked me. It’s my talent…even when I’m not trying I blend in to the background. And when I’m actively being invisible (contradiction, I know), then no one will know I’m there. In theory it’s quite useful, in practice…not so much.
Flora came over, one hand on her head, and I brightened up. Flora’s one of the few people who usually doesn’t just gloss over me. It’s gotten to the point where I can sort of rely on it, although at the beginning I wondered why she was able to do that. Thinking through this, I missed the beginning of what she said. “Hmm?”
“I said, doesn’t it feel like we’ve been sitting here for months?”
“Months?” I replied, “It’s only been a day since we left Coo Portino. I can’t even see how we could get this lost this fast.” Flora shrugged and I followed suit.
“I’m telling you, if we follow the sun we’ll at least find something!” I overheard Persia exclaim.
“And I say that the sun moves!” she replied in imitation of a man’s voice.
“Oh yeah.” Her own voice again.
“Oh, this is hopeless!” cried Christine. She came and collapsed onto the log on the other side of Ivy. “I wish I’d never come. I can’t do this!”
“Christine…” Persia turned, herself again. (I think.)
Flora said nothing, just gave a small sad-worried-encouraging smile.
“Don’t quit, Christine,” Ivy said unexpectedly, “Then I really have no reason for being here.”
“You stole her hairband!” said Persia mock-indignantly.
“Oh yeah.”
I was about to speak up, finally, and get us back somewhere more comfortable, when a loud bang echoed out of the log we were sitting on. Ivy leapt up like…well like someone had made a very loud noise behind her. Christine didn’t even seem to have the energy—at that moment I felt quite bad for her.
“Was that an E flat?” Flora wondered out loud.
The log rattled. I decided it would be prudent to get up as well, just as a brown-haired man about my age crawled and scrambled out of the end. For a moment we just stared at each other.
Until finally Christine broke the silence. “Fritz?”
It was Fritz. His usually calm, upbeat demeanor (and clothing) was gone. (Well, fortunately his clothing wasn’t gone, just torn. Probably from being in a log. But the calm and upbeat-ness of the clothes was gone.) “How did you get here?” I interrupted myself.
Fritz grimaced. Evidently the journey from wherever-he-was to the inside of a log was not a pleasant one. Eventually he spoke. “There was this guy in a cloak. Or maybe a girl…I couldn’t tell.” Persia giggled, and Fritz looked down at her, slightly annoyed. He continued. “Anyway, the guy asked us what we knew about the ‘One chosen’.”
“‘Us’?” inquired Flora.
“I was with Andrew and Rana,” Fritz answered, hurriedly. “Anyway, I said we didn’t know anything about it, and that seemed to get it a bit annoyed. And…then it pointed at us, and said it’d see us at the tournament. And it looked at Rana, and it said…‘You I’m not so sure…’ And then it zapped us.”
“It ‘zapped’ you?” asked Persia incredulously.
“Yeah, there was this big burst of light and then I was in the log.” Fritz nodded excitedly.
“And Rana?” asked Persia.
“I don’t know. Gone, I think. She may or may not be back.”
There was still one thing missing. “Wait, what about Andrew?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Fritz repeated. “But the whatever-it-was didn’t zap him. He’s probably still there.”
“I think we can count on him coming back,” Christine said, half-relieved, half-resigned.
“Oh, and I saw Gordon, Richard, and Kushal while I was coming here,” Fritz added off-handedly.
“Wait, I thought you said you flew in, or teleported, or whatever,” said Christine confused.
“Well, there’s an information speed limit, right?” Fritz began to explain, “Nothing can move faster than the speed of light, so I must have traveled some time. What’s to stop me from taking a look around on the way?”
The flash of light? I thought, but did not say anything. Actually I’d just read something about how lately they weren’t sure of the speed of light being absolute, but that probably wasn’t related anyway. Too low-level to be used for nukes.
Christine suddenly got an idea. “What if the person you saw was…an Avatar!”
Fritz shrugged. “Maybe,” was all he said.
But it was enough. Christine jumped up. “Which way were Kushal, Gordon, and Richard going?” Fritz pointed. “I’m gonna find the avatars if it’s the second-to-last thing I do. If it means going to the Tournament…” She set off again, then turned halfway. “Coming?”
“What I wonder is why it took so long for us to actually go anywhere…” I mused aloud as we all got ready to go.
“Literary convenience,” muttered Flora.