The Princess and the Horse (The Princess and the Hound)

by Mette Ivie Harrison

“I see no fair balance in human magic,” said Fierce bitterly. “It only makes humans stronger.”

  “If so, then I think that is only because the human using the wild magic does so improperly, selfishly. The true use of wild magic must be part of the balance of life,” said Red.

  “How?” asked Fierce.

  Red’s face was intent, as if he, too, were thinking of these things for the first time. “Perhaps there are animals who are not meant to be what they are born to,” he said. “And the wild magic corrects this.”

  “You mean animals who are meant to be humans?” Fierce’s voice was hoarse and she thought of her mother. Had she always been meant to be human? Was that an excuse for her leaving her daughter and her pack?

  “No,” said Red shortly. “Or—possibly. But nothing so limited as that. What if a fish were meant to be a bird? Or a bear is meant to be a beetle? Or a hare a wolf? What if from birth, an animal knew that it did not fit, that its body was wrong?”

  Fierce wanted at first to say this was impossible. Surely animals were meant to be what they were born as. It made no sense to wish to fly if one did not. Or to breathe water if one had always breathed air. But she had never thought she had meant to be anything but a hound.

  What of her mother, then? Had she lived with thinking she was meant to be human all her life? Had she seen humans in the forest and wanted to follow them? Had she imagined what she would look like in a gown or in slippers? Had she been fascinated, and not frightened, by human fire?

  “Or what if there is a part of every animal that is partly some other creature, but is necessary for only one moment of time—to do something important for the rest of the world? Wild magic would be necessary then. Once in many years. But only then,” said Red.

  “I suppose,” said Fierce. “And you think that in these cases, the fissure of the Xaon—would not come to be?”

  “Or perhaps it is because of where the princess is drawing the strength for her wild magic. If she draws on herself, then the Xaon is left undisturbed. But if she draws on the fabric of the Naon itself, it is.”

  “Tell me more about the Xaon,” said Fierce. She had been born a hound and feared that even with a human mind, the more difficult thoughts of an intelligent human were beyond her, but she would try.

  “I will tell you what I heard from Lord Ahran, speaking to other scholars.” He flushed a little. Of course, Lord Ahran would not speak directly of the Xaon and the Naon to his servant. “Before time and before life, there were the Xaon and the Naon. The Naon had purpose, and it was from the Naon that the creatures of life and magic were born. The Naon’s great bonds between each form of life are magic, and that magic is a wall against that which existed before life and purpose, the Xaon.”

  “The Xaon is what is beyond the balance, what seeps through from before time and life when the magic is broken. It steals what it can until it is pressed back into itself and sealed with the skin of balance and magic. I think that these fissures are breaks in the Naon which have allowed the Xaon through,” Red finished.

  “And the white creatures are the Xaon?” asked Fierce. That was what she felt, when she had touched them, when she had looked into the fissure.

  “I think they are the Xaon trying to take the shape of the Naon,” said Red, shrugging. “It is difficult to piece together what I have only overheard Lord Ahran and his scholars talk about.”

  “But what is Xaon?” asked Fierce in frustration.

  Red shrugged. “I don’t think that Lord Ahran has ever seen it for himself. I do not even know if the scholars he has read have seen it. They speak only from what they think it must be, which is power before life, strength without balance, hunger without form or thought.”

  “But wouldn’t the Xaon simply suck the Naon into it? Into its emptiness? If the Xaon is what existed before time, then it is nothing, is it not?” asked Fierce. She thought of one large creature fighting against another. In the end, one would win and the other would be devoured.

  “No, not from what I heard the scholars say. The Xaon is what is before the Naon. They almost made me feel sorry for it. It is what the Naon once was, and it wishes to become like it, to rise up into true life and meaning as the Naon was able to do. But it does not know how. It seeks the shape of the life in the Naon because it has nothing of its own.” Red took a deep breath and rubbed at his eyes. “I am trying to explain it to you, but I do not really understand it myself. This is only what I have heard from Lord Ahran.”

  “Thank you,” said Fierce. “I am trying to understand, as well.” She had not meant to make him feel inadequate. “What else about the Xaon?” She needed to understand the Xaon most of all, if she were to have any hope of fighting against creatures like the white buck.

  “The Xaon mimics the Naon, I think. But if it remained here, I do not know if it would be able to truly become Naon, or simply would change all Naon into Xaon. Some scholars say that one day in the great distant future the Xaon may indeed become a kind of Naon in its own place, and then it will not seek to come here. But while it is still immature, it will always seek to take that which it has not yet earned.”

  Fierce focused on what Red had said about the Xaon having no form of its own. “That is why the worms take the shape of whatever it is they touch here,” said Fierce.

  “Yes,” said Red. “I think so.”

  “And why do they follow the princess?”

  “I think they must be drawn to her because of her wild magic. The wild magic is the closest thing to pure Naon, to pure purpose and life, and the larger the white creatures become, it seems the more they understand that and the more they seek her to take what she has.”

  “What can we do to stop them?”

