by Lydia Deyes
I shouldn’t have told him, I shouldn’t have told him…
Samuel was quiet for a moment. “Do you really think that you can be safe here forever, Sheer?”
“I…”
“If you're indeed the object of this prophecy, I have no doubt that something was targeting you before you came under the protection of the wards of the thirteenth floor. And I have no doubt that whoever is targeting you will find you again someday. When that day comes, you must be ready. You’ve been incredibly lucky, young sparrow. Don’t push your luck. Strength doesn’t come from nowhere.”
I hung my head in shame but breathed out a sigh of relief at the same time. Samuel hadn’t said he’d banish me from the thirteenth floor because of the fires that haunted my past.
“You could stay here where it’s safe… until it isn’t anymore. Or you could prepare yourself properly to protect yourself when the time comes. That includes eliminating potential threats before they become impossibly dangerous, such as the creatures in your dreams. If we don’t take care of the snake now, do you think her acts will never affect you? What about the animals she’s enslaved already? Don’t they deserve a chance at safety, too?”
I knew what the right answer was, but that didn’t make it any easier to choose. I couldn’t bring myself to look Samuel in the eyes. My body started to shake, and fears raced through my mind.
“Calm your mind, young sparrow. Trust me, and trust in your own strength. Look at what you have accomplished since you arrived here!” The voice in my head silenced, but the vibration of Samuel’s voice didn’t. I looked up from my feet to watch his expressions. “You can communicate without your ears,” the old lynx continued. “You’ve made friends, and you’ve been a huge help to Anna on her expeditions. You’re stronger than you think, Sheer, and you can train to be physically stronger on the journey.”
He projected his voice into my head again. “As for your safety, of course I’ll take extra precautions. I wish you had told me about this problem before, but that doesn’t matter now. It only proves that this evil is real and dangerous. Not just in general, but dangerous to you specifically. Someone must know about the prophecy and want to prevent it from coming true.”
Taking a deep breath, I knew he was right. I was still afraid, but I knew I could trust him. “Can we bring Barrie along with us?”
Violet shifted beside me, and I turned in time to see her speak up. “I want to come, too.” She turned to look me in the eyes. “I lost you once, Sheer. I don’t want to lose you again.”
“Yes, Violet,” Samuel said. “Of course. Sheer, if Barrie wants to join us, he may. Friends you can trust are great assets to have close by.” Sending his voice to echo in my mind again, Samuel emphasized, “Don’t tell anyone else. We shouldn’t alarm the others unless it’s necessary. I’ll tell Anna. If we don’t return in two phases of the moon, she’ll tell the others what happened. Until then, I’ll ask her to say that we are out giving you more practice for understanding speech.”
“Okay,” I relented. “When do we leave?”
“Tonight. Violet, Would you tell Barrie? The two of you should get some rest before we leave.”
As Violet left, Samuel spoke to me again. “Now, to keep you safe. I can place a ward on you, Sheer, like I did on this space. But in order for it to work, I need to know exactly what was happening. Keep no secrets from me.”
I explained what happened when I’d stayed with the squirrels. As I explained how I’d woken up in the flames, how the fire had killed the rabbit, and how each new resting place I found ended up in ashes, I was glad Violet wasn’t listening. She already felt terrible for losing me for so long, and I didn’t want her to know exactly how difficult my life had been before I found the thirteenth floor.
When I was finished, Samuel frowned. “You said the fire never spread beyond the tree or burrow?”
I nodded. “I don’t know what it was… it felt like it was only coming after me.”
“That is dark sorcery indeed,” Samuel said. “It reminds me of a myth of a terrible vulture made of shadow. In the stories, it uses fire as its weapon to destroy its prey. But that’s only a tale, and I’ve never seen it nor heard reliable counts of its existence. I don’t know what could really be happening here. I think it’s safe to say, though, that you were definitely being targeted. I’ll place a protective ward on you that should prevent this. There are other ways to find a creature besides this sorcery, so you won’t be able to hide from them forever. Still, it should give you some time to prepare and grow stronger.”
