Sunborn Rising (6 page)

Darby moved away from the wyrmwood, and the Rush flashed by. He landed, buried his claws, folded his wings, and simple as that became almost indistinguishable from any other pod growing on the stump.

Yorg inspected the contents of the bellflower. He raised a single eyebrow, perplexed. “What do you think it is?”

Darby’s response was dry enough to wilt a waterfull. “It’s a bellflower containing a female specimen of Aridifolia Tricopterus,” he said.

Yorg looked sideways at Darby, switched his raised eyebrow, and said, “Quite.”

Darby rolled his eyes. “Well, you asked didn’t you?” He shrugged and added with sincerity, “I don’t know anything more about it than you do.”

Yorg examined the sluggish insect and asked, “Are you still growing fuzzberries?”

“Sure I am. I know how much you like them,” Darby said. “Wait. You mean for the bug.”

“Yes. It looks hungry doesn’t it?” Yorg held the bellflower up to emphasize the point. Ari dragged herself around in obvious strain.

“Right. I’ll grab some seeds,” Darby said, acquiescing.

Yorg peered in at the Tricopterus. She was drooping, and the tiny hook of her tongue was lolling out of her mouth. Yorg thought maybe she was thirsty, so he crossed over to the waterfull located on the other side of the denroom.

Arriving at the waterfull, a sudden sound of crashing of leaves whooshed in through the window located above it. The noise ended as abruptly as it started. Yorg examined the treescape, but didn’t see anything other than a few swaying branches. Whatever it was, it was gone. The Doctor shrugged, and returned his attention to the Tricopterus. He dunked one hand into the waterfull, and then held it dripping over the bellflower which he pursed open with a gentle squeeze. Droplets fell inside and Ari walked over to one and drank. Pleased, Yorg placed the bottom stem of the bellflower into the waterfull to keep it from drying out as well.

Darby swept back into the room, one paw cupped by the other. Yorg nodded, and tipped the open end of the bellflower toward Darby. The Leghund cast the seeds out over the opening, as many falling out as in. Yorg glared at Darby and sighed. Darby just shrugged and smiled, head cocked comically to one side.

Both of the aged Arboreals watched and waited. The insect’s burning orange color had paled since she was captured, but the Fenroars didn’t know that. She stretched up toward the seeds, and the black strands that gummed her arms to her body were revealed.

Darby stepped back, befuddled.

“That’s... not... good,” Yorg said haltingly as he inspected the insect. She tried to fly, but her wings couldn’t get free from her body, and even more black threads were revealed.

Darby recovered from his initial shock, and said, “That’s Creepervine fungus, isn’t it?”

From where Barra was perched eavesdropping, she heard the word as clearly as if Darby had whispered it directly into her ear. The blood ran from her face as she recognized the newly familiar word.

Yorg hesitated, but then he responded gravely, “Vallor was right to send this to us. I’ll have to do some tests.”

There was another crash through the branches outside, drawing the attention of both Fenroars. They stretched their heads out the window, and although several branches were still swinging, there was nothing to see.

“What was…?” Yorg began, but hushed when he saw Darby holding a finger to his mouth.

Darby rose up and unfurled his ears into two large saucers. He walked softly around the living room, tuned into something that Yorg couldn’t hear. Around the middle of the room Darby pointed down as though he found something. Then he looked up, incredulous. Domed like most dens, the ceiling at its center was high, twice as tall as the Leghund. With no warning, Darby leapt into the air. He punched his hands through the ceiling and grabbed onto something from the other side. He pulled it down with him as he fell in a burst of leaves and debris.

Yorg seemed amused.

“Hey, let me go!” Barra demanded. Even as she wriggled in Darby’s huge hands, the ceiling was growing back together. There would be a thin spot for a few days, but no permanent damage.

“Calm down,” Darby said, exasperated. He placed the tense Listlespur down on the floor gingerly, wrinkling his nose.

Barra eyed the window, the entrance, and the braided curtain separating the living room from the next.

Darby read her face and advised forcefully, “Don’t get any ideas. You’re not going anywhere.”

Unflappable, Yorg asked, “I’m Doctor Yorg Fenroar. You’ve met Darby. And you are?”

Barra had trouble calming down, but she managed after a moment. She resented being a captive, but seeing no way out of it, she said bitingly, “Barra.”

There was a knock on the door frame that sounded like it was apologizing for itself:
Hel-lo, hel-lo?
Darby looked in the direction of the knock in total disbelief. He scowled at Yorg, but the old Muskkat disarmed him with an innocent look. He said, “You can’t seriously believe I had anything to do with all this,” but his tone suggested he maybe wished he had.

Turning to Barra, Yorg asked, “Friends of yours?” He drew out the words slow and sweet like pouring honey.

