The other lands

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The play of the sun on the rolling, blond-grassed hills was wonderful. Soothing. Mena sat with the first rays of light and warmth on her skin, taking in the world around her for miles and miles. The land buckled away into the distance in smooth mounds of shadow and gold, spotted with outcroppings of rock that looked like islands. A breeze blew steadily from the south, hot air but not unpleasant. In some ways Mena felt alone in the entire world. She wasn't, though. She most certainly wasn't.

Beside her the lizard bird creature lay in a gentle curve, her tail a river meandering through the grasses. Her head rested on a smooth rock, eyes closed but moving beneath the thin membranes of eyelids. Even in slumber-which she seemed quite fond of-she was never entirely insensible to the world. Her senses seemed to work: nostrils flaring on occasion, the small protrusions that marked the ears adjusting to slight sounds. Mena still could not believe the events of the last few days had actually happened. But there she was, all the feathered, reptilian, delicate beauty of her.

And here she was, sitting beside the creature, inexplicably healed of every injury she had received during her fall. She knew that Melio and the others would be scouring the countryside for her, and she felt bad, knowing they would be desperate, worried. Melio especially. She sometimes spoke his name, wishing that he could hear it on the wind and know she was thinking of him. That sadness was a small feature of her mood. In truth, she was content in a way that she could not explain.

Four days prior, when she realized the creature was alive and awake and watching her ministrations over her body, her heart had hammered so fiercely in her chest she feared it might explode. She could not have said exactly why. It was not fear for her life. She had just examined the animal's shattered form with her own eyes and knew she could be little threat. Nor was she surprised at being watched. Once she realized the beast's eyes were on her, it felt right that they should be, as if she had wished it herself and made it so. There was an element of amazement that the creature could live after Mena had been so certain she was dead. More than anything Mena felt a frantic urgency, a soaring of possibility that had no specific details but that seemed as important as anything in her life.

Mena withdrew a few steps. She sat on a stone and stared at the creature, who looked back at her fixedly. Together they passed the better part of an hour that way. The creature had emerald eyes. The irises sparkled with a metallic sheen. They filled the entirety of the eye sockets. They did not show fear. They did not betray aggression or hunger either. That there was intelligence behind the eyes was palpable, but they were just watching. Mena felt she was being probed as much as she was probing, and she found herself hoping the creature liked what she saw.

They could not remain in this standoff forever, though. When Mena saw the creature's slim tongue taste the air for a moment, she had an idea. Rising slowly, she motioned with her good arm that everything was all right. Stay calm. She whispered, "Stay. I'll be right back. Just stay." She knew she should feel foolish talking to an animal, but she did not. As she hobbled her way back up the slope that she had earlier descended, she wished she had said more. If the lizard bird somehow was not there when she returned, she would curse herself for not having said more, even though she had no idea what that more might have been.

It seemed to take forever to climb down into the other ravine and reach the river again. She was slick with sweat and had to sit for a time, panting, fighting to push back the fatigue and pain pulsing everywhere in her body. Opening her pack and rummaging about in it for something that would hold water made for another pathetic routine. Fortunately, she did find the leather bowl that she used to brew healing teas. She scooped clear water from the river and drank it, then scooped more. Rising without the use of her damaged arm was hard enough, but picking up the floppy bowl was another matter. It took her several tries before she finally had it cupped in her palm, relatively full.

When she peered over the ridge again, the creature was exactly as she had left her, lying in the same shattered posture; but the long neck was bowed as she inspected her wings and torso. A good bit of the water had splashed out of the bowl by the time Mena reached the creature, but she offered what remained. She set the bowl down as best she could, spilling still more, and then she backed away. The creature did not take her eyes off Mena until she had stood some time at a short distance. Then the creature examined the bowl, looked up and considered Mena, head cocked, and then sank the tip of her snout into the water and drank.

And then the staring match began again. They spent most of the afternoon at it. Again, Mena felt inclined to speak. She could not find the words, though, and the creature seemed increasingly content with her presence. That was enough.

