Despite everything she’s been through, Mez takes a submissive cub posture, head low and ears down, their tips pointing toward the nape of her neck. She never thought she’d be allowed to see Aunt Usha again.
“Shh,” Aunt Usha growls. “I’ve heard enough of your conversation to know we should say nothing more out here in the open. Come to the den.”
With that, as suddenly as she appeared, Aunt Usha heads into the leafy undergrowth of the rainforest. “Come on,” Chumba says, gently nosing Mez. “I bet Aunt Usha has a plan. And she’s right—panthers shouldn’t be out in the open.”
Mez plucks up her courage. “We should go straight to the ziggurat,” she calls after Usha. “My friends are in danger!”
Usha’s voice travels back, cool and clipped. “No other animal could be more important than your own kin, little one. You should be overjoyed that I have come all this way for the sake of an exiled cub. Stop that nonsense and come. Now.”
With Chumba’s gentle presence at her side, Mez reluctantly follows. Usha has made a day den that looks like a rattier version of the one they used to live in. It’s still cozy, though, a snug warren under interlocking brambles and thistle. Whiskers sensitive to any ants or thorns, Mez pokes her way in.
Immediately she’s plowed into by three puffballs, the triplets licking her face up and down. Overjoyed to see them again, Mez gives the nurslings playful little nips, knocking them onto their backs one by one, to fits of giggles.
“That’s enough,” Aunt Usha intones, the sound of her voice sending the triplets retreating to a corner of the den. The matriarch has already arranged herself in the tight space, mere inches away, her regal face composed and dignified. “Let’s get right into it. There’s no need to rush a rescue. We have been here one night already, watching the ziggurat while we looked for you. I saw the boa constrictor attack that monkey and bat. I saw him open the ziggurat. You have been tricked, and might have died. It is good that I finally allowed Chumba to convince me to come find you.”
Chumba’s mouth drops open at the almost-praise.
“I will only say this once, Mez, but I am sorry. I was angry and scared before, and I planned to pick you back up after our hunt once you had learned your lesson. But you’d already left. I did not know that constrictor was there to lead you away.”
“Thank you, Aunt Usha. But please, we don’t have much time to lose,” Mez says. “Auriel is consuming the eclipse-born’s magic one by one. He’s getting more and more powerful with every moment—soon he’ll release the Ant Queen, and together they’ll rule all of Caldera.”
“Tell me,” Usha says, “what would ‘ruling all of Caldera’ look like? One does not ‘rule’ a jungle. We animals of the rainforest live secret and quiet existences, each keeping to its own kind. Such animals cannot be ruled, no matter how powerful any one of them may become.”
“I . . . spoke to the Ant Queen, while I was on a mission belowground. Ages ago, the ants were in charge of Caldera, and the rest of the animals were enslaved to farm the land for them. She claims it was more peaceful then than now. But I don’t believe her.”
“My whole life has been lived beneath the Ant Queen’s constellation of stars,” Aunt Usha says. “But you’re telling me that she is real?”
Mez nods, while she does so taking in more of the makeshift den. There’s Usha, Chumba, the trembling triplets, and . . . Mez sees the pure white fur of an animal huddled at the far side of the den. Eyes narrowed, Mist makes no move to get up or join the conversation.
Something isn’t right. If this really is Mist, why hasn’t he made a snide remark yet?
Chumba nuzzles up against Mez. Although she doesn’t look at Mist, Chumba’s ear, the telltale right ear that Mez knows reveals her secret thoughts so well, flicks in his direction. Chumba is warning her.
“Don’t you want to nuzzle me, too?” Mist says, his voice flinty and low. A sardonic, self-mocking smile spreads over half his face.
Half his face.
Mist gets to his paws slowly, almost lazily. Mez can see him better now. She gasps despite her efforts to keep quiet, then bites down on her lip to prevent any more sound from coming out.
His beautiful and blemishless face is still intact—on one side. On the other, though, where once was smooth white fur now are the knobs and twists of scars. A thick knot of khaki-colored hard tissue marbles his nose, and the side of his mouth is gone, clean gone, revealing the top and bottom row of teeth, turned an ocher color from the constant exposure to the air and elements.
