Mineau wiped tears from her eyes with one hand while she gestured with the aloe tentacle she had in the other. The second tentacle she had pulled out of Orla's magical storage lay precariously in her lap.
“You,” she said, trying to catch her breath between gales of laughter, “you were running naked…naked with an arm full of these awful things…and then you…” she gasped, "you…fell in a hole?”
“Yes,” Max said. He nodded over her shoulder in the direction of the pool chamber that now sat completely open to the sky. “That one.”
Mineau wheezed and slid sideways off her rock. “In a hole…” she gasped again. “Naked.”
Max watched her laugh, her face red and her eyes streaming. He recognized the fit for what it was. Something had broken in her the way it had broken in him the night before when he'd been forced to choose between pants and a shirt. She was laughing, as he had, at the sheer absurdity of their situation. At the pain and the misery. It was how some of that pain was falling away. He smiled faintly as she gasped. Better the laughter, he decided, than the crushing despair that had immobilized him that morning after his visit to the orchard.
And it was nice to laugh with someone. Or watch, anyway. Her laughter seemed less frantic, less desperate than his had been. At least it looked that way. He thought about asking, but that felt like a very strange conversation to have with the first person he’d ever remembered meeting.
Instead he said: “There wasn’t a hole there when I fell.”
“Of course not,” Mineau said, wiping at her face again. Her silent laughing sobs were fading into giggles. “Not your fault, though. How could you help it–” Mineau pushed her chest forward and raised both arms to flex her biceps “–big guy like you?”
Max glanced down at one of his arms and flexed slightly, watching the muscle of his upper arm gather into a mound, then he looked back to Mineau. “Big guy?”
“Bigger than me,” Mineau said. She shrugged.
He was, objectively, the larger of the two of them. Mineau’s head had barely reached his chin when they’d stood face to face, his shoulders were half again as broad as hers, and his arms were twice as thick.
He hadn’t thought much about his size or his shape since he’d arrived in the jungle, and nothing about his experience since then had made him feel especially ‘big.’ The tentacle monsters–or ‘ambling aloe,’ according to Mineau–hadn’t cared about his size when it had nearly killed him. And the illusion in Aurum’s yellow star had shown him hopelessly outclassed when he tried to use brute strength to fight one. Nothing but Aurum’s other gifts–clothing and the ability to summon fire from thin air–had given him any sense of power or security.
As Mineau recovered from her laughing fit, Max took the opportunity to study her appearance more carefully. He wasn’t sure why it might matter, but from what he had seen of his own features in the reflective surface of the underground pool, he and Mineau looked nothing alike. He had a square jaw, a heavy brow, and an aquiline nose. Her features were sharper, more angular. Her hair was a straight blonde while his hair hung in short, wavy curls close to his head.
Max ran a hand through his hair, feeling the curls clings to his fingers, noting absently as he did that his hand wasn’t simply a hand, but a big hand.
Max set the thought aside again as Mineau reclaimed her seat on the flat rock across from him.
Mineau heaved a deep, calming breath. “Please tell me you got the tentacles after all that,” she said.
“I think they’re at the bottom of the pool–or well–whatever it is,” Max said.
Max smiled. The episode might actually be funny, he decided. At least now that he was looking back with a full stomach and a serviceable set of clothes.
“Oh, that’s cruel,” Mineau said. She held the tentacle in her hand out toward him. “Are you hungry now? Do you want one of these?”
Max stared at the tentacle, then at Mineau. As he searched her face, he felt a knot of conflicting emotions: shock that she would so casually share food she'd had to hunt for, suspicion that she might not be sincere in her offer, and a deep, aching need for the gesture to be genuine.
“What?” she said. She looked at the tentacle then back at Max with a frown. “It’s not pleasant, but it’ll keep you alive. When was the last time you ate?”
Max swallowed the lump in his throat and shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Thank you. I ate before I found you. I think I’m full for the first time since I landed here. You should keep it.”
Mineau shrugged, muttered, then began to slide the tentacle back into the golden haze that appeared over her brightling’s ears.
“But,” Max said, “maybe I can roast it for you. If you want to try it that way.”
Mineau paused, considering. “Sure. Might improve the taste. And we can see if Orla keeps it hot when she carries it.”
Max desperately wanted to find out how the brightlings carried anything at all, but his story about falling into a hole had distracted them both and now exchanging gifts felt, somehow, much more important.
