Hunters Unlucky

by Abigail Hilton

  No, he told himself, you’re not. It’s just this smell, this place. You’ll find the lake soon.

  But there was water all around him, sweet and fragrant in the bowls of the plants, refreshed by the falling rain. Storm shook his head. Focus!

  You will never find the lake, whispered a voice in his mind. You will never leave.

  Storm stumbled on. His momentary alertness, born of panic, began to fade. Exhaustion reasserted itself. I will sleep when the sun comes up, he promised. When I can see what’s around me, when I know the direction of the lake. Dawn can’t be far off, can it? He found that he was walking with his eyes closed. What does it matter? I can’t see anything anyway.

  Storm tripped. This had become a frequent occurrence, but this time, he pitched headlong into one of the bowls. He came up sputtering and choking, the fluid stinging in his sinuses. He sat there for a moment, trying to hold his eyes open. Storm felt suddenly warm. The scent of the water was sweet and heady. The tension left his muscles. Without further hesitation, Storm lowered his head to the bowl and began to drink.

  * * * *

  Storm dreamed of a wood—cool and damp, full of succulent moss, choice mushrooms, and the tastiest of greens. Sunlight dappled and danced on the loamy ground that smelled of rich earth and growing things. He wandered through vast meadows, dotted with velvety flowers—blue as a summer sky, yellow as sunlight, red as blood. Butterflies danced in the air above the grass, and little streams murmured in the hollows among mossy rocks.

  Around one such stream, Storm encountered a group of ferryshaft. They were all talking and laughing. Storm thought that some of them looked familiar. He could almost remember their names. One of them—a spindly runt with a limp—came over and tried to engage him in a game of tag. Storm was distracted, though. He couldn’t quite understand most of their words. He wanted to remember their names.

  He wanted to remember his own name. Storm felt a moment of vertigo. How did I get here? Who am I? What is my name?

  It seemed very important.

  “Don’t fight,” he heard one of them say clearly. “It’ll all be over in a moment. It doesn’t hurt. Let go.”

  Storm turned and ran from them. He pounded away over the bright, grassy field. The wind in his fur was crisp and cool, and the sunlight nearly blinded him. What is my name?

  Someone was running beside him. Storm turned to look at his companion—a ferryshaft with silver-gray fur so like his own that he stared and almost stumbled. The stranger was keeping pace with him easily. He was bigger than Storm—at least as tall as Charder—with battle scars on his muzzle and a proud carriage of his head.

  Storm slowed. “You’re… I know your name.” But he couldn’t remember.

  The other ferryshaft watched him. “It’s difficult to stand between,” he said. At least, Storm thought that’s what he said. His voice seemed to come from a great distance. “Do you want to stay here?” The voice was like wind.

  Yes. “No,” Storm whispered.

  “Then walk with me otherwise,” said his companion.

  And Storm did. Somehow, they turned, and walked through the fabric of his dream, and he woke.

  Storm raised his head, vision blurred, neck swaying. He lay in daylight—a balmy afternoon in cool shade. He was curled up in one of the bowls of the plants, neck-deep in sweet, deadly fluid. He had a feeling that his nose had just slipped beneath the surface, but he could hardly summon the energy to cough up the water. He wanted, stupidly, to put his head back under again, to take another long drink, to slip back into…

  “Storm!” The voice was strained, as though from beyond a barrier.

  Storm’s head shot up. My name! That’s my name. I’m…I’m Storm. And I don’t want to die.

  He struggled to a sitting position. It took more effort than he would have dreamed possible. All of his limbs felt as they were made of mud. His vision seemed to stutter in and out of focus—bright flashes behind his eyes. For one disconcerting moment, he thought he was back in the clearing beside the stream. A whisper: “Don’t fight. It doesn’t hurt. Let go.”

  “No!” Storm struggled up again. This time, he managed to get his front legs out of the bowl. It felt horrible, as he imagined birth must feel—leaving a warm, comforting place for a harsh, uncomfortable world of pain and struggle. He cried out as he wrenched his hindquarters from the bowl, tearing its fleshy sides and opening a long rip in the shiny pink and green skin. It leaked fluid onto the forest floor as Storm lay panting.

