The Last of the Ageless

by Traci Loudin

  As he narrowly avoided a hoof to the face, he pounced on her ribs. With a paw on his prey’s shoulder, the jaguar took the cow’s head between his massive jaws. He clamped down, piercing the cow’s skull between her ears. Her struggles ceased.

  Latching his teeth around her neck vertebrae, he proceeded to pull the carcass back to his previous position. Dalan’s mind slowly pushed the jaguar’s down as he approached the spot where he’d last seen Nyr and Ti’rros.

  Dalan considered how to rinse his mouth before transmelding back into birth form. From the corner of his eye, Dalan spotted Nyr approaching him from downwind, and he let go of the carcass. Nyr pulled out a knife and faced him as she field dressed the animal. In his mind, Dalan whispered a plea to the spirit of the elk, that it would forgive them. He didn’t feel guilty, though. The cow had been wounded, and they were using its body for nourishment.

  After she finished, Nyr said, “Take it a little farther. Let the scavengers have at it.”

  She looked up at the buzzards already circling. Dalan took hold of the carcass, pulling it in Nyr’s wake as she waded through the grasses. When Ti’rros appeared in his field of vision, Dalan stopped. The two of them began cutting at the animal.

  Nyr paused, her knife held in the air. “I suppose you want to eat in that form and let us do all the work?”

  Dalan couldn’t answer, so instead he yawned and began licking his paws. Nyr let out a growl, hacking at the body. Several long minutes later, a hefty chunk of meat landed next to him.

  Nyr glared at Ti’rros, who said, “At least we don’t have to cook his portion.”

  “That’s not the time-consuming part, you idiot.”

  Dalan wolfed it down and licked his paws some more. He watched Nyr and Ti’rros continue slicing off strips of meat. Saquey buzzed in and out of his range of hearing, scouting.

  Dalan’s eyelids grew heavy as night descended. Tomorrow, he decided. Tomorrow he would head home. The last thing he heard was Nyr grumbling about how he’d nearly gotten them trampled to death and then expected them to clean up after him, too.

  The next morning, he awoke to an insistent buzz in his ears and the aroma of burning flesh in the morning air, which offended his stomach. When he opened his eyes, he found Saquey hovering right in front of his face. The dragonfly rose straight up and then flew off, sending him an image of a prairie mouse.

  Dalan had slept through the entire night without taking watch. He blinked and transmelded to birth form. “Let me sleep all night? Neither of you rested?” He gulped from one of the canteens they’d taken off the mule.

  Dalan had directed the question to Ti’rros, but Nyr answered, “The Joey and I split watch duties. You were impossible to wake up.”

  “It seemed unwise to bother you.” When Nyr cast her a dirty look, Ti’rros amended, “Perhaps only your bug can wake you.”

  Ti’rros pulled delicious-smelling sticks of meat from the fire and passed them over. While the jaguar had processed the smell as burning flesh, in his birth form, Dalan thought it perfectly cooked. He winced as he grabbed his chunk; the Joey’s resistance to heat must be greater than his. Ti’rros tore into her portion, leaving Dalan’s stomach growling while he waited for his to cool.

  When he took the first bite, the flavors exploded on his tongue, and he narrowly refrained from moaning aloud. The jaguar couldn’t appreciate the pleasure of a well cooked meal. He hadn’t tasted such delicious meat since leaving his tribe. Living in the drylands like a Purebred human had been more of a challenge than he’d expected.

  When they were done, Dalan rose and started west on foot. He’d need to digest a little and recover some energy before he was ready to fly.

  To his surprise, Nyr called after him, “I thought you might want to stop at Searchtown on your way. It’s just a short ways to the north.”

  “Searchtown?” He turned back.

  “It’s where an Ageless rules over a whole tribe of Purebreeds, much the way the other Ageless woman we met did over those two men.”

  “What makes you think—”

  “Don’t be coy, fool. The voice told me you’re struggling with some ridiculous quest—may as well stick together until you’ve seen it through.”

