by Joe Mahoney
“Skip ahead,” I ordered Iugurtha. “I get it. Okay? The child is suffering. I feel her pain. I know you want me to help her somehow but I don’t see how. Especially trapped here inside her mind.”
Iugurtha did as I asked. She took us forward a day and a night to when Half Ear and Sweep reached Burning Eye’s mountain. They had settled in for the day in shallow sleeping pits, mostly dug by Half Ear, though Sweep had helped as best she could. Thanks to Half Ear’s skills they were well hidden. All they had to do was keep still and the Necronians roaming the countryside would never find them.
Sweep was trying her best to stay calm. To take her mind off her troubles, she asked Half Ear, “What happened to your ear?”
“What about my ear?”
“It’s missing a chunk.”
“Oh that. It got chewed off.”
“By what?”
“A bandaloot. A particularly ornery one.”
“It must have been big.” In Sweep’s mind only a huge, fearsome bandaloot could have gotten the better of an experienced old warrior like Half Ear.
Half Ear threw his head back and closed his eyes. His head bobbed up and down as he laughed the silent laughter of the T’Klee.
“Have you ever seen a bandaloot?” he asked when he regained control of himself.
T’Klee were voracious meat eaters. Sweep’s family was no exception—they ate a lot of bandaloot meat during the summer. She told Half Ear that.
“Ah. But have you ever seen one whole?”
She hadn’t actually. For the first time she realized that she had no idea what a bandaloot looked like. “They’re not big?”
“A big one would be about half the size of your head.”
Sweep considered that. Size didn’t necessarily mean anything. There were bugs she could barely see that could kill a grown T’Klee with a single bite. “But they’re dangerous, right?”
“Only if one gets a hold of your ear,” Half Ear said. “They’ve got sharp teeth and they know how to hold on. Whatever you do, don’t let a bandaloot get a hold of one of your ears.”
Sweep promised Half Ear that she wouldn’t.
After a while she began to tremble again as her fears got the better of her.
“Keep still now.” Half Ear placed a paw on her neck.
Sweep was well aware that her life might depend on doing what he said. She tried to keep still but couldn’t.
Half Ear tightened his grip on her. “You can do better than that.” He squeezed so much that it hurt.
Sweep lashed out at him, and they struggled briefly there in the pit, but Half Ear was much too strong. Sweep couldn’t make him let go.
She slammed a paw against his hide and kept it there. “You’re hurting me!”
“You need to be still.”
“This is stupid. This whole thing. Burning Eyes is dead.”
Half Ear didn’t answer.
“They’re all dead. Everyone. The other families too.”
The only sound was that of Half Ear’s breathing. It sounded unnaturally loud in the sleeping pit.
“Why?” Sweep asked.
“Why what?” Half Ear asked.
“Why are we still alive when everyone else is dead?”
Half Ear must have had some inkling of Sweep’s distress. Yet all he said was, “I don’t know.”
He was dealing with his own grief, I suspected. Maybe he felt the weight of the entire T’Klee race on his back just then. Or maybe he was just being honest.
Sweep was thinking her own thoughts. She knew perfectly well what Half Ear was thinking: that someone else should have survived in her place. Someone who could help him fight the monsters. Someone like one of her brothers. She wished someone else had survived in Half Ear’s place—someone who knew how to make her feel better, instead of making her feel useless, and sad.
She finally fell asleep, but she did not sleep well, dreaming of bandaloots descending from the sky to chew off everyone’s ears.
We smelled them first, just as we had before: a sickly scent of rotting fish and vegetation. “They’re coming!” Sweep said. “They’re going to find us!”
Half Ear didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Sweep had no trouble being still now, until one of the Necronian’s wands crackled, causing her to start violently. Perversely, she was more afraid of Half Ear getting mad at her than of the monsters discovering them. But Half Ear did not reprimand her. More of the Necronians’ wands crackled, and we heard the rustling of grass and leaves. Half Ear lifted the cover off our pit ever so slightly. Necronians oozed everywhere, their wands crackling fiercely as they advanced. The Necronians were right on top of them. Half Ear and Sweep didn’t stand a chance.
