“I… I just wasn’t expecting it. Of course, I understand all you say.” I said what they wanted to hear, because I wanted them to leave me alone for a while. As I had the night before in the stable, I let darkness fill my head to block out their presence.
When the surgeon had gone, along with all evidence of his work, I called my slaves to run a bath. Hot, I said. Hotter than the desert. Though the midday heat hammered on the Gray House, and there was not the slightest stirring of the sultry air, I was as cold as if that red-black flood inside me had turned to black ice.
I spent two hours in the hot water, wondering what I would do for the rest of the afternoon. I wanted to get back to my training. That was the best time of every day. Nothing to think about except what you were doing right then.
I tried to sleep, but all I could see was the slave’s eyes, gray and clear. Accusing me. He had known what was going to happen-that they were going to kill him to heal me. That was what his look had meant. And then his eyes grew angry, then empty, and then they were dead.
My real father was a Dar’Nethi Healer. Was that what he did?
I threw down the sword I was polishing and pulled on my riding leathers. I didn’t care what the surgeon had said.
Fengara wasn’t in the stable, as she’d been told I wasn’t coming. So I saddled Zigget and rode into the desert alone.
Alone? Risky you know, young Lord. Our enemies might be able to locate you outside the fortress. Ziddari.
“No one would dare attack me. I bear the mark of the Lords.”
Ziddari kept picking at me, asking questions, telling me I should come back, let my knee heal. But I rode harder and faster, laying my whip into Zigget until the afternoon desert was a red blur, and soon I couldn’t hear Ziddari anymore.
I didn’t slow until the sun was low in the west. I had no idea how far I had ridden, but Zigget’s flanks were heaving, so I headed back toward the fortress at a walk, trying to cool him down as the evening came on. But the horse took his revenge. Something scuttered out from under a rock- a kibbazi most likely, a sharp-toothed desert rat. Zigget shied and reared, just when I didn’t expect it, and I found myself sprawled in the dirt.
“Curse you, devil,” I said, shaking myself off and gingerly testing my knee.
Zigget looked at me with blazing hatred in his eye, and then galloped back toward Zhev’Na.
Marvelous, I thought. A nice walk ahead. I wasn’t particularly worried. I could call on the Lords at any time, and they could have fifty warriors with me in a quarter of an hour or make a portal to take me back. But I didn’t want to ask for any favors. At least I had a full waterskin at my belt. I wasn’t stupid enough to go out without it, even though I was stupid enough to take Zigget on a ride alone.
I walked for a long time. Two or three times, the Lords stirred in my head, but I ignored them, shoving my anger between us like a wall. Soon I felt them withdraw, and they left me alone. It felt good to be alone in the night. Sometime around the mid-watch I heard hoofbeats and assumed that the Lords had sent someone for me. Not surprising. I knew I was a lot more valuable to them than they let on. But it wasn’t the Lords. It was Zigget-and the Leiran boy.
“Thought you might be needin‘ a ride.”
“Did the devil confess to you?”
“You might say that.”
He slid off the horse and offered me the reins. Zigget’s nostrils flared, and the horse shied. I kept walking.
“You should have brought another horse. This one won’t carry me again.”
“He’s the strongest and fastest in the stable. He’d be your friend if you’d let him.”
“How do you know so much about him? Is he a relative of yours?”
“He’s a deal better than any kin I ever had. Do you want to know his name?” The boy was walking along beside me, leading the infernal beast.
“I believe his name is Zigget.”
“Nope. Firebreather.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I just know.”
I stopped and glared at the idiot boy. “I’m not a fool. You’re not Dar’Nethi.”
“Call him Firebreather. Try it. Stand over there and call him.” He dropped the reins and stepped away from the horse. I set out walking again. “Call him,” the boy called after me.
“Here, Firebreather,” I shouted, just to silence the Drudge. Before I had walked five paces more, the horse followed behind me, hesitant, quivering, but close enough that his muzzle hung over my shoulder. I stopped, and he stopped.
“Now tell him something nice. Tell him there’s oats to be had at the stable when he gets you there.” He whispered this in my ear, presumably so the horse could get the good news from me.
“Oats?”
“Tell him.”
“Firebreather, there’s oats. Oats in the stable if you behave yourself.” I felt like an idiot.
The horse shifted his feet and blew a slightly happier note.
“Will you bite my hand off if I give you oats in it? This fool of a servant seems to think you are not a Zhid of a horse. Should I believe him?” I raised my hand slowly to pat his nose. He tossed his head. “Oats. Remember oats, Firebreather. I have the power of oats. My feet are indeed tired, thanks to you, but if you have a change of heart, perhaps I can too.”
The horse bobbed his head and allowed me to touch him.
The boy took the horse’s lead. “What did I say? Now he’ll carry you nicely if you keep that up. Remember his name and all. He likes grass better than oats, but maybe you don’t remember nothing about grass to talk to him about.” He held Zigget’s-Firebreather’s-head while I mounted.
“What about grass?”
“How it’s green and soft and grows tall to blow in the wind. How it tickles his legs when he runs and tastes so sweet, especially in the spring when there’s still snow about, but there’s little patches of new green peeking out of it. That’s the best, but he hasn’t seen it in so long.”
The horse grew quieter under the boy’s hand and voice.
“You’d best get up behind me,” I said.
“I couldn’t ride with you.”
“I didn’t kill you.”
“True enough.” He scrambled up behind me. One would think the horse had scooped him up and set him there, he did it so easily.
It was a long ride back. We took it slow, and the boy told me more about the horse and how to get him to do what I wanted.
“How do you know so much about horses?”
“Don’t know. Just always had a feel for it, so my gran said.”
“Your grandmother? Where is she?”
“Dead now. I don’t like to talk about her.”
“Why do you speak Leiran?”
“Leiran?”
“Surely you realize that the language you speak is not the language spoken here. It’s not even from this world. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
“I’m not supposed to say nothing. I’m not supposed to talk to you or even to open my mouth, because I’m too stupid to learn the proper words. Couldn’t you just pretend I didn’t say nothing?”