Under a Starless Sky

Chapter 18

Shen walked the edge of the Sleeping Forest going towards his cave. He was considering testing

whether or not his gift truly made him immune to the sleeper effect. There was his crude platform and

ropes near the last Irk nest he had found. He would likely be safe to take a nap there. Tying himself to a

tree limb in an emergency had always been a risky venture. He feared the rope would break, the limb

would break, or the hook wouldn’t catch, or the length of rope would be insufficient, or he would

accidentally hang himself, and or he wouldn’t be secure before the Irk hit a tree near enough to sleep

him. Finding Irks first wasn’t too hard, as there were always tells, but also they always announced their

presence prior to attacking. They preferred to shepherd prey into an opening, as opposed to chasing

through the forest. Shepherding was collaborative affair.

His procedure to avoid sleep had been effective enough. In an emergency, emergency meaning the

presence of an Irk, he climbed high enough not to be pecked to death then tossed a hook to the

nearest branch. It was a very crude hook. The weight of the hook usually took it around the branch a

couple times. If he saw it catch, he would mentally applaud himself, ‘batman!’ Several times he woke

hanging from a tree, as the other end was secured around his torso. The first time he discovered his

harness was secured improperly, and he woke ‘head down.’ He had a headache, but he was alive. It

was night, the Irks’ had given up. He managed to right himself and climb the rope to the branch. He

imagined himself a batman piñata.

He had yet to master climbing a rope as good as Cirque Du Soleil aerial performers, and he suspected

their vertical ropes were much better qualities. There were some places he expected Irk traffic and had

secured a dozen ropes, and a couple weight trapped ropes to ascend faster. After that incident, he

avoided Irks and sleeping trees as much as possible, which was impossible near his cave home; he

remained alert to the signs of Irks. Tells included fresh poop, footprints, odd chirps sounding the forest,

and pitch. The chirps suggested they had ‘click sight,’ but he had not seen them navigating at night.

When they announced their presence, there was always one who was chosen to scare the prey; this

was usually the oldest one, but he still didn’t know how the one was selected. The scary one would

come out of the shadows and screech, head feathers would fan out, flightless wings would extend. He

called that the embrace; it could extend from tree to tree in the forest, blocking an out. Clearly, they

were the top predators, not afraid, and so everything ran the opposite way of the one assigned to

scare. If he stayed put, the scary one approached, and would likely eat whatever didn’t run.

Shen’s first Irk kill had been a clever device, and an overabundance of hubris. He knew the nest. He

knew the clearing he would likely be shepherded to, and highly suspected the path the scary one would

take. The Irk didn’t come from precisely the angel he had assumed, but close enough. It screeched. He

held his held his ground. The Irk took steps towards him, and screeched again. It swayed to and fro,

wings extended blocking the path. The dance to incite run was almost comical. It came forward, head

tilting, uncertain, it clawed the ground, picking up leaves and dropping them. It could sleep him, and

drag the meal, but they were lazy. It lowered its head and attacked. Shen directed its head into a

noose, pulling a knot from the tree behind him. A bag of rocks came down. The Irk shot up into the tree.

Shen wasn’t clear if the other Irk’s understood, but after that, two other Irks came out of the shadow,

coming at him hard and fast. He released the second tie, and he, too, shot up into the tree. An

appropriately weight bag of rocks descended the tree, but lodge in a branch. He was out of their reach.

He applauded himself for having assumed greater Irk intelligence, because the hanging Irk’s weighted

net was on the ground. They attacked it. It was unclear if they were just mad and attacking the rope,

maybe because it smelled like him, or because they intuited the thing. Ultimately they broke the rope.

Their fellow Irk fell, crashing over top of one of them. The fallen Irk was dead, the other brushed off the

fall, and they ate their dead sister. Others came to join. It was awkward for them eating in the enclosed

place, and they fought each other. One of them jumped up but Shen was out of reach. Someone kicked

a tree and he slept. On waking, they were gone. He recovered feathers, and enough meat for a couple

days. This particular pack of Irks gave him a wider birth for a while. He wondered, short term memory

was good, but long term not so good?

Nests didn’t last long, and the Irks tended to roam. One could also discern movement because of their

poop trails. Dung beetles preferred the older, dried poop. If it weren’t for the balls being rolled with

pitch, they might have given the trees the appearance being snow frosted at the base. One could make

a reasonable estimate of area activity by the accumulation of fresh dung balls stuck to the trees. It had

a particular odor as well. Fresh dung smelled awful. By the time the beetles were rolling it, it was more

appealing, the kind of aged fruit smell, with a blend of tobacco. Dried and stuck to a tree, it was

surprisingly sweet, and bees would walk it looking for pollen. If they got stuck in the pitch, they were

eaten by larvae of a roamer beetle. Terry Pratchett would likely love how many beetles populated this

planet.

In his walk, holding the gift, he came upon a tree with an above ground root complex which was easier

to navigate walking the root. Some of the patterned opening were packed with ‘snow’ and pitch,

handiwork of a beetle that got their ball stuck and simply filled in around it. A larger opening had a hole

in the ground and the beetle that emerged would collect fallen leaves and draw it down into its nest.

The purple tree was dropping its leaves, small petals, purple flowery things that fell so heavy it was like

purple snow, and berries would drop. He found the berries unpalatable, but Irks would eat them, and so

he tolerated them on occasion until once he ate too many and vomited. He never at that again. The

flowery part reminded him of Cherry Blossoms. The tiny seeds made nice little pellets, and if he had a

BB-gun, they would probably be just as affected, as they were nuts to crack. He suspected the Irks

needed the seeds to help with digestion, as they also ate gravel.

