Eos, p.17
Eos, page 17
Once we’re inside the cage, he shuts the gate behind us. And then he carefully pulls back the curtain that comes down from the nearest wooden beam overhead.
Inside that hidden area, a curious sight greets me. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but certainly not these three medium-sized orbs full of swirling multi-color lights, all three suspended on chains from that same beam in the ceiling. There is no other light source in this immediate area, and as a result the orbs are the focal point, as they pulse and flicker with faint rainbow light.
“Here you are, my beauties!” Girsul exclaims in a whisper, as he steps closer to the orbs which hang low enough to reach chest level.
I stand, petrified, staring at them. “They look like weird light orbs,” I say. “What exactly are these? Some kind of pegasei eggs?”
Girsul smirks and shakes his head. “Go ahead, touch it.”
“Okay. . . .” I slowly reach out and poke the nearest orb with my index finger. It feels solid and slightly warm to the touch, with a glassy surface and a faint pearly sheen, like the strange expensive stuff inside sea shells, called mother-of-pearl. “Is that a shell?”
“In a sense. . . .” Girsul leans closer to the orb, and it illuminates him in profile. “It’s a quantum containment field.”
I stare at him without comprehension. Those words, they could be dog barks, for all the sense they make to me. “A field, I understand,” I say carefully. “A field of grass, or wheat, or barley? The rest, not so much.”
“It took me a while too,” he replies, glancing up at me. “But—it’s energy, manipulated on the smallest, tiniest level.”
“Huh? Like sunlight? Or, whatever powers the lights and the media-box?” I try very hard to make sense of this.
“Yes, that’s all energy. But this—just think of it as energy that’s stuck in a kind of weird, temporary solid form.”
“How is energy solid?”
He bites his lip, after a pause. “I don’t know. And seriously, it doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that it just is. This solid energy is a barrier that surrounds and contains the rainbow cloud creatures. Because they’re energy too. That’s what I was told. They can’t escape it. It’s the only way to hold them. Energy on energy. And the only thing that can break this solid energy barrier is a sound command.”
I run one hand through my tightly curling hair and scratch my scalp.
This is just too much. . . .
“So . . . the rainbow clouds are inside,” I restate, mostly for myself.
“Yes.”
“And how did they get in there?”
“The priests and the sound techs sang the commands while they baited the pegasei with light.”
“Huh?”
“Light, the pegasei eat light. Sunlight is their favorite. So while they were loose in the Temple, they harnessed them quickly with the solid energy. And now they’re trapped.”
I furrow my brow. “Isn’t that kind of awful? That they’re trapped, I mean? Are they—suffering?”
Girsul pauses to consider, then shrugs. “Maybe. Probably not. We’re not really sure about anything when it comes to these things, only that they have certain uses. Anyway, we’ll talk about it later. Now we need to feed the pegasei. And then we’ll practice releasing them and taming them.”
“Seriously?” My mouth parts again. “Feed them?”
“Yeah. And you’re going to help me.”
Girsul bends down and picks up a folded sheet of black cloth from a stack in the corner of the cage, same material as the curtains, and tucks it around his uniform belt. Then he reaches up and disconnects the chain of one orb from the wooden beam overhead, and gently lowers it so that the orb swings near the ground. He hands me the chain end. “Hold this, carefully.”
Silently I accept the metal chain and feel the light weight dangling in my hands, a slightly moving, pulsing thing that feels like I’ve caught a fish.
“Try not to swing it too much and don’t drop it,” he tells me, while reaching to unhook the other two suspended orbs. “Follow me.”
Balancing the two chains, one in each hand, as if he’s carrying buckets of water, Girsul turns around, then pauses once again, and offers me one of his two orbs. “Hold this one too, for a moment.”
I take the second chain, so that now I’m the one balancing two orbs, while the young man unlocks the cage containment gate and steps outside into the main stables hallway area.
