Fish Tails

by Sheri S. Tepper

  AND, he told himself sternly, all this cogitation was unwarranted given the urgency of the situation. He calmed himself. The words he wanted were “That’s Bear.”

  “Bear?” He managed to get the word out. “Bear, is that you?”

  “No. It’s my cousin, twice removed,” grumbled Bear. “Of course it’s me. We heard you were coming. Griffin told us. I thought you’d know it was me.”

  “Ah,” murmured Blue, grasping at the word. “Griffin told you. Well. I wish she’d told me you were coming as well. You . . . startled me.” A tremor in the furry creature’s vicinity told him Bear was laughing. So! The assault on Blue’s feet had been quite intentional. Blue considered revenge. “Now, that’d be the big roan-­mare Griffin, would it? Very haughty and kind of . . . um.” What was it Xulai had said? “Disturbed?”

  The furriness touched him again, and Blue, quite ready for it, executed a nicely targeted, nonlethal but quite definitely bruising kick, followed by a whinnied “Oh, sorry, did I hurt you?”

  Bear had made an explosively oof-­ish sound. Feeling in the skin of Blue’s legs that the horse might do it again, Bear moved away, telling himself silently: Think herbivore! When talking to herbivores, omnivore must think herbivore! He heaved a huge breath and moved away from the feet, slowly circling around where Blue could see him, or at least his shape could be made out—­including the location of his teeth, which, hoping to reassure his friend, he mistakenly displayed by smiling, widely.

  Now Blue’s front legs were doing that peculiar kind of spasm thing.

  Mistake! Bear sighed and backed off a bit farther, letting his lips close gently over his remarkably handsome teeth—­so he had been told, repeatedly, by a sow bear with whom he had a pleasant association more or less annually during what humans called “the breeding season.” Bears did not think of it in that way. In fact, when that time came, bears did not think . . . much at all. There was probably a word for it. Humans seemed to have a word for everything. He and Abasio had talked a lot about words, the different kinds of words. Names, doings, hows. Hows were important. Not just whats and doings but the hows of whats and doings. Whenever he thought about language it made him wonder if his cubs could talk. He would very much like to know! If he approached the mother, who was not languaged, how could he ask? Any approach to cubs would be a battle to the death with the mother. He could only wait. Wait and try talking to young bears. If they talked back . . . Oh, he really hoped some of them would talk back—­though how would they have learned?

  And Blue was still dancing nervously.

  Bear sighed tiredly, saying, “Well, Blue, if I had a family and my cubs were going to be drowned, I’d be disturbed about it! The she Griffin seemed quite sensible to me.”

  “That drowning bit is what’s got the Griffins all worried,” Blue agreed, concentrating on clear enunciation. See there, he even remembered the word. Ee-­nun-­cee-­ai-­shun. Good word. If he concentrated on that, he’d quit shaking! Though maybe Bear had the idea by now that it was not a good idea to nibble a sleeping horse’s feet! If he had really kicked, the way Rags had let go at that Lorper . . . well, Bear might possibly have survived, but he’d be very seriously injured! Then Blue would have that on his conscience. A conscience seemed to develop once a creature had the word for it. He couldn’t remember having had one before . . . though perhaps he had had one without knowing it.

  Bear went on: “What I meant was, if what the Griffin says is right, seems Bears should be worried, too. And Coyotes. Maybe all us critters in general. Horses, too!”

  Blue’s skin had almost stopped twitching. He did a purposeful shudder to settle it further. “Well, actually, we probably don’t need to worry that much, Bear. Abasio and Xulai went to Tingawa not long ago, and they took me with them. The ­people there are working on saving Earth animals, the few that’re left. They were working with sea horses and sea dogs when I was there. Wolves, too. All the animals who are natural to this world, you know, bears included. Those Tingawan ­people, some of them really sorrowed over the fact that so many Earth animals aren’t . . . aren’t still living.”

  Bear muttered. “Extinct! That’s the word. They’ve gone extinct or almost. Lions, you know. And hippowhats, and some big kind that ate with their noses . . . critters like that. But the Griffins aren’t extinct. Not yet they aren’t.”

