Zally's Book (11 page)

I looked down into the pit, still radiating calmness and friendship toward the jaguar. In my mind I created an image of the jaguar moving to the edge of
the pit nearest me. Her thoughts came back to me, trusting, reassured … and wild. She did as I asked.

When Imishi, Kir, and I lined up on the same side of the bamboo and started to push, rolling it in the direction of the pit, I felt a brief moment of hesitation—we were about to release a dangerous creature. I quickly dismissed the thought. This was the right thing to do.

We rolled the stalk a couple of feet before one end went over the edge, tilted, and slid down into the hole, taking the rest of the bamboo with it. I glanced down inside to see that the bottom end of the bamboo had landed firmly at one edge of the pit. The top was wedged against the other side, just below the top edge of the pit where I stood. Knowing that the jaguar could take it from there, Imishi, Kir, and I stepped back into the herd of spirit horses.

“Thank you, cousins,” Imishi said while Kir whinnied his gratitude and I bowed.

Together, the spirit herd reared in a joyful salute and then galloped away.

Imishi and I mounted Kir, and we headed back to our proper path through the jungle. Spirits of animals flickered all around us.

Just before we entered the dense foliage again, something approached from behind in a flurry.
Startled, I turned to see that the parrot had landed behind Imishi on the fairy-silk blanket between the saddlebags.

“Here we are, here we are!”

I smiled. He was a bit of a pest, but the bird seemed to have become attached to us. I saw no harm in his coming along on our journey, since I didn't seem to have a choice.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the jaguar emerge from the pit, up on the foundation outside the observatory. The glowing gaze searched—and found me.

Imishi saw where I was looking and said, “Let's go, before it comes after us.”

I sighed, knowing she still didn't understand why I had released the jaguar. “Just because something is dangerous doesn't mean it's not an innocent,” I pointed out. “And helping innocents is part of my quest.”

Imishi didn't look at me. “That is not
my
quest,” she said quietly.

I turned and faced forward again. As we rode back into the jungle, I knew I had done the right thing. And every so often, I could still feel a whisper of the wild jaguar mind.

•   •   •

As it turned out, the rest of the way through the jungle was not as overgrown as the inward path had been. We crossed a brook, and at one point Kir made a brief detour to avoid a long, fat snake hanging in front of us from a tree.

A few minutes later, a trio of spider monkeys dropped fruit from a branch above us and screeched with laughter when one of the fruits hit my head. It didn't hurt, but the monkeys were annoying. When they threw the next projectile, I was ready—and caught it in midair. Imishi took the fruit, cut it up with her shell knife, handed me a wedge, and gave a small chunk to the parrot behind her.

I took several bites, gave the monkeys a mock bow, said, “Thank you!” and sent them a vague idea that it was impolite to throw fruit. I'm not sure what they made of the thoughts I sent—but they did stop dropping things on us and simply swung through the trees above our heads from then on.

After that, I kept getting the feeling that someone or something was watching us from behind. I shook myself, trying to get the thought out of my head.

Behind me, Imishi said, “Ow. Ow—OW!”

I turned instantly, afraid some animal had chomped her arm as we'd ridden by. It was just the parrot perched atop the fairy's head.

“He walked up my back with his talons!” she exclaimed.

I made sure to hold my smile until I was faced forward again.

Equally unconcerned, Kir continued onward.

“Safe now!” the bird squawked merrily.

I turned to give the parrot a stern look. He bobbed slightly but easily kept his balance, since he was grasping one of Imishi's hair vines with both claws. “Listen, bird,” I said, “uh … I'm going to call you Monty from now on, okay? Anyway, Monty, you can't just walk all over people and hurt them. If you want to stay with us, you need to become part of our team and not cause problems, understand?”

He bobbed his head.

I sent him as clear a picture as I could of him moving to Imishi's shoulder and sitting still. “And don't dig your claws into her,” I added. As I said it, Monty hopped onto Imishi's shoulder. Talking to animals was
awesome; I hoped with all my heart that it was a skill that wouldn't go away when I woke up at home.

We continued in contented silence until we left the jungle entirely. Waving good-bye to the spider monkeys, Imishi said, “Do you know where we are, or should we stop so you can map some more?”

I tried to feel the pull of which direction to go next. I couldn't, so we took a short rest to give me time to sketch a couple more areas on the map. Because it had fascinated me and seemed good for the general purpose of mapping Aventurine, I quickly drew the area of Ool-Kib I had seen on the observatory wall. After that, I let my eyes unfocus and my mind drift. It didn't take long to lose myself in a sketching trance, my hand just going by itself. When I finished and looked up, the sun was still high overhead.

“Done already?” Imishi asked.

I smiled and ran my finger across the map to show her where we were going. “Yes, I think this is all of it.” I pointed to a hill and said, “Kib Valley should be just beyond this. It shouldn't take us more than a day.”

