Chapter 11: Packing a Palace

My scream was cut short when I smacked against the icy plateau. Peeling my face from the ice, I beamed once I spotted my rapier several feet away. I snatched my sword and turned upon hearing the scrape of the horned birdman’s talons on ice. A shudder ran from head to toe, and I gripped my rapier with rigid arms.

The horned birdman waved my sword aside and beckoned for me to come closer.

Gritting my teeth against my rising indecision, I inched closer until we stood a foot from each other.

After several minutes of silence, the horned birdman gave a curt nod.

"So you are giving Ludger your blessing to leave. I just knew you were sensible! That said, the University has strict rules on how much space new exhibits can occupy, and the palace wouldn't exactly fit in the average display case. I realize you are a busy birdman, but who can deny Tom's talent? Surely you needn’t bother the entire swarm with relocating a, how do I put this, ‘chunk’ of the palace for preservation." Maybe I had made the Empire sound too appealing. Perhaps the horned birdman’s response came from a lifetime spent shivering in this wasteland. Either way, judging by how the beast shook its head solemnly before gripping the knife it had been fingering, it probably expected more than to have a “chunk” of its palace put on display. I sweated while wracking my brain for something the horned birdman would appreciate. "But I'm sure the Headmistress will be ecstatic to meet you all. As for getting you all back to Freylor….” I paled at the thought of stowing away one hundred or so birdmen aboard the airship, but I brightened once I remembered how Ludger had soared up the side of the palace. “Flying within the clouds alongside our airship should be no issue for you clever little fellows—"

The horned birdman held up a talon to silence me and beckoned.

Beaming while I mulled over my plan, I leaned close.

Opening its beak wide, the beast screeched.

My head still rattled with the harsh sound of grating metal even after it snapped its beak shut. I was too stiff to notice the horned birdman as more sparks erupted from its glare the longer I shook my head in confusion. "I'm sure you could fly if you tried. The University record said you could."

Threads of light burst from the beast’s eyes. The threads were pulled short halfway from reaching me, but they hung suspended in the air: poised to strike.

Once I realized it was staring at the cloth-like parchment I clutched and not me specifically, I lowered my rapier a fraction.

The horned birdman’s beak partially opened as if to assess a peculiar scent like a cat in favor of sniffing the air. Finally, the threads withdrew into the beast’s eyes. It covered its face with a talon and emitted a crackling grumble that might pass for a groan.

"What? It's just the world’s most forbidden document. The only piece of bloody proof that birdmen exist. I should know considering the lengths I took to get it. Now, if the archaeologist who wrote it had survived, I'm sure they'd be thrilled someone has finally taken an interest in their work.”

The beast alternated jabbing the document and my chest with increasing force until I caught on to its meaning.

"Do I own this document and its invaluable secrets? Well, maybe not legally, but It would have crumbled into dust if someone didn't start appreciating it. I'll have you know that this is still an empirical document even though it is forbidden to the public eye, and yet even you can’t take my word for it that birdmen can fly—“

Before I could say another word, the horned birdman gripped the sides of my head with its wings.

The interlocking scales of the beast’s feathers dug into my skull. Only my pounding heart disturbed the silence as I stared into the horned birdman’s burning pits for eyes. My mind scrambled to associate words with the horned birdman's silent stare: “We don't fly, and you didn't see anything of the such. Capiche?"

I gulped and nodded.

As the horned birdman’s gaze swept toward its fellow creatures, it fidgeted with the hem of its robe and clutched the spot at the back of its hood as one might massage their temples.

The birdmen formed a circular cluster. Not so much as budging, they stood back to back and scanned every angle of the Floating Isles.

The beast shoved the document into my chest with its beak. It pointed from itself and its birdmen before jabbing a claw at me.

"You have nothing to fear. I am fully aware of the hefty responsibility that comes with being the sole and leading expert on birdmen. So long as we maintain this heartfelt relationship built upon honesty and camaraderie, which I can't imagine ever changing, no one in Freylor can harm you.” I blushed once I only now realized that this would become known as history’s most significant diplomatic agreement. Extending a hand to the beast, I puzzled over what to call it other than "the horned birdman." "Your people will sing of your leadership and wisdom for centuries to come, oh great—!" Before I could provide the horned birdman with a name, the beast scraped its claw through the ice. I frowned only to gasp once I realized the beast was carving letters in the ice.

With the rigid yet deliberate strokes of an ancient man who had only written on a handful of occasions, the horned birdman dragged its claw through the ice before stepping back to reveal the word "Odi."

"Is that your name? Well, aren't you keen when it comes to your letters? Enough to keep up a decent conversation, eh? What else do you know how to spell?"

Odi continued scratching letters after spelling its name without pause. When the beast nodded and strode off to attend to its brethren, it left "go away" etched in the ice.

"Not that I'm complaining since you lot turned out to exist.” I grimaced and massaged the spot where I had been jabbed repeatedly. “But it’d be nice if birdmen could speak.”

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I flinched when the ice quaked. My eyes bulged as jagged fissures split the palace into shifting fragments. Struck by how tiny I was in comparison, I clutched myself and staggered left and right.

