A Gathering of Wings (11 page)

“Unless you give her away, dear sister,” Orion says.

Zephele covers her mouth with her hands. “Oh dear! This will require practice.”

“And subtlety,” Neal says. “A bold new concept.”

Zephele attempts a subtle nod.

They are soon under way and by midmorning are wading through drifts of fine white sand. The sun’s rays bounce off the dunes and nearly blind Malora and the centaurs. They all
covet the spectacles with tinted lenses Honus donned this morning.

As they crest a sandy rise, Malora blinks to bring the image before her into focus. Below lies the Caldera of Neelah, a vast deep tidal lake, Honus has explained to them, where the River Neelah pools just before the delta. Rising up from the middle of the lake are three small stone peaks. Malora sees the heads of bathers bobbing in the water. Other two-legged figures are diving off the peaks.

“What are they?” Malora asks.

“Ancient pyramidal structures that once contained tombs, now almost completely submerged by the tides,” Honus explains.

“No, I mean, what are those beings diving into the water? They look like People.” From this vantage point, they look like tall, slender, scantily clad men. Could it be that Honus is wrong? Could these be fellow humans?

“From a distance, perhaps they appear human,” Honus tells her. “But you won’t think that when you see them at close range. They are the Ka—the males of the hibe. The sheKa rarely venture out during daylight. The Ka are a semi-amphibious hibe that can remain underwater for long periods of time. They have a nictitating membrane that comes down over their eyes, enabling them to keep their eyes open underwater, a trait they share with the crocodile with which they coexist peacefully on the delta of the River Neelah.”

“Really?” says Malora. She is excited now. New hibes might not be as wonderful as other humans. But the prospect is fascinating.

The road leads them down a loose, sandy embankment. The sand is white and the sky is azure. Malora feels her pulse quickening as it once did as she approached Mount Kheiron for the first time. Here the air is filled with an indescribable smell. Malora looks around. Her companions are all inhaling deeply.

“What is in the air?” Malora asks. The only way she can describe it is that the air smells of clean horses sweating on a hot, dry day. It is one of her favorite aromas on earth.

“I think it must be the sea!” Zephele says, her little nose twitching.

“Right you are!” Honus says.

“Of course!” says Malora. “I smell it, but I don’t see it. Where is it? Race you to the sea!” Malora urges Lightning off the road and down the sandy slope with Zephele not far behind. They will follow their noses to the sea.

“Stay on the path!” Neal’s voice booms at their backs.

Malora stops and swivels in the saddle.

“Why?” she asks mutinously.

“Sinkholes,” Neal says in a voice of controlled calm. “The natives know where they are, but you don’t. Nor do I. You might step into one, and you—and your horse—would disappear in a matter of seconds and we would never see you again.”

Zephele turns pale.

Malora quickly guides Lightning back onto the path.

“Now that you have finished scaring our tails to stubs, can you kindly show us the safest route to the sea, Neal?” Zephele asks.

“All in good time,” Neal says. “First, we must stop and
stable the horses. Then we must enter the city and claim our rooms at the inn.”

“You’ll see the sea soon enough,” Honus says. “More than enough of it, I daresay.”

Zephele catches Malora’s hand and squeezes. “Can you wait? I can’t wait! Oh, and after we have seen the sea,” she says, “I should like to set eyes on the sheKa.”

“If they look anything like the males, they are very beautiful,” Malora says. “Just look at them all. How graceful and long of leg they are.”

As they approach the shores of the Caldera, where a flock of flamingos wade in the shallows, they ride past a row of the Ka. They lie belly-down on colorful striped mats, their backs dark and oily, the soles of their long feet as pale as fish drying in the sun. One of them turns over and all the others flip over, as if following the leader.

A hiccup of surprise escapes Zephele. “They are frog people! Why did no one tell me that the Ka were so utterly
homely
?”

Honus flicks the reins and brings his horse up beside Zephele, saying in an urgent undertone, “My dear, understand that you will be seeing all manner of exotic-looking hibe while in Kahiro. Many thoughts, impressions, and opinions may rise in your mind. But it is of paramount importance that you not give voice to every observation that enters your head. The Ka are most sensitive about the amphibiousness of their facial features.”

