by Marc Secchia
For want of a better idea, she followed this branching trail and soon found herself proceeding beneath ever-narrowing obsidian cliffs at the base of a defile half a mile deep. After but five minutes she stumbled upon a pretty waterfall which apparently fell from the cloudless midmorning skies above, into a picturesque pool fringed with ferns and lush river-grasses. Yum! Her stomach turned into a Siberian Tiger on cue.
A shower was definitely the path of wisdom. She could smell herself in that narrow space, and her perfume was eau-de-cesspit.
A shallow plunge-pool allowed her to stand right beneath the ten foot wide flow of water. She let it pound her head, shoulders and back, easing her stiff muscles. Zaranna thought about the bodies and the deaths she had seen that day, and the likelihood of Jesafion’s torture. She had never seen a man killed. All it took was a casual swipe of Tayburrl’s talons. The shock, followed by a slackening of realisation, the rictus of agony finally etched by the man’s dying breath. She began to shiver. There, beneath the waterfall, the dam shattered and Zaranna sobbed up a storm, great gasps that left her winded and sore; her sorrow for the Captain and the strange Dragon-creature and the poor slaves she had passed in the foundries and armouries of Worafion’s realm, and not lifted a hoof to help. She wept for her loneliness and ignorance of the ways of Equinox. How could she ever help these creatures? How could God allow such cruelty to exist in a world? How could she ever understand a world where its demons appeared wreathed in dark fire, and knew her name and very nature?
She remembered the white torrent of magic raging forth like a herd of wild horses pouring over a faraway hilltop, wild and spirited and free – how could such a gift be given to her? She was not worthy of this calling.
Being scared was fine. Praying for guidance was necessary, and she did. But what mattered now was the decision to put one hoof in front of the next. To accomplish what was within her power with the strength of her heart’s greatest endeavour. Stepping out of the waterfall, Zaranna heard the distant clanging of a deep, sonorous bell or gong. Warning? Or an escaped prisoner? She sprang away along the trail, instinctively heading further along the ravine and deeper into the mountains of the Obsidian Highlands.
* * * *
Late afternoon found Zaranna still trotting along that narrow, sandy strip between towering black cliffs. By now she was high up in the mountains, sweltering in the oppressive heat and blowing hard due to the noticeably thinner air. The ravine had narrowed until the sides brushed her flanks in many places, particularly where the recent chip-marks of chisels were evident. This trail had been widened by hand – where might it lead? To an outlying fort or checkpoint? Twice, small groups of wolves passed by and once a patrol of four Human soldiers, but none of them seemed to find anything amiss in seeing a Plains Horse on the trail. She squeezed by and continued on her way.
Still the trail wound upward between the mountain’s obsidian shoulders. A few insects buzzed here and there, and the only birds about seemed to be scavengers – unfamiliar species of hawks, kites and buzzards. She could see little of her surrounds, just the narrow strip of sky and several times, the flash of Red Dragon wings far above. The search was spreading out. Who was the target, the newly-crowned Miss Wolf-Bait?
She must leave this trail if at all possible.
In this most recent stretch, her path ascended steeply, climbing a series of tumbled boulders and rocky ledges. The vegetation was sparse and pungent, low bushes with tiny, waxy orange leaves and flowers, and gnarled, stubby trees and bushes sprouting from any conceivable crack in the walls, providing at last a measure of blessed shade. Zaranna flicked her tail irritably to shift a few horseflies. These really were horses, tiny horse-like insects with blood-sucking fangs and hoof-pads that stuck to their intended victim, appearing in a variety of iridescent shades of blood-sucking pestiferousness. Their bites were like being stuck with hot needles and letting go was not a matter of negotiation.
Pausing to scratch her shoulder on a rocky outcropping, Zara unexpectedly heard a rustle of wings and a faint yet distinct groan. She froze, letting the horseflies bite as they wanted. There. Yes. Definitely a Human-sounding groan, coming from somewhere above her head.
She had started to suspect that ancillary gullies would break away from this one as the top of the mountain cracked like an old ribcage, but … she backed up, scanning the walls. Over the top to the left. Another flutter. Those scavengers must be after something. She sucked in her lip and let out a gusty sigh. Alright. She could see a possible route. One demotion from horse to mountain goat coming up. And may there be no adders up there. She had already seen at least ten fat tan rock adders and one shiny green cobra, none of which looked anything less than perfectly deadly.
