Blue Adept Page 4

  I clapped my hands in that girlish way I had. “Oh, yes!” I knew nothing about that horse except that a hinny was the sterile issue of stallion and jenny, most like a mule but prettier, yet already I was eager to ride her.

  My father, more sensible than I, brooded. “A hinny, and wild. I trust this not. Such crossbreeds bear little good will to men.”

  “True,” the blue lad said. He never contradicted my father directly. “But this is not any hinny. She is the Hinny. She can be bred, but only by my blue stallion. For that price she will be the best mount anyone could ask. She is fit and wise in the ways of the wilderness; no creature durst cross her, not even a troll or dragon. Like unto a unicorn she is, almost.”

  My father wavered, for he had a deep respect for good horses. To encourage his acquiescence, I threatened to cloud again. I had a certain talent at that, and my father had a certain weakness for it; oft had we played this little game. “Canst thou summon this hinny here?” he inquired, temporizing. “I would examine this animal.”

  The lad put fingers to his mouth and whistled piercingly. Immediately, it seemed, there was the sound of galloping, and an animal came. What a creature it was! She was shades of gray, lighter on the flanks and withers, darker at the extremities with a mane of both shades a good yard long that rippled languorously in the breeze. Her tail, too, was variegated gray, like carven onyx, and flowed like the waves of an ocean.

  My father, prepared to be skeptical, gaped. “The speed of that horse!” he breathed. “The lines of her!”

  “Thy daughter will be safe on her,” the blue lad assured him. “What the Hinny cannot defeat she can outrun, except for the unicorns, who leave her alone. Once she accepts the commission, she will guard her rider with her life.”

  But my father was already lost. He stared at the Hinny, the most beautifully structured mare ever to be seen in our village. I knew he would have given his left hand to own such a mount. “And she hearkens to thy summons,” he said, awed.

  “Nay,” the lad demurred quickly. “Only to my stallion.” Then he approached the Hinny and extended his hand, slowly, as one must do for a strange horse, allowing her to sniff it. Her ears were angled halfway back, silken gray. When they tilted forward, reassured, he addressed her directly. “Hinny, I require a service of thee, for the price thou knowest.”

  The mare switched her nacreous tail and lifted her head. She was by no means large, standing about fifteen hands tall, but she had a slender elegance that made her classic. She glanced sidelong at the blue stallion, and it was as if magic electricity lifted her mane. She was interested.

  “A service for a service,” my father murmured, intrigued. He contemplated the lines of the blue stallion, recognizing in this creature the very finest of the breed. The foal of such a union would be special.

  “Thou must bear this Lady,” the blue lad said, indicating me. “Thou must carry her on her search for her lost foal, and bring her back safely to her father. I will travel with thee, assisting. An we find the foal not, but the Lady is safe, payment will be honored. Agreed?”

  “How can a horse comprehend all that?” my father muttered skeptically. But the Hinny surveyed him with such uncanny certainty that he could not protest further.

  The Hinny now oriented on me. I held out my hand and she smelled it, then sniffed along the length of my arm, across my shoulder and up to my face. Her muzzle was gray velvet, her breath warm mist with the sweetness of cured hay. I loved her that moment.

  The Hinny turned back to the blue lad, one ear moving forward with agreement. My father found himself unable to protest; he too was enthralled by the mare. And it seemed but a moment until arrangements were complete and we were riding out, the Hinny’s canter so gentle I could close my eyes and hardly know we were moving, yet so swift that the wind was like that of a storm. I had never before ridden a steed like her!

  It seemed but another moment, but when I opened mine eyes we were miles from my village, proceeding west toward the interior of the continent where the greatest magic lay. The groves and dales were passing like the wind. No horse could maintain such a pace, so smoothly—yet the Hinny ranged beside the blue stallion, now and then covertly turning a sleek ear on him: she desired the service only he could serve. I wondered fleetingly whether it could be like that for me as well, with only one man destined to be my husband. Little did I know how close to the truth that was, and that he was as close to me then as the stallion to the Hinny.

