by Linda Talbot
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Ioannis crouched by the glimmering rock. It curved with the contours of a woman. He clasped her. She was unyielding and cold.
"Where am I?" His fear was callously caught and accentuated by the air. A bright patchwork of growth spread from his feet, interspersed with rocks of clear minerals, suggesting the wistful stance of women with heads inclined as though interpreting airborne vibrations.
Painfully he rose, recalling now the star stream that had borne him as a fugitive from Arcturus. He had killed a colleague in an attempt to seize political power and been obliged to flee.
His feet were hindered by the ground cover of dull red lichen and crushed the tight-packed petals of the patchwork flowers. He walked, unsteadily, still dazed from the velocity of the star stream.
The curving sky turned from indigo to gold, the colour spreading like liquid over the flowers and lapping at the base of rocks. A ridge of white gleamed against the gold. As Ioannis walked, he deciphered buildings; elegant angles and curves cut sharply against the sky.
A white horse, its burnished tail streaming like an aspect of the air, moved on buoyant limbs, its eye in a fine head, uncannily comprehending. He murmured and struck the blue earth with a golden hoof. His huge haunches swung in Ioannis's face and he sped weightlessly towards the city, Ioannis now saw was built of white marble.
Ioannis reached a gateway curving with intricate masonry and minerals. Inside houses swam with fish, flowers and abstractions on windows and doors.
Where were the people? Silent white ways struck straight between buildings. In layers of gold, time was bewitched. Ioannis passed through the streets as in dream. Then he heard a roar on the edge of the city.
The main white way abruptly stopped. From it a broad blue avenue swept to a vast stadium packed with gesticulating people. Inside, white horses raced; identical to that which had passed him outside the city. They drew elaborately carved vehicles driven by dark men primed with the will to win.
The horses' hooves barely touched the earth. They gleamed - a slipstream that might be bearing the animals silently aloft.
The racers flashed before Ioannis; unreal particles of light. The winner was hailed with a protracted roar from the crowd. Like his fellows, he was swarthily intent, but while they were dressed in indigo and saffron, he wore white. Triumphantly he drew in his four horses.
Behind him, a young woman, her black hair hectic around a face etched exultantly with relief, accompanied a young man close to tears.
As a refugee, Ioannis felt he should approach the man in white. Ioannis was conspicuous in the loose green suit worn by the officials of Arcturus, and as the turmoil of the race calmed, was assessed by countless eyes.
"I am Ioannis from Arcturus." He addressed the man directly. "I left after a political quarrel."
The man proffered a hand. "I'm Ballias. I welcome you to Procyon. I shall consult with my ministers. If they agree, you may stay. This is my daughter Alyca." He indicated the young woman who had come second in the race. The distraught contestant who had accompanied her, had vanished.
Ioannis inclined his head.
Alyca accompanied him to the city. The horses flowed, untended from the stadium, melting into lofty quarters where they murmured in communication.
Ioannis followed Alyca into a four storeyed building with furnishings carved from Procyon's minerals and woven from strands of plants that still bore living flowers.
"Rest," Alyca directed, indicating a small room with a large carved window. She joined Ioannis, weaving across the room; a metamorphic aspect of light. Yet she was too, earth, fire, air and the swirl of water.
"Who was the man racing with you?" asked Ioannis.
"A contender for me," she replied. "They come often. My father challenges them. They always lose. If one won, he would have me and my father would die."
Ioannis recalled the horses; the speed that appeared illusory, the leader's horse drawing away from the others as though enchanted.
"Tell me about your horses," he ventured.
Alyca said, "No one knows where they came from. They were here when we arrived from Capella, our old home beyond the Pleiades. There are many legends. Some say the horses evolved from a species found on a planet called Earth that was mostly water and which was destroyed by fire. Some claim we came originally from there too but had left before the catastrophe, living in colonies under the surface of the Moon before going to Capella a century ago.
"There are legends of a hot land where islands rose from blue water with fish like those shapes inherited by our artists. And there was purple fruit on creepers and silver green trees. It is said we came from there and that, long ago there were gods, who, if they chose, could resemble us."
Ioannis, whose predecessors had also left that part of the planet and had colonised Arcturus, momentarily entered the legendary land. He smelt a sweet, wild growth, was touched by wind and struck by sudden sun.