  Blue shuddered, remembering Griffin’s huge amber eyes. “No, Griffins aren’t, but they’re a different kind of creature. Mankind didn’t make you or me, or coyotes: we’re of nature. Needly says direct from the Creator. We evolved! From what do they call it? Lower life-­forms! Ha. But the Griffins and the other unnatural critters, mankind made them up in legends, and then mankind decided to make them real, so the Griffins think mankind should be responsible.”

  “I know. That’s what Coyote says.”

  “Where is Coyote?”

  “Over at the pool getting a drink of water. Takes him forever! Lap, lap, lap, lap! I keep telling him, just suck it in!” Bear scratched his neck with a hind leg, reflectively. “Sometimes I think he does that lap, lap, lap just to annoy me. You think this waters-­rising business is true?”

  “All the sane ­people I know are convinced of it. It’s supposed to come from ice in some huge cavern way inside the earth that nobody ever knew was there. From what Xulai says, they still don’t know why they didn’t see it thousands of years ago on their echo machines and whatnot. They thought for a while it was left over from when the earth collected itself out of a whole skyful of space trash, but there’s not room enough down there for that much water, and it just keeps coming. That’s what Abasio said. He says it’s coming through some kind of hole in space from a whole different world called Squamutch. He says he dreamed it. When did Griffin tell you about it?”

  “Short while ago. We were nearby when she fell. She’s been hurt bad, Blue. She can’t fly, her wing’s all . . . ripped . . . She’s got a lot of pain, but she told us where Abasio and Xulai probably were and she said you’d probably help her. Coyote and I, we hunted for her, brought her food enough to last her awhile. Broke necks, didn’t let the prey bleed, kept it bloody as we could, ’cause we had no way to get water to her . . .”

  “She made off with Willum and Needly,” said Blue stiffly. “I’m not sure any of us want to help her.”

  “Blue Horse! Didn’t know you were a jackass! That’s what she’s mainly worried about: her little one and yours, too. She was takin’ care of them, good care, from all I could tell. Who’s gonna protect the little ones if she’s down in a canyon and can’t get out. Them little folks all alone up there in the hills! Nice juicy little ones, no doubt, with bears around who don’t talk and aren’t inclined to be as reasonable as I am either. And she also says—­what was it? I was ’sposed to be sure to tell Abasio. Ah—­some Griffins do not have any sense of community, whatever that means!”

  “Well then, why’n’t you bring the children back. You were comin’ this way!”

  “Because we’d’ve had to find them first, if they weren’t off trying to find her. Coulda wasted days doin’ that. And then we’d had ta come all the way here, and they’d mighta been too scared to come with us, and by that time Sun-­wings woulda been dead, and anyhow, Sun-­wings said to get you first, that’s why. We been on the way here all that night and one full day and last night with just little . . . naps.”

  Blue took only a moment to think it over before wandering over to the wagon, sticking his head through the wagon window, and making a soft, lip-­fluttering braaapp noise directly over Abasio’s head.

  “What?” Abasio lurched upright and stared at Blue’s head, inches from his own. “What? Blue, what are you . . .”

  “Bear’s here.” Blue spoke softly, not to waken Xulai or the babies.

  “What? Who?”

  “Abasio, wake up. Bear is here. THE Bear. The talking Bear. From the Place of Power, remember?” Blue fe
lt sharp teeth nibbling at one fetlock, very delicately tickling. He muttered, “Also, his idiot friend, Coyote,” and stamped down, hard, pleased to hear a yip and an explosive four-­footed scramble as the idiot friend got away from his feet. What was it with these fangy creatures and other creature’s feet!

  Abasio got out of the bed by climbing through the window.

  “You’ll freeze,” said Coyote. “Where’s your fur?”

  “On the other side of the bed. I don’t want to wake Xulai. Come away from that window! Now, what’s going on?”

  They moved away from the wagon and held a muttered conference, interrupted by Abasio’s recurrent explosions. “She what? . . . Left where?”

  After several more exchanges, Coyote departed, Abasio went back into the wagon, through the door to get his clothes, then he wakened Kim, who was rolled into his blankets under the wagon. The two of them talked for a few moments before Abasio returned to Blue.

