The Feverbird's Claw Read online

  Moralin shielded her eyes. In grayish green foothills, something glinted: a tiny speck. “Maybe it’s where the caravans come from. They bring resin and golden plates. Even birds that talk. They trade these and other things for cloth.”

  “I should want to see a place of talking birds and gold.”

  Moralin sighed. She would, too.

  Figt gripped her arm as if she thought Moralin might tumble down the slope if she let go. They moved to the grove to make plans and wait out the afternoon rain. After they used the last of the healing oils from the helicht plant on their scratches and scrapes, they huddled together under their cloaks. Moralin lay still, listening to the rain fleck against the leaves, looking at their four hands on the cloth.

  She felt filled with reverence for skin, for breathing. Were there other sacred places in the world where the holy presence was strong? Would she ever feel it again? Wasn’t it strange how you could see the most wonderful things in the world, but if your heart wasn’t open to wonder, everything looked no better than mud?

  She fell asleep and dreamed that Cora Linga came to her. For once the Great One didn’t speak in riddles but said, “You did well, my child.”

  “Cora Linga,” she cried. “Nothing happened as you said it would.”

  “Hardly anything happens as humans think it will.” Cora Linga looked like her picture on the tapestry in the temple, only with light shining everywhere around and inside her.

  “I thought I was supposed to use my own strength, but Figt had to save me on the cliff. And you told me not to use the blue bead.”

  “Your strength will always include the people around you and even animals.” Cora Linga looked deeply into Moralin’s eyes. “As for the bead, calamity comes to those who use such things selfishly.”

  “But—But what will happen to me?”

  Cora Linga bent over and touched Moralin’s forehead. “On the night when the invisible ones walk, ah, then is the spider’s web torn. Ah, then does the fly escape.”

  Moralin felt a cool stinging on her forehead. “I had almost everything wrong,” she whispered.

  “Humans often do.” Cora Linga’s form faded and disappeared.

  Moralin woke to feel Figt trembling beside her. She reached over to shake the other girl awake, but before she touched her, Figt said, “I’m not asleep.” Her voice was ghostly. “I’m—I’m afraid. Why did I think I could go into such a city?”

  Moralin let her hand settle on Figt’s arm. She had been wrong. Figt might be an uncivilized Arkera, but she was honorable and courageous. Not knowing what else to do, she simply echoed what Figt had said by the cliff. “It can be done.” If only she was sure it could be.

  To calm themselves, they took stock, spreading out the cloaks and dumping out their pouches. As well as she could, Moralin explained where they were now and where they needed to go. “I hope we can travel unseen if we wait for dark.”

  She poked at some crumbled herbs with her finger, thinking about Cora Linga’s riddle. After a while she hesitantly tried to tell the dream to Figt. “Know what it might mean?”

  Figt was using her teeth to sharpen a stick. “At first when I was forced to become a solitary, I had to search everywhere for food.” She spit out a piece of bark. “As I wandered, this same one appeared and showed me a vision of a great hall.”

  “Cora Linga? Oh, I don’t think so.”

  “We call her Amma Tamu. She comes to us in her toad form. She says the Delagua are always putting toads in trap boxes.”

  Moralin chewed her thumbnail, shocked into silence.

  “Shall I describe the vision? Maybe it will help.”

  Moralin nodded weakly. “Maybe.”

  “A flying insect came to me and touched me with its feelers. Its wings were white and black. I saw it lay hundreds of eggs and then die.” Figt’s voice was dream-calm. In front of her eyes, the eggs turned into wiggling worms. Girls ran back and forth bringing leaves. All the worms, as one, swiveled their heads in a strange dance. Liquid spewed out of their mouths and turned into delicate threads that the worms wrapped and wrapped around their bodies. They slept for three days and turned from worms into … Figt hesitated. “A small pouch that could be held in a person’s hand.”

  The worms had to be symbols for something. In the old stories, things often happened in threes. Moralin noticed that she had bitten one of her fingernails down to the skin. She curled her fingers against her sweaty palm.

