Within the Sanctuary of Wings

by Marie Brennan

  Even had I been the most beloved figure in the Sanctuary, I would not have tarried long in Imsali. Over the long months of winter I had mostly succeeded in turning my thoughts away from the circumstances under which I vanished: the avalanche, the unknown fate of my companions, and the certainty that the world believed me dead. But now that my departure was under way, the weight of those concerns returned in force, and I chafed at every delay.

  I will not pretend that I felt no trepidation at all. So long as I remained where I was, everything outside the Sanctuary was like a hand of cards dealt but not yet examined. They might be good or they might be bad; once I lifted them from the table, all possibilities but one would vanish. I might lose the dread of tragedy … or I might lose the buoyancy of hope. Until I looked at my cards, I suffered the one, but also clung to the other.

  But it is not in my nature to hide from such things when I have the option of moving forward. So far as I am concerned, uncertainty and inaction are among the worst forms of torture: it was much easier to head for the col than to hide in the Sanctuary, ignorant of what lay beyond.

  And so I dressed myself once more in my mountaineering clothes—now rather baggier than before, owing to the weight I had lost over the winter. I was a far cry from the trim, fit woman who had approached the col from the east, though trekking to the place of the elders and back had done a small amount to put me back in condition. My hair was ragged, my skin weathered by sun and cold wind, my limbs pale as rawhide and every bit as stringy. Alone, I stood little chance of crossing the border of the Sanctuary; the western slope might be forgiving enough to spare a hypothermic, concussed woman staggering along on a cracked fibula, but the eastern side would put an end to me in short order. I doubted I could even make it down the Cursed Crack on my own, by any means other than falling.

  Fortunately, I would have Draconean aid in the first part of my travels. The sisters did not dare help me much outside the Sanctuary, but their limited capacity for flight was sufficient to at least carry me over the worst parts of the descent along Cheja’s slopes. After that … the impending mental and physical challenges of crossing the Cheja Glacier solo gave me something to think about besides more personal fears.

  First the col; then the journey to Hlamtse Rong; then I intended to get myself deported by the Tser-zhag. (What I had once spoken as a jest had in truth become the most practical method of leaving the country.) Once in Vidwatha, my true undertaking would begin.

  Even for a woman who has faced as many trials as I have, it was a daunting prospect.

  Habarz’s blessing was a simple one. He marked a yellow spot on my forehead with some kind of pollen—the symbol of the sun—and recited a prayer comparing my journey to that of the sun, which vanishes into an abyssal cave each night only to reappear the following day. There were butter lamps, whose flame and fuel are both reminiscent of the sun; there was a bell, to drive away any ill fortune that might follow me. I wished the ritual were known to me, for then I might have taken comfort in its familiar shape. As matters stood, it did nothing to calm my nerves, and I fear I was more brusque in my farewells to Kuvrey and Sejeat than I should have been.

  But they did not take offense. “May we see you again soon,” Kuvrey said. With an awkward curtsey, I departed.

  * * *

  Four of us set out from Imsali: myself, Ruzt, Kahhe, and Zam. The bright air and singing birds made it feel like a springtime ramble, but the sisters were irritable, for they were in the process of shedding their scales. These had indeed bleached pale during the winter, and I was pleased to see my theory confirmed, with the new layer much darker than the old. They also collected their shed scales, as I had surmised, and saved them for later use as insulation.

  The moulting process likely did not explain all of their irritability; nerves also accounted for a great deal. But we were all happy to blame the situation on biology, rather than speak of our impending lunacy. Conversation fell away as we approached the col, until we marched in almost complete silence.

  I was just as glad not to be speaking. Even a small gain in elevation can have a shocking effect on the body, and my reduced condition meant I was breathing hard long before we neared the top. I skidded often on the rocky slopes, making errors I would never have committed a year before, and could ill afford if I were to make it to Hlamtse Rong alive. Each slip motivated me to sharpen my focus, until we reached the snow line, above which the mountains never thawed.

  Then I stood, gazing at the col. It is rare that profound changes in one’s life are marked by so sharp a geographic boundary: the woman I had been on the eastern side of that ridge was not the woman who now stood on the west. Crossing over would not transform me back into my former self—and I would not accept such a reversion if it were offered. I only hoped that my return journey would not bring a second transformation, one into a life of disaster and sorrow.

  It seemed that exhaustion and nerves had the power to turn me maudlin. I shook off those sentiments, turning to the sisters and saying, “Should we attempt our crossing today?”

  After some conference, we agreed that we should camp below the snow line and wait until the following day. Apart from strong winds, we had relatively little to fear from the weather in this season—this was the time of year my companions and I had originally aimed for in our own plans—and as much as I wished to move forward, I knew the respite would do me good.

  That night I sat outside our tent, looking at the stars and thinking of the night before my human companions and I began our assault on the col, when I had sat around the fire with Suhail and Tom, discussing the biology of an unknown draconic species. The prospect that either of them could be dead—or both—gripped my heart so painfully, I honestly thought for a moment that I might be suffering a heart attack. Such things have been known to strike people who exert themselves too much at high elevations. But it was only fear; and the only cure was to rejoin the human world—where, I told myself firmly, I was certain to find them alive. I would accept no other prospect.

