Pegasus

CHAPTER 12

When she woke the next morning she couldn’t imagine where she was. She was lying on a mattress on the ground, which should have been cold and uncomfortable, but was not. It was a feather mattress, and as she slept, it had shaped itself under and curled itself around her like a friendly animal, or animals; she thought of the way her father’s dogs lay together in sinuous heaps. There was another, lighter feather mattress or feather-stuffed quilt over her, and pillows beneath her head, and sunlight dappling her face through leaves. She didn’t want this mysterious idyll to end, but as she turned her head she saw a bright rufous pegasus walk past, in the clear daylight beyond the tree shadows, and it all came back to her in a rush.

She sat up with a sigh, and thrust her feet out from under the coverlet. She’d somehow managed to get herself into her nightgown—she didn’t remember this at all—but she knew she needed a bath. She stood up, waveringly.

A pegasus she didn’t remember meeting before appeared almost as if by magic, briefly touched her cheek with a feather-hand, nodded and turned away from her, looking back over her shoulder to see if she would follow. She did, bemusedly stroking her cheek where the pegasus had touched her. The pegasus led her toward a sound of running water and then Ebon emerged from the darker tree-shadows.

Clear morning and clear sky to you all day, he said. And it looks like we might get them. You humans like privacy for bathing, don’t you? Straight through there, then, there’s a pool, and it’s yours while you’re here. Someone even thought of, uh, towels. When you’re done rattle the bushes and I’ll come for you.

I’ll need some clothes, she said.

Right away? Surely it’s warm enough in this sun even without any hair? Never mind. I’ll get your dad to show me what to bring, and I’ll leave it here.

She had a glorious bath, made only slightly less glorious by an ignoble fear that some pegasus or other would forget that humans like privacy while they bathe and interrupt her; there was nothing (she decided) like being entirely surrounded by pegasi to make a human feel stringy and pathetic, naked as a rat’s tail. She wondered what the towels were for when there weren’t any humans to use them as towels—since there never were any humans to use them as towels, and they felt soft with some kind of use. Perhaps the pegasi had other things that needed drying. Maybe baby pegasi had baths; perhaps they dried the dishes after a banquet. She looked at the towel she wrapped herself up in: it had the same kind of soft, close, near-invisible weaving that all the pegasus fabric she’d ever seen did, but it was thick and heavy, like fine wool, but smoother than any wool she knew.

Her bag of clothes was hanging on a branch as promised and, assuming she’d be warned in advance of any formal occasions, she dressed in tunic and trousers, and then took hold of the bush and rattled. She could smell food, and she was hungry again.

That first day was all about her father, which suited Sylvi very well. Her father did all those royal and gracious and diplomatic things better than she did, the catching on to unknown customs and unusual situations—he, like Danacor was doing now, had travelled a great deal when he was the sovereign’s heir, both round his own country and outside it. Sylvi was more than happy to stay in his shadow and let him take the brunt of the attention—and perhaps pick up what she could. He was leaving her here....

They went for a long walk for most of that day, the two humans, Lrrianay and Ebon and a dozen more pegasi of those the visitors had met the evening before; they stopped often, and there were cushions for the humans, and food and drink were offered. Sylvi found the strangeness much more tiring than the walking. But she was glad to see that they walked on well-worn paths. I told you, said Ebon. We walk a lot.

Everywhere they went there were more groups of pegasi, who came as if from nowhere to see them—but they always appeared from round corners of rock, or up steep paths or through trees, never flying overhead. The pegasi would walk up to them, slowly, heads and tails raised and wings a little arched in what Sylvi thought of as their best-foot-forward pose; often they had ribbons or flowers in their manes, and intricately embroidered siragaa and nralaa around their necks. They would bow their heads and lift one curled foreleg and then the other, setting each down very precisely; a few had ribbons around their ankles. Most of them said “welcome”; a few said a sentence or two. Sylvi noticed that they hummed through the breaks between words: welhummmmfrennnnhuuumaannnnnnn.

