Above World (10 page)

“Hm?”

“What are you doing?”

“Combinations,” he said, as if that explained everything. She waited. “The water safe,” he added. “I’m trying more number sequences on the lock.”

“Are you almost done trying them all?”

Hoku snorted. She didn’t ask again.

Her hand went to the small pouch she wore around her neck. She longed to take her mother’s ring out, to roll it in her palm and admire how it shone. She tucked the pouch back into her shirt to keep it safe and hidden, along with the Ocean Seed.

Her hand drifted up to the earring High Senator Electra had clipped to her earlobe, then down to the base of her neck. The holes where her breathing shell had burrowed its tails were closed, as if the necklace had sewn her back up on its way out of her flesh. The skin there was sensitive, like a bruise, and her throat felt raw and angry. Aluna pulled out the breather device that had saved her life. Could she use it to return to the water?

“What kind of food do you think they gave us?” Hoku asked. He must have gotten frustrated with his water safe. Aluna walked over and picked up the pouch of water the Aviars had tossed in her cell. She took a long swig while eyeing the meat at her feet.

“It’s probably not one of the Deepfell,” she said, trying to keep the smile from her voice. “It smells cooked, and they didn’t have time to do that.”

“Barnacles!” Hoku said. “I didn’t even think of that. Maybe I’m not hungry after all.”

“Don’t be silly. You have to eat.” She picked up the meat by its protruding bone and sniffed it. “Mmm,” she said, pretending her mouth was full. “Tastes great!”

“Ha ha,” came Hoku’s dry reply. “I’m not a youngling anymore, you know.”

She laughed. “I’m starting to figure that out.” The meat’s aroma tickled her nose. She took a tentative bite and then another, much bigger, bite. “Hoku, you have to try this. I’ve never tasted anything like it.” She finished her piece and gnawed on the bone to get every last scrap of food from it. “If you don’t want yours, I’ll take it!”

“Keep your fins to yourself,” Hoku said with his mouth full. “I may be small, but I’m scrappy.”

They dozed and talked while they waited, alternating their conversation between praise for the food they’d just eaten and plans for their imminent escape.

“Okay, so we kill a few Aviars and make wings from their feathers,” Hoku said. “I’ll handle the wing making,” he said, “and you’ll take care of the . . . feather procurement.”

“The killing, you mean,” Aluna said. “Killing Deepfell and Aviars isn’t like trapping crabs or collecting mussels. I’d rather find another way.” Her sister, Daphine, would be able to talk them out of captivity. She’d probably get them all a free ride back to the ocean, too.

Hoku sighed. “Well, it’s not like we have a lot of options.”

Something moved in the hallway. Aluna and Hoku became still as starfish. Someone was shuffling down the corridor.

“Don’t be scared,” a voice said. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Hoku whispered, “And there’s a pearl in every oyster.”

Aluna stood up and walked over to the bars of her cell. A girl Aviar about Hoku’s age slouched in the hallway, gripping a strange rectangular object in both hands. She had long dull-brown hair and tawny wings painted black at the tips. She wore one of the intricate gold necklaces Aluna had seen on every bird-woman so far.

“Who are you?” Aluna said. She didn’t see much purpose for courtesy when she was being forced to eat meat off the ground and pee into a hole in the floor. Of course, she didn’t see much purpose for courtesy in general.

“I’m Calli,” the girl said.

“Did you come here to torture us?” Hoku asked.

“No, don’t be silly,” Calli said with a nervous laugh. “I was just listening to you, and you sounded nice. I particularly liked the part about not wanting to kill us.” She held up the strange box in her hands. Knobs and buttons protruded from the surface, each surrounded by strange markings.

“What do you mean, you were listening to us?” Aluna asked. “Were you hiding around the corner?” Even then, the girl shouldn’t have been able to hear. They’d been whispering, letting their voices sound in each other’s ears the way they did back in the ocean.

The girl put her box on the ground and fiddled with its buttons. Then she turned it so the front faced their cells. The box crackled.

“Say something,” Calli said. “Anything.”

