by Nancy Yi Fan
“I’ve come home so that I—” Fleydur started to say.
“Oh, Fleydur,” the king interrupted with a short laugh. “You know that whatever you may be, foremost, you still are a prince. By birth, by training”—he leaned forward and gently placed a gold circlet on Fleydur’s head—“and by responsibility.” Morgan happily adjusted a red velvet cloak around his son’s shoulders. “What can I say?” murmured Morgan. “Doesn’t he look fine?”
Queen Sigrid stood up. “Surely, Morgan, you jest.” Unlike the king, who had withered since Fleydur’s departure, she had grown taller, plumper, and fuller of life. “Fleydur should either wear the clothes of the prince or those of a musician. They don’t go together. Red velvet with those loud stripes and polka dots. Ridiculous!” she cackled, fanning herself. “And in my frank opinion, Fleydur seems more suited to the latter.”
Sigrid threw a glance at Forlath. “You will support this, won’t you, my dear son? Welcome back, Forlath. You were most sorely missed.” She paused long enough for all birds’ smiles to fade except her own.
“Well, Fleydur?” Sigrid turned back to him. “You may change clothes as you see fit after the formalities,” she said, squinting. “But I believe I really must ask you to not break your father’s heart again.”
“I will not,” Fleydur promised.
Morgan coughed. “How could he? The archaeopteryxes are defeated; our troubles are cast aside. To celebrate Fleydur’s return, I will allow music.”
As he got the difficult, painful word out, tranquillity softened his features. “Ah, both my sons. Together at my side in the last few moons of my old age. Nothing is more important than keeping a family together.”
Fleydur raised his head at the word, for it was like a cue. “Father,” he said.
“Yes, my son?”
“What about a bird who has lost her family? Would you let me take in an orphan, Father?”
“What’s this?” Sigrid’s smile sagged into a frown.
Fleydur turned back. Two warriors edged forward, a sling between them. Gesturing at the small inert figure in the sling, Fleydur said, “We came across this eaglet below our mountain, unconscious. There has been an archaeopteryx attack.”
The birds of the court gaped as Forlath produced the broken cutlass for them to see. “A lone attacker. We’ve defeated the main army, but stragglers could cause trouble,” he said.
“No relatives, no neighbors? You bring it here?” Sigrid asked.
“None that we found.” Fleydur stroked the eaglet with a wing tip. “See, she’s just an eaglet, and badly wounded. She probably spent all last night in the rain, and that didn’t help.”
“Take in a valley bird?” muttered Sigrid to herself. Surely every well-bred summit bird knew the rule of the mountain. Fleydur’s become worse than bold, she thought.
She glared at Fleydur, then at the waif wrapped in a blanket beside him. Only the eaglet’s head was visible. Dirt freckled her face. Sigrid shuddered and rubbed her own claws, brushing away imaginary mud.
“Naturally it’s suffering. Think of the hygiene of those eagles living down in the valley!” Sigrid attempted to look considerate. She then gestured to an attendant. “Put her in the dungeon. There’s plenty of room there, if memory serves me correctly. She can have a ladleful of gruel.”
“But why not house her in the guest wing? She’s done nothing wrong to deserve the dungeon. And she can’t possibly survive there.” Fleydur’s eyes flickered toward his father.
The king nodded. To the queen’s chagrin, he agreed to Fleydur’s request. “Of course my physician will treat her. She can remain until she is well.”
Sigrid sucked in her breath, looking as if she would pinch or slap somebird. Such an insignificant eaglet, enjoying such privileges! She shot a glance at her son Forlath. Forlath appeared neutral. She turned to her favorite advisers. They stood glowering, as if a bucket of rank mud had just been emptied over their heads, but they didn’t dare contradict the king.
The veins on Sigrid’s neck strained. Why had Fleydur staged such a show, saving a valley eaglet? What further breaches of their traditions would he attempt? The king, much too old and much too unquestioning, did not see the risks his wayward son presented. It would fall to Sigrid to make sure that Fleydur and his unconventional love of music could do no harm to the mountain.
You never know who will knock at your door.
—FROM THE BOOK OF HERESY
3
AN UNDERGROUND AFFAIR
When night fell upon the mountain, the sky began raining ink.
