by Spade, AO
"Alvarr! You've returned!"
Barron was cantering toward him. He was so thin, every rib showed.
This is why I must get back to work, but not fighting uselessly against the poison flower. I must convince everyone of the truth, the mage thought. I must do all I can.
"Welcome home." Barron nosed his bare shoulder. "You've been away so long! Are you all right?"
"I don't know," Alvarr said, straightening. He had walked across barren land, swum a swift river, discovered the remains of their ancient people, and survived on his own for many days. Why should he feel so weak now? This makes no sense. "Something is wrong," he breathed.
"Put your hand on me," Barron said. "Lean against me while you walk."
"I'm not going far, just to my dwelling," the mage said.
As they walked, Barron asked him many questions about why he had left, and where he had been. Finally, the mage shook his head. "I will answer everything, but only after I have the items I need."
When they reached Alvarr's dwelling, the mage pulled the cloth-wrapped bundle out, still tied to the piece of tree trunk. He dragged it on its vine-rope. I don't remember it being this heavy yesterday.
Barron shifted to two-legs and crouched next to the cloth. He pulled some of the white material between his fingers. "I thought the healing tent was all we had of this! How did you come to find it? It's the same, isn't it?"
"It is from the ancient people's camp," Alvarr said, trying not to stare at the man's thin form. Barron had always been slender, but he looked gaunt and worn through. He started back toward the healing camp, sliding his bundle behind him. Even from the slow walk, the mage breathed hard. It is not my imagination. I truly am weaker.
"You don't look well," Barron said.
"I'm not," the mage admitted. "I keep getting dizzy, and it's as though something keeps draining my strength away."
Barron shifted back to four-legs and took the rope in his teeth, jerking it out of Alvarr's hand. "I've got it."
Barron is a friend, Alvarr thought in surprise. He didn't know how it happened, but the slender young stallion had become someone he could trust. "Thank you," he said. With Alvarr leaning against the other stallion, they walked back to the healing tent.
Alvarr stumbled over to his pallet. "Bring them here, Barron," he said, sitting down.
Barron shifted to man-shape and came inside, still pulling the items.
"I swear, I did not feel this weak yesterday. I swam across the river with no trouble."
With a grim look on his face, Elder Mastok put his hand across the mage's forehead again. His white eyebrows descended over his eyes. "You are probably reacting to the land. It has become worse since you've been gone."
"We've lost the balance," Alvarr said softly.
Laren crossed his arms. "What does that mean? Speak plainly."
"You know what it means, Leader," Elder Mastok said, turning to him. "Ignorance does not become you."
Alvarr tried not to show any reaction, but that was twice the Elder had put Laren in his place. How does he dare? Then again, the Elders had shown no fear of Alvarr's unpredictable power, either.
I suppose we are all spring foals to someone so old. Alvarr caught the leader's eyes with his own and leaned forward. "I must tell you all something. My journey had a purpose."
"Sevan," Elder Mastok called.
The gray-haired, stocky elder hurried forward and handed the mage a bowl of fresh water.
Alvarr nodded his thanks. "Is Elder Pastor here?"
"No," Elder Sevan said. "As you know, he lives apart from the tribe. But now, he says he cannot come here. The land stops him. He dwells in the cave."
So it isn't just me. Alvarr would have to seek Elder Pastor out and tell him everything separately. Compared to the journey he had just made, going to the cave would be nothing.
"Shall we get any others?" Barron asked.
"No," Alvarr said. "It would just cause them confusion. Laren or the Elders must tell the rest of the tribe. The tribe will not believe me, or any other without standing." The mage reached for his bundle and dragged it onto his pallet. "I left to discover if the rift was real, and if Elder Mastok's claims were true."
"What claims?" asked Barron. "What is the rift?"
"In the tribe's knowledge, held by me," Elder Mastok said, "there are tales of stallions, mares, and children living together in one large tribe, far from here. The rift was a terrible event, born of magic, that separated the tribes and cast the ancient people out from their home. The stallion tribe settled here."
