by Sarah Driver
He frowns. ‘No. No, you won’t.’
‘I’ll gift you a knowing for nothing,’ I hiss, tears sparking in my eyes. ‘You’re too tall, too full-grown and still too slow to be anything but a hindrance on a mission! You stick out like a sore thumb, old man. Any bad-blubber will see your hide coming from a league away.’
Finally, a laugh splutters out of his dry mouth. He grabs for me and musses my tangles into an even worse mess. ‘Listen, Bones. I’ve got a knowing for you, too.’ His voice is taut with heart-worry.
An oar-drum booms in my marrow. ‘What?’
He drops his voice to a whisper. ‘I need you to promise to keep quiet about your beast-chatter.’
Something slithers in my gut when I see the fright stretching his eyes. It’s the first time Da’s told me to hide anything, and the oddness of it bites like a ray. ‘Why?’
‘Just . . . trust me. Alright? These folks don’t know you like your own Tribe. They may not understand your blood-wildness like we do.’
I frown, thinking back to how Coati looked at me before I fainted on the Sneaking. The way he called me a chatterer, like his tongue was wrapped in poison.
Da leans down and presses his forehead to mine. ‘Keep your brother safe ’til my return.’
I chew my tongue to keep from hurling curses. Cos I remember what happened when I parted with Sparrow after a frightful row where I said I hated him. Now I always wanna part with my kin on good terms. So all I do is nod. ‘Come back safe, Da. Don’t be long.’
‘I swear it.’
He limps towards the door, and a rock swells in my throat that I have to fight and fight to swallow down. My mind fills with a picture of him with ice crackling in his yellow brows, his sea-eyes sweeping vast plains of land. May the sea-gods swim close to you, I pray, laying my weary head back on my pillow.
I fall into a fitful doze. When I wake in the glow of the dying fire, my brother crouches at the end of my bed, humped like a bowhead whale and draped in a thick grey bed-fur. I croak out a startled yell but he don’t look up. His moonsprite Thunderbolt sits in his hair, a paling slip of silver. Sparrow’s song is a husked whisper under his sticky, blue-lipped breath. He’s staring at something on the blanket. Sparrow lost his sight after the worst shaking fit I ever saw, at the same time as a great storm at sea. Now he can see hazy shapes and colours, and things like Thunderbolt’s light help his eyes work better. But in other ways, he sees better than anyone. He glimpses the future in visions that leave him frighted breathless. Sky Elders say he is gifted with True Sight.
Last time Sparrow had a vision was the day Axe-Thrower attacked me. He told it to me after we’d both been taken for healing in the sawbones’ nest, and as he spoke I saw that, under his tunic, his muscles still twitched.
‘I saw you,’ he said, eyes blackened by exhaustion. ‘On a carriage pulled by polar dogs, past a beach of white stones in the shape of eggs. A place where—’ He started to cry, lightning webbing his fingers. ‘Sea-gods die, and there are so many polar dogs, with blood on their teeth. There were doors of ice, covered in reindeer fur. You got shoved through them. Then I woke up.’ He shuddered with his whole body, like someone swam over his grave.
Thunderbolt chitters softly at me, bringing me back into the here and now. Black-Hair better now? Thunderbolt fretful for Black-Hair!
Heart-thanks, Thunderbolt! Aye. I’m better now.
Her frail voice and thin light make me look at her more closely than I have for a while. Gods! With everything that’s been happening, I barely thought that if the other sprites need moonlight, so does she. Come back with that Opal soon, Da, I pray.
The middle of my bed is aglow with purple, the light from Sparrow’s lightning that webs between his fingers.
‘What are you—’
‘Shh!’ he says, face screwed up with determination.
‘Don’t you shh me!’
He ignores me. He prods something lying on the bedsheets. I step closer. It’s a dead frog, stretched out on its back.
I sigh. ‘You don’t have to fry your own frog for breakfast, too-soon. Things ent that bad.’ Yet.
‘I just made a thing happen,’ he whines, lightning flaring. ‘And now you’re distracting me!’
I pull a face. ‘What?’
‘The frog’s leg just moved!’
I roll my eyes. ‘That beast’s stone dead.’
He shakes his head, still not looking up. ‘I ent ready yet – my lightning went into a skinny thread. I want to make it do it again.’
