Pegasus

CHAPTER 9

They still flew after that, but less often, and it was increasingly difficult. More than once they saw a party, torch-lit, riding or walking swiftly with the unmistakable purposefulness of someone bringing news to the king, or going on the king’s urgent orders. Ebon had been forbidden to fly beyond the Wall—I nearly got grounded completely, Ebon said. I said it would spoil my project, and Gaaloo said I should have enough sketches—unless I was being negligent, I shouldn’t need to fly around at night any more.

Oh no! This had been what she’d been afraid of.

Oh yes. But I pointed out that it was a little unkind to ground me when I’d brought them useful news.

Once when she was younger—before Ebon—Sylvi had found a silver penknife that her father had lost, found it somewhere she was expressly forbidden to be. She had stood with the beautiful, treacherous thing in her hands, not deciding what to do—she already knew she would take it to him and tell him the truth—but nerving herself to do it.

When she had done so he too had stood looking at his penknife with an expression, she imagined, very like the one she had worn when she found it: delighted, dismayed, baffled, unhappy.

“What were you doing in the Hall of Magicians?” he said at last.

Again she answered honestly; her father did not try to make you say things that would make it worse for you. He wanted to know.

“Someone”—Garren, but she didn’t need to say that—“told me that the Hall of Magicians smelled of magic, and if I went there some time by myself when no one else was around, I would learn what magic smells like, and then I would always know.” He had also told her that on a sunny day you could see faint reflective ribbons of the enormous power used to maintain the protective magic of the Wall, dancing in the sunlight like dust motes.

“And did you learn what magic smells like?”

She hesitated. She knew, now, that her brother had set her up. She should have known immediately, because that was, in her experience, what brothers did; but she had badly wanted to know what magic smelled like—or some other way to recognise when magic was being used around you so you knew why you felt so queer. So she had ignored her common sense, and gone to the Hall. Where she’d realised she’d been played for a fool—she couldn’t see that the dust motes in the sunbeams were any different from any other dust motes either—and found the king’s little knife.

“It doesn’t have a smell, does it?” she said. “Just when they use incense and things, it smells of incense. But . . . but it does something, doesn’t it? Because you do feel it, when you’re all alone in the Hall.”

“That may merely have been the apprehension of approaching trouble for being where you oughtn’t,” said her father drily, and sighed. “I don’t know what it’s like to be an ordinary person bound by ordinary rules—you can perhaps ask your mother—I was born the ruling monarch’s eldest child. And as a person who may rule absolutely over other people you must absolutely obey the rules. I will ask Ahathin to set you new work: in a month’s time you will bring me a paper on village magic, on what the local wise woman or wise man can be expected to do, and how likely it is to be successful. You will, as I say, bring me a paper in a month, and another paper in another month, and thus, until I tell you you may stop.”

There was a little silence, during which Sylvi considered that she would have less time to ride her pony, and go out with the huntsfolk and the falconers. But she also recognised that this wasn’t punishment like a slap with a riding-whip was, or nothing but plain porridge for a week. This was much worse. But it was also much better.

“And yes . . . magic does . . . something: makes its mere presence felt somehow. I don’t think it’s a smell either. I don’t know what it is. I would like to know. You may consider that this is the purpose behind your research; I think you are more likely to discover the answer investigating straightforward, practical village magic than what the guilds send to the palace. And no one pays much attention to hedge wizards; I have thought before that I would like someone to pay attention and tell me what they see.”

She had brought her father monthly papers for three years. He had let her off a year ago, but by then she was interested—and the network she had set up for people to bring her stories (people who were first carefully vetted by Ahathin or, lately, one of her guards) was working too well for her to be willing to close it down. She had brought her father three more papers in the last year, and they were all long ones.

