by Marc Secchia
“Who are you?” panted Zaranna, still bounding along like a frisky mountain goat.
“Am I Imagined Reflection of the Reflective Ripplewater Clan?” returned the filly.
“Er … are you?”
“Am I?”
She had to chuckle. That piping, earnest voice made her imagine a child, but the filly was clearly older than that. “Are you Imagined Reflection –”
“Could Imagined Reflection be my name? May I question the unquestionable?”
Of course, she was reflecting. Like water. Conducting conversation with a River Horse could be a stimulating challenge … but before she could consider the matter, the path suddenly fell away and Zara found herself flying down a steep slope into a green dell surrounded by rivers and waterfalls. She ran into water. And stopped as though locked in concrete.
“Comfortable?” inquired Imagined Reflection.
The water undulated around her bare calves. Zaranna swallowed. “Completely.”
So many River Horses zipped around the dell, tiny foals and families, groups of youngsters hurling themselves at a breakneck pace up and down waterfalls, having impromptu vertical races – cool! Some appeared more comfortable skating over the surface, while others with fins in place of wings, seemed more at home in the deeper water.
Imagined Reflection cooed, “Don’t you know there are no Humans in Amorix Vale? Why don’t you speak truth?” Cutesy-deadly. Water crept up Zaranna’s legs. “Why are you here?”
“I came from a Safeway. I –”
“Doesn’t our tribe tell a legend of a white-haired Wizard?” called another sea-green River Horse.
Water lapped up to her chin, immobilising her body. Zaranna wanted to throw fountains of magic about in fright, but withheld. These were friends. Supposedly.
“Shall she not speak truth?”
Zara called, “The truth is, I am the granddaughter of that Wizard.”
“Shall her truth not spray forth?” cried Imagined Reflection. Water slammed over her head, as if the entire pond had risen three feet without warning.
She fought, but immediately, a larger River Horse approached underwater. An air bubble formed near Zaranna’s mouth, teasing. She stilled. An Elder? Perhaps this was the Horse she needed to convey her warning to all Amorix and beyond, to alert the Pegasus King …
“Am I Pellucid Pond, First Water of the northernmost River Horse Splash of Amorix?” burbled the newcomer. “Come you as friend or foe? Will you not find your magic struggles against our beautiful water-enchantments, the innate protections of our kind?”
She waited. Zaranna’s breath finally rushed out of her lungs in a burst of bubbles, then the River Horse allowed a small, controlled bubble to approach her lips. “Will she speak?”
No need to moisten her lips. Coughing to clear her lungs, Zaranna said, “Is not the Hooded Wizard’s army poised to enter Amorix? Is the … uh, location, not known? I’ve come to warn you.”
“Is her speech not a mixture of the intelligible and foreign gibberish?” returned the River Bully. Zara stilled her impatience. “Has she seen? Will she report? Shall the Amorix Horses not verify her word – or drown an evil Wizard? Claims she to be the Dreamer?”
“Uh …” Zaranna shook her head, befuddled. All this interrogative phrasing was akin to screwing her head on backwards.
“Will she not answer?”
The Horse’s encouragement was to smother Zaranna in water once more. The world become cool and blue, the surface close but unattainable. She could not even cough or burble, the hold was so forceful. How could someone summarily deny her butterflies? Did the magic not originate within? She knew far too little of this Dreaming power. Yet, could she not try?
Ugh. Now everything was becoming a question, just like these River Horses …
That was the answer.
If only Dunderhead Ingle-Dunce could figure out how to make it work. Cyantoria had disguised a Plains Horse as herself. But that was a far cry from full transformation. Zaranna had first taken on the guise of a Plains Horse, now she was an Autumn Wizard with a reputation. Not good.
“She is not drowning?”
Pellucid Pond sounded most aggrieved. Zaranna supposed that by rights, she should be drowning around now. “Uh, how long have I been mired in my thoughts?”
“Is it not too long? Shall she not speak?”
What had changed? Cautiously, but with growing passion, Zaranna used her air-bubble time to briefly describe who she was and the reasons she had come to Amorix. Pellucid Pond’s response seemed disbelieving, but she kept sneaking glances at another, tiny white River Horse who kept swimming dizzying circles around them underwater. Almost instantly, three young, frisky fillies were dispatched to Splashes downriver to alert them and pass the message on throughout the Vale – not without a repeat of the drowning threat. She was still underwater, but the bubble did not seem to grow stale. Then Pellucid Pond ordered patrols upstream to investigate the claimed invasion.
