Myths and Birthrights: The Archive

Myths and Birthrights

By Tundara

Interlude One: The Shaman, the Star, and the Smoke

The constant drone of rain pit-tap-tapping on his roof was Zubu's loudest companion, if a most inconsistent one. The old zebra had more, like the gentle flickering of a small fire in the center of his hut or the welcome heady buzz of the herbs in his pipe. Fire and Herb, as Zubu called them, were both more common than Rain, but not as common as Pain. Pain had been Zubu's companion the longest, as it so often liked to remind him.

At least Rain was back and, with Herb and Fire, had taken Zubu's attention away from Pain.

"I tell you Rain, it is good you are back," Zubu shouted up to his dripping ceiling, waving the pipe containing Herb a little wildly. "It has been a good fortnight since you last visited. Seen anything interesting?"

All around the zebra droplets of water fell into precisely placed buckets, pots, and urns creating an almost musical din. Nodding his head to unspoken words, Zubu muttered, "Uh huh. No. You don't say? Scandalous! So the mayors daughter was caught in the granary with some young buck? Most wonderful! Oh, halloo and hurray!"

Zubu fell backwards off his small cot, his head striking an urn and tipping it over. In a hiss of smoke the fire was extinguished as both the laughing zebra and urn rolled across the floor. Jumping up to his three hooves, Zubu swore.

"Fire! I'm sorry! Are you okay, old friend? Fire?"

Zubu leaned his right side towards the remains of the fire. Dangling at his side, his right fore-leg tried to reach towards the wet soot. The elbow, fused in a right angle, couldn't move and his mangled hoof hung limp and useless, a twisted mass of rolling black-white fur, dislocated bones and cartilage. Flipping the smothered fire with the crippled limb, Zubu shook his head sadly.

"Don't worry, Fire, I know how to breath you new life. Mm Hmm, I do indeed. Yes, I do."

Limping over to one of the many shelves lining the soggy hut, Zubu picked up a small stick with his mouth. Aiming it using his lips, Zubu growled a few syllables. Sparks shot across the hut, landed in the sodden pit and relit the few logs in a burst of orange.

"Ah, you're back, Fire? Where'd you go? Hmm, hmm?" Zubu smiled as he put the fire-stick back in its proper place. "Such wild and crazy antics you get up to every time you leave, Fire. Not like Rain, she is far more sensible.  Just listen to her soothing song, Hmm, hmm."

Zubu's eyes widened when he realised he could no longer hear the gentle pittering and pattering of rain striking leaves or his roof. In the hearth the fire shrunk and gutted. Even the fuzzy warm haze surrounding Zubu's thoughts began to clear. Wrinkling his nose, the old zebra detected a peculiar scent on the tip of the wind. It was sugary and impossibly sweet, like over-ripe honey-berry pies.

It was the scent of magic.

The last of the clouds filling his mind vanished, Zubu spinning and snatching up a long staff propped in a corner. Bones rattled and chimes sang as he leveled the staff using his mangled leg at the small door of hanging beads.  Beyond the door he could see movement, a shape flitting through the thick trees and broad leaves that hid his hut.

All was silent. None of the incessant chirping of insects, nor the distant roars of the Great Apes as they battled over mates and territory, nor the song of birds drifted through the early morning gloom. The hackles along the back of Zubu's neck continued to rise. The smell was growing stronger. A quick shift of a shadow drew the zebra's gaze, his staff shifting even as he cleared his mind.

A swift crack rang through the jungle, blue light briefly breaking the stillness and the sharp tang of ozone filling the hut. Smoke trailing from the staff's head, Zubu slowly made his way out of his home, eyes darting in case he had missed, or the threat wasn't alone.

Come, Zubu, you must come...

The words drifted like gossamer through the shafts of shadow and light striking the jungle floor and entering Zubu's thoughts directly.

"Who are you? Where are you?"

Hope, Zubu... She needs you.

The old zebra snorted, resting against his staff. "Are you an apparition, here to take me at last? Spirit perhaps? Or a foal thinking to play games with Zubu the Maimed and Mighty? If it is the last, then know I have not lost my wits nor my magic out here." A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Zubu's face, his thin tongue peaking out to lick his lips.

A rustle in his vegetable garden made him turn slowly and his breath hitch in his throat.

The creature that had driven away his friends was a being of bubbling pink smoke and pure magic. His nose hairs twitched at the ambient energy given off by the thing. It looked a bit like a zebra, only taller, and with wings of fog that frothed from its back. In the forehead between where eyes should have been, sat a glimmering star.

You must follow us, Zubu, you must help us... She needs you.

