Chapter 02

An Uneasy Alliance

Zuberi hit the black sand hard, knocking the breath from him. The fetid warmth at his neck still clung to his skin. He dragged himself to the crystal formations, then turned, ready to grab his spear or machete and face the colossal beast on his tail. Nothing moved. If the beast had followed him over the edge, it had left no trace. No broken trees marked the rim. He narrowed his eyes. The silverquills, at least, were real. They held the jungle edge, quills raised and whining like cicadas.

The black crystals shielded him from the twin suns, but their low, resonant hum reached him through the ground and fractured his sleep. In his dreams, the humming became whispers while colors swirled into otherworldly patterns. Sometimes Zuberi tasted phantom saltwater. Other times, the markings on his arms pulsed in rhythm with the crystalline song, brightening with each swell, dimming in the troughs. Afterward, his limbs felt heavier than the night’s sleep could explain. He marked each cycle by the interval when the twin suns shared the sky before parting. He spent the first cycle in this dubious shelter securing necessities. As he circled the cluster of black minerals, the humming intensified whenever he passed certain crystal faces.

Near the formation, close enough for a quick dash there and back, he found the one thing that could keep him alive: a pool of barely drinkable brackish water that tasted of metal. He needed fire to make the water safer, though boiling alone would not remove the salt or the metallic taste. He had passed a dead, dry log near the slope on arrival. Zuberi waited until the distant silverquills were busy hunting moon-fur rabbits, the only other animals he had seen crossing the open sand. The small animals emerged from the jungle at regular intervals to dig in the sand, their black, white, or gray coats marked by contrasting crescents on their backs. Sometimes a rabbit unearthed an orange bulb the size and shape of a mango and devoured it on the spot. Then it dashed back up the near-vertical slope, disappearing until the cycle repeated. Zuberi sprinted across the sand, collected as much wood as he could carry, and returned to his crystalline refuge. The crystals offered no true shelter, but the silverquills avoided them. That was enough.

Back in his humming shelter, Zuberi carefully unwrapped the flint and steel stored in a small pouch around his neck. Layers of cured skin, beeswax, and ox fat protected its contents, a meticulous precaution against his home’s torrential rains, though not against oceanic submersion.

He broke off smaller twigs from the main log and peeled some crumbling bark. Should he offer a prayer? Toward the twin suns? Twice the suns, twice the miracles—or twice the desolation. The thought soured in his mouth. Or, perhaps, he should pray to Isabel’s god? Bile rose in his throat, hot and bitter, at the mere idea. The damp flint frustrated him; the chill had seeped through every protective layer. He cursed through gritted teeth and struck the flint harder than he intended.

A sharp tink echoed as a tiny fragment chipped off the flint, ricocheting off the nearest crystal face. The crystalline hum’s pitch spiked for a moment, and strange geometric patterns flickered across the crystal’s surface like ripples on water. As he struck again, heat gathered in his chest and flowed down his arm, and the markings on his body tingled. He looked down at the bundle of twigs and bark, eyes widening. They weren’t just sparking—they were smoking, catching fire far too quickly. The flame carried an unusual bluish tinge at its core, dancing in ways that defied the still air. With careful tending, Zuberi coaxed the flame into a familiar, strong orange with a stable white core.

Only after securing the fire did Zuberi turn to the local flora, resuming his risky experiments. The rabbits could vanish into the jungle, or the silverquills could drive them off. If he depended on them alone, he could starve. Any boy who had passed his second hunter trial knew the rule for an unfamiliar wilderness: test the smallest portion, wait for the body to answer, and never stake your life on a single source.

The first promising find was a low, thorny creeper bearing clusters of plump azure berries. Zuberi crushed one between his fingers, smelled it, touched a trace to his tongue, waited, then bit into the smallest piece he could manage. The sweetness lasted only moments before the world tilted. Colors bled beyond their edges, shadows stretched in directions they had no business stretching, and a faint ringing filled his ears. He spat out what remained and rinsed his mouth with precious water. The symptoms faded, but the berries earned the first place on his growing list of things that looked edible and were not.

Patches of vibrant orange fungi grew near the bases of most crystal growths, a shade lighter than the bulbs the rabbits favored. He cooked a tiny shaving in the coals and waited for it to cool before tasting it. Violent stomach cramps left him weak and trembling. Cooking had offered no protection. He struck the fungi from his list. Two failures were two fewer risks, but they were not a larder. He still needed another food source he could trust.