“Is that an artifact?” Hoku asked. As he was saying it, Aluna heard his voice in her ears and from the box at the same time.

“Magic!” she said. And the box said, “Magic!” too — in her voice!

“It’s a radio,” Calli said, grinning. “I check all the frequencies every day, just in case.” She blushed, but continued, “This is the first time I’ve ever heard anything.”

“That’s amazing,” Hoku said, his surly mood instantly forgotten. “A radio! I’ve heard about them, but I’ve never seen one. Well, except for the ones in our throats and ears.”

“These things are in our ears?” Aluna asked, trying to keep up.

“Yes,” Hoku and Calli answered together, then laughed. Calli’s cheeks reddened, and Aluna imagined Hoku’s cheeks were doing the same.

Oh, ink it all!
This was not the time for another one of his hopeless crushes.

“Are you Humans?” Calli asked.

Aluna snorted. “Of course not. Do we look like barbarians to you?”

“No, I didn’t mean —”

“We’re Kampii,” Hoku said quickly. “You know, from the ocean?”

“Oh! That explains your necklace,” Calli said to Hoku. She ran a finger along the elaborate golden links around her throat. “The tech that allows you to breathe underwater helps you get more oxygen up here, too.”

“That’s why Aluna got sky sickness and I didn’t,” Hoku said brightly. “Because she doesn’t have a breathing shell anymore.”

Why would he say that to a stranger? To an enemy? He may as well just stab her in the back and be done with it.

“We were designed for high altitudes,” Calli said, ignoring Hoku’s comment but avoiding Aluna’s gaze all the same. “But we can fly hundreds of meters higher than this, and then we need the oxygen the necklaces give us. Down here, at Skyfeather’s Landing, they’re mostly just pretty.”

“Pretty,” Hoku said. “Yeah, the necklaces are pretty.”

Calli blushed and fiddled with a knob on her radio.

“What about the ocean?” Aluna asked. “Could an Aviar necklace help me breathe underwater?”

Her heart thudded in her chest.
Please say yes.

But Calli shook her head. “The water makes things complicated. . . .”

“Our shells don’t just give us air,” Hoku said. “They change our lungs to deal with the pressure. They do a lot more than just —”

“Fine,” Aluna said. “I understand.” She’d done this to herself. Her choice, her sacrifice, her price. There was no easy fix.

Suddenly Calli’s gaze darted down the hallway, her eyes wide. She twisted a knob on the radio and the crackling stopped.

“Someone’s coming,” she said. She hugged the radio to her chest, looking ever so much like Hoku cradling his water safe, except with wings. She backed farther into the hallway and hid in a shadowy alcove.

Four Aviars walked up to their cells, led by High Senator Electra. She thumped the bottom of her spear on the stone floor with all the ceremony and arrogance of Elder Peleke.

“The president will see you now.”

“I
S THIS HOW
you will present yourselves to President Iolanthe? Have you no pride?” High Senator Electra said.

Hoku ran his hand through his hair and smoothed the pockets on his shirt. Without the ocean, he had no way to wash the sand and grime off his skin. Feeling dirty was a new sensation, and he didn’t enjoy it.

“It’s no use,” the Aviar snapped. “We’d need a platoon of groomers to make you presentable, and the president will not be kept waiting. Senators Hypatia and Niobe will now release you from your cells. Do not attempt an escape. Do not fight. Show proper respect for the president and you will be afforded the prisoner’s right to a quick and merciful death . . . should the president decide your lives are no longer necessary.”

Hoku glanced back at the alcove where Calli was hiding, but couldn’t see her in the shadows.
Good.
She’d been the first even remotely nice Aviar they’d met so far. Also, he wanted another look at her radio.

Senator Hypatia — Whitefeather from the beach — opened Aluna’s cell first, and Hoku heard, “Get your feathers off me. I can walk all by myself.”

Hoku sucked in a breath. As much as he admired her bravery, sometimes he wished she’d choose the coward’s path of flinching and silence.
His
path. It made certain predicaments much easier to survive.

