by Greg Bear
Spart waved him along. Michael sighed. He’d given up trying to find motives for what they did. At the very least, the Crane Women were elusive.
And now they eluded him. He had bent down for a second to untangle his foot from a root, and when he looked up, they were gone. Instead, at the top of a low hill about half a mile away, was a horse—a Sidhe horse, its rider nowhere in sight.
Michael searched the hill nervously with his eyes, then walked toward the animal. An unaccompanied Sidhe horse was probably most unusual in the Pact Lands. He had never seen one, at any rate. As he climbed the gentle slope, the horse lifted its head and whinnied. It trained its ears in his direction and turned on pumping legs to face him. Michael stopped; he felt no need to approach any closer. It might be a trap. A Sidhe could be lying on the other side of the hill, waiting for someone just as curious as he.
“Right you are to be cautious,” Spart said, a yard behind him. “Do you know what that is? Do they still have them on Earth?”
“Of course,” Michael said. “But not exactly… it’s a horse.”
“The Cascar word is epon,” Spart said, “a word so old it predates the earliest horses. There were other steeds in those times, stronger, even more noble. They did not last the wars. Shall we have a closer look?”
“If you say so.”
“Yes,” Spart said. “It is part of what you must learn.”
The horse pawed at the dirt and bent to nip blades of grass. As they drew closer, it reared up briefly, then cantered straight for Spart. She held out her broad hand and it buried its nose in her palm, closing its eyes and nuzzling.
The horse’s coat, up close, was velvety-shiny, the muscles packed tight beneath. Its legs were long and its head narrow, almost bony. The mane hung low on the neck but was well-kept; the horse had obviously been curried recently.
“Where is it from?” he asked.
“It crossed the Blasted Plain just a short while ago,” Spart said. She patted golden dust from its withers. “Its masters await us beyond the borders. It will guide us across, and if we stay close, the sani will protect us.” She held her palm out to him; there were sparkles in it like flecks of mica. “Would you like to ride?”
Michael shook his head. “I’ve never ridden a horse.”
“You’ll have to learn. Should it be now?” She wasn’t asking Michael; she was addressing Coom and Nare, who walked casually up the other side of the hill, Nare with a blade of grass between her lips. They nodded noncommittally.
Spart squinted at Michael and shrugged. “His choice,” she said. “The horse is borrowed, after all.” She walked around the animal, feelings its flanks and withers, caressing its hindquarters.
Nare chuckled throatily and squatted a few yards away, pulling the grass from her lips and inspecting it. “When you plan to ride a horse,” she said, “you walk up to it, look it in the eye, say to it, ‘You are my soul, I am your master!’ Believe it when you say it. Then… you mount.”
“Is that all?” Michael asked. Coom laughed, a sound like dragging slate between clenched teeth.
“Yes,” Spart said. “But to believe it, you must be able to ride like the Sidhe. No human can ride like the Sidhe. You already have souls. There is little room for a horse.”
“I might be able to learn,” Michael said defiantly. “Maybe I’ll ride just as well.”
“Then try.” Spart cupped her hands to provide a stirrup. “Left foot up, right foot over.”
“No saddle?”
“Unless you’re carrying one with you.”
He put his left foot in her hands, grabbed hold of the lower neck and swung up and over. For a moment he hung in empty air, and then he landed on his hands and knees, the wind knocked out of him. The horse stood a few paces away, shaking its head and snorting.
“If you can’t ride a horse,” Nare said, observing him from where she sat, “act like one.”
Michael got to his feet. “It’s fast,” he said.
“Some other time,” Spart said. Once again, he felt his worth drop to zero. To regain some of his pride, he approached the horse a second time and patted its flank. It turned its pearly gray head toward him, large silver eyes blinking enigmatically. “Ho,” he said. “Or something like that. Are we going to be friends?”
The Sidhe horse flicked its tail at an imaginary fly and lifted one foreleg. “Listen,” Michael whispered in its ear, after pulling the head down gently to his level with one hand on its nose. “I’m in bad enough shape without your dragging me any lower. They think I’m a klutz,” he nodded at the Crane Women, “and I agree. If you won’t be my soul, how about just being my buddy?”
