The Lost Rainforest #2

by Eliot Schrefer

  Thirteen Nights Until the Eclipse

  “I’D NEVER HAVE predicted something like this could happen!” Gogi says, looking out in astonishment.

  A series of boulders emerges from the forest floor, and they’ve made for a river of land that’s exposed to direct sun. No tree cover! The companions take advantage of the odd formation to spend a long break lying out on the warmed stone, relishing the rare treat of open light. Well, they all do except Lima, who gets anxious in full sun. And Chumba, who’s asleep, since she can’t shadowwalk like the others.

  It’s been a long journey, from the dark and muggy region surrounding the ruins out through the mangrove swamps, then past the mosquito-clogged low country (well, a little less mosquito-clogged, now that Rumi and Lima have come through and eaten a few hundred of the little bloodsuckers), then up along the salty river until it widened into salt flats and now this canyon of sunlight. Those trees lucky enough to have sprouted along the salt flats’ edges are able to catch much more sunlight than their neighbors, and have grown to towering heights, sending dappled light along the ground. It’s all quite lovely.

  For all his talk of feeling left out, Sky seems not to want anything to do with the others. He surges forward, soaring over the terrain, disappearing for a long time before he appears again at the top of a tree, staring down at them with an imperious eye before heading off.

  “I guess he’s leading us the right way?” Gogi grumbles.

  “I wish we didn’t have to trust that bird,” Mez says. “We got tricked by Auriel before, and Sky was right by his side. It could be happening all over again.”

  “I had many long conversations with Sky during the past year,” Rumi says from his perch on top of Mez’s head. “I’m not sure why he’s refusing to travel alongside us now. I guess crowds make him anxious? Or he’s worried that we’ll snub him again?”

  “It’s hard to think of us as a crowd,” Mez says, peering up at the trees dwarfing them on either side. They seem like a very small traveling party indeed.

  “Sky’s a prickly one, that’s for sure,” Rumi says. “But I know for a fact that he’s furious about what Auriel did to us, and that carries over to the Ant Queen.”

  “Or he’s very good at pretending,” Mez says.

  “We’ll keep alert,” Gogi says. “But it’s not like we have a lot of other options. Following Sky is the best we’ve got.”

  “Enough resting!” comes a harsh caw from the top of the tallest tree ahead. “I have glimpsed the boto. She has just woken up and will be preparing to hunt. If we don’t want to lose her, we need to get to her lair soon.”

  “Got it, Sky!” Gogi calls up, waving, but Sky is already gone. “As soon as the Veil falls and Chumba wakes, we’ll get going!” he finishes to himself.

  Once Chumba is yawning and smacking her jaws, they prepare for the next stretch of their journey. “You ready to try our trick?” Rumi asks Gogi.

  “Yes,” Gogi says. “Though I want to officially announce that potentially setting fire to all of you guys freaks me out.”

  “Very understandable,” Lima says. “It freaks me out too.”

  “Remember, the smallest tingle of fire you can manage,” Rumi says. “Think light more than heat.”

  “Basically, you want me to have more self-control than I’ve ever had. This is the worst test of monkey brain ever,” Gogi grumbles to himself. Then, clasping his hands tightly over his chest, he closes his eyes. Subtle, subtle, not too much, not too much, you can do this, Gogi.

  He imagines little grooming fingers on his eyes, Alzo’s fingers tenderly brushing his eyelids. Then he warms those fingers up and spreads them out, farther and farther.

  When he opens his eyes, the night is illuminated. Just a little. It’s like everything is under a ruddy moon, the edges sharpened and warmed.

  “Everything looks so pretty!” Rumi says, clapping suction-cupped fingers.

  “It’s pretty good, if I might say so myself!” Gogi says, pivoting and looking at the red-rimmed world around him. “Just enough light to take the edge off the darkness.”

  “Don’t get excited and incinerate us all, okay?” Lima asks.

  “Yep. On it. It’s not tiring at all. I think after a while I’ll be able to do this without even thinking about it.”

  “That’s sort of what I’m worried about,” Lima says, swooping out of the shadows to perch on Mez’s shoulder. “Anyway, what even is a boto?”

