by Perrin Briar
“What’s that?” Jera said.
“It’s nothing,” Elian said, tucking it back inside.
The sky had painted itself orange to welcome to the sun, which was just beginning to rise above the horizon.
“The weather is so changeable here,” Jera said. “One minute it’s dark and overcast, the next it’s bright and breezy.”
Jera plucked some leaves from the base of a tree and wagged them under Puca’s nose. Jera lifted one leg up, forming an archway, and the other flat down, forming a hurdle. She moved the leaves, and Puca’s eyes followed them. Puca’s tail wagged in a way that made his whole backside move side to side.
He turned into a rabbit, dove under the leg archway and hopped over Jera’s other leg. He jumped for the leaves, but Jera held it up high so he couldn’t reach it. He morphed into his original form, climbed up Jera’s arm and snapped at the leaves. He got half.
“He’s getting good at that,” Elian said.
“At transforming?” Jera said. “All it takes is practice.”
“Must be good to be able to change like that. Become something different.”
“I guess we all can, in our own little ways. We can change the kind of person we are, the way we react and act around other people, the way we act in certain situations. Would you like to feed him?”
“He doesn’t like me much.”
“That’s because you haven’t spent much time with him.”
Jera handed the leaves over. Elian held it out for Puca, who sniffed them with suspicion, and then took them from Elian’s hand. He held it in his front paws while he munched away.
“He’s a cute little fella, isn’t he?” Elian said.
“The cutest.”
“How did you end up with him?”
“I tried to save him from a trap, ended up getting trapped myself, and then he took me to his home. I think he wanted to show me to his family, introduce his new friend. He ran inside, but on the outside of the house were big footprints – dogs, or wolves, maybe. Anyway, his family were all gone. He was alone, and I was alone, so we looked after each other.”
Puca finished munching on the leaves. He paused, and his ears pricked up. He looked at the tree opposite them. He wrinkled his nose, sniffing something. He turned into his original shape and hid under a corner of Jera’s skirt, peeking out from behind it.
“Something’s there,” Elian said.
He got to his feet and took out his pistol. He pushed aside the foliage and found a rabbit there. He aimed his pistol and pulled the trigger. Snap. Nothing happened. The rabbit zipped into a hole in the base of the tree.
“Dawn,” Elian said. “The water must have gotten to the powder.”
He sat down, removed the powder and began to clean the gun. The little rabbit edged out of the tree again and approached Jera and Puca. It sniffed Jera’s foot, and then approached Puca, who pulled Jera’s skirt over his head. She could feel him shivering.
“It’s a little friend for you to play with,” Jera said. “Go on. Say hello.”
The rabbit sat up, and then shrunk in size, its ears becoming long and droopy, its legs shortening.
“Puca!” Jera said. “It’s another puca!”
Puca stared in fascination at the creature. He took tentative steps toward it. The puca chased Puca around Jera three times. The wild puca stopped and changed direction. Puca almost ran into it. Then the wild puca ran back toward the tree, where now a dozen little pucas stood.
“A whole family of them!” Jera said.
A puca with grey fur approached Puca, who backed away. Then they sniffed one another. The other pucas approached and joined in, sniffing Puca. The grey puca chittered and walked back to the tree. The other pucas followed her. They stopped before the tree and looked back.
“Go on,” Jera said. “Go be with your new family.”
Puca edged forward toward the puca family, and then arched his neck back to look at Jera.
“Go on,” Jera said. “You should go with them.”
Puca walked toward the puca family, and together they ran into the hollow of the tree. Jera got to her feet, a sad smile on her face.
“He’ll be all right,” Elian said, tucking his pistol into its holster.
“I know,” Jera said. “I’ll just miss him, that’s all.”
“Come on. It’s time we got going.”
They packed up their things and began to walk away. Jera stopped at the clearing’s edge and looked back at the puca tree. She turned away. There was a skittering sound, leaves rustled, and something ran up Jera’s body and perched on her shoulder.
“Puca!” Jera said with undisguised delight. “You came back! Are you sure you don’t want to stay here with them? You might never get the chance to live with another puca family.”
Puca hugged her neck and placed his face against her cheek with such warmth that she thought maybe he had understood.
“All right, then,” she said. “Off we go on another crazy adventure.”
Puca looked back at the tree, where the little grey puca stood. Jera turned a corner and the old puca disappeared from sight.
Chapter Eighteen
The Goleuni chief walked through the village with his head bowed in deep thought. The recent appearance of so many humans to the Rumble Jungle had unsettled him. It was not unknown for a human explorer to enter the jungle in search of some forgotten Goleuni treasure, but it was not common for someone to come seeking anything else. Was the soothsayer right? Was the bald, angry human really going to help save them? The chief shook his head. He didn’t think so. He couldn’t think so. Humans were enemies, not friends.
The ground shook as the temple moved once again. Pots and pans swayed from hooks and clanked against each other. Ja’sic, a female Goleuni, waited for the quake to pass, and then resumed knitting. The world moves, and yet we stay still.
