Wilderness Untamed

by Butler, J. M.

  Whatever terrors she saw intensified. The people who appeared in her mind tormented her ceaselessly, resulting in her arguing and pleading for hours on end without any resolution. And he was helpless to do anything but protect and lead his family through this cursed place. It didn't all rest on his shoulders. He led because he had the most experience and the best sense for the alpha territories. Thus far, they had managed to skirt them. Plesiotaurs still had a distinct scent as did mosocryptoids, both unpleasant.

  A titanaboa slid by at one point, ignoring them and disappearing back into darkness. Bone wolves circled on the outskirts. They never quite came into sight, but they howled and yipped near night. Glow crabs skittered across the way more and more. The bavril scooped up any that came too close, dissolving them into dust within seconds. He occasionally nudged against Amelia with his shoulder.

  Her lucidity became increasingly sporadic. It wasn't that she was no longer herself. She was. In a way. It was her without any grounding in her surroundings. Somehow she remembered Proteus's cuts. Sometimes she put the salve on. Each time he had to stop her from putting it on places where there were no wounds. Best not to waste it. Sometimes she grew distressed, her brow tightening and her eyes welling with tears. More often, she seemed to lose the train of thought within the space of a few minutes.

  A pack of bone wolves attacked. They dealt with them swiftly. AaQar sustained the worst injuries to his leg. While WroOth and QueQoa went to scout around their path to see whether there were any other threats lurking too close, AaQar sat on a dead black log and focused his healing. Amelia slipped up beside him, hair disheveled and her sash half undone. She offered him the salve and fussed over him, her voice more natural and calm. Then she froze, her hand hovering over the lid. Her voice shook. "I don't—I don't remember your name. I know you, but I don't remember your name."

  Naatos dropped one of the large wolf corpses in front of the bavril. Its scales rattled. His gaze snapped back onto her. Distress filled her eyes, turning her muscles rigid.

  AaQar went silent too. He placed a bloody hand near her, the edge of his robe nearly obliterated from the sharp scales. "I'm AaQar, your brother. But it's all right. You don't have to worry about it."

  "I should though. I should have. I know you." She curled her fingers against her cheek. Bright red streaks appeared beneath her nails.

  Naatos crossed over to her and grasped her wrists, pushing AaQar aside. "Amelia, you can't hurt yourself in here. I can't heal you until we're out of this atmosphere. Otherwise you won't adjust fast enough to the environment."

  A weak laugh passed from her lips as she rocked back. "I'm sorry. I'm finding all the ways you can't heal me. I think. Or maybe that's just in my head too. I'm sorry."

  He frowned as he realized she had been chewing on her nails. They were down to the quick and bloodied at other points. The scars peeked out from beneath her collar and sleeves, but that blood scent caught his attention. His chest tightened. "Are you scratching yourself?" As he pulled back the fabric, he noted several scrapes and cuts. Some much deeper than they should have been. She'd torn at the scars. Obviously she'd done it swiftly, perhaps when she'd been hugging herself.

  She shook her head and then tugged back. "Stop staring at me like that. You have to do something about the dragons though. She asked for help. She had a human's voice. WroOth heard her."

  WroOth returned from the north, ducking to avoid a fallen tree. "What did I hear?" His boots scuffed on the ashy ground, scarcely leaving any trace.

  "The dragon. She asked for help. When we were trying to get away from the thing." She frowned as she looked at him.

  WroOth spread his arms. "I'm sorry, dear heart. I didn't hear anything. And wild dragons don't talk."

  Her eyes hardened as she glared at him. "She did."

  WroOth only shrugged, but his expression remained unchanged.

  Naatos dug a spare pair of black gloves out of his pack. It wasn't surprising. Earlier that day she'd been talking about hearing their cadre sleeping in a great stone chamber filled with sand, waiting for someone to wake them. "You should wear these."

  She flinched as she pulled away. "Why? Wait, no, you have to listen to me. This is important. And I keep trying to tell you. And it's—it's—" She stared at the gloves, her voice trailing off.

