Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [36]
Simna stared. Ahlitah stared. The Argentus looked away. And then, it looked back.
Something was happening to the marsh where the starfish had vanished.
A cool boiling began to roil the surface. In the absence of geothermal activity, something else was causing the fen water to bubble and froth. The herd stirred and a flurry of whinnies punctuated the air like a chorus of woodwinds embarking on some mad composer’s allegro equus.
Simna edged closer to the nearest tree. Slight of diameter as it was, it still offered the best protection on the island. “Watch out, bruther. If they break and panic . . .”
But there was no stampede. A shriller, sharper neighing rose above the mixed chorale. Responding to the recognizably superior among themselves, the herd looked to the Argentus for direction. It trotted back and forth between the front ranks and the island shore, calming its nervous precursors. Together with the travelers, the massed animals held their ground, and watched, and listened.
The frothing, fermenting water where the starfish had sunk turned cloudy, then dark with mud. The seething subsurface disturbance began to spread, not in widening concentric circles as might have been expected, but in perfectly straight lines. Five of them, shooting outward from an effervescent nexus, each aligning itself with an arm of the no-longer-visible starfish. As the streaks of bubbling mud rushed away from their source, they expanded until each was five, ten, then twenty feet wide. One raced right past the island, passing between the herd and the sand.
As quickly as it had begun, the boiling and bubbling began to recede. It left behind a residue of uplifted muck and marsh bottom. With the recession of activity, this began to congeal and solidify, leaving behind a wide, solid pathway. Five of them, each corresponding to an arm of the starfish. They rose only an inch or two above the surface of the water. Ehomba hoped it would be enough.
“You have been running too long in water.” He indicated the improbable dirt roads. “Try running on that. You might even see a way to run back to where you belong.”
Tentatively, the Argentus stepped up onto the raised causeway. Ehomba held his breath, but the stiffened mud did not collapse beneath the horse’s weight, did not slump and separate back into a slurry of soil and water. Experimentally, the Argentus turned a slow circle. It pawed at the surface with a front hoof. When finally it turned back to face the travelers, Ehomba could see that it was crying silently.
“I did not know horses could cry,” he observed.
“I can talk. Why should I not be able to cry? I don’t know how to thank you. We don’t know how to thank you.”
“Do not give thanks yet,” Ehomba warned it. “You are still here, in the middle of these marshes. First see if the paths let you go free. When you are no longer here, then you can thank me.” The herdsman smiled. “However far away you may be, I will hear you.”
“I believe that you will.” Turning, the Argentus reared back on its hind legs and pawed the air, a sharply whinnying shaft of silver standing on hooves like bullion, mane shining in the hazy sunshine. Thousands of ears pricked forward to listen. Once more the herd began to stir, but it was a different furor than before, the agitation that arises from expectation instead of apprehension.
Hesitantly at first, then with increasing boldness, small groups began to break away from the main body. The paints and the heavy horses led the way down one of the five temporary roads. Trotting soon gave way to an energetic canter, and then to a joyous, exuberant, massed gallop. The thunder of thousands of hooves shook the marsh, making the waterlogged surface of the island tremble with the rumble of the herd’s departure.
Hipparions