(rage against the machine) (starts where Mountainfall ends)

Chirin stared into Boro's dead face. He looked at the closed eyes and 
the dark head jewel, his own flickering light making Boro's eyelids 
appear to flutter, his mouth seem to twitch. His own red pulses 
injected light into the jewel of the other ram; one jewel bright and 
the other a darkened echo. "Boro!" The cave reflected his voice. 

Chirin was all alone down here with his dead enemy. Boro and Bua na 
Kuros had received his tears.  In vain he rubbed at Boro's cheek, 
wiping the tearwater off. It was too late, the skin had absorbed his 
soul. Boro had died to destroy him. So much death, so much pain, 
Chirin was Chamadis, tumbling to his end.

"I won't fall in your shadows! I won't!" 

He was alone with a dead person. Boro's body was growing cold and his 
presence seemed to fill the cavern. The floor beat with his heart. 
The air among the unseen passages flickered with a very dim light... 
as the darkness does when you are alone with it. 

What could he do? He was helpless as the dead washed over him; they 
licked him and stroked him with their cold rotting tongues. They felt 
through his feet from the floor and their old breath puffed on his 
head, against his sides, carried by the passage drafts. "Please!" he 
threw himself on the floor at Boro's side. 

A sudden anger flashed inside him and he struggled to his feet, 
pained by bruises and injuries that he had not been able to heal very 
much beyond mending broken bones. "No!" he bleated at the evil dead 
spirits. He shouted it at Boro, at Calima, at Spirit. "You won't take 
me alive--you won't kill me!"

Chirin forced his still healing body into a dance, a walk of lights. 
He walked around Boro's body with his lights flashing and his voice 
whispering. "Exxxibos." Chirin sealed the evil in a complete circle, 
laced over with continuous shine, stitched with blinks and flashes. A 
complete circle of light that would hold Boro tight inside, prevent 
the dead one from pursuing him up to the daylight.

"Night has fallen on your deeds,
Let your soul filfill its needs.
May the mountain hold you fast, 
Under soil, under grass,
You lie bound in light and stone
This great stomach is your home.
May you run, away, in time
Run away...run and shine."

He wondered how he could look at someone who'd died and not cry. Why 
did he feel...like he didn't feel anything? He took shaky steps 
towards the rocks, leaving Boro where he was. Boro was tainted by the 
evil spirit and to touch him might mean that even more of his soul 
would become fodder for his evil gift. As much as it pained him the 
body must remain down here. Chirin tossed a few flickers at him for 
good measure anyway, to the innocent ram he must have once been. He 
had no time for anything else anyway. He must get back to his flock 
and get them away from those demon denryuu. With Boro lying dead, 
were they free? 

His lights kept the rocks in easy view as he began to climb. Chirin 
was still very weak, though, and he was soon feeling dizzy as he 
ascended the rocks. On top of that, he soon reached a face of stone 
that he could not climb. He sought an alternative way up, but there 
was none; further out the rock sloped backwards to a sheer face that 
led nowhere but up to the cavern ceilings, as his somewhat recovered 
tail light revealed. 

Chirin's own hunger was his only measure of time. No cud had come up 
for a while and he salivated at the thought of grass. Imagine that, 
even now, with all this--thinking of a tasty snack. 

His questing light found no way up the rock face. His gift might be 
able to make holds by breaking the rock...but no, when he tried it he 
discovered a limitation. Unlike healing his bones, which had demanded 
only small shifts, cutting stone demanded splitting the stone in two, 
on a large scale. He simply could not do it. Making one foothold 
might have taken him a day--and the face of rock stretched up and up. 
He could see where he and Boro had either slid or fallen through air 
coming down... that would not help him get back up. Chirin looked 
around for loose rocks he could pile up, but there were none, and he 
stood on a narrow ledge as it was, only his rubbery hooves keeping a 
grip on the stone. 

"Don't give up," said Crazy Lights. "There's got to be another way 
out of here, all we have to do is look."

"I know you're right," said Chirin, beginning to blubber anyway. If 
he didn't know Cracy Lights was right, he might as well jump off this 
ledge and kill himself right here. Anything would be better than 
this... than dying down here, slowly starving. No. There was a way 
out, and he and Crazy Lights would find it.

~

He looked down at the drop...he knew he could never kill himself. Not 
after seeing the marvel that a denryuu's body was, from the inside. 
Not after caring for it so long and so patiently, this gift from his 
parents, whose souls had crafted it with patience and passion. He 
couldn't end the life he had been given until he was sure there was 
no way out. You never knew what the spirits would bring. They might 
choose to open up a new passage out or lead him to a place where he 
could get free. Who knew what lived down here? Although, after having 
been down here in another place, thoughts of that nature were more 
fearful than anything. Down here, he had enemies among both living 
and dead in greater numbers than friends. He was not at home 
here...Denryuu did not belong underground.

Only after thoroughly checking every way up, trying every possible 
hold on the rock did he give up and back down again, ebdig up once 
more near the body. In a spasm of fear he performed the light-walk 
again and sat down at a distance to meditate and get in touch with 
any spirits who could be his allies down here. He had Crazy Lights, 
but he could not rely solely on him.... or on any spirits. They had 
given him a light to see by and feet to walk on. After another 
healing session, which left him barely better than before, Chirin 
again prayed, made an offering in the form of a light-song carried 
out by repeating the faint pips of light that came to his vision. 
After the song was sung and the offering made, he lay down and 
slipped into sleep, too overwhelmed by exhaustion to do anything 
else. 

"Phos, from the darkness save me," he mumbled as he slipped off to 
sleep in a mist of disorientation. Somehow the chaos had caught up 
with him, the darkness in the hollow, in the glade, they had all 
opened their mouths to become this cave, swallowing him into it. If 
he had listened to Thyme when she had sensed it coming, if he had 
only gotten them all out then, maybe none of this would have happened.

~

Waking up, Chirin could not remember dreaming. A taste of old cud lay 
stale in his mouth. He could smell Boro, the fragrance of death just 
beginning to lift from the body. Meat, that was what he was now, but 
a body never completely lost its former life. Bones could stir and 
speak. It was all a long sleep, from which you might or might not 
awaken from. Ysgard had awoken again in Chirin... would Boro seek the 
same thing, the rebirth of the darkness he had harbored? With him 
dead, was Bua's spirit even more free?

The shadows crept behind him as he stood up and shone the light on 
his head brightly, blasting darkness out, shoving it to the far 
corners of the giant caverns as he wielded his head jewel the way a 
denryuu was born to--lighting up the area for miles around. His tail 
shone too, banishing the flock of Burakuru and worse off behind him. 
Burakuru, though, felt far away and long ago, a haunt of forests and 
burrows who had given birth, or given way, to much worse children of 
evil. 

The cave, lit from two amgles, revealed no easy way out. Dark mouths 
gaped from places high and low, slung over humps of rock, hanging 
behind the tattered tapestries of stalactites. His gift advanced out 
too, twirling out into the vast caverns and stroking the immensely 
high vaulting walls. Just to see if Bua lurked there...

Chirin heard a flutter from above, a rustle of leathery wings; then 
many wings, as a flock of Zubats awoke, roused from their daytime 
roost by the sudden, foreign light. Chirin sparked on reflex, 
electricity crackling around the still-injured and terrified ampharos 
as he realized he had disturbed their rest and tried to tone his 
lights down through the instinctive urge to shine them brighter.

"*Phaaa,*" he bleated, as the zubats fluttered about high up from 
him. Their sonar shrieks echoed among the stone formations. Chirin 
could do little but watch and listen; most of them were so far up as 
to be, far away. None of them flew near him at all. Letting his 
static subside again he listened for them, realizing he had stumbled 
on other pokemon who might be able to help. They had no reason to 
help him but what harm would asking do?  "I'm sorry I woke you up 
zubats... Please--please, can you help me? All I want to do is get 
out--"

A last few shrieks clanged against the caverns as the zubats 
resettled, most of them now somewhere further in. He was not prey to 
them, they knew he could not fly and that he ate plants; they knew 
what he was, and they did not want violence any more than he did. 
Keeping his lights lower to mind that this was their time to sleep, 
Chirin spoke again. "Zubats, please...all I need to know is how to 
get out of here, and stop polluting your quiet cave with my lights 
and noise."

He felt his mind returning...something other than emptiness, pain and 
fear. What was a frightening place full of evil to him, was someone 
else's home. This cave could not be where Bua lived, for in a place 
of such evil what normal, kind pokemon would be able to sleep? 

One zubat flew down nearer to him, wary of what his lightning could 
do to her electricity-sensitive body.

"What are you even doing here?" she asked, hovering a couple of 
denryuu-heights above his head. Chirin tilted his face up. 

"I fell down here, a great evil spirit--pulled me down. I--fought 
him, but--"

"Evil spirit! Nyaa! Just because we live in dark caves, everyone's 
calling this an evil place and us, evil! And we heard you come in," 
the bat said in a high, shrill voice. Chirin realized, looking at her 
face, that the zubat could not see him. She had no eyes. It had not 
been his light that had disturbed them, then...something else had. 

"No... I never meant to call this an evil place at all," said 
Chirin. "Evil entered with me, with the...the other ram there, 
I...fought it--him. It was horrible. I don't know what's happened, 
but I have to get back outside. I don't think you're evil at all, 
quite the contrary, I don't want anything else horrible to happen 
down here or anywhere..." He drifted off, he could not concentrate 
for any length of time. Images of the battle outside, of the flock 
screaming, were beginning to flash inside him.  

"I just need to get out."

"You are out of place here," the zubat agreed and he realized she 
knew he was an ampharos, she and the others had known it from the 
start probably, even though they could not see his light. Their other 
senses must be so keen...and then he remembered that it was only when 
he had swept his gift round the whole cavern that the zubats had come 
off the ceilings.

"I'm sorry that I woke you up with--my electricity," he said, 
reluctant to speak about his gift. Not that he would not be 
surprised, by now, if the entire colony swept down proclaiming they 
knew all about it--which they might, since they'd heard everything he 
and Boro had said.

Another creature flew down, something much bigger. Chirin backed 
away, sparking. This giant bat had eyes and they were looking 
straight at him, as it hovered, flapping with wings on its feet in 
addition to its normal pair. "Us older evolutions woke up at your 
most annoying light," said the giant Zubat-like thing, that was 
bigger than Chirin and probably capable of eating him--or at least 
draining his blood--if it hadn't been for type advantage. "Yet it was 
not that which scared us--you think a sheep's going to scare us? but 
your electricity, boy!"

"I--I'm sorry," said Chirin, still emitting a small amount of static, 
from sheer fear. "I--uh..."

"Let's just say you're lucky this is our naptime and not our feeding 
time, Chirin. Because you may be competent to defend yourself now but 
you sure weren't before." The Crobat made a small chuckle. 

"Please," he looked into the crobat's eyes with pleading. "I never 
wanted to be down here...I'm just looking for a way outside again. I 
can't go back the way I came. Is thre any other way out--that I can 
walk to?"

"Walk..." the Crobat thought, looking upwards as it pondered its vast 
knowledge of the tunnel networks. It was clearly having some trouble 
considering it from a grounded creature's point of view. "There is a 
definite place to the east, which, however, is quite hot--you'd be 
entering the volcano, hm...not to mention a colony of houndooms. I 
doubt an amp--or much of anything--could defend against all of them 
for long, alone."

No, that was definitely out. Chirin shuddered at the thought of being 
torn apart by houndooms and blinked his lights around, ducking so he 
didn't blind the Crobat, whose own eyes must not be accustomed to 
light.

"Stop it with that light, I'm not blind you know, altough I soon will 
be if you keep it up with that infernal flashing."

"I'm sorry. I was only trying to disperse the evil powers of my 
fearful thoughts. They savagely attacked me, a pack of houndooms in 
my mind."

"Er...of course," said the crobat, considering him with an odd 
glance. She thought some more. "So many ways out, so few without 
wings. There's a passage to the south, not far, if you point yourself 
that way," she nodded in a south-southwesterly direction. "It's a 
long way down but if you keep to the main passageway you should smell 
it before long. Good luck, sheep."

"Oh, thank you, thank you so much," Chirin was crying now, 
profusely. "If thre a way I can thank you--"

"Take that light away, it's why I'm up past noon giving you 
directions," said the crobat. "Good luck."

"Spirits of wind and light sent you to me..."

"Don't mention it. They also sent us a corpse that's really going to 
start stinking up our caves, ah well."

"I'm sorry this had to happen... Phos's light to you...uh...Swift 
night currents speed your wings," he added as the zubat and crobat 
flew back away towards their roosts, which were over to the north end 
of the cavern and its many passages. Chirin wondered that he had not 
taken much notice or care of the guano smell sent to him by the 
drafts coming from there. 

Resisting the urge to wilt onto his knees and take another rest, 
Chirin headed a ways down the cavern in the direction the Crobat had 
pointed him to. She had not given him her name... he supposed she 
wouldn't trust an electric type who was also an intruder. What a sad 
world this could be, so full of distrust.

He pressed on, although he ached from head to toe. The wounds he 
still had would heal on their own given time. And time was something 
he could not afford to waste now. He kept his senses tuned to the 
beings about him in the caverns, the dead, the living and all in 
between. His nose sifted the damp air and his ears perked at the 
distant sounds of dripping water.

Strings of stalactites and long draperies of flowstone hung in the 
passageway Chirin headed down; the rocks were forms in their own 
right, some of them looking like large grotesque pokemon. The stone 
had watchful faces and he was always being watched. The bats' noise 
quickly fell away behind him, leaving him alone with the cave and its 
denizens of rock. He was moving downhill, casting light on a place 
that had dripped in darkness for millennia. He was still an intruder, 
and the walls could turn hostile. As he passed he would nod his head 
to the strange formations and say words of peace, asking for their 
permission to pass safely through. Some seemed to jump out at him 
when he rounded a bend, others shied away behind jagged shadows. It 
was warmer in here than it had been outside, but Chirin kept feeling 
chills...he threw static over himself like a soap, it seemed to 
crackle loudly in the quiet.

"This place is creepy," said Crazy Lights as he and Chirin passed 
several side passages. Or were they already going down a side 
passage? Whatever the way out, it was accessible by walking and big 
enough for a crobat to squeeze through. That didn't eliminate many of 
the tunnels he saw whose mouths seemed to call to him.

"Yeah, it is creepy," said Chirin. "But at the same time... it's 
beautiful. These caves are so full of amazing forms...they watch us 
and wonder what we are and why we're down here. Caves," he said, "I 
want only a sign to help point me towards the way out. Please, help 
me and I will leave forever and take my lights with me."

The caverns dangled open in an endless yawn of toothy jaws. He knew 
they would not speak so clearly, but that their stories were carved 
into the scenes frozen in time all around him. He tried to figure out 
how to interpret these signs the right way. They appeared not to 
move, but he was pretty sure they were moving in the edges of his 
light, around and in his blind spot. They only froze completely when 
he or Crazy Lights looked.

He sparked and flashed in warning when he thought he saw an enemy of 
stone, something long frozen in the caverns that stalked behind him 
or half hidden by stalagmites or flowstone. Chirin whirled to face it 
and gave the electric signals, showing that he was bruised and looked 
injured, but far from weak. The stone did not seem to take notice. 
When he faced it it did not move. Only when he started heading away 
did it begin to creep again.

The big beast of stone and shadow seemed to follow him through the 
sloping halls. sometimes it seemed closer, sometimes far back round 
the corner, but it was always there and Chirin realized there was 
more than one of them. But after what he had faced outside and with 
Boro, why should he be so scared of these? 

"I'll watch your back," said Crazy Lights as Chirin continued to 
walk, trying to conceal his slight limp, keeping sparks popping over 
his tail light to discourage anything sneaking up on them. 

Chirin was growing tired, he had walked for what felt like forever. 
Each new display of more caves and crevices, stone ruffles and roots, 
not only frustrated him by now, but it frightened him. The crobat had 
said he would have to travel a long way, but how long was long for a 
flying creature like her? How much had she considered it from his 
point of view? He was getting the message that he had gone the wrong 
way. The tunnel, ever turning, had failed to dislodge his sense of 
direction, being as he was an electric with an innate knowledge of 
north and south. But it succeeded well in turning him west anyway--
there was no way to continue south. He doubled back up the tunnel, 
fighting the urge to bolt back away. "There's got to be another way 
through, I'm sure I remember a passage we passed not too long ago. 
You remember that one Crazy Lights?"

"Yes," said Crazy Lights, "good idea."

Chirin and Crazy Lights found that tunnel and took it instead. It let 
through a slippery, muddy passageway. He skidded once before getting 
a feel for the ground, turning his tail light up while holding the 
bulb close to the ground to help his head jewel illuminate the 
passage from two angles. The mud was cold and clammy, and as he 
squeezed himself through a narrow crevice the walls licked him cold 
and wet..but even the mud helped his hopes flare back up. If there 
was soil, there must be the outside world somewhere, right? 

"It's a spirit sign," he said, "thank you, light-beings in the dark, 
my ancestors, you're with me."

~

Chirin had fought battles high and low, with all kinds of pokemon, 
for all different reasons, and he hadn't really enjoyed a single one 
of them. This was a different kind of battle altogether, one that 
couldn't be headbutted into submission or shocked away. It was a 
spirit battle against the ghosts of stone. 

What had Swarber said that time? '*I've seen what happens when faces 
are put to stone*'...something like that. Swarber had seen people 
turned to stone? Was that what had happened to these creatures in 
this cave--as well as the other caves he'd been in? Looking at some 
of the rock formations it became easier and easier to see what had 
once been features in flesh, now gone hard and cold. He searched his 
mind for stories that told of this phenomenon, had Denrai ever 
witnessed this, or even suffered it himself? 

What were the chances that he would remain down here so long that it 
happened to him? 

"Don't think like that," said Crazy Lights. "We'll find a way out of 
here, we will! And keep moving. I have a feeling that turning to 
stone only happens if you stand still too long."

"I have a feeling it's got something to do with those shadow rock 
beasts," said Chirin, "you know...the ones hiding in the other 
passages?"

"Maybe," said Crazy Lights.

"But you're right, we can't think like that."

"Yeah."

Chirin was amazed that he had even let himself talk like this. What 
had become of him down here? How could he let these deeplands get the 
best of him? No, there were ways to summon light even in the deepest 
places, like these caves. 

Crazy Lights and Chirin-chirin walked side by side, one ampharos 
fully in the flesh, the other just catching on vision, flecks of 
light shining through the ordinary world on the edge of his vision, 
on the border of his blind spot, and felt in the dull damp drafts 
that sighed through the long tunnels. 

"Do you know any songs?" said Crazy Lights. "I think that might help."

"Know any songs..." Chirin tried to recall the one Mieh had sung, 
which had started out more of a telling and ended up a rhythmic song. 
Mieh had not known the story perfectly and had probably been 
uncertain about the beginning, was the impression he had gotten. "I 
wish I knew more stories than I did."

"I don't really know any," said Crazy Lights, "or I can't think of 
any right now."

"Maybe I can," said Chirin, looking around them at their 
surroundings, which held a fascinating beauty to them. He just wished 
he wasn't in the situation he was in, that his flock was well and he 
knew the way out. But beauty came at random times, the spirits flung 
amazing sights at you whether you felt like seeking them out or not. 
C'est la vie.

"I remember a story!" he said all of a sudden. "Part of the prophecy 
of Denrai. It...wait, wait, lemme think...Oh, Phos, good thunder, I 
heard this story when I was way young--before my first winter. It was 
about Celebi."

"Celebi...hm...some say they don't even exist," said Crazy Lights. 

"I believe in them," said Chirin. Why not believe in them--what, 
really, did he not believe in ater what his light-path had brought 
him so far--and while he was still so young? 

Unearthing the memory brought him a slight headache--it was linked to 
the exhaustion and the fact that he was far from fully healed. "Thank 
you, Crazy Lights," he gave his invisible friend a hug, flinging his 
flippers around himself and squeezing despite the pain. He sat down 
on the floor, just as if a flock was gathering round to hear it, or 
even just Selden. Chirin needed a rest anyway, and his mind needed it 
far more than his legs. If he didn't do this, get new light energy 
from a story, these caves might overwhelm him with their spirit 
presence--which was most certainly turning menacing. 

"Sit down too," said Chirin, patting the stone with tail and flipper. 
Crazy Lights sat down near Chirin and made himself comfortable. "I 
sing the story of Denrai's prophecy. The ampharos who had been 
oppressed by Bua na Kuros had known about the prophecy for a long 
time that said he would come, because Celebi had made it so--or so 
they say. I don't remember every verse, but I remember almost all of 
them." He ran through it in his head, and as he did so, more parts 
fell into place. "All right, I'm ready. 

'When Mother Megga folds in sleep
And roots go dry in lands down deep
The celebi untucks and peeps
Celebi, fly back.

Some say the world will bristle with frost
Winter's breath will freeze the moss
Dark delights at what a cost
Celebi, bring back.

Something bad from nature comes 
From the punished lands it hums
Racing to the dark one's drums
Celebi, come quick.

One to wreck and one to save
To bring the world back from the grave
When the light-folk are enslaved
Celebi, fly forth.

Celebi of magic time,
Making thickets, forests fine,
Brings the legend to its prime,
Celebi... bring him!

Denrai silver, born in gloom,
Horned with lights of pearl and moon,
Your destiny awaits you soon,
The time unsure, but nigh...

Grow stronger as the world grows weak
When grown your future you will seek,
The Celebi unfolds and peeks
Bringing us, Denrai.'

"And so, they said the prophecy will come true with Celebi's help. 
Celebi brings a magic to Clef and to a chosen ewe, and then the birth 
of Denrai takes place. It..."

Chirin paused to cry. Where was Celebi now? He knew there was so much 
more to this prophecy, but it was lost to him now. So long ag othey 
had sung this song...with Bua back, and Chirin had no doubt it was 
the same one, did that mean he was oppressing the light of denryuu 
somewhere already? for how long? How had he come back? For the first 
time Chirin was beginning to feel like he was thinking clearly on all 
that he had learned. Divorced by time from the immediate shock of 
what had befallen him and his flock, he wsa beginning to collect his 
thoughts. Did this mean Denrai would come back too? Chirin knew he 
wasn't Denrai. He would know if he was Denrai. He'd be silver, or 
part silver...he would have some special mark on him that said he was 
special. His gift, well, that was a gift from his ancestors...it did 
not mean he was Denrai. 

How had he even started to think he was Denrai at all? What hubris! 
Denrai wouldn't have gotten stuck in these tunnels, he could 
have...done something to get out.

~

Chirin knew he had always called on Denrai's power and partly assumed 
Denrai's essence when he felt it coming on, a bout of pretending 
turning to reality. When he had stood on Boulder's head and flung his 
arms open to Clef and shouted Denrai's name, he had been as close to 
Denrai as any ordinary denryuu could get. And when he had screamed, 
in tears, for Chamadis's death, feeling his heart scream for him, he 
had assumed that ram's essence. One could take on the essence of 
almost anything, but Chirin was Chirin, and he could only go so far. 
But the prophecy had struck something so deep in him. It had come to 
him now, just when he had learned that Bua was back. He had never 
doubted that the legends were real, but for it to reappear like this 
was too frightening for him to handle. That there was a Bua but no 
Denrai.

Crazy Lights had been listening to his thoughts. "Maybe you're not 
Denrai, but you--and me too--we're meant to play a part in helping 
Denrai come back. Like finding Celebi, or finding Denrai himself. Or 
just joining Denrai's fight."

"Or just doing what I can to get my flock safe," said Chirin. "I 
don't care if I'm not Denrai, I don't care if my name was Slugma. 
I've got this gift and I'll use it any way I can to fight this evil. 
And I'll use any other parts of me too."

"That's the spirit!" said Crazy Lights as Chirin got to his feet and 
started walking again, full of a new energy born of determination. 
Every breath he took was energizing, each lungful of air awakening 
him, every movement he made spurred him on with a subtle pleasure 
beneath the pain. Just like he had always been, because that was the 
nature of the world. There was no part of it that was not alive, no 
breath of air was empty. It was all full of spirits, entities that 
touched you on the inside when you took in air. The stone below him 
molded the fleshy pads on the soles of his feet a different way each 
time he stepped down. His hooves never gripped the stone the exact 
same way... and while he walked he again tried to tune in with his 
gift to his body and explore the possibility of healing himself 
further as he went. No matter the pain as he walked, he also walked 
with pleasure.

And the beasts still lurked in the shadows; but each time he rounded 
the bend he imagined that he left them further behind. Chirin only 
knew that by telling the story about Celebi he had brought light and 
hope to these stone faces. Such was the power that stories conveyed. 
But for how long? As he walked along he grew tired again, he grew 
hungrier and the silence widened. Bua was a spirit with holes in his 
eyelids, hands of wind and breath of fear. His voice, his gift traced 
back so many generations... nothing ever died, neither light nor 
dark. Denrai had destroyed nothing, prevented nothing he had fought 
from returning. And if Denrai had not been able to do it, what would 
now?

~@~@~@~@~@~

"Try."

"I am," said Chirin, sniffling as he headed up the corridor on aching 
legs. He was trying to push the dark away and he felt outnumbered. He 
must be the only creature of flesh down here... the crobat couldn't 
have told him to go this far? Oh, why hadn't he asked her more 
questions? He'd been so happy to hear of a way out that he had dashed 
off without further ado. He wondered if he should go back to where 
he'd been and seek another way out that way?

He trudged on mindlessly, led on strings by the stretch of tunnel 
ahead. Going back would take so long, what if the way out lay just 
around the next bend? No--he couldn't give up. He had found nothing 
back there. He had no time! Boro had said that they weren't aiming to 
kil, but subdue...he let his hopes rest there, that at least they 
would be alive. Indeed, they had not been slaughtering them before 
his eyes when he had glimpsed them from the mountaintop. In the 
initial battle they had slain Ko and some others...but the last thing 
he had seen of his flock was them holding them captive. It was what 
let him walk on with half a hope of finding them alive.

He sought reasurance by focusing on someone he loved--Mama, Azalea, 
Petunia, Selden, Gunya...so many more. It did not help; all he knew 
was that every time he found ground to stand on, friends to love and 
live life with, they were brutally taken from him--by others or by 
his own *denki*, somehow they were taken from him. They all lay 
littering his light-path with sadness, strewn out far behind him. 
Once again he found solace in his ancestors, in Mure's voice and 
Mama's, in the story he'd told because Ysgard had been the one to 
really tell it. And up beyond them, backlighting his thoughts of them 
he made a pure light to walk towards. Something to mirror the 
illumination he gave the watchful caves as he moved through their 
tracts.

When he heard a noise, it felt foreign to him. It was a scuffle in a 
room not far off. Chirin got the smell of cubone. 

He froze, toning his lights low before realizing that if there was a 
cubone or cubones that close they would have seen his light already. 

"Hello?" came a very young, sniffly voice, reminding him for an 
instant, of Selden. It did not carry the accent that flavored Norra's 
voice...and came from a much smaller pokemon. But an enemy was an 
enemy...and his legs were already running him away from it.

"*Pharaa!*" Cotton streamed out behind him like white birds moulting 
as Chirin ran heedless of his many bruises. Exhaustion quickly forced 
him to stop. It was either that or faint...

"If there's a colony of them coming...what do we do?" said Crazy 
Lights, huggling against Chirin in the niche, where he knew he 
couldn't hide from them. He couldn't hide from them anywhere in this 
place, but it gave him a small mite of comfort.

Chirin stepped out from the niche, listening. No cubones, no scent. 
He was too far away to hear the voice if it hadn't moved, and he had 
a feeling it had not. 

Slowly, he crept back up the tunnel...the floor sticky under the hot 
sweaty soles of his feet. His arms trembled with an infusion of 
energy and heat; a hot mist seemed to cloud around his head as he 
headed toward the one flesh voice he had heard for such a long time 
in this place. He fought an instinct millions of years old as he 
labored, step by frightened step, back towards the cubone voice.

He heard it sniffle once, and stole back through the passageway, 
calling on sneasel powers to make him quiet, even though he had to 
shine his lights to see his way there and that had to be giving him 
away. He had taken on sneasel powers suddenly and that was what 
counted. He felt it inside, that he was safe and the cubone would not 
attack him.

