“That will be strange,” Kalys said. “But I think it might be good strange.”
“I think so, too,” Celie said. “Better than living by yourself.”
She couldn’t believe that Kalys, who was probably only fifteen years old, had been left to live on her own! Her parents had died, and these “Found” people had just ignored her, let her take care of a whole cluster of houses alone? Celie didn’t like that idea at all. The empty tree houses reminded her of Hatheland, and the abandoned stables and ruined courtyard of the Castle that had been left behind. It had been so lonely there, even with her brother and sister and Pogue and Lulath with them. She couldn’t imagine what it was like for Kalys to actually be alone in this house, so high above the ground and so far from the center of the city.
They went back out of the tree house, and Kalys latched the door very carefully. There was no lock, but Celie supposed that if everything was shared, and nothing really belonged to anyone except the clothes one was wearing, no one would steal. And if they did steal something, where would they go? Looking down off the edge of the platform made Celie feel sick; they were so high up! And looking out over the treetops she could see the roofs of other houses, but beyond them there was nothing.
They climbed back onto the griffins, and once again the little unicorn woke up. It bleated a bit, but Celie stroked it quiet again, and it went back to sleep. It seemed awfully young, and Celie hoped they would be able to find something for it to eat. It would be awful to come all this way and then have the little creature sicken on the way home because they couldn’t take care of it well enough.
Chapter
25
They were almost past the City in the Trees when the puppies, tired of being trapped in a basket, began to wrestle. The basket leaped and writhed, and then Celie felt it slip out of her sweaty palms.
“No!” she screamed as it fell.
Lady Griffin dove after it and almost caught it. Her fumbling talons knocked it to the side, and it landed atop one of the tents. The basket hit the canvas and exploded open, and Kitsi and her puppies all slithered out and rolled down the sloping roof and off the side of the tent.
Rufus landed on the tent’s platform without any guidance from Celie, who was busy uselessly shouting Kitsi’s name. She kicked Kalys by accident in getting off Rufus’s back, and then tripped over the hem of her own gown. Kalys helped her up and then guided her around the side of the tent. There, on a wooden ledge no more than a pace wide, was a rather surprised-looking weaver holding a basket of ribbons with three of the puppies in it. On the platform by her feet were Kitsi and the other puppy, looking slightly stunned but none the worse for wear.
“Oh, thank goodness, thank goodness,” Celie said, tears springing to her eyes.
“They fell right into my basket,” the weaver said in Grathian with a delighted laugh. “Wasn’t that lucky?”
“That was amazing; you’re amazing,” Celie babbled in the same language. “They fell right out of my hands. But you saved them!”
The woman blushed. “It was nothing! I’m sure they would have been fine if I hadn’t caught them! Look at little mother; she’s all right.”
Indeed, Kitsi had shaken herself thoroughly and was now busy alternately licking the puppy by her side and standing on her hind legs to try to see the ones in the basket. The weaver put the basket down and reunited the little family.
“Celie? I’m afraid to look,” Pogue called from around the corner of the tent.
“They’re fine,” Celie called back. “Someone caught them.”
Pogue made a noise that sounded like he was choking on a laugh and a sigh at the same time. “Well,” he said a moment later. “Hurry and get them, because people are coming.”
The original basket had caught on the top of the tent, and the weaver offered them her own. She dumped out the cloth she was carrying—bits and pieces that she was going to weave into the ribbony fabric they all wore—into a larger canvas bag and gave the basket to Celie. Celie coaxed the dogs inside, where they were only too happy to go, having been duly chastened by their fall. The only trouble was that the new basket didn’t have a lid, and Celie wondered if they should tie the puppies to the basket, and then the basket to Rufus’s harness.
By that time, the Master and one his guards had found them. He looked at the griffins, the baby unicorn, Kalys, Pogue, Celie, and the dogs, and then he shook his head.
“Come and speak to me,” he entreated Kalys.
