Order of Swans (The Blue Swan Duology #1)

Chapter 21

21

When Kaley woke the next morning, she knew it was very early, yet she could feel excitement in the air. What was going on? There was a sound at the window and she wasn’t entirely surprised to see the little elephant and the dodo peering at her through the glass. They hadn’t yet told her their names. Nestled in the feathers of the big bird, she saw eyes peeping out. Tibby was hitching a ride. She pushed the window up, stroked all three, then went back to the room to get dressed. She found clean cotton trousers and a green T-shirt in the closet.

She tiptoed out of the house in case people were asleep. It wasn’t fully daylight but she could see several men in the big open pavilion. It looked like they were starting the ovens and cleaning the tables. With Tanek there, would they soon have feathers to process? Daln raised his hand to say hello but he didn’t stop working.

She turned away and started walking toward the water. Behind her was the little entourage of baby elephant and giant bird, with Tibby staying hidden. They’d been joined by some other animals that Kaley knew were extinct on Earth or about to be. The little elephant gave a ride to a pangolin.

As she knew he would be, Tanek was in the water with his beloved swans. He smiled when he saw her and swam toward the bank.

“You’ve been making friends,” he said. The calf got closer to Kaley and the others watched. But the dodo seemed to be hypnotized by Tanek. “Can he swim?”

“I have no idea. Do you have on any clothes?”

He laughed. “Enough. The water is very warm.” He was teasing, flirting, and she laughed. Behind him, three swans swam forward, looking at the dodo in curiosity.

Kaley very much wanted to join them in the water. She glanced around, making sure there were no men nearby, then she pulled off her T-shirt and trousers. She had on her matching set of blue bra and boy-cut undies. It would have to do as a swimsuit. She walked into the water.

He frowned at her clothes. “What is that word you were teaching Mekos? Killboy?”

“Killjoy.” She was treading water and looking back at the animals. The dodo stepped forward and went straight into the water. His big webbed feet were good paddles. However, Tibby was not happy. He leaped off the bird’s back, hit the water, went under, then came up, struggling. “Catch him!” Kaley said to Tanek as he was the closest.

“Not on your life,” he replied.

Kaley went under water, scooped Tibby up and put him on dry land. “Coward,” she said to Tanek.

“It’s my second order. I am the ruler of it.” He was floating on his back, three swans behind him.

“How’s your arm?”

He turned so she could see the place that yesterday had been a deep gash. There was nothing there now, just lots of his tanned skin.

“Let me guess,” she said. “The white feather healed it.”

“Clever girl. Just so you know, they only work this well on me.”

“You and your birds are kindred souls.” She swam toward him. “Are you gathering feathers? The men are cleaning the equipment.”

His face changed to serious. “I can’t find many feathers. It’s been years since they’ve been collected by one of us, so where are they?”

“One of us,” she quoted. “Wouldn’t the feathers deteriorate?”

“No. They—” He stopped because the swans went behind him, then surrounded Kaley. Suddenly, they pulled her under the water. Shocked, Tanek went down after them. He made a lunge for her but the largest male blocked him. Kaley was paddling her feet hard, her arms struggling to take her up to the surface.

Tanek went deeper into the water, trying to come up under her but he couldn’t get to her. In the next second, the water went dark. Nothing could be seen, not the glistening feathers of the birds, not the people. It was a void.

Tanek’s lungs were beginning to hurt, then just as suddenly as the light disappeared, it came back. He could see that the swans had surfaced and they’d lifted Kaley onto a rock. She lay there, unmoving. When Tanek broke through, he started shouting in anger at the birds. They backed away from him, their long necks hanging down in shame.

Kaley struggled to sit up. “Stop it,” she managed to choke out. “They didn’t hurt me.” She didn’t understand the language Tanek was using but she heard his anger.

Tanek lifted himself out of the water, went to her and pressed his hand on her upper chest in a way that relieved the pressure inside her. Kaley started coughing and spit out water.

He sat down beside her, watching her.

“I’m okay. It was just the surprise.” She wrung out her hair. “What is this place?”

