The Lost Rainforest #2

by Eliot Schrefer

  Sky’s voice comes rumbling up from beneath Gogi’s viewpoint. “Rumi, look! The cliffs!”

  The macaw has turned a corner, and through Sky’s left eye Gogi can see sheer rock rising from the shore. “We’ve done it!” Rumi says. “We’re about to have our answer!”

  Gogi begins to sense little pricks of fire under Sky’s feathers. It’s a familiar sensation—ants must be biting the macaw. But how is a bird, flying high in the sky, getting attacked by ants? Maybe he’s got bird lice or something. Still, why would they be biting now? And why hasn’t he felt anything else from Sky’s body during this vision? Very weird.

  He’s soon distracted from such thoughts by the sight of the cliffs. Sky starts at sea level, riding the currents, then streaks almost vertically up the cliff face, wind fluttering his feathers and blurring his eyes. It’s exhilarating and overwhelming and suddenly Gogi wants to be back in his own body. Sky continues to soar upward until he alights at a cave opening. Out of the side of Sky’s vision, Gogi sees Rumi hop down, the frog’s tiny yellow body springing along the rocks.

  “We’ve found it,” Rumi says. “The Cave of Riddles.”

  Gogi watches with Sky as he takes in the carved stone roof, covered with unknowable two-leg symbols. Rumi hops to them, running his hands over the raised surfaces. “I can try to interpret at least some of these,” Rumi says. “But it will take time.”

  “Time is what we don’t have,” Sky grumbles. “The eclipse is only two nights away now.”

  “Well, if this is a cave of riddles, it might pay to get as much information as we can before we go in,” Rumi says. “We can only answer a riddle that we understand.” He hops onto Sky’s head to get to one of the carvings that are higher up, and Gogi is struck by two things: He never thought Sky would tolerate anyone standing on his head, and tree frog butts look really funny up close. Like a shiny, unripe plum.

  “I don’t know, I’d feel better if we headed inside right away,” Sky says, vision tilting as he shifts nervously from leg to leg.

  Wait and figure out everything you can about the riddles, Gogi silently implores Rumi. We’ll be all right. Don’t go risking yourself needlessly.

  “Okay,” Rumi says, nodding his little frog head. “We’ll go in. If you think that’s best.”

  No! Gogi tries to yell out. But of course Sky and Rumi can’t hear him. And the annoying pricks of fire have become more than annoying. They’re searing now, a pain down his legs, between his fingers and toes. Wait—between his fingers? Birds don’t have fingers!

  Suddenly Gogi is awake. The cave is full of twilight, droplets glowing. It’s beautiful—for a split second. Then the horror of the scene hits him.

  Ants have found them.

  Gogi sees Lima first. She’s still got her wing on the tail feather, and her eyes are shut. Ants are crawling all over her—army ants, from the look of it, clay-colored beasts with talonlike mandibles half the size of their bodies. They’ve dug into her abdomen and ears, her skin puckering beneath their piercing jaws. Mez, still touching the feather too, is passed out while the attackers crawl over her fur.

  Gogi understands why he was able to break from the vision—fighting the biting ants must have brought his dreaming body out of contact with the feather. He springs to all fours, trying to shake himself free of the ants even as he uses his tail to pluck Lima away from the feather. Disregarding the mandibles digging into his own soft fingertips, he rubs the army ants from her little body. Then he backs up so he can push Mez away from the feather, too.

  Her eyes snap open to see Gogi with Lima’s limp body, both of them covered in ants. “We’re under attack!” Gogi cries.

  “Where’s Chumba?” Mez asks frantically. Gogi follows her eyes as she looks around—and sees Chumba just waking from daycoma, eyes fluttering open, covered in ants in the corner of the cave. The ants are swarming thickly enough to cover her nose, her eyelids.

  “You haul her out, and I’ll bring Lima. Into the water at the front, now!” Gogi says.

  Mez digs her teeth into the nape of her sleepy sister’s neck while Gogi races to the waterfall. He splashes through, into the lagoon. Once he’s there he dunks Lima’s body, again and again, watching ants float up to the surface. Mez is right after him, splashing into the water, dragging yowling Chumba along. They huddle in the center of the pond, shaking ants from them as best they can. Chumba comes fully awake, staring around her in pain and surprise.

