by Mara Duryea
I nodded.
“Good. Go sleep now.”
Relieved to have secured my grandpa, I curled up and fell asleep.
***
Two months later…
The cloudless sky was a deep, vibrant blue. It seemed to glow through the leaves. Their golden veins sparkled more than usual. Bird song echoed through the wood in celebration of something only birds knew about.
Rindar tugged my ear as he walked by with some of the bags. Flashes of memory raced through my brain. Faceless forms tugging my ear, squeezing me, putting together puzzles, painting, singing, baking cakes, carving…I glanced at Rindar’s hands. The carver possessed those hands and those brilliant green eyes.
“Terros,” I said.
Rindar began tossing the bags into the frame. “What you say?”
“Terros.” I beamed. “He carves! He said to never use my claws. He said use a knife!” I bounced up and down. “He looks just like you!” I giggled. “Terros!”
Rindar’s frame stiffened. “What you mean?” Dropping the remaining bags, he seized my shoulders. “You know one Terros who look like me?”
I nodded.
“Who is he to you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I pointed. “But he’s that way. He’s that way with…the one I’m looking for.”
Rindar wore the appearance of someone who’d had freezing water dropped down his back. “Let’s go.” Throwing the rest of the bags into the frame, he hooked me under one arm and flitted up its tail. He whipped it into a sprint.
“We’re not eating?”
“You remember anything else?”
I grabbed my head. “No. I’m hungry.”
“He look just like me?”
“Yeah, but what about the food?”
Rindar rubbed his forehead. “Finally.” He handed me some dried meat, much to my relief.
Near Evening Sun, we espied threads of smoke rising above the trees. The scent of bakeries wafted on the wind. After all these weeks in the wilderness, we’d found a town at last. Rindar examined me a few seconds. I guess he was wondering if I looked decent enough.
“Look, Zhin,” said Rindar, “I get you clothes in there.”
I glanced up from the corner where I reclined. “Okay.” I leaned forward. “Grampa, where do riliths go to sleep?”
“In beylia trees.” He steered the kiderrin around a clutch of branches creeping onto the road.
“I don’t see them sleeping in beylia trees.”
“They like for to sleep in the parts where the beylias grow so close together that it gets dark.”
I’d never seen a dark beylia forest.
“They the oldest trees,” Rindar continued, “so they the biggest. Riliths can’t fly in there, so they walk.”
I shivered. “On two legs?”
“Yeah. They don’t fly, or other riliths might see ‘em and find the nest.”
I beheld them in my mind’s eye: feathery ghosts hobbling among the dark beylia trees. “Have you seen them?”
“Yeah. Is very creepy.”
“Did they try to eat you?”
“I was hiding.”
I grew confused. “But beylias don’t have roots like star trees.”
“I had to sneak from them.”
I knew he was a good sneaker. “Why were you in there?”
“I was looking for my wife…” He trailed off and gazed at the forest as if a secret only he could see was written there. “Zhin?”
“What?”
“I take you somewhere to eat when we get into the town. You like that?”
I bounced up and down. “Yeah!”
He laughed and tugged my ear.
We reached the gates just before they closed. The first thing Rindar did was buy me pants.
“Can I still wear your shirt?” I said, after I’d donned the dark pants.
He smiled. “Yeah, but I get you shirts that fit you, too.”
“Okay.”
“Come, we go eat at The Fat Stuff.” He took my hand and we headed to a tower constructed entirely of glass. I hadn’t smelled so much good food in ages. My mouth watered in anticipation. I was so proud I didn’t crave child flesh anymore.
The tower floors were masked in red carpet. Tables draped in golden cloth dotted each level. A glass elevator shot up the middle through a transparent tube. Stairs hugging the wall spiraled up the restaurant.
We stepped into the big elevator and Rindar pushed a golden lever to the floor number he wished to go to. In this case, it was the top floor.
“Can we go on the stairs?” I said. The people on the stairs could view the town through the windows. They pointed and laughed at things I couldn’t see from the elevator.
“The stairs are for Metirins,” said Rindar.
