Rumi's Riddle Page 8

  The panthers and Lima pass along a valley of carnivorous pitcher plants, their funnel-shaped openings built to channel in scores of insects. Some of them reach higher than the panthers themselves. Low-hanging branches knit the sky above, so that the air becomes even more close, even more still. Any sound that the panthers made would carry easily through the nearby forest, over even the droning of the grasshoppers, cicadas, and crickets.

  “Pew,” Lima says all of a sudden, waving a wing in front of her nose. “Does anyone else smell that?”

  Usha goes perfectly still, foreleg frozen in midair. The other panthers mirror her. For a moment Rumi worries that the directive is broken, because it looks just like time has stopped.

  Lima is the first to eventually move, hopping to the top of Mez’s head, probably to get a better view. She puts her wings over her mouth.

  Rumi sees why soon enough. There’s a nightwalker cult.

  That’s the only way Rumi can think of to describe it. The rainforest opens out into a murky clearing, with a low pond crisscrossed by drier patches of grassy soil. The whole area is full of animals. Unlike how they would usually behave, these nightwalkers are out in the open, in a semicircle. There are frogs and toads, an ocelot, owls and bats, Goliath birdeater tarantulas, a couple of boa constrictors, and who knows what other nightwalkers hidden in the dark. What—or who—they’re circling around, Rumi can’t yet see.

  The nightwalker cultists sway in the firelight, smoke hazing the air around them. None of them seems to have noticed the approaching panthers—Usha’s instinct to go stock-still was a good one. For now, at least, they can observe the cult in peace.

  Each of the nightwalkers that’s large enough is wearing a flower somewhere on its body—between the ears for the ocelot, behind the head for the snakes. Not just any flower; these are thick, drooping, and waxy, mottled in red and white. Worst of all, even through the directive Rumi can detect a pungent, rotting odor. Carrion blossoms. They smell like rotting flesh to attract pollinating insects. This cult seems to have some other use for them, though. Rumi assumes it’s a mark of membership.

  Rumi follows along as Mez eases into motion, eking her way through the bushes, getting nearer to the cult. She’s nearly noiseless, passing forward on soft paws, Chumba equally quiet beside her. Even Lima is somehow managing to stay silent, keeping her wings tight around her mouth as she rides on her perch.

  The stench of the carrion flowers grows stronger, and Rumi starts to hear chanting. The nightwalkers are saying one syllable over and over. Their voices are so soft and reverential that Rumi can’t make out what they’re saying.

  Mez slinks even closer—just a few lengths away from the nearest nightwalker, a boa constrictor—and reaches out a paw to fold down a fern leaf. Rumi can sense her body go rigid when she sees what’s on the other side.

  The Elemental of Darkness is in the center of the circle.

  The Elemental of Darkness is Mist.

  A good half a size bigger than he was before, he sits tall on his haunches, surveying the surrounding animals with a magisterial air. Though he still has the dramatic facial scar that came after animals hunting for Mez mistakenly attacked him, Mist otherwise looks in good health. His white fur is soft and sleek and full of volume, and for the first time since Rumi has ever seen him, his brows are smooth and his lips unsnarling. He’s . . . calm.

  Mist’s stature’s not just from his increased size, though. Rumi focuses in on what’s below him.

  Mist is standing on what Rumi at first assumes to be a hill of fresh soil, but then he sees it’s something much worse. At the base of the hill emerges a hoof here, an arm there—it’s a daywalker burial mound. How many slain animals have been hastily dumped within, Rumi doesn’t know—but it’s a lot.

  Mist swivels to take in the assembled nightwalkers, soaking in their adulation. As he shifts, Rumi can see that beside Mist is a young panther, the same size as Yerlo and Jerlo. His paws have been bound with one length of liana, so that all four are wrenched together. He lies on his side, eyes scrunched shut. He might be unconscious. Rumi can see from the movement of his scrawny rib cage that his breaths are shallow and rapid.

  “Oh no,” Chumba whispers through gritted teeth. “Poor Derli.”

