Chance

by Nancy Springer

  “That when you have done, you will abide by my judgment.”

  “Indeed, lady, all my life has been under your judgment.”

  She came to me then, straight and sober, like a warrior queen. With silent grace she lent herself to my pleasure. She was a virgin, but she made no moan. She had been a virgin, I thought, many and many a time, for many a King.… I grew weak and tearful with the marvel of her, for she was indeed fair beyond perfection. I rolled away from her and lay still, and she said not word.

  “The judgment,” I spoke at last, oddly without fear. I lay at ease in the soft green grass.

  “It is what it has always been,” she said quietly, “that you are finally at one with me, I who am earth. I mother you forth, and at last to me you have returned.”

  “Yet Kings can bed you and live,” I argued, almost lazily.

  “Ay. Only the sacred King can rightly wed me, for in me he weds the land which is his domain.… You are no King, Gage. Yet this will I say for your bedding: it has won your King the victory this day. Of all his force only those three yonder will die.”

  Bellory and Breca and Loren. They would owe me small thanks for my friendship, I who liked to think of horses.

  The Goddess bent her gaze on me with a tiny smile.

  “Pleasant has been your returning, I trust?” she chided gently. “But there is further judgment. Since you have known no pain of returning, you who have united with me in death, neither can you know forgetfulness. My birds will not sing for you, Gage.”

  I sighed away my mortality then. Home and homefolk and my sharp-tongued sweetheart Mindy … not until then had I quite given up hope of seeing them again. Yet I was not overly sad. The spell of the Goddess lay strong on me, though I did not understand all that she was saying.

  “A strange fate is yours, Gage,” she mused. “Ask of me a gift to lighten it, if you will.”

  I had no time to think. I opened my mouth, and the words came forth.

  “Music,” I said. “He who makes songs and poetry cannot ever be entirely sad, I think. Or if he is, then the sadness is sweet. So let me be a singer of sweet songs.”

  “You have chosen wisely,” she assented, and rising, she left me. Like morning mist she was gone, and gone in like wise were the corpses in the stream. As I blinked and looked, a black raven flapped away.

  The sun had long since found its way into the cleft. I did not feel its warmth, but nevertheless I made my way up the slope and took shelter under a tree. There I might see all that came to pass.

  In a little while the men of Merric arrived to set an ambush. I did not move for them—could I lose my life more than once?—but they took no notice of me, walking past me as if I were not there. They settled themselves among the trees and were silent. By noontime I could see the heat shimmering off the rocks below. Then, in the distance, I saw the dust of a marching army. Closer they came, and closer, with our golden King at their fore. I could see the faces of my comrades, streaked with sweat. I started down the slope to warn them and to join them; how could I do otherwise? But not a man of them glanced at me. Already some laid spear and shield aside and knelt by the stream, dipping water with their helms. Then the ambush struck. I have never been loath to fight, but being helpless was more than I could bear. I turned away to my tree, lay beneath it and closed my senses to the tumult below.

  When next I looked all lay dark and silent in the dark of the moon. Only stars shed faint light. I picked my way down the slope once more. Bodies lay strewn like the rocks, but I could not distinguish among them. I could not find my friends, to care for them. So I wandered away, restless and stumbling, wondering whether I might ever be at peace. But I had not gone far when a shape of whiteness approached me in the dark, chill night, a shimmering shape of wonder: the white horse.

  Tall, high-crested, small-muzzled and sleek of flank it stood. The twin orbs of its eyes glowed like the absent moon. It came to me with silent, powerful steps and bowed with courtly grace for my mounting. I got on it gladly enough, and we were off with a flash of silver hooves—whether on land, sea or air even from the first I could not tell.

  There is little to say of that journey. I was lost from the start of it, and whether it was time we traversed or eternity, a thin stream or a broad pool, I could not say. I remember only darkness with flecks of gold and the swimming of the steed, that liquid flight.… At last we came to a place of somethingness, and there we stopped.

