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Q u a k e – will you survive the tremor
Sahjani and Nyla were ordinary horses: equiis of the grass and earth, never learning to attempt the spectacular. Ordinary. Never would they have guessed at the unimaginable, laughably insane events they would face in the coming of their adulthood. On twelve chimes of the water clock on the 11th day of winter, both young horses’ lives were changed forever.
SAHJANI 12:00, January first, oasis in the center of the Arabic desert
Peacefully sound asleep, picketed by a white canvas tent under the shade of a palm tree, Sahjani of the Desert Sands awoke with a start. He blinks sleepily, gray lobes working incessantly for the sound that had disturbed dreams of mares and stretches of white sand. Snorting softly, as to not wake his master and family residing in the white tent, the dappled Arabian stallion shifts his weight uneasily. He knew dreams like such that he had just experienced were premonitions from the desert. They were to be used as guiding aids for any boulders standing in life’s path. If I have any boulders it’s that I want to be out of here; to rule a harem of mares and watch over lands of beauty; to be able to speak, if that’s possible. Nah…ordinary horses like me? The best thing I have to do is going to war, and I don’t need to hope for that. Oh well, no one can live on dreams anyway, it’s not good for your mind… The stallion listens carefully, wondering idly what had awakened him. The oasis where his family had stopped to camp and the desert behind it was washed in an eerie blackish-purple light: the light of night. The stallion looks up to where a full moon glows brightly behind a lazy, thin fog. The moon was not enough to keep the creeping darkness from engulfing the desert; it never was. He pauses; guessing it was about midnight. Suddenly a chiming rings out across the sands, as if warning the inhabitants something. Suddenly, without warning, the chimes cease, as if whoever was ringing them was taking cover for the event he was ringing them for. All is still, then…
NYLA 12:00, January first, box stall in a small stable, Kailua, Hawaii
The gray mare’s lashed eyelids snap up. She snorts uneasily, knowing that something had to wake her, being a very sound sleeper. Then, memories of the dreams she had just had crept back into her mind. A handsome stallion and field of green bordered by high, protective mountains, and a small, dappled foal: a filly, and flowing rivers, and mares grazing peacefully. But that could never happen on Hawaii, she knew, because danger abounded where mountains were. Volcanoes, and active ones too, she could just see the hot, bubbling molten rock destroying the beautiful green valley. She shakes her head. Stallions, too, they had no room on Hawaii for the stallions. There was only one; a racing stallion named Surfboard. If there was a bigheaded anything on the islands, it was he. Winning the Breeders’ Cup Turf had done nothing for his ego. She didn’t like him; she had raced in the Distaff the same day, and won too, and he had shaken it off. It was nothing like his winning the Turf, she had raced against mares, and on and on…She was in his studbook for his first stud year. He was ugly and roan; no foal of his would be a fine, beautiful dappled teacup of a horse. It would be more like a firearm, something to burn the track (and eyes, too). Ack, I need to get a grip on my imagination. This is a huge mistake, dreaming this stuff. I’m going to melt into a bubbling pile of marshmallow cream if I don’t get over it... Sighing, she listened to the soft wind. It blew the bamboo windchimes with a melodic clonk. Off in the distance, she heard the water clock chime. Once, twice…twelve times. Midnight…she was four. All other horses on the islands had aged a year with the chiming of the clock. The mare shifted uneasily…something was going to happen, and she knew it…
EARTH turning in space
Slowly turning, in orbit, our planet shifts slowly into position. From this day forward, these two horses we have been tracking unknowingly are chosen. They and their kin will have the human tongue, the ability to speak. Something will happen, my children, something must happen quickly to retain the wildness of horses in this new era. We must have wild horses…we must, or this ecosystem will be forever damaged, never completely recovering from the destruction that are humans…help us, help us! From this day forward all horses coming into the kingdom of our chosen ones will have an ability to speak…until war breaks out. I know it will, but then, when my chosen equiis are occupied with something other then the freedom I have given them to repair the damaged lands, they must live like normal horses: no speaking. I will modify their voiceboxes once again and all will be lost. All… The earth gives a shiver, a quake in space and time. All stops…
SAHJANI, NYLA, EARTH a strange blending of Nyla’s green dream valley, Sahjani’s sandy desert, and something else…all is frozen. The wide, gently bobbing river is frozen in mid-bob…the sandy dunes and even the heat waves are stopped, unmoving. Earth has sent a messenger, a sleek, brown gryphon, to explain the newfound fortune of the chosen…
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