“Excuse me please watch out for yourself!”
Naeed only half-registered the words shouted at him as he hurtled into the road. A root at just the right spot hooked his foot one moment and the next he found himself sprawled at the feet of a traveler.
He groaned, grateful he didn’t need lungs for his air, since the wind had been driven clean out of him. It would be a few minutes before he could speak, though.
The figure crouched over him but didn’t extend a hand. “Are you alright that looks like it hurt is somebody chasing you do you need help?”
Memory stirred. He had heard this chiming timbre in a voice before and these end-to-end words came out exactly the same way as...
He rolled on his back, gaping up at a bright orange face.
She looked to be about the size of a normal human and most of her body was wrapped in leather. Leather gown, leather hooded cloak, leather shoes, leather gloves. A chemical reek stung his nostrils.
This was no half-drawn face from a nightmare. She stared out of perfectly shaped wide-open eyes with a short fringe of glassy lashes simulated on each eyelid. Every few moments the eyelids blinked and the eyes beneath them tracked properly with his own. There were small marks like laughter lines and blemishes around the mouth and nose. Etching like eyebrows accentuated her concerned expression, and her lips moved in perfect time to the words still pouring out of her mouth.
“Do you need help to stand perhaps I could risk taking your hand though your skin is very strange is that wood what are you I have never seen a creature like you before so if it is possible for you to stand on your own that would probably be better even though I have gloves on I am quite hot and I don’t want to harm you—”
“Remaaaaara?” he wheezed the name the small burning creature had told him long ago, struggling to get his breath back.
The words evaporated. Her lips parted, frozen. They closed tightly for a few moments, then opened again. “I am sure I have never met you before how do you know my name?”
He stared at her, unable to answer through winded groans.
“Hey flamey lady, what’s a-you?” Na’Stra landed on the other side of Naeed, planted her forelegs on his chest and raised her wings aggressively. “Back off,” she hissed. “Headflowers is mine. Walk along now, okay? Bye-bye.”
Remara swung her hooded face from Na’Stra to Naeed and back again. Her lips opened, then closed, then opened again. This time, no words emerged.
Naeed shoved Na’Stra off, pushing himself up on his elbows. “Go-o-o away,” he growled at Na’Stra. “Didn’t… ask you... along.” He put a little space between himself and Remara. She held still, watching him. “Met… met you. Once.”
She shook her head. “Not possible I would remember meeting someone as unique as you and I do not even know your name or the name of your friend although I know that is a voidflyer.”
“Am Na’Stra.” Said voidflyer leaped up onto Naeed’s shoulder, still bristling. “And am thinking bad idea for logchild’s health to be spending long time with flame lady.”
The confusion on Remara’s face shifted into a weary sorrow. She stood, folding one sleeve into the other, and took two steps back. “I suppose that you are right Na’Stra it is a danger and I will go but please I would first like to hear an explanation because your logchild knows who I am and I have never had this happen before that someone knows me before I say who I am.”
Na’Stra hesitates, her wings lowering back to her sides. “Well. Well. If lady stays over there, s’pose is okay.”
Once again, Naeed heaved her off his shoulder. “I can… answer… for myself!” he shouted as Na’Stra redirected her fall into a nearby shadow, vanishing.
Glaring, he struggled to his feet, pressing a hand to his ribcage. Now that both stood, Naeed could see this Remara was a little taller than him.
“I’m Naeed,” he said. “I met you in the forest. You were this big,” he indicated the size of the first Remara between his hands. “You hit me in the chest like…” he blinked, thinking about the moment for the first time in over a year. “Like you’d fallen from the sky.”
Sorrow dropped from her, replaced once again by astonishment. “I have never met you before but I did fall from the sky a very long time ago how could you know this about me when you were not there?”
He blinked. “A very long… how long ago?”
“I am not sure because when I fell I did not know what a month or a day or a year was but when I learned about time I began to count it and it has been thirty two years and four months and five days and maybe six or seven hours since I learned about the passage of time.”
“I only met you a couple of years ago!” he shouted, grabbing the few ragged strands of real hair left on his head. “And you were tiny! But you talked just like this!”
She lifted her hands. “Please be calm it is nothing to be upset about I am as confused as you are but this is very important to me because I have never met anyone or anything else like me in all my travels do you know where this tiny me went?”
He choked on hysteria. “Tiny me? Tiny me. Tiny…” His eyes widened. “Is there… there’s just multiples of you? Or do you have a twin?”