  “I think the only thing to do is to send them back where they came from, to the Xaon. If they remain here, they will only continue to steal whatever they can from whatever they touch.”

  “Send them back,” said Fierce. “But how?”

  Red shook his head. Lord Ahran’s scholars had told him nothing of that. “The princess’s wild magic must do it. But only she can work it, I think.”

  “If she wants to,” thought Fierce. “If she believes anyone else’s idea of wild magic besides her own.”

  Red nodded. “If,” he said.

  Chapter Fifteen:

  The princess began to clap her hands loudly to wake the camp.

  “Time to go!” shouted the princess. “Heed me now and live!” She walked around to the animals in her entourage and demanded their attention.

  At least she did not hurt them or belittle them, thought Fierce.

  “Follow me and we will stop the white creatures and restore the wild magic,” she told them.

  The animals began to move forward. Sanna and the long-nosed pig and the hive of bees. The curved horn beast, the golden cat, and the white and black horse, the birds fluttering out of the trees.

  The princess and her horse led north on a circuitous path around Fierce’s forest rather than directly through it, back to where the first fissure had been found, where Sanna’s husband and daughter had been changed.

  It took two days and during that time the princess did not once change another animal into a human or threaten to use her wild magic against those already in her entourage.

  Fierce wondered if this was only because the princess had so little strength that she could do nothing with her wild magic, but Red shook his head and said with a sly grin, “Not being able to do something has not stopped her from threatening us before, has it?” he asked.

  That was true, and so Fierce began to hope that the princess had decided that she would accept the loss of her horse at last, and make her life into something of value in the present.

  When they came to the first fissure, the smallest one, the princess stopped before it and then cautioned the rest of her entourage to back away. She investigated it for herself, walking its length up and down, and bending her face closer to the ground.

  Most of the animals lo
oked about nervously and kept a distance.

  But Red and Fierce came closer.

  “There are no white creatures here,” said the princess. “No worms left at all.”

  “I think that those waiting here have already come out,” said Red.

  “What should I do, then? Tell me.” The princess was imperious in her demand, but Fierce noticed she had turned to Red now to give her direction.

  “We should rest here for the night,” said Red.

  “Stay here? Why?”

  “I think the creatures will come to you,” said Red.

  “And if they do not?” asked the princess.

  “Then in a few days we can go on to the next fissure.”

  “But what will we find there? Likely the same nothing as here. We must find the creatures and fight them. Now!”

  Red sighed. He began to explain to the princess about the Naon and the Xaon.

  She stomped her foot impatiently in the middle of his explanation. “But that does not tell us how to close up these fissures. Or how to send the creatures back where they came from. My wild magic clearly does not work against them.”

  “No. They would swallow it up.”

  “Then what do you think we should do?”

  Red pressed his lips together.

  “We will rest and then think again,” suggested Fierce.

  The princess seemed about to turn on Fierce and yell at her, but she took a breath and then nodded and stalked away. They could hear her yelling from a distance and thrashing a tree, but she came back and seemed calmer.

  “We will think through the night and in the morning, speak again,” she said.

  Red and Fierce agreed to this and instead of requiring assistance with her tent, the princess simply found a place next to a fallen log to close her eyes. She was snoring in a few moments, and Fierce had a sudden insight as to the reason for the tent.

  The other animals had already fallen to the ground, either asleep or near it, as exhausted as they were.

  But Fierce was too unsettled to sleep.

  Red stood very close to the fissure and Fierce could not look away.

  He lifted a hand and bent forward.

  “Don’t touch it,” Fierce pleaded with him. “You don’t know what will happen if you do that.”

  “Precisely why I am doing this. To find out. Stories of Naon and Xaon are useless here. We need real knowledge.”

  The princess’s impatience with him had driven him to this, thought Fierce.

  “I will do it, then,” she said. She put out a foot and slid herself into the fissure before Red could stop her.

  She felt a sudden sharp cold, which turned quickly into fire.

  “Feersha!” shouted Red.

  She could feel him pulling at her shoulders. But she also felt at the same time something pulling her in, toward the fissure, into the Xaon itself.

  She could not make a sound. It was as if she had lost herself entirely. She did not know if she was hound or human anymore. She was only a bit of flesh that did not belong in the Xaon and which was being picked apart for what was useful in it.

  Then there was a voice, and a flash of light, and something small and light-colored falling past her, into the Xaon. Suddenly, the Xaon closed and Fierce was left to herself.

  She felt as if she had been torn to pieces and put back together hastily.

  She took in harsh, gulping breaths. She was shaking but she did not know if she was cold or hot. She could feel air around her, and the pressure of dirt, but she was not sure she could tell which was which.

  She would have howled if she could, but she had forgotten what howling was like.

  “Feersha!” she heard, as if from a distance.

  Then she felt her hand clasped by another hand, warm and moving and not at all like the Xaon.

  “Feersha,” she heard again.

  “Red,” she said, as she reached for the name and found her lips forming it before she knew they could.