He climbed over the root, touching a sleeper tree with his right hand as he began his passage over the

root complex.

He was suddenly seeing out of someone else’s eyes. He heard laughter and talking, and he was pretty

sure the voice was Lanore’s, only- it was qualitatively different. He understood immediately: this was

how she heard her own voice. He was in her head! He was familiar with her outside voice, and if he

played it on a tape recorder she would know it was hers and likely hate it, the same way he hated

hearing his own voice. He wondered if actors hated hearing themselves when watching movies.

He backed off the tree. Lanore went away. He touched the tree. He could hear Lanore talking, but the

vision was not so good. He stepped back up. Apparently, being off the earth, or full on the tree, made a

difference. She was talking about Candace, moving up in rank. They had colored her hair orange.

“Did you ever wonder why they call it the rainbow path?” Tell asked.

“Not since I visited Sinter,” Lanore said. Shen’s vision split. To the right he had memories as clear as

seeing a present day scene with his eyes, while, to his left he saw Tell and Neva, listening attentively.

He smelled the fire, something cooking over the fire; a stew. He felt affection for her; at the same time,

her felt her love for the forest in her memory. She was trying to convey love of the forest. He felt the

warmth of fire on her back. He could see Lanore’s legs, lotus position, holding a board with art. He was

embarrassed at feeling the stirrings of lust for her and nearly disconnected from the experience. They

were all drawing- he focused on this. Sitting on pillows, near the hearth of her study. She described the

rainbow path, a place were a variety of flowering trees, with every color one could imagine. The path

was not a path. It was simply a forest of trees, and the apprentice found their own way through the

forest. They had to collect colored petals. Intermixed in the forest was the occasional sleeper tree.

They were marked. Some had elaborate ribbons, or stone plaques. Eventually one came to the thick of

the Sleeping forest, which lined the shore of Sinter.

Shen discovered in this dialogue that no one traveled to the heart of Sinter who wasn’t born there, or

who wasn’t invited. Lanore had been born in Midelay, but she had passed an exam after being

apprentice and received an invitation without petition.

Lanore drew a circle. It was big, crude, she traced it lightly until she had a good circle, and darkened

that. She put notches in it. It wasn’t a perfect circle; it was a pentagram. Inside the pentagram, she

drew another circle, and in this she drew a lake. She describe the lake and the triple angel falls. The

lake was high, cupped by the three peaks. Sleeping trees were on the mountain, making it very difficult

to climb, but small temples were made at each of the falls. There were bridges over each falls. There

was a path that went over, through, but completed a perfect circle, connecting the three mountain tops.

There were three sky bridges that went to the temple above the lake. There was a stone path leading

up to the temple, but it didn’t reach the base. She spoke with reverence of the super beings that had

built the temples. ‘The ones before us.’ The entire outer circle was thick with Sleeping Trees. The trees

went into the water. There was one place where the trees were so large around, often touching the

neighboring trees, that it was solid wall. ‘The ones before’ had put door here, a living temple inside a

sleeper, and a door on the other side that opened above the waters ‘between.’ There was stone

building on the far side of the tree home, stairs going down to the water.

Lanore heard the whisper of a tangential memory: ‘a master can sleep here and discern all of

creation…’ but he didn’t chase it. He followed Lanore’s memory with narrative out to the other side. The

temple on the other side was marble. Not small bricks, but impossible size blocks. Odd shaped blocks

that fit in and locked together. These were not machine cut, or even moved by a thousand men and

shoved easily into place. They were either transported, using Star Trek-ish transporter or replicator

technology, or printed with a molecular three-D printer. The surface of the structure was mesmerizing. It

had a blending of what looked like ancient Egyptian and Mayan art. The door in the tree had wooden

steps leading down to the top of pyramid structure. There was a marble moon gate at the top. The

marble was white with gold veins. The whole of it looked like solid marble, with stairs leading down to

the water, stairs leading down, and leading east. Two ramps proceeded down on either side of the

stairs. There was another floor, like a terrace, that came up a foot above the water. The walls of the

pyramid came out and down. There were doors north, south, and west.

“A ziggurat!” Shen said.

“A ziggurat,” Lanore echoed.

Shen became instantly still and quiet, to the point it was as if he wasn’t there. In this silence, he heard

Oa: “What you watch, also watches you. You can hear her, she can hear you.”

“What was that?” Tell asked.

“I don’t know why I said that,” Lanore said.

Shen decided to test it, saying something funny to him, but incomprehensible to Lanore: “Malkovich.”

Lanore echoed the word. She wrote the two words she had uttered, phonetically on the paper.

Oa was amused. Shen stepped off the tree onto dirt and let go of the tree.

“Are you still there, Oa?” Shen asked.

No response. He sat down and drew what he had saw. He described the rainbow path. He drew the

continent of Sinter. He went home, gathered supplies for trade, and headed back out. He arrived at the

first camp by nightfall. He slept there, or tried to. He was too excited to sleep. He did try, but eventually

gave up. His mind was racing with dialogue and he just wanted to talk to someone real, not someone in

his head. He even argued with that thought, saying the conversations in his head are also real and

important, with caveats. He was exploring the caveats; inner conversations with Loxy were clearly

beneficial to his wellbeing, and different than racing thoughts, scaffolding, or scripting. When Loxy

responded, it was clear, not contrived, not him- it was dialogue.