Sword Mountain

by Nancy Yi Fan

  “Move your wings to go left or right!” Cloud-wing now called, launching himself in the air to follow Dandelion.

  Encouraged, Dandelion focused on flapping her wings, but the parachute that had supported her now resisted her efforts to move forward. At the mercy of the wind, she floated farther away, where she was swiftly caught in a gust that had funneled through narrow mountain passes.

  “Cloud-wing!” she shouted as the wind hurled her backward, faster and faster, lower down the mountain. Dandelion glanced behind her to see a line of trees.

  Crack! The parachute caught in the branches of a pine tree. Dandelion flapped her wings as hard as she could to free herself, but the harnesses tangled even more and she heard a loud rip. And so she hung there, miserably, swinging back and forth, covered with pine needles.

  “Where are you, Dandelion?”

  “Here!” she said. “Please, help me. I’m in the tree!”

  When Cloud-wing had loosened her harness and gotten her down, they both gazed up at the ruined parachute, limp above their heads. Though she could not really fly in the contraption, Dandelion felt tears in her eyes to see it ruined.

  “But that was worth it,” Cloud-wing was saying. “What a sight. And what fun!”

  “You’ll get in trouble.” Dandelion was worried, but Cloud-wing merely said, “I’ll take whatever punishment comes.” He retrieved the remnants of the parachute.

  In the distance, a drumroll sounded.

  “That’s the call for tryouts!” Cloud-wing jumped with a start. “I have to go to Rockbottom—”

  “Then give the parachute to me, Cloud-wing,” Dandelion said. “Let me try to fix it, and you can get it after your exams.”

  Back in her room, the huge white cloth spread over her bed, Dandelion studied the parachute. In the backpack of the harness, she had found white thread and a large needle.

  She hadn’t flown this evening, but she had jumped with a parachute filled with hope. And she had found a friend. The thought made her smile. Dandelion bent, crawling from one edge of the parachute to the other, the large needle flashing like a miniature sword in her claws as she pulled and mended. Sewing together her parachute. Sewing together her dreams.

  When the sun glowed red and warm among the western peaks, Cloud-wing fluttered outside her window, tapping on the glass.

  “Dandelion!”

  Dandelion opened the window. He landed on the sill. “How did your entrance exams go?” she asked.

  Cloud-wing winced. “Great, except I’m sure I failed. I had to do a triple back flip and I barely managed.”

  “Meaning you got in.” Dandelion laughed.

  “I don’t know for sure,” said Cloud-wing. “The results won’t be announced till two weeks later. But I think everybird did all right, except Pudding. He doesn’t try; he doesn’t really want to be a warrior, anyway.” Cloud-wing shrugged.

  Dandelion remembered the pudgy bully. “But what will his father think if he failed?”

  “It doesn’t matter to Mr. Pouldington Senior,” said Cloud-wing. “And Pudding’s older brother is one of the best at Rockbottom, anyway. It’s an honor for even one of the family to get in—anybird in the Skythunder mountain range can apply to it, so there’s fierce competition.”

  “Anybird?” asked Dandelion. “Even those from the valleys?”

  “Y-yes.” Cloud-wing looked stricken. “I mean, any young male bird of prey who is fairly able-bodied,” he mumbled, embarrassed by his mistake.

  Not girls, Dandelion realized. Rockbottom would take a valley boy—but not a valley girl.

  “It’s a military school, after all,” Cloud-wing added lamely. He wanted to move away from the topic as quickly as possible, Dandelion could tell. “Anyway … flight,” he said.

  At this, Dandelion grabbed the backpack and harness and handed it over, showing Cloud-wing how the parachute, neatly folded within, had been put back together airtight.

  “Oh, Dandelion, I thought of something—simpler. It might work better than the parachute. You could really fly today.”

  He pulled out a length of rope.

  “What am I supposed to do?” Dandelion just stood dumbfounded as Cloud-wing offered her one end of the rope. How could an ordinary rope be a match for the pull of gravity?

  Cloud-wing did not appear worried. “Hold on to this and don’t let go. I’m at the other end. And we’ll jump together, and we’ll fly!”

