Chapter 73: Day 72

Day 72,

Maiko was gone again when the rest of us got up this morning.  I volunteered to go check on her.  I’ll admit, it was partly because I wanted to take some time to watch the view from the edge myself.  It’s a profoundly weird sensation using these bracelets to track one another.  The best thing I can think to compare it to is remembering where you left something but when you actively think about it there’s no cause and effect of you ever having left it there.  Or if you’re actively trying to get to them, then just sort of thinking about them and letting your body go on autopilot as if you were navigating a route you walk every day to the point where you no longer have to think about it.  Familiarity without history.

Figuring she might not take well to inquiries about how she’s doing given yesterday’s exchange, the first thing I said once I found Maiko was to ask if she’d seen anything interesting.  She said that an hour or so ago she’d seen another floating island lift off from being docked at a regular one, much like this one had when we boarded it.  It was headed southwest while we’re still going north (and judging by our angle to Cloud Tower, actually north, not northwest like yesterday), so I probably wouldn’t be able to see it anymore even if I went to the appropriate side of this island.

I pointed out that the sun hadn’t been up an hour ago.

She said the chickens woke her up again.  And even with the sun down there’s enough light from the stars to make things out, especially big chunks of land contrasted against the reflective water.  She was getting tempted to just eat one already.  Of the chickens that is.  Maybe the rest would get the message that she’s not a safe warm place to sleep.

I asked if that’d be raw or cooked.

Too many feathers for raw.  Besides, things that live on land aren’t as clean as things that live in the water.  And if you’re going to go through the trouble of plucking and cleaning, may as well go the extra step and cook it.

I couldn’t argue with that logic.  Except maybe the eating whole raw fish at all part, but I wasn’t going to say that.

A while of silence.

She asked me why I was out here with her and not poking around the house with the others.

I said I wanted to take some time to see the view too.  When you’re toward the center of the island it feels just like being anywhere else.  That rather detracts from the wonder of, you know, being on a floating island flying through the sky defying all logic of what I know should be possible and a part of me feels like it should be freaking out about that, and another part of me wants to study it and figure out how it works even though I have no idea where I’d even start, but the larger part of me is too caught up in just how cool it is to care.  I mean really, just stand up here and look out at the horizon and down at the world and tell me you don’t feel at least a little excited?  More like a fantasy than waking reality.

She made a noise bordering on a chuckle.  Said I reminded her of Lin just then.  All quiet and serious most of the time then sudden great bursts of emotion.

My turn to laugh.  Said Lin’s not normally quiet or serious.  Not from my perspective of knowing her anyway.  If I had to guess she just gets that way when she feels like she has to.

Maiko observed that Lin apparently feels like she has to around her.

I didn’t know what to say to that.  So I said nothing.

More time passing along with the world below us.  It occurred to me that we were very gradually descending.  At any rate, we were lower than yesterday.

My curiosity got the better of me and I asked about that pouch she had hanging from a strap over her shoulder.  Pointed out that I hadn’t seen it before she showed up asking to go on this trip.

The humming noise of one considering how to answer a question about something personal.

She said she normally keeps it at whatever camp she has set up so she doesn’t accidentally lose it or its contents while out and about.  That she only takes it with her when expecting to set up somewhere else for a long time.

An acknowledgment of an answer from me followed by a mutual silence.

She asked me if I wanted to see the contents.

Only if she wanted me to.

Moving further away from the edge first, she unslung the pouch from her shoulder and carefully removed the contents one by one, placing them on the ground between us.  A stone knife.  Another stone for sharpening it.  The cracked crystal I’d given her.  A small wooden figurine of an animal I didn’t recognize.

I asked about this last one.

She said a word that didn’t “translate” and I have no idea how to spell.  She’d never seen one herself but her mother had told her about them.  Fierce, smart, loyal, protective.  Good companions.

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I said it sounded like a dog.

Maiko had never heard of dogs.

It occurred to me that I’d not seen any dogs in the Village, nor heard mention of them in my time here.  I think I’m getting used to this sort of revelation.  My existential freak out was considerably shorter this time.

We returned to the edge and went back to watching for islands while I tried to explain dogs.

Eventually we realized that the small island we’d been seeing for a while was actually large and far away.  And we seemed to be heading straight toward it.  As we got closer, we realized it was probably nearly the size of the main island with the Village.  At least.

