“Or the wrong direction, riiight?” Lima says. “Get it? Wrong if you’re the Ant Queen, ha-ha.”
“Yes, Lima,” Chumba says patiently. “We get it.”
“With Big Rumi out of the way, and that other, mystery henchman nowhere to be seen, this squad of ants doesn’t have a leader,” Gogi says. “They’re just milling around, spreading the fungus and losing numbers whenever more berserking happens. They need a nudge onto the right path. Then they’ll start on their way.”
“Is that so?” Mez says, a teasing smile on her face.
“Look, we don’t have to do my plan,” Gogi says. “Does anyone have anything better to offer?”
Mez shakes her head. “I don’t, sorry.”
“Me neither,” Lima says.
“Lead the way, Gogi,” Chumba says. “We’ll follow you.”
“Okay,” Gogi says, sniffing and drawing up to his full height. “See that rotten tree overlooking the zombie ant horde?”
“Yes,” Mez says dryly, “it’s hard to overlook the zombie ant horde.”
“But the tree behind them, do you see that?” Gogi asks.
“Yep.”
“Here’s what I’m thinking: I’ll send some flame over there, fire it up, get it good and smoking and red, then set the embers falling. That should chase the ants the opposite way.”
“Toward the rising sun!” Lima says, wings out wide.
“Well, that was a touch dramatic,” Mez says.
“We’ll basically set the two armies on a collision course,” Lima says, ignoring her.
“I just want to officially state that I don’t think this will go as planned,” Mez says. “But we don’t have many other options, so count me in. Gogi, will you do the honors?”
“Wow, thanks for the rousing pep talk, Mez,” Gogi says. He takes a deep, centering breath, readying himself. He’s still feeling a little overtaxed by the fire he produced rescuing Mez, and this new stream will need to travel over a very long distance. But at least the ants have done him a favor by being so ravenous. They’ve hollowed out this tree so much that it looks almost shaggy, bits of dried-out bark dangling over the edge of the horde.
“Keep back, guys,” Gogi says. Then, once he feels his friends snuggled to his rear on the tree limb, he sends his fire out into the night.
It’s a frail and tender arc of orange, not much to see, but enough to light up the gnashing destruction of the scene below. Gritting his teeth, brows furrowed, Gogi wills the flame farther into the night, pitching it higher when it falls short, sizzling bodies of dead ants below. He directs it yet higher, so it forms a rainbow of flame, finally landing on the rotten tree at the far side of the ants.
Nothing happens.
“Keep going, Gogi, you’re doing great, it will start working any second now,” Lima urges.
Sweat runs into Gogi’s eyes, and his arms start to ache. He shuts his eyes against the pain and feels Mez use the top of her head to gently support his arms so that he can more easily keep the flame focused on the ants.
Chumba gasps.
Gogi opens his eyes.
The tree has caught fire.
At first it’s rimmed in a ruddy aura, then the flames join and turn other colors—yellow and orange and red and finally blue and white. Gogi feels his energy peter out. With an anguished cry, he lets his stream of flame drop.
The companions watch as, with a roaring, snapping sound, the rotten tree wavers in the air—then plummets right into the teeming insects.
The night air seems to mist, as ants—dead and alive—are flung up from the earth. The remaining ants become frantic before the fiery tree, the light glinting off them as they crawl over one another, desperate to escape.
“Wow!” Lima exclaims. “That was something!”
Exhausted, Gogi slumps on the branch, wrapping his tail around it twice in case his quivering limbs fail to keep him upright.
“It’s hard to know where they’re going yet,” Chumba says, squinting as she stares into the horde. “But Gogi, that fire was amazing!”
“Thanks,” Gogi manages to say.
“Um, guys?” Lima says.
“Yes, Lima, isn’t it wonderful?” Chumba asks.
“No. I mean, yes, it’s wonderful it worked, but have you guys, um, have you guys noticed thattheantsaregoing thewrongwaywe’reallgoingtodie?”
Gogi snaps his head up. “What do you mean?” Then he sees the ants’ course. “Oh. Everyone, I think we, I think we’d better—”
“RUN!” Mez screams.
