Silverwing

  He stared, hating the owl. No bat could kill an owl. They were giants, five times as big, maybe more. He should have been more afraid. He was smaller, but he could go places it couldn't, between tight gaps in branches; he could fold himself into a crevice in a tree's trunk; he could make himself almost invisible against bark.

  There was a sudden rush of air behind him and there was his mother, hovering.

  "Fly!" she hissed. "Now!"

  Her voice was so urgent and so angry he followed her instantly. Down the hill they plunged, hugging the tree line. He looked back over his wing and saw the owl, following at a distance, its gigantic wings swinging leisurely. The sun had not yet broken the horizon.

  They flew over the creek and the owl was still there.

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  Shade felt a sudden warmth on his wings, and looked. They shone brightly. The sun:

  "Into the trees!" Ariel cried over her wing. "Don't look back!"

  He looked.

  A tiny sliver of the sun had cleared the horizon, spilling dazzling light into the valley. It was so powerful, so intense it sucked the breath right out of him, and he had to close his eyes tight.

  He locked onto his mother with his echo vision, and followed her as she plunged below the tree line. The rank smell of the owl crashed over him as its claws whistled past his tail, nearly piercing his wings.

  He was down among the trees now, and all around him, the birds were rising and setting up a terrible shriek. Weaving crazily through the foliage, he pushed himself hard to keep up with his mother. At last, they burst out into the clearing. But so did the owl, who'd been following from above the trees. It dropped toward them like a hailstone. Shade and his mother rolled in opposite directions to avoid its claws, then came together again, streaking toward the mighty gnarled branches of Tree Haven, through the knothole and into the safe darkness inside.

  Tree Haven

  Tree Haven was a vast, ancient oak, with furrowed bark, and thick, gnarled roots buckling from the ground. Hundreds of years ago it had been struck by lightning, killing the tree and petrifying the outside. The Silverwings had hollowed out the great trunk, and the many branches, and used it as a nursery colony ever since. Every spring the females returned to give birth and rear their young. It was perfect. There were only a handful of openings, well-hidden knotholes, through which the bats flew every dawn and dusk. No birds or beasts could work their way inside. The bats made their roosts on the mossy inner walls, in crevices and ledges and hollows, and inside the multitude of branches snaking from the trunk.

  As Shade burst through the knothole with his mother, the bats roosting around the entrance looked over fearfully. Outside, the owl screamed again in fury as it battered the tree with its claws, once, twice, before flying off, hooting balefully. As he made a quick landing beside his mother, Shade heard the flurry of questions over his racing heart.

  "What happened?" and "Why were you out so late?" and "Didn't you hear the dawn chorus?" and "How did you escape the owl?"

  Ariel ignored them and turned urgently to Shade.

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  "Are you hurt?"

  "Don't think so—"

  She inspected his wings and tail anyway, roughly nosing his ribs and stomach to make sure nothing was broken, nothing cut. Then she folded her wings around him and held him tight for a long time. He realized she was trembling and when she pulled back, her eyes shone with anger.

  "Why did you do that?"

  Shade looked away. He was aware of the other bats nearby, felt the fur burn across his face. He spoke quietly. "Chinook was being ... he was saying things about owls and how his father fought one, and I just wanted to do something—" He was about to say brave, but she cut him off.

  "It was a childish thing, a dangerous thing." She made no attempt to lower her voice. "You could've been killed, like that." She flicked the tip of her wing so it made a sharp, final snap in the air. "And Chinook with you."

  "How'd you know about Chinook?"

  "I ran into him while looking for you."

  "He told, then," Shade scoffed.

  "Lucky for you he did." She stared at him. "It was foolishness like this that got your father killed."

  Shade couldn't speak for a moment. "He wanted to see the sun?" he asked urgently.

  She'd never told him this. All he knew about his father's death was that, last spring, he was out one night, too far from the roost, too late, and an owl hunted him down in the dawn's light and killed him. His father's name was Cassiel.