  Gently, he slid them over her hands and then tied the wrists so that they wouldn't fall off. She refused to look at him, her cheeks and neck flushed with bright streaks of red.

  Rage burned in his chest, expanding with each breath until it threatened to overtake him. It wasn't right that this was happening to her. She didn't deserve it. The madness of Dry Deep had swept over her too swiftly. It was picking her consciousness apart piece by piece like crows on a gibbeted corpse.

  And they all knew.

  Amelia too. She never slipped into some place pleasant or comforting. At best she fell into silence, staring unblinkingly ahead, motionless except for the pulse in her throat. The hope that in those moments she was resting or at least unaware of what was happening never lasted more than a few moments. It wasn't likely. Every Neyeb he'd spoken to told him that in the silence they fell apart.

  For some, it was good.

  For others, what came afterward could be good.

  For her, it was hell. And every day they spent in this place made it more likely that the memories sealed and deanimated would come undone. And after that? After that… the Ki Valo Nakar.

  There had to be something they could do.

  Something.

  Anything.

  Surely if he thought hard enough, searched long enough, something other than walking out of this place.

  Sometimes his brothers kuvasted him, but even that was limited. Fighting allowed some catharsis, but not enough. It offered no release to the rage that burned or the frustration that seethed.

  Amelia was right. He had changed here. He'd become more of who he had been. But watching her suffer like this? It was almost enough to make him curse his heart and boil away every ounce of softness that had formed. Especially when he cradled her and she lay there, twitching, unaware of him or unable to tear her gaze from the horrors of the deep.

  He cursed Elonumato each time he watched her stumble or falter. When panic edged her words and sent her reeling. When she started sobbing and pleading with someone to come back or to not kill someone. When she called for Elonumato.

  Most of all in those moments when she didn't know his name. Not simply because she was caught in some other part of her mind, trapped in a dismal hall or fetid marsh. The moments when she saw him and didn't recognize him in any way or form.

  The first time she lifted those dark eyes to his and simply froze shattered his heart.

  No knowledge shone in those eyes. No awareness. Just the rigid horror of a woman who had suddenly realized she was in some foul-smelling hell of grey darkness with neither daylight nor moonlight to guide her and in the company of four strange men and no idea why she was there.

  Maybe some shard of her will remained, holding her in place just enough to keep her from bolting. Some fragment of recognition. She could have run, but she didn't. She halted and then chose to keep going. Probably by the skin of her fingernails.

  But all this wasn't the worst.

  The worst was yet to come. It hung over him like a sword dangled by a rotten thread.

  But step by step, they were getting closer to the edge of Dry Deep. To Darmoste. To solutions.

  The bone wolves attacked more often. The plesiotaurs joined them on occasion. The massive reptiles usually came only one at a time. Unlike dragons, they had no crests or spikes. They slid through the Dry Deep with effortless ease, reminiscent of the plesiosauruses that dominated the oceans to the southeast. Packs of mosocryptoids with their crocodile jaws and crooked legs attacked from time to time, sets of two or three.

  None lasted long.

  His cadre was gone. His people. His friends. It had never reached him until now how precious it was to b
e able to seek out the wisdom

  When he had held watch over his brothers in the dark days of their loss, he had considered himself alone. Not recalling the soft knocks at the door and the whispered offers of aid in this heart-wrenching time. Twelve years of sorrow and grief, wondering at points whether there would ever be joy or happiness for either AaQar or WroOth or whether QueQoa would ever return. So much support in quiet hours, so easy to miss, and seeming so small compared to the grief and pain. Yet now, without them, he could no longer fail to see how essential and how much it had eased what had seemed like an endless period.

  He had his brothers now though.

  As dark as this was, more could be lost.

  And they were as helpless as he. He and AaQar combed through the Neyeb books, searching for anything. Some way to slow or reverse the effects of Dry Deep. QueQoa did best simply sitting with her. WroOth never asked her to remember but talked to her about past and present as well as what might lie beyond. Never as if Ecekom were truly empty and they were forever doomed to remain. And never of the Tue-Rah but as if the Tue-Rah had been restored and somehow all was good.