  Dandelion gripped the end, shaking her head. “But … but I’ll just plummet like a ripe old apple off the branch! And you’ll be dragged—”

  “No, I’ll be here, at the other end of the rope, and I’ll hold you up,” said Cloud-wing. “What have you got to fear?”

  Dandelion squeezed the rope. “Then let’s go,” she said.

  She climbed on the windowsill, and for a moment the two eaglets teetered at the edge. Dandelion stared at the clouds below her, crawling on the invisible surface of the atmosphere; the rays of the setting sun at that moment slanted, and all the windows of the castle were ablaze. The wind touched her talons, whispering for them to uncurl; buffeted her feathers, her wings; and she felt suddenly alive, alive for flight!

  “You’ll walk on the clouds!” Cloud-wing shouted.

  A single breeze blew toward her, and she walked forward into open air, wings raised high as if to embrace the whole world below. Cloud-wing was right beside her. For one chilling second she realized she was spinning down, and the rope went taut in her grasp. A rock formed in the pit of her stomach. She felt much more exposed than she had in the parachute, much more breakable.

  “Relax! Close your eyes, ride the wind, don’t grasp at it,” Cloud-wing cried from above, fanning his wings as Dandelion dangled from the other end of the rope. “I’m here.”

  Dandelion forced herself to close her eyes.

  She adjusted her wings to suit the wind, becoming a buoy in the ocean. She had it! For a second, she had it. She rose back up in the air, the rope fell slack, and she looked up at the grinning face of Cloud-wing.

  Being airborne felt so fragile. If Dandelion were to let go of her breath, she felt that whatever it was that held her in the air would disappear. Hadn’t her mother told her that she needed a special force to defy gravity and soar? Dandelion knew she herself had none of the power. It came from Cloud-wing—his compassion, confidence, and courage coursing through the rope and lending a moment of magic to her wings. She knew she would never fall with Cloud-wing holding on.

  “See?” Cloud-wing said. His eyes sparkled. “How does it feel to fly?”

  Dandelion didn’t have to answer. There was a candle glow in her heart.

  Cloud-wing beamed. “We’re just hovering now. There’s lots more to see!”

  Dandelion was amazed. “Go farther out? I’m not sure if I can stay aloft that long.” The archaeopteryx scars on her shoulders began to ache.

  “Just a little more,” he assured her. “We can have more lessons, but you’ve been here for weeks, and you haven’t had a proper tour of the Castle of Sky.”

  He pointed to each of the four towers crowning the castle. “The north one, facing the wind, is the king and queen’s. Their chamber and his workroom are there. The south tower is Prince Fleydur’s study. The eastern tower is Forlath’s. The western tower is the watchtower, where the soldiers go, to look out from the heart of the mountain range.”

  Only the watchtower was lit. Where has the royal family all gone? thought Dandelion.

  Cloud-wing pointed out the banquet halls, libraries, offices, the wing for guests, and the wing for the castle staff. Then, lowering his voice, he gestured at the foundations of the castle and told her of the dungeon. “It just runs around the perimeter of the foundations, because kings past wanted the throne room in the center to sit upon stone and earth, not above criminals,” he explained. “The dungeon walls are twice as thick as the rest of the castle, and damp with slime. There is not a single window.”

  “Is anybird shut in it now?” Dandelion ask
ed.

  “None, at least nobird we remember,” he said. “It’d be awfully lonely, and a bird could be easily forgotten in that dark.”

  Dandelion shivered. She observed the castle again. Lights shone from many of the windows now. Dandelion noticed that Cloud-wing had overlooked one of the brightest. “And that?” she whispered.

  “The windows of the audience chamber,” Cloud-wing said. “The brightest room of all. It’s where the Iron Nest holds its assembly.”

  It all clicked in Dandelion’s mind.

  Fleydur will ask the court to pass his proposal! she remembered. “Tonight Fleydur will be there,” she said.

  Music and poetry can’t be repressed;

  They’re needed for birds to be whole.

  Poetry’s always the speech of the heart,

  Music, the tongue of the soul.

