She swallowed, still keeping a wary eye on the birds. "Do theydo they eat human flesh?" she asked.

"No, of course not!" His revulsion was intense. "But they can certainly kill us."

Saker's right hand had dropped to his sword hilt, but he didn't draw it. "We won't give them cause."

"Can you... Can you control them?" she asked, thinking of his witchery.

"I doubt it. They are not normal birds, believe me."

She was prepared to believe that much. Who'd ever heard of birds being guards? She tore her gaze away from them to glance around the ruins. If this was a guard of honour, where was the Raja? This place had none of the trappings of a royal building. It was a ruin, for Va's sake!

The roofless interior was festooned with bambu structures and intricate rattan weaving. Flowers and ferns grew everywhere. It all appeared unplanned and arbitrary, yet it reminded her of something. She groped for the memory and found it: Lady Friselda had ordered a huge cage built in the Regala's garden, with peacocks and Pashali parrots inside. A bird cage, filled with perches and swings and toys for the parrots...

This was a gigantic playground for birds. The bambu was for perches. The decorations here were living flowers, mostly orchids in an array of colour and shapes that was staggering. The wildness about them belied the idea that this was the work of a human gardener, but they were planted.

She shivered, appallingly aware that she and Saker did not belong here. They were the aliens, not the birds. "Who built this, Ardhi?"

"The Chenderawasi," he replied, but as he used the same word to describe the islanders, the birds and the magic, it was no answer at all.

"Look how intricately everything fits together," Saker marvelled in a whisper. "No nails. Just knots and notches, as if they are carved to fit..."

She let her gaze drift around the structures curving across from wall to crumbling wall, all adorned with plants and flowers, creepers and vines. She thought of the intricate weaving of the garden bird nests she'd used to show to Heather. She looked back at the spurs on the closest warrior bird. As if in answer to her enquiring gaze, it unsheathed its spur and stretched its leg and wing on one side. The leg spur was matched by another on the bend of the wing. Each was a formidable weapon.

Or maybe a tool.

"Oh, rattling pox. They built all this," she whispered. "Saker, the birds built it all. Not the original ruin, but everything else."

He regarded the birds. None of them had moved from their individual perches, or made a sound. He turned to Ardhi. "What are they waiting for?" he asked. "What are we waiting for?"

"The young Raja," he replied, "Raja Suryamuda, and his mother, the Rani Marsyanda. Because of his youth, she will speak for him. She will address you, Saker. Do not shame me. Address her as Tuanku Putri, 'your royal highness'."

Saker repeated the words.

"Yes. Just remember all I have said. I trust your heart. Your understanding. Listen carefully, because her face will tell you nothing. Nothing at all. Yet the voice you hear can say many more things than words."

Another confounded riddle, she thought.

"I might do better if I knew all that you know," said Saker.

Ardhi shrugged. "Take Piper into your arms now. The Rani or Raja might have to touch her."

As Saker turned to take Piper, Sorrel was washed through with the cold of fear. She'd been struggling to understand the Pashali words Ardhi was using, some of them still foreign to her, but she suspected that Ardhi had just implied that she had no more role to play here.

No, she thought. No one dismisses me so lightly, not where Piper's welfare is concerned. No one. And I don't care a fig if this woman is a fobbing Rani...

Though she allowed Saker to take the still-sleeping child, her determination on that point did not waver.

"Stay here for a moment," Ardhi said.

He walked towards the centre of the ruin, moving under the strange woven canopy with its many blank spaces, until he was in the centre where there was nothing at all above. The warrior birds swivelled their heads to watch, their yellow eyes unblinking.

Sorrel, seeking a way to keep herself from panic, studied the bambu that had been used to fashion many of the structures, noting the way each piece was seamlessly joined, one fitted into another so tightly it could have been the work of one of the finest carpenters of Throssel or Ustgrind.

Master craftsmen. Was it possible? Could birds cut the bambu in the forest, carry it here and craft all this? She suddenly felt certain they could. "Those warrior birds perched up thereare any of them female?" she asked Saker in a whisper.

He shook his head. "I think females don't have spurs. I'm wondering if these are more like... eunuchs. No, that wouldn't be right. I think I mean non-breeding males."

Before she could say anything more, a bird dropped down into the space above Ardhi and perched on one of the bambu crossbeams. A cascade of tail feathers spread out in a fan, and then closed to hang like the soft folds of a chiffon curtain. It was beautifully coloured, but still not as gorgeous as the courting bird they'd seen.

