“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.