When we arrived at the copse of dwarfish trees where the elders and their guards waited, he showed respect to the elders as I had advised him, crossing his arms over his body in imitation of wings. Then he bowed in his own manner—a tiny inclination of the body; as much as could be expected from a man of his station—and held out a small object. “Lady Trent, if you would give this to them. It is my gift, in gratitude for their hospitality.”
A few torches lit the area, enough for me to see what he held. It was an intricate carving of a dragon, not very large, but all the more impressive for being executed so small—especially as it appeared to be made of jade, which is quite a hard stone. My naturalist’s instinct made me want to study it more closely, to see if I could identify the breed, but I carried it to one of the guards, who passed it to Habarz.
With that to pave the way, I told the story of the first emperor of Yelang, as Thu had told it to me: how the dragons had taken human form and blessed the man, and how this blessing was believed to legitimate each subsequent dynasty in turn. And I told how the Taisên had slaughtered dragons for their bones—but honesty would not allow me to leave the matter there. “My own people have done the same,” I said, “although now we have a way of creating the substance of dragonbone from other materials, as one creates butter from milk.” I bowed my head. “Indeed … I myself have been party to the killing of dragons. It is necessary for my study of them. But I confess that after coming here, to the Sanctuary, my feelings on the matter are rather different from what they were before.”
How could they not be? We still do not know which draconic species first gave rise to the Draconeans themselves; it may be a breed long since gone extinct. But I could not look at dragons any longer without seeing them as the cousins of the Draconean people. I believe this would have been true even had Ruzt not told me their myth, the one in which humans were born from the fronts of the four sisters, and dragons from their backs. I do not credit that story as factually accurate, but that does not prevent it from carrying a more symbolic truth. There are times when the death of dragons is unavoidable—they are, after all, still large predators who occasionally take it into their heads to threaten the lives of others—but ever since my time in the Sanctuary, it has been my habit to avoid killing whenever I can.
My revelation occasioned some muttering among the Draconeans, and a conference between Kuvrey, Sejeat, and Habarz, for which I stood well back and forced myself not to eavesdrop. At last Kuvrey turned back and said, “That is not the matter for which you brought us here tonight.”
“No, it is not.” I took a deep breath and brushed my hair from my face. The elders were correct; my own past behaviour was not the most important issue at hand. We were concerned now with nations, not individuals. “The alliance Giat Jip-hau proposes to you is this: if the council bestows its blessings upon his reign—publicly, with one or more Draconeans accompanying him into Yelang for the purpose—then when he claims the throne, Yelang will in turn acknowledge and protect the sovereignty of this place.” Figuring out a way to say “sovereignty” had occupied far too much of my time and Ruzt’s. If the Draconeans ever had such a word, it had been lost during the ages in which they hid from all foreign relations.
Before the elders could respond, I added, “This also protects you against my own people. Scirland will gain more from a friendly dynasty in Yelang than it will from taking over the Sanctuary of Wings. If they fail to respect your borders, they will lose their alliance with the Khiam Siu. If the Khiam Siu fail to honour their agreement with you, then you can withdraw your blessing of them, which will endanger their standing in Yelang. Because both groups benefit from your continued independence, they will be your shield against anyone else who thinks to threaten it.”
I knew full well that what I proposed was a house of cards. Others have built such things before, and seen them collapse, sometimes in catastrophic ways. It was, however, the only solution any of us could see: myself or any of my companions, human or Draconean. But the entire proposal hinged on one question: would the Draconeans bestow their support on a group of humans? It would cost them very little, and they stood to gain much … but part of the cost would be the willingness to look past the disputed history of the Downfall, their ancient fear of our species, and extend the hand of friendship in view of all the world.
Kuvrey looked at Giat Jip-hau. He did not cast his eyes downward, but met and held her gaze. According to the customs of the Draconeans—and in some ways, the customs of humans—his boldness constituted a challenge. I understood, however, his unwillingness to appear meek in front of potential allies. This man aspired to be the emperor of one of the most powerful nations in the world. He could not begin by showing submission to anyone. Even his bow at the beginning had been a noteworthy concession.
Finally Kuvrey said, “He will have no answer tonight. No decisions at all will happen until the remainder of the council arrives. But we will consider this proposal, Zabel, and weigh it against what the other human has said.”
Dorson’s offer was not nearly so attractive as this one, and the elders disliked him besides. I could not imagine them accepting his overtures, in preference to those of the Khiam Siu.
But those were not the only two options on the table. The Draconeans might decide to follow some third course entirely—one I could not begin to predict.
Sejeat asked, “Our people you wish to send with him. Would they be safe?”
I translated her question for Giat Jip-hau. He said, “I would do everything in my power to protect them. But I cannot guarantee their safety—any more than I can guarantee my own.”
It was a fair answer. I gave it to the elders, who simply nodded; and then the meeting was at an end.
TWENTY
Sharing credit—The alliance is formed—Insufficient interpreters—A grand entrance—On the plains—Taking Tiongau—Giat Jip-hau’s plan
To say that Dorson was displeased by what we had wrought in the night is a profound understatement, but a more accurate description would entail words I prefer not to use in print.
