"They will have it hard, but they are ready for that. As soon as they know we've made it here, they will rise. Kill the bitch. Kill others, you know." He gestured with his fingers that surely Rialus could imagine the possible scenes. "Kill, kill. That sort of thing. And then they'll hole up and wait."
Why did it seem the more he knew, the less it made sense? Wait for what? They were worlds away. They had no ships. The Numrek back in the Known World could cause much bloodshed, but they would eventually be defeated. The league would not tolerate any of this. The Lothan Aklun were no more. And surely their sorcery went with them. The Numrek may not have planned or intended that, but what Calrach described was a confusion, not a situation that should please him so. "I still don't understand."
"Okay," Calrach said, leaning close. "Last thing. I had an idea, yeah? What if I got back to Ushen Brae? Came home and told what we found. Told all the Auldek that a new world awaited them, a world full of humans to hunt, to enslave. A rich world in which all the Auldek could again have children. What if I promised them that and showed them the proof of it? My son. You think, maybe, they would lift the exile? Maybe they would give us our totem back, yeah? Maybe they would march with us across the ice and down into glorious battle, toward the conquest of your Known World?" His grin could not have gotten any wider. "Pretty good idea, huh? I thought so. The league made it even easier by taking me across the Gray Slopes. Hated that, but good news. Devoth and the others like the idea, too. Not my fault the league killed the Lothan Aklun. No blame on me. No, instead, I bring them hope. I bring them a new world."
And that's it, Rialus thought. That's the truth of it. The things that were happening were not just about him and Dariel and Sire Neen. Not even about Corinn. Oh, how she would rage if she knew. But it wasn't about her either. It was about everything. This is about the entire Known World and everyone in it.
"Anyway. There it is. You know. I'll get somebody to torture you now. Fun for you. Fun for him. Everyone's happy."
"No!" Rialus shouted. "No, that won't be necessary."
Crossing his arms, Calrach grimaced, a show of mock confusion that clearly meant he was not confused at all. "No? Why not?"
"What does Devoth want from me?"
Calrach smiled. "I know you, Neptos. I knew I was right! I told them as much. Said, 'Always a weasel, he is. He'll turn.' Is that right? It pleases me that you're so true to your nature. Devoth wants everything you can tell him. Everything he'll need to plan his attack"-the Numrek shook his head at the irony of it-"on your nation. You, Neptos, are an important man. Play it right, and it might be very good for you."
In answer, Rialus curled back into his ball, lying on his side with his knees tight to his chest. He-Rialus Neptos, so often maligned, laughed at, joked with-was in a singular position to affect events. He would find a way to do so, he swore. He would talk with Devoth. He told himself that he would not help destroy his people. He also told himself that he would aim at getting back to Gurta and seeing his child. He did not acknowledge which of these was his greater priority.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The play of the sun on the rolling, blond-grassed hills was wonderful. Soothing. Mena sat with the first rays of light and warmth on her skin, taking in the world around her for miles and miles. The land buckled away into the distance in smooth mounds of shadow and gold, spotted with outcroppings of rock that looked like islands. A breeze blew steadily from the south, hot air but not unpleasant. In some ways Mena felt alone in the entire world. She wasn't, though. She most certainly wasn't.
Beside her the lizard bird creature lay in a gentle curve, her tail a river meandering through the grasses. Her head rested on a smooth rock, eyes closed but moving beneath the thin membranes of eyelids. Even in slumber-which she seemed quite fond of-she was never entirely insensible to the world. Her senses seemed to work: nostrils flaring on occasion, the small protrusions that marked the ears adjusting to slight sounds. Mena still could not believe the events of the last few days had actually happened. But there she was, all the feathered, reptilian, delicate beauty of her.