“Put it over there on that rock,” Max said, “and I'll try.”
Max waited for Mineau to put the tentacle on a stone by the entrance to the mosaic room and back away, then he raised his hand. Aiming carefully, he sent a bolt of fire racing toward the tentacle. A moment later when the burst of flame faded, Max stared wide eyed at the charred smear that used to be an edible tentacle.
Max let his hand drop and looked at Mineau. “I am so sorry.”
Mineau stared at the smear, her eyes wide, then turned to Max and grinned at him again.
“Flashy. Glad that didn’t work on me,” she said. She waggled the second tentacle she still held and nodded over her shoulder at Orla, “And no great loss. The beast has more.”
Max thought for a moment, then raised his hand and conjured fire into his palm. “If you don’t mind risking another one I can try it this way. It doesn't burn me, but maybe if I hold it close enough the heat will cook other things. I haven't had a reason to try yet.”
“You haven’t tried burning wood?”
“No,” Max said. “But I’ve used it to heat up stone. For sleeping.”
“No fire at night? You’ve just been living in the dark down there?”
Max blinked. He hadn't thought of that. Why hadn't he thought of that?
“I've mostly just been sleeping when I’m underground. But that’s a good idea. We can try that next.”
Mineau stepped past the rock covered in exploded plant flesh and dropped the second tentacle onto the stone she'd used as a seat.
“There you are,” she said.
Max crouched next to the rock and conjured fire again. Slowly, carefully, he lowered his hand until the flame hovered just over the green skin on the tentacle. He waited for it to blister and char, but the flesh remained smooth. He let the flame wink out and tapped his finger experimentally on the skin. It felt cool.
Max stood and frowned down at the tentacle. “Maybe if I heat the rock? I know I can do that.”
“Or we could just go right to the source,” Mineau said.
Max turned to look at Mineau. She stood with her arms crossed, watching him.
“I'd like to see what that fire does to an actual aloe,” Mineau said.
Of course, Max thought. That made more sense. He knew that would work.
“Why do you call them aloes?” he asked.
“Because that's what Orla says they're called,” Mineau said as she retrieved the tentacle and pushed it back into the golden haze that appeared above her brightling's ears.
“She tells you things like that?”
“When I ask.”
“Orla seems much more willing to share information than Aurum,” Max said. “He volunteers very little.”
“She responds well to direct, specific questions. It took me a few tries to figure that out.”
A few tries...
Max had spent days in the forest with Aurum and still hadn’t quite understood that requirement. But it made sense, he realized, as he thought back to their various interactions. Aurum didn’t always answer even direct questions, but all the questions he had answered were direct and specific. The creature had ignored him when he asked broad, open-ended questions.
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Max looked down at Aurum. “Do you like direct, specific questions?”
Aurum trilled and flicked his left ear.
“Hm. Why didn't you say so?”
Aurum stared at him for a moment before settling onto his haunches.
“I see.” Max picked up one of the large brown leaves that littered the forest floor and held it in front of Aurum’s nose. “Can you hold onto this for me? Please?”
With a metallic shimmering sound, a knot of golden light appeared over Aurum’s head, between his ears. It quickly expanded into a ring two hand lengths high and three wide. Inside the ring Max could see a grid made of fine golden lines that formed dozens of tiny boxes. Max held the leaf up in front of the grid.
“Now what?”
Aurum bobbed his nose forward with a sniff.
Slowly, Max pushed his hand forward until his fingers and the leaf passed inside the circle. A gentle pressure, like a steady breeze, pulled at the leaf until Max let it go. The leaf disappeared and a swirl of light appeared inside one of the golden boxes of the grid. When it faded, Max could see a tiny replica of the leaf inside the box.
Max pulled his hand back out and looked down at Aurum. “This would have been helpful days ago.”
Aurum sniffed.
“Can I have it back?”
Aurum sniffed again.
“Tell him what you want specifically, then just reach in and take it,” Mineau said, watching with her arms crossed.
“Give me that leaf,” Max said, and pushed his hand into the golden circle toward the grid. “Please.”
“You’re so formal with yours,” Mineau said. She nudged Orla with the tip of her boot, raising the brightling’s rump off the ground so her front legs remained planted in the dirt but her back legs dangled awkwardly. When Mineau put her foot back down Orla spun with a tiny snarl and began biting at Mineau’s boot, growling, sniffing, and squeaking as she tried to sink her teeth into the material.
