Fill the Dark with Silence

Part 1: Deerkiller

Shyspur, sliding over the topground, left behind him a trail of blood. Each greasy droplet which fell and plinked against the bottomground below, echoed off the world’s surfaces. Each echo hummed on Shyspur’s spinal whiskers — and through his whiskers, and up his spine, Shyspur felt the world’s shape.

The latest droplet painted a juncture. Deerkiller Crossing, Shyspur called it, for the many times he’d filled his belly on its game. Shyspur knew this worldpart well. Deerkiller Crossing took the shape of an oval. A single big air path punctured one side of the oval, where Shyspur entered. Three littler paths split from the other focus.

Soundless, Shyspur released his clutch on the topground. Soundless, he unfolded vast wings, twisted, and slid through air. Soundless he landed, belly-first. Shyspur slid forward once more, now across the bottomground, still without noise.

The bottomground’s jagged crystal gave Shyspur no discomfort; his belly was clad in thick, unfeeling scales. When he was just a fledgling fresh from the nest, Shyspur had once tried the other way, landing on his whiskered backside. Once had been enough.

As he crawled over the bottomground, Shyspur would infrequently tap his talons (he called them his “Meat Catchers”) on the crystal. He tapped lightly, so that it made only a quiver in the air’s atoms. Each air ripple shaped out a small bubble of the world.

When Shyspur had moved in this way for a dozen lengths of his body, leaving a span of bloody trail across the crystal, he suddenly crouched. With a tremendous shove he hurled himself up - again, without a sound - and launched into the air. Fanning his vast, silent wings, he soared back to the topground, spun, and used the wings and his leg claws to cling tightly once more.

Shyspur repeated this exercise, over and over, breaking up the trail of blood which seeped from a cut between his ribs. He navigated Deerkiller Crossing using only the plinking blood and staccato Meat Catcher taps, never shaping the full oval with his whiskers.

If Shyspur had wanted, he could have clicked his tongue, and shaken the air of the whole space, and shaped all of Deerkiller Crossing in his mind.

Shyspur did not shake the air.

The blood and tapping did not disturb the silence much. They were small sounds. A loud sound, however, would shatter the silence. A loud sound would mark Shyspur’s place.

A loud sound would draw the hunters.

Whisper. Snarl. GibberGibberGibber.

The hunters had found Shyspur’s trail. Shyspur had made no loud noise, and his wound from the hunter’s barb had stopped bleeding. Yet these hunters had tracked Shyspur regardless, following his route after Deerkiller Crossing, following through Two Needle Gap and Where the Bitewind Blows.

Shyspur dropped, gliding to the bottomground. As he landed, he tapped a Meat Catcher against a glassy polyhedron of crystal. The echoes whispered on his taut whiskers.

Shyspur tapped the crystal a second time, slightly to the left. He knew this particular geode. This was Old Crystal-skull.

Old Crystal-skull had haunted this territory for many seasons of the wind. But then Shyspur had come. The two had battled for mastery. After a long thrash, with many deep Meat Catcher gashes on both their wings and flanks, Shyspur had caught Old Crystal-skull on the neck with a spray of melting-spit. In that moment, the fight had ended. Old Crystal-skull thrashed only a little longer after that, before Shyspur swooped finally over him, and buried his sharp beak in the soft fat beneath Old Crytal-skull’s wingpit.

Now Old Crystal-skull, former haunter of this dark, was only a skull. And over this skull, the crystal had formed a polyhedral dome.

Grunt. Trill… Trill… CreakClickWhistle.

Shyspur craned his neck. He knew that last sound. CreakClickWhistles were stingers. They were sharp, pointed barbs, which the hunters could launch, just as Shyspur could launch his melting-spit. It was one of these stingers, launched by the hunters, which had punctured Shyspur’s flank and taken a trickle of his life.

Only one breed of hunter used CreakClickWhistle stingers.

Uprights.

These hunters were Uprights. Their bodies were tall and narrow, like the menhir shape of certain deep stones. Some force glued the Uprights to the bottomground; they couldn’t rise through air.

Shyspur threw himself up once more. Leaving Old Crystal-skull behind, he let the air flutter his wings. He gained speed. He clicked, feeling the echo in his whiskers, shaping the world in his mind.

It had been many blowings of the wind since Shyspur had swallowed Upright flesh, longer since he’d felt their stingers. These were smart Uprights though, good hunters. They were a pack of at least five. Earlier they had masked both sound and smell. They had taken Shyspur by surprise with one stinger. Now they followed his course without fail, though Shyspur understood his silence well.

Shyspur heard the sudden taptap taptap of many hooves. Deer below, seven, spooked by his clicks. A pity. At another time Shyspur could have taken one and sated his hunger.

But Shyspur heard, also, the hoot and chuckle of the Uprights drawing closer. Shyspur did not want to feel their stingers again, or their other weapons. Shyspur knew that, against these skillful hunters, he needed skill himself.

Resonance thrummed across Shyspur’s whiskers as he sailed softly into the fully-contoured space of The Vault of Fangs.

Every crack and crevice, every stalactite, every stalagmite, every malformation of crystal across the vast landscape of the bottomground, perfectly sculpted itself in Shyspur’s mind. Two enormous pillars stuck out in the mind-shape, dominating The Vault’s center, stretching from bottomground to top, washed in the eternal soundwaves.

The sound came from a river. A noisy current emerged into The Vault from some deeper, hadean vault of the world, wrapping one of the towering pillars in its coiling wet grasp. It filled the air with vibration, so that Shyspur need make no noise himself to know the space’s entire shape.

Despite the easy whisker sense in The Vault of Teeth, Shyspur rarely haunted it. The river, on top of sound, also filled the atmosphere with the stench of algae, and the mixed pheromones of the animals who slaked their thirst on the water. While Shyspur could feel the space and remain silent, the mixed scents blinded his nose.

Shyspur passed between the hanging fangs of the topground, directly over the river path. The river was a wide and deep one. Things lived in the water which even worldly Shyspur had not tasted the meat of; things that wouldn’t let themselves be tasted. Shyspur discerned the shapes of two such things now. He sensed them at the edge of the river, directly beneath him - two large, round, flat formations at the river’s edge, covered in moss like ordinary stones. But, these were not stones.

Shyspur soared smoothly up to one of the larger topground fangs. With a swoop he brought himself flush to its wide surface. He wrapped his barbs and wings against the stone, pressing his body flat against the fang, laying his whiskers flat also, and falling still.

