Invasive Species
Part One
He stepped out onto an empty yellow plain.
He breathed deep, filling his lungs with the strange new air – thick and moist and oddly oppressive – like breathing through a mask of wet wool. He let the added pull of the earth tug at his bones and muscles, slowing each step to an awkward shuffle. The ground crunched softly under his feet like fine gravel. He felt a pleasant buzz of intoxication threading through his blood as he slowly looked around. To the north the land unfolded in gentle ripples, until it ended in a horizon as flat and sharp as a knife’s edge. To the west his sharp eyes could make out distant stands of vegetation, some green, some golden. To the east beckoned a vast lake, like a great piece of frosted clearstone, reflecting the pearly colors of the sky. And if he turned he would see the Ark behind him, already changing, taking on the colors and textures of this new world.
A new home.
He held out his hand behind him, and warm fingers clasped it. Haken glanced over his shoulder at his lifemate. She was flushed and beaming with a child’s joy.
“The sky… those aren’t clouds, are they? Is it always this color?”
“By day,” he confirmed. “At dawn and dusk it burns a deeper red than you’ve ever seen on Abode. The thick air, you see. It scatters the sunlight.”
“Mm… and it makes me feel I’ve drunk too much honeywine,” she murmured, as she drew up next to him. “Like I’m floating in space… a pure spirit again.”
“It’s your own magic – unhindered by the miasma of that cursed two-mooned world!”
“It’s the air,” Chani countered. “Skywise warned us. And the world’s pull – all so much heavier than we’re used to. We’ll be staggering like drunkards for days.”
“We’ll adapt. And we’ll be stronger for it. When you learn what it feels like to truly be an elf, you’ll never want to set foot on Abode again!”
Behind them, the murmur of concerned voices rose into a series of sharp gasps. They turned to see Cholla sprawled on the ground, wheezing but laughing, and waving off her lifemate’s extended hand.
“I just tripped,” she insisted. “Blame the worldpull. Honestly, I’m fine. Look!” she pointed to where her fingers had dug into the ground to arrest her fall. “It’s not sand at all!” She seized a clump of earth and lifted it up. The yellow surface was some sort of lichen-like growth, and underneath its roots clung a fistful of soil – the most remarkable shade of reddish-purple.
“White sky, yellow plants and purple dirt!” Klipspringer exclaimed with a wry smile, as he helped Cholla up. “Is nothing on this world the right color?”
The other elves were coming out of the Ark now, in varying degrees of boldness: twenty-four in all on this first survey mission. Warriors and farmers, elders and kitlings. Twenty-three of his beloved Oasis children… and one Glider cousin, who had somehow become a Wolfrider chief.
Haken smiled and beckoned them all forward.
“You are the first!” He called. “My vanguard! In the ages to come, when this whole world is transformed, you can tell your descendants that you were here, now, at this very moment! For cycles untold, our people roamed the stars, chasing an echo of our former homeworld – some remnant of a time lost forever. For a full turn of the spiral we have been prisoners of circumstance, enslaved in time on a world that cripples our true natures. No longer!”
He gestured, and the ground began to tremble underfoot. Made clumsy by the stronger gravity, more than one of the elves lost their footing. The Gliders all summoned their magic to float above the ground. A sharp hum pierced the air as the Ark began to vibrate in harmony, lending strength to Haken’s magic.
A spire of purplish-black rock rose up from the ground, piercing through the mat of lichens and growing steadily. When Haken released his magic, the base of the spire was wide enough to be encircled by many elves linking hands, and its needle-like tip reached as high into the air as the tallest peak of the Ark.
“Here we landed, and here we begin,” Haken vowed. “And we will not cease our labors until we have made over this world in our image!”
Melati exited the Ark now, head held high, a slim hand resting protectively on her still-trim stomach. Shadowing her warily was her fleshshaped lifemate, the so-called Master of the Shapechanged, an object of veneration among Melati’s disciples. And why not, Haken thought proudly. He was living proof that their race could conquer death forever.
“Some of you here are old enough to remember the vow I made, ten millennia ago. I swore to be a father to you all, to guide you and shelter you within walls no mortal enemy could scale – to give you a life of peace and plenty. For ten thousand years you have called me High One and All-Father, and you have sought refuge in my shadow.” He touched his breast and bowed his head slightly. “And I am grateful for the trust you have placed in me. But now it is time for my children to seize their birthright! And now – to those of you brave enough to embrace the trials ahead – I make you this vow: here on Homestead you shall all be High Ones!”
A cheer went up from the Red Snakes. Cholla beamed and applauded, and Klipspringer gamely clapped his hands alongside her.
Alone inside the Ark now, the three Palacedwellers lingered just within the doorway, watching the spectacle unfold.