“Very, very careful, now,” he says softly, again looking around to make sure we’re still alone. “We’re outside the shielded cage, which means that if the quantum containment fields break, they will escape completely, and Ter Aten will kill me . . . and you.”
“Where are we going?” I step outside the cage, careful not to swing my pegasus orbs.
“Just here, through this door.” Girsul motions with his head in the direction that continues deeper into the stables, where I see a slightly elevated roof and the beginning row of camel enclosures. And in one wall, just before the camel area, is a narrow, unobtrusive doorway.
Girsul walks before me and opens the door with his free hand. Bright sunlight immediately hits us, followed by a warm breeze and wonderful fresh air.
We go outside, and the moment we step past the threshold into the inner exercise yard, I feel a small tug at my fingers—there’s a subtle shifting of weight at the ends of both chains I still hold. I glance down, and O, holy Bastet help me!
The rainbow-filled orbs are flaring and pulsing with fierce brightness! They look like they’re on fire!
“What’s happening?” I ask breathlessly.
Girsul’s single orb is similarly burning-bright now, scalding, incandescent near-white, and he grins at me. “They’re feeding!”
We take a few steps into the otherwise empty yard, and Girsul tells me to just stand there and let the sun bathe over the orbs. “They only need about half an hour to fully feed for the day. As long as the sun is out, they get their full meal. On overcast days, they need longer, at least two hours in the daylight.”
“Oh,” I say. “What happens if they don’t get the light?”
“I’m told, they fade away. . . . Die, I suppose. They shouldn’t be kept in the dark too long.”
“Like in that dark cage, behind the curtains?”
Girsul bites his lip. “Yeah, that’s just temporary. Once we tame them, we will have them at our disposal and will be able to keep them in the main stables—I think.”
“You think?” I say with a tone of minor accusation, continuing to clutch the two chains.
“Well, they didn’t tell me much at the place I procured these. Just enough to keep them alive and tame them.”
I shake my head. “I don’t suppose you bought these directly from the priests of Kassiopei?”
He snorts. “The Kassiopeion temple charges too much. I saved Ter Aten some money and got these beauties from a—let’s just say, a third party.”
“All right, whatever,” I say. “I don’t need to know.”
“That’s correct, you don’t,” he retorts with a wink.
I roll my eyes.
We stand, milling about in the sunshine, while the pegasei inside seem to grow brighter and brighter with each daydream, if that’s even possible—the pulsing sensation increases, and I can feel it all the way along the chains.
A sensation of dancing at my fingertips. . . .
Meanwhile, the rainbow lights blink and flux, running faster and faster to circle the interior diameter of each orb, in what seems to be wild ecstasy. I’m guessing, after being for so long in the dark behind black curtains, they are gorging to relieve their hunger . . . poor things.
Girsul keeps glancing around to make sure no one is coming. “If anyone shows up, we’ll just put the black sheets over these, and say we’re carrying light orbs. Got it?”
“Yeah.” I nod, feeling a slight sheen of sweat on my forehead, despite the pleasant breeze, since the sun is very hot right now, and we’re far from any shade. “How do we know when they’re—full?”
“Like I said, half an hour is enough. We’re almost there. Another way to tell is when those rainbow lights start to move so quickly that the motion blends the colors, and they appear almost white. Kind of like that one—” and he points to the pegasus orb hanging from my right hand.
“So, what now?” I ask.
“We need to go back indoors, out of the sun,” Girsul replies. “Otherwise, they might ‘overcharge,’ become too strong, and can even break out of the quantum containment field.”
“What about these other two?” I motion with my head. “They don’t appear white, so are they still feeding?”
“Good enough,” he says, taking the black sheet from his belt and wrapping it around his pegasus orb, then hands me the other sheet. “Cover up yours, and let’s head back in.”
We go back inside the stables through the same door and end up a few steps away from the special shielded cage. Just then we hear voices coming from the end of the stables. Looks like we got back just in time.