Mez does her best to keep her face calm, but the sight of him makes her hackles rise, and there’s no hiding that.
“Aren’t you willing to even look at me, cousin?” Mist asks, a self-mocking laugh in his voice.
“Of course I am,” Mez says quietly, forcing herself to meet his eyes without flinching. She senses her voice is about to tremor, and makes sure it is regular and even before she continues. “What happened to you?”
Mist looks directly at Mez for the first time. She takes an involuntary step back: his expression is one of raw fury. “Funny you should ask,” he says. “Because it’s you that happened to me.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Mez says.
“Why don’t we save this for—” Chumba starts to say.
“Enough from you, runt,” Mist says sharply to Chumba before returning his attention to Mez. The sound of his anger is enough to set the triplets mewling and covering their eyes.
Aunt Usha watches on impassively, letting this power play work out on its own. Mist continues. “Some ‘friends’ you made along your way came looking for you, Mez. A family of boars heard about you from some howler monkeys and owls who live near a great waterfall. Apparently the monkeys and owls tried to stop a daywalking panther from passing through, only it managed to escape them. The boars formed a posse to hunt this—this shadowwalking monster. I see you’re flinching. Of course, it’s not you they found, you made sure of that. No, they found another panther entirely. I’m so easy to spot, after all—you’ve always enjoyed pointing that out.”
“You?” Mez asks. “Mist, I’m so sorry they came for you. And all because—”
“Because I’m known as the panther who killed the great eagle,” Mist says.
Mez looks at her cousin, baffled. He’s kept up this false version of events, even after his lie nearly killed him?
“They waited until he was on his own during the hunt,” Usha says primly. “And that’s when they attacked. Turns out that boars are surprisingly intelligent, despite appearances.”
“I’ve met lots of animals who aren’t panthers here,” Mez says quietly. “They’re all smart.” Her mind goes to the sweet but vacant-eyed sloth. “Well, almost all.”
“At least this time of fraternizing with lesser animals will soon be over,” Usha says. She turns to her son. “Come, Mist, if you’ve finished wallowing in your tragic tale of woe, we have an operation to plan. Though I do not fear a constrictor’s misguided notion that he can somehow rule a rainforest, the Ant Queen is another matter entirely. Some ants, like leaf-cutters, are peaceful. But I’ve met army ants before. They’ll consume everything in their path to grow their colony. The Ant Queen’s scheme could ruin Caldera, and it must end now.”
“But how?” Mez protests. “The removable sigils are the only way to open the ziggurat, and they’re trapped inside.”
“You seem to have forgotten that you are a panther,” Usha chides. “You have been going about this all wrong. Panthers do not go racing into trouble. Panthers wait in the stillness for trouble to come. And we will be ready for it.”
UNDER COVER OF night, fully in their element, the panthers steal toward the ziggurat. Aunt Usha is in the front—the nights when it seemed like Mist might soon lead the family are long gone. This new sullen version of Mist doesn’t fight this arrangement, silently skulking at the rear of the group. Mez and Chumba stick close to each other in the middle. The triplets are nestled back in the den, too youn
g for this outing.
The ziggurat looms, monumental and unnatural, before the stars that make up the constellation of the Ant Queen. Mez feels as she does each time she sees the structure—her instincts tell her it’s not meant to be here, not meant to be anywhere in Caldera, that it represents a deep and profound wrongness. Once they’re close enough, Mez presses her ear against one of the stones. But it is too thick; she can’t hear any clue to what’s happening inside. There’s no way of knowing if the eclipse-born are fighting, or if they’re long past the point of resistance.
Aunt Usha sniffs around the ziggurat’s base, her head bobbing as she picks up whatever clues she can from its scents. Mez is the first to begin the climb, looking back at her family and nodding encouragingly. Chumba stares up at her in amazement, her outline stark in Mez’s darkvision. Mez nods toward the top. We go all the way up.
Aunt Usha takes over the lead as they ascend, level by level. Mez assists Chumba up an especially high step, gently biting into the nape of her sister’s neck to help her the last few inches. When he catches sight of it, Mist scoffs and hisses.
