and letting the rest of her arms trail as if she’d forgotten how they worked. Slowly she bent her elbows and held her big spindly-fingered human hands out in front of her. She spread the long fingers, curled them up, spread them again, turned her wrists back and forth so she looked at the palms, and then the backs, and then the palms of her hands again. They were big hands only here in Rhiandomeer ; at home, among humans, they were little, like everything about Sylvi was little. The sword Diamon had told her to take back to her rooms with her was still only three-quarter-sized because her hands weren’t big enough to get a proper grip on the hilt of a full-sized one.
She let her hands droop at the ends of her wrists, and then folded her arms across her stomach and tucked her hands behind her elbows, holding on to her rib cage as if she were holding herself together. This was becoming the way she most often stood here, in the pegasi country, where she was bald and wingless and always rearing.
It was only going to be herself and Ebon and Lrrianay going into the Caves, and Ebon and Lrrianay were used to humans. To the funny way they looked, and the funny way they moved. There was no human equivalent of ssshasssha, which filled the Caves and called your name. It won’t call mine, she thought, but this gave her no comfort.
That morning even Ebon was subdued. She asked him on her way to her bath if she should hurry. No, he said immediately, but then he hesitated. Do you have—do you have a way of putting yourself in—and then there was a word she didn’t know. She stood there in her crumpled nightdress, clutching her towel and staring at her best friend—her best friend who was so hopelessly unlike herself—and saw the unbridgeable chasm lying between them again. You know, in your head?
I don’t know that word, she said, and she said it as if she were pronouncing her own doom. It’s only one word, she told herself. It’s just one word.
Uh, said Ebon, and she thought she heard in his silent voice that it was an important word, and that he was seeing the same chasm she was. Eah. Dad said you wouldn’t. Dad said—Never mind. You humans, you only seem to see now. A kind of squared-off, pillar-at-each-corner now, and a few weighed-and-measured years before and after. All of us in bound families have to study some of your history, whether we’re individually bound or not. I always thought it was something about the translation, about the fact that we can’t talk to each other and even our shamans couldn’t get it right, that it was all “he was king from the eighth day of the first month of spring in 892 to the eleventh day of the last month of winter 921,” “her army contained ninety-six regiments and the colours on her banner were red and gold.” Your history is only what someone remembers or has written down—and it’s just history, it’s not— and he used the word again. It’s the way into ssshasssha—your magicians talk about our ssshasssha, don’t they? You’ve asked me about it. But how do they describe it? It’s easy to get stuck in now—are you hungry, what’s the weather, what are you doing tomorrow? What words can you give these things so you can give them to someone else? From when we’re really little we practise getting out of now. I’m not very good at it. Niahi is hopeless, although Mum says she’ll get better as she gets older, but she’s worse than most kids, which is probably why she thinks the Caves are spooky.
Sylvi said, I’ll be okay. I can stand spooky. I won’t embarrass you. I’ll—I’ll try so hard and be so respectful you’ll scarcely recognise me.
Ebon stamped, and lashed his tail so violently it was as if he were trying to shake it loose. That’s not what I mean. He stepped forward and put out one of his feather-hands to her cheek again; the tiny breeze of his half-opening wing fanned her face. I want you to—to like the Caves! He stamped again. Oh, like! It’s a stupid word. Liking the Caves would be like liking water or daylight. If you’d lived in the dark or never tasted water they’d be overwhelming. You wouldn’t be able to think about liking.