“FLY!” Lima screams.
Eyes wide with fear, Mez is first down the tree, followed by Chumba. Lima sails into the night as Gogi races down the trunk, missing hand- and footholds as often as he makes them, bashing his chin against an unexpected branch.
Once he hits the bottom, he’s struck by sudden nightblindness, unable to see anything around him. All the same, he can hear the roaring tumult, can sense the horde of ants rolling toward him. But he’s not sure exactly what direction they’re coming from. “Mez? Chumba?” he cries.
“This way, Gogi!” Lima calls. He takes off toward her.
He’s aware of fiery points on his legs and arms, and he realizes the ants must have been crawling up him while he was trying to catch his bearings. He wiggles his bum as he runs, hoping to shake them off, but they’re tenacious. As Gogi barrels forward, strange shapes loom out of the night, some of them still and some of them moving—some of them the great tide of ants themselves, racing alongside him.
Lima keeps up her streaming chirps, leading him through the night. He becomes aware of a calico blur in front of him and realizes it’s Chumba, sprinting. “Chumba,” he calls, “I’m right behind you!”
“Hurry, Gogi!” she calls back, not sparing a moment to look over her shoulder.
“I’m coming!” he says. He knows that panthers are like monkeys, that they can sprint, but not run long distances without getting winded. They’re faster than the ant horde right now, but how much longer can he and Chumba—and Mez, who he hopes is running right beside her sister—run before they stumble and collapse, and the ants take them?
Lima chirps something out, but the words are lost behind the dull roar of the insects. “What did she say?” he calls to Chumba.
“I’m not sure,” Chumba pants as Gogi catches up alongside her. “It might have been something about a river?”
“Look out!” comes Mez’s voice, from literally out of nowhere. Gogi trips over something furry and warm (Mez, he realizes) and goes sprawling in the grass. Wait—grass! They must be out of the ruined zone.
“You’re the one who’s invisible,” Gogi protests as he drags himself to his feet and sets his aching muscles moving again. “I think you need to look out for me. And Chumba, what did you say? Something about a riv—”
Splash.
As one, Gogi, Chumba, and Mez tumble into inky water. He’s instantly submerged, and he feels writhing claws around him as the sisters struggle to the surface. When Gogi’s legs hit the murky, slimy bottom, he instinctively kicks off, sending himself sputtering into the night air. He gasps and starts stroking, treading water and turning in a slow circle, waiting to hear Lima’s voice. And, sure enough, she’s right nearby. “This way, Gogi.”
He swims through the water, thick with mud and silt, until he’s at the far bank, where he pulls himself out. Lima’s there right away; he can feel her wing beats as she flutters around him. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he says, waving her off.
“No, you’re not.” He feels a familiar warmth suffuse him as she heals his arms and legs. “You got really scratched up in there.”
“It’s our fault, I’m sorry,” comes Mez’s voice. About half her usual size now that she’s wet through, Mez shakes herself out and huddles near.
Chumba, equally bedraggled, joins her. “We were fighting to get to the surface and we cut you pretty bad,” she says. “Keep healing Gogi, Lima. We’re fine.”
Gogi lies back, grateful th
at he can’t see his own wounds. He’s not too squeamish around the sight of blood, unless it’s his own. Then he’s quite squeamish. “So, what’s the status of the ants?” he asks.
Lima takes a break from healing, and instantly Gogi’s wounds flare to life, arcs of pain lighting up on his thighs and upper arms. Lima gives him a few more healing licks before speaking again. “Wow. That was a lot of ants to echolocate at once.”
“So . . . ?” Gogi asks.
“I don’t know how to break this to you guys, but . . . it’s not good. The healthy ants have found a way to deal with the sick ones. You can see it happening—it’s right across the bank.”
Startled, Gogi sits up.
“No, you should rest,” Mez says.
“I need to see.”
Lima points to a bush overhanging the other side of the river, where ants are teeming. “Can you illuminate the highest branches?”
Gogi does.
A trail of healthy ants is carrying what appear to be bits of flecked rock up the branches, until they get to the very top. Then they drop them, tinkling, into the water. Gogi squints. Not rock. Ants.
