The Slip: I Bring the Fire 4.5 (A Short Story)

by C. Gockel

  Doctor Amy doesn’t order him forward. Instead she steps up to him and strokes his nose again. “You’re so big, I know your heart must be magical to support all those extra legs. That’s why we’re not putting you in a magically sealed room. We don’t want you to have a cardiac arrest. But putting your nose into the wastebasket shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Sleipnir shivers. That isn’t what he’s afraid of. He’s not really sure what he’s afraid of.

  He takes a step closer to the wastebasket, and then another. But he doesn’t put his nose in. Bohdi puts the wastebasket down onto the floor. “Go on,” says Bohdi. “Don’t you want to be free?”

  Free. The last time he had seriously considered that ... his mother had been alive. Is he afraid this won’t work, or that it will? He remembers his mother snuffling against his side, whispering, “You deserve to be free Sleipnir, we both do.”

  He’d stomped his small hooves. “But this is our herd, isn’t it mother? Why would we want to leave?”

  He tosses his head. There is no use thinking about this. He swings his head around, eyes the wastebasket, and stomps his hooves again. He’s acting like a silly foal, afraid to leave the barn for the first time. He shouldn’t be afraid, because it won’t work. Stupid humans. He’ll show them how silly they are being. He puts his snout into the wastebasket. It smells like sticky-sweet syrupy things, and rotten meatish-things. Even dumb horses have the sense to fear the smell of rotten meat. His instincts scream at him to lift his head, to rear back, and to flee, but he only snorts. Yuck.

  Bohdi kneels down beside him and moves his hand under his chin. “It’s not coming loose,” he says. Sleipnir snorts again. Of course it’s not.

  Turning to another two-leg, Amy says, “More wire, over here, please.” Sleipnir eyes the unfinished canister of oats, not sure why he doesn’t move, and why he humors them.

  A few moments later, Amy unwinds what looks like a sheet of mesh. “I’m going to put this over your head,” she says. “We need more coverage.” She takes a deep breath. “Hold still.”

  And of course he has to.

  The mesh drops.

  He smells rotten meat. He is in almost darkness. He hears too many people. He screams in fear. Something flashes in the corner of his vision. Sleipnir rears. The humans shout.

  Wire falls from his eyes and slides down his neck. Sleipnir finds himself rearing high on his back four legs uncertain how he got there. He feels light―and adrift―like his mane when it’s caught in a breeze. He stares down between his churning front hooves. Bohdi is splayed out on the floor beneath him. His eyes are wide, and he smells like fear. A knife is in his hands, and a shiny bit of rope sparkles on the floor beside him.

  It takes Sleipnir a moment to realize the shiny rope is Gleipnir. He drops his hooves gently, being careful not to break Bohdi’s legs. With a gasp, Bohdi scampers backwards, on his hands. Sleipnir snuffles at him.

  “What happened?” Dale says.

  Doctor Amy comes over and pats his neck. “Hey, Sleipnir. Are you okay? I think that the Promethean Wire turned off your mind for a moment. It’s gone now, though. How are you feeling?”

  How does he feel? Sleipnir tosses his head. He feels light. The skin where the halter once cut behind his ears feels cool. And a pain beneath his ears and forelock he hadn’t even realized was there is gone.

  Sleipnir turns his head to make sure no one is behind him, and then releases a kick.

  “Whoa! Easy boy,” says Dale.

  There is no burn around his muzzle. Sleipnir kicks again, just to see if he can. He whinnies a laugh, snorts, and prances around the room. The space is small, but he feels like he’s in a wide-open field. He bugles in triumph and glee, throws back his head, and rears again as high as he can. His head connects with something fragile above. He hears the sound of breaking glass and dances backwards, his feet crunching over fallen shards on the ground. Drawing to a stop his eyes go wide in alarm. He lifts his head, nostrils flared. He smells blood. Human blood. He swings his head around, and sees Claire, backed up against a wall, holding her hand; a tiny rivulet of red is falling between her fingers to the floor. She smells like fear …

  Sleipnir’s neck drops, his ears flop, and he stands perfectly still. A leader of horses or two-legs cares for foals. In only a minute of freedom he has managed to hurt Claire. Once Odin had declared him “one of the most powerful weapons in the Nine Realms”, and maybe he is, but he is not fit to lead. He belongs in a herd, with a master.