We guessed that if the floating island was going to dock there, it’d be doing so in a few hours, maybe sometime around sundown.  We decided to return to Lin and Cass to fill them in on this.

When we got back we found that they’d found Cass’s hypothetical tool shed and spent the day doing something with a shovel, a spade, a hammer, and the pipes around the cistern that got the water flowing to the outdoor pump again.  I’ll need to get a more detailed accounting of that later.

Apparently Cass had also asked Lin a lot of questions about “doctoring” as she called it.  It sounded like over the course of the day Lin went from not wanting to think about her work, to getting worn down and acquiescing, to enjoying being the one to instruct someone else for a change instead of being repeatedly reminded of everything she didn’t have exactly memorized right.

Now we’re all back at the arch waiting to see if we’ll dock at that big island.  We put all the food inside the tents before leaving to keep the chickens from getting into it.  Sun’s going down and I’m not sure I feel like writing by crystal-light this close to the edge so I think I’ll cut it off here for now.  One thing that is striking me even from this distance is how big the trees are.  They must be hundreds of feet tall.  Already we can tell that we’re floating at a level below their canopy.

 

Our island has docked with and left that primeval forest.

It was after dark when we arrived, but we had unclouded stars and lantern light to go by.  There had been a fair bit of discussion while we waited on whether or not to set foot on that approaching solid ground.  We decided that as long as we didn’t get out of sight of the docking point we’d probably be safe to walk around for at least a few minutes.  Assuming it was anything like the docking at the main island.

The docking point was another protruding cliff, much like Siren Overlook.  Similar enough to make me wonder if both of them were artificial.  This one however was overgrown with creeping vines and broadleaf ferns.  (They looked like ferns to me anyway.)  There was another matching arch here as well, but it had collapsed and shattered, now easy to miss except as raised blocky patches of greenery.

This rampant growth stopped as it met the treeline at the landward end of the cliff.  Gazing into that forest was more like peering into the mouth of a cave.  Little grew from the ground other than the great trees.  Each of them was nearly big enough around at the base to fit my cabin inside, and it easily could have fit in the spaces between them with room to spare.  I wouldn’t have expected such tall trees to be able to stand with expansive branches, yet up at the edge of our lantern light we could make out the bottom of the canopy and the branches of the trees tangled together with their neighbors in a dense web.  A web that helps them hold one another aloft perhaps?  But certainly a web that catches the sun.  It would not surprise me if the forest floor is as dark at noon as it was while we were there.

As much as Cass wanted to, we did not walk beneath those branches this night.

While that choice was mostly a matter of not wanting to get stranded if the floating island left unexpectedly, part of it was the noises.  Even at that hour we could hear a constant distant din of animal cries.  Most came from the canopy far above, but at least one came from the murky depths and whatever it was sounded large.

And as a quiet compliment to that wild melody was another siren’s song.  Quieter here than the one we were used to, even accounting for how that one dimmed in the presence of the floating island.  But while the song back home was soothing, this one was energizing.  Not a lullaby but a chant.  Pounding, pulsating.  A rhythm to run to.  A song to hunt by.

All too soon the floating island started to shift and take off again.  Lin and (surprisingly) Cass had already re-boarded again by that time.  I was close behind.  I wound up briefly stopping to turn and call to Maiko.  For a moment, I thought she was going to stand behind.  In the next moment I saw what she had stopped to stare at.  Half-concealed by the shadows at the edge of the forest stood the Wandering God.  Or else another being of the same essence.

That moment too passed and we ran back to the floating island, Maiko grabbing my wrist as she passed me and practically dragging me behind for all I tried to keep up.  Needless to say, we made it.  It wasn’t even that far of a jump, even if it felt like it in the moment.

Panting, we asked Lin and Cass if they’d seen anything beneath the trees.  They did not.

We’re back at the camp in front of the mansion now.  Lin and Cass are in their tents already and the chickens have already congregated where Maiko’s lying in the grass.  She’s still refusing a tent.

I’ll be turning in soon myself.  I can’t help but wonder if I’ll get the chance to explore that place for real someday.  To hear that song for longer.

Then again, Pat said the Endless Abyss appears in dark places, and I’ve seen nowhere darker than that primeval forest.

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