The Horse Dreamer

by Marc Secchia

  She waited until they were away down the corridor, until Yols closed the door of her room behind her and Alex. Then she held her boyfriend and screamed out her frustration and grief, her fears and distress. Her prince told her she had done the right thing. But how could she be sure? How could she know that even as she rested in Equinox and lived on Earth, that Illume had not already betrayed her? Or exacted his revenge? Well, wouldn’t she be dead – in both worlds, not only in Equinox? Did she now have double the life, or was half stuck here on Earth and the other half goodness only knew where, or did the life surge from one body to the other? No, that had to be ridiculous. But how could a soul travel between two physical bodies?

  Zara startled out of her daydreams as Yolanda clasped her hand. Her sister bent, and kissed the poor, chopped-off first knuckle of her left hand. Her tears fell upon the spot, hot and bitter.

  “Hey, Yols, it’s alright.”

  Her sister said, “You know, Zu-Zu, I am jealous of your looks, I’ll freely admit. But I’ve always called you Beauty for another reason.” She tapped Zara’s chest. “That reason beats right in here.”

  Redemption.

  * * * *

  When the Whiz returned, patched like a wounded general, he took her tenderly in his arms and said, “Pixie, I’m so sorry. You were right about the lack of courage. Just give me a few decades to get used to your high-handed style, alright?”

  Answers were not her forte. Zaranna just held him back. “Love you.”

  “Love you more.”

  And then they talked. Hours and hours. A family conference that had Alex’s eyebrows crawling in every possible direction every five minutes. Yols was busy formulating entirely new branches of physics to account for what Zaranna and Nonno described of Equinox, almost beside herself in a welter of creative academic bliss. Silly girl, she thought, thoroughly befuddled with love for her sister. Cold? Detached? And then an ambush worthy of a Dragon.

  How they laughed at her being mistaken for her grandmother! And even more at her calling Illume the Stars a pretty Dragon. Whiz kept chortling about that at odd intervals throughout dinner, on one occasion spraying his pea soup across the table.

  There was one fly in that pea soup. His Most Whizardly Whiz had no idea how to create a portal. Oh, he had theories aplenty. Zaranna had a few of her own. How she had hoped to – what, wave her magical butterflies and create a real, tangible connection between Earth and Equinox?

  When she mentioned this lack, Whiz responded, “That reminds me. You do know why we had Dragons, Elves, Trolls and all that on Earth during the Middle Ages, don’t you?”

  “A portal gone haywire?” guessed Yolanda.

  “Not entirely,” said Gramps. “Due to its distinct lack of magic, Earth was picked as a penal colony for the, shall we say, less savoury Faerie-kind after a war the Pegasi conducted – or botched, I’ve heard suggested – on an unnamed, forgotten planet. A few renegade Dragons slipped through the net as well.”

  “So we’re all convicts on our happy blue planet?”

  “No, we’re foreigners. Practically Wizard royalty. And you, my dear –” he waved his soup-spoon rather dangerously across the table at Zaranna “– you outrank us all. Definitely royalty. You outrank your Pegasus friend Snotnose Four-Hoof the Egomaniac, you outrank Wingéd Goat-Breath the Human Conveyance and you definitely outrank Two Daggers Maketh Not the Woman.”

  Zaranna almost cried with laughter. “Remind me never to get on your wrong side, Grumps.”

  Alex put in, “The name-calling’s bad enough. Is that what he means by calling himself an Offensive Wizard?”

  “Highly offensive,” said the Whiz, with studied dignity.

  Yolanda, who had arranged her plate of crackers into a representation of Equinox, its moons and asteroid belt, said, “Even if you did open a portal, sister dearest, you couldn’t pass through. What if you met yourself coming the other way? Ka-poof. Classic time-travellers’ conundrum.”

  Zaranna gulped.

  “Oh no, the principle of First-Soul Harmonic Convergence takes care of that,” said Whiz, brightly.

  “Phew. I breathe again.”

  “So, Silver Surfer, what exactly is the principle of First-Soul Harmonic Convergence?” asked Yolanda, with a smile that suggested she knew something no-one else at the table knew.

  “Hang on a sec, I’m just busy making it up.”

  “Ugh!” Zara groaned. “I’m finished. Excuse me everyone, but my pillow is calling. Having another part of me amputated today makes a girl rather tired.”

