"That was the plan, last I heard. Spice Winds was coming straight here for the nutmeg. The fleet would reassemble in the Spicerie when Lustgrader was finished here."

"They are going to know just who sank Sentinel, aren't they?"

"It's possible. I fought Captain Russmon on deck, by the light of a firehe doesn't know me, but he might have seen enough to know I wasn't dark-skinned enough to be an islander. And I think he saw Sorrel too, when she crossed the deck with the plumes. She wasn't glamoured then." He sighed. "I pray he won't mention it to the Raja of Serinaga, or if he does, the Raja will dismiss it as a lie. Otherwise King Edwayn will be upset with you. Very upset. Of course, Russmon might be dead."

Juster studied the lagoon, frowning. There were four or five gaps in the reef, but only one entrance that could be negotiated by a ship as big as Golden Petrel. "Anchored here we're like insects trapped in a bottle. Once we have off-loaded the bricks and have the nutmeg on board I want to get out of here."

"We hope to return this evening. Ardhi says it will take only two hours coming back downhill."

"Oh, we won't finish loading today. There's also water and supplies to obtain. Look, Saker, if I sight the Lowmians, I'll take the ship out of the lagoon, but I'll hang about offshore for five days. Light a fire on the beach as a signal if you want to be picked up."

"I appreciate this, Juster. All of it."

"And I'm sorry I've not been my usual jaunty, wittily entertaining self." He sighed. "Things I don't understand make me edgy."

"I suppose I should be telling you to pray to Va for guidance, or something similar."

"You should indeed. How remiss my ship's cleric has been!" Juster looked at him curiously. "Why don't you?"

"I'm no longer sure I believe in Va."

Amusement danced in his eyes. "And you a Shenat witan? The oaks will wither! I never thought you'd become an unbeliever."

"Of course I'm not an unbeliever! How could I be? I'm one of the few people who's seen an unseen guardian! Spoken to her. Or a representation thereof. The Way of the Oak is true and real, I know that. And I'm steadfast in my belief of Shenat ways. Nothing could change that either. Our truth is to hold our lands and its people sacred, to maintain a balance between all aspects of life. Whether there is a deity or whether it's just a truth expressed as a Way matters little to me any more."

Juster raised a questioning eyebrow. "You think Va is irrelevant?"

"I've come to think the concept of Va was just a way to bring us all together, all peoples across the Hemisphere. A good thing, I suppose, although it made us arrogant of outsiders. But if we want guidance and grounding, it is better to go to shrine keepers and shrines, not to seek Va in our prayers. Va is notoriously bad at answering and I've never seen any evidence that such an entity exists."

"You have an infinite capacity for astonishing me, Saker. However, it is far too early in the morn for philosophical soul-searching. Such is much more appropriate after several goblets of brandy. Tonight perhaps." He turned to give orders to one of the tars on deck. "Go below, Tedli, and tell Mistress Redwing that we await her."

When he turned back to Saker, there was a faraway look in his eye: part amused, part sad. "Now there's a woman, Saker. If I were a marrying man, I'd be considering matrimony as a step worth taking."

Saker, astonished, stared at him.

Juster smiled. "You doubt it? She's desirable; beautiful even, at least to men who appreciate the etchings of strength and courage and tragedy in a face, rather than just neatly packaged features. But Sorrel is more than her face and her figure, as well you know. You oughtn't pass your opportunities up, Saker, when you meet them."

"She wouldn't have me. Believe me."

"Have you asked?"

"I don't have to."

He turned his attention to the distant tree-dense slopes they were going to climb. Above the topmost ridge, he glimpsed a movement in the dawn-tinged sky. Something large, high enough to catch the first rays of the sun.

"They don't have dragons here, do they?" he asked.

Juster laughed. "Not that I've heard. Talk to a Pashali, now... their folktales are full of talking sky serpents. Here's Sorrel. You want to get this expedition of yours under way?"

The trees towered, festooned with growth and propped up at the base by buttress roots as impressive as the stone ones of Throssel chapels. In the shade, the forest floor was damp and verdant and earthy. Vines looped from branch to branch and creepers on tree trunks insinuated their way upwards, striving for a glimpse of the sun. The world here was green, but Sorrel glimpsed other hues too: plum-coloured fungi, sulphur-bright mushrooms, lichens as lushly tinted as ripe apricots.

Everything appeared too large to herants as big as caterpillars, millipedes as long as her forearm, armoured beetles the size of mice. A butterfly the size of a starling flew past, its wings flicking iridescent blue with every beat. When Ardhi stopped at the edge of a river to cut a length of bambu, she was surprised to find the plant grew as tall as a house. He threaded the plumes inside to protect them and grinned at her. "I feel much better with them safe from damage," he said.

