by Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler
“And the Ones Above?” she asked. “What of their technology, the wonders they produce?”
He hesitated, then he took out a pair of thick gloves and gestured toward her Aviar. Vathi looked at the white and green Aviar, then made a comforting clicking sound and took her in two hands. The bird suffered it with a few annoyed half bites at Vathi’s fingers.
Dusk carefully took the bird in his gloved hands—for him, those bites would not be as timid—and undid Vathi’s bandage. Then he cleaned the wound—much to the bird’s protests—and carefully placed a new bandage. From there, he wrapped the bird’s wings around its body with another bandage, not too tight, lest the creature be unable to breathe.
She didn’t like it, obviously. But flying would hurt that wing more, with the fracture. She’d eventually be able to bite off the bandage, but for now, she’d get a chance to heal. Once done, he placed her with his other Aviar, who made quiet, friendly chirps, calming the flustered bird.
Vathi seemed content to let her bird remain there for the time, though she watched the entire process with interest.
“You may sleep in my safecamp tonight.,” Dusk said, turning back to her.
“And then what?” she asked. “You turn me out into the jungle to die?”
“You surviveddid well on your way here,” he said, grudgingly. She was not a trapper. A scholar should not have been able to do what she did. “You will probably survive.”
“I got lucky. I should be dead. I walked a few hours upstream to find this place—I’d never make it across the entire island.”
SixthDusk paused. “Across the island?”
“To the main company camp.”
“There are more of you?”
“I . . . Of course. You didn’t think . . .”
He turned on her. “What happened?” Now who is the fool? Hhe thought to himself. You should have asked this first. Talking. He had never been good with it, even before becoming a trapper.
She shied away from him, eyes widening. Did he look dangerous? Perhaps he had barked that last question forcefully. No matter. She spoke, so he got what he needed.
“We set up camp on the far beach,” she said. “We have two ironhulls armed with cannons watching the waters. Those can take on even a deepwalker, if they have to. Two hundred soldiers, half that number in scientists and merchants. We’re determined to find out, once and for all, why the Aviar must be born on one of the Pantheon Islands to be able to bestow talents.
“One team came down this direction to scout sites to place another fortresses. The company is determined to hold Patji against other interests. I thought the smaller expedition a bad idea, but had my own reasons for wanting to circle the island. So I went along. And then, the deepwalker . . .” She looked sick.
SixthDusk had almost stopped listening. Two hundred soldiers? On his island? Crawling across Patji like ants on a fallen piece of fruit. Unbearable! He thought of the quiet jungle broken by the sounds of their racketous voices. The sound of humans yelling at each other, clanging on metal, stomping about. Like a city.
A flurry of dark feathers announced Sak coming up from below and landing on the lip of the trapdoor beside Vathi. The black-plumed bird limped across the roof toward SixthDusk, stretching her wings, showing off the scars on her left. Even fFlying even a dozen feet was a chore for her.
SixthDusk reached down to scratch her neck, feeling stunned. It was happening. An invasion. He had to find a way to stop it. Somehow . . .
“I’m sorry, SixthDusk,” Vathi said. “The Ttrappers are one of my areas of scholarship.fascinating to me; I’ve read of your ways, and I respect them. But this was going to happen someday; it’s inevitable. The islands will be tamed. The Aviar are too valuable to leave in the hands of a couple hundred eccentric woodsmen. They are a resource that we must protect.”
“The chiefs . . .”
“All twenty chiefs in council agreed to this plan,” Vathi said. “I was there. If the Eelakin do not secure these islands and tame them Aviar, someone else will.”
SixthDusk stared out into the night. “Go and make certain there are no insects in the cups below.”
“But—”
“Go,” he said, turning to the woman, “and make certain there are no insects in the cups below!”
The woman sighed softly, but retreated into the room, leaving him with his Aviar. He continued to scratch Sak on the neck, seeking comfort in the familiar motion and in her presence. Dared he hope that the shadows would prove too deadly for the company and its iron-hulled ships? Vathi seemed confident.
She did not tell me why she joined the scouting group. She had seen a shadow, witnessed it destroying her team, but had still managed the presence of mind to find his camp. She was a strong woman. He would need to remember that.
She was also a company type, as removed from his experience as a person could get. Soldiers, craftsmen, even kingchiefs he could understand. But these soft-spoken scribes who had quietly conquered the world with a sword of commerce, they baffled him.
“Father,” he whispered. “What do I do?”
Patji gave no reply. Well, none beyond the normal sounds of night on the island. ThingCreatures moving, hunting, rustling. At night, the Aviar slept, and that gave opportunity to the most dangerous of the island’s predators. In the distance, he heard a nightmaw roarcalled, its horrid voicescreech echoing through the trees.
In his hands, Sak spread her wings, leaning down, head darting back and forth. The sound always made her tremble.
