Nore's Choice : The Salvation and Origin of the Rom

by De Writer

Rating: teen
Tags: Random, Adventure, Alternate Universe, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Romance
Length: 29066

A band of seven cast out slaves are forced into the deadly desert of Celestia's Anvil. They are found and rescued by the old donkey trader Marchhare.

Part 1 of the Origin of the Rom

Drought and Famine stalk the ancient and now long vanished kingdom of Gyptia. A band of slaves led by Rom Inna Callin, cast out by their Master, are forced out onto the deadly desert of Celestia's Anvil.
Lost, dying of thirst and starvation, they are found by the old donkey trader Marchhare. Even his wagon of food and water cannot get them back to Gyptia. It MIGHT get them to Equestria.

Published 2016-03-04 02:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-03-04 02:50:01 UTC

Nore's Choice

Author's Note

The tales of the Rom are a bit of an MLP based tribute to a truly amazing People.
THERE ARE SOME MAJOR DIFFERENCES. I am telling stories set in a world of talking Horses, pastel ponies and other intelligent beings.
I have done my best to fit them into MLP and my own canon while keeping to the spirit of some wonderful folks.
That said, I hope that you simply enjoy the tales because they are fun to read.

Nore's Choice

Part 1 of the Origin of the Rom

The sere wind blew from the baking stones and slithering sands of Celestia’s Anvil, the great desert to the east of the poor, withering town of Tadast’s Wells. The town was suffering under more than just the the heat. The drought was unrelenting.

A group of seven horses huddled in the tiny shade offered by the crumbling walls and dying fig trees of the abandoned farm. Hurt, puzzlement and shock in her voice, a chestnut roan filly, nearly grown, looked to the leader of the band.

He voice trembling, she asked with formality, “How can it be true, Rom Ina Callin? Can we really be cast out by the Master? We are good slaves. All of our work has been done as well as any work can be!

“It is no fault of ours that the crops do not grow. There has been no rain at all. Even the waters beneath the ground are failing.”

Taking a deep breath to steady himself and retreating into formality himself, for the strength of tradition, Rom replied, “It is true, Nore Bel Morin. All that you say is true.

“The Master was clear on that. The fault is not of our doing at all. If he felt that he had any choice, he would have kept us all. He has chosen to keep the last of his well’s water for himself, his mares and foals.”

Two of the band’s four grown mares, big Phapa and Malit, nearly as large as Phapa, finished shifting the shrunken boards of the well cover aside. The wood was so dry that part of it cracked away.

Sarel, a dapple gray mare, cast down a bucket that they had found abandoned by the farm’s collapsing house wall. The rope was stout enough to bring up water but all that came out of the well was a hollow thump as the bucket hit bottom.

Sarel, discouraged, pulled up the bucket. Maina took one look at the bottom on the outside of the bucket and swore, “Day Horse! Look! It has a bit of mud on the bottom!”

Sando, a large pale brown stallion, who had done none of the work needed to open the well, snapped, “Mud! So what? We can’t drink mud! It is WATER that we need! Got that? Water!”

Little Nore had enough of Sando’s loud mouth. She nipped his flank and snapped right back, “For somehorse who makes plans for us to make things from, you are really stupid! It takes WATER to make mud! Got that? WATER!”

Sando retired to a shady spot next to a wall, grumbling. They overheard, “Can’t even get any shade from these foul trees! The sun is baking out the sap in sticky little blobs!”

Nore pointed out, “I am light enough that if we could find more rope, the others could lower me down with a digging and planting stick. Maybe, I could dig a big enough hole to dip a bucket and get us some water.”

Malit and Maina took off, almost at a run, to the nearly ruined storage barn. When they had first got to the abandoned farm, they had looked in it for hay or any trace of something to eat. There was some equipment left behind, but not any wisp of hay or other edible thing.

This time, they were looking for things that they knew were there! It took only a little rummaging to find a good digging and planting stick. The rope was easy, neatly coiled hanks of it were hung on pegs.

Rom and Nore smiled delightedly at the pair’s loot. “Look at that rope! It has been out of the sun all this time so it is still strong and supple. You two have done really well. Thank you!”

Sando grumbled from his shady spot, “Wasted effort.”

Casting a disdainful glance at Sando, Rom busily set about directing the mares in harnessing Nore. Malit gave Nore the digging stick and a quick hug. “Good luck down there, Nore. For all of our sakes, I hope that everything holds and you find the water that we need.”

Working together, under Rom’s skilled direction, the team of mares lowered Nore into the cool shade of the abandoned well.

She called up, “I’m down! Give me a bit of slack! There is a softer spot here and a trace of moisture!” The sound of the digging stick chopping industriously at the gravels and sand at the well’s bottom floated up.

Soon they heard, “I need the bucket! I have to clear mud and gravel out of the hole. We are getting a seep!”

The first bucket up was filled almost to the brim with mud and small stones. Sando shouldered his way forward and took a look. “Mud! I can’t drink mud! This is worthless!”

Big Phapa El Oosa shouldered Sando aside before he could damage their bucket. The large dark brown blacksmith with a dark spotted white blanket on her flank stared angrily at him. “Yes, mud! If you were doing ANYTHING worthwhile, you would have heard that Nore is clearing a dipping hole!”

Down in the well, Nore cleared more mud from the hole. Pleased, she saw cleaner gravel below it. “I need the bucket again!” she called. We only need to fill one more with mud! We are getting some water in the hole already!”

The bucket came down, lowered with care. Nore scooped the hole clear of mud from the digging. She tugged the rope, calling out, “Last digging bucket! We need to wait for the water to clear! It is still dirty!”

Sando’s head appeared in the small round bit of blue sky visible at the mouth of the well. He was shouting down, “You better have good water for me right now or I am going to cut this rope and leave you down …”

His words were cut off by a multiple meaty thud and his head snapping sideways out of Nore’s sight. Phapa’s head appeared above. “Don’t worry, Nore, dear. We have enough rope that Sando won’t be able to threaten you again. We hogtied him! He’s still complaining, but not a menace to us all anymore.”

Relieved, Nore called back, “Send down the bucket! It will be a few more minutes before the water clears! We do have some, though.”

When the bucket came down, Nore waited, watching the water in her hole. Soon she dipped the bucket carefully and tugged the rope. She watched the bucket as it was lifted carefully, like the treasure that it was, to the band above.

She was proud of her work to serve … the others. It hurt to think of not having a Master. Other Slaveborn felt the same, she knew. Generations of Slaveborn, proudly serving their Masters was not easily set aside. She desperately clung to Rom, Slaveborn himself, but giving directions, at least. Like all Slaveborn, he wore the headstall, bit and lead ring of of slavery and had since he was foaled. He was something like a Master, even if not truly Freeborn.

Above, under the merciless sun, the others gathered about the bucket. Rom stayed back and watched, directing which mare got to drink and how much. Finally, he stepped forward and took a share.

Rom finally took the last of the bucket of water to Sando. The stallion sneered, “Why you giving me any at all? I saw you sucking away at it first. Thought you said the band comes first!”

Rom shrugged expressively. “If you weren’t part of the band, I wouldn’t give YOU any. I would share it to a beggar first. You did nothing to help get it. The mares, even little Nore, all worked together on getting it.

“You tried to turn us away from this water because it was not already poured and served to you. When it was found, you made threats to the only one who could get it for you.”

“YOU did nothing for it either! Just stand about and say do this. Do that! That isn’t work at all!”

Sarel came quietly over and slapped Sando’s jaw shut, his teeth clacking loudly together. She leaned down and hissed, “I am so tired of you and your arrogance! Rom not only says, do this or that, he lends his strength and skills to the task! He put his strength to lowering Nore. He will help to bring her up, too. He does not just stand there and order, he is a part of the team! You are totally worthless!

“Be grateful that you get any of the water that you almost cost us with your multiple stupidities”

Rom interrupted, “Sarel, enough. You are correct that he has behaved foolishly here. Sando is NOT stupid. He is out of his element and, feeling lost. He has been trying to take control of something. Anything.

“You, dear, would be out of your element in Phapa’s iron works. You would seek to learn rapidly and become a good helper to her. She would be equally lost among your looms, fibers and dyes. The same is true of her. She would try to learn and be the best helper that she could be.

“The Master often brought clients directly to Sando to get things designed for their slaves to make. We rarely ever saw the Freeborn clients. He saw them often and had fine quarters because of it.

“If he spurns this water one more time, I will give it to the rest of you.”

Sando unwisely snapped, “It isn’t enough! A Real Stallion like me deserves at least twice that much! …

“My water! What are you doing with my water?”

Rom turned his head to look back at Sando and said, “I am keeping my promise. I saved you an equal share in spite of your doing nothing for it. You refused it. The mares worked for it so they get it.”

He set down the bucket and let the mares take turns sipping until it was empty.

Lowering the bucket, he noticed that Nore was standing to one side, in the shade of the well and looking at the dipping pool longingly. He called down, “Nore! Go ahead and drink. You are the most deserving of us all. It was your idea. It was your digging that gave us water. Share in it freely.”

Nodding, Nore caught the bucket and carefully, to avoid stirring up mud, dipped it. She watched it safely on its way up and then, finally drank of the treasure that she had found.

It was so comforting to have somehorse giving order to her life.

Up above, Sando wisely kept his mouth shut and took the water that was given to him.

The time between buckets passed slowly. While they were all waiting patiently, Sando asked sourly, “Why is she taking so long to full a measly bucket? Bet she is down there gobbling all the water she can. Shorting us!”

Big Phapa loomed over him. “Do you really want to be kicked again, Sando? I am strong so I am a lifter for the bucket. Nore is NOT taking a lot of water and only drinks a little after the bucket is dipped. It takes that long between buckets because we have tapped a SEEP.” She ostentatiously turned her back to him and returned to her post by the well to await the next full bucket of precious water.

It took several hours for them to get enough water for all of them.

Sando had finally figured out that the others were serious. If he did not shut up, they were going to abandon him. HIM! How could they? He resentfully kept his own counsel. The others acted as if Rom had some special skill. Any horse could tell the others what to do …

Later, in the afternoon heat, they all heard it. The tramp of hooves on the road out front. They paused and started up the lane to the abandoned farm.

It was the Godolphin’s Guard, watching the abandoned wells for any signs of water. Thinking quickly, the carpenter, Malit, rushed out of the shade from ruined walls and prostrated herself before the Captain of the Guard.

