The Bird of the River

by Kage Baker

  “Oh!” Eliss stared at the trunk. She tilted her head back to stare up into the branches, seeing now that all the fantastic gnarling, the stiff dense leaves, were in fact cast and welded metal, gray-green with age.

  “Then up from the raw earth he summoned,

  Quickspringing, the veins of copper and malachite

  And five leagues round forged the forest,

  His own grove, sacrosanct, unfading—Don’t you remember?”

  “I thought it was just a story,” said Eliss, turning, gazing up at the forest canopy. The big trees were all around, stretching back into the forest as far as she could see, with only here and there a thin live tree stretching up toward the light between the verdigris leaves. The same moss draped both the wild and the made trees. “Just, you know, scripture.”

  “I suppose it might have been,” said Krelan. “Originally. But maybe the priests made this place so it would be real. It’s here now, and nobody knows how old it is.”

  Eliss shivered. Was this how the gods were supposed to make you feel? She thought of the centuries these trees had seen, never changed by the seasons, never plundered by crows, never affected by disease or fire. Unfading.

  “Let’s have something to drink,” said Krelan. The whole crew had been paid from the proceeds of the big snag, and everyone had a little money to spend. They took a seat at one of the tables in the yard. After a moment a server came out and bowed to them.

  “Welcome, pilgrims. Some wine?”

  “Tea, please, and could we see a menu?” asked Krelan.

  Eliss looked down at the tabletop. It was bronze, cast to look like rough-hewn wood. She had never in her life sat at a table and ordered from a menu. Krelan’s voice had been casual, ordering as though he’d done it a thousand times. The server came back with a chalkboard and held it up for their inspection. Krelan looked at it critically.

  “Bring us a new loaf, hot, please, and the honey assortment. With jam.”

  The server bowed again and retreated. Eliss felt her mouth watering. She reached an unobtrusive hand to the canvas pouch she wore sewn into the sleeve of her tunic, and reassured herself that she had money there.

  “This is nice,” she half-whispered.

  “Hm? Yes, it’s nice. You’ve really never been? I came with my family when I was eight.”

  “We never came up the river until this year.”

  “Everybody’s supposed to come at least once. Or so the priests tell us. You’ll be making up for it now, I imagine, living on the Bird. Twice a year.”

  “Probably.” Eliss looked out at the pilgrims lining up before the Forge. There were Alder and Wolkin in line, whispering together. She looked back at Krelan. He leaned back in his seat, watching the tavern’s door. For all his ridiculous mustache and shabby hood he seemed somehow poised and elegant, not at all the hapless galley drudge he played on the Bird of the River.

  The server came back and set out their tea. “I wonder if you could answer a question for me,” said Krelan.

  “What would you like to know, sir?”

  “Is there a way to find out whether a particular person made a particular offering on a certain date?”

  “The priests’ clerk keeps a record,” said the server, gesturing off toward the Forge.

  “Thank you. I only ask because my wife’s brother—” Krelan glared at Eliss “—has been bragging for the last six months that he came here and made an expensive offering in honor of our wedding, which is why I oughtn’t ask him to pay back certain sums of money he borrowed.”

  Eliss blinked. After a scrambling moment of confusion she thought fast. “Are you going to start in on that again, husband? Gods below, can’t you ever let it go?”

  Laughter glinted in Krelan’s eyes, but his face remained cold. “Money’s money, Balicia.” He looked up at the server. “Married six months, and thorns in my pillow already.”

  The server gave a tiny smile and shrugged. “One silver bit, sir.”

  Krelan sighed and tossed a silver piece on the table. The server scooped it up and departed. Eliss fumbled in her sleeve for her purse. “I think I’ve got change for my half.”

  “No, no. My treat. You did marry me on a moment’s notice, after all.” Krelan poured their tea. Eliss watched, feeling a strange combination of exhilaration and terror.

  “So we’re going to the clerk to see if your lord made an offering here?” she asked, trying to sound casual. Krelan nodded.