  “Mist showed up at our den two moon cycles ago,” Usha hisses. “We had heard about the demise of the Ant Queen, of course, and your hand in it, but we did not yet know that Mist had worked to help the Ant Queen in return for her favors. That information he scornfully told us only after his plan was in motion.”

  “His plan?” Mez asks.

  “He challenged Usha for control!” Jerlo says, hissing.

  “He what?” Mez asks, tail thrashing. The scent of pantherfear rises from her.

  “Mez,” Chumba warns. “Don’t let them detect us.”

  “What does that even mean, challenging Usha for control?” Lima whispers.

  Usha’s whiskers prick. “He broke no rules by challenging me. It’s long been panther ritual that any member of a family may challenge for control, and the results of the one-on-one combat are binding. I knew that one of your generation might challenge me someday, but I did not expect it to come for many drops of the Veil yet. I was unprepared.”

  “It wasn’t a fair fight,” Jerlo says, shaking her head. “Mist hadn’t told Usha about the magic he got when you destroyed the Ant Queen.”

  “He did not have to. I accepted his challenge, and then I lost the fight. That makes the handover of power legitimate.” As is her usual way, Usha shows little emotion, instead keeping up her regal air. But even across a long distance, Rumi can see how the luster has dulled in her eyes, the defeat that droops her whiskers despite her defiant posture.

  “The last we saw Mist, he ran into the swirling magical energies the Ant Queen left behind,” Mez says. “He disappeared after that.”

  “As you can see, he’s far larger and stronger than me now,” Usha says. “Even if he had stayed his normal size, he is still in his youthful prime. My muscles are not as strong as they once were. He might have won without needing any magic at all.”

  Mez gapes at her dispirited aunt.

  “Don’t speak like that, Mother,” Jerlo interjects. “You could have beaten him. Mist got lucky.”

  “I wish I had beaten him,” Usha says. “I would have fought to the death if I’d known he was planning all this.”

  “What is this? What’s he doing?” Chumba says.

  “He’s done something no other panther has done,” Yerlo says. “He’s exercised the right of dominion across species lines.”

  “Right of dominion? What’s that? Can I have one?” Lima asks.

  “Panthers are the apex of the rainforest power structure,” Mez whispers. “Normally that’s left unstated, since we have no use for any additional power beyond being able to eat whomever we choose.”

  “Yeah, it’s hard to imagine wanting much more than that,” Lima says, nodding.

  “All the same, we panthers talk a lot about our right of dominion,” Chumba adds.

  Mez nods ruefully. “It’s one of my least favorite things about panthers. We believe we are totally separate from the other animals, and because of that we have the power to do what we please with the rest.”

  “Is anything worse than eating the other animals?” Lima asks.

  “A very good question,” Usha says darkly. “My answer would have been no . . . until I saw what Mist has done. Hush. He’s about to speak.”

  “Gather close, my allies,” Mist says. “I have an announcement.”

  The panthers nestle themselves more thoroughly into the greenery while Mist takes in the assembled nightwalkers. Smoky firelight fills the humid air, as the nightwalkers sway and watch, their carrion flower decorations dotting the clearing.

  The nightwalkers press closer to Mist. Among them are predators and prey, and a few of them startle at the unexpected closeness to sworn enemies. They begin to chatter, but Mist stares them each in the eye in turn, the
n lifts out a paw, pads up. He lets out a burst of fire. It’s confirmed, Rumi thinks. Mist has powers over fire.

  Awed, the nightwalker cultists go silent.

  “You remember how we all lost our powers momentarily while the lens was redistributing the magical energy of the eclipse?” Mez whispers. “I’m starting to have some suspicions about the source of Mist’s power.”

  Chumba, Usha, Jerlo, and Yerlo nod somberly. Lima nods. Then stops. She looks between them. “Wait. What is it?”

  “That is Gogi’s power,” Mez whispers. “Or at least a sliver of it.”

  “Yikes,” Lima says. “I wonder who else’s powers he got.”

  As if in response, Mist opens his mouth and sends out a whirlwind of air that catches the flames, sending them in a swirling tornado that rises into the night sky before dissipating in a rain of sparks.

