Robin McKinley - Pegasus

Sylvi wanted to ask Ebon if he knew where they were going, if he recognised the tunnel his father had chosen, but she didn’t want to be overheard. She tried to concentrate on Hibeehea’s tail and wingtips, on the consciousness of Ebon just behind her, on Lrrianay leading them calmly and surely . . . where?

It’s just the dark, she told herself. It’s just the dark and the . . . the caveness , the mountain overhead. The rest is just . . . like the story of the prince who ran away; there wasn’t anything chasing him but fear. I am not going to be the princess who ran away....

It wasn’t sounds, exactly. There were sounds, of course: the soft tap of hoofs and the lighter, slappier tap of her own feet, the sound of Ebon’s breathing, the faint rustly noise of trickling water. But there was something else. She’d felt it in the anteroom. It had come with her. No, it was all around her.

Almost involuntarily her hand reached out and touched a smooth knob of wall. It was curious, she wasn’t used to caves, so why shouldn’t the walls here look strangely sheeny and almost fluid? She could hear the sound of water, but the wall she touched was dry. But these were the Caves; the pegasi had chosen them thousands of years ago because they were exceptional, because they were extraordinary. Because they were unique.

She knew, as soon as she touched the wall—knew—what did she know? That the wall was not like a human-built wall, not like even the oldest wall of the eight-hundred-year-old palace. She knew, of course, that the pegasus sculptors were greatly honoured; if the pegasi created hierarchies the way humans did, the sculptors would be behind only the shamans and the monarch: what the sculptors did created ssshasssha, which humans feebly translated as “recollection.”

She knew that the Caves contained hundreds of amazing chambers of thousands of years of sculptors’ work. She hadn’t realised that mere passageways had also been carved and shaped—she thought again of Niahi saying, They’re so full. As almost involuntarily as she had first put her hand on the wall, she stopped and put her other hand next to the first. The wall seemed almost to quiver, like a horse’s skin dislodging a fly. She lightened her touch and then thought despairingly, Oh, I’m human! Ebon, may I not touch the walls?— and she heard the pleading in her silent voice.

Ebon’s nearer wing unfolded, and his feather-hand lay lightly over hers, pressing it delicately—so delicately—against the wall. She could never quite adjust to the fineness, the fragility of pegasus hands, especially Ebon’s—Ebon who was nearly as big as a small horse, and could fly even carrying her on his back. Suddenly she was trembling, trembling as she imagined the wall was trembling—surely it could not really tremble, rock and earth and mountain that it was?—in the overwhelming knowledge of the thousands upon thousands of tiny pegasus sculptor hands that had made even an ordinary passage wall beautiful. It was perhaps as astonishing as the touch of a human hand was to the Caves, accustomed to thousands of years of the pegasi.

They’re so full, Niahi had said. If the corridor walls were overwhelming, what would the chambers be like?

She would not be the princess who ran away.

With Ebon’s hand over hers she dared keep hers against the wall a little longer. She rested only her fingertips and the heel of her hands against the wall, as lightly as she could, as lightly as Ebon’s hand touched hers; the tenuousness of contact seemed to sharpen her senses, so her fingers seemed to identify each individual grain of the stone, each tenderly-sculpted brush-stroke. She was still shaking as if with shock; but then it was as if the wall bloomed under her fingers. It was no longer stone, but silken-warm like a pegasus’ side. What she’d thought was trembling was the rise and fall of its breath....

For a moment she thought nothing at all. She was not Sylviianel, daughter of Corone, who was king of his land; she was not the first human to set foot in the pegasus Caves in thousands of years; she was not standing in those Caves with her hands on a corridor wall and her bound pegasus standing next to her with his hand over one of hers.

She was nothing; she was Cave; she was pegasus; she was everything . . . ssshuuwuushuu .

It was over in a heartbeat, and she was Sylvi again, standing in a dark tunnel with a mountain over her head and candlelight flickering across the wall and making it look as if it was moving. Lrrianay and Hibeehea had stopped as soon as she did, as soon as she had spoken to Ebon. She dropped her hands and turned away from the wall, toward them, and toward the way they had been going. She felt Ebon’s feather-hand just touch her hair and then withdraw. She was still shivering somewhere deep inside herself, but much of the light-headed, off-balance, wrong feeling she’d had for the last three days, since she’d heard Niahi speak and had rediscovered herself as awkward and bizarre, had faded away. Walking on her hind legs seemed normal again, acceptable. She was human. She took a deep breath, aware of how shallow her lungs were in comparison to a pegasus’, but aware that that was as it should be. She was small, and human.

Child, are you all right? said Lrrianay.

She did not know how to answer him; she knew that she heard “all right” because her human mind, her use of language did not contain what he asked her: was she at peace with herself was perhaps closer. She could not think how to put her answer—her question—in pegasi terms. Have I just passed another test? she said, knowing the pegasi did not set tests any more than they created hierarchies.

There was a pause as Lrrianay thought this over. What we show you depends on what you see, yes, he said. And we hoped you would see the walls here, yes.

She thought, His “see” is not quite what it means anywhere but here. It was the “see” that the queen had used: May you see all that you will see.

What you would see if we told you to look, and where to look, would be different, said Lrrianay.

Less, she said, but she was thinking, that is another human concept, less.

There was another pause and this time Hibeehea answered: Not less, different. But we would have you as much like us as possible, yes. To see these walls, as you evidently do see them, is like us.

But they are strange to me. Strange. She could not think of the right word, a word that would reverberate not only through her bones, but through Hibeehea’s, and Lrrianay’s, and the bones of this mountain.

We can turn around now, child, if you wish, said Hibeehea, and there was only kindness in his silent voice. We have our answer, and you have visited the Caves.

Oh, no! she said before she thought. I have only seen one corridor! A little of one corridor! I mean—whatever you say, great lord, srrrwa! But—I—please—sir!

Lrrianay wrinkled his nose and flicked his ears. I see again why you and Ebon are so close, he said. I wonder how much that closeness has to do with how much you were alike before you met? Very well. We will go on. And then he turned away from her and led them on the way they had been going.

She thought of the sky and the trees and the daylight. But she was not sorry she had answered as she had; she did not now want to turn around, even if the ceiling did seem to lean down toward her—as if it would stretch down a stony hand and smack her forehead. The pegasi’s heads on their long upright necks were higher than hers, and they did not stoop. She squared her shoulders—such a human gesture—and followed.