I frowned. “How come?”
“Because the elevator is only for Kabrilors.”
I gazed at the Metirins. At this point in time, I was Metirin-sized, so it didn’t make sense to me. They looked like they were having fun, too.
When we reached the top, I seized Rindar’s hand and dragged him to an empty table next to the glass. I pressed my hands against it and stared at the shining town. The dark edges of the mountains cut the horizon of evening stars.
“Grampa, look!”
“Look at the ground, Zhin.”
I did so, and my head swam. “It’s so far! I wish I had wings. I’d fly all over the place.”
“Well, if one Sirix picks you up, you fly everywhere.”
I shivered excitedly. “Are they around here?”
“I hope not.”
A woman in a yellow dress and red vest approached. She handed us menus and two glasses of water.
“Your grandson is cute,” she said.
“Thank you,” said Rindar.
I beamed as the woman walked away. I plopped down in my chair and swung my legs. I gazed at the glowing blue line over the mountains. The tug lived over there. How far away he was now, I didn’t have a clue.
“I think he’s on that mountain,” I said.
“Which mountain?”
I pointed. “The one that has spikes all over it. See it?”
Rindar nodded. “I see it.” He turned his head. “The food’s coming now.”
Plates of meat and things I’d never seen before were set before us, and we feasted like retsinists. The meat melted in my mouth. Pimkins squished open on my tongue. Warm, sweet juices filled my cheeks.
“This is much better than raw meat,” I said.
Rindar smiled as several people glanced nervously our way.
“It stays warm longer,” I added.
Rindar smirked into his glass. “It does indeed.”
I gazed out the window again. One of the shadowy mountains sank into the ground and vanished. Were Sirix that big? They were giants, but as big as a mountain?
“Did you see that, Grampa?”
“See what?”
“That mountain disappeared.”
“They all disappeared.” He said that because it was almost completely dark now. The shadows had melded into one great mass.
I scratched the back of my head. I hadn’t been imagining. We ate the rest of the food, and then Rindar paid the woman. We returned downstairs, past the Metirins prancing on their designated stairway. I waved at one of them. Maybe he would invite me onto the stairs?
“Don’t do that, Zhin,” said Rindar sharply.
“Why?”
“People not like it. They think something wrong with you. Then men take you away.”
A chill struck my stomach at his blunt explanation. “Oh.”
Rindar ordered a room in the guest house. It, too, was a tower. The stairs wrapped around the outside of the tower, where guests accessed the rooms.
“Zhin,” Rindar said, “I not have enough to pay for this room. I going to volunteer on the wall so I can pay for it. You gonna be here alone tonight. Is okay?”
I beamed. “Yeah!”
“I not
want you leaving this place. You not open the door for anybody. You hear me?”
I nodded.
“Okay. I going now. You sleep early. I got the key.” Kneeling, he hugged me for several seconds. “Good night, minamee. I love you.”
“I love you, Grampa. Good night.” I kissed his cheek. He kissed my head in turn and then stepped out, locking the door behind him.
I turned to the small room. It was the creepiest piece of Cubon I’d ever laid eyes on. The walls, floor, and furniture were cream-colored, so they camouflaged together. It even smelled pale. The shape of a bed somehow stood out. I jumped on it, and a mass of pillows bounced up to meet me.
I fashioned the room into an obstacle course so I could cross from one end to the other without touching the floor. Rindar would be so impressed in the morning! Leaving the place a monumental wreck, I sank into the bed.
My thoughts wandered to the blue line framing the mountains. What sank a mountain, as if the ground had swallowed it?
16
Giants
The bed kicked several feet into the air, and I landed wide awake. Dressers, tables, and chairs crashed on their sides. Screams shook the air like a roaring wind. I covered my head with the blanket. Maybe it would go away if I hid long enough.
Wood crackled overhead and slabs of ceiling buffeted my legs. Thunder rumbled from the floor, through my head, and up into the tower.
“Grampa!” I screamed.