Then, Shyspur waited.

Shyspur tensed.

With flat whiskers Shyspur couldn’t feel The Vault’s space as distinctly. Even so, he easily shaped the outlines of eight Uprights, not five. They marched like a line of water fowl into The Vault of Fangs. The river noise rebounded distinctly off of each. The Uprights also lent their own sound to the babel. Shyspur heard the usual chitters and grunts and cackles, as well as the claps of their feet, arrhythmic against the broken crystal.

Shyspur’s muscles knotted. His whiskers, unintentionally, stretched to catch every sound.

Four of the Uprights were the kind that could throw CreakClickWhistle stingers. Shyspur knew this because he recognized the stinger appendage in their shapes. This was a curved protrusion (like a two sided, blunt hook) which connected their two upper limbs, and with the throwable, pointed stinger jutting from the curve.

The other four Uprights were a different breed, yet Shyspur recognized these as well. These four had no stingers, and their upper limbs were separate. One of these upper limbs - the right for three, the left for the last - was longer on each of the four, and bore an extra joint. This extra limb of each terminated in a hot, smoking fist, which crackled. Shyspur knew to beware the HotSmokeFist Uprights; while a stinger caused greater flesh harm, a blow from the fist still hurt. Worse, the fist seemed to grant these Uprights shape-sense, just as Shyspur’s whiskers did for him. As a fledgling Shyspur had once tried to ambush a lost Upright with a HotSmokeFist. Yet, although Shyspur had made not a sound, the HotSmokeFist had known his presence.

The eight Uprights proceeded in formation to the river’s edge. They were wise hunters. They kept close to each other, but not so close that Shyspur could drop and envelop more than one at once. In addition to their grunting, and the crackle of the HotSmokeFists, Shyspur’s whiskers caught a curious scraping sound. It came off their hips and shoulders and elbows. Shyspur’s memory made nothing from the scraping - he had never heard Uprights make that sound before.

Shyspur’s talons slithered from their finger sheathes.

One of the CreakClickWhistle Uprights barked sharply. Shyspur took this one to be the pack’s leader. It stood out from the others with an additional adornment, a single feather growing from its round scalp. When it barked, the other seven ceased their own noises. They stood stock still.

When their leader stopped barking, six of the pack fanned out. They formed a wide line beneath one of the Vault’s towering pillars. The other two walked up to the riverbank.

They approached a spot beside one of the large, flat Not-stones.

Shyspur let his scaled belly come away from the humid-sticky surface of the stalactite.

The two at the river took empty bladder shapes from their haunches. They bent. They dunked the bladders in the river.

Shyspur sensed a small movement from the Not-stone.

The two walked back to their line. After that, two different Uprights approached. They dunked their own bladders into the torrent.

The mossy Not-stone surged. From beneath the water it brought forth three Drowners - grabbing pincher limbs - and wrapped them around the nearest Upright. Before the Upright could react the Not-stone jerked it into the stream with its Drowners, pulling the helpless hunter beneath the frothing surface.

The pack sprang into motion. The nearest one brought its limbs up and with a clickwhistle launched its stinger. The barb plinked harmlessly off the Not-stone’s hard mossy shell. The other six ran at the water.

Gathering together…

One of the pack - the weakest - reacted slowly. It was at the back as the pack ran to help their drowning fellow creature.

Shyspur, haunt master, dark glider, capitalized. He dropped like a dead bird, his leather wings folded into his belly, straight for the laggard. Right before landing he unfurled the wings, spreading his webbed shape over the hesitant Upright. He struck the Upright with a heavy thump. Air whooshed. The Upright yelped, muffled as Shyspur enveloped him. Shyspur brought his Meat Catchers swiping in for a quick kill. His hooks whistled for the caught, tender meat.

His hooks rebounded.

Shyspur’s Meat Catchers clanked, scraped, and deflected off a hard surface. The Upright had a shell, just like the Not-stone currently drowning its pack mate.

Shyspur, old-hand with hard prey, beat his wings. He immediately tried putting space between himself and the Upright.

His reaction came too late. This Upright was one of the HotSmokeFist kind. It swung its crackling fist, smacking Shyspur’s beak. Shyspur felt twin pains - the spiderwebbing sting of the blow, and the radiant sting of his singed flesh.

Shyspur hissed.

This was not a hiss like that of the hard-to-catch, coiling snakes which lived in burrows near the hot peat of Fungalbog. Nor was it like the long necked birds with fatty flesh, which dwelt in bottomground nests by pools of water. No, this was a sound like that of the Seabeasts; massive creatures which surfaced sometimes from the placid waters of the Great Glass Ocean, far deeper in the world; a sound like when those creatures sprayed from the holes in their heads. Shyspur’s hiss was like vent steam bursting through the world crust from thousand fathom depths.

The primeval cry seemed to remind the Uprights that Shyspur was not simple prey. The hiss stunned them, at any rate. The Uprights had spun on Shyspur, their CreakClickWhistle stingers ready, but they hesitated when Shyspur hissed.

One second was all the deep world stalker needed. Separating from the Upright and its fist, Shyspur flung himself up. He beat the air with his heavy wing, throwing up dust and shard from crystal crushed under his weight. In a flurry Shyspur spun in the air and winged away from the pack.

Part 2: Farhaunter

Splash. Whimper. Gurgle. Roar. Trickle. Scream. Sounds shaped the crystal world in micro-faceted detail for Shyspur.

The Uprights split. One continued to whack the Not-stone with its HotSmokeFist. The smoking weapon made a hiss of its own each time its struck the creature’s wet, mossy back. Two more of the same kind of Uprights tried to pull the Not-stone to shore with their short limbs. But the Not-stone only sank lower into the foam and froth. Their fellow Upright was doomed.

The remaining three - the leader and two others with stingers - turned on Shyspur. Shyspur heard three clicks, and three whistles, and in his whisker-thought-shape three long pointed stingers flew his way. Two missed. They missed by little; the Uprights knew their weapons well. The third stinger hit, but only scraped a shallow, painful groove on the leather of Shyspur’s wing.

Shyspur fanned the air furiously. He surged higher toward The Vault’s fangs. He heard three unison cranking sounds below - the Uprights quickly growing new stingers.

Full-tilt, atoms rippling under his wings and over his whiskered spine, Shyspur slipped through the air. Like an Upright stinger he flew, straight for the opening by which all had entered The Vault of Fangs.