"The young male," Saker whispered. "The one we heard singing."

This bird was closely followed by another, larger, but not as ornate.

This one is a female, Sorrel guessed. They must be some kind of pets of the Raja.

The second bird was dark, the feathers sheened with a rich purple, its neck swathed in a ruff of white, its head crowned with red. Its tail was only a third of the length of the one on the bird they'd seen performing the courtship ritual. Black eyes, ringed with red, regarded them. Ardhi knelt and lowered his forehead to the ground. Beside her Saker stood so still for so long staring back at the female, she wondered if he was mesmerised.

She wanted to ask him why he was transfixed, but something held her back. Ardhi, still kneeling, started to speak in his own language. And he was addressing the birdas if it understood.

Even then she was slow to understand. Saker was the one who could talk to birdssort ofnot Ardhi.

When the truth hit, it swamped her.

She warred with the idea forming in her mind. It's impossible.

Then: Sweet cankers, what purblind muckle-tops they'd been. This was why the sakti of the Chenderawasi had pushed and guided Saker to this point in time. This was why Ardhi had acted the way he had. This was why the path the dagger had chosen had led them to this place, to this moment.

So that Saker Rampion, who could speak to birds, could communicate with the ruleror his regentof the Chenderawasi Archipelago.

The Raja of Chenderawasi wasand always had beennot a man. Indeed, not human. A bird. No, there had to be a better word. These weren't just birds. Avian. They were Avians. The Raja Wiramulia's regalia weren't plumes of some long dead bird to be worn by the ruler on a hat; they were plumes ripped from the Raja's own breast as he lay dying. The Lowmians really had killed the Raja, without realising what they'd done. They'd thought to slaughter a bird, and had killed a king instead.

Sorrel fell to her knees, not so much in abeyance, but more in shock at realisation of just how far she was from all she had ever understood.

How dare we call these people Va-forsaken? We don't know the first thing about them!

Sakti.

The magic of the Chenderawasi Islands. Governed, or so Ardhi had hinted, by the Raja. Sakti planted in the dagger through the Raja's regalia and the Raja's blood.

And he, Saker, had missed the obvious: the sakti was in the plumes because they had been part of the Raja. As much an element of Raja Wiramulia as the blood in his veins and the bones of his body. The Raja had not been human, any more than his heir was, or his consort. And these "birds" were not really birds. They had many bird-like features perhaps, but they were also creatures of intelligence and of magic.

The glimmer of understanding had begun to cast its light when he'd heard the song of the Raja Suryamuda. He'd understood the young bird's confused yearning as clearly as if he had used spoken words. But it wasn't until he'd come face to face with the Rani Marsyanda that he fully understood. When he heard inside his head not the nebulous thoughts and appetites of a bird as he was accustomed to hearing them but the articulate words of a queen spoken with royal imperiousness.

At first, she spoke not to him, but to Ardhi, and he guessed she was using the language of the islandsyet he heard her words inside his mind as if she spoke in Ardronese.

You have returned. So many seasons to complete your appointed task. More than just words, too. Saker felt the contempt in her sneer.

Ardhi kneeled and touched his forehead to the ground. "I regret that it took so long, Tuanku Putri."

You have brought back the regalia?

"Yes, Tuanku."

Show me.

Carefully Ardhi extracted the plumes from the bambu and laid all four on the ground. He then stepped away from them.

The Rani inclined her head towards her warriors, and four of them dropped to the ground, each to pick up a plume and fly away with it.

You have performed your task. I believe your blood is forfeit elsewhere. Understand that this was not my request.

Ardhi remained where he was, his head still bowed, his acquiescence written in his posture.

Pox on that, Saker thought.

And these strange people with their pale skins? she asked. You have brought them here to pay for their crimes?

"These are not the people who killed the Raja Wiramulia," Ardhi said. "They helped me return the plumes to you. They have a request."

Her disbelief was obvious to Saker. Her crest flared in incredulity, the red flashing iridescent as it opened. You want them rewarded? Her rage crackled through the words in his head. He bit his lip and curled his fingers tighter on the hilt of his sword while he waited for Ardhi's answer.

He had sworn not to kill any more birds with his actions and the idea that any of these glorious creatures would die on his blade made him feel ill. But then, he had pledged to protect Sorrel and Piper.

