‘Maggs. Run.’ Peter swung and hit at the manisaur’s arm with his own. But the strong two thumbed grip the manisaur had on his wetsuit held them fast.

‘Quiet,’ the manisaur warbled. ‘Pestilential child. I care little if you are caught, but I have no desire to be captured by these pirates… or the Blackbirders.’

Peter slumped to the ground next to Maggie. His jaw dropped when he realized what he had heard.

‘I can understand you.’

‘And I you.’ The Manisaur released the two and squatted. ‘And that is surprising how?’

The alien’s head snapped left and right to take in the view at a glance before in leaned forward to stare at the humans.

Their deep blue eyes were large, and flecked with gold, while the whites of the eyes were bright. Peter started in astonishment when a membrane flicked across without the eyes blinking. Surrounding the eyes circles of soft iridescent skin seemed to pulse through a shifting pattern of subtle colors.

The alien’s gaze mesmerized Peter for a heartbeat, and then the wide mouth caught his eye as they opened to reveal an upper white plate instead of teeth. The ridged and waved edge seemed manicured to precision like nails — so even and regular were the patterns.

That’s some wacky smile, Peter thought.

’You led me a long chase,’ the manisaur said. ‘And absconded with my canoe.’

‘You’re the one I saw before?’ Peter said. ‘With the human?’

‘How can we understand you?’ Maggie said.

The warbling speech of the manisaur underlay Peter’s perception of the meaning. The complex sounds seemed to come from both mouth and body… and the iridescence halo about the eyes also flickered in a rapid shifting of colors and patterns. Almost like a video screen that showed pixels of color flicker, then, as fast, fade to black.

His fear had turned to curiousity.

‘Come now,’ the manisaur’s meaning came clear to Peter. ‘And don’t run away. We need to find the old one. You’ll only end up captured by Red-Back. Not that I care overly much. And Blackbirders are taking humans now.’

‘You followed us from the island?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where’s the other one,’ Peter said. ‘The human.’

The manisaur cocked its head. ‘The old one, he who stands apart?’ The manisaur’s eye’s flashed yellow. ‘He is safe. No one would capture him except to capture me.’

‘Qha…,’ Peter said. ‘I almost remember…’

The manisaur did not pause. The mad rush and burble of words, of sounds continued. ‘But if he who stands apart has any sense he will be hidden. As I would be if not for you.’

Peter sensed frustration. A feeling he understood too well. The manisaur stood and flicked their head in fast movements to scan the orchard. Peter’s mouth watered at the sight of a strange hand-sized purple fruit that hung in crescents under a nearby tree.

Peter moved towards the tree.

‘Eat later. Hide now.’ The manisaur took a step forward and began to jog. The uncanny motion unsettled Peter. The long legs of the manisaur had an extra bend in them, like a backwards knee. The loping stride would outrun the two of them with ease. Peter marveled at the luck in escaping the manisaur earlier even as his head spun with the decision he and Maggie had now made to follow this hunter.

But first he snagged one of the fruit. Okay — two.

‘It seems we don’t know our enemy after all,’ said Maggie. She followed the fleet-footed manisaur and Peter had to run to catch up.

‘And so we’re running away from the human, Red Back, with this alien… to where? This Qha…wah… this stands apart person?’

‘Yeah… they called the pirate by the same name… Red-Back.’

‘There’s something wrong with that. It’s like we are understanding the words… but also hearing the sound,’ Peter said.

‘I know. It’s like sub-titles in a movie, but we hear the translated words not read them. Sort of…’

The manisaur led them along the edge of the orchard, then along a gravel path leading to a cliff face. Built into the rock lay a stone house. The manisaur pulled an object from a bag hung from their hip and opened the door with it. Not a key then, more like a handle. Within, a dark room led back into a cave filled with barrels and shelves.

‘Food perhaps?’ said Peter.

The manisaur gestured for them to enter. But before Peter had a chance, he realized too late, they had stepped into a jail cell set with bars. He backed away, right into the hot chest of the manisaur who grunted.

‘Get on with you,’ the manisaur hissed and closed the cell door behind them all and took the handle-key. If they were prisoners they were imprisoned together.

Then forward along a narrow passageway where the manisaur picked up a glass orb, and shook it. Light filled their hand.

The cool space had very ordinary furniture, if fusty old antique chairs with claw feet and velvet upholstery meant ordinary.

‘What is this place?’

‘Somewhere to hide. In case of need.' The manisaur said. 'The talisman? You still have it?’

‘The what?’ Peter said. He stood up to his full height but the manisaur still had a full head on him. ‘I don’t even know your name?’

'My name?' The manisaur warbled and boomed a soft haunting song that evoked a sense of high mountains, and raging waters, and a huge tree that scraped the very limit of the sky.

‘Maggs. Did you get that?’ Peter said.

