by Marc Secchia
Storm-Pegasi exploded across the sky above.
Chapter 12: Obscurant Vale
WITH a Wail that turned into a whoop, Zaranna plunged into water on the far side. Her stomach walloped up a burst of spray, half-winding her. She kicked strongly for the surface. Not as bad a drop as she had imagined. Jesafion crashed-landed in a bloom of white bubbles nearby, also kicking out. Were those dark shadows lurking below his hooves? At a second glance, they had vanished. Horse and Pegasus emerged into the storm.
Jesafion was shouting something, but she heard not a peep. Instead, she motioned with her head toward the wall; they swam there through the stinging, driving spray, finding a measure of calm at its base. They could see nothing across the deep mauve-tinged lake, just racing cloud-hooves of wild storm magic and wind-whipped waves.
“Nice jiving, Prince,” she called.
He spat water out of his mouth. “Did you feel me levitate you back there?”
They were yelling at each other from just a couple of inches apart as the black and green Storm-Pegasi thundered overhead, whinnying and thundering and snorting their fury as they raced over the dam-lake and away out of sight.
She said, “Thanks Jesafion. You sure pulled it out of the bag that time.”
“And you! Escaping from Shuzug! Where are we, do you know?”
“Obscurant Vale,” she returned.
“Obscurant? That’s just an old nag’s tale from … uh, of course, Zaranna. Obscurant Vale it is, aye.” She smiled grimly. Excellent. Even a conceited Prince could have a few lessons beaten into him. “I’ve an odd feeling about this place.”
“It isn’t the very large fish moving beneath our hooves?”
“Er … no,” said the Pegasus. “I think those are harmless. Some variety of lake carp, I suspect. I suppose I have to thank you for saving my hide yet again? This is becoming a habit.”
“I live but to serve you, my liege.”
“But you haven’t made any oaths – oh.” Taking in her expression, Jesafion burst out laughing. “Alright, I think I’m starting to understand your Plains humour.”
“So, how do we find our way back to Sentalia Vale?”
The Pegasus considered her question. “That could be tricky. Since I haven’t a shred of horse-sense to tell us where we are.”
Hmm. Not a shred of horse-sense? Could she get that in writing?
She said, “Would it help if I told you the name of its ruler? The Majestic Fire-Lord was kind enough to share that information with me before summarily booting us out of his realm.”
“You sat down for horse-wine with that fiend, or what?” spluttered Jesafion.
Zaranna laughed brightly. “No, my Prince. I merely asked him nicely. You should try doing the same from time to time. It might save you from powerful underworld fiends in the future. Now, I’m going to spell four syllables out of order, then I’ll number them for you and you can put it all together. Alright?”
He nodded.
She spelled for him, then said, “Three-two-four-one.”
“Worafion?”
“Don’t say his name!” Zaranna howled.
“Oh, that old belief in the power of names?” Jesafion sneered. “Have you been talking to Dragons as well as Fire-Lords now, little mare? You get around worse than a wanton hussy-mare!”
Ignorant, bleating whelp of a goat!
She looked away, clamping her jaw shut lest she be tempted to chew rather more than his ear. The water began to boil nearby. Oh no – what now?
“Jess …”
Dozens of dark blue, scaly horse-men popped out of the water around them. She had half a second to appreciate their slick, scaly hides, rippling, seaweed-like manes and long fins in place of hooves, when a net shot over her head, and drew taut around her body. Writhing was no use, for the ropes were far too strong. Jesafion was similarly trapped; his horn-magic fizzled against some kind of neutralising spell cast by these Twisted River Horses.
“Did one of you invoke our Master’s name?” one of them sneered.
Pointed teeth filled a shark-like little mouth. Zaranna gasped in horror as the creature nearest her raised a large, barnacle-encrusted club in his Human right hand.
“Watery dreams, filly.”
Wham!
* * * *
It was almost impossible to concentrate when she knew her horse-form was in terrible trouble, but Alex had taken the trouble to arrange a date at a cosy, upscale Italian establishment in York, so she owed it to him. She was one lucky girl.
