Pegasus

by Robin McKinley

  “Of course it is!” interrupted Sylvi. “A good exception. A good exception now. This is the sort of thing that could make everyone happy that Ebon and I can talk to each other, if it turns out there’s something we can use!”

  “I agree,” said the king. “And I have no intention of forbidding it. You still need to realise what you’re doing.”

  He was looking at her in a way that reminded her of Ahathin waiting for her to answer her own question. She smiled involuntarily, quickly and mirthlessly. “And perhaps we’ll be grateful for a few extra friends when I turn sixteen and the Speakers’ Guild tries to block Ebon and me doing any Speaker work.”

  “Perhaps,” said the king. “But the Speakers’ Guild won’t block you, if that’s what you decide you—and Ebon—want to do.”

  She looked at her father, and remembered the hatred in Fthoom’s glittering eyes.

  But she had her permission, and one of the remedies got the queen’s friend, whose name was Nirakla, very excited. She begged for the opportunity to speak to any of the healer-shamans who were willing to speak to her, and Minial translated.

  “You’ve thrown a rock in a pond,” said the king.

  “It’s a good rock,” Sylvi answered. “Why hasn’t anyone thrown it before now?”

  “Good question,” said the king. “But the shamans come here very little, and those who do come stay in their annex.”

  I wonder what Fthoom has heard about it, she thought, but she didn’t say it aloud.

  Sylvi couldn’t help picking at the thought of Fthoom, scratching at it like a wound that won’t heal, partly because you keep scratching at it.

  “Darling,” said the queen, “if you don’t stop fretting, I’ll ask your father to give you another project. You know Hester and Damha’s binding went just as it was supposed to.”

  “Did it?”

  “Do you mean we didn’t tell you about the ultimatum we had from Fthoom about it? Darling, don’t be silly.”

  Kachakon had been the Fifth Magician, and Sylvi had thought he looked uneasy, and the other magicians furtive. Hester and Damha couldn’t talk to each other—but it had been a blow to Sylvi when she read relief in Hester’s face after the ceremony. She might just have been relieved to have the ceremony over, but Sylvi didn’t think so. She didn’t think so even more when she and Ebon went up to give the new pair their congratulations, and Hester looked worried as soon as she saw Sylvi coming toward her. What, do you think it’s catching? Sylvi thought irritably. But she said the correct words, and Hester said the correct words back, and then Sylvi and Ebon went away. Did Damha say anything to you? said Sylvi. After you said congratulations, or whatever you say.

  Are you kidding? She was too busy being overcome. We’re famous, you know.

  What? Oh, leave me alone.

  Ebon looked at her sidelong. No, I don’t like it either.

  But at that moment Lady Denovol came up to them and begged the favour of being allowed to present her son to them. The son was about Sylvi’s age, and looked even more miserable at being faced with Sylvi and Ebon than Hester had, and his pegasus seemed to be trying to hide behind Lady Denovol’s. The older pegasus stepped smartly aside and swung her head round in a gesture that needed no translation: move it, you. Sylvi used this as an excuse not to reply as she made her bow to the son and he bowed back. She didn’t catch his name.

  CHAPTER 8

  The next day was a beautiful one, and she and Ebon were together. Ebon was at the palace more than any other pegasi but Lrrianay and Thowara, but he had to go home sometimes, and he’d been gone nearly a fortnight before returning three days ago in time for Hester and Damha’s binding. They had had lessons to do in the morning, but it was afternoon now. Sylvi half sat, half lay with her head on Ebon’s shoulder and the tip of his half-open wing negligently across her lap. There was grass under them, and trees nearby if the sun grew too warm, or more wing if Sylvi felt chilly, and the smell of flowers drifted over them. This had used to be enough—especially after they had been separated—especially when their next public appearance wasn’t till the day after tomorrow—especially when they’d gone flying two nights in a row. This had used to be enough, before they’d been to too many fêtes, and been asked too many questions that only a real oracle could answer. Before their cousins had found them intimidating because they were famous. Before it was that much sooner till Fthoom presented his findings.