In truth, it did the same to SixthDusk.
He sighed, and started to riose, placing Sak on his shoulder. He turned, and almost stumbled as he saw his corpse at his feet. He came alert immediately; there wasn’t supposed to be anything in his safecamp that could kill him. What was it? Vines in the tree branches? A spider, dropping quietly from above? Something larger? On Patji, any one of a hundred different animals could kill a man in a heartbeatThere wasn’t supposed to be anything in his safecamp that could kill him.
Sak cried outscreeched as if in pain.
It was a screech; he had not heard her screech in years. Nearby, his other Aviar cried out as well, a cacophony of squawks, screeches, chirps. No, it wasn’t just them.! All around . . . echoing in the distance, from both near and far, wild Aviar squawked. They rustled in their branches, a sound like a powerful wind blowing through the trees.
SixthDusk spun about, holding his hands to his ears, eyes wide as corpses appeared around him. His own body, eyes staring dead, appearing and vanishing. They piled high, one atop another, some bloated, some bloody, some skeletal. Haunting him. Dozens upon dozens.
He dropped to his knees, yelling. That put him eye-to-eye with one of thehis corpses. Only this one . . . this one was not quite dead . . . Blood dripped from its lips as it tried to speak, mouthing words that SixthDusk did not understand.
It vanished.
They all vanished. All of the corpsesdid, every last one. He turnedspun about, wild, but saw none of thembodies. The sounds of the Aviar quieted, and his flock settled back into their nests. SixthDusk breathed in and out deeply, heart racing. He felt tense, as if at any moment, a shadow would explode from the blackness around his camp and consume him. He anticipated it, felt it coming. He wanted to run, run somewhere.
What had that been? In all of his years with Sak, he had never seen anything like it. What could have upset all of the Aviar at once in that way? What had th
ey felt? Was it something about the nightmaw he had heard?
Don’t be foolish, he thought at himself. This was different, different from anything you’ve seen. Different from anything that has been seen on Patji. But what? What had changed . . .
Sak had not settled down like the others. She stared northward., Ttoward where Vathi had said the main camp of invaders was setting up.
SixthDusk stood up, then clamobered down into the room below, Sak on his shoulder. “What are your people doing?”
Vathi spun at his harsh tone. She had been looking out of the window, northward. “I don’t—”
He took her by the front of her vest, pulling her toward him in a two-fisted grip, meeting her eyes from only a few inches away. “What are your people doing?”
Her eyes widened, and he could feel her tremble in his grip, though she set her jaw and held his gaze. Scribes were not supposed to have grit like this. He had seen them scribbling away in their windowless rooms. SixthDusk tightened his grip on her vest, pulling the fabric so it dug into her skin, and found himself growling softly.
“Release me,” she said, “and we will speak.”
“Bah,” he said, letting go. She dropped down a few inches, hitting the floor with a thump. He hadn’t realized he’d lifted her off the ground.
She backed away, putting as much space between them as the room would allow. He stalked to the window, looking through the mesh screen at the night. His corpse dropped from the roof above, and he stephitting the ground below. He jumped back, worried that it was happening again.
It didn’t, not the same way as before. However, when he turned back into the room, his corpse lay in the corner, bloody lips parted, eyes staring sightlessly. The danger, whatever it was, had not passed.
Vathi had sat down on the floor, holding her head, trembling. Had he frightened her that soundly? She did look tired, exhausted. She wrapped her arms around herself, and when she looked at him, there was a cast to her eyes that hadn’t been there before. —Aas if she were regarding a wild animal, let off of its chain.
That seemed fitting.
“What do you know of the Ones Above?” she asked him.
“They live in the stars,” SixthDusk said. “They claim that we once did too.”
“We at the company have been meeting with them. We don’t understand them, at least not their ways. They look like us,; at times they talk like us. But they have . . . rules, laws that they won’t explain. They refuse to sell us their marvels, but in like manner, they seem forbidden from taking things from us, even in trade. They promise it, someday when we are more advanced. It’s like they think we are children.”
“That is fine,” Sixth said. “They are not of us, no matter what they look like. Why should we care?” Dusk said. “If they leave us alone, we will be better for it.”
“You haven’t seen the things they can do,” she said softly, getting a distant look in her eyes. “We have barely worked out how to create ships that can sail on their own, against the wind. I thought that development to be amazing untilBut the Ones Above arrived . . . Tthey can sail the skies . . ., sail the stars themselves. They know so much, and they won’t tell us any of it.”
She shook her head, reaching into the pocket of her skirt. “They are after something, SixthDusk. Their laws forbade them from contacting us until we were able to harness steam on our own. Now they can speak to us, but their laws won’t let them teach us. If that is the case, wWhat interest do we hold for them? From what I’ve heard them say, there are many other worlds like ours, with cultures that cannot sail the stars. We are not unique, yet the Ones Above come back here time and time again. They do want something. You can see it in their eyes. . . .”
