by AO Spade
Alvarr started walking back toward the top of the hill, letting the air dry him. His wet hair dripped on the ground and he hadn't stopped shivering from the cold water. He forced himself to think.
The old camp by the river had been overtaken by romeya. Even before Alvarr had discovered that, he'd known in his heart of hearts that one stallion mage could never keep romeya from growing in the grazing fields. It was an impossible task; the poison flower would spread despite his efforts.
There may not be true grazing fields anymore. That thought was grim, but he had to accept the truth. It still had not rained, though the mage had no idea how far he was from camp now. But if the drought continued, the stallions would grow thinner and thinner with no forage. They would become desperate. Laren would be the first to go without food for the sake of the others, or he would graze on romeya so that the others would not...
The mage clenched his fists. No. That could not happen. It would not. The thought of the big gray stallion's body becoming thin and starved, or his eyes wild with romeya poisoning, was beyond Alvarr's understanding. It just can't happen.
The mage gripped a handful of his wet hair and wrapped it around his wrist. I need to stay strong and return to them.
He shifted to four-legs and made himself graze. The coolgrass gave him energy, and his spirits couldn't help but raise at the sweet summer taste of the normal grass. If only the tribe could come, he thought. Elder Mastok would be quite interested in the many types of grasses I've had on this journey.
The stallions would want for nothing. The hills would shelter them. There was not as much water, but perhaps there was a lake or river farther on. They could all make it, couldn't they? They'd only have to cross that barren place for a few days. Most could do it, but not all. And their people's way was to never leave anyone behind, mares or stallions, young or old.
Still, he wished the others could at least see it.
Alvarr cast one more look around and started walking once more. For more days and nights, he continued to rest, graze, and travel over larger and larger hills. Eventually, he had to call them mountains. The air turned colder at night, especially on the higher slopes.
Sometimes, when the mage got to a peak, he looked around at the land, its peaks and valleys so different from the grasslands of his childhood, and the sheltered territory of the stallions. What is everyone doing now? Do they think of me? He sometimes strained his eyes searching for where the mares could be, wondering if they ever came this far. But he thought he knew the answer. No one has touched this land, perhaps ever.
He found that strange. The parched land with its bare earth, little water, and hostile plants was not welcoming to any life, yet that beast had lived there. Here, though, there were very few other creatures, even though the hills could easily sustain them. The grass waved, undisturbed and silent. The few trees housed no birds. Alvarr didn't want to reach out to touch the energy here, but if he had, he thought he would not detect any burrowing creatures or snakes.
It wasn't that the mage wanted to cross another dangerous beast, but the lack of birdsong and insects made him uneasy.
On the fifth night away from home, or perhaps the sixth, Alvarr felt the silence not as peace, but a cold, crushing presence. The unvaried landscape made Alvarr fear that he had been traveling in circles. He had not dreamed of Laren, or anyone, again. It made him feel like no time was passing, except that he knew that it was.
The mage's stomach had become irritated over the last day or two, probably with all the plentiful food. There was no shortage, and Alvarr suspected he might have been overindulging in coolgrass.
The loneliness was surprisingly hard to endure. He thought that he'd get used to it, since he had lived on the fringes of the tribes all his life. Are there beings who live their lives alone? Even if there were, the mage did not think he could be one of them.
He shook his mane, scolding himself for such thoughts. He would return to the stallions. He was born to serve the tribe; Nature would not let him waste his life alone. He trotted to some sparse, thin grass under the shade of an evergreen tree. He'd graze here instead of the plants that had grown in the full sun, and maybe the softer, more tender stalks would help his stomach.
He bent his head to eat, when something glowed on the ground. Alvarr jerked his head up and backed away, but the glow faded. When he bent his head to search the grass, he realized that the grass was not glowing. It was his horn. A wild hope swept through him, but caution caught up as he remembered what had happened the last time he used magic.
He held his breath and grounded his hooves in the earth. Reaching out with his senses, he found just a hint of something, a similar energy that reminded him of when he'd tried to cross the river. His horn glowed steadily.
Yes, magic is here.
Alvarr took a deep breath past his tight throat. Nature, after days of silence, wanted him for something.
He turned from side to side to find the source. He thought his horn got slightly brighter when he turned toward a valley, so he walked down the slope toward a small grove of evergreens. He walked under the trees, following the glow. No sound greeted him, nor any tug of Nature's current under his hooves. Step by step, he made his way through the trees and came out the other side, where he faced a steep hill. His horn still glowed.
But what is here? The mage jumped when he saw a small black stallion running toward him, coming down the hill at a leg-snapping pace.
He'll kill himself! "Stop, brother," Alvarr shouted, his voice loud. "Please, tell me what is wrong!" But the mage realized that no sound came from the stallion's hooves. "Hello?" he asked, but he did not think this stallion would answer. It could not hear him.
The black stallion made it down the hill without injury and crashed to a stop, only a few lengths from Alvarr. The mage was close enough to hear his labored breaths, and see the foam on his neck. The strange stallion shifted beneath the tree, stamping a hoof as he looked back up toward the slope.