“I’m so glad to have you near again,” Chumba whispers. “If Mist thought Aunt Usha would approve, I think by now he’d have—he’d have . . .”
“Shh, I’m here now,” Mez says, knowing very well what Mist would do to Chumba if he could.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Chumba whispers. “Usha never talked about coming to find you until after Mist was attacked. So he thinks that—that—”
“—Usha needs me as part of the family now that Mist is maimed,” Mez says. “I can only imagine what that’s done to Mist’s nasty side. I’m sorry you had to deal with him on your own. I should have been around to protect you.”
“No. I don’t need protecting, okay? I just want you to stay near. Love me, don’t shelter me. Get the difference?”
“Yes,” Mez says quietly. They’ll have to continue this conversation later. They’ve reached the summit.
Chumba makes a low, astonished purr as she sees the treetops at eye level all around them, the endless greenery of Caldera spreading in all directions, night mists rising from broad swaying leaves, the edges of everything made silvery by darkvision. “To actually be standing on this thing,” Chumba whispers. “It’s eerie.”
Mist is the last to arrive, springing above the level of the stones and landing silently on four paws. He’s immediately scanning about for danger, whiskers twitching. Aunt Usha pads to the center of the ziggurat, nosing along the seam. “Take up positions on the corners,” she orders. “Chumba, I need you to perch on the edge so that you can see the final glowing sigil. We’ll need to know when it goes out. That’s the only warning we’re likely to get.”
“So we wait, and then launch all together once the Ant Queen or Auriel emerges?” Mez asks.
“Yes,” Usha says coolly.
Mist speaks up. “Mother, you should be last to attack, to have the honor of the final blow. Let us harry the enemy first.”
“No, Mist. Mez is correct,” Usha says swiftly. “If we stagger our attacks, we lose our greatest advantage.”
“I’m not wrong!” Mist suddenly screams. His teeth are bared and eyes wide, finally finding voice to the tortured feelings passing behind his eyes. “Listen to me, Mother!”
Usha tosses her head in irritation. “It is the truth, Mist. Stop mewling and prepare for combat.”
Mez wrests her gaze from Mist and approaches Chumba. “You can stand watch over the sigil from over here, near me,” she says out of the side of her mouth. She won’t let her sister anywhere near Mist, not with that murderous expression on his face.
Once the other panthers are in place, Usha takes up her position in the shadows and closes her eyes, her face resuming its regal air. When her lids close, she disappears—though not as much as Mez would, of course, with her invisibility. Time enough to tell them about that later. She’ll use her power during the fight, if need be, but otherwise she doesn’t want to attract any more jealousy from Mist than she already has.
Mez’s darkvision wavers, and she’s worried that she’s being magicked, that the attack has begun and Auriel is casting a spell on her. But then she realizes that the surfaces of the ziggurat are shimmering because they’re covered in tiny moving creatures. She gasps in alarm as the shimmering begins to cover Usha, rising from her paws to her chest and head.
Chumba gasps too. Mez looks over and sees the shimmering is climbing up her sister, and then looks at her own paws and sees she’s being covered too—by ants.
Mist yowls and snaps his teeth, trying to bite the ants off. Mez just watches them climb up. So far the Ant Queen has not used the ants to attack, and Mez can only assume that hasn’t changed. They start to vibrate and hum, like they did belowground.
“Chumba,” Mez says, “look at the last sigil. Has it gone out?”
“Yes!” Chumba reports. “Just now!”
“That’s no coincidence. I think the Ant Queen is emerging, Aunt Usha,” Mez says. “We must be ready.”
“Yes, Mother, I—” Mist starts to say.
“It begins!” Usha exclaims. “Everyone get back!”
The doors below them are opening.
From her hiding place in the shadows, Usha’s tail begins to thrash. Mist stares down, equal amounts of fear and unhinged rage in his expression. At the sight of the abyss opening beneath them, Mez’s courage flags. How can any panther—even one as powerful as Usha, whose jaws can puncture a capybara’s skull—hope to damage a foe as powerful as the Ant Queen? But then Mez remembers that her friends might still be alive down there. She can find the courage to continue for their sake, if not her own.
