Dark Horse

by Jay Swanson

  It’s just a cliff, he thought as he leaned forward. There’s nothing down there.

  “I wouldn’t lean too far, if I were you.”

  Chakra jumped at the sound of the voice, sending another rush to his heart as he nearly tipped over the edge of the cliff.

  “The last fella to do that didn’t fare so well.” The voice was small and clear. “What’s your name?”

  “Who’s there?” Chakra backed against the wall, facing the direction of the voice. “Show yourself!”

  “I’m right here.” A pair of bright green eyes appeared just above the boulders across from Chakra. “I’ve been here the whole time. What’s your name?”

  “Why didn’t you show yourself earlier?” Chakra asked.

  “I wasn’t so worried about you last time. You were tired, but you weren’t looking like you were going to jump.” Two pointed ears popped up over the eyes, silhouetted against the growing purple of the dusk. The creature laughed as it sat up. “That and you have a sword. I’ve learned to be careful of humans carrying swords. See my tail?” A long slender tail rose against the sky as well. “Used to be a few inches longer. I still haven’t gotten my balance completely back yet.”

  The blue of the topaz flared to life then, illuminating a small flat-faced creature with a short body and shorter legs. The long tail and massive eyes seemed completely disproportionate to Chakra, but only served to make it appear… adorable.

  “What are you?”

  “I’m me,” said the creature. “What else would I be? What’s your name?”

  “Chakra. My friends call me Chalk.”

  “That’s nice. I don’t have a name, at least none that was ever given me.”

  Smallcat seems like an appropriate name, Chakra thought. “What kind of animal are you?”

  “Oh.” The smallcat stopped to think for a moment. “Good gods, I don’t think I’ve ever thought to ask that question myself… that’s an excellent one. Ask me another!”

  “Ask you… another question?” Chakra wasn’t sure if this was another monster, but it felt like a trick was brewing.

  “Please, yes. I’m so bored.” The smallcat bounded down a few cracks in the stone before coming to a rest at the base of the wall. Its long tail floated gently down until it rested in a circle around it. “No one to talk to around here. And the others, well… they aren’t so big on talking either when I see them.”

  “What others? The monsters?” Chakra could barely believe he was having a conversation with an animal. Although the lizard-hawk had spoken. It shouldn’t come as a surprise.

  “Monsters? Them?” The smallcat laughed. Or purred. It sounded similar. “Yes, I suppose. Brutes at least. Most don’t think so clearly any more. But I do, and I’m bored. You can ask a better question than that.”

  Chakra looked around before his eyes settled on the deep canyon to his left. “Who made this place?”

  “Ah!” The smallcat purred again. “Excellent question! I have no idea.”

  “You…” Chakra looked back at the smallcat stunned. “You don’t know?”

  “Why, no. It’s just always been here, I suppose. At least from my point of view. In that way, I guess I’ve always been here too. But who’s to say what came before? All we know is what we know, which is a very silly way of saying that all that can exist for us is, well… us.”

  Confusing little creature. “Why are you here?”

  “That one I can answer!” The smallcat purred. “I’m here to guard some armor. It looks a lot like what you have on your leg, only it has power in it.”

  Chakra’s heart leapt. He reached for his sword.

  “Pip pip pip! Wait!” The small cat spun and darted into a crack in the stone. A moment later the glow of his eyes returned from within. “No swords. I told you, don’t like ‘em.”

  “But if you’re protecting the armor, aren’t you… aren’t you going to attack me?”

  “I’m not sure you’re shaping up to be as bright as I’d hoped.” The smallcat blinked, casting quick shadows. “Look, I don’t guard it like that. I just watch over the riddle that does.”

  “Riddle?” Chakra slowly let go of the hilt over his shoulder. “What riddle?”

  “You’re looking at it. Well you would be if you’d open your eyes.”

  Chakra was about to respond when the topaz flared again, and the wall before him came to sparkling life. There were shapes and words all over the wall. Each was drawn or written in a vein of the stone, and each sparkled like the moonslight on water. It was beautiful.

