People of the Sky (37 page)

“Wait!” Kesbe called after her. “I don’t even know where to go!” No answer came back. Sahacat had vanished.

Baqui Iba offered.

“Instincts?”

She touched Baqui Iba’s wings. One was nearly dragging on the ground. She lifted the wingspar to try and close the forewing, but it slid out of position and hung limply, neither open nor closed.

“Chosovi, can’t you fold your wings?”

A wave of sorrow swept over Kesbe as she remembered the strength and power of those wings as they bore her through the sky. Baqui Iba lowered its head and moved away with a leaden pace. Kesbe walked beside the creature, trying to support the wingtip so that it would not drag and be torn on the rocks. Even with Baqui Iba beside her, she felt an aching loneliness and need to speak to someone. She thought of her grandfather, whose wisdom spoke in her mind at unexpected times. Why had he remained silent for so long?

Because I was not needed, granddaughter, came the answer.

She halted and lifted up her head to the night sky, closing her eyes.

Bajeloga, are you there?

I am always here, granddaughter. As part of you.

I am afraid. Even after everything I have done, I am still fearful of what lies ahead. Give me courage, Morning Bird Man. Let me feel the strength of your hands on my shoulders. Turn me to face forward on this path, not back.

My hands are your hands, chosovi. My strength is yours. It has been so all along.

Without you I could not have come this far, I could not have made the decision. You kept the doors in my mind from closing, you taught me that the world I knew was not the only one. I almost feel that it was you who has acted and spoken to the Pai instead of me.

And how can I have done all that if I am but a memory, the old voice chided in the back of your mind.

Kesbe laughed, but she felt tears gather in the corners of her
eyes. Don’t say that, Bajeloga. Don’t say that and then have me. I am not strong enough alone.

Chosovi, where would I go? I am after all, a part of you, a part you created from hearing my voice, understanding my teachings and sharing my love for the old ways. You are as strong as you need to be. For the Pai, for me and for yourself.

For Bacqui Iba
, Kesbe added.
And Imiya.

Baqui Iba stands beside you. Imiya waits in the village. The path lies ahead. We will take it together.

The trail had many switchbacks and sudden dips. Baqui Iba kept Kesbe on the inside of the dirt path, using its own body to bar her from the edge. She feared that the creature might make a clumsy step, one that might cost its life since it could no longer fly.

She kept one hand fastened to the bristles on the aronan’s neck, feeling the rhythmic pull as it guided her along. Soon she would be carrying Baqui Iba’s child in her body. She let the idea penetrate and waited for the backwash of fear to sweep over her. But what came instead was a calmness and understanding, not only for Baqui Iba and its gift, but for the Pai Yinaye themselves. Perhaps what they had done and made with aronans might not be called human. Yet it had touched that which was most deeply human in herself.

She wasn’t going to immerse herself with the Pai and leave everything behind, no, she was
still too restless for that. But this is where her home would be. She would return to Tuwayhoima to call Baqui Iba out of the skies where it flew on new wings. She would come to the birth-house where Nyentiwakay had lain to bring the aronan-child from her body. She knew there would be many hard hours in
Gooney Berg,
and even more difficult ones in the records offices and courts of Oneway, fighting for the sake of her people. It would be a fight that only she could understand at first, but others would join once she had taught them how.

The Pai could no longer keep themselves isolated. That much was clear to her and, she suspected, to the Pai Elders as well. But the outside need not sweep over and around them like a flooding sea. She who stood between two worlds would be both their bridge and their barrier.

She stood still as another thought took her. Perhaps there would be others like her. Others who might have the same heritage, the same longing for old legends only half-taught and beliefs only half-realized. Those who might come and find that they must do battle with the most ancient and evil of fears, to find a strange and joyous new life spreading its wings before them…

She looked up to see an aronan glide between the sheer walls of the mesa and canyon. The coppery flash of the setting sun on its wings made her remember how she had first seen Haewi Namij from
Gooney Berg.

She smiled to herself as the evening wind tugged her hair. If Nyentiwakay hadn’t chosen the name Haewi Namij for his aronan-child, she would place it among the ones from which would be drawn the choice of her own.

And if she did eventually marry and have a baby, her son or daughter could chose partnership with the aronan-child in the Pai manner.

She remembered Chamois voice, speaking again the words,

“It is the Pai Way. To know that there is another spirit destined to walk with you on your life-road.”

Wherever that road may lead
, she added silently, stroking Baqui Iba. Her step was steady on the path as the aronan guided her.

This is the truth of things. Haliksa’i
.