Kylara bolted to her foot and then stood still, her heart pounding in her ear. She looked around. It appeared she was in some sort of ravine, with steep, rocky walls rising on either side of her. A gust of wind tousled her hair, whipping a few strands into her eyes. It was chilly and the air was dry. Each breath was almost painful.

Kylara pressed her palm against the rock as the initial panic began to subside. The only noise was the whistle of the wind and an odd buzzing that seemed to emanate from the thin cracks in the rock. She looked around, trying to get her bearings. The dry, sterile taste of the wind made her throat feel scratchy. There was no grass, no trees, no bushes–only hard, craggy stone.

Although–there were flowers. Kylara leaned forward to examine one growing out of the rock. Its petals were transparent and delicate, like the wings of an insect. Strongly, it didn’t seem to have any stalk. It was petals all the way down, from the flower to the root. Kylara reached out to touch it. It retracted back into the crack with a faint snap. A single slender petal drifted free, twirling gently down to the ravine floor.

Kylara frowned. She’d never seen moving flowers before. She moved to pick up the fallen petal when she noticed the other flowers slowly turning on their roots to orient towards her like they were watching.

Okay, fine, she thought. I don’t need to pick it up after all.

She shuddered. Moving flowers she could deal with. Thinking flowers were something else entirely.

Despite the cold temperature, there were no shadows on the rocks. That meant the sun was directly overhead, so it was about noon. The same time it had been a minute ago.

The sun was incredibly bright, almost making it difficult to see. The light was also the same colour as she was used to, which was a bit confusing. She tried to remember why that was confusing and fell a bit flat. She’d remember eventually. Or at least she hoped she would. She felt a bit odd, like she had gone to the kitchen and forgotten what she wanted to get. Like thoughts drifting away after walking through a door.

Kylara raised her hand against the glare, trying to think. Had she been inside just now? Was that why her eyes weren’t adjusted yet? And if she had been inside, where? There were no doors nearby. Had she been asleep? Why was she so confused?

Someone shouted something near her.

A weapon. She needed a weapon. She patted down her clothes for something–anything. Surely she always carried a weapon with her? Her hand hit something hard and after a few seconds of trying to navigate the confusing pockets on her trousers–really, what the fuck was wrong with her clothes, why would anyone choose to wear this?–she pulled out a sharp bit of metal that looked vaguely like a weapon. Or part of a weapon. The object was a misshapen lump of steel which looked like it had been melted and fused together. It looked like it had once been some kind of revolver. The barrel was warped and it did not have any type of trigger. Kylara ran her finger across the muzzle. Still, it was sharp. It would have to do.

She turned slowly, looking around for the source of the shouting. She saw nothing. Nothing but shadows shifting over stone. The noise was still there too. Deep buzzing combined with the distant wail of wind echoing off of stone.

She frowned, about to put the confusing object back into her pocket when a flash of movement caught her eye. A gwiyala scampered up the rock. Heart leaping, she whirled at it and threw the metal in its direction as hard as she could. It knocked the gwiyala off the wall. It fell half a metre then quickly righted itself and scurried away through another crack in the stone. The sound echoed through the ravine.

Kylara stared at the spot in confusion. Why had she just done that? What was wrong with her? Did she want to kill it? Did she want to draw attention to herself?

“You had a reason to attack it,” a voice said. She turned to see a man walking towards her. He looked out of place. He had a short, neatly trimmed beard and long wavy hair with a touch of grey. It was hard to judge his age. His eyes were bright and clear but his skin was wrinkled. She guessed he was around fifty.

And… there was something odd about him. Something about the way he moved. Something about his shadow. Kylara couldn’t pick out exactly what it was but it was there. It was like with Wanderers, you couldn’t pick out exactly why they were Wanderers. They just were. They just didn’t look quite human.

“I did?” Kylara said as he got nearer. “Because I think… I think it was my pet?” She stared at the spot where she had thrown the rock. Had she really tried to kill her pet? Why had she done that?

