by AO Spade
Both Elder Mastok and Elder Sevan were waiting for him when they returned. Clearly, they had heard about Alvarr’s feat, and ran to him, putting their aged hands on his coat to check for anything wrong.
“Alvarr,” Elder Sevan said, “you must come inside and rest, if you can shift.”
He knows about the foal, now. Alvarr could see it in the strong Elder’s worried expression. Elder Mastok must have told him. With a small effort, he shifted to man-shape and shivered. It is colder, but at least I can conserve energy like this.
Laren stood a little distance away. “I will talk to you soon,” he said with a shake of his mane. “I must lead the others out to forage now, before the sun sets.” He tossed his proud head and started calling the others to go out for the evening's food.
Alvarr watched him trot away. At least the leader had recovered his spirit. I suppose he has the hardest time of all. How could Laren not be in despair, having to lead the tribe farther and farther out to forage every day, and seeing them become thinner and thinner?
He must feel like there is nothing left he can do. And the mage couldn’t ignore the fact that the leader, too, was growing leaner. Could they hold out until spring? Alvarr doubted it. And when spring came, what would it bring? Without rain, it would bring nothing.
Escorted by Elder Sevan, the mage went back inside the healing tent. He shuddered at the scent of smoke and the change in temperature. Inside, it was almost too hot, and the air tasted thick.
Only a faint light came from the skylight, but Alvarr could see the remains of a burnt-out fire laid on the ground.
“We have heat in plenty,” Elder Sevan said, gesturing at a small stack of branches in the center of the large tent. “Fire frightens us, too, but it is a way to stay in man-shape for all who can.”
Alvarr went to his pallet and drew his knees close to his chest. His belly was still flat. He wondered how long it would stay that way. He winced as he heard the strike of two rocks, for it was how the Elders created fires. He trusted the Elders, but Alvarr’s instincts still rebelled against the dangerous flame.
Did the ancients feel the same way? With all their ways, did they find a way of mastering it, and their fear?
The stallion mage sighed lay back, listening to the flare of flame. His other winters had not been this desperate season to be endured. During his last winter with the mares, he had played in the snow with a sand-colored filly, and there was ample dried grass all over the field. When that grass was gone, they would just travel on.
But the mares were driven to keep traveling. The colts, as they grew older, did not feel the restlessness, but the fillies did, as they grew close to maturing. This is the mares' instinctive magic, just like the night-fear.
He heard the Elders talking quietly. No doubt, they spoke about him, and Alvarr could feel their concern pressing in on him. The mage wanted to be in his own dwelling, to not have someone watch over him all the time. He got off the pallet and walked out the door in man-shape, his bare feet padding through the snow. No one stopped him.
His dwelling’s living structure had died in his long absence. Now, it looked like any other in the blue shadow of twilight, woven with dead vines and branches. The cold air smelled like dust and dried leaves. Alvarr touched his pallet’s bare surface and wondered if there was any cloth left with which to cover it. It’s no use. Already, it felt half-abandoned, as though it, too, was going to crumble like the old dwellings by the river. This is no place to raise a foal.
He left to examine the stream that his power had created. Now, there was a pond a little way from the camp, and into it flowed a small portion of the river. Alvarr drunk the cold water and nodded at its sweetness. It tasted pure, and no one had to journey far to get it.
As he traveled a farther along the water, he noticed that there were, indeed, tiny points of grass springing up from the wet ground around it. Alvarr cautiously allowed himself to hope. At least there is that.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A Mate's Acceptance
THE NEW STREAM seemed to give everyone hope. In just a few days, thick spears of grass had shot up along its long bank, and Alvarr often saw stallions looking at it. Alvarr paced along the bank. No one had taken a single bite, as far as he could tell.
Alvarr did not need to eat it. With the trickle of power he had been able to manage, he had been growing his own grass in secluded areas, leaving the food for others. But why hadn’t anyone touched the grass along the water? He knew they were hungry.