“Quickly. . . .” Girsul fiddles one-handed with the enclosure lock.
Once we’re back in the metal cage, he exhales a long breath and then quickly pulls the black curtain around us. It occurs to me he’s been nervous this whole time. I don’t blame him.
“All right, now,” he says in a loud whisper. “Let’s first hang them back up.”
One by one, he hooks the chains up to the wooden beam, as I hand him my two. The three orbs are bright as daylight, super-charged to the point of casting a very powerful radiance in a nimbus around them.
“I hope that black curtain is enough to keep their light from shining through,” I whisper back.
“Sh-h-h-h!” Girsul hisses, putting one finger over his lips, as we hear the sound of several footfalls approaching, and the conversation of grooms talking about the Service Competitions and gossiping about the Bisfuri.
We freeze in silence, until the stable workers pass by us, heading deeper into the stables.
“Okay, they’re gone,” he says at last. “We can get back to work.”
“What now?” I ask, continuing to stare at the bright orbs.
“Now we try to tame them,” he replies with a mischievous smile. “First, you should know that if they manage to escape these energy orbs here in the enclosure, they won’t be able to get out entirely. They’ll simply float around the shielded cage. So, keep the gate closed all the way—to complete the energy circuit.”
I wrinkle my brow. “But they’re like vapor clouds—won’t they simply get out through the holes between the chain links? I used to have a mouse at home that I put in this small basket cage to see if I could make it a pet, but it just got out after it chewed through the straw. . . .”
Girsul makes a short sound of laughter. “Yeah, I bet it got out. But this is not a mouse. And this cage is quantum-shielded. Each chain link is made with special orichalcum-coated metal that reacts to sound commands, and the commands have been issued by a skilled tech. So, it acts like a magnet that makes energy stick to it. And the pegasei will stick to it too. Holes and small openings don’t matter, as long as the orichalcum carries a charge—or so the tech has told me. Do you understand?”
I nod, even though I don’t completely know what he’s talking about. I only have very vague knowledge of what orichalcum can do besides making things levitate if the right sound tone is sung. I mean, I do know how to make the media-box start up and shut down. . . .
“All right,” Girsul continues, as he goes to open a small wooden box in the enclosure corner underneath the stack of black sheets. “First, we need to voice-key the energy spheres to ourselves and these metal cords.” Rummaging through the box, he pulls out what looks like coils of metal rope or wire, of a slate grey color with small gold flecks shining in it, similar to the chain link fencing of the enclosure around us. I recognize the sheen of orichalcum. . . . It’s like fool’s gold.
Very expensive hoohvak’s gold.
“You know how to voice-key, right? Here, catch.” He tosses one coil to me, and I grab it.
“Um,” I say. “Sort of, I guess.”
I don’t mention the fact that I’ve only seen Grandmother do that with our media-box when it was brand new. You have to initialize them before first use, and that involves voice-keying of each new device by the customer. I’ve never done it myself.
“Good. It’s pretty straightforward. You tie the cord around it then sing the keying command—while you hold on to both. And, while you do it, you also have to think of whatever shape you want the pegasus to take on.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “What shape? Huh?”
Girsul smiles. “This creature is a shapeshifter. And, it can read your mind. It will see whatever animal you imagine, and it will take on that physical form!”
My jaw drops, and I am absolutely stunned.
He sees my shock and smirks again with amusement. “Yeah, I bet you didn’t know that. Now you do. These things are so prized, partly because they can shapeshift!”
I put my hand over my mouth.
“As you key the orb to yourself, the solid energy collapses, releasing the pegasus. That same energy then immediately adheres to the new harness cord which becomes the creature’s new restraint. Now the pegasus is loose, out of containment, but cannot escape. The harness puts you in direct control, giving you the chance to train it—and even ride it!”
“But—” I attempt to speak.
