《Deathless》 Prologue: Cataclysm April 17, 2052, was a Wednesday. Fay Lind had always had a mild phobia of mirrors. She should have thought twice about taking a part in this godawful horror flick. The Fairest, she thought. What a fucking joke. There¡¯d been that time when she was what, ten? Their only bathroom, down the hall from her tiny bedroom, hadn¡¯t had a vent or a heater, so the big mirror across from the shower always fogged up, and the rippled glass shower door played with the glow from the bathroom ceiling light. It couldn¡¯t have been the first time it had happened, but it was the first time she¡¯d noticed. Young Fay pissed herself right there in the shower when she saw the optical illusion through the shower door. Her blurred, shadowy reflection had stared back at her, its eyes gleaming with the dead blue of false light. Every time they¡¯d practiced for today¡¯s scene, the one where her character would see a monstrous reflection of herself, Fay would imagine those eyes from her childhood memories. And every night for the past week, she¡¯d woken up gasping in terror as a shadow with dead, gleaming eyes climbed out of the bathroom mirror she hadn¡¯t seen in twenty-some waking years. But today was the scene, and she didn¡¯t care how many times the director asked her to do it again, but by God, if he wanted any reshoots, he could take a spoon and dig them out of his ass.
When she drove onto the set backlot, the sun had yet to crest the horizon, though the pink sky above the hills of their rural Connecticut location helped brush away the last wisps of the night. Jesus, let¡¯s get this over with. All downhill from here. Fay took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then exhaled long and slow. Then she got out of her car. ¡°Li?¡± she called when she found the makeup trailer empty. She flipped the lights on inside, though one glance at the bulbs glaring around the mirror made her wish she hadn¡¯t. There wasn¡¯t enough coffee in the world for those lights. Something banged a few yards away, making Fay jump, but it was just the crude plastic door to one of the portable toilets. Li strolled up to her, scrubbing his hands with a few sanitizing wipes. The sharp odor made her want to sneeze, but she knew she¡¯d be smelling it all day anyway, what with the latest bug going around. ¡°Ready for your fright face?¡± Li asked goodnaturedly, and Fay smiled. The result might be scary enough, but watching the layers go on bit by bit was always fascinating. Even though she could never meet her reflection¡¯s eyes. The early morning air was still cool, but she noticed that Li was sweating. He didn¡¯t look great, she thought, and hoped it was nothing. Li had a dangerous allergy to vaccines, so everyone on the shoot had made sure to get boosted. But you never knew these days. The news said the latest strain was a bad one. End of days, Fay caught herself thinking. We killed ourselves when we let the permafrost melt. Li stumbled on the low step into the trailer and cursed. Following him inside, Fay didn¡¯t realize she¡¯d touched the same spot on the door jamb that Li had¡ªbut her hand came away sticky with something that could have been sweat, in the same way that a house fire could be called warm. She suppressed a shudder, surreptitiously wiping the sticky moisture on the back of her jeans. Li was over at the sink now, washing his hands again, thank God, scrubbing again with sanitizer. Fay heard him curse but thought nothing of it at first. Taking her seat in the makeup chair, she stared in the mirror as Li¡¯s reflected arms began to show blisters erupting from under his skin. She pulled her phone out, barely looking at its screen as she tried to call emergency services. ¡°I¡ªoh, shit.¡± He sounded near tears. ¡°Fay, I need help. Oh, God, please¡ª¡± The chair tipped over as Fay spun around and sprawled on her ass, her phone spinning out of her hand, the number undialed. She had always thought the horror movies where everyone tripped over everything were the least realistic of them, but now she couldn¡¯t even get her feet under her as she slipped on a power cord, scrambled over a wastebasket, heard herself screaming as she saw Li, his skin¡ªOh, dear fucking Christ!¡ªhis skin was melting, muscles dripping blood, and then his hand, bones showing, reached toward her, and she couldn¡¯t move. Time slowed, stopped. There was only that ghastly hand and the strange, brief silences beneath his retching moans, beneath her cries. Part of her mind felt detached, waiting, watching in emotionless calm as the dripping bones of Li¡¯s hand touched her arm. Time started up again. Fay felt herself rise. She wasn¡¯t even shaking anymore. She felt surprised at her ability to be calm now. She took a sanitizing cloth from the dispenser by the sink and wiped Li¡®s blood off her hands before picking the phone up off the floor. She sat down in front of the mirror. Fay¡¯s last thoughts were of how strange it was that she wasn¡¯t seeing her childhood mirror-monster. Instead, it was her own face, her own eyes, familiar as waking up in the morning, but it was no longer herself looking back. Something else held the phone; something else dialed emergency services. ¡°Yes,¡± the thing that wore Fay Lind said, giving the address. ¡°I need an ambulance. Please hurry. Something terrible has happened.¡±
Slowly, subtly, it passed from one person to another, always careful to disguise itself as one illness or another. It ate the memories of the bodies it wore as it traveled, learning, always looking for the next opportunity. It could be your mother. It could be your son. There would be a gradual weakening, something not quite right. It might be hair falling out or unlooked-for wrinkles on a teenaged face. Always, there would be a need for solitude, an aversion to being touched. You would wonder and worry, of course. And one day as you looked at them, there would be the thought that it was someone else, some other thing, looking back behind eyes you no longer recognized, despite having known those eyes forever. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Then the thing would smile, would touch your cheek or take your hand, and your helpless mind would watch as you became the thing you did not recognize. Watch as the one you loved fell to the floor, their skin bubbling and melting. Watch as your hands took your keys. Then watch nothing else, as you sank into your memories, as your memories became its food.
It took years for anyone to notice. People called them crackpots, conspiracy theorists. Only the worst of the fringe sites even mentioned it among all the other things the government didn¡¯t want you to know. Police officers who took it seriously found themselves suspended; detectives who mentioned it were sent off for psych evaluations. Eventually, finally, a task force was formed. Then disbanded for lack of evidence. Formed again as the grisly deaths or mysterious disappearances continued, always somehow connected to the previous one. A college student would go missing, then their best friend would be found gruesomely dead, then the friend¡¯s father would seem to drop off the map on a business trip¡­ A year or more later, someone would report meeting the vanished man in another state¡ªbut that someone would soon grow ill themselves or disappear. It moved, it hid, a mythical serial killer with no weapon. Not even a suspect to arrest. Authorities traced it back through the past and could not find a firm beginning. They did find a halfway famous victim, though¡ªa B-list actress who, a few short months after calling in an emergency, had died the very same way. Her husband had subsequently gone missing, and the chain went on from there. They began to call it the Fay Lind phenomenon. And then they simply called it the faylind. It wasn¡¯t a disease or a serial killer. There were no cattle mutilations, either, and no crop circles. But it was a harbinger.
July 20, 2153, was a Friday. At 3:07 pm in Los Alamos, New Mexico, a DARPA physicist entered a sequence of instructions into the supercomputer controlling a phase-lock engine. That engine, in turn, controlled a prototype particle collider. The phase-locks cycled on. Virtual particles danced in spirals and vanished again. Danced and vanished. Danced¡ª ¡ªand did not vanish. Someone else said, ¡°Oh, shi¡ª¡±
In an elsewise and otherwhen place, a creature who could have given both Diogenes and Plato an existential crisis placed a bead into a hollowed out scale on the blackened shell of a dead egg. It sang several notes, the rustling voices of the tree-like beings around it echoing the song. The bead vanished. The dead egg cracked. Across two worlds, a cataclysm began.
To most people on Earth, the end looked like this: You are waiting for a taxi, perhaps, or waiting for your class to end. You¡¯re standing on a subway platform, or ordering a burger. Maybe you¡¯re cleaning the grout around the shower, cursing that one spasming muscle in your back. If you¡¯re outside¡ªand live to tell the tale¡ªyou see the sky disappear, though you¡¯ll never be able to describe what took its place. Not without sounding insane, even to other people who also survived the end of the world. If you¡¯re inside and survive what comes after, you¡¯ll never be able to believe what others swear to have seen out there. But then, of course, you¡¯d never have believed any of this, anyway. There¡¯s something that might sound like a shout, but only if volcanoes could shout. It¡¯s the unbearable noise of an outraged planet preparing to shake life off its surface like a dog shakes off fleas. The air everywhere is wracked by a sonic boom of displacement as the screaming planet does something planets aren¡¯t meant to do, as an elsewise and otherwhen world abruptly replaces the Earth¡¯s molten core, expands outwards, and becomes a here and now global catastrophe. If you don¡¯t survive, it¡¯s because millions of tons of earth that were under your feet are now on top of you. Or because your altitude has undergone a critically rapid shift. Maybe one of the hundreds of flash-cyclones, each spawning dozens of tornadoes, sucks you away (and your little dog, too). Most likely, you die before you can even reach for your phone, let alone -dial any emergency numbers. It¡¯s probably for the best. You could have been one of those poor bastards in a plane, instead. If you¡¯re lucky¡ªor unlucky¡ªenough to be an astronaut in low Earth orbit, you may see long walls of sudden fire webbing the continents as all the tectonic faults split at exactly the same time, giant plumes of lava shooting into the air well over the speed of sound to land, moments or minutes or hours later, catastrophically. Many never land, the brutal force of an alien atmosphere exploding from the depths causing too much of the planetary surface to simply shrug helplessly into nonexistence. If you were an astronaut, your scant remains¡ªand whatever¡¯s left of the flimsy craft that once kept you breathing¡ªare now scattered across the surface of a world that impossibly crashed its engorged surface into you. If you live past the initial crisis, though, it¡¯s because you¡¯re lucky enough to happen to be in a particularly stable location on one of the continents. There¡¯s very little overall chance of making it past the next few days, but pockets of life do survive here and there. After a few days of utter chaos¡ªfirestorms, tsunamis, hypercanes¡ªyou may find yourself still buried beneath rubble, only to find huge, scaled hands (or fur-covered talons, or wing-claws) delicately lifting you to safety in a world that¡¯s no longer your own. The sky has come back, but it¡¯s no longer your sky. On the other hand, if you happen to be a rover scuttling across the rusty surface of a nearby world, you might be startled¡ªif rovers could be startled¡ªto find the sky blinking off like a momentarily doused lightbulb. Whatever might be out there, your simple electronic brain can¡¯t see it. When the sky returns, the sun is smaller and in the wrong place. The stars, when they come back out, look ever so slightly askew. But the Earth, if you have a telescope to see it, is now startlingly large. Your two oblong moons float now, along with your rusty little world, among the eddies of an only slightly perturbed asteroid belt. Any navigation equipment you might have that uses star positioning is now useless. Good luck phoning home, too.
To many people on Inur, the end looked like this: The sky blinks off, replaced momentarily by the incomprehensible movement of something vast and terrible, and a sense of dread fills you. You¡¯ve heard myths about that awful sky, about what¡¯s happening, though you probably never believed them. You look for anything that might save you, but it¡¯s already too late. The air shrieks as it¡¯s ripped open by hundreds of miles of rapidly falling molten rock¡ªthe underside of a fragmentary continent abruptly residing where you and your entire kinship nation once did. If you live in the mountains, you instinctively dive to the ground, hoping you can make it before the air burst shreds your wings. If you manage to make it to a safe cave or crevice, that may not save you, as tons of rock and ice avalanche down. If you¡¯re lucky enough to cling precariously to a peak, though, you¡¯ll probably survive. Probably. If you live in a forest, the trees¡¯ singing may have warned you in time to seek shelter in the cathedral and pray the interwoven branches will save you. If you¡¯re young and small enough, you may even be able to tumble along with the insanity of the winds and have a chance for a tale to pass on that may eventually become only a long-ago myth. If you live in the ocean, you know to dive as deep as you can, staying there as long as possible. For the things that roam the lightless depths, it¡¯s an orgy of feasting; for you, it¡¯s a better chance than you¡¯d have in shallower waters. After all, your feast will come later, when you meet new prey that has never encountered your kind before. If you¡¯re far enough belowground to miss the warnings of the sky and winds, you may survive the earthquakes that will trouble the world for centuries to come. You sift blindly through the ruined soils of civilizations lost in forgotten histories older than the oldest myths. Many-legged and many-minded, you search for the minerals and poisons that long-dead creatures became. But if you do survive the next few days, you know from the stories what comes next. If, on the other hand, you live in the deepest depths, mouthlessly devouring the heaviest elements for what might loosely be termed sustenance, you and your kind are the only reason the world has become so large without collapsing under its own gravity. You may have even been there, eons ago, when the world was still small. Scrivener I. Scrivener The hastily tanned hide roof of the tent fluttered above them, and Tavirr ayv Drusik wished yet again that he hadn¡¯t chased that tu¡¯yet into the teeth of the storm. Vengeance, though attractive, wasn¡¯t worth the injury¡ªor being grounded so close to a kriuulu forest. His wrenched wings still ached a bit, though he knew he would be flying again soon. The tiny watchers the human unknowingly brought were ensuring it. Outside, birds sang. Tavirr loved to listen to them. They were descended from the survivors of Inur¡¯s most recent cataclysm¡ªnative to what remained of Earth¡ªand they had flourished, thanks to the magick of the world. Though they hadn¡¯t yet moved into the peaks Tavirr and his clan called home, other lysks living on the lower slopes had been enjoying their musical antics. Their enchanting songs had been keeping him company during his convalescence. The birds fell abruptly silent. A moment later, they all took flight as one. A pair of shaggy melk, antlers spread like a canopy, bugled as they lumbered toward the lake in the plateau¡¯s shadow. Tavirr took a breath, scenting the information in the air. The white fur on his wings quivered. A minor quake rumbled across the landscape, then settled. The human woman sitting across from him never looked up, busily filling a blank page in her little book with tiny, careful words that were still a mystery to him. He could see that she was nearing the end of her available pages, but had no idea what they contained. Tavirr could read every burchar language and Common as well¡ªthough reading made his eyes ache¡ªbut human script was as difficult and as frustrating as humans themselves. Especially as, judging by what he had seen, the shape of Zoe¡¯s writing seemed to have change over time Since meeting the young woman, he had begun to wish his clan had a human enclave to care for. Fascinating beings, endlessly infuriating though they were. Tavirr had never truly learned to decipher the tiny scribble-scrawl that humans called writing, though Zoe had taught him the letters. Letters, he thought. Sound-signs. But also, missives sent from afar. Why use the same word for both? The scritch-scritch of writing stopped only long enough for Zoe to dip her quill tip in her inkwell, but it gave Tavirr an opportunity to indulge his curiosity. ¡°What write you, Zoe?¡± he asked. She paused, sticking her quill between her teeth, and flipped all the way to the front of the thick book, frowning in what looked like unsettled contemplation. Tavirr wondered what it might be like, flipping through memories as easily as Zoe flipped through pages.
Hello, first page of my very own journal! Grandma says I should introduce myself since someday, someone will probably make copies of this book the way I¡¯m learning to copy our old books! Mom¡¯s gone to the Cathedral, so it¡¯s just Grandma and me now. She says I don¡¯t have to just copy that one boring old book over and over again anymore. She gave me this journal for my Cathedral Day present, for my very own. She also said the best way to polish my handwriting for good scribing work was to write my own words for a change! It doesn¡¯t make up for Mom being gone, but it¡¯s awfully nice to think my words might last forever. So just in case someday someone does make copies of this, I¡¯m supposed to introduce myself. Here goes. My name is Zoe, I¡¯m nine years old, and pretty soon I¡¯ll be making such good copies of books that I¡¯ll be able to trade them to the other plateaus! When I earn the right to be a professional scribe, I¡¯ll get to take the name of Scrivener, which is the old-timey word for scribe. I learned to read from some of the old stories that other scriveners have copied, but Mom wouldn¡¯t let me read most of them (Grandma doesn¡¯t, either). And she never let me use any for writing practice, in case I got ink on them. Most of them are too important, all about what human life and civilization used to be like, back when Earth was a whole world, not a few plateaus around Inur. There aren¡¯t a lot of humans, but our little town sometimes feels crowded anyway. Grandma says there used to be billions of humans! But it¡¯s a big world out there¡ªway bigger than Earth used to be if the old stories are true! There¡¯s plenty of room for us to grow and spread. Grandma even owns three books from Before¡ªnot just keeping them for the town, either, they¡¯re really hers! They¡¯re not actually from Before, of course, they¡¯re copies of copies of copies, but she traded for them herself. I have to learn to copy books because the Cataclysm was so long ago, the original writings that survived it no longer exist. And because someday, a long time from now, another one will probably happen. By the time everyone had been rescued and whatever things had been salvaged (like books and stuff), the stories say that no one knew how long it had been. Earth years used to be really short¡ªthree hundred sixty-five days¡ªbut now they¡¯re five hundred seventy-three days. Our days now are longer than old Earth¡¯s, too, thirty hours. I used to not believe all those stories. I¡¯d say, well, you¡¯re trapped wherever, so if you haven¡¯t starved yet when they finally get to you, it can¡¯t have been that long. But the more I thought about it, with the days suddenly being longer, and then the seasons getting messed up, too? Maybe time really did get away from them. I still think about that a lot whenever I can¡¯t sleep. If it happened tomorrow, I¡¯d have to get used to how ordinary things would be so different. Maybe time would get away from me, too. I mean, I can get lost for hours just reading some old story, how weird it all was. I¡¯ll read about things like cars and elevators, and I have no idea what they were. I can tell that people traveled in them, but since there were no tseys or pallicorns on Earth, I don¡¯t know if they were even real. Plus, there¡¯s no pictures of them in our town¡¯s books. I would know! But all I have to do is write the words, I don¡¯t have to know their meanings, or whether they were ever real. That¡¯s what Mom used to say, before she was chosen last Cathedral Day. Maybe the vo¡¯ai will let me see her next Cathedral Day, but I don¡¯t know anyone else who¡¯s gotten to see relatives who got to go, not unless they go, too. I just have to wait for my chance to be chosen. I really miss her.
¡°Zoe? What write you?¡± Tavirr repeated. She looked up at him, brushing a lock of dark hair behind her ear. ¡°What are you writing?¡± she automatically corrected. Then she paused and closed the book with a sigh. ¡°I¡¯m a scrivener. My whole job is to write letters that other people dictate to me, or to copy our books for trading with other human compounds who have other books. And since I can¡¯t take anything archival out of our compound, I¡¯m working on my journal.¡± She thumbed over the ragged first few pages, the ones Tavirr guessed she must have written years before. ¡°Hm,¡± he rumbled, musing. Archival, he translated. Having to do with archives. His h¡¯adba had told him about the many-tongued archives of the burchar, a different language for every occupation. He wondered why the humans were so reticent to freely share their writings with other peoples, the way burchars did. ¡°What meaning, ¡®journal¡¯?¡± he asked. ¡°What is the meaning of ¡®journal¡¯.¡± She waited. Tavirr sighed. ¡°What is the meaning of ¡®journal¡¯?¡± he obediently repeated. Deceptive, the human tongue. Every time he thought he had a phrasing down, Zoe corrected him again. ¡°It means a record of what I do every day. It¡¯s important to be able to read over what others have done and experienced in the past so we can build on our knowledge.¡± So, humans used writing for much the same purpose as the burchar. ¡°And do you write of nursing the wing aches of a poor fool lysk?¡± he asked with a chuckle. Zoe¡¯s face went blank, and Tavirr¡¯s heart sank as he realized that he had gone somewhere forbidden. ¡°Yes,¡± she whispered. ¡°I have to write my life, so my knowledge isn¡¯t lost. But¡­¡± She closed the journal and dropped it at his feet. ¡°But no one knows you¡¯re here, and no one¡¯s ever going to know.¡± ¡°Zoe¡ª¡± ¡°I have to go.¡± She pulled out several packages of cured meat for him. ¡°That¡¯s all I could take this time. Make it last. I don¡¯t know when I¡¯ll be able to get out here again.¡± She gathered her pencil, her rifle, and the liniment she kept insisting would help (it stank abominably, though it was pleasantly warm on the wing joints she had tended to), stuffed them in her pack, and ducked out of the tent. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. The soft sound of her footsteps receded. Tavirr eyed the journal lying on the ground, uneasy. The birds began to sing again.
Journal, Tavirr thought. Journey, to travel. Sojourn, a stop along the way. Journal. Writing about a journey¡ªor about the stops along the way? Careful of his long talons, he rifled through the pages, imagining that he was looking at the lonely mountains beyond clan Drusik¡¯s territory, the stark word-peaks above the blank cloud layer of the page speaking of things only the wind could hear. The ranges beyond Drusik pulled at his heart, and he wondered if words on a page did the same for Zoe, keeper of history. Like Tavirr, Zoe never traveled far. Very few humans did, as yet. The vo¡¯ai, the local race of kriuulu, were the keepers of this human plateau, and they were zealous in herding their charges. Did she not travel, though? She did¡ªto visit a poor, wing-wounded lysk she had spotted falling from the sky. What a risk she had taken. Did she tell the kriuulu guarding her home of poor Tavirr ayv Drusik? He rather expected not. Perhaps she traveled through the memories of Earth-before, the scraps of what was left of her ancestors¡¯ writings. Better, he thought, to keep the stories in the heart and mind, to tell them and retell them so often that no one ever forgot. There were so many tales left over from Inur-before that were still sung at the fires of a cold night. For the first time, he wondered how many more had been lost, and he wondered whether Zoe would ever like to write them in a little book. Something buzzed by his ear, and Tavirr snatched it out of the air. A tiny, feathered form no bigger than one of his fingers struggled in his hand, hissing in outrage. It could have been a small bird, except for the tiny hands, those sharp little hooked fingers jutting from the delicately feathered wing-arms. So, he mused. Another one. They had their uses, these small spies. Zoe journeyed¡ªnot far from home, of course, but these journeyed with her, nearly unseen. Hidden from her, but not from him. It hissed again, and Tavirr crushed it. No use letting it go back to its larger elders, but¡ªmuch use for him. He felt the tiny feathers dissolve on his tongue as he chewed, their potent, unspent magick entering his blood, finishing the repair of his wings. Zoe must love the creatures, of course. Kriuulu were very good at that. The lysks had loved them too, once, until his ancestors had finally escaped. The tale was still told, how a caravan of h¡¯adbani had insisted on renewing their ancient alliance. Even the kriuulu were helpless to deny a caravan of determined burchars immune to kriuulu charms. Adba was rising, the largest of the moons, the one who often seemed to love spending more of the day with Inur than the night. It made him think of his own h¡¯adba, h¡¯Jasse. He missed speaking to her, though she wouldn¡¯t be able to make the journey all the way to his clan again. Like Adba, she had grown too large to come so close. Well, that was why Inur had given lysks the wings burchars lacked. One or two of her many offspring gotten by her many, many burchar true-mates would begin their own Drusik orbits in time. Peace wore the face of a burchar, it was said. He would visit h¡¯Jasse as soon as his wings could bear the long flight, Tavirr decided. She would read Zoe¡¯s words to him, and then he would carry those words back to his clan. As Tavirr fanned his newly healed wings, he packed away the food Zoe had brought him. Fastening his travel strap around his shoulders and across his jutting keel bone, he hooked the pack of food on one side and the bundle of papers with human writing on the other, checking the buckles. If he saw Zoe again, he would return her journal.
It was exciting, at first, to meet a lysk. Now it¡¯s just confusing. Way back, who knows how long ago, before the world of the lysks and burchars was mangled the same way Earth was, the most lethal creature wasn¡¯t one of the enormous monsters roaming the deep plains the burchars call home. It was a tribe of pissed-off lysks. The kriuulu keep telling us that lysks are dangerous predators, and they¡¯re not wrong. But burchars trust lysks; they evolved on the same world. Their weird ceremonial intermarriage thing they¡¯ve got going on with lysks, though? I just don¡¯t get it, but it seems to work. Kriuulu and lysks will tangle sometimes, but burchars and lysks? Never. There are a lot of human settlements on Inur, basically set up wherever parts of Earth¡¯s mantle¡ªand life¡ªsurvived. On the New England continental plateau, our ancestors were saved by the vo¡¯ai kriuulu. And, well, they¡¯ve kept us safe. Kept us from dying out from a million alien diseases. Kept us, for the past millennium, from moving on, rebuilding our civilization. Tavirr ayv Drusik. Dangerous? With those saber teeth and three-inch talons, he¡¯s every bit the predator, the ¡°ice demon¡± people tell their kids cautionary tales about. But he¡¯s also curious, smart, funny, and kind. The vo¡¯ai kriuulu? Not very kind. If there¡¯s a kriuulu in the room, you¡¯d better pay attention to it. And you¡¯d damn well better do what it says. Once upon a time, I believed in the kriuulu. I used to hope every Cathedral Day that I¡¯d get to see Mom again. I know better now.
Zoe hiked back towards town with a brace of rabbits slung over one shoulder and a melk calf on the other, but without the journal she¡¯d ¡°misplaced.¡± Not that anyone would know it was gone¡ªshe¡¯d been keeping it secure in her pack for years, waiting for a chance to smuggle it out to someone¡ªanyone¡ªfrom outside of New Providence. Fucking parrots couldn¡¯t read it, she thought gratefully. But there were enough humans who could read and who still ate egg-flesh¡­ She shuddered, remembering what it was like, the numb contentment, not caring what the basic rations the vo¡¯ai distributed were made from. Where the wood of her own house had come from, or how those dead logs would still resonate with the strange music of the singing trees. Build your own house, Zo, her mother¡¯s memory whispered. The ancient oak came into view, and Zoe dropped her burdens with a grateful sigh. She sat heavily on one of its huge roots and patted the trunk. This was what a tree was supposed to be. There was an illustration, drawn many times over by generations of scriveners, in the biology textbook Zoe had inherited. Acorn to seedling, earth and rain and sunlight and time. Oak to acorn again. A new copy sat in her house, freshly bound and waiting to be delivered. Its pages had come from the pulp of wood cut from the limbs of other trees like this one. It made sense. All the books she copied and traded made sense, a human kind of sense for a human kind of world. She let out a long whistle, then leaned back against the huge trunk to wait.
Zoe dreamed that she was the only one crying, even though none of the other kids wore gloves, either. They all had to sort the eklil stones barehanded, and it must have stung all the other kids¡¯ hands, too, but she was the only one who cried. There was a tall figure in the corner. She knew it was somehow the kriuulu who ran the schoolhouse. The real one had white-gold feathers, though, and this one looked like just¡­ a boiling pillar of shadow. Then she was in her crib, watching her mother loop a string with a shiny stone on it over a nail in the wall nearby. Her mom hummed a lullaby, stopped to look at her in surprise, and told her she was far too young to remember this. But Zoe didn¡¯t care. Her chubby little hands reached out clumsily, trying to catch the white stone dangling at the end of her mother¡¯s necklace, the afternoon light shining through the thin curtains to spark delightfully off the little cracked spot on the bottom. ¡°You know perfectly well you didn¡¯t get to wear yours till you were five, honey,¡± she said, taking Zoe¡¯s tiny hands in hers. A sound like a snap made her turn her head to look, but there was nothing to be seen at all now hanging from the nail where the string with the little stone had hung. Then she was a few years older, and crying helplessly as her mother put a pretty stone on its woven string around Zoe¡¯s neck. Another little snap, and this time the dream changed. She heard her child¡¯s voice screaming as the wall abruptly bent somehow, like it was being inhaled, and then the wall abruptly became a door. It opened with a click and a creak, and a long, impossibly thin leg began to climb out. Then another. And another. Soon, the room seemed to be full of nothing but the scratching and scraping of spidery legs. ¡°It wasn¡¯t your fault, Zo,¡± her mother said. ¡°Dream something better, and build your own house.¡± Then the door cracked, shattering.
Zoe gasped and woke. She hadn¡¯t had that dream in years. Something snapped like the crack from her dream, and she looked around, realizing that the sun was already dipping towards evening. A few yards away under the canopy of another oak stood a large chameleon wolf. A second one, a bit smaller, melted from the dappled shadows beside it, clapping its jaws playfully. Zoe¡¯s breath caught in delight, and tried to look like she wasn¡¯t staring. The pair sniffed the ground with an air of deliberate distraction, ears relaxed, tails easy. Their coats shifted from dappled gray to ochre, and Zoe relaxed. The smaller one curled her tail up, the black tip becoming white, and Zoe heard a small chorus of excited whimpers as three cubs tumbled clumsily into view. The little ones weren¡¯t yet old enough to have mastered the small muscle twitches that controlled which color layers their fur showed, but their patchy flashes of bright and dark seemed to blend into the random shadow motions of light and shade around them. Like a lot of Earth life, they had been changed by the Cataclysm and the magick of the compound world of Inur. Zoe fingered the necklace that had been around her neck since she¡¯d turned five, just like everyone she knew wore one so they wouldn¡¯t get sick. The edge of her nail caught against the chip on the bottom. She thought about the book sitting on her writing desk, the only one of its kind in New Providence. Before that book¡¯s arrival, the town had owned no biology texts at all. A book of history, several novels, a few newspaper pages copied and recopied over generations, and the single math book that Zoe had trained for writing on, since it included letters and numbers both. That biology book was special, though. Zoe remembered a chapter about inherited traits. There must have been a page or more missing, because it had started out talking about peas, ended abruptly mid-sentence, and then talked about eye color. What had caught her first was the illustration, painstakingly hand-copied by a scrivener on the other side of the world, of a wolf. The text had talked about coat color changing very little, other than seasonal variations¡ªand that was when she¡¯d run all the way to Henry Miner¡¯s house to tell him and his wife, Mary Shepherd, what she¡¯d found. Change over time, but not the slow change the book had talked about, not change that took millions of years. Mary had demanded that Zoe teach her to read and write on the spot so she could start putting down her ideas about how quickly sudden changes had begun to happen. Zoe had laughed and told her how many years it had taken before Zoe¡¯s mother had let her copy her first real book (the one with all the magick stories, not the damn math book yet again), and Mary had hired Zoe to take dictation instead. And then Mary had died of a sudden lung fever before Luna was visible again. Henry had gotten taken out by a cat along with half of his herd, and Rhonda Weaver had changed her surname to Hunter just in time for six lean months of winter. Thank God for the wolves, Zoe thought. Cats feared very few things, but wolves were one of them. She¡¯d been bringing them kills when she could to let them know she appreciated them, even if others didn¡¯t. Thank God for the wolves, she thought again, just in time to see the adults¡¯ coats go solid black as the small pack retreated, low-slung, toward the woods. A shot rang out, then another, and the cubs began whimpering in confusion as the big male stumbled and fell. ¡°No!¡± Zoe yelled, but then she was on the ground, too, pinned there by hot pain in her shoulder. Thunder rumbled overhead and lightning flickered, but Zoe didn¡¯t care. She just stared at the body of the wolf as his fur slowly turned white in death. Cathedral Day II. Cathedral Day What write you, Zoe? Tavirr¡¯s voice asked. I¡¯m writing about the rain. It was raining around her, but there was no water, just the sound of a hissing rumble. Lightning flickered, but Zoe wasn¡¯t afraid. Dreaming, she saw her mother again, hanging a shiny eklil stone out of reach on the wall above Zoe¡¯s crib. Her mother¡¯s own stone pendant swung in circles above her baby self¡¯s reaching hands, the jagged notch on the bottom mesmerizing her. She saw a wolf fall, and her dreaming baby self asked her mother why. Her mother looked at her and reminded her again that she was much too young to remember this. Then her mother was gone. The eklil stone hanging on her wall split apart with a crack (the wolf fell again) like the sound a gunshot, legs upon legs upon legs forcing themselves out of the broken stone. She felt her mind being pulled through her mother¡¯s pendant into a world she didn¡¯t want to belong to anymore. It¡¯s gonna be okay, a different voice said. Hold still. Something stabbed into her shoulder, and she wanted to beg it to stop, but it was raining, and she couldn¡¯t speak. Drops hit her eyes, her cheeks. She tasted salt. Zoe half-woke again several times, but she didn¡¯t know where she was. All she could hear was the gunshot. A kind man with dark skin helped her to a toilet at some point, averting his face while he gently supported her as she relieved herself. After that, he carried her back to a cushion that was still warm. She tried to look around, but she was so tired. The curving walls were a nacreous white that shimmered with hints of subtle hues, and watching them slowly shift made her eyelids too heavy to fully wake. The drumming sound of rain lulled her into sleep despite the heavy, insistent pain in her shoulder.
