Fish Tails

  She hit him, or tried.

  He caught her hand between his own. “Xulai, love, I trust Willum’s sense of self-­preservation and Needly’s education at her grandmother’s knee. As Gum once remarked in several other contexts, they are not geese! If they were, they’d be far less trouble. I’m much more worried about something else.”

  “That ‘something else’ being?”

  “I’m worried about the Griffin, our Griffin. She’s female. She has a child. She’s the one I met before, the one Olly met. They no doubt move about. Olly met her in a forest, I think. Olly saved her baby when the baby was a hatchling. That would have been when Olly herself was a child. When Olly left on that ship, she was . . . in her early twenties. That was over three years ago. So the baby is at least twenty-­some-­odd years old. When will she reach maturity?”

  “The rule for most animals is that one-­sixth of the life-­span is spent in growing to maturity.”

  “So, the mother said she might live two thousand years. Maturity, then. would arrive somewhere around three hundred years of age.” Abasio scratched his nose, thinking.

  “I wonder what the incubation time is.”

  “Geese can live fifteen years. Hatching time is, I think, thirty days or so. They are goslings for some time after that, however.”

  Xulai stared at him. “With that measurement, hatching would take over ten years.”

  “It sounds . . . unlikely. Some animals have precocious development. They gain adult attributes very rapidly, but they grow to full size only very gradually. I think that’s probably what’s going on here.”

  “So you suppose they could nest near . . . volcanoes? Someplace that stays warm?” Xulai frowned. “But the hatchling you described was in a nest, up a tree, wasn’t it? Something like that?”

  “It was actually up a cliff. There’s nothing to prevent the baby being moved, after it comes out of the egg. Well, that’s something we have to figure out. The thing I am supposedly making clear, to myself if not to you, is this: the Griffin is female and had a child, and that fact implies the existence of a male Griffin . . . but I’ve never seen one, or not up close, though I think I may have seen one at a great distance while we were back near Saltgosh. It was the biggest thing I have ever seen flying; far bigger than . . . our Griffin. And it was black, or blackish—­metallic, rather. And if so, it makes me fearful.”

  “Perhaps parthenogenesis,” murmured Xulai.

  “Possible, but I think that’s unlikely. The original designers would probably have had enough trouble using bisexual genetic mode—­eagle, lion, who knows what else?—­without trying for a less usual one. Instinct tells me the male of this species could be quite different from the females, not physiologically but psychologically. He may have a very different agenda. And I’m more than a little worried that we may encounter him, or them, at some point.” He felt that they had already almost encountered him. He had not liked the sound of the battle they had heard.

  “We have weapons that could handle that situation.” She turned, confused by Abasio’s expression. He looked troubled. Far more troubled than he had when discussing the children. “What is it?”

  He shook his head at her; she was not seeing the problem! “Yes, we have weapons; weapons that kill. I’ve seen, females, several times. I’ve possibly seen a male, and I know there has to be one if there are young! Perhaps only one was ever created, or perhaps there is only one left? In which case, our weapons would kill not only him but the race of Griffins forever, including the descendants of that female-­child Griffin that Needly is so careful of.”

  It was not something Xulai had considered. It was something that kept her awake late into the night.

  WHILE QUEEN SUN-­WINGS WAS AWAY, picking up their supplies, Needly had amused the Griffin child by telling her a story, one that she and Willum had spent some time concocting on their way to and from the latrine ground or the stream. It was a story that Grandma had supposedly told Needly, about an island of ice in the north, across the eastern ocean. There was a tribe of Griffins there, said Needly, one created long since who had lived there always. The tribe included three very large, fierce males whose names were Devastation, Disruption, and Destruction: the Dreadful brothers for short.

  That night, snuggled into their straw-­filled mattresses, well wrapped in blankets, she and Willum pretended to be sleeping. They were actually listening as Dawn-­song told the story of the three male Griffins to her mother. The next morning, Sun-­wings questioned Needly at length about the story: when had it been told, who had told it, how did Needly’s grandmother know? Needly was properly unsure about the details. It was only something her grandma had told her, and yes, Grandma was a very intelligent woman, but she was very old. Needly couldn’t say whether it was true or not. Needly privately thought that in an infinite number of galaxies there must be one planet that had such an island, properly inhabited.

  The next night another Griffin, female, arrived, announcing herself from the woods so as not to take them by surprise. Needly and Willum listened again as Sun-­wings told the story to her friend on the cliff above their cave. They spoke ­people language, local language, which Needly found faintly surprising. Somehow she had thought they would have a tongue of their own. But then, they were human-­created! On this continent! Humans from here! Of course, if they spoke, they would be hatched into a world speaking that language, the language of their creators.

  Dawn-­song lay between them, also listening. “She’s my mama’s favorite friend,” she told Needly. “She needs a name, too.”

  The three of them considered what name would be proper. The new one had remarkable plumage, a shining flow of the partially feathered mane that went well down into the fur of her belly: golden, gleaming, almost metallic in its reflection of light. Together the three of them decided this one would be “Golden-­throat.”

  Golden-­throat departed. The exhausted children slept, scarcely moving until morning, when Sun-­wings summoned Needly and Willum out of the cave.

  “I am told you create names for each of us.”

  “When we refer to you, we prefer to distinguish among you,” said Needly. “It is polite to do so. You would, I think, prefer us to be polite.”

  “There is nothing evil in that. Name us, then, and tell us what the name is when you have done so. We recognize one another by the voice, the style of flight, the outline against the light, the very direction from which we come. Names will be something interestingly new to the more thoughtful ones among us.”

  “The more thoughtful, Sun-­wings?”

  “The more thoughtful, yes. The more curious. South of here, far south of here, there were some Griffins hatched who . . . are driven by . . . what is it that drives Despos?” She paused. “What is the word you use when you want something someone else has? Or want something like it?”

  “Envy. If I wanted your beautiful mane and wings, I would be ‘envious.’ I might even dislike you because you had something I did not have. That dislike would be ‘hostility.’ Those Griffins are hostile. They feel hostility.”

  “Hostility. Yes. It is like that, yes. I do not think it is envy, no.” The Griffin’s beak tightened, the flesh around it gathered in harsh lines. Her eyes were slitted in concentration. “They do not want something of mine. It is only that they dislike . . . everything that is not theirs. With me, with my friend, you are more safe. Among the . . . hostile, not so safe, I think. There are three of them. They are full of violence and they do not . . . think about things.”

  “We have named your friend Golden-­throat. We noticed how pleasant her voice was. Such voices are described as ‘golden’ in our shared language, and also the . . . fur of her throat is golden, so we can recognize her.” Was it fur? It was really something between fur and feathers, or down. Needly shifted, a little uncomfortably. Willum was watching her from close inside the cave. She drew in a breath before
asking, “Did I hear you telling your friend about the story my grandmother told me? The story about the three Griffins on that island?”

  Sun-­wings shifted in discomfort. “Despos intends to go there and kill them. Before he goes, he demands to see each of us females; he demands that we take him to each nest, to be sure we have no eggs, no male young. It would not matter, male or female in the egg. He would break the eggs, he would kill the young females trying to mate with them. He half kills us!”

  “Then you must let him look.”

  “We can’t,” she cried. “We can’t. He will kill them . . .”

  Needly laid her hand on the creature’s foot, the only part of her within easy reach. The bones shifted under her hand, the short, very short fur of the foot moved under her fingers as though the hairs were individually mobile. Needly forced her hand to stroke, advising herself to speak very softly. Stroke, stroke.

  “Sun-­wings, he will not see eggs or children if you bring them all here. Willum and Dawn-­song and I can keep the eggs warm for a time. We can care for the children for a time. If you made a big kill, Sun-­wings, if you did, and brought it close to our camp here, we could feed the little ones. I have seen you tear the meat in little pieces, Willum and I can cut the meat up like that. We can make a fire to keep the eggs warm. Despos does not know this place. Bring the young here! Then let him see only females without young. Let him see only empty nests!”