By the next cycle, the fire was his only comfort. Its flickering light kept the deepest shadows at bay, and Zuberi had yet to meet a creature foolish enough to ignore the flame.

After emerging from sleep, leaden and sluggish, he gathered large, spiral-shelled snails that lived in the sandy mud near the dirty pool. Their sluggish movements made them easy prey. Unwilling to risk eating them raw after his earlier failures, he cooked them in the embers, hoping their abundance meant a reliable food source. The shells came away from the fire unchanged, as had the shells of snails he’d grilled as a boy. Back home, that had always meant the meat was safe. He let the familiar sign reassure him.

The meat was tough and rubbery, leaving a bitter aftertaste that refused to recede. When he bit through his lip and tasted the coppery tang of blood without feeling pain in his numbed lip, Zuberi froze, the third morsel never making it to his mouth. Even that small amount of cooked snail flesh brought hallucinations far more severe than the azure berries had. Invisible colors shifted and blended into impossible shapes. A voice, charming and insidious, whispered in his mind. It suggested he use one of the black crystals’ sharp tips. All he had to do was lean against the one that branched from the main growth at a right angle and… one thrust and all would end. Peace at last. Reunion with Bakari, Amara, Father—his people. He could finally atone. When he refused, the voice turned harsh, cycling between vicious demands, frantic pleading, and venomous scorn. It clawed at his grief, but Zuberi dug his fingers into the black sand, anchoring himself to the sharp bite of physical agony. He refused to let guilt choose his grave. Amara’s face rose through the colors, and the voice seized on it, bending her smile toward accusation. Zuberi held the image whole and would not look away. He endured the onslaught pulse by pulse until the foreign whispers fractured and died.

When the fever broke, leaving him drenched, shivering, and nauseated, he kicked the remaining snails away, keeping the emptied shells. No further shortcuts. He would rely solely on hunted prey. Competing against the silverquills for moon-fur rabbits was preferable to this madness.

The snail shells proved useful, however. He tapped a shell against a crystal, then two shells together, hearing a similar ding. He suspected metal; it might explain the water’s taste. He set one shell filled with rank water into the coals and inverted a second above it, tilted so its lip hung over a third, clean shell clear of the heat. He kept the upper shell cool with pool water, careful not to let any run over its rim. Condensation beaded along the inner wall. Droplet by droplet, clean water trickled down the lip into the third shell.

The work was slow and tedious, but it yielded water without the metallic taste. He hoped it was safe to drink. For the first time since his arrival, he drank his fill. The snails’ poison had nearly killed him. To make matters worse, the silverquills were relentless; two moved along the basin’s perimeter, violet eyes focused unnervingly on the crystal outcrop. Waiting. On a few occasions, Zuberi had seen the first silverquill surveying the black sands, recognizable by its fresh flank wound and the way it favored one side. It appeared at random intervals, exchanged growls with one of its kin, then bounded back up the slope in two or three powerful jumps despite its injury.

The crystals’ buzzing grated on his senses, more insistent with each passing moment. They seemed to drain him, though he could not tell what they took, or whether the exhaustion was only in his mind. Sometimes, he thought he glimpsed faint lines of force between the crystals and his marked skin, invisible threads tugging at his essence.

On the third meeting of the suns, Zuberi prepared to leave. He woke with heavy limbs, the faint glowing lines on his arms dimmer than he had ever seen them. When the crystals’ hum swelled, the markings no longer brightened in answer. Watching the ever-present silverquills, he managed to take two moon-fur rabbits. Though the hunt was brief and routine, the effort left his legs trembling and drove him to the brink of exhaustion.

Once he caught his breath, he set the meat to a hard boil and turned to the skins. He scraped them clean of flesh, folded them into rough pouches, and bound the edges with sinew from the rabbit carcasses, leaving a narrow opening in each. He whittled tapered plugs from the dead log and secured them in the openings with sinew. The seams still seeped, so he worked some of the beeswax from his flint pouch along the stitching, keeping the skins upright until the wax set. Crude as they were, the temporary seal would meet his needs.

