Within the Sanctuary of Wings

by Marie Brennan

  It was with a great deal of trepidation that I came to the place of the elders. This was the phrase used to describe it, and so generic were the words that I had no idea what to expect. Not the temple, that much I knew; we had rounded the base of Anshakkar, leaving those sacred chambers far behind. A palace, perhaps?

  That term will do as well as any, though it implies a much grander structure than the reality. The place of the elders was the set of buildings where those nine Draconeans dwelt, along with their male counterpart. Although the greatest of these was smaller than the yak barn of Imsali, it was far larger than any ordinary house, and much more finely made, with carved decoration outside and painted inside. In the summer months the terrain around the compound was a kind of garden, consisting mostly of sculpted rocks, in which they would plant flowers and other beauteous greenery; when I arrived, however, it was of course still mired in winter’s leavings.

  The three sisters and I were given a chamber to sleep in, while the four who had come as our guards were dispatched back to Imsali. This was by decree, not the sister-group’s voluntary choice; the elders had security enough there, and I suspect they did not want the disruption our self-appointed watchdogs might bring. I took the decision as an encouraging sign, for it also sent away several Draconeans who were hostile to me, leaving us greater peace and quiet in which to speak. Of course this did not last; nearly every village in the Sanctuary sent representatives to the place of the elders, to examine me or render their opinions on what ought to be done. But we had a little breathing space before those began arriving.

  Our meetings I expected to take place in the central chamber of the largest building, which was an audience hall. We did indeed spend a great deal of time in there—enough so that the place became nearly as suffocating to me as the sisters’ house, though that was due as much to my desire to leave the Sanctuary as to the amount of time I spent inside. But we were also outdoors a great deal, weather permitting, for the Draconean religion as it was practiced in the Sanctuary revolved around the contrast between two extremes: the secrecy and protection of a cave, and the vitality of the sun in the open sky.

  This I learned from the first male Draconean of my acquaintance, a fellow named Habarz who was the counterpart of the ruling council of elders. I tried not to show my excitement upon being introduced to him, but I fear I did not succeed very well.

  Physically Habarz was not much different from the females: sexual dimorphism among their species is much less apparent than in humans, consisting primarily of a larger and more interestingly patterned ruff, which is considered their most attractively masculine feature. His was far from the most impressive, though at the time I had no real basis for comparison. Unlike some males of his kind, who earn their keep through what I can only term stud service, Habarz was a scholar.

  His work bore little resemblance to mine, of course: scholarship in the Sanctuary was far more theological in nature than scientific. Male Draconeans, as I have said, are in the minority of their species; they constitute no more than twenty percent of the population, with any given clutch ordinarily containing several sisters and a single brother. Although no one admitted it openly to me, by reading between the lines, I came to understand that their eggs were kept communally—likely somewhere in or near the temple; I was not about to ask—where a cadre of elder males watched over them. Once hatched and old enough to travel, the juveniles were sent back to their home villages, where again they were in the custody of the oldest male age group. They do pay attention to which eggs came from which female, and not only that Draconean but all of her immediate sisters are considered the mothers of that clutch; but the care and education of the young is the responsibility of the males en masse.

  In light of this, it is unsurprising that those same males should predominantly occupy the intellectual roles of Draconean society. Much to my amusement, I had once again marked myself as peculiarly masculine—but not for quite the same reasons as usual. My tendency to wander about and put myself into danger is a quality associated with female Draconeans (who, being more numerous, are more easily risked); my drawing skills, on the other hand, acquired in childhood as part of my feminine accomplishments, are more commonly seen as masculine. The sisters frequently whittle geometric patterns, but it is their brothers who paint figurative art.

  Figurative—and religious, for the two go hand in hand. Males form not only the majority of the artistic class I mentioned before, but the majority of the spiritual leadership; or rather I should say it in reverse sequence, for it is the latter which leads to the former. Their religious role also leads to the greater rate of literacy among males, as a modernized version of the ancient script is used primarily for religious texts and important historical documents. After all, there is little need for reading or writing when one spends the majority of one’s summer either farming or herding yaks, and the majority of the long and idle winter asleep.

  (My readers now may be wondering about Ruzt. I had indeed found a kindred soul, in the sense of one who did not quite fit her society’s usual mold: her knowledge of the archaic tongue and small skill at reading were both quite unusual for her gender.)

  So: these were the male Draconeans, and Habarz was their chief representative. He and I spoke quite a lot during my time at the place of the elders, for reasons he presented quite frankly. “Regardless of what happens with you,” he said, “we should have a record of it for future generations to consider.”

  I decided to risk a little levity. “Then I hope what you record is not, ‘on such-and-such a day we cut off the human’s head.’”

  He laughed, and from then on I was more at ease with him. But he did not tell me that my fears were unfounded … for we both knew they were not.

  * * *

  Establishing new diplomatic relations is a difficult enough task under any circumstances. Now imagine, if you will, that this difficulty is compounded both by a lack of fluent communication, and by the diplomatic ineptitude of the ambassador. The proceedings seemed as if they would drag on until the following century.