  “Whoa, guy,” says Dale, walking over and petting his neck. “You just got carried away there. No need to be sad.”

  And isn’t communication and understanding what Sleipnir’s craves? But for some reason, Dale’s reading his emotions irks him. Flattening his ears, Sleipnir grunts and bares his teeth.

  Dale doesn’t move. He snorts back at Sleipnir. “You’re not the first horse to give me attitude.” Continuing to stroke Sleipnir’s neck he says, “You’ll be alright.”

  Amy comes closer. “We need to ask him if he wants to go back to Asgard―or if he wants to go―”

  “Go where?” says Claire, drawing a little closer, holding her injured hand close to her midsection.

  “Free,” says Bohdi.

  “No!” says Claire. “He wants to stay with us.” She still smells like fear, but presses her head to his neck. “Don’t you?” He hears her sniff. And smells salt and sadness. His ears flop again and he nickers softly. She still wants him as part of her herd.

  Dale’s hand stops stroking Sleipnir. “If you let him go, you’ll piss off Odin.”

  There is a click, and a flame flickers to life by Bohdi’s fingers without any source of magic Sleipnir can detect. Though he smells something―gas maybe? Amy sighs and touches the side of Sleipnir’s muzzle. “If you do decide to go free, Sleipnir … don’t worry … I’ll just say that I thought it would be good to put a different halter on you and, you know, I’ll say it was an accident …”

  Lifting his neck, Sleipnir flattens his ears. That is a very bad idea. Odin is not going to believe such a clumsy lie.

  Dale coughs. “And here’s the other thing. He is a big horse. There is a reason most wild horses are small. This guy … he needs a lot of food. Maybe more than he can find on his own.”

  Sleipnir turns his head to Dale. He isn’t lying. His concern is genuine. But Sleipnir thinks of the unicorns. They smelled of the Vanaheim plains, and rich, ripe grains. He wouldn’t have to worry about food as long as he can World Walk. He shakes his head and whinnies a response to Dale. Of course it goes over the head of all the humans in his company.

  “He’s not going to leave!” says Claire. “He doesn’t want to!”

  Does he want to? Every inch of his skin shivers. And then he thinks of Amy and Bohdi letting him free, and what Odin does to anyone who crosses him.

  The voice of Claire’s father booms through the room. “Claire, come with me.”

  Claire turns. “But, Dad … ” she says. Her voice is too high.

  “Come with me, we need to talk,” says her father.

  Bowing her head, Claire walks over to her father. Putting a forelimb around her shoulder, he leads her from the room.

  As soon as she’s gone, Dale says, “So is Loki really this bad boy’s mother?”

  Sleipnir snorts and bares his teeth again. That old lie. How could a two-leg, much less a male who was younger than him by almost a century, be his mother?

  “His name is Sleipnir, not Bad Boy,” says Amy.

  “Well?” says Dale.

  Amy says nothing.

  “Kinky bastard,” laughs Dale.

  “It wasn’t like that,” says Amy. “It was an incarnation of Loki.”

  Sleipnir’s ears prick. An incarnation of Loki? Outside his stable, he’s heard enough Hindu and Buddhist Einherjars discuss reincarnation in their religions to know what that means. He thinks of his mother’s flickering aura and Loki’s flickering aura …

  He looks back at Amy. And she�
�s not lying.

  His eyes go to Bohdi …

  No …

  Bohdi is staring at the ceiling. Sleipnir huffs and Bohdi’s eyes go to him, and his lips purse.

  No … No … No …

  “So, he did turn himself into a horse to have sex with another horse!” says Dale.

  “No!” says Amy. “Did you understand any of what I just said?”

  “Loki had sex with a horse as a horse,” says Dale.

  “Let’s not discuss this in front of Sleipnir,” says Amy. “I’m sure Sleipnir’s very uncomfortable with us discussing his parents’ sex life.”

  Sleipnir lifts his head, ears pricked forward. No. No, he doesn’t find it uncomfortable at all. How did his parents meet? His mother was a very clever horse, and he’s heard even Odin remark how strong and intelligent his father was. How did they find each other? Why didn’t his father stay with them? Was he a puppet horse, too? Sleipnir never got that impression. Were they in love? He’s heard his grooms discuss wild horses and unicorns; they fall in love.

  “See? He’s curious,” says Dale. “He wants to know.” Still laughing, he turns to Sleipnir and says, “Nod your head once and stamp each of your second to rear hooves once if that’s true.”

