The Statue, the Globe, and the Storm

Fred taps the statue of the princess with the pommel of his sword, hoping that the yellowish glassy casing would crack, and the beautiful statue could be seen in its full glory. His heart sank as the block darkened, obscuring some of the detail of the statue. "I better not touch that," Fred thought. He hoped that he had not hurt the princess through some sort of enchantment. Fred slinked away from the niche with an indefinite feeling of guilt, and toward the exit with the two men carrying the globes. He noticed something bulging from one of the globes. Over some part of it, in an area that was unfamiliar to him, was the same smoky, glass-like substance!

The map is written in the old language, but Fred thinks that he could transliterate the city names under the yellowish glass. "Blueberry Patch, Seven Boar Valley, Lightning Pass, White River ... all odd names. Sixteen cities or villages in all. I wonder what people live there?"

Fount Redmarble was looking forward to a quiet day of patrol duty over the Patch. There were much harder ways to serve the Republic. This was the southwestern frontier city of the Red Dolomite League, and trouble between the thinking prey and the Gliders had broken out here in the past, but it had been quiet here for decades. Fount and other Gliders classified any sort of ground-based animal as "prey," even if they did not hunt them. The "thinking prey" was their word for the flightless men. Another hazard was the dragon. The dragon, when he made his appearances, usually came in from the direction of the White River airspace, though. Fount's duties tonight would be as they always were - scout for non-thinking prey, keep all prey away from the berries, and make weather observations. The thinking prey had been scarce this year. The appearance of the dragon last year probably did not hurt in that regard. He had mixed feelings about the dragon. He was a nuisance, but always seemed to do more harm to the prey than to civilized Gliders, which was a good thing.

It had been quiet until the moon had risen to about 20 degrees over the horizon. Fount then noticed some very dark clouds on the horizon, and a strong gust of wind from the west moving those clouds quicker than he had ever seen before. Red and white lightning danced between the clouds and struck the ground in the distance. "That storm moved in really quick. I need to report this right now, to give people in the Patch time to prepare. This looks like a nasty one - and completely out of season, too. Usually we get the storms an hour or two past noon around here, and they do not look anything like this."

Fount flew as fast as he could without risking exhaustion, but the storm was gaining on him, even though he was one of the speediest fliers in his group. He was almost out of breath when he landed at his group's headquarters, a non-descript two-story concrete building. He reported to the captain, tersely describing the strength and the peculiarity of the approaching storm. The captain made his decision quickly. Fount was not one to panic. The captain ordered the alert to be sounded; a weighty decision to make, but in this case it was definitely the right one. The violence and fury of the next hour was one that no Glider that lived through it would ever forget, and the timely sounding of the alert saved many lives.

The storm started with a steady wind from the northwest that quickly grew to gale force. The rain blew almost horizontally, driven by that wind. It was the thunder and lightning that everyone remembered, and was the main cause of what destruction occured. Red and white ribbons of lightning struck most of the high structures in the Patch, including the City Hall, the Silversmith's Guild, the Patrol headquarters, the school, and several of the most prominent homes. Eerie balls of light floated in the air. The fields to the west caught on fire and burned uncontrolably. Fount organized the Gliders out in the open, away from the endangered high ground, and led them to the shelter of the caves and cellars. One of the things that Fount remembered from that hour was an eight-year old Glider, staring in awe at the pyrotechnics, thoroughly enjoying the show, while his parents, both in the wingless state of the drop cycle and caring for their new baby, were shooing him into the cave, and not concealing fear as adult Gliders were trained to do. There were a lot of Gliders that showed fear that night, and Fount would always be proud that he kept on his duty face throughout that frightening hour.

Then suddenly, the storm abated. The lightning ceased. The fires in the fields died out. The wind abated, and the rain fell more gently. Nobody had ever seen anything like it before.

Many leagues to the west, a Glider maiden was handing a dragon a couple of silver coins. A knight was daydreaming in an ampitheater about scenes from ancient days.

A couple of hours later the rain stopped, the Glider maiden handed the dragon an obsidian arrowhead, and the knight tapped a block of a yellow glassy substance encasing a fine statue.

1. The era of Minestus had passed, and that of Astra had begun.
2. Proceeding directly with the plot, skipping the flashback to the history of Minestus and the RDL, Checkers' story and the Glider creation myth

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