“Of your Mercy, Good Freeborn! Have you any alms? Copper perhaps? Water please if there is any at all. The seven of us were cast out by the merchant Miland Ba Hardin. We have found some shade here but are famishing for thirst.”

This particular Captain of the Godolphin’s Guard did not have a heart of stone. He gazed at Malit with pity. “There are so many in your plight. I wish that I had the means to help you. We have already given our patrol ration of water to others.”

He dug in his saddlebag and produced a meager few coppers. “These are all that I have. Use them wisely. Perhaps you can buy enough water for your friends to have some too.” He shook his head sadly. “I fear not, though. The price of even foul water has been rising as the drought continues.

“I fear for the whole land of Gyptia if we do not get some rain soon.” The guard troop turned and left without discovering the open well and its tiny seep of priceless water.

Malit gratefully took the few coppers and returned to the others. Rom said, “That was cleverly done, Malit. We still have our small seep.”

Sando butted in, “None of you has any idea what to do with money so I will just take those coppers. Hoof them over …”

Nore leading, the other mares all chest rammed him at once, Knocking him unceremoniously from his feet. Nore sat on his neck, preventing him from rising. “Sando, whether we know how to use it or not, gives you no right to simply take anything. Tomorrow, if you do not behave and help us, I will dip no water at all because I know that some will be going to you because of Rom’s good heart. Only when he has sent you away will I draw any water at all. This is not Rom’s word, it is ours, the mares here. What you do not earn, you get no part of. Is that clear?”

That night, they were awakened by a splintering crunch! “It’s Sando! What have you done, Sando?”

“I just cast down the bucket into the well, like a thousand times at the Master’s! Wanted a drink is all!”

Powerful Phapa ripped the line from his hooves and pulled up the remains of the bucket. She snapped, “Look at this! It won’t hold any water now! I would ask how you could be so stupid but you have been demonstrating your total lack of wisdom or intelligence since Rom let you join us!”

Rom examined the wrecked bucket carefully. Turning his head to Malit, he inquired mildly, “Can you repair this at all?”

She turned the damaged container around, checking it from all sides. “If I had the tools, I could fix it easily. The Master kept all my tools when he cast us out.

“Unless Sando can find me the tools, no. It is beyond anything that we can fix.”

Sando, irritated that he was being given what he saw as a menial task, snapped, “Why Me? You are the carpenter! You get the …” His teeth clacked together as Phapa slapped the bottom of his jaw to shut him up.

The big mare glared down at him and snarled, “First, you did no work for your water and complained of what you did get! Now your stupid attempt to steal water from the rest of us has cost us ALL anything to drink!

“You WILL search for tools so that Malit can fix the results of your stupidity!”

“It’s night! I will look around for them in the morning!”

Without a word, Phapa spun about and double hoof slammed Sando off his feet. He found that he could not rise because young Nore was sitting on his neck, holding him down.

“NOW, Sando. If you do not, we will abandon you. We are going to need that bucket soon.”

He turned his eyes up to Rom standing quietly by and asked plaintively, “Are you going to let these mad mares turn on me like this? You will be next!”

Mildly Rom replied, “I don’t see why I should interfere. They have correctly seen the necessary task and are doing it without my help. As for being next, I think not. We work as a team. You have refused to be a part of that team.

“Go. Find Malit the tools that she needs.”

Muttering under his breath, Sando began to rummage about in the ruinous barn. He found an out of the way spot and settled down for a nap.

Nore silently showed the others the sleeping Sando.

As quietly as they could, the whole band left the farm. They turned out, away from town, following the road, seeking another empty farm, another abandoned well that might give them some life giving water. Nore optimistically carried along the digging stick and ropes.

Rom approved, “That is wise, Nore. We might find another bucket.”

Nore grinned and pointed to the dust of the road. “Nobody much uses this road! Besides the Godolphin’s Guard tracks, there are only the old traces of the caravan that old donkey brought across the Anvil. Look! You can even see that he came and went twice!”

Rom did look. As his own hooves raised little plops of dust, he said thoughtfully, “One has to wonder where he came from. Those loads of the finest hay, grains, dried fruits and nuts did not come out of thin air.”

Maina observed sarcastically, “We know where they went though! The fat guts of the Godolphin and his noble cronies.”

Malit, with a snicker, said, “While totally true, it is unwise to say things like that!

“Oh! Look! There is a gate and lane. It looks to be empty!” Pausing a moment, she added more softly, “No wonder. I see the turnaround at the end of the road too. This is the very last farm out to the east of town.”

Phapa added, “There is a patrol of the Godolphin’s Guard coming up the road behind us, too.”

They cleared the way, going off the road, as was only proper for Slaveborn, making way for Freeborn.

The Guard halted and the Sargent in charge of this lot snickered at their plight. “Going to try your luck on Celestia’s Anvil? Just because that old donkey has managed to get caravans of sweet hay, dried fruit, nuts and water across the Anvil to sell to the Godolphin and his court doesn’t mean that you can do it!”

He reared with laughter and added, “Just because you were lucky enough find a little seep of water in a dead well won’t save you out there! We won’t come for your bones if you are dumb enough to try it!

“Come, fellow troopers! We have shade and a water ration awaiting us at the patrol’s end!” They passed on, leaving only dust and laughter to mark their passing.

Rom watched them go. All that he said was, “Rude of them, wasn’t it? They found the seep that you dug out, Nore.”

They turned up the lane to the abandoned farm, their hooves making the only marks there.

A furtive figure followed them, hiding whenever any of them even glanced back.

They found the farm’s abandoned wells easily enough. Wooden safety covers were fallen in. At least one looked broken nearly on purpose. Boards were broken across and some still dangled from their pegs. Their noses provided the answer to that question.

The stench of rotting flesh floated up from the bottom, where the overhead sun let them see it. The horse had died of broken bones, thirst and starvation. They were turning away from the morbid sight when Sarel’s keen sighted eyes popped open.

“He had a bucket! It is down there with him. It looks intact!”

Nore shuddered. Swallowing hard, she volunteered, “If we can keep the carrion flies out of my eyes and nose, I will get us the bucket.”

They all scattered to look for some sort of cloth or other thing that might work.

Sarel came soberly back to the well. “I don’t think that this family left.” She gave several dry heaving sobs. “There are mares in the house. They have all been dead a long time.”

Rom nodded sadly, “I feared as much. The horse in the well is slaveborn or his headstall lies. What of the mares?”

Steadying herself, Sarel replied, “Two freeborn, three slaveborn. I did not see the Master.”

Rom nodded to himself as he thought deeply. “I must see them. What of cloth to shield Nore’s eyes and nose?”

“It is there. There is a stall hanging of gauze in pretty good shape. It has been shielded from the weather and sun.”

Phappa and Malit returned from the tumbledown barn, empty hooved. Malit was trying unsuccessfully to hold down her gorge. She vomited a little fluid but nothing else.

Phapa held her head. She looked up at Rom. “We found little of any use. I believe that the Master of the farm died in there. He has no headstall.”

Rom soberly looked about at the farm with new eyes. “I must see him too. Sarel found what seems to be the rest of the family that was here, slave and freeborn alike.”

Big Phapa seemed to shrink. In a shaking voice she asked, “Do you mean what I fear that you mean?”

Solid, dependable Rom nodded. “I fear a massacre. They may have been killed for food, water or both. I pray to the Night Horse that I am wrong.”

He went to the barn first. He spent only a little time there. Then to the house. He returned with the gauze neatly folded.

“We must be most careful. The Watch Sargent who was so rude did leave a watcher. I have seen him twice. He is napping down in the bottom of the old kitchen garden now.”

His shoulders finally slumped. “They were all killed. The whole family was murdered. May the Night Horse take them to the Garden of Dreams.”

Young Nore looked puzzled by the last statement but was holding still while Sarel carefully wrapped her head and face in the old hanging. The mares got busy securing her into the improvised lowering harness fashioned of ropes.

It took them all to get her down safely. The old windlass was wrecked. Now that they knew what they were seeing, the signs of vandalism were obvious. The mares lowered Nore slowly while Rom kept the rope from rubbing and chafing on the stone well coping.

They were just getting her out of the well with the bucket when they heard an all too familiar voice demanding, “Give me that bucket! I want some water, NOW!”

Nore, with a saccharine smile turned the bucket up, tipping out about a thousand squirming maggots. “We all want water, Sando. We had it, too. You took it away from all of us by breaking our bucket. Now, the Watch has found the seep that WE made. We can no longer get that water.”

Sando snapped, “If you weren’t getting water, what were you doing down that well? Why did you bring up those maggots?”

“I wanted away from the murdered horse in the bottom of the well as quickly as I could. The maggots were already in the bucket. If we are very lucky, we might find something in one of the other two wells here. I doubt it, though.

“If there was any water, the murderers from the Godolphin’s Guard would not have thrown the bucket down on top of the corpse.”

Sando sneerd, “How do you know anyhorse was murdered by the Godolphin’s Guard?”

Rom nodded approvingly at Nore. Heartened, she stated, “By using my eyes and brain. Every Guard Patrol has two pike horses for breaking charging attacks, three with short stabbing spears and the leader of the patrol has a sword.

“Every horse here was murdered by pike or spear. Even the dead slaveborn down there in the well was stabbed before he was cast down to die of his injuries. Those pikes and stabbing spears are military weapons. Only the Guard and Army can have them.”

Rom gently got between Sando and the bucket. “No, Sando. You may not have the bucket. We need it. You cost us both the bucket we had and the water that we had.

“Before you ask, NO, we do not trust you at all. You do no thing to help us but try to act the Master to us. You are no Master.”

Sando stamped in anger. “You aren’t any Master, either!”

Big, solid, blacksmith Phapa shouldered between them. “The difference is that Rom does not pretend that he is due any special treatment. He is no bully and he takes responsibility for what he does.”

Sarel entered the fray, pointing out, “The Guard Troop that was on the road out front, a bit ago, found our seep and bragged of it. They did not enter this farm and its wells. They knew them for dry. That means that they were likely the murderers.

“One other thing. They left a watcher to keep an eye on us. He is asleep in the shade of a wall in the kitchen garden. We need to keep our voices down.”

They all turned their backs to Sando and conferred with Rom about removing the safety covers from the remaining two wells.

Sando watched with resentment as the mares, with Rom directing and helping, shifted the cover from the nearest of the wells. They looked down and signaled for Nore to look too. She shook her head.

“Not except as a last resort. I see no trace of a damp spot. Let us try the other one first.”

