text
stringlengths 6
45.4k
| book
stringlengths 3
133
| pos
float64 0
1
| smog_index
float64 6.6
7.1
|
|---|---|---|---|
"Because they are the dead and the dead hunger for what they are not and can never be." | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.80276 | 7.1 |
"Do you?" asked Anna very softly. She wasn't sure she wanted him to hear her. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.802992 | 7.1 |
"I am your father," was his only answer. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.803224 | 7.1 |
Anna snuck a glance over at the far bank. They were still there. They hadn't moved, but they had kept up. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.803455 | 7.1 |
_You're ghosts_ , she thought at them. _Nothing but ghosts. Go away_. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.803687 | 7.1 |
_Look for your mother, Anna_ , came the woman's voice again. _Look for Bridget_. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.803919 | 7.1 |
"Do not listen, Anna," ordered Father sternly. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.804151 | 7.1 |
But it was too late. The strange name rang in Anna's mind, and she remembered how she had heard it from Father as well. Her eyes flickered from the path to the world beyond and for a moment she forgot to see only the forest and her father. The forest faded and where there had been a brook beside her, she saw the great river flowing, cutting a swath between the forty thousand forms that filled the kaleidoscope landscape, on it floated a boat, and in the boat she saw three human shapes. Because she looked, because for a moment she willed, there was no distance and she saw clearly. There was a woman with hair the color of the lady ghost who spoke to her. There was a man of Hastinapura in clothing from Isavalta, and there was a third woman with straight black hair and a black and red jacket, sitting in the bottom of the boat and clutching a spear. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.804383 | 7.1 |
"No!" Father clapped a hand over her mouth. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.804847 | 7.1 |
Anna looked up at him, startled. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.805079 | 7.1 |
"Call no names here. You don't know what you will bring." He looked frightened and his face had gone pale. Not pale, thin. Anna blinked, and for an instant Father flickered in her sight like the other ghosts. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.805311 | 7.1 |
Anna shook her head. "But it's my bodyguard. She's here! She came for me!" | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.805543 | 7.1 |
Father crouched down in front of her again, so his face was all she could see. He was still too pale, but at least he was solid again. He completely blocked her view of Mae Shan. "She's serving her uncle, Daughter," he said earnestly, angrily. "Not you. You've seen that." He punctuated his words with a shake. "You killed her uncle. She will want revenge for that." | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.805775 | 7.1 |
"No, Father. Why..." | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.806006 | 7.1 |
Father did not let her finish. He stood again, and again grasped her hand too hard. A wave of dizziness swept through Anna's mind and brought a fog of tears to her eyes. "We must go before she finds us." | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.806238 | 7.1 |
He strode away. Anna ran to keep up, but the air was thin in her lungs and she was soon gasping. She could not keep her mind on how to see things anymore. The world was a blur, with too many images to focus on. She could see everything, but she could make out nothing. There was nothing for her to anchor herself to except a strange name and the river, and Mae Shan, who Father called a liar, and who she did not wish to see again, but did not wish to abandon. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.80647 | 7.1 |
_Call your mother. Call Bridget. She will hear you_. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.806702 | 7.1 |
Why did the ghosts tell her this? Mother's name was Kaija and she was dead. They must be lying, trying to trick her as Father said. She must close her ears. She must focus on duty and obedience. She must not be persuaded by things that were false. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.806934 | 7.1 |
But why would these false ghosts come to her when her mother did not? Where was her mother to protect and guide them in this place? | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.807166 | 7.1 |
And why were they speaking the same name Father had? | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.807398 | 7.1 |
_Our ancestors reside in Heaven with the gods_ , Master Liaozhai said. _We are like the goldfish in the pond to them. When we pray or have need of instruction, they will descend into the Land of Death and Spirit to stand at the riverbank and touch our lives in its waters_. They had sat in the Moon Garden, watching the silver carp in their round, brown pond. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.80763 | 7.1 |
_But sorcerers can walk in the Land of Death and Spirit_ , Anna had pointed out. _Couldn't I go there to speak with the ancestors?_ | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.807862 | 7.1 |