  Abasio said, “I’ll send the wagon, with Xulai and the babies, on with Kim. According to Bear, it’s a straight run from here into Artemisia, less than a day on the road. I’ve given Kim instructions as to who he’s to look for down there. Xulai knows already. You and Rags and I will go find . . . what did you say Coyote called her?”

  “Sun-­wings. Willum and Needly named her.”

  “And she accepted that name? Remarkable! I suppose there’s no reason why a speaking, thinking creature should prefer to go around without a spoken name. They probably have recognition patterns like birds and animals do, but it’s not the same thing.” He scratched his head and yawned uncontrollably. “Bear says there’s no road that would take us anywhere near where the Griffin is, so we’ll have to go afoot and a-­horse. If Bear and Coyote came straight here, which they claim they did, and if they counted the ridges correctly, we should be able to find her. Coyote has gone back up the hill to locate a few creatures in the area that need to know we’re coming. He said he’d be back shortly; he and Bear will guide us to the Griffin.”

  “What creatures in the area?” asked Blue in a wary voice.

  “I don’t know who. Others of their kind, presumably, who can be asked to keep a friendly eye on us.” He looked up. Blue was regarding him with troubled eyes. “Blue, I’ll have some kind of weapon, so don’t worry. If we meet with danger, we’ll have a way to get out of it. Before we leave, will you tell the rescued stranger horses we expect them to behave themselves and not give Kim any trouble.”

  Blue wandered off to the picket line where the other horses were. Though only he and Rags were speaking horses, he had found he could communicate ideas to the other horses fairly well. It helped that they considered Kim, Abasio, and Xulai far preferable to their former owners, who enjoyed whipping and spurring and jerking on reins for no reason. This came to Blue through some kind of unspoken horse-­to-­horse communication. Herd-­com, something like the hive-­com bees do. When he told Rags what was going on, she joined him and they returned to Abasio together.

  “The big Griffin is hurt? Who did that?” she asked Abasio.

  “The male Griffin we’ve been worried about, Rags. There really is one. Bear says he’s black with sort of bronze edges to the scales on his belly.”

  “I never noticed scales on the one we saw.”

  “It could be a sex-­linked characteristic, I suppose. Or it could be a different genetic line. Bear says the male has scales beginning on the throat, between the front legs and continuing down the belly. He’s huge and extremely violent, and surprisingly, he actually has a name—­has had, since he was hatched. He’s called Despos! Bear quotes the Griffin—­ah, Sun-­wings—­as saying Despos was created when most of the other Griffins were, both the females and other males. All but him reached a maturity when they stopped growing, but Despos did not. He never has. Now he’s of a size and temperament . . .”

  “Knew a stallion like that once,” said Rags. “Big old bastard! No lineage to brag about, no form, no grace, but oh, my mama-­mare-­on-­grass, he was big! Huge! They had to get rid a’ him. He killed mares, one right after the other. Had no sense, none. Battered ’em!”

  “Why’n’t you an’ Xulai just kill this big one?” asked Bear, from behind them. “I know those Tingawans have weapons that’ll do it. I heard about ’em.”

  “He’s the only male left,” said Abasio without turning around. “He’s killed all the others. The females don’t live forever. Without young, the Griffins become legend.”

  “What they was to begin with,” muttered Bear.

  “Well, according to your legend,” said Xulai from behind them, “you should be living in a little house in the woods with your wife and one child, sleeping each in his own bed at night, sitting each in chairs at a table in the mornings eating breakfast porridge out of bowls, and receiving gratuitous visits from an unconscionably perky human child with terrible clothes sense and no appreciation of territorial boundaries!”

  Bear stared at her, the tip of his quivering pink tongue protruding slightly. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “It’s a well-­known human-­ish legend. According to Willum, all children know it just as they know that Farmer Donnal has different kinds of animals and Lunnon Tressel’s fallen down. I’m surprised you haven’t learned it so you can tell it to your cubs. If you have cubs, though I understand boar bears refuse to take any responsibility for their children. That may be legend, too. For all I know, bears never were natural. Maybe all of you were man-­made!”

