Blue Adept (6 page)

He brought next from his saddlebag—he had a bag without a saddle, oddly—some material that he formed into a canopy for me beside the fire. I lay down to sleep feeling quite safe, for few wild creatures brave the fire, and the two horses were grazing near.

But at dusk, as I was nodding off, glare-eyed little monsters erupted from a trapdoor in the ground and swarmed toward me. They were goblins, huge of head and foot, vicious, out for human flesh. They feared not the fire, for they used it in their subterranean demesnes. I screamed.
 
The Hinny was nearest me, for I had been placed in her care. Now I discovered what that meant. She squealed and charged, her hooves striking like dubs, each strike crushing a goblin’s head, while I huddled beside the fire in tenor.
 

The goblins fought her, for they liked equine flesh almost as well as human; they scrambled up her tail, clung to her mane, and tried to grab at her feet. There were so many! I saw one get on her head, and open its big frog mouth to clamp its sharp alligator teeth on her sweet soft gray ear—and suddenly I was on my feet and there, my hands on its grotesque rat body, hurling it off her and away.
 

Then the blue stallion arrived, his hooves making the very ground shudder, and he bellowed a battle-challenge that nearly blasted the hair from my head and I cowered in terror though I knew it was not me he fought. The goblins panicked and fled, the stallion pursuing; where his foot struck, the broken body of a goblin flew twenty feet across the flickering night and dropped like a clod of dirt. The stallion’s eyes flashed like blue fire and the snort from his flaring nostrils was like tempest-wind and the sheen of his great muscles danced about his body as he plunged and reared and kicked. In a moment the last living goblin had vanished down the hole, and the trapdoor clanged shut. The stallion stomped it again and again until naught save rubble remained. It would be long before the goblins used that exit again!

I collapsed in reaction. Never in my life had I been so horrified, except perhaps during the episode of the trolls, for goblins come not into the villages of the man-folk. The Hinny came and nuzzled me, and I was ashamed for that I had let her 5ght while I did naught. But the blue lad told me: “She thanks thee for casting the goblin from off her ear; she knows what courage it required of thee for that goblins terrify young ladies.” Then I felt better, though by no means proud, and resolved to be less squeamish in future. I stroked my hands over the bruises and scratches and bites on the Hinny’s body, helping to heal them and abate the discomfort, and she nudged me with that so-soft nose and everything was nice.

The goblins came not again—and who would have, after tasting the wrath of the blue stallion? I slept safely until dawn. The blue lad was up before me, and had found ripe pears from whence I knew not, and we ate and mounted and were off again. I thought I might be sore from the prior day’s riding, but the Hinny’s gait was so gentle I suffered not at all. I wondered what the winged horse’s gait was like; what was the cadence of footfalls in air?
 

In due course we came to the White Mountains that bound our land ill the north, and ascended their foothills.
 
The way grew steep, and there was hardly any easing as we crested ridges and drove on up. For the first time the Hinny’s gait became rough, as she labored to carry me on swiftly, and even the blue stallion was sweating, his nostrils flaring and pulsing with the effort. We climbed slopes I would not have cared to navigate on foot, rising into the mountain range proper. The air grew chill, and wind came up, and I gathered my cape about me, shivering.
 
The blue lad glanced at me. “May I speak bold?” he inquired melodiously. “Thou art not cold.”

“Not cold,” I agreed bravely, for I knew that if we desisted this quest now, never would I find Snowflake, and evermore would I curse myself for my neglect. And, strangely, I no longer felt the chill; it was as if my clothing had become doubly insulative. It was of course his magic, that I did not recognize. I was so young then, and so innocent! We climbed on into the snows, and there in a cave half-hid in the white we found the lair of the Snow Horse. He stood there awaiting us expectantly, a fine albino stallion whose mane and tail resembled glistening icicles and whose hooves were so pure white I could hardly tell where they left off and the packed snow beneath them began.
 

The lad dismounted and walked to the Snow Horse. I made to dismount too, but the Hinny swung back her head, warning me “no” with a backward glance, so I obeyed her and stayed put. I was learning already that here in the wilderness the final word was not mine.
 
