Four and Twenty Blackbirds

by Mercedes Lackey

  He pumped his wings through full power-strokes, angling the surfaces to gain altitude rather than speed. Soon, if there was anyone watching him from below, he would be just another dot in the overcast heavens, no different from a crow or a sparrow. He had to go around to the back of the palace in order to reach his balcony from here.

  He came around the building and made a wide turn. Sideslipping, he angled in towards his room. The Ducal Palace stood in one of the districts that had been mostly spared by the Great Fire, but if the Church mages hadn't come when they had, it too would have gone up in flames, and the façade still showed the marks of flame and smoke in places. Arden wouldn't have them removed; he wanted those marks as a constant reminder of what the city had endured. The gardens had been destroyed, though, and only steady work by the gardeners for two years had brought them back to their former beauty. Even in winter, under a blanket of snow, they were lovely. Although there were no longer any of the trees and bushes sculpted into fanciful shapes, the gardeners had replaced them with trellises that would be covered from spring to fall with flowering vines, and which in winter formed the basis for snow sculptures.

  Visyr was above the palace now, and he folded his wings and dropped in a dive that ended as he backwinged with his taloned feet outstretched to catch the railing of his balcony. It was a pity there was no one in the balcony below to see him; it was a particularly good landing.

  Ah, well. They wouldn't appreciate it, anyway.

  He balanced for a moment, then hopped down onto the surface of the balcony itself and let himself in through the door. Made of dozens of little square panes of thick and wavering glass set in a wooden frame, it let in welcome sunlight, but a somewhat distorted view. Still, it was better than nothing, and without it, Visyr would have felt rather claustrophobic.

  This was his bedroom, with the bed replaced by a peculiar couch shaped to be comfortable for a sleeping avian, and many padded, backless stools. Searching for an alternative to a human bed, he had found the couch in a used-furniture store the first week he had been living here, and had bought it immediately. The servants had all sniggered when they saw it; he wasn't sure why, and he didn't think he really wanted to ask. Whatever it had been used for before, it was comfortable for him, and that was all he cared about, and the odd little stirrups made a nice place to tuck his elbows or knees. Beside the couch was a pile of light but warm down comforters; one of the Duke's people asked him once if it made him feel odd to be sleeping under something made from dead birds, and in answer, he snapped his decidedly raptoral beak. And in case the fellow hadn't gotten the message, he had added, "Only in that I didn't get to eat any of those birds."

  The only other furniture was a chest that contained the body-wrappings that Haspur used in lieu of clothing. There was no point in wearing clothing with open legs or arms; such garments would get tangled up when a Haspur flew. And the idea of wearing a shirt or a long robe was ludicrous, possibly even dangerous. A Haspur wore as little as possible, something that clung as closely to the body as possible, and was as lightweight as possible. Hence, "clothing" that was essentially wrapped bandages.

  He walked through the bedroom without a sidelong glance, and into the second room of his suite, which had been converted into his workroom.

  Four large drawing-tables, tables built with surfaces that could be tilted upwards, stood against the walls, with maps in progress on all of them. The first was a general view of the city, river, and surroundings, showing only the major streets and no buildings. The second was a closer view, adding the minor streets, but still showing no buildings. The third was more detailed, with all possible thoroughfares shown, but still with no buildings displayed except for the largest or public structures. The last was the completely detailed map, made in sections, with the current one pinned to the board. That was the table Visyr went to, taking up a set of drafting implements made for taloned Haspur hands, and setting to work translating his notes into deft patterns of streets and structures.

  The Duke was often surprised at how unexact those buildings and streets were when drawn out as measured. The streets themselves, even when laid out by the Duke's surveyors and engineers, often meandered a foot or two at a time, so that they were never perfectly straight. The buildings tended to be more trapezoidal than square or rectangular, though the odd angles were more obvious to Visyr than to a human. This was nothing like the Deliambren strongholds, which looked like patterns of crystals from above, so exact were their angles. Then again, these people had none of the advantages the Deliambrens had. No clever machines to give them the advantage of Haspur eyes, no devices to measure without the need for tapes or cords, no machines that flew.