Half Ear chose that moment to burst out of the pit. He did so with such force that branches scattered for several tree lengths. Sweep followed mere whiskers behind. Monstrous heads with enormous eyes swivelled as we shot past, but they were not quick enough to stop two T’Klee bolting at top speed.
Sweep began to slow. Half Ear angled his head and swept her up by the scruff of her neck without a single wasted motion and carried on. Sounds of the monsters faded, then disappeared. Comfortable in Half Ear’s grasp, she fell asleep. When she awoke and opened her eyes, I thought it was still day, until I saw the two moons hanging in the sky. Even with the forest canopy blocking much of the light Sweep had to shield her eyes.
Half Ear had used his sharp claws to scale a tree and look around. When he came back down, he said, “We can rest here, but not for long.”
Sweep started digging, but Half Ear stopped her.
“They can find us even if we bury ourselves. We just won’t stay long. You’ve already slept—now let me.”
He lay down. But instead of going to sleep, he glanced up at Sweep. “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
“What?”
“About going to Burning Eyes. Do you still think it’s stupid?”
Embarrassed, Sweep didn’t say anything.
“I know why I’m still alive,” Half Ear said.
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to save our people. When I was young I didn’t believe in Burning Eyes. I thought the whole idea of offering up sacrifices to him in return for services that never happened was silly. So the last time I brought him an offering on behalf of the family I waited. I hid and waited a long time because I wanted to see what if anything took the offering.”
Sweep didn’t say anything. She was learning to be quiet, like a grown-up T’Klee. But Half Ear didn’t go on, and Sweep was not grown up, not yet.
“What took the offering?” she asked finally.
“Burning Eyes took the offering.”
Sweep drew a sharp breath. “You saw him? What did he look like?”
“Terrible. And beautiful. He stood on his hind legs, and he was naked—didn’t have a lick of fur on him anywhere. He shone like polished stone. And his eyes were just like everyone’s always said. You know how when a fire’s dying and you’ve got those embers that keep on glowing? They burned like that.”
Sweep could see it clearly in her mind’s eye. I could too.
“What did you do?” she asked. “When you saw him.”
“I followed him. All the way up Kimay. He never knew I was there. I saw where he lives and I can find it again. That’s the reason I’m still alive. So I can save our people.”
Sweep could accept that. If anybody could save their people it was Half Ear. “What about me?”
Sweep felt herself withering under Half Ear’s gaze, but she didn’t look away for fear of missing what he might say.
“I can’t tell you why you’re still alive,” he said. “You need to decide that for yourself.”
Moments later Sweep and I watched as Half Ear’s back rose and fell rhythmically. She lay close to him, s
till and frightened, with no idea why she was still alive.
Half Ear didn’t sleep long. Soon they were on the move again. The further they went the steeper it got. There was nothing resembling a trail. The incline became so great that Sweep found it difficult to keep her footing. Several times she slipped on the rocks. Overwhelmed, she focused on putting one paw in front of the other.
I wasn’t much better off. Back in the sleeping pit I had thought we were done for. I knew that if Sweep died I probably would too. I didn’t want to die, particularly. I couldn’t, not until I’d rescued Ridley. But I didn’t have much say in the matter. I had mastered Sweep’s senses, and at times I felt so a part of her that I lost myself in her, and we were one. But then I would attempt to turn my head or scratch my nose or lick my paw and it wouldn’t happen and my plight would slap me in my disembodied face like a wet fish. Life inside Sweep was a roller coaster with no end. It was exhilarating, terrifying, and I wanted off the damn thing right now.