It couldn’t be because the grass was grown by magic. Surely, hunger would overcome superstition… wouldn’t it? But the mage had a sinking feeling that he'd found the reason.
A stab of impatience at the stallions’ ignorance made him huff and lash his tail. The grass still came from the earth. It wasn’t made of magic. Would they let their fears lead them to starvation?
Last winter, Alvarr’s first cold season with the stallions, had been mild enough that green grass still grew in some parts. They had all gotten leaner, but no one had been in any danger. Before the winter came, enough rain had fallen during the autumn to fill the fields, and winter forage had been plenty.
Surely, there have been harsh winters before. How did the stallions survive then?
The stream's grass was as high as the mage’s knee. He bent and twisted a handful of it, and found a sharp rock on the sandy bank. With it, he severed the stems near the bottom. Alvarr cut another handful, and another, until he had a pile of fragrant green on the ground near his feet.
“What are you doing this time?” Barron stood by him in his four-legged form.
“I don’t know, exactly,” Alvarr admitted, sawing through more stems. “But no one is eating the stream’s grass. Maybe, if I broke it off and moved it somewhere else, they would forget where it came from and just take it.”
Barron’s slender face dipped up and down in a slow nod. White plumes came from his nostrils, his breath frosting in the cold air.
“Why haven’t you eaten any?” Alvarr asked, narrowing his eyes.
His friend swished his tail. “I am small. I do not need it, though I am hungry. I can find enough to sustain me.”
“You, too, were saving it for the others,” the mage said, letting his hair slide over his face to hide it. He felt a little ashamed of himself. He’d been so quick to assume it was the tribe’s fear of magic, but what if they were all just saving it for those who needed it more?
Barron changed to his two-legged form and shivered. “It’s been a long time since I took man-shape in the snow. It’s cold! How can you stand it for so long?”
The mage shrugged. He didn’t want to tell Barron about being with foal, and how it was getting harder to shift to four legs. Everyone will find out one way or another, but until then, I want to keep it as my secret. “Magic, I suppose,” he said. “I think Nature's power shelters me.“
“Like the Elders,” Barron agreed. He twisted stalks together and picked up the rock. With some effort, he sawed a ragged handful off and put it on Alvarr's pile. “It’s not fresh, but what if we delivered it to people’s dwellings?”
“To everyone?” Alvarr looked doubtfully down the length of the small stream’s bank. Though green grass grew all along it, he didn’t think there would be more than a mouthful for everyone if they divided it equally.
“We’ll only cut enough for the Elders, then,” Barron said. “They are old and it’s probably harder for them to forage. I’ve never seen the Elders on four legs.”
“It doesn’t seem to happen often,” Alvarr murmured.
“And Laren. We should leave some for him,” Barron said.
“Y-yes,” Alvarr said quietly. Laren, he knew, was always the last to eat. He watched over the tribe the best he could. Whatever he thinks of me, he is a good leader. And as Laren’s mate, Alvarr couldn’t help but want to take care of him.
Alvarr and Barron worked their way down the water’s edge, cutting grass, bringing it back to the starting point to bui
ld the pile. The work warmed him, though his hands stayed cold. Thank Nature that we are still both healthy.
“It is good to feel like I can do something,“ Barron said, looking at the waist-high mound. They each took a great armful and started toward the healing tent.
“It's not much, but it will help,“ Alvarr said. They left the grass at the entrance to the healing tent, a small amount that would not feed one stallion for a day.
“How fast do you think it will grow back?” Barron asked, as they walked back to the pile of grass.
Alvarr knew that his friend hoped it would grow faster than usual. “We must not hope for too much,” he said. “In truth, I do not know. But I expect it will at least grow as fast as grass normal does during a mild winter.” Slow, bitter, and tough. Not even magic can replace the warmth of spring.
They laid two armfuls of grass at Laren’s entrance. The dwelling was empty, of course. Laren was busy putting compulsion on the stallions so that they would not eat romeya-filled forage or stray from the herd, driven by their constant hunger.
