A Gathering of Wings (5 page)

After dousing the lantern, she surrenders almost immediately to sleep.

She is standing alone, surrounded on all sides by high sandy bluffs. Sky calls out to her in a plaintive whinny, a sound she
hasn’t heard him make since the day the Leatherwings attacked and carried off all the horses and the hunters in the Settlement. At the foot of the nearest bluff is a big round pen with towering walls tightly woven from weatherworn sticks. Fitting her bare toes into the cracks, she scales the wall of the pen and peers over the top. In the center of the pen, Sky is bound, all four legs pegged to the ground. He strains, his body twisting and lathered with sweat and dust
.

“Oh, Sky! What have they done to you?”

He looks up and sees her, his struggles growing more desperate. Where the ropes chafe, he has begun to bleed
.

Malora scrambles over the top of the pen, but something sharp in the weave gouges the palm of her right hand. She loses her grip and falls backward onto the sand. And then, suddenly, her own wrists and ankles are pegged to stakes. Like Sky, she twists and struggles against her restraints, screaming in fury
.

She wakes up to find her right palm is pierced and bleeding. It takes a few moments for her to calm herself, taking deep breaths. She is safe in her new house. Not even the beautiful bed can keep her safe from the Night Demons.

Outside in the paddock, she hears the pounding of hooves as the horses run frantically back and forth, calling out to her.

West appears at the foot of the bed, his face fretful in the light of his raised lantern. “Are you all right, boss?” he asks.

“Yes! No! I’m fine!” she says, realizing that both of these statements are true. She is fine, but Sky is not. “A dream …,” she adds faintly.

“A visitation by the Night Demons, boss. That’s all it was. It must have been that second helping of pood. I had some peculiar dreams myself, and I had only the one helping. If
you’re sure you’re all right, I think I’ll go out and soothe the boys and girls.”

“Did I scream very loudly?” she asks.

He looks surprised. “You didn’t make any noise at all. I just figured when the horses got so stirred up, I’d need your help to calm them. But I see you’re in no condition.” He turns to leave.

“No! I’m coming,” Malora says, climbing out of bed.

She grabs her fleece robe and, shivering, puts it on over her sweat-damp nightshirt. She will have to make an effort in front of the herd to be calm and collected. Because the fact is, she is nothing of the kind now that she knows that Sky is no longer out in the bush roaming free. Wherever he is, Sky is in grave danger—and he needs her help.

It is challenging to rekindle the fire with only one good hand, but she manages, and by the time Brion enters the shop the coals are banked and glowing red. One look at Malora’s face and Brion knows something is amiss.

“What is it, Daughter?” he asks, setting down his leather satchel.

“I can’t work today,” she tells him. “I have to go away. I started the fire for you. You’ll have to bring in a striker to take my place. One of the Twani—”

“Where are you going?” he breaks in.

“To find my horse. To find Sky,” she says, lifting her wounded hand to her forehead. “I had a dream—”

“What happened to you?” he breaks in, seeing that she is hurt. He takes her hand and examines the palm, which has begun to bleed through the bandage West made for her.

It occurs to her to tell Brion a white lie, but what is the
point? “I woke up from my dream and it was bleeding,” she says. “I was—”

“Come over to the forge,” he says, “and I’ll redress it.”

His big, calloused hands are gentle as he unwinds the bloodied bandage, washes her wound in the quenching pot, then applies a salve and wraps it in a clean white cloth he produces from his leather sack.

The bandage is bulky and will get in her way, but he means well. “Thank you, Brion. Thank you … for everything.”

“I’m not finished with you yet,” he says, wagging a finger at her. “Now, go and do what you must. I will be here when you return, ready to complete your training. You will be taking your knife with you, I trust?”

She nods, thinking that had she known she were leaving Mount Kheiron so soon she would have made a much larger knife.

“Of course,” she says, removing her apron with one hand and placing it on the hook, she hopes not for the last time. She realizes that she is afraid, not just for Sky, but for herself. She is afraid of leaving Mount Kheiron, where Night Demons are the only threat. Something in her dreads returning to the bush. She had come in from it unscathed, but returning to it she is fearful that her good luck has run out, that her survival skills have grown rusty, that something lies in wait for her out there. For all this, she knows she has no choice. She must find Sky.

