- - -
Tallaluna was standing tall in the predawn light. She greeted Maelstrom with a concerned eye when he came hiking back. Maelstrom stopped, then continued walking nonchalantly over, but he knew that the surprise had registered in his light.
"Where were you?"
Maelstrom blipped his light, to indicate a shrug. "Dunno." He reminded himself that he did not have to answer to her. In the flock, lambs respected the mature ewes, obeying any of them just as they obeyed their mothers. But he was not with the flock.
"I woke some time ago and you were gone. It's not safe for a lamb to be wandering all over everywhere...we had a close call already, there are many predators on these slopes. You might be evolved, but you are still a young lamb and they'll know that."
Maelstrom sighed, nodding. "I won't do it again." There was no way she could come close to guessing where he'd been anyway. He started grazing. he tried to turn his thoughts to anything other than what he had seen down there. "So what are you doing up so early?" It annoyed him that she had been. Almost as though she had deliberately tried to spy on him...
"I might ask the same of you, but although you declined to give me an answer I have no trouble sharing my reasons. With my flock I became used to waking before dawn to do my exercises and prayers to Phos. Phos is in his time of greatest need just before morning, after all. And we as the eyorai‰ will help him."
Maelstrom blinked his light in subdued response. He wasn't sure why at that moment, guilt shadowed him. He wanted to tell her where he had been. Didn't he have to tell someone?
-No, you're a ram now...at least, this is a ram thing...an adult thing.- As such it didn't have to be anyones business but his own. And if they found out he would be more ostracised than ever.
"I hope that in your wanderings you gave returning to the flock some thought." Talla practiced her -skiku-, making repeated cuts through the air.
"I did. I'm ready to go home." That would make her happy, for sure, thought Maelstrom.
Tallaluna smiled at him. "That's very good. I knew you would come around."
- - -
Maelstrom hiked around the bend and saw the flock's lights, out in the field. Beyond the field came the dip that led to the stream; further around the mountainside was the forest and ridge. It was strange to be home again, looking on the lands as a flaaffy now, taller and larger. Studying the sheep in the distance he picked out his mother's lights. A wave of emotion swept up from his stomach. He had missed her.
He looked back at Tallaluna, realising that he might not see her again. "Well...I guess this is it. Phos's light to you...and thank you."
"You're very welcome. And if you want to visit me again I will be staying on this mountaintop for some time," said Tallaluna. The way she said it made Maelstrom realise that she would appreciate company from time to time. He smiled at her.
"Yeah...you bet. I will."
"I'll probably be right around here or up a ways towards the summit. Just don't go wandering around at night."
Ï won't." After what he'd seen in that cavern he might not feel safe in the dark for the rest of his life. Already the nightmare he had had was fading into the fabric of his concrete memories of the place...the last place in the world that he would ever want to return to.
Maelstrom led the way walking down through the grass towards his flock. He could not stop himself from breaking into a run towards them. He stumbled a few times, still getting used to running on two legs, but he held his own. "Mama!"
Running on four legs, Kyaru overtook him. She ran towards the flock although she did not have anyone in it to run to. She was doing it more to beat Maelstrom...for the only friend she had was the one right behind her.
When Thalenes saw the young flaaffy running to her, calling to her, she did not think it was Maelstrom at first. Her stomach seemed to leap inside her. Was it the lamb she had had the year before Maelstrom, the one who had been killed by the raikou? Was this his spirit? She told herself that that was silly. This flaaffy was clearly alive.
Maelstrom...Thalenes dared to hope that she was the one he was calling to. He was looking straight at her. In a flash of recognition Thalenes took off bounding towards him in her heavy giant-sheep gait, her hoofed feet thundering over the ground. "Maaaalstroooom! Bebbeeeee!"
Thalenes had Maelstrom up off his feet the moment they met in the field. Maelstrom let her bury him in her arms and the nuzzling of her big head. Her lights shone with a happy radiance and tears poured down her cheeks.
"Maiii Maalstroom...ooh mai Maalstroom..."
"Mama." Maelstrom hid his face against her chest. He felt her heart pounding quickly. It mirrored his own.
- - -
"Soon we should go visit Tallaluna," said Kyaru as she grazed with Maelstrom in the late afternoon. "Tomorrow if it's sunny and all."
Maelstrom spoke through a mouthful of grass. "I thought you didn't like her."
"That's not true. I got mad at her. I never said I didn't like her."
