Eyes of Crow (9 page)

“For my Bestowing,” she replied. A day ago it would have felt odd to speak with a snake as if it were a new friend.

“I do not understand this word, Bestowing.”

“It’s when a person receives their Aspect from their Guardian Spirit Animal.”

“Like a snake?”

“It could be a snake.” She hesitated. “Are you my Guardian Spirit? Galen said it would be the last animal to come to me, not the first.”

“I’ve no interest in being anyone’s anything.” The snake stretched and let his tail dangle over the edge of the boulder. “So why are you here?”

“I told you.”

“You told me why they sent you. I don’t care what’s expected of you. Tell me…Why. You. Are. Here.”

She thought for a long time. Each answer contained another answer within it. She wanted to help her people, but why? To be of use, but why? As she meditated on the question, her eyelids became heavy from the sun. Halfway to sleep, the deepest answer entered her.

“To become,” she told the snake.

“Become what?”

“A part of the whole.”

“The whole what? The whole village? The whole people?”

“The whole.” She gestured to the world. “Everything.”

“I see.” The snake was quiet for a few moments, and Rhia sat back, relieved that she had given a correct answer. Then he turned his unblinking eyes on her again.

“Are you not already part of the whole?”

“I—yes. Everything is, of course.”

“Then why are you here?”

She sighed and looked around, as if the answer would pop out of the forest floor. “Are you enjoying this interrogation?”

“I ask the questions.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Then how will I learn?”

“Before you add, you must subtract.”

“What does that mean?”

If a snake had shoulders, this one would have shrugged. His head turned away from Rhia and rested on the stone, as if their conversation had been a distraction from sunbathing.

Before you add, you must subtract.
Did she have two days and nights of riddles to look forward to, or would other Spirits be gentler? Compared to the thing that had approached her the night before, though, the snake was mild enough.

Must she subtract from her knowledge, unlearn everything she knew?

“Hello,” said the snake, who had turned his head back to her.

“Hello,” Rhia replied.

“So why are you here?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Exactly.” The snake disappeared.

Rhia blinked. She leaned over one edge of the boulder, then the other to see if the snake had slithered off. His green body was not among the pine needles and rough stones on either side. When she straightened up again, a shriek darted from her throat.

A monster towered over the boulder.

Its legs alone reached higher than the stone, which extended to the top of Rhia’s head. Its fur was a pale tan, patterned with intersecting, irregular patches of dark brown. A long tail swished its flank in the manner of a horse. In fact, the beast resembled a horse that had been stretched and distorted. An impossibly long neck, longer even than its legs, ended in a deerlike head that held two straight nubs of horns, like those of a baby goat.

She looked at the creature’s face and a second scream died in her throat, for dark, kind eyes gazed back. It seemed to be smiling at her.

“Wh-what are you?” Rhia said.

“I am proof.” The feminine voice spoke in a lilting language in which the end of each word trembled.

“Proof of what?”

“Of the glory of Creation.”

Rhia couldn’t argue with that statement. “I’ve never seen anything like you.”

“And you never will. My kind dwells in a land farther than your people will ever travel. It would seem to you as far as the end of the earth, and yet there are places even farther and creatures who would appear even stranger to your eyes.”

“I would like to see them, too.”

“In time, perhaps. They will appear in your dreams as you need them. Right now they are needed by others, people who live in our lands.”

Rhia felt honored that this creature would travel so far to appear to her, though time and distance meant little in the Spirit World. She stood and bowed. “Thank you for helping me.”

“It is my pleasure.”

Rhia waited for the tall creature to begin testing her as the snake had. But she only said, “Speak.”

“Pardon?” Rhia asked.

“You must have questions.”

Rhia recovered from her surprise. “What are you called?”

“The people where I live call me ‘twiga.’ Those who lived here long ago called me ‘giraffe,’ but I prefer my native name.”

Her mind roiled in confusion. “Wait. The people who lived here long ago, how did they know you, if you live far away?”

“They traveled around the world, and brought some of my creatures here to keep for themselves.”

“To eat? To ride?”

“To possess.” The twiga/giraffe gave a modest tilt of her head. “And to admire.”

Rhia understood the impulse, but it seemed beyond her people’s capability. Then again…

There were those who believed in the Reawakening, the moment in the distant past when the Spirits chose her people to share their magic. Before the Reawakening, humans had dwelled in disharmony with the world and its creatures, placing themselves in the role of gods, as the Descendants now did. The natural world turned against them, and it was only by the grace of the Spirits that her people had survived.

Few Asermons believed this myth. But why would the twiga tell a false story? Though Spirits didn’t lie outright, some offered incomplete truths unless asked the right questions.

“Your land, what is it like?” Rhia said.

The animal swung its head in a sweeping arc. “It is much drier than your forest, with grass as tall as my knees. There are few trees, except at the watering holes, where we all gather. Even our enemies drink with us, those who would eat us, for water is the most precious thing in our lives.”

Rhia couldn’t imagine what would be large enough to eat this creature. “Who are your enemies?”

“Cats, nearly twice the size of your cougars, who live in groups instead of alone. They hunt our babies.” The twiga tasted a pine branch with a long black tongue, but declined to take a bite. “Would you like to ask about your own journey, or did you want to talk about me all day?”

A shadow of last night’s fear hovered over Rhia. “What lurks in the dark, here in the forest?”

