Sunborn Rising (28 page)

Almost in unison, the three friends stepped closer to each other. Plicks asked, “So, what
are
we going to do?”

They exchanged whispers for a while, and Barra kept thinking about her arm. She knew the infection was spreading. It didn’t seem like they were travelling fast enough to get her the help she needed. They thought about flying her up to the Loft with the Nebules, the way Lootrinea suggested, but convincing the adults to let them go it alone seemed impossible. Sneaking away could work, but none of them wanted to put their families through that again.

Barra became distracted as they talked. There was something she was forgetting, something she was missing. Her dreams kept swimming through her head, nagging at her to pay attention, but she couldn’t make sense of the images. Red glided down beside her, obviously tired, and snuggled into her chest.

She stopped the boys, and asked, “Why did we visit the Boil? What was down there for us?”

They looked at her, confused. Tory said, “There was supposed to be something down there for us? I thought it was just part of the route? Lootrinea said it was the only way.”

“Every time I close my eyes I see it. I dream about it. Something is supposed to happen there. We’re supposed to be there.”

The boys didn’t know what to say.

“You’ve seen what the Nebules can do to the Creepervine, you know? The way they explode it. What if we could bring all of them up here?” Barra suggested.

It wasn’t a terrible idea, Plicks thought, but still a look of consternation dragged over his face. He asked, “You’re not even thinking about a cure, are you?”

Barra said, “My father wouldn’t have given up. I know he tried everything to heal that wound. We have to assume the cure wasn’t in the Loft.” She was confident. “There might not be a cure to this infection, but there might be a cure to the Creepervine.”

Plicks decided not to think about what that meant for Barra’s future. He had to hold onto the hope that she was going to be okay.

Hanging his head low, Tory digested her statement. She was getting worse. She might not ever get better. How long did she have? There was no indication from her father’s journal. Worse, they didn’t even know for sure that the cut was what killed her father. Who could help them? Lootrinea, the Nebules, Fizzit? Tory would strangle the answers from that amber-eyed, three-tailed enigma if he saw him again.

Tory eventually nodded his head, and then slowly raised it. “What’s the plan?” Char spun around once and cast out his spheres in a bright array.

Plicks stroked Blue. “It’s okay, fella. We’re going back to the Boil.”

All they had to do was tell their parents.

32. Diver Down

Barra crept up to her mother who was still in conversation with the other adults. Tory and Plicks were close beside Barra. She interrupted, “Mom?” Her voice startled everyone a bit. “We have an idea.”

The idea was met with open minds. The adults had heard of the Nebules destroying the Creepervine even if they didn’t understand it. How many Nebules would it take to defeat all of the Creeper? No one could guess. Nevertheless, the bups’ idea soon became a serious option.

None of the adults wanted to allow the bups to go on their own. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any other suggestions. Barra wasn’t sure how they were going to return to the Boil, but she kept that to herself. In fact, she carefully steered the group away from questions about how they were going to travel, and how they were going to convince the Nebules to join them. Barra was working on the assumption that the system of whirlpools would get them down to the Boil, and that Red would help them recruit.

Brace noticed that there was no discussion about Barra’s wound, but said nothing about it until the talks quieted. Stealing the opportunity, she reached for Barra and held her close. She stroked her daughter’s fur and whispered in her ear, “You’re strong. So much stronger than I ever was… stronger than I am.”

Tears filled Barra’s eyes and she let them fall silently. She allowed herself to be held. She allowed herself to be home.

Brace thought she would never let her daughter go again, loathed the idea. At least her daughter wouldn’t be up against Argus again, even if she couldn’t say the same for the rest of expedition. The pathwood ahead was treacherous and their odds were slim. Knowing her daughter was safe would give her the strength to carry on.

Red hovered nearby, a curled and blackened stub of a tentacle reminding Brace of how much the creature had done to protect her daughter. Brace reached out and stroked the Nebule; Red had not only gained her trust, but her affection. She realized she didn’t know how Red had been injured, and felt sick for how little she knew about the creature.

“My little bup.” Brace wiped away the wetness from the fur of Barra’s cheeks, “Travelling to the Sun... your father would be so proud.” She added, “Well, proud, but probably a little jealous, too.”

Barra believed it. They laughed through their tears.

What remained of the expedition made their way together to a large fissure in the Root where the bups could begin their journey down again. There were hugs and kisses. They cast words like spells to keep their loved ones free from harm, to grant luck and speed and strength, and to ensure that they would all meet again.