The ceiling split in half and a craggy, spiked wall busted into the room. One of the spikes snagged my shirt and swung me through clattering debris. Screaming victims plummeted into dense clouds of dust. Flames writhed beneath my dangling feet, only to vanish into oblivion.
The wall hooking my shirt lumbered out of the chaos, leaving the town a decimated mass of fire and choking smoke. Several towers had somehow survived the onslaught. I hung high over them.
A monolithic tail projected from the spiked wall on which I hung. Straggling bits of rubble tumbled from its rough, armored surface. The creature’s breath sounded like heavy wind. Thunder grumbled from its footfalls. It stank of stagnant water and the weird odor that accumulates in basements.
I stuck my fingers in my mouth. I was suspended from the small spike of a haladon. I hadn’t seen a mountain sink into the ground. It had been this beast.
In a few seconds, star trees closed off the town. Leaves and small branches slapped at me. Bigger ones nearly crushed me. Darkness rendered the ground a black abyss. What if my shirt ripped? I gritted my teeth to avoid whimpering. The haladon might turn its head and lick me off its flank.
Moonlight half blinded me as the monster lumbered out of the trees and onto a stony wasteland stretching towards distant mountains. A kiderrin could have covered the distance in a couple of Periods. The haladon reached the mountains in half of one. It began ascending into the craggy peaks. I resisted the urge to call out for Rindar. The tug seemed to have been swallowed in my terror.
The trees grew older and bigger until they towered over the monster. A few threads of moonlight needled through the leaves. Had I not been dangling hundreds of feet above death, I might have enjoyed myself. I fell into a fainting doze as I attempted to defend myself from the situation.
Not long later, light gleamed through my eyelids, and I looked up. The straight white trunks of ancient beylia trees surrounded us. The round leaves growing only on the tops glowed with ethereal light. The park-like grass below shone like blue water.
My heart jolted. Had I returned to the beylia forest where Sizhirin lurked? I had to get out of here! What could I do? I was too young to realize I was nowhere in his vicinity.
The haladon continued on. The trees widened and grew closer together. The canopy darkened until the bark seemed like the pallid bars of a cage.
The haladon jerked to a stop beside a beylia. I found myself suspended a few feet over a knot in the trunk. A grown Kabrilor wouldn’t have been able to fit on it, but a seven-year-old like me could. Slipping out of Grampa’s shirt, I landed on the protrusion.
No sooner had I done this than a brain-rattling growl thundered from the haladon’s throat. My scream drowned in its wake as I spun around, expecting the haladon’s glassy eye to be glaring me in the face, but no.
The rays of the moon shone on a four-legged behemoth, almost as gigantic as the haladon. Glossy spikes festooned a scaled, snaking body and lengthy tail. A silvery beak winked among face plates in the gloom. Brow plates shaded glittering eyes. The creature had no visible ears on its tear-dropped head. It was a kobolia. They traveled in herds, save young males attempting to steal females to make their own herds.
With a rumbling snarl, the haladon charged the beast. It rolled into a spiked ball and the haladon rammed into it. The impact boomed like a thousand collapsing trees. I dug my claws into the bark as the behemoths stood on two feet and gouged valleys into one another.
The giants’ every movement drove whirlwinds through the trees and earthquakes through the ground. Shadow and light swayed in this monster-made tempest.
The haladon hooked the kobolia with giant claws and flung it against my tree. The impact dislodged my claws and plunged me into the depths. The ancient trunk streaked past me, and I reached out to grab it. My claws lodged into the bark, but my momentum carried me ever downward. Nevertheless, I slowed and crumpled at the base of the tree.
The kobolia bolted, and the haladon tore after it. The darkness swallowed them up. The ground must have stopped moving, but my insides still rattled around. I gripped my ringing ears, not daring to open my eyes.
***
In deathly silence, I peeked through my lids. Morning Moon, like a golden eye circled by frosty rings, peeped through a cracked ceiling of glowing leaves. The beylia I lay next to was so huge that the trunk seemed like a pale wall. The ones in Sizhirin’s forest were puny in comparison.