The girl at the next table also clearly thought so, judging by the smile she turned upon Alex as he returned from the bathroom. Alex had the grace to ignore the girl’s primping routine as he took his seat opposite. Zaranna mentally popped Shameless Tart in front of Shuzug. Bet she would wet her trousers if she ever met a Debased Lord of the Abyssal Plains, wherever those were. She wished she could speak to Alex about her dreams, but having started the cover-up, how did one stop? She sighed.
“You alright, Zara?”
“Fine.” Alex already treated her with that extra touch of care that implied he thought she was unstable. If only he could have seen her sinking her teeth into Jesafion’s … ah, maybe not. “Really fine, Alex. Super fine.”
A quirked eyebrow proclaimed his amusement. “You certainly are super fine, Zars, although I’d boldly advance a preference for a touch more eloquence, using words such as ‘beautiful’ or ‘striking’. But I’ll settle for fine if that’s your favourite.”
“Ah …”
“Just teasing, for the joy of seeing you blush.”
Zaranna’s heart turned into butterflies. Sweet, churning butterflies. She fiddled with her spoon, peeked up, saw him watching … honestly, she had battled wolves and Twisted and goodness knows what else, and now a cat stole her tongue when it came to her boyfriend? Truth. It must come out, must be spoken, or it would continue to wedge its way between them …
She blurted out, “I’m so rubbish at this relationship stuff, Alex. I have to tell you –”
“Your starter, signorina?”
And just so, the moment was lost.
The Maître D’ whipped the silver dome off his tray with a flourish, and with one gloved hand, placed an envelope in front of her. “Buon appetito.”
Zaranna eyed the envelope inquisitively, then cast an inquiring look at Alex.
“How odd,” he said blandly. “Must be something tasty inside.”
“Alex, what are you up to?”
He turned the full force of his Mysterious Smoulder upon her. Had she been silver, she would have melted and slid away beneath the table. As it was, she was absurdly grateful for a firm seat upon her wheelchair, for his smile made her imagine tumbling and soaring through the pristine turquoise skies of Equinox.
He said, “Open it.”
Her fingers trembled upon the envelope-flap. “You are most audacious today, Lord Alexander.”
“I am accustomed to having my way with ladies – uh, that came out wrong.” Now who was blushing? “Come on, Zara, don’t play the tease.”
A slight edge in his tone betrayed that truth underlay his jesting. She swallowed down an acid taste of fear and self-directed anger in her mouth. Such a fine line between being bold and being pushy. Was this the father in him, the charmer, the man who by Alex’s own account knew exactly what he wanted and how to get it?
She ripped the paper in a single, convulsive movement. Two pieces of card paper fell out. Airline tickets. To … “Cape Town?” she squeaked. “Oh, Alex!”
He reached into the breast pocket of his smart-casual blazer, and pulled out a matching pair of tickets.
“With you?” Even squeakier. Honestly. “How did you arrange this? You sneaky man. I thought you had shifts all through December? I could just run around there and kiss you – if I could, I mean. But I can’t. I would, though. Promise.”
“Allow me.”
Alex knocked his chair over in his haste. Ignoring the crash of wood against wood,
he stepped around the table and wrapped her in his arms. Sliding her arms around his neck, she heard herself make a giddy laugh.
He growled, “I am fearfully bold, a pirate in a gentleman’s guise. I will have that kiss, Zaranna, and all the rogues of Penzance could not stop me.”
“Not if I give it first, o Blackbeard.”
And she kissed him, tender and fierce, and as passionately as the power of magic. Clapping and cheering rose from the nearby tables. Zaranna just clung to him, flushing heatedly, but unwilling to relinquish that kiss. Ever.
* * * *
Under heavy guard, the Plains filly and the Pegasus stallion shuffled along a road which meandered down from the high gate, as it was called, crowned by the great retaining wall and its adjacent lake, toward the base of Obscurant Vale and Worafion’s fortress. The road was paved in obsidian. The mountains and the multiple ranges beyond them were obsidian streaked with deposits of gold and brass-coloured minerals, great metallic ramparts crowned by tufts of orange flame-bushes. Ascending the mighty ridges which bordered the Vale, the bushes gradually changed colour to a deep rust-red that gave the area the appearance of derelict metal-mountains better suited to a dystopian Sci-Fi flick.