  Sleipnir nods and stamps.

  Dale’s laughter stops, and he takes a step back, his jaw falling.

  Amy gulps.

  There is a click in Bohdi’s hand and a tiny flame rises from Bohdi’s thumb again. Sleipnir turns his head quickly to the bay-colored male human.

  At that moment, Claire and her father re-enter the room. “Well, did you pose the question to the horse?” says her father.

  “His name is Sleipnir,” sniffles Claire. Her face is awash with salty water.

  “No, we were just discussing Sleipnir’s lineage,” says Dale softly.

  “Not around my daughter,” says Claire’s father. “Amy, Bohdi, talk to...Slippy. Dale, you come with me for a moment.”

  Dale looks at Sleipnir, and says, “Yeah …”

  The two men walk down a hallway and pass through a set of doors. A wide enough hallway and set of doors. “About Sleipnir’s heritage,” Sleipnir hears Director say.

  Amy comes close. “Sleipnir, it’s up to you.”

  Claire sniffles. “My dad says you can’t stay. But I really want you to.”

  “You’re free, if that’s what you want,” says Bohdi softly.

  Want? Freedom? Without Gleipnir he’s already free. Does he want to leave Odin’s herd? He doesn’t know, but there is something he knows he wants.

  Sleipnir concentrates―and all the noises in the building stop. Amy’s hand pauses in midair. Outside the enormous glass windows the horseless carriages and two-wheeled machines come to a halt. Carefully pushing past the humans, Sleipnir steps through time and follows Director and Dale, leaving Amy, Claire and Bohdi frozen in time. Pushing a pair of double doors open with his nose and gently closing them behind him, he finds himself in another, shorter and narrower hallway with a low ceiling. His nostrils go wide; he doesn’t like such small spaces. But he shakes his head and then trots down the hall to where a door is suspended in the motion of shutting.

  Sleipnir slips back into normal time. The door slams shut. From behind the door, he hears Dale say, “So, should I consider converting to Buddhism or Hinduism?”

  In the lobby, shouts of “Where did he go?” rise up. To the humans there, it must look like he’s vanished into thin air.

  Sleipnir presses an ear to the door concealing Claire’s father and Dale. “I don’t know, but you won’t talk about Sleipnir’s lineage around my daughter,” Claire’s father says. “Or around Sleipnir. On the off chance he is sentient, I don’t want him knowing that Odin cornered his mother with an angry stallion.”

  Sleipnir’s ears go back. He senses no lie. Odin’s grooms don’t allow stallions around mares when they are in a bad mood. He’s heard what an angry stallion can do to a cornered mare―an unhinged male has been known to kill a trapped female on occasion. His skin trembles. His nostrils flare. He remembers his mother saying. “We have to be free, we have to be free, Sleipnir.”

  “But why?” Sleipnir had asked. “The master is good to us. And he even says someday I may meet my father!”

  Shivering, she’d shaken her head. “No, trust me. I’ll set the barn ablaze, and then we’ll run.”

  Sleipnir’s legs feel weak. He remembers the blaze. His mother’s scream of pain…

  His neck droops. He remembers his own protests, his own fear, and his hesitation in the inferno. If he hadn’t hesitated …

  Sleipnir almost sinks to the ground. He feels despair for his mother and all the humans his freedom will cost. He thinks of Amy, about to give some weak defense; Dale trying to release Gleipnir just out of decency; Claire crying in the lobby after he hurt her; and Bohdi, flicking his lighter and telling Sleipnir that it was his choice.

  Sleipnir’s ears flop. Bohdi cut Gleipnir. If Sleipnir runs to the plains of Vanaheim, Odin will want to punish Bohdi as much or more than anyone … and Bohdi flickers like flame.

  Over the millennia, Sleipnir has learned to suppress his memories of his mother’s passing, but now they tumble through his mind. He remembers standing in the barn in the inferno set by her. “Now Sleipnir,” she’d said. “Now we must slip.” But he’d hesitated. Eyes rolling in terror he’d stared up at the flames. The terror wasn’t for the blaze, he knew he still had time, he could slip anytime he wanted―but leaving the safety of the herd, giving up any chance to see his father.

  At that moment, the door to the barn had burst wide open, and Odin himself had stepped in. Stamping her feet, his mother had faced the Allfather, bellowing, “Slip, Sleipnir, slip!” But he hadn’t. He was afraid. And then he’d watched as a blazing support beam fell from the ceiling and struck her down.