They were in a cave. It was shallow, with a wide front that was open to the light and the water beyond. “Is that...?” She was nodding toward the back of the cave where it was dry. There was what appeared to be a mass of feathers, great mounds of them.

Tanek barely glanced at them, but kept his eyes on Kaley.

She smiled at him. “I’m all right. Honestly.” When he kept staring at her, looking like he was afraid she was going to faint, she said, “Stop worrying about me. Go look at those feathers. Are there enough to be processed?”

“More than enough. Come on, let’s go into the light.” He stood up, held out his hand to her and didn’t let go until they got to the mouth of the cave. They could see why no one had discovered the place. Forming a wall on both sides were steep, tall rocks. It would be dangerous, if not impossible, for a human to get over or around them to reach the cave. The only entrance was under water.

They sat down at one side and looked out at the water. It was a peaceful and beautiful sight.

“They were waiting for you to get in with us.” Tanek’s voice told of his wonder at that. “They didn’t show this cave when it was just me.”

“Maybe they were waiting for the other critters.” She was trying to make a joke but he didn’t smile.

He spoke first. “A cave and seeing the swans are what I remember of your Earth.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I was rarely allowed off the ship, but my father took me to see white swans.” He smiled in memory. “He said that after that, my nature and ancestry took over. I had no interest in the ship that so fascinated my father, but Papá is Order of Swans so he understood. He supplied me with a massive amount of information, and I devoured it all.”

“I like that you first saw swans on my planet. Is that why you value them so much?”

“Probably.” He smiled at her. “It seems that I like a lot of Earth things.”

For a moment, their eyes locked.

Kaley was the first to look away. “That trip made you lose three whole years of your childhood.” She was saddened by the thought.

Tanek gave a half smile. “True, but when I got back, I made up for lost time.”

She didn’t know what he meant, but the mischievous look in his eyes made her understand. “You had a teenage, uh...adventure with a foxy lady and created Mekos.” She looked at him. “You had to grow up quickly, but having met Mekos, I think it was worth it. You’ve done a brilliant job with him.”

He smiled at her compliment. “Are you still set on returning to Earth?”

“Of course. My family is there. And I hope my job will be—if I can get my degree.”

He turned to her. “If you stayed here, I would ask you to help me with the swans. Now many of the feathers are sent to Empyrea, but they don’t know how to properly process them. Some uses have been lost.” He took a deep breath, as though he was about to reveal something private. “I would like to rebuild my grandfather’s home. The men say that they want to return to the village.”

She nodded. “Rebuild Haver’s estate, reopen the village and restart production on a big scale. Is that what’s in your mind?”

“It is. But I can’t do it alone.” He looked at her. “I’ve never found anyone who could live and work with me.”

“You mean to live with you and your women?” When he gave a puzzled look, she said, “Indienne, Arit, and I hear that Mekos’s mother is a handful.”

He laughed. “Yes, all of them.” He was quiet for a moment. “What about you? Are you promised to anyone?”

“No,” she answered.

“Why?”

His tone of disbelief made her smile, but she shrugged. “The animals.”

“Have you always been connected to them?”

“Yes.” She wasn’t going to say more, but he was looking at her, silently asking her to continue. A lifetime of being told to tell no one made her hesitate.

“You can talk to them?” he asked.

“Not like you mean, but I can feel...vibrations, I guess you’d call them.” She took a breath. She’d never told anyone about her oddity. “When I was very young, about four, a sheep got caught under some rocks. I could hear her cry for help. I told Dad and Gramps and they went out with flashlights and they found her.”

“Is that unusual in earthlings?”

“Very!” she said. “After that, Dad had a talk with me. He said I could tell them what I felt but it would be better not to tell other people.”

“That couldn’t have been easy.”

“No, it wasn’t, and I slipped up too often. One Sunday after church, I told Mr. Johnson that his mule had a tummyache because he’d eaten a poison weed. I told a neighbor where his lost cow was. And I told Bobby Callow that if he didn’t return the pigs he stole, I’d tell on him.” Kaley took a breath. “There were more slipups, but you get the idea. People knew I was different .”

“So you stayed out of school.”

“Yes. I was homeschooled until I went to university.”

