The pulsing, living wave came at them out of the west, inclining slightly to the north of the island. For a brief moment Ehomba and Simna thought it might pass them in its inexorable surge eastward. Then it began to turn, to curl in their direction, and they knew it was they that the wave sought, and that it would not rush on past.
Its leading edge was uneven, not the regular, predictable curl of a sea wave but a broken, churning froth. The reason behind the raggedness soon became apparent. It was not a wave at all, but water thrown up from beneath thousands of hooves. The horses were driving the water before them, the flying spume like panicked insects fleeing a fire.
The two men and one cat stood their ground. It was an easy decision to make because they had no other choice. The island on which they had spent the night was the only ground on which to stand, and despite their most vigorous poling, the sturdy but unhydrodynamic flat-bottomed boat would have been hard pressed to outrun a determined turtle, much less a stampeding herd. So they stood and watched, and waited.
Potential for trampling aside, it was a magnificent sight. For Ehomba, who had never before seen a horse, the beauty and grace of the massed animals was a revelation. He had not expected that such a variety of size and color might be found within a single fundamental body type. Simna’s description had been accurate—within its limitations. These horses were much like zebras, but whereas the herdsman knew only three different kinds of zebras, the vast herd thundering toward them exhibited as many varieties as could be conjured from a drawn-out-dream.
Simna was equally impressed, but for different reasons. “I’ve never seen so many kinds. Most of them are unknown to me.”
Ehomba looked over at his friend as they stood side by side on the sodden shore, their sandaled feet sinking slightly into the mushy sand. “I thought you said that you knew this animal.”
“A few breeds and colors, yes, but I’ve never seen anything like this.” He indicated the approaching mob. “I have a feeling no one’s ever seen anything like this—not the barbarians of the Coh Plateau, who practically live on horseback, or the cavalry masters of the Murengo Kings, who account the residents of their gilded stables their most precious possessions. A man with a good rope, experience, and strong tack could take some prizes here.”
“I think you speak of capture and domestication in the wrong place.” Ahlitah had finally risen from his drowsing to consider the approaching herd. “These grazers stink of wildness.”
Simna sniffed. “You see them as just food.”
“No. Not these.” The big cat’s eyes narrowed as he assessed the onrushing torrent of strong legs and long necks. “Ordinarily, in the midst of such a dense gathering I could make a quick and easy kill and settle down to eat, but these grass-eaters smell of panic and desperation. Crazed grazers don’t act normally. They’d be likely to turn on me and trample. Give me sane prey any day.”
“Then they are mad.” Ehomba leaned on his spear and contemplated the massed ranks of animals, which had finally begun to slow as they neared the little island. “I wonder why? They look healthy enough.”
“Look at their eyes,” Ahlitah advised. “They should be set forward, and staring. Too many roll, as if they’re loose in their sockets.” Stretching front and then back, he drew himself up to his full height. “Crazy or not, I don’t think they’ll rush me. No one wants to be the first to die. Stay close, and watch out for their front hooves.”
Splashing through the shallows, the front ranks of the equine regiment approached the island and its three occupants. Round, piercing eyes stared, but not all were focused on the intruders. Just as the litah professed, many spun wildly and uncontrollably, staring at nothing, gazing at everything, enfolding visions that were denied to the tense but curious travelers. Several stallions sniffed of the boat where it had been pulled up on shore and tied by a single small line to a tree. One bite of heavy teeth could sever the cord. Or the weight of massed bodies could trample the craft to splinters, marooning them on the island. If the herd chose to do so, Ehomba knew, nothing could prevent them.
Simna’s thoughts were exploring similar territory. “Whatever they do, don’t try to stop them. They’re obviously on edge and unbalanced enough as it is. We don’t want to do anything to set them off.”
“I do not set anyone off,” the herdsman replied quietly. “It is not in my nature. But with the insane, who knows what may be considered a provocation?”
“Steady,” Ahlitah advised them. “I’ve confronted panicked herds before. It’s important to hold your ground. Flee, and they’ll run you over.”
