Why I certainly would like to here what you heard, little friend, I tell Dartlin.
Well, it’s terribly interesting and I hope you don’t get frightened but, though you are a fierce hawk after all and probably don’t get frightened … Oh, isn’t this a dark old place? I don’t like perching here on the edge. May I hop up beside you?
By all means, Dartlin, I says, shuffling along a bit on my perch.
Thank you. Now; I says, now I don’t want to make you nervous anything – like I say, with you being fierce I can’t imagine you know the meaning of the word – but it would appear that there’s a bit of a disturbance in the air – oh, it gives me a shiver just looking at those big fierce talons of yours – what was I saying? – oh yes, a disturbance in the air, affecting everybody, near enough – you know I think I felt it begin myself even though I was down on that horrible floor at the time with other things on my mind – wasn’t it horrible down there? I hated it. Anyway, it seems the raptors and carrion-feeders and most especially the lammergeiers have been behaving strangely – oh! was that a seagull just there? I knew a seagull once, his name was…
That’s the trouble with sparrows; they got a very limited attention span and are inclined to go wittering on for ages before they get to the point, always fluttering off at tangents and keeping you guessing what it is they’re actually talking about. It’s very frustrating but you just have to be patient.
Anyway, I better paraphrase or we’ll be here all bleeding day listening to this sparrow-crap.
First, some of the birds is looking for somebody and I get a funny feeling it might be yours truly. The song goes that there’s a hunt on for somebody who’s loose in the system, existing in the crypt and/or the base-world and there’s a price on their head. Apparently this person’s a first-born, which fits me. Fits lots of people, you might say, but apparently this person’s got something a bit different about them; they have some peculiarity, some strangeness, and they’re a signal carrier, carrying a message they might not even know they have.
Oh I know it’s probably not me, but you know how it is; I always felt I was special – just like everybody else – but unlike everybody else I got this weird wiring in my brain so I can’t spell right, just have to do everything phonetically. It’s not a problem because you can put any old rubbish through practically anything, even a child’s toy computer and get it to come out spelled perfectly and grammatisized too and even improved to the point where you’d think you was Bill bleeding Shakespeare by the language. Anyway, you can probably see why I got a bit paranoid when I first heard all this, and it gets worse.
The story goes that this person – maybe a bird, maybe not – is a contaminant from the crypt’s nasty old nether regions, a virus come to corrupt even more levels, which is quite a thought and might even be a bit worrying just in case it was me, only not everybody seems to believe this bit of the rumour because it’s reckoned that the story comes from the palace and the King and the Consistorians are behind it and they can almost be guaranteed not to tell the truth.
Some folk reckon it’s all to do with the approaching Encroachment; they think the chaotic levels of the crypt have somehow woken up to the fact that things could eventually get a bit hazardous even for them.
You see, everybody’s assumed that the crypt’s chaotic levels quite liked the idea of the Encroachment; something that ushered in a new ice age (at the very least) and cut off the sunlight and killed off practically the whole planetary ecosphere and just generally gave humans and biological stuff a hard time sounded right up the crypt’s tree thank-you-very-much, but now that it looks like the Encroachment might be even more serious than that and possibly threatening the existence of the sun, the planet, the castle and the crypt, well the beasts of the chaotic zones have finally sat up and took notice and things have been stirring ever since.
Why it should be happening in the realm of the birds specifically is a good question but there you are; not much point trying to figure out the crypt.
Exactly what is going on apart from the fact that they’re looking for somebody isn’t too clear either, there’s too many conflicting rumours (and anyway this is all being transmitted by Dartlin, who is a dear little bird but would not even get an honourable mention if they was giving out prizes for conversational coherence) but the point of it all is that basically there’s big doo-doo flying around and all the flocks is nervous and a bit hysterical and anybody who’s a bit different is being sought out, rounded up, interrogated and taken away. All of which might sound familiar to any students of history and just goes to show that some things never change, least not when these plucking humans designed the original system.
So there you are Mr Bascule, isn’t it all terribly, terribly interesting?
Oh it’s interesting all right, Dartlin, old chum.
I think though to – oh look, I think I just saw a flea on your leg there; may I preen you?
I feel like saying, You sure it’s a flea not an ant? because I still think tenderly of poor little lost Ergates now and again, but I just says, Preen away, young Dartlin.
