Fish Tails (44 page)

“I think you can relax,” said Abasio, rubbing his thumbs into Xulai's neck muscles, which seemed to have frozen into two solid knots of rope. “The fact that the Griffin picked up the supplies we sent, the fact that she asked for them in the first place, indicates that she has no wish to hurt the children. They are hostages, and hostages are usually very well cared for.”

“Abasio, intellectually, I'm sure you're right.” She drew away from him and settled her gown as she rotated her head. The neck pain was from tension, of course . . . only tension. “Emotionally, however, I want to scream. I can't do that or I'll upset the babies. Sun-­wings won't want to hurt the children, but she knows nothing about children. Ignorance can hurt.”

“You want to scream because your baby tenders are missing.”

She gave him a look that might have charred him to his boot soles had he not been fireproofed some time ago. “I want to scream because I'm concerned about the children and I'm not sure they're all right!”

He put his hands on her shoulders and shook her. “Then you're just feeling, not thinking. The Griffin didn't come up with that list by herself. It had contributions from both Willum and Needly. They are, therefore, in sufficiently good shape to think reasonably and sensibly. Needly is considering the whole event calmly. I believe that child was born of some very strange heritage that makes her mental age something like two hundred years, give or take a quarter century. And how long has Willum been asking whether the Griffin would take him for a ride? He has no doubt had that ride, and I cannot imagine his being anything but invigorated by it.”

“Those men who took them, I don't trust them!”

“Nor do I. Obviously. It's extremely unlikely, however, that those men are anywhere near where the children are now. If the men had been readily available, the Griffin could have sent them to round up the materials Willum and Needly needed, but she came herself. Also, the children are no doubt being kept in some very remote area. Ferrying men and horses would have required multiple trips, and I can't see the Griffin wanting to continue providing for them. That indicates she has paid off her lackeys and sent them away. I'm intrigued by the fact she must have paid them something. What was that, do you suppose?”

“Someone held hostage, perhaps. And we don't know where the children are . . .”

“They didn't ask for firewood, so they're in the forest, where they can find their own. The Griffin will have picked a secure campsite. They're not on a pinnacle; they're where a latrine shovel can be used. I'm glad we had a spare. They asked for a bucket, so I'm sure they're near water.”

“You're dreadfully serene,” she snapped.

“If I thought either of us could do any good by yelling and screaming and rushing about in circles, we could do that. I'm willing to do so if you'd like. We can do it together, hand in hand. Shall we go clockwise or counterclockwise to begin with?”

She hit him, or tried.

He caught her hand between his own. “Xulai, love, I trust Willum's sense of self-­preservation and Needly's education at her grandmother's knee. As Gum once remarked in several other contexts, they are not geese! If they were, they'd be far less trouble. I'm much more worried about something else.”

“That ‘something else' being?”

“I'm worried about the Griffin, our Griffin. She's female. She has a child. She's the one I met before, the one Olly met. They no doubt move about. Olly met her in a forest, I think. Olly saved her baby when the baby was a hatchling. That would have been when Olly herself was a child. When Olly left on that ship, she was . . . in her early twenties. That was over three years ago. So the baby is at least twenty-­some-­odd years old. When will she reach maturity?”

“The rule for most animals is that one-­sixth of the life-­span is spent in growing to maturity.”

“So, the mother said she might live two thousand years. Maturity, then. would arrive somewhere around three hundred years of age.” Abasio scratched his nose, thinking.

“I wonder what the incubation time is.”

“Geese can live fifteen years. Hatching time is, I think, thirty days or so. They are goslings for some time after that, however.”

Xulai stared at him. “With that measurement, hatching would take over ten years.”

“It sounds . . . unlikely. Some animals have precocious development. They gain adult attributes very rapidly, but they grow to full size only very gradually. I think that's probably what's going on here.”

“So you suppose they could nest near . . . volcanoes? Someplace that stays warm?” Xulai frowned. “But the hatchling you described was in a nest, up a tree, wasn't it? Something like that?”

“It was actually up a cliff. There's nothing to prevent the baby being moved, after it comes out of the egg. Well, that's something we have to figure out. The thing I am supposedly making clear, to myself if not to you, is this: the Griffin is female and had a child, and that fact implies the existence of a male Griffin . . . but I've never seen one, or not up close, though I think I may have seen one at a great distance while we were back near Saltgosh. It was the biggest thing I have ever seen flying; far bigger than . . . our Griffin. And it was black, or blackish—­metallic, rather. And if so, it makes me fearful.”

“Perhaps parthenogenesis,” murmured Xulai.

“Possible, but I think that's unlikely. The original designers would probably have had enough trouble using bisexual genetic mode—­eagle, lion, who knows what else?—­without trying for a less usual one. Instinct tells me the male of this species could be quite different from the females, not physiologically but psychologically. He may have a very different agenda. And I'm more than a little worried that we may encounter him, or them, at some point.” He felt that they had already almost encountered him. He had not liked the sound of the battle they had heard.

“We have weapons that could handle that situation.” She turned, confused by Abasio's expression. He looked troubled. Far more troubled than he had when discussing the children. “What is it?”

He shook his head at her; she was not seeing the problem! “Yes, we have weapons; weapons that kill. I've seen, females, several times. I've possibly seen a male, and I know there has to be one if there are young! Perhaps only one was ever created, or perhaps there is only one left? In which case, our weapons would kill not only him but the race of Griffins forever, including the descendants of that female-­child Griffin that Needly is so careful of.”

It was not something Xulai had considered. It was something that kept her awake late into the night.

