Part 17 (1/2)
”We've been chased by harpies, demons and goblins,” Mach said. ”We don't know why.”
”I know naught o' that! I've had no contact with my kind in a year.”
Could he believe that! Or was she just trying to lull him while others closed in?
”No offense-but you don't smell. The other harpies I encountered-”
”I wash my feathers daily to keep down the itch, but always it returns,” Phoebe said. ”An' another o' my kind come near, it will spread. That be my curse.”
Fleta jumped off his shoulder, then materialized as her girl form. ”Know thou my nature?” she asked the harpy.
”A werebird! Ne'er saw I the like before!”
”Nay. Unicorn.”
”And thou comest to roust me out o' my bower? For shame, 'corn; I have no quarrel with thee!”
”Willst swear so on my horn?”
”For sure, an thou attack me not.”
Fleta parted the leaves of the bower wall and stepped out.
The harpy peered after her. She shrugged with her wings. ”h.e.l.l, trust must begin somewhere, and I have no life worth living alone.” She half-spread her wings and hopped out after Fleta.
Mach followed her out, not certain what was happening.
Outside, he could just make out the dark unicorn shape. Fleta lowered her horn, and the harpy hopped up to it. The horn touched her feathers. ”I swear I have no quarrel with thee,” the harpy said.
Fleta fluted.
”What, turn about?” Phoebe asked, evidently understanding her. ”What for?”
Fleta played several notes.
'That?” the harpy asked incredulously. ”Thou wouldst?
An affirmative note. Mach tried to fathom what this was about, but it baffled him.
The harpy turned about, and Fleta put her horn on the creature's tailfeathers. For a moment there seemed to be a kind of radiance, but Mach could not be sure.
”Mine itch!” the harpy cried. ”Gone!”
Fleta returned to girl form. ”Grant us rest in thy bower for a day, and all's repaid,” she said.
”For this cure?” Phoebe cried. ”Thou canst stay a year!”
Fleta made her way back into the bower and curled up on the fern. In a moment she was asleep.
”But-how could you know that we had no quarrel with you?” he asked the harpy.
” 'Corns be stubborn beasts,” Phoebe said. 'They betray not who betrays them not.”
”And she cured you-just like that?”
”Aye, the horn has power, an there be ailment. But for 'corn to cure harpy-that be rare indeed.”
”We were looking for a place to rest in safety,” Mach said.
”Ye have it now.” Phoebe wiggled her tail, appreciating the lack of itch.
Mach went in and lay down beside Fleta. It seemed that his willingness to talk with the harpy had paid off; she was not after all an enemy. In a moment he slept.
Fleta slept all night and much of the following day. It was evident that she had seriously depleted her resources in the long run. Mach, less tired, found himself talking with Phoebe. The harpy brought fresh fruit and edible roots, but urged him to wash them in a nearby spring. ”I wash, but my talons form the poison, and it gets on what I touch,” she explained. Mach was happy to wash the food.
”There be my sisters in the sky, and goblins o'er the plain,” Phoebe announced after taking a flight. ”An thou knowest not why they seek ye?”
”An Adept sent them,” Mach said. ”He wants me alive; he doesn't care about Fleta. She carried me from the Lattice in a day.”
”In a single day? Lucky thou art she died not on the hoof!”
”She's a good creature,” Mach agreed.
”And for the love o' thee!” She shook her head. She was as awkwardly endowed as all her kind, with a human head and b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the wings and hind parts of a vulture. Her face was lined and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s sagged; her hair was a wild tangle. About the only pretty part of her was her wings, which had a metallic l.u.s.ter. Her voice was harsh, sounding like a screech even when she talked normally. Mach could see that if she had behaved the way the others of her kind did, allowing filth to encrust her body, she would have been monstrously ugly; as it was, she was merely homely. ”My kind has no such love.”
”If I may ask-just how does your kind reproduce? I understand there are no males of your species.”
”Aye, there be none. We lay eggs and leave them scattered about; an one survive the animals long enough to hatch, an the chick not get consumed, she grows to size and lays her own eggs. Legend has it that only a fertilized egg can hatch a male harpy-but only a male of our species can fertilize it. So it be an endless circle. We be chronically bitter about that, and take it out on all creatures.” She sighed. ”Sometimes I wish it were otherwise. But what else be there?”
Mach shrugged. ”I don't know. It does seem a tragedy. But why didn't you revile me when I showed up in the night?”
”I should have, I know,” she confessed. ”But after a year denied the company of mine own kind, awful as that be, I was lonely. So I was foolish.”
”And got your tail fixed.”
”It pa.s.seth all understanding.”
”Phoebe-are harpies supposed to be ugly?”
”What point to be other?”
”If you get lonely, you are more likely to find company of any kind if you look nice.”
She laughed with her raucous cackle. ”What a notion!”
”Why don't you let me do some work on your hair, and see what happens?”
”Thou canst not make me beautiful,” she said. ”That would take the magic o' an Adept!”
”I'm just curious.”