Barra winced as she spoke, “Probably?”

Darby answered the door.

“Hi,” Tory said. He was standing there with Plicks unsure how much trouble they might be in. “I’m Tory. This is Plicks. We’re sorry for the disturbance, but,” he spotted Barra and pointed, “we’re looking for her.”

“Right. Of course. Why else would you be here?” Darby said, breathing in and out of his nose exaggeratedly. Once he’d soothed his mounting frustration, he instructed Tory, “Please explain what exactly is going on.”

Tory and Barra responded at once, but Plicks only clicked his talons while chewing his lower lip. The resulting explanation was a jumbled mess of noise. The Fenroars waited for it to be over; Yorg patiently, Darby rolling his eyes in exasperation.

When they stopped to breathe, Yorg asked, “Whose idea was it to spy instead of simply knocking?” Barra looked around the room for a place to hide. Yorg shook his head at her, but he was clearly entertained.

“So, did I gather correctly that you’re all here for the Tricopterus?” Yorg tried to tie the threads together.

Barra spoke up, “We found her in the Coppice. There’s something wrong with her. We just wanted to find out more, that’s all.”

Plicks wanted to jump in with his thoughts on the insect and the black strands that bound it, but he was unsure of himself. Agitated, he shifted his weight from side to side. Tory noticed, and tapped him on the shoulder to tell him to knock it off.

“Uh, huh,” Yorg said, “Wait. Are you Brace’s little girl?”

Barra stood up straight and tall, and poofed herself up. “I’m not little.” She wasn’t surprised they knew her mother, but she immediately felt the impulse to avoid conversations that could lead to a discussion about the journal.

Her father’s journal.
Her
journal.

“Forgive me, not at all little,” Yorg said acting impressed and even apologetic. “So, which Coppice was it?”

For a reason Tory couldn’t figure, Barra didn’t answer. Plicks shrank away as well, so Tory stepped up, “Evergreen. We were near the bottom, Loft-side. More Loft than Nest anyway.”

Yorg nodded. “If I remember correctly, the bottom of Evergreen is practically in the Middens, right?” The three bups had never really thought about it, but it was true. The Coppice didn’t cross into the ruins proper, but it was close. Yorg thought for a moment and then continued, “Have you seen the sticky stuff on her wings?”

“Yes,” Plicks spoke, startling himself a bit.

“Any ideas what it might be?” Yorg was testing them. He wanted to know how much
they
knew before he gave anything away. Darby stood by him, watching their reactions.

Plicks said in a rush, “I don’t know what it is. But she’s already lost more color in her wings and abdomen. I think the stuff is keeping her from capturing food, from eating and drinking.” He added, somewhat embarrassed, “I like insects.”

Darby chuckled, warming for the first time since the bups had disturbed his den. Yorg smiled broadly and then knelt beside the timid Kolalabat, and said, “Excellent observations.” Very seriously, he went on, “You can infer then, that the sticky stuff might be dangerous?”

Darby snorted in disapproval, but Yorg continued regardless, “Darby and I have an idea of what it could be.” Yorg consulted Darby with a look, giving him a chance to stop the conversation. Darby consented with a shrug, paws open to the sky. Yorg then asked, “Can you keep a secret? Each of you?”

“Yes!” they responded in unison.

“Good,” Yorg said, convinced. “Well, the sticky stuff may be a very dangerous fungus. But,
but
, it could also be a variety of innocuous ergot, or something new. We simply don’t know by looking at it. So you have to keep what you know about it to yourselves until we know for sure. Okay?”

Tory shrugged. More secrets. He understood the reasons this time at least.

Plicks, as squished a Kolalabat as ever there was, managed to shrink from the weight of the request, but he nodded at Yorg anyway.

Barra nodded too, but her mind was already far away, an idea taking root.

“Excellent. Now, run along, interlopers!” Yorg directed. “Come back in a few days. We’ll have results by then.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The trio left the den with their new secret, unsure if they really knew anything more than they did before busting in on the Fenroars. They travelled in relative silence back to the outer rings of the Nest.

Tory broached the silence as he said, “Well, I guess I’ll see you both tomorrow?”

“For sure.” Plicks thought it felt like a normal, everyday goodbye, and he found comfort in that until Barra said, “I’ll bring some leaves from my father’s journal to the Coppice tomorrow, and we can...” she trailed off.

“Ahem, ‘we can’ what, Barra?” Plicks asked.

“Oh? You can help me read through them. Find out what we can about the Creepervine.” Her tail snapped the bark once with playful impatience. “Okay, I’m off. See you tomorrow,” she said before bounding away and out of sight.

Tory turned to Plicks. “Why’s she in such a hurry?”