Sparrow reaches down to lift the limp body of the frog. Purple light pulses through it.
He flexes his fingers, dropping a splodge of purple that fizzles on the sheet until I lunge forwards to smother it. Then he flicks a small lightning bolt into the frog’s chest. He draws back, breathing hard through his mouth. Then he yells, ‘Why won’t it do it again?’
I try to distract him. ‘Ent you heart-glad I’m better?’
Finally, he looks. ‘Aye,’ he says doubtfully, with a half-shrug. ‘You passed out cold, dint you?’
I press my lips thin. ‘I’m strong as ever I was,’ I tell him, hating the thought that folks might think me weak.
‘Mouse?’ calls a bright, hesitant voice outside the door, making my skin jump.
I brush my tangles out of my eyes. It can’t be. Can it?
Sparrow slithers off the bed and yanks open the door. Kestrel steps into the chamber, face flooded with concern, coppery hair threaded with firelight. ‘How is she, Sparrow?’
I watch them watching me from the doorway. A little spark flares in my belly. ‘Aye, and who might she be? The ship’s cat? The shark’s mother?’
‘She’s as prickly as ever,’ announces Sparrow, ducking under Kestrel’s arm and marching from the room.
Kes bites the corner of her mouth to keep from laughing as she hurries to my bedside. My heart rolls over in my chest and all in one beat I’m kneeling up, bed-furs and blankets flying, and my arms are wrapped tight around her neck. ‘Is it really you? Am I still dreaming? What you doing here?’
‘So many questions!’ She laughs, returning my hug just as fiercely.
We pull away, checking each other over. She’s thinner; her plain garb is slack and her cheekbones jut. Her light brown face looks tired, her freckles are pale and there’s no gold paint on her catlike green eyes. But they glow with more heart-strength than ever.
‘You have grown, sea-sister!’ she says. ‘And your scar continues to heal well – I wonder who stitched it so finely?’ Her lips quirk into a grin.
I laugh, more loud and pure than I feel like I have in an age. Thaw thuds onto my pillow, stretching out her long neck to peer at Kes, blood glistening in the feathers beneath her hooked beak. Hoodwink-high two-leg girl home?
Aye, Thaw!
A strange look crosses Kestrel’s features, seabird-swift, but she blinks and the look melts away and then she’s clasping my hands. ‘So, to answer you. Yes, it is really me. No, you’re not dreaming. And I came to meet with Mother, to reassure her all is well and beg more provisions – not that there are many to be had. I hear more goats have frozen to death, so now Butter and Bone rule the hearth-sides, hogging the heat.’
Butter and Bone are the oldest goats on the mountain – two sisters who do as they please and bite anyone who challenges them. Cantankerous bleaters, both, and forever underfoot. I nod. ‘But how is your mission working? Have you reached many of the Trianukkan youth yet?’
Her face grows flushed, burning with a look of hope and excitement. ‘We’ve been camped with the Tree-Tribes at the edge of Nightfall, sneaking into the colleges when we can. Staying safe and hidden takes so much of our energy, and I tire of hiding,’ she tells me with a small smile. ‘But we’ve left scrolls full of our writings for folk to find, spreading word that the draggle-riders have returned and are seeking unity, not war. Also, about how women should be permitted to study, and about what Stag and the Wilder-King have been doing. We have met w
ith young ones fleeing the city, helping them escape slavery, teaching them medsin and rune skills. And we’ve met with poor people on the outskirts, teaching them to read runic script. But it’s all so much harder than I had thought! I must have been so naïve,’ she says, burying her face in her hands. ‘Our words have been discovered by angry, powerful people. I believe—’ She pauses, studying her lap. ‘They have begun to search for us.’
‘Have you told your ma?’ I ask, dread tumbling in my belly.
She shakes her head. ‘And I beg you, please don’t tell her! She would keep me here, and even if I were willing to stay for her sake, I could never leave Egret.’
I nod, slowly, the breath turned to iron in my lungs.
‘You know, Mouse,’ she says, like a conspirator. ‘Even when you’re stuck in one place, you can still make waves. Think of all the allies you have, right under your nose.’
She’s misread my look – for once, I weren’t feeling heart-sad at being left behind. I was fretting for her.