“Now that is an orator,” Savin said admiringly.
“Don’t tell me he’s turned your head now?” Swift murmured. “I was counting on you to keep Skywise on a tight leash.”
“I can hear you,” Skywise remarked.
“I should hope so. ’Cause All-Father or not, I’m not letting Haken steal you away.”
**We’re all chasing the same dream, Tam,** Skywise locksent. **Haken’s just got his own way of getting there. I’d have thought ‘Swift the Seeker’ would approve.**
**There’s seeking, and there’s blundering ahead blindfolded. I’ve done enough of both in my day to know the difference now.** Swift gazed out over the three-eights of Haken’s “vanguard”: their eager, trusting faces. **I’m not so sure they do.**
**And that’s why we’re here,** Skywise sent cheerfully. **Even the All-Father will hear counsel from the right voices.**
Swift sensed the pride in his sending, the roguish edge of boasting. She could hardly blame him. Being one of the few individuals from whom Haken deigned to take advice would give anyone a sense of self-importance. And she liked seeing this side of Skywise. It reminded her of the old days, almost lost in a memory fog.
**That’s not the only reason we’re here…** Swift cast a glance deep inside the Ark. In the half-year since its conception, the starstone vessel had steadily grown on a diet of seedrock; now it was almost half the size of the elder Palace. While most of the space was taken up by the central audience chamber, Haken had shaped several smaller rooms at the rear of the Ark. Inside one of them was Rayek, once Master of the Palace.
Six months of study and rigorous mental exercise had yet to coax his powers to return. The scars of Howling Rock were still as raw for him as the day he had shared Ember’s nightmare.
For ten thousand years, he had gloried in commanding the Palace, a High One in all but blood. Now he was a prisoner of his own despair. He kept all at arm’s length, even his closest family. Sometimes Swift felt his very soul slipping away from her.
Haken promised all elves could recover their lost powers on Homestead. Swift hoped he was right.
* * *
The Vanguard set to work on their base camp, which Haken had already named Foothold. The best rockshapers of the Red Snakes began to raise a low rock wall to encircle the Ark, while Feathersnake and Vaeri took to the skies, scouting their surroundings by air. Beast turned the peace-hounds loose, and they eagerly explored the edge of the lake, crashing through the reeds and stirring up small prey.
“Aside from the color, the soil is very much like our own on Abode,” Maize proclaimed as she weighed a handful of the purple-red dirt in her hands. “Very nutrient-rich... at least, I think they are nutrients.”
“Can our crops grow in this soil?” Chani asked.
“Oh yes, lady!” Maize nodded eagerly. “I’ll have to seed it with some Abodean microbes – change the ‘flavor’ a little. Some of the more delicate vegetables might have to wait until after a few plantings, once we’ve really woken up the soil. But we should be able to grow squatneedle and corn and starchroots without much fuss.”
“Excellent!” Chani clasped her hands in pleasure. “So all we’ll need do is clear out these yellow weeds and bring over enough soil from Oasis to get you started. Soon we’ll be able to pour the naysayers some Homestead-grown squatneedle cider and defy them to compare it to the Abodean flavor!”
Maize lifted a pinch of the yellow lichen she had scraped off the soil. “Oh, but let’s not clear too much. I’m very interested in seeing what lessons the plants here can teach us. We might discover whole new food sources. And this yellow lichen is fascinating! The high mineral content… almost a crystalline construction. A living mineral… breeding, multiplying….”
“We have living stone already,” Chani dismissed with a laugh. “But I’ll make sure we leave enough of this… crystal-moss for you to play with. You’re quite right – we need to learn what is food and what is foe on this world.”
“Look what I’ve got!” Beast’s delighted whoop echoed across the campsite. He strode back from the lake’s shoreline, holding up a struggling ravvit-sized creature by the tail, while two of the peace-hounds yipped and bounded around him, eager for their chance at the prey.
“What is it?” Maleen came running up to her son, only to recoil in disgust at the sight of his catch. “Great Sun!”
A ring of elves gathered around the Master of the Shapechanged. Beast motioned the peace-hounds back, and deposited the creature on the ground. Immediately it tried to run to freedom on its powerful hind legs, but the snapping jaws of the peace-hounds kept it hemmed in.
“Uncle Skywise, what is it?” Beast called.
Skywise approached the circle of onlookers from one side, as Haken arrived from the other. Both let out a cry of recognition, Skywise’s delighted, Haken’s closer to disgust.
“Oh, those things,” Haken wrinkled his nose. “We saw a plague of them on our first survey, didn’t we, Palacemaster?”
“This one is smaller,” Skywise confirmed. “But same family, I’d say.”
