Grass

  "No," Sylvan agreed abstractedly. "No. But then, one really isn't afraid while on the Hunt, either." He stared around himself, as though seeking landmarks. "There." He pointed ahead of them, a little to the right. "That's the Ocean Garden. Normally we'd ride on the other side, but we can get where we're going around this way." He gestured, showing Marjorie the way, and she rode ahead, letting him call directions to her as they went.

  "Why was your father in a rage?" Tony asked. "Because of your father. When they returned last night, from the Hunt, Roderigo demanded that they help him search for your sister. It isn't done. When someone vanishes, everyone pretends not to notice. No one searches. No one demands help from others. Father – my father – couldn't keep his temper. He's been wild, ever since yesterday. Seeing you set him off, and then when your mother accused him … " Sylvan's eyes opened widely, and he stroked his throat. "How can I … ?"

  "No Hippae around," murmured Brother Mainoa. "Not just now. I think our … well, our guides have frightened them off. Or perhaps they have gone for reinforcements."

  "Guides?"

  "Do not speak of it. Perhaps we will, in time, but now is not the time. We do not want to think cheese with hunger all around us."

  Sylvan went back to massaging his throat and staring incredulously about himself .Only after they had gone some miles through the grasses did he settle down, though he still managed to disconcert Marjorie from time to time by standing upright on Irish Lass's back. "I have to get up here to see," he explained, waving toward a distance the others could not perceive. "There, off there, is the ridge that leads to the copse."

  They turned in the indicated direction and moved on, gaining a lower limb of the ridge and following it as it wound its lengthy way onto the height. From there they could look down into a valley dotted with copses. Sylvan pointed to the largest of them "Darenfeld's," he said.

  "Why Darenfeld?" asked Rillibee/Lourai. "There are no bons by that name."

  "There were," Sylvan replied. "There were eleven families originally. The Darenfeld estancia and all the family perished in a grass fire several generations ago. Others had been burned out before."

  "A grass fire?" Marjorie wondered. "We've seen no fires since we've been here."

  "You haven't been here in summer." He gazed out toward the horizon. "There is almost no rain in the summer, but there is lightning. The fires come like great waves, eating the grass, sending smoke boiling up into the clouds. Sometimes there are fires in the spring, but they are small ones because the grass is still fresh and full of moisture – "

  "And a summer fire burned the Darenfeld estancia?"

  "It was before they had grass gardens," Brother Mainoa remarked. "We at the Friary have designed the gardens to stop the flames. There are areas and aisles of low turfs which smolder but do not burn. They break the fire so that it goes around rather than through. We have done the same thing at the Friary, to protect it, and at Opal Hill and the other estancias. The great gardens of Klive were not planted merely for their beauty."

  "True." Sylvan nodded. "None of the bons would have gone to the trouble merely for beauty."

  Marjorie urged Don Quixote toward the copse below them. It loomed dark and mysterious among the soft-hued grasses, the more so the closer they came. Small pools sucked at the horses' feet. Great trunks went up into gloomy shade, gnarled roots kneed up to brace their monstrous bulk, their lower branches as huge as ordinary trees. Rillibee leaned toward the copse as though toward a lover.

  "Now what?" asked Tony. "The hunt came here and left here. We should find a path trampled into the grasses where many Hippae went. Then we should find another, where one Hippae went."

  "If it went," said Brother Mainoa. "Though this is called a copse, it is in fact a small forest. What would you say, Sylvan? Half a mile or more through?"

  Sylvan shook his head. "Estimating distances is not something we do much of, I'm afraid. On the Hunt, it doesn't matter. We measure Hunts in hours, not in miles or kilometers or stadia, as they do on Repentance."

  "From the ridge it looked to be half a mile," Father James agreed. "Enough territory in here to hide any number of Hippae."

  "If we do not find a trail leading out," said Marjorie wildly, "then we will search within, among the trees." She appealed to each of them in turn, seeking agreement. Brother Mainoa sat very still upon his horse. His expression was alert, as though he heard something she could not hear. "Brother Mainoa?" she asked. "Brother?"

  His eyebrows went up, and he smiled at her. "Of course. Of course. Let us first look for a trail."