She tilted her head, her eyes flickering upward. “Twin this is when a parent creature makes two of the exact same looking creature at a birthing no there was no birthing I think and I think I would know if I had a brother or sister besides you said the tiny me fell on you only two years ago while I fell over thirty two years ago so we cannot be twins.”
“And it looked different, like it didn’t know how to…” he gestured at her face. “You look like a human! She didn’t look human at all.”
An odd smile crossed her face. “Ah yes I remember it took a very long time and much study to change the way I appeared and many people told me I was frightening to look at so the tiny me must have been very new.”
Sorrow crept in again and her head drooped. “I wish I had been there to meet her and explain and perhaps she would have some answers for me.”
Naeed’s hand slid up to his chest. For the first time, he felt guilty for shouting at the little burning creature that didn’t even know what pain was.
Remara raised her head once again. “Thank you very much Naeed for this information and thank you kind voidflyer for allowing your logchild to speak with me and I have many questions but I will keep the rest of them to myself for now and wish you well on your travels.”
Na’Stra reappeared out of Naeed’s shadow next to his foot. Her earfins lifted slightly and her tail twitched. “Kind voidflyer. Am likings this ‘Mara. Little bit,” she mumbled.
"Don’t mind her,” Naeed blurted. “She started following me today and she won’t leave me alone. I decide who I want to talk to. Can I walk with you a while?”
The corners of Remara’s mouth lifted. “I would love to walk with you as long as you would like to Naeed.”
“But keepings safe distance!” Na’Stra growled. “Can’t be making danger for headflowers.”
Before Naeed could yell at Na’Stra again, Remara asked, puzzled, “What are headflowers?”
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Naeed’s mouth tastes like ash and he can’t even lift his head anymore. “Those… few years. Those were the best times. It wasn’t so bad, being inside myself alone, because I wasn’t alone. And you…”
His eyes widen, and he laughs. It is a cracked, broken sound that rattles his chest. “You changed everything again. The first time, the tiny Remara kept me from rooting forever. Accidentally, but, she did. The second time… the second Remara also kept me from rooting forever. By the time we found another forest, I didn’t… I didn’t want to go to sleep anymore. I kept walking with her.”
He buries his face in his hands. “All she wanted to do was explore, and she had this bright idea that we could travel all over together, collecting memories and experiences for my home forest. That maybe, someday, I’d want to go back. It sounded so much better than my idea, and by then walking with her and Na’Stra felt like home.
“Then I burned it all down again the day we went to Evenward. Every now and then you had to replace your leather clothes and get the new ones treated with special liquid. I needed a new tunic, too, so we went to the tavern to find craftsmen.
“A skyte was there.”
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"Naeed wait where are you going?”
He barely heard Remara. His feet took him out the door, past the houses, and through the town’s gate at top speed. He forced himself to stop at the road and wait for Remara to catch up.
She hurried over. “Naeed my friend what is wrong you ran like there was danger.”
His lips twisted in a snarl. “That thing. It was sitting there, in the tavern. Did you see it? The skyte.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
She blinked. “Yes I saw the skyte she had lovely wings and she was talking to a few of the townspeople I think one of them was pouring some of his drink into her cup skytes like her are usually Wanderers and I have not had the chance to speak to many I would like to talk to her about what she has seen on her journeys.”
His breath caught. “You can’t be serious.”
“I don’t understand why I would not be serious.”
“He don’t like skytes,” Na’Stra answered, crawling up his back and settling on his shoulder.
Remara’s expression twisted in confusion. “Naeed why do you not like skytes?”
“They’re murderers. They killed my parents.” His heart pounded. His head felt too light. He had the horrible feeling that he was running down a trail he’d walked before, but he couldn’t respond any differently.
“You’ve never spoken of this how did they kill your parents what happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it!” His chest heaved. “Why does everyone have to know all the details? Why isn’t my word good enough for you? They’re dangerous, and we need to get out of here before that tavern vanishes. If a skyte’s in it, it won’t be standing for long.”
“Naeed my friend there must be more to what you are saying please if you will not come back with me wait here I want to ask some questions and then I will—”
The image of Yettle surfaced in his mind. Yettle, standing there, one hand outstretched to him, her branches filled with cold-eyed skytes.
“No!” he shouted. “If you talk to them, they’ll fill your head with lies! Then I can’t trust you!”
“Na—”
“I’m leaving right now.” He forced one foot forward. Then the other. “If you’re really my friend, you won’t go back and talk to a murderer.”
He counted his steps. Five. Seven. Twelve. Twenty. At twenty-five he heard her voice, sorrowful and faint in the distance.