Minarets collapsed, and the mammoth slabs of dome shingles rang out when they embedded deep in the ice. As seemingly every brick became knocked out of place, the palace lost the uniformity that once likened it to a singular entity.

Amid the yards of shifting ivory, my gaze snapped to the threads of light that dispersed from the palace and glistened like spiderwebs in the setting sun. I traced them back to Odi.

With its flute raised, the beast filled the air with a dull hum that gathered hundreds of threads. The flute’s continuous note drew the threads within its billowing robe where they illuminated the marble egg from underneath its thick leather.

Yet, a hundred more threads whipped out like burning wire from the stretch of bricks that disappeared beyond the blizzard overhead, and the egg was already burning white.

With a final blare, Odi wrenched its flute aside, and the additional mile of sparking threads snapped from the egg.

Wherever the threads of light had been cut away, the ivory bricks collapsed inward. Gaps spread between every brick in the palace’s once seamless features. The white light that erupted through thousands of cracks extinguished.

Odi bellowed a guttural squawk and ushered its brethren far from the palace.

While I yelled, "I hope I'm not intruding," I scampered after the birdmen regardless of a lack of invitation.

Ivory chunks plummeted onto the plateau and embedded in craters or landed in the snowy expense before sending up mile-high plumes of powder.

Catching up with the birdmen, I leaned heavily on my knees and panted as we watched the clouds of snow settle. I goggled at Odi as it strode through the clouds in a straight line toward some point amid the ruins. Has it gone batty? I looked around wildly as if expecting to find an answer regarding the beast's madness amid the snowy expanse. My gaze froze upon the ant-like figures of fifty or so deckhands marching into view from the horizon.

The deckhands were trudging back to the metallic glint that marked the distant airship only to halt. When the ground stilled and the last clouds of snow dispersed, they started toward us.

I turned to the birdmen with a matching, slack-jawed expression. "I can't blame you all for wanting to come, but if you refuse to fly, I’d love to hear how you fellows plan on sneaking yourselves aboard."

Judging by how the birdmen’s plan seemed to consist of rooting themselves to the spot as they gaped at each other, I felt ready to fling them into the deep snow before they were seen.

I clasped the tender skin around my neck with both hands, as I often did when my breathing became labored, for fear of how the deckhands would react to discovering that carnivorous birdmen are real. Oh, they would learn the truth like everyone else soon enough, but only after I’ve presented the creatures to a more academic audience: those less likely to introduce themselves with shotguns.

I tensed and glanced down when something tugged at my sleeve.

Ludger, who had taken up the tail-end of our retreat because of how carefully it had been transporting its flute, cocked its head to the side while gazing up at me.

"Don't you understand? The fact that I wanted to return with a piece of your palace or to build a monument that might rival it back at the Empire doesn't translate to ‘destroy your life's work!’"

The creature patted my arm and nodded before guiding me to one of the ivory chunks. Ludger slowly brought its mismatched flute to its beak and blew a wavering note that seeped from the instrument’s many seams.

The ivory’s jagged edges were sanded away by nothing but music and threads of light, nearly invisible in the sun, that coiled around the misshapen chunk. Yet, music and threads molded the ivory quicker than any blizzard. After several minutes, a five-foot cube with rounded edges stood in place of the ivory chunk. Its wavy asymmetry suggested it could’ve been molded by hand or a force of nature rather than a chisel and hammer.

"Clever. Yes, I can convince the deckhands to load this onto the airship.” I glanced around and found that once the other birdmen saw what Ludger was up to, they started molding their own ivory structures: mile-high columns, statues of birdmen spearing sharks, and spiral staircases the overzealous sculptors had capped off at several hundred stairs. “I’ll tell them these are evidence of a civilization predating our Floating Isles colony, but this still doesn't explain how we’re going to sneak you all aboard—"

Ludger held up a claw, blew an unbroken note, and shuffled into the cube backward. Sinking deeper into the cube with each step, the creature hummed and examined its work as the ivory crept over its submerged body.

"Don't suffocate yourself!" I darted toward the cube and scratched at the powdery ivory. When it sealed over Tom’s face, I slammed my fist atop the cube and winced as I rubbed my aching hand. "You're the only evidence I have!" I whipped my head around and saw the other birdmen disappear into their structures. Clasping my hands over my face, I sobbed until I heard a muffled whistle come from within the cube. I shot bolt upright and scrambled in front of the peephole that formed on the cube’s side. Peering inside, I gasped.

Ludger hummed to itself as it reclined on an ivory armchair in the four-foot by four-foot room within the hollowed-out cube. The near-perfect recreation of the creature’s room from the palace was equipped with a miniature fireplace, a cabinet with tableware engraved within its compartments, and a counter with a salmon shark carved atop. Ludger’s wide eyes met mine, and it waved.

Once I forced my slack features into a weak smile, I waved back. No, electricity can't account for any of this, but that just means I haven’t dug deep enough. If I want the Headmistress to consider me an expert in this field of study, I had better know for a fact what makes this magic tick.

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