Fish Tails

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Why?” asked Xulai.

  “ ’Cause if you really want them quiet, you can give them some beer. Willum said that’s what they do with teething babies in Gravysuck. It makes them sleepy.”

  “Does it work?”

  “He says it doesn’t hurt them any, so long as you don’t do it every time they start yelling ’cause then they get used to it and it doesn’t work anymore.”

  Xulai spent the next while wondering what among their stores might have a similar effect, deciding that one of the jugs of cider had possibly turned into something else, as sometimes happened. If not yet turned, it was on the verge of it. It didn’t matter, however. When she offered it, the babies preferred to spew it widely and then laugh like . . . like ravens making fun of the world!

  Ravens. Xulai felt an overwhelming sadness. When the world was underwater, what would ravens do? Magpies? Eagles? Butterflies? She caught herself weeping and told herself it was over the inexorable fate of butterflies.

  Chapter 9

  Finding Sun-­wings

  NEAR THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL BELOW THEIR cave, Willum, Needly, and Dawn-­song had turned downstream. Tree growth near the water was thick, so they paralleled the flow at some little distance, where they did not have to push through undergrowth. The forest was mixed, conifers and broad-­leaved trees, these now bare. The ground was carpeted with leaves. They had filled their water bottles but drank from the stream, Dawn-­song lapping water like a cat. “Y’don’t drink from t’bottle when y’r near water,” said Willum, as though quoting regulations. “ ’Less you refill it right then. Then, when y’need it, y’ll have y’r bottle full.”

  “Yes, Willum,” said Needly, who had never thought of that particular rule but believed it was probably sensible, for all that. She had come to believe that Willum had a very good brain that had not been used for very much. She had come to believe, also, that this was not out of laziness, but simply because there had been very little in Gravysuck requiring much thought. All duties and problems had been ritualized in Gravysuck. Everything was done as it had always been done. Why think? It had all been decided long ago.

  Even accidents and disasters had their rules and systems. If there were a flood, someone would recite Great-­Grandfather Omnuk’s solution to the flood of his time. Each disaster had its legendary cure.

  Chickens were plucked with the size of the feathers in mind, the little, downy ones into this sack being kept for coverlets and pillows. Goose feathers, the same, though more rarely. Goose quills for pens. Of course, one did not want to kill a good goose, one that laid plenty of eggs and hatched them well, but poultry had to be limited to those that could be fed in the wintertime. Chickens liked meat, too: grasshoppers, crickets, all kinds of little creatures, including tiny snakes and lizards. Little snakes and lizards, fillin’ chickens’ gizzards. A child’s rhyme. True, for all that.

  Pigs, cows, sheep, and goats had their own systems. Someone in or near each village or among several villages had to keep a bull; someone a stallion; someone else a ram or two; someone a ­couple of billy­goats. The same for boar pigs. Each of these male animals had one or two young ones picked to succeed him. As individual male animals aged, someone or some ones, in conference, selected a few males from the spring crop as possible successors, to be the bulls, stallions, boars, bucks, and rams of the future. A family could winter only the animals it could feed, so the keeping of the male breeders was divided up: this family kept the boars, that family the bull, that family the billygoats (because they lived somewhat away from the others where the smell was less noticeable). Those who housed and fed the breeders were paid a breeding fee to cover the cost of the food and care of an animal they all needed but that gave no food in return.

  Willum knew all these things in all their slight variations depending upon weather and temperature and availability of labor. And he knew the shape of the land. And he knew how to mark a trail so they would not get lost in the going. Yes. He had a good brain. Though he crowed considerably, he was not entirely cockerel. So thinking, Needly smiled wearily to herself as they trailed easterly down the little stream.

