of’em listened, he finished. Sylvi wondered what he wasn’t telling her, but she wouldn’t ask; both of them knew that each protected the other from some of the fuss their friendship produced among the grown-ups. He hurried on: And I’m making sketches, which is pretty unusual. You don’t get to make your own sketches till you’ve been an apprentice forever.
Sylvi tried not to be jealous. Ahathin and her father were pleased with Sylvi’s work on rivers, dams and bridges, but it wasn’t like it had been her own idea. Ebon wanted to be a sculptor more than anything—he’d never admitted it, but Sylvi was sure that the reason he’d tried to escape being bound was that he knew it would interfere with his chances at being accepted for apprenticeship. But Ebon had told his father after his—his and Sylvi’s—third night flight that he wanted to work toward doing something about the landscape of the palace grounds at night. My master did say I had to focus. But he didn’t tell me what I had to focus on. The funny thing is that no one has done this before.
Not so funny maybe, said Sylvi. How many sculptors are bound to humans? And it’s only you bound pegasi who ever come to the palace much. It’s like Nirakla talking to your shamans. Funny. Not funny.
Hmmmh. I think my master has only been here when your dad was crowned.
Well then. Sylvi wasn’t sure what exactly Ebon wanted to do with the night landscape they flew over, only that, if he succeeded in becoming a sculptor, he would some day begin to carve some of it into a piece of wall somewhere in the Caves; and, later still, his apprentices would help him.
He’d shown her some of his drawings and she’d had to squint to see the tiny pale lines. Pegasi drew with their feather-hands, which were only just strong enough to hold a light pen. Pegasi pens were noro reeds, which were too light and fragile for humans; one stab with a human hand and the tip broke off. She’d known not to comment on how faint the pen-strokes were, but Ebon mentioned it himself, bending one wing forward to lift her hands on its leading edge, and then stroking them with his other feather-hand. This tickled. You’ve said so many times how much humans envy us flying, he said. We envy you the strength of your hands . . . more than I can tell you.
But your drawings are so beautiful, she said, truthfully. They shimmer. They may, he said sadly. But I would give anything to be able to make big black marks. Like you do just writing your name.
Ebon saw her making her big black marks because sometimes they studied together, she with her books and notebooks and diagrams of dams, he making a curious almost humming noise which was saying over his lessons. Sometimes he did apprentice work with his hands, which was usually accompanied by a different, fainter but more complex sort of humming. Ahathin presided over these occasions—it had been Ahathin’s idea to allow them to work together: “I do not see that it is much different from Lrrianay attending court with your father, or Thowara accompanying Danacor on convoy or survey,” he said. Ahathin did not tell them about his conversation with either king, but permission had been granted.
The pegasi had very little written language—We’ve got some really old scrolls and some of the stuff in the Caves is more like letters than like pictures—but a great deal of history, tale and song was passed on orally. Every pegasus child memorised the treaty, for example. Old Gandam never used one word when three would do. Hunh. They also had to memorise certain scenes in the Caves—When they’re doing stuff for record, everything means something. You can pretty much read what a sovereign’s reign has been like by the plaits in their mane and what they’ve got round their neck and the way whoever’s near them is standing. If there’s a rearing shaman, uh-oh.
And sometimes he brought a tiny piece of wood or stone that he spent hours polishing, which (he said) was a sculptor technique: One of the nicknames for sculptor apprentices is Shiner. Or Polishhead.
These tiny scraps of matter looked—and felt—like jewels by the time he was finished with them; even when she watched him using a variety of bits of cloth (both the cloths and the fragments he used them on he carried in