209 - The kriffiyah

The day before the count, the weather turned bitter cold, too late. In the afternoon, I felt a tightness between my hips that was not quite pain, but had a sense of promising pain in the future, and then was gone. Two more and I knew what it was despite my not wanting to. Niku was in labour. It was early, but not implausibly so, especially for twins.

How long would it be? By the degree and the pause between and from the last time, I guessed she’d give birth the afternoon of the next day—the day I’d been scheduled to go home anyway, the day of the referendum count. Two all-important events of my life in one day, and I wouldn’t be there.

Assembly and the people of Yeola-e would understand, I knew. A labouring Niku, not so much. A winger came by above, and dropped a note on a stone, from her to me. It read, “Omores, you must know. I don’t know how you are going to do it, but get up here.”

“Stretch flat on the ice, with two long poles, as the assassins were planning,” I thought aloud to Iyinisa and Surya. “If I break through I swim until it’s thick enough again to climb out…”

“Over my dead body,” Iyinisa said matter-of-factly.

“Mine too,” said Surya in the same way.

“A double-wing… rope… hook me up somehow…”

“Has anyone ever done that with a person?” asked Surya.

“Ehhhh… no.”

“You are not going to be the first.”

“My wife is in labour, she needs me!”

“I doubt she’d prefer losing you for good to not having you there while she gives birth,” Iyinisa said. “Though the way the note reads makes me wonder… is it just that she’s in labour or is she always like that?”

“She’s just asking the impossible of me in return for my asking the impossible of her with… well, several things,” I said. “Our marriage is like that.”

One kindness that Surya had done me was bring four of my pigeons, that home right to the Hearthstone Independent, onto the island. I sent one to her saying “Stumped so far; ideas?” A bead later, someone came in from the training-ground, where they’d been shoveling off last night’s snowfall, saying, “There’s a winger above us, yelling something that sounds like ‘vie’ and ‘moy’ stuck together to wake the dead, and I figure it must have something to do with you, Vir—oh I guess so, there he goes.” Fading behind me I heard, “I’ve never seen someone jump up from a chair and land running before.”

The winger was Sijurai, circling just low enough to hail. “Vaimoy! We get you by kriffiyah, yes?”

“Sure!” I bellowed back up. “What’s a kriffiyah?”

He let go the chamir with one hand and made a snatching motion with the other, broad so I could see from a distance. “Catch! Snatch! Grab! Diyadesai invent! Like sea-eagle get fish!”

Away from home for a month, I was no longer up-to-date on the wing innovations. Niku had mentioned something about them working on a way to seize up a person from the ground onto a double-wing. I hadn’t thought it was far enough along to have built the first one yet, though, let alone test it. It also occurred to me that the fish usually doesn’t come out of the sea-eagle’s talons alive. But the next tightening came up just then, and I imagined Niku chewing her nails to the quick. “Tell me what to do!” I yelled up.

“Wait, I come back!” Of course part of the climb he had to do on foot, today’s updraft not being good enough to carry him. I saw the long red speck that was his wing, folded up, on his shoulder, dashing up past the falls against the white of the snow. By the time he was flying over again, the cloud-dimmed daylight was just starting to fade, early as it does in early winter, and he dropped another letter.

Omores, Krero’s saying no to getting you by kriffiyah and he’ll go to Assembly to make it illegal, unless he sees with his own eyes ten other people do it and come out unharmed first. There isn’t enough day left to do that. It will have to be tomorrow. I don’t think the babies will come tonight, and the midwife doesn’t either, and at least I have Baska with me. I still wish you were here. I love you, always and forever, sleep well.

It really was untested, then. I found out later they’d done it only with straw manikins, attaching eggs to them to see where they’d break. It was probably best that I didn’t know. Of course part of me cursed that I would not be the first. Krero knew me too well.

Sleep well? You must be joking, I thought. First was the party; every time someone leaves the island at the end of his time of transition, there is a celebratory goodbye, with a lot of hugging and toasts, the night before. This wasn’t certain, but we decided we would party as if it were so as to strengthen the chances. I only had a cup or two of wine, though, suspecting that I should be at the top of my form for whatever it was I had to do to be snatched. I spent the rest of the night pacing, mostly, as the tightenings gradually grew more intense, Iyinisa staying up with me until about midnight when I told her she need not. Sometime after midnight came the first one that I had to admit to myself couldn’t be called anything but a pain. Niku was probably pacing too.