An uneasy silence settled over the standoff, enveloping visitors and herd alike. Even the waterbirds and insects in the immediate vicinity of the island were subdued. Perspiration glistened on the faces of the two men while the litah fought down the urge to pant. Meanwhile, the horses watched quietly. A few lowered their mouths to sample the water plants near their feet that had not been trampled into the mud. Others shook their heads and necks, tossing manes and sending water flying. Neighbors pawed uncertainly at the shallows.
Straining, Ehomba tried to see over their backs, to ascertain the size of the herd. He could not. Graceful necks and elegant heads stretched as far as he could see in all directions. Certainly there were thousands of them. How many thousands he could not have said. If something startled them, if they all chose to rush forward in a frenzy, he and his friends would go down beneath those pounding hooves as helplessly and fatally as mice.
Simna was whispering names at him. Breeds and types in unanticipated profusion. Palomino and bay, chestnut and grizzle, calico and sorrel, roan and dapple-gray rainbowed alongside pintos and Appaloosas. Massive Percherons and shires shaded diminutive but tough ponies while tarpans snorted at the hindquarters of wild-eyed mustangs, and Thoroughbreds held themselves aloof and proud.
There were breeds so exotic and strange even the well-traveled Simna had not a clue to their origins. Despite their outlandish appearance, under the skin every one of them was all horse. There were unicorns pure of color and mottled, with horns ranging in hue from metallic gold to deep green. Eight-legged sleipnirs jostled for space with black mares whose eyes were absent of pupil. Mesohippuses pushed against anchitheriums as hipparions and hippidons nuzzled one another nervously.
“Surely there are not so many kinds in the country you come from,” Ehomba whispered to his friend.
The swordsman was overwhelmed by the diversity spread out before him. “Etjole, I don’t think there are so many kinds in any country. Or maybe in all countries. I think we are seeing not only all the horses that are, but all that ever were. For some reason they have been trapped here, and gone mad.”
“You know, Simna, I do not think they look deranged so much as they do frustrated.”
“It won’t matter if something spooks them and they bolt in our direction. Their frustration will kill us as surely as any insanity.” He spared a glance for the sky. Except for a few wandering streaks of white, it was cloudless. No danger to the herd from thunder, then.
But the animals, magnificent and alert, would not leave.
“Let’s try something,” the swordsman suggested.
Ehomba indicated his willingness. “You know these animals better than I.”
“I wonder.” Turning, Simna started across the island, careful to make no sudden movements. Along the way, he picked up his sword and pack. Ehomba duplicated his actions while Ahlitah trailed along behind.
The herdsman glanced back. “They are not following.”
“No. Now, let’s see what happens if we turn north.” He proceeded to do so.
The percussive sloshing of water behind them heralded movement on the part of the herd. When the travelers reached the eastern edge of the island and found themselves once more facing the distant, haze-obscured hills, they found that the herd had shifted its position just enough to block their way once again.
Having verified what they had been told, Simna was nodding to himself. “The ape was right. They won’t let anyone pass. We can go east or west, or back, but not across the bog.”
“We have to cross the marshlands.” Ehomba watched the horses watching him. “I have been too long away from home already and we do not know how far it is to this Hamacassar. I do not want to spend months bypassing this place, especially when we are halfway across already.”
Simna grooved the wet sand with his foot. “Maybe you should ask them why they won’t let anyone through.”
The herdsman nodded once. “Yes. Maybe I should.” He started forward.
“Hoy! I didn’t mean that literally, long bruther.”
Swordsman and Ahlitah tensed as the tall southerner strode forward until he was standing ankle deep in the warm water. Among those animals nearest him, one or two glanced sharply in his direction. Most ignored him, or continued to roll their eyes.
“Can he talk to them?” The black litah’s claws dug into the moist, unfeeling earth.
“I don’t see how. Before today he claimed he’d never even seen one.” Simna stared at his friend’s back. “But I’ve learned not to underestimate our cattle-loving companion. He seems simple—until he does something extraordinary.” The swordsman gestured at the pack that rode high on narrow shoulders. “Maybe some village elder made him a potion that lets him talk to other beasts.”
