Robin McKinley - Pegasus

And I blundered across the floor, stumbling over the wretched stones. I don’t feel magic much, but I could feel it that day. Most of it seemed to be saying, No, no, no, not me, mate, don’t pick me up. It was like walking into a cloud of ssillwha with all of them buzzing at you, Go away! Go away! And I thought, Oh, great, it’s not that I’m going to pick up the wrong stone, it’s that the right stone isn’t going to let me pick it up. Maybe there isno right stone. And then there was one that at least wasn’t telling me no, so I staggered over to it and picked it up before it changed its mind.

And then the other two sculptors sighed and Shoorininuin— Shoor —said, Well, Ebon, you’re mine. I accept you. Welcome.

Ebon fell silent, still looking out over the Dreaming Sea. Sylvi was thinking of Ebon walking into one of the huge chambers of the Caves, he and his father, hundreds—thousands—of pebbles and small stones strewn over the floor—and three sculptors watching. She couldn’t imagine Ebon stumbling.

She thought of a conversation they’d had long ago. So that’s why they listened when your master spoke up for your idea about sculpting a bit of the palace grounds somewhere in the Caves.

He stirred, bowing his head as if his neck were stiff, rousing his feathers and laying them flat again. Yes. Yes.

I— She stopped, and tried again. I can’t even imagine what you’re going to do.

He extended one wing, stretching the tiny alula-hand as if he were grasping a brush or a knife and about to start work on a wall standing in front of him. Can’t you? I can.

He looked at her at last. Syl . . . what are we?

She could think of nothing to say.

Ebon put his nose in her hair and tugged gently. Life is funny, isn’t it?

I’m—sorry, said Sylvi helplessly.

Sorry? said Ebon. Oh, don’t be so—human.

Well, I amhuman. I—this is probably human too—I wish I’d met him. Shoorininuin.

You did, said Ebon. The sculptor who spoke to you. That was Shoor. He wanted to meet you.

Sylvi caught her breath. She had envied Ebon his certainty, his focus on becoming a sculptor, while she muddled along being her father’s fourth child, having projects assigned to her, village witchcraft, bridge-building, because she had no ideas of her own. She was still muddling, she felt; it was nothing she had done, nothing she had chosen, that had enabled her to talk to Ebon, and hear him when he spoke to her. She had not chosen to hear Niahi the other night; she had not chosen to walk eight hundred years back in time to watch the signing of the treaty that allied her people to the pegasi. It was perhaps not surprising that Ebon’s master had wished to speak to her; she was what she was, however helpless she felt within that which had chosen her. We are all bound by what fate chooses for us, the sculptor had said. But he had also said, I am proud of him. I am proud of you too.

There was another little pause. We’d better go back, Ebon said finally, before someone comes after us ’cause they think we’ve decided to try and swim across the Sea. We could start our own country there, where pegasi and humans just talkto each other.

How big is your Sea, do you know? said Sylvi, grateful for a change of subject. Has anyone ever crossed it?

If they have, they haven’t told us about it, said Ebon. The legend is that it’s another world wide. That if you managed to cross it, you’d be somewhere else than this world. That the only way from our world to get to the far shore of the Sea is to cross the Sea—and you can’t do that either. Although there’s another legend that says the Caves extend under the Sea and come out on the other side. And that you could walk it—if you lived long enough. He paused. There’s another legend still that says that before your King Thingummy showed up with his troops—

Balsin.

And started killing taralians, our King Fralialal was thinking of taking who remained of us and trying to cross the Sea—underneath, by the Caves.

On her last night there was another enormous feast, in the same meadow as the feast held for her father, near the border between Rhiandomeer and Balsinland. She stood on the edge of that meadow as the pegasi set up the tables, chewing on a stem of llyri grass, naming the wildflowers to herself, because she knew them now; knew the names of the birds she could hear singing in the trees—recognised the fornol moving not quite silently through the undergrowth. The llyri grass was sweet and succulent, the first shoots of the new season, but she doubted it would give her wings.

This time the tall chair was for her. When the pegasi brought it out from the shelter, rocking on its poles, she said, But that’s my father’s chair. For a wild moment she thought, Perhaps he’s come back for the last night, and felt a rush of emotion so confused it made her dizzy. Those first nights in the pegasus country seemed a century ago; she was almost used—almost—to being a queer upright wingless biped—with hands—among the graceful pegasi. She stood quietly, watching the pegasi setting the chair down and releasing it from its transport poles. Two of them carried it, but another four released the cords and slid the poles free. Aloud she repeated, “ That’s my father’s chair.”

“Tonight it’s for you,” said Hibeehea.

Sylvi turned toward him; she had not heard him approach. You speak human as well as a human. Why—why—

Why don’t I? said Hibeehea. Why don’t I come to your country and become a translator and make everything right between your people and mine? Because I feel ill and faint in your country, so ill and so faint that I can no longer speak your language, and after a day or two I cannot understand it either. This is true of all our shamans—the healers may remain a little longer than the rest of us—Hissiope is unusual in that he can bear up to a fortnight at the palace, but, he says, he pays for this strength by being less strong at home. It seems to us that this is true generally: the stronger our magic here, the weaker we are as soon as we cross the human border.... The last time I came to the palace I could barely fly home again; we had to keep stopping for me to rest.

Then it is true, Sylvi said. It is not just a way of—of speaking. It’s like—it’s like flying or not flying—having wings or not having wings. Our magic and yours is—somehow—antipathetic.

The traditional pegasi nod of agreement was a quick shaking of the head, more like the human gesture of no. Hibeehea first gave a quick pegasi shake and then a slower, human nod. Yes. It is—to us—as clear as—as clear as wings or no wings. Your magic is, perhaps, more like rock, while ours is more like water. And your magicians are very strong. We . . . we seep. Hibeehea smiled, but Sylvi, who had been immersed in pegasi for the last three weeks, could see the strain in him.

A few of us shamans go with Lrrianay when there is some important occasion upon us; I was there for his binding to your father, and for your father’s marriage to your mother, and for Danacor’s name-day, his binding to Thowara and his acceptance as heir. There is always at least one healer present at the palace, but that may be all. We do not stay long, and we do not—talk.

You’ve never—

Admitted it? There is little to admit, in the palace of the human king. I am considered slightly mad for having pursued the learning of your language as diligently as I have done when there is no use for it. In every generation of shamans since the signing of the treaty there are a few who learn to speak aloud as you speak; I found I had a talent for it, and so I went on with it—on and on—hoping that I would find at last some border to cross, some gate to pass through, that, once I had done so, I would have your language as I have my own. This has not happened. I come often to your country—