  When he lay down to sleep at night, it became harder and harder to convince her to stay. By the tenth day, she would not lay down at all until she fell and stared.

  His entire world had shrunk to her size; it suffocated him but he couldn't pull away. Wouldn't even if he could.

  By the eleventh day though, he noted that their path still had not taken them upward. Not even slightly. Several trees had fallen. An unnatural number for this location. Chunks had been taken out. Some as if something had slammed into them. Others as if teeth had struck and ripped out chunks of bark and wood. Shark bites.

  AaQar came alongside him and tapped his staff against the nearest bite mark. "If we haven't passed the sharks yet—" He glanced at him, his lips pressed in a tight line.

  Naatos tilted his head back. The trees stretched high above, the darkness hiding them before they branched or formed the canopy. "We haven't gone in circles." He checked over his shoulder. Amelia sat on a stone, hugging her arms to her chest, rocking a little. WroOth sat beside her. She refused to look at him.

  "No. But my calculations on when we conclude this journey allowed for two cataclysmic events," AaQar said. "If there were more, then—"

  "Yes." Naatos cracked his neck. "I'm not waiting to settle this." In the span of a breath, he transformed back into the veldrok wolf. The familiar form split and remade him, transforming his eyes so that he could easily go between the murky darkness of Dry Deep with the bioluminous lichen and moss and the far brighter (potentially) atmosphere above the canopy. He dug his long curved claws into the trunk and scaled it swiftly and easily.

  Up, up, up he climbed. A hundred feet.

  Two hundred feet.

  Three hundred feet.

  Four.

  Five.

  Six.

  Bits of the lichen and bark clung to his thick black fur. He should have reached the barrier by now.

  Seven hundred.

  A couple centipedes slid into holes in the tree, the smallest two feet in length. They wanted nothing to do with a red-eyed wolf with fangs almost half their length. He only glanced at them long enough to determine one wasn't going to sink its mandibles into his thigh.

  Eight hundred feet.

  Nine.

  He tilted his head back to look up. The trunk continued straight upward. Not even the start of the branches that formed the canopy.

  Dry Deep sunk more and more each year. But they had accounted for that rate of change. Even added extra.

  Gritting his teeth, he climbed faster. The bark slivered beneath his claws, revealing black wood beneath. The air had not changed hardly at all.

  A thousand feet up.

  Eleven hundred.

  In the trees around him, spiders and centipedes moved with swift precision. All took care to avoid him.

  Fifteen hundred.

  He growled with frustration. How far had the Dry Deep sunk? How far could it have sunk?

  He passed two thousand feet.

  The stagnant burning air finally thinned at twenty-seven hundred. Tastes of the sweet air above leaked through the thick barrier of leaves and brambles.

  As he neared it, he caught glimpses of sunlight. Tiny diamonds of yellow white. The barrier of brambles and branches extended down almost a full fifty feet. He bit and clawed his way through, sending down twigs and fragments of wood. Chunks fell away.

  An arboreal croc snarled at him and snapped its jaws before darting higher and deeper into the brambles.

  He ignored it as he cut higher.

  Finally, he slashed through to the leaves. Sunlight poured in, his eyes barely adjusting in time. He hauled himself up through the final layers and poked his head out. Even before he looked though, he knew what he would see, and dread sank his heart.

  85

  Broken

  Amelia kept her arms wrapped around herself. It felt as if she had been in this place forever. The glowing moss and lichens lit the perpetual night. She wanted to pick at the scars on her neck and shoulder again or even her arm, but the gloves encompassed her hands.

  WroOth sat next to her. She watched him from the corner of her eye, not wanting to look at his face in case his eyes vanished or sunk in or his mouth melted. All of them had become terrifying visages. Sometimes she'd barely known them. And sometimes—she shuddered.

