Neverwylde (The Rim of the World Book 5)

by Linda Mooney

  Kissing her moist skin, Kyber allowed himself to rejoice in their reunion. For however long they had together on this planet. For whatever happiness they could find. This, as he finally admitted to himself, was love. Pure. Unselfish. Equally giving as receiving. And eternal.

  He smiled, contented. “My One, as much as I would give anything to be able to remain here with you in this manner of attachment, we need to remove ourselves from this pool and return to the fire.”

  Kelen’s snort of amusement was barely audible. “You’re right. If we’re going to have more sex, we’re going to need to eat something to keep our strength up.”

  “Then we had best hurry. I am not aware of Dox’s culinary skills. Our meal could be well-burnt by the time we return.”

  Kelen grinned. “I don’t know. Five may be in charge of the kitchen, for all we know. If that’s the case, I’m looking forward to seeing what’s on the menu.”

  He chuckled and they reluctantly let go of each other. After they dressed, they left the pool cavern to take refuge by the fire awaiting them.

  Chapter 17

  Answers

  Kelen stared at the blackish lumps handed to her. They had been speared shish-ka-bob style on a long sliver of wood before being roasted on the glowing hot rocks. After sniffing them, she blew on one before tentatively nibbling it. Kyber watched her testing the substance with amusement.

  “It’s hot,” she defended herself.

  “How does it taste?”

  Managing to juggle the piece inside her mouth, she eventually bit down on it and chewed. As she suspected, it tasted exactly like the black lumps the furries had fed her when she’d been recuperating.

  Not furries, the Jeef. Oh, hell, who am I kidding? I’ll never be able to think of them as anything but furries.

  “Kelen?”

  “It’s okay. Not exquisite cuisine, but it’s filling, and hopefully full of protein.” She held up the spike. “Where did you get these skewers?”

  “Ikko bit them.”

  She raised an eyebrow at Five. “You bit them?”

  “Off the door,” Dox answered for the creature. He pointed at the massive wood door sealing them into the cavern. From where she sat she could see fresh bite marks on the bottom edge of the frame.

  Kelen grinned at Five, who sat staring at her from on the opposite side of the fire. “Good job, Ikko.”

  The furry appeared surprised to hear his real name. Rubbing an arm over his face, he cheeped and proceeded to eat one of the little blue conical things they’d fished from the lakes.

  Kelen glanced at Dox. “I take it he said thank you.”

  “He said of course,” Dox told her and stuffed some of the green thing into his mouth.

  “I don’t suppose you know where to get fresh water,” she commented to Five. She wasn’t surprised, yet she was, when Dox produced a water bag made of the same material as the sailcloth and her bandage. “Where did you get that?”

  “Ikko found it.” Dox handed her the container. She drank deeply before passing it to Kyber.

  They continued to eat without any further conversation. When they were done, they huddled around the fire to watch the flames dance across the rocks.

  Kelen cuddled against her husband, who propped her in his lap and drew his arms protectively around her. On the other side of the cavern, Dox pulled out more of his paraphernalia odds and ends, and proceeded to tinker with them. She watched, half in fascination and half in curiosity. After a while, she yawned. She was comfortable and content. The fire warmed them. It was inevitable that drowsiness would ensue. She started to close her eyes when a question arose in her mind. “I wonder how long it will take the others to reach us.”

  “It may take hours. Perhaps a couple of days.” Kyber’s voice rumbled in his chest.

  “How so?”

  “If the transportation panels in the other caverns were tampered with or destroyed like the one here at the lakes, they will have to walk to meet up with everyone.”

  She tilted her head to look up at him. “Yet we managed to arrive, even though that panel was damaged.”

  Kyber nodded. “It may be that whoever wrecked them only managed to prevent the device from sending, not receiving.”

  “What about the partial panel Massapa brought with him?”

  “Only works at ice temple,” Dox announced.

  “I suspected as much,” Kyber replied. “Since that panel came from that temple, it makes sense it would only be calibrated to access the chambers in that area.”