‘Guardian Peak Torrent Sequoia,’ Maggie said.

‘That’s what it seemed to you too?’

‘Yeah. Though there were a lot of images as well.’

‘What the heck is happening here? How can we even sense the same thing from that racket?’

‘Song. A symphony. Beautiful,’ Maggie said.

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‘Yeah sure. But…’

’Sequoia, Majestic, Magister…’

‘You make him sound like a magician or something.’

‘With words perhaps… but not,’ Maggie said. She regarded the manisaur who returned her gaze with a blue-green aura about his dark eyes as they waited. ‘Bergwash Sequoia.’ Maggie breathed the words as the meaning came clear to her.

‘What does that even mean?’

‘Berg is mountain, and a wash is a rushing mountain river — that carries something. So Bergwash would be a mountain torrent. And Sequoia — that’s the tree… but I sense it’s more like above others.’

‘Maggs! What? You’re naming him?’

‘Yes, I am Guardian Bergwash Sequoia — Magister Trium,’ the manisaur said. The last sounded like a mash up of human-like sounds.

‘Holy heck Maggs!’ Peter shook his head in confusion. ‘Hear that?’

Maggie gazed at the manisaur in wonder. ‘Yes. I did. Nice to meet you Bergwash. Or shall we call you Mr Sequoia?’

‘That would be Trium Sequoia. But Bergwash or just Berg would suffice… Maggie.’

The manisaur seemed to smile, though no grin broke through his lips to reveal that uncanny bite. Peter realized something about the eyes made that smile real.

‘And you are?’ Berg said regarding him.

‘Peter.’

‘Liruq — The Stone.’

Peter couldn’t help but laugh. ‘No. Just Peter. Peter Drake.’

‘Drake,’ the manisaur said something close to his name.

‘Good enough.’

‘So Drake. The shaquroa? If you please? The talisman.’

Confused, Peter switched his gaze between Maggie and the manisaur, then in a sudden flash he realized what Berg meant. He unzipped his wetsuit top, and pulled out his greenstone niho taniwha together with the feathered knotted talisman given to him by the captive manisaur. He untied the talisman from the chord and held it out. The feathers were damp and bedraggled but Berg took the feathered device without comment. They shook the glowing orb to brighten it and held it close to the feathers.

At first Berg remained silent, and then they let out a moan.

‘Zaj’qetza! Calamity.’

‘Follow me Drake, Maggie,’ Berg said and strode off along a passage. ‘We have to find he who stands apart.’ In the dim light Peter stumbled on the paved floor as he tried to run.

‘Do we have a choice?’ said Maggie and she followed the manisaur.

Peter held back at first. But with reluctance he ran to catch up, if only to keep up in the dim light. He didn’t like the idea of being in total darkness.

‘I don’t like being led every which way like this,’ Peter said in a whisper to Maggie. ‘By an alien.’

‘Me neither. But we don’t know nearly as much as we thought. This is a chance…’

‘To end up a slave, or worse,’ Peter said. ‘We have no way of knowing what this Berg wants with us. They chased us…’

‘It wanted the feather thing. This talisman,’ Maggie said. ‘But how did they know?…’

‘When I saw them on the island, with the old man, I had it tied around my neck then. Berg, or the human, must have seen it.’

‘And you got it from?’

‘A captured manisaur slave. Quardle I sort of think of them as. That’s what they kept saying to me…’

‘It spoke…’

‘No. Not like this,’ Peter said. Then he stopped and caught his breath. The manisaur had moved almost out of sight now. ‘Not Quardle… Qha…wah. That’s what it had tried to say. That’s Berg’s human friend.’ Peter continued in a rush, his words tumbling over each other. ‘The slave… captive… Quardle or whatever, wanted me to give the feather thing… this talisman… to them.’

‘They wanted you to meet these…’

‘It’s a message! They wanted me to deliver the message to this guy… and Berg.’

‘That’s why Berg chased you. It wanted to read the message.’

‘Perhaps Berg saw enough of it from a distance… when I first met them… to want to read the rest.’

‘So Berg did not hunt you after all,’ Maggie said. The relief lightened her tone. ‘Or they did, just not to hurt you.’

‘But they may not really care what happens to us.’

‘Except they are helping us escape now,’ said Maggie

‘I guess.’

‘Did you notice something? Somehow this Berg… they’re not a he or she…’ said Maggie.

‘I know… I kept saying anything but…’ Peter’s thoughts trailed away.

‘He or she…’

‘Yeah… but so…’

‘They’re an alien… and thinking about the language thing is making me dizzy. I don’t want to talk about it any more.’

‘You brought it up,’ said Peter.