  “There you go.” The smallcat slowly worked his way out. “I’ve been dying to know what the answers are.”

  “You don’t know the answers?” Chakra looked back down at the smallcat.

  “No.” The smallcat seemed to think this should be expected. “Why would I? That’s not safe. Some brute with a sword might cut it out of me. No, I’m just here to keep the magic alive. That’s all.”

  “What does it say?” Chakra began tracing the lines with his finger.

  “It… wait, you can’t read?”

  Chakra blushed as his finger dropped. “No. I always wanted to learn, but…”

  “That’s a first,” the smallcat said.

  “Others have tried to solve this riddle before?” Chakra asked.

  “Plenty. Remember the guy who jumped? I’ll save the suspense and tell you that doesn’t work. Most get the first one, but the second is apparently impossible. That’s what they all say, at least.”

  “I thought you said you don’t know the answers,” Chakra said.

  “Well, I’ll be honest, I assume they get the first one right. They seem to think they do, and it causes some reaction in the magic, so… it seems a fair assumption.”

  “Ok.” Chakra sighed. “Well I’m never going to get either if I don’t know what they say.”

  “Words are power, my friend.” The smallcat made some small tisking noises. “You should have learned to read while you had the chance.”

  Chakra nodded as he stared at the scribbles in the stone. While I had the chance, he thought. When Melina could have taught me.

  “Why do you want this armor anyways? You seem young, compared to all the others.”

  “I need it,” Chakra said. After a long moment the smallcat cleared its throat. Chakra rolled his eyes. I don’t have time for this. “I need it to save the woman I love. She’s dying.”

  “What, in some dark fortress somewhere? Aren’t you young for a woman? Or cliché’s?”

  Chakra was beginning to feel agitated. “Fine, girl. And no. Well… yes, she’s in a fort but it’s not like that. She has the black flux.”

  The smallcat let out a low whistle at that. “I see. That is something I’ve heard of.”

  “I need the armor to draw it out of her. To heal her.” Chakra ran his fingers along the veins in the stone, tracing them as if by doing so he could unlock their mystery. Melina had offered to teach him to read numerous times and while he had always wanted to, he had never taken the time. She had told him he never knew when he would need it.

  Chakra shook his head. I guess I know when I need it now.

  The smallcat stared up at him for a long while. Those green eyes seemed to see right through Chakra. Past the stones around them and into a world that Chakra didn’t understand any more. Finally it looked at the riddles before sighing. “You know, I am pretty bored.”

  Chakra looked up at the smallcat, each inspecting the other as if trying to find a weakness. “You did say as much.”

  “And I’m dying to know the second answer.”

  “You’ll help me?”

  “Well.” The smallcat looked around as if there might be others nearby to hear. “Let’s just say I’ll make it interesting.”

  “You can read?” Chakra asked.

  “Gods, no.” The smallcat purred. “That would be a helpful skill. No, but I’ve heard them read aloud enough that I know what they say.” The smallcat walked over to where Chakr
a was standing as if he wasn’t there. Chakra had to stumble out of the way before it sat and stared up at the wall. “That first one,” the smallcat said, tail twitching. “It says ‘Feed me the winter for my strength, and the summer for my aid. Let the sun move me onward, lest your last breath I steal.’ Or something like that. I think it’s supposed to rhyme.”

  “That makes no sense.” Chakra shook his head. “Don’t you know the answer?”

  “Yes, but I’m not telling. Ruins the fun for you.”

  Fun? There is no fun here. I’m running out of time! “Fine,” Chakra said through clenched teeth. “At least repeat it for me.”

  The riddle made no sense to Chakra. Strength in winter, aid in summer?

  “Is it a thing?” He asked finally.

  “Well it’s not an abstract concept.” The smallcat purred. “Yes. It’s probably a thing.”