Very occasionally Lrrianay would make a quick open-and-shut gesture with a feather-hand, and a few murmured words, and a pegasus might then touch the face of one or both the humans as he or she also said a few words. There was for Sylvi a funny hazy quality to the entire experience of meeting so many new pegasi, and it grew hazier yet when a pegasus touched her, as if the attempt at communication was turning into a cloud, like water turns into steam when heated.

The visitors’ party paused the longest in a shfeeah at the edge of a wood; Sylvi had no warning that this glint of sunlight through the trees was going to be anything other than another meadow. But instead there was a series of small fields, tucked together as cleverly as the pieces of a sky hold to take advantage of the land’s contours, with the early spring crops showing in neat rows of green, and a few small low buildings together in a cluster which had, Sylvi saw at once, not nearly enough walls.

That evening’s banquet was very grand indeed. There were long tables with what looked like banners laid over them—longer, wider and more elaborate versions of the siragaa. Each was a different colour, or more than one colour swirled together, and many had cut or scalloped edges, and most were embroidered, with birds and leaves and flowers, as well as many other symbols Sylvi did not recognise. There were candlesticks of wood and stone, and a scattering of small sculpted shapes, mostly of creatures—deer, foxes, bears, badgers, hedgehogs, squirrels, erenooms, fornols, pegasi—curled up sleeping. The tables looked magnificent even before the bowls of food—mostly wooden and beautifully carved, and some copper or copper-bound, and a few silver platters she recognised as human gifts—were put on them. There were more banners threaded through the branches of the trees at the edge of the meadow where the tables were set. The spiral of torches had been taken away, although there were poles with fresh torches set round the edges of the meadow. She noticed this evening, as she had not the evening before, that the torch-poles were also sculpted, with long curling lines not unlike the flow of a pegasus tail.

Sylvi had watched a little of the setting-up process—it was already well begun when they came back from their day’s walk. The tables were stored in a kind of pavilion similar to the shfeeah buildings and near the stream, but they were brought out to stand in the meadow the human king’s party had flown into the evening before. The tables were moved by pairs of pegasi again wearing harness. Poles were laid on the floor of the pavilion and run between the legs of the tables. The harnessed pegasi again knelt, so that the little hands of other pegasi had only to lift the poles high enough to thread them through the harness, sometimes assisted by a boost from a strong pegasus foreleg. Then the kneeling pegasi stood up, and the poles took the weight of the table. Even the bowls of food had to be filled gradually, in deference to the weakness of pegasi hands, or moved by a carrying frame. There was a flagstone path to the edge of the stream and low knapped-stone platforms there for food preparation, but the exquisite little flint knives, wooden chopping boards and other tools (including baskets to carry the rubbish to the mulch-and-compost area) were kept in the pavilion. But everything the pegasi did they did as if they were dancing, as if they would do it this way even if their hands were as strong as humans’.

There were even two chairs, one very tall one at the narrow head of one of the tables, and a not very much shorter one at the head of the table next to it, and you climbed up two steps to sit in them, so you were no shorter than the standing pegasi.

For the banquet the pegasi all wore ribbons or flowers plaited into their manes and tails, or feathers some other colour than their own wings tucked into the plaits, and a few had ribbons around their ears and ankles as well. The royal pegasi wore flowers but also wide silky siragaa spangled with tiny shining gems; Hibeehea was wearing two nralaa on two damask ribbons.

Sylvi wore the one formal dress she had brought with her, an almost-pegasus russet, long and very full and flowing, with a pegasus-chestnut red-brown garnet on a pegasus-gold chain around her neck. She twisted her hair onto the top of her head and held it there by a pin whose head, no bigger than her littlest fingernail, was pegasus-made, glinting with silver netting and splinters of gems so small you only knew they were there by their sparkle: Ebon had given it to her on her fifteenth birthday.

Can’t I give you anything? she’d said, as she said to him every year on her birthday.

Just make sure there are always grapes when I come visiting, he’d replied.

