The Feverbird's Claw Read online

  Grandmother had told this story only once. Servant girls had clutched one another. Moralin had wrapped her arms around her legs and, full of delicious fear, stared up at Grandmother. “People kept getting killed by rocks. Was it the way these rocks were formed?” Grandmother had asked, not waiting for an answer. “Or did monstrous animals sleep under the rocks? Animals that shifted their weight and grumbled a warning when footsteps disturbed their sleep?”

  Figt pulled the blowpipe from her pack. Another whistling rose in the rocks. “Let’s go back.” Moralin turned and saw a rock sliding toward them slowly, the way sand slid down a dune. The beastie snarled.

  “Run,” Moralin shouted. What could a blowpipe do?

  Figt and the beastie bounded down the path. Moralin dashed after them. Here the water sounded like a legless creeper rustling in the bushes. Behind her she thought she heard the mutter of something waking up. Ahead a fallen tree stretched across the river. Figt reached the trunk, scooped the beastie up, and ran across on agile feet.

  A rock rumbled by and splashed into the river, showering Moralin with drops. “Hurry,” Figt shouted. Panting, Moralin scrambled onto the wet tree and took five unsteady steps. Behind her, a blow made the tree shake. She grabbed a bare branch, trying not to think about the snarling water below.

  A second rock hit. Moralin stood salt-still, feeling the log shudder. The beastie barked wildly from the other end, and Moralin turned to look behind her. A huge rock was rolling down the hill. She forced herself to move, running with little sideways steps. In the moment she leaped off, she felt the jolt and heard a giant cracking sound. The two pieces of the broken trunk slipped slowly into the river, where the swift current dragged them away.

  She fumbled her way up the bank on legs of twisted string. Dark was falling quickly, and she could barely make out a grassy knoll. To the left, rocks formed a sheltered spot, but she didn’t want to be anywhere near rocks tonight. She flopped down, put her arms around the beastie, and pulled it close. After she could talk again, she whispered, “You hero,” in its ear.

  “The People say this river is guarded by a monster,” Figt said. “I thought it was a tale. Lucky we are that it is only the start of the little rains. And for the tree.”

  Moralin was glad the other girl said nothing about being lost, even though it was obvious they were.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  WHEN THE FIRST LIGHT TOUCHED HER EYELIDS, Moralin rolled over. The beastie licked her face and wiggled to its feet. She crawled up the knoll and looked around. Then she buried her head in the beastie’s fur.

  Behind them the river gurgled and hissed like some unfriendly creature. Ahead was a high, sheer cliff. This piece of land where she and Figt had slept was cradled between the river and the cliff. They could drink from the river, unless the water was bad. But they would have no food.

  Back at the bottom of the knoll, she clutched her cloak and pulled sleep around her. This time she dreamed of terrible things: figures reaching milk-white fingers for her, stones crashing toward her head. She woke up moaning.

  Grandmother had always said that Moralin would bring trouble onto herself if she didn’t learn to control her anger. Now she had. Worse yet, Figt was right; she had not wanted to leave the caves. Why?

  Since she was a child, people said, “You have Delagua blood and courage and wisdom and strength.” Always Delagua. Mother would use herself as an example. As a highborn married to a royalborn, she almost never saw her husband, who had his own duties and responsibilities. She lived patiently in his mother’s house, far from her own family. Did even shadows ever complain about all their work? The Delagua were the most noble and wise.

  She remembered Song-maker’s words as he knelt by the plant of yellow dye. What if there was another way to be strong? What if …

  No. She shoved the wicked thoughts away and took out a piece of fruit, bit into it, and listened to the way her teeth squeaked on the skin. Better enjoy the sweet juice blooming in her mouth. This food in their pouches was the last they would ever eat.

  After a while Figt rolled over, stood, and climbed the knoll. Moralin braced herself for a scream of anger. But Figt just sat up there and played notes on her little gourd. The beastie ran around, stopping to roll back and forth in the dirt.