“Not that one,” the man said, “or at least, I hope not. Would be awfully clever of it to follow us here. That was just a wild gwiyala. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“I feel guilty though,” Kylara heard herself say out loud before she even realised she was voicing the thought. She frowned slightly–she had no idea why she was telling the man this much. She was fairly certain she wasn’t the type of person to volunteer information like this. Was he doing something to her?

“Well,” the man remarked matter-of-factly, “you did try to kill it. That’s usually a sign of a decent person–feeling guilty after trying to kill things.” He raised his eyebrows and sauntered over to stare at the rock the gwiyala had disappeared into, hands in his pockets.

This man thought that feeling guilty after trying to kill something meant she was a decent person? Kylara’s lip twitched. Nothing about what he had said was wrong, but the statement still gave her an uneasy feeling. Kylara wasn’t sure that ‘feeling guilty for trying to kill something’ was one of her top criteria for being a decent person. She wondered what kind of life someone led to put that in their moral code.

“Good people don’t try to kill things in the first place,” she ventured.

She didn’t think the man would try to harm her, but there was still something uncanny about his casual demeanour. Best be cautious.

“Perhaps,” the man dismissed. He seemed suddenly distracted. “Now, what is that?” he exclaimed. He peered back at the bleak landscape. Fog had covered much of the rock. “Hm? Any ideas?”

“Fog’s rolled in,” Kylara said. “Is that bad?” She looked at him. He looked worried. “Why, what’s in the fog?”

“Oh,” he suddenly snapped out of his thoughts and brushed it off, “nothing. Nothing important anyway. But rolled. What a boring word. The fog’s rolled in”–here he stuck his tongue out–“Nah. Don’t like. Roiled, that’s more fun. The roiling fog,” he sounded the words out as if feeling their shape on his teeth. “Brilliant. Now–” he flashed her a small grin, “it’s been a few minutes, do you remember why you threw this–” he reached down picked up the metal object Kylara had found in her pocket and made a face, inspecting it, “this, er, dare-I-say gun? at that gwiyala?”

“I didn’t mean to hurt it,” Kylara said.

Wait. No. That wasn’t right. She had meant to hurt it. A lie.

“I didn’t mean to attack it,” Kylara corrected, “but I did mean to hurt it. Why did I want to do that? Why did I want to hurt it?”

“You don’t remember?” the man asked softly.

“No.”

The man squinted and stepped back, raising his arms as if he wanted to calm her. “Attempt–and I am really trying not to be patronising here–attempt to put a pause on that emotion for now. Don’t feel guilty. People tend to hold on to survival instincts tighter than to recent memories and right now one is needed for you to justify the other. So please just–” he groped physically for the right word– “just… wait.”

Kylara studied him. Why was he acting like he knew her? And why wasn’t he making any sense?

“Who are you?” she asked.

The man physically cringed at that. “Oh, I really messed this up, didn’t I?” He ran his hand through his hair. It ruffled oddly like it wasn’t getting the full weight of his touch. “Stupid, stupid. That’s what I get for waiting too long. Doing such a complicated translation when half my higher brain function was already shut off–stupid, stupid, stupid.” He slapped his forehead, spun, and then glared at the sun as if he wanted to shout at it. Kylara wondered if he was a theatre actor. It didn’t seem like how a normal person would react.

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“Are you alright?” Kylara asked.

He quickly came to. “Fine,” he said. “I’m fine, I’m always fine. I really do have the worst luck though, don’t I?” He looked at her almost–well, Kylara wasn’t sure what the word would be for it except pathetically. He looked at her pathetically. He searched her face briefly for something, perhaps sympathy or familiarity, but he did not seem to find it. Then he sucked in a sharp breath and clapped.

“Gradient’s not bad here, we’ll find your sister and keep a move on. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Yalmay is here?” Kylara asked. “Why?”

The man sighed. “I hate having to explain things. Horrible at it. But we’re in the warren directly above your hometown. Your sister is with us and we are hopefully going to find her and fix my current predicament without too much issue. Good?” He looked at her. “All explained?” Kylara nodded instinctually. “Brilliant, now let’s go.”

Kylara followed. She noticed she was being remarkably compliant for some reason. She needed to keep that in mind.