He looked at Alyca and had an impulse to hold her. He was charged with an anticipation of excitement, solace, emotional heights, hollows and sustenance.
Alyca left. Ioannis wandered from the room, passing to an outer court. He recoiled. On the great gate opposite, the heads and limbs of six young men were nailed. They were gilded by the golden light, accentuating the anguish of their eyes, the gape of mouths sealed in obliterating pain.
Procyon's night was an almost imperceptible deepening of gold. The ground cover glimmered but did not close. There were small sounds of unseen beings that crawled, probed and scuttled.
Ioannis, having eaten, and learned a little more of Procyon from Ballias, looked from the window to a horizon that bore a rose rim. Then the sky absorbed the colour, until infused with warmth, it spread long fingers through the lichen and ground cover, like a tentative lover touching the surface of flesh.
The horse appeared to materialise from air. His whiteness was audacious against the rose. He danced as though for joy; elements of white and gold.
Alyca was suddenly beside him. She grasped the arched neck and sprang onto his back. Exultantly they raced. Ioannis stepped into the rose-steeped night.
The horse had turned and was flying back; his coat a pale kaleidoscope of reflected light. Alyca hung happily around his neck and slithered to the ground, alarmed at seeing Ioannis outwardly motionless and inwardly moved.
He stepped forward. He took her by the arms and as the horse lunged lightly, laid her gently on the ground.
Ballias kept a stable of fourteen horses. They raced, and a number of mares were separated for breeding, mating with a preliminary side-stepping dance and a sound that resembled singing. The mares roamed freely, raising foals that were left for seven years to grow in the fluctuating light of Procyon. Then they were called in and needed no breaking, responding to the men with whom they were ready to co-operate.
Ioannis walked among the people; mineral carvers, flower growers, musicians playing stringed instruments fine as gossamer. They lived on the russet lichen whose properties engendered creativity as well as vigour and a keen competitive sense. This in turn, entailed aggression. But they were not overtly fearful. They were unthreatened from without and settled internal disputes through a democratic council.
Alyca told Ioannis of the men who had approached her and been defeated in the race. None had moved her. In Ioannis she found a free spirit that opened her like a flower. They met in the shelving fields outside the city, sometimes accompanied by the murmuring approval of a white horse.
Ballias lay trapped in dream; impenetrably deep, moving through a pall of malevolence. He fought loss, the indignity of deposition. His city swayed, the marble surfaces shifting to slide like floes of ice into shocked fields of flowers.
Ballias saw the contained communication between Ioannis and his daughter and he saw Ioannis leave to meet her in the rose-rimmed night.
"We will race in three days," he told Ioannis.
The fugitive walked from the house into a reach of ra
inbow light. He walked further than before over ground that sloped and sighed beneath his feet. In a hollow where the blue earth was bare, human skulls were heaped to form walls with gaps that might be windows and slopes resembling roofs.
Ioannis walked beneath the sinister lacework that seemed balanced solely by whim. A low wind, imperceptible outside the structure, moaned, as though lamenting the loss of young life. For Ioannis instinctively knew these were the skulls of those who had raced for Alyca.
"My father's horses are unlike the others. Their feet have the essence of quicksilver," said Alyca as she walked with Ioannis through flowers. He absorbed her finesse that turned, as he held her, to passion, initially playful, then intense, bearing him through colour and light that merged with her movements.
"I shall have you and we'll leave. I'll not displace your father," he told her. She saddened, then slowly inclined her head.
"Who is your father's driver?" asked Ioannis.
"Amphion," said Alyca.
That evening, as the city lay lulled in ochre light, Ioannis walked by inconspicuous ways to the horses' quarters.
"Where is Amphion?" he asked a young man. Suspiciously, a small man emerged and stood squarely before Ioannis, who said, “I am Ioannis. I race for Alyca tomorrow. I will give you half Procyon and Alyca for one night, if you will ensure I win the race." This was a proposition he had no intention of honouring.
The driver looked Ioannis in the eye. He smirked. He wondered. Finally, he said, "Yes".
Race day dawned. People, who had pursued their lives with a quiet sense of purpose, became animated. As Ioannis walked to the central square, they whispered behind high held hands.
From a careful distance Ioannis watched the four horses with quicksilver in their feet. They shimmered and danced, heads high in anticipation.
He was led to the horses that would draw his vehicle. They murmured and moved restlessly.
