by J. M. Lee
“What’s that?” Naia called.
The Black River had caught hold of him, carrying him away at a surprising speed. The soldier’s voice seemed disembodied in the dark of the night as he drifted farther and farther away.
“Stay away from the finger-vines!”
Then the boat with Rian disappeared into the shadows.
“That song of Jarra-Jen was really something,” Naia said as they untied the second boat. They would need it to cross the river, as it was far too wide to ford. “I think it really moved him. I wouldn’t mind meeting the song teller who wrote it. The song that soothed the soul of the boy who first saw the Skeksis betrayal!”
They climbed in the boat, and Naia used the oar to push them away from the dock. Kylan let her do the rowing, since she knew her way around the water much better than he.
“You don’t have to wait to meet that song teller,” he said. “You already did, in Sami Thicket, when he was running away from home.”
“When he was . . .” Naia coughed in surprise as she put one and one together. Then she crowed with laughter. “You devil! You made it up just for Rian?”
“I thought if he knew I’d done it for him, he wouldn’t listen!”
Naia rowed them across the river, beaming with pride in the moonlight. Kylan absorbed as much of the feeling as he could. He’d done something right. Naia hummed a little as she worked.
“I don’t regret it one bit, Song Teller,” Naia said, as the opposite bank came into view in the dark. “Taking you along. I would have been a fool not to. I hope you know this as I know it.”
It was possibly the sweetest thing she’d ever said to him, and Kylan finally let out the smile he’d been holding back.
CHAPTER 7
The jungle on the other side of the Black River might as well have been a different world from the wood they’d just left. The trees were lush and plump, with succulent fronds, and undulating with tentacled creepers. A scent lingered in the air that Kylan couldn’t place, tart and strong, as if a grove of fruit-bearing plants were just beyond the reef.
Naia tied the boat to a root on the bank, and Kylan squinted into the deepening dark. Only one of the moons had a full face on, and the tree cover was dense. The other side of the river was barely visible, Stone-in-the-Wood long enshrouded by the wood and the night.
“I can take the pack back now,” Naia said, holding out a hand.
In response, Kylan slung it over his shoulders. It was heavy, but manageable.
“Let’s get going!” he said.
Naia opened her mouth to protest, but instead only shrugged. Even in the dim light, Kylan could see her wings at her back, still gaining volume since sprouting so recently. They would never grow out properly if she kept wearing the pack, and he was ready to share their burden. Before she could change her mind, he sighted the nearest tree and inspected its woolly trunk.
“Just like Rian told us,” Kylan said. He pointed at the moss, thick as fur, growing green and hairy on one side of the tree. Together they hiked into the forest.
“Do you smell that sweet scent in the air?” Naia asked, more rhetorically than anything. The aroma was so strong that anyone with a sense of smell would have caught wind of it. “Do you know what it is?”
“I’ve never smelled anything like it before. It does smell delicious, though. Perhaps some kind of fruit that grows on the higher grounds?”
Naia patted her stomach. “Maybe we can make a snack of it.”
Neech found no short supply of food in the insects and other critters that flitted, buzzed, and swooped through the air. Kylan touched stones every once in a while as they walked, leaving a small dream-etching the size of his fingerprint in case they should need to find their way back to the boat. The small shapes glowed with heat and blue vliyaya—Gelfling magic—after he made them, though by morning they would cool. They trod through brush and crossed creeks of slow-moving water, letting their fingers brush against the mossy trunks of trees here and there to fix their direction. Things moved in the wood beyond their path, but the forest went about its business, ignoring the two Gelfling travelers.
“Whatever smells so good must be close by,” Naia remarked after a while. “It’s like . . . perfectly ripe fruit, sweet nectar. I’ve got to know what it is!”
Kylan started to protest that they shouldn’t leave the path, but when he looked around and saw only bushes, trees, moss, and plants, he kept his mouth shut. They were hardly on a path anyway, and the mystery fruit was piquing his appetite. Together, they waded into the forest in the direction of the lovely scent.
