The Ryle of Zentule

by Michael Green

  “Do you see that?” Letty asked, pointing at the bright bird, which now sat upon a rock.

  “Birds, Letty,” Staza said, “though that glare.” She raised a hand to cover her eyes.

  “No, there’s something else.” Quill said, also spotting the colors. “What is it?”

  “I think it’s one of the birds,” Letty replied, watching its outline move and preen unlike any of others.

  “But how does it shine like that?” Staza asked.

  Letty saw Aleta rise and cast a glance at the pack of birds nearby.

  “No!” Letty yelled, “Don’t eat that one!”

  Heedless, Aleta pounced and the flock burst into the air.

  “Damn! I lost it!” Staza said, holding a hand over her eyes as hundreds and then thousands of them took wing and circled through the air.

  Letty was buffeted by dozens of flapping wings as the birds in nearby nests joined the others.

  Letty’s eyes went wild trying to spot the one special bird, but each glistened as it coursed through the air.

  “There!” Quill cried out, spotting it.

  In a flash, the cyclone of birds stopped spinning. The mass broke apart into thousands of single birds traveling in their own directions.

  No two are going the same way.

  Letty rushed out onto the slick rocks, keeping her eyes up and on the blur.

  “Letty!” Staza called after her.

  Letty heard someone slip and crash onto the rocks, but she refused to look back.

  She passed into the cover of the trees again. Her face stung from the branches snapping as she rushed.

  There!

  The blur sat for a moment high among the branches, before taking off as she came into sight.

  “Do you see?” A voice asked, startling her.

  “Oh God!” Letty sprung away from the sudden presence.

  It’s just Aleta.

  “You scared the hell out of me,” Letty said, her eyes back on the canopy.

  “Do you see what I cannot?” Aleta asked again.

  “Maybe, I spotted a bird unlike the others,” she said.

  “My beacon,” Aleta mused, not winded in the least by all the bounding.

  “Hopefully the others are okay; I think one might have fallen into the water. They’ll catch up,” Letty said, chasing after the blur.

  “This path is here and now,” Aleta said cautiously, though Letty didn’t understand.

  “Staza followed your trail to the waterfall, she can do it again.”

  They continued after the bird. Letty realized that rushing towards the creature only scared it into immediate flight again, so she paced herself, and tried to catch her breath. Aleta strained under their slow pace. They gave chase this way for some time, until Letty finally lost the bird behind another screen of branches.

  She and Aleta pushed through a wall of shrubs and found themselves just past the edge of the forest. The land ahead was steep and rocky. Letty scanned the horizon.

  “Does that one shine?” Aleta asked, pointing with a paw at a pile of boulders.

  Yes, it does.

  The bird had alighted on a rock and looked their way. It flexed its wings before taking off again.

  Letty scowled at the rugged hillside. There was no easy way up. She took a breath and climbed a rock. Even from a higher vantage she couldn’t spot a route forward that didn’t involve leaping from one boulder to the next.

  “Well, here goes,” she muttered.

  She bent her knees and leaped, landing firmly on the neighboring boulder before looking for the next leap.

  “This isn’t a good idea,” Letty murmured as she jumped again. “They won’t be able to track us over the rocks.”

  She looked back for Aleta but couldn’t see her.

  “Aleta! Don’t go far, please!” she called out.

  Letty jumped again and continued looking for the bird. She couldn’t spot it either.

  She moved to the next rock, and heard a clatter, as of stones tumbling. Her immediate urge was to crouch, but her footing was stable. She looked around but couldn’t see what made the noise.

  Lost the bird, and the sphinx, and my friends, and the mice. Now I’m leaping over pits like an idiot with no idea where to go.

  Letty landed on a tall, jutting boulder. Every way forward, and even the ways back now all seemed too far to span in one jump.

  But I made it when I came from that way.

  Letty tried to convince herself to leap back, but her mind told her it was too far.

  “This was a terrible idea,” she said.

  The thick forest was farther back than she expected. Desperate, she looked down into the pit.

  Maybe I can get down and climb back up somewhere else.

  The pit looked to be about ten feet deep.

  Too deep.

  Her heart beat faster. She rushed to the other side of her boulder.

  “That’s a fool’s way,” Aleta said, looking up at her with a vexed expression.

  Aleta! She’s here!

  Letty stared wide-eyed at the sphinx. She was speechless for a moment, before finally asking, “There’s a better way?”

  “These are my grounds,” Aleta said, trotting between the boulders.

  Letty climbed down the side and slipped the last few feet to the ground.

  There are paths down here! I couldn’t see them from above.

  She bent low and followed Aleta, who had the advantage in this terrain. Letty had to crawl underneath a low passage. Aleta paused impatiently, her tail patting the ground.

  “I’m sorry; I wasn’t made to crawl under boulders,” Letty complained as she caught up. Aleta huffed before moving on.

  Letty skinned her knees as she rushed, but she refused to slow down for fear of losing Aleta again. She passed under another boulder and stood to stretch her back. She groaned in pain, and Aleta gave her an angry scowl before looking up at a boulder.

  The bird!

