Chapter 1
The world dreads and rejoices in my return.
I felt the rocks and grass trembling beneath my hooves, revering my presence, cowering before my might. I felt their awe and fear, and their love that matched my own. The wind danced a merry jig about my mane, swirling around me giddily, truly glad that I again walked and breathed the air. I felt the sun bearing down warmly, embracing me.
They remember me as the Spirit of Fate, Harbinger, those many names of many years ago. Yet they also knew my names of the gentle times. The Wanderer, Three Spirits. Prancing Thunder. Yes, my cherished names of old.
My eyes bore across the lake and dark forest. Sunoar stood glowing quietly beside me, upon the rocky, lush crags of the base of Alark Mountain. The sun cast an early dusk from behind the mighty stone. The maw of the cavern at our backs echoed when the wind breathed by us, whispering of my long awaited return from the darkness. Even the water flowing through the lake gurgled and frothed with greater feeling.
“Is the herd aware of my return?” I asked Sunoar, listening to the mosaic of sound orchestrated by the wind and water. I’ve not seen them, or, they’ve not seen me, in millennia…Would they yet welcome me among them? Ah, but the hearts of the endless are truer than the hearts of the fleeting. They will yet remember me.
“Aye, they know. They have expressed their joy as to your return…and their grief as to the circumstances.”
I nodded my head, stepping forward among the bulrushes and shoal, and lowered my muzzle to drink. The cool, pure water, testament to the people who thrived in these lands, soothed my parched throat.
I flicked an ear back at Sunoar as I heard the rocks shifting beneath his weight, but before I could raise my head, he body-slammed me. Sunoar was a big cat. I flew into the water.
Silence and shadows wrapped themselves about me as I submerged. I broke the surface after a moment of confusion and thrashing, and I heard him whoop loudly. I had a moment to pin my ears and avert my head as he threw himself into the lake beside me.
“You crazy lion,” I spluttered, having difficulty riding the wave of his impact.
He grinned languidly at me. “I’ve been waiting centuries to do that again.”
“Again?” I propelled myself to the shoal and scrambled onto dry ground, shaking myself dry. “I don’t recall you ever being quite that insane.”
“Again as in general mayhem and tom-foolery,” he said, chuckling. He paddled towards me and bounded onto the rocks, a mass of dripping golden fur, then shook vigorously as I had done.
“Thanks a ton,” I growled, though grinning, as he finished spraying me. I shook each of my legs, flinging water from my thick black feathers at him.
He sprung around me, swiping playfully at my sweeping tail. I promptly swatted him with it. We romped alongside the gurgling water, chasing and frolicking among the tall reeds. I leaped gaily over him, landing with a resounding clatter on the rock, and took off, bounding forward on the mountain path.
The cool air filled my lungs as I stretched out, galloping on the winding road towards the budding pines of the forest. The sunlight cast a dark crimson and golden glow against the bark, illuminating the pine-littered forest floor where the beams struck between the trees.
I arched my neck and half reared in mid-step, exulting in the freedom and power of my movement. My hooves pounded against the hardened ground like steel pistons. I turned and dashed with precision and years of grace, soaring over patches of heather as I leapt.
The path circled the lake, and opened into the pines. I raced forward into the shade, Sunoar on my heels, jumping wildly over the exposed roots of the ancient trees. Some were as tall as I, and many formed knotted ropes that lay coiled about the forest floor in the needles. Sunoar and I danced through them at a reckless pace, laughing and playing.
Soon our speed lessened and we moved smoothly among the trees, weaving through roots and trunks. The sun’s last rays faded behind the mountain, casting the duskiest hour upon us. The river flowed nearby us from the mountain lake. To follow it steadily would lead us to the Herd. But was I to see them now, or later? Who had asked for my summoning?
“To where are we going?” I asked Sunoar, as we neither veered towards the river nor strayed away.
“The mountain pass at the peninsula connection has been cut off by humans,” Sunoar rumbled in reply. “We go to Hepheatus, who awaits us Northward. We will have to fly around the mountains.”
The river began to slope away from us southward, and we continued east through the forest.
“Why is she not within her desert mountain?” I asked. Where she is safest.
“The Dragon Stronghold has been under assault for many years, Hepheatus traveled closer in order to communicate clearly between the dragons and the Herd. She resides in the caverns in the hills nearby a human town. Mining caves, I believe, that they deserted long ago.”