To elfin eyes, it was an undeniably ugly creature. A bulbous hairy body, nearly spherical, balanced on two legs like some sort of hopper-rat, while a long stiff tail protected behind it for balance. Its forepaws were little more than hooks, and its flat-nosed head perched atop its body without any visible neck. Half of the head was mouth – when it flexed its bucket-like jaw in agitation, the head seemed to split in two, revealing a toothless maw lined with some sort of sharp bony plate.
Most grotesquely, it had four eyes: two primary eyes where any Abodean creature’s might be, each with a smaller mate perched above and behind it. They were black featureless orbs, but the skin and tendons surrounding them twitched constantly as the beast looked about in frantic search of escape.
“Your mate had the most… colorful name for them,” Haken recalled with weary exasperation.
“Pug-scuttler!” Savin cried delightedly as she ran up to the circle. “Ohh… there you are! There’s my ugly little baby!”
“Ugh, yes,” Haken muttered. “That was it.”
“Can you eat them?” Sust asked. Coppersky rolled his eyes and cuffed his head, then thought a moment and asked, “Yes, can you?”
Beast shrugged, lifting his arms. One of the peace-hounds took it as a sign, and before Beast could even finish saying: “Wait, Three!” it had hurled itself at the pug-scuttler. Several of the farmers let out cries of horror, and the pug-scuttler sprang into the air, shrieking in terror.
Savin leapt forward and caught it in her arms. Three leapt, trying to snatch its prey, but a sharp knee to the hound’s collarbone settled the matter. “Down!” Savin growled, then turned her attention to the panicking pug-scuttler. She held it close as it struggled and squealed, and gently stroked its head until it began to calm.
“There, there, who’s a good puggie?” she soothed.
Sust burst out laughing, and even Coppersky and Beast chuckled. Savin fixed them with a baleful glare.
“It’s only a baby! Can’t you savages go one day without torturing the local wildlife?”
“Hey, Beast’s the one who caught it!” Sust said defensively.
“This isn’t a game, you know. This is a living world with its own creatures and its own rules – and you won’t last long if you don’t start learning them.”
“I want to learn,” Sust protested. “That’s why I asked if I could eat it.”
Coppersky pressed his lips together tightly as he tried to repress a smile.
“Enough,” Haken said. “Savin is right. We have more than enough fleshvine to feed ourselves at present. And while I’m well aware the hounds enjoy a hunt, we should not encourage wanton slaughter. These…” – he grimaced – “‘scuttlers’ seem harmless enough. They should be left in peace. Besides, we don’t know if they can be safely eaten. Let’s not let the whole pack poison itself if we can help it. Melati’s already had to resurrect one hound this year.”
* * *
The pug-scuttler seemed no worse the wear for its adventure, but Savin refused to release it while the hounds still patrolled the camp. She took the beast into the Ark for safekeeping over Haken’s half-hearted objections, while Sust and Coppersky butchered a large section of fleshvine to feed both hounds and elves. The Daystar – appearing smaller in these skies than in Abode’s – began to set as they ate, and the sky turned every shade of red as the thicker air scattered the light.
Cries of amazement travelled around the camp as the change in sunlight brought out the most striking feature of the sky. Arching high overhead, filling almost half the sky, were a series of milky bands that glowed like moonlight.
“What is it?” someone asked.
“The rings,” Skywise explained, his voice rich with awe. “Just wait until nightfall: it’s brighter than double full moons every night!”
“Poor stargazing for you, then,” Maleen teased.
Skywise flashed her a grin. “I never said I was putting down roots here.” He turned his gaze back to the heavens. “Ring-gazing’s a nice change now and then.”
Swift smiled to see Rayek venture outside the Ark at last, taking up a seat near Cholla and Klipspringer. He listened patiently as Maize told him of the day’s discoveries – a bystander would never guess he found nothing so dull as talk of farming! – and accepted a portion of fleshvine from Swift without protest.
“I see Melati still hasn’t learn how to grow flavor,” he quipped after a bite.
Maize giggled. “Meat’s not supposed to have a strong taste,” she said, as if to a child. “You get that from the sauces and rubs.”
“One day I will take you to the Great Holt, child. You have no excuse now that you’ve crossed the blackness to here. Once you try fresh boar roasted right on the bone, you’ll never be able to go back to this… pap.”
Maize made a face and shook her head, setting her beaded braids clicking. But then she hugged her knees and looked up at the sunset. “I can’t wait to tell Tufts all about this…” she breathed. “Something I got to do first.”
Swift left Rayek with his kin, and went over to join her own. Grayling sat by himself, perched on the edge of the rock wall, watching the rings coming into greater focus. Swift greeted her half-brother with a pat to his chief’s lock. The former chief of the Jackwolf Riders still wore it after all these years, while Swift had taken down hers the day she ceded authority to Venka.