He was displeased when Giat Jip-hau returned to camp—Andrew having dutifully woken him up when the other sentry spotted the prospective emperor returning. He was displeased when he heard that the leader of the Khiam Siu had met with the Draconeans, and I had engineered it. He was displeased when he realized that he could not punish me by shutting me out of his own negotiations, for without me, there could be no negotiations at all; he even went so far as to question my probity in translating their exchanges, and only desisted when Tom threatened to duel him then and there.
I thought of placating the colonel by offering a different kind of glory: allowing him to claim the credit for engineering the three-way alliance between the Sanctuary, Scirland, and the future Yelangese dynasty. But when I opened my mouth to speak the words, they would not come out. I had finished with such concessions. When others have contributed to my achievements, I am more than willing to give them credit. I would not have come to the Mrtyahaima had Thu not first located the dead Draconean’s remains and identified them as something unusual; I would not have been driven into the Sanctuary, and the hands of Ruzt and her sisters, had Tom not spotted the second body in the col; I would not have been able to communicate half so well with the Draconeans had my husband not unlocked the first doors of their language. There are countless others to whom I owe thanks, ranging from my father to my first husband Jacob to Lord Hilford, from Yeyuama in the Green Hell to Shuwa in Hlamtse Rong. I even owe a debt to that unknown desert drake who laid her eggs atop the buried entrance to the Watchers’ Heart.
Dorson had provided me with transportation into the Mrtyahaima, and had played a catalyzing role in sparking our negotiations that spring, not least of all because he brought Giat Jip-hau with him. But he had no part in the alliance, except to obstruct it—and I would not hand him those laurels simply to win his goodwill. As I said to Tom, “He can either join in and do his bit, for which I will than
k him … or he can get out of the way.”
The way in question was, of course, alliance. It did not happen overnight: the remainder of the council arrived on the same day that Dorson finally sent the caeliger back across the Sanctuary wall to inform the rest of his expedition of what he had found, and after that things got very, very complicated. But in the end, the council voted to proceed as we had discussed, blessing the reign of the first Khiam emperor.
Some delusionally optimistic part of me had thought that once this was arranged, I would be able to go home. I have rarely been prone to homesickness, but by then my longing for Scirland was so powerful I could taste it. Although I had been reunited with Suhail and Tom, my son still believed me to be dead, along with Natalie and all my family save Andrew, and all the good friends and colleagues I had acquired along the way. It would sadden me to leave behind Ruzt and Kahhe and yes, even Zam, but the Sanctuary was not and could never be my home.
My rationality soon reasserted itself, though. Suhail was devoting himself to the task of learning Draconean with a single-mindedness that astounded even me, and a rate of success that put me utterly to shame. Giat Jip-hau and several others were also bending their efforts to this task, albeit more slowly; and in turn we were teaching small amounts of some human languages to the Draconeans. Scirling and one or more of the Yelangese tongues were the most useful diplomatically, but the Draconeans made the greatest strides with Akhian, because of its relationship to their own language. As strenuously as we all worked, however, I remained the only person who could converse with both species in anything like a fluent manner (and even then, my limitations remained great). No one else, after all, had endured months in which there was nothing to do but herd yaks and acquire vocabulary.
This meant that any alliance expedition must necessarily have me along—and so it was that, ten years after my deportation from Yelang, I returned to that land in a convoy of Scirlings, Khiam Siu, and Draconeans.
* * *
Counting both those who came into the Sanctuary on that initial flight and those who had remained outside, the Khiam Siu accompanying Dorson’s forces numbered just under a score, plus Thu Phim-lat. A pair of these remained behind in the Sanctuary, but the rest formed the core of our laughably small invasion force.
To these we added a round dozen Scirlings, including myself, Tom, and Colonel Dorson, and four Draconeans. The elders had decided upon a suitable punishment for the transgressions of Ruzt, Kahhe, and Zam: they would be the ones to accompany our group, risking themselves in a world full of humans. But in the end they numbered four, not three, because their clutch-brother Atlim insisted on accompanying them.
This occasioned yet another argument—I thought they would never end. To the Draconeans, four is an auspicious number, echoing the four sisters from whom their species is said to descend. But to the Yelangese, four is decidedly inauspicious; in most Yelangese languages, that word is a homophone for “death.” But Atlim would not remain behind. In the end we resorted to numerical sleight-of-hand; there were not four Draconeans, but three plus one. Only the sisters would publicly bless the new emperor, with Atlim standing aloof.
So altogether we numbered thirty-three. This was, of course, not nearly enough to mount a revolution off our own bat. Should it come to that, however, we were already lost; for it would mean the bulk of the Khiam Siu movement, those revolutionaries who had remained in Yelang, had failed to rise to Giat Jip-hau’s banner. Without them, we had no hope of success; more soldiers in our party would not change that.