Zuberi filled the skins with precious, clean water. Selecting dry chunks of charcoal from the dead fire, he wrapped them in a scrap of hide and stowed them among his provisions. His grandmother had taught him to crush charcoal and mix it with water for anyone who had swallowed something that turned on them. Whether it would help against this world’s poisons, he had no way of knowing, but it was the only remedy he knew. The rabbits were the only substantial food source he had identified, and he had no idea how common they were.

He packed the precooked meat, wrapping it in two bundles, each in layers of the large leaves that floated on the pool and looked like lotus plants. He’d chewed bits of the leaves at regular intervals and felt no aches or illness. Watching the twin suns crawl across the alien sky, he spotted three silverquills stationed around the basin, their gaze fixed on the crystals. One stayed closer, clearly a sentinel, while the other two drank. As he watched the creatures’ pink tongues lap the dirty water, Zuberi snorted, thinking it was a miracle he’d survived his experiments with the fungi and snails.

The silverquills were not going away. Their intelligence unnerved him. This exposed cluster of humming crystals, watched by increasingly bold predators, was no sanctuary.

Zuberi watched the larger silverquill he’d wounded make its rounds, exchange its typical bark-like growls, and leave. Shortly after, a group of moon-fur rabbits dashed from the jungle, moved a short distance further to the right, and started their ritual of digging for the orange bulbs. The pack followed the rabbits, leaving a single watcher behind. Zuberi seized his chance. Slinging the wax-sealed waterskins and meager provisions across his shoulder, securing them upright with his sash, he broke from the crystals and sprinted across glittering black sand toward the distant indigo haze of the horizon. The tall, broken spire rose far to one side of his course. As he squinted at the spire’s intermittent flashes, he resolved to push toward the opposite side. He hoped he hadn’t condemned himself to an even swifter death in an endless desert, but with as little information as he had, one decision was no better than the other.

Zuberi ran, forcing his weary body forward. Heat rose off the black sand, and the waterskins thudded against his shoulder with every stride. At every step, he expected to feel the breath of the sentinel on his back. Behind him, its footfalls receded, then fell silent. He did not stop or turn to confirm. His lungs rasped, and the distant indigo haze seemed no closer.

One moment his feet pounded shifting black sand under the harsh mauve sky; the next, he plunged into deep green shadow. The air grew heavy with moisture, the scent of damp earth mingling with a sickly-sweet aroma. Glittering sand gave way to soft moss and tangled roots underfoot. The crystals’ hum faded behind him, replaced by the vibrant, pulsing rhythm of the jungle, a chaotic thrum he felt deep within. Every shadow and leaf felt watchful. Unlike the desolate sand basin, this jungle was alive.

Zuberi dragged himself through the dense foliage, forcing his trembling legs into an old hunter’s cadence. Every step jarred his aching ribs, but he kept his footing quiet against the moss, straining his dulled senses to catch any rustle or snap.

The machete and chakram, secured on opposite hips, anchored him to who he was. The machete comforted him, a predictable extension of his will, reminding him of the warrior he had been before this place took him. No. Before Isabel’s people took him. The chakram felt less certain, its earlier unbidden return lingering in his mind, as though the weapon had begun making decisions of its own. Until he could determine whether it would obey him, he would do well to rely on it less than he had in the past.

He thought of his tribe, their laughter, their faces, now little more than echoes. He had failed his most sacred duty. Keeping them safe. Yet here, in this alien wilderness, something stirred within—more than regret. Purpose. As if this world were offering a chance for redemption. It might have been a fantasy or the lingering effect of the snail poison, but Zuberi clung to the idea like a lifeline.

The murmur of running water led him deeper into the jungle. Then the jungle itself shifted, as if it had exhaled. Vines barring his way fell slack before he reached them; roots writhed back into the earth unbidden. A narrow path opened where before there had been only the suggestion of one.

He inched forward. The path widened into a small clearing bathed in the twin suns’ mauve light. A man stood at the edge of the clearing, leaning against a moss-covered tree. Younger than Zuberi, wiry, crackling with restless energy.

His clothes seemed to be from another world. Strange, tattered cloth covering his chest, legs clad in faded blue fabric, and a worn jacket made of dark, cured hide draped over one shoulder. His hair was a wild mop of red, vivid as fire. But it was his eyes, piercing green, sharp, and wary, that captured Zuberi’s attention. Something bulged beneath his jacket. Around it, the shadows seemed unnaturally still.

