O-ho, To Marten We Go!
"O-HO, O-HO-HO-HO!"
CHARMIAN ducked down in the shallow water next to X'aaru, staring upward with fearful goggling eyes as the weird laughlike chatter combined from two voices into one just overhead. Two shapes came flying out of the fog straight at them, and Charmian gasped and covered her head in panic.
Something splashed into the water and the voices came again, both sounding exactly identical.
"O-ho, o-ho! We're here!"
"Here we are! O-ho, o-ho!"
Charmian knelt chattering for a moment or two before the realization struck that...nothing was happening. She opened one eye a sliver, then the other, then dared to peek out over her arm, all of her muscles shaking. She saw a pair of birds floating in the water and lifted her head to look for whatever had been over them, but couldn't see anything. She looked down again at the birds.
It was a pair of black and white loons, staring at her with their red eyes and pointed beaks and just bobbing in the water; as soon as they saw her looking at them, however, their heads started bobbing up and down, one after the other, like two pistons in a car.
"O-HO!" they both exclaimed, and Charmian screamed and shot to her feet, stumbling back a step. She tripped over X'aaru's tail and he yelped and stuck his head in the water like a duck looking for food. Charmian landed in water up to her chest and sputtered as it soaked her straight through; she gritted her teeth and pushed herself up, pulling her backpack up higher to try to keep it from getting too soaked as well. She blinked the water from her eyes and looked at the pair of loons still floating before them; again they saw her attention and their heads popped up and down in sequence.
"We've frightened her!" one of them said. "O-ho!"
"O-ho! She is definitely frightened!" said the second.
Then, "O-ho!" they both exclaimed at once, and bobbed their heads sagely.
Charmian blinked again. "Loons--?" She clambered around so she was on hands and knees, and stared at the birds in disbelief. "It--it was a couple of loons--?"
"As we are, so shall we always be! O-ho!" said the second loon.
"We shall always be what we are right now! O-ho, ho!" said the first.
Charmian's brow furrowed and she awkwardly got to her feet, swiping water from her soaking clothes. "Hold on a minute! You guys talk here--? Are you some kind of...loon manitous or...loonitous...or something?"
The loons looked at each other, bobbing. "She thinks we are manitous, o-ho!" they both exclaimed, as if surprised, then looked back at her.
"Quite mistaken! O-ho!" said the first. "We are Kwemoo and Maang."
"Kwemoo and Maang is who we are! O-ho!" added the second. "And so we shall always be."
Charmian rubbed at her aching neck. She dangled her pack by its strap and wished that she were dry; she felt utterly stupid, standing dripping wet and talking to two loons. "Which one of you is Kwemoo and which is Maang--?"
"I am Kwemoo, and he is Maang," said the first loon.
"I am Maang, and he is Kwemoo," said the second; "O-HO!" they both added, and she suddenly realized that it didn't really matter which was which, since they both looked and sounded exactly alike. She rolled her eyes and sighed, sloshing through the water and reaching out to nudge X'aaru between the wings since his head was still under the water. He lifted it and blinked, seaweed dangling from his nose.
"You guys said you were here to show me," she grumbled, hating the water sloshing around in her sandals. The loons floated placidly after her, tails wiggling. "You knew about the gateway I used. So who are you really and what are you doing here to see me through? You knew I was coming, right?"
"O-ho!" said one of them--she thought it was Maang, then noticed how they kept switching places as they swam, and thought maybe it was Kwemoo, then told herself not to care. "We are messengers! Sent to keep watch over the doorway whenever it should appear and disappear!"
"We watch it always, and see who shall come forth!" said Kwemoo--or Maang. "O-ho!"
"Watch the doorway--?" Charmian stopped in midstep, then turned back to them with a frown. "You guys are messengers? Who for? Who wants you to guard the gateway?"
They bobbed their heads. "O-ho! We are messengers of the great Glooskap!" they both exclaimed, and Charmian's face lit right up. She ducked down before them, expecting them to flap their wings and fly away, but all that they did was wiggle their tails and look up at her with their beady red eyes.
