When Mortangar awoke he was lying in a cave, and his head felt absolutely awful.

None of that was really helpful, but it was all his befuddled brain could process at the time.

Bringing his hands up to rub his eyes proved to be impossible because they were tied to his tail. Tightly. Very tightly. His hands were numb and the tip of his tail was in no better state.

Looking about more, Mortangar took in his surroundings.

He was in an artificial looking cave, perfectly domed and lit with several sticks of Bright Ice.

Whoever it was that had kidnapped him were certainly either very rich or had the very good luck to find a lot of Bright Ice.

There was a standard-issue desk for official purposes in the centre of the room, covered with little bits of paper and lumps of fallen snow from the roof and throwing daggers of every description and even pieces of wood and -

Mortangar could keep on like that all day. He had never seen such a cluttered desk in his life. It was a wonder that all the things on it stayed on it.

The desk was sufficiently low and he was sufficiently close, so Mortangar could read a few of the pieces of paper if he stretched up.

They were written in a spidery and exceptionally messy hand, almost to the point of illegibility. It was hard to read as it was.

One of them was just a boring report filled with records of supplies bought and general stuff like that. It was of no interest, and Mortangar moved on to the next one.

This was more like it! A note, not written by the owner of this desk, as was made clear by the neat cursive script.

My dear Angenvah, the first line said. Angenvah? An unusual name.

I hope you receive this communique in good health. I must be brief as there is little time. We have two of the four you mentioned, the two females. We are currently putting them through the standard regulation intelligence test. We also have information that our men have wounded one of the others, who now resides in the village, and will be easy to pick up. You should know that the last of the four is heading towards the cliffs nearby your base. You would do well to apprehend him as soon as he arrives.

Your servant,

Elena

What was this? This could only be referring to Mortangar and the others, but... the Things had Angetuga and Grishgern! What was this?

Mortangar would have paced if he could, but being tied up is not conducive to easy movement.

He had to escape.

Now.

Struggling did no good. Mortangar needed a plan.

Unfortunately that was the moment his captor came in through the door.

#

This was getting very tiresome.

Staring out of the same window, being fed the same kind of Anagalle leaves, grabbed again by the same grabber, the same black machine going over her head and roaring, the same cursed thing sticking in her and back in the same stupid pod again! Repeat that infinitely, and you have the most boring life anyone could wish for. Add a strong desire to escape but an equally strong need to stay in, and you get a living hell.

Another Yirinu had fallen victim to the awful monotony, this time one out of Angetuga's view. But Grishgern had told her about it, and she had seen the humans taking the unfortunate Yirinu away. He was never seen again, either.

Angetuga wondered if she was next; somehow, she almost hoped she was. Then this monotony would be over. At the moment it seemed like the only way out, however unpleasant a way out that it might be.

Angetuga knocked herself on the middle spine. That sort of thinking wouldn't do any good.

She sighed, and stared out of the glass, back at the same view. She really thought that she would go mad soon.

Looking up, she saw the grabber descend. Why did it always pick on her? Some of the others might do, just for a change. The grabber descended and opened wide.

Angetuga peered up at it. The small panel that was right in the centre between its fingers was not on correctly. Half of it hung off in a forlorn fashion. Underneath, Angetuga could see brightly coloured strings twisting about and weaving into a green board. The fingers began to close, and Angetuga reached up neatly and pulled out one of the strings out; Angetuga stared at the red string in her hands for a fraction of a second before realizing her mistake. She was in for it now, that was for sure.

She only just had time to mutter 'uh oh' before the lights flickered off, the grabber flopped in an exceptionally and rather disappointingly anticlimactic manner, and alarms blared.

All the remaining Yirini leapt up in shock when the alarms went off. Grishgern started to write frantically.

WHAT DID YOU DO

She scrawled. Angetuga had a hard time reading it; Grishgern had written so fast that it was almost illegible.

