were live pictures in her head instead of dry words in her memory.
The first beginnings of the treaty had been almost insurmountably difficult; not only was there the obstacle of their spoken languages, of which neither side could learn the other’s, but the pegasi did not have an alphabet as humans understood it. Instead they had a complex and demanding art form of which various kinds of marks on paper were only a part.... The human magicians translated its name into human sounds as ssshasssha and said it meant “recollection,” and that it appeared to include or address all the senses—sight, hearing, touch, taste, feeling—although how this was accomplished the magicians were uncertain. There were pegasus bards and story-tellers in some manner, presumably, as there were human bards and story-tellers; there were also pegasi . . . they didn’t know. This was the first time the humans heard about the Caves, and the sculptors; but none of this assisted the drawing up of a document that humans understood as legal and binding.
“Did we not both want this union very badly,” wrote the second commander, “such impedimenta as there manifestly are would have stopped us utterly and our company would be homeless again; and I am grateful hourly that thee pegasi want us, for already I love this sweet green land, and would not willingly leave it.”
This sweet green land was probably the most famous phrase of the second commander’s journal; it was one of those phrases everyone used, like sick as a denwirl owl or mad as a mudge. One of the first songs Sylvi had ever learnt to sing herself, when she was still so small she couldn’t say her rrr’s yet, was an old folk ballad about a wandering tinker whose refrain was: On the road to nowhere through this sweet green land. The second commander seemed almost to be standing at her elbow as she read the old phrase as he had put it down the first time.
Both sides at last declared themselves satisfied with the final draft of the treaty. “The pegasi ask for little,” wrote the second commander.
They wish their lives—and their Caves, which appear to bee thee chief manifestation of their recollection. But thee Caves lie many days’ journey farther into thee mountains that steeply rise from these lush and fruitful plateaus we humans desire; Gandam says he is middling sure human feet could not take us there besides, and we have not wings. Balsin laughs and says, Good: that he wants all human forces to bend themselves to thee palace he already has in his mind’s eye to build upon thee greatest of these plateaus. It is his own consort, Badilla, who has begun to measure thee landscape for this building ; she was trained for such work in thee old countrie, although Balsin says he married her for her beauty. My own Sinsi says she wishes only to finish thee job of securing our new land from its enemies; that what she most wants is to see her belly growing too large for its battle leathers, and a safe place where our babies may play.
The first song Sylvi could ever remember hearing was about the pegasi. Her nurse used to sing it to her when she was a baby, and would then “fly” her around the room. The tradition was that Viktur’s wife, Sinsi, had written it for their children, although no one knew for sure.
Oh hush your crying
Your friends come flying
In the plumes of their wings
The south wind sings
The treaty was written by human scribes and depicted or portrayed by some makers and devisers among the pegasi upon thick supple paper made by the pegasi:
Balsin would have it bee parchment, but thee pegasi demurred, that they did not use thee skins of beasts for such or any purpose, and proffered their finest made paper instead, which is very beautiful, with a gloss to it not unlike thee flank of a pegasus, and faint glints of colour from thee petals of flowers. Dorogin did not like this however, and said there was magic pressed into its fibres, but Gandam held his hands over it and said thee only magic was that of craftsmanship, and as Gandam was thee senior, Dorogin must needs give way; and Balsin looked at Gandam and nodded, and Dorogin looked as if he had swallowed a toad.
Sylvi gave a little hiccup of laughter; the toad wasn’t in the schoolroom copy of the annals either. But reading of Gandam