But Ehomba did not reach for his pack. Instead, he stood straight and tall in the shallow water, one hand firmly clutching his spear. Properly wielded, Simna knew that spear could spread panic and terror. Such a reaction would be counterproductive with all of them standing exposed in the path of an unstoppable stampede.
Raising his left hand, palm facing the herd, Ehomba spoke in clear, curious tones in the language of men. “We were told you would not let anyone cross the marshland. We were told that this is because you are deranged. I see wildness before me, and great beauty, but no madness. Only frustration, and its cousin, concealed rage.”
At the piercing tones of the herdsman’s voice several of the horses stirred nervously, and Simna made ready to run even though there was nowhere to run to. But the herd’s composure held. There was, however, no response to Ehomba’s words.
Anyone else would have turned and left, defeated by the massed silence. Not Ehomba. Already he carried too many unanswered questions in his head. It was stuffed full, so much so that he felt he could not abide another addition. So in the face of imminent death, he tried again.
“If you will not let us pass, then at least tell us why. I believe you are not mad. I would like to leave knowing that you are also not stupid.”
Again there was no response. Not of the verbal kind. But a new class of horse stepped forward, shouldering its way between a sturdy Morgan and a deerlike eohippus. Its coat was a gleaming metallic white, its outrageous belly-length mane like thin strips of hammered silver. In the muted sunlight it looked more like the effort of a master lapidary than a living creature, something forged and drawn and pounded out and sculpted. It was alive, though.
“I am an Argentus.” It spoke in the dulcet tones of a cultured soprano. “A breed that is not yet.” Eyes sweet and sorrowful focused on the entranced Simna.
What a mount that would make, the swordsman was thinking, on which to canter into frolicsome Sabad or Vyorala-on-the-Baque! Delighted maidens would spill from their windows like wine. Regretfully, he knew the spectacular courser was not for riding. As the equine itself had proclaimed, it did not yet exist. Somehow he was not surprised. Not so extraordinary, he mused, to find the impossible among the demented. He was moved to comment.
“Horses cannot talk,” he declared conclusively, defying the evidence of his senses.
The directness and acumen of the animal’s stare was disconcerting. Simna was left with the uneasy feeling that not only was this creature intelligent, it was more intelligent than himself.
“These my cousins cannot.” The great wealth of mane flowed like silver wine as the speaker gestured with his perfect head. “But I am from tomorrow, where many animals can. So I must speak for all. You were right, man. Here are representatives of all the horses that are, all that ever were—and all that will be. To a certain point in time, anyway.” Displaying common cause with its diverse kin, it pawed at the water and the mud underfoot with hooves like solid silver. “I know of none that come after me.”
Etjole Ehomba was too focused to be dazzled, too uncomplicated to be awed, either by sight or by confession. “Why will you not let anyone cross the marshland?”
“Because we are angry. Not insane, as other humans who come and affront us claim. Not maddened. We act, just as you see, from frustration.” Again the magnificent head shook, sending waves of silver rippling sinuously. “In our running, which is what we do best, each of us has come to find him- or herself trapped in this place. Whether it is something in the heavy, humid air, or in the lukewarm waters, or something else, I do not know. I know only that, run hard and fast as we might, we cannot break free of the grip of this fey fen. It holds us here, turning us individually or as a herd, whenever we try to run free.
“We are in no danger.” It glanced briefly and unafraid at the watching, unblinking Ahlitah. “There are predators, but we hold together and none no matter how hungry will chance an attack on so great a gathering. There is more than enough to eat, plentiful in variety and nourishment.” It smiled slightly, the one facial cast horses with their expressive lips can effect even better than humans. “And of course, there is plenty of water. But we cannot escape the marshes. Past and present and future, we are all trapped here.
“In our collective anger and frustration, we long ago vowed that for so long as we cannot cross out from this place, none shall cross through. It is a way of expressing our solidarity, our herd-self. Our horseness. You, too, will have to turn around and go back.”
“Be reasonable.” Feeling a little less endangered, a little bolder, Simna waded out into the water to stand beside his friend. “We mean you no harm, and we’re not responsible for your situation here.”
“I would be reasonable,” declared the Argentus earnestly, “but before I can be reasonable I must be horse. Solidarity is the essence of the herd.”
