[ Watashi ]

[ Tomodachi ]

[ Saint Seiya ]

[ Clamp ]

[ Fanfiction ]

In absolute blackness, there is no Time. No space, no up, no down, no right, no left, before or behind. There is no sound either, no sensation, no feeling whatsoever. If you’re alone, it doesn’t take long for you to lose yourself--long, well as useless and futile as that concept has become. So it would have been for me, but for Murali’s presence. When Time lost its hold upon us, when reality eluded us, we clung to sanity through an endless necklace of thoughts. Thoughts, beads that we kept telling, stubbornly, like fervent believers who refuse to acknowledge that their god won’t grant their prayers and wishes, no matter how devout they show themselves to be.

This isn’t hyperspace, Murali protested, for the third or the thousandth time. There is no flow, no tide. There just isn’t anything at all!

No, I agreed with him. On Confluence, Halo Side scientists explained that dark matter is completely inert. Perhaps we’re seeing the proof that they’re right, and we’re merely hanging dead in the unknown gap between galaxies. Although if it were the case, there was no reason for us to be unable to part the hyperspace curtain and jump back to Pillar.

How do you know we can’t do that? Murali countered, a little bit too privy to my inner thoughts to my liking. We haven’t even tried. Irritation had weighed that last pronouncement, and the mental equivalent of a disgusted snort. I didn’t reply.

He was right. Neither he, nor I had so much as made to reach beyond ourselves and our jumpships’ hulls. Our lack of attempt was as senseless as our shying away from words and sounds. Worse, for using thoughts at least spared the energy used to maintain the Cluster Net. We are like children afraid of the night, I mused silently. Logic no longer rules our actions. Fine representatives of the elite of both our orders, if you ask me. Irony served no purpose, didn’t help at all. Even if Haizea herself had popped up on Hamal’s bridge to taunt me and goad me into action, I wouldn’t have moved.

The darkness was just too perfect.

The flames of my cosmo wouldn’t, couldn’t disturb it. It would only swallow them. It would swallow us, sooner rather than later. Without even a shred of stellar wind brushing past them, our jumpships could only function by tapping into our cosmo, and we--

We were recoiling from even envisioning to reach out to our constellations.

A stain in the blackness. In the same time the tiny, tiny anomaly registered on Hamal’s main viewscreen, Murali’s voice resounded upon my bridge. “Fi! Do you see that?”

The familiar sounds were like the loosening of a string tightened for too long. Denying the trembling in my legs, I jumped up from my seat and shouted, “Thousands, Murali!” In less than a second, the single, minuscule white stain in the pitch black night had become a myriad of rapidly growing dots.

White, and the shape of them-- “White sails,” Murali whispered. “White sails adrift in the abyss beyond the Rim!”

“No.” I blinked. They were upon us almost, as if borne by a great wind or waves we couldn’t feel, that our scanners couldn’t pick up. “Silvery,” I breathed, and I hugged myself in a brisk, jarring motion as they engulfed Hamal and touched its hull--touched me. “Leaves!” I gasped. “Murali, they’re leaves!” Dissonant laughter won past my lip. “Leaves in the intergalactic void!” That had to be it, it had to be where our insane jump had led us to.

A thick layer of them blanketed our two jumpships, and my viewscreen confirmed a billion times what I already knew: silvery on one side, and grayish green on the other, these were leaves, ludicrous though it was--no more impossible than a dying red star collapsing into a black hole, shifting to giant blue state, and finally reverting back to being a nice quantum singularity.

Unmoving, I watched while the storm of leaves drowned us, and wondered whether this could be considered as a Deluxe burial by Sanctuary standards. It lasted less than a minute, then a deafening crack echoed through Hamal, even as the jumpship collided, crashed into something. Alarms went off. Barely I managed to hold my ground while the main control board abruptly decided it was a Christmas decoration and started flashing lights like a drunken rainbow. Cracks and clangs resounded through Hamal as emergency doors slammed down to seal the living quarters and protect them from a dozen small hull breaches.

“We’ve come to a stop.” Murali’s blanched voice eventually registered in my brain. “Fi, it meant we were moving before. In that nothingness. We were moving!” Something like awe was shining in the charcoal eyes.

Stealing a glance at my own controls, I wasted no time in acknowledging this absurd new turn of events. “Hamal’s structural integrity is compromised,” I told him grimly. “Repairing will--”

Light.

Gentle, warming light much like the sun’s when watched from behind the shied of an olive tree’s canopy of leaves and branches.

A soft breeze of photons was caressing Hamal’s outer hull.

“Repairing should be a matter of days, if the current weather holds,” I heard myself say. “Self-diagnostic systems and repairs won’t do a perfect job of it, but Hamal should be space-worthy enough to rejoin a station for more thorough care. How about you?”

Something like a sigh echoed through the comm link. “Much the same. It doesn’t make sense!”

“No,” I bade all viewscreens to show me Hamal’s direct vicinity from all possible angles, “it doesn’t.” Whatever wind that had given rise to the impossible storm of leaves was abating rapidly. It took less than thirty seconds for the view to clear.

Light like the sun’s, indeed.

An intricate network of gigantic beams, forking and forking again, multiplying until infinity and shaping a strangely beautiful web. Familiar. I drew in a breath, but the sensation didn’t go away. They felt familiar, those grey-brown beams and the silvery-green shade of light that was cradling Hamal in a gentle embrace. Calling up a zoom on the upward view, I stared at what the instruments were showing me. Instruments, not the fallible filter of a deluded mind. Every scanner of Hamal confirmed the initial reading.

“Leaves,” I called to Murali. “I was right. They were leaves, and this is--”

“A tree,” he cut me off, incredulity plain in the tone of his voice.” A tree so huge it could be a whole planet in itself.”

I gave him a nod. “Scanners confirm it, and they also confirm the atmosphere is breathable. Pressure levels match human standards.”

“How convenient.” Irony was dripping from Murali’s every word.

“Could an illusion also cover the activation of our jumpships’ self-repairing systems?” I retorted. “They wouldn’t come live unless there was a true source of power available aside from us.”

“True,” he conceded in a grudging voice.

“We’re stuck here for a while, illusion or not,” I went on, pressing my advantage. “I’m going to check it out. Even if I step into spatial void, my Cloth will protect me long enough for me to teleport back inside Hamal.”

“Fi!” He snapped. “Curse you, if anyone must take such a risk--”

“It’s the one telekinesis expert among us, and you’re not she,” I finished for him. “Thanks for pointing it out.”

“Damn it Aries, this isn’t a stroll in the countryside!” Anger and fear were warring in Murali’s tone.

“You don’t know that,” I replied in a quiet voice. “Close your eyes, my lord Sorento. Can’t you feel it?”

Life.

Life pulsing everywhere around us.

Peaceful.

A distant hum that was coursing through Hamal’s hull and was binding my jumpship together with what lay beyond it.

A faint song like the coming of Spring.

“No, I don’t--” I didn’t listen. Ignoring him, I sparked a tiny fraction of my cosmo, and willed myself outside of Hamal.