  “And you, Ti’rros?” Dalan wondered why Nyr would want to help. “Help” was probably the wrong word. She wanted the plunder, no doubt.

  “You know I am with you until you are safely returned.” The Joey’s tail bobbed.

  Dalan took a deep breath. “Need to go home.”

  “I thought you couldn’t go home until you did this.” Nyr crossed her arms.

  To the west, the horizon darkened with trees. His home forest. Saquey came buzzing back to him, circled around him, and then headed west. When Dalan didn’t follow, Saquey circled him three times before zooming westward. Then it waited a few yards away and bombarded him with images of home.

  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten, Saquey,” he called. To Nyr he said, “Will travel with you for a ways, but then am going home.”

  A heavy weight settled over Dalan, making him wonder if he was doing the right thing by not immediately flying away. But when he thought back to the hunt yesterday, he recognized it as an excuse to remain with Nyr and Ti’rros a while longer.

  He doubted his tribe would ever accept him so long as he wore the foreign necklace. His best bet for removing it would be to stay with Nyr and Ti’rros, who were every bit as desperate to remove the cursed things.

  A cool breeze picked up, wicking away the sweat on his skin. He concentrated on keeping his footing, stepping over the lumps that dotted the ground, as though the dirt and grass barely covered something else.

  Nyr called a halt at midday, after they’d traveled down a slight incline. Dalan lifted his eyes from the uneven ground for the first time in hours.

  “What is it?” he asked. Beyond a stream trickling through the slight dip in the earth before them, a gray blob was situated on a small rise.

  “The town of Search, of course,” Nyr said. “We can keep going a little ways, but then we’ll need to do some reconnaissance.”

  Only then did Dalan realize the grasslands had been eerily quiet. “Where’s Saquey?”

  Grasses extended on the horizon in every direction for miles, but he heard no buzz and saw no tale-tell dot. His heart thumped, and he searched inside of himself for that tendril so familiar and yet still so foreign, a reminder of home, that piece of him he hadn’t known was missing.

  “He fell behind a few hours ago,” Nyr said. “I just assumed you’d ordered him to go scout somewhere.”

  Dalan took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He followed the invisible bond to its source. “Is north of here.”

  Images from Saquey poured in. A pattern crisscrossed his vision, bobbing over the grasses. A tower overlooked the town, its shiny exterior betraying its Ancient origins. He’d never witnessed such geometric precision. A perimeter of rusted metal fencing and piled stone covered in weeds and brambles paled in comparison to the towers’ well-built architecture.

  He felt something strange along the bond with Saquey, something he’d never felt there before. His parents had often spoken of sensing something akin to human emotion through the bond, but he didn’t know how to interpret the images or the emotions he received from Saquey. He scoured the landscape for potential threats.

  “What is it?” Nyr’s grip on his arm brought him out of the vision.

  His mouth gaped open, and he dropped his pack with his extra rations, the offerings, and his LEC6 on the ground beside Ti’rros. “Am not sure.... Have to find out.”

  With that, he wasted no time transmelding, feathers sprouting before the last word came out of his mouth. He shrank into the grasses, then burst from them in a surge. He spotted figures in the grasses to the north, approaching the tower from Saquey’s vision. As he swooped down, he heard a singsong chant.

  “We caught him, we caught him!” Five teenagers paraded below. They were nearly old enough for their tria
ls of adulthood, by his tribe’s reckoning. A stick extended over one boy’s shoulder, with a large net on the end.

  To Dalan’s horror, a huge dragonfly fluttered inside.

  Chapter 14

  Dalan’s heart pounded as he considered how to free Saquey. He could try to dive-bomb the teens, distract them enough to drop the net. But that might get Saquey’s delicate wings injured.

  A broken dragonfly was a dead dragonfly—Saquey wouldn’t survive long in that condition. Plus, the teenagers outnumbered him, and they’d already captured one flying creature. He couldn’t afford to get himself captured as well.

  He could try switching into his jaguar meld and scaring them off, but that ran the same risk of injuring Saquey. The teenagers had nearly reached the town, and his hawk eyes spotted multiple archers situated in the tower. If he attacked, the archers would retaliate for sure.