  “Maybe it’s something tasty,” Mez says, licking her chops as she starts out.

  “Mez,” Gogi warns, “I know it’s been a while since you got to hunt, but the boto has been alive for hundreds of years, and is here to inform us, not to be food. Don’t kill the oldest creature in Caldera. That would be really bad.”

  “Calm down, calm down, I’m not going to eat our potential savior.”

  “If the boto has a friend, though . . . ,” Chumba says. The panther sisters descend into a fit of giggles.

  Gogi shakes his head. Carnivores are weird.

  Sky doesn’t come back into view, but he keeps cawing from somewhere up ahead, leading them onward.

  “Am I wrong for wanting just a few more specifics from him?” Lima asks.

  “I know, I know,” Gogi says. “But once we meet the boto, we’ll have a lot more information. We’ll have more than just Sky’s word to go on.”

  Outlined by Gogi’s light, the rocky canyon broadens, until it joins a stream and becomes a slushy field, coated with furry algae and pond stink. Rumi and Lima are delighted, rolling in the goo and frolicking about. Gogi, Mez, and Chumba are less thrilled, delicately picking their way along the edge. “It’s a little drier over here,” Mez calls. Gogi and Chumba come over, only to get mired again as soon as they’ve gone a few paces.

  “How much farther is the boto lair?” Gogi calls into the trees ahead.

  “Faster!” is Sky’s reply.

  “He’s just so charming,” Gogi says under his breath.

  The river of grass broadens, and there’s the muted sound of falling water ahead. “Not another waterfall,” Mez says. “Remember our last time with one of those, Rumi and Lima? Let’s hope it goes better this time.”

  “You mean let’s hope that owls don’t attack us and we don’t wind up falling a few thousand feet?” Rumi says. “Sounds good!”

  One more rotten fallen tree, one more mucky pond, and then the waterfall comes into view. It’s a modest one, not more than ten feet or so high, ending in a misty lagoon. The slow river splits around the waterfall’s base, becoming a basin of murk, rimmed by Gogi’s curtain of light.

  From behind the brown mist of the waterfall comes a stranger’s voice. “Sky, they have arrived?”

  “Wait, Sky’s already started talking to it?” Mez growls, pulling up short.

  A red flap, and then Sky appears—from behind them. Like he’s been spying on them for a while. “Calm, calm. I introduced myself to the boto just a short time ago. I wanted to make sure that she did not go off hunting for fish before we had a chance to speak to her.”

  “Yes,” comes the voice from behind the curtain of brown mist. “I do not wish to tarry too long answering silly questions from youngsters.”

  “Will you reveal yourself to us?” Sky asks in the direction of the boto’s voice.

  “Of course I will. One thing you learn at my age is not to stand on formalities.”

  Gogi watches the curtain of mist, waiting for it to part. But it just continues to fall. Cicadas drone loudly in the clearing, and he starts feeling a little light-headed. Chumba and Mez are panting, and Lima’s wings are droopy. They haven’t seen water clean enough to drink in some time.

  “Where is this dodo?” Chumba asks out of the side of her mouth.

  “Boto,” Mez corrects under her breath.

  “I used to be known as a river dolphin,” the voice comes again. “Though the two-legged creatures that once called me that are long dead.”

  “Oh!” Lima says in surprise. “T
here you are!”

  With a gurgling sound, the muck before them shifts and the boto—at least that’s what Gogi assumes he’s seeing—appears, half in and half out of the water. She’s a strange-looking fish, about the size of Mez and Chumba, with broad flippers, a bulbous sort of head, a long snout like an anteater’s, and no gills that Gogi can see. She’s got a hole on the top of her head! Strangest of all is that where her body isn’t covered in gooey mud, it’s pink.

  “Oh my gosh, you’re so ugly-cute. I want to take you home and keep you!” Lima squeals.

  The boto was about to say something else, but she closes her long-toothed mouth.

  “Please forgive us,” Sky says, bowing and laying his wings across the ground deferentially. “We mean no offense.”

  “I’ve never been called ‘ugly-cute’ before,” the boto says. “Not in all my thousand-odd years.” She pauses, taking in the sight of the shadowwalkers, then sinks a little in the mud. Gogi worries that she’s going to leave, but then she speaks again: “I think I kind of like it.”

