And there Liana suddenly stood, on the other side of Akhina’s portal, this time in a completely alien world and accompanied only by Lun and Inaya. She kept forgetting again that Inaya was not just a girl but actually an important member of a kind of world government in Nuanderra. Apart from the two others it was very likely that everyone else they might meet here might be mortal enemies of her whole species. She herself, usually the almost invisible schoolgirl of the fourth year of the modern languages class, was officially here to represent her own world, but she felt like they had brought her along for her gifts too, whether she understood them yet herself or not.. It was a potentially life-threatening but also very vague operation, and also one on which the existence of humanity on Earth might depend, at least that’s what they had told her.

But all of that wasn't even on her mind anymore, just being in a literally completely alien world was overwhelming beyond measure. She could never have expected how much of a constant heavy attack on all of her senses it would be to just be present here. Kavanderra was a world completely unlike hers, and unlike the world of the Nummerfa that she had just left, a completely different place in almost every aspect. There was almost nothing in this place that was even remotely comparable to anything she knew and everything here was so weird here that you’d expect that even the number pi would be something else than 3.14 in this world. And then there was the utter absence of life, because the prehistoric alien species had not only built this place very long ago, but they had also exterminated themselves plus all of other life here long there even were humans on any world. It probably had been their own version of nuclear warfare, and an unknown weapon even worse than our atomic weapons had been used to end the complete history of this whole planet. Nothing had lived here since then for endless epochs, no animals, no plants, no bacteria. Only by being here Liana realised how very different it was to talk about it such things in theory, under the oaks of Nuanderra that were so very alive, with a glass of wizal-bedstraw drink while talking to people who were becoming her friends already, than to be here and experience the dead alien world around her. One really only realised what those words meant if you were really in the middle of it!

She looked around to take in the landscape better. The nearest structures were ruins of mostly rectangular and hexagonal buildings, largely constructed out of brown concrete-like material and unknown metals. In between ran a sort of road, covered with polygonal tiles of an unknown material that made rather odd angles except where it formed hexagonal honeycomb patterns. For the rest of their time here regular hexagons would turn out to be a very common element of the ancient aliens' architectural style, that would come back regularly everywhere she went here. But there weren’t only the remains of the architectural infrastructure, but also remnants of strange technology everywhere you looked. Bizarre devices or fragments of them lay on the floor here and there, or jutted out of the openings in the walls that once had acted as windows, or they were sometimes haphazardly attached to walls. And all of it was made by a culture that had very different logic from hers, or even Nuanderra's. In some places letters and signs seemed to be used, but they were completely unrecognisable, much more than the script of the Nummerfa that she had seen in the in-between world.

This place was completely alien indeed, and the three of them were completely out of place just by being alive, the Nuanderrans no less than herself: a Belgian schoolgirl mostly dressed in an enormous sweater, a pale angelic elf creature in a spotless white dress, and an impressive shaman adorned with many amulets and decorations, and all of three were glowing with life that stood out against this dead pile of stone and metal.

With senses that she had no name for, she had also immediately noticed that this world felt very different from any place she had ever been, including the new worlds of the last hectic 24 hours. Compared to this place, Oranderra and Nuanderra were two neighbourhoods of the same city rather than really different worlds. But even to the naked eye everything was wrong with this prehistoric necropolis: The shapes, colours and proportions didn't match… On top of that was not the slightest sign of life, not even of invisible presences. No matter in what direction she looked, or what sense she used, they all told her the same thing. The place had developed a whole different category of energy in the ages of lifelessness that wasn’t really connected to the original natives anymore. If the Kavanderrans ever had left ghosts behind at the end of their time, they themselves were long gone by now too. Every memory of the life of the original inhabitants had completely disappeared from the memory of this place through the endless times in which this world had been empty. But still, this huge city, which apparently spanned much of the continent if Inaya was to be believed, had remained standing like a gigantic tomb and become a new version of itself in a very present way even though materially hardly anything had changed since all life had ended here.

