Up there, the "ceiling" of the forest was a web of intertwined branches and the sunlight was almost blinding, broken into thin beams that barely managed to touch the ground.
From above, where the air was purer and the smell of resin stronger, the observer remained motionless. He was a creature whose silvery fur seemed woven with the very brilliance of the moon. His hands, long and precise, gripped the rough bark of a mother-tree with the familiarity of one who knew every grain of the wood.
Below him, strangeness paraded.
He tilted his head, his eyes widening to capture the movement: two creatures with smooth skin and upright posture moved with slowness as if they were wounded.
One of them, the female, dragged the male. There was something wrong with the symmetry of that vaguely larger creature: one of its flesh-branches—what humans would call an arm—had been torn away, leaving trails of blood that offended the green of the forest.
They were not beasts of claw, much less those that crawl, the observer realized, his heart accelerating in his chest, seized by an anxious curiosity; they were made of thin skin and few hairs.
He leaped when Falazahr and Heridor became distant.
The movement was a blur of silver, a silent arc between two branches that did not even sway with his weight. He did not follow them to the shelter. Instinct pulled him back, toward the origin of the smell of iron and ground stone.
The Observer descended to the highest level of the ravine, seeing a Stone-Hide near the gorge. The beast was a legend of scales, a lord of mud that was rarely challenged. But there, under the setting sun, the monster was a body suffering spasms.
The macaque approached, his feet touching the damp ground with the lightness of a falling leaf. He stopped two meters from the granite snout.
The Stone-Hide did not roar. It exhaled a fine mist, a vapor that did not come from heat, but from an internal frost that seemed to devour its vitality. The Observer extended his hand, but withdrew before touching the scale.
Terrified by that discovery, he, in haste, spun on his heels and shot upward, climbing through successful grasps of the branches. He scaled the trunk with a frenzied speed, his fingers finding support easily in the trees.
He needed Mokessa. He needed the one who guarded the memory of the pack, the Matriarch whose eyes had already seen the sky change color.
- - -
The shelter of the Mogushal Monkeys was a cathedral of intertwined fallen branches—gathered from the jungle and driven into the ground in several tiers—a place where the wind whispered to the wood the union of the primates.
Mokessa sat on the largest platform, her silvery fur reflecting and admiring the horizon where the sun drowned at the end of the day.
The macaque landed before her, breathing with difficulty and his chest heaving, his tail beating the air in a threatening gesture.
— Mokessa! — The sound he emitted was a guttural crack, with whistles and clicks, forming the complex language of his people. — I saw something near the river!
Mokessa did not move immediately. She continued looking at the sunset, her hands crossed over her belly, as if she were counting the shadows that stretched.
— The world is likely full of novelties. — she answered, her voice hoarse as the friction of two stones. — What did you witness that made you bristle in this manner?
— Creatures of naked skin. Without fur, without scales. — He gestured with his hands, imitating the upright posture of the humans. — One of them carried the other. The male was broken, the arm taken by the Stone-Hide, I believe.
Mokessa turned her head slowly.
— Naked skin? — She repeated, the word revealing its strangeness. — On the banks of the river? Almost no creature lives without fur, I mean, I have never noticed even one.
— There is something more, Mokessa. — The macaque approached, lowering his tone, as if the forest could hear him. — The Stone-Hide did not die by tooth or claw. It is there, dying from a cold that burns. The female... she had something in her hands. A blue flame. — The primate breathed deeply and said: — That female left the Stone-Hide sick!
Mokessa froze. For the first time in many moons, the macaque noticed fear cross the face of the leader. She rose, her spine curved, but still imposing, and walked to the edge of the branch, looking in the direction of the forests that had no names.
— A blue flame? — She asked, the whisper almost disappearing in the wind.
— Yes. Color of deep sky, color of the waters of the Eternal Winter!
Mokessa closed her eyes and released a sigh that seemed to carry the burden of all the trees around her. She brought her hand to the back of her neck, scratching the skin beneath her silvery fur, a gesture of unease that made the pack fall silent on the lower branches.
— Barely has the world been renewed and already we have tales of the great cold? — she murmured to herself, an expression of bitter recognition crossing her features. — I hope you are not making me waste time.
— No. I want to discover who they are. And since you have not seen anything similar… — The macaque affirmed, his eyes searching in hers for an answer that was not an enigma. — Could the winter have hidden them in its frosts?
Mokessa turned to him, her expression now a mask of absolute seriousness. She extended her hand and touched the forehead of the young primate, a gesture of protection and warning.
— I lack knowledge of this renewed world, little one. — She said.
— Should we expel them? — the one who had observed them showed his teeth, a reflex of territorial defense. — That blue fire… it could be dangerous for us!
Silence settled for a few seconds; they were there, alone, only the two of them, aware of the existence of these beings and the doubts that arose.
— What will we do? — He asked, his question now a thread of uncertainty.
— We will observe. — Mokessa sat again, becoming part of the silhouette of the shelter against the dark sky. — We will see how this blue flame behaves among those of naked skin. I have the impression that the Eternal Winter was only a rehearsal for what is to come.