AERIE: Book 01 Part 02

"Sarika... Where am I?"

"Hmm. I know this Sarika. She is my flock. Your kind would call her a grand-daughter."

That cannot be. This woman looks the same age as Sarika; almost the same silver-gold hair and white feathering. "I am Merler. You are hungry. Let us eat and speak."

I watch confused as she shuffles off to a small hut near a jetty. When I look around, I find I'm on a kind of plateau with a large central lake. There are other huts about, but they look empty. My stomach growls and I follow her.

In the hut is a small fire and smells of cooking fish rise from a cauldron that swings over it.

"It is not much. Crayfish and flowers. But it will warm your body. You are welcome."

"Um, thank you. I'm Todd."

"I know."

"Has Eris been here?"

"I know no Eris." My heart sinks. "But I know you search for her. It is always the way. You have performed well getting this far."

Merler uses a ladle to spoon chunks of crayfish tail and wildflowers into a wooden bowl. She ladles more creamy broth into the plate and passes it to me. When I reach for it, I notice my left wrist is bandaged.

"Take it boy."

I do and sit.

"You heal quickly. It is dangerous for your kind to remove your breather, but you will find that it accelerates healing if you can try now and then."

The broth is delicious. I watch her eat and she smiles at my enjoyment of it.

"You search for your mate."

"Eris."

"She has changed, and you are lost."

"Yes." My head hangs as I finish my meal.

"Well, you are lost in the right place." She chuckles.

"What do you mean. Can you help me?"

"Maybe. My mate was like you."

"Lost?"

"Human."

"But... obviously he found you. I'm just... Fuck!" Fucking frustrated is how I am.

"Yes. He used that word many times. It is a good word for what you feel. Fuck! Fuck this! Fuck that! Fuck you! He had many ways to use it." She cackles like a crone for too long and ends with a hoarse cough. "I miss him very much. So, I will help you."

"You can help me find Eris?"

"Yes, but first you learn to fish."

"To fish...?"

"Yes." I shook my head at her steady gaze and wondered if I'd wasted time climbing a cliff face to find a mentally ill avian. When she finished her bowl of food, she took our utensils down to the water's edge and rinsed them clean. Upon returning she dug through some old cane baskets and smiled when she pulled out a parcel wrapped in coloured cloth.

"Here. Take these."

Eying the package suspiciously, I felt it's heft. Something metallic obviously rested inside the cloth.

"Be careful, they are sharp."

Unwrapping it revealed a strange pair of matt green things like gloves. Like gloves but with razor sharp knives at the ends of each fingertip.

"Try them on." She nods and tch tchat's to herself.

They slip perfectly over my fingers and buckle around my wrists. When I flex my fingers, the two-inch blades cut viciously through the air.

"You will wear them at all times. Yes, even when you piss. Be very careful." She again cackles to herself. "My Eric did himself many injuries over the years with those."

I laugh and absently scratch at my shoulder, regretting it instantly. "Haha. You are a fast learner. Already you have your first lesson. Hahaha."

I don't want to be rude. She has bandaged my wrists and fed me. Gifted me some weapon and... Shit. "My egg."

"It is safe. You are wise to bring it. Many forget and lose their way and their mate. Here."

She opens another cane basket and points. "See for yourself. I meant only to keep it safe, so you did not roll on it last night. Look for yourself."

I am unable not to.

"She is pretty, yes? Black like an earth raven with a fiery tail?"

"How..."

"Her egg... It tells me. Now leave it safe. I will not take it. No one will harm it. You may take it at any time. We fish."

"Fishing? How is fishing-"

"Tch Tchat! Fishing is everything. Without fishing we die. You lose her. There is no point to living. So, we fish. Follow."

Bemused I wander behind her as she takes up a fishing pole and a small bucket. "Bring your suit."

"My suit?"

"Yes. Are you deaf or stupid? Maybe both?"

In the basket next to my egg is my wing suit. I guess she means that.

"Put it on, useless boy. Hurry up. Fish wait for no one."

Feeling ridiculous, I assemble the suit over my shoulders and harness it under my crotch. It's a perilous manoeuvre as the sharp gloves nick at me here and there.

"Good. Good." She turns and appraises me. Her dark brown eyes look me up and down and a smirk plays on her lips. "Now fish. Go..."