The horse raised its head, butting his hand away, then cocked its ears in his direction and gently bumped its nose into his chest.
“Is it possible you have a way with horses?” Spart asked.
“I wouldn’t know; this is the first time.”
“Try again,” Spart suggested. “If you succeed, maybe you won’t have to cross the Blasted Plain on foot.” She held her hands out to form a stirrup again. He stepped up and swung over onto the horse’s back. The horse wriggled its back muscles and shook its head but stood steady. Michael wrapped his legs tighter and asked, a small quaver in his voice. “Do I ride it now?”
Span’s eyes turned to the west, where a cluster of three Sidhe horsemen moved slowly across the grassland about a mile away.
“Who is that?” Michael asked.
“The Wickmaster,” Spart said, blinking slowly and reaching to take the horse by the chin.
“Why is he here?”
“Wants to meet the ones who wait for us,” Nare said, standing. “Come. Let’s cross now.”
The Crane Women walked down the opposite side of the hill. The horse followed, walking under Michael more than being directed by him. He had no idea how to give it directions, and he didn’t feel now was the appropriate time to ask. Alyons and two coursers paced their animals about a hundred yards from them, both groups heading toward the edge of the Pact Lands and the smoggy region beyond.
The Crane Women paused at the border. The green grass stopped along a geometrically perfect line, to be replaced by the glistening black and umber sand of the Blasted Plain. Nare bent to scoop up some of the sand; it trickled between her fingers as lifeless as the dust in a vacuum cleaner bag. She brushed her hand off on her pants, face creased with distaste.
“We’ll walk close to you, to the horse,” Spart said. Coom inspected the horse’s flanks closely.
“Is it the dust that protects us? I mean, the sani.”
“Part,” Coom said. She, too, kept an eye on Alyons and the coursers, who had stopped at the border about sixty yards to the north. Alyons eyed them coldly, caressing his golden horse’s shoulder with sure, smooth strokes. Michael wondered why the Wickmaster wasn’t acting more boldly.
Nare was the first to cross. The horse followed reluctantly, its flanks rippling. “Forty miles,” Spart said, pointing east. “Desolation. Ruin of war. Good training ground. But you should be careful. Adonna buries its mistakes; dig or blast deep enough beneath the ground of the Realm, and you’ll find them again.”
The tortured spires of once-molten rock rose on all sides, some bending back on themselves to form loops and arches. The ground opened up in cracks and chasms, emitting sulfurous wisps and acrid mists. Scattered over the terrain were pools of churning yellow-orange liquid like pus-filled wounds. Michael’s eyes smarted sharply until Spart told him to bend down and administered a dark viscous cream high on each cheek. There was nothing she could do for his sense of smell, however. His nose ran constantly, and whatever dignity he gained by being on horseback was lost in snuffling.
Michael worried that they weren’t carrying food and water. If they stayed for any length of time, the oversight would be unfortunate; they would find no sustenance on the Blasted Plain.
The dust billowed thick and irritating around them. Michael took a strip of cloth from Coom and tied it over his
nose and mouth; the others did the same.
By dusk, they had made it to a flat pan of rock topped with smaller, sharp-edged boulders. Michael dismounted to help them clear a space about four yards across, lifting and tossing the boulders carefully to avoid cutting his hands. Then Coom took a small wood wand from her pouch and drew a circle in the dirt around the clearing. “Rest here,” she said.
“Will that line keep things out?” Michael asked, thinking of pentagrams.
“No,” Coom said. She didn’t elaborate on its purpose. Twenty yards behind them, Alyons and his coursers halted but did not bother to dismount.
The orange light was oppressive. Michael was anxious to move on and suggested they do so but Nare shook her head firmly. The Crane Women sat within the circle and Michael stood near the center. The horse stood beside him with its head lowered, eyes half-closed. It looked very tired. “Are we resting for the horse’s sake?” he said, his voice muffled by the scarf. The Crane Women had also lowered their heads. None of them answered. “I get it,” he said. “Something saps the horse’s strength when it’s here, but it protects us…” They neither affirmed nor denied his theory.