  “The question is, how far up the river did he get? At least, that’s the first question. Once I know that, I’ll have an entirely new set of questions to ask. My compliments on your quick wit, by the way.”

  Eliss shrugged, blushing. “So . . . has it changed much, since you were here before?”

  “Well, everything is somehow smaller, of course.” Krelan sipped his tea carefully. “Ah. Just ready to drink. Don’t wait; it tastes best hot. Other than shrinking, nothing has changed, really. Same souvenir shop. Same tavern. Same hostel. Same office and priest’s house. And the Forge, of course. A few more bushes growing up there where the iron workings used to be. The ruins down at the end a bit more crumbled and overgrown.”

  “What did they used to be?”

  “Hm? Something to do with the iron workings, I suppose. Must have seemed like the end of the world when those played out, mustn’t it? In fact, I remember being a child and reading somewhere that it was taken as a horrible omen, and there promptly followed a series of wars and plagues that left half the cities devastated, because of course the gods wouldn’t want us to waste an omen like that, would they? It wasn’t the end of the world, though. Life went on. It always does.”

  “It does,” Eliss agreed, sipping her tea. Krelan had been right; it was almost too hot, but delicious. “Did you have a lot of books to read, growing up?”

  “Books of fables. Volumes and volumes of the glorious history of the Diamondcuts. No stories about my family, of course, because we were the Diamondcuts’ shadows. My grandfather always said it with a capital S. Shadows. It was something to be proud of, being invisible. I thought it was rather unfair, in those days; now I see how useful invisibility can be. But what about you? What do people read when they don’t have to steep themselves in the bygone glories of their masters?”

  “We never had books.” Eliss gazed into her teacup. It reflected branches and sky. “When Alder was a baby we lived for a while in a building with a lot of other people. There was an old man there, he’d been a scholar, and he still had some books. He taught me to read. So I can read signs and public notices and things. I started a novel once, but we had to move before I could finish it.”

  “What novel?”

  “It was called The Silvergilts of Delairia. It was about this family who had been rich, but now they were poor, and they lived in this old falling-down house.”

  “Sounds like the Diamondcuts.” Krelan chuckled.

  “But they were nice. They were nice to each other and they figured out ways to get by, you know, the father built a little boat and caught fish for dinner, and dug clams, and the little girl of the family painted pictures on clamshells and sold them, and that brought in money. The mother would make big pots of soup out of whatever they had, and they’d all share.” Eliss remembered vividly her longing to slip into the book and be part of that family.

  “And you never finished it?”

  Eliss pressed her lips together, shaking her head. She didn’t want to remember that night, when Falena had pulled her out of bed and told her not to make a sound, and wrapped her in a blanket and carried her outside to the back of a cart. Eliss had waited, clutching Alder in her arms, as Falena and Uncle Paver ran back and forth in the dark loading bundles on the cart. She had finally fallen asleep on the long jolting ride through darkness that followed. She had long ago forgotten the reason they had had to run away, but her grief at losing The Silvergilts was still a vivid ache.

  “Well, perhaps you’ll find another copy, someday. Ah! Here’s our order.�
�� Krelan moved the tea things to one side as the server brought their tray.

  The hot bread with honey was so delicious Eliss had to restrain herself from eating it all. She managed to keep back a slice for Alder, wrapped in the greased paper that had lined the tray and slipped into her pocket. Krelan observed but did not comment.

  “Now,” said Krelan as they left, “what’s next? Shall we look for an offering?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He led her next door to a low-ceilinged shop whose sign reading SOUVENIRS AND OFFERINGS READY-MADE was half obscured by lichen. Inside were racks and racks of offerings, both in iron and tin, shaped like everything imaginable. Eliss lingered by the rack of family groupings, sorting through them. All had a father and mother figure, and every possible number and combination of children, but there were none featuring children alone.

  “May I help you, miss?” An old woman appeared out of the shadows behind the counter.

  “Don’t you have a boy and a girl?”

  “Over there.” The woman pointed behind Eliss and went to pull out a pair of figures, slightly smaller than the father and mother figures.

  “Oh.” Eliss examined it. “I need one where the boy is smaller than the girl.”

  The proprietress glanced over at Krelan, who was lingering at a display of offerings shaped like weapons. She stepped closer and spoke in an undertone. “He’s not that short, dear.”

  “No, it’s for me and my little brother,” said Eliss, feeling her face grow hot.

  “Oh.” The proprietress raised her eyebrows. “I can put one together. Just a moment.”

  She retreated behind the counter and Eliss heard subdued metallic noises. A moment later the proprietress returned with a pair of single figures hooked together with little metal rings, a girl and a smaller boy. “There you are, dear. Anything else today?”

  “Just these,” said Krelan, setting down a sheet-iron dagger on the counter. “We’re together.”

  “Two silver bits, then, sir.”

  They took their offerings and walked out, but there was still a long line of people waiting to get to the Forge. Krelan glanced at them, and then at the clerk’s office.

  “Let’s go ask, first.”

  The clerk’s office was a long low building back under the copper trees; its doorposts were cast to look like trees too, reaching bas-relief branches up into the roofline. A young man was just emerging. He wore a leather apron and had a pair of steel pens thrust through the topknot in his hair.

  “You would be the clerk,” said Krelan, in the same confident and slightly bullying voice he’d used with the tavern server.

  “The Assistant Clerk, sir, actually.” The boy wrung his hands and bowed. “My master’s at the Forge. If you’d like to wait—”

  “No, no; you’ll do. I require information.” Krelan slapped his coin pouch. Eliss wondered how long it would be before the Assistant Clerk noticed Krelan was small and shabby and had a ridiculous mustache.

  “What information, sir?” The Assistant Clerk was still bowing and averting his gaze.

  “I’m resolving the affairs of Encilian Diamondcut. He journeyed upriver some half-year since. His lord father wishes to know what he spent on an offering, the precise date and amount, if you please.”

  “Oh! I remember him. Yes, sir.” The Assistant Clerk hurried back inside the office. Krelan strode after him. Eliss followed, marveling at what a mere tone of voice could accomplish. The Assistant Clerk ran his finger along the spines of a shelf full of ledgers. He pulled one down and carried it to the desk.

  “Here, sir. It was at Winter Solstice. Very crowded then, but of course you remember something like one of the Diamondcuts visiting. Here it is.” He turned the ledger around for Krelan’s inspection and ran his finger down one of the columns, stopping at an entry in red ink. “Just there.”

  “Hmmmm.” Krelan frowned magisterially. “What’s this? A miserable ten copper bits spent?” The Assistant Clerk seemed to shrink.

  “I’m sorry, sir, one must record the truth. He bought one of the tin offerings from the shop. A male figure.”

  “His father will not be pleased.”

  “I wish I had better to report of the young gentleman, sir. I would have thought, with that pleasure-boat and all, he’d have offered something more fitting his illustrious name, but—”

  “A pleasure-boat?”

  “Well, sir, yes, sir, he had his little pleasure-craft, not one of the big party boats, you know, more of the sort the gentry race in. The Fire-Swift, it was called. Very fine.”

  “I see. And was he with a party of revelers?”

  “No, sir, he was alone. But he had a manservant, of course.”

  “Lord Diamondcut expresses his gratitude,” said Krelan, tossing a gold crown piece onto the ledger. “He would, however, prefer that this disgrace of parsimony went unrecorded. Can the entry be blotted out?”

  The Assistant Clerk looked up beseechingly. “Oh, sir, we can’t—it has to be the absolute truth, the gods are so near here after all and—well—”

  “That will grieve Lord Diamondcut. Consider it carefully, Assistant Clerk. Ask yourself whether a bit of spilled ink to obscure a line constitutes a falsehood.” Krelan turned and stalked out, leaving the Assistant Clerk stammering apologies. He took Eliss’s arm and hummed a jubilant little tune.

  “Now, that was gold well spent,” he muttered to Eliss.

  “Was it?”

  “I just found out a great deal. No one told me he’d taken the Fire-Swift. Or that he had a servant with him. And he got this far!”

  “So . . . do you think the servant killed him and took the boat?”

  “Anything’s possible,” Krelan said, in a lowered voice as they walked down toward the Forge. “A damned stupid servant, if he did. It’ll certainly make my job easier.”

  Eliss thought about what Krelan’s job would entail, and shuddered. It didn’t seem right to dwell on such things here. They took their place in line and waited. Most of the Bird’s crew seemed to have made their offerings and gone back to the barge; Eliss saw no one she knew in line. At the doorway stood the priest’s clerk, with a tablet and stylus. As each pilgrim stepped up to the door he took down their name and offering.

  The woman with an iron loom went in and emerged shortly afterward. The man with an iron caravan-cart went next. After him went the family, a mother and father and three adolescent boys, the youngest carrying their cutout sheet iron representation. Waiting, Eliss watched the firelight from inside playing on the stone posts of the doorway. She clutched her offering self-consciously, wishing Alder had come with her.

  The family emerged, talking quietly among themselves. “You can go next, if you like,” said Krelan.

  “Name, please?” inquired the clerk.

  “Eliss Hammertin.”

  “And you have brought?”

  Eliss held up her offering, not sure what to say. The clerk nodded and scored characters quickly into the tablet. He waved her inside. She walked in through the doorposts.

  The Forge was a wide room, low-ceilinged and opening at the back under the very biggest tree. Leaning against its trunk was a boy wearing only a loincloth, his hair slicked up with oil so it looked like flames dancing on his head. His palms were gilded with paint. His face was as serene as though he dreamed. He was effortlessly juggling flaming coals, keeping a circle of them in the air.

  To one side was the Forge itself. It looked like any blacksmith’s forge in any city anywhere, but for the fact that it was much bigger. The priest, heating a bit of iron in the fire, seemed likewise twice as big as any man Eliss had ever seen. She felt like a child as she approached the anvil.

  The priest turned to her. He was as dark with soot as the juggling boy was fair, but his light eyes burned in his face. Something about him reminded Eliss of Captain Glass. He looked at her searchingly.

  “What have you made with your life, Child of the Sun?” His voice was hoarse.

  “This,
Father.” Eliss laid the tin figures on the altar. “There’s just me and my little brother now. Our mother died. I’m taking care of him as much as I can. It’s all I have, so far.”

  He looked down at the two little figures. “That is what you’re making of the end of your mother’s life, child. What will you make of your own?”

  Eliss thought about it. “I’m working on the Bird of the River,” she said. “I watch out for dangers. Snags and things. It’s a good job. I’d like to stay.”

  The priest grunted. He took the pair of cutouts and, reaching up, hung them in the lowest branches of the great tree. Looking up, Eliss saw that it was festooned with offerings.

  “Good. Work hard, Child of the Sun.”

  “I will, Father.”

  “Come and be kissed by True Fire.”

  Eliss stepped close to the Forge. The priest took her hand and passed it through the dancing flames. “Receive the blessing and go in peace.”

  She waited afterward while Krelan went in. They walked back down toward the quay together in silence, both thoughtful.

  Several more boats had drawn up to the quay and souvenir vendors were now walking back and forth, hawking charms from trays of amulets and medallions; tiny copper trees, tiny anvils, even carefully packaged lumps of slag. Pilgrims were waiting to get off boats or get back aboard boats. Krelan suddenly unlinked his arm from Eliss’s.

  “That’s the landing master’s office, isn’t it?” he said, nodding in the direction of a booth on the quay. “Would you mind very much waiting here? I’m going to see whether the Fire-Swift posted a destination.”

  “Go ahead.” Eliss watched him stride away through the crowd. She turned and looked down on the Bird of the River. There were all the people she knew, returning to their places after receiving their blessings: Salpin lighting up a pipe on the afterdeck, concertina in his lap. Mr. Riveter carrying a keg of something on his shoulder, heading down the companionway. Mrs. Crucible hanging up wet laundry on the rail. Pentra Smith taking her seat under her sunshade, cutting a fresh point on a reed pen. Wolkin and Alder sitting together at the rail, talking earnestly.