“How are you faring?” she asked.
“My chest doesn’t hurt when I breathe anymore,” Grayling said. “Suppose I’m adjusting. My head still rings like a bell if I move too quickly.”
“Well, Skywise said we’d all be a little drunk on the air.”
“Look at that,” Grayling pointed out the arc of the rings. “You know, I was preparing myself for different stars – I remember how much they’d change whenever I’d visit another nation. I thought,‘New stars, new sky… I can manage. I’m not that much of an old wolf.’ But this… is something else entirely.”
“It is,” Swift agreed. “Are you sure you’re ready for a change like this?”
“Not at all,” Grayling said. “But I promised Greenflame I’d give it a try.”
“And Hansha? I’m surprised he didn’t come too.”
Grayling shrugged. “We made a pact: I’d come and keep an eye on Greenflame, he’d stay and keep an eye on Fennec. Fennec is already planning to revive the Riders – don’t know where they’ll get mounts, though – the closest thing we’ve got in the mountains are those little foxes… and Melati’s jackrunners will be coming here, of course.”
“Can’t quite see anyone keen on bonding with them anyway. No one who’s staying behind.”
“Not really. Fennec could always merge with the Pride. There’ll be those like Huro and Tazah and Shashu who won’t want to follow Sust off-world. But my boy’s too much of an old growler to make peace with the cat-riders!”
“He needs to Recognize one of them,” Swift quipped.
“He’s been able to manage two lifemates remarkably well – let’s not tempt fate!”
“True.”
“Fennec will do well in the new Oasis,” Grayling continued, more seriously. “He hasn’t been the same since the last of the true jackwolves died. He lost his purpose when he lost the Riders… when the Snakes took his place as peacekeepers of Oasis. Oasis changed and he didn’t. He couldn’t – he has too much of the old Way in him. But now I think he can find a purpose again. He can be a chief again – the chief he was born to be. It’s his time. He’s earned it.”
“And you?”
Grayling shrugged. “I don’t know. The truth is… I lost my purpose in Oasis long ago, too.”
“No! You’re a respected elder – you sit on the ruling council!”
“It’s nothing that couldn’t be taken on by someone else.” Grayling brooded in silence a moment. “I’ve been thinking about when you stepped down as chief of the Great Holt… how you moved into the Palace… let Skywise and Rayek take you on all those adventures. You stayed close enough to offer Venka guidance, but you struck out on your own path. You let her be chief without your shadow hanging over her. I can’t help but wonder… if I stay in Oasis, will Fennec ever truly emerge from my shadow?”
Swift considered his words. “But there are a great many places you could go without leaving Abode.”
“True enough. Part of it is Greenflame, of course – we’re not ready to let him go just yet. And part of it… I don’t know. I feel a restlessness in me, for the first time in ages. I want to feel useful again – feel the peace that comes from having a clear place in the world. Perhaps I could find it here. I don’t know. But I owe it to myself and my kin to find out.” He glanced across the camp at the figure of Littlefire, likewise seated on the rock wall, studying the heavens.
“The winds of change are blowing,” he murmured. “They scent it too. Strange, isn’t it…?”
“What is?” Swift asked.
“Kit. She’s my brother’s child, yet while she lived we met only a handful of times. Both of us trying to make the Way our own, in different ways, our paths seldom crossing. And now… after all this time, we are reunited on a distant world. Both of us seeking a new future, both of us hungry for something that can’t quite be named.”
* * *
A full day’s hard ride from the camp, the flat plains gave way to forested hills. The Ark took the survey party there in the blink of an eye. Littlefire, Grayling, Beast, Maleen, Klipspringer and Maize began the hike to high ground as the Ark winked out of sight, due to return at midday.
“Don’t waste your waterskins,” Klipspringer warned the others. “Remember, the days are longer here. It’s a full two more hours to midday than we’re used to, and we don’t know if there’s a reliable water source here.”
“Oh, but there must be!” Maize exclaimed. “Look at all these trees!”
As Skywise had promised, the trees in the hills were all golden-leaved. Thin trunks devoid of bark and pitted with strange furrows, bore branches that bowed under the weight of large amber-colored fronds. Large golden ferns covered the forest floor, and where the soil was thinner the everpresent crystal-moss grew in tufts and rafts. Everywhere were shades of yellow. The only patches of green seemed not to be plants, but large bulbous structures that resembled giant mushrooms.
“Bearclaw’s beard,” Littlefire breathed. “They’re as big as oaks.”
“What are they?” Maleen asked. “Trees? Fungi?”
