Cricket

21

What Do You Call a Group of Crickets?

The surface of the portal shimmered a faint silver, which Cricket found a bit disturbing, considering past experiences. He reached out gingerly to test the pool with the tip of a finger, but before he could inspect for damage, one of his shadows plunged through with a splash. The scattered droplets fell sideways back into the pool and ripples spread to the stone rim, bouncing back to meet in the middle.

"Oh, it really is like a pot," the insect breathed almost reverently.

Gad, the once-dead trollblood appeared at his side.

"Are... do you understand me?" Cricket asked.

In response, the trollblood only stared back with a look somewhere between pain and sorrow, before it trudged through the rippling portal.

"You have to go eventually," Jeshu said from behind.

"Yeah, I know, I just... might watch a few more test subjects go first. Why are we bringing Gad? Oydd said he didn't have the heart to fight."

"Actually, he was quite insistent. He perked up while Oydd and I were discussing Shisu, and... he just started to follow us. Oydd even ordered him back, but he just shook his head."

"He shook his head? So he understood? Then why'd he snub me?"

"Snub?" Jeshu repeated.

"Yes, just now. He snubbed me."

"I don't think he understands that much. He hasn't attempted to speak."

Waves of azaeri entered the wide portal as Jeshu and Cricket conversed, and the druid pulled him aside to avoid clogging the platform.

Another shadow, holding four shields up defensively, led a contingent of archers through.

"Which one is that?" the druid asked.

"Oh... he was in charge of learning bows, but it was pretty clear he'd never be as good as the azaeri."

"So he gave up?" Scorpion asked.

"Oh, no, not at all. We just couldn't waste any good arrows on him. It was actually really difficult to talk him into another loadout. I had to... bend the truth a little."

A second shadow holding four shields approached the portal, with a hurt look on his face.

"Not you, Cricket! You've got a special task!"

The shadow smiled, looking relieved, and passed through.

"He doesn't," Cricket confessed. "But we were fighting over the last two silver swords. He's actually... better at swords than me now, so... it was admittedly selfish. Oh, Spindle, I didn't see you."

The changeling paused on her way to the portal, debating whether to acknowledge the insect. With a grimace, she waved half-heartedly. Pike clutched to her shoulder with his fat fingers.

"Do salamanders make good pets?" Cricket asked.

At this, Spindle actually smiled. She patted Pike on the head, and he closed his eyes contentedly.

"I think so. Not judgemental," Spindle replied. "Plus, changelings are actually more closely related to salamanders than lizards."

"I... wouldn't have guessed lizards either. What do they eat?"

"Mostly crickets."

"Oh, that's horrifying!"

"The little ones, idiot." Despite the insult, Spindle still smiled wryly. "Changelings, too. We're pretty slimy until puberty, when we start to mimic other animals. We just chill in pools, catching bugs."

Cricket watched as the impressively tall Ja'hek organized her troops on the far side of the portal, pushing back the blackness with their silver shields. Three Crickets joined her squad, of their own accord, and stood out in front of the soldiers, attempting to impress them with tricks and spins of their weapons, as the feathers on the back of the gruff commander's neck began to bristle.

Spindle rested her crossbow on her shoulder as she counted silver bolts with her free hand, then stepped through.

"What's her problem?" Scorpion spat when the changeling was gone. Skittle reached for his snout with two of its tentacles, and the ratling absently brushed them away.

"What do you mean? She was pleasant."

"To you," Scorpion replied. "She only talks to me in one word sentences."

"Maybe she's racist," Cricket suggested, off-handedly, as he inspected his own silver sword.

Scorpion glared at the insect. His whiskers twitched, and he started for the portal, but hesitated, trying to push the mimic from his shoulder. "This is no place for you."

Skittle stubbornly wrapped his remaining limbs around anything he could to remain anchored, and Scorpion eventually relented, not wanting to hurt the mimic.

"Skittle," Cricket said, reaching out gently, and the octopus released its grip, crawling instead onto the insect. It cooed at the sound of its own name, and began to crawl toward Cricket's shoulder.

"Naw, buddy. Scorpion's right, it's dangerous—"

The mimic flashed red, and Cricket reconsidered his words. "It's dangerous to leave the portal unguarded, which is why we need you to stay here. You're in charge while we're gone."

The octopus calmed to a pulsing orange as it coiled and seemingly considered the insect's words. Cricket attempted to place it on the ground, and the mimic stared into his eyes as if transfixed. Whether it understood or not, it slurped onto the ground, albeit reluctantly, and suctioned into place.

Scorpion eyed it to make sure it wasn't following him, as he scurried through the gate.

"Shall we?" Jeshu gestured at the portal. Patches sat silently on his shoulder, watching the insect.

"Well, all right." Cricket strode through with his chest puffed out ever so slightly to mask his hesitation, and—though he had passed through the portal before without incident—he suddenly felt like he had been plunged into a lake of ice water.

"Are you all right?" Oydd asked, reaching out for one of his hands. "You looked like you might pass out."

