Chapter 244

The island tilting out of the sky toward the sea, its birds peeling away from under it in three long streams toward three false whistles in the dark. The waterfall swinging over the two ships like a broken rope.

perched on the Upp Igen's rail, the crimson line on her arm lighting.

crouching, aiming.

The crimson line on her arm going out. Her grin gone. For one panel she is completely, strangely still.

(Perne lowers the scope an inch and looks at her. Says nothing.)

on the Marka, unslinging the long matte-black rifle. Mingus pressed against his leg; the golden pulse line running along the panel's bottom border.

(Tyst fires. No flash. No sound. Eleven hundred yards off, the brass horn on the first skiff's mast simply bursts.)

Hunting the lure-boats.

Bror, BRA-DOOM, a gold shove rolling the second skiff gently onto its side. BROR: "…Bonk!"

Rougeina Swapping onto the third skiff's mast in the dark, blink, and cutting the horn off it.

Smurjan, third eye open, crimson-rimmed, a Sightline drawn to the horn's mouthpiece: one step, open palm, and the brass crumples like paper.

Bakasura, rising out of the sea under a skiff and biting a spare lure-whistle off its thwart. A long pause. BAKASURA: "…Liar."

From the island's prow, high above: the old whistle. Rough. And the crack in the middle of it, loud and plain, like a flawed bell rung hard.

The birds turning as one, every small head toward the prow, the three streams curling back and pouring in under the island. The island catching, steadying, and then coming down slowly, gently, on purpose, until its underside of rock and roost-holes hangs a mast's height above the black sea, and the waterfall pours straight down into the Deep beside the two ships.

bouncing on the rail.

at the Upp Igen's rail, one eye shut, sighting up the cliff beside the waterfall, brass goggles pushed up.

(Chalk, skrrt-skrrrt, one long stroke after another up the rock face; the snap of the chalk line, TOK; and a stair rising out of the drawing, pale as bone, violet tick-marks along every edge, VRRRMMP.)

stepping onto the meadow, grass springing up round her boots, the names on her arms catching the lantern-light. A handful of Värn barley from her pocket, pressed into the turf.

beard to his chest, the bell-rope mask round his neck, staring at the birds settling in the cliffs.

The Flock coming out of their nest-houses: small, quick, bird-boned people in feathered cloaks, nobody standing still, everybody bobbing, hopping, perching on whatever's high. Two children perched on Krydog's shoulders. One on Smurjan's head, staring at his three shadows. Tihi already juggling for a crowd.

(a kite-rider caught in the fight, hands tied), set down on the meadow and standing still, sullen. The turf under his boots shrugs like a horse's flank, and he's tipped off his feet and sliding toward the rim, yelling. Ysel catches the end of his rope without looking up from the knot she's tying.

Svala bounding up the outside stair three steps at a time. At the top, on a stone stool facing the wind: FARMOR TÄRNA. Tiny, bent like a fish-hook, ninety-nine years old. A thin white braid wound round her head like a nest. A brown face creased like old sailcloth. Black, bright bird's eyes, Svala's eyes, eighty years older. A moth-eaten grey glider-cloak she hasn't flown in thirty years. A bone whistle on a thong at her throat. Coiled at her feet, a long rope tied with hundreds of knots, every one different. Beside her, a Flock girl of about ten with a whistle of her own, practising, badly, trying to get the crack in the right place.

TÄRNA · K-I UNMARKED · Scalelist #5,002,610 · Wing-Keeper of Flyttfågeln

not turning round.

trotting up the last steps, straight past everyone to the old woman, and lying down across her feet. Tärna looking down at him. A hand like a bird's claw scratching his ears.

at the top of the stair, staring past her at the birds.

at the stair-head.

Drekk crouching beside it, running it through his big rope-scarred hands like something holy.

Roffe's cauldron steaming beside the Drinking Lake, the whole Flock and both crews round it. The Flock's birds have brought fish; Roffe has salt-baked them in the lake's clay. Mingus's bowl filled first. Ysel eating fish with a tiny, perfectly deadpan grimace. Roffe's own bowl empty. Somewhere, very quietly: grrrmmmbl.

eating salt-baked fish, chewing slowly.

sitting on the rim with their legs dangling over the dark. Svala's foot jiggling. She's touching the end of the white scarf.

later, alone on the Wing-Keep with Svala perched beside her. The ships far below on the dark water.

looking down at Mingus asleep across her feet.

asleep against the Wing-Keep's wall with her practice whistle in her fist. Tärna drawing the moth-eaten cloak over her without looking.

Horns. Low and many, from the dark all round the island.

Out of the dark, lanterns blooming, ring after ring: a fleet. Kite-ships flying great pale box-kites. Squat cage-ships with nets coiled on their decks. And at the head of them, a great ship whose masts are built like the bars of a birdcage, gilded, lantern-lit, with a brass gull for a figurehead, its beak open as if laughing, a little bell at its throat. Its flag: the gold griffin and the net. The Gilded Cage.

A tall, straight, handsome woman of about thirty-five. Black hair in a severe knot pinned with a hundred tiny bird-bones. A long coat knotted from grey net-cord. A falconer's glove on her left hand. At her hip, a small gilt birdcage, and inside it, a book bound in rose-red leather, beating its covers against the bars like a bird at a window. She is looking up at the Wing-Keep, and she does not blink.

Tärna, rising slowly from her stone stool for the first time in the chapter, Mingus sliding off her feet. Very old. Very quiet.

And across the water, up from the prow of the Gilded Cage, a voice soft and pleasant as a lullaby: