Taking Flight

“No, I won’t,” Asha said, speaking normally. “He’s too drunk. Nothing’s going to wake him up for hours. He got that whole bottle of oushka down in about five minutes; even my father couldn’t do that!”

Kelder watched Ezdral uneasily. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“I’m positive,” Asha replied. She sat up, a vague shape in the gloom. Kelder watched as she crept over and prodded Ezdral with a finger; the drunkard snored on without stirring. “See?”

Kelder nodded. “I see,” he said.

“So are we going to stay here with him, or are we going to get away and lose him?”

Kelder considered. “I’m not sure,” he said. “He’s not so bad, really.”

“He stinks, and he’s dirty.”

“That’s true,” Kelder admitted. “But if he were cleaned up... He knows a lot, he’s done a lot of traveling. He might be useful. Having an adult along could be helpful.” Having someone along who had money could be helpful, for one thing, he thought, but he didn’t say that aloud. Nor did he mention that he wondered what else the old drunk might know about Irith.

“You’re an adult.”

Kelder shook his head. “Not really,” he said. “I’m only sixteen; if I were an apprentice — well, in most trades I’d still be an apprentice. It’ll be another two years before I really count as an adult.”

“Oh,” Asha said, “I didn’t know.”

“There’s no reason you should have,” Kelder said.

The two of them sat for a moment, on opposite sides of the sleeping Ezdral, not saying anything.

“Is he asleep?” a voice called from somewhere overhead.

Kelder looked up, startled, and found Irith hovering above them, wings gleaming rose in the light of the lesser moon.

“Yes!” Asha shouted up to her. “Come on down!”

The winged girl descended slowly and cautiously, and settled to the ground a few yards away. Asha jumped and ran to her, and gave her a long, enthusiastic hug.

Kelder was a little more controlled about it, but he, too, came over and embraced her.

When they had exchanged greetings, Irith said, “Come on then, let’s get away from him while we can!” She gestured for the others to follow, and started down the slope toward the highway.

Kelder noticed that her wings did not vanish, as they usually did when she walked anywhere; she was keeping them ready, in case Ezdral woke and she had to flee again.

Of course, that would mean leaving Asha and himself behind again...

“Wait a minute,” he said.

“What?” Irith asked, startled. She turned back to face him.

“I’m not sure this is right,” he said. He glanced down at Ezdral. Drunk and snoring, the old man looked lost and forlorn, and Kelder was the prophesied champion of the lost and forlorn, wasn’t he?

And it was time to settle a few things. If he was going to marry Irith — well, marriage was a partnership, and he intended to be an equal partner, at the very least, not giving in to Irith on everything. Her magic gave her an advantage; he had to make up for that by stubbornness.

“What do you mean?” Irith asked. “Of course it is! Why would we want to be anywhere near a dirty old drunk? Come on, let’s get away while we can! He’ll be fine where he is, he doesn’t need us.”

“How do you know that?” Kelder countered.

“Well, he got along just fine all those years in Shan by himself, didn’t he?” the Flyer demanded, hands on her hips.

“It’s not the same, and you know it,” Kelder told her. “Besides, there are things we need to settle.”

“Such as what?” Irith demanded. “Has he been telling you lies?”

“I don’t know,” Kelder said. “Maybe they were lies, maybe they weren’t. Did you hear any of what he told us?”

“Only a little.”

Asha was standing at Irith’s side; now she looked up, startled. “You did hear a little?”

“Maybe,” Irith admitted. “I’m not sure.”

Asha asked, “How could you have heard?”

“She has ways of not being seen if she doesn’t want to be, Asha,” Kelder said. “I don’t know just what they are — but I’d like to.”

Irith glared at him; even in the darkness he could see that.

“You want to talk about all this, Kelder?” she asked.

“Yes, I think I do,” Kelder replied.

“Do we have to do it out here, in the cold and the dark, with that old drunk snoring like a pig?”

“No,” Kelder said, “but I’m not going any farther than the nearest inn without him, until you’ve explained a few things.”

Irith stamped her foot in annoyance. She looked down at Asha, then back at Kelder.

“Well, all right, then,” she said. “We probably couldn’t get very far tonight anyway, in the dark. We’ll talk at the inn over there, all right?”

“All right,” Kelder agreed.

Chapter Twenty

By the time they reached the inn Irith’s wings were gone, and some of her annoyance was gone as well. She didn’t so much as grimace when she realized that she would be paying for everything.

“At least we’ll be comfortable in here,” she said.

The inn was arranged with tables along the walls and high backs to the benches that accompanied them, forming booths and providing an unusual degree of privacy. The three of them took one of these booths and ordered two ales and a lemonade from a young man with an apron and a tray.

As soon as the young man had departed, Asha asked Irith, “How could you watch us without us seeing you?”

Irith sighed. “Do I really have to tell you?”

“I think so,” Kelder said. “At least, if you want us to travel with you.”

“All right, then,” she said. “Mostly I was either a cat or a bird; sometimes I was invisible, but I have trouble with that.”

“What’s ‘invisible’?” Asha asked.

“It means I’m still there, but nobody can see me. Except it’s not comfortable and I can’t see very well when I do it, and it only lasts a few minutes, so mostly I didn’t get very close or anything, I just stayed a bird and flew overhead, or a cat and watched you from a distance. Except cats and birds... well, cats can’t hear low noises very well, so I couldn’t hear what anyone was saying when I was a cat. Birds can hear low noises, but they don’t hear very well sometimes. So when you were coming up the cliff I snuck up close as a cat and then turned invisible and listened, and you were talking to that old man and he was talking about going to Shan with me years ago, but he didn’t, I never went there with him!”

“You’re sure of that?” Kelder asked.

“Of course I’m sure! I never traveled with that scruffy old drunk!”

“Well, he wasn’t a scruffy old drunk, back then,” Kelder pointed out.

“When?” Irith demanded.

“Forty years ago — forty-three, I think it was, actually.” Kelder watched her reaction closely. Would she be surprised, declare the whole idea of her doing anything forty years ago to be ridiculous?

“Forty years ago?” Irith stopped and stared.

That was ambiguous, Kelder thought; she hadn’t dismissed it as ridiculous, but she hadn’t accepted it,