‘Mother and I thought we would give you a present,’ she says brightly, fishing in her pocket. She pulls out a tiny stub of silver, worn and smooth. I take it from her and find that my thumb fits inside a groove in the silver – it’s an old key. ‘It unlocks the Opal Chamber, so you can visit the stones,’ Kes tells me, grinning.
‘Let’s go, then!’ I put my head under the blankets and dig my fur-lined slippers from the bottom of my bed. A fool that climbs out of bed barefooted is a fool that loses toes to winter’s jaws.
We step into the crooked corridor outside. Thaw glides by my shoulder, throwing the cloak of her shadow over the glittering stone floor.
As I glance sideways at Kes, her words buzz in my brain. You can still make waves. I can feel the seed of an idea throwing roots into my blood.
We wind our way up three stairways hewn into the mountain, past sputtering lanterns that cough up oily wreaths of smoke. We reach a small wooden door and fit the key into the lock.
Kestrel has to stoop to fit through, but inside, the space yawns wide into a cavernous antechamber. Another door, much bigger, is flanked by two guards with crossed spears. The Opal Chamber. Leopard waits with the guards. She smiles at me when I thank her for the key.
The warriors uncross their spears.
We step into the storm-restless feeling of the Opal Chamber. Kestrel gasps. Leo stands by my side, breathing fast. The walls are charred black, seeping fire-worms from tiny pits in the rock. The air tastes charred, too. The fire-worms thud against my heavy cloak like scraps of burning black silk.
A pulsing silver ghostway gloops through a crack in the wall, so the guards can hear if anyone is trying to get too close to the gems.
The Opals hang from the ceiling inside two round iron cages, etched with glowing protective runes. Even though there’s no breath of wind, the cages sway and the chains creak and groan. As I watch them, my skin itches on the inside. The Opals pull on my spirit, and I wish I could free them from their cages. Thaw rockets high in the air and swoops wide circles around the cages, feathers spiking. Shinystones! Glintofgreenbluesparkles!
I step slowly closer to the cages, dragging my fingers across the rough wall. There’s a sour smell in the chamber. ‘Are you making stinks cos you hate being trapped?’ I whisper. The smell in here reminds me of how my armpits get when I’m nerve-jangled.
In answer, the Sea-Opal glows bright green and weeps chips of ice. Gold flecks swirl in its depths. It throws shadows on the cavernous walls, shadows in the shape of seals that writhe and twist and float together, sliding sleek dark skins across the damp rock. Salt rides the air. I stick out my tongue to taste the tang.
The Sky-Opal’s blue deepens like dusk, as it splutters puffs of smoke and flurries of blue sparks that print pictures of clouds and birds and bats and the night hunts of owls on my vision. Shadows shaped like feathers dance across the walls. The cages holding the jewels pull towards each other, creaking.
‘They hate being separated,’ I murmur. Leo stands close by my side.
‘I am sorry for it,’ she says. ‘But we decided that together their power was too great.’
I chatter to the Opals, imagining they’re listening to me. They throw a fire-spirit glow onto the wall and I try to read the pictures. They twine together in ribbons of silver, like a plume of hair caught in a sea-wind. Hair like Grandma’s.
Thaw rasps a cry, wrenching me from my thoughts. A scuffling sound makes my skin twitch.
‘Who’s there?’ demands Leo, face sharpening to full alert as her fingers wrap around her spear.
‘Protector?’ calls one of the guards, knocking on the door.
Thaw dives past our startled faces, hurtling towards the floor. I turn around and see a small furry creature wriggling away through a gap at the bottom of the wall. Thaw shrieks her anger, her claws scraping against the stone floor. ‘Oh! It’s just a lemming,’ says Kes.
Leo’s shoulders sag. ‘It’s nothing, we’re fine,’ she tells the guard. She and Kes begin to laugh.
But a chill spreads through me. I breathe, trying to work out why I’m getting the fear. Notjustlemmingnotjustlemming, croaks Thaw.
Slowly, the knowing trickles into my veins.
‘I didn’t hear that lemming’s beast-chatter,’ I tell them. The beast had the same empty hole where beast-chatter should be that Crow has. What if that lemming was a shape-changer?
‘Perhaps you had no time to notice it?’ suggests Leo.
I shake my head. ‘I can tell when it ent there.’
‘Right,’ says Leo, eyes darkening. ‘I will have a word with the Elders about this.’ She nods to us and strides from the chamber.