Samuel’s voice left my mind, and his words shifted to a much deeper rumbling. I stood perfectly still while he chanted. He paused to breathe a few times but otherwise barely wavered. His eyes pinched shut as he concentrated for what felt like an hour. When he finished, all of his muscles shook from exhaustion.
“I don’t feel any different.” I stretched my wings and legs.
“Well, you aren’t supposed to feel anything.” Weariness leaked into the voice resounding in my head. “We’ll just have to trust that it worked. If anything happens, I’ll be with you, and I will do all I can to keep you safe while we figure out a different solution. Now, get some rest. When it’s time to leave, I’ll come get you.”
VIII
Samuel, Barrie, Violet and I left in the dead of night, when the city was completely still. For the first time since arriving on the thirteenth floor, I was leaving it for a reason other than helping Anna provide medical assistance to those in need. Despite my trust in my mentor, I worried about the fires.
Will Samuel’s wards on me protect me the same way as the building has so far?
We headed to the forest and snuck around the outskirts on our way towards the southern fields to avoid being spotted by the humans. It wasn’t the most efficient route, but we were able to cross through the residential areas by the time the city gleamed with the glimpse of dawn. We were much safer in the large fields, but we still had to be careful to avoid the humans and their machines.
During the day, Barrie flew high above us as a lookout. He pretended to search for prey even when he was full, circling slowly in the air. The rest of us kept under the cover of the tallest crops; Violet and I rode on Samuel’s back, since we could move more swiftly that way. We slept next to hay bales at night.
In the evenings, after the humans left their fields and before the nocturnal hunters came out of their dens, we had a few hours to rest and train. Samuel instructed all three of us on proper fighting techniques. We scuffled on the ground, dipped and dodged between stalks, and practiced diving motions. Between Barrie’s perspective, Samuel’s sense of hearing, and my uncommonly accurate sense of vibrations, we had a full range of senses to steer away from humans and predators. The distant mountains grew closer every day.
Now that we were on the move, I started having dreams again. Each night was the same: the nightmare began with the dark cloud and snake, and ended right before I hit the water after plummeting from the sky. The day finally came when we walked out of the last human field and into wild, uncultivated grasslands. That time, my dream was different.
◆◆◆
Though it started out with the same pulsating shroud, that was where the similarities ended. The snake that emerged was in such incredible detail, I could make out the glint on her individual scales, the folds of her hood, and the fork in her tongue. She not only had a rat’s tail at the end of her body, but whiskers on her face as well. And this time, she saw me.
The cobra hissed in my direction, flaring her hood. Then she settled, looking off into the distance. She turned and slithered away, and as she did so, the smoke behind her materialized into a strange blue creature, like a tiny monkey. There was only one this time, but I could clearly see all of its details — the aquamarine fur, the chains of darkness so dense they looked like writhing metal.
When the creature had passed, out of the smoke materialized another: this time, a sparrow. She was a pale brown, and still barely
a fledgling. The young sparrow followed the rat-snake and tiny blue monkey as if in a trance. She was hopping instead of flying — perhaps she didn’t know how. The way she was walking was unnatural, mimicking the snake’s movements as the cobra swayed left and right. When she briefly faced me, her expression was blank and her eyes were glazed over. Then they all disappeared into the smoke and the crow’s feather drifted down from the sky, mangled and torn. The wolf’s claw appeared beside it when I drew closer. It was so shiny, for a moment I thought I could see a part of my speckled eye in its surface.
◆◆◆
I opened my eyes. I felt strangely calm despite what I’d just seen. I hadn’t woken up panting or feeling like I was falling, and that was a pleasant change. It was still dark, so I waited until the sun’s rays peeked over the horizon and Samuel stretched awake before telling him about my dream.
