The Other Lands (37 page)

“You’re not as bad off as I thought,” she mused. “Well, obviously not; I’d thought you dead before.”

Feathered plumes on the creature’s neck rose for a moment, and then settled back into position. The creature pushed up on her forelegs, lifted them from the ground, and stood unsteadily on her hind legs, shaking out her wings as she did so. She looked up at the hill that separated them from the river, studied it, and set out walking toward it. Her steps were tentative at first, her body swaying like a drunken person’s. She paused and, after a few steadying moments, drew her wings in, first the left, then the right. The curl started at the tips and rolled tight as it neared the body. Somehow the motion tucked the membrane in with it, and in the space of a few seconds she was wingless again, with only two swirled nubs on the shoulders to indicate where the wings now nestled. She loped up the slope and climbed over into the next valley.

She was in the river when Mena joined her. Shivering like a child from the cold, she danced in the small stream, dipped the full length of her neck and tail in. She puffed her plumage so that for seconds at a time she was covered with a bristling coat that then snapped back to smooth in the blink of an eye. The wing nubs flexed a little but did not unfurl.

“You are a bird, aren’t you?” Mena said.

She climbed out of the river, turned back to it, and thrust her snout into the water. She drank deep and long, green eyes flicking to Mena occasionally. The creature seemed at ease with her now, not studying her as she had the previous day. Watching her, Mena felt as pleased as a cat lover watching her favorite feline. She wanted to reach out and feel that soft, strangely scaled plumage again.

Before she realized it, she had done just that. Her fingers tingled at the touch, and she drew them back immediately. She touched her nose, smelling the citrus scent of the substance that seemed a part of the plumage. It was not unpleasant, not exactly oily, but it was hard to know how else to describe it. She was aware that the tingling in her fingertips continued, and that she had passed the sensation on to her face. It almost felt like she had inhaled it and now held it in her lungs. She nervously wiped her fingers on her tunic. Still the creature drank, having taken no notice of her touch or reaction to it.

“Sorry that drink yesterday wasn’t much. I tried, though. You know that. Now, if we just had something to eat, we’d not be so bad off.”

As if in answer, the creature stretched her neck high and opened her nostrils with a few deep inhalations. She rotated and tried the air to the south, seemed to like what she found there, and began to stride away, more energy in her motions than just a moment before. A little way down, she turned and studied Mena, walked on a few steps, and then bent her neck back and met her gaze again.

Mena pressed the fingers of her good hand to her chest. “You want me to follow?” The creature did not answer, of course, but Mena did exactly that.

It was no easy thing, hobbling along over the uneven terrain. Early on, she spent several frantic moments thinking she had lost the creature over a rise or behind a rock outcropping. But each time she was there, waiting, looking back for her. A few times the creature even seemed to respond to sighting her by raising the plumes on her neck, a sign of—of what? Pleasure? Encouragement? So the day passed, they alone on a windblown landscape.

The two were still together that evening. They spent the night in a small cluster of date trees. A tiny ruin showed ancient inhabitation, but whoever lived here had not done so for ages. Mena did not crowd the creature, but she stayed near enough to be able to speak without raising her voice. She told her about Melio and the others who were likely hunting them right now. “They’re excellent trackers,” she explained. “They’ll find us soon. I don’t know why, but it seems very important to me that no more harm befalls you. That seems like the most important thing in the world right now: that you be safe. Perhaps I’m just tired of killing. I should be. I didn’t mean to harm you, though. I just didn’t expect you.”

Mena cut herself off. She looked away, shaking her head, and then looked back at the creature. Those eyes were just as intent on her. Her mouth, Mena realized, tilted near the back hinge of the jaw. “Why is it that I want to talk to you so much? You can’t understand me. It’s absurd. You can’t understand me, right?”

The creature stared at her. Stared. Of course she could not understand. Mena exhaled and reached for another date. As she did so the creature nodded, just a tiny dip of the head, but enough to make Mena pause. Was that an affirmation? Had the creature answered that she could understand? Or had she merely followed the motion of Mena’s hand? She wanted to ask, but, again, staring into those round, large, innocent eyes, it seemed a complete absurdity.

