Kylara’s lungs burned as they ran through the darkness, her footsteps echoing off the cave walls amidst the buzzing. She could hear the heavy breathing of Yalmay and Joontah close behind her.

The running was exhausting. The three centimetres she had lost in height were obvious now. Her legs kept falling a bit shorter than she was expecting. It was frustrating. She looked over to Joontah, who had lost even more height than her. He seemed to be doing fine. At least Yalmay looked a bit awkward. She was beginning to lag behind.

“So tell me,” Kylara huffed to her sister, “what do you think of the warrens now? Everything you expected?”

“They are bigger than I thought,” Yalmay panted.

“I expected worse,” Joontah said. “We haven’t seen any monsters yet.”

“I deserve credit for that!” Tal yelled from up ahead, turning back around and grinning at them. He bounced on his feet a bit, as if he was expecting some sort of praise. Kylara glared back.

He didn’t seem out of breath at all. She wondered if he even needed to breathe while intangible. How did that work? Could he keep running forever? Did he get tired? Why was he able to step on the ground at all? Why not just float? What were the rules?

“Also, shut up,” Yalmay said to Joontah, elbowing him. “You’re going to curse our luck. We haven’t seen any monsters yet? Who says that?”

The buzzing suddenly grew louder, and for a second Kylara thought Joontah had really jinxed it and they had run into something horrible. It sounded like thousands of wings beating and taking off at the same time. But Kylara quickly identified the source of the noise as a gap in the wall.

They had passed several of them so far–cracks in the rock that looked like they led elsewhere, and they had even run past several crossroads, but they kept going straight. Kylara tried not to think about what was in the adjacent rooms. She hoped Tal knew where he was going. Straight ahead seemed like a good guess for where Janeyca would’ve gone, but it was still just a guess.

Something dripped down from the ceiling and onto Kylara’s shoulder. Too thick to be water and too thin to be silk. Kylara wiped it off frantically before it stained her clothes. This was her best bra. She looked up, but the orb was glowing too brightly above her. She couldn’t make out what was behind it, and she didn’t want to ruin her night vision. She prayed the goo was harmless and kept running. Running was hard enough as it was. She didn’t have the energy to worry.

The walls rumbled again after another minute, although this time the ground beneath them didn’t. They were standing on a ward, and wards did not move. Kylara tried to ignore the noise and focus on the steps ahead. Yalmay, however, slowed down.

“Come on!” Kylara shouted, running past her.

“But–”

“Let’s go,” Joontah said, grabbing her arm and pulling. “Just a bit further!”

“It’s hard to run,” Yalmay complained. Her breathing sounded laboured. “Can we, I don’t know–” She glanced at Joontah. “How are you doing it? I mean, you have hips now. Like, real, womanly hips.” She suddenly looked mortified. “And I did not just say that, did I? I can’t believe I just said that. I am so, so sorry. I didn’t mean–”

Joontah looked uncomfortable. “Just run, please,” he said as they started running again. “Focus on that.”

Yalmay nodded and started up again.

“You know, Kya,” Yalmay called after another minute, “if I trip and fall I am completely blaming you.”

Kylara risked a glance over her shoulder to glare at her sister.

“Why?” she asked.

“This ward you made–I keep seeing the ground, I keep thinking I am going to touch the ground, and then my foot lands somewhere just above the ground. It’s confusing.”

“Think of it like glass. You’re not a bird. You can tell it’s there even if you can’t see it.”

“Except I can see glass, at least a little.”

“Look ahead of you then,” Kylara said. “Don’t look down. Or I can put a mirror ward on top of it if you want.”

“No mirror ward,” Tal called out from in front. “I want to be able to see the ground. I need to track Janeyca’s footprints.”

So that was how he was doing it, Kylara thought. She frowned. Although, the ground is still covered in silk and Janeyca must have run down this way before all of it fell. How is he…?

“Why did you release all this stuff in the first place?” Yalmay asked.

Tal looked back at them. “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked. “I wanted to see if anyone else was up there.”

“Well, we’re lucky all the other cocoons were empty,” Kylara said.

“That wasn’t luck,” Tal said darkly.

“What?”

“They are empty now. They weren’t empty before.”

“But they–”

“Look at the dust on your shoes. What do you think that dust is?”

Kylara looked down. There was something stuck to her shoe that hadn’t come off when she had dragged it through the ward, but she had just assumed it was… well, she hadn’t really thought about it.

Joontah frowned, connecting the dots. “Are you saying it’s–”

“It’s people,” Kylara said, looking at the trigger ward she had just cast in horror. It had come back positive for flesh. Dead flesh. “We’re stepping in people.”

“Aw, ewww,” Yalmay said, making a face. “That’s disgusting.”

Yalmay visibly changed her running pattern as if to drag her feet on the ground, trying to wipe them off.

Kylara raised an eyebrow. It wouldn’t work, of course, she thought.

The ward was only keyed to the leather of her shoe. As far as the dust was concerned, there wasn’t any ground at all. They were simply stepping on air.