“They ought to be,” Zephele says flatly. “They look like great big croaking frogs.”

Malora regards Zephele thoughtfully and wonders how
this can be the same maiden who said about the bush pig: “I think it’s cruel to say that some animals are ugly.” How is it any less cruel to say that some hibes are homely?

“They may look like frogs to you,” Neal says to Zephele, “but you must no more tell them that than you would point out to a centaur, for instance, that she has a horse’s ass.”

Malora’s laughter is cut short by a wounded glare from Zephele. Returning her gaze to the row of heKa, Malora says, “
I
think they’re beautiful! I can see how they might make superior warriors.”

Considering this, Zephele says, “They say that the sheKa have the bodies of goddesses.”

“Who told you that?” Orion asks sharply.

“A maiden at the stitchery, whose brother came here and visited a House of Romance,” Zephele says.

“What is a House of Romance?” Malora asks.

No one responds as she looks around for an answer, nor do they meet her gaze.

“Can someone please answer my question?” she repeats.

“You’ll learn … soon enough,” Honus says grimly.

“Yes, but for once,” Neal says, grinning, “not even Honus is willing to lecture.”

“I can explain,” Zephele says cheerfully. “A House of Romance is a delightful place where poetry is recited, plays are performed, and soft music and perfume fill the air.”

“Well,” Honus says, clearing his throat awkwardly, “that’s certainly
some
part of it.”

Zephele breezes on. “Another of my stitchery friends told me that she heard that in some of the houses the sheKa have actually had their faces altered to make them look more like
the People. Because of their bodily similarity to the People, they say that males of all hibes desire the sheKa more than the females of their own ilk. I should like very much to see the sheKa. Will I be allowed to stay up late and see them? They come out at night like the stars.”

Honus and Orion exchange a helpless look.

Malora suggests, “Why don’t we visit a House of Romance and see for ourselves?”

“Oh, brilliant!” Zephele declares.

“Never!” says Orion.

“Why not?” Malora and Zephele both say.

“Because,” Honus says carefully, “it would be neither seemly nor safe.”

Neal shakes his head, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “I can see this is going to be a very
interesting
trip.”

The block stone city walls of Kahiro rise up many times higher than the wall that surrounds Mount Kheiron. It is by far the largest and most imposing structure Malora has ever set eyes on. She cranes her neck, one hand holding the horns in place. High up, along the crenelated parapet, Ka guards with long spears march, looking no bigger from where she is standing than an army of ants holding sticks.

“How do they get up there?” Malora wonders aloud.

“Impressive, isn’t it? They are hoisted,” Honus says, “on wooden platforms. From the wall facing the sea, they are known to dive into the ocean when the tide is high. These many-colored rocks you see that comprise the wall come from the north, where the Great Ice crushed many of the large buildings and carried the detritus southward. I daresay there are blocks here from all the capitals of what was once known as the European continent.”

Hunkered down in the shadow of the wall is a squat sandstone structure where they will stable their horses.

“The hostlers are Dromadi,” Honus says quickly under his breath to Malora and Zephele as they approach the stables.

Malora is unprepared for the sight of her first Dromad. Later, after she has seen the camels in the marketplace, she will understand that, just as the centaurs are half human and half horse, the Dromadi are half human and half camel. Where a centaur’s back is smooth and sleek, the Dromadi have high, ragged-looking humps. Most have one, but some have two.

As one of them lopes toward them on impossibly long and knobby legs, longer in the front than in the back, Zephele whispers to Malora, “See how his hump wobbles when he moves? How very
awkward
!”

“The humps store fat and water,” Honus explains. “Like their camel cousins, they can survive for long periods of time without food or water.”

Malora gazes up at the hostler as he arrives, looming a good five hands taller than any of them. Beneath her, she feels Lightning’s back muscles bunch, registering the presence of this strange new creature and making a valiant effort not to spook. She hugs the mare with her legs and sends her a silent message: You’d better get used to them. I’ll be entrusting you to the hands of these strangers.

