He was all terrible thunder and princely affront. I started to speak, but the princeling stepped past me. He would need no mediator ever again. Approaching, he stood before his father without flinching and said, “No games. Tek, Dagg, and I have been killing that, lest she rouse the wyrms to fall upon us all.”
He nodded toward the wyvern skin, which lay still floating on the pool. My daughter and Dagg dragged it from the water and spread it out upon the sand. The prince fell silent then, staring at it. Jan turned away, and I stood off with Korr a few moments, telling him from my daughter’s account what had befallen his son in the wyvern’s den.
The young prince and his two companions meanwhile had raised the skin and shaken off the sand. They let the wind lift it streaming into the air and laid it upon the low branches of the near milkwood trees. Like a great pennant, a banner, it blazed and shimmered in the hot spring sun.
I left off with Korr, and he said no more to Jan, either in praise or in rebuke. I think it puzzled him to have suddenly a son who neither trembled at his frown nor needed his approval to feel proud. Instead the prince of the unicorns gauged the sun.
“Come,” he said at last. “We must be off. The hour is late, and the others wait for us upon the Plain.”
“I’ll leave you then,” I said, shaking the silence from me.
Korr stared at me. “You’ll not run the journey home with us?” he began.
I shook my head. “Someone must go before you, and sing the tale.” I gave him no time to argue with me. “Farewell, my prince, my brave daughter, Dagg.”
And oh, the look Tek gave me then, as if to say, “Off again? Off again, Mother, and only just met.” Would she ever guess why I had left her to be raised in the Vale by the one who calls himself my mate, or ever trust that there are reasons for everything I do? I glanced from her to Jan—then shook such thoughts from me. I could not stay.
To the young prince, I said, “I’ll leave you with your father now, prince-son, but one day, in a year or two year’s time, you must come away with me. I’ll teach you things a prince should know.”
He barely understood me. I did not mean him to. That day was yet a long way off. Then, giving to none of them time to stay me or make reply, I tossed my head and wheeled away, galloping off through the flowering milkwood trees, until their boles and the distance hid me from their view.
Nothing of note befell them in the Hills after I left them. I have never asked the prince’s son how much he told his father of his game of wits with the wyvern queen or of his vision in the womb of Alma—little, I think. Nor have I troubled to discover how they spent their half month returning over the Plain, save only that it was a good running and swift, without mishap.
I reached the Vale two days before them, and told the whole herd assembled how the prince’s son had saved the pilgrim band from wyvern’s jaws by battling their queen to the death below ground. The old king Khraa was much impressed, fairly burst with pride, calling his grandson a worthy heir.
But I noticed the gray king looked older than when I had seen him last, barely a month ago. He moved with a stiffness in his bones. Alma was calling him. He and I both knew it, and nothing lay within my power either to stem that call or stay his answering.
When the prince-son, his father, and the others returned home, two hours before sunset on the day of the full moon, that night each month which the unicorns of the Vale call Moondance, I was already a half day gone. Many of the mares the pilgrims had left in foal the month before now had new foals or fillies at their sides, Jan’s mother among them. And the king was dead.
So when the prince led his pilgrims home at last, he found, not a gathering of welcome, but one of mourning. Dagg’s father, Tas, took Korr apart to tell him of the gray king’s death. They had buried him the day before, unable to wait upon his son’s return, for the wheel of the world must turn, and time with it.
Hearing of his father’s death, Korr bowed his head and did not speak. Then he went off to the burial cliffs with a small circle of the highest elders to be made king before sunset, for the herd had been nearly two days without a king and were uneasy for want of one.
Jan stood amid the milling crowd, feeling lost and uncertain. Friends greeted the new-made warriors with joyous shouts and jostling. Others stood off quietly, recounting the death of the king. But in all the crush of kith and strangers, Jan caught no glimpse of his own dam, Ses. As he stood scanning for her, Dagg’s mother came up beside him.
“You mother bade me tell you she would wait for you at the wood’s edge, there.”
Leerah tossed her head. Jan gave her a nod of thanks, then sprang away across the valley floor. He mounted the slope, passing his own cave, and headed toward the line of trees. He saw his mother then, waiting at the wood’s edge among the long, dusky shadows. Her form was the color of beeswax, of flame. A filly not more than two weeks old stood pressed to her flank.
“What will you call her?” Jan found himself saying. He had come to a halt. The filly started at the sound of his voice, pressing closer to the pale mare’s side. His mother smiled.
“Lell,” she answered. “We’ll call her Lell.”
Jan came closer. Dark amber, the filly watched him. Her brushlike, newborn’s mane was blonde. Her brow bore but the promise of a horn, a tiny bump beneath the skin.
“Well met,” he heard his mother saying, “my bearded boy. You’ll have fine silk upon your chin by summer’s end.”
Jan felt a rush of pride. Already, he knew, the feathery hairs were sprouting along his jaw.
His mother said, “How was your pilgrimming?”
He shrugged, suddenly shy. “You have heard it all already from Jah-lila.” She nodded and laughed. He said nothing, looking off. “I had a dream,” he said at last, “upon the Mirror of the Moon. I dreamed the unicorns in mourning, crying, ‘He is dead. He of the line of Halla, dead!’ “ He looked at Ses. “I thought they wept for me.”
His mother laughed again, but very softly now. “I knew you would return to me. Korr feared you would fly off breakneck at the first opportunity—run wild Renegade across the Plain. But I did not.”
Jan frowned. “Why would he think that? My place is here, among the Circle.” Already he had forgotten ever dreaming himself outcast.
Ses nodded, murmuring, “You are prince now of the Ring.”
Jan gave a little start, then sighed. He had forgotten that. “Mother, I have seen other Rings than ours. I have seen gryphons that were brave and loyal after their own kind of honor, pans dancing to reed voices under the moon, and Renegades who were not hornless, solid-hoofed or godless things.”
“Aye,” she told him. “That is an old mare’s tale, about the Renegades.”
“And I have seen a Cycle that is wider than all our smaller Rings,” said Jan, “and includes them, and surpasses them. A place waits for me in that wider Ring, too. I have seen it, and cannot wake or sleep dreamless of it ever again.”
He saw a slow smile light his mother’s eye. “Then I am glad,” she said. “All that ever I have wished is to see you follow your own heart, and no other.”
She came forward and stood against him, laying her neck about his neck. Jan saw his sister, Lell, begin to suckle, butting his mother’s side. He leaned against his dam, watching. After a time, he felt her warm, dry tongue stroking his shoulder. He drew back.
“What are you doing?” he began.
“Getting the dust off you,” she replied. “Truth, how did you get so much into your coat? You look as though you’ve rolled in it.”