“Your friend is still out there,” she said when Ashok approached. “I don’t like having my portal Guardians stand out on the plain listening to that beast’s screaming. I’ve had to shorten the guard shifts because of it.”
“It’s my fault,” Ashok said. “I should have done something about him before now. That’s what I came to talk to you about.”
“Oh?” Neimal raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were going off with the caravan to the mirror world.”
“I am,” Ashok said, “but I want to take the nightmare with me.”
Neimal laughed. Ashok had never heard the witch show true amusement, but her voice was full of it now. “You’re the craziest shadar-kai I’ve ever encountered, Ashok, and I’ve seen some interesting things guarding this wall. Taking a nightmare on a caravan run full of humans and horses-I wonder which one of them will bolt first?”
“That’s why I need your help,” Ashok said. He could feel the excitement building in his blood. He hadn’t felt this alive in days and wished he could thank some creature other than the nightmare for it. “I need you to put an enchantment on the beast, as you did for me once before. But this time I need an illusion to make it look like a normal horse.”
“It won’t matter how normal the thing looks or acts-the caravan crew will sense the aura of terror it projects,” Neimal said. “The horses will feel it first and break their harnesses, and then the humans will react. Their dreams will drive them mad.”
“The nightmare has always targeted me with its visions,” Ashok said. “Their dreams will be safe. As for the rest, can you give me a spell to mask its aura? Something to outlast the journey?”
The witch pursed her lips. “No spell I cast will last that long. There is an item I can give you, but it’s highly valuable. If anything were to happen to it-”
“A risk,” Ashok agreed, “but think of what you’ll gain in return. The nightmare won’t trouble your Guardians anymore.”
“You’ll leave the beast in Faerun?” Neimal said.
“The nightmare goes where it wants. I’ve never had any control over that.”
“Why do you want to take it?” she said. “All this time, you could have gone out to the plain to ride the beast, yet you never did. Now you want to take it to Faerun.”
“When Ilvani and the nightmare came together out on the plain, the beast fought off the madness that gripped it,” Ashok said. “If the spirits attack us when we get to Rashemen, the nightmare will be able to warn me by its actions. I’ll know to be ready.”
He’d thought the plan over carefully during the past few days. Although familiar with the shadow beasts of the plain, Ashok knew nothing of the creatures of Rashemen. The telthors, whatever they were, might react with violence toward Ilvani the same way the spectral panthers and shadow snakes had. If that happened, Ashok wanted warning and all the powers he could muster for defense.
Neimal considered his words, and finally she nodded. “Come back at the Tet bell,” she told him. “I’ll have the item for you then. Its suppression aura is continuous as long as it touches the nightmare’s flesh. I’ll weave the illusion into it when you bring the beast into the city.”
“My thanks,” Ashok said.
“Tempus go with you, Ashok,” Neimal said.
Ashok nodded, though as far as he was concerned, Tempus could stay in Ikemmu. The city needed Him more than Ashok did.
Later, Ashok stood on the Shadowfell plain, more than two miles from the portal and the Guardians who stood watch. They’d offered him aid, thinking he meant to tame the nightmare with his chain. They had no idea the stallion was waiting for him.
But maybe I have a few surprises for him, Ashok thought.
From his pouch, Ashok took out the item Neimal had given him before he left the city: a necklace of yellowish bone spurs threaded onto a thin metal chain and magically altered by the witch to fit around the nightmare’s neck. Neimal told him if he could get it on the stallion, the necklace would suppress his aura of terror down to the blood.
Ashok hoped it was impervious to fire.
The necklace in one hand, Ashok fingered the spikes of his chain with the other. He thought he felt warmth from the metal, but he passed it off as the heat from his body infecting the chain. His thoughts filled with strategies of defense and the option for retreat if it came to that.
In his heart, he knew neither of them would back down. The anticipation built to an ache, his tense muscles ready to fight. And it would be a fight-a brutal one. The nightmare would make Ashok earn his service.
A speck of movement appeared on the horizon. Ashok drew in a breath and let it out. Time slowed down, and every sound on the desolate plain faded to silence. In that breath of utter peace, he heard the distant pound of hooves against the cracked soil.
One, two, three, four went his breaths on the air-the fiery hooves struck the ground, the blacksmith smote her anvil and forged her weapon. They were all in Ashok’s mind-the city beneath him, the sky above him, and he and the nightmare in between, on the edge-the breath between action and inaction.
He remembered experiencing this same sensation with Vedoran on the bridges between Pyton and Hevalor. He’d been a separate entity then, too, utterly alone and yet surrounded by Ikemmu. These moments, the small eternities, the spaces in which entire lives were lived-shadar-kai lives.
These moments belong to no gods, Ashok thought. They are only mine.
The nightmare came across the plain with mane and tail ablaze, the beast an exhilarating mass of coordinated muscles and graceful steps. Once within sight of Ashok, the nightmare slowed and tensed, nostrils flaring in question.
He’s looking for Ilvani, Ashok realized. He remembers that pain.
Holding the necklace loose in his hand, Ashok came toward the beast to reassure him that he’d indeed come alone. The nightmare snorted and put his nose against Ashok’s chest, taking in his scent.
“That’s right,” Ashok said. “No one but you and I-no one around to see if we kill each other out here.”
Whickering, the nightmare regarded him with his red eyes, and Ashok wondered, not for the first time, how much the beast could actually understand him. Was the nightmare intelligent enough to comprehend speech, or was their relationship purely instinctual, a shared bond of blood and death?
“You understand well enough to know that I want something from you,” Ashok said. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need you.”
The line of flames that ran up and down the beast’s spine dimmed somewhat, which to Ashok meant calm. But the heat was a constant presence, a promise of violence. Ashok gripped his chain and carefully raised the bone spur necklace.
He saw a flash, the whites of the nightmare’s eyes, but by then it was too late. The beast reared into the air and kicked. Ashok saved himself at the last second by angling his body to the right. The blow glanced off his left shoulder, but the force drove Ashok to the ground.
Instinctively, he rolled away, but the nightmare didn’t attack again. He knew that pursuing Ashok inevitably meant tasting his spiked chain. Instead, he danced back, and the flame burned bright and hot from his back.
Coughing, Ashok sat up. His arm was numb from shoulder to elbow, except when he tried to move it. Then his shattered bones grated against each other and made Ashok’s vision go dark around the edges. He gasped with the pain of it. He couldn’t let himself lose consciousness-he needed the pain as he needed the nightmare’s trust.
He stood and faced the nightmare again, his dead arm dangling at his side. “So the direct approach isn’t going to work, eh?” he asked the stallion. “It’s all right. I thought you’d say no at first. Let me convince you.”
The spiked chain came up, then down. Spikes tore up the dirt at the nightmare’s feet. The beast jumped away, but Ashok followed, driving the beast in a circle. His chain clipped his front forelock, and the nightmare screamed loudly, a sound that momentarily deafened Ashok.