“Of course. All I had to do was make sure you didn't burn me." - He answered in a dissatisfied voice. He had a few bruises and cuts on his body, but overall, he looked almost intact. However, this is a dream. What will happen to him? As long as a person knows that they are in the dream world, it is almost impossible to kill them.
"All right, then we can start.” - I rubbed my hands together.
"Start what?"
"Opening this gate, of course.” - I pointed to the stone in front of us.
With these words, I plunged my consciousness into the ritual circle depicted on the stone, and activated it with my will. The dream magic worked without a hitch, and a circular portal opened in front of us, resembling a Stargate passage. In fact, this is Stargate, except that the coordinates of opposite side were tightly sewn into the structure of the ritual, and it was impossible to change them.
After passing through the portal, I found myself in a desolate, where there were almost no traces of life. Keldrun, who had followed after me, began to turn his head with interest, also trying to figure out where we were. I turned around and saw a warning in front of the portal that no one who had passed this way had ever returned. No wonder. After all, immediately after the transition, they were in the stomach of the toad, which was probably happy to such a source of delicious and nutritious food.
Oriented on the ground, I went along a barely noticeable path that was between the stones. The further path was not different. We walked and walked and walked and walked. Day followed night, and night followed day. I didn't need to rest or eat, so I didn't make any stops along the way.
The wasteland gradually gave way to hilly terrain, and now the path was wagging between the hills, then climbed to the tops to go down again. Two weeks later, judging by the local change of day and night, we reached the area where the hills began to turn into low mountains. By this time the path was already quite wide. We passed a few intersections, but I kept moving in the same direction.
Finally, after another turn, a small village appeared from behind a nearby hill. More accurately, it was just a dozen houses scattered in a small hollow between two hills. These were the first traces of human activity along the way. Even the path we were following looked more animal traces than human.
When I reached the first house, I noticed an old man with white hair sitting on a pile of rubble, staring thoughtlessly ahead.
"Greetings, father.” – Keldrun greeted him. - "How are you?"
The old man shuddered and turned his eyes at us, trying diligently to make them look about one way. It was not a pleasant sight. We didn't get an answer, but the old man mumbled and stared at the ground in front of him again.
"How to get to the forbidden castle?" - I asked. My internal compass gave out not only the direction, but also a description of the place where I needed to go.
This time the old man looked at me with a more meaningful look.
"The forbidden castle is forbidden because it is forbidden to go to it.” - This wreck answered. - "However, I will not stop you. Go where you went. First, follow the path, and when you get to the landslip, after choose the path yourself.” - With that, the old man lost interest in us again and turned to a much more productive examination of the hummock on the road.
I looked around and saw only one other inhabitant of the village - an ancient old woman who was digging in a barren garden where no plants grew.
"Don't you want to stay here?" - I offered to Keldrun. - "It doesn't look like they're going to try to eat you here. Rather, on the contrary, you can't find anyone in the area for a hundred miles.
"You can't stay here.” – Old man muttered, not taking his eyes off the ground.
"No, I do not have desire also.” - The hunter agreed.
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"As you wish. God bye, old man.” - I said good-bye and went ahead.
Soon the houses were left behind, and we continued to trample the path that meandered through the hills. A week later, the area finally turned into a pile of mountains. The path continued to meander, climbing up and down. The mountains themselves looked strangely lifeless and gray. Stones, rocks, and sand were all gray. Even the sky overhead had a grayish, making it even more depressing.
Finally, the path ended, leaning into a wide stone landslip of rock that moved with a slight rustle down the slope. It was almost a river of stone. However, I could not see its source and the place where it 'flowed'. But I don't think there's anything interesting there. Probably just another dream world trap, designed for suckers.
"Where do we go now?" - Keldrun asked me, looking at the area in front of me with suspicion.
"As always, forward" - I answered. - "And it seems to me that the way forward will be much more dangerous."
The hunter stepped onto the landslip and moved cautiously forward. The gravel crunched under his feet, sometimes sinking a little. But as soon as he had gone a few meters, the entire landslip abruptly began to move and flowed down the slope with a deafening roar. To my surprise, the hunter immediately somersaulted, leaping back and landing exactly on the edge of the path. A second later, the landslip stopped moving, again frozen in false calm.
"Looks like there's no way to go through." - Keldrun gave his expert opinion.
"I didn't plan to go.”
With these words, I soared into the air and flew forward at a height of about a meter. The landslip beneath me rustled, but it stayed where it was, either because it knew I was too big for it, or because it was preparing for an unexpected blow. Keldrun with some children's resentment looked at me. Apparently, He has only now realized that I can not only walk, but also fly. But he had no such skill in his repertoire.
However, I was happy not long that I was able to get rid of a fellow traveler. The hunter rushed forward, leaping several meters with each step. The disturbed landslip immediately flowed down, but to my surprise, Keldrun managed to stay 'afloat', quickly and accurately pushing away from the stone stream. At the same time, he managed not only to move forward, but also to compensate for the movement to the side of the landslip.
After a few seconds, the landslip began to not just 'flow', but also to boil, throwing out decent-sized boulders. I had to fly higher and control my surroundings with telekinesis. But the hunter only accelerated, managing to evade all 'gifts'. After a couple of minutes, the runner reached the opposite edge of the landslip and climbed a fairly steep slope, from where he watched my slow flight. Unfortunately, my ability was rather levitating than flight, so I could not increase the speed of my movement.
As soon as I got over the landslip, it froze again, waiting for new prey. There was no sign of a path on this side, so we went on, guided by my feelings. For the first two days we walked without any problems, and then we came to a deep hole in the ground, at the bottom of which swirled the darkness. Just the sight of that inky darkness made me shiver. There was something there that no mortal should have experienced. I wasn't even sure I could fly over such an obstacle. So, we carefully skirted the gap and went on.
The closer we got to the next goal of our journey, more often we encountered holes in the ground. I even had to fly higher to discover the way in which it would be possible to bypass the next obstacle. At least the local mountains were formed without water, so there was no single network of channels that merged into one river.
A couple of times we had to go around, losing the whole day. And once the passage was a dead end, and we had to go back, losing two days. But about a month later we came to a place where I found the trail again. Following it, we reached the incredible bridge the next day.
We were almost on the edge of a sea of inky darkness. The slope of the mountain here sloped down quite sharply for a couple of hundred meters, then plunged into blackness. And right in front of us was a bridge made of stone blocks. But the condition of this bridge left much to be desired, so that in places it was collapsed and kept incomprehensible on what. And the latter was rather a general characteristic of this structure.
The bridge had no supports. It simply just goes forward, swerving from side to side. At least it remained at the same height, not approaching the threatening darkness. The opposite end of the bridge was not visible from here. Ahead were several stone peaks rising out of an inky sea. The bridge skirted them without touching them, and disappeared behind one of the rocks. The opposite 'shore' of this sea was about twenty kilometers away, but the place where the bridge ended was hidden by the same rocks.
"Do we need to go to the other side?" - My companion asked the obvious question.
"I need to go to the other side." - I corrected him. - "I still don't know where you want to go."
This time Keldrun didn't rush forward, so I was able to sit up and study the bridge itself. After some time of meditation, I was able to understand that the 'Path' principle is embedded in this structure. I mean, while I was moving forward on it, I could be sure the bridge wouldn't collapse under my feet. But if I take a step to side or back, it will immediately fall apart into separate blocks and pull me down.
I shared this thought with my companion, and then I first stepped on the bridge and slowly went forward. I had nowhere to hurry, so I just carefully walked, not forgetting to look around.