  And to find them, I myself must survive what lay before me.

  * * *

  Dawn on this side of the range was a cold, grey affair, though Anshakkar burned like a torch to light our way. Despite fierce winds that would make crossing the col difficult, we set out early, not wanting to be caught cold and tired on the descent, where we would rapidly lose our light.

  I am grateful to the sisters, who formed a team as effective as any cordée of mountaineers. Their irritability notwithstanding, they worked together in a harmony that was almost supernatural, anticipating each others’ moves without a word being said. In skill they were not comparable to the humans who challenge themselves on the slopes and peaks of the world; but the structure of their society, which treats the sister-group as the highest bond, fosters an enviable degree of cooperation. (In its best form: I will not pretend all groups achieve or maintain such cordiality.) Although I was not included in that harmony or familiarity, I benefited from it all the same, and by the time we neared the crest of the col an upwelling of confidence buoyed my tired limbs. The sun had risen high enough to light our slope; to reduce the risk of another avalanche, we were making our way along a stony little rise at the margin of the snow slope I had wandered down months before.

  Then Zam’s powerful arm reached out and slammed me sideways, flattening me against the rock.

  She did not mean me harm. It was the instinct of a Draconean who has long guarded the borders of her land: she saw movement, and acted swiftly to hide us.

  I had blithely assumed we left the risk of ambush behind in Imsali. But if someone wished us to vanish quietly, without causing a fuss … what better place to do it than here, on the edge of the Sanctuary, where no one was present to see?

  My smoked-glass goggles were long gone, having vanished along with my spare alpenstock during the avalanche, but I had contrived a slitted eye mask to protect my vision against the glare of snow. Now I pulled it off, the better to see what lay
ahead.

  The movement was at the top of the col, near the flank of Cheja. A figure—no, two of them, moving back and forth along the snow. I recall thinking, with the cold-blooded calculation of fear, that it was peculiar behaviour for ambushers, who surely must wish not to be observed before they struck.

  Then I measured the figures against the surrounding terrain.

  Zam was too slow to stop me. I charged forward, scrambling up the slope at a pace much faster than was wise, shouting as I went. The wind tore my words away. I kept losing sight of the pair, for I had to look where I put my hands and feet lest I fall to my death; and to go through the snow would be no faster, as then I would only flounder along as if through mud. But I glanced up as often as I could—and then my next glance showed me one of the figures sliding down toward me at a pace even more unsafe, dislodging stones that could easily have rewarded us with another avalanche.

  But the mountains, ever my perverse ally, held their peace. And then the figure skidded to a halt and remained where it was, as if all strength had fled. The task of crossing the remaining ground fell to me. I staggered upward, a name already on my lips, even though the man in front of me was so heavily bundled in clothing that to claim recognition was sheer hubris. I knew him; I would know him anywhere. “Suhail.”

  His hands were shaking as he dragged his goggles loose. They disclosed a face as weathered as my own, and eyes spilling over with disbelieving tears. Though the wind tore the sound away, his lips shaped the words, “All praise to God.”

  Nothing in my life has ever felt more like a miracle. I collapsed to my knees at his side; and we were still locked in embrace when Thu, descending with a great deal more care, arrived to witness our reunion.

  * * *

  The story came out in pieces, for neither of us was coherent enough to make it through more than half a sentence at a time.

  Although my career has been built on a foundation of careful observation, I doubted the evidence of my own eyes. How could those two men be there? It was far too early in the spring for them to have returned to Tser-nga; for me to chance the heights at this date was ambitious, and possible only because I began from so nearby. Had I let myself dream of my companions’ return, I would have calculated it for a month hence.

  The answer, of course, was that their departure point was equally close. Suhail and Thu had spent the winter in Hlamtse Rong—not because they were snowed in, as I had been, but because they refused to leave.

  They had no expectation of my survival. But Suhail would not hear of leaving my body in the mountains; he was determined to wait until spring, and then comb the path of the avalanche until he found my remains and gave them a proper burial. To his mind, the only question was who would stay with him, and who would go to inform the Scirling army of my death and the results of our expedition.

  All of my companions had survived. I went as limp as Suhail at that news; I could not have stood up for all the iron in the world. They had escaped the worst of the avalanche, faring much better than I did; but their attempts to find me in the aftermath had comprehensively failed, though they risked their lives in the search. Only the certainty that all four of them would die if they remained at the col had finally driven them down—and even at that, the other three had dragged Suhail away by main force. By the time the storm passed, there was no hope of finding me alive; and indeed, by then I would have been dead were it not for my Draconean rescuers. They returned to Hlamtse Rong in grief, and there agreed that Chendley and Tom would leave, while Suhail and Thu would stay.

  Why that division? I did not ask immediately, though I did wonder. Chendley’s duties called him east, of course; and Suhail, as I have said, insisted on waiting for spring. To send Chendley off on his own would have been much too hazardous, and so he needed a companion. But why was it Tom who had gone, and not Thu?

  The answer to that came later. In the meanwhile, they had a question of their own, to wit: how in God’s name had I survived?