  The question that so vexed us was, what to do next? It was all fine and well to make contact with a lone human, but that was only the first step along a very long and treacherous path. I laid the groundwork by explaining to them the situation of the world outside—a subject that could have filled a year on its own, even without the interference of linguistic obstacles, but I confined myself to the most basic elements only. All of it was in the service of making a fundamental point: that whatever they chose to do with me, further contact was inevitable. With armies sharpening their bayonets on both sides of the Mrtyahaima, sooner or later someone would come tramping through the Sanctuary, and that someone would probably be armed. When that happened …

  I had long feared for the safety of dragons, once we knew the secret of preserving and using their bones. My new fear was to that one as the Great Cataract was to the melting icicles outside. So few in number were the Draconeans, it would take very little to exterminate them.

  And as much as I wished to pretend otherwise, I knew that extermination was a distinct possibility. My extraordinary circumstances had induced me to see the sisters as people rather than as monstrous beasts, but how many others would pause long enough to look beyond their initial impressions?

  Any plan that did not end in my imprisonment or death also required the elders to see me as a person, rather than as a monstrous beast. We spent long hours on historical debates over the Downfall, with me citing our own body of evidence, the picture it presented of merciless tyrants overthrown for their cruelty. The basic facts of the Downfall were not particularly in question, though my poor knowledge of Scripture hobbled me on more than one occasion; what we argued about was motivation, until my head ached. Finally I said, in utter weariness, “Oh, what does it matter? I have no doubt there were good Draconeans and bad humans. But they are all thousands of years dead and gone, and what anyone thought or did then is of less import than what they will thin
k and do now.”

  “The human has a point,” Tarshi said to her fellow elders. “And if we do not let go of that question for now, another thousand years may pass before we get anywhere.” Habarz grumbled—his scholarly soul longed to establish the truth—but to my relief, the council accepted Tarshi’s point, and we moved on.

  One aspect of being at the place of the elders was an unmitigated benefit: I ate better there than I had since leaving Vidwatha. The elders received taxes in kind from villages all over the Sanctuary, and although it was all dried, smoked, or otherwise preserved (as fresh food was still quite some ways off), the variety was much greater. I confess that I ate them out of their entire stock of a certain dried berry, which I craved from the moment I tasted it; this berry has properties similar to those of citrus fruit, and made a dramatic change in my health. And I cannot help but think that also benefited my diplomatic efforts, as an ambassador weak from malnutrition makes a very unimpressive show.

  I made a point of taking walks in the garden with each of the elders, starting with Sejeat, the one who had tried to examine my teeth in Imsali. (I was glad I had prevented her. Devouring those berries meant I ultimately lost only one tooth to scurvy, but at the time the interior of my mouth was not a pretty sight.) Sejeat was by far the most curious and accepting of me; Urrte the least so—and to my surprise, Urrte was also the youngest of the lot. But although it is often true that the elderly are the most set in their ways, the least receptive to new ideas and change, it is not by any means universally true. My suspicion was that Urrte, being not only the youngest but the newest to the council, felt the need to establish her devotion to Draconean tradition.

  “Are your sisters all dead?” Sejeat asked me one day.

  “I never had any,” I said, and laughed a little. “I am more like the opposite of a Draconean; all my siblings are brothers. But my mother, sun be praised, birthed us all singly, rather than in a group.” Having endured childbirth once, I shuddered to imagine even twins, let alone anything more.

  Speaking of my brothers was safe enough, but she continued to question me about my family, which led inevitably to those closer to my heart: Suhail, my son, all those who had found a place in my life by routes either personal or professional. I struggled to maintain a stiff upper lip—and then, upon reflection, wondered if that was truly the best course of action. Would it not help for the Draconeans to see that a human was capable of feeling?

  Enough time had passed since the avalanche that I was able to speak of my loved ones without collapsing into tears as I had before. Indeed, such conversations gave both me and my purpose strength: as the Sanctuary warmed, the day when I might attempt the col drew nearer. My passionate determination to be reunited with them interwove itself with my passionate determination to aid the Draconeans, and both blazed higher with every passing day.

  I worked half the night with Ruzt to prepare my words to the council, so that I could present my vision for a path forward without confusion. The next morning, I requested permission for us to meet outside; this was, I said, a matter for sunlight, not a cave. The latter was the place for inaction, careful contemplation before any decision might be made. My aim that day was to spur them to action.

  The servants at the place of the elders had tidied the garden for spring planting, though it was still winter-barren. I tipped my head back, turning my face to the sun—a gesture natural to me, but also one with significance to the Draconeans, having the effect of a silent prayer. Then, drawing in a deep breath, I began.

  “My people,” I said, “must become accustomed to the notion of your people as real creatures—before they see one in the living flesh. It is likely that this has already begun: unless my companions all perished in the avalanche, they will by now have spread the word of our discovery in the mountains. If you permit me to return to the outside world, I can fan the flames of enthusiasm for all things Draconean, which have been burning since we discovered the lost hatching ground.” I had told them of this—not omitting the fact that I wept to see the tracks of those ancient Draconean hatchlings, who perished waiting for caretakers who would never come. The memory shook me even more now than it had then, when I thought the creatures only dumb beasts, but I went on.

