by Guy Antibes
The roofs of other buildings were generally wide with large overhangs. They had passed villages with the same wide, low roofs with half-timbered walls. He also noticed the stone was carved out of huge blocks. It was uniformly gray, and some houses were built on foundations of a single stone. How could the citizens move single rock so large to the capital? He didn’t know, so he let the thought die in his mind, since he couldn’t think of an answer.
Walls encircled imperial cities, but Tishiko had no walls. Did the Shinkyans have no wars? He was sure they had passed a few smaller cities with walls, but why didn’t the capital have them? It didn’t matter to Demeron, since Amble kept moving around the city to another road that led inside.
“No walls?” Demeron said. He couldn’t keep his curiosity in check.
“Horses aren’t supposed to worry about such things.”
Demeron heard a tinge of disparagement in Amble’s thoughts. “I’m not an ordinary horse,” Demeron said.
“You aren’t, and you’re making me think strangely as well.”
She definitely wasn’t very happy about having to think a bit differently.
“Why are we going into the city from here?”
“You’ve made me think. The place where the magicians learn is closer to this side of the city, so I will enter from here. There are lots of ways into Tishiko. Pick one you’d like.”
Demeron thought. “I only desire to communicate with a human on how best to get to the Empire.”
“For some reason, I hope you find your way.” She shook her mane. “I know I shouldn’t need to care, but I do.”
“I wish you were going with me.” He put his nose to her coat and memorized her smell. Perhaps he would find her again some time.
That made Amble laugh inside. “I would be complaining the entire way. You wouldn’t want me.”
“I’d rather hear complaints than just my own thoughts. Are you sure you want another Shinkyan master?”
Amble looked at Demeron and then gazed back at the outskirts of the city. “You tempt me, but I guess I want a return to the easy life I had with my female Master.” She snorted and galloped away. “Good luck!” she said in Demeron’s mind as she trotted up a lane and into the city, while the sun brushed the tops of the highest towers.
Demeron watched her go. His destiny no longer included Amble, so he walked more slowly. He would have no choice but to use the city’s hard roads. He wouldn’t stay in Tishiko long, because grain and grass didn’t grow inside cities.
Tishiko was pretty empty in the early dawn. Few people walked around, although he could tell that humans were inside getting ready for the day. Demeron had been in cities often enough to know how things worked.
He snorted when Amble disappeared at a twist in the road. His escort had left him, and he found that he missed her. Not as much as he missed Pol, but he had grown used to the mare. That surprised him. Horses weren’t supposed to feel connected in quite the way he had felt connected to Amble. Horses wanted to be together for protection and as members of the herd, but he didn’t feel like a member of a herd with her, and it was a new experience for him.
Demeron didn’t think the feeling was reciprocated, not with Amble so quickly dissolving their traveling partnership. Maybe he had been around humans too much as a quickened horse and enjoyed his friendship with Pol so much that he thought Amble might feel the same, but her actions indicated that she didn’t.
With a sigh in his heart, he trotted along the street, heading for the tallest tower he could find in his search for a human who would tell him how to get to Deftnis.
~
Tishiko’s low buildings and wide overhanging roofs reminded Demeron of a village, but this village seemed to go on forever. Sometimes a warehouse would poke up above the others, or there would rise one of their towers that looked like a stack of houses. The smells were even different from cities in the Empire, but as he walked through the streets, the odors that reached into his brain found familiar olfactory memories.
Demeron didn’t feel like he was home, but Shinkyans had never really looked much different to him than Imperial humans. They did dress differently. They used more buttons in the Empire, he decided.
He stopped by a trough to drink water. It was on a platform, but Demeron could tell the Shinkyans kept the water level lower. He mentally shrugged, and smiled at the image he had of a human doing the same thing. He discovered that he would have liked to share that observation with Amble. He looked around, but didn’t find any scent of her in the growing press of crowds.
An unusually tall tower showed up to his right as he came to an intersection, and he decided to head for that. The way became wider and more crowded. Demeron stood taller than the other horses, but he just inserted himself in the flow towards the tower.
Buildings began to look different. Demeron didn’t know how to think of them other than more intricate and larger. More of them were set behind walls, behind which he could see trees poking up. He had seen similar things in other cities, but the buildings of Tishiko possessed a style all their own.
The road tossed him out into a large square. Statues of humans littered the square among hundreds of trees, with little grassy areas beneath. Demeron looked around and didn’t think it would be a good idea to get a snack here.
He noticed a few Shinkyans staring at him. That wouldn’t do, so he walked to the edge of the square within a stream of humans, horses, and wagons. He spied a hitching rack that had one of those built-up troughs on the other side and slid into an empty place to take a drink.
The other horses babbled on about mundane things. None of them were Shinkyan, but Demeron needed some guidance.
He waiting for an opening “Anyone know how I can find my way to the Empire?”
A golden-haired stallion looked up at Demeron. “Empire? What’s that?”
“It’s where human animals live,” said another.
“To the right of the sun’s path,” a dappled mare stated rather matter-of-factly.
Demeron looked at the shadows. They meant north. He suspected that she meant that if he just headed north, he’d run into the Empire.