Zuberi stopped, hand still on his machete’s hilt. “Who are you?” he asked, his voice low and steady.

He’d meant to speak in Isabel’s tongue, the only other language he knew. Instead, unfamiliar words came smoothly, belonging to neither language, though he understood exactly what he had said. The stranger clearly understood.

The man snorted softly, pushing off the tree. “That’s the question, isn’t it?” he said. “Stripped of our lives, tossed into this alien hellhole like pieces on a board… does it even matter?”

Zuberi’s gaze remained steady, though irritation tightened his jaw. Men who tested boundaries were unpredictable and dangerous to underestimate.

“Name’s Hanz,” the man said, extending a cautious hand. “Hanz Muller,” he added, flashing a smile as if hinting at a shared secret. Met by Zuberi’s blank stare, he lowered his hand and shook his head. “And you are…?”

“Zuberi,” he said.

After a pause, as if expecting more, Hanz gave him a once-over, taking in his attire and steady grip on his machete. “Zuberi,” Hanz said. “Sounds like a warrior’s name. So, what’s your story? How’d you end up here?”

“I was taken,” Zuberi said evenly, though his shoulders tensed. “From my people. My home.”

Hanz barked a humorless laugh. “Yeah, sounds familiar. One moment I was…” He stopped, and something dark flickered across his face. He shrugged, his voice regaining its cynical edge. “Doesn’t matter. We’re here now. That’s all that counts, isn’t it?”

“Have you seen others?” Zuberi asked, watching him closely.

“No people,” Hanz said, absently rubbing his side. A faint, dark stain spread across Hanz’s shirt.

“You’re injured,” Zuberi said, stepping forward.

Hanz’s expression instantly hardened. He tensed, his hand hovering over the tear in his shirt. “It’s nothing,” he said, teeth clenched.

Before Zuberi could retort, the ground shook. A deep growl rumbled through the clearing, vibrating up Zuberi’s feet. Both men froze.

A hulking beast with sickle-like claws and black fur matted with dried blood broke through the tree line. Its eyes glowed red; its breath escaped in steaming bursts, reeking of rot. It resembled a furred rhinoceros, with three horns along its long muzzle and a bright red crest atop its head.

“Well, shit,” Hanz muttered, taking a step back.

Zuberi’s hand found the chakram, but he hesitated. He could no longer trust what the weapon might do after leaving his hand. He needed a weapon he could bring to bear immediately at close quarters. The spear was lashed tight for travel, impossible to free in time. That left the machete, which Zuberi drew in a smooth motion.

“Stay back,” he ordered, placing himself between Hanz and the creature.

“I’m not some damsel, tribal king,” Hanz said, spitting to the side for good measure.

The mocking tone irked him more than the name itself. Zuberi let it pass without answer. He had been called worse by men who meant more harm.

The beast lunged. Zuberi moved before thought caught up. He sidestepped its claws, the world slowing as his instincts sharpened.

Muscles coiled, he swung the machete, the blade biting deep into the creature’s flank. The beast overshot its charge and landed awkwardly. It turned and eyed the two men as if deciding which to attack first, then let out another roar.

Shadows rippled around Hanz’s feet, crawling like snakes across the ground. But these weren’t natural shadows. They moved against the light, with nothing material to cast them, writhing with an almost liquid consistency, responding to Hanz’s wriggling fingers. Hanz’s fingertips were black as night, fading through gray to pink toward his palms. Then a lightning pattern like the tendrils on Zuberi’s own skin appeared and vanished under Hanz’s shirt. On Hanz, the markings were a barely perceptible gray instead of gold.

The beast sprang again, jaws snapping. Zuberi tried to sidestep, but his depleted legs betrayed him; the dodge stuttered, too slow, and the creature’s charge hammered toward his exposed side. Before he could recover, shadows surged erratically from Hanz’s feet and snagged the creature’s legs. Even the beast’s own shadow joined them, tripping it mid-strike before the darkness began to fray. Across the clearing, Hanz stared wide-eyed at the shadows twisting around the beast.

