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V. The Weirdest Thing
“Well,” Tavirr said, brightening, “would you like to spend your life finding out how many tallies of words might fit inside a pallicorn’s shell, or would you like to have a… what was the word he used… a pignikt?”
She blinked at him.
“Yes. I… thought I probably said that wrong.”
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Zoe was relieved to hear that the way out of a pallicorn’s shell was not by going through its stomach again. Instead, they walked down the deep, spiraling inner shell to something like a natural arching port at the base. By this point, she’d finished explaining to Tavirr that she also did not want to know how a pallicorn relieved itself—and Zoe had realized that Tavirr had been having far too much fun at her expense.
Mama had reeled her long tentacles into her stomach, and the base of her shell now rested in a field bursting with wildflowers. Trees dotted the landscape—real trees, not kriuulu mother trees—attracting all manner of little flying things to their tiny white flowers. There were bees everywhere, and Zoe wondered if all these flowers were why Mama had stopped.
“Come on over,” Rene’s voice shouted from some distance away.
Zoe trotted over to join him, where he was setting a sizeable basket down on a large, scaled leather blanket—probably the hide of some small breed of domestic drake—and helped him lay out a spread of squall bread, pickled melon, and smoked meats from a large basket. Far above them, Mama’s enormous bell swayed gently, the thick hide rippling.
“Where’s Tavirr?” Rene asked.
Zoe looked around. “I… huh.” Then she looked up.
No wonder lysks swore by the wind, she mused. Tavirr soared high above them, rising on an updraft, his tail flaring as his wings yawed away from his ground-bound friends. Those wings were huge, much longer than appeared possible when they were folded with the fingers curled in. The trailing edge webbing stretched from the end of the third finger nearly halfway down the big lysk’s tail.
It was a good thing, Zoe thought with a wicked grin, that he was covered with such thick fur. Humans were the only people she knew of with naked skin. No one else went clothed, but no one else needed to.
Suddenly, Tavirr’s great wings snapped flat against his back, and he stooped on something that made the tall grass whip as it tried to flee. At the last moment, his wings and tail flared, and she saw his taloned feet close around his prey. He rose again, taking the big animal in his hands, and did something that resulted in a spray of blood misting to the ground.
“Wow,” Zoe breathed.
“Yep,” Rene added.
They watched the lysk as he landed softly. He held his prey up to the four cardinal directions as he chanted something in Lysk. Zoe guessed he was praying, perhaps meaning to offer the animal to the winds, but those talons scythed easily through the pelt, and by the time he reached them, Tavirr had peeled the hide off what Zoe finally recognized as a big buck hare.
“Will you share my prey as I have shared yours, good host?” Tavirr asked Rene.
“I will in thanks, not host to guest, but friend to friend.”
Zoe smiled as she built up a fire in the pit that Tavirr quickly dug out. This, she realized, was the first time since the wolves that she’d been happy—smiling not from courtesy or some discolored pleasure, but from the simple joy of enjoying the company of friends.
Not host to guest, but friend to friend.
The hospitality rituals between people of differing species echoed to her from remembered classes—those few taught not by humans, but by the vo’ai schoolmaster himself.
Ulwio had saved her life in the Cathedral, given her a chance to get word out—but word had already gotten out, she remembered. Tavirr had taken her journal to his mate, a burchar woman who would undoubtedly have been able to read it and understand.
His mate.
Zoe remembered the feel of the warm, thick fur of his shoulder against her cheek as she’d fallen asleep leaning against him—the scent of him unfamiliar but not at all unpleasant—and blushed. As he bundled the raw pelt into a large oilcloth Rene provided, Zoe decided there would almost certainly be a room in Mama’s towering shell stuffed floor to ceiling with hides. Good for trading, hides. Everyone needed them. Even if a person used fabric for clothing—or didn’t need clothing at all—they still needed packs, storage bags, travel straps, even simple decorations.
The pallicorn’s enormous bell fluttered high above them again, and Zoe realized it wasn’t the wind—there was barely a breeze—but Mama’s own exhalations. A glistening white seam appeared, then another, and soon the bell was blooming open to show fleshy petals lined dark green within. They inched downwards, falling ever so slowly, until their tips rested on the earth.