Angetuga took no time to answer. Seeing that her door was limp she dashed out of her pod, still clutching the bit of red string, and looked about frantically for a bolt-hole.

"COME ON!" She bellowed, rushing to the other end of the pod hall where she had seen a hole in the floor with a lid by it. Yirini streamed out of their cages with double the enthusiasm of the last escape; they had had a taste of life in the pods.

Diving down the hole, Angetuga dropped unceremoniously and was quickly on the ground at the bottom of a very large pile of Yirini.

"Get - off!" She grunted, both struggling to get out from under the by now huge pile of Yirini and also trying to worm her way forward at the same time.

A few moments later the pile had the last of the Yirini in and Angetuga struggled up the strange object that comprised of a pair of bars with other bars going crosswise up the whole length of them. We would call this strange invention a ladder.

Unfortunately ladders are not built for Yirini to climb, and Angetuga found the task of ascending it quite difficult. But eventually she made it and, reaching up with her handily prehensile tail, pulled the lid over the whole. If they were lucky then the humans would not think to look down where they were.

Come to think of that, where were they?

Looking around for the first time, Angetuga saw that they were in a long and narrow passage lit with red lights from the roof. Unfortunately it was almost unbearably hot, and many of the Yirini were already hot and red beneath their scales. The passage led a fair way before branching into three separate passages like a three pronged fork.

By the time Angetuga had taken all this in, She was thoroughly unstable up on the ladder. Waving her arms and tail wildly to try and keep her balance, she fell off backwards very ignominiously and landed right on top of a small Yirinu who had just struggled to his feet. He flattened with a sharp exhale, completely winded, and Angetuga leapt off hurriedly as soon as she could.

"Sorry!" She apologized in a hushed voice.

The little Yirinu wheezed and huffed and gave her a nasty sharp slap with his tail, but was far too winded to do anything else.

"Sorry!" Angetuga apologized profusely yet again, but that only earned her yet another unpleasantly sharp tail slap.

Angetuga clapped her hand to her forehead in exhaustion and general displeasure at the recent events, and was surprised to realize that she was still clutching the little piece of red string in her hand.

Ah well.

Angetuga decided to keep it, for no reason in particular, and wrapped it neatly around her front head spike.

What now?

Angetuga racked her brains frantically for an answer. They needed a plan, and fast!

"Come on!" She beckoned to the Yirini, some of whom were still disentangling themselves from the others, and began to sprint down the passage.

Angetuga had never been so hot in her life.w

Having been running for a few minutes now she was already exhausted, and normally she'd be able to keep going for much longer time.

But running made her hot even at the best of times, and in this roasting air-

Well. You get the idea.

Her breath was so hot it was burning like her inner fire had run amok.

Angetuga stopped, standing still for a moment to catch her breath. She had not been stopped for long, however, until she felt something begin to push her, rather hard.

"What are you stopping for?" Snapped a little Yirinu from behind her. Looking back, Angetuga saw that the little Yirinu she had landed on earlier was pushing her.

"I can't breathe!" Angetuga replied and tried to stop panting, with no result other than to make her head swim.

Several more Yirini stopped nearby, also panting hard. Some of them had a red colour showing from between their scales, and others were slick with condensation. Feeling herself, Angetuga realized that she was covered with condensation too.

Grishgern took a few steps forward and stood next to Angetuga. "Listen. They're following us." She muttered, careful to keep the conversation between only the two of them. If the others heard, they might simply give up.

Angetuga turned the side of her head towards the way they had came.

Listening carefully, she heard a clanking on the floor that was obviously the humans. How had they figured out where they were so quickly?

Despite the unbearable heat Angetuga started to run again. "Come on! They're coming!" She yelled.

The sounds of feet behind her grew closer and closer, but she was running so hard that she thought her feet would simply fall off from the strain if she ran any harder.

Angetuga found an extra burst of speed from somewhere deep inside her, and twisted suddenly around the corner ahead.