"The claim is that the rift was against Nature, and that stallions and mares should never have been separated," Alvarr said. He unwrapped the first winding of vine from the cloth from its bark shell. "And that we are finally feeling the result, a blighted land that will never recover."
"Couldn't it just be a bad season?" Barron asked.
"That is what I thought, as well," Elder Sevan said. "I still want to believe that, but I cannot. Something is deeply wrong."
"I, too, did not fully believe," the mage said. "I left to discover proof of the rift. Because if the rift is responsible, we need to heal the damage from it, or risk Nature's punishment."
"What did you find?" Elder Sevan asked, frowning thoughtfully.
Alvarr huffed a soundless laugh. So many things. "Not only is the rift real, but I discovered, by chance or by Nature, where our ancient people used to live. The site where the rift happened."
The final vine fell away. Unwrapping the folds of cloth, Alvarr told them about his journey, the slaying of the beast with his horn, the blood flowers that now grew to feast on romeya.
"Could we bring those blood flowers here?" Laren asked. "Assuming they are real."
Alvarr sighed. The leader doubted him, but he did not expect anything else. It all sounds so strange, even when I tell it. "They are real. Cross the river and see. You'll be able to, because the fear is only a strong protection put on by the first stallion leader who led his tribe-brothers here."
To prevent them asking about the first leader, he quickly continued. "And no, I don't think we should try to bring them over. The blood flowers are predators, grown where nothing else can live. Who knows what damage it will do on this side of the river? It may kill every remaining blade of grass."
Alvarr described the grassy hills and the still land where very little life survived. He still could not bring himself to describe how he had fought and killed the beast. When he talked about the vision of the stallions crashing down the mountain, he could not meet any of their eyes, knowing he sounded mad. "I thought I had imagined it. I doubted myself, because who would believe such a thing as seeing the dead?" Heads nodded. "It is not possible. But then," the mage said, "I found their bones."
When he got to the part about how the ancients joined whole tree trunks together, Laren's eyes narrowed. "They would have had to spend much time in man-shape to do that."
"I had the same thought," Alvarr said. "They had ways of joining wood that are..." He remembered the teamwork between the shape-mage and the others from his vision. It wasn't just the shape magic, but the way they had thought to lift the log with vines, as well. "They were far beyond what we would even think to do." When he got to the part about the underground shelter that he had fallen through, he couldn't help but remember the image of Laren giving him comfort. It had made so much sense at the time. The Laren in front of him now was stony-eyed, which his arms crossed over his chest. It was only in my imagination.
He pulled two of the cloth-wrapped bound leaves out of their wrappings. Elder Mastok leaned toward them, his hands on his knees.
"Look at these," Alvarr said. "I hope they have much of the ancients' knowledge encoded in them. When I saw them, I knew I had to bring them to you." He passed them, one by one, to Elder Mastok. "I don't know if you can make sense of these."
The white-haired man took them with careful fingers, opening one and shaking his head at the markings within. "I will spend my d
ays and nights studying them," he said. "They could save us all."
"And I," Elder Sevan added.
Alvarr's hand trembled as he brought out the flat wood piece. "I found the place where the rift happened. It is real. The cave picture is true. The mare-mage, she really did go mad and lost control of her power, killing many of her people. I stood where they died and felt their restless energy, still trapped in the land."
A silence settled over the group. "How do you know?" Barron finally asked. "Not that I don't believe you, but…"
The mage clasped his hands over the likenesses of the mare-mage's family. "I saw it happen, the same way I saw the other things. It was a grassy field, but under the grass were so many bones. A wind pushed me to the place," Alvarr said, and told them of his vision.
"Her name was Alvi. She had a mate who died, and her son, a small black stallion who was barely grown. He became the first stallion leader, and took his tribe-brothers away from the old camp to safety. Here."
