Why are you looking for an empty field in which to pitch a tent?
Why indeed, he wondered? To say that he had been sparing of the expense money Counselor Natoum had given him was beyond understatement. To date he had spent only on food to supplement the dried stores he had brought with him. Now he found himself in a bustling crossroads town crowded with taverns and inns. Should he not avail himself of travelers’ hospitality? After his desperate crossing of the roaring river did he not deserve a night’s rest in a real bed, a hot bath, and a meal at a proper table? Setting his own wants and needs aside, did not after all her patient trekking, swimming, and hauling, Orania not deserve a night in a clean dry stall surrounded by fresh hay, and faithful Bit something tasty to chew on?
That decided it. Simply because he was relentlessly parsimonious did not mean that he had the right to deny the occasional indulgence to his devoted traveling companions.
“Thank you, Bit. Thank you, Orania. You have decided for me.” The dog eyed him quizzically while the small steed who was maturing with unaccountable speed did not bother to look back at her rider.
Situated at the nexus of major north-south and east-west roads, Hamuldar boasted a plethora of places to spend the night. Multi-storied inns built of cut stone and finished lumber featured upper-floor rooms that flaunted wide balconies. Less prepossessing establishments huddled at the dark ends of short closes as if embarrassed to be seen on the main cobblestone streets. Many private dwellings offered rooms for rent. Shops, now closed for the day, sold all manner of necessities for travelers on their way through to the country known as Elsewhere.
Having no knowledge of the town, Madrenga had no idea which hostelry to choose. The larger facilities all looked inviting, but would doubtless prove correspondingly costly. Unable to make up his mind, he found himself advancing further and further toward the center of town, until the rising commotion he had been hearing for some time finally exploded around him in a burst of noise and color.
The central town square was alive with a fair. Acrobats tossed one another back and forth, dancers in exotic costume gyrated, harlequins teased visitors, and Hamuldar’s night watch was alert for pickpockets and snatch thieves. Flames leaped from the lubricated lips of firebreathers and the iron grills of food vendors. Raucous laughter, excited shouts, and drunken accusations competed for ear time with the melodies of instruments whose appearance as well as sounds were entirely new to Madrenga. His eyes were wide as he guided Orania around pandemonium’s periphery. Outer Market Day at Harup-taw-shet seemed tame by comparison.
Then Bit began barking accusingly as a trio of men blocked Orania’s path. Well-trained as she was, she halted rather than attempt to push past them. The three had clearly been drinking, but not yet to excess. They confronted the youth on the small horse forcefully, but their smiles were genuine.
“Now here’s one to cast a wager upon! Look at him, seated straight and proud upon this handsome little steed of his!”
“Aye,” rumbled a man equally parts fat and faux fury, “thinks he’s too good to join in, does he?” Liquor tinged eyes fixed on the uncertain youth. “Or do you?”
“Uh, actually I’ve come quite a distance, and was hoping to find a place to get something to eat, and then have a sleep.”
“Eat? Sleep?” The third man looked askance at his partying companions. “This is Strove End-Month! Time to drink, not to eat.” A hand reached for the wary Madrenga, pawing at his shirt. “Come now, lad. Do we then look so like thieves that you’d refuse even our company?”
It had to be admitted, Madrenga mused, that this trio bore scant resemblance to the malicious pair who had threatened to gut him in the alley back in Harup-taw-shet.
“It’s not that,” he argued. “It’s only that I’m very tired and …”
Another hand was tugging on his shirt. Orania backed slightly but otherwise held her ground. “Join us then, lad! We’re buying.” A florid, sun-creased face lurched close to Madrenga’s as he was set upon by warm breath redolent of recently deceased hops. “A better offer you’ll not have this night!”
Maybe the best way to extricate himself from the confrontation was to briefly embrace it, Madrenga decided. Disengaging feet from stirrups, he dropped to the ground.
“Well enough, then. One drink, and then I really must find a bed before the ground finds me.”
A hand clapped him on the back. Before starting his journey, such a blow would have knocked him off balance. This night, strangely, it felt only like the brotherly slap it was meant to be. Finding a hitching rail, he secured the uncomplaining Orania between a pair of full-grown pack horses. In the flickering, chiaroscuro light she looked very small alongside them. But not, he reflected in confusion, as small as she once had been. Placing Bit atop the saddle, which he fully expected to vanish one morning as mysteriously as it had appeared, he commanded the dog to stay, and then allowed himself to be drawn toward the center of the laughter-infused maelstrom.