  I finally broke from my daze enough to look around. The sisters had not followed me in my uphill charge; that was hardly surprising. But what on earth could I possibly say to explain my presence here, if I could not point to a Draconean as the answer?

  They must have conducted a rapid argument amongst themselves, while I was lost to the world in my own reunion. When I looked up, Ruzt was concealed among the rocks not far away, watching me with a steady eye. I met her gaze, and something passed between us. We were not sisters, to read one another’s minds through long familiarity; but we had built a rapport over the winter months, in which we learned to communicate by means both verbal and otherwise, and I knew what she was saying now.

  With my heart beating so strongly I could taste my pulse upon my tongue, I nodded my agreement.

  She stepped out from behind the rocks, standing tall in the sun. “There,” I said, my voice pleasingly steady. “There is the Draconean who saved my life.”

  * * *

  The side of a mountain above the snow line is not the best place to conduct an extended conversation. At some point during what followed, we agreed to retire to a more comfortable spot—still on the western side of the col.

  Suhail and Thu had known for months that such organisms existed: humanoid bodies with draconic heads. And Suhail, of course, had both his archaeological knowledge and his familiarity with my draconic expertise to draw on in forming conclusions based on that fact; moreover, he had the entirety of a long Mrtyahaiman winter in which to contemplate the possibilities. But as I myself had discovered, it is one thing to find a frozen specimen, and quite another to meet the living cousin face to face. (Or rather three of them, as Kahhe and Zam had, with palpable reluctance, joined Ruzt in view.)

  I could scarcely tear my gaze away from my husband. Winter had left its marks upon him, as it had upon me. For many years his family had pressured him to become a prayer-leader; the colloquial phrase for this is “to grow one’s beard,” as Amaneen prayer-leaders do not shave their faces. I assumed Suhail was no more inclined to the religious life now than he had been, but he had at least grown his beard: a useful addition to the face in a Mrtyahaiman winter, though one I hoped he did not intend to keep. This, I eventually realized, was a source of some hilarity to Zam, who had found my own hair astonishing enough; she had not realized that the males of my species could grow it upon their chins as well.

  But there was little hilarity in those initial moments, as we were all too busy reeling from our various shocks. Suhail’s own gaze kept alternating between me and the Draconeans, pulled this way and that by his dumbfounded relief on the one hand, and his astonished curiosity on the other. When I explained the situation to my caretakers, his expression took on the abstracted cast I knew so well; it was the look he bore when the greater part of his mind was devoted to efforts linguistic. “You were right,” I said to him, breaking off my explanation. “Their language is related to Lashon and Akhian. No doubt you’ll be more fluent than I am in a week.”

  The complex tangle of languages caused no little difficulty. My Draconean companions were accustomed to hearing me mutter to myself in Akhian, but Scirling was wholly unfamiliar to them, and it made them nervous: to them it had the sound of a code, used so they could not hope to guess at what I was saying. But it was the only language Thu and I had in common; and he and Suhail still resorted to Yelangese on occasion, which they had used a great deal during their own winter sojourn. Together with Draconean, there were four languages tumbling around in our conversation, and matters often ground to halt while a concept was carried through the necessary chain of translations.

  My first task was to explain to the sisters who these two men were. This went with relative ease, for they recalled my story of how I came to be in the Sanctuary—and I think that Ruzt and Kahhe at least were very glad to see my fears laid to rest, though Zam may not have cared overmuch. After that, however, I was peppered with questions from both sides: Why had Suhail and Thu come back? How many Draconeans were th
ere? Were other humans coming over the col? Where had I lived all winter? Could the men be trusted not to speak of what they had found? Could they be permitted to see a Draconean city?

  “Enough!” I exclaimed at last. I honestly cannot recall which language the word emerged in, but the meaning was clear to everyone. I pressed my hands to my aching head and tried to marshal my thoughts into order. Then I turned to the Draconeans and said, “You are safe for now; there are only two of them, though we should discuss what will happen next. But will you let me explain matters to them first? I think they are much more confused than you.”

  Permission thus obtained, I began to direct the traffic of the conversation in a fashion that even I will admit was imperious and high-handed. It was the only way to retain my sanity, for individuals on both sides kept breaking in with new questions. By the time I had satisfied everyone’s initial curiosity to an acceptable degree, it was almost midday, and my throat was so dry I felt I could have swallowed all the snow on Gyaptse.

  Silence fell after I stopped talking. Suhail finally released my hand—he had not parted contact with me since we were reunited, save when the practicalities of moving to a more sheltered spot required it—and climbed to his feet. Kahhe was the nearest of the sisters; he approached her with his hands extended. “May I?” he said, doing her the courtesy of addressing her even though she could not understand the words.

  I translated his query, expanding upon his meaning, and Kahhe nodded. Suhail walked a circuit around her, studying her with open fascination. As he came again to his starting point, he began a process familiar to me from my earliest days in their house: pointing to objects and suggesting words for them, based on his attempts to reconstruct the Draconean language. When I tried to answer him, he waved me off with a fond smile. “You have talked yourself hoarse already,” he said. “And I cannot pass up the chance to learn from them.”