The strange thing was that they could walk around here at all. She could breathe the air here. Gravity was also more or less right. If that weren’t the care there wouldn’t have been near-human rebels settling here of course. But both the air and the light were also very different here than they were used to. The pale blue sky with no clouds seemed too far away for some vague reason, and the sun was the wrong colour and shape, as if she was in a strange dream. It was too orange, too big, not bright enough, and frankly just looked fake. No sun should be allowed to look like that. Just those basic parameters were disorienting already, and they probably would take a while to get used to.

And then there was the silence. It was deafening, surpassing anything Liana had ever known except maybe for the in-between world where she’d been a day earlier. Liana heard her every heartbeat, and every movement she made. This world was just so empty. Because there was no one here, every little disturbance of the silence rumbled like a cannon in a quiet room. Every breath felt out of place. It was as if being alive in this dead world was some sort of sacrilege. Not to mention that she was also the wrong kind of creature for this alien world. She didn't belong here. This was a world she had no connection with, and a world that had no connection with her. She was really just an outsider here. The nameless extinct ancient Kavanderrans had belonged here, when they still existed. Not she, nor the Nuanderrans with her. She was just the badly timed alien.

"Look out for your thoughts!" Inaya said suddenly. Her voice not only broke the silence but also a kind of trance in which Liana found herself meanwhile without realising it. “There may be no organic life here, but this place has a very strong presence of its own, a mind of its own even, and we are not welcome here. We must walk lightly over this ground and respect this ancient tomb of what was once a living world, otherwise it will drive us crazy. And it actually has the right to defend its own domain against intruders.” She paused. “But I suspect that where we're going the atmosphere must have already been shaped by invaders, and they will have cleaned it up a bit…” Lun looked thoughtful, taking in the surroundings. He was less sensitive than the Nummerfa or even Liana to those things, and he had to consciously tune in to get those kinds of signals, so he needed some time to investigate what was going on on the more invisible plane. After a while he spoke. “This place has been dead for too long. And then it has been empty for too long. It's unnatural. The natural laws of life don’t apply here anymore. Death beyond death reigns here in this domain of emptiness beyond emptiness. I understand how it was a severe test for my order to come here.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Liana really didn't want to hang around any longer in this world than necessary, and found that they needed to be as practical as possible. “Where should we go now?” she asked Inaya. She wondered how they would actually find their way to whatever rebel camp they were looking for in this dead concrete jungle. Inaya pointed in the direction directly opposite of the sun. "There are nawa somewhere in that direction, a lot of them even, probably a day's walk from here, I clearly feel them." Liana looked at where she pointed. Se could only see a huge dead city as far as she could see, with lifeless ruins in every direction, and she felt little now with her extra senses that she had shut out the heavy voice of the hostile landscape. It would be a long walk indeed, if they had to do that completely by foot.

“Are we actually going to walk the whole way?” She muttered disgruntled, to no one in particular. “The council thought that was better. Our opponents are partly Nummerfa and partly Drotnira. All Nummerfa all have the ability to do kah-yito, the same mental communication that I and Akhina use, and many yam-healers of other peoples have learnt it. But it comes less natural to non-Nummerfa and they usually tire faster when they use it. You have a lt of talent for it too, Liana, although it’s rare in hmana and Drotnira usually can't use it at all. With kah-yito they will feel our presence if they want to if we get closer, but the main problem is that travel through dimensional folds will definitely de noticed very quickly, it makes waves in time-space that are very easy to feel if you know how. That would be very noticeable if we did it anywhere close to them. So that would attract all the Onnobolda from all over Kavanderra before you know it. I'd rather go more stealthily, so we can slowly investigate what’s happening here before they all know we’re here. And in that way they might not notice our presence. There’ll be too much of them around already probably to notice three extra nawa, if we don’t draw attention to ourselves that is."