The closer he and his new companions drew to the middle of the square, the louder and more frenetic grew the action around them. Boys chased one another, girls toyed with sugared air, men argued, women primped, one couple fornicated beneath a wagon piled high with windwheels for sale. The proprietor paid them no mind. Perhaps, a gaping Madrenga thought, the presence of the copulating couple was good for business. It certainly caught the eye of a certain unsophisticated young visitor.
Something said to him earlier returned to the forefront of his thoughts and he addressed the first man who had spoken to him. “What did you mean when you said, ‘Here’s one to cast a wager upon’?”
“I could tell you.” The townsman winked. “But better to show you.”
Amid the surging, rollicking crowd and beneath tall torches and magpie-oil lanterns was a small paved clearing. Near the back, surrounded by admiring men, doe-eyed women, and wide-eyed children, stood a giant of man. Broad of shoulder and thick of chest, he sported a wicked downthrusting blonde mustache that tapered sharply to a point at each end. His hair was cut into two brush-like strips, one running across either side of his skull.
On the smooth stones before him rested a pair of pumpkin-sized crystal globes connected together by a glass tube. Softly lit from within, each crystal sphere as well as the connector was filled with darting fish. Gold-colored, red-striped, black-faced, they meandered through the unique aquarium from one globe to another, using the linking tube as a highway.
Standing before giant and object, an elderly barker held a vase-sized crystalline megaphone to his lips and addressed the crowd.
“Who here dares to try and match the strength of the great Langan of Jithros? Who can claim to be his equal?” From a pouch at his waist the elder withdrew a small golden statue studded with gems that caught the lamplight and threw it back. At the sight of this bejeweled artifact the crowd dutifully oohed and aahed.
“This irreplaceable treasure, this golden statue from an ancient time, goes to whomever can match the power of Langan! Who will risk a silver piece and try?” Crowd noise bubbled around and behind the spectators, but from those ringing the clearing there came only a hesitant murmuring.
“Come, come!” The barker chided the reluctant onlookers. “Are there no men in Hamuldar? None passing through on Fair day?” He made a rude sound. “Perhaps Langan and I were wrong to stop here. If it was women we wished to deal with we would have stopped at the first whorehouse!”
Anger underlined some of the tentativeness in the crowd, but none responded either to the challenge or to the insult. Then a stocky drover, dressed for the fair into fresh cotton and brushed leather, stepped forward.
“Ah, I was wrong.” The old man gracefully accepted the ribbed coin the drover handed him. Stepping back, he made a sweeping gesture in the direction of the double-globed aquarium. “Your effort at your leisure, honored sir. Once over your head, if you please. And if you can.”
While his friends cheered him on, the drover took up a shoulder-width stance behind the glass connecting tube. Wiping his large, rough hands against his pants, he leaned forward, bent his knees, and took a firm grip on the bar. Teeth clenched, head up, eyes squinting, he let out a bellow that drew the attention of those in the crowd who were merely nearby and not watching. Through his shirt, thick muscles could be seen straining. Slowly, the twin globes and their connecting tube rose off the ground. About a hand’s breadth, Madrenga estimated.
The crowd groaned as the drover set the apparatus back down. It made a clinking sound as it struck the paving stones. The thick crystal survived the short drop without so much as a scratch.
“Another?” the old man prompted. “What? No more challengers?”
“It’s the weight of the water, not the fish and the crystal,” someone shouted from the crowd.
“Yeah, let’s see the ‘great Langan’ lift it!” challenged another.
“You doubt his strength?” The oldster replied with mock outrage. “Very well then. An irrefutable confirmation you shall have.” Moving aside, he made room for his partner.
Stepping right up to the glass tube, the massive Langan let out a derisive snort. Without hesitation or preparation, he bent his knees, grabbed the aquarium in both fists, and in one motion raised it over his head. The crowd gasped. Men blinked, women near swooned, and children squealed in amazement and delight. Several times Langan proceeded to press the aquarium from chest to arm’s length before setting it gently back down on the pavement. As a rush of applause and cheers rose from the crowd, the elderly barker redoubled his blandishments.