“All of you have at one time or another passed this way, and all of you became trapped here. You say that what you do best is run, yet you cannot run free of this dank, clinging slough.” Ehomba’s chin rested in his free hand. Watching him, Simna was certain he could actually hear the herdsman think. “It must be wearying to have to run always in water. Perhaps if you had a better, firmer surface you could run easier, run faster.” Looking up from his meditation, he locked eyes with the empathetic Argentus. “You might even find a way to run out of this marsh.”
“Unfounded speculation is the progenitor of disappointment,” the horse that not yet was murmured dolefully.
“I agree, but without speculation there is no consequence.”
Simna’s spirits soared as he saw Ehomba silently swing his unprepossessing pack off his shoulders. “Now tell me, Sorcerer-not, what wonder are you intending to pluck from that raggedy bag? A rainbow bridge to span the marshland? A roll of string that will uncoil to become a road?” He looked on eagerly. Feigning disinterest, Ahlitah could not keep himself from similarly glancing over to see what the unassuming herdsman was up to.
“I command nothing like that.” As he searched the pack’s interior, Ehomba gave his hopeful friend a disapproving look. “You expect too much of a few simple villagers.”
“If I do,” Simna responded without taking his eyes off the paradoxical pack, “it’s because I have seen firsthand what the efforts of a few simple villagers have wrought.”
“Then you may be disappointed.” The herdsman finally withdrew his hand from the depths of the pack. “All I have is this.” He held up a tiny, yellow-brown, five-armed starfish no more than a couple of inches across.
Simna’s expression darkened uncertainly. “It looks like a starfish.”
“That is what it is. A memory from the shores of my home. The little sack of pebbles in my pocket I packed myself, but before I left I did not see everything my family and friends packed for me. I came across this many days ago.”
“It’s—a starfish.” Leaning forward, Simna sniffed slightly. “Still smells of tidepool and surge.” He was quite baffled. “Of what use is it except to remind you of the ocean? Are you going to wave it beneath that stallion’s nose in the hopes it will drive him mad for salt water, and he will break free of whatever mysterious bond holds him here and lead the entire herd to the shores of the nearest sea?”
“What a wild notion.” Ehomba contemplated the tiny, slim-limbed echinoderm. Its splayed arms did not cover his palm. “Something like that is quite impossible. I am surprised, Simna. I thought you were a rational person and not one to give consideration to such bizarre fancies.”
“Hoy! Me? Now I’m the one with the bizarre fancies?” Mightily affronted, he stabbed an accusing finger at the inconsequential sand dweller. “Then what do you propose to do with that scrap of insignificant sea life? Give it to the tomorrow horse to eat in hopes it will make him think of the sea?”
“Now you are being truly silly,” Ehomba chided him. “Starfish are not edible.” Whereupon he turned to his left, drew back his arm, and hurled the tiny five-armed invertebrate as far as he could.
A mystified Simna watched it fly, its minuscule arms spinning around the central knot of its hard, dry body. Ahlitah tracked it too, and the Argentus traced its path through the oppressive humidity with an air of superior detachment. The starfish descended in a smooth arc and struck the sluggish water with a tiny plop. It promptly sank out of sight.
Simna stared. Ahlitah stared. The Argentus looked away. And then, it looked back.
Something was happening to the marsh where the starfish had vanished.
A cool boiling began to roil the surface. In the absence of geothermal activity, something else was causing the fen water to bubble and froth. The herd stirred and a flurry of whinnies punctuated the air like a chorus of woodwinds embarking on some mad composer’s allegro equus.
Simna edged closer to the nearest tree. Slight of diameter as it was, it still offered the best protection on the island. “Watch out, bruther. If they break and panic ...”
But there was no stampede. A shriller, sharper neighing rose above the mixed chorale. Responding to the recognizably superior among themselves, the herd looked to the Argentus for direction. It trotted back and forth between the front ranks and the island shore, calming its nervous precursors. Together with the travelers, the massed animals held their ground, and watched, and listened.