“Oh, all sorts of things, I imagine. Owls, bats, mice—”

“What came to me last night? What will come again tonight?”

“Oh.” The twiga’s ears flicked back and forth. “I cannot tell you. Another question, please. I would so like to help.”

“Will I—will I survive this ordeal?”

The creature blinked her huge brown eyes. “Of course.”

“Will I see you again?”

She bowed her head close to Rhia’s and breathed warm upon her forehead. “If you need me, come and get me.”

The twiga disappeared so quickly that Rhia put her hand into the space where she had stood, in case she were merely invisible. She wished she had been less self-concerned and asked more questions about the Reawakening.

A low buzzing came to her ear. She turned to see a golden dragonfly the size of her finger hovering over the side of the boulder. It darted to and fro, then alighted in the center of the stone and lowered its iridescent wings to the side.

“What do you see?” Its voice, neither masculine nor feminine, sounded out of breath.

Now Rhia was the questionee again. She squatted to peer at the insect.

“I see—” She hesitated to utter the obvious:
a dragonfly
. Perhaps the insect was referring to her surroundings, asking her to describe the forest.

“What do you see,” it repeated, green eyes bulging, “when you look at me?”

Unable to devise a better answer, she said, “A dragonfly?”

A wave of heat burst over her as the insect suddenly stretched and swelled, growing up and out until it was the size of a bear. Rhia was too terrified to scream. She fell back on the rock and moved toward the edge, unable to look away.

Its four rear legs fused into one heavy pair upon which the beast now stood. Smaller front legs clawed and grasped as it loomed over her. Its huge green eyes slid apart and shrank to pierce her with their gaze. Its tail slashed the air, glinting gold in the sunlight.

It spoke again, in a language she didn’t understand, a language that was guttural and fluid at the same time. It continued its diatribe without pausing, speaking while exhaling and inhaling. She knew then that it was not from any part of this world.

“What are you?” she whispered.

Smoke poured from its nostrils as it seemed to struggle against its own will. Then its voice rolled out again in a rasping, gasping effort, as if its tongue resisted forming words she could understand.

“Dragon,” it said. “Fear not.”

Rhia nodded, her eyes wide, afraid to blink.

“Fear not.” The dragon shook its black-and-gold wings. “It is a command, not a suggestion.”

She shuddered at the threat inherent in the words, but sat up and looked into the beast’s leering face.

“Are you trying to scare me into not being afraid of you?”

The dragon’s eyes narrowed, then relaxed into an almost approving regard. “You are clever, little one.”

“Sometimes.”

Before the word was out of her mouth, the tip of the thorny tail whipped past her head. The dragon glowered at her. “It will be your undoing.”

She dropped her gaze. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

For catching on to your game,
she thought.

“I heard that!” The tail hissed in her ear again. The dragon crouched on the stone, but its lowered posture only made it look more imposing. It growled an incoherent oath. “You learn faster than you understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“Know one thing.”

She cocked her head and waited for enlightenment. When the dragon only sat, quietly puffing, Rhia grew impatient.

“Know what one thing?”

It gazed at her without reaction, as if it hadn’t heard her question. Rhia wished the twiga would return, or even the snake. But the Spirits sent those who could teach her best. So why did she feel like she knew less now than when she woke this morning?

The more she asked, the less she understood. It reminded her of the carved wooden puzzles she’d played with as a child, each piece interlocking to create a whole. But this puzzle only grew more incomplete with each addition, as if adding more pieces resulted in a larger picture. She would never figure out what she came to learn. Her Bestowing would be a failure.

Tears of frustration stung her eyes. She wiped at them in shame.

The dragon frowned at the sight. “Your despair is premature. You will face much greater hardships than your own ignorance.”

“I’m not ignorant. I just don’t know the one thing.”

“But you know all the other things, correct?”

“No, of course not.”

“What are the things you know?”

“I know that…” She searched her mind for one truth that hadn’t yet been demolished. Hunger, thirst and exhaustion had stolen her ability to think in a straight line. Doubt and fear swarmed inside her.

“Tell me,” the dragon rasped, “what do you know?”

“I don’t—” Her hands twisted in the folds of her coat. “I can’t—”

“You can’t tell me? Is it a secret?” The dragon rubbed its claws together in mock anticipation. “Tell me what firm ground you stand upon. Share your knowledge, your certainty. I’d be so pleased to hear it.”

Her thoughts scrambled back and forth in time but couldn’t land on any one fact, one certainty that didn’t slither out of her mind’s grasp.

“Rhia.” The monster inhaled her name slowly, until she felt as if her very self were being subsumed into its throat. “Tell me what you know.”

“Nothing!” She held her empty hands palm up. “Nothing makes sense anymore. No one is what they seem, including me. I don’t know why I’m here, what I’m supposed to learn, what I’m supposed to do.” She stared at the dragon, hoping it would forgive her honest but insufficient answer. “I know nothing.”

The creature gave Rhia a broad smile, then shimmered into oblivion.

The night had swallowed her whole.

She lay gasping—on the ground or on the flat boulder, she no longer recalled. Something was tearing her apart, rending her from the inside.

The night was squeezing her out of herself.

She had few thoughts to spare for why it was happening or who or what it might be. Every scrap of her mind concentrated on holding herself together, clinging to anything she remembered. Her family, friends, Arcas.