Part 18 (2/2)

”Fifteen years-and three sons who can't talk to their pegasi-after we were married, you were born. And now here you are. You can talk to Ebon as easily as you can talk to me.”

”Danacor can talk-has some sense of Thowara,” said Sylvi. ”Like Dad. Danny says it's like a thief breaks into his mind at night when he's asleep and steals the pegasus words he learnt that day, so when he goes to look for them, the next time he's with Thowara, knowing they should be there, they're gone.”

The queen took a moment to answer. ”I don't think Danny's connection with Thowara is as strong as your father's with Lrrianay, but that may only be they have not been together for as long. But Cory's link with Lrrianay is still nothing like yours with Ebon-your binding was like the opening of some great riverwork, and the water poured into the new channel.... And the only disadvantage is that you can't do without him.”

Sylvi didn't try to deny it. ”And that”-she didn't want to say one particular name aloud-”some people don't like it.”

”All those people who tried to stop you going, yes,” said her mother. ”But you are thinking about Fthoom, aren't you? He is not the only one. But he is the worst. If we hadn't had Fthoom's creatures whispering in ears, I don't think the senate would have caused so much trouble.” She hesitated. ”I think you had better know: there is a pet.i.tion collecting signatures in the senate and among the blood asking for Fthoom to be reinstated.”

She had forgotten. Lucretia had told her this long ago, in her previous life, the life before she had been to Rhiandomeer. There were enough people who wanted Fthoom back-Fthoom, who was the most powerful magician of his generation-that there were signatures on a pet.i.tion to try and force the king's hand. She wondered if anyone who signed the pet.i.tion had been to a fete where she had gone with Ebon; if any of those signatures belonged to someone who had asked Ebon a question, or whose child or grandchild or niece or nephew Ebon had given a pony ride. She had forgotten the pet.i.tion-she had wanted to forget the pet.i.tion-but she could not forget the look on Fthoom's face the day after her twelfth birthday, after she'd climbed down from her chair and said No. No. ”Has anyone ever been-unbound?” Sylvi said. ”Has anyone ever been-unbound?” Sylvi said.

Her mother looked at her in surprise and distress. ”I don't think so. There's a paragraph in the treaty somewhere about it, but I don't think it's ever been used.”

But there's never been a bond like mine with Ebon, thought Sylvi. ”Have you ever heard of Redfora and Oraan?”

”No-o,” said her mother slowly. ”Who are they?”

” They're a story the pegasi tell,” Sylvi said, who had decided beforehand what she would say in answer to this question. ”They're supposed to be bondmates who could talk to each other.”

”I'd've heard if such a story had been unearthed,” said the queen.”It hasn't. What a pity. It's just what we want, isn't it? It's interesting that the pegasi have such a story and we do not.” She gave her daughter a long look.”Try not to worry. I'm not looking forward to what Fthoom has to say either, because there will probably be something in it we will have to take into account, but those of us who are bound now will stay as we were bound.”

Sylvi's heart, which had begun to slow down to its normal pace, heard the tone of her mother's voice and speeded up again. ”What about Fthoom?”

”He has asked for an appointment with the king.”

”And you already know what he's going to say.”

”We know your father's gamble hasn't worked, yes. Did any of us ever really think it would?” she added, almost as if speaking to herself. She sighed, and after a moment went on: ”Which bears on what you and I need to talk about. Your birthday party is in nine days-two days after Ebon's return. And you must not only appear utterly, completely normal for the next seven days-exactly as you were before you visited the peg-Rhiandomeer, you must not change by the flicker of an eyelash when you have Ebon with you again, and at your party. And I think perhaps you should not wear your inspiring new robe for all of that time.”

Sylvi smiled at her mother's return joke. ”You said 'appear,' ” she said slowly.

”You've changed,” said her mother.”You're not just lost in your own home, you're not just missing your best friend, you've changed. What we need to do is make it appear appear merely that you are growing up-which you are-and that it has nothing to do with three weeks spent alone with the pegasi. Listening to subversive tales of bondmates who could talk to each other.” merely that you are growing up-which you are-and that it has nothing to do with three weeks spent alone with the pegasi. Listening to subversive tales of bondmates who could talk to each other.”

Sylvi was silent.

”What were they like, the Caves?” said her mother hesitantly.

The question had not been asked before. There was-to Sylvi's ears-an unhappy little silence around it now. Sylvi had been home two days, and no one, not even her father and mother, had asked her anything about her journey. With Hibeehea's words still in the front of her mind, and dismayed and disoriented about her sense of strangeness in her own home, she had not tried to talk about it. When she came back from her cousins' she couldn't stop talking-although Powring and Orthumber and Nearenough and s.h.i.+rrand, where her various aunts and uncles lived, were very well known to both her parents, and she could just talk, she didn't have to explain anything. Or avoid explaining anything.

Since she'd been back, this was the first time she'd been alone with either parent. She left her window-sill and sat on her bed next to her mother. She thought about how you weren't supposed to touch the pegasi, and yet the pegasi touch each other constantly-and her too, while she was with them. She reached out and took her mother's hand.

Her mother squeezed it and said, ”I just said that sometimes you can show when you can't say the words. The one occasion I've ever felt that Hirishy and I were-were in contact somehow, was about the Caves. I'd had difficulty understanding how important they are, and your father was trying to tell me. This was long ago-Danny was a baby. Cory was explaining that the Caves are thousands of years of pegasus art and culture, and more than that: the heart of themselves as a people. I was wrestling with this, trying to imagine it, I suppose, as like our palace only a great deal more so. I looked up and Hirishy was looking at me. As if talk about their Caves-her Caves-was something she could hear and answer. For a moment-just a moment of a moment-I felt I saw the Caves, saw them as Hirishy had seen them, was seeing them in her memory at that moment and was trying to tell me.”

