Life Seed, page 20
“Setting things right.”
He slashed as deeply as he could, and the pain was exquisite in its agony. Tristan lunged forward with a wordless cry, but Sizzra’s tail blurred with the speed of its motion and pushed Tristan back, pinning him to one of the walls. Elias felt a stab of concern, but when the tail retreated, Tristan was unhurt.
That was good. Maybe if this worked, Sizzra would let him live.
Blood was already pooling on his forearm as Elias held it above the Life Seed. As soon as the first drop touched the withered husk, Elias felt a pulse of energy that grew with every drop, nourishing the fathomless hunger, mixing wurl and human DNA within itself. Elias was shocked to realize that he could sense Sizzra’s thoughts much more clearly now, as if they were linked together again by the Life Seed. He looked up at her, and she met his gaze. As life flowed from both of them into the ravenous incarnation of the world, Elias could have sworn he felt a flicker of respect echoing from the mind of the great wurl queen.
Tristan was shouting something, but as seconds turned into minutes, Elias’s strength wavered and he found he could no longer concentrate on anything except the Seed and Sizzra. Blood was flowing from his wrist, much more slowly now. He began to feel thirsty and very cold.
The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was Tristan being gently but firmly pushed away, back down into the tunnel that led out of the mountain. Elias tried to say something to him, to reassure him that this was okay, that it was the only way to make amends for the horrible thing humans had done when they uprooted the Flower, but he realized he had no more strength left.
His eyelids fluttered shut. Vaguely, he sensed the heat of a large creature coming closer.
Chapter 19—The Valley
IT WAS very dark when Elias opened his eyes once more. The tatters of his dreams became entangled in his stumbling confusion as he moved his head slowly from side to side, the motion as hard to perform as if he were trying to lift a mountain.
A mountain.
The thought triggered associations in his mind, and he remembered. He had been in the Flower chamber with Tristan, watching how the Life Seed failed to bloom. He had sensed its ravenous hunger and had done what Sizzra had also done: offer the Seed the gift of his life.
I should be dead. What happened?
He tried to get up, but his body would not respond. His panic was short-lived, however, overcome by a wave of exhaustion. In its aftermath, Elias was reduced to looking straight ahead, or rather up since he could now tell he was lying on his back. He could not see any stars or feel the cold bite of the wind, so he assumed he was still in the chamber. Of the wurl queen there was no sign.
Sleep came very quickly, and Elias’s dreams were enormous. Fragments of memories not his own, of beings too large to comprehend, mixed in with his own human impressions of the last few days and wove themselves into a fantastical mesh of contradicting perspectives. It was almost a relief for Elias to open his eyes, awake again, and see the faint light of early morning coming from somewhere to his left.
This time, he was able to stand up. It took a long time, though. He was weak, light-headed, and shivering. He grabbed on to the rocks nearby and leaned against a wall to stabilize himself and look around. It appeared he was inside a cave, somewhat larger than the one in which Tristan and he had spent a couple of nights. Not the Flower chamber, then. On the ground, right around the spot where he had lain, the rocks were covered by a thick carpet of velvety moss, dark red in color. Elias knelt down to touch it, but a sudden attack of dizziness overpowered him, and he fell on his face, right on top of the soft moss. It was surprisingly warm and thick, almost like a bed.
He got up a second time and, strangely, felt somewhat better. Carefully, he walked out of the cave. He had no idea what had happened to him, and the first thing he did when he was out in the sunlight was inspect his left wrist. There was a scar there, jagged and long, a reminder of what he had done. It was completely closed now, though, and the area looked pink and healthy, with no sign of infection. Elias hesitated for a second, then reached with his other hand and touched the scar. It was real, definitely, but it was odd. According to his link, it had only been one day, too short a time for his wound to heal.
Tristan.
Elias attempted to send a message to him with the little computer, but he was out of range of the network. He was left to worry in silence, hoping that Tristan had managed to get away.