After this, she said curtly, “Shall the Dreamer not appear as she wishes? Shall she not breathe deep in the watery realm, and thus be tested?”
A third time, Zaranna found herself trapped in a watery tomb. This time, Pellucid Pond and the other River Horses who had gathered to observe at a short distance, slipped away through the water like fish, having no apparent difficulty in breathing underwater.
She was alone.
The desire to scream was almost overwhelming, but Zaranna forced herself not to expel precious air. She tried to form a doppelgänger of Cyantoria in her mind. All she could see was an image of herself floating lifeless amidst ice-faced ranks of River Horses. As her world darkened due to a desperate shortage of air, she realised that the only times she had transformed was through the medium of sleep. How could this possibly work? Lest she die and be born again, as the Bible put it? Sleep was a euphemism for dying. So was baptism. Must she therefore … die, metaphorically speaking?
In the soundless imprisonment of water, Zaranna gave herself to that darkness. A dying to self. To the self which had enjoyed toes and running and laughter.
She melded with her environment. Let her being become the expression of the equinoctial magic in this place. There was no need, at this moment, to understand intellectually what her heart insisted must be possible.
Her blood became as water.
Her heart was the blue of an unspoiled spring.
Her soul liquefied.
All was fluidity, life pouring through her veins and flooding her heart with tranquillity, in a realm so connected it was as if she were the heart yet was simultaneously aware of the flow of blood through every vessel and capillary of her body. She felt the waterfalls. She knew the leap and dazzle of the rivers, running cool from the heart of the mountains, trickling and chuckling and joining and falling to tumble in joyous flurries to the bottom of plunge-pools; she knew the exultant arch of waterfalls and the fizzing, sky-bound ambitions of geysers and fountains.
Zaranna sprang free of the confining water as though strapped to a rocket. She tossed her mane furiously, spraying water in every direction, as a triumphant whinny rang from her throat. Her hooves came to rest upon water. She did not sink.
Cool! Less cool was that every Horse in that community was bowing to her, even Pellucid Pond. From stream and waterfall, pond and brook, each one bowed their muzzle … and she sensed their presence as concentrated patterns of life within the web of waterways.
Discomfited, she looked down at herself, startled to notice immediately that her left forehoof was deeply cleft, as though her wounded hand had transformed into a disfigured hoof. She was far smaller than her Plains Horse guise, barely a pony – yet diminutive in all dimensions, so that her legs appeared coltishly long in comparison to her girth and body length. Her hide was a rich shade of indigo, the spirit-nature of a still pond. And her mane was a lighter colour, a blue-purple tending toward amethyst, but not hair so much as water, or some substance in between the two. It swirled around her lik
e a living thing, gloriously alive, shimmering and rippling as though she carried her own waterfall upon her head and neck. Her tail was the same, a bridal train for a pony of her stature. She flicked it experimentally, and tingled all over at the knowledge of riverine magic coursing through her newborn being.
Ooh. Not bad. Jesafion, eat your heart out!
Recalling herself with a start, Zaranna bowed her head deeply in return, even bending her right knee to make obeisance. She said, “I am honoured … ah, is the Dreamer honoured to … take the fashion of fabulous Amorix?”
Close enough.
Still the entire River Horse village seemed to be waiting upon some signal. She had no idea of their manners and customs, apart from what she had seen of Cyantoria, and she was a River Horse Pegasus, bigger than any of these, possessing wings and horn in addition to her basic River-type attributes, the blue colouration and fluid hide. More words? In the interrogative? Goodness, was her mind now so attuned to this equine magic that every thought was becoming a question?
She chuckled, “Is it my first time to become a River Equine, and walk upon water? Is my type unknown? Is the water not beautiful and fluid and filled with the life of your people? Is it my honour to serve you and warn you and bid you to flee to a place of safety?”
Pellucid Pond approached daintily, moving like a pond skater over the still water. Her deep blue eyes probed Zaranna uncertainly. “Does the Dreamer claim to serve us?”
