it down, nudged it over with his nose, and a small stoppered bottle rolled out.
After over a fortnight in their country Sylvi was still not accustomed to the way the pegasi did things—the way they had to do things—because their hands had no gripping strength. At the palace the pegasi were rarely seen doing anything but being splendidly elegant—and, she thought now, that was partly because they were rarely seen to do anything except stand at the shoulder of their bound human or a little behind the bound pegasus they attended, as Lrrianay’s courtiers did. It was some of why they seemed so enigmatic—and some of why the humans seemed so much in command. But she wondered now if some of that tradition came from some human, long ago, perhaps even Balsin himself, wishing to preserve his allies’ dignity against human foolishness. It would be easy, in human terms, to think less of a shaman seen kneeling, using his teeth and his nose.... She had to stop herself, as she had often had to stop herself these last three weeks, from trying to help, which she knew instinctively would be utterly and grotesquely rude. She had forgotten, that once with Ebon and Hili—but that was because it had been Ebon. To offer aid to a shaman, to the king’s shaman . . .
Hibeehea stood up, graceful as ever; she hadn’t noticed till now that his long forelock had been twisted back round his ear and plaited into the mane at his poll, and tied there with ribbons. He was standing quite close to her, and she could see that the plait was made up of many tiny plaits; had his son or daughter done it? His—what was the word—hrmmmhr? Did shamans wed or have children? Or perhaps an acolyte did such things for a master? She couldn’t imagine him doing it himself.
There is still so much I don’t know about just ordinary things, she thought. Who plaits you if you’re plaited?
The little bottle lay where he had left it. Take the bottle, said Hibeehea, and choose your water.
Choose your water? Sylvi thought—only to herself, she hoped—what an odd way to put it. But she bent and picked up the bottle (grasping it only with the tips of her fingers as if to minimize the length of her fingers, the strength of her hand), and knew at once what he meant; this was not where she should fill her bottle. She took a hesitant step along the shoreline, away from the rest of the pegasi.
Yes, said Hibeehea. Go where you are taken. Ebon, you may go with her. And Hibeehea turned and left them.
It was not so very far after all. They came to a place where the trees grew to the edge of the water and one bent old fellow bowed so low that his leaves trailed across the water.
He looks like a pegasus with a very long mane come to drink, said Sylvi.
Eh? said Ebon. He probably has a name. You could ask Hibeehea. This is where your water is, is it? as she knelt and flicked the stopper out of the bottle, wondering how a pegasus would do it, and not wanting to ask. It’s a little like something that happens when you’re accepted as an apprentice to a sculptor, Ebon said. Idly he pawed at the pebbles at the waterline. The sculptor who has said he’ll sponsor you—or she—takes you to one of the big chambers with several other sculptors who’ve agreed to be part of your choosing. There are a lot of small stones lying around—that have been scattered around. You have to choose one. Which one you choose decides what happens next. There’s an old mwhumhum, a, er, scare-story that everyone who is trying to be accepted hears, that if you choose the wrong stone you don’t get apprenticed after all, but I’ve never heard of it happening. What does happen sometimes is that you aren’t apprenticed to your sponsor after all.
Were you?
No. Silence.
What went wrong? she asked bluntly, standing up.
Ebon raised his head, but he looked away from her.
Ebon?
I don’t know why I’m telling you this, he said, except that mostly I tell you everything, and the Dreaming Sea does this kind of thing to you, like makes you tell stuff you weren’t planning on telling. He stopped.
My dad said that about just being here—I mean in your country.
Ebon cocked an ear and moved one foreleg back: thoughtfulness. Did he? Maybe we can bring