Impatient, the Viper dug its scythes into the earth and began its routine journey to the heart of Aeolia. It would arrive within an hour at the junction to the Surface, where it would wind through whitewashed tunnels until it emerged into light woods. After a moment of stirring the minds of its prey, it would swallow them and plunge back into the ground, returning to its cold blank home.
The Viper slithered through dark caverns that shimmered with colored dew from the Weaving River. This river was a spectacular thing, indeed, that looped all along the Great Coast, flowing under and above, through and around. It was the painter of Aeolia, the Viper had heard whisperers say. They could all learn from its patience and grace.
The Viper flicked its tongue, narrowed its eyes—eyes that held more depth than any should—and forked into a narrow tunnel that writhed with skeletal things, primordial things. They were bony and pale, with small feelers and empty eye-sacs that had never needed to host sight. Since the dawn of the world they had fumbled in the night, crawling and clicking and climbing. They all remembered when the Viper was born, when the Kingfisher was born.
The Viper's head slipped quietly out of the earth at last, after agonizing twists through ribbed caves and caverns.
The air here was new, an eon younger than the Viper, countless eons younger than the pale under-creatures.
Soft calls warbled through the canopy. Gray flits shifted above, dashing through the branches. The bright ferns concealed the Viper's approach as it snaked along the forest floor. Finally it spotted a frail songbird struggling to flap its wings, rooted to the ground. The bird caught a glimpse of the dark glints in the foliage. It began to flinch. To shake.
The Viper raised its scythes. Open, snap.
Its hunger grew and seethed. Up, rolling around trunks and limbs. The Viper paused behind an unassuming bird and raised its ebony head to strike. But the bird turned.
No bird had ever turned before.
But that made sense. This bird was not ordinary.
The Viper stared into its eyes, which were constantly opening and closing, opening and closing, like clockwork. Its pupils, however, were alert and shining.
"Hello, Viper," the bird said. "My name is Spire."
YOU ARE READING
Aeolia
General FictionA woman runs from everything. A songbird joins her from nowhere, singing colors and images. A whisperer finds the pair among a field of poplars and graves. A dark and vicious viper stalks them from deep in the earth. They must flee from the Viper...
