Chasing the Flight

The Vorax had grown rarer than Jin-Kalys imagined. Months of searching and hunting had yielded nothing, and yet his calculations could not be controverted. Varissa, the lean, feminine, terrifying Jevumm at his side was the one who would find them and so he stuck with her, despite her continual threats whenever boredom seemed about to overcome her hunger for Vorax flesh. She climbed in and out of Vorax nests, her nose full of their scent, driving her mad with hunger. She rushed from place to place across the continent of Karia, always certain that the next corner would reveal her prey, but they continually eluded her.

At night, when Jin-Kalys was slow, and his mind was more on a level with hers, he would share pieces of his knowledge. He explained nine-branch formal logic, and the catastrophic intersection of the branches at the apogee, an inexorable, and therefore predictable nexus. When in a good mood she seemed to regard his philosophy as a form of poetry. When in a bad mood it merely baited her appetite for cruelty. Jin-Kalys had several new fine white scars in his scaly neck.

During the days she wanted to sleep and thus he had plenty of time to continue his work. It was both alarming and reassuring that the signs continued to point toward global upheaval. Alarming because he was completely unequipped for the work which seemed to be left to him, being the only one adequately trained in reading solar equations according to the Asterakalys Helio-Synthesis model. Reassuring because it meant he was right, and when if he returned to Sighing Web of Trees he would be able to conclusively demonstrate it to the dismay of those presently adhering to the fashionable Celestial-Objectivity model.

Though he wasn't foolish enough to say so he did find the conflict between his rational-diurnal schedule and her predatory nocturnal schedule extremely aggravating. It meant that they could only make progress in the mornings and evenings. At day he worked. At night she hunted.

That is, until the morning that they saw the Flight. From the top of a Pericasymore tree he ought to have seen them first, but all credit to her hunter's instincts, he had to have them pointed out to him by his feline companion. She heard their song on the breeze and when he was able to bring his eyes into focus on the horizon his breath caught. A flight of Vorax! Dozens of them, maybe as many as 50 or 60 Vorax flying together and dancing on the wind.

Varissa was celebrating the nearness of her prey, but Jin-Kalys could only sputter. Something's wrong. This does not correspond to Monikostara's Law of Preservation. Surely this sudden and unforseen change of behaviors means that a revised estimate of the rate of apogee's approach is imperative. I could be off by months!

From that moment the odd couple had not rested normally, but had forced themselves to chase after the Flight as fast as Jin-Kalys' short legs could carry him. The first time they nearly caught up to the Flight what they saw caused even Varissa to hesitate in dismay. They were flying over an abandoned nest, performing the funereal dance. In the patterns in the sky Jin-Kalys saw the gravity of his miscalculation. An aberrant force had impinged on the perfect sequence of logical effects. The choices of the Vorax were no longer corresponding to the necessary impulse for perpetuation. They mean to commit suicide!

There was no way they could keep pace with creatures that fly hundreds of kilometers a day, but Jin-Kalys knew that they would not have to. Even unpredictable behavior follows patterns, thought they are unseen. By the nine-branches he could discern their route. With a map...

He marked the locations of all 20 major Vorax nests and by plot-centric prioritization assigned an order to them. It was a sequence - an illogical one, to be sure, but consistent with an intent for self-destruction driven by a troublesome unknown quantity, but in such a way that it still resolved with all Nine-Branches. It was the only possible outcome.

Speaking hastily to Varissa, he pointed to a spot on the map - a cliff overlooking the ocean on the far northwestern shore of the continent. It was deep in Cheldrun territory, something which made Varissa profoundly uneasy, but it was their only chance to catch the flight. It would be a race. If they were too late, the Vorax would already have acted, in a rather permanent fashion. Everything depended now on Varissa's speed and stealth, to get them safely to that far away shore.