He continued talking as they returned to the us, the forest people watching, seemingly completely at ease. Gree-Gree reached a hand out to me, and I took it. He tugged, helping me get up even as my numb butt and leg muscles complained from being forced to move out of the position they’d been in for far too long during a ride that, despite best efforts, had still been a bit on the bumpy side.
“Ride’s over, I guess!” I said to my friends as they likewise were urged to disembark. The packs were handed out, each of our big galoots shouldering a few and dispersing the lighter ones between us puny-by-comparison humans. Once that was all sorted, Gree-Gree took me by the hand once more, tugging me so our sides touched. It was a clear sign of possession, and especially with the way his thumb stroked the back of my hand for a brief moment before walking us back towards the forest people. I’d expected them to start talking again or say hi or something as my friends and I reached them, but to my surprise, the one who appeared to be the leader of their group simply spun on his heel and began walking deeper into the forest, his people and our group following behind.
The path taken seemed random, without a clear trail of any kind, and here within the forest itself, we’d surely be able to see one, as, oddly, the snow grew first slushy, then sparse, and finally completely absent.
“Is it me, or is it getting a helluva lot warmer?” Beth huffed, stopping to shrug out of her cloak.
“Yeah, it definitely is,” Patrick agreed, following suit.
Huh. I’d started feeling a bit overly warm, but thought it was due to the exercise of hiking through the woods, which was somehow sheltering us from the wind and snow. Gree-Gree called out to the leader, and he stopped to allow us all to shed our heavier outer garments, which one of the forest dwellers collected one by one, draping them over a rock which looked like the world’s most gigantic cubic zirconia, cut facets and all, a short distance away. We were quickly divested of half of our packs as well, which were piled around the base of the rock. Then we resumed our walk. My friends and I exchanged surprised glances, but I mentally shrugged. Neither Gree-Gree nor his friends objected, so it was apparently a safe place to leave them, or Gree-Gree surely wouldn’t have let them dump them there. My friends must have come to the same conclusion, as they didn’t say anything either.
We kept walking for what felt like an interminable amount of time, suddenly coming to a halt where a group of pale amethyst crystal bushes grew in a group around what had to be the biggest tree in the entire forest. The leader quirked his lips, stepped between two of the bushes, and simply vanished.
“Where the fuck did he just go?” Gary demanded, looking as startled as I felt.
“Rah-bee,” Gree-Gree said, picking me up, placing me chest to chest in a position that encouraged me to wrap my legs around his waist. He touched his forehead to mine, eyes locked to mine as he took one step, then another, and then we were in free fall. My mouth opened up in a scream as my stomach purged, and I tightened my hold on Gree-Gree. I was dimly aware that I’d buried my face into his neck and screwed my eyes shut. My scream was cut embarrassingly short as we landed, rattling my teeth and bones. Fuck. It had only been maybe ten or eleven feet at most, not a seemingly endless pit.
Gree-Gree patted me reassuringly on my back before settling me onto my feet.
“Rah-bee,” he said, giving me a tender smile. Well, as tender as one could be with a bit of fang showing anyhow.
“Don’t Rah-bee me!” I snapped. “I damn near pissed my pants!”
He was seemingly unfazed by my outburst, instead grabbing my hand again, giving it a squeeze before pulling me well away from where we’d landed. Just in time, too, as one of the forest people came hurtling down, Gary clutching him for dear life.
One by one, the rest of our expanded party came through the hidden hole in the ground.
“Let’s not do that again,” Sam gasped as she tried to steady her feet, shaken up by the method of transit.
I couldn’t have agreed more. That was a surprise I never wanted to experience ever again. It was not the last unexpected thing for us to encounter, however.
“Wait, are those electric lights?” Fred gasped, causing me and the rest of my fellow humans to take a good look around. Fuck. Me.
The pale yellow flickering light in here, which I’d assumed were from torches that I belatedly realized I’d not seen at all, looked exactly like emergency lighting back on Earth.
26
GRIGHRI
Rah-bee and his friends were fascinated by the lights inside the tunnel. With the language barrier still between us, I had no way to explain to him that the Star Gods had long ago placed them here and that they were powered by the great crystalline trees above, using some process that seemed magical but was not. It was something clever their kind had discovered, accessing power to run the lights and to keep the tunnel free of cold and damp despite the weather above. It was why we called them gods, though we did not worship them so much as honor them and follow their guidance. They were Sky People, after all, not mystical beings, despite what our ancestors first thought.
Hroash sidled up to me.
“They must think they are inside another metal grak,” he said. “Though not a demon one, as they are not afraid.”
“Perhaps,” I agreed, though that didn’t feel quite like it. Metal graks flew, and this was underground, unless Rah-bee’s Sky People had burrowing metal beasts they used to travel underground. That made more sense, and I decided that must be it. It also explained why they were standing there chattering instead of walking.
“Rah-bee, come,” I told him, tugging him to come along. “We must walk. This is a tunnel, not a metal beast that moves you.”
“Oh!” he said, realizing he and his friends were holding us up. “Sah-ree.” He pointed at the light nearest us. “Thayr eelektrik”
I smiled and nodded, letting him know I understood how wondrous he found their presence. After being in our village, seeing the trees, the tunnel, and the lights had surely been a surprise. I remembered the first time I’d seen them, after having heard them described by our teacher and shown a drawing of the trees and their keepers in one of our learning books. I, too, had been amazed.
“The chamber is around this next bend,” Thilish, the leader of this group of guardians, said. “May the Gods smile favorably upon your matings.” I didn’t miss the wistful way he looked at my Rah-bee, and I felt sorry for him.
Grokah shivered. “I hate going through the portal. It feels unnatural.”
“That’s because it is unnatural,” Thilish smirked, his eyes dancing in amusement. “It is Star God made, not something the world provided by itself.”