“Maybe neither, maybe… something in-between.” Maize walked up to one of the large mushroom trees and ran her hand over the brownish stem. It was wider around than most Abodean tree trunks, and swelled outward in the middle like a bottle. She craned her neck upward to study the brown struts that supported a solid green canopy. Tentatively, Maize reached out with her magic, then leapt back with a little yelp.
Beast and Klipspringer were at her side in a moment. She laughed, brushing off their concern. “I’m fine, I’m just not used to reading these things. Lord Haken’s right – magic flows so much faster here. I used a little too much, that’s all.” She giggled. “Haven’t you ever pushed a door open so hard it swings back and hits you in the face?”
“Not really,” Maleen said archly.
Maize returned her attention to the tree. “It’s more fungus than tree, I’d say,” she judged. “If we can use those words to describe anything here. We might have to find new ones.”
“Mush… tree?” Beast attempted, frowning. Grayling fought to hold back a chuckle.
“Leave it to the poets, cub.”
Beast gave him a sour look, but let it pass. “Mel can name them,” he concurred. “She’s good with names.”
“Melati can’t name everything,” Maize protested lightly. “Ooh, look at those! They look like my squatneedles!”
The mound of greenish bulbs did look rather like a plantshaped cactus, sheared of its spines. Three separate clusters were colonizing the rotting log of a fallen tree. Maize ran up to them and began to study them from all angles.
“Hmm… it’s not smooth all around… if you look at it from the top it’s got six sides to it. Makes me think of a honeycomb.”
“Listen… it’s so quiet here,” Littlefire breathed. The others all stopped and listened to the gentle breeze shaking the tree fronds.
“No birdsong, no insects, nothing in the underbrush. Where are all the animals?”
“Haken did say he and Skywise hadn’t found much more than the pug-scuttlers on their first survey,” Klipspringer pointed out. “It has something to do with life spawning later on Homestead…” he narrowed his eyes as he tried to remember what had been said. “The creatures haven’t had the time to grow as large and varied as on Abode.”
“Huh...” Maleen turned south. “I think there’s fruit on that tree. Or some kind of growth – see, the red all around the trunk.”
“Where?” Klipspringer walked over to get a better look.
Grayling glanced over at Littlefire. “You don’t hold with Haken’s theory, Waykeeper?” he asked.
“This much plantlife… there should be animals here too,” he replied stubbornly.
Grayling shrugged. “Maybe the rules are different here.” Littlefire looked disappointed, and Grayling added, “I suppose it would be hard for hunters make a life here. I can’t quite see Wolfriders running through these golden woods….”
“No,” Littlefire admitted. “Neither can we.”
Beast gave a little tsk and strode over to one of the smaller mushroom trees. After taking a step back and judging the distance, he sprang atop its cap in one leap, and balanced uncertainly on its soft surface.
“Yosha, what are you doing?” Maleen exclaimed in alarm. “Be careful!”
“It squishes!” Beast laughed. He used the soft cap as a springboard, and leapt for the underside of the taller tree’s cap. Maleen let out a cry of disapproval.
He missed the jump: the higher gravity made it just beyond his reach. But his clawed hand sank deep into the struts under the cap, releasing a cloud of dust in his face. Beast sputtered, but held on. His elfin hand joined his scaled one, then his clawed feet came up to anchor in footholds. Nimbly he clambered up atop the cap, then tipped his head back and let out a long reverberating roar that echoed through the golden forest.
Littlefire jumped a full elfspan into the air, eyes wide with alarm. Maleen winced and covered her ears. Grayling, Klipspringer and Maize only responded with mild winces.
“Was there a point to–” Grayling began.
Suddenly half the fronds on the nearby trees took flight. The air filled with the sound of beating wings. A multitude of golden birds – strange, short-beaked creatures with long tails – scattered in all directions.
The red growths on the trees Maleen had pointed out moved as well – though much more slowly. They were some sort of lizard or shelled creature, and as they scaled the trees in search of cover they left behind deep gouges in the trunks.
Something about the size of a boar burst out of the undergrowth. It had gray skin mottled with yellows and greens, and its square four-eyed skull was reminiscent of the pug-scuttler. But this beast didn’t scuttle; it stampeded on four stocky legs. Grayling sprang out of the way just in time to avoid being run over.
Beast grinned from atop his mushroom tree. “Sometimes you have to flush out the game,” he explained. Then he sneezed. When he shook his head, a fine shower of dust flew out of his hair.
Maize let out a shriek of pain. The elders all whirled around and ran to her side. One of the green mounds she had been studying was now wreathed in a cloud of spores, and Maize’s right hand was covered in white dust.
“Maizie!” Beast sprang down from the mushroom tree. “Are you hurt?”
