My assailant seemed to have gone. I shook myself, and continued trudging along.
Hours passed. Then, suddenly, the landscape I was walking on seemed to end, dropping away in a great cliff. I stepped carefully to the edge, and looked down.
I suppressed a surge of vertigo. The cliff was almost as high as a skyscraper. Below, I could see a vast swath of landscape stretched out. In the distance, I could see a meandering trail of what appeared to be coastline, but the sea was an expanse of violet. A river curled out towards it, and where it met the coastline I could see a huge city, made of strange buildings that glinted in the omnipresent light.
To my right, the landscape turned a dark, livid green. It took me a moment to work out it was a jungle, gentle plumes of steam rising from its foliage.
To my left, I saw plain similar to the one I had crossed to get here. But I thought I could see movement, caravans of figures, seeming smaller than ants from this height, crossing the broken desert.
It was obvious I couldn't stay here. Taking a deep breath, I stepped over the edge, trusting my wings to carry me down. |