Firewing by Kenneth Oppel Page A

know.” Her mother barely lifted her head.
    “Is there anything else you need?”
    “Everything’s been done,” said the mother. “Thank you.” Shade fluttered to the back of the healer’s roost and tried to clear his mind. He listened. He started by screening out the biggest sounds, those that were being made now within Tree Haven, and then tried to hear the smaller ones, the echoes of sounds made just a few seconds ago, then a few seconds more….
    As he listened deeper and deeper into the past, he felt a strange weightless sensation, somewhere between flying and floating inwater. He did not know how far back he was going, and had to guess, pausing sometimes and letting the echoes draw pictures in his mind’s eye.
    Luna—and her mother crouched over her, nuzzling her cheek.
    Further back: Ariel and many other females, gathered around the newborn, doubtless discussing her injuries—though Shade didn’t want to spend time deciphering their words….
    Off to one side he saw Marina, roosting alone, watching….
    A little further back in time and—
    A newborn was suddenly beside her, talking, and Shade recognized Griffin at once.
    I’ve found him, Shade thought to himself. Now he had to follow him, listening forwards through time.
    Feeling as though he were hovering in an immense black void, Shade strained to catch the echoes that formed his son: the image was silvery, hazy, and threatened to dissolve altogether sometimes. Listening intently, he saw Griffin take flight and careen from the healer’s roost.
    Shade too had to take flight and follow his son’s path, staying close to the echoes his wings made. It was like chasing a smear of liquid light, moving down through the great trunk of Tree Haven, and Shade flew with one eye open, so he could match his own course with his son’s—and avoid colliding with other bats.
    He followed Griffin’s sonic trail lower, until it hesitated briefly at the base of Tree Haven. It took all Shade’s concentration to focus, to stopper his ears against all the noise in the roost and the competing echoes from the past.
    When he saw his son’s echo image disappear into the tunnels, he felt ill. He could only hope Griffin hadn’t been underground. Shade paused, listening forwards in time, hoping he’d hear another sonic mirage coming back out of the passageway.
    But there was nothing, except a long concussion of light, created by something very, very loud. The earthquake.
    Shade launched himself into the tunnel, scrambling as fast as he could, following Griffin’s trail. Past the junction to the echo chamber, and down even further.
Griffin, why did you go so deep? Why did you have to hide down here?
    So intent was he on the trail that he almost crashed headlong into the wall of rubble and rock created by the earthquake. Panting, he cast back into the past, before the earthquake, until he caught sight of his son’s smudgy silver image in the tunnel. With horror, Shade watched as Griffin dissolved into the wall of rubble and disappeared.
    That meant he’d gone
past
this point.
    Or that he was trapped somewhere within the debris. “Griffin!” he shouted, his voice clattering about in the cramped tunnel. Immediately he started clawing at the rubble, coughing and sneezing as dust swirled around him. The cave-in might be only a few wingbeats deep, or a few hundred. Didn’t matter. But after a few minutes he realized he was getting nowhere this way. He backed up, closed his eyes. He knew it was dangerous, that it might cause an even more disastrous cave-in, but Griffin could be in there, trapped, and it was the only way to shift the rubble. Shade took a deep breath and with all his might barked out a bolt of sound.
    The sound struck against the wall of rubble, and the returning echo blinded him in both ears. The ground shuddered, and rock and earth pelted his fur, but when he opened his eyes, he saw that his blast had triggered a small avalanche and opened a hole in the wall. He