Alvarr touched the edge of Laren’s door. He had once come to Laren here, and found him in man-shape. Even then, I was drawn to him, and he to me.
“Are you sick?”
“What?” Alvarr realized he had put his hand over his stomach, which was still flat. “I’m fine,” he said, dropping his hand. “Just cold, as you said, because I have stopped moving.” He tossed his long hair behind him. “There is still plenty more grass to harvest, and it won’t go to waste.”
The two delivered one armful of grass to many of the other dwellings before the day started to change to evening. The tribe had not yet returned.
Though tired, Alvarr was proud of what they had done. He and Barron, the two smallest, weakest members of the tribe had been able to provide for their people. That night, he retired to his own dwelling, listening for the sounds of stallions finding his and Barron’s gifts. Even if the grass does not grow again, there will be more for a few more days.
The next morning brought a stinging white haze of snow. Inside his dwelling, Alvarr was warm, but when he ventured outside, hard snow and a strong wind blew against his bare skin. Gritting his teeth, he shifted, and felt a stab of hunger as his larger body demanded more energy. It was the same constant hunger that the other stallions felt. Another reason to stay in man-shape.
The dwellings around him were faint shapes in a dizzying field of white. Alvarr shook thick snow from his mane and coat, and started walking against the wind toward the Elders’ tent. They ate the grass before the snow came, I hope.
Elder Mastok was once again by a small fire laid on the packed earth floor of the tent. Smoke rose from it and escaped out the top. “It’s too cold not to have it,” the Elder said as the mage put his head inside.
Alvarr changed to two-legs and came in, drawing the flap behind him. He had kept his small dwelling warm with only his body, but the Elder was right; the vast tent was too large. “I am getting used to it,” the mage said, daring to get near to the fire’s heat.
“You are right to fear it. Fire is a dangerous force,” Elder Mastok said.
Alvarr thought about the black scorched earth he had found in the ancient civilization. “The ancients used fire inside their dwellings, I think,” he said. There were so many things about that place Alvarr would never understand.
“Is that so?” The Elder’s white eyebrows rose.
“I wish I could bring you there,” Alvarr said. Of anyone, Elder Mastok would have the best chance of reviving what we’ve lost. Perhaps there were fire mages, as well as earth and weather mages.
“Perhaps you can,” Elder Mastok said. “You made it alone, and you were probably with foal at the time.”
Alvarr blushed at how easily the Elder spoke of his condition. Did Elder Mastok know that he had mated with the leader? “You might be able to make it there,” he said, “and Elder Sevan is strong, but Elder Pastor?” Alvarr could not see the oldest of them, frail and thin, making the journey.
The Elder slowly shook his head. His white eyebrows slanted over his eyes. “Elder Pastor says he thinks his seasons are drawing to an end,” he said. “He is very close to Nature these days, and can feel the imbalance keenly. He cannot set one foot inside the camp.”
They all returned to Nature; it was the way of things. Still, he felt a stab of panic at the thought of losing Elder Pastor. Now, more than ever, the mage realized how precious the Elders’ knowledge and skill was to the tribe. Without Elder Pastor's knowledge and healing, and no one to take his place, stallions would die before their time.
“I should bring him some grass,” Alvarr said.
“Not at this very time,” Elder Mastok said. “I believe it would be best to wait out the snowstorm.”
Alvarr sat on his knees, accepting the Elder’s wisdom. He gazed into the beautiful, dangerous flames. So much knowledge could be lost, in one stroke of sickness or bad weather. The mage could sense the wild workings of Nature pressing in on the tent’s thin walls.
His eyes closed. His time as a child with the tribe had been filled with plenty. There were colts there, though not magical as he was. And yet, no one had thought to include him in the fillies’ mage training, nor had Mare-Mother Quirina spent time instructing him on the use of his power.
