Beyond the Pool of Stars

by Howard Andrew Jones

  He seemed not to have heard her. “I could manage the business side, and you could lead the salvagers.”

  This was neither the time nor the place. She realized he wasn’t really looking to discuss the future in detail; he just wanted to explain his actions. “Kellic, it’s fine. If you want to go, go. We can talk about the rest of this later.”

  He nodded quickly. “All right.”

  He suddenly seemed very young, and she felt a surge of affection for him. She put a hand on his shoulder. “You really love this woman?”

  “I do.”

  “Well then, introduce her to Mother. And then get to proposing.”

  He nodded. “It’ll be a little easier to do when you come back. With money, I mean. No one wants to marry a half-breed, let alone one without any money.”

  She shook her head. “No one who dislikes you for your race deserves you, Kellic.”

  Kellic fidgeted with his hands. Mirian wondered where he’d picked up this particular habit, then realized he was removing their father’s ring.

  He pinched the black band between his thumb and forefinger and extended it to her. “Here. Let Lady Galanor borrow it.”

  “That’s generous of you.”

  “Good luck,” Kellic said, and then he embraced her. It was tentative at first, but he pressed himself to her with honest affection.

  A little bewildered by the moment, Mirian returned the hug.

  “I’m sorry,” he finished as he stepped away.

  As he smiled awkwardly, she thought of the little boy whose hand she used to hold as she walked him down the jetty to see their father. Maybe a little bit of that loving, loyal person was still there. “It’s all right, Kellic. You have a safe trip.”

  “And you, too. May Desna guide and protect you.”

  Rendak accepted the news about Kellic with little reaction, then turned down the ring, saying he was too used to the air bottle. “Give it to the little lordship.”

  “What about Tokello?”

  “Tokello can take care of herself. Lady Galanor’s got an air bottle. But a prancy fellow like Ivrian will need any extra edge he can get to improve his odds.”

  Ivrian brightened visibly when presented with the ring and told its properties.

  “It’s wonderful,” he said. “Thank you! I’ll take very good care of it.”

  “You’re welcome.” She turned from him, trying not to wonder why her own brother hadn’t shown some of the same spirit. She addressed the group. “All right, you lot! Let’s not keep the jungle waiting.”

  12

  A Verdant World

  Ivrian

  Only days before, I had thought those reptiles savage, primordial, feckless beings. But as we advanced into the jungle, we learned to depend upon one another. It was either work to one goal or die in the trying, for death’s shadow loomed behind every jungle fern, shone in the gleaming eyes of poisonous vipers and the coiled roots of vampire vines. It glistened on the surface of the blood-red berries of the jurap bush, which produced so virulent a poison that merely brushing against one with open skin could send a man into convulsions.

  —From The Daughter of the Mist

  Mirian’s team wouldn’t permit Ivrian to carry any essential gear, probably worrying that he’d wander into a sinkhole and lose a shovel or cook pot or something. He didn’t understand their lack of faith. Hadn’t he proven himself against the pirates and the harpies?

  He didn’t complain, though. Complaining had never gotten him anything. Instead he waited, knowing there’d be more chances to prove himself.

  While he’d studied a great deal of information about jungle travel, there were many surprises: how cool and dark it was under the canopy; how loud it could be, what with bird calls and chattering monkeys and other strange sounds echoing around them; how frequently they had to stop and apply the oily pulp gathered from fever grass to keep off small biting insects.

  The writer in him was always at work. When he slipped and caught himself on a tree trunk a hand’s span from a snake, he tried to remember that stark feeling of terror so he could later set it down. When his right heel began to ache, he amused himself by trying to choose the best adjectives to describe the pain.

  Most of the time, Mirian kept them walking single file. Occasionally they had to halt as the vanguard cleared a path with machetes. As they advanced deeper and deeper into the jungle, though, the canopy thickened and heavy undergrowth grew less common.