She continued to carry them to him herself, and with the third one this year she finally caught him smiling. “ This was as much a set-up as Garren sending me to the Hall in the first place, wasn’t it?” Her father had guessed that one of her brothers had been responsible, and Garren had admitted it—and been assigned three months’ attendance on Nirakla as punishment. She used no magic herself, and was happy to have an extra pair of hands for the summer to bundle and hang, chop and grind herbs for her. “She wanted to know if I wanted to apprentice to her,” Garren had said at a private family supper at the end of his term with her, trying to sound outraged. “She said I chopped really well.”

Sylvi said again to her father, smiling over her latest paper on hedge magic, “Wasn’t it?”

“No. Yes,” said her father, and laughed. He didn’t laugh often enough. “One has various things in the back of one’s mind. Occasionally an opportunity presents itself to bring one forward. Most of these opportunities come to nothing. Once in a very great while one—or two—do come to something.”

Garren had not apprenticed to Nirakla—his father could not spare him so far. But Nirakla had agreed to a half apprenticeship, and the king had allowed his youngest son a certain latitude in terms of creating unnecessary work for his new tutor by knocking people down who were inclined to tease him about his new assignment.

The thing that had stuck in Sylvi’s mind during her long atonement was that the Hall of Magicians was used when someone wanted the truth about something—the truth when it concerned magic or magicians. The guilds sometimes used it; the king, with or without the presence of the council or the senate, sometimes used it. She wondered—she couldn’t help wondering—what effect the Hall itself had had on her experience and its outcome. She had found the possibility that its enigmatic half-sentience had been involved curiously cheering, as if it was an indication that magic was not quite as inimical as she’d thought. As if magic was more often like Ahathin than it was like Fthoom. Although writing her papers always took longer than she expected, because even the most trifling of village magic didn’t like being pinned into paragraphs.

But a shadow had grown over this, as over so much in her life. After her twelfth birthday she had wondered if her little study was one reason Fthoom had been so ready to hate her—but surely a princess studying witch-charms for love philtres and fortune-telling and fly-strike in sheep was pitiable, not dangerous?

Do you have to do something else instead? she asked Ebon. Since they didn’t ground you.

Mmmh, said Ebon. Our dads are so alike, aren’t they? I have to teach a class of littles flying safety.

Sylvi laughed.

She and Ahathin were in the garden examining the botanical structures of loomberries when another king’s messenger trotted past, looking grim and intent; he did not seem to notice them standing in the shrubbery with their notebooks. Without knowing she was going to say anything, Sylvi said: “Ebon says our dads are very alike.”

After a pause Ahathin said, “Yes. They are.”

Sylvi turned to look at him. He looked mild and rumpled, as he always looked. “Is that good or bad?”

“What do you think?”

“Oh, good, of course. But . . .”

“ There are always ‘buts.’ ”

“I heard Lord Kanf say that we should make an alliance with Swarl, which has a strong king and a large standing army who would know what to do with our taralians. And norindours. And whatever else keeps coming out of the wild lands.”

“And your father said he didn’t want someone else’s large standing army underfoot.”

“And Lord Kanf said, Better allies than taralians.”

Ahathin said nothing.

“And then my father said, This is the taralians’ country too,” said Sylvi, “and Lord Kanf said, My lord and king, you are human, not pegasus.”

But Sylvi could still put everything out of her mind when she and Ebon flew. She never grew weary of flying: after four years the sky-wind in her face delighted her as much as it had on the night of her twelfth birthday.

The baffling thing to Sylvi was the way the thought of the Caves grew on her—the Caves which, the first time she had asked Ebon about them, he had told her were not a human sort of thing. The Caves where Ebon would some day sculpt some sky view of the landscape around the palace, despite some of the pegasi protesting that the Caves were not for human things. The Caves where the pegasi ssshasssha was held. The Caves where no human had ever set foot.

