The Son of Summer Stars ft-3 Page 6

  “Water first,” the grey brindle replied. “Let us quench our thirst on it.” Turning, he whistled his companions to follow. “Come, daughter, filly, and daughter’s kin. Time enough to ponder my brother’s whereabouts once we have drunk.”

  7.

  Stars

  Jan trotted beside the crimson mare. Her pale-blue filly pranced alongside. The mare’s sire, the brindled grey, led them over grassy, rolling hills, with the mare’s brother-belovèd—what did the term mean, Jan wondered: foster brother, half brother?—pale gold, bringing up the rear. The grey-and-white trotted briskly, with hardly a glance behind. He seemed to have accepted Jan, for the present at least, though the younger stallion watched him carefully still.

  Only the crimson mare seemed wholly at ease. She had spoken little during their five miles’ journey to where a slender brook meandered between two slopes. There they had lingered, savoring the creek’s coolness, dipping their heads for a second draft as the young sun cleared the horizon and floated free, turning the morning sky from misty white to deeper and deeper blue as it climbed toward zenith. At last, the grey brindle spoke.

  “’Tis well,” he said. “You seem no mad raver. I would lead you to my brother, if my companions assent.”

  The mare and the other stallion both nodded, the pale gold grudgingly, barely dipping his chin. So it was the crimson mare the young prince now found himself pacing: the grey ahead, the gold at rearguard, the pale-blue filly frisking and teasing. Morning had grown late, warm, the sun high overhead. White clouds gathered, their shadows slipping over the Plain.

  “Tell me of your life here, upon Alma’s Back,” he bade the crimson mare.

  She cocked an eye and replied, “Gladly—but first speak of yours within your Vale. My dam’s dam came from there. She said ’twas all proud princes, rules and Law, so she fled to the Mare’s Back to win freedom. You call yourself prince, Aljan, yet you seem fairspoken still, not ruled by pride.”

  He laughed. As they trotted through the long, warm noon and lay up in the shade of steep banks for the hottest part of the day, he spoke of Moondance, of new warriors initiated upon spring pilgrimage, of the yearly trek by those unpaired to find and pledge their mates by the Summer Sea. He spoke of autumn feasting and spring birthing. Of Kindling and Quenching, the herd’s winter ceremonies of fire. Crimson listened intently, interrupting from time to time. Jan knew by their silence the grey and the gold were listening, too.

  Not until midway into the afternoon had Crimson heard enough. She told then of the Free People, a scattered, far-traveled folk who ranged at will across the Plain. Though some were loners, most traveled in small bands. Plainsdwellers dodged pards, encountered each other at waterholes, whistled greetings to those sighted at distance, and followed one another’s spoor to meet and trade news. Alliances formed, endured awhile, then just as easily and amicably dissolved.

  The impermanence of such an existence struck Jan as both utterly foreign and oddly alluring. Unbound by any sovereign or herd, each Plainsdweller was completely free—but at what cost? Danger from pards. A life spent in constant motion, rather than settled in a sheltered Vale. Friendships must be difficult to sustain, Jan mused. He wondered how mates fared in the rearing of their young.

  Yet Crimson seemed to regard the Vale as unbearably confining, circumscribed by rules of every kind. Plainsdwellers had customs, but no Law and no way of enforcing Law had they had any.

  Far from admiring his status as prince, the crimson mare pronounced Jan’s position an unspeakable burden, imposed without consent, to be shaken off at the earliest chance. Who, after all, would not wish to be free as was she? All Moondancers must be mad, she exclaimed, only half in jest, to forgo the liberty of Alma’s Back for a rocky, gryphon-haunted Vale.

  Six days they roved in search of Calydor, traveling northwest. The Plain became hillier, its terrain more broken. Thunderheads brought showers in the late afternoons. White towers of cloud were building now, Jan noticed as they loped: but too scattered and far to coalesce into a storm. Jan listened to distant thunder growl as the setting sun declined. The wind still smelled dry. Sometimes thunder made the ground tremble—Jan came aware all at once that the tremor he felt was not thunder.

