Children of the Birdman

Following Elishat’s example, Amaal, too, walked the beach. Beyond the last of the warming fires, she noticed a cluster of children, young passengers from the sunken Sage. Their parents were nowhere to be seen. Thinking that they might be in need of reassurance, Amaal approached the little tribe. They were stacking rocks to make a small cairn and decorating it with cowry shells, seaweed ribbons, gull feathers, and whatever else they could find along the shore.

“What are you building?” Amaal asked gently.

The children spoke as one body with several heads.

“We’re building a tower for our friend…”

“…who got lost in the storm.”

“Someone was lost in the storm?” Amaal said. She was sure she had heard that all of the passengers from the Sage had been safely transferred to the Arbiter.

“Yes, swept overboard…”

“They counted everyone, and one was missing.”

“Oh, that’s awful! Who was it?”

“The Birdman.”

“He liked to talk to birds…”

“…and feed them…”

“…and whistle to them….”

“…he taught me to whistle.”

“He was kind…”

“…he didn’t even mind when a seagull pooped on his shoulder.”

“The grown-ups didn’t like him…”

“…because he was different.”

“They picked on him.”

“They said he offended the gods.”

One girl, evidently the leader among them, held a white feather skyward. “To his soaring soul,” she said, “may it meet with the gods and float on the wind forever in peace.”

Amaal was impressed by the powerful sentiment coming from so young a person. She heard a likeness to the Priestess in the girl’s comfortable communion with the gods. Amaal picked up a small, striped spiral shell. “May I?”

The little priestess nodded.

Amaal placed it on the cairn for Kalev. The tiny gesture contrasted sharply with the deep remorse she felt, but it was something.

“Who is your shell for?” the girl asked.

“Kalev. He was a sailor on the Phoenix. He…” Amaal felt the words stick in her throat. “He saved my life.”

“We heard about that,” the girl said. “We saw the fire on the ship.”

“I’m the one who was taken.”

“Yes, we know. We prayed to Ashtart, and she brought you back to us.”

“But not Kalev.”

“No,” the girl said with a sigh, “the gods took Kalev…and the Birdman.”

Amaal couldn’t bring herself to say anything more about Kalev, so she asked, “Where are your parents?”

The girl gestured vaguely in the direction of the castaways. “They’re around there somewhere. Where are your parents?”

“I…I lost them…somewhere back in Tyre.”

The girl tilted her head meaningfully in the direction of the cairn.

Amaal nodded and selected two parental looking stones from the thousands on the shore. She brushed off the sand and turned them in her hands. They felt cool and smooth. “I know more about these stones than I do about my own mother and father.”

The girl shrugged. “Maybe it’s better that way. Who knows? Still, it’s good to honor your parents, wherever they are.”

Amaal touched the stones to her lips and placed them at the base of the cairn.

“You might see them again someday,” the girl said hopefully.

“Maybe.”

Thinking she would offer to play a tune for the lost and departed, Amaal reached for her flute. Her hand brushed through the air in the space where it should have been. In a flash, she saw it, as she would for many days to come, behind a curtain of flames, and heard it sliding irretrievably off Tondo’s ship into the sea. She picked up a cowrie shell and placed it on the cairn for the loss of her musical friend and her childhood dream. As the little priestess had put it, maybe it was better that way. Just then, she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was the Oarswoman. “Amaal, Uru needs you.”

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