Over The Sea by Sherwood Smith

laughed.
    â€œWe don’t know,” Sherry exclaimed. “One day Clair and I were playing at the Magic Lake, and Hreealdar came out of the jewel cave, right to us.”
    â€œI can’t find any reference at all to horses that turn into light, or with blue eyes,” Clair said. “Now, supposedly in the north there are pure white horses, and they supposedly have all these abilities. What I think is that Hreealdar is another sort of being who takes this form here, for choice.”
    And the horse pranced, nodding its head up and down, the light, almost spider-webby mane hair (not stiff like other horses’ manes at all) floating. I noticed that Hreealdar didn’t have horseshoes, either.
    â€œYou can ride him if you like,” Clair offered, pointing to a big rock on which to climb.
    I moved cautiously over to the rock, feeling deep misgivings. I had been no closer to any horse than TV, and this one was so tall!
    But he (not that Hreealdar was really a he, or a she, for that matter, but the girls had gotten into the habit of saying ‘he’ since Hreealdar was so large a creature) moved to the rock, and waited, and so I climbed up and eased myself onto the broad back.
    He did feel like a live creature — warm, and solid, and when he took a step I jolted alarmingly from side to side. Clair motioned for me to hold the mane, so I did, and Hreealdar pranced around in a circle, with me flopping and hooting in fear on his back.
    I thought I was doing all right until I looked down and saw both Sherry and Dhana convulsed. All right, then, I resolved. When the laughing gallery wasn’t around gawking, I was going to practice this horse business. I’d show them how a princess can ride — and not for my sake, but for Clair’s.
    â€œHe will change to light when you want to,” Clair said. “But you might wait and try that another time.” I could see she was fighting not to grin.
    Not that that mattered right then. Change to lightning with me on? Not likely! I flung my leg over and jumped off, tumbling clumsily onto the grass. Both Dhana and Sherry shook with merriment, and I suppose I did look pretty silly. But I fumed inside.
    Hreealdar pranced a few steps, and Dhana leaped up to his back — no climbing on the boulder first. She sat as though she’d been born there. And once again a flash that made my eyes squeeze tears, and they were both gone.
    â€œI still think they know one another,” Sherry said to Clair, as if continuing a conversation.
    â€œExcept we had Hreealdar before she came, and his flesh-form doesn’t speak, and his other form is light. At least,” she amended with her usual scrupulous care, “this flesh-form is the only one we’ve seen. As for Dhana, her other form is water-and-light, and her flesh-form is human.” Clair counted up the evidence on her fingers. “Finally, Dhana has never said anything to us about knowing Hreealdar.”
    Sherry sighed. “But she doesn’t tell us lots of things.”
    â€œAll the more reason to not assume anything, then,” Clair said. “Come on, they might be gone all day. And Dhana hates the Shadow.”
    â€œEuw. So do I,” Sherry said, her light blue eyes going round. “I’m staying here!”
    â€œAll right, then we can practice transfers,” Clair said to me.
    She took my hand and we transferred — and this time I heard the words, and said them to myself, in a kind of inward way. The idea of me doing magic was both intriguing and a little scary.
    The new place we appeared in dashed everything out of my mind except being scared. At our backs was a solid cliff of Mount Marcus, only on this side there was little growth. To the south lay grassland and field, completely empty save for some birds high against the patchy sky. To the east the same.
    But to the north loomed a very deep gloomy darkness, under a lowering cloud. I looked at it, and