Marie Brennan - Within the Sanctuary of Wings

Suhail looked at me, bemused. I think I stared back. I have been married more than once in my life—three times, if one counts my temporary arrangement with Liluakame in Keonga—but never simultaneously. I tried to imagine being wed to both Jacob and Suhail at once, and felt as if I had sprained something in my head. The loss of Jacob still saddened me… but had he not perished in Vystrana, I could not imagine myself having met Suhail, or having considered him in anything more than a friendly light if we had met. How could I weigh that loss against what I had gained after? Even in Tser-nga, I do not think I could have had both: my Scirling husband and my Akhian one, the marriage arranged for me by my father and the one I impulsively made for myself. And so many joys have come to me as a result of that latter match, it is impossible not to think my life would have been impoverished without it.

There are no simple answers to such things. We can never know who we might have been had things gone differently. I only know that without Suhail, I would not have become the woman I am today.

Tom coughed, breaking the awkward silence. “You can tell her no—Isabella only lays claim to the one.”

“Yes, of course,” Thu murmured, and relayed this in Tser-zhag. Naturally he had known the answer, but I think the woman’s question so discomfited him that for a moment he could not think of the necessary words in her tongue.

Our hostess had three husbands of her own, all brothers. Two of them were away at the moment, on a journey down to Phen Rong, where they could trade for some much-needed supplies. This was why she could accomodate us in her house, although with all five of our party added it was a tight fit. I did not consider this entirely a bad thing: privacy was impossible to come by, but the close quarters meant I could at least be assured of sleeping warm. The yaks penned below us might be fragrant, but their body heat rose up through the floorboards, and with Suhail to one side of me and Shuwa to the other, I never had cause for complaint.

Not while in the house, at least. Outside, it was another matter.

We woke the morning after our arrival to the sound of gentle rain. This did not deter Thu from making arrangements with some of the local men to retrieve the remainder of our belongings—a process that left us in some difficulty, for we had only the one companion who was anything like conversant in Tser-zhag, and he could not be in two places at once. Ultimately we dispatched Chendley with the retrieval group, while Thu stayed in the village, where our topics were less easily explored in mime.

I was glad not to be going with Chendley myself. Although my body had more or less settled in to the elevation, I was still quite tired, and knew I would need a rest before tackling the hike to the col. But the next day it rained again… and then, after a respite of one day, a third time… and long before Chendley arrived back in Hlamtse Rong, we knew the truth.

The monsoon had begun.

Had we been able to land closer to the village… had our first attempt to fly west been successful… had we not been forced to evade bandits on our way to Parshe… had we only left Scirland sooner. I could list a dozen points at which we lost precious time, but it was no use wishing to have those moments back. The simple fact was that we had arrived in Hlamtse Rong too late, and now had no hope of journeying to the col before the snows made it impossible.

In my less bitter moments, I knew the delays were a disguised blessing. The monsoon that year began early, but we had no way of predicting that. Had we come to the village a week earlier, we would have set out in the cheerful confidence that we had plenty of time to conduct our research. The snows would have caught us at high elevation, far from shelter and support; we might all have died. But it was hard to weigh that hypothetical peril against my very present frustation, as I sat in the doorway of Shuwa’s house and watched the rain pour down.

Suhail sat next to me, a warm and comforting presence. Tom had gone out with Thu to speak with the village headman, but we all knew what answer they would return with: we could not set out today, nor tomorrow, nor any time in the near future. Not unless our destination lay below us, eastward, back in the direction of Vidwatha. The heights of the mountains were far too dangerous now.

“Ventis,” I said at last. I had not spoken in nearly an hour, but Suhail could follow my thoughts well enough. “Three months; that is how long they say the monsoon lasts.” Assuming it did not overstay its welcome, as it had shown up too soon.

“You want to wait,” Suhail said. “Attempt the search between the monsoon and the onset of winter.”

Somewhere out there, Chendley and the villagers were toiling back toward us with a pile of equipment. “If we do not, this entire journey has been wasted. It would be one thing if I could be sure of trying again later—then it would only be resources and time we have thrown away. But do you really think anyone will loan us another caeliger? That the Tser-zhag government will not have tightened its watch, or the Yelangese overrun this place?” I did not speak of the thing we had come here for, the way our odds of success decreased with every passing day. If uncovered, it might rot; if entombed in fresh snow, we might never find it. I had gambled on the chance of discovery, and like a bettor desperate to make good his losses, I refused to walk away from the table.

Three months rotting in Hlamtse Rong, waiting. Hoping.

A chorus of mewing came from a nearby house. A Nying woman, cursing, used a broom to drive out several draconic figures that had evidently taken up residence among her livestock.

Suhail turned to me, grinning. “Whatever will you do to keep yourself occupied?”

Shuwa and her fellow villagers looked at us as if we were mad when we expressed our intention to study the mews.

I have of course encountered this reaction many a time—but never more so than in Hlamtse Rong, where the dragons in question were nothing more than vermin. Rock-wyrms and desert drakes may prey upon livestock, earning the enmity of the local humans, but their grandeur also commands respect. Mews enjoyed no such reputation. They were simply pests, no more admired in Tser-nga than stoats are in Scirland. (Indeed, less so, for they provide no fur.)

Chendley looked at us in much the same way after he returned. In democratic fashion, we held a vote: only the lieutenant was in favour of abandoning this whole matter as a bad job, and his strenuous arguments did nothing to sway the rest of us—though in fairness I should note that his arguments were good ones. It is not his fault they lacked the power to penetrate our thick skulls and effect any change within. We would stay in Hlamtse Rong until the monsoon ended, and make our attempt then.

In the meanwhile, we would study the dragons we had on hand. Inquiries around the village revealed that the hunting of mews, if the enterprise can be given so grand a name, is the domain of unmarried spinsters—of which there are more than a few, what with husbands being distributed in sibling batches. A wife who finds mews plaguing her household calls for assistance, and the spinster in question builds and lays traps for the creatures in areas which attract their attention, such as kitchen stores and refuse pits.

“You are not a spinster,” Shuwa said to me (as translated by Thu). “Why on earth would you be interested in this?”

I searched for a diplomatic phrasing, then gave up; anything I said would be put through the grinder of linguistic differences regardless. “Please tell her,” I said to Thu, “as politely as you can, that perhaps I may learn something that will help the Nying keep the mews at bay? Without suggesting that I think their own efforts have been deficient—after all, they’ve lived with the creatures for generations. But I have studied many kinds of dragons in other parts of the world, and it might be that the comparison will shed some useful light on the matter.”