“Perhaps I bumped my head worse than I remembered.”

Mena had that same thought on waking the next morning. Before she knew what she was doing, she moved to push herself up with both arms. Finding one encumbered by her stone splint, she gave the arm a shake, trying to dislodge the thing. Only after she had tugged at the knot in the cord that held it fast did she realize what she was doing. And that snapped her fully awake.

The arm—her formerly broken, battered arm—did not hurt anymore. She flexed her fingers and they moved without pain. There was stiffness. There was a memory of pain still in the tissue, but there was no mistaking it: her arm was nearly healed! She loosened the splint and lifted the limb free and moved it in the air. She sat staring at it, utterly confused, wondering if she had been crazy when she splinted a healthy arm, or if she was crazy now for believing it healed. And then she thought of the creature.

She jumped to her feet, spun around until she found the familiar shape atop a nearby hillock. The creature stood shuffling her feet impatiently, waiting for Mena. She could have remained there disbelieving her sudden healing, but it was as it was. The creature had done it, somehow. Because of her—being with her, touching her, inhaling that citrus scent—Mena had healed just as the creature had come back from the brink of death and now showed only faint scars from the attack. And this same creature wanted Mena’s company, just as she wanted to stay longer with her.

And so began another day of travel. She already knew how it would go. They searched for fruit and water, the only two things the creature seemed to consume. Either she knew where the groves of trees grew and what fruit was ripe by memory, or she smelled them on the air and followed her nose. Once, when she scented something that excited her, the creature tried to get Mena to pick up the pace. She ran forward and back, churning up dust, urging her on. Mena’s human gait was clearly not sufficient.

The creature bumped Mena’s side and lowered her shoulder. Mena understood what she offered and was stunned. She kicked her leg over the creature’s spine and slowly slipped on top. For a moment she clung there, spread-eagled on the back. The creature looked at her, amused. Mena tried to find a better arrangement. And there was one: sitting upright, straddling the creature’s neck, snug between the nubs of the wings. With her positioned like that, the creature moved forward, falling into a loping, reptilian run that Mena would never forget.

The creature must also have known how to avoid humans, for they saw nobody the entire day. Once they pillaged an apple orchard that showed signs of tending, but evaded whatever souls might have been about. Atop a bluff on another occasion, Mena spotted a cluster of houses in the distance. She could have walked to them in an hour and named herself and been among people again. Though she was hungry, having eaten only fruit, even light-headed at times, she did not yet want human company.

Indeed, she often scanned the horizon, knowing that searchers were combing the countryside for her, people she cared for and trusted, who had fought beside her many a day. The daily journey she and the creature kept at would be making it hard for the trackers, but she was not sure she wanted to be found even by them, even by Melio. Not yet. Not until she understood this better.

As Mena walked beside the creature on the afternoon of their third day together, she said, “You need a name. I mean, a name for me to call you. I can’t think of you as lizard or bird or dragon.” Mena stroked the creature’s neck. “You’re no dragon, anyway. You’re gentler than that. You need a real name.” She walked on in thought, nibbling her thumbnail as she did so. The creature’s head rose and fell beside her, bobbing on the curve of her neck.

“My father once told me a tale about a boy who had a pet lizard. It’s a Bethuni tale, I think. The boy called the lizard Elya. He hatched it from an egg. They were together always, though the boy’s father did not, at first, like the animal being in his hut. In Bethuni lore orphans of any species are sacred, good luck to those who care for them. But the father was a selfish man who wanted to control all things and didn’t like the love his son showed a mere reptile.”

Mena cut her eyes over to her companion. “No offense meant. Anyway, he disliked it so much that one night, when the boy was sleeping, he grasped the lizard and carried it out into the night. He tied it to a tree and used a spade to dig a hole. The hole was to be the lizard’s grave, and he was going to kill it. Before he finished digging, his shovel struck something. He reached in and pulled out a sack of gold coins. Ancient coins, buried there long ago, coins that nobody had a claim to. And just like that he was a rich and important man. It would never have happened if not for the lizard, and he saw it as a sign from the gods that the creature was special. He didn’t kill it after all. Instead, he took it home and woke his village with shouts of joy.