He stood there a long time with his ears perked--both his bitten one 
and his unhurt one--studying every tiny sound he heard coming from 
the place of possible danger. Sweat trickled along his skin, stinging 
the many cuts and bruises on his back from the tumble down the rocks. 
A gasp, air sucked into little lungs--a sigh, a ragged breath. Then 
silence, then more sounds of air against flesh, muffled by a mask. 
The same signature filtering of noise that reminded him of Norra. 

The cubone stepped out into his light, her bone in her hand. She was 
so small...not even the height of his hips! She walked out with such 
a lack of caution that he felt ashamed. How could he have feared her?

"Hi," he said in a long coo of sympathy. Seeing her squinting he 
lowered his lights. "How are you? How--what are you doing down here?" 
He had been about to ask her if she knew a way out--but how could he 
press a little child for questions? He remembered Izzy, although she 
didn't seem quite as young as the Magby. 

"What--what are *you* doing down here?" said the cubone, who had been 
living here not long--alternating between here and the forests, until 
she had lost her way from the caverns' exit entirely and now spent 
all her days down here, sustained by digletts, sonanos & the 
occasional baby zubat that fell from its roost before learning to 
fly. "Uh...What are you?"

She held her bone with a readiness that spoke of an ability to defend 
herself. "I'm Chirin," he said, letting the name slip out to an enemy 
kind--the worst enemy kind--before he could retract it. But had it 
been marowaks harming him and his flock? He was learning that danger 
and evil knew no difference between species. 

She had asked *what* he was. "I'm, an ampharos--a denryuu...a sheep. 
I can make light," he said, blinking his head jewel to demonstrate. 
Knowing she was unfamiliar with his kind allowed him to relax 
more. "Are you alone?"

"Yes," she said. "I'm a Cubone. I can do this." She twirled her bone 
in her hand. Chirin found himself beginning to smile. 

"That's quite a trick. I'm alone too," he said. "I remember a marowak 
friend of mine, she's very nice." He made himself give her a little 
smile, having resigned to not getting out of here right away. He 
would track his flock, he'd find them...right now this cubone was his 
connection to life...a voice to talk to. "What's your name?"

"Amara." The child gave it to him without hesitation. 

"That's a beautiful name, Amara. So nice to've met you in light."

Chirin knelt and sniffed towards her nose, getting her scent. His 
soft sensitive nose brushed the tip of her skull mask--she was no 
spirit, but flesh and blood like him. She was as as much here as he 
was...and who knew how much that really was.

"Your light?" said Amara, stepping back to regard his head 
jewel. "It's very bright."

"Sorry, I could tone it down, that better?" She must be used to dark 
caverns, unless she knew a way out. 

"Yes..that's better."

"Do you--know the way out of these caverns?" 

"No." she looked at her feet, fiddling with her bone by standing it 
on the floor and resting her paw on the top, and letting it wobble 
around.  "I used to but I got lost a long time ago. It was getting 
cold," she said as Chirin sat down next to her, holding out his arms 
for the child to climb in his lap if she wished. Amara just stood 
there balancing her club vertically on the floor, trying to take her 
paw away and see how long it stood on its end. "I kept a nest in the 
forest in summer. But now I'm living in here."

"All alone?"

"Yes." She sniffled absently and plucked her bone up in her hand 
again. 

Chirin couldn't leave her alone in here, and why would he? He was 
used to traveling with hunters and anything was better--safer, warmer-
-than being all alone in this giant labyyrinth--whose denizen spirits 
seemed to frequently act hostile towards him. Had they gotten him 
lost down here, or had they led him to this cubone? Had they led them 
to each other? 

"You and me are going to find a way out together," said Chirin, "if 
that's what you'd like."

"Oh I would. You think you can? I mean...do you live outside but you 
got lost here too?" 

"Yes...that's it in an apricorn, anyway." He decided not to tell her 
the whole story... the fewer he told the better. 

But was it really? Half of him seemed to warn against talking about 
Bua na Kuros and his second coming--if he had ever really left after 
the first time. This other part of him was just being born...it told 
him to warn the whole of Mother Megga, like a denryuu alerting its 
flock with loud bolts and bright flashes. But for now he would focus 
on escaping this place. No sense in troubling this little lamb of a 
cubone. And in the back of him the fear still warned him: she could 
be trying to lead him to her tribe, where they would kill him and 
everyone would feast. She could be a spirit of some kind, stone made 
flesh by the dark flocks haunting the caverns. The ghost of a lost 
one...

He could think on and on about the reasons why he should abandon her 
and continue on his own, alone, with no clue of where he was 
going...none of his reasons convinced him enough to make him do it. 
The spirits spoke from around her, to both of them who had shed their 
loneliness when they had come face to face with each other. No matter 
where and how, there was always some light to be found. 

He got to his feet, wincing at the protests of stiffened, bruised 
muscles. 

"What happened to you?" she said, as if noticing now that his 
numerous scrapes and bruises weren't just part of the way he looked. 

"I fell long and hard," he said, swallowing to keep from crying, 
although it was no use, it was never any use to try to hold it back, 
not even when he was trying to keep from showing sadness to an 
already sad child. She needed to see a happy confident ampharos 
here... "Tumbling down the mountain's throat to land in a great pit 
of no escape. Don't mind me, I'm just a little sad... I fell down 
here from a long way above and I got rather roughed up on the rocks. 
I can't climb back up like I came, it's far too high, so I let the 
wind spirits, and the cavern's whispers under their breath, lead me 
here on my search, with the help of a crobat who told me to head 
southward. And so I went, although there were beasts of shadow and 
stone who tried to get me...they would stalk me from behind and to 
the sides, never attacking but always following. They nearly got me 
but I pushed them back with a spirit-song of Celebi. They retreated, 
but then they began to creep up again. I..." He left out Crazy 
Lights, for he was Chirin's own genie and he shouldn't speak of him 
too openly. "I headed this way, and now I've lost them, they've 
retreated again to the far corners of the caverns, because--well I 
think it's because--you and I met, and now we're two and that makes 
us stronger."

He let out a big sigh. The story had infused him with energies, 
derived from the ancient powers of the stone walls they walked within 
and from his own blood and current.

             Amara gave him a sidelong look, as if she wasn't sure
she should take all of it literally or just select
parts. "Yup, we're stronger now."

Chirin actually smiled this time, a real smile. 

"You probably know these caverns well at least in some
parts," he said. "While I'm completely new. How about
we look for the way out by first heading back to place
closest to where you remember coming in, the time you
got lost?"

"Sure, I do know a lot of these caves," she said, and
began to lead the way. Chirin walked beside the child,
keeping light for her and feeling an enjoyment for the
beauties of the caves, opening up inside him. It
couldn't be long now till they found their way out.
And he would be helping someone else as well as his
flock. 

"You told me you lived in a nest," he said as they
walked along. "You lived in a nest in the forest?"

"Yes, with my mother," said Amara. "It was a nest
underground inside a burrow we made. That kept us dry
in the rain. Rain hurts us."

"It must be tough," he said, long aware of ground
types' weakness to water, but never actually hearing
about it so candidly. Imagine being hurt by
rain...that would mean that water in general hurt
them! He recalled Norra's hatred of the rain, although
she didn't seem to have been as hurt by it because she
had been affected by the water stone. 

"Not really, only when it's rainy," she said, her
nonchalance showing the early signs of the warrior she
might one day become, like Norra, and the marowak
brothers he'd met way back by the tree. Now he
remembered a cubone child spirit calling to him
sometimes, a long time ago mostly...and in the rain. 
Had it been Amara? The more he looked at the little
pokemon the more he felt like yes, those calls had
been from her soul, and she might not remember them,
as often was the case, so he wouldn't mention it. That
they were together now was enough. If he'd been this
lonely down here all this time he'd have sure been
calling out too!

Amara led Chirin down a lengthy twist of southward
passages. Her complete lack of caution in rounding
bends, the way she sauntered along so fearlessly, led
him to reason that there was no one dangerous down
here--at least not to her. It was both reassuring and
not--again he sensed how alone they were.

"Ick," she said just ahead of him, leaping back from a
puddle as he caught her up. He reached out to pick her
up and away from the wet but she dodged both the water
and his help. "I'm fine. Just...Maybe we should go
this way. It goes to a place that's *kind of*
outside."

"Kind of? That's certainly better than not at all," he
said with a smile. "I'd love to go--anything that
helps lead me out into the open again. What do you
mean kind of?"

"It doesn't let you go out in the open," she said,
stumbling and catching her balance with the help of
her bone club. "But it's kind of like...a big hole of
water. But there's land too. You can see the sky."

"Let's go!" he said. Uh...unless you'd rather not go
with me and just lead me towards it until I know my
way?"

His eyes begged her.

"Sure, it's...It's easy, I'll take you there, don't
worry," she said, giving him a sidelong look that
showed her confusion at how excited and desperate he
was. She didn't know what he'd been through or how
urgently he needed to get out of here--even if his
flock was completely safe, he would starve down here
eventually. She reached up and took his hand, giving
him a smile that he realized was humoring him. Chirin
had to smile back once again, giving her paw a
grateful squeeze.

"Thank you."

"Yup...We'll be there soon," she said, "but I don't
think you can get out."

"We never know till we try."

"I did try at first." She let go of him to circumvent
a long runnel of water standing in the corridor.
"there is a lot more water here than there was last
time," she said, flapping her arms to balance. Chirin
stepped into the cold puddle and took her up in his
flippers.

"I'd rather carry you than see you hurt," he said.
After the pain he had known he wanted to spare anyone
else he could from it.

"Okay, but I'm still the leader," she said, and Chirin
reassured her that she was, and a very good leader
too. After all, as he pointed out while holding her
against his front, in his arms, "you're still ahead of
me."

"Ha ha, very funny." She giggled--sure a far cry from
the snuffle-nosed little cubone he had met earlier.
His arms hurt where they had been bruised, especially
his left one, so he had to keep shifting her around;
still she was very light, and soon the passage widened
out and gave more dry ground around the standing
water. Stalactites dripped their quiet song around
them. 

Chirin set Amara down again, to her disappointment.
"You're warm!" she said. "I think you do better
walking and holding and I do better leading."

"Maybe," said Chirin giving her a quick nuzzle on the
shoulder before unbending up to his full height. "But
both of us would be better off learning each other's
jobs too, at least I see it that way. I need a
break... my arms aren't up to carrying you the whole
way. Otherwise I would... I owe you a lot for showing
me the way to this place."

"Oh...yeah, that's right," she looked at the bruises
on his arms. "Well, let's go."

He followed her brown, spike-tailed back through the
puddly tunnels, taking the dry edge behind her when he
could, in favor of getting his feet wet and cold. 

"You can't get out, but you'll probably like it better
there than here," said Arama holding her arms and club
out for balance again. Chirin took her up in his hand
again and set her down when the dry path widened
again. "What do you eat?"

"Grass, clover, leaves... anything, so long as it's
from a plant," said Chirin. 

Amara looking up at him and he saw the smile in her
eyes. "There's vines you can eat, and other stuff
too." Chirin's mouth watered at the mere thought. 

"Oh, the spirits are answering me," said Chirin, who
had neglected to do much more than a simple song and
dance offering to them down here. Yet they had heard
the cries of his heart as well as his belly. "I'm so
hungry--so long as there's food then there is much
more hope for getting out." He paused. "But what about
you?"

"Plenty pokemon to hunt down here," she said.

"Ah. I see."

He said no more about hunting. He knew well that it was best to make 
any conversations of that nature, brief--as well as any thoughts on 
it. What a nice world it would be if everyone just ate grass!

Well, who knew? Maybe in the future, that would happen somehow? If 
Bua na Kuros could come back, what couldn't happen? Anything was 
possible, to quote Lararu, whose wisdom had proven itself time and 
again to him. 

Chirin noticed the air taking on new qualities, changing as they 
walked. It thickened with moisture and soily smells, even a slightly 
foul smell, like that of standing water. However unpleasant it was, 
it was a thread of air from the world above. 

"Are we close?" he said, brightening the cave with renewed light. 

"I think so," said Amara, who had gotten used to his excitability. 

"Oh good mother Megga," said Chirin, "you see, there's much I haven't 
told you. I fell down here because I was fighting a great wrong--
ampharos of darkness came and attacked my flock--my friends and 
family. They're up there while I wander down here trapped and I've 
been seeking a way out as quickly as possible. This is why I'm so 
eager to see this place."

"Ampharos of darkness?" Amara whirled on him. "What do you mean? Are 
they following you now?"

"I got away from them," said Chirin, and that was partly true. "They 
wouldn't harm you--ampharos do not hunt or kill for food. We eat 
plants and *only* plants."

"Okay." She sounded reassured. "Why did they come after your flock?"

"I don't know Amara... there's so much to it that I don't know, all I 
do know is they were acting in evil when they did it... and I'm going 
to get my friends back," he said, stepping into the waterlogged aisle 
of the passageway to help her get across dry without falling in. The 
tunnel's sides had steepened, heading downward again. And as the 
tunnel  tilted down, the water grew deeper. They found themselves 
walking to the edge of an underground pond.

"There wasn't a lake here last time!" said Amara staring out at the 
mirror smooth water. Chirin stood there just taking in the sight of 
two pairs of stone formations, perfect twins, one up facing down, one 
down looking back up at it. Like the stalactites and stalagmites 
reflected each other all throughout the caves, only here, it was a 
perfect duplicate. He flashed his tail around, briefly experimenting 
with how it played off the water's surface. This water held great 
magic--it showed the soul of something perfectly. Chirin wondered if 
he should even step into it, but the need to get to his flock 
overrode any fear of violating something so pure. 

All he had to do to be sure, he told himself, was step over and look 
in. Who knew what he would see...would the faces of his flock, of his 
ancestors, or of his enemies appear? Or something else? Would he see 
his future?

"What's wrong?" said Amara as he began to peer over the edge of the 
water. 

"I'm contemplating what I will see, and what this pool feels about 
me,"  he said, and looked into the water and saw the face of a young 
ampharos ram, bruises coloring his yellow face. One ear bore caked 
blood scabbing around the bite marks of an ampharos's lower front 
teeth. One eye was ringed with blue and purple and a smaller bruise 
spotted the side of his jaw. 

"Yeah, you look really hurt," she said. "But it'll get better."

The pool told him the unpleasant and frank truth...to start with 
anyway. There was more to this. He was growing. Maybe, just maybe, 
his face had taken on a shade more of a ram's contours, largely bred 
out of domesticated sheep... but raw and thriving in his own blood. 
The pool was teling him he was getting bigger and so was ready to 
face whatever lay on the other side of its waters.

"I will give you an offering," he said standing back from the water. 
Chirin began to dance slowly, again limited by injury and weariness. 
Amara stood back and watched him. This pokemon was nice, but kind of 
weird.

Chirin ended his dance quickly with his nose to the floor. He was 
shaking and sweating, too weak to continue. The offering would have 
to be scant.

"I'm sorry, beautiful pool, that I have to be so brief; my strength 
isn't much. Just know that I took in your gift of beauty and 
perfection with...with love and amazement. Now I journey on through 
the cold and stone, let your tunnels' breath caress me and speed me 
on at my back."

Chirin began to wade into the water, testing it to see how deep it 
was. No matter how he shone his light, the reflection on the water's 
surface made it hard to see the pond bottom and how deep it was. He 
waded in a few paces to test it, then when he only went in up to his 
knees (which were quite low down, considering how short an amp's legs 
are) he turned back to get Amara. He knelt and helped her climb up 
onto his shoulders. 

"Forward we go towards light and sky," he said, and marched into the 
water.

Hafway across the bed dropped off and he plunged in to his armpits. 

"Ahh!" Amara's paws clamped down on his ears as she attempted to 
climb completely onto his head. Chirin tried to keep his head as 
steady as possible, helping her keep her balance as he half waded, 
half swam towards the pool's side, hoping to get around the deepest 
parts. But the bottom did not rise towards the side. "Ow, oww..." 
Amara was whimpering as he began to paddle across the pond as quickly 
as he could. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't see how deep it was," he said lamely as he 
forced his battle-wracked, tired and hungry body to swim the rest of 
the way without pause. He felt Amara climbing fully onto the top of 
his head, and steeled his neck--which, having withstood more than one 
ram battle, was no joke--and continued paddling, using his flippers 
to do what they happened to be very good at. 

"My foot got all stung."

"We're almost across, almost there twinkles," he said, then got a 
shiver... that was what his mother and father had sometimes called 
him. He let it pass and swam on, watching the shadows fiddle in front 
of his light like dark clouds of shadows, as Amara's paws or feet or 
whatever blocked the radiance of his head jewel in different places 
as she fought to keep her balance and her grip. Leaning to one side, 
she corrected the near-fall with a smarting tug on his left ear. 
Chirin blinked away tears and sparked in the water as he swam. 

"What did you call me? My name's not Twinkles," she said, strain in 
her voice.

"I know, I made a mistake," he said, talking to her, anything to 
distract them both from pain and toil as he continued to swim. 
Still... was it a mistake? Regardless of how small a slip it had 
been, it signified something.

The pool that had seemed so small from the other side showed its true 
size now. It had been hard to see how far the other side was; the 
reflections blended everything together, binding floor to ceiling. 

"Ow!" said the cubone as Chirin heard bone hit rock. "Careful, 
there's spikes up here."

"Oh, goodness," said Chirin, trying to look up out of the corners of 
his eyes while keeping his head steady. The stalactites hung close to 
the surface in some places and he had not been taking his passenger's 
added height into consideration. Like a feraligatr he navigated the 
pool, weaving around where the rock-roots hung too low, feeling like 
he took on some essence of the feraligatr as he did so. This pool had 
great powers and had granted it to him. He felt the spirits drifting 
underwater with him, in the turbulence and the cold that soothed his 
beaten skin. His teeth were chattering as he emerged; he glided in on 
his belly, keeping his head low so Amara could jump onto land again. 
He climbed out after her with sheets of water splattering off him 
onto the rock, to the buzz and snap of static as he warmed back up. 
He derived a streak of pleasure from his chills; something about the 
cold swim had helped refresh him. 

Now it was on with the journey! Standing on this side of the pool he 
could smell those new smells much more strongly. 

"You all right?" he said to Amara, who was shaking off her wet foot 
with a look of displeasure. 

"Yes. Just--itches and hurts at the same time. I'm okay though."

"Good," he bent down to touch her shoulder again. "If I have to, if 
for some reason you have to go back that way I'll swim you across 
again, and this time we'll be prepared."

"Yeah. Thanks."

Chirin waited until Amara was ready again and then they headed down 
the corridor together.

~

An anxious song seemed to play to the rhythm of his
feet as he followed Amara. Amara had said it was not
really a way out--but it had to be, he realized he had
banked all his hopes on it. His lifted soul rested on
there being a way out through this watery opening she
had spoken of. 

The pool had spoken, its boundaries the seam between
high and low, ground and air. It had spoken in
feraligatr ripples round his body, a V tipped by his
chin as he had paddled slowly and steadily through its
icy bath. What had it been trying to tell him? He was
older and more experienced but felt no closer to
knowing what the spirits spoke of when they gave him
messages. If anything they were murkier; their
messages more complex and open to interpretation than
they had been before. Long ago Chirin had dreamed that
he would grow up to know everything clearly, to feel a
breeze and hear its words sharp and clear. It had not
happened yet and he knew now it never would. 

Then what was he striding towards on his light-path?
Something more than hurt and loss of friends, a trail
blotted by evil? There were those places of safety and
summer breeze that he yearned for sometimes, but even
back then there had been things he'd yearned for. He'd
looked up at the cottony clouds and followed his
thoughts up into them, always wanting to see more,
know more. Just like he still did. In all those
thoughts and daydream-journeys he'd never caught a
glimpse of himself swimming in a mystical pool with a
cubone riding on his head! 

The pool had seen him safely across; it had bridged
his journey. It had understood that his meager
offerings were, right now, all he could give. The pool
held a great essence of the cave like Crazy Lights
held a big part of him. Crazy Lights who had helped
him evolve was still walking with them here. Chirin
walked with Burakuru's demons around his sides but
they did not bare their teeth to bite. 

He sang to himself as he followed Amara. It helped him
not only pass the time and distract him from despair,
but get in tune to the air and its sensations. In
times like these spirits messages became ever more
important. And they danced to him like he had danced
to them; like the shards of red light playing off the
rocking surface of the lake when he had emerged from
the water in his new yellow skin. The lake had been
the birthing place of his final form. Water was so
immensely powerful and the lake had tapped into his
closeness with the sea. 

"Did you live near the lake?" he asked Amara, after he
had sung another song to himself and let more walking
silence pass.

"Yes," she said. "Not too close, but I went down there
when I got thirsty and stuff."

Chirin nodded. "I've been down by the lake too, it's a
fascinating and very powerful place."

"Powerful?" Her face gave a hint of the feeling that
he was verging onto strangeness again. Chirin
proceeded to explain.

"The lake...is a beacon. The powers therein are
strongest in the beacon tree, the great big tree
that's so ancient and powerful. It guards the lake and
calls to pokemon from across the world who are lost.
Some come from the sky, others even from the stars,
others from up deep in the ground. I...I never really
thought about it before, but the beacon tree might
have even called the evil that almost destroyed the
world, to it!" 

Had it also, then, called Bua na Kuros? Calima and
Cinder? They had met by the lake...

He walked a few steps in silence, revelation
reverberating inside him. "Yes--the beacon tree calls
many, including me."

"What evil?"

"There was a great evil that almost destroyed the
world, but the creatures of light defeated it." Chirin
wondered if Tachiguy wanted everyone to know he had
saved the world. Chirin knew that if it were him... he
probably wouldn't, so he kept quiet about it, although
he wanted to tell her very much. "Now broken, the evil
spirit has gone back away, safe..." Inside Tachi. But
was it really safe? "Anyway, I'm thnking the great
guardian tree might have called evil like it calls
good. Anyone lost or questing, anyone with questions
inside them unanswered. Those who feel they have
nowhere else to turn will turn to a beacon. That's
what I did."

"Wow." Amara hadn't caught all of what he was saying
here but it sounded quite impressive. She'd never
thought much about the lake one way or the other! "I
just go there to get a drink."

Chirin laughed. "That too--the water's quite
refreshing. Great for a bath too, and a swim." 

"Yuck--no swimming for me."

"Oh that's right, pardon me for forgetting." The
cubone did smell rather strongly--as did happen when
baths weren't part of your natural routine.

They lapsed into silence again as they traveled the
corridors. At times the passages hilled up or dipped
down, up into drier stretches and back to waterlogged
tunnels. Chirin helped Amara where her small size or
weakness to water made obstacles harder for her. At
one point, he became the one with problems himself. A
passage through which Amara sauntered forced Chirin
onto all fours to squeeze through. His hips got stuck.
The cavern had him by his legs and tail.

"Here, grab on this!" Amara shoved her bone club at
him. 

"That's okay..." he grunted, trying to suck his gut
in.

Only with much twisting, wriggling and endurance of
some pain was the narrow hole able to birth him out
the other side.

Amara was giggling as he stood up again, inspecting
the scrapes he'd gotten, which were pretty mild
overlayed on the cuts and bruises he already had. 

"Ah, ancestors helped me through, I felt them pushing
me from behind," he said, sniffing at the hole he had
just pulled himself out of. It looked impossibly small
to be able to admit him! He really was still a skinny
youth. "I must thank them."

Despite the urgency to get back out, Chirin got down
on his belly and put his face to the floor. He made
contact with the ground and the pool through it, his
gift reaching down into the rock to touch its soul.

"Are you awake?" said Amara after a small length of
time. Chirin finished saying thanks to the caves and
stood back up. He had made peace with the rock that
had enclosed him ever since his tumble into the
mountain.

"Yes. Let's go." 

When he heard gurgling water ahead of them in the
tunnel, it came almost as expected. He had felt their
destination ripening all along this passage, nurtured
by Amara's words that they were almost there. He took
it as a sign, because smells accompanied it, of soil
and water and also of plantstuffs. Chirin's mouth
watered. Food took over his thoughts. The water grew
louder as they neared it, until it resembled a small
waterfall. He heard water falling beneath them as well
as near the level they walked on.

"Ooh, look," he said when they approached its sourse
at last. His light showed a hole where water streamed
over rocks and tumbled down into unseen caves below
them. 

Ooh," Amara flinched as spray caught her on the front;
she jumped back. 

"Careful." He stepped to the edge of the gap and shone
his head jewel inside. Down there the water continued
to tumble, spraying white down rocks and bounding
round a bend where he couldn't see. He and Amara
sidestepped it and headed on, walking alongside the
path of what was an underground stream now, flowing
over and around rocks towards the hole they had left
behind. 

The sweet smell stepped out of the recent past, from
the forest he had skirted on the way to the north side
of the mountains. It waved itself tantalizingly under
his nostrils, torturing his already hungry stomach.
Something sweet and out of place in the near dead of
winter was not far away. The being in the woods...had
it followed him here?

"Do you smell that?"

"Yeah," said Amara as they took the tunnel closer.
"That's--chikorita."

THAT was where he'd smelled it before! The caves
around them got brighter as he made the connection at
last. But--chikoritas couldn't live in cold weather.
What was one doing here--if it wasn't already a
spirit, wafting its scent at them in supernatural
breeze? 

"Stone and tree, grass and wind, someonerides your
rhythms trying to speak to me," said Chirin, his eyes
wandering as he headed forward driven by hunger and
urgency. "Who are you?"

To Amara's odd look he said, "I smelled this smell
before--this exact sweet fragrance. I get the strong
message someone's trying to reach me." But why would a
chikorita be trying to reach him, in spirit or
otherwise? There was no telling--spirits of all kinds
talked to all different kinds. If a cloud could pursue
him with messages, if a pebble or tree could, why not
a chikorita?


             "I don't know," said Amara, puzzled by him again--this
pokemon seemed to have his head in the clouds--or wind
or wherever, although he was very nice. "There weren't
any other pokemon last time I was there."

"When was that?" 

"A while ago."

Chirin hoped that the chikorita, if alive and all,
wasn't trapped or hurt or suffering any in such cold
weather for one of its kind. The passage chilled as
they traveled its length towards the outside. His pace
had sped up despite his pain and weakness... he
pursued the flood of fresh chill air and
night-scents...

~

Kyuri-leif's world floated, full of the lake and
summer. The chikorita remembered blacking out on the
shore and wandering for days. Ever since she had been
kidnapped by Team Rocket and taken away from her
parents, that's what her whole life felt like,
wandering. Being released from her pokeball in this
place and that, losing all sense of time to brutal
battles. All she had wanted to do was find her parents
and it was still all she wanted. Even Manami and Pearl
would have sufficed; just someone familiar! 

She lapsed back into unconsciousness, curled in a
sluggish heap among the leafless vines by the edge of
the standing rainwater.

~

"Here we are," Amara threw a smile over and up at
Chirin as she stepped towards a blast of chill night
wind. The winter's breath had never felt so welcome.
Even before Chirin saw where it led to he was flinging
his arms out in thanks. "Oh, thank you spirits...thank
you Crazy Lights, thank you pool of perfection and
mystery."

Amara just walked on. Chirin's fits of strangeness
were proving to be harmless. 

"Wait," he halted, toning his light down to look ahead
of him. Only a faint deep bluish light dusted through
the darkness; it was night out there, which he wasn't
surprised about; but night of what day? How much time
had passed? Had time passed differently in the cave?
Despite knowing so little he had the feeling that it
was only the night of the same day, which he prayed
was true. Even that was too long!

"What?" Amara looked up in the flicker of his lights.

"There could be enemies out there; we don't know,"
said Chirin. He took the approach step by step, not
knowing what was just ahead. He had his lights toned
brightly until he remembered that in a place open to
the stars his light would escape and show to the world
above. And if those evil denryuu--and
Boulder--discovered him here it would be the end. He
realized he had no plan at all for getting them back.
Blind rage and desperation had raced him here, wearing
him down almost to death fighting to get out, using
the last reserves of his body. But to what end? How
could he fight the crowd? His gift would not be at
full strength again, neither would his *denki* until
he had food and rest, and even fully healed in all his
greatest strengths, what would he accomplish by
running into their midst with blood in his screams?