Hello, journal. I can¡¯t talk to anyone else about this, so I have to talk to you, but I still have to be vague, just in case. I promised Matty I would go somewhere with him, and then I got scared and didn¡¯t do it, and now he hates me. Really hates me. He hasn¡¯t talked to me since I broke my promise, but Grandma said I wasn¡¯t ever to go you-know-where at night, because the vo¡¯ai would get upset, and now I¡¯ve lost my best friend. After I asked Grandma if I could go with Matty and she said no, she stared at the sketch Mom did of Dad a few years before he died working in the mine. I still miss him so much. It wasn¡¯t as bad before Mom got Chosen, but with just Grandma and me, the house feels empty sometimes. Grandma never talks about either of them. Even if I only mention them, she¡¯ll just tell me to go practice my writing. I practice my writing a lot.
When she opened her eyes next, Zoe was in the med center back home. The walls were made of humming alien wood, and a pair of kriuulu wandered among the beds. They looked odd in their white smocks, one of the few times Zoe had ever seen them clothed in anything but their own glowing plumage. Her head felt thick and heavy, her thoughts dripping slowly into awareness. Someone coughed, someone else wept quietly, a man¡¯s voice she¡¯d known since childhood, when it had been the voice of a boy. ¡°Eat, be well, and grow strong with us,¡± a fluting voice murmured as it stopped at each bed along the opposite wall. The kriuulu¡¯s wing-claws were sheathed in the white gold feathers that marked them as ethnically vo¡¯ai. Another vo¡¯ai placed a rind of what looked like bread on Zoe¡¯s lap, and she took a bite without thinking. It was soft and porous, like beeswax, but there was nothing at all like honey about the taste. Instead, it was dry and sharply bitter. ¡°You have to eat, Daria, you have to, you¡¯re still sick,¡± that familiar voice said. Zoe carefully didn¡¯t look up. ¡°You know I can¡¯t stand that shit, Matteo. Please don¡¯t make me eat.¡± ¡°Just one bite, honey. It¡¯ll help. Then I swear I¡¯ll eat the rest. Here.¡± A whisper of cloth. ¡°Don¡¯t touch me, I¡¯m probably still contagious.¡± A sigh. ¡°Fine, I¡¯ll have a bite.¡± Zoe nearly spat her own mouthful out, but she was overwhelmed by an irresistible craving that made her teeth rip into the bitter egg-flesh, her mouth watering greedily. She knew Daria would be devouring hers now, too. In caring for their human charges, nothing in kriuulu life was wasted. Living wood from grandmother trees housed them, humming and whispering the music that gave humans heavy, restful sleep. Egg-flesh, left over after hundreds of tiny kriuulu nymphs dug their way out into the world, cured illness and injury. Egg-flesh was nourishment; it was medicine, given as devotional sustenance. The vo¡¯ai gave of themselves, as Inur law demanded of caretakers. Night and day, the vo¡¯ai surrounding the New England Plateau cared for the humans living there. Zoe had never seen a vo¡¯ai sleeping, and now she wondered if kriuulu of any race ever did. When Zoe finished, she let herself relax into the soporific numbness of the devotee. She settled into the blankets, still hearing the sound of soft weeping. She fell asleep gripping her eklil stone. Tomorrow was Cathedral Day.
¡°You can either sleep in your father¡¯s den tonight, Rrucho, or you can break your fool head against the side of the mountain for all I care.¡± Vala folded her arms in stubborn fury, closing her useless wings with a pointedly loud snap. Her mate growled past her but otherwise refused to acknowledge that there was anyone else in their den. Tavirr stood in the shadows, letting his spotted fur blend with the pale stone of the den his ancestors had chipped into the side of the ancient lava cave of clan Drusik. No adult lysk in the clan would even look at him except his sister. She and his nephew were the only reason he stayed. When the big shaggy male turned at last to clamber down the lava tube, Vala¡¯s wings relaxed. Tavirr looked away from them, not wanting to see the scars from where the shredded membranes had needed to be cut away from the long digits. He still blamed himself, no matter Vala¡¯s reassurances. She must have caught his expression, though, because she rattled her bony wings the way she¡¯d learned to, a sound that could make any lysk in earshot shudder. ¡°So,¡± she growled. ¡°You¡¯re still chasing the thing that took my wings.¡± She tapped his forehead with graceful fingers, her retractable claws so different from a man¡¯s fixed talons. ¡°Did you have any time to just sit and think when you were recovering?¡± ¡°Too much,¡± he admitted. She sighed. ¡°And did you, at any point, wonder whether the injury to your wings was maybe a warning from the very thing that took mine?¡± He stared at her. ¡°You¡­ you have not spoken of that since¡­¡± ¡°Of course not,¡± she hissed. ¡°I love my mate, as pebble-headed as he may be. He¡¯s a good man and a good father. Why would I jeopardize that? And why, by the winds, would I ever¡ªever¡ªbe idiotic enough to attract that thing¡¯s attention by speaking of it?¡± Vala shook her head. ¡°Rrucho performed Zassik¡¯s blooding while you were away. With his own talons, my gentle son took the life of a fawn, and he did not flinch when father tore son¡¯s palm to let Zassik¡¯s blood mingle with the lifeblood of his prey. He even joined Rrucho in the wind prayers, unafraid!¡± Tavirr found himself backed up against the den wall, pinned by the fierce gaze of a mother showing pride in her son. Shrugging her bony wings, she looked away. ¡°You have seen impossible things. And I don¡¯t envy you. You even saw what comes at the equinox¡ªstop!¡± Tavirr closed his mouth on the useless denial. ¡°What am I supposed to say, then?¡± he growled in frustration. ¡°My brother.¡± She touched her forehead to his. ¡°What you hunt, it isn¡¯t in the winds, or even in the mountains.¡± She smiled. ¡°You don¡¯t want me here, I know. I hold you and Zassik down.¡± ¡°Pebble-head. I do want you here, and I wish you could be in Zassik¡¯s life. Every boy should be so lucky as to have an uncle like you, Tav. But he¡¯s a man now, and¡­¡± ¡°And I can¡¯t exist for him anymore.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Tavirr.¡± He took her hand, squeezed it gently. ¡°Don¡¯t be. After all, I finally got to meet a human, no?¡± Vala chuffed in amusement. ¡°Was it everything you hoped? Mystery and adventure and strangeness?¡± When Tavirr didn¡¯t respond, she showed her fang tips in a wicked grin. ¡°Ahhh. I see now. The human. It was a female.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t stoop to answering that.¡± ¡°Ha! You just did.¡± She sobered. ¡°Get out of here. Go to your adba. Jasse was always a friend to both of us.¡± ¡°Sister, for the wind¡¯s sake, learn to pronounce the subsonics. I flinch every time you say ¡®h¡¯abda¡¯ and ¡®h¡¯Jasse¡¯ wrong. When I come back¡ª¡± ¡°When you come back, you¡¯ll still be the only lysk in the clan who can pronounce the unpronounceable. Go. I love you, and so does Zassik.¡± He wrapped his wings around his sister, smelling the spiced oil she loved to wear in her crest. They shared a few moments of comforting purr. Then Tavirr walked out of his sister¡¯s den, out of the cave system, and into the night.
A cacophony of screaming jerked Zoe out of hypnotic sleep the next morning. The unearthly wails were nothing like a human cry, and they were too unmusical to be kriuulu. She could almost have gone back to sleep, but hard laughter stabbed through her pleasant haze. She knew that sound far too well. Dressing quickly despite her complaining shoulder, Zoe dashed out of the med center. Old bruises ached in her memory, following the sound of the screams and ugly cheers. Zoe cursed. Most folk sent to the mines were serving some sort of time. Others were miners by trade, doing honorable work. The vo¡¯ai would only rarely compel any to live, eat, and sleep in the mines, but Matteo Carpenter was one of them. She wondered how Daria could have possibly put up with him this long. He held up an eklil by one of its crystalline legs; several other men held the other gangly limbs as the eklil struggled, but Matteo was the only one laughing. Zoe realized he was wearing a jacket made of sloppily tanned and sewn wolf hide. She could smell it from where she stood, Zoe pushed her way between the onlookers and spat at him. He looked straight at her, giving a friendly little wave and a wink. ¡°Hey, Zoe, we got a live one!¡± he shouted at her through the crowd growing around them in the town square. ¡°Let it go, Matty!¡± She clutched her eklil stone pendant, seeing again the image of the crack in her mother¡¯s stone as she fingered the jagged place on the underside of the one she wore. Still gripping the poor creature¡¯s leg, Matteo grabbed Zoe¡¯s necklace strap and yanked it from her neck and out of her hands with a snap. They had been friends even before her mother had been Chosen for the Cathedral; it was another several years after that when Matty¡¯s father had been Chosen. Matteo had turned into a different person almost overnight. She knew it wasn¡¯t her fault, not really, but the old guilt nagged at her every time she saw him. Of course, since he¡¯d been made to leave off woodworking and take up the pick instead, they rarely saw each other anymore. The folks around Zoe muttered to each other in curiosity, cheering in horrified amazement as they realized just what Matteo and his fellow miners held, what they meant to do. ¡°Let it go!¡± she repeated. ¡°Please! You don¡¯t have to¡ª¡± But when Matteo saw Zoe, his smile widened, his eyes alight with grim amusement. ¡°Aw, but our holy guardians pay so well for these suckers,¡± he snarled. Then he called out, ¡°Let¡¯s do it!¡± to his cohorts. ¡°Pull!¡± The other men, all wearing the determined expressions of miners hoping to earn extra rations, gripped the eklil¡¯s legs. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. The six-limbed creature had no head, no eyes, nothing that looked like sensory organs, but somehow it seemed to know what was about to happen. It flailed and shrieked again. ¡°Are you pussies?¡± Matteo snarled. ¡°I said pull!¡± The eklil stopped struggling, and Zoe had the disconcerting sense that it was looking at her. Then Matteo finally succeeded in yanking off the leg he held, and one of the other miners relaxed his grip in startlement. There was a sharp crack that sent a shockwave through the crowd, blowing the miners off their feet as the eklil¡¯s carapace splintered and shattered. In the momentary silence after the eklil¡¯s death, something deep within Zoe¡­ shifted. She bit back a scream. Out of the jagged seam in the dying eklil¡¯s shell, a long, many-jointed leg appeared as if from some unknown hell, probing the ground below it. Another jerking crack echoed as something else shifted, opened¡ªand another, and another, and with each crack, more alien legs spidered out, until the sickening entirety of the thing had climbed out of the poor dead eklil. She held the shattered bits of her lifeless eklil stone close in terror, but its precious magick had already dissipated. The freakish thing skittered drunkenly around, between¡ªthrough?¡ªthe people diving for the gleaming stones, before finally slipping into the shadows between two houses. Reality snapped back into focus. As the rest of the shell of the dead eklil broke into a shivering pile of stones¡ªas Matty yelled the crowd back from the magickal riches¡ªZoe realized that the weird, impossible thing which had shivered its way into the world had vanished. And that she appeared to have been the only one who¡¯d seen it. Time seemed to speed up as she stood there, her eyes searching through the growing shadows for the¡­ whatever-it-was. People around her continued to stuff eklil stones into their pockets or shirts or skirts, wincing at the fresh, crackling magick that stung their hands. As the sun slipped behind the tree-lined horizon, a vo¡¯ai took her by the arm in his gentle, implacable wing-claws. She tried to flinch away, but his deep black eyes would not let her go, and she felt herself relax under his mesmerizing gaze. ¡°It is time, daughter,¡± he said. Zoe recognized him with a start as the one who had always attended to the schoolchildren. ¡°The Cathedral stands empty.¡± The ritual phrase sent ice down her spine, and she blinked at them in dawning, horrified comprehension. Another vo¡¯ai had once said the same thing to her mother. ¡°The Cathedral vows await you. Before sunrise, you and the other Chosen novitiates will join the holy order of blessed seclusion.¡± Behind her, she heard Matteo yelling. When she looked, his wife Daria was also being led away, a look of compliant peace on her face. Zoe decided, as her feet began to move under no will of her own, that her face probably looked just like Daria¡¯s. The crowd parted for her and Daria, as well as several others, each paired with a vo¡¯ai elder. Children gasped in delight, and everyone broke into cheering applause for the lucky few who would get to spend the rest of their lives in the holy work of the Cathedral that ruled and protected them.
The page is old, the thick paper ragged and wrinkled around the outer edge as if someone had wanted to rip it out but decided not to. Its words are scratched through, but still legible: I¡¯m so sorry, Mom. I wanted to say so in these pages where, hopefully, no one will read it. I understand now. It¡¯s been three years since your Cathedral Day. I was so naive then, but¡­ I suppose that¡¯s what it means to be a little kid. I was so proud of you when I was little¡ªI had a mom who was Chosen to serve the great Cathedral of Trees, to grow strong together with our vo¡¯ai. It¡¯s the Path, after all, right? Our graves nourish the roots of the grandmother trees, just as the vo¡¯ai nourish us with the egg-flesh their young have hatched from. And every year, there¡¯s always the honored few who take their place in that ¡°blessed seclusion¡± to serve the grandmother trees. Last Cathedral Day, my friend Matty¡ªhe¡¯s training to be a carpenter, you remember him. Or you would have, anyway. You always liked him. His dad was Chosen. He snuck out that night to watch the ceremony. He wanted me to go with him, and I should have gone, Mom, I should have been there for him, but I didn¡¯t know. I should have gone. This isn¡¯t coming out right. My handwriting is too shaky, just like my head right now. I need to breathe for a while, I guess, and then try again. The rest of the page is dotted with smudged ink drops where the author had put quill to paper but hesitated too long. A human scrivener would have copied only the words, perhaps explaining in a footnote how, in the original version, the author had scratched them out. The person who now read the book, however, was not human. She chose her brushes carefully, precisely replicating every shaking word, every halting drip and careless smudge. Taking the smallest brush in her archivist¡¯s arsenal, h¡¯Jasse Tav¡¯h even copied the tiny whorls of an ink-stained fingerprint at the bottom. ¡°Well?¡± Tavirr couldn¡¯t help asking. H¡¯Jasse raised a silencing finger at him, her eyes never leaving the journal propped on her wide desk. As she turned the page and resumed reading, though, her quill missed the ink pot, stabbing into the wooden inkstand instead, and the scales on the big burchar¡¯s horny crest flared red in sudden alarm. Her four legs bent slowly to lower her bulk to the ground as her hands flipped delicately to the next page. She looked down at the lysk who stood at her knee. ¡°My h¡¯adba,¡± she rumbled, ¡°I must speak with this human of yours, but¡­ but I fear I may not get the chance.¡± ¡°Come now. I have wings, I can bear any message to her that you require.¡± Her crest dulled to yellow, and she shook her great saurian head. ¡°We don¡¯t even have the time for me to pen a note, Tavirr. Fly to her now, with all speed, and pray to the wind that it¡¯s not too late.¡±
They stood just outside the sacred Cathedral of Trees, in the confining circle of smaller mother trees that served as the narthex leading into the Cathedral. In the near distance, thunder rumbled. Zoe had only been to the Cathedral of Trees a few times, of course. Her father¡¯s funeral, her mother¡¯s Choosing ceremony. The night she¡¯d finally given in to curiosity and Matty¡¯s hateful glares, and watched in secret as that year¡¯s batch of Chosen had entered their blessed seclusion. The long scar on her right leg was why she always wore trousers now. The town leaders were all in attendance, human and vo¡¯ai alike, along with the close kin of the other Chosen. Several other vo¡¯ai stood to the side, across from the Chosen, but Zoe couldn¡¯t bear to look at them. She didn¡¯t recognize any of the families¡ªnone, except for Matteo Carpenter. He would lose his wife tonight. Of course, she knew he would also watch her be taken into the Cathedral, the same way he¡¯d watched his father. The same way Zoe had finally seen the truth, a year after she¡¯d been too frightened to go with Matty. Maybe now, thought Zoe, Matty¡¯s hatred for his onetime friend would have closure. At the end of her time in the world, she could even forgive him for the wolf. Zoe hoped there were no illicit youngsters tonight like Matteo¡ªor Zoe herself¡ªhad been, sneaking out of their houses with that dreadful curiosity too strong to ignore. There were already enough people working in the eklil mine, strangely unable to speak of what crime had sent them there. And sometimes, the curious ones would simply not come back. Eventually, the Cathedral was everyone¡¯s home. A vo¡¯ai ceremonially robed in deep purple walked among the Chosen, offering the ritual communion meal of moist, living egg-flesh, the membranes over those honeycomb pores stirring with tiny embryonic nymphs. Zoe stood, watching in sickened fascination as the others, even Daria, ate. Bloody purple juice ran down their chins, but none of them seemed to care. Zoe waited patiently, deliberately, until every eye was on her. Then she opened her hands and let her communion portion fall to the ground. It hit with a wet sound as a few of the undeveloped nymphs burst from their protective cells. Their weak struggles lasted only a few moments before they died. At this, a few of the attendees whispered to each other, but the kriuulu among them ruffled their feathers in disapproval, silencing the mutterers. It was more than just symbolism, of course. She had seen the numbed expressions on the faces of the Chosen twice before. The three who had been Chosen alongside Zoe¡¯s mother had (she¡¯d thought then) simply looked peaceful; her mother¡¯s refusal to eat hadn¡¯t made any sense to her young self, so full of faith. But then again, neither had her mom¡¯s parting words. Build your own house, Zoe. As soon as you¡¯re big and strong enough to do it¡ªand ask Matty to help. Use good, strong oak, none of that damn singing wood. Why, Mom? she had asked. You¡¯ll understand when you¡¯re older, sweetheart. I love you. Matteo never had helped her, though; she¡¯d been too afraid to ask. Zoe still lived in the house she¡¯d grown up in, built from logs dropped, already perfectly shaped, by the largest mother and grandmother trees in the forest. Their humming whispers still lulled her to sleep every night, leaving strangeness in her mind the next day. The vo¡¯ai know best, the house would sing. She hadn¡¯t believed that in over a decade. Tabitha Mayor stepped forward, wearing the dark red sash of Cathedral Day. One by one, she put the right hands of the Chosen into the left wing-claws of their vo¡¯ai sponsors, murmuring what sounded like a blessing to every pair. Each vo¡¯ai in turn plucked a feather, handing it to the mayor, who held it until it dissolved into dust. She sprinkled the dust onto the bowed heads of the dumbly blinking Chosen. When she reached Zoe, though, the mayor took Zoe¡¯s hand in hers and looked her in the eye for a long moment, until Zoe understood that Tabitha had no choice, either. Until Zoe¡¯s kriuulu took her hand himself. Her old schoolmaster, who¡¯d brought her to the Cathedral, the same one she had adored as a child. The one who always called kids his sons and daughters. It made her sick. ¡°Zoe¡ªUlwio¡ªI bind you together,¡± Tabitha Mayor said as she pressed Zoe¡¯s hand into the kriuulu¡¯s wing-claw. Then she leaned in. ¡°But,¡± she whispered, ¡°I do not send you to peace.¡± Frowning in confusion, Zoe looked between the kriuulu who held her hand in its hard grip, and the mayor, who gestured at Ulwio. The kriuulu plucked something from the undercoat feathers beneath its thick outer white-gold plumage. Zoe didn¡¯t recognize it at first, because it was black as a shadow. That wasn¡¯t a vo¡¯ai feather, but no one beyond the three of them seemed to see that. Ulwio placed its feather in the mayor¡¯s palm. She closed her hand around it, then mimed sprinkling dust on Zoe¡¯s head. Her gaze caught Zoe¡¯s, and she folded the young woman¡¯s fingers around the black feather. ¡°Trust him,¡± the mayor whispered urgently. ¡°Help us.¡± Then she strode back to the small group of congregants. ¡°Can we¡­ can we say goodbye?¡± one of the Chosen asked in a drunken mumble. It was Matteo¡¯s wife, Daria. When her request was met with silence from her kriuulu keeper, Daria seemed to shrink quietly back into herself, her arms folded, hands buried in her long sleeves. Zoe belatedly realized she had refused to hold hands with her vo¡¯ai guard; it held her by the shoulder instead, with the same sense of ownership radiating from all of the paired-off vo¡¯ai. ¡°You fucking parrots,¡± someone in the congregation snarled. It was Matteo. ¡°You should all be caged! The Cathedral oughta be burned till it¡¯s nothing but black stumps!¡± The others in the congregation tried to shush him, confused at his outburst during the sacred celebration. But then Zoe¡¯s vo¡¯ai stepped forward. ¡°I am Ulwio. I belong to the lineage of the Voice.¡± The other kriuulu stared at him, hissing in sudden, strange hostility, and Zoe abruptly understood they had never known about his black undercoat. ¡°I will allow my blessed Chosen to speak.¡± The distant thunder sounded again, this time directly overhead. A furious hope filled Zoe, and she gazed at Matteo. He looked back at her, astonished, his face folding into tears. Do it, he mouthed. Do it. Zoe felt the psychic reins bridling her being loosened just enough, and Ulwiu gave her a nod. Gritting her teeth against a sudden humming from the trees, she spoke. ¡°Every single one of you,¡± she said to the families, ¡°has probably suspected the worst. Why aren¡¯t we allowed to ever see our Chosen loved ones again?¡± Someone in the group watching nodded. ¡°Whatever you might have thought about what happens¡ªabout why the faithful are never allowed in the Cathedral except for funerals and, well, this¡ªpray for us.¡± She felt Ulwio, that canny old schoolmaster, place his wing-claws encouragingly on her shoulders, and continued. ¡°Just pray, but not to the trees. Never to them. Pray to the wind, or the rain, or the sun, whatever. Just¡­ pray you never get Chosen.¡± She watched the unpaired kriuulu gather up the families, herding them out with soothing words for the questioning ones as the trees hummed their hypnotic lullaby. Matteo tried to stay, tried to say something to Daria, but one of the kriuulu cuffed him viciously. Daria cried out for him, but her vo¡¯ai shook her. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Matty,¡± Zoe called. ¡°Now get out of here.¡± She turned and walked through the arch of interlaced branches into the Cathedral proper. The grandmother trees were huge. Even at night, their leafy branches stretched high overhead, hunting the absent sunlight. Their other branches, though, coiled around their trunks or snaked about, searching hungrily along the ground. Between some roots, she saw the mounded earth of a recent grave. She couldn¡¯t remember where her father had been buried, but she knew his body would have been long gone anyway. One by one, the other Chosen filed in behind her. Their vo¡¯ai came with them. Ulwio took her by the shoulder urgently. ¡°Have you my feather still?¡± he whispered. She put her hand in her pocket to check and nodded. ¡°Swallow it. It will protect you for a time.¡± Zoe glanced at the other kriuulu, but they were all staring intently at their own Chosen, who stared numb-wittedly back. Quickly, she pulled the black feather out of her pocket and put it in her mouth. It was surprisingly tasteless, given what egg-flesh was like, but it left a tingle on her tongue that swept through her body like a flash fever. She stumbled against him, her legs feeling watery. ¡°Why¡­?¡± ¡°It will pass soon, daughter. Why what?¡± ¡°Why¡­¡± Zoe gasped, ¡°black¡­ feather¡­?¡± ¡°Because I¡¯m not pure vo¡¯ai. The kriuulu who sired me was an envoy from the tchy¡¯et region, over a century ago. I have his memories. His time came for spore and root, so he sought out a mother grove south of here.¡± Ulwio hissed. ¡°That grove is now where the communion egg-fruits are gathered from. I was¡­ lucky to survive, even luckier to be able to pass as vo¡¯ai.¡± Zoe found her feet. ¡°But¡ªwhat will happen to you¡­ when they find out?¡± His laugh was grim. ¡°The vo¡¯ai were ever fond of their supposed purity. I believe your human term is ¡®karma¡¯.¡± He took her by the arm, pressing his sharp, bony mouthparts to her forehead in an imitation of a kiss. ¡°Goodbye, daughter. I must be far from the center when I root. My sister trees will shield me from vo¡¯ai ignorance as I grow unnoticed into their lineage.¡± Even as he spoke, Ulwiu¡¯s feathers had begun to dissolve into spores that drifted in the air, moving toward the eager trees, mixing with the spores of the other kriuulu now entering their rooting ecstasy. Zoe¡¯s stomach churned at the sight of the featherless vo¡¯ai, their bare, wrinkled skin mottling hard. One vo¡¯ai hissed in delight as its eyes began to melt. It threw back its head as strands of bark forced their bony fingers out through its cracking skull. The other Chosen began to come out of their numb trances, but it was too late. Only Daria stood still, a look of fierce resolve on her sweat-soaked face. As viny tentacles tore out of their abdomens, the kriuulu clawed for their Chosen. The humans screamed as the rows of thorny mouths opening in those fresh vines bit into them, ripping gashes in their flesh. Even the mature trees began to frenzy, their flexible branches whipping around blindly for the source of the blood scent. A rooting kriuulu tried to bite into its human using its facial mouth, but that orifice had sealed itself. Blind instinct was moving it now, and its tentacle mouths thrashed against its victim, tearing, chewing, humming in orgiastic delight. Ignored by the carnivorous vines for the moment, Zoe hurled herself to the ground, crawling for the narthex, but the smaller mother trees there had closed ranks, the soil heaped and broken from trees dragging themselves by their roots. She caught a glimpse of Matteo, who had somehow pushed himself through the crowding trees, and he was reaching out for what remained of Daria¡ª His body vanished into a storm of ravenous branches. Then something wrapped around her legs, driving Zoe into a panicked rage. She curled over her own pooling blood and bit savagely into the mauling, hungry vine. Thunder roared above them, drowning out the sounds of carnage, and lightning split the sky. The vine released her with pained squeals from its many gnashing mouths, but something else had hold of her now, something that burned and stung wherever it touched her as it dragged her, screaming, into the sky, into the familiar sound of rain. Below, the Cathedral of Trees surged in its frenzy of blood. The Things That Never Were III. The Things That Never Were ¡°Come on, Mama, help me out here!¡± Rene yelled. The great pallicorn thundered in annoyance. She drew in her long tentacles, several of them breaking from the weight they held, then opened her stomach at both ends so that Rene could draw the girl safely through. She was unconscious, fortunately. A pallicorn¡¯s venom wasn¡¯t under its control; it usually wasn¡¯t deadly to humans, but it could be brutally painful, and her skin was webbed with swollen red welts. He laid her on the floor of Mama¡¯s shell and rifled through his supplies till he found the antidote ointment. Once he¡¯d waited to see that the welts were lessening, Rene checked under her shirt and rolled up her trouser legs, cursing at the gashes gouged right through the tough cloth. There were only light stings under her clothing, so he didn¡¯t bother undressing her to check further. As he was checking under her shirt collar, though, he froze. She shouldn¡¯t even be alive. He ran through the possibilities in his mind, discarding each one as either impossible or preposterous. His own eklil stone swung on a sturdy leather strap around his neck. It had hung on the wall of his bedroom until he was five, attuning itself to him as his body absorbed low levels of its energy until he could safely wear the stone. It would be generations before humans could survive without them. Everything responded to magick differently, but only creatures that could survive exposure to magick had ever been able to adapt to Inur. Well. The old bird wasn¡¯t wrong after all. There was something very special about this girl.