“Probably needs to get home,” Plicks offered. Hands open, he added, “She’s been in trouble a lot lately.”

“Yeah. I guess so…” Tory said, unconvinced. He looked as if he was going to say something more about it, but then shook it off, and instead he said, “Right. Well, see you tomorrow, bud.”

Plicks’ whole body sagged. Wishing their dens were closer he waved goodbye and headed off on his own. It suddenly occurred to him that Barra could have walked with him at least a little farther. He stopped and scratched his head, and twitched his nose. She’d gone in an odd direction to go home.

6. Alone in the Dark

Barra let her friends believe she as headed home. After all, she
was
going home, just not yet. No need for them to worry about her travelling to the Middens first. Besides, if they didn’t know where she was going, they wouldn’t feel the need to back her story if her mother ever found out.

Barra descended through the Middens. She recognized a nearby ancient ramshackle den. The first ruin she’d ever explored. She didn’t head toward it. Instead, she shimmied down a thick bough and headed deeper into less familiar woods. The darkness became oppressive, stifling her movements, causing hesitation with each step. Her breathing was labored, the thick, cold air seizing her chest. Barra persisted.

She wondered how close she was to the Fall.

She thought she shouldn’t think about it.

The Middens were old, but how old no one really knew. Barra had heard the fables, and though they varied some, they all agreed the dens of the ruins were built by the Olwones when the Middens was young, and the Loft closer to the Root. From there the stories went their own ways: the Olwones vanished, and the untended Forest grew tall and wild, and tore apart the Middens as it reached for the sky; the Middens was left behind for lesser creatures while the Olwones live on at the Root in a paradise detached from the Trees; the Olwones are a myth and the Middens? The remains of an Arboreal Nest abandoned for the danger of living too close to the Fall.

Barra didn’t know what to think of the stories. No one could ever tell her what an Olwone actually was, what one looked like, or where they came from in the first place. They were portrayed as colossal creatures shaping worlds! But the dens of the Middens were sized for creatures like Listlespurs and Rattlebarks, Kolalabats and Rugosics—not giants, Barra thought.

Legends about the Middens, the Olwones, and the Root, Barra had heard a lot of them. The only story Barra had never heard was one of someone returning from the Fall.

The Fall had no branches, no holds, only emptiness. The prospect was frightening enough to keep even the boldest Arboreals away. Barra had a difficult time imagining a world without boughs, thin and thick, in every direction, and she had to admit the thought of it scared her too. So she tread carefully as she picked her way through the Middens, taking care not to delve too far, but the idea of finding the Creepervine drove her on.

Barra had never had a reason to go deeper with so much unexplored higher up. Looking around now she realized how much she’d been missing. Every branch was new and mysterious, each den strange. The homes were shaped from the boughs of course, but there were minerals, rocks, and metals imbedded as well—materials in far too short supply to use in the Loft. She thought of her father, noted everything she saw, and imagined adding her descriptions to his journal.

Farther and farther down, she went. The dens were even more stretched out and gnarled than those above. They’d been worn by time and gravity in a way that was disorienting. Barra felt like she was in another world. There were more distractions, but fewer branches. The odd gaps between boughs startled her more than once. If she stumbled, if she misjudged a step, she may not be able to catch herself; she could drop into the forever black.

Barra slowed. She stepped from branch to branch only when she was sure of her footing, and continued to scout for the sticky fungal residue of the Creepervine. She’d never seen anything like it in her previous adventures, but she might have missed it, not looking for it then as she was now. She wanted a sample because she was worried about poor Ari—the insect deserved to be free of the fungus—but also, knowing that her father was collecting a sample when he disappeared, she hoped somehow that she’d learn something about what happened to him.

Time passed without a sighting. Watering was coming soon, when the “evils” were rumored to wander the Middens. Watering wasn’t a big deal otherwise. According to Venress Starch, Watering used to refer to a surge of water that would burst from the flowers of the Loft twice a day. As long as Barra had been alive, Watering was a once a day trickle that she sometimes missed. Nevertheless, the disappointing event marked the beginning of the treescape’s daily transition into night.

Inverted on a moss covered branch, Barra kneaded the brittle material, and it crunched beneath her paws—not a moss she recognized. Moving on, she hugged her belly to her spine to avoid the scratchy bits. She sniffed the air to gauge her surroundings in the waning light.

Not only was the light meager, but the number of sources was few. No bluebells or lemonlights or indiglows. No sparklenettles or lumenlichens or shimmerpollens. There were some starlights offering pricks of focused light, and a few radiantmosses softening the dark with a diffuse glow. Barra opened her eyes as wide as she could to gather the light.

There were irregular configurations of boughs making it difficult for Barra to orient herself. The bottoms of the dens looked like their tops, the branches growing with no purpose to shape them.

