Chapter Thirty-Five: Ethereal Canoeing

I woke up in a cold sweat.

It was still the middle of the night. I'd gone to sleep sometime earlier in the afternoon, much earlier than I normally went to bed, which was why it was still night when I was waking up after having a normal-length dream on the Battlefield. I could've kept on sleeping, but then I'd seen one of the most traumatizing things in my life—even worse than when Anna had gotten half her head blown off right in front of me.

It was Theo…the armored unit he had been placed in command of had been completely obliterated in the Dersite airstrike that had destroyed the King's Airfield, and…he…his body, it…

Actually, no. Nope. Not gonna talk about this right now. I'm already getting nauseous.

I took a moment to get my bearings. The cold, hard stone ground was ultimately what reminded me of where we were. A cave in a cliff face, in the middle of the Bear's Thicket. I walked up to the cave entrance, peering down to glimpse the large swarm of underlings that had driven us into this cave, squinting slightly to see clearly in the pale, violet light of the rainclouds.

Yep, the underlings were still down there. They seemed to have given up trying to scale the cliff. Maybe they'd wised up and realized that they really didn't have to climb the cliff to kill us. Once our water ran out, we'd die of thirst. Sooner or later, we'd have to fight our way out of here…

Best I not worry about that shit until morning. Nothing I could really do in the dark, so I might as well relax. I turned back and looked down. The three consorts who were accompanying me were sound asleep. Scales and Aiyana were tightly coiled up next to where I had been, and I had to step over Inuyyak, who'd sprawled himself out between the cave entrance and the two others.

I wondered what cobras dreamed about.

Having nothing to do, and not wanting to wake my consorts, I decided to explore the cave a little. I conjured a fistful of flame over my palm. A small flame, but still a strong one. Bright enough to illuminate everything around me for a comfortable distance.

There weren't any stalactites or stalagmites, or anything stereotypically cave-like. Just an uneven ground and a ceiling that nearly brushed my hair at its lowest points. It really didn't go all that far back; I was just walking slowly because I had no idea what I was going to see next. When I reached what I thought was the back of the cave, it actually turned out that the cave simply curved off to the left…and opened up into a much larger cavern.

I walked straight down to where the cave broadened, but it was too big for my flame to light up. So I gave my fire more juice, doubling it in size. It illuminated much more of the cavern, but still not a whole lot of it. I could've sworn I'd heard a muffled, snuffling sound when I brightened the fire…but when I listened closely, I couldn't hear a thing.

I probably should've left it at that, but there was something really fascinating about this cavern. Like, an awesome natural hideaway, sequestered deep inside a random cliff face. And Jesus, it's not like I had a whole lot else to do, with all those underlings waiting outside.

I took a deep breath and moved several steps into the cavern. I raised both hands and focused on my Aspect, feeling the tiny vibrations in the air above my hands, tapping into that energy, amplifying it. A good-sized ball of flame sprang suddenly into existence—I was glad I was holding it far away from my face, or else I'd have probably gotten first or second-degree burns from the heat. I could only wonder at how my hands never seemed to get burned…

That did the trick. The entire cavern was lighted…and holy goddamn motherfuck, I wish it wasn't. The far side of a cavern was littered with nearly a dozen giant, furry, slumbering creatures. Brown-haired, powerful legs, fierce faces and snouts…wickedly sharp teeth and claws… Most were quite large, but closer examination revealed a handful of the creatures that were tiny in size. Cubs. Oh, and one more detail; because of my little fireburst, there, they weren't slumbering anymore.

As I looked at the creatures, they all looked back at me and were on their feet within seconds. I was a stranger who had invaded and brought fire to their den, and these creatures had a very certain way of dealing with unwanted company.

I turned and ran my ass off, rounding the bend in the cave and sprinting like crazy towards the mouth. "Get up!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, rousing the three cobra-consorts sleeping near the entrance.

"What iss it?" Aiyana was the first to speak, but I cut her off. And I didn't even need to interrupt her—the angry growls coming from the back of the cave were more than enough to shut her up.

"Bears!" I exclaimed. "Bears! Fucking bears!"

And if my screams weren't enough to light a fire under their asses and get them moving, the pack of angry grizzly bears rounding the bend in the cave and bounding towards us more than did the job. Aiyana and Scales reached the cave mouth first, quickly scrambling along the cliff face, away from the cave. Inuyyak was next, making sure he was between the cave and the others.

