[Firebringer 03] - The Son of Summer Stars by Meredith Ann Pierce Page B

Álm’harat. You are part of me and of my making. We have never been sundered and never can be, for I am you, and you are I, and the long dance we have been footing circles without end.’
    “Álm’harat became herself again, wide as the world and the stars beyond. She became everything that was ever made or has ever been or will be. When the sun no longer saw her as the alluring, willful mare he had chased heaven and underearth to win, he cried out, desolate. But the mother of all things whispered, ‘Do not fear.’
    “She made an image of herself to be the sun’s mate, the same compass as he and filled with his borrowed light. This new creation she called the moon, which strives to travel the starpath ahead of the sun. He must gallop his hardest to catch her up. As he gains, she wanes, spending more and more of her light. When he seizes her, by the dark of the moon, both moon and sun tread the netherpath as one, a time of miracles and strange tidings, when the world sees by the light of Álm’harat’s eyes alone.
    “Thus has it been for time out of mind. We of the Plain yet wear feathers in her memory. Birds take strands from our manes and tails in payment for their fletch. When Álm’harat created us, she skimmed from the moon some of her shining stuff and poured it into our hooves and horns, into the hearts and minds of all unicorns. Moondancers of the Vale commemorate the goddess at fullmoon, when she fares brightest and farthest from the sun.
    “But we of the Plain honor her at moondark, when she and her mate run joined in joy, dancing the longdance to its end. This is the Great Dance, the Cycle unending. Let us live as the maker of all things invites us, as she herself has always done, withholding herself never, sharing favor with all, preferring none of her creatures above any other, loving all wisely and well.”

The tales Jan heard and the days he spent in the company of the one the Plainsdwellers called Alma’s Eyes were like none he had ever known. The grass grew thinner, shorter, paler, the farther north and east they strove. The green, once so savory upon the young prince’s tongue, began yellowing, its sweetness soured. Waterholes became scarce. Once he and his guide sipped from a spring no bigger than a puddle—one they had searched half a morn to find. The soil grew poorer, looser, drier. Dust increased, rimming Jan’s nostrils red. As the land grew hillier and grass sparser, he saw scant trace of other unicorns. Calydor’s fellows, it seemed, avoided these parts.
    The seer spoke of his far-traveled folk, how widely they ranged and seldom they met. He sang of pards and the heroes who had dodged them, of summer storms, flash floods, droughts. The one thing he did not speak of, Jan learned in time, was war. The folk of the Plain had no use for it. Here, those who quarreled either settled their dispute, ignored one another, or parted. Each freeborn unicorn was his own ruler: Plainsdwellers attached little merit to following others and viewed obedience with varying degrees of amusement or disdain.
    It occurred to Jan at length that the Vale’s lore told mostly of battle: mighty warriors and contests, all struggles ended by force. The Plainsdwellers, he saw, praised heroes who turned foes into friends or averted strife. Keenly aware how Korr’s violence must embody for Calydor and his folk all the worst of the Vale, the young prince strove to offer another side, recounting the end of centuries-long feuds with the gryphons and the pans. He held out hope for treaties with the seer’s tribe as well. Telling of the herd’s anticipated return to the Hallow Hills, he pledged his folk would harry no Plainsdwellers while passing through their lands.
    “My son, your herd will not even see us unless we mean you to do so,” the other replied. “We will not allow you to bait us. At your approach, we will simply vanish, returning only after you have passed.”
    The pair of them lay in the long grass near