Chapter 3: Jungle Trek

Neal was once more caught up in a nauseating maelstrom of colors. He tumbled and spun, his senses unable to relay any coherent signals. When he'd entered the vortex, Peter had been trying to yank him free. Was he now trapped too?

After a voyage that seemed to last an eternity, he was ejected onto a bed of ferns. He lay still, catching his breath, while the world continued to spin around him. Surrounding him were tall trees, their trunks covered in moss, their bright green leaves slick with drops of water. The canopy was so dense he could only catch glimpses of the sky.

Peter lay a few yards away, seemingly uninjured.

Neal scrambled up, shaking off the dizziness. Peter's eyes opened as he crouched beside him. "Are you okay?" Peter asked.

"I'm good. How about you?"

"Same. Any ideas about where we are?"

"No, but compared with our previous trips, we hit the jackpot." Neal helped Peter sit up. "We landed in a rainforest. I'll take this over the frozen Plateau of Leng any day."

A butterfly flitted lazily overhead. Its wings were bright cerulean blue with spots of amethyst and gold. Nothing too strange about that, but its wingspan was easily two feet wide. He turned to Peter. "You've led expeditions to tropical regions. Have you ever seen anything similar?"

"Nothing approaching that butterfly in size." Peter stood up, wiping the clinging ferns off his trousers. "But that's not a complaint. It's a pleasant change from the nightgaunts and zoogs who greeted us on other trips."

Neal looked up when he heard a distinctive chittering sound coming from high in the trees.

Peter twisted his neck to scan the forest canopy over him. "Did you hear that?"

"I did and it's not the first time. You remember the animal I thought I saw in Lavinia's office? The one she denied existed? It made that same kind of sound."

The leaves moved as something scrabbled down a tree. A moment later a small animal jumped onto Neal's shoulder. It resembled a bushbaby with enormous golden eyes and silver fur dotted with bright green spots.

Neal slowly raised his hand to let the creature sniff him. "This looks just like the animal in Lavinia's rafters."

"It's a friendly fellow," Peter commented, smiling at it. "I'm glad I'm able to see it too."

The animal rubbed against the side of Neal's face the way Betelgeuse did. Was it also putting his mark on him? It chittered rapidly in his ear and then studied his face with an intent expression as if expecting something from him.

"It looks like it's trying to communicate with you." Peter held out his hand, palm up. The bushbaby sniffed his hand and then leaped over to his shoulder. As Peter stroked its back, it chortled loudly. "If Lavinia has friends of his living in her rafters, should we extrapolate that she's also gone through the wormhole?"

"That would help explain some—" Neal stopped mid-sentence. Why hadn't he realized that before?

"What is it?" Peter demanded.

"Look around you. You notice something missing?"

It only took Peter a second to grasp Neal's meaning. "The wormhole. It's gone."

"I can't remember seeing if after I was ejected onto the ferns. How will we get home?"

The bushbaby jumped off Peter's shoulder and retreated to the trees as they searched their immediate surroundings. The only other time both had gone through a wormhole had been in an abandoned house. They'd been transported to a tower where the vortex remained clearly visible. No such route was available to them now.

"When you were in the monastery of ice on the Plateau of Leng, there was also no visible portal," Peter pointed out. "The priest blasted you back."

"What are you saying? That we'll need to go to Leng and ask the priest for help? I hope it doesn't come to that."

"Me too, but that experience demonstrated there are other ways of forming wormholes."

"Maybe on Leng but not necessarily here," Neal said. "We have no way of knowing if we're on the planet where Leng is located or even in the same universe. Mozzie believes in parallel universes. What's true in one may not be valid in another."

"Here's an option you might like better. Perhaps we're still on Earth."

"Time travel?"

Peter shrugged. "Why not? That doesn't sound much more improbable than being on a remote planet."

Neal relaxed into a smile. "Should we watch out for dinosaurs?"

"I might rather face them than ghasts," Peter retorted. He looked around for a moment. "We know we're in a rainforest. The air's breathable. Gravity appears to act the same. I think this is where we need to have faith that somehow we'll find our way back. If we stay here, there's no guarantee the wormhole will reopen. We could miss out on finding a wormhole in a different location."