“See how the mighty Langan effortlessly moves up and down the bar of the Twin Seas! Yet to win the statue a challenger need do so only once! Surely there is more than one man among all of Hamuldar and its visitors! Come, don’t be shy. There is no shame in matching yourself against a master, and much to be gained if you succeed!”
Tempted by ego or urged on by sweethearts, others tried. The best of them could not raise the aquarium higher than his knees. Much encouragement and cheering from the crowd drove the challengers to try.
“You spoke of me being one to wager upon.” Madrenga regarded his companions. “Surely you did not mean for me to take up this challenge?”
“Ah no, ‘twas a jest only, lad,” declared one of the men.
“Clearly you could not lift one end of the object off the ground,” insisted another.
Though slight, the insult was sufficient at which to take umbrage. “I might could do more than lift one end—if the performance were not a trick.”
This assertion quieted but did not silence his hosts. “A trick?” echoed the third of the group. “How so a trick?”
What prompted him to continue speaking, nor whence came the words he spoke, Madrenga could not at that moment have said. He knew only that he was listening to himself but somehow hearing the opinion of another.
“The two large crystal spheres that are filled with decorative fish? They are lit from within.”
As one, his companions turned to consider the apparatus. “They still are. What of it?” wondered the first speaker.
Madrenga plunged onward. “Did you not notice the change?”
The third man frowned. “Change? What change, lad?”
“When the challengers try to lift and when the object simply rests, the illumination that arises from within is constant. But when ‘the mighty Langan’ picks it up, the glow is muted slightly. It is not just a lighting spell that shows to best advantage the sea life that dwells within, but a lighten spell that allows the lifter to show such ‘strength’. When he lifts, the weight is somehow reduced together with the internal illumination.”
“Magic!” muttered the second speaker. The expression on the man beside him darkened.
“It’s a cheat, then! For all the absence of cards and dice, a deception nonetheless!”
“What is a cheat?”
The trio abruptly went silent. Having overheard, the old barker had come up on them too quickly for any of the three to flee. Or Madrenga as well. Eyes that had seen much narrowed as they met the youth’s own.
“Was it your voice I heard? Yes,” he decided without waiting for confirmation, “it was you … boy. Unusual to encounter such a wild observation in one so young.” Reaching out, he grabbed Madrenga’s right wrist and drew him forward into the clearing. As he tugged, he raised his voice.
“Another challenger! A bold youth, nominated to be a shining example to the reluctant adolescents of Hamuldar!” The fresh roar that rose from the crowd contained as much laughter as encouragement. The old barker swung Madrenga around. Why he allowed himself to be so led the youth did not know. Though there was surprising strength in the old man’s grasp, he still could have broken free easily.
Yet here he was, standing before the twin spheres and the goggle-eyed seafood they held, unable to escape the glare of lamplight or the attention of amused onlookers. His three “friends” had taken the opportunity to melt into the crowd lest the oldster next drag them forward into similar embarrassment. Looming nearby, Langan of Jithros favored the latest challenger with his most intimidating sneer.
Yells of encouragement flavored with ridicule rained down on him.
“Go on, give it a try … boy!”
“It’s a trick you said, so twirl it over your head!”
“Show your muscles, lad … if you have any!”
“A gold piece says he pees his pants!”
Anger surged up inside Madrenga. Why had he opened his mouth? Why had he spoken so audibly? He could have slipped quietly away, back to his animals. Now he found himself the subject of scorn and derision.
“Go on, boy. Have a try.” The old man spoke in lowered, amused tones. “I know you can’t lift it. But I’ll cut you a deal despite your thoughtless insult. If you can push it along the ground the length of your prick, I’ll give you the golden statue anyway.” His eyes crinkled with delight at the humiliation he was inflicting on his young victim. “That means you’ll only have to move it an inch.” When Madrenga still failed to step up to the glass tube, the elder moved back and nodded at his partner. The youth felt a heavy hand come down on his shoulder as Langan of Jithros roughly shoved him forward.