  * * *

  As they walked, Jekka or Kalina was always in the front, usually with Mirian. Heltan kept to the middle of the pack with Tokello and Ivrian. Rendak and Gombe usually brought up the rear, though one of them occasionally traded out with Kalina or, as the day wore on and the salvagers’ faith in his mother grew, Alderra Galanor.

  The middle was obviously reserved for noncombatants, and as a reprieve for those who weren’t patrolling. While it irked Ivrian to be so casually placed here, his position of relative security meant he was better able to watch the expedition at work.

  He was bone-weary by midafternoon, and very pleased when they stopped for a breather upon a boulder-strewn hillock. He imitated the others in searching carefully before he sat to make sure there wasn’t anything on the rocks inclined to bite him. He found nothing but moss and a few black ants.

  Mirian put Heltan and Gombe on first watch before sitting down with one of the maps. Just half a day through the jungle and the paper was creased and sagging. All the humans looked to be sagging a bit as well. Their exposed skin was beaded with sweat, which eventually washed away the fever grass paste.

  Ivrian studied Mirian’s profile, trying to decide if he should describe her as “striking” or “beautiful.” She must have sensed his attention, for she looked up suddenly and met his gaze. He glanced away, staring at the back of Gombe’s head and then down, as if he’d been slowly surveying the camp and had just happened to look her direction. From the corner of his eye he saw her fold the paper, take a swig from her canteen, cap it, and join Rendak and his mother, who were pointing into the jungle and talking in hushed tones.

  That left him alone with the two lizardfolk sprawled on the hill beside him.

  “Do you plan to court her?” Kalina asked.

  He was surprised to find her staring directly at him. She was shorter than the two male lizardfolk by several inches, and her color was duller. He thought that her eyes might be a touch larger and brighter, too.

  “Court her?” Ivrian asked.

  “Do I use the wrong word?” Kalina crawled closer and crouched beside him. “I do not know how you humans do it. I assume you sing a song or build a home.”

  Ivrian grinned. “Well, yes, that’s sort of how it’s done. But I don’t plan to court Miss Raas.”

  “Why not? She has vigor and—how do you say it? The wiles.”

  “She’s in charge, for one thing.”

  The lizard woman cocked her head. Her color brightened.

  “She’s my leader. I’m lower in status.” He decided not to add that this demotion was only temporary. “Plus, she’s not impressed by me.”

  “But you stare and stare. Do you think of impressing her with a song?”

  “Is that how your people do it?”

  “Heltan sang his love. He is a fine one for words, and knows the whole history of our clan. But tell me of your song.”

  Apparently he’d met a romantic lizard woman. “Um, I’m not a musician. I’m a writer, and I was thinking of how to describe her when I write about our journey.”

  “Oh!” Kalina’s head bobbed. “Will you describe me?”

  “I will.”

  “What words will you use?” She sounded eager as a child offered sweets.

  “I’ll say that you are a fierce hunter, very brave, and extremely inquisitive.” At her uncomprehending stare he decided to use simpler words. “Er—that you ask good questions.”

  “These things are true. You should say them.”

  “Also,” he said, “
I’ll tell people how you’re nice, and that you befriended me.”

  “Is that true?”

  “You’ve said more to me than anyone else in the last four hours. That seems kind to me.”

  “Is that how humans know if they are friends?”

  He laughed, a little sadly. “Sometimes. I would be your friend, though, if you wished it.”

  Her mouth opened, and she produced a dry coughing sound. “How strange to have a human friend.”

  “You can have no human friends,” Jekka said. He had risen to one knee. “Their hearts bleed, but they carry no feeling. It is only coins they want.”

  “You know that about all humans?” Kalina asked.

  Jekka nodded toward the other side of the hill, where Mirian’s head was just visible. “She saved me because she needs guides. To find money. And him—” He pointed a finger at Ivrian. “He sells stories for money.”

  Kalina’s eyes widened. “Is this true? You trade stories for money?”

  “I do.” Normally he said this proudly, or with carefully modulated modesty, but the confusion he felt was present in his voice.

  The crest along Kalina’s neck and head fluttered as she stood. She cocked her head at him and walked away.