They didn’t go far. The man walked to one of the nearby cliffs and, without hesitation, slammed his fist against the rock. Kylara flinched. It looked like it hurt.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

The man didn’t answer. Instead, he pressed his ear firmly against the cold rock, his face scrunched up in concentration. Kylara wondered what he was listening for. Rocks didn’t echo like that. They were too solid. He wouldn’t hear anything.

Or they usually didn’t. In the warrens, she supposed they might.

After a few seconds, he shifted down a few metres and tried again, hitting the rock even harder and then listening. Kylara winced slightly as he did it. The strange flowers were noticing him. Some had shrunk back into the crevices with a twirling sound. Others just rotated to face him. It felt like someone was watching.

The man repeated the action two more times–hitting the rock and then listening. Each time, he winced slightly as he did it as if hitting the rock hurt. Kylara noticed a faint shimmer that appeared when he hit it too. Like a thin film of water quickly going over him. She watched closely.

Her first impressions had been right. There really was something wrong with the way the light was hitting him. He looked real, detailed, but the way the colours bounced off him–it was almost as if he were painted on the landscape.

“What is that?” Kylara asked. “That shimmer?”

“Good eye,” the man said, not stopping his odd ritual of hitting the wall and listening. “I’m–” he hit the wall again, “–not entirely here, you see. Sorry, can you help me with this? It just occurred to me that with five minutes to live this is not a good idea.”

“Er, sure,” Kylara said, stepping closer. “What do you want me to do? And what do you mean about not really being here?” She didn’t bring it up, but she hoped the man had more than five minutes to live. Perhaps he was speaking metaphorically.

If this was the warren over Kookaburra Creek (Kylara was almost certain the man was telling the truth about that), then she needed help to get back home. He was likely a warbler. Now, why she was travelling by herself in the warrens instead of with a group and why Yalmay was here too–she had no idea.

She stared at the man’s odd colouring some more. He didn’t seem to have any shadow. Maybe he was an illusion. Perhaps that was what he meant by “five minutes to live.” Perhaps the illusion could only hold for five minutes.

“Come here.” The man pointed at the wall. “Just hit it there, as hard as you can if you please.”

“Here?” Kylara asked.

“Yep.”

She hit it and hissed. It hurt more than she had expected it to. It took her a second to remember why. She had used her left arm instead of her right. When was the last time she had made that mistake?

“So,” the man said, “Have you noticed that we’re not speaking Koulan right now.”

“What do you mean we’re–”

Oh, he was right. The words were understandable, familiar even, but at the same they were not. Bizarre.

“What did you do?” Kylara asked in ??.

He pointed at another spot on the wall, indicating Kylara hit that too. She did.

“Right now, we’re speaking a pidgin language. Halfway between Koulan and–well never mind, that’s not the point. The point being, translating upwards allowed me to mix things up. Create something halfway in between so we can communicate. I was in a bit of a predicament though, and in mixing so many things together I seem to have misplaced some things. Like your recent memories. You’ll get them back of course, but not until we are out of this warren.”

“Alright,” Kylara said.

“Alright?” the man asked. He turned and studied her. “That’s it? You’re very agreeable. I don’t know what I was expecting but I was preparing for more of a reaction.” He frowned. “I didn’t misplace anything else, did I? You feel emotionally–” he flapped his hand about a bit –“stable and everything?”

“I know how the warrens work,” Kylara said. “This is…” This was by far the most disoriented she had felt in a warren, and she had been to a lot, “–this isn’t great but it's fine I guess. I don’t feel bad, just different. A bit… blank.” She shrugged. “I’m used to it. How did you do it? Create an in-between language?”

“A lot of practice,” the man mumbled. He pointed at another spot on the wall. “Hit here. How much do you remember about how the warrens work?”

“A lot I think,” Kylara said. “I’ve been a warder since I was ten. It’s a long-term memory at this point.” He didn’t react to her comment about being so young. Kylara figured he must have known already. She wasn’t too certain how well she knew this man, but he seemed more familiar with her than the usual warblers. Perhaps because they were travelling alone this time. Most of the time they were with a group.

