The weird green mist swirled in an oddly viscous manner around the two boys as they walked through the forest of mushrooms towering over them. Though far from familiar to the boys, this was yet not the Spirit World. Above them, they could just make out the vast bulk of their home-world looming in the sky overhead, even through the convolutions of green around and above.
“Why on Earth did you bring that thing?” The voice sounded strange, both linguistically and phonetically. It was still Lalli, but speaking at least an octave higher than usual, and in a weird, sing-song language filled with liquid v’s and w’s and l’s and r’s, utterly unlike the Svensk tongue or that of the Finn’s-Land.
“Sigrun said we needed a mascot; you’re just lucky this gal was strutting around the Temple like she owned the place, or I’d have had to go back and get Kitty.” Emil stopped short at the similarly altered sound of his own voice, almost dropping the hen he cradled in his arms. “I understood you,” he breathed in shock. Then, he added, “What language are we speaking?”
Seeing that his friend was about to freak out, Lalli walked over to the Svensk Fire-Bender, put a hand on his shoulder, and shook. “No time to panic. Only got two hours. Need to find the people here.”
Emil shook himself. “Right.” Then he grinned. “But you have to admit it’ll be pretty weird for us to have a real conversation.”
Lalli essayed his familiar half-smile. “Yup.”
They hadn’t gone much farther when the two boys almost fell over two small people crumpled into little balls of misery in a small clearing. To be fair, these others were dressed in exotic robes that yet blended into the surrounding ‘vegetation’--it was all fungi, hence the quote marks--almost perfectly.
The natives had big bald heads and big liquid-brown eyes that almost made them look like oversized infants. However, they expressed themselves in a fairly adult manner, extending a courteous welcome to the two strangers to their home and explaining why, though Emil and Lalli would be given a warm welcome in the nearby village, the two natives could not accompany them: they had been Exiled.
“I can take you where you need to go.” The voice was calm and self-assured. The speaker was, in a word, regal. Despite having the same semi-infantile features as his fellows, this was one man no one would mistake for anything other than what he was: a king.
The other natives froze for a moment in astonishment before abasing themselves at the king’s feet. “Great Ta! Mighty Ta!”
A kind smile played around Ta’s lips as he looked at his former subjects. “Rise, my friends.” They did, and Ta continued, “How are you?”
One (was his name Oru?) answered, “As well as can be expected, Mighty Ta; but we still have not found another place where the Life-Plants grow.”
Ta sighed. “I did not expect you would, though not by any fault on your part.” He turned to the visitors. “I greet you, pilgrims from the Great Protector. You have been expected, though some had begun to doubt your advent.”
It transpired that there was (or had been? Emil wasn’t sure) another human among them who had occasional Vision and had foretold their arrival. This was a good thing, because there had just been an ecological catastrophe: the Sun had destroyed the entire harvest of the one crop the natives absolutely needed in order to survive, which only grew in one small place.
The king took the two visitors to this place, the Place of Hidden Waters, and the boys looked around, though they were hampered by a strong, sickening, and somehow familiar smell, though neither boy could identify it then. After a few basic deductions which, though useless, greatly impressed Ta with their clarity, the boys retreated to a place with better air.
They had less than an hour left of their original two, and neither wanted to find out what would happen if they weren’t on time in returning.
Emil put his head in his hands. “Why did Sigrun send me here? I’m useless for this kind of thing, but it’s right up Reynir’s alley.”
Lalli punched Emil in the shoulder. “Reynir’s not here; we are, so we’ll succeed. We have to.”
Emil closed his eyes and gathered his composure. “OK. Since you’re a Water-Bender, can you feel just what those springs are bringing up into the plants?”
“Yep, but we already know the plants just take the one thing they need and make it something these guys can process.” Emil’s face fell. Lalli continued, “Good idea though. If any of the plants were still alive, I could feel what they were taking and what they were making.”
A series of squawking sounds pulled their attention to the hen, which was doing what came naturally: laying an egg. Once she was finished, Lalli deftly grabbed it while Emil pacified the hen.
“Why did you do that? And what is that strange stone?” Ta asked.
“It’s an egg, Your Majesty,” Emil explained. “It’s how their kind breed. Were it fertilized, it would eventually hatch--the chick inside would peck its way out. We grabbed it because it isn’t fertilized, and we didn’t want it to go rotten.” He froze in sudden realization of what he’d just said. “Lalli!” he cried so sharply that the other boy almost dropped the egg he was holding. “That’s it! That’s the smell--rotten eggs!”
It took most of the rest of their time, but they found that a truly minute bit of scrambled egg was all that was needed to restore a native to health, so the one egg the hen would lay daily would suffice for the whole village. Ta expressed the natives’ gratitude and confirmed that the two Exiles would be brought back to the village.
Ta spoke again. “And now, we must go to the Hall of the Ancient Ones, where you are expected...”
