Brokedown Palace (2 page)

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Authors: Steven Brust

BOOK: Brokedown Palace
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There were three distinct breeds of horses in Fenario. This was like none of them. It had the gray coloring sometimes found among the small, fast
lovasság
breed from the central plains; was as large as the
munkás
workhorses of the north; and had the high head, broad chest, strong shoulders and thin ankles of the
repül
, owned only by the proudest among the nobility. Its legs were thin but strong, its stance seemed narrow. Its eyes were wide and blue above a swirl of hair perhaps half a shade lighter than that around it.
Miklós, though he had no horse of his own, had been around them all his life, and knowledge of horses was so automatic to him that he took no pride in it. As he studied the horse, it stared back as if studying him.
Let us, then, pause long enough to say that Miklós was a tall, lanky young man with light brown hair, brown eyes, a thin face, and something of a distant look about him. His face was clean-shaven but gave the impression that he would have had trouble growing a beard even had he wanted to. His hands were long and thin, his cheekbones high, his eyes perhaps a bit narrow and slanted. His complexion was dark, with the least trace of yellow if one looked closely.
After a moment Miklós rose to his feet, shakily. He looked around. From the position of the sun, he decided that it was early afternoon. He studied the River and saw that it had carried him a long way. His clothing was only slightly damp, so he must have left
the River several hours before. His eyes returned to the horse, which was still staring at him.
Just to see what would happen, he held out his hand, made clucking sounds, and said, “C’mon, boy. C’mon.” He was surprised at how strong his voice sounded.
The horse shook its head and walked up to him. Its step was high. It stopped only a few feet away. It opened its mouth then and said, “I’m glad you have recovered, master.”
Miklós felt his eyes widening, and sudden understanding came to him. “You … you’re a
táltos
horse, aren’t you?”
“Indeed I am, master,” said the horse.
“Then it was you who healed my wounds!”
“Who can say?” The horse flung his head back and shook it.
Miklós shook his head, unconsciously imitating the horse. After a moment of desperately searching for something to say, he came up with, “What’s your name?”
“I am called Bölcseség,” said the horse. The prince’s mouth worked a bit as he tried to pronounce this. After a moment, the horse said, “Bölk will do, master.”
“Bölk,” repeated Miklós. “Good. I can say that.”
“But can you understand it?”
“Understand it?”
“Pay no mind, master. But tell me, if you will, how you came to be injured.”
Miklós bit his lip but made no reply. Bölk continued to study him, his large, bright blue eyes somber. At last, Miklós sat down with his back against the hard ridges of the tree. He said, “My brother László did it.” When Bölk remained silent Miklós added, “I don’t really know why.”
The horse blinked. “Your brother László,” repeated Bölk. “Do you mean King László?”
Miklós said, “Yes, that’s right.”
“But you still think of him as your brother,” Bölk said.
Miklós nodded.
“And yet,” continued the horse, “you don’t know why you were beaten?”
Miklós turned his head to the side and squinted, pulling up his knees and hugging them. “I see what you mean,” he admitted.
“Tell me what happened, master,” said Bölk.
“Well, I was in my room reading and—my broth—that is, the King entered, without announcement.” Miklós paused, waiting for Bölk to make an interjection. When the horse remained silent, he continued. “He told me he needed my bedchamber. That he needed a room of that size to pursue his studies. He said he was having one of the servants’ quarters cleared for me. I didn’t argue—”
“Why not, master?”
“Well … he’s the King.”
“And it does you no good to argue in any case?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“So what did you say?”
“That he could have the blasted room. That the walls were cracking anyway, and the ceiling was sagging, and what did I care.”
“And he attacked you?”
Miklós trembled with the memory. “I’ve never seen him so angry! We’ve never gotten along well, but this! He drew his sword—he always carries it—and struck me with the flat and then with the pommel. He kept—” Miklós stopped, his eyes growing wide again. “My clothes!” he cried. “They were torn to rags! He half ripped my doublet trying to hold on to me and now it’s whole!”
Bölk chuckled. “So, the mending of your clothing seems more startling to you than the healing of your body?”
“No, no, it isn’t that … well, I guess it is. I don’t know. How did you do it?”
“I had no part in it, master. But how did you escape?”
Miklós closed his eyes, trying to remember. Already it seemed so long ago. “It’s mostly a blur,” he said finally. “I remember crawling out of the door, thinking that Lász—that the King would follow me, but he didn’t. I remember wanting to reach the River and to throw myself into it. I thought I was dying. I
was
dying! What happened?”
“Who can say, master?” said Bölk. “Yet here you are. Do you think your brother will pursue you?”
Miklós considered. “I doubt it. But I can’t go back home now. I’m afraid to.”
“You needn’t,” said the horse. “I will bear you wherever you wish.”
“You will?”
“I have said so, dear master.”
“But …
why
will you?”
“Because you have found me at a time when I needed to be found.”
“But it was
you
who found
me
.”
“Was it?”
Miklós fell silent. After a time, Bölk said, “Whither shall we go then, master?”
“I don’t know, Bölk. I have nowhere to go.”
“And nothing to do?”
“Nothing that I know how to do.”
“Nothing you want to see?”
“I don’t know what to look for.” He looked up suddenly. “Except—I would like to look for whoever or whatever healed me, so I can give thanks and perhaps do a service for him or her or it.”
Bölk’s head drooped for a moment and shook in that manner peculiar to horses and shake-dancers. Then he looked back at Miklós once more and said, “Do you really not know?”
Miklós closed his eyes. He thought of the Demon Goddess, but he hadn’t called out to her, so how could she have known to come to him, even if she chose to? Then, suddenly, he realized that he
did
know. “It was the River, wasn’t it?” he said quietly.
“The River,” said Bölk, “flows down out of the Mountains of Faerie.”
“Then,” said Miklós, standing, “I wish to go to Faerie.”
Táltos
horse and young Prince remained still, as if this announcement had created or removed a barrier between them and they weren’t sure which.
“Few from this land,” said Bölk, “ever travel that way. Fenarr himself; perhaps others. Are you certain you wish to go there?”
Miklós shook his head. “No,” he said, “I’m not sure. You asked what I wished to see, and that is the answer. But I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything. Do you think it’s a foolish thing to do?”
“I am not certain myself, master,” said Bölk. “You may find there what you need. You may not. I have some knowledge of Faerie, but what I know causes me to turn from it.”
“What do you mean?”
The horse said, “I have been there once. To return, one must embrace it. I reject it; I cannot go there. I can bring you to the border, high in the mountains, but no farther.”
“You reject it?” said Miklós.
“I do. I must. But that does not mean you should. I am old, master. I am from another age. Once I was stronger than the power of Faerie. Now, it is stronger than I. Perhaps someday I shall be the stronger again. I know that in Faerie, should you go and return, you will learn much. But I don’t know if this knowledge is good or ill. If you go, you must decide this yourself.”
“‘Another age …’ Was it you who carried Fenarr? You, yourself? But I thought you had died!”
Bölk made that sound which is called snorting in a horse or a
man. “Myself? Another? Who can say? The land has changed; I have changed; the world has changed. All things become what they were not, and I am no different. I remember Fenarr, if that is what you mean; but my memory differs from the legends, and I am not certain that the legends are not more accurate. But master, the choice is still before you.”
As the horse finished speaking, Miklós suddenly knew that all thought of not going had left him. He straightened his back and said, “Come then, Bölk. Take me as far as you may, and I will learn what I learn.”
“But what will you do with what you learn, master?”
“Do?”
“Pay no mind. Only climb onto my back. We have a hundred leagues of plains before we come to the foothills that bring us to the pass the River has carved, and from there we must find our way to the great waterfall that is its source. I think we should avoid the city, and doing so will add yet more time.”
“We’re in no hurry, Bölk.”
“Are we not, then, master?”
“What do you mean?”
“Pay no mind.”
 