Alvarr could hear nothing, but strained his ears in the same direction. They both watched the top of the hill, and the mage gasped when he saw a huge crowd of people at the top of it.
Stallions. They poured over the crest, all sizes and colors, more of them than Alvarr had ever seen, even in the gathering before the Time of Mating. They sweated and panted, and if Alvarr had thought the black stallion seemed scared, these people were frightened beyond all reason.
"Come on," the small black stallion called. "We cannot stop, not for anything." He shook himself all over, a twitchy, nervous movement that spoke of his desire to move.
"Sorral has fallen behind," yelled a tan stallion with a pale mane, nearly at the bottom. "We have to go back!"
The black leader tossed his head. "You know that we cannot."
"He'll die!" The tan stallion put on a desperate burst of speed and galloped down the rest of the slope, hooves in the air for an alarming amount of time. He dug his hooves into the dirt floor beside the leader. "I can retrieve him, leader."
"No, brother. If we go back for him, we'll all die," the black stallion said. "We can't get near her. We must go on."
"But you're her son," the tan stallion said, panting. "You're the only one who can stop her."
More stallions came toward them, gathering at the base of the hill.
"You didn't see her eyes," the small leader said. "She doesn't know me, not anymore. We must continue. Sorral, and everyone who has fallen, would want us all to survive. She would, too, if she were in her right mind." He started cantering toward where Alvarr stood. "Come on," he shouted. "Come on, brothers! We must leave, or we will die."
A reddish stallion toward the back of the herd cried out as he stumbled on a loose rock. Alvarr heard the snap of a leg. The injured stallion moaned and folded to the ground at an awkward angle. "Go," he said, the single word tight with pain. "I'll follow soon after."
The herd parted around him like a stream flowing around a rock, and left him on the slope. Their determined
expressions told Alvarr that they knew the injured stallion was lost. As they got closer, Alvarr moved behind the thick trunk of an old tree and caught himself thinking that he might be able to help.
The massive tribe thundered right past him, though Alvarr heard no sound of hooves nor crashing of branches and bushes. The air remained perfectly still; not even a leaf moved in the crowd's wake. And there was no scent. As the last stallion passed him, Alvarr opened his mouth to taste the air. He smelled nothing but clean trees, earth, and grass.
The injured stallion. The mage whipped his head back to where he'd seen the reddish stallion go down, but he wasn't there. Alvarr trotted to the very spot. There wasn't a hint of blood, nor trampled grass, but he was not surprised.
He'd just seen the past, and not only in his mind, but with his eyes. This was why Alvarr hadn't seen any creature but birds. A great shadow still hung over this place, even though the glow from his horn persisted.
Nature meant for me to see that, and there is still something for me to do. The mage shivered and kept walking up the slope. The grass had grown over the path the stallions had used. After empty days of travel, Alvarr didn't know if he felt reassured that Nature was still with him in this way, or more disturbed. His journey was only raising more questions than he had when he'd started.
Alvarr thought it was the same stallion that he'd imagined when he crossed the river. The black coat and small stature. The same voice: young, yet firm and commanding. The unmistakable authority of Nature's Order.
This means that the river also happened in the past. That meant that the black leader's magic was impossibly strong to have created the barrier of fear that prevented anyone from crossing the river. Was he also responsible for the night-fear? It would make sense.
But who could have commanded that kind of power? The son of the mad mare-mage.
According to Elder Mastok and the likenesses he'd shown Alvarr, the mad mage's true mate was a black stallion. The likeness on the wall of the cave showed a small black stallion trying to get to a reddish-brown weather mage.
"I've just seen the rift." And that meant that somewhere near was the place so many of their people had died. The old camp. The last place stallions and mares had lived together.
The mage dug his hooves into the steep slope and took the last part at a run. The ground leveled out, sending him trotting to catch his balance, then swerving away from a steep drop below, one that would send him tumbling if he did not take it carefully.
This was not what he expected to see. Alvarr stood at the rounded top of the peak. He noticed that the small mountains stretched in a curve like a quarter-full moon. If this was the site of the rift, he'd expected to see a terrible barren land, worse than where he encountered that tusked beast. But instead, the mountains protected a valley that contained the most beautiful land Alvarr had ever seen. A clearing full of waving grass, a lake in the distance, and trees of all kinds that were turning orange and red with the season's change. It was as though someone had arranged it from the very place where he was, just to create something so perfect.
But no one was here. The grass would have grown back, if this was the land that his people had abandoned, but were not even signs of past dwellings. Still, his horn kept glowing. He had to believe that there was something out here he needed to do or see beyond that scene from the past.
Alvarr started a winding path down the hill, which was far too steep to go straight down. Clumps of dirt and sharp rocks stuck up from long grass, making hidden obstacles. This was treacherous footing on four legs, but his soft human feet would not be able to withstand the stones jabbing into the soles. And his hearing and daytime sight were not as good in man-shape.
He ground his teeth together as he took one small step after another, zig-zagging almost horizontally over the steep drop. To either side of him were smaller hills about half the height. I just have to make it that far, and then I can rest.