“They’re moving the infected ants away from the rest,” he murmurs.
“And preventing the fungus from spreading further,” Mez says. “Well, I’ll be.”
“So we failed,” Gogi says, wincing as he lies back down.
“We failed to spread it to the rest of the horde, sure,” Chumba says. “But we discovered that the fungus will work for a short while. And if we can use the other stick on the Ant Queen . . .”
“We did take out Big Rumi,” Lima adds. “That’s not for nothing. And the river we fell into has bought us some time. The ants don’t seem to have figured out a way across yet, and are streaming around to either side. The river dams up a ways north, so eventually they’ll make their way around to us. In the meantime, we have to put as much distance as we can between us and them, and there’s only one direction that will allow us to do that—east.”
“Going deeper into enemy territory.” Gogi sighs.
“And closer to the Ant Queen with our one remaining fungus stick,” Mez adds.
“We can’t move Gogi yet, though,” Chumba says. “He’s wounded.”
“No. I’ll be all right. We need to get moving.” Gogi sits up, and then inhales sharply. “Okay, maybe a few more minutes of healing first. If you insist.”
Two Nights Until the Eclipse
BY THE TIME the Veil’s near its next lifting, Gogi is so tired that he can barely make his arms and legs keep moving. Every step sends pain arcing up through his palms, jangling his hips and shoulders. His eyes prick, and his head feels like it’s been stuffed with scarlet milkweed.
Even Mez, the most stoic of the group, seems to be suffering. She slows, and her paws begin to drag on the ground, snagging on roots and tendrils. Chumba shows no sign of tiring, but each time Mez stumbles, Chumba’s tail thrashes. “She needs to rest,” Chumba finally says, after Mez snags her ear on a passing thorn, bringing a drop of blood welling to the edge. “No matter how far we are supposed to get tonight. We’ll only hurt ourselves if we push too hard.”
“You’ll be in daycoma pretty soon anyway,” Gogi says, plopping down onto his haunches. “And I don’t have much fig left in the tree, as the capuchins say.”
“The horde we tried to infect is far back, and we haven’t come across more of the army yet, so I think we’ll be safe for the day,” Lima says, alighting on a nearby branch. “Well, we’ll have to hope we’ll be. Come on, I scouted out a good hiding spot not too much farther.”
Lima soars ahead. The rest drag themselves after her, shambling through the jungle until they come to a clearing. Accumulated rainwater flows down a boulder, tumbling through the air until it’s caught by a stream and whisked away. Lima’s voice comes from the far side of the water. “Come on in, friends! It goes surprisingly deep back here.”
“You know, usually I’m a bigger fan of dry caves, but since the ants hate water, wet is where I want to be,” Gogi says as he ducks his head behind the misty cascade. The cave behind the boulder does seem to go far back. It’s too dark to see much at all, but his voice echoes broadly. Mez and Chumba file in next to Gogi, dropping to the slick rock.
Gogi senses Chumba lowering her head, then hears the slower breathing of sleep. “The Veil must be lifting,” he says quietly. Though the misty falling water remains dark, he imagines the soft glow of dawn beyond it.
“I was thinking something, Gogi,” comes Lima’s voice, from right above his nose.
He jerks. “Lima, come on, don’t sneak up on a guy like that!”
She sniffs, wounded. “Bats like to be on the ceiling of a cave! And it’s not a tall cave! That’s your problem!”
“Sorry,” Gogi says, rubbing his face. “I’m really tired. What were you going to say?”
“I was going to say that I think maybe we should tell Rumi where we are. So that when he and Sky return with the lens, they come to the right spot.”
Gogi nods. “It’s a good idea, Lima. It’s about time we checked in on those two. Mez, are you up for it?”
Her voice is low and purring, right beside him. “Of course.”
Gogi pulls out the directive, laying the red feather along the grainy sand of the cave bottom. “You still have that echomap in your mind, Lima?” Gogi asks.
“Wouldn’t forget it,” Lima says, hopping to the sand beside the feather and placing a wing on top of it. “Let’s go, team.”