  “Tuck you in?” offered Alex.

  “Turn you into a tartan-patterned dung-beetle?” threatened Whiz.

  “Sheesh, I thought having an assassin for a potential father-in-law was quite enough.”

  “And I’ve Dragon for a mother, apparently,” Zara smiled.

  “And a mad scientist-sister to match the mad-Wizard grandfather. Yeah, I’m getting the family picture. What does a paramedic do on Equinox, anyways?”

  Christi said, “May I remind you, I’m not part of the Inglewood menagerie?”

  Alex pretended to leer at her. “Shall we elope to a place where we can talk medicine in private, my good Doctor?”

  Gramps sprang to his feet, storming, “You most certainly will not!” Cue roars of laughter. “My dear boy, I have it on good authority that the Pixie may indeed have space in her future kingdom for a handsome throw rug or a silverware-polisher.”

  “No, the Royal Curry-Comb Holder,” said Yolanda, with a wicked glint in her eye.

  “Hey!” protested Alex.

  “Not worthy, obviously, to apply said comb to my sister’s peerless mane,” Yols added. “Just to hold it. The honour would definitely make him swoon.”

  “Make her stop, please,” pleaded Alex.

  Zara put in, “Yols, what’s the square root of 871.2149?”

  “29.51634970 … how many decimal places would you like, Beauty?”

  “As many as you have neurons in one square inch of your brain, Brains.”

  They left Brainy Brunette scratching her overworked cranium, patting the table for a napkin on which she could jot down a few sums.

  When Zaranna returned from the bathroom, she found Alex sitting on a huge, yellow and blue checkered floor cushion in the corner nearest the foot of her bed, holding his head in his hands. Wheeling over, she reached out to take his hand, then unexpectedly flipped herself off the wheelchair and square onto his lap. High score!

  “Hey,” he chuckled. “Did I look that bad?”

  “Awful. Alex, I’m sorry. I realise this must be really hard for you. ”

  “Heart on sleeve?” He kissed her very gently but at a length that made Zara’s lips tingle. “Perhaps the problem is that I find your levels of belief so … okay, I was going to say unbelievable. It’s like staring up at a mountain knowing you can never climb that peak. Not your fault at all. I suspect that if I held Equinox in my hands, if it were something tangible I could see and smell, then it would be easy. A large part of me wants to believe this is some elaborate hoax your crazy family has concocted, but then you wake up sans one finger and I just want to go there and kill someone. Then I know it’s real. Because it’s taken your legs and now it’s taking more. And I can’t stop it. I don’t have the power to make it stop.”

  She held him close, listening to his heartbeat.

  “All my life I dreamed of being a healer. I’m not really the adventuring, parleying with Dragons, take turning into a horse in my stride, kind of guy – uh, at least, I presume so.” A soft chuckle accompanied these words. “Equinox needs power. I’m just starting to realise how powerless I am.”

  “Equinox has far too much power,” she countered. “You have wisdom. You see heart-matters.”

  “That’s not going to keep Sanu away from your fingers.”

  “Shh,” she teased, nibbling his fingers. “Confidentially, Sanu fancies you. Seriously. Every time I mention your name she moos at the moons.”

&nbs
p; “Find that witch a boyfriend, quick!”

  “I have one for her. Remember I told you about Bad Boy Kenzo?”

  “I’m Nice Alex. Wrap you up with bandages and kiss you all better. Doesn’t the nice guy ever get the girl?”

  Zaranna raised her eyebrows. “You in bike leathers. That’s bad. Bad for me and my volumes of drool, I mean.”

  “I just keep wanting to call them Ken and Barbie.”

  “Alex! That’s so far from the truth … you should have seen the two of them duelling. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen, not even at the movies. His name is Kenzo Kayatana, Captain of the Black Assassins, and he moves like liquid night. Seriously, he’s in the league of a Bruce Lee. I thought he was something until Sanu carved her initials on his cheek. He’s the enemy. One of them. But I think I might just have to turn him to our side.”

  “Poor guy. Doesn’t stand a chance, in other words.”

  Zaranna punched his arm. “You take that back.”

  “Oh, I will,” he said.

