“They’re over here!” Gogi calls from the far side of the ziggurat’s roof.
Mez prizes her attention from the seam and the ants. On the opposite side of the ziggurat’s top, huddled together where Gogi is wildly pointing, are the nightwalkers, keeping as best they can to the narrow shadows that border the ziggurat’s low wall. Mez first sees a kinkajou with a trembling nose, little rodent hands covering huge eyes adapted to the blackest nights, then a dwarf caiman, eyes closed in deep sleep. There are no other panthers, but Mez does see an ocelot sitting regally on the stone, taking in the scene. He looks at Mez for a moment, then looks away, as if he is too important to notice a panther. Despite the family resemblance, ocelots and panthers do not generally communicate. Usha has always claimed it’s because ocelots are insecure that they’re so much smaller.
Gogi has stopped short of the hodgepodge of nightwalkers, twisting his fingers together. “Lots of monkey-eaters here,” he says, his tail curling and uncurling around the crown of his head. “Auriel has very strict rules about not eating one another, and so far no one has attacked anyone else, but I still, I mean, I get a good vibe from you, but maybe not that ocelot . . . he gives me what we capuchin monkeys would call a ‘ripe fig’ look. I might wait here and let you go talk to them on your own, if you don’t mind.”
“You’ve been kind to me. I won’t let any of them hurt you,” Mez says.
Gogi’s face brightens. “Really? Maybe I’ll stick with you, then. Monkeys do hate being alone, and I’ve had no one to talk to since I got here. Once a seventeen, always a seventeen. I wish Sorella hadn’t let everyone know.” He lets out a long breath. “I guess I was naive to hope my status back home wouldn’t matter here.”
Just then, Mez sees a yellow blip hopping along in her vision, and Rumi bounces before her. “Mez!”
“Rumi,” Mez says, a smile breaking over her face. “I was so worried about you.”
“You’ve recovered. I’m so happy to see that. It’s fascinating here!” Rumi says. “Have you seen the carvings on the stones? They’re ancient sigils! And some of them near the bottom are glowing! There’s so much to study.”
“Is Auriel here?” Mez asks, casting her gaze over the edge of the ziggurat, into the darkening jungle all around them. She’ll look at the carvings Rumi’s so excited about later.
“Yes,” Rumi says. “He’s off making preparations most of the time, but he swings by sometimes to check in on us. Tonight is when it all begins, anyway.”
“When all what begins?” Mez asks.
“When we finally figure out how to use our powers, and what Auriel’s plan is to combat the Ant Queen,” Gogi says. He’s crept nearer, though he still keeps a healthy space between himself and the nightwalkers.
“Who’s this?” Rumi asks, drawing back from the unfamiliar daywalker, his throat pouch trembling.
“Gogi the Seventeenth, at your service. Well, Gogi the Maybe Seventeenth. Maybe Sixteenth! A guy can dream.”
“He’s very friendly for a daywalker,” Mez whispers to Rumi.
Apparently Gogi has good hearing. “Most daywalkers are friendly!” he protests. “It’s nightwalkers that have the reputation for lurking and sneaking and all that.”
“I’m most curious to learn more about your kind,” Rumi says. “Though I don’t admire your nicknaming habits, I must say.”
“I’ve been watching both sides for a few days, and let me tell you, turns out we’re not so different from you nightwalkers,” Gogi replies, arms across his chest. Then he gets self-conscious again, and his arms drop. “Though I could be wrong. I probably am wrong, come to think of it.”
“Okay, okay,” Mez says soothingly. “Let’s all take a deep breath. Now, Rumi, how’s Lima? Where is she?”
“It’s not good, Mez.” Rumi hangs his head for a moment, then hops over to a pile of fern fronds at a corner of the wall. He parts one gingerly to reveal the small form of a bat huddled beneath. Lima is usually such a bundle of motion; she looks so small when she’s still.
“Is she—” Mez says, not able to make herself finish the question.
She lets out a sigh of relief, though, when Lima weakly raises her head. “Mez?”
Mez lowers herself to the ground, placing even her chin on the stone so that her eyes are on a level with Lima’s. “Hi there. I hear I have you to thank for being whole and healthy.”