“I just touched it!” she protested, as Klipspringer pulled her away. He wiped away the spores, revealing angry red welts rising on his daughter’s hand. A moment later, Klipspringer gave a cry and began to frantically rub his own hand against his kilt.
Maize began to wheeze. “It’s – the – spores,” she struggled to say. Klipspringer swung around to put himself between her and danger, and as his foot slipped in the dirt, his sandal struck the fallen log. The vibration raced through the log, and another fungal mound unleashed a cloud of spores from every face of its six-sided bulb.
“Get back!” Klipspringer barked. “Don’t let them touch – ahhh!” another cry tore from him as a mist of spores landed on his bare arm.
He rushed Maize over to Littlefire, who quickly whipped out his waterskin and began pouring the contents over Maize’s hand. “Here, tip your face back, and close your eyes.”
Maize’s face was breaking out in ugly boils. More welts on her throat were causing the flesh to swell dangerously. She whimpered and wheezed through her nose as Littlefire tried to wash off the poisonous spores.
“Grayling – your water!”
“This isn’t working,” Klipspringer struggled to unstopper his own waterskin with his one good hand.
“Littlefire, you’re the best sender – call the Ark now!” Grayling commanded. “We need to get back to camp!”
* * *
“There now,” Melati soothed as she lifted her fingertips from Maize’s cheeks. The worst of the boils had subsided, and the redness was retreating, though her skin was still swollen wherever the spores had touched. She turned about and gestured to Klipspringer. “Your turn.”
Cholla gathered Maize into her arms like a child, and laid wet cloths on her wrist and throat. “Is it easier to breathe now, kitling?”
“Yes,” Maize said. “Ohhh… it’s so itchy!”
“What was that?” Cholla demanded. “Poison?”
“To us, undoubtedly,” Melati said, as she began to heal Klipspringer’s welts. “Whether it is meant as such I’m not yet certain.”
“The hives spit those clouds at us – hsst! – when we touched them,” Klipspringer confirmed.
“Yes, a defensive strategy perhaps. All living things develop ways of protecting themselves. But it is also possible they were simply egg spores: harmless to the native creatures – but poison to us.”
Beast coughed again. Cholla looked at him with concern. “You’ve been coughing since you got back.”
“You sound like Mother,” Beast grumbled.
“He got a faceful of spores from one of those mushroom trees,” Klipspringer said.
“I’m fine!” Beast snapped. “I breathe poison steam all the time at the Cinder Pools!”
“Only because I fortified your lungs against it,” Melati spoke up. She released Klipspringer and gestured Beast over. “Come sit, lifemate. Let’s see what you’ve done to yourself.”
“Not a cub,” he muttered.
“Mmm, I didn’t say you were. Reckless as one, maybe.”
“Maybe?” Klipspringer sputtered.
“Fearless,” Beast corrected with a sniff. “That’s different.” He threw himself down crosslegged next to his lifemate and waited patiently as she probed with her healing senses.
“No wonder you’re coughing – your breathing passages are all inflamed. You might as well have been breathing in sand!”
“Do that all the time too,” Beast muttered under his breath.
“Is he always such a difficult patient?” Klipspringer quipped. “How did you ever get that tail done?”
“Over many years,” Melati replied. “There. You’ll–” she broke off as Beast suddenly bent over and started coughing convulsively – not the dry cough of before, but a thick clogged sound. “You’ll cough for a bit to clear it all out. And I’ve fortified your lungs against the spore’s irritants.”
“Could you do the same to all of us?” Maize said.
“Let’s not all rush to get fleshshaped yet,” Klipspringer protested. “No offense, Mel.”
“We are intruders on this world,” Melati remarked. “We may have to make adjustments if we wish to prosper here.”
“We… or this world,” Haken said, as he drew up to the healer and her patients. “How are you faring, children?”
“Better,” Maize replied with a brave smile. “Ohhh… can’t you do something about the itch, Auntie Mel?”
Klipspringer stood at attention. “We should have been far more careful in the forest, my lord. I take full responsibility.”
Haken favored him with a dry smile. “You may be Aurek’s cousin, but you lack his gift for foreseeing the future in the stone. None of you could have predicted such an outcome.”
“Actually, we could,” Grayling piped up from across the room. “The green hives are just another version of the cholla-pricker – or poison oak – or strangleweed. We know plants on Abode can be just as dangerous as beasts.” Grayling paused to scratch at his own arm, which was beginning to break out in welts. “Scat, looks like it got me too. But this shouldn’t surprise us, Lord Haken. Melati’s right – we are intruders on this world. Skywise and Savin have been warning us of this from the start. You yourself told us this would not be easy.”
“We’ve learned a valuable lesson today,” Klipspringer said. “Look, but do not touch.”