"Glooskap?" Charmian cried.
The loons looked at each other. "O-ho, she repeats herself a lot," said the one on the right.
"Perhaps she hit her head, o-ho," the other one mused.
Charmian reached out and grabbed the first one by the neck and stood up, shaking it back and forth so it squawked and flapped. The other one started swimming in frantic circles; X'aaru stood nearby, watching the scene in awe.
"For cripes' SAKES already!" Charmian yelled, shaking the bird. "Just tell me WHERE THE HELL we are and how to get to Glooskap's place! I don't have TIME to fiddle around!!"
"O--ho--o-ho--!" the loon wheezed, its voice reduced to barely a croak. "You've--got me--by the--neck--o-ho--!"
"O-ho! He can't breathe! It's a tragedy! O-ho!!" the second loon cried, paddling around her like crazy.
Charmian let out a frustrated noise and tossed the bird into the water where it landed with a splash. "ARE THE TWO OF YOU ALWAYS SO DAMN OBVIOUS?!" She turned and started splashing toward the shore; X'aaru gasped and hurried to follow, having to stop every few steps to disentangle the seaweed from his legs. "I'll just find him on my OWN if that's the way you're going to be!"
The loon she'd been holding managed to right itself, and they paddled quickly after her, waddling up onto land when she sploshed onto wet earth. "O-ho! Glooskap doesn't just reveal himself to anybody, o-ho!" one called out.
"DUH," Charmian snapped. "I've met him already! It's not like we're STRANGERS or anything!"
"O-ho--? You know him then--?" They waddled around to walk at her sides, peering up at her critically. After a moment the one on her left hurried over to join the one on her right and started whispering loudly enough for anyone within twenty feet to hear.
"O-ho! I think I know her! Yes I do!"
"I think I know her too, o-ho!" said the other one. "The one who came through before! Through the Tree of the Sky Mother, o-ho!"
Charmian slowed her step and looked down at them. The two loons waddled around in front of her and bobbed their heads rapidly.
"O-ho! You are the one from the Island!" they said in unison. "Glooskap welcomes you to his land, o-ho!"
Charmian snorted and crossed her arms. "Finally?" The loons ruffled their wings and she suppressed a sigh. "Just take me to him, okay? I'm not here for a visit; it's important." When they hesitated she ground her teeth. "And yes, Geezhigo-Quae sent me!"
"O-HO!" Kwemoo and Maang turned about and flapped their wings, promptly rising into the air. "Glooskap shall be pleased to hear that the Sky Mother still feels for him!"
"Pleased indeed will be Glooskap to learn of her undying love for him! O-ho!"
Charmian rolled her eyes again, giving a gusty sigh for good measure. X'aaru appeared at her side, and she made a face and brushed a strand of wet grass from his ear, and rubbed a bit of the water out of his ruff. "Come on," she muttered. "Glooskap's waiting."
X'aaru looked uncertain. "He's...not quite like those two, is he...?" he asked uneasily as they started walking.
"No, not quite," Charmian replied, shaking some mud out of her sandal. "He's even worse."
"Oh." X'aaru lowered his head and resumed walking in silence.
They trudged away from the pond--for such it obviously was, now that Charmian got a better look at it as the fog began to lift--and up a grassy slope. The grass was in shades of brown and gold, and soaking wet; Charmian looked up at the tall pines rising off to the sides and ahead, and again saw how pink the sky was. She still couldn't tell if it was dawn or evening, but supposed it didn't matter much. She glanced up at the loons overhead and bit her lip.
"Where are we going?" she called out.
"To the trees we will take you!" called one of them. "O-ho!"
"The forest is the quickest way we shall find to reach Glooskap, o-ho!" said the other.
Charmian chewed her lip now. "Do you guys know Abis--um...Ab...Abista...um...do you guys know Marten?"
The loons veered around in midair and flapped their wings loudly. "O-HO!" they yelled. "She knows the mighty Abistanooch, as well!"