W
HILE QUEEN
S
UN-­WINGS WAS AWAY,
picking up their supplies, Needly had amused the Griffin child by telling her a story, one that she and Willum had spent some time concocting on their way to and from the latrine ground or the stream. It was a story that Grandma had supposedly told Needly, about an island of ice in the north, across the eastern ocean. There was a tribe of Griffins there, said Needly, one created long since who had lived there always. The tribe included three very large, fierce males whose names were Devastation, Disruption, and Destruction: the Dreadful brothers for short.

That night, snuggled into their straw-­filled mattresses, well wrapped in blankets, she and Willum pretended to be sleeping. They were actually listening as Dawn-­song told the story of the three male Griffins to her mother. The next morning, Sun-­wings questioned Needly at length about the story: when had it been told, who had told it, how did Needly's grandmother know? Needly was properly unsure about the details. It was only something her grandma had told her, and yes, Grandma was a very intelligent woman, but she was very old. Needly couldn't say whether it was true or not. Needly privately thought that in an infinite number of galaxies there must be one planet that had such an island, properly inhabited.

The next night another Griffin, female, arrived, announcing herself from the woods so as not to take them by surprise. Needly and Willum listened again as Sun-­wings told the story to her friend on the cliff above their cave. They spoke ­people language, local language, which Needly found faintly surprising. Somehow she had thought they would have a tongue of their own. But then, they were human-­created! On this continent! Humans from here! Of course, if they spoke, they would be hatched into a world speaking that language, the language of their creators.

Dawn-­song lay between them, also listening. “She's my mama's favorite friend,” she told Needly. “She needs a name, too.”

The three of them considered what name would be proper. The new one had remarkable plumage, a shining flow of the partially feathered mane that went well down into the fur of her belly: golden, gleaming, almost metallic in its reflection of light. Together the three of them decided this one would be “Golden-­throat.”

Golden-­throat departed. The exhausted children slept, scarcely moving until morning, when Sun-­wings summoned Needly and Willum out of the cave.

“I am told you create names for each of us.”

“When we refer to you, we prefer to distinguish among you,” said Needly. “It is polite to do so. You would, I think, prefer us to be polite.”

“There is nothing evil in that. Name us, then, and tell us what the name is when you have done so. We recognize one another by the voice, the style of flight, the outline against the light, the very direction from which we come. Names will be something interestingly new to the more thoughtful ones among us.”

“The more thoughtful, Sun-­wings?”

“The more thoughtful, yes. The more curious. South of here, far south of here, there were some Griffins hatched who . . . are driven by . . . what is it that drives Despos?” She paused. “What is the word you use when you want something someone else has? Or want something like it?”

“Envy. If I wanted your beautiful mane and wings, I would be ‘envious.' I might even dislike you because you had something I did not have. That dislike would be ‘hostility.' Those Griffins are
hostile
. They feel
hostility
.”

“Hostility. Yes. It is like that, yes. I do not think it is envy, no.” The Griffin's beak tightened, the flesh around it gathered in harsh lines. Her eyes were slitted in concentration. “They do not want something of mine. It is only that they dislike . . . everything that is not theirs. With me, with my friend, you are more safe. Among the . . .
hostile,
not so safe, I think. There are three of them. They are full of violence and they do not . . . think about things.”

“We have named your friend Golden-­throat. We noticed how pleasant her voice was. Such voices are described as ‘golden' in our shared language, and also the . . . fur of her throat is golden, so we can recognize her.” Was it fur? It was really something between fur and feathers, or down. Needly shifted, a little uncomfortably. Willum was watching her from close inside the cave. She drew in a breath before asking, “Did I hear you telling your friend about the story my grandmother told me? The story about the three Griffins on that island?”

Sun-­wings shifted in discomfort. “Despos intends to go there and kill them. Before he goes, he demands to see each of us females; he demands that we take him to each nest, to be sure we have no eggs, no male young. It would not matter, male or female in the egg. He would break the eggs, he would kill the young females trying to mate with them. He half kills us!”

“Then you must let him look.”

“We can't,” she cried. “We can't. He will kill them . . .”

Needly laid her hand on the creature's foot, the only part of her within easy reach. The bones shifted under her hand, the short, very short fur of the foot moved under her fingers as though the hairs were individually mobile. Needly forced her hand to stroke, advising herself to speak very softly.
Stroke, stroke.

“Sun-­wings, he will not see eggs or children if you bring them all here. Willum and Dawn-­song and I can keep the eggs warm for a time. We can care for the children for a time. If you made a big kill, Sun-­wings, if you did, and brought it close to our camp here, we could feed the little ones. I have seen you tear the meat in little pieces, Willum and I can cut the meat up like that. We can make a fire to keep the eggs warm. Despos does not know this place. Bring the young here! Then let him see only females without young. Let him see only empty nests!”

She looked up into two orbs like bronze suns, staring down at her, two huge eyes that seemed to bore into her, suck at her, draw her strength from her own body into themselves. She stood back, straightened her back, and stared back, eye to eye. From somewhere, strength poured into her, like liquid metal down her backbone: only warm, not hot, a comforting warmth. She did not question its source. Its presence was enough.

Sun-­wings stepped back. “We will try. It is the only thing left to try.”

The great creature had to go some distance down through the trees before she came to the place she could best fly from. Dawn-­song had told Needly that the Griffins chose high places for their aeries because of the drop; it was so much easier to drop into flight than to pound one's wings against unwilling air until one lifted. She, Dawn-­song, could fly a little, but not for long. Her wings were not even fully grown. Wings were rudimentary in a hatchling. Only gradually did they lengthen and strengthen. Once they were fully grown, Griffin wings would hold the Griffin aloft for days while she soared on the air currents moving above the canyons. But, to get into the air initially, they preferred a good drop.

Needly watched until she was out of sight, then she went back into the caves, into Willum's arms that were waiting for her, hugging her tight. He whispered, “It's all right. It's all right. It's gonna work, Needly. It will, you'll see, it will.”