“They were warblers who translated here centuries, even millennium ago,” Tal said seriously. “They weren’t as fortunate as we were. See, I thought something was wrong when I tasted the dust on that cocoon. It tasted old, very old, but I couldn’t quite place it. The second one, though–that was more recent. I recognised that.”

“Fuck,” Yalmay said.

“It was all one creature,” he said. “One creature made of knots and silk, feeding on people. Draining them. All controlled with one master knot. Joontah was the last one to get stuck, so it was by him.” He glanced back at them. “You are very lucky I noticed, or I would’ve left him there.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“And no one else made it?” Joontah asked. “Just us?”

“No,” he said. “Everything is too old. Already decayed and turned to dust. See, I suspected there might be something like this. The Crown marked this warren as closed centuries ago. Usually that only happens when they notice too many warblers disappearing without a trace, which usually means an instant death of some sort. Warrung then marks it as a no-go zone for all warblers and centuries can pass before anyone dares venture there again. We’re the first in centuries to come here. We’re walking on an ancient graveyard…”

“But still you needed to see if any of them could still be saved,” Kylara said. She smiled a bit.

“Never mistake optimism for naivety, Kylara. I didn’t think they would be alive. I hoped.”

He suddenly skidded to a stop. “Something’s up ahead,” he said.

“What is it?” Kylara asked, peering into the darkness. She couldn’t make anything out.

“Not sure,” Tal said. He took a few steps forward, head tilting like he was examining it. “Could be nothing but more likely–”

“A monster?” Yalmay said eagerly. She was craning her head forward.

“Right,” Tal confirmed.

“Can we go around it?” Kylara asked.

“I don’t think so…”

“I can’t see it,” Joontah said. “Is it far? Is it coming towards us?”

“How big is it?” Kylara asked.

Tal spun around. “Two questions,” he said, and for a second, Kylara actually expected him to answer. But instead, he said, “First, how worried are we–exactly–about Janeyca? Like, at this very moment?”

“Is this a test?” Yalmay frowned.

“Sure, why not?” Tal said. “Everyone give me a number.”

“Why?” Kylara asked.

“Joontah, give me a number.”

“Er… five?” he said.

“Five!” Tal swung around. “Five? Wait. Five out of five or five out of ten?”

“Out of ten.”

Tal made another face. “Er, I suppose that’s not too bad then. Got a bit worried there.” He glanced at Yalmay, then back at what Kylara presumed to be the monster.

“Eight,” Yalmay said.

Tal looked at her, momentarily confused. “Eight?” he asked. “Ohhh, eight. And you Kylara?”

Kylara closed her eyes. Did she have to? She hated being asked questions like this, it put her on uneven footing with everyone else. Joontah and Yalmay could lie, but she couldn’t. And some people didn’t seem to understand that.

“Two,” she said, braving herself for the look her friends would give her. She wished she could just give the average between their numbers and be done with it, but she couldn’t.

“Two?” Joontah said. “Really? You’re not worried about Janes at all?”

Kylara had a few reasons. For one, she had been watching Tal fairly closely and he didn’t seem too worried. He already claimed to have killed most everything in this warren and he had powerful entads. If necessary, he could probably phase through the walls and save Janeyca. Kylara didn’t think he would let anything bad happen to her.

Kylara shrugged. “I think she’ll be fine. I trust Tal.”

Tal grinned at her. “I am honoured, I’ll try not to misplace it,” he said. He gave a little bow. “Thank you.”

“So what’s the plan?” Joontah asked.

“We run really fast past it,” Tal said, pantomiming a quick running motion with his fingers.

Kylara blinked. “That’s it? No entads? No… nothing?”

“I’m using everything I’ve got on me,” Tal shrugged, gesturing to empty pockets. “Lost everything else in the stomach of a giant caterpillar which again, is really embarrassing and I’d appreciate it if everyone stopped making me bring it up again and again. But no, I have nothing else on me.”

“Well then,” Kylara said. “I’ve got a better idea. We hide. You said everything is fleeing that noise. We hide and wait for it to flee past.”

“Nah,” Tal said. “First of all, that would be boring. Second–have you noticed the noise is getting a lot less frequent? Now, I don’t know what that means, but I reckon we should be quick about this.” He glanced at the three of them. “Now, does anyone have anything we can use?”

They stared at him.

“Pockets! Pockets!” Tal said, waving his hands frantically, “C’mon, let’s see, show me.”

Kylara pulled out the wrapped metal in her pocket. “I have this,” she said. “I don’t know how useful it can be, but it’s a bit sharp.”

“Useless,” Tal said.

Yalmay pulled out a similar looking object from her pocket, although hers looked more distinct. “I have one too?” she said as if it were a question. “It’s a revolver of some sort but–” she fidgeted with the trigger and Joontah took an instinctive step back.

“Yal, be careful with that.”

“Don’t worry, I doubt it can fire,” Tal said. “It’s only two-thirds of a gun. Kylara has the other third. If I’m guessing correctly–and I usually am–Yalmay was holding it when we translated and it literally split into two. Quite a bad distortion, I’d say. You won’t be able to fire it until we go back Down Under.”