“What is that?” SixthDusk asked, nodding to the thing she took from her pocket. It rested in her palm like the shell of a clam, but had a mirror-like face on the top.
“It is a machine,” she said. “Like a clock, only it never needs to be wound, and it . . . shows things.”
“What things?”
“Well, it translates languages. Ours into that of the Ones Above. It also . . . shows Tthe locations of Aviar.”
“What?”
“It’s like a map,” she said. “It points the way to Aviar.”
“That’s how you found my camp,” SixthDusk said, stepping toward her.
“Yes.” She rubbed her thumb across the machine’s surface. “We aren’t supposed to have this. It was the possession of an emissary sent to work with us, but he died. The death was natural; hHe choked while eating a few months back. They can die, it appears, even of mundane thingcauses. That . . . changed how I view them.
“The othersHis kind have asked after his machines, and we will have to return them soon. But this, this one tells us what they are after: the Aviar. The Ones Above are always fascinated with them. I think they want to find a way to trade for the birds, a way their laws will allow. They hint that we might not be safe, that not everyone Above follows their laws.”
“But why did the Aviar react like they did, just now?” SixthDusk said, turning back to the window. “Why did . . .” Why did I see what I saw? What I’m still seeing, to an extent? His corpse was there, wherever he looked. Slumped by a tree outside, in the corner of the room, hanging out of the trapdoor in the roof. Sloppy. He should have closed that.
Sak had pulled into his hair like she did when a predator was near.
“There . . . is a second machine,” Vathi said.
That’s right. She had said machines, earlier. More than one.
“Where?” he demanded.
“On our ship.”
The direction the Avaiar had looked.
“It’The second machine is much larger,” Vathi said. “This one in my hand ihas limited in what it can dorange. The larger one . . . it can create an enormous map, one of an entire island, then write out a paper with a copy of that map. That map will include a dot marking every Aviar.”
“And?”
“And we were going to turn onengage the machine tonight,” she said. “It takes hours to get readyprepare—like an oven, growing hot—before it’s ready to draw its map for us. The schedule was to turn it on tonight just after sunset so we could use it in the morning.”
“The others,” SixthDusk demanded, “they’d use it without you?”
She grimaced. “Happily. Captain Eusto probably did a dance when I didn’t return from scouting. He’s been worried I would take too muchcontrol of the credit for this expedition. But the machine isn’t harmful; it merely locates Aviar. You don’t need to worry so much.”
“Did it do that before,?” he demanded, waving toward the night. “When you last used it, did it draw the attention of all the Aviar? Discomfort them?”
“Well, no,” she said. “But the moment of discomfort has passed, hasn’t it? I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Nothing. Sak quivered on his shoulder. SixthDusk saw death all around him. The moment they had usengaged that machine, the corpses had piled up. If they used it again, the results would be horrible. SixthDusk knew it. He could feel it.
“We’re going to stop them,” he said.
“What?” Vathi asked. “Tonight?”
“Yes,” SixthDusk said, walking to a small hidden cabinet in the wall. He pulled it open, and began to pick through the supplies inside. A second lantern. Extra oil. He would need those.
“That’s insane,” Vathi said. “Nobody travels the islands at night.”
“I’ve done it once before. With my uncle.”
His uncle had died on that trip.
“You can’t be serious, SixthDusk. The Nnightmaws are out. I’ve heard them.”
“Traveling quicklyNightmaws track minds,” SixthDusk said, stuffing supplies into his pack,. “They are almost completely deaf, and cuttingclose to blind. If we move quickly and cut across the center of the island, we can be to your camp by morning. We can stop them from using the Above machine again.”
“But why would we want to?”
He shouldered the pack. “Because if we don’t, it will destroy the island.”
She frowned at him, cocking her head. “You can’t know that. Why do you think you know that?”
“Your Aviar will have to remain here, with that wound,” he said, ignoring the question. “She would not be able to fly away if something happened to us.” The same argument could be made for Sak, but he would not be without the bird. “I will return her to you after we have stopped the machine. Come on.” He walked to the floor hatch down and pulled it open.
Vathi rose, but pressed back against the wall. “I’m staying here.”
“They people of your company won’t believe me,” he said. “You will have to tell them to stop. You are coming.”
Vathi licked her lips in what seemed to be a nervous habit. She glanced to the sides, looking for escape, then back at him. Right then, SixthDusk noticed his corpse hanging from the pegs in the tree beneath him. He jumped.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“Nothing.”
“You keep glancing to the sides,” Vathi said. “What do you think you see, SixthDusk?”
“We’re going. Now.”
“You’ve been alone on the island for a long time,” she said, obviously trying to make her voice soothing. “You’re upset because something unexpected has happened inabout our arrival. You aren’t thinking clearly. I understand.”