  “Whither do we go?” I asked the lad.

  “The wild horses should know where thy foal has strayed,” he replied. “They range widely, but my steed is searching them out.”

  “Aye,” I said. “But will they not flee at the approach of our kind?”

  He only smiled. Soon we spied a herd, and its stallion lifted his head toward us, and stomped the ground in warning. But the blue lad put his two hands to his mouth, forming a conch, and blew a whistle-note, and at that signal all the horses relaxed, and remained for our approach.

  “They respond to thy whistle?” I asked, perplexed.

  “They know my stallion,” he said easily.

  So it seemed. The wild stallion was a great buckskin with dark legs, not as large as the blue stallion. The two sniffed noses and thereafter politely ignored each other. The Hinny was ignored from the start; she was not quite their kind, being half-breed.

  The lad dismounted, and I followed. It had been a long, fast ride, but both of us were excellent riders, and both our steeds were easy to use. They grazed, for horses are ever hungry. We passed among the small herd—and strange it was to be around these wild horses, who never ordinarily tolerated the nearness of man. I was in young delight. They were mostly fine, healthy mares, with a few foals, but one among them ailed. The blue lad went to this one, a spindly colt, and ran his hands over the animal’s body, and the dam watched without interference while I stood amazed.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I asked, for I could not determine the malady. I, who thought I knew horses.

  “Spirit worms,” the lad responded absently. “A magical infestation, common in this region.” Then he said to the colt in a singsong lilt: “Comest thou to me, the worms will flee.” It was nonsense verse, a joke—yet suddenly the colt perked up, took a step toward the lad, and there was a ripple in the air as invisible yet ugly somethings wriggled away. Instantly the colt seemed healthier, and his dam nickered gratefully. I realized that a little encouragement was all the colt had needed; he was not really sick, merely undernourished.

  The blue lad approached the herd stallion and said: “We search for a lost foal, that went astray yesterday. Hast thou seen it, or dost thou know aught of it?”

  The stallion glanced at me as though requiring news from me, and I said: “It is a filly, only a month old, pure white and lovely and helpless. I call her Snowflake.”

  The stallion snorted.

  “He says he has not seen the foal,” the blue lad said. “But he knows of one who collects white foals, and found one in this area, and that is the Snow Horse.”

  “Where is this Snow Horse?” I asked.

  “He knows not, for the Snow Horse ranges far and associates not with ordinary equines. Only Peg can tell where he might be now.”

  “Peg?” I asked, perplexed.

  “I will take thee to her.”

  We remounted our steeds and were off again like the wind. We ranged south across plains and woods, fording streams and surmounting hills as if they were nothing. We passed a young unicorn stallion grazing; he had pretty green and orange stripes, and his hooves were ebony, and his horn spiraled pearl. He started up, approaching us, and I grew nervous, for that the unicorn is to the horse as the tiger is to the housecat. But he merely ran beside us, and then drew ahead, racing us. He wanted to play.

  The blue lad smiled, and leaned forward, and the blue stallion leaped ahead as though he had been merely idling before, and the Hinny set back her ears and launched herself after him. Oh, these fine animals
loved a race! Now the ground shot behind in a green blur, and trees passed like arrows, and I clung to the Hinny’s quicksilver mane for fear I would fall, though her gait remained wonderfully smooth. We passed the unicorn.

  Now the unicorn lengthened his stride and made great leaps, passing right over bushes and rocks while we had to go around them. He recovered the lead, flinging his tail up in a mirthful salute. But again the blue stallion bore down, and the Hinny’s body became like a hawk flying through a gale, and we pounded out a pace that passed the horned stallion again. Never had I traveled at such velocity!

  A third time the unicorn accelerated, and now his body was shimmering with heat, and fire blasted from his nostrils, and sparks cast up from his hooves, and slowly he moved ahead of us once more. This time we could not match him, for that our steeds carried burdens and were merely physical equines, not magical. Yet had we given that unicorn a good race, and made him heat before he bested us. Very few natural horses could do that.