I stepped into a world of green and light brown, and silver. A small breeze kissed my cheeks and then was gone, as sweet as the spicy scent it was carrying. Before I could start gawking at it all, a loud clang resounded in the air, and a secondary hatch on Ligea’s left flank opened to let through a rather disgruntled Murali. “Now, you’re the one being a fool,” I told him by way of greeting.

“It’s my turn not to take order from one I should heed,” he muttered back, at the same time fighting the silly smile crawling up his lips, and failing. It was the sensation of this place, the wonder of it which had sparked mirth inside our hearts. The beautiful absurdity of it. On impulse, I squatted down and reached out.

Smooth, cool and solid to the touch, it was wood, or so my mind insisted, relaying what I could feel beneath the palm of my right hand. For a time, I stared at my fingers spread over a wood beam as thick as a jumpship’s main reactor. “A tree,” I chuckled, unable to help myself, then I straightened and looked up.

Hamal and Ligea were a sorry sight: so deeply entangled in a net of gigantic branches, there was no understanding how they had managed to get trapped that badly. It seemed they were hatchlings crouching in comical bird nests, built from the tree’s structure of branches.

As if the tree had come to life, and grown around our jumpships.

“Taking off’s going to be loads of fun,” Murali groaned beside me.

I gave him a look. He was thinking about leaving already. Early. I blinked and shook my head. Of course. He was right. “No help for that,” I shrugged one shoulder. For a fraction of a second, I had felt...home. Tilting my head backward, I stared up and watched spears of sunlight dive through the very distant canopy of silvery-green leaves, and splash the branches in their paths with gentle fire.

In the distance, I could hear the rustle of leaves and birds chirping. “How can this be real?” I wondered aloud.

“It’s fantastic,” Murali gave a slow, slow shake of the head, like a man trying to win free of a dream.

“If this is a tree, then there is a trunk somewhere,” I mused. “Where do you think?”

“No idea.” He frowned. “Ten people could lie down and form a line on the width of this branch. As for its length, it seems to be going on for miles and miles. I don’t really want to imagine what the trunk would look like.”

“Hmmm.” I pursed my lips, and pivoted on my tiptoes, lifting up the right hand and pointing in a randomly chosen direction. “That way.” Beside me, Murali turned to follow the direction I had indicated. It was a reflex.

It happened then.

What had been a distant rustle of leaves grew into a booming, deafening roar. A whirlwind of green and silver blinded me--choked me.

And then it was gone.

Gone. I staggered back. Gone. Hamal-- “Hamal!” I heard my voice as if it had been a stranger’s. The tension in my every muscle was unimportant. The rush of adrenalin in my blood and the painful thuds of my heart were unimportant. I dared not turn back. I dared not.

“Ligea.” There was no shocked pain in Murali’s blanched whisper. There was no absurd loss. With the slow, careful motions of an old woman, I turned to look back at Hamal.

The jumpships weren’t there, their improbable nests empty. As if they had been fledglings that had soared away for their maiden flight. From very far away, I felt my eyes widen. “Anchor me!” I ordered Murali without sparing him a single glance. The empty nests of branches were all my eyes could see.

No.

No, it couldn’t be!

With a thought, I summoned Aries’ fire and called out. Hamal! Up. Beyond leaves and branches. Beyond the gentle wind song, beyond the birds’ small noises. Beyond the warm sunlight. HAMAL!

A hush in the great tree.

Silence.

The stirring of a sleepy mind.

In the unseen sky, a question mark. A ghost.

Nothing.

HAMA-A-A-AL!

Nothing at all.

Higher. I needed to reach higher. HAMAL! Higher-- Pain exploded in my chest when my spirit slammed against a wall. Invisible, inexistent but for the absolute barrier it was. It drank the flames of my cosmo as if they were mere drops of Muscat wine, and I fell hurtling down through sharp leaves’ edges and spear-shaped branches--unreal, all of it. Immaterial.

“I have you.” All of a sudden, I realized that arms were wrapped around me, holding me upright and supporting most of my weight. Murali. I had come back to my body, and Murali had anchored me to the material side of reality. “I have you,” he repeated. Gently. I gave myself a heartbeat, during which I rested my head against the chest of his Scales before straightening.

“Thanks.” I sucked in a breath, and then faced him. “They’re gone.” I stared right at him, refusing to heed the ice freezing my gut and look away. “Hamal is gone. I couldn’t reach it. I couldn’t feel it. It’s beyond my power as Aries to find.” Those words were a death sentence at worst, or a condemnation to lifelong exile at best. Clenching my teeth, I went on, “Hamal is lost to me, and I can feel no true pain. No true loss.” Hearing the beginnings of a whine in my voice, I clamped my jaws shut.

“Because they’re not truly gone,” Murali said, his dark eyes intent.

“Didn’t you hear me?!” My question came out as a hiss. “Hamal is beyond my power as Aries to feel!”

“But not truly gone,” Murali repeated, reaching out to me and closing his hands over my shoulders. “If they were dead, destroyed, we would know. Nothing can come in the way of that.” He heaved out a sigh. “Aries though you are, you were fooled once before. This time, we both have been, but that’s not the end of it. We just need to find them.”

I had to laugh, broken laughter which only fed the ice biting at my insides. At last, I got a hold over myself and sobered up. “I’m sorry Murali--” Abruptly I found myself squinting as he reached up and gave a light tap at the junction between my nose and my brow with the tip of his left forefinger.

“Not another word. Had I stayed aboard Ligea, this wouldn’t have happened.” It was useless to protest: there was that headstrong light in his eyes. With difficulty I managed not to look away. “So,” he summoned a smile to his lips, “how about we start our search with getting ourselves to the trunk of this nice little tree?”

Far above us, the birds had resumed singing. I stared at Murali while the gentle, treacherous breeze enfolded us once more with a sweet scent of spices, and eventually I bobbed my head in ascent. There was little else we could do. Dwelling on what had happened, on the absurdity of what we were about to do or on the insanity of our situation wouldn’t change that. “That way.” I turned around, and started walking away, in the random direction I had picked a few minutes before.

“Looks like I picked the wrong direction.” I wrinkled my nose at the sight of the countless forking branches. Their width had diminished so that they now merely seemed to be oddly colored steel girders such as were used to build the skeletons of the greatest space stations. The silvery-green canopy had grown more luminous, and we were actually starting to discern the foliage other than as an infinite tapestry of emerald lace. A myriad sun rays were filtering through the sky of leaves, melting and combining before separating and drawing strange patterns on the giant branches.

The slightest spark of cosmo brought my attention back on my companion, in time to see him jump to another wood beam on my left. It took me a few seconds to catch a glimpse of a shining gleam in the wood there that must have drawn his gaze. With a thought, I willed myself at his side. “Well,” Murali glanced back up at me from his squatting position, dark mirth dancing in his eyes, “at least we won’t be dying of thirst.”

On the spot we had come to, the branch was wider. It formed a natural basin where something that looked like water was sparkling, reflecting what stray beams of light that glided over its surface. Before I could say anything, Murali dipped his right forefinger into the seemingly crystalline liquid. “What do you think you’re doing?!” I reached out to him, too late. He had already brought his finger to his mouth and sucked at it.

“Relax!” Bubbling laughter accompanied the exclamation as he straightened and faced me, bright-eyed. “It’s really tasty water,” he grinned at me, “and rather energizing to boot!”