Max watched the display, shocked, until Mineau lifted her foot again and gently shook the brightling loose.
“Okay, you little screaming terror,” she said, bending to scratch Orla behind an ear. “You’ve made your point.”
Orla settled back into a sitting position, her expression placid.
When Mineau caught Max’s scandalized expression, she grinned. “She likes to wrestle,” she said.
“I can see that,” Max said. He looked down at Aurum and the tiny leaf hovering in the golden grid. “He’s been very kind to me. I try to show him I’m grateful.”
“Fair,” Mineau said. She gently wiggled a finger in Orla’s ear. “I’m grateful for you, too, girl.”
Orla shook her head, sniffed, and moved a few steps away to sit just outside Mineau’s reach.
Max looked at the circle of light hanging over Aurum’s head. The box with the leaf inside had expanded until it was large enough for Max to pinch the stem between two fingers. He reached in, pinched, then pulled. He felt a fractional tug of resistance but pulled steadily until the leaf popped out of the grid. He pulled it through the ring and held it in front of his face.
Mineau smiled. “No more running around the jungle with an arm full of food while plants try to revenge themselves on your naked backside.”
“I hope not,” Max said. “What else can they hold?”
“Anything,” Mineau said with a shrug. “Everything. At least as far as I can tell. Rocks, sticks, left over bits and pieces of the monsters.”
Max stood. “Water?”
“Hm. Haven't tried. I haven’t found anything to hold water yet.”
Max walked to a nearby bush and plucked a violet, bell shaped flower. It was a slightly larger version of the flowers he'd used to collect rainwater by the ravine while he waited for the hole in his stomach to heal. This one still held a tiny swallow of water from the last rain storm.
“Let's try,” he said.
He crouched in front of Aurum, pushed the flower into the grid, pulled his hand out, then reached back in to retrieve the little cup the way he had with the leaf. He tilted it sideways and the water spilled onto the ground.
“Good,” Mineau said with a nod. She turned and began walking toward the undergrowth. “We'll need to keep an eye out for more of those. And probably something bigger. But we can try that after you roast me an aloe.”
Max stood again. “Right. I think if we could find one over–what are you doing?”
Mineau had stopped in front of a sapling that stood a few dozen yards from the entrance to the hideaway and balanced her club against a nearby bush. Squatting, she gripped the base of the sapling with both hands and heaved until the little tree’s roots gave way with a wet ripping sound. She had barely straightened to stand with the spindly trunk in one hand when a familiar shriek erupted out of the undergrowth a few dozen yards away.
Max froze, the rest of his suggestion forgotten. He watched as Mineau let the sapling topple to the ground so she could grip her club with both hands.
“I’ve been trying not to lead anything here,” Max said. He was aware that he was almost shouting, but he didn’t care. He turned to face the sound of the approaching aloe, then looked over his shoulder at Mineau. “This is the only safe place I’ve found.”
“There are others,” Mineau said. She was looking past him, scanning the jungle in the direction of the scream. Her expression was focused and she stood alert, her club gripped in one hand as she let the uprooted sapling fall to the ground. “But you won’t lose this one yet if we’re smart.”
Max met her eye when she turned to look at him. She returned his look expectantly, then raised an eyebrow and nodded in the direction of the approaching aloe. It was nearly on them.
Max held her gaze a moment longer, absorbing that eager, unconcerned expression, then turned to face the monster.
The creature erupted from the undergrowth a few moments later. It paused, seemed to take them both in, then surged in Mineau’s direction. Max hit it with a fire bolt before it had dragged itself more than a few feet toward the woman. When his fire shattered the blue sphere that appeared to protect the creature, it screamed and turned to face him. It had nearly reached him when he punched another fire bolt at it. A cloud of heat engulfed the creature’s tentacles and Max turned to face Mineau again as the aloe slumped to the ground and released its death cry. When two screams echoed out of the forest to answer, Max stabbed his finger at the one that seemed closest.
“There will be two more of them. Then four if we kill the first two. Maybe with the two of us we could take four, but I don’t know what happens after that. They might just keep coming.”
Mineau nodded. “They probably do.”
Max stared at her, baffled by her calm. “Then why would you call it here?”
“Why wouldn’t we? Simpler that way.” She pointed at the charred, smoking aloe. “Are you going to harvest that thing, or should I?”
Max waved his hand at the monster. “Go on, Aurum.”