You couldn’t look regal when you were this short, Sylvi thought, but she felt she looked as nice as possible, in spite of having only two legs and no wings. The swing of her skirt was almost a dance—and yesterday she had managed her bow to Hibeehea. She was embarrassed by her relief that he had not come on the walk with them today; she had known it was too much to hope for that she would not see him tonight either, but her heart still sank when she caught sight of him.

The pegasi wandered around, plucking up a bit of this or that from any bowl they chose as they moved, sometimes using their feather-hands, sometimes delicately using their lips. Sylvi noticed that if it was a long reach they used their necks; there was far too much wing to fold out of the way if they had to reach with their hands. They talked among themselves in gesture and aloud, and as they moved, they were careful also to pass the two chairs and greet the human king and his daughter, and to exchange some communication too, if they could. The human king and his daughter had bowls in their laps, which pairs of pegasi had brought them initially; these were full of delicacies, but many of the pegasi who paused to speak to them dropped further morsels into them. Everything Sylvi sampled tasted superb—including the fwhfwhfwha, which was indeed infinitely nicer than watered wine— but she began to feel trapped, sitting in her chair, weighed down by her bowl. Even Ebon went wandering, although he always came back.

Sylvi had met several more of the pegasus shamans by now, and was careful to let any one of them translate for her, if one were near her—and one usually was, like sentries on duty, Sylvi thought. Ebon, when he was beside her, remained silent, and let the shamans speak. But this evening, with the clear daylight gone, and the stippling, unreliable torchlight again seeming to manifest the essential, the absolute mystery of this place she found herself in, the haziness apparently caused by having her face touched by the pegasi’s feather-hands earlier that day seemed strangely now to focus any attempt at communication . . . perhaps it was only she felt that she was understanding more, since most of what was said to her was something about welcome: welcome, welcome human, welcome human child, welcome princess, welcome to our country, welcome, welcome; but she seemed to hear What a pretty dress! when the shaman said to her gravely, “She wishes to praise your garment”—although this shaman did not have Hibeehea’s clear diction, and it sounded more like, Sheewhishesstoopwwaisssyooahgahhmen . But Sylvi was preoccupied with having understood “dress,” which was more nearly “long encircling human siraga.” It is not really so surprising, she thought; it’s always been the little dumb superficial stuff that us humans can understand.

After a while Sylvi picked up her bowl in her two strong human hands, and set it down on the nearest edge of the nearest table, and went wandering too—letting the swish of her long encircling human siraga and the marvelousness of the pegasi teach her how to walk lightly. It was too peculiarly formal to sit still when everyone else was moving, like endlessly sitting out at a ball. She couldn’t stop thinking of the pegasi as dancing, and while her own real dancing was middling at best—at those formal occasions at home when a dancing princess was required—she felt, here, that her best, lightest, swingiest walk was more accepting-of-the-welcome-offered than sitting still. Although she kept a wary eye out for Hibeehea or any other sign that she was getting it wrong again.

You would tell me if I were totally messing up again, wouldn’t you? she said to Ebon. Like yesterday, with Hibeehea.

Ebon made a small noise she recognised as ironic. I would tell you if I knew soon enough. You went over the edge really fast yesterday.

Has anyone—said anything about it?

Said anything? Why would they? You apologised and Hibeehea accepted your apology. Hey, that was a formal thing. When you leave the formal thing, you leave it.

Well, this is another formal thing, isn’t it?

It’s a different formal thing. If you mess up here it’ll be a new mess.

Oh, thanks. Thanks a lot.

Her father only smiled at her—and stayed sitting down. He didn’t stand up till it was time to give his speech—which he did beautifully, and she knew he did it beautifully, and she knew that the pegasi accepted it as having been done beautifully. But it was all wrong, she thought in distress. It wasn’t a dance.