Dartlin pecks round the feathery top of my left leg and eventually crunches on a flea.
Yum. Thank you. Well anyway, I wonder what on earth can be going on? Who do you think they are looking for? Do you think it could actually be one of us birds? I don’t think so, do you?
Probably not.
Oh, it’s not you, is it? Tee-hee. Tee-hee-hee-hee.
I don’t think so. I just a poor blinded old hawk.
Well I know that, silly, though you are a very fierce old hawk, and getting less blind all the time. I was just kidding. Oh look another sea-gull. Or is it? Looks more like an albino crow, actually. Well, I can’t stand around here all day chatting with you; I have to fly, Dartlin says, and hops down off the perch. Is there anything I can get you, Mr Bathcule?
No, Dartlin, I’m getting better all the time, thanks. Just you keep your ears open though; I like hearing about all this stuff.
My pleasure. Sure I can’t get you something to eat, perhaps?
No, I’m fine.
Very well.
Dartlin hops towards the edge of the box looking out over the dark canyon. It preens itself a bit, then balances on the edge, looks round to say, Well, bye then… but its little voice sort of trails off, and it looks back round to the outside and then it starts shivering and it jumps back and almost falls over and keeps jumping back until it’s underneath my perch.
Dartlin! I shout. What’s the matter? What is it? and I look down at the little fella and he’s just pressed back against the rear of the box and quivering with fright, his tiny eyes bulging and staring and not seeing me, and meanwhile there’s movement and the sound of fluttering wings outside the box and some whispered squawks. A couple of large dark shapes flit past the entrance to the box.
Dartlin shakes like the poor little bugger’s having his own private earthquake.
He looks at me and wails, Fierce, Mr Bathcule! Fierce! and then just keels over onto the floor of the box, his eyes still open.
Dartlin! I says, not shouting, but I don’t think this sparrow’s going to be doing no more spying nor flying. I can see his fleas getting ready to move out of his scrawny little body, and that’s always the worst of signs.
I look up again and there’s more movement and a rustling sound from outside and then suddenly the noise of huge great wings flapping.
A crow pops its head round the side of the box.
It looks at me with one beady black glinting eye and croaks,
Yeah that’s him, must be him.
It disappears before I can say anything.
Then there’s a face at the entrance to the box, and I can’t believe it; it’s a human face, a human head but it’s been flayed, it’s got no skin on it at all and it’s all red with blood and you can see tendons and muscles and its eyes are staring out with no lids neither but it’s also got the biggest smile you ever seen and it’s held in the claws of some huge bird I can’t see apart from its talons and lower legs; the talons are holding the head by the ears and the head opens its mouth and starts making this weird noise, incredibly loud and guttural and its tongue comes out, but it’s not an ordinary tongue, it’s far too long for a start and it’s flapping and lashing and the head’s making this screaming noise and the tongue is snaking right at me and it’s got hooks and claws at the end of it and the tongue flicks towards me and I jump backwards off the perch and land almost on top of Dartlin’s body and the tongue is snapping back and forth over the top of the perch trying to get me and I’m pecking and screeching and trying to get at it with my talons but it’s too high up and all the while this hoarse cacophony of noise is ringing in my ears and at first I think it’s screaming Gimme gimme gimme but it isn’t, it’s more like Gididibididibididigididigigigibididigibibibi all run together like that, like it’s a machinegun or something and the tongue lashes back round the top of the perch and down and now is coming straight for me and I slash at it with my talons but it twists and grabs my right wing and starts to pull and I’m screeching and it’s going gididibibibigigigibigigigibibigigi and I’m trying to hold onto the perch with one talon and scratch the tongue with the other and peck at it too and it’s tearing my wing off, breaking it and it snaps and it pulls off a whole bunch of feathers and the horrible face gets a mouthful of those and I hop back again to the rear of the box, flapping and screeching and trailing my broken wing; the tongue flicks back in and I kick little Dartlin’s body at it and the tongue wraps tight round it and pulls it back but throws it away when it gets it outside and it’s still hammering away with this gigigibididibibibigigigi stuff filling my ears and I’m just about to die of fright as the tongue comes snapping towards my face when it goes gididibibibibibibigididibigiBasculefastawake!