Mantle: The Return of the Sha (26 page)

“Where are taking me, you sniveling pea of a man?” she yelled back.

“You will see soon enough, Majesty,” he said, the voice now with the deep gurgle of the
Other
. “You will understand your part in this, and
your
task will be quite simple, I assure you.”

Although Bella was glad to have the
Other
talking, she could barely stand to hear the voice of it. While the words were respectful under the circumstances, it was the sinister tone of the voice—the very
sounds
that came from his mouth—that were frightening to her. The fact that he grinned wildly while he spoke only made matters worse.

“Then tell me—who are you? I should at least know my captor.”

“I am an inflock of Skite—a servant of Menagraff, the true Lord of Mantle and beyond. I believe that, in time, you may come to serve him as well. But for now, you are but a pawn in this scheme—a tool, if you will.”

The calmness (
almost politeness
) in his voice, mixed with the deep gurgling message of evil, was almost too much for her to bear. She cringed and realized that she had bitten the inside of her lip and it was bleeding. Balki’s body was deteriorating, and the voice of the inflock emitting from it was haunting, but she pressed on.

“Will you not tell me of my task? Surely, it will not spoil your plans if I know it.”

There was a pause and for a moment Bella thought that she might get what she wanted.

“There is nothing to be gained by knowing. Be quiet now—we are done speaking,” the inflock said.

He paid no attention to her after that, and as they rode she noticed that the forest was completely silent. The animals,
if there were any
, had gone quiet and there were no birds to be seen. She had never in her life felt so utterly alone.

****

The Hidden Forest was like nothing that they could have imagined. To Lizabet, it felt as though they had been shrunken by some wild magic and been thrust into a land of Giants. The wide trunks of the trees were covered in long hair-like moss that laid flat against the bark. A light mist hovered motionless just above the ground.

They lost their sense of direction almost immediately after entering the forest. They hadn’t
felt
lost, but couldn’t be sure, and they relied heavily on both Dorian’s intuition and Pike’s height. Pike could see farther ahead to determine the best routes around the trees, but he was still nowhere close to the height of the lowest branches of them. At times they seemed to be surrounded entirely by walls of bark and moss. The going was so slow at times that Lizabet and Dorian would dismount from their horses and lead them by foot through the maze-like forest.

They couldn’t be sure how many days they had even been in the forest. They slept when they all agreed that it was necessary and rested when they needed to, as well. The dull and gloomy darkness of the forest was constant and determining day from night was impossible.

It was agreed that they had been lucky not to have come across the inhabitants of the forest. There were many stories that had been born in the Hidden, and they would be glad not to give birth to one of their own. It was the sounds of creatures that unnerved them all—Pike especially, who would begin shaking and breathing heavily whenever the sounds seemed to come from nearby.

It was during their sixth day (
at least as far as they were concerned
) walking through the forest that they realized that their food supply was low. Lizabet and Dorian had brought enough to get them through for some time, but they hadn’t counted on Pike being with them. Instead of food for two, they were now feeding three, and it was no small matter when it came to satisfying the appetite of a Loper. Pike was doing his best to eat as little as possible, but he was accustomed to large meals and became weak if he did not replenish his strength.

They had known when they left Obengaard that they would need to forage for food on their journey, but they hadn’t realized how dangerous that might be. It was when Lizabet spotted what looked to be hanging fruit on one of the larger bushes that sometimes grew between the trees that they would learn just how dangerous the forest could be.

“Dorian, look!” Lizabet said, running toward the bush.

The bush itself was nearly twenty feet tall. Growing from between two trees, it wrapped itself around the trunks of both of them so that it looked like a huge green wall with massive trees growing from it. The leaves of the bush were large enough to cover Lizabet’s head and the bright red fruit that it held were the size of melons.

Lizabet came to a stop in front of the bush and began to reach her hand out to pluck the fruit, but her hand froze and then jerked back to her suddenly when she saw the fruit move. It seemed to
shiver
. As she stood watching, the others began to do the same, until all of the hanging fruit was shivering.

Dorian and Pike couldn’t see the fruit moving, but they could see her stopped in front of the bush, seemingly frozen. Dorian had a bad feeling and ran toward her. As he did, Lizabet let out a quick shriek and backed away. When Dorian came up behind her, he put both of his hands on her shoulders. She didn’t take notice.

As they stood before the bush, the bright red fruit began to unravel into wings that unfolded, revealing the body of the creature. Once the wings had fully extended, they recognized it for what it was—a butterfly. But these were not the butterflies that Dorian and Lizabet were accustomed to in Terra, and Pike, who had never seen a butterfly, was petrified with fear.

They unfolded a wing span of nearly two feet, each wing bright red with dark black spots. The body was bright yellow and the eyes of the creatures were an ice blue. It was when they noticed the stingers on the butterflies that they began to run, swords in hand. The stingers protruded half the length of Lizabet’s forearm, and they started to vibrate back and forth so rapidly that the air was now filled with the deafening sound of a humming buzz.

As they ran back to where their horses were standing, the horses began to jump and nay before finally running as best they could between the openings in the trees. They stumbled over protruding roots and jumped others, but managed to gain distance. There was no time for them to worry about losing the horses—they were running for their lives now, but had run out of places to go. The butterflies, numbering now in the hundreds, or perhaps thousands, flew around them so that they were surrounded.

