Oh, My Maidm, my Queen, they know You too— She could find no other thought. Thinking was driven out of her by the immensities. After a while she realized she was leaning against Hasai's face, her cheek resting on the great sapphired one, her left arm holding the Dragon close and her right in his mouth, up to the shoulder. And her face was wet. She straightened up, abashed.
Hasai let her arm loose, and Segnbora spent a few moments brushing herself off and trying to find some composure. Hasai watched her gravely, wailing. "It felt real!" '"And so1 it was."
"But that happened a, long time ago!" """Certainly. And, it happened again, right, then."' "But it was a, memory," Segnbora said, confused. "If I had tried to change what was happening, I couldn't have." ""'Of course you, could have changed, it," Hasai said, politely. "We wondered that you, didn't try." She shook, her head again. Perhaps she was just not think-ing well in this language yet.
"It was. very beautiful," she said after a pause. ""We thank 'you, sdaha." There was nothing in Dragon life more important than memories, and the sharing of them. "It's well that you find value in who we were, and are, for we cannot
leave. Henceforward, you will have to deal with us as we are — as we shall deal with you."
Segnbora looked up in sudden anger at the immense face above her. "Who are you to dictate terms to me in my own mind?" she cried. "You say 'your own mind'," Hasai said. "You imply owner-ship — or at least control. Prove your claim. Leave this 'mind* and then come back. Or better still, remove us."
There was a long silence, during which Hasai watched her, and neither of them moved.
"We cannot leave, either," said Hasai. Baffled, Segnbora shook her head. "Now what?" she said finally. "Now," Hasai said, "we sue for pardon of wrongs done in haste."
He bowed to her, his wings going up again, and his great head sinking low; lower than ever, this time, till it almost touched the floor. Those eyes as tall as her body were below her own.
"I am — sorry — about the mdeihei. " The words came out of him oddly; to a Dragon this was like apologizing for breath-ing. "They were trying to find out what kind of place they were in. That can be very important. We are large as your kind reckons size, true enough; and well armed, and long-lived. But we have our fears too."
Segnbora became conscious that the rustling in the shad-ows had stopped, and that many eyes were gazing out of it at her with a frightening and alien directness.
"I am aware of your dislike for others delving in your memories. I will keep the mdeihei out of your past — though you are of course welcome to ours. But I don't know what I can do about your future—"
"Neither do I," Segnbora said, with a rueful laugh. "The present is giving me enough problems already." Suddenly she was thinking about Lorn, and Lang, and the others. Had they left her in Chavi as planned? She had to get out and see where she was. . "Since you are us now," Hasai said, sensing both the joy and danger her liege represented, "you must be more conscientious in safeguarding your body. There is more than just one of you to go rdahaih if you're careless."
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"And you of course will take care of me for the same rea-son—"
"We would take care of you anyway, shared mindspace or no," Hasai said. "Life is the Immanence's gift, not to be thoughtlessly cast away even when it is alien — or angry."
Segnbora bit the inside of her lip, ashamed of herself. / did ask for a change at the Fane, she thought after a moment. The request has certainly been granted! But it's just like the old stories: If you don't specify what you want when you wish for something, you may get a surprise. .
"I must go." Segnbora turned and headed for the little low door of the cavern. "Sehe'rae, sdaha," said the huge viol-voice from behind her: Go well, outdweller. Segnbora paused. "Sehe'rae—" she said, and tasted the next word. " — mdaha. " Mindmate.
The mdeihei, pacified at last, settled back into the song of the ages, the litany of all their memories, all their lives. Segnbora threw a last glance at Hasai, burning in iron and diamond in the light from the shaft. Then she turned and ducked through the door—
— to stare at the dawn from her blanket-roll. The Sun hadn't yet climbed over the edge of the world, and gray mist lay low over the grassy lea in which the camp was set. Off to one side the horses stood together, stamping and quietly snorting their way toward wakefulness; three or four feet in front of her, the campfire was down to ashes and embers.
"Thank You, Goddess," she tried to say; but her throat, after some days of disuse, refused to do anything but squeak like the sparrows trying their voices all around. She was about to try clearing her throat a bit when the fire before her flared up wildly. (Took you long enough!) it shouted, annoyed and de-lighted. (Herewiss!)
From behind her came hurried rustling: blankets being thrown aside, wet grass whispering as someone came quickly
through it. Then Herewiss was down on his knees in front of her, staring at her.
"Are you sure? The last time it was just a coughing spell—" Segnbora looked up at Herewiss and very distinctly croaked a rude word in the oldest of the dead Darthene dialects, a word having to do with one of the less sanitary habits of sheep.
"Now I'll cough/' she said, and she did. A thump occurred during the coughing spell, and Freelorn was beside Herewiss. He grabbed Segnbora by the shoulders and shook her. "Are you all right? Are you?"
"I will be when you stop that. . " she gasped. As Lorn helped her sit up, she looked around at the approaching morning with appreciation too great for words. "Can I have a drink?"