they had been going. She felt Ebon’s feather-hand just touch her hair and then withdraw. She was still shivering somewhere deep inside herself, but much of the light-headed, off-balance, wrong feeling she’d had for the last three days, since she’d heard Niahi speak and had rediscovered herself as awkward and bizarre, had faded away. Walking on her hind legs seemed normal again, acceptable. She was human. She took a deep breath, aware of how shallow her lungs were in comparison to a pegasus’, but aware that that was as it should be. She was small, and human.
Child, are you all right? said Lrrianay.
She did not know how to answer him; she knew that she heard “all right” because her human mind, her use of language did not contain what he asked her: was she at peace with herself was perhaps closer. She could not think how to put her answer—her question—in pegasi terms. Have I just passed another test? she said, knowing the pegasi did not set tests any more than they created hierarchies.
There was a pause as Lrrianay thought this over. What we show you depends on what you see, yes, he said. And we hoped you would see the walls here, yes.
She thought, His “see” is not quite what it means anywhere but here. It was the “see” that the queen had used: May you see all that you will see.
What you would see if we told you to look, and where to look, would be different, said Lrrianay.
Less, she said, but she was thinking, that is another human concept, less.
There was another pause and this time Hibeehea answered: Not less, different. But we would have you as much like us as possible, yes. To see these walls, as you evidently do see them, is like us.
But they are strange to me. Strange. She could not think of the right word, a word that would reverberate not only through her bones, but through Hibeehea’s, and Lrrianay’s, and the bones of this mountain.
We can turn around now, child, if you wish, said Hibeehea, and there was only kindness in his silent voice. We have our answer, and you have visited the Caves.
Oh, no! she said before she thought. I have only seen one corridor! A little of one corridor! I mean—whatever you say, great lord, srrrwa! But—I—please—sir!
Lrrianay wrinkled his nose and flicked his ears. I see again why you and Ebon are so close, he said. I wonder how much that closeness has to do with how much you were alike before you met? Very well. We will go on. And then he turned away from her and led them on the way they had been going.
She thought of the sky and the trees and the daylight. But she was not sorry she had answered as she had; she did not now want to turn around, even if the ceiling did seem to lean down toward her—as if it would stretch down a stony hand and smack her forehead. The pegasi’s heads on their long upright necks were higher than hers, and they did not stoop. She squared her shoulders—such a human gesture—and followed.
The corridor walls around her opened, and she was walking on grass under the sky with many pegasi all around her—white and cream-coloured, all the shades of golden from flaxen to dark honey, amber-red to russet-red, coppery and tawny and dark loam brown; silver to twilight-grey; and occasionally black. They were cantering past her, their wings half spread, the occasional pale feather in a dark wing catching her eye. Where were they all going? They streamed past her, hundreds upon hundreds of them; occasionally one would turn its head and nod at her, although she recognised none of them. They seemed to be going somewhere, and they seemed to be drawing her along with them: where her slow walking feet were taking her was ultimately where all their quick cantering feet were taking them.
Then the landscape, or her dream, changed, and there was a small round valley in the hill before them, and this was their destination. Or, no—this was her destination, for most of the pegasi ran on, parting around the way into the little valley and disappearing behind the shoulders of the hill. A few pegasi slowed to a walk and accompanied her.
But the moment she entered the little circle of the valley she wanted to go no farther; her feet slowed, dragged, and finally stopped. The pegasi with her quietly stopped too.
The valley,