  “Lima? Lima?” Gogi says, pressing his ear against the bat’s little mouth. She’s breathing shallowly, face writhing in agony as the ants’ poison courses through her body.

  “Upriver!” Mez calls. “We’ll tend to her up there. The ants are swarming the banks here—we have to move!”

  “You don’t need to ask twice, Mez,” Gogi says as he strokes Lima. He turns in a tight circle, his back against Mez’s and Chumba’s, and sees that she’s right: this whole area is thick with ants, and more are streaming in every second. “Let’s move.”

  “Oh, I don’t know that anyone needs to go anywhere,” comes a voice from behind a mess of ferns at the far bank. “You might have defeated Big Rumi, but I don’t think you’ll find me nearly as easy an adversary.”

  Gogi watches Mez go slack in the jaw. The calico panther sinks in the shallow water, pressing protectively against her sister and pawing at the air in alarm. “No, this can’t be,” she says.

  Whose voice is that? Gogi wonders as he scans the bank. He looks in the greenery, trying to place the voice. It’s a panther, he’s pretty sure, but he’s not sure which one. Then he sees a figure, all white, emerge from the greenery to perch on a rocky promontory looking over the shallow pond.

  It’s Mez and Chumba’s cousin.

  Mist.

  A circlet of ants marches along his forehead, between and into his ears.

  Mist is working for the Ant Queen.

  GOGI’S MIND RACES. They’ve been ambushed by the Ant Queen’s forces. And those forces appear to be led by Mist.

  After Lima, Chumba seems to have gotten the worst of the ants’ toxin. Even though she’s awake, her eyes are unfocused, her limbs quivery and uncoordinated. Mez props her sister up, so that her head is safely above water. Then she slowly turns toward Mist, who is surrounded by the swarms of ants. She lets no emotion onto her features as she coolly takes in her cousin. Gogi can imagine the torrent of feelings passing inside Mez. If this had been Alzo, say, turned traitor, Gogi would be tearing his own hair out, teeth bared. But stillness and calmness is the panther way, and Mez has only gotten better and better at it.

  This is Gogi’s first time meeting the all-white panther. Mist had been famously beautiful, and panthers had come from across Caldera just to see him, but a boar attack left one side of his face ravaged, with an entire cheek missing, exposing yellowing teeth to the air.

  Mez had said that Mist was frantic and rattled when she’d seen him last. It doesn’t look that way now. Mist has regained his regal air, shows no sign of alarm or hysteria, looks down at them with a cruel and glittering gaze.

  It’s hard to meet the white panther’s imperious stare, but Gogi forces himself. He extends a hand and pops a flame above it, as a warning. It smokes and fizzles over his wet fur, but eventually holds. He clears his throat. “Call off your minions.”

  “What are you doing here, Mist?” Mez asks neutrally. Gogi has a vision of how he and his friends must look—bedraggled, suddenly awoken from their dream visit, surrounded by the enemy, sitting in the middle of a pond that’s really more of a mud puddle. Not exactly imposing. Mez is somehow holding on tight to her dignity. Gogi tries to mimic her regal expression.

  “Thank you for starting with such an easy question,” Mist says, exposing a stretch of sharp teeth as he licks a paw. “I’m here to destroy you. You will not resist the Ant Queen.”

  “You don’t mean that you’ve . . . ,” Mez says.

  “Aunt Usha rejected me. You all rejected me. You kept me around when I was beautiful. But you co
uldn’t even stand to look at me after the attack.”

  “That’s not true,” Mez says. “How you look has nothing to do with it. But I do know this: You fled when we needed you most. And now you’re working for the enemy.”

  Mist laughs. “Don’t be so juvenile. The Ant Queen is not our enemy. She’s our new leader. Her rule is inevitable. If you were wise, you’d join me.”

  “Ants? Why would you turn from your own kind for ants?”

  “I was rejected by my own kind, Mez. The ants don’t care about what I look like. I am my queen’s most important ally. I recruit her other collaborators, I manage the overtaking of Caldera. I deal with problem animals. Like you.”

  “You’re helping her to destroy everything that makes Caldera beautiful. It makes no sense. You’ll be in charge of—what? A mess of ruined earth?”

  “Once the Ant Queen has mown down the existing order, she will create a new one. Those animals who helped her will be allowed to survive and repopulate. We will create a new society, an orderly society, unlike this chaotic every-animal-for-its-own one we have put up with for too long. The Ant Queen will be at its center. And I will be by her side.”