“Yes! Yes … can she prove her worth in deeds of service? Not in arrogance of station or Wizardly power or some …”
Great. But Imagined Reflection rescued her by chipping in, “Did Truthful Lucence not declare her virtue, o Pellucid Pond?”
Ah, the white miniature. One of the fundamental properties of water, pure water at least, was transparency. A perfect little lie detector. Looking across the community, she saw that white head pop shyly out of a nearby waterfall, and the tiny pony winked merrily. Cheeky Chips! Good of them to try to kill her upfront. Warm welcome, there.
“Shall we not introduce the Dreamer to our customs and ways?” Imagined Reflection enthused further. “Did I not say, Aunt, that she ran like an Equine? Now she is a rare Ripplemane Pony, the very vivacity of our tumbling waters!”
Many nods and ‘ooh’s’ passed between the River Horses. Zaranna wished they would stop staring. It made her feel rather … naked. Even if that was impossible for a horse. With their love of fun names, this must be the hippie Seventies community of the Equine World. They did seem in no particular hurry to start worrying about war … but her thought had not even formed before the three young scouts returned from upstream, gurgling and crying out excitedly.
From their cries, Zaranna deduced they had found two Darkwolf soldiers and drowned them, but another one had escaped.
Uh-oh.
Pellucid Pond’s head dropped. She knew Worafion had been alerted.
“Look, what is it?” shouted one of the foals, tossing his head toward the sky.
“Horse-eating monster?” wailed another.
A mare shrilled, “Will the Earthen Fires consume us?”
Rhenduror the Red glided on the thermals far above the Vale, scanning the territory with the easy command of a Dragon who knew he was in his element, unchallenged and dominant. Aye, Worafion was here, and Zaranna realised that the eager youngsters had just brought forward the invasion timetable. Unfortunate.
Pellucid Pond smashed her forehoof down on the pond’s surface. Zaranna rocked as the shock conducted perfectly through the water into her body. “Shall the community listen?” she cried. To Zaranna, she said, “Shall we not fight for our homeland? Is this not your very heart, Dreamer?”
“It is! I mean, is it?”
The First Water rapidly sketched out her orders, all phrased as questions, naturally. Each clan and family to assemble and check their numbers. Nurse-Horses to evacuate the youngsters downstream to safety. Others to collect treasures and lore and transport them away. A second delegation to warn the downstream groups, and upon Zaranna’s prompting, to travel with the utmost urgency to Sentalia Vale to warn King Arafion. Guards and scouts and battle-groups, the list of preparations seemed endless.
Somehow, Zaranna had assumed that the first attack would be against Sentalia Vale, a strike to the heart of the Pegasus communities. Could this be a feint? Or was the idea to draw off troops before changing course to attack Sentalia? Or a simultaneous strike …
Ugh. Leave strategy to those who enjoyed it. She said, “Have I another Human friend upstream who can help us? Shall I not show you the place from which the ground troops will come?”
“Isn’t it good?” said Pellucid Pond.
The new Ripplemane added, “Is its name False Amorix, long hidden by Earthen Fire magic?”
“Has the legend come to life?” added the leader. “Shall the Dreamer accept my niece’s help? Shall this be Imagined Reflection?”
Zaranna smiled and nodded at Imagined Reflection. “Is the honour mine? Should the Hooded Wizard be present, and Prince Jesafion of the White Thunder Clan with him, then is my task not to rescue the Prince? Shall I not bend my greatest strength to the aid of your people?”
If questions were wishes, she might have a hope of saving the Prince.
* * * *
Hardly ten minutes later, Zaranna found herself skating upriver at the shoulder of Imagined Reflection, trailed by a posse of ten River Horses. Her gait seemed unnaturally smooth, more a glide than a thundering gallop, but the speed they achieved made her tail and mane stream out behind her like long, waving banners. They traced the watercourse over ledges and boulders, skirting new flows tumbling into the main river from the cliffs either side, swirls of pink and ochre, lime green and white, then suddenly they were stampeding straight at a tall waterfall and before Zaranna could pull up, she felt her orientation change and she hurtled vertically up the cascade, her hooves sticking impossibly to the frothy white droplets and carrying her safely over an overhang, briefly across a step in the waterfall, and then up a further vertical run of over four hundred feet in height.
