‘Let’s check it out first.’ Kel remembered the surprise they all had from the volcanic pool on the mainland, and didn’t want a repeat of that experience.
They probed the nooks and crannies around them with the staves, but nothing unpleasant appeared, and the rest of the pool looked clear right down to the bottom.
‘Rinse the water bags out well, or the water will lose it’s sweetness before long.’ Moss called out, scooping water greedily into his mouth from cupped hands.
Having slaked their not inconsiderable thirst, and filled the water bags, Jay set about looking for an enclosed section of the pool in which she could safely bathe.
‘What are you looking for?’ asked Moss, always keen to know what was going on.
‘I want to wash the stickiness from me.’ she replied.
It was only then that Moss and Kel realized that they too were feeling unclean.
‘I think it must be something from the splashes we got from the Great Water we crossed, as it tastes the same when I lick my arm.’ Kel suggested, making a face which showed his disgust at the taste.
‘This looks a good place.’ Jay’s faint voice echoed up from between the huge blocks, and the other two scrambled in what they thought was the correct direction to see what she had found.
In one corner of the huge cistern, some blocks had fallen to form an enclosed section of water, and in it was a delighted Jay, splashing about and sending a silver shower of water droplets high into the air as she cavorted about.
‘This very good.’ she called joyfully, and turned to splash Moss and Kel as they too entered the bathing pool.
Having removed the encrusted salt from the fine hair of their bodies, the trio returned to the grass covered ground below the old cistern to run about and dry themselves off, having discarded their carry belts and feeling free from stress and worry for the first time since beginning their long journey.
When finally exhausted, they lay down on the soft grass of the plain to soak up the warm radiance from the Greater Sun, their bodies having been chilled due to the evaporation of the water.
‘I think the giants had made the water pool for their own use,’ said a slightly drowsy Moss, ‘because some of the big stones had flat smooth surfaces, and they don’t come about naturally. There may be other remains here, left over from the earlier time, and I think we should look for them as they may tell us a little more about the giants.’
Jay agreed, adding that they may also find some things which might come in useful, and anyway, finding new things was good fun. But Kel stated that he was quite happy to lounge around for a while, and enjoy the new freedom they had found.
That evening when fruit gathering, another of Jay’s talents became apparent when she stopped Kel from eating what he though was a fruit similar to those he had known in the forest.
‘Not good, make you sick.’ she said, taking it away from him and throwing it as far away as she could.
‘How do you know that?’ he asked.
‘I always know what good to eat, you not know that?’
He shook his head, and Jay became their food selector by default and was to save their lives many times over.
A plentiful supply of fruit, berries and pods of various sizes and shapes, together with their water supply, satisfied their daily needs. So before long, they were looking for something exciting to do, as life was becoming a little tame after all they had shared together.
The tumbled concrete blocks of the water cistern had been gone over thoroughly and nothing other than it being the remains of a water storage unit was found, much to their disappointment.
Moss reckoned there should be the remains of the ‘Giant’s Hutts’ somewhere about, and eventually they found the outline of a building protruding from the surrounding ground, very much weather worn, but definitely of man’s construction.
‘The giants must have been very much bigger than us.’ commented Jay, the others nodded sagely.
‘There must be something left around here, apart from their hutts.’ Moss said, frustration sounding in his voice.
‘They made the steps in the tunnel we came up through. Oh! and there’s the other tunnel we didn’t explore when we came out onto the plain.’
‘I don’t fancy going down there again.’ Kel was quite adamant and Jay agreed with him.
Moss could see he wasn’t going to get the other two down into the cliff passageways just yet, but he would try again later.
‘Well, let’s explore the rest of this land, there must be something else for us to find.’
Setting out next day, Moss checked the Direction Pointer and found that it had swung around to point at the mountains.
‘I don’t understand this,’ he muttered, ‘when we were in the bot, it pointed off to one side of this land, and now it has changed to point over there.’ indicating the distant snow capped rocks.
‘Perhaps it thinks we should go there.’ offered Kel.
‘It can’t think!’ Moss exclaimed, ‘It’s only a piece of twig like stuff on a piece of floating wood. Anyway, Mec said it would always point in the same direction, and now it doesn’t, so we can’t trust it any more.’
‘Well, let’s go in that direction anyway, and if we find nothing of interest, we can come back and try another way.’
Kel was impatient to carry on, there was usually something to find.
They left the flatter area of the plateau, and the gradual climb up to the foot of the mountain range began. The going was quite good, but the grass was a little coarser here with a few rocks to circumnavigate, otherwise they made good progress.
‘It feels a lot colder up here, do you think we are going into the strange land of hard water which Mec told us about?’ asked Kel, but Moss didn’t really know either, and as he was so far up