She could forget taralians and norindours and their night flights’ newly restricted scope; she could forget how often her mother wasn’t home, and the deepening shadow on her father’s face. She could—sometimes—even forget Fthoom. But lying along Ebon’s back with the great sweep of his wings framing her, peering through the lash of his mane, the one thought that could take her away from the present moment was the thought of the Caves. She longed to see them—she didn’t know why. She guessed perhaps it had begun with listening to him humming his lessons, listening to his stories about the histories on the Cave walls. She thought it might also have to do with his feather-hands on her temples saying the polishing-chant, and the vision that had bloomed behind her eyelids: a curiosity—no, a longing—to try and comprehend ssshasssha.

Ebon had described his favourite bits of the Caves to her till she felt she could almost see them herself—but only almost. She wanted to stretch out her own hand and stroke the silky surfaces which generations of tiny alula-hands and their light tools had smoothed to a perfection that rougher, stronger human hands could not emulate. But the Caves were far more than half a night’s flight away; nor would it have been possible to enter the Caves without being discovered. There was always someone at the various entrances—

Oh! said Sylvi. You have guards? Who would want to damage your Caves? They are far inside your country, are they not? Where no one goes but you? And you’ve said taralians and norindours don’t like the mountains—

Ebon stared at her. Damage? There’s a rite-fire kept burning at the three main entrances, and anyone who isn’t familiar with the Caves needs a guide, even near the entrances. And unless you’re a sculptor, you have to go with a shaman.

No guards. Sylvi thought—briefly—of a life, of a location, without guards. It made her longing for the Caves even greater.

At certain seasons, for certain ceremonies, most of the pegasi come there, over a few days or weeks at a time, mostly, the main entrance has a monster hall just inside but it’s still not big enough for all of us at once. But at any time of the day or year—there are always a few pegasi, sculptors and visitors. You can go for hours without seeing anybody, or sometimes there’s someone in every room, round every corner, shaping every bump in every wall, Ebon said.

Sylvi dreamed about the Caves sometimes, and sometimes, on dark nights with no moon or stars, she imagined that they were flying through huge Caves. It was on those nights that the wind most seemed to whisper words in her ears, words she could almost understand.

Ebon had been gone for nearly a fortnight; the days were almost endless without him, despite all the work she found herself doing, and the hours in the practise yards. Lucretia was an excellent sparring partner, and didn’t knock her down—or off her pony—nearly as often as she could: “Naah,” she replied, when Sylvi said as much. “What’s the point of that? Interrupts the flow of a good practise session.” Lucretia had also, however, complimented her on her falling off. “You wouldn’t like to try and teach me how you do that, would you?” she said.

Sylvi blinked at her and after a moment said,“I’d have to figure out how I do it.”

“It’ll be good practise for both of us,” said Lucretia.

A group of pegasi had only just arrived at the palace that morning—including Lrrianay and Ebon. A messenger had come to her study to report this fact, and afterward she’d had trouble keeping her mind on her work. Finally she gave it up as a bad job and fled outdoors, knowing that Ebon would come looking for her as soon as he could, knowing where he’d look first. She was sitting under a tree, trying to pretend that she wasn’t facing the way she was facing because that was the direction Ebon was likeliest to be coming from. It was too cold to be sitting down outdoors doing nothing, so she stood up and paced, looking over her shoulder.... There he was: dazzling black, graceful as a bard’s song, her pegasus, her best friend.

I’ve got a birthday present for you, Ebon said gleefully—it was months before the day. I have got a birthday present for you.

Well, don’t tell me now, Sylvi said, surprised at his eagerness. It’s not till forever.

The pegasi didn’t celebrate birthdays the way humans did, but they did attend human birthday parties with their usual aplomb—and brought gifts. Last year she and Ebon had gone to Orthumber for her birthday, with the queen and Hirishy, and Sylvi had had the pleasure of showing Ebon where her mother had grown up and the excuse to ask her all sorts of impertinent questions because she was asking for Ebon too, who didn’t know about human childhoods. The queen had been laughing and relaxed all week—but that was before the ladon in Riss, before Ebon had smelled the norindour in Stonyvale.

