Robin McKinley - Pegasus

They were again considering her travels in Rhiandomeer; she was tense and anxious, unsure what she could discuss and what she must not. She was afraid to say anything to Ebon that she wouldn’t want a Speaker to overhear; whenever she asked him anything about what she’d seen or where she’d gone, there was an implication of How much can I say ? and his answers were stilted and constrained. She wondered if his father was saying anything to him; if so, she did not hear it.

Both she and Ebon were oppressed by the knowledge of the suggestions that were still coming in from senate, council, individual bloods and courtiers, and from a surprising number of citizen groups, about how to use the ability of the princess and her pegasus to talk across the barrier between their two species: proposals and recommendations as well as specific requests for arbitration and intervention. The Speakers’ Guild, however, advised caution and deferment, and requested the right to inspect any papers on the subject and to sit in on any meetings. On Ahathin’s advice, Sylvi’s new secretary, for the present, reported to her father.

“Welcome to my world,” her father had said gently. “I’m sorry, my love, you and Ebon will have to make some decisions in a little while—after the senate decides what decisions you’re allowed to make, and if the Speakers’ Guild ever lets them decide. All your secretary can do meanwhile is sort into categories and write acknowledgements—and draw up summaries.”

She said—it was the nearest she had ever come to telling her father the hidden truth about her journey, and she said it absent-mindedly—“Hibeehea told me, the last morning in Rhiandomeer, that I had changed the world. But this ...” She was watching her new secretary pressing her emblem, the princess’ seal, onto the back of a folded letter. The secretary, whose name was Iridin and who was not a magician, looked up and smiled, and put the letter on a pile of other letters.

“Sometimes it only takes a moment for everything to change,” said her father, unknowingly echoing what the queen had said two days after her daughter’s return from Rhiandomeer.“More commonly, however, it takes forever, and an astonishing amount of ink. This is only the fresh beginning of a new forever.”

But her father and Lord Cral were both clearly and genuinely and openly absorbed by everything she could tell them, and they asked many questions based on what she’d described during her presentation—although Lord Cral asked more, and once or twice when she had felt herself floundering it had seemed to her that her father had deflected Cral’s questions by talking about what he had seen during his brief visit. Lord Cral had said more than once, “Cory, we must look again at the possibility of building a human way through the Starclouds.”

The second or third time he said this, her father caught her eye and smiled.

She thought, I must tell my father. I must tell him I can . . . I could . . . Niahi . . . She looked first at Ebon, standing at her shoulder—just behind her shoulder—in the correct way a bound pegasus in the human court—in the way that no longer seemed at all correct to her. Her eyes shifted to Lrrianay, who smiled at her also, but she could read nothing in his face or posture—she could read nothing of him, like any human failing to read any pegasus, like any human who had never spent three weeks in Rhiandomeer surrounded by pegasi. What if it was only Niahi, aside from Ebon? It could easily be only Niahi.

And at that moment the messenger was announced, a Lightbearer lieutenant. She came from the camp in the Greentops, and she came to report a norindour sighting.

But not of one norindour: of seven.

This was bad enough; there were too many sightings now, of all their old enemies, taralians and norindours, ladons and wyverns. We haven’t got any quiet borders left, Danacor had said to his sister. But the sightings were still of ones and twos—unwelcome, especially as they kept coming, but nothing that the now-regular patrols could not deal with.

Not seven. Seven norindours presented a serious danger, even to a regiment. They were bigger than taralians, and they had wings. And norindours were normally solitary, barring breeding pairs. What would bring seven together?

But even that was not all of her news. The rest was much worse: there was a roc with them. A roc that made no attempt to hide itself, who saw them seeing it, and let them look. A roc who was—probably—the reason seven norindours were hunting together. Hunting—what? Even a greyear stag, some of which grew as big as horses, could not feed seven norindours.

“Y-yes, my king,” said the messenger upon questioning. “Yes, I was there. It—the roc—is bigger than you—than I—can imagine. It stood there, watching us watch it—watching us fall back—watching us trying not to stumble over each other to get away from it—and then it spread its wings and flew. It . . . it wasn’t just that its wings blotted out the sun, that there was darkness over us at midday. The darkness in the shadow of a roc’s wings is like the end of the world. . . .”

Taralians are intelligent enough to be deadly enemies; norindours are cleverer than taralians. But rocs are at least as intelligent as humans or pegasi—and they had some powers of magic, possibly powers as strong as human magicians’. A confirmed roc sighting was the worst news the country had had in generations.

Everyone who lived in the king’s palace, and everyone who had ever attended one of the high festival days when the king carried the Sword, had seen it flame up at the king’s touch, but no one had ever seen it glare and dazzle as it did on this day. The news was already spreading, and people began to pour into the Great Hall to hear what the king would say—this too was reported, while the messenger still stood before the king.

“I—I came as fast as I could, my king,” said the messenger. “As fast as I could without foundering my horse. But other people saw the roc, my king.”

“Yes. A roc that wishes to be seen will certainly be seen,” replied the king. “Go get yourself some food and rest.” He put a hand on Sylvi’s shoulder.“I’m afraid our previous discussion, infinitely to be preferred though it is, must now wait.” He led the way toward the Great Hall, briskly, but not hurriedly. Sylvi, feeling superfluous and lagging a little behind, discovered Glarfin to have materialised at her other elbow. One did not lag with Glarfin at one’s elbow. She caught up with her father and Lord Cral, all three pegasi dropping back to allow her more room. They are always behind us, she thought. And Lrrianay is king, and I am only king’s daughter.

When the little group paused at the door, Sylvi’s father said to her, “Walk with me, young one; we’re all we’ve got at the moment. Danny should be around here somewhere, but everyone else is out on patrol.”

The king went up to the burning Sword and laid his hand upon it; Sylvi thought that she would not have touched it if her life depended on it. There was a great shout, or clap of thunder, a sound that was more of a buffet than a noise, that no one afterwards was sure they had heard, and the Sword’s light went out. Everyone found themselves gasping for breath; everyone except, perhaps, the king, who had turned to look at his eldest son, who had just appeared in the doorway next to the mural of King Fralialal and had paused, staring at the Sword. From where Sylvi stood at the king’s side, her brother’s face was in shadow, but she could see that his head was turned toward the Sword.

“I will ride west this afternoon,” said Danacor. “The Skyclears are ready.”

Danacor went with a party not only of his Skyclears, but also magicians and specialist trackers; he went to the mountain where General Randarl now watched, and where the roc had been seen. Danny had seen the roc—he had seen two rocs, although that was not generally known “—I hope,” read the private letter that came with his official report. “We are doing our damnedest to make it only one roc; one roc is bad enough.” The chief thing that he stressed and reiterated in all his reports—as well as why they had some prospect of preventing knowledge of the second roc—was that both rocs were still well to the far side of the boundary of the land King Corone called his, at the edge of the wild lands, where only the boldest hunters went, where there were known to be basilisks and chimeras as well as taralians and norindours and ladons and a wyvern or two. This territory had never been claimed by any human government because of the difficulty of administering it—although there were rumours of encampments of humans as wild as any of the beasts, and the occasional mad magician living there.