Alyca appeared. "Good luck." She held him and looked dubiously at his horses.
"Don't worry. I shall win," he assured her.
The people in the stadium rose like waves of agitated water. Ioannis stood beside his non-committal driver. He looked straight ahead, eyes on Ballias, who had reached the starting line.
The race began. Blue earth flew into Ioannis's face. A swell of sound, as though the water was now wind-whipped, rose and fell.
The racers beside Ioannis dropped back. His horses appeared to hum as they flew. Three circuits were completed. Ioannis still saw Ballias ahead, poised confidently beside his driver.
Then his vehicle began to veer. On two wheels it sped to one side, then lurched to the other. His horses collided in confusion and as Ioannis sped past, the vehicle collapsed. Ioannis had won.
The crowd, jubilant that a contender had succeeded at last, rose as one to applaud.
Ballias did not stir where he had fallen. Alyca ran to him.
"I curse Amphion. He will die at Ioannis's hands," he declared, knowing the vehicle had been weakened and suspecting foul play by Amphion.
He rasped as he held Alyca's hand. The crowd was silent now. Ballias died.
Public opinion swung suddenly against Ioannis. People had been happy to see Ballias defeated but were not prepared for his death. Now they were leaderless.
Alyca accompanied Ioannis back to the city. She was numb. Her feelings for Ioannis were superseded by grief.
"How did you do it?" she asked.
"I bribed your father's driver to destabilise the wheels," said Ioannis.
Alyca recoiled. She had detested her father's treatment of the contenders but he had protected and cared for her since her mother's early death.
Distraught, she ran into the flowers among the woman-shaped rocks and wove wildly; a distracted figment of the unstable light, until Ioannis could no longer distinguish her from the air.
A hostile crowd advanced from the city. Amphion ran before them, urging Ioannis to leave with him. They hurried to where Alyca was again visible, kneeling, her head clutched in her hands. Summoning a grazing horse, the fugitives mounted. Amphion uttered an inaudible command and the horse sped to the east.
The city diminished; a crystalline illusion swallowed by light. The flowers grew sparse. The blue earth appeared to expand, speeding beneath the silent hooves of the horse. The sky turned from rose to pale green flecked with burnt umber. The ground rose to meet it with strangely symmetrical hills.
They passed a herd of white horses that wheeled and scattered to the west. Alyca clung to Ioannis, leaning low on the horse's neck. Amphion held onto her, gloating on Ioannis's promise that he could lie with her. And when they returned to the city and the people's wrath had cooled, he would also be allotted half the planet. In his blinkered greed, he believed Ioannis would honour his word.
Having glided down a steep hill, the horse, without bidding, halted. They dismounted. The creature had chosen well. The ground here was soft and flat, and sinking to his knees, the horse instantly slept.
Alyca too stretched and dozed. Amphion took Ioannis aside. "Am I to have her tonight?" he asked.
Ioannis hesitated. "I must look for lichen," he said and walked away.
The land felt alien, uninhabited. He saw a glint of russet and moved towards it through the glittering blue earth.
Alyca woke. She fought to clarify her conflicting feelings. How could she remain with Ioannis? She could not forgive, yet she could not leave.
Amphion seemed restless, pacing a few yards, then returning and looking askance at Alyca. She began to feel uneasy. He sat at last and reached a dark arm to her hair. She flinched. He persisted. His breathing quickened. He took her roughly, pushing her hard against the ground as the horse murmured and stirred.
Ioannis appeared with an armful of tired vegetation. Alyca stumbled towards him, indicating in distress Amphion, who stood at a distance with his back to them.
Understanding her, Ioannis plunged towards him. The two men locked in combat.
The horse woke and, assessing the situation, sped to the two men, extracting Amphion skilfully with one sharp hoof and then in a deft movement, rolling on him. Ioannis knelt, felt his pulse. He was dead.
Ioannis was entitled to Alyca and to govern Procyon. But no longer politically motivated, he chose only Alyca. With the miraculous white horse they departed, skimming the low blue hills and rose, although wingless, until - buoyant on the limpid air - they were borne into infinity.
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The Catalyst
Cephalos resisted the temptation of Eos - the dawn - so in retaliation, she cast doubt on the fidelity of Procris, his wife. She appeared to be right, so Cephalos succumbed to Eos. Later, when hunting, he accidentally shot his wife, believing her to be a wild animal.