And here she was, sitting beside the creature, inexplicably healed of every injury she had received during her fall. She knew that Melio and the others would be scouring the countryside for her, and she felt bad, knowing they would be desperate, worried. Melio especially. She sometimes spoke his name, wishing that he could hear it on the wind and know she was thinking of him. That sadness was a small feature of her mood. In truth, she was content in a way that she could not explain.
Four days prior, when she realized the creature was alive and awake and watching her ministrations over her body, her heart had hammered so fiercely in her chest she feared it might explode. She could not have said exactly why. It was not fear for her life. She had just examined the animal's shattered form with her own eyes and knew she could be little threat. Nor was she surprised at being watched. Once she realized the beast's eyes were on her, it felt right that they should be, as if she had wished it herself and made it so. There was an element of amazement that the creature could live after Mena had been so certain she was dead. More than anything Mena felt a frantic urgency, a soaring of possibility that had no specific details but that seemed as important as anything in her life.
Mena withdrew a few steps. She sat on a stone and stared at the creature, who looked back at her fixedly. Together they passed the better part of an hour that way. The creature had emerald eyes. The irises sparkled with a metallic sheen. They filled the entirety of the eye sockets. They did not show fear. They did not betray aggression or hunger either. That there was intelligence behind the eyes was palpable, but they were just watching. Mena felt she was being probed as much as she was probing, and she found herself hoping the creature liked what she saw.
They could not remain in this standoff forever, though. When Mena saw the creature's slim tongue taste the air for a moment, she had an idea. Rising slowly, she motioned with her good arm that everything was all right. Stay calm. She whispered, "Stay. I'll be right back. Just stay." She knew she should feel foolish talking to an animal, but she did not. As she hobbled her way back up the slope that she had earlier descended, she wished she had said more. If the lizard bird somehow was not there when she returned, she would curse herself for not having said more, even though she had no idea what that more might have been.
It seemed to take forever to climb down into the other ravine and reach the river again. She was slick with sweat and had to sit for a time, panting, fighting to push back the fatigue and pain pulsing everywhere in her body. Opening her pack and rummaging about in it for something that would hold water made for another pathetic routine. Fortunately, she did find the leather bowl that she used to brew healing teas. She scooped clear water from the river and drank it, then scooped more. Rising without the use of her damaged arm was hard enough, but picking up the floppy bowl was another matter. It took her several tries before she finally had it cupped in her palm, relatively full.
When she peered over the ridge again, the creature was exactly as she had left her, lying in the same shattered posture; but the long neck was bowed as she inspected her wings and torso. A good bit of the water had splashed out of the bowl by the time Mena reached the creature, but she offered what remained. She set the bowl down as best she could, spilling still more, and then she backed away. The creature did not take her eyes off Mena until she had stood some time at a short distance. Then the creature examined the bowl, looked up and considered Mena, head cocked, and then sank the tip of her snout into the water and drank.
And then the staring match began again. They spent most of the afternoon at it. Again, Mena felt inclined to speak. She could not find the words, though, and the creature seemed increasingly content with her presence. That was enough.
Mena slept that night on the slope a little distance away and awoke to find the creature grooming herself, if grooming it could be called. She looked much like a cat licking itself, but she did not use her tong
ue. Everyplace she might have licked, she instead rubbed with the flat bottom of her snout. She was precise in the motions, careful, especially when tending the shredded membranes of her wings. Just looking at them shot Mena through with regret. That damage was her fault. Hers. She felt it as if in her own body, forgetting as she watched it that she was, in fact, battered and broken herself. From her close observation the day before, she doubted the creature would ever be able to fly again, not with so much of her wings destroyed.
When Mena approached, the creature drew semiupright. She sent waves of tension out through her wing frames, lifting them partially off the ground. The finger-thin bones were still amazing to behold. So flexible, so powerful, and so delicate at the same time. It should have required bulges of muscle tissue and sinew to create the power Mena had felt snatch her from the ground, but instead the creature's wings remained works of thin-lined art.