Zaranna’s leg-hobbles clinked as she shuffled along. The wolf-men guarding her were partial to the odd sneer and a prod with the business end of the eight-foot pikes they toted; she already bled from a dozen or more wounds in her flanks. Just ahead, Jesafion was even more securely bound, wearing a veritable heap of chains and padlocks evidently intended to prevent his wings and legs from functioning. A robust ring of metal shaped like a yoke for oxen adorned his neck. By this, he was shackled to no less than eight Darkwolf Clan man-wolves, each wearing a locked fetter on their left or right wrist. The filly evidently rated no such special treatment.
On occasion, chauvinism did have its advantages.
Down below, a pentagonal fortress of the same obsidian stone dominated a postage stamp-sized valley, small patches of ochre farmland interspersed with thickets of khaki forests. A thin ribbon of green meandered away to the northeast, suggesting that Obscurant Vale extended in that direction, concealed amidst the mountainous folds.
What had she expected of an evil overlord? Stinking sulphur pits and drifting veils of smog beneath which slaves laboured in the filthiest, most demeaning of conditions? Not this pretty, neat Vale. Not a pristine road, still bearing the brush-marks of recent cleaning. Each Human member of their escort was impeccably turned out in black uniform dress, as if prepared for the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.
Obsessively neat? She had to wonder.
She learned nothing more, bar the abiding viciousness of her club-induced headache, until they stepped through the towering, iron-braced gates of the fortress. Three tall, arched openings in each of the defensive walls, save where she had entered, led immediately to torch-lit ramps that dived steeply underground. Aha. Zaranna took in the defences and siege implements, ballistae and catapults and a wooden tower and the disposition of the guards. A Red Dragon occupied each of the covered watchtowers on the fortress’ corners, five fire-snorters in all. From several of the tunnels, her sensitive horse ears picked up the sounds of hammers clanging and perhaps the hum of machinery or forges. So, the Hooded Wizard’s might lay hidden below ground?
Everything was perfect, from the barrels and sacks of supplies stacked along one wall, being tallied by a harried-looking Human Quartermaster, to the inhumanly perfect ranks of men drilling at swordplay over to her left. Zaranna was pleased to see a number of other Horses, although they did not look at all friendly. Some wore gleaming armour apparently made of crystal which turned them into deadly-looking walking porcupines; they glared at her from deep-set, red-rimmed eyes. Some were monsters that stood taller even than Jesafion and appeared capable of chewing their way unaided through mountains, never mind diminutive Plains fillies.
She continued to tally and enumerate and commit everything to memory as she and Jesafion were led underground to a dungeon block, and locked together in a roomy cell.
Zaranna hissed, “Names hold power, Jesafion. Believe it now?”
He hung his head. “You’ve a right to be bitter, even if we were simply unlucky. I’ve led you into nothing but trouble since you ran into me – literally – in Sentalia Vale. Before you ask, I can’t just invoke my horn-magic and whisk us out of here. This yoke is especially designed to suppress a Pegasus’ powers. You were unconscious when the first Darkwolf Clan appeared, so you would not have heard them speaking. The Hooded Wizard is away treating with the Gryphons over at Grydell Ridge. At least we Pegasi know where that is. We knew nothing of this valley. Not the first breath of equine life. Evidently you, who do not even possess all your memories, have done more to uncover this Wizard’s evil machinations in the course of a couple of days than a thousand sunspot-cycles of Pegasus endeavour.”
Blow her down with a feathery Pegasus-wing. An actual compliment!
Even if the finding was a complete accident. Or was it? She recalled the distinctive smell which had led her to the Safeway. Jasmine-like, the aroma of magic?
Quietly, he added, “Zaranna, that first battle we had … why did the Storm-Pegasi come? Why, the more I know of you, do I question my own senses and instincts about a Plains Horse?”
“Is it safe to speak in here?”
He nodded gravely, making his mass of chains jingle. “Good question. Yes, if you keep your voice down. I still have use of my senses. Even if I lack magic, I can sense its use and there is none here.”
