4. The Delicious Mask

Dilova’s restaurant had moved again. Tresmo was a distant landmark now, which she disliked. He could’ve helped find the fox-shaped sorcerer faster—and he’d sacrificed something for them. It took Prebuha a long negotiation to make the Chiefclouds rain on purpose, extinguishing the small fires.

But in exchange, as part of the trade, Tresmo had to promise he would never grow even taller than he was now. Otherwise, in their words, he’d “enter obvious cloud territory” and that was “as unnatural as when birds entered obvious cloud territory”, which was accompanied by giving Dilova a side eye.

She couldn’t longingly look at Tresmo for long, though, as an entire caravan of customers had arrived to enjoy her food services.

“Father,” she said over her shoulder, smiling hopefully, “maybe you could entertain those guests until I—”

“Nothing there,” mumbled Fiante. “Darkness. Nothing there. Darkness.”

Muttering to himself, he pottered away. He didn’t wander far, though, before collapsing and continuing his mad ramblings face-first in a pile of dead leaves.

Dilova sighed. A bad day again.

Several elephants forced her to expand her restaurant’s size. She started looking for more fires on the horizon. The fires here had no more capacity, one extinguished after an elephant trampled it, and one because she threw too many nuts and leaves at once into it.

Elephants were strang enough, they were. But when a mixed group of rhinos and large felines lay down around a fire, asking specifically for Dilova and her “famed foods”, she had to give in to curiosity.

“You came all the way from Garda? Just for me?” she asked. On busy days like these, she wouldn’t try to memorize what customers wanted. Using her beak, she drilled drawings of the food they requested into the trees around them.

“But of course!” said a dark gray rhino. “Well, not just for you, but we weren’t going to miss your legendary warm fires as we passed by. Quite a lot of warm fires, we see. But they extinguish automatically, don’t they? We are safe?”

Dilova lied with a quick nod. She blushed, which for an ancient bird expressed itself through feathers turning red.

“Oh, well, erm, what do they say about me?”

The rhino’s eyes widened, and he pointed his horn at a nearby fire. “That you sometimes forget to take things out of the fire in time.”

Dilova quickly flew past and retrieved meat intended for the large felines. To her surprise, rhinos were plant-eaters—big ones, they were—and emptied her entire storage of plants instead.

“What else do they say?”

“That you have a cursed waiter. Where is he now—oh, there. Enjoying … a pile of dead leaves.”

“Fiante isn’t cursed,” said Dilova bitterly. “Just … just … in need of some help. And as soon as he has a good day, I will get that for him.”

The rhino smiled. He wore clothes, a very new invention, made from the finest silk. The feathers that finished his royal look made Dilova cringe. “No offense meant! I am just curious. Where I come from, everyone runs away from fire. But out here, around Amor, you seem to have made it your own.”

“Not without risk,” said Dilova, pointing at a burn mark on her own tail.

“Ah, but is life ever without risk?”

She made another round and delivered the ordered food to the rhinos. Their diet consisted mostly of bark, buds, and even more slightly-roasted bark, but the smattering of berries on top delighted them most.

Was this—was this some kind of special being? Royalty? She knew that many animals and civilizations had quickly evolved on Garda. They appointed their own leaders, which angered the gods, which angered them. Prebuha had briefly mentioned fleeing the place, though, specifically mentioning we might all want to stay away from the large angry cats.

Should she be denying customers? It was getting quite busy, and she was stretched thin between multiple fires over a large space. She took one final look at Fiante, but no, this was a very bad day.

This rhino seemed friendly enough. She would keep allowing everyone in—

“Ah, it is true!” exclaimed a large cat next to the rhino.

“What is true? Oh feathers and bones, I haven’t burned your meat again have I?”

“Quite the opposite,” said the cat, smiling as if he’d discovered treasure. “It tastes better than anything I ever tried! Warm. Easy to bite, easy to swallow.”

Another cat next to him agreed, stating he felt “more energized” already. Or, in his words, “ready to punch some more prey”.

