by Joe Derkacht
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The winged creatures flying toward the mountaintop seemed to be an endless overhead stream. At times, they blotted out the sun entirely. It was difficult for the M’hah to conceive of how one planet could possibly support the sheer numbers of creatures they saw, yet just as it seemed the stream might be coming to an end, more of them appeared on the horizon.
Even more astonishing to the M’hah, when they neared the base of the mountain, they saw the great gathering place of the planet’s more terrestrial beasts swirling with countless numbers—one vast moving whirlpool of multihued animals. From north and south, down the great aisles of the planet, surged more and more of them, thousands upon thousands—perhaps ten by tens of thousands—and in contrast to the birds, they made no other sound than that which shook the earth under their remarkably graceful limbs. Rushing in, the beasts effortlessly shouldered their way into the mass of their brethren, were sucked toward the center, then whirled outward, finally making it back to the outer rim, from which they made contact with the mountain itself, and leapt— teeming, bestial rivers crashing together, resulting in an upward gout that splashed higher and higher upon the mountain’s face.
The M’hah, having run until they were out of breath, halted at the sight of this strange, alien maelstrom. Nuor looked around and wondered what to do next. The M’hah closest to her appeared to be utterly spent, with tongues lolling from open mouths, and chests heaving with exhaustion. Uruff-fa Wuanta and his wife, Awani, were no different.
To Nuor’s alarm, others stared at the alien spectacle as if utterly enthralled, eyes bulging with a mad light. Then, to her shock, someone darted into the great, heaving clot of alien beasts and leapt onto one’s back. It was Kaniik, impetuous Kaniik, who should have waited for a th-th-rak-rakim, the meeting of consensus. Nuor’s breath caught in her throat. Would he be flung out like a stone from a slingshot—once he was crushed to a bloody pulp? Or would the silver and turquoise steed simply turn and bite off his head?
Kaniik and the creature reached the center of the whirlpool. Together, they leapfrogged out toward the rim, their movements a complex dance impossible to be understood or imagined by mere two-legged creatures. And then they were leaping at the face of the mountain. Everything happened too quickly to believe it could be happening at all. Kaniik’s steed seemed utterly unhindered by the presence of its rider. Within seconds, Kaniik and his mount were an upwardly moving speck to the watching M’hah. In less than a minute, he disappeared altogether from their sight.
M’hah began to surge forward, ten and twenty at a time, leaping even as Kaniik had leapt, offering themselves to the unknown. But when perhaps a hundred or so had joined the fray, Wuanta held up one arm, gesturing for the rest of them to halt. By means of sign language, he conveyed that no one but he and Awani, along with Orda and Nuor, were to proceed further.
Nuor’s heart hammered in her chest, hammered though she could not hear it above the thunderous maelstrom. Would the others do as Wuanta commanded? She herself did not wish to join Kaniik in his folly, but something called to her that she did not think she could deny, command or no command from the Uruff-fa.
Disappointed yet obedient, M’hah fell back, retreating to the trees from which they would watch their brethren. No matter what their desire might be, they were M’hah, and Wuanta’s rule was that they should stay.
Nuor, unable to wait longer, lurched forward and half fell, half leapt, anticipating landing on one of the turquoise and silver animals just like Kaniik’s. Instead, she landed on a rose-colored beast with far fewer legs. The animal’s head swiveled momentarily in her direction, favored her with a nod (which Nuor answered with a fascinated nod of her own), and then they were off.
To Nuor, her ride was no different from Kaniik’s; at least the result was the same. In short order, she and the animal, whose head looked decidedly feminine to her, were leaping and dancing at the center of the whirlpool. How Kaniik could have survived the experience astonished her, for the noise was stupendous, worse than the sound of rockets firing. Besides that, the creatures moved with agility that was beyond any M’hah’s imagination, jerking her in one direction one instant and in the next instant the very opposite, with leaps and bounds and squats and pivots to near flight included. And the very alienness of the creature itself and its seeming oneness of spirit and action in concert with its fellow creatures! Everything she saw and felt was wildly bewildering and utterly intoxicating. Nothing had ever been more exhilarating, not even liftoff from P’nar or landing on this planet. Neither was any of it explicable to her, nor did she have time to parse out the meaning of what was happening. How she had fled this place but days ago, pursued by fear and guilt, yet now rode one of this world’s elusive creatures, was both mystery and enigma—and an incredible blur.
Her mount’s leap toward the mountain to finally join the great pursuit came as a blur, too. Craning her neck, she espied Orda some fifty yards above her, and Wuanta and Awani above him. She craned her neck until she was nearly in danger of falling from her mount in hopes of spotting anyone else. The river of beasts was endless, and the sky overhead was a chasm she fell into instead of climbing toward...