The pegasi had stopped wandering while her father spoke, so it was easy for her to stop too. She stood with her arm along Ebon’s neck, her hand holding on to a plait; he arched the wing behind her just enough to give her something to lean against. There were pegasi all around her, standing quietly but for the occasional flick of an ear, swish of a tail, rustle of a wing. And yet the torchlight was still dancing, and as it danced across pegasus backs, the pegasi danced too, as did the trees and the long grass at the edge of the meadow: all these danced with the torchlight and with the shadows the torchlight cast. All but her father, who remained a standing human with light and shadow dancing over him. Sylvi held out her free hand and looked down at it: I suppose I’m just a standing human in dancing shadows too, she thought.

There was her cue: “And I am glad to introduce my daughter to you. . . . ” Her father’s speeches were never long—“no one listens to a long speech” was one of his precepts—but he had teased her that the real reason he wanted her to give a speech on this occasion was so that his could be shorter yet. “I can’t get my mouth around all those pegasi vowels, ” he said.

“ The ffff’s are even worse, ” Sylvi had replied: but her father was saying aooarhwaia mwaarai—beloved daughter—as if he’d never had any problem. She sighed, and Ebon said, Three wings, which was pegasi for “good luck.” The pegasi parted before her—there was no looking around; they seemed to know where she was—and she walked, trying to feel that she was dancing, along what was now a path among them. They moved, gently, gracefully, so that their heads were toward her as she passed them: cream and gold, brown and copper. A few of them pulled out flowers or decorative feathers from their wings and manes and tossed them down before her. She went slowly, skirt swinging, and stood beside her father, who bowed to her and then moved away, to sit down again in his chair.

She folded her hands in front of her as if she were reciting a lesson for Ahathin, but also to keep her hands from trembling—her arms from trembling, her whole body from trembling. The long skirt hid her trembling knees. “I am beyond honoured to be here, ” she began: “Waarooawhha niira hee.”And then she couldn’t go on.

It wasn’t that she had forgotten the words. She knew what came next: It has been my great wish since I have known Ebon that I should see his home. I knew I would not, because humans do not come here. That I am here is a gift beyond my imagining. I bow my best bow to you, to each of you I bow once, twice, three times. Respected friends, my thanks and gratitude. Thank you. But the words would not come out. They were trapped, trapped between her folded hands, between her arms and her body, between her pressed-together knees.

She took a deep breath and dropped her hands. She took a step forward. She bent down and picked up one of the flowers the pegasi had thrown in her path. She looked at it for a moment and then tucked it into the collar of her dress. She opened her mouth.

“Genfwa,” she said, thank you. That wasn’t what came next; that was supposed to come at the end. “I knew Ebon’s country would be very beautiful”—she stumbled over “very beautiful, ” fffooonangirii—“but it is beautiful in a way that speaks to my . . . ”

Spirit, she wanted to say. She could feel her mind slipping away, her memory disintegrating; spirit was the sort of word a human could not say in pegasi, nor a pegasus in human: you could say beautiful, you could even say friend; but you could not say heart or spirit, and you could not say anger or love. Spirit, she thought. She looked out into her audience; she was speaking slowly, so no one knew yet that she could not say her next word.

Pegasus eyes are mostly dark; some are copper; a few are pale honey. Ebon’s were as black as his hair. Sylvi looked at the pegasi looking at her, and her eyes met the queen’s eyes, which were a gold a few shades darker than her coat. The queen smiled at her, holding her gaze. Spirit, thought Sylvi.

“. . . Swaasooria.”

She thought she heard a few pegasi sigh; it was the first sound any of them had made since they parted to let her through. She held up her hands, palms together, and then spread them out, embracing her audience.

“I am not only honoured to be here, ” she went on, “I am glad and grateful.”Waaee shaar daeal. “ Thank you, thank you.”

She remembered something Ebon had told her: It’s not just ffff for emphasis, although that’s the usual. You ever really want to knock someone out, say “vraai.” You can stick it in pretty much anywhere, but you have to mean it. You don’t use “vraai” for . . . Ebon had paused and looked suddenly uncertain, and then distressed. Maybe you can’t use it. You wouldn’t use it for any of the stuff humans can talk to us about.