Lima scrunches her eyes shut, unable to keep a satisfied smile from spreading across her face. “Oh, I don’t know about that.”
“A healing bat,” Gogi says admiringly. “That’s like the reverse of a vampire bat.”
“I don’t know who you are, strange monkey, but you’ll make no more vampire comments around me, if you please. We normal bats do not approve of those guys,” Lima says, before nodding back to sleep.
“Very sorry about that,” Gogi says, wringing his hands. He turns to Mez and Rumi, eyes suddenly glowing with excitement. “I know my power, and I know hers now, but what is your power?”
Mez shrugs. “I don’t really know. I don’t think I have one.”
He pokes her in the chest. “Oh, you have one in there somewhere. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. What about you, Rumi?”
The frog stares furiously into the mossy stones. “I don’t know.”
Gogi looks sadly at his own hands, covered in calluses. “I make fire. It’s really a shame. Monkeys hate fire.”
Mez lays a paw on his shoulder. “Well, I appreciate your fire, I can tell you that. You saved my life.”
Gogi’s face brightens. “Well, it’s like my people always say: ‘If you’re going to make poop anyway, you might as well throw it around.’”
Mez and Rumi stare back at him.
“I’m starting to learn that maybe you have to be a monkey to really appreciate our expressions,” Gogi says.
“Yes. Perhaps you’re onto something,” Rumi says, nodding politely.
Gogi is about to say something else, but his mouth snaps shut as the ziggurat tremors, the ancient stones grinding below their feet. With her usual agility, Mez stays on her paws, and Gogi goes to standing on two feet, arms outstretched, as if surfing the shifting stones. The massive seam along the length of the ziggurat’s roof cracks and then closes, as if exhaling, releasing as it does a gust of frigid and stale-smelling air. Mez hears a dull echoing roar from beneath, whether from creature or stones, she can’t be sure.
Is this the Ant Queen?
Then, as suddenly as the vibration began, it stills. The ants along the roof have scattered in all directions, covering the ziggurat in frantic shining movement.
“Was that . . . her?” Mez asks.
Gogi and even Rumi seem to have taken it in stride. Gogi’s back to all fours, picking through his hair, finding a particularly plump ant and eating it. “So,” he starts, chewing on the ant’s still-squirming legs. “The Ant Queen is . . . sorry, this beast is putting up a fight, okay, there, I’ve swallowed most of it now, the Ant Queen is . . . one second.” Gogi pulls out a wad of half-chewed ant and examines it. “Surely you’re not still alive? Go down!”
“It is the Ant Queen,” Rumi finishes hurriedly. “As her bonds weaken, she moves more and more down there.”
“This is what the carvings have told you?” Mez asks.
Rumi shakes his head. “Not exactly. I haven’t been able to make much sense of them yet. There wasn’t any teaching of ancient languages in the swamp where I grew up, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Gogi says, finally swallowing down the last morsel of ant. “Not everyone can be as sophisticated and worldly as the capuchin monkeys of the north.”
“Once you’re ready I’ll show you, Mez. Some of the carvings down near the bottom are glowing in blue,” Rumi continues. “The kinkajou grew up near here, and says they all used to glow, lighting up the entire ziggurat, but since the eclipse they’ve been winking out one by one, and Auriel thinks once the last has extinguished the Ant Queen will burst through�
�”
“And we must all be ready,” comes a purring voice that Mez recognizes.
Mez looks up to see the branches of a mighty tree shake, then long coils of emerald and tan pour off. All the animals go quiet as Auriel arrives, dropping headfirst to the ziggurat’s roof. Daywalker and nightwalker alike stay at full attention as the giant constrictor traces across the warm stones. “I see you’re feeling better,” he tells Mez as he approaches.
“Auriel!” Mez says. “You’ve retrieved the last of us?”
“Nearly,” he says, lengthening and twisting as he coils himself along the ground. It takes Mez a long second to trace his body to the end. “I found the sorubim named Niko, but there’s one eclipse-born left to fetch. I’m sure there are more than that out there, actually, but I’m limited to what the ants have happened to mention in their communications. As Rumi said, the sigils are winking out, and we can spare no more time. We must be ready for the Ant Queen.”