Max turned to face the nearest approaching scream. One of the birds, he realized. The other might be one of the black wooly monsters. A “lemur” Mineau had called it. And they were close.
Max raised his hand and conjured flame.
“Don’t bother,” Mineau said, glancing at him, then turning to look at Aurum. “Put everything you find in storage.”
Max watched as Aurum collapsed the aloe and absorbed the dust, leaving a pile of charred tentacle leaves on the ground. Aurum turned to face him.
“Hm,” Mineau said, considering the tubular leaves still laying on the ground. “Fewer than when I club one to death. And they’re still on the ground, so he must only listen to you. Tell him to put them in storage and we’ll get underground. If those things,” Mineau said, gesturing at the approaching monsters, “can’t see us, they can’t hurt us.”
Max watched as Mineau turned and made her to the hideaway entrance, relieved they weren’t going to start a fight he wasn’t sure they could win. He hurried after her.
“Take everything, Aurum,” he said as he ran to the entrance to the hideaway. “Put it all in storage.”
He paused only long enough to watch the aloe’s charred tentacles begin to glow. As he heard the same faint metallic shimmering sound he’d heard when he opened Aurum’s storage space, he ducked into the collapsed tunnel and hurried down into the dark mosaic chamber.
Max stood in the center of the room and faced the collapsed tunnel. When Aurum appeared and ran to stand by his foot, Max looked over his shoulder at Mineau who stood with her back to him, guarding the archway leading to the chamber with the pool.
“How do you know they won’t find us here?”
Mineau held a hand out sharply in his direction and hissed. Max closed his mouth and turned to watch the ramp that led out of the hideaway. Instead of conjuring flame, he balled his hand into a fist and waited.
The monsters screamed one last time as they arrived in the clearing above. Max tried to listen for the sound of movement, but all he could hear was the sound of two tense human beings breathing as quietly as possible in the dark. He kept expecting a green-eyed lemur to appear in in the entrance, staring down at them before screaming and showing him its awful, needle-like teeth, but nothing moved at the end of the tunnel. Slowly, Max’s breathing returned to normal.
After what felt like an age, Mineau slowly bent down to retrieve two pieces of broken stone from the floor. With fluid grace, she threw one of the stones into the pool at the end of the hallway. Max held his breath as the splashing sound echoed up the sides of the chamber and out into the jungle. After the pool had grown still again, Mineau walked halfway down the hall, coiled her arm silently, and hurled the second stone at the far wall of the chamber. Max winced at the sharp report, imagining the echo drawing monsters from all throughout the jungle.
When no screaming monsters appeared above the pool, Mineau turned, smiled at Max, then walked past him to make her way back up the collapsed tunnel to the entrance. When she disappeared back outside, Max followed.
He found her standing in the middle of the clearing above the hideaway, arms crossed, waiting for him. She watched him evenly, apparently waiting for him to speak.
“How did you know that would work?” he said. He tried to keep his tone as nonchalant as she looked.
“Because I’ve done it before,” she said. “I realized that if I ran, the monsters that came looking for revenge wouldn't follow if they couldn’t see where I went. If I waited long enough, eventually they cleared out. But I got trapped once, a few days ago. I couldn’t run, so I hid in a bush before they saw me. I sat right next to them until they just went away.”
Max nodded slowly. He supposed that made sense. He’d been running away from monsters all day, but he didn’t realize it was possible to hide where they were patrolling. The only time he’d tried to hide from monsters responding to a death cry, he’d been ambushed by a lemur discovering him behind a tree. He told Mineau the story.
Mineau frowned.
“Hm. That hasn’t happened to me yet,” she said. Then she shrugged. “I think they do search, but they aren’t very good at it. It found you because you stayed close and you weren’t under cover. You just hid behind a tree.”
“And all we just did,” Max countered, “was hide next to two open tunnels. Maybe you’ve just gotten lucky so far.”
“Possibly.” Mineau shrugged again. “If they did find us we could have run after we killed them. You’ve done that before, too.”
Max nodded slowly. “But I like this place. It keeps the rain off. And nothing has wandered in and tried to kill me during the night.”
“Even if they’d decided to stick around permanently, it wouldn’t have been a huge loss. These places don’t last long anyway.”
“What exactly do you mean when you say ‘these places don’t last long anyway?’”
Mineau glanced around the silent jungle looming around them, then walked back to the rock she had been sitting on earlier.
“I think we still have a lot to talk about. But can I try one of those cooked tentacles first?”