Actually, a Plains Horse was a decent climber, she discovered. The gully’s narrowness allowed her to lean against one wall while searching for footing on the other, or several times, to brace herself across the gap. Her hooves were sharp-edged enough to shove into horizontal cracks and did not slip too readily, although she was sure she still had bits of metal stuck in the soles or perhaps the more sensitive frog, especially of her left hind hoof. How did one pick one’s own hooves? There was a mystery.
Shortly, with an undignified lurch and a scramble, scraping up her rear cannon bones quite nicely, Zaranna hauled herself into a new gully. Rounding a corner, she vented an involuntary harrumph of surprise. A girl! Well, she assumed so from the long, dusty black braid dangling from the bushes at eye level. Zaranna whinnied sharply to scare off a trio of red kites which had been pecking at – oh dear, a nasty wound. The girl appeared to have smashed into the bushes from a height, judging from the broken branches and leaves littered beneath her. Blood crusted her neck and lips, and trickled steadily from the damaged knee. The Plains Horse ducked beneath for a better look. The girl had clearly been clawed by something nasty – four parallel wounds exposed the bone above her left patella, and the knee itself was swollen like a football, hot and red. A Gryphon wound? The scavengers had been tearing at the flesh in that area. How long had she been lying here? Days?
Uncool. Zaranna winced in sympathy. She knew something about damaged knees.
The girl was small and as brown as Mihret, dressed in nondescript, dusty black leathers that appeared to be wound around the arms and legs as a kind of armour or protection. She wore two long daggers and a water gourd at her belt, and had a longbow slung crosswise over her right shoulder. A compact travel pack worn on her back had saved her from some damage. Her elfin face was drawn in pain; as Zaranna checked the sky, wondering how on Earth – well, on Equinox – this girl had ended up here, she groaned again, very softly, as though fearing to draw attention. So, downed in enemy territory?
That made her a friend. As if helping her required a decision.
Moving forward, Zaranna brushed the girl’s cheek with her muzzle. “Hey. Need a hand?”
The girl jerked and moaned, biting her lip.
Thinking to help, she tried to release the white horses she had discovered courtesy of the Dragon-creature’s help – that sense of opening her heart – but the girl screamed immediately.
“Quiet! You need this. Lie still, alright?”
Against her dusky skin, the green eyes that cracked open to check Zaranna over were startlingly vivid, although dulled with pain and dehydration. She was in bad shape, yet the girl still trembled and wailed ‘no’ as the magic flooded into her. Zaranna wished she knew what she was doing aside from the fact that releasing this magic appeared to ease pain. In true Equinox style, it appeared to gallop from her heart in a stream of nodding horse-heads and flying hooves, entering the target’s flesh as if diving gleefully into a well-loved burrow. It couldn’t hurt, could it?
She seemed a little better as a result. Zara said, “Now, climb onto my back. We’ve got to get out of here. The Dragons are after me and by the looks of you, you’re not exactly welcome in these parts either.”
The girl groaned, “Whaaa …”
“Jus
t roll over. Right onto my back.” Actually, that would not work. Too many branches in the way, curving up beneath her body. “Grab my mane. Go on. Grab it. Good. Now I’m going to pull you out steadily while you twist onto my back. Got that?”
“Ground.”
“No. No! Don’t be silly. I’ll carry you.”
Apparently shutting her eyes in defeat, the girl grabbed two handfuls of Zaranna’s mane. The Plains Horse pressed forward gently, despite the muffled screaming; for a moment there was little help, then suddenly a branch cracked and the girl tumbled onto her back.
Zara checked. At least she was breathing, although her face seemed rather more grey than brown as a result. “Hold on. Shift forward a little. Whatever you do, don’t fall off. Alright?”
The girl seemed insensible.
Walking on carefully, she bore her burden away into the gathering evening.