  She adjusted herself, making herself more comfortable. “I know beggars can’t be choosers, but I wish we were back at the nonagon. Kyber, do you think there’s any chance we can set up a permanent base camp there?”

  “To be honest, My One, I believe we would be better off here.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “For one thing, you forget the food coming from the orange chamber is beginning to rot. We have no idea where that food came from, or how it is processed. Whereas here, we have what we can catch. And from what I can tell, there is an abundance. It appears there has been no over-fishing of the creatures inside the lakes.”

  “What of the lake monsters? You’d think they’d cull down the numbers.”

  Kyber shook his head. “Obviously, they have not.”

  “Okay. I give you that point regarding food. Let me counter it with one of my own. It has beds and lavatories.”

  The Seneecian smiled. “Point given regarding the beds. But Kelen, we have no idea how long the machinery will continue to work.” He pointed at Dox. “We cannot expect Dox to be able to figure out the inner workings of all that alien technology.”

  “Hah! Give him a few years and I bet he could!”

  Kyber chuckled. “Very well. I grant you that other point. But have you forgotten the little square-headed people? We still do not know how or why they died. It is very possible that what killed them off could affect us.”

  Kelen suddenly sat up as an intriguing thought came to her. “Dox, ask Five if he knows anything about the square-headed people whose remains we found in the nonagon.”

  The little man proceeded to hold a conversation with the furry. The back and forth exchange of chirps and purrs continued for a couple of minutes before Dox replied. “They were survivors like us.”

  Kyber straightened. “You mean they also crash-landed on this world?”

  “Yes. Long time ago.”

  Kelen pressed her lips together. “That explains it, then.”

  “Explains what?” her husband inquired.

  “The fact that nothing about them fit the three pattern. Why they had two arms and two legs. And two eyes. They were aliens, like us. Dox, does Five know how they died? Did something attack them?”

  “Couldn’t eat the food,” was his answer. “Starved.”

  “Then they must have stacked their own dead as they passed away,” Kelen murmured.

  “No. Jeef did.”

  Kyber rubbed his chin. “Dox, is this jungle temple and chambers the natural habitat for Five and his people?”

  Another round of cheeps and chitterings, and Dox turned to Kyber. “Jeef left many generations ago for ice world. Live there now.”

  “What of Hoov and its people?” Kelen wondered aloud. “How were the Jeef able to survive their attacks?”

  “Ganj from fire side,” Dox explained.

  It took Kelen a moment to comprehend. “Ganj is the name of Hoov’s people?”

  “It did tell us. We did not understand at the time,” Kyber noted.

  “Wait! So Hoov, the Ganj, they were originally from the fire side of the planet? What made them move to the ice side?”

  “Fire too hot. Fire destroyed home.”

  “It makes sense,” Kyber said. “Volcanic activity there was intensifying. Plus the Ganj found a food source at the ice temple. We saw that for ourselves.”

  “Is it possible the Ganj may have landed at this temple, too?”

 
; “They may have.” Kyber paused. “If they did, they may have confronted the enormous monsters in the garden and down here at the lakes.” He chuckled. “They may have retreated to the ice temple because they were the bigger species at that location.”

  Kelen looked directly at Five. “Ikko, who built the temples? I know you and your people carved the glyphs in the rocks. Probably did all the stone artwork, too. Was it you who also created the caverns and all the machinery, and the tunnels?”

  Dox translated for her, but instead of replying, Five remained unusually silent. The furry continued to concentrate on fiddling with whatever it was he held in his hands.

  Kelen glanced at Kyber. “I wonder why he won’t tell us.”

  “It could be for any number of reasons. It may be he wants it to remain a secret. Or he may not even know.”

  “Or it could be he may not be allowed to tell us,” Kelen surmised.

  Dox paused in what he was doing to toss a couple more rocks on the fire. The ensuing warmth felt wonderful, and Kelen snuggled in Kyber’s embrace.