Charmian's face screwed up. "Mighty--?" She waved at them when they opened their beaks. "Never mind. If he's closer, then I'd like to meet him first, okay?"
"The mighty Marten is just within the woods. O-ho!" The loons turned back and flapped away toward the pines. Charmian sighed and glanced at X'aaru.
"Think you feel up to flying?" she asked, looking skeptically at his wings. He lifted one and shook a bit of the water out of it before giving her a meek look.
"I think so...they didn't get that wet, at least..."
"It shouldn't be too far. I hope. And maybe if Marten's there he'll have a shortcut." She winced. "Maybe he's gotten better at finding shortcuts...I hope."
X'aaru nodded, though she could tell he had no idea what she was talking about. Rather than explain she climbed atop his back and he spread his wings, flapping them a few times before rising ponderously into the air. He snorted air from his nostrils and she was ready to tell him it was all right and she could walk, but she kept silent as he forced himself to rise; she could tell that asking him to go back down would just embarrass him, as his wings were obviously heavier than he'd said, and he was obviously trying to impress her. In any case, he managed to catch a low current, and started flying toward the trees, after Kwemoo and Maang, who started calling out as he flew overhead and began to descend toward the pines.
"O-ho! He flies! The great winged wolf-creature flies!"
"Higher and faster than Kwemoo and Maang! O-ho!"
Charmian saw the way that X'aaru's ears pricked, his chest swelling just slightly, and bit back a smile. They veered down at the tops of the pines and X'aaru had to bring his wings in toward himself to avoid catching them on the branches; he held back as Kwemoo and Maang flitted down between the trees, then followed, barely managing to make a somewhat clumsy but acceptable landing without hitting anything. Still, he blushed when he stumbled a little, so Charmian pretended not to notice it even though she got a mouthful of fur. She kept a straight face as she dismounted and waited until he had turned away before spitting it out. Kwemoo and Maang landed on the ground before them and waddled in circles.
"This way, this way, to the hideout of the mighty Marten!" they said, and started waddling away; Charmian frowned after them, and opened her mouth, but they just interrupted her with a joined "O-ho!" before disappearing from sight.
Charmian rolled her eyes. "How did I know they were going to say that." She waved at X'aaru and started walking. "C'mon...Marten's a little weird, but at least he's not that annoying."
They followed the direction that Kwemoo and Maang had taken, and eventually the two little loons came back into sight, waddling along like mad. She stared at them and tried to figure out any difference between them but it was like looking at clones. She tried not to feel too irritated, but for some reason it bothered her.
"Which of you is Maang...?" she asked again, unable to help herself.
"O-ho! I am Maang, and he is Kwemoo," the loon on the right said.
"I am Kwemoo, and he is Maang," the one on the left added. "O-ho!" Then they waddled around and switched places a few times like a man hiding a ball under a cup.
Charmian ground her teeth. "Stupid...damn...birds."
X'aaru sniffed and then pointed his nose toward the one on the right. "That one's still Maang," he said tentatively. "At least, he smells like Maang..."
"It doesn't matter that much," Charmian murmured, rubbing at her head. "I think I'll just call them Kwemaang."
"O-ho!" The loons switched places again. "The flame-haired human names us KWEMAANG! O-HO!"
She was about ready to jump on top of one of them and start plucking its feathers when the loons veered right and she saw that the rough path they'd been following headed in that direction. They followed the loons, then had to stop abruptly. A dead tree stood here with shells dangling from every one of its stubby branches. They made a tinkling noise in the breeze. Charmian and X'aaru stared.
"O-ho!" Kwemoo and Maang halted beneath the tree and turned back to face them. "Behold! It is--"
"Marten's new secret hideout?" Charmian said; the loons' eyes widened and their beaks fell open. They looked at each other, then back at her, and started flaring their wings.
"O-HO! She has the power of the manitous and can read thoughts!!"
Charmian rolled her eyes. "No, more like I have the power of knowing Marten, and his last secret hideout looked a lot like this."
