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A beautiful one, too, said Kayan. Bright, though. She turned half around, looking at the trees surrounding them. Let's go stand in the shade.
Good idea. They walked side by side, their feet swishing through the grass with each step. Jedra had never seen so much greenery in all his life. He had heard that the king's gardens were something like this, but here there was no wall to keep the rabble out. There was no rabble, either. Only green growing things as far as he could see.
What's a place like this doing inside a crystal? he asked when they reached the cool shade beneath the trees.
I don't know. It's your crystal. Kayan laughed, a bright, clear sound in the clean, fresh air. "I didn't make it," Jedra said aloud. "I just found it in the ancient city."
"That would be strange."
She laughed again. "This is already strange." Jedra looked deeper into the forest. It wasn't dense; the trees stood just close enough to provide not-quite-continuous shade for someone walking beneath them. A few hundred yards beyond, he saw a glimmer of motion between the trunks, something even whiter than their bark.
"What's that?" he asked, pointing.
It wavered, like a piece of cloth flapping in the wind. Kayan said, "I don't know. Want to go see?"
"Of course."
They walked through the trees, stopping again and again to marvel at new wonders: birds chirping merrily in the branches, fat, furry animals waddling through the grass, even dewdrops caught at the base of wide leaves where they curled around their stems. Something seemed odd about them all.
It took Jedra a moment to come up with what it was, but he finally figured it out.
"They have no defenses," he said. "None of the plants have thorns, and as slow as they move you could just reach out and grab one of those furry things for dinner."
"That's true." Kayan shrugged. "We may have to try it in a little while. I didn't eat after I got back from my little outing in the sandstorm."
Jedra laughed. "If I'd known what we would find in here, I would have packed a lunch."
They walked on, but the next tree they came to was different. Its leaves were smaller than the others, almost an afterthought, and round, light-tan balls hung from the branches. The aroma of baking bread permeated the air.
"Look at this!" Kayan said incredulously, reaching up and pulling loose one of the balls.
"What is it?"
"It's a roll." Kayan handed it to Jedra. It was an oval oblong, lightly browned on top, with a faint indentation in the center where the stem had been. It was warm, as if it had just come out of an oven. And the aroma... Jedra's mouth watered, and his stomach growled.
"This is impossible," he said.
"Yes, it is," said Kayan. "But then so is this whole place." She reached up and plucked another roll from the tree. When she tore it open and exposed the fluffy white interior, the baked-bread smell grew even stronger. She narrowed her brows for a moment, concentrating on it, then she took a cautious nibble, smiled, and took a bigger bite. "Mmm. Great."
"Are you sure it's safe?" Jedra asked.
"I couldn't detect any poisons," she said.
That wasn't one of his skills, but Jedra tried anyway. If they were still linked somehow, then he would be able to. Come to think of it, this would be a good test. He concentrated, trying to see any poisons as black stains in the bread, but the roll remained its natural brown and white. That didn't necessarily mean anything, though. As Kitarak had said when he showed them this skill, "Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence."
So Jedra looked again for something he knew was there, like yeast, and this time the roll turned gray.
"Hey, it works!" he said. "I can scan for poison."
"Really? Then maybe I can..." Her roll rose up off her hand and floated before her. "Yes! I can levitate things!" She snatched the roll out of the air and took another bite.
Jedra bit into his own and closed his eyes to savor the wonderful flavor. It was slightly sweet and nearly melted in his mouth. He hadn't tasted anything this good in all his life. He wolfed down the first roll and picked two more. Kayan did the same, and they continued their walk through the trees, munching the miracle bread.
A rushing sound had been growing steadily stronger as they walked deeper into the forest. When they grew closer to the moving white thing-it looked more like a long banner waving back and forth in the breeze now that they could see more of its length-he realized that the sound came from the same source. Something was moving across the ground. Something long and sinuous. Bits of it splashed upward, glittering in the sunlight. "No," Jedra said, stepping closer. "Impossible." But it was no more impossible than bread growing on trees. There before him, as real as anything else in this bizarre world inside the crystal, flowed a stream of open water.
It was about as wide as he was tall, and it poured down from right to left over a bed of rocks. It pooled up in a few places before spilling over, and when Jedra walked up to the edge of one of the pools he saw flashes of silver in the water.
"Fish!" Kayan exclaimed. "I've heard about them. They still exist in the hinterlands, I've been told."