Lips pursed, I watched him in silence for a while. When I decided he wouldn’t drop dead or sprout fins, I set a knee down and plunged the right hand into that unhoped for pool.

Cool but not cold.

Tingling upon my skin like wine birthing from grapes just harvested from a vineyard under the late Summer sun.

Shaping a spoon with the palm of my hand, I brought some of it to my lips and sniffed at it experimentally. Sweet. Spicy, very much like the scent in the wind. On impulse, I drank it, and clucked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. “Basil,” I heard myself whisper. Eyes closed, I focused on the sensation of the strange water flowing down to my stomach and filling a hunger I had silenced until now. “We won’t starve either.” I stared at the unlikely pool in wonder.

“The gods’ mead, you think?” Murali asked in a soft voice beside me.

“No!” I started. “No.” I knew what he was thinking, but-- “No,” I repeated again. “There is nothing divine about this place. Neither Athena nor Poseidon are waiting for us at the gate. This isn’t any kind of bizarre version of heaven.” was what I dared not quite claim.

“All right, maybe not divine.” Murali had resumed walking in the direction I was almost certain was wrong. “But wondrous at least.” He shot me a look from above his shoulder. “Any moment, I expect a white rabbit to pop up in front of us and then disappear.”

I rolled my eyes heavenward. “Right. As long as there’s no queen of hearts included in the package.” That was more like it, though. A twisted fairy tale was closer to the truth, full of labyrinths and deadly traps, an all too human concept for what had to be somewhere in the abyss between galaxies. Spitting out a breath, I jogged to Murali’s side. “We should really go back. I told you it’s not the right direction,” I muttered when I joined him.

“Just a bit further,” he said, his gaze set on something before us. He wasn’t listening, not really. I drew in a deep, loud breath, and focused on what had captured his interest. At first, I couldn’t discern anything, then I saw it.

A spot of white, shining like diamond. An oddity in our silvery-green sky. “Okay, let’s go.” I nodded at him and grabbed his left forearm. I gave no warning, but then Murali didn’t need any. At once, I felt him acknowledge my touch, and I willed the both of us right next to whatever that white stain was.

White as snow. I reached out to one of the leaves without quite touching it. Each of them was glinting in the light, and splitting it into a million tiny rainbows. “It’s like frost,” Murali said on my right, his voice so soft it was merely above a murmur, “like the kiss of a Winter dawn, except it’s not cold.” Indeed, it wasn’t. It was pleasantly warm. The temperature hadn’t varied in all our time wandering in this absurd place. The light hadn’t changed either, as if night and day had no meaning here--which was perhaps the only logical thing in all of it.

Watching the delicate edges of the leaves, outlined with pure white crystal flakes, watching the fragile veins marked like paths on a map, I felt a shiver run down my spine. “We should go,” I said quietly.

“Why?” Murali had pivoted to face me. His eyes were searching my face. “What is it you feel?”

A shrug was all I could give him in answer. We shouldn’t be here. That certainty was clear in my mind, just as was clear the fact that I had no clue as to why, beyond our need to resume our search for the jumpships. We had tarried on our way far too long already, as if the very sensation of the fantasy land surrounding us could hold us in thrall, ensnare us bit by bit. “We’re being distracted.” It was hard to put intuition into words. It gave rise to questions we had decided to store in the back of our minds lest our inability to find answers led us to blinding anger and incapacitated us. “Beautiful though this is, it’s insignificant.” I waved at the patched canopy around us, groping for a way to voice the unnamed feeling in my gut.

Dissonance in the wind’s constant rustling of the leaves.

Silence...no, not silence. I whirled around. The birds had stopped singing, but there was a faint, very faint sound, like a screech.

A whisper.

Alien.

Unable to name or control the reflex, I shivered. In the same time, my vision wavered. “Fi?” On instinct, I pushed Murali back behind me. Less than a furlong away, a ripple traversed the air, and the sound started growing in intensity.

Ripples, as if we were standing in a pond.

Ripples gliding toward us. Lazy.

Ripples, and a cold, cold spear tearing at my insides. I snarled at whatever it was, and willed the Crystal Wall into being. I willed it to rise all around Murali and I. “Fi?!” He grabbed at me by the right shoulder, frantic, but I shook him off and fed the blazing flames of my cosmo, until their roar completely covered the alien screech that seemed to serve as a herald for the ripples.

...a... My eyes widened. ...ia... Worming its way through the translucent patterns of my Wall, a whisper was reaching out to me. ...me... A tendril of ebony blackness, which was slithering on the grey wood before me, coming for me, rising up in the air and twirling, reaching out to silvery-green leaves--

“Begone!” I commanded, and refused it. Around us, the Crystal Wall’s radiance became blinding, and I had to avert my eyes.

In a heartbeat, the murmur-like screech was extinguished.

Banished.

With a snap of my fingers, I released the Crystal Wall, and drew a sharp intake of breath.

White.

Pure, snow-white all around us.

Frozen, as if caught in a sudden Winter storm, the foliage had lost its soft silvery-green hue to be clad in a coat of perfect white, except where it had been embraced by the Crystal Wall’s protective shield.

“Hell!” Murali spat, stepping toward the now clear line of what had been the Crystal Wall’s border. “What was that?” Bending down, he laid a hand on the branch supporting us. “The wood is intact,” he looked up and bit his lower lip, “but the leaves--”

“Death,” I said in an inaudible whisper. Murali’s had been a rhetorical question, but there was no denying the answer clawing at my soul, borne by the wind’s timid returning to our spot, rustling the frozen leaves like so many little bell chimes. There was no denying the answer carried by the very feeling of the air and--

A shadow.

There, in the way the beams of light no longer touched or crossed paths. There was no time to think. Flinging myself around, I snatched at the ghost of a presence, and willed myself to its side.

Tall, slim shadow, human-shaped--surprised. A glint of light, as horribly strong defenses were raised against me. I landed on another wood beam, some twenty yards above ours, but all I could catch was empty air. Not even a shred of the presence remained. I blinked. If not for the sharp headache blossoming beneath my skull, I would have sworn I had been tricked by an illusion--but the pain was real.

Something had been watching us: a human-shaped shadow. I snorted, declining to fall into the trap. Something, not someone, no matter what shape it had worn. No human being could have flung me aside and escaped. None. After a last look around, I teleported myself back to Murali’s side.

“We were being watched,” I told him shortly.

“I figured it had to be something like than when I felt you take off without a word of warning,” he nodded. The look in his eyes was unreadable, but I knew he wasn’t happy at all about my choice of action. However, contrary to Thomas or Haizea, he was smart enough to realize I had chosen correctly, if not safely. “By what?”

I cackled. “Hell if I know.” Blowing air through my nostrils, I added, “This is a world of ghosts.” With an effort of will, I shed the frustration clinging to me and refocused on Murali. “Anything you could find about whatever happened here?”

“Almost nothing.” He heaved out a sigh, then motioned for me to follow him. He took me toward the nearest twig that had been outside of the Crystal Wall’s protective circle, and closed a hand around it, pulling it down. “Hold it,” he bade me, “and tell me what you make of it.”

