Max peeked out from the small mossy hollow that he’d convinced Mineau would keep them both safe and dry. As Mineau adjusted her grip on her club, Max held his breath and leaned forward cautiously, straining to see the broken creature drifting in their direction. As it drew closer to the light given off by the luminous blue flowers that had filled the forest around their hiding spot, Max realized that the creature looked familiar in some ways, but its overall appearance gave him an uneasy feeling of wrongness.
It had arms, legs, and a head, and together they had suggested a human form–a small, strangely limp and childlike form, but still human.
Children, Max thought briefly. How many children did I used to know? Have I ever known?
Did I ever have children–do I have children now?
The thought slid sideways and away and Max let it go with a familiar throb of helpless anxiety. It was too much to deal with as the creature continued to drift toward them.
Now that it had come closer Max could see that the creature's body parts were only vaguely human. The limbs were lumpy, misshapen, and unequal in length, like they had been molded by someone who had only ever seen a person quickly, from a distance, and maybe in the dark.
Or maybe it was only ever intended to be seen that way. This way. A specter haunting the dark jungle.
He couldn't know, but the most irrefutably distressing part of its silhouette only became visible when the thing was much closer. As it began floating among the flowers, Max couldn't tear his eyes from the thing's head.
“Is its neck broken?” Mineau whispered.
Max nodded, his heart beating faster. “Looks like it.”
The creature's head lolled backward and to the side at an angle no human neck could have comfortably supported. Its slack-jawed mouth hung open and its eyes, if it had any, were lost in shadowy hollows.
“Is it already dead?”
“It can't be,” Mineau whispered. “It's moving.”
“Why should that stop it,” Max muttered darkly. “It's not ‘moving’ the way anything with a functioning neck should. And it’s floating half a foot above the ground.”
“Quiet,” Mineau hissed.
The thing had stopped on the far side of the nearest patch of flowers. As it hovered there with the toe of one misshapen foot pointing at the ground, Max held his breath and resisted the impulse to conjure a bright ball of flame into one hand. He had no way of knowing if the thing would move fast enough to hurt him before he could hurt it. It might be better to wait and see if the thing saw them at all. And a fireball that would flare like a beacon among the wet roots of the ancient tree that sheltered them. It would see him immediately.
If the dead looking thing could see anything at all.
Max tensed as the creature drifted to a stop at the far end of a dense patch of glowing flowers. After a pause, it slowly turned to its right so that Max could only see it in profile. After another pause it began to drift forward again. In only a few moments it had drifted out of view.
Relieved, Max tilted his head to the side so he could whisper into Mineau's ear, but before he could speak he felt the back of her hand pressed firmly against his lips.
Right. Smart. Who knows where it went or if it'll be back. It could be hanging there just out of view. Better to wait and see.
Max eased away from Mineau's hand and settled against the root at his back.
He was doubly glad Mineau had the presence of mind to postpone a frantically whispered conversation when the thing drifted directly in front of the opening to their hiding place.
Max tensed and his heartbeat picked up again. The thing hadn't stopped, but Max was ready to throw himself forward out of their hiding place as soon as it looked like the haunting figure was turning in their direction. If he was fast enough he could get a bolt of fire off before the drifting monster turned and rushed to meet him. But he took his cue from Mineau, held his breath, and waited until it had passed by the mouth of their den and disappeared from view again.
When it was gone, he waited as long as he could before leaning toward Mineau again.
“Is it looking for us?”
When Mineau didn't answer, Max glanced at her. Her expression was fixed as she looked out into the softly illuminated night and Max recognized the intent frown from earlier that day, before they'd fought the wandering palm. She was trying to puzzle through what she was seeing.
Relieved that she didn't look like she was about to dissolve into panic like she had after the earthquake, Max sat still beside her and waited. When the thing drifted into view again, once more at the far side of the patch of flowers, Mineau turned her head slightly in his direction.
“I think it's circling the flowers.”
“Why?”
Mineau lifted both hands into the air and let them fall back into her lap. “Why not?”
