The Sky Demons Part Two: Quest

Chapter Eight- Bubble, toil and trouble

Ketsuo- Bubble, toil and trouble

I leapt into the whirlpool, spreading my wings in the wide space and gliding softly down. It was a long way- the river was shockingly deep. It was also completely green with the mass of aquatic plants growing up from the bottom; I landed on what could only be described as a flattened forest, the plants laying flat without the water to buoy them up.

Kayira stood a little way off, brushing silt and bits of algae off of her clothes, she looked paler than earlier, as if the landing had jarred her injuries a little, but not overly worse for wear.

One by one the rest of the group made their way down to the bottom and stood, looking up at the sky above, walls of gently swaying plants surrounding us on all sides. The wolves paced nervously, staring at the swirling river and hurring under their breath.

“Okay,” said Tigre, “now what?”

With a roar the water closest to the surface crashed against itself, closing the top of the whirlpool tunnel over us so that everything was cast in a ripple pattern of light; the rest of the tunnel followed suit, closing up above us and causing no small amount of panic. Then the process slowed and the water curved over the top of us in a high dome, leaving the group standing in an air bubble the size of a town hall.

I walked to the edge of the bubble and stared into the river. A fish appeared amongst the maze of green and swam quickly towards us, then darted past, following the limits of the water and vanishing back into the plant life.

I took a step forwards as if to shove the tip of my toe into the water, which immediately receded a few metres ahead of me so that my foot squelched into the riverbed. Walking on the bottom of a semi-dangerous river was going to be an adventure; the only thing I felt certain of was that I’d need new shoes by the end of it.

A strange noise like whale song thrummed through the small space we were standing in and I spun, trying wildly to locate the source. A largish animal with a cat-like face and white, rubbery skin was watching us from the river-forest. It moved closer, revealing a sea lion-like body and a fin running from its head to the start of its long, dolphinish tail. There were two strange lumps on its forehead.

“A felinsa,” breathed Serefk’na beside me. A felinsa? I’d never heard of anything like it; not that I was going to tell anyone else that. The creature swam a circuit around our air bubble and then disappeared back into the river forest before us, flitting in and out of sight as if reluctant to leave.

“I… think he wants us to follow him,” said Serefk’na.

“Him?”

“Males have horns, he looks like he had some, but it’s as if they’ve been sawn off or something.”

“Well, we’ll see if he wants us to follow him,” I said and stepped forward, carrying the air bubble with me. The felinsa regarded us coldly for a second, and then sped at break-neck speed ahead of us, as if expecting us to keep up to the pace. With the slowness of a large group attempting to organize itself we followed after him, causing an exodus of fish and small, scuttling creatures attempting to flee the dome of air advancing on them; every so often the felinsa made a brief reappearance, looking mightily displeased at our travel speed.

The walk took us constantly downhill and after many hours of walking I began to notice that there was even less light than before and that the size of the fish appeared to be increasing. The constant hissing of Lyk’na’s familiar and Hilda’s growling replies weren’t doing much to help my increasingly strained nerves either and I felt relieved when Maria decided to call on everyone to stop for the night… or the day, it had gotten hard to tell.