Flight of the Wounded Falcon

by Trish Mercer

Eltana Yordin looked at the calendar on her bedroom wall and sighed.

  Six moons had gone by. Six moons since Young Perrin Shin had left for the world, intent on overthrowing Lemuel Thorne and taking over the northern forts.

  Well, obviously that hadn’t happened.

  The newspaper that was delivered three times a week, with updates about Salem and tidbits about the world, hadn’t said anything about Thorne’s assassination, or anything truly interesting at all.

  Eltana had done some covert questioning—not as if she was about to ever speak to any Shins or Zenoses again—and found out that no one knew where Young Perrin Shin was in the world. The scouts investigated Edge and its surroundings extensively, checked with their contacts in Sands, but he was nowhere, doing nothing newsworthy. He had simply, disappointingly, vanished, just as Eltana had. Just as so many refugees had from the world.

  Well, she decided, it serves Salem right. Let them see what it’s like on the other side, missing someone.

  And then she became angry. Maybe he’d been using her—her connections, her knowledge, even her husband’s jacket—just to get into the world and do . . . whatever it was he was up to, likely those youthful indiscretions he seemed so innocently curious about. For all she knew, he sold the jacket and completely forgot his pledge to her to avenge Gari.

  Stupid, slagging boy! And she fell for it! His charming smile, his borderline leer—he used an innocent, old woman for his own scheming!

  It wasn’t the first time she entertained that thought, and when she had, she immediately tried to console herself with the idea that such a scheming young man could actually overthrow Thorne, if he remembered his purpose, if he got around to it and wasn’t too involved in goat charming. . .

  But, apparently, he hadn’t. Today was six moons, when he was supposed to return, and he hadn’t done any of it.

  Eltana rubbed her face, refusing to release the tears that burned in her eyes. Crying was for the weak in constitution. She was anything but weak.

  But she was angry and worried. Angry and worried that maybe, just maybe, Young Perrin was just as weak as her own son. Maybe, just maybe, Thorne had gotten to him, too.

  Furious, she slammed her fist on the bed, frustrated that the sound wasn’t nearly as impressive as if she’d smacked a table.

  No, she wasn’t going to give up on him yet. She couldn’t. She had no more chances, no more possibilities to bring down Lemuel Thorne. Young Perrin Shin had to do it. No one else could.

  Just a little more time. That’s all he needed.

  Two more moons. She’d give him two more moons . . .

  Then she might tell someone he might be in trouble.

  ---

  Six moons had gone by.

  Lilla stared at the pantry. She could always tell the date by how her supplies were stacked. After Snowing Season, the shelves were just a little thinner, but they’d still eat well. Planting Season and the new year had started thirty-two days ago, and for some reason she naively thought Young Pere would have returned by now.

  Six moons was long enough for him to foolishly gallivant around the world, wasn’t it? Long enough for him to miss their family? Miss her cooking? Miss his grandmother? Miss his mama?

  Unless . . . unless he was in trouble.

  ---

  Six moons. Mahrree looked at the date of the paper she was grading and realized it had been half a year since Young Pere had left.

  Without anything to go on.

  He was still alive—she was sure of it. Hopeful of it, at least. Lilla would undoubtedly bake up a storm this afternoon. The house reeked deliciously when Lilla was her most troubled. Lately, it had smelled marvelous nearly every day, the poor girl.

  At least no one else had vanished away. Mahrree made sure of that. There was no additional grief among the mothers at the Eztates, because she didn’t talk to anyone older than five years old.

  All of her free time, when she wasn’t tending the younger children or grading papers, was taken by Honri. Dear, sweet, distracting Honri, who dragged her out at least twice a week to different rectories where they’d snigger together quietly as Salem’s secret critics, and he’d try to teach her to dance, but even the slower pieces were too quick for her lack of coordination.

  Recently, they’d taken to finding books in the university library brought in from the world, and they’d read and critique those, judging them against the world and Salem, and finding everything else they could to talk about instead of missing their spouses and fearing that they had no real purpose anymore.