I did as he asked, and frowned. It wasn’t cold to the touch. It wasn’t warm either, but the feeling of it-- I ran the fingers of my free hand over one of the leaves. Dead, and yet not dead. Crisp as if it had been drained of life, but still refusing to crumple and break under the pressure of my fingers, it seemed to be waiting for something. Sparking my cosmo, I willed the flames of Aries to embrace the fragile leaf. Before my eyes, the tiny crystals of ice seemed to shiver, and I felt a smile tug at my lips. Yes, this was something I had encountered countless times when newly recognized Saints made mistakes and then came to the Aries House pleading for me to help them. “They’re not even quite dead,” I heard myself say, then: “Shoo,” I breathed on the delicate mantle of frost, calling out to the gentlest flames of Aries’ fire, and with the utmost caution I wove them with the leaf’s veins. Slowly, reluctantly, the white shroud shimmered, and then was gone.

“They’re like Cloths!” I shook my head in wonder, staring at the once more silvery-green leaf. “Like badly damaged Cloths which still retain the barest breath of life. They don’t even need someone’s lifeblood to be made whole again.” The same bemused smile still hovering on my lips, I released the fragile leaf, and turned to look at Murali.

The usually classy and dignified Marine Shogun was staring at me, his mouth agape like a fish out of water. Snorting, I told him, “Murali, stop gawking as if you had never witnessed me healing Cloths.”

Something flickered in the charcoal gaze.

A cloud passed over my friend’s face, the faintest of shadows, which troubled the lines of his face like a hazy mask scampering away, and then was gone in the time of a heartbeat.

Out of my reach even before I could fully realize it had been there.

“I’m not gawking!” Murali was protesting with vehemence, watching me as one would a madwoman.

“No.” I turned my back on him. He was telling the truth. “You weren’t.”

“Another watcher?” Murali asked softly, pivoting to face the same direction as I.

The silvery-green surrounding us was grating on my nerve. It was there, there was no denying the reality of it. It wasn’t a lie. Not quite. “There’s a ghost stalking us, Murali,” I whispered at last. My jaw set, I went on, “We need to get out of this maze. We need to win free of this trap before the feeling of it enraptures us so deeply that we won’t even remember our jumpships’ names.”

He shot me a look. “You think we’re being manipulated? Bespelled?”

The smile on my lips thinned. “How long has it been since you last caught yourself reaching for Ligea?”

That gave him pause. For a while, he just stared back at me in silence. Then eventually he looked away. “Too long.” That murmur was barely audible. “Fi, the bond is unraveling, thread by thread.”

“I know.” I reached out to him, and rested the palm of my right hand against the outside of his arm. “We must move, now. We must find them and win free.”

“How?” Doubts were flashing in his eyes and poisoning his voice.

“Back,” I answered with a nod. “I told you I had picked the wrong direction. Back the way we came, until we reach the trunk and then up, beyond that green wall.” Intuition again, but I was Aries, and it never had failed me. Murali bobbed his head, and we proceeded to do that, leaving behind a chapel of frozen leaves, crisp and yet warm to the touch.

White, but not quite reaped by Winter--by Death, whose voice I now knew to be a screech, a whisper that slithered its way into the hearts of living beings to claim them.

There was no way for us to measure the trunk’s circumference, but it was huge. Huge enough for it to have taken us almost a hundred of heartbeats to make a complete circle around it, running on the flames of our cosmo. When I had tried to visualize it inside my mind, all I had gotten had been dizziness and a refueling of my earlier headache. This tree, if it was a tree, was bigger than a gas giant. “If you’re right and we’re stranded between galaxies, “ Murali was musing on my right, “its canopy might encompass the whole intergalactic abyss.”

Inconceivable though that would be.

“Can you feel anything?” I asked him, unwilling to let my stupid brain meander back to mastering the reality of this place we had come to.

That question owned me a startled glance, and then an almost imperceptible shrug. “No. Nothing other than chirping birds and rustling leaves.” It was my domain, my area of expertise, that was what Murali’s surprise meant. Why ask me? his eyes were wondering.

Looking down, I couldn’t see anything other than a maze of forking, insanely big branches and an ocean of silvery-green. If this tree had roots, they were very, very far away. With a faint sigh, I leaned the palm of my right hand against the smooth surface of the trunk, and tilted my head back. The emerald roof seemed to be millions of miles away, the path leading to it an infinity of giant wood beams. A living stairway, which looked too easy to follow to be true.

“No teleportation,” I decided at last, unwilling to trust what my eyes could see or what I could sense. “Are you up to a little race at relativistic speeds?” I glanced at Murali from the corner of an eye.

“Ready when you are.” He smiled. He hadn’t questioned my choice of going up. He hadn’t asked why, because he trusted me implicitly. Because he trusted in the power of Aries, in the clarity and truth of its perceptions.

I had been fooled before, and recently. I stared at that uncomfortable truth, and weighed my decision against it. Still my heart remained clear, so I nodded at Murali. In the same time, we sparked our cosmo and jumped up.

Miles-high steps flashed past us as we ran, fast. Faster. There seemed to be no end to them: the canopy of silvery-green leaves was still as distant as when we had started off. Let’s tickle old Einstein in earnest, shall we? I sent Murali’s way. In answer, I felt his cosmo explode, and the shape of him blurred before disappearing from my sight in an instant. Cocky Marine Shogun! I called after him even as I was doing the same.

Rainbow traversing the air above our heads.

Many-colored barrier of light.

Before Murali could slam against it, I accelerated and overtook him. Stop! I yelled inside his mind. He did so, an inch before ramming me head-on.

“What?!” He snapped, bewildered.

“We,” I hissed air through my teeth, and gestured toward the impossibly distant treetop, “we can go no farther.” At the level of the next branch up, the rainbow wall was barring our way, faint and seemingly harmless.

“Shit!” Murali spat, in a rare display of true anger. “Teleport beyond it?” He asked in a tight voice.

“I don’t know.” I bit my lower lip. “Let me try.” Gathering my strength, I reached toward it in spirit.

Blazing fire.

Roaring flames stronger than those of a million suns engulfed me as I was about to touch it.

Lashing out at me with raw, animal savagery.

Devouring.

Golden light invaded my vision when Aries shielded me and took the insanely violent blow that would have consumed me, had I not worn my Cloth. For the time of a heartbeat, I tried to smother that fire with mine, to tear through its rainbow heart, but a muted scream filled my being even as the other half of my soul cried out in pain. Aries could no longer withstand whatever that barrier was, so I withdrew and severed my link to the many-colored wall with desperate strength.

I staggered back, and hit the trunk. Shuddering, I leaned the palms of my hands against it, and bowed my head. “Fi?” I blinked, recognizing Murali’s voice, and I clung to the sounds of it like a swimmer about to drown. There was no real damage. The attack had been a mental one only.

A warning.

I made myself look up. A warning set for us, a ban on our reaching any higher than this. “I’m okay.” I gave Murali an absentminded nod. Already, the sensation of burning up inside was receding. The barrier laid above our heads wasn’t unlike my Crystal Wall. It couldn’t stand alone. It needed its source to breathe life and strength into it. “Murali,” I called at my companion in a very quiet tone, “whoever or whatever wrought that barrier is still here, close by. I can’t break it alone, but together we might be able to carve some cracks in it--if you’re willing to bet both our lives on another of my hunches.”

