Firewing

by Kenneth Oppel

  His head broke the surface, and he was nearly blinded by starlight. The dark river was sticky, did not want to release him. It clung as he pulled, clutching at his ankles and tail. Suddenly he was free, soaring over this strange river which—

  Was no longer a river.

  In a split second, it had tipped over a broad cliff and was now pouring down into a narrow chasm, down and down, all the more dreadful because it made not the slightest noise as it fell.

  That could have been me, Shade thought numbly. A few more seconds was all it would have taken.

  Then he thought: Griffin. He circled as close to the cataract as he dared—he did not want to be swept into its pull. Not even the blazing starlight could illuminate its full depth, and when Shade sang out sound, no echoes came back. His entire being quailed at the thought of going lower. Down there, no rescue was possible. For a long time he circled hopelessly, unable to wrench his gaze away.

  He lifted his eyes to the stone sky. His circle of stars was still there. His route home. This would almost surely be his last chance to take it before it was blocked off at Tree Haven.

  Griffin and Luna might have pulled themselves free of the river. He would fly back over it, scouring the sky for their echo signals. If he lost his escape route, he would try for the Tree. He cursed himself for not forcing Yorick to sing the map to him. Stupid, prissy old bat.

  He fervently hoped that if Griffin was alive he’d carry on to the Tree, not go back to the cave. His son wasn’t foolhardy enough to go back, was he? Shade turned and flapped upstream, scanning the sky for the sound of any winged creature.

  If his son was alive, Shade would find him.

  Goth heaved himself from the darkness, choking with rage.

  He cast around wildly, but the cave was gone, as were the bats. Below him, a black, silent river ran between steep canyon walls. Spreading out all around, more interminable desert. He had no idea where he was, but he was too consumed with anger to care much.

  He’d had his claws into Shade Silverwing until that other bat had knocked him off—a Vampyrum, one of his own kind! He should have had Shade’s life by now.

  The earth rumbled ominously, and Zotz spoke.

  “You were to attack the newborn, not Shade Silverwing.”

  “Why did you not tell me he was here?” said Goth, unable to hide his indignation.

  “His presence has nothing to do with the task I set you.”

  “No, my Lord, but—” Dust rose from the desert. “But what, Goth?”

  “I merely thought that if I first took Shade’s life, I would be all the stronger to catch the newborn and sacrifice him to you, my Lord.”

  “I wonder, Goth, if your desire for life is more important to you than me.”

  “No, my Lord!” Goth said, shouting to cloak his guilt. Could Zotz know that before Shade had appeared, his plan had been to steal the newborn’s life? “I very nearly had the newborn, but his father called to him. I knew that if I attacked the son, I would also be fighting the father. So I decided to kill Shade first.”

  A long silence settled over the desert, but Goth felt Zotz’s presence all around him, studying him, boring into him with invisible eyes. Could Zotz know of his temptation in the cave? He tried to keep his breathing calm.

  “Follow the river to the horns,” said Zotz, his voice swirling around Goth like a tornado. “Fly between the tips. The newborn is travelling with a group of Pilgrims. They will soon reach the Tree.”

  “And Shade Silverwing?”

  “He is not your concern, Goth. First the newborn.”

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  “Do not fail me a third time.”

  At the stone horns, Griffin hesitated. Below, the river gouged its eerie liquid path across the Underworld. He looked to the horizons, still hoping.

  “Call out to your father,” Java told him. “Leave your trace. If he’s alive, he will hear your echoes when he passes.”

  “Dad!” Griffin shouted with all his might. “It’s me, Griffin!” He saw Yorick wince at all this noise, look around fretfully.

  “We’re going to the Tree!”

  His throat hurt, and he had no more words inside him. How long would his echoes live down here, before the Underworld sucked them away? Like it sucked away everything else, including his life. He thought of those terrible, petrified bats in the cave, imagined the blow they’d deliver if they hit you. He squeezed his eyes shut, gave his head a fierce shake, trying to jar loose the image of his father, unconscious, drifting forever down that river.

