My flight took me to a rough and uneven part of the Berwem, where raised blades of dustone stabbed skyward and bands of murky glass seemed the lake’s outjutting ribs. I landed there, after some beats of indecisive circling. Hinte was right; you couldn’t find crysts by flying.

Here, my footsteps came more solid, and sent thumps through the glassier spots. I coughed again, bringing tart dew to my fangs. The sound seemed to slink around the dustone blades and echo in the lake’s vast emptiness.

My breath, coughs and all, vitrified in my throat when a gruff voice answered the echoes from the shadows. Someone besides me and Hinte in the lake? Another sifter?

Nothing to fear, right?

That it wasn’t some monster, wasn’t a rockwraith, should’ve had me less afraid. But I was alone. I had already nearly died, and what would have happened if I hadn’t escaped the ghastly glasscrabs?

The dark clouds orbiting me didn’t grow any deeper, and the noxious vog didn’t burn any rawer. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that they did, just as I couldn’t shake the curdled fear that dewed on my fangs.

I looked left and right before my gaze drew to a flat-topped rib of dustone opposite the voice. Like a shield, this gray-black blade rose in front of the rib, just tall enough that I could nestle myself atop it and hide from view.

Peeking over the top of that shield, my frills worked and my tongue sifted the air. Footsteps padded from somewhere unseen, and a smell like shed skin and that oozing black slime wafted to me. Just when my pulsing heart had grown regular again, a dull white figure came into view. I ducked. My breath cycle stopped again, but the coughs wouldn’t be so courteous. They struggled and writhed in my throat, and despite covering my mouth with my forelegs, I could hear the coughs echoing.

The footsteps stopped. “Oi! I could hear you sneaking down behind me with half a frill. You got an ax with you?”

It took a shift of the lake’s grinding plates before my voice lighted in my throat. “I⁠ ⁠—⁠ I don’t?” Why would you need an ax to sift?

“Pity, pity.” They punctuated this with a scrape of their claws.

When I peeked back, the figure had disappeared. My head upturned just to catch them landing on a dustone rib just beside mine. I jumped, and stumbled back.

“Whoops! Didn’t mean to spook you⁠ ⁠—⁠ take my apologies,” the sifter said, waving an alula toward me. They wore a white suit like mine with a red and gold mask covering their face.

On either side of their mask’s mouth, black circles stuck out, and a dark form hung by their neck. I couldn’t make out more details at this distance, though. By their hindlegs was a deflated-looking bag not bigger than my own, and I could only tell it was empty by how it hung close and thin at their side.

Nothing to fear. “I⁠ ⁠—⁠ okay.” I brought my forefoot to my cheek, about to scratch it, but flinched with a gasp as I touched the tender rawness.

The sifter peered at me from their rib. The only thing visible about their eyes from this distance was their lack of goggles or protection. “That’s a nasty singing you have there⁠ ⁠—⁠ looking like you burnt your face to Anterth and back.”

“Um.” I brushed my face with a toe. “There was a really–really big hole. I almost fell in!”

The sifter laughed a short, one-note laugh, and said, “Was there? That’s why”⁠ ⁠—⁠ they tapped their red mask⁠ ⁠—⁠ “you wear one of these.”

I bowed my head, deeper, with more formality than I might if my heart didn’t still hammer in my frills, an old instinct still yet to fade from my hatchhood. The talk flagged there, and I stood on legs still trembling.

The sifter’s frills folded. “He’s getting late, isn’t he?” they said with an upward whisk of their wing.

“He?” I looked up where they pointed, head atilt. “Do you mean Enyswm?”

“Yes, old yellow’s gotten tired of spitting his rays⁠ ⁠—⁠ taking a rest soon.” The sifter punctuated this by spitting a twin stream of saliva off to the side.

I laughed a small laugh. “I almost wish they wouldn’t. I soured when Oleuni sunk⁠ ⁠—⁠ I don’t have a lot of time.”

They nodded. “Know exactly what you mean. But if the suns call it a day”⁠ ⁠—⁠ they gestured upward again⁠ ⁠—⁠ “then I say we should too. No place in the fires to be when it’s the dark.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “Not a great place to be in the day, either.”