  —FROM A SONG IN THE OLD SCRIPTURE

  9

  CLASH OF WORDS

  Assembly! Assembly!” called the herald into the antechamber. “Prince Fleydur is here to present his proposal.”

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Some of the ancient advisers of Morgan resented Fleydur, similar to the way Olga resented Dandelion. But instead of banging doors, they banged books. Slamming down the heavy volumes some of them were pretending to read, the sixteen advisers tottered toward their usual places—readily seen because of a shiny hollow in the floorboards each had worn from standing in the same place year after year. To them, any change was like a burp, best surpressed as a matter of good taste. They glared at Fleydur, who stood alert in the center.

  “Did you read the details about the music school he wants to build?” one whispered. “For the life of me, I cannot imagine how I am to suffer through all his unrealistic, nonsensical—”

  “Hush—here’s the king!”

  The advisers straightened, standing in two rows like chess pieces upon the black-and-white floor.

  “Good evening to all assembled,” Morgan called to them, flying to perch on his metal throne. He was much recovered now, his once-frail body filled with new vigor. “We’ve reviewed your proposal, Fleydur. The Iron Nest has informed me, though, that they must question you.”

  The king had barely finished speaking when old wheezy Simplicio, the tutor, lumbered forward onto a new square, his feathers puffed. “Prince, your proposal is very … thought-provoking. No, just plain provoking!” the tutor declared. “You wrote that this music school will be a place where that valley child will be treated well. Treated well? Do you mean that in my classroom I treat her poorly?”

  Murmurings erupted among the advisers. The queen’s eyes were fixed upon Fleydur’s face.

  Simplicio continued, “In my classroom, the purpose of education is to ensure that birds act according to their places! She is a valley child and should be treated like one. It has been so and will always be. It is tradition.”

  The members of the Iron Nest muttered loudly among themselves once more.

  Morgan waved his scepter for silence. “Other questions, on other aspects of Fleydur’s proposal?”

  Simplicio panted for breath but was intent on continuing to be the spokesbird of the Iron Nest. “Yes, Your Majesty, I do have another point. No respectable, traditional eagles of the mountaintop will let their children enroll in a music school and forego a proper education under me.”

  Simplicio turned to Fleydur, waving a copy of his proposal. “‘Birds from other places, of other species may enroll,’ you also wrote. But strangers are not allowed on the mountaintop! Are you trying to bend another tradition?” Simplicio’s spittle flew sideways.

  “Indeed!” cried Sigrid.

  By now, Simplicio had advanced another square, almost face-to-face with Fleydur. Other advisers hunched nearby. The air grew warm and stifling from their collective breath.

  “Sirs.” Fleydur cleared his throat. “I understand your concerns. I come with changes to my proposals.”

  The members of the Iron Nest were frozen midfrown.

  “We’ll begin small.” Fleydur looked at Forlath. “Instead of a whole school, I propose to have a small class, an experimental class. And it shall be for just the birds of the Skythunder mountain range.”

  All the scholars grimaced.

  “For just birds of Sword Mountain.”

  Still grimaces.

  “For just eagles of Sword Mountain.” Grimaces and fainter frowns were half and half.

  “For … mostly the eagles of the summit of Sword Mountain. That is, I hope to hold music lessons for the children of the court. Outside of the castle. Apart from their studying hours. Totally voluntary,” said Fleydur.

  “The duration?” thundered Simplicio.

  “The class will not last the whole year. Not even a semester,” said Fleydur. “It’ll begin in fall, and end in winter.” Fleydur took a deep breath. “The last lesson will be on the king’s birthday. Students will put on a concert that evening during the traditional gala dinner, for the enjoyment of His Majesty and his guests. The day afterward, the court will immediately gather for a final decision on whether to allow a permanent music school.”

  The eagles of the court eyed him as if he had blurted something obscene.

  After a moment of shock, Simplicio bellowed anew. “To let such foulness taint the sacred birthday of His Majesty!”

  Morgan raised a wing. “I think we have knowledge enough of this new plan. Fleydur has made his proposal; let the Iron Nest decide.” Morgan turned his face toward a great bronze balance in the middle of the court. It was shaped like an eagle in flight; from its open wings hung the scales, now empty. “Cast your votes, members of the Iron Nest.”