  “Well, WE know different,” snarled Bear. From now on, he would make a point of talking to young bears! Even the she ones!

  Xulai put her hand on Abasio’s shoulder. “What’s all this noise about your going off without me?”

  He took the hand in his own. “Bear brings us word that our Griffin, the mother Griffin, has been badly hurt by the big male. She’s down and can’t fly—­her wing’s ripped, according to them. She can’t walk either. She left Willum, Needly, and the little Griffin holed up some distance from there, and they’re all alone with no one to protect them.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question!”

  He shook his head at her. “Xulai, let’s not waste time arguing, or even discussing. Neither of us will accept leaving Willum and Needly up there on their own! And we can’t risk our sea-­babies’ lives by taking them up there! Equally, we can’t take the very grave risk to our babies if we leave them with Kim while both of us go find the children. Even though they’re almost weaned, what would happen to the babies if Kim were accosted by an accusation of Lorpers?”

  Her eyes filled. “I suppose you’re going.”

  “What would you have me do?”

  “Oh, go, go, Abasio, of course you have to go. What else!”

  “That’s rather what I thought,” he said, putting his arms around her.

  She pushed him away and wiped her face, muttering, “I shouldn’t even question your going. It’s not that big a problem! I used the talker last evening, and Precious Wind told me they’d already entered Artemisia. She’ll be here day after tomorrow!” She looked up. Above the peaks, a crescent moon mocked them with a pale, disembodied grin. “No, it’s almost moonset. She’ll be here tomorrow.”

  His face lighted up. “Then you and Kim won’t be alone more than a few hours! Knowing Precious Wind, she’ll be here as quickly as she can. Don’t move from here! We’ll keep this place here as our meeting place. When we’ve found the children and done what we can among the Griffins, we’ll return here. If you all leave here before we get back, ask Precious Wind to leave a few ­people here to meet us, or carry messages or whatever.”

  “If the big Griffin can’t move, what will you do?”

  He stared into darkness. “I don’t know, Xulai. I truly don’t know. I’m hoping maybe she isn’t that badly hurt, that we can hunt for her and get water to her while she heals.”

  “That may be overly opti
mistic.”

  “Well, you know me. Always look on the shiny side.” He tried to smile, without great success.

  “Ha.”

  He drew himself up and attempted to look capable: half the battle, looking capable. “I do know one thing for sure. If I could move her, Artemisia would be the best place I could pick for the care and feeding of a large, wounded mythical beast. And her child. And if she can’t be moved, then Artemisia is the most likely place to find healers who will go to her and help cure her. When I know what the situation is, I can have someone—­Bear or Coyote maybe—­come here and guide any willing helpers back where the Griffin is, hopefully a healer of some kind . . .”

  “You would really need several ­people left here, then. To carry messages and so forth.”

  “Any help would be welcome.” He tried a confident grin, unsuccessfully.

  She said, “You haven’t noticed but I am helping. I began this conversation with help in mind. You’ve forgotten ul xaolat, haven’t you?”

  He stared into the darkness, momentarily gone elsewhere, mouthing uhl SHAH-­oo-­laht. Then—­of course, ul xaolat! The thing master: the hunter-­protector device they had used during their travel to Saltgosh; that Xulai had used when she jumped to Saltgosh to warn them about the marauders. He’d become so accustomed to using it as either personal jumper or defensive weapon, he’d forgotten it could also move big things! He had forgotten all about that particular attribute! It could move big things!

  “Do you think it could move a full-­sized Griffin?” he asked, ­wonderingly.

  She made a face. “I have been told if the holder of ul xaolat puts his hand on something, anything, the device will move that thing. It could probably move a mountain, given sufficient power. Moving a Griffin should be no problem. Distance is the problem, the thing only jumps about a day’s foot journey at a time, and since several ­people now have the devices, they’re all calling on the same power source. Depending on available power, the device may not always be able to make even that distance—­especially with a heavy load! To be safe, I would say half a day’s foot travel maximum with a Griffin. If it’s a two-­day journey, it will take four or five jumps to bring you back, and you will need to select and record locations on your way there.”