“Vraai,” she said. “Genfwa, esshfwa, vraai. ” Heart, she thought, gafweehaa. Love, oranooiaka. Thank you from the love in my heart. “Esshfffwa gafweehaa oranooiaka gloh.” And she walked up to the queen, and unfastened the garnet from around her own neck, and lifted it up to tuck it round a lock of the queen’s mane.

Again she woke the next morning not able to remember how the night before had ended. There had been dancing, she remembered—human dancing too. She had danced with her father, who had asked her when she had rewritten her speech. “I didn’t, ” she said. “Those were the words that wanted to come out.”

He had looked at her, smiling, but the smile was a little sad. “Well, I’m sure they were all excellent words—congratulations.”

But she couldn’t remember much more after that. She remembered feeling very sleepy, as if the pegasus feet and wings were writing a sleep spell.... Even before she opened her eyes she could feel herself smiling; the last thing she could remember was watching the pegasi all seem to flow together in the rhythm of their dance—was it that that made her smile?

There had been a dream—presumably after she’d fallen asleep, although perhaps it was still a result of the spell of the dancing—a dream of flying. She was flying with Ebon, but she was herself flying—she could almost feel the weight of wings now, pulling on the ordinary human bones of her shoulders as she lay on her side with her face on a pillow and the gentle hummocks of the mattress all around her. The friendly feather mattress would no doubt curl itself under and around wings as it did the rest of her. She didn’t want to open her eyes, or to move . . . to have her wings go away....

She woke again, knowing that it must be late—her father was leaving today! No, he wouldn’t have left without saying good-bye, but—She shot out from under the coverlet this time without thinking of either the comfort she was abandoning or the wings she had briefly possessed (for she had had them, brought momentarily out of her dream) and looked around. She heard voices, one of them human, and turned that way.

“Good morning, young one, ” said her father.

“I’m sorry—”

“No, I overslept too. Something very hypnotic about the dancing, wasn’t there? If you want to call it dancing. Dancing seems too frivolous a word somehow.”

Slowly she said, “It’s as if they were making—creating something. It was like . . . another sort of weaving. ”Or another sort of spell, she thought, remembering the rainbow veil and the smoke of binding. But it had been everyone, last night, all the pegasi, not just the shamans—and even, a little, herself and her father—who were the makers.

“Torchlight and shadow weaving, ” said her father.

No, thought Sylvi. That’s just turning it into human words.

“And being pegasi, ” said her father. “But what were they making? A rope, a basket, a drai, one of those amazing collars—”

“Siragaa, ” murmured Sylvi.

“A tablecloth? ” her father continued. “I’ve tried to ask Lrrianay, but I don’t understand his answer. Or maybe he doesn’t understand my question.” He looked a little downcast. “Mostly it’s been a little easier here—the air and my head are clearer.” He tried to smile. “I don’t suppose you’ve noticed any difference? But you and Ebon never have any trouble talking to each other, do you? ”

She thought of telling him about the haziness, about the disorienting sense of standing in a huge space listening to a noise like echoes, except that what made the echoes and what they reverberated against were unknown to her—and decided not to. “No. ”She looked at him and smiled. “Don’t worry.”

“I—” He hesitated. “Your pegasi has improved just since you’ve been here—two days. I didn’t understand all of your speech last night, but I could pick up that Lrrianay did. ”

“I’m not sure it has improved, ” said Sylvi honestly. “I was inspired, I think. Somehow. Something about last night.”

“The torchlight and shadows, ” said her father. “They were weaving a . . . ”

He stopped, but she could hear what he wasn’t saying as clearly as she heard Ebon’s words in her mind: “. . . a net to pull you away from us.”

“Dad, ” she said, “I’m human. I’m a human among pegasi. I’ve only got two legs and I can’t fly. None of that’s going to change. ” To her horror, her voice wavered. Almost three weeks. Here. Alone. One human among all the pegasi. . . .