A stuffed pig’s bladder bounced, rolled, and came to a stop at the chief’s feet. The Goleuni children skidded to a halt, wanting their ball back but afraid to ask for it. The chief picked it up and looked at the ball’s surface. It was caked in dirt, the outer skin damp with blood. The chief handed the ball over to a child, who bowed in respect, and then kicked the ball. The children gave chase.
The chief looked up at the sky. The sun was nibbling on the tops of the trees. He dropped to his knees and bowed before the hole that now served as an entrance to the ancient temple. He’d picked up the stones with the intent of rebuilding the wall, only to realise he had no idea where to begin. The knowledge of how to build had long since been lost. And so they had piled the stones up to one side. A monument to their failure.
He stepped into the throne room and knelt down before the empty chairs. The cool air pressed against his scaly skin. He muttered a prayer under his breath asking for guidance. But empty chairs could not speak. The world moves, and yet we stay still.
A sense of loss welled up tall and strong inside him, a towering spire that poked at the back of his throat, and he began to cry. He put a claw to the tears that leaked onto his check. He was weeping for what once was, he knew, for the past, for everything his ancestors had given up, lost, and allowed to fall into disrepair. He looked up at the empty thrones again and fancied he could see the kings and queens and knowledge keepers of old.
Something glimmered out the corner of his eye. For a moment he thought it was the sunlight kissing the king’s crown. But of course, there was no king. The light glinted again. There was something in the empty crevice where the Chain of Destiny had once been.
The chief got to his feet and approached. He went up on tiptoe to reach it. His fingers felt something. He extracted it. When he saw it, he almost dropped it. It was another chain. This one wasn’t made of gold, but tiny crystals. The light bounced off them and cast rainbows on the walls. The chief turned to look at the empty thrones, tears blossoming in his eyes once again.
“Thank you!” he said. “Thank you! Thank you!”
He replaced the neckla
ce in the crevice and bowed with each step he took back toward the great giant entrance doors. He came to the wall covered in ancient writing, a journal of all their ancestors’ greatest achievements. He picked up a piece of flint and began to etch words into it.
He wrote the date, almost two hundred years to the day after the last entry. Then he bent back down and carved small delicate letters in as similar a font to the original writing as he could. He stood back, admiring his handiwork. The words he had written were:
WE HAVE BEEN ENTRUSTED WITH A GREAT TREASURE. THE WORLD MOVES, AND SO SHALL WE.
Part Two
Gap, Fairies and Tangents
Chapter Nineteen
The map was covered with lines going from one town to another, a spider web across the world emanating from a large forest in the middle of the Great Plains. Another burst of lines, thicker and longer to represent a greater eruption, burst from the port town of Time, out to the rest of the world. It was a thing of beauty, Gregory thought, and of immense power. There was a knock at the door.
“Come,” Gregory said.
The door opened, and a constable with a lumpy face and pug nose by the name of Bershard entered with his fist curled about the thick material of a boy’s scarf. The boy’s eyebrow was cut and he had a bloody lip.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Gregory said.
“I found this boy leading a herd of donkeys into town, sir,” Bershard said, his tone disapproving.
“So?”
“So, I took him aside and asked what he was doing here. He had a story about delivering the donkeys to a warehouse on the dock for shipping.”
“Cattle gets shipped all over the world all the time.”
“Yes, but not many have this sewn under their skin.”
Bershard tossed a solid cylinder wrapped in a woman’s stocking onto the table. Purple powder leaked out of a small hole in the side.
“I’m glad you brought this to me,” Gregory said. “Did you tell anyone else about this?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
“What would you like me to do with these packages?”
“Remove them from the donkeys and put them in storage.”
“And the donkeys, sir?”
Gregory thought for a moment.
“Return them to the boy,” he said.
Bershard blinked.
“But sir,” he said, “he’s sure to use them again for the same purpose.”
“Then next time we shan’t be so lenient on him.”
Gregory turned to the boy.
“If you’re caught in Time with Gap about your person again, you shall be severely punished,” he said, his tone aggressive. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said, his head bowed low. “Thank you, sir.”
“Go to the nurse and get seen to. Go on.”
The boy hustled out of the room. Gregory turned on Bershard.
“As for you, Constable,” Gregory said, his hands behind his back. “I am officially promoting you to sergeant. A man of your calibre ought to get special assignments. In fact, I’m going to send you on one right now.”
Chapter Twenty
Jera checked her watch.
“How far is the Haunted Forest?” she said.
“About forty miles in that direction,” Elian said, consulting the map and pointing into the distance.
“We haven’t got much time left. We need to hurry.”
“We don’t have horses. How are we going to get there faster?”
Jera wracked her brains.
“I read something once,” she said. “The fastest way to travel is to run for a mile, and then walk for a mile, and then run for a mile and walk for a mile, and keep repeating it, over and over until we get to where we’re going.”
“Let’s try it.”
The land around them was flat and green, making running easy. The Great Plains stretched off into white oblivion, seemingly endless. They’d emerged from the jungle an hour ago. When they looked back at it, it was a small smudge of green between two huge mountains. Elian slowed down, an expression of intense pain on his face.