"She's just trying to help you out." Maelstrom snorted. "Yeah, we'll go see her tomorrow."
It was strange, being in the flock without Cirrus, Tulip and the others who had left. It was also strange without Shiri. Maelstrom wondered if he would ever be able to put his memories of the sweet, lively ewe behind. He looked up at the sailing clouds overhead and searched for a sign of Shiri's face. When would the revenge come, and how? Had it already come to pass? And what would Shiri's spirit think if she knew that Cirrus would die for what he had done? Maelstrom felt dark and sick for a moment; he had not thought everything through before acting.
His Mama stepped over to him. "Hoow are ye doin' noow...bein' beck hoome an'all."
"She didn't suffer when she died...did she? If she died by -denki-?" Maelstrom looked up at his mama with tears brimming.
"Nooo...hurr death was quick an' shawrt. Toomoorroow," Thalenes stroked his back and head, "we goo to the hoouse o'laight tuh give oour respects an' 'old the laight-vigil fer pawr Shiri an' Tamar."
-The house of light.- Maelstrom felt a big stone drop to the pit of his stomach. Something clenched him inside.
- - -
The way to the house of light next day felt longer than it ever had. Maelstrom worked hard to pick up his steps, to look at least partly happy to be alive as they made the solemn journey there. He knew his facade was poor, but no one questioned his gloomy mood. After all, he had lost a dear friend.
Brelanda walked at the front of the line of sheep, carrying in her calloused palms the tail balls of both Shiri and Tamar. Both sheep would be honoured and their lights kept in the house of light, among the stone walls where other lights were also hidden from murkrows and other pokemon who would steal such baubles.
The sight that greeted her when she stepped into the cave was one of disarray. She looked down at the stone that had long served as a vessel for the tail ball of her sacred predecessor. The stones lay scattered over the table, the light-ball gone.
She looked up at the other sheep coming in. Her first thought was that a murkrow had done it, but how would a murkrow have known to come in here looking for it? In the many years since it had first been placed here, it had remained undisturbed. Something had stolen it, something that valued whatever powers it held. Brelanda thought of the demon Mulgrah, the spirit that had been driven under the mountain years ago, sealed away somewhere in the caves of Bangaa. But there was no way that the spirit could have gotten free to steal a light. Someone was working with the spirit, on his side...quite likely within her flock. But who? Could the dead be taking on material form somehow...helping the spirit wreak its vengeance? Brelanda stepped back from the table and faced her flock. Fear showed through the control she tried to exert on her lights and her face.
Maelstrom had been hoping that the light-ball would be back in place on the stone. After all, it had not been in the cavern anymore. Where was it? Where had that spirit brought it? Maelstrom avoided Brelanda's eyes although he felt like both of them had the same thought: what was going on right now with the light?
"Our house of light has been defiled." Brelanda spoke to her flock as a group. A shake rippled her voice. "I will find out who has done it and for what reasons...but we may all be in great danger. We will head back to the fields at once."
"I'll be the one to find out who did it, and rip his throat out!" Heero-ki raged. He pounded his palm on the table; the stones rattled and bounced. Being much taller than the ewes and young rams, his figure filled the better part of the cavern.
"That will not be necessary," said Brelanda, thinking of Mulgrah and his deadly stabbing flippers. "Our enemy here cannot be choked; he cannot be trampled. Our denki cannot reach him. A demon may very well be on the loose."
- - -
Brelanda spent the better part of the day and evening communing with the spirit world. The old ewe used her special blend of herbs, mainly pokenip, to send her to the other realm. She was going to find out who was conspiring against her flock. But at the end of the day, she had found nothing out, and then night fell. By night it would be too dangerous to roam the spirit world with a demon on the loose.
Tomorrow she would visit the caves of Bangaa herself. Brelanda already had the plans firm in her mind. She would do it with her herbs and uncover what was going on straight from the spirits there. If the answers were not here in the field, they lay further out, within the darkest, most threatening places in the mountain.
Her scarlet-hued globes sang a light-song for the flock, like they always did each night before she went to sleep. Then Brelanda lay down to sleep in the middle of her flock.
- - -
Maelstrom grazed on grass that he barely tasted. The ramling had been able to think of nothing else than what he had done in the caves, and of Brelanda's words. Had he released an evil on the flock? Nothing had happened. So maybe it was all a false alarm? Or did the trouble lie ahead of them?
A firm flipper pressed lightly between his furry shoulder blades. The young flaaffy jumped.
