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was even wary of prodding the horse into the spectacular flying gallop its
kind could execute so easily. So they moved at a measured pace across the
inconstant landscape, passing within hours through areas where both spring and
winter ruled.
They found another chasm when they crested a hill and looked across a broad,
sparsely forested savannah.
Within the chasm, an island tens of miles long carrying a mountain on its
broad back had pulled away and wobbled ponderously. Chunks office several
hundred yards wide hung without support near the island.
"Were you born in the Realm?" Michael asked.
"Yes," Shiafa replied.
"But you've never been to Earth."
She shook her head when he glanced back at her. "My father has been telling me
about it recently."
"What do you know about magic? About lengu spu
, for example in-speaking."
"I know only the basics," Shiafa said. "Only from one to one. Not to spread
wide."
"Can you feel me broadcasting?"
He allowed her to draw the meaning of that word from his own memory. "Yes,"
she said. "Like standing before the sun."
"Do you know the three disciplines of combat
isray, vickay, stray
?"
"I know of them," she said. "Sidhe females are not always trained in those
things. The
Mafoc Mar have other defenses for us to learn."
Michael suddenly realized that he could not train this female the way the
Crane Women had trained him.
He could use very little of their instruction, in fact& because they had
trained him as a male. He had no idea how to train a female Sidhe. Shiafa
would have to guide him& student leading the teacher.
"Do you know how to throw a shadow?"
"Yes. We have many kinds of shadow. There is the shadow preparatory to
birthing given out before we are bom, to carry away all illness and
malformation. That shadow is taken and disposed of by the
Ban
Sidhe
. We do that instinctively. And there is the shadow before mating and the
shadow of motherhood."
"That's all you know?" Michael asked facetiously.
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"It is not," Shiafa said, slightly indignant. "When women fight, we spin
shadows like webs to confound our foes "
"And you know how to do that?"
"No. That you must teach me."
Jesus
, Michael thought. "I'm not sure why your father thinks I can train you."
"Nor am I," Shiafa confided. "But he does, and you must."
file:///F|/rah/Greg%20Bear/Bear,%20Greg%20-...0Power%2002%20-%20The%20Serpent%
20Mage.html (124 of 208) [5/21/03 12:44:32 AM]
Bear, Greg - Songs of Earth and Power Vol. 2 - The Serpent Mage
So be it.
They rode until the quick evening, then set up a temporary camp. In the
darkness, they ate a few pieces of overripe fruit from a withered copse of
trees.
As the evening lengthened, there was once again a discontinuity, and all
locations and directions changed
but this time to their advantage. Michael sensed that the humans were much
closer. The next morning, he directed the horse again, and they traveled
across another, much wider savannah of emerald grass.
"I think we are near the
Chebal Malen
," Shiafa said. "Can you smell the snow?"
Michael sniffed the air but could not. "It's a little colder," he said. "That
might be the seasons changing again."
"1 don't think so," Shiafa said.
At the end of that day, they came across the nearly empty basin of what had
once been a huge lake, perhaps fifty miles wide and as much as a mile deep,
with scattered ponds of water glistening green and stagnant at the basin's
bottom. "
NebchatLen
," Shiafa said.
"Someone once described this to me as a sea," Michael mused, rubbing his cheek
with one finger. "I
wonder what drained it& ?" Then he shook his head and grinned. "1 think I know.
The Pelagals lived here, didn't they?"
"Here, and in the brazen ocean at the edge of the world," Shiafa said.
"I think most of them are on Earth now. They crossed over in a cataract."
"You saw that?"
He nodded. "Why haven't all the Faer left the Realm yet? Many are already on
Earth."
"You are the teacher," Shiafa said quietly.
"That means you don't know."
"It means I don't know."
"All right. We travel around the lake, across the forest called
Konhem
am I right? and after that we'll find the
Chebal Malen
, the Black Mountains. And somewhere in the
Chebal Malen is the
Sklassa
, the fortress of the Maln." He drew his brows together and reached out again
to feel for the humans. His heart sank. Beyond any doubt, that was where they
were being detained. "We'll have to go there," he said.
"That is not wise. There may not be time, and it is very difficult to reach
the
Sklassa
. It is protected." The emotion in her voice went beyond caution. For the
first time, Michael detected unease in Shiafa.
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"Nevertheless, that's where we're going," Michael said. "That's where all my
people are being held. Have you been there?"
"No," she said. "I was raised in Inyas Trai and the Irall."
"What sort of difficulties can we expect to find there?"
"You are the teacher," Shiafa said, somewhat forcefully.
"But you do know," Michael persisted.
"I am not supposed to know."
"What does that mean?"
Shiafa turned her eyes away, and an odd, defiant expression chin outthrust,
eyes narrowed crossed her face. "When I was a child, I listened to the
Mafoc Mar when I was not supposed to. They were talking with each other about
the
Sklassa
. It is not a place for young Sidhe."
"But you're Tarax's daughter," Michael reminded her.
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