“If there is any doubt in your mind—come back with me. We’ve already made history, coming here. You don’t have to make any more if you don’t want . . . if you can’t . . . if it’s too hard. Many times in the last weeks—since you had Ebon’s invitation—I’ve thought, what are we doing, sending a fifteen-year-old child where none of us has ever been? ”

“Fifteen isn’t a child, ” said Sylvi. “And I’m nearly sixteen. I’m just visiting my friend at home—and you and Mum like my friend and his parents. They’ll take good care of me. And I’m going to enjoy it. I won’t make any of the kind of history anybody will have to learn later. I promise.”

“You’ll do it beautifully, ” said her father. “If you find out what the dancing makes, you can tell me when you get back. But Sylviianel . . . be careful of your promises. I’m not going to hold you to this one, ” and for a moment he wasn’t her father, but the king.

She stared at him, then looked quickly past him, not wanting to know what was in his face. She looked anxiously at the sky, wrapping her arms around herself in her nightdress, telling herself she was shivering only because she was cold, and maybe just a little because her father was going away and leaving her . . . but the weather was warm, and Ebon was here.“It’s already later than when we left the palace, ” she said. “ That was barely dawn. ”

“ The prevailing wind is in our favour going back, I’m told, ” he replied. “Also they won’t have to spend any time or energy making any circuits so the earthbound can point and wave at one of their own flying with the pegasi. But we do need to go now—I was going to come and wake you in another minute. You’ll come and see me off ?” He took her by the shoulders and stared into her face as if memorising her.“It’s not going to be easy to fly away and leave you behind. ”

She smiled, but her face felt stiff. “You promised. We promised. ”

“Yes. We promised. King and king’s daughter.” He stooped and kissed her, and turned away.

So she was still wearing her nightdress as she followed him to the big meadow where twenty-two pegasi had landed in a candlelit spiral a day and a half ago, and where the banquet had been held last night. The meadow was clear this morning, of both banqueting tables and spirals. She lingered briefly at the edge of the trees; it didn’t seem respectful to be in her nightdress, barefoot, her hair standing on end and her face unwashed. She rubbed her face with her hands and smoothed her hair back; but then in an odd way—a way that seemed to align itself with the haziness, which this morning seemed to be standing close to her, almost like a human or a pegasus whom she could turn to and ask questions of, like, Who are you? What are you? Why are you standing near me?—it almost seemed more respectful to be barefoot and in her shift than in the gown she had worn last night, and with her hair put up like a grown woman’s for a ball. She stepped forward, out of the trees, and the pegasi who were already there silently made room for her.

She didn’t notice when Ebon joined her; only noticed that he had. He and she and many other pegasi watched as the draia were laid out and the ropes stretched away from them. The luggage drai this time was very small, and a mere two pegasi would carry it: much of what Corone and his daughter had brought had been gifts; most of what was going back now was gifts from the pegasi.

The pegasi made everything ready just as they had done in the Outer Court of the palace; this was the way they did it, and it had nothing to do with who was or wasn’t watching. Even the way the pegasi who were not immediately concerned with the harnessing were standing seemed to be creating some kind of shape or sign; Sylvi thought it might have been an extension of the wheel-and-spokes of the draia and their ropes, only made of standing pegasi. A charm for a safe flight? They’re just naturally polite and elegant, she thought, half despairingly, holding the edge of her nightgown down against a little eddy of wind.

My father is leaving me here alone—

And then there was a violent blow to her shoulder and she staggered away, narrowly missing running into the pegasus standing on her other side.

Oops, said Ebon. Sorry.

You’re as clumsy as a human, said Sylvi.

Never, he replied. Say that again and I’ll stand on your foot.

She looked up at him and realised he was worrying about her. This seemed so implausible she laughed, and—because she read Ebon very well now—she saw him relax. You did that deliberately.

Hmmph, said Ebon. Would I do that?

