Fantastic Metropolis

Eager as he is to be gone, Kestrel’s ashamed of his behavior and doesn’t want to make things worse by rushing off. Rumor has it that Pigeon’s withered wing is a souvenir of his pilgrimage; but however he got it, the injury prevents him from flying now. Oh, he can summon a wind strong enough to sweep himself aloft, but that isn’t real flying. Not to an airie. There’s no precision to it, no grace. The truth is, Kestrel and the others treated him so meanly because his handicap had awakened not just their pity but their darkest apprehensions of suffering a similar injury. But that’s no excuse. Kestrel thanks the Odds that his parents are staying with boggle friends in another quarter of the city. His father, Scoter, had admonished him during the long flight from Wafting to remember that he would be representing his nesting at the Proving and afterward and to act accordingly. Kestrel’s pretty sure that throwing pizza crusts at the crippled proprietor of one’s lodging while singing obscene limericks at the top of one’s lungs isn’t what his father had in mind. “We’re grateful that you didn’t,” he says. “We’ll pay for any damage or incovenience.”

Pigeon’s smile grows warmer, his headcrest relaxing into a less martial display. “Hard as it might be for some to imagine, I was young once. Raised a bit of a ruckus myself the night after I passed my Proving. Took me four tries: of course, the tests were harder in those days—ask anyone. So I had cause to celebrate!” He whistles his laughter, fine chains glittering frostily amid his feathers; across the lobby, the delph behind the front desk turns a face as rough and inscrutable as granite in their direction. “No, I don’t begrudge noise or high spirits,” says Pigeon. “It’s rudeness I can’t abide. After all, master Kestrel, we’re airies, ain’t we?”

“Yes, sir.” Kestrel swallows, wondering if Pigeon’s feathers are dyed or are naturally that excruciating shade of red. His hangover has entered into sadistic symbiosis with his senses; the noises from Bayberry Street, the countless bruises and muscle strains the Proving had inflicted on his body and wings, the smells from the common room, of frying sausages, eggs, and onions mixed with tobacco and marijuana smoke… all of it’s growing more and more intolerable. He can feel each individual feather on his body, and every one of them aches in its own unique way.

“I expect that sort of behavior from the, er, lower races,” Pigeon continues, dropping his voice a notch and flashing Kestrel a wink at the phrase, employed by some airies as a euphemism for their earthbound brethren, “but we airies should be above all that. They look up to us, you know. We have to set an example.”

“Yes, sir,” Kestrel repeats, impatience and discomfort by now outweighing his guilt and very nearly his politeness. It’s like listening to one of Scoter’s interminable lectures. He flicks the end of his earpiece. “It won’t happen again.”

A trio of dark-skinned manders has meanwhile entered the inn: two females and a male. The air shimmers with radiated heat around their scantily clad bodies, giving them an insubstantial, shadowy look, like walking mirages.

“I’ll be right with you, gentlemutes,” Pigeon calls out in a hearty voice, gesturing to the desk clerk to remain at his post, although the delph has shown no inclination to leave it.

With polite nods, the manders step into the common room, just off the lobby.

Pigeon puffs out his sunken cheeks in a theatrical sigh. “Well, you’ll excuse me: duty calls. Good as they are for business, for no one thirsts like a mander, I’m always worried they’ll burn the place down, and the servant, Odds save her, is a flighty thing who gets so nervous around manders that she costs me a fortune in spillage. Will you be wanting breakfast, master Kestrel?”

Kestrel winces, stomach churning at the thought of food. “I’m late as it is.”

“Then I wish you good fortune. May your pentad prove as loyal and brave, and your pilgrimage as profitable, as mine.”

Kestrel’s smile freezes at the possibility that Pigeon’s words, in the guise of a blessing, are actually a curse: a wish, in revenge for those pizza crusts and cruel taunts, that Kestrel, too, enjoy the profit of a crippling injury.

But the innkeeper has already turned and is hurrying away.

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Paul Witcover’s Tumbling After is published by HarperCollins. Read our interview with the autor.