Minato's Arc

Chapter 2 of 7

Minato ran until the trees closed over him. The creature's pink glow shrank ahead, then blinked out. Night pressed in. He stopped, breath ragged, and turned in a slow circle. Roots caught his boots. Branches hid the sky. The pale star he had marked was gone behind the leaves. Without it, he had no heading. Without the creature's glow, he had no trail. He stood still and listened, but the forest gave him nothing. He pulled the notebook from his belt and knelt. His hands shook too hard to read his own marks. Six years of work, and one dark forest would erase it. He forced himself to think. The creature had steered by the star. So must he. He needed a clear line to the sky. Minato searched for high ground. He found a rise where an old chair sat half-buried in moss, its tall back carved with stars and moons. Someone had studied the heavens here long ago. He climbed onto the seat and stood on the armrests. Above the treetops, the pale star burned low. He fixed its place, jumped down, and set off toward it. Branches tore at his cloak. He kept the star ahead through every gap in the leaves. After a while the ground leveled. His boot struck something hard. He crouched and dug through wet leaves. His fingers found metal. He lifted out a small box, cold and heavy. Silver stars and moons covered its lid, worn soft by age. A stiff latch held it shut. He pried the latch open. Inside lay folded charts, brittle and yellow. He unfolded one under the weak light. It showed the forest as lines and marks, and among them a single star drawn larger than the rest. The same pale star. A path was inked from that star down to a place marked with a small round shape. He knew that shape. He had drawn it a hundred times. Minato's heart pounded. Someone before him had mapped the creature's road. He was not the first to hunt the star gods. He matched the chart's star to the one above the trees. The drawn path bent east, away from the way he had been running. He had almost gone wrong. Then a sound came from the dark ahead. Soft. A wet, breathing sort of sound. Minato froze. He raised his eyes from the chart. Two dark wells shone back at him, low to the ground. Rosy cheeks. Crimson feet planted in the leaves. The creature stood there, watching him again, as it had at the window. It had not fled at all. It had waited. Minato clutched the box and the chart. He had found his trail, and the trail had found him. The creature turned toward the pale star, then looked back, as if it meant for him to follow. Minato stood, legs stiff, and stepped after it into the dark.