Andre Norton - The Key of the Keplian

“If this place is anywhere about, I certainly can’t see it.”

*I have heard that such places may be hidden. Your pendant showed you the direction. Should you not wait, eat and rest, then call on its help? Maybe it can aid us again.* Tharna was practical. Eleeri sank to the grass and dug busily in her saddlebag. From it she drew cold meat and a bag of rather tired-looking berries. From that the mare understood her advice to be accepted. She grazed, keeping an eye on the girl. If there was anything she could do to help when the time came, she would do so willingly.

Without intent, Eleeri fell asleep. The long day had been tiring, and with her stomach full, sleep came easily. She woke just as dawn flamed the sky. Her pendant slipped naturally into her hand and she gazed at it thoughtfully. Could it help her to find this mysterious place?

The truth was, she wasn’t at all sure why she was searching. Only that it had grown to be a driving force. At first it had been a quiet calling. A longing for a place to be free in safety. Later, with her love for the mare and colt, the need for a refuge had become obvious. They must have a place where Hylan could grow in peace, where they could live without fear. But under that there was still the call. As if something inside of her yearned for a home she had never known. It was foolish. She remembered her home with Far Traveler perfectly well. But this was something else. Something silly, Eleeri thought. It wasn’t possible to be homesick for a place you’d never lived in. Was it?

She gazed at the land around her, foothills merging into solid higher mountains. The land was rough but not the brutalized mountains of the turning. There the witches of Estcarp had wrung out the mountains like a dishcloth, using their power. Here the land was simply ordinary mountains bordering this land of Escore. Far away over the horizon lay the Valley of Green Silences. There the lady led the fight against those of the Dark. Eleeri would stay away from the valley. It was just possible they’d expect her to join them. To conform. They might even object to Tharna and Hylan.

She shook her head. She and her friends would be better off finding a refuge of their own. She studied the pendant in her hands. Cynan, once he had seen she had the horse gift, had insisted on teaching her spells to go with the amber amulets and pebbles from the place of the Old Ones. She stared down thoughtfully. The pendant had helped her before. Would it aid now? From behind her came a soft whicker of amusement.

*No answers without questions, sister-kin. Ask!*

Eleeri bent her concentration on the pendant. Around it grew a soft glow, a blue-green that brightened by the minute. Without thinking, she reached out and gently drew the Keplians into mind-link. The pendant flared, giving forth a blaze of light so great that Eleeri’s eyes shut involuntarily. About her throat she felt a tugging—harder, harder—then it was gone and she opened her eyes to stare in wonder.

Before them stood her pendant made flesh, a great black stallion. No true horse, Eleeri knew. This was the spirit of horses. Intelligence shone from the sapphire eyes, pride was in the crest of his upthrust neck. Power flamed in every sinew, power both of strength and the Light.

With a leap he was away, and they scrambled to follow. Hoofbeats clattered up the trail and the girl bit back a cry of exasperation. They’d come this way the day before. There was nothing here. She scanned the earth under the hooves of her pony. It was hard-packed, probably an old deer trail. Rock walls rose on either side, as if this had been originally a stream bed. The occasional drifts of small stones within the curves suggested this was so. But the trail was dry now. Perhaps a change of direction, a landslip higher up now diverted any water.

The stallion swung to one side. Here the curve was larger, more of an angle. He stood poised. Then, before them all, runes flamed blue on either side of a gap Eleeri had not noticed before. She gaped at them, recognizing some. Cynan had drawn them for her and taught her to use them along with her pebbles. They were ward signs. Below blazed runes of Light, runes of guard against the Dark. They were reinforced by some she had not been taught. But she could guess them to be of power.

She turned in her saddle to look back along their trail. This was clever: The entrance was narrow. Any who entered on horseback would have to do so in single file. The trail to this point was also narrow, steeply uphill and winding. Above, it steepened still further. To reach this entrance from uphill or down, those who came would be moving with slow caution because of the trail. They must then thrust through an opening just wide enough for one mount. If a good-sized area lay beyond, they might well have found their refuge. Judging from the rune-guarded entrance, it would take a very powerful creature of the Dark to force its way inside.

The stallion appeared beyond the wards. He turned to watch them.

“This is it. I know it.” Eleeri was sure now, but Tharna watched the stallion nervously. “What is it, do you fear him?”

The mare spoke softly. *Stallions often kill colts who are not their own get. I do fear him.*

“He’s not Keplian,” Eleeri said quietly. “And more than a horse, too, I think. I don’t believe he’d harm Hylan, or us, either.”

As if the great beast had heard her words, he paced toward them. A regal head lowered to nuzzle the soft nose of the foal. A half-rear, then again the reassuring touch to the foal, and he was away, back through the gap to await their decision. Before either adult could move, Hylan had followed, small neck arched in imitation. The runes flared up as he passed. Tharna eyed them with worry.

*What if they will not admit me?*

“Then we look somewhere else for refuge.”

Eleeri could feel her friend’s fear, but before them Hylan waited. Tharna moved toward him, step by slow step. The runes blazed higher as she approached. Slowly they changed; a more silvery hue now shone in them. The girl could feel that it was becoming an effort for her friend to move, as if she waded through deep water. Without thinking, she touched with her mind, reassuring, comforting. With that linkage the effort was gone. Freed, the mare leaped to her son and caressed him with soft nuzzlings.

Eleeri followed, seeing in her turn the runes’ light shine higher. The stallion ran on into a widening canyon and they gathered themselves in his wake. Before the far end of the canyon he paused and reared. His commanding whistle rang out, echoing from the cliffs. Again and again he warned without words: they were not to come this far until summoned. Then he was gone. Eleeri ran forward in distress. She had grown to love her pendant, gift of Cynan. Was she now to lose it?

Half-hidden in the lush grass it lay, tiny sapphire eyes winking up at them in the sunlight. With a sigh the girl plucked it from its nest and threaded the cord through the loop again. She felt a little strange with it now, knowing what it could be. Yet surely, if it had not been intended for her to take it up once more, it would not have returned to this form.

She strained her eyes to look down at the end of the canyon forbidden to them. A mist lay there, shot through with warm golden glimmerings. Power smoked from it. She would stay well away until asked; that was not something to meddle with uninvited.

She gazed about the remainder of the canyon. Surely this had been a hold once. In contrast to the outside, here the grass was lush and thick. Fruit trees and berry bushes lined the cliffsides.

Berry bushes! That reminded her. Laughing, Eleeri reached for her saddlebag to extract the tiny saplings she had taken. Then and there she dug out a square of turf in line with those other bushes. Lovingly she placed the saplings to add to the line. Water? She stared about as Hylan lowered his head; she could hear him drinking. She trotted over to see what he had found, to be amazed by the water’s container. Hidden by the knee-high grass was a spring welling up. It flowed into a marvelously carved stone basin. Yet it was not this that amazed her. The water appeared to be flowing uphill from the spring. She measured with her fingers. It was true.