Mena slept that night on the slope a little distance away and awoke to find the creature grooming herself, if grooming it could be called. She looked much like a cat licking itself, but she did not use her tongue. Everyplace she might have licked, she instead rubbed with the flat bottom of her snout. She was precise in the motions, careful, especially when tending the shredded membranes of her wings. Just looking at them shot Mena through with regret. That damage was her fault. Hers. She felt it as if in her own body, forgetting as she watched it that she was, in fact, battered and broken herself. From her close observation the day before, she doubted the creature would ever be able to fly again, not with so much of her wings destroyed.

When Mena approached, the creature drew semiupright. She sent waves of tension out through her wing frames, lifting them partially off the ground. The finger-thin bones were still amazing to behold. So flexible, so powerful, and so delicate at the same time. It should have required bulges of muscle tissue and sinew to create the power Mena had felt snatch her from the ground, but instead the creature's wings remained works of thin-lined art.

Mena's eyes drifted over them. The wing membranes did not look as damaged as they had yesterday. Some of the spots that she thought had been pierced clean through had not been, and some of the tears that had looked so ghastly the day before did not seem quite as horrible. She wondered if she had been mistaken.

"You're not as bad off as I thought," she mused. "Well, obviously not; I'd thought you dead before."

Feathered plumes on the creature's neck rose for a moment, and then settled back into position. The creature pushed up on her forelegs, lifted them from the ground, and stood unsteadily on her hind legs, shaking out her wings as she did so. She looked up at the hill that separated them from the river, studied it, and set out walking toward it. Her steps were tentative at first, her body swaying like a drunken person's. She paused and, after a few steadying moments, drew her wings in, first the left, then the right. The curl started at the tips and rolled tight as it neared the body. Somehow the motion tucked the membrane in with it, and in the space of a few seconds she was wingless again, with only two swirled nubs on the shoulders to indicate where the wings now nestled. She loped up the slope and climbed over into the next valley.

She was in the river when Mena joined her. Shivering like a child from the cold, she danced in the small stream, dipped the full length of her neck and tail in. She puffed her plumage so that for seconds at a time she was covered with a bristling coat that then snapped back to smooth in the blink of an eye. The wing nubs flexed a little but did not unfurl.

"You are a bird, aren't you?" Mena said.

She climbed out of the river, turned back to it, and thrust her snout into the water. She drank deep and long, green eyes flicking to Mena occasionally. The creature seemed at ease with her now, not studying her as she had the previous day. Watching her, Mena felt as pleased as a cat lover watching her favorite feline. She wanted to reach out and feel that soft, strangely scaled plumage again.

Before she realized it, she had done just that. Her fingers tingled at the touch, and she drew them back immediately. She touched her nose, smelling the citrus scent of the substance that seemed a part of the plumage. It was not unpleasant, not exactly oily, but it was hard to know how else to describe it. She was aware that the tingling in her fingertips continued, and that she had passed the sensation on to her face. It almost felt like she had inhaled it and now held it in her lungs. She nervously wiped her fingers on her tunic. Still the creature drank, having taken no notice of her touch or reaction to it.

"Sorry that drink yesterday wasn't much. I tried, though. You know that. Now, if we just had something to eat, we'd not be so bad off."

As if in answer, the creature stretched her neck high and opened her nostrils with a few deep inhalations. She rotated and tried the air to the south, seemed to like what she found there, and began to stride away, more energy in her motions than just a moment before. A little way down, she turned and studied Mena, walked on a few steps, and then bent her neck back and met her gaze again.

Mena pressed the fingers of her good hand to her chest. "You want me to follow?" The creature did not answer, of course, but Mena did exactly that.

It was no easy thing, hobbling along over the uneven terrain. Early on, she spent several frantic moments thinking she had lost the creature over a rise or behind a rock outcropping. But each time she was there, waiting, looking back for her. A few times the creature even seemed to respond to sighting her by raising the plumes on her neck, a sign of-of what? Pleasure? Encouragement? So the day passed, they alone on a windblown landscape.

