"(Uncertainty/possibility)," the yellow voice protested. "Hear the rhythm- it is almost a flight pattern," she said. "Kiuntihin' kiuntihin'kiun." "It is still too (soft/babyish)," the other one scoffed. "Even my first pattern had twice as many (teeth) as that: Kikliti'clintikin."

"It is much (younger) than you when you learned to Fly," the gray-blue voice admonished. "Its Name, like yours, will harden with (age). As a (throwback/ancestor), it will need more (time/ mother-debt) to harden its (teeth)."

"Do you Name it then? Do you give (mother-debt)?" Whose-wings-make-the-grass-flow hesitated. Then the alien seemed to solidify its thoughts. "(Agreement)," it said quietly. "I will Name it. It will be my (child-debt/child)." Dion eyed them warily. Unconsciously, she edged back on the ice, but her back was already against the wall. A drip from the roof of the cave hit the back of her neck, but the chill was nothing compared to the sense that hit her stomach. There were no Ancient legends about naming each other- only of trading science for the right to stay on this world. Or of being killed. And there were no stories of humans being linked to Aiueven...

The hum was subsonic at first, but it grew into her sternum within seconds. The humming rose, and the bones in her chest and thighs began to vibrate. The noise became a sound that demanded her attention like a pounding that breaks down doors. She opened her mouth, but her voice involuntarily added to the song of tension. Her vocal cords shivered together. The Aiueven riveted on her, and under the impact, her mind fractured like an egg.

Their thoughts spun together and dropped to the left. Dion was dragged along. Need blended with need; grief understood grief; their losses bound them like steel. Dion gasped with the sudden flush of strength that came with that into her mind. Then their mental voices caught at each other and formed a resonance.

Kiuntihin 'kiuntihin'kiun. Soft, for it lacks teeth.

Kiuntihin'kiuntihin'kiun. Young, since it lacks age.

Kiuntihin'kiuntihin'kiun. Wise, though it lacks wings.

Kiuntihin'kiuntihin'kiun.

It was a river of sound that, once unleashed, could not be stopped from its pattern. It spilled over Dion's mind, locking her thoughts into that of the alien, and binding the alien back.

The blue-gray touch dipped into her body and bones, and wondered at the solidity of them before it found her unborn child. Grief and need became a set of teeth that tore into Dion's mind, even as the alien (greedily/urgently) bound itself to her unborn daughter. Purple light flashed without being seen. Sound without sound slammed between them. Child-debt, mother-debt became the same. The alien cried out, and it was Dion who instinctively soothed her.

Kiuntihin'kiuntihin'kiun. Fast, for its dreams soar.

Kiuntihin'kiuntihin'kiun. Heavy, since it makes a (child).

Kiuntihin'kiuntihin'kiun. Strong, not one, but two.

Kiuntihin'kiuntihin'kiun.

The alien swept deeper into Dion's mind, finding the core of her thoughts. Like a thousand links to a thousand wolves, their voices meshed together. The past became the possibility of a future, the link between them a line of continuity that ran in both directions. Human, alien touched. Dion screamed. The alien froze, but it was too late to go back. The sense of Dion's humanness flashed along her Name.

Kiuntihin'kiuntihin'kiun. Earthbound.

Kiuntihin'kiuntihin'kiun. Sky bound.

Kiuntihin'kiuntihin'kiun. Named.

Abruptly the air filled with rage. Purple shouted with blue and gray, tinging into black. Red-orange burned like a piece of the sun falling through the sky. The noise was real, and Dion fell to her knees while talons chipped the air above her. Mouths gnashed. And all the while, there was one image clear above the rest: Human.

XXII.

Kek'kallic krast The plague of the past Te'etrellic ek'kit The death-debt Previous Top Next There were suddenly more Aiueven there. Ten, twelve, two dozen... She couldn't tell. The din in her head was vicious, slamming back and forth.

The alien who had Named her was close, almost touching, yet its mind recoiled in a flash.

"Not (Aiueven/us/pure). (Loathing/horror) Human!"

"(Distress). I did not know-"

"Human!"

"What (abomination) have we done? To spit out the (Song/ future) for wings

-how could it Know?"

"(Kill/destroy) it."

"Kill it (now)."

"Stop!" Dion screamed, cowering. She did not realize that none of them had moved.