“Information doesn’t travel upstream easily,” the man said, leaning back against the rock and lacing his hands behind his head. “You have to push it, like rolling a rock uphill.” He gestured up and down to her appearance. “It’s why you look a bit different up here. Still recognisable, of course–but the details are all wrong. Your arms are a bit too long, your mouth is a bit too wide, and your hair’s a bit too short.”

Kylara nodded. She’d heard this before. Looking at your reflection in the warrens was always an eerie experience. Like you’d were looking at the reflection of a sibling you never had.

“The information is still technically there,” the man continued, “it’s a just bit dissolved. Aged. Mixed up. It’s hard to kill an idea, you know. Much easier to reshape it. But when you come up here, bits fall away and other pieces glob on. Things get distorted. It’s a bit like rolling a snowball uphill. It picks up leaves and sticks and whatever else. It can get pretty unrecognisable from when it started, but the core idea is still there. You can still make a snowman with it.”

Kylara nodded, half listening. She had no idea what a snowman was. She hit the wall again where he indicated. Gods, her hands were going to be so bruised after this.

“That’s why my revolver was misshapen,” Kylara said. “The distortion.”

“I suppose,” the man said, sounding troubled.

“And my clothes,” Kylara added. There was no way a real person designed those pockets. It had to be from the warren.

The man nodded.

“Memories get distorted too,” he said.

“I know,” Kylara said. “I forgot you.”

The man smiled slightly at that.

“You did,” he said. “Usually, people generally tend to fare better than objects. The soul protects things. Long-term memories, values, beliefs, even your appearance–they all stay roughly the same. And the stronger the connection you’ve built to something, the closer it stays true. Everything else though–short-term memories especially–can go away. They’ll come back once we go Down Under but for now, this is it.”

“It’s worse than usual,” Kylara said. “Usually I remember more.” She had been spending the past few minutes racking her brain for memories. There weren’t many recent ones at all. There were bits and pieces–like, she was fairly certain she had put the twins to bed yesterday and that they had been annoying–but what she had seemed to be completely random. She kept falling blank on important things, like what she was doing in the warren in the first place.

“That’s my fault,” the man said. “Sometimes, when you translate, you can nudge things a bit. Not heaps, but… a bit. Mostly surface level stuff. Make yourself a bit taller. A bit younger. A bit better looking.” He looked sheepish. Kylara wondered if he was referring to himself. “Experienced warblers do it all the time. I once knew a warbler couple that switched their genders every time they went Up Over. Nice couple. Very good at darts.” He let out a bit of an awkward laugh. “Anyway, I attempted to manipulate things but on a much larger scale. Your sister Yalmay just learnt a new language–recent memories, surface-level stuff–so I mixed that knowledge with your knowledge of Koulan to form this pidgin language we’re speaking right now. It gives us a common tongue.” He looked impressed with himself. “Honestly, I’m a bit surprised it worked. I'm quite good, aren't I?”

Kylara nodded at him dubiously. She wasn’t sure she believed him.

She had a vague memory of once meeting a warbler who refused to stand next to… certain people during the translation because he didn’t want their features to leak onto his. But she had never heard of someone consciously trying to manipulate things. Kylara hadn’t even known it was possible. And even then–could an entire language be a surface-level memory? It didn’t seem possible. People were attached to the languages they spoke. And the stronger the connection to a soul, the more intact something was. The less easy it would be to change. Not to mention the fact that getting something comprehensible using the method the man was describing sounded impossible.

“You don’t believe me,” the man said.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” Kylara corrected.

At least the man seemed unbothered by the honesty. “I met you about a week ago, in case you were wondering.”

Huh. That was longer than Kylara had been expecting. For some reason, she thought they had met today.

“Do I like you?” she asked.

“Good question,” the man said. He looked troubled by it. “I hope so,” he said. “I really hope so. Aha!”

He had been pressing his ear against the rock when pulled back, grinning. “Found it!” he exclaimed, pointing. “I think your sister is behind this door.”

Kylara raised an eyebrow. There was no door. There wasn’t even a seam in the rock.

The man tapped the stone excitedly. “Shall we?” he asked.

Kylara looked at the solid rock wall. It was still very much solid and very much made of rock. Oh, what the hell.

“Sure,” she shrugged. “Let’s go.”