¡°There is not a fucking thing special about me!¡± Zoe yelled. ¡°I¡¯m the opposite of special! And no, I shouldn¡¯t be alive, and no, I do not want to fucking talk about it!¡± The big man threw his hands up in surrender. ¡°I¡¯m sorry I asked, okay? If you don¡¯t want to talk about it, then¡ª¡± ¡°Who the hell are you, anyway? I mean, I¡¯m happy to be alive, but a name would maybe be nice. And why do I feel like I¡¯ve met you before?¡± Before he could answer, Mama¡¯s thunder roared, her balloon-like bell flashing above them with crazed lightning patterns, and even the shell they were in began to reverberate. As a sudden black cloud poured in around them, filling the large central room, the stranger pulled Zoe to the floor, throwing himself over her. ¡°Stay still!¡± he barked. ¡°They know me, but they don¡¯t know you!¡± Something about him definitely nagged at Zoe¡¯s mind. His dark skin, his bald scalp, the sheer size of him. He let her up just in time for her to watch the last of the buzzing cloud of insects dive out through the fleshy opening in the floor that served as the pallicorn¡¯s stomach. The hum of the angry bees traveled up, disappearing far above her, and she realized they were attacking something that had landed on the pallicorn¡¯s huge bell. There was a roar that cut off with a pained shriek, and a shadow passed the translucent shell in a barely controlled fall. Something jerked beneath them, and the pallicorn hissed like particularly satisfied rain. Its inner shell turned a happy pink. Zoe could see now that on one part of the floor¡¯s circumference, part of it edged downward to disappear into hazy shadow. The softly glowing nacreous walls, the comfortable grumble that sounded like a purring rain, the huge dark man with his warm baritone, all of it left her feeling a confusing familiarity. Her shoulder gave the echo of a throb, and she rubbed it thoughtfully. ¡°Well,¡± the big man said, ¡°let¡¯s see if Mama¡¯s willing to share her catch with us for dinner.¡± It appeared she was, as the pink softness in the center of the floor eased open. The bees, mollified by a humming whisper from Mama, spiraled through to vanish above them into pores in her shell. In their absence, Zoe saw a flash of white fur speckled with gray and a pair of limp wings, and yelled, ¡°Help me get him out!¡± With both of them pulling, the lysk was surprisingly light. The thick fur on his body had protected him from both Mama and her bees, but Zoe could see that his poor wings would need plenty of attention. Again. ¡°Ow,¡± he grumbled, opening his eyes. A few stray bees clambered out of his fur and flew off after their sisters. ¡°You fucking idiot, Tavirr!¡± Zoe snapped. ¡°What the hell are you doing here? You were supposed to go home!¡± ¡°You know this guy?¡± the dark-skinned man asked. ¡°Are you all right?¡± Tavirr groaned at the same time. ¡°I¡¯m fine, thanks for asking,¡± replied the man. Tavirr got to his feet, his rear talons clicking on the floor. The way his ankle came up off the ground had always reminded her disturbingly of a cat. ¡°Zoe, who is this, and why are you inside a pallicorn?¡± ¡°Tavirr, this is the guy who saved and kidnapped me. Guy who saved and kidnapped me, this is Tavirr ayv Drusik.¡± Tavirr twitched a whisker. ¡°Very odd name for a human.¡± ¡°I¡¯m Rene Carrier. The pallicorn,¡± the big man said, patting the inner shell, ¡°is Mama. And I saved¡­ Zoe, was it? I saved Zoe from the Cathedral of Trees. So what brings you here?¡± Zoe crossed behind Tavirr, and took hold of his right wing, ignoring the lysk¡¯s flinching complaints. ¡°I¡ªouch! Please do not bother with¡ªow!¡± She had hold of his left wing now, combing through the smooth fur to gently remove a stray bee. Her sure fingers moved over each joint of his three wing fingers, then the wrist and elbow, and finally the wing shoulder just below the abbreviated upper scapula, noting how warm and swollen both were. Finally, she slapped the back of his head. ¡°What the hell were you thinking?¡± she bellowed over his grumbling complaint. ¡°You were supposed to go home and rest your fucking wings, but instead, you¡¯ve overflown so bad that every damn knuckle and joint is inflamed!¡± Tavirr gave her a crestfallen look. ¡°I, er, taked your journal,¡± he said in his broken version of Human. ¡°Took.¡± ¡°I took your journal.¡± ¡°Good. Rene, have you got liniment anywhere in your stores?¡± Rene cocked an eyebrow at Tavirr, then looked to Zoe. ¡°Hot stuff, cold stuff, or kill me now stuff?¡± Zoe just smiled at him. ¡°Kill me now stuff it is.¡±
¡°Listen to me. What did you do with the journal? Please tell me you didn¡¯t try to give it back!¡± ¡°No, I¡­¡± Tavirr took a deep breath. ¡°I took your journal to my h¡¯adba.¡± At her look of confusion, he explained, ¡°My burchar mate. I have¡ªwhat? Why that look?¡± ¡°You took my journal, the book I gave you to keep it secret, to a burchar? Are you insane?¡± ¡°What is the meaning of¡ª¡± ¡°It means thinking of the best thing you could do, and then doing the exact opposite!¡± Zoe realized that she was pointing and jabbing at him; he was watching her finger with a bemused expression. ¡°Tavirr!¡± He looked at her obediently. ¡°Why did you take it to the people most obsessed with spreading every bit of writing around every last corner of the world?¡± ¡°The world is a globe. No corners.¡± Running her fingers through her hair, Zoe sighed. ¡°Shit. I¡¯m sorry for yelling at you. It¡¯s not like I can ever go back home, anyway.¡± Tavirr took her hand. Shocked, Zoe almost yanked away from him, but the lysk, pupils rounded, began to study her fingers. ¡°Five,¡± he mused. ¡°How odd.¡± Zoe chuckled. ¡°Congratulations on your first pun,¡± she said. He twitched an ear. ¡°Why have you no claws?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know, why do you have them?¡± ¡°For the killing of prey.¡± She shivered, thinking again of cats. ¡°Cheerful thought.¡± ¡°Yes, I find it so as well.¡±
¡°Augh! Mercy!¡± Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. ¡°Nope. You earned this.¡± Tavirr lay on his stomach, trying not to flinch or writhe as Zoe applied the liniment to his wings. The ointment she had used before had created a warm, numbing feeling on the sensitive joints and muscles. This? This one sent shards of ice stabbing into his wing muscles, while the joints and skin burned with impossible heat. And yet, somehow, by the time her treatment was done, he felt like he was melting into a puddle on the floor of the pallicorn¡¯s shell, and he couldn¡¯t resist the contented purr that rumbled out of his chest. Footsteps sounded down the sloping ramp from the level above, and Tavirr found himself idly wondering how many levels there were in this great beast¡¯s shell. ¡°How¡¯s he doing?¡± asked Rene. ¡°Mmrph,¡± Tavirr replied, which in his opinion contained all the important information. ¡°He¡¯s not as bad off as I was afraid of. Most of the swelling is going down. Seems like it was primarily strain. If he controls himself,¡± Zoe pointedly added, ¡°he might live to fly another day.¡± ¡°Huh. So how exactly does a girl from a vo¡¯ai kriuulu forest wind up knowing how to treat a lysk wing injury?¡± Zoe snapped her fingers. ¡°That¡¯s where I remember you from! You¡¯re the carrier who visits New Providence! And you¡¯re the one who got me home after I got shot!¡± Rene nodded acknowledgment, and Zoe continued. ¡°So¡ªalong with all the mail and merchant goods, how many books do you transport on your route?¡± ¡°Well, it depends on whether or not I¡¯m carrying burchar texts, human texts, or a mix of the two. When I do carry burchar texts, though?¡± He let out a low whistle. ¡°The entire lower half of Mama¡¯s shell will be crammed with ¡®em.¡± ¡°And me being a scrivener, you¡¯ve probably carried some of the volumes I¡¯ve copied. Including some important burchar ones translated into Common. You think I don¡¯t read what I copy? One of them was a medical text by someone named h¡¯Goshi Naman¡¯h.¡± ¡°Winds save me,¡± groaned Tavirr in Common, ¡°from such horrid pronunciation.¡± ¡°Yeah, okay, I¡¯ll bite,¡± said Rene. ¡°How do you pronounce it?¡± Tavirr said the name for them. Zoe threw her hands up in frustrated despair. ¡°So, what, the aitches are just silent?¡± Groaning, Tavirr sat up. As he bent his wing knuckles to furl his wings behind him, he winced slightly, holding out hope that Zoe hadn¡¯t caught that. Her sharp gaze, though, told him she knew how much pain he was still in. ¡°I know not how the multitudes of burchar tongues represent their subsonic undertones, but in Common¡ªand now, I presume, in Human, those characters simply show that certain words or names are burchar in origin¡ªand they remind ordinary burchars reading Common texts that other peoples are simply deaf to over half the sounds of burchar speech.¡± Zoe frowned at him peevishly. ¡°You could have just said, ¡®Yes, Zoe, they¡¯re silent¡¯.¡± He stood, his long tail twitching in irritation, and said, ¡°Where does your route take us next, Rene? And more importantly, my friend, may we share your hearth, your prey, and the shelter of your home?¡± ¡°You have my hearth, my prey, and the shelter of my clan,¡± Rene responded in Common with a short bow¡ªthen, motioning around him, he added, ¡°such as my home is. If you¡¯re hungry now, I have plenty of preserved game, as well as dried fruits, bread, and cheese for those of us who aren¡¯t obligate carnivores. And we¡¯ve got several stops along the coast to visit, then we¡¯ll head inland to Gebrim.¡±
Tavirr¡¯s hunting reflexes caught it, the way Zoe started¡ªher skin breaking out in sudden little prickle-bumps, eyes staring into the shadows above¡ªright before the pallicorn lit up the larder section of her spiraling inner shell. ¡°What is it?¡± he murmured, but Zoe waved him off as the light revealed stores upon stores of every sort of food. There were barrels of blue witfruits, still fuzzy with pollen. Mats of something dried dark and flat, with a rank odor that made Tavirr sneeze. Crates of tree-grains already hulled, some twitching with tasty grubs too late to hatch from the tough, dry kernels. Racks and racks of¡ªTavirr¡¯s mouth watered¡ªsmoked fish and game, butchered and preserved. Over and around it all hung the smell of salt, and he realized the rough floor was coated with layers of the precious stuff. ¡°It¡¯s on the ceiling,¡± Zoe said in a hushed, quavering whisper. A moment later, something rustled behind a group of boxes stacked on the floor. A tiny squeal ended in a shriek, and Tavirr caught a faint aroma of fresh blood. ¡°That¡¯s just Simon,¡± Rene assured them. ¡°His job is to catch the little stowaways that always come wi¡ªare you okay, Zoe?¡± Zoe was still looking upwards, though, her eyes fixed on a patch of empty shell above them. ¡°I see nothing up there,¡± Tavirr said, then looked at Rene. He shrugged. ¡°Me neither.¡± ¡°It¡¯s on the ceiling,¡± she insisted. Tavirr¡¯s eyes hunted every curve and shadow above them, but there was still nothing. He was about to say so when he realized that whatever was not there, it was most insistent in its absence. It was his own hide¡¯s turn to prickle. His eyes slid away from where the nothing hid. ¡°Look away from it.¡± ¡°Look away from what, exactly?¡± growled Rene. Mama¡¯s shell brightened around them, and they all heard the soothing purr of rain. ¡°Come, friends!¡± Tavirr exclaimed. ¡°My belly aches, and soon I may decide to eat one of you.¡± A crack of thunder made him yowl like a cub. ¡°It was a joke!¡± ¡°All right, let¡¯s eat before we have to beat up the fuzzy guy.¡± Tavirr laid a hand on Zoe¡¯s shoulder. She jumped, giving him a wide-eyed stare, and nodded. ¡°Best not to dwell on it,¡± he murmured. ¡°Such things are dangerous when seen, terrible when hunted.¡± She was pale, though, soaked in fear-sweat that made his whiskers twitch. ¡°We will speak on it later, you and I¡ªbut only once, and then it will be put aside.¡± They chose their dinner, the three of them, Tavirr putting on a forced cheer that Rene imitated as he hauled down a huge side of melk ribs for Tavirr to carry, handed a basket of redkern to Zoe, then shouldered two wineskins himself. Zoe headed towards the upward curve of the shell, but stopped suddenly. Something hissed a warning from behind a nearby trio of untapped casks, and what Tavirr had thought was simply a wide base of one cask uncoiled into a long stretch of scales. An unfortunate rat struggled weakly from between its unhinged jaws. ¡°That¡¯s Simon,¡± Rene said quietly. ¡°Mama seems to like him, but don¡¯t go thinking he¡¯s friendly.¡± The snake stared balefully at them. A patch of shell further back darkened, and the creature slithered into the shadows to finish its meal in privacy. Zoe gave one last fearful glance behind her, but the presence from earlier had vanished.
¡°Have you ever been outside during an equinox?¡± Dinner sat heavily in Zoe¡¯s stomach. Rene had disappeared into his own sleeping quarters after eating, sensing his passengers¡¯ need for privacy, and suddenly the room that had seemed too open for dining seemed too close for speaking. It had been an exercise in patience, listening to Tavirr and Rene¡¯s easy, fluent chatter in Common. Listening to what she had eventually figured out was a ritual of hospitality. The weather, the hunt and harvest, trade and relations. An exchange of promised favors. The intricate courtesy of it all had been mind-numbing. All Zoe could think about was the thing she hadn¡¯t seen, but had somehow known was there. Every time she took a bite that should have been delicious, she felt she was swallowing a scream. Zoe looked at the lysk in confusion. The equinox? ¡°No, of course not!¡± ¡°I have, every year since I was seven.¡± ¡°They let a seven-year-old kid¡ª¡± Tavirr held up a finger. ¡°Use you the Earth calendar still?¡± he asked in his stilted Human. ¡°Oh. Yeah, everyone back home still adheres to the old calendar. They¡¯ve been teaching the new calendar in school forever, but it never has caught on.¡± ¡°A thousand Earth years later? Ha.¡± He switched back to Common, making Zoe¡¯s brain switch gears again. How the hell can Rene keep up so easily? ¡°In your years¡ªfoolish tradition¡ªI was twelve and some,¡± Tavirr said. ¡°That is when children of clan Drusik begin their hunt training, and the first thing we do is sit, each alone, under the open sky at the equinox.¡± ¡°Holy crap,¡± she breathed. ¡°What¡­ what was it like?¡± ¡°Quite beautiful. The auroras robed the sky in wonder.¡± ¡°Then you didn¡¯t see¡­ them?¡± ¡°No.¡± Beside Zoe, his tightly furled wings tucked against the wall, Tavirr stretched his odd legs out before him; his tail wound around to drape over his lap, the tip twitching against one long ankle. Zoe looked at the long, fine quills along the tail¡¯s edges that stiffened into webbed spines at the end. ¡°Not that year,¡± Tavirr continued. An uneasy shiver ran down her spine. ¡°When?¡± ¡°Not that year, nor the next. Two years from my first equinox. My sister looked up to me, and though our women choose often to be crafters, most enjoy the occasional hunt. Not Vala, though. She wished the full initiation.¡± He chuckled. ¡°I learned that year that initiates are not, in fact, each alone on the equinox, under the open sky. Watching over her some distance away were my father and I. She jumped at every nighttime noise¡ªas, indeed, had I on my own first equinox. ¡°As with every equinox, auroras robed the sky in wonder. Then, halfway through the night, the curtained stars tore open. A creature came¡ªimmense, like a living barrel, many pairs of wings flapping about like clapping hands. Its flanks were scarred with eyes, staring in their thousands; gaping jaws of savage fangs it had before and behind, and auroras hovered within its empty hunger.¡± What happened, Zoe wanted to ask, but her throat was suddenly too dry, and the rhythm of his voice wouldn¡¯t let her interrupt. ¡°Vala and I saw it at the same time, saw the spindly arms snatching, and we screamed, the both of us. Our father saw nothing¡ªor, perhaps, merely swore to himself there was nothing to be seen. He did not scream at all.¡± He sat quietly for several moments. Then he said, ¡°Vala and I were mostly alone after that. No one wanted to hear, to admit, that our father had been taken, consumed by some beast from behind the sky. But I had been blooded for a year by then, so I promised Vala I would do so for her when she was ready. First, I had to teach her how to soar and dive, to disguise her scent against the wind, to hide her shadow in the shadow of the clouds. Ha, I had little to teach her! Born to the hunt, my sister was. Once our clan became our friends again, they shouted that I should take up pottery.¡± He held up his heavy, sharp talons with a wry expression, and Zoe smiled at the absurdity. ¡°We never said as much, not even to each other, but we both were hunting the creature that had hunted our father.¡± He sighed. ¡°The equinox, uneventful, came and went. A few days later, I flew to find prey for Vala¡¯s blooding¡ªnothing deadly or dangerous, a drake calf, perhaps. I wanted her to stay home and wait, but she loved flying so. She decided to pick the prey herself that I would take for her.¡± As his story halted, Zoe watched Tavirr¡¯s jaw muscles bunching, ears laid flat, blue eyes slitted in pain, and she put her hand over his. ¡°It came with the clouds, melting from the morning wind. Tu¡¯yet, wind-beasts, we call them, and we tell ourselves they do not exist. And perhaps they do not¡ªnot as we do. But its claws, Zoe! Its claws were cruel enough. Vala was always a fast flier, and that saved her life, but nothing could have saved her wings.¡± They sat, Tavirr simply breathing, Zoe squeezing his hand. ¡°To this day,¡± he finally said, ¡°our clan¡ªeven her mate!¡ªbelieves that I did it, that in the grip of wind madness, I was the monster I saw mauling her. To this day, she is my Vala, my beloved sister. To this day, she is the only one now who does not shun me. Because¡ªher son¡ªmy nephew¡ªhas had his blooding, and now?¡± Tavirr¡¯s voice broke. ¡°Now, he also must shun me.¡± A weeping lysk shed no tears, Zoe found, but his breath hitched and his chest shuddered all the same. ¡°And that is why, my Zoe,¡± he finally whispered, ¡°that is why I know you speak the truth of what you see.¡± Zoe fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, his taloned fingers interlaced with hers. She did not see what hid in the shadows as they slept, but her dreams were haunted by a lonely, voiceless sorrow. Adba and Inur IV. Adba and Inur From Culture and Remnants, Volume V, by h¡¯Anoan Dovru¡¯h, as transcribed by Ishraq Nasikh, 1272 AC: Long before the Terror that nearly brought an end to our civilizations, the world was rocked by constant warfare. Inur-Before had no true magick [Note: inexact translation], no inkling that there were other beings far stranger than our imaginations could have dreamt of. Instead, there were weapons cruel in application and far more gruesome in outcome than the disasters the Hatching of the World ever produced. To name these weapons, to even describe them, was forbidden even before the Hatching, and the subsequent advent of magick made their production and deployment impossible. Inexact translation? Zoe frowned at the page. Magick was magick¡ªunless¡­ She thought back to the first time she¡¯d seen the word, when it was missing that final letter. Fairy tales, she thought. Wizards and knights, dragons and fair maidens. Magic was the stuff of old Earth¡¯s imaginative fantasies; magick, simply an extra source of energy that life either adapted to and used, like chameleon wolves, or died because of, as humans were still prone to do if they didn¡¯t have¡­ Her hand went to where her eklil stone had been, habit overcoming the knowledge that it was gone. Had Matteo known about¡­? She wished she could still rub at the worn-down crack on the bottom of the stone (her thumb¡¯s little callus from doing so all these years beginning to soften already) that had fascinated her when she was too young to know any better. I¡¯m so sorry, Mom. I was only five years old! Zoe shook her head, putting that old sorrow behind her yet again. The dominant species of Inur-Before fought for global supremacy, with the khiai in their vicious and terrible billions eventually meeting a brutal mass extinction. No records have ever been found indicating whether the weapon or weapons responsible were of lysk or burchar manufacture; however, the most widely accepted opinion is this: If it had been a lysk weapon, the burchar love of recording even everyday and mundane experiences for posterity would have left such grave information at least partially intact. The utter lack of records regarding the khiai extermination seems all the more damning, suggesting that our ancestors eliminated the evidence themselves. Why would they have done so, unless in fear of reprisal or from dread of the judgment of History? Other historians have offered a range of hypotheses. Perhaps the khiai migrated outworld on resource-intensive generation ships prior to the Terror and the Hatching of the World. They may have been eliminated by the Terror itself; or similarly, been lost in the Hatching of the World; or a combination of the two. There is also a heretofore fringe theory, now gaining academic attention, that the khiai were always merely legendary or mythical beings. Legends or myths. It hadn¡¯t ever occurred to her, but of course¡ªof course the other peoples of Inur must have had old stories and fables of their own. Humans weren¡¯t exactly alone in this aggregate world, and trees knew the burchars were practically addicted to the written word. Fuck trees, she chided herself, shuddering with the memory of Matteo¡¯s screams. She needed something else to swear by. We have no records of how or why the Terror began, but it caused a level of internal strife in the burchar community possibly unknown since the pre-Historic era. If the Terror affected the khiai as it did the burchars and lysks, their warlike race may have destroyed itself. Although the leading theories on khiai extinction posit them as being extinct prior to the Terror, we must allow the possibility of the Terror hitting the khiai nations before it made the jump to the lysks and burchars. She dipped her quill, tapped the excess onto the little cloth she habitually kept in her pocket. Now why did she feel like she should know that word, ¡°Terror¡±? Surely no mere bump in the night should have merited a proper noun. At the height of the Terror, when Inur-Before¡¯s nations were attacking each other and even themselves, the Hatching of the World put an abrupt end to the old History. The vast majority of our Libraries were either kept in now inaccessible formats or were utterly destroyed. Ironically, the best preserved of our previous History was written on paper or stone, while virtual [Note: inexact translation] databases containing centuries of old History and knowledge were rendered useless. There it was again, ¡°inexact translation.¡± And what was a ¡°database¡±? She saw the word now and then in copies of pre-Cataclysmic records. She knew virtual meant ¡°not quite real¡±; did that mean databases were also not quite real? How would that even work, anyway? How could records of Inur-Before be not quite real? She knew old Earth had been real, she¡¯d seen old gadgets in the town museum, the question of their possible functions left unanswered. Could the Hatching of the World itself have caused the extinction of the khiai? If we discount the Terror, most likely not. The khiai were said to be infinite in both number and malevolence. Surely any species of such magnitude would have had more survivors of the Hatching of the World than either lysks or burchars. Our records of the days and years immediately following the Hatching are numerous; among them are the sorrowful realization that none of Inur-Before¡¯s avian species seemed to have survived long-term exposure to magick, the shocking deaths of thousands of people incapable of surviving sudden contact with new diseases, and epidemics of suicide. Why, then, would there be no records of the vanishing of the khiai? Burchar histories are rich in detail. We know, for example, that many attempts at peace were made in the millennia before the world changed beyond recognition. There are still extant documents, and copies of lost documents, recounting the minutiae of embassies between burchars and lysks. None, however, exist that even hint at embassies to the khiai. It is difficult to imagine the complete lack of such evidence when we have many such records of burchar-lysk diplomacy. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, however. There are, indeed, records of artificial satellites and even of exploratory vessels to what was once our nearest neighboring planet in our once-home solar system (see appended notes on resource expenditure, astronomical data, satellite communications, asteroid mining, h¡¯Da colony, etc.). [Note: The copy received and here transcribed did not include the appended data available in the original.] It is curious, however¡­ Before she even registered that she was shaking, Zoe had automatically set her quill to the side. There was a painting behind protective glass in the town museum, one that every few years was checked for damage¡ªdust carefully removed, cracks filled in, fading colors refreshed. It showed a stark landscape in hues of dully pockmarked gray and white. Above the slanting horizon, the vivid blue and white of some gibbous body hovered in a sea of unrelieved black. She¡¯d long thought it had been some artist¡¯s fancy, the Earthrise painting. The museum curators insisted it was based on something real, some example of the lost art of photography that showed only the real, but she¡¯d never really believed them. But now, reading this¡ªcould it have been real after all? Someone, however long ago before the Cataclysm, had taken a picture of lost Earth as seen from Luna. Luna the broken moon, often barely visible. Luna, who had left a thin ring of her own dust¡ªand the dust of whatever had broken her¡ªaround Inur. Slowly and deliberately, Zoe put away her shock, stuffing her inner world¡¯s newest cataclysm into the same little box where she had once kept her most dangerous thoughts until she could record them in her journal. She closed her eyes and just breathed until she felt she could transcribe again. It is curious, however, that while none of our home solar system¡¯s bodies were named after the burchar or lysk races, Inur¡¯s lost moon was named Khiai. This brings us to the theory that has lately become more accepted: Did the khiai never exist at all? We should not forget to turn our attention to linguistics. Notably, phonemic analysis tends to place ¡°Adba¡± in the burchar language groups and ¡°Khiai¡± in the lysk. However, Historical linguistics shows that related words such as ¡°adiba¡± and ¡°daba¡± are lysk words (translated into Common as ¡°marriage¡± and ¡°treaty¡±), while ¡°khiao¡± (Common: ¡°deadly¡±) and ¡°akhia¡± (Common: ¡°to weep¡±) belong to the burchar warrior tongue. There were quite a few places on the plateau where families had kept Spanish alive, but most people around her spoke English (widely just called Human, as if folks like Matteo who often spoke Spanish weren¡¯t just as human as her). Sometimes Zoe would receive a book in Spanish, and she would dutifully transcribe it; but that was always an exercise in frustration, copying largely unfamiliar words letter by letter, and the only other language she was even halfway fluent in was Common. Zoe loved receiving Common texts. She had discovered that most of those were burchar texts, full of surprising phrases and ideas. And every once in a while, a word from Human would show up, which always made her feel that she had unwrapped a surprise gift. Perhaps the most compelling evidence for the mythological status of the khiai is the lysk tale of Adba and Inur. Part of the rich lysk oral and wing dancing traditions, it recounts the final peace between lysks and burchars in the early days after the Hatching of the World. In the end, the moral theme of that mythic cycle, which concludes with the Saga of the h¡¯Adbani, is the refutation of ¡°all that belongs to Khiai,¡± as the lost moon retreats from the remade world of Inur-Anew.
