Swift (9 page)

He shrugged. ‘Gossan said they’d mine that vein when they came to it.’ Though the contempt in his tone said how little he approved of the Jack’s forbearance. ‘But whether he tells us what he did with Keeve or not, there’s no way that spriggan’s going to see daylight again. If the Joan doesn’t make sure of that…’ His hand dropped to the hilt of his hunter’s knife. ‘Then I will.’

It was raining that night as Ivy descended the Great Shaft, slow droplets falling between the bars and pattering into the stagnant water below. But she’d brought a rope this time, fastening one end tight at the foot of the iron railing and the other around her waist, so even if she slipped she wouldn’t fall far.

She’d expected to hear the spriggan talking, as he had the night before. But the shaft was silent, and as she lowered herself into his cell the only sounds were the rasp of hemp on stone and the scuffing of her own bare feet. ‘It’s me,’ she whispered, brightening her glow so he could see her. ‘Are you awake?’

The prisoner sat against the wall, hands dangling between his knees. He looked like a corpse at first, eyes glazed and features slack, but as Ivy approached he stirred and gave a feeble smile. ‘
But soft!
’ he murmured. ‘
What light through yonder window breaks?
’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Ivy, sharp with the effort of hiding her relief. ‘There aren’t any windows here.’

‘It’s a line from a play by Shakespeare,’ he replied. He must have seen Ivy’s blank expression, because he went on patiently, ‘Shakespeare was a human writer who lived a few centuries ago. Plays are stories made up of speeches and acted out in front of an audience. You understand the concept of theatre?’

‘You mean a droll-show,’ said Ivy. ‘Like at midwinter, when the children dress up and pretend to be warriors, or… monsters.’ She had almost said
spriggans.

The prisoner’s nostrils flared. ‘I suppose. In a crude fashion.’

Time to change the subject, before he made her feel any more ignorant. ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said to me. And…I’m ready to make a bargain.’

At once his expression changed. ‘Go on.’

‘I’ll take the iron off your ankle and help you get out of here, so you can take me to my mother. But I won’t ride on your back.’

She spoke the words firmly, determined not to betray even a hint of weakness. After all, even if he could transform himself into a bird, there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t fly off without her – or worse, take her somewhere she didn’t want to go.

‘Ivy,’ said the stranger in exasperation, ‘you can’t expect me to
walk
you there. Even at human size—’

‘No.’ Her heart was fluttering, but she kept her voice calm. ‘Teach me to change shape, like you do. I won’t go anywhere with you, until I can fly.’

He stared at her. ‘You? But you’re a piskey. A
female
piskey, at that. And you think I can teach you to become a bird?’

‘Why not? You learned to do it.’

‘Piskey magic and faery magic aren’t the same,’ he said with forced patience. ‘There are all kinds of things my people can do that yours can’t. And even among faeries, changing shape isn’t something females do.’

‘How do you know that? Just because you’ve never seen one do it? I wouldn’t bother turning myself into a bird either, if I had wings of my own. But I don’t, so I have to try.’ She folded her arms. ‘And if you ever want to get out of here, you’re going to have to try too.’

He made a faint, disbelieving sound. ‘You drive a hard bargain, lady.’

‘Harder where there’s none,’ she said.

‘Even if you’re right, it’s not going to be easy. Before you can take the shape of a bird or animal, you have to know every part of it. You have to be completely familiar with the way it looks and moves, and know its habits as well as you know your own.’ He spread his lean hands, inviting her to look around. ‘Do you see any birds in here?’

Ivy hesitated. She’d thought changing shape would only be a matter of technique – that all he had to do was explain the steps to her and she’d be able to try it right away. But if she had to actually
look
at a bird, in order to become one…

‘You’ll have to go up to the surface,’ the stranger went on, ‘in the middle of the day, and spend a few hours following birds around before you find the one that calls to you, the one you
need
to become. And that’s only the first step.’ He shifted his weight, wincing as the iron band tugged at his ankle. ‘Are you ready to do that?’

To go above in broad daylight, under the merciless eye of a sun she’d never seen before? To defy the rules and traditions she’d been raised with, risk the Joan’s wrath and her fellow piskeys’ disapproval, and make herself a hypocrite for telling Cicely that it was dangerous to go above? To take the chance that Keeve’s murderer was still out there, waiting for another careless piskey to cross his path?

Any one of those ideas was terrifying, let alone all of them together. And yet to trust herself completely to a stranger, to climb onto his back and let him take her wherever he pleased, was even more unthinkable. Either way she’d be taking an enormous risk – but better to choose her own path than to have someone else choose it for her.

And besides, if she
could
do this, she wouldn’t only have a chance of finding her mother, she’d have wings as well…

‘Yes,’ said Ivy, lifting her chin. ‘Whatever it takes, I’m ready.’

The good thing about sneaking out through the Earthenbore was that it gave Ivy plenty of places to hide. Smaller tunnels branched off in every direction, so she could always duck into a side corridor if she heard someone coming.

The unfortunate thing was that Ivy couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t get caught anyway. Turning invisible would keep her from being seen, but it couldn’t mask her scent, or prevent her bumping into someone by accident. And since she couldn’t see unless she glowed at least a little, it would be pointless turning invisible unless she wanted to grope her way through the tunnels with no light at all.

But right now it was early afternoon, the time when the older knockers taught the younger men to refine and work metal, and piskey-wives did their washing and sewing while their daughters looked after the Delve’s small menagerie of livestock, and all the youngest children were at lessons. As long as Ivy didn’t stay away from home too long, there was no reason anyone should notice her missing.

She followed the passage to its final branch, as far from the Delve as she could go while still remaining underground, and began climbing the slope to the surface. Soon the scent of sun-baked earth wafted towards her, and the blackness around her began to lighten. Ivy crept forwards until the ceiling became so low she had to stoop, and then go on hands and knees. At last the tunnel ended in a latticework of brilliant green foliage, with a sliver of sky above it so blue it hurt to look at. She winced and turned her face away.

All her instincts told her to go back, that she wasn’t prepared for this. To leave the earth’s cool embrace and step out into that blazing emptiness, unarmed and unaccompanied, was more than any piskey she knew had ever done. Even Mica had been guided by two seasoned hunters on his first daylight trip, and he’d come back with a headache so fierce he’d spent the rest of the day in bed.

But if Ivy didn’t go out there, she’d never learn to fly.

Keeping her head low to avoid the prickly overhang, Ivy crawled out of the tunnel. Only when the underbrush stopped rustling and she felt the sun’s heat on her black curls did she sit up and slowly crack her eyelids open.

She’d only seen this landscape before at night, when its colours were soft and soothing. Now it shone with a hectic, fevered intensity that made her exhausted just looking at it. How would she ever spot a single bird at this rate, let alone get close enough to study it? She could barely see. If an enemy crept up on her, she wouldn’t know until it was far too late.

Yet Ivy wasn’t about to give up. Learning to climb hadn’t been easy either, and she’d had to start small, scaling the walls of an abandoned stope. And even once that ceased to be a challenge, climbing the Great Shaft had been a terrifying prospect. But Ivy would never forget the thrill when she pulled herself up onto the concrete lip at the top, and leaned out through the bars to feel the rain falling on her upturned face. Fresh air had never tasted so sweet.

She was stronger than anyone knew. She could do this. Ivy squinted, shielded her eyes with one hand, and began edging down the hillside one step at a time.

Some time later Ivy sat cross-legged in the shade of a holly bush, gazing into the sky. Her head throbbed, and sweat trickled down her spine. But her eyes had adjusted to the sunlight now, so she no longer feared that anyone would sneak up on her unnoticed. And she’d already spotted several kinds of birds.