Further on, as she plucked thorns from her leg, she decided this forest was far from benign. Beauty had sharp teeth. The rainforest was a place of extraordinary grandeur and delicate perfection, but there were snakes and prickles and blood-sucking leeches, and oh, it was so humid.

She ran with sweat. Her clothing was wet, her hair sodden. Dear Va, even her feet perspired! The tree canopy met overhead, but the shade made no difference. Occasionally they crossed a stream, and she plunged into the water, blessing its cold purity. Then, all too soon, the perspiration would be soaking her again.

An hour after they'd started, Piper began to howl and wouldn't stop, no matter what any of them did. They took it in turns to distract her every way they could imagine, to no avail. Sorrel, dismayed, thought her temper was prompted more by rage and indignation than discomfort, for there was no sign of a tear.

"She wants to crawl and play, not be carried all the time," she said as her own patience frayed around the edges.

Ardhi's expression told her he disagreed.

"If you've something to say, say it instead of pulling faces at me," she snapped, too angry to even try to use his language. Immediately she felt guilty. He'd done his best to entertain Piper.

"All right," he said, speaking Pashali. "I will. Piper senses trouble ahead, trouble for her. She's struggling against it, trying to make you turn around."

She stopped dead. Saker, walking behind her along the narrow track, almost trod on her heels. In her arms, Piper still screamed and fought. "Fiddle it. She's a baby; she can't even know where we are taking her, let alone why!" Feeling utterly helpless to succour the child, she wanted desperately to cry herself.

"Perhaps not, but the... the contagion within her knows."

She looked over her shoulder at Saker, indicating she had not understood the word Ardhi used. When he translated, she growled, "Piper's not a disease!"

Walking upwards again, her vision blurred by tears, she stumbled over tree roots.

"Let me take her," Saker said.

She relinquished Piper, who still fought to escape her carrying sling.

Inside, terror roiled her stomach. Piper, forgive me, it's for your own good. Even as she had the thought, she wondered if it was true.

They swapped her from one person to another, but there was no relief from her relentless screaming until some three hours later when she finally fell asleep in Sorrel's arms, hiccupping. The silence was so welcome, she felt guilty all over again.

A short time later, they crested a granite-capped hill which had a view back down to the lagoon and Bandar Ruanakula. Far below, Golden Petrel could have been a toy on a painted background. The ocean outside the reef was dotted with sails, but as far as they could see, none were large enough to belong to any ship of the Lowmian fleet. They'd climbed high enough for the air to be cooler and she ran fingers through her hair and tousled the wet strands so they could dry in the breeze.

"Look up ahead," Ardhi said. "That's where we're going." The path wound down again into the trees of a valley and out of sight, but he was pointing across the quilted canopy of the rainforest to a nearby ridge. For a moment she'd thought the ridge was capped with limestone half-overgrown with creepers and other vegetation, then realised the outcrops were ruins, the tumbled remains of stone towers and walls. An ancient castle perhaps, or a temple.

"No one can live there," she muttered. "It's just a heap of stone blocks!"

He didn't reply.

In the distance, a bird began to sing. Piper stirred and whimpered, but didn't wake. The song started softly, every note as pure as crystal, one following another until there was a cascade of sounds falling into the valley like droplets of rain. Each note was perfect, and each was part of a perfect whole. The glorious tune enveloped her senses, until she wanted to weep at the beauty of it.

Just when she thought she could not stand any more, that it was too much to bear, the song halted in an unpleasant discord. She gasped again, this time to draw breath. Somewhere she had stopped breathing.

"That was a... love song," Saker said. He sounded awed. "It's a young male practising a courtship song."

She was about to ask how he knew, then remembered his witchery.

He added, "Sadly, I don't think a female bird would be very impressed. He knows he didn't sing all the phrases correctly and he made a mess of the ending. He thinks the adult birds will laugh at his attempts, and he feels embarrassed."

She stared at him, incredulous. "You once told me that birds never do much thinking about anything, except eating and fighting rivals."

"This is not Ardrone, and these birds are not Ardronese."

He was subdued. Perhaps it was fear. No, not Saker. He always seemed so fearless. Awe, then.

"Watch," Ardhi whispered. "Watch."

They both turned to look across the valley again, their gaze soon drawn to the remains of one of the towers of the ruin. Age-old bricks appeared to have been suddenly gilded.

"Chenderawasi," Ardhi murmured. "You are about to see something not given to many. Remember this, for it is my... my caridaum."

Another word she didn't know. She gave Saker a glance.

"A Pashali word. A sort of lament of premonition," he said, paling. "No, that's not quite right. Something that you see or hear that reminds you that your death is imminent."

The shock of his words was still reverberating when she saw the golden patch on the ruins launch itself into the air, like a dragon of legend. For one wild moment she thought that was what it was, a fearsome winged animal. But no. Although it was surely twice the length of a man, it was a shimmering bird, not a dragon, and much of its length was in its tail. It spread its wings and soared, and as it soared, its feathers thrummed with harp-like notes so loud they carried across the valley.

