Fish Tails

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Precious Wind asked for an explanation of cata-­pull-­its, which Abasio provided. Shaking her head, she asked, “What are we doing about Sun-­wings when we go to the Oracles?”

  Abasio’s dissatisfaction with the entire Sun-­wings problem was reflected in his face. He glanced at Needly, nodding in her direction. “I’ve talked with her about it, Presh. We can’t carry her with us. She can limp enough to go in and out of the shelter she’s in, which is helpful from a sanitation point of view, but she can’t move quickly. If we can obtain more of the antidote from the Oracles, we’ll bring it back with us, or have someone jump it back. The main reason we’re going, of course, is to see if the Oracles can heal Willum.” He stared into space, wondering what he might have forgotten that he should have remembered.

  Needly said plaintively, “I feel so useless! I have Grandma’s notebook, but I’ve never made the stone medicine or its antidote. I’ve seen the plants once, but I don’t have any of them. They’re very rare. I might look for months and not find them. I’m sure she’s at the House of the Oracles . . . and I’d feel better if she told me what to do next.”

  Neither Abasio nor Xulai commented. They were both determined not to count on Grandma’s help until they had seen whether Grandma was, indeed, alive at the House of the Oracles.

  “Will Sun-­wings and Dawn-­song accept being left in the care of the Artemisians?” Precious Wind asked as she went to the fire to see if there was any chicken left. She looked questioningly at the others, accepted headshakes from Abasio and Xulai, then split the remainder between Needly and herself.

  As she returned to her seat, she said, “I asked Wide Mountain Mother if they were having any problem feeding Sun-­wings and her child. She said not, all the annoying old hunters notwithstanding. The Griffin is eating far less than normal because she’s not flying. Since some of the children have discovered that Dawn-­song likes to play, so they go in there and play with her. When I looked in yesterday, they were climbing all over Sun-­wings, and she seemed to be enjoying it . . .”

  Xulai, shocked, exclaimed, “Climbing on her? And she lets them?”

  Precious Wind looked at Needly and shrugged. “Encourages them! Needly was with them; the children were mostly younger than she, not big enough to hurt Sun-­wings. Perhaps it relieves Sun-­wings’ boredom.”

  Needly nodded in agreement. “One little boy brought her a rabbit he had snared. She ate it, told him it was very good. I think Abasio’s right. It would be safest not to move Sun-­wings at all if we can avoid it.”

  Xulai said, “Safest? She’s been moved before with no trouble.”

  “She has,” Precious Wind agreed. “And we’ve been very lucky that there was enough power when it was done. It could be a nasty situation to get her out in the middle of nowhere, immobile, and find there’s not enough power to move her at all. However . . .” She dropped her voice almost to a whisper. “I was thinking more of the fact that she’s making friends, as well as becoming a friend to a good many Artemisians. Friendship may give us some leeway when it comes to survival ­questions.”

  “She doesn’t need to go anywhere,” said Needly. “If the Oracles won’t come back and fix her, Grandma will! Precious Wind and I can hop Grandma back here!”

  Abasio still had grave doubts about that matter, “grave” being the operative word. According to Needly, her old caretaker was dead and had been buried in Hench Valley. Of course, Willum was also dead, or petrified, though not buried. If Willum could be returned to life—­which Abasio also had agonizing doubts about—­then others might also. He was trying to keep his doubts well hidden and retain an open mind on these questions of survival along with questions about a good many other things. Such as Oracles! And stinkers! And these idiotic dreams he kept having!

  He felt himself shaking. He was laughing! Why in hell was he laughing . . . over Fixit.

  Fixit. Fixit was just plain funny. The creature felt and sounded so real. And it looked so very . . . imaginary. What were those ancient books Precious Wind had told them of? Illustrated ones, the story told in pictures. Comedic books! Well, Fixit looked very much . . . like what one saw when one had been drinking too much! BUT if they needed help with those damned Edgers, Fixit would be the person . . . creature he would turn to.