  She looked up into two orbs like bronze suns, staring down at her, two huge eyes that seemed to bore into her, suck at her, draw her strength from her own body into themselves. She stood back, straightened her back, and stared back, eye to eye. From somewhere, strength poured into her, like liquid metal down her backbone: only warm, not hot, a comforting warmth. She did not question its source. Its presence was enough.

  Sun-­wings stepped back. “We will try. It is the only thing left to try.”

  The great creature had to go some distance down through the trees before she came to the place she could best fly from. Dawn-­song had told Needly that the Griffins chose high places for their aeries because of the drop; it was so much easier to drop into flight than to pound one’s wings against unwilling air until one lifted. She, Dawn-­song, could fly a little, but not for long. Her wings were not even fully grown. Wings were rudimentary in a hatchling. Only gradually did they lengthen and strengthen. Once they were fully grown, Griffin wings would hold the Griffin aloft for days while she soared on the air currents moving above the canyons. But, to get into the air initially, they preferred a good drop.

  Needly watched until she was out of sight, then she went back into the caves, into Willum’s arms that were waiting for her, hugging her tight. He whispered, “It’s all right. It’s all right. It’s gonna work, Needly. It will, you’ll see, it will.”

  They watched Sun-­wings flying north, circling, finally turning west, toward the peaks. Once they were alone, they began on the duties they had already assigned themselves: collecting as large a pile of firewood as possible; filling all their pots and pans and water bottles at the spring. Needly sorted through her kit, repacked it neatly, put it where it could be grabbed up in a moment if needed. She went down into the forest, hid, took the little pouch from beneath her skirts, and checked it over, being sure everything was tightly corked, the corks tightly bound to the tiny bottles as she took an inventory. One bottle for sleep: three drops for a person; probably a small spoonful for something as big as a grown Griffin. One bottle held peaceful death: one drop for any creature of any size, even a very large size. One bottle held medicine for healing wounds: just a little diluted with water, then the water wiped onto the wound to moisten it. One bottle for questioning: one drop—­then, as soon as the person’s eyes went funny, ask the questions. The person would answer. One bottle held a long, terrible dying: one drop, only one. Grandma said she had seen it used only once, in order to elicit information that saved many lives.

  Grandma had not said whether the healing mixtures she made would work on a Griffin. Well, along with parts of lions and eagles and who knew what to make Griffins, men used the patterns of parts of men’s brains to create speaking creatures. Chances were Griffin brains worked very much like men’s brains did! Altogether, there were ten tiny bottles, each with its own purpose. She put them into the pouch, closed it, knotted the bottom tie around her leg, fastened the top one to the belt she wore next to her skin day and night, shook down her skirts, and returned to the cave.

  Some time later, crashing noises from the forest below heralded Sun-­wings’ approach, dragging behind her the gutted carcass of a young buffalo. Willum and Needly were summoned to learn which parts were most suitable for feeding children, human and otherwise. “Without the inward parts, it will stay good longer,” she said, to which Willum nodded, then, noting the thickness of the hide, he asked Sun-­wings to draw her beak here, and here, and there, creating flaps of hide that could be folded back to give him access to the meat below.

  Still later, Golden-­throat arrived with a child somewhat larger than Dawn-­song. The child walked through the trees beside her mother. Only moments later, another Griffin, one they immediately titled “Silver-­shanks,” arrived. She also had a child, a bit smaller than Dawn-­song. The mother carried it like a mother cat carries a kitten. As dusk approached, the children were cutting meat from the carcass when they saw another, a fourth Griffin, arriving, a bundle dangling from her feet. She landed down the slope somewhere, and they heard her hurrying up toward them, past them, and into the cave, sparing them the briefest possible glance. The children picked up their burdens and followed, naming the one they had just seen “Bell-­sound,” for they had heard her calling like a great bronze gong from the sky.