  With a rising sense of panic, Dalan swooped over the tower, examining the town and trying to come up with a plan.

  Searchtown wasn’t so much a town as a compound dominated by one giant V-shaped gray building, with the tip of the V pointing south. Black panels covered the south-facing side of its roofs. The building lacked openings, but darker gray squares broke the monotony of its smooth gray walls every dozen feet or so.

  On the inside of the V stood two large buildings and about ten smaller ones, set farther back. Each of the smaller buildings divided into ten different-colored sections. Although their colors were faded, the buildings must have been in remarkably good shape to have survived the Catastrophe and the centuries afterward.

  Another tower bookended the compound directly opposite the first. He circled back toward the south tower and landed on the crumbling wall.

  Two older men waited in the light of one of the many lampposts lining the path as the teenagers showed off their catch. “You weren’t supposed to be out tonight. What if the Changelings had found you first, huh?”

  “But this one didn’t.” One of the teenagers pushed out his chest. “We caught him before he could.”

  “Very good, children, but we need to hand this one over before he or she decides to switch into a more menacing form.” Dalan’s eyes fixed on Saquey. Though they were wrong about the dragonfly being a Changeling, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t return home without Saquey.

  The other elder praised them some more before saying, “It’s time we caught ourselves another Changeling, don’t you think?”

  A teenager girl nodded eagerly and asked, “What did she say it was? I heard it was like a mutated horse.”

  “Yes, she said that’s how it was described to her. Like a horse covered in short golden fur, but without hooves.”

  “And with a long tail?”

  “Not like a horse’s tail…”

  They’d anticipated him, somehow. They’d set a trap, and he’d been foolish enough to fall into it without explaining anything to Nyr or Ti’rros before he darted off. Dalan glided from building to building, shadowing the teenagers as they chatted about what they’d heard from someone they called the Advisor. The way they slung the net around made him fear for Saquey’s delicate wings. He sent reassuring images of forests and ponds to his dragonfly companion, but got no response.

  A pair of female voices caught Dalan’s attention. Two women stood near one of the multicolored buildings, with five distinct colors reflected in the light of a nearby lamppost.

  The taller woman grabbed a vertical handle on the yellowish section of the building and turned it to the left. As she did so, the dark-gray square in the yellow wall creaked open, also sliding to the left, allowing him to see inside. The women joined other people inside the building, where Dalan caught sight of wooden tables—it was a house.

  The door slid back to the right, sealing the home. With ten segments in each of the 100 multi-colored buildings he could count from his vantage point, it was the largest settlement he’d ever seen. If he hadn’t been so worried, he would have marveled at this clever Ancient design.

  Below, the teenagers rounded the corner, and he followed. When they crossed to the next colorful building, he perched on the roof of one of the other houses. The eager girl turned the door lever and two others took the net inside.

  They came back out without Saquey. Dalan’s heart skipped as the teenagers walked away and the door clanked shut behind them. He still sensed nothing from Saquey through their bond. He waited until he heard no voices and saw no people along the paths.

  He doubted he could turn the lever as a hawk, so he paused to think. The only way the situation could be worse is if they’d also stolen his offerings—losing the sacred discs was unforgivable.

  Nyr and Ti’rros wouldn’t understand the urgency of the situation, and by the time he got them to sneak into the town, it would be morning. If they had to wait until the next night to rescue Saquey, the insect might be as good as dead by then.

  What would Nyr and Ti’rros do when he didn’t show up in the morning? Ti’rros would be obligated to attempt to help him. Nyr might not bother, unless the necklace cajoled her into doing so.

  He needed a way to send a message to them, and with Saquey gone, his only chance was the necklace. He would learn once and for all how far its ability to communicate with its other pieces went.

  That made returning to birth form mandatory; he couldn’t open the door as a hawk, and he had to warn Nyr and Ti’rros using the necklace.