“Perhaps the details of the cobra and the monkey creature are more refined,” he said with a yawn, “because we are getting closer. The sparrow is new, but I’m not sure what to make of it. Do you think you can make the dreams come to you even when you aren’t sleeping? Perhaps we can use the clarity to track the snake.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Why would I want to subject myself to the nightmares, even when I was awake? But if we needed to find her, and we could use the detail in my dream to determine whether we were going the right direction, maybe it was necessary. “How would I do that?” I asked as I settled onto his back.
“Try closing your eyes and clearing your mind, as if you were sleeping,” Samuel said. I was grateful that he considered my inability to read his expressions from behind him and projected his words into my mind.
“Okay, I’ll try that.”
Clearing my mind was a challenge. With my eyes closed, my other senses kicked into an even higher gear. I could feel Samuel’s slightest movements. The gentle breeze shifted direction from time to time, changing the intensity and identity of scents around me. The crisp grass, sweet flowers, and earthy ground delivered wafts of smells. The flowering grass made me salivate, and I could taste remnants of juice from the berries I’d eaten at dawn. Though I was in the middle of Samuel’s back, I could feel the vibrations of his throat as he spoke softly with Violet to pass the time. I quickly learned that trying to ignore the distractions from my three active senses was fruitless. Instead, I acknowledged each scent that tingled my nostrils, each breeze that ruffled my feathers. When I opened my thoughts to exploration, I was surprised to find how easy it was not to dwell on them. Soon, I had entered something like a trance. I was fully awake, but each thought was only briefly acknowledged before it was lost in the flow. I didn’t chase the thoughts; I just let them go. That was when the dream came.
I opened my eyes to find myself inside an enormous, hollow tree. No wind was rustling the leaves, but I could hear the trickling of water from somewhere. It was dark, but there was an eerie ambient glow. I could see no source for this light and determined it must be a function of the vision itself. Regardless, it allowed me to see the cobra in front of me, surrounded by the mysterious smoke. The young sparrow’s eyes were glazed over as she stood stiffly beside the snake. The tiny monkey slave was nowhere to be seen. Between me and the two creatures was a large bowl, with an unpleasant scent. The snake mixed in an herb I’d never seen before. A bat fluttered into the space, and the cobra reacted. She spit her venom at him, causing him to fall to the ground. She slithered over, then mercilessly stripped a wing and tossed it into the pot.
Shaking with disgust, I tried to pull myself out of the dream, but the vision suddenly shifted. The only thing that remained was the ever-present shroud of darkness. Now I was looking at the precipice of a mountain, upon which stood two wolves, their pack behind them. The larger of the two was standing closer to the edge, looking out into the distance. The smaller one had dark fur, though not quite black, and sported a scar. It stretched over the left side of his face, originating at the base of his ear before passing through his eye and running down his muzzle. He was staring intently at the larger wolf. It was this smaller wolf, not the larger one, that was wrapped in the mysterious smoke. Before I could discern his intentions, the image cleared and I was again on Samuel’s back. I sensed we’d stopped, and I opened my eyes.
Before us, the earth seemed to split in two. It was the ravine from the dream that started us on this journey. Samuel stood with one paw on the left side of a crack, and one to the right. Beyond where he stood, the crack widened until it was so vast, no creature could have jumped over it. The split itself twisted and turned, and when it vanished over the horizon, it seemed to end further to the right than where we currently were. To the left of it, the way onward followed the canyon’s edge and sharp turns. Rocky hills and mountains bordered the ravine, forcing the path to meander through them. To the right, the path seemed gentle enough, an endless sea of grass like the one behind us.
I flew over to where the ravine was wider and saw that the drop was too steep for Samuel to climb down. The land we stood on jutted out over the trench like a natural bridge. Far below us, a stream trickled into the bottom of the crevice. It gained speed and momentum as it continued into the distance, fed by tributaries and brooks that made their way through a labyrinth of holes in the rocks, or steep waterfalls from distant mountain snowmelt. I knew we’d have to choose a side path. Even though Violet, Barrie, and I could fly, we couldn’t leave Samuel stranded on the wrong side.