Mama always seemed to know what the people inside her needed, and the great pallicorn¡¯s shell put out a soft, steady light perfect for writing by. Zoe put down her quill and rubbed her eyes, tired despite the gentle illumination. She was so familiar with the work of this particular scribe that the neat, flowing letters of the copyist¡¯s hand had immediately drawn her to this article. Without a second thought, she had pulled several styluses, an unopened ink bottle, a blotter, and a ream of paper from the supplies in this shell-room. When she spotted a writing desk and its chair tucked away in an empty space between crates, Zoe began to recopy the article. Despite everything, it was comforting to be doing the job she had spent years training for. It made her feel like she was bartering passage, in a way. Zoe had started the day by wandering room by room and level by spacious level, amazed at the staggering amount of goods cached within, when this room had drawn her in. There were more books and scrolls in this one room than Zoe had ever seen in the entirety of New Providence. The smells of paper, of parchment, and of leather-bound volumes had made Zoe¡¯s heart clench with memories of learning to write, of apprenticing first to her mother and then to her grandmother. A scrivener was never just a person who could write, though, her grandmother had told her. A scrivener was a guardian of knowledge, someone who preserved ancient writings by copying them as neatly and precisely as they could. Zoe had spent years developing a script that would pass Grandma¡¯s muster and had continued perfecting her quillstrokes over the years since the old woman¡¯s death. She sighed and cracked her knuckles. ¡°What is that horrible thing you¡¯re doing to yourself?¡± Tavirr¡¯s voice asked, making Zoe jump. Her elbow knocked painfully against the side of the desk. ¡°Ow!¡± she complained, rubbing at her arm, trying to massage away the pins and needles. ¡°Why¡¯d you sneak in and scare me? That fucking hurt!¡± His big, fur-tipped ears drooped a bit in confusion. ¡°How does bumping your elbow cause such pain when breaking your fingers does not?¡± ¡°Popping my knuckles gets the stiffness out,¡± she said. ¡°I just spent too long copying an article, that¡¯s all.¡± Tavirr looked at his own fingers, and Zoe realized that those scythelike talons meant he¡¯d probably never crack his knuckles, much less pick up a quill. ¡°What was so fascinating that you had to immediately write down what was already written down?¡± She chuckled and handed the papers to him. He scowled at them. ¡°Lysk eyes are not made for reading,¡± he admitted. ¡°What does it say?¡± ¡°It¡¯s really a copy of a copy of probably a lot of earlier copies, but the original was written by a burchar, I¡¯m guessing in Common since a scrivener translated it at some point into Human.¡± This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°So,¡± Tavirr pretended to wonder, ¡°am I to imagine this fascinating bundle of papers is simply a tally of how many times its own tally has been rewritten?¡± Giving him a look of exasperation, Zoe responded, ¡°It¡¯s about whether a race called the ¡®khiai¡¯ ever existed.¡±
Deep inside, Tavirr feels his heart tremble. He remembers long ago¡ªbefore he¡¯d even begun his hunt training, long before he would see his sister¡¯s wings reduced to a nightmare of bloody ribbons¡ªa wing dancing performance done in honor of a visiting group of h¡¯adbani. They are burchars, of course, male and female, young and not quite sedentary, and they¡¯re bringing prospective h¡¯adbani with them. Tavirr watches his amma, fated to die when she goes on an evening hunting jaunt at the teeth and claws of a large, agile cat. He watches his obba, one day to be taken by something unspeakable. Prranit goes over her mate¡¯s wings, combing the fine fur on the webbing, then applying a thin layer of pig grease. Uzvik will have to stand still for hours and hours, carefully wafting his wings to help the grease set, and young Tavirr doesn¡¯t understand how his obba can be so patient. But the hours pass while Tavirr (his young talons still short and blunt) helps his mother grind and mix the paints. A blend of charcoal and iron-rich drake bones for black, chrys petals and sunroot for yellow, ochre and venna berries for the cruel red. Prranit stirs each color blend into a different urn using water, milk, and blood, calling on the dark night and the gentle moon of Adba to lend their spirits to the art. (She does not invite any spirit to inhabit the red.) Tavirr is proud of his amma¡¯s art. It decorates the stone walls of their small home inside the mountain. She paints pottery and dyes travel straps, and their clanmates bring gifts of wood and fibers for new brushes, flowers to decorate their home, even the occasional jar of mead or moly tea. Until his talons grow out, Tavirr will harbor dreams of being a crafter as important as his mother. (Then he will dream of wing dancing like his father, and then of nothing at all.) That night, everyone meets in the vast and echoing Great Cavern, burchars and lysks introducing themselves and giving the ceremonial greeting of hands to hearts. A few seem to take more than passing interest, and those pair off. He doesn¡¯t understand why, but a voice from beside him provides a distraction. ¡°And who is this handsome young man?¡± ¡°Ah,¡± replies his mother. ¡°This is my son Tavirr. Tavirr, give the lady Jasse your good wishes.¡± Little Tavirr looks up at the giant burchar. Each of her four hooves could, he thinks, smash him flat without noticing! Her two hands seem gentle, though, so he flaps clumsily up to sit on his amma¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Hello,¡± he says. ¡°I¡¯m called Tavirr. Your scales are very pretty!¡± And they are¡ªtiny, jade scales offset with larger scutes of a startlingly bright turquoise shade. ¡°I am h¡¯Jasse Tav¡¯h,¡± the burchar responds, and while Tavirr can¡¯t quite hear the difference in the way h¡¯Jasse pronounces her name, his amma¡¯s rendition of it lacks a certain fullness. Tavirr stretches out his little hand, and Prranit leans in to let him lay his palm on h¡¯Jasse¡¯s heart. He marvels at the slow thunder that he can feel echo in his very bones. H¡¯Jasse touches his chest with one hand in return. ¡°Your second name is Tav,¡± he pipes, ¡°like my name, Tavirr! I like the way your heart sounds. Amma, can I marry her someday?¡± Prranit and h¡¯Jasse break out in surprised laughter, but Tavirr thinks he¡¯s pleased h¡¯Jasse. Someone strikes a drum, beginning a slow, echoing rhythm, and everyone finds a bit of floor to sit on, leaving plenty of room in the back for their larger burchar visitors. A baby cries somewhere, and Tavirr thinks of his amma¡¯s rounded belly, where his soon-to-be sibling is growing. The slow drumbeat quickens and the dancers tumble and swoop from high overhead, their wings flashing a riot of colors in the bright torchlight. His father is among them, but Tavirr can¡¯t yet make him out. Several nested circles of lysks, their wings so tightly furled that only bits of paint show, stomp around each other, their foot talons rattling in time with the thudding drumbeat, and Tavirr can¡¯t help but think of the feel of h¡¯Jasse¡¯s heart against his palm. I really will marry her, he thinks. She is for me. Someone snarls, making Tavirr jump, but then someone else joins in, and now he can hear that it¡¯s the dancers, their wordless voices evoking fury and danger. A high-pitched squeal sounds from above, growing louder, lower in pitch, and there is a lysk, wings painted in shades of fire, circling above them all, her voice ululating in tones of doom. She screams as though inhabited by a vengeful spirit, and Tavirr understands now why his amma didn¡¯t call on the spirit of the red moon: that awful spirit was already here. The lysk sails, still shrieking, over the audience, and Tavirr is not the only one to flinch away, covering his head in instinctive terror. But at least, he thinks, he¡¯s the only one not to cry out in fear. Finally, the screaming, fiery lysk homes in on the circling dancers. She falls upon them headfirst, her wings fully spread to display their painted, dancing flames. The drum gives an explosive boom, and the dancers hurl themselves outwards as if flung by a great force. The fiery lysk and her dreadful screaming are gone! Instead, only silence, and the slowly stirring forms of the dancers. One stands, spreading his wings to their full span, his face in his hands as if weeping. His wings are fully black, the black of death. As those wings sweep once, twice, a third time, the drum booms in terrible synchrony. Before him, another dancer stands to face him, and another stands as well, both with their backs to the silent audience. All three pairs of wings are black, but as they link hands and begin to stamp out a slow circle, Tavirr notices other colors showing from their unfolding wings. Rose and gold cover the inner surfaces of their wings, the color of dawn and hope. A shriek, a drumming bang, and they fall, only to stand again. Three times the shrieking doom strikes, three times the dancers fall, three times they rise¡ªthree times they die again. Finally, there is a long, long silence, broken only by a few hushed whispers and the sniffling of a baby. Tavirr is just starting to wonder if that was all, if no one else will do anything ever again, if they will all just sit and wait in silence until there¡¯s nothing left of anyone. ¡°LET US BEGIN AGAIN!!!¡± This time, he does cry out in startlement, twisting around to look behind everyone. It was a burchar who had spoken! He could feel the shouted words, the air vibrating around him, making his wing fur and whiskers tremble. ¡°WE WILL BEGIN AGAIN!!!¡± The response sounds from every lysk, and Tavirr finds himself taking it up as well, the words echoing and repeating around the Great Cavern, passing from mouth to mouth, heart to heart. The dancers stand as one, their wings upraised to show the multitude of colors and patterns as they spin and leap as if doing battle, but Tavirr sees that for some, the interdigital membranes are colorful, while the patagia stretching from the last wing-fingers to tails are a cloudy, sickly gray-green. Now a new figure enters. It is draped in that awful grayish green, and little Tavirr can feel all his fur standing on end. For the first time since he¡¯d still been taking food his amma had chewed for him, Tavirr bleats for her protection. Prranit holds him, shushing him as she purrs reassurance. The hooded figure, not even its wings showing, slouches, its shroud seeming to droop like melting wax, through the dancers as they circle nimbly. Then it is gone, and Tavirr has the terrifying notion that it¡¯s come into the audience to hunt them all down. For a bare moment, all the dancers but one fall into crouches. The woman standing holds the fearful shroud, empty now, hideously dripping, in one hand¡ªlooks at it¡ªlets it fall¡ªand closes her wing-fingers until only the gray-green patagium shows. The dancers erupt again in a frenzy of leaping, circling, gliding, a wordless shout erupting from every throat as one! The woman stands in the center, and all Tavirr can see is gray-green, and her hand, slowly reaching. Slowly (the dancers¡¯ wings are a riot of color) reaching (her claws unsheathed and glistening) until¡ª ¡ªanother dancer takes her hand. She falls to the ground, and he stumbles to a halt, holding the limp, wet shroud, staring at his own hand, the bright colors of his wings folding away except for that sickly greenish hue. The dancing and circling continue, one victim falling after another, the hideous shroud passing from one hand to the next, and all Tavirr can see is the color of the melting sickness. A thing that stalks and dies and stalks again, always hiding and hunting¡ªpretending to live, pretending to die. Sickness¡ªand Terror. A shrieking wail sounds from above again (the baby begins a new round of crying), and Tavirr is not quite so terrified that he can¡¯t stop to wonder how the flame-winged dancer has gotten far up to the ceiling again. But his thoughts are interrupted as the living, screaming fire hurls herself at the dancers again, the drum roaring the sound of the explosion, people thrown everywhere, wailing, screaming, the drums beating against his ears! The moist shroud hangs suspended alone in the air, then collapses. The torches are all snuffed at once. Tavirr is left with the impression of lysks, their fur blending with the cavern walls, walking along unnoticed, carrying dousing ladles to cover all the torches at once. When the call comes again, Tavirr still jumps just a bit. ¡°LET US BEGIN AGAIN!!!¡± He yells out with everyone else in response: ¡°WE WILL BEGIN AGAIN!!!¡± One by one, the torches spring back to life. One by one, wings of all colors spread. Flowers in fields, some of them say. Children, prey, sunlight, clouds. But the dance is slow now, subdued despite the abundance. Wings fold and extend and fold again, colors flicker and hide, and the dancers look up in fear. Tavirr can hear it now, a low scratching rumble, as though the Great Cavern itself is moaning. He wants to duck, to run, to fly away (though he can¡¯t fly very well yet), but then he finally sees the drummer. She stands before them all, her claws scraping eerie circles around the drum skin, making Tavirr¡¯s ears tremble and all his fur stand on end. ¡°We stand between time,¡± the drummer says. Black wings appear again. They surround the fiery wings of the flame-lysk, mantling over her, as she writhes, her mouth agape in an agony of silence. ¡°We stand between place.¡± Long ropes lower from the ceiling far above, coiling and whirling, and Tavirr can¡¯t think what they represent, but he feels as if his heart has fled his body. A rope catches a dancer (the dancer¡¯s talons closing on the rope, a nimble miming of struggle as he climbs), and he snarls as he is torn into the darkness above. Another dancer cries out as she is yanked above and out of sight, and another. The drummer¡¯s wings flash open, showing an impossible knotwork lacing of grays, blacks, and purples before she snaps them closed again. Her claws, scraping the drum skin, halt. ¡°I call on the spirit of Inur-Before!¡± the drummer shouts. A man with huge wings rises from the ground, enormous wings spread to show a landscape of horror, cities and trees and mountains all burning. Lysk and burchar faces are there, too, painted to look as though they are wailing in grief or rage. ¡°I call on the spirit of Adba!¡± Now, finally, Tavirr recognizes his father, knows he¡¯s seen those painted wings flashing in dance, but his father stands facing the audience, and Tavirr knows Uzvik is looking at him. One large wing spreads, showing the gentle golden face of the peaceful moon. ¡°I call on the spirit of Khiai!¡± The other wing extends, blazing with the fierce red of the moon of war. ¡°Who will agree to peace?¡± calls the drummer. ¡°I will not!¡± responds the voice of Inur-Before, his wings rippling to show the devastation in motion. ¡°I will not!¡± responds his father, and his wings, too, begin to tremble. There are black wings around the audience now, rippling, flapping, shaking, and the scraping beat of the drum grows ever louder, the long ropes writhing and snatching as the drummer¡¯s wings open to display their grotesquerie, and the man who is Inur-Before falls to the ground behind the moons. ¡°Inur-Before is gone!¡± the drummer calls. ¡°The world has hatched, and Inur-Anew is born!¡± Her terrible wings furl behind her; the coiling and warping ropes slither up out of sight again. Silence falls. As Tavirr watches in awe, Uzvik¡¯s Khiai-wing seems to fall away into the void as the wing of a prone dancer opens upward, the small, gray-white blob of Luna replacing the vengeful, lost moon of Khiai. ¡°LET US BEGIN AGAIN!!!¡± ¡°WE WILL BEGIN AGAIN!!!¡± Tavirr shouts the words in jubilation, his little wings aflutter. ¡°LET US PUT AWAY ALL THAT BELONGS TO KHIAI!!!¡± ¡°WE WILL BEGIN AGAIN!!!¡± As he bounds up and down, hardly aware anymore that this is a play, Tavirr feels that it¡¯s his heart, not his voice, that¡¯s calling out. Now the big lysk who was Inur-Before stands again and faces Uzvik, hiding the horror of the outer surface of his wings. Inur-Anew is painted on the inner surface, shades of dawn and hope shining above the colorful mountains and plains. The two clasp hands and both call out together, ¡°Who will agree to peace?¡± Before he can stop himself, Tavirr yells, ¡°I will!¡± His enthusiasm is greeted with laughter and scattered applause until a woman in the audience stands, and a hush of expectation falls. ¡°I am Arrhun,¡± she says. ¡°I stand in the sight of Adba, and I will agree to peace.¡± A moment later, there is a grunt and the sound of scales against stone, and a burchar man calls out, ¡°I am h¡¯Dumillro. I stand in the sight of Inur, and I will agree to peace.¡± By the time the play has ended, two more lysk and burchar pairs have pledged, and Tavirr realizes he is seeing the union of h¡¯adbani, lysks and burchars uniting themselves to each other in bonds of friendship and love, and he feels the slow thunder of h¡¯Jasse¡¯s heart under his hand again. As the audience mingles with the dancers and as platters of food are brought out for sharing, h¡¯Jasse Tav¡¯h finds Tavirr again. ¡°I see that you are quite serious in your promise,¡± she tells him, smiling when he nods at her. ¡°In that case, young man, I will return in¡­ hm, ten years, Prranit? Yes, ten years, to see if your promise has held true.¡± His h¡¯Jasse will return, of course, but by the time she does, Tavirr will have been judged wind-mad, and no one speaks to him but Vala. She is the one to bring him the news, raw wing fingers wrapped protectively around a belly full of unborn Zassik, that Tavirr ayv Drusik would have a mate and a future after all.
Tavirr blinked away the memory. ¡°Yes,¡± he said to Zoe. ¡°The khiai existed. But they were not a race of people. Or, I suppose, not a separate race. The khiai were burchars. And they were lysks. We were killers, all of us. Burchars hated lysks because, long ago, our distant ancestors hunted and devoured theirs. We feared them because their distant ancestors made war on ours. I do not know whether Earth-Before was a peaceful place¡ªbut if you offered me the chance to somehow travel back to Inur-Before, I would rather die than go.¡± The Weirdest Thing V. The Weirdest Thing ¡°Well,¡± Tavirr said, brightening, ¡°would you like to spend your life finding out how many tallies of words might fit inside a pallicorn¡¯s shell, or would you like to have a¡­ what was the word he used¡­ a pignikt?¡± She blinked at him. ¡°Yes. I¡­ thought I probably said that wrong.¡±
Zoe was relieved to hear that the way out of a pallicorn¡¯s shell was not by going through its stomach again. Instead, they walked down the deep, spiraling inner shell to something like a natural arching port at the base. By this point, she¡¯d finished explaining to Tavirr that she also did not want to know how a pallicorn relieved itself¡ªand Zoe had realized that Tavirr had been having far too much fun at her expense. Mama had reeled her long tentacles into her stomach, and the base of her shell now rested in a field bursting with wildflowers. Trees dotted the landscape¡ªreal trees, not kriuulu mother trees¡ªattracting all manner of little flying things to their tiny white flowers. There were bees everywhere, and Zoe wondered if all these flowers were why Mama had stopped. ¡°Come on over,¡± Rene¡¯s voice shouted from some distance away. Zoe trotted over to join him, where he was setting a sizeable basket down on a large, scaled leather blanket¡ªprobably the hide of some small breed of domestic drake¡ªand helped him lay out a spread of squall bread, pickled melon, and smoked meats from a large basket. Far above them, Mama¡¯s enormous bell swayed gently, the thick hide rippling. ¡°Where¡¯s Tavirr?¡± Rene asked. Zoe looked around. ¡°I¡­ huh.¡± Then she looked up. No wonder lysks swore by the wind, she mused. Tavirr soared high above them, rising on an updraft, his tail flaring as his wings yawed away from his ground-bound friends. Those wings were huge, much longer than appeared possible when they were folded with the fingers curled in. The trailing edge webbing stretched from the end of the third finger nearly halfway down the big lysk¡¯s tail. It was a good thing, Zoe thought with a wicked grin, that he was covered with such thick fur. Humans were the only people she knew of with naked skin. No one else went clothed, but no one else needed to. Suddenly, Tavirr¡¯s great wings snapped flat against his back, and he stooped on something that made the tall grass whip as it tried to flee. At the last moment, his wings and tail flared, and she saw his taloned feet close around his prey. He rose again, taking the big animal in his hands, and did something that resulted in a spray of blood misting to the ground. ¡°Wow,¡± Zoe breathed. ¡°Yep,¡± Rene added. They watched the lysk as he landed softly. He held his prey up to the four cardinal directions as he chanted something in Lysk. Zoe guessed he was praying, perhaps meaning to offer the animal to the winds, but those talons scythed easily through the pelt, and by the time he reached them, Tavirr had peeled the hide off what Zoe finally recognized as a big buck hare. ¡°Will you share my prey as I have shared yours, good host?¡± Tavirr asked Rene. ¡°I will in thanks, not host to guest, but friend to friend.¡± Zoe smiled as she built up a fire in the pit that Tavirr quickly dug out. This, she realized, was the first time since the wolves that she¡¯d been happy¡ªsmiling not from courtesy or some discolored pleasure, but from the simple joy of enjoying the company of friends. Not host to guest, but friend to friend. The hospitality rituals between people of differing species echoed to her from remembered classes¡ªthose few taught not by humans, but by the vo¡¯ai schoolmaster himself. Ulwio had saved her life in the Cathedral, given her a chance to get word out¡ªbut word had already gotten out, she remembered. Tavirr had taken her journal to his mate, a burchar woman who would undoubtedly have been able to read it and understand. His mate. Zoe remembered the feel of the warm, thick fur of his shoulder against her cheek as she¡¯d fallen asleep leaning against him¡ªthe scent of him unfamiliar but not at all unpleasant¡ªand blushed. As he bundled the raw pelt into a large oilcloth Rene provided, Zoe decided there would almost certainly be a room in Mama¡¯s towering shell stuffed floor to ceiling with hides. Good for trading, hides. Everyone needed them. Even if a person used fabric for clothing¡ªor didn¡¯t need clothing at all¡ªthey still needed packs, storage bags, travel straps, even simple decorations. The pallicorn¡¯s enormous bell fluttered high above them again, and Zoe realized it wasn¡¯t the wind¡ªthere was barely a breeze¡ªbut Mama¡¯s own exhalations. A glistening white seam appeared, then another, and soon the bell was blooming open to show fleshy petals lined dark green within. They inched downwards, falling ever so slowly, until their tips rested on the earth. Whatever buoyant gas had been in her bell had escaped now, mostly odorless except for a slight funk that quickly dissipated. The petals of the bell relaxed like great curving pillars against the ground; peeling away from the leafy inner surface, lacy tendrils began to wave and dance in the air, something like puffs of snow floating gently away. Zoe looked away quickly, not wanting to think about the last time she¡¯d seen drifting spores. When a group of birds leaped from the scatter of trees to flutter and dive through whatever the pallicorn was releasing, she finally relaxed and remembered to breathe. ¡°What¡¯s she doing?¡± she asked, unable to cover the hint of trepidation in her voice. Rene peeled the rind off one of the ears of squall bread, wrapping it around some of the smoked meat slices, and tossed the rest into the fire. He handed it to her as she sat on the hide and set out several jars of clean water. ¡°It scared the fuck out of me the first time I saw it, too,¡± he said. ¡°I thought she was either dying or about to eat me.¡± Tavirr folded the rough cloth he¡¯d been cleaning his talons on back into a pocket of his travel strap, peeling it off his shoulders and keel bone with a look of relief. Rene handed him a peeled rind, but Tavirr merely used it as a plate, heaping it with the rest of the smoked meats. ¡°When I was older,¡± Rene continued, ¡°I realized that she was actually spawning. Every one of those little fluff balls is a larval pallicorn.¡± Zoe shivered, wondering how many of the larvae would survive. Probably not many, she realized as she watched the aerial displays of the birds. Finally, her stomach complaining, she peeled a squall bread rind and made her own sandwich. Later, when they¡¯d enjoyed the fire-roasted hare and finished off the pickled melon for dessert, Zoe asked them, ¡°What¡¯s the weirdest thing you''ve ever seen?¡± Everyone was silent for a stretch. Then Rene chuckled. ¡°Damn, I forgot about that old question!¡± ¡°Hm?¡± mumbled Tavirr around a last mouthful of hare. ¡°It¡¯s the question you ask someone when they¡¯re visiting,¡± Zoe told him. ¡°It¡¯s a way of learning about the world when you can¡¯t leave.¡± ¡°I left,¡± Rene said. She stared at the big man. ¡°You¡¯re from¡ª? But when? Why? How?!¡± ¡°Would you believe I was playing hide-and-seek?¡± ¡°How¡ªhow old were you?¡± ¡°Seven. And before you ask, I have no idea how old I am now.¡± Zoe thought for a second. ¡°Who was mayor then?¡± ¡°What was her name¡­? Em¡­ Emmie? No, Emma. Emma Mayor, but I think her regular surname was Scrivener, same as yours.¡± For a moment, all she could do was stare. ¡°My¡­ my grandmother¡¯s name was Emma Scrivener. I didn¡¯t know she was mayor¡­¡± ¡°What is a¡ª¡± Tavirr began, but Rene let out a loud belly laugh. ¡°Well, shit, I guess I¡¯m officially old! So, strangest thing I ever saw? Mama. It was my turn to hide, and I¡¯d gone out to the orchard to climb an apple tree. Next thing I knew, there were all these bees, and then I thought it was raining, so it started to climb down, and that was when Mama found me. She thought I was a snack!¡± This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. The pallicorn¡¯s bell petals had started closing, gracefully lifting themselves up and in, blooming in reverse. Finally, she let a long hissing sigh begin to ever so slowly fill her bell again, rippling lights barely visible far below where Zoe and her friends sat. ¡°I was still awfully young, though, so I bounced back quick once Mama decided I wasn¡¯t food.¡± He looked at his hands, busying themselves with a hangnail. ¡°I, uh, I never particularly wanted to go home.¡± When he looked at her, Zoe was sure something inside him flinched away. ¡°You already knew about the Cathedral?¡± He scratched an eyebrow. Wiped at his nose. ¡°It¡¯s hard, keeping track of time out here. I¡¯ve gone years without even thinking about Cathedral Day. Not even sure what twigged in me, but I think¡­ maybe Mama knew. It was her idea to turn around, to come back for you. Then I realized¡­ what day it was.¡± ¡°Hrrm,¡± Tavirr rumbled, a dangerous edge to his unspoken comment. Zoe watched the bees for a while, listened to their busy humming. ¡°You weren¡¯t playing hide and seek, were you,¡± she finally stated. ¡°Sure I was. Only it wasn¡¯t a game.¡± ¡°When did you find out about the Cathedral?¡± ¡°When does anyone?¡± At her look, Rene threw up his hands. ¡°Okay, yeah, I watched. But when the trees started their, y¡¯know, moving, I was outta there. I was already running when I heard the first screams, but it was so dark, I ran headfirst into the trunk of one of those apple trees. I got up, started to wobble away, and then I woke up in that lovely glowing room being nursemaided by a good man named Ernest Carrier. He, uh, he passed, just a few seasons ago.¡± He stopped, and Zoe could see his throat move silently, swallowing what she suspected was a grief Rene didn¡¯t care to share. ¡°For the first few years, though, he kept me busy learning how to take care of Mama, to know her moods and how to talk to her. Before he passed, though, we made it official. I took the Carrier name, and when he was gone,. I took over his work.¡± ¡°All right. But we¡¯ve all seen Mama now, and you know that doesn¡¯t count. You have to give us something you¡¯re sure we haven¡¯t seen!¡± Rene laughed. It was a loud, rumbling bark of a laugh, and it startled a flock of songbirds away. ¡°Fair enough. Let me think on it. Tavirr, you go first.¡± The lysk flicked an ear. ¡°I¡ªbut¡ªgo where?¡± ¡°He means, tell us the strangest thing you¡¯ve ever seen.¡± Then she added, ¡°That you feel safe talking about.¡± He gave her a smile, acknowledging her clarification. ¡°I saw a hare kill a hawk.¡± ¡°You¡¯re kidding.¡± ¡°The hawk,¡± he said, using one hand to indicate the motion, ¡°swooped down for the kill, but then instead of fleeing, the hare leaped straight up like so,¡± his other hand shot up, ¡°caught the hawk by the throat, biting right through it in midair, landed with the hawk under its claws, and began to eat it. Several other hares bounded in to join the feast. By then I¡¯d flown by far enough that I lost sight, but it is not something that I will ever forget.¡± ¡°You know they used to be herbivores?¡± Tavirr gave her a look she was beginning to recognize as deliberate innocence. ¡°Hawks?¡± ¡°No!¡± she laughed, ¡°hares! People used to breed rabbits for pets, or for food and fur, but the tame ones all died out, and now there¡¯s just wild hares. I guess hawks haven¡¯t gotten the message that the bunnies switched menus. They scavenge, too. Only thing hares are supposedly afraid of now are wolves and cats.¡± ¡°And lysks,¡± Tavirr added, then went back to cracking hare bones for marrow. Zoe turned to Rene. ¡°All right,¡± he said. ¡°I saw a cat.¡± ¡°Not weird, doesn¡¯t count,¡± she replied. ¡°I saw a cat small enough to sit on your lap. His owners called him Mouser.¡± ¡°Damn,¡± she breathed. ¡°I thought those were gone now, you know, just tabbies the size of tigers, anymore.¡± ¡°Not on the African Plateau. I¡¯ve only been there once, but let me tell you, there is no room there for any more big predators.¡± They talked about what he¡¯d seen there, mostly Tavirr asking all the questions as the sky warmed toward the west. A great gathering of pallicorns, bees flying between them all. Elephants¡ªthose simply floored Tavirr (and Zoe too, she had to admit)¡ªand burchars forming communities, the bulls acting as guides and protecting burchar children. Hyenas making war on them both. The stuff of fairy tales, Zoe thought, torn between credulity and disbelief, but who can tell anymore? The moons rose, one after another. Huge yellow Adba; Tavirr said she¡¯d come down, long ago, appearing to lysks and burchars alike. In her wake came Fweyu, and Zoe told them that the vo¡¯ai swore there was a long-dead Cathedral of Trees up there. Luna¡¯s fragment was absent on her irregular wanderings, but her dust (and lost Khiai¡¯s, if what Tavirr swore was true) had made the glimmering ring belting the world. Finally, little Takk, of whom no tales were known. Zoe was about to tell Rene and Tavirr about the painting of old Earth as seen from Luna¡¯s surface, but she was distracted by a feeling of creeping unease. It¡¯s on the ceiling, she wanted to say, but they were under the open sky; and then she wanted to check for auroras, but the solstice wasn¡¯t due yet. She caught a flash from the corner of her eye; a lifetime¡¯s experience told her it was only a shooting star from the dust ring. There¡ªshe saw it, or felt it, or whatever her head did to tell her that many-legged thing was there. It was huddled in on itself, long bits wrapped around pointy bits that twitched and curled into swiveling bits gazing up past the moons, past the rings, into¡­ whatever a weird, disjointed thing like that might stare. It looked her way. There were no eyes, not really, but Zoe felt its attention like an itch in her head. She flinched and pretended not to see it. Maybe it would just go away. ¡°The weirdest thing I ever saw,¡± Zoe managed, interrupting some joke Tavirr was mangling, ¡°is sitting right over there in the grass. Don¡¯t look,¡± she forestalled them, ¡°because I don¡¯t think either of you will be able to see it.¡± ¡°All right,¡± murmured Tavirr, but the tip of his tail twitched. Opening his basket again, Rene pulled out a small knife and a round of wax. Zoe caught the scent of garlic as he cut through and began to pare off pieces of rich cheese, and her stomach reminded her they¡¯d been here all day. He took out several more jars, and when Zoe opened one, she almost forgot her uneasiness. She¡¯d only tasted mead once. ¡°Cheers,¡± Rene said. ¡°Perks of having a few million very busy friends.¡± Tavirr eyed his jar, his ears canted back skeptically. ¡°I have never seen the appeal of drinking anything produced from insect vomit. But,¡± he added as Zoe happily reached for his mead, ¡°I suppose I may as well find out.¡± He took a swallow, coughed, and said, ¡°I believe my opinion of insect vomit has been revised.¡± Sipping again, he added, ¡°Downward.¡± He took a final gulp. ¡°Perfectly vile stuff. Is there more?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t drink and fly,¡± Rene said, and handed him another. ¡°Now,¡± he said, raising an eyebrow. ¡°I left this one out of our weirdest things game since I didn¡¯t see it with my own eyes. I read it.¡± Tavirr hiccuped. ¡°What¡­¡± He stopped to snag a chunk of cheese on the point of a talon. ¡°What is the¡­ hmm¡­ weirdest thing you have ever read, then?¡± Zoe chimed in, her prickling skin making her too eager to get out of her own head. ¡°I once read about an evil wizard who could never be killed.¡± She pointed at Tavirr, who obediently closed his mouth on a question. ¡°Wizards were people in old Earth tales. They could make impossible things happen just by waving their hands around¡ªlike, oh, turning a person into a fish or whatever.¡± ¡°I am beginning to think the weirdest thing anyone could ever read must have been written by a human.¡± ¡°Hush, you,¡± she said. Then she turned to Rene. ¡°And what exactly are you laughing at?¡± Rene wiped his eyes and popped another piece of cheese in his mouth, snickering. ¡°This wizard¡¯s hobby was apparently kidnapping fair maidens and flying away with them.¡± She examined her mead, which was mostly gone. ¡°Humans,¡± she pointed out to Tavirr, ¡°don¡¯t have wings.¡± ¡°Perhaps this evil wizard was a pallicorn, then?¡± Zoe stopped for a moment. ¡°Does Mama keep her heart in a needle that¡¯s inside an egg, in a bird, in a hare, all locked in a box that¡¯s buried under a tree?¡± Rene looked away to where the pallicorn hovered just above the ground, still refilling her bell. ¡°Not¡­ that I know of?¡± he chuckled. ¡°How did the egg get in¡ªer, no¡ªhow did the needle get inside an egg that was yet to be laid?¡± Zoe shrugged. ¡°Honestly? Whoever came up with that story probably drank too much mead.¡± ¡°Any amount of mead,¡± said Tavirr, who now had three empties in front of himself, ¡°is too much.¡± ¡°We can tell how much you hate it,¡± Rene noted. ¡°I believe it is your turn,¡± Tavirr remarked to the big man. ¡°Hand it over¡ªthat¡¯s the last one,¡± Rene said, and the lysk reluctantly gave the unopened jar back. Rene drained it. ¡°So. Mine¡¯s not a fairy tale, or at least I don¡¯t think it was meant to be. It was an account of a series of unexplainable deaths. I think it was a text originally from a newspaper.¡± He raised a hand, forestalling Tavirr¡¯s inevitable questions. ¡°Those were mass-produced texts in old Earth times, but I don¡¯t know how so many were made at one time.¡± The lysk nodded. ¡°If there is one thing we all share, it is lost arts that none can fathom.¡± ¡°Anyway,¡± Rene continued, ¡°the gist of it was that some performer had died, and they named the disease she died of after her.¡± ¡°What about it?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°What¡¯s weird about dying of a disease?¡± ¡°Only that apparently when people died of the faylind disease, their bodies¡­ melted.¡± Zoe tipped her mug to him. ¡°You officially win that one.¡± She looked over at Tavirr, but the lysk was staring at Rene, his ears flat, hair bristling. Her unease returned full force, making her shudder. ¡°The Terror,¡± Tavirr breathed. There was another flash from the corner of Zoe¡¯s eye, but somehow it was different from the shooting star she¡¯d glimpsed less than an hour before. Her uneasiness increased so sharply the world seemed to tilt, bringing a sense of dizzying unreality. Suddenly, something huge¡ªa thing made of legs and winding arms and what looked like a clawed tail¡ªflashed from where it had been to where Zoe was, pinning her to the ground. In the distance, someone began to scream, a long, keening howl that didn¡¯t stop for breath. An arc of fire ripped across the sky, shrieking through the light of the moons, the hazy dust ring, and the distant stars. Even as the ground began to shake, as explosions roared into the distant landscape, that arc of fire continued its burning howl, tearing the world open in deadly rage. Timeless VI. Timeless Tavirr gaped at the band of fire that was still streaked over the sky like a child¡¯s clumsy painting, and all he could think of was the day he¡¯d met h¡¯Jasse. The dancer with wings of flame. Her hideous screaming. The other dancers, hurling themselves like chunks of flesh in the wake of a burchar warrior¡¯s vicious spear thrust. This cannot be, he thought. He heard a strange mewling, felt a sharp pain in his knees, a tug in his back as his wings fought to right him. There was only the timeless fire burning the sky. Only the screaming sound of the khiai. They found them. Somehow they got them working, he thought. Then, How long have they had khiai? How long have they held them in reserve? And why¡ªby all the winds!¡ªwhy now? There was pain in his hands. He finally pulled his eyes away from the hellish bow to find that he¡¯d fallen to his knees, wings akimbo, hands fisted so tightly that his talons had dug bloody grooves into his palms. Khiai, the terror weapon of ancient history. That was all he knew. He tried to breathe, but he could not stop mewling, like a child crying for its mother. He looked around himself, numb to everything except that the world beyond Drusik, the world he¡¯d once dreamed of exploring, was no place for a lysk. Tu¡¯yet and wind madness¡ªand now even forbidden weapons! H¡¯Jasse¡¯s ancestors should have left all mine in the care of the damned kriuulu. We¡¯d have been safer! Why¡ªwhy?!¡ªhad those brave h¡¯adbani of old come to the kriuulu for what was left of the lysks, so long ago when poor, destroyed Inur was still freshly Hatched, and Earth had yet to dream? Were burchars and lysks not ancestral enemies? We all chose peace, as Adba commanded. Why have the khiai returned to scream their evil? He wanted to go home. He wanted Vala to tug his ears the way she¡¯d done when they were children. He wanted to have been able to congratulate Zassik, to say goodbye to his bravely blooded nephew. He wanted the simple pain of merely being the wing-mad shadow never spoken of. The sky finally ceased its endless banshee-shrieking rage. When he looked up, the burning arc was beginning to dissolve, its infernal tongues silently flickering down to lick at the air, exploring the taste of the world below. The screaming began again, but it wasn¡¯t the sky this time. ¡°Get it off me, get it off me!!!¡± Zoe lay struggling on the grass, wrestling with nothing. Rene was trying to help her, but her flailing limbs knocked him away. Tavirr could smell smoke now, and the first crackle of singeing greenery reached his ears. Winds forsake you, Tavirr ayv Drusik, he thought angrily, you are not a flopping minnow! Springing up, he glided quickly to his Zoe. He hauled Rene to his feet, then carefully picked Zoe up, wishing he could retract those brutish talons of his. She calmed instantly, though, pressing her face against his keel bone, hands clutching the fur of his shoulders. ¡°We must leave!¡± he yelled. ¡°Rene! I do not know these lands, you do! Where are we to go?¡± Tavirr looked around for the pallicorn, but she had already lifted off, gusting away from the falling flames. Shielding his face from the rising brush fires, the big man tried to make out any landmarks but shook his head. Then pallicorn thundered overhead, her great bell flashing like lightning. ¡°Follow her!¡± Rene shouted. Zoe lifted her head, pushing herself out of Tavirr¡¯s arms. She struggled for balance for only a moment, but then pointed. ¡°No! Look! That way!¡± She indicated a break in the rapidly shifting flames. Behind it, another patch of fire went out; then another was snuffed out. ¡°It¡¯s making a fire break for us!¡± Tavirr didn¡¯t question what ¡°it¡± was; that could wait. He took Zoe¡¯s hand in his, then grabbed Rene¡¯s as well, keeping his wings open to shield both humans. The big man guided them through the darkened path as the brushfire grew, he and Zoe both holding their shirts over their noses. Sudden pain seared down his right wing and dripped over his tail, and Tavirr screamed and nearly fell¡ªbut Zoe was under the charring wing, and he could not risk her injury. Rising smoke smelling of his own flesh made him cough, and he tried to hold his breath, but the burns were causing him to pant in agony, and the choking convulsions of his lungs only made it worse. He heard Zoe and Rene, felt small, sure hands forcing his wings closed, excruciation making him momentarily black out. Tavirr concentrated on keeping ahold of his friends, on putting one foot in front of the other, shutting his tearing eyes against the heat and smoke, and trying his best not to breathe despite the pain. But he wheezed and rasped every few moments. Soon he was thinking only of keeping himself moving, and then not even of that. He didn¡¯t feel himself fall, didn¡¯t hear Zoe¡¯s yells or Rene calling out in relief; he was senseless to the sudden crowd of strong hands and urgent voices. The world was nothing but agony.