The bright morning light revealed that he was standing at the bottom of a narrow valley surrounded by mountains on all sides but to the east. Brittle brown grass covered the irregular terrain, swaying gently in the cold wind. The land stretched out for several kilometers, but the space it encompassed looked tiny against the backdrop of the towering peaks. At the western end of the enclosure, a small lake glistened tantalizingly.
Growing in a neat row around the lake, there was food.
Elias recognized the purpleberry bushes immediately, and his stomach roared with repressed hunger. He was famished; he had to get some sustenance.
He made his way across the valley as fast as he could, but his link showed him that it took him nearly thirty minutes to reach the lakeside. Once there, he knelt down gratefully next to the bushes and inhaled their heady fragrance. Then he ate.
Elias was glad nobody else was around because he ate like an animal. He stuffed his mouth with handfuls of the juicy, sweet berries as fast as he could chew. The ripest ones were plump and refreshing, and even the smaller ones which had yet to ripen had a pleasant tart tang mixed into the wonderful flavor of their moist, crunchy flesh. The sun moved across the sky, and Elias still ate, stopping only when his stomach protested. He lay back, resting his weight on his hands, and looked up at the sky in a moment of pure bliss. He burped loud enough for the echoes to come back to him, and he chuckled.
Worry for Tristan cut the moment of mirth short. Elias wished he could go find him, but weakness wrapped itself around his body like thick vines that restricted his movement. For now, all he could do was try to survive.
It was a few days before Elias felt like himself again. He ate a lot and regained his strength slowly, looking forward to his berry feasts. At the end of the week, he realized he no longer had dizzy spells or tremors, and his steps were steady. He allowed himself a small grin of satisfaction. By his link, he knew a full week had passed, and he was still alive.
Then one day he saw Sizzra approaching, and the smile died on his face.
He stood up as quickly as possible and watched her descend the mountain right above the cave. She was rolling down like a huge iridescent boulder come to life, the sunlight glinting off the sharp edges of her remaining spines. It looked like she was going too fast to be in control of her motion, but just before crashing against the ground she uncoiled her body, turned, and landed square on her six feet. The ground trembled from the impact.
It would have been perfectly graceful had she not evidenced a faint but unmistakable limp as she walked toward him. Once he was closer, Elias saw why. One of her front feet had teeth marks all over it, both scars and newly opened puncture wounds, which she must have inflicted with her own bite when she offered the Life Seed her blood.
Elias knew now that the magnificent creature coming straight for him was only a shadow of her former self, and yet he could not suppress the primal terror in his heart at seeing such a large predator approaching. Even weak as she was, limping and wounded, her every motion carried an unmistakable air of confidence and power. Her scales appeared to drink in the sunlight and reflect it back a hundredfold. Her eye cluster fixed Elias with a savage yet intelligent look, and the mere size of her as she came to a stop in front of him, towering above Elias, was deeply unsettling.
She paused for a moment as Elias looked up at her. Then she lowered her head so her eyes would be level with his.
The horrible wound that the Life Seed had inflicted on her snout looked even worse after seven days. The edges were still glowing like hot embers, and Elias was certain that their diameter had increased. A single drop of glittering scarlet blood trickled down Sizzra’s nostrils and fell at Elias’s feet.
She did not speak, but Elias’s breath caught in his lungs when he realized that he could understand what she wanted.
Sizzra looked at him, then up at the mountain summit. Her will was clear. They had to go back to the Life Seed and offer it more life.
Elias was already moving, powerless to fight the overwhelming intensity of Sizzra’s silent command, but the sight of the mountain and his own weakness made his steps falter.
“I can’t climb that,” he said aloud, if only to hear his voice.
Sizzra looked back at him.
“I’m too small and too weak,” Elias explained. He wasn’t sure if she was even capable of understanding such specific ideas. “The mountain is too tall.”
