Tortall (33 page)

It was Mimic. He was hotter than ever and his water bowl was empty again. I lit my lamp and refilled the bowl, using my flask. When I tried to get Mimic to drink, though, the water ran out of his mouth. He opened his eyes just a little before he closed them again. His skin was dry. Bits were flaking away like fish scales.

I stared at him, kneeling beside his basket, and thinking, Don’t die. I don’t want you to die.

Then I got angry.
Really
angry. It wasn’t
right
. It wasn’t Mimic’s fault the stupid eagle grabbed him, any more than it was his fault that I made the eagle drop him. It wasn’t Mimic’s fault that we didn’t know what he was. But it would be my fault if I didn’t try everything I knew.

I didn’t even realize that I’d gotten up and was pulling on my tunic and pants while the last ideas were going through my head. I only grasped what I was about when I blew out my lamp, cradled Mimic in one arm, and climbed down the ladder.

Ma had banked the fire for the night only a little while before. It was easy to get a spill and light a downstairs lamp from the coals. I quietly left the house with the lamp and Mimic.

This time I followed the path that went around the back and through the vegetable gardens. It was a little longer than the path to the river near Grandpa’s, but Grandpa didn’t sleep well. Sometimes he worked spells late at night. I didn’t want to have another argument with him.

“I know this may just kill you out of hand,” I told Mimic in a whisper. “If it does, I hope you will forgive me in the Heaven of Healing when we meet after I die. But this is the only trick I have left. You
will
die if I don’t try it.” I couldn’t even look down to see if he had opened his eyes. My lamp wasn’t bright and the trail was twisty as we entered the trees.

We came out onto the long shelf of the tumbling river. The women washed clothes here during the day. There were plenty of stones on the river’s edge, big ones the laundresses used to dry out wet things. Some of those rocks created pockets of water. One of those small pools would do for Mimic, I thought. It would keep him from being swept away by the hard currents midstream. I had a particular pool in mind. It might be not so deep that Mimic would drown, particularly if I held him.

We would not freeze, exactly—it was summer, after all—but neither would we be comfortable, if we lived. If Mimic lived.

I started praying to every god I thought might be even a little helpful as I set my lamp on the tallest stone by one of the small pools. Then I lay flat on the long rock close to the rippling surface and explored underwater with a free hand. It was a little deeper than I remembered; I would not be able to let go of Mimic. I had feared that. He would drown if he thrashed, maybe even break his already broken wing again. I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to keep my hands in the icy water, but Mimic was more important.

I apologized to the fish I’d scared out of the pool and took a deep breath. “It’s your last chance to tell me you’re on the mend before I give you a horrible shock, Mimic,” I whispered, cradling him on his back in my hands. He didn’t move. I couldn’t even hear if he wheezed, the river was so loud.

Once more I lay on my belly. This time I lowered my poor friend into the pool until only his muzzle stuck out.

Mimic gasped. His back arched, then went straight again. I would have thought he had died in that moment, but for the press and sink of his ribs against my palms. It continued, when I knew an ordinary lizard would be dead.

Whenever the backs of my hands went numb, I would lift one from the water and tuck it beneath me until it warmed, being entirely careful to hold Mimic without squeezing him with the other hand. Strangely, scarily, my palms were warm. Very warm. Mimic’s cursed fever kept them warm. This was too new. I wanted to ask Grandpa if he
had ever heard of a fever so great, but I wouldn’t. I was angry with him for giving up on my friend.

Once I had feeling in the hand under me, I would hold Mimic in that, and warm the other. When my eyelids grew heavy, I lifted him from the water to see if I dreamed the warmth on my palms. He was still hot. I ignored the tears that rolled down my cheeks and placed him in the cold pool again.

To keep myself awake, I sang to him. I sang every song I knew. I brought him up twice more so I might drink from the pool, then returned him, because he was still deep in his fever. At last I tried to whistle birdsongs for him. I startled an owl into a reply. A second owl answered that one. I was trying to do the song of a lark when a lark
did
sing out, her voice loud and perfect.

Only it was still night. Our larks were asleep. I brought Mimic up. He looked at me and sang like a lark once more. His skin was cool when I pressed my cheek against him. For a moment I could only weep.

