Auriel yells out. It’s the first time Mez has heard him at full voice. The loudness fills the canyon between trees, and sets Lima rocketing into the air in alarm. “Rumi,” Auriel booms, “we are here to help you!”
A ricocheting yellow speck appears at the far side of the tree canyon, heading right toward them. At first Mez thinks it’s some hollow gourd bouncing and bounding, then she comes to realize that she’s seeing an animal, a frog, only it’s a frog completely out of control, its movements heedless and random. As it gets closer, Mez can see the frog’s mouth is open wide in terror. It’s such a small mouth, though; how could it make such a huge, croaking ruckus?
Mez has her answer when another frog launches into view, slaloming down the canyon, making a great cannonball splash each time it lands. This cane toad is as big as a thousand of the first frog, as big as Mez herself, sending up waves of rainwater with each wild leap. When it opens its mouth, Mez sees deep into its red-and-black gullet, sees the curling tongue slavering and salivating, then comes the sound, that’s who was making it, and oh, what a sound it is! The ripping boom of the cane toad’s croak sets her whiskers quivering.
The first frog whizzes past, his tiny yellow form bouncing off tree trunks, fully out of control. The giant cane toad must have seen Mez, Auriel, and Lima by now, but continues leaping after the little one, the ground thudding with each landing. “Auriel! Which one is Rumi?” Mez yells out.
“I wish I knew!” Auriel says. “I haven’t met him yet!” The constrictor moves his long body so it blocks the cane toad’s way, but the giant beast jumps him easily, making another fearsome croak as it lands on the far side.
The tiny yellow frog makes terrified burps, still bouncing around the far side of the clearing. The panicky sounds resolve themselves into words. “Get it away! Get it away!”
The small frog is clearly exhausted. It stumbles and rolls, splaying out along the ground, shaking all over. “Are you Rumi?” Mez asks it.
Both frogs stare at her. “Yes!” they say at once.
“Okay,” Mez says, “guess I’m going to have to go with my gut here.”
The bigger frog advances on the smaller, its pebbly tongue already extended. The cane toad doesn’t even bother to leap anymore, just waddles forward on its jiggling meaty legs. The little frog peers back with wide, inky irises. Where it’s not covered in mud, its back is a beautiful iridescent combination of yellow and brown. The cane toad advances unabated.
Until Mez pounces.
Frogs are tricky creatures. When she was very young, Mez once attacked one, but soon after her paw touched its back she fell into seizures, shaking on the ground while the frog hopped away. Other frogs have no poison at all—it’s hard to predict. So when Mez pounces, she makes her body as light as possible in the air, plucking the cane toad up from the ground with the tips of her claws and flipping it. It looks like a play move more than a hunting one, but the astonished frog tumbles over and over, its tongue lolling and whipping from side to side.
When it lands, it bounces right into a patch of witch’s tongue, disappearing into the fronds. When the cane toad emerges, it’s to the sight of Mez standing over the tiny and exhausted yellow frog, growling, teeth bared. The larger frog takes a moment to size up Mez before hopping toward her.
Auriel curls around Mez and the tiny frog in a protective circle, his head at the front, staring glitteringly at the cane toad. He keeps his mouth closed, maybe to hide his lack of fangs. The giant frog goes pale right in front of Mez’s eyes, throat wattle turning almost translucent as the blood drains. Then it hops away, disappearing into the undergrowth.
For a while, Mez, Auriel, and the exhausted frog—the real Rumi, she hopes!—lie still and catch their breath. Then Lima’s voice comes from above, where Mez sees the small bat dangling upside down from a branch, her teeth bared and wings extended. “Did you see that? I scared the cane toad off!”
Mez and Auriel stare up at her. “Sorry,” Mez says, “didn’t even notice you up there.”
Lima flutters down to her now-familiar perch on Mez’s shoulder. “Well, at least that mean toad did, right?” she sniffs. “He was so intimidated by me!”
Careful, as if the small frog were a thing on fire, Mez steps away from him. The frog peers up at the three unfamiliar creatures, still hyperventilating, eyes blinking rapidly.
Auriel shifts so that he, Mez, and Lima can stare at him from the same direction, their heads all lined up in a row. “Are you Rumi?” Auriel asks.
“Yes,” the frog says, his voice even smaller than before.