  Ariel nodded, suddenly weary. "Yes. He was always talking about it. Because he was curious—no, because he was headstrong, because he wouldn't think." All her anger surged back. "That's not going to happen to you. I won't lose both my mate and my son in one year. I won't stand for it."

  "Why didn't you tell me?" He felt abruptly resentful.

  "I didn't want to give you ideas. You've got enough of those as it is." She sighed, and her eyes lost their fierceness. "You sure you're all right?"

  "Why'd he want to see the sun?"

  "Promise me you'll never do that again."

  "Did you make my father promise?"

  "Will you promise me?" she insisted.

  "It's not right/' said Shade, frowning. "I mean that the owls don't let us see the sun. Do you think it's fair, Mom?"

  She gave an exasperated sigh, and closed her eyes for a moment. "It has nothing to do with fair or right or wrong. It's just the way things ..." she broke off in annoyance. "I'm not going to argue with you. You do as I say, it's as simple as that. You don't know the trouble you've caused, for all of us."

  "But why, we got away, we—"

  But he didn't finish because Mercury, the messenger for the colony elders, was making a slow spiral down the trunk toward them.

  "You're both all right?" he asked as he settled gracefully beside them.

  "Yes."

  "The elders are anxious to speak with you. Are you strong enough to go to the upper roost, or shall I ask them to come see you here?"

  "No, I can go. Stay here," Ariel told Shade.

  "They asked you to bring your son."

  Shade shared a quick look with his mother. He'd been in trouble before, plenty of times. But this was the first time he'd been summoned before the elders. Mercury launched himself back into the air and Shade followed after Ariel, back up the trunk. He sensed the gaze of a hundred bats as he ascended, and felt acutely self-conscious, but pleasantly flushed. Usually nobody even gave him a second glance. Now he was important enough to be called before the elders. He let his eyes boldly pass

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  over the curious faces of the roosting onlookers. And there was Chinook beside his mother, but he looked away before Shade could shoot him a smirk of triumph.

  "You've got nothing to grin about," Ariel snapped. "Hurry up."

  They'd passed countless passageways and were nearing the upper reaches of the tree now, and Shade felt a queasy twisting in his stomach. He had never been this high. The central trunk came to a blunt end, but Mercury led them into a branch that veered straight upward, kinking and curving as it reached into the sky.

  At the branch's peak hung the four colony elders, quietly speaking among themselves as Shade and his mother found roosts beneath them. Mercury fluttered to Frieda and whispered in her ear before retreating to a small crevice in the shadows of the chamber, ready if called upon.

  Aurora, Bathsheba, Lucretia, and Frieda: Shade knew the names of the elders, but he had never spoken to them. He saw them only from a distance, and they filled him with a kind of awe. They were all old bats, well beyond childbearing, and it was strange for Shade to see females in the roost without newborns nearby. Frieda was the oldest of the four and to Shade the most mysterious. Her actual age wasn't known, but no one could remember a time when she hadn't been chief elder of the Silverwing colony. Her wings were creased, but still supple and strong, and her claws were gnarled like the roots of an old tree, but wickedly sharp.
According to Shade's mother, Frieda was still a fierce hunter. The fur around her face was shot through with more gray than silver or black now, and there were a few mangy patches on her body, which were probably just signs of age, but Shade liked to think at least some of them were old battle scars.

  The most mysterious thing about Frieda was the small metal band around her left forearm. No other bat in the colony had one. Shade asked his mother about it fre-

  quently, but she just shook her head, and told him she didn't know where it came from or how Frieda got it. The other newborns were just as hopeless. There were a few halfhearted suggestions, but—and this was always infuriating to Shade—no one seemed very curious or interested: Frieda had a band, and as far as they were concerned, that was that.

  "You made a close escape by the sounds of it," Frieda said to them now. "But why were you out so late, Ariel? What happened?"

  "I was looking for Shade."

  "Was he lost?" This was Bathsheba, and her harsh voice put Shade on edge.

  "No," said Ariel. "He made a foolish dare with Chinook. They were waiting for the sun to rise."