Senator Electra chuckled. “I see you have recovered from the sky sickness, child. I think I liked you better when you were closer to death.”

Redfeather, Senator Niobe, opened his door and motioned for him to exit. He went without a struggle. As she shoved him down the corridor, Hoku glanced back at Calli’s alcove. The winged girl was gone.

During their first trip through the Palace of Wings, he’d been too worried about Aluna to concentrate on their surroundings. Now, as they walked to their probable death, he couldn’t take his eyes off the murals covering the walls. Back home, pictures were created by pressing different colored shells and stones into a soft surface to make patterns and images. Mosaics, his teachers had called them. But here, the images were painted in vivid colors directly on the walls. Aviars fought Humans. Aviars flew in a great flock through the sky. Aviars sat together eating, playing instruments, and making things with their hands. The Kampii treasured secrecy, but the Aviars seemed just the opposite: they shouted everything they did and everything they were in vivid color and detail.

After being pushed and prodded down a series of passages, they all stepped through an opening into a small, square room. Four huge ropes ran through holes in the ceiling, passed vertically through the room, and exited through worn holes in the floor.

Niobe and Hypatia propped their spears against the wall and started pulling on the ropes. The floor lurched.

“A shifting room?” Aluna asked, reaching for the wall.

But the floor wasn’t shifting; it was
dropping.
Hoku’s heart beat faster. What wonderful new tech was this? The holes in the ceiling were larger, so he could see the mechanism. “Pulleys?” he asked.

“Yes! It’s called an elevator,” Senator Hypatia said in between pulls of the rope, her face suddenly open and animated. “It runs up through the center of the Palace of Wings. This used to be a standard descent and ascent column, until the president —”

“Enough!” Electra said. Hypatia clamped her mouth shut and actually seemed to blush.

“Before the president did what?” Aluna asked.

“Nothing, prisoner,” High Senator Electra said, visibly tightening the grip on her spear. “Remain silent.” Even Aluna got the hint that time.

Down, down, down they went. Through the one open wall, they could see the other levels in the palace whoosh by in a blur. Hoku enjoyed the falling sensation much more than the lifting one he’d experienced when they were first captured. His stomach felt like it was scrambling to catch up, but he didn’t care. Part of him wanted to yell and laugh. A bigger part of him wanted to figure out how it all worked. It must go up as well as down, since it was called an “elevator.”

A few moments later, a
thump
shook the tiny room. Then a
thump-thump-thump.
The senators on the ropes stopped pulling, and the thumping slowed.

“Those bumps — they let you know that you’re getting close to the bottom so you can slow down,” Hoku said. “Brilliant!”

High Senator Electra scowled at him, but Hypatia snuck him a quick nod behind her back. The Aviars braced themselves against the walls, so Hoku did the same. Aluna followed his example, just in time. The room shuddered to a stop. His teeth knocked together, but he didn’t lose his balance.

They filed out into yet another corridor. This one was wider and higher than the others. Bits of the colorful murals along the walls glinted in gold and silver.

“Wait here,” High Senator Electra said. She strode forward, to the end of the corridor. Hoku heard her yell, “The High Senator wishes to present the prisoners to Her Royalness, President Iolanthe. May she enter the Oval Chamber?”

After a moment, Electra turned around and motioned to the other guards. “Bring them.”

Hoku stopped at the threshold of the Oval Chamber and stared. The room was big. Bigger than the ritual dome, bigger than the old broken stadium dome. It was more of a mangled circle than an oval. They’d clearly been going for oval but hadn’t quite hit their mark. He looked up, and a thousand glittering, golden Aviars stared back at him. The winged women had been carved right into the ceiling and lit from all sides by a ring of high windows lining the room. They shimmered, forever in flight.

Next to him, he heard Aluna suck in her breath.

“Tides’ teeth,” she whispered.

“Exactly,” he agreed. Why hadn’t he known more about this city? Why hadn’t the Kampii been sharing tech with the Aviars all along? Together, their peoples would be so much stronger than they were alone.