  “I’m surprised no one’s ever called you that before!” Lima says, hopping to a large branch sticking out of the swamp in front of the boto. “I think you’re adorable. I’m a bat that flies during the day. Have you ever seen one of those before? It’s pretty cool too, don’t you think?”

  “You’ve really been alive for a thousand years?” Gogi asks the boto. He counts on his fingers. “Even putting all our ages together, I don’t think it makes a thousand.”

  “It makes more like ten,” Rumi says patiently.

  “Oh yes,” says the boto. “I’ve been alive at least that long. Though to be honest I’ve lost track of the years.”

  “You are said to be the oldest animal in all of Caldera,” Sky says, getting up onto his claws and turning to one side so that he can look at the boto better. Predators like Mez and Lima have eyes that look forward, the better to train on their prey, while herbivores like Sky have eyes on either side of their head, the better to see a wide area around them. Sky’s are unusually extreme. Gogi realizes it’s part of what makes having a conversation with him hard—it always seems he’s looking at you sideways.

  “We are hoping that you might help us, great boto,” Sky continues. “A horrific menace plagues the rainforest.”

  The boto ignores him and keeps her focus on Lima. “You’re right, little bat. I’ve never seen one of your kind up and about during the day.”

  “Oh yes, I’m a bat, for sure. And I get some funny looks for dayflying, let me tell you. But I can be up during the day because we’re shadowwalkers, all of us, well, except Chumba, but she’s great anyway, you should really get to know her. Shadowwalking means we were born during the solar eclipse, and now Rumi, that tree frog over there, has discovered that there’s going to be a lunar eclipse in thirteen days. An ellipse eclipse. The next time the moon is full—you can look up in the sky whenever you want to keep track. We’re hoping to use the magical energies of the lunar eclipse to put a stop to the Ant Queen once and for all. She’s an ancient evil that seems pretty much invulnerable—maybe you’ve heard of her?”

  The boto nods, a slight smile on her face. “Yes, I’ve heard of the Ant Queen.”

  “So apparently there’s this lens?” Lima prattles on, gesticulating wildly with her wings. “That the two-legs developed to harness the magical power of the eclipse? And it’s missing? Hey, why does your head have that huge bump on it? And why do you have a hole on your back? Does it hurt? Why are you pink? I’ve never seen a pink animal before that hadn’t just been born.”

  “Lima, shh,” Gogi says, with an embarrassed smile toward the boto. “One question at a time.”

  The boto looks up, making herself appear slightly cross-eyed. “This bump? It’s for my sonar. Just like your echolocation, little bat.”

  “Oh wow, you can echolocate too! Cool!”

  “But as a river dolphin, you must send out a quieter sound than Lima does, because otherwise you’d get too much information back to process,” Rumi says. “The water is so clogged with debris that you probably get enough from just a few feet’s worth of data.”

  “Who said that?” asks the boto, head swiveling.

  Rumi waves a yellow hand.

  “You’re quite right, little tree frog,” the boto says. “That’s quite a mind, for such a small brain.”

  “Um, thanks, I guess?” Rumi says.

  “So, this lens—” Gogi starts to say.

  “—and the pinkness? Why are you pink?” Lima interrupts.

  “We don’t start out pink,” the boto says, “but as the days go by, we bump into many things, and the abrasions cause our skin to turn pink. I am very old, so I am very pink.”

  “Your honorable boto-ness,” Sky says, “forgive my being insistent, but it is very important that we obtain this lens before it is too late.”

  “And what about you?” the boto asks Lima. “What color are you? I see mostly shapes, not too much color.”

  “Black’s my color!” Lima says. “I never really thought about why. I guess it’s good for me to match the night sky, since night is when I hunt. That way it’s hard for the bugs to see me.”

  The boto nods her bulbous head. “That’s a very likely explanation, in my considerable experience.”

  “The lens, please—” Mez tries.

  “In due time,” the boto says, lifting one of her broad fins. “I am not here simply to dole out information to any ignorant young animal who wanders by, you know. A dayflying bat is something I’ve never seen, and having lived as long as I have, things I’ve never seen are in rare supply.”