“Just follow my lead and sing these three notes exactly. But, not just yet. First, we have to have all three of them rigged up with those harnesses. Each one of them gets its own harness. Like this—”
Girsul turns his attention to the pegasei. He supports one of the orbs on the palm of his hand, while he unhooks the encircling chain, so that the orb is freed and rolls loosely on his palm. Next, he takes the coiled metal cord and starts wrapping it around the sphere—once, and then a second time so that it’s perpendicular and forms a very basic metal “cage” around the orb. He ties it off in a simple knot, and holds on to the remaining length of cord like a thin bridle, while continuing to support the orb in the palm of his other hand.
“Ready?” He throws me a meaningful glance. “Watch me!”
I’m staring so hard my eyes are about to fly out of my head.
But he hesitates again, then pronounces, almost with pride: “This is what, supposedly, the original pegasei looked like when the priests first figured out how to make them shift form. Here we go, imagining it now . . . watch! And stand back to make room!”
He takes three steps backward away from me, and sings three notes, the first one long, the other two short, and repeats the sequence several times, focusing his attention on the orb in his hand. His voice is a clean tenor, and he hits the notes accurately.
On the fourth repetition there is a loud pop sound, followed by a searing flash. The flash is so bright it blinds me momentarily, and flares like a crack of lightning against the black curtains around us.
The orb in Girsul’s hand deflates like a burst wine sack. But, unlike a wine sack, it disappears in thin air. In its place, a cloud of rainbow light explodes into the small space around us.
With a stifled scream, I jump backward, so that I’m pushing and slapping at the curtains in panic, in an attempt to get away. . . .
Only now I’m surrounded completely by a vaporous thing of multi-colored light. Except . . . I see that this blob of rainbow vapor is pulsing like a beating heart and struggling.
A portion of it—a tangible limb, maybe, a neck—appears to be mysteriously contained between the coiled loops of the metal cord in Girsul’s hand. It throbs and pulls at the cord violently, while the young man holds on with both hands, showing visible effort, and continuing to sing the three notes. . . .
And then a miracle takes place before me. The shapeless mass of colored light fluctuates wildly a few more times, and starts to coalesce into some kind of physical form.
“Get back, back!” Girsul yells at me, having stopped singing. He wrangles the blob of light which distends and reforms with each heartbeat, growing and retracting multiple limbs, and suddenly it is no longer mere light.
It is something else.
The limbs lengthen, and there is a wide barrel torso and a long equine head. Filaments of radiance form into a mane and a tail, streaming like flames, until they fade, turning pearlescent white. And from the back of the torso, enormous pale wings erupt, covered in impossible feathers—as if a giant eagle bird decided to gift its flying appendages and feathers to a horse!
“Crap of a goat!” I exclaim in a combination of absolute awe and absolute terror. “Crap, crap, crap! What is that?”
The winged horse suddenly rears up on its powerful equine legs, so that it literally hits the wooden beams on the ceiling, and has to fold its wings somewhat, short of tearing them. It then stomps the ground of the metal enclosure, making the floor ring. . . .
As we stare, it swings its head and neck from side to side, baring perfect white teeth at us. And its wide, rolling eyes are an impossible lavender violet as it glances back and forth from me to Girsul.
No neighing, no snorting sounds of a true horse or sesemet come from it. . . . Even as it struggles, its jaw contorts and screams—all in terrible, perfect silence.
Worst of all, there is no comprehension in its gaze, only alien wilderness.
“This—this is a pegasus!” Girsul exclaims to me in proud exultation, even as he continues to clutch the orichalcum cord with both hands.
And then he sings a long single note, the kind used to train herd animals.
The pegasus creature stops struggling.
Just like that, it stands frozen, listening to the long sound, as though mesmerized.
I don’t blame it, I’m mesmerized too.
Though, I think I almost crapped my undergarments.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Girsul holds on to the end of the harness that’s tied in a loop and then steps closer to the motionless pegasus. Carefully he reaches up to run his fingers over the mane, then touches the skin of the neck. The creature does not respond, only periodically rolls its lavender eyes in senseless random motion.