  The way the Hunt had come was easy to find. The way the Hunt had gone was equally easy. Crushed grasses testified to the fact that more than one Hunt had come this way recently. Some stems were completely dried, others were newly broken and still leaking moisture. Brother Mainoa rode down this broad trail and then pulled Blue Star to a halt as he pointed off to the left. All of them could see the narrow trail which wound into the grass. Father James picked a stem of broken grass and handed it to Marjorie. It was still moist. "So," she said. "So."

  "If a Hippae has her," Tony said in a carefully emotionless voice, "how are we to get her?"

  "Hide," she said. "Wait until it leaves her alone. Steal her back."

  "I wish we had weapons," Father James said.

  "So do I," she admitted. "But we don't."

  He shook his head, only slightly. "Let us hope we find only one of the beasts opposing us."

  Rigo boiled the morning away, waiting while Sebastian reassembled the aircar, a longer process than had been anticipated. The new parts, though appropriately numbered, were not a precise fit. Sebastian took them to his own shop in the village, as he put it, "to shave them down a bit."

  By midafternoon the first car had been put together and tested. Driven by Sebastian, with Persun Pollut along for whatever assistance he might offer, Rigo set out for Klive. The trip took slightly more than an hour, across the southern tip of the swamp forest with the clutter of Commons off to their left. They landed in the gravel court beyond the first surface and crossed that surface on their way to the terrace of Klive.

  "Your Excellency," a little voice cried from behind the balustrade. "Your Excellency!"

  Rigo turned, surprised to see one of the bon Damfels daughters beckoning to him. He moved toward her, impatiently, wanting to go on into Klive to see whether Marjorie was there.

  "They've gone," the girl said. "Roderigo Yrarier, your wife and son and the Green Brothers, they've gone."

  "Gone where?" he blurted. "Where?"

  She shook her head, tears suddenly starting down her cheeks. "You mustn't go up there. Father, the Obermun, is in a rage. He will kill you. He has half killed Emmy already. Your wife came to ask where your daughter had been lost. Sylvan told her. He found out from Shevlok, and he told your wife. Sylvan went with them. Father had been screaming since then. Emmy tried to calm him and he beat her – "

  A bellow from the house above them sent the girl fleeing along the side of the house. Rigo stopped, put one foot on the step before him, and felt himself pulled firmly away. Sebastian had one arm and Persun the other, and they seemed determined to drag him away from Klive, by brute force if necessary.

  "Don't go up there, sir. He will not listen to reason. Listen to him. He sounds like a bull!"

  "Listen to Pollut, sir. He will not give you any help, not now. You must wait. Wait until he is calmer. Wait until you can speak with someone else."

  "At the Hunt," Sebastian suggested. "Tomorrow. At the bon Laupmon Hunt." They dragged Rigo away, he resisting them but not protesting, as though some part of him realized the sense of what they said even though his body was unwilling to agree.

  The horses followed the trail in single file, their riders at first alert for any sound, then gradually, as mile succeeded mile, growing slack and distracted. Mainoa and Lourai were preoccupied with pain, aching joints and throbbing buttocks. Marjorie was thinking of Rigo, and Sylvan of Marjorie. Father Jam
es was praying that he had not done the wrong thing, and Tony was thinking of a girl he had not seen for a very long time. The slap of the grass blades on their bodies had become hypnotic. Even Marjorie, usually alert to the nuances of horse behavior, did not notice that the horses were acting very much as Don Quixote had acted when she had ridden him away from the Hippae cavern. Ears alertly forward, they moved as though they were headed home. As though someone spoke to them. The riders did not comment upon this. With the sun on their backs, they rode, unspeaking, the only noise the sound of the horses' hooves.

  The world spun the sun to the center of the sky and then downward once more. The light was on their faces. They had stopped once or twice to drink and relieve themselves, but the trail winding enigmatically ahead of them had enticed them to keep the stops brief. The first howl came from behind them, far off to the right.

  Marjorie stiffened. She had heard the sound before, and it meant terror.

  "Hippae," said Sylvan in a hopeless voice. "Do they know we are here?"

  "Not yet," said Brother Mainoa.