A heavy brown cloud moved in over their heads, riding a pseudopod of gray-orange mist. Each liquid particle in the mist was as large as a drop of rain but did not fall. The mist swung around the circle but did not enter.
Alyons and his coursers were outside the periphery of the cloud. They stared intently at the Crane Women and Michael, who fancied he could feel Alyon’s hatred even at this distance.
An hour later, Spart and Coom stood up abruptly. Michael shook his head; to his surprise, he had fallen asleep standing up.
He offered the horse to Nare, who mounted without comment. Spart broke the drawn circle with her foot and they continued east. The Sidhe followed not far behind.
Darkness was coming, and the Crane Women hastened to leave the Blasted Plain before nightfall. Michael’s feet kept getting stuck in the dust, much worse than sand at a beach; he was soon exhausted and regretted giving up the horse.
With sunset—transformed by the orange haze into a sinister ritual of darkening brown sky and ribbons of ascending tan and ochre—they neared another sharply defined border. What lay beyond wasn’t clear; the air thickened at that point, revealing only shadowy presences that could have been tall boulders, or trees.
The horse picked up its pace and they had to run to keep up. Michael did his best, but was the last across the border. For a second, he had a terrifying notion that if the Crane Women left him behind, he might not be able to cross by himself; but there was no noticeable force to prevent him from stepping over.
“Welcome to the Realm, proper,” Spart said.
Trees! Huge, spreading leafy canopies rose before them, muting the last of the daylight into green murkiness. The air was clean and sweet. Even the Dust which had accumulated on their skin and clothing sloughed off, leaving them hot and sweaty, but not besmirched.
The horse cantered to a grassy glade to crop an emerald-green dinner. Nare hopped off her mount and sauntered up to a tree, which she patted with her long-fingered hand, grinning broadly. Michael stretched out his arms and inhaled, soaking up the coolness and greenness and peace.
For as far as he could see in the dusk, the trunks of trees rose in well-spaced disorder. Between them were shrubs thick with red and purple berries, tall lilies with white flowers delicately fringed blood-red, patches of blue flowers abutting the glades.
The forest was more than Earth-like; it was surreal, too perfect. After a few minutes, Michael became uneasy again. He looked back to the border, with its abrupt transition to orange haze, to see where Alyons and the coursers were. They were not in sight.
Spart approached him with both hands behind her back. Her grin was more subtle than Nare’s. Coom sat on the lowest limb of a tree, watching him like a bird.
Withdrawing her left hand, Spart revealed a flower. It didn’t belong to any of the flowering plants he had spotted—it was translucent, as if made from a soft glass. It could have been plastic except for the delicate tracery on its petals. She seemed to be offering it to him, so he reached out to accept. She snatched it back and hid it behind long, fanned fingers.
“What color is it?” she asked.
“Yellow,” he said. She pulled away her hand. The flower was bright blue. “Okay, blue, but it looked like—”
“The Realm is not like Earth. On Earth, all things sit on a base of chaos, as here, but the foundations are much finer. The foundations of the Realm are coarse. Everything is much more open to suggestion. On Earth, the chaos is hooked into stability by a law which says you can never win… you understand?”
Michael shook his head, no.
Spart held the flower closer. “Earth is a much more accomplished creation. In the Realm, everything is more fluid. Look. What color is the flower?”
“Still blue,” he said, but as he said it, he realized the flower had been yellow all along. “I’m…I’m sorry. It’s yellow.”
“Since you cannot win even betlim, a small combat,” Spart said, “you must be like the flower. Suggest! Take advantage of the fluidity, the seams of the Realm. Magic may be beyond your reach, but not suggestion.” She held the yellow flower out to him. This time she let him hold it, but as her fingers released it, Spart herself vanished. Nare and Coom and the horse as well were gone. Michael fumbled the flower and it fell to the long green grass, landing on three dew-flecked stalks.