Whatever buoyant gas had been in her bell had escaped now, mostly odorless except for a slight funk that quickly dissipated. The petals of the bell relaxed like great curving pillars against the ground; peeling away from the leafy inner surface, lacy tendrils began to wave and dance in the air, something like puffs of snow floating gently away.
Zoe looked away quickly, not wanting to think about the last time she’d seen drifting spores.
When a group of birds leaped from the scatter of trees to flutter and dive through whatever the pallicorn was releasing, she finally relaxed and remembered to breathe.
“What’s she doing?” she asked, unable to cover the hint of trepidation in her voice.
Rene peeled the rind off one of the ears of squall bread, wrapping it around some of the smoked meat slices, and tossed the rest into the fire. He handed it to her as she sat on the hide and set out several jars of clean water.
“It scared the fuck out of me the first time I saw it, too,” he said. “I thought she was either dying or about to eat me.”
Tavirr folded the rough cloth he’d been cleaning his talons on back into a pocket of his travel strap, peeling it off his shoulders and keel bone with a look of relief. Rene handed him a peeled rind, but Tavirr merely used it as a plate, heaping it with the rest of the smoked meats.
“When I was older,” Rene continued, “I realized that she was actually spawning. Every one of those little fluff balls is a larval pallicorn.”
Zoe shivered, wondering how many of the larvae would survive. Probably not many, she realized as she watched the aerial displays of the birds. Finally, her stomach complaining, she peeled a squall bread rind and made her own sandwich.
Later, when they’d enjoyed the fire-roasted hare and finished off the pickled melon for dessert, Zoe asked them, “What’s the weirdest thing you've ever seen?”
Everyone was silent for a stretch. Then Rene chuckled. “Damn, I forgot about that old question!”
“Hm?” mumbled Tavirr around a last mouthful of hare.
“It’s the question you ask someone when they’re visiting,” Zoe told him. “It’s a way of learning about the world when you can’t leave.”
“I left,” Rene said.
She stared at the big man. “You’re from—? But when? Why? How?!”
“Would you believe I was playing hide-and-seek?”
“How—how old were you?”
“Seven. And before you ask, I have no idea how old I am now.”
Zoe thought for a second. “Who was mayor then?”
“What was her name…? Em… Emmie? No, Emma. Emma Mayor, but I think her regular surname was Scrivener, same as yours.”
For a moment, all she could do was stare. “My… my grandmother’s name was Emma Scrivener. I didn’t know she was mayor…”
“What is a—” Tavirr began, but Rene let out a loud belly laugh.
“Well, shit, I guess I’m officially old! So, strangest thing I ever saw? Mama. It was my turn to hide, and I’d gone out to the orchard to climb an apple tree. Next thing I knew, there were all these bees, and then I thought it was raining, so it started to climb down, and that was when Mama found me. She thought I was a snack!”
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The pallicorn’s bell petals had started closing, gracefully lifting themselves up and in, blooming in reverse. Finally, she let a long hissing sigh begin to ever so slowly fill her bell again, rippling lights barely visible far below where Zoe and her friends sat.
“I was still awfully young, though, so I bounced back quick once Mama decided I wasn’t food.” He looked at his hands, busying themselves with a hangnail. “I, uh, I never particularly wanted to go home.”
When he looked at her, Zoe was sure something inside him flinched away. “You already knew about the Cathedral?”
He scratched an eyebrow. Wiped at his nose. “It’s hard, keeping track of time out here. I’ve gone years without even thinking about Cathedral Day. Not even sure what twigged in me, but I think… maybe Mama knew. It was her idea to turn around, to come back for you. Then I realized… what day it was.”
“Hrrm,” Tavirr rumbled, a dangerous edge to his unspoken comment.
Zoe watched the bees for a while, listened to their busy humming.
“You weren’t playing hide and seek, were you,” she finally stated.
“Sure I was. Only it wasn’t a game.”
“When did you find out about the Cathedral?”