Neal didn't disagree. If they were to survive, they'd need water, food, and shelter. The most immediate concern was for water. The lushness of the vegetation indicated nearby water sources, but nothing indicated in which direction.

A bird streaked by. It was as gaudy as a bird-of-paradise, but it flew too fast for Neal to make out anything more than an impression of vibrant colors and long streamers of feathers. They decided to take it as an omen and followed its direction.

It was midafternoon when they'd been sucked into the crystal manuscript. According to their watches, they'd been gone for only four hours, but they'd learned passage through a wormhole made a mockery of traditional notions of time. The sky appeared brightest at an angle of about sixty degrees in the sky, but was it midmorning or midafternoon? Neal didn't fancy roaming through a forest in the pitch black of night.

Was anyone in Arkham aware of what had happened? Surely the vault guard noticed something. He would have contacted Lavinia . . . Did she alert June and Elizabeth? He glanced at Peter. He was projecting the image of a confident explorer, but in unguarded moments, the underlying stress leaked through.

His mind whirled with questions—not just where they were but how much time had elapsed. And why had the crystal manuscript transformed itself into a wormhole portal? Had he somehow caused it?

Without more information, his questions would have to remain unanswered. They were here, wherever that was.

In the meantime, the rainforest beckoned to them. It was simply too enticing to be ignored. Everywhere they looked was luxuriant vegetation. Vines laced up the trees in intricate webs of foliage. The ground was covered in soft moss and ferns. Wildlife was in abundance—dragonflies, sleepy-eyed lizards, large iridescent beetles. The calls of birds resounded throughout the forest. They'd seen several more of the bushbabies but no other mammal-like creatures.

As they trekked onward, Peter compared the plants to species he'd seen on expeditions. Neal was familiar with birds but hadn't studied plants. Peter was a walking field guide. Neal's forest treks were limited to the woods north and west of Arkham. Peter had explored wilderness areas throughout the world.

The flowers were gaudy with every color of the rainbow. Some of them sparkled with an iridescence he associated with hummingbirds. Last summer, he'd seen The Land That Time Forgot, where shipwrecked survivors arrived at a tropical rainforest. In the movie, they encountered primitive races and dinosaurs. Would he and Peter encounter similar species? The foliage was too thick to glimpse any pterodactyls, but he listened with half an ear for the distant thud of gigantic hoofs or muffled roars. So far the largest animals they'd seen were birds, and they were too beautiful to be scary.

Much more pressing than looking out for dinosaurs was the need to find a source of water. Neal's last meal now seemed in the remote past. As they explored the forest, they kept an eye out for berries or anything resembling fruit but didn't find any. Perhaps it was for the best. They wouldn't be able to test if it was safe to eat.

Constantly niggling at the back of his mind was why they'd been brought here. It defied credulity to think the crystal manuscript had spontaneously transformed itself into a portal to a wormhole.

When he was drawn into the ruby crystal at St. Jude's Church, he assumed the high priest of the Monastery of Leng had caused it. Was this trip also at his instigation or were other forces at work?

All the other worlds he'd visited had been hostile. Now he and Peter were making their way through what could pass as a Garden of Eden with brilliant birds and butterflies flitting through the forest canopy and friendly bushbabies chittering a welcome.

"Could this be Celaeno or Merope?" Peter mused, echoing Neal's thoughts. "Zophar may have brought us here. He aided Laban and Andrew. He could be the man who spoke to me in the crypt." He paused to wipe the sweat off his face. The humidity in the air was draining both of them of energy as well as precious fluids. "I wonder what Meropians look like."

"Laban said Zophar appeared human."

"He may have been disguising himself," Peter cautioned. "Mozzie's fond of speculating that space aliens could look like bees." He glanced up into the tree canopy. "Perhaps one of those bushbabies is Zophar."

"If this was first contact, did we blow it?" Neal called out in a louder voice, "Give us another chance!"

"And this time, please bring water!" Peter added.

Alas, the bushbabies sent no other emissaries, with or without water.