Shyspur would seek a better battleground. He knew now about the curious scraping, knew that these Uprights had shells. He would use the experience to plan his next battle. Or, he would flee, and hide, and live to embed his Meat Catchers in softer food.

Three more clicks. Three whistles. Three stingers cut through the air towards Shyspur. But the barbs fell short now, arcing up to Shyspur’s height near the topground fangs, but failing to reach his distance before they dipped. Shyspur shaped out the crack of the exit on his whiskers. He whistled toward it.

Shyspur suddenly came up short. His wings beat the air just before the wide escape. His whiskers, taut, caught more sound coming from his intended path. Hoots and barks responded to the cries of the pack pursuing Shyspur from the river.

More Uprights.

Shyspur just caught their vague shapes on his whiskers. There were eight more; eight more Upright hunters who stood between Shyspur and escape, their CreakClickWhistle stingers ready.

Reluctantly, Shyspur pitched his wings and spun. He took flight, high, in an arcing path around the herd by the river.

Very reluctantly did Shyspur turn back towards The Vault of Fangs.

The Vault had only one exit.

Guided by the babbling water’s soundshaping Shyspur flitted over the river, into The Vault’s farthest reach. He felt sure even these clever hunters couldn’t sense him at such distance. Their whiskers, wherever they grew on the Uprights’ bodies, seemed less sensitive than Shyspur’s gossamer tendrils.

The Uprights could, however, still follow. Shyspur soared smoothly up to a wide crevice between three topground fangs. He laid himself flat against one fang. He wedged deeply into the crack. He twisted his wings and feet around so that he could drop free at a moment’s notice.

Throughout his escape and ensconcement Shyspur had traced the Upright shapes.

After the Not-stone had stolen and drowned their pack member, the rest of the Uprights had collected themselves. The shapes of the seven from the first group staggered across the broken crystal to join the eight newcomers - unfortunately right in front of The Vault’s lone egress. Evidently, all fifteen of these Uprights formed a single pack.

The plumed leader snarled at the others. Their barking, which had been panicked and continual since the Not-stone sprang, ceased. The leader went on snarling and gesturing with his limbs for some time. The pack listened.

When this leader stopped, the Uprights stepped to action. They were organized creatures. They moved in patterns, like the strings of meatless, tiny insects which - when Shyspur’s strained his whiskers - he sometimes sensed carrying lichen and dead bugs in long sojourns across the soil of a mushroom taiga.

The fifteen Uprights split. They formed into three groups of five. As before, the members of these groups kept near each other without clustering into one mass. Even if Shyspur had chosen battle instead of retreat, dropping upon them would have yielded no advantage.

One group began marching in formation back and forth before the exit.

The other two teams worked in unison, moving separately across The Vault’s crooked terrain, but with the seeming intention of scanning the whole bottomground. At first Shyspur didn’t understand their purpose. Surely these experienced hunters understood that Shyspur wouldn’t hide where they might easily find him?

Shyspur followed their paths closely.

One member of each team, every so often, performed an incredible feat of biology. At regular intervals in their maneuvers across The Vault, whenever they would reach a level patch of crystal, the five-member teams stopped. One of the HotSmokeFist kind would reach up and around, plunging its short limb into the small hump on its back. These humps jingled, clanged, and thumped with diverse noises. From its hump the HotSmokeFist Upright would somehow elongate its short limb to match its long, hot one. The new limb also ended in a blunt fist, unsmoking and uncrackling, at least at first. The Upright would touch this new appendage to their hot one. Then, unbelievably, both fists would suddenly be hot and smoking and crackling. Most incredible of all to Shyspur was what came next. The Upright would bend over, and detach the new limb! It would leave one of its HotSmokeFist weapons on the crystal ground, like a capless mushroom stalk. Shyspur thought of it as something like a spent stinger, but the fist remained crackling where the Upright left it.

After the Upright had conducted this beastly performance, the whole pack would resume moving. They would walk until they reached another flat place. And then the HotSmokeFist member would repeat its self-mutilation.

The roving groups even went beyond the river. They crossed along a narrow overhang above where the gulping water emerged from The Vault’s wall. The Uprights patterned the bottomground of this far side of The Vault with their detached limbs as well. They passed right below Shyspur; he kept his muscles taut and his talons extended. He knew the HotSmokeFists gave the Uprights better shape-sense. Yet it seemed not to reach The Vault’s fangs, for they continued their ramble without disturbing the hidden haunter.

In this manner, between the two roving groups, the whole crystal bottomground of The Vault of Teeth was covered in detached, crackling limbs. This done, they started back towards the third fraction of the pack, still pacing before the exit.

Shyspur silently pulled air through his flat nose; a hairless scar on the left nostril stretched wide. Though the pungent river fumes still dominated, Shyspur scented underlying smoke. The smoke wasn’t strong enough to sting his nose and lungs. Shyspur considered carefully over what the placement of the HotSmokeFists could mean. He wondered if the fists would allow the Uprights to know his place and movement, even after they left The Vault - like stationary whiskers. The thought discomforted Shyspur.

The Uprights, however, did not leave the vault. The fourteen members of the pack gathered in a wide semicircle around their leader. Once more, Shyspur felt the leader’s bark shiver along his whiskers, mixing with the gurgle of the water, and the crackling of the two dozen smoking, detached limbs.

Shyspur lifted his scaled belly slightly off the fang. His Hunter’s Instinct warned him of danger.

The Uprights formed up into a diamond around their leader. The seven Uprights with the detachable HotSmokeFists rummaged noisily in their humps, and pulled out some sort of tangly, viny material, over which the world vibrations landed softly.

The other eight Uprights, leader included, raised their stingers.

The leader barked once.

Click.

Whistle.

Clatter.

Eight stingers soared up. They rang against the Vault’s stone fangs. They struck a wide area, but an area near the exit, about as far from Shyspur’s hiding place as could be. The stingers rebounded harmlessly off the stone.

The leader of the pack barked again. The eight stingers cranked. Then the pack moved forward across the bottomground, keeping formation.

The leader barked again.

Click.

Whistle.

Clatter.

Once more the stingers rebounded. They struck a different swathe of fangs, still far from Shyspur.

But, closer.

Bark… Bark. ClickWhistleClatter.

The pack moved farther in, slowly covering the fangs of The Vault in barrages. They crossed the noisy river using the stone ledge, and began to pepper Shyspur’s side of the bank.