Brion sees her out and stands in the doorway of the shop, a hand raised in farewell. She has already broken into a run
when she hears his voice at her back. “Kheiron be with you, Malora Ironbound!”

Moments later, Malora is in the basement corridor of the atelier, where she pauses to catch her breath before knocking. She can tell from the light under the door that Orion is already at work in his alchemical laboratory. Like her, he is an early riser. She lifts her good hand and knocks softly.

Orion opens the door. His overwrap is a mass of stains, his dark curls are in disarray, eyes glazed with distraction. Then he registers Malora’s presence and bursts into a warm smile. “Malora! Come in!”

She stands back from the open door and holds the sleeve of her tunic over her nose. Behind Orion, the alchemical laboratory is dimly lit. She sees a pot bubbling over an open flame that is attached to another pot via a long twisting tendril of copper pipe wrapped in a rag. The alchemist is distilling something that smells like the earth itself being heated in a blast furnace. In her mind’s eye, she sees a place where the sand drifts in layers of many colors, where murmuring figures huddle in striped robes around fires in the shadow of billowing tents. Other scents begin to unfurl toward her like long tongues, lashing her face, her nose, her ears. There are too many of them, all demanding her attention. This is the way it always is for her here. The shelves behind the distillation apparatus are chockablock with colored vials, each containing a different scent: flowery, earthy, spicy, sweet, tangy. Although Orion assures her the vials are airtight, Malora knows differently. Some of each scent escapes into the room and mingles in a single, swarming cloud.

Seeing that Malora’s distress isn’t just the olfactory assault of his laboratory, Orion’s smile quickly fades. “What’s wrong, Malora? Is it the house? Is it the horses?”

“The house is wonderful,” she says, working to focus. “Everything I could ever want. And the boys and girls are fine.” Then she pauses, realizing this isn’t exactly true. “Can you join me out here in the hall and close the door?”

“Of course,” he says. Orion shuts the door and takes her elbow, drawing her into the far corner. “You’re trembling all over,” he says, then sees the bandage. “And you’ve hurt yourself. What’s happened? Tell me.”

Malora takes a deep breath to calm herself. In as steady a voice as she can muster, she begins to tell him about the dream. While she speaks, he is considerate enough to step away from her, to pace slowly back and forth while he listens. It is as if he knows that the pressure of his gaze will only further unsettle her. Although Malora is the only one who is affected by his scents in this way, she knows Orion will believe her, just as he has believed all the other visions his scents have brought forth, as does Honus, who holds that her keen sense of smell is yet another overdeveloped survival mechanism. She finishes by saying, “I don’t know where Sky is, but wherever he is, he’s in pain and misery, and I know I must do everything I can to find him and help him.”

When Malora is finished, Orion plants his hooves and frowns. “The fact that the wound you got climbing the wall of sticks has carried over into your waking life is significant,” he says.

“How so?” she asks.

“I don’t know exactly,” he says, “but it’s as if the two worlds—the dream world and the waking world—are beginning to overlap somehow.”

“Then you agree with me that I must find Sky and rescue him,” she says.

“Most definitely,” he says. “You must go to Kahiro.”

“Why to Kahiro?” she asks, his suggestion striking her as odd.

Orion hesitates. “There is this Dromadi crone in the marketplace …,” he begins. “Do you remember when I told you that I once had a dream about an encounter with one of the People?”

Malora nods. She remembers everything he says. “A girl. You walked with her by a river and chatted. You told me it was a very satisfying dream.”

“It was. But it wasn’t exactly a dream. It was a vision, much like the ones you get, except that it was brought on by a beverage brewed by this crone.”

“Gaffey?” Malora guesses.

Orion nods rapidly. “How did you know?” he asks.

“Neal gave me a sip once and I had a most vivid vision … of Sky,” she says. And also of Lume, the silver-haired man with the burnished eyes—but of Lume she has made mention only to Zephele.

“Well,” Orion goes on, “in my vision, this wasn’t just any human girl. This was you, Malora, years before I ever met you. Don’t ask me how, but the beverage reveals things. If anyone can helps us find out where Sky is, it is this crone and her brew.”