"No," Ardhi said. "Not rewarded. They ask for no reward, although they have suffered much to be here, and risked even more to help me return the plumes."

You trust these pale creatures? After what the others did?

"These are not from the same island, Tuanku Putri. Those others are dead long since."

By your hand, I trust.

Ardhi inclined his head.

So why are they here? Will they bear witness to the dagger's execution of its bearer as an empu decreed?

The snide satisfaction in her words made Saker want to cry out a protest. He subdued the impulse. This is not my world.

Ardhi continued, with a stoic calm Saker found astonishing. "If I may be permitted, I will tell you a story of this man and the woman and how they have danced the steps of the sakti of the kris and the Chenderawasi, that you may judge what is to be done."

A bird cannot smile. Instead, the Rani raised her head to the sun, and settled her crest low to her crown. We always love a tale. Proceed.

The second bird, her son, sat quietly, watching them all with intense interest like a lad striving to learn a complicated lesson.

Ardhi spoke Chenderawasi, and made no concessions to Saker's imperfect knowledge of his tongue, but it didn't matter; Saker didn't need to follow the story. He'd lived it.

Sorrel clutched his arm and whispered, her lips barely moving, "What's happening?"

"Ardhi is telling her who we are, and why we are here. Can you hear her when she speaks?"

She shook her head.

"I can. She's inside my head. It's weird. It sounds to me as if she's speaking our language; but I think Ardhi hears the same words in his own tongue." He took a deep breath. "This sakti of theirs is so powerful."

"I'm scared."

He looked around at the birds lined up along the top of the ruins. No, not birds. Avian warriors. Heads cocked, eyes unblinking, they were watching and listening to Ardhi's tale, just as intensely focused as the young Raja.

"I think Ardhi is under some sort of death sentence." Her hand tightened around his upper arm as he explained, his whisper as soft as her own, spoken with his lips almost touching her ear.

"We can't let Ardhi be murdered!" she protested.

"How do we stop it? Ardhi apparently acquiesced to this, years ago, before he even left Chenderawasi. He's hinted at this before, but so obscurely I didn't realise what he was saying."

"What about this Raja? Surely he has the power to change this death sentence!"

"I don't know. I'm getting the impression from his random thoughts that he's still very, very young in years. Like aa six- or seven-year-old would be to us."

When he glanced at her, he saw she was biting her lip, hard, as if pain was the only way she could control her anxiety.

"Sorrel, we can't assume we know anything here."

Raja Suryamuda began preening himself as he listened to Ardhi, stroking feathers with his beak to put them in order, continually raising and lowering the ruff around his neck and spreading and closing his magnificent tail. Fidgeting, Saker thought. Like a bored child.

"Has he said anything to you?" she asked. "The Raja?"

"No. I catch his thoughts, just as I do our own ordinary birds. But his are more coherent. More... human. But childlike."

He eased Piper into a more comfortable position. She was sound asleep, still exhausted. I'm sorry, little one. We are trying to help you. We just want to keep you safe.

When Ardhi finished relating the story of how the sakti had intervened to bring all of them together in Chenderawasi, the Rani switched her gaze to Saker. Why should this child's future matter to me? she asked him.

He didn't have to ask if she would understand him. He knew she would. "I don't know, Tuanku Putri," he replied and he couldn't keep an edge of anger out of his voice. "Ask your Chenderawasi sakti. We are here because the plumes or the daggeror bothmade sure we came. That is all I can say."

She looked at Ardhi. And this is true?

"Yes, Tuanku Putri."

She dropped down to a lower perch with an elegant agility, so that she was on a level with Saker. Bring the human child here, she ordered.

He stepped forward until he was close enough for her to touch Piper, all too aware of the weapons she had at her disposal. Although she did not have spurs on her legs, he knew the vicious curve of her beak or the claws on her toes could have ripped his throat out.

When she bent to touch Piper, he saw there were two hooks on the bend of her wings. She used these like pincers, and gently picked up Piper's arm at the wrist. Piper stirred, murmuring her unease, but she didn't wake.

The Rani laid the arm down again. You're sure our sakti wished this child to come to our lands?

He felt her mystification. Her anxiety.

"We wondered if it was Sorrel it wanted," he replied, "but I think in the end it pushed Sorrel because of Piper, not the other way around."