  But she and Ebon had had almost four years of flying together—glorious, intoxicating flying. How they had remained undiscovered Sylvi had no idea, only that it was one more thing she would not think about. Ebon could do almost anything with her lying along his back that he could without her, and while his family teased him about the muscles he had developed—his nickname was Whyhrihriha, which meant Stone-Carrier—and occasionally one of his brothers or his sister called him a cart-horse, so far as either he or Sylvi could tell, no one thought any more about it.

  The sun was warm and she felt sleepy. She had often felt sleepy in the last four years. She and Ebon mostly managed to go flying at least one night a week when Ebon was at the palace; they made it more often when they could. But the demands on even the fourth children of kings can be considerable, and she and Ebon had become very popular. Two nights in a row was very unusual.

  One week about six months after their binding, when she and Ebon had slipped off three times, and gone farther than they had before because Ebon’s wings were suddenly growing stronger, she fell asleep so much that Ahathin, abetted by Lucretia, Guridon and Glarfin, decided not unreasonably that she must be ill. (Lucretia had said, “If you were a little older I’d say you were sneaking out at night to meet your lover.” Sylvi held her breath: if they started keeping watch on her…. “But you don’t have quite the dazzled, fatuous look of first love.” Lucretia grinned. “And I haven’t heard of any footpages—or any of the young stablefolk—falling asleep a lot either.”) Sylvi only avoided the doctor’s prescription of bed for a week by agreeing to take the most ghastly, horrible, revolting tonic as she described it to Ebon. Nirakla made it! I thought she was my friend!

  She yawned. They’re going to start threatening me with that unspeakable tonic again, she said. I can see it in Mum’s eye.

  Ebon rubbed her hair with his feather-hand: mane-rubbing among pegasi was considered comforting. I’m sorry, he said. Day naps aren’t so unusual with us, any more than night flying is. My problem is trying to explain where I go on all these dark expeditions. Pegasi did not sleep alone: Ebon’s absence would be noted every time, and would need explanation every time.

  It’s a good thing our parents don’t talk to each other, said Sylvi, or somebody would have noticed I’m sleepy the days after you’ve been flying at night.

  Eah, said Ebon. Dad’s pretty okay about it. But Gaaloo and Striaha and Dossaya and … well, several of the rest not only notice but have to talk about it.

  But you had that brilliant idea, she said, shifting her position so she could rub his mane.

  It was brilliant, wasn’t it? said Ebon, not quite smugly. There started off what looked like a big commotion about it, did I tell you? Because we don’t do human stuff in the Caves. But my master spoke up for my idea, saying that the land wasn’t human, that we used to live on it ourselves a long time ago before the taralians came, and then Dad started wittering about how this could strengthen the Alliance and … well, the rest 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 th
an 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 a little bag around his neck), it had only looked like someone polishing something: a pegasus someone, lying down, balancing the shining atom between his folded-under knees, polishing away with a series of cloths in his feather-hands, his pinions trailing (carefully) through the grass or on the floor under his belly. Until he decided it was finished, and let her look at it.

  She was lying wrong: whatever was in the little bag around Ebon’s neck at present was digging into her back. She sat up to shift it.

  Sorry, he said. But—oh. I wanted to show you. He bowed his head, and rubbed the ribbon that held the bag off over his head with his feather-hands, and then carefully spilled its contents on the ground. There were several of what Sylvi recognised as the polishing cloths—and one tiny gleaming stone. He picked this up. This one turned out really well. It almost … um. It’s pretty good for an apprentice. I wanted you to see it.

  He held it out to her and she accepted it on her palm. It was darkest red, almost black, and the pinprick of its centre seemed to glow like the heart of a fire. This is some kind of—magic, she said. It was a soft sort of magic though, she thought. Soft not itchy.

  Ebon frowned—ears half back, head turned slightly to one side—I don’t think so. Well … there are words you say while you’re doing it. Different words for different cloths. He picked one up, and then another one, and handed them to her, and Sylvi could feel—faintly, subtly—that the two cloths had different textures. It’s a … it’s a … I don’t know how to explain it. It’s a little like learning stories or histories. You kind of go to a different place in your head. You go to a different different place from the lesson-learning different place to say the words while you’re polishing. And it was a shaman—several shamans—who made up the words originally, but that was thousands of years ago. Some of the words don’t exist any more, except in these chants.