  “Never. You don’t really think she’ll follow through on that, do you? She betrayed Auriel, right in front of us. She’ll use you up, and then discard you,” Mez says. “You’ve always been too self-centered to see the real motives of those around you. You’re blinded yet again.”

  Mist hisses and shakes his head. “You’re the one who’s blinded. I hope you will see the truth soon, before it’s too late. The Ant Queen is the only answer.”

  Mez scoffs. “You don’t really think we’ll side with you and the Ant Queen!”

  “You won’t have any choice. Not once I’ve brought you all to her.”

  Mez falls into a fighting stance, head down and claws out. “Never.”

  “You’ve always been dense, cousin. You’re surrounded by billions of ants. You have no options here.”

  “Shows how much you know,” Gogi says hotly, pointing to the woven bag around his chest. “I’ll tell you that—”

  “—that we are ready to fight,” Mez interrupts, with a pointed look at Gogi.

  “Then fight you will,” Mist snarls, hackles rising.

  Gogi readies a ball of fire in his palm, sizzling the night air.

  “No,” Mez says. “This is a fight of honor. Let me take him alone, Gogi.”

  “Honor? From Mist?” Gogi says. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Enough, you brainless monkey,” Mist says. “I will fight by the old rules.” He laughs at himself. “I am still Usha’s son, I guess.”

  “She would never have you back,” Mez says while she pulls herself out of the water, only a few paces away from Mist.

  “I do not want to come back, cousin,” Mist says.

  “Are you sure about this silly ‘honor’ thing, Mez?” Gogi calls over.

  But she ignores him, too focused on Mist. The two cats are wheeling around each other, snarling and snapping, both producing low yowls that make Gogi’s skin break out in bumps.

  Mez lunges to the attack. She leaps into the air, claws raking forward, jaws reaching for Mist’s neck.

  He’s too agile, though. Mist drops to the grassy earth, turning onto his back while Mez goes soaring over him. Then he’s sprung to his feet, flashing after her. The streak of white is impossibly fast, and before Gogi can react Mist has his jaws on Mez’s backside, his powerful claws clamped into her soft black fur.

  Despite Mez’s telling him to keep out of it, Gogi staggers toward them through the swamp, Lima still gripped in his tail.

  Mez vanishes, and even though Mist knows about her magic, the move obviously startles him. His claws scramble over her invisible form, straining, and then Mez must have pulled free, because Mist is whirling, nose twitching and eyes darting.

  With a smack and a roar, Mist is pushed down into the mud, his coat instantly muddied. He squirms, head pressed into the muck by Mez, invisible above him. He thrashes, trying to free himself, but Mez has him locked down. Will she go in for the kill, even though Mist is her own cousin?

  The ants circling Mist’s head are going even faster than before. “Mez, wherever you are,” Gogi calls, “Mist is communicating with the ants!”

  Suddenly Mist springs up from the mud, and Mez goes visible. Chumba, where she’s limp on the shore, is now completely covered with ants, so much so that her calico fur is almost invisible under the teeming, glittering mass.

  Mez staggers over to her sister and begins using her tongue to get as many ants off as she can. “Enough,” she gasps. “Mist, call them off!”

  “Are you sure?” he asks, coughing, shaking off mud from his fur. “Are you sure I shouldn’t just command them to sting?”

  “Mist!” Mez shrieks, quivering. “Release her. You promised this would be an honorable battle.”

  “It would have been honorable,” he says icily, “until you went invisible and pressed my face into the mud. You started this.”

  “Please, Mist,” Mez sobs. “Call them off Chumba. I submit. Whatever you want. Feed me to the Ant Queen. Just let her live.”

  “Now, now, cousin,” Mist says. “I didn’t need you to grovel.”

  “Get them off her,” Gogi says.

  “I will not,” Mist says. “But I will not have them sting.”

  The ensuing silence goes long. Mist looks at them suspiciously, gauging how much he might not know.

  Before Mist can ask any difficult questions, Gogi lets out a jet of fire, sending it fizzling and steaming dramatically into the water. He holds up the limp body of Lima and points to Chumba, weak, her eyes half-lidded. “If your queen wants to talk to the shadowwalkers, she’ll be upset if you let any of them die,” he says. “Help us help Lima and Chumba. Otherwise you’ll have to be the one to break the bad news to her.”