Barra wandered toward one of the dens. She wasn’t entirely sure of finding her way back, but trusted her instinctual sense of up and down to get her there. Still, the unfamiliar treescape was unnerving. Out of habit, she ventured into a small hovel. There were tables and chairs made of wood that had petrified so that they were difficult to distinguish from the rocks used to shape them. Above her was webwork of stone woven into wood, rocks spliced into branches to bend them with their added weight. The bindings were strong, but the kitchen was still crushed side-to-side like everything in the Middens.

Stretching herself out, raking her claws against the floor, Barra wrung the jitters from her body. She stood upright and then sat down at the table in the kitchen as though she was preparing to eat. Imagining the room filled with a family of Listlespurs, she acted out sipping a teaflower daintily. She thought she could almost see the room come to life with all species of Arboreals talking and laughing, drinking and eating, enjoying themselves. But her moment of pretending didn’t last long.

A prickly cold feeling grew like crystals in her blood. She felt the distance home, how far away she was from her mother. She wished she were somewhere else, somewhere safer than an isolated hovel deep in the Middens. Something moved in the corner of the room. Or maybe it was the corner that was moving.

Barra blinked several times to clear her vision. Still, the far wall was writhing. She froze and her heartbeat quickened. She felt blood push into her ears, and all the way to the tip of her tail. She sampled the air with several quick inhales through her nostrils.

The room seemed alive, but it wasn’t. There was something else in the room with her.

Along the far wall, a sheet of black undulated like a doorweave waving in a breeze. The sheet grew wider as it moved, spreading outward from the center. It rippled and slid, covering up the wall and continuing up the ceiling, working its way around the room toward Barra.

The low light turned the sheet into a canvas where Barra’s imagination painted nightmares. As the sheet grew closer, details resolved out of the darkness; it was a multitude of tiny creatures moving in unison. Barra caught glimpses of legs and antennae as the creatures flowed together and expanded along the wall. It didn’t take long for them to cover every surface of the kitchen. She had no idea where they were coming from, or how many there were.

They were almost at her feet.

She stood, and the creatures stopped sharply.

The warped kitchen was trapped in stillness. Barra’s heart was drumming the urge to run into her chest. She stole a quick glance over her shoulder to locate the way out, and when she looked back, the tapestry of creatures had closed the distance to her.

Eyes burning because she was afraid to blink, Barra backed up slowly.

The bugs moved. They matched her progress toward the doorway. She took another step backward. They narrowed the gap.

Barra felt her pulse in the quick of her claws.
Adolescent
claws her mother was always reminding her; fragile. Easily broken, easily repaired, Barra had argued. Suddenly, she wished she’d listened to her mother, and just tried to avoid danger. If she made it home, she would hug and kiss her mom, tell her how right she was, and promise to listen better. She had to make it home.

She felt the closeness of the insects, and the closeness of her escape.

She picked her moment. They picked the same.

Hundreds of pinprick lights turned on as the tiny creatures’ eyes flashed open. Wings fluttered and clacked ominously. In unison, the insects faced Barra and swarmed like tendrils of smoke reaching for her. They billowed around Barra, a terrifying, rattling cloud. Barra coiled, and then in one swift motion, burst through the cloud and out the doorway. She flew into the open boughs of the Middens with the insects trailing after her.

Barra fled through the woods. The oily collection of insects accelerated. They flew together as one large predator. Barra cut through a thicket of brambles, but the insects were unfettered, flowing like liquid over the sharp thorns. The chase sent Barra winding around branches, through dense nettles, and over great gaps in the boughs, but she couldn’t lose them.

Trying a new tactic, she jumped and spun herself around. She whipped out her tail, lassoed a branch, and pulled. Changing direction mid-flight, she headed up toward the Loft. But the insects were too fast. They swarmed and cut off her ascent.

Her pursuers flowed in and out of each other, eyes appearing and disappearing in a frightening miasma. Barra saw their eyes and felt chills—no warmth in those tiny lights, only predatory instinct. They were focused. They allowed her to turn any way but up, relentlessly driving her toward the Fall.

Barra dashed into a den. She bolted through distorted rooms and passages, found a window, and leapt back out. Her eyes were focused, seeing only the path ahead. She ran, but not at full speed. The shadows and boughs were dangerously interchangeable in the dark. Barra hesitated at turns and stumbled after jumps, all the while colliding with leaves and ferns she couldn’t see.

A large clearing in the branches yawned open ahead of her. She couldn’t mark the distance across, but all the way to the edge was clear. She went for it, increasing her speed to make the leap of her life… then realization skewered her like a broken branch through her chest. Her blood drained. Her lungs collapsed.

It was too far.