Ald licked the wounds of his left hand, tasting his own blood at his fingertips, hands not his extended and reached for another vantage point on the terrain, propelling him and Fingermarch forward across a darkened jungle. He had departed in dead of night, where goodbyes wouldn’t be had and most misshapen were blessed with sleep. He still had to sneak out until he wounded his hand and fed the runs his blood: he wanted to avoid Telesa, and, for the most part, he had succeeded in doing so. It was too late to be caught when he heard her inconsiderate howls of sorrow, when the creatures hiding on the treetops stirred in distress at her pain-filled tantrum.
Fingermarch’s steps were soft as it deftly traversed the complex terrain. The roots it grabbed onto barely felt the pull; the dead, decaying leaves in the floor didn’t stick to the hands despite their wet nature. It often placed its palms over a scarab or a walking leaf, and they barely felt its caress. It stalked through like a spirit would, the magic appendages lifting the structure they were attached to without straining their vantage points. Ald didn’t understand how. But such was the magic of Mother, the gift of the All Carver: Not to be understoon, maybe, but to be used all the same.
Among the sleeping wilderness Ald witnessed, once in a while, some awe inspiring images. He had just passed a bat drinking from a chalice-shaped flower that revealed a soft green color when illuminated by torchlight.
A raven, proper, landed on his shoulder and spoke in his ear. “Don’t think too much about the bat, Ald.”
Every hair on Ald’s body stood on end and his right hand reached for his dagger, guided by instinct. His eyes scoured his surroundings and spotted many possible, yet mostly inexistent, threats among the dense shadow.
“No, Ald, I don’t mean to imply you are being hunted. That bat is one no other Felsian will ever see.”
Ald, still tense, inhaled and exhaled, his focus returning to the maneuvering of Fingermarch. Then he whispered. “Why do you say that? Don’t you trust in my capacity to bring back the rains?”
“It’s not that.” The raven cawed low. “She is alone. Last of her kind, pushed to extinction by disease and parasitism. She searches for another, ignoring that there isn’t any. Don’t you consider it sad?”
“Isn’t it just the ways of nature? Ways that, considering our recent conversations, don’t concern neither Felsians nor misshapen?”
“That doesn’t mean it cannot be sad, does it?”
Ald eyed the raven sideways. “You could save her species, couldn’t you, Unkindness? You have the power of a deity. I would be naïve to assume you cannot create animals out of thin air. Sadness, in this occasion, is a choice for you.”
“I could create worlds ex nihilo, given I wanted to. But the things of fur, feather, chitin or scales writhing, flying, skidding around wouldn’t be animals, Ald. They would be a mock of them, imitations. Tell me, where were all animals alive today born from?”
“An egg or a womb.” Ald answered drily, eyes scouring the dark vegetation for a path among or through the trees.
“Not quite. Hydras reproduce by budding. Living Stars can grow a full body back from a single arm under certain conditions.”
“For Felsia, Living Stars are extinct. Fossils are all we have. We haven’t found them in the plains, or the forest, or the river, or the caves. Where are they, you that traverse the world? Where are those magnificent animals whose triangular teeth my predecessors buried in the Felsian hillside?” He bit his wounds to open them again, and splatter more blood onto the runes, such that Fingermarch could keep carrying him towards father.
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“They live in the ocean. The ocean is the big puddle where rivers go to die. Don’t you ever wondered where the Worldvein waters went after they got lost in the horizon? That’s your answer.”
“Are they fish? The stars, I mean. And… “he made a bitter pause, his lips pressed tightly. “No, it doesn’t matter. If they live where no Felsian will ever see them, it’s no business of mine to even know they live today. Your point about animals?”
“Every animal alive today was born from an animal: to be an animal is to be born form an animal, to be a plant is to be born from a plant. If I, using my eternal life, bred and raised all sorts of animals and plants aiming for the generation of a lookalike par of simple existences — masses of cells so needy and uniform that they make a liverwort seem like the pinnacle of complexity — the one descended from plants would be a plant still, and the one descended from animals would be an animal still.”
Ald considered the bird’s words for a few moments, basking in the silence. “What you say is that due to this sick definition of yours, if you create other bats, they wouldn’t be bats? Even if they showed to behave, look and function exactly like the real thing?”
The raven smiled with all her teeth, un unnerving sight that Ald swore he would never get used to. “Precisely. That’s one way I could save her species.”
“But if she mates with the clones, the resulting offspring would descend from an animal. Those would be bona fide bats, according to you. Why go through that loop?”
“Because definitions matter to me. I refuse to lie, Ald. A single statement untrue would ring its foul tarnish upon me. If you trust me, isn’t it because despite my tendency to speak cryptically at times, to hide behind exact wordings, you think my word is worth more than your doubt?” The raven cradled her head against Ald’s neck, and he shuddered at the soft touch of the black feathers. “I know, deep within, you despise me. You hate this tribulation and I incarnate it. You yearn for your farm, for your forge, for a life so simple.”
“I won’t deny that. But I also want Felsia to survive. I need it to do so. Kali deserves to grow in a city as glorious as the one I grew in. But that city will never be anymore. If I return, and if I bring our rains with me, it won’t be a Felsian that will walk in my shoes. Whatever this hammer you wield is turning me into, Unkindness, I suspect will be a tool that won’t be at home back in Felsia.” And then Ald drowned a cry in his throat, knowing that it could condemn him in the middle of such silent night. “I have been shown too much, taught too much, told too much.”
“And you will climb so much.”
A moment past Unkindness declaration, after breaking through the wide, long leaves of a local plant, Ald realized that there was no more way in front of him: a few Fingermarch lengths away from them a titanic wall of mafic stone jutted out from the earth, hidden among murk and foliage, ready to swat him flat like a fly, had he been rushing carelessly across the forest. Short stem roots and adhesive pads aided a variety of climbing plants to cling onto the rock, sprouting forking or tripartite leaves that covered most of the surface.
Ald looked upwards, and realized the elevation of terrain in front of him was no small thing: it continued past the treetops, up to gods knew where. “There must be a way around the cliff.”
“Your people would call this the World Ridge. If the Worldvein is a wound, this is an ugly scar that runs parallel to it. To circumnavigate it would take you days. And Leclerglossa is back on the hunt: you are far from the encampment, and he knows it.” Unkindness said, no worry at all in her voice: she was merely stating facts.
Ald grunted and tried to catch the deft bird with his hand, just for it to graciously hop onto his other shoulder. “How do you intend or me to climb this thing? Fingermarch can make it to the canopy, but I don’t trust it enough to ride it up a vertical wall.”
Poor Ald, thought Unkindness. A part of him believed he could outrun the tongues. But another knew that part to be childishly hopeful, stupid even. And he didn’t want to listen to the wise part, because doing so meant to leave most of his hard work behind.
“How long do I have until Leclerglossa arrives?”
“Shorter than his tongues.”
The unmistakable cracking of falling trees reached Ald’s ears, and make his heart bounce against the walls of his chest.
“Save me,” Ald whispered, lips trembling.
“Climb,” the raven sentenced.
“Drive him away, Unkindness!”
“Climb,” the raven said, and then flew away.
Ald wounded his fingertips with his teeth once again and smeared more blood onto the thirsty disc. He was not getting caught tonight. Hopefully.