_Only in the gravest of emergencies. It is a reversal of the natural flow of the forces of the universe, and must not be undertaken lightly_. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.808094 | 7.1 |
But they were here already, and beset. Surely this was an emergency. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.808326 | 7.1 |
"Father," she began carefully. She barely had breath left to speak. "Why don't you..." | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.808558 | 7.1 |
"Do not question me now, Daughter. I must concentrate. I feel... the river calls, but others call... I don't understand..." Father lapsed into silence. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.808789 | 7.1 |
_But why don't you call Mother to help ward away the false ghosts?_ asked Anna in her own mind. As soon as the thought of Mother came to her, she saw again the woman with the auburn hair and her companions in the boat, and she saw Mae Shan, who looked tired and frightened, and not at all like she was looking for revenge. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.809021 | 7.1 |
_That is not Mother! shouted Anna to herself. Mother is Kaija Kalami, and she has blue eyes and black hair and she is living in Heaven with the gods, and she watches me as if I were a goldfish in a pond!_ | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.809253 | 7.1 |
She strained her eyes, staring through the flashing, flying, turning, riotous images that surrounded her, that decked the evergreen, eternal forest and the crooked riverbanks. _Kaija!_ she shouted in her mind. _Kaija Kalami! Mother!_ | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.809485 | 7.1 |
But she only saw the stranger with Mae Shan, looking down the river, seeing her own destination, and then they were gone, and the river was empty again. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.809717 | 7.1 |
"Keep up, Daughter!" ordered Father. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.809949 | 7.1 |
"But I can't see Mother!" she cried, tears stinging her eyes and sweat breaking out on her cold forehead. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't get enough air. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.810181 | 7.1 |
"Stop that nonsense!" His heavy hand cuffed the back of her head. Anna stumbled, stunned. No one had ever hit her, not Master Liaozhai, not the Minister of the North, not Mae Shan, no one. She couldn't catch her breath for shame, and began to cough. Tears ran from her eyes, and where they fell, small flowers sprang up from the dirt. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.810413 | 7.1 |
Father didn't look at her, he only tightened his grip on her hand and strode on. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.810645 | 7.1 |
"Something," he muttered. "Someplace... we must leave here, or she will find us, don't think, just walk, hurry, hurry... I feel it, I hear it, but where, _where?_ " | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.810877 | 7.1 |
Anna swallowed. She was busy worrying about lying ghosts and Mother when Father told her what was happening, and she was not attending to her duty. No wonder he'd gotten angry. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.811109 | 7.1 |
"I could try to see for you, Father..." she said meekly. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.81134 | 7.1 |
But Father did not seem to have heard her. "There!" he cried. "There! That is our way!" | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.811572 | 7.1 |
Anna looked hard in the direction of Father's gaze. She tried to focus, tried to shut out distraction, to relax her mind as she would open hand or an eye, and to only see what Father saw, and she looked... | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.811804 | 7.1 |
... And she saw a path through the pines with their black trunks and their limbs endlessly swaying in the silent breeze. The path was dirt and it ran through the moss and pine needles to the riverbank. The river here was deep and swift, running with barely a ripple across its surface, and as she saw the surface, she saw past the surface and down to the stones and sand, and the stones and sand were person and place, as the river water was life and memory, and she saw a place of dim and flickering light, where the stone wall was stained with ancient blood and a wizened, half-naked man sat in the midst of the heat and red stone and called, and called. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.812036 | 7.1 |
Fear stabbed at Anna's heart, and she tugged at her father's hand. "No, Father, that isn't..." | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.812268 | 7.1 |
Father's hand came down again, hitting her hard and making the whole world spin. He scooped her up into his arms and ran, jolting her with each step as the tears ran fast down her cheeks. She wanted to speak, wanted to warn him, but she was afraid. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.8125 | 7.1 |
_He must see. He must know something, but we can't be going there! That's not Tuukos. It can't be_. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.812732 | 7.1 |
