Cry of the Nightbird

by Tirzah Duncan

  There’s a horrid slice across his forehead, and he’s crusted with dried blood down his face and shirt. Some of it has dripped into his eyes, and seems to have almost sealed them shut. It looks nasty, but I’ve seen worse. He’ll just be weak from blood loss for a few days, then it’ll heal into a handsome scar.

  He pulls himself to his knees and holds out a hand. I don’t need his hand, he’s the wounded one. I stand on my own, slowly stretching my cramped muscles. How long was I in this tiny trunk? Uncle Klep groans and slumps over it again. Tempest, he is in a bad way.

  I look out across the moonlit room. Bodies everywhere. I frown. This isn’t right. Father doesn’t usually leave a mess. He might leave bodies if they’re not in our district, or display them publicly, if they’re to be an example, but the inn is important to Father. He calls it the epicenter. I think that means the center of the center of the center. He doesn’t like to leave the epicenter dirty.

  And what of the survivors? Why did he send no one to fetch me, or to help Uncle Klep? I need to find out what’s going on, but I can’t leave Uncle Klep here. I reach down and take the wounded man by the shoulders. “Uncle Klep, let’s go find Father.”

  He looks up at me, squinting sadly through blood-matted eyelids. He stares at me for a moment, then looks across the room, towards the windows. To something on the floor there. My belly clenches. I don’t know why, but I don’t want to look.

  I look.

  The near-full moon is shining bright now, lighting the battlefield floor in large, square patches. The silver light gleams on a redheaded woman, lying half atop the large body of a golden-haired man. Both are dark with drying blood. They gaze at the ceiling with clouded eyes.

  I stare silently. It’s not true. It’s not Mother or Father. It’s a trick, a fake. My parents cannot lie so still, so breathless, so dead. This is a dream. Father says dreams are pointless things, and not to pay them any mind. Sometimes there are scary things in dreams, trying to frighten you awake in screams, but Father says you must be better than that. You must show the dream who is master.

  My chin lifts. I will not wake up screaming. I am master of this dream.

  Uncle Klep gasps, and I look down at him. He’s staring towards the center of the room. What now? I follow his gaze until my eyes land on a small corpse.

  “Kaseen.” My voice is level and calm, as if I’m greeting my cousin coming up the stairs. The dream-picture does not conquer me. When I wake, I will see him again.

  His body looks very real. It’s smaller than mine, even though he’s eight. The moon lights his soft brown curls. His face is cast into shadow. A long knife spills from his still, colorless fingers.

  For a moment, I’m almost convinced. I nearly cry, nearly faint into a waking scream. But I do not. I master myself. I am strong.

  Because it’s not Kaseen, that’s impossible. Enemies die, and old people, and people who don’t matter, and people whose face you don’t know. Not family. Not friends. Mothers and fathers and cousins don’t die.

  Uncle Klep hasn’t risen from his knees. He stares, transfixed, at the dream-corpse of his son, his own face frozen. I reach down and grab him under the arms, trying to heave him upright. I am the strongest one here; I must take charge.

  “Come on now, Uncle. None of it’s real, I promise. We’ve got to go downstairs and celebrate with Mother and Father.”

  I use a comforting, cheerful tone, like Father uses when I wake up scared from a nightmare. I do that sometimes—or I did. I don’t anymore. Not for a long time, anyway, months at least, or maybe weeks.

  Uncle Klep gets slowly to his feet. I put my arms around his waist and guide him towards the door, stepping around the bodies that lie thick on the floor.

  He stops suddenly, and the shock slides off his face, leaving a blankly calm look. He shakes his head, winces.

  “No, Syawn. Not downstairs.”

  He turns and walks slowly back through the room. I want to turn my back on this tomb, to go down into the light and the laughter, to wake up and see my real mother and father, alive and joking and dancing, not pale and staring like these dream faces.

  I sigh. I must fetch Uncle Klep back, must make him see sense. I hurry to catch up with him, planning to take his hand and tug him back toward the laughter downstairs.

  He stops halfway across the room, staring down at Kaseen’s body. The figure’s chest is stained dark, as are the floorboards beneath him. I look down at my hands. Stained dark. It isn’t blood. It’s ink. Uncle bends down and plucks Kaseen’s dagger out of his loose fingers. I sigh.

  “Uncle Klep, leave that, we need to go downstairs where it’s real.”

  He slips the dagger into his belt. I bite back impatience. Father always says patience is an important part of ruling. “Fine, Uncle, take the dagger,” I say patiently. “Now let’s go downstairs and find Mother and Father and Kaseen.”

  Oh dear, now he’s crying. He reaches out and takes my hand; I let him, it’s the ruler-ly thing to do. He walks all the way over to the window, leading me. I sigh again. What foolishness now?

  “We have to go,” I remind him, voice more patient than I’m feeling. There’s another thing Father always says: a good ruler hides his feelings.

  He nods. “Yes, little one. This way, now.” He climbs onto the windowsill.

  I scowl. “Little one,” indeed. I’m the one who’s mastering this dream, not him. He’s the one who needs ruling, not me. I draw my hand out of his and step back. I step forward again quickly, having tread on someone’s arm. Silly. It’s not real.

  Uncle Klep leaps from the window to the roof of the one-story house next to our inn, landing clumsily and stumbling. I sneer. I can land far better, and Mother only just let me on the roofs a few months ago.

  As Uncle Klep turns to face me, I climb onto the sill and leap, unhesitating, over the four-foot gap. I land lightly, making hardly a thump. Uncle Klep nods and gets to his feet, walking up the incline of the roof.

  I follow him, still patient. “Will we go down to celebrate with Father now?” I ask.

  Uncle Klep pauses, then leaps to the next roof. As I land beside him, he says, “Not now, Syawn. Let’s go on a moonlight roofwalk first.” He sounds gently cheerful. Maybe he’s feeling better, now that we’re out of the room of corpses.

  I smile. Maybe this will be a good dream after all. I like roofwalking.