Lawrence Watt-Evans - Taking Flight

Asha didn’t say anything.

Irith looked at Ezdral, and said angrily, “He was even worse than you were, when we found you!”

Kelder expected for Ezdral to make some cutting reply, or to stand silently on his dignity, but instead the old man muttered, “I’m sorry, Irith; please don’t be mad at me.”

Kelder shuddered.

Ezdral’s subservience was appalling-but on the other hand, Irith seemed to be showing more compassion than was her wont. Kelder wondered if she might be learning something from Asha and Ezdral.

He certainly hoped so.

And his own presence might not hurt, either.

They were two and a half hours from the border when Kelder stopped and looked closely at the hillside to their left.

“What is it?” Asha asked.

“This is where I first saw the Great Highway,” Kelder explained. “I slept on the slope there. And it’s where I met Irith.”

The Flyer nodded. “That’s right,” she said. “I remember. At first I thought you were going to just turn around and go back to your farm in Shulara.”

“I thought so, too,” Kelder admitted.

It occurred to him that he could do that now-he could simply head south, up that hill and down the other side, and go back home to his family, and not worry about where his next meal was coming from, or Ezdral’s love spell, or Asha’s homelessness.

He started to think about it. He turned to look at the others.

He saw Irith’s face and forgot the whole notion. She was obviously not yet ready to come with him and settle down to the life of a Shularan peasant, and he wasn’t yet ready to give up on Zindre’s predictions and go home without her.

“Come on,” he said. “We’ve still got a long way to go.”

They had scarcely covered another hundred yards when the turrets of Hlimora Castle came in sight. Kelder remembered how hungry he had been that morning-when was that, a sixnight ago? If he had known how close the castle was, he would never have turned east.

And in that case, he might never have met Asha or Ezdral-but he might have met other people instead. There was simply no knowing what might have happened-not without magic, anyway.

Zindre would have known, he supposed. She must have known that he would go east, as he had-or perhaps she hadn’t known any details at all, just the generalities. Perhaps he had been fated to meet someone lost and forlorn, but exactly who had not been predetermined.

The whole question of prophecy was an interesting one; despite his obsession with Zindre’s predictions, he had never really thought about the mechanics before. Were all his actions predetermined? Some, but not others? If so, why?

If everything he was to do was predetermined, then he didn’t really have any control over his own life at all, and nothing he did or thought mattered. That was an unsettling notion.

But if he did have control over some of it, then how could any of it be so certain that Zindre could predict it? That was certainly something to think about, and think about it he did, as the little party trudged onward.

They reached Hlimora Castle perhaps two hours after noon, and the question then arose of whether to stay the night, or press on.

“The next village is Urduron Town,” Irith said.

“Well, how far is it?” Kelder asked.

Irith pursed her lips, thinking. “I don’t remember,” she admitted. “Three leagues, maybe?”

Kelder considered this. “They say a man’s normal walk will cover a league in an hour,” he said. “The sun won’t be down for about four hours yet.”

“Come on, then,” Irith said.

Naturally, Ezdral agreed with her, and that made the vote three to one. Asha protested in vain.

“Maybe you could be a horse for a little while, Irith?” she asked.

Kelder expected her to hesitate, or refuse, but Irith simply said, “All right.” She vanished, to be instantaneously replaced by the white mare.

Ezdral stared as Kelder helped Asha up onto Irith’s back; he crept nearer, and reached out to touch the horse’s flank.

She shied away and whinnied unhappily; Asha grabbed at the mane to keep her balance.

“Don’t touch,” Kelder advised the old man.

Ezdral didn’t touch Irith again, but he stared intently.

It was plain to Kelder that Ezdral’s interest was more than just an appreciation of equine grace. At first he was puzzled by the old man’s attitude; certainly Irith was a good-looking horse, but she was scarcely as attractive in this form as in human shape. For his own part, his physical interest in Irith vanished when she was in any shape but human.

Then he remembered the love spell, and realized that it didn’t distinguish on the basis of appearance-or, it seemed, even on the basis of species. Ezdral was still just as infatuated with Irith as ever, regardless of her shape. To him, in his enchanted state, the important change had not been that Irith was now a horse, but that she was now virtually naked.

That added a whole new level of repulsiveness to the spell, in Kelder’s opinion; he watched the old man lusting after the mare and felt nothing but revulsion. Even the pity he had felt for Ezdral was overwhelmed by distaste.

He was more determined than ever to see the spell broken, though-not for Ezdral’s sake, or Irith’s, or because of his prophesied role, but just because it was disgusting and unnatural.

They had gone too far to be worth turning back by the time Kelder and Irith realized that just because a man can walk a league in an hour, that doesn’t mean a sick old man, a child, and a horse can walk three leagues in three hours. They had not allowed for rest breaks, or even the occasional call of nature; they had not allowed for Ezdral’s unsteady shuffle, or the fact that the terrain here was hilly, the road carrying them up and down one slope after another.

With Asha on Irith’s back, the real hold-up was Ezdral’s pace; he was simply not interested in moving quickly. Kelder and Asha could urge him on, but with little result; he would speed up for perhaps three or four steps, then slow again.

He might have listened to Irith, but she was unable to speak while in equine form.

Kelder tried to find a solution. The obvious one would be to put Ezdral on horseback, but that was out of the question. Irith, he was sure, wouldn’t stand for two riders at once, especially not if one of them was the old man. Asha would be no faster on foot than was Ezdral-and besides, Kelder didn’t want Ezdral any closer to Irith than absolutely necessary, under the circumstances; putting him astride her back was asking for trouble.

Finally, though, he hit upon a much simpler and more satisfactory method of accelerating the pace; he simply whispered in Irith’s ear to go a little faster and not worry about Ezdral keeping up.

Ezdral gradually dropped back as the other three marched on unheeding, until finally he called out, “Hai! You’re going too fast! Wait for me!”

Kelder called back, “No; sorry, Ezdral, but we need to get to Urduron. If you can’t keep up, you can find us there.”

“Wait,” he puffed. “Irith!”

Irith neighed, but did not slow down.

Kelder glanced back every so often, and somehow, though Ezdral puffed and panted and struggled, he never fell back far enough to let Irith out of his sight.

Kelder felt slightly guilty about exploiting the love spell in such a way-but only slightly. After all, they were bringing Ezdral along to cure him, for his own good-why let him slow them up?

The distance to Urduron turned out to be somewhat more than three leagues; Kelder judged it at at least ten miles, possibly eleven, but unquestionably between three and four leagues. They finally arrived as the sun sank before them.