Visible ahead of us, where this road ended in an intersection with another, the ocean stretched off endlessly to touch the sky. It was obviously some distance below us, though.

  Even if it was by another route and approaching from a different angle, we had clearly covered a substantial distance.

  A freshwater stream meandered by towards the ocean, close to an area of ground ft enough that we could set up tents.

  When Terenei released the ornithians from their harnesses, they pulled free, but only to charge into the stream to spsh around. Terenei hesitated, the tethers in one hand, then ughed and shrugged. “They aren’t going anywhere. They’re having fun and cooling off, and they’ll come look for food when they’re ready.”

  “They won’t gulp a lot of cold water fast after exertion or anything?” I asked.

  “It wasn’t much exertion for them, but why would they do that and why would it be anything of any note?”

  “Never mind. Different rules. They look like they’re having a great time, I just wanted to be sure they’re safe.”

  “They’re fine.”

  Personal bags were all at hand, or in my case on my belt, and the only other thing to gather up was the backpack of general camping and travel supplies. We left the portable house there—there wasn’t that much clear space, and it seemed like overkill anyway.

  We gathered wood for a fire, though we didn’t actually set up the tents yet, and Serru threw several ingredients in a pot on the fire to simmer, along with setting out water to heat for tea.

  “It’s still quite early,” she said. “I’m going to wander the immediate area and see what I can gather.” She pulled out of the camping-gear bag one of the boxes of communicators, flipped it open, and handed us each one. “Wrap it around the back of your neck, Nathan, with the open part at the front, and adjust it so the wider parts are directly under and just in front of your ears, then fasten the front to keep it in pce.”

  I was holding what looked like a band of bright tangerine-orange metal, with two thicker sections; I did my best to adjust it the way she described, watching her demonstrate. The metal at the back slid along itself, so it could be positioned wherever you wanted. Then a narrower band fastened across the front, snapping into pce, holding an embossed disc the size of a quarter lightly against the skin at the front of my throat. There was a small round decoration in the middle that looked like cobalt-blue gss.

  Serru touched the disc, smiling, and said, “Can you hear me properly?”

  I could, she was only a short distance from me, but I could also hear her voice coming from the choker.

  “Perfectly,” I said.

  “Press down on the bead in the centre and anything you say will be audible to anyone wearing the others that are keyed to yours.”

  I tried. “Testing? Like that?”

  “Like that,” Aryennos said.

  “That might be helpful if you’re going exploring,” Terenei said. “I’ll watch the fire and supper and the ornithians and the wagon. That’s a beautiful view and I think I need to do something with it. Have fun, gather lots to make alchemists happy.”

  “Do you want to be alone?” I asked Serru. “Or would you like extra hands?”

  “You’re welcome to join me,” she assured me. “But everyone needs to be careful. The cliff isn’t the only danger. This section of coast is riddled with caves under us, and there are a few chimney holes that open onto them from up here. The stream runs down into one over there.” She pointed. I wondered where the fresh water was even coming from, but geology has never been my forte. “They’re normally quite visible, although it isn’t impossible that a tree could fall over one or something of the sort and partially hide it. Watch where you walk, stay on clear ground, and stay well away from any kind of damage in case the edges have fractures that could make them crumble. That should be the only precaution necessary, but you need to take it seriously and not try to get nearer just to discover whether you can see the bottom or anything like that. Quite likely, you will see it up close at high speed.”

  “I’ll be good,” Aryennos said meekly.

  “Is there anything interesting growing in the caves?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Serru said. “Quite a lot, pnts and minerals both. But it isn’t easily reached from here. We would have to use ropes to go down the cliffs to the beach, which would take time to do safely, and by the time we did, the tide would be close to coming back in or already beginning to. I’ve done it and will again, I have an aquian friend with a boat farther up the coast, and we gather some fascinating and uncommon fungi and minerals, but these are not the conditions for it.”

  “You have friends everywhere,” Terenei teased.

  “You have many in Coppersands,” she retorted. “I have no more than you do, they’re simply spread over a much wider area.”

  “Fair enough,” he ughed. “Does the ring road go through Whalesong Landing? I’ve met Zanshe but never had the chance to meet Jaelis. We just shipped that portrait of you that en asked for.”

  “It does, and you absolutely can, and I’m very sure en will be delighted, but that’s on the far side of the next Quincunx site.”