  And in a Haspur Aerie, there is scarcely a right angle to be seen. Haspur tended to build curves rather than straight lines, and avoided right angles as much as possible. A Haspur Aerie looked like a patch of strange plants clinging to the cliff-side.

  All of which only proves that there's no one way to build a house. He finished the last of his drawings, put down his instruments in their tray, and looked around for a pitcher of water. Although a Haspur beak was a bit more flexible than a bird's, it was still more comfortable for him to drink from a pitcher, with its pouring spout, than from a human cup.

  The page had evidently been and gone; the water-pitcher was on a sideboard rather than the table Visyr had left it on. He got a quick drink of water while he stretched his wings as wide as they would go, then put the pitcher down and roused all his feathers with a brisk shake.

  He looked back over his shoulder at his progress so far. Had he done enough for the day?

  Well, yes—but there's still plenty of daylight, and I'm not particularly tired. I can do another trip easily, then quit flying for the day and add this section to the larger maps.

  He picked up the dryboard, took the cleaning-rod out of its pouch on his belt and passed it over the surface of the board, leaving it pristine and white. He stowed the rod back in the pouch and hung the board from his belt, then trotted out to the balcony again.

  With no hesitation, he leapt up onto the balcony rail and out onto the back of the wind, returning to the river and the section of taverns, inns, and businesses that catered to river-men whom he had left behind.

  It was just about time for the midday meal as he kited to his next position, and it was a pleasant enough day that there were street-musicians setting up all over the city to play for the crowds coming out to find a bite to eat. He was pleased to hear the strains of music drifting up from below, as he approached the next area to be charted, and when he glanced down, he saw that a street-musician had set up on one corner with a stringed instrument that she played with a set of hammers. From the multicolored streamers fluttering from each shoulder, Visyr gathered that she was either one of the humans known as a "Free Bard," or was at least pretending to that status. She was probably the real thing; she was a good enough player to qualify. Visyr relaxed and listened with one ear to her music, habitually filtering out the rushes of wind noise from his own wings, as he went into a hover and took out his dryboard again.

  Now that the noon hour had come, the streets were full of people; there was a knot of them around the musician and traffic flowed around them like river-water around a rock. Human surveyors would have had a terrible time with the crowd; Visyr, of course, was unaffected, and felt rather smug about it.

  People would be tripping all over a human, all over his equipment—it just goes to show that humans don't have all the answers. Even Deliambrens would be having trouble with people interfering with their measurements! Sometimes there's no substitute for an expert.

  This was an interesting block, one with buildings that were all different in style, as if every property-owner on the block had gone to a different builder for his construction. Proportions were all different, and he began to suspect that there were some nonhuman merchants operating here, for some of the buildings had proportions more suited to, say, a Mintak than a human. That made his
job even more interesting. As was often the case, he soon became so absorbed in his measuring that he was very like a hunter at hover over prey; he lost sight of everything but the work, ignoring the people and the traffic entirely.

  Right up until the moment that movement on the street below snapped him out of his hover-trance and into instant awareness that something was wrong.

  Nothing alerts a predator like the movement of another, and in the moment that the young, well-dressed man on the street began his rush towards the musician, that movement broke straight through Visyr's concentration.

  What? He glanced down, thinking perhaps it was another purse-snatcher who had caught his attention; he had caught one in the act a week ago, and had pinned the urchin in an alley until the constables could come get him. The child would likely have nightmares for ages of giant scarlet hawks dispensing vengeance.

  That's no street-brat— Alert, startled in fact, but not mentally prepared to act, he watched in stunned horror as the man lunged, pulling something from his belt, then plunged a dagger into the woman's back.

