Firewing (5 page)

“All right,” he said, needing to talk. Talking aloud made things better, somehow. If he could control his words, maybe he could control other things, too. “What we have here is a cave-in kind of situation. Perfectly straightforward. The earthquake just shook loose a bunch of rock and dirt and dumped it here in my tunnel, so all I need to do is, um …
move
some of that rock and dirt so I can squeeze by. That really sums it all up. So. Let’s just do that.”

He scuttled towards the wall of debris. Clawing at it, butting it with his head and shoulders, he managed to dislodge some smaller bits of rubble, but mostly just churned up more dust. He prised out a larger rock, and an ominous tremor moved through the wall; the roof of the tunnel wobbled and sent down a meteor shower of dirt.

“Not too good,” he muttered, taking little sips of air to avoid coughing. “I keep digging and I might trigger another cave-in. If I don’t dig, I don’t get out. So we’ve got a bit of a dilemma here. But if I just sit around, another earthquake might bury me, anyway, and I really have no idea how much air is left down here….”

Words were no longer helping, and he started gasping, panic squeezing at his lungs. He couldn’t stave off the terrible truth any longer. He was trapped, and there was nothing he could do about it, and no one even knew he was here!

“Help!” he called hoarsely. “Help!” But now the fear in his voice just upset him more, and he stopped. He tried to calm his breathing. He would have to think of something. He felt cold, very cold, especially at his tail and legs, and then realized there was a gentle breeze nudging past him.

With difficulty he turned himself around again, and fixed his sonic gaze towards the dead end.

It wasn’t a dead end anymore.

In what had once been a solid slab of stone was a broad gash, big enough for him to fit through. He hurried towards it, sniffing. The breeze wasn’t coming from the hole, it was going
into
the hole with a faint shushing sound.

“This is good,” wheezed Griffin. “This is really good. A breeze. That means air. That means outside. That means we’ve got an escape kind of situation here….”

He hurried to the opening, but when he sang sound into it, his returning echoes showed him that the passageway angled down, deeper beneath the earth. He didn’t like that. All that earth and stone above him, and what if there was another quake?

He took a look back over his shoulder at the cave-in. He could still try to claw through, but how long would that take? This other tunnel
must
lead back to the surface, or there wouldn’t be a breeze. “Nice fresh little breeze,” he said. That decided it.

Cautiously, he squeezed into the crack. It was as if the earthquake had effortlessly opened a long fissure through solid rock. His claws clicked against the stone. The breeze was getting stronger, gently tugging the fur on his face and shoulders. After another minute, he paused, troubled that the passageway was still sloping downwards. He’d go on a little further, and then, if it didn’t angle up, he’d …

What?

Turn back? Return to the cave-in, and wait around until all the air was sucked out of the tunnel and he suffocated?

“It’s okay,” he said to himself. “Air comes from the sky. This has got to take me back to the sky.” It would just take a little longer than he’d thought. But he was far from reassured, and for just a moment his mother hovered before his mind’s eye and he felt like crying. It was fear that stopped his crying—a sudden attack of breathlessness in the cramped tunnel, deep beneath the earth.
Don’t
, he told himself.
Don’t think about it
.

He hurried on, trying to outrun his terror. At least the breeze was getting stronger now, a steady low moan, with the occasional sharp whistling edge, which reminded him of high winds in a summer storm. Little bits of stone were skittering across the tunnel, dragged by the wind, and Griffin could actually
feel it speeding him along whenever his thumbs or feet left the ground—almost pulling him off balance.

For a sickening moment, he thought he’d hit a dead end, but then saw it was just a sharp upward bend in the tunnel. “Here we go!” he said happily.

He hurried up and around, and then there was another sharp turn to the left and—

The wind wrenched Griffin around the corner, flaring his wings open from behind, and thrust him headlong down the tunnel. With a cry he tried to furl his wings, dig in with his rear claws, but the wind was too powerful. His wrists buckled and he fell against the ground hard on his chin, stunning himself, the wind blasting him along.

Desperately casting out sound, he saw that the slope of the tunnel was slowly but surely curving into a sheer vertical shaft, and he was careening helplessly towards it. The pull was overwhelming now, and his thumbs and rear claws cut furrows into the rock. Heaving his body to one side, he managed to lever himself sideways across the tunnel. He lasted only a few seconds before the shrieking wind smacked him loose. Now he was falling, picking up speed, the stone searing his flesh whenever he tried to open his wings to slow down.

Free fall.