  He lowered his face to hers, brushing his mouth across her forehead. “Sleep, My One. Get all the rest you can while we have the chance. The others may join us tomorrow. If they do, we will decide then where we want to go. Where we want to spend the rest of our lives.”

  She nodded, closing her eyes. Their future may be hazy and indefinite, but at least they had this moment. They had tonight.

  Fighting back tears, she smiled and allowed herself to sleep.

  Chapter 18

  Scout

  Something awoke her. Dazed, Kelen tried to get a sense of what was going on when Kyber quietly shushed her, giving her arm a squeeze. He gradually pushed her off his lap and got to his feet. A glance across the fire showed Dox had succumbed to sleep. Five was nowhere—

  A movement by the door caught her attention. She finally caught sight of the furry standing, or rather, bending over with his face pressed to the narrow crack running underneath the wooden structure.

  Suddenly, Five stood up and dashed toward the fire where he grabbed one of the wood slivers that had been used as a skewer. Hoisting it like a spear, the little creature hurried back to the door and took a stance.

  Kelen looked up to see Kyber slowly moving over to the door. His talons were extended in preparation. He glanced back to see her watching him and pointed to Dox.

  “Go wake him. Have him ask Five what is wrong,” he whispered.

  She gave a nod and crawled over to where Dox was curled up amid his bundles. Putting her mouth to his ear, she gave him a shake. “Dox. Code Green. Dox.”

  The little man’s eyes flew open and he focused on her.

  “Code Green, Dox,” she repeated, then motioned toward the door where Kyber and Five stood guard. “Ask Five what is wrong.”

  Sitting up, Dox made a few clicking noises. Five answered, gripping his wood sliver in preparation.

  “Ogo,” Dox told her.

  “Ogo?” Before she could ask him what ogo was, Dox chattered again. This time Five held up two arms above his head, waving them back and forth.

  “Eye worms.” Kelen glanced at Kyber. “I bet he’s talking about eye worms.”

  Kyber pressed his ear to the door. “I cannot hear anything, but we already know those creatures are stealthy.”

  “What are we going to do? We’re safe enough here, aren’t we?”

  Five clashed his teeth and raised his improvised lance.

  “How many of them do you think are out there?” she continued to whisper. In her mind she envisioned an encroaching army of eye worms filling the tunnel. So many, the floor undulated thick with bodies.

  Kelen eyed the fire, then glanced around to see if there was anything she could use to hurl the burning rocks at the creatures if worse came to worse.

  “I must see.”

  She saw Kyber reach for the latch and she threw out a hand as if to stop him. “No! No, don’t open it!”

  “I must, Kelen. I need to see how many are out there. If it looks as if we are about to be inundated with overwhelming numbers, we will have to leave immediately and seek safety elsewhere. Dox, prepare yourself.”

  Dox nodded and started repacking his gear.

  Taking a stance behind the fire, she readied herself and nodded to Kyber.

  Slowly, the Seneecian lifted the bar from the door and opened it just enough to look outside, into the blackness. Without warning, Five gave a squeak and dashed through the narrow opening.

  Kelen raced over to where Kyber remained inside the chamber and listened. There was some shuffling, followed by a soft whine, then silence. Kelen glanced up at her husband.

  “What do you see?”

  “It appears to be empty, but that does not mean there aren’t more of them beyond my range of vision.”

  They continued to wait by the door, prepared for whatever advanced their way down the tunnel, when they heard a soft bark at their feet. Surprised, Kyber opened the door a bit wider. Five lumbered in, dragging an eye worm clearly twice its size behind it. Several puncture marks oozed ichor along the eye worm’s body. Once Five and its kill were inside, Kyber double-checked the tunnel before closing the door. “I cannot see any more of them outside. Five, are there more eye, I mean, are there more ogo outside?”

  Dox peeped at Five. The furry dragged the eye worm over to the fire. Spearing it again, it managed to hoist it overhead and slam it onto one of the hot rocks. The eye worm began to sizzle. Five turned to Dox and cheeped.

  “No. Scout,” Dox interpreted.

