“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 st
eadily 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.
VII
The War of the Flowers
r /> No one knew exactly when the battle for the valley had begun. The origins of the conflict were lost in the mists of time, flowers being very interested in mist but considerably less so in chronology.
Blessed with growing conditions that were only rarely less than perfect, the blossoming plants had thrived on the hilltops and hillsides. For reasons unknown, the soil that so willingly nourished florescence proved inhospitable to the larger woody plants. Trees and bushes never became established. Most of the errant seeds that were dropped by birds or bats or dragonites never germinated. Those that did quickly found themselves shouldered aside by the vigorous perennials. Blossoms and leaves expanded in the sun, stealing the light and suffocating any hopeful treelets before they could reach the status of sapling. Layers of accumulated ancient nutrients and just the right amount of vital trace minerals ensured perpetual flowering, and every year rain fell when and where necessary: enough to slake but not to wash soil from tender roots.
Damaging hail and wind were unknown. The climate varied lazily between balmy and temperate, never searing hot or killing cold. There were no frosts and no droughts. Grazing animals did not visit the hills, and those insects that were not overtly beneficial were tolerated. These never swarmed in damaging numbers, never achieved the status of a plague. Bees and wasps, birds and beetles and bats took their turn attending to the matter of pollination. And the flowers throve, layering the gentle hills with exorbitant splashes of stunning color, as if some Titan of aesthetic bent had taken a giant’s brush and palette to the rolling terrain.
In all this kingdom of flowers only one tract did not bloom. In its very center lay a broad, shallow valley where so much moisture accumulated that the soil became a veritable sponge, too loose and uncompacted to support normal root growth. Long ago the little valley had become a bog, which is a swamp without attitude. In its waterlogged reaches grew ferns and liverworts, but none of the noble blooms. A patrician rose would not have been caught out with blight in such surroundings, and gladioli and snapdragon recoiled from the stench of decomposing vegetation and insects. So tenancy of the valley was left to the flowers’ poor cousins, the epiworts and fungi.