SING IT TO A CHATBIRD

1560 4D

We all sat in a circular detention chamber with one door, a small latrine closet, and a pair of ventilation shafts too small to fit one’s head in. A recessed and armored lamp gleamed from the center of the ceiling. Our seating was part of the wall, a stone bench that ran three-quarters of the way around the room, with breaks only for the single door and the latrine opposite.

For the first time since I had met her, Thringe looked drained. She slumped against Drasstar, sitting next to her, and closed her eyes, her head bowed forward against his large shoulder, one hand on his thigh. His large hand moved to take hers gently, and he murmured something softly to her that I couldn’t hear. Her eyes opened, she looked across at me, and smiled.

I looked down, then at her again, and wondered what they were saying to each other. My body had come to life under his hands in a way it never had before, and desire for him and guilt at how I had taken him clashed inside me. She gave him to you, an inner voice whispered to me, and another voice cut in, saying, That’s what you want to think, isn’t it?

Keys clattered. The door opened, and two soldiers wearing helms and face masks pointed at the men in the room. “All of you, come with us,” one said. He pointed at Thringe and me. “You two, stay here.”

Drasstar, Grioskin, Masinarin and my father stood up and filed out. As he left, my father mouthed to me, Stay with her as long as you can.

“Come on,” the soldier told him. The door slammed and locked behind them, and Thringe and I were alone.

She beckoned. “Come sit by me,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I need a good shoulder right now. My body hurts.”

“What’s wrong?” I came over to her, sat down by her, and took her in my arms. She leaned into me, and her muscles trembled with that exhausted shaking that happens when everything has gone too far. “What is it?”

“Do you remember my song called CLOCK?”

“Yes. It was one of your early ones. My father used to sing it.” About andros, and how their lives were so short.

“He did?”

“He loved it. He said the andros in the mines used it for a work song.”

Thringe smiled at me again, and took my hand in hers. “Look around here,” she whispered. “Any monitors or bugs?”

We both scanned the chamber. The stone was utterly bare, carrying only a heavy thickness of white paint on the smooth-ground walls, floor and domed ceiling. The recessed lamp was only a caged bulb, burning dimly enough to show that nothing else was rigged in the cage with it.

“Now check the latrine,” she said, and I went to it, stepped inside, and inspected the toilet and the sink from all angles.

“It all looks okay,” I whispered as I joined her again.

“We have to do one more thing together,” she said softly, her eyes searching mine.

“What?” I answered. We kept our voices to a whisper, not even breathing parts of what we said. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m dying,” she said, “but not completely. Kiss me once more.”

I held back. “Are you sick? Tell me what’s going on.”

Her eyes looked pleading. “This is important. I can’t explain it all until we’ve taken the last steps. Then you can know. You just have to believe and trust me. If I tell you first, you’ll want to undo everything. And you can’t because it’s almost done.”

Now I was afraid. “This is about Drasstar, right?” I watched her reaction.

She laughed very softly. “No, no, no. He and I have an understanding. I know you took him. That’s the way it is.” Her smile stayed, but her eyes crinkled and drooped, as if she was suddenly old and defeated. “Please, Lejina. I gave you strength. Look at the good things you’ve done with it. Take the rest of what I have to offer.”

Something in me sagged, seeing her so weak. “All right, I’ll kiss you,” I said. “I owe you a lot.”

“No, you don’t,” she said. “You’ll find out that you owe me nothing at all. Ready?”

Once again, our mouths met. This time it was a shock, as if someone had stuck an electrical wire in my mouth. I jerked back. Thringe gripped my arms with all her strength, and I held on as the shock subsided into a strong flow of energy. We drew each other closer, arms encircling, and the heat of the kiss mingled with the warmth I still felt from Drasstar.

It was confusing, powerful, and ecstatic. At last I relaxed, and Thringe‘s grip fell away. She leaned back against the stone wall. “Good,” she whispered. “We made it. They can’t stop it now.”

“What are you saying?” I sat bolt upright, my voice rising out of whisper.

“Shh. It’s going to be fine. Just ask your father. There’s a last thing you have to do, now. Listen to me and repeat all of it back to me.” She beckoned me close, and I put my ear by her mouth. She spoke, this time in anjive, frequencies almost too high for human ears, but I heard them. A strange flow of words, in a melodic sequence that turned back on itself and folded into a song. She ran it three times, her voice weakening, and looked at me.

I bent to her ear, and repeated it all, note and sound and tempo.

“Good. That’s perfect. You must sing that to a chatbird, and it will know what to do. Don’t forget. Now stay by me. I need you by me right now.”

I started to get up, to hammer on the door and call for help, but she grabbed my hand. “No. The clock is slamming its door. Look at my eyes.”

I did. Instead of the clear depths of pupils I had seen earlier, I now saw clouded, cataract-filled grayness. She was going quickly blind. Words of her song.

“Now my hands.”

I took one of her long hands in mine. The near-white skin stretched tightly across the back of her hand, the knuckles and finger bones showing starkly where little substance remained between them. She was withering before my eyes.

“Lejina.” Her voice cracked. “Lejina, it’s so quick. I thought I had it right, in the song, but I didn’t get this. You’ve got to make another verse for it.”

My heart wanted to burst out of me. “Don’t die so fast…" and I didn’t know what name to call her.

She understood. “Just call me Win. Like Drasstar does. You have to take care of him. He’s not as strong as he looks. And here, it’s coming so fast. Remember this. The light breaks into two people. The slamming door sends it back at me. And…"

“Win.”

“Lejina, forgive me. Ask your father.” And she slumped over in my arms, across my lap. The smartgel was long gone from her skin, and here and there the skin itself was peeled, scaled, dry.

“Win. Thringe. I love you.” I bent over her, my breath coming in sobs. I moved her and put an ear to her chest. She was gone.