“In your dream, you flew over the mountains, correct?” the lynx said, voicing the fear deep inside me. The path to the right looked so much safer and could provide all of us with food.
“Yes, but…”
“That is the surest sign we have. We should not lose faith in your dream’s direction yet.” Without a further word, Samuel lifted his paw and started down the path to the left, which wound in and out of the mountains.
IX
“I managed to have a dream on purpose,” I told Samuel as we left the point at which the ravine began. “Or a vision, I guess. What would you call it?”
“That’s great, Sheer! I’d probably call it a vision.”
“A vision, then,” I agreed, recounting everything that had happened. When I’d finished explaining, I paused. “Do you think we somehow triggered the wolf? It’s just… I’ve never seen the entire wolf before. Do you think someone is still targeting me despite your magic, and sending the wolves after us?”
Samuel thought for a moment. “I don’t think so. In your vision, the wolves didn’t see or acknowledge you, right?”
“That’s true. The darker one was only looking at the larger one.”
“I think we are just close to them. Let’s hope they are only passing by. As for the part where you did see the snake, I think it just confirms that she’s gaining strength, and that we are drawing closer.” We continued on, though I noticed Samuel picked up his pace.
Over the next few days, we traveled with no incident, though the sky became laden with dark clouds. It hadn’t rained since we’d set out to find the snake, but it was foolish to think we could make it all the way there without a storm.
When the first crash of thunder warned us of the coming downfall, we sought shelter in a mountain cave. Even if I hadn’t been afraid of the water, it was too difficult to see or fly outside, and the path was muddied and slick. The rain didn't let up for three days, and we were hungry. There were scattered grass seeds and insects for me and Violet, and mice for Barrie and Samuel, but not enough for any of us to be fully satisfied.
To pass the time, I tried to conjure more visions of the snake, to no avail. Every time I managed to clear my mind and receive a vision, all I saw was the pack of wolves, the scarred one’s detail increasing gradually each time. This scared me, and I could tell from the others’ faces that it frightened them, too. I stopped telling them what I saw, but they knew.
We could only practice combat so much before becoming physically exhausted, and I could say the same about my attempts to see th
e snake. When we’d tired ourselves out, Samuel told us stories of his time with the humans. His echoed thoughts in my mind allowed me to drift away, not forced to focus on understanding his words. Besides, his tales were full of quirks and nuances I was glad to be able to hear. He told us how his human had found him and rescued him from poachers, and how they’d worked together to destroy a man possessed by evil spirits. While Violet and I listened, rapt, to his every word, he explained how the thirteenth floor had come to be.
When it finally stopped raining, moving on was bittersweet. We needed to continue onward towards the snake and find fresher sources of food, but I’d enjoyed listening to Samuel’s stories. As Violet and I rode on Samuel’s back and he carefully plodded along the muddy path, I kept conjuring visions. I was able to draw upon them much faster now. Sometimes the vision came when I wasn’t even trying; I’d just blink and find myself in the middle of a vision. One moment I’d be traveling with my friends, and the next I’d see the darkness, hear sounds, and it would seem like I’d been transported into a completely different place. But I was getting good at dismissing the visions, too. All it took was a shake of my head, and I’d be on Samuel’s back again.
I hoped the wolves would pass by and allow the snake to return, but the opposite was true. If the path took us farther into the mountains, the image of the wolves came more into focus. If the path took us up to the very edge of the ravine, the wolves came more into focus. I could tell the larger wolf was one of the leaders, and the younger one was likely his son. Beyond that, I knew without a doubt they were getting closer.
We’d been traveling alongside the ravine for a particularly long stretch when another accidental vision came. This time, though, I saw the wolves from a distance, rather than the close-up perspective I’d grown accustomed to. I blinked, trying to understand why I felt something else was different. I swiveled my head, trying to pinpoint what it was — and then I realized. The darkness, and the temporary ability to hear, were both missing.