”What did you see?” said Sylvi.

”Nothing I can tell you in a way that will make that sudden flash seem astonis.h.i.+ng, which it was. It was so very . . . other. Alien. There are caves in the Greentops, you know, and some of the bigger, deeper ones have decorated walls. But this ...” She threw out her free hand in a there-are-no-words gesture. The pegasi had a specific gesture for ”there are no words,” which included a single swift up-and-down tail-lash.

”Full?” suggested Sylvi.

”Full,” said her mother thoughtfully. ”Full of . . . full. Yes. And yet . . . it was only one enormous cave with-with k.n.o.bbly walls, except I could see that the humps and valleys and ridges had been made. There was a pegasus standing on a low earthwork, with a tiny brush in its alula hand.”

”Chuur,” said Sylvi.”When you don't know someone's gender. Chuur Chuur and and chuua chuua. Chuur Chuur hand.” hand.”

”I thought you heard Ebon in your head, like you hear someone speaking.”

”I do. Mostly. But what happens when they use a word you don't know? Ebon had to explain chuur chuur and and chuua chuua to me.” And had found it strange and tactless that her language called a live, gendered being ”it” for want of a better choice. to me.” And had found it strange and tactless that her language called a live, gendered being ”it” for want of a better choice.

”Chuur alula hand, then. The wall in front of-of alula hand, then. The wall in front of-of chuua chuua-was beautifully coloured in reds and golds. I couldn't see if any of the b.u.mps and colours were a picture I might recognise; the flash didn't last long enough. But the feeling that went with it was extraordinary.”

Sylvi smiled a little. ”Yes. That sounds like the Caves.” Good for Hirishy. ”The whole last three weeks . . .” She paused. ”It was all like that, a little. Like that feeling. That flash. That astonishment.”

”Yes,” said her mother softly. ”That's what I'm afraid of.”

CHAPTER 17.

Sylvi got through the rest of the week without Ebon somehow. She spent as much time outdoors as she could. She polished the sword that might have belonged to Razolon till it gleamed like a bead round the neck of a pegasus. She took extra lessons with Diamon; she volunteered for extra bas.h.i.+ng-and-cras.h.i.+ng practise, as hand-to-hand was familiarly called out of Diamon's hearing, and was put up against a variety of opponents, from Lucretia to some of Diamon's smallest and youngest beginners, including one of her cousins, her uncle Rulf 's youngest daughter, who had been sent to the palace for six weeks to find out what she needed to learn.

”Well done,” said Diamon, after one long afternoon, as Sylvi was hanging up the rest of her practise gear, with her sword over her shoulder.

”I suppose I'm less threatening than someone bigger,” she said. ”Someone like Renny,” her cousin,”is more likely to try what she knows against someone like me.”

”I'm not putting you up against the littles for your size,” said Diamon. ”I'm putting you in because you use your strength well. Don't sell yourself as a three-legged donkey when you're a pegasus.”

It was an old phrase, as old as ”it will hearten us.” She still had to stop herself from saying ”I wish.”

”Thank you,” she said.

But she had to spend some time indoors. Ahathin said, ”Have you given any thought to how you wish to present your report of your journey?”

”No,” said Sylvi with loathing. There was a pile of blank paper in a corner of her table. She flicked the edge of the pile with her finger: it was beautiful, in its way, hard and crisp and s.h.i.+ny. The pegasi's softer, duller paper was meant chiefly to take paint, not ink. She had seen several shamans' sigils: Ebon said that how the paint bled into the paper told you how strong the charm would be, and also something about how it would do its work. I can read a few of the easy ones, what they're for, I can read a few of the easy ones, what they're for, Ebon said. Ebon said. But that's all. I can't tell you whether it's a good one or not. It's one of the things you learn if you're a shaman's apprentice. Like this one is for a good harvest. But it could be a good harvest that's full of weeds that we'll have to pick out. Sigils for rain are tricky, for example, because you want a nice steady medium rain, not like the rain-spirits overturning the sky-bowl so all the rain falls on you at once. But that's all. I can't tell you whether it's a good one or not. It's one of the things you learn if you're a shaman's apprentice. Like this one is for a good harvest. But it could be a good harvest that's full of weeds that we'll have to pick out. Sigils for rain are tricky, for example, because you want a nice steady medium rain, not like the rain-spirits overturning the sky-bowl so all the rain falls on you at once.

”I recommend you do so,” said Ahathin. ”I wish to be able to tell your father before the festivities for your birthday when he can expect to see it.”

Could she write about the shamans' sigils? She could at least write about watching them make their paper. Her outstretched arm revealed Niahi's bracelet below the end of her sleeve. She could write about meeting Ebon's little sister. She could write about how the pegasi made yelloni yelloni for each other, but for ears and ankles. She could not write that Niahi had decided that human wrists were best. She could not write that Niahi had said anything to her at all. for each other, but for ears and ankles. She could not write that Niahi had decided that human wrists were best. She could not write that Niahi had said anything to her at all.

She had spoken to no pegasus since Ebon left. When she saw one in a corridor or in one of the gardens, they bowed to each other but did not stop. In human groups . . . the humans were always making so much mouth noise it was hard to think.

She looked at Ahathin and could think of nothing to say, no loud human words. But even the silence in the human world lay differently than silence with the pegasi.

”The king has faith in his daughter's intelligence and perception, and so do I,” said Ahathin.

”You mean, be careful what I put in my report.”

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