  "Where is Chinook?" asked Frieda.

  "He's safe. He had the sense to return to Tree Haven before sunrise."

  Shade frowned, and had to clamp down on his mouth to keep quiet. The sense? Chinook got scared, he flew off like a frightened moth!

  "Yet your son stayed," said Frieda, staring so intently at Shade that he had to look at his feet.

  "Yes, and I found him just in time. An owl was waiting in the tree, ready to take him."

  "But the sun rose before you reached Tree Haven," said Bathsheba pointedly.

  "Yes," Ariel replied sadly.

  There was a brief, terrible silence in the elders' roost. And when Bathsheba next spoke, Shade could not believe what he heard.

  "Then you should have left your son for the owl."

  "I know," Ariel said.

  Shade looked at her in horror.

  "It is the law," Bathsheba persisted.

  "I know the law."

  "Then why did you break it?"

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  Shade saw the anger flare again in his mother's eyes. "I did what any mother would have done/'

  The betrayal Shade had felt only seconds ago was washed away in a swell of pride and love for his mother. Bathsheba began an angry reply to this, but with a gentle whoosh, Frieda spread her wings wide and the other bat fell silent.

  "We know what you suffered in the spring, Ariel. And how bravely you've dealt with the loss of Cassiel. And you're right. What you did was only natural. But the law is not natural; it is cruel."

  Bathsheba chittered impatiently. "Everyone was saddened by the death of Cassiel. But Ariel isn't the only one to lose a mate. Many of us have. You say the law is cruel, Frieda, but it can help us too. The law keeps us safe at night, not by day. If we are obedient, we can at least avoid some of these needless deaths." She directed her hard eyes at Ariel again. "Your actions were selfish, and you've put the whole roost in danger."

  Frieda sighed. "This, I'm afraid, may very well be true."

  "Terrible as it is," Bathsheba continued coldly, "if you'd left your son, the owls would have taken him, and this would be over. Now they will feel cheated; they will want justice."

  Ariel nodded. "Yes, I know this is my fault."

  "No," Shade blurted before he could stop himself. He hated the resignation in his mother's voice, hated the way Bathsheba glowered down at her. How dare she talk to his mother like this! Every set of eyes was on him now, and he felt all the thoughts in his head whirl uselessly. "I mean, it's my fault," he hurried on. "I'm the—it was me who wanted to see the sun, I talked Chinook into it, but really the sun hardly came up at all, so I don't see why the owls were so upset. I'm sorry I've caused this trouble, and I don't know much about the law, but I think it's cruel and unfair, just like Frieda said."

  In the following silence Shade wished, for the first time in his life, that he could be even smaller than he was, so small he would just blink out altogether.

  "You've obviously coddled your boy," Bathsheba said frostily to Ariel, "and made him headstrong and insolent. Didn't you tell him how dangerous the sun was?"

  "It didn't turn me to dust," Shade mumbled. He couldn't believe he'd done it again, the words just sliding out.

  "What?" Bathsheba said.

  "Or blind me," Shade muttered. "The sun. Those were just stories."

  "That's enough, Shade," his mother said sharply. "I plan to punish him," she told Bathsheba.

  Bathsheba snorted, unimpressed. "Little good that will do if the owls demand compensation."

  "We'll worry about that later," said Frieda sternly. "The boy only did what many of you would have liked to—or maybe you've forgotten that. He is young and foolish, yes, but don't be so quick to judge him. Thank you, Ariel. Shade. Rest well."

  Frieda turned her piercing gaze on him once again, and Shade felt strangely illuminated by it. He looked back into the old bat's dark eyes for only a moment (which was as much as he could endure) before humbly bowing his head and muttering his good-byes.

  By the time Shade and his mother left the elders' roost, most of the colony was already asleep, hanging from their roosts, the newborns pressed close against their mothers, enfolded in their wings.

  "Wash up," his mother told him when they'd settled back at their roost.

  Shade started licking the dust and grit from his wings. The owl already seemed like such a long time ago, but he conjured up the silent pounding of its wings, the quick whistle of its flashing claws.