  Hoofbeats, he realized. The stamping, tramping cadence of hard heels drumming the Plain, but neither approaching nor receding. It was he and his companions, the dark unicorn decided, who were drawing nearer to the unseen source of that low, rhythmic mutter. With sun just down and sky now a fiery blaze, flushing the scattered thunderheads all shades of melon and rose, the broken landscape of the Plain had grown dusky. His companions’ ears pricked, heads lifted and nostrils flared. Their pace quickened.

  “What is it?” he asked. “What do we near?”

  Crimson tossed her head. “A Gather—’t can only be that!” Calydor has called a Gather. I hear them dancing the longdance by water’s edge.”

  Jan caught sound of snorts and whinnies. Evening breeze brought him the warm, unmistakable scent of unicorns. Ahead, the grey-and-white brindle rounded a hillside and halted. Jan and the crimson mare did the same, followed by the others. The prince drew in his breath. Before him, a dark green river snaked through rolling hills. On the far side, in the broad, inner bend of one meandering curve, moved twelve score Plainsdwellers, perhaps more. Their sinuous line recurved and doubled back upon itself, wending and swirling, veering, unwinding, sometimes at nearly full gallop, sometimes in a complicated stamping pattern.

  All ages joined in the winding dance. Jan saw elders, mares and stallions in their prime, half-growns, colts and fillies, foals. The Plainsdwellers, Jan saw, were more variegated than his own folk, who were mostly red or blue with occasional greys. Gold and other shades only rarely appeared in the Vale. Among the Free Folk of the Plain, too, hot reds and cool blues cantered by in abundance, but greys and golds seemed nearly as numerous, with a generous sprinkling of dapples and roans, even spotted coats. Feathers adorned the manes of many.

  One figure in particular caught Jan’s eye—that of the one leading the dance: tall and lank-limbed, with a long neck and horn and a slim, straight muzzle, easily the best dancer, a stallion in his prime. His coat was indigo. Three white feathers tossed in his mane, which was silver, as were his hooves and horn. The evening darkness of his coat was spattered with hoary flecks. They wound upward past one eye before spilling down his neck. Turning at the shoulder, the widening runnel of tiny frosted spots flowed diagonally across his back and meandered down one flank. Pale socks washed three pasterns. The rest of him, almost wholly dark, sported only slight speckling, like stray pricks of light in a summer sky.

  Jan studied the other. Twilight was fading, the sun well and truly set. A pale sliver of moon floated amid a river of stars just beginning to become visible. The astral path wandered overhead, arching like a bridge from one to the other end of the world. Scattered to all four quarters, tall thunderheads floated motionless in the distance. Occasionally their thunder growled above the thrumming beat of the dancers’ hooves. Lightning illuminated the clouds’ interiors, like the diffuse, rosy radiance of cave lichens. Beside him, Crimson suddenly reared.

  “ ’Tis Calydor,” she cried joyously. “I see him there!”

  She sprinted down the long, gentle slope toward the river below, her pale-blue filly flying after. Jan sprang in pursuit, heard the grey and the gold coming hard on his heels. Crimson plunged into the smooth green river. Her filly leapt to follow, fording the slow, calm waters with a will. As her dam reached the far bank, Sky clambered out, shook. The mare nuzzled her, then trotted toward the dancers, her filly close behind. Jan swam in their wake, reaching shore half a length in front of Goldenhair and the grey. He paused to shake off, and the other stallions sprang past and up the bank to join their fellows thundering by.

  The dark prince bounded after, merged into the long, winding train full of sudden eddies and shifts. Caught up in its wild tempo, he struggled to decipher the intricate patterns of stamping. Eventua
lly he realized that whatever step the dancers executed was chosen by the one leading the line. That one chose the pattern, demonstrated it, and the others repeated it until their leader chose anew. Dancing, Jan noted with relief that though some eyed him with curiosity, none reacted with alarm. Perhaps because of Illishar’s feather, he was certain none took him for a Moondancer. Perhaps, too, in the settling dusk, the black of his coat was not so evident.

  Evening deepened. The slender crescent moon declined, throwing long shadows. Its pale light glided along the backs and faces of the dancers. At length, their stamping ceased. Halted, the dance’s participants stood blowing, shifting to loosen their limbs in the sudden, ringing silence. Panting, Jan heard the distant yip and hoot of Plains dogs scrapping over scavenge. The dance’s leader trotted to an open space before the crowd. Behind him, the bend in the river gleamed. Beyond, the Plain sloped moon-sheened to horizon’s edge. Above, stars burned. The evening blue with the starlight pattern in his coat shook his pale feathered mane.

