Darkwing (6 page)

Dusk turned to his mother in amazement. “You too?”

“Of course,” Mistral said.

“This is so incredible,” Sylph said to Dusk, her eyes bright with excitement.

“She was the better hunter,” Icaron admitted. “Stealthier, with a superior sense of—”

Dusk saw his mother shoot Dad a warning glance.

“—much better senses,” Icaron finished. “She was excellent at scouting out nests.”

“So you saw saurians close up?” Sylph asked their mother.

“Well, we tried to wait until the adults were far from the nests. But yes, sometimes we came very close to them.”

Sylph nuzzled her mother’s shoulder admiringly. “I wish I’d hunted saurian eggs like you, sneaking up on—”

“Don’t say such things,” Icaron snapped. “They’re offensive to me.”

All the exhilaration flew from Sylph’s face and was replaced by astonishment and hurt.

Mistral looked at Icaron. “She’s young and excited,” she told her mate quietly. “You’re too severe with her.”

“She should know better, especially after what she’s just heard me say. I expect more from my own daughter. These are not things to boast about.”

Sylph said nothing, and in her dark, hooded eyes, Dusk saw a simmering resentment. This was hardly the first time their father had spoken sharply to her. Some days it seemed that Sylph did nothing but irritate him. She was too loud. She shouted and argued and objected. Things were boring or stupid or unfair. Dusk pressed closer to his sister, hoping to comfort her, but she wouldn’t look at him. The dogged set to her face made him anxious.

“But what’s wrong,” she began, “with protecting the colony from saurian nests?”

“Sylph …” her mother said warningly.

“I think if I found saurian eggs near us, I’d be like Nova and want to—”

Icaron’s teeth clashed mere inches from her left shoulder. Sylph recoiled with a cry, and Dusk let out a loud, startled exhalation. Sylph scuttled behind their mother, whimpering. Dusk looked from his father to his mother, expecting her to rebuke Icaron, but she said nothing, just hung her head sadly.

“Learn your place,” Icaron told Sylph. “And learn some sense as well.”

No one spoke as the four of them settled down into their deep furrows in the bark. Sylph stuck close to her mother, refusing to go near Icaron or even glance in his direction. Dusk was happy enough to lie beside Dad. He didn’t like to see his father so angry, but Sylph
had
been exasperating—goading him almost. Dusk happily breathed in the familiar scents of the tree and the night, of his parents and sister around him.

He scarcely knew which of his many questions to ask his parents next; he was so overwhelmed by their new identities.

Slayers of saurians.

Breakers of the Pact.

“How did you cross to the island?” Dusk asked suddenly.

“It wasn’t easy,” said Icaron. “We watched for a long time, and twice each day the water briefly drew back from the mainland and left a narrow path of sand to the island. The coast of the mainland is high, and we climbed to the tallest trees overlooking the water. We chose a day when the wind was behind us. We waited until the water had pulled back, and we launched ourselves towards the island. Some of us managed to glide across the whole way. Some landed on the sand and walked the rest of the way. Some landed on the water and drowned. Twenty of us made it across to start new lives.”

Dusk shuddered, glad that he’d never had to make such a perilous journey. And yet he couldn’t help envying his parents their early adventures. He wondered if he would have any of his own.

“Can Sylph and I come tomorrow on the expedition?” he asked.

“Certainly not,” said his mother. “All newborns will stay behind.”

“But—” Sylph began to object loudly, but their mother gave a sharp grunt and Sylph fell silent.

Dusk almost chuckled, amazed at his sister’s boldness. There was no keeping her down for long.

“To sleep now,” said Icaron.

Dusk dreamed he was examining the saurian, studying its massive, featherless wings. He touched the taut skin. It felt like his own.

The creature stirred and turned towards him. Once more, Dusk saw himself reflected in its huge eye.

The saurian breathed upon him and said, “I give you my wings.”