  The shimmering bird that had led them was sitting on the rock and idly fussing with its feathers. Aleta had spotted it and was bent low, as if ready to pounce.

  She made a powerful leap, and with her clawed paws bounded up the side of the boulder and swiped at the bird, who was off in a blur, cawing angrily.

  Aleta landed heavily back in the pit, her eyes craned skyward after the complaining bird. “I return with nothing,” she said under her breath, before moving on.

  I saw her eat not too long ago. She remembered Aleta tearing a swathe through the flock of birds.

  Letty followed and took a turn under the next boulder. She gasped when the raw stone gave way to hewn walls and stairs.

  Letty wanted to stop and look at the carved images on the walls, but Aleta was getting further ahead. Despite the haste, Letty noticed that several carved figures had their hands raised to their eyes, as if they were inspecting something.

  Letty took the stairs, which looked especially worn, as if Aleta had gone up and down that exact way so often that it had worn the stairs smooth.

  How long has she been here? How often has she gone in and out of this place?

  Letty climbed and climbed until the stairwell opened onto a high promontory that overlooked the rugged hills and forest beneath. A carved bench overlooked the view; she gratefully sat to catch her breath.

  Looking over her shoulder, Letty saw a wide ravine separate her promontory from another cliff face. The far side looked to be right out of a history textbook. It struck her as an ancient temple, carved into the rock. Stairs led to a smooth wall preceded by plain columns. An obelisk, made from black stone, stood before the temple, offset from the path and ringed by flagstone circles. There were markings all over the obelisk, but they were too far away to see in any detail.

  “That’s it! We’re here!” Letty said.

  Aleta walked by, her tail wagging in impatience.

  “Almost,” she said, bent low with her wings flexing.

  The wings were a good size, yet they see
med too small for Aleta’s heavy frame.

  “What are you—” Letty nearly fell off her bench in surprise as Aleta bounded forward, her wings spread wide.

  Aleta leaped across the ravine to the other side, her wings flapping madly.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Letty yelled across the distance.

  Aleta raced up the stairs and into the temple. A moment later Letty heard strange rumbling growls echo from inside.

  “Aleta! I don’t know how to get across!”

  Letty stood and approached the edge. The distance was much farther than she could leap.

  Maybe she’ll come back out. But what was that sound? Is it safe here?

  She waited, ready to run at the first sign of danger, but nothing happened. Aleta did not return.

  Letty felt tricked. I got her here, and now she won’t even help me across. I wasted everyone’s time, and now I don’t even know where they are.

  She looked back to the promontory and down to the forest. They’re lost in there, trying to find me, and I chased the lion woman.

  Letty sighed, and turned to go, but stopped in her tracks.

  The bird was standing squarely in her path. It stared at her quizzically.

  “Yes, you led me here too, thanks for that,” Letty said, irritated.

  The bird chirped and hopped. It walked back towards the stairs that Letty had taken up to the promontory. It looked over its shoulder at her and hopped again.

  Letty sighed and followed the bird, who led her back to the hallway full of carved images. The bird hopped down the stairs sideways.

  Poor bird wasn’t made for stairs. I think it’s trying to help me… that or it’s one more waste of time, when I should be finding Andy.

  The bird hopped up to a carving on a wall and waved a wing.

  Letty approached and saw the carving was much like the others, featuring a woman in plain robes holding a stylized eye with long eyelashes up above her face. She was inspecting the eye.

  What does this have to do with anything? It looks like an older version of the Infiniteye.

  The bird hopped and chirped.

  Letty reached out and touched the carving, looking for hidden switches or panels.

  The bird flapped.

  “No, that’s not it.” Letty said.

  The bird used its talons and beak to climb up Letty’s pants.

  “What—hello, yes, why don’t you get back down—off please!” Letty stammered, increasingly skittish at its disregard for personal space.

  It cawed and snapped at her fingers when she tried to brush it away. Using its beak, it tapped at her pocket. It was tapping against the Argument.

  “What, this?” Letty produced the Argument.

  The bird hopped down, flapped its wings, and chirped wildly.

  “What do you want with the Argument?” Letty asked.

  The bird flew up to the carving, and then back to the ground. The motion was exasperated and wholly unnatural. Letty suddenly felt like she was standing at the whiteboard, lost for an answer, while the classroom chuckled.

  It must be so obvious.

  Letty stared at the carving.

  Maybe.

  She held the Argument up to her eye.

  There was a rush of sound. She closed her palm and found that the Argument wasn’t there.

  “What’s happening to me?” she called out, not hearing her own voice.

  She looked at the bird and saw a bird-shaped wireframe instead. A glowing silver core blossomed with light from its center.

  Letty stumbled backwards. The movement filled her with a sense of vertigo. She was screaming, but she could only hear a dull roar of overwhelming white-noise, like a million voices speaking at once. She struggled to breathe.

  “Calm,” a voice sounded in her mind.

  She looked over and saw the wireframe bird standing closer.

  “What’s happening? I don’t understand!”

  The bird shrank away from what Letty knew was her loudest volume, though she still couldn’t hear herself.

  “Focus, calm,” the voice repeated.

  Letty lay there for a long time before she felt the noise subside. The bird stayed by her side, silently watching.