But she did not dare speak. She did not want Father to think she was questioning him again. She did not want to earn another blow. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.812964 | 7.1 |
They reached the pebbly shore. Father stopped right at river's edge, the toes of his boots just touching the rippling water. He set her down and she folded her hands and bowed her head, as she had done when Master Liaozhai was angry at her. She wanted to show him she was obedient and understood her duty perfectly so he would not be angry anymore. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.813196 | 7.1 |
But why could she not see Mother? The question would not leave her. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.813428 | 7.1 |
"You must lead me into the river," Father said. "Here and now. I cannot go farther as myself anymore." | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.81366 | 7.1 |
"Yes, Father." She took his hand, screwed up her courage, and walked forward into the river. It was not truly water. It was the route back to the living worlds, and it was dry and cool and dimmed the light of the Shifting Lands. As she walked and the world blurred, whispers began in her ears, telling secrets, lies, truths, nonsense, and deep sense. All the voices of life surrounded her, growing louder, growing stronger as the world around her grew darker. She could feel nothing under her feet, and the touch of Father's hand melted away. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.813891 | 7.1 |
She tried to cry out but could not. Her footsteps faltered. She was blind and there were only the unintelligible voices around her. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.814123 | 7.1 |
But one voice called clearly. "Come. Come to me." | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.814355 | 7.1 |
The voice grated in Anna's ears. It sounded wrong, although she could not have said how. She did not want to follow it, but she had nowhere else to go. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.814587 | 7.1 |
"Come. Come to me." | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.814819 | 7.1 |
She could feel Father inside her heart again. He did not speak with words, but she felt him urging her toward the voice. This was the way he intended her to go. It could not be wrong then. She must not think that. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.815051 | 7.1 |
Gulping back her fear and confusion, Anna followed the low, grating call. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.815283 | 7.1 |
# _Chapter Twenty_ | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.815515 | 7.1 |
Sakra pushed himself up slowly from where he lay on the deck. Bridget did not look at him. She stared out at the river. The banks changed on either side, shrinking and shriveling until they were nothing but barren rock, grey and lifeless. The thin wind blew straight through her, but gave her no air to breathe. Shadows drifted across the green sky like clouds. They were being watched. She felt that through every pore in her skin. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.815747 | 7.1 |
She set her fear aside. She thought of Prathad and Richikha. She thought of Mikkel, Ananda, and the lord master Peshek who had known her parents and had come to stay at Vyshtavos for several weeks in the middle of winter to talk to her and help her get settled. She thought of Sakra, of walking with him and talking late into the night, of him teaching her the names of the Isavaltan stars and the plants in the gardens and the streets of the town. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.815979 | 7.1 |
But there was nothing. The boat drifted down the river as boats on real rivers did when there was no guiding hand. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.816211 | 7.1 |
She tried again. She thought of the woods and gardens she had seen, of laboring over the elementary language and reading lessons Mistress Urshila set her and how she had struggled through them, sometimes late into the night, furious at her teacher for treating her like a child, and furious at herself for not being a better student. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.816442 | 7.1 |
_Where are you?_ she thought to the whole world. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.816674 | 7.1 |
But the world did not answer. Another shadow scudded overhead. Something hunched and grey scuttled behind the rocks. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.816906 | 7.1 |
The woman was talking to Sakra, low and tense. Anger and fear warred with each other in her features. She tried to struggle to her feet, but the rocking motion of the boat robbed her of what little balance she had and she fell panting and coughing into the bottom. However long she had been here, it was too long. Her lungs were feeling the lack of air and her strength would soon ebb. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.817138 | 7.1 |
Sakra touched her arm, and said something else in her language. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.81737 | 7.1 |
"I will try to find what is left of the spell here to guide us," he told Bridget, but his words and breathing were heavy. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.817602 | 7.1 |