The mage wanted to see if Laren accepted all this, but he didn't dare. What if he didn't believe any of this? He kept his focus on the Elders. Alvarr opened the flat wood piece. "After I saw the past, I found Alvi and her mate's dwelling, which was a marvel all its own." He turned the wood so they could see the artwork. "That's them in both forms."
"How?" Elder Sevan reached for the wood pieces, and Alvarr reluctantly handed them to the older man.
"It is like they are imprisoned, it looks so real," the Elder whispered. Turning the object around in his hand, he inspected the place where the wood joined together. "This wood is like stone. How did they work it?"
"Alvi's dwelling was made of this hard wood, but they managed to find a way," Alvarr said. "They shaped the wood, perhaps with magic, so that it's all straight-sided. Perfectly straight, like the horizon, like flat water."
"Magic?" Elder Mastok had taken another of the bound, flat leaf bundles and started to inspect the brown markings.
"I don't know," the mage said. "Perhaps. Alvi's dwelling was different than the other dwellings. It was mostly standing, but the others had fallen and rotted." He held out his hands. "One thing I do know, though. None of it would be possible without being on two-legs, as Laren said."
Elder Mastok sighed, the weight of defeat in the sound. "Then, they were a greater people than us."
"No." Alvarr wanted to stand up and pace, but he didn't trust his legs. "No, Elder. We all can do what they did. We are the same people. We are from them. Look." He held up the vines and bark. "I made this with my hands. It is not good work, but with practice, I could gain skill. We are all like the ancient people, Elder. Only time and knowledge separate us."
There was one last thing in his collection, and he brought it out. "But magic, too, was different. In a vision, I saw a mare move things with her power."
"Can you do that, too?" the leader demanded.
Alvarr shook his head. "I tried to make a small rock move by the river, in the hopes I could float all these items across. Nothing happened."
The mage gripped the handle of the strange tool he had found of shaped wood. "But if I had been able to move them with my power, I would not have solved it this way. I could not even grow new vines. What I did is something that anyone can do."
Everyone in the tent was watching him, and a nervous chill ran down Alvarr's back. He fumbled with the tool in his lap, and accidentally cut himself on one of the sharp points. He brought his bleeding finger to his mouth.
Immediately, Laren was there, next to him on the pallet. "What is it? Are you hurt?"
He only seems to care about me if I'm weakened. "I'm fine," he told the leader. "It has stopped already." I don't want a mate like that. Then, he realized what he'd just thought.
Laren was not his mate. He was the last person to want Alvarr. What happened between them had been the result of magic and opportunity.
"This is very sharp," the mage said, holding up the tool. "The end is made from the same wood, but it's more than that. Whoever did this made the wood grow in that way. They are not joined"
He passed it to Elder Sevan, who inspected it and asked, "What could be the purpose of this?" He, too, tested the sharpness with a finger and drew a single drop of blood.
"I do not know," the mage said, "but if I had stayed, I would have found many more strange things in that dwelling."
"Like what?" Laren asked. The non-expression was back, and his arms were crossed once more.
Laren didn't believe him, or at least didn't believe that what he had said held any value. But instead of backing down, a flash of anger ran through the mage. Laren may not think much of him, but Alvarr acted for the good of the tribe, and he was going to listen.
He held up the large amount of white cloth. "Look at this. It is the same material as this tent," the mage said, pointing up. "This material has survived for an unthinkable number of generations while our dwellings collapse into the ground after one generation of neglect."
He took a breath. "And do you know what this was used for? A pallet. A large pallet, more than twice as big as this one, where Alvi and her mate slept." He watched his audience, but they didn't seem to understand the meaning of this. They don't understand any of it, except for maybe the Elders.
"I'm telling you that Elder Mastok was right. The rift happened, which means that stallions and mares did live together, once. They cooperated, and everyone lived as companions and true mates."
"Mates? Elder Mastok has talked of this, but it means little." The leader turned toward the tent exit, as though this was all a waste of his time.