Inside that hidden area, a curious sight greets me. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but certainly not these three medium-sized orbs full of swirling multi-color lights, all three suspended on chains from that same beam in the ceiling. There is no other light source in this immediate area, and as a result the orbs are the focal point, as they pulse and flicker with faint rainbow light.
“Here you are, my beauties!” Girsul exclaims in a whisper, as he steps closer to the orbs which hang low enough to reach chest level.
I stand, petrified, staring at them. “They look like weird light orbs,” I say. “What exactly are these? Some kind of pegasei eggs?”
Girsul smirks and shakes his head. “Go ahead, touch it.”
“Okay. . . .” I slowly reach out and poke the nearest orb with my index finger. It feels solid and slightly warm to the touch, with a glassy surface and a faint pearly sheen, like the strange expensive stuff inside sea shells, called mother-of-pearl. “Is that a shell?”
“In a sense. . . .” Girsul leans closer to the orb, and it illuminates him in profile. “It’s a quantum containment field.”
I stare at him without comprehension. Those words, they could be dog barks, for all the sense they make to me. “A field, I understand,” I say carefully. “A field of grass, or wheat, or barley? The rest, not so much.”
“It took me a while too,” he replies, glancing up at me. “But—it’s energy, manipulated on the smallest, tiniest level.”
“Huh? Like sunlight? Or, whatever powers the lights and the media-box?” I try very hard to make sense of this.
“Yes, that’s all energy. But this—just think of it as energy that’s stuck in a kind of weird, temporary solid form.”
“How is energy solid?”
He bites his lip, after a pause. “I don’t know. And seriously, it doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that it just is. This solid energy is a barrier that surrounds and contains the rainbow cloud creatures. Because they’re energy too. That’s what I was told. They can’t escape it. It’s the only way to hold them. Energy on energy. And the only thing that can break this solid energy barrier is a sound command.”
I run one hand through my tightly curling hair and scratch my scalp.
This is just too much. . . .
“So . . . the rainbow clouds are inside,” I restate, mostly for myself.
“Yes.”
“And how did they get in there?”
“The priests and the sound techs sang the commands while they baited the pegasei with light.”
“Huh?”
“Light, the pegasei eat light. Sunlight is their favorite. So while they were loose in the Temple, they harnessed them quickly with the solid energy. And now they’re trapped.”
I furrow my brow. “Isn’t that kind of awful? That they’re trapped, I mean? Are they—suffering?”
Girsul pauses to consider, then shrugs. “Maybe. Probably not. We’re not really sure about anything when it comes to these things, only that they have certain uses. Anyway, we’ll talk about it later. Now we need to feed the pegasei. And then we’ll practice releasing them and taming them.”
“Seriously?” My mouth parts again. “Feed them?”
“Yeah. And you’re going to help me.”
Girsul bends down and picks up a folded sheet of black cloth from a stack in the corner of the cage, same material as the curtains, and tucks it around his uniform belt. Then he reaches up and disconnects the chain of one orb from the wooden beam overhead, and gently lowers it so that the orb swings near the ground. He hands me the chain end. “Hold this, carefully.”
Silently I accept the metal chain and feel the light weight dangling in my hands, a slightly moving, pulsing thing that feels like I’ve caught a fish.
“Try not to swing it too much and don’t drop it,” he tells me, while reaching to unhook the other two suspended orbs. “Follow me.”
Balancing the two chains, one in each hand, as if he’s carrying buckets of water, Girsul turns around, then pauses once again, and offers me one of his two orbs. “Hold this one too, for a moment.”
I take the second chain, so that now I’m the one balancing two orbs, while the young man unlocks the cage containment gate and steps outside into the main stables hallway area.
“Very, very careful, now,” he says softly, again looking around to make sure we’re still alone. “We’re outside the shielded cage, which means that if the quantum containment fields break, they will escape completely, and Ter Aten will kill me . . . and you.”