  “That explains why there aren’t any more of those things out there.” Kelen breathed easier and returned to the fire.

  “For now,” Kyber added. “When the scout does not return, they may send out another, or several, to look for it.”

  “That’s assuming those eye worms think along the same lines as we do,” she countered. She eyed the remains frying on the rock. She also noticed how Five sometimes flipped the creature over as if… “Dox, is Five cooking this thing?”

  “Yes. Says tasty.”

  “Tasty?” She stared wide-eyed at the furry. “Eye worms are edible?”

  “We never tested them for their nutritional value,” Kyber remarked wryly. “I would dare to suggest that perhaps the clickers are, too.”

  “But clickers are poisonous.”

  “Their talons are poisonous,” he corrected her. “It is possible those creatures evolved their talons as a protective measure against larger predators, as well as a means to gather their own food. The same for the Ganj.”

  Kelen sniffed. “Well, as much as I hate to admit it, that eye worm smells delicious. Dox, please ask Five if he believes more eye worms are heading our way.”

  “Not yet. Maybe. Don’t know.”

  Kyber grinned. “That is precisely what I said.”

  They remained around the fire and watched as Five continued to prepare the eye worm, prodding it, scooting it around, and a couple of times flipping it. Although they weren’t sure they could eat the creature, at least they knew the furry could.

  After a few more minutes, Five used his makeshift lance to pierce through the skin and extract a portion of the cooked flesh. Spearing the piece, he waddled over to Kelen and held it out. As the meat was too hot for her to handle, she took the skewer and held it up to her nose.

  “Smells okay.” She blew on it a couple of times, then took a nibble. The verdict was instantaneous. “Oh my God, this is good!” She held out the rest to Kyber, who popped it into his mouth.

  The Seneecian gave her a surprised look. “Yes, it is.”

  “Dox, ask Five if the clickers, or whatever he calls them, are edible, too.”

  This time Dox had to add hand gestures to his verbalizations, but managed to get his question across. Five’s answer was a pat to his belly.

  “Better than ogo,” was the reply.

  “Well, I guess that settles the problem of food supply,” Kyber remarked.

  Five ret
urned to the eye worm, cutting off a portion to offer to Dox, then took the rest for himself.

  Kelen stretched. “I want to go back to sleep, but Mother Nature is calling.”

  Kyber frowned. “Who?”

  She chuckled. “I need to use the facilities, and I’m not about to pick out a corner of this cave like you males do. I’m thinking about going to the next cavern, or maybe I should return to the pools.”

  “I will go with you,” he announced, getting back to his feet.

  “And I will appreciate the company.” She added a small, seductive grin. If Kyber wasn’t aware of her ruse so they could be alone together again, he soon would be.

  Striding over to the door, she reached for the latch, when Kyber added, “Wait. Let me first check to make sure it is clear.” However, he was too late. Kelen swung open the portal and nearly walked directly into Cooter’s line of fire.

  Chapter 19

  Theory

  “Hot shit, guys! They’re here!” Cooter shouted down the tunnel.

  Kelen stepped aside as the others gathered inside the room. After she exchanged hugs from several of them, Kyber glanced over the group.

  “Are all of us here?”

  “Yes,” Gaveer told him.

  “What happened to you?” Mellori questioned.

  “We have no idea,” Kelen answered. “Kyber ended up at the platform by the stanchions at the lakes. I followed, and then Dox. Then, nobody else. Did all of you arrive at the temple?”

  “Yeah,” Fullgrath replied. “At first, we couldn’t figure out why some of us showed but you guys didn’t.”

  “I followed after Dox,” Sandow remarked. “By the time I appeared, Cooter and them were starting to worry. When I told them you three had already transported through, that’s when we realized something had gone wrong.”

  “Tell me,” Kyber asked. “Was the panel up at the temple demolished?”

  Jules gave him a surprised look. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  “Because the one here at the lake was also destroyed.”

  “But not completely,” Kelen added. “It appears that whoever tried to smash it succeeded in breaking only the send directives, but not the return or receive commands.”