  Probably the best thing about having Honri as a new and constant friend was that her children and grandchildren were backing off. No longer were they trying to coax her out or get her to say more than three words at mealtime or voice her opinion on something. They just regarded her with odd smiles, which Mahrree couldn’t quite interpret, as she headed out the door for the evening. Strangely, their smiles were even wider whenever she went out with Honri.

  Between school, baby tending, and Honri, Mahrree didn’t have time to talk to anyone else in her family.

  So the rest of her posterity was safe.

  ---

  Calla heard something fussing with the front door and, thinking it might have been a grandchild fumbling with the handle, opened the door.

  To her surprise, an elderly woman was rushing away, crushing the new green grasses.

  “Can I help you?” she called after her. “Ma’am?”

  The woman stopped guiltily, as if having been caught, and slowly turned around.

  “Mrs. Yordin?” Calla exclaimed, and she noticed a piece of parchment flutter to the ground to her feet. She stooped to pick it up. “Were you dropping this off?”

  “I just . . . uh.” She glanced around before approaching the front porch. “Wanted the sergeant major to know,” she nodded at the folded parchment.

  “Please come in,” Calla said in her most welcoming tone. It’d been several moons since any of the family had contact with her, and Calla decided it was time to try to mend some hard feelings. Eltana Yordin wasn’t the woman who sent Young Pere away, she frequently reminded Lilla and Mahrree. Young Pere decided that all on his own.

  Mrs. Yordin’s mouth twitched. “I know your husband’s up north for a few days, so if you could just give him—”

  “Please come in,” Calla repeated, so imploringly that Mrs. Yordin sighed in resignation and made her way up the stairs. “Can you tell me what you want Shem to know? Please, have a seat.”

  She took a chair across from Mrs. Yordin and smiled warmly.

  The general’s widow shook her head. “You’ve got to be the kindest person in all of Salem,” she said, and by her tone it didn’t seem like a compliment.

  Nothing could shake Calla’s resolve, however, and she continued her sweet smile.

  “Anyway,” Mrs. Yordin said, nodding to the parchment Calla still held, “I realize that I probably should have said something some time ago, but . . . it’s been about eight moons now since Perrin, I mean Young Pere, left for Edge.”

  Calla steeled herself. “Yes?”

  Mrs. Yordin took a deep breath. “I realize now I should have told you all that he intended to return after six moons—”

  Calla went rigid.

  “—so he’s now two moons overdue. I was thinking, hoping, actually, that he’d be successful and that his delay wasn’t a sign of problems—”

  “He was due back,” Calla said quietly, trying to keep from tearing the parchment she clenched, “two moons ago? You knew this? All this time?”

  Mrs. Yordin blinked as if that was obvious.

  “And you’re choosing only now to tell us that we should have started organizing a forced retrieval two moons ago?!”

  Calla had never raised her voice so loud before, but Mrs. Yordin didn’t seem to notice.

  “What’s a forced retrieval?”

  “When someone who should have come home, who planned to come home, does not. It means they
’re in trouble and need assistance or intervention. It means we fear that they can no longer act according to their will and conscience, and need us to rescue them!”

  Somehow Mrs. Yordin didn’t hear the fury in Calla’s tone. “That’s what you’re trying to do with Jon Offra, isn’t it? I heard you were planning to drag him home, now that you got a report he was spotted in Vines.”

  “Yes,” was all Calla could say.

  Mrs. Yordin bobbed her head. “Should be interesting, tackling him and bringing him back—”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?!” Calla seethed.

  “What was that?”

  “Why didn’t you say anything before this?” Calla wasn’t used to doing angry, and evidently she was failing at it, because Mrs. Yordin seemed hardly ruffled.

  “Well, I’m saying it now,” Mrs. Yordin told her. “I thought the sergeant major should know—”

  “He’s my nephew,” Calla said between gritted teeth. “He’s Shem’s by marriage and by distant cousins, but he’s my baby sister’s baby!”

  “I forgot about that,” Mrs. Yordin said, for the first time showing a hint of remorse.