Rom nodded and began to direct the replacement of the cover over the dry well. Sando barged in demanding, “Forget this nonsense! Get the cover off the other well, NOW!”

Phapa did not even let go of the part she was holding with her jaws. She double bucked Sando hard enough to blast him off his feet. The band continued to replace the cover safely before going to the last well.

The cover jammed several times before they got it loose and clear. Rom led Nore over and asked, “What do you think, Nore? Is this one worth our effort? We have seen what looks like it is possibly damp but that may be a trick of the light.”

Nore studied the well from several angles, staring intently and sniffing too. She nodded at last.

“This one is our best bet.” She marked a spot. “Lower me down from here. There is something odd about the well side just below this but not at the bottom.”

Rom accepted that and got the mares busy with the preparations to lower Nore where she wanted.

Soon she was on her way down, meter by careful meter. Near the bottom, they heard her call up, “Hold me here! I found it! We will have water in just a little!”

Sando heard it too. He charged in, nipping the flanks of the mares, causing them to drop Nore the rest of the way. He shouted, “Water! Now that little idiot is at the bottom! Dig there! WELL! Got it? WATER at the BOTTOM!”

Nore’s voice came plaintively up from the well, “The water is up some on the side of the well! I can’t reach it now! Why did you drop me?”

Sando yelled down the well, “Dig, you stupid filly! If I don’t get that water in a few minutes, we will leave you there!”

Spinning about, Sando reared to his impressive height, pawing the air with forehooves.

“I challenge you for the leadership of this band, Rom!”

Malit and Maina simply nodded to each other. They each put a hoof in front of one of his hind hooves and high signed Phapa.

The big powerful blacksmith let drive with a double kick that did not stop until nearly 10 cm after a rising impact with Sando’s rear. The shocked Sando literally flew forward and crashed to the dust a mare’s length away. Sarel slammed the side of his neck, dazing him.

She hissed in his ear, “You have killed us all, you idiot! You woke up the Guard watcher and he is on the run to get the rest of the patrol!

“Being a leader is more than just being strong or big. You need both intelligence and wisdom too. You have no sign of any brains! This is TWO wells that you have cost us. You have the same water that we have! NONE! And ALL YOUR FAULT!

“Stay out of our way. We are saving Nore. YOU are NOT WORTH SAVING!”

She left the shocked and stunned Sando and joined the mares recovering Nore from the well. She was weeping.

“Why? We had it there, up on the side. There was lots of water. Up close, I could smell it! It would only have taken a little digging to get it to flow out.”

Sarel pointed insultingly with a hind hoof. “There is the reason. Sando. What else could you expect from that fool? Wisdom? Thought for anyhorse but himself?” She brayed a sarcastic laugh.

Laying bruised and sore in the dust, Sando slowly realized that he had not been beaten by Rom. All of the mares had ganged up to protect Rom by a cooperative attack. He could NEVER lead these mares. They would not follow.

He saw a commotion at the well coping. Nore was limping on one hind leg. It hit him that he had injured her. He didn’t really want to hurt any horse. He was thirsty and did not think straight.

Nore limped over and snapped, “You want water so bad that you will kill is all to get it? Here have mine!” She pissed a pitifully small amount. On his face.

Rom looked on, troubled by all that he had seen. The mares gathered and asked him trustingly, “What can we do now, Rom?”

He thought carefully and replied, “We must dare the Anvil of Celestia. The Guard Troop knows us and will kill us to keep the well, so we cannot go back to Tadast’s Wells.

“Sando’s foolish actions have robbed us of water, choices, and likely, life itself.

“If we just follow the donkey’s caravan tracks, the Guards will find us. We must go wide of them for at least a day. Then, perhaps we can follow him to safety. I fear not, though.

“It is the only choice left to us. I can see the dust of the Watch Patrol coming now.”

They all nodded unhappy understanding and followed Rom from the farm, going across sere dead fields. They spared not a glance for Sando. The last that he was aware of them was the sound of hooves breaking dry, brittle stalks of the failed crop.

He struggled to his feet to await the Guards. It was not long at all. Proudly, he pointed to the well. “There is water in that one!”

Turning, he saw a Guardshorse staring intently down. “Don’t see anything. Possibly a dampish spot… Not really water.”

Sando puffed out his chest and replied, “The water is up on the side of the well. The filly that we were using to lower and dig, said that she could smell it really strongly.”

The guard by the well looked up and changed position. “Yes, I see it now. Pity that there isn’t enough well reward to share it with a turned out slaveborn.”

The change in his voice and his words caused Sando to panic and dodge. The searing pain of the near miss on his windpipe and heart, as the spear sliced his shoulder, brought many things clear to Sando at once!

First among them was FLEE! Wheeling, he ran through the dry rustling stalks of the dead crop. Where he passed, was a trail of ruin, the dry dead stalks shattered under hoof! Before he had gone far, he realized that he needed to follow the others to conceal his trail!

Crossing a ditch and low wall, he raced out onto the Anvil itself. The sand pockets among the stones were treacherous. It was easy to slip in them.

The crushing weight of his bungles was falling in on him as blood rilled from his shoulder. His guilt ridden thoughts ran, “That was no mere dominance thing. They meant to actually murder me, like the family back there! I did them a good turn and they tried to kill me for it!”

His breath laboring, hooves slipping in the slithering sand and gravels, it hit him, “The band did me nothing but good and I may have killed them all! I will never question Rom again, if they will let me rejoin them. Perhaps I can help some of them to survive to the other side of the desert.”

That thought actually stopped Sando in his tracks. “The other side of Celestia’s Anvil? I’ve never even considered such a thing! That old donkey has pulled two caravan loads of luxury provisions to the Godolphin’s Court. There has to be another side! I never questioned the Anvil as a boundary before!”

While stopped, he actually saw the tracks that he was following. Nore, as smallest, was easy to see. With a lump in his throat, he saw that she was limping. There, on that sloped sand and gravel, she had fallen.

“My fault! I was the one who made her fall!”

Misery rimmed eyes saw by the tracks, where the others helped her back to her feet. Drawing a breath that shuddered, not only with effort, he resolved, “This is the worst thing that I have ever done. If I get the chance, I will support Nore or carry her. I will not let her die while I live.”

With steps dragging from the fear that he would not be allowed to do what he could to remedy his awful errors of judgment, Sando set out after the band.

The heat was devastating. The hot sand and stones shimmered in dancing waves, making footing even more treacherous. Sando staggered.

“It is easy to understand Nore’s fall back there! I almost went down myself!”

Slipping on yet another sandy hillside, Sando noticed, “The sand and rock beneath the surface are cooler!”

Excited by the discovery, he scraped and dug a bit. It only needed a little depth. “It feels cool, actually!”

He rested in the cool spot he’d made for only a bit. He eagerly began to trace the band.

“I actually have something to help them! Not enough. Something is better than none …”

Rounding a gravel and sand hill, he nearly fell into one of the many arroyos that cut across the desert, making travel even more difficult and dangerous. The tracks that he was following cut sharply south and disappeared.

Heart in his mouth with fear that he was too late, Sando approached. There was a steep but manageable slope to the bottom. Seeing by the tracks that the ones he was following were safe, Sando scouted the rim of the arroyo and found a place where its far wall could be safely climbed before he went to follow them again.

The footing of the slope was treacherous. He felt his hind hooves go out from under him in a welter of sliding stones and broiling hot sand. Nearly taking a tumble, he sat his rear in the shifting soils and spread his forelegs for balance. He rode the small landslide safely to the bottom of the small canyon like cut.

He sat, panting away both his fear and resting a bit. Regaining his feet, he followed the tracks around a bend. The band was there, resting out the heat of the day in the shade of the arroyo’s rim. Most were laying down. Malit and Maina, standing, saw him and turned their backs to him, ready to kick if he should get too close.

He stopped and lowering his head in shame, said, “I do not blame you. If you will let me join you, I can show you how to be cooler. I can help Nore. I injured her. It is just that I help her.”

Nore bitterly demanded, “What do you have to offer us now, Bucket Breaker? Did you bring a well with you?”

Rom laid a gentle hoof on her shoulder and suggested, “He has offered us something of worth, if not water. He sounds a different horse than the one that we left behind.

“How can you do these things, Sando? Why should we trust you?”

Sando, keeping his head low, replied, “Try what I say and see if it does not help. As for trusting me? I would not either, in your place. I was an arrogant fool. The attempt of the Guard to murder me, like they did the family at the farm finally brought home to me how foolish I was.

“You are right, Sarel. Leadership needs wisdom that I lack. I will do as Rom says without question if you will have me back. It may be that my strength can get a few of you to the other side of the desert alive. At least, I can show you how to make a harness that will support Nore while her leg heals.”

Rom thought over what he had heard. He nodded slowly, face grim. “We will try what you suggest for being cooler. If that works, we will let you rejoin us. Understand that we do not trust you at all. We have no food or water and are like to die from that want. I hope that your ideas will work.

“How would you make us cooler?”

Sando replied, “Use the digging stick or your hooves. Mark out the resting place for one of you and dig it out five or ten centimeters. The soil UNDER the surface is far cooler.”

Nore took the digging stick and scraped industriously, quickly producing a mare sized crater. As she smoothed the bottom, she looked up in surprise.

“He was right! Lay down, Sarel. Try it!”

Soon the rest of the band were all resting in their own craters. Rom made Nore take the last one that she dug. Looking at Sando, he asked, “How will we manage, Sando?”

“It is not as easy, Rom, but we can scrape ours out by hoof. Let me help you.”

“No, Sando, this one is yours. It is the duty of the leader to see to those he leads. I will dig mine last.”

Downcast, Sando looked about at the small canyon’s walls of layered clays, gravel and stone. “I promised to follow your orders, Rom. You are right. However, a leader should not be unwilling to accept the help of those he leads. Let us both dig your hole. I will lay down with an easier heart if I have helped you even if it is only in a small way.”

They dug together quietly until Rom’s place was ready. Sando laid down first and then Rom.

Nore looked across the rim of her earthen crater to where Sando was settling down at last.

With half closed eyes, she offered, “Thank you, Sando. The cool ground does help.”

Her eyes closed. Her soft snores joined the others of the resting band.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

I was leaning into the pull, wagon heavy behind me. The only thing really helping, was the high quality of the Royal Road. The hard packed gravel made a continuous almost musical crunch under the iron tires of the wheels. I was nearing the Red Branch cutoff. That would lead me into the Maze.