To keep from staring at the undulous hump, Malora concentrates on the hostler’s face, which is surprisingly handsome: golden-skinned, with golden hair shaved close to the
scalp. His large eyes are a soft brown, framed by long golden eyelashes spangled with sand. Unlike the centaurs, the Dromad wears no clothing. His arms and torso are muscular and baked by the sun to the same golden color as his camel parts. All of him is covered in a thin, sparkling coating of sand, like an enormous date dipped in sugar. She wants to tell him: Even though a Scientician made you, I find you beautiful.

“Isn’t he perfectly
hideous
?” Zephele whispers in Malora’s ear, and again Malora wonders with a flash of irritation she doesn’t usually feel toward her friend, why this unkindness?

Honus raises his arm and speaks in a strange tongue that sounds as if he were trying to bring up a piece of gristle caught in his throat. The Dromad answers in kind.

“We are lucky to be traveling with Honus,” Zephele says in a normal voice. “He is a prodigy of languages.”

Malora, waiting for a gap in the talk, leans in to Honus and says, “Ask him if he has heard of a big black blue-eyed stallion anywhere hereabouts.”

“First we must settle on a price for boarding,” Honus whispers back. “Leave your horse here and explore the facility. I think you’ll find it meets your stringent standards.”

Malora slips off Lightning and whispers words of encouragement before leaving the reins with the hostler. Absently, the hostler runs big, leathery hands over Lightning’s flanks and calms her instantly. Satisfied, Malora joins Zephele and Orion as they walk toward the stables.

“Everything is bargained for here, they say,” Zephele explains. “I cannot wait to try my hand at it. I suspect I will excel at it. I come prepared, for I have brought great quantities of nubs with me, and I intend to purchase mounds of
goods and, of course, gifts for everyone back in Mount Kheiron.”

The stalls are whitewashed, clean, and airy, nearly every stall filled. There are four identical gray dappled steeds with curly manes like silver shavings, a row of bashful Athabanshees, as white as ivory, three draft horses, and two full-grown horses no bigger than Neal’s hunting hounds.

“How tiny and cunning they are!” Zephele says, reaching in to pet their velvety little noses.

“They pull small carts for vendors and, small as they are, are cheaper to feed,” Orion explains. “This is the most reputable stable. The Apex boards his Beltanians here when he visits, and has never complained.”

Honus and Neal and the Dromad must have arrived at a satisfactory price, because two more Dromadi are leading the Beltanians into a stall, where they have begun to wash them down with buckets of soapy water and large foamy pads. Next to the Dromadi, the draft horses look like stocky ponies.

“Those are sponges,” Orion tells them. “They come from the sea.”

“Really?” says Zephele, giving the pads a closer look.

“They were once living things,” Orion adds. “They are much more absorbent than cotton cloth, and very useful.”

“Remarkable!” says Zephele. “Where might I purchase some for my convenience?”

“From the marketplace,” says Orion.

“Of course!”

Sunshine and Lemon unload the luggage from the wagon and place it in a handcart. Malora removes the saddlebags from Lightning and slings them over one shoulder.

“Enjoy your rest here,” she whispers into the mare’s twitching ear, feeding her a Max. “I will see you very soon … I hope with news of Sky or perhaps even with our big boy himself.”

After doling out more Maxes to Raven and Charcoal and Light Rain, she joins the others on the last stretch of road that winds through the dunes between the stable and the city gates. Honus is in deep conversation with Orion and Neal. They fall silent when Malora catches up to them. Malora looks from one to the other. “Did you discover anything useful?”

Honus looks to Neal for approval before saying to Malora, “The hostler says there are rustlers who steal horses and that a horse of Sky’s description would potentially be very valuable.”

“Are my horses in danger here?” Malora asks, casting a wary look over her shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” Orion says. “They post guards.”

Neal adds, “He says most of the raids occur in the outlands, in the big ranches along the northeastern seaboard and on the Dromadi caravan route from the west.”

“And who are these raiders?” Malora asks.

She looks around at Orion, Honus, and Neal but their eyes are busy elsewhere.

“Can someone please answer her question,” Zephele demands.

“It has been confirmed,” Neal says reluctantly. “The raiders are wild centaurs.”