Malora wonders why he hasn’t told her about his vision
before. But that is not her concern right now. Sky is. “If that’s the case, there is no need to journey all the way to Kahiro. I can simply ask Neal Featherhoof to give me some gaffey from his zebra-skin flask.”

“You’ll need Shrouk’s interpretation. Shrouk is the Dromadi crone who knows all and sees all. Besides, I believe Neal has run out of gaffey,” Orion says. “Just the other day, he mentioned to me that he was due for a trip to Kahiro to renew his supply. So you see, you must go to Kahiro.”

She draws in a deep breath and lets it out. She has been in a rare state of panic brought on by the dream. Having a clear course of action brings her some measure of calm. “Very well. I will go to Kahiro. Neal will draw me a map. Or perhaps Honus has one.”

Orion laughs softly. “We don’t need a map. I have been to Kahiro many times. It is a matter of following the Lower Neelah to the northern coast, where it empties out into the sea.”

Malora nods. “Even better,” she says, and now she is the one who is pacing. “I will leave West to take care of the boys and girls. I will take Lightning and a few other horses with me and set out immediately.”

“Not so fast, my friend,” Orion says. “By law, we must first request leave of the Apex.”

“We?”
she says.

Orion grins. “You didn’t think I’d let you go to Kahiro alone, did you? Who else would give you a proper introduction to the blind seer? I am one of Shrouk’s favorites.”

“Of course you are.”

“Let me douse the fire and clean up and I’ll accompany
you to the Hall of Mirrors. We will petition the Apex together.” Orion disappears back into his laboratory. She hears him rummaging, then the hiss of water on flames, after which she smells the odor of dampened wood and ashes.

Malora says through the crack in the door, “Won’t there be a great long line of centaurs snaking all the way down to the temple?” she asks. “It could take us all day to be seen.”

Orion laughs. “Many things in Mount Kheiron are changing, but fortunately, as far as I can tell, nobility—not to mention family—still has its privileges. And exercise that privilege you can be sure that I will … on your behalf,” he says as he hustles her up the stairs and out the door.

Except for the Mane Way, the streets of Mount Kheiron are still relatively uncrowded. As they maintain a brisk pace, Orion says, “We can’t mention visions or blind seers to my father. He doesn’t entertain metaphysical methodologies of reckoning with the world. He has a highly colorful phrase for it:
elephant dung
.”

Malora thinks for a moment, then she says, “I will tell him that Dock, on his recent return from Kahiro, heard rumors of a big black stallion being held captive somewhere. And that we are going to Kahiro to follow up on this intelligence.”

Dock is Captain Dugal Highdock—retired from the ranks of the Peacekeepers—the Flatlander who taught Neal Featherhoof everything he knows about bushcraft and fighting. These days Dock escorts the barges of wine barrels that float down the Neelah from the Silvermane Vineyard to the marketplace at Kahiro. Malora knows for a fact that Dock has just gotten back from a trip, because he hailed her the other day from the deck of a returning barge. And Dugal Highdock
would, Malora thinks, not object to aiding and abetting Malora in her violation of the Ninth Edict. She’ll have to get a message to him.

Orion favors her with an admiring look. “Zephele is right. You are most adept at fabricating falsehoods. You are a champion liar as well as wrangler,” he adds, grinning.

“White lies,” she says.

“What was that?” he asks.

“The writer of a book I am reading now calls certain untruths ‘white lies.’ They do no harm. They spare feelings or ease an awkward social situation.”

“It is, nevertheless,” Orion points out, “a violation of the Ninth.”

“Second clause,” Malora says glumly.

Before Malora can make a mental list of the Edicts she has violated since she came to Mount Kheiron, they have arrived at the House of Silvermane. The line of petitioners is already strung out into the street. A house Twan in a blue and white tunic is standing propped against a pillar. Unperturbed by the crowd, he is licking the back of his hand and running it across the top of his fur-coated head. Malora and Orion nod to him and walk along the line of centaurs that extends up the steps, across the grand portico, and into the lower gallery. Over the whispered conversations of the centaurs, Malora hears the soothing sound of water running from the wall fountain, spewing from the mouth of leaping fish carved from pink and blue stone. The air is scented with rosewater, distilled by Orion especially for his parents’ household.