The White River Road

Astra closed her eyes, and had a daydream. She felt as if she were looking down from a great height, but not standing on solid ground. She saw two great rivers that cut into a forested plateau, and then branched into creeks that fed a great, otherwise dry, grassy plain. Beyond the great rivers and the plateau was a jumble of mountain peaks, little tarns (glacial lakes) at the top of hanging valleys, and alpine meadows. Toward the north of the range was a chain of lakes.

She felt a constant wind blowing against her scales, and heard the wind blowing in her ears. She had a feeling of being absolutely alone, even though she was presently in a room with four others. The mountains of this range were pink or red, unlike those of the Shreken, which were grey or brown. With her keen eyesight, she felt herself looking more closely at the river valley. She thought that she could see a road. So the place was not quite a wilderness! Yes, she could see it, wending down one of the valleys. She saw a few little creatures doing something on the road. She recognized them as Gliders. They were a little stouter than Checkers, and had a huge cart with a bunch of crushed rock, pulled by eight animals that appeared to be donkeys. At first she thought to herself, "These little creatures are going not to be able to do anything with that rock, especially with those frail-looking wings." It appeared that there were some clever Gliders that had found a way around that. This group had a little device with a couple of levers. Pulling on one opened a slot at the bottom of the junction between the cart floor and back wall, that would drop some gravel on the trail. A Glider would pull another lever, and a little slurry came squirting out of the cart. Finally, some of the donkeys were directed by one of the Gliders to trample on the spot in the road.

"What am I seeing?" thought Astra. "It seems to be real, but it cannot be." The Gliders had finished their work and proceeded down the valley, apparently oblivious to her. She could not quite understand what they were saying, but there were quite animated. Her eyes started to go up the valley. The road was of packed gravel, and was kept in much better condition than any of the roads that she had seen in the Ryngaerd. The creatures that she was seeing were not altogether primative, then. There was not a lot of traffic on the roads, though. Her eyes followed a pair of Gliders riding donkeys that carried little bags of some sort. "Why weren't they flying?" After observing the pair for a bit, she thought, "Ah. The weight of the bags is too heavy for them to carry and stay aloft. And the rivers near here are not deep enough to float a boat, or may be too turbulent.

She followed the road, and saw a party of Gliders hunting deer. It appeared that their technique was to use a group of flyers to distract a deer, separate it from the herd, and run it down until it was tired, while another group had the weapons, and would close in and strike the spent deer. It was not easy work, and the deer were fast, and seemed to have a lot of energy. Once the hunting group had slain a deer, they gathered around it, said a few things that Astra could not understand, and then, as a group, carved the deer on the spot and took the remains back to a little city in a meadow.

Astra's attention wandered, and then she noticed what appeared to be a group of buildings. They were unremarkable. They were all stone or baked mud, and of one or two levels. The city was not that big - it had perhaps one or two thousand souls, noted Astra.

She tried to get closer. There were a number of Gliders chatting. It appeared that they were speaking in a varient of the Common language. Astra said aloud, "I can hear voices in my mind, dozens or even hundreds of voices."

1. Then the vision ended. The other four were staring at her.
2. The vision continued.

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