Kalys sighed. Pogue and Celie shrugged. Kalys took the basket of puppies and shuffled after the Master while Celie and Pogue flew the griffins to his tent. There were only a handful of people inside: his guards, and a middle-aged man who began to berate Kalys in a vaguely familiar language while a younger man looked on with a smug expression.
“Are you the one she’s supposed to marry?” Celie asked the young man in Grathian, interrupting his father.
They both looked surprised that she would even talk to them. Or maybe that she spoke Grathian. Then the young man nodded.
“We are to marry in ten days,” he said sullenly, in near perfect Grathian.
This confirmed Celie’s suspicion that while that griffin rider village in Grath hadn’t let anyone learn their language or even where they had come from, they had been spying on their neighbors all along.
“She doesn’t want to marry you,” Celie said. “She doesn’t want to give up being a Hathelocke and become Arkish.”
The older man looked outraged, but Celie went on regardless.
“She wants to leave, so we’re taking her with us.”
Celie wanted to leave. The humid heat was making her head feel heavy, and she was sticky all over. She wanted to be back on the Ship, headed home. She did not want to have to stand, sweating, while this obnoxious boy got his father to yell at Kalys for him.
“Of course we’re taking her with us,” Queen Celina said, coming into the Master’s tent. Orlath was with her, and Lulath and Lilah. “We wondered what was taking so long, so we—” She stopped short. “Is that—”
“Look, Lilah,” Celie said. “We found you a unicorn!”
“What?” Lilah ran forward to see the little creature, still wide awake and protesting its captivity. She stopped just before she touched it. “But is it dangerous?” She looked torn between finally touching a unicorn and getting bitten by it.
“That is the other thing I wished to speak to you about,” the Master said. “And yes, please, the beast is in distress.” He gestured for Lilah to untie the unicorn.
She quickly began to undo the ribbons, and Kalys helped her.
“If you will raise it and train it properly, it will be like your griffins,” the old man said. “Deadly to enemies, gentle to friends. It is rare for a unicorn to be tamed, but it can be done,” he assured Queen Celina.
“But you don’t want us to take him, do you?” she asked shrewdly.
“Her—it’s a her!” Lilah corrected their mother with delight.
She sank to the floor and pulled the unicorn’s head onto her lap, cooing and clucking. Celie watched anxiously, especially when Juliet approached. But Juliet, after sniffing the unicorn over thoroughly, sank down beside Lilah and looked on, unconcerned.
“I don’t believe you will make it back through the Well,” he said bluntly. “I don’t think that Kalys, in wanting to leave this place, has been honest.”
Celie quickly explained to her mother why Kalys wanted to leave. Kalys’s intended kept interrupting, as did his father, to insist that she was being childish and that she belonged with them, but the Glowers and the Master ignored them. Celie could tell by the look on the Master’s face whenever the Arkish spoke that they hadn’t exactly made friends in the City in the Trees during their time there.
“If Kalys is willing to make the journey, we will take her with us,” Queen Celina said. She fixed a frosty eye on the angry suitor and his father. “Where we come from, we don’t force girls to marry against their will.”
br /> “We don’t, either,” the Master said, holding up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “But we require all of our people to have a place, and to be useful,” he explained. “We have so little here. Every person, every item that we can salvage is precious. We strive to preserve customs, languages, and the ways of every people who come to us through the Well, but they must also add to our society.”
“I understand,” Queen Celina said.
“There is no need for a griffin trainer here, without griffins,” the Master went on. “Nor do we need the Hathelocke language to be taught to our children, since Kalys alone speaks it now. It is for Kalys to change her ways, if she wishes to remain here.”
“But I don’t wish to remain here,” Kalys said passionately.
“Then you may go,” the Master agreed sadly. “Though I think it might be to your death.”
The Arkish intended and his father began shouting, but one of the guards escorted them out without even waiting for a signal from the Master. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they were gone, not just Kalys.
The Master looked at the small pack on Kalys’s back. “But what do you have there?” he asked.
