and our shamans have found no supporting word for this. A baby as big as Hili is now would be very difficult—indeed dangerous to those holding or lifting her. Our hands, once broken, do not heal readily.
I’m . . . sorry, said Sylvi, feeling wretched.
Yah, said Ebon from the ground. Since we have her, let’s use her. And she just said she’d come back, so we can use her some more. Come on, Syl, the sunset is soon. Grab the broliglag and let’s get on with it.
So Sylvi unfolded her hands again, feeling them like great ugly shovels suspended—sternly, unforgivingly—out in front of her. Hili quivered ever so slightly when Sylvi touched her—but at once put her nose to one of Sylvi’s hands again, this time as if in apology. She seemed to Sylvi to weigh so little that she might have floated off Ebon’s back if she moved incautiously.
Ebon stood up and Hili gave a little squeal of what was obviously pleasure. Watch yourself, you, said Ebon. I said I wouldn’t let you fall off—I didn’t say I wouldn’t make you want off.
CHAPTER 14
The next day they flew again, and when they landed they had arrived at the entrance to the Caves.
Tomorrow morning they would go inside. Tomorrow morning she, Sylviianel, fourth child of the human King Corone IV, would enter the pegasi’s mythical Caves, where no human had ever before set foot, the Caves which were the centre of their lives and their civilisation, and of ssshasssha, the pegasi history and recollection, which no human understood.
Ebon had told her which of the mountain peaks roofed the main entrance to the Caves: there was a double-crowned mountain and then a falling-away series of smaller ones that made a zigzag line against the sky much sharper than those surrounding it. They were their own little range, visibly of some other, less erodible material than the rest. Ebon had first pointed them out to her the day she had arrived with her father, but she hadn’t taken it in; or rather, she had allowed herself to be distracted, because there were so many things to see, to make sense of, to try and understand.
Look at old Cuandoia, Ebon had said. He’s the big one in the middle, with the two peaks. He used to be a stag, you know, and the peaks were his antlers.
One of our story-tellers can sing you the story. Can you see how he looks like he’s leaning toward us? Our weather-seers will tell you it’s something about clouds and temperature but it’s still a good omen when you see him like that.
The days had passed, and those mountains had come closer, and Cuandoia seemed to watch them—watch and beckon. Well, he’s glad to see Lrrianay and Aliaalia, Sylvi said to herself. But it was hard not to feel, if she were going to think in terms of a mountain watching them, then he must be seeing her too, strange conspicuous creature that she was, and that it was acceptable to him that she was included.
She was shivering when she climbed out of her drai that evening near the main entrance of the Caves, although it was no colder than it had been the evening before, and the close-woven pegasus blanket kept the wind out better than several of the sheep’s-wool blankets she was accustomed to would have done. Cuandoia’s double crown was lost in the twilight, but she still seemed to feel him watching—as if she could sense, even in the darkness, that there was an awareness, sharp as a beam of light, coming from the crowned mountain above the Caves—and not from anywhere else.
They were here.
If she had been among humans she might have been able to pass off her oppression of spirits as mere tiredness: but she was not among humans. The problem with silent-speech was how much else was available about you than only your words.
I was scared gutless the first time I was brought to the Caves, Ebon said without preamble.
I’m still scared, said Niahi. They’re so big and they’re so full.
They’re nothing like full, said Ebon, in best big-brother- brushing- off-little-sister style. They’re hardly started.
Oh, Ebon, don’t be a strawhead! said Niahi, obviously flustered. Sylvi could hear herself in Niahi’s silent voice, talking to one of her brothers.
Niahi went on defensively, You know what I mean. There are leagues and leagues of them that are empty, but there are leagues of them that are full of us, of what we’ve been