Lamplight made him blink. Torchlight caused his eyes to water. He looked down at the slender glass cylinder that connected the two water-and-fish-filled crystal globes. What was he doing here? He had come into this town intent on finding a place to eat and to sleep only to be waylaid by a trio of forceful but friendly locals. Because of a casual opinion carelessly voiced he now found himself the subject of derisive stares, scathing comments, and mocking gestures. Like his eyes, his ears began to burn. Insults heaped on him like night-soil on a potato patch.
Bending, he grasped the glass tube with both hands and pushed as hard as he could. To his surprise the transparent cylinder moved. Not only moved, but came up in his hands, rose to his waist, and thence to his chin. Ignorant of what he was doing and how he was doing it, he thrust it overhead. Glowing brightly, the two crystal globes filled with water and fish ascended with it and in tandem.
There was a moment of shocked silence during which the shouts and laughs of more distant fairgoers filled the small square like an echo. A few of the onlookers gasped. Then every member of the crowd burst into wild cheers and shouts, their contempt transformed into feverish adoration as swiftly as a hot kettle turned dead leaves and water into tea.
Stunned but unwilling to fully countenance what he had just seen, the aged barker rushed forward to confront Madrenga as soon as the youth set the apparatus down. The old man stood so close to the young man that Madrenga could count his missing teeth.
“You accuse us of cheating, yet it is clear enough for anyone to see that it is you who are the trickster! I don’t know how you did that, but plainly it was not through the use of those floppy appendages you call arms!” Stepping back, he looked behind Madrenga, at his boots and legs. “Where is the device you used? Where is the unnatural booster?” One arm crossed over his chest as the weighty sculpted and bejeweled golden burden swung from a cord. “The statue of the ancients is not for swindlers such as you!”
Feeling light-headed, not to mention possessed by a giddy optimism that was totally unsupported by reality, Madrenga smiled blithely at his accuser. “Okay, then I’ll do it again.”
And he did, somehow raising the spheres containing the miniature twin seas a second time over his head. Having by now suspended anything resembling disbelief, the astounded crowd roared its approval. Lowering the apparatus to his thighs, he let it hang there as he regarded the old man.
“I claim the statue. I have won fair and true. Give to me that which I deserve.”
“So we shall!” Rushing forward, Langan of Jithros grabbed the glass tube on either side of Madrenga’s hands and shoved. The startled youth went backward and down with both the glass bar and the much bigger man on top of him. Grinning, his face not far from that of the pained youth, Langan pressed hard. The weight of the tube, crystal globes, and his tormentor pinned Madrenga forcefully to the ground. He let out a groan of pain.
Sides in the crowd having switched, a couple of men took steps forward while others muttered angrily among themselves, wondering whether to interfere. A couple of women yelled for someone to call the night guard. Looking up, a glare from Langan caused the would-be righteous to hesitate.
“Keep clear of this, peddlers and fishmongers. This is not your quarrel. You will want to go home to your wives and children with all your limbs intact.”
“Let the lad up,” demanded one of the men even as he halted his advance.
“’Tis no fair contest, this,” mumbled another. “If this keeps up, he’ll kill the boy!”
“And what is that to you?” Stepping between the crowd and the pair of combatants on the ground, the old barker glowered at them, one hand gripping the ivory hilt of the kris that was scabbarded at his waist. “Is he one of you, then? Related to someone here?” The agitated murmuring continued, but no one would confront the old man directly. He smirked at the wall of reluctant men and women. “Then why risk your blood for one who is not of your own?” He looked back to where Langan was all but lying atop the pinioned youth. “We’ll settle this quickly enough!” He spared a backward glance and his mouth tightened. Indeed, it would all be over soon. Though he would in truth have gladly given over the statue, fashioned as it was of gilded lead and paste jewels and not ancient but recently made, to know how the odd youth had managed the seemingly impossible lift.
Weighing twice as much as Madrenga, Langan of Jithros continued to lean his weight against the glass tube. “They say it takes a cheat to know one, boy,” he whispered tautly. “While I admit to nothing, my senior partner and I would be pleased to know by what means you managed the trick.” His grin spread. “After all, one’s last words should always be useful.”
Strain as he might, Madrenga couldn’t so much as twitch. Between the weight of the man lying atop him and that of the water-filled lifting apparatus he couldn’t move. His face turned red and his breathing labored.
