Flight of the Hippogriff.
Mounted on Noor, Shadya determined to decrease the distance between herself and the winged captor of Orlando. Trusting her horse, she set a pace, keeping an eye on the antics of the beast. They gallop up a wide ravine. As time passes, she shifts to one of the Tower Horses. It becomes clear that it is familiar with a barely-perceptible winding path through the ravine. Shadya breathes a prayer of thanksgiving that Noor managed so well in this treacherous terrain. The winged beast continues an erratic course indicative of its continued incumbrance. With that hope, Shadya presses on. At one point the winged creature seems to skim some crags. Were it a mere horse, Shadya would assume that it is trying to brush its rider off; but a flying creature cannot risk such a close approach to a physical object. Suddenly the creature soars high and then swoops almost straight down and beyond Shadya's vision. She watches anxiously but it does not rise again.
Grimly she searches for a route up out of the ravine. It is gradually becoming shallower, sloping upward. Unwilling yet to abandon her horses - knowing how treacherous the perception of distance is - Shadya follows the ravine for another half-hour and emerges onto the table land. Although it is cut by crevices, the going is plainer on the mesa top and Shadya sets a course for the crags. It is now past dawn.
Not far from the base of the smaller crag, the desert warrior spots a white cloth waving on high. Realizing that Orlando's Obsidian is perfectly willing to play herd-leader to two fillies and a gelding, Shady leaves the horses and starts climbing. She reaches the cloth. It is Orlando's turban, unwound as though loosed in the acrobatics of the winged mount. She gathers it. It is all she has for this quest so far. The desert warrior looks grimmer than ever as she scans for further signs of her friend.
Returning down the crag she spares some of the water for the horses and then remounts, heading for the next set of crags that lie beyond the mesa. The search seems almost impossible. As the terrain gets rougher and steeper once again, the wind blows a white feather past. Hoping that this is a sign, Shadya heads into the wind. She knows that Orlando wouldn't have gone down without a fight; even if he were thrown from the cursed beast he would have gone down with a fistful of feathers in his hands.
As she rounds a rock pile, she realizes that that is pretty much what did happen. There, perched on a small flat, is the beast --- and it is looming over a prone body. Drawing her sword and dismounting, Shadya approaches. The beast is not feeding. It seems to be just there - exhausted. Did her prince wrest it to a standstill? Is he even alive?
Keeping a wary eye and her sword towards the creature, Shadya moves between it and Orlando's prone form. Carefully she reaches down and feels for a pulse. It beats! He lives! But it beats faintly, raggedly. Ashar assist! However can she keep life in him? The winged creature seems entirely tamed, so Shadya chooses to ignore it and concentrate on Orlando. She bathes his face with water and tries to get him to drink but it is clear that he is far, far gone. Feeling fatalistic, she takes off her robe, resolving to wrap him in it and tie him onto a horse to return to the Party and the nearest healing she knows.
As she starts to move Orlando, a scratchy voice warns, "If you haul him around too much, he won't survive. He's quite a rider, he is." Shadya can see no one but responds politely. "He is the bravest man I know. I must get him to help. Can you aid me?" The voice responds that it can't do much but it does know some people .... She and her horse would probably be all right but she can't take Him [Orlando] all the way there. The people he knows make him -- uncomfortable -- but they can probably help. In the nearby mountain. Then the voice and Shadya debate whether she should make a tent of her clothes and leave Orlando or whether she should carry him to the mentioned mountain. "If he were your best friend in all the world, what would you do?" Shadya asks. "I've never had a friend," the voice complains. "Then I pity you," Shadya answers with genuine feeling. "If it were you...." she trails off. "It would take only half the time if you carry him," the voice answers, "although you may damage him more in the doing." "That is what I thought," Shadya decides. "I will carry him. How will I know the way?" "Oh, I can show you." With that an incredibly ugly creature seems to ooze out of a nearby rock. Shadya is nearly startled into impoliteness.
The creature leads Shadya to a crevice and warns her that the women therein have sometimes chased him and certainly would not allow such as Orlando into their temple - which is not far inside the crevice. He warns her to leave Orlando somewhere along the way and continue on herself to ask for help. Thanking him, Shadya follows the advice. The creature vanishes into another rock ... and then its voice calls farewell from still another rock -- in a different direction. [ A rock druid, perhaps?]