  Mist looks back and forth between the companions, measuring them up. “The bat will recover.”

  “You may be right, if you let us help her,” Gogi presses. “And Chumba, too.”

  “The queen has no use for an unfit panther,” Mist says flatly.

  “That’s really something, coming from you,” Gogi says.

  “If you have any hope of getting me to your queen alive, then you definitely do have use for Chumba,” Mez growls, baring her teeth.

  “What do you need to help the bat get better?” Mist asks, cocking his head to one side.

  “We need your ants to stand down and leave,” Gogi tries.

  Mist laughs. “I’m not as stupid as a monkey, so don’t try to play me for one. Go ahead. Help your bat friend. My ants will not stop you. We’ll wait. Then you’ll come with us to the queen.”

  Mez shoots Gogi a look: Buying time is the best we can do.

  Gogi sits near the edge of the muddy pond, where it’s shallow enough to rest his butt. The ants are all around the water’s edge, waving their antennae, but they don’t approach any closer. Mez stands guard right beside him, hovering over Chumba even as her eyes never leave Mist on his rocky outcropping.

  Gogi examines Lima. It’s bad. The many ant bites on her tiny body have become raised and puffy, the ones on her face squishing and distorting her features. “Water . . . ,” she says in barely a whisper.

  “Of course,” Gogi says. He cups some of the pond water and brings it to Lima’s lips. He lets some dribble in. She swallows weakly. “Do you think you can heal yourself somehow?” Gogi asks.

  “It’s hard . . . to lick myself,” Lima whispers.

  Gogi can’t help but smile. “I understand. But you’re Lima the Healing Bat!”

  Lima coughs. “Who’s that creepy voice you’re talking to?”

  “Don’t you worry about him yet. Just worry about getting better,” Gogi says. Gently, he takes his pinkie finger and runs it along the edge of Lima’s mouth, so he gets a bead of her saliva on it. He takes it and presses it against the nearest bite. Immediately, the
raised bite goes down, the angry red color fading to an irritated pink. Tears in his eyes, Gogi does it again and again, until most of Lima’s bites have subsided.

  “It’s working,” Mez says, relieved.

  “It’s Lima, the Healing Bat!” Gogi sings softly, stroking her wing. “Ferocious-er than a piranha! Scarier than a cat!”

  A smile crosses Lima’s face. “You have to admit, that song is kind of amazing. I think I’m going to sleep for a bit now.” Her breathing goes soft and regular, and her eyes close.

  “Now what?” Gogi whispers to Mez.

  “We could try some of her saliva on Chumba, but her condition isn’t as dire. Chumba really just needs to rest,” Mez whispers back.

  “Now you come with me,” Mist commands.

  Gogi looks up. The rainforest is throbbing and vibrating with ants. They’re running along every branch, streaming across every leaf. If Mist ordered them to attack, it would be over very quickly.

  Mez nods wearily. “We’ll submit,” she says to Mist. For now, her eyes say to Gogi.

  “Come on the shore,” Mist says. “As long as you do not resist, my ants will not harm you.”

  “How can we trust you?” Mez asks.

  “You don’t really have much choice, do you?” Mist says.

  Gogi sighs. “He’s right. Let’s go.” Despite his words, he gets ready to use his fire. If this is the end, he’ll take as many of the ants as he can with him—and that hateful panther, too.

  Mez is the first onto the bank. The nearby ants approach her paws and begin to crawl into her fur. “Mist, call them off,” she snarls.

  “Oh no,” her cousin says from his perch. “I will not.”

  She backs into the pond again, eyes wide with fear. “You lied!”

  “I did not,” Mist says. “If you don’t resist, they won’t hurt you. But they’ll march with you, next to your skin, ready to inject their venom. Of course I know you’ll try to escape as soon as you can. The ants in your fur are my insurance. Really, Mez, you must think I’m as stupid as that monkey.” He casts the last few words in Gogi’s direction.

  “Enough with the ‘stupid monkey’ bit!” Gogi mutters as he steps onto the shore. The ants are instantly in his fur, climbing his legs and belly. Instinct tells him to swat them off, but he forces his arms to stay by his side. He’ll have to tolerate the intolerable if he wants to survive. If he wants his friends to survive.