Gogi and Lima watch it all in exhausted silence, in the murk of predawn. Now that the eclipse is over, the moon shines its radiance on the scene below, and the stars offer their scant light. It’s enough illumination to see the ruined land without needing any magical firelight. It’s enough to see the glittering streams of dispersing ants. It’s enough to see the pile of ash, still glowing with a few embers, that marks the end of the Ant Queen, and of their epic battle, of the disappearance of Mist and Auriel.
Lima cocks her head. “Do you hear that?”
At first, Gogi can’t hear a thing. Nothing compares to bat hearing. But as the ants recede, the silence fills with something like music. It’s a pitchless, flowing sound, not quite animal but not quite inanimate, either. Low and high and soft and loud. “It’s . . . beautiful,” Gogi says.
Lima holds still, mouth open as she echolocates. “It’s coming from the ants themselves,” she says. “They’re . . . singing as they leave.”
Strange tears fill Gogi’s eyes. “It’s like they’re mourning her.”
“Are you really almost crying about singing ants?” Lima asks.
“I’m tired, okay?” Gogi says, defensive. “That was an intense battle.”
“I get where you’re coming from,” Lima whispers. “I thought the ants were brainless. I didn’t think they’d be capable of feeling anything without their queen around.”
“Considering that they’re everywhere, always, up day and night, we know so little about them,” Gogi says.
Lima has been licking Gogi’s various scrapes and ant bites, but those have healed by now. Still she huddles close, her little body tucked along Gogi’s ribs. He nestles her in near, warming her with his fur. “Lima, the Healing Bat!” he sings softly over the harmonic chant of the ants. “Ferocious-er than a piranha! Scarier than a cat!”
“Yeah, I’m pretty great,” Lima says quietly. “But it’s still hard to think about what we did. The Ant Queen’s been around as long as Caldera, right? And we . . . destroyed her.”
“Given what she’s done, and how she tried to eat us all those times, I don’t think we need to feel too cut up about it,” Gogi says. “But I hear what you’re saying. It’s all overwhelming. Besides, we don’t know yet what happens when ants don’t have a queen anymore. If they’re singing all together, it’s almost like they’re one being, even without their queen. And maybe one of them is growing larger and larger as we speak, maybe a new queen is coming up, getting ready with all her most evil plans. . . .”
Lima shudders. “Nice thought, Gogi. You really might have kept that one to yourself.”
Gogi snuggles her in even closer. “Don’t worry. I mean, I bet it takes an ant a long time to become so very powerful and dangerous.”
Lima cocks her head. “You know, you’d think that would make me feel better, but it really doesn’t.”
“Yeah, I hear you,” Gogi says.
“Do you think the others have turned up any sign of Auriel or Mist?” Lima asks, peeking around the bend.
“I can’t imagine it. I think Auriel and Mist are . . . gone. Like the Ant Queen.”
Though they were all exhausted, the companions had agreed to split up for a few hours to form three search parties. Gogi and Lima have been dragging themselves through the jungle, but there’s been no sign whatsoever of Mist or Auriel. “I just can’t imagine we’d be done with Mist that easily,” Lima says. “He’s sort of like a nose infection. Hard to get rid of.”
“And if he is alive somewhere, they always say that a panther who doesn’t want to be found won’t be found,” Gogi adds.
“Yeah, but an all-white panther in a rainforest?” Lima asks. “That’s just ridiculous. Mez and Chumba should be embarrassed if they’re two panthers who can’t catch someone who is basically glow-in-the-dark. I think Mist’s far from here, if he’s alive at all.”
Branches shake in the distance. “Well, here they come,” Gogi says. He glances up at the sky to see the first hints of dawn. “And just in time. Chumba will be in daycoma soon.”
Mez and Chumba, their calico fur covered in mud and droplets of rain, steal across the clearing to join Gogi and Lima. As they approach, Mez shakes her head.
“Maybe Sky and Rumi had better luck,” Gogi says.
“We’ll find out soon enough,” Mez says. “Here they come.”
Gogi hears a caw, followed by Rumi’s excited chirps. Sky and Rumi pause where the Ant Queen perished, and they start digging through her ashes. “Ow, ow,” Rumi says. “Still hot.”