“What happened there?”

Kaley shook her head. “Mostly, I studied, but then, I didn’t quite fit in. I never knew how to join in girl groups, but if there was a spider, a snake, or even a frog, I was the one they called to get rid of it.”

“And the men...?”

“I had some dates, but none of them lasted. One time when my date’s car died, I blew out the fuel line. I wasn’t asked out by him again.”

Tanek tried to repress a smile but it didn’t work. “And there were the animals.”

Kaley groaned. “Oh yes! They followed me everywhere. It might have been all right if they hadn’t included an angry bull and animals coming in from the wild.” She smiled. “One day I went to the zoo with a group of kids. Let’s just say that we were asked to leave and told to never come back.” When Tanek laughed, she said, “It’s not funny! You’re followed by birds and everyone understands. It’s not like that on Earth.”

“Then I’m glad I live here.”

Kaley didn’t smile. “We have things that I miss.”

“And they are?”

“Cell phones, the internet, a car at my disposal, hamburger places and—” She looked at him. “That’s not true. I like Arit better than my phone, and I like finding out information from people rather than the internet. And I like food that was growing an hour ago. Best of all, I like not being weird .” She turned to him. “What about you?”

“I’m Order of Swans,” he said quickly. “We’re very different.”

She waited for him to say more.

“The first years of my life when I was on the ship, I had tutors—all of them women because they wanted my papá. But when I got home, I was taught by my grandpapá.” He smiled. “But only birds follow me. Not elephants and certainly not tabors.”

“Tibby is a sweetheart! Well, he did sort of...” She shrugged.

“Tear out a man’s throat?”

“He saved me. I owe him for that.”

Tanek took a deep breath, as though he was considering what he was about to say. “You’re at ease with the workmen here. If you stayed, you would have a home with us.” He paused. “With me.”

He was looking at her seriously. She knew about the loneliness of being different from other people. His offer was kind and generous—and tempting. The little stone house she’d imagined living in was nothing beside the memory of Haver’s beautiful estate. She could certainly find her stone house there! But she wasn’t going to make a decision like that now. She wanted to lighten the mood. “The prince also offered me a place to live.”

“Ah, yes, that overly pretty boy. Will he mind that a tabor protects you? That you cuddle swans? Nevers do not live on this island. Will Arit’s visits bother him?”

“Well played,” she said, and they smiled at each other.

They sat in silence for a while, neither of them wanting to return to the bustle of the compound. “What about your life?” she asked. “Haven’t you wanted to get married and have more children?”

“Yes, but my women as you call them have caused problems.”

She saw that he was suppressing laughter. “How bad was it?”

“Arit made blindingly bright lights and whispers in the dark.”

“I hate to ask what Indienne did.”

“Made deposits in their shoes, and there were bugs in the women’s food. I never did figure out how that was done.”

“Long necks and an unbreakable determination.” She looked at him. “I’m sorry you went through that.” Her sympathy was ruined by the way she was trying to cover her laughter.

Tanek was laughing, too. “There were bugs and swan crap in their clothes and hair. It was everywhere!”

“Add that to the flashing lights and ghostly whispers! Poor girls must have been miserable. By the way, how many women are we talking about?”

His face turned serious. “If any of them had seen a house made of cake and a screeching old woman throwing fireballs, she would still be running away. And she certainly wouldn’t have risked her life to save some girls who were cutting their own feet.”

Kaley looked away. “I don’t think I knew enough to realize the danger any of us were in.”

“It’s just the opposite. You know more than we do, but you still walked straight into it.” He stood up and looked down at her. “Are you ready to go back?”

Maybe it was the light from behind him, but when she looked up, it was almost as though she could see the wings that were once on his ancestors’ backs. It was just a flash, but the wings appeared to be an extraordinarily beautiful shade of blue.

“If we don’t show up soon, Sojee will send soldiers to find us,” he said.

She stood up.

“But they would still be better than those princes of yours. How many of them are in your stories?”

“Thousands. They’re the only ones who have any fun . The rest of us have to work twelve-hour days.”

“Isn’t that the truth.”

Laughing, they went back into the cave.