Chirin stepped towards the open air, letting a growl
roll deep in his chest. Anything there knew he was
here, so let it be known that he 'knew' they were
there too. Nothing answered him but the sweetly
wafting sugar-flower smell. But until he saw a
chikorita on the other end of it he could not shake
his fears of deception. He edged out with feral fears
to the edge of the night-kissed pool, flooded by the
recent rains. His fear seemed to reach Amara, who
moved at his side and basically did what he did.

Chirin's nostrils were constantly moving, his ears
perking and twitching as he came to stand in the deep
sinkhole, where field and cave connected in a tangle
of brush above them. It was not a large place, but it
was bigger than Boulder's burrow. Walls of stone and
earth vaulted high above them, creating a cage around
them. He let his light just fill the place,
illuminating the vines and other plantstuffs he was
already salivating at the smells of. 

"Ohh...ohhh...good Mother Megga..."

His mouth clamped down on a length of woody vine and
began to tear at it. He nearly choked with sobs as he
ate, and had to hold them back so he could swallow. 

Amara giggled at his vicious zeal for the food, not realizing how 
hungry he was, only that he looked funny. Chirin only knew the taste 
of thin, tough vine going down his throat, to which he added more 
branches of the ivy that hung down and clung to the rocks. the 
strands were thin and easily torn, layering over each other with live 
ones on top and dead vines below, like a heavy hair. It was a plant 
he had eaten before and knew was safe. And it had never tasted this 
good. Some of the branches still bore leaves--some of those, still 
green! Chirin began to gorge on the plants, greedily grabbing leaves 
with lips and tongue. He had one aim: food. Having used his gift so 
extensively, and having plodded on so long and hard, had exacerbated 
his appetite. Several heartbeats passed before his drive to consume 
began to uncloud from his mind... and he took another look around the 
place, picking his way along the outer edges which were free of the 
pond. He had his lights bright enough only to make out the contents 
and size of the place in the dark; an ampharos had trouble seeing 
even by bright moonlight, so dependent were they on their own 
personal luminescence. Nevertheless, Clef afforded him a fuzzy view 
when he toned down his bulbs to a dim red. 

"Well, this is it," said Amara, who had no trouble making out the 
area with her own eyes. "You think there's a way to climb out of 
here?"

"I'm going to find a way," he said. His mind was made up. There was 
no way he was going back into those tunnels now that he was out here. 
He looked up at the stars and moon and wept again, thanking 
everything and everyone just to be able to see them again. They 
twinkled like they had missed him too.

 Squarely placed back into a realm where he felt hope, he headed 
further around the pond, inspecting the walls. He saw a chance to 
climb up at one place, and placed his hoof onto a catch on the rock. 
But he found no other holds further up in his flippers' reach. The 
ampharos leapt back down with a bleat of frustration, sparking and 
pacing. There had to be another way out. He looked for loose rock to 
pile up maybe but there was none here and there hadn't been back in 
the tunnel either. Maybe his lightning could blast rock loose--
assuming he was rested and recovered to use that kind of power--but 
that was too unpredictable to make foothold with, and how could he 
ever pile it high enough? And any enemies were bound to hear it. 
Blasting rock with lightning had to remain a last resort. 

He tried climbing the vines, but found they snapped too easily. He 
had grown heavier. Gripping a few at a time, he found they held 
better, but he could not grip them with his flippers well enough. 
Looping them around his arms and aiding his grip with his mouth he 
began to rappel up the wall, when his arms gave out and he found 
himself slipping. He tumbled down, letting go as rope burn scraped at 
his flippers. He landed backwards in the water with a big splash. 
Ampharos were not made for climbing, he mused as he swam back onto 
dry land, which was actually partly rock. He stood up, got warm 
again, and examined his flippers. As if enough damage had not already 
been done to them.

"It was worth a try," he said. "I'm sure I could go down a wall this 
way but I just can't pull myself up." Why had ampharos been made with 
flippers anyway? Only Mother Megga knew.

Amara had stood watching the whole spectable. There wasn't much she 
could do.

"If we could somehow...use these vines another way," he said to 
Amara, "I'm sure there'd be a way out. If only they were the same 
sort my friend once used to haul me out of a pit like this once. If 
only there were another ampharos up at the top..." But there wasn't.

The problem was that the ground above was too high up. It would be 
quite a way to climb. And to make matters worse, ivy only grew on 
some of the rocks, draped over one place by the tunnel and a couple 
other places. Still, he knew he had to try. He could use what he had. 
If only he had more of a mind to figure out a scheme for this. 

If only Azalea were here.

"I can't reach them." Amara demonstrated, leaping at one of the 
lowest-hanging vines with her bone club swinging. "But I bet you 
could help me up!" 

"Maybe," he said, looking doubtfully up at the rather distant world 
above. Amara had warned him not to get his hopes up and he had not 
heeded her. But the cubone had hands to grasp the vines and she was 
overall much lighter, with strong arms. "Yes, I think you're right. 
If you can climb up... you'll be free. Here, I'll lift you now if you 
like, and I'll stand down here and guard you in case you slip." He 
stepped behind her. She turned around to face him.

"But what about you?"

"I will speak to the spirits, and my ancestors. They must know many 
ways out of here." He thought of having her go get help..."Do you 
know anyone who could help me out?"

Amara frowned. "No... I don't know anyone but you really, around 
here. I left my parents a long time ago and they're very far away." 
She looked down at the ground. "I won't leave you here." Privately, 
she didn't think the spirits would be able to get Chirin out of here. 

Chirin knelt and hugged her. Clef seemed brighter and the stars 
closer. He glanced up at the nearly round moon, savoring her light 
while he could--she would soon move out of their view in the open 
ceiling of their long deep trap, which they did not know was adjacent 
to the side of a hill. "Thank you... I don't know how it happened, 
but by thunder you are my light-friend Amara."

"Light friend? Thanks. But I don't have lights like you."

"Yes you do...they're on the inside of you. My lights show my soul, 
and your soul has shone to me too."

"Oh--uh, all right...thanks."

He nuzzled her, blinking back tears. Friends came at the strangest 
times and among the most unexpected pokemon. "We'll think of 
something together, I will work with the spirits, they will help us 
come up with a way. There is a way. We have vines, and a sky open to 
us," he said. "There *must* be a way out. With the two of us I just 
know there are possibilities." 

Amara smiled, showing in a squint round her eyes. She was sure her 
big strange friend would come up with something. 

He munched on another succulent branch. The longer they stayed here 
the less ivy there would remain to use. Calling for help did not even 
pass consideration; those who heard him would most likely be hostile. 
He had himself and Amara.

But maybe not. 
 
Only now did his nose call his attention back to the chikorita who 
lay somewhere in here. Poking his way around the pond in search of 
any way out (and finding no way out) it became hard to ignore the 
scent, although he had been doing so, too intent on hunting down a 
way to climb up. 

The smell was muted by the cold and the fact that the creature was 
not moving... he only saw her because she was lying in his path, in a 
clump of fallen vines that had long since died and dried out. 

"Oh, Mother Megga..." 

He knelt and sniffed the body and his head jewel shone on the 
unconscious animal, which had slipped into torpor. He nudged her with 
his head and felt how cold she was. He was about to step back and 
give her the rites to free her soul, when the side of his head 
touched her chest and heard the beat of a heart, very slow. 

"What, what?" Amara's feet slapped the stone as she ran up to him.

"She's alive," said Chirin, sitting up and looking round at the 
cubone. Gently he picked up the chikorita and held her against him; 
it was all he could do, warm her up with his body heat as he resigned 
himself to having no immediate way to climb up out of this vertical 
tunnel.

~

It was warmth and light that began to rouse Kyuri from her faintness. 
The chikorita tried to stir in Chirin's arms but failed, passing back 
unconscious as the ampharos paced about holding her, not knowing what 
else to do as he contemplated his next move...chewing his cud and 
looking about him in the night, shivering with cold. If the enemy 
flock did find him down here they'd have a tough time reaching him, 
that was his only consolation. Never had he known so keenly the 
meaning of the saying, So near and yet so far. 

To be out there with his friends, helping them somehow! But somwhow--
how? He couldn't defeat them with a sweep of his lights, now even 
with a sweep of his gift. So how? Maybe while he figured a way out 
(or the spirits sent him an idea) he could also call on a plan to 
help his flock. If Bua na Kuros' flock had taken them, and he was 
obviously back, then was Denrai back too? 

Chirin was nothing if he was going to wait for Denrai to save his 
flock! He scraped his hoof angrily on the rock, growling before he 
remembered the chikorita warming up against his chest. So many things 
happening at once, like they always did. "I guess they'll neer really 
stop," he said to Crazy Lights, who nodded.

"Can I see who you have?" said Amara. Chirin knelt, then sat, down 
while holding her. Sitting down he could let her lie in his lap. He 
edged back till he rested against the stone...and suddenly he felt 
how tired he was. The stone walling them in stood tall and dominant 
over them, giving them a window of sky to see the world above and 
only hanging vinesfor him to eat. Chirin nosed at the chikorita, 
looking her over. She sported a bruise on one side of her body...had 
she suffered (survived!) a fall from up top? 

They shared bruises in common, him and this one. He thought of 
positive thoughts to ward off the question of whether they would also 
share the same grave. He couldn't afford to shine his light right 
now...but he did blink it, warding off the old shadows even as he 
took refuge in them. 

Amara looked at the pokemon that she might have made a meal of if 
circumstances had been different.

~

Kyuri awoke reflexively snuggling towards the cold, too weak to do 
much more than lift her head. Was it daylight? There was a light 
coming from above her...a red light. Kyuri-leif opened her eyes as 
she remembered fainting at the edge of some bushes, and waking back 
up, falling...she had tried to stop herself and had slid most of the 
long way down...she must have been knocked out when she'd hit the 
bottom. She'd told herself to stay in one place, but what was the use 
of that if no one came to look for her? 

"Manami?" she called already knowing Manami probably wasn't here. It 
just felt good to say a familiar name. "Please...I just don't know 
where I am..."

Chirin saw the chikorita open blue eyes and look up at him in the 
moonlight. He brightened his light just a little. Maybe he should 
retreat to the cave to avoid his light being seen, although they were 
so far down here that the enemies would have to peer over the edge to 
see him if he shone it only this bright. 

He didn't know the pond had eyes, and that these particular still 
waters ran deep.

"You're here, down in this...place of rock and vines and water," he 
said in a soft voice. "You're safe with me, it's going to be okay. I 
don't know who Manami is," although, come to think of it, the name 
sounded familiar. He remembered a nidoran, one who had gathered by 
the tree house with so many others during the vigil for Keel'alla and 
his army. "Is she a nidoran?"

"Yes," said Kyuri, "she is, she helped me the last time I was lost."

"Is she nearby? are you staying with her?"

"No..I lost track of her too."

"There, there." He let his flippers cuddle her, moving against her to 
let her feel surrounded by warmth and safety.

"I blacked out...It happens to me a lot sometimes..."

Premature death, having to get one so little? Why was there such 
trouble and darkness in the world? he asked himself yet again.

It seemed like a lot of effort for her to talk this much. Chirin 
waited while she paused and then continued. Her leaf lay limp so he 
tucked it in against himself, maybe he could help to warm it up. It 
moved of its own accord, beginning to flap and brush against him or 
the air as she spoke. It was a heartening sign. 

"I'm very lost--I have to find my parents... My name's Kyuri-leif," 
she said, "what's your name?"

"Chirin-chirin," he said, almost automatically. There it was--they'd 
given each other their names so quickly. It felt so natural coming 
out... sad and beautiful. He swallowed to ease the swell of emotion 
in his eyes and throat. "Were you in the forest by the mountains?"

"Yes," said Kyuri. While she paused again Chirin chewed cud, and it 
sure felt nice to be chewing cud again.

"It was your scent, then, that drew me towards the trees by my nose," 
he said, seeing that she seemed too tired to continue for the 
moment. "I was journeying towards there with my flock and I caught a 
tantalizing sweet scent. It called to my memory but my memory 
couldn't answer. It had been a long time since I had seen or smelled 
chikorita." Chikoritas, or their evolutions, had played an important 
part in denryuu history. It was Meganiums who had reared Denrai. That 
wasn't why he was caring for Kyuri at the moment, though... she was 
weak and cold and would die if he did not. And Chirin, moreover, was 
slowly learning the startling truth that stories were not something 
you based your decisions on regarding wrong or right anyway--even if 
they told you to. The tale of Chamadis, he realized, might have 
farther-reaching implications. Part of him wished he'd never heard 
that story, but most of him was grateful. Imagine if he had never 
heard it and gone on thinking that everything an elder told was 
right! 

Some might say it was blasphemy... but better that they say that, 
than he damn Chamadis just because someone said he was evil--that he 
curse himself... Every time someone cursed Chamadis's name did they 
curse him too?

Well, he already knew ther were people out there who cursed his name. 
Flailer, for one. Chirin wished a little wish as he lay there with 
Kyuri, to let him dodge the magic of any curses that pokemon might 
have laid on him. Flailer would probably not think that way had he 
been with Chirin all those times and known why he had done it. Life 
involved a neverending battle against curses, among other things. 

These things sure gave him something to think about aside from the 
plight of his friends. Anything to distract him from it, anything. If 
he started dwelling on it it was too much to bear.

"Yes...I guess that was me," said Kyuri. "I left that forest... when 
it got really cold and lonely. My parents weren't there...so I came 
down here to find Manami again. You know Manami?" He had said he 
didn't but then recognition had come into his voice. 

"I met her once, yes," said Chirin. "If you're looking for her 
maybe...maybe when we all get out of here... I could point you to 
where she is." If Kyuri didn't freeze to death. It was too cold for 
her kind to survive here. But what about finding his flock? Carrying 
around a sick Chikorita would hamper him, at best. 

He was too tired to work this out now...Who knew what tomorrow would 
bring? He fell back on listening to his heart. It was the wisest part 
of him.

"That would be good," she said, shifting in his lap. 

"Are you hungry?" said Chirin. "There's leaves...I could get you some 
ivy."

"I...I guess I *am* a little hungry." Kyuri was moving around more 
now--just as he was moving around less, surrendering to his weariness 
like it were a warm bath. 

"I can get you some," Amara got up, tugged a branch with leaves still 
remaining on it and brought it over. 

"Thank you," said Chirin as he took the vine from her and laid the 
end down by Kyuri's head. The chikorita nibbled feebly at it. "You 
said you have to find your parents," he said. "Does Manami know where 
they are?"

"No," said Kyuri. "I can't find anyone who knows where they are...I 
just miss them so much. I haven't seen them in such a long time. Do 
you know any Bayleefs?"

"Oh...no, I'm sorry I don't," said Chirin, stroking her light green 
back. He had not seen Bayleefs since before he had left Pharos. 
Thinking of them brought back memories of there... He opened his 
mouth to say he would help her find them. But could he? Would he? How 
much could he take on? Would he stumble on these helpless souls 
wherever he went? One of these days it would wear him down and prove 
too much. Little Kyuri looking up at him with her pleading blue eyes 
couldn't possibly know what was roiling inside him right now. He was 
hearing it all like a familiar song, sung with a new echo. "But when 
we get out of here I'll try to find you a play you can stay and keep 
safe and warm. I won't leave you alone," he said, and promised 
himself he wouldn't, not of his own volition anyway. If something out 
there  more powerful than either of them decided otherwise and he 
couldn't fight it, then there was nothing he could do. "I'm sorry I 
can't take time to look for your parents myself. I would...if I 
didn't already have a whole flock of my dearest friends in very big 
danger. My soul is striving for them first," he said and he felt 
awful looking into those beautiful big eyes and seeing them brim with 
tears.

"Everyone else always has something else they have to do," said 
Kyuri, looking down at his yellow leg and glaring at it. Chirin 
didn't need to search deep for the truth that hateful feelings had 
great powers, no matter how small the pokemon who thought them--he 
felt it stinging him. "I've looked so long and hard for them--I can't 
do it alone!  need help! I'm going to die and they won't even know..."

She let her head sink onto his leg and began to cry.

Chirin's lips curled and he squinted his eyes. It was no use trying 
to stop it. 

"I'm so sorry," he said, "No, no, I'm not sorry I'm--I...There's 
nothing I can do! You don't know how it hurts me to find you 
here...and I can't look for your parents! My whole flock's been 
attacked maybe killed...And I'm down here and I can't get out!"

He threw his head back as sobs shook his body. 

"What kind of test is this!" he cried to the patch of sky the walls 
allowed him to see. Always he was uprooted, restricted, shunted from 
one disaster to another! When did he get his say? When did he get a 
break? All his offerings, peacemakings, all this trying and what did 
he get back? "Damn it all," he wailed. "Oh Kyuri, Amara...you don't 
know what I've been through. I'm trying, I'm trying. Everything I do--
everything I find is taken from me. I..."

He looked away while he sobbed so Kyuri wouldn't have to see his 
crinkled face.

Kyuri was too weak to move... except for her own crying, which hadn't 
stopped. All she saw was this ampharos feeling sorry for himself... 
She was pretty sure he hadn't been through what she'd been through!

"What about me?" Kyuri found the energy to sit up. "I lost my whole 
family! I've been all alone!"

"Me too." Chirin cried on. Now he'd lost it in front of a child who 
needed him... "I get this--these times when I forget... I guess..."

"It's okay," Amara leaned against his other side and hugged 
him. "We're together now. Don't cry, we'll be okay."

"I'm sure you're right..." The frustration of being here and unable 
to climb out kept flaring up in him. Why did so many shadows always 
have to  be on his tail? What was he supposed to do now?

One thing was for sure, he thought as his tears dwindled. He was 
through trying to appease the spirits who demanded so much. He had 
been good, he had tried so hard, and for what? Maybe they were even 
trying to tell him something--but what? That he'd been trying too 
hard? Or that he was relying too much on them when he should be 
relying on what they had given him to get things done for himself?

"I'm sorry, Kyuri, I didn't mean to lose such a hold on myself," he 
looked back down at her wiping his eyes as he threw a flipper over 
Amara's shoulder. "From here on we're going to try our 
hardest...We'll find a way out and get safe. When I get out I'm going 
to--well, I don't even know where I'm going to."

It was late and he was tired. He would let the thoughts of where he 
was going take root in his heart, and in the morning he was sure he 
would know. Many spirits would speak to his heart between now and 
then. They would speak and he would take their advice and be thankful 
but no more would he expect them to play the major part. That wasn't 
why people were born and it wasn't why he had a brain in his head and 
a heart in his chest. It was his heart talking now...

"I don't know either," said Amara.

"Me either," said Kyuri. 

"Well, then we're together for a reason then, maybe," said 
Chirin. "Or maybe not--who knows? The spirits could have thrown us 
together or our light-paths could have converged because we somehow 
honed in on each other, like beacons. It doesn't matter why. I'm glad 
you're both here." He looked down at Kyuri and saw she'd eaten some 
of the leaves. "How're you feeling?"

"Better," said Kyuri, "but my side hurts, where I guess I fell on it. 
I just wish my parents were here, i miss them so much."

"I miss mine too." Chirin drew in a loud sniffle. "But you know, I 
had a revelation just now, and I think we're going to be okay. Amara 
has the right idea."

"You don't know where your parents are either?" said Kyuri. 

"No, I don't."

Once upon a time the spirits who drifted in the air had been alive 
too--and those before them. They all acted on their hearts and whims 
like they had in life. Just because they might be stronger didn't 
make them correct. Was it really possible--an ancestor or ancestors 
who were not dark evil spirits, but whom he didn't have to heel to? 
What had heeling to the ancients gotten him thus far? Yes, it could 
have been worse, but couldn't everyone alive say the same? 

It was a scary thought, he felt like he had poked his nose into some 
new and dangerous place. For now he withdrew. 

*There is no barrier the spirits cannot see through,* the voice in 
the back of his head nagged him. It was the ancients standing up and 
sparking at what he had been thinking. *There is no thought secret to 
them.*

Well, he thought, gulping...let them see. Let them see! What was he 
supposed to do, let them dictate his thoughts? Was nothing sacred?

"Let them see, look, all you spirits," he whispered silently, "and 
damn you unouns."

His hands were shaking. 

Kyuri looked at him with some fear. He seemed unstable... like he 
could be kind one moment and lash out the next. And she was lying 
helpless in his lap. But his flipper stroking her back felt so kind 
and gentle. 

"I don't blame you if you'd rather I left," he said. Kyuri shook her 
head. 

"No...it's okay. I was just hoping--that someone would know where my 
parents are. But I didn't know you lost yours too...I'm sorry Chirin."

"It's okay." He bowed his head to nuzzle her leaf. Kyuri giggled.

"That tickles."

"Sorry." He nuzzled her chek and then picked his head up.

"My mother used to do that."

"So did mine."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I... wish I did know where your parents are--I hate to think 
anyone would have to go through what I've been through.  I know how 
you feel. I lost my whole family when I was very little... I've been 
wandering ever since. I know what it feels like to have no 
home...I've been there." And he was probably there again.

"Let's go to the cave," he said, "it'll be a safe place where we can 
sleep for the night."

"You lost your parents to humans too?" said Kyuri as Chirin stood up, 
holding her in his flippers again. "Like I did?"

"Why--yes. Yes." Those humans--it seemed Tachiguy's warnings really 
were right. They really were *burakos*. He walked the rest of the way 
round the pond carryig Kyuri, making a full circle back to the cave 
entrance. "Yes and no. My parents are still with me, in my heart, and 
they always will be. I feel my father in my blood and I see him on my 
face. I hear my mama's whispered words inside me and they reassure 
me. They are never gone...and they never will be gone."

Would they have loved him if they knew what he was thinking? 
Well...trying not to think it would not change him. Why was it that 
his heart had to go such a path that could possibly turn so lonely?

He reached the cave with Amara at his side and looked in. Boro. 

Boro-boro and Bua na kuros stood  hovering in there, a shadow-syrup 
in the cave's black mouth. They dared him to seek shelter there. 

While he stood staring at Boro's bruised corpse, bloodied lips and 
darkened head jewel, Amara sauntered in ahead of him. "Much warmer 
here," she said. She hadn't been planning on sleeping in the open in 
such cold weather. 

Chirin stood there holding Kyuri, caught between wanting to hide his 
light while he slept--wanting a warm safe shelter--and his fears that 
the *burakos* would prey on them while they slept. Boro beckoned to 
him... Bua animated the dead body that stirred on the cave floor and 
rose in the dark, inside of Chirin. The ampharos could not fully 
stifle the static that rushed over his skin.

"The cave," he said, breaking a sweat, "it is full of spirits. I see 
them in the swirls of the forever-night inside. I see their dead 
eyes."

"I think it'll be okay just for tonight," said Amara. That, as he 
watched, she could sit down in the cavern full of hungry dead, and 
yawn, curl up and close her eyes--seemingly unaware of the spirits 
who were sending him such strong messages of danger--it seemed 
impossible! 

Kyuri, still too weak to make a protest either way, started to get 
the creeps with how Chirin was talking. There was nothing there--but 
the ampharos was showing all the signs of terror. "Are you afraid of 
the dark?" she said.

"Yeah. And--and caves too." He spared her the tales of his many 
terrifying experiences inside them. Somehow coming out of the cave, 
even some of the things inside the cave, had not been too bad. But 
while he had been out here, the evil had piled up, just waiting for 
him to go back in. Who knew what he would dream in there. 

He felt like a scared little lamb out here. He knew that his fears 
were well grounded--the dead were there! He could not imagine 
something so vivid. His heart was racing as if an enemy were 
approaching--because one was. The body did not react this way if 
nothing was there. 

Amara opened her eyes. She'd been expecting Chirin to snuggle in with 
her and make it all warm, now he'd said he was too scared to come in. 
She scooted to the edge of the tunnel. "How about if we all go in, 
it'll be much less scary."

She was right--but this wasn't just being scared. "There is danger in 
that cave. I...I forgot to say that I fought a very evil and powerful 
spirit in there, a long way back. I got away--but it's followed me."

Kyuri whimpered as he clutched her still cold-sluggish body against 
him. "Please, just please stop talking like that." But suppose there 
really was something there? Looking at the poor ampharos, it was easy 
to see he'd fought *something* nasty.

"I'm sorry if my words are scaring you--but they're the truth. I 
don't want either of you hurt...not for something that's after me." 
The wind moving through the space, chilling them and rasping in the 
hollows...was it speaking? He could almost hear words...The more he 
stared and listened the more the evil spirits crowded the dark.

"Amara come back. Get out of there, it's coming." He grabbed the 
cubone by the arm. 

"Hey," she gave a weak protest, and he let her get to her feet before 
he took big backward steps--but he could not stop the cave's black 
space from looking at them anywhere they were in the hollow. It saw 
all. She wriggled and he let her go. To his relief she didn't go back 
in, although he wouldn't stop her if she insisted. She was the one 
who'd led him here, she was probably safer than either of them.

"I really don't think there's anything there," she said, sounding 
less convinced. "Or if it is it can't really hurt us, that bad."

"The spirit is getting stronger and stronger," said Chirin. "I feel 
it--it is flooding this whole place in search of me and we could all 
be hurt. I'm going to have to perform a spell to stop it. I will 
speak to it if I have to. It isn't going to take us."

He was tired, he was still pained by his injuries--he was wracked and 
harassed. But he was alive and he planned to keep himself, and his 
two new friends, that way. He would have no more of this.

"I hope not," said Amara, whatever 'it' was. What had this ampharos 
really been through? She still had ideas of him fighting ghosts and 
things like that, from the way he talked about it.

Chirin needed a place to put Kyuri safely while he did this. The cave 
would have been the best place except that that was where the danger 
was coming from. He found a place by the side of the pond where a few 
scraggly bushes grew, that would have to do until the spell was 
complete. He set her down and made a bit of cotton--a scraggly crop 
that was all he could muster with his sapped energy. He tamped it 
down, smiling as Amara helped him. When the bed was crudely piled 
together he shone his lights over it, head and tail.

Clef was passing beyond, and in the night with his lights down low, 
the shadows seemed to bleed and spread into their neighbors. He would 
face this cloud of shadows and snarls. He would jolt it with all the 
voltage he could shove into it. He had had enough already. 

"Spirit of dark I have tried to speak to you so many times," he said 
as he selected some of the dead vines from beneath the live ones that 
had shagged down over them during the growing season. "Whenever I 
would look up to the sky or cower in the recesses of those caves I 
would be looking you in the eye. I know you...you've tortured me and 
my friends long enough already. I give you one more chance to see the 
light...to please, fly away and take your bloodied flippers off my 
heart."

Chirin watched the cave and the cave watched him. So many bad thngs 
come from caves, the gateways between this world and the ones below 
it, those dark hidden places where shadows lurked, waiting.  They 
could wait a million years in a blink. It was all the same to the 
spirits and things. 

He watched the cave with equally dark eyes. The cave pumped his heart 
harder as it spoke to his senses. One moment it seemed to growl, the 
next it laughed, mouth stuck wide open in the throes of the joke that 
it saw him as. What did it want with him? 

Amara sat next to Kyuri in the cotton and watched as if Chirin were 
putting on theater for them, and in her mind he might as well be. 
But, who knew why he was doing this? Maybe there was something more 
to this magic stuff than she'd always thought?

Moving smoothly, his bruises barely betraying his body's weakness, he 
slid into a sinuous dance that was not really what one might think of 
if they heard the word 'dance.' It was more like slow-motion 
movements, sometimes remaining almost completely still in some 
unusual position. Chirin donned the dead vines as he moved, the 
transformation part of the spell. Every movement affected it, just 
like every leaf in the swirling golden spiral-form had had its place. 
Chirin draped the vines around his arms and shoulders and over his 
head and tail. They trailed over the ground with a hiss and scratch 
as he stalked, pacing like the raikou in its den before the cave's 
unblinking eye. 

"The dead are not dead
but in the deep black seething...
Leave us alone, let us come home

The dead are not dead
They are jumping, spinning...
Be still my heart, as the shadows blink on

The dead are not dead
when I rub my face in the morning
when I run with my pulses beating
they stare,
Sad eyes of darkness, hollows of air

I roll on the floor, kicking at my enemy
The dead are not dead, the ghosts tie me down
I ball up, I lash out, I thrash like Chamadis
The dead are not dead, their eyes all around
I cough and wheeze and limp, I'm halted by bruises,
The essence of darkness, the angry dead"

Chirin chanted to the snag of dead vines. He was taking on the 
essence of the dark dead, those souls who seethed in things 
unfulfilled during life, or even after death--something done by the 
living that angered them and burned them black. He took on their dark 
essence for a short while, for doing it too long might begin to pull 
him into their powers. As one of them, his own light powers could 
sneak in under cover and infiltrate their hold on this place and his 
light-path.