Imishi's face lit up at that. Monty hopped onto my shoulder, eyed my drawing, and tapped his beak on a spot right next to my picture of the jungle. “We're here, we're here!”

“Be careful with that!” I said, shooing him away, rolling up the map, and putting it back into my bag.

We set off again in the direction of the hill. The ground became hard and uneven, strewn with sharp black rocks, some of which came up to Kir's withers. Kir had to step carefully to avoid being cut by them. It occurred to me as the ground began to slope upward that a topographical map would be useful, too. I wondered if there was a way to make the map display in three dimensions.

The parrot took wing, flying ahead, then circling back. When he landed on Imishi's shoulder again, she had a sad look on her face, as if she was reminded of her inability to fly.

“Up we go, up we go!” Monty squawked.

Sure enough, the ground got steeper. I groaned, knowing where I had seen pictures of this type of terrain before: in my atlases, in the sections about Central America and the South Pacific. This was volcanic terrain, which meant that the little hill I had drawn on the map was most likely a volcano—a volcano we had to go past, or even over.

“I hope this isn't what I think it is,” I muttered to myself.

We took another quick rest. Monty hopped onto a rock and stood, shifting from foot to foot again. He
whistled and squawked happily. All of a sudden, a squawk turned into a screech. I looked over to see a green and brown lizard scurrying away, its mouth full of parrot feathers. The reptile must have been over three feet long! Had it been trying to eat Monty and gotten scared away?

Monty launched into the air, but his balance had been thrown off (from lack of tail feathers, maybe), and he didn't get far. He fluttered downward and tried to land on Kir's back but only managed to grasp the fairy-silk blanket with one claw. He dangled upside down, flopping and screeching.

I jumped to my feet to help, stifling a laugh.

Imishi got there first. I said soothing things to Monty, reinforcing the words with my thoughts, while Imishi untangled his foot from the blanket, turned him upright again, and gently set him on her shoulder once more. He shook himself and looked at both of us through slitted eyes.

“He's going to pretend it didn't happen,” I whispered to Imishi, and she laughed. Kir snorted in a laughing way as well, and Monty turned around on Imishi's shoulder and didn't look at us. This of course only made us all laugh more. Laughing felt great. We got going again, feeling happy.

I figured we could make it as far as the hill by
nightfall. After a few hours, I asked Kir if he could find us a spot like the one where we had spent the previous night, with protection and plenty of water, so we could get a good night's sleep before we made our approach to Kib Valley. He found a place where the rock was smoother and dipped downward for fifty yards or so, leading to a cave in the rock wall. Beside this, water trickled through a groove in the wall like a miniature waterfall, forming a shallow pool no wider than my outstretched arms.

We headed down to the cave, Kir setting his hooves carefully to avoid slipping on the smoother rock. I had a sudden fiercely protective feeling—blurred at the edges—and realized the feeling wasn't coming from me. Before we could get to the shelter, a bizarre creature landed in front of us. I had never seen anything like it, except in a carving.

It was a giant snake, bigger around than Kir and about five times as long—a snake with feathers.

8
The Thief

“Who dares to steal from the fearsome and mighty Kukulkan?” the voice of the serpent boomed. The velvety sound poured through the air around us like liquid thunder.

The serpent's body was covered with scales in shades of silver and metallic charcoal. There were three separate feathery wreaths along its coils in a rainbow of colors. When the creature raised half of its body into the air to glower down at us, the wreaths of feathers split and formed three pairs of wings. The serpent breathed down on us with a hiss.

Imishi sat straight and still behind me. I could tell Kir badly wanted to retreat but held his ground out of loyalty to us. But here's an incredible thing. After falling into a swamp, being attacked by clouds of insects, worrying about dying innocents, and being
stalked by a jaguar, I wasn't afraid. I wasn't surprised that “the fearsome and mighty Kukulkan” could talk, either.

It sounds crazy, but what I felt most at that instant was
fascinated
. I cleared my throat and said, “We are honored to meet you, Kukulkan. We are friends of Queen Carmina, on our way to Kib Valley. May we rest here?”

The serpent moved its head back and forth, its feathery wings rippling. “Thieves are not friends. Thieves do not rest.”

“Not thieves, not thieves!” Monty croaked weakly.

I could not imagine
what
the feathered serpent thought we had stolen. We hadn't even had any water yet. Other than that, I could see nothing in any direction that one of us might want, much less try to take.

“Thieves!” the serpent repeated. “You stole my only!”

Searching my mind for a way to answer, I felt a rush of emotions from the serpent: sorrow, protectiveness, and outrage.

“Not thieves. We
are
friends,” I said, with as much confidence as I could muster while looking at a forty-foot-long dragony creature. “If we help you find what was stolen, will you let us sleep here?”