Grampa would never find me. I sobbed and pushed my face into the grass. I’d even lost his shirt. As despair threatened to consume me, the tug pulled. It could lead me out of this place.
Standing up, I trailed the tug like a little ghost. Anything that could have attacked me had fled in the wake of the haladon and kobolia battle. Wind chilled my skin, but constant movement kept me warm. The bitter scent of the trees was almost heady. As Morning Moon sailed west, the air changed, but not like night lifting. Something was coming.
Glancing over my shoulder, I gasped and dove into a beylia’s nook. If only they had roots like star trees! Pale, shapeless masses swayed on two legs through the forest. Their wings were tucked in as feathery tails dragged the ground. Eyes glowed like fire from the squat heads. Some walked side by side. Riliths. Dozens of them passed by, oblivious to my sorry excuse for a hiding place. They reeked of rust.
The strangely silent pilgrimage lasted until Morning Moon had abandoned the sky. As the last of the riliths vanished like spirits into the beylias, the shadows grayed. Small birds chirped in the trees, releasing my tensed muscles.
Forcing my fingers to loosen, I stood and followed the tug once again. The beylia forest darkened as the trees grew even older. Some stood so close together only a few feet separated them. It was like traversing a murky corridor closed in by pale walls reaching into eternity. No birds twittered here.
The stench of death and decay watered my eyes. Heavy breathing accosted my ears, and I glanced up. Shadowy monoliths roosted in the thickest branches. Messy nests were settled at the crossroads of several sturdy branches, like a shaggy giant’s head had been lodged in the tree. Blood trickling from the nests cut dark rivulets in the white bark. Riliths fed their young fresh meat. Depending on the chick’s age, the meat was alive or dead.
I bolted and didn’t stop until the trees thinned out and sunlight glittered on the translucent leaves of younger beylias. Leaning on my knees, I caught my breath. Great Cubons, I wouldn’t have repeated that for a million Vissiwors.
The tug strengthened. It was practically within calling distance. Forgetting my fatigue and the t
rauma of the last few Periods, I sprinted for a break in the trees and stepped out on a cliff top.
A vibrant blue sky spread over a vast star forest. The sun touched the glittering veins of star leaves, and a shining stream zigzagging through the trees. A nutty mint breeze pushed back the bitter scent of the beylias.
The tug’s down there.
Extending my claws, I crawled down the cliffside like Monster Mother and raced straight for the tug. The churning river winked through the trees a few minutes later. Soon, I jogged along the bank.
Through the tall, waving bushes and the few star trees bent over the river, I spotted a kiderrin sharpening its beak on a rock. The tug was beside it, but the star tree blocked him off. I sped up, aching to call out to him, but my throat closed up. Blood coated my tongue as faint pain clouded my heart.
The tug stepped into view: a tall, wiry Berivor with golden skin and shaggy brown hair almost touching the small of his back. He fastened it with a leather strap. His round ears barely peeped from his hair. His boyish Rykori features had been hardened from hardship and pain. Sadness marred his amber eyes. Light patches of skin sprinkled across his rough hands and arms marked past burns. A long scar traveled under his left eye to his jawbone.
He wore baggy clothes almost too big for him. His green and black mottled leypel-skin pants were full of big pockets. A hood had been sewn into the gray, knee-length shirt. It, too, had been cut from leypel hide. A belt holding a knife, three spinning blades, and a fire stick circled his hips. A hammer hung on his back, and over that, a square backpack.
Throwing a gutted leypel, his bag, and the hammer into the kiderrin frame, he mounted the beast and shook the reins with a “hup!” The kiderrin loped upstream.
17
Rezh
I sprinted to the spot the kiderrin had vacated and grabbed my little ears. Great Cubons, the tug had been here not two seconds ago and I hadn’t called out! What was wrong with me? This couldn’t be happening! Desperation storming in my veins, I tore after the rider.
He pulled further and further away from me. I had made so much progress, and now I had to start over. Hunger and thirst slipped to the back of my mind. My tired muscles were forgotten. Lack of sleep was dashed away. I continued along the riverbank until near dark.