As for me, I simply ran right over the edge of the cave mouth, catching myself in mid-air with my Aspect, holding myself aloft. It wasn't nearly as easy or effortless as my dream self's ability to fly, but it was getting less difficult with more practice. The bears, still hell-bent on ripping us to shreds, followed us right up to the cave entrance…and then one of the most amazing things happened.

The swarm of underlings below had been roused and agitated by all our screaming and antics involved with getting the fuck out of the cave, and they were now making noise and howling for our blood once again. Because of all the noise they were making, when the bears reached the cave entrance they ended up losing any interest in us and instead focused their attention on the underlings. Their cubs were in danger, and the threats had to be dealt with.

Roaring almost loud enough to shake the ground, the bears thundered down the cliff face and landed in the midst of all the underlings. The imps and ogres tried to attack the bears…and immediately regretted their mistake. The bears set upon the underlings. I winced as I watched the grizzlies tear the underlings apart. The imps stood no chance whatsoever. They were torn to ribbons by the bears' fury, and little remained of many of them besides bloodstains and random body parts.

The ogres did not fare much better. As I watched the bloodbath, I saw that two or three of the ogres were actually able to score a hit on the bears, but those unfortunate underlings were immediately set upon by several of the wounded bears' kin. One bear actually sank its teeth into an ogre's neck and was able to tear its head clean off. Another grizzly was able to pin an ogre to the ground, raking it across its abdomen with the claws of its free hand, eviscerating the hapless creature.

While the underlings were getting torn apart, the three consorts had actually started to climb the cliff face. I lifted myself up through the air, keeping pace with my consorts, ready to lend a helping hand if any of them slipped or fell. Luckily, none of them did. Scales, being a Treefolk and therefore used to climbing things as a part of his daily life, was the first one to reach the top.

Scales helped Aiyana up to the top of the cliff. I moved to help Inuyyak, but he gave a low growl and rebuffed me, hauling himself over the edge of the cliff all on his own. We didn't glance back at what remained of the ill-fated underlings. We'd been dealt an incredible stroke of luck, and we'd have to be pretty damn stupid to waste it.

Still, though…we were now traveling in the dark. There was still the soft violet glow of the rainclouds, but only a small fraction of it was able to penetrate the trees. The cobras fared much better than me, and I found myself relying more and more on Scales to keep me from accidentally walking over the edge of another gorge.

Several times we actually had to hide in the bushes to wait for a swarm of underlings to pass us by. The underlings were out in force during the nighttime hours, and we especially didn't want to attract another swarm like we did last time. If another group of underlings were to discover us, they'd probably bring hundreds of their friends down on our heads. Not that I can't handle underlings, but there comes a point where sheer numbers actually start to matter, and said numbers would never be in our favor.

And so, we played the stealth card, and we moved silently through the trees and hills. Well, the three cobra-consorts moved silently—they slithered like normal snakes did, head to the ground and everything, making very little noise as a result. As for me…well, I wasn't making a ruckus or anything, but I couldn't help but step on twigs or dead leaves every few paces. And we haven't run into any trouble yet, so I'm just gonna go ahead and assume that I'm being quiet enough.

We kept this up until morning, when the daylight returned. Nothing changed, really. We were just able to pick up the pace a little because the underlings weren't quite so numerous, and I was also able to…you know…see where I was going.

I know I have a penchant for filling empty silence with conversation…but what can I say? I'm usually a quiet person, but that's just because everyone else does most of the talking. When everyone else is silent…well, I just don't like it.

"So has anyone ever actually seen Hyperion?" I asked, speaking to both Aiyana and Inuyyak, though I knew Aiyana was much more likely to answer than her violet-scaled friend. "I mean, everyone keeps saying I'm gonna have to face him eventually, but all anyone knows about him is that he arrived here six hundred years ago and fucked a lot of shit up. Does he never leave his palace?"

"No one sspeakss of the Denizen very often," Aiyana replied. "His name iss never invoked lightly. None who ssaw him during his conquesst are alive any longer. The only one to have confronted the Denizen and lived to tell about it wass the Old One."

That one made me frown. "Wait, wait, wait a hot sec." I held up a hand, halting the story. "How could the Old One have met Hyperion? The Old One lived over ten thousand years ago."

"You assk too many quesstions, little Knight," Inuyyak grunted.

