The bat at the top of the tree gave another cry, spread its wings, and joined the others as they descended, in wide, slow circles, until they reached the ground some thirty feet from us. I’d never seen bats even half their size—if we’d stood beside them, they’d have come up to our shoulders, and their great wings were seven eight foot across—but they stood there lightly lightly on the ground, quivering slightly on their backward-pointing knees, with their wings still unfolded and ready to take to the air again at any moment. One by one, they opened their mouths and released a rapid stream of squeaks and clicks.
After that, for a few seconds, there was no sound but the pumping of the tree and the river splashing against the stones along its bank, until suddenly Starlight’s bats responded with rapid squeaks and clicks of their own. And then the other bats joined in so they were all squeaking and clicking at once.
A strange thought came to me then, so strange that just holding it in my mind took a huge effort, like carrying a heavy heavy weight that you know you’ll soon have to drop. Was it possible, I thought, that this was a kind of talking, and that these sounds were a bit like words or names? But straight away I doubted myself. How could that be? People spoke a bit differently in different places, that was true, but it was always still English. How could there be a way of naming things that wasn’t like English at all?
Starlight seemed to think it was possible, though. She’d walked forward a few paces so that she was standing between her own wingless young bats and the four adults, and now she squatted down on the ground, sideways to both groups, so she could watch them all.
“I’m Starlight,” she said to the adult bats. “I’ve been looking after these two.”
All six bats fell silent for a moment, turning their wrinkly blue masklike faces toward her, and then they turned back to one another and began once again their stream of clicks and creaks. It went on for a long time, so long that Starlight walked back to me and we stood together with our backs against the tree for warmth. And as we stood there waiting for the bats to finish, Starlight noticed something else on a boulder over to our right, at the edge of the tree’s pool of light.
“Do you see those marks, Julie? You see them in New Earth as well. They call it bat writing. It’s—”
But a louder cry made us both turn back to the bats. Two of the winged adults had taken hold of one of the young bats under its arms and were lifting it clear of the ground. They spread their wings and ran forward. As soon as they were in the air, the other two adults did the same with the second wingless bat, picking it up and rising rapidly up up up until all six bats were just little black dots against that narrow band of bright stars between the dark mountains.
A boat was coming by, a big clumsy Mainground trading boat, with three men paddling it down either side.
“You guys okay there?” one of them called out to us.
“We’re fine, thanks,” Starlight answered them. “We’re fine fine.”
Starlight Brooking
“I was thinking about what you said before our sleep,” I told Julie when we were back on the river. “I could never just be a Watcher. I have to be doing things and making things happen. It’s just the way I am. It was nice of you to say that was a good thing.”
“Well, I meant it,” she said from the front of the boat.
“And wherever I am,” I said, “I’m sure that’ll be true. I’ll want to make things happen.”
“I know you will, Starlight.”
We were another hour paddling through that dim stony place before at last more trees began to appear, ordinary forest trees, growing just by the side of the water at first and then rising up the slopes on either side of us, shining white and blue and yellow and pink. And, as the forest returned, the huge, dark forms of the mountains above it began to pull back, opening up more and more of the starry black sky.
Starbirds called to one another back and forth across the water. Flutterbyes feasted on shining lanterns and sticky airholes. Smoothbucks knelt on the banks to drink and gather wavyweed, their mouth-feelers testing the air.
“That’s funny,” said Julie. “Look at the sky. Is that a cloud up there, or a mountain, or what?”
The mountains of Snowy Dark had fallen behind us, but now some new kind of shadow was blotting out part of Starry Swirl ahead. It wasn’t like any mountain or cloud we’d seen, for it was a completely smooth shape spanning the whole sky like the edge of an enormous circle, lower in the middle and higher on either side. And, to make it even stranger and harder to understand, there were still a few stars scattered across it. How could there be stars in front of a mountain or a cloud that blocked out the rest of Starry Swirl? And what were those other things, those dim dim shapes in between the stars, some of them spirals like tiny Starry Swirls themselves, some long and thin, like circles seen from the side?