“When does anyone?” At her look, Rene threw up his hands. “Okay, yeah, I watched. But when the trees started their, y’know, moving, I was outta there. I was already running when I heard the first screams, but it was so dark, I ran headfirst into the trunk of one of those apple trees. I got up, started to wobble away, and then I woke up in that lovely glowing room being nursemaided by a good man named Ernest Carrier. He, uh, he passed, just a few seasons ago.” He stopped, and Zoe could see his throat move silently, swallowing what she suspected was a grief Rene didn’t care to share. “For the first few years, though, he kept me busy learning how to take care of Mama, to know her moods and how to talk to her. Before he passed, though, we made it official. I took the Carrier name, and when he was gone,. I took over his work.”
“All right. But we’ve all seen Mama now, and you know that doesn’t count. You have to give us something you’re sure we haven’t seen!”
Rene laughed. It was a loud, rumbling bark of a laugh, and it startled a flock of songbirds away. “Fair enough. Let me think on it. Tavirr, you go first.”
The lysk flicked an ear. “I—but—go where?”
“He means, tell us the strangest thing you’ve ever seen.” Then she added, “That you feel safe talking about.”
He gave her a smile, acknowledging her clarification. “I saw a hare kill a hawk.”
“You’re kidding.”
“The hawk,” he said, using one hand to indicate the motion, “swooped down for the kill, but then instead of fleeing, the hare leaped straight up like so,” his other hand shot up, “caught the hawk by the throat, biting right through it in midair, landed with the hawk under its claws, and began to eat it. Several other hares bounded in to join the feast. By then I’d flown by far enough that I lost sight, but it is not something that I will ever forget.”
“You know they used to be herbivores?”
Tavirr gave her a look she was beginning to recognize as deliberate innocence. “Hawks?”
“No!” she laughed, “hares! People used to breed rabbits for pets, or for food and fur, but the tame ones all died out, and now there’s just wild hares. I guess hawks haven’t gotten the message that the bunnies switched menus. They scavenge, too. Only thing hares are supposedly afraid of now are wolves and cats.”
“And lysks,” Tavirr added, then went back to cracking hare bones for marrow.
Zoe turned to Rene.
“All right,” he said. “I saw a cat.”
“Not weird, doesn’t count,” she replied.
“I saw a cat small enough to sit on your lap. His owners called him Mouser.”
“Damn,” she breathed. “I thought those were gone now, you know, just tabbies the size of tigers, anymore.”
“Not on the African Plateau. I’ve only been there once, but let me tell you, there is no room there for any more big predators.”
They talked about what he’d seen there, mostly Tavirr asking all the questions as the sky warmed toward the west. A great gathering of pallicorns, bees flying between them all. Elephants—those simply floored Tavirr (and Zoe too, she had to admit)—and burchars forming communities, the bulls acting as guides and protecting burchar children. Hyenas making war on them both. The stuff of fairy tales, Zoe thought, torn between credulity and disbelief, but who can tell anymore?
The moons rose, one after another. Huge yellow Adba; Tavirr said she’d come down, long ago, appearing to lysks and burchars alike. In her wake came Fweyu, and Zoe told them that the vo’ai swore there was a long-dead Cathedral of Trees up there. Luna’s fragment was absent on her irregular wanderings, but her dust (and lost Khiai’s, if what Tavirr swore was true) had made the glimmering ring belting the world. Finally, little Takk, of whom no tales were known.
Zoe was about to tell Rene and Tavirr about the painting of old Earth as seen from Luna’s surface, but she was distracted by a feeling of creeping unease. It’s on the ceiling, she wanted to say, but they were under the open sky; and then she wanted to check for auroras, but the solstice wasn’t due yet. She caught a flash from the corner of her eye; a lifetime’s experience told her it was only a shooting star from the dust ring.
There—she saw it, or felt it, or whatever her head did to tell her that many-legged thing was there. It was huddled in on itself, long bits wrapped around pointy bits that twitched and curled into swiveling bits gazing up past the moons, past the rings, into… whatever a weird, disjointed thing like that might stare.
It looked her way. There were no eyes, not really, but Zoe felt its attention like an itch in her head.
She flinched and pretended not to see it. Maybe it would just go away.
“The weirdest thing I ever saw,” Zoe managed, interrupting some joke Tavirr was mangling, “is sitting right over there in the grass. Don’t look,” she forestalled them, “because I don’t think either of you will be able to see it.”
“All right,” murmured Tavirr, but the tip of his tail twitched.
