“You no longer seem worried about the poachers,” I said to Khara.
Khara raised her eyebrows in surprise. “What makes you say that?”
“Dairne intuition?”
“Well, you’re right, as it happens. Poachers are outlaws everywhere within the kingdom. But as a practical matter, they’re only in real danger when they approach settled lands.”
“So we’re getting close to our destination?”
Khara pointed vaguely to the east. “The United Villages of Dolgrate are a few leagues that way.” She twisted and pointed to the northwest. “The Free Traders City-State is a few leagues in that direction. We still have to keep an eye out for the Murdano’s men, but soldiers aren’t stealthy. We’ll hear them if they’re near.”
“You know this area well, then?” I asked.
“Well enough.”
I hesitated to ask my next question, given my own experience. Still, there was so much to know about this girl. “Do you have any . . . family nearby?”
Khara looked at me, her face expressionless. “In a manner of speaking.”
“How about friends?”
“I don’t have any friends.”
Tobble’s eyes went wide. “But everyone has friends!”
“I didn’t,” I said. “Not really. I mean, my siblings were my friends, I suppose.”
“Friends are a luxury we can’t always afford,” Khara said without emotion.
I wanted to press further, but I was coming to understand that Khara was frugal with words. She spoke when she wished to and otherwise remained silent. No prodding on my part would get her to say anything she was not ready to say.
We were a bad match, as captive and captor went. I wanted to ask a thousand questions. She rarely wanted to answer even one.
I love that you ask so many questions, my mother had said to me. That’s how we learn.
But sometimes questions have no answers. And even when there are answers, they may not be what we want to hear.
The gentle wind shifted, laden with familiar scents of honey and lavender: smells from my past, from my life before pain.
I closed my eyes to keep the tears from coming, as homesickness washed over me like a cold and biting wave.
We traveled for two more days. When Tobble or I grew footsore, Khara put us up on Vallino’s back to ride for a while. In exchange, we gathered tender beeflowers that grew alongside the path and fed them to the horse.
Sometimes he would nuzzle us in thanks, or let out a satisfied nicker. He seemed to be especially fond of Tobble.
“I wonder what Vallino thinks about all day,” Tobble said while riding atop the big horse on the second evening of our journey.
“He has two thoughts, I’m guessing,” I said. “One is ‘I’m hungry.’”
“And the other?” asked Khara.
“‘I’m not hungry.’”
“You’re just saying that because he’s not one of the six governing species,” Tobble objected. “That doesn’t mean he’s not pondering great philosophical questions.”
As if in answer, Vallino lifted his tail to leave a particularly odorous “gift” on the path.
“Never mind,” said Tobble, and Khara and I both laughed.
At the point where the trail became a road, Khara said, “Well, I suppose it’s time for me to become a boy once again.”
“Why?” Tobble asked.
“We’ll soon be encountering fellow travelers. And it’s easier to accomplish just about anything as a male,” Khara explained as she tied back her hair.
“That’s not fair,” Tobble said. “It shouldn’t matter whether you’re a male or a female.”
“No,” Khara agreed. “But it’s been my experience that life is rarely fair.” She looked me up and down. “We have to disguise you as well, Byx.”
“Because I’m a dairne.”
“Yes. You’re a rarity. And rare things draw unwanted attention.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “How will I disguise myself?” I asked.
But of course I knew the answer.
Khara grinned. “If you walk on all fours, avoid speaking, and occasionally wag your tail—”
I sighed loudly. “I know I have to do this. But let me make clear: I am not a dog.”
“Yes, I know,” Khara said. “If you were a dog, I wouldn’t be debating this with you.”
“I’ve never liked dogs,” Tobble volunteered. “They love to chase wobbyks. Also eat us.”
“Here’s the thing,” I said. “‘Dog’ used to be an insult to dairnes. I don’t mean that we despise dogs. We love them—”
“Try being treed by a hungry hound and then tell me how you feel about dogs,” Tobble interjected.
“But in stories from the old days,” I continued, “in the time when humans and dairnes lived side by side, one of the insults hurled at us was that we were ‘nothing but dogs.’”
“Sorry, Byx,” said Khara. “It’s for your own good.”
“I know.” With a mighty sigh, I dropped to all fours. “Arf,” I said without conviction.
“Who knew,” Khara said, giving my head a perfunctory pat, “that it was possible to bark with such bitterness?”
21.
Civilization
Walking like a dog was comfortable enough for my bones and muscles, but the palms of my hands aren’t tough, like the pads of my feet. As much as possible, I avoided the cobblestones of the Murdano’s road and walked in the grass bordering it. Always I kept my fingers close together, and I never exposed my stomach, so that my pouch would not be revealed. My glissaires are only visible when I spread my arms for gliding, so they weren’t an issue.
Apparently, passersby were convinced. Once, when a group of knights trotted past us, one actually leaned down from his massive battle horse to scratch the back of my neck with his gloved hand and call me a “good girl.”
Tobble and Khara laughed under their breath, but I was not amused.
Still, I had to admit that humans generally treated dogs well. More than once the people we passed tossed me morsels of food, which I forced myself to lap up without using my hands. Several children skipped over to pat my head and scratch my back.