  Utterly confused, Ivrian found himself in the uncomfortable position of seeking an explanation from Jekka, who supported himself with his staff as he stood. The lizard man’s eyes were brooding pools.

  “What did I say?”

  “Stories are sacred. For the teaching of young and the sharing of truths. For lessening sorrow and remembering past—and evils done,” he added. “Kalina’s sister was our clan’s storyteller. She would have sooner died than trade her tales for gold.”

  “It’s different for humans.”

  “Yes.” Jekka lifted his staff and walked away.

  As they started back up, Ivrian felt even lonelier than before.

  A few hours later they halted along the banks of a river. He was about to ask if it were the Oubinga again, but his mother was already asking the same question of Mirian.

  She shook her head.

  “This is a tributary,” Heltan answered. “We are still days from the Pool of Stars.”

  That, Ivrian knew, was a landmark (rivermark?) they sought, a place where the Oubinga broadened almost into a lake. He’d heard Mirian talking about it with the lizardfolk earlier.

  Mirian, Rendak, and Kalina walked cautiously along the muddy bank, studying the murky waters. They consulted briefly, and then Kalina whipped out one of her metal disks and sent it spinning into the lower treetops.

  Nearby birds erupted from the greenery with frightened squawks and spilled into the sky above the river.

  It wasn’t until a brown monkey thudded into the ground that Ivrian saw the disk embedded in its chest. The mammal’s brethren shrilled in alarm and scrambled, setting branches swaying, but they weren’t swift enough to avoid Kalina’s second disk, which brought down another monkey larger than the first.

  Ivrian was impressed with both the speed and lethality of the lizard woman. Mirian and Rendak went forward with her and stood looking at the corpses.

  “Kalina is an excellent shot,” Ivrian told Heltan.

  “She is a fine hunter,” the lizard man agreed.

  “Are we going to eat the monkeys?” Ivrian asked.

  “Fish,” Heltan said. “The fish who rend. I don’t know your human name for them. The monkeys are for those fish.”

  “He means the piranha,” Tokello said.

  “Why are we feeding the piranha?”

  “To distract them.” The healer herself seemed distracted, uncertain whether to be concerned about the jungle behind them or the dark river before them, for her gaze shifted warily between the two. “The fish can shred an animal to bone in a dozen heartbeats. At least that’s a quick way to die in the jungle.”

  “You mean there are worse ways?” Ivrian asked.

  Her laugh was without humor. “You don’t know the half of it. There’re bugs out here that can bite you so gently you’ll never notice, and then you’ll waste away for weeks. And then there’re the boggards. If you’re lucky they’ll kill you before they start eating.”

  “The writer Ivrian looks troubled,” Heltan observed. “Perhaps you should give him fewer details.”

  “I wish I knew fewer of them myself,” Tokello said, stepping away.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” Heltan said, “the root salve should protect you from the bugs.”

  “What protects me from the fish?”

  “The monkeys,” Heltan said, as if it were obvious.

  Ivrian didn’t fully comprehend the plan until Gombe wandered over with an explanation. “Rendak’s going to toss those monkeys upriver. The moment the water froths, we start across.”

  Ivrian finally understood. “Wait—are you sure this will work?”

  “Probably,” Gombe said. Then he grinned. “If it doesn’t, you won’t care for long.”

  Heltan broke into a coughing laugh, one he traded with Jekka.

  Ivrian crowded near the shore with the rest of them. They were rejoined by Kalina, who’d cleaned her weapons and was returning them to her chest holster. Mirian had wandered upstream with Rendak and now watched the thick jungle behind him.

  Gombe lifted a hand to Rendak, signaling readiness, and Rendak heaved one of the monkeys farther upriver. The corpse hit with a splash of droplets that seemed bright and clean when separated from the dark river. By the time the second body struck, the water was alive with foam. It didn’t take much imagination on Ivrian’s part to picture small silvery bodies tearing those monkeys into bloody hunks.