“Where are we going?” I step outside the cage, careful not to swing my pegasus orbs.
“Just here, through this door.” Girsul motions with his head in the direction that continues deeper into the stables, where I see a slightly elevated roof and the beginning row of camel enclosures. And in one wall, just before the camel area, is a narrow, unobtrusive doorway.
Girsul walks before me and opens the door with his free hand. Bright sunlight immediately hits us, followed by a warm breeze and wonderful fresh air.
We go outside, and the moment we step past the threshold into the inner exercise yard, I feel a small tug at my fingers—there’s a subtle shifting of weight at the ends of both chains I still hold. I glance down, and O, holy Bastet help me!
The rainbow-filled orbs are flaring and pulsing with fierce brightness! They look like they’re on fire!
“What’s happening?” I ask breathlessly.
Girsul’s single orb is similarly burning-bright now, scalding, incandescent near-white, and he grins at me. “They’re feeding!”
We take a few steps into the otherwise empty yard, and Girsul tells me to just stand there and let the sun bathe over the orbs. “They only need about half an hour to fully feed for the day. As long as the sun is out, they get their full meal. On overcast days, they need longer, at least two hours in the daylight.”
“Oh,” I say. “What happens if they don’t get the light?”
“I’m told, they fade away. . . . Die, I suppose. They shouldn’t be kept in the dark too long.”
“Like in that dark cage, behind the curtains?”
Girsul bites his lip. “Yeah, that’s just temporary. Once we tame them, we will have them at our disposal and will be able to keep them in the main stables—I think.”
“You think?” I say with a tone of minor accusation, continuing to clutch the two chains.
“Well, they didn’t tell me much at the place I procured these. Just enough to keep them alive and tame them.”
I shake my head. “I don’t suppose you bought these directly from the priests of Kassiopei?”
He snorts. “The Kassiopeion temple charges too much. I saved Ter Aten some money and got these beauties from a—let’s just say, a third party.”
“All right, whatever,” I say. “I don’t need to know.”
“That’s correct, you don’t,” he retorts with a wink.
I roll my eyes.
We stand, milling about in the sunshine, while the pegasei inside seem to grow brighter and brighter with each daydream, if that’s even possible—the pulsing sensation increases, and I can feel it all the way along the chains.
A sensation of dancing at my fingertips. . . .
Meanwhile, the rainbow lights blink and flux, running faster and faster to circle the interior diameter of each orb, in what seems to be wild ecstasy. I’m guessing, after being for so long in the dark behind black curtains, they are gorging to relieve their hunger . . . poor things.
Girsul keeps glancing around to make sure no one is coming. “If anyone shows up, we’ll just put the black sheets over these, and say we’re carrying light orbs. Got it?”
“Yeah.” I nod, feeling a slight sheen of sweat on my forehead, despite the pleasant breeze, since the sun is very hot right now, and we’re far from any shade. “How do we know when they’re—full?”
“Like I said, half an hour is enough. We’re almost there. Another way to tell is when those rainbow lights start to move so quickly that the motion blends the colors, and they appear almost white. Kind of like that one—” and he points to the pegasus orb hanging from my right hand.
“So, what now?” I ask.
“We need to go back indoors, out of the sun,” Girsul replies. “Otherwise, they might ‘overcharge,’ become too strong, and can even break out of the quantum containment field.”
“What about these other two?” I motion with my head. “They don’t appear white, so are they still feeding?”
“Good enough,” he says, taking the black sheet from his belt and wrapping it around his pegasus orb, then hands me the other sheet. “Cover up yours, and let’s head back in.”
We go back inside the stables through the same door and end up a few steps away from the special shielded cage. Just then we hear voices coming from the end of the stables. Looks like we got back just in time.
“Quickly. . . .” Girsul fiddles one-handed with the enclosure lock.