Bridget bit her lip. She scanned the banks, searching for some sign. Stretching out with her sight to see past the jumble of grey stone. There had to be something. Something real and true she could see in this mist of illusions. There had to be. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.817834 | 7.1 |
On the right bank she saw the mirror image of the woman crouched beside her. She leaned heavily on her spear, and held out her hand, beckoning wearily. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.818066 | 7.1 |
On the right bank, she saw a withered, brown man with a great, ragged hole in his sunken chest. He grinned at her as if she were the funniest joke he'd ever seen. She saw other forms, indistinct and fleeting, behind and between the rocks. They watched and they waited. She could not see them, oh, no, not even with her vaunted, precious eyes, but they could see her quite well, her and Sakra and this stranger she had thought she was saving. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.818298 | 7.1 |
Something flashed overhead. Bridget winced, but did not look up. She dropped her gaze to the river water, willing herself to remember, to think only of Isavalta, but fear already nibbled at the back of her mind, and the knowledge that she had failed began to burrow into her heart. She felt Sakra's magic writhing fretfully beside her like a sleeper caught in a nightmare, but it could not take form. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.81853 | 7.1 |
Again something flashed, in front of her this time, above the horizon, like a bird gliding above the waters. Bridget turned her mind inward, trying not to see. There was nothing to see. Mistress Urshila had been right. She had trusted too much to her eyes. She did not have enough learning. She had forgotten what little she had known and she had lost them. Lost Sakra, lost herself, lost this poor stranger and was trying to sift truth from illusion as if it were gold dust mixed in sawdust, not willing to believe, even now, it simply wasn't there. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.818762 | 7.1 |
The woman spoke, Sakra answered, his magic stirred again, and fell still. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.818994 | 7.1 |
Flash. A shining form swooped over the river. A bird. A gull, but not a living gull. The bird wheeled closer, and Bridget saw it was a creature of crystal. Each feather was perfectly shaped from glass. It was a beautiful thing to watch as it dipped and dove, and rose again to circle overhead. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.819225 | 7.1 |
_Stop, Bridget. Stop_. She squeezed her eyes shut. _It's another trick. It wants you to follow it_. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.819457 | 7.1 |
The woman was speaking again. Her words coming in gasps. Bridget's eyes snapped open. The crystalline gull had landed on the prow of the boat. Sakra had planted both hands on the bench and was trying to heave himself to his feet. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.819689 | 7.1 |
The gull was clear glass with smoked glass on the cap of its head and the tips of its pinions. She could see the river right through the heart of it, blurred and distorted, green and brown and grey and white. Its eyes were onyx beads, and it looked at her first through one and then the other, and Bridget felt her mind stir, and a sensation — part inspiration, part power — unfolded, stretched, turned, and wheeled. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.819921 | 7.1 |
The gull opened its beak and threw back its head in soundless cry and launched itself into the air. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.820153 | 7.1 |
"Urshila." Bridget lifted her hands away from the gunwales so she could shade her eyes and watch the flight of the crystalline bird as it turned overhead. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.820385 | 7.1 |
"It is. It's her. She's come to show us the way home." | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.820849 | 7.1 |
"Bridget, do you see her?" | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.821081 | 7.1 |
"No." She shook her head, grinning absurdly. "She's shown me. Sakra, please, trust in this." | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.821313 | 7.1 |
Sakra only looked defeated. "We have no other choice." | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.821545 | 7.1 |
Bridget clambered back to the steering oar and gripped the smooth wood again. Her skin seemed extra sensitive. She could feel each line of the grain beneath her palm. She turned her gaze overhead, catching hold of the glass seagull with her eyes and held it, willing her mind's eye open for whatever it had to show her. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.821776 | 7.1 |
The gull hovered motionless for one moment, glinting in the clear green sky, and then folded its wings and dove fearlessly into the river depths, and with mind, sight, and soul, Bridget followed. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.822008 | 7.1 |
It was like plunging into a thick pool. The world went mossy green, then brown flecked with gold, then black, and with her mind's eye wide open, she saw the gull leading them on. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.82224 | 7.1 |