“What are you guys doing?” Gogi calls.
Rumi holds something aloft, small and wriggling in his hands. It glows yellow.
“What did they find in there?” Lima asks.
“It’s a worm,” Gogi says, squinting. “A glowworm?”
As Sky and Rumi approach, the dawn sky seems to knit together, made darker in comparison to the shining creature Rumi is holding in his hands as he hops forward.
“Whoa,” Chumba says. “Is that Auriel?”
“It certainly is,” Rumi says, beaming.
The companions nervously circle Rumi and Sky. Rumi’s holding a tiny baby snake, as small as an earthworm. Its inky black eyes blink at them. Its body is an iridescent yellow, the same color as the giant resurrected Auriel that faced down the Ant Queen.
“Are you sure you should be touching that?” Gogi asks.
“He’s so cute!” Lima says at the same time. “Can I take a turn holding him?”
“Auriel,” Mez says, whiskers flicking, “is that you?”
“I don’t think he’s able to speak yet,” Sky says. “He’s just a baby.”
“Sweet figs,” Gogi says, eyeing the tiny, glowing snake as it wriggles in Rumi’s hands, “I think that’s really Baby Auriel!”
“I wish he could speak to us,” Rumi says. “A being raised from the dead—think of all the knowledge we could receive.”
“Maybe he’ll learn how to talk soon,” Chumba says, yawning despite herself.
“Yes,” Gogi says from the side of his mouth, “but should we be listening?”
Mez nods severely.
“He’s a creature of light now,” Rumi says. “That was the whole point of channeling all that light into him during the eclipse.”
“And he’s tiny,” Sky adds, his eyes briefly swirling gray before returning to black. “He’s not showing any magical powers, not that I can tell. Gogi, Lima, Mez, I trust your powers returned to you?”
Gogi startles. He was so spent from using his magic earlier that he didn’t think to test it. He holds out his palm and sparks it. It’s there. Feels weaker, but that could be because he’s still so tired.
“I’ve been healing bites and scratches all night,” Lima says. “My power is definitely doing fine.”
As her reply, Mez flickers out of sight and then back in.
“Good,” Sky says. “I’m glad they returned. The Cave of Riddles was a little vague about how everything works.”
“We don’t know much about what happened at the Cave of Riddles,” Gogi says, after coughing to clear his throat. “Like, nothing at all.”
“It was fascinating!” Rumi says. “We learned so much, I can’t wait to tell you all about it. We figured out more about the source of the two-legs’ power, and also more about the origins of Caldera. We know what it means, now, how that came to be our rainforest’s name.”
“More importantly in our current situation,” Sky caws, hopping over to stand on the lens, “we learned about the power of this strange circular clear rock. Not that the lens will be of any use again, not until the next eclipse.”
The companions look at Rumi, all at once. “The next eclipse whose shadow will fall on our rainforest is, um, three years and seventy-one days from now,” Rumi says. “Approximately.”
“Auriel is no longer the being he was,” Sky continues, getting his eye right next to the mute little snake. “He is an Elemental of Light. He is the essence of the sun itself.”
“Maybe now’s a good time for you and Rumi to tell us about the journey,” Mez prompts.
“Yes,” Rumi says, wringing his hands as he looks at each one of them in turn. “And I’ll start even further back, with the story of my home swamp. I owe that to you guys, and I’m sorry I haven’t told you yet.”
“With the Ant Queen out of the way and her minions retreating, there’s no rush to say it, actually,” Mez says. “That can wait until the Veil next drops.” While she speaks, Mez is looking at her sister, whose whiskers are drooping with the onset of daycoma.
“Yes, let’s rest first,” Gogi says, “and afterward Sky and Rumi can tell us what happened in the cave. And exactly how Auriel stopped being, um, dead.” Gogi gnaws on a fingernail. Is it rude to call someone dead? Can the baby snake even hear him?
“There is one thing we need to talk about sooner rather than later,” Sky says, glancing at Rumi. “The big problem.”
“What is the big problem?” Lima asks. “Or did you already say, and I just missed it? Sorry, I’m really tired.”