  Her lip bled at the corner, the metallic tang of blood clashing with the bitterness in her dry mouth.

  The bone bracelet cut into her side. Its hum had nearly vanished in the noise of her mind, not exactly a comfort but a signal she was in her body. Everything burned. Her eyes. Her nose. Her lungs. Her mouth. Her stomach.

  And something in the back of her mind itched. Itched like it was going to claw its way out of her.

  QueQoa sat a short distance away, sharpening his hunting knife, his expression somber. "Remember not to get too loud," he said. "We're in shark territory. Screams are like blood in the water."

  "Sharks?" Amelia squinted. Why wouldn't there be sharks? It was the perfect addition to this trip. But they must have been farther than she realized. She could have sworn they had just been walking though. Were they on a ship? Maybe. Dark wood could seem like dark soil. How would she even know the difference?

  It would be good to not have to walk any more. Her leg hurt as if something burrowed deeper and deeper into her thigh. Another gift of Dry Deep.

  AaQar had gone on ahead with Naatos a short distance. He stepped back and cast an annoyed glance upward as a crocodile-like creature fell down without its head. The broad head followed a moment or so later. With his staff, he pushed the pieces aside.

  WroOth chuckled. "Proteus should be happy about that." The bavril was already loping over, his long grey trunk swinging as he chuffed happily. "One day soon we'll go to a grove in Salminole. They have butter oranges and sea salt peaches. The peaches are better than the oranges by most Vawtrian standards." He fidgeted with something in his hand. She took care not to focus too closely. More than once it had seemed like maggots had crawled out of his veins. A faint pulse of light flashed in his hand. "You'd like both I imagine. Killoth did. Preferred them with pistachios and walnuts."

  "I like those too." She bit her lip again. The sharpness of her teeth didn't frighten her so much even as it stung. It reminded her she was here. Just like the picking and the scratching. The gloves stopped that. For the best. She wanted to scratch through the back of her skull sometimes. Especially now.

  "Most Neyeb do." WroOth chuckled, though the sound was forced. "Actually every Neyeb I ever met loved walnuts. Good for the brain, I suppose."

  "I don't like blueberries. They're good brain food too." She dropped her head. Uncle Joe loved them though. In muffins and smoothies. The tugging sensation returned. Smoke soared in front of her eyes. "I can't stop falling. How close are we to the end?"

  "Almost there, dear heart." He took hold of her hand
and pressed something hard into it. "Try holding onto this. Keep it safe. Don't let it break."

  It was hard to keep a grip with Naatos's gloves and her fingers no longer quite cooperating. But she let her gaze drift over the object. She smiled a little. A bluebird.

  "It's hard to hold onto faces in this sort of space. Especially with the distortion. Maybe this will be easier."

  Tears pricked her eyes. "You're very kind to me."

  "It's not hard to seem kind in a place as bad as this."

  She curled the fingers over the bird. "I'm so sorry—"

  "Shhh, now what did I tell you about family and burdens?"

  "That I am one." She choked on the words.

  He chuckled. "I think you might have missed the actual point."

  "No, that I remember. I do—I—" Sniffing, she tried to find the words. They evaporated like the dark mist on the edges of her sight. "I'm so ashamed."

  "There really isn't any need for you to be. It isn't as if you had any choice. We'd have done anything we could to get you through safely without going to this place."

  "I know. You did. You're all so dear to me." She let her eyes slide shut. They burned relentlessly, but it was that itch in the back of her mind that was about to drive her mad. If she fell asleep, everything would come undone.

  Everything.

  How much longer was this period of lucidity going to last? Was she even here? She could almost hear the sea beneath them, but if she had to guess, she would have sworn they were still on land. Not a breath of air stirred against her face. How comforting would that have been?

  She rubbed the stone against her cheek, its cool texture grating over her skin. The words she needed to speak tangled on her teeth as her mind only pulled out snippets. "Your cadre's still alive. I saw them in one of the dreams. We need to find them."

  "Of course they are," he said with a smile. "I knew it all along."