"I want you to know that were it not for your mama, I would have you thrown from the flock." Heero was glaring down at him. Maelstrom leaped away from Heero's touch and stood just out of range of his leaps and grabs, were he to make any.
"Leave me alone...please..."
"You were up to something while you were gone! Little one, full of the darkness oh, I know it's all because you have your father in you. You're half Moonbeam! That ram was a demon himself. And don't think I don't suspect you first and foremost in the defiling of the Lighthouse! So tell me--what did you do with it?" Heero crossed the space between them. Maelstrom backed away.
"With what? With the light? I didn't do anything with the light! I didn't do it!" Maelstrom took off running for his mama.
"LIAR!" Heero's lights flashed crazily as he bellowed behind the running flaaffy. Maelstrom flattened his ears and just ran. Straight into his mama's arms, but neither that nor Thalenes's reassurances blotted out the scream of -liar- from his mind. Why had Mama gone and created him?
- - -
Mist drifted in clouds like smoke among the tangled trees of Maelstrom's nightmare. He was tumbling down the ravine again, like he had with Shiri, only this time he fell alone. Thorns crawled out to scratch his body, tearing tufts from his coat as he fell. They scratched red lines into his soft rubbery hide.
-Take the stone and steal the light.- The voice echoed in his mind before Maelstrom struck bottom. It was the deep of night and dim moonlight lit the forest. Only his yellow light--for he was a mareep once again--guided him as he stepped into the recess in the rocks. But instead of the recess he was in the cave of Bangaa. The dark shadow ram paced around in the nearly lightless cavern. The shimmering white stone lay on the altar.
-Take the stone.- Maelstrom made a grab for it but the ram was quicker. The ram with no face, no features, only a black shadow with stinger flippers, stabbed at him with long quill-like daggers. It shambled towards him like a giant armaldo. And the dagger-flippers stabbed at him, again and again. Maelstrom dived for the exit way, but found only more tunnels. Then he was running towards his flock. They appeared in the cave that became the field at night. He tried to scream to them to run, but he could not make his voice loud enough to hear.
The demon lunged for the sheep, who did not run fast enough. Brelanda was there at the front of the flock, trying to use her body to block the demon from the others. -Run...run!- But Brelanda did not run. Maelstrom found himself immobilized, unable to run as he watched the demon stab Brelanda repeatedly. Brelanda became a bloody pulp, blood running from a hundred holes stabbed deep into her body.
Maelstrom woke up in the middle of the night. He looked round him. The flock was asleep, except for a couple of young amp rams along the periphery, and they were laying about chewing cud. They didn't look like they had been doing anything. Maelstromlay against his mama in the cool summer mountain night and tried to overcome the chills brought on by the breeze on his sweating skin.
He lapsed back into sleep some time before morning. He would not be awakened until someone began screaming.
- - -
Melody awoke and rubbed her eyes. The young amp ewe, four years old and with her first lamb at side, got up with a thought of wandering down to the pond for a graze and bath. It would be refreshing for her, and her sweet lamb to start off the nice summer day with a munch on the nice grass near the water, and then a dip.
She nudged her lamb, Redstar. "Wake up sleepyhead, Phos is up already." When Phos was up, sheep got up. She did not like to let sloppy habits like sleeping into the morning form in her lamb.
Redstar yawned and stretched. The lamb wobbled up onto his feet and stretched some more.
"Come on, let's head down to the pond." Melody started off for the water at a steady walk.
Seeing the distance between himself and his mama growing, he picked up his pace to a trot to catch her up. He followed her closely as they neared the water.
Melody looked behind her and when she saw him she smelt the air to check out the surrounding area. Nothing dangerous, it was only her and her lamb.
Now at ease, she began to graze. Redstar moved closer to his mother, and kept watch every time her head went down to graze.
"Mama, Eyomah's not up."
Melody looked back at the flock. Sheep were rising and starting to graze and greet the new day, but Brelanda had not moved. The sun shone down on her, reflecting in her light-globes. Glancing around, Melody jogged back into the flock and nudged Brelanda. She did so again as Redstar arrived at her side. But Brelanda lay unmoving.
She was about to nudge the ewe again when she noticed something wrong. She stepped back, her breath catching in her throat as she found herself staring at a small bloody hole poked into the back of the dead ewe's head, right where it joined the base of her neck.
Maelstrom awoke to the screaming of a ewe.