Down and down. Nose over tail, and suddenly—

Stars blazing overhead.

Falling from a hole in the sky.

He’d been plunging down into the earth, and now he was in the sky, plunging fast. Even when he managed to wrench his wings out, his speed seemed scarcely diminished.

Gulping air, he saw below him the entire world like an immense ball of dark stone, slowly revolving, so far away. He
couldn’t believe he was this high, almost level with the stars but descending fast, dragged down towards the surface as if his wings were weighted. Wind screaming at his face, he spiralled in tight circles, blinking frantically to clear his streaming eyes.

Gradually the world below him started to reveal itself: furrowed ridges of hills, the dark scars of valleys or rivers, black smudges of forest. He tried to find his own forest, his stream, Tree Haven, but this vague landscape was completely unrecognizable.

A forest swelled beneath him. Still coming in too fast. He was used to the downward dive of a landing, but this was too much. Desperately spraying out sound, he tried to pick out a suitable landing site. He pulled back, angling his wings to brake. He saw the trees hurtling up, and then he was among them, slashed by leaves and twigs and pine needles, and grabbing wildly for anything that might break his fall.

Shade and his four companions cleared the last ridge and followed the treeline down into the valley. Whole swaths of forest looked as if they’d been swatted over by a giant paw. He could hear the consternation of birds and beasts as he sailed overhead. Please, he thought fervently, let Tree Haven be all right. Not far now, not far.

There, up ahead, still standing!

But as he drew closer to Tree Haven, Shade saw that a large branch had snapped off, leaving a jagged hole midway up the trunk. Without hesitating he trimmed his wings and flew through the knothole.

Inside it was a chaos of wings and voices, newborns and mothers crying out for one another. Shade wasted no time adding his own voice to the clamour. “Marina!”

He fluttered laboriously through the aerial tangle, crying out Marina’s name. Around him he could hear his other Silverwing companions calling out for their own mates. Shade had helped
hollow out this tree, but since he’d been gone its passageways and roosts had been enlarged even more by the females, and he was no longer familiar with its twisting geography.

“Shade?”

He locked onto her voice instantly and wheeled. When he saw her, his throat tightened. She wasn’t roosting, but lying flat on her belly on a ledge, her right wing extended awkwardly.

“Marina,” he said, landing beside her, and for a few moments, neither of them said a word, their faces and bodies pressed into one another, revelling in the other’s scent and touch.

“I’m so glad you came,” she whispered into his neck.

Finally he pulled back. “Your wing.”

“I’m not sure. It doesn’t feel too good. The earthquake snapped the branch and I was in it. I got knocked around a bit before I got clear.”

He cast a tender wash of sound over her wing, and could see the swelling in her forearm, though he didn’t make out any obvious fractures. He was hopeful it was just a sprain, but knew she wouldn’t be able to fly for a while.

“Is the pain bad?” he asked.

She shook her head impatiently. “I don’t know where Griffin is. I asked Penumbra to find him, but she hasn’t come back yet.”

“He’s probably still out hunting,” Shade said, not wanting to worry her—but he felt drenched with worry. She hadn’t seen what it was like out there, trees mangled, the earth wrenched up. If Griffin had been out there, Shade could only hope his son was aloft when the quake hit.

“He was upset, Shade. He flew off somewhere to be alone, I think.”

“Why?”

Her face was pinched. “There was a terrible accident.”

“Not with Griffin,” he blurted instinctively.

“Griffin’s okay. It was his friend, Luna. One of the other newborns. They stole some fire from the Humans.”

He listened in growing horror as she told him all that had happened.

“How’s Luna now?”

“Not good. We tended to her burns but …” She shook her head. “And the whole time …” She lowered her voice as if ashamed. “Over and over again I kept thinking, I’m so glad it wasn’t Griffin. So glad.”

She started to cry, and Shade nuzzled her tenderly, trying to hold his own tears at bay.

“I think he did it to impress you,” Marina said.

“Impress me?” he said, startled.

“I should’ve known it would happen. They all tell stories about you, the things you did and—He’s not like you, Shade. He hangs back, he worries about things. He was probably afraid you wouldn’t like him unless he did something clever and heroic.”

Shade didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t even met his son, and it seemed he’d already made him unhappy, forced him into doing something foolish and dangerous that might cost a newborn her life.

Penumbra fluttered towards them, her face grave. “I’m sorry, Marina, we haven’t seen him yet. But there are still plenty of newborns outside. We’re still looking.”