  “I saw a girl standing before a roaring fire.” Figt went on. “She threw the worms into the fire. The worms died from the heat, but their pouches did not burn. That’s all.” She studied Moralin’s face. “Know what it means?”

  Without meaning to, Moralin was chewing on another fingernail.

  Figt talked on as if she would never stop. “My sister crawled into the camp too near death to talk. I gave her water, I held her hand. I was sure I could keep her from dying. She clutched something like the pouch I saw in my dream. And her mask had a strange design on it.” She bent over and scratched with the stick, but the wet dirt oozed closed.

  “When we’re in a safe place,” Moralin said, “you can take paint and show me.”

  Most of the afternoon Figt couldn’t seem to stop pacing. She wanted to leave the grove, but Moralin convinced her they should wait. “Better not to have light if we run into someone.” What would her family think the first time they saw her in the light? Moralin could almost feel her mother’s hand reaching out to try to fix her tangled hair.

  When the sun finally landed on the horizon, flinging up ribbons of color, they stepped out from the trees. Strange feelings rumbled inside Moralin. No time to sort them out. Better to be walking. Better to plan. “From now on watch me and do what I do,” she told Figt.

  “Think I could pass for Delagua?”

  Moralin studied her skeptically. “We’ll use velees so people can’t see our faces. I have clothes stored at Old Tamlin’s house. Don’t walk so bold, though.”

  About halfway through this night a fingernail moon would rise. A moon-dark night would be best. Cora Linga, she complained silently. Why don’t the Great Ones ever seem to give human beings what would be best?

  She and Figt had told each other they would move silently, but as they walked along the base of the hill, they fell to nervous, low talk. Shadows lived in groups of twenty around the city, Moralin explained. Each of those houses had two fighters assigned to do morning, afternoon, and night inspections. Any shadow found out of place was usually struck down on the spot.

  After Moralin was sure they both were prepared—and both scared—Figt said, “So I will likely die in your city. And you? What is your path?”

  What indeed? How to explain the awa clan and temple service? “We, too, have initiation ceremonies” was all she could think to say.

  “The path will be given then?”

  Moralin replied softly, using Delagua words when she didn’t have Arkera ones, wondering how much Figt understood. After the temple service some girls became priestesses. They lived in a convent near the temple and tended the gardens. Every twenty-five days, on the first moon-dark night, they walked the streets of the city. “They do the work of the dead,” she explained.

  “Only this work? Forever?”

  “Only this work. And no one may look upon them.” She stopped, thinking. “Maybe their lives are not so terrible. It is said the convent gardens are full of fountains, trees, and fruit-sweet flowers cascading over the walls, and the priestesses eat on dishes of gold, as do the royalborn.”

  She remembered the glint she and Figt had seen far in the distance. What was it like, this birthplace of the gold? “If a girl is royalborn and marries a royalborn”—she went on—“she lives in a grand house on an island in the middle of the lake, hidden from the eyes of common people. Others marry common men. I don’t know what dishes they use.”

  She had always thought she would marry well because she was royalborn through her father’s blood. Once when Mother was
angry about Moralin’s awkward weaving, she said Moralin might go into the convent because she was neither beautiful nor particularly skilled. But she’d always hoped Mother had been speaking only from anger.

  The grass caught in her sandals as they walked hesitantly under the squinting eye of the moon. A tree loomed, scaring Moralin for a moment, its branches reaching out like thick arms. “Let’s wait here until it’s light enough for me to find the place,” she whispered.

  On the hard ground she tried to sleep, but her storm-wild thoughts ran in circles, snakes chasing their tails. What if someone had locked the door at the end of the tunnel? No, Old Tamlin would have figured out that she had gone that way, and he would make sure it was still open. But what terrible fate waited for a Delagua caught bringing an Arkera inside the city? They were two worms crawling into a feverbird’s nest.

  Dawn melted the darkness and wove a morning sky of moon-pale, cool cloth. They ate the last of the food, then cautiously climbed the hill. When they reached the top, Moralin couldn’t move. She felt blasted open with hunger and joy.