She reached the top gasping more from shock than from effort. Impossible. Yet here they were, skirting the cliff edge near where she and Sanu had arrived. Now, where was that two-legged mosquito?
Imagined Reflection said, “I smell wolf. Underwater now.”
They drifted up the small flow, creeping up behind a pack of wolves which had surrounded a chischis tree with its characteristic braided trunk of three separate strands and bougainvillea-like sprays of fiery orange flowers, snapping and snarling and howling in terrible chorus. At least thirty of the animals, Zaranna thought, peering just over the waterline of a small pond twenty feet shy of the wolves. What was up there? Wolves hunted just as well by smell as by sight. She could not see anything in the branches, but that meant nothing where Miss Invisible Britches was concerned.
“Your friend?” burbled Imagined Reflection.
“I imagine so.”
“Hidden?”
“Like a cloud in a stormy sky.”
“Isn’t water dangerous to animals which can’t swim?”
And with that, the River Horses charged, lifting a huge swell of water from that tiny flow, and the water crashed down upon the wolves with terrible force. It sucked them down. Rolled them over. Dashed the animals against rocks and the tree and churned them about in mini-maelstroms. The River Horses stampeded through the carnage, cutting away to attack any wolf that tried to escape.
Zaranna could not bear to watch. But hope flowered in her heart. How did Worafion intend to battle such a force of nature?
When the noise had died down, Imagined Reflection returned to her side. “Is water not death as well as life? Are our enemies no more?”
“No more, are they?” Zara laughed. “Will you teach me to speak better, Imagined Reflection?” Then she called up into the tree. “Sanu? Will you come down?”
Silence.
“Imagined Reflection, do you think you
could … uh, fountain her down?”
Whatever the lack in her language, Imagined Reflection certainly understood her intent. Water exploded up around Zaranna, spearing among the branches with a series of pinpoint strikes. “There?” inquired the River Horse as a shot of water bounced off nothing. A swift focus of water later and Sanu lost her grip, splashing down right at Zaranna’s hooves.
“Earthen Fires, what’s wrong with you?” snapped Sanu, appearing hip deep in the water, drenched and perhaps a touch unhappy.
“Why is the Human angry?” asked Imagined Reflection.
“Because I’m your ally, you water-brained excuse for a guppy!”
“Shall I handle this?” asked Zaranna.
Sanu stared daggers at the Ripplemane Pony. “Ok, you pretty, prancing wisp of tumbleweed, where’s my friend Zaranna and why, by the Sky-Fires themselves, did you warn the Wizard about our presence here? What’s wrong with you foolish Equines?”
“Hrr!” snorted Imagined Reflection.
Zaranna advised, “Isn’t she always stinging like a wasp? Sanu, you needed a bath. Honestly. Thirty wolves didn’t appraise you of that fact, you scrawny, ego-stuffed ambulatory prat?”
Sanu did a classic double-take. “Zaranna?”
“Human filth. Skanky detritus of an obsidian dust-storm. Why, when you were born, the very stars –”
“Zaranna!” Sanu flung herself at the Ripplemane, patting her neck excitedly, to the vocal disgust of all of the River Clan. “From dusty old Plains Horse hide to this? Far too fancy-sticks for you. And don’t bother with the insults. You’re terrible at insults.”
Imagined Reflection looked askance at Zaranna. “How can you be so familiar with a Human?”
“I know. Friendship is just beyond belief, isn’t it?”
Chapter 31: Scorched
IN the gathering twilight, Sanu and Zaranna skulked beneath the cover afforded by a clump of scratchy teldis bushes overhanging a trickle of water, on a cliff high above the pass Illume had mentioned. Sanu’s skills had allowed them to pass through the artificial-looking tunnel and steal five miles along a narrow basalt canyon jagging deep back into the mountains. Now their position made them effectively invisible to the Dragons scouring the pass as Worafion’s troops poured forth from the crack in columns so dense, it seemed to Zaranna that the mountain vomited Darkwolf blood. Many of the powerful, upright-walking Wolf-Men carried barrels on their shoulders; all were armed to the teeth. Great packs of wolves alternated with the more powerful Darkwolf Clan, and dense ranks of Human light infantry and archers. Above, Gryphons issued from the slit black gap in the mountains in a steady stream of black and lime green creatures, with their characteristic blood-red heads.
