beyond this double-Dutch jumble.
He was thinking a great deal now about the old bird-catcher, the slow quelling of their catch in the dawn light as the lurching cart rumbled back through the lanes to London. The clangor of the heavy iron stars in their baskets at each jounce. The smell of bird shite a sour urgent note over the green gassiness of fresh dung and the wet, rank coal smoke pooling in the cool air. Guilt meant nothing to the hungry and the desperate—no more than to a wolf biting down on the neck of a lamb. A merciful shake, snap of the spine: food.
Businesslike arrangement.
Now he was concerned with larger things. Even as a child, Glaucous had been dimly aware that nothing was what it seemed. The pretty scrim of seeming was freshly painted each hour for those with money and position, a facade for the privileged, a mask over the cruelty beneath. To the poor, the hungry, the rule of privilege was an acid spew between rotten teeth, hardly worth a hoot in a legless fuddle. War and you go die in a ditch. Lift a loaf to feed your sibs and the rozzers poke you in the ribs and you squat all ashiver in stir, each breath a stab.
Death and pain and privilege, out of one’s control, keep your eyes on the gutter before the rats bite. I know this place . Here is where privilege ends. My luck: the doom of the birds. He stopped to catch his breath. A wonder any of them could breathe. Magic in the group, Daniel didn’t call it that—but so it was to him. And yet he would have sold magic Jack into a cage, and then the Gape would have taken him here, along with the girl and so many others—and all hope would have gone. Catch the birds. Bite the neck and bleed the lamb. Never my chick. Never my lamb. Businesslike.
But this…
Even back in the lanes, bobbing on the tail of the cart, even then young Max could draw fortune, steer the cart to the quietest, least hunted fields beneath the biggest, darkest flocks. Even then he could fume out a cloudy seeming of happy birds and berries and bugs, piles of seeds surrounded by safety. An illusion of plenty with no hawks, no hunters.
Something pushed on his shoulders and he hunched, waiting for a blow. Breathing became more difficult. He might strangle. He couldn’t see Daniel or Jack now.
But one was never alone.
Glaucous looked up, wincing at what he knew he would see. Instead, a brown muddle presented itself—like a sky filled with coils of coal smoke: curls and spirals and curves and slow, desperate flashes like drugged lightning. The smoke chunked down like hazy stones caught in the plunge of a landslide, trying to catch and pin the lines and curls. All in utter silence. Through it all flew wide, dusty wings and a wriggling wisp of a man who wasn’t there.
Glaucous fell to his knees, as he always did in the presence of bad power. The Moth.
As well, a thin man with a club foot dressed in sooty black stepped from the murk and held out his arms.
“Last call,” Whitlow said cheerily. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Max. She has been harsh, blaming us. But you— you’re in her glory and grace. Brought in the pretty birds all by yourself. And one extra. My prize. The bad shepherd.”
Glaucous swallowed his fear. “About them—”
“No apologies, and no going back, Mr. Glaucous. Time to receive your reward.”
The clouded, whirling rocks spun away from an open center.
“Come with us,” Whitlow said. “The Moth leads the way, as always.”
CHAPTER 106
Which of you dreams of the past?
Who carries the book?
The marchers tried to hide Tiadba—and one by one were firmly shunted aside. Khren and Frinna clung with the most conviction. Then they, too, were whisked away.
Paleness and sadness descended upon her alone once more. She was surrounded again by the procession of female forms that just eluded clarity. The sadness settled. The females, like jewels carved from different stages of the motion of a real being, folded together, combined—
Became one
He was thinking a great deal now about the old bird-catcher, the slow quelling of their catch in the dawn light as the lurching cart rumbled back through the lanes to London. The clangor of the heavy iron stars in their baskets at each jounce. The smell of bird shite a sour urgent note over the green gassiness of fresh dung and the wet, rank coal smoke pooling in the cool air. Guilt meant nothing to the hungry and the desperate—no more than to a wolf biting down on the neck of a lamb. A merciful shake, snap of the spine: food.
Businesslike arrangement.
Now he was concerned with larger things. Even as a child, Glaucous had been dimly aware that nothing was what it seemed. The pretty scrim of seeming was freshly painted each hour for those with money and position, a facade for the privileged, a mask over the cruelty beneath. To the poor, the hungry, the rule of privilege was an acid spew between rotten teeth, hardly worth a hoot in a legless fuddle. War and you go die in a ditch. Lift a loaf to feed your sibs and the rozzers poke you in the ribs and you squat all ashiver in stir, each breath a stab.
Death and pain and privilege, out of one’s control, keep your eyes on the gutter before the rats bite. I know this place . Here is where privilege ends. My luck: the doom of the birds. He stopped to catch his breath. A wonder any of them could breathe. Magic in the group, Daniel didn’t call it that—but so it was to him. And yet he would have sold magic Jack into a cage, and then the Gape would have taken him here, along with the girl and so many others—and all hope would have gone. Catch the birds. Bite the neck and bleed the lamb. Never my chick. Never my lamb. Businesslike.
But this…
Even back in the lanes, bobbing on the tail of the cart, even then young Max could draw fortune, steer the cart to the quietest, least hunted fields beneath the biggest, darkest flocks. Even then he could fume out a cloudy seeming of happy birds and berries and bugs, piles of seeds surrounded by safety. An illusion of plenty with no hawks, no hunters.
Something pushed on his shoulders and he hunched, waiting for a blow. Breathing became more difficult. He might strangle. He couldn’t see Daniel or Jack now.
But one was never alone.
Glaucous looked up, wincing at what he knew he would see. Instead, a brown muddle presented itself—like a sky filled with coils of coal smoke: curls and spirals and curves and slow, desperate flashes like drugged lightning. The smoke chunked down like hazy stones caught in the plunge of a landslide, trying to catch and pin the lines and curls. All in utter silence. Through it all flew wide, dusty wings and a wriggling wisp of a man who wasn’t there.
Glaucous fell to his knees, as he always did in the presence of bad power. The Moth.
As well, a thin man with a club foot dressed in sooty black stepped from the murk and held out his arms.
“Last call,” Whitlow said cheerily. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, Max. She has been harsh, blaming us. But you— you’re in her glory and grace. Brought in the pretty birds all by yourself. And one extra. My prize. The bad shepherd.”
Glaucous swallowed his fear. “About them—”
“No apologies, and no going back, Mr. Glaucous. Time to receive your reward.”
The clouded, whirling rocks spun away from an open center.
“Come with us,” Whitlow said. “The Moth leads the way, as always.”
CHAPTER 106
Which of you dreams of the past?
Who carries the book?
The marchers tried to hide Tiadba—and one by one were firmly shunted aside. Khren and Frinna clung with the most conviction. Then they, too, were whisked away.
Paleness and sadness descended upon her alone once more. She was surrounded again by the procession of female forms that just eluded clarity. The sadness settled. The females, like jewels carved from different stages of the motion of a real being, folded together, combined—
Became one
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