Then she stopped short.

The corridor continued, but between her and the way forward was a gigantic fan, taking up the whole passageway. It span slowly, but still fast enough to slice a Yirinu in two.

Angetuga kept going, stopped just by the fan, and peered at it. How to get past it? Could she jam it? There had to be something!

A tail spike would do to jam it, but a Yirinu would have to stay on this side to hold it.

A slow smile spread across Angetuga's face, and she whipped her tail round, pushing the biggest tail spike between the fan blades and the floor.

One of the blades jammed on Angetuga's tail. For a moment she was afraid that it would keep going and shear her tail clean away. But then, just as she was sure that it would, the fan stopped completely. It wasn't pushing against her at all. It just stayed there, motionless in the air.

Slowly she pulled her tail out, and it stayed unmoving. That, for one, had gone well!

Angetuga ducked through, and then beckoned from the other side. "Come on!" She called to the others

The other Yirinu gave the fan wary looks, then one tiptoed up and touched it. He leapt back with a yelp, but the fan didn't move.

None of the Yirini moved, they were obviously still afraid of the giant turning thing. But then, as the pursuers came nearer, they all dashed through very fast.

All, that is, except for the Yirinu who had squeaked when he touched the fan. He still stood on the other side, trembling and squeaking.

"Come on! They're coming!" Grishgern shouted, beckoning frantically.

It was then that the humans rounded the corner. Their boots were definitely heavy, and they were dressed in thick and shiny clothing.

"Come on! They'll catch you!" Angetuga beckoned wildly, tempted to pull the Yirinu through but knowing she would be caught for sure.

But then, just the humans advanced on the Yirinu, who wlooked positively terrified, a sound came from one of the humans' wrist.

None of the Yirini knew what it meant, but none of them really cared. They were too afraid to move, let alone to think.

Then the humans turned away and pelted down the corridor at full speed.

Angetuga frowned and looked after them, surprised and more than a little confused.

One of the Yirini slipped through under the fan, and picked up the terrified and trembling little Yirinu. Curled into a ball, it was easy to carry him back through under the fan.

"Where did they go?" Grishgern came over to where Angetuga was using a wall to steady herself. "And, better question, why?"

"I don't know." Angetuga sighed. "I just don't know. Let's get moving before they come back."

The Yirini trooped off, spirits rather low.

Through an infinite seeming maze they marched, hot and dispirited.

Right, left, left, centre, left, centre, left, left, right, centre, right...

After the first eleven or so forks, Angetuga and the other Yirini were thoroughly lost.

"Isn't it obvious?" Squeaked a little Yirinu in the back. "We're lost! Lost and its all her fault!" He pointed accusatorially at Angetuga.

"Look, we are all tired and stressed. No need to get like that, we'll make it. We can have a rest now, there's a cool spot here." Angetuga said.

There was suddenly a terrible crush to get into the spot Angetuga had mentioned. However, unfortunately, there was only room enough for a few Yirini at a time and this caused a lot of bickering.

"Calm down!" Angetuga yelled, pushing into the core of the fight and pulling the two main perpetrators, a member of the notoriously violent Narlu family and a member of the very highly-strung Urrhs, away from each other.

"Stop it! You're all behaving like Thyrai over a dead Serake. We will take it in turns to have the spot, starting with the hottest." Angetuga reprimanded exasperatedly.

The Yirini seemed to become a little less irritable after Angetuga's little speech, and they took it in orderly turns to go into the rather pleasantly cool spot next to a frantically turning fan in a dark corner. Happily it was a small fan this time and was turned on so it blew a nice breeze.

Angetuga plonked herself down beside Grishgern in the cool spot as soon as it was her turn.

"Well, we're not dead yet." Grishgern observed, not turning her head towards Angetuga.

"I suppose that is an upside." Angetuga smiled wryly. "Most of the time."

Grishgern grinned and laughed a little.