  She turned to see Red leaning over her, holding his weight on one elbow. He looked terrible. There was dirt all over his face, all over his clothes, and his freckled face had gone greenish. There was a fleck of blood on his lower lips where he must have bitten it.

  “What did you do? Something fell past me and . . .”

  Fierce stared at Red. The hand in front of his face was closed in a fist. His other hand was behind his back. Except that there was something wrong with the way he stood. As a hound, she could see it, the slight imbalance of his weight distribution. His right shoulder held less weight than his left. Which meant that his right hand was—gone.

  “Red, no,” said Fierce, as if that would stop what had already happened.

  “I had to offer it something for its hunger,” said Red quietly. Then he held up the arm from behind his back. It ended at the wrist.

  There was no blood to mark a wound. It was as if it had never been, as if Red had been born without a hand.

  “Now that it has life of its own to devour, a smaller part of the Xaon wishes to come through here. I do not know how long it will last, but for now, the Xaon is busy.”

  And he would not get it back when they were finished, for there would be nothing left once the Xaon had devoured his hand. Whether it would help the Xaon to understand life, Fierce would not depend on it. For now, the Xaon must be fought back whenever and wherever it emerged.

  “You gave your hand willingly to save me? It was a conscious choice?” asked Fierce. No one had done such a thing for her, not even in her pack.

  He shrugged, as if it were nothing. “I could not think what else to do. It wanted you. I gave it me instead. Or a part of me.”

  Fierce did not know what to say. He had done this for her, and she was a hound.

  But he did not know she was a hound. He thought he had done it for a human.

  “You should not have done it,” she said. They could not even be sure that this would permanently stop any part of the fissure. It might come after Fierce again, and then what would Red do?

  “I do not regret it,” said Red, gritting his teeth.

  “There are other fissures,” she said. “We will have to think of some other way next time.” For there would be a next time.

  In the morning, the princess came to examine the fissure herself, or what was left of it. She touched it gently with one hand. “It is nearly closed. In a few months, plants will grow here again, and it will be as if the fissure and the worms have never been. How did you do it?” she asked, turning to Red.

  He looked down at his arm, missing a hand.

  “It is what you should have given it,” said Fierce angrily. “Not him. It was your fissure, your mistake to fix.” She was glad that the fissure seemed to be closing more rather than opening again, but that did not make her glad about Red’s sacrifice.

  The princess bit her lower lip. “There must be another way,” she said.

  “And you think that Red was so stupid that he did not think of it? That he gave his hand for no reason?” demanded Fierce.

  “I gave it to save you,” said Red, his eyes looking at Fierce with burning intensity.

  Fierce had to look away. She had wanted to blame it all on the princess, but Red was right, that it was her own fault this time. She had caused this, by her curiosity and heedlessness. And Red had paid the price for it.

  She had not slept all night, thinking of what she had caused Red to give up. His place with Lord Ahran, his hounds, and now his hand, as well. She should never have met him. She should have left him where he was. He would be better off without her.

  And it seemed he thought the same, for he could not even meet her eyes now that morning had come and he saw its loss in its full light.

  “Neither of you must give in so easily to the fissure,” said the princess, sharing out the blame. “We have many battles and must conserve our strength for the last, which will surely be the greatest.”

  Fierce had expected her to wave away Red’s sacrifice as unimp
ortant, or to command him to do it again. But she acted reasonably, responsibly, for the first time since Fierce had known her.

  “Allow me to heal the next fissure myself. I have the wild magic and perhaps there is something more that I can do because of my experience with that. Do you understand?” The princess did not look at Red, but her voice was strong and unrelenting.

  “I understand,” said Red.

  “Good.” She nodded. “I will move on then, alone.” The princess did not look back.

  “Alone?” said Fierce. This seemed less responsible now, and simply despairing.

  “Alone. Do I have to say everything to you twice? Are you so stupid?” asked the princess.

  Fierce gritted her teeth in anger, then realized that the princess only meant to make her angry, so that she would not follow her. “You cannot go alone. You may need help.”

  “All my life I have been alone,” said the princess. “More alone than you can ever know.” She held her head high and looked down on Fierce by several inches.

  Fierce was not so easily intimidated. “Alone?” she shot back. “You have never been alone. You have always had animals around you, changed into humans or not. You have had your wild magic. And your horse waiting for you.”

  The princess’s cheeks looked as red as if she had slapped them. “I think my horse was never waiting for me,” she said. “Though I believed he was. As for the rest of you, I give you your freedom. You did not ask to serve me and I think that you do not care what happens to me now. Go your way and know that I will throw myself into the fissure, if necessary, to close it.”

  “But there are two more fissures,” said Fierce. “Not only one.”

  The princess stopped walking. “Yes,” she said with a sigh. “So there are.”

  Chapter Sixteen:

  The next morning Fierce made sure that she and Red woke before the princess, to rouse the other animals to prepare to leave with her. Fierce had done her best to explain the danger of the fissures and the worms in hand signals and bits and pieces of other animal languages, but she thought that many of the animals followed the princess simply because that was what they were used to doing and they did not know any other way of living.