"Skulls of stone, standing in grass
Trees of stone, the usokki dance
Voices call from blood on snow
Dance, dead, shiver in woe"

"A-a-a-ampha-a-a!"

Chirin flung off the vines and charged headlong into the shaft of the 
tunnel. Passing the threshold of its deeper shades of dark, he let 
his head jewel blare daylight on the rocks. He could have sworn by 
thunder that amid the echoes of his own bleats he had heard the evil 
scream.

~

Amara stepped away from the again-torpid Kyuri, who lay in a green 
lump on the white cotton. "Please, come back quickly," Kyuri managed 
to call to the cubone, who took a few steps away to look at what 
Chirin was bleating about.

Chirin charged deep into the dark, stabbing the shadows with his 
inborn lights. Tiredness pulled a dizzy coat over him that became too 
heavy to bear. He staggered to a stop with his head spinning. The 
gathered shadows had dispersed, leaving night and peace to sigh in 
relief.

He made a slow turn around the cavern. It was safe.

"Amara," he called as he emerged, forgetting to tone his lights down 
as he stepped into the shrubbery that grew on the strange sinkhole's 
rock rim. The caverns must have formed this, he thought, preventing 
soil from filling it in simply by subsuming it. How deep was that 
water, and where did it lead?

Amara had watched his act with fascination, a show put on for her and 
Kyuri. 

"Kyuri's not doing so good," she said as he returned to the cotton 
bed he'd placed her on. 

Chirin scooped her up, taking some of the cotton with him. "The cave 
is safe now," he said. "The evil ran from my light."

"Yay," said Amara, although she wasn't sure if he really believed it 
all or if he'd just been humoring her. She was leaning heavily 
towards the former... although now she didn't need to ask him to tell 
her a story or anything. 

"Did you make up all those songs?" she asked as she picked up more 
cotton to bring into the cave with her. Chirin smiled down at her.

"I'm not sure. I gather my songs from everything around me and focus 
it. So I make it up in some ways, but without the spirits of these 
rocks and vines and, I'm sure, the pool here, my song and spell would 
have never been woven."

"So you did make it up; wow."

Chirin cracked a smile as the cubone laid out her gathered cotton on 
the tunnel floor, where she had curled up before. Chirin laid Kyuri 
near Amara, to avoid possibly sparking her while they slept, and 
snuggled against Amara in turn.

"Can I snuggle with you?" said Kyuri, calling from the other side of 
Amara. "You're bigger and warmer. I ate and if I don't keep warm I'll 
get sick to my stomach."

"Of--of course, here let me see here," Chirin sat up and rearranged 
his bodily position,  snuggling both of them against his front.  "I 
was just trying to be careful, because denryuu emit static in their 
sleep sometimes."

"Oh."

"Don't worry, I will channel out my electricity and relegate it to 
another part of me, so that it won't hurt you," he said, which was 
the best way he could reassure her. Really his *denki* was all along 
his spine and balled up in his lights, and could emerge over any part 
of his body, streaming over his skin in rushes of precious warmth. A 
group of denryuu snuggling together passed each other warmth this 
way, but not all other types of pokemon took this well. He knew the 
Meganium-kind were resistent to it--they had nurtured Denrai well, 
for one--but Kyuri was still very weak and he didn't want to take 
chances. But as Amara was too small to warm her up enough he had no 
other choice. He couldn't discharge himself either--life had 
repeatedly taught him that you never knew when you'd need it. He was 
not about to sleep in this place with no *denki* (and it would 
recharge while he slept, moreover). A totally empty *denki* also 
disabled his gift. 

"Goodnight," said Amara. 

"Goodnight, Phos keep you both," he hugged them close to him, running 
his flipper over both kids.

"Phos?" asked Kyuri, who had grown more alert, if anything, since he 
had revived her. 

"The sun; the first and greatest light, the first Ampharos," said 
Chirin. "That's his name."

"Oh. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

He felt Kyuri's body slowly warm to match his own as he lay up, his 
two new friends dozing off. When they got out of here and went their 
separate ways... he would miss them.

~

"Keep me against the dark," he whispered, craning his arm around past 
his neck to grab a piece of the cotton. Holding it up in front of his 
face he twined it into a crude circlet and lay it near his head, 
moving awkwardly around Kyuri's. He was sure there would be more time 
to talk to her tomorrow--while they worked out an escape--and find 
out more about where she had come from and where her parents, and 
failing that, Manami, might be. 

The fear hung at bay further back in the caves with the faint smell 
of zubat scat and the even fainter sound of the water flowing from 
the pool down into the deeper tunnels. The evil he had escaped from 
lay in the stripes and layers of the stone, watching with dark 
glittering eyes like a scared animal while Chirin's consciousness 
hung lower and lower, pulling on weakening threads. The rock he lay 
on seemed to absorb him as he drooped towards the sleep he needed so 
badly. 

Azalea...something about Azalea. His drowsy mind rolled towards the 
dream-gates but left them swinging. 

~

Quiggus, Bloob and Starla navigated the pitch dark water-filled 
caverns by feel and turbulence. Their tails undulated gracefully 
behind them, their arms flapping and steering. They kept close 
together, snagging the occasional fish that shared the depths with 
the Quagsires. 

Clumsy and waddling on land, the trio from Moonhome streamed through 
the passage with swift flowing movement. They had a mission on their 
minds. Gonga had demanded the northern passages of River-deep be 
scouted and so it would be done. 

They were carrying out the task not out of respect, but fear. Gonga 
was not the loving Moonfather he had once been. But he had shown 
explicitly that there would be no arguing with him.

~

In his dream--or outside his dream? Chirin was curling tightly into 
himself, hiding from the dark by closing his eyes. But hide from the 
dark and it only surrounds you. Where his soul left off being here 
and started off on the journey was unclear--he could not remember a 
single instance of entering a dream, only emerging. 

Around him in the fetid caverns Boro danced, mocking Chirin with 
spits of cud, sneering at him from a collapsing face. Chirin aimed 
his charges and Thunder at the ram possessed. Pain ate like acid and 
pummeled him like the stone he tumbled down, rolling, over and over  
the rocks beat him to a meaty pulp...Chirin and Boro again embraced 
in a film of sweat and blood and bleats...

All was a blur of snow and twigs and trees, of dancing sticks and 
bones on stone. Voices from the mountain, gusts of unnatural talking 
breeze.

"Fake!" he screamed.  "It's all a lie!"

Phos shone stark on the peak. In a storm of swears Chirin flung 
himself on his undead attacker on top of the mountain. The sun was 
false, the sky was false. Like the ram of mud he charged up from 
stone.

Chirin charged just as Boro's face began to change.  The opposing ram 
then ducked  and leaned in to meet him, cutting off the sight of his 
shifting form. Chirin's head jewel met a monolith of stone. Unmoving 
it jarred him backwards, sprawling him onto the peak's edge.

The ram of stone grinned down at him with a marowak's skull. The 
legends of his people often depicted Bangaa something like this--a 
great ram of gray or stone, sometimes resembling a  tyranitar more 
than an ampharos, but always with a marowak's head. Marowaks were the 
harbingers of death and he slept with the cub of one. 

"Amara has nothing to do with this," he shouted as he struggled to 
stand amid a whir of stone and open air around him. He clung to the 
rock against the oncoming wind that the ram seemed to call from 
nowhere, the gift launching its assault. Chirin felt the wind billow 
from around the ram and slam into him, wearing him down like the 
weather wore mountains. And the breeze-voice chanted.

*There are no lies 
only illusion
We reap what we sow
New things beget confusion
You cannot run
from the wailing profusion
The ram of rock charges
a deadly protrusion*

The dark sockets of the stone ram's eyes stared down at Chirin from a 
wind-bleached skull. With a loud bellow it ran forward and kicked him 
in the chin.

"*Amp--*" 

Chirin fell down the mountainside with Boro clutching him, tumbling 
in a twine of enemies towards a bottom nowhere in sight. All around 
he heard the screaming of his flock. Their faces appeared peeled taut 
with their bleats, cheeks stretched and teeth and gums bared.

"A-a-a-am...a-a-a-am..."

He awoke in the dark with the pale before dawn lapping at the 
cavern's threshold. Kyuri and Amara were fast asleep. Chirin lay his 
head back down but he knew that there would be no sleep for him. Why 
try if all that waited for him in the other realm were the friends 
and family that he could not reach? How he had tried to reach them, 
but the spirit world offered no answers. They only pounded the agony 
deeper into him, as if he needed a reminder of their danger and 
distress.

Amara and Kyuri lay snuggled to his front. They helped stave off his 
loneliness but they were not his flock. They were not Selden and 
Petunia and Karama and Gunya. They had not been with him through 
light and dark all summer and fall. He wanted to be snuggled in their 
midst, like he had been just the other night in the alcove, all snug 
and peaceful and wrapped in cotton. Why had he taken it so for 
granted? 

There was no replacement for Selden's smile, Petunia's laugh and 
Gunya's hug. They had played and joked, fought and cried together. 
Chirin wanted to run to them now. A shiver of tension ran through his 
body and sweated itself out in tears. 

To think he could have slept even if he knew they were safe and 
sound... would havd required he be numb to everything. The spirits of 
evil in the tunnel had crawled with their photophobic eyes focused on 
him. And chirin knew that his spell had failed to scare them for very 
long. The flocks of darkness had changed from when he had been 
younger--they had grown not only stronger, but smarter.

~

The flap of light-shards from the dawn above the surface attracted 
the three quagsires to the upturned tunnel. Quiggus led the other two 
towards the light. They were hunting down the fabled colony of 
Electric Round-Moon-Pokemon said to inhabit the tunnels not far from 
River-Deep south of the lake. And they all knew Chirin's name. They 
remembered him from when he had tried to heal Gonga...and not only 
had he failed, he had turned worse shortly thereafter. Some said it 
had been Lourdes's passing that had soured him, othersa said that 
Chirin had cursed her to die. That they should have never brought 
those light-folks into the sacred dens of Moonhome. Lourdes had spent 
time alone with Chirin in Moon-Home Middle... who knew what magic he 
had cast on her? 

"He is to be caught alive if you find him," Gonga had said, although 
he had admitted that finding him in the underlands was highly 
unlikely. Still, "anything is possible," he had said just before he 
had sent them off on their mission.

Quiggus paused, hanging in the water with his flippers and tail 
keepinghim in one place while Starla and Bloob caught him up. They 
would surface together.

~

Chirin ached all over. A quick spray of sparks to heat himself up 
showed his *denki* had recovered nicely, fully recharged, but his 
bruises were tender and his muscles were stiff and weakened. He 
needed more than just a good night's rest to feel back to normal.

Amara was stirring now too, while Kyuri slept on. The sun wasn't yet 
up--dawn's first light was growing into the tunnel's edge where it 
gave way to the shaft of outside world shoved down into this place. 
Chirin had never known that places like this even existed. 

The cubone picked her head up, "Brrr," she said burrowing back 
against his stomach. Chirin shivered around her at the mention of the 
cold and giggled as she piled back into him. 

"Good morning," he said, "or almost morning. How are you feeling?"

"Hungry," and the cubone sat up, rubbing her eyes. She fumbled around 
for her bone club, which had ended up between Chirin's leg and his 
tail, which was curled forward against his body. Chirin doubled over 
himself and fished it up for her. 

"Thanks." She was about to ask 'What's to eat?' when her brain kicked 
in. Chirin was not her mother or father, although sleeping curled up 
with him and Kyuri had made things feel like back in the nest. Amara 
stood up, twirled her bone club in her hand to limber herself up, and 
trotted out towards the light, stopping at the edge to ascertain if 
it were safe. 

Chirin was hungry himself, and ready to leave this place. Kyuri's 
blue eyes fluttered open as he sat up, trying not to wake her, but 
realizing he'd failed. He supposed it was just as well she was up. In 
this cold he couldn't let her lie down alone or she might get too 
weak to move. Even so it was warmer here than it had been up above 
ground the...the other day. It was nowhere near freezing, and not 
much colder than the caverns. Still, one could tell it was close to 
winter even here. 

"Good morning...how do you feel?" he asked, sitting down with Kyuri 
in his lap while Amara headd outside towards the pool. The wind 
flapping inside caught the chikorita's leaf and brushed it in front 
of her face.

Kyuri flipped it back. "Much better...I want to thank you, you 
probably saved my life," she said, wriggling to be let down. He set 
her on the stone next to him.

"It's..." Chirin felt uncomfortable trying to answer her gratitude. 
How did one really accept a thanks for saving their life? Some said 
the one who was saved owed them a life-debt, but Chirin hadn't done 
it to get anything back. She didn't owe him anything. 

Could anyone really 'owe' anyone, anything? What was 'owing', anyway? 
What really defined it? Kyuri's blue eyes didn't hold the answer, but 
seeing them looking back at him, alive like they wouldn't have been 
had he left her for dead lying there... she was giving him so much 
just with the sight and feel of her right there. "It's fine," he 
finally said, averting a shoal of deep thoughts. "I couldn't have 
left you there. I doubt that many could have. You--you were saying 
yesterday that you black out a lot--'black out' meaning you fall down 
dead but still breathing, and wake up?"

"Not dead," said Kyuri. "It's when everything goes dark all of a 
sudden and I wake up lying down. I didn't use to have them..they 
started after I was captured by Team Rocket."

"Team Rocket? I've heard of them--" he held his breath and fluttered 
his lights--"nasty even for humans, they capture people just--to do 
strange and horrible things with them? Like forcing them to fight? 
You--you went through living with them?" If it could be 
called 'living with'. "Oh, Kyuri..."

"Yes and it was--it was horrible. I was forced to fight."

"Oh Kyuri," Chirin blinked tears aside so the sight of her face 
wouldn't wave and blur. He scooped her up in his armsand held his 
flipper on her back. That's when he noticed the pale scar knotting 
the finely scaled skin on her back. He had noticed it the other night 
but his thoughts had skidded over it, tired and afraid as he had 
been. Scars had scarcely brushed his attention with the caves 
breathing darkness at him. This morning, sitting with Kyuri where the 
darkness weakened towards the light, Chirin felt the evil retreating 
back into the mountain's depths to regather its strength. 

"The humans are evil beings, full of misery and malice," said 
Chirin. "And they won't get you again. Now that you've escaped them 
you know their secrets and their names...you know the signs of their 
approach and how to keep away. But these blackouts--that's quite 
troubling."

"I know."

He was sure of that, but did she really know the full implications? 
He himself couldn't assume to know, but what entered his mind were 
speculations that they had placed some curse on her, or that their 
magic had latched onto her in some other way. Chirin remembered the 
twists of pain in his head when he had thought ill of, or even spoken 
of, the unouns, and his acceptence of them might have saved him from 
madness but it had been brief. He had no doubts that the humans had 
the same sorts of powers. More likely they knew powers even worse. 

Kyuri was prone to being attacked by spirits of dark who kept trying 
to kill her. That was certain. In tht respect then, they were drawn 
together and belonged together, burdened by two different evils that 
were, nonetheless, probably connected somehow. After all, it had been 
humans who had taken his flock. Damn the unouns, damn the humans. 
Exibos exibos, he would fight them all his years.

"We're in this together," said Chirin finally, "and we'll win. We 
have to think in light and  not let everything cloud over us. And I 
know you can do it. How did you escape them--th humans?"

"I was sent out--out from my pokeball. You know what that is?"

Unfortunately, he thought, "Yes--an enchanted apricorn that captures 
pokemon inside its shell?"

"More or less. i was sent out to battle another wild pokemon--and 
when I took of after it in the bushes I realized that I could get 
away nd not come back. So I ran, and ran, but nowhere was familiar. 
When you go into a pokeball you sometimes come out into places where 
you don't know where you are or when it is."

That pokemon survived this treatment, he thought, attested to their 
resilience. He'd like to see a human go through what they put other 
pokemon through. They did not know the powers they wielded or that 
they were arousing the anger of beings big and small. Their shadows 
would grow to swallow them, the ground would claim them. 

Chirin's lights shook along with the rest of him. "So...you ran away 
to this area from there on?"

"Yes. To the lake actually. I've been looking for my parents ever 
since! But I don't recognize any of these places, I never saw the 
lake before I got away. Are--are we close to the lake now?"

"I'm not sure exactly where..." Chirin hadn't thought of this place 
in relation to anywhere else, only that he had walked the path of a 
nightmare looking for his flock. "...but it isn't too far. We're 
south and west of the lake. You remember where you were, in the 
forest by the mountains? That was northwest of it. We're somewhere 
south of there." Or so his sense of direction told him, and it was 
pretty keen owing to his *denki*. "What kind of place did you grow up 
in?" he said, sitting taller in a slow careful stretch, painful while 
pleasureful. The movements of his body took them in their will and he 
leaned onto his back with his spine arching. "How was it different 
from the lake-places?"

"It was...well, different plants grew there, and it was a lot warmer 
than this...More green, I guess that's the best way to describe it."

"I'm guessing you came from the jungle up north of here," he said, 
realizing he could not take her home so easily. He wouldn't take a 
break from rescuing his flock from those *burakos* denryuu--and 
Boulder--to sojourn up north escorting a chikorita home. Even if he 
got there, would they find where she lived? Any spells he could cast 
to find the way would take too long to prepare, moreover. And with 
his present mindset they would not work. His thoughts of Bua and all 
his friends would distract him from the spirit connections he would 
have needed to make.

Fully stretched, he stood up. "Up north," Kyuri was puzzling as he 
stepped out into the unborn day to eat some greens. The warmth down 
here was what had nurtured those vines to still sport leaves. They 
were some of the best food he had eaten in days. Funny, 
that...ironic. 

"That's just my guess," said Chirin. "I've never been up there, I 
only know about jungles from stories. But I know your kind lives in 
them and that there's jungles up north somewhere, I don't know where."

"You're probably right," she said. "It's at least something to go on."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    > gave it a tug, trying to dislodge vines further up.

"Mmmmm." The tension inside him seemed to make him hone in on the 
pleasure of eating good food even more. This was not even one of his 
favorite kinds of foods, or it hadn't been before now. But the bounty 
tasted sweeter to him than he could remember anything tasting in the 
past... well, almost anything. It had been thrown down to him by 
benevolent ones who wished him to grow strong to help them find a way 
out. While the evil had worked hard against him there was good too 
working for him, just like in Denrai's stories. 

His bites marched in a procession of sensory pleasure, beginning to 
revel in the smooth juicy leaves and the tough chewy stems as he 
surrendered to the passions of filling his belly. Life brought 
pleasure and pain streaming to him no matter where he was and what 
the circumstances were and he welcomed both. 

"Ack!" Amara gave a cry and Chirin turned around, leaves still 
hanging from his mouth. The cubone had used her bone club to flip a 
fish from the water onto the rocks. "Yah!" She brought her club 
clinking on the stone, trying to hit the flopping silver fish. After 
a few strikes she knocked it out.

"Ah...I see everyone has found an early breakfast," was all Chirin 
said as he averted his eyes and looked back at Kyuri, who had barely 
nibbled the leaves he had given her. Chirin knelt and sniffed her, 
and indeed the smells of sickness perfumed her body and especially 
her breath. Her reptilian scents beneath the nectar smell were harder 
for him to read than his own kind or even Amara's, but he could smell 
illness in almost anything anywhere. Those attacks that came from 
within the body, from a spirit wreaking havoc inside the delicate 
dance of flesh and bone and blood, were common to all and always gave 
a ring of wrong.

Kyuri looked at the rock ahead of her as she sniffed at the still-
pert leaves, her own head leaf wilted to the side.

"You must try to eat," Chiirn held the leaves closer to her mouth, as 
if that would make her want to eat them more. He stroked her 
back. "Does your stomach feel upset?"

What had Boulder said about herbs...all that he had taught Chirin 
about the different plants? Perhaps there were some here...

"No, I...I'm just not that hungry."

She sighed fretfully at the floor. Chirin scooped her up and held her 
close, trying to transfer his warmth to her.

"We're going to get out of here," he said, fighting the feeling that 
he was losing her. He had to fight it with all he had. Yuki could not 
take this one, one of his new friends. Chirin looked at her and in 
the air he saw a spirit rolling in a tumble of blood and snow. He 
nudged the leaf on her head and saw dancing twigs with skulls on 
their faces. 

-No-!

"We're getting out of here now," he said scooping Kyuri off the 
ground. The evil was after them again, setting its nose to their 
trail and taking the weakest one first. Chirin marched along the 
walls with his wide vision searching.

"Huh?" said Amara, who had gutted the fish and eaten most of the 
meat. "We're leaving?" she added with her mouth full, then crammed 
another piece of fish meat in under her mask. She licked her hands 
clean. 

"I'm going to find a way out right now," said Chirin, still scoping 
out the walls, scanning for any possible escape. Amara kicked the 
fish's remains into the water and ran over to him smelling strongly 
of her meal.

Chirin let Kyuri down near a place he saw that looked halfway good to 
climb. His hoof mounted the first foothold on the rock. Getting a leg 
up he gripped the highest holds in reach of his calloused 
flipper/hands. Grunting against the protest of his bruises he heaved 
himself higher, enough to gain purchase on a higher catch with his 
other foot. His tail lashed and flickered until he had a secure grip.

Amara came over to watch the denryuu ascend the wall. Chirin climbed 
towards the top, still far from his goal but closer than he had been. 
If he could climb up and then down again they were as good as out. 
Heartened mroe by every step up, he strained towards the next ledge, 
his mobile hooves holding him up on rock eaves often less than an 
inch wide. He let the energy of the rocks surge into him, renewing 
him as he climbed slowly. Every step was a challenge and every time 
he straightened his legs on a higher ledge  it was a triumph. 

Sweat poured down his tensed body, every muscle engaged, working to 
keep him balanced up here. He had climbed a good way off the ground.

"You can do it! You can do it!" called Amara from the rocks below as 
Chirin ascended higher. The way yawned long ahead of him, but this 
was just one more journey, and if he could do it once he could do it 
two more times, one for each of his friends. Pain and strain fused 
his soul inside his body, his teeth clenched between breaths as the 
climb tested his body and mind. He would reach the top. Dark was cast 
from his being as he panted towards the ground above. The wall was 
mounted step by step, grip by grip. Inside his head he called up 
memories of summer on mountains flanked with lush green grass and 
bushes. The forest strummed to the hum of insects and the song of 
sheep. He would be there, he would be there, all he had to do was 
reach the top. His heart pounded in his neck, vitality stretched and 
pushed into every part of him, strained to the max in a burn of 
lactic acid. His body beat from the pit of his stomach to the blood 
in his lips. 

The demons crept out of the stone. They cast stones at his foot. Or 
maybe the wind gave a bite or the stone made itself slippery. 
Chirin's foot slipped and he went sliding down the rock to a screech 
of cubone screams. Stone punched him under the chin, knocking his 
head back to stare at a sky the color of lavender. "*A-a-a-aph!*" 
Flippers flailing, he managed to catch himself near the ground in a 
clasp of reflex. Chirin held there like stone himself, seeing the mud 
ram in this mind. His eyes were squinted shut in prayer as pain 
scratched into the hardened skin of his flippers.  

Amara stopped screaming. 

"I'm okay," he said, forcing his senses back open. It was a moment 
before his soul uncurled and let him climb the rest of the way down.

"Do you think you could try again?" asked Amara when Chirin had 
stopped pacing around so fast and murmuring so many prayers--a jumble 
of thanks and wishes and anything he could think of to throw off the 
demons well known to those who lives on mountainsides--the ones that 
made you fall.

Chirin wanted to cry. Exhausted, he stared at the wall that had 
defeated him. "I--I'm too tired to try again right now," he said 
faintly, unable to find any words that sounded more positive. He 
looked away from them both before he broke down... he watched the 
glassy water reflect the wall and sky. Bits of Amara's fish remains 
still floated, a bone here and there and whatever else hadn't been 
snatched up by the still-living denizens of the pool. His muscles 
still hurt and his soul hurt worse. He had searched the entire 
circumference of their rock and ivy prison for a way to climb out and 
that one was the only way. He would have to try again... but he had 
not even reached halfway up.

He let a spark linger between his tail and the ground, giving the 
floor a little of his frustrations, then went over to Kyuri and sat 
down with her, scooping her up in his lap and letting the warmth 
produced by his climb warm her up. Her scaled skin stuck to his 
sweaty, rubbery hide and he let his head bow down, simmering in the 
aftermath of hard work that had been fruitless except to warm him up 
He let his thoughts sink into a soup of something between despair and 
meditation. Tears dripped off his nose.

Kyuri wrinkled her nose at his strong smell but said nothing. He was 
warming her up and she was through complaining... and he'd tried. He 
was obviously upset. Things could be much worse than a bad smell, and 
she would not make the short time she had left to live any worse. 
Kyuri knew she was dying. Too far from any hospitable place, the 
winter would claim her. 

"It's okay, don't cry," she whispered. "You'll find a way out."

"Thanks," Chirin hugged her close, nuzzling her sheek with a mix of 
sweat and tears.

Kyuri tolerated his stench, the thick musk of a male who struggled 
against his kind and others to pass on his blood. A very mortal 
scent. Kyuri would do what she could to help him not give up.

Chirin let the anger pass from his muscles and leave them limp as the 
vines that dangled down the rocks. If only there had been vines 
growing on those parts of the rocks he'd been climbing! But there was 
no way to fasten them there or rig them there any other way. He 
clenched his feet, the hooves rubbing against the ground. His tail 
ball tapped with a solid clink. It was time to plead the spirits to 
open up an avenue... Or, conversely, harness the latent powers 
inherent in everything to accomplish it himself. Chirin was magic, 
all other pokemon and  things were too. He stood up, still holding 
Kyuri in his arms as he gathered himself up again. Far away he heard 
the group barking of houndours in angry pursuit--of an indavor to 
their territory, by the snarling slant of it. His ears pricked up, 
echoed by the rise to readiness of his current inside him, but it was 
far away and he had nothing to fear from them while he was trapped 
down here anyhow. And he would rather be out there taking them on, 
than taking on this wall. He chewed his cud while he searched the air 
for a plan, trying to pluck new ideas from it. 

The pool's surface was marred by bubbles, then a jostle and then a 
splash as a smooth head emerged, a muted light blue. Water streamed 
off smooth slimy skin as the Quagsire took a quick look around--or as 
quickly as a quagsire could. Chirin watched as its eyes locked on his 
own. Quagsires did not normally attack amps, but they could if they 
were really hungry. 

Two more quagsires surfaced and their eyes quickly found him. Chirin 
stepped back and his tail bumped into the wall.

Amara stepped to Chirin's side, staring at these big pokemon not 
knowing what they were. She had ever seen a Quagsire...not even being 
this close to Moonhome.

"*Pharaaa?"* Chirin bleated softly in question, clutching the spirits 
of Mama and Dah inside his heart. Good beings of light, please let 
this be peaceful... 

Quiggus regarded Chirin with surprise. He had not expected to find an 
ampharos here...not that they were a real threat. They were probably 
in more danger from the chikorita he held in his arms.

Kyuri, warmed by Chirin's heat, sat up in his arms and stared at the 
blue heads that had appeared in the pool.

Chirin watched to see what the Quagsires would do from here, how they 
would answer his plea. If they were hungry he was dead. So, too, were 
probably Amara and Kyuri. Chirin began to stroll towards the cave, 
but it was on the opposite side of the wall, so he stopped midway, 
afraid of looking afraid.

Quiggus slid up onto the rocks with perfect ease and comfort, blubber 
quivering with the impact of the landing. Water streamed off him as 
he stood up and faced Chirin calmly. He would find out this ram's 
name and act from there. 

Chirin followed the footsteps of fear towards the cave. "Amara, go 
in," he said softly.

"I'm staying by you," she said. 

"All right," he said, feeling more uneasy, especially as the other 
two quagsires piled up onto the pool rim after the first and biggest 
one.