Mez can imagine they’re all thinking what she’s thinking: they seem like a pretty small force to combat an evil that was once strong enough to dominate all of Caldera. The shadowwalkers stay silent. Well, except for one. “Count me in,” Gogi says, scratching at an armpit.
“And me,” comes a small voice as Lima crawls out of the fern fronds to join them, head sagging but eyes full of cheer.
“Very well,” Auriel says, nodding in gratitude. “We will need everyone’s help. Come close. It is time I explained our plan.”
WE’RE NOT MUCH to look at.
The word “shadowwalkers” made Mez assume they’d come together as some impressive warrior force, but as she looks around at the assembled young animals, she sees Sorella the uakari monkey yanking cruelly on Gogi’s tail, the sloth staring apprehensively at the dwarf caiman and ocelot. The caiman looks hungry, but the ocelot actually looks bored, yawning widely while Auriel addresses the group.
Worst of all is that the trogon won’t shut up. The little multicolored bird hops from spot to spot, chirping his unending caows, flashing his yellow underbelly and iridescent flight feathers. It’s hard to hear Auriel’s words over the ruckus he’s making.
“You have all sacrificed much to be here,” Auriel says. He’s facing them in the middle of the ziggurat, unafraid to lay his body along the seam, head drawn up high so all can see him. He gives Mez the same feeling he always has. There is something both regal and approachable about the constrictor, like his life has passed more quickly than the rest of theirs in his short time on Caldera. Maybe he was worn out by his journey to the panthers the last time Mez saw him; he radiates health now. More colored scales glitter around his neck.
Night has fallen—Mez is relieved to at least be in her element now, rather than that of the daywalkers—and the Ant Queen’s constellation glitters magnificently behind the snake, making him look almost otherworldly. Mez sits at attention, tail motionless and spine bolt upright, as she would if Aunt Usha were addressing her, alert to any information that will help defeat the Ant Queen and get her back to Chumba. Rumi is similarly rapt. Lima and Gogi, though, are so involved in a gossip session that they haven’t noticed that Auriel has started addressing them.
“Did you hear that the new guy, Niko, fathered babies when he was only a few months old . . . but then he ate them?” Lima says.
“I didn’t, but I’m hearing you, batgirl, that’s so crazy. Wait, I haven’t met a Niko—which one is he?”
“Shh!” Mez whispers sharply, baring her teeth at them.
“. . . and I thank you for that sacrifice,” Auriel continues. “But much more will be required of you than leaving your families behind.”
As if responding, the roof below them breathes, the stones shifting and grinding. Under it all is a strange and grating voice, making words that are too muffled to understand. Gogi yelps when his tail nearly gets caught between two shivering stones.
Auriel’s expression gets sterner. “Even now, she prepares to rise,” he says. “Even now, we may be too late.”
Mez clears her throat. “Auriel, if the Ant Queen does break out, wouldn’t it be safer not to be right above her?”
“Yes,” Sorella says gruffly, picking bullet ants off her fur. “Wouldn’t we all be more comfortable in the jungle rather than up here on the ziggurat?” Gogi jerks at the sound of her voice, then relaxes once he realizes that for once she’s not bullying him.
Auriel nods. “We’ll all be more comfortable in the trees than on this structure. I wanted to convene up here so the daywalkers and nightwalkers wouldn’t instantly hide from one another, but once we’re done with our discussion it would be wise to move to the surrounding rainforest. We can keep an eye on the ziggurat from the canopy. We will have to be cautious. As I was arriving here, I narrowly avoided a patrol of coatimundis, and then a group of coral snakes. There are howler monkeys and owls, too. They’ve set up a perimeter around the ziggurat.”
“I’ve been hearing those howler monkeys every morning,” Gogi whispers to Mez. “Horrible racket. They’re embarrassments to monkeys everywhere.”
“Do you have any new information about the Ant Queen?” the caiman asks. Despite her many teeth, the caiman has a serene face, and always seems to be chewing something. It makes Mez calm just to look at her. Even though she’s a reptile, maybe they can become friends. As long as the caiman doesn’t find out that Mez has, um, eaten a few caimans in her time.