“Do you really need to ask?” The light dancing in my friend’s eyes might have been laughter, or the seeds of fear.

“Master Nominoë taught me it was good manners to do so,” I replied. “Together, then.” Even as I uttered those words, Fire engulfed us.

Scorching flames.

With demented strength and violence, they bit through Cloth and Scales to devour skin, muscle and bone and--

“Enough!” The hoarse shout had come from me. With a sharp, cutting gesture of the left hand, I summoned the Crystal Wall. Next to me, Murali was crouching against the trunk, his teeth clenched to hold back a raw scream and his eyes wild. In a slow motion, he pushed away from it, and straightened. “No damage?” I asked him evenly.

“No!” He spat, an awful grimace distorting his face. “Nothing except for my pride.”

In spite of everything, I chuckled. “If it can help, it struck me as hard as it did you. Not even master Nominoë had such mental strength, and he’s the only other psycho-kinesist I ever fought, except for Theirn.”

“I can’t say it really does,” Murali heaved out a shuddering sigh, “but thanks all the same.”

“Okay,” I nodded at him. “I’m dropping the Wall.” The iridescent shield winked out of existence in an instant. Above us, the rainbow barrier was still there, pulsing with a life and power beyond anything I had ever encountered--any of us had ever encountered. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if this was how the goddess’ power felt like, then I discarded the useless thought. Instead, I made my reluctant mind consider the words I had just told Murali.

Whoever or whatever had created that rainbow was nearby, was watching us so closely that he, she or it had lashed out at us even as we had decided to unite our forces to win through. On impulse, I shaped a thought into an arrow, and released it. Who are you? There was no answer beyond the constant, faraway chirping of birds and the rustle of leaves. “If that’s how you want to play it,” I muttered, and I drew all the power at my command. WHO ARE YOU?! I turned the question into a myriad raindrops that I showered the rainbow barrier with.

For a fraction of a second, ripples wrinkled its surface like so many shivers, and then they were gone.

Still nothing.

Lips pursed, I rested my hands upon my hips and looked upward. “Now, I think I’m pissed,” I explained to the empty air in my most pleasant voice.

“Fi!” Murali called in a whisper, pointing to somewhere below us. “There, a shadow. Moving fast.” At first, I didn’t see anything in the direction he was indicating, then I caught a fleeting glimpse of it.

A shadow indeed, small.

Hopping from branch to branch, with such incredible speed that the shape of it was blurred, impossible to make out. Standing very still, Murali and I waited while it continued its lightning quick ascent.

Flames abruptly barred my vision.

Fire, but in no way the harsh blaze which had scorched our beings earlier.

In a brisk motion, I reached up to Murali and closed my hand upon his right arm, giving him a silent shake of the head in the same time. It was no attack, not this. It was communication, the sharing of thoughts, but not meant for us.

“It’s a name,” Murali breathed beside me, who had caught on as quickly as I. “Cinaed,” he hissed softly. “Fire.”

Indeed. The thought was so strong and clear that I took a step back when it hit my mind. On my right, Murali blinked and he braced, as it to anticipate a blow. The rainbow barrier was gone. In its stead, a man no older than thirty was watching us from his vantage point on the branch above our heads, the light in his eyes of pale blood an unreadable one.

Unreadable, not vacant as I had allowed myself to be deluded into believing on Finiti--oh no.

As I took in his slim, tall shape and the shoulder-length russet gold hair, I remembered il signore Yani’s sorrowful depiction of a poor, half-witted cast-off, and I felt a snarl starting to twist the lines of my mouth, mirrored on Murali’s face. Oblivious to our reactions, the man glanced toward his left. You come at the most inconvenient times, as always. Begone. The thought was a spear of icy fire, and something like a mental squeak echoed in my mind in answer. From the corner of an eye, I spotted a small shadow detaching itself from a fork in a nearby branch, and I watched it scurry away.

“A squirrel.” I resisted the urge to glance down and follow the small shadow’s frantic escape.

A sudden gust of wind enfolded us, raising echoes like laughter. Adequate. The glow in those red eyes was laughter indeed, and that wind-- You will not climb any higher.

Just in time, I extended my mental shields to include Murali. The crushing force of the stranger’s thoughts would have robbed my companion of consciousness, at least. “Why?” I asked aloud, unwilling to flinch. Thanks to an effort of will, I managed to sustain the eerie, alien gaze. A faint grimace was my only answer. “Do you not like the sound of human voices?” I curled my lips up into a crooked smile. Mute was how that prideful figure had been described to us. Perhaps there was a reason for that, an opening to exploit.

No.

I didn’t fall. I didn’t even stumble back. Even though my vision wavered and the taste of blood filled my mouth when I bit my tongue, I refused to give way. That elicited a slight quirk of the stranger’s lips, which might be the equivalent of a smile, or not. “Fi!” Murali whispered, his voice urgent. That broke the spell, and I rebuilt my mental shields, hissing air out of my lungs.

“Thanks,” I replied without looking back. Whatever the tall figure clad all in white, white, long-sleeved tunic and trousers was, it wasn’t human. All white as he was, bare-footed as he was, he seemed to be some priest of ancient times keeping watch over his god’s sanctuary.

Perhaps he was.

With a nod to myself, I said, “We have no interest in going higher. We only want two things: find what was taken from us, and then leave this place.” A flicker of those eyes, which might mean anything. “It’s the truth,” I told him, groping for a way to convince him and get that through to him.

I know. In the blink of an eye, he vanished and then reappeared on the branch we were standing upon, less than ten steps away from us. Somehow I managed not to react. I had never felt him move; I had never sensed the slightest spark of power. You’re not wanted here. In lithe, feline motions, he started circling us, never once taking his eyes from us. And yet, here you are. His mental snort was worse than the violent slaps of the wind when it blew in harsh Winter gales over the Aegean sea. Here you shall remain. With that, he disappeared once more, to regain his initial position above us.

“This is insane!” Murali’s furious expostulation was met by another gust of wind.

Laughter, definitely.

“Explain yourself,” I willed him with all the calm I could muster. “If we aren’t wanted, then it stands to reason you should want to get rid of us, either by killing us or letting us go.”

Fire. Again, a quirk of his lips that might be a smile. At the core of your being. It glows in beautiful flames. Small, but beautiful. That was unexpected. Cinaed. He gave us a nod. You may address me so. Now go, he started to turn away from us. If you try to reach higher, you will be extinguished. The lines of his tall shape blurred, and the rainbow barrier returned as a colorful roof above our heads. The threshold plane doesn’t require my being close to it. With that, the feeling of his presence vanished altogether.

“You don’t know that,” I said between clenched teeth. “You don’t know us! You don’t know Aries!”

Do not rush, Fiammetta.

Never rush, the more so because your very nature demands it.

Releasing my breath in a shaking hiss, I focused on master Nominoë’s words, and quelled the bright red fury hammering at my heart. It demanded that I release it, that I strike at whatever had triggered it. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t. I knew. I remembered. “Murali,” I called to him in a toneless voice, “take me away from here, before I get us both killed.”