  “Something else to look forward to.”

  I probably could have asked about the unusual pronouns.

  I was tired of asking about everything. That could go on the very long list for ter.

  How was I supposed to learn everything about this amazing world, which was so much more complex than I’d originally thought, in such a short time without completely overloading? Serru was almost certainly right that some of what we’d talked about I’d actually failed to absorb, just due to sheer volume.

  Aryennos chose to stay at the campsite, so it was just Serru and me venturing into the rocky tree-scattered scrubby ndscape.

  There was something really peaceful and satisfying about gathering, just wandering around alone aware of Serru doing her own thing, close enough for questions but with no need to interact constantly. The more familiar I got with what I was looking for, the easier it became to get lost in an almost Zen focus.

  That was definitely a scream.

  Not just an “eek a spider!” squeal, or a sat-on-a-hairbrush yelp, but an actual WTF-fear-pain-or-both scream. It was never a good sign when it cut off abruptly like that.

  Since I was currently up a tree in my felid form, harvesting fungus that was a lot easier to reach this way, I could see Serru a short distance away; she also paused and straightened, leaned on her staff, and raised the other hand to her throat. I started down the tree, since odds were distinctly in favour of needing to abandon gathering for now.

  I had discovered why they’d invented chokers with tiny speakers in them instead of anything that fit over the top of the head or in the ears: nothing I’d ever seen in my own world would have been compatible with my felid ears. Besides, these were probably healthier in the long run.

  “Terenei? Aryennos? Are you all right?” Serru asked.

  “I am,” Terenei said, but he sounded armed. “But Aryennos isn’t where I st saw him. I’m looking.”

  “Carefully! If he found a hole, I’d rather you didn’t go down it as well!”

  “Very carefully, I promise.”

  “Aryennos? Where are you?”

  The pause was much too long for comfort.

  Then, rather faintly, “Ow.”

  As soon as my feet hit the ground, I started running back towards camp. I did do it with all senses alert: I’d spotted a couple of holes after Serru pointed out the first, and had some idea what to watch for.

  “Where are you?” Terenei asked. “And how badly are you hurt?”

  “What?” That sounded, to me, slurred and with a tone of confusion. Had he hit his head this time?

  “How badly are you hurt?”

  “A lot of me hurts.”

  “Then don’t move. Where are you?”

  “Big tree... hole under roots.”

  “Stay still,” I said. “Seriously, do not move, at all. Terenei, can you see what tree that might be?”

  “Oh, easily,” he said. “I know roughly where he was, he wanted to stretch, and there’s one very rge tree close to where I st saw him.”

  “Not too far from camp, then,” Serru said.

  “No, not very.”

  The tree in question turned out to be quite an impressive specimen: I remembered noticing it earlier, its leafy crown spreading wide and reaching high, the trunk probably rger around than I could reach even with my human-form arms. I’d seen few anything like that size, and only the cardinal tree had been clearly rger.

  Those roots were either breaking down the rock or holding everything together or possibly both, and that wasn’t good. We could see the bare-earth skid through the grass and tiny wildflowers where the ground had given way, dumping something that I would hazard a guess was roughly Aryennos-sized down a steep drop. At least we could see fttish dirt about a meter or so below us in glimmers of light between the roots, so there was a chance he hadn’t fallen too far.

  “I’m small in this form,” I said, “and I climb really well, with good agility and all. I should be able to reach him.”

  Serru nodded and drew one of the coils of rope out of her bag, passing me one end. “Terenei and I will have the other end.” I unfastened the belt supporting my small bag and tossed it far enough from the tree to be secure. It would be too easy for that to snag on something in tight quarters.

  After I wrapped the rope around my waist twice and tied it, Terenei handed me a smallish bright-pink pouch, with, I’d guess, a pair of potion bottles and something else in it; on one side was a white heart outlined in red. “You won’t have much room to move in there. That has a Quickheal and an Anodyne and a Bandage in it. All are my grandfather’s work, they’re good.”

  “Perfect. That’ll do long enough to get him back to safety.” I slung the pouch across my body and knotted the long strap to shorten it to a comfortable length, then ducked under the roots, following the disturbed ground. This looked to me like a section of rock had given way, leaving a surface that was sharper and bare of vegetation, the rubble forming a very unsteady slope.

