In the Fields

It turned out that Trick had arrived at the lumi fields of Harbek Valley, which was the name of a town as well as a valley. That fact was the most normal thing he learned from the woman named Sari. If the endless grasslands, random stone crevasses and flying strings of eyeballs didn't clue him in she would have made him certain he wasn't in the Midwest anymore.

Six foot tall blonde women weren't exactly common anywhere but the way Sari was dressed was what really struck him as strange. She wore a blue hairband with a thin blue veil that covered her face attached to it. He could make out the shape of her face through it but most of the details were lost. That alone was not a fashion choice that would fly in Cincinnati, much less the Heartland, but that wasn't Sari's only unusual choice in clothes.

Her dress was a bit of a monstrosity. A wide strap covered her right shoulder and attached to the rest of the dress by a huge button or snap and an identical fastener cinched in the waist of her pleated skirt. Strange half sleeves of fabric wrapped her upper arms without really attaching to anything.

The only familiar articles of clothing she wore were her belt and the delicate slip of cloth protecting her hand from the thin chains connecting her bracelet and rings. That was only because they were so similar to the ones he'd found in the hexagon complex. From the way she studied him in silence - or at least, he assumed she was studying him behind that veil - she found him just as strange.

He decided to keep her talking, rather than wondering why he looked so strange. He jerked a thumb in the direction of the creature he'd just killed. "That thing's a starsight, right? Do you see a lot of them around here?”

"It depends.” Sari seemed to remember she had been doing something before he arrived and grabbed a disk of heavy looking ceramic off the ground and started shoving it over a pit. "We see them more during zenith and opposition but they're rarer the rest of the time.”

That didn't really tell him much. He grabbed one side of the lid, which was lighter than it looked, and started helping drag it into place, getting a glance at what was inside in the process. It looked a bit like the inside of a geode. It was a six foot deep pit full of rough crystals of all shapes. A net of delicate chain links covered the inside and a few dozen cut, polished crystals like those in his belt were stuck in said net. All the crystals glowed with a dusky gray luster. "Are there any more starsight in the area?”

"I don't know, and I don't plan to stay here and find out. We need to get back to Harbek as soon as possible, it's the brightest thing on the surface here and we're surrounded by red sand.” She dogged three latches around the perimeter of the lid down and dusted her hands off. "Thanks.”

Her gratitude was the only thing he understood out of what she said but it was obvious Sari was in a hurry and he didn’t think she’d take the time to explain. “Then you better get going.”

She hesitated when he walked to the wall of the canyon and started testing his weight on some of the strange vines growing there. “What are you doing?”

“This might sound really strange but I think I have to fight the starsight.” Now that he said it out loud Trick realized it sounded more than strange. It sounded insane. “I’m trying to figure out what happened to a friend of mine and the… the voice I heard told me to fight the starsight. I think it was a computer. Do you know what a computer is?”

“I’ve never heard the word before.” For a long moment Sari just stood there and Trick began to find her veil more and more disturbing. He wasn’t used to not setting someone’s expression. “Are you not from the seventh sphere, Patrick Gallagher?”

“Just Patrick is fine. Or even Trick, if you want.” As he said it, a sketch of the solar system with no dots for planets appeared in his mind. This sure didn’t look like Neptune. So whatever he’d looked at might have been something else entirely. “And no, I’m not from here. I got sent here somehow but I never knew this place was here. I think my friend got sent somewhere else and I’m hoping I can find some clue how to get to him. Do you have any idea how I might do that?”

Sari shook her head, the first visible hint to her thoughts since they’d met. “No, I don’t. Our armillamancers might but I don’t know much of their craft. Do you really think you can kill more starsight if you find them?”

Trick turned away from the canyon wall and patted the sword he’d found, wondering how much he should say about it. There might be some value in pretending it was something he’d brought from Earth. On the other hand, it had some kind of groves or sockets in the hilt for the rings on the glove and she wore one of those, too. If he made it sound like it was something he understood then any questions he asked about the gloves or crystals were going to give away the game. So he settled on being as vague as possible. “So long as this thing keeps working I should be able to deal with them.”

“Then you should come back to Harbek.” Sari picked up a basket and strange staff from the ground beside the pit. The staff had a red crystal slotted in one end and a blue one in the other. The blue was held in a solid frame, the red extended from a socket at the end and was framed by two flanges, looking like a winged spear. Sari used the staff to gesture off to the side. “Sooner or later any starsight that survived their fall will find their way there.”

“Well, if you’re inviting me…” He paused to consider whether he really wanted to wander into a strange town with the woman who wouldn’t let him see her face.

Before Trick could make up his mind a new voice told him, “She’s not.”