“These eagles in their homeland are fiercer than those who’ve fought overseas!” Kawaka the archaeopteryx cried to himself, shuddering, too tired and too wet to fly. He’d had a hard time fighting with the eagle parents and had lost one of his cutlasses, but he had shown those two eagles who was stronger.
As Kawaka trudged through the Sword Mountain valley, holding a rhubarb leaf as an umbrella, his zeal to lay siege to the eagle stronghold began to ooze out of him like the blood out of his wounds.
“What can a single wounded archaeopteryx do to a fortified kingdom?” He paused as he glimpsed a ledge of rock in front of him, next to the curtain of a small waterfall. He ducked under the shelter. It was too dark for him to see beyond his beak, and even if he could, the rain had blurred his map. Nonetheless, Kawaka went through the motions of unrolling the map and of pushing it up close to his eyes. In despair, he cried out, “Nothing. I am lost.”
He smelled the scent of earth coming from someplace behind the waterfall. Well, I can’t get any wetter now, he thought, and clambered through the spray. There was a warm cave on the other side. He walked even deeper.
“If I had a battalion, I might weaken the eagles. But no allies … no knowledge of the enemy, either.” Kawaka groaned. “I have nowhere to go. I am going nowhere.”
He was wrong: Suddenly his beak banged into an iron door.
The door creaked open. Two glowing orange eyes stared out of the darkness; the eyes widened. There was a small torch inside the door, and its light illuminated a rusty nameplate:
TRANGLARHAD
The High Owl of Optical Theories (H.O.O.T.)
Alchemist, Owner, and Manager of the Knautyorsbut Mine
Transactions Welcome
But as Kawaka opened his beak to speak, the door slammed shut in his face. From the other side, Tranglarhad’s doorkeeper abandoned his post and hurled himself through the underground caverns, screeching, “Horrors! An archaeopteryx knocking at our door!” Hearing the echo of his voice, owl miners abandoned their work to cluster together and mutter anxiously.
In the very center of the maze of caverns was a huge laboratory with its own furnace. Tranglarhad, the High Owl, was hunched before the fire, furiously grinding a dark piece of glass into the shape of a lens. He was a slight-framed eagle owl with short legs but a neck stretched from always trying to peer around corners. He was in his usual attire: sunglasses, bow tie, tailed coat, and a studded belt with two square cleavers buckled one on each side.
“High Owl, come! There’s an archaeopteryx!”
At the moment the doorkeeper appeared, Tranglarhad was raising the polished lens to compare it to another one.
“What?” Tranglarhad sputtered, and the glass lenses fell out of his claws and cracked on the ground. “Ah, glass ruined. And now, a murderer up and about.” He snatched off his glasses, thrust them in the breast pocket of his coat, and quickly followed his doorkeeper.
“Why, I say! What are you here for?” The owl opened the iron door. “Your emperor sent you here to claim my mine, did he not, bird?” A square cleaver gleamed as he snatched it from his belt.
“No. I’m by myself. The archaeopteryx empire is no more. Let me in. I only want a place to rest and heal for a couple of weeks,” Kawaka mumbled. Inwardly, he was much alarmed by meeting this new enemy. “Look, I’m unarmed. And wounded badly. I won’t hurt you.” For now, at least.
“But why choose to st
ay at my underground castle?” Tranglarhad objected, tightening his grip on the cleaver. “You realize the eagles’ homes are just upstairs? I, ah, advise you to remove yourself.”
Kawaka gritted his teeth. He needed an ally. The owl might have some information that he’d need about the eagles. As a last resort, he reached inside his uniform and tossed a glinting gold coin.
Tranglarhad’s eyes lit up. “Oh no no no, stay, stay! Welcome!” The coin rose in an arc and fell clinking onto the stone floor.
The owl raised a foot and abruptly stepped on the coin. He picked it up and bit the edge to check if it was real gold. “Ah, the taste of money. Lovely.” His demeanor swiftly changed. “A place to stay, you say? Now that I think of it, there is some room with us, oh, yes. One of my subjects will see to your cuts—ah, a friend in need is a friend indeed.” He swept open the door and bowed, putting his cleaver back into his belt and dropping the coin into his pocket in one swift motion. “Tranglarhad, at your service.”