  “I never have. I’m the one who comforts my weeping sister each week, who tries to encourage his grandmother, and who has to remind my husband every day that he’s doing all he can. But he’s my nephew, too!”

  “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Yordin said, unsure of what else to say.

  “I hope you are, because I could’ve been giving them something more to get them through this, if only you’d spoken up! If only you told us all you knew! What else is there? What else?”

  Mrs. Yordin sat back. “I don’t . . . I don’t think there’s anything else you should know.”

  Calla sat back, a tear trickling down her cheek. “I love that boy too, you know. You think you do, but I love him more than you could ever imagine. He’s got as much of my blood in him as he has Perrin’s, and here you sit and think there’s nothing wrong with not telling us that he planned to be home two moons ago?”

  “I said I was sorry,” Mrs. Yordin reminded her.

  Calla stood up, her hands clasped together, crushing the note. “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Yordin,” she said formally. “I shall give this to my husband when he returns.”

  Mrs. Yordin stood up, a little surprised their meeting was already over, and made her way to the door. She paused as she opened it and said, “Does nothing ever upset you, Mrs. Zenos?”

  Calla’s mouth dropped open as Mrs. Yordin shut the door behind her.

  Furious, Calla threw the note on the floor. It fluttered, floating a little this way, then that way, until it finally settled on the rug.

  “Mama, it looks like you dropped something,” Zaddick said as he wandered into the gathering room, midday meal in his hand.

  “When did you get home?” she asked.

  “A few minutes ago.”

  “Is the horse and cart still hitched up?”

  “Yes, I just needed to grab something to eat before I . . . Are you going somewhere?”

  Calla was jogging out the back door, grabbing her sweater from off the hook. “You don’t mind, do you?” she called back to her son as he followed her.

  “Well, I needed to make a delivery, but I guess it could wait.” He watched, stunned, as his mother untethered Clarkess 8 and climbed up on the bench of the small cart. “Where are you going?”

  “To the temple!” she told him.

  “But it’s closed for cleaning and repairs,” he reminded her.

  “I know!” She slapped Clarkess 8 and was off.

  She arrived at the temple a while later, slowing down the horse so as to approach the stone edifice in relative silence. Even though it was the cleaning weeks, the temple was still a sacred place, and she wouldn’t even try to enter because she wasn’t dressed in white.

  However, those repairing the stone on the outside were, and they could find who she was looking for. Quietly she got off the cart and made her way up the stairs.

  “Mrs. Zenos?” one man whispered, pausing in his work of filling in a tiny crack. “Can we help you?”

  “Yes, I need my nephew, Relf Shin. Do you know where he’s working?”

  “He’s out back, chiseling a new frontispiece to be put up later. Would you like me to . . .”

  But she was already down the wide stone steps, and jogging along the side of the temple to where she heard the sound of metal on stone.

  Breathless, she darted to the back and nearly ran into Relf, working on a large piece of white stone.

  “Aunt Calla!” he exclaimed, but quietly. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

  She gripped his arm and tried to calm her breathing. “Nothing’s wrong, but something could be right.”

  “I don’t understand. Come sit down and catch your breath.”

  “Relf,” she panted, “does Woodson still want you to go on the forced retrieval of Jon Offra?”

  “Well, yes, but I’m not really considering it,” he told her. “All they want me for is in case they need to use my voice. Seeing as how they’ll be gone for at least four weeks, I’m not too eager—”

  “What if you could go for another reason?”

  A sly smile started on his face. “Is this about Young Pere?”

  “It is. I know you went to Shem shortly after he left, suggesting that you join the scouting corps to try to find him.”

  “And Uncle Shem said no. Said we can’t interfere with his choices—”

  “He was supposed to be back by now,” Calla cut him off. “Eltana Yordin just came by and told me. She expected Young Pere to be back two moons ago.”

  “Two moons?!” he roared in General Relf Shin fashion, forgetting they were in the vicinity of the temple.

  Several workers spun around in alarm.