Melati laughed. “There’s a plan for ignorance. How can we ever understand this world if we don’t interact with it?”
“We will confine our exploration to the lakeside basin for now,” Haken ruled. “And exercise greater caution. I must admit, I am… confounded by your description of the creature you encountered in the forest. Skywise and I surveyed over eighty sites and never once found any animals larger than the pug-scuttlers. Skywise theorized the stronger worldpull kept the beasts smaller than those on Abode.”
“By ‘surveyed’, do you mean flew over in a Palace-pod?” Grayling asked.
“We investigated multiple sites on foot,” Haken insisted, with a bite to his words.
Grayling bowed his head deferentially, and kept his further thoughts to himself.
* * *
“Come out into the sunshine, lifemate,” Swift urged. “We’re going to track some of those scuttle-pugs–”
“Pug-scuttlers,” Savin corrected.
“–And see what larger prey hides along the lakeshore.”
Rayek sat on his bed, long legs folded up against his chest. He looked at Swift and Savin critically. “I suppose Savin will want to adopt the next vermin we discover as well,” he said dryly.
“He called it vermin,” Savin said to Swift. “You know in Rayek-speak that means he’ll be cuddling it within a month.”
“Tell me you don’t plan on taking that thing back to Abode!”
“You leave me my animal-friends and I’ll leave you yours. Or did you think I’d forgotten that crow you carried around on your shoulder a few centuries back?”
“That was different,” Rayek said.
“Sure it was. You coming hunting with us or not?”
Rayek hung his head. “You… you know I cannot. My magic–”
“We have spear-throwers,” Swift said. “Grayling promises they’ll work for the greenest beginner.” She gave him an encouraging smile. “Surely you can try what an Oasis kitling has mastered.”
Rayek shot her a glare, then, almost against his will, one eyebrow cocked and one corner of his mouth twitched in a smirk. “Oasis kitlings shoot at targets, not prey. Still, let no one say there was something I was afraid to try.”
They joined Skywise outside, and the foursome headed towards the reeds and yellow rocks that bordered the lake. Rayek winced at the brightness of the Daystar, even filtered through such heavy air.
“Never thought I would shrink from the sun,” he muttered as he shaded his eyes and looked up at the sky. It was still early enough in the morning for the sky to retain a hint of peach from sunrise. Though the sun hung in the east, scattered light twinkled on the opposite side of the sky’s dome. It made him think of the “ghost suns” they had noticed during their time in the Frozen Mountains: the sunlight bouncing off ice crystals in the sky. But those always formed on either side of the Daystar itself, while these seemed concentrated in one broad band.
“Those are the rings, aren’t they?” Rayek realized.
“Isn’t it incredible?” Skywise said. “When the sun’s at the right angle, they act like crystals, reflecting the light down to us. Of course, if the sun’s at another angle, the rings will act like a giant sunshade. We’re still trying to figure out how the seasons turn here. It depends where on the world you are – some places will have much hotter summers and colder winters than others. That’s why we chose this site near the center-band of the sphere. It ought to be just like the Great Holt – hotter than the rest of the planet, but less dramatic change between the seasons.”
Clearly Skywise was in his element, chattering excitedly about his climate theories. Rayek stopped listening after a while.
The ground crunched underfoot – more of the strange yellow substance Maize had dubbed crystal-moss. It was everywhere, choking around the roots of the reeds, and forming a crust over the rocks that hemmed in the lakeshore. As they hiked further away from the Ark, the vegetation grew thicker and the boulders stood taller. Some were well over their heads. Lacy creepers draped over the larger ones, reminding Rayek of washing day at the Holt, when long veils of linen were laid on the rocks to dry.
“Tracks!” Swift exclaimed delightedly. “And those look bigger than a scuttler’s.”
They were indeed almost the size of an elf’s handprint, and shaped somewhat similarly: four long toes like outspread fingers.
“I wonder if it’s the ‘pug-hog’ Grayling and the others saw,” Savin said. “Swift, when we find it, can we study it for at least a few moments before you go killing it?”
“I always study my prey,” Swift said with a grin. “Let’s go.”
The ground turned softer under its blanket of crystal-moss. Each step released water that pooled in their footprints. Soon their boots were soaked. The stronger gravity left the usually nimble elves with little grace. One missed step and Rayek found his boot stuck to the ankle in mud. He pulled his leg hard to free himself and lost his balance. With a cry he fell on the crystal-moss, wincing at its abrasive texture.
“Sorry,” he muttered as Swift helped him up. “This worldpull…”
“I know, everything falls so much faster here.”