Bark… Bark. ClickWhistleClatter.

Closer…

Bark… Bark. ClickWhistleClatter.

Shyspur’s wing muscles contracted. His Meat Catchers waited, extended, sharp. His beak parted…

ClickWhistleClatter.

Their stingers missed, but would not miss again. Now was Shyspur’s moment. Now their CreakClickWhistlers were spent.

Shyspur exploited this weakness.

The haunter heaved a breath. Stinking river air flooded his lungs. Blood swelled his muscles.

Down he dropped. Vibrating air poured silently over Shyspur’s folded shape as he plunged soundless at the Uprights.

Shyspur struck the Upright leader with a clang. As before, crystal crunched under the falling weight. As before, Shyspur’s hooks scraped Upright shell. But chary Shyspur anticipated that. His drop slammed the Upright flat out on the crystal, that was all he needed.

Flicking his beak at the nearest Upright - one already creaking its stinger - Shyspur unhitched his jaw. From the back of his throat he felt a burn. Shyspur heaved his belly muscles.

Bubbling, viscous melting-spit spewed from Shyspur’s beak. The digestive spit struck across the torso and limbs of the cranking Upright, which ceased cranking, and flailed instead. It’s stinger limb fell off. Shyspur felt a predator’s satisfaction as this would-be hunter screamed. Though he didn’t understand Upright sounds, Shyspur recognized pain.

But, although in a flash Shyspur had crushed their leader under his bulk and maimed (if not killed) one of their members, thirteen packlings remained.

Shyspur crouched, tensed his Meat Catchers, and readied his wings to beat the air. But the other hunters reacted faster. Three of HotSmokeFist kind had charged him the moment he landed. Before Shyspur could take flight, one brought its burning fist against the fold of his wing. Shyspur felt burning pain. Worse, the blow crimped Shyspur’s wing fold just as he flapped.

In response Shyspur released another primeval hiss. The sound didn’t catch the hunters by surprise as before, but Shyspur followed by wheeling his long neck at the attacker. He’d not yet worked up another spray, so Shyspur slammed his massive beak against the Upright’s short limb. A snap shook the air, followed by another satisfying screech.

Now, however, the other two hunters had reached grounded Shyspur. Shyspur tried to launch once more; knowing that he couldn’t delay; feeling the shape of four more HotSmokeFist Uprights already oncoming; hearing six more cranking stingers eager to pierce his leather. To delay was death, and so Shyspur strove to retake the air.

But another burning fist smashed him, singing wing skin, nearly tearing the thin leather. At the same time the leader, still caught under Shyspur’s bulk, latched his blunt claws into Shyspur’s belly scales. The leader clutched tight.

Shyspur thrashed. He threw his Meat Catchers about, frenziedly smashing them into the shell-clad soft bodies. He used his beak as a great long club. He threw his weight forward, hurtling over the ground like the loping deer he loved to taste, but slower and in a clumsy way, his wings unfit for stepping, and the leader of the pack weighing him down.

All about Shyspur the air thrummed with the frenzied cranking of stingers. All about, the Uprights beat and burned his back and wings with their long fists. All across his body, Shyspur felt hot pain. His killer-heart pumped adrenal lust; but Shyspur found himself caught by jaws which he could neither tear away from, nor pry apart.

Shyspur, old hunter, far haunter, master of top and bottom ground, feaster of all meats, slayer of Old Crystal-skull and a hundred-hundred other beasts, knew he stood upon the grave’s dead brink. Like a good old hunter he meant to thrash till the end.

Another HotSmokeFist smote against the whiskers at the base of Shyspur’s spine. He gave a sharp screech of his own.

Behind the screech, however, Shyspur heard the cranking around him cease. No clicks followed. Why?

It mattered little. Shyspur had already taken a dozen hard hits. His skin was scorched. The cartilage of his wings was cracked. His thrashing came slower and slower. The stingers were unnecessary. Even before the seven standing back from him could launch their barbs, Shyspur knew he was beaten.

The great hunter’s wings buckled. He collapsed, smothering the leader of the pack underneath his bulk. Shyspur tried to raise himself - pain sapped his strength. So he simply lay there, breath heaving, world-shape blurring, waiting for the deathblow.

The world blurred further, and still the deathblow did not come. Why? Were the Uprights waiting for him to smother their pack leader, so that one of them might assume the mantle? Or did their barbs perhaps leave his meat tarnished? Possibly the uprights chose to let him perish to the smoking fists, so that they could feast upon him after the kill.

The world shrank and shrank and shrank, and the sound faded from his ears, and the smells of burned flesh and river water and adrenaline became indistinct in his nostrils… still the blow did not come.

As Shyspur faded, he shaped those viny tangles which the Uprights had taken from their humps. These were thrown over and about him, line by line.

Then, oblivion.

Part 3: Meatcatcher

They had muzzled his beak.

…Had shut him in a lattice.

…Had cut his whiskers.

Shyspur had awoken not dead - but soundly beaten, caught fast, and shorn into a cripple. Every inch of his flesh stung with burn pain. Every swollen twitch of muscle made that pain worse. But the pain was nothing, not by comparison.

…Muzzled his beak.

…Shut him in a lattice.

…Cut his whiskers.

Shyspur heard the Uprights. They were all around. They made a confusing mix of chirps and barks and whispers with their strange flat mouths, blunt teeth, and short tongues. But, though Shyspur heard their sound, their shapes were indistinct blurs as the vibrations touched the nubs of his whiskers.

Shyspur heard the Upright feet thumping and crunching as they moved across the crystal - he felt the same crystal bottomground on his tenderized belly. But, beyond the places Shyspur’s scales touched, the surface shape of the ground was a small, murky bubble.

Shyspur heard the river’s gurgle. He realized they must have remained in The Vault of Fangs after he’d sunken into consciousness’s Little Death. He still smelled, on the air, the river’s musk. But the vibrations of the water through that same air produced no shape of the room in Shyspur’s mind. Without his whiskers he was thought-blind.

…Muzzled his beak.

…Shut him in a lattice.

…Cut his whiskers.

Shyspur wondered: why hadn’t the Uprights killed him? The triangle ears beside his beak expanded as wide as his muscles could pull them.

In battle victory, the Uprights had become diverse in the pitch and length of their hoots, grunts, howls, cries, gasps, and cackles. Shyspur didn’t understand these noises. Even so, Shyspur thought he sensed pleasure in the voices of the Uprights. Their sounds were not unlike the low chirrs Shyspur made after a satisfying meal.