The truth is, I found those interactions strangely pleasurable. Pleasurable but undignified.
“Your dog is so soft!” a young girl carrying a wooden bucket exclaimed. “Much softer than our dog.”
“She just had a bath,” Khara said, quickly herding us along. Later, we stopped by a small pond, and she spread a thin layer of mud all over my coat. “Dairne fur is much softer than dog fur,” she explained. “That won’t be as noticeable when the mud dries.”
I sniffed at my muddy tail. “Let me know if you think of any other way I can humiliate myself.”
Khara stepped back to admire her handiwork. “I’ll be sure to.”
The more we walked, the more people we encountered, both coming and going. Some had wagons pulled by horses. Some carried bags over their shoulders. Some walked purposefully. Others meandered, chatting amiably. I saw far more men than women, and just a handful of children.
Once we saw an old man, elegantly dressed, stop midstride just ahead of us. I’d noticed him limping, favoring one foot, for some time. He yanked off his boot and tossed it aside, cursing creatively.
As we neared, we could hear him muttering under his breath, an odd, unmusical string of syllables.
“Theurgy, no doubt,” whispered Tobble.
Suddenly, in a puff of pink smoke, the old man’s worn boot was replaced.
Unfortunately, it was replaced with a delicate pink lady’s shoe.
Tobble rolled his eyes. “Told you magic is ridiculous.”
Khara stifled a smile as we passed the old man, who was now cursing even more creatively. “It does sometimes seem like a dubious distinction that the six governing species hold,” she said. “Just because an old man can conjure a shoe, does that make him more fit for power than, say, a brave and resourceful wobbyk?”
Tobble smiled, clearly pleased at her words. “I wonder if theurgy could be used to help Byx find more dairnes?” he asked. “That would actually be useful.”
“I doubt it,” said Khara. “Theurgy has limited use, unless it’s been studied for years by someone with natural talent.”
About an hour later, I smelled the sea, a fact I whispered to Khara when no one was around to notice.
“We’re getting close,” she acknowledged.
“Will we find a boat to the island?” Tobble asked.
“We’ll find the natites. The water is their rightful domain. They will take us, or not, as they choose.”
“Have you ever seen a natite, Byx?” Tobble asked. He had a habit of forgetting that I was not allowed to speak.
Either that, or he enjoyed tormenting me.
I gave my head a subtle shake to indicate “no.”
“Well, there are many types of natites,” Tobble explained as he waddled beside me. “Some are almost as vast as whales. Others are the size of men, but with special neck flaps for breathing underwater. And their skin is green.”
After a moment, he added, “Also, some are dangerous.”
And after another moment: “And of course they’re quite slimy.”
When Tobble fell quiet, Khara took up a song, which she sang in a gruff masculine voice that disguised her sweeter natural tones:
“In ancient times
When life was new,
The great ones met
At Urman’s yew.
Beneath the tree,
Beside the sea,
They planned the world
For you and me.”
She laughed shyly. “I’m no singer. There are many other verses to the story.”
“Tell us,” Tobble urged.
“Well, it’s mostly myth, but Urman’s yew still stands, the oldest of trees. The story goes that all species gathered there on high ground as a flood swallowed much of the land.”
I had of course heard of the flood, but not of any magical tree.
“There the ancients decided on how to organize the world once the flood receded. They decreed there would be governing species, each with its own domain and its own rights.”
I nodded. I had heard all this from Dalyntor. How much, I realized with sudden affection and longing, I’d learned from that wise old dairne!
“Still and all, no rights for wobbyks,” Tobble muttered.
“The natites, water breathers, would rule all the waters that opened onto the sea. Rivers, but only for the first league of their estuary, along with the mouths of bays and inlets. The felivets were given the northern forests, where they still rule and where no one goes without their permission. They’re free to hunt in other forests, but they have no power there.”
Felivets, those mighty and terrifying felines. They’d haunted my dreams since early childhood.
“The terramants were given the earth below its crust, the deep mines and hidden underground rivers and lakes,” Khara went on.
I shuddered. Terramants were insects the size of horses. Another reason for bad dreams.
“And then, of course, there are the raptidons. They rule the sky and the upper reaches of trees and mountains, where they make their nests.”
“And humans?” Tobble asked, stepping aside to let a carriage pass.
“Humans were given the rest of the world.”
Tobble jerked his head my way. “What about the dairnes?”
Khara sang:
“The dairnes so true,
So free of greed,
May come and go,
Take what they need.”
I waited until we reached a shady corpo tree, laden with pale yellow flowers with a fragrance of wet grass, and sat down to rest. Leaning against the trunk, hidden from the road, I felt free to use my voice again.
“What does that mean, Khara,” I asked, “‘the dairne so true, so free of greed’?’”
Khara tilted her head. “Have you been taught nothing of your own people?”
“We have our poems and tales and songs,” I said. “But . . . well, dairne poems are only about dairnes. At least the ones I learned.”
“In ancient times dairnes were everywhere,” Khara said. “Most lived with their own kind, but they were honored guests at all assemblies. The ability to separate truth from lies made dairnes valuable, especially where humans were concerned. Valuable and dangerous.”
