Strange Noises Fiction by Rachel Greenham

Three minutes later everyone is on deck. Then Beni goes downstairs again, because her baby is crying.

“But we’ve got to go to Taka’utuk!” Chirasel is insisting. “The Satthei will go there!”

Sam just looks at me.

I point forward. “The falcon bears a message. I have to follow where it leads.”

“Is it sent by the Satthei?” Chirasel asks, full of hope.

“I don’t know,” I prevaricate, sure that the Satthei has nothing to do with it; that in fact the Satthei has been preventing us receiving this message again for the last eight months, whether wittingly or not I can’t guess. “But I know we have to follow. This is a spirit guide. I don’t know if it will lead us to the Satthei, but I’m sure it will lead us where we need to be.”

I’m not sure at all, of course. It’s a wild instinct. Gamer logic, I hate to acknowledge even to myself. It’s entirely possible the bird, once released from whatever spell brought it here, was just trying misguidedly to go home and by following it we’re just going to condemn ourselves to a slow thirsty death in a vast expanse of open water.

But I’m a Neri; and, while apostate, they all know I was once learning to be a shaman. They could argue with Sam, but four hundred generations of trust in the wisdom and intuition of the Neri is hard for them to fight. I use that. I use it shamelessly, now I need it.

I take myself forward to sit against the mast myself. I don’t want to look at anyone right now. After a few seconds the falcon swoops in and alights on the windward bow clear of the jib, just a few feet from me.

“Does this mean we’re going the right way?” I ask it, not expecting an answer. I don’t get one. “Or did you just come back because there’s no-where else to land?” It just steps around and faces forward, its head darting this way and that, as if looking for prey. I have a horrible thought. “Was the whole attack only to get me far enough away from the Satthei so you could reach me?”

I sigh and lean my head back against the mast and close my eyes. I didn’t get enough sleep, having finally gone to my bunk very late. I try to recall the charts I saw in the Satthei’s cabin, trying to remember what if anything lay on this heading. Eventually, of course, most of the larger volcanic islands of the heart of Jeodin, and their busy, prosperous cities and principalities of which I’ve heard and read much; but what there might be within reach of our provisions I’m less sure.

I’ll talk to Asuti later, and see if we can get up the fastest wind we can take all the way to wherever we’re going.