  He was alarmed to see—through his swimming vision—that he had blisters on his skin. Huge swathes of fur were missing. Groth was devouring me as I lay there dreaming.

  Storm staggered up in renewed alarm. His muscles still seemed to work. He had all four limbs. His tail was present, though it was missing chunks of hair. He felt raw, and his skin burned. Would the pain stop if I went back into the water?

  When he tried to stand, the little vines curled around him. Their embrace was not tight or rough. Under normal circumstances, Storm would have had no difficulty shaking them off. However, in his weakened state, they were all the excuse he needed to lie back down. Storm rested there, panting, with the little vines curling over him, and the bowl of the plant tipped half on its side—inviting. He felt thirsty, so thirsty. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  He drank.

  “Storm, get up.” That voice again, from far away. Storm raised his head and saw, through his stuttering vision, the gray ferryshaft from his dream. He squinted at the stranger, trying to decide whether he was real. “That’s enough! Get up!”

  It was enough. In fact, the drink seemed to have helped a little. The pain and burning of his injured flesh had eased. However, the flashes behind his eyes had intensified. Storm rose on wobbly legs. He felt as though he were floating. The gray ferryshaft turned and started away. Storm followed him.

  He could not say how long they walked through a wood that swayed and flickered and swam in and out of focus. The stranger didn’t slow down. The vines seemed to ignore him, while they wrapped around Storm at every opportunity. Storm struggled on.

  Finally, the stranger stopped. “Here.” His voice was faint, but clear. He was standing in front of a bowl, and Storm approached gratefully. He wants me to drink again…to ease the pain.

  He was disappointed, however. The bowl the stranger had indicated contained no liquid. It was old and shriveled. The pink and green of its interior had faded to leathery brown. A thick, slimy muck stood in the bottom of the plant. Storm shuddered to imagine what might be dissolved in that muck. Instead of a sweet scent, the plant gave off a faintly musky odor of decay.

  Storm wrinkled his nose, but the stranger stood there beside the bowl and would not move. Storm sat down. He was tired. He was fairly certain that he was hallucinating. He wanted another drink.

  He looked at his companion and closed one eye so as to keep him in focus. “I want to be just like you,” he murmured.

  The gray ferryshaft smiled. “I’m dead.”

  “Aside from that.” Storm could tell that he was slurring his words. It was hard to talk properly.

  The gray ferryshaft looked sad. “Don’t be like me, Storm. Find another way.” He looked down at the bowl again.

  Storm followed his gaze. This time, he saw something in the muck at the bottom—a glossy curve that caught the light. His vision grew fuzzy, cleared for a moment, grew fuzzy again. Carefully, because his depth perception had grown poor, Storm lowered his muzzle into the bowl and nudged the object. It rolled a little in the muck.

  Curious now, Storm tried to grasp it with his mouth. It was round and slippery, and the muck had a foul taste, but after several tries, he managed to lift it. Something slithered from the mud along with the object, and Storm dropped the whole mess gingerly onto the ground.

  The object appeared to be a round stone—more perfectly round than anything Storm had ever seen. It was about the size of his hoof. The interior was black, but it seemed to be encased in a layer of clear b
lue. It reminded Storm of something, though he couldn’t think what.

  The stone was affixed to a string of linked circles made of something harder than bone, yet delicate. They reminded Storm of vertebra. The string was ingenious and far beyond the ability of any creature of Storm’s acquaintance to create. “What is it?” he whispered.

  No one answered. Storm looked up. He was alone. He felt suddenly bereft. Please, don’t go. Don’t leave me here. “Coden!” he shouted. His voice sounded unnatural in the heavy silence of the carnivorous forest. “Coden!” he shrieked again. Then he howled.

  Moments later, a huge shadow passed over him. Storm started up in alarm. He snatched up the delicate string attached to the strange stone and bolted with it through the tangled forest, stumbling and tripping, struggling through the lazily moving vines.

  He didn’t get far.