“Not terribly similar to her fire mountain,” I muttered. That had to be uncomfortable for the mare of fire. Damp, dark caverns. “And quite dangerous for flames to be in those caverns.”
“She learned that already. Was quite amusing, actually. She did it again on purpose just to see how it worked.”
I shook my head. Aiya. That silly mare. Always questing for knowledge.
We ran in silence while night fell around us, until deep into the night I finally heard the crashing of waves on the shoreline. The pines trees gradually dispersed as the ground became softer and the soil drier, and the only vegetation were scraggly bushes and coarse yellow grass. We could see the dark black expanse of the sea. Soon our feet sank into sand and we came to a halt.
I threw my mane and snorted at the scent of the ocean, prancing to the side. Sunoar glanced at me. “See you on the shore?”
I nodded my head and cantered down to the water, high-stepping in the deep sand. The tide was in, and I soon stepped into the coldness of the sea. I paused a moment. I could fly over the water, or… The dark waters bade me remember their cool embrace. I flung my mane again and trotted back onto shore a ways. Sunoar glanced at me quizzically. I arched my neck and reared, and whinnied.
The flash of white light surrounded me, sharply and completely illuminating the sea and sand, and blinding my eyes. When it faded I felt that the familiar itch near my upper spine and forehead had disappeared. I rustled the two eagle-like wings sprouted from behind my shoulder blades, spreading them out experimentally. I touched my lancing silver horn to the sand between my hooves, remembering its lightness and length.
With a nicker, I galloped back towards the water, mane and tail streaming in the ocean wind. I barreled to the water’s edge, and snapped my wings open as my hooves touched the sea. Thrusting myself up into open space, I flapped my wings once, twice, mightily, soaring a moment above the waters. Then I clasped my wings to my sides and dove down, enveloped in the white light once more.
I rushed into the water, but it no longer felt so cold to me. I flexed the expanse of my body, rolling a moment as I relearned the controls. I clicked, and the sound reverberated against the ocean floor. I swept my tail and powered up, breaking the surface in a mighty leap.
Sunoar laughed at me from the shore, then faded.
I laughed with the voice of a striped dolphin before I submerged again. Yes, it was good to be awake.
I opened the map of the sea floor with my sonar, swimming easily in the muddled darkness. Tendrils of seaweed touched my sides as I glided past, and eventually the floor sloped farther down until even my clicks would not penetrate its shadows. I swam a few meters beneath the ocean’s surface, leaping over waves when I had to refill my lungs.
The moon crested the sea very quickly, and began its voyage into the starry sky. I kept an eye on its position to ascertain the remaining time until I should reach the shore of the continent. The expanse of the Alark Mountain range measured the length from the peninsula to the southern shore of the mainland, but that was the land-bound trek. The sea route would be far swifter, and at this time far less perilous. If the humans dare set foot in the Valley… My anger rolled and it seemed the ocean recoiled in answer. Oh yes. The humans would pay for that transgression.
By the time the moon was halfway between sea and sky-zenith, my sonar reverberated faintly off a large mass before me. The mainland, once it had been our home too. But that had been ages ago, before humans had dared to sail the seas. Conquerors they claimed to be. Defeated disgraces they were proven to be.
But they have grown. In my timeless slumber, dreams that were not dreams but shadows of the world above me had shown their greatness in numbers. My people were few. Humans, like a swarm of red ants, if single-minded in their purpose, they could overwhelm us all. Unless, perhaps, the queen is slain. Even then…I knew it had been our folly not to deal the most devastating of blows, all that time ago. Our mercy might become our undoing.
The moon revealed the rocky shore in bright contrasts of silver and black as I drew close to it. The trees crowded among the rocks, throwing their dark shadows onto the pale stones. They were scraggly, stubborn trees, worn by salt, water and wind, but they were hardy.
I slowed my approach to the shore, allowing the waves to push me towards the rocks. I melded into my human form as I was hefted up and forward, and grabbed onto a boulder, pulling myself from the clutches of the white froth. I got up and leapt through the rocks, careful of slippery patches, and stepped down into the shadows beneath the ocean trees.
As I stood wringing my cloak and draping sleeves dry, Sunoar faded back into view beside me. His sudden light made the trees stand out starkly bleached but for their mildly verdant buds, and the shadows fled, leaving the world almost without shape or form.