Wordless, Sizzra was clear in her disdain. She could certainly understand him, then, and Elias felt a satisfied flicker of confirmation coming from her. She had supposed he was weak, but a wary corner of her mind had been wondering how it was that he and the others like him had been able to kill their own female, and so she was suspicious of his apparent helplessness, perhaps meant to deceive.
Elias blinked. He was utterly confused, and even more so when Sizzra’s will insinuated images into his mind. Foremost he saw the wreck of the Ionas as a crew dismantled it.
Understanding crashed so suddenly that he almost laughed.
“That wasn’t our female,” he told Sizzra. “That was our ship. It brought us here from another world.”
Faint confusion was his only reply. He perceived Sizzra’s attempt to understand the concept he referred to, linking it to the knowledge of space travel she had gleaned from his mind earlier, and then ended, giving it up entirely. She did not care about starships. She only cared about her Flower.
She started moving again, but Elias held back. “I’m sorry, I can’t go.”
Sizzra wheeled about so suddenly that Elias yelped in fright. Her eyes were blazing with irritation. The command came again. It wasn’t a question—he had to move.
So Elias obeyed.
He spent the better part of the morning attempting to climb the increasingly difficult slope in the wake of the wurl queen. The strength in his arms and legs gave way completely by early afternoon as he hauled himself onto a rocky ledge with trembling hands.
“I can’t go on,” he panted, even as he heard Sizzra coming back, radiating impatience.
Elias didn’t care. He was too tired, and not even the strength of her command was going to make energy appear out of nowhere. If she wanted him to go to the mountain, she would have to carry him there.
The thought registered with Sizzra, who considered it and then deemed it acceptable. Incredibly, she slithered down to the ledge where Elias was resting and looked at him with the unmistakable intention of carrying him all the way to the top.
Elias rose halfway, thinking that maybe he would get to ride her, but his hopes were quickly dashed when a huge clawed foot reached out for him, enveloping him in a crushing embrace that was mere centimeters away from the wicked glass scythes at its end. Sizzra grabbed him like she would have grabbed dead prey, and she climbed the mountain.
They went much quicker that way. The sun had barely touched the peaks of the western mountains by the time Sizzra dumped Elias on the vine-covered ground in the chamber of the Flower. Thankful for the freedom, Elias walked to the very center, where the Life Seed lay as he had first seen it in the laboratory back home, closed entirely yet still undoubtedly alive.
The discarded spine was still lying there, one of its edges tinged with rusty red. Above him, Elias saw how Sizzra bit her foot once again so the blood would flow.
He had no choice. He brought the spine to the scarcely healed skin on his left wrist and—
Sizzra growled in warning. She did not want him to do that. Confused, Elias looked up at her. She bristled with impatience and glanced at her own foot, which she had indeed bitten, but only with one tooth to make a very shallow puncture wound that dripped but a few precious drops of blood onto the Seed.
Slowly, Elias brought the tip of the spine to the palm of his hand. He poked it, hard, and let go when the first drop of blood appeared. He received approval from Sizzra and an impatient nudge to place his hand over the Seed so the blood would drip down on it as well.
As before, Elias’s sight bloomed with the contact. He was suddenly aware of the tendrils of energy which Sizzra called spirit-lines, linking all the creatures on the continent together. Something was different this time, though. There was a strange spark in the chamber, next to the beautiful glow of Sizzra and the ravenous vortex of the Seed. It was like an afterimage of a living creature, barely recognizable as such but unmistakably there.
There was grim satisfaction from the wurl queen, and in the wake of her thoughts, Elias understood. The Seed was changing, and the more life it took from him, the more alien it became. It was transforming even now, adapting, evolving in days to what would take a normal creature millions of years to become. It would become a hybrid, capable of recognizing humans, and through that transformation, capable of blooming again.