  It’s not as big an effect as Rumi would have been able to achieve back when his magic was at full power, but it seems Mist also has some power over the wind. Rumi’s power. Did he take it, does that explain Rumi’s reduced abilities? But then again, none of the other shadowwalkers have had their magic reduced in the same way. There must be some other reason for Rumi’s wind cramp.

  Fire is especially impressive to nightwalkers, whose eyes are adapted to create images from even the smallest amount of light. They are literally dazzled by Mist, eyes blinking rapidly and streaming tears. Through the transmitted vision of the feather, Rumi isn’t hit as strongly by the image, and so he can watch without pain as Mist, after staring about the crowd to gauge the impression he’s making, disappears from view.

  Invisibility. Mez’s power. He’s got that one, too.

  Each of them who was at the titanic fight against the Ant Queen during the lunar eclipse, when the magic of Caldera was released and reshuffled—Mist has absorbed some of their powers. This had been Auriel’s plan originally, until he died and was resurrected. Mist has accomplished what Auriel was never able to do.

  The nightwalker cultists recover, losing their dazed looks as they scan about the clearing, eyes streaming tears as they search for their leader. As they do, Rumi feels his blood begin to race. Panthers are very good at hiding, but the combined searching of all these nightwalkers will soon uncover them.

  Thankfully, Mist doesn’t take too long to deliver his reentrance. Jets of flame lance into the night sky, and then Mist appears in the midst of the group of nightwalker cultists, still balanced on the burial mound as he shoots flames from his tail and the backs of his paws. The assembled nightwalkers shout and screech and bray in horror.

  “My allies,” Mist says, “I hope that display has impressed on you the horror of fire. The volcano is only starting to become active—what you have yet witnessed of fire is but a mere flicker compared to what will happen in a few nights when the volcano goes off. We must begin our nightly hunt for daywalkers. It is they who have generated the black clouds at the horizon, it is they who have caused the rumbling of the earth, it is they who are the source of all Caldera’s evils. They must be punished!”

  “Mist, what are you doing?” Mez hisses softly.

  Rumi knows that of course Mist’s claims don’t make any sense, that there’s no daywalker conspiracy to set the volcano off. But the claims energize his followers, set them into hooting and hissing. Whether Mist believes what he’s saying or not, his words are working.

  “I have proved my commitment to our shared goal,” Mist says. “You witnessed as I defeated my own mother in ritual combat. She is in her prime, and I should not have been able to best her, but I did. I should not have ever wanted to contest her, but I did for your sakes. Look what else I have sacrificed: here before you is my brother, punished and imprisoned, at our collective mercy because he dared to resist me. You need no more evidence of my devotion. That is why, when I ask you to do what I am about to ask of you, you must act and not question my words. I deserve at least that from you in return for everything I have given up.”

  Rumi sees a mixture of horror and morbid curiosity in Mez’s and Chumba’s expressions. Lima flicks her floppy round ears, a sure sign she’s not sure what’s going on. Usha’s eyes are downcast. She’s clearly overcome.

  Rumi’s mind races. Mist has taken all of their powers, from Gogi to Rumi to Mez to . . . Sky. Divination. That’s almost the most fearsome. What does Mist know?

  “We are about to face our greatest battle, my minions,” Mist says. “The night I foretold has arrived. There are adversaries in our midst.”

  Mez’s and Chumba’s ears flatten, and they shrink deeper into the shadows of the fern. Lima chirps in fear. But even if they know what’s coming next, they can’t make a break for it, not if doing so would reveal their location.

  Mist’s gaze trains more and more toward the fern where the companions are hiding. “We all know how idiotic daywalkers are,” he says. “They could never come up with a plot to destroy our land all on their own. They need the help of the shadowwalkers, the evil beings that ushered in this time of troubles. The evil beings that maimed me, your Elemental of Darkness. And those shadowwalkers have heard about our movement to cleanse the forest of daywalkers. They have come with the arrogance to think they can stop us.”

  Murmurs and hisses. “Just tell us where they are!” calls one of the boa constrictors.

  “Once we destroy this threat, you and your Elemental of Darkness will be free to save the land from the black clouds, from the coming lava, to put an end to this time of troubles.”

  “Sweet guano, this is bad,” Lima chirps.