Joontah was staring at it strangely. “Yal, is that true? Have you been holding that thing the whole time? When the gwiyalas attacked us, are you telling me you had a gun on you the entire time?”

Yalmay furrowed her brows. “When the gwiyalas attacked?” she asked.

Good that I wasn’t just imagining that memory, Kylara thought. If Joontah remembered it like that too, it must’ve been recent.

“She doesn’t remember,” Tal said softly. “Don’t push it.”

Joontah looked away. “Oh, who am I kidding, you definitely did, didn’t you? You had that revolver the whole time.”

“I think–” Yalmay stared at it strangely, like it was something sentimental. “I think I only started carrying it recently.”

Obviously, Kylara thought. She swept the town periodically with trigger wards to check for any firearms, combing through everything for metal and gunpowder. The Council was strict on it: no guns in Kookaburra Creek. Kylara had confiscated a dozen of the things.

“Do you remember how you got it?” Kylara asked.

Yalmay wiped a tear from her eye. “I’m crying,” she said. “Why am I crying? I didn’t shoot someone, did I? I didn’t–oh gods, I didn’t did I?”

“You didn’t,” Tal said softly. “You’re holding onto survival instincts tighter than recent memories and it’s confusing you. I suspect the revolver is for protection. Something happened recently in town that scared you. Made you fear for your safety. You’re young, you’re a woman, and trust me, it’s justified considering what happened in town a few days ago. I’ll explain later. But right now, we need to ignore it and move on. Alright?”

Yalmay sniffled and wiped her face. “Okay,” she said.

Tal looked at the three of them. “What else do we have?”

Joontah pulled out what looked like a small knife. “I have this,” he said.

Tal nodded. “Good,” he said. “Good, just what I needed, a tiny pocket knife.” Oddly, Kylara did not detect any sarcasm in his voice. He seemed to think the knife was an honest-to-gods decent find.

“I have this too,” Kylara said, pulling out a folded bit of paper.

“An entad!” Tal exclaimed. “What does it do?”

“I’ll show you.”

Kylara quickly unfolded the now blank paper and showed him the palm of her hand, where a small black tattoo had imprinted itself. She willed it to change to a few different species of butterfly and it did. Still, Kylara did not move. She frowned. “I don’t think it’s working,” she said. “Usually it pulls you to the nearest flower. If I put it as say, a regent skipper–” Kylara willed the tattoo to shift into a black butterfly with three brilliant yellow patches on each wing –“then I might fly towards lantana flowers because regent skippers like them. But I’m not moving right now so–”

“Let me see that,” Tal said. Kylara handed it to him.

“Do you need– oh.”

Tal looked like he had already figured out the basics. The tattoo was rapidly shifting on his hand. He was going through what looked like a hundred different species of butterfly. Soon, several hundred different species were imprinted on his hand at once. Kylara was impressed he knew that many, especially in the Up Over.

Considering the man couldn’t be bothered to remember his own name…

“If you do more than one of them, it gets difficult,” Kylara said. “Two butterflies at once and the entad will pull in two directions, and it gets hard to track.”

“I’m not moving at all,” Tal said.

“No,” Kylara said. “I don’t think there are any flowers up here.”

“No,” he agreed, handing it back to her. “But perhaps still useful. Thanks for that.”

“So what do we do?” Yalmay asked. She pointed at Joontah’s tiny knife. “Stab it in the eye with that thing? We don’t have many options here.”

“Nonsense!” Tal exclaimed, grinning. He raised his arms as if going for a group embrace, then seemed to remember he was currently intangible and thought better of it. He awkwardly put them down. “We have everything we need,” he said. “We’ve got this light, we’ve got me, we’ve got wards, and we’ve got someone who can speak any language. That’s all we really need.”

“I’m sorry,” Joontah said, “speak any language?”

Yalmay shifted on her feet and Joontah turned towards her abruptly. “You?” he exclaimed.

“Yeah…”

“Since when? And all of them?”

“Apparently.”

“When did this happen?” He looked at Tal. “I thought I was only in that cocoon for a few minutes,” he said. “What happened?”

“You were,” Kylara said.

“Yeah but since when did Yal–never mind, but someone explain to me what is going on.”

Kylara shrugged. “She’s now like the god of language or something,” she said.

Joontah stared at Kylara for a second, then turned again to Tal. “Is it just warding or can she lie up here as well?”

“You should ask your girlfriend,” Tal dismissed. He was staring down the corridor. “I don’t get involved in domestics.”

“I’ve been going into the Desert,” Yalmay said quietly. “Apparently it gave me cool powers.”

A strange expression flickered over Joontah/Janeyca’s face.

“We need to talk later,” he said after a minute.

Yalmay nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “We do.”

“Alright,” Tal said. “As I am fairly certain the monster is sleeping, I’ve got three–maybe four plans to get past it. Joontah, first give me your knife. Now, everyone listen to me closely. Plan a is this…”