Kawaka staggered inside, his sigh of relief cut off when he saw that Tranglarhad was the only owl who was smiling. He felt a tinge of apprehension as the iron door sealed shut behind him, but he reassured himself that he would be able to control the owls once he healed.
Led to the laboratory, Kawaka sat near the furnace. Tranglarhad provided him his dinner: a bucket of raw earthworms with a pepper shaker and a fork. “What do you think is especially unusual or important about Sword Mountain?” Kawaka asked, slurping the worms as if he were eating spaghetti. Why had Maldeor chosen Sword Mountain as the place to rebuild the archaeopteryx empire?
“Me and my associates!” Tranglarhad the owl ruffled his feathers majestically. “We’ve claimed an excellent vein of iron ore, whatever eagles think about owning everything on the mountain. Most birds don’t know of my Castle of Earth. Who’d guess somebird would ‘undermine’ the eagles?” Tranglarhad’s chuckling hoot bounced in the caverns.
“No.” Kawaka gulped down an earthworm with impatience. “I mean, is there anything particular about the eagles?”
Tranglarhad waved his talons as if dismissing a fly. “Yes, yes, the golden eagles rule upstairs in their petty Castle of Sky. But what are they? I have either everything they have, or better. They have brawn? I have brain. Say that they have sharp eagle eyes? My night vision and sharp hearing rival that! Golden eagles? Why, holy hoot,” Tranglarhad cried. “I am an eagle owl!”
Kawaka considered for a moment. “Then if you were to face them in battle, would you reach a stalemate?”
“Battle?” Tranglarhad indignantly spat an owl pellet. “Not for the likes of me. All that raucous noise, spewed guts, and whatnot … just about eliminates any art from the craft of … shall we say? Deflating the enemy.”
“And how would you deflate them?” Kawaka asked.
“With knowledge,” said Tranglarhad. “The golden eagles’ downfall shall stem from their pride. So proud, some of them, on their rock tip, they can’t see past their beaks. All they think of is traditions, position, and status. You won’t see a valley eagle on the mountaintop. They don’t mix. These very divisions make them suspicious, blind, weak.”
Kawaka grunted, impressed.
“But you never know,” Tranglarhad cautioned. “While Morgan the eagle king is aging into a doddering dotard, either of his sons has enough influence to change things, now they’ve returned victorious, I hear.” Tranglarhad fanned his ear tufts apologetically at Kawaka.
“Don’t be sorry. The archaeopteryxes won’t remain pitiful,” Kawaka growled, smoothing the remnants of his uniform.
What luck! he thought. If he had this peculiar personage working for him, it would be possible to establish a new archaeopteryx capital on Sword Mountain and spread the Book of Heresy. All Kawaka needed was to convince the owl to bring down the Skythunder eagles by employing his trickery. And if he gets caught and perishes, I will not be harmed, thought Kawaka.
Tranglarhad blinked his round eyes. Kawaka seemed so pensive, he couldn’t help feeling suspicious. “But what really brings you to Sword Mountain?” he asked.
“Vengeance!” Kawaka snapped. “If it hadn’t been for the golden eagles, we could have come to the rescue of our emperor.” Kawaka pointed a wing at Tranglarhad. “I need you. A creature of night like you.” Kawaka drew out the Book of Heresy from within his uniform and opened to a page. “See, this is what my emperor wrote. ‘Darkness is power, because darkness is intimate. The haunting of a nightmare can hurt worse than the wound from a sword.’”
Now it was Tranglarhad’s turn to be gleeful. Holy hoot, such a valuable tool, this archaeopteryx, he thought. All blind emotion and no intellect. And his book, too, looks intriguing indeed. “Well, I don’t know,” drawled the owl.
“Oh, did I mention—I have more money?” said Kawaka. He threw Tranglarhad a second gold coin.
“Your cause seems worthy,” Tranglarhad said slowly, pocketing the coin. “And it kindles in me a desire to see the downfall of the eagles, after all. Certainly they’ve been bothering me lately, poking about my mine. And I want a certain item in their possession. Yes, it occurs to me that we should perhaps become allies,” said the owl, offering a set of thick, fuzzy talons.