"I have no-"

"You have no need for a rod. I need a rod because I am old and slow. Go..." She points at the water. "There are many crayfish down there. Many fish. I think you will be too slow for the fish just now. Go."

"You mean..."

"Of course. Swim. Fish are in the water; you are on the land. You will not catch them here! Swim. Catch fish. Eat well and find your lover."

Feeling a bit like I'm caught up in a madwoman's nightmare joke, I wade into the cool water until my balls hit it and I gasp.

"Yes." She laughs. "Just like Eric. This is funny with you humans and your outside things. Very funny. Go."

I was on the swim team in high school. I did well at breaststroke and backstroke. I was powerful but too short to excel at freestyle like the six-foot-tall boys did. But this stupid suit threatens to drown me with every sweep of my arms. Just raising up for a breath is challenging and I'm positive I have scared every fish in the lake to the other end.

"Use your breather. Water is just another atmosphere. It will filter it." She cackles at me as she takes a fish off her line and puts it in a basket after breaking its neck.

It's counter-intuitive to take a breath underwater. I tried several times, sputtering and coughing before I sucked a deep and much needed breath though the device and found I did not drown as my body told me I would. After that my challenge was to try swimming in the suit.

Breaststroke was counterproductive. Every stroke with the fabric wings propelled me forward well enough, but reaching out to stroke again sent me backwards just as quickly. Freestyle was ridiculous and backstroke not helpful when looking for fish. By lunch time I was absolutely seething with frustration and waded empty handed from the water to see Merler laughing doubled at the waist.

"How does this fucking splashing about help me find Eris? Are you just hoping I drown and give up?"

"Shush child. Come eat. Watch the birds with me."

"Bloody birds can all go drown in the lake as far as I'm concerned."

Her laughter chorused through the lake's wild edges, echoing back and mocking me a second time. Lunch was a paste of sorts spread on slices of sour bread.

"This is good." I mumble rudely around my meal.

"Gound crayfish shell and fishbone in a mushroom paste. Good for old women's bones and men's er... lots of zinc and calcium."

"Right... Remind me not to ask in future."

"Watch..." She points at a small bird that is hovering over the lake. "See."

It dives and splashes deep into the water and surfaces soon enough with a small fish flapping in its mouth. Flying over to the rock walls, it drops its dinner and sets about eating the snack.

"Water is just another atmosphere. How do you think the bird swims under there? Watch them."

When lunch is finished, she beckons me back to the water. "Come boy man. If you can fly under water, you can fly in the sky."

Mimicking the movement of the bird's wings under the water, I found I could roll and dive and propel myself much more quickly through the clear, cool medium. I played at that for an hour or more before I thought of fishing.

A crayfish was quick to fall for my sharp gloves and their evil knives. It was hiding under some leaf litter and after several false attempts I learned they scurried backwards at any fright. The next time I tried I stabbed behind it and skewered it neatly through its carapace. I emerged like a returning gladiator, holding my bounty on high and roaring with pride. "Woohoo. I fucking got one. Look Merler!"

"Good boy, that's all you're eating tonight. You might want to stop crowing and catch some more."

I dropped it in her basket and sulked back into the water. Fish were another problem altogether. I could swim up near them but as soon as I struck to skewer them, they'd flit nimbly off to the side or roll upwards. They were much more agile than I, and so frustrated I was at their avoidance, I spent the rest of the afternoon angrily trying to catch one when I could have caught quite a few more crayfish.

When I left the water that evening, I stormed over to the hut and tore off my wingsuit. Scrabbling about in the basket, I found my loin cloth and snapped angrily at Merler when I caught her smirking at my anatomy.

"Fucking hell, woman. I'm trying to get dressed."

"Don't bother on my account, young human. I do miss my Eric and his equipment. Seeing yours reminds me of much nicer times. Do you know something?"

"I know fucking nothing!" It is painfully obvious after my afternoon spent trying to catch fish, not knowing where Eris is, not being able to fly, being fucking generally useless and most likely 'lost' as well, in an alien world.

"Then you are indeed the smartest human I have ever met." Her eyes are kind on mine for long moments. "Eric would never have admitted that. An avian most certainly not. Perhaps there is hope for you."

"I'm quickly losing all of it." I admit and slump naked to sit on the floor. "My pride made me hunt fish, when I could have caught crayfish and now, we'll be hungry."

