Chapter 28 The Secrets of the Abandoned House

“It’s a cursed place, I warn you. Plus the weather is going to get worse. My flyer is not meant to be operated during high winds.” Asmadis lands his craft among the hills that look just like the ones we left behind, except these are much, much smaller. Some are barely twice my height.

We get out to an eerie silence. The hills at the city were alive with sounds and motion, these are empty and dead. The soil under my shoes is muddy. I look down and find my disheveled reflection in a puddle of what must be acid.

The surroundings are depressing, but I don’t feel that they are threatening. Maybe I’m just too eager to go get the medicine. Besides, the flyer is talking to me. Actually, to my parasite. It had interfaced with me all by itself. The machine is friendly and cuddly, if at all possible. He is sorry to see me go. I tell him I’ll be back.

“The unthinkable happened here. It had been happening for a while, but this settlement was quite isolated. We tried to deal with the issue ourselves, and we failed.” The moody kriber leads us into the woods. He does not say anything else.

“Where are we going, anyway?” I ask after a while, smelling the air. It feels different.

“Kallitris used to have a home here. He is a chemist, among other things. There is a laboratory in that house of his. He used to work with Leot on curing deceases of carbon-based life forms. That was before they broke up. Then he abandoned his base here and all their projects.” Asmadis answers.

He is visibly disturbed. He looks around with fear in his eyes, and his wings flap up and down every now and then as if he is trying to chase away the darkness.

Something up ahead of us keeps on changing shape. I see the image transmitted by my biosonar. It looks almost like something is sending a visual image protruding from some surface. I get very quiet watching this thing.

The damp soil under our feet goes squish-squash. The image changes again. I don’t know if it is dangerous, but I get nervous. Maybe we’re past nervous and it’s time to panic and run. I can’t run. I just can’t.

I need to see what it is. I come closer and it is a tree with light-green bark. Not a very big tree at all, but it has a lot of foliage. What the heck? What did I just see?

Suddenly the leaves of this tree move and quickly create a symbol, made by certain leaves standing out, while others recessing. The view is spectacular and surrealistic.

I stagger away. Another symbol appears.

‘What’s this?” I ask Asmadis. My voice trembles.

“It’s an entity… How to explain…” Kriber touches the leaves and the symbol changes. “It’s an intelligent tree, so to speak. They are aware of us and are trying to communicate by what they’ve picked up from our patterns. The lifespan of these things is immeasurably long. They’ve been around when Kallitris lived here, so they picked up the intergalactic communication system he was using to talk to Leot.”

How weird. But Asmadis does not let me linger. He urges me ahead.

I take one more look at the tree and freeze in my tracks. It’s foliage shows the image of what resembles a big squid of twenty distinct tentacles.

“Come on, Tensartis!” Kriber turns around to see why I’m not moving fast enough.

The image vanishes. What was it? Can it be that the tree just showed me what it saw before? Was it Leot? No, I’m just crazy.

We continue into the forest, until there is a huge structure ahead of us. It looks like a dome with tall roof coming together in the shape of an “A”.

I know it is Kallitris’s house. I can feel it. There is a dark opening. I walk inside without a second thought. Suddenly I’m overwhelmed by the memories of Kallitris. His strong and dynamic nature, his sweet kisses. His spirit is still here.

“Please be advised that it is very unsafe. We never did figure out what was happening. Look for what you need, and let’s get out.” Asmadis gives me a glance of his dark eyes.

I can see everything, but it’s hard do look for a certain small vial or solution with just biosonar. I hope for the light.

And the light is on, just like that. The view is amazing. The ceiling of the place is arched and the end of it is barely seen somewhere up there, just like on sheirer’s spaceship, enough room for him and his wings. We’re in the room full of tables and shelves, filled with all kinds of stuff. How will I never find what I need?

“You must have a connection to this. The system recognized you and answered your thought process.” Asmadis notes, surprised.

“Because this place was built by Leot, not Kallitris. The system recognized me as Leot.” I’m shocked at this revelation, as a stream of old messages and pictures flood my mind, downloaded by the house itself.

The tree was right. It did see Leot, and remembered it.

Mesmerized, I look at things on the tall tables, stuff that belonged to Kallitris, and feel lonely and incomplete without him. They were here together – my creator and my lover. Fascinating, strange, hard to imagine. But I need to concentrate. What am I looking for?

“Immaul, I need you!”

“Well, I’ll have to take a wild guess. Simply put, I believe I know what’s wrong with Relemill. I think I know what we need.” Immaul appears and hovers over the tables, looking at boxes, tubes and vials.

“I can’t take this anymore!” Asmadis screams all of a sudden and darts out of the house.

“What happened to him?!” I shake my head in disbelief.

“He is scared.” Immaul continues to look through the stuff. “He never told you what happened. A while ago these woods were inhabited by kribers. Asmadis and his partner lived in this settlement. But strange things took place. The inhabitants started disappearing without a trace.”

I feel chills running down my spine. But I do not let the fear get to me. We must complete the mission. Also, somehow I know about this story. But I let Immaul finish.

“One time Asmadis, young then, went to the forest with his partner. They were walking on a path, and his partner vanished. All Asmadis saw was a shadow in the mist. That was it. Soon after that the inhabitants were offered to be relocated. Everyone moved. The end of story. The terrible loss of his partner you read from his mind was this. He did not die during the war. He vanished in this forest.”

“His body was never found.” Kriber, apparently, gets a hold of himself, returns, and stands on the doorstep, looking at me.

I come and hug him. It’s not easy considering his wings.

“So much suffering. Now I know why you did not want to go here!”

His eyes, the vortexes of darkness, are now filled with sadness. He embraces me tenderly and I can feel his love for me as the legend of this land. The legend for accomplishments I have no memory of. So many mysteries. So little time.

“I know what pain of losing a loved one is like. I had to help you. But it meant going to where the fear still lingers, and where my husband died.”

“Your husband did not die.” I say and can’t believe I said it.
“What?” Asmadis brings me closer to himself as if he wants to see what I see.

“I found the medicine! The weather is really changing, you guys. We better go! Get this!” Immaul points at a blue glass bottle filled with black solution.

“How long has this been sitting here?” I take it and frown in disgust, looking at the solution with a lot of sediment. Big fuzzy pieces of sediment got disturbed and float around inside.

“Don’t worry about it. Salix can synthesize a new solution. All he needs is the initial formula.”

I put the bottle into my pocket, grab Asmadis by his hand and we run to the flyer as fast as we can. The wind picks up, and a couple of lightnings light up the starry sky. Those are big, fierce, and they come seemingly from nowhere.

By the time we run out of the enchanted forest, the wind is so strong we can barely stand on our feet. Another stealth lightning pierces the sky. No thunder follows. Asmadis jumps into his flyer, and I do the same. He is horrified.

“There is no way we can make it, Tensartis.” He whispers, hitting buttons on the dashboard. It responds with some flashing lights.

“Why can’t we just wait out the storm?” I watch the sky intently just to see where the lightnings are coming from and why are they so silent.

“I saw a figure in the mist. Just like the one that took my husband. We tempted the cursed lands long enough.”