And waiting for more soldiers would only put us at risk of losing the element of surprise. Dorson’s message to the outside world had of course been sent with strict orders for military security—but none of us (including Dorson, once his bluster faded) believed that would last for long. And once the Taisên learned about the Sanctuary, their own soldiers would be here as fast as their caeligers could fly. To avoid a pitched battle in this hidden valley, and to preserve the impact of the Draconeans’ first appearance in Yelang, we had to move as soon as we could.
The remainder of the Scirling contingent, and a pair of Khiam men, stayed behind in the Sanctuary. Andrew argued vociferously to come with us to Yelang, but I took him aside and pled with him to accept command of the Sanctuary forces. “You are the only one among Dorson’s men I trust to safeguard the alliance we have made,” I said.
“Suhail will be here,” he said, his jaw set in its most stubborn line.
It was not an argument calibrated to sway me. Leaving my husband behind was one of the most wrenching decisions I have ever had to make; after our winter-long separation, neither of us was yet ready to be parted once more. But it was the only feasible choice: with me gone from the Sanctuary, Suhail was the closest thing to an interpreter anyone there would have. His command of Draconean was still weak, but he would be competent with it long before anyone else could hope to be.
“Suhail’s authority does not apply to the military,” I said. “I need you both here. And—” My throat closed up unexpectedly. “I need you to watch over him. Whatever the council has voted, there are Draconeans who do not like this alliance at all. If something were to happen to him while I am gone—”
Andrew gripped my shoulders. “Say no more. I’ll keep him safe.”
I have never asked who it was that arranged for Suhail and I to be alone on my final night in the Sanctuary, with Ruzt, Kahhe, Zam, and Thu all quartering elsewhere. I think it must have been my husband; but it may have been one of the sisters. Not Zam, as she had little understanding of human notions of privacy and pair-bonding, but Ruzt or Kahhe might have done it. Regardless of the cause, we had one night in which we need not attend to anyone else’s troubles but our own.
Suhail had made no secret of his reluctance to let me go, but he understood the need, and he was smiling as we cleaned out the bowls that had held our supper. I should not have had any appetite, but after a long winter of limited rations, my body had little concern for the distress of my mind. (In particular, the tins of lime juice from Dorson’s supplies were exceedingly welcome. I had nearly forgotten what it felt like to have my teeth sit secure instead of loose.)
“How can you be so cheerful?” I demanded of him. Despite my words, a little smile of my own kept tugging at the corners of my mouth.
“I am just thinking,” he said, “that most people will not have heard yet that you are alive. What a grand entrance you will make!”
This was so at odds with my own mood that could only stare at him. Then he came and enfolded me in his arms; and to my surprise, I found myself laughing. “Indeed,” I said at last. If the shoulder of his shirt was damp by the time I drew back, neither of us commented on it.
And that is all I shall say of that night.
* * *
So it was that in early Gelis, just days before my fortieth birthday, we crossed the wall of the Sanctuary—the far wall, on the western side. The mountains there were even more deserted than the western edge of Tser-nga, but soon shrank into foothills, which gave out onto the high plains of Khavtlai. The people there had been subject to Yelang for over a century, but the Taisên presence was minimal: the imperial soldiers were content to hunker down in forts, leaving the trackless grasslands to the nomadic herdsmen of the region.
We could avoid the Taisên, but not the Khavtlek, who are as adept as Akhian nomads at knowing who passes through the vast empty spaces of their home. Fortunately for us, they had no particular fondness for their overlords, and could be persuaded to turn a blind eye to our passage. We had only to keep our Draconean companions hidden—for as much as we wanted their presence to make a stir, we did not want it to do so yet.
I should have foreseen our first difficulty. But after so many months cooped up in the frigid heights of the Mrtyahaima, the prospect of leaving them was, to me, an unmitigated joy. It did not occur to me, until our first night in Khavtlek territory, that not everyone in our party would view it the same way.
That the Dracone
ans had been silent during that day’s travels, I attributed to the necessity of bundling them under cloaks for concealment. But they dove into their tent with such alacrity, I knew something was amiss. “May I come in?” I called from outside the flap, and entered when I heard Kahhe’s reply.
They sat in a ring, facing inward with their wings partly spread to cup one another’s backs. For them it is a comforting gesture, akin to an arm around a human’s shoulders. “Is everything all right?” I asked. Then I waved the question away as foolish. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Make the sky smaller,” Zam muttered, hunching her back.
What felt to me like gloriously open terrain was, to them, a daunting void. With each day we travelled, their beloved mountains receded farther into the distance, replaced by arid grassland and empty sky, as alien to them as a subterranean city would be to me. At home they were accustomed to gliding down the valleys from higher precipices; here they could scarcely fly at all, even if we dared risk such a display. The cloaks were both a blessing and a curse, helping them close out the sight of so much open space, but causing them to feel even more penned in than I had felt in their house.
It pained me that there was nothing I could do for them. The only solution would be to send them home again—and that was no solution at all. We needed them with us, and their elders had decreed this was their punishment. The council had chosen well indeed. Only Atlim could return before this affair was done; and he refused, as he had refused to stay behind in the first place. The sisters had no choice but to endure.
Within the Sanctuary of Wings Page 26