There was pressure first. His keel bone ached with it. Something was curled against him, pushing, pressing on him till he felt he must be flat. Chest, ribs, knees, all feeling as though there were a solid weight atop him, crushing his back and wings into¡ª His wings! Why was he lying on them? Was that why they burned so? Suddenly, Tavirr¡¯s senses flipped, and he discovered that he was prone on his stomach, as abnormal a sleeping position as was possible for a lysk. He tried to shift but discovered heaviness lumped under and around him. His wings lay useless on his back, feeling disconnected from the rest of his body. One was securely wrapped, but the other¡¯s claws were hung up on something, nerves howling in torment. Movement was possible, he discovered, in his left arm. The right arm also obeyed. With great difficulty, Tavirr explored the lumps around and under himself, discovering that thick pillows had contoured what must be a human bed to his nonhuman shape. Tavirr rose to his feet and looked around. He¡¯d been mistaken; there¡¯d been no bed, only a familiar cliffside. The wind called to his strong wings, and his tail swung from side to side in agitated need for flight. Someone was whispering, though; someone else stood behind him, painting his wings with fire. He would fall on the world, shrieking in endless rage; somewhere, a child would look up and wonder what could make the sky drip flames.
¡°Tavirr!¡± Zoe yelled. ¡°Stop struggling! You¡¯re safe, you hear me?¡± The lysk¡¯s eyes rolled, sightless, staring into whatever dreams were torturing him. ¡°Hold him down,¡± the kind voice beside her said. ¡°He¡¯ll tear his wing if he keeps moving like this.¡±
The tu¡¯yet had gotten into the cavern where Tavirr lay recuperating. He could see it, almost, especially when the agony was beyond his ability to process. At first, he hadn¡¯t understood the pain in his body, not until he finally stood outside of it. He could see Zoe doing her best to hold him down without putting her weight on his good wing. The left wing had been carefully tied into its resting furl to protect it, just like his ama had taught him to do when Vala was a baby, with a baby¡¯s fragile little winglets. The right one was open against the wall, but he couldn¡¯t see what held it up. A handsome young burchar, perhaps only as tall as Rene, began to swab the raw, angry membrane of his right wing; even watching from outside himself, he could still feel an echo of the pain. Like claws down my wing, he thought. His spirit felt a prickling horror at the thought. And did you, at any point, wonder whether the injury to your wings was maybe a warning from the very thing that took mine? He saw the long crest of fur on his body¡¯s scalp stand on end; the brief pang of his tail twitching followed like an echo. Something moved in the shadows. Tavirr spun to face the thing, but it was already gone. He could hear a high-pitched scratching sound, though, like metal scraping against stone, and he chased the sound through the halls of his dreaming mind. He caught glimpses of it, a many-jointed tangle of spindly black limbs, whiplike feelers, and a long, clawed tail. It disappeared into a shadow, and Tavirr dove after it.
Zoe glanced at the young burchar man, looking away before his strangeness broke her concentration. H¡¯Dlava gently cleaned Tavirr¡¯s wing, then rubbed a numbing salve on the burns. His blunt horns kept threatening to scrape the cavern ceiling, but somehow they never did. When he was done, he dropped the soft rag into the bowl of strong spirits, washing his hands in an untouched bowl of the same noxious stuff. ¡°Where has little Sara gone off to this time?¡± h¡¯Dlava asked. ¡°Her dad sent her out to help Rene see to Mama. She¡¯s still got smoke in her gills.¡± ¡°Poor beast. Rene must be capable, though, or she wouldn¡¯t have kept him.¡± As he spoke, the blue scales on his crest warmed to lavender; he turned away, and Zoe wondered if he was blushing.
Look, Song! something sang in his mind. This one is whole! Where was he? He could smell kriuulu now, the dusty tang of old feathers rather than new, and he could hear a fluting whisper. Tavirr opened his eyes, seeing only the cloth cushioning his forehead. The field. The weapon. The burning sky! Flames licking down to taste his wing and part of his tail. ¡°No, son.¡± He closed his eyes against the memory. Instead, he saw two kriuulu standing in the cavern. Not vo¡¯ai, though, not with that violet plumage. Did any kriuulu race look like that? Maybe once, too long ago to count the eons. And¡ªaround him¡ªit must be some lost crystal palace of the ancients, jeweled within like an enormous geode. The pair of kriuulu stood, chisels in hand, whispering together over a pile of stones. You see? Eggs! said one, pulling something broken from the wall. Inside were more jewels, blood red and glistening with an oozing moisture. Not alive, though, Hush¡­ said the other, but¡­ not truly dead. Rich with magickal potential. Perhaps enough to escape the Abomination? The first one spoke again. Let us commence. Bring it. A third kriuulu appeared, cradling what must be an eklil. It crooned to the spider-like creature, which muttered and chuckled mindlessly to itself. It was eyeless, but Tavirr could nonetheless sense a gentle, primitive curiosity from it. Its handler stroked its body, petting and tickling, and it began to twitch. Tavirr had never seen an eklil before, but he¡¯d heard tales of their oddness. He took a step back, but talons dug into the back of his neck. ¡°Watch, son. Do not turn away.¡± When the kriuulu set it down, all three began crooning and making much of the thing, like a newly discovered pet. The eklil seemed to enjoy the attention, though, giggling like a child as it danced. Finally, as it seemed to reach the height of its insane amusement, it froze. ¡°They are coming for Inur-Before,¡± his father¡¯s voice snarled, and Tavirr realized his dreaming mind must have reached into the ancient past. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Cracks appeared around the eklil¡¯s carapace. With a final spasm, it broke in half, releasing hundreds of little round beads, before its twitching body shattered into ragged stones. ¡°Winds! What have they done?!¡± He struggled out of his father¡¯s grasp and turned around, but there was no one there. Only the echo of a snarl, the fading gleam of eyes that had never been his father¡¯s, and an unthinking void of eternal hunger. Something like a thundering roar given form rose up behind him. When it touched him, it burned like icy wind down his throat. Wind-mad, it whispered, and hurled him into the storm. He tried to steady his wings, but the fury of the gale snapped them back, and he thought he felt something in the muscle tear. Folding them tightly against himself eased the burning pain, but he had only a vague impression of his dwindling altitude. Idiot! he swore at himself. Flaring his tail spines, he steadied his chaotic drop until he finally tumbled out of the clouds entirely¡ªand then his instincts took over. His wings spreading out full against the speed of his fall, Tavirr screamed in pain. When he hit the ground, he felt the talons on several of his toes crack. In that brief moment, all he could think of was his annoyance that he couldn¡¯t remember where he¡¯d left his filing rod¡ªa broken talon uncared for would be trouble later on¡ªbut then his crashing speed flipped him over, and he landed hard on his wings, and it took him several agonized moments simply to recall how to breathe. Zoe had seen him fall, he knew. She would help him. Had there been a burchar with her when she¡¯d found him? He remembered seeing her speaking to a burchar, a good-looking young man who might have made any lysk proud to bond to him. No, Tavirr recalled, he¡¯d already healed from that. He could still taste the unspent magick of the kriuulings he¡¯d eaten to speed his recovery. Kriuulings. No¡ªkriuulu, adults, long since flightless. A dream? Hush, he thought; Song. Where¡ª?
¡°You can let go now, Zoe, he¡¯ll be all right.¡± H¡¯Dlava made a show of grinding a new batch of dried egg-flesh into powder, though Zoe had already watched him do so not an hour before. She burned with curiosity about where he could have found a supply of the dearly guarded stuff. ¡°How long have you been here?¡± she asked. ¡°Hm. Not quite a year. I would have made the young man¡¯s acquaintance soon enough, I suppose.¡± ¡°Young!¡± Zoe laughed. ¡°Rene¡¯s old enough to be my grandfather!¡± He turned to her, slapping the floor in gentle amusement with his thick tail. ¡°So am I, little one¡ªyet I am also as young to my people as you are to yours.¡± ¡°How long¡ª¡± Zoe started to say, before swallowing the rest of what she suspected would have been a rude question. ¡°How long do burchars live?¡± H¡¯Dlava filled in her unspoken words. She nodded, and he sighed. ¡°As long as we can bear it. This is the way of this world and its magick, little human. I¡¯d wager your people already have a longer lifespan than when your Earth was whole.¡± Zoe frowned but nodded. ¡°I¡¯d also wager your folk once dreamed of immortality, yes? Hah. Yes, we can live to see many things, but only the kindness of the young can ease our elders when that curse becomes too heavy to carry.¡±
Tavirr fled the roar of the wind, only to find himself in that haunted cavern of fossilized eggs. Open the Dread Gate, the dream-kriuulu called Song said. Let us feed the Abomination to its dead Cathedral. Something that had perhaps once been a kriuulu was dragged in, its sickly, featherless flesh black and drooping wetly over its bones. Around its skinny neck, a metal collar hung, attached to long poles held in the wing-claws of more of the violet-plumed folk. Hush scooped up a beadlike eklil egg, plucked one of its feathers, and breathed its spores over the tiny thing and watched it begin to glow. Song presented a fossilized egg-fruit, the unbroken shell only pitted stone, but radiating a sullen, foul magick. Tavirr knew this wasn¡¯t real, wasn¡¯t truly happening now, but he still flinched back when the two eggs¡ªone large, one small¡ªmet with a clamorous non-sound that made his spirit ache. For our once-world, the ghost of a kriuulu sang. For Yuina-Ruined. Existence cracked open, and Tavirr woke up with a shout.
Zoe had fallen asleep leaning against Tavirr¡¯s makeshift bed. Trying to get a body not at all built for lying on its stomach supported by haphazard pillows would have been a comedy of errors¡ªexcept the circumstances weren¡¯t funny at all. Not when she had to see his charred wing propped gently against a wall, the wingtips secured by hooks keeping it as still as possible. Unfurled, lysk wings were far larger than they appeared otherwise. The smith and the tanner of this hidden little community, composed mostly of humans, had together mocked up something like a paint roller on a pole for getting the burn salve on all the hard-to-reach places, especially where part of the membrane had needed several holes stitched. Zoe hoped they could keep the scarring to a minimum; she liked the dashing look of Tavirr¡¯s marbled fur, and she hoped it would grow back once the angry, blistering welts healed. The rumble of his voice woke her, but he was only muttering in his sleep. She liked his voice, though she¡¯d only heard him speak Lysk a few times shortly after she¡¯d found him. Not a language made for human mouths, Lysk was full of chuffs and clicks and a warm growl-purr that did odd things to her stomach, which she steadfastly ignored. One heavily furred arm hung off the makeshift bed; Zoe had propped it up against her shoulder, hoping to keep her friend as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. She studied his hand. A thumb and three fingers, the palm pads made of roughly scaled hide. The talons were huge, each one longer than any of her own fingers, gray keratin darkening to black at the dagger tips. The underside grooves were clean; she¡¯d often seen him fanatically scraping out the slightest bit of dirt, making her feel self-conscious of the ink stains beneath her own short nails. His thumb wasn¡¯t set off to the side of his hand like a human¡¯s, though. The base joint was further down and more towards the center of the wrist; she wondered how she¡¯d never noticed that before. No wonder lysks had no written language¡ªthose hands hadn¡¯t been made to hold a stylus. He gasped, yelled something dream-garbled, and one of the pillows cushioning the sharply cambered keel bone shifted. She pushed it back under, then stood to check the rest. Two thick cushions, one on each side of his chest; another two, lashed together and wrapped in blankets, under his lean stomach. The oddly jointed legs needed a more inventive setup. A pile of cushions under his waist let his knees keep their natural frontal bend, while another pile supported the strong, spring-loaded ankles. Those legs seemed anything but weak, but h¡¯Dlava had warned her that improper support of his skeletal structure could cause long-term damage. The only reason they had to keep him like this was to protect that wing. It was time, she decided, to mop more salve onto the wing membrane. ¡°Zoe? Why can¡¯t¡ªaugh!¡± ¡°Stop! No, don¡¯t move, Tavirr! Let me¡ªDlava,¡± Zoe yelled, ¡°wake up, I need your help!¡± But the burchar had sprung up and cantered to her side before she could even finish calling for him. ¡°Stay still and calm, please,¡± h¡¯Dlava said. ¡°We will adjust you so that you may sit up.¡± Rearing onto his hind legs, the burchar braced his foreknees and one hand against the wall. With the other hand, he gently lifted Tavirr¡¯s wingtips off the hooks they''d been resting on. ¡°Knife winds!¡± hissed Tavirr in what sounded like a curse, ¡°what happened? Why am I¡­?¡± ¡°Your wing is still burned pretty badly,¡± Zoe said, ¡°so try not to move it much. Part of your tail, too.¡± He growled something quietly in Lysk, then said, ¡°Help me sit up. I need to use the, ah¡­¡± ¡°I shall take him, Zoe. Perhaps you should find Rene. I¡¯m sure he will want to know his friend has awoken.¡±
Rene had stood in the medic¡¯s cavern with them for a long, silent moment after h¡¯Dlava finished breaking the bad news. Then he¡¯d shrugged in clumsy, wordless apology and followed the tired burchar. Zoe thought she saw him wiping his eyes as he left. She knew there wasn¡¯t much to be said after the possibility Tavirr had been hit with. Her lysk friend sat near the foot of the bed, his useless wing draped clumsily over it, legs crossed in the only way that could be comfortable for sitting. ¡°We¡¯ll find something,¡± she said. ¡°You healed up quickly enough after¡ª¡± ¡°I was eating kriuulings.¡± ¡°You¡ªwait, what?¡± She stifled a giggle. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I didn¡¯t mean to¡­ it¡¯s just, I had no idea where the little bastards they sent after me had gone, I thought they must have just gotten lost!¡± He flicked an ear, glaring at her. Then his whiskers spread in a helpless smile as he began chuckling. ¡°Oh, yes, the little spies get lost often enough. In Drusik, we feed any we catch to our injured.¡± His smile vanished as quickly as it arrived, though. ¡°Most years, we find none. We live above the snow line, though; the downslope clans seem to have more luck.¡± She touched his hand, but he pulled back. ¡°I will be useless, Zoe! How can you bear to¡ª¡± ¡°Your wings aren¡¯t what¡¯s important to me, Tavirr.¡± He sighed. ¡°I cannot hunt.¡± ¡°You couldn¡¯t when I first met you, either.¡± His eyes, full of questions, met hers. ¡°Why¡­? Why did you help me? I know how dangerous it must have been for you.¡± Zoe closed her eyes and leaned the back of her head against the wall. ¡°There wasn¡¯t much left for me back home anyway. Tavirr, I¡ªI¡¯ve hurt people I loved. I didn¡¯t know that was what I was doing, but that doesn¡¯t make it better.¡± He let her take his hand, then waited for her to speak. ¡°What do you know about the eklil?¡± Looking at her sharply, Tavirr said, ¡°Very little, only that their eggs are like tiny beads¡ªwhy?¡± ¡°Eggs?¡± she asked in surprise. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°How do you¡ª¡± ¡°When they die, they crack open, and a bunch of little eggs fall out.¡± ¡°I saw one die, Tavirr, and a bunch of little eggs were definitely not what came out!¡± He stared at her in confusion. ¡°What did?¡± Pointing across to the opposite side of the little cavern, she said, ¡°The thing that climbed out of a dead eklil is sitting right underneath that table.¡± Tavirr made a thoughtful sound, his eyes skimming the shadows that were obviously only shadows to him. ¡°I wonder if I can only see it when I¡¯m dreaming¡­?¡± He caught her confused look. ¡°No matter. Please.¡± ¡°We mine them.¡± He jerked, then hissed in pain. ¡°Sorry! No, we don¡¯t dig them up and kill them! It was¡ªfuck, there was this asshole I used to be friends with when I was little, and¡­ look, can we go back and start this conversation over?¡± He nodded. ¡°Okay. So. We mine the stones that are left over after they¡¯ve already died. They¡¯re magickal. Most Earth animals can just, I don¡¯t know, adapt more quickly, or maybe they¡¯re just better at absorbing magick, I don¡¯t know. But humans¡ªwe need help. The vo¡¯ai taught us how to mine the stones, how to drill holes to loop them onto necklaces without breaking them, and how to wear them so the stones can safely channel magick for our bodies to use.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve heard such things were done, but why¡­¡± ¡°A baby in the womb can absorb magick from its mother¡¯s body, but after that, the custom is to hang a necklace with a freshly mined stone on a wall near the baby¡¯s crib¡ªtheir sleeping place¡ªuntil they¡¯re five. Then they get to wear it.¡± ¡°Why not before then?¡± asked Tavirr. Zoe frowned. ¡°Okay, how old were you when you stopped putting every random bit of junk in your mouth?¡± He blinked at her. ¡°Having both a younger sister and a nephew makes me confident in the assertion that small lysks are better at life than small humans are.¡± ¡°Fair enough.¡± ¡°Why not simply swallow them?¡± Zoe froze. ¡°That is what the tales say my people did in the early¡ªZoe?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to,¡± she whispered. ¡°It just¡­ My mom and dad let me start wearing my stone, and I was so happy about it. I felt so special. I remember how my stone always felt tingly against my skin, and one night I put it in my mouth¡­ and I don¡¯t really know what happened next.¡± She sighed, feeling an emptiness around her neck where her mother¡¯s eklil stone no longer hung. ¡°Dad¡­ he quit teaching. He took a job in the mines. He¡¯d come home covered in the dust of dead eklil, and he would just hug Mom, hoping the dust had enough magick in it. Grandma told me later that it seemed like it was working. But there was an accident in the mine, and twelve people died in there. Dad¡­ died¡­ trying to get them out. I¡­ If only I hadn¡¯t¡­¡± Squeezing her shoulder gently, Tavirr watched her tears in silence. Zoe dug out her handkerchief and wiped her face, leaving faint marks from old ink behind. ¡°The vo¡¯ai don¡¯t like anomalies in their humans, and I guess Mom stayed home all the time after I¡­ after she lost her stone. If anyone saw her without it¡ªwell, there would have been too many questions. After Dad¡­ after the accident, she started getting sick. She had to eat egg-flesh, and that shit does things to your mind.¡± She was quiet for a long moment. ¡°She went out one day. Didn¡¯t tell us anything, just left before dawn one morning. By the time Grandma and I knew she¡¯d gone, they already had her. They fucking kept her in the tree-damned med center, feeding her egg-flesh, until Cathedral Day was right around the corner, and then the tree-fucking parrots Chose her. And¡­ and I was still too little to know what was happening, I still believed all the fucking lies¡ªI was happy for her, Tavirr! It was my fault, I was just so stupid!¡± Tears were streaming down her face. She blew her nose, huddling into herself, too conscious of Tavirr¡¯s hand stroking her shoulder. ¡°Do you think your mother blamed you?¡± ¡°I¡ªwhat?¡± She looked at him, confused. ¡°I don¡¯t¡­¡± ¡°I do not believe my mother¡¯s spirit ever blamed me for what happened to my father, even though I was there when he was taken. She was kind. Most mothers are, I believe.¡± Nodding, Zoe shut her eyes, feeling more tears spill out. ¡°Why do your eyes do this?¡± ¡°They¡¯re just tears. Humans do that when we¡¯re upset.¡± Tavirr caught a drop on the back of his talon, startling her into looking at him again. He examined it curiously, smelled, tasted. A pleasant shiver went down Zoe¡¯s back. He looked back at her, pupils wide and dark. ¡°You have the sea in your eyes.¡± He has a mate, she told herself, but what came out was, ¡°You matter to me, Tavirr. You do. Not your wings, not your claws, not whether you can hunt.¡± She tapped his keel bone. ¡°What¡¯s in here.¡± He caught her hand and pressed it to his chest. His whiskers twitched in a smile as he said, ¡°You want my innards? I¡¯m afraid I¡¯m already using them.¡± Exasperated, Zoe tugged at her hand, but he didn¡¯t let go. ¡°You matter to me as well, my Zoe.¡± He has a mate, she thought again. He touched her brow gently. ¡°Your mind, your stubborn spirit, the winds of your heart.¡± He laid his palm carefully over her chest, feeling her heart beating as she felt his. He has a¡ªshe thought again, and then simply didn¡¯t care anymore as she leaned into his embrace. They fell asleep that way, a human whose hands flexed in sorrowful memories, and a lysk whose wing twitched with nightmares of flame. The thing huddling in the shadows watched them as they slept. A Haunted World VII. A Haunted World Above a rocky, shadowed cliff, a low cloud hovered. Anyone looking carefully enough might have noticed that most of the cloud was a mirage of slowly moving shades of white and gray, slightly rippling upon the pebbled surface of an enormous, gas-filled bell. Within and below the odd cloud were the irregular curves of a complex, iridescent shell that flickered with soft colors mimicking the shadows below. Several miles away, wide buildings huddled, half-buried, under the thick, spreading branches of a grove. Their roots acted as living support beams for the structures that were, if you knew where to look, the primary entrance into a small, hidden world. On the horizon, plumes of smoke were still visible weeks after the fiery catastrophe that had nearly killed the pallicorn and her small crew, an accidental afterthought of destruction. Much closer, though, the charred earth was already healing, small clouds of bees hard at work as if nothing at all had happened.
The hidden village of Deep Haven was starkly different from what Zoe had known all her life. She had grown up in New Providence, a city of lovely houses built of singing wood, living pieces harvested from the mother trees that held the inhabitants in safety, peace, and near hypnotic obedience to their kriuulu guardians. The hundreds of refugees who called it home had dug their village into the earth, roofing the entrance with the same thick, flowering turf of the surrounding meadowlands. It was the sole door leading to the outside world, concealed from any eyes might see and wonder. Below that village, though, lay a covert subterranean kingdom. The cavern the inhabitants had carried a wounded Tavirr into was tiny, compared to the huge cave complex winding through the depths below them. Zoe had taken to a cautious exploration into the unoccupied areas, accepting Tavirr¡¯s insistence to never get out of sight of the main tunnelway leading back to the village. Finally, she asked Tavirr to help explore what she¡¯d found. ¡°There¡¯s so many strange carvings, Tavirr, you won¡¯t believe it! It¡¯s not even really dark. Come on, you need to see this!¡± Tavirr frowned at her but followed. His wing had healed with a rough scar snaking along its length, turning a portion of the membranes into rigid tissues and stiffening the middle knuckles of all three wing fingers. Although the burning pain was gone, he still suffered from the knowledge that he would not be flying for a very long time, if ever.
¡°Myrna Tanner,¡± Rene called down, heaving a crate of dried leathers onto the pulley Mama had long ago consented to have installed in her shell. A few clouds shadowed the ground below, a pleasant breeze bringing the scent of flowers into Mama¡¯s lower shell, which pulsed with slow blues to mimic the sky. Bees passed in and out, unbothered by the work occupying the lowest deck of the pallicorn¡¯s huge shell. Rene liked Myrna; she was always as exact in her requests as he was in storing raw leather in the dimensions she would need. His adopted father had taught Rene the importance of keeping their wares in more than the organized mess a much younger Rene had originally tended to; now he appreciated finding similar values in others. It was a good day for the work. The porters were rapidly hefting out the crates he lowered, sending the harness back up almost as soon as each load touched down. Rene hoped they were double-checking the names on the order sheet with the crate numbers; there¡¯d be a hell of a lot of moaning and complaining, otherwise. He hated having to unpack and repack anything he¡¯d already put together. Especially since the coin of the realm, so to speak, was usually barter. A crate of leather might be worth a gross of tseyshoes here, but the good folks of Abercrombie, Merriweather, or Hudson would have very different going rates for very different goods. At least he was Deep Haven¡¯s only contact. He liked the folks below being safe almost as much as he liked trade to be smooth. And trade was never smooth. Most people didn¡¯t travel¡ªhumans especially, since they were still under that abominable cultural custody that passed for hospitality in their protectors. Welcome to your new existence, he imagined his ancestors being told. We¡¯ll give you everything your people need, and then we¡¯ll take everything your people are. Another crate. ¡°Vergil Carpenter.¡± This one was huge, heavily filled with wood and fittings, but the porters seemed to have no trouble. With every crate of wares that Rene lowered, Mama purred the rainy sounds of her happiness, letting Rene know that she appreciated the weight leaving her body. Sometimes he wondered how much relief Mama felt when he offloaded his own outsized self from her capacious shell. ¡°Uh.¡± Rene tried his best on the next name, a burchar¡¯s. ¡°Dalava?¡± He¡¯d packed this box with needles and blades of every size he carried, as well as bandages, thread, herbs, and simples. Rene leaned over the shell edge to glance down as he hooked together the crate harness, and was surprised to find the burchar in question smiling up at him. No wonder the porters are so fast today! They¡¯d met, very briefly, when h¡¯Dlava had explained the bad news about Tavirr¡¯s wing, but Rene hadn¡¯t known his name then. Or that he¡¯d need to keep polishing his admittedly poor burchar pronunciation! But h¡¯Dlava hadn¡¯t been in Deep Haven the last time Rene had stopped through. The village gained new faces often enough, but this was the first nonhuman to become part of the hidden community. He wondered what the burchar¡¯s story was. He wondered how the rest of the village felt about their burchar medic. With the big guy standing there like some sort of saurian centaur, unloading merchandise was taking half the time that it usually did. Once the wares were lowered, Rene joined the small group in hefting the last crate¡ªjars and jars of honey¡ªleaving Mama (and her bees) to enjoy the day. A pair of nocturnal tseys wearing sun masks over their eyes towed the wagon into a garage camouflaged in a cliff face some distance from the village proper. Inside was a lift, a piece of ingenious mechanical technology that involved screws and counterweights and other things Rene would never understand. Once the contraption¡¯s mechanism lowered it into the hollows beneath, the two drovers unveiled and unhitched the tseys to lead them back into the sheltered corral and out of the daylight the creatures preferred to sleep through. The last package was for the stables, and Rene happily accompanied them, having missed their company terribly. The drovers, a father and daughter named Julius and Sasha, exchanged news of the village and the wider world, with Rene happily embellishing his exciting tale of the woman from New Providence and the heroic lysk who¡¯d tried to rescue her from the terrible, ravaging pallicorn.