How can our leader be so heartless? "I think you know what it means," Alvarr shot back, his face heating with anger and impatience. "That's why you're so afraid of everything I've shown."
Laren gave him a cutting look. "I'm not afraid. My job is to keep order-"
"Your job is the tribe's survival." Alvarr rose. "Look at us. We have no good food left. People are hungry and thin. They use more energy searching for forage than they gain in food. I am an earth mage. Don't you think it pains me to see both the land and our people in decline?"
Alvarr tossed his hair back and looked at each one of them. "I want to help, but there is only so much I can do. Things need to change. We need to change."
"So what answers do you have, then?" Laren asked. "Or did you just return to tell us how wonderful this place is that we can never go to."
"Everyone can go to it, if we all go together," Alvarr said. "And I want to return someday; it is our history. But if the stallions go there, I think it will not help, for we'd still be acting against Nature. The real answer is for the stallions and mares to live together." No foal would have to leave one parent. No true companions would be torn apart for a year. "If the tribes come together, it will heal the damage done by the rift. Everyone will be able to be in their human shapes longer, and find companions, and…" Gray spots crept across his vision. He put his hand over his eyes.
"Alvarr!" Elder Mastok hurried to support him and made him sit down. The old man stood in front of him, shielding the mage from the others. "You all must leave," he said in an authoritative voice. "My patient needs rest and quiet."
When they all left, Elder Mastok sat next to the mage and patted his shoulder. "That was very well done."
"He didn't believe me," Alvarr said. "And he is the only one who can convince the rest of the tribe." Laren was usually a thoughtful, fair leader. If Cantril had delivered the news, would the leader have accepted it better?
"He doesn't want to believe you, but he doesn't think you are a liar."
"You don't have to spare my feelings," Alvarr said. "I know he doesn't respect me." But he took what I offered, just before I left. The mage lay down on the pallet and closed his eyes. "I've done what I could. I'm through with talking to him. It's up to you and the other Elders, now."
Elder Mastok left him alone after telling the mage that he was going to search the books for help with his energy condition. Alvarr heard the
rustling of the ancient leaves, and his heart eased. The Elder was going to help him.
How long am I supposed to rest? Now that he was alone, Alvarr tried to touch his own energy. He felt that strange combination of being overly full of magic, but unable to access it. He put his hand over his navel and breathed into it. If there was a place where his magic was trapped, it was his stomach. He tried to reach into his own body to release it.
The magic did not respond, as silent as a rock. Alvarr's efforts slid off it like rain. Frowning, he prodded harder, and got actively repelled. What is this? His magic had never seemed like a separate being, but that's exactly what it felt like.
He drifted for a time, lulled by the quiet sounds of Elder Mastok studying. When there was a touch on his shoulder, he opened his eyes to see Elder Sevan standing by him.
"What is it?"
The gray-haired Elder's brows descended over his eyes. "The young leader is outside, asking to see you."
CHAPTER TEN
A Leader's Consideration
LAREN? A SMALL dart of excitement shot through Alvarr. His anger and fatigue quenched it. The inside of the tent was warm, another property of the ancient cloth, and for some reason, the mage did not want to shift to four legs.
"I have told him all I can," he told Elder Sevan. "What more can I do? I know that Elder Mastok will learn all he can. It seems to me that it's all up to you, now."
"Shall I tell the leader that you are resting?" Elder Sevan asked.
"No," he said. "I will hear what he has to say." The mage couldn't risk letting the chance to convince the leader pass him by. This was about more than his comfort.
Alvarr got up and went to the entrance.
Laren was indeed waiting there in four-legged form. "Are you rested enough to walk with me?" the leader asked.
"I do not feel much like talking, but I can listen," Alvarr said, raising his head to look at Laren's liquid brown eyes. "And the land itself is making me feel this way, according to Elder Mastok. It seems to make no difference if I sleep or walk, so I might as well come with you."