Dusk opened his eyes from the dream, feeling alarmed and excited and guilty all at once. He’d felt such delight at the idea that he could fly. But dreams weren’t true, he knew that well enough. How many times had he dreamed he was flying, only to wake up crouched against the bark? He remembered his mother’s words: he should try to be like the other chiropters. But was he really even like them? He closed his eyes again, but sleep would not come.

Judging by the silence shrouding the tree, the rest of the colony seemed to have little trouble sleeping, as if this were any other night and they hadn’t just heard their own momentous history for the first time.

Quietly, so as not to disturb his family, he left the roost and crept a ways down the branch, around the nests of other sleeping chiropters. At the tip of the branch, near his family’s hunting perch, he crouched. The moon had not risen yet, and the clearing and forest beyond were hidden by a great veil of darkness. Down near the earth, sprawled dead amongst the low branches, was the winged saurian.

A quetzal, his father had called it. It had spoken to him as it died.

Here on the branch, he felt poised on the very edge of night. Before and below, it stretched out, endlessly deep. The darkness did not frighten him; it never had. He knew it scared many of the newborns, and adults too. They gladly retreated to their nests when night came. But for some reason, he never minded it when he woke up alone at night, with no company but the crickets and the stars.

A firefly briefly sparked the darkness, and instinctively Dusk sent out a barrage of hunting clicks. In his mind’s eye, the firefly and its trajectory gleamed and then—

His breath jerked out in surprise.

Silvery light bloomed out from the firefly, like ripples spreading through a pool of water, revealing a constellation of other insects, and beyond them the weave of branches on the far side of the clearing. The light slowly faded and Dusk was left staring at the blackness.

Like all chiropters, he’d always used his hunting clicks to target prey.

But he’d never known they could bring light to the dark.

Tentatively he sent forth another stream of clicks. His ears pricked high and swivelled to catch the returning echoes. Once more, within his head, the world appeared etched in silver. The thousands of flying insects appeared as streaks of light against the stillness of the great redwood trunks and branches. Did anyone know there were so many insects active at night: moths and beetles and mosquitoes, enough to feed an entire colony of chiropters!

The world faded to black again and Dusk inhaled deeply. He could see in the dark!

Why hadn’t anyone told him? Did Sylph already know, and was just keeping it to herself? He wouldn’t put it past her. Or maybe no one had realized. During the day, it would be hard to notice, since the world was already illuminated. And that was the only time they hunted and used their clicks.

How far, he wondered, could he see? He angled his head down, in the direction of the redwood that held the dead saurian. It was a long way. He fired out hunting clicks.

His echoes illuminated more airborne insects, but this time evaporated before they brought him back any image of the faraway tree. It seemed to be beyond his range. He wasn’t ready to give up, though. He took a breath, opened his mouth wider, and sang out an aria of stronger and longer hunting clicks.

He didn’t even see the insects this time, only darkness. But just as he was about to give up, the distant lower branches of the redwood bloomed in his mind’s eye. And there, towards the trunk, he caught sight of the saurian’s head and sagging wing, lit by echo light.

This was incredible! Not only could he see in the dark, but he could see things up close or far away—in a quick blossom of light, or a slow flare, depending on how he shaped his hunting clicks.

He tried again, studying the saurian’s outline.

“Dusk?”

He startled at the sound of his sister’s voice beside him. After the brightness of his sonic images, she seemed dim in the starlight. “Hi,” he said. “Can’t sleep either?”

She shook her head. “What are you doing?”

“Just looking around.”

She stared at him strangely. “Looking at what? It’s pitch black.” Dusk was delighted. “You don’t know? You really don’t know! You can use your hunting clicks!”

“To see in the dark?” she said.

He nodded. “I don’t know why they never told us. It’s really amazing. Try it. You can see it all in your head.”

Sylph turned to the clearing, and Dusk saw her throat and jaw vibrate as she made her clicks. He waited expectantly for her face to lift with delight. “Well?” he said after a moment. “I think I saw a bug or two.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“But there’s hundreds of bugs out there!”