Kestrel frowns at the place where the lemming vanished. Then she fixes me with troubled green eyes.
‘I feel like something’s changed, about the chatter,’ I tell her slowly. ‘Da’s been fretting about it. He told me to keep it secret, and he’s never said that before. It’s like it’s suddenly a thing of shame.’ Thaw glides towards me and I hold out my arm for her to land. Then her head nuzzles my jaw. ‘I’ve heard folk say mean things, too. Like Coati, and some of the older girls that hang round Lunda. I’m not telling tales – I can handle myself against them, I just—’
‘Mouse,’ she interrupts gently. ‘I know you can. But you’re right to ask about this – I know I would. And I know something about it. Now seems as fine a time as any for the telling.’
‘Go on,’ I whisper.
‘Since I stepped into the great wide, I have heard many foolish opinions of beast-chatter. Some view it as a sickness. A disease of the mind. It is an idea that is spreading.’
I stare up at her. ‘A disease ? But I ent sick.’ I touch the blade at my belt, and Thaw shrills a cry of outrage.
‘Of course not,’ she adds quickly. ‘But in times like these, folk distrust anyone marked out as different. Especially those with a connection to things they can’t understand. Some powers are so ancient that they are feared. I remember my mother teaching me of the old ways. She said there were once other chatterings, kinned with the same power, but different strands of it. Green-chatter, wielded over the plants, and wind-chatter, which is sister to the weather-witch powers, but more potent.’
Other chatterings?
‘It takes its toll on you, doesn’t it?’ she asks, brow puckering. ‘Is that why you fainted on the Sneaking?’
‘It don’t normally, no. That’s the point – I feel like it’s different. Something’s changing. But aye – my chatter’s what knocked me out cold.’ I nibble my lip. ‘What about Stag, though?’ The name feels like it’s knocking around in the air, bruising my skin. ‘He don’t keep his beast-chatter secret.’
Kestrel considers. ‘He’s using his power for ill-doings. Maybe that protects him, somehow.’ She takes my hand. ‘Enough about him, though. Just be careful. Please?’
‘I’m stuck here, ent I?’ I pull my hand away and turn to stare at the Opals, pins pricking my eyes. ‘Can�
�t get much more careful than that.’ My voice comes out more bitter than I expected.
‘I know. I’m sorry – you must hate me, coming back here and telling you what to do.’
I offer her a small smile. ‘It’s alright.’
She links arms with me. ‘Now, more importantly – shall we go and find some food?’
We step into the flickering torchlight of the long-hall. The place rings with the cries of babs, the bleating of goats and a score of mismatched tribe-tongues. Squidges have wedged themselves into clusters along the tops of the walls and on the chains of the lanterns. The round, feathered, squidlike creatures squeal about the cold, chubby tentacles quivering. They drip ink onto folks’ heads and into their food.
Great oaken eating benches glitter with hollowed, hungry eyes. The benches are laden with piles of kids, thumping each other’s arms, tumbling around, jostling for space. As we walk past, they nudge each other, staring at my scar. Their stares make me feel skinned. What I did for Leo’s lost spirit is famed round here.
‘There treads the sea-witch,’ someone whispers behind our backs. Nervous laughter whistles around my head, and my shoulders tense.
‘Ignore them,’ whispers Kestrel.
Easy for her to say. She’s getting out of here. We stand in line for shallow bowls of goats’ milk porridge. Pangolin joins us. She’s bundled in thick wool dyed the colour of flame, and a grey enamelled pin in the shape of a draggle holds her cloak close around her neck.
She greets us both, but Kestrel’s manner is stiff and the two eye each other warily. Maybe Kes still ent forgiven Pang for the way she was under the old regime.
I’m so busy watching how they are with each other, the seed of my idea swelling in my bones, that I end up stepping on Pang’s cloak and she trips, almost knocking a pot over.
Curses whip from the cooks’ mouths.
‘She never meant to!’ I blurt.
‘Make her words big to her elders, will she?’ threatens a fat old waddler called Kid, with six chins and three mean looks she switches between. She raises a tarnished ladle like a fist and turns to Kestrel. ‘Sawbones, you keep these filthy sea-roving folk out of my kettle-fires.’ She turns her broad back on us. ‘That’s the last of the provisions. Protector says we’ve to hold back the pot-scrapings for the prisoner.’