We stared and stared, but the answer only came to me after I’d been paddling and worrying away at it for an hour at least. It made my spine tingle with a kind of fear.
“If it’s not a shadow covering up the sky,” I said, “then it must be the black sky itself.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“It’s behind Starry Swirl, Julie, not in front of it. That curved line is simply the edge of the Swirl.”
“The edge?”
“That’s right. We’ve traveled so far blueway, so far round the ball of Eden, that we’re beginning to come out from underneath Starry Swirl, and we’re looking out beyond it.”
For a short time we paddled on in silence, trying to comprehend a space so huge that even Starry Swirl, which contained Eden, and Earth, and a hundred thousand stars, was just a little speck inside it. Then we came round a corner and there were shelters ahead of us and a wooden ledge for boats.
“Hey, you!” called out a voice from the bank. “You need to come over here and tell us where you’re going and why you’ve come to Half Sky.”
I guess the same sort of thing could happen in the Davidfolk ground, or over in New Earth—someone with a spear calling out and asking what you were doing and why you’d come to their ground—but there was one thing different here. Three people were standing there with spears, and two of them were women.
Afterwords
Glitterfish Brooking
When Starlight and the rest of them set off for Brown River, it was just after I knew I was pregnant with little Gela. About fifty wakings later, Dixon and Johnny and the boys came back. I was sure I’d never see Starlight again.
That was sad sad, to lose her, and find her, and lose her again, but I kept myself busy. Gela was born, and then, quickly quickly, I fell pregnant with Clare, on one of Tommy’s trips over to Grounds to see his little girl. (He stopped coming after that, and I heard he’d been moved to Circle Valley.) Then Clare was born, and about nine ten wakings after that, Julie came back to the Grounds. You can’t normally count time so easily, but this time I knew exactly how long she’d been away. It was two wombtimes.
“I helped a bunch of people there build a boat,” she said. “They have these colored stones they dig up down there at Half Sky, which make pretty brooches and rings, and the Brown River traders take them in exchange for buckfat and fakeskin, and trade them on as far up rockway as Veeklehouse. Some of the Half Sky people reckoned it might be worth their while to take their stones up to Veeklehouse and trade them themselves, so I helped them make a boat that was strong enough for the Pool, and then I went there with them. At Veeklehouse I met a guy who was coming up to Nob Head, and I gave him metal to take me on his boat. And then at Nob Head, I persuaded old Harry—clawfoot Harry with the missing fingers—to lend me a kneeboat so I could get back here.
“Starlight’s got a little boy now. He’s got red hair just like his dad, and she’s called him Greenstone. She’s busy busy. They have a Council there, like they used to have back in Old Family, and Starlight is part of it. One of the other Council people told me she has more ideas than all the rest of them together. She’s
even got them looking for green rock. Apparently that’s what you need if you want to make metal.
“Half Sky’s a good place. It’s not cruel like the Davidfolk ground or New Earth, and it’s not as big as them, either, but it’s way bigger than here. There must be a good many hundred people there, some along the river, some out in forest, but there’s still lots of room to grow and spread out. We should all go there, all of the Kneefolk together.”
No one liked that idea, though, however much we worried about how things were changing on our Grounds. It was way too far, and the journey way too dangerous, specially with little kids.
“And I’d miss the knee trees and boats,” Uncle Dixon said. “They’re all I know anything about.”
Truth was, though, that it was getting harder and harder to trade our boats, now that the Davidfolk were copying those plank boats from New Earth.
And things kept on changing. A Guard Leader called David Bluesigh started coming over from Nob Head, all done up in a red fakeskin wrap with feathers and footwraps and metal rings. He told us we were part of his ground now, part of the ground of Nob Head, and he gave us a bark with a list of stuff written on it that he told us we had to send him: so many waternuts, so many buckskins, so many bowls of buckfat, four times every “year.” (Years were a way of counting time that came from Earth, apparently: A quarter year was about ninety wakings.)