This morning, because there were fewer harnesses to put on, and perhaps because her father was leaving, it seemed to Sylvi that it took no time at all before she had to say good-bye. The pegasi rearranged themselves into another shape, which made her and her father the centre of it, but they bowed their heads or turned aside as the king held out his arms to his daughter and she rushed forward into them.

“You’ll have an amazing journey, ” he said. “I envy you the Caves. ”

“You could have stayed longer, ” she said into his shirtfront. There was a pause, and she looked up into his face. He was wearing an expression she had never seen before, quizzical and a little uncertain.

“Only you were invited to see the Caves, ” he said. “I’m only here at all because I wouldn’t send you all alone to this place where almost no human has ever been—and certainly no one specifically bound by the Alliance has ever set foot. Lrrianay understood that I could not let you come alone, and so agreed to bring me too—for a day, two days, before your real visit begins, I imagine. And I agreed to that because I trust Lrrianay even more than I trust my own right hand. ”

She stared up at him. “You didn’t tell me that, ” she said.

He raised his shoulders.“I wasn’t planning on telling you at all, ” he said.“ There is something about the air of this place. Or maybe it’s just the pegasi. ”

She looked around. Even in their turning-away the pegasi had made a pattern; the smaller smooth arches of their bent necks and bodies provided counter-curves like a scalloped hem, around the edge of the circle she and her father stood in. “I think it’s the pegasi. ”

“So do I, ” said her father, and bent and kissed her again.“I won’t tell you to be good, because I know you’ll do your best, and your best is very, very good, young one, and don’t let being my daughter blight that fact. Your mother says that I can worry that I’m not worrying well enough, and I suspect you’ve inherited that talent. I won’t tell you to take care of yourself, because I know the pegasi will take the best care of you that anyone could—better than the mere human care you mostly have to put up with. Perhaps I’ll just tell you to have fun. And that I love you and will miss you. How very unkingly of me. ”

Sylvi meant to say something—good-bye, I love you—but her mouth wouldn’t work.

He turned away as if it hurt him, and walked to his drai. Two pegasi fastened the safety-ropes around him, and then stood away. The eight pegasi moved sideways, taking up the slack till the human king swung clear of the ground. Sylvi caught her breath: she heard Guaffa say the necessary word, heard it echoed by the others—heard echoes she was sure had nothing to do with her ears—heard the chord the shamans sang. Almost she saw the magic-weave that held the king’s drai twinkle into being, but perhaps that was just something about her eyes this morning, watching her father leave her—and then, in perfect unison, the pegasi broke into a canter, and almost immediately into a gallop, racing away from her. Six pegasi accompanied them; three of them she knew were shamans. The two luggage-bearers followed last, a little to one side, as if aware of the princess’ eyes on her father’s drai. It was interesting, thought Sylvi distantly, her immediate attention floundering in what her father had just told her, in her awareness that she had chosen to stay, and that he was leaving right now—it was interesting seeing what was happening from the ground, seeing what it looked like. It was just another pegasus dance.

The pegasi leaped into the air. Her father raised his arm over his head. She started to raise hers in response and realised he couldn’t see her. It seemed barely a breath or even a heartbeat before he was little more than a black dot above the trees on the horizon.

Her eyes burned. She kept them stretched wide open, watching the dot disappear. Ebon had joined her, and tucked the top of an open wing around her as she stood where her father had left her. She stood like that for a long moment more, still and cold as stone, but then she began to notice the warmth of Ebon’s feathers and the gentle movement of his side as he breathed. The dot had disappeared: she was staring with her dry, burning eyes at empty sky.

“I’ll have my bath now, please, ” she said aloud, as if she were talking to a human.

“Baff, ” said Ebon. “Fwaayomee. ” Follow me.

Those were almost the last words she said aloud for the rest of that day. As soon as her father was gone there seemed very little reason to speak out loud; there was Ebon, of course, but more mysteriously she seemed not to want to speak aloud to the pegasi. Their own oral language was liquid and musical, but it was only “spoken” with the kinetic language which the human body could not emulate, and it seemed to her, listening and watching, that the unspoken word breaks were instead created by gesture; the sound alone was a kind of murmur, like wind or water. All those pegasi vowels, she thought. This was something else she could not imitate; she had to breathe too often, and her breaths were shallow.

