As soon as they saw the wood bubble houses, Lucas said, was when it got strange. Since he was a little distance away, he said, he didn't get caught up in the confusion so much, and could see what was happening. He said that out of nowhere came this woman as dark as the night they were in. She was like a queen he said, not looking at any one person or thing, but at everything, like she was in a trance or something, he said. That, and because she was surrounded by guards in armor. But the weird thing about that, Lucas said, were actually two things. First, was that there was actually only one guard, he said, when he looked at them hard- like keeping from seeing double when you're drunk. It was only one guy when he squinted and shook his head, but for some reason it seemed like there was a lot of them when he looked at them regular. That gave him the right willies in his gut, he'd say. Like he was gonna be sick. And two, he wasn't sure if it was because it was dark or the distance, or the fact that he was already "fraught silly with the heebie jeebies" or all of the above, but the guards (or guard) had helmets (or a helmet) that made him (or them) look like a dog (or dogs) walking like a man (or men). He said it sort of got him off his hinge trying to make sense of it. Whenever he mentioned the guard (or guards) Lucas would always get really strange and far off until food came.
Anyhow,
From then, Lucas said, ostrobogulous became more and more a distant relative of the current scene. I still don't know who that is, but I guess that's besides the point. The welcome party didn't treat the men badly, he remembered, but in general acted like they were part of the scenery. Like tree stumps or bushes. They arrived, surveyed the men, and turned to go back. Lucas said the leader of the "village ijits" was already more scared and tired of being lost in the woods than he could handle and so was desperate to get a word in with these people they found. Again Lucas would chuckle here, and just marvel at how stupid and backwards these people were to not be able to survive without help even on their own land. And they gave him a hard time? It was a laugh.
So back to how, scared as the man babies were, seeing how this queen woman and her guards would not answer their pleas or questions, the party leader decided to write a note he could put in front of one of them. Lucas thought this was one of the dumber things he'd ever seen, but he knew they were desperate and he was there for the entertainment, so he let it ride. Though he did get more than he bargained for, because what he saw next made him say a prayer to his Granny Laveau beggin forgiveness for ever doubting her word when she was alive:
The walking turd, Lucas said, tried to put pencil to paper, but by damn sight, his hand was obstructed by some invisible force and could not write anything legible. Instead, what came was a child's scribbles that looked like random numbers of various sizes: a small 9, a large 4, a 1, a small 2, an 8, and possibly another 8, but the man, being the pitiful coward he was, Lucas said, quickly gave up trying to create anything readable, as the opportunity to present a message at all was lost, as the soldiers and queen had left and moved quickly. The outright strangeness of that event was immediately forgotten though, he said. Because all of a sudden, they had come up on the main pod that was perched highest on the mountain and above the rest of the settlement. And what's more, the people they were following were gone, DISSAPEART he said.
Lucas said that while those idiots were shitting themselves at this sudden turn of events, he noticed above the entrance was a sign. It seemed like a family crest or something, he would say, with writing in a language he didn't read. But in the center, between the words, was a painted wood carving of a rose in a short cup with some honeybees and PEARLS around. It was the only real color he had seen since the torches went out, he said, so the sign popped out like lights, burned in his head. It was right about then, Lucas said, that all at once, they saw that the pod they were walking into was a gate to a massive cave into the mountain that went on for more than they could see into the darkness. There were small individual sandy beaches with their own lagoons, more than he could count, in front and to either side of them he said. And those lagoons spilled out to a great lake or ocean, for all he knew. It was that big! he would exclaim. And then, it was all pandemonium, he'd say.
Apparently at this point, the "idjits from the village" had run to the waters, stripped their clothes off, and fell into it like hogs. As if they had been without water for days, he said. DISGUSTED he'd say. And then just as quickly they were shut out from the water by giant gates which all of a sudden swung down and sealed the openings flat. Lucas said the baby-men started howling like infants pulled too soon from their momma's teats. Though the whole thing had startled him, he took a moment to take satisfaction in their wailing. And then it went black. And then he woke up.
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