“Don’t they all say that, heh. I’ve come to like it.” They pat their breast with a foreleg. “This your first flight in the fires? You act a little fledgly.”

I lowered my head.

“Then I’m doubly sure you should head back. Saw some white ones on the prowl not a ring earlier.” the sifter said. “And you need some fresh air in your lungs”⁠ ⁠—⁠ they chopped with their wing⁠ ⁠—⁠ “because that cough sounded like a wraith jumped right down your throat.”

“I uh, came with someone. I wouldn’t want to leave without her.”

“Lake’s a big place⁠ ⁠—⁠ don’t fly too far from each other. It’s not safe.”

I rubbed my cheek with an alula. “Are you with someone too?”

“Yes, my buddy let me lie down on these slabs while he let some streams flow.” They waved a wing behind them, pointing back the way they came. “I’m just here a-waiting.”

“I hope he doesn’t keep you waiting.” My frills relaxed, expanding beside my head and they caught something. “Do you feel that?”

Their frills perked in response, and they looked around for a bit before their gaze returned, and they hid their necklace with an alula. Their voice became a whisper. “The humming?”

“It feels like one of those crysts but not the same,” I said, nodding.

Their stance relaxed a bit, and their alula released the necklace. “Those odd glowing rocks? Didn’t know they had a fancy name. All I know is they’re supposed to be off and sourcerous. But I wondered, and picked this guy up”⁠ ⁠—⁠ he held up a necklace inlaid with a purple cryst, rough but also flat in places⁠ ⁠—⁠ “and sand it down sometimes. Once heard they ward off curses and fouls spirits, so I keep one or two around when I can manage it.”

When I saw the crysts, my brilles cleared, and when I said, “Do you think I could have that?” My high, quick voice failed to hide my eagerness.

“Hum?” He cocked his head. “What’d you need it for?”

“I uh, collect them?” My brilles clouded.

“Fine by me⁠ ⁠—⁠ had this one for about a cycle, it’s tasted better days.”

My frills flared up, and I laughed. The sifter leapt forward, stumbling onto my mound with an oof. Slipping the cryst from their neck and banging it against the ground until it fell from the necklace, they were laughing. After they picked it up with their wing, the necklace slipped back around their neck.

“Here you are,” they said. “Though I’d ask you don’t let it drop how you got it⁠ ⁠—⁠ they’re supposed to be sourcerous.”

I accepted it, wagged my tail. Then I caught myself and forced the thing to hang between my hindlegs again. Three crysts. I’ve gotten more than halfway there! The new cryst glowed weaker than the others. It didn’t look as drab as Sterk, but it wavered more than the crabstone.

“Thank you!” I paused. “Um, I didn’t get your name? I’m Kinri. Miss Kinri.”

They toss their head in response, though there may have been a small start at my name. They said, “Mister Wrang. And it’s no problem.” He glanced away. Waving his tongue, he seemed to hunt for a new topic.

I said, “But I don’t really have much time. So if you don’t…”

“I don’t. Go find your friend and some rest.” He waved a wing. “Dwylla guide you.”

“You too.” I hesitated for a moment before I turned and slinked away.

I leapt into the air, and again flew over the lake’s surface. Soon the outjutting ribs and dustone blades faded behind me and the Berwem smoothed itself below me. Three crysts.

----------------------------------------

I risked two swallows of my canteen while I flew. As I brought the tall, cloth-wrapped glass to my mouth, my hold slipped on the wet dew coating it. The canteen didn’t fall out of my grasp, but I overcompensated and knocked it from my own claws.

It dropped, spitting my water as it fell.

I glided down after it, but not fast enough to catch it. And in the hazy air, I’m not sure if I could, even if I had been. Cracks and crunches reached me as the canteen skittered across the surface.

The fear struck me that the glass of the canteen would shatter. The Gwymri knew how to make sturdy glass, but still, I had bought that canteen and my money wouldn’t last forever.

The ground here grew mountainous and rough. Not quite like where I had met the sifter, but my canteen seemed to have rolled into one of the valleys between a circle of dustone mounds.