  I was gd my felid senses were as sharp as they were, since the lighting here was poor. I recognized the scent of Aryennos, though, and the scent of blood, and I could see well enough for the moment. It helped that he was wearing travel clothes he’d picked up in Coppersands, which were repeated swirly gradients of a kind of coppery orange-brown and soft light green, and they were reasonably visible.

  Not that I had to go far. He’d slid and rolled maybe twice the length of his own body.

  Whatever gods this world might have, I was grateful to them that he’d stopped moving before going down that bck pit no more than a hand’s width beyond him. It was narrow and jagged and obviously deep.

  I knelt beside Aryennos and said his name.

  He groaned something incoherent and opened his eyes, squinting, but I saw him wince.

  “Hold still. Let me see how bad it is.” I was torn about wishing for my monitor right now—the info would be useful, but it would take time and the priority was to get him away from that hole. Well, he was responsive, to some degree. As long as he had a clear airway, was breathing, had a heartbeat, and wasn’t bleeding out, reducing the immediate danger was next my list.

  His reply sounded vaguely affirmative, at least.

  A swift examination turned up a swollen bump on the lower back of his head that was leaking blood—which probably accounted for at least part of his disorientation. He had a visibly-dislocated shoulder, and an injury to his lower leg on the same side as the shoulder and bump, although I couldn’t get any more detail, only that it was going to keep him from putting weight on it considering his reactions to even gentle contact.

  That was good enough for now. Nothing suggested a spinal injury. I coaxed him into drinking the Anodyne, which fortunately worked quickly, then untied the rope from around myself and eased a doubled loop under his torso, tying it at the front. It wasn’t the recommended way of tying a rope around someone but trying to pass multiple lengths under him wasn’t going to work right now. While I did that, I at least managed to ease his azure-blue satchel to the side so it wasn’t caught halfway under his hip, but there was no way I could get that off without shifting his upper body too much.

  I should go up and... no, I didn’t have to.

  I touched the inset bead on my communicator choker. “He’s okay, and stopped just before a deeper hole, so we’re lucky that way. He does have a concussion, a dislocated shoulder, and a messed-up leg. The rest is minor superficial damage. I’m a bit worried about giving him a Quickheal potion while his shoulder is out of pce.”

  “I can’t think why that would be a problem,” Terenei said. “Any potion needs time to work, and if he has a concussion, that will be the first thing to heal. We’ll have plenty of time for a proper assessment and to let Hardcure do its job before any permanent damage could possibly happen.”

  Terenei knew those potions better than I did, and I wasn’t entirely comfortable with that concussion, which was showing signs of being worse than the one he’d acquired in the river, definitely not just a bonk and a goose-egg. That was almost certainly the biggest danger right now. I made a mental note to ask about whether repeated concussions had the possible repercussions here that I was used to. Internal damage seemed unlikely, but shock was possible.

  “Understood. Quickheal potion is going down his throat as soon as I can manage it, although I hope it’s easier than the pain one. Then I’m going to wrap his head with the Bandage I have, but I need to immobilize that arm before we can move him... I need two or three scarves. And I’m going to need another Bandage and Splints so I can keep this leg from shifting. Also the Shears. I think I’m going to have to cut the strap of his bag to get it out of the way, too. Ideally, a bnket I can wrap him in to keep him warm. Um, two would be even better, I can use one to help support his arm.”

  “Scarves, Splints, Bandage, Bnkets, Shears,” Serru said. “Can you see a way to get him out?”

  “There’s not enough space to carry him but if we can put him on a bnket and tie ropes to the corners, we can probably pull him up the slope where the ground crumbled. It’s not going to be comfortable but there’s no way he’s walking or crawling out of here. More structure and padding would be better and more comfortable, but we’re not really equipped for this.” With Aryennos’ tendency to get into trouble, maybe I should look into whether someone could make a backboard with good solid handles, although he would probably find varieties of trouble that would defeat any precautions I could make. Possibly even a fully-equipped state-of-the-art ambunce would be unable to keep up.

  “Right. Give us a moment, and we’ll get that ready.”

  “I don’t think he’s in any imminent danger of dying, and the Anodyne seems to have helped, although he’s not entirely conscious or coherent.” In fact, he was intermittently mumbling something I couldn’t make out. “I tied the rope around him instead of me, since I’d rather he didn’t roll over and fall down the hole. That’s his biggest immediate risk.”

  “Good thought.”