Behind him, Vortcir whispered, intensely: “Fly with me, friend Rahm!”
Rahm turned and, with an avidity that surprised him, threw his arms around that powerful neck, as Vortcir turned (in turn) to take him. Rahm bent one arm down across the flexing shoulder. “Watch that thou dost not crash the two of us onto the rocks!” Was Vortcir’s head as full of wine as his …?
The feeling, that he had almost grown used to by now, was that the Winged One who carried him took a great breath that finally just lifted his feet from the ground, a breath that didn’t stop — the air itself taking them higher, and higher, and higher.
“This is a fine night to fly!” Vortcir called back.
Fires flickered below them. A file of Winged Ones flew just above the flame. Wing after wing reddened, darkened. Loosed from it all and looking down on it over the Hands-man’s shoulder, Rahm felt the whole nest site and all the flying folk he’d met there, children, adults, and oldsters, to be wondrously and intricately organized — as fine, as rich, and as logical as any folk could be.
“You like the life we lead, don’t you?” came the child-voice.
Rahm nodded, his cheek moving against the Hands-man’s flour-scoop of an ear — which twitched against him.
“They are good men and women,” Rahm said. They arched away from the cliff-side and the water’s rush and the jutting trees, all black below them now. “They have all been kind to me.”
“And you are happy,” Vortcir said. “I can hear it.” Rahm said: “The wine has dulled thy hearing.”
“For a moment — for several moments — ” Vortcir shook his head in a kind of shiver, though his wings still pumped them steadily across the night — “you were happy. Will you stay with us, friend Rahm?” The only sound was the air, loud in Rahm’s ears — though surely much louder in Vortcir’s. “I have heard your answer.” Beside them, the mountain rose.
Rahm spoke rather to himself than to Vortcir, because he already knew it was not necessary: “I want to go home…”“I have heard,” Vortcir repeated.
They descended the night.
“Where are we?” Rahm moved his feet in soil that held small rocks, leaves, and twigs. Neither moon or stars broke the darkness.
“At the edge of the meadow where you bury your dead.” Wide wings beat, not to fly but to enfold him, shaking on him and about him in a manner both affectionate and distressed. “Do not stumble — ” the little voice sounded rough and close, as the wings parted — “on the corpses.”
“Are there many about?”
“They have brought many. No one has buried them, yet. Friend Rahm…?”
“Yes, Vortcir?”
“I must go back up now to my own people. But I will listen for you always.” The high, breathy chuckle. “That’s what we say when we leave a friend.”
Rahm put his arms around Vortcir’s shoulders once more, to grasp the creature to him who, in the dark, was only furred muscle, a high voice, a knee against his, a hot breath against his face and a scent more animal than human. Rahm stepped back. “And I will watch and… listen for thee! Vortcir…?” Wind struck against him for answer. A little dust blew against his cheeks and got into one eye, making Rahm turn away, rubbing at it with his fore-knuckle, so that the beating was at his back. Then it was above, thundering dully. Somewhere, as the sound stilled, a breeze rose over it with its own thunder of leaves and shushing grasses. (It brought with it an unpleasant smell, like rotting vegetables and clogged waters; but Rahm tried not to name it, or even pay attention to it.) When it stilled, all sound was gone.
Beneath Rahm’s feet, grass gave way to path dust. He walked. Firelight flickered from inside a window. By one shack, he stopped to look in — through a crack between two logs under the sill; a crack, he realized, he’d peeped through many, many nights one winter, years ago, when someone else entirely had lived there.
A woman sat at the table, her head down, her shoulders hunched high. Two grown sisters had lived in this hut for the past half-dozen years. Rahm pulled away sharply when it struck him what it likely meant that only one was there tonight.
He turned and hurried across the road and ducked into the darkness between two houses. For a moment he wondered if he was lost, but, at the glow from another hut’s shutter, open perhaps three inches, he realized where he was.
Going up to the dim strip of light, he looked through. On a table a lot more rickety than the one in the last hut, a clay lamp burned with a flame more orange than yellow. Sitting on a bench, back against the wall and staring straight forward, was a man — whose name Rahm didn’t know.
But he knew those shoulders — and the short, spiky hair: and the face. The man, not half a dozen years older than Rahm, worked on one of the quarry crews, sometimes with Abrid and… Kern.
Odd, Rahm thought, that there are people in my town whom I really don’t know — though I’ve seen them, now and again, all my life. I probably know the names and the names of most of the relatives of practically every field worker. But do I know more than a dozen of those who work in the stone pits…?
The surprise, of course, was that the man lived here. But then, Rahm went on thinking, that is what makes this town mine. It still holds for me perfectly simple things to learn, like what the name is or where the house lies of one of its stone workers…
Then the thought interrupted itself: Is he blind…? The man’s eyes were open. He looked right at the window. Only inches out in the darkness, Rahm could not believe himself unseen. But the man’s expression was the complete blank of one who slept with his eyes wide. Standing in the darkness, concentrating to read that blankness, Rahm was equally still, equally blank —
The man started forward.
Rahm started back — but something held him.
The man was up, moving to the window. He looked out at Rahm, and gave a grunt — the way quarrymen so often did. “I thank thee,” he said, softly, roughly — though Rahm had no idea why — and smiled. “But thou hast better go. The patrol comes soon.” He pulled the window closed.
Rahm stood in the dark, bewildered by the exchange. What, he found himself wondering, would I have seen had I looked into this same window last night before the wailing? Two other quarry workers sharing the hut with him? Perhaps a woman — perhaps two?
Some children? What absences in the house today did the blankness — or the smile — mean?
The return from his wander the previous day had started Rahm pondering all he knew of his village. But his return tonight, after the violence of the night before and the wonders of the day, had started him pondering all he did not know of it.
Rahm crossed the dark path. Nearing the common, he walked by more close-set huts.
Old Hara the Weaver’s cottage had never had a shutter — at least not on its back window. But a hanging had been tacked up across it — although, at one edge, it had fallen away so that a little light came through. Within, he could hear the old woman talking — to herself, Rahm realized, as, with his fingertips on the window ledge, he put his eye to the opening between the window edge and the cloth.
“They shall not have it! They shall not! I said it in the council, and I say it now: they shall not have it!” He could see Hara moving about before the fire, a sharp-shouldered figure. Now she put down an armful of cloth — and, taking up a cooking blade, she began to slash at one piece and another as she lifted them. “Never for them — they shall not!” With a hard, hard motion, she flung one handful and another of rags into the flames.
Rahm pulled back — even though the pieces did not flare.