  At noon they had come to the place where the other stream came in from the south. Then they had to climb upstream, though it wasn’t a steep slope. From a high point, looking south, Willum was dismayed to see canyon beyond canyon, vertical walls, hideous depths, one beyond the other, as far as he could see. He prayed they would not have to go that far! By midafternoon, they had reached the canyon, and Dawn-­song was growing very tired. Despite a generous dose of genes from big cats, Griffins were not walkers, or trotters, and certainly not gallopers—­not for very long or very far. Needly suggested they stop for a while. She removed the blankets to let Dawn-­song drink deeply from the stream and take slices of bloody meat from Needly’s hand, to roll in the grass, wings held tight to her little body. Willum, whose energy seemed inexhaustible, went to the top of the nearest ridge and looked around.

  He came galloping back. “That stone bridge is just up ahead, not far, but the middle’s broken out of it. We can be there before long.”

  “We’re going to let Dawn-­song have a little nap,” said Needly. “Just a few minutes. She’s not a packhorse, and she’s not used to walking very far either.”

  Willum subsided. He sorted his pack and repacked it. He took off his shoes, shook the pebbles out of them, took off his socks, turned them inside out, put them back on, and then the shoes, which he carefully relaced to make the laces the same length at both ends. He went into the woods and came back with a walking staff cut from a sapling and neatly rounded at one end. At which point Needly woke the Griffin child and they began again.

  Willum had been right. The stone bridge was not far up the canyon. The walls at that point looked too vertical to scale easily, but there was an easier place just beside them, so they climbed out on the left side, the side where they should find Sun-­wings. Here they were on rock, uneven, sharp, difficult to cross. Dawn-­song struggled, Needly walking beside her, helping her place her feet. She made a mental note to create some slippers for the little Griffin. When they came opposite the stone bridge, Needly shook her head. They would have wasted time if they had come this far on the other side of the canyon, counting on the “bridge” to get across to the eastern side. It was only half a bridge, or two-­quarters of one, one-­quarter at each end. The central half had fallen, perhaps not long before, but long enough that the ends had weathered. More of Silver-­shanks’s malice? Probably. And it was malice. Bred in the egg.

  They went on, paralleling the canyon as its edge continued almost to the ridgeline before them, keeping watch off to the left for the place Silver-­shanks had described. Nothing. They went all the way to the ridgeline, and once there, stopped, horrified. In a clearing below them, Sun-­wings lay, wounded, prone, legs splayed, her head lying limply on the ground.

  Without any warning at all, Dawn-­song took off, half running, half fluttering, calling, “Mama, Mama, Mama, we’re here,” as she plunged down the slope. It was clear of most tall growth. The few shrubs she encountered were brushed aside.

  Needly had followed, more slowly. She, too, was very tired. She saw Sun-­wings raise her head, look dazedly around her. There was blood on her wings. She saw her child, and then . . . her face changed. Her beak gaped wide.

  “No, no, no, it’s a trap,” she cried. “No, child. Go back, it’s a trap.”

  As it was, for all three of them.

  IN THE GROVE WEST OF Artemisia, as Xulai was preparing their evening meal, she missed Kim and went looking for him. He was out on the road, standing very tall and peering into the east. ­“People on horseback coming,” he called at last. “Enough to raise some dust. What do you want me to do?”

  She walked out to the road, looked at the considerable dust cloud to the east. “Saddle the fastest horse and stay near it, out of sight. When the ­people get here, if all is well, I’ll
call you by name and you can join us. If I don’t call you or call the wrong name, stay out of sight and watch what happens. If it seems needed and you’re sure you’re not seen, circle south, then back to the road and go on toward Artemisia for help. Precious Wind is on that road; the only question is how far. Take all the horses you can manage if you can do it easily. Otherwise, leave them.”

  She, meantime, stayed by the fire, tending her stew of lentils, onions, and smoked sausage. She would drown the fire in a moment, as soon as the stew was warm. She batted at her ear, aware of a gnatlike buzzing, realizing after a moment that it was the buzzing of the far-­talker. She went back among the trees to the wagon and reached inside the door, where the device lived.

  “Xulai,” it said. “It’s me, Precious Wind. Last landmark I saw was a hill named the Devil’s Ah, at the end of the canyon. Where are you?”

