Chapter 17 #2
My neck started to cramp from looking up, so I lay down with my head on one of my packs to listen to Ardruc play and watch the korae dance. Rumbling in contentment, Forux clambered onto my stomach and curled up.
A warm, welcoming feeling seeped into me from the grass I lay on. I pulled up my sleeves and stretched out my arms to feel more of that comfort.
Vines unwound from along the roofline and snaked their way across the grass to stroke my fingers. Leaves caressed my palms and rested lightly in my cupped hands as if they wanted to be cradled.
Ardruc’s lat’sar music faded to a single sustained chord. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice pitched low.
“Yes.” I raised my left hand so he could see the leaves on my palm. “They’re just resting there. And the ground is warm and welcoming.”
“Incredible.” His gaze moved to my hand and back to meet my eyes. “What does your gut tell you?”
I smiled wryly. “How mad does it sound if I say it feels like Hyderia is trying to take care of us and make us happy?”
“Utterly mad,” he said, his eyes twinkling. He played a flurry of notes that sent the tendrils spinning in a joyful whirlwind. “Mad and marvelous.”
Smiling, I turned my gaze skyward again.
Far, far above us in the mesosphere—where atmospheric discharges of electricity generally belonged—a huge display of multicolored korae bloomed silently across the sky. Its actual size was hard to discern with the naked eye, but it must have been many kilometers wide.
The tendrils abandoned their dance to emulate the korae’s patterns and colors. They swayed in place for a few beats, then began dancing again in an intricate imitation of the korae. The twin displays were breathtaking. The korae faded, but the tendrils continued their dance.
A few seconds later, two sets of multicolored korae appeared in the atmosphere. The tendrils above us divided and echoed the korae’s pattern and colors again, dancing and twining around each other.
Our rooftop visitors’ movements seemed like more than a dance now—more like they were trying to tell us something.
“I don’t think our visitors are korae,” I said softly. “I think they’re a plasma-based life form imitating the korae. It’s a duet, like you playing with the wind. It’s music and dance. It’s art.”
Ardruc’s music faded. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him put his lat’sar snugly into its case and close the lid. I missed his music immediately, but the tendrils around and above us continued dancing and emulating the korae display in the sky.
Slowly, as if worried about startling the tendrils, Ardruc picked up one of his own empty equipment bags, rose, and made his way across the roof to where I lay.
I left my right arm extended to hold vine leaves but tucked the other against my side in a silent invitation.
He put his pack down next to mine, folded his wings neatly, and lay down to my left.
That wonderful sweet-peppery scent enveloped me. I inhaled deeply and sighed.
Side by side, we watched in silent awe as the tendrils alternated between dancing with each other and imitating a succession of enormous and brilliant korae displays.
When it came to the natural world, fungi would forever be my first and true love.
They contained endless mysteries and wonders, and even if I spent my entire life studying them—which I planned to do—I would understand only the tiniest fraction about their essential qualities.
Analyzing fungi felt like peering into the infinite.
My studies were humbling and at the same time wonderfully fulfilling.
Korae and these tendrils, however they might be related—or indeed if they were at all—had a strong claim to second place now in my mind and heart.
Maybe my instincts had told me there was something more to this planet’s upper atmospheric electrical discharges than met the eye before that first encounter in the forest. Or maybe it was just their beauty and colors and power that had enthralled me much like they had long captivated Ardruc, though he’d hidden that wonder under his cold, distant facade.
Now that facade had cracked. I hoped it would fall and smash like a dropped vase on marble, never to be used again. Maybe I could help him smash it.
Hard to believe just a few nights ago, I’d lain almost in this exact spot and pictured what Ardruc would think about rooftop korae-watching. In my imagination, he’d scoffed and stomped back downstairs to stare at his data.
At the moment, his glowing golden gaze was nearly rapturous as the tendrils danced and korae filled the sky with color and raw power. I slid my hand over and touched Ardruc’s fingertips. He curled his fingers around mine.
Warmth, comfort, and peace swelled from the ground and through the vines wrapped around my hand. The sensation filled my body from my head to the soles of my feet, concentrating in and around the mark on my chest. Then it traveled from my chest, down my arm, and through my hand into Ardruc.
Time seemed to still.
The air turned to shimmering mist in endless iridescent colors, swirling and flowing around us in streams and layers. Silver-blue threads formed webs connecting mushrooms and lichen to roots and grass, branches and vines, twigs and leaves, and from those leaves to my hand and then Ardruc’s.
As if a veil had been lifted, a vast and wondrous network of life had appeared. Its threads coursed around and through us, pulsing steady and strong and humming with sensation.
Three enormous korae bloomed across the sky, sending waves through the threads.
For a moment, I felt as if my body were floating above the grass as the power and beauty of it coursed under and through me.
The sensation reminded me of floating on my back in the ocean—but it was as if I were the ocean too, a consciousness without body or form.
Panic started to rise. But when I focused on moving my fingers, my physical sensations returned. Ardruc squeezed my hand as if he was my anchor, or I was his.
A gust of cool autumn wind swept down the mountainside. The trees swayed, dancing in a wave of pleasure that thrummed through the threads and resonated in my soul—and in my chest where the tendril had marked me with a symbol made of plant cells.
Great gods above and below, the planet’s ecosystem was marvelously and intricately interconnected in ways I couldn’t begin to fathom.
Hyderia was alive.