  “Cora Linga,” Moralin whispered, “are you close enough to hear me? I have been so unworthy.” Nothing answered except a slight wind ruffling the river.

  She was staring blankly, smoothing the beastie’s fur, when Figt came back. “My plan is ready.”

  Moralin felt silver hope spring in her. It quickly died. What could help them now?

  “I see I can make a way up the cliff.” Figt motioned, and they climbed the knoll and stood looking at the frowning rock face. “The People have long known the ways of climbing.”

  “Ooden told me.”

  “And it is true.” Figt wrapped her cloak around her waist and tied it.

  Moralin shook her head.

  “You did it once.”

  “That cliff was not as tall as this one. There were holes for my hands and feet.” And I hadn’t yet disobeyed and angered Cora Linga, she added silently.

  Figt sat down and took off her sandals. She turned them thoughtfully in her hands. “But not impossible.”

  “For me, impossible.”

  Figt looked at her with curiosity.

  Moralin fought the shame that pooled in her chest. Why speak of this? Maybe Figt would have pity and stay. Let the three of them die here together on the ground. Ah. She hung her head. Song-maker was right. They were her friends.

  “This is my story,” she said. For the first time in her life, using words and gestures, she did her best to show what it was like to be scooped up and hauled, wiggling and screaming, down the stone streets, up the wall. “Someone … held me out over the wall. I think it was a woman. She was going to drop me.” Moralin choked and stopped.

  “But you were a child then.” Figt’s voice was matter-of-fact. “You must do this now and get home.” Figt tied her sandals together with a leather thong, humming.

  Moralin tossed a small stone toward the water. Why was Figt so hard-hearted? She thought about Mamita sitting at the loom, singing as she wove the starbright threads. Would her own mother recognize her now? With her arms and legs strong and burned by the sun, her hair wild and matted?

  She forced herself to study the cliff. Just doing that much made her sick. “No,” she said. “I can’t.”

  Warrior-calm, Figt reached for Moralin’s sandals.

  “I also know the Great Ones want us—me anyway—to fail.”

  Figt tied the sandals around her waist beside the cloak. “This cliff says I may climb.” After a moment she added, “You gave me my life.” Though she didn’t say the words, Moralin knew what she meant. “I can save yours.”

  Moralin looked at her with scorn and frustration. “What about the beastie? It’s going to climb, too?”

  Figt rubbed the beastie’s ears. “It stays. A beastie can’t come into the Delagua city.” She stooped and picked up a small rock. “If I live, I will come back. If not, perhaps another tree will fall across the river. If all fails, this beastie and I will at least share death.”

  “That’s stupid,” Moralin said. “Without me, how will you even get into the Delagua city?”

  Figt began to hum again.

  “What if you do get in? You think your brother is just going to be there? Standing inside the gates? You don’t know anything of the Delagua city.”

  Figt only gave her a wry smile. “This is why I need you.” She walked to the cliff, tested several spots with her fingers, and then calmly began to scrape with the rock. When she had hollowed out a little hole, she reached higher and began to scrape again. “Follow me,” she called. But she didn’t turn to see if Moralin would.

  As Moralin watched in horror, Figt maneuvered herself upward, finding handholds that turned into foot holes. She almost seemed to have a picture of t
he cliff face in her mind, moving confidently to the left or right, grasping at things too small for Moralin to see. Looking higher, Moralin realized Figt must be aiming at a tiny tree that grew near the top, far above them between the rocks. The beastie watched, too. Once it whined and wagged its tail. Figt didn’t respond.

  Moralin sat down and crossed her arms over her chest, thinking about the words of the Delagua death prayer. She closed her eyes. Better to starve than fall, tumbling over and over in the air, waiting helplessly for the ground’s deathblow.

  “It can be done.” Moralin jumped. Figt had returned on silent feet and was squatting beside her. “I’m sure. You must help. Remember your word.”

  So. Did it all come to duty after all? It must be her fate to die falling, crashing to the ground where her bones would break to little pieces. “You know,” she said slowly, “I don’t know how to find your brother.”