Mena's eyes drifted over them. The wing membranes did not look as damaged as they had yesterday. Some of the spots that she thought had been pierced clean through had not been, and some of the tears that had looked so ghastly the day before did not seem quite as horrible. She wondered if she had been mistaken.
"You're not as bad off as I thought," she mused. "Well, obviously not; I'd thought you dead before."
Feathered plumes on the creature's neck rose for a moment, and then settled back into position. The creature pushed up on her forelegs, lifted them from the ground, and stood unsteadily on her hind legs, shaking out her wings as she did so. She looked up at the hill that separated them from the river, studied it, and set out walking toward it. Her steps were tentative at first, her body swaying like a drunken person's. She paused and, after a few steadying moments, drew her wings in, first the left, then the right. The curl started at the tips and rolled tight as it neared the body. Somehow the motion tucked the membrane in with it, and in the space of a few seconds she was wingless again, with only two swirled nubs on the shoulders to indicate where the wings now nestled. She loped up the slope and climbed over into the next valley.
She was in the river when Mena joined her. Shivering like a child from the cold, she danced in the small stream, dipped the full length of her neck and tail in. She puffed her plumage so that for seconds at a time she was covered with a bristling coat that then snapped back to smooth in the blink of an eye. The wing nubs flexed a little but did not unfurl.
"You are a bird, aren't you?" Mena said.
She climbed out of the river, turned back to it, and thrust her snout into the water. She drank deep and long, green eyes flicking to Mena occasionally. The creature seemed at ease with her now, not studying her as she had the previous day. Watching her, Mena felt as pleased as a cat lover watching her favorite feline. She wanted to reach out and feel that soft, strangely scaled plumage again.
Before she realized it, she had done just that. Her fingers tingled at the touch, and she drew them back immediately. She touched her nose, smelling the citrus scent of the substance that seemed a part of the plumage. It was not unpleasant, not exactly oily, but it was hard to know how else to describe it. She was aware that the tingling in her fingertips continued, and that she had passed the sensation on to her face. It almost felt like she had inhaled it and now held it in her lungs. She nervously wiped her fingers on her tunic. Still the creature drank, having taken no notice of her touch or reaction to it.
"Sorry that drink yesterday wasn't much. I tried, though. You know that. Now, if we just had something to eat, we'd not be so bad off."
As if in answer, the creature stretched her neck high and opened her nostrils with a few deep inhalations. She rotated and tried the air to the south, seemed to like what she found there, and began to stride away, more energy in her motions than just a moment before. A little way down, she turned and studied Mena, walked on a few steps, and then bent her neck back and met her gaze again.
Mena pressed the fingers of her good hand to her chest. "You want me to follow?" The creature did not answer, of course, but Mena did exactly that.
It was no easy thing, hobbling along over the uneven terrain. Early on, she spent several frantic moments thinking she had lost the creature over a rise or behind a rock outcropping. But each time she was there, waiting, looking back for her. A few times the creature even seemed to respond to sighting her by raising the plumes on her neck, a sign of-of what? Pleasure? Encouragement? So the day passed, they alone on a windblown landscape.
The two were still together that evening. They spent the night in a small cluster of date trees. A tiny ruin showed ancient inhabitation, but whoever lived here had not done so for ages. Mena did not crowd the creature, but she stayed near enough to be able to speak without raising her voice. She told her about Melio and the others who were likely hunting them right now. "They're excellent trackers," she explained. "They'll find us soon. I don't know why, but it seems very important to me that no more harm befalls you. That seems like the most important thing in the world right now: that you be safe. Perhaps I'm just tired of killing. I should be. I didn't mean to harm you, though. I just didn't expect you."
Mena cut herself off. She looked away, shaking her head, and then looked back at the creature. Those eyes were just as intent on her. Her mouth, Mena realized, tilted near the back hinge of the jaw. "Why is it that I want to talk to you so much? You can't understand me. It's absurd. You can't understand me, right?"
