Chapter 135: Ninebell Heard a Living Knock

The bell struck from below while Pava was changing the stone beneath the male’s wet foot.

Bronze jumped under her hands. The unnamed emperor tightened his brood fold around the chick and drove his beak toward the floor, warning the buried sound away.

The returning female answered from beyond two-moon silver. Her fish remained in her throat. The cracked feeding notch trembled between the parents and shed a chip of green-black stone.

"Nobody pulls anything," Kedra said.

Valea already had both burned palms away from the surviving line. Aylin stood beside Antarctic white’s empty groove with blood dried across her hands.

The bell struck again.

One blow high. A scrape. Then two quick strikes against Ninebell’s underside.

Varn dropped beside the loose drain stone and pressed his ear to it. "Tideglass."

"Or what learned Tideglass," Aylin said.

Hest looked toward the chick. "How do we ask?"

Aylin picked up the cracked handle of Varn’s empty sheath. She struck the drain twice, paused, then dragged the wood across bronze.

The answer came back changed.

It came back low, high, low, with a scrape between the last two blows. Nothing repeated Aylin’s exact hand.

Valea let out a word that would have embarrassed a dockworker.

"Living," Kedra said quietly.

"For now," Aylin answered. She was already kneeling at the drain.

They worked without pulling either penguin line. Varn fitted his half sheath beneath the loose stone. Hest used a broken bell rib for leverage. Kedra held two-moon silver against her wounded wrist while Valea watched its cracked notch.

Pava moved the warmed stone under the male’s foot by the width of his own shuffle. He stepped onto it without uncovering the chick.

Aylin put both bleeding palms on the bell rib.

"Lift it," Aylin said.

The drain stone rose.

Air burst through the gap, warm at first and carrying the smell of wet hide, fish, and old green glass. Black water followed. Hest shifted the rib before the rush could throw it under the male.

Something hollow struck the underside again.

"Carrier bell," Varn said. "They are sending us their air."

Below the stone, the changed rhythm continued.

Far beneath Ninebell, Brinn heard the reply through the bell chain.

"They opened it," Elen said.

Her cracked mask lay on the drowned ceiling beside her. She had cut the torn coat away from her hip and wrapped the strip around Tir’s bleeding knuckle.

The three Tideglass workers clung to the upper edge of what had been their sleeping room. Water filled every shelf beneath them. The carrier chain ran through the ceiling, pulled straight by the air-filled bell above.

Jiang floated beside Brinn with his head under her arm. His ordinary sight still showed green afterimages. He could distinguish her silver braid from the chain only when one of them moved.

Tir touched the binding at Jiang’s shoulder. "That will open again if he swims the throat."

"Everything on him opens again," Brinn said.

Jiang pushed her arm away and struck the chain with his beak.

"He votes to be difficult," Elen said.

Tir looked up the narrow throat. "The bell has enough air for one mask beside it."

Brinn tightened the leather seal around her green glass. "Then it is my mask."

"You have a room to explain."

"You drowned it with me. Explain your half."

Elen took a narrow green-glass bar from the edge of her cracked mask. One end had broken into a shallow fork. She pressed it into Brinn’s hand.

"Their small silver notch," she said. "If it is the paired kind, this might brace one side. It will not make it wider."

Jiang pecked the bar, then the chain.

Tir laughed once and winced. "The bird has heard enough craftsmen."

Brinn slid the glass bar beneath her mask strap. She looped one arm through the carrier chain and the other around Jiang’s breast, careful of the shoulder wrap.

"I am not carrying you," she told him. "We are failing upward together."

The bell pulled them into the throat.

Its open mouth held a pocket of warm air above Brinn’s mask. Jiang swam along the outer rim, where the stone narrowed around his body and refused human shoulders.

His good flipper found the first turn. The failed one dragged against the current and sent him wide. Brinn caught his breast before his beak met the wall.

The correction cost her grip.

Her wet coat twisted around the carrier chain. The rising bell pulled the cloth tight across her throat and lifted her mask away from its air pocket.

Brinn reached for her knife. The chain pinned the hilt under her arm.

Jiang turned in water he could barely see. His broken claw scraped cloth and failed to hold. He pressed his breast against Brinn’s shoulder, caught the coat collar in his beak, and twisted until the fastening tore.

The coat stayed on the chain.

Brinn dropped below it with Jiang and caught the bell rim before both of them slipped out of the rising air.

Her mask found the pocket. She took one hard breath and shoved Jiang toward the pale gap above.

Jiang fought the last turn alone until his failed flipper opened, folded, and left him facing the wall. His good foot kept kicking while the bad one trailed.

Brinn’s palm landed beneath his breast.

Together they broke through the drain.

Hest caught Brinn’s wrist. Varn caught the carrier chain. Aylin reached for Jiang and stopped with both hands in the air.

Pava had taught them all something about grabbing injured penguins.

Jiang hooked his good foot over the stone. His beak slid across bronze. Pava put a folded hide within reach and waited.

He crawled onto it by himself.

Aylin stared at the clean Tideglass binding around his shoulder, the loosened beak packing, and the empty place where Hest’s cloth had been.

"You lost the wrap," she said.

Jiang gave her a ruined call.

"Yes, I can see that you found another one."

Pava touched the hide beside his bad foot. "He also found fresh blood, more cold water, and a woman with a knife. His talent remains consistent."

Brinn pulled off her mask. "He bit me before the knife became relevant."

Aylin looked at the marks on Brinn’s hand. Relief moved across her face too quickly to become a smile.

"That means he was frightened," Aylin told Brinn.

Jiang struck the hide with his beak.

Brinn glanced down. "He appears frightened again."

The unnamed male called from the higher rest.

Jiang forgot the humans.

He dragged himself across the wet bronze. Pava moved beside him without touching. Aylin cleared the broken bell pieces from his path while keeping her body outside the male’s reach.

The male faced Jiang with his beak open. His outer foot remained wet. The inner foot held the chick beneath the brood fold, warm enough for the small body to call but too weak for wasted movement.

Jiang stopped before the warning distance.

He gave the contact note that had crossed the drowned throat.

The male lowered his beak. He shifted one flank against Jiang’s breast without moving the chick from his feet.

Chosen contact returned. No System panel followed it.

The chick answered from beneath the brood fold.

Beyond two-moon silver, the returning female pressed her beak to the cracked feeding notch and called without dropping her fish.

Brinn crouched beside Valea to inspect the damage. She drew Elen’s forked green-glass bar from beneath her mask strap and held it near the notch without inserting it.

"It can brace that side," she said. "It cannot open the throat or feed the young one."

"Then we use it when we know what the water is doing," Valea said.

The carrier chain jerked in Varn’s hands.

Below the open drain, the bell dropped half its height and caught again. Warm Tideglass air escaped around its rim in a burst of bubbles.

Brinn stepped back from the notch. "That was not Tir."

Every green pane beneath Ninebell went dark from one edge to the other.

The chick answered Jiang again, louder this time.

Far below, something large enough to hide the drowned hall turned toward the call.