So do I, said Hibeehea. So do I.
They flew with the rising sun almost at their backs, now, back toward the border with the human land, but they did not hurry, and it took them four more days. Sylvi noticed that on the second day they flew more north than west and toward evening there was a silver dazzle in her eyes as well as the red-gold sun-dazzle.
Dreaming Sea, said Ebon.
But that’s—that’s a legend, said Sylvi. Like—Redfora and Oraan.
I think everybody has a Dreaming Sea, said Ebon. You may have a different one. This is ours. And it’s a legend too. The water’s still wet, though.
Hibeehea stood as if waiting for them as Sylvi’s troupe landed, galloped, halted and let her gently down. She wiggled out of her ropes and blanket, looking at him looking at her. She waited till Ebon had been helped out of his harness, so she didn’t have to approach Hibeehea alone.
It is at my request we are here, Hibeehea said, and turned, in obvious expectation that they would follow, and led the way through the long grass and the last ragged row of trees. The water whispered against the shingle, and Sylvi stared out across it till the water met the horizon, and imagined the folk standing on the opposite shore somewhere, staring back toward them. Were they human or pegasi or something else? She had been to the rocky seacoast of her own country only rarely, but she remembered the astonishing expanse of water, the sense of standing on the edge of another world, a water world; this was different yet. At home she knew the names of the other ports, the countries on the far side of the ocean; this was a Dreaming Sea. . . .
Watching the silky, late-afternoon-sunlit ripples moving toward them, listening to the tiny gasping noises they made as they broke on the shore, she said, Our stories about the Dreaming Sea say that if you sail on it, you can sail for ever and ever and will never get out of sight of the shore you set out from, and never catch sight of any other shore. But I don’t know where it is. I don’t think it can be this one; Viktur mentions it in his journal as something they left behind. And he quotes Balsin saying as a kind of joke that he’d decided to climb the mountains that lead to the wild lands and see what was beyond them because he was afraid Argen would order him to take ship and cross the Dreaming Sea, to be rid of him. It was the most she’d ever said in Hibeehea’s hearing, and she thought, I never heard that the Dreaming Sea makes you brave.
It is called the Dreaming Sea because it is said that if you sleep beside it you will dream true, said Hibeehea.
Eah, said Ebon. If you’re desperate enough, you swim in it first and then lie down on the shore sopping wet, and near enough that the water touches you. Not recommended during the winter. And I’d’ve thought your dreams would still only be about how uncomfortable you are.
I wanted you to see it, said Hibeehea, ignoring Ebon, because whether you have trained as a human magician or not, you are half a shaman with no training whatsoever—that you saw the signing of the treaty in the Caves, and that it was Redfora who brought you back when I called you proves this. Part of our shamanic training involves drinking the water of the Dreaming Sea—and we sleep beside it, but contrary to Ebon’s folklore, we choose a comfortable spot. I do not suggest you drink from it, Sylviianel, for the dreams it brings can be very powerful, and you have seen and done enough this three weeks. But I do suggest that you take a little of it away with you. I think the day may come when you have great need of a true dream.
Hibeehea was wearing another little pouch around his neck on a string, and he dropped his head and rubbed the string over his ears with a foreleg, then knelt by the water. He loosened the mouth of the pouch with his teeth, laid it down, nudged it over with his nose, and a small stoppered bottle rolled out.
After over a fortnight in their country Sylvi was still not accustomed to the way the pegasi did things—the way they had to do things—because their hands had no gripping strength. At the palace the pegasi were rarely seen doing anything but being splendidly elegant—and, she thought now, that was partly because they were rarely seen to do anything except stand at the shoulder of their bound human or a little behind the bound pegasus they attended, as Lrrianay’s courtiers did. It was some of why they seemed so enigmatic—and some of why the humans seemed so much in command. But she wondered now if some of that tradition came from some human, long ago, perhaps even Balsin himself, wishing to preserve his allies’ dignity against human foolishness. It would be easy, in human terms, to think less of a shaman seen kneeling, using his teeth and his nose.... She had to stop herself, as she had often had to stop herself these last three weeks, from trying to help, which she knew instinctively would be utterly and grotesquely rude. She had forgotten, that once with Ebon and Hili—but that was because it had been Ebon. To offer aid to a shaman, to the king’s shaman . . .
Hibeehea stood up, graceful as ever; she hadn’t noticed till now that his long forelock had been twisted back round his ear and plaited into the mane at his poll, and tied there with ribbons. He was standing quite close to her, and she could see that the plait was made up of many tiny plaits; had his son or daughter done it? His—what was the word—hrmmmhr? Did shamans wed or have children? Or perhaps an acolyte did such things for a master? She couldn’t imagine him doing it himself.
There is still so much I don’t know about just ordinary things, she thought. Who plaits you if you’re plaited?
The little bottle lay where he had left it. Take the bottle, said Hibeehea, and choose your water.
Choose your water? Sylvi thought—only to herself, she hoped—what an odd way to put it. But she bent and picked up the bottle (grasping it only with the tips of her fingers as if to minimize the length of her fingers, the strength of her hand), and knew at once what he meant; this was not where she should fill her bottle. She took a hesitant step along the shoreline, away from the rest of the pegasi.
Yes, said Hibeehea. Go where you are taken. Ebon, you may go with her. And Hibeehea turned and left them.
It was not so very far after all. They came to a place where the trees grew to the edge of the water and one bent old fellow bowed so low that his leaves trailed across the water.
He looks like a pegasus with a very long mane come to drink, said Sylvi.
Eh? said Ebon. He probably has a name. You could ask Hibeehea. This is where your water is, is it? as she knelt and flicked the stopper out of the bottle, wondering how a pegasus would do it, and not wanting to ask. It’s a little like something that happens when you’re accepted as an apprentice to a sculptor, Ebon said. Idly he pawed at the pebbles at the waterline. The sculptor who has said he’ll sponsor you—or she—takes you to one of the big chambers with several other sculptors who’ve agreed to be part of your choosing. There are a lot of small stones lying around—that have been scattered around. You have to choose one. Which one you choose decides what happens next. There’s an old mwhumhum, a, er, scare-story that everyone who is trying to be accepted hears, that if you choose the wrong stone you don’t get apprenticed after all, but I’ve never heard of it happening. What does happen sometimes is that you aren’t apprenticed to your sponsor after all.
Were you?
No. Silence.