  “I know, my reaction exactly,” Calla said, trying to ignore their inquiring and slightly affronted stares. “Although maybe if I’d said it as loud as you, she would’ve noticed I was upset,” she said more to herself. “But Relf, we could make a case for you going down now to find him.”

  “But Offra’s in Vines, and we have no idea where Young Pere is. No one’s spotted him.”

  “No one knows him like us, Relf. The world changes people, but maybe someone who’s known him since he was a baby—”

  “Someone like me would still recognize him,” Relf said, already slipping his hammer into his belt holster as if he were sheathing a sword. “Woodson’s in Salem right now, beginning training for those going on the retrieval.”

  “And if you were to go right now,” his aunt said meaningfully, although Relf was already wrapping up his chisels, “and talked to Woodson, you could be halfway through his accelerated training program before Shem comes home in three days.”

  Her nephew grinned. “Uncle Shem only wanted me to hide out at rectors’ homes, easily accessible in case they found Offra. Sounded like a waste of time to me, but if I can do more—can find Young Pere who also needs to be retrieved, well, then . . .”

  Calla kissed his cheek. “There’s a reason why you look like my father, so that no one would realize you’re a Shin. This is why, Relf: to get that foolish brother of yours.”

  “Mama will be thrilled,” he said, putting his tools in his box, to the surprise of those working around him. He had two more weeks of work, and to be chosen to cut the stone was a great honor. But apparently Relf Shin felt the need to do something even better.

  Calla gripped his ample arm. “Don’t tell her. Not yet. Shem may still not agree, and we have to get Woodson to take you on as well. Too many things can go wrong, first. I don’t want to get her hopes up too much, only to see them dashed yet again.”

  “I won’t tell Mama yet, then,” he assured her. “But will you tell my supervisor why I’m leaving? I don’t want to waste another moment.”

  She grinned. “Take Clarkess 8 and the cart. Head straight to Woodson’s training hall. I’ll break the news to your supervisor, and start thin
king of ways to break it to Shem.”

  ---

  It was early the next morning, before the sun was up on the 82nd Day of Planting, when Shem found himself sitting upright in bed, completely confused. He was sweating, panting, terrified, and unsure where he was.

  The bedroom door opened, and one of his elderly assistants and his wife, illuminated only by the candles they held, stared at him, worried.

  “Guide Zenos?” Assistant Choruk asked hesitantly as if approaching a bear coming out of hibernation. “Do you need something? Are you all right?”

  Shem massaged his face, trying to remember what had so frightened him. “I’m sorry. Something . . . something disturbed me. Did I wake you?”

  The couple, a few years older than him, bobbled their heads to confirm that he had, but didn’t want him to feel bad about it.

  “You were yelling,” Mrs. Choruk said, almost apologetically.

  “I was? What was I saying?”

  She gulped. “Run, run, run?”

  And then it trickled back to him, slowly, steadily, as if the Creator knew the images were too much for him to see again, but fed them more slowly, more clearly.

  And once again, he found himself shuddering in fear.

  “Choruk. Parchment. Quill. I see it.”

  “I’ll get it,” Mrs. Choruk said to her husband. “Stay with the guide.”

  Assistant Choruk sat next to Shem on his bed, biting his lip, while Shem continued to rub his eyes. “Is it for all of Salem to know?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Mrs. Choruk rushed in and set the parchment, ink, and quill on the small desk in their guest room.

  “Write it, please,” Shem whispered. “As I remember it.”

  Assistant Choruk started to get up, but Shem shook his head. “I’ve seen your writing. Please, your wife’s hand is much neater.”

  Mrs. Choruk began to smile that she was afforded the honor, until she realized the guide was grave. Quickly she sat down at the desk and looked up expectantly.

  “I was in Edge again,” Shem began slowly, tenuously. “And I was digging, a shovel in my hands. When I looked up, I realized I was digging a mass grave, as we did back when the pox came through.”

  Choruk absently rubbed the old, faded pocks scars on his face.

  His wife wrote quickly.

  “Then the scene changed, and I watched my hands. They were no longer young, but as they appear now, and I was digging again, another mass grave.”