Max thought about it for a moment. Having this lumpy floating monster guard a specific patch of flowers that bloomed only during a thunderstorm after an earthquake–it would be the strangest thing he'd seen since waking up without memories, but it also seemed more or less in line with everything else that had happened to him since he’d been launched into a jungle full of monsters by a statue with a mouth full of burning stars. And it seemed that most of the monsters in the jungle were driven to violence when they sensed that something had damaged the plants or trees nearby. Why wouldn't a monster appear in the night to guard a patch of wildflowers that had appeared when a storm provided the right growing conditions? These flowers might be rare. Or play a role in a larger natural process he didn't understand.
Like what?
He couldn't know, of course, but if the floating, muddy body wasn't going to chase them into their hideaway, they had time to observe and find out. And if the thing couldn’t hear them whisper, then he could ask Aurum what it knew.
“Aurum,” Max said, “what’s that floating thing called?”
He felt a quick surge of panic when Aurum chirped helpfully and a set of golden letters appeared on the other side of the flower patch over the monster’s head. As it floated, the golden words moved with it as it moved. Its head was tilted back at just the right angle to see them and Max expected the creature to stop, stare at the magical label, then begin hunting for whoever had put it there. But the creature continued along its path without interruption and Max let out a silent sigh of relief.
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“‘Lotus Guardian,’” Max whispered to Mineau. “You were right.”
Mineau nodded mutely, still watching the thing–the guardian.
“It didn’t see its own name when I asked Aurum about it.”
“Why would it?”
Max frowned. “Why wouldn’t it?”
Mineau slanted him a glance and raised one eyebrow.
Max leaned to the side and returned the look.
“You didn’t see Orla’s name when I asked. Or most of the other things she’s shown me while we’ve been together,” Mineau said. “Why would a monster see the things Aurum shows you?”
True. Most of the things the brightlings show us, they show only to the person who’s asked. Why would the monsters be any different?
“Good point. I thought maybe it just couldn’t see. Hoped it couldn’t. That would be good for us.”
I need to sleep, Max thought. My brain isn’t working the right way anymore.
“That would be helpful.” Mineau was quiet as they watched the guardian drift through another circuit and end up back on the far side of the flowers. “But it wouldn’t be a very good guardian if it couldn’t see potential threats to the flowers it’s guarding.”
“Even if it can see, it doesn’t look like it’s actually using its eyes,” Max said. “It’s looking straight up and it hasn’t moved its head since it got here.”
Mineau grunted and didn’t say anything else.
They watched the creature drift around its chosen patch of crystalline blue flowers until Max lost count of the number of times it had made its circuit. Each time it reappeared on the far side of the flower patch Max relaxed a little, more sure each time that the thing wasn’t going to suddenly stop in front of their hideout and lunge for them.
Probably. Unless we do something stupid.
“So,” Max said. “What should we do?”
“We should wait.”
Max watched the lotus guardian as it made another circuit.
Just wait?
“I don’t think it’s going to go away,” Max said.
“No,” Mineau said, when the creature was on the far side of the flower patch. “Probably not while it still has flowers to guard.”
“We need sleep.”
“Mhm,” Mineau said. “Which is why we should wait.”
Max frowned out at the monster as it floated in and out of view again, struggling through his exhaustion as he tried to make that statement make sense. He’d spent that entire day fighting monsters to collect enough dust–lucre–for Aurum to make him clothes. That evening they’d fought a tree and barely survived. Afterward he’d been so exhausted that he hadn’t been able to stay awake for the handful of minutes it took them to be sure that monsters hadn’t followed them from the collapsed hideaway. Some of the minor injuries the tree had inflicted on them had already healed, but Max didn’t think he’d be able to stay awake all night watching that misshapen thing drift around a flower patch, waiting to see if it would decide that the humans hiding under a tree nearby were actually a threat.
“Maybe we could kill it fast,” Max said, speaking slowly, “then hide here again when the other monsters show up. When they clear out, we can sleep.”
Mineau was silent.
Max leaned forward slightly so he could see more of the flowers beyond their hiding spot. “And maybe we’ll have time to grab some of those bulbs. They’re full of rainwater. Maybe we could use them for water storage if we give them to the brightlings.”
Mineau tilted her head as she considered that.