  This vote will show if I have been truly accepted back into Sword Mountain, thought Fleydur, watching the advisers walk over to the secretary, Amicus. Each dropped from within his sleeve a large cube of polished black stone. Fleydur knew that each adviser had a set of two such stones, which they retrieved after each voting session. One had YEA etched onto one side; the other had NAY. Now no words could be seen, as all advisers put their stones facedown. Those stones were old, very old. Though the king had the right to issue new voting stones, it was rare for new birds to be admitted to the Iron Nest; more often than not, the stones were the jealously guarded property of a few elite families, handed down from father to son.

  Fleydur averted his eyes and hoped for the best. Would eagles be willing to venture anew? he thought. Or is Sword Mountain still unchangeable?

  “And Your Majesty?” Amicus collected the stone from the last adviser and looked toward the king.

  Morgan selected one of his purple stones, the king’s voting stones, and passed it to the secretary. It was bigger than any of the sixteen advisers’, for the king’s vote was worth three.

  “Your Majesty, members of the Iron Nest,” murmured Amicus. He stepped to face the life-size figure of the copper eagle on the balance scale and began with the traditional words: “O founder eagle of our mountain, who sees truth and falsehood alike, show us which direction now the Skythunder tribe is to fly!”

  So the weighing of the votes began.

  For each vote, Amicus flipped the stone over for all to see, reading the inscription and placing it on the scales.

  Fleydur couldn’t help but gaze into the eyes of the bronze eagle—those fixed metal eyes that were blind and yet seemed to see—as the voice of the secretary droned: “Nay … nay … nay …”

  The scale on the left wing was for the yea stones, the one on the right for nay. And every time a voting stone was dropped, the flying bronze eagle tipped farther to the right.

  Glancing out of the corner of his eye, Fleydur saw that Simplicio’s eyes were scrunched shut in malicious delight. Beyond, Sigrid squinted intently.

  A flicker lit the queen’s eyes as Amicus paused and then uttered, “Yea.” Fleydur looked around. Somebird in the Iron Nest had supported him! And not just one, either, it seemed. The votes became a string of mixed yeas and nays.

  Fleydur
stood mesmerized, watching the bronze eagle. The weight of the voting stones on each wing made the eagle tip drunkenly from side to side as if caught in a rough wind.

  Then, quite suddenly, it was over. The court watched as the balance scale steadied itself.

  For a moment, Fleydur thought that the line of the wings was parallel to the floor. But it was only a trick of the light—one wing tip sagged lower.

  Certain elderly conservative officials are like hard cheese: As they age, some enjoy them more, but others complain more of a stink.

  —FROM THE BOOK OF HERESY

  10

  A GAP IN THE IRON NEST

  Seven yeas, nine nays,” boomed Amicus. He turned and nodded gravely to all who were present. Fleydur’s heart collapsed.

  But then the secretary spoke again. “The king’s vote.” He picked up the purple stone in his talons and placed it gently upon the left scale. The bronze eagle made a last swerve.

  Nobird swore or cried out. Nobird cheered.

  Amicus cleared his throat uncomfortably. “So we have spoken. So the founder eagle has shown the path for flight. Your Majesty, members of the Iron Nest—Prince Fleydur’s new proposal has passed.”

  Thank you, thought Fleydur to the anonymous supporters within the Iron Nest. Thank you, Father. He looked at the intrepid bronze eagle of the balance scale, those fierce, kindly eyes, the wide wings, and thought, Thank you for watching over me.

  He scanned the birds around him. Forlath’s and Morgan’s heads were held high as they nodded and beamed; Sigrid’s head was lowered as she studied her painted nails. Much more distraught were the advisers, who had broken from their formation and instead stood scattered across the black-and-white floor.

  Simplicio’s gaze burned as he met Fleydur’s eyes. He charged out of the group, and Fleydur thought for a moment that the tutor was about to throw himself at him.

  At the last moment, Simplicio veered toward Morgan. Like dropping a rotten piece of herring left in the sun, Simplicio whipped off his black courtier cap and dumped it at the feet of the king.