“We will meet Hepheatus just before morning at your swiftest,” he told me. “I would caution against revealing yourself in any form to the humans there. While not as superstitious as the humans that dwell above the mountain pass, their fear and hatred oft run deep.”
I nodded my head in acceptance to this statement, unsurprised. Not much had changed since I went to slumber, as far as that relationship was concerned.
Sunoar went on. “It may please you to know, however, that in those same mountain pass towns, their superstitious ceremonies have become benign towards the things they once hated.”
I glanced at him. “That is an unusual change. Anything that might have sparked it?”
He smiled slightly. “Their common legend is that a young girl ventured into the forest to find her father and brother, whom had gone to hunt and not returned from days before. She came across one of the Herd, whom unbeknownst to her, her foolish brother had shot, thinking her a dark stag. This mare could not heal the wound, for the arrow festered in her flesh. She would have turned upon and slain the girl, but the girl knelt to her, and whispered to her, and sang a soothing song. The mare allowed her to approach, and the girl quickly yanked the arrow from her side. The mare panicked at the pain, and knocked the girl down in her frenzy. When she realized what had happened, she returned to the girl, only to find she had crushed her frail bones. As the girl lay dying, the mare knelt and touched her horn to her broken chest, and made her whole again. In her shame, she offered a service to the child, to aid her as she had done for her. The girl accepted, asking that her father and brother be returned home. And so the mare led the child to her father and brother, and when they found them, it was a terrible thing for the child to behold. A vengeful spirit of the forest, having seen the fell arrow fly from her brother’s bow, hounded the witless boy and his father, driving them into the deepest part of the forest. He had laid open the boy, who bled fatally even as his father bound his wounds and pled with the wrathful spirit. The mare appeared before them all, with the girl at her side, and bade the spirit to be at peace. As the boy who had nearly slain her looked upon her through dying eyes, he realized his folly, and she forgave him his treacherous deed. She laid her horn upon his grievous wounds, and he healed. And she led the girl, her brother and their father back through the forest to their home.”
“And if it pleases you to know, that same mare is none other than our Flame.”
A delighted smiled spread across my lips. “I knew she would make me proud,” I answered. “I shall be glad to see her again when we return to the Herd.” And it also pleased me to know my people, at least in the hearts of some humans, were not hated.
“Onward then.” I arched my neck and blew through my nostrils, and the white light transformed me into the golden red mare with black marks, and the wings and horns of a mythical. I bounded forward through the trees, gaining a swiftness that no mortal could match while Sunoar loped beside me.
The hardy salt trees gave way to a woodland of pale ash and birch trees, where tough patches of grass poked through the piles of decomposed leaves spread upon the ground. The moon began to descend before ever reaching its zenith, casting our shadows in front of us. When the moon touched the horizon behind us, the sun rose to our left, and the woodland dispersed into a wide, golden grassland.
Before us in the open, among the gentle hills, we saw the chimney smoke of the humans. Sunoar abruptly veered eastward, leading me down into the basins of the hills, and we followed our route in the shadows. I smelled the air of the old mines before we saw the entrance.
After a quick glance around, Sunoar and I trotted from the cover of the hills and into the darkness of the cavern. The mingled scent of ore and faint gasses hit me, and I melded into my human form to reduce my ability to smell it. Sunoar padded in front of me, leading me into an increasingly complex tunnel system, and lighting the way with his own glow. We passed a few collapsed areas, and most of the beams and supports had broken over the years. The grooves beneath my feet told of rails that had once been laid, but I presumed Hepheatus had removed them herself.
At a certain point, the tunnels ceased to look like a mine, and began to look more like something “else” had crafted them. The walls became smoother, and darker as though scorched. They shone in a polished veneer of strange colors, black and dark greens, traces of crimson and pale orange, where the minerals in the stone had melted together like in a furnace. The flames of the Mare of Fire were powerful enough to cleave the very land in two. Undoubtedly she had worked her art in this new home of hers.
The passageway we traveled broadened considerably, and rather than cut straight through the ground it curved, thinned and widened at other points, much like a river would. The sheets of color on the walls grew more elaborate and deliberate, and soon tableaus unfolded to either side of us. Even the ceiling took on the colors of sunsets, nights and dawns. The path on which we trod remained a shining black, with delicately fine traces of bright orange running like veins through it. Sunoar’s bright golden glow shone steadily across it all as we walked.