  “Hail, my fellows!” His voice sounded oddly familiar, though Jan was certain he had never encountered this striking stallion before. “Tonight we gather,” he cried, “to foot the longdance, for the dark destroyer roves no more among us. We are free of him. He has fled.”

  Trepidation seized Jan. Korr no longer upon the Plain? The black prince cast about for his companions. If so, he had no time to lose. He needed one of them to point out who among this press was the seer Calydor. A moment later, Jan spotted Crimson and her filly standing very near the speaker. Ashbrindle stood back a few paces. He did not spy the gold.

  “So we celebrate”, the star-marked stallion continued, “now that danger is past. Soon our longdance will run its course, praising Álm’harat and her endless Cycle.”

  Around him, Jan glimpsed half-growns rubbing shoulders, mares nipping after stallions’ flanks. Colts and fillies lay down, other, younger ones already asleep. Heat rose in wisps from the Plainsdwellers’ backs. The evening-blue unicorn with the starpath markings spoke on.

  “But first, respite. I’ll sing you a tale. The dark one who lately ramped among us hailed from the distant Vale of Moondance. All our lives have we heard of its warrior Ring, glimpsed its members pilgriming upon the Plain, learnt of half-growns initiated into its warhost—in the name of Álm’harat, yet! Aye, Moondancers do battle to honor The One who makes all life.

  “These Valedwellers spare us no love, kick dust on our customs, harry us as Renegades—yet we eschew this witless conflict. The Mare’s Back is broad, and we have always found room to dodge them. Until the dark destroyer came, black as a night without moon or stars. He called himself a king. Yet he ruled no one, not even himself. He fell upon us wherever he found us and sought the lives even of fillies and foals in his madness to make war.

  “Yet we slipped his grasp. Our ears were keen, our limbs fleet. Dreams gave warning, and we scented him in the wind. We traveled in larger bands, avoiding those places he had last been seen. At length, we drove him from our midst—and, having survived this ordeal, we have begun to think all Moondancers fiends.

  “Such is not so. Some of us have sires or dams born to the Ring, who later fled to freedom here. Others have aided such refugees. True, these Ringbreakers disparage the Vale. I little blame them. To speak of it is painful to them. But I will tell you of one I met, many years ago, who was of the Vale and who returned to the Vale, and was no monster, no mad maker of war.”

  All around, Plainsdwellers shifted and swayed, now pricking their ears, their murmurs quieting. Despite his urgency, Jan found himself listening as the other spoke.

  “Many seasons past, when I was a youth with a young beard on my chin, I dreamt one summer under Alma’s eyes of a mare: pale as cloud newly warmed by sunset’s glow, with a mane and tail brilliant red-orange as the poppy flower.”

  The dark prince heard sighs, contented murmurs among the crowd, as though the tale were well known, a favorite. Reluctantly, he settled himself, aware that making his way unobtrusively to Crimson or Ashbrindle now through the hush might prove well-nigh impossible.

  “She, too, was young,” the singer continued. His way of turning, of lifting his head nipped at Jan like a gnat, reminding him of someone he could not quite recall. The star-marked stallion continued. “Gazing upon her in my dream, I sensed that like me, she had never danced the longdance to its end.

  “She lay far to the south, I knew, where the wind blows cool. I set out alone across the Plain. For days I traveled, until I drew near the southern sea that spills green against a golden shore. Tasting salt upon the wind, I halted, knowing Moondancers summer upon that strand. I had no wish to clash with any of that warlike tribe.

  “Night fell, and I saw my love, coming by moondark—yet the light of Álm’harat’s eyes blazed so, I saw her as well as by day. She moved with caution and with speed, casting about as she traveled, ears pricked, scenting the breeze. She was all my dream had promised: dancer’s grace and runner’s gait.

  “With a joyous cry, I leapt to meet her as one would a long-lost friend, unguarded—and nearly lost my life. She screamed and shied, wholly surprised, then met me with a pummeling of hooves and a slashing of horn. I broke off, bewildered. She sprang back, stiff-legged, horn at the ready.

  “ ‘Stand off! Stand off, wild Renegade,’ she shouted. ‘I seek no enmity with you, but I am a warrior born and versed and can defend myself at need.’