  If she could only show Figt everything about the city—her city. The fighting yard where she had grown strong and bold. The market with its green and purple and golden fruits, with spices spilling out of their bags and sheena peppers and many-colored grains. The stone streets. The shining yellow temple.

  She made herself study the landscape. “Yes, the Great Ones have smiled on us,” she whispered. In the growing light she recognized the outline of the jamara tree. As they hurried down toward it, she could smell her own fear. She glanced around for a branch she could use as a fighting stick and then realized it would be too hard to carry it with her through the hole. “Give me the sharp stick,” she whispered. “Let me enter first. Come if I call.”

  She parted the bushes as silently as she could and squeezed through the opening. Yes! Everything was just as she had left it. She didn’t see the soldier until he stepped swiftly out of the darkness, fighting stick ready.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  HER SKIN KNEW WHAT TO DO. BEFORE SHE had time to think, she ducked and kicked, knocking her opponent’s stick to the ground. She was on him in a flash, the sharp stick to his throat. His mouth opened and closed: a fish mouth, breathing water.

  “Odd.” His voice came out in a dry rasp. “Odd if I should be killed by the very person for whom I guard this door.”

  “How do you know who I am?” She made her voice tough and bold.

  “Who would know these Delagua fighting moves? The granddaughter Old Tamlin set me here to watch for.”

  She eased so he could speak more easily, careful in case he tried to twist under her and throw her to the ground. Instead he gazed up with a strange expression. “Such a man I would serve whether he was alive or dead. And you. When I was young, I often heard him tell of the vision the Great Ones gave him when you were born: that you would someday save the city.”

  Now she was the one who must look like a fish.

  “After the great revolt”—the man wheezed on—“he never spoke of it openly again. Some forgot. I never did.”

  The great revolt?

  “He told us how he trained you in the fighting yard. Oh, don’t look like that. He had to tell us because he knew you would come in fiercely.” He closed his eyes. “You may kill me. I would be honored to be killed by such as you.”

  “I’ve never killed anyone.” She climbed off. “I’m not going to kill you.”

  She and Figt did tie him up with the cloaks, however, and leave him in the dark cave. A new guard would come to relieve him tomorrow afternoon, he told them. Moralin saw from marks on the cave wall that each guard worked for five days. As they lowered themselves through the trapdoor, he called after them, “I’m so sorry. A great man.”

  “What did he say?” Figt asked.

  “I don’t know.” She showed Figt where to put her hand and went as quickly as she dared.

  He told us how he trained you. Now everyone would know for sure she was a freak. Old Tamlin would have sworn them to secrecy, of course, but such secrets never held.

  Almost there. Fear was harsh in her throat. Keep going. She fumbled for the lamp and tinder purse and then knelt. Once, twice, three times, she struck sharply down, watching the tiny red-hot flakes as they fell onto the piece of flax. When it flared, she lit the lamp with quick fingers. She pushed oh-so-gently on the door, but it didn’t budge. Had someone fastened the bolt on the other side? She shoved, and the door flew open.

  A moment later they were inside the house. Figt made a small, nervous noise. Moralin knelt and kissed the floor. He told us how he trained you. Nothing mattered except that she was home.

  “Smell that?” Figt’s voice floated eerily in the dim lamplight.

  Moralin breathed in frankincense and scent of tree sap.

  “This smell speaks to me,” Figt whispered. “Someone in this house—” She looked small and afraid.

  “Stay here.” Moralin rushed down the hall, up the stairs. As she stepped inside the room, she saw Old Tamlin, a silent heap on the bed.

  “No.” She wanted to howl, but the word came out as a whimper. So much she had needed to ask him, but death had crunched him in its jaws, stronger than any garrag’s. Her eyes stung. She had waited and longed to pour out her adventures to him. Who else would understand or even listen?

  “Old Tamlin,” she said softly. “You showed me so many things. Help me understand. This city … the shadows …” She moaned. Shadows were not like children. They were like wood animals, trapped in a reed cage, like a skulkuk crashing against the bars. The feverbird was not protecting the worm; it was crushing it.