The din ceased instantly.

Dion's fists clenched. "I am Named. I can speak for myself."

"Human," hissed the cold, ice-blue voice. "You cannot speak."

"I have a Name."

"It is Named," the birdwoman said sharply, the horror in her voice clanging

like an off-key metal bar on stone. "(It/my-youth/ child-debt) can speak."

Two of them looked at Dion's (mother-debt/bond). "Is it bonded?"

As though her head bowed and her wings melted before them, Whose-

wings-make-the-grass-flow agreed. "It is my (youth/child-debt) now."

"Human (youth)?" The sharp-blue voice seemed to coil in on itself in a vile sense. "(Pity). (Horror)."

"Take back its Name," another one said hotly, fired with its own fervor.

Dion could almost feel its claws reach for her throat.

"My Name is myself," Dion snarled back. "You can kill me, but you cannot

destroy that. And I understand enough to know that I am in your history now, no matter what you do."

"A Human cannot be Named," the young one spat. "A Human cannot have

wings."

"No? We soared the skies and stars like you-"

"You (crawl/ground-dwell) now."

"You made us this way."

"You cannot even (dream/know) flight."

Abruptly, Dion stood. She faced them, and their slitted eyes stared back at her. Their minds were like badgerbears, poised to strike. "My wings are here," she said vehemently, and in her mind, behind her, curling out of her

shoulders like moths hatching from their cocoons, she imagined a set of wings.

"Human," gnashed Sweeper-of-ice-ridges-sharp-on-the-horizon. "You

mock us. Your wings are not (power/truth)."

"Are these better?" she snarled. Her image changed, and she projected the skycars as she had seen them in Ancient places. She took the image and let the skycar soar into the sky, floating down on its extended wings. "Or this?"

She projected the picture of spacecraft she had seen in the Ancient texts in Ariye. "We had flight. We owned the stars like you."

"They are not (real/power). They are no longer (truth). It mocks us with

these (images)."

"Can any Human make light of us?" Dion's (mother) dismissed the other's

claim. But the birdcreature's voice was filled with a loathing that was directed half at herself. "They are wings, even if they are not (truth)."

"(Denial)." The answer was a sharp, slashing note, "There is a debt building

here. (Intrusion-debt), (Naming-debt)-"

Dion cut them off. Her voice, thin compared to theirs, was sharp as a knife.

"You want to talk about debt?" she snapped. "Who owes what to whom?

We bore thousands of deaths from the plague you sent when you broke your bargain with us. We built your barriers, kept the worlags from your dens, but you killed us anyway-" Her voice broke off.

Suddenly, she knew what she had seen, so long ago in the wolves. The voices, the colors, the shifts of alien thoughts... Something turned over in her gut. "It was you," she breathed, turning to the purple-dark voice. "It was you who sent the plague." Stunned, she stared through her eyes as well as her mind. "It wasn't all of you together," she whispered. "It was you alone who did it-the ones that were colored like you. I saw your eyes-I saw them through the wolves. And I heard your voices in the packsong. Their memories were clear. Eight hundred years, and you haven't changed. Your colors are the same."

The purple-dark voice went still.

"It has (called/recognized) you," the golden red voice said harshly to the other. "It is your (stigma/ancestry)," said another to the purple-dark voice. "As with us, (it/human) (thought/memory/debt) does not (fade/forgive) from their minds."

"(Denial). It is (insight/more) than that," countered the cold, blue voice. The sharp-gray voice seemed to whisper agreement. "It claims (life-debt/ death-debt) from us."

The purple-dark voice shivered. "(Denial/impossible)." "I saw you," Dion repeated. "I saw your voice. The shades- they were the same. Even now the wolves carry your plague, dormant in their bodies. A single trigger, and they die like the Ancients. Like the wolves you first killed yourself." "It (sees/perceives) the (stigma/history)," said the cold, blue voice. "It brings it back-enters it into the (line/matrix/all-of-us)."

"Then I must (kill/cessation) it," the other returned. "Or it will contaminate us all."

The others agreed. "The Naming pact is broken. Kill it."

"Kill it," the hard voice agreed.

Dion stood her ground. "You can't kill me," she said harshly. "You owe me my life and the lives of the thousands you killed. You owe my people the future you stripped away from us."