"Always the comedian." She chuckled, then sighed and looked sad. "I hope Urrhnaldo's okay."

"Seriously?!" Angetuga exclaimed. "Just as I think you're getting out of that..." She sighed.

"But he might be hurt." Grishgern looked alarmed by this latest thought of hers.

"I'm more worried about Mortangar and Mortangris." Angetuga decided. "They're more help."

"Urrhnaldo builds igloos!" Grishgern exclaimed defensively. "We would never have finished that igloo in time without him!"

"He goes under your feet while you're walking," Angetuga observed. "and then yells at you for nearly treading on him. I don't really get on with him myself."

"But he's so-"

"Like I said when we were outside the city. Don't start."

Grishgern huffed, but said nothing in reply for a short time.

"That seems an age ago." She said eventually in a small voice.

"I know. It does to me too... it does to me too." Angetuga sighed.

"Who were they, I wonder? I suppose we might never know if this goes wrong."

"Who?"

"You know, them in the darkvine sap outside the Maklu building."

"Oh, them! I'd forgotten about them. I don't know."

"I wish we knew. Then we could die without any unsolved problems."

"Oh stop being so pessimistic. Come on, you're always the optimist!"

"Sometimes there's a difference between optimism and self delusion."

"Cheer up, Grishgern! We'll make it!"

"Will you stop saying that?" Grishgern erupted. It was completely unexpected and caught Angetuga amidships.

"What?" Was all she could say, she was so stunned.

"You keep saying that! 'We'll get out of it', ' cheer up, we'll make it', 'we'll do it'! It gets on my nerves, we both know it isn't true!"

Angetuga was so taken aback by this uncharacteristic behavior on Grishgern's part that she forgot to answer for a short time.

"Look." She said, choosing her words carefully. "If we decide from the outset that we will not make it, we never will. And you know why? Because believing that we can do it gives us the motivation and reassurance that we can. Then since we believe we can, that helps us mentally. Think, Grishgern! If you think it through, what I am saying is true. Maybe I am being over optimistic. That's better than what you're doing!" Angetuga was a little out of breath from her speech.

Grishgern thought hard about this for a short time, then shook her head. "You're taking it too far. This is unrealism."

"I may be overdoing it, but I have to do my best to keep them from just giving up. Do me a favour and help a bit, will you? I need all the support I can get. This is going to be a long road."

Grishgern thought for a while longer. "Fine." Was all she said. Angetuga had the unpleasant feeling that Grishgern still didn't agree with what she was doing and was only saying that to shake Angetuga off.

But she kept quiet, so as not to inflame the situation further, until it was time for the next pair to take the cool spot.

Once all of the group were sufficiently cooled and had rested for a reasonable time, Angetuga decided it was time to move along.

"Come on! We should move, or we'll never get home." She encouraged, offering little pieces of advice to despondent individuals and generally helping things along. "Besides, the humans might catch us if we stay too long."

This got most of them moving at a rather remarkable rate. The little Yirinu who had gotten stuck behind the fan earlier squeaked and leapt up as if he had been stung, flying an impressive foot up in the air. He was quickly quieted by a Yirinu beside him who looked like a Kamu family member.

The Kamu family was the rarest of the families, most of them having been wiped out a long time ago due to attacks in villages mostly populated by that family, perpetrated by the Dragon of the West, a creature that came from an unstable magic vortex many years ago and wreaked destruction and havoc upon Yirin.

But that is a story for another day.

Where was I?

Sorry. I'll get back to the story now.

"Let's go." Angetuga beckoned to the group and set off at a brisk pace down a hopeful looking tunnel.

"Er, Angetuga?" Angetuga stopped when she heard Grishgern. Looking back she saw that everyone had not moved and were giving her rather unimpressed looks.

"What?" Angetuga peered at them, confused.

"You're going the way we came." Grishgern explained.

"Oh. This way then." Angetuga picked another random tunnel and set off, this time hearing the patter of feet behind her.