“And I don’t want any more talk about this Watcher nonsense,” David Bluesigh told us. “It’s the shadowspeakers you need to listen to, not something inside your own heads.”
We were being turned into Davidfolk. Lots of our women had babies with the guards and traders who came over from Mainground. That wasn’t new in itself—Starlight’s dad was a guard, and so was my Gela’s and my Clare’s—but it was happening so often now that you could hardly say anymore which were us and which were them.
“We really should go to Half Sky,” Julie told me. “We should go and find your sister and live with her.”
But I still refused. “No way, Julie. No way am I ever ever taking my kids through mountains where snowleopards live.”
But then one waking, soon after I fell pregnant with little Fire, old Bluesigh came back over again with more barks, and told us he was going to make a list of all our boy children.
“All Nob Head boys have to take a turn as guards now as soon as their new hairs grow,” he told us. “And I can’t see any reason why you lot should be the odd ones out. After all, you’ll expect guards to protect you when the Johnfolk come across the Pool.”
As soon as he’d gone, I went to find Julie. “Okay Julie, you win. We’ll come with you to Half Sky. I don’t want Mikey tying people to trees and crushing their fingers.”
“That’s good,” she said. “And old Bluesigh was right, too: The Johnfolk will still come. Starlight is quite clear about that. All she did by returning the ring was to win us a little more time.”
Twelve grown-ups went in the end. Twelve grown-ups and a bunch of kids made that whole long journey down to Brown River and up to Half Sky. It was hard hard—there were times when I thought I’d been crazy to agree to it—but at last we reached that weird split sky that Julie had told us about, and came to a group of shelters by the river.
“Hey, who’s that?” a gray-bearded bloke called out from the bank, though he had a strange way of talking I found hard to understand. “You need to come here and tell us your business.”
“It’s only me,” Julie called out. “It’s only Julie Deepwater. I’ve brought some more people down from Knee Tree Grounds.”
“Julie? You’re back again!” The old guy sounded pleased pleased.
“Hey, welcome back, Julie!” called the woman with him. “We thought you’d—”
“Gela’s heart, that must be Starlight’s sister!” the man interrupted. “Glitterfish, isn’t that your name? You look just like her!”
A boy ran to fetch Starlight, and when she came she had three little kids with her, just like I had. We’d be mums together after all.
“I’m the Head Woman here now, Glits,” she told me. “Imagine that. I’m the Head Woman of Half Sky.”
“Best Head Woman we’ve ever had,” the old guy said. “We’ve started making our own metal thanks to her.”
“Yeah,” said the woman with him, “and she’s got all our kids learning to read.”
Quietstream Batwing
It’s hard to count wakings when you’re on your own, and you’re not sleeping properly, and you’re far far from any timehorns. I know I lay down to sleep four times before I met anyone, but how long I slept each time I couldn’t be sure, nor how long I was awake in between. I was hungry hungry. I tried chewing starflower seeds but I couldn’t fill my belly with them. I did for a small bat and held it against a spiketree to cook it, but it tasted foul, and I spat it out and threw the rest away.
Fourth time I lay down to sleep was under a whitelantern tree next to a stream. It had been raining and my ringman’s wrap was soaked through, so I’d taken it off, wrung it out as best I could, and then put it on again, pressing up close to the trunk in the hope that it would warm me and dry the wrap both.
I don’t know what I dreamt about, but I woke up suddenly to find people all around me, the grown-ups wearing little skin waistwraps, the kids naked. They laughed at me when I jumped up, but they were friendly folk who meant no harm. So I stayed with them, wandering through the forest, keeping out of the way of ringmen, hunting and gathering fruit. All the time I was desperate to hear what had happened to my daughters and my mum, but I knew that if I tried to get in touch with them, it would only put them in more danger.
None of the forest people could read or write, but they had their own way of talking to one another back and forth through the trees. They stretched buckskins over hollow wood to make drums, and beat out rhythms, which you could hear from miles away, each rhythm carrying a different message.
“Big herd of bucks heading blueway from here,” they could say, or “Watch out for ringmen near rockway path,” or “Come and get some meat. We’ve got more than we can manage.”
