Read Online [Firebringer 03] - The Son of Summer Stars by Meredith Ann Pierce - Free Book Online Page A

recks much and dreams more. He will judge if your words sing true.”
    “Hist, belovèd,” the crimson mare broke in. “Let us speak this stranger fair.” She turned to Jan. “Calydor is a farseer. Many call him Alma’s Eyes. Were he not our close kin, we might do the same.”
    The dark unicorn felt his spirits lift. “Where may I find this seer?” he asked. “You say he can scry my lost sire? Will you guide me to him?”
    “Water first,” the grey brindle replied. “Let us quench our thirst on it.” Turning, he whistled his companions to follow. “Come, daughter, filly, and daughter’s kin. Time enough to ponder my brother’s whereabouts once we have drunk.”

7.

    Stars

    Jan trotted beside the crimson mare. Her pale-blue filly pranced alongside. The mare’s sire, the brindled grey, led them over grassy, rolling hills, with the mare’s brother-belovèd—what did the term mean, Jan wondered: foster brother, half brother?—pale gold, bringing up the rear. The grey-and-white trotted briskly, with hardly a glance behind. He seemed to have accepted Jan, for the present at least, though the younger stallion watched him carefully still.
    Only the crimson mare seemed wholly at ease. She had spoken little during their five miles’ journey to where a slender brook meandered between two slopes. There they had lingered, savoring the creek’s coolness, dipping their heads for a second draft as the young sun cleared the horizon and floated free, turning the morning sky from misty white to deeper and deeper blue as it climbed toward zenith. At last, the grey brindle spoke.
    “’Tis well,” he said. “You seem no mad raver. I would lead you to my brother, if my companions assent.”
    The mare and the other stallion both nodded, the pale gold grudgingly, barely dipping his chin. So it was the crimson mare the young prince now found himself pacing: the grey ahead, the gold at rearguard, the pale-blue filly frisking and teasing. Morning had grown late, warm, the sun high overhead. White clouds gathered, their shadows slipping over the Plain.
    “Tell me of your life here, upon Alma’s Back,” he bade the crimson mare.
    She cocked an eye and replied, “Gladly—but first speak of yours within your Vale. My dam’s dam came from there. She said ’twas all proud princes, rules and Law, so she fled to the Mare’s Back to win freedom. You call yourself prince, Aljan, yet you seem fairspoken still, not ruled by pride.”
    He laughed. As they trotted through the long, warm noon and lay up in the shade of steep banks for the hottest part of the day, he spoke of Moondance, of new warriors initiated upon spring pilgrimage, of the yearly trek by those unpaired to find and pledge their mates by the Summer Sea. He spoke of autumn feasting and spring birthing. Of Kindling and Quenching, the herd’s winter ceremonies of fire. Crimson listened intently, interrupting from time to time. Jan knew by their silence the grey and the gold were listening, too.
    Not until midway into the afternoon had Crimson heard enough. She told then of the Free People, a scattered, far-traveled folk who ranged at will across the Plain. Though some were loners, most traveled in small bands. Plainsdwellers dodged pards, encountered each other at waterholes, whistled greetings to those sighted at distance, and followed one another’s spoor to meet and trade news. Alliances formed, endured awhile, then just as easily and amicably dissolved.
    The impermanence of such an existence struck Jan as both utterly foreign and oddly alluring. Unbound by any sovereign or herd, each Plainsdweller was completely free—but at what cost? Danger from pards. A life spent in constant motion, rather than settled in a sheltered Vale. Friendships must be difficult to sustain, Jan mused. He wondered how mates fared in the rearing of their young.
    Yet Crimson seemed to regard the Vale as unbearably confining, circumscribed by rules of every kind. Plainsdwellers had