It was all over. Consummation of his royal mission, the hopes for the future that rested upon it—everything. All because he had allowed himself to be detoured from his path. His vision began to blur as his system reacted to the lack of oxygen. With so much mass pressing down on his chest he could hardly breathe. Unable to think straight, he could not have responded positively to Langan’s demand even had he wished to do so. If only he could get his breath.…
The giant Langan drew back abruptly. Had that been a flash in the boy’s eyes? Just a trick of the torchlight, he told himself as he leaned back down. Or more likely, a sign that the stupid youth was on the verge of passing out. Too bad if he failed to divulge how he had come by a means of mastering the lightening spell. If the magic could not be squeezed out of him, then Langan would settle for taking his life. It was not a choice that troubled him.
Madrenga inhaled sharply … and pushed.
Slowly his arms straightened. Like the clothing that enclosed them, they suddenly seemed to have thickened and grown more muscular. A stupefied Langan found himself rising into the air as the glass tube pressed forcefully upward against his own chest. Trying to resume the downward pressure, he felt as if he was pushing against a breaching whale. When the youth beneath him had risen to a forty-five-degree angle, the giant found himself on his feet and stumbling backwards. The antagonism in his visage had been replaced by fear.
An initial cry of encouragement from the crowd faded as Madrenga rose to his feet, holding the glass tube against his chest and the twin crystal globes off the ground. When the light emanating from the spheres began to intensify, a few nervous mutters could be heard among the onlookers. Soon the lights were too bright to look at directly. The fish within the globes were now swimming in faster and faster circles. As if desperate to get out, some bumped wildly against the curving transparent walls.
“You asked for my last words,” the youth could be heard to intone. “Here they are. Leave me alone!”
With that, he threw the apparatus at the giant.
The glass tube struck Langan of Jithros square in the chest. The wince-inducing crack of splintering bone could be heard over the steady susurration of the crowd. A woman among the onlookers fainted.
Bouncing off the giant’s chest as the dead man fell backward, the tube that now connected two globes of fire dropped to the ground. There came a shattering as if every piece of glass in the town had suddenly imploded in sympathy. Accompanying the crystalline disintegration of the twin spheres was a high-pitched scream that had nothing to do with glass, town, or anything human.
No less stunned by what he had done, Madrenga took a couple of steps backward, staring blankly as the lights that had illuminated the globes went out. Freed from its twin prisons, water splashed and flowed over and around his feet. Likewise liberated were the sea creatures who had dwelled within. Spilling out onto the pavement, they flopped and twisted spasmodically. Until their tiny feet appeared. And their small but sharp teeth. And their horns, and barbed tails, and wild, angry eyes.
The flow of liberated water spread quickly among the crowd, but not as fast as the panic. Men, women, and children fled in terror as the creatures that had been released from the imprisoning spheres spread out and filtered in among them. Some snapped ferociously at feet and legs while others simply sought escape, scampering wildly toward freedom on two, four, or six legs. Deprived of water, they now effortlessly breathed air. Some exhaled smoke. The scent of sulphur filled the square.
Alarm diffused rapidly through the rest of the fairgoers. Though ignorant of its source, they were quick to partake of the rapidly expanding panic, a germ that spreads faster and is more contagious than the common cold.
Recovering somewhat, a shocked Madrenga walked over to the fallen Langan of Jithros. The giant lay on his back, arms akimbo, one leg drawn up and bent unnaturally beneath him. The glass tube lay across the ankle of his outthrust right leg. His eyes were closed. His chest had been caved in. Blood had pooled in his open mouth and was running down both sides of his face.
“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean …” Reaching down with his right hand, the youth picked up the glass tube. It snapped in half between his fingers. Bits of broken glass snowflaked to the ground.
Mouth agape, the old barker was staring and backing away. “He has broken the light. He has broken the light. No one can break light!” A hand rose and pointed. “Demon!”
Frowning, Madrenga turned to face the oldster. “Now wait a minute.…”
He was not given more than seconds as the already terrified crowd took up the refrain. Cries of “Demon! … Monster …!” filled the night air. Madrenga continued to protest, to no avail. Having seen something they could neither explain nor understand, those onlookers who had been witness to the confrontation were all too easily swayed by an explanation that, if not fair, fit neatly into the always available socket of ignorance in their heads. The mob that had been against him, then with him, now railed against him once more.