  “No?” Figt sounded uneasy for the first time. “He must be what you called a shadow.”

  Moralin started. “That’s not right.”

  “It’s true.” Figt gave her a rough shake. “You will see. When my sister came to me, she was wearing one of those white masks.”

  Moralin sat without moving. She could feel her body turning to sand. The shadows were not … simple as children? They were not given masks as a kindness for their grotesque faces? A river of unreasoned anger tumbled her in its rapids, pounding her head on its rocks. At Figt for shaking her arm and for this terrible information. At the girls who had mocked her all her life and then had lured her outside the city gates, only to desert her by dying so quickly. At Salla for giving up. And at the cruelty of whoever had held her dangling over the wall, laughing. And at her own sick-stomach helpless, terrible fear.

  “Come on.” Figt stepped to the cliff and began to climb again.

  The beastie whined softly. Figt had left food in a pile. Most beasties would have gobbled up that pile of food, but this one seemed to know it shouldn’t.

  Moralin bent down to rub its soft fur. “Anyway,” she told it, “if Figt never comes back for you, maybe you could get across the river someday. You’re so brave, a brave, brave beastie.”

  The beastie licked her hand.

  Moralin dropped to her knees and hugged it. “Good-bye.” She put her face into its back and breathed that musty, warm smell. “You turned out to be a friend after all.”

  She walked off quickly. Mustn’t cry and make the task even more impossible.

  Figt had reached a ledge and was clinging there. It made Moralin ill to see her. “I’m coming,” Moralin called. Figt gave no sign she had heard.

  Make the river of fear harden. Climb on top.

  She put her hand into the first hole. But she couldn’t make herself move. Shhhhh. Shhhhh. You’re all right. Go on. She imagined Old Tamlin there beside her. They were finally going to climb the city wall. If she could only go up this terrible mountain, she would see him again, Old Tamlin, the most kind and noble being who ever lived.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  CURLING HER FINGERS OVER PEBBLE-SIZE bumps, clinging with her fingertips, she crept upward, shifting her weight carefully. The pull on her fingers was agonizing. She didn’t dare consider how weak her arms and fingers would be by the time she was high on the cliff.

  For a few minutes she made steady progress. She had not guessed she would be strong enough to pull herself from handhold to handhold, but as if from a distance, she could see her arms moving, knew that she now had the same strong muscle she had been amazed to see in Figt that first day.

  Figt called something she couldn’t make out. In a few minutes Moralin saw it: a crack in the cliff face wide enough to grip with both hands. Straining, she lifted herself onto a small shelf. It stuck out only the width of her feet, but above it, the cliff sloped back a bit, so that by pressing her chest tightly into the rock, she could cautiously let her hands drop to her side and give her trembling arms a rest. She tried not to know that she was already so high she would be crippled or killed if she tumbled off.

  Over and over, when Old Tamlin was trying to urge her to climb, he told her, “If you give in to your fear that you will fall, then you will indeed fall because of the fear.” Was she strong enough to will herself not to give in to deathly fear? She had done it the night she walked on the coals.

  At least she was relying on her own strength.

  Up and up, now working the cracks that ran along the cliff. Her toes ached. Don’t picture yourself flattened and frightened. Stay away from all thoughts of the ground beneath you. Up and up.

  This was so much harder than the other climb, when she had been fleeing captivity and following those who had worn the holes deep. Where was Figt? Had she reached the top? Had she fallen? The Delagua felt safe having this steep cliff—and the deep river and probably a monster beast—as protection for the city. Must let someone know it could be climbed.

  After a while a wind began to whine. Moralin felt cold terror rise. Must not look up. Must not look down. Perhaps she was close enough to the temple for Cora Linga to hear her now. “Can you forgive me for wasting the bead?” she whispered. “How long it’s been since I heard your voice.”

  Amazing she was still alive and hadn’t been conquered by the garrag, the great sand waste, the monster under the rocks. She gripped harder. With or without the Great Ones, she could survive.