Some had been solitary, winging past with smooth, masterful strokes; others had arrived in clusters, dipping and soaring in patterns intricate as any six-hand reel. She’d seen birds as big as Mica and birds smaller than Flint’s fiddle, birds with long beaks and stubby ones, birds pale as the spriggan’s hair and others dark as her own. But though she’d listened intently to their chirps and cries, none had stirred any answering call in her heart.

Maybe she was just too distracted to concentrate. A few minutes ago a horse and rider had come plunging out of the wood – both of them tiny with distance, but still the sight sent a stab of envy into Ivy’s heart. Even though she’d only seen them in pictures, the love of horses was in her piskey blood, and she longed to leap to her feet and run after it.

But a horse couldn’t take her to Truro and back again before anyone knew she was missing – not like her own wings could. And that was why Ivy had to stay focused until she found the right bird, and learned how to take its shape. So that even if the spriggan turned out to be lying, at least she’d have gained
something
from meeting him.

Time passed, and more birds with it. But still none of them seemed right to Ivy. She told herself to stop being fussy and choose the next bird that came along, but the moment she saw it – a ragged black creature with a scrap of carrion in its beak – her soul rebelled. No matter how badly she wanted to see her mother, she couldn’t shape a bird like that.

The shadows were growing longer now, the sun slipping towards the horizon. If Ivy didn’t get home soon, Cicely would wonder where she’d gone. Disappointed, she got to her feet and began climbing back up the hill. But at least now she knew she could visit the upper world without getting caught by spriggans or blundering into some unforeseen disaster, so perhaps tomorrow…

Something dark flashed across her vision, and instinctively she whirled to follow it. A little bird with wings like a bent bow, body tampering smoothly to a two-pronged fork of a tail. It swooped over the valley, moving so fast that Ivy’s eyes barely had time to focus before it was out of sight.

Swee-ree, swee-ree, swee-ree
, came its song from the distance, a piercing call that plucked at Ivy’s heart. ‘Wait!’ she cried. ‘Come back!’

And to her amazement, it did. Rounding the treetops, it soared towards her and flew a circle above her head, bright eyes watching her all the while. She’d heard that piskeys had a special rapport with animals, but she’d thought that was something only hunters did. She’d never guessed that she could do it, too.

‘What are you?’ she asked, her voice soft with wonder. The bird didn’t answer, of course, but it dipped a little lower. And then a second bird of the same kind came flashing across the hillside to join it, and the two of them chased each other in dizzying spirals across the sky.

It was like magic, and music, and dancing, all at once. And as Ivy’s heart soared with them she knew, as surely as she knew her own name, that this was the bird she wanted to be.

‘Are you sure?’ asked the faery that night, tearing a piece off the loaf Ivy had brought him. ‘Small, forked tail, dark all over? And it stayed aloft the whole time, without coming to land?’

Ivy nodded. She’d stayed as long as she dared studying the little birds, so late that she’d nearly bumped into Mica and Mattock coming back from their trip to Redruth. A quick invisibility spell had protected her, but she still felt sick every time she thought about how close she’d come to being caught. ‘So what kind of bird is it?’ she asked. ‘Does it have a name?’

‘It’s a swift. They’re not resident birds. They winter in Africa and stay here only four or five months of the year. You’re
certain
that’s the one?’

‘Why do you keep asking me that?’ asked Ivy. ‘I thought you’d be pleased. If I fly then so do you, remember?’

‘Believe me,’ said the prisoner, ‘I haven’t forgotten for an instant.’ He chewed another mouthful before going on, ‘It’s just a bit unusual. I’ve never met anyone who shaped a swift before. So are you ready for the next step?’

‘Of course,’ said Ivy.

‘Then tell me. What do swifts eat?’

‘I’m…not sure. Insects?’

‘Well, you’d better find out, because you’re going to be eating it yourself.’ His gaze held hers, relentless. ‘How does a swift drink? Where does it sleep? How long can it fly, how high, how far? What predators does it fear, and how does it avoid them? How does it behave around other swifts?’

She had no answers for any of those. ‘Why does any of that matter?’ she asked. ‘All I want to do is fly.’