As I slinked around those mounds, wings brushing across the surface on either side of me, the hum of Sterk and the crabstone shifted. Had I even felt anything? So slight. But I needed to take every lead. So my wings folded and I fanned my frills.

Circling took so much longer on the ground! After four long, tight loops around the area, the vibrations really did seem to change as I moved. I was standing on the very edge of the effect.

Slinking forward, the shift came, a slight hiccup in the squeaky pitch of the crabstone, and a ghostly quickening in Sterk’s rhythm. Following it, I found another pink stone. Just one more and I’d win!

Not wanting to think of another name, I would call the newcomer ‘crabstone the second.’ It looked a copy of the first crabstone, anyway.

What about the purple stone? I’d call it ‘the sifter stone.’ I’d just pass them all to Hinte anyway, so names didn’t matter at all.

After I dug up the new stone, I cracked it and waved it around for its effect on the other stones. The chorus altered so subtly. The motley group almost worked like a kind of cryst detector. But would this cryst detector still work? Sterk’s first hiccup had come jarring, startling. This second, I had all but missed.

Taking out the three other stones, I sat all them on the ground and slid them about and waved my frills. The crabstones acted stoic: their pitch wavering by less than nothing when I moved Sterk. They didn’t even react to each other, only to the drab green stone. The weak sifter stone ignored the others, sputtering in anxious isolation.

Sterk sung enough for then all, though. His rhythmic vibrations altered tone and timbre as I moved the pink pair around, but not the purple one. His hum surged and swelled, but the effect diminished when either crabstone was near enough. When Sterk touched a crabstone, the effect became a whisper or suggestion, the same subtle shifts that had hinted at the second crabstone.

I frowned. Putting either pink cryst near Sterk grounded his detection ability. And when both were near, he didn’t even register the sifter stone.

A cryst detector would be useful. Could I regain Sterk’s detection ability? I could hide the crabstones somewhere and carry only Sterk. But then glasscrabs might find and damage the stones, I couldn’t risk that. I could place them high, on some cliff. But I didn’t know these cliffs very well. If I won, and then I⁠ ⁠—⁠ forgot where I hide the stones… I’d crumble. And I had no more room in my crab bag, so I couldn’t even keep them in separate bags. I coughed a sigh. At least, the effect had helped while it lasted. And some good things happened. I found my fourth stone!

My frills were dancing beside my head, and I gave an excited squeak. It irritated my ornery throat, spawned another cough and salty tears on my fangs. One more cryst to go! I gathered up the stones, and paused to smile at the purple stone. So close.

How much time did I have left, though? Sifter stone still in foot, I looked up, but it was then that several skittering crunches reached me.

I waved my tongue. A boiled meat smell suffused the air. My frills fanned. The crunches came from all around me. I looked. Glasscrabs crawled over the mounds.

One crabby thing skittered at me! With its speed it looked to fly. Eyestalks waved at the purple cryst in my foot.

Another crab hurtled into my hindleg! Horned eyestalks pierced white fabric and scales under. I lashed with my tail. The crab didn’t budge. I kicked it. It stumbled back a pace.

I growled, and the crabs scuttled forward. Why did they act so aggressive? They’re supposed to be flighty little prey. I flicked my tongue again, finding the urine scent on me. Oh.

The crab in front of me lunged at my cryst-carrying foot! I meet it with a punch, but it didn’t stumble back as much as it should have. The foot dropped the cryst, and I jumped back.

But I stepped on the other crab. It stabbed me! I growled, and leapt. But with one foot on a writhing crab, it failed. I fell onto my side. The crabs scuttled forward as a swarm. My breath caught… but they swarmed over the fallen cryst.

Horned eyestalks were stabbing as the tide of crabs advanced. Blood dripped onto my forelegs, and it was cool. Were they fighting each other? If they thought there was only the one cryst, it fledged sense. The sifter stone couldn’t feed them all. Or even one, if crabs eat the fragments.

I burst up, clawing my way to a stand. I pushed at the crabs to give me enough footing to leap. The crabs attacked the stinking foreleg more than the other, so I used that to heard them away. With a spot clear enough, I leapt a few strides. I ran, and leapt into the air, flying away from the crabs.