The frothing, fermenting water where the starfish had sunk turned cloudy, then dark with mud. The seething subsurface disturbance began to spread, not in widening concentric circles as might have been expected, but in perfectly straight lines. Five of them, shooting outward from an effervescent nexus, each aligning itself with an arm of the no-longer-visible starfish. As the streaks of bubbling mud rushed away from their source, they expanded until each was five, ten, then twenty feet wide. One raced right past the island, passing between the herd and the sand.
As quickly as it had begun, the boiling and bubbling began to recede. It left behind a residue of uplifted muck and marsh bottom. With the recession of activity, this began to congeal and solidify, leaving behind a wide, solid pathway. Five of them, each corresponding to an arm of the starfish. They rose only an inch or two above the surface of the water. Ehomba hoped it would be enough.
“You have been running too long in water.” He indicated the improbable dirt roads. “Try running on that. You might even see a way to run back to where you belong.”
Tentatively, the Argentus stepped up onto the raised causeway. Ehomba held his breath, but the stiffened mud did not collapse beneath the horse’s weight, did not slump and separate back into a slurry of soil and water. Experimentally, the Argentus turned a slow circle. It pawed at the surface with a front hoof. When finally it turned back to face the travelers, Ehomba could see that it was crying silently.
“I did not know horses could cry,” he observed.
“I can talk. Why should I not be able to cry? I don’t know how to thank you. We don’t know how to thank you.”
“Do not give thanks yet,” Ehomba warned it. “You are still here, in the middle of these marshes. First see if the paths let you go free. When you are no longer here, then you can thank me.” The herdsman smiled. “However far away you may be, I will hear you.”
“I believe that you will.” Turning, the Argentus reared back on its hind legs and pawed the air, a sharply whinnying shaft of silver standing on hooves like bullion, mane shining in the hazy sunshine. Thousands of ears pricked forward to listen. Once more the herd began to stir, but it was a different furor than before, the agitation that arises from expectation instead of apprehension.
Hesitantly at first, then with increasing boldness, small groups began to break away from the main body. The paints and the heavy horses led the way down one of the five temporary roads. Trotting soon gave way to an energetic canter, and then to a joyous, exuberant, massed gallop. The thunder of thousands of hooves shook the marsh, making the waterlogged surface of the island tremble with the rumble of the herd’s departure.
Hipparions and eohippuses led the hairier dawn horses off in another direction, choosing a different road, as indeed they must. Their run led them not only out of the imprisoning marshes, but out of the present context. In this world some of them would remain, but in all others they would find themselves running back through time as well as meadow and field.
Eight-legged sleipnirs and narwhal-horned unicorns churned newly made dust from still a third path. Winged horses shadowed their run, gliding low and easy above the path to freedom. All manner and variety of imaginary and imagined siblings filled out this most remarkable gathering of all. There were horses with glowing red eyes and fire breathing from their nostrils, horses with armored skin, and horses the size of hippos. Several of these supported the merhorses, who with their webbed front feet and piscine hind ends could not gallop in company with their cousins.
Two more roads still lay open and unused. Trotting forward, the Argentus came right up to the travelers. The thunder raised by the partitioned herd in its flight to freedom was already beginning to fade. A silvery muzzle nuzzled Ehomba’s face and neck. Even so close, Simna was unable to tell if the animal’s skin was fashioned of flesh or the most finely wrought silver imaginable.
Ehomba put a hand on the horse’s snout and rubbed gently. Zebras responded to a similar touch and the Argentus was no different. Superior it might be, perhaps even more intelligent than the humans, but it reacted with a pleased snuffle and snort nonetheless.
Then it backed off, turned, and climbed up onto one of the two roads not yet taken. With a last flurry of flashing mane and sterling tail, it trotted off down the empty roadway—alone.
Birdsong returned hesitantly to the marsh, then in full avian cry. The hidden mutterings and querulous cheeps of the bog again filled the now still air. From a nearby copse of high reeds a covey of green herons unfolded grandly into the sky. The marshland was returning to normal.
In the distance in several directions, the dust raised by thousands of departing hooves was beginning to settle. The edges of the roads were already starting to crumble, the momentarily consolidated marsh bottom slowly ebbing under the patient infusion of water from beneath and both sides. Shouldering his pack, Ehomba started forward.