“Valuable and dangerous,” I repeated, considering the words.
If I could tell the truth when others could not, if I was one of the few remaining dairnes—or even the very last, the endling—what would happen to me? Would I be exploited?
Or would I, somehow, be able to exploit my gift?
I shook my head. Was it really a gift, the ability to read the untidy hearts of humans?
Or was it a terrible curse?
Was that what Dalyntor had meant when he’d called truth telling a “burdensome gift”?
Perhaps I would find a way to to use my skill once we got to the isle. Perhaps Tobble and I could slip from Khara’s grasp and make our way to . . . make our way to . . . where?
I realized, not for the first time, how exposed and rootless I was, without the guidance of my pack and my family.
In the world of dairnes, the pack is everything: root and branch, heart and soul.
Still, Myxo had pinned her hopes on the northern colony, and so had my pack.
I could start there.
It would provide me with a beginning, if not an ending.
With a little clutch at my heart, I recalled another of my father’s sayings: “Only fools know both the beginning and the end of the story.”
How I missed his calm and good-humored wisdom! So many times I’d rolled my eyes at his old-fashioned sayings, his proverbs and maxims. And yet I’d have given anything to have him there by my side.
It was strange, but the idea of escaping from Khara and striking out on my own filled me with dread. As long as I was with her, I felt relatively safe.
Well, perhaps not “safe.”
But slightly less likely to be killed, at least.
It was an illusion, of course. Once she gave me to Ferrucci, who knew what my fate would be? Would he imprison me? Kill me? Put me on exhibition, like a two-headed freak?
And what would happen to poor Tobble, who had proven his loyalty more than once during our journey?
The closer we got to civilization, the more odd and disturbing, but also exciting, things became. Until now, my life had been nothing but a handful of packmembers and the natural world we’d inhabited. This world was different, full of tall humans and horses, of wagons and carts loaded with unusual objects and unfamiliar food, of shouts and noises.
And smells. Always more smells. Some I recognized. Some Khara would explain, if I gave her a questioning look. What a dizzying mix it was: feces, urine, roses, cloves, brackish water, dirt, lavender, mold, burning charcoal, smoked meat, marjoram, rotting fish, fresh bread, ale, mead.
My poor nose was exhausted by the possibilities.
We’d grown, if not friendly, at least accustomed to each other, the way your back adjusts to an uncomfortable nest. After a while you give up tossing and turning and accept your fate, whether it be sharp, dry straw or stony, chill ground. You sleep, not well, but enough. You awake, not rested, but resigned.
So it was with our little band. We grew comfortable in our silences. We stared each night at our meager fire, lost in weary thoughts of life before, and life beyond.
After two more days, we arrived at last, weary and hungry, at Velt, the easternmost port, a bustling place crowded with ramshackle wooden buildings, some as many as three stories high, that towered above us like rickety trees. Lining the road to Velt were tables stacked with clay pots full of olives and peppers, preserved geet, strings of rockroot and garlic arrayed in rows. Khara fended off a relentless stream of beggars and sellers offering rugs, pots, knives, roasted cotchets on sticks, hats, and insects
trapped in amber. I wove between stalls and legs, oddly afraid to lose sight of Khara, while at the same time vaguely hoping an escape route might present itself.
Finally we approached the water’s edge and found ourselves looking out at a swaying forest of masts. I recognized many types of boats from my lessons with Dalyntor: tiny pinnaces, skiffs and jolly boats, even bloated freighters.
Tobble hissed. “Pirate ship!” he said, pointing at a boat slightly smaller than the freighters. It had two raked masts and shining brass cannons arrayed down each side.
“Don’t worry. We have no business with pirates,” Khara assured him. “We’re looking for a ferry to the isle.”
I looked around and risked a whispered question. “If the natites rule the seas, why do they allow pirates?”
“That’s a very good question,” Khara said. “They allow fishing boats and freighters but will not allow the Murdano to build a navy. No one knows for certain why the natites do anything, but most people believe they tolerate the pirates in exchange for information about the world of the land. I doubt that’s the only reason, though.”
We found the ferry landing after a frustrating search. A boxy vessel was nestled up to the dock by way of a series of gangplanks. Humans and horses and carts moved along in an orderly system overseen by men wearing identical shifts of blue and green.
“Neither of you speak,” warned Khara, who was sitting astride Vallino. “This may be . . . complicated.”
We stood in line and shuffled slowly forward as people ahead of us climbed aboard. Finally it was Khara’s turn to speak to one of the two liveried men acting as guards.
“We’re going to the isle,” she said.
“Oh, are you just?” the guard said, half belligerent, half amused. “A boy, a horse, a dog, and a wobbyk. And what is your purpose in visiting the isle?”
“I have a valuable scientific specimen to show to the academicians.”
“Is that right? What valuable specimen?”
“It’s not for you,” Khara said sharply. “I have orders to present it only to certain people. To certain high scholars.”
This was a Khara I had not yet seen. She was commanding, even haughty.
Cautiously, the guard peered up at Khara. “Name?”