Distances meant nothing. If she looked right or left, the twin waterfalls limited her vision. Casting a look over one shoulder, she saw the bestial whirlpool and its tributaries dwindling swiftly to nothing. Thick clouds intervened, blinding her with their dew and their brightness. In seconds she shot through those, too. The twin ribbons of silver, the illimitable sky, and the colorful, rising fountain of which she was a part, had become the focus of her existence.
As they climbed, shooting skyward at a much swifter pace than she dreamed, the noise of the maelstrom was left behind. She began to notice the wind and the quickly falling temperature. The world below, the world of trees, forest aisles, lakes and rivers, was much warmer, a perfect match to P’nar’s temperate zones. She realized her pack was somewhere on the ground, along with her sleeping rug. None of them wore a jacket. None wore breathers. What a horrible mistake to make! Didn’t whatever or whoever was behind the avian and its summons know they could not breathe at the altitudes pierced by this mountain?
Surprise tore a scream from her throat. As if they’d stepped into some sort of monstrous chasm, the river of creatures above and ahead of her had disappeared from view. Her own mount swiveled its head in her direction without breaking stride, and bared its teeth in what appeared to be a reassuring smile. Her stomach did a flip flop, before she realized they were at the extreme limit of the mountain’s vertical face, and the alien beast’s legs slammed onto a horizontal slope. Without the slightest hesitation or change in rhythm, they raced toward other distant slopes, none of them nearly as vertical as that first ascent.
Stands of trees and grasses reappeared, which she knew should not be possible. But if ample air existed here, and her lungs told her it did, and if it was reasonably warm, as her skin told her, then why not trees? Why not grasses?
More cliffs appeared, and the trees disappeared, along with the grasses. A series of prominences was followed by sere but wildly beautiful tablelands. Slopes of scree and talus came afterwards. Even when they occasionally lost traction and slipped, with legs ever churning, the beast she rode did not falter. Finally, they came to the mountain’s summit and its broad, hunkering shoulders.
Without warning, Nuor’s mount separated itself from the stream of other creatures and slowed to a walk. Ahead, Orda’s mount did the same, evidently mimicking the Uruff-fa’s and Awani’s. Others followed. To her alarm, she counted a total of twelve among them—though she knew many more of the M’hah had made the ascent. Where were they? Why hadn’t they halted, too?
Awani’s mount reared up abruptly and dislodged her from its back. In the next moment, Nuor found herself dumped unceremoniously on the ground, too. Just as instantly, the rose-colored beast which had carried her up the mountainside now shot back into the
stream of moving animals and disappeared from sight. Nuor looked around and saw Orda getting to his feet. Stupefaction was on his face. Wuanta was no quicker to recover.
Nuor wondered if they felt what she felt, disappointed to see the creatures go? Until this very moment, she had not realized that riding the beast had provided some kind of empathic link between the two of them. Its abrupt departure was like the unanticipated departure of an old friend.
Bereft of their transportation, the Twelve huddled together. Kaniik was among them. No one spoke a word, nor did anyone seem inclined to speak. Except for Kaniik, Orda, and Nuor, each of them was a ruling uruff-fa among the M’hah. Kaniik, as all of them knew, was responsible for striking the mountain with a hammer, and Orda and Nuor were responsible for his actions, if responsibility was an issue to be considered. The prospect of answering to some sort of enquiry lay heavily upon them.
No one was sure when the thunder of footfalls died away. As one, they were startled to realize the stream of multi-legged beasts had vanished as if it never existed.
“The avians—!” Kaniik said, the first to notice.
Everyone searched the sky. The birds had vanished, taking their exotic music with them. The M’hah were once again alone on the planet. The abrupt silence was nearly deafening. As they looked about them in wonder, they realized the world of the mountain was very different from the world below. Below, the trees marched in ordered ranks. Here, in sharp contrast, they seemed to have grown up as the result of natural dispersion.
Because of the exacting orderliness they’d grown accustomed to seeing until now, it took them longer to realize there was order here, as well. Everywhere they looked, the trees were planted in threes, a scheme familiar to any child of P’nar. The world above was like a park, with trees much more fitting to the M’hah sense of scale. The world below was meant to inspire awe. This world was meant to communicate—serenity? tranquility? quietude?
None of them wished to speak, to break the silence. What each wanted to do was simply to wander off alone to consider his or her own thoughts in solitude. Yet, as M’hah, they craved consensus over introspection. Perhaps more importantly, they seemed to have found themselves transported to an uncannily familiar world made the stranger because of the one they’d explored for the past few months.
