Opening Acts

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  Elen rode Brychan back to the stables in a blur of wind and sleet and almost-panic. The part of her that was a horse girl knew enough not to run the pony off his feet, so that by the time he reached the barn and the sleet turned to snow, he had cooled down.

  She was calmer now, the kind of calm that lies at the heart of a storm. All the fears and doubts and horrors still swirled around her, but she took care of Brychan as if none of them existed. She rubbed him as dry as she could, covered him with a blanket and fed him a hot mash and left him in peace.

  Her own dinner was waiting. She was not hungry at all. She could not face her mother or the rest of her family or, worst of all, the worldrider. Not tonight.

  She had a plan now. She knew what she had to do. It did not matter if what she did was reasonable or sensible or even sane. She had to do it. That was all.

  She made a show of shutting herself in her room and calling for a tray from the kitchen. When it came, she ate everything on it, no matter how her stomach rebelled.

  Her mind was made up. She would go- but not to Earth. Once she was out of the way, someone else could be chosen to do this great and terrible thing. Someone better; more willing. Someone who really was strong enough.

  Elen would find sanctuary far down the worldroad, with horses and pasture and a stable where she could earn her keep. The worlds were full of such places. Every world had horses or some kind of animal like them, though only Earth had worldrunners. Worldrunners could be born nowhere else; no one who had tried to change that had ever succeeded.

  As for how she would get away from Ymbria without a worldrunner, that was the difficult part; but Elen's head was full of stories. In some of them, especially the oldest ones, a person with a firm will and a clear image in her mind could make the worldroads lead her where she wanted to go. It helped if she had something to focus on, a jewel or a map or a talisman. But she could do it.

  Elen had the will. She could find a map of the worldroads. She knew where there was a talisman, though it was old and worn and had no magic left in it. She even had a destination. It was a world called Hesperia, where the sweetest apples came from, and a cordial that could heal the heart's ills. She had met a girl from there once, a horse girl like her, who had been traveling with her father to trade apples for the sweet spices and the fine horses of Ymbria.

  Irena might have forgotten Elen long ago, but Elen had always remembered the place Irena had described, to which the three geldings and the one bay mare were to go. It was a place of wide rolling meadows and little streams, and grass as rich as any in the worlds.

  Surely they would need a stablehand there, or even a trainer. Or somewhere nearby would welcome such a person. Anywhere that had horses, really, except Earth itself, would do.