  One or two of those nearest her screamed, others stared as numbly as Visyr as the man pulled his weapon out of the woman's back, and stabbed her three times more in lightning-fast succession before she fell forward over her instrument and brought it and herself crashing to the ground. Blood spilled out on the snow-pack in a crimson stain beneath her, even more startling against the whiteness.

  The sight of blood elicited kill-rage in the Haspur, instinctive and overpowering, as if the man had attacked one of Visyr's own Aerie. Without a second thought, Visyr screamed a challenge, pulled his wings in, and dove straight at the man, foreclaws outstretched to kill. Time dilated for him, and everything around him began to move in slow motion. The man had taken a single step backward. The crowd had just barely begun to react, some trying to escape, one fainting on the spot, one trying to seize the man, most just staring.

  The man looked up, eyes blank; Visyr noted in a detached part of his mind that he had never seen a human face look so masklike before. The rest of him was intent on sinking his talons into the masklike face. Already he had closed the distance between them to half of what it had been a moment ago, and he was still accelerating.

  The man reacted faster than Visyr had thought possible for a human, spinning as quickly as a Haspur; he dashed off into the crowd of terrified onlookers, shoving them aside with hands smeared with blood. Those he shoved fell to the ground, tripping his pursuers, further adding to the confusion. Many of the onlookers screamed or cried out and either tried to escape or to catch him; others milled like a flock of frightened herbivores, some trying to get away from the area, some just standing and staring, some confusedly trying to get closer to see what was going on. Inevitably they got in each other's way, some fell to the ground and were trampled, resulting in more confusion and enabling the man to get away from those who were trying to stop him

  By now, Visyr was in a flat trajectory above the heads of the crowd. They all got in his way, as the man ducked and writhed through the confusion, and Visyr had been forced to pull up at the last moment, turning the stoop into a tail-chase. That didn't concern him at all. He'll dive into one of those alleys, thinking I won't be able to follow him, but I will, and since they all turn into dead ends, I'll have him. The man didn't belong here; he was too well-dressed for this section of town. He couldn't possibly know the area as well as Visyr. Visyr zigged and zagged to follow his erratic movement through the crowd, mindful of his wingspan and taking purposely fast, shallow strokes, still going much faster than a human could run, even though he had to keep changing direction.

  But he didn't go the direction Visyr expected.

  He dashed down the street to the first intersection, and made an abrupt turn towards the river. Dumbfounded, Visyr was forced to pull up again and do a wing-over to continue the pursuit, losing valuable time. But the man was heading straight for the small-boat docks; he was going to have to stop there! With still and shallow water suitable for the smallest craft, these docks were surrounded by ice. He couldn't possibly get across the river on the ice; there was no ice at all in the middle, it was far too thin except right near the bank, and there were clear channels cut for the barges all along the larger docks.

  But he didn't stop; he got to the riverbank, and jumped down onto the ice. Expecting him to stop, Visyr overshot him, talons catching at the air as he shot past, his momentum taking him all the way across the river before he could do another wing-over and start back. Now he had seriously lost speed; he had to pump his wings furiously to get any momentum going at all.

  Miraculously, the ice beneath the man held, but he kept going, angling away from Visyr but headed right towards the other side, scrambling and slipping, but still going straight towards the open water.

  Visyr clawed his way upwards, intending to make a shallow stoop down on the man, hit him in the head and knock him to the ice.

  He didn't make it, of course. Just as Visyr got overhead, the ice broke beneath the man, and he went in. He didn't even make a sound when he did so, either. Visyr stooped, but this time it was to try and seize the man before the current pulled him under.

  He grabbed just as the man began to sink, and managed to snag the shoulders of the man's tunic in his talons, pumping his wings with all his might to pull him out of the water. The man suddenly looked up at him, and still his face was utterly expressionless: no terror, no anger, no nothing. Only, as Visyr heaved and pulled, for one brief instant, the eyes of a trapped and horrified animal looked up at him out of that lifeless face.

  Then the man suddenly began to writhe and thrash like a mad thing.