**Shh…** Skywise sent. He motioned them to crouch down as they approached a thick stand of reeds. Slowly they parted the cover of vegetation, and there was their prey: a heavy-set quadraped, smaller than the boar-like beast Grayling had described, but still twice the size of the pug-scuttlers. Its hind legs were larger than its front ones – it sat like a ravvit, back legs folded yet ready to bound. Its hide was a dull ochre, to help it blend in with the moss and reeds. Its head was flat-faced and heavy, sporting the four eyes and beak-jaw that seemed standard for all creatures on Homestead. It crouched at the lakeside, rooting around in the muck where the water lapped against the shore. As it lifted its head, Rayek saw a pair of long tusks protruding from its upper jaw. One tusk had impaled a thrashing water-eel, which the beast briskly swallowed with a snap of its bull-like neck.
**A water-wallower,** Swift decided. **Like the giant river-hogs back at the Holt.**
**Nothing giant about this beast,** Rayek sent. **It barely comes up to our knees.** He began loading a dart into his atlatl.
**Not a worthy opponent for my mountain lion?** Swift teased.
**May my barb fly truer than yours,** Rayek retorted. He slowly took aim, outstretching his left arm to help guide his aim.
He cracked his right arm down, and the dart flew from the spear-thrower. His aim was poor – or perhaps it was the unfamilar worldpull – and the barb meant for the beast’s neck instead struck its flank. The tough hide absorbed most of the blow, and the point of the dart barely lodged in its flesh.
The beast screamed – a high pitched sound much like an elf’s – and wheeled around. Its long legs uncoiled and it threw itself towards the danger, its mouth opening to reveal the full length of its tusks. The elves barely had time to leap out of the way before it came crashing through the reeds.
Balanced on its hind legs like a boxing hare, it stood nearly as tall as the shorter elves. It drummed its thick tail on the ground in a threat display and roared at them. Rayek fumbled with his short sword, trying to free it from its scabbard. His heart racing, he tried to call his magic – and once again felt nothing.
The creature bounded at them, tusked mouth gaping. Swift drew New Moon, but Rayek pushed her out of the way as the beast bore down on them. Without his magic, Rayek could only leap at the oncoming beast, sword bared at last and aimed for its head.
Again he misjudged his aim, and his sword thrust barely glanced off the back of its skull. As the creature tossed its head, Rayek went flying over its back and hit the ground hard.
The beast came around for another pass. By now Savin had her atlatl loaded, and let fly a dart. It sank deep into the flesh of its cheek, staggering it. Swift and Skywise fell on the wounded creature, driving home with their swords. Bleeding viscous black blood, the beast heeled over and went still.
Swift threw back her head and howled. “Ayoooah, Homestead!” she whooped. “The Wolfriders are here!”
Rayek picked himself off the ground and dusted off his clothes. His leathers were torn and muddied, and he bled from several scrapes and cuts.
“Is this a game to you?!” he snapped. “A chance to reconnect with your infancy?”
“Rayek, what–”
“That thing could have killed you!”
Swift frowned. “I know. That’s why I killed it first.”
“Is that meant to be a joke? Is that all this is to you? ‘Oh, let’s play toss-stone with life and death. Let’s wrestle in the mud like wild beasts!’” He threw up his hands and stalked away, trampling the crystal-moss underfoot and cursing at the wet ground.
Swift caught up to him before he had gone far. “Rayek, what is it?” she begged. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous I took your kill.”
“My kill? I can’t kill anything! You saw me – I’m a cat without its claws! I can’t throw a dart, I can’t thrust a sword. I can’t even walk straight on this wretched world without tripping over my own feet! I am helpless, don’t you understand!” he shouted.
He struggled when Swift tried to take him by the shoulders. He slapped her hands away.
“You’re not helpless. Rayek – Rayek, listen to me!”
“You all said this world feeds magic! You said I’d recover here, but I’m growing weaker every day. I who was Master of the Palace! I who hunted boars and jackals when I was ten years old! Can’t you understand how this feels? It’s like having food in my mouth and being unable to swallow. I try and I try until I feel myself choking! I am choking on my failures!”
“We all fall now and then–”
“Oh, spare me your soft words!”
Swift bristled. “Then what can I do for you, Rayek? You’re pushing me away more and more every day. I want to help you–”
“But you can’t!” he raged. “Is that plain enough? Does the wolf in there understand? You cannot help me! And I cannot bear your pity!”
Again he turned on his heel, fleeing from her bewildered, accusing stare.
This time she did not follow him.
Part Two Coming Soon.
Elfquest copyright 2016 Warp Graphics, Inc. Elfquest, its logos, characters, situations, all related indicia, and their distinctive likenesses are trademarks of Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Some dialogue taken from Elfquest comics. All such dialogue copyright 2016 Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Alternaverse characters and insanity copyright 2016 Jane Senese and Erin Roberts