----------------------------------------

…Three crysts.

What had brought the crabs back? My stinking foreleg? The vibrations from my cryst experiments? A curse from the Cloud Constructor?

Landing again, some distance from the crabs, I pulled out my last canteen and poured a clawful of water over my stinking foreleg. It took an eighth of water I wouldn’t be able to drink. But if it would ward off the crabs, I needed it.

Shaking the canteen, I looked up. Two crysts to go, now. How much time remained to collect them? I flew above the vog to glance at Enyswm, where he dipped over to the horizon. Already, the second dusk was falling. I fell with it.

Was this it? Would I lose my gambit, and slink back to Hinte cloudy-eyed and coily-tailed? I had tried, nearly fledged it. I had come so close. I couldn’t lose now, when winning was right above me.

Right?

My legs had turned to brittle dustone and my frills locked beside my head. But I breathed. I couldn’t lose. My mouth opened, air rushing down my throat, into my lungs and the air sacs in my breast. As I exhaled, the air from my lungs left me, and the air from the sacs flowed into my lungs. I inhaled again, and the cycle repeated. But the air from my first inhale had grown stale, and left me with my next exhalation.

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. A cycle. Heartbeats came in discrete thumps; but blood kept flow in the troughs. Breath came in discrete draughts; but fresh air seeped in at each step.

Deeper in my breast, that knot of doom still knit itself. I took the peace and focus of just breathing and tried to untie that knot, to give me room to breathe on a more abstract level. When I pulled at the strings, tugged at the loops, the knot just grew tighter. I huffed frustration, and instead clawed and ripped at the knot. But the frayed strings twisted together, waxing to an awful cross-tied mess of thread that was even worse because you knew it was frayed so bad it couldn’t be untied normally because you ruined it.

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. I really dragged at mental exercises. They didn’t work for me. I just had to let go and fly forward anyway. Drop the knot. Lick the tart venom from my fangs.

Okay, now I needed to think. Where were crysts most likely to be? Without knowing how crysts form, or how the glass flowed below the skin, I didn’t know where to hunt for crysts.

I could fly to the center, where the crysts might grow thicker. But that meant more glasscrabs who would attack me, and I couldn’t take more of them. And then there loomed a specter of whatever hunted crabs.

Because there had to be something hunting and eating the crabs, we had learned that bit of ecology from our tutors early. Where there was something tasty to eat, something lived to eat it. Carnivores tasted pretty nasty, but herbivores tasted better.

Did stone-eating count as being herbivorous? Well, maybe not, but they did taste good at any rate. Not good enough to justify stepping into the awful lake, but some sad creature had to live here, eating them anyway.

Maybe the rockwraiths Hinte had mentioned ate glasscrabs. She said they aestivated, but it didn’t seem a very deep sleep if I could wake them. The Berwem was no place to stay at night, and the center seemed even worse. Flying there meant more fiendish glasscrabs and maybe rockwraiths.

Rockwraiths. They might eat you.

I couldn’t fly out to the center and get eaten! More than I wanted to impress Hinte, more than I wanted not to pass out in the vog.

And then, it came. A deep, melodious chime resonating in the high cliffs, reverberated in the warm glass, and ringing in my frills. Six notes, a simple, insistent melody repeated seven times. A tune no one could forget.

If I said the second dusk ring gave me courage or confidence, I would lie. I couldn’t really say I found any sort of inner strength or resolve. No, my frills deflated, my tail fell slack, my eyes clouded. My lungs and sacs emptied, and for a few heartbeats they stayed that way.

I let out a sound somewhere between a sigh and a squeak and a cry. This wasn’t a realization I could dodge by joking or staring at the silly side of things: I had lost.

I thought of Hinte. She had been right.

Tongueless. Stone-frills.

I don’t need your help.

It felt petty, and it was. But I didn’t want her to be right. I wanted us to be friends. I… I was better than this, wasn’t I?

Could I really accept this loss if I had one last card in my wings, a card I wouldn’t play because I was too scared? If it took me this long to get three stones, I had no chance of finding the last two before it grew too dark.

I had to take the risk. The center was my only option.

* * *