“Hurry up. We need to make use of the road while it is still walkable.”
Uncertain in mind but knowing better than to linger when the herdsman said to move, Simna grabbed his own pack and splashed through the shallows after his friend. Ahlitah followed at a leisurely pace.
The swordsman glanced back at the island. “What about the boat?”
Ehomba had crossed the road the Argentus had taken. That path was not for them. It led to the future, and he had business in the present. He splashed energetically through the shallows toward the next road. Simna trailed behind, working to catch up. The litah kept pace effortlessly, save for when it paused to shake water from one submerged foot or the other.
“If we hurry and make time before the road comes apart completely, we will not need the boat,” Ehomba informed his companion. “It means that we may have to run for a while, but we should be able to get out of these lowlands before evening.” As he climbed up onto the second roadbed he glanced back in the direction of the island. “I hope the old ape finds his boat. As soon as people discover that the way through the marshland is no longer blocked by mad horses, they will begin exploring. I have a feeling he will be among the first to do so.” He started northward along the dry, flat surface. “I do not feel bad about not returning it. More important matters draw us onward, and in any case, you overpaid him significantly.”
“I thought you didn’t pay attention to such things.” Simna trotted along fluidly next to his friend, marsh water trailing down his lower legs to drain out between his toes. As they ran, both sides of the road continued to crumble slowly but steadily into the turbid water. Ahlitah would run on ahead, then sit down to lick and dry his feet as the two humans passed him, then rise up and pass them in turn once again. He persevered with this procedure until his feet and lower legs were once more dry enough to pacify his vanity.
“Five roads arose from the five arms of the starfish,” Simna was murmuring aloud. “One for the horses of now, one for the horses of the imagination, one for those that live both in the past and the present, and one for the horses of the future.”
“And this fifth road, not for horses, but for us,” Ehomba finished for him.
The swordsman nodded. “What if you had been carrying only a four-armed starfish?”
Ehomba glanced down at him as he ran. “Then we would be back in that unadorned, slow boat, leaning hard on poles and hoping that the herd left nothing behind that would keep us from traveling in this direction. But this is better.”
“Yes,” agreed Simna, running easily along the center of the disintegrating roadway, “this is better. Tell me something—how does a nonsorcerer raise five roads from the middle of a waterlogged marsh with the aid only of a dried-out starfish?”
“It was not I.” Ehomba shifted his grip on his spear, making sure to carry it parallel to the ground.
“Hoy, I know that. It’s never you.” The swordsman smiled sardonically.
“Meruba gave me the starfish. She knows more about the little bays that dimple our coast than anyone else in the village. Many are the days I have seen her wading farther out than even bold fishermen would dare go. She always seemed to know just where to put her feet. She told me that if ever I found myself lost in water with no place certain to stand, to use the starfish and it would help me.”
Simna saw that the failing roadbed led toward the nearest of the low, rounded hills that comprised the northern reaches of the Jarlemone Marshes. He hoped the solid dirt underfoot would last until they reached it. The rate of erosion seemed to be increasing.
“What magic do you think trapped all those horses here in the first place?” Simna asked him.
“Who can say? It might have been no more than confusion. Confusion is a great constrictor, ensnaring people as well as animals in its grasp. Once let loose, it feeds upon itself, growing stronger with each uncertainty that it accrues to its bloating body. It makes a tough, invisible barrier that once raised is hard to break through.” He shrugged. “Or it might have been a curse, though who could curse creatures so beautiful? Or an act of Nature.”
“Not any Nature I know.” Simna’s sandals pad-padded rhythmically against the crumbling but still supportive surface underfoot.
“There are many Natures, Simna. Most people look at the world and see only one, the one that affects them at that particular moment. But there are many. To see them one has to look deeper. You should spend more time in the country and less in town. Then you would get to see the many Natures.”
“I have enough trouble coping with the one, hoy. And I happen to like towns and cities. They have taverns, and inns, and comradeship, and indoor plumbing, and screens to keep out annoying flying things.” He looked over at his friend, loping along lithe as an antelope beside him. “Not everyone is enamored of a life of standing on one leg in the wilderness acting as servant to a bunch of dumb cattle.”