¡°Careful of your feet,¡± Zoe murmured, ¡°there¡¯s small holes in the ground all over the place in here.¡± Tavirr felt one of his talons catch on something. His wings spread as he caught his balance; he flinched, expecting pain that didn¡¯t appear, then crouched for a closer look at what his toe claw had sunk into. There were clusters of small holes at his feet, and he could see more of them here and there as the corridor wound into a larger space. Faint echoes of dripping water carried up to them through the deeper layers the holes must have led into, and Tavirr caught just the barest edge of an unpleasant odor. He swallowed his uneasiness and continued with Zoe. They rounded the bend, and the narrow corridor yawned open into a huge cave. It was a maze of high cliffs and pillars, all faintly lit by a bioluminescent haze of fungi, spores, and tiny, unnameable creatures, and Zoe turned around, grinning to see Tavirr¡¯s expression. Tavirr stood, ears aquiver and eyes wide in shock. His jaw dropped, revealing sharp white teeth.
¡°That ice demon,¡± Julius said, once they¡¯d reached the stables. He shook a glass bulb until the mixture inside brightened enough that the tseys began to complain. ¡°You¡¯re sure he¡¯s not a danger?¡± As Sasha busied herself with brushing the tseys¡¯ scales till they gleamed, Rene sat on a feed barrel and rubbed his face in exhausted frustration. ¡°No,¡± he sighed. ¡°I¡¯m not sure. I look at him, and all I see are the pointy bits¡ªthe talons and those fangs.¡± Julius cocked his head. ¡°Uncle, I know we missed a lot of years till you could get us out, but I¡¯m pretty sure I know you know you better than to think that¡¯s all you see.¡± ¡°Well. That¡¯s what I see. But then, I¡¯m not a lonely orphan girl who nearly died in a Cathedral.¡± The younger man spat off to one side. Then he raised his eyebrows, a grin showing very white against his dark skin. ¡°Well. Romance is everywhere today. I see you finally got around to introducing yourself to our new resident doctor.¡± Staring at his nephew, Rene cocked his head quizzically. ¡°What? Romance? How would that even¡ª? The parts don¡¯t¡ª? And what the hell are you laughing at?¡± ¡°Hey, Sasha?¡± ¡°Yeah, Dad?¡± ¡°You win the bet.¡± A burst of laughter sounded from one of the stalls. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. ¡°Uh, Julius?¡± ¡°Yes, Uncle?¡± ¡°What bet?¡±
Tavirr¡¯s inner amusement at Zoe¡¯s excitement faded fast as he looked into the darkness. Water dripped slowly down the walls into stagnant pools. The overlapping echoes of falling drops created an eerie sense of far-off whispering. There was that odor again¡ªsomething he couldn¡¯t place, faint but unpleasant. He was close to turning back¡ªHuman noses must not be as sensitive as ours, he thought¡ªbut directly ahead, a huge, rough pillar caught his attention. At first, he thought it must be limestone, melted and reformed into a stalagnate column, but something about it was too clean, too regular, and his eyes began to pick out details. The skull was what he recognized first¡ªheavy frontal bone, strong mandibular joints. The long, wicked fangs (he ran his tongue unconsciously over his own fangs) were buried in another skull, a larger one with longer jaws, its blunt teeth seeming to grind together in agony. The horns fringed behind that skull had been driven into the cervical vertebrae of its attacker, locking their bodies into a frozen passion of atrocity, buried forever until whatever forces had created this place uncovered the brutal remains. Around them¡ªembedded into the floors, the walls, curling through more eroded columns¡ªsimilar scenes had been captured, preserved in eternal savagery by whatever had buried this place. Here and there, liquid¡ªsomething, Tavirr realized, that was not water¡ªgathered slowly into seeping drops that dangled from the teeth, claws, and horns of people millions of years dead.
¡°I¡¯ll take that now. Birthday girl¡¯s about done.¡± Julius watched proudly as his daughter latched the stalls and wiped the scale dust off her hands, then presented the cloth-wrapped package Rene had brought. ¡°Happy birthday, sweetheart,¡± Rene murmured. Sasha glanced over at her father, bouncing on her toes until he nodded. Then she took the package, squinting at it, carefully feeling the cloth till her fingers touched the string tied around it, then tracing around till she could find the ends of the bow knot. Dammit, Rene chided himself. How could I have forgotten? But Julius patted his shoulder, giving him a rueful smile. Right, he told himself. It¡¯s Julius¡¯ every day. It¡¯s only my every few months. But it¡¯s gotten worse. ¡°What did Dlava say to do, honey?¡± Sasha swallowed hard, shivered, then stopped fumbling. Moving her head this way and that until her eyes could focus on the ties, she grabbed a loose string and pulled. Carefully, she handed the string to her father, then the cloth. She frowned at the frame, seeing a jumble of shapes and colors inside it. Then, holding it up at arm¡¯s length, she moved it gently back and forth until she could finally understand the image. ¡°Wow,¡± she breathed. ¡°What are they? They look kinda like melks, except without the antlers. Oh! They have manes and tails! But¡­¡± She peered closer, moving her head around. ¡°They can¡¯t be tseys, they don¡¯t have horns on their noses, and that looks like¡­ where¡¯s the scales?¡± Julius took it from her and admired it. ¡°These are¡­?¡± He looked questioningly at Rene, who nodded. ¡°That¡¯s really what ¡®horses¡¯ looked like?¡± ¡°Hell, I don¡¯t know. But the first time I saw a version of this picture was in a book on old Earth animals. As soon as I saw it, I went way out to a Library to find out more.¡± ¡°Way out. You mean, a burchar Library?¡± He frowned at Rene¡¯s nod. ¡°And?¡± ¡°And I found out they don¡¯t let just anyone in. I was left floating for days before a Scribe would see me, and then weeks more until they finally decided it was allowable for Their High-and-Mighties to give me the name of the artist and where to find her. Would you believe the African Plateau?¡± Julius stared for a moment, then sent Sasha to the dining hall to save some seats at the table. When she was gone, he rounded on his uncle. ¡°I swear to god, Rene¡ª¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t think it would take that long! And when the hell did you start using that kind of language?¡± For a moment, seeing the look on his nephew¡¯s face, Rene was sure he¡¯d crossed a line he¡¯d never even known existed. ¡°Hold this for me.¡± Julius turned around and stalked away, leaving Rene feeling like an idiot, standing there with a painting that somehow made his nephew drop the g-word.
¡°Is this¡­ a record of a battle?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°These carvings¡ªthey seem so realistic, but why would the sculptor depict them as skeletons instead of as people? And who were they, anyway?¡± Tearing his eyes away from their bleak surroundings, Tavirr stared at her, furious. ¡°Carvings?¡± he snarled. ¡°This is not art, this is¡­¡± He saw her expression and stopped. ¡°Ahhh, winds, you didn¡¯t¡ªZoe, do you know what a fossil is?¡± He used the Lysk word, his mind roiling too much to try to recall the Common equivalent. ¡°What¡­ what does that word mean?¡± she asked. Zoe had taken a step away from him, and he regretted his anger immediately. He shook his head, overcome with horror, sorrow, and burning shame¡ªand with what he realized must be the remnant smell of some ancient chemical death. Adba, save us from this ever happening again. The plinking sounds of dripping liquid came here and there, arrhythmic and distorted now, and he tried to shake the feeling that the sightless dead were whispering among themselves. ¡°These are not carvings,¡± he finally said. ¡°These are¡­ were¡­ people. My distant ancestors, and my h¡¯adba¡¯s.¡±
A few minutes later, Julius was back. His hammer almost made Rene reconsider his life choices, until he remembered that he was, after all, holding a picture. Once they¡¯d hung the painting where the glow light could show off those ancient horses galloping over a splashing river, they began the walk through the village caverns and corridors, heading for the well-lit dining cavern. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I didn¡¯t know Sasha¡¯s eyesight had gotten worse.¡± ¡°It¡¯s¡­ pretty bad. We don¡¯t have any opticians, lens grinders, not even glass blowers. Turns out, though, blurry vision isn¡¯t actually her problem.¡± Rene marveled, as always, at the smooth cavern walls, the lack of cracking, the absence of so much as a pebble in the twisting hallways of the underground village. Every time he visited, there was more room, yet he never saw a soul at work. He didn¡¯t pry, giving his nephew time to decide what to say. After a long silence, Julius continued. ¡°I convinced her to let Dlava take a look at her eyes. He says she¡¯s got an interesting thing going on. She sees moving things way better than she can anything that¡¯s still. Called it stationary blindness.¡± He paused, then added, ¡°She¡¯s been losing colors for a while, too.¡± ¡°Is there anything Da¡­ Dlava?¡± Rene said, stumbling over the name. ¡°Is there anything he can do for her?¡± Julius shook his head. ¡°You know why we had to run, Uncle. She can¡¯t wear a stone, they make her sick. The goddamn parrots wanted to¡­ study her. Study my Sasha. You know what happens to folks they take an interest in!¡± ¡°Hey.¡± He stopped to look at his uncle. ¡°Dlava¡¯s not a kriuulu, Julius. Burchars are¡­ they¡¯re not kriuulu, okay? They don¡¯t do that shit. I know it¡¯s hard to hear, but burchars are good folks.¡± The younger man ran his hand over his face and sighed. ¡°I know. He¡¯s been good for all of us. And I know Dlava¡¯s not a monster, far from it¡ªyou¡¯ll see. But¡­ it¡¯s been rough, Uncle. Anytime Sasha sees him, well. She¡¯s not okay with him, and I won¡¯t put her through something that scares her that bad. She¡­ she still has nightmares.¡± Rene bowed his head. Leaned against the smooth corridor wall. Tried to banish his own memories of being hunted. ¡°So. There¡¯s been a lot of new space carved out,¡± he finally observed. ¡°I thought you didn¡¯t have any masons yet.¡± ¡°Seriously?¡± Julius¡¯ laughter took Rene by surprise. ¡°Wait, for real? You didn¡¯t know?¡± Rene ducked as his nephew slapped his scalp. ¡°Hey!¡± ¡°Just seeing if there¡¯s an echo inside that bald head of yours! We¡¯ve got ¡®masons¡¯, Uncle. They were already living here long before any of us arrived!¡±
Zoe stared at Tavirr, then back at the walls and irregular pillars, all gruesomely pregnant with the dead of eons past, and shuddered at what her ignorance hadn¡¯t let her see. In some places, the stone seemed to have turned liquid, somehow flowing and folding over its skeletal prisoners, not destroying them so much as leaving their bones stretched and twisted, eye sockets become screaming mouths, mouths warped into silent howls of the damned. The sound of dripping water she had subconsciously tuned out shattered her thoughts. When had it gotten louder? Why did it sound so strange? And¡ªwhat was that smell? It had been so faint at first that she¡¯d thought maybe it was just what caves smelled like, but it was getting stronger and stronger, and suddenly all she could think of was those gaping eyes and screaming mouths tangling into a nightmarish thing that must be slouching inexorably closer! ¡°Tavirr¡ª¡± ¡°I know. We should not be here, where the dead can see us. Something is terribly wrong.¡± The dripping sounds became tapping, clicking, chirping, the rising chemical smell making Zoe¡¯s eyes burn and sting. They came out of the holes in the ground, snaking around the walls and columns, long, sinuous bodies breaking apart and reforming, hissing out plumes of foul vapor that overwhelmed them. Zoe¡¯s legs went numb, a sudden tingling in her hands making it impossible to catch herself as she fell. She could see the things now, as they overpowered Tavirr, chaining around his body, tying down his wings with their long, wriggling strength. But they¡¯re just bugs. Just¡­ He was tearing them off himself in chunks, ripping those long, many-legged bodies apart, but they kept coming, and Tavirr finally went down, helpless and wheezing.
Many thoughts. Many minds. Join, break, join another mind-limb. Think other thoughts with other minds. Break again. Rejoin. Too few. Gather more. Join. Break? No¡ª Join again. And again. And again, enough to make many minds think one thought: SPEAK. The Forbidden Door VIII. The Forbidden Door H¡¯Dlava Kou¡¯h rifled through the heavy stack of pages on his desk, peering at the neat script. Quite decent, for a human scribe. And not far from completion. Zoe had worked hard on her Human translation of the breakthrough Overview of Human Medicine, originally penned by h¡¯Nofit Juro¡¯h, and it seemed she actually would finish her transcription soon. A burchar Scribe might have taken years; perhaps there was something to be said for copying the words themselves, rather than worrying over a perfect reproduction of every brushstroke. To think, Zoe hadn¡¯t believed her Common was up to snuff, but her notes certainly showed how hard she had worked, and how far she¡¯d come. Something made him flick an ear as he read through Zoe¡¯s translation. He absently rubbed his ear tip as he read the note clipped to an offset page. Yes, that word was the correct one. Yes, ¡°Hidden¡± did need the capital letter. Something nagged, the back of his neck jumping, the spurs there jutting out. It was odd that humans didn¡¯t capitalize their word for the phenomenon. His entire neck and back writhed, and he finally recognized his own body¡¯s signals to flee at the same time as he heard the faintest sounds coming from¡­ H¡¯Dlava looked at the door at the far end of the room. The one that had always been there. The one that no one could¡ªor would¡ªever pass. And then he heard the pounding of frantic footsteps, and as the mayor and several others poured into his medical chamber, the door that had never moved¡ª Opened.
It always starts like this, the dream. There¡¯s fire somewhere, an odor of smoke, except it¡¯s sweating, shitting, and vomiting all at once, combined with that acrid waft of bad rain. The most recent quake has opened up something nasty underground, something from¡­ Before. They tell ¡®em and tell ¡®em, Mama¡ªyour real mama¡ªsays behind the ancient, closed door of your memory, and still, some fuckwit has to toss a match down there! The fuckwit in question¡¯s name turned out to be Bouillon. Teddy Bouillon¡¯s belligerent curiosity killed his mom, dad, little sister, and a dozen other people, the school makes a point of telling you and every other kid who shows up that day despite the stench. A grove burned, too. Just a small one¡ªbut they don¡¯t talk about the ruined grove at school. They are given curricula, the teachers are, and that¡¯s what they teach, full stop. The groves and their keepers are saved for what your mother calls the ¡°laundry news.¡± Sometimes she means the gossip the beaters share over the washtubs; other times, you¡¯re pretty sure she means the whispers that a different sort of linen workers share¡ªthe kind you were born knowing better than to go spreading around at school. You could go to sleep breathing the freshest air on the planet, but when you dream about when it happened, all you can smell is that fucking stench. Doesn¡¯t matter how old you get, it¡¯ll linger in your nostrils and make your eyes sting for days when you wake up from this dream. What comes later is why that was the day you ran. (why can¡¯t you think of what comes later, why did you run) You saw them for the first time. Odd little things. They were scuttling towards the burned grove. Why were they going to the grove, instead of the Pit? Parrots or no parrots, you¡¯ve always liked the golden mother trees they cultivate and worship, so you follow, walking nowhere-somewhere, the way only a kid who loves playing slow tag can. You¡¯ve got one of your mother¡¯s shopping burlaps strung over one shoulder like you¡¯ve got an errand, but that could be anything from buying bread to picking apples to delivering a dozen bars of Mama¡¯s famous sweetsoap all around town¡ªand should anyone stop you to check, you¡¯ve still got three of them left, for the purposes of slicking your way out of sticky situations. They¡¯ve started calling it the Pit now, that hole in the middle of what had become the new bad side of town literally overnight. That¡¯s where those things are headed. You don¡¯t want to follow them, because if you follow them you¡¯ll¡ª (find out) ¡ªwell, honestly, you¡¯ll wake up in a pretty damn good place without having to relive all of the bad bits again; but right now, the not-yet-memory of the worst of the bad bits hangs in your dreaming mind, just like the putrid smell of the Pit will clog your nostrils with the not-yet-forgotten awfulness of the dream. You follow, because you have no choice, because it¡¯s that dream. (never the same dream, always the same ending) It¡¯s especially foul this time around. You¡¯ve always hated creepy crawlies. Roaches, spiders, those giant wingless wasps that can fill a cow¡¯s udder with their maggots, no sign till you¡¯re made to milk them. This, though¡ªthese bug-things are like an invasion, but no one else has noticed them but you. It¡¯s not supposed to be like this. You learned about them in school last week. The teacher said they were coming to take care of the Pit. But now, in the way of dreams, you see the faces of people you once knew, whose names were as familiar as your own (even though you won¡¯t remember them in the morning). May Freeman smiles at you as she calmly walks past something that looks like a flat, greasy cobblestone but scuttles away on no legs that you can see. It makes a scraping, scratching rattle as it moves, reminding you of the jar of baby teeth Mama kept in the cupboard next to the dry beans, clattering and dancing any time the ground shook. The wandering greasy stone meets another. Thin proboscises emerge, a whippy little pair on both ends of each stone. They seem to consult each other for a moment, then one stone thing¡¯s little tendrils meet the other¡¯s. You can¡¯t see what happens, but there¡¯s a quiet click, and the greasy stones have hooked together in such a way that makes you feel queasily prurient. It goes like that. Familiar faces with familiar names, neither of which you¡¯ll retain when you wake. The fetid cobblestone bugs click together again and again into a longer and longer chain, until there¡¯s something like an alien centipede clattering along. They¡¯re the source of the stench that haunts your waking life like an oil seep on the back of your tongue. Clickety-clack, the bugs¡¯ gravel-chewing sounds say, follow the leader. (don¡¯t turn around) Down and down and down, where the old fires still burn, the old wars still murder us. (don¡¯t look behind you) Clickety-clack. Like someone jiggling a door. (DON¡¯T LOOK)
You jolt awake. You don''t smell it. You moisten your lips. Swallow. Still no smell. No taste from the stench so thick you could stand a spoon upright in it. It¡¯s the one thing you never forget, even when you want to. (even when you wish you could remember) The kriuulu had found you gawking at the dead grove¡ªat the creature-chains encircling it, draped over and through the ashen branches like grim tinsel as they consumed the ruined glory. You can¡¯t remember what made you run. Maybe you saw something else that you¡¯ve simply forgotten, along with damn near everything else, something the parrots hadn¡¯t wanted you to see. An image flashes in your mind, a trunk and limbs denuded of bark, showing the warped wood mummification of its previous mobile form. That was it, wasn¡¯t it? That was when you fled. Not a Cathedral Day ceremony, not seeing that horror. (too many horrors, too many times) Or was it the other way around? Had you seen what Cathedral Day really was¡ªwith the other, the kriuulu-tree-corpse, being the nightmare you keep having? That doesn¡¯t feel right, either. So you sit up. Swing your legs over the side of the bed. You ache. When the hell did you get old? How did that creep up so fast? One minute, you¡¯re a young man with a young man¡¯s dreams; the next minute, you¡¯re an old man, and all you have in the morning is fear. A sudden noise above you, and you look up. The ceiling is crawling with flat, greasy bugs, each chained to others, body to body and mind to mind. Ah, there it was. That smell. (you know the smell, the smell knows you) You spit on the floor. Masons, he called them. Of course. But what was there for atterlim to eat here? Toxic waste? It¡¯s rare, but it still bubbles up occasionally, But that would have killed the village before it could even begin. You spit again, but the foulness doesn¡¯t go away. (wake up wake up wake up) ¡°Will you shut that shit down? I¡¯m awake, already.¡± Your involuntary flinch doesn¡¯t help the blooming headache when the dissonant chorus begins all at once, all gravel and scratch, trying to speak¡ªbut there aren¡¯t enough atterlo in the chain to do anything more than stinking, chaotic babbling. ¡°Shut up! Are you trying to wake up the whole damn town?¡± The ¡®lim chain falls silent just long enough for you to stand up¡ªthen the auditory torment starts up again, twice as loud! ¡°Augh!¡± A hand grabs you by the shoulder, spinning you away into darkness. (time to forget, to close the door)
Rene sat up with a shout. He was in his own hammock in his own room, inside the shell of the pallicorn who¡¯d been his constant friend, companion, and home for decades. ¡°Mama?¡± He reached out to touch the solidity of her inner shell. Soft lights moved under his hand like an aurora, and her gentle susurrus reassured him that all was well. Now why did he suddenly think about atterlim? Masons. Of course. Damn that nephew of his. He needed to have a conversation with Julius about having friends in low places. That was when he heard Julius calling for him from below, his frantic yells telling Rene that something had gone very wrong.
Zoe woke with a headache, smelling the antiseptic odor of a medclinic, and opened her eyes in a panic. She wanted to puke up the egg-flesh she was sure they¡¯d stuffed down her throat while she slept. Matteo would have loved to see that... Matty¡¯s dead, she thought, and opened her eyes. The ceiling was made of smooth black stone, reflecting the glow bulbs scattered about. She sat up, seeing a floor just as bare and stark. One wall was cluttered by tables bearing glassware of all shapes, little blue chemical flames dancing below some of them, the strangely volatile candles keeping medicines brewing. Another set of tables bore cutlery of all shapes and sizes, the sight of which always made Zoe shudder. Nearby was a basin that she knew from experience h¡¯Dlava kept filled with clean water. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. On the floor not far from her was a heap of blankets. Tavirr lay nestled in them on his side, his wings loosely folded behind himself. She wondered if he had somehow shifted in his sleep, why there seemed to be almost half his nest of blankets left unoccupied. It looks warm, she thought. He looks warm. She made herself look away. Finally, she looked at the small group of people around her, only two of whom she recognized. One was a huge man with dark skin and no hair, flanked by a slightly younger-looking version of himself; the other, smiling gently, was the only burchar she¡¯d ever met. She did not look at the last... person, the one her stomach kept trying to insist must have made her eat egg-flesh. ¡°Hey there,¡± Rene said. ¡°Is Tavirr¡ª¡± ¡°He woke up yesterday,¡± Rene said. ¡°He¡¯s refused to leave the room, but Dlava says he still needs monitoring anyway. You, uh, gave us all one hell of a scare.¡± He nodded at his younger companion. ¡°That¡¯s my nephew, Julius Mayor.¡± Zoe swallowed hard. Why was the mayor here? ¡°What happened?¡± ¡°That,¡± said the mayor, ¡°is what we were hoping you¡¯d tell us.¡± ¡°What do you remember?¡± h¡¯Dlava asked. Taking a moment to think, Zoe tried to put her memories together, but nothing quite fit. ¡°I know I was exploring,¡± she said. ¡°It was a cave just off Dlava¡¯s... well, this room, I guess. I got Tavirr to come see what I¡¯d found... and... I don¡¯t...¡± She trailed off. ¡°We found you,¡± said h¡¯Dlava, ¡°in a cavern not far away, yes. You should not have even been able to enter those corridors, let alone find it. One of our scouts alerted us of your location.¡± ¡°But what happened?¡± she asked again. ¡°Why are we back in the... in your space?¡± She avoided the gaze of the other person with difficulty, even though it had not spoken, had not moved even a feather. ¡°And... scouts?¡± Rene huffed at that. ¡°Scouts. Spies. ¡®Masons,¡¯ Julius calls ¡®em.¡± He stared at his nephew, who shook his head. ¡°All that and more, Uncle. First, Zoe, let me introduce you to Fthelis. He¡¯s a suulon from a grove not far from here. Not¡ªnot one of those kriuulu, the ones who keep us, well, you know. Fthelis is a friend. He¡¯s brought some news.¡± Zoe finally looked¡ªstared¡ªat the kriuulu. She¡¯d never seen any that weren¡¯t vo¡¯ai. Fthelis was taller than any vo¡¯ai she¡¯d ever seen, and his plumage was an iridescent greenish brown, except for the dull red at the tips of his crest feathers. Like vo¡¯ai¡ªlike most nonhumans¡ªFthelis went unclothed, though he did wear a leather belt all strung with pouches. On one hip hung a long knife; a strap across his chest and shoulder secured a rifle over his back. She swallowed and looked away. ¡°Peace, sister,¡± the thing said. ¡°I am no friend of the vo¡¯ai. My people hold no mandate over yours.¡± ¡°Really?¡± she snarled. ¡°Because I woke up with an awfully familiar taste in my mouth. Tell me again how nice you are! How many humans have been sacrif¡ªoh, excuse me, Chosen for your Cathedral?¡± ¡°Zoe,¡± said h¡¯Dlava, ¡°I gave you a tincture made of certain herbs, including powdered egg-flesh. It is not psychoactive. And you are rather less¡­ altered¡­ than I daresay your last taste of egg-flesh would have left you.¡± ¡°As I said,¡± Fthelis murmured, ¡°we hold no mandate. And there exist no suulon Cathedrals.¡± Zoe glared at him. ¡°I don¡¯t believe you,¡± she said, throwing off the blanket and getting up. She backed away, her hands balled into aching fists and nails digging into her palms, until she felt blankets under her feet. ¡°You¡¯re a fucking kriuulu, that means you murder people and feed them to your fucking trees! What a nice friend you must be!¡± Her voice rose to a bellow, and Zoe heard the gratifying sound of a lysk waking with a snarl. She felt his warmth as he rose behind her, heard the snap of his wings flaring out. ¡°Get out!¡± he roared. ¡°All of you!¡± Only then did Zoe see what crawled out from under the many tables, long chains of the same horrible things that had attacked them in the cavern, where something terrible¡ªIt was a war, she realized. That''s what was down there, a war, preserved in stone and crawling with these! But the bug-chains seemed to drain under and around a stone door that Zoe saw had been placed to cover that hallway¡ªthe one leading to that cavern. ¡°Dlava,¡± she called, ¡°Rene! Wait!¡± They did. The burchar suddenly seemed to fill the room, his presence overshadowing the doors, the other beds, the tables and buckets and bottles and glow bulbs. ¡°Why,¡± he asked, ¡°did the atterlim alert us to your invasion of their homespace?¡± Tavirr inhaled sharply at atterlim but said nothing. ¡°Homespace?¡± Zoe said, her stomach sinking. ¡°How do they even have a homespace here, though?¡± Rene said. ¡°They live in poisoned ground!¡± ¡°Winds,¡± Tavirr cursed. ¡°Of course. Khiai.¡± H¡¯Dlava bowed his great head in somber agreement. ¡°Atterlim homespaces are meant to be inviolable. For their sake, and for ours. Why¡ªhow under every sun did you find your way in?¡± ¡°The¡­¡± Zoe knew there hadn¡¯t been a door. ¡°The door was open.¡± The door must have been open, she thought. But she knew there hadn¡¯t been any door. ¡ªdoor¡ª It was a whisper, a tickle in the back of her mind, the sharp tingle of ozone accompanying it. ¡°No. The door,¡± she said more forcefully, ¡°wasn¡¯t even there. This is the first time I¡¯ve ever even seen a door there.¡± H¡¯Dlava reared back as if struck. ¡°That can¡¯t¡ªthere has always been a door here, right here, the villagers say it was here when they found this place, the underground rooms, almost everything was already here... Rene! It was always here!¡± ¡°It was always here,¡± he agreed. Then he shot Zoe a rueful look. ¡°Which might be, in retrospect, the actual weirdest thing I ever saw. I helped dig out the first cavern, this cavern, and fuck me if I don¡¯t know how I could have forgotten the damn thing¡¯s existence.¡± H¡¯Dlava looked at him. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize you were that old.¡± ¡°What can I say, I look young for my age. But seriously, you two didn¡¯t see a door?¡± ¡°No door,¡± Tavirr stated. ¡°But. Now that I think on it, I cannot remember there not being a door, either. This door?¡± Tavirr¡¯s talons slipped from Zoe¡¯s shoulders as he strode past h¡¯Dlava to stare at the thing in question. ¡°It looks more and more familiar the more I look at it. I can say I believe the door has been here the whole time, but¡ªI can also say that Zoe and I, we went through no door.¡± The burchar¡¯s haunches sagged, and he lowered himself to the floor as if drained or wounded. ¡°You don¡¯t know what this means, do you? Any of you. Places¡­ changing.¡± Zoe looked at Rene, but he just looked disturbed by h¡¯Dlava¡¯s shock. The burchar rubbed his face, scratched the base of one of his horns. ¡°Ahhh, I need to send a message home. But...¡± Standing up and moving closer, h¡¯Dlava laid a hand on Tavirr¡¯s shoulder. ¡°I wish that you had not seen what I know lies beneath us. This world of ours¡ªghosts walk its many layers, its underworlds and hells. I wish no enmity between us, brother.¡± ¡°The Pact of Adba holds my heart, brother. I raise no arms against you.¡± H¡¯Dlava smiled. ¡°Ah! Who is your h¡¯adba?¡± ¡°H¡¯Jasse Tav¡¯h, of h¡¯Gauril. She¡¯s a scholar and scribe, very tall. She has much in common with Zoe.¡± ¡°Being very tall?¡± h¡¯Dlava asked, winking down at Zoe, who shook her head and groaned. ¡°I for one am sick of being back in here,¡± she complained. ¡°Rene? Give me a few more days to finish h¡¯Dlava¡¯s book, and then I¡¯d love to get back aboard Mama!¡± ¡°Of course, the pallicorn!¡± h¡¯Dlava all but shouted. ¡°Rene, is the Library at h¡¯Gauril one of your stops?¡± ¡°Yes, but¡ª¡± ¡°Oh,¡± the burchar said, eyes twinkling. ¡°Have you ever seen the Feast of Adba?¡± ¡°No, but¡ª¡± H¡¯Dlava grinned. ¡°It is not to be missed. It¡¯s a proper Feast this year, with wing dancers coming in from all over h¡¯Gebrim. May I ask if there is room for a young burchar like myself?¡± ¡°The final say is Mama¡¯s. But I only have one requirement, since you¡¯re asking nicely.¡± ¡°Name it!¡± ¡°Tell me, have you heard about the bet my nephew¡¯s got going?¡± ¡°Oh. Er, yes?¡± Rene gave him a wicked grin. ¡°Want to place a bet of our own?¡±
¡°Bet?¡± Julius asked, confusion written all over his face. ¡°Nine people, Julius. Nine. That¡¯s how many have asked me for, how should I put this, inside information on h¡¯Dlava and me...¡± ¡°I have no idea¡ª¡± ¡°Spill. It.¡± ¡°Ohhh, that bet.¡± ¡°That bet.¡± A dimple appeared on one cheek, and Julius started laughing. ¡°You should see your face, Uncle.¡± Rene sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He walked out of the room. ¡°Uncle? Uncle Rene?¡± When he didn¡¯t answer, Julius added, ¡°Please tell me you¡¯re not angry with me.¡± Then he went after his uncle, sick with the idea that he¡¯d managed to mess up his relationship with the man who¡¯d gotten him and his daughter to safety. He rounded the corner and found Rene, choking back laughter. He turned to find h¡¯Dlava occupying the space behind him, unnervingly silent for someone so large. Oddly, he had a bottle of brandy in one hand. Without a word, the burchar walked past him, handing the brandy to Rene. ¡°Your winnings, my friend.¡± Rene grinned at Julius. ¡°I¡¯m taking your town doctor for a while, sorry.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Honestly, I have no idea. What¡¯s this ¡®Feast of Adba¡¯ he asked me about?¡± As Rene walked away, Julius smiled. He just knew Sasha was going to squeal over this one.