  “I can declare my intent to find a living population. Both my fame and my connections in the scholarly community will draw support to my cause; I can begin a movement for the preservation of the Sanctuary even before it is ‘found.’ When your existence is revealed to the world, there will be humans standing ready to support you, and together they will act as a defense for your well-being.”

  The elders did not like this plan, and I cannot blame them one bit. It would be a gamble on a scale so large, no word in any of our languages could encompass it—though they certainly made a thorough hunt for one, ranging through vocabulary far beyond my ken. Sejeat was on my side, and Tarshi seemed willing to consider it, but the remainder …

  “Only a few should know of us,” Kuvrey said. She was the eldest of the lot, and tended to assert her seniority. “If you carry a message from the council to some human government—”

  “Then that government will take the situation out of both my hands and your own,” I said, before this suggestion could garner much support. “They can slaughter you all in secret, and the general human public will never know the truth. I could tell them—but that would do you little good once you are dead. Or perhaps they will simply come in here and—” I did not know the Draconean word for “subjugate,” having foolishly not thought to obtain it for this conversation. I made a gesture with my hand instead, clenching my fist tight. “They will keep you in pens, as you keep yaks. And it does not matter which government I tell; the risk will be the same.” As much as I liked Queen Miriam and generally thought well of her, there was the Synedrion to consider. And my influence would be less than nothing at the court of the Vidwathi or Tser-zhag kings—much less that of the Yelangese emperor.

  These hazards did not vanish under my plan, of course. But popular sentiment at least stood a chance of acting as a check on such actions—a better chance than any other possibility I saw.

  “What if we sent our own representative out?” Sejeat asked. “Someone you can take in secret to negotiate.”

  “Where would I take that person?” It came out more curtly than I would have liked, but my body was stiff with tension. “I could not even get them to Thokha before someone saw us, much less to my own homeland. And they would be in even more danger than I am here, with less protection. Your—” I paused, looking at Ruzt, who supplied the word that had already slipped through the gaps in my increasingly leaky mind. “Your representative would be killed. I wish it were not so, but it would happen.” I did not know the Draconean word for “suicide,” and could not muster the will to ask for it, but I believe my meaning came through.

  When all was said and done, only one thing carried us through that morass of difficulty: the fact that contact with the outside world was a matter that had troubled the council of elders for a generation or more. That it was inevitable and necessary, they agreed, but no further had they gotten; they had, in the manner of councils everywhere, dithered without reaching any conclusion. But much of their dithering had hinged on the lack of information to guide their actions, and now that lack was resolved. Furthermore, my presence forced their hands. As Tarshi said bluntly, “We cannot simply disregard the problem. We have three choices: keep her here, send her out again, or kill her.”

  It took all my will not to flinch when she said that last. By then I was fairly certain Tarshi was on my side; she only mentioned that possibility out of scrupulous fairness. Other elements on the council, however, were not nearly so sympathetic, Urrte chief among them. And every day messengers came from various parts of the Sanctuary—Draconean messengers; this was far too important for mews—urging them to that final course. Fortunately for me, the remainder knew that such action would solve nothing, and only squander an opportunity that might not come agai
n. (How often does a dragon-friendly wanderer fall into one’s lap, under conditions that dispose her to be grateful to one’s people?)

  Indeed, the hostility served my purpose in a peculiar fashion, for it also weighted the scale against keeping me in the Sanctuary. While in theory my continued presence would give the Draconeans a chance to acclimate themselves to humanity, in practice we all knew it would only inflame sentiment still further. My murder, I told Sejeat quite bluntly, would bring all the ills of my execution and more, as it would only deepen the rift between the progressive, outward-looking faction and the reactionaries who wished to remain isolated. Furthermore, if it were ever to be discovered by humans, it would poison public opinion against the residents of the Sanctuary.

  Even when there is no good choice, a choice must be made: lacking anything better, we chose what appeared to be the least of the available evils. By a narrow margin, and by means of a great deal of acrimonious wrangling, we finally arrived at a decision.

  Kuvrey spoke for the council, in the sunlight, where decisions are made. “You will leave the Sanctuary,” she said. “Go forth to your people, and tell them of us; then come find us again when they are ready.”

  I did not say to her, they will never be ready. I had not been ready to meet the elders, but had gone ahead regardless, for there was no other choice. We had already fallen from the cliff face: we must find a way to fly before we reached the ground.

  SEVENTEEN

  To the col once more—A sharp boundary—Miracles—Too many conversations at once—Silence for a query—A new plan—Above the col

  I was not alone as I travelled toward the edge of the Sanctuary, to the col between Gyaptse and Cheja. For the return to Imsali, I had not only my three hostesses but an honour guard from the place of the elders—the latter partly for my own protection, and partly for the protection of the dignitaries who travelled with me. Urrte had campaigned to be one of my escorts, making no secret of the fact that she looked forward to wishing me good riddance; fortunately for the pleasantness of my journey, she was voted down. Instead I had Sejeat and Kuvrey to represent the council, and Habarz to bless my departure. We went by less-trammeled paths, and arrived in Imsali without difficulty.