Aiyana blinked once, giving the violet-scaled cobra a quick glare. Inuyyak gave another grunt and flared his neck hoods in a shrug, turning his attention forward once more. The brown-scaled female turned back to me. "Our mythology iss confusing, if nothing elsse. A conssequence, perhapss, of our lack of a written form of our language. I know only the sstoriess our elderss tell uss, not how they came to firsst be told."

"Ogress!" Inuyyak whisper-shouted from up ahead. By now, taking cover was instinctual. I didn't even have to look for the best place to hide—as if on autopilot, my body simply dove into a nearby thicket of shrubbery. I flattened myself to the earth.

As a pack of eight or nine ogres lumbered past us, the only thing I was really thinking about was how interesting it was that, despite the perpetual rain that gave my planet part of its name, the soil never seemed to turn into mud. Which was just as well—if the ground here behaved normally, there'd be nothing but mud covering the whole planet. Then it'd be the Land of Mud and Rivers. Or the Land of Rain and Mud. Either way, it didn't really have as much of a ring.

After one or two minutes of silence, we broke cover and continued making our way through the woods. I wondered how large the Bear's Thicket was—while I was sure it wasn't anywhere near the size of the Knightswood or the Shadowed Forest, it certainly seemed to be pretty damn big. I could see how the Bear and his warriors had held out against Hyperion and his underlings for so long. There were many places to hide—I wouldn't have wanted to be on Hyperion's side during the campaign to flush the Bear out of these woods.

Of course, the Bear and all his warriors died, so I really wouldn't have wanted to be on either side of that fight.

We paused only for a brief lunch—nuts, bread provisions, and water—before getting right back to it. It was late afternoon by the time we reached our next destination. No, not the High Council Fire; the river that would apparently take us to it.

A sky river descended from the violet rainclouds and came within forty feet of the top of a hill. That hill had actually come into view about an hour before we reached it—we had to cross a valley that was absolutely swarming with imps and ogres. Normally it would've taken us twenty minutes, or so, but we had to move extra slowly due to all the underlings.

For a while, I wondered how we'd travel down the sky river without a boat, but I decided not to ask. Aiyana would not be leading us here if there was no way to use the river. As it turns out, the Underground—the network of resistance cells that operated in the Northern Fires, led by the Faithful—had made sure to leave a canoe at this drop-off, concealed underground. All we had to do was uncover it.

This was a larger canoe than the one Scales and I had taken north from the desert—able to fit all four of us. We clambered into the small boat and lifted it into the air with our collective Vis. There was an alarming screech that rang out not too far away. An underling must have spotted us. Sure enough, within ten or fifteen seconds, the hilltop below was swarming with imps, with more ogres on the way.

It didn't matter. They were too late. Between the four of us, we were able to levitate ourselves up to the sky river within half a minute. We lowered the canoe back down onto the water, where it was snatched away by the current. Inuyyak picked up one of the paddles and settled down in the front of the boat, propelling us forward with long, powerful strokes. I took up a position in the back of the boat, like before, and kept us relatively straight, straining at first to keep up with Inuyyak's strokes.

After a bit of a bumpy first few minutes, we settled into a rhythm, and our trip grew much calmer.

"What was the name of this river?" I asked.

"Thiss wass once the Nanuk River," Aiyana replied. "In the olden dayss, we used thiss river to travel from the Golden Grasses to the Shadowed Forest in the West. Of course, the Cataclysm changed that."

I remember the consorts mentioning something about whatever the fuck this mysterious Cataclysm was supposed to be, and a connection with the sky rivers, but I couldn't remember what it was. I was feeling curious, so I decided to ask. "How so?"

Aiyana glanced back at me, blinking several times. "Our riverss flowed across the earth, during the time of the First Stories, until the Cataclysm ten thoussand yearss ago."

"The Long Night of Sorrows ravaged our world, and our riverss were ssundered into the sskiess," Scales finished for the brown-scaled female. "The elderss tell uss that our very sskiess glowed with the energy of the Vis, and the power already infused within the riverss had quite a reaction to it—the riverss were no longer bound to the ground; they were able to ssusstain themsselves in the air."

While this was all very fascinating and everything, by now I'd almost forgotten how we'd even gotten onto this topic of conversation. I'd just forgotten what the name of the river was; I hadn't meant for that to turn into a history lesson.