"Hello, denryuu," said the biggest Quagsire with an air of 
confidence. Chirin stood tall, trying to look as confident as he 
didn't feel. Then again if they were hungry they would not greet 
their prey, would they? And surely there would have been more 
suitable food down below, that they could swim after? Amara had shown 
that water to be hopping with fish. 

Chirin's black eyes looked at the Quagsires and felt his weakness 
even more. He was beaten and bruised, only just recovering his 
strength and feeling the refreshment of a full belly. His injuries 
were on display...but they were sorely mistaken if they thought he 
would go easily.

"Hi," he answered after a long look laden with unspoken conversation. 
He gathered the spirits on his side around him. Green ivy leaves 
inside him, the essense of those who wanted to help him, ingested 
into the pit of his body. Sweat glistened on his skin as dawn-light 
stalked into the sky.  

Quiggus debated taking the amp and his two friends--who looked pretty 
weak--with them while they scouted, drafting them to the New Light as 
that order dictated. They would slow the mission, but it was a small 
mission anyway and any new members of the Light were a strength to 
the whole. And all the while they stood here debating what to do, the 
denryuu was making his way towards the cavern entrance.

Quiggus bounded over suddenly, wondering how the ampharos had caught 
wind of the danger to its freedom so easily...or was it just innate 
fear of their kind, on top of being wounded? Probably. 

He looked at the frightened amp with a stressful lack of knowledge 
over just how to handle this or even what to do. He was unused to 
dealing with ampharos and knew they had everything to do with the 
corruptionof Gonga and the death of Lourdes. That Chirin had cursed 
Lourdes to die and nothing could convince him otherwise.

"Let me through, please I beg," said Chirin clutching Kyuri closer 
against him as he backed to the wall. Finding himself with nowhere to 
run as the Quagsires closed in set off a cluster of sparks from his 
tail and head, arcing in jagged stripes down his body. "I'm only a 
denryuu alone...on a struggle to free my flock. They're in danger and 
so am I..."

He stared at the three Quagsires, whose faces showed none of their 
kind's carefree nature, with tears in his eyes, then his self-control 
caved entirely. The failed climb, the failed winter journey, the 
failed resolve to stick with those he loved--failed everything!

A fire seemed to light in Quiggus's beady  eyes as Chirin 
cried, "please, by Thunder and Light... by my mama's tail light 
please, don't hurt us." Yes, Quiggus thought, this one was familiar--
that or they were all like that.

"Chirin-chirin," he said with every confidence. Chirin's eyes 
widened. 

"How do you know my name?" he said, feeling like a part of his soul 
had been bandied about in the air, snatched from without his say. 
These enemies had htis name and there was only one way they 
could. "Moonhome--Are you from Moonhome?"

"Murderer," said Quiggus as the other two hemmed in on his either 
side, caving around Chirin and cutting off his escape. 

"Ohh," Amara stood against his leg and looked up through the sockets 
of her mask with frightened eyes. She braced herself, clutching her 
bone club, her only weapon against these blubbery blue monsters!

And she let Chirin do the talking. He seemed to be the one they had a 
problem with... He'd swum her across that pool and then almost 
climbed this wall too, All while already bruised up, and tired, and 
hungry! He could get them out of this for sure!

"Murderer?" Did they somehow know about Boro in the cave? They were 
closing in on him like they'd come here just to get him..guided by 
the spirit of Boro...Chirin shivered as his lights blinked 
desperately. "Please, I fought Boro in defense...and he was killed by 
the evil one--not me! I'm not trying to avoid the blame," he said, 
although he was, if it would get him out of this alive. "I'm trying 
to explain! I have a right to defend myself and my friends!"

"You have a right to kill the beloved Round-Moon-Mother Lourdes--who 
befriended you and gave you another chance?" hissed Quiggus like a 
sea serpent. "I was there, Chirin- as you gushed words of light."

"Round Moon...Lourdes? She--she's dead?"

"And you know it," said Starla, leaning towards the denryuu who in 
her eyes had guilt smeared all over him. Her beloved leader--whom she 
had always gone to for advice--slain by this one's curse...

"I don't! I mean--I didn't," his flippers stroked Kyuri's back and 
head absently. "I don't know what you mean! I spoke with her and she 
was so sweet and understanding...I never lifted a flipper to hurt 
her." Tears streamed down his face. "I never would. She's--she's my 
light-friend--how could I ever think of hurting her? Why do you think 
I killed her? Please--maybe we can talk about this and figure out 
what really happened. How about you tell me--"

"I'll tell you nothing and we won't have any talk with you. You did 
plenty of talking to our Round-Moon Mother. You killed her and 
further corrupted Moonfather Gonga," said Quiggus, his blubber 
shaking with compacted anger. "We were given orders to take you alive 
back to Moonhome if you were found," he said, "but they were not 
orders given by us. We have other ideas," said Quiggus who obviously 
nad no idea of the awesome power of the one from whom that order had 
originally been issued. "You are going to undo that curse before we 
kill you."

Chirin's bleats jumped in the air, high and passioned. "I didn't kill 
her, I didn't curse her! I never did and I never would! She's my 
light-friend! I feel so sad to know she's passed on...Don't hurt 
people in her name! And don't hurt me for something I didn't do!"

He flared with angry light at the fact that they would think he'd do 
something like that to dear Lourdes. "I feel her spirit here...I see 
her sad face at what you are saying here."

"You," said Quiggus as he moved forward to grab at Chirin, "are 
lying."

"Stop it!" peeped a voice from Chirin's chest. The voice was a weak 
but  desperate chikorita who flapped her leaf angrily at Quiggus's 
encroaching hand. 

Quiggus pulled his hand back. "I'd let her go, put her down and away, 
if you don't want her hurt."

"She needs me for warmth!" cried Chirin, looking all around as he 
tried to squeeze away in a ball. Their slimy bodies pressed closer to 
him, breath and skin rasping against each other, clogging the air 
around him. Chirin stood on an island of stone that was sinking into 
Quagsire feet. "I beg you to let us talk this through! It's a 
misunderstanding--we all have them! If you kill me--you'll have done 
darkness just like you hate so much! I sympathize with you...Your 
anger is not--"

"Stop! Enough of your soothing sweet words--they will not work with 
us. The Moon has spoken to me, and to my two companions. The Moon and 
others say that you did it and they know."

"But I didn't! Please let me live! I want to live--you kill me you 
will make dark! Why don't you just tell me what happened--"

"I don't want to hear the voice of Lourde's killer beg now. Just be 
quiet!" He said it like he was afraid of being swayed by it. "We will 
do darkness to stop your evil deeds right here and you don't need to 
hear what happened. You know already. She died. I know the real 
reason gonga wants you arrested. As for the chikorita, that's just 
too bad. Who's to say you haven't cursed her to die too, murderer?" 
There was pain in Quiggus's voice and Chirin knew then that none of 
these three would believe a word he said. In their mind it was lies 
and every word would strike against him. One of the other quagsires 
clamped slimy hands about Chirin's arm and he jerked away in reflex, 
alive with current. 

Little green spinning things scattered in a volley at all three 
Quagsires. They fell back screaming as the razor leaves sliced, 
splashed red down over their bodies. More pained, mildly cut than 
horribly wounded--but distracted.

"*AAAAAMP!*" Chirin charged through the Quagsires with Kyuri clutched 
against his chest, battering towards the dark cavern, fleeing the 
morning. His light flushed through the dark, highlighting the rocks 
just in time for his feet to arrive there. He navigated the floor 
precariously, stumbling up over stone and splashing in water. Why 
couldn't they have talked? Why had they been so blinded with anguish, 
that they had raged until his ancestors had raged back?

"Wait, wait for me!" Amara struggled to keep pace with the ampharos 
as the quagsires took up the chase. His only hope of escape was 
running...amps were faster on their feet than quagsires, and it was 
his only asset against them.  But what about Amara? She was already 
falling behind!

"Come on!" Already carrying Kyuri, Chirin was slowed down further by 
letting Amara climb on his back and hang on with her arms around his 
neck. He picked up and ran again, gaining all the speed he could, but 
the quagsires were gaining on him now.

"Come back you killer! We won't stop chasing you until we catch you! 
Save yourself the energy!"

"Amara!" he panted. "I'm going to have to let you and Kyuri go 
somewhere...If I don't they're catch all three of us!"

"I know where I can hide!" said Amara in his ear as the running 
ampharos bounced the cub against his back. Chirin rounded a bend and 
saw three passages. With a wriggle Amara hopped down, dropping her 
bone before she picked it back up.

"We will meet again," he said, pausing for an instant to lick the top 
of Amara's skull mask and hug her, lifting her up briefly. Her feet 
brushed the floor, then he set her down again. 

"I know! Bye!" 

Amara took one passage and Chirin dashed down the other, his lungs 
already worn out by the climb, beginning to burn again. His legs were 
already spent and weak and he didn't even know where he was running 
to or where this tunnel would lead him. He only knew these quagsires 
would kill him if they caught him...and what about Kyuri in his arms, 
who had mustered all her strength to throw into the attack that had 
let them escaped...probably saving his life?

"There he goes!" Quiggus's voice echoed down the hall in a blur of 
vengeance. Would Chirin be after them the same way, screaming the 
same if he found out they'd killed his mother? Would he believe them 
when they begged innocence?

Yes he would! These--these quagsires would not even listen to him! He 
was Chamadis chased by deadly fear...they had said the spirits had 
told them. So the spirits really could be wrong...

Had he set things in motion for her to be killed somehow, though? Was 
he...?

No! Thinking like that--he could have killed anyone and everyone!

Chirin brightened his lights when he heard the Quagsires head down 
the tunnel after him, just to make sure all three of them were there 
and Amara was truly safe. They were all there, running him down. It 
was a sure sign he was weakened when quagsires were gaining on him...

"I am innocent!" he screamed between breaths. 

"Will you make it... carrying me?" Kyuri managed to call out to 
Chirin as he ran with his flippers criss crossed around the little 
chikorita.

"Yes," he panted, too winded to say more. His legs were moving in 
slow motion, straining but just not getting anywhere...


The caves jumped against him, jittering under his feet. Thrown on his 
back Chirin's memories stirred of the day when the Quagsires had 
pushed a mist in at him and his friends, then grabbed the earth and 
shaken it. Chirin had not realized that to let the quagsires close 
enough was to fling himself open to their deadly ground attacks. 

The rocks tossed him like a pine cone, slamming his already bruised 
body around again. Chirin balled himself up around Kyuri and screamed 
as the world seemed to collide with itself to the grating of stone, 
blotting out his bleats. He screamed just to feel his throat emit his 
terror.

As the pulses of earthquake rose and fell Chirin knew he could not 
take much more. His inborn stamina had been beaten down time in 
again, all in such a short time, all with so much pain...

He gritted his teeth, to keep them from shattering themselves against 
each other in the violence of the ground, and he wept as the attack 
continued for what felt like forever. Until he felt like nothing 
remained of him but the tension of teeth clenching, a soul balled up 
into itself on the one piece of essence that was still his.

His gift. 

He had to use it again...how? How when dizziness had stuffed itself 
into every thought?

The world shook on, caught in the throes of an agony like his. Chirin 
rolled on the floor in a fetal position with his tail light nestled 
against his front. Shadows dashed from wall to wall, leaping  among 
flashes of red and electric blue light. Chirin's gift was flung out 
into the fray of air and stone. 

Kyuri was not screaming. She was surrendering to the weakness her 
body had been suffering from prolonged chill.

"Chirin...goodbye," she gasped in his arms in a pause between the 
stone's tantrums.

"No, Kyuri...no, you'll be okay...Focus on the light...the light!"

"I am, Chirin," and the quakes resumed, ripping at each other, 
slamming like rams in the rut. Chirin felt the rock floor skid under 
his side, scraping off skin. Rawness smarted along his shoulder and 
spine. In the dancing tunnel the lighting flickered dim. 

"Kyuri no!" he kept saying over and over, he must have been screaming 
at the top of his lungs because his throat began to hurt. The 
chikorita had gone limp in his arms and when the rock paused again, 
caught on chance, he shook her and she did not respond. He looked 
into her dead face. "Kyuri!" And the stone played on. The violence 
escalated, rock flinging up and down, Chirin was helpless and his 
mind and heart were all he had left to cling to. When the earthquake 
snapped his arms open wide and he balled them up again, reflexively 
curling, Kyuri was gone. Had the tunnel spirits stolen her rfom his 
arms, from the horrible death he had carried her to? He could have 
saved her if he had surrendered...he could have...His friends, he 
always cursed his friends!

Here and there his lights glanced off a quagsire's face as his 
attackers waited for unconsciousness to come. They didn't know what 
he had maintained his awareness through in the past. *It will take 
more than this,* he thought through the gleam of dark stars and 
attacking stone.

Cracks had appeared in the rock, on floor and wall. Chirin caught 
himself on the edge of one, fighting a downward tumble in. His head 
untucked, sending a shaft of light from his head jewel flickering 
down into the gap. It glinted off water in ringlets and scales, who 
knew how deep it ran. Only his electric sense now held him back from 
falling, throwing a barrier of air and energy to stop him. 

His legs kicked against the sloping rock. Chirin would have no chance 
against them in water--

His gift took hold of the still-mobile stone. As the earthquake 
culminated in a branch of cracks, jutting some stone up while it sank 
others, he spread his electric sense out to wrangle with the 
randomness of its effects. Another stutter of movement knocked him 
sliding right through his shield. All was suddenly gone around him, 
air rushing as the ground attacks flung him into freefall through the 
ruined floor. 

He dashed against the gap's rough wall as his body shot down and then 
into another open cavern. The water smacked his battered body with a 
loud slapping splash. Chirin had only enough time to find the water's 
edge and try to keep *awake* and above the surface, never mind 
swimming, before he heard more big splashes. The slimy flippers of 
Starla grabbed him from behind and shoved his bleeding back up 
against the side of the pool...river...whatever it was.

"Nice try," said Quiggus as his two companions held Chirin by the 
arms. Chirin was too busy fighting to keep from fainting to fight 
them. And what was the use anyway? 

A dead chikorita stared at him from the swirling void of his vision. 
She spoke with a quagsire's voice. "If you'd surrendered outside 
you'd still have both your friends alive."

Chirin had no strength left to answer. Friends alive, friends 
alive... His head rolled towards the water and his eyes towards the 
sky.

In the other realm the world continued to buck and thrash, possessed 
by the urge to dash itself against itself, destroy everything. Chirin 
rolled and rolled in a giant cramp of pain, he rolled down the 
mountain, down the tunnel, down the rock wall by the pool, down the 
gap above the river. He landed with a splash and surfaced to see 
Kyuri looking down at him from the gap, caught in his light. A pale 
green speck of a pokemon, "Chirin...I found the light."

She was still alive and up there! Chirin turned a bullish head at the 
current pulling him away and bleated out to her, but the water had 
him in its grip. 

"She's dead, don't tell her she's dead," said a quagsire voice, or 
was that the voice of the old ram who had championed Chamadis's 
killer? 

"She must know...She must know the truth!" Chirin fought the ram's 
grip as he was shoved towards the edge of the steep slope. "Don't 
keep us in the dark!"

Chirin was falling down a thousand slopes light and dark, stone 
madness like a giant belly churning him and sinking acid into his 
many wounds. Rocks boiled up in a black mass around him. The cavern 
chewed him up and spit him out by the water.

~

Rock became flesh...became water...became air. Lying on his back, 
Chirin became aware of a throbbing between his eyes, as his breath 
rose and fell gently. The movemnet of his eyelids opening caused 
scrapes and cuts to rear up with pain on his face. He was almost 
grateful for the darkness he saw...unless his eyes were--

His light snapped into a flicker, then abated, his breath returning 
to normal...he could still see. 

"Awake?" said the voice of the big quagsire. "Wondered how long one 
of your kind could stand up against earthquake attacks. I'm impressed 
it took three of them. One from each of us."

Chirin's reply was a twitch from his blood-caked lip. He was 
retreating deep into himself, speaking to his ancestors through the 
pain, feeling like a ruptured piece of meat only when he ducked below 
the surface of the realm of light he had found a small haven in. 
Somewhere to cram himself away from the darkness and the pain, from a 
place where he was all alone with people who hated him for something 
he had not done. His pain paralyzed his body, he was too weak to 
begin to try getting up. He was just thanking everyone in his 
bloodline that he was still alive. And wondering why he was thankful. 

Starla looked at the very beaten up ampharos. Bruises and cuts marred 
the smooth yellow flesh, electricity occasionally alighting over the 
broken skin and blood vessels, over the blue spots and scabbing, gory 
cuts. Occasionally a spark would pop and he would twitch, eyes 
squinting and lips flaring painfully as it stung him. Starla couldn't 
help feeling sorry for the poor thing. Curse or no curse, did they 
really have to torture him this way?

"What do we do now?" she asked Quiggus as they finished up a fish 
meal they'd shared while Chirin had been out. "He's in no shape to 
even walk."

"We're not due back to Moonhome on any particular day, at least 
within reason," said Quiggus. "As long as we return. We can wait if 
we have to. Delays happen."

Chirin just concentrated on breathing slow and deep. His thoughts 
were a battering ram bashing up through the rubble of dark and pain. 
He lay in summer grass with Azalea and the painted wings of 
butterfrees flecked the field with the flowers. Those days would 
come, he kept thinking to himself. There was another side and he must 
reach it.

His soul slowly trickled back into him... bringing a desire to move, 
against the wishes of his beaten body. Balling himself up and letting 
his blubbery sides and back take most of the beatings had spared him 
from truly serious injuries...but the collective beating his body had 
taken overwhelmed him. Many smaller bruises on top of older healing 
ones rendered him unable to move without difficulty and pain.

Barely able to employ his gift at all before, he stretched it out 
like an old skin and shifted his *denki* sense through his body. If 
he was going to keep on living, at least for now, he had nothing to 
lose by trying to heal himself. If he was alive there was hope...if 
he died now who would care about his flock? Who would help them?

~

Chirin had fought battles high and low, with all kinds of pokemon, 
for all different reasons, and he hadn't really enjoyed a single one 
of them. This was a different kind of battle altogether, one that 
couldn't be headbutted into submission or shocked away. It was a 
spirit battle against the ghosts of stone. 

What had Swarber said that time? '*I've seen what happens whenfaces 
are put to stone*'...something like that. Swarber had seen people 
turned to stone? Was that what had happened to these creatures in 
this cave--as well as the other caves he'd been in? Looking at some 
of the rock formations it became easier and easier to see what had 
once been features in flesh, now gone hard and cold. He searched his 
mind for stories that told of this phenomenon, had Denrai ever 
witnessed this, or even suffered it himself? 

What were the chances that he would remain down here so long that it 
happened to him? 

"Don't think like that," said Crazy Lights. "We'll find a way out of 
here, we will! And keep moving. I have a feeling that turning to 
stone only happens if you stand still too long."

"I have a feeling it's got something to do with those shadow rock 
beasts," said Chirin, "you know...the ones hiding in the other 
passages?"

"Maybe," said Crazy Lights.

"But you're right, we can't think like that."

"Yeah."

Chirin was amazed that he had even let himself talk like this. What 
had become of him down here? How could he let these deeplands get the 
best of him? No, there were ways to summon light even in the deepest 
places, like these caves. 

Crazy Lights and Chirin-chirin walked side by side, one ampharos 
fully in the flesh, the other just catching on vision, flecks of 
light shining through the ordinary world on the edge of his vision, 
on the border of his blind spot, and felt in the dull damp drafts 
that sighed through the long tunnels. 

"Do you know any songs?" said Crazy Lights. "I think that might help."

"Know any songs..." Chirin tried to recall the one Mieh had sung, 
which had started out more of a telling and ended up a rhythmic song. 
Mieh had not known the story perfectly and had probably been 
uncertain about the beginning, was the impression he had gotten. "I 
wish I knew more stories than I did."

"I don't really know any," said Crazy Lights, "or I can't think of 
any right now."

"Maybe I can," said Chirin, looking around them at their 
surroundings, which held a fascinating beauty to them. He just wished 
he wasn't in the situation he was in, that his flock was well and he 
knew the way out. But beauty came at random times, the spirits flung 
amazing sights at you whether you felt like seeking them out or not. 
C'est la vie.

"I remember a story!" he said all of a sudden. "Part of the prophecy 
of Denrai. It...wait, wait, lemme think...Oh, Phos, good thunder, I 
heard this story when I was way young--before my first winter. It was 
about Celebi."

"Celebi...hm...some say they don't even exist," said Crazy Lights. 

"I believe in them," said Chirin. Why not believe in them--what, 
really, did he not believe in ater what his light-path had brought 
him so far--and while he was still so young? 

Unearthing the memory brought him a slight headache--it was linked to 
the exhaustion and the fact that he was far from fully healed. "Thank 
you, Crazy Lights," he gave his invisible friend a hug, flinging his 
flippers around himself and squeezing despite the pain. He sat down 
on the floor, just as if a flock was gathering round to hear it, or 
even just Selden. Chirin needed a rest anyway, and his mind needed it 
far more than his legs. If he didn't do this, get new light energy 
from a story, these caves might overwhelm him with their spirit 
presence--which was most certainly turning menacing. 

"Sit down too," said Chirin, patting the stone with tail and flipper. 
Crazy Lights sat down near Chirin and made himself comfortable. "I 
sing the story of Denrai's prophecy. The ampharos who had been 
oppressed by Bua na Kuros had known about the prophecy for a long 
time that said he would come, because Celebi had made it so--or so 
they say. I don't remember every verse, but I remember almost all of 
them." He ran through it in his head, and as he did so, more parts 
fell into place. "All right, I'm ready. 

'When Mother Megga folds in sleep
And roots go dry in lands down deep
The celebi untucks and peeps
Celebi, fly back.

Some say the world will bristle with frost
Winter's breath will freeze the moss
Dark delights at what a cost
Celebi, bring back.

Something bad from nature comes 
From the punished lands it hums
Racing to the dark one's drums
Celebi, come quick.

One to wreck and one to save
To bring the world back from the grave
When the light-folk are enslaved
Celebi, fly forth.

Celebi of magic time,
Making thickets, forests fine,
Brings the legend to its prime,
Celebi... bring him!

Denrai silver, born in gloom,
Horned with lights of pearl and moon,
Your destiny awaits you soon,
The time unsure, but nigh...

Grow stronger as the world grows weak
When grown your future you will seek,
The Celebi unfolds and peeks
Bringing us, Denrai.'

"And so, they said the prophecy will come true with Celebi's help. 
Celebi brings a magic to Clef and to a chosen ewe, and then the birth 
of Denrai takes place. It..."

Chirin paused to cry. Where was Celebi now? He knew there was so much 
more to this prophecy, but it was lost to him now. So long ag othey 
had sung this song...with Bua back, and Chirin had no doubt it was 
the same one, did that mean he was oppressing the light of denryuu 
somewhere already? for how long? How had he come back? For the first 
time Chirin was beginning to feel like he was thinking clearly on all 
that he had learned. Divorced by time from the immediate shock of 
what had befallen him and his flock, he wsa beginning to collect his 
thoughts. Did this mean Denrai would come back too? Chirin knew he 
wasn't Denrai. He would know if he was Denrai. He'd be silver, or 
part silver...he would have some special mark on him that said he was 
special. His gift, well, that was a gift from his ancestors...it did 
not mean he was Denrai. 

How had he even started to think he was Denrai at all? What hubris! 
Denrai wouldn't have gotten stuck in these tunnels, he could 
have...done something to get out.

~

His currents explored the inner workings of his own body and once 
again he had to wonder at its beauty. He was double glad that he had 
decided not to give up--or all the beauty that remained inside him 
would have been destroyed. And everyone in his flock, all of them 
must have these marvels inside them too, and he could not help but 
feel they depended on him, because he was the one who had gotten 
away. 

He let his gift flow around and explore. All the damage was done only 
to the outer shell of him, his skin and the muscles and blood vesels 
just beneath. Where he felt a bruise, he discovered a leaking of 
blood in the corresponding spot. Well, he'd always known a bruise was 
a wrong, something broken on the inside. Thanks to the gift that had 
both cursed and blessed him, the power to aid himself in healing was 
all his, only limited by how much he knew. While he set to work 
trying to weave the wreckages of the worst wounds back into their 
rightful places, his thoughts turned again to Kyuri. Why couldn't he 
have tried to heal her with the gift? Healing another would be as 
easy as himself and Kyuri would have been ready and willing to let 
him treat her. Kyuri had told him of the evils of humans and of 
parents who would never find her. He wondered if she had found them 
now. Surely she must be happier in spirit than she had been in 
life... She had said she'd gone towards the light, towards the light-
path's end that he had only delayed by hours. 

He opened his eyes and saw Starla looking down at him, and all his 
efforts at putting some expression on his face were met with pain. 
She didn't know he was deeply enmeshed in the process of healing 
himself, of taking his wounds by their infinitely tiny frays and 
weaving them back together, dividing his electris gift again and 
again until thousands of connections sparked energy, shifted tiny 
units this way and that towards the cause of the giant whole that was 
him.

"Hi," he said with a rasp and a blip of deep voice that sounded like 
something had dragged it from the bottom of a swamp. His eyes, of 
which the right one had been knocked partly blind somehow, gazed at 
the thread of pity on her face. As he directed his gift to clearing 
up the burst of blood in his eye her face came into the full scope of 
his sight, shining something like sympathy on him.

"Hi," she said, unsmiling. 

All he mustered was a few tired blinks, eyelids moving over eyes he 
was thanking the ancients for sparing in the thrashing he had taken. 

"Starla, he killed Lourdes, I wouldn't be too friendly. He's full of 
tricks."

"No," said Chirin like gravel in mud. "No."

"Lourdes heard too many of your lies," said Quiggus as Chirin 
breathed through lungs that felt like Rizaa had shoved fireballs down 
into. Was there no part of him that wasn't in pain right now? No part 
of body or soul? Everything he had known before the attack felt like 
a distant, other life that he was forever separated from. This was a 
new realm and he had been exiled into it. Some demon had 
whispered, 'Exibos,' in the clouds, exibos in the grass, exibos in 
the alcove where he had last slept with his flock. And the magic had 
done the rest. The thing that had torn his flock asunder and  taken 
his life in its teeth would not rest until it had destroyed him. Was 
that why he fought so hard--because some part of his soul knew what 
lay beyond and that it was far, far worse? 

The gift's efforts at healing him were tipping their balance away 
again, tiring him out. He must give it a rest and surrender to not 
being healed up yet. Chirin spoke with his tears, looked at the 
quagsires letting the salt trickle down his hurt face. His eyes 
stared back from sockets of pain and discoloration. In his mind he 
saw a thousand scars between him and Quiggus. 

Quiggus looked back at him like a challenge turned to stone. 
Everything seemed frozen or slowed down. Chirin saw a thousand wounds 
opening. 

"You don't know what life at Moonhome has turned to," he said to the 
ampharos as if  he was just anyone to talk to, and that maybe he had 
been too quick to blame. 

"You say it's because of me..." A tickle caught in Chirin's throat 
and he rolled on his side coughing, spasming with a thick wave of 
pain. "Why would I."

He lay faced away from the quagsires, smelling the fish they'd eaten 
and, much more faintly, the slime on their skin. "I was a lamb...I 
still am. I only want to live and love." The sound of his rough, 
sandy voice scared him, the battered beast in his throat, talking 
through swollen lips was not his real voice. He lapsed into whispers 
as he turned his head and body rolling onto his back again so they 
could hear him. "It's easy to say I did it...much harder to seek the 
truth."

Quiggus just glared back at the wounded heap of a sheep. He 
had no words and that angered him. In a sudden fit of energy he got 
up and gave the ampharos a kick in the side. 

"Uh..." Chirin rolled over away from the quagsires, showing them his 
back, crisscrossed with blobs, old cuts and new ones. They glared at 
the fish pokemon, a thousand wounds, a thousand eyes. He lay with his 
gift working to heal him, a long journey taken to the steps of his 
breathing. They became footsteps through sunshine in his mind, he was 
flying to Pharos with the wind spirits. He wormed through his own 
wounds, feeling nerves twitch as he slowly repaired the damage. 
Sometimes pain, sometimes pleasure. Healing came like a light through 
fog, oozing slower than years, surrounded by a haze of dark and 
screeching stone.