The air within the crevice is cool and damp and shortly there are noticeable pools of water in the corridor. By one of them Shadya leaves the horses, drinking, and Orlando, wrapped in her robe and abba. She proceeds along the corridor. Shortly she is halted by a youth - probably female - with a spear. The girl does not speak her language and calls behind herself. Shortly the youth is joined by a woman warrior who does seem to know some of Shadya's language. Shadya repeats her request for a healer to come aid her stricken friend. The warrior seems amused by Shadya's lack of medical knowledge and reacts somewhat to the news that it was not a fall from a horse that incapacitated her friend. Shadya also learns that the mountain women call the rock creature "Rocky" and did not know that he could befriend someone as he seems to have done Shadya.
Eventually an older woman, very competent in Shadya's language, wearing a series of silver disks or medallions that seem to be religious symbols with which Shadya has no familiarity arrives and accompanies Shadya back to Orlando. With assurance she works over the fallen prince, but warns Shadya of injuries from which Orlando might never wake. Shadya had not known of such before and the healer puts it down to a warrior's fatalism. Eventually the healer reports that they must wait for moonrise to accomplish anything more. Orlando has been placed on a cot out of the wet and the healer assures Shadya that he - and the horses - will be well tended. She takes Shadya back into the mountain and questions her - odd questions about people Shadya hadn't realized she knew - and about Orlando's quest. The healer admits that there have been those who suffered from the obsession of the beloved-found-at-a-dream-ball who could not be helped by the Sisters of the Moon. She relates that one such despaired when he found that his beloved had been dead for 300 years. Shadya, mindful of the Djinn of the Fire Pit, replies that the omens would not have offered Orlando the hope they have if his lady were already dead ... and the conversation is left at that. The Moon Warrior reports that Shadya need not hunt down the winged beast that wrecked such ill on her friend: it seems to have arrived and settled itself on the mountain top. Shadya wonders to herself if it has actually formed an attachment for the man it tried to kill -- but says nothing, deciding that nothing can be done about the monster now anyway. She will kill it when and if it is necessary ... and not before. Orlando risked too much to keep it alive.
The healer examines Shadya's dose of poison antidote and murmurs "Well, it'll work" in a tone that might be interpreted as indicating an unfavourable opinion of Akbar's level of competence with alchemy. She does advise Shadya that there seem to be two doses of antidote there. She continues her questioning and asks if Shadya has considered the possibility that the vizier is playing a double game in her mission. Shadya has difficulty answering; she has resisted thinking about this as a possibility heretofore. Then Shadya is given a cot and --- after 2 days and a night of heavy activity and worry --- falls fast asleep. When she wakes, it is clear that her wound, too, has been tended. When offered a bowl of soup she also discovers that she is ravenous. The soup is good.
Shadya becomes aware that she is inside a mountain with a hollow shaft reaching to the mouth of this former volcano. The cavern beneath is filling with women. The moon becomes visible through the volcanic mouth. The young girl turns up at Shadya's elbow and leads her out, back down the corridor, to Orlando. He looks very bad; his skin is grey and he is clearly feverish. Shadya sinks down by his side, takes his hand and starts to murmur a prayer. Suddenly the air becomes silvered and a molten river of almost physical light pours down the corridor from the interior of the mountain. Shadya watches Orlando's body in the light: areas of his abdomen and ribs and the back of his head all turn black in the clear magical silver. Gradually the black fades. The prince's colour returns. His eyes open. "Shadya?" he asks. "Are we dead? Why is the air this colour." Shadya is barely coherent in her joy. The light streams away and Orlando says, "Oh. Now it's normal." Orlando is very aware as to how near death he has been and how close he has come to failing in his quest. He asks that Shadya never let him do such a thing again. She jokes that next time she will take the ride instead. He cannot view it as a joke and insists that neither of them must do such a thing. With some awe, they discuss how to resume the quest with renewed seriousness.
They wonder if Shadya's informants have discovered Orlando's lady in the desert harems and, if not, if they should try the almost-never-done approach of asking the priests of Ashar to ask where they should go to look for her. Shadya recalls the words of such a priest: "You can ask a question. You don't have any control over the answer."
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