Kalys flushed. “They are my things,” she said angrily.
“Can they be used for the good of the Found?” The Master’s voice was fatherly and gentle, but Celie wanted to grab Kalys and run out the door with her. Especially when Kalys, near tears, unfolded her makeshift hammock-pack and showed her meager belongings to the room.
“That is well,” the Master said. “There is no use for the picture. And each person is allowed two suits of clothing and their own bedding,” he told Queen Celina proudly.
“I understand that life is hard for you here,” the queen said politely. “If we dared to spare supplies from our Ship, we would surely do so. I can offer you some lovely blue cloth, recently purchased in NeiMai, as a gift in return for allowing us to take Kalys with us.”
“I’ll go get it,” Pogue offered.
“Wait just a moment,” Lilah said, looking up from her adoring contemplation of the unicorn. “Are you saying that all you own in the world is that little bundle?”
“Yes,” Kalys said, and her dark cheeks flushed.
“You don’t have a home?” Lilah demanded, and Lulath made a soft exclamation of sympathy.
“I do!” Kalys said. “I mean, I did. The griffin riders, we had houses, but now—”
“Those houses will be used by people who need them,” the Master explained. “And Kalys was to marry into another family and be a useful member of their household.” He paused. “I know that before, your people were rivals,” he told Kalys. “But here we cannot have fighting amongst the Found. And the Arkish and the Hathelocks, as you were once called, have much in common. The match would make much more sense than marrying you into one of the sailing clans, say.”
“I see,” Lilah said, arching one eyebrow.
“We cannot survive unless everyone contributes, unless everyone does their part,” the Master went on.
“So Kalys was expected to contribute to that other family, but now she won’t?” Rolf said. “I say—is that a problem if she goes with us?”
They all looked at him, Kalys ever more red-faced and humiliated.
“I want her to come with us, but—” Rolf said, but then he broke off, red in the face as well.
Lulath patted his shoulder, then Kalys’s shoulder. He was uncharacteristically quiet, and Celie could see that the tall prince was thinking hard about something.
“She will come us,” Lilah declared. “She will be more useful to us than she is here. We need her. We need someone who knows about Hatheland, and who speaks Hathelocke, to help us with our griffins. And someone who knows about unicorns.”
“I have heard the stories of such people,” the Master said musingly. “And how they take and take, but now I see it plain before me.”
“You take from the Well,” Celie interjected hotly.
“Are you saying that we’re taking too much?” Lilah asked a moment later, before the Master could even begin to argue with Celie.
Lilah had the bargaining look on her face, the one that she’d had when they’d been in NeiMai. She was on her feet, and the little unicorn began to chew on her skirt, but Lilah didn’t look down. Her eyes were on the Master.
“Well, then, that’s easy enough: you may keep this unicorn, but we are definitely taking Kalys.” She twitched her skirt out of the unicorn’s mouth, and it gave a little cry. Lilah’s face tightened, but she still didn’t take her eyes off the Master.
“My Lilah!” Lulath exclaimed.
“You are a young woman of great nobility,” the Master said admiringly. “It is a shame that you will not stay.” He waved a hand. “Kalys may go with you, by her own choice, of course. And we have no use for the unicorn, so fear not, you may take it as well.”
“Thank you,” Lilah said, looking pleased with herself. She sat down and pulled the little unicorn back into her lap.
They all looked at Lilah for a moment—even the Master—with expressions of varying degrees of shock and admiration. Kalys sat down on the floor by Lilah and briefly rested her forehead on the older girl’s shoulder. Lilah gently patted Kalys’s hand and went back to stroking the unicorn.
“Well,” Queen Celina murmured, “that gives me one less child to worry about.”
“Are you worried about me?” Celie asked, indignant.
“Only when you climb onto roofs,” her mother said.
Looking astonished at Lilah’s behavior, Pogue left for the Ship to fetch the blue cloth. As they waited for him to return, one of the guards came to speak to them. It was the tall woman.