Gradually the filtered light coming through the trees grew dimmer. Dusk approached, and with it a fresh concern. What nocturnal predators roamed the forest at night? In the darkness, how would they protect themselves? Images of ghasts and nightgaunts flashed through Neal's mind. He had his amulet. He should be able to ward off ghasts, unless they were too numerous. Against nightgaunts, they had no defense.

"We should make a shelter," Peter declared. "There are plenty of fallen branches lying around. We can lash them together with vines and make a rough lean-to."

"Have you ever built one?"

"During a dig in Mexico a couple of years ago, our camp was destroyed by a flash flood. We had to live off the land for a couple of days before the water subsided."

"I wasn't a Boy Scout," Neal admitted. "I've never even slept in a tent. I've been kicking myself for dragging you into the wormhole, but I'm glad you're here."

Peter stopped him with a gesture. "It's where I want to be also. Remember what Lavinia told us in her office. Our fates are intertwined like the vines on those trees."

"Wouldn't you like to know what her source of information is?"

He chuckled. "That's top of my list of questions when we get back. What's on your list?"

"For starters, how often has she gone through a wormhole?"

They began tossing questions back and forth, the topics growing wilder with each question. Distracted, Neal at first didn't hear a welcome sound, but soon it couldn't be ignored. Splashes heralded water ahead.

They quickened their pace, and, as if to help, the forest grew sparser. They'd arrived at a river. Its current flowed swiftly, lapping against boulders on the river's edge. Not only had they found a source of water but the trees gave way for them to see the sky.

"If we had any doubts about not being on Earth, there's our answer," Peter said with a nod to the two suns in the sky. One was perhaps two-thirds of the size of their sun. The other was smaller—the size of a small moon. They were close together and fairly low to the horizon. Sunset was coloring the sky in shades of mauve and lavender.

The river was broad and tinted a brilliant aquamarine. Neal wondered if the fish were as colorful as the birds they'd seen. There was no question about risking a drink. He crouched and cupped his hands. The water tasted cool and rich. It was fragrant from unknown vegetation.

Peter also drank deeply, closing his eyes with pleasure. They tried not to drink too much but it was hard to stop.

"I was hungry, but the water seems to satisfy not only my thirst but my desire for food," he told Peter.

"Mine as well. It reminds me of Lavinia's tea."

"I wonder if she's from this world."

"We shouldn't jump to any conclusions," Peter cautioned. "Like us, she may have simply visited here."

"If so, that confirms there's a way to return. I wish we could send her an SOS."

"Something tells me she already knows. I bet she's already called the cavalry."

Brave words. Could Lavinia mount a rescue effort? She was the only one who seemed remotely capable of it.

They decided to build their shelter close to the river. For some reason, it seemed safer, although it was an open question as to why. Threats could as easily come from the river as anywhere else.

Peter warned him that making a fire would be next to impossible since they didn't have any flint or dry tinder.

Their only tool was a Swiss army knife Peter carried in his pocket. He used it to cut vines to make ropes. At the end of a couple of hours, they stood back to admire their construction. It looked like a tepee, with barely enough space for the two of them. It was dubious how much actual protection it would provide, although it was small enough that it should help retain some of their body heat. The suns were still above the horizon when they finished, indicating the planet's rotation must be much slower than Earth's.

They'd heard bird calls during their work. Neal noticed a small bird hunting like a kingfisher on the river. A promising sign? They hadn't suffered any ill effects from the water. Perhaps they could eat the fish as well. His stomach was sending him signals that water alone wouldn't be enough. But attempting to catch fish would have to wait till morning. The long trek and shelter construction had left them in no shape to risk a swim.

Instead they prepared makeshift weapons by scrounging for rocks along the riverbank. They made a pile of their prehistoric missiles near the shelter. They also selected several stout branches of acceptable length to use as clubs. Not much of a defense. Somewhere Neal had read that whacking an alligator on its nose would cause it to flee, but he wasn't eager to test the theory. His hand drifted to the amulet suspended from his neck under his shirt. It had enabled him to kill ghasts in Arkham, but they'd only encountered lone individuals. If they were attacked by several at once, one amulet might not be much of a defense.

With the onset of darkness, the forest came alive with bioluminescent mushrooms. In hues of soft greens, pinks, and turquoise, they glowed like fairy lights in the gloom of the forest. Small bioluminescent fish and jellyfish-like creatures were visible in the river. Unlike the monsters he'd seen in the terrifying abyss, these all looked fragile and innocent.