She saw its underside as it rose, lifting on an updraft. A golden body rippled into a blush of vivid red, only to change to purple before fading into gold again in waves, starting at the throat, washing downwards to the tip of the tail.

And oh, the tail... Plumes so glorious she would never have words to describe them. Much larger than the feathers Ardhi now carried. The outer ones curled stiffly like wires to the side, the middle ones spread and contracted rhythmically to match the alternations in colour.

Sweet Va, the bird was not only changing its colour as it flew, it was playing music with its feathers.

It dipped, effortlessly, coming closer. A wingtip rose as it banked to reveal its upperside. An iridescent collar flared green, flattened and faded. Each change in hue heralded an increase in the tempo of the music as plumes vibrated. The creature passed them several lengths away, oblivious to their presence, but close enough for her to see single feathers trailing behind the back edge of each wing and others from the centre of its back, feathers that shivered in song like plucked lute strings.

When the thrumming reached a crescendo of sound, the bird contorted, throwing its head back and flipping its tail high to meet the wings raised over the back. The sound cut out abruptly. For one magical moment, the bird hung in the air in silence, a golden ball. Then it plummeted down, wings extending, straining for control, the wind streaming through its feathers to produce an eerie blending of chords.

She gasped, sure the bird would crash into the canopy below, but at the last moment it flattened out, skimming the trees, then disappearing into the foliage. She looked down and saw she had clutched Saker's hand, her grasp tight. Quickly she let go.

"That was a full-grown male bird," he said. "Those were the courtship rituals, but he wasn't really trying to win himself a mate. He was demonstrating to the younger male bird, the one that sang, how it should be done."

"Mocking him?" she asked.

"Not exactly. More like boasting. The younger bird has to learn by watching the other males showing off. That, I suppose," he added, addressing Ardhi, "was one of your paradise birds. The ones you call the Chenderawasi."

"Yes," Ardhi said quietly.

Sorrel turned on him in a fury. "Your people kill such divine creatures for their magical feathers? How could you!"

He turned to her, horrified. "Never! How could you even think that!"

"All birds moult and replace their feathers, at least once every year," Saker pointed out to her. "We don't kill our geese for goosedown, do we?"

"Oh. Oh, of course. I'm sorry, Ardhi. That was stupid of me. I was just so... enthralled. The idea that anything so glorious could be huntedit's unimaginable."

"I wish it were. But that is what the Lowmians want to do," Ardhi said. "And perhaps your Ardronese tars too, if they had the chance. I've heard your court ladies dress their hair with bird plumes."

She exchanged a look with Saker, knowing he was as appalled as she wasbecause it was true.

"Come, let's move on before Piper wakes and starts her crying again," Ardhi said. "Remember, you must open your minds to all you see if you want answers to your questions. You must not try to change anything because you disagree with it. Chenderawasi... is other."

37.

The Other

Other.

Blister it, that single word summed up the place they stepped into.

Other. Not just another hemisphere, but another world.

Ardhi had led them into the ruin through a crumbling stone archway. Human hands had built that, at least, but once inside the roofless ruined walls, it was clear that something else had been involved since the building had crumbled.

Sorrel's immediate impression was one of chaos, of nature run wild in unrestrained exuberance, watched over by gigantic painted stone statues of vultures. They glowered at her from equidistant pedestals along the remains of the outer walls.

Prickles ran up her spine as she tried to absorb everythingno, not everything, anything.

A slight movement caught her eye and she turned to take a better look at one of those statues. A vulture had turned its head to regard her with a single unblinking yellow eye.

Va-damn. Not a statue.

It wasn't a vulture either, but a living black and orange bird vaguely reminiscent of the flying bird they'd seen, but without the long tail plumes or the range of colour. A duller, more trimmed version. Claws, brutal things curved like scimitars with honed edges, dug into the ancient stonework. Va, the stone crumbled under its grip. As she watched, it unsheathed a spur from between two hard projections of bone along the back of a leg. The sound was worryingly similar to that of a sword being pulled from a scabbard.

She shifted her gaze from bird to bird; each was alive, and there was nothing friendly in their eyes. Something told her they were waiting for an order to tear themor any human intrudersto pieces.

Va help us, Ardhi has betrayed us. Oh, Piper...

"They want us dead," she said, certain she was right.

"No, notnot exactly," Saker said, and his tone was more wonder than fear. "They are warriors, yes; but they are a guard of honour. Look at them. They are protecting their monarch's abode."

"What abode?" she asked. There was no building apart from the ruins that she could see.

"Saker is right," Ardhi said. "These warriors failed to protect Raja Wiramulia, arriving only after he was shot. Had they been there at the forest pool, those sailors would have been ripped to pieces."