Rumi's Riddle Page 9

  Sky cocks his head. “I suppose I could try. I wasn’t consciously embedding the memory into a feather at the time, unlike what I’m doing with Mez’s directive right now, so some of the details might be shaded by my imperfect recollection. But let’s see what I can turn up.”

  “Who’s doing what to who now?” Gogi asks.

  Sky peers at Rumi. “Are you going to be okay?”

  Rumi nods sadly, throat pouch quivering. “This memory is depressing instead of worrying. Quite a different emotional effect.”

  “Here goes,” Sky says. “Just grab onto a feather. I’ll pull you back out once the recollection is over.”

  As one, monkey and frog reach out and touch Sky.

  An egg in a clutch, glued to the underside of a leaf, eyes behind clear membranes, watching the sun above, then the moon above, then the sun. Some neighbors are taken, some remain. A wasp hauls eggs away, one by one, until Rumi’s father comes by to scare it off.

  It’s not easy being an egg.

  Rumi is one of the last to emerge, kicking his tail fin, gills pumping furiously as he works his way past the gooey remains of his siblings’ eggs. A baffling few minutes, then his father is near. Rumi wriggles onto his backside, gluing himself to skin. Lurching into motion, Rumi’s father carries whatever offspring he can find up the side of a tree, higher and higher into the canopy, leaving them in a water-filled leaf high over the forest floor before going back down to ferry another batch.

  Rumi and his siblings eat and wriggle and grow, chowing down on algae as soon as it appears. That and the occasional mosquito larvae—yum. Though he can’t talk yet, Rumi gets to know some of the personalities of his tadpole siblings. There’s Shy Rumi and Ferocious Rumi and Thoughtful Rumi and more. They grow and grow, and soon the leaf can barely hold them all. It bows and bends with each rain droplet.

  His hind limb buds can’t come soon enough. Eventually they’re there, and Rumi can swim-walk, leveraging the beginnings of his legs to get around. His body tail reabsorbs, his front legs burst through his chest, his gills start to feel gummy as they close up. Ouch. But at least soon he’ll be able to take his first gasp of air!

  Whew. Air in his lungs. It feels amazing.

  His father’s there, and Rumi clambers onto his back. His mother is near too, and other froglets climb onto her.

  Rumi gets a good look at his home swamp for the first time. Dank and misty, giant trees shading the starlight, mud and tasty ants everywhere.

  It’s simply perfect.

  He gives up on his gills, and opens his mouth to take in some more of that amazing air.

  It goes in. When it goes out, though . . . !

  Rumi goes zooming through the air, landing on his back many frog-lengths away from his family. He lies there, stunned. What just happened to him?

  Rumi hops back over, making sure to breathe as shallowly as he can, so he doesn’t go flying again. But just a short while later, he gets distracted by his first tangy fire ant snack. He exclaims in glee, and the force of the air leaving his mouth sends him hurtling.

  His siblings watch with wide froggy eyes as he hops his way back.

  He shrugs when they ask what happened, keeps his gaze trained on the leaves around him. Nothing to see here, just trying to fit in.

  Later, when the Veil rises and Rumi’s siblings are all finding hiding places to wait out their daycoma, Rumi finds himself wide awake. Strange. So much strangeness. No tree frog is meant to be up during the day! The sun is harsh on young amphibian skin, so he has nothing more to do with his day than wander around the shady underside of a fern where he and his siblings are resting, back and forth and back and forth, as the rays change in angle. He experiments with letting out slight gusts, watching the tips of the ferns sway. He sends out bigger gusts, watching the branches of the next tree over sway. Hmm!

  He stops experimenting for a while, but then the questions scratching his mind grow too great: why wind? Where does this power come from? Why do none of the other frogs have it? Can he direct it to a tiny spot? Can he make it blow all over? Can he use it to fly? Rumi takes in his breath and holds it while he counts to ten, savoring the buzz of magical energy fighting to escape his lungs.

  What if he blew the hardest gust he could, to learn the limits of his power?

  He can at least see if he can make the highest branches of that fig sway, the one just barely in view. That shouldn’t be too risky an experiment.