“Was that other frog named Rumi, too?” Mez asks.
Rumi clears his throat. “Yes. It’s quite a common name among frogs. Owing to the way we name our tadpoles. According to, um, where they hatch. And thousands of eggs being in the same place. My parents glued my eggs to the inside of a leaf. And apparently, so did his. So we’re both called Rumi. Different parents, though. As is, um, abundantly apparent.”
His eyes are unusually large, even for a frog. It makes him look brainy. Like perception is the most important thing about him.
“Have any ants told you that we were coming?” Auriel asks.
Rumi tilts his head. “Well, I must say, that’s certainly not the question I was expecting.”
“What question were you expecting?” Lima asks. “You can answer that one first, if you want.”
“Oh, hello there, Mr. Bat. Didn’t even notice you.”
“I’m a girl,” Lima says. “And why doesn’t anyone ever notice me? It’s not like you’re exactly a giant yourself.”
“Well, with this striking coloration, I can’t help but be noticed. For good or for bad, I’m afraid. As you might have observed. In any case, I was expecting you to ask why I was being pursued by another frog. That strikes me as the most pertinent question, to be frank.”
“Frogs hunt other frogs. Everyone knows that,” Auriel says, giving his snake version of a shrug.
“Well, my feud with Big Rumi, as I’ll call him, goes way back,” Rumi says. “But yes, frogs hunt other frogs. That is the simplest explanation, and not at all untrue. Other frogs are one of the worst things about being a frog, I’m afraid.” A cloud of sadness passes over his face.
“I hear you,” Auriel says. “These mammals don’t know how tough it is to be a reptile or an amphibian. In any case, let me be frank. I don’t suppose that frog, Big Rumi, was hunting you because you were caught daywalking?”
“Daywalking?” Rumi asks. He leans in, a wily expression on his face as his voice goes down to a whisper. “Why? Has anyone told you that I was daywalking?”
“We all daywalk,” Mez says. “We’re our own little band of weirdos.”
“Shh!” Rumi says through gritted teeth. Or what would be gritted teeth, if he had any on the bottom jaw. “Look around you—there are eyes everywhere.”
Lima looks up, opens her mouth, and listens. She pulls her wings tight around her. “He’s right. There are twenty-four other creatures nearby, spread throughout the treetops. Wait! Or, oh dear, twenty-three now. Poor little tree rat didn’t stand a chance against an owl.”
“Interesting,” Rumi says. “Is that your magical power?”
Lima shakes her head. “No, that’s echolocation. All bats can do it, as long as it’s not raining.”
“Ah yes, I’ve surmised bats had some such power from my observations. But I’ve never seen it in action. How fascinating. I hope you’ll allow me to ask you some questions about it.”
“Of course! At least something makes me special. I’m pretty sure I don’t have any magical power,” Lima says, pulling her wings even tighter around herself in the dark of the night. “I’ve only got the unnatural part.”
“Yeah, me too,” Mez whispers, her thoughts on her daywalking, which leads her to thinking of Chumba, all by herself back home. Her head hangs.
“I promise you that you’ve all got magic,” Auriel says. “The ants have witnessed eclipses happen in previous ages,
and I’ve learned from them. You’re nocturnal creatures that are awake during the day. That makes you shadowwalkers. And all shadowwalkers have magical powers. It’s a matter of discovering what they are.”
Rumi croaks once, loud and sharp. Mez realizes it’s the frog version of a laugh. “Shadowwalkers! Those are only legends. Like the Ant Queen.”
“Oh . . . you haven’t heard yet that she’s real?” Mez asks.
Auriel lets out a sigh, and Mez realizes how many times he must have gone through this conversation. “You have two options: You can think of yourself as a shadowwalker, or as an unnatural mistake. The choice is up to you,” Auriel says flatly. “Our enemy is awakening. I have no time for hand-wringing.”
“I’m not sure how helpful ‘hand-wringing’ is as a term, coming from a snake,” Lima whispers to Mez.
Rumi nods to Auriel, chastened. “Big Rumi hunted me out of my swamp, so going back home is no longer an option. Please allow me to travel with you.”
“Why did you get chased out of your swamp?” Lima chirps.
Rumi looks down.