Yet the Uprights had taken no part of Shyspur’s flesh.

Why? Why did these hunters not kill and eat their prey? All other creatures did. From the Thousandlimbs; which lived in the deepest world parts that Shyspur had ever flown, and could raise half their long body to touch the topground while their lower half stretched steadily over the bottom, and which easily peeled the shell off of Not-stones to feast on their meat; from those behemoths to the tasty, tiny, fanged deer, which foraged for food in the mushroom taiga; all creatures ate their take. That was the World Law: Take and Eat.

Why did the Uprights break this law?

…Muzzled his beak.

…Shut him in a lattice.

…Cut his whiskers.

Shyspur raised his beak off the crystal. Pain flashed in his neck, but he did not screech or hiss. He stretched his ears wider still, and tried to stretch his shorn whiskers.

Shyspur thought he sensed a shape. It sat at the foggy limit of his shrunken world. It seemed soft and flat, a rough three-dimensional triangle, with flaps on one side. Shyspur’s stubs caught the vibrations of one blurry Upright moving at the edge of the bubble. The Upright walked over to this triangle, bent, pushed the flaps apart, and crawled inside.

Shyspur couldn’t have anticipated the missile. In one breath it entered his bubble. It was a stone. It struck hard on Shyspur’s ear. The strike drew no blood, but branded his mind with pain. Shyspur would have screeched, except the muzzle held his beak shut. The sound choked in his throat.

Shyspur heard the exciting barking of the Uprights in the murk all around, clearly joyous now.

Shyspur lowered his head. He breathed heavily against the ground.

…Muzzled his beak.

…Shut him in a lattice.

…Cut his whiskers.

As Shyspur lay there upon the bottomground of The Vault of Fangs — encased in a lattice shaped like crystal, but with the unscratchable hardness of veinstone - he noticed a smell. It mingled with the river’s musk. It wasn’t smoke, though he smelled that too in the blend, and the crackling in the soundscape told Shyspur that the HotSmokeFist Uprights were still near. Shyspur couldn’t identify this new odor.

Shyspur lay quietly, taking in large and deep breaths, holding his body still and his head flat.

One of the Uprights entered Shyspur’s world. It walked up to the lattice surrounding the crippled hunter. It yelled.

Shyspur remained still.

The Upright seemed to contemplate Shyspur for a moment; Shyspur noticed it swaying in place. Then it began to grumble. From the ground beside the lattice, the Upright picked up a long shape, like the trunk of a mushroom sapling. It poked Shyspur with this stick.

Shyspur remained still.

The Upright prodded harder. It yelled again, seemingly vexed. The Upright dropped the stick, and reached for part of the lattice in front of Shyspur’s beak. It began fiddling with some kind of hard link-vine which was wrapped around two of the vertical lines in the lattice.

But then another Upright entered the square, and shouted at the one who had come to pester Shyspur. The one before him grumbled again. It retreated, still swaying. The two Uprights staggered out of Shyspur’s bubble.

But, Shyspur noticed that the lattice in front of him seemed to have shifted. The link-vine hung limply, its two ends dangling. The obstacle encasing him seemed to have been loosened.

Shyspur’s gut told him, “Attack the lattice. Break the barrier. Sow Upright death!” Another instinct told him, “Take to the air. Escape.”

Hunter’s Wisdom, however, held Shyspur still and observant.

The Uprights cavorted. Sometimes they passed within Shyspur’s bubble of shaped space. More often he could simply hear their feet crunching and thumping. They acted like beasts in a mating chase, but Shyspur thought this was something other than mating. As time passed, their barks and trills rose in pitch. The thump of their feet became uneven, like the wobbling stride of tender newborn fawns. If Shyspur were to smash through the weakened lattice before him, and fly free, he thought he could easily snatch one of their number in his Meat Catchers. A simple escape - catch meat, fly to safety, eat.

Shyspur continued to lie perfectly still. He understood now, in the front of his mind, what The Hunter’s Wisdom had hinted from the back.

All creatures must sleep.

For much time did Shyspur lie. He made not the least twitch. Only the widening and shrinking of his nostrils betrayed life. His body did not swell with each inhaled breath, but lay perfectly contoured to the crystal. It was a position Shyspur had assumed many times over the many blowing seasons of the wind. He often took it on the topground over Deerkiller Crossing, when he lay in ambush for deer. His pointed ears, flat nose, and the nubs of his whiskers all stood keyed to the highest pitch.

The Uprights turned madder and madder. Once, two stumbled within Shyspur’s murky shapesense. They fell over, hit the crystal with a crunch, then began howling - not with pain, it seemed to Shyspur, but glee.

At another moment Shyspur heard a trio of three Uprights begin making the same sequence of sounds together, slightly out-of-sync with each other, with their voices fluctuating; like the wind sometimes fluctuated, when it blew forcibly from a wide way of the world into a much narrower one. Soon the entire pack - except for the leader, Shyspur noted - leant their voices to the clamor.

Meanwhile that new odor waxed. Shyspur’s tuned sense of smell finally traced the odor’s origin to the Uprights themselves. It came mostly from their mouths, and from the strange detachable bladders which they carried, the ones they’d dunked into the river. The smell was a caustic one; a mix like the fumes over the pools of Burnbubble, combined with lizard urine.

Shyspur continued to wait. He thought, with effort, he could feel a little farther out - expanding his bubble by focusing intently on the vibrations rattling against his cut whiskers. Not much farther.

At last, the Uprights quieted. The strong stink remained. One by one, the distinct voices of these beasts faded. One crawled into the triangle shape at the edge of his bubble, followed by another. Shyspur wondered if maybe the river water had poisoned the Uprights when they drank it from their flasks. He’d never dared the water himself, not with the lurking Not-stones. Perhaps the Uprights were dying?

No. Only a moment after the two had crawled into the triangle shape, Shyspur heard twin sets of heavy, rhythmic breath-snorts.

They had fallen asleep.

Soon Shyspur heard only two gibbering voices. The rest were mixing snorts and breaths with the gurgle of the river in his ear.

The voices grew louder, came closer. Two Uprights appeared on the murky edge of Shyspur’s world. They took solid shape. Shyspur did not hear the smallest scrape from either - both of these Uprights had shed their shells like snakeskin, it seemed.