“Yes, why is she here, caow, what is she, caow, what can we do about her, caow, what is her name, even, caow?” chirps the trogon, who never quite seems to know how to finish a question.
“I wish I had answers for you,” Auriel says sadly. “But I’ve never seen the Ant Queen, and anyone who has seen her is long dead.”
Lima audibly gulps. Mez places a paw around her and gives her head an encouraging lick, like she would to Chumba.
“If the Ziggurat of the Sun and Moon is a prison, the sigils carved into it might have something to say about how it works,” Rumi offers.
The eyes of all the assembled animals, daywalker and nightwalker alike, turn to the little yellow tree frog. He expands and releases his throat pouch, steeling himself before he continues. “I’d like to go back to studying them after we finish talking. Maybe someone here will help me. Two minds are better than one.”
Silence floods the ziggurat. Rumi’s head hangs, his big black eyes wetter than usual.
“I’ll come with you,” Mez offers.
Rumi raises his head again, gratitude flooding his face.
“A panther and toad sleuth team? That’s a first,” says an unfamiliar voice. A bright red macaw soars through the humid air of the night, coming to land on Auriel’s neck.
“Sky,” Auriel says. “Thank you for joining us.”
“Of course, Master,” Sky says.
Mez raises an eyebrow. Master? That’s a new one. Sure, maybe Auriel acts older than the other animals, but that doesn’t make the rest of them servants.
“That reminds me—I should do a few introductions,” Auriel says. “Sky is the first eclipse-born I was able to track down. He has come the furthest of any of you in harnessing his abilities, so if you have questions when I’m not here, consider him my second-in-command.”
Sky nods solemnly and grudgingly, as if he is truly too humble a creature to accept such a tremendous honor.
“I didn’t realize we had picked a first-in-command,” Sorella says, getting into a threat position, on all fours with shoulders puffed up and teeth bared.
“Forgive me for presuming,” Auriel says, showing no sign of being intimidated by the uakari monkey. “I don’t have to be in charge here. If you have better ideas of how to go forward, please feel free to suggest them.”
Sorella doesn’t appear to have any ideas. She looks around, waiting for someone else to pick up the fight, then when nothing is doing she closes her mouth and sits back down.
“Except for me and Sky, no one here has a power that’s developed past its infancy,” Auriel says. “B
ut some of you don’t know your power at all. Who does that describe?”
After a nervous look around, Mez edges forward. She allows herself a glance to see who has followed. From the daywalkers, the sloth and the trogon. From the nightwalkers, the caiman and kinkajou. She realizes that Rumi hasn’t joined them.
“Rumi,” Mez says out of the corner of her mouth, “come on.”
He shakes his head, staring down at his webbed feet. “No.”
Mez looks forward again, stung. Rumi must already know his power. He just hasn’t told her.
Sky stares down each of the animals who volunteered. With eyes on opposite sides of his head, he has to look at them with his beak turned, which gives him an imperious look. “Look at me! I’m so amazing! I’ve got feathers growing out of my butt!” Lima mutters out of the side of her mouth. Mez can’t help but smile.
“I will assist you in discovering your abilities,” Sky says gruffly. “But it takes some time, and I can only do it one by one. Don’t try to rush me at once for my favors.”
“The eclipse gifted Sky with powers of divination,” Auriel says. “Spend a few hours with him, and you’ll know what you can do.”
Mez can think of nothing less appealing than spending a few hours with this self-impressed parrot. But then again, to know what she has to offer the world, how she might help here and then return home victorious . . . maybe for that she could put up with Sky.
She’s about to raise a paw to volunteer herself when Léon, the kinkajou, squeaks up. “I’d like to go first,” he says, looking around worriedly at all the predators around him. “A magical power seems like it would be . . . useful.”
“What a wise little morsel you are,” the ocelot says, eyes glittering.
“That reminds me,” Auriel says. “This should go without saying, but let me be perfectly clear: There will be absolutely no eating of your fellow eclipse-born. You may hunt in the immediate vicinity, as long as you are wary of the patrols out there. But you may only hunt those creatures who are not eclipse-born.”
The Lost Rainforest Page 10