  At which Xulai screamed a welcome, suggested several mutually contradictory courses of action, grabbed up the babies, and ran back to the road, standing there as a distant dust cloud came slowly closer, resolving itself eventually into several wagonloads of ­people and five or six dozen riders. Two horses cantered forward, and their female riders dismounted at her side—Precious Wind and a woman she did not know.

  “Arakny,” said Precious Wind, introducing the dignified, slightly graying woman dressed in one of the fringed leather dresses the woman of Artemisia wore on ceremonial occasions. “Arakny, this woman with tears running down her face is my dear friend Xulai. The man over there coming out of the woods is Kim, a countryman of mine who has obviously recognized we are friends. Though where Abasio is, I do not know.”

  “I shouldn’t greet you like this,” sobbed Xulai. “Arakny, Abasio has told me about you. I apologize for being so . . . emotional, but I’m so glad that reinforcements have arrived! It has been a difficult trip, Precious Wind, and just now I’m terribly worried about the children.”

  “What’s wrong with the babies?” cried Precious Wind, coming forward to look at them more closely.

  “The babies are fine, of course. I mean the other children . . .”

  “Xulai, give me that child! Bailai, is it? What a nice jacket you have, Bailai! You remember Aunty Presh, don’t you! And you’re getting so big!” To Xulai, “You say the wagon is in cover of the woods? And the horses? Never mind, tell me later. Let me get our ­people settled; there are enough of us to be quite safe making a fire near the pond there. We’ll put on the kettles, and while we’re doing that, perhaps you can tell us about these other children . . . ?”

  All of which was more or less the order of things that were told, partly with Kim’s help: Willum, who was off to see the world; Needly, whose father had sold her to a man who kills children; a Griffin named Sun-­wings, who has a child named Dawn-­song; both of whom were off in the forest, separated because Sun-­wings had been wounded. And, add to that, a male Griffin, almost a dragon, huge, that they didn’t know the location of, though he should be headed northeast as far as northeast went, if what Sun-­wings had told Coyote was true! It all poured out, in and out of order.

  Eventually Arakny said, “So Abasio has gone off with Bear and Coyote to help the wounded Griffin who is somewhere up there,” and she waved in the general direction of the entire western part of the continent. “And your two foster children are up there, also, heaven knows where, with another Griffin, a child Griffin. And the large male Griffin is far gone in blood lust? And one of the children is a strangely silver-­haired child who seems remarkably adult for her age. Is that about it?”

  Xulai could only nod. That was about it.

  “You see why I felt we should hurry!” said Precious Wind to Arakny.

  “You knew about all this?” said Arakny reprovingly. “I’m not sure we even brought enough supplies.”

  “No, Arakny, I didn’t know about it. I suppose I knew of it. Knew, that is, that something was wrong! I’ve known Xulai since she was born. One gets feelings about close friends and family. And then too, she and Abasio have a history of collecting these situations without at all meaning to . . .”

  The dignified woman nodded. “Well then, I’m glad we hurried.” She turned to Xulai, smiling. “She has driven us like a slave master, getting the group together to come meet you. She was sure you needed help.”

  “Oh, yes we do,” Xulai admitted. “Should we go back to Artemisia, do you think?”

  Precious Wind shook her head. “Before we think of returning anywhere, I think everyone needs food and sleep and consideration of what’s going on.” She turned to her companion. “Arakny, your folk are standing about over there waiting for your orders. Would you approve of our setting up camp here with Xulai? We’re not going to go off on any rescue missions until tomorrow, and perhaps not then. If Abasio is as competent as when I last saw him, he may well solve this dilemma. He has this Bear and Coyote with him? And your ul xaolat? Bear and Coyote, I am very, very eager to meet. Arakny, didn’t I understand that Wide Mountain Mother met one of them, long ago?”

  “Indeed,” said Arakny, her lips twisting to keep from grinning. Meeting a speaking bear had been one of the few occasions when Wide Mountain Mother’s imposing poise had been severely tested.

  “You haven’t brought your wolves?” asked Xulai, apropos of absolutely nothing.

  Precious Wind shook her head. “No. One of the men’s lodges has more or less adopted them in Artemisia. Quite happily. They all go hunting together.”