  Rumi creeps forward, so that he’s outside the hiding spot his parents chose for their young frogs, at the edge of a sunbeam on the rainforest floor.

  He takes in the largest breath that he can.

  He sets his gaze on the treetop in the distance.

  He aims.

  He prepares to release.

  That’s when he’s attacked.

  Rumi hadn’t even noticed the motionless snake, perfectly camouflaged around the nearby tree branch, until it strikes. Fangs slash through the blinding sunlight, heading right for his tender belly.

  There’s no time to run, no time to dodge. There’s only one thing to do, which is to open his mouth and release all the air he was holding in.

  The fangs disappear as the snake is blasted across the clearing, pulverized against a tree trunk.

  Rumi has no idea what happens next, only that he too is flying through the air, that trees are cracking, that insects and birds and mammals and other frogs are soaring, maybe his parents and siblings, there’s debris everywhere, swirling through the sky and clouding the sun. A sound like thunder is coming from his own mouth as he flies, then he hits something in the grayness where there used to be sunlight, and all is still.

  When he comes to, Rumi sees that he’s somewhere else entirely. A ruined land of fallen trees, where soil has been uprooted and flung everywhere, where the land itself has scattered, dirtying everything. A landscape whose normal sounds are gone, replaced by the moans of dying animals.

  He staggers to his feet.

  Father? Mother?

  Where are his siblings?

  What’s happened to his forest?

  His head and body aching, Rumi wanders through the swampy land, hopping this way and that, calling out for the other Rumis of his birth group. There is no answer. No birds call, no insects chirp. All’s quiet and eerie, the only sound the drip of rainwater on ravaged earth. He struggles to get his thoughts in order, to remember what might have happened.

  A horrible thought grows in Rumi’s mind, one that he can’t entirely face. If he lets it wriggle its way to the front, it will undo him entirely.

  No. It’s not possible that he did this.

  Finally he sees another living creature. It’s a big frog, a cane toad, a terrible wound on its back already beginning to scab over as it staggers through the growth. Only a creature as massive and fat as this one could have survived the typhoon that devastated this rainforest.

  Frogs are the worst predators of other frogs. Though Rumi hopes for answers, he knows this one is more likely to eat him than to answer questions. He eases forward delicately, not announcing himself early.

  The cane toad, though, is a hunter perfectly attuned to its surroundings. Its focus lands right on Rumi, where he thinks he’s safely hiding in the shadows of an uprooted tree. “Everything in this part of the rainforest is dead. All my family is dead. Only I was sturdy enough to survive. How did you survive this disaster, little frog, so little that you still have fresh gill marks on your throat?”

  Rumi doesn’t answer. Maybe there’s hope this predator doesn’t know precisely where he is. Besides, Rumi doesn’t have an answer.

  “Then Big Rumi will tell you,” the giant cane toad says. “I woke from daycoma to find our rainforest demolished. Just a short ways over there, though, the rainforest is completely intact. This was no storm. There was no flooding. This disaster reeks of magic.”

  Rumi hangs his little head. The cane toad’s words ring true. It was magic. It was Rumi’s magic that created the whirlwind that destroyed a
ll these lives. Finally he speaks. “I have to confess. It’s my fault. I did this. If you want to eat me, I won’t stop you. I deserve it.”

  Big Rumi pauses, then takes a shuddering step forward, his jowls rippling. “I did not expect you to give yourself up so easily. You cannot blame me for taking my revenge, little one.”

  Rumi looks up sadly, feeling his toxins beginning to coat his skin. “I’m poisonous. If you kill me, you will die as well.”

  Big Rumi nods. “Then that will be my destiny. I will die in order to punish you. It will be worth it.”

  Rumi chirps quietly, undone by the enormity of the devastation he’s wrought. He would gladly accept Big Rumi’s punishment. But then another animal would die, the only other one to survive Rumi’s magical cyclone. His wrongdoing would be absolute.

  He won’t let another creature’s death be on his hands, even if it’s a murderous bully like Big Rumi.

  And so Rumi turns and flees the swamp, Big Rumi right on his heels.