  He took one more look around before landing beside the door the teenagers had gone through. Little grass survived here, as though there wasn’t much dirt for it to grow on. Bags of something that smelled very sour to Dalan’s hawk nose were piled outside.

  He rushed the transmeld to birth form as fast as he dared, while trying to stifle his groans of pain as he regrew an enormous amount of muscle, bone, and tissue. The world shifted, and he reached out a hand to steady himself against the building. His dry skin made the surface feel even chalkier than it probably was.

  Back in his birth form, Dalan felt naked. He glanced around, regretting the loss of his sharp vision. He raised his gaze to the moon, hoping to spot the All-Seeing Eye, but the clouds made it impossible. He breathed a plea for blessings anyway. Eerie quiet pressed down on him.

  Definitely a trap.

  Dalan put his hand on the door lever, twisting it as he’d seen the townspeople do. He flattened himself against the outer wall of the building, which looked black to his human eyes. It clanked an inch into the building before sliding to the left with a mechanical whirring, leaving an opening big enough for a large man to pass through.

  Dalan waved his hand in the open doorway and withdrew it. Nothing happened. Saquey's buzzing wings made Dalan’s heart beat faster, but he had to be cautious. Peeking around the edge, he saw an empty room, with an open doorway to the left. Any occupants must be hiding in the second room.

  Dalan slid his hand down to the knife in his belt. Then in one silent motion he entered the room and fell to his knees beside Saquey.

  He slashed at the net, finding it difficult to cut through. While sawing at the knot, Dalan sent Saquey a mental image of the insect flying free through the doorway. Getting no response, he also imagined the towers with archers in them, reminding Saquey to watch out. At last his knife cut through above the knot, releasing the netting. Dalan threw it open to free his companion, his friend.

  The mechanical sound of the lever turning made him gasp. The door began sliding closed. Saquey zipped past him. Dalan lunged toward freedom, but the door nearly closed on his hand. His last sight of the outdoors was of Saquey fluttering into the night, high above the rooftops.

  Eyes wide, Dalan peered through the yawning opening into the other room, illuminated by flickering candlelight. Hearing nothing, he crept over to the wall and put his hand out as before.

  Again nothing happened.

  “Necklace?” he called. He needed to get a message to Nyr and Ti’rros before something else went wrong.

  At least if they did try to rescue
him, the dragonfly could lead them to his location, an unfortunately centralized building. If his captors didn’t kill him, Nyr probably would, for his stupidity.

  “Voice? Whatever you call yourself…”

  Dalan held the knife out and peeked around the edge of the doorway. Various rugs decorated the walls of the spacious room, and tables were scattered here and there. No one waited for him.

  A solitary candlestick rested on a table. By the candlelight, he saw a basin and several large blocks; two of them dwarfed him. Since the others were waist-high, he took them to be strange chairs. Some kind of grass-like material covered the floor from wall to wall.

  Although he could see the entire room and its lack of occupants, Dalan kept his knife out. As he passed the strange chairs, he noticed another door on the same wall as the one he’d come through, but without a lever to open it.

  He ran his fingertips along its edges, trying to see if he might be able to slide it over like a flat stone. It didn’t budge. He made his way back through the rooms, tried the same thing at the other door, and got the same result.

  Back in the candlelit room, he put his hand on one of the waist-high blocks. His palm left a momentary indentation on its soft surface when he pulled away. From behind him came the unmistakable sound of the exterior door being opened, and he crouched down.

  Dalan lunged toward the wall in between doorways. The one he’d been unable to open remained closed. He inched over to the open doorway and peered into the other room, dimly lit by moonlight. Then he ducked his head back—the candlelight would silhouette him.

  From the other room came the sounds of footsteps shuffling across the floor and a muffled cough. Dalan tried to guess how many people had come inside. The door clanked and closed, plunging them into darkness.

  Everything was silent but for the sound of someone breathing.

  “Alright… Dalan, is it?” a man said, his voice raised. “We know how dangerous you are. You probably feel a little cornered, quite understandably, but I swear to you, we aren’t here to hurt you.”