X'aaru tilted his head, puzzled, then glanced at her. "Charmian, if it's a secret hideout, then why..."
"You'll understand soon enough, X," Charmian said, and waved at him. "C'mon...I take it we find some way through? Is there an opening?"
"O-ho! The mighty Abistanooch does not deign to tell Kwemoo and Maang the secret password," the loons said.
Charmian pursed her lips. "Well, if I know it, then how do I get in? Do I have to do anything in particular?"
"You must use the shells. O-ho! The answer is in the shells."
"Thanks," Charmian groused, and perused the shells dangling from the branches. She poked at one and watched it sway, then looked back at the loons.
They tilted their heads this way and that. "O-ho! Perhaps there is a pattern," one--Kwemoo?--said.
Charmian stared at him, willing him to drop over dead. When that didn't happen she turned to the tree and poked one shell, then another. Nothing happened. She frowned. "Potatoes," she said.
She blushed when she felt the other three staring at her as if she were nuts. She poked a few more shells. "Potatoes. Potatoes." She felt like chewing her lip off out of frustration, and forced herself to take a breath and let it out. She studied the shells a bit more closely before noticing that there were several different kinds. She looked them all over, trying to find a pattern in the way that they were hung; that resulted in nothing that she could see. She waved X'aaru forward and he stared at the shells with her.
"See anything remarkable? Maybe you can make out something that I can't," she said.
X'aaru frowned a little and squinted. He stepped forward and sniffed at every single shell; this was so time consuming that Charmian wondered if they wouldn't have made better time simply by flying to the ocean. At last X'aaru stepped back, tilted his head, sniffed the air a few times, then sat down.
"Try the shell on the top, second from the left," he said; "the shell on the second row down, third from the right; the shell on the third row down, on the very right; the shell on the fourth row down, fourth from the left; the shell on the fifth row down, second from the left; the shell on the very bottom, to the right of the middle."
Charmian's brow furrowed, utterly confused. She did as she was told anyway, tapping and then tugging on each of the shells for good measure, then stepping back, her hand still on the last shell, and saying aloud, "Potatoes." She blinked when the tree gave an odd creaking sound...then she looked down and saw a hole under one of the roots, where one hadn't been before. It looked just barely big enough to squeeze through. She peered into it, then pulled harder on the last shell. "Potatoes." The root moved a bit more and she found herself staring into a small tunnel.
Kwemoo and Maang flapped their wings. "O-HO! The doorway of the mighty Marten has been opened!"
Charmian lifted her head to look at X'aaru. "How did you know?" she asked. "Did you smell Marten on them or something?"
X'aaru blushed a little. "Well...no..." He pointed up at the shells with his nose. "Actually...I just picked the shells that looked prettiest. I figured, if he has a secret hideout that looks so pretty, then he must have used the prettiest shells for a reason..."
Charmian instantly deflated and felt like collapsing. "Come on," she moaned, stepping toward the tunnel. She crawled down into it feetfirst, hoping that he would be able to follow; he stuck his head into the hole and looked uncertain, but flattened his wings against his back and started squeezing himself in, huffing as he did so. She climbed down into a small open space which had been cleared of soil and watched his progress; he wriggled for a few moments, then let out a startled yelp and plopped into the opening with her, mashing her against the wall. Kwemoo and Maang came last, just barely managing to wiggle in around them.
X'aaru reached back one hand to rub at his backside. "That hurt! Did you have to do that so hard--?"
"O-ho!" the loon smooshed against the right wall croaked, and gestured with his wing. "The mighty Marten is that way..."
Charmian craned her neck to look. "Well, that's the only tunnel out of here," she grumbled. "Duh." She strained to twist herself around in the cramped space, nearly getting X'aaru's tail in her mouth, then grabbing hold of the roots protruding from the next opening and pushing herself through it. She'd never been very claustrophobic, but this place was quickly doing the trick. The tunnel she found herself in wasn't much better, but at least she had it to herself to wander down, the others having to follow single file. As she crawled along she spotted a feather lying in the way and picked it up to look it over before stuffing it in her pocket and continuing; she came across another one just as brightly colored as the first, and did the same. She found a third and kept her eyes open for more but that was where they ended. She peered at it as she crawled along and frowned.