  “Where does it go?” he asked, but no one knew.

  “That’s one river I’ll be glad to part company with,” Nemo said, shuddering. “Bodies of water have a way of whispering to you, and this one has nothing good to say.”

  Griffin was getting to know the Pilgrims now, and already was most attached to Java. It was hard not to be won over by those huge, soulful eyes, her expressive face, and gentle voice. When he had questions, she was the one he asked; he stuck close to her. Yorick seemed grumpy; and Nemo had those claws, which he found unsettling, though Griffin did like his eyes and his friendly way of winking. Murk, he stayed clear of altogether. Just looking at him made his stomach clench.

  “You ready, Griffin?” Java said, looking at him sympathetically. “On to the Tree?”

  He nodded. With Luna at his side, he followed Yorick between the tips of the horns. “Your Dad’ll find you,” Luna told him quietly.

  Griffin tried to smile, but his mouth and face felt taut, as if his skin might crack like splintered ice. He looked back, opened his mouth to spray out sound and check for his father, but stopped—he couldn’t bear the disappointment again.

  His hunger was gone now. Mostly he was glad, but it was an ominous sign, as if his body were starting to give up on him. His thirst was not so easily vanquished. He saw water everywhere, little oases sparkling in the hard rock, glimmering on the arid horizon. He hadn’t had a pee for a long time, either. That was a bad sign, he was sure of it.

  Labouring through the air, he wondered how something that had once seemed so effortless, as easy as breathing, could now be such a torment. Home, he thought, I want to be home.

  “I’m sorry,” he said when he couldn’t endure the pain coursing through his exhausted body any longer. “I’ve got to take a little break. Just a couple minutes. I’m really sorry.”

  He avoided glancing at Yorick, but heard his grunt of impatience.

  Java turned her large eyes on Griffin. “Hop on,” she said. “That way we won’t have to stop.”

  “Really?” he asked, gazing longingly at her soft, broad back. There was more than enough room for him up there.

  “Just hold on tight. Try not to pinch me with your claws, mind.” She dipped below him and held her wings straight out, gliding for a moment, while he flapped into position, braked, and dropped clumsily onto her back. Between her wings, he sank down on all fours, clenching her long fur. Before, he’d found the chill of the dead unsettling; now the cool of her body was soothing against his fevered face and chest.

  “Am I heavy?” he asked.

  “Not at all. Just rest now, child.”

  “Thank you very much. Just for a minute.”

  When he woke up, he saw that the landscape had changed. The sandy desert plains had given way to arid hills and shallow valleys, not much vegetation, and no sign of bats. He wrinkled his nostrils, trying to identify the smell that lingered there. Something unfamiliar, but unmistakably from the real world. It had a freshness and vitality that reminded him of the wind, with a salty edge to it. Expectation pulsed through him. Still, he didn’t mention it, in case it turned out to be just a residue from a dream.

  “How long have I slept?” he asked Java.

  “Not so long,” she said. “Tell you the truth, I don’t much bother keeping track of time anymore down here.”

  He felt spoiled and a bit embarrassed letting Java do the flying for him, but it was so wonderful to rest, and he wa
sn’t quite ready to launch himself back into the air.

  “Feeling better?” Luna called out, coming in close, then darting away so she wouldn’t get clobbered by Java’s mighty wings.

  “If you want to talk, best you hop up, too,” the Foxwing told her. “I don’t want to knock you out.”

  So Luna came in from behind and tumbled down on Java’s back beside Griffin.

  “Never offered me a ride,” Yorick grumbled, “and, not that anyone cared to notice, but my wings are obviously disabled.”

  “Not your mouth, though,” said Nemo. “Which is a pity.” Griffin couldn’t help giggling as he and Luna hunkered down together. In any other time and place, this would have been the most fabulous fun, sailing through the air on the back of this splendid creature. Even now he couldn’t deny the giddy pleasure he felt. It felt so strange to be flying without doing any work.

  “How are your wings?” he asked Luna.

  “Worse,” she said, “but I’m okay.”

  “How can you be so brave?”