"Your instincts had you hunt fish, not pride. Your body knew you needed to learn agility. Everything is happening in the right time. Trust the process."

"But... I'm in the middle of bloody nowhere, with no idea where Erry is and no idea how to help her." Tears sting at my eyes and I shake my head in defeat.

"No, boy-man. You knew to come here. That was your first lesson in trusting your instinct. Tell me where you thought she went?"

"They pointed at the mountains."

"Oh, she will have gone far beyond them. But what brought you here?"

"I found a feather. I stopped in frustration and doubt. It was hers."

"She left it for you. She wanted you to pause and feel."

"And here I am. Not catching fish. Naked, cold and hungry when she's... Gah!"

"Your heart told you to find help. Something deeper pointed you here. You need to learn to trust them both and listen to them. Humans do far too much thinking and very little listening. Eric was always like this."

"What happened to Eric?"

She drops her head and shuffles one foot on the ground. I've seen Eris do the same thing when she doesn't like what she is going to say.

"I killed him..."

"You? How, if he was your mate? How?"

"Because we were mated, he would not return to earth. My atmosphere and my need for him killed him."

"It is like Ornkeh says. I will kill her with my love."

"And she will die gladly and happily. Just as I would have if he'd not been too stubborn to take me to earth and live whatever time I could give him there. Three hundred years here is worth nothing to me without him. I would trade it gladly for a hundred on earth with him. Turn around I wish to look at you."

I turn away and stand awkwardly, feeling quite inspected. Her talons scratch briefly at my neck and shoulders.

"Show me this egg."

Part of me wishes not too. It is mine. It has brought me to this place and time, and it is not for-

"I wish only to touch it and feel some things. It will not be damaged."

Handing her the egg, I watch as she smells at it then cradles it in her palms and listens to it as if it speaks. I feel like I'm standing in some fortune tellers shack, and she is going to read my palm lines.

"Sarika has marked it. She saw..."

"What? She saw what?"

"The change." She shrugs. "We will see more. Tomorrow you are going climbing. Come, help me with dinner."

I ate my boiled crayfish. She ate her fried fish. The smell of it mocked me as my stomach growled and then she laughed and handed me some small cake like things that filled my stomach and warmed my body.

"From the beetles-"

"I don't want to know." I laughed.

"It is not from beetles, hahahaha, but it is good to laugh. You need to do it more. Now take out your breather. Practice drinking from our mother. She can do wonderful things for your body. When you start to see stars, put it back in."

I do as instructed and thoroughly embarrass myself. The first thing that happens is my penis swells into a throbbing erection. My limbs fill with tingling force that wants to explode into action and my lungs settle into a low steady in and out. My mind fills too, with clear precise thoughts. The confusion I've been addled with parts, and I see a line pointing somewhere. A road. A way through this mess perhaps. It is long and there are dangers, but it is a path. Then little twinkling things call me to replace my breather.

"Good. Almost ten minutes. Tell me what you felt and saw."

"Embarrassed."

"That is normal. It happened often to Eric. Your woman is lucky. Tell me..."

So, I did, and she smiled. "Tomorrow you are going climbing."

We slept in the hut. There was no need for blankets. The night air was cool but not cold and the straw bed was warm but not hot. When I woke in the morning, I thought I was dreaming.

"I am sorry. It is how I slept with my Eric. I forget myself." She clambered off me. She had been sleeping on top of me as Eris does. "Is it... Does your Eris?"

"Exactly the same. Please don't be embarrassed. It was nice. You're warm and it..." I wipe at my eyes.

Her feathered hand wipes at my face. "It will be okay. You need to eat. You need much energy; it is a great climb."

Over breakfast she shows me dried mushrooms. "These ones you will find near the top. These ones with the red caps, in crevices near the cloud line. These ones, the little brown ones, you will only find once you make the top. They will be under large trees and guarded carefully by the moths that use them for farming aphids. You may not kill any of these things. If you do, the mushrooms will be tainted."

"Why would I kill moths?"

"They are large and bite. Here. It is time. Take this basket and tie it to your back. You will find climbing much easier if you remove your breather, but if you ignore the stars and don't replace it, you will pass out and fall."

"Right then. Biting moths..."

"Haha. Humans are silly. Thank you for visiting me. I hope you don't fall and die."

"Um... Me too."