  Within a short time, a camp had been established; the horses were brought back to graze nearer the far end of the pond; and Precious Wind’s group of men and women had surrounded their area with small campfires, as though they were building a fortification. Kettles were hung over fires. Xulai walked into the camp to introduce the babies, only to have them seized from her immediately and passed around like a favorite dessert, everyone, male or female, wanting a taste. After an initial hesitation, Gailai and Bailai decided they had gone to aunt-­and-­uncle heaven and spent the next ­couple of hours being cuddled, dandled, and fed bits of mashed this and mashed that before each was given a nice, greasy chicken-­leg bone to gum happily as they moved from lap to lap.

  When Xulai mentioned that they needed their “trousers” washed out, a group of women accompanied her to see how this procedure was accomplished, with a good many “Isn’t that well done” remarks about the sleep garments Bertram had designed. Xulai, restored to equanimity by companionship, noted the interest gladly. Precious Wind regarded the Artemisians as preferred stock and had hoped these ­people might provide a good many first-­generation sea-­dwellers!

  When the babies finally slept, Xulai was introduced to other ­people whom Abasio had mentioned, and when she told them of Bertram’s books, Arakny’s eyes lit up.

  “That’s another reason we hurried. The weather should hold long enough for half a dozen of us and one wagon to get over the pass and down the far side as far as Gravysuck. The ­people in Tingawa decided it made more sense for someone to go over there from Artemisia than to send ­people all the way from Tingawa. We have a small, portable machine that Tingawa sent to us. All we need to do is put our little conveyer belt together, have someone stack books at one end and take them off at the other. Of course, if there are as many books as you say, it will take us well into winter, at least. Once we have everything in the library, we’ll duplicate it a few times here, then Precious Wind says it needs to go to Tingawa to be duplicated there!” She beamed with excited pleasure. “We haven’t had any new books in a generation or more!” Her face calmed, and she shook her head a few times, smiling at nothing.

  Then she frowned, looked perplexed, turned to Xulai, and said, quite suddenly, “Xulai, did I simply not understand the core of this Griffin story, or have you not told us? You have not mentioned why the Sun-­wings creature took the children in the first place.”

  And, of course, that was the core of the whole matter, whic
h Kim spoke of, and Xulai spoke of, and the babies, wakened by all the noise, also spoke of when they heard Willum and Needly’s names: “Illum, Illum, Illum. Eedy, Eedy, Eedy.”

  “So your children are actually second-­generation sea-­children,” murmured Arakny, spoon poised, waiting for Gailai to either swallow or spit out the bit of potato she had been given. “Do you intimate that the first-­generation changers are not so attractive?”

  “I think it would depend on your point of view,” said Xulai a little stiffly. “Having eight sinuous, sucker-­laden, leaden-­gray arms enables one to do remarkable things, really.”

  “What would the Griffins change into?”

  “I have no idea, nor do they. Whatever race of creatures did this first, that race needed an interim generation as a logical transition step. That race, humans, had to be able to recruit others. We could not travel overland if we had a purely aquatic shape nor could we demonstrate the change if we had a purely terrestrial one. We need both. The sea-­children should never need to travel on land, so they don’t need the interim generation. I’m reasonably sure all that was planned in advance. Abasio and I were not given a choice.” She paused. Whatever she said next, Precious Wind would remember forever . . . She breathed deeply and went on: “ . . . but whatever it might have been, we would have chosen to live through it together. Having that choice was the important thing!

  “The Griffins do not want their race to die out, any more than we do. They believe they too need to be offered a sea life and we understand why that longing among Griffins is even more urgent than ours! You and Precious Wind and I will be gone long before the waters have completely risen, we will not be personally faced with drowning or watching our children drown, but when the waters have covered everything, Sun-­wings and her child will probably both still be alive! They were designed to live, they have said, two thousand years or more! And not only Griffins want a sea-­form. As they left, I heard Coyote and Bear asking Abasio if Tingawa was doing anything for bears, anything for coyotes to make them seaworthy.”