there was her pronunciation. You haven’t got a tadpole’s chance at a heron party of saying that so anyone will understand you, Ebon declared in response to her first try, so they had to find other words that she could get her mouth around—could remember long enough to learn. Sometimes by the time they’d found a compromise, the original meaning of what she’d wanted to say had got lost on the way. It’s not like you’re such a—such an elocutionist in human, Sylvi said crossly, after Ebon had had to roll over on the ground and kick his legs in the air in reaction to her attempts to say honoured, which was gwyyfvva in pegasi.
“Hhhhh, eeeee?” said Ebon: Who, me? If the world depended on me giving a speech in human, the world would just have to end, okay? How about “respected”? That’s only “fffwha,” which you might manage.
“Fuwa,” said Sylvi. I’ve heard your dad speak human pretty well, she added.
“Fffwha,” said Ebon. Yes, and he’s impossible to live with for weeks before he does it too. Don’t go there. How’s your dad doing?
“Fuuuwa,” said Sylvi. You could say he’s impossible to live with. Although in my dad’s case, impossible to live with means because you never see him. Ebon raised his head from where he was still sprawled on the ground and looked at her and she looked back. Her father sometimes used a speech-writer for an ordinary human speech. Not this one.
Fthoom? said Ebon.
Sylvi shrugged. He’s behind the magicians who want me not to go. But . . . She didn’t want to talk about it. She didn’t want to talk to Ebon about all the humans—all the courtiers and councillors and ordinary people—who didn’t want her to go. About the petition to bring back Fthoom. Who had wanted to turn her into a newt.
You—you are still coming? He sounded as uncertain as she’d ever heard him.
If they try and stop me I’ll flap my arms and fly over the Starclouds.
I’ll meet you right outside the Wall, said Ebon, recovering his spirits. Flying is hard work when you’re not used to it.
I believe you, said Sylvi. Now listen. “Fwee henny awwhaha blaiahaanuushor anawha: na, fa, zinanah. Fffwha nor, daboorau.” I bow my best bow to you, to each of you I bow once, twice, three times. Respected friends, my thanks and gratitude.
You sound like you have a bad head cold and a mouthful of mouldy reeds. But . . . not bad. And that’s two whole sentences.
Now tell me the one about foes and stuff.
“Liananana oria nolaa, auroneewhala, dom. Norwhee da norwheerela.”
“Li . . . dom. Noriwee. Um. Norewela.”
Needs work.
But we started there! Remember? We started there. “Foes press round us, as they did at the beginning. But we stand friends.” We’ve done it over and over and over and over. I still can’t remember the foes sentence at all and it’s like it spills over into the friends sentence, which I can almost half remember, sort of.
“Inskawhaksha,” said Ebon. Say it. It’s really short. Never mind your pronunciation. Just say it.
I can’t remember, said Sylvi in frustration. Say it again.
“Inskawhaksha,” said Ebon.
“Is—in—” I can’t remember!
It means “my darkest enemy.” And you can’t remember it.
If it’s a spell, said Sylvi slowly, then it’s wearing off on the friendly words first.
Sylvi was grateful for her daily practise under the master-at-arms with sword, staff and bow—glad for the excuse to go bash at something, and sweat and grunt. Aside from any other considerations, she had fought for this much too hard not to keep to her practise strictly—and now, under the pressure of bearing with the uproar about her coming journey to Rhiandomeer she had the dubious pleasure of being told that, pound for pound, she was the toughest fighter of her family. Diamon himself was not a large man—and Lucretia was a small woman, though not as small as Sylvi. Between the two of them they knew the sorts of things that someone small and quick and accurate can do to upset the advantage of a bigger, stronger adversary; and Sylvi found that a practise sword in an opponent’s hand (especially Lucretia’s) focussed her mind and her reflexes wonderfully.
It didn’t seem to her respectful not to know how to use a sword, having sworn fealty to her king on the Sword. Her mother, a noted swordswoman herself, had been fully on her side about this, although the royal family tradition was that the nonreigning women were archers. Her father