A short while later I stared up at the sheer wall of rock at one end of our plateau. My eyes picked out hand and footholds, but they were sparse and treacherous. I was in my wing suit. Merler had insisted that if I fell, perhaps I could glide and splash into the lake. The moment I removed my breather and leapt an easy ten foot to the first hand hold, I forgot the world around me.

Hand over foot and many great leaps later, I remembered what I was supposed to be doing. With the absence of movement, stars crept in around the corners of my vision and I hurriedly replaced my breather. I was in the cloud zone and a quick search located several red-capped mushrooms that I hoped were the same as the dried ones Merler had shown me. With them safely in my basket, I again removed my breather and moved higher.

An hour or so later the clouds had cleared, and I had climbed so vigorously that I had forgotten that I no longer wore my breather. When I rested to pick some of the blue mushrooms she had said grew near the top, I almost fell. Darkness crept in around me and I thought it was just a trick of the light as I placed more of the mushrooms into my basket. I felt my mind spin and my fingers loosen and I slipped, clawing at the face of the cliff.

With moments before I slipped into complete darkness, I put the breather back in place and clung desperately as strength returned to my limbs and awareness called me back from the dark. In the dark I saw Eris. She was banging a rock on a shell and screeching nonsense. Her arms were scratched and bleeding, and her feathers ruffled in the harsh wind.

When I had steadied and regained full consciousness, I started climbing yet again. I couldn't reach. I had no strength. I removed my breather and my agility returned. Atop the giant cliff was a wonderland of waterfalls and creeks and moss laden crevices. It was a place like none I'd ever seen. I rested a while and put my breather back in as I let my eyes simply drink in the scenery. Small scurrying things flit about in the grass and the moths hovered quietly near great trees that stretched up forever.

Moths. Right. Fungus... I found the mushrooms quickly. What I couldn't achieve was retrieving one without a nearby moth stinging me. They did not bite. They stung. They were the size of sparrows and their sting felt like having an iron spike driven into your flesh. The first sting had me rolling on the ground cursing and holding the site with my fingers. Rage boiled in me, and I wanted to strike that bloody thing with the claws I wore.

Remembering Merler's urging not to kill anything up here, I watched my arm swell with the sting and felt it throb. I took my breather off to clear my nose and instantly, the pain dissipated. Several throbbing stings later I lay in the grass and cursed moths as I put my breather back in and tried to think through the pain.

I rolled in the grass holding my arms against me and some small thing the size of a rat scurried out to lick at my wounds. It had a long lizard like tongue. Wherever that tongue touched, pain vanished. Soon there were three of them licking at my arms and the large red puncture holes. A clear liquid seeped from them, and those little critters licked at it, and I was so thoroughly thankful.

Sleep called me into the soil's cradling arms. Perhaps, I thought as I drifted off, the critters had some anaesthetic in their saliva. In any case, I slept.

Something tugging at my basket woke me. It was almost night. Green light filled the darkling sky and cool had eased into my skin. This thing had teeth and was like a fox, if foxes had six legs and scales. It was shaking my basket trying to open it, and snarling nastily at me with sharp white teeth. Merler said nothing about foxes, so I struck at it with my claws. It struck back and opened up a large gash on my arm.

Striking again, I clipped it as it danced aside, and it yelped off into the underbrush. I was dizzy still from waking but when I heard it call in a howling voice, I stood and made my way back to the edge. Voices answered and I saw them slink from the shadows. Nearly ten of them approached with jaws slavering and eyes burning into me like I was dinner.

At the edge I looked for the handholds but going down was very different to going up. Vertigo mocked me when I looked back down through the clearing clouds to the plateau so far below. When the first one leapt, I tripped and fell. Fell off, over the edge.

My arms shot out in front of me like when I was in the water chasing fish and my fingertips turned me in slow circles and I glided downwards. Some air was warmer and slowed me. Some was cold and I fell more quickly. Soon, I could find the warmer air like a column and use it to circle gently downwards.

As I neared the lake it was with a feeling of elation building in my chest. I had succeeded in gathering the mushrooms. I had braved the moths and biting things. I still crashed headfirst into the lake.

Later, after a dinner of fish she sat tending my bites and stings. The deep lacerations that Ornkeh had left in my wrist were all but healed and the stings settling quickly.

"Humans heal quickly in our atmosphere. But they burn up quickly too. It is how it went with Eric. He lived his lifetime in just thirty of our years. Show me your back."