The tunnel did not change much as they progressed, and Angetuga was not all that surprised to find a three way junction ahead, each direction looking exactly the same. Picking another random direction, Angetuga pattered off.

Again and again there were identical three way junctions, each way exactly the same. Picking random directions worked for a while, but after quite a bit of time getting nowhere they found that it was either a very long way to the way out or they were going in circles. Soon their suspicions were proven when the Kamu Yirinu pointed at a small white spot on the ground a short way ahead.

"Look." He said. "It's a scale. We've been here before."

Angetuga stepped forward and picked it up, turning it over and examining it. Yes, this was definitely a scale. Curses.

She was just about to speak when a the little Yirinu she had squashed who she was beginning to suspect was an Urrh spoke up. "How about leaving a scale at the beginning of each path we've taken?" He suggested.

"Good idea!" Angetuga grinned. "Leave that scale there," she pointed at the ground at the beginning of a path, "and we'll go that way."

#

This seemed to be working!

Angetuga was rather pleased with the Kamu Yirinu's idea. The number of possible paths was dropping dramatically, and that had to be a good sign, right? There couldn't be any other ways to go, so it was.

Right, left- scale. Turn back.

Left, right, right, centre - scale. Turn back.

Right, left, centre - scale. Turn back again.

After long hours of struggling through the hot air, Angetuga suddenly pointed.

"Look!" She called, pointing at a door directly ahead. A steel and rather high-tech affair, it was sealed shut and there was a small control panel beside it with number pads on. Beside that was and exposed panel of little pieces of string like there were in the grabber. The group of Yirini streamed forward eagerly, hoping desperately that what was ahead was not so terribly terribly hot.

Remembering what had happened with the grabber, Angetuga strode forwards confidently and pulled hard at a wire. It didn't come. Pulling again, harder, did nothing whatsoever.

"Why - isn't - it - working?" Angetuga grunted in between pulls. "It did - before!"

"Try that thing there." Grishgern came up to the front and pointed at the key pad. Strange symbols were written on the wall next to it, and they seemed to correspond to symbols on the pad.

"What do they mean?" Angetuga mused, looking at the symbols on the wall.

"No idea." Grishgern replied. "Try pushing the bits on that?" She pointed at the key pad once again.

"Okay, I'll try... are you sure?" Angetuga peered carefully at the symbols on the wall, then the symbols on the pad.

"Well, no. But try it anyway."

Angetuga closed her eyes to think for a moment, steeled herself, and pressed the first button with the far left symbol on, 3.

Nothing happened except for the pad beeping, which made the Yirini present jump out of their scales. Then the symbol 3 appeared in black on a small green panel just above.

Carefully, Angetuga pushed the next button, 2. The same performance was repeated.

Then it was time for the straight line, 1.

Finally, it was the last one. Incredibly carefully, Angetuga reached out with one slightly shaking claw, and pressed the ellipse, 0.

The pad beeped three times in quick succession, making everyone jump so hard that several Yirini screamed, the black symbols on the green pad flashed, the double doors slid open, and cool air exuded from the opening.

The group cheered loudly while charging into the next room at full speed.

The room was a dark affair, even the walls were black and it was pitch dark except for several red lights on one wall. Each light had a button beneath it and some writing, mercifully in Yirinu writing.

Angetuga found it strange that the humans should have Yirinu writing, but decided that she would puzzle it out later.

At the moment, all she wanted to do was rest and enjoy the cold.

Angetuga shook the condensation from her scales and settled down by the Kamu Yirinu, who was stretched out looking positively blissful.

"That idea of yours was very good." She complimented.

"Thank you." He smiled.

"Very inventive."

"Not really, just common sense."

"Yes, and you come from the family who's defining trait is their intelligence." Angetuga said playfully.

The Kamu Yirinu sighed. "Let me guess. You want to talk about my family, is that it?"