  Sylvi, fascinated, said, Could you tell me one of the chants?

  Ebon looked surprised (drawing back of head, raising nose, slight rustle of feathers at the shoulders). Probably. We’ll have to stand up.

  Usually we do it like this, and he put his feather-hands to her temples. This is the first one, the simplest one. These words are all normal. And then he began to make one of the funny almost-humming noises again, and Sylvi heard the words he was saying in her mind, as she usually heard Ebon, but they sounded strangely far away and slightly echoing, as if she were listening to her father addressing an audience in the Outer Court and she was at the back, next to the Inner Great Court wall. And as she thought that, another picture began to cohere as if it were being built by the clean shining words Ebon was saying, and she closed her eyes to see it better. It bloomed from the blackness as if she had been walking in a dark place and had now stepped into light. Candlelight, firelight, light flickering off the glossy black flank of the pegasus standing just in front of her, polishing, polishing, polishing some curve—some complex series of curves—on the wall in front of him; the flame-light made those curves flicker with movement, with life: a human woman stood, holding a sword….

  With the sky we make this thing

  With the earth we make this thing

  With the fire we make this thing

  With the water we make this thing

  Here is sky

  Here is earth

  Here is fire

  Here is water

  Here is our making

  Here

  Here

  Here

  Here

  He stopped humming. He took his hands away from her temples, but patted her face as he did so. Syl?

  Oh, she said. Oh, I … oh …

  Golden summer sunrise and blue winter sunset, he said, don’t tell me you had a vision.

  Well … yes. I think so. Perhaps she had imagined it; she knew that this was to do with Ebon’s desire to be a sculptor, and the pegasus Caves—it was an obvious thing for her to imagine. But the black pegasus was bigger even than Ebon—and a human woman with a sword? She suddenly and powerfully did not want to tell him what she had seen.

  Golden, he said wonderingly. Gold and blue. Well. That doesn’t happen all that often. It happened to me. It’s a good omen if you want to be a sculptor. Or a shaman. Never knew it ever happened to humans…. But then I don’t suppose there’ve been a lot of humans who’ve tried. Maybe you should be a sculptor too.


  Or a shaman, she thought involuntarily. She noticed he didn’t ask her what she’d seen, nor tell her what he had seen. I’m hungry, she said abruptly. Let’s go find something to eat.

  Yes, let’s, said Ebon, who was always hungry. Usually they went to the pegasus annex because Sylvi liked to pretend that the palace’s best fruit was always given to the pegasi—and because she’d discovered she loved the open feeling of the rooms with only three walls. The windbreak of trees kept the worst of the weather out, and in winter she tended to stay on the lee side of Ebon, pressed up against his side or tucked under a wing. Sylvi had also developed a taste for pegasus bread, which had a lighter, airier texture than dense human bread kneaded by strong human hands.

  The first time he had offered to take her there, she had hesitated. Won’t they—the others—mind?

  You and your minds, said Ebon. As long as you don’t eat all the grapes or pull anyone’s tail they won’t mind. Grapes were very popular; the pegasi could not grow them.

  Ebon wrapped the little black-red stone up again, tucked it into its bag, flipped the ribbon over his nose with a feather hand and tossed his head in an obviously habitual gesture so the little bag settled round his neck again. As they walked down the corridor Ebon said, apparently as eager to change the subject as she was, We’re going out again tonight, aren’t we? You can stay awake tomorrow? Even between themselves they rarely said “flying.” The weather’s going to change; this is our last chance.

  Yes, said Sylvi. There’s that stupid banquet—you have to come too, don’t you?—for the Echon of Swarl, because Dad wants to use some of his soldiers. They’re good at climbing trees. Swarl is all forest. But we can go straight from there and no one will notice. I’ll wear my flying stuff under my dress.

  They did. But Sylvi, choosing in the dark, had not been lucky with the tree she had left her banqueting clothes in, and she had green smudges and bird slime to explain the next morning. But no one had been very surprised that she had crept outdoors after the banquet. Lucretia said, “Get one of the Echon’s folk to show you how to climb trees in daylight next time, okay?”