  “Go, go!” Gombe urged, and Ivrian stepped into the surprisingly cool water, ankle-deep in muck, then onto a firmer river bottom. He was knee-deep, thigh-deep—and then abruptly there was nothing at all beneath him, and he was left behind as the lizardfolk swam ahead with undulating grace.

  Ivrian was a decent swimmer, but he didn’t usually try to move through the water while carrying a pack of gear. He dropped like a stone, hit the floor of the river with both feet, and pushed up enough to gasp at the air. He held his breath, marveling a little at the green glowing fins that had formed from wrist to elbow and extended from his feet. He paddled frantically, gurgled for help. He felt a firm hand grasp him, pull his head above the surface. He found his mother looking at him in disgust, locks of wet silver hair straying over her forehead. “You’ve got a ring that allows you to breathe water.”

  He reddened even as Alderra Galanor dragged him with her, kicking for the shore.

  In another moment he was once more on solid footing, then staggering up into the shallows, scared witless that he’d soon feel the brush of those horrid teeth. He knew piranha could reduce flesh to bone in seconds. He was just walking onto the muddy bank when Rendak and Mirian emerged from the water and turned to consider the river.

  His mother stepped close. “You’re embarrassing yourself, and you’re embarrassing me. What’s gotten into you?”

  “Sorry.”

  “You’re better than this. Get your head out of your ass or you’ll get yourself killed. And maybe whoever’s trying to save you, too.”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled again.

  His mother stepped away to consult with Heltan, who was soon pointing one green finger northwest. Gombe sidled over, scratching his broad dark nose. Ivrian braced himself for another joke at his expense.

  “It’s not easy getting used to the tools,” the salvager said. “You should have seen me the first time I went down with an air bottle. I didn’t have the tube down far enough, and I sucked in half the ocean! I nearly drowned.” He ears seemed to waggle as he shook his head. “You just have to stay calm.”

  Ivrian nodded.

  “That’s really the secret,” Gombe went on. “Keep your wits, and keep looking. But don’t be like Tokello. She wears herself out every day because she’s so damned nervous something’s going to snatch her. She looks over her
shoulder so much she’s going to strain her neck.”

  “Thanks.”

  Gombe grinned. “Hey, next time you sit down for a seafood meal, think back on this. Kind of puts the whole ‘fish dinner’ thing in a different light, doesn’t it?”

  “I suppose it does,” Ivrian said. Gombe whopped him on the shoulder and trotted on.

  Normally someone of Gombe’s station wouldn’t have dared touch him, but that didn’t bother Ivrian. He watched the salvager join the others, reflecting that people often proved different than one expected.

  “Stop daydreaming, lad,” Rendak said as he passed him. “Time to get back to it.”

  They resumed their trek. Late in the afternoon, Jekka came rushing back from the front and ordered everyone to halt. Ivrian was walking with Heltan and his mother, and both went statue-still. He was about to risk a whispered question when he felt the ground shake beneath him.

  Earthquake?

  No. It was too regular.

  Something vast and terrible was striding through the jungle. Monkeys in the canopy screeched warnings as the treetops swayed. Birds scattered. Smaller animals bolted through the undergrowth.

  Greenery obscured the stomping monster from his sight. Curious as he was to glimpse the thing, he was grateful when its tread receded.

  Just as Ivrian was about to ask what the monster was, the entire jungle echoed with a bone-rattling roar.

  He decided then that he’d stay quiet for just a little longer. This, he thought, must be what the rabbit feels when the hound is loosed.

  They remained still while a second, more distant roar shook the jungle.

  “What was that?” Ivrian whispered at last.

  “A thunder walker.” Jekka sounded surprised. “Have you never heard of it?”

  “A dinosaur,” his mother said.

  “What would we have done if it came after us?” Ivrian asked

  “Scattered,” Gombe said from behind him. “And prayed.”

  As evening drew on toward night, they climbed into the canopy to hang their hammocks, but not before there was some extended—and alarming—discussion among the salvagers and lizardfolk about scouting for giant spiders. Apparently the site they’d chosen was safe, for they were soon perched on sturdy branches dozens of feet above the jungle floor.