I could not allow myself to be trapped inside Sweep until her death. There had been a way into her mind; there had to be a way out. I began hunting for it in earnest. I was not blind to Sweep’s own plight, but aside from sending warm, fuzzy thoughts her way there was nothing I could do about it.
Soon they were high on the mountain. Vegetation was sparse. The forest had thinned to just a few scraggly trees. The turf gave way to rock, jagged and black except where it glittered brilliantly in the light of the planet’s twin moons. It was like walking on a sky with a million stars twinkling underfoot. The light from the twin moons was relentless. Sweep kept her eyes open mere slits and focussed on Half Ear in front of her, trying not to think about the damage the rock was doing to her paws.
The barren mountain slope might as well have been a stage and the twin moons giant spotlights. Sweep shielded her eyes with a paw and looked to the sky. Something had spotted them. A dark mass resolved swiftly into the likeness of an enormous bird. Two Necronians sat inside the bird’s belly. The bird made no noise as it dove toward them.
“Hurry,” Half Ear instructed.
Sweep clung to Half Ear’s tail, trying not to stumble. Any faster and he would have been dragging her. Strong winds and jutting cliffs prevented the Necronians and their craft from getting too close. When Sweep saw that they couldn’t reach her a sense of wonder briefly surpassed her fear. There was magic at work here. How had these evil creatures come by such enchantment? Were good creatures capable of such feats as well? Burning Eyes, perhaps? But in all the tales, Burning Eyes was a capricious being, capable of both good and evil. For all Sweep knew, Burning Eyes had already chosen sides, and not hers.
Just when Sweep was thinking that she couldn’t go on much longer, Half Ear stopped so suddenly that she bumped into him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
If Half Ear answered, Sweep couldn’t see it. He was facing the wrong way and Sweep’s eyes were watering in the bright light. She wiped them and tried to step around Half Ear, to talk to him and figure out where they were, but there wasn’t enough room to manoeuvre. On her left was an almost vertical descent, and on her right a gigantic pile of rocks, the detritus of an ancient rock slide. As near as I could make out through Sweep’s tortured eyes, we were blocked by a sheer rock face that rose straight up as far as the eye could see. There would be no climbing to the top of this mountain. There was nowhere to go except back down the way they had come. There was no chance of climbing the rock face, no way around it, and no sign of Burning Eyes. Half Ear had led them the wrong way.
Overhead, the Necronians swept closer in their alien craft. In the distance another craft was fast approaching, its green light blinking eerily.
Half Ear stood on his hind legs and pressed his paws against the rock face. Retracting his claws, he extended his fingers as far as he could and began feeling the rock.
“There’s a door here,” he told Sweep. “We need to find it.”
“A door?” Sweep asked. “Here? How?”
“I followed Burning Eyes up the mountain and saw him go in a door here. This is the place, I’m sure of it. We need to find that door.”
Half Ear’s calm manner steadied Sweep. Without understanding how there could be a door in solid rock she threw herself into the task of finding it. I threw myself once again into the task of finding a door inside her. Unfortunately, neither of us knew quite what we were looking for. Sweep found several indentations in the stone, but none of them appeared to have any significance. And inside Sweep I found nothing I hadn’t already found before.
Sweep glanced back and we saw that the Necronian craft had managed to land on the path behind us. The two Necronians were oozing out of it. Sweep’s heart began to pound. The Necronians moved slowly but it was only a matter of time until they covered the short distance between us.
Sweep tried to force her brain to function but it seemed to have turned to sludge. Maybe—maybe Half Ear was wrong, and this wasn’t the right place after all. Or maybe there was no door and he’d just made the whole thing up, to give her hope. Though that didn’t seem Half Ear’s style. Either way it didn’t look like they were going to find a door any time soon.
She clutched at him. “Half Ear, they’re coming! I can’t find a door!”
