A change in scenery and a very divisive move!

On the third day the blizzard finally ceased and we could resume our journey south. Lily’s story gave me a lot to think about and the girls were mostly silent too. I think it’s a natural thing when you are together for a long time, isolated from other people and many social interactions. At a certain point it’s just not necessary to use any words to understand your comrade anymore. When you are skilled in telepathy maybe it gets even more useless…

The dynamics between us had shifted. I felt more part of the group now, and obviously Lily trusted me a great deal more than two days ago. The training has shifted too. No longer did I just do physical exercises, the girls let me do mental exercises now as well.

“It’s important for you to learn how to protect your mind as well as your body.” Reeza explained. “It’s not just magicians, telepaths and empaths, who may enter your mind, steal your secrets and confuse your thoughts. There are psychoactive plants as well who are able to deeply disturb your perception of reality just to protect themselves from your kin.”

I was bewildered.

“Psychoactive plants? How does that work? How do they look?”

The daimon sighed.

“Take the Sycarion for instance, a giant tree of temperate forests that loves to grow on fresh basalt and can withstand even active lava flows. Its roots break apart the bare rock and nurtures the growth of other plants and trees because its individuals usually hold a healthy distance of a few hundred feet from each other. Because of its high content of manærite the Sycarion generates an intense psychic field that drives untrained people literally crazy. Well, humans, beastkin and oruc mostly. On dwarves and giants their influence is much weaker and daimon and ælves are completely immune to its harmful effects.”

“So you do feel something?”

Reeza smiled.

“Oh yes! It’s like a refreshing bath for us, very healthy and even healing. People with trauma often go into Sycarion groves to cure their mental wounds and scars. But humans, beast people and oruc shall only enter after proper mental training, otherwise they leave a Sycarion forest only as a living vegetable, if at all.”

“So this psychic field can be even deadly?”

Reeza nodded vigorously.

“Oh yes! People with confused senses easily get lost in these forests and prolonged exposure can lead to permanent mental damage. When they go catatonic and nobody finds them they simply starve.”

Lovely! These trees should be well protected from the greed of logging companies!

After about four thousand miles of journey our surroundings finally started to change. Snow and ice were still the dominant features, but the terrain slowly rose again and on the horizon I could see the silhouettes of gentle ridges, volcano shields and domes. A volcanic plateau with individual mountains and cones lay before us, incredibly large and vast, like everything in Skîbæria it seems.

We needed all day to get near this new landscape, the girls now much more strained to push enough wind into the sail to move the ‘Ice Wallow’ upwards. I was busy soaking in the new impressions and had a hard time to hide certain numbers or words from Yára’s and/or Reeza’s attempts to mentally catch them as part of my new exercises.

Of course my physical training continued nevertheless! Still I had to leave the 'Ice Wallow' together with Lily in my Munchie and try to keep up with it - again with maximum effort from my side and minimal electrical assistance! What was already hard in the plain was now sheer torment! At least I could relax afterwards in the bathtub, always aware however to get a new mental exercise (mostly to hide new combinations of numbers or words in my mind). Afterwards I could sweat again washing my old sweat-soaked clothes…

It wasn’t until the second day when we spotted a new phenomenon: the ash cloud of a fresh volcanic eruption!

As we got closer, the silence of the ice plain ebbed to make room for a deep, low rumbling that reverberated in my bones and sometimes even rattled my teeth. The wind let the cloud thankfully waft to the south - away from us - but we had to think about changing direction when we’d get past the eruption to not get caught in the volcanic ash.

Finally we halted at the edge of a giant sink in the ice, several miles across and riddled with dangerous cracks in the ice. Nearly continuous explosions at the bottom hurled white steam clouds, laden with black ash and glowing rocks high into the air. Even big boulders were sometimes flung out, thankfully not in our direction.

The sink, where this eruption originated, was oval in form, stretching slightly longer to the southeast as far as I could see, giving the eruption a little bit of an asymmetric look. The meltwater under the ice, coming into contact with fresh hot lava in the middle, evaporated and fed the constantly ongoing explosions. The ash and steam cloud billowing out of the rupture in the middle stretched high into the air, dominating the landscape for many miles. A truly fascinating spectacle!