All the while, he sensed a suspended energy from the stone under his hooves, like ice in winter with creatures sleeping under the surface. This land was not hostile like the dry grasslands, nor welcoming like his home. The mage could sense no true life in it, but there was a presence here.
Evening fell, and the mage welcomed his horn's steady light. Without it, he would not have been able to go on. If his horn stopped glowing, Alvarr would be in danger, because he was halfway down the slope.
He didn't dare think beyond the next step, and then the next. His horn's continued glow was the only thing that gave him hope, but he couldn't help wondering. What if there is nothing here? Where would he go after that?
Alvarr reached the high valley between the mountain he was descending and the gentler hill to its side. It was well after dark. The moon did not appear, but the light of his horn guided him to more level ground.
I should eat. Though the mage's stomach hurt from the anxiety of coming down such a steep drop, he knew he needed to keep his strength up. At least there was plenty of food. He wondered how the others fared.
He bit thin strands of night-cooled grass. These had a fine texture he had never encountered anywhere else, though he wished that coolgrass grew there as well. As an earth mage, could he possibly take some coolgrass back with him? How would that work?
As the mage grazed the grass, he noticed a long shape embedded in the earth. It wasn't a stone. Perhaps a tree root? But where is the tree?
Alvarr scraped the ground with his hoof, and dry, crumbly earth flaked off the shallowly-buried thing. He exposed more and more of the long and thin item, but both ends stuck in the ground.
This does not belong here. He stamped on the edge of it, and it splintered.
Alvarr whinnied in frustration. Though the night air had a chill, the mage shifted to his two-legged form and crouched down. The light of his horn had disappeared, but he found the jagged shape with his fingers.
With sharp chips of stone, he dug around the object until one end came free. He tugged on it, wincing at more cracking noises, but he pulled the end up out of the ground in a spray of dry dirt. When he shifted to four legs again, his horn lit the splintered edges, the hollow center.
His breath caught. This is bone. Brittle, ancient bone.
Illuminating the small area, the mage guessed that he had been standing on a slight mound. Where the rest of the creature is buried. In man-shape, he scratched and dug in the cold earth until he had uncovered more long, brittle bones. This being or beast was as big as I am, perhaps bigger.
It wasn't until he found the skull that he truly understood what he'd found. It had belonged to a stallion or mare, generations and generations ago. It was older than the oldest thing he could think of, on the edge of becoming part of the land itself.
Here was where one of his people had given up his hold on life. Alvarr couldn't help but think of the stallion who had broken his leg in the ghost stampede, but the mage had long passed the place where that happened in his vision. He wouldn't have gone back over the peak, toward the mare-mage. It couldn't have been the same one.
Alvarr knelt down by the remains. This person had probably been injured in the rush to get away from the mad mage, and unable to go any further. Perhaps he or she had been run down by a predator or been the loser in a fight, though the mage doubted that.
Though ancient bones were hardly good company, the mage no longer felt so alone. Alvarr had been wrong; this land had been discovered by at least one of his people. More, if he believed what he'd seen.
He stood up and shifted, relieved to see that his horn still glowed with a soft, steady light. Speak to me, Alvarr asked Nature. Only silence answered. Though so much time had passed, and this person's energy gone from the earth, Alvarr still wanted to honor this tribe-brother or tribe-sister.
Peace, the mage thought, and bent his head to the ground. He touched the exposed skull with the tip of his horn, living bone to dead. A flare of light made him close his eyes and back away. I should have known something would happen.
When he opened them, the skull shone with more than reflected light. The glow had transferred to the bone, and the faint luminescence had spread to more places on the ground. More of this person's bones.
But more things were glowing on the edge of Alvarr's vision. He turned to face the valley below him. All down the slope of the hill, more glowing patches gleamed, a trail of the remains. All these people had died where they stood, trying to get up the mountain.
A profound sadness rippled through him. These had to be the remains of people who had died during the rift. They'd fled in a mad rush, away from the mare-mage whose magic had killed so many of her own tribe.
Alvarr bowed his head, his horn making a small patch of light on the ground in front of him. The Elders were right. He was exactly who he was supposed to be, and where he was supposed to be. All the time he thought he was lost, but Nature had been with him the entire time. His magic had led him to the only place he could find answers.
If stallions and mares did truly live together, this is where I will find it.
The mage made himself look down the rest of the slope. The glowing spots on the ground led him into the woods. More bones, more remains of the ancient dead beneath the earth. Including… foals. If mares and stallions had lived together, children had lived with them.
His stomach churned at the thought of small remains, cut down long before their time. Smaller, weaker, and slower, they were probably among the first to die. But only I can tell their story, he told himself. It's what I'm meant to do.
He pointed his nose toward the path, and set his hoof on the trail once again.
Alvarr made his way past the glowing bones. He shuddered as he sometimes passed more skulls. Though he knew that every bone once belonged to a person, the skulls made him imagine the faces of who had died. He couldn't help seeing those he knew: the Elders, no longer strong. Nervous Cantril, with a snapped ankle. Laren, his great gray body toppled in the grass.