He ignored her and kept pawing at the rock. Eventually he had no choice but to accept the reality that there was no door, along with the very real possibility that he had led himself and his charge to their doom. His shoulders slumped ever so slightly and he looked at Sweep. To a human that great face would have appeared devoid of expression, but I saw him as Sweep saw him. I saw the fur begin to bristle and the ears descend. I saw the eyes narrow, the talons extend and the lips draw back, revealing just a hint of those dagger-sharp incisors.
He turned to face his enemy.
The Necronians clutched their silver wands in sinewy tentacles. The wands described rhythmic arcs in the air as the Necronians slimed forward. There was something hypnotic about the wands. They trailed particles of fluorescent pink and orange light after them. Sweep’s eyes were locked on them in horrified fascination.
The Necronians hadn’t completely cut them off yet. A quick dash between them and the cliff, and it just might be possible to escape.
“Run, Little One,” Half Ear told Sweep. “While I keep them busy.”
It might have worked. If Sweep had run fast enough, and Half Ear had managed to keep the Necronians occupied. But transfixed by the dance of the wands, Sweep didn’t budge.
“Go!” Half Ear cuffed her on the side of the head. “Run!”
Sweep tore her eyes from the wands and looked up at him. “By myself?”
“I’ll find you later. You know I will.”
But Sweep couldn’t will her paws to move. If she went without Half Ear, the monsters would get her. So she stayed put—and then the moment was past. The Necronians were too close and there was no way around them.
Half Ear saw how it was.
“Okay,” he said. “Here’s what I need you to do. Stay away from their sticks. Pick up some rocks.”
He backed up against the rock pile as the Necronians continued their slow, inexorable shamble forward. Sweep began arming herself with as many rocks as she could carry.
Half Ear spoke quickly now. “Lure them to the cliff with the rocks, then get out of the way. I’ll get behind them and—”
But the time for talk was over. The Necronians were upon them. Sweep moved as close to the cliff edge as she dared. One of the Necronians made for her while the other closed in on Half Ear. Sweep threw her rocks at the one attacking Half Ear, attempting to draw it toward her, but the rocks bounced harmlessly off it. It ignored Sweep completely and concentrated on Half Ear.
Sweep’s nightmarish assailant wielded its wand like an expert fencer, and I wondered which would be the better fate: death by the monster’s wand or by plummeting to the trees
and rocks below.
Green light cast a sickly pall over us as the second alien craft approached. Sweep threw the rest of the rocks at her enemy in a futile gesture of defiance. She never saw the blow that sent her convulsing to the ground: all she knew was a cold pain that racked her entire body. The Necronian loomed over her, its moist tentacles curling and squirming inches from her whiskers.
Something tall and blue appeared from out of nowhere and slammed into the Necronian with terrific force. The sheer might of the blow knocked it off balance. Before the monster could recover, the newcomer struck again, this time propelling the Necronian over the cliff’s edge amid a shower of pebbles.
Sweep’s rescuer turned its attention to Sweep, and its eyes—I would have recognized them anywhere. Impossibly tall and thin, its skin looked like it would snap if it were stretched one iota further. Except for the eyes and the fact that it was bipedal, this creature looked nothing like Iugurtha. I did not see how they could be one and the same. Perhaps I had misunderstood Iugurtha.
The longest arm I have ever seen grabbed Sweep by the scruff of the neck and began dragging her toward a hole in the rock face—Half Ear’s elusive door. Paralyzed by the Necronian’s wand, Sweep was powerless to resist.
Half Ear leapt after us, his adversary nowhere to be seen.
“Burning Eyes,” he said with uncharacteristic reverence. “Hear me. We’ve come a long way to find you. We —”
Burning Eyes spun with unnatural swiftness and struck him viciously across the head. Half Ear was sent sprawling backwards. He picked himself up and spent a precious second shaking off the blow.
“Half Ear, help me!”
Lifting his head, Half Ear seemed to register Sweep’s plight for the first time. I saw disbelief, then comprehension dawn in his eyes. He did not waste another instant. Drawing his lips back in a snarl, he leapt at his new enemy.