They remained together, studying each other.
“How do we leave this place?”
The question hung upon the air, seemingly unanswerable. Maybe no one had actually asked it to begin with; maybe someone had merely thought it. It occurred to them that they had been brought here for a purpose and could just as easily be returned to the world below. Surely, transportation was nothing to worry about.
Which left them to consider in silence why they were here.
“Do we try the road?” Awani suggested.
Their gaze shifted to the road. Road it was, even if at first it had simply seemed an undifferentiated part of the mountain’s face. At some points along the journey they’d taken, this road had disappeared almost entirely. Now it was again evident, bisecting the mountain’s summit. On either side grew grasses, trees, and other plants of all descriptions, as if the stone overlaid them like pavement.
Orda, Nuor, and Kaniik remembered what the stone looked like at the foot of the mountain, dark green filled with flecks of gold. Here the gold sparkled through stone as pale green as P’nar’s seas. Whether an artificial road or a natural outcrop of the mountain, it was the richest deposit of mineral wealth conceivable—and they were sure that no matter how beautiful it might appear, it was not a natural geologic formation.
Kaniik thought of the first time he touched the mountain, the strange tingle he’d felt run up his arm, and then the fateful stroke of his pick hammer. It didn’t matter how many of this world’s beasts ran upon it as if it were no more than a road; he desperately wanted to avoid touching it again.
“We’re not here to harvest minerals, are we?”
The others eyed Kaniik with curiosity.
“I beg you, Uruff-fa Wuanta, that isn’t why we were sent from P’nar, is it?”
Wuanta shook his head. “That was never our purpose.” He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, as if to steady himself before speaking again.
“You do understand, don’t you, that whatever our purpose was when we embarked upon our journey, it’s not this road that’s important?”
Some nodded their heads, while others didn’t seem as sure.
“What’s at the end of this road—need I say it?—has become of overwhelming importance. Irrespective of everything else we’ve seen and learned so far on this planet.”
They all nodded.
Someone said, “That’s where the beasts were headed, isn’t it?”
No one answered. Instead, everyone stared at the narrowing pavement. Within a hundred yards, it disappeared from view and was lost in the trees. Wuanta said nothing, perhaps satisfied to let his words sink in, perhaps because he felt the trepidation they all felt. Whatever they had been brought here for, it could be they would find it just beyond those trees.
It was Kaniik who broke the silence.
“If it’s the same to you, I would rather walk on the grass.”
“The beasts did put us off here,” Nuor said quickly. “It must be safe.”
Wuanta nodded his head slowly, waiting for the others to agree or disagree.
“You would all feel better?” Awani asked.
“Much better,” Nuor said without fear of contradiction. Still, though the question had been asked, and everyone nodded in unison, none of them put one foot in front of the other, whether on the grass or toward the road. The enormity of the moment seemed to have paralyzed them as if they had been instantly transported to a heavy-gravity world.
Their paralysis was short-lived. Something arrowed through their midst in a blur of orange and disappeared among the trees. Kaniik leapt backwards in a shocked somersault. Whatever the thing was, as it passed by, its tail had struck him on the shin like a whip.
“What was that?” He demanded.
“It looked like—” Wuanta began, and then clamped his mouth shut.
“What, husband?” Awani asked.
“You all saw it,” he said. “But it can’t be, can it? Here?”
A gust of wind answered, blowing through the trees in the same direction as the creature had run on its four legs. It was the strongest wind they had felt during their time on the planet. It seemed to push urgently at their backs, as if it meant to force them to do its bidding.
Everyone looked to Wuanta. He glanced uphill. Uphill was where the creature had gone. Uphill was where the wind blew. Somewhere uphill was the end of their journey, or perhaps even the very beginning of yet another. He held out both hands and nodded, to them the sign of resignation.
“Uphill it is,” he said.
Kaniik led the way, walking at first, letting the wind aid him. Then Orda and Nuor, taking longer strides, passed him. When the others, led by Wuanta and Awani, began to pass him, too, he started to run. Soon, with the wind at their backs, all ran as if they were children again.
Nuor did not mention that they numbered twelve, that the same number had come first to the mountain and had soon run from it with their tails between their legs—if one could say they had tails, which they did not. Twelve was a sacred number; everyone on P’nar agreed. She was surprised no one else had noticed. Was it possible that twelve was sacred here, thousands of light years from home?
What were they running toward? What were they to find beyond the trees? As she ran, it began to matter less and less. New strength seemed to pour into every limb. Soon, she heard the same childlike cries of joy and exultation she remembered from her life on P’nar. To her astonishment, many of them came from her own lips.