Cloud's Rider

While Burn, male, whose essence was <dark, pain, and fire,> with a <fine nighthorse mare> in mating season, was no stable presence in the ambient himself. Guil thumped him occasionally in the ribs to keep his attention to what was going on in the visible world, not wishing <Burn falling in hole> and the consequent <pain in Guil’s side.> It was sharp enough as was.

But the curve on that part of the road that faced the rest of the Firgeberg Range was a cure for any glum mood, a glorious sight which he was seeing for the first time—Aby would like it, Guil thought, just as natural as breathing: the snow-covered peaks, the blue sky, and snow-brightened forest as far as the eye could see.

But the fact came down on him then like a hammer blow, that Aby’d known it very well. She’d died here, and sights like this were the last she’d looked on.

“Damn,” Tara said.

“What?” He thought she’d seen something and he cast about with his vision and his hearing, not horse-sense.

“Just damn,” Tara said, and he knew he’d been far too loud with that realization of his and tried to shut down.

“Listen,” Tara said. “You won’t let mealone. I won’t let youalone. Want to go back? Want to avoid this?”

“No.” He didn’t like the exposure of his thoughts—not when he was thinking how Aby had begged him to come up on this route with her. And he hadn’t.

“Yeah,” Tara said. “ Youcan be standoffish and you’re fine.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Pretty view.”

“Just letting you know.”

“Had it coming.”

“Pretty day,” Tara said.

“Yeah.” The ambient was still quieter than it ought to be.

Maybe, they’d said to each other, the swarming that had taken Tarmin had dislodged wildlife from their territories and driven them further down the mountain.

Or onto the north face of the mountain, where the road wasn’t so well maintained—where the road wasn’t maintained at all, in fact: he’d come up that way, and he knew its deteriorating condition.

Burn took a moment to bump against Flicker and take a nip at her neck. Flicker gave a little kick. <Quiet water,> Guil imaged, and Tara: <sun through branches,> to calm it down.

They gave their horses’ legs a rest after the next turn of the road— slid down and sat down on the rocks, instead of walking as they usually would: he still wasn’t feeling up to a hike. The horses sniffed around the rocks and raked at a burrow where there might be vermin, and caused a minor rockfall onto the snow.

But there wasn’t any reaction in the ambient. There was nothing there. It was as lonely as it had been.

He needed a hand up when they were ready to move again. Tara made a stirrup of her gloved hands for him, and got up herself, rifle and all, with a skip on the snowy ground and a hand on Flicker’s back. Which was pretty to watch—but an a

They rode sedately, words now and again, long silences, as the road climbed, as the sun passed overhead and finally began to sink behind the mountains.

The day lasted longer in this pass than it did where their cabin sat surrounded by tall trees. The gold of the departing sun crept up the snow, up tops of the rocks and the tips of the evergreens, and vanished altogether as all the world turned to blue shadows, snowy rocks, snow-blanketed evergreens and the untracked expanse of the road that had received a layer of honest snow.

And before the light was gone—they’d set their pace quite slow for his sake—a turning of the road brought them to the first-stage cabin, nestled against the mountain shoulder, set in among such trees, with snow blocking the door.

The ambient was utterly quiet as they rode up on it.

The kids weren’t there.

“Well,” Tara said, and the sigh went out into the world as a breath of steam and in the ambient as <pain.> “They’re down or they’re up from here.”

He’d personally bet on up, and that they’d used the cabin. He was <worried> and Burn was <worried,> too, picking up a scent of <male horse> that blurred on the wind.

Bat at this hour they’d no choice but dig their way inside, unless they personally pla

Burn and Flicker did a lot of the digging of that drift at the door. Tara had to do the last part with the shovel that was racked just under the eaves.

“You stay put,” she said when he thought he could take a turn. “God. Fool.”

The woman had a way with words.

And truth was, he couldn’t do much but sit there, with his side warning him he’d pushed the limit in the riding he’d done.

But when she’d gotten through the snow enough to get the door open, he got up. She used her boot heel to get the last of the ice away from the door edge—ice that indicated that door had been shoveled clear once—and pulled the latch-cord.

He wasn’t used to having partners do all the work. He walked in behind Flicker and ahead of Burn, who had their own right to look things over, and who would be in with them all night.

But not now. Burn and Flicker made one circuit of the place, sniffed it over as <Cloud and boys and sickness here recently,> smelling nothing that was there now as a rival to what was most important on Burn’s mind, which was Flicker.

And out they went again, right past him with a scrape and thump of hooves and a thump and bang of the door they knocked into on their way out to their own winter antics.

He dodged. Even before he thought about fire or comfort or food or rest, he was interested in the rider board, the square of smoothed wood that sat atop the stone mantel. Tara had gone straight to it.

And sure enough, he saw a wealth of information. He’d had Da

There was a sign that said village, there was some writing—unusual on a rider board—and the slash that meant dead: the kid was giving warning in case no other message got to some of the villagers who might come down this road expecting to get help at Tarmin.

The kids could have gone on down the mountain without wasting time here—and that would have taken them on to Shamesey and the help of senior riders who in no way would allow that girl near the camp. They’d take her deep inside the town, where sendings didn’t happen. But he’d never been easy with that notion. Shamesey was just too unstable.

And sure enough that wasn’t the way they’d gone. The directional sign said they were going up the road, not down.

There was one more sign: dangercoupled with bad horse.

“One of the horses came in here,” he said. “Damn.”

He didn’t know what Tara thought about it. They were getting a lot of horsey loveplay and chasing at the moment: the ambient was muddy with it and they weren’t hearing each other except with words.

But Tara just sank down by the fireplace as if the wind had gone out of her, and ducked her head against the heels of her hands.

It wasn’t a time to push. He knew clearly what he wanted. But he didn’t say it. He could at least lift the kindling from the stack. He brought that over and knelt and got a fire going, one match, with the tinder the shelter offered in a hanging box by the fire.

Light began to glow in the hearth. She’d turned her head and the light showed a dry and composed face.