Abruptly, the clarity of the connection was cut. Elias realized that Sizzra had nudged him out of the way, her clear negative indicating that he had given enough life for the day. Thankful that he wasn’t going to be required to bleed out to keep the Seed alive, Elias surrendered to the iron grip of Sizzra’s foot as she carried him down to the valley once more.
She placed him on the ground, almost gently, being careful in the extreme with a creature so fragile. Elias understood now. She needed him alive to enable the Life Seed’s renewal. And she would not be able to leave the proximity of the Seed until it had bloomed again, so the colony of Portree was safe. For now.
She did not even say goodbye, merely bounded away with seemingly effortless grace that hid her limp, trailing the last thought that Elias was able to perceive. She was hungry, and she was going to hunt.
The next day, Elias was thoughtful. He knew his continued presence was required to help the Life Seed, but he was sick with worry for his family and Tristan. He didn’t know whether Tristan had made it out alive, and he hoped Sizzra hadn’t ordered the male wurl to attack the colony.
Maybe I can leave, for a little bit. Just so I know everyone’s okay, and so I can warn them. I can come back right away, but I need to know. They need to know.
He spent all morning thinking about whether it was right for him to try and escape, or whether it was best for him to remain where he was. In the end, he decided that a week or two wouldn’t kill the Life Seed since it had survived all this time already, and he hardened his resolve. He was going to try his luck and leave. He would come back as soon as he could.
That afternoon Elias tried to find a way out of the valley. He started walking due east, but he had barely come in sight of the wide opening leading farther down into the forested terrain when Sizzra arrived. Wordless, she nevertheless made her message clear. Elias was not allowed to leave.
Disappointed, he returned to the cave. He was tired and soon fell asleep. He woke up in the middle of the night when the chill was deepest and tried to escape once more.
He walked carefully over the brittle blades of dry grass. He considered getting some more purpleberries for the way back but discarded the idea. He wanted to be as quick and quiet as he could. Perhaps the wurl queen would not expect him to try and make a run for it in the dark. Once he was in the forest, he knew he would be safe. Sizzra could not leave the side of the Seed for very long, if the memories he had received from her were any indication. If he was lucky, he would be long gone by the time she thought to look for him again.
The world was quiet at night. Glittering stars overhead, too many to count, outlined the faint but unmistakable path of the Milky Way as it arced over the sky. There was some moonlight, for which Elias was thankful. It revealed small rocks and patches of desiccated bushes which he avoided with great care. As he advanced through the frigid night, he kept glancing up at the towering mountains surrounding him. Their slopes were dark and motionless, and Elias hoped desperately that he wouldn’t see a rolling, spiny shape tumbling down to cut him off.
He made it all the way to the edge of the valley, proud of how stealthily he had moved. He was a shadow among shadows, small and difficult to see. Now it was only a matter of descending to the forest.
The breaking point of the valley was sudden, dropping down several hundred meters to the lower terrain where the forest was. Elias had the confusing sensation of being on top of a cliff overlooking the ocean, except this cliff looked out over a sea of trees instead of water. To reach safety, he would have to make his way down very carefully, like a rock climber but without any security equipment.
Elias swallowed the dry lump in his throat. It looked difficult and possibly suicidal. He had never actually climbed down anything taller than a tree before, and he wasn’t too confident about the strength of his upper body.
I’ve got to try anyway. I have to warn the colony about Sizzra. I’ve got to get out of here.
Slowly, he lowered his body over the edge above a place with a secure foothold. Once his feet had touched the solid rock underneath him, Elias let go of the lip of the cliff and pressed himself against the wall. Now he was committed. He didn’t have the strength in his arms to pull himself up again, even if he had wanted to.
“I guess no way but down,” he whispered between gritted teeth.
He edged sideways on the wall, looking below until he saw another ledge about two meters down. It was an easy jump, but the ledge underneath was quite narrow. Elias had no idea how he was going to stabilize himself if he simply dropped and hoped for the best. He might lose his balance and fall backward, to plummet screaming until his body crashed against the forest floor.
