First Rider's Call

“But . . .” She glanced at Fastion. “If it’s so old, how could it survive in perfect condition for so long?”

Fastion shrugged. “You are a user of magic. Perhaps there is some spell upon the chest.”

“I suppose.” Reverently she folded the banner. The last article was an oblong coffer with the sigil of the winged horse upon it. “And this?” she asked.

“I’ve never been able to open it. It is a mystery to me.”

Karigan explored it with her hands, and her heart hammered with the echo of hoofbeats in her mind. Something special resided within. She touched the winged horse on the lid, and the locking mechanism snicked open.

“Huh,” Fastion said. “It never did that for me.”

Karigan opened the lid and found within, cushioned by green velvet, a twisted horn, one she recognized immediately. She ran her fingers across carved runes and the figure of the mythical p’ehdrose, a half man, half moose, that was said to once roam the lands.

“This was hers,” Karigan said.

Fastion, awed, seemed to know to whom she referred. “We always wondered what had become of it,” he said.

“We wondered why it wasn’t down below.”

The “we” he referred to was the Weapons, and “down below” the tombs where the remains of Lil Ambrioth rested.

On impulse, Karigan drew the horn to her lips and blew. It issued no sound except her frustrated wheezing.

“I guess it doesn’t work after all this time,” she said in disappointment.

Gentle laughter filled her ear. It will work, Karigan lass, but only for the captain of the Green Riders, hey?

Lil! Karigan searched the chamber with her eyes, but the First Rider did not appear, nor did she speak again.

Fastion, unaware of anything unusual, eyed the coffer with interest. “What else is in there?”

Karigan held the horn to her breast, and handed the coffer to him. He drew out a length of cloth that, like the banner, was amazingly well preserved. It was patterned with the blue and green plaid of Lil Ambrioth. It was one of her cross sashes.

Karigan, who had spoken with the spirit of the First Rider, and had met her through time, nevertheless felt the immensity of these finds, the awe they inspired.

“I need to show these to Captain Mapstone,” Karigan said.

“Of course, but let’s leave them here for a moment. I have one more thing to show you.”

When Karigan hesitated, Fastion added, “They’ve been here for nearly a thousand years. I should think they will be fine for a few minutes more.”

Reluctantly she closed the horn away in its coffer and carefully put the artifacts back in the chest.

Fastion led her through another series of corridors. Karigan had lost all sense of direction, though where they walked now felt somehow familiar.

“Do you recognize this area?” Fastion asked.

“I—I don’t know.”

“Mara and I found you in the next room there, on the right, the time when you were substantially, er, faded out.”

Karigan strode ahead of him to investigate. When she peered into the room, she remembered the place, at least vaguely. Her brooch hummed, and there was a prickly sensation on the back of her neck. Yes, of course she remembered. She had been caught in the traveling. She had come forward in time. She had looked toward the door, toward light, and seen herself.

This moment! The realization startled Karigan. She raised her lamp, but its light could not illuminate that far dark corner.

She thought to enter the room, but Fastion halted beside her and peered over her shoulder.

“Reliving memories?” he inquired.

She remembered him asking the question—the memory had a dreamlike quality, only she had seen him from a different angle, heard his voice from across the chamber, and across time.

Fastion walked on. “This way, Rider.”

Karigan licked her lips and glanced into the room again. “Hang on,” she told whatever shadow form of herself might be in there. “You’ve come too far forward—you must go back.”

The words came unbidden, and just as she remembered hearing them that day. Amply spooked, she rushed after Fastion.

He took her up a stairwell of narrow, steep steps, and stopped at a landing with a door partially ajar. It led to a chamber with a low ceiling.

“I warned Dakrias Brown we’d be up here,” Fastion said.

Warned Dakrias Brown? What for?

Glittering shiny panels of colored glass rippled in their light, and as they moved about, Karigan realized there was an entire dome of stained glass in the center of the floor, and now she understood. Dakrias had told her of the dome of glass that had once allowed sunshine to filter into the records room, until a ceiling was built over it some long ago time.

They circled the entire dome, Karigan’s mouth dropping at the scenes that unfolded before her eyes. Scenes she knew must be shared with the other Riders.

The next morning, Karigan caught Captain Mapstone before she reported to the king for another long day of council meetings. Fastion and the Weapon Willis carried the chest into the captain’s quarters, and then quietly withdrew.

“What’s this?” the captain asked.

As Fastion had done with her, she did with the captain: allowed her to explore the contents and find out for herself.

Wonder crossed the captain’s face with each new item, but when she opened the coffer bearing the First Rider’s horn, she wept.

“Only the captain of the Green Riders may make it sound,” Karigan said quietly. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">