"What was that?"

"A mitigation of what might have been. I placed additional wards on the portal to combat this prospect, but—"

"What prospect?" Cricket stumbled, lifting a hand futilely to try to stop the buzzing in his antennae.

"You've entered a heavy magical field. Without my preparations, the effects might have been worse. Still, it seems to have affected you more than the others."

"Aw, crap..." Cricket knelt down, holding his head with two arms now.

Oydd observed him for a moment, in concern. "Are you all right?"

Cricket shook his head.

"Like... actually not all right, or are you being dramatic?"

Cricket groaned, knowing the rudra would disagree with his response.

"You know that feeling," Cricket said, "when you find an ice cold stream, and you drink too much at once? That's what it feels like."

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"Brain freeze!" Bax proclaimed. "That's the medical term. It's often fatal."

"It most certainly is not," Oydd replied.

"Well, it's like that, but also there's a ringing in my antennae, kind of..." Cricket made a fist and rapped it against his own head. "It's gone now."

Oydd helped him back to his feet.

When the last of the soldiers had passed through the portal, Oydd waved Bale's claw, and the undulating surface stopped, as if frozen in time, its ripples like hardened glass.

"What was that?" Scorpion asked in alarm.

"I sealed the surface to prevent anything from entering the tower after we've departed.

"You sealed us in?" the ratling almost shouted.

"What did you expect?"

The ratling stared uncomfortably back at the portal, his tail waving too fast.

As they spoke, Ruka moved her squad to the vanguard and, at an almost indiscernible signal from the slight azaeri, one of her archers drew and fired an arrow off into the black.

The darkness sizzled, snapping and popping as the silver bolt blazed a path through, and Cricket watched as the seemingly shining arrow, surrounded as it was by magical darkness, arced high in the sky and dropped some distance away, lighting up a barren crop of rock.

"What was that?" Cricket asked. "Not just silver?"

Jeshu laughed. "No, not just silver. It has been blessed to shed light."

Ruka looked to Oydd for confirmation, and he pointed off at a slightly different angle.

The commander nodded, relaying the order to the same archer. This time, the archer knocked an arrow, then breathed deeply, clearing her mind, and Cricket saw the silver arrow begin to glow faintly before she released it.

"Is she the group's cleric," Cricket asked, and the druid nodded.

Like the first arrow, the silver shaft hissed through the black, parting the magical darkness in its path, and landed near a crack in a rock wall—a fissure wide enough for four azaeri to walk abreast.

Ruka looked to the rudra, who nodded, and she began to move her squad toward the gap.

The other squads held their positions to Cricket's left, right, and flank, and in relative unison the brigade began its march through Sheol.

"How can you see?" Cricket asked the druid. "If it's dark for me, you must not be able to make out anything."

"It is a blessing of Elkennah to pierce the darkness. And I mean that it is a favor she bestows upon all her followers. But, yes, it is very dark."

By the time the brigade reached the enchanted arrow, the blessing had begun to dim, and the archers spent a moment locating it among the rocks.

Ruka looked to Oydd expectantly, and he peered off into the black as if he could see beyond it, before pointing off again.

Ruka gave a curt nod and signaled her cleric to fire again. This time, the arrow arced high but as it began to drop it fell longer than expected, disappearing entirely.

The shadows rushed to cover its path, leaving no trace of the arrow.

Oydd closed his eyes, before stating confidently, "A gorge. That's good, but we need to determine where it starts, then follow to the right."

"East?" Cricket asked.

"I... don't know. The portals don't necessarily face the same directions. Does it matter?"

"Um... only for coordinating. If we're all facing the same way, then it's right," Cricket clarified. He looked back toward the portal, which had already been swallowed by the darkness in their wake, and shivered involuntarily.

The buzz of the shadows flitting about unseen returned, and Cricket realized it had been too quiet for a time.

"Oydd..." Jeshu said softly.

"I know. I had dared hope they might stay away longer. Who knows what they make of us. Ruka," the rudra said, "try to fire an arrow half as far in the same direction."

The azaeri woman nodded, then squawked a few words in her guttural language, pointing off in three other directions. She spoke briefly to another soldier—clearly adding to the rudra's instructions.

Despite the clamor, Cricket was surprised to see no further action than that which Oydd had prescribed. The cleric archer fired an arrow that expertly halved the distance from the previous shot, with a slightly higher arc.

This time, a swirl of spiraling wraiths followed in its path, almost keeping speed with the flash of silver, obscuring it from view.

"Dammit." Oydd scowled. "Again, same spot."

Ruka fired an arrow herself, aimed directly where the previous had fallen.

The silver pierced a writhing wall of wraiths, and the bulk of them dispersed, with a dissonant chord of echoing squeals, and a flutter as of black feathers exploding from a struck fowl. When the mass of wraiths scattered, a faint speck of light again shone through the black.

Ruka signaled her shield-bearers forward, and a short phalanx pressed foot-to-foot among the rubble, dispelling the blackness with their silver shields.