  THE VISION ENDS, and Rumi is looking at his friends’ concerned expressions. Sky, who already saw this vision long before in the Cave of Riddles, stares closely at Rumi’s face, probably to see how he’s dealing with the trauma. Gogi shakes his head and whistles. “Wow. Heavy stuff.”

  Rumi kneads his suction-cupped fingers against one another. “I should probably keep going, and get this over with.”

  “Wait, there’s more?” Gogi asks.

  “Well, this all came out because of the challenges of the Cave of Riddles,” Rumi says. “It all plays into how that ended up. And maybe into why my wind powers are reduced?”

  Gogi nods. “Then go ahead, friend. We want to hear everything.”

  I woke from my dream into the complete darkness. I didn’t know where I was, or why I was there. All that was going through my mind was what happened to my home. Family, friends—and enemies as well—all killed because of my magical power. Because of who I was.

  Even though I was deep in the Cave of Riddles, it felt like Big Rumi was there too, that he was still chasing me down. I was frantic. I hopped without direction, bouncing against walls and floor, bashing my head against stone outcroppings, Sky squawking nearby as he tried to find me in the darkness to calm me down.

  Then the soft velvety creatures were back, touching my face, communicating with me. “You have revealed your true heart to us, Rumi Mosquitoswallow. Your intellect is mighty, but your heart thirsts for answers to what might be at times when it should instead find rest and acceptance with what is. You would seek to find the limits of knowledge about what the lens might do, when you ought to be thinking about what it ought to do.”

  “What does that mean?” I croaked, though I had come to suspect that the foreign creatures knew my thoughts without my needing to speak them.

  “It means that we have decided that you are unworthy of the lens.”

  “Unworthy?” I said back, my voice narrowing to a mere chirp. “How can this be? We need the lens to save Caldera!”

  “We guardians are not here to measure your purpose, only to measure your worth. This decision is final.”

  I hurled myself to the ground. Of course I was unworthy. My guilt had always told me that, and now it was going to cost Caldera its future. “I’m sorry,” I wailed, “I’m so sorry.”

  “Hush, small frog,” the voice said. “You were the only one found unworthy.”

  I raised my head. “What do you mean?”

  “I accept,” Sky cawed. “I will care for the lens.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Sky is the one you choose?”

  Sky squawked indignantly.

  “While we were in your mind, little Rumi, we were also in Sky’s,” the guardians said. “He was rescued from neglect by Auriel. He expressed great loyalty to the snake who saved him, and it was that very loyalty to which you and your friends took exception. We consider him to be a cautious steward, unlikely to have his mind swayed in the moment to moment. He has a seriousness of purpose that makes him a suitable guardian. We have made our selection.”

  “Thank you for this honor,” Sky said. “I will do my best.”

  There was another grinding sound, and then a crack of light appeared in the chamber’s roof. In the sudden light, I could see ribbonlike shapes moving around us. These were the velvety tentacles that we’d felt, but I still couldn’t tell what sort of animal they were.

  I wanted to investigate further, but my attention was drawn to the crack of light. It widened until it became a blinding opening in the ground, waves of light shining about the chamber, like stray rays of sunshine finding their way into a nightwalker den. From the chasm rose a circular object that had hardened clear stone in its center. It sent the light from below skittering around, concentrating and refracting it.

  The lens.

  The marvelous object was held up by the ribbon creatures, bobbing on the backs of their leechlike forms. “Take it,” the guardian’s voice said.

  Sky clattered forward on the stone floor and then hopped into the air, working his claws around the lens.

  The guardian’s voice came back, unexpectedly loud. “Our task is done! The Cave of Riddles is no more! We will help you escape, but you must act quickly!”

  Suddenly there was more light in the room, enough to illuminate the whole chamber. With a shivering and grinding sound, the ceiling began to fragment and fall apart, the sandstone shivering into tiny particles that rained down on us. “On my back, Rumi!” Sky called.

  He didn’t need to ask twice. I gathered all the strength in my back legs and hopped, landing in the midst of his feathers. I got my grip around them. “I’m ready!” I called.