* * * *
Toward midnight, the asteroid belt rose over the horizon, a subtly tinted quintuple array of bands shadowed by Equinox for a large swathe in the northeast, like a tilted platter glowing amber and bronze to a deep henna-red in its outermost reaches. Equinox also had a trio of distant, small moons called the Pegasus Triplet which Zaranna had mistaken for bright stars at first, but Jesafion had corrected her misapprehension. They hung over the North Pole just presently and were a key to celestial navigation. Navigation? She could barely keep the names of the constellations straight in her head! An old, oft-aired frustration made her grit her teeth. Why did concepts just slide through her grasp like tricky trout that refused to be tummy-tickled into submission? It was wrong that Yols had such a gift, and she was ungrateful and mean to wish otherwise … but it was just so unfair. A fault in her formation.
All humanity was flawed. Pegasi, too. Why should God make it so?
This was her universe and it was so beautiful, her creative self gasped for sheer, soul-struck awe. The enchanted glimmering of Equinox’s stars, thickly sprinkled overhead. A comet-trail blazed halfway across the sky. She admired the subtle play of colours between the aurora that was Equinox’s natural shield, flaring now to deny four asteroids entry, and the asteroid belt. Seen from the mountainside ten miles beyond Worafion’s outer fort, really just a guard post, it was all, simply … magical.
Zara slipped back into a draw to a tiny cave spring she had found, and considered how to help the girl dismount. At length, she curved her head back. “Wake up, girl.”
Gee, that failed miserably. No surprises there.
Zaranna knelt on a patch of lush bluegrass like a foal resting beside her mother. The girl could manage this, surely? She ached in every bone of her body, but she was proud of herself. One rescue operation in progress. Her horse body had managed to carry a rider for eight hours without pause. She wriggled a little, causing the girl to slide off onto her good leg’s side; even so she whimpered, before simply falling into a deeper sleep. Dinner, then bed, Zaranna decided. The lonely willowsong tree gratefully sipping the trickle of water here would shelter them, while the cave just fifteen or twenty feet back into the mountainside, beneath an overhang, would protect them from easy discovery. And she could help the girl by fetching sustenance from a nearby patch of nicoseed grass, with their characteristic bright pink clusters of seeds hanging heavy on their razor-sharp, six-foot stalks.
Gosh, she actually knew a thing or two about Equinox these days. Progress.
She fetched water from the spring and dribbled it into the girl’s mouth from her own lips. “Sorry. Horse slobber. Disgusting, I know.” Then she tried her best to wash the wound with more water, worrying some of the dirt loose with her tongue. “I know horse kisses aren’t the best, but I’m told my saliva is good for you.” After making the girl as comfortable as she could, Zaranna tried a touch more magic, but her tank appeared to have run dry. Exhaustion?
Good. A yummy meal of grass and then … bed. So to speak.
Chapter 15: He’s a Whiz!
WHIZ Was his usual idiosyncratic self when he met them at Cape Town International Airport, chewing endlessly on his unlit tobacco pipe which apparently had been manufactured for Hobbits, and wearing a straw hat which had clearly seen better days – many of them. He was barefoot, and sported jeans ripped uncompromisingly across both cheeks of his backside, revealing bright red Superman boxer shorts. He pumped Alex’s hand and held Zaranna fiercely for longer than she or the five passengers waiting nearby clearly felt was comfortable; her because his tears dripped into her left ear, and the onlookers probably because of the view of his underwear. They probably thought he was a beach tramp.
At length he drew back, holding her shoulders, looking her over with so much sorrow and love, it made the eleven-hour aeroplane trip instantly worthwhile.
“Long time no Whiz,” she said softly.
“Hey, my little Pixie,” he choked out, and started weeping all over again.
Zaranna rolled her eyes at Alex. “It’s an Italian thing.”
Still, he set her off, so that she was dabbing her eyes all the way to the car. Dratted grandfathers.
“Thanks for your emails, Romeo,” her grandfather said to Alex as the men packed the bags in his gunmetal silver Dodge Viper SRT-10 Convertible. “I feel as if I know you already. You’re wizard, arranging this trip for my lil’ Pixie. You’ll need to strap the wheelchair onto the custom bicycle rack over the back. You can squeeze in behind my Zars, right, son?”
“Alex is too busy drooling to pay attention, Nonno,” said Zaranna.