The rhinos weren’t that exuberant. The plants they ate had not seen fire, for it would just burn them. Though Dilova was experimenting with putting the plants over the fire, instead of inside it without protection. Promising results so far.

Dilova greeted even more customers and decided to expand her moving restaurant to a wall of fire she’d noticed on the horizon.

Prebuha thought life was full of discomforts. Branches too prickly for sleeping. Standing on a hedgehog by accident. Another argument with Mamotas the Gosti, her good friend who seemed more interested in writing stories—cuneiform in clay tablets—than actually guiding these people.

But today she learned the biggest discomfort of all: sitting in a massive tree as it’s having an argument with thunderclouds.

“Why should we help you?” thundered the Chiefcloud. “You never help us, do you?”

“When help is only given when received first, nobody would ever help at all,” said Tresmo sadly. “The time will come when we can do something for you, I am sure.”

“We already rained for you once. A mistake. Too generous. You’re just greedy and want to control us.”

The Chiefcloud’s size and number of lightning strikes seemed directly related to its anger. It had to literally lose steam before it was small enough to descend, its eyes visible again. Several animals below Prebuha immediately complained about the sudden fog.

“Please,” said Tresmo, “we need friendship and unity, especially in times like these. I was born out of the beautiful magic and kindness of the godchildren. I will do whatever is in my power to save the forest, to shelter the animals, to prevent disaster.”

“We could build a statue for you,” said Prebuha, starting the negotiation with a pretty solid offer she thought. Everyone eager for power liked statues of themselves. It’s the exact reason they didn’t build them in Harap, her large home city where everyone had actually been equal.

“Meh. Bah. Don’t care,” said the cloud.

“We could …” What did clouds want? More steam? More water? Their personal territory in the sky, as if Prebuha would be able to give that? No, in any negotiation, somebody wanted what they really could not have. Something so far-fetched they had to trade for it, just like Harap had to trade with Sumiser for precious metals and spices that simply didn’t grow there.

Clouds already had the sky. So …

“We could build a space on land for you?”

“Ah. Yes. Now we’re gathering steam.”

“Absolutely not,” said Tresmo. “Land disputes, lack of space, it’s exactly what’s tearing the allies of the godchildren apart. They always want more land. Better land. You already have the entire sky, empty space as far as the eye can see, is that not enough?”

“No, stupid tree. Look how big I am,” said Chiefcloud, stretching himself thin until the fog covered the entire forest.

Tresmo sighed. “If you can’t say anything productive or mature, it’s wiser to just say nothing at all.”

“Then why are you still talking? I like the sloth woman more.”

“My apologies, you’re right, I take it back. You should just say nothing at all ever again.”

The fog obscured her vision. Prebuha climbed higher and higher, almost reaching Tresmo’s canopy, but still couldn’t see much. The Forest of the Fallen was littered with tiny lights. Tiny fires, she knew now, though they looked like stars in a grayish milky way. In the direction of Dilova’s restaurant, though, she saw a large crowd of moving shapes, even including some animals she recognized from her homeland. It sparked some joy in her heart.

It was the lights on the horizon that worried her.

Prebuha absently promised Chiefcloud to work out the details and find a nice home on land, just to make him go away.

For when the fog started to clear, even though Tresmo’s massive size still cast the forest in permanent shadow, the events on the horizon were blinding.

The edge of the forest was entirely on fire. Some foxes were trying to stop it—foxes! The sorcerer! Prebuha felt especially strong today. Look how easily she’d climbed Tresmo, possibly the tallest thing on Somnia. She was wise, too, tricking the clouds—did they really think she’d build a city for frustrated fog beings? She should want to stay like this forever.

The fire was spreading, traveling this way, traveling towards—

“Tresmo. Please, please tell me you secretly have legs to carry you around? Maybe magical wings?”

When no response came, Prebuha swung down to alert her people. With some mumbled explanation about “checking out the danger”, though, she moved towards the line of fire.