“I have not been here for very long but in the time I have been here I have learned enough to know that friends do not behave this way Naeed my friend I will miss you and I grieve this ending but now I have even more important questions that I need to ask this skyte goodbye my friend grow strong on your path and do not root too soon.”
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His anger is only embers, now. Na’Stra was right. He hasn’t let himself look at any of the pieces, much less the whole pattern, but it is clear.
“Na’Stra came with me. She didn’t say anything about the fight. We kept going. Explored for a few more years. We discovered this place just days ago. Then I found you.
“Forgemaster Mearu told me some of your story, what he knows of it. He said you fell down here looking like a skyte.” A small flicker flares up from the embers in his gut, but he presses on. “I promised if I found other Remaras, I’d help them if I could. Even if you spent time with skytes… just talk to me. Tell me what they did to you. Tell me how I can help you.”
He forces himself to straighten, to look back into the forge. Remara is no longer pressed against the wall, but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where she is. Molten glass lies all throughout the blazing coals in a large, shapeless puddle.
He’s never seen her behave this way. Then again, she’s been different each time he’s met her. He slides up one step, waiting for her response.
After several minutes, that horrible, discordant voice answers, “Please go away and give me time to think about what you have said.”
He sighs. This is not the answer he hoped for, but he’s not being shut out anymore. “Okay. You can find me at the Third Left Tierman’s home. I’ll be able to stay for another few days…” he pauses to think. “Maybe three, at most. Then I’ll need to leave for the surface.”
There is a small crackling sound from her, then silence.
He stands, dusting off his trousers. He holds an arm out to Na’Stra. “Come on. Let’s go.”
She stays where she is, crouched in the coals near Remara. Her earfins are pinned flat to her skull and her tail is curled around her body. Her nostrils flare with short, fast breaths as she says, “Was skytes. Skytes told me.”
For a moment, he doesn’t understand. Then he recalls that she promised him an answer to his question.
Who sent you? Who told you about me?
Rage passes through him like wildfire in a drought-stricken forest. Naeed’s knees shake under the blow.
“Longtime back. Was last nest I lay. Right out of eggs, nestlings sick bad. Skytes come, can save some nestlings. Bury others. Very nice, very kind.”
She flicks her tongue out, licking the side of her muzzle. “Later, after nestlings gone flown, skytes come. Say needing help. Say they has been watching boy in forest, boy they hurt bad by accident. They watch over him all secret, checking every few days to be sure he okay.”
He can’t breathe. He can hardly think. They always knew where he was. They were watching him, waiting for the right time to strike.
“Say he got scared bad when they show up and he be running far away. Farther than skytes gonna follow. They knows I gots no more eggs in me, so they asks ‘Hey, voidflyer can watch stupid scaredylogs for us? He grows good flowers, we knows you like ‘em.’” She lifts a lip and one earfin, but he is beyond laughing at her caustic little jokes.
Her earfin droops back down and she clears her throat. “So I goes to find logchild. Watches after him. Catch him if he tries rooting, ‘cause treeboy losing himself to forest is looking kinda like bein’ dead. Yep. Yep. That’s… that’s all.”
Naeed realizes that, somehow, he has kept his arm stretched toward her through her whole speech. Slowly, he lowers his arm to his side. Turns. Walks toward the exit.
Na’Stra’s voice behind him is crumbly as she asks, “You gonna run again?”
He stops at the doorway, his hands balled in aching fists. He whispers, “Run? From a voidflyer? That’s impossible. Never talk to her again? I can do that.”
Scooping up the mushroom cap, he starts the long walk down.
As he descends, his thoughts are bleak and streaked with fury.
I’ll never get away from them. They always know where I am.
They get at every single person I trust.
If I plant myself in the middle of nowhere, they’ll still find me. They’ll put a black marble in my mouth while I’m dreaming and watch.
There’s no point trying to get away. I can’t do anything about it.
He doesn’t look up from his feet until he reaches the bottom. Once there, he doesn’t turn toward the distant, dimmed lights of Underscoop, but toward Overheader’s Patch. It is only a few minutes’ walk from the base of the cliff. Moonlight spills down the underground’s single direct opening to the surface, flooding the doomed field with pale light.
His head pounds but he walks with care, lifting his foot with each step to avoid kicking up dust. He refuses to examine the decision to see the field for himself, he only knows that he needs to.
As he approaches, he is shocked that any plant still holds itself upright. There are long stalks bearing kernel-rods a quarter of the size they ought to be, with protective leaves that snap under a gentle touch. All colors are distorted in the light of the moon, but he is sure that no redeye on the vine should be that pale and misshapen. As he runs his finger along other stalks, the grain plants fairly scream under the weight of their own shrunken heads.