Kawaka extended his clammy foot and shook the owl’s claws. “It is agreed.”
There was a pause as each villain silently congratulated himself.
Then Kawaka sighed deeply. “It won’t be a problem for me to get some of my former soldiers to come here once I’m better. But tell me—what do the eagles have that you want?”
“I recently heard tales of a precious dark crystal in their castle.” Tranglarhad watched for Kawaka’s reaction.
“A Leasorn gem!” Kawaka gasped.
“I have a special use for this stone, but that is for later. What concerns you and me the most—removing the stone would be an apt first step to weaken the eagles, would it not?”
“True,” Kawaka allowed. “How and when do you think it will be possible?”
“I am confident the opportunity will present itself by and by,” replied the owl, turning his face upward in the direction of the summit. He thrust on his dark glasses. “And when the opportunity comes, upon my pellet, I shall see it.”
If a bird lower than yourself has an advantage you cannot have, O worry not, worry not! What can you do to reassure yourself of your superiority? Scorn, slander, and slam the door.
—FROM THE BOOK OF HERESY
4
UPROOTED
Thousands of miles aboveground, the valley eaglet who had aroused the disapproval of the queen, the generosity of the king, and the compassion of the princes slowly opened her eyes. Remnants of nightmares fled from her, but she remembered nothing. Nothing, save for one sharp image—an archaeopteryx swiping stained claws at her. “Fly, little eagle! Where will you go?”
She didn’t want to think of the archaeopteryx. Taking a deep breath, she looked around her. She was in a huge bed. Some golden eagles whom she’d never seen before loomed over her.
“She’s awake!” Fleydur announced.
“Mama? Papa? Where is my candle?” Feverishly, her gaze drifted from the bandages on her wings to the faces around her.
Fleydur and Forlath exchanged glances. It was Forlath who finally spoke. “We’re still searching for your parents, young one, but you’re holding your candle.”
The eaglet looked down, and indeed the candle was there in her clenched claws: barely melted, speckled with globules of wax. A smile flitted across her face. Fleydur, watching, felt his heart wrench. “What’s your name?”
“Dandelion.”
“I’m Fleydur; this is my brother, Forlath. You were injured when we found you, so we’ve brought you here to heal. You’ll be all right, Dandelion. We’ll make sure you’re all right.” Fleydur turned to the physician besides him, who nodded in agreement.
“Thank you,” said the eaglet. She looked at her candle again. “I want to go home. When will I see my mother and father?”
“I miss them.” Her eyes moistened. “They worked so hard so I could have a special, beautiful candle for my sky-born day.”
“Can you give me your candle to hold, so I can take a look at your talons?” asked the physician. “You’ve been clutching it tightly even though your talons are bleeding.”
Hesitantly, Dandelion held out the candle. “Can you put it by my pillow, please?” she said, and when the physician obliged, she laid her cheek against the candle. “It’s my birthday candle. My mother and father were going to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me,” she said.
“I can sing it now,” said Fleydur. “Would you like me to sing it now?”
Dandelion nodded.
“Happy birthday to you …,” sang Fleydur.
Weak from her wounds, Dandelion gradually fell back into a merciful sleep.
Dandelion was alone when she awoke again, her broken wings encased in bandages but her mind clearer than before.
Where am I? she wondered. I don’t remember Fleydur and Forlath telling me. This place feels too airy for the valley. Dandelion turned her face to the evening light from the window.
A wide blue sky stretched out before her eyes, with ragged gray points below. Mountaintops. But the clouds are all wrong, she thought. They were below her! She was looking at them from above.
Which meant Dandelion was higher than she had ever been, ever imagined. The tallest place she knew was the home of the eagle king, on top of Sword Mountain, but—how impossible. How ridiculous! How …?
She slumped back into the silk covers of her bed, heart pounding. Gulping in lungfuls of perfumed air, she didn’t have to look hard to find evidence of wealth: Gilded mirrors, marble busts of birds, and a domed ceiling painted blue filled her vision. The handles on the drawers were made of silver. The doorknob was crystal.
Before she could try to make sense of this, the doorknob on the thick oak door turned, and a female golden eagle not much older than herself stepped in.