“Master,” she said politely, “should we give them the other unicorn?”
“What?” Lilah jerked her head around to stare at the guard. “There’s another one? A tame one?” She gave the Master a narrow look.
“Yes; my brother and I found the mother a few weeks ago,” the guard said. “She was tangled in the sticking vines by the river, and had injured herself trying to break free. We sadly had to end her suffering, but then we discovered that she had a youngling, a male. He was nearby, also stuck in the vines, but him we were able to rescue. We thought to care for him until he could live on his own, but . . .” She pointed with her spear to Lilah. “If you are to take a female, you should have a male. She would be the last of her kind in your land all over again.”
The Master sighed heavily. “Another thing taken from us,” he said.
“But there is being something given in return,” Lulath said. “A several things, which will be of more joy than this unicorn.”
“The fabric is a noble gift,” the Master said grudgingly. “Whole cloth is rare.” He fingered his cloak of woven ribbons.
“And these fine small dogs are also being noble gifts,” Lulath said, standing up and pointing to the basket Celie was holding on her knees.
“What?” Celie said, rather too loudly. It startled one of the puppies, which fell out and began to cheep in distress.
“Lulath, no!” Lilah protested. She handed the unicorn to Kalys and got to her feet beside him. “You can’t!”
“They’re too young,” Queen Celina said.
“But of course the proud mother must stay,” Lulath said. His voice thickened as he said it. “My Kitsi is such the good and happy mother,” he told the female guard.
She put down her spear and went to Lulath. She put a hand on his shoulder. “My name is Seren,” she said. “Thank you for this noble gift.” Then she walked over to Celie, squatted down, and held out a hand. Kitsi licked it, wagging her tail, and then began dropping puppies out of the basket, displaying them with obvious pride.
“With my Lorcan, the caring for the small dogs is more the hardest to remember,” Lulath said. “Here it is my thinking that they are having attention all to themselves.” He bent down and stroked Kitsi, and then each of her puppies. “Her name is being Kitsi, but we are having no n
ames for these her babies.”
“We will give them good names, and good homes,” Seren said. “And, while there aren’t dogs such as this here, there are other fine breeds, and we will find good mates for them when they are older.”
“Ah, so fine,” Lulath said.
A tear ran down his nose and dripped on one of the puppies, and he wiped it off. Seren put an arm around Lulath’s shoulders and gave him a quick hug.
Pogue returned. “What’s happening? Did they get hurt when they fell?”
“They fell?” Lilah asked. She had also put her arms around Lulath, and now she looked up, concerned.
“No, no,” Celie said, choking back tears of her own. “It’s not that.” She sucked in a deep breath and wiped her face on her sleeve. “In exchange for a male unicorn, Lulath has offered to leave Kitsi and her puppies here,” she said.
“Oh,” Pogue said. He stopped unstrapping the fabric from Arrow’s back. “Oh, Lulath, that’s so generous of you.” He patted Lulath on the back.
“Well, will that do?” Queen Celina asked the Master tartly. “Here is some fine cloth, and some of the most prized dogs in the kingdom of Grath!”
“These are generous gifts indeed,” Seren said. She picked up one of the puppies and put it to her shoulder like a baby. “More than generous!” She grinned as the puppy licked her ear. “We are in your debt!”
The Master gave her a dirty look. “They are fine gifts,” he said stiffly.
“May we leave, then?” Queen Celina was angry, and there was no painted-on court smile anymore. “Or will you take a moment to explain to us why this journey is so dangerous?”
The Master was offended by her tone, and he drew himself up to his full height, which made him roughly an inch taller than Celie.
“The entrance to the Well in this world is not far, but you must sail through sharp rocks to get to it. Then you must survive the crushing pull of the Well all over again. Do you really think you will be so lucky twice?” He shook his head. “No one is so lucky! You should stay with us. Your crew, your ship, your griffins. Stay.”