The creature’s body became more fluid, and her whispery voice took on a cunning lilt. L’ota know many, many things. L’ota see many, many things.
“No doubt you do, being so close to Nyx,” he said, humoring the creature. “Tell me, L’ota, what should I create for the Goddess?”
Goddess likes jewels—headdress, necklace of crystal, ropes of shells and stones.
Kalona’s eyes widened in surprise. “If I could string a necklace made of living jewels for her, I believe Nyx would be well pleased.” He bent and patted the creature. “Thank you, L’ota.”
The skeeaed’s skin rippled and turned a bright, flushing scarlet. L’ota know many, many things, the creature whispered, sounding self-satisfied.
“You do, indeed. Perhaps you can also tell me where I could find some jewels,” Kalona said.
Not tell.
“Of course not,” he said, looking up to the sky as if to find patience there.
Not tell. Show.
With that, the skeeaed skittered away, motioning with one long arm for Kalona to follow her. What do I have to lose? With a shrug of his shoulders, the immortal hurried after the Fey.
L’ota wound her way through the prairie in a serpentine pattern that very quickly convinced Kalona she had no idea where she was leading him.
“L’ota, where exactly are these jewels?”
In cave.
“And where is the cave?”
Follow bull tracks. Find cave.
Kalona had seen the mighty beasts that the Prairie People called bison. They roamed the land in enormous herds. Sometimes there were so many of them they covered the grassland from horizon to horizon. He’d seen a few solitary old bulls, though he had never observed any of the bison, be it bull, cow, or calf, going into a cave.
“L’ota, you are mistaken. Bison do not live in caves.”
She paused in her serpentine hunt, looking up at him with a strange light in her almond-shaped eyes. Not bison. Bull.
“You are making no sense. I think it is past time that I—”
Tracks of bull! the Fey interrupted him, pointing at the ground where, as she had said, cloven hooves had torn huge indentations into the earth. Kalona was studying the tracks and thinking they had to belong to a beast far larger than any he had seen thus far when L’ota’s triumphant shouts of Cave! Cave! had him following her again.
The Fey had stopped before the mouth of what appeared to be a rocky split in the earth. It wasn’t far from another line of cross-timbers, and it was small enough that it could easily have been overlooked. As Kalona studied it and the enormous tracks that led to it and then disappeared, he realized that it was entirely too small for the bull who made the tracks to have entered.
“L’ota, where did the bull go? He is far too big to fit within the entrance there.”
Bull there. The Fey gestured stubbornly to the cave. I see him. I talk to him.
Kalona decided the little creature’s mind was completely muddled. Perhaps she didn’t have the intelligence to truly understand what she was saying. Not that Kalona cared. He only cared that she had the intelligence to lead him to jewels.
“The bull is unimportant. What is important is that there are precious stones within that cave—stones Nyx will find pleasing,” he said.
Bull important. White like frost. He not call me servant.
Kalona ran his hand through his hair. Did Nyx know L’ota was mad? If not, how was he to tell her without giving away the fact that he’d used her help to complete the last of the tests?
Above the cave a raven came to ground, croaking at the Fey. The little creature shot it angry looks and seemed ready to bolt.
“Yes, the bull is important,” Kalona said, hoping to placate her. “But the jewels are important, too. Are they within?”
Yesssss! L’ota hissed the word.