Once we’re back in the metal cage, he exhales a long breath and then quickly pulls the black curtain around us. It occurs to me he’s been nervous this whole time. I don’t blame him.
“All right, now,” he says in a loud whisper. “Let’s first hang them back up.”
One by one, he hooks the chains up to the wooden beam, as I hand him my two. The three orbs are bright as daylight, super-charged to the point of casting a very powerful radiance in a nimbus around them.
“I hope that black curtain is enough to keep their light from shining through,” I whisper back.
“Sh-h-h-h!” Girsul hisses, putting one finger over his lips, as we hear the sound of several footfalls approaching, and the conversation of grooms talking about the Service Competitions and gossiping about the Bisfuri.
We freeze in silence, until the stable workers pass by us, heading deeper into the stables.
“Okay, they’re gone,” he says at last. “We can get back to work.”
“What now?” I ask, continuing to stare at the bright orbs.
“Now we try to tame them,” he replies with a mischievous smile. “First, you should know that if they manage to escape these energy orbs here in the enclosure, they won’t be able to get out entirely. They’ll simply float around the shielded cage. So, keep the gate closed all the way—to complete the energy circuit.”
I wrinkle my brow. “But they’re like vapor clouds—won’t they simply get out through the holes between the chain links? I used to have a mouse at home that I put in this small basket cage to see if I could make it a pet, but it just got out after it chewed through the straw. . . .”
Girsul makes a short sound of laughter. “Yeah, I bet it got out. But this is not a mouse. And this cage is quantum-shielded. Each chain link is made with special orichalcum-coated metal that reacts to sound commands, and the commands have been issued by a skilled tech. So, it acts like a magnet that makes energy stick to it. And the pegasei will stick to it too. Holes and small openings don’t matter, as long as the orichalcum carries a charge—or so the tech has told me. Do you understand?”
I nod, even though I don’t completely know what he’s talking about. I only have very vague knowledge of what orichalcum can do besides making things levitate if the right sound tone is sung. I mean, I do know how to make the media-box start up and shut down. . . .
“All right,” Girsul continues, as he goes to open a small wooden box in the enclosure corner underneath the stack of black sheets. “First, we need to voice-key the energy spheres to ourselves and these metal cords.” Rummaging through the box, he pulls out what looks like coils of metal rope or wire, of a slate grey color with small gold flecks shining in it, similar to the chain link fencing of the enclosure around us. I recognize the sheen of orichalcum. . . . It’s like fool’s gold.
Very expensive hoohvak’s gold.
“You know how to voice-key, right? Here, catch.” He tosses one coil to me, and I grab it.
“Um,” I say. “Sort of, I guess.”
I don’t mention the fact that I’ve only seen Grandmother do that with our media-box when it was brand new. You have to initialize them before first use, and that involves voice-keying of each new device by the customer. I’ve never done it myself.
“Good. It’s pretty straightforward. You tie the cord around it then sing the keying command—while you hold on to both. And, while you do it, you also have to think of whatever shape you want the pegasus to take on.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “What shape? Huh?”
Girsul smiles. “This creature is a shapeshifter. And, it can read your mind. It will see whatever animal you imagine, and it will take on that physical form!”
My jaw drops, and I am absolutely stunned.
He sees my shock and smirks again with amusement. “Yeah, I bet you didn’t know that. Now you do. These things are so prized, partly because they can shapeshift!”
I put my hand over my mouth.
“As you key the orb to yourself, the solid energy collapses, releasing the pegasus. That same energy then immediately adheres to the new harness cord which becomes the creature’s new restraint. Now the pegasus is loose, out of containment, but cannot escape. The harness puts you in direct control, giving you the chance to train it—and even ride it!”
“But—” I attempt to speak.
