Marie Brennan - Within the Sanctuary of Wings

No wonder Zam feared me. No wonder the sisters were so determined to keep me out of sight. I was the monster of their myths: a human being, a vicious, merciless beast. Never mind that they towered thirty centimeters over me and had teeth and claws I could not hope to match. We fear poisonous snakes a hundredth our size, for they can kill us in an instant.

Were the Draconeans’ eggs hidden somewhere in this temple? Did Zam think I had come here to turn them to stone?

I had to choose my words with exquisite care. I could not let my distress hamper my speech; Zam was clearly in no mood to wait while misunderstandings were sorted out. Three breaths were necessary to steady me: then, still kneeling upon the floor, I turned to face the two sisters.

“I am sorry for this,” I said, indicating the story upon the walls. Now was not the time to quibble over historical interpretation, to debate whether the ancient Draconeans had been loving rulers or hideous tyrants. We had slaughtered their children; I was indeed sorry for that. “We now—humans—” I had to use the Akhian word; I did not know what the Draconeans called us. Likely nothing flattering. “We do not know about this—about you . We have forgotten. I do not want to hurt you. No one wants to hurt you.”

That last was only true because no one knew about them, not as anything other than vague ice demons defending the borders of the Sanctuary. I could not blame them for hiding.

I looked at Ruzt. Zam could not be reasoned with right now; I could barely speak with her, given the archaic cast of the words I had learned. But Ruzt, I thought, was the mastermind of this entire scheme, the decision to hide me away and teach me to speak. “Why?” I asked. “If I am this—” I gestured at the walls again. “Why did you take me into your house?”

It was the question I had been wanting to ask them since I awoke. I had avoided it until now because I did not trust my command of the language to carry me through so complex a matter; but now I felt I had no choice.

Ruzt, I think, had delayed for the same reason. Now she paused, clearly choosing her own words carefully, so that I would understand. Finally she pointed at the leftmost panels and said, “For a long time we have run. Humans come, and we hide. Humans come again, and we hide again. Now we are here—where else can we go? Are there others? Like us?”

Isolated in the Sanctuary for who knew how many years, decades, centuries… if there were other enclaves, they would long since have lost contact with them. My answer came in a whisper. “I do not think so.”

Ruzt bowed her head. “As we thought. Then—we are the last. When humans try to come here, we defend ourselves. One here, two there. Not many. But we watch, because what if one day there are more?”

It would happen, inevitably. The Sanctuary was too inaccessible to be worth settlement by anyone who did not want to hide—but sooner or later a human would escape their border guardians and bring tales of dragon-headed beasts to the outside world. Most would laugh at the notion, but not all… and then more would come, and more, until someone showed up with an army. And then the Draconeans would have nowhere left to run.

The sisters had saved my life as an experiment. To see whether a human could be reasoned with.

I must, on peril of my life, be reasonable.

“Humans will find you,” I said, employing the word I had heard her use. It was not related to its Akhian counterpart, and I wondered what root it derived from. “Murderer,” perhaps. “You are right. I wish it were not so, but…” Explaning the Aerial War was beyond me. Ruzt did not need it, though; she nodded in resignation.

Slowly, keeping Zam in my peripheral vision, I stood. She still watched me with hostility, but made no move to strike. She had brought me here to confront me with my people’s crimes, not to kill me.

Addressing both her and Ruzt, I said, “You have my help. What can I do?”

Once the last of the scattered beasts had been collected and I returned with Ruzt and Zam to Imsali, I had cause to be glad that my yak-herding vocabulary was by that point quite well developed. We no longer devoted more than the bare minimum of our attention to such chores; all our efforts were bent to a different set of topics.

Ruzt’s plan, as she explained it to me, was frighteningly simple—and I was certain it was her plan, though she always spoke of it in the plural, as something she, Kahhe, and Zam had developed together. They would keep me concealed until spring, when the hibernating Draconeans awoke… and then they would reveal my presence, using me as proof that humans were reasonable creatures with whom the Draconeans could attain peace. Between now and then, my chief task was to prepare for the discussions that would ensue.

“What if I am not ready by then?” I asked.

Zam glared at me. Kahhe laughed, though she did not sound amused, and said, “Be ready.”

It would not do to keep me hidden longer, even if I were insufficiently prepared. The sisters had been able to manage it before because everyone else in the village was making arrangements for their winter sleep; the day they left me with Zam was the day they went out and persuaded the villagers who had drawn the short straw that year to let the three of them take over the task of caring for the herds. (I doubt it took much persuasion. Remaining awake was considered an unpleasant duty, and while Imsali settled this by the democratic means of drawing lots, I later heard that other villages fobbed it off on whomever was least popular among them. Fortunately there was a law that said no one could take on that burden two years running, as winter wakefulness was considered detrimental to their health.)

But once the Draconeans awoke, I could not long remain concealed in the sisters’ house. I must sally forth, ready or not, and represent my entire species to those who dwelt within the Sanctuary of Wings.

For it was not only myself who called that place the Sanctuary. That was the Draconean name for it as well: in their tongue, Sratar Vrey, the Sanctuary of Wings. “Anevrai,” I said to Ruzt when she taught me the phrase. “That is how we have been saying the name of your people—at least, we believe that word refers to your people. But you do not call yourselves that.” The word I had learned for the Draconeans was mranin, which clearly came from a different root.

“It is a very old word,” she said. “For those who ruled in ancient days. We have not gone by that name since the Downfall.” She paused, remembering. “You said that to me once before, didn’t you? When you woke up. I was so nervous—I didn’t even recognize it. You pronounced it so strangely.”

I could not conceive of what that must have been like: rescuing a dying monster in the hope that she might prove a friend. “How did you come upon me? I have been meaning to ask for ages, only I did not know how.”

This was something of a fib. I could have managed, if I were determined—as I was managing now, for you must not imagine that my conversations were as simple and straightforward as I am presenting them here. Circumlocution and mime were still my frequent tools, along with my charcoal drawings, whenever I could not come directly at my target. I had allowed the difficulty to turn aside my curiosity because thinking about that day would remind me of too many things I did not wish to dwell on: the avalanche, and the unknown fate of my companions.