  So he did. At length, both politely and impolitely, and his kisses were so good, they were bad. Very bad indeed.

  Perhaps an hour later, although there was very little looking at watches going on at any point, Whiz knocked politely at the door, and called, “What did the Dragon say to the furnace?”

  “Um, I don’t know, Gramps. What did the Dragon say to the furnace?”

  “I’m just getting warmed up.”

  Zaranna groaned. “I think that’s a subtle hint at bedtime, my best friend.”

  Alex chuckled wryly. “Ah, I’ll never get used to your family. Are all Wizards such incredibly hot babes?” She pushed his arm meaningfully. “Yes, I’m leaving. And the Green-Eyed Monster says, ‘Dream of me.’ Alright?”

  “Deal.”

  Chapter 30: Amorix

  IN Her Dream, Misty Dawn galloped along Noordhoek Beach, her gait silken, her stride entirely healed of that slight but discernible stutter. Zaranna knew that lack for she often experienced twinges in her left elbow, particularly just above the joint where the more complex fracture had healed up. Yet she was not riding Misty Dawn. Alex was her rider, and he wore an unfamiliar tunic top, soft half-boots, and a great, navy blue cape that billowed from his shoulders upon the wind of their passage. She was in her Plains Horse form, running fast and free beside the long-legged sprinter, her hooves kicking up great sprays of white sand and chill water.

  No, not water. Near-translucent ponies splashed and sparkled in the churning surf, and their play was froth and their laughter the chuckling of the waves. Zaranna sensed the nearness of Equinox. The aura of magic.

  Turning her head, Misty Dawn said to her, “You must take me back to Equinox.”

  “You came from Equinox?” she asked.

  “I brought your mother here upon my back,” said the horse. “To me also, taboos mean little. You must allow me to return, Dreamer. I cannot die upon this soil. I will wait for you.”

  “I’ll do my utmost,” said Zaranna.

  And the dream swirled like tattered leaves upon a whirlwind, the butterflies ragged and discordant, and the Dreamer stretched across the cosmos for the umpteenth time. She remembered thinking that Alex was right. These dreams were demanding more and more from her – or was it that she had interrupted the natural ebb and flow of Dreaming, and this act carried its price? Her mind and soul were not infinitely elastic. Stretched too far …

  Draw deep, Dreamer. Focus. The creatures of Amorix must be warned and Jesafion secured.

  The war would not wait upon her work.

  Welcoming the darkness, Zaranna felt herself slip through the wrinkles of the Universe. Odd. Was it smiling at her like a weather-beaten old man?

  * * * *

  To wake was a slow coalescing of consciousness congregating like the fiery, dancing motes of a Dragon’s eye. She stirred. Sanu rose at once from her position of rest and suggested she should drink and eat a little; the girl had foraged for a few handfuls of assorted berries and a piece of honeycomb, although the honey was more purple than golden. Delicious. Zaranna ate hungrily.

  “Illume left with your finger,” said the girl. “I think you knocked the crankiness right out of that Dragon, my … friend? Still friends? I didn’t think you’d do it.”

  Zaranna replied, “Thank you for making a clean cut. For being dauntless. Sanu, you saved my bacon.”

  “What’s bacon?”

  “Never mind. My hide.”

  Quietly, Zaranna shared what the Dragonstone had said and done. Sanu listened attentively, something in the girl’s manner suggesting that she had assumed the whole ring-pain episode had been playacting. A gnat’s level of trust? But that act had also broken through to the Outland girl’s heart. Sanu gave Zara one of her daggers and a makeshift belt for the weapon, woven from the last of their poor travel-pack brought all the way from Sentalia Vale.

  “I wouldn’t know how to use a dagger,” Zaranna protested.

  “Just wave it about and pretend you know what you’re doing. Your scary disposition will frighten off most attackers,” Sanu advised. “Now, the plan. I’ve been scouting and found sign of Darkwolf Clan here in the mountains. The Hooded Beast has numerous female Humans in his forces. We’ll borrow disguises – no, don’t bite your lip like that. Leave the messy details to me. You get down into the Vale and warn your fellow-Horses – flares are passing from afternoon toward evening. Talk Horse to them, rub noses, whatever you do. We meet back here before dark. I know you don’t have great trail-craft. I can teach you more when we find a moment. If trouble finds you, slap them with one of your Storm-Pegasi or something. They’ll lose interest fast.”

