บท 6: Smoke and Smog
I can hear my heart in my chest, as I stare at the army. It's not the first time I've dealt with soldiers, just the other day now you wouldn't believe it. This was different. Like nothing, I've ever seen. One of those insects could tear me to shreds and call it supper.
All men, however, are the same. From Mexico to Bolivia, from America to Germany, people follow the same traits no matter the looks. They descend onto me.
The flutter of their wings grows closer as they come. They don't talk, they don't joke. They keep their hands on their weapons and only stare. They don't have beards, nor any signs of wear, they must've not been on the road for long.
They're coming closer and closer. I see now the insect's metallic appearance and the faint light that seems to emanate from inside them. I am awash with them. The feeling and the air of soldiers at my breadth and my call.
I can't say I haven't missed them. One of them stops and descends and in this man's loudest and most official-sounding voice, (one that he rehearsed for this occasion), he says,
"Surrender now mortal. We have noticed you are in the presence of our national resource which has recently been declared in danger. We must protect him from the likes of danger we have not seen." I laugh. Soldiers have always been funny with their posturing and leg measuring but come on this.
"Shut up. Who lets him do these arrests still." A booming voice shouts from above. I thought it was God himself but no, just the giant man in the sky.
"Arrest him." I raise my hands in the air. These men seem like they wouldn't hurt a fly, they are weak.
I wipe the tears from my eyes. These guys are a real hoot, a real laughing stock. One of the men, someone higher up it looks like, starts to approach me from the sky. The insect looks down at me, unthinking. These men with their silly voices and silly armor, do not have silly mounts.
Bred for death it looks like. I have stared tanks in the face and this is the same feeling, looking into their eyes. I look away.
"My friends I have done nothing wrong. Why don't you spare me the arrest and seizure? We can talk this out like men can't we?" I say, my voice comes out shriller than I meant to. The man coming down to me pauses.
His insect stops moving in midair and hovers in front of me. I stand strong, I am not cowed by beasts like this. The man puts his arm to his ear as if he was listening to something. I focus on it, and as I look hidden within the air I spot a beam of pale light trailing off into the clouds.
It throbs with little packets of energy. The man is speaking to someone. I've never encountered anything mystical in my life, until my death. I have never seen a ghost, or magic, or energy. Though I suppose it's just setting in now. I am in the magic, the energies, the lights that I don't sense.
A burst of pure force knocks me off my feet. It emanates from above, in the clouds. The man keeps on approaching me. Now he's right in front of me, I smell the breath coming off the insect. It smells like sulfur and brimstone, marks of the devil.
The man reaches for me, I don't struggle, struggling is for people who have no purpose in life.
I'm in the air now dangling from this man's arm. The muscles are thick and ribboned, his skin color is that of all desert people in all worlds, dark and tan. He's the prototypical soldier, gruff and more importantly speechless.
He sits me down behind him. He doesn't even restrain me. The beast beats off of the ground in a flurry of desert sand. I watch the buildings in the village grow distant. We are in the clouds now. I catch glimpses of soldiers and insects. I see from above a light, wind whips at my sides, the clouds part, we are out and the air feels clearer than clear. The nostril destroying, breath showing, clear air.
Surrounding me are hundreds of these soldiers. Many more than I could see from the ground. They ride in a mismatched formation and the center. A giant of a man. His body is dented with muscles. However his face is soft, he turns to look at me and yet not the face of someone who's murdered and killed stares back. Only a large toothy grin.
We wait for minutes. I see more of those pulsing energy beams fly between the man in the center and everyone else. Thousands of beams go through the air. Some of them with different colors, some of them cackle and burst with energy, yet all directed at him.
I notice they all seem to be dwindling now. No longer does the energy move like before. I see one beam disappear, another right after. Soon all of them are gone. Time tiptoes by me, for one second. I swear it was only one.
And I feel it. At first just a rise in the air, a common wind. The beating of wings soon follows. They move faster and faster and we start moving too. Moving through the clouds, moving through the air, my body jolts. I feel myself slide for an instant before I snag myself onto the saddle.
It's a long way down from here. Not a fun fall. For hours we travel like this. My captor says nothing to me but stony silence. Desert suns beats like a drunken wife down on me and yet sweat cannot form down my back as it's taken by the wind.
My eyes glaze over the monotony, not a single change, not a single different winds. I observe the soldiers around me. All the same skin tone, all the same, huge soldiers' muscles, no tattoos or smoking or any vices that I can see. Almost the perfect fighting force. Yet no enthusiasm, even when the soldiers come close to each other's insects, they don't joke.
Only the giant seems to smile. He smiles at everything. At a small bird passing overhead, at his soldiers, and one time at me.
At last, we arrive at our destination. I don't see it but I feel us slowing down. I see the tense shoulders transition into a lighter load. However, the giant stops smiling and all that remains is a look of indifference. He parses the lips, almost biting them.
We slow down into an eventual glide through the clouds.
"I hope you haven't eaten anything recently." A word from my friendly captor? A little word of respite? I hadn't eaten anything. Nothing sat with me here.
We fall through the last drop of cloud and I see the light. We are through and my eyes blink to adjust. Clear air falls away for something disgusting. A great and horrible stink. Of rotting flesh and bones, of poverty, and worse.
It's an amalgamation of metal. As far as the eyes can see. Layers of smog billow off of it. Buildings reach almost to the sky. I see on the edges of my vision large spider-like legs jutting off of the monstrosity. I watch them until they move and the whole city lurches forward.
"I see you haven't seen the city before. I might as well give the welcome they give to all newcomers down there. Welcome to Stormfather's Reach, don't mess with the nobles, don't drink fountain water, and try not to die before your third day." The words fall on empty ears, I'm never one to follow orders.
สถานะพลังงานรายสัปดาห์
-- การจัดอันดับด้วยพลัง 
-- หินพลัง