- - -
Maelstrom rubbed his palms on his hips. He smoothed his short fur down over his shoulders, though it needed no smoothing..it was still soaking wet. "If I agree, you promise to tell me more about who you are. And what."
The voice spoke back with a sharp edge. -I shall do no such thing. I reveal what I wish. But trust me in that you will know what you need to know.-
"And you won't hurt me. And you're not Bangaa."
-If I were Bangaa, gûmaru, I would not need the help of a lamb. You have agreed, then?-
"I guess so."
-Then I shall need one small favour from you. You must bring me the light-ball that rests in the house of light...bring me this because I need a light...I need its healing powers.-
Maelstrom had not ever believed that that light had special powers. How could it? It was just the tail bulb of a dead ampharos. Its former owner's spirit could inhabit it at times...but on its own it was empty. "You didn't say anything about desecrating the house of light."
-I need the light or our bargain is broken. And you will have let your friend's spirit remain restless...-
"Ok." Maelstrom told himself that it would do more good this way than just sitting there, in the house of light, doing nothing...how often did everyone go in there, anyway?
-Then you will bring it to me...down at the end of this corridor. The sooner you do so the sooner revenge will be served.-
"And then I don't have to do anything else?"
-I promise you...just one small favour.-
"Phos's...yeah."
Maelstrom stepped back out towards the exitway. The mudslide had tailed off to a small flap of muddy water splattering on the rocks. The flaaffy sidestepped it and took a look around, getting his bearings. He had to get the light from the House, then back in here without being seen.
He looked around to make sure Kyaru and Tallaluna were not there to see him, and they were not.
-You went down into Bangaa's chamber,- the thought echoed in the lamb's mind as he started climbing steeply uphill, towards the house of light. -You went in there and spoke to something dark...and lived.- He wondered who his mysterious new ally was. That it was a spirit seemed obvious, but there were a lot of material things that seemed like spirits sometimes. Like the marching sheets of rain that began to pour down again, formed the appearance of ghosts drifting tall and slow in the distance.
- - -
"Maelstrom!" called Kyaru into the rain. It had begun to pour heavily again, and although the mudslide was more or less over, there was still no sign of her light-friend. For the time being she had decided to put up with Tallaluna, and treat her as though she had forgiven her for angering her so much earlier. It was better than being abandoned...although she doubted the ampharos would do so anyway.
"To bleat like that is to invite another Persian." Talla checked her wounds again. They had stopped bleeding for now, but all it took was the slightest stretching of the skin to break them open again. She led Kyaru down towards where the mudslide had splashed, planning to look for his body there. She held little hope that the ramling was still alive. After all, she had looked behind her and seen the landslide crashing down on where he had been.
A shame, thought the ewe. Maelstrom had been a courageous ram with a passion for life. But Burakuru, the ewe of darkness who, some said, delivered souls to the other world, often took the young. That was just how it was.
"Maelstrom!" she called down the cliffs.
- - -
Kikai stood facing the swollen stream. Her mother Eren stepped in first, holding her lamb in her arms. The stream had nearly overflowed its beds and the sheep would have to cross carefully. But Kikai could hardly see in the pouring rain.
"The sooner we get over this the sooner we can find a good place to stay," said Eren, who as it turned out was leading the flock. Amurin followed her lead.
Eren was nearly midway when suddenly she went under. Bubbles surfaced and Kikai felt the discharge of denki through the water. Eren's lamb surfaced, bleating in alarm. "Feraligatr!" she screamed as she struggled to paddle against the current. Amurin dived towards the fracas below and more electricity charged the water.
A feraligatr and Eren surfaced, Eren barely breathing, with blood in the water around her. The feraligatr was paralyzed or dead.
Amurin took hold of Eren and as she did so Morgor lost his hold on her. He went paddling away, swept backwards after Eren's lambs. "Kikai, somebody! Cirrus! The lambs!"
Kikai was already swimming towards them, but the current was strong. She swam with it, keeping her eyes on Morgor and Eren's lamb. She kept in the front of the swimming sheep, and grabbed at Morgor. Eren's lamb was out of her reach.
Kikai found her footing on the streambed and carried Morgor across the water. She set Morgor down and turned back to save Eren's lamb, but Cirrus, Drael and Tulip had already gone after her. Not far away from Kikai and Morgor, Amurin had dragged her mother onto the bank. Eren's leg had been torn off and the ewe's lights were faltering.
"Oh Phos!" Kikai could not keep from screaming as she saw what had happened to her mother.
"Come on," Amurin leaned over her mother, weeping and praying. As they waited, Drael, Tulip and Cirrus arrived, joining the rest of the flock. Amurin looked at them and they lowered their lights, and shook their heads.
Morgor watched his grandmother die. There grew inside him a need for justice...somehow he had to take what was happening to his family and set it right. It had all started with Maelstrom...if they had only believed that he was full of darkness...but they had not. He did not know what to think about Tamar. He had had mixed feelings about the whole thing. Tamar had been his father.
"We go back," said Kikai, crying in the rain. "We go back and tell them what happened, they'll let us back in."
"You can go back," said Amurin. "They didn't banish you. But I'm staying right here."
- - -
Maelstrom did not make it to the house of light before dark. His own light guided him back to the spot. As he stepped into the alcove through the curtain of rainwater dripping off the eave, he wondered if Kyaru and Tallaluna had given up on finding him. He neared the pile of small stones concealing the tailbulb. He hoped that was not the case.