  Chakra folded his arms to think. Armies had to be strong in winter to survive, and marched in summer. But would the sun move them on? He guessed maybe it would…

  “You’ve gotta think out loud though, come on.” The smallcat was staring at him again. “It’s no fun if you just think in your head.”

  “I was thinking it was an army.”

  The smallcat laughed. Chakra was sure it was a laugh that time. “That’s an interesting guess.”

  “What?” Chakra frowned down at the smallcat. “Armies have to be strong in the winter and march in the summer. They take last breaths more than anything, and they… well they don’t like being in the sun.”

  “Huh,” the smallcat said as it looked up at the riddle. “You know, I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Wrong though?”

  “Eh.” The smallcat lowered its head to scratch itself. “The whole sun part, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal in the end. I don’t know much about armies, but not liking the sun… no one likes the sun. So bright.”

  “Maybe if your eyes are the size of your whole head.”

  “Hey now.” The smallcat sniffed. “Good point.”

  “Maybe it’s something simpler…”

  The smallcat scratched its head again. “Usually is. Life is full of simple things, it’s overthinking that makes them complicated.”

  “I’m overthinking?”

  “I barely hear any thoughts at all, so no. That wouldn’t seem to be your particular problem.”

  Chakra pointedly looked back at the wall. Then it hit him. Your last breath… “Water.”

  “Obviously.” The smallcat purred. “Why?”

  “Water is strongest in winter, and most helpful in summer. The sun moves it on, and if you breathe it, well, it’s your last breath.” Just like Melina… except it’s not water in her lungs.

  “Very good.” The smallcat was still staring at him.

  “Why isn’t it doing anything?” Chakra didn’t see anything different about the enchantment on the wall.

  “You haven’t solved it yet, have you?”

  “It’s water though, you said that there was some effect on the magic.” Chakra ran his fingers along the sparkling veins.

  “Yes, but the riddle isn’t in the answer.”

  Chakra kept running his fingers along the words. Why didn’t they change? And what were these other shapes? They weren’t words, but images… Expressionist markings. They were symbols from the various schools of magic.

  He began searching among them. Some were large enough to be lost up close, and others so small he had to squint to read them. All of them overlapped and connected to create a spider web of imagery. And then he found the blind warrior.

  “Water,” he said as he touched the band covering her eyes. The whole web began to shift.

  Chakra took a step back as the symbols unraveled and took new shapes. It didn’t take long before he was staring at a broad landscape. There was a city, fields, farms, and forests. The whole thing was so intricate that for a moment it felt real.

  “Good.” The smallcat sounded impressed as he said it. “Not many figure it out so quickly.”

  “What’s the second riddle?” Chakra focused in on the words he wished he could decipher. Was the smallcat lying to him? Trying to trick him? So far it seemed not, but he needed to keep his wits about him. He had to solve this now.

  “No wasting time, I like it.” The smallcat looked back up at the wall. “This one is what I’m dying to know. I remember the rhyme for it too: ‘Higher than I shall no other be, yet smaller than me can few others see. Stronger than granite I break it in two, yet smallest of rocks by which I am hewn. Long shall you wonder where ever I was, yet love me for ages for cooling your pause.’”

  “Wow,” Chakra said as he stared at the stone.

  “Yeah,” the smallcat responded. “I can’t figure it out.”

  “Is it a mountain?” Chakra asked. He put his hand on a mountain in the landscape before him, but before he could say the word the smallcat interrupted.

  “Lots of people try that.” The smallcat squinted one eye as it stared at the images. “Never works.”

  “Why not try again?” Chakra asked.

  “You only get one guess,” the smallcat said.

  “You could have told me that earlier!” Chakra said.

  “You didn’t ask! Besides, it seems obvious. It isn’t like this is a friendly game.”

  Chakra shook his head and backed away. “Higher yet… smaller?”

  “That was why the one man jumped.” The smallcat looked over at the edge of the cliff. “He thought he would be high up and small somehow. I think he was just crazy. This place makes you crazy though.”

  The smallcat repeated the rhyme for Chakra again, then both stood in silence. Finally the smallcat perked up. “What’s that thing?”