As they neared the mark, a single, gargling squeal still emanated from a squirming black mass of shadow with long tendrils as thin as hair writhing in the air.

"Did you get one?" Cricket asked excitedly. But by the time he scurried over the rocks, the shadow had faded, leaving only the squirming threads of shiny black hair and large flakes of an ashlike substance, lighter than air, that rose into the darkness above. He turned to Ruka. "But you got one, right?"

She shrugged, and cocked her head sideways, eyeing her arrow.

Cricket stared at the worm-like threads as they coiled and dissolved. "What on..."

"Parasites, I believe," Oydd interrupted.

Jeshu joined the others, watching the dying worms. "What sort of parasite infects an incorporeal being?"

"At least we got one," Cricket said, holding up a hand to give Ruka a high five.

"It's not really anything to celebrate," Oydd stated. "They hunt in such large packs, that—"

"That can't be right," Cricket said. "Bax, is that right?"

"What packs? No, not at all. It's a school of wraiths. They hunt in schools."

"Ridiculous!" Oydd snapped. "That sounds awful!"

"It's because, Oydd," Bax said slowly, and condescendingly, as if speaking to a child, "a school describes a group that moves in accord. One fish goes left, they all go left! A pack," he paused again for emphasis, "coordinates different roles, like how some wolves circle behind, while others howl to cause confusion..."

"That sounds made up!" the rudra roared.

"That's sounds well-reasoned," Scorpion contributed. "But it's not the motion that matters. It's the type of animal. I'd say it's more like a swarm."

"You may be right," Bax conceded.

"No," Cricket shook his head, authoritatively. "Swarm is reserved for bugs. What's..." he looked expectantly at Jeshu. "What's the one that's called a murder? That seems appropriate."

"Crows," the dryad answered.

"Oh... those are the baby surface azaeri?"

"Well, they... I" Jeshu hummed and hawed. Finally he sighed in defeat and answered, "Yes."

"Is it a gaggle?" Bax asked, plopping down on the ground. With a puff of smoke, a thick tome appeared before him, nearly a foot tall, and he opened it about two-thirds of the way through and began rifling backward through pages until he was nearly at the front again.

"What's that?" Cricket peeked over his shoulder.

"A magic manual, er... encyclopedia!" he corrected. "To be more precise, Bartholomew's Magic Encyclopedia of Everything. Um, everything M through Z, anyway."

"Then wraiths should be at the back."

"It's sorted by size," the gnome replied, flipping through pages. "Not alphabetically."

"Is it an illusion?" Cricket reached out with one of his lower arms, and the gnome snatched the book away, closing it shut and losing his place."

"Certainly not! Well, it is, but I mean the illusion is of the real thing. I'm not just... making things up!"

Cricket's hand passed through the illusive book, and he frowned.

"It's got all the right information if that's what you mean, and I think it is. But trust me, it's a gaggle. I used to have a gaggle of wraiths that would peck at my feet if I fell asleep on my porch. And they'd steal things! One took my broom, and when I tried to get it back, it waddled off flapping and honking. When it realized I would catch up, it threw my broom in a mud puddle. Very mischievous, wraiths!"

Bax opened his book again, mumbling under his breath. Even Oydd waited, dumbfounded, his beak half open.

"Ah, here we are!" the gnome announced, sounding a bit grumpy. But that tone only lasted a moment, as he read, and then he beamed and looked up from the book. "We were all wrong! It's an impertinence!"

"An impertinence?" Oydd repeated.

"Of wraiths," Bax concluded.

"How odd. Does it really say that?" Oydd made the mistake of reaching, too, for the book, and Bax dismissed the volume into oblivion with a quick squint of his eyes.

"Not too odd," the gnome continued. "A group of peacocks is called an ostentation. Birds always have weird ones!"

"Wraiths aren't birds!" Scorpion yelled, loud enough to draw the attention of half the azaeri. His lavender eye gleamed dangerously. His lip curled, revealing his yellow teeth, as he tried to calm his temper.

"An impertinence of wraiths," Oydd repeated as if committing it to memory. "Since," he began again, "they hunt in... such large groups... I don't think it is worth our time to try to eliminate them. Stay close to the light. Assume darkness is death."

Briefly, the rudra's bulbous head pulsed with a violet light, illuminating the veins from within, and the darkness before them parted, revealing a steep drop-off.

"How wide is it here?" the rudra asked.

The azaeri cleric fired an arrow as long and far as her bow allowed, and the shining shaft dropped and dropped and dropped until the tiny remaining pinpoint of light was swallowed in blackness, indicating a massive expanse.

In the silence that followed, Oydd turned to survey his troops, attempting to read the expressions on their dim-lit faces.

"There is a bridge of sorts where the gap is smaller. Follow me."

He walked along the ravine, only a few feet from the ledge, the crunching of the rubble beneath his boots masked entirely by the maddening buzz of circling wraiths.

"A swarm of Crickets," the insect whispered to himself, before plodding after the rudra.