There were three moons of varying sizes in the sky. He studied the star patterns, forming his own constellations as memory aids. It didn't seem right that Mozzie wasn't there with them. By now, he must know Peter and Neal had disappeared. Was El the recipient of his laments at missing out? She was likely beside herself with worry. Was Sara with her?

Neal's enhanced night vision was an asset. They'd attributed it to the algolnium in his body.

"I wish I had your ability," said Peter, stretching out flat on his back. "I can barely see the trees behind us."

"The amount of algolnium is growing in both of us. You'll probably eventually develop it too."

"I hope so. Tomorrow I'll work on drying out vegetation so I can make a fire." Peter described the steps in making a hand drill to spark a flame. Hours of labor would be required.

The calls of birds were replaced by frog choruses along the river. Their familiar peeps and croaks make the world seem less alien but that in itself was a puzzle.

"Why do you think we've encountered so many recognizable species?" Neal asked. "If there weren't multiple suns and moons, I'd be tempted to believe we were still on Earth."

"I've been wondering the same thing. In the vastness of the universe, it's certainly conceivable that there are other planets that experienced a similar evolution. But the odds of us arriving on one are—"

"Astronomical?"

"Exactly," said Peter with a chuckle.

Neal stretched out to observe the stars overhead. "What if wormholes are a cause? Spontaneously forming wormholes between planets might have been relatively common in the remote past."

Peter propped himself up on one elbow. "Like volcanoes and asteroids were on Earth?"

Neal nodded, letting his mind roam over the possibilities. "They could have acted as bridges. Or perhaps they sucked in species, allowing for exchanges between worlds—"

A low guttural growl shocked him into silence. It appeared to come from the forest.

"What do you think that was?" Neal asked under his breath. It was impossible to tell how close the animal was.

"Maybe a large cat," Peter muttered. "Lion-sized at least. It reminded me a little of a leopard's growl." He grew quiet as a roar ripped through the forest. It sounded as if an alien giant was sawing wood in slow motion.

No more relaxed stargazing. Neal sat upright and scanned his collection of rocks and branches. Not the best defense against a giant cat on the prowl. Their tropical paradise had turned ominous.

He and Peter kept their voices low. Any thought of sleep had vanished. Each plop and splash in the river sounded menacing.

A faint scrabbling sound alerted them something was coming. Neal nearly jumped out of his skin when one of the silver bushbabies they'd spotted earlier leaped onto his shoulder. It flicked its tail nervously while chittering rapidly in his ear.

"It's trying to warn you," Peter said, his eyes darting around the forest.

The animal only stayed a minute then darted off to climb up a tree. "Should we follow its example?" Neal asked. "We could be safer."

"Perhaps, but we may find new dangers—snakes, for instance, or poisonous insects."

"Giant spiders," Neal added, thinking back to the giant spiders of Mirkwood in Lord of the Rings.

"Leopards climb trees easily," Peter noted. "And if we're attacked, we'd have a harder time escaping them"

"Shhh!" he hissed as he heard the sounds of pounding hooves. He stood up, grabbing a branch. "Ghasts!" He pointed into the trees to their left. "Quick, to the trees!"

"Where are they?" Peter demanded, matching Neal's strides

"They're running straight at us!"

The ghasts were upon them before they reached the trees. Their jackal-like jaws were opened wide as they lunged forward.

Neal sprang onto the closest one, but it seemed impervious to his amulet. It ripped his branch away as if it was a toothpick.

Another ghast came from behind. Wrapping its arms around his chest, it hurled him to the ground. As he struggled to roll clear, the ghast leaped on top of him, a hoof slamming into his stomach.

Paralyzed from the pain, he fought to remain conscious. He heard Peter's cries dimly behind him. A clawed fist slashing across his forehead was the last thing he remembered.

Notes: Neal's off-world paradise has turned deadly, and worse is yet to come. A leopard stalks the jungle. In my previous Caffrey Conversation story, Nocturne in Black and Gold, Neal had mentioned to Diana a wish for a jungle adventure. This isn't what he had in mind.