It was getting late. The whole Maze canyon complex was no place to be after dark. I pulled into an abandoned share-cropper place to spend the night under cover. The old barn was barely big enough for my trade wagon, cover and all.

Why put the wagon indoors if it has a cover? Ground Nest and his other local pegasus buddies. Gang, really.

The roof of the barn was split shakes. The house had been thatch. In the course their ‘pranks’ Ground Nest and his little gang of pegassi drove old Mayhaw out.

Ripping up his roof and dropping rain on him was only the beginning. He was finished when they sneaked in at harvest and stole over a quarter of his crops and set rain on the rest.

Ground Nest and his buddies laughed about it openly down in Haulmarket but nopony did anything to stop them. Mayhaw was just an old donkey and who cares about donkeys, or goats for that matter? Me for one.

When asked, I always haul out a small mirror, look in it and retort, “Goodness! I certainly do seem to be a donkey! From the look of it, I appear to be old Marchhare! Guess that settles it, doesn’t it?”

Almost all of the pony run farms in the whole Red Branch District, or any other really rural District either, pretty much depend on the donkey traders and their wagons of seed grain, hardware, woven goods and small tools. Without our farm to farm services, they tend to go under. Paying ponies to do those errands is expensive.

Edict of Equality or not, the ponies mostly look down on us. Pranks that would cause outrage if they happened to a pony? Who cares, really? He/she’s just a donkey.

That is why I put the wagon out of sight. Like most of the traders, now, I do not trade in the Red Branch District. I am just passing through, as quickly and with as little notice as possible. Some of the farmers are waking up to just how bad the situation is. Not enough of them. Not soon enough.

Things stowed safely from aerial view, I took the time to inventory the load again. That was a satisfying if potentially misleading way to spend time. Counting coins that are not yet in your purse and all that.

It was all food and top quality grains for planting or eating. “Two chests of dried fruits, spendy, those. Two Gold, five for them alone. A chest of soft-bagged nuts. Five chests of the best grain in three varieties. The rest of the load was ten bales of the best clover hay with the flower tops.” Those were all wrapped tight against moisture.

Past experience with Ground Nest and his buddies explained the precautions. Slashing expensive wagon tops and drenching the donkey’s load is one of their favorite games.

Inventory done, I settled down by my wagon and made a funny looking reach. Funny looking because my hoof, up past the hock disappeared from view. When I completed the reach, I had a smallish orb of pale transparent green, a couple of inches across. It was mounted to an ornate black three legged stand with a motto scrolled around it.

Few nowadays could read that motto. The written language has changed a lot from those ancient days when I first invented the art of writing. Reflected in the surface of the orb that could not show any untrue thing was an elderly blue unicorn with a mane and beard gone white. Staring back at me was my real self.

The reflection of De Writer, the long banished foster father of the twin Princesses of the Realm stared back at the magically disguised Marchhare.

I whispered, “The Future is Forbidden.” Scenes came and went, observed in the Orb of the Ages. It can see any Past event with perfect accuracy. That past can be anything from fractions of a second ago, almost to the creation of the World of Equestria. I was scanning for threats to the safety of the Realm and my still precious foster daughters, Princess Luna and Princess Celestia. I found nothing new to worry about.

I cast my view ahead, along my route, up the Red Branch, past the huge new irrigation project dam that was nearly done, and on, up into the Maze. I checked the only safe route over the Sunset Divide and down to the Desert of Celestia’s Anvil, arguably the hottest, driest desert in the world.

I was following my past explored route to Gyptia and the lands of the Godolphin. As always, I was looking widely ahead trying to find a safer, easier or faster way to cross that wasteland.

What I did find broke my heart. There were seven Gyptian horses attempting to cross the Anvil. They were cast out slaves by the look of the headstalls that they all wore. Their ribs stood out like barrel staves. There were too many such dying in Gyptia and nothing that I could do about any of them.

These? I tracked them back to Tadast’s Wells. There was no way that even my supplies could get them back to the town. They were already too far into the desert. Besides, there was the matter of some of the Godolphin’s Guard. If they did get back, it was death by starvation and thirst or death by spear. If they continued to try crossing the desert, they were going to die too.

I looked up from the Orb of the Ages. My cart of supplies might have a better use than feeding a wealthy Court that would survive without it. I might be able to bring these slaves into Equestria. I lay there and figured it as well as I could. It would be a close thing. At least a few of them should make it.

I put away the Orb of the Ages in its hidden place in time itself. Now there was nothing left to betray old Marchhare. I slept until somewhat before the dawn.

I pulled out of the abandoned farmstead and onto the Red Branch path. I eyed the ruts, assorted muddy spots, stray sticks that could nail a wheel’s spokes and wondered again why the locals and the engineers put up with this mess as the way to get to so important a project as the Red Branch Dam.

Chuckling to myself at my own witticism, I 'hauled ass’ up the way, passing the dam itself. I noted that it was nearly done. Only a little left at the north end. That, and needing to settle for almost a year to let its own mass pack it more solidly before risking the massive load of water that it was going to hold back. Water from it should open up an enormous amount of new farm land for feeding a hungry nation.

Past the dam, there was no real road at all. That made going difficult indeed. I thanked the mother of Celestia and Luna that I’d done it twice before this. Made it easier to pick my way through the thickets.

I appreciated the shade and coolness under the giant old trees here. These, I knew, were some of the biggest, oldest trees in Equestria. It took me two whole days, pulling some at night, too, to reach the divide.

From that vantage point, I could see through some of the much smaller trees of this side of the Sunset Range. Out there was bare rock, gravel, sand and clays. I could see the shimmer of the heat on the surface of the desert.

Celestia’s Anvil. Arguably the hottest driest desert on the world and it was what I had to go into. No profit this time.

I shook my head and muttered, “Lives are more important than gold.” I pulled forward and onto the downgrade. It was slow, tricky work to get that heavy cart load down safely to where the canyon floor widened out to a meadow with a spring flowing into a small pool, similar to several others that I’d passed.

What made this spring special was simple. It was the last water before the desert. I filled up all the water casks lining the sides of my wagon, easily increasing the load by a half. No help for it though. Not if I was going to try saving those horses.

And I was. I leaned into it and pulled.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

Another utterly merciless day was paling the eastern sky, heralding a cloudless dawn. Nore woke and lifted her head to see about her. Rom was up. Maina and Phapa were up. Sando was up. She stirred and got her legs under her. Getting to her hooves was not as easy. Her left hind leg was still giving her trouble since the fall in that well. The tumble out on that loose gravel slope had not helped it.

To Nore’s surprise, it was Sando who helped her to her feet.

Sando offered, “If you will accept my help, Nore, I can show the others how to make you a harness that will support your leg. You will have to have support, though. I will do that while my strength lasts. If you will have me do it.”

She gave him a skeptical glance. “You seem far different from the Sando that we left behind.”

“I hope that I am. I understand, now that it is likely too late, how bad I was.” He shook his head, ears drooping. “If there is any way at all to make it up to all of you, I want to do it. I do not want to die reviled and hated.”

Nore’s eyes softened. “If you can show the others how to do that harness, Sando, I will let you support me. My leg hurts.”

Rom nodded to the others. Sarel brought up the rope. Sando began, “We need two loops about me here. Hard knot them so that the knots won’t slip …”

It took only a little time. Nore, with her limp, setting the pace, they started to struggle up the canyon to the slide that Sando found the day before.

Hooves slipped as gravel slithered away from under them. Sometimes it seemed that it took three strides up to gain one. Those were the good times. Frustrating efforts finally got them all to the top. The sun was not yet over the horizon of bleak stone and bare clay. They set out while the relative cool still prevailed.

If not for the same sun that was killing them, they could have lost their way entirely.

Rom observed, “The Dayhorse is leading us to the place where she wants us to die.” Drawing a big breath and letting it out slowly, he added, “Best not to disappoint her, I guess.”

They struggled on. Nore looked up at Sando in puzzlement. “Why would it matter if you were reviled or in comfort when you die, Sando? Is not dying simply an end? An end to suffering or an end to pleasure, but only that, an end?”

Rom turned an ear to hear Sando’s reply. So did most of the band, actually. Sando’s reply surprised them all.

“That is a very fatalistic view, Nore. If life is simply a space between not being and not being, then why struggle at all?

“Everything that lives strives to live on. An injured spider in the ruin of a web will still try to make another web and live on. So it is with us, too. Ask yourself why? Why struggle to live on if there is an end to struggles and pain within your easy reach. All that you have to do is give up.”

Nore did think deeply as she plodded along, making the best pace that she could. She realized suddenly that she was the injured spider, but, expecting to die herself, she was setting as swift a pace as she could, in the hope that the others would survive.

“Do you know what lies beyond this world, when we die, Sando?”

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

I came out of the canyon from the Sunset Range and began to follow my old tracks. Not a road by any stretch. Just the way with fewest traps for the unwary. My previous path avoided the sand and stuck to gravel and clay surfaces.

The wheels groaned and fought me, conspiring with the desert surface to hold back the wagon. I shook my head at the unforgiving gravels and baked clays, “I swear it was easier when I was not trying to save some poor horses.”

The harness bit harder through my sweat, as if to make up for the bugs that had, ages ago, abandoned Celestia’s Anvil. I muttered, “I don’t blame them, either! This is no place for a self respecting bug.”

I dragged and pulled anyway. “They are going to die if I don’t. They might die anyway, but at least I will have tried!”

The sun slammed down harder, I was sure. The Anvil was well named.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

Sando thought over Nore’s question carefully and returned one of his own. “What do you think is there, Nore?”

“I don’t know. Until it started looking like I may find out soon, I really did not care.”

Sando nodded. “That is the way of most, Nore. I feel that there is a place that will reward us for the way that we use the Gift of Life. If we give it up or throw it away, well, I don’t know what might await us.

“If it is reward for carrying on and doing our best to the end of our lives, it must be a reward suited to horses like us.

“That would be a pleasant, lake of pure water that never fails. There would be trees that both shade us from the sun and heat of the day, and have good fruits that they bear in all seasons. There must be fine grass that grows always in plenty and soft, comfortable, safe places to sleep.”

“It sounds lovely, Sando. I wonder if there will be a Master there? The idea of having no Master frightens me. It is the worst part of this whole horrible time. We are cast out. We have no Master.” She shuddered to dry sobs and leaned a little harder on the harness of ropes. Sando, understanding too well what she felt, made no complaint, but bore her up more strongly.

