Kaido no Yume VI

Nyaiya gathered the kits together and everyone ate small portions of the food, which tasted like sweet pineapple. Maro explained that it was not good to go to the serai with a full stomach—they would eat better on their return.

After they had eaten, Nyaiya wrapped the kits in the kino fabric while Maro showed Kohath how to wear it. The rough material covered his whole body but for his paws and his eyes.

"These are for preserving the sera of the serai."

Kohath was still rather unnerved at the way the tigers habitually went naked. He himself was only still in his houseclothes, but still it kept the essentials covered; and he was glad of this whenever it hid his embarassment from watching the tigress's motions, or hearing the tiger's voice. But here, perhaps in sera they retained a bit of modesty.

"How? Is it so that you don't go in naked?"

Maro gave him an odd look.

"It's just that where I come from," Kohath said, "people don't normally go around without clothes."

"Ai! Kaido, you have the strangest ideas about things. I have heard that happens in the south, where it is always cold. But we do not wear this into the serai... we wear the kino so that we do not bring in with us the dust of the journey."

"How far away are we going?"

"There is a tall hill in the center of our island. We are going there."

Nothing but the blue sky could be seen above the trees.

"I don't see any hill."

"It will be there when we get to it."

At last everyone was dressed, and Maro led the group inland through the forest. He led them on an odd winding course through bush and over small streams, treading boldly and flushing out all kinds of strange and brightly colored animals from hiding.

The wolf couldn't make out what direction Maro was going in. The tiger moved vaguely eastward in what was very nearly a dance, and Kohath found himself regretting that this should happen during the one time the tiger felt the need to drape himself in voluminous clothing. It was a very alluring dance, without any music but its own rhythm, moving quickly, turning, stepping from one side to the other and back again. Nyaiya's matched it, with levity if not actual grace, and the kits were leaping about animatedly.

Maro watched nothing save his feet but collided with nothing, making steady inland progress, but Kohath's eyes were on the tiger he was following and he still found himself barking his shins against rocks and ramming his arm into tree-branches till he was sure he would be quite bruised soon. At one point, he had no idea how, he nearly ran head-on into a tree he was sure was not there a moment before.

And still, the big tigers moved effortlessly, while Kohath struggled to keep up. He tripped over a very fat, very bright orange lizard and landed face-down on the ground. The creature stared at him with a tired face before ignoring him and returning to sleep.

Getting up, he noticed movement on the ground. He looked again and failed to catch what was happening, but soon he noticed the shadows were moving. It was much more random than time-lapse photography, where a whole day passes in seconds; they flickered in different directions, and sometimes disappeared entirely. The cover from the trees had dampened the effect at first, but as the forest got sparser—and it was getting sparser—he became more aware of it. The effect made him slightly seasick.

Maro, he realized, was following his own shadow. They were going slower now, and very soon came to a place that was much clearer than the forest. There were still trees, but they were further apart; the ground, too, was simply short grass, and not covered in fallen leaves, branches, or other detritus. He remarked on this to Maro.

"In this place the trees do not drop their leaves. The Present tend this place; it is their garden. Can you see the hill yet?"

Kohath looked eastward. Over the trees he could just make out a hill of rock. There was a peculiar haze of unreality about it, as though the blue sky between him and it were somehow obscuring it.

"Yes," he said. "Who are the Present?"

"They are like... There—one is beneath that tree!"

Standing by the tree was a creature nearly twice as tall as Maro. It had a head shaped like an eagle's, though its whole upper body was covered in feathers of many different shades of fiery red. It had powerful arms and an impressive wingspan. Its lower body was covered in golden fur, and it had a lion's tail. It cast no shadow. There was no outward display of gender, but its face and bearing were recognizably male.

Kohath recognized an anthropomorphic gryphon immediately.

"But that's a kelvin! They're not supposed to exist!"