Walking into Klugetown was a little like seeing a town of survivors after the apocalypse. Considering the state of the waystation where they arrived, maybe this shouldn't be surprising to him. When they eventually returned with an expedition, maybe they could take the time to learn how the world had gotten this way. Maybe it was as simple as immigrants from hundreds of years ago not being able to adapt to having the wrong number of legs. Maybe they were barely surviving after centuries of war?
Whatever the reason, Klugetown wasn't the kind of place Blake wanted to stay at. It was a maze of many layers, with ancient stone structures holding up ramshackle lean-tos. The sky was obscured by makeshift bridges and canopies of cloth.
Their first task was a simple one: find water. As they searched for the public well, Blake felt more and more eyes on his back. He needed no one to tell him what that feeling meant: they weren't safe.
Which was too bad, really, considering how much there was to see. The central streets were lined with stalls hawking all sorts of strange and exotic goods. Skillets sizzled nearby, producing some scents that were intoxicating, and others that were repulsive.
Much like the citizens of this town. Blake couldn't tell if he was looking at two species, or maybe dozens. Either way, it seemed to break every assumption they'd made so far about the portal and how it worked.
Many of the creatures here walked on two legs, or waddled anyway. They came in many shapes and sizes, though all of them looked like lizards of one stripe or another. They all wore clothes, and unlike what the Worldgate had done to theirs, these designs actually cared about modesty.
But while the majority of creatures he saw resembled the breed of strangely upright lizard, there was a decent smattering of four-legged creatures as well. Chief among these were a fully birdlike alien, larger than any member of their party. There were a handful of aliens like Jordan's new form, though none of them had her wings. His wings? Blake still had some trouble with that.
Their little caravan didn't look quite the way he might've expected, thanks to Ryan. His friend didn't look like a mildly terrifying bug anymore—he looked like an identical twin of Blake himself. Watching this happen the first time was as disturbing as seeing the bug creature out of the corner of his eye, a bit like seeing a facehugger burst out of someone's stomach. But as soon as the strange green light faded, there was nothing unusual to see.
It was probably the right choice, considering all the pointing and whispers that followed them. If they had a member of their group who frightened everyone, they might've attracted a mob.
They found the well, eventually, located in the "caravan district," which took a walk through the entire market to reach. But for better or worse, the stretch of naked dirt was empty except for the well at the center. There weren't even posts to tie up animals, which probably made sense in a world where all the horses were people.
"We should probably start by switching out Kaelynn's water," Blake's twin said, in his exact voice. "She looks bad in there."
Blake nodded, inspecting the well. Like the rest of town, it was built with passable mechanical complexity. A bucket-assembly running down into the water attached to a windmill over their heads, with pipes running out from within and into the metal troth at their hooves. As soon as Ryan engaged the mechanism, buckets began to rise.
The process of circulating Kaelynn's water took well over an hour. They couldn't just drain the tank and refill it—they had to empty it halfway, dump what was inside down the Klugetown drain, then repeat the process. After the first time Kaelynn herself roused, and helped with a brush and a net for catching the largest debris.
Eventually the water became merely cloudy. By the time it was clear, every one of them was sweating. Except Kaelynn, who circled around in her cell with visible energy. She already looked healthier.
"Well, we made it," Blake said, after the others had caught their breath. There were no other caravans in town right now, so they had the space to themselves. There was only the occasional peek of slitted eyes through windows above them, and the skittering of clawed feet from streets just out of sight.
They had a bit of privacy, but everything they did would be known. Watching for weakness, Hoo’far said. We can't let them see any.
Blake straightened, circling confidently around his friends and gesturing for them to rise. "We survived the desert without losing anyone. All we have to do now is go back through the portal in this town, and we're famous."
"Technically, we have to find this portal first," Jordan said. He still didn't seem to know what he was doing with his wings. It was kind of adorable, the way they opened halfway when Jordan was acting confident, and dragged when he was tired. But anything with fluffy ears like that and a pair of teeny fangs would be hard pressed not to look cute.
"And then we have to get back to civilization on the other end. I think we can take it as a given that the New York portal will be somewhere just as obscure as the one in Paris. Otherwise someone else would've found it first, and we wouldn't get to be international celebrities."
Kaelynn emerged from the water, her voice a slightly distorted echo on its surface. But Blake was getting better about hearing it, even if he sometimes missed a word. "As long as we don't have company, we can escape," she said. "This time we aren't in a dead shack surrounded by sand. There's a town here. We can keep coming back for supplies as long as our gold holds out."
"I'm not so sure about that.” Blake frowned, eyeing the single entrance to the caravan area. It had never been empty for more than a few seconds. He hopped up onto the cart, speaking quietly. "That guy who told us Klugetown wasn't safe—he was right. If we left this cart behind, I know we'd find it propped up on cinder blocks without any tires. Probably without you inside it, either."