“No, you didn’t miss it,” Rumi says gently. “Here goes. We learned for sure that Caldera has a boundary, and that boundary is what the two-legs called a ‘beach,’ which is—how would you describe it, Sky?—it’s like where the land meets a giant lagoon, only the lagoon is bigger than all of Caldera itself.”
“We saw it with you,” Gogi says to Rumi, “in the vision using Sky’s tail feather.”
“You were along with us when we approached the cave!” Rumi exclaims to Gogi. “Did you hear that, Sky? Our hunch was right—they were there. How marvelous.”
“We were with you until a certain white panther ambushed us,” Gogi says darkly.
“The big salty puddle is called an ‘ocean,’” Rumi says. “And, you might ask, how did a rainforest come to be surrounded by water?”
Lima nods. “I was totally about to ask that.” Gogi pinches her. “Hey! Just because I’m a bat doesn’t mean I can’t ask good questions!”
“It’s because we are actually the top of an undersea mountain,” Sky says. “Back when the two-legs were at the height of their power, this used to be the highest of a range of mountains. All sorts of creatures used to live here, but don’t anymore—it’s not just the two-legs that went extinct. We saw many different sets of bones deep in the Cave of Riddles.”
“Wow,” Gogi says, “riddles and bones of forgotten animals. That place sounds amazing!”
“I really can’t wait to tell you all about it,” Rumi says. “But to stick to the current issue: Caldera is a mountain that used to be high, but for some reason the ocean rose around it. As a result, the mountaintop became hot and wet, like it is now.”
“It’s not just any mountain, though,” Sky says. “Do you remember when you went below the ziggurat a year ago, how the caverns seemed to lead to more empty space farther below?”
“The mountain that makes up Caldera is hollow!” Rumi finishes triumphantly.
“Let me get this straight. You’re saying our entire rainforest is actually the top of a mountain that is surrounded by this ‘ocean,’ and that the mountain is hollow at the center?” Mez asks, taking a break from licking Chumba’s ear. Her sister is nearly in daycoma by now. She’s sunk to her haunches, her eyes drooping.
“I spoke too quickly. It’s not exactly hollow—” Rumi starts.
“—it’s filled with magma!” Sky finishes, fluffing out his wings self-importantly.
The companions stare back at him, confused.
“What’s ‘magma’?” Lima finally asks.
“A two-legs word for very hot rock,” Rumi explains patiently. “Very hot liquid rock. There’s as much of it below us as there is land in all of Caldera.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Lima says.
“No,” Rumi says, “it’s definitely not good. It’s under pressure down there. If it blows, then . . .” He gestures toward the rainforest around them, then makes an exploding motion with his suction-cupped fingers.
“So, what do we do?” Gogi asks.
“Remember the Ant Queen’s glowing blue sphere prison? Why do you think they’d put it down below the ziggurat?” Rumi asks.
“I figured the sphere was to keep an extra barrier up in case she broke free,” Gogi says.
“That’s true,” Rumi says, “but it was serving another purpose, too—it was a plug. And with our breaking her out—”
“—the plug was destroyed,” Mez finishes.
“That, plus all the movement of the ants through their underground tunnels across Caldera, generated instability in the planet’s shelf and mantle,” Rumi says, his words speeding up as he gets more and more excited. “I don’t have enough information to confirm this yet, but I suspect that creating the instability might have been the Ant Queen’s main goal all along. So we can only assume that some magma movement is imminent.”
“I still don’t speak frog,” Lima says, scratching under her wing. “What does all that mean?”
“All of Caldera is the crater of a thing called a ‘volcano,’” Sky says. “That’s what ‘caldera’ means: a crater. And the volcano is about to erupt.”
“I don’t even understand most of what you just said, and it’s still freaking me out,” Lima says, shuddering.
“How do we stop this ‘erupt’ from happening?” Gogi asks.
“We don’t know yet. Maybe you can help us figure it out,” Rumi says. “After we tell you about the Cave of Riddles. For sure, we’ll need to plug the magma again.”
“And the way to do that might be through the use of Auriel’s earth powers,” Mez finishes.