Opening his basket again, Rene pulled out a small knife and a round of wax. Zoe caught the scent of garlic as he cut through and began to pare off pieces of rich cheese, and her stomach reminded her they’d been here all day. He took out several more jars, and when Zoe opened one, she almost forgot her uneasiness. She’d only tasted mead once.
“Cheers,” Rene said. “Perks of having a few million very busy friends.”
Tavirr eyed his jar, his ears canted back skeptically. “I have never seen the appeal of drinking anything produced from insect vomit. But,” he added as Zoe happily reached for his mead, “I suppose I may as well find out.”
He took a swallow, coughed, and said, “I believe my opinion of insect vomit has been revised.” Sipping again, he added, “Downward.” He took a final gulp. “Perfectly vile stuff. Is there more?”
“Don’t drink and fly,” Rene said, and handed him another. “Now,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “I left this one out of our weirdest things game since I didn’t see it with my own eyes. I read it.”
Tavirr hiccuped. “What…” He stopped to snag a chunk of cheese on the point of a talon. “What is the… hmm… weirdest thing you have ever read, then?”
Zoe chimed in, her prickling skin making her too eager to get out of her own head. “I once read about an evil wizard who could never be killed.” She pointed at Tavirr, who obediently closed his mouth on a question. “Wizards were people in old Earth tales. They could make impossible things happen just by waving their hands around—like, oh, turning a person into a fish or whatever.”
“I am beginning to think the weirdest thing anyone could ever read must have been written by a human.”
“Hush, you,” she said. Then she turned to Rene. “And what exactly are you laughing at?”
Rene wiped his eyes and popped another piece of cheese in his mouth, snickering.
“This wizard’s hobby was apparently kidnapping fair maidens and flying away with them.” She examined her mead, which was mostly gone. “Humans,” she pointed out to Tavirr, “don’t have wings.”
“Perhaps this evil wizard was a pallicorn, then?”
Zoe stopped for a moment. “Does Mama keep her heart in a needle that’s inside an egg, in a bird, in a hare, all locked in a box that’s buried under a tree?”
Rene looked away to where the pallicorn hovered just above the ground, still refilling her bell. “Not… that I know of?” he chuckled.
“How did the egg get in—er, no—how did the needle get inside an egg that was yet to be laid?”
Zoe shrugged. “Honestly? Whoever came up with that story probably drank too much mead.”
“Any amount of mead,” said Tavirr, who now had three empties in front of himself, “is too much.”
“We can tell how much you hate it,” Rene noted.
“I believe it is your turn,” Tavirr remarked to the big man.
“Hand it over—that’s the last one,” Rene said, and the lysk reluctantly gave the unopened jar back. Rene drained it. “So. Mine’s not a fairy tale, or at least I don’t think it was meant to be. It was an account of a series of unexplainable deaths. I think it was a text originally from a newspaper.” He raised a hand, forestalling Tavirr’s inevitable questions. “Those were mass-produced texts in old Earth times, but I don’t know how so many were made at one time.”
The lysk nodded. “If there is one thing we all share, it is lost arts that none can fathom.”
“Anyway,” Rene continued, “the gist of it was that some performer had died, and they named the disease she died of after her.”
“What about it?” Zoe asked. “What’s weird about dying of a disease?”
“Only that apparently when people died of the faylind disease, their bodies… melted.”
Zoe tipped her mug to him. “You officially win that one.” She looked over at Tavirr, but the lysk was staring at Rene, his ears flat, hair bristling. Her unease returned full force, making her shudder.
“The Terror,” Tavirr breathed.
There was another flash from the corner of Zoe’s eye, but somehow it was different from the shooting star she’d glimpsed less than an hour before.
Her uneasiness increased so sharply the world seemed to tilt, bringing a sense of dizzying unreality. Suddenly, something huge—a thing made of legs and winding arms and what looked like a clawed tail—flashed from where it had been to where Zoe was, pinning her to the ground.
In the distance, someone began to scream, a long, keening howl that didn’t stop for breath. An arc of fire ripped across the sky, shrieking through the light of the moons, the hazy dust ring, and the distant stars.
Even as the ground began to shake, as explosions roared into the distant landscape, that arc of fire continued its burning howl, tearing the world open in deadly rage.