At the first paling of the sky I went out to the northern point of the island to see what I could see, if anything, of the testing. Once it was light enough, I saw wings on the gentle slope of Haranin, diving then swooping up, with something seeming to slow them slightly at the lowest point, but it was too far away to see more. At noon or so, Daku flew over to drop me another letter. By then the clouds were patchy and a brilliant sun shining much of the time, so that at least we could flash-signal now. A wing flew lazily over at a far greater height; when I saw its colours, blue and green, I realized, it was carrying the vote-count from one of the most distant ridings. It began diving down over Vae Arahi.

The letter read:

Omores, it will be Sijurai who snatches you. The kriffiyah is made of silk netting and bamboo spars. It’s set forward at first, but when it hits it swings back and closes on whatever, or whoever, it’s got. To get enough height with you afterwards, he has to do a fast dive to you, so what you have to do is run full-out and then jump and tuck good and high, just as the netting is about to hit you. By the time Diyadesai’s students had practiced enough that Krero was happy, they were having too much fun to want to stop.

Suku thinks he cannot get enough height after the dive to get across the water, so what you must do is have a big fire burning on the island, fairly near the dock, for a brandilmoy. We’ve scouted all over the island, and we suggest that little field near the big house, that we understand is the training-ground.

The only place that has a long and wide enough clearing is the dock—there are too many trees too near the training-ground and the roofs are all too steep. Make sure every last snow-flake is shoveled off; your foot slipping could mean death. The way the wind’s blowing, it’s best you run north, so start at the south end. He’ll aim to snatch you when you’re at about the middle, so you have enough dock left to stop if it’s a miss. Don’t wear anything loose or hanging.

Daku’s going to circle. We will know you are ready by the fire. Ama Kalandris and Aba Tyriah grant you a safe kriff, I love you always and forever, I will see you soon.

Every last snow-flake? Spoken like a woman from a winterless home, I thought. Because it is not used in winter, the dock is usually not shoveled until the ice breaks up in spring. Because the weather had turned cold after wet, underneath the five-odd handspans of snow was another hand-span of solid ice stuck hard to the dock’s flagstones. Iyinisa was suddenly a commander again. “Every person on this island—yes, the prisoners, too—find every shovel, axe, hatchet and broom on this island, and report to the dock!” she bellowed through the maesa and beyond. I swear I heard several people say “A-e kras!”

“You don’t think it’s the death-in-me inclining me to do this, do you?” I quietly asked Surya, as we used our axes carefully, so as to smash the ice without chipping the stone. Iyinisa had wanted to exempt me from the work, but it would warm me for the run, not to mention help my nerves. “No,” he said, “I think it’s the life-in-your-wife-about-to-come-out. Somehow I doubt you’d want to die without seeing them.” Iyinisa inspected the dock and had me do the same, once every ice-chip had been swept off, then I ran the length a few times to get the feel. While they were lighting the fire—they piled up a goodly amount of their winter firewood—I changed into unsweated clothes, with nothing loose or hanging, and went back out onto the dock.

Soon I could see not only smoke, but the odd flash of a flame above the trees. From far below, the wing with the kriffiyah didn’t look unlike a giant bird of prey, with straight talons angling forward stiffly under it. It had to be lighter than it looked. Suku did one tight east-north-west-south circle, which meant a query: was I ready? I flashed him back yes, and he headed straight south. All along the shore the asakraiyaseyel, and three of the four assassins, had ranged themselves, none wanting to miss this; now they all exhorted me with waves and blown kisses. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I’d never done it, seen it done or even seen the device, from anywhere close.

As the speck in the sky to the south began growing larger fast, I realized I had not only to time when I jumped, but when I started running in the first place. Surya’s voice was in my mind: Deep breath. Deep breath. The nerves were about the birth, I knew, not this, but they’d still affect this. I thought to measure his speed by memories of doing dives myself, but I hadn’t flown for a month, so the memories were not sharp.

When I guessed the time was right I sprang out, keeping a gaze over my shoulder like a relay-runner about to receive the branch. Half-way down the dock, with him still behind, I realized I’d started too soon, slowed a bit then speeded again as he came streaking down, a monster bird roaring through air. When it seemed right I jumped up with everything I had, pulling my legs up and my arms in. But then I was past the apex of the jump and coming down again and I hadn’t been seized, so I had to uncurl again to land; I heard Suku yell “No no Vai—” and then there was a blow so hard on my back it knocked both the breath out of me and all light out of my eyes, so I knew only by the feel of stone against the parts of me tumbling over it that I’d curled up to roll out of the fall. Then I was in air again for a moment, and there was a crackling smash all around me, and instant burning iciness, soaking in all over me, just like the stream-test.

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