“Exactly,” Rumi says. “Which is why we had to use the power of the second eclipse to resurrect him, not simply to destroy the Ant Queen.”
“But you didn’t expect him to wind up exploding, releasing the eclipse magic, and emerging as a baby,” Gogi says, shaking his head. “Wow. I had no idea of all the specifics.”
Rumi nods vigorously. “Neither did we! There were so many variables. You can see how this would have been a lot to explain while we were in the middle of fighting for our lives. Why I had to ask you to just trust me.”
Gogi pats Rumi’s head. “Yeah, and I’m glad I did.”
“Say, do you think Auriel would mind if I touched his scales?” Lima asks, out of the blue. “They’re so pretty. I almost imagine they’d taste good, but I figured I shouldn’t ask to do that, but I guess I just did, oops, anyway, do you think I can touch one?”
Without waiting, Lima uses her wing to stroke a length of Auriel’s glowing scales. The little snake goes still, peering at Lima. His forked tongue flicks in and out.
“He doesn’t seem to mind,” Mez says.
Gogi can’t help himself. “Can I, too? Even though I’m just a . . . just a monkey.” He’d been about to say “twelve,” but it doesn’t seem to matter so much, not anymore. He strokes the sunlight scales. They feel like normal snakeskin, actually, but make beautiful patterns of shifting light over his fingers. “So neat,” he says.
Even Mez joins in, giving baby Auriel a tentative tap with her nose. “We’re in no state to make any big decisions,” Mez says after she’s finished. “Once we’re all rested and alert, we’ll hear your tale, Rumi and Sky, and then we’ll make a plan to stop this ‘erupt.’”
“For now,” Gogi says, “we should enjoy our small pleasures. We defeated the Ant Queen. How about that, guys?”
“Yes, how about that?!” Lima cheers.
Even Sky joins the cheer, cawing his harsh voice up toward the dawn.
As their voices peter out, the sounds of the rainforest draw down upon them: songbirds greeting the sun, insects chirping, distant howler monkeys making their rhythmic hoots. There is so much life
in Caldera, so much to explore, so much to fear, so much to protect.
“Let’s stay together this time, okay?” Lima says. “No splitting apart anymore. I liked being an honorary panther with Aunt Usha and the triplets last year, but I’d rather stick with you guys.”
“That sounds wise, Lima,” Rumi says. “We know what we have to do anyway. The queen’s prison was the plug preventing Caldera from erupting. We’ll travel to where it was, under the old ruins, and see if we can’t plug the volcano back up. There’s no resting this time—we have to press forward.”
“Maybe we can stop by the capuchin forest, to see if my friend Alzo will join us. You all would like him,” Gogi says.
“He’s the rank eight you talked about, right?” Rumi asks.
“Wait until all the other capuchins hear about what you’ve done,” Lima says. “They’ll have to make you at least an eleven. Or maybe a ten! Is that pushing it? Maybe that’s pushing it.”
“Guys,” Gogi says, “this is going to sound weird, but I . . . I think I’m done with rankings. It’s kind of ridiculous that they would matter here, far away from any other capuchins. How little sense does that make? I’m just . . . me. Besides, you guys are my real tribe.” He holds up the woven sack and upends it. No pebbles fall out.
“I like all monkeys,” Lima says, “no matter what the rank. But if we’re a tribe, then you’re definitely Gogi the First to me.”
“I agree entirely,” Rumi says, nodding.
“Aw, that’s sweet,” Gogi says. “Still a little too rankings-focused, but sweet.”
Mez starts to nod, before she hisses and goes into a battle posture, pointing her paw to the far side of the clearing.
The companions fall quiet. Even Auriel gets a wary look on his face.
The fronds of a nearby fern bend and snap.
Gogi drops into a fighting crouch, flames licking from his tail and hands. Mez goes invisible as she darts to a flanking position.
Is it the iguana, come for revenge? Has the Ant Queen somehow returned from the dead? Is it . . . Mist?
The fern bends further, and a shape emerges.
It’s not the iguana. It’s not the Ant Queen. It’s not Mist.
The Lost Rainforest #2 Page 21
