Are you from afar?
There was another thought, faint but clear. Was it a tiger or a bear? It felt friendly, but that could be deceptive. Should she answer?
Why not? She was in trouble anyway. Maybe this represented some kind of help.
Yes! she thought as hard as she could.
Are you in distress?
Yes.
Are you human?
Yes. I am Colene, a human girl.
Come to me. I need a companion.
So did she! But if this was a tiger trying to lure her in, she would be a fool to go.
Also a fool to pass up a potential friend. Who are you?
I am Seqiro. Please come quickly; this mental contact across realities represents a strain.
Across realities? That didn’t sound like a tiger! She would risk it. How can I find you?
I am on your path. I have felt your approach. Come to my reality, and follow my mind to my stall.
But there was the bear lurking for her. She considered briefly, then walked several feet to the side, faced forward again, and started running.
Her strategy worked. She saw a bear to the side, but by the time it turned to spot her, she was behind its plane and the way was clear.
She forged on, trusting to blind luck to keep her out of serious trouble. The road deteriorated further, becoming a beaten path. But maybe this was ridable. She got on her bike, set her gears to the lowest ratio, and pedaled hard. Yes, she was moving well.
Here! You are passing my reality!
Oops! She turned and rode back, until the thought agreed that she was on the right plane. Then she turned to the side and followed it, walking the bike over the forest floor.
Follow my thought, Seqiro sent. His signal was much stronger now. There is some danger for you, but my thought will avoid it.
She hoped so. She followed his thought out of the forest and to a rustic village. There were many oddly dressed people, and horses, dogs, and cats, each going about his business. She did her best to look as if she were one of them, going about her business, but wasn’t sure she wasn’t ludicrously obvious as a foreigner. At least this didn’t look like a bear or tiger camp.
In the course of this travel, she wandered across the reality lines several times, but his mental contact remained. Sometimes she stepped across the boundary deliberately, to avoid being spotted, then back in farther along. She was getting better at using the Virtual Mode.
Seqiro led her through a back alley that passed several stalls where horses were stabled. He had used the term “stall”; evidently he had meant it literally. But what kind of man would live in a stall? A stable hand?
The presence of horses reminded her of her imaginary friend Maresy. Colene had always liked horses, not in the sense of riding them but in the sense of just liking them. She knew they were not considered very intelligent as animals went; cows did twice as well on maze tests. But there was a basic niceness about horses that other animals lacked. Oh, there were those who swore by cats because they were cuddly and purring and quiet, but cats were actually pretty selfish creatures who made friends only with those who fed them well. Some folk swore by dogs, supposedly man’s best friend, but there were thousands of dog bites every year, suggesting how thin that veneer of friendship was. There were pet birds, locked in cages or in houses; hardly any of them would remain if given a chance to fly into the wild. But horses—there was just something about horses. Oh, some could be mean and some could be lazy, of course. But, taken as a whole, they were better than people. That was why she wrote to Maresy Doats in her Journal. Maresy was a whole lot more serious than her name suggested.
But of course a family living in a suburb, scraping along in the middle-class two-incomes-one-child mode, could not even think of having a horse. This had never been an issue; Colene had seen from the outset that it was impossible. Even had it been possible, she would have hesitated to bring a horse into such a situation, because at any moment her mother could lose her job—when her alcoholism began manifesting at work—or her father could lose his, when he had a fight with a mistress and she made a scene that embarrassed his company. Even without one of those events, there was no love in the family, not even that one per cent romance. The family was a bomb waiting to be detonated. A horse wouldn’t like associating with that. So Maresy would always be a mere dream.
Still, it was nice passing through this region, for a reason irrelevant to what she was actually doing. By the look of it, this was an ordinary primitive hamlet where horses were the main animals, instead of a reality in which telepathy was practiced. She wouldn’t mind living here, near the stalls, and maybe sneaking treats to the horses when their masters weren’t looking. That was the nature of girls and horses.
But she certainly hoped that her telepathic friend really was a friend, because she was getting physically tired and needed a safe place to rest. If it turned out to be another bear or tiger—
Finally she stopped at a particular stall. There was a large brown stallion in it, gazing out.
Where next, Seqiro? she thought.
Duck down and enter my stall, the thought came back. We must explore motives.
Enter the stall? Colene stared at the horse with dawning wonder. Could it be?
There had been telepathic dogs, cats, and bears. Why not a horse? You?
Slowly the horse nodded.
Something very like instant love blossomed in her heart. A tiger or bear she would not have trusted, but a horse! Of course!
She ducked down under the heavy gate that closed the stall, and came up inside. She stood next to Seqiro. He was about eighteen hands tall at the shoulder, about six feet. Almost a foot higher than the top of her head. He smelled wonderfully horsy.
It was all so suddenly ecstatic. A mind-reading horse! What more could any girl ask?
May I pat you? she thought.
Yes.
She reached up and patted his massive neck on the left side. His mane fell to the right side, so didn’t get in the way. His hide was sleek and warm. What a beautiful creature!
May I hug you?
Yes.
She reached up with both arms and clasped his neck as well as she could. She put her face against his hide and just sort of breathed his ambience. He was just such a totally magnificent animal!
May I adore you?
Yes.
She felt her emotion surging into overload.
May I cry on you?
Yes.
She stood there and wept, her tears squeezing down between her face and his hide. It was a great relief.
Finally, she lifted her face. I like horses, she thought belatedly.
I like girls.
That seemed to cover the situation.
CHAPTER 6—PRIMA
THE world seemed unchanged. He stood on the dais, within the marked circle beside the castle. But the Cyng of Pwer was gone.
He stepped out of the circle, in the direction that seemed proper. A plume-bird took wing, startled. Darius was startled too; that bird had appeared from nowhere.