  "We made a pretty great escape, didn't we?" he said.

  "Thrilling," said his mother tersely.

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  "I really did see the sun, you know."

  She nodded curtly.

  "Aren't you interested?"

  "No."

  "Are you still angry with me?"

  "No. But I don't want you to be like your father."

  "Not much chance of that," Shade grimaced. "He was a big bat, right?"

  "Yes. He was a big bat. But you might be too, one day."

  "Might." It wasn't very satisfying. He looked up from his licking. "Mom, a bat can't kill an owl, can he?"

  "No," she said. "No bat can."

  "Right," said Shade sadly. "They're too big. There's no way any bat could do it."

  "Forget what Chinook said."

  "Yeah," said Shade.

  "Here, you've got a big dirty patch." She came closer and began pulling her claws gently through the fur of his back.

  "I can do it," said Shade, but only halfheartedly. He relaxed his aching shoulders as his mother combed through his fur again and again. A wonderful floating feeling lulled him, and he felt safe and warm and happy, and wished he could always be like this. But as he closed his eyes, the image of the rising sun, that dazzling sliver of light, still burned on the back of his eyelids.

  Shade tried to feel sorry for what he'd done, but it wasn't easy, especially when he realized he was famous, at least to the newborns. The very next evening, Osric, Yara, Penumbra, and several others demanded a full retelling of his adventure with the owl, and he was only too happy to oblige, mostly sticking to the truth, but occasionally juicing it up with a few made-up details. Chinook stayed away, and Jarod too. But Shade knew it would all get back to them.

  He didn't have long to revel in his new fame, though, because soon the roost emptied as all the bats left for the

  night's hunting, and Shade had to stay behind. This was part of his punishment: He was grounded. He had to stay in Tree Haven all night with the old, boring bats who were too feeble to do much hunting, and preferred it inside anyway. For one hour at midnight he'd be allowed out to feed. But even then his mother would be right beside him, and he couldn't stray out of sight of the roost. He wasn't too upset by this, since he knew they'd be leaving Tree Haven on their journey in two nights anyway, and his punishment would then be over.

&
nbsp; Still, he wasn't going to let the time go to waste. Inside the trunk he practiced his take-offs and landings; he targeted twigs or bits of moss with his echo vision, pretending they were tiger moths, and dove in for the kill. And all the while he was thinking. About the sun, about the owls. And he thought about his father, who like him, had wanted to see the sun.

  Over the months he'd practically deafened his mother with questions about Cassiel, how he looked, what he was like. But try as he might he'd never been able to feel a connection with him. Now though, knowing about how he died, he felt a frail spider's thread running between them. He was just a runt, but he'd wanted to see the sun, just like his father.

  He was catching his breath after a spectacular dive-bomb when he felt a rush of air around him, and looked to see Frieda settling beside him.

  "Tell me about the sun," she said.

  His tongue felt too heavy. The chief elder of the colony stared with those piercing eyes. Her wings creaked as she folded them against her body, and he was aware of a slightly musty odor rising off her, the smell of age, he supposed. But she smiled at him, and her face wrinkled at the eyes, and Shade felt less nervous.

  "Well, I saw it," he began hesitantly, and then stumbled on and told her everything he could remember. It wasn't much, but he was eager to tell it, delighted really. His

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  mother certainly didn't care. Frieda listened carefully, nodding now and then.

  "You've seen it too, haven't you?" he asked impulsively.

  "You're right, I have. A long time ago."

  "It's round, isn't it, like the moon?"

  "Yes. But bigger."

  He shook his head in amazement. He couldn't even imagine the brightness of it.

  "You just wanted to see it, then? Like me?" he asked Frieda.

  She nodded. "When I was younger, a lot of us did. Some were willing to die for it. Not like now. They don't care. They might think the law is unfair, but they aren't willing to fight it. Like Bathsheba. And in many ways they're wise. Look at your father, look what almost happened to you and Ariel."