Silver Hooves in the Darkness

Chapter Twenty-One

The healer had not scolded her for her audacity in speaking the truth he and his brother had both avoided. Once back at his dwelling, Alessandro retrieved his medicine bag. Several people had intercepted them along the way and had requested the healer's services. A man had broken a finger; a girl had cut her hand with a knife; the mundane injuries of daily living had summoned him. He left her, promising that he would return in time to make them both dinner. As he disappeared down the street, Paola entertained the notion of going to Stable 33 for a warm bath, but feeling suddenly weak, she decided against it. Instead, she spent the afternoon by the hearth. She studied the pictures in Alessandro's books that she could not read in the hopes of not thinking about the evening and the questions to come. And soon, lulled by the heat of the fire, she drifted off to sleep.

*****

She stood on a sweeping plain in a dome whose edge she could not discern. Bands of light streaked across the night sky in great, glittering arms of radiance. In the distance she heard a sound that stirred her blood. It was high-pitched and ancient, a challenge issued by one male against another. She walked toward the source, climbing a short rise. In a valley below, dark shapes moved together toward a distant hill. As if in the Maze, equinii trotted on four legs in their true forms. In tight groups, the youngest were surrounded by the oldest and protected. But scampering with them were several small creatures, one of whom was black and white. It swatted at a small stone and set it rolling. With a wiggle of its hind legs, followed by a pounce, it landed on the object and repeated its game.

Miacarabella! the equina thought, recognizing the cat she had not seen since leaving Dome Erba.

*****

The healer entered his house with a bang of the front door. The noise burst the last scene of her dream. The orb over the city had dimmed to twilight levels, plunging the room into shadow. Had the dream revealed the dome all equinii traveled to on their last Run? Was Dome Pasture where the cat had seemingly taken refuge with others of her kind?

But Alessandro's nervousness had disrupted her contemplation of the scene swiftly fading from her mind. It also stole her appetite, for she knew he wanted to discuss the events that now intimately bound her to him as much as the glass tubes that enveloped the mysterious child of her other vision. But as important as freeing this girl was, Paola's heart ached too for Cappello. As the healer bustled about and put away the tools of his trade, she wondered whether he had any news of her friend.

Even after their earlier visit to Giovanni, Alessandro had not canceled the order for Ercole and his carriage. He still intended to make the trip to Dome Scienza, even if only with her. He held up the excuse that although her gem appeared to be restored by what they had experienced, she should be further examined and certified as healthy. However, she suspected something else drove his actions.

As the healer replenished the fire with pieces of wood from the bin by the hearth, she said to him. "I think I wish to go to Stable 33 while we wait for Ercole." The prospect of a warm bath and soft straw to rest upon had become too tempting. And she craved a sudden need for the solitude of her own stall and the passing company of her own kind.

"Surely, you do not have enough currency to cover a wait of seven days!" the healer declared. "You can use the bed in my spare room, and we can boil plenty of hot water for you to groom yourself. I can also feed you; you do not need to draw energy from your gem to nourish yourself. So, Paola Equina, do not be so difficult!"

It was all very practical, but a suffocating arrangement, nonetheless. The human simply could not understand the familiar comfort that a stable could offer an equina. Yet she had to bend to his will, for he was correct about the depletion of her level of currency. And she owed him the obligation of accepting his hospitality since he had saved her life and Cappello's. Besides, he was a human, and all humans were masters of equinii, a theme she kept returning to ever since her last visit to her fallen friend.