"...After what?" Janny clarified, after I had trailed off most ominously. I shushed him loudly, with a finger to my lips.
"Be quiet!" I stressed, looking up and around for the tell-tale glowing eyes of the Calling Cards. "Didn't you hear that scream, just now?!"
His eyes widened, alarmed at the implications, and ducked down, as if reducing his stature would make him hear better. True to his credit, though, he did quiet down enough for us all to hear the familiar cry off ahead to the right of us.
"There!" I pointed, and in a rush, we all dragged ourselves as clandestinely as we could through the thick foliage, with two injured boys, and a petite girl wielding a torch that seemed to weigh more than she did.
We tramped along at such an eager clip, that I almost didn't realize before it was too late. "Wait, hold up!" and I held onto their waistcoats, to slow them down more quickly.
"Eep!" Fimbs cried, raking her heels into the wet earth so that it bunched up in a muddy mound ahead of us.
"What? What is it?" asked Janny, looking around for imminent danger. "Is it along the floor? Did I step on it?"
I shook my head, and gestured to the swarm of minuscule, flying insects that we could just barely make out in the dying firelight of the torch. "It's above us. Swarms can be fatal, just like large animals. I'm not sure what type of insect that is, but it could be anything; from oracle ticks, to bombadier beetles, to screwworm flies, and you don't want to mess with any one of those."
"So, w-what do we do?" Fimbs asked, nervous that she hadn't heard of two of those. "Will the fire scare them away?"
I scoffed, "Probably not! We're gonna have to go around."
Janny breathed, incredulously, pressing a hand to his forehead in amazement. "I didn't even see those. See, this is what I'm talking about! You're amazing, Zoel."
"You don't have to patronize me, Janny. I need to focus, alright? Save it for later." I grumbled, looking around my shoulders, for a path backwards through the thick, glossy greenery. "There! We can follow the stream bed. Bugs usually don't stick around water, and it's too soon for them to have realized that the creek is dry."
Cowed by my cantankerous attitude, all Janny could say was "Okay," and he followed along the path that I had referred to.
A protracted silence filled the air, as we trod through the narrow passage of earth worn smooth by the rush of waters; like a natural trail blazed into the center of the forest.
A protracted silence filled the air, as we trod through the narrow passage of earth worn smooth by the rush of waters; like a natural trail blazed into the center of the forest.
Nothing but the normal sounds of distant bird calls and the lows of the waking frogs in the area beginning to stir, as the afternoon turned to dusk, resounded in the brooding dark. No one had the wherewithal to sustain the knowledge of how close we were to uncovering the truth, and the humility to admit how relieved we were to return back home.
"Eeeiigh!" came the identical cry of the Calling Cardinals; those red-feathered recorders, who so eagerly took on the tortured screams of my pleading companion as their new personal mantra. It was a desecration of one of her few, sparing moments of genuine vulnerability, before me—as well as a stark reminder of one of my greatest regrets—and I silently burned at the utter, unsympathetic inhumanity of their callous disregard.
"Was that it?" Fimbs asked, unmoored by the eerie similarity to the human tongue.
Janny added, "I hear it, too... It almost sounds like....!" then he trailed off, as if afraid to say the rest.
"It's Rilah's voice." I finished. "The trees know that we're close to finding what we need, so they're taunting us. Don't listen to them."
It was hard not to see it as a personal assault. These very birds were there. They were right there, when I failed her. They were the sole witnesses of what had become of her; information I was desperate to learn, but had no way of retrieving from their tanagroid mind.
It almost felt like they knew how frustrating it was, to be so close to answers; yet powerless to retrieve them. So, they called and called, to bait me in from one false lead to another.
I would not chase them. I would not heed them. I would not give in.
Anticipating their next questions, I offered up an explanation. "Vassur called them Calling Cards. I think I'd heard of them before, but I don't remember, entirely, if they're actually a type of cardinal or their own thing. They look similar, enough; I think. They're supposed to be from the Third Domain, where there's no more solid ground, and they hunt by repeating the mating calls of their prey."
Janny exhaled, and then said, "I know I'm going to regret asking this, but if they're so tiny that they look like a cardinal, how exactly is it that we're supposed to be afraid of them?"
I looked down, sadly, knowing that the information I was about to share was something that others could easily live their whole lives without knowing anything about. "Well, the truth is, that they're not really interested in humans in particular. What they do, is draw their victims into a section of the bathies where there's a bunch of corpses, watch them drown, and feast on the maggots that crawl out of their rotting flesh."
Fimbs gagged, and tore her face away from the sky, as if the very act of locking eyes with them would be enough to ensure such a brutal end. "Ulp! That's horrible..."
I shrugged, "I can't really think about it as who's right and who's wrong, out here. I mean, something's got to eat the maggots; or else who knows how many Jayflies or Screwworms we would have, out in the glades? They're just doing what comes naturally to them."
"That doesn't make it nice to hear about..." she retorted.
"Nobody ever said the stalks were nice. I said it could be beautiful, but I have no misunderstandings about what I'm doing out here. It's the most dangerous place that you can be. Rilah risks her life, every time she comes out here. I'm just glad that, the one time she needed help, I was there to see it."
Janny supplied, "Rilah is lucky to have a friend like you."
Misty eyed, I countered, "No, I was the lucky one. I didn't realize it, and now it might be too late."
Fimbs squeezed my hand, and I turned to her—wide limpid pools of blue turned green in the harsh yellow light of the torch, locked into mine; filled with empathy, and compassion—before she gave me the smallest, most delicate of smiles, and assure me, "We are going to find her. You're not too late."
I knew she had no way of knowing that, and I knew she knew I knew that, so I decided not to tear her logic apart, and simply accepted the encouragement. "Thank you, Fimbs. I really hope you're right."
It was Janny's turn, now, so he said, "Don't hope. Know it. If you can't believe in her, then what's even the point?"
I nodded again, gesturing toward the edge of the basin. "You're right, you're right. Come on, that should be far enough. Let's get back onto the trail."