The two muttered softly as they approached. Suddenly one - the leader by its voice — yelped. It jerked its limb, pointing at the loose lattice enclosing Shyspur.

Shyspur rose, pushed forward, and struck the lattice with his muzzled beak.

Shyspur smashed the weakened lattice barrier.

The ring of struck veinstone trembled the air.

The leader roared, he tried to retreat.

Shyspur plunged his beak in flank meat.

The leader screamed, the spare lunged.

Shyspur whipped his long neck;

His stuck beak tore loose,

Cracked the spare’s skull,

Knocked him down.

That smell…

Death.

The force of Shyspur’s blow had ripped the life out of the herdling. He whipped his beak back at the leader.

Somehow this leader of the hunters still stood. Shyspur’s nub-whiskers made out a deep gouge in the leader’s hip, left by the puncture of his muzzled beak. But the Upright, groaning and roaring, kept its footing. It retreated to the edge of Shyspur’s world.

Shyspur stretched his Meat Catchers. Hooked, sharp - they stood ready to earn their name. Battle lust made each heavy inhalation through Shyspur’s nose sweet and refreshing. The sounds of sleep snorts had now ceased. Hoots and stumbling feet sounded all around the killer.

Shyspur used his muscled wings to hurtle after the leader.

Just then, another soft triangle shape on Shyspur’s left flank disgorged two hunters. They wobbled as they walked, wobbled directly between Shyspur and the leader. Both had long HotSmokeFist limbs, but neither fist was crackling.

A wing flap launched all Shyspur’s mass. He charged. Though flat, he easily outsized and outweighed the two Uprights. Neither had time to swing its fist. Shyspur’s muzzled maw struck the left Upright on the shoulder. His beak hit with such force that the whole HotSmokeFist limb snapped backward at a jagged angle. The Upright screamed and fell. At the same moment Shyspur swung his left wingtip at the right hunter. His Meat Catcher hooked the hunter directly in the flesh beside its scream hole. As if through water, the Meat Catcher easily rent the jawbone.

Fear, sweat, and blood filled Shyspur’s nostrils. He breathed deeply.

The pack leader, holding its wounded hip, had stumbled beyond Shyspur’s whisker sense. Shyspur stepped with his back legs while beating his wings, churning musky air. He followed his prey’s blood scent. Shyspur wanted to taste the meat of the wound-be master hunter.

ClickWhistle.

Shyspur reacted instantly to the sound of a stinger. He twisted aside and fell flat. The stinger whisked from the mire ahead of him. Shyspur’s reaction came fast enough to avoid the shaft embedding in his skull, but not fast enough to dodge it entirely. The stinger struck beside his neck. It buried itself in the joint of Shyspur’s left wing. Shyspur would have hissed, and he instinctively tried to pull the barb loose with his beak, but the muzzle hindered him.

Shyspur heard cranking now from two places: ahead, and to the right. Both sources were beyond his whiskers. He immediately whirled his bulk around and beat his wings, leaping.

The left wing burst like a spore with pain the moment he stretched it. Shyspur found himself unable to rise even partly into the air. He was grounded.

Without delay Shyspur began loping. He crossed the bottomground. He retreated from the twin cranking sounds of the Upright CreakClickWhistle stingers, crunching heavily over the crystal, his wings and rear limbs thumping the surface like the heavy brain-drums of battle. Ahead of him he heard the river.

Along his retreat Shyspur stumbled into another group of triangle shapes. Six more Uprights had already emerged from them. They cut off Shyspur’s chosen route. The six hunters, however, had not yet grown any special limbs for fighting - they had neither stingers nor fists. All were stumbling, moreover, in their own haste to retreat from oncoming Shyspur.

Finding himself amidst weakness, Shyspur put hooks to use. In a flash - the briefest moment - he had thrown himself on them.

Shyspur fast made himself sticky with the blood of six more kills.

Another stinger whistled from behind. It nicked Shyspur on his ear and flew before his beak.

Shyspur followed the dart, away from the Upright nest.

Shyspur found the river; first by sound, then by the dew he felt on the unstable crystal which grew and decayed near the water, then by the water itself taking roiling shape at the edge of his whisker sense. He recognized the spot, and followed the bank upstream to one of The Vault’s twin pillars. At the base of the pillar lay a crystal hollow, where Mudsleep lizards sometimes laired. There were no lizards in the hollow now, as Shyspur limped inside.

Shyspur crouched. He twisted his ears to face behind him. He listened.

Shyspur could still hear the Uprights. They continued making noises of alarm from their nest corner of The Vault, not near enough for concern. Shyspur heard crackling as well, but only from the same corner as the voices. That meant that the strange, detachable sense-fists of the Uprights no longer lay across The Vault’s bottom.

Blood smell clung to Shyspur. It was an unusual sensation for him - to smell blood, and yet not to have tasted the meat it belonged to. Shyspur felt the Want from his gut. He was hungry now.

Always a clever hunter, Shyspur counted the Uprights. Thirteen had been their number before the pack subdued him. He had just killed or maimed another eight.

Shyspur understood two forward paths of acting. He could lope to The Vault’s exit (he would get there, even limping, faster than the Uprights if he started immediately). From there, he could flee into the world, eventually freeing his beak from the muzzle and removing the stinger from his wing. He might recover… But, he would be grounded until his wing healed, and thus easier to track.

Shyspur tried pulling the muzzle off now with his Meat Catcher. The wrapping was tight and did not give. He lowered his neck and rubbed his beak on the crystal, but The Vault of Fangs grew only brittle, unstable crystal, neither firm nor sharp. Shyspur would need to travel back to Where The Bitewind Blows — far flying, farther limping - and use Old Crystal-skull’s sharp, stable crystal jaw to cut the binding on his beak.

Once more the smell of blood stuck in Shyspur’s nose; his own, surely, but that of the Uprights as well. His short hair was matted by both. Straining with ears coned backwards, he caught the sounds of at least five living Uprights. Among them was the pack leader’s.

Shyspur backpedaled from the hollow at the base of the pillar. Standing on open ground, he tested his wings. Each shift of his left caused fresh pain where the Upright stinger stuck in his shoulder. Shyspur made a great deal of whooshing, only to discover that he couldn’t stretch his left wing far enough for flight. He could hobble, that was all.

Shyspur would not take the limping, loping, hobbling way. He would not flee. Not for glory or pride would he stay. Shyspur knew neither.

