The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 300

Chapter 300

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the change in light . The inside of the Spear Beak elder’s hut was dim, unlit except for the thin columns of light that flowed in through gaps in the woven sticks and from around the edge of the door hanging .

The hut’s interior was simple: a large bed of feathers, brown grass, and tufts of fluffy white fur dominated the space, and a single copper wash basin full of water rested next to the door . A thin layer of ice had formed on the surface .

Hanging around the hut from the small loose ends of the branches were what looked like trophies . There were several necklaces made of large fangs and small bones, the pelt of a four-armed creature I didn’t recognize, and even a row of feline skulls lined up neatly .

‘Quite the morbid sense of decor from our feathered friends,’ Regis thought .

We can’t be sure they’re friendly yet, I warned, my gaze flicking from item to item until my attention landed back on the necklace made of talons . Don’t those look pretty similar to the ones left at the altar?

As the elder shuffled into his bed and squatted down, his spindly legs folded beneath him and I got a better look at his clawed toes .

‘I think you’re right,’ Regis affirmed . ‘Now the bigger question is, did they put them there or one of the bear beasts? I think—’

Regis’s voice was drowned out as my eyes focused on something far more interesting . As the elder shuffled in his nest, for just a moment I caught the purple glimmer of aether beneath the bedding . There was some kind of relic hidden within, I was sure of it . Maybe even a piece to the portal .

“Sit, sit,” the old bird croaked, waving his wing around the hut .

Giving no indication that I’d noticed anything, I sat on the hard-packed earth floor around the bed, thinking it might be rude of us to intrude on the elder’s resting place, and Caera took a seat next to me . Unsure where to start, I stayed silent and waited for the Spear Beak to continue .

“Silence is wisdom,” the old bird said sagely, nodding his black beak up and down . “Long, very long since an ascender has visited us . ”

“We have many questions, elder, but first, what should we call you?” I asked politely .

The gray old bird clacked his beak and honked in a way that I couldn’t hope to replicate, then it laughed, a sound like grain being milled . “In your words, Old Broke Beak . ”

Smiling at the accuracy of Old Broke Beak’s name, I held my hand to my chest and said, “And I’m—Ar...” I stopped, stumbling over the words as I nearly revealed my name .

“This one is Grey,” Caera cut in, glancing at me strangely from the corner of her eye, “and I’m Caera . It’s an honor to meet you, Old Broke Beak . ”

“How is it you’ve come to know our tongue?” I asked, hoping to move the conversation past my near mistake .

Despite our urgency to leave this zone, I was incredibly curious about these Spear Beaks . Since being reborn into this world, I hadn’t met a mana or aether beast as intelligent as these creatures .

Had the djinn been so powerful that they created sentient, intelligent life simply to populate their trials? It seemed implausible .

“Another ascender, wise enough to listen, taught me when I had only just learned to fly . ” The elder clacked his beak several times, ruffled his feathers, and pecked at the bedding underneath him before continuing . “I have kept this knowledge, and shared your words with every ascender to find us since—or tried . Many are not wise enough to hear the words . ”

I nodded along as our host spoke, imagining the types of powerful ascenders who might have reached this zone only to attack every aether beast they saw without realizing they weren’t monsters .

But if they’re able to fight off ascenders powerful enough to arrive in this zone...

‘Then these guys must be stronger than they look,’ Regis finished .

“I am glad you have come, and you bring wisdom with you,” the old bird went on . “We need you, and you need us . ”

Caera leaned forward, her scarlet eyes boring into the Spear Beak’s purple ones . “You know where the broken pieces of the portal are?”

“The clans keep them, yes, but they won’t give them to you, no . ” Old Broke Beak shook his wizened head, his long beak cutting back and forth in the air like a sharp blade .

“The clans?” Caera asked .