Realizing that logic and reason would make no further headway this night, Madrenga turned and bolted for the place where he had left his companions. He was not accompanied by his sozzled trio of casual friends. They had joined much of the rest of the crowd in its mad desire to escape from the interloper’s presence. His animals, Madrenga feared, were in imminent danger of being seriously spooked by the spreading panic. Those in the crowd who did not get out of his way fast enough he shoved aside. So worried was he about Orania and Bit that it did not occur to him that he had suddenly and inexplicably become big and strong enough to push grown adults out of his way. Nor, given his concern, did the terror in their eyes register upon him.
“Bit! Orania! Be calm—I’m coming!”
Bolder and stronger than the rest, a few of the men in the surging, swirling throng reached out to try and restrain him. When one managed to slow the intruder down, others took courage and joined in. Despite his most strenuous exertions, Madrenga found his progress first inhibited, then halted.
“To the gaol with him!” one man shouted excitedly.
“Yes, yes, give him to the night watch and the magistrates!” another bawled, while a third muttered ominously, “This is proud Hamuldar, and we burn demons here!”
Their increasingly murderous enthusiasm was cut off by a growl that, appropriately enough, seemed to come from the depths of Hell itself. Everyone stopped where they were. Startled by the sound, even Madrenga ceased struggling.
It was unmistakably a dog-growl, but one the tone and tenor of which had never before been heard in Hamuldar. Or possibly anywhere else. It emerged from the throat of a four-legged cylinder of meat and bone the size of a full-grown boar. Beneath taut skin and short black fur, rippling muscles wrapped around the stocky shape. Staring at them, Madrenga was reminded of roots at the base of a tree. Squirming like pythons awakening from a deep sleep, they threatened to burst free from the skeleton to which they were attached. The canine head was wide and heavy, the eyes burning with deep-seated lupine fury. The dog-thing growled again. As it did so, it opened its mouth.
Such teeth, a wondering Madrenga thought, belonged in the jaws of a dragon, not a dog.
“Hi, Bit.”
A tongue emerged; long, red, and pointed. The dog began to pant. Taking heart from the sudden display of canine affection, one of the men drew a sword and thrust. Growling anew, Bit dodged slightly to one side as the point of the blade flashed past him. Then he swung his head around and bit down on the metal. It was not the finest steel, but neither was the blade made of base antimony. That did not stop the dog from biting it in half.
Drawing back the haft of the sword, its owner gaped at the couple of inches of metal that remained, looked again at the dog. It was advancing on him slowly and deliberately. Flinging the now useless remnant of the weapon aside, he let out a gargled cry, whirled, and fled. Those still holding tight to the youth in their midst were not far behind.
Swaying uncertainly, Madrenga looked down at his dog. In the course of the preceding days he had seen but chosen to largely ignore the changes that had come over his companion. As Bit advanced on him, the wide mouth with its dragon teeth agape, it struck him that he ought to have paid more attention. Then the alien red tongue emerged again. Kneeling, the youth tentatively opened his arms. What sorceral invocation ought he to employ in the face of this astonishing transformation? What mystic phraseology, what profound bewitched words would be most appropriate to defuse a potentially deadly confrontation?
“Here, boy,” was all he could think of to say.
Suitably enchanted or not, it proved to be enough. Bit leaped in his arms, the red tongue lashing out to slather the youth’s face with a surfeit of saliva that smelled faintly of ozone and sulphur, but felt no less gooey for all its aberrant aroma. Pushing the solid mass of muscle off his thighs, Madrenga rose and wiped his nose and cheeks. Faces in the crowd regarded him and his dog with a mix of wonderment, interest, and unabashed terror. He had no time to try and explain. Any such attempt was in any event doomed to failure, since he could not explain to himself what had just transpired. He knew only that for him there was now no warm bed and hot meal to be had in this town. Moving on was all that was left to him. Moving on, and some deep thinking.
If he was shocked by what he had done to Langan of Jithros and the change that had come over his endearing and companionable pup Bit, it was as nothing compared to the transformation that had overtaken his pet pony. Ever since their departure from Harup-taw-shet, Orania had unaccountably matured from scarcely foal-sized into a stout young horse. As he neared the place where he had left her, he saw that in the course of the single chaotic evening she had, like Bit, grown explosively to become something else. Something more.