“Just follow my lead and sing these three notes exactly. But, not just yet. First, we have to have all three of them rigged up with those harnesses. Each one of them gets its own harness. Like this—”
Girsul turns his attention to the pegasei. He supports one of the orbs on the palm of his hand, while he unhooks the encircling chain, so that the orb is freed and rolls loosely on his palm. Next, he takes the coiled metal cord and starts wrapping it around the sphere—once, and then a second time so that it’s perpendicular and forms a very basic metal “cage” around the orb. He ties it off in a simple knot, and holds on to the remaining length of cord like a thin bridle, while continuing to support the orb in the palm of his other hand.
“Ready?” He throws me a meaningful glance. “Watch me!”
I’m staring so hard my eyes are about to fly out of my head.
But he hesitates again, then pronounces, almost with pride: “This is what, supposedly, the original pegasei looked like when the priests first figured out how to make them shift form. Here we go, imagining it now . . . watch! And stand back to make room!”
He takes three steps backward away from me, and sings three notes, the first one long, the other two short, and repeats the sequence several times, focusing his attention on the orb in his hand. His voice is a clean tenor, and he hits the notes accurately.
On the fourth repetition there is a loud pop sound, followed by a searing flash. The flash is so bright it blinds me momentarily, and flares like a crack of lightning against the black curtains around us.
The orb in Girsul’s hand deflates like a burst wine sack. But, unlike a wine sack, it disappears in thin air. In its place, a cloud of rainbow light explodes into the small space around us.
With a stifled scream, I jump backward, so that I’m pushing and slapping at the curtains in panic, in an attempt to get away. . . .
Only now I’m surrounded completely by a vaporous thing of multi-colored light. Except . . . I see that this blob of rainbow vapor is pulsing like a beating heart and struggling.
A portion of it—a tangible limb, maybe, a neck—appears to be mysteriously contained between the coiled loops of the metal cord in Girsul’s hand. It throbs and pulls at the cord violently, while the young man holds on with both hands, showing visible effort, and continuing to sing the three notes. . . .
And then a miracle takes place before me. The shapeless mass of colored light fluctuates wildly a few more times, and starts to coalesce into some kind of physical form.
“Get back, back!” Girsul yells at me, having stopped singing. He wrangles the blob of light which distends and reforms with each heartbeat, growing and retracting multiple limbs, and suddenly it is no longer mere light.
It is something else.
The limbs lengthen, and there is a wide barrel torso and a long equine head. Filaments of radiance form into a mane and a tail, streaming like flames, until they fade, turning pearlescent white. And from the back of the torso, enormous pale wings erupt, covered in impossible feathers—as if a giant eagle bird decided to gift its flying appendages and feathers to a horse!
“Crap of a goat!” I exclaim in a combination of absolute awe and absolute terror. “Crap, crap, crap! What is that?”
The winged horse suddenly rears up on its powerful equine legs, so that it literally hits the wooden beams on the ceiling, and has to fold its wings somewhat, short of tearing them. It then stomps the ground of the metal enclosure, making the floor ring. . . .
As we stare, it swings its head and neck from side to side, baring perfect white teeth at us. And its wide, rolling eyes are an impossible lavender violet as it glances back and forth from me to Girsul.
No neighing, no snorting sounds of a true horse or sesemet come from it. . . . Even as it struggles, its jaw contorts and screams—all in terrible, perfect silence.
Worst of all, there is no comprehension in its gaze, only alien wilderness.
“This—this is a pegasus!” Girsul exclaims to me in proud exultation, even as he continues to clutch the orichalcum cord with both hands.
And then he sings a long single note, the kind used to train herd animals.
The pegasus creature stops struggling.
Just like that, it stands frozen, listening to the long sound, as though mesmerized.
I don’t blame it, I’m mesmerized too.
Though, I think I almost crapped my undergarments.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Girsul holds on to the end of the harness that’s tied in a loop and then steps closer to the motionless pegasus. Carefully he reaches up to run his fingers over the mane, then touches the skin of the neck. The creature does not respond, only periodically rolls its lavender eyes in senseless random motion.
