Free Red Sun Also Rises, A by Mark Hodder Page A

place.”
    “Or—or—” I struggled with the idea that had just occurred to me.
    “What?”
    “Or he did kill us, Clarissa. He killed us, and we are in Heaven—or Hell.”
    “As a priest, surely you’d recognise which?”
    “The landscape might be Paradise, but its inhabitants—” My voice trailed away.
    Clarissa massaged the calf muscle of her right leg. “Why would Heaven have a heavier gravity? Why would the atmosphere of Hell have a citrus tang? If this is the afterlife, why do my legs still pain me? No, Aiden, this is undoubtedly a world of the flesh rather than of the spirit, and I suppose the reason for us being here will emerge in due course.”
     
    ° °
     
    In Earthly terms, day after day must have passed as the Ptall’kor pulled itself over the rolling grasslands, but on Ptallaya the twin suns barely moved at all. I ate, I slept, I examined the extraordinary flora and fauna, I even became bored, and still the journey went on.
    Eventually, when I shaded my eyes and peered ahead, I saw, rising from the horizon, a wall of white vapour bubbling high into the air. The Ptall’kor, making straight for it, entered a valley and pulled itself alongside a wide river, gliding over an ever-thickening forest of purple-leafed trees, transferring its gripping fingers from the grassy ground to the upper canopy and disturbing flocks of weird flying—or floating—creatures as it passed. It was becoming plainly apparent to me that many of this world’s animals were tremendously buoyant, and used their long tendril-like limbs not to take to the air, but to hold themselves down. A large number of smaller animals, dislodged by the groping hands of the Ptall’kor, slipped out of the foliage behind us and shot upward before jerking to a halt at the end of silken threads, which they’d obviously attached to twigs and branches. Looking back the way we’d come, I could see hundreds of them, like oddly shaped balloons marking our passage, slowly drawing their bodies back down into the leaves.
    “Soon we will stop so the Wise Ones can hunt Yarkeen,” Kata told us. “After we have eaten, we’ll travel through the Valley of Reflections to the Shrouded Mountains and the Cavern of Immersion.”
    “What is Yarkeen?” I asked.
    “That is.”
    I followed her pointing finger and saw, between us and the wall of steam, a huge balloon-like gas sac floating high in the air. It was semi-transparent—which is why I hadn’t noticed it before—and resembled an upside-down teardrop in shape. From its base, a long cord descended and, about thirty feet above the ground, flared outward like the mouth of a trumpet, forming into a broad disk, which—as became evident when we drew closer to it—was at least a mile in diameter. Multiple translucent tentacles extended from the edges of this and were probing about in the foliage below.
    “How can something that size be hunted?” I exclaimed.
    “What, Aiden? What is it?” Clarissa interjected.
    I told her about the creature. She banged the palms of her hands against her blindfold in frustration.
    “Hunting a Yarkeen is dangerous,” Kata said. “When the Eyes of the Saviour are upon it, it will not purposely attack, but if it realises that it’s in danger, it will defend itself, and it is very powerful.”
    “But why bother hunting it?” I asked. “It’s gigantic! We couldn’t possibly eat it all, and I see plenty of smaller creatures all around us, not to mention fruit-heavy trees and bushes filled with berries.”
    The Koluwaian nodded. “Only a small part of the Yarkeen is edible but traditions must be followed.”
    I don’t know how long it took us to reach the massive creature. Time was stuck. Perhaps I slept again, I’m not certain.
    Awareness returned to me when we drew close to the beast. Its vast disk lay off to our right, above low, forested hills. I saw that, high above, around the thing’s buoyancy sac, a cloud of smaller things were flying. They were at such