While he and Mez place a hand and a paw along the feather, Gogi fixes Lima with a shrewd look. “This time, give us a countdown before you call up the echo—”
The cave is gone.
Instead, Gogi’s at the beach. At least he assumes this is what a beach is—he’s never actually seen one before. It’s like he’s beside a giant puddle. Under his feet isn’t the mud that he’d usually find beside a puddle, though—it’s gritty sand. And the puddle is huge. Impossibly big. It goes as far as his eyes can see, and has peaks and valleys, like wet clay. It’s all moving. There’s a rushing sound, like a giant creature breathing, as an impossibly large mass of water crashes onto the sand. A wet breeze comes off it, and it tastes like salt. Gogi’s mesmerized.
Above him wheel strange birds, bigger than the biggest eagle, all white with orange beaks. Smaller birds dash along the water’s edge, racing into the gaps the waves leave behind, sticking their narrow beaks into the sand and then running off again before the waves can return.
They’re so cute. Gogi wants to hold one in his hands. He takes a step toward them.
And doesn’t move.
Gogi looks down at his feet—and finds they’re not there! Instead he sees pebble-gray clawed feet, long red tail feathers.
Gogi himself isn’t there! Right. Like before.
Ah. He can see much more of his surroundings this time, but he’s still limited to what Sky can see. Probably all three of them are looking together through Sky’s eyes again.
“Still no sign of it,” comes a familiar voice from behind Gogi. Rumi! He must be riding on Sky’s back, the same position he was in last time, only this time Sky’s not looking back at him. Gogi wonders: Does Sky know they’re tuning in?
“Well, we’re not precisely at the northernmost part of Caldera,” Sky says. “We birds can sense the invisible lines that gird the planet, and there is still more land to magnetic north.”
“So you know that the planet is round!” Rumi says.
“Of course the planet is round,” Sky says. “What a silly thought.”
“I know! I read up about it on the ziggurat ruins. But you’d be surprised how many animals think it’s flat. Like they don’t realize that since the edge of the eclipse’s shadow over the sun was curved, so is our planet! And how many animals have you met that think that Caldera is all that there is?”
Of course they’re not standing on a round thing. And of course Caldera is all there is, Gogi thinks. Rumi and Sky have some crazy t
heories.
“I’ve never seen any land other than Caldera,” Sky says. “It could be all water out there beyond our borders.”
“Maybe those big white birds have some information,” Rumi says.
“I’m sure they do,” Sky says. “It would be interesting to talk to them, to learn what they know. But we’re getting sidetracked.”
“True, true,” Rumi says. “‘Knowledge for knowledge’s sake is not enough.’ I heard you the last five times. You don’t need to say it again.”
Gogi startles. It’s like Rumi and Sky are having a conversation they’ve had many times before, and enjoying it just as much as the first time. It’s like they’re . . . buddies. Weird. It’s time to let them know that he’s there. He opens his mouth to speak. But his mouth doesn’t open. Of course it doesn’t. Because it’s not his mouth. It’s Sky’s beak.
Gogi can look but not communicate this time. Huh. How can he tell them that the fungus works, but that they failed to make anything lasting come of it? The companions clearly still have far to go in figuring out how to make the best use of everyone’s powers.
Sky looks down and around, at his driftwood perch and then along the beach. This is Gogi’s first experience looking out through one eye at a time—since he was only looking at Rumi the time before, it didn’t really count. It lets him see everything around him, with only a small blind spot, but it’s hard to judge distances. The ocean is far away, but it’s unclear how distant the ground is. Oops—now they’re in the air.
Gogi’s stomach drops—he’s definitely not up to seeing everything around him in every direction whizzing by at high speed. But he can’t close his eyes, because his eyes aren’t there. Ugh. He has no control whatsoever. This will take some getting used to.
Rumi makes pleased ribbits from Sky’s backside. “Mmm, the ocean is almost a rain-cloud gray over here. And look at how the mangroves dot the waterline in some places but not others. Is that a fish jumping out of the ocean? It’s as large as a panther and looks like a gray boto! How fascinating!”
The Lost Rainforest #2 Page 14