  “We both stood wild-eyed, panting, stunned. She, from what must have seemed an ambuscade—I, from the dawning that though she was indeed my vision’s mare, she herself had dreamt no such dream. She knew me not, and sooth, what knew I of her? Until that moment I had not even suspected what now stood clear: she was no Plainsdweller as was I, but a Moondancer strayed from her folk. If she searched for another upon the Plain, that other was not I.

  “I stammered some halting amends. ‘I cry your pardon. I mistook you for a…a friend and meant no harm.’

  “She eyed me warily. At length she said, ‘I, too, seek…a certain friend.’ She hesitated. Then, ‘Perhaps you have news of her.’

  “Carefully at first, then with growing ease, she told me of a belovèd companion who had deserted the Vale. Now each night, she said, she slipped away from her band, ventured onto the Plain, intent upon finding her missing companion and persuading her to return. I listened, lost at times. She assumed I knew all concerning her folk, that I had once been one of them, and that I, too, like her friend, had run away.

  “I told her I knew naught of her friend, that I, like most of my folk, had been foaled upon the Mare’s Back and wist little of her reclusive, warring clan. But I pledged to search and bring word if she would await me nightly on this spot. She was grateful, relieved beyond measure. Venturing the Plain entailed great risk for her. Besides danger from dogs and pards, if discovered, she might have been cast from her band. Simply conversing with me was counted treason.

  “The harshness of her people’s lives astonished me: hidebound by tradition, imprisoned by Law. How, I wondered, could one raised within such strictures have even conceived this defiance: to dare to follow her own heart rather than the dictates of capricious kings? For all her people’s warlike bent, they seemed to my mind to be cowards all, afraid to think and do for themselves.

  “This young mare’s plan to return her friend to what she believed the safe haven of her Vale was surely bold. Yet in truth, my sympathies were all for the other, the one who had leapt the confines of the Vale and fled to the open Plain. In the space of a heartbeat, I envisioned a plan: that if I could indeed find my love’s lost companion, perhaps I and that one together might convince her to remain at liberty upon the Plain.

  “She and I parted ere the paling of the stars: she—hopeful but wary still—to return to her summering band; I flush with determination. I scoured the Plain, importuning every passerby for news, imploring those I met to search upon their travels for my belovèd’s friend and send me word. Always I returned by nightfall to m
eet with the poppy-maned mare, bring her what news I had gleaned—maddeningly little, most days.

  “She never seemed disappointed, as at first I had feared, only sad, and hopeful still, and patient, ready to wait as long as need be. After we spoke each night, she appeared reluctant to go. So we spoke on, I telling her of my life and my people’s ways, she telling me of hers. I learnt more of them from her than ever I could have dreamt.

  “Slowly, she warmed to me. I sensed she kept our meetings for more than just the chance of news. I sensed she began to look to me for companionship, that she enjoyed my company more and more. I sang her songs of our folk—I was a young singer then, and my store of stories small. She recited for me those of her own folk’s lays that she could recall. Our friendship deepened with each waning night.

  “Then at last, word came. A passing band knew of the mare I sought. Another wayfarer spoke of a Gather. The mare for whom I searched would likely gather with the rest to dance the longdance. Excitedly, I told my friend from the Vale. We struck off across the Plain, flying like the wind, and reached the milling celebrants just at dusk. My friend spotted her comrade and ran to her, calling gladly.

  “My love’s fellow at first mistook her for a new Renegade like herself and welcomed her eagerly to the Plain. Soon, however, my love’s intentions became clear. The two mares quarreled, cajoled, discussed and reconciled, each seeking to convince the other to join her. I hung back, uncertain, avid to support the other mare’s arguments, yet fearing to intrude. Meanwhile, all around us, the longdance began, its rhythm swelling, ebbing, and rising again.

  “At last, my love’s friend turned from her and disappeared into the quickening rush. My heart beat hard. Before me, my love stood shaken, confused. Clearly, she had believed persuasion would be easy after the difficult trial of finding her friend. Instead, her comrade had refused to return to the Vale and pressed my love hard to remain. She had spoken convincingly, I saw, touting her newfound freedom. My beloved wavered. Made bold, I, too, now spoke, declaring my passionate love.