  Old Tamlin had known all this. Dazed, she moved to the bed. His skin shone with resin and wax. He must have died a few days ago, but no one would enter this room until the priestesses came. She looked boldly into his face for the first time, blinking away the tears, and touched his cheek, something she never would have done while he towered over her.

  Smells of cinnamon and wax and myrrh rose from his body. Was his spirit here, being judged by the messengers of the Great Ones? Her throat burned with sorrow, but she knew she must not interfere with his efforts to show the Great Ones that he had been worthy. She hoped they were seeing a stern man look gently at the blistered palm of a little girl. “Thank you for everything you gave me.” She covered her mouth with her hands and hurried away.

  Figt still crouched in the hall with the sharp stick and blowpipe ready. “It’s all right,” Moralin told her sadly. The shadows would be gone; a fighter would have come for them when Old Tamlin became ill. Now even those who had loved and served Old Tamlin would not dare come near.

  But had she and Figt not survived the place of Arkera death and spent the night with human bones? Had she not lived under the hollow eye of the moon? She refused to be afraid in this Delagua house.

  Full of melancholy memories, she led Figt across the house to the room Old Tamlin had always kept for her. Nothing had been touched. She gathered an armful of silky Delagua cloth, remembering Old Tamlin’s voice: “The cloth saves us, Moralin. It’s the only way.”

  She turned. Figt’s gaze was fixed on a sword fastened to the wall. With a sound of disgust, she dropped the stick on the floor.

  Moralin handed a dress to the other girl. “Put this on. No, no, this way.” She stepped back. “You look funny as a Delagua.”

  Figt curled her shoulders uncomfortably. “You slept here? So closed off from air?”

  “Not here. I kept things for when I visited Old Tamlin. But this place was almost …” She paused and looked around. “Home.” She choked on the word and couldn’t go on.

  The first dress she tried ripped. She dropped it on the floor and found a bigger one. Then she rummaged in an ivory pot for the paint and brushes she had used to make pictures when she was a child.

  Figt took them. The brush whispered softly against the floor. Moralin bent to watch. The skin on her fingertips hurt, and s
he told herself not to chew her nails again, but she did anyway.

  A one-legged bird. She walked around to study the design from another direction. “These marks show where the shadows live.”

  Figt’s eyes were shiny with hope.

  “But …” Moralin shook her head. “I’ve never seen this one before.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  MORALIN TRIED NOT TO LOOK AT THE OTHER girl’s disappointed face. “I can think of only one place where we might find a clue,” she said slowly. The shadows lived in small groups around the city. But in one room, shadows mingled for a short time. Old Tamlin had been in charge of it.

  With Old Tamlin’s death, perhaps the place would be in some confusion. If she and Figt could find a shadow with the one-legged bird on his mask, they might be able to figure out a way to question him.

  She told Figt her idea, not bothering to say that failure would end in death for both of them. That was true even if they did nothing. Together they climbed the steps. Several times Figt stumbled and muttered.

  “So,” Moralin said, “the mighty Arkera warrior woman is stopped by a Delagua dress.” By the time they reached the top, though, she said, “These clothes are unhandy when you’re out of practice.”

  She led Figt to a long window cut out of the wall that allowed them to see the outside steps. A breeze brushed her face as she peeked out. When the sun reached the second step, Old Tamlin always began his duties. Once he had heaped forbidden on forbidden and taken her along. He said you would someday save the city.

  In Old Tamlin’s chamber they put the netting over their faces, wrapped themselves in the cloaks, and pulled up the hoods. One of Old Tamlin’s men usually guarded this secret entrance, but now it was deserted. Moralin slid the bolt, and they entered the fighting yard. Walk boldly. Manage your fear.

  Fighting sticks swished and cracked. Someone yelped in pain. She had thought she would never see this place again. They strode past a group of gossiping soldiers. Through another door. Down some stairs. Old Tamlin had done this every morning. “If a commander stops us,” she had told Figt, “he will question us and kill us. But any underling will think we were sent to do Old Tamlin’s work.”