"I believe we should split up," Jordan said, a little louder than Blake would've liked. "Kaelynn is too large to drag through the streets of this place, there's simply no way around it. Most of the city is inaccessible from ground level, and they don't seem to have accessibility codes. One of you twins could stay with her, while I take our gold and make inquiries after the portal.
"I'll stay!" Ryan said, so fast that even Blake's head was left spinning for a second. "People aren't really my strong suit. But if we're in danger, I should at least be able to scare anyone off. I'll put my powers to use."
Blake nodded decisively. Splitting up wasn't a great idea, particularly considering all the attention he'd already seen. But Jordan was right. Even with Kaelynn's apparatus for breathing, she didn't have the legs to walk around. "We'll go as quickly as we can, and not stay away for more than a few hours. Hopefully it won't be too hard to find what we're looking for."
"It might be impossible," Ryan said flatly. "Everything that's true about this portal being hard to find on Earth should be true here too, right? Otherwise people would be coming to Earth from this side all the time."
We don't know they aren't, Blake thought. "We might not find it," he agreed. "But I think we're all on the same page about not going back the way we came. I don't want to be eaten alive by some nameless thing hiding below Paris. Any of you want to try and fight it?"
None of them spoke. Even Kaelynn was silent in her tank, swimming in tight, frustrated circles. So Blake continued. "If we can't find the portal here, we have a map. We'll have to book passage with an airship, like Hoo’far suggested. We passed a dock on the way in, and there were several ships. One of them is bound to be going to a place marked on our map. But I'm going to treat that as a last resort. Until we learn otherwise, the plan is to go back exactly the way we came."
They spent a few minutes gathering supplies. Fortunately they all had saddlebags for carrying gear, so they wouldn't have to keep their sack of money exposed. Blake deliberated over who should keep the mace, before ultimately settling on the other group. Him and Jordan could always run away, but Kaelynn was stuck in the tank. They needed every advantage.
So they set off together, waving a brief and hopefully not final farewell to the other half of their group.
Jordan didn't walk beside him so much as bound from step to step, wings constantly in motion but never actually flying. "I have some ideas about where we could ask," he said. "If you don't have any ideas, I'd like to go there first."
"Sure." Blake wasn't even sure he could name other specific details about the town, when he was so focused on the simple realities of survival. We made it this far, I am not losing anyone to this stupid town. "What did you see?"
Jordan's voice was utterly changed. A few days ago it had been grating, but now he was getting used to it. Jordan's actual speech-patterns were the same underneath, if he could listen past how high and musical he sounded. "It's up a few floors, see? That sign up there." He pointed with a wing, a single act which clearly incited special satisfaction.
Blake followed up the maze of ramps and stairwells, melting into the flow of traffic. The majority of people here barely even noticed them—they were just two more faces in a crowd of strange creatures. But he couldn't quite shake the feeling of being watched, all the way to the building called "Capper's Exotics".
The building was wedged in between a windmill and several other large buildings. Even so, Blake soon had no doubt about why Jordan had focused on this place. The space around the building was covered in signs promising rare imports, exotic goods, and strange experiences.
"You read these from street level?"
Jordan's ears flattened, and his face got a little redder. Probably Blake's imagination. "It's a bat thing, I think. Idiots think bats are blind, but some of them have insane vision. You have to, when you fly around in the dark like that."
"We don't even know if you can fly," Blake said absently. "If I were a betting man, I'd say no. Those wings aren't big enough."
He hadn't expected a reaction—but strangely, Jordan's ears pressed flatter, and he slowed a little. It was hard to tell through all the gross lizard stink, but Blake could've sworn Jordan smelled different too. What is going on?
"I've seen the bird creatures flying since we arrived," Jordan said, his voice tense. It was rare to hear so much self-doubt from the one who usually wore smugness like a badge of honor. "If they can fly, I can fly. It just wouldn't be fair otherwise."
They reached the doors, which were covered with dense script. The interior looked a little like a museum, with far less sense of structure or organization. Blake hesitated at the door, not yet taking it in his mouth. "Every time we talk to someone here, it feels incredible. Like the first steps onto the moon, you know? Going where no man has gone before."
Jordan stuck out his tongue, exposing those adorable fangs for a moment. "Not to kill the moment, but I'm pretty sure we're not the first men here. This place was well known enough that someone built a special entrance, and mapped out the portals. Lewis and Clark seems more apt. Sure, we're sharing this with the world—but it's already inhabited."
Jordan walked in, right past him. Blake gritted his teeth, focused his eyes firmly on the ground and not on anything else, and followed.