Shyspur, turning toward the mouth of the river and the overhang which led across it, followed nature. He stayed for the same reason Old Crystal-skull had stayed, when Shyspur first came to this territory, many winds past.

Shyspur was an apex hunter. The Uprights were apex hunters. They could not both live off the territory. That was law.

Shyspur did not flee; he took the other way.

Part 4: Shyspur

Shyspur reached the river mouth. His mind made the shape of the thin, wet crystal ledge spanning the torrent.

Stopping, listening, Shyspur caught the far voices of the Uprights under the water roar. He stood himself up on his stiff injured left wing, raised his right, and rapped the ground hard with his talons.

The sound echoed.

The Uprights continued to chatter.

Shyspur lowered his wing. He stepped closer to the wall. He brought his beak sideways, then - painfully - smacked it against the stone. The clack was louder, reverberating through the air, momentarily expanding his whisker-sense bubble, resounding over the river hum.

Shyspur listened.

The Uprights had gone silent.

Shyspur waited.

After many moments Shyspur heard the crunch of footsteps. he waited a little longer, until he heard the familiar crackling of HotSmokeFists.

Shyspur stalked across the rough river ledge. He took great care with his footing, but little with his sound. Twice Shyspur allowed his talons, extended for grip, to scrape loudly against the crystal.

On reaching the opposite bank Shyspur again struck the ground, waited, listened. The Uprights had ceased all mouth sound, but Shyspur heard the steady approach of their boots and crackling fists. He stalked farther and repeated his exercise. The new smell still clung to the Uprights. The smell grew stronger, the crackling, louder. Shyspur, ears coning backward, also heard scraping. So, the creatures had crawled back into their shells. Vexing.

Thinking himself still beyond the Uprights’ fist-sense, Shyspur paused. He raised his beak. His ears and nostrils pulled wide. He sensed.

The Upright leader barked. Its voice missed the strength, the steadiness it had held before Shyspur’s attack. Shyspur was curious that the other Uprights continued to obey this leader’s will. Every other pack species Shyspur knew would have turned on such an enfeebled leader. That way the strongest member was always the group’s master. The Upright ways were surely alien to Shyspur.

Over all other sound the river pounded.

Bringing his snout back low to the ground, Shyspur crept along the ledge once more. He soon made his way to the opposite side. Along the wet, crystalline river bank he travelled, passing occasional clumps of moss and fungal growth, keeping the current within his shape-sense. Shyspur made sure at intervals to rub his bloody shoulder on the slick crystal and stone, leaving a trail.

So limited were Shyspur’s stump whiskers that he nearly stumbled atop the Not-stone. It sat in a divot of the river bank, so that the mossy crystal camouflaged its shell. Shyspur stopped just in time to avoid stepping on the dangerous beast, much closer than he’d ever before dared. He swiftly but quietly retreated several body-lengths. He had no wish to grapple with the Not-stone. The two got along well in separate food chains.

Once he’d put the Not-stone just beyond his shape bubble, Shyspur stopped. He bent and smeared blood on the cap of a mushroom. Then he scratched on a short obelisk of crystal with his Meat Catchers. The not stone made no sound. In the distance, however, Shyspur heard a pause, then resumption of the Upright footsteps.

Shyspur turned and limped. He now travelled perpendicular to the river. He now moved as swiftly as was possible. He took care, now, to make no sound and leave no trail.

Shyspur shortly reached the second pillar connecting The Vault’s bottomground to its fanged top. Only by straining his cone-shaped ears backwards could Shyspur hear The Upright feet. Though he couldn’t form The Vault’s whole shape in his mind, Shyspur imagined that the Uprights were close to where his trail ended by the river.

Meat Catcher over Meat Catcher, shunting aside the flash of pain each time he stretched his wing, pressing his flat body even flatter against the rough surface, fastening his hind-claws deeply and quietly against the stone, Shyspur climbed.

He reached the topground.

He now arrived at the harder part: crawling over the uneven surfaces of the fangs, upside-down, clinging to the top. Shyspur almost never travelled this way. When he needed to cross to different parts of the topground, it was quickest to drop, glide, and flap back up. Sliding inverted over the jagged, pointed teeth, with one wing crippled, he moved slowly. And atop all this, he still had to keep his silence.

Like Death’s specter Shyspur’s flat shape slid above the air.

Reaching the spot on the topground which menaced (roughly) over the place where he’d left his trail, Shyspur stopped. Clutching a fang, he strained. The cut tips of the whiskers barely shaped the fang he held to, since the river’s vibrations only reached this height as weak ripples. But Shyspur’s ears were honed sharp as ever. Directly below he heard, despite delay caused by injury, the hunters.

The Uprights were whispering. They seemed to all be standing still. The muscles of Shyspur’s wings burned from the crawl and the effort of holding. Still he waited.

And waited.

And waited for the telling splash of the Not-stone attack, followed by screams.

But the Uprights continued speaking only in low tones, and moved not at all. And as Shyspur strained his ear cones, it seemed to him that the Uprights stood somewhat back from the riverbank. They were smart hunters; too smart? Had the Uprights understood the hunt method of the Not-stone after only a single encounter?

Shyspur heard a soft crunch. Then another. More crunching, feet moving on crystal. The Uprights were leaving the river. Shyspur’s planned Not-stone ambush had failed.

A pity.

Shyspur breathed deeply through his nose. One breath. Two. The scar on the side of his left nostril, which he’d earned in that long-ago contest with Old Crystal-skull, flared against his skin.

Shyspur released.

And dropped.

Black leather skin fluttered madly at the edges of Shyspur’s wings as he fell, fell, fell through the emptiness of air, harder and faster than was his norm, and with only the closing crunch of feet below to tell him when to spread his wings. Shyspur kept his wings tucked. The crunching and scraping of the stalking hunters stopped suddenly, but it mattered not. Shyspur had fallen like a stone. In an instant the Uprights flashed into his bubble shape. In the same instant, Shyspur struck. The gong of his full weight landing atop one Upright shook The Vault’s air to its Fangs. The Upright collapsed and screamed as the unfurled Shyspur closed over his prey.

The landing hurt. Shyspur felt the impact throughout his bones and cartilage, especially in the spot where the stinger tip scraped his shoulder bone. But he had unfurled his wings just slightly before landing, and caught enough of an air bed so that no bones snapped.

Plus the Upright broke his fall.

The one on which he’d landed was crushed, juicy and dead. It popped like a tick in its shell.