  What’s happening to me?

  Letty looked at the bird and felt a calmness.

  She remembered the Argument disappearing from her grasp. That’s what the carving was showing. It does something to you. This was supposed to happen.

  With that conclusion firmly in mind, Letty stood and immediately felt her head spin. She took a breath and leaned against the wall.

  The bird hopped ahead and mounted the stairs.

  “We’re going back up?” Letty asked, barely hearing her own voice.

  The bird, looking almost like a skeleton surrounding a star, looked her way and then continued.

  Letty followed along, keeping a hand against the wireframe wall for balance. It took ages, but finally they came out onto the promontory again.

  With terror she took in the world all around. It was too much.

  The sky seemed to scream at her with a thousand flashing voices, each yelling over the other. Every strange surface, and even blank space, was infused with text. Bands of millions of letters and numbers were insistently present in the forefront of her mind, but each only for a moment as her eyes arced across the ceiling. One color and band of writing violently gave way to the next. Letty clasped her hands over her ears, but that did nothing.

  “It won’t stop!” She yelled in horror as her eyes retreated across the horizon, looking for something less loud to rest on.

  She shut her eyes but could still see through her eyelids. She covered them with her hands, but saw through those as well. The wireframes of her arms and hands were interlaced with a glowing silver cord that pulsed with what she thought was her heartbeat.

  Terrified, she shrunk down and grasped her knees, sinking her eyes as close to the ground as she could. She felt herself slide down the stairs, but was too afraid to reach out and slow her fall. She slipped down a few more stairs, her eyes locked to the comparatively normal floor.

  She was gasping and crying but couldn’t hear herself.

  “Calm,” the voice sounded in her mind. She just now heard it, but somehow felt like it had been speaking for a while.

  Letty lay there shaking.

  “Calm.”

  This is awful.

  “Calm.”

  Finally, sore from being still for too long, she dared to roll over. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but the noises had quieted, and she no longer felt overwhelmed.

  She found herself relaxing when she regarded the bird, who was still nearby, waiting. Letty pulled herself into a sitting position and dared to look up, an inch at a time.

  For a moment, she felt embarrassed at the thought of herself lying on the floor and crying at the sky.

  I’m glad no one was around for this. But how do I go back to normal, or am I going to be like this for the rest of my life? Why did the bird do this to me?

  “What now?” Letty asked the bird, confident that she could stand and walk again, though looking up was still too much.

  The bird hopped towards the ravine. Letty followed, careful not to look at the terrible ceiling. A moment later, she dared to raise her glance a hair. She saw a glowing bridge spanning the gulf.

  I couldn’t see it before.

  The bridge was made of stone blocks as far as she could tell. Its glow made it difficult to see much detail, though it plainly had no guard rail.

  Maybe it wasn’t there before.

  The bird stood by the phantom bridge and looked her way.

  Letty stepped closer. She got to her knees and carefully reached out, touching the glowing stone.

  It’s solid.

  She got back to her feet.

  Why didn’t Aleta take the bridge then? She’s been here forever.

  The bird rustled its feathers and cocked its head toward the temple entrance.
<
br />   Aleta didn’t know which bird to follow either. She isn’t a Seer.

  As much as she wanted to head back to her friends, Letty kept going.

  She took another breath and stepped onto the bridge. It supported her. She took another step and was standing over empty space.

  It wouldn’t be so bad if everything weren’t trying to scream at me.

  Letty felt her nerves get the better of her. The voices grew louder. Her eyes focused randomly on strings of words in the bridge or cliff side below. Those strings of words inflated to massive size in her vision.

  No, not again!

  She felt her legs shaking as she took another step. She got down to her knees, afraid to go further as the voices grew louder.

  “Calm, focus,” the voice returned to her.

  Yes, calm. I need to be calm and focus.

  “Breathe.”

  Letty focused on her breathing.

  Calm. Breathe. Focus.

  After a minute, she realized that the voices had quieted, and her vision had stopped snapping onto things of its own will.

  Calm.

  She stood and took another step. A moment later, she was across, though her legs were shaking. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief, and immediately regretted it.

  “Flesh!” Came an echoing voice.

  Letty felt the earth rumble and saw a glowing red blur flash out of the temple and lunge for the bird. The wireframe sphinx was red at its core and glowing like a dull flame.

  “No! Aleta, stop it!”

  The bird flapped away. A hair slower and it would have been taken by the sphinx’s claw. Aleta growled and turned on Letty, snarling and bending low to pounce.

  “Stay back!” Letty felt an unexpected fury erupt from within, her palm tensed and she saw a vision of the blade in her grasp. A rushing burst of sound accompanied as her sight returned to normal. The Argument had rushed from her eyes down her arm.

  The glowing silver blade flickered from her right hand. She held it just shy of the sphinx’s face.

  “That’s enough! I’m sick of you!” Letty yelled.

  Aleta, who looked far thinner than she had a moment ago, also had a new sickly pallor to her skin. She shied away from the blade.

  Wait, this won’t work. I swung the blade at her before and it just passed through.

  Letty felt suddenly nervous, but kept the blade up, as it deterred the sphinx regardless.