“Maybe. But I just saw a few that were fairly close.”

“Try again. You can send out stronger clicks.”

“How do I do that?” she demanded loudly.

“Shush,” he said, “you’ll wake everyone!”

“Don’t shush me, Dusk,” she whispered dangerously. “I’ve been shushed quite enough already.”

“Sorry. All right, make stronger clicks …” How could he explain it? With him it had come instinctively. “Just concentrate on casting your clicks farther, with an extra kick at the end. Does that make sense? We’ll do it together. Oh, and try closing your eyes. It makes it easier to concentrate. Ready?”

Sylph cleared her throat and barked out some hunting clicks alongside Dusk’s. “Nothing,” she said after a moment. “This is a joke, isn’t it.”

“You didn’t see the trees across the clearing?”

“No. Why, did you?”

Dusk did not know what to say.

“Tell me,” Sylph insisted, sounding almost angry. “What did you see?”

“Just a bit of a tree.”

“You’re lying. What else?”

“All the trunks, and the branches too, all silvery but very clear. I could see knotholes and grooves in the bark. Their leaves shimmered, because the wind moves them, I guess. It’s really pretty, how they dance and glow. And around the branches there’s a million bugs, like shooting stars, and deeper into the trees there’s a kind of glow, a hum, of everything just living and moving.”

When he finished speaking, Sylph said nothing for a moment, then, “You saw all that with your eyes closed?”

He nodded eagerly.

“This is so unfair,” she muttered. “You just discovered you could do this?”

“I never tried it at night before,” he said. “Maybe lots of us can do it.”

“No one ever told us chiropters could see in the dark.”

“You think I’m the only one who can do this?” he asked. He couldn’t help feeling pleased at the idea he had a special skill. “Maybe I should ask Mom if she’s ever done it.”

Sylph snorted. “She’ll just tell you to stop being different.” Dusk started to feel anxious. “I don’t want Dad to think I’m a freak.”

His father had always seemed patient with his other differences—his strange, furless wings, his missing claws, weak legs,
and too-big ears—but maybe this new thing would be too much. He remembered the fury in his father’s face when he snapped at Sylph. Dusk never wanted to have that directed at him.

“Don’t worry,” said Sylph, “you’ve always been Dad’s favourite anyway.”

“That’s not true,” Dusk said uncomfortably. “He never gets angry with you. It’s always me. He just thinks I’m noisy.”

“Well, you are sometimes.”

“If I were a male, he wouldn’t care. It’s because I’m female. Dad doesn’t think much of females.”

“No, Sylph!” Dusk was astounded. He’d never even thought about this before. Hadn’t Dad always treated Mom well?

“You wouldn’t notice because you’re male. Males get to name their families. Males get to be leaders and elders.”

“Nova’s an elder, and she’s female!”

“And it drives Dad mad. Look how he treated her at the assembly.”

“She deserved it!”

“Did she? What if she’s right?”

“Sylph! Dad’s right.”

“Yeah, Dad thinks so too.” His sister sniffed. “All the time.”

“Dad knows better than all of us,” Dusk reminded her. “He’s older, and he’s been leader for twenty years.”

“Then ask him about seeing in the dark,” Sylph said, a bit sulkily. “And see what he says.”

Dusk wasn’t sure any more. Tomorrow there was to be an expedition to search the island for saurian nests, and his father would be distracted and busy.

“I just hope I’m not the only one,” Dusk said. Sylph gave a noncommittal grunt. “I’m going to sleep now. Coming?”

“I’ll be back soon.”

Alone once more, Dusk settled down on the branch and sent his sonic gaze towards the dead saurian. The outline of its massive wing flared in his mind’s eye, furless, stretched taut over bone—not so unlike his own sails really. It was not a comfortable thought. He let the image quickly dissolve in his mind.

He could still smell its rank dying breath in his nostrils.
I give you my wings.
He realized he was shaking. He felt like the saurian had cracked the sky of his world wide open.