  Despite Abasio’s affection for Willum (tried though it had often been) and his regard for Grandma (whom he had never met), their fates faded into relative insignificance when he focused on whatever it was the Edgers were up to! The Edgers were going to be a problem, probably the worst problem they would face—­and by “they” he meant any colleagues, friends, cooperative creatures who were working with them. Mother, Arakny, and the scouts and border riders had set up a network of riders, each with a spare horse, to observe and record any unusual movement in the more vacant areas of Artemisia as well as any movement from the north. Though there were very few mechanical vehicles left and very little fuel for them, the Edgers had somehow always managed to have both, supposedly from a huge buried industrial complex far east of here. It was said to have been set up originally to protect needed materials in a time of war and had gone on protecting them for centuries after the war was over. Machines wrapped in stuff that looked like spiderwebs, emerging from those wraps as though just manufactured. And, unfortunately, weapons, too.

  Of all those at Wide Mountain Mother’s meeting, Abasio had probably known the most about Edgers, how they acted, how they thought! Back when old Chief Purple had bought his way into an Edge, Abasio had run errands back and forth. He knew what Edgers were like. They could be pleasant and affable, and turn around and stab you in the back while still smiling. If they knew something bothered you, they’d use it like a dagger, stick it in and then twist it! The only way to avoid that was to maintain an appearance of uninterested calm. Of control. NO. Not so much control as an appearance of not caring! It was wearing him down. Or the dreams were. He seemed to be the only one struggling. No one else expressed any doubts whatsoever about Willum’s future, not the Artemisians, not Precious Wind or Xulai. Making a simple trip to visit ­people—­creatures?—­who had been visited before without incident should not fall into the category of “things that make one’s instincts scream ‘watch out!’ ” It made him feel foolish and inadequate, but the nerves in his back screamed danger, nonetheless. Or maybe he was having a personal aftershock from the earthquake.

  Leaving what he was beginning to think of as “the womenfolk,” Abasio went to talk with Sun-­wings herself. He had not forgotten her threat, which she had not withdrawn, and continuing to build goodwill between them could hurt nothing. He surprised himself by feeling an honest affection toward her, and not because of that long-­ago instance when she’d saved his life. Affection meant . . . well, it meant another burden. By any measure she was that! A person or creature one cared about was the most dreadful kind. Get in trouble with any ordinary burden: if trouble came, you dropped it and ran! If one dropped Sun-­wings, she would probably not just lie there and let you get away! And suppose she did? Think about all that weight on one’s conscience!

  Burden or not, threat or not, when he arrived at the big storage barn where Sun-­wings was being cared for, she seemed more relaxed about her situation than he was. When he went over his reasoning regarding the Oracles, she said, “You have it right, Abasio. It is best for me to stay here. The women in this place are kind and interesting. They feed me and my child very well. And I am enjoying the children.”

  She did not mention the thing she valued most: her relief at being in a place where she could not be seen from the air. When Despos had attacked her, when she had fallen into that little valley, when she had been there alone except for the hunter, it was only the second time in her life she could remember feeling . . . desperation. That was a word Needly had given her. She had said, “Do not despair, Sun-­wings. Do not feel desperation!” What was the other word Needly had used? “Terror.” Yes. Terror for Da
wn-­song. Both times she had felt that terror, humans had . . . helped. One child had rescued her hatchling, another child had sewn her wing. A day or so ago, the healers had said she had done it well. They had told her they would take the stitches out soon, perhaps tomorrow. The boy had put himself between the arrow and Dawn-­song. The man, Abasio, could have rescued the human children and left her there to die. She had threatened the humans, threatened to kill their children in the seas, and they could have left her there. They had not even argued about it. They had simply brought her back without ­question.

  So, if a Griffin needed help, where did the Griffin find it? If Despos returned, he would kill her and her child. All the other Griffins had flown to Tingawa, and she knew only two of them would have certainly helped her if they were here—­the two the children said they had named Bell-­sound and Golden-­throat. She was grateful. She knew the word. Grateful to those she had threatened to kill. It made a . . . a confusion. It was likely the ten Griffins who had come from the land to the south were also . . . good creatures, but she could not be sure.