We now had to decide how to proceed further. Yára and Reeza wanted to continue along the edge of the crater and then parallel to our previous course further south. I didn’t agree and for the first time spoke actively against a decision of the magically skilled girls.

“I think it's too dangerous!” I pleaded. “We have to keep more distance from the crater and get back on track only when we’ve left the ash cloud behind us. Please! Look at the cracks in the ice!”

Reeza and Yára looked puzzled at each other. I think they’ve never seen me so agitated before.

“There is no danger.” Yára tried to soothe my concerns. “We can levitate the ‘Ice Wallow’ over all cracks that may form unexpectedly beneath us. And we can shield ourselves from the falling ash. So there is no need to make a big detour.”

I shook my head.

“Look at the form of the sink. It’s not a central cone eruption, but the beginning of a fissure eruption. In the southeast, fresh explosions already are puncturing the ice and eating away at the cover. And there is no way to predict where this fissure will grow. We have to keep a safe distance!”

“I agree with Vilko.” Lily came to my side. “I have a bad feeling. We should bypass this volcano by a huge margin!”

Reeza shook her head.

“I don’t see your point. Look, the fissure is lengthening towards the southeast, but we’d go the other way around, the western side. There we’ll also stay clear of the ashfall.”

“A fissure can always lengthen to the other side too, and that would bring us right into its path.” I argued. “I agree, we should bypass the crater on the western side, but with a wider margin.”

“Please don’t take this personally, but are you by any means an expert on volcanoes?” asked Illyára with a certain undertone in her voice.

“No. Why?”

“Then where do you take the knowledge or experience to be so sure about the further development of this eruption?”

Now I saw where this was going!

“Look, I’ve always had a broad range of interests, and volcanoes were part of it. I read a lot about them and their behaviour and,” here I raised my voice a little, “I never predicted anything here, just pointed out the unpredictability of the development! That’s a huge difference!”

“Yes, and since when were my instincts ever wrong?” Lily again came to my aid.

Reeza and Yára exchanged a glance.

“Well, last year the early onset of winter…” started Yára.

“And the blizzard that never came…” Reeza followed up.

“Not to mention that it didn’t warn us before the last blizzard…” Yára again.

“Stop it already!”

The beastess was visibly irritated.

“I get it! My instincts are not always fool proof, but what’s the harm in making a slight detour compared to, I don’t know, ...DIE?!”

I nodded.

“I agree, what’s the harm in just keeping a safe distance?”

Reeza and Yára again exchanged glances.

“Haven’t you seen the sky?” asked the daimon girl. “The clouds and the ash coming from the eruption are building up and possibly feeding and nurturing a new blizzard. Time is now of essence to reach our next hideout as early as possible! Remember, it’s still around four hundred miles!”

Lily shook her head.

“I don’t see the need to rush, even if there might be another storm brewing. We can hunker down anywhere and anytime, or not?”

“This time it's different.” Yára took over. “This storm would be strongly fed from the eruption and may last much longer than the last one. No, we have to reach our next hideout on time in order not to risk running out of supplies.”

Lily and I exchange glances. I shrugged. What could I possibly say?

“Well, looking at the risks both options are holding …I’ll still take rather a blizzard on than a volcano.” the beastess said. I nodded in agreement.

“May I propose a compromise then?” Yára replied. “Since it’s time for Vilko’s next training session anyway, why don’t you two drive with the ‘Munchie’ a wider circle around the eruption, and Reeza and I will go along the edge? We’ll meet each other again in the south when we are clear of the ash cloud. At our hideout at the latest. What do you say?”

We glanced at each other, and this time Lily shrugged.

“As I’ve said, I have a bad feeling about this.” she said. “My instincts are screaming to keep as far away from this pit as possible.”

“Don’t worry, we have scanned the ground under the ice.” Yára soothed again. “Yes, there is a fault line going from the northwest to the southeast, but the weak areas are, as you can see, away from us. The fissure is gonna lengthen to the southeast.”

I wasn’t convinced and Lily shook her head again.

“Do what you can't help to do, but I’ll go with Vilko in the Munchie. Please pick us up if there really should be a storm coming.”

And with that we did what always is a very divisive move in these kinds of situations: We split up…