“That’s the tale. My father told it better than I, but that’s most of it. You know it’s a tale and not the truth because the selfish father became generous. I’ve not seen that happen anywhere but in tales. But I guess we need things to aspire to. What do you think about Elya as a name? I believe it would suit you. If I call you Elya, will you answer to it?”

The creature, perhaps noting the questioning rise in Mena’s voice, looked at her.

“Elya,” Mena repeated, adding a singsong quality to it. “Elya … How do I explain naming to you?”

She tried several ways. She was glad there was no one around to hear, for she knew she would sound a fool or mad or both, but she made a game of it. She touched her nose and said, “Mena” and then touched the creature’s snout and pronounced, “El-yaaaa.” Nothing. Not that Mena knew what she expected, what would indicate acceptance of the name. She walked off a little distance and, facing away, began calling the name. On turning around and seeing the creature, her face lit with pleasure. “Elya! There you are.”

Mena named thing after thing, touching ground and stone and grass and sky and Mena and Elya. The creature narrowed her eyes at this, the first look of suspicion she had made since Mena had found and cleaned her body.

“You think I’m mad,” Mena said. “You may be right. Elya. My Elya. Not your Elya, but mine.” She found a rhythm in the lines and repeated it singsong. And again, and then she skipped away singing it loud, dancing, her arms swooping like wings. The mirth came upon her complete, like a serious father suddenly playing the fool for a child’s amusement. It worked.

The creature bent back her neck, opened her mouth, and coughed a quick barrage. Her neck rolled in jerky undulations so forceful that Mena feared she was choking. But then she stopped and looked back at Mena, relaxed and mirthful. Her eyes twinkled with amusement.

“Does that mean you’ll be my Elya? You will. You already are. I feel it—” Mena tapped her chest with her fingers and then moved them to her collarbone and then, as if unsure which spot she meant, up to her head, where she touched a finger to her temple “—inside me. You’re here.” She tapped again. “How can that be?”

As usual, the creature offered no answer. But Mena did not need one. She knew. Elya was Elya. That night they slept within touching distance of each other, and the next morning was the one on which she awoke beside Elya with that strange feeling of contentment firmly lodged in her heart. She sat, taking in the rising sun to the east. The rest of the human world seemed far off indeed, blissfully so.

On that she was mistaken.

Elya’s head snapped to attention, all relaxed slumber gone in an instant. She stared over Mena’s head, to the north, head cocked first to one side and then the other as she listened to something. Mena calmed the creature with a few soothing words, with steadying motions of her hands. She asked her to stay put, and then, on impulse, she thought the same instructions. She really did not understand it, but she could not shake the feeling that she could send Elya her thoughts—not words or sentences but the import of a thing. That was what she tried to pass silently to her. Stay.

When it seemed Elya would do so, Mena turned and ran up the slope to get a better view. She crested the hill and, as the undulating landscape on the other side came fully into view, she dropped flat bellied to the ground. She had seen something, shapes where she hoped there would not be shapes. Inching forward, she peeked over the rise more carefully and saw exactly what she feared.

A wide wedge of humanity crawled across the hills. Hundreds of people, spread out far to east and west, many carrying torches that spit clots of slow-rising smoke into the air. From this vantage, they were the main feature of the world, a blight on it. They were also, she knew, her people. Near the center of the front ranks a banner hung limp from a long pole. She knew by its colors that it was the insignia of Acacia, the same one she had seen at Kidnaban years ago. As on that occasion, this sighting filled her with dread. She crawled backward.

When she reached Elya, she nearly said, “Let’s go.” Part of her wanted to flee and knew that Elya would do so with her. But she did not say those words. Instead, she stroked the creature’s neck and rubbed under her chin and brushed the flat of her hand over the flare of her nostrils. “I can’t run. It’s not fair to them, and it solves nothing, just prolongs it. They’re my people, Elya. They love me. You understand? That’s why they’ve come.” She cradled the creature’s head in the palms of her hands. “Elya, you can leave me. Why don’t you do that? Run. Or fly if you can. I’ll tell them not to hunt you anymore. No one will hunt you. I promise.”