Word Count: 1,671
Daily Reward: Sleep
illustration by Shi
Verdict:
Dear Kataryna, why did you just allow a fossa – the natural predator of a lemur – to appoint herself your bodyguard, and escort you out, via a magick portal, to a location 50 miles from the university? A location where a. the air is quite probably poisonous, b. there are giant carnivorous cockroaches that have a taste for Furrae flesh and c. there is no-one to rescue you should something happen. Except Tawny, and did I mention that Tawny is a fossa, and thus the natural predator of a lemur? How kraaking naive can you get?
We must also not forget that Tawny was appointed in her position as Kataryna’s bodyguard by Druid Maeve, Daniel’s older sister who totally does not approve of their (Kataryna and Daniel’s) liaison.
Crap, I think Kataryna is falling into the “too stupid to be a heroine” category. Good thing this is not a book I ever intend to publish!
Perhaps they need to bring someone else along too. Suggestions? Maybe the archeologist shouldn’t be Tawny, maybe I should appoint some sort of neutral professor. Possibly Bjornston?
Also, hard to remain focused today as I decided to try and work out which continent Furritasia actually is. Toyed with the idea of America, but the problem is I would then have no justification for having a Scottish wolf and I’ve already spoken of the Highlands. Decided the United Kingdom would be better – but as it’s separated from Europe by water, that could likewise be inconvenient. So got into looking up continent drift. Found Doggerland again (learned about that in QI last week) and discovered that we’re heading towards (in like 250 million years) a super-continent, where all the continents have drifted together into a great amorphous blob. Am not sure when (if?) the UK is ever likely to reconnect with mainland Europe, and climate change is more likely to rise waters, not create new land bridges, but might take some creative liberties. About 2/3s of Furritasia is Deadlands, caused by the Great War of the Ancients. Daniel’s from the North, and Kataryna’s name is French, and she’s from “the rainforest district of Eriwyn” but that could be anywhere; her kin might originate from Madagascar, but the Furrae were genetically created and ring-tailed lemur are common enough in zoos all across the world.
Extract (or why we don’t regular travel from A to B using magick portals):
“Stand here.” Tawny grasped Kataryna by the arms and guided her into the centre of the chamber, placing her feet between two weaves on the floor. She stood opposite her, one hand still grabbing her shoulder. With the other, she rose her blackemarr rod, reached up and slashed a rune in the ceiling above them.
The runic-Weave moved, displacing themselves from the ceiling and the walls, moving closer, closer to surround the two girls. Circling spirals, faster and faster and faster. Kataryna felt her stomach clench and nausea swelled, rising up into her throat. She gagged. Closed her eyes. But eyelids did nothing to hide the Weave. Spinning faster and faster, it became a blur of light. Then the world dropped out from beneath her, and she was plummeting. Falling. She could not scream, could not move. Her feet hit the ground first, the impact jarring up through her so hard and fast that her knees turned to porridge and she collapsed, gagging, to the coarse, red sand beneath her.
Sand? She blinked, bleary, wiping vomit — mostly just liquid thankfully, since she’d not eaten breakfast — to find herself staring across at a crumpled, broken metal, skeleton, arching over the gaping maw of a canyon. Nearby rose the domed shell of a jättemörtko, grinding its way across the coral-fungus that coated everything, glistening black-green. Everything, that was, except the immediate area, which had been cleared back, just outside the limits of a low circular stone wall. Every stone shimmered with runes.
“Welcome to the outskirts of Ef-I,” Tawny declared. “One of the remnants of the Ancients civilisation.” She looked disappointingly unaffected by the sudden change of environment. She definitely hadn’t thrown up. Kataryna finally trusted her stomach enough for her to stand, although her legs still felt weak.
“So that’s a Displacement Portal,” she stated.