Mare-Mother is a great healer, but I am an earth mage. We are not the same. Perhaps she didn’t know how to teach me. How he wished he could ask her, but they would never meet again. Alvarr sighed and listened to the snow and wind outside.
As soon as the snow storm passed, Alvarr left the tent. Snow had collected so deep that it was past his knee. Reluctantly, he shifted to four-legs to make his way through it. The snow has reached the height of the grass, almost. What if it had completely buried the stream?
As fast as he could, he struggled through the snow to the place he and Barron had been yesterday. Though snow had stopped falling, the sky was a light gray, the same color as the ground, and it gave the mage the feeling that nothing would ever change.
Stop it, he told himself, and gave his mane a sharp shake. Spring would come, just as the sun rose, whether it brought grass and life, or drought and loss. The seasons will always come.
When Alvarr stumbled upon the stream's area, he found that his fears had come to pass. The snow had not made an exception for it. Everything was snowed over, and there was no way of knowing where, exactly, the stream lay underneath the smooth unbroken white. The mage could only find a few places where the tips of clumps of grass showed just above the surface.
I cannot dig the grass out, cut it, and get through the snow back to camp. Until the snow melted, going on two-legs would be impossible.
A dull sadness stole over him. Maybe Nature wanted them all to die. It was a small thing they did yesterday, such a small thing, but now Alvarr could not even do that much for his tribe.
There was nothing left for him to do here. He turned back along the path through the snow he had made. Alvarr did not think he could make grass grow even for himself if the ground was covered. They’ll have to fend for themselves, as will I.
But before the mage got far, something pulled him back to the stream. He stopped, tail waving from side to side in agitation. It was the thought of Laren. I cannot leave my mate without food. I have to at least see what I can do.
With a front hoof, he dug through the snow and uncovered green stems. Food was there, just out of reach. The mage could not move the snow with his power. If only I could get some of the tribe to help. But though it was the early morning, no one was in the camp but the Elders.
As though Nature answered wishes, there was the swish of two large bodies coming through the snow behind him. Barron and Cantril? Laren and Elder Sevan?
With wild hope that someone was coming to help him, the mage twisted his neck, only to freeze at the shape of a stallion, black as night, and a huge gray brute. It was not his friend or his mate. It was those two.
What do I do? Alvarr didn�
�t want to give into the instinctive fear that was trying to take over his mind, but he wasn’t sure if he could master it. Did he act as though he did not notice them? Did he just try to get away from them as fast as he could, back toward the shelter of the Elders’ tent? No. That wasn’t an option. The snow would slow him down. Even though he was normally faster than they were, they had more strength to get through the deep drifts, and their legs were longer.
And then, Alvarr did not have time to decide. They had obviously seen him and were heading straight toward where he stood. The mage’s heart beat faster, and his legs trembled, but he knew that to show weakness in front of those two would mean disaster. For him, his foal, or for them.
As those two approached, Alvarr remembered what Laren had said. Was Laren right? Alvarr had always run from them. And they didn’t respect him, whether it was because of his small size, his fear, or his ability to use magic. There had been that strange time when they had all brought him gifts, but Alvarr had suspected it was just a different way of tormenting him.
This time, he would take the leader’s advice and stand his ground. There is no other choice. If I try to escape, I will be caught, anyway. He watched them lumber through the snow, which made them slow. It took the edge off his nerves. Perhaps they’re only coming to find food.
The big gray and night-black stallions were just one length away. “Greetings, brothers” Alvarr said quietly, determined to take charge of their interaction. Thane nodded his sleek black head, and Alvarr cautiously dared to hope that this would go better than previous encounters. But then, Nassor spoke in his hoarse, low voice. “Little mare,” he sneered, his great head lowered as though he was trying to drive it through the snow.
Ignoring him, Alvarr turned toward Thane. “If you’re coming to find food, there is some. Though it is buried, it is still good.”
“The little mare-mage is showing us favor,” Nassor said. “I greatly enjoyed your gift from yesterday.”
