Robin McKinley - Pegasus

Table of Contents

ALSO BY ROBIN McKINLEY

Chalice

Dragonhaven

Sunshine

Spindles End

Rose Daughter

Deerskin

The Outlaws of Sherwood

The Hero and the Crown

The Blue Sword

Beauty

Short story collections:

Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits (with Peter Dickinson) Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits (with Peter Dickinson)

A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories

The Door in the Hedge

G. P. PUTNAMS SONS

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Copyright 2010 by Robin McKinley.

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Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McKinley, Robin.

Pegasus / Robin McKinley. p. cm.

Summary: Because of a thousand-year-old alliance between humans and pegasi,

Princess Sylvi is ceremonially bound to Ebon, her own pegasus, on her twelfth birthday, but the closeness

of their bond becomes a threat to the status quo and possibly to the safety of their two nations.

[1. Pegasus (Greek mythology)Fiction. 2. Human-animal communicationFiction.

3. PrincessesFiction. 4. MagicFiction. 5. Fantasy.] I. Title.

PZ7.M1988Pe 2010 [Fic]dc22 2010002279

eISBN : 978-1-101-19836-0

To the Wonder-Mods:

Ajlr, B_twin, Black Bear, Gryphyn,

Ithilien, Jodi, Maren and Southdowner,

with love from a grateful hellgoddess

CHAPTER 1

B ecause she was a princess she had a pegasus.

This had been a part of the treaty between the pegasi and the human invaders nearly a thousand years ago, shortly after humans had first struggled through the mountain passes beyond the wild lands and discovered a beautiful green country they knew immediately they wanted to live in.

The beautiful green country was at that time badly overrun by ladons and wyverns, taralians and norindours, which ate almost everything (including each other) but liked pegasi best. The pegasi were a peaceful people and no match, despite their greater intelligence, for the single-minded ferocity of their enemies, and over the years their numbers had declined. But they were tied to these mountains and valleys by particular qualities in the soil and the grasses that grew in the soil, which allowed their wings to grow strong enough to bear them in the air. They had ignored the situation as without remedy for some generations, but the current pegasus king knew he was looking at a very bleak future for his people when the first human soldiers straggled, gasping, through the Dravalu Pass and collapsed on the greensward under the Singing Yew, which was old even then.

They sat up quickly when seven pegasi circled the meadow above the pass and flew down to investigate. The journal of that companys second commander still exists in the palace library: a small, worn, round-cornered, hand-bound book, slightly bowed to the shape of the pocket it was carried in. He reported the historic meeting:

The pegasi were happy to make a treaty with the humans, who were the first possibility of rescue the pegasi had had, and the humans, dazzled by the pegasis beauty and serenity, were happy to make a treaty with them, for the right to share their mountainous land; the wide plateaus, which ran like lakes around the mountaintop islands, were lush and fertile, and many of the island crests were full of gems and ores.

The discussions as to the terms of the treaty had had to be held almost exclusively through the human magicians and the pegasi shamans, however, who were the only ones able to learn enough of the others language to understand and make themselves understood, and that was a check to enthusiasm on both sides. Is it not, then, a language, as we understand language? wrote the second commander, whose name was Viktur. Does it encompass some invisible touch unavailable to humans, as a meeting of our hands in greeting, or a kiss between dear friends? What can we not grasp of it, and why cannot our magicians explain this lack to us?

Sylvis tutor, Ahathin, had brought Sylvi to the library while they were studying this portion of the annals. Ordinary people needed a sheaf of special permissions to look at anything half so old, frail and precious as the second commanders journal; Ahathin, as the princess tutor, had merely made the request, and when the two of them appeared at the library door, the head librarian himself bowed, saying, Princess, Worthy Magician, and led them to the table where the journal already lay waiting for themwith an honour guard of the Queens Own Lightbearers standing on either side of the table. The queen was the librarys governor. Sylvi looked at them thoughtfully. They were wearing their swords, but they were also wearing hai, to indicate that they could not hear anything she and Ahathin said to each other. There were two kinds of hai: the ceremonial and the invested. The ceremonial ones just hung over your ears and looked silly; invested hai had been dedicated by a magician and really stopped the wearers hearing. You couldnt tell by looking at them which kind they were. Sylvi had often wondered how hai-wearing guards were going to protect anything if they couldnt hear anyone coming. Was there a protocol for when an honour guard wearing ceremonial hai could stop pretending they couldnt hear?