She had just been thinking about her birthday, for no good reason—thinking about the party that she would give at the palace this year. Sixteen was an important birthday: you became legally a grown-up at sixteen. The first thing she was going to do as a grown-up was give a birthday party that would have as many pegasi as humans attending—exactly as many. So for every unbound human she wanted to come there would have to be an unbound pegasus. She was going to ask Ebon if it would be impertinent to invite a shaman, and if not which one, or (better) more than one. Maybe those who’d spoken to Nirakla? She didn’t quite have the nerve to ask him if she could invite his master.

It’s not like that, Ebon said. My dad’s talking to your dad about it right now. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be all right.... Ebon was giving off waves of excitement so strong it was like trying to stand up in the middle of the Anuluin in spring flood. There, said Ebon, as a pegasus appeared on the steps of the palace. Ebon and Sylvi were loitering under the cherry tree near the little garden door that Sylvi usually used—it was the one closest to her rooms. This wasn’t anywhere you would expect to see a pegasus, unless it was Ebon looking for her, or someone looking for Ebon. Come on, said Ebon, and surged forward, trotting a few steps before he stopped and turned back to her, repeating, Come on— and reaching out his nearer wing to scoop her toward him. Usually in public they did try to remember the ban on physical contact—but this wasn’t really public, was it? she thought guiltily, and twined her fingers into the mane at the base of his neck, over his withers, and let his momentum pull her along.

This is Drahmahna, said Ebon, nearly running the pegasus at the door down. Sylvi, with her fingers still caught in Ebon’s mane, managed to make the Honoured to meet you sign as they swept past. They were obviously going to the king’s private office—how did Ebon know? What was Lrrianay—

The two footmen flung open the doors without waiting for them to make the formal request: they were expected. The footmen were also wearing hai. What—?

Her father was smiling, but it was a strange smile, sad and elated and worried all at once. The only people present were the human king and the pegasus king: Fazuur was not there; nor were any of Corone’s privy council or Lrrianay’s court. Whatever conversation had been had, whatever decisions had been made, they had been made between the two kings alone.

Lrrianay said something to Ebon. Ebon, she thought, asked something in return—she caught a sense of a rippling phrase, a pegasus question, although she could not hear what it said. Sylvi looked inquiringly at her father, but he said, “ This is for Ebon to tell you.”

Ebon shouted or neighed something, suddenly, briefly, an astonishing, startling sound, especially indoors, in the king’s small office, surrounded by human furniture. The sound her ears heard was accompanied by a sensation like a kick inside her head—cautiously she put her hands up as if checking that her head was still securely fastened—and Ebon did a prance and bounce where he stood. There was a behave-yourself snort from his father—parental disapproval was easily recognisable across the language barrier—and Ebon said, I can’t help it. This is the best, the best. Syl, you can come home with me—I mean, will you please come home with me? To where I live. I mean, I’m inviting you. This is my birthday present to you. That you come to Rhiandomeer—to my country. To the pegasus country. Like we went home with your mum last year. Will you come? Please. Please say yes. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been through for this. Syl, I can even take you to the Caves! Please say you’ll come! Please!

To—?said Sylvi. To—?She could feel the disbelief on her face, hard and stiff as a mask. She looked at her father. He was still smiling, but it was now a sympathetic smile, an encouraging smile. He nodded. She put her hands up again, touching her own face, pulling the mask away.

Home with you! Of course I’ll come! Of course! Oh, Ebon, really? And the Caves? She threw her arms around his neck and was promptly blinded when he swept his wings forward, around her: she could feel his feather-hands dancing like butterflies in her hair.