See, Max thought as he suppressed a little smile, I can have good ideas, too.
“What if we kill it and then lemurs show up?” Mineau said. “You said one of them found you while you were hiding.”
“True,” Max said slowly. “But I can take two monsters by myself, if I have to. I’ve done it before. If a lemur shows up and finds us, two of us will be fast enough to kill it and whatever else comes with it. Then we can hide again before the next wave shows up.”
“And if four lemurs show up after that?”
That would be…bad.
“And what happens if this guardian is stronger than we think? What if more of these things show up when we kill it? I haven’t seen a pattern yet in which monsters show up when one of them dies. What if a tree shows up instead? Or two or three”
That would be worse.
Mineau looked up as thunder rolled over them again, then scanned the narrow slice of forest visible in front of them. The rain didn’t show any sign of stopping.
“Let’s wait until it starts to get light. The longer we wait the more tired we’ll be, but we can push through exhaustion if we have to. If we end up outnumbered and we can’t hide, I don’t want to run through the jungle in the dark during a thunderstorm. We could end up running off a cliff.”
Max watched the cadaverous guardian drift by them again. Mineau was right, of course. They didn’t know how strong this thing was. It didn’t look particularly sturdy, but even it wasn’t as resilient as the wandering palm, fighting a floating creature not only in the dark, but in the rain when he and Mineau might struggle to maintain their footing, seemed like a foolish gamble. It didn’t seem likely that they’d be able to slip from their hiding place and escape into the woods without being caught. And even if they could, where would they go? Just run headlong into a pitch dark jungle, hoping they wouldn’t fall into a hole or step on something bigger and more dangerous?
The alternative, sitting there and keeping watch all night, didn’t seem like an especially good idea, but it certainly the safer option.
I am so tired.
“All right,” Max said, his voice subdued even for a whisper. “We sit here until morning. In case we have to run instead.”
Mineau nodded slowly. “But you’re right about those bulbs. I hadn’t thought of that. If they’ll hold water after we dig them up, we could use those. At least two of them, but ideally as many as we can manage.”
The creature completed another handful of circles as they sat in silence. As the fear of immediate attack receded and the excitement continued to drain out of his body, Max felt his eyelids begin to grow heavy.
Max stifled a yawn. “Do you think you’ll be able to stay awake until morning?”
“It hasn’t heard us whispering,” Mineau said. “I think we can chance a few minutes of sleep. One of us at a time, at least. I can wake you up when you start snoring.”
“I snore?”
“Yes,” she said, glancing at him with the ghost of a smile. “You snore.”
Then he remembered that she’d commented on his snoring when he’d nodded off after their fight with the wandering palm. Have I always snored?
Max thought about that during the next few minutes of the creature’s circuit. “Do you?”
Mineau glanced at him. “What?”
“Do you snore?”
Mineau shrugged as she watched the flower guardian make another circuit. “I don’t know. Maybe. You’ll have to let me know.”
“You think you’ll be able to fall asleep with that thing out there?”
“Maybe not. But it’s worth a try.”
“I can keep watch first,” Max said when the guardian appeared once more on the far side of its route. “If you want. If you need rest.”
“Thanks,” Mineau said. “But you should go first. You caught the worst of it from that tree. It almost knocked you into the jungle. I’ll wake you up after a while and then we can take turns.”
Max grunted and rested his head against the root behind him. His eyes slid closed and he was asleep as soon as he could no longer see that soft blue light.
When he opened his eyes sometime later, he became aware of three things.
First, judging by the light flooding down into the wet, steamy clearing beyond their hideaway, it was at least midmorning.
Second, Mineau, who had slumped sideways to rest her head on his shoulder, was venting deep, nasally snores.
Third, the lotus guardian had stopped directly in front of the entrance to their little cubby.
As Max watched, bleary-eyed, heart pounding, the cadaverous thing rolled its head to the side to face them. Where Max expected its left eye to be, there was only a shallow green depression in its face. Where its right eye should have been, the bud of a lotus flower had sprouted. As Max stared, the thing began to moan. As the sound rose into a high, keening wail, the bud in its eye socket began to peel open, petal by luminous blue petal, to reveal a single, shining eye.