The Bird King(25)

“You’ve never been lost in your life,” she said, trying to sound confident. “We’ll just follow this until we can see something.”

“All right,” quavered Hassan. He squeezed her hand. Fatima groped along the wall, testing the ground with her foot before putting her weight on it. She pulled Hassan with her, inch by inch, pausing more briefly between steps as she grew surer of herself. The quiet was almost more unnerving than the dark: darkness might be infinitely large, but the heady sound of their breathing suggested a very small passage. Fatima didn’t dare let go of the wall to test this theory. Instead, she told herself the tunnel had been made by someone, and thus must lead somewhere. She imagined a sultan in ancient chain mail and a pointed helm hurrying his troops through this passage to surprise the enemy; or perhaps a wise, ebony-eyed princess holding a torch aloft, quieting her ladies and children with a whisper as they escaped past the siege lines overhead. The thought that others might have passed this way before and lived—there were no skeletons littering the ground, anyway—comforted her.

“Heron,” said Hassan in a pleading voice, breaking the silence. It took Fatima a moment to understand what he was asking for.

“Now?” she said with an exasperated laugh. “You want me to tell you a story?”

“Oh God, yes. Please. I never realized how afraid I am of small, airless, pitch-black tunnels without any sign of an exit. Tell me a story.”

Fatima tried to think. “Heron,” she repeated, attempting to clear her mind. “I’m sure we’ve done this one before. You always pick waterbirds, Hassan.”

“I grew up with them, is all. They come to mind.”

“Heron, heron. The heron is a hunter. A stealthy hunter who keeps very still and waits for his prey to come to him.”

“Like Luz.”

Fatima curled her lip. “Luz isn’t a bird. She doesn’t deserve to be a bird. Luz is some awful thing, like a—a weevil or a worm, burrowing into perfectly good food.”

“Does the heron make it?” Hassan’s breathing was shallow, rushed. “Does he make it across the Dark Sea with the others, to the realm of the Bird King?”

“Of course he does,” said Fatima. Her own voice sounded unfamiliar. “It’s the heron who feeds all the other birds along the way, diving into the waves for fish. Nobody likes him at first because he doesn’t flock like the others, and spends so much time by himself, but they come to see how loyal and brave he is, in his own way. Not everybody has to be friendly in order to be good.”

“That’s nice,” said Hassan, still quavery voiced. “I like it when the odd ones get a happy ending.”

Fatima turned her head to respond and collided with a wall. Her nose filled with a plume of dust and a bitter, fungal scent. She sneezed violently, cursed, and sneezed again.

“Are you all right?” came Hassan’s anxious voice.

“I’m fine,” muttered Fatima, wiping her streaming nose with the back of one hand. “There’s a turn here, apparently.”

“Which way, which way?”

“I don’t know,” Fatima snapped. “Give me a minute to figure it out.” She felt along the wall, which curved away from her in an odd fashion, as if it was sloping downward, yet when she put out her foot, the ground sloped up. She blundered forward, crouching, and encountered another wall.

“I think we’re stuck in a corner,” she panted. “Hold on to my sash—I need my other hand, please.”

Obediently, Hassan relinquished her hand and fumbled until he found her sash, which he gripped unsteadily, as if he was unsure of his footing.

“All right?” asked Fatima.

“All right.”

Keeping one hand on the wall, Fatima reached out with the other. The other wall, if there was one, was too far away to touch. Steeling herself, she let go of the wall entirely and reached out in front of her with both hands. She took one step and then another, and then set her foot on empty air.

Fatima shrieked. Hassan yanked backward on her sash, toppling them both into the dirt.

“You were falling,” he panted.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Fatima. She was shaking so emphatically that her teeth chattered. “I don’t know which way to go.”

Hassan began to laugh.

“I’ve never been lost!” he shouted at the black, listening air. “I’ve never not known where I am or which way to go next. I had one talent, and now it’s useless. I should never have come to Granada all those years ago. I should’ve stayed at home and minded my mother. I’m sorry, Fa.”

“It’s all right,” lied Fatima. “Let’s sit here for a minute. Let’s just sit.”

Hassan went silent, except for an occasional sniff. Fatima stared into the malignant darkness, straining her eyes, hoping, somehow, that they would adjust, allowing her to make out some helpful landmark. She stared until she saw spots, light sparked by the internal pressures of her own body, weak splotches of yellow and white and blue. They failed to illuminate anything of substance. Yet she focused on them anyway—on two in particular, a pair of yellow specks as bright as lamplight, which bobbed and jerked when she examined them too closely. They persisted after the other lights had faded, dipping and weaving across her field of vision. She had to stare at them for another long minute before she could accept that they were eyes.