‘I guess…’ Maggie fell silent as the darkness grew deeper. The sound of the manisaur had receded so they walked faster, then jogged, to catch up. Conversation died from lack of breath as they continued at a pace faster than either Maggie or Peter have would liked. Once they had re-entered the glow of the manisaur’s orb-light the tunnel opened up higher, almost out of the reach of the light. A hard packed dirt formed the ground, while the walls were a rough rocky arc that joined the roof.

‘It’s like Cave Rock,’ said Maggie.

‘Yeah. The lava tube cave at Sumner Beach. I love that place.’

‘So we’re inside an old volcano.’

‘Except there’s no building inside Cave Rock…’ Peter said as he looked ahead.

Berg had paused outside a stone work wall that had been built to the side of the tunnel, like a house had been covered in lava except for the front. Berg went inside, they followed, their need to stay in the light overcame any remaining fear.

Inside it seemed almost like a house, with a low table and cushions on the floor surrounding it. A tall workbench sat to one side of the space. In the moving light held by Berg Peter found it hard to make out what lay on it, but metal and glass glinted. Berg placed the glowing orb in a holder of some sort on the table, and Peter saw what might have been books, or at least piles of paper until the light dimmed and went out. The sudden darkness so total a blackness that Peter felt like he had gone blind.

Peter sensed only a deep silence, then outside the door came a bang. Perhaps Berg had heard it and had decided to hide. Peter squatted down, and made himself small. He heard breathing to the side… Maggie. And then footsteps and a sudden flare of light, the manisaur almost fell over him but pulled up short with a huff of breath.

‘Come,’ said Berg. Peter blinked in the sudden brightness. The orb in Berg’s hand shone with a radiance beyond what it had been before — or he had a new fully charged light. The orb dimmed again and the light became tolerable once more. Peter had no time to learn more of the workroom as they were bundled out through a metal door by Berg and back into the dimness of the cave lit only by the orb.

They trudged stumbling for a short time and then the tunnel ahead grew brighter.

They stepped around a corner out of the tunnel and under the blue sky once more. Berg seemed unaffected by the bright of the day as they took in the vista. The cave entrance lay well above the level of the trees with a view towards the blue-green lagoon.

Maggie and Peter moved beside them and followed their gaze. The huge skyship had landed below on the white coral sand. Peter recognized it as the place where the slave, Quardle, had given him the feather knot. The talisman.

Berg flashed him another glare, and Peter saw in truth a burst of color from their eye halos. Peter got the message. If only he had not run from them the first day a lot of confusion and delay would have been avoided. But then Peter would not have met Maggie. He glanced from Maggie to the view beyond the mouth of the tunnel.

‘Stay here Maggie, Liruq,’ said Berg. Then the manisaur took off down the slope at a run.

‘You think it is telepathy?’ said Maggie.

‘No such thing. There’s no way to read minds.’

‘Okay, perhaps not mind reading, but somehow we can understand them.’

‘They’re experienced with humans. Somehow they know our language.’

‘Except the names.’

‘Yeah. That’s freaky…

‘So what… how…?’

‘We don’t have enough to go on do we?’

‘I suppose not.’

A whine came from the forest and Peter and Maggie whipped about, searching for the source of the sound. Some animal. Out to the beach they could just make out a slaver and his crew who led a protesting figure towards the skyship.

‘They’re kidnapping the old man.’

Help… Old Man… Help…

Peter seemed to hear a voice on the breeze.

Peter felt conflicted. A day before they were convinced the manisaur and the old man were out to capture them, for… he did not know what. But now?

‘I want to get closer,’ Peter said.

‘Know your enemy?’ Maggie said with a grin.

‘Just about. But I also thought that those skyships are a way we could get off this island. Might be the only way.’

‘And I’m famished. Berg may want to keep us safe. Perhaps. But I’m dying for food.’

‘There is that too,’ Peter said.

‘Except… we shouldn’t leave here. Berg told us to stay. Perhaps they know better.’

‘I want to get to the beach,’ Peter said. ‘See what’s happening on that skyship.’

‘You’ll just get captured.’

‘Hasn’t happened yet.’

‘Unless you call meeting Berg…’ Maggie said.

‘No. They could have locked us up. They’re probably…’

‘You’re right,’ said Maggie. ‘Let’s get out. Away from here. No telling what that Berg truly wants from us.’

Peter pulled at his pack to get comfortable. The round disk showed through the flap. In all the excitement of being captured, then befriended, Peter had forgotten about the freaky levitation it had performed. But he did not want to lose it now. The wheel seemed warm, and comforted him too, almost as if becoming part of him after carrying it for days. He stepped down the slope.

Behind Peter, Maggie had stood up, but now hesitated.

‘We stick together?’ Peter said.

‘Okay. I want to find out what’s happening too. And I don’t want to stay on this island forever.’

Maggie took a step, and then another. Soon the two were headed down the slope.

Towards a skyship, pirates, slavers. And who knows what else?

Peter wanted to find out. But even with all his caution he never noticed they were followed.