Riddle Me This

I was of half a mind .. literally. The human half was focused on one thing .. the runes I was drawing in the dust around the cavern's mouth. The intent was twofold .. one to create a gateway for my return and the other was to give the spirits a riddle. For you see .. spirits love riddles and will work at them for days .. years sometimes. And this place could really use a distraction.

Now I do not mean the kind of riddle like .. there was an Ubar with two sons and he could not decide which son to leave all his wealth to so he set up a race on kaiila back for them and the first one to cross the finish line last won.. so on and so forth .... no these were number riddles. Spells in the form of their numerical equations. This was actually one of my own .. one that I had brought back with me from a dream. One that brought five spells together. Five riddles to form a six pointed star using the seventh dimension as the connection to create the gate.

Now I vaguely remember hearing Sahli scream my name .. like a warning. I remember being grabbed .. one felt familiar ... the other was Sahli and I brushed them both off .. intent on finishing the runes with an avian like focus. As Sahli fell back .. the familiar seemed to change direction and grabbed him .. pulling him into the face of the cavern.

Whether it was the spell starting to work or the fact that half of me was inhabiting a bird ... I listened dispassionately to the screams as Sahli disappeared into the cave. And I had no intention of going in there after him. None at all. Poor Sahli .. I rather liked him. Too bad. Real shame. We shall miss him. He was a good ...

Cant of head.

Sahli was still there .. scrambling to get out of the mouth of the cave and it was enough to snap my focus back into the here and now .. this dimension. This reality .. here at the bottom of a chasm in front of a cavern ... fuck.

I swore. Well it might have sounded like a mouth full of obscenities but it was actually a string of curses. Strong ones. Ones I rarely used and in the midst of it I reached into the darkness and grabbed hold of Sahli .. bracing my boot on the rock wall outside and I threw myself backwards dragging him from the cave. Sahli must have braced himself against something also for he shot out like an arrow and I fell back. Finishing the last symbol as I rolled to my feet grabbing Sahli by the arm and shoulder and hustling both our asses from the entrance.

Sahli seemed to be back to himself .. or running on adrenalin ... as we reached the ropes and I had to side with adrenalin as he started up the rope hand over hand using his feet to hold and push as well. Damn that boy can move .. I on the other hand .. though feeling the urge to be up and out as much as he was ... took the more sedate and failsafe method of using the rope to walk up the cliff as I had so recently walked down. Blue was on my back this time and we made good progress.

But before I could reach the top I saw that Sahli had stalled out and was hanging .. exhausted and unable to pull himself up any further. I yelled at him to wrap his wrist in the rope if he could and I stepped up my own pace. But I knew ... there was no way I would make it up the cliff in time before Sahli lost his grip and fell to the floor of the chasm so far below him.