His palms were wet with a moisture that was not rainwater as he set the stones aside, one by one. There wre spirits in here watching him. He was sure of it. He could feel their eyes. "It's for your own good," he spoke aloud in the eery room. His blue light was the only one in here, and he was unused to seeing it this way. It cast the rocks in a cool range of colours as he worked. It did not take long to uncover the tailball.
Maelstrom did not touch it at first. He stared at it, as if it were going to come alive and strike him where he stood.
"You don't scare me." He put his palms around the smooth sphere and picked it up. It was heavier than he had expected. Looking around him he saw no one, but that made no difference. The spirits were all here, the ancestors of his flock were staring him right in the soul. Maelstrom fled the house of light and ran back out into the rain.
He fled the house of light, afraid of it like had never been before. And he hiked down the mountainside feeling the dead on his tail. He felt the world growing dark behind him, as he ran with the light in his hands. By the time he saw the surroundings of the cave and where the mudslide had been, he felt sure that he would not make it back alive.
"Maelstrom!"
Maelstrom ducked into some bushes when he heard his name being called. He dimmed his light. They were still looking for him...He tucked his tail low, holding its glow as far down as it would go and ran headlong into the cavern. He could come out soon, once he was finished with this, and meet them again. All he had to do was deliver it to the end of this corridor.
-Step in...I see you have it. Come in.-
Maelstrom wanted to keep his eyes closed as he walked through the spooky hallway. Water dripped and shadows stalked along either side of him. He told himself that it was only shadows cast by his own light, but their movement, seeming to come towards him...frightened him nearly enough to make him pee himself.
Down the end of the corridor, the tunnel widened out and sloped steeply down. Maelstrom hesitated at the edge of the slope.
-Come...or have you gone this far only to fail me now?-
"No." Maelstrom wished that he had not spoken. He slid himself down the slope and regained his footing at the bottom. He brightened his lights and saw a place where the stone looked like someone had formed it or chipped it that way. Maelstrom had never seen carved stone before. A dirty slab of round stone sat in front of him, with a small ring of pebbles. On the wall behind the slab, was a large image coloured from dark mud or ash. It was in the shape of a giant ampharos, a ram, who wielded some kind of power on his tail light. The strangest thing about the picture, though, was the ram's flippers. Extended, they each came to a long tip, like a thin spike or quill on the end.
Maelstrom placed the tail bulb in the ring of pebbles. He watched it sit there, then backed away from the table.
-Revenge will be yours, gumaru.-
Maelstrom scrambled up and fled the cavern at a run.
- - -
"Maelstrom!" Tallaluna turned around at the sound of the ramling calling their names. "You're all right."
Maelstrom reached the ewes breathless. Seeing them after his episode deep in the cavern felt odd.
Tallaluna looked at him in amazement and relief. "We have searched all over for you since yesterday! We had given up on finding you. Where were you?"
"You're okay," said Kyaru as Maelstrom reached them, looking a little pale despite all his running. "Where were you?"
"Trying to find you," said Maelstrom. "I got swept down a long way in the mudslide."
"They can carry one quite a distance," said Tallaluna. "Although usually one ends up in a lot worse condition than you are. You were lucky--the ancestors were on your side. We're on the way to your flock, I assume you would like to at least try returning?"
"Yeah." Maelstrom nodded, still feeling strange, feeling numb. "I'm ready." He followed them both as the rain died away. The three of them chose a safe ledge that offered some shelter from the rain, and lay down to sleep till morning.
-Revenge will be yours, gumaru.-
Maelstrom dreamed he was back in the cavern. As he placed the light ball down on the altar, he saw his shadow cast on the wall in front of him, behind the table. The light-ball lay in the darkness of Maelstrom's shadow.
The shadow stood large over him and took on the shape of the picture on the wall. The black shadow-ram stepped down from the stone wall and drifted over the altar. The sounds of a thousand dead bleats began to echo through the cavern until it rose into a shrill screech of echoes, all screaming together. The shadow-ram drifted past the altar, towards Maelstrom. Maelstrom took a look at the altar. The light was gone. The ram leaped at him and Maelstrom rolled on the ground, kicked to get out of the shadow's grasp and tore away from him. Maelstrom went running through endless corridors but always the ram was after him, reaching out with black spikes on his flippers to stab him.
-Revenge will be yours, gumaru.-
-Take the stone and steal the light.-
- - -
Maelstrom woke up when the night was soon to fade. He always knew generally what time of night it was no matter what time he woke up during it. And it was getting towards morning. But something made him get up and start back towards the cavern. He had been tricked. He had to get back that light-ball and now!
It was not to get back to the cavern. Maelstrom entered now with a different kind of fear, the kind that came with feeling like he was coming too late.
The spirit presence that he had felt the first two times was no longer there. Maelstrom felt very alone in the corridor. He opened his mouth to call to the spirit, but realised that he did not know the thing's name. Had that been intentional? Brelanda had always said that to know a spirit's name was to have great power over it.
"Hello!" Maelstrom charged down the corridor, hearing his voice echo around and behind him. The echoing bleats wrapped him as he slid downward and into the end chamber. He brought his tailball to bear its light out in front of him and illuminate the slab of stone. The light-ball was gone. And so was the image on the wall. Maelstrom stared at a blank stone face behind the altar. He thought he heard the spirit voice again but it was only in his own mind.
-Revenge will be yours...-