I’d been with them for half a hundredwake when we heard drums over peckway, toward the mountains. First of all came the sound that told us that this drummer was the one who’d started the message, and wasn’t just passing it on. Then came the sound that told us who it was. And then came the message itself, a big, heavy beat, two quick short ones, and then a pause: BOOM boomboom—BOOM boomboom—BOOM boomboom . . .
“What does that one mean?” I asked the old guy called Mehmet, who usually did the drumming for our group.
“It’s Candy’s people. They say they’ve got something good to tell us, something worth walking over for.”
So we made our way through forest—grown-ups, newhairs, oldies, little kids—listening out for the drum all the time. We stopped when we were close, and Mehmet went ahead with a couple of the newhairs. There’d been a time once, apparently, when the ringmen had tricked a bunch of forest people by calling them in with drums and then catching them and sending them off to the metaldigs.
Presently, Mehmet came back.
“It’s okay. They’ve got a big guy from the caves with them, but he’s on his own. He says he’s got news for all of us. Candy’s lot say he’s okay.”
I knew the man as soon as I saw him. His name was Harry. He had dark, gentle eyes, and he’d been one of Headmanson Greenstone’s friends from back when they could barely even walk. I used to watch over them when they played together. His dad had been a teacher, one of the kindest of all the big people, and when he died, Harry had taken his place in the Teachinghouse. Now he was sitting on a log in a little opening in the forest where some big old trees had fallen, with people who’d arrived before us squatting on the ground all round him. He was still wearing his long teacher’s robe with letters stitched on it.
follow our mother, the letters read.
Candice’s people stood around beaming proudly, like Teacher Harry wa
s something they’d made themselves.
“Quietstream!” he cried, jumping up. “How great to see you! Gela’s heart, I was glad glad when I heard you’d got away. I’ve run away from Edenheart myself now, as you can see. I’ve got some amazing news to tell these good people.”
Of course I asked him if he had news of my mum or my kids.
“They’re all okay. I know that for certain. They were all brought in to the Teachinghouse, but they managed to convince the Questioners that you’d never told them the Secret Story, and that you must have heard it yourself from some childless old woman you used to be friendly with when you were a kid.” He gave a sort of laugh. “Of course all whisperers’ daughters say their mums heard the story from some childless old woman who’s dead, but apparently this time the Questioners actually believed it.”
I burst into tears. You don’t really know how much of a burden you’ve been carrying sometimes until it’s suddenly taken off your shoulders. Teacher Harry came and put his arms around me.
“The Ringwearer managed to escape,” he said. “Old Earthseeker is banned from ever coming to Edenheart, and he’s had most of his ringmen taken from him, but he’s okay, too. Same with Greenstone’s other friends. But I’m afraid they did for Greenstone himself.”
I nodded through my tears.
“You were kind kind to Greenstone when he was a little boy,” Teacher Harry said. “My mum used to say you were more of a mum to him than his own mother. And you were kind to me, too.”
Mehmet and his people stood staring, amazed to learn that funny old Quietstream, who they’d found in the forest, was a friend to this big big man from down in Cave.
“I’m sorry that I was ever part of a Teachinghouse where whisperers were hurt,” Harry said. “You women were right to keep the Secret Story going and pass it on, and we were wrong wrong wrong.” Now he was almost weeping himself. “And the Ringwearer was right, too,” he said when he could speak again. “She was right to stand in those houseplaces and say the words out loud. We’re all going to need to do that now, because the new Headman and the Head Teacher are making plans to end the Secret Story for good. They’re going to get women to pass round false versions of it, so that no one can know which is the true one, and then they’re going to read out true and false versions in meeting grounds and mock them both. So I’ve done my best to save the true Story. I went through all those barks in the Teachinghouse where the Questioners write down what whisperers say, and for each part of the Story, I’ve written down the version that most agree on. It’s the closest we can get to the true Secret Story as Gela told it, and now we need to tell it to everyone, like beautiful Starlight tried to do.”
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