The two were still together that evening. They spent the night in a small cluster of date trees. A tiny ruin showed ancient inhabitation, but whoever lived here had not done so for ages. Mena did not crowd the creature, but she stayed near enough to be able to speak without raising her voice. She told her about Melio and the others who were likely hunting them right now. "They're excellent trackers," she explained. "They'll find us soon. I don't know why, but it seems very important to me that no more harm befalls you. That seems like the most important thing in the world right now: that you be safe. Perhaps I'm just tired of killing. I should be. I didn't mean to harm you, though. I just didn't expect you."

Mena cut herself off. She looked away, shaking her head, and then looked back at the creature. Those eyes were just as intent on her. Her mouth, Mena realized, tilted near the back hinge of the jaw. "Why is it that I want to talk to you so much? You can't understand me. It's absurd. You can't understand me, right?"

The creature stared at her. Stared. Of course she could not understand. Mena exhaled and reached for another date. As she did so the creature nodded, just a tiny dip of the head, but enough to make Mena pause. Was that an affirmation? Had the creature answered that she could understand? Or had she merely followed the motion of Mena's hand? She wanted to ask, but, again, staring into those round, large, innocent eyes, it seemed a complete absurdity.

"Perhaps I bumped my head worse than I remembered."

Mena had that same thought on waking the next morning. Before she knew what she was doing, she moved to push herself up with both arms. Finding one encumbered by her stone splint, she gave the arm a shake, trying to dislodge the thing. Only after she had tugged at the knot in the cord that held it fast did she realize what she was doing. And that snapped her fully awake.

The arm-her formerly broken, battered arm-did not hurt anymore. She flexed her fingers and they moved without pain. There was stiffness. There was a memory of pain still in the tissue, but there was no mistaking it: her arm was nearly healed! She loosened the splint and lifted the limb free and moved it in the air. She sat staring at it, utterly confused, wondering if she had been crazy when she splinted a healthy arm, or if she was crazy now for believing it healed. And then she thought of the creature.

She jumped to her feet, spun around until she found the familiar shape atop a nearby hillock. The creature stood shuffling her feet impatiently, waiting for Mena. She could have remained there disbelieving her sudden healing, but it was as it was. The creature had done it, somehow. Because of her-being with her, touching her, inhaling that citrus scent-Mena had healed just as the creature had come back from the brink of death and now showed only faint scars from the attack. And this same creature wanted Mena's company, just as she wanted to stay longer with her.

And so began another day of travel. She already knew how it would go. They searched for fruit and water, the only two things the creature seemed to consume. Either she knew where the groves of trees grew and what fruit was ripe by memory, or she smelled them on the air and followed her nose. Once, when she scented something that excited her, the creature tried to get Mena to pick up the pace. She ran forward and back, churning up dust, urging her on. Mena's human gait was clearly not sufficient.

The creature bumped Mena's side and lowered her shoulder. Mena understood what she offered and was stunned. She kicked her leg over the creature's spine and slowly slipped on top. For a moment she clung there, spread-eagled on the back. The creature looked at her, amused. Mena tried to find a better arrangement. And there was one: sitting upright, straddling the creature's neck, snug between the nubs of the wings. With her positioned like that, the creature moved forward, falling into a loping, reptilian run that Mena would never forget.

The creature must also have known how to avoid humans, for they saw nobody the entire day. Once they pillaged an apple orchard that showed signs of tending, but evaded whatever souls might have been about. Atop a bluff on another occasion, Mena spotted a cluster of houses in the distance. She could have walked to them in an hour and named herself and been among people again. Though she was hungry, having eaten only fruit, even light-headed at times, she did not yet want human company.

Indeed, she often scanned the horizon, knowing that searchers were combing the countryside for her, people she cared for and trusted, who had fought beside her many a day. The daily journey she and the creature kept at would be making it hard for the trackers, but she was not sure she wanted to be found even by them, even by Melio. Not yet. Not until she understood this better.