  “What thing?” Chakra asked.

  “The tall pointy thing there, in the middle of those buildings.”

  “The Temple Spire?” Chakra pointed. “It’s the tallest part of a Temple.”

  “It’s pretty high, right?”

  “But smaller than what? Temples are supposed to be huge.”

  “You’ve never seen one?” The smallcat asked. “How’d you know what it was?”

  “I’ve seen pictures, and they talk about Temples at the Sanctum a lot.”

  “Sanctum?”

  Chakra looked down at the smallcat wondering where it had been all its life. Then he remembered, right here. “It’s a small place of worship, like a shrine. Villages like mine can’t afford Temples, so they build their own smaller Sanctums to serve the same purpose.”

  “Your gods are okay with smaller places of worship?”

  “I don’t think they really care,” Chakra said. I don’t have time for this.

  He looked back at the image for a long while. He thought about just touching and naming everything he could see, but the drawing was so intricate. Even if the smallcat was lying and he had more than one guess, he could never name it all. He could see people in the streets, the details of their clothing, dogs running alongside. There were cows in the fields, every type of bird he could imagine in the air. It all seemed so lifelike, the shimmer giving it a sense of motion. He was running out of time.

  “What about those birds?” The smallcat was following Chakra’s fingers on the wall as he thought. “They’re high, and small.”

  “But what bird can break granite in two?” Chakra asked.

  “Dragons?”

  “There aren’t any dragons in the image,” Chakra said. “And I doubt you’d thank them for cooling anything anyways.”

  “The wind,” the smallcat said. “It cools stuff all the time, and you wonder where it is sometimes. Walkers can use wind to break stone. I’ve seen one do it, right here.”

  “But you can’t break the wind with small stones,” Chakra said. A Walker, here? Walkers were Master Expressionists of legendary status. There was a lot more to this armor if powerful men like that were looking for it.

  “Well, I’ll try to memorize all of this so I can think about i
t if you fail.”

  Fail?

  “What happens if I fail?” Chakra asked. He hadn’t even thought to ask before.

  “The path closes,” the smallcat said as a matter of fact. “Either the walls crush you or you jump off the cliff. Nasty business. It’s why you probably shouldn’t just guess.”

  Good oaks. Chakra felt his pulse quicken. I have to figure this out. Now. Good oaks?

  “Oak.” Melina’s favorite, but before he touched the wall, he stopped. “But oak… there are plenty of things smaller around than an oak.”

  “What’s an oak?” The smallcat peered at the image. Apparently it was as foreign as the words had been to Chakra.

  “A tree… one of these big ones over here.” Chakra put his hand on the tree. He almost said the word, but hesitated. “What was the rhyme again?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I haven’t heard it dozens of times,” Chakra snapped.

  “Fine, fine. ‘Higher than I shall no other be, yet smaller than me can few others see. Stronger than granite I break it in two, yet smallest of rocks by which I am hewn. Long shall you wonder where ever I was, yet love me for ages for cooling your pause.’ That’s it.”

  “It’s not an oak…” Chakra said. “It’s an acorn.”

  He began searching the ground beneath the forest.

  “A what?” The smallcat cocked its head to the side.

  “Oaks grow from acorns. They’re small, but they grow into the biggest tree. They can be smashed by the smallest stone, but over years they’ll crush any stone as they grow. And they take so long to grow you wouldn’t thank them for their shade for decades.”

  He found one finally under a tree and put his finger squarely on it. If he was wrong, he would die right here. But if he wasted any more time Melina would die with the woods doctor. He had no choice.

  “Acorn.”

  The glimmering image shone brilliantly, drawing gasps from both Chakra and the smallcat. The image unraveled as the veins swirled in a circle and slowly depressed into the surface of the stone. From the center, as if revealed by draining water, came armor matching the one Chakra wore on his leg. But this one held a gemstone glowing blue.

  “Gods,” the smallcat said under his breath. “I’ve never gotten to see this before.”