While the bups were busy with the Nebules, Brace began unravelling her Thread, releasing the clasp that served as the point of both closure and growth.

Vallor quickly pulled her aside. “Brace? What’re you doing?”

“I want to give this to my daughter.” Brace was using every bit of composure she could muster to remain calm. “I want her to carry on my story. I want her to have me with her always… especially if…”

“You can’t do that.” Vallor’s eyes shimmered brightly, welling up with tears of her own. “She’ll never leave if you try to pass her your Thread. You know it’s true.”

The Battidashes were nearby and overheard. Luke was close too, and he was already following Brace’s lead. Hearing Vallor’s words though, they all agreed. No Threads could be passed. Their stories could not be their bups’ burden, at least, not like this. Brace wrapped the loosened portion of the Thread doubly tight and nodded her gratitude to Vallor.

Threads secure, the mothers and fathers gathered strength from one another, and moved in close to their bups. They hugged the hugs of long goodbyes hoping their arms would never forget the shape of their loved ones. Then, they let go.

Red, Char, and Blue harnessed themselves to their charges and flew into the air. They hovered for a few more goodbyes, and then they broke the tension and descended into the water.

As the bups sank, Brace thought they looked frighteningly similar to something else she’d seen recently. The thought strangled her, robbed the strength from her legs, and crushed her heart as she remembered; they looked exactly like the fallen.

33. Tides

The duration of that moment cannot be measured. The tension that held it, that it held, was so great that it stretched and distorted the flow of time until it became unrecognizable. It can be argued that that particular moment has not ended even yet, and will never end, for those who were there are still there in many ways.

Despite the urgency so many feel to capture a moment, sometimes the moment captures them and never lets them go. For the friends and foes gathered there, time was no longer theirs to spend.

~Excerpt: Fizzit’s Leaves

The trio floated to the bottom of the oceanic trench. Red, Char, and Blue steered the bups into the submerged wood, swimming through the narrow passages easily. They navigated as though they had intimate knowledge of the entire Root. Barra thought they were heading for a whirlpool entry, but she didn’t know for sure.

Emerging from the wood into open water, the bups half expected a viny ball of green serpents to come floating toward them. There was nothing. The water was still, lacking life. The only movement came from swaying vegetation. A faint vibration began, and developed into an unmistakable resonance. An enormous shadow passed below them as something enormous blocked out the sun.

It was the Roedtaw, and he bellowed as he ascended. He only just fit between the rough walls of the trench. As he came up beneath them, Barra swam up to one of his gigantic eyes, and smiled into the ancient, steel gray iris. The inner circle of its mouth parted from the outer ever so slightly, and Barra stretched down to it. She kissed its upper lip through Red’s body. It wasn’t the required golden kiss, but the Roedtaw wasn’t there to collect a fare. Barra believed his arrival was a sign they were on the right course, doing the right thing. The Roedtaw opened up, ready for them.

The three slid in behind an open plate and felt the slow churning of the great beast begin to speed up as bubbles filled the small space. The Roedtaw swung around until they were pointed down. The last known surviving Olwone cycled up his internal whirlpool and began the voyage back to the Boil.

At the surface, sitting by the opening in the Root, Brace felt the first vibrations of the Buckle. It still felt odd to her, so different from the sway high up in the Loft. It was surprising too how easily she’d lost track of time.

It wasn’t the Buckle she had to fear.

Eyes shone out of the darkness. “The fungal-puppets are coming, Brace.” The words came with echoes in different timbres. Lancing the shadows with her keen eyes, Brace tried to locate the source of the voices. Her nostrils flared and pulsed, but there was nothing. Behind the sound though, farther away in the converging branches, something else moved. It came fast in her direction. She stealthed reflexively and waited.

The pool was closing. Soon, she would be entombed in darkness. She steeled herself against attack, but whatever was out there didn’t move like a monstrosity. In fact, the closer it came, the more familiar it looked.

“Brace!” Jaeden called. Brace was cautious, but she stepped away from the closing fissure and released her fur to become visible again. She was convinced something or someone was still hidden in the wood.

Jaeden dashed into the diminishing pocket of light and space. Out of breath, she went on, “The monsters… they’re attacking again.” Brace was listening, but still scanning the wood. “We have to go!” Jaeden told her.

Motionless, Brace spoke, “There’s something else out there.”

Jaeden spun around in a flash and crouched. After several seconds she whispered, “I don’t see anything.”