It made sense, but Liana didn’t like the idea of an endless hike through this eerie and disorienting landscape. Without saying much, the three nawa walked on through the astonishing landscapes, following an old road. The bizarre architecture of the old Kavanderrans turned out to have a great deal of variation in building styles, materials and decoration, but they were all equally weird. Some buildings were based on rectangle structures with completely wrong proportions for Liana, while others had strange cylinders, regular hexagons, and other shapes, some of which she could not even name. Only the hexagonal pattern of the streets seemed a fairly constant one. Apparently they were walking on a kind of main road, which regularly led to streets at angles of 60° and 120°. Right angles in a street plan had apparently been scrupulously avoided by the builders here, for a reason that had probably been lost for the ages when the builders had died.

They walked for hours with the orange sun shining on their backs, until it had turned and was now shining on their side. The silence and rhythm of the steps had a very numbing effect in this environment, so that after a while Liana barely knew who and where she was, and even what time it was. Her whole life now was all about walking in this alien environment that was completely devoid of life, but that still tried to drive her crazy if she didn't guard her mind. This place clearly hadn’t heard of the laws of the nawa that the Numberfa had about invading other people's minds. But eventually her perpetually wandering thoughts managed to come back to the surface, and all kinds of contemplations began to compete with each other and demand attention. And so she suddenly got a strange feeling as she pondered some of the more practical problems of this strange world.

She turned to Inaya, her almost whispering voice echoing through the dead void they'd been trudging through as quietly as possible for quite some time. “Maybe a stupid question, Inaya, but how long does a day at Kavanderra really last? It's not because Nuanderra has the same day-night rhythm as Oranderra that it’s also the same here, I suspect." Inaya looked up from her silent walk. “I should have said that sooner. Days have a different length here indeed. In your 24-hour system about 28 hours if I count correctly. The planet also has a different orbit and tilt, always having 14 hours of day and 14 hours of night everywhere, and no real seasonal differences. Three more hours and it will be dark.” She paused, looking around at the area they were now walking through. The main road passed several side streets at its usual sharp and obtuse angles, widening at times, and now coming to a widening of sorts.

“Maybe it's time to eat now, and then we'll go on until dark. we won't find the Onnobolda until tomorrow at best anyway.” Liana sighed. Her feet were indeed getting tired of walking, she noticed now. Her physical condition wasn't quite what it should be for this kind of trek, and she noticed that the slightly different composition of the air wasn't quite ideal for strenuous efforts. They halted at a sort of square and settled on a number of just-not-square blocks of an unfamiliar orange material, laid out seemingly haphazardly and at the right height for a person to sit on. Liana was glad to be able to sit, and not happy with the prospect of having to walk the same way for many more miles. “Was it really necessary to arrive so extremely far from their base?” Liana asked Inaya again, as she took off her shoes to check her feet for blisters. Inaya made a defensive gesture. “I have no idea if it really had to go that far, and not even if they haven't noticed us yet. The precaution was well chosen, I just hope it was enough… It is very important that we remain undetected for as long as possible.” Liana noticed that Inaya still didn't say much about what they would do if they found the Onnobolda. Since the Nummerfa were not really into hiding much, it would probably be mostly improvisation anyway…

They ate the provisions they had brought from Nuanderra in their backpacks: acorn cakes, dried nuts and fruits, and fresh water. The mere familiarity of the flavours and the look of the food revived Liana more than she had expected. She hadn't really realised how much of an effect this alienating world had on her, but now that she noticed the difference, she hoped she wouldn't have to spend too many extra long days here. This place was very unhealthy for her. Lun seemed to notice too, he was rather quiet and even his natural interest in exploring everything new in other worlds seemed a bit dampened by now too. Only Inaya didn't show much doubt or fatigue. "It's going well, we're on schedule." Liana thought laconically that such an expression was easy to use without a scheme…