“I’ll look, too,” Shade reassured Marina. He put his head close to hers. “Tell me what he looks like.”

He listened carefully as she sang an echo picture into his ears, and watched as his son appeared before his mind’s eye, etched in silver. It was the first time he’d beheld his son, and Shade’s heart swelled. He didn’t know if Griffin strongly resembled either
Marina or himself, but looking at him, he felt an overwhelming sense of familiarity. This small creature belonged to him.

“Where did you last see him?” he asked.

“The healer’s roost. He flew off before I could stop him, and when I went after him he’d already disappeared. I thought maybe he needed to be alone.” She shifted anxiously, wincing at the pain it caused her wing. “I should’ve gone after him.”

“It’s okay. I’m going to find him.” When he saw her confusion, he added, “I’m going to listen for him.”

Shade knew he could waste hours flapping around, looking. The best way would be to track him with sound. Long ago, Zephyr, the Keeper of the Spire, had told him that you could hear noises from the past, and even the future, if your hearing was sharp enough. Shade had never had any success listening to the future, but he’d found if he concentrated enough, he could
hear
the echoes of things that had already happened—though how far back, he didn’t really know.

He stroked Marina one last time and flew for the healer’s roost near the summit of Tree Haven. At the entrance he faltered when he saw the wounded newborn, so still, tended by her mother.

“How is she?” Shade asked.

“I don’t know.” Her mother barely lifted her head.

“Is there anything else you need?”

“Everything’s been done,” said the mother. “Thank you.” Shade fluttered to the back of the healer’s roost and tried to clear his mind. He listened. He started by screening out the biggest sounds, those that were being made now within Tree Haven, and then tried to hear the smaller ones, the echoes of sounds made just a few seconds ago, then a few seconds more….

As he listened deeper and deeper into the past, he felt a strange weightless sensation, somewhere between flying and floating in
water. He did not know how far back he was going, and had to guess, pausing sometimes and letting the echoes draw pictures in his mind’s eye.

Luna—and her mother crouched over her, nuzzling her cheek.

Further back: Ariel and many other females, gathered around the newborn, doubtless discussing her injuries—though Shade didn’t want to spend time deciphering their words….

Off to one side he saw Marina, roosting alone, watching….

A little further back in time and—

A newborn was suddenly beside her, talking, and Shade recognized Griffin at once.

I’ve found him, Shade thought to himself. Now he had to follow him, listening forwards through time.

Feeling as though he were hovering in an immense black void, Shade strained to catch the echoes that formed his son: the image was silvery, hazy, and threatened to dissolve altogether sometimes. Listening intently, he saw Griffin take flight and careen from the healer’s roost.

Shade too had to take flight and follow his son’s path, staying close to the echoes his wings made. It was like chasing a smear of liquid light, moving down through the great trunk of Tree Haven, and Shade flew with one eye open, so he could match his own course with his son’s—and avoid colliding with other bats.

He followed Griffin’s sonic trail lower, until it hesitated briefly at the base of Tree Haven. It took all Shade’s concentration to focus, to stopper his ears against all the noise in the roost and the competing echoes from the past.

When he saw his son’s echo image disappear into the tunnels, he felt ill. He could only hope Griffin hadn’t been underground. Shade paused, listening forwards in time, hoping he’d hear another sonic mirage coming back out of the passageway.

But there was nothing, except a long concussion of light, created by something very, very loud. The earthquake.

Shade launched himself into the tunnel, scrambling as fast as he could, following Griffin’s trail. Past the junction to the echo chamber, and down even further.
Griffin, why did you go so deep? Why did you have to hide down here?

So intent was he on the trail that he almost crashed headlong into the wall of rubble and rock created by the earthquake. Panting, he cast back into the past, before the earthquake, until he caught sight of his son’s smudgy silver image in the tunnel. With horror, Shade watched as Griffin dissolved into the wall of rubble and disappeared.

That meant he’d gone
past
this point.

Or that he was trapped somewhere within the debris. “Griffin!” he shouted, his voice clattering about in the cramped tunnel. Immediately he started clawing at the rubble, coughing and sneezing as dust swirled around him. The cave-in might be only a few wingbeats deep, or a few hundred. Didn’t matter. But after a few minutes he realized he was getting nowhere this way. He backed up, closed his eyes. He knew it was dangerous, that it might cause an even more disastrous cave-in, but Griffin could be in there, trapped, and it was the only way to shift the rubble. Shade took a deep breath and with all his might barked out a bolt of sound.