Ebon had tried to tell her, when he’d helped her with her speech: Stop making those great thumping human pauses. Someone could fall into one and disappear forever. Just speak it, don’t—I don’t know, don’t march it, like Fthoom coming down a corridor, thud thud thud.

She hadn’t known what he meant. She thought possibly she did now.

That morning Ebon was rattling the bushes at her before she had climbed out of her pond-bath. If you don’t want me to come in there after you, he said, hurry up. It’s late, and we have a long way to go.

She emerged from her little private glen still damp, crossly, rubbing her wet hair but already aware that the pegasi themselves were speaking aloud less since her father had left. This, presumably, was the usual pegasus way; they had spoken aloud more for her father’s sake, since humans were accustomed to mouth-language. Now that it was only herself, the human who could silent-speak to one of their own . . .

All alone. Her father had left her all alone—

She had washed out her clothes from the day before because she didn’t want to be dirty. She hadn’t seen a pegasus bathe, or swim, or even seen one wet, but they all gleamed, while she was almost hairless and faintly wrinkly—even the wrinkles across her knuckles, the folds in the bends of her elbows, looked ridiculous to her, surrounded by pegasi—and couldn’t gleam. But that meant she now had wet clothing to do something with—what long way did they have to go?

Here. Eat. There was a thin wooden bowl of something hot and soft that tasted a little like oatmeal with the bran still in, and another bowl of cold liquid that was almost but not quite water. Her face was the wrong shape to eat the oatmeal out of the bowl, so she dipped it up stickily and inefficiently with her fingers. It wasn’t too hot for her mouth, but it was for her fingers. She sucked them, and eyed the bushes, wondering if she could use a twig....

Oh, wet textiles, you humans, ugh, you’re obsessed with putting things in water.

She didn’t know what he did with them; he bore them off distaste-fully, tossing them round over his neck with his teeth and shuddering dramatically when they smacked down across his back, while she tried to eat without burning her fingers or getting oatmeal on her forehead. At this rate she’d need another bath.

But out on the meadow her drai was being laid out. She wouldn’t say the pegasi were hurrying, but the dance was quicker. The bowls were gently taken away from her, one at a time, by a pegasus whose name was something like Feeaha, and, putting her tentative new understanding into practise she said, “ Thank you, lady,” trying to make it all one word, Genfwaalloofwif, and making what she hoped was a recognisable word-sign with one hand, since she didn’t have a tail and neither her nose nor her ears were mobile enough.

Feeaha looked at her what she feared was blankly for a moment—she ’d probably said something like “may all your children have seven legs”—and then answered “Gwahayiiaya,” which Sylvi heard as distinctly as if her father had wished her good morning. It meant, more or less, “your thanks are unnecessary but thanks for thanking me,” which did at least mean Feeaha knew what she’d tried to say. It wasn’t really peculiar that it might be easier to talk to the pegasi here, in their own country; it wasn’t that the air was clearer and sweeter and the sounds were only things like birdsong and wind. It wasn’t that there were no other humans here . . . that there were no magicians here. It was only that the pegasi were concentrating on her, and she on them.

The pegasi harnessed to her drai lifted it into the air as she sat down; as the ropes took the strain she heard the web-magic words breathed into the air, and then she was swaying gently slightly higher than she was tall when standing on her own feet. As the feather-hands tucked a blanket over her and tied the safety ropes around her, she felt something being attached to the back of the drai, but she thought it would probably be rude (and impossible) to crane round far enough to see what it was. Perhaps it was only that she was expecting it this time, but she felt much less apprehensive this morning as the pegasi surged into a gallop almost instantly, and they were airborne before she’d had a chance to remember that she still didn’t know where they were going.

Where are we going?

To the Caves, of course!