  "How do you know?" Marjorie demanded.

  "You came to me for help, Lady Westriding, and I'm giving you help. How or why isn't something we can talk of yet. I tell you truthfully that the Hippae do not yet know we are here. They will know, shortly, but not yet. I would suggest we move more rapidly."

  Tony sat up, kneeing El Dia Octavo into a canter. He rattled away down the narrow trail, the others following. Brothers Mainoa and Lourai were hanging onto their saddles, grunting with effort. "Push down with your feet," Marjorie cried. "Sit straight. It's no more difficult than a rocking chair."

  Brother Mainoa pushed down with his feet and continued to hang on. After a time the rocking motion became predictable and his body adapted to it. Rillibee/Lourai was quicker. He found the motion exhilarating. Grass heads slapped him in the face and he grinned widely, seeds in his teeth.

  More howls from behind them, to both right and left.

  "Do you know where we're going?" Marjorie demanded over her shoulder.

  "Swamp forest," Mainoa said, grunting, "just ahead."

  He had no sooner said it than they came through the last of the tall grasses to see the forest at a considerable distance ahead and below them, stretching to the limits of sight in either direction. The trail they had been following ran toward the forest like an arrow flight, one aimed at a rocky knob which raised itself above the level of the distant trees. The bowl of grasses before them came only slightly above the horses' bellies.

  "Can the horses run faster?" Mainoa called plaintively. "If they can, we should."

  Don Quixote and El Dia Octavo had made the same decision or had been informed of it – at the same moment. They waited for no signal from their riders but sped down the slope, tails streaming behind them, ears flattened. The mares plunged after them, Irish Lass thundering away at the rear. For Mainoa it was as though he rode a nightmare. Though he knew he would fall, he did not. Though he knew he could not stay on, he did. The horse beneath him seemed determined to keep him in the saddle, and through all his panic he perceived that fact even as he heard the howls rising from the height they had just left. He could not risk looking back to see how close the Hippae were.

  Sylvan could. Over the drumming of the hooves he heard the wild screaming from the ridge. He spun half around on the broad back, holding tight to one of the vast panniers Irish Lass carried. A dozen enormous beasts pranced upon the height. Around their feet a great pack of hounds leapt and yammered. As though in response to some signal that Sylvan had not seen, the whole Hunt of them plunged down the slope after the fleeing horses. Not silently, as when they hunted foxen, but clamoring as with one shrill ear-shattering voice.

  He turned. The other horses were ahead of him, far ahead of him. This great beast was not as fleet as the others. He lay forward on her neck and whispered to her. "Do the best you can, my lady. I think otherwise, both you and I will be meat for them." He turned to watch the pursuit. One huge violet-mottled Hippae led the charge, mouth wide, nostrils flared. It seemed to stumble in the grass, then again. It fell, eyes rolled back. A ripple in the grass fled to one side.

  Behind the fallen monster the others slowed, prancing uncertainly. "Go," called Sylvan to his mount. "Go, lady. As best you can."

  Irish Lass heard him and went. The distance between her and the other horses had grown. She did her best to decrease it, but it became wider yet.

  Again the Hippae howled pursuit. Again the foremost among them tripped and fell. Again a ripple in the grass fled away, out of their path.

  El Dia Octavo had reached the forest. Don Quixote was just behind him Millefiori was next Then Blue Star and Her Majesty. The riders had dismounted and were waiting for Sylvan.

  Beside Sylvan a hound ran even with Irish Lass, its head darting through the grasses, teeth bared to strike at the running legs of the horse. Beyond the hound the grass quivered and something made of shining barbs snatched the hound away. Sylvan had not seen what it was, but he heard the hound screaming. Seemingly, so did the rest of the pack. The sound of their howling fell farther behind him. The great horse grunted beneath him. Her hide was wet and sleek. Foam flew from her mouth. "Good Lass," he whispered. "Good Lass."

  And then, at last, he was there among the others. He turned once more to see the grass behind him alive with ripples. Something was moving there. Something the Hippae-hound pack was aware of, for it stood away, circling, screaming defiance but coming no nearer.

  Irish Lass stood with her head dragging.