The other Uprights, bellowing, spun on Shyspur.

The river’s enormous sound allowed Shyspur to shape all four hunters. He launched himself at the one nearest his wounded left wing. Shyspur hit the Upright with full mass. He raked with his Meat Catchers. The Upright’s shell blunted some of the impact, but Shyspur’s weight and muscle were enough to leave that one flattened, gasping, and stunned.

Two of the three standing Uprights closed in behind. Both had HotSmokeFists. Behind them the last Upright - the leader - raised his stinger. Shyspur tried to spin about and dodge at once, but his reaction once more came late. He heard the click, the briefest whistle, and felt and shaped the stinger as it ripped a hole clean through the thin skin of his right wing.

Meanwhile the two Uprights with HotSmokeFists struck. But by then Shyspur had wheeled about. They landed two burning thuds against his long neck. Shyspur shook off the blows. In one stride he flanked around the pair, placing them between himself and the river. At his back now he heard the pack leader cranking to regrow his stinger.

The HotSmokeFists smote Shyspur again. One hit his beak this time, and Shyspur heard a crack as his lower jawbone fractured. Nauseating pain followed.

Shyspur drowned nausea with fury. He smacked the Upright who’d broken his beak to the ground with a heavy wing. The other shoved its hot fist into Shyspur’s nostrils, singing them. Shyspur replied with a headbutt. He slammed the Upright in the chest and sent it stumbling backward over the crystal. It tripped and fell, its elbows splashing in the river.

Suddenly the Not-stone surged up from its hiding place. The Upright hardly had time to scream before the Not-stone’s Drowners latched over its torso and dragged it into the water. The screams became a gurgle, lost in the current.

With splashes and gurgles and groans reverberating through the air, the sound of a stinger cranking - or rather, its absence - whipped Shyspur’s attention back to the leader. Too late. Another stinger whistled, burying itself in Shyspur’s ribs. Shyspur hissed through his broken beak.

Hissed…

Shyspur realized suddenly that the wrapping on his beak had loosened. The fractured bone had crimped under the tight pressure.

The Upright with a HotSmokeFist sprang up from where he’d knocked it flat with his wing. It rushed in with a battle cry. The two others - the one he’d stunned and the leader - were both cranking fresh stingers.

Shyspur rushed the HotSmokeFist Upright. He swung repeatedly in wide sweeping arcs with his punctured right wing. He knocked the Upright to the ground, then climbed over him and hammered his shell with both claws. He ignored his own pain. For a moment the Upright thrashed. Then it ceased sound and motion altogether. It lay still, spreading its inner wetness over moss and crystal.

Shyspur realized late again that the cranking sound had stopped. He tried to duck, but found all his muscles moving slower, fatigue and injury sapping his hunter’s agility. Shyspur heard two clicks - he tensed preemptively for stabbing pain.

Both barbs whistled past. They came close, but neither found purchase in his flesh.

Shyspur was almost stunned — he’d barely shifted - but didn’t let wonder ruin good fortune. He charged at the remaining pack follower, outlined in river-sound. The Upright’s scream mixed with the water’s gurgle as Shyspur’s claws scraped and boomed on the ground. The Upright ran.

Even injured, Shyspur was faster.

He caught the Upright’s leg with one of his Meat Catchers. He jerked. The Upright thumped against the floor. It screamed higher still, but only for a short moment, until Shyspur bludgeoned it to death.

The pack leader - now its sole member — howled. But for some reason, the leader hadn’t regrown his stinger. Turning around, Shyspur shaped a curious new appendage which had grown from the leader’s limb. It was long, like a HotSmokeFist, but thin, and edged like crystal.

The leader bellowed and charged. His plume flapped. Shyspur turned to meet him, but stopped before making any sound.

The leader had run to the wrong spot. He stopped beyond Shyspur’s considerable reach — well beyond his own - waving his sharp limb wildly through the air, but nowhere near Shyspur’s skin. Shyspur tensed. He backed up slowly and without sound. The leader didn’t follow, only continued to bark and swing at empty air.

It occurred to Shyspur quite suddenly; the crackling sound was gone. None of the HotSmokeFists remained to wave their limbs about. Only the leader’s shouts, and the shell scraping, and the river babble, broke The Vault’s silence. Somehow, these Uprights only had shape-sense when the HotSmokeFists were crackling. Without the crackling, the leader couldn’t sense Shyspur’s location.

Very slowly, Shyspur reached up with his right Meat Catcher. He hooked the loose wrap around his beak, and jerked. The noise of it snapping made the leader jump. He stumbled forward, tripping then rising over a high crystal. Shyspur backed silently and warily away from the swinging sharp limb.

At a little distance Shyspur stopped. He waited while melting-spit massed in his gullet.

The leader stopped swinging. He barked a bit, twisting his head one way then another, trembling all over. He turned, facing slowly away from Shyspur.

Shyspur’s spray of spit hit the Upright leader fully across his back. The scream that resulted momentarily blossomed Shyspur’s shaped-out globe, tingling on his cut whiskers. The Upright’s sharp limb fell off its body, and it reached around with both its stunted arms, trying to rub the sizzling spit off its neck and hard shell.

Without hurry Shyspur loped silently forward. One stride. Two. He craned his neck, grabbed the stinger in his shoulder with his beak, and tore it loose. Pain. He tossed the barb to the left.

The leader spun toward the sound of the stinger striking the ground, his head-feather fluttering, yelping between whimpers.

Shyspur took another stride, and another. With his beak, he did the same for the quill in his ribs, tossing it to the right this time.

Now the leader spun the other way. Still clawing at his back, he jutted his head forward. He dropped his jaw and gave a long scream at the spot where the stinger landed.

Shyspur ended that last scream by strafing quite casually behind the pack leader and slamming his beak through its spine. His prey made a tiny gurgle of sound, the last vibrations it would gift to the air. Then it fell forever quiet. Shyspur let the body slide, lubricated, from his beak onto the ground.

Shyspur rose onto his hind limbs. He stood, wings spread, breathing heavily, relishing in the adrenaline - and even the pain — post battle.

Then he bent and relished in the blood and meat of a kill.

Later, after the master hunter had nestled over the body and sated his hunger, he left The Vault of Fangs. Shyspur limped to the exit, passing once more out into his territory. He left to find some safer place, where his torn flesh and cracked beak could knit back together. A place to regrow his cut whiskers. A quiet place, somewhere in his crystal world, out in the silent dark.