  Shivering, he stomps his hooves. He hasn’t thought of this in so long. Had Gleipnir held back the memories? Or had he suppressed them himself, because he’d killed her, hadn’t he? The only being in the Nine Realms who’d loved him and spoken to him as an equal. The one member of his true kin herd.

  He tosses his head. He doesn’t deserve freedom, and as sweet as the plains of Vanaheim might be, as lovely as the unicorn mares are, he will not destroy the two-legs who’d tried to deliver freedom to him again. He begins to pace the small hallway. Even though he no longer wears Gleipnir, he feels it bite his nose and behind his ears. The first thing Odin’s men will do is put the magical halter back on. His head droops, and his ears fall. He deserves no less.

  From the room he’d just been eavesdropping on, Dale steps out into the hallway.

  “What’s wrong with him?” says Director, stepping out behind him.

  “He’s sad,” says Dale.

  “What about?” says Director.

  “Sleipnir, did you hear us?” Dale says.

  Sleipnir bobs his head three times and stomps his hooves in the sign Dale had taught him for “Yes.”

  Dale says a word for manure, and then scratching his head, he says, “I think he really might be sentient.”

  Sleipnir stops his pacing. His muzzle droops to the ground. Being finally understood and recognized just before his inevitable return to servitude doesn’t make him feel any better.

  x x x x

  In the lobby of ADUO’s headquarters, Amy holds the cards up for Sleipnir. One has a crude caricature of Odin drawn on it. The other has a flower.

  “Sleipnir, it’s up to you,” she whispers.

  Without hesitation, Sleipnir touches his nose to the picture of Odin.

  Amy’s arms fall. Beside her Beatrice sighs.

  Claire is standing beside Sleipnir, quietly sobbing. Steve’s rubbing her back. Dale steps up to the big animal and puts a hand on his neck.

  Amy looks at the big horse. She’s already tried telling him that Loki was happy to find out Sleipnir was his son. Or her son, as the incarnation in that case had been. She left out that Loki’s joy was in discover
ing he’d kept oaths across lifetimes. He’d promised to take care of Sleipnir’s daddy as Lopt, and then Lopt had died, come back as a mare, and fulfilled that promise.

  Patting Sleipnir’s neck, Dale drawls in his Texas twang. “You know, a lot of us have fathers we’re not proud of. But that isn’t a reflection on us. Steve could tell you stories about my dad …”

  Sleipnir stamps a hoof, waits a beat, and gives a shorter tap on the ground. It’s Morse code for, “No.” Brett and Bryant, the scrappy West Virginians, had come up with the idea to teach him … of course, there wasn’t enough time for him to learn all of the language.

  Someone runs in the door and says, “They’re coming.”

  From behind Amy, Bohdi clears his throat. He steps around and gingerly puts his hand on Sleipnir’s muzzle. “So, I’m kind of weak on the parenting thing. I don’t even know my parents. But I have it on good authority that parents just really want their kids to be happy.”

  Sleipnir pushes his nose against Bohdi and huffs out a long breath of air. “You do what makes you happy, okay, Big Guy?” Bohdi says.

  Sleipnir blows a long breath of air out on Bohdi’s stomach.

  Amy holds up the cards again―just in case.

  Lifting his head, Sleipnir touches his nose to the picture of Odin.

  She thinks she hears a collective sigh from around the room.

  “They’re here!” shouts a man at the door.

  Bohdi pats Sleipnir’s neck again. “I guess next time we meet, we’ll be on different sides. Still, glad I got a chance to know you.”

  Sleipnir’s skin begins to shiver all over.

  x x x x

  And there is the flaw in Sleipnir’s plan to save his two-legged friends. The Master will face off against these humans. He imagines rearing over Bohdi again, this time in battle, flames all around … He shakes his head. No, it is not the same as the fire that killed his mother, he may not even be there when they face off. He stomps his hooves and feels vaguely ill, like he is coming down with a case of colic.

  He looks to the large glass wall. The horseless carriages no longer move down the streets. There are no weaponless two-legged humans about. Across the street stand The Master’s men, the Einherjar. Among them he sees the rider and trainer Sleipnir dislikes with a passion―Riddari, a Vanir who never hesitates to hit him with a crop or kick him with spurs, even though all Sleipnir needs is instruction; Gleipnir compels him to do what his rider says.