"You can't talk of truth when you lie, Chirin," said Quiggus, whose 
voice was losing conviction. "Lourdes was found dead in her 
sleep...takenaway to death by something no one saw. You talked of 
spirits. They run strongly in you. And Lourdes saw somethingin you 
right from the start. She doesn't let just anyone into Moon-Home 
Middle like she did you. She knew you had something extra and...well, 
if you did not do it, explain the first curse on Gonga and his 
further corruption since you saw to him."

"I can't explain," he sighed like a jagged wind. "There is nothing in 
here...only the truth. I did not hurt her. I left Moonhome with well-
wishes of light." The healing was beginning to noticeably affect him 
now, reviving him slowly. Bruises began to recede, the tide of pain 
lessening ever so slightly. It would still be days before he felt 
back to normal...if the quagsires gave him that long. 

Quiggus watched Chirin sit up slowly and painfully, turning to look 
at him with his head and neck a stack of wounds. How was he even 
moving?

Someone with such a drive to live...should they really kill him 
outright here? They had orders to bring him back alive and Gonga had 
holes in his eyelids...and eyes everywhere. But how could he 
apologize to Chirin now, after all they had done to him? 

The ampharos looked at him with intelligent eyes that glistened 
darkly in his own light. "Kyuri...I could say that you killed her... 
I could slander you, scream murderer at you...but that I know how it 
feels to be called that."

The urge to apologize tugged at Quiggus. 

"There's terrible evil in the world right now...a wrongness is 
flowing in the caves and the wind. It's been after me for a while...I 
am the last survivor of my flock. I think that it and the humans 
killed my family and want to finish their deed by taking me too. 
They've followed me...My ancestors warn of its approach, but no 
warning can help me brace for what's happened to me and my 
friends...only a flicker for me to follow...only a blink against a 
shadow swallowing me..."

Chirin paused to gather his concentration again. It was not easy to 
keep it against such pain and healing effort. 

"Many evils, buried deep, many shadows cast on sheep..." Chirin's 
words walked a line between two realms. "The evil that follows me 
could have killed Lourdes...but I didn't know...oh Mother Megga, I 
would have done anything I could have to save her...she's my dear 
light-friend."

"Was."

"Is," said Chirin. "She lives in me and won't ever die...I feel like 
I failed her, failed to even fight the evil that must have taken 
her...Spirits of the sky and Clef forgive me."

Quiggus could not come out and apologize. Whether he had even made a 
mistake remained to be seen.  "Was because she would not be your 
light-friend now if you killed her," he said and turned back to the 
fish scraps. 

Chrin lay back down and expanded his gift's reach inside him, 
resuming the task of reversing his wounds at least enough to help him 
get free. The reality of Quiggus's words were just beginning to hit 
him. Moonhome too, turned evil the same way as his flock had been 
taken? Quiggus had seemed to convey that life in Moonhome had turned 
to hell in water.

"My flock was taken--one of them killed while I watched--by ampharos 
possessed of the darkness. The wind sprung up and called them 
somehow...possessed them or...signalled their souls to prey on those 
around them. My flock and I were attacked...out there on the grass, 
hitting and chasing, lightning and headbutts. They kil--" Chirin was 
swept over by the emotion the memories hauled in with them. Selden 
screaming and crying, Karama's newly met sister dying before his 
eyes, Boulder, his dear friend, turning, possessed, on him--

He sniffled, recovering himself. "They killed some, they didn't 
care...didn't care that those pokemon were alive and feeling...I saw 
the evil descend on the field like a thousand slashing shadows. I saw 
so much stuff I'll never forget. Don't--don't tell me the same thing 
happened in Moonhome?"

There was a pause before the quagsire answered.

"Not quite like that," said Quiggus in a more civil and subdued 
voice. "Gonga--changed...he had turned Moonhome into a place for 
fighting and conquest...He's ordered the three us to set off in 
search of the...voltorb colony. That's why we came here." He kept his 
voice neutral. If he spoke ill of the mission--who knew if Gonga was 
listening?

"Voltorbs?" Chirin cocked his head. "What are they?"

"A Round-Moon pokemon that lives underground, not far from here. Our 
orders are to locate it and bring back news of where it is. And you 
are coming with us, as soon as you can walk." His voice hardened 
again. There were no two ways about it, and the plans were set again.

"All right," said Chirin, finding hope in agreeing to this. So they 
would not kill him outright, at least. There was hope of escape. 

"Walk?" said Bloob, looking over at the amp. "I'm surprised he's 
breathing. I thought we were going to kill him?"

"We are required by Gonga to bring him back alive," said 
Quiggus, "and Gonga is always watching."

"Always watching?" said Chirin, recovering more alertness. A little 
more healing and he would be able to rest again, and meditate, 
pouring out his thanks to his ancestors for helping to haul him 
through alive. For screaming at his heart loud enough that he had 
grabbed on and not given up. Many times during the pain and torture 
that the tunnels had put him through, he could have let go and 
swirled away into death, picking an easier end. Azalea and the 
butterflies were still very far away but they suddenly felt a little 
closer.

Always watching? It sounded too familiar to him, and he was sure he 
knew already how Gonga was watching. 

"Gonga can speak through the wind and the water now, he can talk 
through things...It's hard to explain, but it is part of the curse 
that the ampharos laid on him."

"Mother Megga..." Chirin shuddered, staring at Quiggus like he saw 
ten thousand amps marching on them. "What is my kind doing? What is 
so wrong here? I...This is not the way," hie voice broke into a 
ragged wail, "This is not what my kind does. We eat grass. We live 
and breathe and feel passions of anger and love. We struggle through 
winter and bound in summer. We don't go around casting darknes...no, 
this is an evil that has possessed my kind."

"We believe it," said Quiggus, "because it also possessed Gonga. But 
we know you have played a part in it, Chirin. You're not as innocent 
as you say." 

"I'll tell you all I know," said Chirin, knowing just by feeling with 
his gift that the dark one was not watching right now, and he decided 
not to tell them anything about his own gift. To say he knew Gonga 
wasn't listening was to tell them he knew things. But...how he 
yearned to set these Quagsires free. He didn't hate them. Chirin had 
felt the rage in him when his flock had been hurt...these were more 
innocent victims. But he would still escape from them the moment he 
got the chance. If Gonga got a second chance at him, so much stronger 
than he had been the last time... 

No, not Gonga, the evil thing possessing him. If Gonga had been 
possessed by the evil then Boulder and the others probably had been 
too. He struggled to remember what Lourdes had told him about Gonga. 
Gonga had gone away on a journey through River-deep and somewhere 
down that journey, past where anyone else had traveled in their 
knowledge, he had encountered an entity that took root in him and had 
never let go. 

He let the healing of his gift wind down slower so he could 
concentrate on what he was say. A million cells mending, a million 
sparks weaving, but in front of all the busywork inside him there 
were two mouths talking that did a lot more. "Lourdes told me--she--" 
He breathed in and out. "She told me Gonga went on a mysterious 
journey, down river-deep, a river below the land. There was River-
high and River deep."

"We know that," said Quiggus, "and River-deep is this river." He 
gestured to the water they sat beside. "It stretches long and 
distant, passing under the eerie lake, and what he encountered was in 
the far southern reaches of River-deep."

"Yes. And Gonga came back full of darkness and madness. He said that 
an ampharos did it to him."

Feeling his breath beginning to labor and his muscles tensing, Chirin 
relaxed his gift further, giving himself a rest. He was only 
beginning to understand the complexities of how his body healed 
itself, and so healing came very slowly. If he was not careful he 
also ended up worsening wounds instead of fixing them.

"I would say I'm sorry for what my kind did to yours...rather I 
do...I wish I could have stopped it," said Chirin, his tears 
reflecting the light on the water, his own light reflected. He 
watched River-deep flow on, water dark and deep as his own eyes as he 
sat by its edge. "I'm sorry that I couldn't be there to help Lourdes 
and do something when that evil attacked her," his voice tapered to a 
whisper. "But I can't apologize on their behalf...they're not me and 
I'm not them... Their souls are troubled and they need help like 
Gonga does. I'll do what I can to stop them. But I can't do it alone, 
I need help."

"Gonga listens."

Chirin gulped. "No...he doesn't. Not right now."

"You know," said Quiggus, not sounding surprised. 

"Yeah." Chirin had taken the chance without thinking. He couldn't 
hold the secret back from them. They were prisoners too. 

Quiggus jumped up and pointed to him. "You..."

"I have my own gift," he said, ears drooping and eyes sad as the 
bruises slowly receded from his skin--a process too gradual to 
observe, but could be seen if you looked away for a while, and then 
looked back.  "And I know I'm not evil. I'm telling you so you know 
that right here, right now, you can talk with me openly...without 
fear. I want to help you."

"We nearly killed you," said Quiggus. "We were planning on it."

"But you didn't."

Quiggus flicked a fishbone into the water. 

"Many spirit voices speak in rock and stone..." said Chirin. "Many 
pokemon feel they are alone...I'll help you if you'll help me," he 
said. 

"There's no guarantee that Gonga won't start watching us again," said 
Starla, sitting down next to Quiggus. "He watches on and off...we can 
never know."

"I always know," said Chirin, "it isn't Gonga. It's this darker evil 
thing that's possessed him somehow. I think the same evil got my 
flock and Moonhome. That's why we shouldn't be enemies." He looked 
down at his still-healing lap. "The ancients only know for sure, but 
if we work together we can have a hope of stopping this evil before 
it gets worse. Rather than just...killing each other."

His face curled towards harder crying but he kept his eyes trained on 
Quiggus. "I know that I could be making this all up...that you don't 
believe a word I'm saying... but why does Gonga want me? You said 
there were orders to take me alive. Something's so twisted and wrong 
that--that I don't know how to begin to approach it. But something 
has to be done...if only it were as simple as me cursing her...it 
wouldn't run so deep as I feel it does."

The quagsires and ampharos sat there in the caves in silence. Chirin 
felt that his words had penetrated at least somewhat into their 
stubborn thoughts, blockaded by grieving for Lourdes, whom he might 
have grieved for in the same way if he had lived amongst them. He was 
grieving now and he had only met her once. She had been so kind and 
loving...and what of Gonga, who had reportedly been the same? Gonga 
wanted him because the evil did--it made perfect sense. 

Chirin dropped back to the floor to speak to the spirits below the 
caven. The evil lay somewhere down there...He had to figure out why 
it was doing what it was doing, and how it could be persuaded to stop 
or how he could break its power. His gift was what he had in common 
with it. And someone else had fought it and been successful--Denrai. 
But it had come back even after what he had done. How could Chirin 
possibly succeed where Denrai had failed? 

All this stitching together of evil and good, this gift he had...was 
it his destiny to die fighting this enemy? Was this why the spirits 
seemed not to care that Chirin kept losing everyone he loved? That 
everyone precious to him lay strewn behind him in his light-path, 
speeding away through the past? 

Quiggus watched Chirin press his nose to stone and blink his lights 
rhythmically. He was feeling more and more like they had the wrong 
pokemon. And if they did, what had they done? Something too evil to 
think of. 

Chirin stood up from the session of prayer and speaking with his 
cheeks still wet with tears. "I wish there was an easier clearer path 
for us," said Chirin, "but at least you've decided not to kill me."  
Cud found its way to his mouth and he chewed...while he still could. 
His belly was still satisfied from the gorge outside, but it would 
not last long. "I will starve down here...just thought I should tell 
you that."

"We won't let you starve," said Quiggus. "We'll be coming back out 
the way we came and you can eat then. We only have to find the colony 
and then head back to Moonhome. Gonga wants you alive, so he won't 
let you die either."

Chirin supposed he should be thankful. He watched the quagsires toss 
the last of the fish remans into the water and get up to head on. He 
could only hope that by talking to them some more he could gain their 
help or learn more about this mess. "So you know that I didn't kill 
Lourdes?" he said, resigning to traveling with them for right 
now. "As much as anyone can know it?"

"We can't know," said Quiggus. "Gonga wants you alive and so it will 
be done. Come on. You will light our way."

He didn't leave much room for argument as he and the other two 
Quagsires stood up too and started off down one of the tunnels.

"What's your name?" Chirin fell into step beside Quiggus.

"That's not for you to know," said the quagsire. "Whether or not you 
killed our Round-Moon-Mother, you are cursed and full of dangerous 
powers. You would do well to stay away from anyone you wish well. You 
say that you lost one flock when you were younger and another now?"

"Yes," said Chirin, "but it wasn't for any lack of my trying to hold 
things together. My goodness--how could anyone think I ever wished 
them ill? Any of them? I love them! They are never totally lost to 
me."

"You are cursed, plain and simple," said Quiggus. "It could have 
happened to you before your birth, maybe later...but you're 
dangerous. You may have not willed Lourdes to die, after all, but it 
doesn't matter, you are still connected to her death."

"Does that make me evil?" 

"That's open to an endless debate that I have no heart for right 
now," was all Quiggus said.

Chirin couldn't shake the words as his light led the Quagsires on. 
They didn't question how he was able to get up and walk with almost 
no limp after having been beaten almost to death. They knew it like 
he did, that he was special and it was not a good thing. But Chirin 
would not undo it...if he could heal he would...the real curse was 
that he always seemed to have to live to survive the next bout of 
darkness and torture. It was so hard to tell himself that things 
would get better when everything all over the place, from every 
angle, was getting worse, and this at a time when he had thought that 
nothing could get worse. He was learning the harsh lesson that things 
could *always* get worse.

"Phos don't let me lose my lights
The lights by which you lead me
Through dark times and scary sights
Towards a flock that needs me."

Chirin sang the prayer aloud, not caring if the quagsires heard as 
they traveled the tunnel next to River-deep, walking in the shallows 
at times. They already had his name and seemed to know things about 
him that even he didn't. Chirin headed along, their prisoner, forced 
to light the way for them. He wondered how it would turn out if he 
dimmed his lights and refused to go any further--but they had set out 
not expecting to have an ampharos to light the tunnels for them. They 
would have accomplished it without light just fine, therefore. He 
stuck to his present plan of seeming like he had resigned, when 
really his eyes followed every tunnel that branched off and his nose 
filtered every mote of air, any sign of an escape route. While at the 
same time his mind was wondering where in the world he could escape 
to. He couldn't keep running from Bua na Kuros, that was for sure. 
the power of ancients was too great. Was this gift an ancient power 
that only a few, like him and Denrai, were born with? What was it and 
why did he have it? Why him? He asked the spirits of the wind in the 
passages, he pleaded the souls hanging in the flowstone, swimming in 
the river, why. They never gave a definite answer...they never just 
came out and spoke to him, although they were everywhere down here, 
present so thickly in some places that the stalactites seemed to move 
in his light, stone and shadow whispering to each other around the 
blind spot at the back of his head. 

They walked in silence for a long time. There would be no escape 
right now, that was for sure. Chirin pleaded the spirits to give him 
a sign as he went, help him somehow--he was lost and afraid and 
captive. It would have been better to go along with the rest of his 
flock--at least he would have been captive with them, not all alone 
in the underground. Curse his grandiose ideas of getting to the top 
of that mountain! He had thought he could save them all, against an 
evil that had all Moonhome in its grip!

The southern part of River-deep..."Which way does River-deep lead 
when it goes far south? Towards the west or east? Or straight south?"

"Towards the west, beneath the strait," said Starla. "We're not sure 
exactly where the strait is. Why do you ask?"

"My own curiosity," said Chirin, feeling bitter and reluctant to tell 
them wha went on inside his mind. He would give them no more power 
than they had already taken. These animals had tried to kill him once 
and they might try again if they decided he was too dangerous...if 
his spirit powers appeared to them to fill ever recess in the caves 
and within them, too much power to be allowed to live. And he had 
always thought himself to be no more powerful or gifted than any 
other denryuu. Up until recently his gift had been nothing more to 
him than a strange quirk with potential for healing powers. He had 
assumed it was what had given Chrnja her powers and no more than 
that. He wondered how much Chenja had learned of the gift in her many 
years of life.

And Lararu, singing and clutching the lightball while Chirin the lamb 
watched from the bushes. A lot had happened in his flock that he had 
been too young to understand. They must have been trying to protect 
the flock from the evil, which had gotten them in the end--possessed 
the humans to get them, maybe? He didn't know what to do--consult the 
spirits or think things through on his own. The spirits often told 
one thing and did another, but going it alone carried so much risk. 
He constantly walked a balance between going his light-path and 
trying to appease or avert those who sought to destroy him. He 
couldn't help but feel like he was losing, the balance destroyed. 

"You are Chirin-chirin of the beacon flock of Pharos," said Quiggus 
slowly. Chirin growled under his breath, fighting back tears. 

"That's my name to give," he said, glaring--

"And you gave it. To Moonhome. That's how we know it. Where is 
Pharos?"

"Why do you want to know?" Chirin edged away from them, or he tried. 
The last thing he would have was them storming his homelands, 
trodding on sacred ground with their accusations of murder! He glared 
at them with a ram's anger. "Don't you know enough of me that I 
haven't chosen to give you?"

Quiggus looked at the teary-eyed sheep. "Maybe we are trying to work 
with you and this time it's you who won't budge."

"You never even told me your names."

"You are too powerful to risk it."

"I didn't have to tell you I have this stupid gift!" bleated Chirin, 
bursting into tears. He whirled to face them and their steady walk 
stopped. "I don't even want it! I told you so that you could feel 
like you could talk to me openly knowing that Gonga is not watching--
and now you trust me even less! What am I supposed to do? Good Phos, 
I've lost everything down here! I have nothing! Not even Kyuri and 
Amara...you took them from me too!"

"I'm sorry about Kyuri," said Quiggus finally.

 Chirin didn't know how to answer at first. So he said what he 
felt...which was always honest if nothing else. Even though he wasn't 
being totally honest to them right now he of course had every right 
to not be. They were debating whether he should live or die. 

"Only Kyuri herself can know how she feels about what happened," said 
Chirin, "I guess it's hitting you now that you ended her life. I know 
how you feel because I've killed too in the past--in defense of me 
and my flock, but that doesn't mean I still don't feel regret at 
times, when I think back on it. It doesn't mean that the spirits will 
ever truly stop haunting me or that anyone who witnessed it will ever 
forget it." He walked a few paces in silence, resigning himself to 
moving again. If he wanted to get out alive it was best to hurry 
along and spend as little time in tunnels as possible, since there 
was no food in them. "I think that the best we can do to appease the 
dead is remember their names, speak to them, offer gifts if you feel 
they need them, and to treat the living with better respect--treat 
them like you'd want to be treated."

His light left the ceiling and swung forward, ahead of them, as he 
watched his feet while he walked. What was brewing in this silence? 
Were they feeling guilty--the victims of their darkness gnawing at 
their souls--or were they just trying to ignore everything he was 
saying? Or both? 

He kept hearing the echoes of his screaming bleats as he walked in 
the quiet tunnel, the only conversation coming from the waters of 
River-deep.

The gift...could he use the gift to escape? Bua seemed to use it for 
everything and anything, but Chirin was sure his own powers didn't 
have half Bua's potential. Nevertheless, they were what he had and he 
was sure that once he got to Moonhome there would be no escaping for 
him. Not if most or even all of them thought he had killed Lourdes! 

"Let's just get this mission completed and once we get to Moonhome 
I'm sure many of our questions will be answered," said Quiggus as 
they continued along the river.  Chirin stumbled along, still injured 
but trying to heal himself as he went. But when the body was in 
motion it became much more difficult to heal it. He resigned to 
waiting until they next got a rest, and returned to chewing cud and 
placing his mind back in that bounding butterfree place.

Moonhome...

He thought deeply as he led the Quagsires with his lights, an 
unwilling beacon for dark deeds. For if that evil spirit inside Gonga 
had ordered it, it was probably darkly motivated. He kept his soul 
alive with flaps of summer petals, an eternal white-flowered glade in 
his mind. How was that Iris doing? he wondered? She had disappeared 
on one of those rainy afternoons and never returned. He sent a prayer 
for her on the wind in the caverns, sending it up with a lift of his 
flipper and he blew on it, his eyes and light directing it upwards 
with flutters of red.

"What are you doing?" said Quiggus.

"Sending one of my friends a Butterfree wish for happiness and 
pleasure," said Chirin, regarding the quagsire with--of all things--a 
small smile. Quiggus could not stop him from sending all the fuzzy-
buzzy hugs of summer warm that he wanted to! In his mind he took on 
Butterfree form, its essence flying him free even in these dar 
caverns. He would not become a victim to the evil...

Moonhome. Could the root of the trouble lie there, with Gonga? Bua na 
Kuros was within that Quagsire, he knew. He had experienced it once 
and it made sense...if Bua was in Gonga then Chirin had to go to face 
him there. Was his own gift strong enough, though, to take him on? 
Was there a way to be sly, like the Sneasel, employ the ice-cat's 
stealth. Was there any other way to stop this 
mounting power? He had to get at its root before Bua killed another 
like Lourdes...or like every helpless wooper or mareep that had 
gotten caught up in this horror. Yes, Chirin had to go to Moonhome.

But Phos damn him under the mud if he was doing it on these 
quagsires' terms. No, he would do it his own way...Chirin threw back 
his head to take in the energy of Ysgard, he thrust out his smooth 
white chest and his flippers flew back like a wind pushed them back. 
He blinked those lights of his in an animated pattern. Ysgard still 
ran over the southern slopes, Gunya jumped in the rain and Mama 
walked at his side on the windblown beach. 

Chirin headed on wondering just how he was going to separate himself 
from these three. If only he really did have more stealth. He had 
failed to really reach them beyond convincing them that he had not 
killed Lourdes on purpose, but that he had done it due to the evil 
powers he possessed and was thus still guilty. Part of Chirin said 
that yes, that did make him guilty--but then wasn't he going to risk 
everything to rectify it? And if he wasn't, how would his death help 
anything? 

Two voices, one light, one dark, hard to see which was which. One 
told him, he was guilty, going with them was the right thing to do. 
Lourdes would not have died if Bua's spirit had not been roused 
somehow by Chirin's presence and called to begin cutting a swath of 
destruction through Mother Megga's whole. The other side said there 
was no way these quagsires, Gonga or even the spirits themselves were 
going to determine his light-path and force him to sit by while evil 
blossomed and bloomed. His light-path shone for him and if it wasn't 
his, there was no point in traveling it. 

The caves brightened both ahead and behind them. He had left the 
spirits to decide what was right and what wasn't, for too long. Look 
what was happening! The ancients were failing to subdue one of their 
own... and if Bua insisted on calling to him, Chirin would answer--if 
he didn't do anything, what would become of his flock? Would the 
ancients care what happened when they were busy cowering at Bua? If 
they were really as strong and all powerful as everyone said they 
were they would have stopped it...or if they really were that 
powerful, and Chirin had experienced many instances of their power--
then they just didn't care. They did not care that this dark atrocity 
was ravaging their own kind. He could not doubt that the spirits were 
very much there, but if they were going to do nothing 
then...well...screw them. He had not been given a mind in his skull 
and a heart in his chest so that he could let the evil seep in...

If the spirits would not do it then he was going to. And if he died 
trying...that didn't mean he had to stop. 

He swallowed at the thought of dying and flashed his lights to ward 
off the spirits, and their possible anger at his thoughts. And he 
added a spark on the end--he was doing this his way.

Right now, that way had to involve keeping with these quagsires and 
making like he was obedient or...something. He thought of what the 
spirits would have to say about his thoughts and wondered how far 
they could reach into his head. Had they heard his angry thoughts and 
abandoned him? Even if he fought for them as well as his kind? All he 
was doing was trying to figure out how best to help!

He would go ahead with it anyway. He cast a spell in his head, 
sealing off a tiny part of it where he could put all his really 
private secret thoughts, and from thereon, he did all his thinking 
from there. But he still did some thinking in the whole part, just so 
the snooping spirits wouldn't wonder why he had stopped thinking and 
begin to search for where he was hiding his thoughts. And he made 
sure that *those* thoughts were respectful and in awe and full of 
light...or their idea of light. 

The spirits had known for a long time, after all, that Chirin did a 
lot of thinking. He had to keep up appearances.

The river wound, its slow current lazing along eastward. The 
quagsires made occasional talk amongst themselves but were usually 
silent, except for saying things like "Around that way," or, when the 
banks dropped off, "We should swim this part, the bank's too steep." 
Chirin swam alongside the much more water-graceful Quagsires with 
little problem, although his pace slowed them all down. Chirin did 
not swim especially fast even for himself. He wanted to conserve his 
energy as there was no food down here and he needed time to think of 
an escape. He wracked his brain for Denrai's escapes in the stories, 
but they had all involved the spirits' aid to some extent or another. 
Chirin already knew he could not rely on them like that--he had 
always known that. 

If Azalea had been here...she'd have thought of something, probably 
already put it in action by now. Chirin sent her a butterfree kiss as 
he paddled through the waters, lit red from below by his undulating 
tail. His body had healed pretty well after many long and involving 
sessions with his gift...he was a healer now. If only he had learned 
the art of it a day earlier! He could have healed Kyuri, he was sure. 
He wanted to honor her somehow, show to the world above that she had 
been his friend and still was, that he would never forget her. She 
was so small and had spent so much time alone. Her soul was as big 
and important as anyone else's--as big as Bua, him, Calima, Iris, 
Izzy or anyone else who had ever been born. She couldn't be 
forgotten, thrown away. He wouldn't let her be.

"These--round-moon-pokemon Voltorbs--what are they like?" said Chirin 
as he swam alongside the quagsires, trying to make some conversation 
and find things out at the same time. 

"We don't know much about them," said Starla, just ahead of him. "We 
only know they are of an electric nature like your kind and that 
Gonga issued an order to find out where they are and report back."

"I wonder if he plans to do anything to them," said Chirin, "like the 
evil spirit did to my flock." He blinked sadly at the water ahead of 
him and paused briefly in his paddling.

"I don't know," she said with sympathy showing in her voice. Chirin 
liked this one--she wasn't turning her shoulder on him just because 
fear and rumor had decreed that he was this evil thing. He would 
avoid hurting her at all if escape demanded he attack them, which he 
would try to avoid too. 

Quiggus and Bloob were talking amongst themselves too now, leaving 
Starla and Chirin to swim just ahead of them for now, Chirin lighting 
the wy down the river.

"If he does have plans," Chrin said keeping his voice below the level 
of the other conversation, "they've got to be stopped. Before any 
more innocents get hurt. I--it pains me to think of what might be 
going on outside to my flock, I love them so much. I'm sorry," he 
turned away letting his tears join River Deep. It already head him so 
deep in its current and essence that his tears would not bind him any 
more--and if the river tried, it would find out how he fought. Tired 
of being bound down, he was.

"It's okay," said Starla, also keeping quiet. "I should be sorry. I 
never really gave you a chance. I just heard what they all said back 
home, but you're not an evil witch at all."

"Evil witch?" Chirin found himself smiling actually. "That's what 
they said?"

"Yeah. Not everybody but some. And--well, I was one of them."

"It's okay," said Chirin, "you didn't know, you had never met me 
really. I think we're almost all guilty of judging some things before 
we meet them. I've done it...almost everyone has probably. Now I 
won't say everyone because there are always exceptions to everything."

"Everything?"

"Everything. That's the only thing to which there are no exceptions, 
I think."

Starla laughed, her voice almost getting louder than Bloob and 
Quiggus, who were discussing River Deep and its fabled tributaries 
and where they all led. "You're funny."

"Thanks...What's your name?" he asked more softly. "I just--I want to 
have a name to talk to, I'm not going to hurt--"

"Starla," she whispered.

"Thanks," he whispered back, aware the other two weren't supposed to 
know. He winked at her, as if to say, It'll be okay. Before he said 
what he wanted to say next, he pulsed thoughts of quiet behind him, 
trying to effect some sort of magic that would help keep them from 
being overheard. "You are my light-friend," he whispered. 

"Lightfriend?"

"It means a special friend."

"Oh...Thanks."