It was late, but Zoe was still working. She shook the glow bulb again to brighten it, and kept writing. As late as it was, Zoe couldn¡¯t let herself sleep yet. She¡¯d been working on transcribing a translation of a burchar text on practical human medicine and medical knowledge for h¡¯Dlava practically since she¡¯d met him, and she was finally almost done. She¡¯d put most of the work in while waiting for Tavirr¡¯s wing to heal, starting with the glossary to help herself knock out a few cobwebs; now, with the last chapter finally done, all she needed to finish was the index. ¡®All,¡¯ sure, Zoe thought ruefully. Any book that had an index, she knew, would be a hell of shuffling pages back and forth to make sure her translation of each index entry was correct. Zoe rubbed her neck and frowned at the familiar-unfamiliar Common word. Hidden, she thought. That diacritic mark means it ought to translate over as a... proper noun? But¡ªoh, wait. There was a note from h¡¯Dlava clipped behind her earlier note to him¡­ A rustling at her feet¡ªa scrabble-scratch along the wall under her borrowed writing desk¡ªa faint smell of something acrid¡ª She hurled herself away from the desk, her chair toppling, as one of those horrible bug things from that awful chamber¡ªatterlim, that¡¯s what Rene called them¡ªflowed out from a nearly invisible crack in the wall under the desk. It¡ªthey?¡ªhad something gripped in the jaws of their front segment. As if sensing her disgust and fear, the segment detached itself. It looked like a small, flat rock. She could see the tips of four sharp little feet poking out from under its body. It scuttled towards her, halted, and dropped something that looked like a small black leaf. After a long moment, it scuttled back towards the rest of its... body? It didn¡¯t take its former place as the ¡°head,¡± though. Instead, the rest of the atterlim split somewhere in the middle of their chain of segments. The singlet nudged its way into its new place and, with a tiny quiver of what Zoe could swear looked like happiness, the whole of the atterlim body pulled their way back into the wall. Another series of scratching sounds, and the crack filled itself in, the faint odor subsuming again into the neutral smell of clean rock. Zoe waited to see if more would come out from somewhere else, some other crack in some other wall¡ªor the ceiling, the little hairs on the back of her shuddering neck whispered. She grabbed the glow bulb on her desk, almost dropping it, but nothing else came out of any other part of her room. Carefully, she extended a foot to drag the leaf closer to herself. It scraped against the floor, leaving a scratch, and when she picked it up, she realized it wasn¡¯t a leaf. She couldn¡¯t remember the word Tavirr had used, but she knew stone leaves didn¡¯t grow on trees. Turning it over, she saw that there was an odd symbol etched on the other side. Why did the atterlim bring her this... whatever it was? She wondered if it was part of the supposed ¡°news¡± the mayor¡¯s parrot friend had brought. Still shivering, Zoe tucked the little stone leaf in her pocket. Then she went to the room beside hers, where Tavirr had settled in once his wing had let him. The glow bulb bobbed in the dark hall, but another glow met hers when she knocked on Tavirr¡¯s door. ¡°Sorry, I¡­¡± she trailed off, remembering the way she¡¯d seen him curled on his side a few days earlier. How it had seemed there could have been enough room for her, as well. ¡°I cannot sleep either,¡± Tavirrr said. ¡°Do you mind if I¡­¡± He opened the door all the way and let her in. The Children of Tsiru IX. The Children of Tsiru She didn¡¯t know what was normal in anything anymore. If she ever had. Surely it wasn¡¯t normal to find those wings and talons attractive? To hope for the touch of his fangs on her skin? The rasp of his tongue, the spicy scent of his fur? He was a carnivore. Nature said she should have been his prey. Instinct said she should have been frightened. Maybe that was it, though. It had been so long since she had felt anything other than fear that, when a fearsome creature became her friend, it was inevitable that he would become more. At first, they¡¯d simply been learning about each others¡¯ people, but eventually they had each begun to learn the way to the other¡¯s heart. Zoe discovered how the smooth fullness of his fur felt, gliding through her fingers. Tavirr carefully explored the goosebumps his talon tips could raise on her bare skin. She loved the way his eyes shifted, the pupils subtly changing shape as he looked at her. He loved the way she moistened her lips with her tongue, and then he loved tasting them himself. His wings mantled over her as he lowered her to his nest, and for at least that night, they flew.
Tkkk. Tk¡­ tk. Tkkk. Tk. Tkt. Zoe woke slowly, not sure whether the odd noises were real or from a dream. She listened, but heard nothing but Tavirr¡¯s slow breathing. It was pitch black in the room. There was warmth behind her, Tavirr¡¯s thick-furred body cradling her. One of his wings was draped over her, and as she moved, his hand slipped off her shoulder. She wondered if she ought to have qualms about last night, but the delicious ache in her body was too pleasant to regret. She fumbled to find the glow bulb she¡¯d brought, lying on the floor beside the nest of blankets, and rolled it gently in the palm of one hand to wake a low light. As she set it down again on the floor beside her, her fingertips brushed something lying on top of the pile of her discarded clothing. Picking it up, Zoe saw it was the thing the atterlim had brought her the night before. She studied it, running her fingers over the edges. What she had first thought was a leaf looked more like a feather, she decided. Fossil, that was the word Tavirr had used. She didn¡¯t have her Common dictionary with her, but the etymology of the word pulled at her. Time-frozen, it meant. As she thought about it, she remembered a childhood visit to the museum she had loved, and the strange bones in some of the rooms. Her teachers had never given her much history, natural or otherwise, but there had been that one science book, the same one with the picture of the wolf. She had read and copied that book so many times as a child, but so much of what had occupied her then was trying to perfect the shape of her letters. Finally, she dredged up a memory from the book, a carefully hand-copied picture of the skull of some long-dead beast whose bones had turned to stone. Finally, she remembered the Human word. Turning the stone over, she peered at the shape on the other side. This was no fossil. It looked like someone had taken a tool to the stone, etching a series of strange circular symbols into it. She wondered what they meant. Tavirr stirred, letting out an inquisitive chuff. Beneath the wing covering her, his hand slid up her arm, raising fresh goosebumps on her skin. He started combing his fingers through her hair, his chest vibrating against her back in a resonant purr. Zoe sighed, turning over to drape a leg over his, and showed him the fossil. ¡°What is that?¡± he asked. ¡°There was an atterlim in my room last night. Came through the wall. Creepy fuckers. It... disassembled itself. Its head just walked right over to me and dropped this. Then that head walked back and reattached itself somewhere in the middle of its... bodies. Who the hell can I submit a complaint to over the existence of things that can do that?¡± Tavirr chuckled. ¡°They are a strange folk. I¡¯ve only ever heard of them, never seen one. When I was a boy and listened to our tale singer, I was sure they must have come out of some poor soul¡¯s delusions.¡± ¡°Or some deranged god¡¯s experiments.¡± ¡°What is ¡®god¡¯?¡± Zoe sighed. ¡°Humans used to believe in invisible, all-powerful, supernatural beings who could, I dunno, fix things when awful stuff happened.¡± ¡°I¡­ that makes¡­ not much sense?¡± She laughed. ¡°Yeah, and then old Earth got mostly destroyed, and the happy survivors found themselves beached on the world that destroyed us. That¡¯s why you¡¯ve never heard the word before. ¡®God¡¯ became the foulest curse word, one nobody will say.¡± ¡°Hm. We have no ¡®god,¡¯ but lysk tales often overflow with the unseen. Tu¡¯yet¡ªI told you about seeing one. The word¡­ ¡®bad minds,¡¯ I think you would say. My sister, whose wings were destroyed by a tu¡¯yet of the wind, said that speaking of them would cause more evil. I did not believe her. And now,¡± he sighed, ¡°I can no longer fly.¡± ¡°Hey,¡± she said, stroking his face. ¡°You survived one wing injury. You¡¯ll get through this one, too.¡± She moved closer to him, running her fingers over the arch of his wing. He closed his eyes with an appreciative purr. If she¡¯d known his wings were so sensitive to the touch, if he¡¯d managed less self control when she¡¯d massaged them so many times¡ªbut he could take revenge now. He nipped at the side of her neck, rumbling. Someone knocked on the door, and Zoe cursed. ¡°What is it?¡± Tavirr called. The door opened. Zoe scrambled to disentangle herself, pulling a blanket over herself as a man she barely recognized ducked his head in. He saw the human in the lysk¡¯s bed, blinked, and said, ¡°The mayor needs to see you. Both of you, that is. At, uh, whenever you¡¯re¡­ decent.¡± The door shut firmly behind the man. Zoe curled into a ball, mortified, and buried her head under the blanket, too. A taloned hand peeled the cover off her head. ¡°Do humans make an extra effort to be so strange?¡± Tavirr chuckled. ¡°Ugh,¡± she groaned as Tavirr swept the blanket off of her entirely. ¡°Humans¡­ can be weird about seeing other humans¡­ like this.¡± ¡°Odd. Is sleeping something to be hidden away?¡± She groaned again. ¡°I need to get dressed if we¡¯re going to see the mayor. I don¡¯t want someone else gawking at me.¡± Tavirr watched Zoe dress, enjoying the way she moved, her oddly straight legs; her lack of either fur or a tail made him intensely aware now of exactly what her clothing covered. She clumsily tried to finger-comb her hair, but Tavirr must have had plenty of experience grooming his own unruly mane, and his talons managed the untangling more quickly than she could. Zoe took a deep breath, opened the door, and resolutely ignored the stares. The room was quiet after they¡¯d left. For a time, at least. A slow clicking sound traveled over the floor. The glow bulb abruptly went out.
The mayor¡¯s office wasn¡¯t small, exactly, but it was cramped with shelves of books, records, architectural diagrams, and more than a few children¡¯s drawings. The faint chemical odor that Rene associated with atterlim was mostly drowned out by the smell of paper and leather. The desk off to the side was just small enough to fit between two overstuffed shelves; the rest of the open space was taken by a maze of chairs. Rene didn¡¯t want to be here, sitting on his ass and arguing with one of the only two family members he had left. ¡°Why do you even have a kriuulu contact?¡± he yelled. ¡°What about Sasha? What about¡ª¡± ¡°Dammit, Uncle! I have no choice. When the Society contacted us, they made it very fucking clear that Fthelis and the local suulon grove already knew that we were here and in breach of the mandate. They¡¯ve sent in representatives from every species except the d¡¯vog¡ªand God knows those things could be hanging around, too, this close to the bay, and we¡¯d never even see them.¡± Julius sighed at the bleak look on his uncle¡¯s face. Sagging back into his cramped chair, Rene rubbed his scalp. ¡°God only knows when,¡± Julius began, but stopped at Rene¡¯s flinch of distaste. ¡°I am sorry, but I will not censor myself. We¡¯re believers here, most of us, trying to rebuild human culture¡ªour culture, what the vo¡¯ai took from us. And that includes belief in something more. We have hope here, Rene. That¡¯s part of what the Society is: hope that maybe someday the cataclysms can end, that we, all of us together, can put a stop to the chaos, the disasters¡ªand yes, the fucking cultural custody mandate. ¡°Hope is a good thing,¡± he continued. ¡°You should try it sometime.¡± The door creaked open as Fthelis slipped in. ¡°Apologies,¡± the kriuulu said. ¡°I heard shouting and was concerned. Brother Rene, you are right to worry. My people are not trustworthy, and the vo¡¯ai are the worst of us. Whom else may we send that will reassure you?¡± Rene stared at the kriuulu, overwhelmed with old memories of being chased. He ought to be over this, he told himself. He knew he never would be. The door swung open again, and the office was crowded with two more bodies. ¡°Damn,¡± Zoe said, looking around the space. ¡°This is more books than I¡¯ve ever seen in one place since I left home.¡± Fthelis turned and bowed to her. ¡°Home, yes. That is the other piece of news, I¡¯m afraid. Please sit down, sister Zoe. This will be hard to hear.¡±
After Fweyu told her, after she screamed at him, Tavirr stepped between her and the kriuulu. His wings ruffled out in warning, but before Rene or Julius could speak, he stared at the kriuulu, low thunder rumbling from his chest. Fweyu backed up until he couldn¡¯t back away any further. ¡°Rene,¡± Tavirr snarled. ¡°Fetch h¡¯Dlava. We are leaving.¡± ¡°But¡ª¡± ¡°Now.¡± After they were gone, Julius turned to Fweyu. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. That could have gone better.¡± The kriuulu took a chair with a long sigh. ¡°No, my friend. It could have only gone worse. Khiai unleashed again, d¡¯vog on the move¡ª¡± ¡°Damn it! Where?¡± ¡°Northward, inland toward the devastation.¡± ¡°Hunting what, survivors?¡± ¡°They are probably not after human survivors.¡± If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°What¡¯ll the suulon do?¡± ¡°My people have no love for the vo¡¯ai, brother Julius. Any the d¡¯vog do not kill¡­¡±
Zoe didn¡¯t remember much of the race out of the inferno and into Deep Haven, but she knew they¡¯d walked for hours after being found by village hunting scouts. Those men and women had supported Tavirr until a runner had brought h¡¯Dlava to carry the wounded lysk the rest of the way. She knew the burn line had stopped a ways from the village¡ªberms of bare earth must have been frantically mounded for miles around in the days after the holocaust¡ªbut she hadn¡¯t thought about how far outward it might have extended. From the air, it looked like a devastating wildfire had consumed the countryside. Now it was nothing but miles and miles of ashes, a bullseye of ruin around Deep Haven¡¯s meadows stretching as far as they could see. It had been raining when they¡¯d left Deep Haven that morning; low clouds still hovered, trapping the few remaining cinders. They could still smell the burned landscape below them. Zoe tried to imagine what it must have been like, whether the people of New Providence, the people who had once shunned her, had known about the approach of the weapons. If they had heard the same hellish shrieking, seen the fire trails of what Tavirr had named khiai. Standing on the lip of Mama¡¯s outer shell, secured by safety straps around her waist and shoulders, Zoe realized she was freezing. She tried to make herself go back inside, but she suddenly felt that if she took even a single step, she would fall, the harness no proof against what must be thousands of vengeful ghosts. She thought of the cavern beneath Deep Haven and shivered. Would this, too, wind up time-frozen somewhere deep underground? Would the burning bodies of the townsfolk, the burning groves, the fallen vo¡¯ai¡ªwould some distant descendant stumble on the remains of this disaster someday, as far below ground as she was above it? Would the khiai still be screaming in silent, ghostly voices that only the dead could hear? Something tugged on her safety line. ¡°Come back,¡± Tavirr pleaded. ¡°Zoe, please. Come inside.¡± Zoe took one more look at the ashes of her former life, shook herself, and fled into the warmth of Mama¡¯s shell. When she was inside, Rene unhooked her from the safety harness with practiced skill, and Tavirr wrapped her in a comforting embrace. The dread she¡¯d been feeling uncoiled as he curled his arms and wings protectively around her until she felt cocooned against him. Despite how tightly he held her, Zoe finally felt that she could breathe again. A claw from one of his wing thumbs snagged on her hair, and by the time they were untangled, they were both laughing at the absurdity. H¡¯Dlava bent to grip Zoe¡¯s shoulders gently. She smiled up at him, took his hand, and dropped a kiss on one of his thick knuckles. Finally, Rene swept her up in a bear hug. ¡°Thank you,¡± she whispered. ¡°For what?¡± ¡°For rescuing me, for helping Tavirr when he needed it. For everything. For¡­ just being you.¡± Rene pressed a kiss to her forehead. ¡°Anytime, anywhere. And besides,¡± he said, wiping a tear from her cheek, ¡°who else would I be?¡±
Over dinner, Zoe dug out the little rock the atterlim had given her. Rene swallowed a bite of savory fish roll, then took the rock, turning it over in his hands. ¡°It¡¯s basically an invitation to get your marching orders from the Society.¡± ¡°The Society?¡± Zoe repeated in confusion. H¡¯Dlava had devoured a bowl of dried fruit and was following that with several ears of squall bread, crunching through the hard cores with delight. ¡°These are delicious! I can¡¯t believe I¡¯ve never had them. Where do they grow?¡± ¡°We farm them,¡± Zoe said, then stopped. ¡°Farmed them,¡± she amended. Sobered, the burchar set the last ear back onto his plate. ¡°With your blessing,¡± he stated, ¡°I would like these seeds to be donated to the lifeprint rooms at the Library of h¡¯Gauril.¡± He set the plate beside her. ¡°Even more, I would like yours to be the hands that deliver them.¡± Lifeprint? Zoe turned the word over in her mind, attempting to make it into something that could translate to Human, but she couldn¡¯t do it. ¡°I¡ªwhat¡­ lifeprint?¡± H¡¯Dlava grinned, showing his flat herbivore teeth. ¡°A bit of salvaged knowledge dug up and recreated by that Society Rene is so proud of.¡± ¡°How did you¡­¡± Rene stared at h¡¯Dlava. ¡°When did the Society do that?¡± ¡°Ha, you think everything worth happening waited till after your human cataclysm? Before Inur burst out of old Earth, before Yuina hatched into Inur, before Takk sundered Yuina, the Society already existed. Before a thousand thousand worlds emerged again and again, or so the legends have come down, to be preserved in the great Libraries¡ª¡± Tavirr coughed pointedly. ¡°¡ªand to be sung, of course, by our most gifted brothers and sisters¡ª¡± Rene moved a jug of wine out of h¡¯Dlava¡¯s reach, handing it to Zoe. ¡°¡ªthere was the great work of the Society.¡± He reached for the jug, which was no longer at his elbow. ¡°Why, I¡¯m suddenly feeling parched.¡± ¡°You, my friend, are cut off,¡± Rene announced, ¡°until you explain how the hell you know about the Society.¡± When h¡¯Dlava eyed Rene and then the wine, Zoe refilled her own cup with a flourish. ¡°How,¡± he whispered loudly to Tavirr, ¡°do you put up with this creature?¡± Zoe took a sip, staring innocently at h¡¯Dlava. ¡°Hm. It helps that she tastes better than the wine does.¡± She spluttered and coughed, spraying wine everywhere.
The Society, h¡¯Dlava explained, was an organization predating every species on Inur. ¡°Just how old is Inur?¡± Zoe asked. ¡°That¡¯s the trick,¡± he said. ¡°We do not know. How many times has a world¡­ hatched¡ª¡± he made a bursting gesture¡ª¡°out of another world? We know it¡¯s happened at least three times, yes? The Cataclysm of Earth, the Hatching of Inur, the Breaking of Yuina¡ªbut before that? There were worlds and catastrophes of worlds before that. My clan mother, damn her scales, keeps a list of them somewhere in the Library at h¡¯Umua. When I refused to take my place among the warrior clan, she refused me entry to the Library.¡± Zoe reached across the table and squeezed his hand. ¡°I am quite interested,¡± he assured her, ¡°to find out how much history the Society has stored away.¡± He handed the strange rock back to Zoe. She studied it again, the way it looked like smaller wheels orbiting progressively larger wheels; for the first time, she saw tiny, faint whorls that seemed to be dancing around the central array, and she wondered if those represented worlds that had been broken and forgotten. ¡°How many worlds, do you think?¡± h¡¯Dlava mused. ¡°How many peoples, how many biomes, animals, cultures... how much knowledge has been lost over how much time?¡± There was a tug at her thoughts, some alien awareness creeping slowly down her spine. Zoe¡¯s eyes followed it, watching papers riffle in an absent breeze, a jacket hung over a chair swaying as the whatever-it-was that had followed her displayed more boldness in its uncertain presence. ¡°And there goes our other little problem,¡± she said to h¡¯Dlava. ¡°Ghost, tu¡¯yet, or Inur¡¯s own sense of humor. It may have saved us when the fire fell, but I will never get used to the damn thing. Whatever the hell weirdness it is.¡± h¡¯Dlava¡¯s face went from blue to ashen gray. ¡°I am not a praying man, not like Julius and his people. But in this, I can only pray we find the truth of it, and soon. If your unseen companion is what I suspect it to be...¡± She stared at him. ¡°What do you suspect it to be?¡± He only shook his head, mutely refusing to say what he was afraid of.
Apple trees were common among the suulon groves. Kriuulu everywhere loved them, but the suulon had developed a passion for creating new strains. Unlike the vo¡¯ai with their fanatical devotion to their mother and grandmother trees, the suulon enjoyed being rooted among trees originally native to many worlds, while their unrooted children savored all kinds of fruits and seeds. Apples especially, though, had become wildly popular, with pruning and harvesting having become a lifelong joy for many suulon. Fthelis had spent the last several days and nights walking back to his own beloved grove, where his forebears had rooted, where they produced egg-fruits for nourishment, and only occasionally, when a traveling suulon molted, fertile egg-fruit ripened into kriuulings. A kriuuling had brought him word from the suulon council, cowards all. They may have not held a mandate over any human settlements, but they had no intention of pressing for the end of it. They were a peaceful folk, by and large, the suulon¡ªbut humans! Unruly and unruled, humans out of mandate meant... possibilities that Fthelis did not enjoy the thought of. Humans chafing in the bonds of cultural custody, though. They were ready to explode. The suulon council had decided humans were too dangerous to be freed. Fthelis, though, knew they were too dangerous to be left in custody. If the council had walked through the devastation that he had¡­ He halted that line of thought. He was not one of the murderous vo¡¯ai. He was suulon, and that meant something. It had to mean something. He stroked the mouthvines of a dear old friend, long since gone to root. ¡°Tsiru,¡± he whispered. ¡°You were right, my friend. I have need of your specialized apples, after all. The ones you planted long ago, after we argued. I am so sorry to be wrong, but as usual, you saw what I could not. The knives are being sharpened. The harvest must be today. It is time.¡± Tsiru stirred. Her roots hummed beneath the soil, and a sudden fall of ripe, red fruits from two trees shook the ground nearby. Fthelis. Voices rustled, his name whispered by many tongues. He paused, and a mouthvine circled his shoulders, caressing him, little lips pulling at his feathers suggestively. ¡°Yes, love. You¡¯re right. My legs ache to root themselves in your soil. I have walked this world long enough, and I long to be still and drink the sun. But give me tonight.¡± The vine shifted away, and he shivered. A scattering of feathers dislodged themselves, dissolving into spores. He watched, mesmerized, as Tsiru¡¯s mouths sucked them up greedily. Bring meat, she whispered. Bring blood. Bring them all. He closed his eyes, more feathers dropping away, but he shook the ecstasy away. As much as he wanted to simply molt on the spot, there was still work to be done first. Fthelis walked until he found a dying sickle tree. Yanking it easily from the soil, he carried the small tree back to where Tsiru stood vigilant. He peeled the bark away, and the thin trunk split into long, fibrous cords. ¡°For sundered Yuina,¡± he murmured. Sundered Yuina, Tsiru¡¯s many voices echoed. These he laid on stones to bake in the sun, except for one. He hammered the cord between two stones, letting the rich sap soak into the ground where Tsiru¡¯s roots could drink it, while the fibrous cord split further into long threads. ¡°For the threads that bind us still, suulon to tchy¡¯et to oailu to mihyari to fallen vo¡¯ai. We are all kriuulu.¡± All, Tsiru echoed. He paused for a long moment, then grasped one thread in both wing-claws and snapped it. ¡°Let the vo¡¯ai be unnamed and forgotten.¡± The huge, leathery leaves were already dead and dry, and the curved thorns that gave the tree its name served well as needles, each seeming to last precisely as long as it took to stitch a single thread into a single seam. Every time a needle broke, Fthelis breathed on them, saying, ¡°Rest well, forgotten brother.¡± Rest well, never-sister. Dozens of leaves became five bags as the day stretched along. The rest of the leaves, he left waiting. The broken thread, he placed in the center of a small, unlit fire pit, among the rest of the waiting kindling. Tsiru gave Fthelis two mouthvines, dropping them to the ground already straight and strong. For the journey, she whispered to him. When the sickle tree cords were dry, he wove the stiff mouthvines together, closely at the tips but wider and wider until only the ends of the vines, which had curled over as they died, remained. ¡°For the journey¡¯s end.¡± When the travois was satisfactory, Fthelis loaded the apples into the bags, picked up the curved handles, and turned to Tsiru. A small flock of kriuulings had alit in her branches. ¡°Call your elder brothers,¡± he instructed them. ¡°I will return tomorrow with news.¡± Prune their souls, Fthelis, Tsiru hissed. End the misery. He nodded sadly, turned, and began to walk. Later, at the edge of the council grove, he plucked a fresh apple, its skin a pleasing blush of pink and green, and ate. He had brought specialty apples to the council, a new breed just developed of course, and he knew the council would be dying to taste them.