  Chapter 2. Telshees

  “Storm? Can you hear me?”

  Storm opened his eyes. He had a vague memory of doing this before. He was in a sea cave. He lay in a pool—very shallow at one end, but deeper towards his tail. He could feel the gush and roll of waves. He was floating in brine, pushed gently like a dead thing. A thin sheet of water flowed across the cave floor into the pool. It must have come from a hot spring, because the water of the pool was a perfect temperature. Wisps of steam rose up where the spring water met the brine.

  Something in the water gave off a faint green luminescence. By its light, Storm saw the telshee—huge and pale and furry, its eyes as blue as…as a stone. A stone he remembered.

  Storm tried to sit up. “Where…?” he asked weakly. His mouth felt parched and gummy.

  He heard a murmur and turned to see several more telshees, all watching him. He heard one say, “Well, that’s new.” His head spun with the slight movement, and he closed his eyes.

  “You’re in a sea cave,” said the telshee nearest him. “You’ve been mostly unconscious for days.”

  “Shaw?” Storm ventured.

  “Yes.” The telshee sounded pleased to be remembered.

  “Did I…did I fly here?” Storm’s memories were hazy—flashes of light and color.

  “You did.”

  “An ely-ary…” murmured Storm. It had snatched him up. He had thought it would crush him in its talons, but it had only held him firmly as it rose up and up over the vast, swaying forest of Groth. He remembered the sun in his eyes, flashes of Lidian from the air. The whole island had been laid out below him as the giant bird rose even higher than the cliffs. Storm had seen the plains of his birth, the southern forests of the creasia, and more plains beyond. He saw the entire ring of the island—toothy mountains in the south and the Great Mountain to the north. He remembered these things as still images, interspersed with blurs of color and flashes of light.

  “It…brought me here?” asked Storm. He couldn’t remember that part.

  “Yes,” said Shaw. “When I heard that Arcove had gone to hunt you, I was afraid we had waited too long to help. I tried to rouse my king, but he refused to take an interest. I have some friends among the ely-ary, so I sent one to watch over you—a weak gesture, I know, because he would not have done anything to provoke war with Leeshwood. When he found you alone in Groth, he plucked you up and brought you to the beach. You were unconscious then, injured by the Ghost Wood. We carried you to our healing pools and hoped for the best. You should count yourself lucky. Many sleep thus and never wake.”

  Storm blinked. He still felt like he needed to remember something. “Did I have a stone in my mouth? A strange string with a stone on the end?” He felt a moment of panic. What if he’d dropped it during the flight? What if it had never been real?

  Shaw grinned, showing her mouthful of teeth. “Indeed.” She shifted, and Storm saw the stone lying on the ground beside her—clean now, and even more striking than before. “And for that, Storm Ela-ferry, you will get an audience with my king…as soon as you are well enough. He will be curious to know how you got it.”

  “You know what it is?” asked Storm in surprise.

  “Yes,” said Shaw. “It belongs to us. But it had been lost these many years. The ‘string’ is called a ‘chain.’ It’s made of metal, which is sort of like stone. You’re meant to wear it around your neck. That way, you’ll be less likely to drop it next time an ely-ary snatches you up.”

  Storm’s vision was beginning to blur again. He shut one eye to keep things in focus. “Did telshees make it?”

  “No,” said Shaw. She lowered her head towards the water flowing across the cave floor and lapped up a mouthful. “You can drink this. You’ve done it before; you just don’t remember.”

  Storm was too exhausted to ask more questions. He leaned forward and turned his head on one side to reach the spring water. It was oddly warm, but not salty. He took a long drink, his tongue lapping against smooth stone. Then he sank back down and rested his chin on the shallow incline of the pool. As he shut his eyes, he heard the telshees begin to croon. They sang softly to each other—wordless melodies, indescribably beautiful, and Storm felt as though the music itself eased his hurts and held him floating in a warm half-dream.

  Storm opened his eyes again. He could not say whether it was moments or days later. He saw that the telshees had brought him a fish. “What are you?” whispered Storm.