As Mena walked beside the creature on the afternoon of their third day together, she said, "You need a name. I mean, a name for me to call you. I can't think of you as lizard or bird or dragon." Mena stroked the creature's neck. "You're no dragon, anyway. You're gentler than that. You need a real name." She walked on in thought, nibbling her thumbnail as she did so. The creature's head rose and fell beside her, bobbing on the curve of her neck.

"My father once told me a tale about a boy who had a pet lizard. It's a Bethuni tale, I think. The boy called the lizard Elya. He hatched it from an egg. They were together always, though the boy's father did not, at first, like the animal being in his hut. In Bethuni lore orphans of any species are sacred, good luck to those who care for them. But the father was a selfish man who wanted to control all things and didn't like the love his son showed a mere reptile."

Mena cut her eyes over to her companion. "No offense meant. Anyway, he disliked it so much that one night, when the boy was sleeping, he grasped the lizard and carried it out into the night. He tied it to a tree and used a spade to dig a hole. The hole was to be the lizard's grave, and he was going to kill it. Before he finished digging, his shovel struck something. He reached in and pulled out a sack of gold coins. Ancient coins, buried there long ago, coins that nobody had a claim to. And just like that he was a rich and important man. It would never have happened if not for the lizard, and he saw it as a sign from the gods that the creature was special. He didn't kill it after all. Instead, he took it home and woke his village with shouts of joy.

"That's the tale. My father told it better than I, but that's most of it. You know it's a tale and not the truth because the selfish father became generous. I've not seen that happen anywhere but in tales. But I guess we need things to aspire to. What do you think about Elya as a name? I believe it would suit you. If I call you Elya, will you answer to it?"

The creature, perhaps noting the questioning rise in Mena's voice, looked at her.

"Elya," Mena repeated, adding a singsong quality to it. "Elya… How do I explain naming to you?"

She tried several ways. She was glad there was no one around to hear, for she knew she would sound a fool or mad or both, but she made a game of it. She touched her nose and said, "Mena" and then touched the creature's snout and pronounced, "El-yaaaa." Nothing. Not that Mena knew what she expected, what would indicate acceptance of the name. She walked off a little distance and, facing away, began calling the name. On turning around and seeing the creature, her face lit with pleasure. "Elya! There you are."

Mena named thing after thing, touching ground and stone and grass and sky and Mena and Elya. The creature narrowed her eyes at this, the first look of suspicion she had made since Mena had found and cleaned her body.

"You think I'm mad," Mena said. "You may be right. Elya. My Elya. Not your Elya, but mine." She found a rhythm in the lines and repeated it singsong. And again, and then she skipped away singing it loud, dancing, her arms swooping like wings. The mirth came upon her complete, like a serious father suddenly playing the fool for a child's amusement. It worked.

The creature bent back her neck, opened her mouth, and coughed a quick barrage. Her neck rolled in jerky undulations so forceful that Mena feared she was choking. But then she stopped and looked back at Mena, relaxed and mirthful. Her eyes twinkled with amusement.

"Does that mean you'll be my Elya? You will. You already are. I feel it-" Mena tapped her chest with her fingers and then moved them to her collarbone and then, as if unsure which spot she meant, up to her head, where she touched a finger to her temple "-inside me. You're here." She tapped again. "How can that be?"

As usual, the creature offered no answer. But Mena did not need one. She knew. Elya was Elya. That night they slept within touching distance of each other, and the next morning was the one on which she awoke beside Elya with that strange feeling of contentment firmly lodged in her heart. She sat, taking in the rising sun to the east. The rest of the human world seemed far off indeed, blissfully so.

On that she was mistaken.