  It was a silvery, misty, twilight land, yet not dim. Rather, it shone with its own muted splendor. Tall trees spread dusky silver leaves that rustled like silk. Between the trees meandered dark streams with scarcely a ripple; the water shimmered almost black. Half-moon bridges arched over the streams, and beyond, soft lawns rose to a castle and many dwellings, hazy even at that slight distance. Gray stone buildings they seemed to be, but changeless as mountains.

  As I gazed, still sitting on the moon-white steed, an eerie music sounded from behind me, like tones of living flutes. I turned and saw the shore of the dark, glowing pool from which, I guessed, I had come, for it spread to no other side. A high-prowed, beech-gray boat sailed there, bearing many men. Beside it in stately procession swam many fair white swans. It was they who sang. They glided up the streams toward the distant castle, still singing. Their song was subtle and drifting, but in no wise sad; all hard and delicate truth was in it.

  Then the folk disembarked from the boat, quietly, with faces both intent and serene. In their midst I saw Bellory and Breca and Loren. I sprang down from the steed and hurried toward them.

  “Friends,” I told them mournfully, “I am sorry.”

  “Sorry?” Bellory turned on me wondering eyes. “For what? This is a fair place.”

  “Ay, that it is. But earth was as fair, and I have caused you the pain of parting from it.”

  “Earth? Parting?” Breca and Loren too were puzzled. “Of what is this you speak, friend? Have we lived and met before?”

  I stared at them and spoke no more. “It is as I said, Gage,” a quiet voice told me. “My birds will not sing for you.” I turned to the swan-white steed and knew it for a form of the Goddess; even as I looked it melted away and a woman stood there. But she was not the maiden I had known.

  “Hail, All-Mother,” said Bellory and Breca and Loren in soft unison.

  “My greeting to you,” she answered courteously, and they passed on. But I stayed, gazing, for even in the vastness of her age she was lovely—lovely and chaste.

  “You must make your own music of comfort,” she told me. “Be my bard, Gage.” She handed me a silver harp wrought in shapes of all the marvels of that silver land. I took it and touched it with clumsy fingers, and music rang forth—music of all mortal joy and longing, music in harmony of imperfection such as the swans did not possess. And somehow words came to me, and I sang for her.

  Thus I stayed and sat in her great hall and performed from the place of honor after many a feast. The guests listened with a bittersweet pleasure they scarcely understood, for my songs were of remembrance rather than of forgetting. After a turning of time that could have been a day or an eon, Bellory and Breca and Loren were returned to the world of memory; and after a while I, like them, reluctantly had to go.

  But the fair Maiden’s gift has not failed me. And so it is that I am here, in this strange garb of female flesh and this thrice strange land and time, to tell you the tale: still singing of my brown-haired Mindy and my bold companions and the horses running upon the soft, far reaches of the grassland beyond the golden halls of the sacred King. For I was ever one who liked to think of horses.

  O alien age, where are the very steeds,

  The jewel-bright, the lovely ones,

  The swift, impassioned carriers of the Kings?

  The honey wealds are gone, the feral land,

  And gone with it the windborn ones,

  The sky-bred steeds that still the wanderer sings.

  BRIGHT-EYED BLACK PONY

  Wystan saw them comi
ng from afar.

  Coming through the forest, the tall black horse running between the twisted trees, so black in the somber shadows, the rider like a burr entangled in its mane, clinging, curled small against the assaults of twigs and boughs. Presently, as they came to a clearing, the rider straightened. He was but a slim youngster straddling the great war-horse, a lad with golden hair that flowed down around his shoulders and a long red cloak that reached nearly to his booted feet. Wearily he braced himself by his hands against the arch of the steed’s neck as the horse plunged to a shying halt. Before him lay nothing but water, the wizard’s lake, a seemingly endless expanse dimming into dusk and nothingness within a few furlongs.

  “Forward,” the youngster ordered.

  The horse danced backward, threatening to rear. Swaying behind the steed’s withers, the rider kicked and shouted, raising a willow whip. Mastered, the black leaped forward, splashed through shallows and swam with rolling eyes and vast nostrils toward an unnatural gloom. Dark mist or midday dusk—once in it, the horse could see nothing; rider, nothing. Nothing.

  The steed’s breath comes roaring in its chest; how long can it last? Why do I care, I, the recluse?

  Blaze of bright sunshine and wooded shore. The horse scrambled out of the water and stood, trembling and breathing in great heaves, on the island.

  A different sort of place, this of my making, I am a fool to let him set foot on it. But he would have drowned.… Such a slip of a lad to come here so boldly on the great horse.

  The youngster was staring as the horse caught its breath. Blue trees, slender, graceful as dancers, upreaching, with smooth skin of pearl blue and leaves blue as lapis. Presently he sent his winded steed through them at the slow walk, gazing as if half-frightened. Fear that no longer pursued him, sending him fleeing, but confronted him, slowing his headlong course … Forest ended at a sunny tilled clearing.

  “Ho,” the lad murmured, and the horse stopped willingly.

  Amber meadowland, chickens, sheep. A wisp of a rill leading up to a spring. A crazy sod cottage all in turrets and oriels, shapes no sod should take. An ordinary garden: rye, beans, cabbages.… A man, his strong, bare back turned to the sun, working the earth amidst the plants.

  Swallowing, licking his dry lips, the youngster sent the horse forward, and the man straightened and watched intently as the rider approached. Meadow, rill, edge of the garden. The boy slipped down off his big black and covered it with his cloak before he spoke.

  “I have come to see the sorcerer,” he said, his voice tight, but level.

  “And who might you be who come to see Wystan?” the laborer asked.

  “I’ll tell that to Wystan alone,” the lad replied, tone hardening into sharp edge. He glanced angrily at his questioner, but the glance stayed and became a stare. The man stood lean, sturdily muscled, his mouth a flat line across the dun mask of his face. And his eyes, beneath brows as flat as his mouth, eyes like polished stone, unreadable.

  “I see,” the youngster said, his voice still tight and steady. “You are Wystan himself. I beg pardon, but I did not expect to find you planting spinach.”

  “Parsley,” the sorcerer corrected him, unsmiling. He held up a pinch of the fine seed. “And there is more magic in this than in all my spells.”

  The boy stood at a loss for a reply. “As for my name,” he said after a pause, reverting to the former matter, “it is Merric, son of Emaris, prince in Yondria. My father was the ruler until lately. My uncle killed him and killed my older brothers, and now he sits on my father’s throne and keeps my mother his prisoner.” The lad spoke collectedly, almost coldly.

  “Assuming that this is true,” said the sorcerer harshly, “what do you want of me? I take no part in the quarrels of princes.” Wystan gave the youngster a piercing glance. Merric met his sharp stare unmoved.

  Some sort of bitter strength in him. Not grief, perhaps, but certainly desperation.

  “I want refuge, nothing more.” Merric’s shoulders straightened beneath his fine tunic of silk. “No one comes here. They are afraid.”

  “And you are not afraid?” Wystan asked with a hint of threat.

  “Yes. Somewhat.” Merric looked straight into the stonelike eyes.

  There it is, that odd strength still! Yet the lad is lying; I feel sure of it.

  “But I deemed a man of wisdom would feel no need to harm a child.”

  Wystan’s face moved; his mouth twisted ironically. “A child, is it, now, when it suits you? You who make shift to ride the steed of a man, a warrior? Go away.”

  Merric stood where he was. “This is the horse my father has given me,” he said hotly, “and not of my asking.”

  “So you are a child, then. Am I your nursemaid? I welcome no strangers here.” I dare not. “Folk do well to fear me. Go.”

  “You cannot send me away!” the boy blazed. “You are—you are curious about me.”

  Now how in all the seven kingdoms did he know that? Is the youngster wizard get?

  Man and Merric stood glaring at each other. Insects ticked away the moments amidst the grass.

  “Very well,” said Wystan at last. “Stay, then. But that great horse must go. This is only an island; there is not sufficient pasturage for him here.”

  Merric stiffened, turning his head to look at the black steed which stood sweating and puffing with its head drooping to its knees.

  I could provide such pasturage, but I will not. This is a small test for you, my bold one.

  “The beast is far too big for you, anyway,” the sorcerer added scornfully. “It is as ridiculous to see a child on such a destrier as it is to see a big man on a pony.”

  “True enough. I had to climb the stall side-bars to get onto him.” Merric looked stricken. “But he carried me here bravely.”

  “Take him down to the shore,” said Wystan indifferently, “and let him swim back.”

  “But no, I cannot do that! He is stable bred; he would come to harm on his own. I will …” Merric swallowed, and his thin shoulders sagged. “I will take him back.”

  True for you, lad. Though now I am certain you lie. Back to what?

  Defeated, the boy turned numbly, feet scraping, gathering up the reins.

  “Gently, Prince, gently.” Wystan took a step closer to Merric and the tall steed. “If it is verily the horse you feel for, and not your own pride in his size and beauty …”

  “I am no longer a prince,” said Merric, “and there is some pride in me, yes, but more chiefly a wish to do no harm.”

  That is interesting. Harm whom?

  The lad was watching the wizard.

  “Then see here,” Wystan said, and fixing his inscrutable eyes on something in the distance, he laid a hand on the horse’s lowered forehead. As Merric watched, the great black steed shuddered, shrank, and changed somewhat in shape, until all in the moment it was a bright-eyed, shaggy black pony. It lifted its head and glanced about curiously. The red cloak dragged by small ebony hooves.

  “Bigness is a great burden,” said Wystan, “for man and beast alike.” His voice was gentler than before, and something had changed in his face, his eyes.

  “Many thanks.” Merric’s voice shook, he was surprised by childish tears. Blinking to hide them, he turned away, patted the pony, bent to retrieve his cloak. But Wystan frowned, for the boy had staggered as he moved.

  “When have you last eaten, Merric?” he inquired sharply.

  “Some few days ago. I was in haste.”

  “And would it have been above you to beg a bite from some peasant, or from me? Come on!” Wystan took the boy by his arm.

  “I—must see to the black—”

  “The beast is fine; look!” The sorcerer was shouting in exasperation. “His weariness is gone with his bulk. Come on!” He tugged the lad into his cottage, plainly furious.

  Hours later Merric was fed, more or less washed, and bedded down in a pile of straw. Wystan sat close to the hearth fire, reading by its ruddy light, and Merric watched him s
leepily.

  “Your face is completely changed,” he said when the sorcerer had closed the book.

  For a moment Wystan went rigid; then he sighed, softened, and nodded. His eyes were glimmering, deep as the lake on which his island floated, and his lips moved in curves as subtle as its shores.

  “I wore a mask earlier, as we all do from time to time.” Wystan glanced at the boy. “As you still do. Have you not wept for your father and your brothers?”

  “There was no time!” Merric snapped, all his sleepiness gone. “I had to ride or die!”

  “But now there is time.”

  Merric did not answer. He stirred uneasily.

  “I cannot see them in your eyes, your father and your brothers, your mother and uncle,” the sorcerer said. “Tell me about them. Their names?”

  “Some other time,” Merric muttered. He turned his face away, pretending to sleep, and Wystan smiled.

  He will stay here until he has ceased to hide.

  The next day Merric rested, for the most part. The cottage seemed larger than it looked, all in towers and alcoves; he explored it. But a day later he went to look for his host. He took the black pony and hauled water from the spring to the garden, for the season was dry. Wystan had set up a big loom in the sunshine and was weaving a blanket out of wool. Though the cloth was coarse, it was long, tedious work. The sorcerer sat patiently on a tall stool, sending the shuttle back and forth.

  “That is woman’s work,” Merric told him peevishly.

  “Very well,” Wystan remarked and instantly changed into a muttering crone who puttered about with the warp and weft. Merric stepped back, startled and frightened.

  “Which one is you?” he cried.

  “Which one is you?” the crone cackled back. “Which is you, the prince or the water-bearer?” Merric fled, and she laughed heartily as he trudged up the dusty hill to the spring.

  Time after time, that day and the next, he led the pony down with clay pitchers full of water and poured them in futile-looking patches on the arid earth. The third day he did the same. But when the sun was high, Wystan spoke to him, and he changed his pitchers for baskets and led the pony toward the forest to gather fuel. His legs ached with walking; the way seemed long. The pony plodded and nipped at weeds, as a pony will.