The other mares of the trekking band did overhear. Dappled Sarel whispered to brown Phapa, “I never really thought about it before. My mother used to tell me tales of the Night Horse’s Garden of Dreams but even when I was small, I didn’t really believe them.

“What Sando just said actually made some sense. I need to think about it.”

Malit overheard and agreed, “Funny, isn’t it? We are out here, like to die, and along comes this amazing thought from somehorse that I would never have looked to say anything sensible.”

Rom nodded too. “I see some shade there by that rock outcrop. It won’t last but I want the rest of you to wait there. I will be looking ahead for a better shade to wait out the day.”

Sando said, “No, Rom. That should be my task. You are our leader. You are vital to the rest if they are to live at all. Let me scout the way.” He paused and then added, “Please.”

They watched Sando work his way up a hill to the south east of them. As he was scanning the route from his vantage point, Nore noticed how gaunt he was. Looking about, she sadly noticed that they all were. Shaking her head, she muttered, “Starvation does that.”

It was not long before Sando returned, his steps dragging. His sides heaving, he reported, “I found us a better place. The hill there, becomes a scarp facing south. There is one of these twisty canyons in it. We can have good shade for the rest of the day in there. Come, I will show you the way.”

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

The Orb was showing me the best way to reach the band of lost and cast off slaves. I grumbled at some of it. Wagons need ground that is sound enough that wheels do not sink too deeply into it and free enough of obstructions like big stones and heavy brush to allow passage.

As I detoured yet again through the desert night, I groused, “A straight way, please, Dear Luna!”

No answer but the return grumble of wheels on the small gravel that the wind left behind when it blew away the good soil. It was five days of grueling labor. I was pulling the last one in daylight. Time was running out.

The worst place that I was aware of was just past. No shade at all. I suspect that if I could die, I would have, back there.

The real chance for trouble lay not far ahead. Another narrow canyon led out of the side of a ridge of the same ghastly mix of hard clay and small lumpy stones that was such a nightmare to pull the wagon over. Up in there were the seven that I had come to try saving.

My big donkey ears could hear a little of their conversation. One that sounded to be the filly said, “Sando, I don’t think I can go further. My leg is healed. I can’t stand now at all. Tell me again of the Lake.”

A big soft voice answered her, “It has all good things for us. The best of browse to eat. Fruits born at all seasons from trees and bushes that give shade in perfect measure for us.

“A thing that I did forget to mention though. There are instruments there to play for music and dancing. We can dance, sing and play music whenever we wish.”

The filly’s voice answered, “I wish that the Master had not kept our lyres, flutes and drums. I want to hear music again before I go to the Lake.”

The one named Sando was replying, “We all do, Nore … I hear something out on the desert!! I am going to go see what it is!”

I made a show of passing to the south of where they were sheltering from the sun but where they had to see or hear me going by.

The big stallion came out of their shaded hideaway at the sound of my cart passing. He called out in a weak voice, “Sir! If you are this deep into the Anvil, you must have some water! Can you spare a tiny bit? We have a filly near to death.

“It is my fault that we are here. Save her, if none of the rest of us, please?”

I paused in heaving against the harness to move the cart across the heat shimmering stones of the desert floor. The gaze that I turned to him showed me a gaunt horse, fat gone, ribs standing out plainly, gut narrowed by starvation and thirst.

“I do have some water. How many of you are there? Have you any means to pay me for my water?”

His head had lifted until I mentioned payment. His neck drooped. The tips of his scraggly mane trailing in the dust. “There are seven of us. Two stallions, four mares and the filly. I fear that there will soon be none. We have no means to pay you.”

“Are you the band’s leader?”

“No, good donkey, Rom is our leader. He is wise. We are back in that steep sided canyon. There is shade there, at least.”

Curiously, I asked, “You called me Sir and good donkey. Why would you say that?”

He gave me a truly puzzled look. “You are Sir because you have not the headstall and bit of a slave. You are free. I said good donkey because I hoped that a respectable trader like yourself might help us to save our filly, Nore Bel Morin.”

I nodded. “I will shelter the balance of the day with you, if I am welcome to do so. I will spare some water for your filly.

“You must help me to find a safe way for my cart to get to where you are waiting the evening.”

“Sir, I shall. You will be welcome among us if you can aid Nore at all.”

True to his word, he helped me to get the cart safely to the canyon floor. It was not easy but we managed it.

I was greeted by Rom Ina Callin, the leader of the band. “Free Sir, would it be possible for you to spare anything at all for us? Nore is in the most desperate need. If you cannot help the rest of us, of your mercy, help her.”

I made a pretense of checking the filly out. I already knew, through the Orb, what her condition was like. The filly, Nore, was pretty bad off indeed. She was still conscious, able to swallow and speak though.

She gave me a trusting stare and asked, “Are you my guide to the Lake? Am I going to die?”

I replied, “Not yet, Nore. Perhaps later. Much later indeed, I hope. For now, I have some water and some grain. We will grind the grain into the water to give you both the drink and the nourishment that you need.”

Going to my cart, I saw that, though famished and thirsting near to death, none had touched it. I opened a chest of the grain and, true to my promise, ground a ration of it with water from a cask. One of the mares, a sorrel named Malit Ba Molin, took the ration and carefully fed Nore. She stole no bite for herself.

I nodded as I thought to myself. “These are indeed worth saving. They are the finest horses that I have ever seen. Better than almost any ponies, too.”

I beckoned both Rom and Sando over to me. In some perplexity, I asked, “What did Nore mean by 'guide to the Lake?’ Is it some sort of custom that I have not seen before?”

Sando hung his head and replied, “I spun her a tale to answer her question. She asked what lies beyond death here in this deadly desert.

“The others heard me too. It seems that she is clinging to that tale. I told her and the others that a paradise awaited us but not if we gave up. It is a wonderful Lake of pure water surrounded by the finest meadows of the best browse a horse could hope for. There is shade from the sun provided by trees that bear always the best and tastiest fruits. There we are free and labor only as we wish it, and not at the order of a Master.

“She seems to think that you are our guide to that better place.”

I nodded at that. “I see. I have only a few questions.

“Rom, do you know where you are in the Anvil of Celestia and do you know where you are going?”

Rom shook his head. “We were cast out and, at the end, driven into the desert. We had heard of you successfully crossing the Anvil and had no other hope but to reach the place that you came from. Beyond that, we know nothing of where we are or are going. I will not simply give up and die. I am doing the best that I can to save any of us at all.”

“I see. It is true that I am a merchant. It is also true that I have a heart. Life outweighs profit. I have tested you, though it may not have been obvious.

“I simply left the wagon with its supplies where you could all see it. None of you, though starving and suffering thirst, made any move to take any of the load.”

I sighed heavily, “I will forgo this trip’s profits to save you all if I can. Tadast’s Wells is the nearest Gyptian town and it is seven days of hard wagon pulling from here. My supplies cannot get you there.”

Sando hung his head and said, “We came from there. We were driven into the desert because we found a well with water and through my foolishness the watch found it out. They will get a handsome reward for it. To keep from sharing the reward, they will kill us.”

I shook my head sadly, “Such greed should not be. I can try to get you all back to my land. It will be a very close thing. Some may die before we get there. I hope not. It is five days from here, at least that is how long it took me to get here. I do not know how well the supplies will last.

“My land is a place called Equestria. There are ponies living there. They are smaller than you Gyptian horses. They come in three sorts. There are ones called Earth ponies. They are like you but smaller and stouter of build.

“Another sort are called Unicorns. They have a shortish horn in their forehead just above the eyes. They can do magics with that horn. Things can be lifted, held and moved by the power of their thoughts alone. Like the Earth Ponies, they are not large.

“The third sort are called Pegassi. They have wings and can fly. They are able to move clouds and bring controlled rains.

“All three sorts have many pastel colors for their coats and manes.

“I do not know how they will welcome you, but getting you to Equestria is the best that I can do for you.”

Rom nodded gratefully. “We will take our chances with your Equestrians. You mentioned using your caravan’s load of food and water for the trip?”

I said sourly, “My hope for a profit, yes. I said it before. Lives are more important than profit.”

Rom pointed out, “The food and water are still yours. Will you see to the rationing of them? We are all terribly hungry. I fear for fairness if any of us do it.”

I was about to answer when I felt a small muzzle touch my shoulder. It was Nore. She was staggering, but up. She spoke softly, “Sir Guide to the Lake, thank you. The mares said I should not be up yet but I wanted to say that.”

I put a hoof around her shoulders to steady her as I told her, “I hope that the Lake is far away for you. Live long. Be happy. Let Paradise come in its own good time.

“I need to distribute rations for these fine horses in Rom’s band. Will you help me?”

She gave me an adoring look and said, “I would be honored to help you, Sir.”

Malit, the sorrel mare who fed Nore, organized the others into a line to get both food and water. Sando and Rom had a disagreement about their place in the line. They both wanted to be last.

Sando whinnied, “It is my fault that we are here at all! I should be last to get food or water!”

Rom retorted, “It was my decision to let you back with us. As leader, it is my duty to see all others taken care of first! That is the burden of the leader.”

Nore, helping me to break open a wrapped bale of clover top hay, saw the argument and called out, “Let the Master decide! Marchhare is the only one of us who is a freeborn! The supplies are his!”

The others all stopped cold and turned expectant heads to me. I hope never to see that expression on the face of any horse or pony again. They had agreed instantly with Nore and were giving themselves to me. As slaves to a Master. Me.

I returned their gaze sadly. “I am free, it is true. What you have failed to grasp, my friends, is simple. You are no longer slaves. You were cast out. Besides, Equestria, the land that I am from, does not allow slavery.

“Follow Rom and do as he says because he is wise. Never forget this simple thing. You are now free. You may not have been freeborn, but by being cast off, you are no longer slaves.”

Even bright young Nore seemed stunned by the thought. “But … We are good slaves! We are all slaveborn. How can we be any but slaves?”

Rom was sorting out the difficult idea. He scratched the desert gravel underfoot as he grappled with the idea. Turning his gaze to me, he questioned, “You will not have us? Who will lead us then?”

With Nore’s help, I was breaking the bale into small rations. Not turning from the task, I replied without thinking of how they might take it, “You have been leading yourselves since you were cast out. To be a slave is to be property. Your Master cast you off so you are not his. You are your own masters now.

“I will not turn my back on you. I will be your guide and friend always but Master? Never.”

Rom nodded slowly. “We have no Master … I had not thought of that. Yet they have followed me without my being their Master. I will follow you freely, Marchhare for as long as you stay with us and let you guide us.”