  She was committed to doing her part carefully: never going out in daylight; diligently examining the night sky before she limped her way out to the place they had told her to use, the place that was always clean when she went to use it again. She spoke softly to the ­people who brought her food. She could sometimes smell fear on them, but nonetheless they came. The children weren’t afraid. Yesterday they had brought clean, warm water and brushes and Needly had directed them in washing her, all seventeen of them. She had counted. Little males, little females, chattering, noisy, affectionate. That was a new word. They had been “affectionate.” They had brushed her fur with wet brushes, rinsing them out, over and over. They had combed the feathers and wiped each one with cloths. She was still stiff from the fall, it was hard for her to reach, to groom . . . but, oh, it felt . . . better to be clean. And the children had done it for fun. She did not really understand fun. Dawn-­song had also been groomed, had also thought it fun, but she had not been able to explain it either, except to say it felt like swallowed bubbles!

  So she was depending upon humans, particularly on this one and his children and females . . . if that is how it worked. Griffins did not have . . . families. Mothers and young, yes. Sisters, maybe, if the older one had helped care for the younger. She wasn’t sure how it worked with human hes and shes. She did not know if any of them were worthy of trust. But if there had been other males than Despos? Perhaps it would have been more like humans. Families. And worthy of trust to do what? What more could they do than they had done already, as though there had been no choice but to do as they did? No choice but to do as they did. She set this aside to think upon later. There was something there she needed to understand . . .

  Now she asked, “Why are you worried? Is that the right word?”

  Abasio shook his head at her and told her the truth. “I’m apprehensive. That’s a little worse than worried. I don’t even really know why. I’ve felt this way ever since Coyote told us about the Edgers and the stinkers.” He rubbed his face in annoyance, trying to erase the frown lines. “I have no idea what it has to do with me or Xulai or our children . . . including Willum and Needly, but those creatures make me feel crawly.”

  “Crawly?”

  “Like . . . something unwelcome on your body, something that itches . . .”

  Sun-­wings did a strange thing with her beak. While he puzzled over that, she lifted her unwounded wing, half unfolding it. “There, in my wing pit, I feel a bug. Can you see it?”

  Abasio crouched to look up under the wing. He saw a bright blue thing, as long as his thumb and broad, rather beetle-­ish. “You want it out?”

  “I would be grateful. I can only reach there with a hind leg, the wrong hind leg. The children missed it yesterday, and it makes me feel crawly.”

  Abasio removed the bug between thumb and finger. Despite its crawliness, it was very beautiful. It had six legs, at least one pair of wings, and gemlike iridescent wing covers. “I don’t recognize it.”

  “You would have no reason to,” she said. “It’s a dragon flea. Soon after Griffins were made, dragon fleas appeared. Might it be Griffins and dragons are similar species? Or perhaps we are . . . the next best thing in the flea’s . . . judgment? Perhaps when some mankind made a Griffin he also made the flea, just as a . . . what would the word be? A little thing, a . . .”

  “A trifle, an amusement . . .”

  “Ah, I know. One of the boy children gave Needly a gift in a box. The box was . . . made fancy? It had around it . . .”

  “A ribbon and a bow? To make the gift special. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes. Something like that. So I think the one who made Griffins made the dragon flea like the bow on the box. Even though we are not dragons.” She purred. “I think you are troubled by a dragon flea in your brain.”

  She did the peculiar thing with her beak, and Abasio realized she was smiling. She had made a joke.

  He waved the beetle thing at her, saying, “I removed your dragon flea. Can you remove mine?”

  She did the smile thing again, a crinkling of the tissue at the outer edges of the beak. “I can take the idea of the stink creatures out of your head, but then your head would be of no more use to you and I think Needly . . . I think both she and Xulai would be . . . cross with me?”

  “Furious, I hope. That’s worse than cross.”

