Part 4 (1/2)

The sun wasn't up very high when I went outside the next morning, but there's something about sunlight after hours and hours of candlelight that makes you want to squint and go back indoors. Much as I would have enjoyed it I had no time for going back indoors, so 1 went instead to the group of hprses and people who waited in the middle of the squarish, rustic yard. Giant-sized, squarish, rustic yard.

Leave it to Graythor to be consistent even outdoors.

' ”You look as though you had little in the way of rest, girl,” the redheaded Kadrim Harra remarked as I reached for the only unclaimed set of reins in sight, which tied a big gray to the hitching post the boy stood beside. His own mount was an even bigger golden palamino, and the stal- lion danced with excess energy and an eagerness to be away. The other four were involved in a discussion which seemed to be centered around Soffann Dra, which some- how wasn't very surprising.

”1 had no rest at all,” I told the boy without looking at him, getting more enjoyment out of the sight of the beauti- ful gray horse that was to be mine for a while. He snorted softly with pleasure when he saw he wasn't to go un- claimed after all, and lowered his nose so that I might stroke it. ”I'll catch up on what I need when we stop tonight.”

”When we left one another after the discussion last darkness, we were all bidden to rest ourselves well,” the

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boy said from my left, his deep voice beginning to fill with disapproval again. ”Though you gave the wizard little of the respect due him with your words, surely you were not so foolish as to disobey his commands as well? We mean to ride far and hard this day, and one who is weary will have difficulty in keeping up.”

”You're worrying about my being able to keep up?” I asked with a snort of ridicule, finally turning my head to look at him. ”If I were you, little boy, I'd spend my time worrying about myself instead of the adults around me, especially an adult who also happens to be a sorceress.

And if I'd wasted my time sleeping instead of learning the spells Graythor wanted me to leam, there might have come a time when you and the others had trouble keeping up with life. Aren't we ready to leave yet?”

By the end of my speech he was blinking at me with surprise and a very becoming silence, then turned to see, as I already had, mat our four companions had ended their discussion in favor of mounting. Before he could turn back to me I walked the few steps to the gray's side, got my left foot into the stirrup, then pulled myself up to the saddle.

The gray waited until I was firmly seated with both feet in the closed stirrups before beginning to dance like me palamino, and that left only the boy who wasn't ready to go. For some reason he grinned up at me with a lot of amus.e.m.e.nt before turning to his own mount and leaping onto the giant beast without using the stirrups at all. The only thing he'd used to help him had been his hands on the pommel, but before he could start bragging about how athletic he was. a different voice came to us across the yard.

”It's true!” Soffann Dra exclaimed in delight from where she cantered slowly around us, left hand on reins, back straight but easy, wide-skirted green gown spread out over the saddle of her beautiful white horse. ”He's really done it! I've never so much as been on a horse before, but I can ride as though I've done it all my life! The wizard has given me the ability to ride!”

Zail T'Zannis and Rikkan Addis grinned at the girl's delight and enthusiasm, but Targa Emmen Su Daylath was too distracted to do more than smile. The big woman's 43.

attention kept being drawn to the road leading out of the yard, and a minute later she was following that road on the big paint horse she sat with accustomed ease. Soffann Dra quickly followed after her with the clear intention of catch- ing up, which drew the two men in her wake. Since it was clear Graythor wasn't going to be coming out for any last good-byes I took my own turn at following, and the red- headed boy brought up the rear.

The gray's gait was smooth and easy, his response immediate to the lightest touch of my heel, the least movement of the reins. We moved up the road in ground- eating strides, the early morning sparkling around us, Graythor's giant-house shrinking into the distance. To ei- ther side of the road were green and flowered fields for at least a mile, with nothing but trees rising in the near and far distance, nothing of houses even of normal size. The air was still comfortably cool that early in the day, but I could feel that once the sun rose higher the heat would do the same. The road was heading us toward woods which would surely help for a while, but the woods were unlikely to last forever.

”You must forgive me, lady, for having spoken to you as I did,” a voice came fronnny right, deep and smooth and at least trying to be conciliatory. ”I had not realized that your weariness came from laboring on our behalf, and I would offer my apologies for having given you insult.”

The red-haired Kadrim Harra had brought his palamino up beside my gray, and he really did seem to be sorry for what he'd said. I glanced over at him where he sat his mount looking down at me, and simply shook my head.

”I wasn't insulted,” I grudged, wis.h.i.+ng I could find more pleasure in the beautiful day all around us. ”It's just that this quest is so important to me, so important to everyone of this world-I'll do anything I have to to see that it turns out right, and losing a night's sleep is so unimportant an anything-1 didn't mean to imply that you weren't one of us because you're not as old as we are- You're not really all that young-”

My stumbling explanation finally ran out of steam, just as it usually did when I tried to tell people why I'd done as I had. I couldn't quite understand why 1 was bothering to

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explain things to a boy who was probably too young to comprehend what I was saying, but rather than looking blank, another glance showed him smiling.

”Your concern is natural and understandable,” he said in a way that was supposed to be soothing, his tone brus.h.i.+ng aside any insult on his part. ”Were it my people who were in jeopardy, I, too, would be difficult to speak with. Have you any further knowledge of the worlds to be traveled through than that which was given us by the wizard?”

”Unfortunately, no,” I answered, watching a small flight of birds lazing through the early morning air. ”There are too many gates and too many choices at each gate for any one person to know them all, even if they've lived as long as Graythor has. I haven't lived nearly as long, and don't even know me two worlds he was sure of. I can see I should have traveled more.”

”Even should one attempt to live one's life antic.i.p.ating difficulties, one would still be caught by the surprise of the unantic.i.p.ated,” he said, those steady blue eyes putting surprising weight behind the statement. ”Your power is meant to guard and a.s.sist us through these worlds, a thing we are sure to find of great benefit, yet are those of my own world largely unfamiliar with me doings of magic.

What are these-spells-which were taught you through the darkness, and in what manner will they be of aid to us?”