What in the world is that? Not a human reading, no-one I ever read felt anything like this. It feels so dry, and I can hear the heat—
Fire in the rain. The fire in terror, the flames being beaten down, steam rising—
Somewhere over to the west—
—coming this way—
Herewiss opened his eyes and looked westward. The rain was making it difficult to see clearly. It was coming down hard, a silver- white rushing wall, the typical spring cloudburst that seemed to beat the air right into the ground. If there was something out there, it would have to come a lot closer before he would be able to see it.
Fire, dwindling, dying out— Whatever it was, the source of the feeling was coming closer: the image had intruded on Herewiss's underhearing that time without his having to listen for it—
Herewiss pulled his hood further down over his face and took a few steps into the rain, following the feeling. It wavered, grew a little stronger. Possibly it was sensing him too. Herewiss squished along for several minutes, shivering as the rain soaked through his cloak.
A shadow loomed suddenly behind the gray rain curtain, and Herewiss slowed down a little. It was bigger than he was—
(—fire in the rain—)
He went closer to it.
A horse?
It staggered toward him. A horse indeed; but a miserable sickly- looking thing, wobbling along on spindly legs. Its mane and tail were plastered to it, skin scalloped deep beneath its ribs, drawn drum-tight over its sunken belly. The horse's eyes bulged out of their sockets, staring horribly. It looked as if it had been starved and abused by a whole town full of people, one after another. It looked ready to die.
Herewiss reached out with his underhearing again, to make certain. He got the same feeling: a fire, going out, almost too tired and weak now to be afraid any more. Steam rising, flames dying — and indeed there was steam wavering about the horse's hide, as if it had been ridden hard on a cold day.
He went over to the poor stumbling thing, took its head and stopped it. It regarded him dully from glazed eyes, taking a long long moment to realize what he was. And a feeling stirred in his head. The horse was bespeaking him.
(Help . . .) it said. (Dry . . .)
It collapsed to its knees.
Herewiss was utterly amazed. No-one had ever bespoken him but his mother, who had had the talent as a result of her training in the Fire; they had used it so commonly between them while she was alive that some of his more remote relatives in the Ward used to accuse him of disliking her, since when together they rarely spoke aloud. But after her death he had hardly ever used the talent again. There were no others in the Wood who had it, not even Herelaf; and after numerous disagreements with the Wardresses of the Forest Altars, Herewiss had little to say to them.
But a horse?Then again, something in a horse's shape could very well have the bespeaking ability. Rodmistresses sometimes took beast-shapes. If that was the case, though, why the distress — and why the strange underheard reading like none he had ever experienced?
(Dry!) the horse-thing said again, more weakly.
Herewiss bent over and grabbed the horse by the nose. Had it been in any better shape, it would certainly have bitten him; but now as he pulled at it the horse moaned pitifully and struggled to its feet again. Herewiss pulled it, step by trembling step, back toward the shrine.
(It hurts,) the creature said, bespeaking him piteously. (It hurts!)
'I know. Come on.'
This close to it, touching it, Herewiss's underhearing was coming much more fiercely alive. He could feel the creature's terror as if it were his own, and moreover he could feel its agony, for with every drop of rain that touched it the horse was seared as if by hot iron. Abruptly it collapsed in front of him, and then screamed, both out loud and within, trying to flinch away from the wet ground on which it had fallen.
Herewiss was shaken to the heart by the sound of its terror. I can't carry it or drag it—
It screamed again, thrashing helplessly on the ground.
Oh, damn, damn, dammit to Darkness! Herewiss thought. He bent down, put his arms around the barrel of its ribs just behind the forelegs, and began to pull. It was terribly heavy, but nowhere near as heavy as a real horse would have been, even one as emaciated as this creature seemed to be. It was wheezing with pain as he got its forequarters a little way clear of the wet grass and dragged it along.
Herewiss wanted desperately to drop the horse, just for a moment's rest, but he was also deadly afraid of hearing that terrible lost scream again. He kept pulling, pulling, cast a look over his shoulder. The shrine was a dark shadow through the rain, not too far away. And another shadow was approaching with a sound of wet squishing footfalls. Dapple came up through the rain, looked at Herewiss, and then turned sideways to him, facing him with the saddlebag in which the rope was coiled.
'Thanks!' Herewiss said, reaching up with one arm to get the rope out. He uncoiled it, wound a bight around the strange horse's chest behind the legs, knotted it, and tied the other end to Dapple's saddlehorn. Dapple began backing steadily toward the shrine, and with Herewiss holding the horse partly clear of the ground, they got it to the door of the shrine quickly. There was a slight problem with getting the horse through the door — Herewiss had to drop the horse on the floor halfway in and go around to push its hind legs inside. When he had managed that, he undid the rope, coiled it, stowed it, and went back into the shrine. He dropped to his knees beside the horse's head, gasping for breath and rubbing at his outraged abdominal muscles.
'Well,' he said. 'Now what?'
The horse lay there with its sides still heaving, its breath rasping in and out, harsh with pain, as if it had been ridden to the point of foundering. Herewiss looked at it through the odd detachment that sometimes accompanies great exertion. In color the horse was a brilliant bay, almost blood-color, and its stringy, wet mane and tail were pale enough to be golden when they were dry. Under the taut-drawn skin, it had a beautiful head, fine- boned like that of a racehorse.
But racehorses don't bespeak people, Herewiss thought. And the way the rain was hurting it. Water . . . Could this be a fire elemental, then? People meet them so rarely, the stories say. But the reading I got from it—
Herewiss closed his eyes and listened again. A feeling like fire, still, but not being rained on any more. Gathering strength, burning a little hotter, growing—
He bespoke it, making the thoughts as clear as he could. (What happened?)
(Don't shout,) it answered faintly. (Sorry. What happened?)
Its thought was weak, but had an ironic tone. (I didn't know enough to come in out of the rain. Get out of me for a little, will you?)
Herewiss did, and pushed himself over to where he could lean against the wall. The horse was still steaming slightly. He reached out a hand to touch one of its legs, and then jerked it away again, sucking in breath between his teeth. His fingers were scalded.
A fire elemental. I'm in trouble.
The legends were fairly explicit about elementals of any kind being capricious, dangerous, tricky. Some elementals were death just to see. Flame would be a protection, but a lot of good that did him. Sorcery was almost useless. Herewiss's Great-great-great- great-aunt Ferrigan was supposed to have had dealings with some of them, water and air elementals mostly, and she had survived to tell about it, but no-one was sure how . . .
Herewiss looked at the horse with apprehension. Its breathing was slowing, and it looked less emaciated than it had before. Herewiss shrugged his cloak back, and then realized that the air in the shrine was getting much warmer. And the blood-bay 'horse' seemed to be drying out as he watched. In fact, it was becoming better fleshed out. The horse lay there, growing sleek, growing whole—