  She shrugged. “Furious. That is a Despos word! Always he is furious. Perhaps there is no cure for human crawlies or Griffin crawlies. I think maybe only very . . . Needly told me the word . . . ah! Only very ‘conscientious’ creatures have crawlies, ­people so . . . ‘ap-­pre-­hen-­sive’ they think of disasters ahead of time, and the thinking drives them into apprehen . . .”

  “Apprehen-­sion.” He did not like the other words that came to mind. Terror! Horror!

  Sun-­wings nodded: “Apprehension. That is what I feel for our future, your little ones and mine, Abasio. Give the flea to the one called Precious Wind. She collects . . . bugs.” She shifted, a little uncomfortably. “I have learned from Needly that names must have a Namer and a why. She said she and Willum were sent to be our Namers, and part of the why was our need for names and the other part was to name us suitably. Did Precious Wind have a Namer? And why is her name?”

  Abasio thought the question only slightly strange. “Her parents were her Namers. As she was being born, a wind came from the sea. That wind brought rain to save crops that were dying from lack of water.”

  “Ah. Crops would be food? Food much needed? I see. So the wind was ‘precious,’ which means . . .”

  “Of much value. Dawn-­song is of much value to you. Xulai and the children are of much value to me, we are of value to one another. We are treasured. You and Dawn-­song are treasured by us and by the children.”

  “Ah. Treasured. And a treasure is . . . something of value. Yes?” She sighed, a very human-­sounding sigh. “Give the flea to Precious Wind. She will . . . value it! She likes new things. Especially bugs. I find that strange but interesting. With your ­people, Abasio, I am finding many things strange . . . but interesting. If a person does not eat bugs, then why does a person like bugs?”

  ­“People . . . some ­people study the world around them.” He stopped, suddenly remembering the Great Litany. “The universe around them. They seek to understand the universe in all its parts. Bugs are parts, Griffins are parts, humans are parts . . . all that exists is . . . part of it.” He stepped back with a polite bow before wrapping the bug, which was still very lively, in his handkerchief, bidding her farewell politely, and taking the bug back to the wagon.

  The wagon his grandfather had built for him several lifetimes ago—­or so it seemed to him now. Though Precious Wind had a wagon of her own, she was spending most of her time with Xulai and the babies, and that is where he found her to give her the drago
n flea.

  “Where did you get this?” cried Precious Wind. “It’s beautiful. Xulai, Needly, look at the wing covers, that gorgeous azure blue! Green and purple lights in it. It’s marvelous!”

  “It’s a dragon flea,” Abasio said. “Sun-­wings sent it to you. It was itching her wing pit. She finds you strange but interesting.”

  “What are you grinning about?” demanded Xulai.

  He realized he was actually smiling. “Both Sun-­wings and I had a fit of crawlies. I rid her of hers, and she has rid me of mine.” He laughed. “I didn’t realize the Griffins have a sense of humor.”

  “Some of them have a sense of humor,” Needly corrected without looking up from her self-­imposed washup job at the dishpan. “There are sixteen adult females. Willum and I met six of them, and three of them have no humor or kindness in them: Flame-­tail, Copper-­beak, and Silver-­shanks, as well as the male, Despos. Despos is partly scaled, and I believe those four have serpent genes in their design. Two are carrying eggs in their pockets, and the other one, Silver-­shanks, has a female child, Snow-­foot. However, Snow-­foot was not sired by Despos, and she already has a sense of humor. She is a lovely little Griffin, like Dawn-­song. The other three adults are friendly ones: Sun-­wings and her child, Dawn-­song; Golden-­throat and her child, Amber-­ears; Bell-­sound and the baby male Griffin Willum and I hatched for her. We named him Carillon. He shouldn’t have been named until he was fledged, but the name just jumped out of my throat.”

  All three adults were staring at her with their mouths open. “Despos?” Xulai squeaked then, clearing her throat, “Despos is who?”

  “The male Griffin. He’s enormous and dangerous and destructive!”

  “You’ve seen him?” cried Xulai. “I didn’t realize . . .”

  “What’s this about pockets?” said Abasio.

  “Did you say ‘baby male Griffin’?” Precious Wind muttered. “We thought there might be only one male!”