  We eased off, cooling, and I patted the Hinny’s shoulder. “Thou’rt the finest mare I ever met,” I murmured. “I could ride with thee forever and never be bored.” And so I believed.

  Then we came to the purple slope of the great southern range of mountains, ascending until the air was rare and the growing things were stunted. There on a crag was a huge nest, and in it lay what at first I took to be a monstrous bird, for that I saw the feathers on it. Then the creature stood, perceiving our approach, and spread its wings—and lo, it was a horse!

  “Peg,” the blue lad called. “We crave the favor of information. Wilst thou trade for it?”

  Peg launched into the air, circled briefly, spiraled to the ground and folded her pinions. The white feathers covered her whole body so that only her legs and tail and head projected, and the tail also had feathers that could spread for aid in navigation in air. I had not before imagined how large such wings would be! She neighed, her nose flicking toward the nest.

  “Mayst thou have what’s best for thy new nest,” the lad said appreciatively, again in that lilt.

  Then I noticed what I had not seen before: a pile of vines, perchance the refuse of some farmer’s harvest, too long and tough to be ground for fodder. Peg went to them as though she too had only now become aware, tugging one out with her teeth, delighted. This was ideal fiber for her nest. She neighed again.

  “She says the Snow Horse is moving toward its fastness in the White Mountains, and will be there by dawn tomorrow,” the lad said. “For us it will be a ride of more than a day; we shall have to camp the night.”

  “Thou dost understand the language of horses?” I asked, remembering how he had seemingly conversed with the stallion of the herd, too. There was so much I knew not, then!

  He nodded. “How could I love them as I do, and not converse with them? Who is better company than a horse?” And of course I could not gainsay that.

  We mounted and rode north. It was noon, and we had far to go; we slanted north and west, wending toward the white range. We halted for an hour when we came across a grove of apple trees; we fed ourselves and our steeds on delicious apples. The Hinny ate from my hand, and how I wished she could be mine for life, but I knew she was only on loan. I was not sorry this quest was stretching out; I wanted to save Snowflake, but I wanted also to be a little longer with the Hinny, and to experience more of the magic of the interior wilds of Phaze.

  In the early afternoon we halted again, for our steeds had to graze and rest. The blue lad found raspberries growing on a slope, and a streamlet with freshest water, and some ripe grain. He gathered dry wood and made a small fire; from his saddlebag he brought a pot. We boiled the grain until it was tender. I did not realize then that he had used magic to facilitate things; the farthest thing from my mind was that he could be Adept. He was only, after all, a boy!

  He brought next from his saddlebag—he had a bag without a saddle, oddly—some material that he formed into a canopy for me beside the fire. I lay down to sleep feeling quite safe, for few wild creatures brave the fire, and the two horses were grazing near.

  But at dusk, as I was nodding off, glare-eyed little monsters erupted from a trapdoor in the ground and swarmed toward me. They were goblins, huge of head and foot, vicious, out for human flesh. They feared not the fire, for they used it in their subterranean demesnes. I screamed.

  The Hinny was nearest me, for I had been placed in her care. Now I discovered what that meant. She squealed and charged, her hooves striking like clubs, each strike crushing a goblin’s head, while I huddled beside the fire in terror. The goblins fought her, for they liked equine flesh almost as well as human; they scrambled up her tail, clung to her mane, and tried to grab at her feet. There were so many! I saw one get on her head, and open its big frog mouth to clamp its sharp alligator teeth on her sweet soft gray ear—and suddenly I was on my feet and there, my hands on its grotesque rat body, hurling it off her and away.

  Then the blue stallion arrived, his hooves making the very ground shudder, and he bellowed a battle-challenge that nearly blasted the hair from my head and I cowered in terror though I knew it was not me he fought. The goblins panicked and fled, the stallion pursuing; where his foot struck, the broken body of a goblin flew twenty feet across the flickering night and dropped like a clod of dirt. The stallion’s eyes flashed like blue fire and the snort from his flaring nostrils was like tempest-wind and the sheen of his great muscles danced about his body as he plunged and reared and kicked. In a moment the last living goblin had vanished down the hole, and the trapdoor clanged shut. The stallion stomped it again and again until naught save rubble remained. It would be long before the goblins used that exit again!