  Bell-­sound’s burden—­carried in the hide of some recently killed animal—­contained three eggs: her own very large one and two others, smaller but distinguishable by size.

  “We have to leave you here alone,” Sun-­wings told them, speaking directly to Needly, her wings twitching with the strain they could hear in her voice. “Some of them got Despos to fly off west so the others would have time to get their eggs and young here. Now, of course, he will demand to see our nests, to see us, to determine that there are no young, no eggs. Ordinarily, Griffins do not change their nests. Ordinarily, we build one and one only, deep and soft with plucked feathers to keep the baby warm. Now . . . well, now he will see empty nests. Now, hear me carefully, Willum, Needly.”

  She fixed them with her huge eyes, and even Willum, oblivious as he sometimes was, saw the pain and tension there. “I have pulled the buffalo carcass as near as I can to the cave door. Willum has had me pull the skin and cut it in several places so you can get at the meat. Cut what you will need from it for two or three days and bring that part into the cave. Do it as soon as we leave. There is a large piece of . . . human house-­skin there. I took it from a man-­place. Use it to cover the body outside, so it cannot be seen from the air. You do not want a gathering of crows or vultures drawing attention to this place. The eggs were carried here in a hide; I will carry that hide away. After that, do not leave the cave. Listen to me! If you go out, some small things may watch you, from the trees, from the ground, from the air! They are little, harmless things. You think, ‘Oh, they can’t hurt us.’ You are right. But those little harmless things can be seen! And Despos can see them! And Despos can think, ‘Aha, what is that little bird looking at?’ ”

  “So he would come to see what the bird was looking at,” said Willum.

  The huge head nodded. “He would come to see, and you and Needly and my child and the other children, the eggs, all would be gone within . . . moments. If he roared into this cavern, your ears would burst. If he reached into it, you would die on his claws. If you need to pee or poop—­that is your word, yes?—­do it in that earth-­floor corner of the cave. Our children will need to do the same, they can use that place as well. Despos has spies, some who fly, some wh
o walk under the trees, and some who burrow under the ground. None of them are near this place. Not yet. It should be only a day before he goes! One day. Do not go out in daytime until we come to tell you he has gone.” And with that, she herself was gone, walking off under the trees toward the precipice at the bottom of the rise, from which she could drop easily into flight.

  Willum and Needly stared at the three eggs. Bell-­sound’s egg, the largest one, could have held a three-­year-­old human child, if it were curled up. One of the two smaller ones could have held a one-­year-­old; the smallest was half that size. Needly remembered Abasio’s story of the woman, Olly, who had saved a hatchling as a child. So that huge egg must be mostly other stuff and quite a small baby.

  Needly asked, “How long does the mother have to sit on the nest?”

  “Sit on a nest?” questioned Golden-­throat’s child. “Why would a mama do that?”

  “To keep her egg warm. So it will hatch?”

  “But it is always warm. It is in her pocket. The baby does not stay in the nest until after it has hatched; then, if the weather is warm, it can stay for short times! If the mamas have an egg in the pocket, if they hear Despos coming, they fly away and hide so the egg doesn’t get broken. If Despos attacks them, he kicks the mama, hurts her, breaks the egg, he even breaks the mamas. He is very . . .” The little one shook her head.

  Needly knew the word. Grandma had very early taught her the word. “Abusive.” It was the word for Gralf, the word for most of the men in Hench Valley. Someone had created an abusive male. Like the three hostile females. Surely not intentionally? She set that thought aside in order to find out something more important. She asked, “You have a pocket?”

  The little one reared onto her hind legs, reaching down with her beak and running it across just below her front legs, a slit that ran from just below one armpit to the other. “Feel inside,” she said, then giggled as Needly reached out to feel the warm softness within. “It tickles. It’s always warm there. When a mother lays an egg, it’s small. You know those birds that fly in long lines?”