  "Ah, Lass, Lass," Marjorie was saying. "Poor girl. You're not built for it, are you Lass, but so brave! Such a wonderful girl." She led the mare in a tight circle as she talked. Gradually, Lass's head came up.

  "Where now?" asked Tony. "We don't dare ride in there." He gestured toward the trees, where water glimmered among the dark foliage.

  "Yes," said Brother Mainoa. "In there. Following me."

  "Have you been in there before?"

  "No."

  "Well, then … "

  "I haven't been out in the grasses on a horse before either. But we are here. The immediate threat is past. We were guided. Protected."

  "By?"

  "I won't tell you until your knowing can't endanger us. Those things" – he thrust a hand in the direction of the Hippae – "can read your thoughts. We have to get into the forest. The barrier between us and them is more pretense than real. If we stay here too long, the Hippae may realize that."

  Tony looked at his mother, as though for permission. Father James was already mounting once more. With a sigh, Brother Mainoa heaved himself up, struggling to get his leg across the horse. Brother Lourai helped him. Sylvan was still atop Irish Lass.

  "Go," Marjorie said.

  Blue Star moved into the shallow water, picking her way among towering trunks and through thickets of reedlike growths. The others followed. The mare took a winding path, turning abruptly to take new directions. "Follow her closely," Brother Mainoa called hoarsely. "She is avoiding dangerous places" So they went, a slow, splashing game of follow the leader, with Blue Star following who-knew-what.

  When they had come into the swamp far enough that they could no longer see the prairies, Blue Star stopped her twisting path and led them straight along a shallow channel between two impenetrable walls of trees. This watery aisle seemed to go on for miles. At last a gap appeared in the endless line, and the mare struggled up a shallow bank and onto solid ground. "An island?" Marjorie asked.

  "Safety," Brother Mainoa said, sighing and half sliding, half falling off his horse and lying where he fell. "How? Safety?"

  "The Hippae will not come in here. Nor the hounds." He spoke from the ground, staring up through the trees to far-off glimmers of sunlight, like spangles. Like gems. His eyes would not stay open. "One did," she contradicted. "We saw the trail."

  "Only as far as the swamp," he acknowledged. "And then, I think, perhaps it went along the side … " His mouth fell open a
nd a little sound came out. A snore.

  "He's old." Rillibee said to them defiantly, as though they had accused the old man of some impropriety. "He falls asleep like that a lot."

  Sylvan had dismounted. "What do I do for her?" He asked Marjorie as he stroked the mare.

  "Rub her down with something," Marjorie said. "A clump of grass, a fistful of leaves, anything. If we're going to stay here awhile, take the saddle off."

  "We can't go on until he wakes up," said Tony, indicating the supine form of Brother Mainoa.

  "We can't go on until the horses rest a little anyhow," Marjorie sighed. "They had quite a workout. About a day and a half a night of steady walking plus a mad run. Don't let her have much water," she cautioned Sylvan. "Walk her until she's cool, then let her have water."

  "Otherwise what?" Sylvan asked. "Would it kill her?"

  "It could make her sick," Tony answered him, looking up as Mainoa had done before he fell asleep. Sun spangles, very high. Something else up there, too. Something high that blocked the sun. Tony pointed. "What's up there?"

  Sylvan turned to look. "Where?"

  "Right up in the top of this tree, running over to that other one … "

  "This island is quite sizable," said Father James, rejoining the group from among the trees "There's a grassy clearing through these trees. Enough pasture there for the horses to have a good feed."

  Rillibee/Lourai pulled the saddles from Blue Star and Her Majesty and stacked them against the root buttresses of a tree. "The sun is low. It'll be dark before long. Too dark to ride."

  "How long will Brother Mainoa sleep?"

  Lourai shrugged. "As long as he needs to. He's been up since the middle of the night, on a horse most of that time. I told you, he's an old man."

  Marjorie nodded. "All right, then. If he rests, we will all rest. Tony?"

  The boy pointed upward. "We were just trying to figure out – "

  "Figure out whether there's any firewood, while it's still light. Sylvan, please help him. We need enough wood to last all night. Father, if you'll find the clearest water possible and fill this bucket – "