And the shadows stalking over the captive ampharos's head seemed to 
weaken, the angry bellows of the dead and the lost ceased their 
echoes through corridors high and low. Chirin realized that maybe he 
had an influence on the spirits that way, just like they did him. His 
happiness or hope could radiate to them, as his rage could fuel their 
fury. It was something to think about as he gave Starla his smile, 
agreeing without words to keep his knowledge of her name, and their 
friendship, a secret. 

~

Chirin swam alongside Starla feeling renewed. He felt like in this 
big big world where he kept gaining friend only to lose them again, 
that right here and now she was his friend and on his side... he 
would appreciate it all he could and do his damndest to keep it from 
being taken away from him. 

It was so hard to keep his desires and plans for escaping at first 
chance, tucked away, but were they really such a secret anyway? He 
thought them so hard that everyone must feel them humming in the 
water, and even if they didn't, they knew he wanted to escape very 
badly. He'd already tried once and gotten himself nearly killed for 
it! 

The river sped up and slowed down, Chirin could feel its moods and 
energies alter as it carried them in its long body. But he was amazed 
at how much stronger he felt with Starla as his friend now. He no 
longer felt so horribly outnumbered and overpowered, and alone 
against everything. Swimming was no longer as much of a chore...and 
his ears had picked back up. He remembered dancing with his apricorn 
shell swinging on its thread from his neck, he remembered decorating 
himself with paint and flowers. He would find his way to that world 
again.

"So you were sent on duty by Gonga?" said Chirin very quietly as they 
swam along. They sped up just a little to get clear of the other two, 
but not so clear it would look suspicious. 

"Yes," said Starla. "Well--not the real Gonga. Is he watching right 
now?"

Chirin felt around with his gift, and left it handing like a loose 
aura around them, realizing he must be more vigilant now. "No, he 
isn't. No one is."

"How do you feel that? How--what is this power Is it like another 
sense?"

"It's...a sense and a...tool, it's, there's no easy way to describe 
it." No one had really asked him that before... not like Starla was 
asking it. Azalea had come the closest to asking and they had been 
separated before he had learned the true nature of his 
powers. "Except that it's an electric power...to reach your *denki* 
out on the currents you sense and channel it through them, through 
air, anything in which energy flows...and that's everything."

"How do you do it?"

"I...well, I always knew how to sense electricity a little 
bit...enough to aim my bolts and...things like that. But then I 
started to feel the currents in a tiny detailed way and I found 
myself exploring the tiniest parts of things and then...I was able to 
manipulate them, like parting the stem of a berry to make it fall to 
the ground. Little things like that. It took me a while to discover 
all it truly can do...and I'm only just beginning to learn."

He belatedly realized he'd spilled very deep secrets to her--someone 
who had helped try to kill him. But who was he to judge on the past? 
Even if it was only a little while ago. She had attacked not him, but 
what she had been led to believe he was. Now they had met and if she 
was seeing him for who he really was, he was also seeing her. No 
doubt she still hid secrets...but so did everyone. Something shone in 
the young quagsire that hadn't before, and he knew what it was 
because he felt it too. Hope.

"Wow...like what things?"

"Like healing myself. I would probably still be lying on the ground 
unable to move if I hadn't figure out how to heal myself...and it 
took a lot out of me. The gift drains my energy," he explained.

"Oh I thought that you just...survived it not as badly hurt as you 
looked," said Starla. Chirin shook his head, grinning.

"No, it was as bad as it looked...felt many times worse than that." 
He chuckled. "We denryuu don't weather earthquake attacks very well." 

"You weathered three, that was pretty good."

"Thank you...I..." 'I do try' had been about to come out but then he 
remembered Kyuri's death, how she had died in his arms, saying she 
was finding the light. Her light-path had led her out of her body 
forever and where she was now she was no longer bound to suffering 
flesh. He let his arms paddle and his legs kick silently underwater 
as he let his thoughts rest on the friend he had known for such a 
short time.

Amara was gone too...at least she was in good health and knew her way 
around these tunnels. He would try to find her again if he ever got 
the chance. 

"I'm sorry I helped to..beat you all up," she said very quietly. 

"It's fine, I forgive you...it's in the past and Im much better now. 
It even helped me--if I hadn't been so hurt I would have never 
learned to heal myself that well." Chirin nuzzled her slimy cheek and 
got a little slime on his nose. It stung slightly; he sloshed his 
muzzle in the water to wash it off.

"Careful," Starla whispered, "they're right behind us."

"Oh...right," Chirin glanced back around, remembering he couldn't do 
that inconspicuously when he had a bright white light shining from 
his forehead. Everything had its drawbacks...or almost everything!

Quiggus saw the two of them getting chummy. He wasn't blind or 
stupid. Starla was doing a good job--getting him to ease up and tell 
all. That was obviously her plan. If Chirin had laid a curse for any 
reason or any thing she'd probably get him to talk about it.

Chirin met Quiggus's gaze when he glanced back around. Quiggus had 
already been watching by the looks of him--they were ahead of the two 
male quagsires and thus hard to miss. He gave Quiggus a subdued light-
blink and corrected his position to face front again and shine as 
they swam along the river's path. 

The water divided up ahead of them; Chirin brightened his light to 
illuminate like Phos the place where tributary met river.

~

The movement of water was what their journey sang, and Chirin kept 
the path of his swimming closely aligned with Starla's. A fire-being 
bubbled below his skin, inside of him where the need to run free 
seemed to expand and contract, exploding inside him like the fire-
thing had exploded from Kurohi. He felt like thre were two souls 
inside him, both there at conception, always side by side...the one 
that wept and the one that charged, pushing him different directions. 
The unanswered charge was building in his *denki*, and he tossed his 
head like a trapped animal before lapsing back into subdued swimming, 
passively following the river. The charge from within became a charge 
from without...Chirin sensed a building background of current in the 
air and at first pulled his gift back. But this was not Bua, this 
force emanated from another source, the electric emissions of 
something beyond their view but large. It interrupted the rhythm of 
his swimming as he paused to take it in. Static answered from his own 
skin and light orbs as his *denki* absorbed the airborne current.

"We were told it would be not far from here," said Starla. "Can you 
feel it?"

"Yes...their *denki* is very strong, if that's what this is--them."

Chirin felt the choke hold of captive status frustrate his flippers; 
he wanted to be able to approach this unknown thing at his own pace. 
Static buzzed beneath the water around his body, caught about his 
kicking legs. They were getting closer. Spirits seemed to pinch the 
air around his ears and face; he slowed his swimming but at the sight 
of the other two quagsires swimming steadily from behind, he resumed 
his former pace, always laboring a bit to keep ahead of them. Now 
that he felt the hum of this unknown place, curiosity drew him closer 
of his own accord. He had never felt such a steady and undiffering 
field of electricity before. Its uniformity was something so foreign 
to the more random pathways that his gift sensed, moved along, and 
created.

"Well," said Quiggus, sliding abreast of Chirin and Starla, "that 
humming's hard to miss. We are close. I suggest you remain back 
here," he looked at Chirin, "so as not to alert them to our presence."

Chirin didn't answer. He had every intention of going in... if 
Moonhome planned harm to these pokemon, whatever they were, he wanted 
to warn them. And subjugation counted as harm. How could Bua live 
with himself, directing other pokemon to hurt and oppress each other? 

The humming, he realized, wasn't just electric--as they drew closer 
he could hear it. The constant note hummed in the rocks and water and 
hugged him like a vibrating skin. Chirin pulled himself out of the 
water as Starla did and started towards the collective voice of the 
voltorbs--if that was what it was.  

Chirin hadn't been stopped from heading in so far, so he took 
advantage of the chance to hop ahead and down the tunnel where the 
electricity hummed, like a wire stretched taut, calling the growing 
tension inside him, of curiosity vs. fear of the unknown. Chirin kept 
stopping to test the air with his gift, letting connections shimmer 
out in sprays and branches like waving coral, so different in nature 
from the almost featureless uniformity of the growing electric field. 
Occasional knots and blips were somehow refreshing to him when his 
gift did run across them. As he led the Quagsires on, he toned the 
gift down, only keeping enough feelers out in the air around them to 
detect any other gift's presence. Another's gift had signature 
patterns; Boro's use of Bua's gift had showed differences from the 
naked electric print that the dark one had used on Chirin in the 
field of flowers.

Chirin must have thought the thought too loudly, because it seemed 
like Quiggus heard it. The quagsire halted in front of Chirin and 
held out a hand. "I suppose that only one of us can go in to see this 
voltorb colony," he said, "on account of your needing two of us to 
guard you adequately. I suppose all four of us really do have to go."

"I wouldn't hurt anything," said Chirin, "or anyone."

"That's not why we're concerned. Your light will give us away. Turn 
it down as far as you can."

Chirin did so, figuring that if he was going to escape he couldn't do 
it shining like a beacon anyhow. The quagsires picked up again, never 
straying far from him or each other. He left a piece of song with 
every step he took, whispering, "Give to me my light path...as one of 
your electric children."

Electricity spasmed from the rocks off behind him, caught in the back 
of his wide vision--sparks shining brightly in the dark, grumbling 
with buzzes and snapping with zaps. Chirin whirled around, but it was 
already gone. Yet there was something left where the light had been, 
revealed as he dared to shine his light towards it, just enough to 
see. It was a dark hole, large enough for him and the quagsires to 
crawl through, and it was above the level of his head. He stepped 
over and let his gift feel towards it, into it--and when he reached 
something he felt that something bite back with sharp *denki*. Chirin 
let his electro-sense fizzle away from the thing he had touched. 

"What is it?" said Quiggus, stepping over to peer down the hole.

"I think we've been seen," said Starla, looking all around. 

"I feel...that we have been seen and sensed. In the air, flowing...a 
uniform eye watches and feels." Chirin stepped back from the hole and 
looked around him as the humming seemed to grow louder.

"Stop talking like that," said Quiggus, becoming on edge. Knowing 
where the place was wasn't enough--they needed to find out how big 
the place was. "Come on."

Chirin had been poking down a different hallway than the one Quiggus 
took, but when the quagsire quickly slapped him towards the correct 
one. Sighing, Chirin continued on...boiling inside. How he wanted to 
get away, slip out--crack thunder and warn these Voltorbs, wherever 
they were, now! But he had to do it at the right time...By the way 
Quiggus looked at and talked to him he was still quite willing to 
kill Chirin if he felt it necessary. Chirin must try to hold back and 
instead plan this, like he sometimes partly planned how his forms 
took shape. This whole journey was a form in the making and he must 
design it right--'right' being getting out of here alive and free. 

The floor in front of them changed, itself. Chirin bent over and 
sniffed at the smooth metallic  surface, then he felt it, ducking 
down to rub his cheek against its smoothness, and upon touching his 
nose to it a burst of electricity discharged from him into the floor. 
It was not entirely foreign to him--he was immediately reminded of 
Boulder and his surface. They both differed from other stone. Chirin 
set his feet onto it and uttered words to keep Boulder's soul  from 
sensing him down here. He twirled, shining his lights--

"Cut it out," said Quiggus. 

"I was only keeping myself safe," said Chirin. "Why can't--"

"Just walk with us, Chirin." 

Chirin fell in next to Starla, and whenever Quiggus turned to look at 
him, maybe making sure he wasn't doing anything he found 
unacceptable, Chirin would return it with a sad look...Quiggus was 
becoming so afraid that he feared Chirin more than the Voltorbs, it 
seemed.

His hooves clicked on the floor, louder than on stone and louder than 
the Quagsires' soft, slightly slimy feet.

The metal floor turned to metal walls and ceiling, eliminating the 
natural flowstone and stalactites, the formations all given way to a 
uniform metallic surface. Chirin tread on the cold floor with 
caution, and the one piece of solace he took from this strange 
hallway was that he could absorb electricity through the floor, 
especially when he let his tail bulb trail close to it. Sparks buzzed 
between tail and floor, like wires of light tied them together and 
writhed around the bulb, sparks fraying off. Chirin absorbed it with 
a careful blink of his lights, to prevent letting his soul be 
absorbed into the floor while they were connected. He didn't see any 
voltorbs so far, in fact he had seen no pokemon at all...this place 
seemed lifeless but for the *denki* that was all through the place.

They hadn't gone far down the tunnel when a noice came behind them--a 
hiss and a sliding or sucking sound, then the thunk of something 
landing neatly in place.

A wall had appeared behind them. Chirin ran to it with static sliding 
along his body, streamlining and scribbling down his skin to drip-
buzz on the floor. He pressed the wall with his flipper and founr it 
solid. He poked and sniffed at the sides and floor and found no hold. 
He gave the wall a push but it was as solid as Boulder himself. The 
walls did have eyes and they had seen the four of them. 

"What do we do now?" said Bloob, looking all around their metal 
prison. 

"We remain calm," said Quiggus, "and get out by asking the natives to 
help us. They wouldn't just trap us for no reason. I'm sure it's all 
a mistake."

"It is the walls, the walls," Chirin said with a shiver. "They know 
you have evil intentions and don't want us here."

"I have no evil intentions, I don't know about you," said Quiggus as 
Chirin ducked his head and charged the round sliding door. He created 
a small dent, but nothing more. Somehow the dent was refreshing to 
see--it showed he could at least affect the place somehow--make an 
impression on it. 

There came a loud rolling noise, growing in volume, heightening as it 
neared them. Chirin clutched his imaginary apricorn shell, which 
still held all of his soul and everything it had had in it life--and 
held out his other hand letting it light with his Hand of Lightning 
as something rolled down the corridor towards them, emitting *denki* 
as it came. 

Crazy Lights tumbled in the air above him, tossing *denki* down like 
rain to protect Chirin, his ears with lights and long banded tail in 
a whirl as the genie danced his magic, throwing his all against a 
place that seemed to have no soul. 

"Intruders," came a mechanized voice from the big ball rolling down 
the hall towards them. "Intruders." It did not change pitch or 
volume, only a steady noise. The white and red big apricorn thing 
came to a stop in front of them and looked at them with angular eyes 
set like crystals in its smooth perfect shape. A mouth moved along 
its rim. 

Chirin backed up bristling, but tried to keep his demeanor calm...the 
thing hadn't hurt anyone, yet. "Why...hi there...Who--who are you and-
-can you make the hall come back open pllease?"

"State your business."

"Please," said Chirin, "I--I have no business, I'm from the world 
above and am already trapped down here. I just need to find the way 
out. All I would like is an open corridor behind me, somewhere where 
my feet can feel able to run free if they need to." 

"Does this floor hurt your feet."

"Hurt?" Chirin picked up one foot and set it back down. No--it--I 
just need to feel like I'm not trapped. You see, we just--"

"I and my friends are only lost," said Quiggus, interrupting 
Chirin. "Like he said."

Chirin didn't need to use his gift to sense the enormous amount of 
electricity packed into the ball's insides...crammed so tightly that 
any more and it would likely burst. It was a thing unlike anything 
he'd ever seen, heard, or sensed in any other way. 

"Are you a voltorb?" said Chirin. "I've just never seen a pokemon 
like you before."

"Affirmative. I am a Voltorb."

"You're quite--round," said Chirin, fishing for something to say to 
break this creature's cold demeanor. It would be much nicer if they 
all talked freely. "I like round things." He stepped fowards to sniff 
the Voltorb, but his nose didn't get much information...it smelled of 
the same stuff that made up this place, plus other stuff that didn't 
have much of a smell, and the smell it did possess was strange and 
unlike other creatures.

The Voltorb seemed perplexed by this and by Chirin's words. "If you 
are 'lost' you are now found," it said again. 

"Why, thank you," said Chirin, misinterpreting the statement. "We've 
traveled such a long way, and if you'd just point us in the right 
direction that would be very nice of you--"

"You are to accompany us to our colony network," said the voltorb, 
its voice blipping out in the same robotic way it spoke every 
syllable with. "We do not permit outsiders to disclose any 
information about us."

"Well, all right, I won't tell," said Chirin, beginning to follow the 
Voltorb as it rolled. Its movement by rolling caused its face to 
constantly move from floor to ceiling to wals, yet it always seemed 
to know where it was going.

It kept a steady--almost perfectly steady--track down the hallway 
that was definitely more uniform than the progress of Chirin and his 
friends. As they went along they found the ceiling growing lower, 
until they were forced to duck. 

Sudden fear gripped him--he did not like this strange place where 
nothing looked, sounded, smelled or felt familiar. He tried to turn 
and make a break for it but Quiggus and Bloob were behind him.

"You wanted to come along so badly, now you're not running out on 
us," said Quiggus to Chirin, whose being grabbed only fueled his 
panic. The ampharos forced himself to remain calm, steeling his soul 
through his spine and resolving to keep onward. He ducked his head 
and entered over the threshold of the next stretch of tunnel, which 
was reminding him too much of human things. 

Chirin saw lights along both sides of the floor and dimmed his own 
lights, scantly reassured by the presence of the little lights--and 
soon as he kept on walking any sense of security was replaced by the 
growing fear. The walls had revealed themselves to be very much 
animated and energetic--he felt *denki* coursing through them and 
through the perfect rows of lights, two rows like teeth grinning at 
them filing between the tunnel's jaws. His tail helped balance him as 
he walked leaning forwards, his neck ducking from his shoulders under 
the ceiling of the tubelike hall. Despite its peacefulness now he got 
the sense that it could turn, forming a wall in front of or behind 
them or squeezing in on them, crushing them...His lights kept 
blinking and flickering and changing the ambience of the tunnel. The 
walls were angry, they were humming with suppressed rage. They were 
feeling him through his *denki*, like he sensed theirs. Their anger 
buzzed and rattled...

"Oh please, good spirits around me, give me strength," he whispered, 
eliciting a glance from the voltorb, which spun on its roll to give 
him a look before resuming its steady pace.

Chewing cud somehow brought him solace, it helped distract him from 
the squeezing tunnel with its light-teeth and its growling hum. 
Thoghts of Azalea and his flock carried him through towards the smell 
of more open air--in here it was getting quite stuffy. 

The tube of the tunnel, constructed somehow many years ago, led them 
on with the lights along its length trying to put Chirin under a 
spell as he moved. He kept looking around him, he sang, he chanted, 
anything to shake the spell. This was a powerful being they were all 
in and he was in its innards and terrified. The caves had had a 
natural, more open feel to them, an amazing land of forms and oldness 
that had felt much more amiable, at least sometimes. This place was a 
foreign and hostile thing that vibrated with evil *denki*. Every time 
Chirin tried to escape evil, he ran into worse. And every time he met 
up with a colony of something underground he always got taken 
prisoner. 

"You must trust us, please," said Chirin, trying to talk to their 
robotic guide again. "I won't tell anyone of this place--I'll keep my 
secrets." Should he tell them now that they were in danger? Or were 
they really part of the problem, not about to be a victim of it? "i'm 
just confused and scared, I wish we knew more."

"You will be informed in the center of our network," said the 
voltorb, who then rolled out of the tunnel, ahead of them. Chirin 
stepped to the edge of the tube... and looked out.

"Mother Megga," he said in a low quiet voice in the pit of his throat.

The giant cavern was full of mouths and eyes. Round apertures 
protruded from the walls and tunnels, fixed into already existing 
passages. The strange hybrid of machine and cave hummed and buzzed 
with many rolling balls--Voltorbs of all sizes--from no bigger than 
an apricorn to almost as tall as Chirin himself. Everywhere came 
spurts of static, buzz-zaps of light and droning voltorb voices. The 
bursts of light illuminated parts of the black caves in flashes. 

From somewhere out of sight came a loud boom.

Chirin jumped, as did Starla next to him. He stepped away from the 
tunnel with a growl low in his chest, as if these ball-things were 
going to force him back in. 

"Does anyone know what that was?" he asked, looking around at the 
Voltorbs. 

"A small explosion," one said as if it were all part of the day. 

"Explosion?" Chirin and Starla looked at each other. "Is everyone all 
right? Does--does that happen a lot?"

"It just happens," said the voltorb. "No one is hurt."

Chirin doubted that was necessarily the case, although the boom had 
sounded a lot like thunder and thunder rarely hurt electric sheep. 
Everything just seemed more alarming here, born of everything being 
unfamiliar. He let his eyes fall shut in briefest prayer while Crazy 
Lights stood at his back, changing size so he was taller than Chirin 
and appeared much stronger. But mostly he was in a daze, only pricked 
by shouting fear here and there, *denki* spilling with ancient 
caution. He did not know what to make of any of this, and on top of 
all that had happened since the flock's attacks it felt like this was 
only one more realm in a succession, the latest and deepest 
perversion of the world he had known before. Did the world from 
before even exist anymore? Or was he so far removed from everything 
real and concrete that there was no going back, that every day would 
offer more and more strangeness, never letting him find a foothold 
anywhere? Amara and Kyuri felt long ago now.

The voltorb guiding them approached a collection of other voltorbs 
and they blipped back and forth in murmuring monotones, apparently 
discussing the fact that four strangers from outside had been brought 
in. Chirin watched other ball pokemon roll by, each one heading in 
the same steady pace with some intent unknown to him. With other 
creatures, sheep or othrwise, Chirin could look at them and tell if 
they were looking for food, checking for enemies, pondering or 
ruminating or playing. Whether they walked with urgency and 
determination or a carefree swing of flippers. He saw no features on 
the voltorbs' movements, except the occcasional shudder or storm of 
static that one emitted here and there. Some sat completely still as 
if asleep, or dead. They looked at the strangers and appeared to 
notice them without the least surprise. 

"Hi," he said to one or two of them, and some returned the greeting, 
others did not, and he found little difference between either 
reaction. 

A wave of sadness thick as sap waxed over Chirin while he stood in 
this desolate hull of lifeless *denki*. He held his arms forward and 
cupped them, forming a gentle static inside. He then blew into them, 
whisking away the fuzzy-buzz he had made there. "I send this to you 
all with the speed of Jumpluffs," he whispered as he imagined the 
soothing sparks taking flight in a ball of Jumpluff fluff up through 
these caves and to the sky.

"Err...Voltorbs?" Quiggus called while Chirin shone his light up into 
the heights of the colony's odd structure. Up on the ceiling, tubes 
like Boulder's body only with no spikes, led up through cavern 
shafts, into places unknown even further above. Letting his gift 
dance up around these uppermost shafts he could feel a great *denki* 
humming into them, racing downwards where the web of metal and wires 
and buzzing blips diverted it throughout the colony. Hre and there 
came a buzz of discord, spirits causing disharmony with the network, 
or maybe they were also oppressed beings struggling to get free from 
the tangle of shafts and tunnels and electricity that had bound them 
here, a closed circle. Chirin saw a struggle between spirits ushering 
the electricity along smoothly and those trying to break up the 
delicate structures, with the latter heavily suppressed. Was there 
some magic place above the ceiling, making *denki* somehow? Were 
there more Voltorbs? Chirin became aware of ticking and cranking 
sounds grinding along behind the current-buzzes of the massive 
mechanical hive. 

"Voltorbs--I would appreciate it if someone would tell us when we can 
be going," said Quiggus, who had had quite enough already. Chirin, 
meanwhile, was looking all around seeking where the best possible 
escape route lay. Some tunnels, he noticed, were thin pipes adnitting 
rolling lines of the smallest-sized Voltorbs. Others were huge, 
admitting, exclusively in one direction or the other, big ones with 
their colors reversed and their faces a little different--an 
evolution? In still others streamed a traffic of more than one size. 
They would stream out of one tunnel and follow the ball ahead of them 
into another tunnel. Far above, pipes and tunnels did the same things 
on different levels.

Starla stood close to him, her hand refreshingly moist on his 
arm. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah...Scared. We are in another realm," said Chirin. "One far far 
away from Mother Megga and Watakko and Phos... one far away from Ko 
who first struck Lightning and Denrai who cast out darkness. But 
we'll be okay...There's got to be a way out of here. We haven't been 
hurt by them..I thin they're just scared that they won't be hidden 
anymore if we leave and tell others about them...and you know, maybe 
they're right."

Starla hung her head. "This whole thing was a bad idea."

As if rolling in synchronization, and perhaps they were, several 
voltorbs of exactly the same size rolled towards them, circling in to 
form a neat circle around the four flesh-and-blood foreigners. Each 
voltorb sat equidistant apart from the rest, and then each one moved 
towards the side, half one way and half the other, to make way for a 
very large electric ball pokemon who approached them from a tunnel 
opposite where they had come out.

"You will come with us, you are disturbing pathways where you stand," 
said the giant ball in deep sparking buzzes that sounded almost like 
a growl, but were again devoid of anger or love. "Come, follow."

"Where are we going?" said Chirin as he started after the Electrode. 
He noticed they were heading  along a sheet of metal that led near 
one side of the big central cavern, coordinated with other such paths 
on which other voltorbs rolled in perfect clockwork pace. 

"We are going to the receiving room. Do not try to resist."

Quiggus knew well that all four of them were highly resistent to 
electric attacks, but the frightening smoothness of the way this 
place worked, all its unknown factors, made him reluctant to try 
anything. Besides, they were grossly outnumbered.

"Receiving room?" Chirin halted, afraid to go any further. He 
unknowingly stepped off the prescribed path. "Before I go, can I 
please--"

The voltorbs surrounded him. "You may travel in the direction we lead 
at the time we lead. That is all. You may not step anywhere else lest 
you further disturb the pathways. Please step back onto the path."

Chirin couldn't take it anymore. Suddenly everything felt forbidden 
and he felt like every move he made would get him attacked. "Oh 
spirits of grass and all things sunny, spirits of bubbles and tickles 
and funny! Please send us a sign, send us a way we can forge through 
this cold night and back to the day! Sphere of *denki*," said Chirin 
with tears spilling down his cheeks, "we're lost and just want to 
know we won't be harmed." He paused, feeling better now that his soul 
had burst out streaming its consciousness into words in open air. He 
felt more in focus again. "I'm trying... This is hard to do," he said 
as he stepped back on the walkway, feeling stupid and helpless. What 
was the difference if he walked on the side versus on this metal? 
Were there spirits waiting to harm him if he didn't obey? Since that 
was a possibility, he stepped back on, but the more he watched the 
walk ahead of him the more enticing each side looked, like greener 
grass on the other side of the fence. The further they went, moving 
through this factory-like place, the more he felt like he was being 
marched to either death or an eternal torture--for being stuck here 
eternally would mean such to him!

He was hungry.

"I'm going to get us out of here," he whispered to Starla as they 
were led along. Around them, lights blinked, set up on strange stalks 
and wires, keeping time to some schedule that was beyond Chirin's 
ability to figure out.

"How?" whispered Starla, looking around them. There seemed no holes 
or tears in the system of the colony. They moved along their pathways 
like they had been doing so forever. Chirin watched the endless 
procession drone on hypnotically. Didn't they get bored? Didn't 
despair crawl into their hearts?

"Stop," blipped the electrode and they halted. A stream of other 
large balls rolled by on a pathway that ran across theirs. Chirin 
waited until they were past, then started walking again. He was 
halted by a long streak of electricity from the electrode--not 
painful, but a loud reprimand.

"But..."

"It is not time yet."

Chirin sighed and stood there, searching the  empty path ahead of 
them for the reason why they could not pass. Were there spirits 
there? He reached out his gift to communicate with them...

"Go," said the electrode, resuming its roll and they all began to 
follow again.

Chirin stepped over the ground in the intersection with caution and 
consideration, blinking his lights in friendliness to it, before he 
stepped there. Nothing happened as he walked across. "Why wasn't it 
time yet?" he said looking at the space behind them. "What was 
there?" This place, with its many unseen spirits with their unknown 
rules, was becoming scarier by the minute. There was too much he 
didn't know, too much he didn't understand. He felt that the best 
thing to do would have been to stay still or retreat and then examine 
it slowly, observing and then venturing out bit by bit but they were 
not giving him that option. He couldn't help but think the "receiving 
room" would be less than friendly as well. 

"Nothing was there. We must move on schedule."

"Schedule?" Chirin realized that he had never uttered the word in his 
life... although he had heard it from somewhere, at some time, an 
instance now forgotten except the impression of familiarity that he 
got when he heard the word. "What's that?"

The electrode gave a pause, vibrating, never slowing or speeding up 
its pace once. It made no hint of being annoyed at Chirin's profusion 
of questions, but it was remotely possible. "The law by which we live 
as governed by our leader and reinforced by every member of the 
colony. While you are here you too are a member of our colony."

"Well," said Chirin, "that's...quite fascinating, actually--I've 
never encountered a place anything like this. I'm quite bewildered by 
it all, but...very impressed."