The mare eyed Demeron. “Why would your Master want you to go there?”
This one might have some Shinkyan blood, thought Demeron.
“I’m going to find my Master. I lost him close to the border with the Empire.”
“Then why did you come here?” the stallion said.
Demeron wondered if any of these horses would understand his motivation. It was hard enough to get Amble to comprehend his feelings. He wished she were here to help him with these horses.
“There is a certain place in the Empire that I wish to go, and I don’t know the way.”
“Just find another Master. That should be easy enough. You’ll be caught by humans soon, anyway.”
Demeron didn’t know what else to say. “I’ll be on my way,” he said and nodded his head towards the two horses that gave him the most information.
He sensed a new feeling within him that he didn’t like. This was different from fear and different from the resignation that he often detected in other horses. Demeron’s conversation hadn’t given him the information that he sought, since he already knew the Empire was to the north. He needed to know how to get to Deftnis.
He had failed. That was the human word. Horses didn’t usually feel failure, but his friend Pol had felt it often enough when he didn’t get the result that he wanted. Demeron had never really considered the shame of failure, but suddenly he did. He resumed his walking in the flow of human activity. He dropped his head a little lower as he struggled with the emotion.
Perhaps he should have followed the South Salvan army. Pol would be there, and Val and Darrol might be as well, if the South Salvans hadn’t killed them. Demeron sensed a lot of anger for the humans that had taken Pol’s friends away, but after some reflection, he knew he had made the right decision. He would have no power within an army, but that didn’t help h
im feel any more successful.
He watched and listened. His grasp of the Shinkyan language had soared as he moved through the city, and Demeron enjoyed picking up snatches of conversation.
As he walked past another of the big two-story buildings, he saw a familiar face standing on the bottom step. Karo Nagoya, Demeron remembered, tutored a youth in the county of Boxall. The youth went by the name of Nater Grainell, and Pol didn’t like him.
Demeron wasn’t very impressed by Karo Nagoya, admittedly a mediocre Shinkyan magician, but he might be able to help him. He turned back and stopped by the magician, looking directly at him. He watched the magician recognize him. Demeron would have liked to have asked him the way to Deftnis. Nagoya knew where it was since Grainell was to head there after Pol left.
“You are the Shinkyan horse I met at the Grainell manor,” Nagoya said, his face lit up with astonishment. His gaze went to Demeron’s body. “You’ve had a tough time of it, eh? Something must have gone wrong at the Tesna Monastery.”
Demeron nodded his head. This would be a long conversation waiting to respond to the magician’s questions without being able to ask his own.
“Is Pol Cissert in Tishiko?”
That was a good question, easily answered. Demeron quickly responded with a shake of his head.
Karo walked around Demeron and put his hand on wounds from the wolves.
“You’ve been through a lot to get here, but you look like you’re still in good condition.”
Demeron didn’t need to respond to that comment. He would have written ‘Deftnis’ in the dirt, but the street was paved in square stones the size of his hoof.
“Are you hungry? There is a stable in the back of this building. I live here,” Nagoya said. “I am waiting for a colleague to accompany me to a meeting inside. Wait by that hitching post for an hour or so, and I will take you to some food.”
Demeron nodded again and stood as if someone had tied him to the hitching post. He drank out of the Tishiko-style watering trough and waited. At least he had a view of the building, set off from the square by a raised pavement.
Karo nodded to Demeron just after a woman greeted the Shinkyan. They both walked up the steps into the large building and disappeared.
Now that Demeron had spent time in Shinkya’s capital, he knew he had never set foot in this city before. Tishiko had a certain feel and a certain style that Demeron felt as much as saw. He didn’t know if he liked it or not, but now he could tell that Shinkyans were a different people from the Empire.
In time, Karo came back with another woman. She was older and looked more serious somehow, and carried a new bridle.
“He won’t need one,” Karo said, looking at the woman.
She pursed her lips. The woman’s skin looked puckered and worn like weathered leather. She wasn’t tall enough to put the bridle on, anyway.
“Will you come without the bridle?” she said, looking up at Demeron.
He nodded, and then she shrugged. “Suit yourself. If you want some grain come with me.”
Demeron followed the woman after she removed the bit from his mouth, and Karo followed the horse as they walked past the building, down a wide alley, and into a paddock area. Stables lined one side. Demeron counted fifteen stalls. The owners also stored carriages and carts beneath another side of the open structure.
“Inside,” the woman said, as she stopped at an open stall.
He wouldn’t be captured so easily and took a few steps back, shaking his head. He used his hoof to write ’no’ in Shinkyan in the paddock dirt.
She nodded her head and squinted up at Demeron. “You are a smart one. I’ll bring a bucket out.” She looked up at him. Demeron let her stroke his coat. “The Masters would be very upset if you destroyed their stables.” She ducked inside the stall and quickly returned with a leather bucket filled with grain. After rearranging some tack, she put the bucket on an outside table.
That was better. Demeron nudged her shoulder to indicate his thanks and began to eat.
“You’ve met this horse before?” she said to Karo.