Elya's head snapped to attention, all relaxed slumber gone in an instant. She stared over Mena's head, to the north, head cocked first to one side and then the other as she listened to something. Mena calmed the creature with a few soothing words, with steadying motions of her hands. She asked her to stay put, and then, on impulse, she thought the same instructions. She really did not understand it, but she could not shake the feeling that she could send Elya her thoughts-not words or sentences but the import of a thing. That was what she tried to pass silently to her. Stay.

When it seemed Elya would do so, Mena turned and ran up the slope to get a better view. She crested the hill and, as the undulating landscape on the other side came fully into view, she dropped flat bellied to the ground. She had seen something, shapes where she hoped there would not be shapes. Inching forward, she peeked over the rise more carefully and saw exactly what she feared.

A wide wedge of humanity crawled across the hills. Hundreds of people, spread out far to east and west, many carrying torches that spit clots of slow-rising smoke into the air. From this vantage, they were the main feature of the world, a blight on it. They were also, she knew, her people. Near the center of the front ranks a banner hung limp from a long pole. She knew by its colors that it was the insignia of Acacia, the same one she had seen at Kidnaban years ago. As on that occasion, this sighting filled her with dread. She crawled backward.

When she reached Elya, she nearly said, "Let's go." Part of her wanted to flee and knew that Elya would do so with her. But she did not say those words. Instead, she stroked the creature's neck and rubbed under her chin and brushed the flat of her hand over the flare of her nostrils. "I can't run. It's not fair to them, and it solves nothing, just prolongs it. They're my people, Elya. They love me. You understand? That's why they've come." She cradled the creature's head in the palms of her hands. "Elya, you can leave me. Why don't you do that? Run. Or fly if you can. I'll tell them not to hunt you anymore. No one will hunt you. I promise."

The minute she said this, she knew it was a lie. Even if she could stop the Akaran-led hunting parties, she would never be able to stop others-tribesmen, trophy hunters, any villain looking to make a profit from killing the last of the foulthings. When word got out that Elya was harmless, it would be even worse. Still, Mena said, "You should just go," not believing it but feeling she must say it. She had to offer it, had to make Elya understand that she was free to choose her fate.

Elya moved her head closer, tilted it, and touched the soft flat of her crown to Mena's forehead. That was her answer.

"You should just go."

The creature tapped her head against Mena's several times. Again, her answer.

Relief washed through Mena, suffusing her with warmth from head to toe, even as worry wrapped her chest like iron ribbons trying to squeeze the air from her lungs. "Okay, love," she said. "Let's go introduce you to the world. Let's make an impression."

There was one way, she hoped, to present herself and Elya in a manner that could stun her brave soldiers into the moment of hesitation she would need. That was why she rode toward them with her legs over Elya's shoulders and her thighs clenched tight and her arms wrapped around her neck. For a time she rode blind, letting her mount direct them. She pressed her face against the plumage and loved the touch as greatly as any intimacy she had ever experienced. But when she felt a tremor in the creature's muscles, she drew herself up so that the eyes of everyone they rushed toward would see her. Elya carried right on toward the soldiers as they formed defensive lines and reached for weapons. She did not slow until just before them.

It was hard to tell whether most of the party saw the creature or saw Mena as well. Mena shouted her name, telling them to drop their weapons, but confusion surged through them so thick and loud she was afraid they did not hear. She found Melio's face, locked eyes with him, and saw the frantic intensity there. He could not have looked more perplexed. Still, he shouted for the bowmen to be ready. This Elya did not like at all.

So quickly that Mena could do nothing but gasp as it happened, Elya rose on her hind legs. She unfurled her wings with the speed of two whips cracking. The muscles in her neck stiffened to a steely, flowing hardness. Her chest expanded with a great inhalation of air, and then she smacked her wings down as if to break the earth. They were airborne. The force of it smashed Mena against Elya's back and knocked the wind from her lungs. She clutched the creature's neck and, as they hovered, she fought to draw in enough breath to speak. She saw how close Melio was to ruining everything with a single command. She did not have the breath yet, so she mouthed the first words that came to her and hoped he would see them and understand.

Silently, she said, "I love her."