Now that the heroic deed was accomplished, Ebon poured out the tale of the doing of it: I started with Dad, of course. I’d figured if I got Dad on my side that was all I needed—I guessed there would be a lot of dust and shouting on the human side so I started—oh, months ago—but I thought our side would be pretty simple, other than, oh, you know, Gaaloo and a few like him. Dad was expecting it. He told me later he was sure I’d ask for your sixteenth birthday. I kind of knew it would have to be a public thing—like going to your fêtes here—but I wasn’t expecting it to be as big as it was. And I also thought, you know, Dad’ll take care of it. But he didn’t. He said he’d back me but I was the one who was going to have to do the talking. Gods and clouds, I didn’t know we had that many shamans! And they all wanted to know why I thought bringing a human home was a good idea. Never mind the Caves!

Humans rarely ventured into the pegasus lands—they didn’t even have a proper name in any human language: the original treaty with King Balsin only specified them as the Lands of the Pegasi, and drew some lines on a map. A few human wanderers had penetrated into the edges of the pegasi country, the sort of folk who travelled because travelling was in their blood and they couldn’t help themselves. But they never went farther than a day’s journey in from the boundary and never stayed longer than a few days—which was especially surprising in light of the fact that all foot ways into the pegasus country were long and difficult. All that effort and you turn around? Sylvi thought. But there had never been even one official expedition, and there’d apparently never been any discussion about making an easier way in—not so much as a track a laden pack animal could follow easily.

It was curious, Sylvi thought, that all her fellow humans had been so uninterested—how could they be uninterested?—for so many years. She thought of the second commander’s journal: “. . . They are like nothing I have ever seen, except perhaps by some great artist’s creative power.... Several of my folk came to their knees, as if we were in the presence of gods; and while I did tell them to stand steadfast, I did tell them gently, for I understood their awe” . . . or maybe that was why. Nearly a thousand years of familiarity hadn’t really changed that sense of awe.

She had nonetheless said something about it to Ahathin, years ago, when she was first studying the Alliance.

“It is curious,” Ahathin had replied. “I agree.”

“Curious!” she said. “Is that all you can say? It’s the pegasi.”

“Yes,” said Ahathin, “which may be the answer.”

She put her head in her hands. She knew that if she said “What do you mean?” he wouldn’t respond. She thought about the crowned pegasus on the royal standard; why did the relationship between pegasi and humans seem to have borders around it as absolute as the bound edges of a banner? “Because we don’t know why having the pegasi here means our crops grow and—and nobody is struck by lightning?” Nar II had several nicknames; one of them was the Lightning King. Old Glunch was another; he was also famously grumpy. He didn’t like the pegasi because he didn’t like anyone, and while there had been no wars—and no roc sightings—during his reign, it had been remarkably accident-prone, including an unusual number of lightning strikes.

Ahathin nodded. “What do you remember of Nar’s pegasus?”

She didn’t quite groan. Teachers. “Um. Oh. Queen Sufhwaahf. She—she came here anyway, bringing a few courtiers who could put up with Nar’s temper. Some historians say she’s why nothing worse happened.” Which only contributed to the bound-edges feeling, she tho ught.

There was a little silence, and Ahathin said, “ The usual reason given, if the subject comes up at all, is that we’ve always found enough to do in the lowlands. Balsin, I believe, was the first to make that excuse.”

We’re afraid, Sylvi thought with a shock. We’re afraid of what we might find, beyond the sleek pretty paper and the little embroidered bags, if we went exploring. She thought of her mother saying, You know where you are with a taralian. We’re afraid of the pegasi, thought Sylvi, but she didn’t say it aloud. If she did, Ahathin, by his silence, would make her say more, and she didn’t want to say any more. She was wrong. She had to be wrong.

After she had Ebon to talk to she said to him, You don’t mean to keep us out, do you? Out of your country, and Ebon looked surprised. No. You lot just don’t want to come.

Why? said Sylvi. Ahathin says it’s because we’ve always found enough to do in the lowlands. But there must be more to it than that.

I don’t know, said Ebon. I’ll ask.

But the answer he brought back to her was even less of an answer than what he had told her about why the pegasus shamans had not been party to the writing of the treaty. They don’t come, was the only response.