Wordlessly, he complied.

We stopped by one of the many basin-like pools set in a branch’s hollow. My mouth drawn into a taut line, I watched Murali’s motions as he sat down beside me.

Heavy.

That heaviness was wearing me down as well; it was weighing upon both our hearts. Unnatural. Focusing inward, I made myself consider it. It wasn’t despair, not yet. And anyway despair didn’t belong with us--was forbidden us. That a Gold Saint or a Marine Shogun would succumb to it was unheard of, and if it were to happen, it would cast a stain upon us and those who had taught us, upon our Cloths and Scales for having accepted inadequate bearers. With a very loud sniff, I took my mind away from futile inner contemplations, and dipped my hands into the clear water that most certainly wasn’t simply water. Cupping my palms, I brought them back to my lips and drank in slow, long swallows.

“Do you think one can get drunk on that stuff?” I started when Murali’s words registered in my brain, then coughed when some of the liquid flowed down the wrong pathway. Eyes watering, I looked at my friend, who was busy staring at his own cupped hands as they spilled little waterfalls into the pool.

“No idea.” Again I dipped my fingers into those strange waters, and briefly closed my eyes when the tingling sensation spread from my fingertips to my hand and my wrist, to engulf my whole arm. “Though I suspect we might end up addicted to it....” I let my voice trail off into silence, then forcibly drew up the corners of my mouth into what must be a rather twisted smile. “Instead of a white rabbit, we got ourselves a telepathic squirrel,” I told him, willing light humor to my tone.

“That,” Murali let out a short burst of laughter, “we got!” Mirth failed to reach his eyes as he said this. Sobering, he stared up at the distant canopy of leaves. “What do you make of him?”

It took his quiet words long seconds before blending with the faint rustle of leaves far above our heads. If I squinted, I’d catch gleams of bright colors where the man who was anything but human had set up his so-called unbreachable barrier. Cinaed. So-called? Who was it who told Murali to lead her away from it? With a grimace, I willed the mocking inner voice to be silent. “What was this about you giving him a name?” I asked, turning to face my friend.

“Ah,” a bitter smile had crawled up Murali’s lips, “that.” Shrugging one shoulder, he looked back at me and added, “Fire. It’s what the squirrel-thing called him. Cinaed is the Scottish equivalent for it is all.”

“He seemed to find it to his taste,” I sneered, then I drew a sharp wave with the left hand. ”Sorry,” I hissed between clenched teeth, and I focused on all the memories I had of the red-eyed man. “He’s the same one we met on Finiti,” I said slowly, “no doubt there. He’s also the inhuman thing I felt when we were watching the twilight on that field...and the one whose illusion tricked me and almost drained me of cosmo.” When Murali had played Vivaldi for me, when I had thought he had come to waltz with me. Blinking that particular moment back to the cobwebs of my minds, I resumed, “I can’t say if he was behind the trap set for us on Omega, but it seems likely he was part of it.”

“How could the inhabitants of Finiti know him and trust him so?” Murali shook his head. “Il signore Yani told us he’d been with them for six full months!”

“Pfeh!” I spat. “Such a master of illusions could make you believe he’s your great-grandmother and has been by your side every day since you gained your Scales.”

“I have no great-grandmother alive, never even knew any”, Murali retorted in earnest.

I blinked. It was humor, an attempt at lighting up the mood and lift a bit of the invisible weight dragging us down. The smile on my lips faltered before it could become true. Bringing my knees against my chest, I hugged them and looked up for the hundredth time. “Is there no night in this blighted place?” the stupid question was little more than a sigh. I was no longer a child allowed to believe her every whim should be attended to at once.

“Perhaps we should rest,” laying the palm of my right hand flat on the branch’s smooth surface, I pivoted to face Murali in a brusque motion, “sleep,” he went on. “We could do it easily with a simple system of watches.”

“No!” I snarled, and the vehemence of my refusal made him recoil, ever so slightly. “No,” I repeated, quietly this time. Everything around us was an invitation to rest: the clear pool next to us, the gentle silvery-green glow surrounding us, the soft rustle of leaves--an overwhelming sensation of peace, of safety that clenched my guts every time I caught myself focusing on it. “I can’t explain it in logical terms,” I managed to say at last. “There’s a lull over this place I dare not trust, like an awful power drowsing beneath our feet.”

“Or waiting for the right moment,” Murali nodded at me, a shadow darkening his charcoal eyes even further.

“It may be.” I gave a shake of the head. “I cannot say for sure. I think,” I bit my lower lip and made myself utter the words, “that the greatest danger lies in what we feel making us lose ourselves bit by bit, making us give up and forget to even try to escape. Perhaps,” a cackle escaped me, “I shouldn’t have told you to take me away from the rainbow barrier. Perhaps we should have gone all out, then and there, and died in a blaze of cosmo.” A smile was tugging at my lips.

During a long, long time, Murali stared back at me in silence. There was no expression on his face for me to read, no flicker in his gaze. A last, he looked away. “Perhaps,” he breathed, then he faced me once more. “I understand, Fi,” he told me in an even voice. “We cannot stop, we cannot rest. We dare not. We keep moving. Still,” he drew on a smile of his own, “before we go back and use our bodies to ram that barrier, we try ways which might include our staying alive, what do you say?”

I didn’t reach out to him. I didn’t crush him against me. I didn’t feel absurd flames roar up inside my heart. Cocking my head to the side, I replied, “I say you’re right.”

“All right,” he nodded. “Then down we go. Let’s annoy good old Einstein some more, shall we?” I n the same time, we stood up and flung ourselves down, through a labyrinth of endlessly forking branches.

As we reached the tree’s lower levels, the scent of the breeze changed. It lost most of its spicy quality to grow sweeter, so much so that I could have sworn we were now clambering down an insanely huge perfume shop. When Murali remarked on this, I indicated the numerous vines coiling up to the trunk and all the branches around us, spreading to the horizon. The lower we got, the more we saw, all hugging the tree desperately, lovers terrified of being dumped and left to rot. Gesturing toward the pale yellow and white flowers stringing the vines, I explained, “Honeysuckle. We must be getting close to the ground level. The vines are a symbiotic parasite, and they invade the tree from the roots up.” Catching my friend grimacing, I added, “You may not like the smell, but it’s actually a good sign.”

He rolled his eyes skyward. “Let’s hurry, then.” And he dived further down.

Green.

Pure, deep dark green swaying in gentle waves under the wind’s caresses.

No forking beams, but gigantic roots spreading in all directions.

“Goddess!” I murmured, coming to an abrupt halt on one of the last branches. “We’re there.” I looked at Murali, uncaring for the incredulity seeping in my every word. “There’s really an end to this tree!” Unable to help myself, I laughed, only distantly aware that my friend was doing the same.

A gleam of light.

A blinding flash that kept coming and going, slave to the whims of the lazy motions and patterns drawn on the surface of a lake-sized pool set between two of the great roots. “There are two others a bit farther,” Murali whispered beside me. Following his gaze, I caught a glimmer of them as well. “What are they? Somehow, I don’t think they’re anything like the pools we’ve seen until now.”