The three of them stood bunched together, each of them facing a different direction, with both Lizabet and Dorian holding their swords up, ready to strike if necessary. The butterflies only flew above them, though, moving quickly from side to side, changing their positions above them in a blink of an eye. But they did not attack, and it was Dorian who finally mumbled under his breath to Lizabet.

“Why aren’t they attacking? What are they doing?”

It was then, before Lizabet could utter a response, that the largest of the butterflies flew down to them. It was not moving aggressively and Lizabet didn’t take it as such. She took her left hand and slowly put it on Dorian’s shoulder to signal for him not to react rashly. He stood still, thinking,
I hope to all the Fathers that she knows what she’s doing.

“Pike, do not make a move,” Lizabet said in a whisper.

The creature hovered, slowly circling them before finally stopping directly in front of Lizabet. It hovered before her, seeming to stare her in the eyes knowingly.

“Can you speak to it, Dorian?” she asked. Dorian had the gift of Animal-speak, but she wasn’t sure how to define this particular creature before her.

“We’ll see,” he replied.

Dorian made clicking noises followed by a series of well-placed hums from deep in his throat. The butterfly took its hovering over a bit so that it was looking at both of them. It replied with its own series of clicking sounds mixed with a sound that reminded Lizabet of a cat’s purr.

“I’m not sure if I can translate this,” Dorian said. “It seems to be some sort of cross language—a mixture of Animal-speak and Bird-speak, with something else that I can’t quite make out.”

“Can you understand
any
of it?” Lizabet asked.

“Some…it calls you
Montiff
, I’m not sure why.”

“
Montiff
?” Lizabet asked in confusion.

“In Animal-speak, Montiff means
Mother of Mothers
—similar to that of a
creator
or sometimes
queen
. Do you know what this means?”

Lizabet thought for a moment before answering. She thought that the secret that she had held from Dorian would now be given up and it was actually a relief to her. Now that the fates of both of them were so closely tied together, she supposed that there would be no room for secrets between them any longer.

“Kindly correct him, and tell him that I am a
sha
—not the montiff that he believes me to be,” she said.

Dorian turned to her, with his mouth open in shock. His mother had told him of shas, but she had told it to him as though they were only a myth.
Surely, shas are not real
,
but surely Lizabet would not put us in danger with such a bold lie
.

“Tell him,” Lizabet insisted.

Dorian obliged and went about telling the creature what Lizabet had said. The butterfly responded at once, and this time the sounds it made seemed entirely different to Lizabet. She could tell that the creature had changed to Animal-speak, and she could see that Dorian looked more confident in his own speech.

When they stopped talking, Lizabet asked, “Well, what did it say?”

“He says that it makes no difference, a sha and a montiff are the same to them,” Dorian replied. “Not only does he say that you are a montiff, he says that you are
the
montiff—the one they have been expecting for many generations. He says that you
are
the mother of all mothers, a montiff, sha, and blue witch. They are all the same.

“Lizabet, what is he talking about?”

She looked at Dorian, now feeling ashamed. She wasn’t ashamed of who or what she was, but she should have told him before they left home.

“It is true, but I will explain it later. What do they
want
from us?”

Dorian spoke a few words to the creature and then translated.

“They want nothing of us. It was you approaching their roost that woke them, but he says it was the
power
of you, nothing more. They
felt
you coming,” Dorian explained.

“Will they help us, do you think?” she asked.

Dorian asked the butterfly and then replied, “They cannot escort us, but assure me that we are so far, at least, moving in the proper direction. We may be half through the Hidden, but I shouldn’t trust that. The butterflies, I think, have no sense of distance as it would apply to us. They see things differently, I’m sure.”

“So they cannot help us find our way?”

After another series of sounds that meant nothing to Lizabet or Pike, Dorian replied, “He says that we do not need their assistance. He says that we may have the assistance of the forest if we need to call on it.”

“And how would we do that?” she asked.

“He says that you need only to emit your voice so that the forest hears it.”

“Am I to yell at the forest?” she asked, now confused.

Dorian made a quick inquiry to the butterfly and then said, “He says that as the montiff you will know what to do.”

“That doesn’t help at all,” Lizabet said. “So we are free to go?”

Dorian spoke to the butterfly one final time and then turned to Pike, who was clearly the most anxious, and said, “Yes, they wish us safe travels.”

And as he finished speaking those very words, the butterflies flew away—maneuvering effortlessly through the trees until they could no longer be seen.

****

Once the butterflies were gone, the three of them stood in the small clearing. They were silent, but the expression on Dorian’s face seemed to carry enough noise to fill the forest. His face was filled with shock, but Lizabet thought she also saw sadness and even contempt.

“I didn’t know how to tell you, and I don’t really understand it myself, although I think I’m beginning to,” Lizabet said in an apologetic tone.

Dorian knew the tone of her voice to mean that she was begging forgiveness.

“How could you not tell me of something so important? I thought we could trust each other with anything.”

“We can, Dorian,” Lizabet said, fighting back tears. “I just didn’t know what to say about it—I understand so little myself.”

Pike, who heard everything that Dorian had translated, had fixated on only one thing.

“You are a
witch
, Miss Lizabet?” he asked with a wavering voice.