"No! I just thought- oh never mind." It was Angetuga's turn to sigh.

"Well, I'm not interested in having a conversation about it. That's all anyone ever wants to do, talk about my family and my lineage and I don't know what..." The Yirinu scoffed.

"I don't."

"Good."

"What's your name?" It occurred to Angetuga that she didn't know.

"Kamuniya. Don't laugh." Kamuniya growled.

"Angetuga." Angetuga decided to ignore the second sentence. "Pleased to meet you!" She raised her tail above her head in greeting. Kamuniya returned the greeting, albeit far more irritably. There was an awkward silence during which neither Yirini could think of anything to say.

"Where are you from? You don't have the same accent as the other villagers." Angetuga broke the silence.

"Oh." Kamuniya looked less than impressed. "I'm from Benru."

Angetuga was silent for a moment in surprise. Benru was literally on the other side of the planet, right down in the Elu crater.

"You've come a very long way!" She exclaimed.

"Yes. I was only passing through the village." Kamuniya looked resentful. "Then those Things, what did you call them?"

"Humans, so they told me."

"Oh yes. Humans. So, anyway. Where was I? Oh. Well, I was off to Fernei to just make a new life, that's all. I got cast out from my own village a few years ago and I've been wandering ever since. I stopped off in the village to rest, and now look." Kamuniya sighed and looked really rather dejected. "You don't sound like the villagers either. Why were you there?"

"Oh." Angetuga looked uncomfortable. "Well, it's quite a long story. I'm a sculpture maker, I make and sell ice sculptures in Fernei. Nothing out of the ordinary. Anyway, I was delivering some papers for a friend, Grishgern-" Angetuga pointed at Grishgern, who was deep in conversation with a rather large Yirinu. "who is the city record-keeper. Anyway, apparently I wasn't allowed in to somewhere or something, but the long of the short of it is I got in trouble with the Maklu. I escaped from the prison and ran away with Grishgern and two other friends, Mortangar and Mortangris. I don't think they got caught, thankfully."

"Oh."

Another pause, both parties rather feeling rather awkward.

"Well, I guess we should get moving. We don't want to get caught." Angetuga stood up, refreshed and invigorated by the cold atmosphere and the rest.

The way out of this room was not easy.

Humans just loved these panels, didn't they?

A panel was situated by the closed double doors, completely covered by three very large and very red buttons with writing along the top of the panel.

Above the button panel, there was another panel covered with little red domes that exuded red light, otherwise known as red LEDs.

The writing along the top was rather badly done and quite hard to read. It was, however, decipherable and Angetuga soon had it figured out.

Extinguish all the lights. It said.

Hm.

Odd.

Angetuga thought about this for a good while, but still could make nothing of it.

"Let me do it. Move over."

Grishgern's voice came from the middle of the crowd, slowly moving towards the front. Angetuga looked back.

"Do you know what to do?" She asked.

"I - Ouch! Don't tread on my foot! - think so." Grishgern pushed her way to the front, and stood next to the panels.

"Extinguish all the lights... extinguish all the lights. By lights, I'm sure it means those." Grishgern pointed at the neatly ordered LEDs. "Okay. I'm pretty sure I know what to do. Stand back, you never know what might happen." Grishgern ushered the group of Yirini back.

She paused for a minute, breathing deeply, then pressed a button.

There was a rather tinny and computerized click sound from a small speaker in the wall, and everyone jumped like crazy. A short moment of suspense during which nobody spoke, then -

Several of the lights went out.

A great cheer went up from the Yirini and Grishgern hopped up and down in excitement, a little of the old Grishgern from the city showing through.

Steeling her nerves, Grishgern pushed the next button. Then, to her complete surprise, all the lights went back on sagain. Scowling in frustration, Grishgern pushed the first button again and the lights came on again.

Pushing the third button had mixed effects. Some lights went on, and some went off.

This was going to be complicated.

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🦅—Aquila