Zuberi didn’t hesitate. He threw himself into the opening, bringing the machete down toward the beast’s skull. Its arrested charge pitched its head forward, straight into the descending blade, and his arms shook with the impact. A wave of heat sparked within him, fainter than the one from the fire, and ran along his chest, down his arm, and through his hand into the machete. The heat burst from the machete in a gust of air, like steam bursting from a boiling cauldron. The beast’s roar choked into a wet gurgle as the blade sank deep into its skull.

Its body shuddered in a final spasm before slumping to the ground, the earth quaking once beneath its weight. Dark blood pooled into the mossy ground.

Zuberi exhaled, chest heaving as silence settled back over the clearing. He straightened and wiped his machete clean on the beast’s fur. He turned to Hanz, noticing the shadows still writhing around his hands.

“What manner of sorcery is this?” Zuberi asked. It felt foolish and hypocritical given the oddities he’d noticed about himself and this place.

Hanz stared down at his hands, watching the shadows cling to his fingers like dark smoke before fading into thin air. The jungle’s natural shadows leaned slightly toward Hanz now, as if drawn to him.

“I… I don’t know,” he admitted, voice shaking. “But it feels… familiar somehow. Like something I’ve always been able to do, just never knew how.”

Then he smirked, deflecting. “Not bad, tribal king,” he said. “Where’d you learn to move like that?”

Zuberi studied him a moment longer. “Where I come from, a hunter learns to fight before he learns to track. But this…” He glanced at the beast’s corpse. “This is something else.”

Hanz scoffed. “No shit,” he said, shaking his head. “Feels like everything in this goddamn place wants to kill us.”

Zuberi kept his eyes on Hanz, weighing the fight and his own weakness.

“Perhaps,” he said, gesturing toward the fallen carcass. “Still. I doubt either of us would have survived that thing alone.” Hanz met Zuberi’s gaze, but only for a moment. The man only shrugged. Zuberi unslung one of the leaf-wrapped bundles of cooked meat and nodded toward the dark stain spreading on Hanz’s ribs. “This meat is safe.” He opened the folded leaves, revealing a piece of cooked moon-fur rabbit, and tore off a small chunk. He ate it, then held the rest out to Hanz. “Eat. And take care of that wound. We move faster if neither of us collapses.”

Hanz eyed the meat, throat bobbing. He snatched the bundle with a scowl and repeated Zuberi’s actions, tearing off a bite first. The speed at which the entire rabbit leg was gone told Zuberi what he needed to know.

The young man pressed a hand to his side, then peeled off the torn fabric, exposing a shallow but wide gash.

Hanz stopped, jaw tight, lips pale, and looked up. “Got anything clean to tie around this?” When Zuberi only arched an eyebrow, Hanz inhaled and exhaled through his nose. “Come on. I can’t reach the back of it. Not gonna make me beg, are you?”

Zuberi could have volunteered, but Hanz needed to accept aid on his own terms. Without a word, he cleaned his hands and Hanz’s wound with a little water and drew a clean strip of cloth from his sash. He produced a small pouch of dry, crushed herbs and held out a pinch for Hanz to inspect. At the tiniest nod, Zuberi rubbed the herbs onto and into the gash, folding the cloth over the paste of blood and herbs. Hanz held it against his ribs while Zuberi wrapped a longer cloth around his torso and knotted it. Besides a few sharp intakes of breath and hisses of pain through gritted teeth, Hanz didn’t complain once.

When Zuberi was done, Hanz wriggled a finger through the bloody hole in his shirt as he draped it back over the treated wound.

He offered Zuberi his first smile, though it tightened into a scowl a second later. “Don’t think this makes us friends, tribal king.”

Father had always said there was strength in numbers. Zuberi wondered if he would approve of his choice today. And what about the last he’d made? What would Father have done then?

“There is strength in numbers,” Zuberi said, extending his hand.

Hanz hesitated, then clasped it. “Whatever you say.”

As they released each other’s hands, a faint breeze stirred around the clearing, carrying the scent of ozone and, underneath, something pungent, sweet, and fresh like eucalyptus.

Zuberi glanced toward the trees, instincts on edge. “We should move.”

Hanz fell into step beside him. “So, O wise leader, where to?”

“We need to explore, get to higher ground, if we can,” Zuberi said. He sighed. “Then… shelter, water, and signs of other people. I doubt we’re the only two here, wherever here is.”