"This looks like an Ocryx feather," she said, puzzled, and held it back toward X'aaru, who sniffed at it. He looked equally confused, making a snorting noise.
"It smells like Dakh!" he exclaimed, and Charmian found that impossible to believe, yet she couldn't imagine why he would lie. Dakh Natha was one of the pups of Tal Natha, the Guardian of the Island, and he would never be found in a tunnel in some other land, like this. So how could one of his feathers be way down here...?
Trying to hide her unease, Charmian tucked the feather away and sighed with relief when the tunnel opened up into a regular-sized room; she climbed down into it and stood up to dust herself off. The earth had given way to stone, and now her surroundings looked vaguely familiar. Marten had led her through stone tunnels on his way to Glooskap's cave. She felt the wall and could tell that wave action long ago had smoothed the rock, and this lifted her spirits a little. She spotted another feather on the floor and picked it up, frowned once more, and held it out to X'aaru. He sniffed and gave her an anxious look.
"This one smells like Sikt!" Sikt Natha was Dakh Natha's twin, and likewise wouldn't be found in such a place as this. Charmian chewed on her lip and put the feather with the others. Kwemoo and Maang popped out into the room and waddled toward the opposite tunnel with great purpose.
"Follow, o-ho!" they cried. "He is just this way! Just this way, he is! O-ho!"
"I'm getting ready to ho their O," Charmian muttered, following. X'aaru had to fold his wings close, but other than that the passage was easy enough. They peered into every tunnel they passed but Kwemoo and Maang continued without even turning their heads. This went on for a while before Charmian began to grind her teeth in annoyance. Apparently, loons had a perception of just this way which was considerably different from that of humans.
She opened her mouth to growl at them when--"O-ho!"--they both turned right and vanished. She forced herself not to tear at her hair and followed. This tunnel went nearly black--it had been dimly illuminated before--and she stumbled over something soft, hearing a yelped "O-hoooOW!" come from below her. She grabbed onto the wall, cursing under her breath, and started feeling her way along, hearing X'aaru snuffling behind her. Light began to filter into the tunnel again.
"How much longer is this just this way of yours?!" she snapped.
"Just this way, o-ho!" the loons exclaimed. "Just this way to the hiding place of the great Marten."
"I wonder how loon stew tastes," Charmian said under her breath, just before the tunnel turned and opened up into a small cave ahead. She squinted but couldn't make it out very well from here, despite it being lit; something seemed to be hanging across the opening, like a curtain. That didn't seem right.
"Are you sure..."
"Just a few steps more, o-ho!" the loon on the left interrupted cheerily. "O-ho, then you shall see him!"
"O-ho! You said my line," the other loon said. "Now I have nothing left to say. O-ho!"
"We are now even, o-ho!" the first loon said.
"O-ho! Now that we are," the second replied.
They waddled under the hanging and disappeared once more. Charmian scowled and hurried to catch up. When she reached the opening she saw that it was in fact a curtain of a sort, and this just perplexed her even more; since when did tunnels have curtains? She mused over this for a moment before deciding that Marten himself must have hung it; she reached out to brush it aside and stuck her head into the room. "Hello--?"
Something struck her in the head and she yelped, jerking back. Feathers flew in her mouth and for a moment she was sure that one of the loons had flown up in her face, but as soon as her eyes popped open she saw Kwemoo and Maang pacing around on the floor frantically. She made a face and started waving her arms at the feathers drifting around her, wondering what had just happened.
"OoooooOOOOOHHHHH!!" a voice suddenly shrilled, and she gasped and whirled around abruptly. "CHARMIAN!!"
Charmian blinked, utterly baffled. Before she knew it, something was squeezing her so tightly that she couldn't even breathe, and stars danced before her eyes.
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