  Mez and Chumba shrink deeper into the ferns.

  “Where are these enemies?” an owl hoots.

  “When I count down from three, the battle begins,” Mist says, his eyes on a fern—the very fern where the panthers are hiding. The cats crouch as low as they can into their camouflage.

  “Three,” Mist says.

  Chumba’s claws extend, while Lima silently flits to a higher branch.

  “Two,” Mist says.

  Usha begins to growl, hackles rising.

  Mez slinks forward to be the first into the fight, going invisible as she creeps to the exposed edge of the fern.

  “One,” Mist says.

  The clearing goes still, all attention on Mist.

  He draws back the remnants of his lips, exposing long teeth. Rumi waits for him to speak, but that’s not what Mist does next.

  He sends a fireball out of his mouth, right to the fern hiding Mez, Chumba, Usha, Jerlo, Yerlo, and Lima.

  AS THE FIREBALL streams toward the directive, the red filling more and more of the view, Rumi is suddenly yanked out of the vision. All is crisping flame, Sky’s magic strong enough to project the actual heat to him, hot enough to make his skin sizzle and stretch . . . and then the air is cool and moist, his vision full of soft brown—the backside of a tapir.

  “Hey, hey!” Sky’s concerned voice says. “Rumi! Stop screaming. You’re blowing my feathers all around.”

  Of course Rumi hadn’t realized that he was screaming. He closes his mouth. His throat is aching. “Mez and Chumba and Lima,” he sputters. “They’re in trouble.”

  “Is it anything that we can fix right now?” Sky asks patiently.

  “No,” Rumi gasps.

  “Then take a moment before you go back in,” Sky says. “Your pulse is racing, and you’re almost hyperventilating.”

  “You don’t understand, you don’t understand—”

  “Shh. Rumi, you’re out of control. Your heart.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m calming down. Now send me back in.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re still trembling all over. You won’t be any help to anyone if you let this do you in. I’m still receiving the directive’s vision,” Sky says. “It’s storing in my feathers themselves. You can go right back to the panthers as soon as you’ve calmed down, and it will be like no time has passed. I’ll basically put you back in time. You won’t miss a thing, okay? But I don’t want your heart to stop in the
meantime.”

  “But—”

  “This isn’t a choice, Rumi.”

  “Sky. My wind,” Rumi says. “Was I . . . ?”

  “You didn’t release much wind. Just enough to muss my feathers.”

  “I’m relieved, actually,” Rumi says as the thudding in his veins begins to subside. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone accidentally.”

  “I bet you were worried about that,” Sky says. “It’s understandable, given what we both know. About that, Rumi. I woke you up because we’re nearing—well, you’ll see for yourself. Just on the other side of that stand of ironwood trees, there’s your old swamp.”

  Rumi gauges the speed of the lumbering tapir beneath him. “So I have only a few minutes?”

  “Just about,” Sky says. “Should I call Gogi over? It will be easier to tell him ahead of time.”

  “I know, I know,” Rumi says. “Let me do it. Gogi!” he trills.

  A flash, then his monkey friend is beside them. “Hey, you’re back with us,” he says. “How’s Mez?”

  “Not good,” Rumi says. “Mist has a cult worshipping him, and he used the rule of dominion to take control of the nearby jungle. He usurped Usha, and now he just discovered that the panthers and Lima are there, and he’s cast a fireball, one of your fireballs, Gogi, and it’s heading right for them.”

  “Rumi, don’t forget to breathe,” Sky warns. “We can all check in with them after, through my feather memory. You’re not ready to go back in yet.”

  “Yes,” Rumi says, willing his breathing to go regular and even. “We’ll go back to the panthers as soon as we can.”

  “Wait, we’re not finding out right away whether they’re okay?” Gogi says. “Something is more urgent than that?”

  “I’ve got too much going on in my brain to make it safe,” Rumi says with a sad croak.

  “Whoa, buddy, I can tell this is major,” Gogi says. “Okay. I’m listening.”

  “Sky, your directive power,” Rumi says. “Could you transmit our memory of the vision itself, what we saw with the guardians in the Cave of Riddles?”