The next day Ma praised Mimic’s improvement, though if she had known about our late-night trip to the river, she might have smacked my head. Instead she let me feed the lizard bits of fish soaked in broth. Then I bound him gently on the harness and took him with me on my day’s work. We had to take the sheep to the pastures on the western side of the river because I had slept late. The other shepherds had gotten to the eastern hillside grazing before us, which meant we got the long walk across the bridge and past the marsh. I could have sworn I heard whispered complaints under the
sheep’s normal calls, but that had to be my imagination. No one who could talk was near us.

That afternoon the whispers continued, now speaking of rain. I knew it was silly to heed unreal chatter, but I put Mimic back on his harness and whistled for Brighteyes and Chipper to round up the herd. The day was near its close anyway and we had to consider the walk home. As we crossed the bridge into the village, I saw the first clouds swarming up over the eastern hills.

Heavy winds blew ahead of the storm. I raced home once I had settled dogs and sheep for the night. I seemed to have left the whispers with them. Inside our house the only voices I heard were those of my family, along with Mimic’s occasional cheep or whistle. My parents admired Mimic’s changed health all over again while Peng fed him some of my leftover meal. I had meant to show him to Grandpa after supper, but I was too worn out. Mimic and I went to bed early.

We went down the ladder in the morning, Mimic in his harness on my back, to find Grandpa eating breakfast with Ma. Pa had already left for his carpentry shop, while Peng was still getting dressed.

Grandpa glared at me from under his thick white brows. “I hear it lived.”

“He,”
I said, gently placing Mimic’s harness on my bench. “Mimic is a
he.
”

“It could be a cloud fish from the moon for all you know,” Grandpa said. He got up and came around to undo Mimic’s ties while Ma handed over my lunch and I tucked it into my pack. Although Grandpa’s voice was hard, he was
careful when he handled Mimic, and eye-popping shocked to feel Mimic’s skin cool under his hands. My friend looked into Grandpa’s eyes and gave the sweet, insistent tweeting of a warbler. Grandpa winced. Ma turned away, hiding her face. Mimic couldn’t have known that my dead grandma’s favorite bird was the warbler. Neither would he know that Grandma used to call warblers to her with their own song. Hearing that sound stabbed us all in the heart.

Grandpa put Mimic down, still gently, and left the house. I ate my breakfast without a word. Ma wiped her eyes on her sleeve and gave Mimic some bites of a ham that she was cutting up for soup.

Peng came thumping down the ladder. “What’s going on?” he asked as I finished loading my pack. “Why is everyone so quiet?”

“Because you weren’t here,” I said. I pinched his nose and settled Mimic on his harness again.

Over the next four weeks Mimic improved in many ways. Though his bad wing was still in a splint and his good wing was bound to keep him from trying to fly, he startled me with short races. If either of the dogs—sometimes even the sheep, or a few of the lizards in the rocks—started to run, Mimic would be up and running with them. He could go very fast upright on his long hind feet if the distance was not a great one. He beat the sheep and the lizards by getting in front of them and blocking the way. The birds, including the crow who still sheltered Mimic from the sun as he slept, flew over to watch the races. They would set up a lot of noise, as if they were cheering. Brighteyes and Chipper would always win,
given a decent start, because they could run longer distances. Then the birds would sing to Mimic, as if they consoled him.

“You’ll do better when you can fly,” I’d tell Mimic when he had to stop, panting as lizards did in the heat. No matter how many times I said it, Mimic sulked anyway. He liked to win.

Every day I took his good wing out of its binding so he might exercise it. All of the birds I had ever cared for would try to fly the moment they could move the healthy wing. That was why I bound it once he was well enough to walk around, as easy on his hind feet as if he always walked that way. Mimic never did try to fly with the whole wing, though. He would open it slowly all the way and close it, over and over, until I bound it to his side again. Not once did he flap it. Even so, I kept it bound unless he was exercising. I wouldn’t put it past Mimic to try to trick me and escape, as a bird might if it could think so far ahead.

Grandpa had said Mimic was too heavy to fly, but Grandpa had also said he would never survive a cold bath. Why did the gods give my friend wings unless he could use them? It was hard to wait for the day when I was certain Mimic’s broken wing was healed, so he might surprise Grandpa yet again.