“Orania, what has happened to …?”
She did not give him time to finish his bewildered query. At the sound of his voice she turned. In doing so she wrenched free of the earth the hitching rail to which her reins had been tied as well as the two stout poles to which the rail had been attached. This required no especial exertion on her part because she had, in the course of the single frantic, frenzied evening grown completely into her legs. Though she retained the lines of a racing horse, her withers were higher than Madrenga’s eyes. She came toward him, bobbing her head and neighing softly, while the two horses that had been tied on opposite sides of her fought frantically to free themselves from the hitch rail that was being dragged along the ground. First one, then the other, worked themselves loose and fled, fleeing from her presence much as the townsfolk had fled from her master’s.
“By the golden hooves of Escarius,” Madrenga murmured as he reached up to stroke her forehead, “what a miracle of horseflesh you have become!” No one who had seen the often-sickly foal Orania had been could have envisioned the hulking yet elegant four-legged form that now stood before him. As he fought to free her from the wooden railing to which she was still tied he noticed that his supplies appeared to have increased in size as well. Though her back was now far broader, the pack still sloped over both flanks behind the saddle and forward of her hips.
There were more secrets at play here than any one man should be expected to fathom, he thought to himself. Later he would ponder on it. Right now he needed to get out of town as fast as possible.
The leather strap that served as a stirrup was gone. It its place was a beautiful piece of finely worked tack inlaid with silver. In the feeble light of distant lamps. he was forced to squint. No, not silver, he corrected himself. The stirrup was ornamented with same the peculiar shiny gray armor that now protected his shins. Arabesques and whorls scrolled across the surface. These framed more realistic designs, including some that resembled faces, but in the dim light and in a considerable hurry he did not take them time to examine them more closely.
Sitting in the saddle of his mysteriously matured mount caused him to suck in air sharply. It was now a long way from Orania’s spine to the ground below. The new stirrups helped to steady him, as did the enhanced pommel. That horn seemed to glow in the darkness with an unearthly internal fire, as if a persistent ember had been implanted deep within the rounded shape. Behind him he could hear the sounds of a mob growing and coming his way. Bed or no bed, meal or no meal, it was time to go. Leaning forward he reached for the reins, but the distance had grown too great even for his longer arms.
It was not a problem. Taking the end of the reins between her teeth, Orania obediently turned her head and handed them to him. Man eyes meet equine gaze. There was nothing more there than there had ever been, Madrenga told himself. Orania was a horse. A mysteriously altered horse, it was true, but still only a horse. Familiarity led her to pass him the reins; that was all. Giving them a flick and adding a terse, “Hup!” he pushed his legs out to the sides, intending to give her a gentle kick in the flanks.
It wasn’t necessary. In response to his command she fairly erupted off the ground. Had there been a ditch thrice her length in front of her she would have cleared it effortlessly with that initial leap. It was only when they left the hitching area near the fair square and turned down the main road that led out of Hamuldar that a sudden realization caused him to cast a frantic look backward.
“Bit! We left him behind and …!”
Maybe he had left Bit behind, but the dog had not left him. Stout, muscular legs an impossible blur, Bit was racing along beside the horse, his tongue lolling, a canine smile on his face. Staring, Madrenga could not imagine how the dog was keeping up, but keeping up he was. Another happening with no explanation. Holding the reins lightly in his teeth and relying on his mount to keep going in a straight line the youth extended both arms outward toward the dog.
“Come on, boy—jump! Give it a try!”
It was a request he could never have made of the puppy he had rescued years ago, nor even to the dog it had become outside Hamuldar. But the broad-chested, dragon-toothed creature running alongside the horse was no longer an ordinary dog. Nothing was ordinary anymore, a baffled Madrenga told himself.
In any event, Bit complied with the command. Instead of leaping into his master’s waiting arms, however, the dog landed in the center of the pack that was slung across Orania’s back. More cat- than dog-like, Bit’s claws dug in and gave him a firm grip. The added weight neither startled Orania nor caused her to slow her stride.
Behind them, distant but not out of sight, a growing collection of lights showed that the bolder among the townsfolk had made the decision to give chase.