In a moment the lad returned. “The Snow Horse did lure thy foal,” he said to me. “He thought her of his kind, for her color, but when they reached the snow she was cold, and he knew she was no snow filly and he let her go, never intending harm to her. But the snow demons came and took her ere she could return to thee.”

“The snow demons!” I exclaimed, appalled. Never had I heard good tidings of that ilk.

“Pray we are in time,” he said.

“In time?” I asked blankly. “Snowflake is lost forever!
 
We can not brace snow demons, even if they have not yet eaten her.” I felt the hot tears burning mine eyes. “Yet if there is a chance—“

“A white foal they will save—for a while.” He mounted and led the way along the slope.

We made our way deeper into the snowy region, and the breath plumed out from the nostrils of our steeds, but still I was not cold. Then the blue stallion halted, sniffing the snow, and pawed the slope. I knew we were near the lair of the demons, and I shivered with fear, not with cold. Al-most, I preferred to let the foal go—but then I thought of the demons devouring her shivering flesh, and horror restored my faint courage.

A snow demon appeared on a ledge above us. “Whooo?” it demanded, with sound like winter cutting past a frozen crag.

The blue lad did not answer in speech. He stood upon the back of his stallion and spread his arms, as if to say “Here am I!” I was both impressed and concerned. It was clever of him to keep his balance like that, but he could so readily fall and hurt himself. Though he acted as if the demon should recognize him and be awed, in fact it was a foolish posturing. An ogre or a giant might awe a demon; the lad was pitiful in his insignificance.

To my astonishment, the demon drew back as if confronted by a giant. “Whiiiy?” it demanded.
 
The lad pointed to the Hinny, then moved his hands together to indicate small size. He had come for the foal.
 
The demon scratched its icicle-haired head in seeming confusion: no foal here! The blue lad then did something strange indeed. He brought out a large harmonica—I had not known he carried such an instrument—and brought it to his mouth. He played one note—and the demon reacted as if struck. Sleet fell from it like droplets of perspiration, and it pointed down the slope. I looked—and there, in a patch of green in a narrow valley, stood my beloved Snow-flake. The poor little filly was huddled and shivering, for nowhere in the White Mountains is it warm.
 
The demon faded back into its crevice, and we made our way down the steep slope to the valley.

The way was tortuous, but the blue stallion picked out footholds where I thought none existed, and slowly we descended. It was like being lowered into a tremendous bowl, whose sides were so steep our every motion threatened to start a snowslide that could bury the foal. Oh, yes, we moved cautiously!

At last we reached the patch of green. I dismounted and ran to Snowflake, and she recognized me with a whinny.
 
The warmth that encompassed me seemed to enclose her too, and she became stronger. “Oh,” I cried, hugging her.
 
“I’m so glad thou art safel I feared—“ But my prior worries were of no account now. The blue lad had enabled me to rescue Snowflake, even as he had promised.
 
Then I heard a rumble. Alarmed, I looked up—and saw the snow demons on high, pushing great balls of snow off ledges. They were starting an avalanche—and we were at the base of it! It was a trap, and no way could we escape.
 

For the first time I saw the blue lad angry. Yet he neither swore nor cowered. Instead he brought out his harmonica again and played a few bars of music. It was a rough, aggressive melody—but what good it could do in the face of the onrushing doom I knew not. Soon the sound was drowned out by the converging avalanche.
 
The snows came down on us like the lashing of a waterfall. I screamed and hugged Snowflake, knowing our end had come. But as I braced myself for the inevitable, something strange happened.

There was a blinding flash of light and wash of heat, like as an explosion. Then warm water swirled around my feet.
 
Warm water? I forced open mine eyes and looked, unbelieving. The snows had vanished. All the valley, high to the tallest surrounding peaks, was bare of snow, with only water coursing down, and steam rising in places. We had been saved by some massive invasion of spring thaw.
 

“It must be magic!” I cried, bewildered. “Unless this is a volcanic region. But what a coincidence!” The lad only nodded. Still I recognized not his power!
 