  “My sister is a panther who can walk during the day,” Chumba offers, flicking her tail toward Mez.

  But the boto isn’t interested in the panthers. She keeps her attention on Lima. “Tell me, little bat, what do you plan to do with this lens?”

  Lima suddenly looks nervous. “I’m not sure I am going to do anything with it. I’ll leave that to the others. But we’ve got this plan, that the lens will help stop . . . the . . . We told you this, right? That at the eclipse, that . . . um, help me out, guys, I’m losing track of the details of all this.”

  “I understand your intentions,” the boto says. “But they are riskier than you may know. The lens is the most powerful magical item in the history of our rainforest. It has tremendous destructive power . . . and the power to do tremendous good, too. But the two-legs, as you call them—I know them by their forgotten old name, which is a story for another time—hid it away, knowing its potential to do much evil in the wrong hands. They secreted it so far away, and placed so many safeguards on it, that it was ultimately their doom. Once they needed the lens, they simply couldn’t get to it in time.”

  “Is it too hard to reach even now?” Gogi asks. “The queen is making her way across Caldera. We might already be too late to stop her.”

  “Little monkey, who tried to protect me from the bat’s many questions, I can see you are the beating heart of your group. Do not worry.”

  Gogi breathes a sigh of relief.

  “If you are meant to die now, there is nothing you can do about it.”

  “Oh.”

  “After the two-legs locked her away for centuries, the Ant Queen certainly harbors a hatred of all vertebrates, and if she wants to return the rainforest to a time when there are again only ants and other insects, then there is no stopping her. But yes,” the boto says, groaning as she shifts position in the water. “The lens can be reached, though the way is perilous. It is far from here, at the northern edge of Caldera.”

  “We all grew up thinking that Caldera didn’t have an edge,” Gogi says.

  “Of course it has an edge,” says the boto. “Otherwise it wouldn’t need to be called Caldera. You only have a name, monkey, because there are other monkeys to talk to you. I don’t have a name, because I am the last of my kind. Caldera is called Caldera only because there is something outside it that needs to call it Caldera.”

&
nbsp; Gogi scratches his head while Rumi nods sagely. “I’ve often thought just this,” the frog says. “I thought I was the only one!”

  “The last time any animal came to me searching for the lens was hundreds of years ago, and she never returned,” the boto continues. “The lens is secreted away very high up on the northern cliffs and guarded by a series of riddles. Perhaps it has other sorts of guardians as well. I don’t know, because I have never been there. As you can imagine, it is difficult for a dolphin to climb a cliff face.”

  Gogi chuckles politely. “That was a good joke, boto.”

  “So only one among us who can fly should make the journey,” Sky proposes, preening his chest feathers before looking up.

  “Yes, I would agree,” the boto says.

  “Or one of us who would be good at riddles,” Mez says, casting a sideways look at Rumi.

  “Also that,” the boto says, turning to swim away. “Yes. Good luck!”

  “Before you go,” Lima asks, “only if you wouldn’t mind—do you have anything else to share that might help us? Anything at all?”

  “Why, yes,” the boto says. “What a smart question, little bat. I believe I do have something to share, for a nice bat like you. I will tell you three things: One, I like to eat just about any kind of fish there is in the whole rainforest. Two, my kind came from a large ocean, eons ago, and were trapped here in the jungle when the land shifted to close us in. Three, there is one other thing you might consider in your quest. You have heard of the Dismal Bog?”

  Lima shakes her head. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Well, there’s no reason you should go there. It is the dankest, dreariest, quietest part of all the rainforest. That bog is the only place where there are no ants at all. I haven’t seen a single one in all the years I have swum by it.”

  “Not a single one?” Lima squeaks.

  “Not one.”

  “That’s strange,” Lima says. “Do you have any idea why?”

  “I’m afraid not. But it seems to me that it would be worth investigating.”

  “I have had visions of the Dismal Bog,” Sky says. “Any animal who enters that swamp goes mad. They face their greatest fear, and no one can survive that. No one has ever returned from there. It is a fool’s mission.”