The north! Behind the great mountains. Sliffisunda had seen thrassil there, and weehar. Though he had not yet been hatched when the great beasts were last seen, he knew them when he saw them, as he knew his own wing feathers. He already knew the taste and smell of them. And he knew filthy humans had them and would never give them to the Thraish voluntarily.
Which did not matter. Now that the Thraish knew they were there, it would not take long to get them. A few strong fliers had already been instructed to go through the pass in the deep night, find young ones, carry them out. Indeed, the task might already have been accomplished.
A dozen young ones would grow up, become a herd. A herd would become a great, great number in time. And when there were enough of them …
“Now, egglings,” he imagined himself saying at some not-too-distant time. “Now, egglings, every human shall die, because Potipur our god commands that we kill them all.”
25
Once Pamra had heard the voices clearly, her doubts and fears left her. Rapture and joy had returned. The rapture that had abandoned her at the worker pit when she had found Delia; the rapture that she had thought forever gone; the joy she had felt in Neff s company; the joy she had thought eternally lost; now they had returned, both, so that she walked encircled by peace and sureness, unable to remember a time when she might have doubted. Thrasne watched her and hated what he saw. Before Strinder’s Isle she had begun to talk with him, begun to care about the Gift, begun to take part in the daily life of the River. He had begun to plan for their future together. He knew of a carpenter in Darkel-don who would rebuild the owner-house into a fit place for Pamra, Pamra and their children. He thought of a weaver he had met in one of the little towns past Shfor. From her he would buy covers for the beds and hangings, for the colors she used were the colors of sunset and dawn, warm as light itself. He would buy gowns for Pamra herself, gowns of that long fiber pamet grown only in the bottom lands near Zephyr, soft as down. She would respond to these gifts with affection and approval. They would plan together for their future. It was all there, in his mind, how each thing would happen in its time.
Now she had left him, gone elsewhere, become as remote as the girl he remembered outside the Tower in Bans, tolerating his presence, perhaps. Perhaps not noticing he was there. She spoke to him of voices, gently, as though to a child, as though he should be able to hear what she heard. She nodded, smiled, as though in conversation. Sometimes she sat upon the deck of the Gift with Lila on her lap, pointing to something Thrasne could not see, but which he suspected Lila did see. At least the child’s eyes followed Pamra’s eyes, followed and fixed in a kind of concentration that was not childlike.
Seeing Pamra like this, he began to be afraid she would leave him, though for the time being she seemed willing to stay on the River. He saw her sometimes murmuring to herself, as though rehearsing words she would say, but when they stopped at Trens and Villian-gar, or any of a dozen other small townships, she made no move to go ashore.
Once, she had shared in his life, at least a little. She had chatted with him of the sights along the shore, sometimes gone to the market with him in the towns where they stopped. She had cooked for him, appearing to enjoy it. He had told himself it was only a matter of time, of patience-both of which he had in seemingly unlimited quantity.
Now, since Strinder’s Isle, all his plans seemed moved into some future so. remote he was not sure there was enough time after all. For the first time he thought of himself growing old, still without her. Old, still alone. No children to roll about the owner-house floor and learn to be boatmen in their turn. No woman to share the everlasting voyage, no Suspirra. What right had she to destroy his hopes? When he had watched over her, sought her out, saved her?