“Neither do I,” I answered in a an absentminded voice. There was something in the way the light was reflecting on the waters, a bit more than a mile below us. “Dark,” I heard myself say. Those waters were dark, so dark that they were drowning almost all the light that reached them. Black almost, and yet not frightening.

Calm.

Peaceful.

Deep and silent.

On impulse, I sparked my cosmo and reached out to them with my mind, half-expecting a wall of flames to rise and scorch my soul when I’d get too close.

Nothing.

Silence--a sigh.

A parting of those waters, liquid black velvet sheathing my weary soul.

A whiff of harsh Summer sun.

A faint rush of waves.

An immaterial shower of dry dust scraping my spirit.

A heartbeat of shade, closing in on me.

Doors, a fleeting glimpse of delicate carvings on their twin surfaces.

Double doors parting, opening, giving way before a spear of pure golden light.

“Ithiel!” Someone cried out. Arms came around me, pulling at me with crushing strength. “Ithiel!” The same voice shouted again.

My voice.

The arms imprisoning me in a vise-like grip were Murali’s, and they were crushing me because I was fighting his hold like a woman possessed, aching to jump into the great pool of black waters far below. “Okay,” I dragged in a shuddering breath. “It’s okay, Murali,” I told him, relaxing against him in the same time.

The movement must have been unexpected, either that or I must have been pulling with all my strength a moment before, for he stumbled, and we both fell on our butts on the branch supporting us. Sitting up from his rather undignified position, Murali gave me an appraising glance. “You’re damn lucky I’m used to Aries’ rash impulses,“ he snorted. It was all he would say. He would neither lecture me, nor demand explanations.

“Why aren’t you leading the Sanctuary in Thomas’ stead?” I asked in a mock whine, an empty question while I was frantically gathering my thoughts and devising a way of shaping what I had just experienced in words. “It’s not a mirror,” I said at last, softly. “For a moment, I believed it was, but it’s not. Murali,” I locked my gaze with his, “it’s some kind of gate. When I pushed at it with my mind, it let through bits of Earth, of the Sanctuary itself.”

A smile curled up the corners of the Marine Shogun’s mouth, thin and joyless. “The one place and thing foremost in your heart.” He didn’t nod, but it was in his tone. Doubts.

“True.” I brushed irritation and impatience from my reply, and I willed my voice to be reasonable. Calm. “But no illusion, this. No illusion, Murali. I’m prepared to bet my life on it.”

“How about mine?” The smile hadn’t left his face.

“Yours as well,” I retorted while standing up and wiping something from the left elbow joint of my Cloth. Dust. I blinked, took a second to look at it, then I held up the palm of my hand for Murali to inspect. “No illusion, I’m sure of it.”

With a long, suffering sigh, he reached out to me and closed my proffered hand with his own. “No need to be so dramatic.” Something like mirth and a shred of hope had come back to his eyes. “What about Ligea and Hamal? Do you think they were dumped in there?”

I let the question hang between us, considering. Eyes set on the dark lake below, I searched myself for an answer, without finding one. “I don’t know,” I breathed at last, reluctantly. “It could be. Hell, it could even be logical to think so, but,” I shook my head, “the truth is there’s no way for me to tell.” Looking up, I caught Murali’s eyes with mine and held them. “Still, this is a gate of sorts, even though it’s not and Earth or Pillar-licensed and certified jumpgate. It’s bound to open both ways.”

“All right then,” my friend said almost at once, as if he didn’t want to pause and allow himself time to dwell on our next action, “we jump, if you agree.”

Perhaps it was indeed better not to consider, not to envision losing Hamal forever. Hamal, home to master Nominoë and all those who had borne the name of Aries before him, Hamal, whose hull was imprinted with the memories and lingering feeling of them all. “We jump.” I gave Murali a brisk nod, then stepped to the edge of our branch, and dived into the void.

The wind enfolded me, enfolded Murali who had jumped in the same time I had. It pressed against us in sequences of great gusts, as it trying to puzzle out what those obstacles in its path were. Below us, the dark waters gleamed, outlining the lake-sized pool’s shores and the roots of the great tree, and--stirred.

Lazily the roots reared up, glinting. In the joining spot between them, two emerald beads bigger than a jumpship’s supply tank.

Silent.

Eyes.

Scales.

“Look out!” Murali’s and my warning shout rebounded on the crazily distorted roots--not roots. A snarl clawed at my throat even as I sparked my cosmo. A serpent of monstrous proportions, whose motions were no longer slow and lazy. In a blur, it reared its head, rushing up to meet us as we were falling, and it struck.

I heard myself hiss upon rematerializing a furlong to the left of where I had been a heartbeat before. From the corner of an eye, I saw the lightning quick motion of the serpent’s body as it prepared to crush me with its coils. Too quick. Again, I teleported a few steps away, and again it almost managed to slam into me when I rematerialized. Its speed wasn’t hampered by its size, and the raw power it was exuding-- Once more avoiding a lethal blow, I spotted Murali some forty steps below me.

He was still falling.

He was no psycho-kinesist. As powerful as he was, he couldn’t fly for long, even with the wings of his Scales fully spread. The giant serpent seemed to have come to the same conclusion: it had stopped its constant attacks against me, and its head was now plunging straight for Murali, fangs bared and dripping venom. “Murali!” I yelled, gathering Aries’ fire to my hand and lashing out at the monster.

A screeching hiss tore at my mind, and the beast recoiled. In that moment, I willed myself to Murali’s side. “Hold on to me!” I barked the command, and teleported the both of us just before the wall of the serpent’s body could smash us.

Down was where I willed us be, but I dared not aim for the great pool’s shore: there the serpent’s body had been coiled, which meant I couldn’t truly visualize our materializing spot. So instead, I aimed for the center of the waters, just a few steps above their ebony surface.

Darkness.

This time I didn’t hold back the snarl in my throat. We had come into being in a night as absolute as the blackness beyond the Rim--no, not as perfect. Two glinting, emerald stars were falling upon us, shining with their own malevolent light. “Fuck you!” I roared, and I snatched Murali and I from the trap the serpent had shaped with its coils.

Safe.

Away.

“Fuck it!” I spat when we stepped onto the branch we had dived from, less than a hundred heartbeats before. “Fuck!” In brisk strides, I stepped to the edge of the grey wood, and peered down. The pool had reverted to being a perfectly safe lake of quiet waters, but I now knew that the roots shaping its shores weren’t as thick as I had thought them to be. Some of the gleams on the dark waters weren’t reflections of the light touching them, the more so when they sparkled emerald next to the shore, right at the junction between two roots.

“A guardian,” Murali stated grimly; coming to stand on my right. “We should have expected as much.”

Yes, a guardian. With its insanely huge size, the serpent could have reached this branch, but it hadn’t deigned do so. Once it had driven the intruders that we were away, it had gone back to settle in an uneven ellipse around the pool, and to pretend it was napping, basking in the silvery-green light’s gentle warmth. Now that I knew it was there, I could discern its shape, and catch the slow blinks of its emerald eyes. It was following our every move, even now. As I was about to refocus on the companion by my side, a low, almost inaudible whisper vibrated inside my mind.

Half hiss, half purr.

Soft.