  Mrs. Choruk whimpered quietly, still writing.

  Her husband covered his mouth with his hand.

  “And I was in Salem,” Shem said heavily. “It’s coming back. The pox is reviving again, and it will hit us, and the world, with even more force than before.”

  “Oh, Guide,” Choruk said, patting Shem’s leg. “What can we do?”

  “That’s not all, is it?” Mrs. Choruk said. “Guide, why did you yell ‘Run’?”

  He began to tremble, and pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them like a frightened boy.

  “No, that’s not all. Because I stopped shoveling. The ground was trembling, like it used to in Edge. And then . . . then I saw it.” He swallowed, barely able to speak, but knowing that if he didn’t, the image would remain in his eyes, demanding that he express it.

  “A cloud. A storm. No, not quite, but definitely a cloud.” Trying to convey the enormity he witnessed in his dream, and still saw hazily in front of him, he gestured awkwardly in the air.

  Assistant Choruk and his wife exchanged apprehensive glances. “Like . . . a very big storm?” his assistant offered.

  “Or, or . . . what did Professor Eubank call it, that storm that came over us a few years ago, with the hole in the middle? A hurricane?” suggested Mrs. Choruk

  Shem slowly shook his head. “Like nothing we’ve ever seen before. No, I’m mistaken. I did see something like that before, but much smaller. In Moorland. Dear Creator, the explosions in Moorland!”

  “Guide,” his assistant said gently, “I wasn’t there. Describe it for us?”

  Again Shem waved uselessly with his hands, but said, “A massive cloud, rising from the ground, not forming in the air. Like a mushroom, but with so many more bulbs and facets, growing, growing faster, immense, rising to the very heights of the sky.” His voice grew tighter, more panicked. “Higher and larger than anything we could ever imagine.”

  Again the elderly couple exchanged fearful looks.

  The old man leaned to Shem. “From what source, Guide?”

  “It makes no sense,” Shem whispered. “Makes no sense, but I see it. Right there,” he pointed to the south. “It’s coming from the mountains. From the region of Mount Deceit.”

  Mrs. Choruk’s whimper was a tad longer that time, but she hastily recorded every word.

  “And then,” Shem’s voice began to shake, and his assistant caught his hand as if to lend him strength. “The cloud . . . the cloud began to fall.” He shook his head, astonished at the idea. “Down over the world, but also over us. Collapsing, smothering—Oh, it’s too massive! It’s too big! Run! Run! Run!” he cried.

  At the side of the bed, Mrs. Choruk nodded as she wrote. “Yes, just like that,” she whispered. “That’s what he shouted earlier. Dear Creator.” With a shaking hand she recorded the guide’s shouts.

  “And then what?” his assistant prodded.

  Shem met his eyes. “Then you opened my door. Oh, Choruk. We have . . .” He closed his eyes, pondered, then opened them again. “Barely enough time. Just over two moons. By the middle of Weeding Season, everyone needs to be out of the world. Everyone!”

  “Middle of Weeding Season?” Assistant Choruk repeated. “Isn’t that . . . isn’t that when you all usually went on your marking trips?”

  Shem sat back. “It is. We’d leave around the 58th Day of Weeding.”

  “I see now why you had to get all the trails marked last year,” Choruk whispered. “There’s no time.”

  His wife whimpered again.

  Shem turned to her. “Everyone we have in the world needs to be back in Salem by the 54th,” he decided, and nodded to Mrs. Choruk to write that down.

  “Well,” he said suddenly, hastening to get out of bed, “I need to get moving!” He fought the blankets tangling him up, finally landing on the floor. “Mrs. Choruk, thank you for your hospitality, but I need to get back south. I need to get home! We’ve got forced retrievals to organize!”

  “You mean the dump children?” Choruk said, getting to his feet. “Do we have time to get them out?”

  “As many as we can,” Shem said, trying to put the blankets back on the bed. “And Offra. He’s definitely coming! And . . .” He hesitated and stared at the wall.

  The Choruks shared a look.