Nore started to serve the lost horses of Rom’s band. She carefully ladled out water into a drinking trough and then gave each mare part of the hay and grain. We also gave them some of the dried fruits and nuts that I had along.

Sando, whose ribs stood out like barrel staves, insisted, “Nore, it was my fault that you were so near to the Lake of Paradise. Take some of my ration, please. I do not want to see such a thing happen ever again.”

She looked to me with total trust. I nodded thoughtfully, “This time, Nore, it is both good and just. You need that food. Soon you will be as fit as the rest and will not need more than your regular share.”

She took only a few bites of Sando’s ration. Rom gave her a few bites of his ration too.

Despite the heat, time flowed like cold molasses until evening. Leaning into the harness, I eased the cart out of the canyon the same way that we got it in. Sando scouted the way for safe passage of the cart with its precious cargo of food and water.

We made regular stops to give more of water and food to the band. I have no real need of food or water so I simply helped to ration out the supplies as we wended our way between the desert’s stony ridges. I adjusted my disguise as Marchhare to be gaunter looking but did it gradually, so that they would not notice some big change.

Rom and Nore came to me in the heat of the third day. “We could not find any sort of shelter from the sun, Marchhare. Sando is very upset to have let you and the rest of us down.”

I cocked an ear at them and their words while I leaned into the sweat slimed harness. “He has nothing to be ashamed of. It was the same coming out of the mountains on the way into the desert. I am more worried about the supplies. They are running low quicker than I hoped.”

Nore said softly, “We need some sort of protection from the sun. Malit has nearly stopped sweating and she is starting to stagger.”

I closed my eyes in deep thought. “I may be able to help some. I have a spare cover for the wagon. It is worn and has repairs but it is serviceable. Bring her here.”

I stopped pulling and got the spare canvas cover out of its locker in the cart. We made Malit crouch in the cart’s meager shade while we carefully tore and cut the fabric to fit her better.

Nore suggested, “We can tie it with fabric strips. That will help Malit to keep the sash on.”

Rom pointed out, “I know that our water is very short but if we use just a little, we can cool her better.”

He was right. It only took one ladle of water, carefully applied so that it soaked into the canvas to cool Malit enough to restore her body and spirits.

Rom suggested, “We have a lot of canvas left, Marchhare. Perhaps, since it is no longer useful as caravan cover, we could make the rest of us shade sashes like Malit’s.”

We took the time to do it. The mares were getting pretty professional about the fitting and tying by the time that they ran out of canvas pieces big enough to do the job.

Little Nore was not exaggerating when she told me that they were good slaves. They were well organized and worked with a will. Of course they were STILL trying to process the idea that they were now free. That was really difficult for the whole lot of them. The cultural conditioning of a lifetime is not easily set aside. They were slaveborn and it had never even entered their thoughts that they might be free.

We stopped for rest. There was no shade but what was cast by my cart and its cover. As we all crowded into it, Sando paused to examine my pulling harness.

I saw him whispering to Rom and to Malit. They, in turn whispered to Nore. She got a stricken expression and came to me.

“Marchhare, why did you hide from us that you were not eating and drinking your share of the rations? You are doing the heaviest work, pulling the caravan and supplies and you have been starving yourself. It is not right!” She stomped a small hoof in the dust for emphasis.

“I know it, dear Nore. You have all become very important to me. The supplies, especially the water will not last long enough to get you all safely out of the Anvil. My share may get the rest of you to safety.

“I will guide you all as long as I can, that is a promise. Look to the horizon. The tips of the mountains that guard Equestria are showing.” I pointed with a hoof. “Now let us get going. Perhaps we can reach the mountains and the spring before any of us die.”

As I was shrugging into the harness, Sando suggested, “I could pull the caravan. I was looking at the harness and it can be adjusted to fit me.”

Under the blaze of the sun, I replied, “True. If it is needed you could. Until I cannot pull it, this cart and what is in it is my responsibility.”

His shoulders slumped. “I knew that you would say that. Have you seen Nore? She has short rationed herself too. We are going to need to put her in the caravan or leave her to die.”

I nodded compassionately as I told him, “I already know that, Sando, my friend. Get her in the cart now. We will make better time if she is riding and that means a better chance for you all.”

By late afternoon, Malit was staggering again. We put her into the cart under the shade of its cover for a while. I had to lean harder but it was still not as difficult a pull as the original loaded cart had been.

Dust devils romped through the waste’s shimmering heat. Mirages made their false promises of water. I kept the whole band going as hard as I dared to push the suffering horses. We did not rest until long after dark.

I rested, quiescent while Nore doled out the very last wisps of hay and scoured the final grain chest for any kernel. All that was left was a fourth of a cask of water and a bare two or three bites of dried fruits and nuts.

Nore whispered to Rom. He nodded. She gathered a flat stone and a rounded one. Taking the fruits and nuts, she pounded and rolled them together.

I stirred enough to look past her shoulder at what she was doing. “Why mash it all together, Nore?”

She actually smiled as she explained, “They would not have shared out equally. This way, we all get the same amount of each bit.”

Her shoulders slumped. “It is the very last of the food. We have only a fourth part of one cask of water left.” She sighed. “We would have abandoned the chests and empty casks but for your wise counsel that they may yet serve us to hold our necessities later.”

The early light before dawn saw the whole band get those last fruit and nut portions. The remaining water was over half gone. Every horse, even I, donned the sun shading sashes and we struck out while the Anvil was at its coolest.

About mid morning, shortly after the last of the water was rationed out, I faked a stagger and fall in the traces. I stood uncertainly and said softly to Rom and Nore, who were the first to my aid, “I am tired. I must not have slept well last night.”

My lids drooped heavily. I breathed slowly and deeply, legs splayed some for support. I pointed to a ledge of stone not far south of the way that we were going. “I think that I will take a nap there. It appears to be shaded throughout the day. It will be a good place to rest.”

I saw tears in the eyes of the band. I pointed to the mountains. “Do you see that pass? The steep sided one with the north shoulder looking like a gryphon’s head?”

Rom nodded.

I took another few deep breaths before I said, “Make for that pass with all speed. Only a little ways into it is a good spring and a fine meadow.

“I will catch up to you as soon as I am well rested.”

I staggered over to the ledge and stretched out in the shade. Nore put her small hoof on my shoulder and sniffled as she said, “Rest well, Marchhare, our good guide. May the Lake be a fine place for you indeed.”

“I am only taking a nap, my dear. I will catch up to you soon.

“Sando, I am too tired to take this harness off. There is another in the locker at the front of the cart. Use it well to get the rest to the spring.”

He laid a hoof on my shoulder and replied in an unsteady voice, “I will do that. Rom will lead us and I will pull.”

Rom, steady of voice but eyes tearing said, “I will lead them all as best as I can, Marchhare.” He paused and swallowed hard, “Until you catch up to us again.”

I closed my eyes and let my breath out in a long deep sigh. It was damned hard to keep my ear from twitching when that fly landed on it.

They all returned to the cart. My big donkey ears overheard Malit say softly, “I was hoping that he could be our new Master.”

Nore, choking on sobs, replied, “He did not want to be our Master. Only to be our guide. He wanted us to be free.”

In only a little time, they were underway again. They were truly free of any Master at last. Especially me.

As soon as they were out of sight, I got up. Minor advantage of being truly immortal. I couldn’t die if wanted to, and I don’t. Not true of most of the rest of the living things of the world though. As soon as I had any idea that I might need a decoy, I started using the Orb of the Ages to find an old donkey who was already dying. The one that I found was poor even for a donkey.

Working a small plot of land for a share of the crop, he was plowing when his heart gave out. He died in the traces, like I had pretended to.

I appeared beside his body and separated him from the plow.

I do not teleport, though the difference between teleporting and temporal translocation is pretty technical. The main difference is simply this. What I do, temporal translocation uses no magic at all. It stems from a property of time itself, when the nature of time is properly understood.

When I had him ready, I shifted him back with me to the rock ledge out on Celestia’s Anvil. There, I covered him with my sash and harnessed him in the one that I was wearing. I took his. Not a lot of difference between them, really. Plowing and cart haulage are both hard pulling work.

Wondering if he would ever be found and what would become of him, I left that nameless donkey behind and went ahead of the band, up into the Sunset Mountains. I went to a spring further up the pass than where I directed them to go, and had a drink. Grazed some too. I don’t actually need it, but it is a comfortable habit, eating and drinking, I mean.

I also took the instant that it needed to make my disguise as Marchhare into my usual well fed but not really plump self.

~~ ~~ ~~

With Sando pulling the wagon, it was Rom scouting the way. The barren landscape had one feature that was useful to Rom’s band. It held old tracks, especially in the dry sandy clays. “Look, Sando! There are the tracks of Marchhare’s previous trips!”

From inside the cart, Nore said in a broken voice, “Even from the Lake he still guides us!”

The other mares heard and nodded. “It is like he is still here to show us the way.”

Malit stumbled on a stone. Shortly so did Sarel. Even with the protection of the sashes, they were sweating far too little. Rom consulted with Sando, “Malit and Sarel are showing signs of sunstroke. Can you pull them too, in a bit?”

Sando replied, “Do not wait until they collapse. Get them both into the caravan now. Like Marchhare, I will pull until I cannot. We will get them to the spring somehow.”

Under a cloudless, blazing sky, Sando leaned into the harness and set an even faster pace than he had been. Tears leaking, he was muttering, “My fault! If I had simply listened to Rom we would not be here. Our good guide would still be living! My fault! I will NOT let another die for my failing.”

Nore, inside the cart, under the cover, heard him. “Sando! Sando. Marchhare lives. He is guiding us still. He may be at the Lake of Paradise but he has not left us! You told me of the Lake of Paradise where we will live on, yourself. By the tracks that we are following, he is still with us, showing us the way!”

Sando spared a glance over his shoulder, reminded of the tale that he had told to comfort Nore and took some comfort in it himself. He replied, “Thank you, Nore. It is so easy to um … forget.”

Rom overheard and he pointed out, “All that Marchhare did for us, Sando, he did freely and willingly. Giving us the end of his long life to save ours was, in his eyes, a worthy thing. Besides, Nore is right. We are still being guided by him.”

Sando nodded slowly as he worked it out. Then he increased his pace even more. The day crawled slowly past. It was nearly evening when the band rounded a dry ridge of gray stone and saw some growing plants.

One of the two mares still on her feet rushed forward and carefully trimmed the precious leaves away from the thorny branches. Though salivating from hunger, she brought the harvest to Rom. He passed it into the canvas cover of the wagon.