Ehomba smiled gently. “The Naumkib serve the cattle and the cattle serve us. As do the sheep, and the chickens and pigs. We are happy with the arrangement. It is enough for us.”
“A thousand blessings on you and your simple village and simple people and simple lifestyle. Me, I aspire to something more than that.”
“I hope you find it, Simna. You are a good person, and I hope that you do.”
“Oh, I’ll find it, all right! All I have to do is stick to you like a tick on a dog until we get to the treasure. You really don’t think I believe all this twaddle about devoted cattle-herding and wanting to live always in houses made of rock and whalebone and thatch, do you?”
“I thought once that you might. You have shown me many times how wrong I was to think that.”
“By Ghocuun, that’s right! So don’t think to slough me off like an old shirt with tales of how much you delight in cleaning up daggy sheep or sick cows. You’re a man, just as I am, and you want what all men do.”
“And what would that be, Simna?”
“Wealth and power, of course. The treasure of Damura-sese, if it is to be had. Whatever treasure you seek if the lost city really is nothing more than a legend.”
“Of course. Do not worry, Simna. I will not try to discourage you. You are too perceptive for me.”
“Hoy, that’s for sure.” Confident in his insight, the swordsman kept a stride or two ahead of the tall southerner, just to show that he could do so whenever he wished.
The hills were drawing near, but beneath their feet the roadway was crumbling ever more rapidly as the marsh sought to reclaim that which had been temporarily raised up from its murky depths. From a width of twenty feet and more the causeway had shrunk to a path less than a yard wide. Down this the travelers ran in single file, increasing their pace. Simna led the way, followed by Ehomba, with Ahlitah effortlessly bringing up the rear. From a yard in width the path shrank by a third, and then a half, until it seemed only a matter of time until they found themselves leaping from one last dry mound to the next.
But they never had to wade. Before the last of the road ceased to exist completely they were standing on dry, grassy land that sloped gently upwards. Turning to look back as they caught their breath, they saw the last stretches of starfish road dissipate, dissolving back into the surrounding waters like a bar of chocolate left too long out in the sun. Exhausted from their run, they settled down on the welcoming green grass and sought in their packs for something to eat.
Before them, the Jarlemone Marshes spread out in all directions, flat and reed-choked, bustling with life both above and below the still waters—but empty of horse.
“This would be a fine place to make a home,” Ehomba commented conversationally. “Good grazing for animals, enough of a rise to provide a view yet not subject to landslips, plenty of birds to catch and fish to net.”
Simna was biting into a dried apple. “Wait until the people of Lybondai find out that the crazy horses are gone and they can cross the marshland at will. I give this place six months until it looks just like the city suburbs.”
The herdsman frowned. “An unpretty picture. The grass will be gone with the quiet.”
The swordsman waved the apple at his friend. “Not everyone is like the Naumkib, Etjole. Not everyone finds delight in emptiness and solitude. Most people like to be around other people. When they’re not, they get nervous, and lonely.”
Resting his chin on his crossed arms, the tall southerner leaned forward. “How strange. When I am around large groups of people, I find myself more lonely than ever. But when I am out in the open spaces, with the wind and the trees and the streams and the rocks for company, I am not lonely at all.”
“But you miss your family,” Simna reminded him.
“Yes. I miss my family.” Rising abruptly, he picked up his pack. “And while very pleasant, sitting here is not bringing me any closer to them.”
“Hoy, wait a minute!” Simna scrambled to gather up his own belongings. “I haven’t finished my apple yet!”
A short distance away, the litah snorted softly. He had caught a fish and was using his claws to dismember it delicately. Now he was forced to swallow his catch whole. That was fine for his stomach, but not for his attitude. He would have enjoyed lingering over the tasty prize. But the taller human was on the move again. The cat would be glad when Ehomba finished what he had started. This vow of feline fealty was taking them ever farther from the litah’s beloved veldt.
Still, a promise was a promise. With a sigh, he rose from the edge of the marsh and padded off after the retreating humans, growling resignedly under his breath.