Why? Ebon had said.

Because they do not.

Sylvi snorted with laughter—she’d noticed that her laugh had become much snortier since she’d had Ebon to spend time with, who himself had a very snorty out-loud laugh. That’s not an answer, she said.

That’s what I told them!

And then what did they say?

That they began to understand why you and I could understand each other, said Ebon. And they both laughed.

That was as much as she’d ever brought up the subject of humans in pegasus country to Ebon. She’d never asked, nor even hinted, for an invitation, although she thought of it often. The tactical problems were severe enough—how long would it take a party of humans to clamber up and across the Starcloud Mountains? Longer than her father would let her be away from the palace, she thought, let alone the size of the troop he would feel it necessary to send with her; they might be safe from taralians and so on once they arrived, but they wouldn’t be on the journey. And she was careful—or she tried to be careful—not to say, Oh, I would love to see that! when Ebon told her about his home. (She had expressed a wish to taste fwhfwhfwha and Ebon had said dubiously that he’d bring her some some time, but he thought it probably wouldn’t like being bounced around in transport.) She had also asked her father why no human ever visited the pegasi: “I know it’s a long way! But it’s not as far as to Swarl or Chaugh, where the traders go every year. But nobody goes to the pegasi—not even us! Not even us who are bound to them!”

Her father smiled.“ There are roads to Swarl and Chaugh, and inns and way stations. There are none over the Starcloud Mountains. I said exactly the same thing to my mother—oh, about forty-five years ago. I think I remember her saying she’d said the same thing to her father. But it’s perhaps not as simple as you think. Barring you and Ebon, no bound human has ever been quite sure what he—or she—says is heard by their pegasus the way they said it—however much faith they have in their Speaker. Ahathin has told you the failure rates among those who study as Speakers, yes? How sure are we that even those who succeed—do succeed? Why do we need magic just to talk to each other? And magic is a notoriously tricky servant, even when it’s doing something straightforward like reinforcing the Wall or helping a tracker find a strayed lamb or a taralian.

“What does our connection with the pegasi consist of—besides the Alliance itself? Which appears to include the peculiarly unquantifiable fact that our prosperity is in some fashion dependent on the presence of pegasi? And our—problematical—bindings? The pegasi, so far as we can tell, don’t use money, and there’s apparently nothing they wish to barter. They have been bringing us a few handfuls of gems from their mountains now and again since they discovered Balsin liked them—to pay for the annex, to pay for their keep. And they bring us gifts. That’s all. Although our gardeners say that their dung gives the palace the best fruit and flowers in the country. Before you had Ebon, what did you think about the pegasi?”

“Wings. Flying.” She paused.“Weird. Scary. Beautiful. And—er—maybe a little vain.”

“Yes. How could they not be vain, when they’re so beautiful? I thought exactly the same. And after you’re bound, you merely have a specific weird scary beautiful and possibly vain individual with wings to fail to communicate with, and how are you going to go about hinting to such a person that you’d like to intrude on his privacy? Especially given their deferential status here with us—and the importance of the Alliance?”

“But you’re the king.”

“Yes. So is he. And, to the extent that I know Lrrianay, ‘vain’ is approximately the last word I’d apply to him. Which makes me wonder what other human attitudes we’re assuming the pegasi share because it doesn’t occur to us they’re assumptions.”

Sylvi thought of the many times she’d said—assumed—the wrong thing with Ebon. But . . . there were barely any stories of humans in the pegasi country. It seemed to be almost as comprehensive a ban as on stories of friendship between pegasi and humans. There were a few folk-tales and ballads where you didn’t know which were the made-up bits or the stories themselves made it plain the travellers in question were not to be relied on. In spite of what her father had said, it seemed to her astonishing that no bound human had ever tried to visit their pegasus at home. And yet Ebon said that the pegasi said that the humans didn’t come. The pegasi made assumptions too.