The creature stared at her. Stared. Of course she could not understand. Mena exhaled and reached for another date. As she did so the creature nodded, just a tiny dip of the head, but enough to make Mena pause. Was that an affirmation? Had the creature answered that she could understand? Or had she merely followed the motion of Mena's hand? She wanted to ask, but, again, staring into those round, large, innocent eyes, it seemed a complete absurdity.
"Perhaps I bumped my head worse than I remembered."
Mena had that same thought on waking the next morning. Before she knew what she was doing, she moved to push herself up with both arms. Finding one encumbered by her stone splint, she gave the arm a shake, trying to dislodge the thing. Only after she had tugged at the knot in the cord that held it fast did she realize what she was doing. And that snapped her fully awake.
The arm-her formerly broken, battered arm-did not hurt anymore. She flexed her fingers and they moved without pain. There was stiffness. There was a memory of pain still in the tissue, but there was no mistaking it: her arm was nearly healed! She loosened the splint and lifted the limb free and moved it in the air. She sat staring at it, utterly confused, wondering if she had been crazy when she splinted a healthy arm, or if she was crazy now for believing it healed. And then she thought of the creature.
She jumped to her feet, spun around until she found the familiar shape atop a nearby hillock. The creature stood shuffling her feet impatiently, waiting for Mena. She could have remained there disbelieving her sudden healing, but it was as it was. The creature had done it, somehow. Because of her-being with her, touching her, inhaling that citrus scent-Mena had healed just as the creature had come back from the brink of death and now showed only faint scars from the attack. And this same creature wanted Mena's company, just as she wanted to stay longer with her.
And so began another day of travel. She already knew how it would go. They searched for fruit and water, the only two things the creature seemed to consume. Either she knew where the groves of trees grew and what fruit was ripe by memory, or she smelled them on the air and followed her nose. Once, when she scented something that excited her, the creature tried to get Mena to pick up the pace. She ran forward and back, churning up dust, urging her on. Mena's human gait was clearly not sufficient.
The creature bumped Mena's side and lowered her shoulder. Mena understood what she offered and was stunned. She kicked her leg over the creature's spine and slowly slipped on top. For a moment she clung there, spread-eagled on the back. The creature looked at her, amused. Mena tried to find a better arrangement. And there was one:
sitting upright, straddling the creature's neck, snug between the nubs of the wings. With her positioned like that, the creature moved forward, falling into a loping, reptilian run that Mena would never forget.
The creature must also have known how to avoid humans, for they saw nobody the entire day. Once they pillaged an apple orchard that showed signs of tending, but evaded whatever souls might have been about. Atop a bluff on another occasion, Mena spotted a cluster of houses in the distance. She could have walked to them in an hour and named herself and been among people again. Though she was hungry, having eaten only fruit, even light-headed at times, she did not yet want human company.
Indeed, she often scanned the horizon, knowing that searchers were combing the countryside for her, people she cared for and trusted, who had fought beside her many a day. The daily journey she and the creature kept at would be making it hard for the trackers, but she was not sure she wanted to be found even by them, even by Melio. Not yet. Not until she understood this better.
As Mena walked beside the creature on the afternoon of their third day together, she said, "You need a name. I mean, a name for me to call you. I can't think of you as lizard or bird or dragon." Mena stroked the creature's neck. "You're no dragon, anyway. You're gentler than that. You need a real name." She walked on in thought, nibbling her thumbnail as she did so. The creature's head rose and fell beside her, bobbing on the curve of her neck.
"My father once told me a tale about a boy who had a pet lizard. It's a Bethuni tale, I think. The boy called the lizard Elya. He hatched it from an egg. They were together always, though the boy's father did not, at first, like the animal being in his hut. In Bethuni lore orphans of any species are sacred, good luck to those who care for them. But the father was a selfish man who wanted to control all things and didn't like the love his son showed a mere reptile."
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