Abruptly, a flickering light appeared from behind the next bend.
“Hey-o Fire Nose!” Sunoar called, breaking into a jog. I sprinted after him, chuckling.
Hepheatus stood, waiting for us, in a large chamber. She was a tall horse, at least taller than any normal horse, and she was wreathed in fire. Or to be precise, she is fire. While Sunoar had weight and mass, Hepheatus had no substantial form. One had been born of a deep magic, and one had been born of wild and deep magic. Wild magic was whimsical and it created without purpose. Coupled with deep magic, it could affect the Universe in so many untold and fantastic ways. Hepheatus was a result of such magic. She was also the only one of her kind.
I smiled warmly at my old friend as she flicked her flaming tail at Sunoar, who was bounding around her like a giant kitten. She looked to me and inclined her head. “Welcome back,” she murmured. Her voice was similar to a flickering flame on a candle.
“Thank you.” I stepped forward and circled my arms about her graceful neck. Her heat dimmed so as not to sear me. While she had no substance, the energy she emanated created a force, a kind of push, from her core and outwards. It gave the semblance of substance.
I pulled away and grabbed at Sunoar’s tufted tail as he barreled past, grinning. He slid to a halt and mock-glared at me, then pounced. We rolled to the floor laughing. Hepheatus allowed herself a rare smile, then nudged Sunoar off me with a mere brush of her muzzle. He reclined on his back luxuriously, still chortling. I got to my feet and took a first real look around the chamber. The circular room contained only one tableau, but it told of many things.
The first part depicted the world as it was when it was new. All was fire and liquid flame, volcanoes gushed, smoke and toxins filled the air, and the world was barren of life – save for one stray burst of wild, deep magic. It had touched the fire of the world. And to the fire it gave a life.
The second told of when the sun came into being and the world birthed first life, on the shores by water. Fire studied this new development, learning, always learning.
The third described a meeting. Fire met the Sun. Sun was strange and impossible to comprehend, but Fire was glad. Fire was not the only one with thoughts.
The fourth showed the world filled with life, and then filled with thought. Fire learned it was destructive. Fire fled to a remote land surrounded on two sides by sea, and one side by a sheer drop. Fire broke a plate of the world beneath the crust, raising the land into a high plateau and forming its volcanic mountain at its center. Fire cleft away the slopes of the plateau, creating an impassible canyon. There it stayed, with only Sun for company.
The fifth explained how one day Fire was found by those with thought. Winged and horned horses, at their lead, a golden red mare with black marks. The golden red mare taught her things. Fire learned it was not only a destroyer. Fire could protect and even nurture life.
The sixth. Fire ventured outside its mountain fortress. It forged a path alongside the canyon walls so that more visitors might come. Fire traveled far and wide, and it learned again. Fire shared its knowledge, and it was glad.
I smiled, my heart lightening as I beheld her telling of the tale. I too was glad I had gone to that plateau where only the winged could endeavor to go. Hepheatus chooses to appear as a horse because it was we who first came to her. The thought warmed me.
“I will show you the state of the world when you are ready,” Hepheatus said to me. “If you need drink, there is a water source in the caverns. Also, if you smell gases, do not be alarmed. I sealed off the contaminated tunnels, though the scent lingers.”
“What about food?” Sunoar rumbled. “She does need sustenance as well as water.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told Hepheatus, winking. “If my stomach starts to growl I’ll just eat Sunoar.”
The Sun Lion feigned a look of dignified hurt. “Well if that is how you feel, I might as well just leave.” He sniffed daintily.
“Please do, I have been trying to be rid of you for years,” Hepheatus said, then glanced sideways at him.
He rumbled in laughter and pounced at her playfully. “Nay, you shall never be rid of me!” he declared.
I chuckled as I watched the fiery mare dance around the Sun Lion, nipping at his ears and tail while he attempted to spring upon her. It made for an interesting light display on the walls as well, casting flickering firelight and rays of brightness all over. Ah, the fire of the world and the fire of the sky. If at first glance it seemed they clashed with one another, one would soon see they loved each other. A smile tugged upwards at the corners of my mouth. I had missed them dearly.
“I am ready now, to witness the state of the world,” I cut in, rather regretfully as they ceased their jovialty.
Hepheatus nodded, melting seamlessly back into her emotionless mask. “Follow me,” she said.