We walked up the slope, escaping the valley and the deepening lake that was forming at its nadir. I rode the Hinny, and Snowflake walked beside. It was a long climb, but a happy one.

At the high pass leading to the outside the cold intensified. From out of a crevice a snow demon came. “Yyoooo!” it cried windily, and with a violent gesture hurled a spell like a jag of ice at the blue lad.

But the Hinny leaped forward, intercepting that scintillating bolt with her own body. It coalesced about her front legs, and ice formed on her knees, and she stumbled, wheezing in pain. I leaped off, alarmed.
 
The blue lad cried out in a singsong voice, and the foul demon puffed into vapor and floated away. Then the boy came to minister to the Hinny, who was on the ground, her knees frozen.

“That bolt was meant for me,” he said. “Hinny, I can cure thee not completely, for knees are the most difficult joints to touch and thou canst not rest them now, but I will do what I can.” And he played his harmonica again, a few bold bars, then sang: “Hinny’s knees—now unfreeze.” The ice vanished from her legs. The Hinny hauled herself to her feet. She tested her knees, and they were sturdy.
 
But I could see some discoloration, and knew they had been weakened somewhat. It seemed she could walk or run on them, but special maneuvers might now be beyond her.
 
Then I realized what I should have known before. I turned to the lad. “Thou didst that!” I accused him. “Thou canst do magic!”

He nodded soberly. “I concealed it not from thee,” he said, like as a child caught with hand in cookie-jar. He was so shamefaced and penitent I had to laugh.
 
I put mine arm about his small shoulders and squeezed him as a big sister might. “I forgive thee,” I said. “But do not play with magic unduly, lest thou dost attract the notice of an Adept.”

He made no comment. Shamed am I to recall now the way I patronized him then, in mine ignorance! We re-mounted and went on out of the mountains, slowly, in deference to the Hinny’s almost-restored knees and the weakness of the foal. At last we reached the warmth of the lowlands, and there we camped for the night. Snowflake grazed beside the Hinny, who watched out for her in the manner of a dam, and I knew the foal would not come to harm. We foraged for berries and nuts, which fortunately were plentiful and delicious. Such fortune was ever in the presence of the blue lad, for he preferred to use his magic subtly.

At dusk the sunset spread its splendor across the western sky, and in the east a blue moon rose. The lad brought out his harmonica again, faced the moon, and played. Before, he had produced only single notes and brief strident passages. This time he started gentle, as it were tuning his instrument, warming it in his hands, playing a scale. His little hands were hardly large enough to enfold it properly, yet they were marvelously dextrous. Then, as the moon waxed and the sun waned, he essayed a melody.
 
I was tired, not paying real attention, so was caught by surprise. From that instrument emerged music of such beauty, such rare rapture as I had never imagined. The tune surrounded me, encompassed me, drew me into itself and transported my spirit up, high, into the ambience of the blue moon. I sailed up, as it were, into the lovely blue-tinged clouds, riding on a steed made of music, wafting through blue billows toward the magic land that was the face of the moon. Larger it grew, and clearer, its landscape ever-better denned.

As I came near it I saw the little blue men on its surface, blacksmiths hammering out blue steel.
 
Bluesmiths, I suppose. Then I saw a lady in blue, and her hair was fair like mine, and she wore a lovely blue gown and blue slippers set with blue gems for buttons, and on her head a blue tiara, and she was regal and beautiful beyond belief. She turned and fixed her gaze on me, and her eyes were blue like mine—and she was me.
 
Amazed, flattered and alarmed, I retreated. I flew back past the blue mists like a feather-shafted arrow, and suddenly I was on the ground again. The boy stopped playing, and the melody faded hauntingly.

I realized it not then, but he had shown me the first of the three foundations of my later love for him: his music.
 
Never in all Phaze was there a man who could make such—

(The Lady Blue paused, resting her head against her hand, suffering. Stile started to speak, but she cut him off savagely. “And thou, thou image, thou false likeness! Thou comest to these Demesnes bearing his harmonica, using it—“ (“His?” Stile asked, astonished.