“A car man, eh?” He aped a heavy Italian-mobster accent. “What-a you-a think of mio bambino, sonny?”
Zaranna said, “He’s into motorcycles. Alex owns a modified Kawasaki Ninja H2.”
“Oh, you actually know what those letters mean, Pixie?”
“Grumps!”
“She only calls me that when I’m in trouble,” smiled her grandfather, with an especial twinkle of his marvellously blue eyes. “Sorry about the squeeze. My sensible BMW’s in the garage. Had a little disagreement with the backside of a truck last week.”
Alex was eyeing the sweep of the Dodge’s bonnet with an air that made Zaranna feel jilted.
Unfaithful Rogue lifted her from her wheelchair into the front passenger seat, before leaning over her with a flexion of his muscular arms to peer at the controls and take in the details of the cream leather interior. “Oh, that’s love on wheels. Huh? I thought these were supposed to be two-seaters?”
“Two plus two equals five, and I can prove it,” said Whiz, with the smirk of a four year-old scamp. “Needed room for a few extras.”
Alex leaned over even further. Mmm. Zaranna considered tickling his ribs, or better still, slipping a hand beneath his shirt. Tasty abs – purr! “Definitely the wizardly amplifier and speakers back here … and do I detect a whiff of nitrous oxide?”
“It’s a brew I’m testing. I’ve added a stabilising component that actually increases the explosive thrust.”
Zaranna put her hands on her hips. “Whiz, are we about to be strapped into an experimental rocket? I distinctly recall Mom laying down the law on our last trip.”
Luciano shrugged. “What my daughter doesn’t know can’t hurt. Hop in.”
“Shall I take the back seat, since you have to be a child with no knees to sit back here?” she offered. “No, Alex, I can do this. You boys can talk brake horsepower and eight-litre V10 engines and if your drool flies back and hits me, you are both dead. Do we understand each other?”
“Stow the fangs, Pixie,” Alex chortled.
He knew nothing.
A five-point seatbelt harness, three bags tucked next to her and into the space where her legs should have been, but happened to be partially occupied by two odd-looking red cylinders and a rash of inexplicable pipework, two eager cowboys tucked down in the front bucket seats, and they were ready to depart. Whiz punched the starter button, singing, “I’m off to meet the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz!”
The V10’s thunder drowned him out.
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Before they hit the open road, Whiz had the hood down and the music booming, enough to punch Zaranna in the back with every beat. Dual 2500-watt rear speakers would do that – loud enough to be illegal, most likely. But he soon turned the music down to a sensible blast in order to chat to Alex. Heading toward Cape Town city central on the N1, she caught snippets of a conversation about tyre sizes and police scanners and engine specifications. Yawn! What would that help anyone fleeing from those Darkwolf Clan monsters? Her mind drifted away to equinoctial matters. The way the Dragon-creature had taught her to think with her heart. Jesafion’s injunction to believe in herself. Lynette’s gift. Shuzug’s threats; Rhenduror’s vicious glee as he twisted off her knee. She realised she still did not understand the true threat Worafion represented to Equinox. What did it matter if he closed off a few portals between worlds? Why did it matter that they remained open; who or what did that closure harm? And what was so extraordinary about breaking through to Equinox in her dreams?
It might do to speak to Illume the Stars again, if she could summon him to a place less dangerous than the backyard of Worafion’s war machine – another muddled metaphor, she realised. Zara-brain struck again.
“Zaranna! We’ve a sleeping Pixie, Alex. Is she often like this?”
“Dreadful,” said Alex, twisting in his seat to look at her. “Quite the dreamer.”
She almost choked on nothing but thin air.
“Alright,” said Nonno, turning back to the controls to punch a few buttons with the glee of a space pirate engaging warp drive, “Can’t wait any longer. I’ve been developing something a little special and I’m dying to show you. Oh. Goggles, Alex. You too, Pixie.”
Zaranna startled as the car settled several inches on its suspension. The rear spoiler extended and tilted toward her startled glance. Smaller spoilers extended near the front and rear wheel arches. An ominous, rising whine emanated from the seat beneath her as the twin cylinders hissed like angry cobras. She quickly fitted the goggles over her eyes and checked her seatbelt. Oh boy …