  “And Young Pere?” Assistant Choruk prompted.

  Shem clenched his fist. “We’ll try. Whatever it takes, we will try. Relf,” he whispered, remembering his nephew’s pleas. “I have got to get home! Choruk, cancel my appointments for today and tomorrow, send my apologies, tell them I’ll send out a notice later with what we now know.”

  “I’ll take care of everything, Guide,” his assistant promised.

  “And I’ll get you breakfast,” his wife said, trying to stand up.

  “No, please don’t bother. But instead, let me read what you wrote, make adjustments if necessary, then make me three copies. I’ll be saddling my horse—”

  “Guide Zenos!” Mrs. Choruk cried as he darted out of the bedroom.

  He popped his head back in, trying to appear patient when patience was the last thing he possessed this early morning.

  “Change first?” she suggested and cringed as Shem looked down at his sleeping clothes.

  His daughter had sewn him that set, painting the big, yellow stripes, across and up and down, herself. She thought the red dots in each white box was cute.

  Today, they reminded Shem of blistering pox.

  Assistant Choruk tossed him his travel
bag with his clean clothes. “Perhaps in the washroom?”

  Shem nodded appreciatively to them both. “This is why I need assistants and their wives.”

  ---

  The next morning, Relf was detained on his way to Woodson’s training, but only briefly, because the two women holding him back were the ones most intent that he do well in the course.

  “So you’re only going to be a hiding scout, right?” Lilla asked anxiously, nervous about another son going into the world. But this one had everyone’s permission and blessings and soon, intensive training.

  “An accompanying scout,” Mahrree clarified. “Means he won’t talk to anyone, but just assist—”

  “But if he sees Young Pere, he gets to talk to him, right?” Lilla persisted.

  Relf tried again to answer for himself, casting a glance of Help? to Honri who had come over to explain training procedures to Lilla.

  But Mahrree was faster. “Of course, of course. And also Jon Offra, should they track him down again. I doubt Relf will even be tested against me in the lying courses. He won’t get that far, Lilla, as Honri has been trying to tell you. Right, Relf?” she asked her grandson.

  “Oh, I get to speak now? I’m never quite sure.”

  Mahrree squinted at him. “You had orientation just last night, and already they have you practicing sarcasm?”

  He smiled slyly back. “No, I picked that up from you, years ago. I just never dared practice it until now. Look, I need to go. They’re taking us up to the glacier fort today, then down to spy on Edge tomorrow—”

  “I know, I know,” Lilla said, fussing with her son’s new green and brown mottled clothing—the uniform of the scouting corps.

  And Relf had thought taking leave of his wife, son, and newborn daughter was difficult.

  “Just . . . be careful,” Lilla admonished, “Do your best—”

  “He’ll be back to say goodbye before Shem sends him down on the retrieval,” Honri reminded her.

  “He’ll be back in two days, in fact, to finish training!” Mahrree exclaimed. “Lilla, let the man go for his orientation!”

  “Thank you, Muggah,” Relf grinned at her.

  But now she gripped his muscled arm, since his mother had released it. “I don’t expect miracles. I don’t even expect you to be able to drag him home. I’m just thankful that you’re going to try. I have full confidence in you. Remember that.”

  Relf’s eyes softened. “This has been the longest conversation we’ve had in many moons, Muggah,” he said quietly, tossing a grateful glance at Honri. “Suddenly remembered how to talk to your grandchildren?”

  She shifted apologetically, because she hadn’t realized her grandchildren had noticed she was deliberately avoiding them. But she could talk to this one; he was already on his way out. What more damage could she do to him?

  “When did you get to be so sharp-tongued?” she asked him. “Oh, I know,” she added when he made to respond, “Learned it from me, and just now daring to use it.”

  He gave her a quick hug. “Whatever it takes to get you talk. And I’ll find him, Muggah. I promise.”

  “Don’t,” she said, patting him on the cheek. “Don’t make promises you don’t know you can keep. Just . . . come back to us again.”

  Chapter 31--“Does the general know what you are?”