She didn’t bring it up again to her father or to Ahathin—she had nearly managed to forget her disturbing conversation with Ahathin. And she was vigilant in not bringing it up again to Ebon. But she went on thinking about it. As it turned out, so had Ebon.

There were many more pegasi than usual present for the official announcement of the human princess’ impending visit to her pegasus’ homeland, more than Sylvi could remember since Danny’s ritual of acceptance as the king’s heir. They had begun streaming in the day after Ebon and Lrrianay had returned to the palace, and Ebon had made his astonishing invitation. Even the pegasus queen was here: Sylvi had only barely met the queen; she rarely visited.

“Oh, help,” said Sylvi’s mother, when she’d heard that news.“I don’t think we have a prayer of getting Lori here for it, do we?” Lorival was bound to the pegasus queen—to Lorival’s dismay. Lrrianay had made his unexpected marriage to Aliaalia over two years before Corone had married Eliona—“I spent those two years staying as far away from Cory as I could,” Lorival had said once in Sylvi’s hearing, and laughed. Lorival lived in the port city of Told, where she and her husband, Lord Prelling, were cloth merchants; neither of them came to the palace any oftener than they could help, although one of their daughters had recently married a courtier.

“She won’t thank us for trying,” said the king.“I’ve sent a messenger with strict orders not to hurry. She can come to the dinner. I think Prel’s pegasus will be here too.”

Sylvi was wondering if Lorival would arrive in time while she and Ebon waited for their official summons: lucky Lorival, who could be late. They were again loitering under the cherry tree, but they were standing stiffly, and couldn’t lounge, against the tree or each other. Sylvi was in her court dress, and Ebon was brushed and plaited, with a twinkly little bag around his neck on a wide scarlet ribbon, and neither of them wanted to appear before kings and queens wearing little bits of grass and twigs.

Ah, said Ebon.

Sylvi looked up from examining the silver half-moons on her court shoes. Glarfin was coming slowly—grandly—toward them. He did grand extremely well. He walked toward them like someone bearing an important message to a princess and a prince. She sighed.

And although there was no one else there to hear but the birds, Glarfin bowed deeply and said, “Lady, sir, the king of the humans, the king of the pegasi, the queen of the humans, the queen of the pegasi, thus your royal parents, request your presence.”

Her father wanted the public announcement made as quickly as possible—before the rumours gained momentum. The crowd was waiting in the Great Court, but the first words would be said in the Little Court. Sylvi’s heart was beating faster again, even though she knew what was coming. There were about fifty pegasi present in the Little Court, aside from the king and queen, and about twice as many humans, all of them senators, or blood, or councillors or courtiers: all people important to the palace and the king. The pegasi were all wearing flowers and siragaa, the decorated ribbons that they sometimes wore over their necks for special occasions; the little embroidered bags, the nralaa, that hung from them glittered with tiny jewels. The humans were all wearing their best clothes, grander than the pegasi if not as beautiful; Sylvi’s father was wearing some of the sovereign’s jewels, so that he sparkled as he moved.

It’s just that no one has ever done this before, Sylvi thought, trying to swallow the lump in her throat, but she hadn’t realised she’d thought aloud till Ebon said, That’s right. Think about how much easier we’re making it for everyone who comes after us. But she looked out at the human faces turned toward them and saw that many of them looked solemn and watchful. Uneasy. Uncertain. Uncomfortable. Fazuur, who hadn’t been needed for the pegasus king to make his revolutionary invitation to the human king, looked haunted.

Most of the pegasi were on or near the dais with her and her family; she could not read the expressions of the few who stood with their humans among the audience, although she could see that their wings lay flat and smooth. Here, at the front, the pegasi outnumbered the humans.

Her father stepped forward, shining like a star, and bowed: bowed to her and Ebon. “Daughter and Daughter’s Excellent Friend, Sylviianel and Ebon, welcome. We are here to make known to both our peoples the great adventure that the two of you are about to embark upon. Lrrianay and his queen, Aliaalia, on behalf of their son, Ebon, do invite you, my daughter and daughter of my queen, Eliona, to visit them in their high land Rhiandomeer, beyond the Starcloud Mountains.”