“Do you ever hear songs about those fish that dangle tasty-looking snacks in front of other fish, and when the smaller fish swims close enough, the bigger fish . . .” Kylan made a double-handed gesture, mimicking the jaws of a large creature consuming the body of a smaller one. Naia looked over her shoulder.
“Are you saying you think this is some kind of trap?”
“I’m just saying let’s be careful.”
“What happened to always trust a Drenchen’s gut?”
Naia pushed back a heavy bough of leaves, revealing a glade lit by moon and starlight. At the center was a large plant with a fat, smooth trunk bulging like a sack of rocks. The plant’s roots were exposed, splayed out beneath its bloated body like feet. Its branches were long and slender, protruding from the top and curving back toward the earth, weighted down at the ends with clusters of glistening blue fruits large enough to hold in two hands. They looked juicy and sweet, and each fruit had a six-petaled white flower blooming from the bottom, dripping with nectar.
Despite her earlier eagerness, Naia stood at the edge of the glade, and Kylan waited with her.
“Something about it doesn’t seem right, does it?” she asked.
Kylan glanced at his companion, then back at the strange plant. It was big enough to be considered a tree, though it had no bark and something about it did not seem treelike. Trees were mostly stationary—and something about the plant at the center of the glade did not feel rooted.
“Is that your gut talking, or . . . ?”
“Look at how there are no other plants near it. Listen to how quiet the wood is here. Let’s just leave it alone.”
Kylan’s stomach grumbled, but he agreed. Despite the wonderful-seeming fruit, there was something unsettling about the plant. As they stood there, watching it, the wind blew and the plant leaned, drooping one of its fruit-laden branches closer to them.
“Yeah,” he said, inching away. “Let’s go.”
Together, they backed away and then turned from the glade. As soon as they did, Kylan heard a low creeeakkk from behind them. He reached out and grabbed Naia’s wrist, pointing. They looked up in silence as two branches descended from above. Blue nectar dripped off the petals of one flower and landed on Kylan’s nose. Without thinking, he licked at it—it was the stickiest, sweetest thing he had ever tasted.
He made the mistake of looking back. The plant was leaning toward them with all its weight, and one by one its tentacle-like boughs swept through the air toward them.
“I think we should run,” he whispered.
“Agreed,” said Naia. “On three. One . . . two . . .”
Kylan leaped forward with his friend, but the boughs with the fruits crashed down upon them, coating their hands and clothes in sticky nectar and fruit pulp. Kylan yelped as he fell, his limbs stuck to the traveling pack and the branches. Naia had avoided some of the nectar, but not enough to escape. Tendrils shot out from the top of the plant and tangled around their legs. Kylan and Naia grasped at the earth, tree roots—anything!—as the tendrils dragged them back toward the plant. Naia pulled out Gurjin’s dagger and plunged it into the ground, holding on to the hilt with one hand and grabbing Kylan with the other.
“I thought Rian said to watch out for finger-vines!” Kylan cried. “This isn’t a
finger-vine! Why didn’t he warn us about this thing?”
Naia’s dagger gouged the earth. Kylan scrambled to grab its hilt and looked back.
He wished he hadn’t. The plant’s body bent toward them, revealing a toothed maw at the top of its trunk and six black eyes that focused ravenously on its prey. Inside its horrific mouth, Kylan could see the remains of other creatures, and it let out a loud nauseating belch that smelled of everything dead inside it.
Dozens of tendrils snaked out of the plant, lunging toward them and tangling in thick knots around their ankles. No matter how hard he kicked at them and struggled, more came. One tendril, fatter than the rest, struck from below and lifted Naia up and away, ripping her from Kylan’s grasp as it hoisted her into the air.
“Naia! Naia!”
Something silver and flame-red flashed, and the plant—was it a plant?—shrieked. Flayed tendrils exploded in the air, and Naia fell. The plant screamed again and uprooted itself, pulling six woody appendages from the dry earth. It lurched back from the torch- and sword-wielding cloaked figure that now stood before it. Kylan kicked the severed tendrils from his legs and scrambled to Naia, helping her up. She leaned on him, favoring a leg that had been slashed from the thorns on the plant’s tendrils.