“You’d like us to try again!” I chortled, my hands clenched into fists.

“It must be curious to find out what human bits are worth as snacks,” Murali smirked beside me. Turning to face him, I froze when I saw a dark red line running along his left arm.

Blood.

“What’s that?!” I snapped, grasping his arm with both hands. “Show me,” I ordered.

“Nothing.” I felt the sigh more than I heard it. Murali would be looking down at me with a mixture of impatience and awkwardness, but I didn’t give a damn about how he felt about being manhandled this way. “A few drops of that serpent’s venom fell upon my Scales. They evaporated at once,” he added quickly before I could ask him if that venom had been in contact with a wound.

“Highly corrosive stuff,” I grimaced. “It may have evaporated as you say, but not before it could eat through your Scales and trigger a reaction not unlike a second degree burn.”

“Eat through my Scales?!” Outrage was plain in Murali’s exclamation. “Shit, Fi, these are a Marine Shogun’s Scales, not a stupid spacesuit!”

“Yeah,” I replied dryly,” well.” Glancing up at him, I gave him my best no-nonsense look. ”Now hold still. Obviously I don’t have my tools with me, but I should be able to do something about this.”

Thanks to some kind god, he did obey. Drawing in a deep breath, I closed my eyes and reached within. With infinite precautions, I gathered a small fraction of the gently glowing embers drowsing inside my soul, and showered them on Murali’s arm. The small, tiny cloud of golden dust slid into the crack and settled in it. Sealed it. “Wow,” Murali’s warm breath tickled the back of my neck; “It felt--”

“It’s not complete,” I interrupted him in a gruff voice, and I took a step back. “I’ll need to get another look at it when we get back to Earth.”

Murali gave ma a look, then he shrugged. “Yes, mom.”

“Moron!” I growled, and would have punched him hard enough for him to double over, but for the shadow that was slithering on the branch at our feet.

Swift, so swift its movements were hard to follow.

Images of walls slamming down and twigs and leaves dissolving into flames assaulted my mind, and I yelled, “Stop!” Then, in an arrow-shaped thought, I sent, If you wish to tell us something, make yourself understandable, or begone! There was a shiver in the air when my arrow hit its target, and the shadow froze for a fraction of a second.

Small, with two pointed appendages on top.

Forbidden. Forbidden! I wrinkled my nose when the shrill thought reached me. It was the squirrel. Forbidden, the pools at the roots! The serpent will eat you! Wait till I tell the sisters! Ugly misshapen beings, too dumb to--

“Now,” I said sweetly, “that’s quite enough, thanks.” With ethereal hands, I grabbed at the owner of that shadow. With a piercing squeak, it wriggled its way free, and bit. “Ouch!” I heard myself hiss. Even as the echoes of my surprised yelp died, music rose in the air.

Gentle.

Soft.

Beautiful beyond words.

Eyes very, very wide, I pivoted toward Murali, any pain of the mental bite abruptly forgotten. He had brought a golden crossing flute to his lips. Sorento’s flute, a cruel, vicious instrument of death whose song was said to be able to move Poseidon to tears. The melody he was playing would tear apart the one it was intended for; it would scrape all nerves raw and make the opponent insane with pain, while killing him in a slow, slow dance of musical notes. I had never seen Murali detach the flute from his Scales, much less witnessed him use it.

Please! The faint squeak of a mental plea had a strident quality to it that brought a metallic taste to my mouth. Please stop! Chewing my lower lip, I looked away.

“Maybe,” Murali said in an even voice, unmoved by the pain dripping from the squirrel’s every thought. I could feel its heart beating in mad drums, so frantic it would burst in a moment. “If you tell us how to get out of here alive, “Murali continued. Then he paused, allowing for an answer. When it didn’t come, he brought the golden flute to his lips once more.

Wait! The mental screech made me wince. Evil, stupid beings! The animal snarl had lost all strength. It was faint, pitiful almost. They have beads, like eyes, but they are blind! Ugly they are, and witless, their senses so gelded they can’t feel the core of all, don’t see the key to the vines that bind them and their big metallic toy-birds!

“Understandable, despicable furry little worm,” Murali grinned at the small shape crouching on a branch above us, writhing in pain. “Either you answer in an understandable fashion, or you’ll be the first to die.”

The core! It screeched again. The source, the sky, the roots, the world! It lies at the heart of everything, it lends infinite strength, it makes the serpent swifter than a falling ray of light. It makes Cinaed’s flames brighter than all the strings of light on the other shore! It makes you blind and deaf and unfeeling! A furious hiss followed, so strong that I had to shield my mind. For a fraction of a second, Murali faltered. The squirrel didn’t need a longer opening. In the blink of an eye, the feeling of its presence was gone.

The song of rustling leaves came spiraling down toward us in slow, wary circles. I reached up, to feel the faintest hints of a breeze twirl around my fingers, and I blinked. “It had stopped,” I murmured. The birds and the wind had stopped when Murali had started playing Sorento’s flute. They had recoiled, and withdrawn themselves. “This place doesn’t like your music,” I told Murali in a quiet whisper.

“My enemies rarely do,” he shrugged, then he heaved out a sigh. ”There seemed to be tidbits of coherence in everything it blabbered.” The charcoal eyes met mine. “What shall we do?”

“Think.” I stepped away from Murali and walked toward the trunk. “And think quickly.” Laying the palm of my right hand against its surface, I leaned a bit of my weight on it to relieve the tension in my back somewhat. “Yes, those seemingly random thoughts had a meaning to them.” I looked up at the crazily complex network of forking branches above our heads and at the silvery-green sky far, far beyond. “That something is lending infinite strength to all who live here. That stupid squirrel did manage to bite the mind of Aries and to escape the lethal embrace of Sorento’s music. The serpent which can pester old Einstein like we do in spite of its ludicrous bulk...”

“and Cinaed,” Murali whispered from behind me.

“And Cinaed,” I acknowledged with a faint nod. “I think,” I mused, eyes lost in the contemplation of the universe-encompassing canopy, “that they’re individualities, separate existences, yet bound to a common core. Autonomous limbs, perhaps. Or perhaps together they all form this core, like a star and its planets form a stellar system.” The gentle breeze was embracing us fully once again, now that the memory of Murali’s lethal melody had vanished. The small gust of air gloved the hand I had laid against the trunk, vibrating ever so slightly, in harmony with the slow, powerful pulse of life coursing beneath my fingers.

The tree.

Laughter spilled from my lips, unstoppable. “The tree!” I exclaimed. “Of course!” Whirling around, I faced Murali. “It’s the tree, it’s the core of this whole corner of the universe!”

Fire lit my friend’s eyes, and he shook his head. “Its so obvious!” He chuckled. Then, in a heartbeat he sobered, and went on with a smile, “Then our course of action is pretty simple. We merely need to hack it down or, failing that, to hurt it enough for it to focus on something other than keeping us trapped here.”

To destroy a tree that was standing taller than a gas giant’s full diameter.

Again, I stared up at the immensity of it, and I denied the cold snake coiling up to my spine. Murali was right, and daunting though it might seem at first, that task would be an easy one. “Let’s get to it,” I nodded at him, before pivoting to face the trunk once more.”

End of Chapter 5.

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