“He’s the Shinkyan stallion that the Baccusol emperor never returned. His master is, or was, a strong magician. They are, or were, bonded, stable master.”
“He can even write. Few Shinkyan horses can do as much. The magician must have been very strong.”
“Pol Cissert,” Karo said. “Strong and very smart for sixteen. He can disguise himself, among other things, that only Masters and above can do in Shinkya. He has the look and hair of a Great Ancestor.”
The woman shot a glance at Karo. “Great Ancestor, you say?”
Karo nodded. “If there were any in the Empire who could lay claim to the title Great Ancestor, Pol would be the one. Some of the horse’s intelligence likely rubbed off from the boy.”
She shook her head. “Great Ancestor. The One Who Returns. I don’t believe it. There are those in the Scorpion Society who would want him put away.”
“If he truly is the one, his death would end our culture, so the legends say.”
The stable master snorted. “Tales to scare children. No man will ever lead Shinkya. It’s an impossibility.”
“The horse’s master is gone, so perhaps he has lost his life in South Salvan. Pol Cissert was headed to Tesna Monastery in South Salvan. Something had to have gone wrong to cause the horse to travel on its own to Tishiko.”
“All the way from South Salvan?” The stable master patted Demeron on his rump. “He is a resourceful one.”
A trio of two women and a young man approached them.
“This is the stallion?” the oldest woman asked, looking deeply into Demeron’s eyes.
The stable master backed away a few steps and bowed deeply to the three, holding folded hands over her stomach as she did so. “Elder, Grand Master, Master. He can write. He is the stallion that the Imperials refused to return.”
The oldest of the two women raised her eyebrows and looked at Demeron, who continued to listen and eat. What the stable master and Karo said alarmed him. Demeron knew Pol was special, but he had no idea what a Great Ancestor was or what they meant by One Who Returns.
“My name is Gari. Can you write that?”
Demeron wrote the name in Eastrilian. He didn’t know the pictures for the woman’s name.
The young man scoffed at Demeron’s scratchings in the dirt.
“He’s been trained to drag his hoof when someone asks for a name. It must be a charlatan’s trick.”
Karo bowed as before. “Forgive me, Master, but I beg to differ. The horse has written Elder’s name in the language of the Empire. His master’s name is Pol Cissert. He is sixteen, yet powerful enough to be a Grand Master in Shinkya.”
The old woman turned and nodded. She inspected Demeron’s writing. “Indeed he has.” She looked up at Demeron. “Write something in Shinkyan.”
Demeron wrote the characters for Tishiko.
“See?” The Elder said. “I would have never thought a horse could do such a thing, even one of our wonderful Shinkyans.” She patted Demeron on the neck.
Demeron felt a shiver course through him. He had felt something similar when Valiso and Darrol were captured. He shrugged off the effects of whatever it was. Magic. Pol called it that, and Demeron remembered it as a spell that made him compliant to horse thieves. This was what Pol used to his advantage, and this woman tried to use it to Demeron’s disadvantage.
He jumped up a bit with his forelegs to back up.
“You are mine,” the Elder said, smiling smugly, it seemed to Demeron.
He shook his mane, and that greatly disturbed the woman. She had tried to bond with him! Demeron would not let that happen, but he felt the pressure again. He nodded his head again, and like raindrops, her spell splattered away.
She closed her eyes. Demeron felt compelled to inch closer to her. The Elder reached up and put her hand on his neck. A pulse of something infused him. He fought her in his mind as much as he had used his bulk, hoove
s, and teeth when he fended off the wolves. Another wave of magic assaulted him, and Demeron grabbed what she sent into him just as he had seen men grab the hand of an opponent wielding a weapon. His mind seemed to swell. Demeron felt a taint of something human swirling around in his mind. He thought of a shield. He had heard Pol describe how he had used one before and put it into place.
Her attack immediately ceased and she swayed , knocking the empty leather bucket to the floor when she sought out the table for support. Demeron also felt a loss of strength, as if he had been on a run with Pol on his back.
The youth put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right, Elder?” the youth said.
She grabbed his hand and threw it off. “Do you have any idea what this horse has just done?”
Karo and the younger woman and youth looked blankly at the Elder.
“He has just taken a great deal of my power. I feel…diminished. This horse is now more than a horse. He just put up a shield that successfully blocked my power.”
All four of them looked at Demeron with wonder in their eyes.
“No horse can do such a thing,” Karo said. He looked at the stable master.
She shook her head. “Never have I heard of a horse exercising power over the Pattern.”
Demeron backed up a bit. He took her power? Was that it? Did he just do something magical? His mind felt different and when he thought of a shield, it actually must have worked, since the Grand Master said so.
“We can use him,” the youth said.
The Elder scoffed and peered at Demeron with eyes that made the horse uncomfortable. “More likely, he can use us. This horse is too much of a temptation to work with.” She shivered as if she were a cold human. “I don’t want him here.”
“Then what shall we do with him?” Karo said. He realized he misspoke and bowed, with his hands folded. “Grand Master.”
“I want him,” the youth said. Demeron didn’t like the petulance in the boy’s voice. He couldn’t be much older than Pol, but he didn’t have the essence that Pol possessed.