With a grinding sound and a shudder, the doors stop opening, hanging down into the ziggurat’s interior. The ants that have been covering them melt away, pouring into the cracks between the ziggurat’s stones. The roof of the ziggurat is left more quiet than ever. Even the surrounding frogs and owls go silent.
Without leaving their ambush crouches, the panthers stare into the void. It’s fully dark, moonlight soon getting lost in its depths, rendering even their darkvision incapable of seeing anything beyond the first few feet.
“Remember what we agreed earlier,” Mez whispers to Chumba. “Whatever’s about to happen, you’ll do what it takes to stay safe.”
“Mez, didn’t I tell you not to shelter me anymore?” Chumba says. Mez begins to protest, but Chumba silences her with an impish smile. “We’ll finish this fight later.”
The ants are returning, waves of them swarming along the ziggurat’s lips, thousands of legs chattering against rock. Like blood from a wound, more and more of them leak out across the stones, a pool of gnashing mandibles and waving antennae.
Usha holds still, and her family follows her lead.
Sky emerges from the ziggurat’s interior and arrows into the night sky, coming to rest on the upper branches of one of the surrounding ironwood trees. His piercing eye fixes on the ziggurat’s roof, and he launches into a shrill scream. “Auriel, beware! There is a white panther up here!”
Of course. Mist is the first one Sky would have spotted, his fur lighting up in the darkness.
The time for ambush is over. Usha lets out a furious scream, and Mez jerks her attention toward her in time to see her aunt flying through the air to clamp her jaws around something Mez can’t see. Mez and Chumba slink around to find out what her aunt has pounced on.
It’s Auriel.
Alerted by Sky, the snake has sneaked up through the darkness. Only it’s not a snake. It’s the shape of Auriel, but there’s no skin. It’s not flesh that Mez’s seeing, either, but something more like pure energy, a raw and bright and crackling substance. It’s like he’s been filled by some magic, and it’s made him something more elemental than animal.
Even if he’s made of pure energy, at least Auriel can still be grappled, like any other snake. He whips around, but Usha’s jaws have locked behind his head. Auriel’s long body
sizzles as he thrashes.
His eyes dart as he struggles to figure out who his mystery assailant is. Now that the moment of surprise has passed, Mez and Chumba and Mist instinctively circle the struggling constrictor, dancing around him, looking for an opening. Whenever the panthers lunge, though, their jaws close on open air, their adversary whipping too quickly for the young cats to get a bead on him. While they wait for an opening, all they can do is watch Usha wrestle him, and take care not to fall into the yawning gap in the ziggurat’s roof.
Mez doesn’t know which way the struggle will go. When a panther is as strong as Usha, no creature alive can loosen the jaws locked around its throat. But in this strange glowing state, Auriel is clearly like no other creature alive.
And where is the Ant Queen?
Hordes of ants continue to emerge from the ziggurat’s opening, stretching their shimmering blanket far across the stones and into the night. They roll over Mist, who tries to claw them away, yelping in pain when they retaliate. “Chumba, avoid the ants,” Mez warns, but Chumba is already a step ahead. She scrutinizes the ground as she backs away from the oncoming horde.
Despite Mez’s attempts to avoid them, some of the ant soldiers have been able to climb into her fur. Pricks of pain light up her belly and back.
Auriel switches tactics, rolling and twisting along the roof, his crushing coils encircling Usha even as she tries to suffocate him. She’s agile and unpredictable, her body leaping and snapping even as her jaws never leave his neck, the snake’s looping body passing through open air and twisting around itself, nearly knotting tight as it winds itself up.
Chumba sees an opening and dashes forward, trying to pounce on Auriel’s tail, claws of her one forepaw extended and ready to dig in. “No, Chumba!” Mez cries. “That won’t help!”
Auriel seems to notice Chumba for the first time, and his thrashing tail whips toward her instead. She flees back to Mez, but her movements slow and then, with a thud, she’s suckered to the floor. Auriel’s gravity powers must be intact.
The Lost Rainforest Page 19