“Let’s give him some quiet time to recover before we grill him, shall we?” Auriel says. He leads the way off into the jungle, and Mez starts the familiar work of training her gaze on his tail. It gets so narrow at the end, looks so delightfully squirmy, that she has to force back the feline urge to pounce on it. She wouldn’t like to imagine the dignified constrictor’s reaction to that. Once Auriel’s head has gone far enough that his tail begins to move, Lima takes up her usual position on Mez’s shoulder. Rumi makes a few hops, but stops up short. “I’m still tired, and even if I weren’t, I’m afraid that I’m so much smaller that I’d only slow you all down. That is, unless you’d be so kind as to . . .”
Mez nods. “You can ride on my back. But are you sure you won’t poison me?”
Rumi huffs in indignation. “I’m not predisposed to slaying traveling companions willy-nilly!”
“Okay, fine, hop on board.”
In a flash, Rumi hops onto Mez’s back. He’s even lighter than Lima. A runty panther cub, a tiny bat, and a tinier tree frog. Not exactly the most impressive adventuring party. At least they have Auriel with them.
“So you know, I can only partially control the poison on my back. If I get panicky, it just starts coming out of my pores. All I can suggest is don’t try to startle me or lick me or eat me,” Rumi says. “That would not go well for you.”
“Or for you,” Lima points out.
“I think I’ll be able to hold myself back,” Mez says wryly. “I’ve never licked a frog before, and I don’t see any reason to start now.”
DAWN SURPRISES THE group. After passing through a ravine, they emerge to see that the Veil has lifted, and the sky has gone from black to charcoal. When Auriel brings them to a halt, all eyes turn to Rumi.
“What?” the frog asks, bewildered. “What did I do wrong?”
“Day is almost here. Feeling sleeeeepy?” Lima asks, scrutinizing him.
“Not particularly. I mean, we all have to rest sometime, but I don’t . . . why, should I be sleepy?” Rumi asks.
“Ah, so you are one of the eclipse-born!” Mez says.
“Of course I am,” Rumi says. “I thought we’d already been over all that.”
“Ooh, that reminds me, do you already know your magical powers?” Lima asks. “What if you were a flying frog? That would be fun. Maybe it would be hard for you to keep on eating flies, though, because you’d feel this kinship with them. Maybe you’d be a frog with flies all over him, like Auriel with his ants.”
“Don’t be preposterous. I don’t eat you, not because you fly, but because I do not wish to eat you,” Rumi says. He sighs. “And no, I do not seem to have any magical powers. If I did, it would have been useful in my fight against Big Rumi.”
“Okay, shadowwalkers,” Auriel intones suddenly, “I’m afraid this is the end of the line.”
Mez looks around, baffled. It’s unbroken jungle all around them, humming with cicadas and thrumming with rain. She closes her eyes against a mosquito doggedly ramming her. What’s so special about right here?
“So this is what a Ziggurat of the Sun and Moon looks like?” Lima asks, eyes darting around with interest. “Huh. If it’s imprisoning the Ant Queen and everything, I figured it would be fancy. This looks like everywhere else in the rainforest!”
“No,” Auriel says. “You still have farther to go to reach the ziggurat. But I have more eclipse-born to collect, and time is running out. I will tell you the route, and then I’ll leave and meet you at the ziggurat. We should arrive at almost the same time, if all goes according to plan.”
“You’re going to leave us . . . all by ourselves?” Lima squeaks.
Mez is careful not to show worry on her face—that wouldn’t be the panther way—but she too feels a tremor of dread at Auriel’s words.
“The way is not difficult,” Auriel says patiently. “Follow the column of ants. They’re heading toward the Ant Queen, too. But in case you lose the ant trail, come, Lima, I’ll show you the way.”
Auriel chooses a tall tree and wraps himself around the trunk, vining around and up until he’s in the highest reaches. Mez and Rumi watch as Lima soars up to join him, alighting on Auriel’s head, high above the jungle floor. Mez squints her eyes; it’s hard to make the pair out at such a distance.
“I’m glad to be alone with you for a moment,” Rumi says.
“Why’s that?” Mez asks.
“It’s extraordinary, don’t you think, to be led by a constrictor?”
“It’s also unusual to be talking to a tree frog,” Mez huffs. She feels surprisingly protective of her new snake friend.