Zaranna peered around their cell, a plain, square chamber apparently carved out of solid obsidian, bounded on one side by bars too narrow to slip between. There were no beds, but a large laver of water stood in one corner and a couple of bales of stale-smelling hay occupied another. Jesafion, chained now to five massive metal rings in the floor, could reach neither food nor water. Before she forgot … she stepped over to the hay bales and tried to shift one. Hobbled, she could not easily kick it about, but she managed to roll it along with her hoof until it bumped against Jesafion’s knee. Meantime, she gathered her thoughts.
“Jesafion, do you remember how I said I am not who you think I am?”
“Aye, there’s a truth plain as the nose on my face! Your Clan have never produced a warrior as brave as – why are you shaking your head?”
Raising her muzzle until her mouth brushed his ear, she whispered, “I’m a Dreamer.”
Shuzug had his mallet. Zaranna had three words.
Jesafion’s eyes glazed over as he stared at her. “No, you can’t be. Of all the lies I’ve heard cross your lips, this is by far the most preposterous, Zaranna.”
She said, “In my world I am a cripple. I lost my legs in an accident. But here I am able to gallop and prance and gasp from running, and it is a feeling so wonderful and tormenting, Jesafion, I cannot begin to describe it. I don’t come from anywhere on Equinox, which is why I’ve had to learn everything like a baby, and you’ve been a wonderful teacher. I see magic – I see magic flowing in beautiful rivers of butterflies and I summoned that equinoctial storm, Jez, and it frightens me silly to think it might happen again.”
He was still shaking his head as best he could, under all those chains.
“In the swamp I met a Dragon, the very Blue you named, who told me to find you and learn from you. Our fates are joined together, Pegasus Prince, whether you like it or not. Kicking against the goads will help nothing. I am what I am, and I am determined to help you escape from this mess which I’ve landed us in.”
“You …”
For once, his Ever-Garrulous Magnificence was speechless. Zaranna congratulated herself on a brain-frazzling well executed. Long live girl power!
“You’re insane.”
Ah … she blurted out, “As in, insanely clever, useful and gorgeous?”
“No,” came the sharp rejoinder. “Crazy-insane. Sugar-pony witless. As mad as a brain-fevered Pegasus singing love songs to the moon.”
“I thought Equinox didn’t have real moons, only an asteroid belt. Which I haven’t seen yet, but that’s beside the point.”
“Exactly,” said the Prince.
Well, that rather spoiled her explanation. What was she supposed to say? Thank the Prince for so kindly pointing out how much fruitcake she had stuffed inside her cranium? She glared at the wall, fuming, then trotted across to the laver, clanged her teeth on the rim, and worked on pulling it over to Jesafion. Metal scraped loudly against stone; when she was done, the silence exerted an imperative of its own.
“By the Ancestors, Zaranna,” he said, “I didn’t want to destroy your dreams of grandeur, but Dreamers are awesome, gifted magicians who have never, and would never, appear in the form of a common Plains Horse. Neither Wizard nor Pegasus nor Dragon, for that matter, has ever claimed to summon the Storm-Pegasi. It’s impossible. Now, we both know you have a smidgen of magic. Even if you claim to see butterflies – hrrr!” His snort dismissed her ideas even more brutally than his words. “You can believe in your cute stories of magical butterflies as long as it takes me to hypnotise a transference spell into you.”
Zara decided that clearly, the only insanity in their dungeon was her wasting anger and energy on such an unrelentingly self-opinionated blockhead. His words cut deep. How could he think so little of her? Should she summon Illume? No, bringing him to this place might doom the old Dragon. There was no telling what secrets Worafion might have hidden beneath his fortress or in the surrounding mountains. Perhaps this was what came of her wanting to be needed by someone or some cause, rather than being on the receiving end, ever since her accident.
In a low, defeated voice, she said, “How can I serve you, Jesafion?”
Ugh. Roll over and play doormat as he wiped his regal hooves all over her? Hateful!
“Thank you for tending to my needs,” he said, gentling his tone. “Zaranna, I’m sorry if I was harsh. I was just venting my frustration. What will happen is that this Worafion will use my capture to drive a hard bargain with my people. Vales will change hands. People and Horses will suffer. For the fate of the Pegasus Prince is inextricably bound up in the fate of his people. They will not tilt a horn to help anyone whilst I lay hostage here. Worafion will have free reign –”