There was a rustle of movement and a whisper of suddenly-exhaled breath at the sound of the name Rhiandomeer.

Sylvi stood frozen. She knew she had to say something—but everyone was looking at her—looking at her with those doubtful, sceptical eyes. The great adventure that no one had ever done before: she had had no ritual lines of response to learn because there were no ritual lines of response. When her father had told her there would be an official public declaration of the invitation she had known she would be expected to say something—and sitting surrounded by diagrams of the stress patterns of bridges she had written a few words for this moment, and stared at them till she knew them. But sitting at her desk with no one else present but Ebon and Ahathin and no sound but birdsong and the faintest hush of Ebon’s polishing cloth had not made her words strong enough to withstand this moment, and all those wary eyes....

There was a delicate pinch on the back of her neck, and the tickly feeling of Ebon’s feather-fingers. Say yes, babe, or I’ll spill you off over the Wall next time—got it?

Sylvi sucked in a great lungful of air and said, “I thank you, my father, my mother, and I especially thank you, King Lrrianay and Queen Aliaalia, who are father and mother of my—my Excellent Friend, Ebon, for this most gracious of invitations. I shall try my best to be—be worthy of your generosity and—and—and a—an acceptable ambassador for my people.” She’d had an awful time with that “acceptable.” What could she say about herself that she might be able to live up to, that didn’t make it sound as if she shouldn’t go—as if she knew she shouldn’t go?

She tried to find a friendly face to look at as she spoke, a friendly face among all those mistrustful eyes. There had been a minor flurry at the back of the room as her father spoke, and she looked to see who had entered late: Lorival and Prelling. They were both smiling, and Lorival must have seen Sylvi looking toward her, because she held up her hand in one of the most basic sign-gestures, which meant “excellent” or “well done” or even sometimes “thank you” if you were at a loss—or had to be seen across an audience. Lorival didn’t look to be at a loss; she looked pleased to be present at this historic occasion. Sylvi took another deep breath and said, directly to Lorival, “And I’m looking forward to it!”

This proved to be the right thing to say. Some of the watchful faces relaxed, and there was even a faint murmur of human laughter. She turned gratefully to the others on the platform with her, and she could see Lrrianay smiling—was he picking up what she’d said from Ebon, from her father, from the change in the tone of her voice, from hearing the human audience begin to relax and even laugh a little? Fazuur’s hands were motionless, his face turned away from the pegasus king. Now Aliaalia was smiling too—was she smiling to be seen smiling (how many of the humans present could recognise a pegasus smile?) or because Lrrianay had told her what Sylvi said . . . or because a pegasus shaman had translated for her? She recognised Hissiope, whom she knew to be a shaman. Did they have an official translator? Or more than one? There were a dozen Speakers present, including Ahathin, Fazuur, and Minial.

It was all too complicated. For a moment her courage disappeared and she thought, louder than she meant to, Oh, is this all a terrible mistake?

No, said Ebon. It’s the best idea I’ve ever had. You’ve just never learnt to like being the centre of attention.

But then her mother and father stepped forward to embrace her—and, despite the ban, to embrace Ebon too—and Lrrianay and Aliaalia followed, and did the beautiful pegasus bows, and both of them lightly touched her cheek with a feather-hand. Then Sylvi’s father said to her quietly,“Stay a little while longer, and let everyone congratulate you—including the ones who clearly don’t want to: in fact, especially the ones who clearly don’t want to. You don’t have to say anything but ‘thank you’—or ‘you’ll have to ask the king.’ And then you can go. I’ll face the mob in the Great Court. But I’m afraid you’ll have to come to a few of the discussions about ways and means: breaking tradition always comes with a noise like mountains falling.”