By that time I was straining to hear the whispers that had begun after the night at the river, but when I thought I did hear them, I could not be sure that they were not simply a jumble of the valley’s normal sounds. I had always listened as much as I watched. Any slight change in the winds, the sigh of trees and grasses, the rush of streams and rivers, the noise of sheep, birds, dogs, and village, might mean some
change for good or bad. Everyone with a herd to guard paid attention to the world around them, though I’d heard my parents and other people say I was better at it than most. Peng and my friends only complained they could never sneak up on me.

The problem, when I worked to hear all the noise around me, was that too often things combined to make something that could sound like words. How was I to tell the difference between that and what I thought might be “berries here!” or “storm comes”?

It was a month of bad storms, for certain. One day Mimic and I saw three distant tornadoes touch angry fingers down on the Great Plain as the herds of buffalo and antelope wheeled and ran. That very night a tornado struck the valley west of us. The messenger who brought the news said it was like a child god had taken a big stick and drawn a line straight through the edge of his village, vanishing after it killed. Two families were never seen again, and another family lost their father and three children. All of us were called to the temple to pray for them and to thank the gods that we were spared.

There was a week when storms came every day, making everyone miserable. I tried to leave Mimic at home to save him from the wind and water, but he ran after us, so I let him come. He followed as I checked my poor sheep for foot rot. He stayed in the fold with me after dark and sang to the sheep while I treated them, for which I was grateful. I thought I heard whispers in the rustling of the sheep, the thump of their hooves, their grunts as I worked, and Mimic’s song. But like as not I’d been so tired I had nodded off for a
moment. Surely I had dreamed that the sheep thanked the ugly lizard for his songs while their human helped their feet. I shook off my drowsiness and concentrated on paring.

I begged extra fish from Ma for Mimic’s supper that first night he sang, explaining how Mimic helped in the fold. She and Pa came the next night to witness it for themselves. After that I didn’t have to beg extra food for him anymore. If my parents heard whispers, though, they said nothing about it.

The day came—a sunny one—when it was time to take the splint from Mimic’s broken wing. As if they knew, the sheep, the birds, the dogs, and the lizards who took part in Mimic’s races came to watch. I set him upon a rock with shaking hands and removed the ties and splints for good. Every other time I had done this, my patient had flown or run without so much as a squeak of farewell.

I examined Mimic’s healed wing before I let him go. His claws were perfect. Broken bone and ripped skin alike had healed well, though Mimic would always have a scar where the rip had been. Silently, trying not to cry, I took the bindings from his good wing and stood back.

Mimic shook both wings. Then he stretched them out a couple of times, to the limit of their reach. He gave them a few good flaps. Once that was done, he folded them against his sides and squawked at me.

“Go ahead,” I told him. “Fly. You know you want to.”

He leaped onto my shoulder instead. Gripping my tunic sleeve with his hind claws, he used his foreclaws to climb bat-like over my upper back, until he could drape himself along
my shoulders, a lizardy scarf for me to wear. At last he sighed and belched breakfast smells into my face.

Was Grandpa right? Was Mimic too heavy to fly? But why did he have wings, in that case?

I tried something that had seemed to work with baby birds I had reared. First I had to lean over the rock again and get Mimic to climb down from my shoulders. Then I held him carefully, under his belly and without getting in the way of his wings. Slowly I raised and lowered him in the air. (It was not as easy with a creature as big as Mimic.) It was the birds’ instinct to flap their wings as soon as they felt themselves fall. It was Mimic’s instinct, too. He flapped briskly, but unlike the birds’, his body didn’t lift in my hold. He stayed in my hands, plump and solid.

I set him on the top of a tall rock and asked him to fly. Over the days that followed, I tried the branches of trees, other rocks, the edge of Taka Hill bluff, my bedroom window, and the bridge over the river. I asked him to do it from the trail overlooking the grain fields, so he could join the birds that night. He might flap his wings. He might stretch them. He would hop to the ground or my bed. He climbed down the trees, headfirst, his wing-claws working like a bat’s and his hind feet keeping him from falling bottom-over-top. He croaked at me as if he wanted to know why we tried to do this every day.