“Back! Out of here, you big weed! Back, I say!”
The rescuer’s feminine voice was refined and familiar. She strode forward and waved the torch, spraying embers. Kylan grabbed a stick from the ground, quickly lighting it from the silver-haired Gelfling’s torch, and together they beat the carnivorous plant back from the glade. When it reached the edge of the clearing, it turned and clambered into the wood, its screams of defeat fading into the night.
Kylan caught his breath, and Naia joined him, walking off her limp and giving him a pat on the shoulder. Together they watched the back of their rescuer, whose sheer, prismatic wings were half-hidden in the silver folds of her cloak. She pulled back her hood and turned, and Naia let out a cry of surprise.
“Tavra!”
The soldier returned the hug when Naia gave it. Kylan had not spent much time with the All-Maudra’s daughter, but in the torchlight, her pale Vapran features were unmistakable. Though she looked tired, with deep circles under her eyes, it was definitely her.
“You’re alive,” Naia said. “Even after the Skeksis made you look into the Crystal—I thought you were dead!”
“Aren’t you glad I’m not?” Tavra asked. “I’ve been looking for you two. Glad I found you when I did.”
Naia brushed dirt and vines off her front and then went to retrieve Gurjin’s dagger from where it was still upright in the earth. Tavra skewered one of the blue fruits on her sword, taking a bite out of it.
“You can come out now,” she called into the wood. “We’ve found her.”
Kylan’s heart was just calming from the confrontation with the blue mouth when he saw a lean figure step out of the shadows, leaning against a tree for support. Naia gasped when she saw him, eyes tearing at the sight of his clay-green skin, thick dark locs, and round face that mirrored hers.
CHAPTER 8
Gurjin nearly toppled over when Naia tackled him. Though he held on to his sister, he shook with weakness, and she helped him stand. Tears flowed freely on Naia’s cheeks, and she held her brother.
“How?” she whispered. Then she raised her voice: “How?”
Gurjin shook his head. He looked even wearier than Tavra.
“I don’t remember much. skekMal threw me against that tree, and I fell unconscious. The next thing I remember is being out here in the woods with Tavra. She’s been trying to find you two.”
Kylan made his way toward them as Tavra approached. Kylan couldn’t help but notice how impressive the Vapra appeared in the moonlight, all in white and silver. He had not traveled with her long, and learned most of what he knew of her from Naia. She looked as he expected a daughter of the All-Maudra should: strong and beautiful, worldly and noble. He clasped the Vapra’s wrist when she offered it.
“Kylan. Naia.”
“It’s good to see you again,” he said. “And you, Gurjin . . . we thought . . .”
“I did, too.”
Tavra did not sheath her sword, as if they could be attacked at any time.
“After you fled the castle,” she began, “the Skeksis were in such an uproar that I was able to escape. I stumbled out of the castle through a turret window and flew down, but I was too late to stop skekMal from his hunt. I watched you escape and waited until skekMal returned to his brothers at the castle before finding Gurjin. I expected to have to send him to his final resting place, but he was still alive. You Drenchen are all clay, aren’t you?”
She gestured, and they fell in line beside her, hiking up a path that cut through the steep hills. Kylan didn’t know where she was taking them, but her footsteps were so confident that he didn’t think to worry about it. Eventually they came across a landing in the trail, wide enough to make a fire.
“We’ll camp here tonight,” Tavra declared.
And so they did. Kylan started the fire while Naia helped Gurjin find a place to settle in. Neech came out of hiding in Naia’s cloak and erupted with chirps and purrs, stopping only for chin scritches before launching into happy circles in the air.
“Oh, you should know,” Naia said, “we met Rian, in Stone-in-the-Wood. He’s left to go to Ha’rar to tell the All-Maudra everything that’s happened.”
“Rian’s alive?” Gurjin exclaimed. “Thank the suns!”
“When did he leave?” Tavra asked. She looked almost as if she might snatch up her sword and leave that instant.
“This night. We saw him safely on the Black River just before we ran into trouble.”