And she saw Mistress Urshila cold and dead on a flagstone floor. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.822472 | 7.1 |
And she saw Valin Kalami standing before the Old Witch, Baba Yaga. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.822704 | 7.1 |
And she saw the woman, the stranger in the boat, but she was running through streets filled with smoke and ash, clutching a young girl to her, and the girl had black hair and green eyes, and Bridget knew the child with all her heart. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.822936 | 7.1 |
And then the world opened up around them, and the prow of the boat slapped hard against a wave that sent up a shock of salt spray, and a thick, honest wind filled with the smell of salt blew Bridget's tousled hair forward over her face and caught the sail, snapping the canvas out and singing through the lines. Ahead, breakers roared against a sandy beach that rose to form an island of winter-grey stone and spring-green forests. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.823168 | 7.1 |
Bridget grabbed hold of the steering oar, relief making her weak as water, and only instinct putting her hand to the line to haul the sail down before the wind drove them straight into the breakers. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.8234 | 7.1 |
They were in the living world and they themselves were alive and all of them dragging in great gulps of rich salt air. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.823632 | 7.1 |
But wherever they were, it was not Isavalta. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.823864 | 7.1 |
Grey stones stuck out of the earth like bones. Wind whipped her hair in front of her face, bringing with it the roar and the salt tang of the sea. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.824096 | 7.1 |
Where the world was not grey, it seemed to be all shades of green. Deep black-green for the moss on the boulders and cliffs, pale lime-green in the cups of the little flowers that grew in the shelter of the stones. Vivid emerald in the grass and the new leaves of the trees flashing out in the clean spring sun. The low hills that curved around in a cluster in front of her joined together to become one great mountain that rose up almost to the sky. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.824327 | 7.1 |
It was a place wholly different from any Anna had ever seen and as she gazed out at it, she felt her father's love rising in her mind like mist from still waters. This was the place of his boyhood. He knew the names of the tiny flowers — veridian, maiden's cup, moth's heart. The hill at her right shoulder was Urho's Barrow, and as the name came to her, so did the story of the giant buried beneath it. The forest that covered its broad slope was the perfect place to find whiteback mushrooms, pitcher moss, and everheart root for tea, for sleeplessness and easing a cramped stomach. Everything she could see caused meaning and longing to well up in her mind. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.824559 | 7.1 |
But at the same time, Anna could only blink stupidly at it all. _I'm tired, Father_. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.824791 | 7.1 |
_Of course, Anna. Let me take you. The Holy Island is generous with food and shelter. I'll show you_. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.825023 | 7.1 |
She did not want to walk. She just wanted to sit down where she was, but she did not struggle. Under Father's will, her feet moved lightly and all but ran her up Urho's barrow until the trees engulfed them, turning the bright day into twilight, and reminding Anna, for all she saw everything through the warmth of her father's love for each detail, of nothing so much as the deep woods of the Land of Death and Spirit. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.825255 | 7.1 |
Was Mae Shan all right? she wondered. Should she even be thinking about her? Would Father be mad? | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.825487 | 7.1 |
But if Father knew her thoughts in the back of her own mind, there was no stirring, no touch, and best of all, no scolding. And he did not lie about the food. He knew where the squirrels kept their winter nuts and just how to crack them open. He knew about the tender hearts of reeds that grew by the streams of snowmelt that tasted tangy and salty. The whiteback mushrooms were peppery and the fiddlehead ferns were crisp and juicy. She wished for rice and tea, and a sweet cake, but she wasn't hungry anymore, and Father wasn't angry. The moss sheltered by old trees and new ferns was damp where she lay down, but she was cradled by memories of doing this a hundred times before and it didn't seem so bad. Maybe the bad part was over now that they were on the Holy Island where Father always wanted to be. Maybe he'd be happy now and live contentedly in her heart and they'd have a home by the sea and he'd teach her to swim and to sail a boat... | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.825719 | 7.1 |
Filled with the hopes of finding a life to replace the one she'd lost, Anna was able to settle deeply into sleep. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.825951 | 7.1 |
_Anna, wake up_. | Zettel_The.Firebirds.Vengeance | 0.826183 | 7.1 |