Nore called, “Brief stop, Sando! Rom! Wait up a moment!” With a shaking hoof, she passed out a meager ration of the leaves. “These are for Sando! He has been doing the pulling. He gets first portion!”

Rom and the remaining two mares formed a group at the wagon’s rear and each received a share.

As soon as all had swallowed the small nourishment and moisture in the leaves, Rom got the whole band moving again. There was hope in every step as they entered the shade of the pass.

There were more and more growing plants. They even found a tiny seep of moist earth as they forged ahead to find the promised spring and meadow. When the walls of the pass suddenly opened out, the whole band saw a pool, ripples radiating out from the spring’s source. All about was fine grass, the sweetest that they had ever tasted, at least so it seemed. There were some trees near to the pool and more on the slopes of the small dale that cupped the spring.

Nore’s eyes went wide at the sight. “It is like the Lake of Paradise that awaits us! This is Sha Ja Shehan, the Spring of Salvation!”

The others, even Sando, exchanged knowing glances and nodded. None could gainsay Nore. It was indeed the water and good pasture that was their salvation from death on Celestia’s Anvil. But for one thing, it almost did appear to be paradise come to the world of the living.

Sando hung his head. “I could have brought him in the caravan. If only he had known how close he was to safety. I … Have failed again.”

Nore wrapped his hanging neck in a hug. “No, Sando. You have not failed at all. Look about you. The spring of pure water, the fine grass and excellent shade. All of this is ours now because of your so-called failings. Without them, we would not be here, safe from famine and thirst. We would still be cast out slaves starving or dying of thirst in Gyptia.

“Marchhare’s death is not your fault at all. He did know how close he was. He made two trips to Gyptia and back. He came for us the third time. He knew the route. He knew that it was his time to go. Perhaps he knew that if his load was added to what you were already going to pull, that you would not be able to make it here.

“If you failed, those of us in the caravan would die too. The sun of the desert has no mercy. He was a good and wise donkey. Freeborn himself, he gave us our freedom.”

Nore did break down and cry. “All that he had to do to free us was die. He did it without complaint. May the Lake be a good place for his life beyond this one.”

Hearing Nore, Sarel thoughtfully tried something that none of them had ever done except to replace it or clean it. She removed her headstall and bit of slavery. She shook her head. She attempted to graze. Shortly, she sat and stared at the headgear that she had worn since her foaling. She was weeping.

Nore, seeing Sarel’s experiment, tried it too. Shortly, she joined Sarel. “We may be free but it feels wrong to be without our headstalls, doesn’t it?”

Sarel nodded sadly.

Nore thought deeply. Suddenly she smiled. “We have worn a headstall all of our lives. To feel right, we still need one! These have been the mark of our slavery. We need a headstall that is the mark of our freedom!

“What makes it possible for us to be slaves with this? By the bit, we can be reined and steered to another’s will! The lead ring under the chin, makes our head follow when a lead rope is pulled! We only need to rid the headstall of the things that bind us to another’s will and we have headstalls of freedom!

“We can be Free and still have the comfort and safety of a headstall!”

Rom overheard Nore’s enthusiasm and thoughtfully went to check the caravan’s lockers for tools and supplies. He knew already that Marchhare’s caravan was not ordinary. It was made for long journeys and had much that was needed for repairs in emergencies far from help.

He returned with a hooked knife meant to shape wheel spokes. He picked up Nore’s headstall and studied it for a moment. He made several careful cuts. He thriftily saved the bit, lead ring and scraps.

Rom tilted Nore’s head up and carefully fitted the modified headstall. He tested it for security and nodded.

“This was the sign of your slavery. Now it is your Freedom. Do not disgrace it by any unjust or unkind act.” Rom smiled widely and hugged Nore to him. The rest of the band had gathered about quietly while he was fixing Nore’s Freedom.

He next took Sarel’s headstall and did the same. He continued until only he and Sando remained. He saw Sando’s forming revolt and forestalled it. “As the leader of this band, you ALL come first. That is the duty of the leader. To care for the entire band before himself. Give me your sign of slavery and take back your Freedom.”

With a few quick cuts, it was done.

Then Rom took off his own. Nore stepped forward. “The band of Rom has chosen me to take your slavery from you for us all, Rom. Give to us the sign of your slavery and receive from us, your Freedom.” Deeply moved, Rom handed over his headstall and the knife.

Nore cut away the parts that made slavery possible and then each of the band touched Rom’s Freedom before she gave it back and buckled it into place.

She pronounced proudly, “Now, none of us are slaves. We shall wear our Freedom proudly and NEVER be a slave to another Master again!”

That night there was a mild rain. “Get into the caravan, all that we can,” Rom directed. Sando, Sarel, and I shall shelter under it. That is the best that we can do for now.”

“Look at the sun rising above the mountains!” Nore called, actually frisking a bit. “Taste the grass! The rain washed it or something! It is even better now than it was!”

Sarel did graze a tasty breakfast. She went to the meadow’s edge where the grasses were longer and tougher. She gathered quite a pile of it before curious Nore came over. “What are you doing, Sarel? These are not going to make very good hay.”

Sarel smiled, “I know that, Nore. They have good fibers though. I can make strings out of them. If I can make strings, I can weave cloth. It may not be the best cloth until we find better material, but we can attach it to the caravan to make more cover for those who won’t fit into it. Perhaps we can find some sort of gum that will close up the weave and make it more waterproof.”

Nore picked up string making quickly. It was not a complex task. Sarel gathered the grasses and Nore made coil after coil. Rom watched the other mares join in, one by one. He turned to Sando.

“They have found a harder Master than any horse of Gyptia, Sando. They drive themselves and are their own Master. Let us join them.”

Sando and Rom began to gather grasses too. Sando wondered aloud, “Would Marchhare approve of what we are doing? We will be changing his caravan quite a bit.”

Tears that were never far from her eyes beginning to overflow, Nore replied, “Marchhare gave us all that he had, even life itself.” She sniffled, “He would want us to have as good as can be. That is why we are doing it. It will honor him.”

She touched her new Freedom and went on, “It was he that first told us that we are free. We owe him only one thing now. Our best at EVERYTHING that we do. Thus we give back to him what he gave to us. He gave us his very best. We must never do less than that.”

The others were softly weeping but not a one slowed or gave over the work.

By afternoon, Sarel nodded approval. “Those two saplings will work for the loom cross bars. We need to hang one them from that branch after we tie strings to it. They will be the warp threads.”

When that was done, “Now it gets tricky! We need to comb these warp threads out so that none of them cross each other and tie them neatly in bunches of six, down at the bottom. We attach them to the other sapling to stretch them neatly.” It took a bit of adjusting and fiddling to satisfy Sarel, who was an expert weaver. She began tying many loops of her thread

“What are all of those little loops for?” asked Nore.

“We need them to catch the warp threads. Each of these will fasten to one thread. A stick through every other one of them will pull half the threads forward and make a tunnel that we can put the woof thread through. Then we let that half go back and pull the other half forward. That traps the thread and makes a tunnel for the next thread. All that we will need then to be able to make cloth of this will be a way to pack the woof threads tightly and evenly.”

They all stood about and thought deeply of the looms that they had seen with their fine metal combs to pack the threads. Rom did include young Nore in the group trying to sort the problem out.

She asked, “Since we have no way to make a comb, could we use a straight stick? Close the tunnel to trap the thread and then push a stick through the new tunnel and use it to pack the, woof did you call it? The strings of the loom will be the comb part, that way.”

After some experimentation and Malit doing some expert carving of the stick, to make an even edge to press the thread, the idea worked. It was not as fast as a regular loom, but it did work.

Sando took Rom aside and said, “I now understand why you are so effective as a leader. I would have left Nore out of the discussion because she is young and has no experience. That is the very reason that you did include her.

“She saw the problem differently from the rest of us BECAUSE she had no experience. Even if she had not seen a solution, she would have learned from the discussion.” Sando shook his head. “Such wisdom as yours, I hope to have someday.” He sighed.

Sarel was standing back and sheltering her eyes from the noonday sun as she directed, “Pull it a little tighter to the top of the caravan box. That’s it! The regular cover will fit over it now! That will help to keep it from leaking.”

Nore was over by the spring, picking cresses and clovers. She gathered quite a few of them, actually. She lugged them all over by the fire. She had the stones that she had used to make the paste for evenly dividing the odd bits of fruit and nuts, while out on the Anvil.

While Malit looked on, Nore began to mash the mixed greens together. As fast as she had a decent portion, the filly scooped it together into a firm patty and put it on a hot stone by the fire to bake.

Malit sat beside Nore and began to turn the baking portions. As they got nicely toasted on both sides, she set them aside to cool. They made enough for the whole band to have several.

Malit’s ears suddenly popped up and swiveled to point back down the ravine toward the desert. “Rom! I hear hooves coming up from the Anvil!”

By then, they could all hear the clopping of small hooves tripping lightly along the stony way. As the source of the sound came into view, there was no mistaking the old donkey that they had all seen die. He no longer appeared to be starving.

The whole band drew back in superstitious fear.

I pointed my old donkey snout at the pool. my ears perked up and he said, “Rom, my friend! You all made it! That water looks so good. May I have some?”

Rom swallowed his fear enough to say, “There is a plenty of good water, Marchhare. Help yourself to as much as you wish.”

I dipped my muzzle into the spring and began to drink. Nore gathered one of her new clover and sorrel cakes and came cautiously up to me.

I turned my eyes to her and asked, “Why are you afraid of me? I promised to guide you for as long as I can, didn’t I? I took my nap, just as I said I would. Now, I have caught up to you.”

Nore, speaking the fears of the whole band, replied, “It was not a nap that you took, Marchhare.” She swallowed hard. “You died. It happened three days ago. We all saw it. You were our guide while you lived. Now, I guess, you are the Ghost Who Guides.”

I smiled an elderly donkey smile of amusement. “No, dear. I took a nap in the shade of that ledge of stone. I am sure that I would have noticed it if I had died. I felt better after my nap and I came as quickly as I could to get you through these tricky canyons and safely to Equestria.”

Nore stared pointedly at the sunny grass next to me. I glanced at it myself. I frowned as if puzzled at first. Slowly my shadow grew and filled its proper place.

Changing the topic in an embarrassed way, I asked, “What have you got there? Smells delightful!”