“He spoke to me,” Brace said, but she began to doubt it. She couldn’t see, hear, or smell anything, and her senses were acute.

Standing square to Brace, Jaeden said, “These woods play tricks, especially during the Buckle.” As more and more of the rootscape curled into itself, she added, “Time is short.”

Brace frowned. She broke her vigilant stare into the wood to glimpse at the opening to the ocean. The exposed surface had dwindled to practically nothing, and then it was gone as though it had never been.

Her daughter was safe. All the bups were safe… safer than they would be here.

Brace nodded to Jaeden. They fled into the crooked tunnels formed by the mad growth of the Root and the unbound motion of the Buckle.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the pocket behind the plate, the bups were silent. They had direction and purpose, but they also had Barra’s worsening health. It was hard to know what they should say to each other.

Tory tried not to look, but it was hard not to wonder what the infection was doing to his friend. Her fever seemed to have broken, but the cut was open like an eye and as black as a pupil. The wriggling worms had disappeared, but the skin around the cut was bald and carved by jagged green lines. The entire arm looked like a withering flower. It was bad, but what was worse in Tory’s mind was that Barra showed no concern for it.

Plicks was worried too, but tried his best not to focus on the festering arm. Instead, he focused on Red. The longer he observed the Nebule the more obvious it was she was getting worse. She was mottled auburn, and her severed tentacle was shredded at the edge, weeping liquid light that sparked to ash as it fell. He reached out to pet her, and she seemed to want the touch, but he could tell she was hurting. Despite her lethargy the Nebule tried to snuggle up against the Kolalabat and be playful. His chest ached for her. His eyes stung and his head felt swollen with emotions he had no words to describe. He stroked Red, tears sliding over his cheeks.

Too preoccupied to notice her friends, Barra thought about how to convince the Nebules to attack the Root. She didn’t have any immediate solutions, and she wondered if the Roedtaw would stop at the Drift on the way down. She hoped Lootrinea would help.

Barra thought about her dreams, and began thinking of them as her guides. She believed in them, no matter how crazy that sounded. She only wished she could make more sense of them. It was like there were two separate threads spinning two different webs from the same central point. Each connection on a web was a vivid fragment of a dream, but when she tried to connect the webs to one another the image became too confusing to understand. The dream webs were similar but with important differences and Barra got lost between images.

The Nebules flashed brightly and gathered together. Barra’s stomach flipped, and she sucked in a harsh breath. Her mother was in trouble. She didn’t know how she knew it, but the entire expedition was under attack, she was certain of it. Char was spinning and extending and retracting spheres alarmingly. The boys watched intently, but didn’t understand. Red flashed back sharply, and Char calmed down. Blue flowed about, clouds sliding over his back and belly. Adding a couple more subtle, softer flashes, Red seemed to offer a conciliatory message to the others. After a few more exchanges, the three Nebules bobbed together conclusively.

As the jellies returned to the bups, Barra’s dreamy gossamers fell away, leaving only a single web behind. As she contemplated it, it became a single obvious thread. A thread with a severe and unavoidable end.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The camp was under attack. The expedition fought from behind their makeshift walls, walls that wouldn’t protect them long against the fungal-puppets.

Brace and Jaeden met up with some Arboreals who had been outside the camp when the attack began. They were three Kolalabat scouts, a Nectarbadger, and a Listlespur. Brace and Jaeden made a total of seven. The fungal-puppets seemed only aware of the camp proper and Brace believed that gave her small squad the advantage. They separated into two groups. The Kolalas and Jaeden were going to drop in from above on the other side of the camp, just outside the best fortified wall. They could crush the fungal-puppets against the defenders there. Brace would lead the rest of the Listlespurs into the fray from the near side. They could pick off the monstrosities one at a time, thin their numbers, and kill off their strong from within.

As much as the creatures resembled Arboreals, they weren’t Arboreals. They didn’t care when Jaeden’s force ambushed them. They weren’t surprised or confused. They just turned and fought without concern for their lives. It didn’t matter to them when Brace and her crew silently snatched one after another from within the main group. They were neither demoralized nor frightened. They simply kept moving relentlessly forward into the camp.

Floating pairs of morbidly green eyes flickered in and out through the collapsed wood. A fog of flickering beasties rose from the Root and blackened the air. The Kudmoths had been there long before the attack began. They swarmed up and around the stealthed Listlespurs, making them visible as they flew into them.