The motionless stone picture was taking place just after she had watched the living scene: the two humans were still holding the treaty paper flat against the table, but a pegasus—it would be the pegasus king—was holding one wing, with the first three primaries curiously spread, just above its surface. These were astonishingly artfully done, for the shadows fell in such a way as to show, now that she was looking for this, the inked tips of those feathers. As the candlelight flickered she felt she saw him draw his feather-tips across the surface of the paper in the quick, graceful, triple stroke she had seen replicated on so many documents, so many commemorative plaques and paintings at the palace. She thought of the mural in the Great Hall where, when she was younger, she had thought she could hear Fralialal stepping down from the wall onto the floor. That Fralialal was bigger, grander—more human. This one, here, on the wall of the Caves, this one was a true pegasus: smaller, finer, graceful as candlelight . . . exotic. Inexplicable. Unknowable.
The signing of the treaty.
She had just been standing on eight-hundred-year-old grass, smelling the smoke of the eight-hundred-year-old war that had given her people and Ebon’s their Alliance. She had seen the treaty itself unrolled, when it was only a new piece of fine paper with some writing on it—she had seen it before it was signed, before it was the treaty, before it hung on the wall of the Great Hall, before Balsin’s signature on it had become the reigning monarch’s mark.
She had met Dorogin’s eyes.
And Dorogin looked like Fthoom. In the mural at the palace, none of the human faces stood out: they were just humans. Only the pegasus king and the treaty itself had any reality.
No—she would not think of it any more. She would not think of the fact that she had been there, the fact that something about the Caves had made her imagine that she had been there. She would not think of it. But she could—she would—she must think about Dorogin and Fthoom.
So it began . . . at the beginning, she said slowly, what went wrong.
She held her hands out—her human hands—and looked down through them at her single pair of human feet. It’s a good thing I didn’t . . . know all this. Or I’d’ve been too frightened to come.
Eah. I’d be the same.
You would not, she thought.
I’d be the same, but I’d do it anyway, just like you would.
Well, I’m here, she said slowly, staring at the wall—at Dorogin’s stony eyes watching her. What am I going to tell my father? She wasn’t sure if she’d said that so Ebon could hear it, and she moved nearer to him, and twisted her fingers in a handful of his long mane as it spilled down his shoulder. He turned his head, and his nose rested for a moment on the back of her hand. The glow from the bead that hung round his neck haloed him.
They turned together, and found Lrrianay and Hibeehea standing at a little distance, watching them—letting us talk together privately, Sylvi thought in surprise. Before she lost her nerve, she let go of Ebon’s mane and stepped forward quickly, ahead of him. What can I tell my father? she said.
What have you seen, child? said Hibeehea. What do you want to tell your father?
You know what I saw, she said. Didn’t you send me? This is more of what I’m here for, isn’t it? Ssshasssha, that humans don’t understand? Is there any more you haven’t told me? That you’re going to throw me into without telling me? Well, I have heard—and spoken—and seen, and perhaps I understand—a little. But even if my father believes me, he will say, What can we tell our people? Our people, who think the pegasus ssshasssha is a bard’s fantastic tale? How is a picture carved on a wall anything but a picture carved on a wall?
And how will you answer him?
She took a deep breath. I will say, because I was there, and I saw them. Why did you bring me to the Caves and not him? He is the king. He is the one you have to convince. And he loves you—you pegasi. He would listen to you. He envies me coming to the Caves. But he let me come—alone—because that is what you wanted. And this is why you brought me, isn’t it? I’m already half