Even so, they have not shut him out. Their thoughts are sickly and as faint as the ripples of tiny fish kissing the surface of a puddle, but they thrum with grim determination.
Tomorrow will be sunlight. Tomorrow we reach higher. Tomorrow we grow strong.
He strokes a stalk with the barest brush of his fingertips. He’s the only one who can explain their situation. Why not spare them further struggle?
There is no enticement to stay with this dying network and no concern that he’ll be lost to it, so he opens his thoughts to them. You are dying. There is no reason to keep growing. It will never get better.
The response is immediate and forceful. Tomorrow will be sunlight.
The ground is poison, he warns. That can’t change. There’s nothing to try for.
Tomorrow we reach higher, they insist. Even in moonlight, crawlervines thrust their roots deeper and herbs stretch out withered leaves in defiance.
A strange bitterness keeps him prodding the network. Every day will be harder than the one before. Every new seed will be a little weaker. Why bother? Go to sleep. Let go.
Their answer is shock and a strange sadness that rebukes him for bringing such a deranged thought to them. Tomorrow we grow strong.
It won’t get better! It won’t ever… abruptly he remembers. Earlier that day, Alleyu promised to take their seeds and save them for a future project, in case he found another opening overhead and better soil under it.
At this there is a great cry from the network, a joyous shout of vindication and relief that reverberates in Naeed’s bones with a thrill he hasn’t felt in years. Every plant immediately turns its resources toward its fruit and seeds, sparing nothing for the rest of their bodies.
Tomorrow! We! Grow! Strong!
He breaks away, staring at them. They are planted where they cannot thrive. They suffer leaf-eating beetles and other nibbling crawlers for accidental pollination instead of the busy bees and butterflies they need. They are forced to starve themselves to preserve the promise of offspring.
Even so, they wring every tainted nutrient from the soil and every weak sunbeam for a chance at life.
He steps back from the field. Its fierce joy unnerves him. This network does not drift into a dream out of its plentiful nature, it drains every moment for desperately needed vitality. It has determined to love the life it claws out for itself.
He cannot remember the last time he felt as alive as these stricken plants.
No, he does. For a moment, he sees a ghostly stick in one hand and a wooden hoop in the other. Overheader’s Patch becomes a deserted intersection in Carvenhold, just before dawn, with streets stretching out in four directions that he can choose from at his leisure. For a moment, it’s just one more morning where he’s dragged himself out of bed, away from the warm covers earlier than any other child because he might find some treasure in the dust or see a bird no one else woke up to see.
For Nail Carvenhold, life was good. Something worth sticking around to experience.
He looks back down at his hands, devoid of phantom toys. Nail would have been able to walk barefoot across this ground without getting sick. Nail would have stayed in Underscoop, bothering every shopkeeper in sight with legions of questions.
Nail always wanted to meet the skytes, too. Even if he was furious, he would have asked them every last question he had instead of running every time he heard they were near.
He flexes his fingers, watching the odd movement of the supple bark stretching across his knuckles. He left Nail Carvenhold behind long ago, but he wonders what it would take to feel the same way about life that Nail did.
“—eed! Naeeeeeed!”
Lifting his head, he spots a bright point of light zig-zagging across the face of the cliff. It follows the ramp’s path and a mangled voice tolls his name as the light flows downward.
He runs to meet Remara, careless of the dust he raises. The point of light zooming to meet him does not turn fast enough at one of the corners. Four flights up, she careens off the end of the ramp and plummets to the ground.
She’s molten! She’s fine! his thoughts scream. In spite of this, he runs harder, shouting her name.
He finds her at the base, still drawing herself together into a humanoid shape. She is doubled over on hands and knees with her head bent so low he cannot see her face. Her body shudders with groans that sound like a mountainslide.
He reaches out to her but yanks his hands back. She is not wearing any wraps.
“—sorry I’m sorry Naeed I wanted to be selfish and wait and think and see if I could not find another way and not tell you and never look at it again but I can’t let this be my fault too you cannot be angry with Na’Stra you cannot blame her it is not her fault and it is not the skytes fault they did not—they did not—they did not—”
His sap runs slow and cold. Her hands are changing. The fingers grow long and delicate toward the tips. Her feet shrink inward, forming fragile spans with elegant toes. Her hair fans out in all directions and seems to float, as if on an invisible wind.
She is still sobbing, “—it is not the skytes’ fault I—I—I—I did it I agreed to create the black marbles it is my fault that houses vanish into craters.”