We didn't talk very much after that. There wasn't a lot to talk about, and we were all a bit tired from constantly being on the watch for attacks from the underlings. The Nanuk River flowed through and above the rain clouds for the majority of the time. We canoed through giant, majestic cloud banks that towered over us like some sort of heavenly mountain range. At times, we would find ourselves paddling alongside a flock of cardinals. The small red birds were actually quite numerous—they just tended to fly above the rain clouds, so we never saw them very often.

Sometimes the Nanuk River would dip below the clouds, and we would watch as we sped past hills, mountains, and wide valleys. Sometimes I could even spot a town or two—wood and stone buildings, surrounded by protective palisades. The larger towns always had a black and gray fort on a hilltop nearby—Dersite structures, I could only assume.

It occurred to me that none of my friends had ever mentioned having Dersites on their planets—they only had to deal with underlings. I wondered why the dark-shelled carapacians had come to my planet. How was it that Hyperion had control of them, but none of my friends' denizens did? What was so special about him? He must have been working with the Black Queen, or something, to receive Dersite support.

I knew that after I got the Northerners onto the 'Fuck Hyperion's Shit' bandwagon, all of the consorts would march on Hyperion's Palace. And while I knew that I, personally, wouldn't be leading the assault or anything, it was me the consorts would be rallying around. Their precious Knight, as if I was supposed to make all the difference in the world… Any which way, though, I really wasn't looking forward to the battle. I've seen my consorts go up against Dersites in the past, and it wasn't pretty. Granted, those consorts had been prisoners, not warriors…but still. Going up against energy rifle-wielding Dersites would yield losses…and probably a lot of them.

I glanced over at Scales. The red-scaled consort was coiled up along with Aiyana in the middle of the canoe, both of them fast asleep. Would he be alive at the end of all this? How many of Clan Nathair would survive? Would his father?

Agh! See, there I go again, letting my thoughts run wild. Gotta stop doing that…

We all have to die sometime…

What the fuck? Who the fuck whispered that?

Scales and Aiyana were sleeping, and Inuyyak had been silent since yesterday. Who had…? Oh no. No. No, no, no.

I glanced over to the right—the Nanuk River was flowing through a storm cloud, at the moment, so it was hard to see anything. But for a brief, split-second of a moment, I was able to spot someone in the dark violet mist. A silhouette. A familiar voice…a familiar voice that I was never quite able to recognize.

The Phantom was back.

And just as I focused on the silhouette in the cloud, it vanished. The Nanuk River climbed upwards suddenly, taking us above the rain clouds and twisting through the night sky. I found myself gripping both sides of the canoe, my knuckles turning bone-white, my paddle lying on the floor of the boat.

Inuyyak must have felt the change in our movement with me no longer paddling, because he twisted around to look at me, his slate-gray eyes blinking several times in concern. "What iss wrong, little Knight?" the giant consort rumbled.

"Nothing…" I murmured, picking my paddle back up, plunging it back into the river. "I'm just being haunted. No biggie…"

I was grateful that Inuyyak decided not to question me any further. Instead, he flared his neck hoods in a shrug, returning with a low grunt to his paddling. It had been a while since the Phantom had paid me a visit. It used to give me nightmares when I was a kid, but I'd never told anyone about it—not even my Sis. Didn't want to deal with psychiatrists and shit, you know? It bothered me less frequently as I got older, and I hadn't encountered the Phantom even once in the past three or so weeks. Maybe it was because I was under a lot of stress, or whatever, but I really hadn't seen the Phantom very much lately.

I wondered why I was seeing it again, all of a sudden. Why was it bothering me now?

I didn't have time for this. I had to worry about recruiting the last tribe of my consorts so that we could all get together and take down my Denizen, who was apparently the strongest person with the Force Aspect on this planet. You can understand the stress? Do I really need some phantom spectre haunting me right now?

No, I don't.

Though I continued to paddle with Inuyyak, I grew lost in my own thoughts. By the time I was jerked back to reality, it was nearly morning. I was nudged by Aiyana's tail, almost causing me to jump. The daylight was just barely starting to return, and the Nanuk River had taken us below the clouds once again. Not too far ahead, I could see it dipping down within thirty feet of a ridge covered in giant trees.

That was obviously the place where we were going to disembark, but Aiyana was directing my attention to the tall mountain in the near distance. Though it was disappearing from view as we lost altitude, I could see part of a settlement on the far side of the mountain. It was surrounded by stone walls, and there was a giant fort built into the mountainside, watching over the town below.

"That iss the High Council Fire," Aiyana said to me. "We have arrived."