Tavra looked out into the wood in what Kylan could only assume was the direction of Ha’rar. While she was still, Neech hovered close to her, sniffing her hair and neck. He let out a chirp, but she batted him away. Sulking, he glided back to Gurjin, and Tavra returned her gaze to the fire.
“Is everything all right?” Naia asked. She sat next to her brother, hand on his back, protective and loyal. “How are you feeling, after what the Skeksis . . . did . . . to you?”
Tavra’s eyes were hollow and hazy when she looked up, but the empty expression came and went like clouds in high wind. She flicked her ears and shook her head, brow stern and jaw set.
“I’m fine. And no, everything is not all right. The Skeksis are looking for us. The two of you nearly became dinner to an oversize flower. Gurjin can barely walk. And now you say Rian was here and you parted ways—things could not be less all right.”
Kylan stiffened.
“We decided it was better if we split up. We’re going to see Aughra. We’re hoping she can help us find a way to send a message to all the Gelfling at once.”
The Silverling soldier barked a laugh of disbelief.
“At this rate, you won’t arrive in one piece! Maybe if Gurjin were strong enough to make the journey, but not now. He needs to rest, or you’ll lose him again before long. Whether to blue mouths or finger-vines or sheer exhaustion. We’d be better off taking a boat to Ha’rar to catch up with Rian.”
“We promised we’d find a way to warn the Gelfling,” Naia protested.
“If you want to be well, then you will have to break that promise. You can’t truly be thinking about choosing Aughra over his well-being. I will not have us traipsing about in the high hills with him in such a state!”
Kylan didn’t want to admit it, but Tavra had a point. Gurjin needed rest. Would they have to split up again, just as soon as they had been reunited? It would be better if they could find a way to help Gurjin and convince Tavra to come with them. Naia had told him about Tavra’s prowess in conflict and wisdom in travel, and Gurjin was an ex-soldier of the castle, like Rian. Their help could be invaluable in the journey to Aughra and beyond.
Naia
stood and shrugged out of her cloak.
“Then I’ll heal Gurjin.”
“Wait, Naia . . .”
Kylan wanted an option, but the one his friend suggested was dangerous. Drenchen healing vliyaya was powerful, but only to a point. It could only mend surface wounds, like cuts and bruises. Gurjin’s state was the result of starvation, dehydration, and lack of light and air. He had been a prisoner in the Castle of the Crystal. Normal healing vliyaya could not replenish the life force he had lost from his time in the castle. That was something that would have to come from within Gurjin over time, and Kylan said so.
“Even if you could normally heal a bite or scratch, Naia—even a broken bone—”
“He was locked in the castle because they were waiting for me,” Naia replied. The fire reflected off her eyes and the beads in her locs. “Because we’re twins. Because our life essence could heal the Emperor. Gurjin heard them say so himself. If our life energy can be shared, then we should be able to use it ourselves—for good. I will share my own life force with you, to use until you can rest and grow it on your own.”
Even Gurjin looked wary, and he had the most to gain. “I don’t know, Naia. It could be dangerous. It could certainly leave you weak. And that’s only if you can do it.”
Naia snorted and sat back down beside her brother.
“If the Skeksis can do it, then so can I. Now, hold still.”
Naia settled and closed her eyes, holding her hands out so her palms touched Gurjin’s chest. Gurjin hesitated, but knew his sister’s stubbornness as much as any of them. He turned toward her and closed his eyes, too.
“You’re not going to stop her?” Kylan asked Tavra. In the firelight, he noticed a sparkle at Tavra’s neck—a purple jewel dangling from her ear on a shimmering thread. It accented her regal, if dour, complexion as she watched with aloof interest.
“No. If she can do it, I want to see it.”
Naia’s palms glowed blue. The calm, healing light crept up each of her three fingers and thumb until both hands were enveloped in it. Although it was yet unheard of for a healer to share her life essence with another, Kylan had no doubt in his mind that Naia could do it. The sturdy girl was special, in more ways than one. She could dreamfast with trees and non-Gelfling creatures. Her bond with Thra was different, and her bond with Gurjin was special. It was no wonder the Skeksis sought the two of them.