The sound struck against the wall of rubble, and the returning echo blinded him in both ears. The ground shuddered, and rock and earth pelted his fur, but when he opened his eyes, he saw that his blast had triggered a small avalanche and opened a hole in the wall. He sang out once more, carefully, to enlarge the opening, and then hurried towards it. “Griffin!”

Nothing.

He clambered through, using careful washes of sound to search the rubble. His heart fluttered, sick with the fear he might see the edge of a shattered wing, a bit of lifeless fur. Matted with grit, he dragged himself out the other side, trembling with exhaustion and relief. He’d seen nothing. Surely Griffin was on this side, safe. “Griffin?”

But the tunnel was empty. Then he saw it. At the far end, the rock had been split into a narrow gash, big enough for a bat to squeeze through. It was hissing faintly. Shade instantly thought of the tiger moth, sucked down into the earth.

No
.

It was still possible his son was trapped somewhere in the cave-in…. Only one way to be sure. Again Shade flared his ears and listened. It was simpler this time: fewer echoes to distract him as he sifted back through the sound of time, and then suddenly there was Griffin, hunched up in the tunnel, trapped.

Shade’s throat thickened as he watched the worried movements of his son, scratching uselessly at the rubble that cut him off, then turning to move closer to the hissing opening which promised his only exit. Shade stared, his breath frozen, as Griffin ducked into the fissure and disappeared.

“I fear your son may already be lost to you,” said Lucretia, the chief Silverwing elder.

Shade shook his head, trying to expel her terrible words. “There’s no way we can know that yet.”

It had taken all his resolve to return to Tree Haven. Underground, he had crawled into the hissing crevice, following Griffin’s echo image down and down until suddenly it evaporated in the
powerful current. Shade knew that unless he turned back immediately, he, too, would be dragged headlong to whatever waited beneath. He’d wanted to go, anyway, to hurtle himself after his son. But he couldn’t. Not yet. At the very least he had to tell Marina. Laboriously, he’d dragged himself back up the tunnel into Tree Haven. And now, at its summit, he shifted impatiently as he listened to the four elders roosting above him.

“Over the centuries,” said Lucretia, “similar cracks in the earth have opened. We have accounts of bats who fell down them. None ever returned. Shade, where your son has gone, there can be no rescue.”

“I’m going,” he said hoarsely. “I only came back to tell you.”

“Our legends tell us it is the Underworld. The land Cama Zotz created for the cannibal bats after their death. It’s a place of utter darkness and torment. For our kind, Nocturna created a different afterlife, a wonderful one. But in Zotz’s Underworld, there are only the Vampyrum Spectrum, all the billions of them who were ever born.”

The thought of his son in this hellish place—the
wrong
place—was almost too terrible for Shade to endure. “I won’t leave him there.”

“It is said that those who enter the world of the dead, become the dead.”

“Legends,” Shade muttered.

“They are all we have,” Lucretia reminded him kindly, but firmly.

“I’ve never even heard these legends,” Shade said, unable to contain his frustration—and indignation, too. “Why weren’t we ever told about Cama Zotz or this Underworld?” He’d spent a lot of time in the echo chamber, the perfectly spherical cave where the Silverwing colony stored its history. He’d even sung some stories of his own to the polished walls. So how was it possible that he—a
hero
, in case anyone needed reminding!—should be shut
out like this? It was outrageous.

“There are some legends that are meant only for the elders,” said Lucretia. “Unless we feel they serve a purpose in their telling.” Shade said nothing, not trusting himself to speak. He hated the idea of secrets being kept from him, as if he were some silly newborn. Why shouldn’t he—why shouldn’t
everyone?
—know all there was to know?

“Well,” he said, his mind already leaping ahead, “who started these legends?”

“We don’t know that, Shade.”

“All I’m getting at,” he pressed on, “is that someone must’ve gone down to the Underworld and learned all this stuff, about the billions of dead cannibal bats and the darkness and Zotz—”

“Perhaps—”

“—and he must’ve come back alive, or how would
we
know?”

“This is all conjecture, Shade.”

“If he came back,
I
can come back!”

The elders exhaled in unison, momentarily at a loss.

“There’s something else to consider, Shade.”

This time the speaker was his own mother, Ariel. He still wasn’t used to seeing her like this: hanging above him, looking wise and impartial. To be perfectly honest, it freaked him out, made him feel like a newborn all over again. “If the earth opened this tunnel,” she said to him, “it may close it. Without warning.”

“That’s why I need to go right away. Mom, Griffin’s down there!”