  Suddenly her foot slipped. She was scrabbling against the rock, her fingers clinging with strength she didn’t know she had. Her frantic foot found the toehold again. But now her mouth was dry, and she couldn’t catch her breath.

  “Forgive me,” she choked out. I’m a fly, about to be brushed off this cliff.

  Nothing.

  Her heart seemed to be rising out of her chest with the panic. Her head was light and dizzy. She concentrated all her will and eased upward, one more step. As she slid her chest and stomach along the rock, she must have crushed a small plant growing there, because the smell, a dust-musky odor of herbs, filled her head. And in that intense moment, she felt something she had never felt, a presence beyond even the Great Ones, something impossible to name.

  The presence surrounded her and filled her, and she could keep going. Up and up. Up and up. Her hand touched a root. The tree? Was she already that high? Yes. With every last bit of strength in her shaking arms and legs, she dragged herself up and wrapped both arms around the thin tree. She could move no farther.

  The rock was cold against her cheek. Her arms trembled violently. How long could they hold before she let go and flew off? She saw herself falling through the air, a drop of water shaken from the fur of some huge being, falling, falling. Terror hammered her chest.

  “Are you there?” She felt as if she were shouting the words aloud to the presence around her, though she was probably only whispering. “I want to hear your voice before I die.”

  As if in answer, the wind increased. For a moment or two it whistled and sighed, but the voice of the presence was not in the wind.

  Then the wind was gone. The air—or was it her own head?—was filled with a rumbling, but the voice of the presence was not in the rumbling.

  As the sound disappeared, all that was left was still silence. And in the silence Moralin heard a kind of voice. She couldn’t make out any words, but her whole body was filled with singing. Yes, this was a holy place. She was ready to die now. She could hear the breeze sweeping across the summit a little way above her. It knocked off small stones that clattered down on her head and hands.

  “Moralin?” It was Figt. A little way above. Her voice almost too thin to be real.

  Moralin clung to the tree and didn’t try to answer. Her arms felt swollen and cramped. Close by, an evening bird flitted out from its cliff nest with a whir of wings.

  “Moralin.” Her name a second time. Her real name. “Hold on.”

  Her arms were on fire. She would have to let go. She looked down to the rocks below to see what she was going to hit.

&
nbsp; Figt said her name again, softly this time. Moralin felt, rather than saw, the other girl beside her. “I’m going to tie your cloak around you and knot it to mine,” Figt said. “Climb with me. Move when I say.”

  “I can’t.” She listened to the gasp of her words and, for a few long moments, her own panting.

  “There. It’s like a rope now, holding you.” Figt pried one of Moralin’s hands from the tree.

  “The cloth will break.”

  “Move when I tell you to. The People know everything about climbing.”

  Moralin felt the cave people’s cloth, tight around her waist. Shaking, she reached for a handhold and eased forward.

  “Almost at the top,” Figt called after it seemed that great gulps of time had passed. Hand. Toe. Up. But she had no strength to hoist herself over. She felt Figt’s hands on her arms. For one awful moment she was dangling in empty space, and then she was being hauled like a great fish out of the ocean of emptiness to lie gasping at the edge of the cliff.

  The sun was high in the turquoise sky as Moralin curled like a baby, clutching her trembling legs. Figt disappeared. Returned. “I can’t stand up,” Moralin whispered.

  “I want you to climb the hill,” Figt said in a voice urgent with excitement or maybe fear. “You will be amazed.”

  She wouldn’t be amazed. She could almost smell the city. Home.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  WHILE SHE WAITED FOR HER LEGS TO STOP quivering, they made plans. “We should rest in that grove of trees.” Moralin pointed. “We have the cave people’s clothes, which should help unless a soldier tries to speak to us.”

  Finally she felt strong enough to climb with Figt holding on to her arm. For a long time she stood at the top of the hill, looking at the vague outlines of the city. She knew it was farther than it looked in the sharp, dry air. Don’t weep, she told herself. You’re almost home.

  Figt was gazing out to the north. “What’s that?”