Unsurprisingly, the gapwas filled with an illusory wall and he was able to pass through itand slither up to the cottage. No alarms rang, and no viciousdefenders came running towards him, but he did feel a touch ofguilt, after all Quab had always been friendly and supportive. Hereally felt like a snake for the first time. Somehow, sneaking intoa sanctuary to steal information made him feel unclean. Heslithered up onto Quab’s veranda and one of the parrots on theveranda railing began screaming.
‘Snake! Arrrrk!Danger!’
Aquitain the snakeignored the parrot and slithered up a chair next to one of thewindow holes, then through the window into the darkness of theroom. He shape changed to his human form and quickly searchedaround for any written material that might contain a teleportmarker location. He found a map of the continent hidden on the backof a wall hanging, and it had much more detail on it than the onehe had seen in the library. It also had crosses, and commentswritten in some language that Aquitain didn’t recognise. Hememorized its image.
He used his power todetect magic and saw the triangles with and without dashes andnumbers as he had seen before. There were also two teleport markerlocations, one in an unknown language and one with the wordSnowbelle. He quickly memorised the locations, returned the wallhanging to its original position, changed back to his snake formand slithered out the way he had entered. Only when he was outsideof the sanctuary did he feel normal again.
Rather than waste theessence in his source on remaining a snake, he decided to check outthe area to the north in his body shell. The druid woman would beable to spot him more quickly and he could try and convince her toteach him to fly while he was fresh. So he changed back to hisLogicon form, occupied his body shell, and set off along thestream, following a rough path that headed to the northeast.
The jungle wasn’t thethick overgrown tangle that he had seen at the cairn where he hadarrived, but appeared more open. He had the distinct feeling thatit had been cleared. The massive trees towered into the sky forminga shady canopy overhead like a huge collection of chaotic shreddedgreen umbrellas, with glints and flashes of sunlight stealingthrough; but the impenetrable layer of small bushes and tangledvines was missing. He could imagine Quab doing this to make thetownspeople a little more at ease in travelling down the pathway.He also had a feeling that to have gone to this much trouble theremust be something up ahead to make the trek worthwhile.
After a quarter of anhour trudging along the undulating path the overhead canopy gaveway at the base of a large sand hill. The path wound up the hillthrough clumps of olive green spiky plants that looked as if theywere prepared to defend their small patch of territory to thedeath. Small lizards with metallic bronze heads scampered away ashe toiled, slipping and sliding up the path. He fell forward ontohis face twice and almost turned back. Logicon body shells were notmade to struggle through sand.
As he reached thesummit of the sand hill he was awestruck by the incredible beautyof the panorama before him. He was the sole person on a goldensandy beach that stretched off into the distance to the left andround to a small rocky outcropping to the right, that blocked offany view of the town. The stream flowed around the base of the sandhill to the left finding an exit to the sea two hundred paces fromhis present vantage point. In the absence of any breeze, the wavesgently lapped the shoreline as squat sun-bleached sea birds withlong legs and crooked beaks carefully patrolled the foamy edge ofthe brine, seeking a morsel for breakfast.
He couldn’t wait to seethe sight through his newman eyes, so slithered out of his bodyshell and shape changed to his newman form. The sight was even morebeautiful. This was only the second time he had seen the sea and abeach, and to have to share it with nobody else gave it a sacredfeeling that seemed even to penetrate his Logicon lack of emotion.In fact, he sat and contemplated the issue of Logicon emotions.
The one he felt at themoment was exhilaration at having witnessed the virgin beauty ofnature. Logicons shouldn’t have this type of feeling. It was evenmore accentuated by the better vision of his human body shape.Perhaps the twenty-two years of living in his own body had createdmental images of what constituted beauty, that surfaced regardlessof the Logicon nature of his current physical existence. Perhaps …it was simply too beautiful to sit analysing the situation like aLogicon. He wanted to feel it.
He leapt up andsprinted to the waterline through sand that squeaked in protest athaving been trodden on, jumped the limp brown seaweed clumps from arecent storm, splashed through the foam as a small wave broke athis knee, and dived into the crisp freshness of the crystal clearwater. He tasted its raw saltiness like a vintage wine, swishing itaround in his mouth, then surfacing, spat it out in a curvingspray.
He splashed around likea child for a moment or two, then rolled over and floated on hisback, revelling in the sensation, the freedom, the isolation. Ifthe people of Panmagica knew of this place they’d be here indroves, he thought. Looking above he saw a sea eagle come flyingover the beach and along the water line a hundred paces up. That’swhat he wanted to do next, to have the freedom of an eagle.Suddenly it dropped straight down nearby, hitting the water a fewpaces behind him.
He turned over andstood up in the waist deep water to see what the eagle was after,only to see a