“Four clans, yes, and the wild things, the mindless things, they carry one too, but they always hunt for the others . The wild things are sleepless and fearless and forever greedy . ” The elder leaned forward, looking from Caera to me then back again . “But the clans are worse . Cruel . Stupid . Four Fists, Ghost Bears, Shadow Claws...only the Spear Beaks know wisdom . ”

“Ghost Bears?” I asked, thinking of the invisible bearish creature we fought under the dome, squatting far below us now at the bottom of the caldera .

“Huge, hungry monsters,” the elder said ominously, ruffling his feathers as if shivering . “Ghost Bears kill as if it’s a game, moving unseen through the storms, raiding in the night . If you find one”—he leaned forward again, his cracked beak coming within inches of my face—“kill it, or it will hunt you forever . Ghost Bears never give up a kill . ”

I only nodded, carefully keeping my thoughts from my face . The Ghost Bear we’d seen hadn’t seemed like a murderous killing machine . In fact, it had seemed cautious and curious, then fled before harming any of us .

‘We could’ve just scared it,’ Regis pointed out . ‘The...Ghost Bears or whatever can’t have seen many people, much less someone that could actually see them like we were able to . ’

You might be right, I admitted, but I was still unsure . I didn’t want to give away our knowledge of the Ghost Bears, though, so I instead pressed the Spear Beak elder for more details about the other clans .

“The others...just as bad, yes . Four Fists clan are like you, yet not like you . Short legs, long arms thick as a grown Spear Beak’s breast . Squashed, ugly faces, with teeth like this . ” Using its feathered wings, Old Broke Beak mimed large, misshapen tusks or fangs .

“Shadow Claws live to fight, to kill . ” Old Broke Beak indicated the row of feline skulls . “They stalk us, climb the peaks and hurl our eggs from their nests . ”

Caera was listening somberly to the old bird speak . She shook her head when he mentioned eggs . “That’s horrible . I’m so sorry, Broke Beak . ”

“You said we needed each other,” I reminded him, eager to bring the conversation back around to the portal pieces . “So each of these clans holds a piece of the portal out of this zone? Why?”

Old Broke Beak closed his eyes, his long neck swaying gently as if he were singing a song in his head . When his purple eyes finally opened again, there was a sense of the ancient about him, a weariness that rolled off him like an aura .

“Long, very long have I thought on this . Always the Spear Beaks have tried to spread wisdom to the other clans, but now I know they cannot learn it . The others will not give you the pieces . You must destroy them . All of them . Take their pieces . When you have the others, I will give you the piece long guarded by the Spear Beaks . ”

“My apologies for being blunt, but why can’t you give us your piece now?” Caera asked, studying the elder closely .

His neck twisted to the side to such a degree that his head was nearly upside down . “If the ascenders fail, if they die in the snow, under the claws and teeth and rage of the other clans, then we would have lost our own piece of the Creators’ temple . No, this is not wisdom . ”

Though I recognized the sense in his words, I was distracted by something else he’d said . “The Creators?”

The long, dark beak moved up and down slowly . “The other clans sense only the Creators’ energy within the relics, and so hoard them and worship them . They are too dumb and too vicious to think about the pieces’ purpose, yes . ”

These clans, it seemed, had developed some kind of mythology around the djinn, the dome, and the arch within . If the portal pieces exuded aether, and these creatures could sense it, then it would make sense that they coveted them .

“You will need the Creators’ gifts to heal the portal . You can do this?”

I nodded . Just like the mirror room, we only came to the snowy zone because I already had the tools required to move past it . Test upon test, I mused silently .

At that moment, Caera’s stomach rumbled noisily . Old Broke Beak snapped around, staring down at her midsection with wide eyes, his cracked beak open slightly . “Food, yes . I have been a bad host . So eager to share words, while you go hungry . Come . We have sat . We have talked . Now, eat, yes . ”

The elder’s legs creaked audibly as he stood up and led the way out of his hut . Outside, we discovered several Spear Beaks lingering nearby, staring intently at us as we followed him back out into the cold mountain air .