It was about the most positive thing he could say, and more than a 
stretch of the truth. Something about this place stank of the unowns. 
It was the lack of feeling, like they didn't care about anything they 
did. Even their way of forcing them along had been without malice or 
sympathy. He wouldn't be surprised if Bua had already taken over this 
place. 

He suppressed the deep urge to bolt, for at least a little longer. He 
must do it when the ancestors screamed--at the right time. His heart 
would know. The raikou raced fleet-footed in the grass of legends, 
appearing to Denrai; it could appear to anyone, he thought, its face 
a starburst, its back a thunderstorm, telling him when the storm in 
his blood was about to burst.

As the voltorb marched them towards another tube, one of a line of 
small-sized Voltorbs marching in a rolling procession along a belt of 
metal, accidentally bumped into a lightstalk--Chirin's word for the 
thin pillars of metal with head jewels on its top. The voltorb 
exploded. 

The sheep crouched and sparked from his head jewel and tail towards 
the explosion on instinct, pulling up out of the attack position only 
when his brain took back over--it was only a small explosion. He 
watched dark smoke pull up and away from the wreckage of the voltorb--
who was, miraculously, still partly together. Its seam had burst, 
leaving it ajar like a half-opened apricorn. Its eyes lost their glow 
and no blips emitted from it. Chirin tumbled forward with a mourning 
bleat. It didn't matter that it was a cog in this inhospitable realm--
it was injured and suffering, if not dead.

"Back on the path," said the electrode.

"Is that voltorb all right? Why--what happened to it?"

"It will be repaired," said the electrode as the nearby voltorbs 
halted.

All of the voltorbs on all the belts nearby momentarily halted, as a 
small crew of the littlest voltorbs were called to the scene from 
somewhere. They piled in on the broken shell of the exploded one and 
rolled off with the remains, pushing them off the belt and quickly 
down a tunnel and out of sight. Moments after they were gone, the 
precessions on the belt resumed.

"So it'll be all right--it's not dead?"

"It is not dead. It will be repaired. Get back onto the pathway."

As Chirin stepped back on, sending the poor thing a little prayer to 
ease its pain, he got an idea. His gift, which had probably landed 
him in this predicament, might be his only hope of getting out. He 
still lacked so much of the knowledge of how to use it...but he could 
more things with it, even if they were only very little things. If 
everything depended so wholly on this schedule, on everything working 
right, if he created enough of a disturbance to distract them while 
they made their escape...it just might work. But as they had also 
shown, they were quite efficient at cleaning things up too. 

"We're moving faster than we were before," said Chirin as they 
entered the tube, just as he had begun to spread his gift around 
outside. 

"We are making up for time lost to the disturbance."

"Oh...I see." Chirin continued to use his gift through the walls; the 
metal was but a small hindrance. He could still poke around in select 
parts of this mass machine and see how he could make it mess up. 

He held back from doing so right away. He'd already tried to break 
out and it had gotten him nowhere. And the voltorbs might be leading 
them to this 'receiving room' in order to release them...no one had 
been harmed yet in any way. But what about these Quagsires? If the 
voltorbs were releasing them from here, Chirin would be back to the 
situation he'd been in before--headed straight for Moonhome and a 
fierce Gonga who wouldn't let him get away unscathed a second time.

How hard it was to not make a dash for it! And getting harder all the 
time. He felt his fear of close burrows smothering him inside the low-
ceilinged tunnel.

Overflowing, a swirling soup among cogs, Chirin's gift dashed and 
hovered, jerked and twisted its way through the voltorb colony. It 
sought to learn, fondling down metal shafts and flowering out tunnels 
and caverns. It collected in spaces between metal and the oppressed 
rock that seethed behind the structures, long denied air and freedom 
of expression. His gift buzzed with the hum of the denizens of the 
machine, fascinated with its workings even as he sought its weakness, 
squeezing like oil among gears, slime between quagsires. 

Unbeknownst to him, yet another had detected him. 

A voltorb of medium size sparked loudly, a repeated spike of *denki* 
striking the air as it approached them down a pathway adjacent to the 
one they were walking/rolling on and heading in the opposite 
direction. 

"A request from our leader. Primus wishes to see the one with the 
wild electricity who has been infiltrating our system," it said to 
the electrode leading the four 'intruders'. 

Pivoting on its round shape, the electrode turned round straight at 
Chirin. "You have been infiltrating our system?" A statement was made 
into a question by the last syllable coming out a pitch higher. 

"I--I haven't," said Chirin, "I was only--looking around..."

"It will be done," said the electrode, and gestured with an airborne 
spark. "You, yellow one. Follow Mehkron. The mehkron will take you to 
Primus."

"Mehkron?" Chirin looked at the new voltorb. "Are you called Mehkron?"

"I am," said the voltorb. Chirin was pleased to have a name to call 
him by, but he didn't plan on giving his name back. Not when they had 
treated him the way they had...giving him no choice here at all as to 
where to go and what to do. "Come."

"Who is Primus and why does he want me?" said Chirin, standing his 
ground now. He cut off his gift immediately. That was what had caught 
him out, he was sure. "What did I do?"

"You do not question your orders. Come." The voltorb gave a series of 
warning sparks, each of equal size and strength. Chirin started to 
back away, but there was nowhere to back away to in this place. 
Towards the Quagsires? No...they were after him, and Starla was his 
friend. Going to them would further associate him with them...maybe 
even get them in more trouble. 

He felt his control slipping and the terrain changing. Spirits 
morphed and moved from the shadows between tunnels and within 
tunnels. The floor was sticky under his feet as his electricity built 
up inside him, brimming from both lights in firecracker snaps. Demons 
howled and houndooms snarled, Kurohi leapt for lambs' throats. 

"Assistance is required," said Mehkron, and as Chirin made a move to 
dart towards the darker reaches of the far tunnels, several more 
large electrodes surrounded him. Chirin backed from them only to find 
another one at his back. The soup of strangeness swirled in his head. 
It was all too much. The summer sky screamed. 

Chirin's gift lashed up and out, and as the connections clawed into 
the workings of the tunnels and walls he cried out, "Just let us go! 
Let us leave and go on our way! I'm lost and I want to find my loved 
ones, my flock! Don't make me hurt you! Let me out of here!"

"You have been claimed by Primus," said one of the electrodes, "you 
will remain down here as long as he sees fit."

"I'll starve--I'll die! And so will those Quagsires! I need to s--"

"Then so it will be," said the electrode without feeling. "Primus 
will decide. Come. It is useless to resist."

Chirin let loose a power surge down every single thread of his 
*denki* gift. He felt his essence racing out in a bolt of Thunder 
that split down a million hairs. 

Blue light streaked outwards from him in a growth of light-shards, 
threads of luminescent rain as his gift was electrified. Chirin had 
no idea what would happen as he pumped his full voltage to fill the 
cavern. But if not for his gift being radiated already, greedily 
pulling his current out of him, he would have been killed.

The electrodes attacked almost simultaneously, spearing their even 
more powerful lightning towards him. Chirin flung his arms out and 
screamed as the dark turned to light and hums to shrieks. Buzzes to 
booms...shivers to spasms as lightning infiltrated him, filling his 
emptied *denki* as he channeled it into the already live connections, 
letting it leave him as quickly as it entered. All around him the air 
filled with smoke and explosions, metal dancing in twists of torture. 
Bomb-balls exploded. 

The tide was turning, the balance slipping. Too many electrodes for 
one ampharos--when one electrode might have been able to defeat him. 
Chirin stood with his gift channeling the electricity of his 
attackers out towards the machine they had used to capture him with. 
No more capture, no more prison. He sank to his knees with his scream 
rising to meet the metal's cry. And as he felt his hold on his gift 
slipping, a voice saved his life.

*Stop,* boomed the voice of a heretofore unseen and gigantic 
electrode. The voice carried something more than just greater 
power... a hint of something like emotion tinted it ever so slightly.

Every single bomb ball firing at Chirin ceased immediately, as 
immediately as they obeyed any order, by Primus or anyone else above 
them in the hierarchy. The light cleared after several more 
explosions. Loose electricity dangled out of wires, tendrils seeking 
a ground. Voltorbs and electrodes stopped where they were, not 
knowing what to do with their schedules ruined and the order to 
attack cancelled as well. Tunnels lay blown open, or ripped in two... 
black scars stained metal, wires sparked and lightstalks smoked. 

Injured by electric overload and by fallen pieces of the mechanized 
cavern, Chirin fell on his side on the *denki* heated floor, stinging 
his skin. He only had time to roll away on reflex, cutting himself on 
fallen metal shards, before he lay half awake, too weak to do 
anything but lie helpless and bleeding. 

Primus rolled regally through the wreckage...it knew what had 
happened. The animal had somehow managed to divert any current aimed 
at him--or at least most of it--upwards into the air in every 
direction and for some distance, electrifying the entire cavern in a 
power surge. 

Primus wanted to know how the amp had done it. It wanted to learn 
how. Such a power would give his colony greater reach and room. They 
had been feeding off the human generators for so long...the system 
was becoming outmoded and inefficient for the colony, which had grown.

Starla, Starla...Was she okay? Chirin had not known he would cause so 
much destruction... why did he always preach to love life and 
everything and then go around destroying everything? He opened his 
mouth and felt soreness there too...his body hurt inside and 
out. "Starla..."

The quagsires stepped out of a split in the tunnel, which had taken 
little damage compated to the upper reaches of the system. Unharmed 
by electricity, they had suffered burns and cuts but little else. 
Quiggus turned to Starla. "You gave him your name?"

"I..." Starla bit her lip. 

"He is very dangerous," said Quiggus, stepping out to face Primus, 
who sat/stood over Chirin's crumpled, heavily breathing form. "I and 
my fellow Quagsires here were sent with orders to apprehend him 
ourselves if we found him--among other orders. We are supposed to 
bring him to Moonhome."

Primus surveyed the damage to the cavern. It was only one of several, 
but he had never had to undertake damage of this magnitude. 
Nevertheless the ball pokemon were well equipped and instructed in 
repairwork. "Begin repairs," he said and at once those voltorbs who 
had not exploded began to move again, starting the long job step by 
step.

Chirin lay helpless and still, just wanting to die. Why had he even 
bothere to struggle? When all it had brought was destruction...more 
death, more killing to smear his name? He close his eyes, he didn't 
want to see any more. No good spirits would be speaking to him. He 
withdrew into himself, trance upon trance, and found the ancestors 
silent in his heart.

~

He slipped in and out of consciousness as the Quagsires were ordered 
to carry him to a conveyer belt. He did not remember the trip through 
the caverns, through sects of the colony that had not been damaged, 
and he did not remember being deposited in a single small metal-lined 
cavern situated above the colony's center, where Primus oversaw 
everything. 

The unouns were back, they hid in a spike-adorned, pain-encrusted 
stronghold in his head. And the dead, the dead not dead, the unouns 
lurked in snatches of song. Chirin was rolling and tumbling, his eyes 
half open seeing sky, he could fly, he could drift and swim and float 
and fall through, how many times would he have to fall through. 

*I wake up aching...sweating, shaking...and I pine

the dead are not dead

You cannot run, the grass needs the sun, you cannot hide

the dead not dead*

He had to find a way, he must find day, the wind and the way, find 
his own breeze but who was the fool who had been so cruel and killed 
a thousand pokemon...Could he patch it with promises, chase his 
ancestors back through the dreams of his past, trace his light-path 
back, could he patch it all up with words he'd make good on, 
something to perk their ears to him. Something... *I blunder, I 
wind...and I pine.*

To find a way out, he must find a way, back to the home up in day 
that had exiled him...Exibos, the unoun had said, they had heard him 
curse them, cursed him back. What came from curses but more curses, 
one act of evil on another? Chirin saw Selden, Chirin saw Spirit, he 
saw Calima and Jasmine and Phebes. He had led them down the darkness, 
looking for light but falling in mud. Could it be, but no, he'd been 
blind to the light, somehow he had only been shown half the light. 
His own fault. Chirin's mind took a leap and swirled away billowing 
thoughts and swears. Falling through night wind, damn the unouns, 
sliding on black ice, too late, dead bones...

~

Time trickled back to him in the omnipresent vibrations in the 
colony. Chirin awoke on the smooth metal floor, blood caked on yet 
more new wounds. 

"You have awakened," said a deep buzzing voice like a generator's hum 
as Chirin began to lift his head off the floor. Drool had dried and 
stuck his cheek to the metal. His head throbbed and his ears rang. 

"Starla...The quagsires..."

"The quagsires are being detained in the room for foreigners, where 
you would have been had you not made your violent escape attempt. 
They will be treated and released."

After all that...he would have been set free...but no...he would have 
been on his way to Moonhome. So was this better? "Why am I here?" He 
coughed painfully, hacking at an already scratchy throat. He squinted 
as his lungs relaxed.

The voice vibrated in the pit of his stomach. The great electrode, 
ancient as the first pokeballs, watched Chirin rouse slowly, a wild 
beast coming to life in his home. His electricity was far superior 
even to the ampharos's but Chirin had a frightening power that he had 
never touched on. That would change. 

"You are here to teach me. You will not be harmed if you comply," 
said Primus.

Chirin grunted as he got his flippers under him and pushed his chest 
off the floor. "How do I know you're not lying."

"I do not lie. Dishonesty of any kind is against our laws. As is harm 
against another. Not one of my voltorbs or electrodes has ever harmed 
another except as a result of accidental explosion. Not one has ever 
retaliated." If Primus had not acquired some other quality lacking in 
all of his colony, he would not have let Chirin survive, because he 
would have felt no need to learn the secret of his electric ability. 

Chirin, still half lyng on the floor, knew that it did not matter if 
Primus lied ornot. Chirin was helpless here. 

"I didn't want to hurt anyone either. I was trying to escape--Escape, 
dammit...damn dark to light, light to dark...damn Phos-in-the-
mud...My flock." He let himself slump back to the floor. Primus 
watched the creature apparently struggle with himself, wasting 
precious energy over something that right now could not be helped. A 
useless venture, but that which everyone in flesh that Primus had 
ever met, engaged in without fail, to some degree. 

"You struggle and commit much damage fighting things beyond your 
control," said Primus, dishing out tired wisdom that would go 
ignored. 

Chirin turned a bloodstreaked face, angry eyes on the big sphere that 
took up most of the space in the room. His face broke apart into 
crying, bunching up and flushing as his eyes brimmed over. He made no 
sound at first, his mouth locked open...then there came a big breath 
and a ram's wail that was heard by voltorbs and electrodes working 
out beyond these walls. 

He fell on the floor and pounded the metal, his exhausted *denki* 
coughing sparks at the surface. Hoof and flipper could not scratch or 
dent it. Primus watched with a vague sense of hoping, that it would 
be over soon. There was no reason for hoping...he was in no hurry to 
begin learning right that moment. But there it was--some twitch of an 
inclination inside him that, left to evolve for another few hundred 
years, might have become guilt or regret.

The bleat he had made still lived between Chirin's ears, it screamed 
on inside him as he sobbed on the floor, in pain and partly wishing 
that Primus would kill him. Quickly, before he had a chance to react 
or even know what was happening. Then it would be over and he would 
be free to accept it how he would. Nothing would tie him down 
anymore. This torture and all of this fear, would be over.

He wondered if he was dead already. He was certainly in another 
realm. There was nothing connecting this realm to the one he had 
departed in the rocky tumble, in Boro's embrace. Boro had died but 
his hug had never ended. Chirin had given him his tears. Could all 
this be traced to that? Was there any one place where it had begun? 
Could he ever be free?

"Teach...you said teach," Chirin grasped at the one thought he could 
get a hold on. "What do you want me to teach you...?"

"How you are manipulating electricity like you are."

"It's my gift," said Chirin, willing to tell him anything if he would 
just be released. He was too mad to think and too tired to fight. "I 
was born with it. I...taught myself how to use it but I've never been 
able to teach anyone else how...how to do it...I've never met anyone 
else with the ability."

"Then it cannot be learned by myself?"

"Why do you want it? What would it do...if your colony is already 
happy?"

Chirin glared at the floor. This thing had seen what his gift had 
done to that cave--blowing things apart, killing voltorbs...and all 
he wanted now was to know how to do it too?

Again, that twinge of an unpleasant turn of thoughts, as if he should 
not want this, and he shouldn't. But he did and he would not question 
why. "My colony needs to expand and that demands greater electrical 
reach on my part. It needs to be overseen by myself. Your gift would 
grant me that ability."

"My gift...has given me grief that the spirits cringe at. It's driven 
the madness into the realms and the ancestors out of my blood and my 
heart. It's silced the trees and rock and made them weep. You don't 
want it. You don't want anything to do with it."

"You are wrong," stated Primus, as a matter of fact. "I do want it. 
How has it caused said occurrences to happen?"

"Someone else has it," said Chirin, "and he wants to destroy 
everything. His gift far surpasses mine and he's been using it on 
others, he's been giving it to them to fill them with power and evil, 
possess them to do his bidding..." Chirin panted and sweated, his 
body crying out against the words he spoke. "You want no part in 
this. Let me go and feel blessed that it came to nothing more than 
this."


Primus had led his colony like clockwork for so long without fail, 
yet these words raised conflicts entirely new to him. But the debate 
didn't live long in his head. He knew what he wanted, why he wanted 
it and now he knew there was a way he could get it. 

He gazed down at the beaten ampharos lying crippled on his floor. 
Nothing like the sight he had beheld coming down the pathway towards 
him...just before he had collapsed. It had stirred in him an inkling 
of awe, at the sight of something so powerful that Primus did not 
have. Primus had long been able to best, in electricity, any other 
pokemon he met. "Who is the one who has been giving and possessing?" 

Chirin's mind reeled, spilling answers in a daze, nowhere to hide 
lying half lightless on the floor. "Bua na Kuros... warn 
everyone...Bua na Kuros." The words were out before he realized what 
Primus might want to do. But he wouldn't--he couldn't--

"No, no you have to stay away from him, those Quagsires were sent by 
him...he's trying to take your colony too..." Chirin fought for words 
but his mind ran dry, the swirling soup ever shifting, too fast to 
grab anything. The air, the floor humming full of spirits, so full of 
spirits and yet none spoke to him or looked at him...

Primus watched the denryuu ram, an intriguing looking being that he 
had never seen before, he watched him struggle to tell more, but 
Primus would ask no more questions. Bua na Kuros was coming and he 
would let him, the teacher to be, come and teach him. 

Now what to do with this pokemon lying on his floor?  All the flesh 
and blood pokemon they had kept down here always wasted and died of 
hunger. Despite his powers this one was probably no exception. This 
creature had done enormous harm to the colony trying to break free. 
If kept who knew what else he would do before he weakened and died? 

"Please let me go," said Chirin, looking up at Primus's unreadable 
face. "I never meant to harm your colony like I did...I only want to 
be free. I don't want to die down here."

Primus debated which was better, killing him or letting him go. It 
was one or the other, Chirin could not be kept down here for any 
length of time. 

"You say those quagsires were sent to tell this Bua na kuros where I 
and my colony are?"

"Yes..." Chirin tried to gather his gift up to heal himself as he lay 
there on the floor, but all he managed were a few weak connections 
that quickly fizzled away. He was as exhausted in current as he was 
in body--completely helpless. The impact of what he had done still 
reverberated insie him. "They will hurt you--I don't know what to 
do...If released I'm going to do what I can to save any more innocent 
pokemon from being hurt. Maybe it can make up for what's happened 
here--what I've done."

"The few irreparably broken units you destroyed can be replaced," 
said Primus. "You caused the damage out of an attempt to escape that 
violated orders. Yet I cannot destroy you yet. You may be needed." To 
help give him the gift if this Bua na Kuros never showed up. Primus 
was well aware that flesh pokemon lied. 

"Replaced? But--..." Chirin couldn't imagine how Primus could just 
say that. Each one an individual, even if they did look and act so 
alike...each one alive, now dead. How could they just be 
replaced? "What conditions--what do I need to do to let you release 
me? If you're not going to release me I'll starve down here, there's 
no food I can eat." He wouldn't say any more about Bua or the gift. 
The dark one could do as he pleased and Chirin had no power to stop 
him coming here. "All I can say is for you to leave here--evacuate--
before the evil spirit's forces come here. They came to my flock and 
killed and hurt and destroyed. They tried to kill me."

Evacuation was not an option and Primus had no wish to avoid this so-
called evil spirit. Good, evil, it made no difference to him. Those 
were labels that he had never gotten involved with.  

"Your advise will be taken into consideration," said Primus, who had 
made the decision to release this animal. He could be called back if 
Bua did not return. "You say that if you are released you will never 
return to us unless summoned?"

"Never," said Chirin, "I can't live down here, I need to be in a 
place under the sun."

Sun...something he had only distant memories of. "If summoned you 
realize you must return to us?"

"Yes," lied Chirin, shivering with anticipation. "My word is my 
bond," he even added, throwing in a saying that he had heard in 
stories, coming from the lips of heroes much more of the light than 
he was, probably. But they weren't alive anymore--so most folks said. 

"Then you shall be released." Primus did not fancy the idea of 
letting him go, but keeping him was too dangerous, and if he died in 
their care--which he would--he had no insurance if Bua did not come 
or exist. It was too late to call the quagsires back, they were 
swimming away down the river again, and Primus had no need to. If 
they were on the mission this pokemon said they were, they must be 
let alone to complete their task, and if they weren't, calling them 
back would not change that. He could tell from theis pokemon's crying 
and such that all it wanted to do was be returned to the habitat it 
depended on for survival. 

"Oh...thank you, Primus," said Chirin with fresh tears. "For 
understanding how much this means to me." Suddenly he had the 
strength to stand, albeit unsteadily. He even felt the ancestors 
coming back to him--Ysgard in particular. Ysgard had never left him! 
he realized. His father had been like him and must understand...Mama 
too would never leave her loving little lamb. Yes, as long as Dah and 
Mama were still with him he was fine! He could face the angry masses 
knowing at least someone who had passed on was on his side. But he 
still knew that the forces there against him or who did not care far 
outnumbered the ones who helped him. Maybe that was why he had been 
given this gift, the extra powers needed to fight spirits who had it 
in for him. 

"I ask you one thing," said Primus, "what is your name?"

"Chirin-chirin." He did not give his flock--he didn't even want 
Primus to know who he was. There was something very unsettling about 
how he had asked about the gift--he wanted it and Chirin wondered if 
he was even willing to go to the dark one for it. Part of his mind 
was aghast at the thought but the other part deeper inside held the 
truth like a growing cramp. He said no more on it. He was lucky to be 
alive.

"Chirin-chirin, two mehkon will direct you to the upperworld 
passage." And while he was gone Primus would set himself to the task 
of having a place and method by which to contain Chirin should his 
presence be required again. It wa all a giant logic puzzle waiting 
for his great mind to solve.

"Ohh..." Chirin shook and shuddered as he stood, unable to believe it-
-the spirits had not left him, they weree on his side after all...he 
would be released...released! Free to roam up aboveground, find his 
flock...just see them! "Ohh thank you...thank you...Phos shine light 
on you and your colony, they may be very different from the world I 
was born to and love but you've shown me mercy."

Primus had no real concept of 'mercy.' He had once thought it 
involved letting or helping people not be destroyed or damaged, but 
that was not always the case. It was an inconstant thing that he left 
to the recipient to identify. 

Chirin had fallen back to the floor, lying down despite the pain in 
every movement, thanking any spirits who had helped him through this. 
His nose pressed to the floor that he had lain on, connecting himself 
with, giving a piece of his essence to that would live on in this 
room. Should he return at any future time it would remember him, just 
like Primus would. He had no idea, really, of how well Primus could 
remember things. 

He rose up quickly, steadied himself by murmuring charms and flicking 
his lights to keep him in this realm when dizziness swept over him. 
He stepped over to the two voltorbs. Primus called them *mehkon,* but 
they really looked just like Voltorbs. Was that a name for these two 
or some other creature that they were of, like Chirin-chirin was 
partly the shells ringing in summer breeze? Breeze swept his head in 
a spin as he followed them out, "Phos's light to you," he called to 
Primus, his hoarse voice cracking. Primus did not answer, only 
watched him head down the pathway. 

It took resolve for him to stay on his feet and not let his knees 
buckle. Excitement was a tingling liquid in his veins, the coursing 
of a thousand spirits--making him lighter than he had ever been. 
There really was an end...he would be out of here again. Suddenly 
skies sang and grass swooned. 

Chirin headed on after the voltorbs, frustrated by the slow pace they 
kept. They offered no conversation as they headed down the passage 
and into a larger metal tunnel. The giant hum of the central network 
was fading, but Chirin trailed his tail bulb low, gathering from it 
and from his head jewel when he could, the negative charge present in 
the walls. His whole body needed healing, though, the energy derived 
from the *denki* of the tunnel would only replenish his current and 
give him energy to get outside again. 

"Where were the quagsires released to?" he asked all of a sudden. Now 
that he was more alone the threat from them came back. "They're after 
me, I can't--"

"To the west side from which you all came," came the automated 
answer. 

"Ah, I see, thank you," said Chirin, knowing he was headed east. So 
they were headed back to Moonhome...and he was headed to where? His 
thoughts drowned in a sea of weakness and he used the memories of 
above as a beacon to keep him aware, as the passage exited the metal 
world and into stone again. He held one flipper to his chest and the 
other to his side, touching the apricorn and special seeing pebbles 
that were with him in spirit.


            29164From: wynnyelle  <wynnyelle@yahoo.com> 
            Date: Sun Mar 31, 2002 3:28am
            Subject: Re: <underground, e10> Crossing River-deep

             > that were with him in spirit.

The cavern's formations had never looked so beautiful to him after 
the voltorb colony's stolid lack of features or expression. "I hope 
you understand I feel very bad for what I did, and if there's a way I 
can help you in the future let me know," said Chirin to the 
voltorbs. "Right now all I can say is to avoid Bua na Kuros. He's a 
dangerous spirit of destruction and he'll only cause you all hurt."

"Your advice will be taken into consideration," said one of the 
voltorbs, Chirin wasn't sure which one as he had kept his lights low 
and they were both rolling behind him--as eager as he was to get out 
of here quickly. He wondered how far the passage out was and how long 
they would guide him. River Deep flowed on this side too, lazing 
languidly alongside them in the wide cavern as they stopped beside 
it. 

"Which way?" said Chirin, brightening his light and seeing another 
giant cave gaping open on the other side of the river, while caves 
could be seen going both ways up and down the river too. 

"There are two ways," blipped the voltorb. "The nearer one is 
straight east. Cross this river and head down that cave. You will 
reach it in little time."

"Thank you," said Chirin, "and where's the other one?" Just 
because..what if something happened with this one passage and someone 
was after him up that way too? 

"The other one goes northeast. Let the river carry you a long way and 
up above the river there will be a long passage up." 

"Oh...all right, thank you very much...Phos's light to you, I guess 
we part here," said Chirin.

"We do. Goodbye."

"Mother Megga and the cave spirits sing to you and bless you with 
good luck and love!" he called after than as they headed away. They 
didn't answer, but Chirin did not care. As he stepped into the river, 
letting the cool water wash over his much-abused body, he shivered in 
a twist of painful pleasure and toned his lights low, just in case 
someone was looking for him in here. He realized that all throughout 
his time down here he had thought little, if at all, of Bangaa and 
Burakuru. Those spirits were long ago and far away to him...they were 
vague and blurry next to the flesh and screams of Boro, of Bua na 
Kuros...of the great machine he had been thrust into the gut of. 
While Bangaa slept, some beast born of him had awakened again. Once 
he might have just thought it was Bangaa...now he considered that it 
must be some descendent of him, something lurking down in these 
caves...that had been calling to him since before Keel'alla had risen 
and fallen, seemingly unaffected by that whole horrendous event. A 
brother to Bangaa? Bangaa reborn-or some piece of him? They were 
related, no doubt. 

He swam slowly, the river was not too wide. Chirin had swum much 
longer distances back and forth from the unown island. His light 
shone above and beneath the surface, illuminating the riverbed in 
red. Pebbles rippled in the water below, the cold embraced him. His 
paddling made almost no sound, all beneath the water, cutting through 
tranquility.

Everything was very, very quiet.