Peering closer, Zubu realised just who he was speaking with, and the knowledge chilled him through the muggy jungle air. "Firestar, is that you? Why are you not sleeping with your sisters?"

This one dreams and needs my help, and we need yours. You must follow us, please. She needs you.

Looking between the comfort of his hut and the wet fetid air of the jungle, Zubu gave a long weary sigh. He was old and tired, his joints ached, his mane was almost pure white, and his right eye could barely see it was so filled with cataracts. If he left his home and followed this Star, Zubu knew he wouldn't see his home again. Adventures were for the young of body and spirit, and he was neither. Zubu gave the Smoke and Star a toothy grin.

"Lead on, I will follow as best my old bones allow."

Come, time runs short before all hope will be lost.

Through the thick boughs of the jungle, over streams glutted with water so they became dangerous torrents and slippery logs bridging chasms, the Star and Smoke lead Zubu. His pace was consistent, if slow. He knew the jungle and her ways, it was not long before the thick foliage broke and became a rolling golden plain. Far off in the distance so it was just a smudge on the horizon was one of the griffon's aeries. Hesitating, Zubu turned to his unusual companions.

"Out there, in the open?" He asked, only for the smoke and star to move ahead. "Of course, it would be near those rotten cat-birds," Zubu grunted as he followed, his staff digging into the hard dry ground.

For hours they traveled, but never with a sign of griffon or one of the many other predators that called the land home. It wasn't long before they came across a set of tracks. Zubu lifted a curious eye as he saw two sets of prints that could only belong to griffons, one whom was dragging both feet on her right side. Among them, racing back and forth in a chaotic swirl, were the tracks of a foal. At least, Zubu believed they were a foals tracks. They weren't right for a zebra foal, a little too round, and the hollow was too narrow. He had never seen tracks like them.

As he inspected the tracks, shadows began to cross the sun. Looking up, his old heart almost seized. Hundreds of griffons flew past, many giving him angry or suspicious glares. Saying a little prayer to the White Walker, hoping the griffons were unaware that he was unprotected by the Compact, Zubu sat down and waited for the flock to pass. The star and smoke had completely vanished.

When the last griffon vanished behind a small hill, Zubu let out a deep gasp of relief he'd been holding.

"Firestar? Firestar? You still here, Firestar?"

We are here. The star dryly intoned from a little ways down the path. We must hurry. Our time is almost gone.

Gulping down the fear swirling in his stomach, Zubu hustled after the swiftly moving smoke. A few minutes later, he again saw the griffons taking wing, lifting off from around a lone tree.

We are too late, the Firestar lamented, the smoke slowly and gently rolling towards the tree.

Silently, Zubu followed, taking laboured breaths and his hooves dragging as he walked. Beneath the tree he could see two griffons, both laying far too still for the time of day. Dread over what he would find filling his mouth with burning bile, Zubu carefully approached the griffons. All around were a sea of prints making it impossible to tell what precisely had happened.

A tear trickled from Zubu's eye as he inspected the first griffon. She was so young, and had been horribly battered, a wing mangled by some fight or crash. Her throat had been slit, no doubt with one of those terrible ceremonial knives. Griffons, Zubu snorted, they believed it a kindness to end the life of those they thought were cripples. Zubu looked to his own mangled leg.

He had lived his entire life with his maimed limb, and it had only made him stronger, fiercer, and more determined. Now, in the autumn of his life, Zubu wouldn't have traded it for a functioning leg.

The Griffons made no sense. Zubu tried to think over what he knew of the cat-birds as he went to inspect the second griffon. They were so fiercely loyal, and cruelty from a griffon was almost unheard of, they went out of their way to avoid making anything suffer a lingering death, and yet they were so cold. At least they were predictable. Unless they were an Exile. Zubu shuddered thinking about the wild and frightening ways Exiles from the aeries could act.

Approaching the second griffon, Zubu was surprised to see she was still alive, her chest just barely moving. A large pool of blood spread beneath her making the ground wet and sticky. Curious, Zubu bent down and saw she'd been stabbed in the chest. She also seemed to be in prime health, if a little dusty and unkempt.

The griffon's eyes shot open as Zubu moved her head to see her neck. Jumping back, he leveled his staff at the griffon despite knowing that she was no threat in her state.

"Talona, they took her," the griffon said, spitting up blood.

Confused who a 'Talona' could be, Zubu looked to the smoke for guidance, but it was gone along with the star. Snorting, Zubu turned back to the dying griffon.

"Looks like your day is lucky. I was brought here to save someone, and you get to be it."