“Wait, stop,” Elian said, clutching his side. “I’ve got a stitch.”
“We haven’t even run a mile yet. We’ve got to keep going.”
“I’ve got to rest.”
“You rest during the mile we walk.”
Elian hobbled on, running little faster than a walk.
“That’s it,” Jera said, taking pity on him. “We can walk now.”
The scenery hadn’t changed. They might as well have been standing in place. Elian took deep breaths.
“I’m not doing that again,” he said. “If I run again I’ll have a heart attack, and then we’ll never find the remaining pieces.”
They walked in silence.
“You know what?” Elian said. “I’m not sure if I like the way the universe is telling us what to do all the time.”
“I don’t think it’s really telling us what to do. We already made the decision, but we’re just seeing the resolution of that decision before we see the decision.”
“But that is telling us what to do, isn’t it? If we always see the outcome of our decisions before we make them, we’d never make the wrong decision, would we?”
“I’m not so sure. Since when have people ever known what was best for them? We all know we shouldn’t take Gap and yet people still do. We’re human. We make mistakes. Don’t you think you would have decided to come on this mission even without seeing the adventures we would have gotten up to?”
“No. I don’t think I would. I thought life was all about making our own decisions. If we’re not the ones making our own choices, what’s the point?”
Jera nodded.
“You’re right,” she said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it until we find all the spare parts we need.”
Jera stretched her arms out to the side.
“It feels so good to be out of the jungle!” she said. “No more deadly plants or evil lizard creatures.”
Puca ran along her arm and perched on her hand. Using the added vantage like a watchtower, he peered into the distance. He spotted something, and then pointed and chittered at Jera, who followed his aggressive gesturing. The horizon became misty and unclear, like a cloud that lacked the will to fly. It spread across half the horizon.
“What is that?” Jera said.
“I don’t know,” Elian said, “but I don’t like it. Whatever it is.”
Elian reached into his hat and took out a pair of ladies’ binoculars. The cloud was brown and blurry. He saw something solid and black emerge from it. A horn. First one, and then another. Then a dozen, and two dozen.
“It’s a dust cloud!” Elian said. “Something is coming right for us! It’s a stampede of buffaroos!”
The buffaroos bounded from the dust cloud like a magic trick. Their huge powerful bodies were propelled forward by their muscular back legs.
Elian and Jera ran. Within a minute they were surrounded by large snorting buffaroo heads. They paid Elian and Jera no mind. Elian looked to the side and saw the forelegs to some other creature, the rest of it blocked by the marauding buffaroos. A small calf came between them and knocked them apart.
“Elian!” Jera shouted.
“Just keep going!” Elian said.
The buffaroo calf turned to look at Jera as she ran. Its tongue ran over its snotty nose.
“Eugh!” Jera said.
The calf’s mother eyed Jera, and then shielded her calf with her huge body. Through the dust and roving flanks, an irrigation ditch loomed up before them. Moving too fast to stop, Elian and Jera fell headlong into it, landing with a splat in the sludge, caking them up to their knees.
“Get down!” Elian said.
He shielded Jera with his body. Jera opened her eyes and saw the majestic creatures leap over the ditch with effortless bounds. One tripped and fell into the ditch beside them. He got
up, coiled his back legs, but before he could spring out of the ditch a dozen arrows struck him in the back and chest. He fell forward, dead.
The heavy thump of buffaroo feet gave way and the world became silent. Jera could feel Elian’s body, warm and strong, pressed up against her. Puca lay in the palm of her hand, his long ears wrapped around himself, shivering with fright.
A shadow fell over them. Elian’s body grew stiff. Jera turned to see what he was looking at. Standing around them were the silhouetted shapes of two dozen centaurs.
Chapter Twenty-One
Flies buzzed about the antatross’s body. It had been laid out flat, its wings stretched halfway across the deck, a pair of feelers sticking out the top of its head, its pointed beak buried in the soft wood of the deck. There was little blood, and no smell. The wind ruffled its feathers as if it were flying.
“It’s an antatross,” Captain Timon said to Gregory. “They represent the worst of omens amongst sailors.”
“This wedding is cursed!” a short man with a squint said.
“Hold your tongue!” Captain Timon said.
“A dead antatross while we’re anchored at port? It’s a deathly omen! That’s what it is! This wedding tribute is doomed! Doomed I say! Doomed!”
Timon gestured to two constables.
“Take him away,” he said.
The man resisted.
“We should destroy the tribute on board!” he said. “It’ll only bring darkness upon us all!”
The guards finally succeeded in dragging him away.
“Sailors are superstitious at the best of times,” Captain Timon said. “We’ve had a collision and now a dead antatross, grounds to suggest the end of the world is nigh. It’ll be difficult to convince them to undertake the voyage if this keeps up.”
Gregory knelt down and felt at the bird’s neck. He felt a protrusion of bone there.
“It might be bad luck,” Gregory said. “Or someone is deliberately sabotaging us. But we must continue to load the ships if we are to be ready in time for the wedding.”