  Shaw raised her head. Storm thought she might have been asleep. He had no clear idea of the passage of time, but the fish looked fresh. He saw that the other telshees had left the cave.

  Shaw yawned, and Storm tried again not to notice exactly how many teeth she had. “We’ve been called many things,” she murmured. “Siren…sea snake…monster…mermaid…dragon. We are none of these…or perhaps we are all of them. On Lidian, we are telshees.”

  Storm understood very little of this. He watched Shaw with his head on one side. “Are you male or female?” He thought it might be a rude question, but he still wasn’t sure.

  Shaw laughed. “Both and neither.”

  “Is that your answer to everything?”

  “I still lay eggs from time to time, so you may call me female. The oldest among us are exclusively male. There are very few, and they are often asleep.”

  “But you’ve all been both?” Storm was fascinated. No rues here…or rogans, either.

  “Eat,” Shaw told him. “We can sustain you without food for a time, but not forever. Eat and grow strong, so that you can make the journey into Syriot.”

  “What is Syriot?” asked Storm.

  Shaw smiled. “Our kingdom. This cave is but the threshold. Eat, and you will see.”

  Storm ate, and he drank the warm spring water. He slept and woke and ate and slept again. Shaw began to encourage him to move about—first to kick and swim in the shallow pool—and eventually to move about on the cave floor. The first time he rose from the water, Storm was shocked at how much his own body seemed to weigh. It was all he could do to take a few steps up and down. He was also horrified to see that his lower half—the part that had been submerged most deeply in the plants of Groth—was nearly hairless.

  “It looks better now than when you arrived,” said Shaw. “You were covered in blisters, then—seeping pus and blood.”

  Storm could see that fur was beginning to grow back, but it would be some time before his coat returned to its former luster. In the meantime, Storm talked to Shaw and, occasionally, to the six other telshees who came and went from the cave. The others were all smaller than Shaw. The largest was about the size of a creasia, and the smallest was no bigger than a ferryshaft foal. Shaw called them all “pups,” and they deferred to her. They were shy around Storm, talking with eyes averted.

  “Why does the water glow green?” Storm asked.

  “A tiny jellyfish,” Shaw told him. “We call it acriss. We telshees like a little light. Light drives away the lishties.”

  “What are lishties?”

  “Our cousins,” said Shaw, “and our mortal enemies. They are the sea snakes of the deep dark. Their fur is
almost translucent. Their eyes are slitted and green. They are poisonous—one bite would kill you. We have some immunity, but not enough.”

  Storm considered this. “I think ferryshaft have mixed the two descriptions. I remember hearing foals say those things about telshees.”

  Shaw inclined her head. “After the war, Arcove forbade the ferryshaft to have any contact with telshees. I believe the adults told the foals lies about us to keep them away.”

  Something caught Storm’s eye—a mark on the wall behind Shaw. It was the same strange stick marking that he’d seen in some caves. “What is that?” he asked. “Is it a telshee sign?”

  Shaw looked horrified. “So it’s true,” she whispered. “They’ve stopped teaching the foals to read. Syra-lay is right. The ferryshaft are not what they once were.”

  Storm felt a little irritated. “I’m sorry that I’m so unsatisfactory. If you told me what you meant, maybe—”

  Shaw shook herself. “Forgive me. This is not your fault. Perhaps there is still time—for you and for your people. Those markings are writing, and you interpret it by reading. I think telshees may be the only animals left who practice such things on Lidian. Each vertical stick represents a word, and each symbol along the stick represents a sound.”

  Storm considered this.

  Shaw continued. “The word you see scratched on the wall says, ‘Healing’.” She moved to the symbol and showed Storm the markings for each sound.

  Understanding bloomed suddenly. “Oh! I thought it just…meant something. I didn’t realize…”

  Shaw smiled. “You thought that someone had to tell you what it meant before you would know, but that’s what makes reading special. If a young telshee, lost or injured, wandered into this cave, she would know the value of this pool. If we lose this territory to lishties or some other disaster and are gone from this place for a thousand years, our children, returning, will find these marks and know our opinion of this place.”