  “Good.” Zaranna belted on the dagger. “Where’s the trail?”

  “Past those boulders. Be brave.”

  “I am, now that I don’t have you threatening to trim my spine by a few notches.”

  “Consider the fear an added incentive,” advised Sanu.

  “Love you too.”

  “Earthen Fires, Zaranna. Are you always so brazen with your feelings? Ooh, does this mean I get Alex?”

  “Claws off, you little Gryphon.”

  On that memorable note, they parted ways. Sanu vanished like a puff of smoke and her slightly less graceful friend lengthened her stride down an easy trail leading along the clifftop, gazing about with growing enchantment. Cyantoria was rightly proud of her home. It seemed that a new delight lay around every corner, pretty fern-fringed pools linked by a bewildering array of brooks and streams, chuckling waterfalls and so many species of Miniature Pony Weavers building their clever nests over the waters, she hardly knew where to look first. Her mind said weavers or hummingbirds. Her eyes saw tiny, fast-moving ponies in an artist’s palette of colours, constructing not only teardrop nests, but homesteads and palaces and whole communities linked by cunningly woven bridges and ladders with twig rungs, apparently built for the young and the old and infirm alike.

  Where the path allowed and she gazed afar, it was to sigh over a realm of pretty gorges snaking between cliffs of lavender bronzed by the lowering sun, apparently some kind of quartzite rock laced with veins of chalcedony, antimony, garnet and jade, and above these striking gem-laced cliffs stood strangely smooth and rounded peaks that looked like very large, fuzzy green motorbike helmets piled haphazardly one atop another. The Vale was well protected by its mountains. Above, the asteroid belt arched through a cloudless sky at a noticeably different angle to that which she had noticed from Obscurant Vale. Another part of the planet. Yolanda could probably calculate the distance from Vale to Vale based on this observation alone.

  Despite the springy khaki grass underfoot, the trail was well demarcated, winding between quartz boulders and tracing the banks of streams, so that even barefoot, Zaranna made rapid progress. It was difficult to imagine Worafion’s troops tromping through here; depressing to picture Gryphons flying overhead and wolves storming through the picturesque dells. She found herself trotting, then shortly, running … gallopin
g along with the endurance of a horse, her legs seeming lighter and lighter and her stride stronger and her lungs filled with everlasting breath, laughing so wildly that tears streaked her cheeks, leaping down a set of grassy depressions with the zest of a young mountain goat, racing along the flat, hard-packed sand beside a river with the wind in her heels. Prancing. Hurdling boulders. Suddenly desperate, riding the pounding of her feet – her feet – while reflecting upon the grief of what had been stolen from her in order that Equinox might be. The sacrifice. The experience.

  The trail ducked abruptly beneath a series of waterfalls falling like long, gauzy curtains from an outcropping fifty feet overhead, then Zaranna startled as a River Horse charged past in the opposite direction. A glance over her shoulder showed the filly throwing up a huge spray of water as she skidded to a halt, then she reversed course with the air of a rubber ball bouncing off a wall. Seeing this, Zara almost ran slap into a stand of willow-like trees trailing long tendrils of pink flower-constellations into the river, but her reflex dodge would have done Sanu proud.

  Fast as she was, the River Horse caught up in less than a minute. The filly was small, perhaps twelve hands tall, but her navy blue tail and mane were twice as long as an ordinary horse’s, sweeping into the water at her hooves. Her body was delicate and fey, so light or so magical that she could simply gallop along the river’s surface. And her hide – if hide it was! Wow. As she skated smoothly upon the surface, her hide rippled as if she were the reflection of a tranquil pond, many variegated colours of blue, hinting at the shades and depths within her body.

  Enough! No jealousy permitted.

  The filly neighed, “Who is this Human who runs like an Equine?”

  “Zaranna, the Dreamer.”

  “She’s a Dreamer? She is no creature of Earthen Fires?”

  “No. No nasty Earthen Fires here.”

  The River Horse peered curiously at Zaranna as the Human girl’s legs scissored madly, taking her around a sharp bend and on down the river, which split to take perhaps a dozen distinct, burbling courses around a quarter-mile section of violently crimson, moss-covered boulders.