THEY EMERGED FROM THE WANDERING FOREST LATE AT night, after riding to it for four days and through it for another three. They camped just beyond its border. The next morning, Miklós rose, stretched, turned, and gaped.
The Mountains of Faerie stood before him, awesome and magnificent.
Ten millions of years before, a battle had taken place. On one side had been billions of tons of rock, mostly granite, wishing to go east. On the other, billions more tons of rock, mostly limestone, sandstone, and shale, desiring to travel west. The battle lasted for
hundreds of thousands of years of pushing, withdrawing, looking for avenues of escape, and head-to-head duels of pure strength. In the end, the limestone had succeeded in passing beneath the granite.
The victorious limestone, except for occasional patches, remained invisible. The granite could be seen for scores of miles. All conception of distance left Miklós as he viewed the closest peak. Its base was near enough that individual evergreens could be seen, yet trees at the top were merely a blur. The peaks farther back, and higher, gleamed white with snow in the early morning sun. Those still farther back showed faint white that the sun couldn’t reach because the Hand of Faerie loomed over them like a blanket, shaken, about to settle.
“It’s beautiful,” he said at last.
Bölk stood next to him, watching Miklós’s face instead of the mountains.
After what seemed like hours, Miklós noticed the morning chill and hastened to don a plain gray cloak that he had purchased in a village on the other side of the forest, trading his ring for it and for other things Bölk had said he would need.
“We must leave soon, master,” said Bölk.
“I know,” said Miklós, almost to himself. “We’ll be traveling—how far can you bring me?”
“To the base of the flats that come from Lake Fenarr and signal the beginning of the River of Faerie.”
“How far is that?”
“There is a path into the mountain before us that soon joins the Riverbed. We will reach the path a few hours after we start, and the base of the falls a few hours after that.”
“So today is our last day together?”
“It is, master.”
Miklós said nothing, but stared at the mountain before him while laying a hand on Bölk’s neck.
“You should eat, master,” said Bölk, gently.
Miklós sighed and put wood into the shallow pit where the fire had been placed the night before. He kindled flame using flint and thin pieces of bark he had picked up while traveling through the forest. When the fire began to burn, he took a loaf of bread and cut it into strips which he set on the rocks next to the fire.

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