“I don’t see them preparing for any abduction raid,” Quest volunteered.
The boy always asked about the imaginary raids. Five nights ago, he accepted the news the same as always: silently, nodding once and then once more before steering the conversation back to Quest.
Their sister wore endless shapes, but she never stopped carrying her fears. Even when it was just the three of them, escape routes on all sides, she remained guarded, anxious. She might talk about where she went at night, but her daylight haunts were her own business. She had dropped clues that she was human-shaped now and again, but whenever King brought up the possibility, Quest offered various reasons why that disguise was too demanding and far too dangerous.
“Humans don’t notice leatherwings and epiphytes,” she said. “All humans care about are their own faces and the sounds those faces leak.”
King remembered every word spoken at the last meeting.
Diamond was probably doing the same.
The giant looked at his brother’s face, reading the seriousness. “What do you want to ask her tonight?”
“Nothing,” the boy lied.
Bright green eyes stared, King waiting.
Finally, Diamond admitted, “I wanted to talk about the Eight.”
Just mentioning the name caused the plates on King’s shoulders to life.
“Where is Divers?” the boy added.
They looked at one another for a long while. Then the human approached the open window, and King stood behind him, watching the naked hands touching the white gasket and the sill where their sister would perch, if she showed. But she wasn’t coming tonight. They should give up the hope and sneak back to their quarters before their absence was noticed by someone who cared enough to sound an alarm.
In the distance—a different direction this time—King heard the screaming of a single papio rocket flying flat and swiftly into a flurry of cannon fire, accomplishing nothing, the rocket continuing on its important path.
Diamond probably only heard a murmur of the battle. But he tilted his head, listening intently.
And then the rocket struck its target or maybe a lucky cannon shell, and the explosion spread outwards, the blaze outraced by a roar that made the great bloodwood tree shiver slightly.
Diamond breathed hard, and he pushed his head into the open air.
King watched the back of the creature’s close-shaved head, the tiny neck exposed. Was this a test? Was the boy testing if his brother could be trusted? Regret was a beast that preyed on other creatures, not King. He never once doubted his reasons for trying to cut off Diamond’s head and throw the pieces back to the coronas. One moment demanded one action, but moments changed. Conditions slipped away, leaving new conditions. This boy might remake his species, or he would fail, but King would more than likely remain the largest and smartest brother. Eventually the war would end, and the Archon would die in his sleep, more likely than not, and his son would inherit whatever remained of this Creation. At that moment, inside a single breath, there was no other future worth cherishing.
They listened to the night.
Finally Diamond pulled his head back inside the tower, ready to close the window and give up on their sister.
But then he paused.
Diamond stood as motionless and King was close behind him, watching him, not thinking about anything at all.
Diamond was like a statue.
And King heard the voice.
Very quietly, the voice said, “This is the Great Day.”
King couldn’t tell which of his ears had heard the voice, if any. He didn’t recognize the language, yet the words and meanings were perfectly understandable. Needing a worthy explanation, he decided that Diamond had pulled some trick on him, and maybe he should break Diamond’s spine in a few places, as a warning.
But then that little neck turned, and nothing in that human face hinted at a joke.
“You heard it,” said his tiny brother.
King said nothing.
“What did it tell you?”
King didn’t want to say.
“What day is this?” Diamond asked.
Then he answered his own question, saying, “This is the Great Day.”
King stared into the blackness.
“But you did hear it, right?”
“I heard something,” King allowed.
Diamond smiled brightly.
“But if this looks like a great day,” King said, “then your mystery voice damn well can’t tell the time.”
TWO
Human faces were difficult to mimic and human manners were impossible to duplicate. But early on and a million times since, Quest had witnessed how these myriad faces carried their own habits, unlikely quirks and singular tricks of the tongue. Being peculiar was normal. Being unique was ordinary. Humans had endless troubles trying to be human. Besides, the District of Districts had a reputation for its odd people, and war only made it more so: refugees fleeing the outlying Districts, particularly the wealthy and their grateful staffs; government officials sprouting from the shadows; officers too crafty to be sent into danger and young males learning to be soldiers in the high camps; plus the endless merchants taking “a little dust from every coin,” making themselves even wealthier. Most of the world’s tree-walkers were clinging to these the giant trees. There were even rumors about closing the borders to the outlying Districts, before the sheer mass of meat and money ripped the bloodwoods out by their roots.
In the midst of chaos, where almost every face belonged to a stranger, one fearful little soul could vanish easily, again and again.
Today and for almost six hundred days, Quest had wandered the forest by night, changing bodies and guises until dawn began to stir under the demon door. Forty-eight mornings ago, she found a chuckerhole and its owner, a ratty and selfish chucker monkey. The owner was waiting beside his escape hole, but he was also eager to defend his fortune of carefully hoarded trash. Chucker monkeys adored the color blue. That proud fellow assumed that Quest was here to steal his treasure, which was why he was easy to kill, and she ate him through the night, using the light of a fake glowdob to search the lost pieces of paper for anything useful.
Spotter uniforms were a deep wonderful blue, and the monkey had abducted several of those treasures.
The cleanest uniform carried the picture identification of a plain-faced woman. Quest donned the shirt and trousers, stolen boots and then a suitable body. With the plain face shining in the bright sunshine, she walked about in the human world. For ten days, nobody questioned her presence or her purpose. On the eleventh day, as she wandered the airy bottom of the forest, a genuine spotter called to her by her apparent rank.
Quest considered leaping into the open air, feigning suicide.
Suicides happened every day.
But the man kept talking, revealing his boundless ignorance as well as another possible stroke of luck.
“My shift’s done,” he claimed. “Please say you’re here to replace me.”
She carried a name and a woman’s voice. Using both, she asked why he would grab that conclusion.
“You look lost,” he said with considerable hope. “And I don’t think anyone could find our station on the first try.”
Hundreds of spotter stations occupied the low tips of the bloodwoods. These were not popular jobs. Crawling inside a big, overloaded room filled with telescopes and binoculars required a rare individual, someone who could stand the boredom and solitude, and this man was definitely not one of the best.
“I’ll show you where you work,” he said. “And I’ll replace you come night.”
She managed a believable smile, and later, when the grateful man in blue returned, Quest had a plausible life story to follow the smile. But the man never asked about where his partner came from or where she lived now, and he certainly didn’t care about her sisters’ names or why she voted for the Archon in the recent election.