  Sky took to the air, managing the weight of the lens and dodging the worst swirls of sandstone as he stroked toward the daytime sky, his wing beats sending up powerful gusts of new sand.

  Everything in me told me to scrunch my eyes shut and wait until it was over, but somehow I managed to keep my eyes open enough to look below. My thirst for knowledge wouldn’t let me shrink away this time. That’s why I was able to see that the velvety tentacles weren’t animals at all but plants, broad leaves of witch’s tongue that some magic had brought to move and speak. We’d been communicating with something that wasn’t at all of the animal world! Now it would be sealed away, under the fallen cliff. What a missed opportunity for information.

  True to their word, the guardians were careful that the crumbling cave didn’t send any huge chunks of stone down on us—of course they didn’t want to bury the first guardians to come through and rescue the lens. It was horribly noisy, but Sky managed to fly me and the lens from there.

  As soon as we were up and out, I looked back down. The tumbling ancient earth of the cliffs revealed broad sections of exposed rock, with bones embedded in them. All sorts of animals, some of them much bigger than any animals we know of in Caldera today. But there was no time to investigate—it was back to you, to the rest of the shadowwalkers.

  We took only a moment’s rest on the beach at the edge of Caldera, then we started back toward the ruined ziggurat, where we had planned on meeting you. And we did, just in the nick of time, allowing us to destroy the Ant Queen. But you know that part.

  ONCE RUMI’S FINISHED, there’s a long silence as Gogi processes his story.

  “Ever since then, my magic has been reduced,” Rumi says morosely.

  Banu, who finally made it over just as the vision was ending, scratches his backside as he looks between the flabbergasted shadowwalkers. “What did I miss?”

  Gogi pats Banu’s head numbly. “I’ll catch you up later.”

  Gogi’s been riveted, barely blinking even though his eyes are bloodshot with fatigue. Sky, despite having lived through it all with Rumi, is equally rapt. Auriel held still the whole time, tongue tasting the air as he listened. Or maybe didn’t listen. Rumi’s still not sure what he’s capable of.

  His tale over, Rumi wrings his hands. “So that’s all of it,” he says, directing his voice into the mud. �
��My curiosity killed hundreds of creatures. The guardians refused to give me the lens because I was . . . unworthy.” Tears, long held back, water his eyes. “And now even my magic is nearly gone. Because I’m evil.”

  “Wow,” Banu says. “I really missed a lot, huh?”

  Rumi covers his face with his hands. Why isn’t Gogi saying anything?

  He cracks his eyes open to see that Gogi’s attention, surprisingly enough, is on Sky. “We wouldn’t have defeated the Ant Queen if you hadn’t been judged worthy of the lens. We’ve been hard on you, but you have redeemed yourself many times over. Thank you, Sky.”

  Sky inclines his head awkwardly. “I did collaborate with the snake who betrayed us all. Your resistance to me was understandable.”

  Auriel startles and gazes deeply at Sky.

  Gogi then does something Rumi never would have expected: he grooms Sky. He clearly doesn’t know what to do with all the feathers, slinking his fingers through and patting them, wiping the oil off on his thighs. Nevertheless, grooming is a very meaningful gesture coming from a social animal like Gogi. “So, Rumi,” Gogi says, his eyes glittering. “About your home swamp.”

  Rumi’s eyes go wet again, and he can’t stop his body from trembling. “I’m so sorry!”

  “It wasn’t your fault, you big silly,” Gogi finishes. “It was clearly all a misunderstanding. I don’t know why you’ve been letting it bother you so much.”

  “But . . . but I destroyed them all,” Rumi whimpers.

  “Oh gosh. Rumi, get over here,” Gogi says. He opens up his arms.

  Rumi shakes his head, miserable.

  Gogi pads over from Sky and carefully wraps his tail around Rumi. Then he curls the rest of his body around him. “Rumi, I know I’m speaking for Mez and Chumba and Lima when I say we love you. No one should hold a mistake against you. I just feel bad that you kept this all inside for so long. You should have told us right away.”

  “But I, but I . . .” Rumi sputters.