The next evening, he returned, the five bags laden with a very different harvest. There was a fire in the center of Tsiru¡¯s grove. The sweet scent of applewood heartened Fthelis. He bowed before Tsiru first, then nodded to each young suulon in attendance. They had brought gifts, everything from dried roots to woody fungus already roasting over the fire. There was even a fresh honeycomb, a gift for Fthelis that he ate on the spot. It would, after all, be his last. They¡¯d picked up the discarded sickle tree leaves and dusted them off, and now the children of Tsiru¡ªher many Eyes, Hands, and Voices in the suulon groves and beyond¡ªsat on those leaves, celebrating their own mother tree. ¡°How did our council find your harvest of apples, brother Fthelis?¡± one of the young suulon asked. He tore a bag open, letting the feathered body of a dead kriuulu fall to the ground. ¡°Not to their liking,¡± he replied. That night, he stood tall before the children of Tsiru, his feathers molting, floating away into spores to be lapped up by Tsiru¡¯s mouthvines. He closed his eyes for the last time, shuddering as Tsiru¡¯s many mouths lapped against his bare skin, as his rooting legs dove deep to twine with hers. Fthelis ate flesh for the first time, Tsiru sharing in the bloody feast, their mouthvines tearing into the dead. In the morning, Tsiru¡¯s children looked at the two trees, side by side, their mouthvines tangled together. ¡°Our new mother tree.¡± ¡°She is beautiful.¡± ¡°Fthelis will bear strong fruit.¡± They heard her voices for the first time then. The vo¡¯ai are dead and dying, Fthelis whispered. Let it be known to all kriuulu. Let it be known to burchar and lysk, atterlim and d¡¯vog. The time of the mandate is ending. The suulon will see humanity freed¡ªor humanity will see all kriuulu dead. The Gates of Erhyan X. The Gates of Erhyan Sulwi Off the coast of Jarik, a tall black fin broke the surface of the water. Then another. Soon, a forest of them had risen, interspersed with hissing plumes of steam. The pod waited, clicking conversationally, until one of the big beasts raised its blunt head, scanning the beach. A rangy form, tall and thin, greenish-brown plumage ruffling in the salty breeze, waited there. On one hip was sheathed a belt knife as long as its owner¡¯s forearm; on the other, a quiver rested. There was a pouch strung on the belt as well, rattling slightly as its contents shifted with its wearer¡¯s movements. The figure waved to the pod but didn¡¯t move the other hand, the one holding a short recurve bow in an easy grip. The owners of the black fins retreated into deeper waters. On the beach, a lone kriuulu dropped to his haunches to wait. Sulwi didn¡¯t carry those weapons for hunting; like all suulon, Sulwi was herbivorous in his male form. If he lived long enough, he would eventually cast off his sporous feathers, exchange soft flesh for a hard, bony trunk, a spread of reaching limbs, and a wide root system. Not long after, she would begin to produce dry, infertile egg-fruits, addictively soporific to draw in hungry prey animals to supplement sunlight as a food source. Not until another kriuulu spored near her would she bear fertile ones. Until then, Sulwi would range far and wide, going beyond the reach of his mother tree and the sprawling groves of Suulon, carrying a bow and arrows and a long knife to make sure he lived long enough to become a new mother tree. The suulon groves bordered the Australian plateau, where some of the only legally free humans on the planet lived. The suulon kriuulu never ventured onto the Australian plateau. Those who dared to explore even deserted areas had never returned. Movement in the waves alerted Sulwi. He drew an arrow, but only twirled it lazily in one wing-claw. A glistening, flashing pseudopod pushed out of the water and onto the sand. It swelled, flashing brilliant colors and patterns, and more pseudopods pushed up beside the first. Soon, the garish mass had pulled itself onto the beach. It pulsed, gathering itself into a more stable shape, though it still stayed halfway in the surf. Sulwi waited, letting eyespots and aural fronds study him, letting the creature see that he was armed but not threatening. Slowly, he put the arrow back in its quiver, hoping he wasn¡¯t about to be the latest in a long line of kriuulu to become a d¡¯vog¡¯s meal. He reached one-handed into his pouch, pulling out a handful of brilliantly colored stones and a pliant, durable sickle tree leaf to lay them on. The sapphire was first, as always. It was a deep blue, the sunlight rippling off its surface. Next, a chunk of pumice covered in greenish-brown peridot. Sulwi placed these close together on the cloth. He¡¯d always been fascinated by the d¡¯vog, had longed for an opportunity like this one. Color, he knew, was key to what passed for speech among the amphibious folk, and Sulwi had traded far and wide to build up a repertoire of gems. He wasn¡¯t sure how his opposite number might translate this approach to color speech, but Sulwi hoped he was beginning strong by saying d¡¯vog and suulon. He waited, letting the d¡¯vog mull over whether to accept the proposal to talk. It stayed still, only its eyespots moving, some watching the kriuulu and others studying the gems, as the surf washed back and forth over it. Faint hues flickered, fast as thought, deep within its translucent body. After a long moment, the small hill of translucence flattened, and the cluster of pseudopods became long, thin arms that split into numerous grasping fingers at the end. Its watery skin thickened, developing leathery bumps and ridges. As it slithered nearer, several bumps became more pronounced, eyespots migrating to the tips. They were both close enough to the water and near enough to the trees, should either decide that flight was the best option. The d¡¯vog blinked warily at Sulwi. He moved back a step but did not let go of the bow. Two tentacles flashed out, their little fingerlike tendrils curling around the stones. It held them up, and, forming valves in its rough skin, burbled several watery notes. Sulwi hadn¡¯t known until just now that d¡¯vog sang. After a surprised moment, though, he bowed and unlaced the pouch from his belt, opening the mouth wide and placing it on the sandy ground. Gems and other stones spilled out. He walked another few paces away to give the d¡¯vog room. It picked up the gems Sulwi had placed on the leaf and seemed to contemplate them, the little bumps under its boneless fingers tasting them. Then it placed them back on the cloth, but the greenish-brown peridot was above the sapphire, closer to the top edge of the leaf. Similar, he realized, to their actual locations facing each other. That wouldn¡¯t make sense, though; it was too obvious a statement, it did not need to be said. He didn¡¯t think the d¡¯vog was simply commenting on their relative positions. No. It meant, Sulwi decided, that the kriuulu had approached the d¡¯vog¡ªwhy? It reached out to the pebbles spilling from the bag, sorting through them one after another, until it found a little stone arrowhead. Sulwi¡¯s heart skipped a beat as the d¡¯vog put the arrowhead between the gems representing itself and Sulwi, the pointed end touching the sapphire. Do you intend violence? the d¡¯vog was asking. Sulwi came over and, mindful of the predatory tentacles, removed the arrowhead. No threat. Peace. He found a chunk of beach glass and placed it on the cloth. Human. The d¡¯vog pulsed, hissing. A tentacle lashed out, grabbing the arrowhead and a piece of hematite. Humans¡ªviolence... The hematite¡ªorcas? Interesting. Humanity was a predatory species, and the filth that still clogged the waterways of the plateaus that were the remains of Earth¡¯s continents spoke volumes about the lack of care humanity held for their fellow intelligent species. But did they actually hunt orcas? He couldn¡¯t imagine the d¡¯vog allowing that. Then again, kriuulu had learned to stay away from waterways for their own safety. Whatever species had once held mandate over the ancient kriuulu had been lost to time, but that extinct folk must not have given much protection from their amphibious predators if they still feared the water. For all that the d¡¯vog were predators that relished kriuulu flesh when they could get it, though, this d¡¯vog¡¯s behavior seemed to say that they valued their mandate over the orca race for more than just what they could get from them. Did that mean they would protect their charges? And did that, in turn, mean that d¡¯vog saw an intrinsic moral value in the mandate? He calculated his response. Taking the sapphire from the space above the peridot, he exchanged it for the beach glass, picking up the arrowhead as well before the d¡¯vog could misconstrue and decide that Sulwi was asking it to attack the orcas. He dug through the unused stones until he found a certain one, an odd piece that Fthelis had given him when he was first building his stone repertoire. He¡¯d known what it would represent immediately and hoped the d¡¯vog understood, too. It was a chunk of shale, a fossilized bit of clamshell on one side, with a carving of a knotted circle surrounded by smaller whorls on the other. He placed this between the sapphire and the hematite. D¡¯vog¡ªmandate¡ªorcas. The d¡¯vog¡¯s rubbery fingers stroked the whorls, and it burbled soft notes but did not move the shale piece. Like Sulwi, the d¡¯vog were not the same as the vo¡¯ai. Good. This would be easier. He found an opal, milky white with veins and flecks of gold. Placing it above the beach glass, he moved the shale between the two. Vo¡¯ai¡ªmandate¡ªhumans. After giving the d¡¯vog a moment to consider this, Sulwi replaced the slate with the arrowhead. The effect was so immediate and shocking¡ªthe d¡¯vog opened all its valves and shrieked, its leathery skin hardening into spikes¡ªthat Sulwi scrambled back and almost nocked an arrow to his bow. Hissing, the d¡¯vog looked with all its eyespots at him for a moment so drawn out that Sulwi had enough time to regret coming here, enough to wonder what it would feel like to be digested alive by this creature. But then it gave an odd sort of shiver. It flung the opal off the cloth, substituting the peridot in its place. Suulon¡ªviolence towards humans? Slowly, Sulwi stepped up again and replaced the beach glass with the opal, the arrowhead pointing towards it from the peridot. Again, the multiplicity of staring eyespots. Again, the shiver. Then, with slow deliberation, the d¡¯vog placed the sapphire beside the peridot. We will hunt with you. Suulon and d¡¯vog together, we will destroy the vo¡¯ai.
Tioklu Tioklu had made good time crossing the h¡¯Izha plains. It was his first time truly setting foot in burchar territory. He¡¯d heard tales, of course, about gargantuan creatures having survived from Inur-before. He only saw one, though, and it was an ancient burchar. Its hide was as gray-brown as a bare mountain, and at first, he thought it was a mountain¡ªuntil its enormous, jagged boulder of a head slowly turned to look at him. Its huge throat sac inflated, and though Tioklu heard nothing like a voice, the ground beneath his feet rumbled faintly. He ached from walking, but as the ground quieted¡ªeven the hot wind going still and silent¡ªTioklu decided it would be wiser to remain standing. He held no weapons, not even a knife, as he already knew burchars would not take kindly to an armed visitor in their lands. So he simply returned the gaze of the ancient burchar as he showed empty wing-claws, then bowed, trying not to show how terrified he was. Trying not to rip out his feathers in sheer panic. As he bowed, he realized he could not see the burchar-mountain¡¯s lower legs. They seemed to have been overgrown, somehow. Grass, shrubs¡ªeven some sparse, unfamiliar trees¡ªringed its lower body. Instead of four legs and a tail, there were only low hills and a long, curving slope up to¡­ Mother help me, Tioklu thought. The stories were true. Burchars really did ossify into a sort of organic stone in their final centuries. He looked around himself, seeing solitary mountainous forms in the distance, remembered wondering as he traveled whether mountains weren¡¯t meant to be parts of whole ranges rather than popping up one by one. ¡°H¡¯Nrados thanks you for your courtesy,¡± someone said beside him. Tioklu spun, alarmed that anyone had come so close to him, but it was only a burchar¡ªone that was not the size of a small mountain. ¡°I¡¯m h¡¯Alyin,¡± the burchar said. Tioklu tried to sort out whether that was a feminine or masculine name among burchars¡ªand how strange it must be, to be the same gender and wear the same body all one¡¯s life¡ªbut he was saved the embarrassment when he realized the burchar¡¯s back was covered in thickly plated scutes rather than spikes. A woman, then. ¡°My name is Tioklu, a child of Tsiru. You honor me, Alyin.¡± He knew his pronunciation was off, but subharmonics were the least of his concerns at the moment. ¡°Honor, is it?¡± ¡°Is this not¡­ the correct thing to say? Please, apologies. I am a stranger to everywhere but the groves.¡± She studied him. ¡°I see you bring nothing to trade. What, then, is your business in h¡¯Izha?¡± ¡°Oh¡ªwell, perhaps I do bring trade, as I have both news to share and a request for aid in traveling.¡± He felt a subtle rumble in the earth and, realizing h¡¯Nrados must have spoken again, had to clasp his wing-claws together so as not to start ripping at his feathers. It was a bad habit he¡¯d had since before he could remember; he¡¯d lost his ability to fly several years early because of his nervous plucking. ¡°I¡ªwell, I must travel north across to the mountains of Erhyan. My mother tree has¡­ er, has sent me to treat with the lysks there.¡± As he spoke, Tioklu felt the earth rumbling in a constant thrum. It was a distracting sensation that made him stumble over his words. He was already prone to mixing up his Common grammar with Suulon phrasings; he didn¡¯t need to add a stammer into the mix. By the time h¡¯Nrados was finished, he¡¯d figured out that the ancient creature was relaying his words to every other burchar in¡­ earshot? groundshot? Well, to everyone. And by evening, Tioklu had realized that ¡°everyone¡± meant a whole army of burchars who were on their way to greet this strange visitor. ¡°Army?¡± h¡¯Alyin laughed when Tioklu asked. ¡°No, these are just a few of my brothers and sisters.¡± ¡°A few?¡± he squeaked. ¡°Yes, of course. Oh¡ªyou don¡¯t have families as we do. Let me see. My birth-mother, heart-mother, head-mother, and clan-mother have, between them, two hundred twenty-three husbands and wives; well, some are shared, of course. So my immediate family only numbers in the thousands, but my extended family roams the entire h¡¯Izha plain. I have seven husbands, five wives, and seventy-two children, though only twelve are of my body. And of course, my immediates do have quite a few h¡¯adbani among the Jarik clans, you know. I myself have three h¡¯adbani, and another two have promised themselves, so I¡ªTioklu? Are you well?¡± He whimpered.
They stood well away from the waves, but Tioklu¡¯s head still rang as the trade choir¡¯s thunderous voices called out over a sea afire with sunrise. The previous evening had been quite pleasant, despite the hot, dry wind of the plains, and there had been a festival dinner laid out in a massive stone edifice on the lee side of h¡¯Nrados. Tioklu had thought that burchars were nomadic, but he decided they must not travel constantly if they built for permanence like this. As he¡¯d filled his stomach with unfamiliar food extravagantly prepared, Tioklu had also filled his ears with information. He had learned, much to his surprise, that the lysks of clan Erhyan had not had a pact-marriage in fifteen lysk generations. Approximately. Depending, of course, on the average modern lifespan of Erhyan lysks, which none of these burchars were sure of. H¡¯Alyin had explained this, answering as many questions from Tioklu as she could. Her people hoped it was merely the fact that Erhyan lay far to the north of Vo¡¯ai, where no burchars had survived the Cataclysm or the subsequent tsunamis during the Drowning of h¡¯Nyf, the land that had connected Erhyan and h¡¯Izha until the Cataclysm. They feared it was because Erhyan had become too isolated¡ªperhaps dying out entirely¡ªafter the Drowning. And now that they knew how the vo¡¯ai had been practicing their mandate over the New England plateau, they feared even more the arising of a vendetta long forgotten. After eating, Tioklu had begun to explain just why he had to speak with clan Erhyan. As he spoke, the burchars nearest him fell silent, then those beyond them, a reaction wave of silence until only the sound of his words filled the hall. He spoke about his friend, a kriuulu named Fthelis who had lived as a traveler, much as the burchars themselves did¡ªroamed farther and for longer than anyone else from the suulon groves. About the terrible news Fthelis had brought home from his final travels before sporing and rooting. About vo¡¯ai atrocities, as laid out in a young human woman¡¯s journal, gifted to a burchar scribe by a lysk. About a sky split by screaming fire. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
¡°My clan-mother,¡± h¡¯Alyin said, greeting him with a scowl the next morning, ¡°she came to us a bit ago, said the atterlim had brought troubling word to her Library, but¡­ she wouldn¡¯t say what, only that the vo¡¯ai were involved in something awful. This must be what she meant. Damn them! Did you know that the vo¡¯ai¡ªtheir distant ancestors, anyway¡ªdid you know they once held mandate over lysks?¡± ¡°I did not not. How long¡­¡± ¡°How long did it take before they freed the lysks?¡± Tioklu nodded. ¡°They didn¡¯t.¡± ¡°But¡­ how¡­ what happened?¡± ¡°We happened!¡± h¡¯Alyin brayed, her voice trembling with undertones Tioklu couldn¡¯t hear. Then she spun around and trotted off¡ªpresumably to talk to someone who wasn¡¯t a kriuulu. Finally, as the booming rumble of the trade choir faded away, their throat sacs quivering with residual vibrations, Tioklu saw what they¡¯d been calling for.
The hills the pallicorn approached were called the Gates of Erhyan. The Erhyan range was not known for its tremendous height, nor for the snows that capped its northern peaks year round. They were known for those striking Gates. ¡°That one is h¡¯Emun,¡± a voice sang in High Kriuulu. ¡°And that one, h¡¯Asheld.¡± Tioklu shivered. He hadn¡¯t expected a pallicorn so young to have already started its menagerie, but the middle shell buzzed with insects that would sting when irritated, as Tioklu had unfortunately learned; several sections of inner shell bustled with swallows that had struck up an uneasy sort of truce with the bees; and there was even a slithering creature that would hide, unharmed, among the pallicorn¡¯s tentacles to snatch food for itself. The oddest by far was Zeth, a kriuulu who made Tioklu¡¯s feathers stand on end. They took no personal names, it was said, all of them going by the same one. Like every Zeth, this Zeth¡¯s plumage was night black, with a curling crest and shifting iridescence that Tioklu found hard to look at, his eyes unable to focus on any detail. The lineage of the Voice, they called themselves, and they should have been extinct eons ago, when their race had simply disappeared. No one, so far as Tioklu knew, had ever found out where they came from. Zeth shrugged as Tioklu¡¯s crest raised in trembling alarm. ¡°Apologies, brother,¡± it said. ¡°I forget myself. I shall go.¡± Tioklu smoothed his crest down with one hand and tried to look at Zeth. He was supposed to be an envoy, wasn¡¯t he? So be one, he told himself. ¡°N-no,¡± he stuttered. ¡°Stay. I-if you wish.¡± Zeth nodded and looked out of the aperture in the pallicorn¡¯s shell. ¡°What,¡± he asked, ¡°do you think of the Gates?¡± Looking out, Tioklu studied the Gates again. ¡°Do you think they truly are ancient burchars?¡± ¡°Possibly. Likely? See the way h¡¯Asheld faces towards the mountains? And h¡¯Emun is turned outwards? So expressive, despite the eons of erosion. What do you suppose it means?¡± A large, strong hand clapped Tioklu on the shoulder. ¡°They are guardians, of course!¡± said h¡¯Alyin. The burchar woman and two younger brothers of hers had decided to accompany Tioklu, once the trade choir had successfully called a pallicorn. ¡°One protects Erhyan from the world; the other protects the world from Erhyan! It¡¯s fantastic, isn¡¯t it, seeing all these ancestors guarding the lands?¡± All these¡ª? Tioklu thought. Suddenly, he was on the floor with no memory of sitting, only the impression that too many of those hills seemed to have what must once have been blunt herbivore snouts, with broken horns and scutes parading down in regular rocky formations that jutted above the tree line. He closed his eyes. There was pain in his chest, in his head, all over his skin. Tioklu was more afraid than he¡¯d ever guessed was possible. Mother, he prayed. Why is the world so ancient? So frightening? And so beautiful?
The comforting sound of leaves rustling in the wind woke Tioklu. Someone was touching him, a light press of wing-claws on his head, a larger, firmer hand on his chest. When he opened his eyes, h¡¯Alyin¡¯s broad face greeted him, the scales around her blunt crest faded from their natural earthy green to a pale gray. He was absurdly happy to see her. ¡°He¡¯ll be all right,¡± Zeth warbled in imperfect Common. ¡°Yes,¡± said Tioklu, and got up. He rubbed the pallicorn¡¯s inner shell and whispered, ¡°Thank you.¡± She gave another leafy rustle, her shell giving off a flickering glow the exact shade of the sun filtering through his mother tree¡¯s leaves. ¡°How does she know?¡± he asked Zeth. ¡°How does she know where to go? What to do? How is she so... perfect?¡± Zeth shrugged. ¡°She is a pallicorn. They just know.¡±
Seven lysks met them when Tioklu and the others stepped out of the pallicorn¡¯s shell. Their manes were cut close; the men¡¯s talons were tipped with metal, and the women wore daggers sheathed on their arms. All bore old scars and fresh wounds, and Tioklu could smell their singed fur. ¡°So,¡± the biggest one, a man with only one eye and half a tail, snarled. ¡°I¡¯d heard the winds-damned kriuulu were finally being brought to heel. Yet here one stands, plain as day, with several burchars at his heels.¡± ¡°We¡ªI mean, they¡ªI mean¡ª¡± ¡°Oh, shove off,¡± h¡¯Alyin growled. ¡°The kriuulu here is just a messenger boy. We are here to renew the Pact of Adba with you.¡± The big lysk snorted. ¡°Pact of Adba? While this one stands unharmed beside you?¡± ¡°This one,¡± Tioklu said, his voice barely even quavering, ¡°is here to tell you the vo¡¯ai are no longer kin to any other kriuulu. My brother Sulwi speaks to the d¡¯vog; my brother Leufthi speaks to the atterlim. My mother Tsiru and my sister Fthelis have declared the vo¡¯ai branch is broken. They hold no mandate any longer, and never will again!¡± ¡°Huh,¡± one of the lysk women said. ¡°The parrot brings news after all. Skurr, let¡¯s go inside before our guests freeze.¡±
The Low Hall of clan Erhyan¡¯s mountain home was rarely used, and then only for isolating lysks who fell ill from the occasional plagues that seeped up through the many layers of Inur. Most lysks were happier using the High Hall for celebrations, accessible as it was only by flight. The elderly and injured of the clan took their meals in their home caves¡ªexcept for today. Today, the clan celebrated their first burchar visitors in a long age. H¡¯Alyin and her brothers cheerfully lent their hands to clearing the hall of dust and cobwebs. Then they lent their strong backs, the lysks throwing protective blankets over them like saddles. The three burchars bore stacks of ancient, heavy tables out of storage caverns to set up in the hall. Skurr and his mate Rrosuna begrudgingly allowed Tioklu to busy himself with bringing out stools and setting them beside the tables. Torches burned along the walls, and two huge fire pits beside the cavern opening kept much of the icy chill from getting in. Tioklu himself consented to wrapping a finely woven blanket around his shoulders. ¡°My ama¡ªmy mother¡ªmade this,¡± Rrosuna told him, and refused his every protest that it was too fine for a simple kriuulu like him to use. ¡°Today,¡± she assured him, ¡°you are not a kriuulu. You are a guest.¡± More and more lysks were gliding down to land just inside the cavern. The wall carvings had been polished and tapestries hung at intervals, showing moments that must have been from clan Erhyan¡¯s history. Halfway through bringing out stools for the lysks, Tioklu stopped. His hands were shaking. He recognized the wood these stools were made of. The wood of the tables was the same. Wood of a bright golden color with swirls of dark bronze dots where feathers had once sprouted. One of the tapestries showed lysks cutting and burning through mother trees that had begun to encroach into the mountains. Lysk children ran and flew about the hall, some with their arms waving, others pretending to rip at them. In his mind, Tioklu could hear the roars of lysk warriors, the screaming of dying mother trees. Seeming to sense his mood, h¡¯Alyin cantered over to him, the drumming of her four legs scattering lysks from her path. ¡°Tioklu?¡± ¡°These people,¡± he said, staring at the wood of the stools, the wood of the tables. ¡°They¡¯ve been through so much. So much that should never have happened.¡± She saw the way he looked at the tables, and belated recognition bloomed on her face. ¡°So have your own people, Tioklu.¡± He shook his head. ¡°Vo¡¯ai,¡± he spat. ¡°They are not my people.¡± He took a seat, scooting the stool closer to the table, and struck his wing-claw against it. ¡°Let them be of use to the folk they¡¯ve harmed. Let these mother trees¡¯ dead wood give hope and shelter, not whispers and nightmares.¡± ¡°Hear, hear!¡± a lysk roared beside him. It was Skurr, taking a seat between Tioklu and Rrosuna. Platters upon platters of steaming meat, roasted root vegetables, and dried fruits began to circle among the many tables. H¡¯Alyin lowered herself to her haunches on Tioklu¡¯s other side, her thick tail curling around her feet. Her brothers, Tioklu saw, had joined two other tables, happily being mobbed by chattering lysk children and shyer adults. As the feast progressed, h¡¯Alyin occasionally shared extra any dried fruit he especially relished. He wondered at this but found himself returning the favor, noticing which roots or leaves she enjoyed and making sure to pass her some any time those plates came their way. Beside him, Skurr threw a mischievous grin to h¡¯Alyin; she shrugged and grinned back. Tioklu looked back and forth between them in confusion, and they both burst out laughing. People came in and out, exchanging seats to make sure everyone got enough. At one point, a group of youngsters who had all been sitting together, their small wings wrapped in cloth, stole quietly out through a side passage. ¡°Why did those children leave?¡± he asked. ¡°Are they well?¡± ¡°Just wait,¡± h¡¯Alyin said, smiling. Finally, Skurr banged on the table. ¡°Everyone ready?¡± he yelled. Lysks roared back in approval, children shrieking in joy. In came the ones who¡¯d left earlier. Their wings were unwrapped now, and Tioklu saw that they flashed with brilliantly painted colors and patterns. His eyes wide, he looked to h¡¯Alyin. She grinned at him. ¡°Just wait... and... here we go!¡± The tallest young lysk stepped forward. ¡°In honor of our, um, our guests...¡± She faltered, obviously unfamiliar with Common, but at a nod from a woman Tioklu assumed was her mother, the girl started again, continuing her speech in Lysk. H¡¯Alyin leaned over. ¡°The kids are putting on a play. It¡¯s a legend about Adba and Khiai.¡± ¡°Adba, the moon? And what¡¯s Khiai? Oh! Was that the lost moon?¡± ¡°Very good, Ti.¡± He cocked his head at the nickname, but she just winked. ¡°They¡¯re kids, though, so don¡¯t expect the kind of elaborately choreographed wing dancing trained performers do.¡± Kids. He watched them, unfamiliar with even the concept of children. Kriuulu hatched by the hundreds from a single fertile egg-fruit, already capable of flight, surviving by instinct instead of parental care. Most of his siblings had died as tiny kriuulings, eaten by predators or lost to hazardous winds. He knew his mother tree sheltered her kriuulings, though he himself had only the vaguest memories of feeling safe under her canopy; but the emotions he saw on the adult lysks¡¯ faces as they watched the leaping, flapping, stumbling dance were foreign to him. He could only see the happiness, but whatever was below that, he had no way of knowing. ¡°The little one with the red-striped black on his wings?¡± h¡¯Alyin murmured. ¡°He represents the ancient war between the ancestors of lysk and burchar, before the Hatching of the World. Lysks are primarily carnivores, and long ago, they would hunt us. See?¡± Tioklu watched the little ones diving clumsily to playfully attack a pair of children, one on all fours, the other standing over him, to represent a four-legged, two-armed burchar. The ¡°burchar¡± screamed dramatically and ¡°died,¡± and the other children ran in to gather around, cackling evilly as they ¡°ate.¡± Skurr howled in laughter, while h¡¯Alyin buried her head in her hands, groaning good naturedly. Laughter and good humor, about such a terrible thing, thought Tioklu, aghast. H¡¯Alyin caught his expression. ¡°Hey. Ti. It¡¯s okay. All this? It happened so long ago that even our elders¡¯ elders were born long afterward.¡± ¡°How... how did it stop?¡± A young burchar galloped in, wearing a pale yellow blanket draped over his back. Tioklu couldn¡¯t remember seeing him leave the hall, but it was one of h¡¯Alyin¡¯s brothers. H¡¯Tranaa, that was his name. ¡°Stop, lysks!¡± he yelled in Common. ¡°I, Adba, have come from the skies to warn you!¡± The other brother, h¡¯Brask, dashed in, holding a blunted spear that dangled red ribbons from the end. ¡°Rrraaaa! I have come to take revenge upon the evil lysks! Die, evil lysks!¡± He tossed the toy spear among them. Tioklu¡¯s mind supplied an image of a fiery weapon falling among them, torn and burning bodies flying apart, and winced. The little performers merely shrieked in delighted ¡°terror.¡± Their wings, painted a dozen different colors and patterns, flapped and flashed in a barely coordinated rhythm, as they tossed themselves about, and the adults in the audience laughed and clapped. ¡°Oops, my turn!¡± h¡¯Alyin said. ¡°Watch this!¡± She grabbed a dark red blanket from under the table and tossed it over her shoulders like an oversized cape. Then she backed up, galloped towards the place she¡¯d just been sitting, and leaped over the table. ¡°Argh!¡± she yelled. ¡°I, Khiai, demand blood for blood!¡± There was a long pause as the various players seemed to wait for something. Murmurs started, but just as quickly ceased as, of all things, a human¡ªa young boy¡ªstepped into the Low Hall. He was wrapped in a white blanket so large it nearly buried him. He mumbled something, but someone yelled for him to speak up. He straightened his shoulders. ¡°I am Luna, the new moon!¡± he yelled in heavily accented Common. ¡°Let the war end before everything ends, Khiai!¡± Tioklu thought of the Cataclysm; of how, as Inur and its moons emerged into this universe, destroying most of Earth, Luna had collided with the red moon Khiai, leaving only a fragment of Earth¡¯s moon and a ring of debris, all that was left of Khiai and most of Luna. ¡°I am Khiai!¡± h¡¯Alyin yelled. ¡°I challenge you for the skies, Luna!¡± Then she galloped straight towards the human boy. He cringed, but managed to remain standing as h¡¯Alyin leaped over him, the red blanket flaring and fluttering dramatically. She landed, throwing the blanket in the air, and collapsed to the floor. The blanket fluttered to the ground. ¡°Alas! Luna has defeated me!¡± ¡°I¡ªI did?¡± the boy said, to cheers and laughter from the lysks. ¡°I did!¡± Tioklu found himself cheering and laughing with everyone else. Children! What wonderful things! ¡°Hey, sis!¡± h¡¯Tranaa called. ¡°Take over for me. You make a better Adba than me!¡± He tossed the yellow blanket to h¡¯Alyin, then trotted back to the table, three young wing-painted lysks riding happily on his back. Heaving herself off the floor, h¡¯Alyin caught the yellow blanket, leaving the red one on the ground. She bent down and gave the little human boy a gentle hug and sent him off to the end of one table. There was a small group of humans there that Tioklu hadn¡¯t seen until now. They were smiling and clapping as the boy came back to them. ¡°They came here after the sky-fire,¡± Skurr said. ¡°Vo¡¯ai were chasing them.¡± Rrosuna took her mate¡¯s hand. ¡°There are none chasing them now.¡± A shiver crept down Tioklu¡¯s back at the woman¡¯s satisfied tone. He turned back to watch as h¡¯Alyin took up the yellow blanket, tossing it around her shoulders. ¡°Lysks!¡± she boomed. ¡°Attend!¡± Rrosuna stood, flaring out wings painted in delicate, pale yellow swirls, and cleared her throat. ¡°Burchars! Attend!¡± There was a long moment as cheers died down. Skurr leaned over to Tioklu and murmured, ¡°Great Adba came to us as a burchar. To burchars, she came as a lysk.¡± ¡°The world is beginning again,¡± h¡¯Alyin called. As one, the children around her stomped, flashing their painted wings in a brilliant array. ¡°Let us begin again,¡± Rrosuna answered. The children stomped again, adults hammering their fists on the tables. Then, as one, the lysks in the Low Hall, h¡¯Alyin¡¯s brothers¡ªand even the humans, too¡ªall rose to their feet. Tioklu found himself standing, as well. ¡°We will begin again,¡± the audience said. Tioklu¡¯s skin was prickling. His crest rose and fell in time with his own heartbeat. Begin again, he thought. Yes. ¡°Let us put away all that belongs to Khiai,¡± h¡¯Alyin and Rrosuna said in unison. ¡°We will begin again!¡± Tioklu said along with everyone else. ¡°The Terror is done!¡± called Rrosuna. ¡°The Hidden is defeated, and the war is over!¡± h¡¯Alyin answered. ¡°Who will agree to peace?¡± Rrosuna asked the audience. A lysk nearby raised her wings. ¡°I am Sakkam. I stand in the sight of Adba, and I will agree to peace!¡± Applause greeted this, and the woman glided over to stand by h¡¯Tranaa, who took her hand in his own and kissed it. Tioklu¡¯s heart was in his mouth. He felt his scalp tighten as his crest rose, no longer fluttering. ¡°Who will agree to peace?¡± h¡¯Alyin called. Another lysk raised his wings, gliding over to take h¡¯Brask¡¯s hand. ¡°I am Antarr! I stand in the sight of Adba, and I will agree to peace!¡± ¡°Who will agree to peace?¡± Rrosuna called. Tioklu found himself in motion without even thinking. What, by all the mothers, am I doing? he asked himself, but he rounded the table, strode to the center of the room, and stood beside h¡¯Alyin. ¡°I am Tioklu, child of Tsiru, son and brother of the Suulon groves! I stand in the sight of Adba, and I will agree to peace!¡± H¡¯Alyin¡ªno, Adba¡ªsmiled at him, took his hand, and kissed it.
Leufthi There was a crater where a town, its farms, and a vo¡¯ai Cathedral had once stood. Atterlim burrowed in and through the charred ruins, looking for more survivors. There had been a few vo¡¯ai crawling away, at first, but things that had at first looked like boulders or rubble had exploded into motion, gelatinous tentacles trapping the unlucky kriuulu, valves opening wide to ingest them, skin shifting to hard, pebbled leather again, hiding the d¡¯vogs¡¯ prey as they moved away to become innocuous bits of the landscape again. Behind Leufthi, an attera over a mile long waited. Component atterlo came and went from its body, but the attera itself¡ªand its compounded intelligence¡ªstayed. ¡°Sssssee. Loooook,¡± it hissed. ¡°Wwwe have waaaited for thisssss daaaay. The Ssssocietyyyyy will ssssmile on Inurrrrr. The Devourrrrrer is neeeearrr.¡± ¡°The Devourer?¡± Leufthi asked, though he was fairly sure what the attera spoke of. ¡°The Abominationnnnn. The Terrorrrrrr. The Hhhhiiiiidennn,¡± the attera hissed. ¡°Ah. That.¡± Leufthi laid his wing-claw on the attera¡¯s forebody. ¡°The humans, I have heard, call it ¡®the faylind¡¯.¡±