  Is he trying to get away? Why? Granted, he was in the talons of a giant predator, but he was also about to drown—

  No matter; at that moment, the fabric of his tunic tore loose, and before Visyr could snatch another hold on him, he actually dove under the water and beneath the ice, and was gone.

  Visyr landed on the ice as a group of humans on the docks stared, screamed, and gestured towards him. He stared at the black water in dumbfounded amazement. Had he really seen what he thought? Had the man actually gone under the ice on purpose?

  He leapt up into the air, struck by a sudden thought. Maybe the madman had hoped to make open water, swim to firmer ice, and escape! He gained a little height and hovered there for a moment, searching for movement in the water, the flash of a sleeve, the hint of a hand.

  Nothing.

  He beat up and down the river, from the bridge to the end of the docks and back, and there were still no signs of the man. If he had hoped to escape in any way except into death, he had been cheated of his hope.

  Someone beckoned frantically to him from the crowd on the docks; he caught the movement in his side-vision, and turned his head. It was a constable, and he obeyed the summons, flying with wings that felt heavy with more than mere fatigue.

  "Are you the bird-man in service to the Duke?" the constable called, as he came within shouting distance. Visyr waited for a moment as it was difficult to speak and concentrate on landing at the same time. He fanned his wings hard, blowing up quite a wind as he powered in to a landing, and the hair and garments of those waiting on the dock whipped wildly about for a moment. He made quite a creditable landing, considering how little room they'd left him, a landing that restored some of the confidence he'd lost in failing to catch the murderer.

  "I am," he answered, in his most authoritative and deep voice, flipping his wings to settle them. That voice always surprised humans who'd never heard a Haspur speak and expected a harsh scream or a fluting whistle. "I am profoundly regretful that the miscreant escaped me. Sadly, I cannot swim, so I could not pursue him."

  "Escaped? He practically tore himself in half to get away!" one of the spectators said. "And he dove right under the ice when he tore loose!"

  The constable looked up at Visyr, a little startled by both the voice and by Visyr's height. "Did you—see any signs of him in the wat
er?"

  Visyr shook his head. "None, I am sorry to say," he replied. "I believe he is beneath the ice."

  A grizzled old fellow in the garb of a river-man hawked and spat into the river. "He'll be there a while. Current there'll take him in to shore away from the docks. You won't find him till the thaw."

  "Or if we get a Justiciar and locate the body, then chop through the ice to get him," the constable said with resignation. "Which is probably what's going to happen. That was a Free Bard he murdered; the Duke won't rest until he knows why." He turned back to Visyr. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to take you to the station to make a statement."

  Visyr jerked his beak up in the Haspur equivalent of a shrug. "I expected as much, constable," he replied with equal resignation. "Lead on."

  Fortunately, the station wasn't far, because Visyr attracted many stares and a lot of attention as he walked. But it wasn't a single statement that Visyr made, it was several. He was required to repeat his story twice for lower-level constables, then for Captain Fenris himself, then, just as his temper was beginning to wear thin, two new humans were ushered into a room that was beginning to seem far too small. His wings were starting to twitch, and it was harder and harder to get full breaths. He knew why, of course, for what Haspur would ever voluntarily confine himself to a room that wasn't big enough to spread his wings in? Humans didn't know that, though, and he kept reminding himself to be charitable, although it was very difficult. He faced the newcomers with a distinct sense that his patience was at an end.

  One, a woman, wore the robes of a Priest, in scarlet, and the other a scarlet and black uniform. It was the latter who peered at him with a slight frown then said, abruptly, "Sirra Visyr, would you care to move to another venue? Are you feeling confined here?"

  "Yes!" Visyr replied, with surprise. "And yes! How did you know?"

  The man in the uniform glanced at the woman who nodded briefly, thus telling Visyr immediately who was the superior here. "You were twitching, and your eyes were pinning, and since we aren't questioning you at the moment, it had to be because of the room. I have Mintak friends, and they have spoken of Haspur particulars," the man said as he opened the door for Visyr and held it open for the woman.