“Granted. My kin would think it odd that I am talking to you, too, believe me. All the same, constrictors have a reputation for being untrustworthy. I’d rather be proven wrong, of course, but we’d be wise to keep alert. Growing up safe in her cave filled with friendly bats, Lima hasn’t faced much hardship, and is very apt to trust. You and I, though—we will have to use our reason to guide us, despite what our hearts may say.”
“Sure, let’s stay cautious,” Mez says, nodding. And that applies to mysterious frogs with common names, she mentally adds.
“At least we can—hush, they’re returning,” Rumi says.
Lima is the first back, zooming down like a plummeting stone, then agilely switching course to alight on Mez’s back. “It’s amazing up there!” she says. “You can hear something that might be the waves at the shores of Caldera—did you know that we even had shores?—and Auriel was telling me that he’s been by the coast, and the ocean goes as far as you can see, which isn’t too far because there’s a lot of jungle out there, let me tell you, so there’s not much space left before the horizon. I echolocated the ziggurat, just the faintest ping of stone, because it’s really far and everything and there are lots of swaying branches to get in the way, but I can tell it’s really big and impressive. Well, I think it is.”
Before Mez can respond, Auriel arrives. “We’re all clear, then? As I told Lima, you’ll follow the ant column downhill until you reach the three ponds, then find the big beehive and continue across Agony Canyon.”
“Agony Canyon?” Mez asks, swallowing.
“It’s just a name,” Auriel soothes. “It’s not as daunting as all that, I promise.”
Lima nods. “You can count on us, Auriel. We can handle any puny little Agony Canyon, I’m sure. We’ll meet you at the ziggurat safe and sound.”
“Be cautious,” the constrictor says. “Since you are all three unfamiliar with the ways of daywalkers, you must hide when the sun is at its peak. Talk to no one, and do not ever reveal who you are or where you are going. You mustn’t trust anyone you meet, do you understand?”
Mez, Lima, and Rumi nod.
“Very well, then. May fortune shine on you. If you desperately need to reach me, you can try to send a message through the ants. Otherwise, you will find me at the ziggurat.”
With that, Auriel steals off into the jungle.
Is he really leaving them, just like that? Mez watches after him, dumbstruck. A panther, a frog, and a bat, each one smaller than most of their kind, heading through dangerous territory to someplace they’ve never been to face off with an ancient enemy.
For a long moment, all three hold still in the undergrowth. A tree nearby releases its wild garlic scent, spicing the air. From the top of an ironwood comes the strident call of a macaw. Mez is starting to become used to those daywalker birds, so pretty to the eye and harsh to the ear. A saddleback tamarind monkey sits on a branch above, peering down at the three companions, its tail swinging in the open space as it calmly stares at them. Mez has no idea what to expect from daywalker monkeys, and now she doesn’t have Auriel to ask.
When Mez cranes her neck to look at the companions on her back, trying to see what they think they should do, she finds them staring at her. Expectantly.
Waiting for her to decide. She’s . . . the leader? “Look, just because I’m the biggest—” Mez starts.
“I was thinking I’d be best as navigator,” Lima says.
“And I suppose my gift is strategy,” Rumi says, “but I need time to think whenever anything comes up, so for the moment-to-moment decisions I’d rather cede to someone else—well, some panther else for our general leadership needs.”
Mez doesn’t know what to say, and the tamarind monkey keeps staring down at them—maybe it’s laughing at them, who knows how monkeys laugh; Mez doesn’t want to look closer and find out—so she just takes one step and then another. Rumi and Lima assume their positions, one on each shoulder.
“You’d think if we were so important,” Lima says cheerfully, “Auriel would want to make sure we weren’t eaten by daywalkers on our way to the ziggurat.”
“I considered that,” Rumi says, “but then I realized it’s a cost-benefit decision. There are other eclipse-born to pick up, and increasing our risk of, um, early mortality must have been outweighed by setting them on their way to the ziggurat. If the n-number of surviving eclipse-born is ten, say, then bringing us from ninety percent to sixty percent survival rates will be worth it if and only if Auriel plans to pick up at least 0.9 new eclipse-born. Which seems likely. Fractions of eclipse-born are impossible, of course—well, fractions of surviving eclipse-born are impossible—so if he brings even one more back it’s fine . . . unless all three of us are eaten, which isn’t actually that hard to imagine—”
The Lost Rainforest Page 6