Old Broke Beak snapped, clacked, and cawed, and the others nodded respectfully and began to follow us, forming into two long lines .

Caera’s brows furrowed in concern as she looked at me, but I just nodded and walked up behind Old Broke Beak .

The Spear Beaks murmured and cackled in low whispers, the rustling of their features growing louder as we followed Old Broke Beak through the village . Others peaked their beaks out of the many huts and shuffled into line in the impromptu march . Several of the Spear Beaks wheeled in the skies above us, their strange song falling down over the mountain hollow .

We followed the elder to another, nearly identical hut with a faded gray door covering . He snapped his beak three times and the crowd behind us fell silent as the dark-feathered Spear Beak we’d seen upon entering the village appeared in the doorway .

There was a short exchange in their own language, then the black Spear Beak pushed aside the hanging with its beak and the elder entered, waving us in with a wing .

I glanced back at the flock; they were all entirely silent and still, their violet eyes following us closely . Those that flew circles above us did so in an unnatural, interweaving pattern like an aerial dance .

Caera vanished through the shadowy doorway ahead and I followed, a surreal, dreamlike feeling of otherworldliness settling over me like a heavy blanket .

Inside, the hut was nearly identical to Old Broke Beak’s, though there was no copper wash bin, and the only trophy on the wall was a small bear’s skull with a narrow hole just above the right eye socket . It looked much too small to be a fully grown bear .

A second Spear Beak, nearly identical to our guide but with a fringe of feathers that stood up from her head, was nestled into the bed, but stood and shuffled to the side at a few clacks and squawks from the dark-feathered bird .

Sitting in the middle of the nest was a large, pinkish egg . Caera eyed me uncertainly once again, but I stayed silent, waiting for Old Broke Beak .

The elder walked slowly across the hut, his claws crunching through the dry grass and feathers of the nest-bed, then gently tapped at the egg in several different spots . Without turning to us, he said, “This egg will not grow a hatchling . ”

Then, without warning, he drove his keen beak through the shell of the egg, puncturing it with a sharp crack . I looked on, horrified and fascinated, as he began to pick away pieces of the shell, crunching them with his beak and swallowing them down until there was a large hole at the top, revealing the golden, gooey yolk .

‘I did not expect that,’ Regis murmured in a daze .

The elder took a single beakful of the egg, then crossed beaks with the fringed Spear Beak before she too ate from the egg . They both repeated the ritual with the dark-feathered Spear Beak, who took his portion .

“Eat,” the elder said simply, then all three Spear Beaks stood aside, watching us expectantly .

I could see Caera’s thoughts written plainly on her face as her hunger and disgust waged a war within her .

It was obvious that there was some kind of cultural significance, perhaps even religious ritualism, to this couple offering up their egg for consumption, and while the idea of these creatures cannibalizing their own eggs was distasteful, I expected they would not understand our hesitation, and might even find it rude if we declined their offer .

Besides, Caera couldn’t live forever on snow alone .

Bowing respectfully to each of the three Spear Beaks, I stepped carefully into the nest and leaned over the egg . The insides were thick, warm, and slimy . Using both hands like a bowl, I scooped out a small portion and slurped at it indelicately .

It had a musky, rich flavor that wasn’t distasteful, exactly, but was foreign and strange . Despite this, I quickly finished the handful of slimy egg as I realized something else about it .

The raw Spear Beak egg yolk was swimming with aether, and eating it allowed my body to quickly absorb the aether, helping to refill my core after the long night out in the storm .

For Regis and me, the aether-rich yolk was like drinking pure, distilled energy, but I could see the change coming over Caera almost immediately . Though she’d stoically done her best to stay in good humor even after days without food, having a full stomach made her smiley and sleepy, and despite her initial hesitation, she eagerly consumed the last bits of egg within the shell . _{freёweɓnovel.com}