The flower was pink.
He sat, then lay back on the grass, puzzled over what Spart had just told him. Nearby, the flower wavered on its tripod of grass stalks in a lazy, rich breeze. He smelled the mingled scent of tea roses and jasmine. Night was falling rapidly and the sky above had turned deep blue, with subtle highlights of magenta. The woods were almost black. Wind soughed between the trees, waving the shadow limbs back and forth hypnotically. Michael felt his eyelids closing…
“We have company.”
He jerked awake. Nare squatted beside him with another stalk of grass held in her lips. She pointed to a group gathered around a small, bright fire about forty feet away.
“They’re Sidhe!” Michael said. But they weren’t Alyons and his coursers, who were still not to be seen. Five males with long hair and beards, dressed in gorgeous metallic reds and greens and blues, circled the fire, glancing into the darkness in the direction of Nare and Michael. A sixth appeared, younger than the others; his suit was white with black checks. Whether their clothing was armor or thick garments, Michael couldn’t tell, but the portions limned by the fire were dazzling.
He turned his head and saw Coom to one side of the group, conferring with a white-haired, white-faced Sidhe wearing velvety black robes. When the Sidhe moved; Michael saw rich gray patterns in his robes—or rather, suspended just above the fabric, for they seemed to float and changed with every motion.
“Who are they?” Michael asked.
“They are from the Irall,” Nare said. “They’ve chosen an initiate, and they bring him to us for training.”
“Why to you?”
“Because we’re older than most Sidhe. We know the old ways, the old disciplines.” Her expression spoke volumes to Michael: At last, the Crane Women had someone interesting to train, someone worth the bother.
The younger Sidhe detached himself from the fire and walked to the perimeter of the encampment. He braced against the smooth massive trunk of a tree and let himself slide down on his haunches. He peeled a piece of fruit, seemingly unaware that Nare and Michael were just a few yards away.
“What is he being initiated into?” Michael asked.
“The young one is entering temelos, the circuit around priesthood. He is in for some rough times, very rough indeed. The priesthood is not easily arrived at, nor easily kept.”
“What’s his name?”
“Biridashwa,” she said. “We will call him Biri.”
Michael looked back toward the border and the brown darkness
of the Blasted Plain. He could make out distant red glows like lava fissures creeping up the spires of rock; flitting green balls; and high above the plain, a small lone sphere of lightning, silently flashing.
Then he spotted another fire glowing deep in the woods. Its light was broken by three shapes: Alyons and his coursers.
“What do they want?” Michael asked, gesturing. “They keep following, waiting.”
Nare shook her head. “The Wickmaster wishes to speak to the Sidhe of the Irall. He won’t get a chance.”
“Why?”
Nare smiled a crooked smile like the one she often used to express her opinion of Michael’s abilities. “Why do you think Alyons is Wickmaster of the Pact Lands, and not of his own circuit in the Realm proper?”
“I don’t know,” Michael said. “Why?”
“Too many questions,” Nare said, and kept silent for the rest of the night.
Chapter Fifteen
Fog drifted through the trees and over the camps, leaving a glistening layer of drops on the grass, flowers and Michael. He came awake to the sound of heavy bootsteps nearby and rolled onto his back, alarmed. The young Sidhe stood two steps away, white and black against the gray, face pale in the early morning.
“I am requested to see you are awake,” Biri said. He looked tense, unhappy. The forefingers and thumbs on both his hands rubbed together.
“I’m awake,” Michael said, getting to his knees. He was a little in awe of the young Sidhe. His companions seemed so different from Alyons and his coursers. At that thought, Michael tried to penetrate the fog and see where the Wickmaster was, but there was only bright silver and great tree shadows. He brushed the dew from his face and arms and shivered.
“They haven’t taught you hyloka?” Biri asked.
Michael shook his head. “Whatever that is.”
“I’m told we will train together. Perhaps we can help each other.”
“You’re going to be a priest.”
Biri looked at the ground “My guardians will leave soon. I’ll cross the Blasted Plain with you. Where are the Geen Krona?”