  “You’re in pain, too,” she pointed out. “I don’t hear you complaining.”

  “Yeah, but I’m the one who needs rest. Doesn’t rest help you at all?”

  “I don’t think it makes a difference. Anyway, Yorick said it’s not so far now. All we have to do is keep on course and we’ll end up right at the Tree. Do you think it’s like Tree Haven?”

  Griffin remembered the image from his sound map. “It’s not like a normal tree,” he said. “It’s really big.” He didn’t want to tell her how it looked like pure flame; he didn’t want to frighten her, or get her thinking about the last fire she’d seen.

  “But after we go inside,” Luna said quietly. “What happens then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You of all people should have an idea!” Luna said with a grin. “I never knew anyone who talked more about dying.”

  “You remember that stuff?”

  “Yeah,” she said, surprised, “I guess I do. You were always scared of things.”

  “Nothing’s changed, I can tell you.”

  Back at Tree Haven he used to worry constantly about getting hurt or killed. And in the colony there was often talk of death. Newborns who weren’t strong enough to live. Careless bats who got eaten by skunks, or racoons, or wildcats. And the migration was dangerous too, everyone knew that. There would be plenty of bats who wouldn’t make it. Death was everywhere, lurking around every leaf and pebble practically! But even he had never really imagined what it would be like in the afterlife.

  “Our mothers said Nocturna would take care of us when we died,” Griffin said.

  “Somewhere nice, though,” Luna added. “It was always supposed to be somewhere nice. Come on, Griff, imagine it for me. You were always good at imagining things. No one’s better at words than you.”

  Words. For a moment he was at a loss. But for Luna’s sake, he shut his eyes, tried to concentrate.

  “It would be a forest,” Griffin told her, trying to sound confident. Luna gave a satisfied grunt: good start. Her eyes were closed, brow creased, and he was reminded of how she had looked after they brought her back to Tree Haven. Her burns looked worse now somehow, like they’d be hot just to touch. She was in great pain, he could tell, trying hard to float free from it. Words were something he could give her.

  “Always summer and never winter,” he continued. “Lots of bugs, fresh water, no beasts or birds to bother us. No gypsy moth caterpillars to eat the leaves,” he added, remembering his favourite sugar maple.

  Luna gave a quiet chuckle. “I like the other animals, though,” she said, “to look at. It makes it more interesting.”

  “Okay, then, there should be animals, you’re right. But they don’t need to eat you anymore. Maybe they don’t need to eat at all.”

  He hesitated. It was sounding a bit too much like down here. No need to eat. Nothing to hunt you. It confused him for a moment. This couldn’t be a kind of paradise, could it? No, the thought was too creepy.

  “A sun,” he went on with more passion, getting warmed up. This wasn’t really so different from his usual worst-case scenario imaginings—just in a happier direction. “There would have to be light, and maybe lots of moons for the night, different-shaped ones so you could look up into the sky and see round ones and crescent ones and star-shaped ones all at once.”

  “I like that,” Luna murmured. “What else?”

  “Everyone around you,” Griffin said. “Everyone you love, everyone who loves you.”

  “That’s good. What if they’re still alive?”

  “Maybe that doesn’t matter.”

  “You can’t be both places at once,” she said reasonably.

  “Well, maybe once you go through the Tree, time’s different, and it goes by so quickly it’s like you hardly have to wait at all.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Look, I’m doing my best here,” Griffin said.

  “No, it’s really good,” she said. “I can see it in my head now. Friends, too. Skye and Rowan and Falstaff.”

  “Well, okay, if you really want those little hairballs hanging around,” Griffin said. “Frankly, I always found them a bit irritating.”

  “Maybe they’ll be more interesting dead,” Luna said.

  “Probably. I like dead bats. Some of my best friends are dead, you know.”

  She was giggling, just the way she used to, and it made Griffin’s heart swell. “And you’ll be there with me, too,” she said firmly.

  Griffin said nothing, pleased she was singling him out, even if he did feel terribly unworthy of her affection.

  “And we can do things together,” she went on. “We can go anywhere—big journeys all over this big new world.”