  I collapsed in reaction. Never in my life had I been so horrified, except perhaps during the episode of the trolls, for goblins come not into the villages of the man-folk. The Hinny came and nuzzled me, and I was ashamed for that I had let her fight while I did naught. But the blue lad told me: “She thanks thee for casting the goblin from off her ear; she knows what courage it required of thee for that goblins terrify young ladies.” Then I felt better, though by no means proud, and resolved to be less squeamish in future. I stroked my hands over the bruises and scratches and bites on the Hinny’s body, helping to heal them and abate the discomfort, and she nudged me with that so-soft nose and everything was nice.

  The goblins came not again—and who would have, after tasting the wrath of the blue stallion? I slept safely until dawn. The blue lad was up before me, and had found ripe pears from whence I knew not, and we ate and mounted and were off again. I thought I might be sore from the prior day’s riding, but the Hinny’s gait was so gentle I suffered not at all. I wondered what the winged horse’s gait was like; what was the cadence of footfalls in air?

  In due course we came to the White Mountains that bound our land in the north, and ascended their foothills. The way grew steep, and there was hardly any easing as we crested ridges and drove on up. For the first time the Hinny’s gait became rough, as she labored to carry me on swiftly, and even the blue stallion was sweating, his nostrils flaring and pulsing with the effort. We climbed slopes I would not have cared to navigate on foot, rising into the mountain range proper. The air grew chill, and wind came up, and I gathered my cape about me, shivering.

  The blue lad glanced at me. “May I speak bold?” he inquired melodiously. “Thou art not cold.”

  “Not cold,” I agreed bravely, for I knew that if we desisted this quest now, never would I find Snowflake, and evermore would I curse myself for my neglect. And, strangely, I no longer felt the chill; it was as if my clothing had become doubly insulative. It was of course his magic, that I did not recognize. I was so young then, and so innocent!

  We climbed on into the snows, and there in a cave half-hid in the white we found the lair of the Snow Horse. He stood there awaiting us expectantly, a fine albino stallion whose mane and tail resembled glistening icicles and whose hooves were so pure white I could hardly tell where they left of
f and the packed snow beneath them began.

  The lad dismounted and walked to the Snow Horse. I made to dismount too, but the Hinny swung back her head, warning me “no” with a backward glance, so I obeyed her and stayed put. I was learning already that here in the wilderness the final word was not mine.

  In a moment the lad returned. “The Snow Horse did lure thy foal,” he said to me. “He thought her of his kind, for her color, but when they reached the snow she was cold, and he knew she was no snow filly and he let her go, never intending harm to her. But the snow demons came and took her ere she could return to thee.”

  “The snow demons!” I exclaimed, appalled. Never had I heard good tidings of that ilk.

  “Pray we are in time,” he said.

  “In time?” I asked blankly. “Snowflake is lost forever! We can not brace snow demons, even if they have not yet eaten her.” I felt the hot tears burning mine eyes. “Yet if there is a chance—”

  “A white foal they will save—for a while.” He mounted and led the way along the slope.

  We made our way deeper into the snowy region, and the breath plumed out from the nostrils of our steeds, but still I was not cold. Then the blue stallion halted, sniffing the snow, and pawed the slope. I knew we were near the lair of the demons, and I shivered with fear, not with cold. Almost, I preferred to let the foal go—but then I thought of the demons devouring her shivering flesh, and horror restored my faint courage.

  A snow demon appeared on a ledge above us. “Whooo?” it demanded, with sound like winter cutting past a frozen crag.

  The blue lad did not answer in speech. He stood upon the back of his stallion and spread his arms, as if to say “Here am I!” I was both impressed and concerned. It was clever of him to keep his balance like that, but he could so readily fall and hurt himself. Though he acted as if the demon should recognize him and be awed, in fact it was a foolish posturing. An ogre or a giant might awe a demon; the lad was pitiful in his insignificance.