  “Well, I’m really more a roost-at-home sort of bat,” he said, “but, sure, why not. If it makes you happy.”

  She was silent for a moment. She winced, then said: “What if it’s not like that?”

  “No, no, it’ll be great.”

  “What if it’s worse than this place?”

  “Um, no. It couldn’t be. Not possible.”

  “What if I’m all alone, and have to wait a long time for anyone I know to show up? You’re just a newborn, and my parents could live another twenty-five years. I don’t want to be all by myself.”

  “You’re starting to sound like me,” Griffin said. “Worrying’s my thing. And frankly, I’m better at it. You and your little worries—I laugh at them!”

  Luna gave a low chuckle.

  “I know what awaits me,” said Nemo, pulling alongside, “if you don’t mind me horning in on your chatter. A big stretch of river, as broad as you could hope for, and enough fish to make the water boil.”

  Yorick looked back over his wing, “You’re assuming, my soggy friend, that we will be eating in this next world.”

  “To be sure, my boy! What greater pleasure is there than to eat well! And not the fake food they supplied for us here, but real food. Trout, salmon, bass!”

  “Interesting,” said Yorick with a dismissive smirk. “A most inspiring view of the afterlife.”

  “So what’s it you’re after, then?” Nemo said. “Do tell us.”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Yorick said. “I want to be whole again. I’ve endured centuries with this crippled wing and the pain it brings. I know you scoff at my suffering: Oh, there goes Yorick again about his wing—yawn! But all I want is a world without the constant nag of it. I could quite happily spend eternity staring at wood lice, so long as I could do it without pain.”

  “Fair enough, then,” said Nemo, not sarcastically but with genuine respect. “Let’s hope in the next world, you’ll get fixed up.”

  “All I ask is a little fairness,” Yorick continued. “This place is completely unfair. Let me offer up an example. In the Upper World Nemo got eaten. Chewed up. Digested. Unpleasant, I admit. But down here in the Underworld, he got his body back whole. He shouldn’t look like anything at all but a pile of b
ones and gristle.”

  “I’ve got to look like something,” protested Nemo.

  “Fine. But me, I only got smashed into a tree, died on impact, and look at me! Look at this wing and shoulder. Still crooked, still throbbing. And poor Luna, she’s even worse off. Badly burned and still suffering—anyone can see that! Where’s the fairness? Where’s the logic of it?”

  Nemo shook his head. “You’ve got a good point, my boy. All I can say is thank goodness I’m on the lucky end. And thank goodness we’ll soon all be free of this vexing place.” After a moment he turned to Murk. “Can’t help enquiring about you. What’s your new world like? You’re hoping there’s lots of juicy little bats waiting for you, I wouldn’t doubt.”

  “Perhaps there are different places for different bats,” said Murk, with a hint of a smile. At least Griffin assumed it was a smile: he still wasn’t used to the dark flash of those teeth.

  “Be a bit much if we have to worry about getting eaten, even in this new life,” muttered Yorick.

  “And you?” Luna asked Java. “Are there orchards in your afterlife?”

  “Maybe so, but I was hoping for something completely new.”

  “Really?” Griffin asked, curious.

  “Well, doesn’t it seem a touch repetitive? To get the same thing all over again?”

  “No! I want the same thing,” Luna said stoutly. “I want it to be exactly the way things were at Tree Haven. I can’t imagine anything better.”

  “You are young, and should have had more, to be sure,” said Java. “But I was lucky enough to live a full life, and now am curious to see another face of the world, for I am hopeful there are many.”

  Griffin saw Murk nod. “Yes, that is my craving, as well.”

  “And it will be something wonderful,” said Java, with such serenity that Griffin felt his mood lighten. But Luna, he saw, made no comment, staring straight ahead. She was trembling.

  “You all right?” he asked, moving closer.

  “Just all this stuff about it being different,” she whispered, as the others went on talking. “Don’t know if I want anything else different. I’m not even used to being dead yet in the first place. You don’t know what it’s like, Griffin.”