Nore started to bow to me, extending the clover cake. I reached out a hoof and stopped her, lifting her back up to standing. Smiling, I told her, “Friends do not treat friends that way. A bow like that should be reserved for something important or for comedy.”

Nore took a deep breath and steadied herself. Marchhare’s touch did feel solid. His hooves did resound from the stones. He drank.

She replied, “You have drunk from the spring that we have named Sha Ja Shehan. The Spring of Salvation. It saved us all. I made some cakes of clover and bank sorrel from this same spring. This is one. Would you like to try it?”

“Delighted! It smells wonderful.” I tried to take the cake. My hoof passed right through it on the first try. I got it on the second try and devoured it with gusto. “Excellent! I never had clover prepared like that before!

“That spring’s water tasted so good that I can understand calling it Sha Ja Shehan!”

Taking stock of Nore, I realized the difference in her headgear. “What is this? Why wear that? I think that I understand the sashes.”

Lifting her head with pride, Nore replied, “All of our lives we had on our heads the mark of slavery. Now we wear our Freedom! No Bit or Lead Ring rules us now.”

She paused and added softly, “Because we have had something on our heads for our whole lives, it felt wrong to wear nothing. Far better to wear our Freedom and feel whole, than discard all and be unhappy. We tried it both ways. This is how we like it.”

I nodded my head in agreement. “Think that you could whip up a Freedom for me too?” Glancing back, I got a completely bemused expression. “I am not quite sure how this happened. I seem to still have my harness on but I appear to have misplaced the sashes that I was wearing when I went to take my nap.”

Sarel bit her lip in nervousness before replying, “We can make you new sashes but it will take a few days to weave them. More perhaps if we are moving through the mountains and only working in the evenings or mornings.”

Smiling happily, I trotted over and gave her a quick hug. “That will be fine, Sarel. I would find it an honor to wear what you fine mares make for me.”

She relaxed. “You are warm. I am sorry to say it, but I sort of expected the chill of the gra … the Lake where we left you.

“Is the Lake of Paradise as lovely as we have heard?”

I chuckled. “I would not know, Sarel. I mean, when I woke up from my nap, I was not only rested, I felt good. Really good. All of my old aches and pains from age were gone. I was not hungry anymore. I was woolgathering about lovely water, sweet grasses and shade as I came after you.

“Forgot all of that nonsense as soon as I got a real drink. This world is lovely and its horses beautiful. That is enough for me.”

Sando whispered to Rom, “I thought that I was weaving Nore a fairytale of hope. My mother used to tell me of such things but I never really believed them. Now I think that there must be truth in those tales.

“He did die. We all saw it happen. He thirsted and starved for us and now he is fit. There is a Lake and the grave is the Gateway to the Lake. It must be. How else to account for what we are seeing?”

Rom nodded thoughtfully. “That makes more sense than I care to admit, Sando. It appears that it may not be entirely a one way thing.

“I wonder if all of our loved dead will return in some way? He is back among us.”

Nore interrupted their speculations to give them their sweet clover cakes. “I heard what you were saying, Rom. We all know that Marchhare died. He does not want to believe it, but he did. He had to try twice to take hold of his clover cake. His hoof went right through it, like it was not there, the first time. He had no shadow until he saw me looking at where his should be.

“He came back as a Ghost Who Guides Us. We can make a jest of that. I think it is best to let him think that he only a took a nap. What if he should leave us and go back to the Lake? He is wise. We need him.” Her eyes teared just a little. “I need him.”

They nodded solemn agreement and nibbled their clover cakes. Sando brightened up at once. “These are really good, Nore! I agree with Marchhare about them. I never had clover made like this before! Thank you!”

The whole band got served the treat that Nore had cooked up. All were agreed that delicious was too weak a word for it. I asked her, “I see that you have more made up. Might I have another, or are they travel provisions?”

She spared a glance to Rom, who nodded to her. She replied graciously, “As you gave freely all that you had to save us, so it is that what we have is yours.” She thoughtfully touched her Freedom and went on, “It is the freely given gift of the Free horses of the Band of Rom. So long as we endure, you need never fear that we will not share all that we have.”

I stared sideways at her, my eyes taking in the whole band. Nodding, I replied, “A freely given gift from Free Horses? Thank you, dear.”

Nore immediately gave me another cake of the sorrel and clover.

As I was savoring the slightly crunchy sweet clover cake, Rom approached and promised, “Marchhare, my friend, we of my band have some idea of what it cost you to save us. We know that it was more than mere gold.”

I replied, tail swishing away an imaginary fly, “I gained something too. In Equestria, my sort, donkeys, are not thought highly of. Among your Gyptian horses I have found some real friends. I treasure that.”

Rom glanced about the now busy meadow where the horses of his band were working to gather the clovers and other grasses to try making them into their travel provisions. The cakes would be far more compact and easier to transport than hay.

He shook his head in bemusment. “I fail to see how one both freeborn and so good of heart could be looked down upon but this will be your land that we are going to. I expect that it is true.

“If it is, you never need fear that among us. So long as the band of Rom exists, we will remember that you saved us when you could easily have passed us by. You gave us food and water. You gave us our freedom. You will never lack for respect or any other need at all. What we have shall be freely given back.”

Deeply moved, I could only nod. To cover both my embarrassment and delight, I went to ask Nore, “What can I do to speed things along?”

She spared a glance up from her task of forming and baking the clover patties on the hot stone. “Perhaps you could find us another large flat stone to let us bake more of these at a time?”

I blinked. “I have a big iron griddle in a locker on the wagon. It should still be there. It is easily twice the size of that stone and it has several portion covers to speed cooking. I will go see if it is there.”

Shortly, I returned, carrying the griddle and assorted parts. I set up the bridge over the fire and hung the griddle by chains that let it be adjusted up or down as needed. Being iron, it started to heat quickly.

Nore promptly began loading it with patties and putting covers over them, four at a time. The pile of finished patties threatened to overflow the cloth that she was putting them on.

I went back to the wagon and brought over a grain chest. We started to load it. With careful stacking, it would easily hold the whole batch and many more.

After the chest was filled, we stowed it and cleaned all of the cooking gear and stowed that too.

Rom and Sando harnessed up. Seeing that fascinated me. I was wearing one of the two harnesses that I had brought along. Between Sando and the mares, they had made another. Studying it, I saw that it was of very thick, hard-woven fabric of the same grass fibers as the new wagon cover extension. Rings were twisted rope. Junctions were sewed. There was no metal in it at all. If you do not have, you make do with what you do have.

Rom directed, “Marchhare, we are stronger than you. We will pull the caravan. You have been this way before. If you would, please scout the way for us and we will bring your caravan by the safe ways that you show us.”

I was truly pleased. Right up front leadership without subservience. I set out to scout the way while the rest of the band followed.

I knew that it was going to be at least three days of hard pulling. The desert side of the pass was the steepest. The longer slope, into Equestria, would be no easier, though.

I stopped to stare at the first serious obstacle and was glad that there was a whole band back there to help! I reported, “We have a bit of a rock slide up ahead. We can clear a way for the wagon along the north side of the pass. Most of the stone is not too large.”

Rom and Sando unhitched from the wagon but left their harnesses on. With all of us working on it, the stones that had fallen were cleared enough to get the wagon through. Shoulders were needed to encourage it in a few places, but we got it over the fall. From there, it was pretty easy to get to the next spring.

We rounded a bend and I heard literal gasps from the horses with me. At first I was puzzled. Then I heard them clearly. “Look at those trees!” “What kind of trees are those?” “They are so tall!”

I said, “Just ordinary pines. Not really too big, either.” Then I stopped to actually think. Oh, right. They are from a serious desert. Such trees as these are a rarity for them. Thinking about the ancient trees on the other side of the pass, I grinned. The band of Rom was going to get a real shock when they saw those!

The spring came out under the trees’ roots and was pretty heavily crowded with tree roots. It watered a slightly boggy meadow that was full of weedy nettles among other things.

I commented, “I am sure glad that we have your clover cakes along, Nore!” That was when I noticed her eyes lit with delight at the sight of the nettles.

I was wise enough to shut my trap this time and learn why they were all so happy to see weeds. Nore came to me and asked, “Marchhare, will it harm our journey to spend a few days here? There is a good harvest of the nettle for both fibers and food. Soaking the stems a few days will soften them so that we can get the fibers out to make us proper thread and string.

“Boiled lightly, the leaves make a fine addition to salad or can be used to wrap other good things.”

Hearing her reason, I was glad that I’d kept my mouth shut. Standing in the shade of the pines, I spared a few moments to watch the sky. “At this season, Nore, waiting a few days should be fine. A bit of rain should be the worst that will happen.”

Nore actually galloped back to the other mares. They started to gather nettles like mad! Rom and Sando began to dig a largish pit in the wettest area of the boggy meadow. The water and flying mud told me that it was filling with water as they dug.

Nore did mention that the leaves needed boiling, so I got out my biggest pot and fire crane. It did not take long to get the fire going in a satisfactory way. The pot hung over it was heating nicely.

Just in time, too! Nore trotted up with a big hay bale bag full of leaves! She observed, “There is lots of that sweet sorrel around the springs and waters here in these mountains. I wonder if we could make cakes of nettle and sorrel too?”

“One way to find out, Nore. Let’s get out the griddle and covers! We can toast some up and see!” As I turned to get it out, I noticed that she was watching me with something close to adoration. She’d been spending what time she could with me too.

As we pulled the griddle out of my cooking gear locker, Nore observed, “Your Equestria must be a very wealthy place to use iron so freely. You know that our old master was wealthy. Even so, he did not have as much iron among all of his goods as you have here in this caravan and its equipment.”

I looked up in surprise. “No, Nore, iron is not all that common in Equestria. What I have here was quite expensive. For a trader traveling in remote areas, like I do, it is just needful. If my cart breaks in some hinterland village, and I can’t fix it, I could lose everything.”

Now it was her turn to be surprised. “But don’t they need your trade goods? Would it not be to their advantage to help you?”

As we set up the griddle on its fire bridge, I gave Nore a lopsided smile and let an ear droop comically as I replied, “You are correct but most ponies, especially in rural areas, do not think so far ahead. If they find a disabled cart belonging to a donkey, they will help themselves to whatever they want. They may even set the cart on fire for amusement.

“They will then blame the donkey for not coming back with more of the trade goods that they do need.”

She shook her head in puzzlement as she ground her nettle leaves and Sorrel together into the same sort of paste as the clover had made. She pressed a patty and put it on the griddle to cook. A second, third and fourth followed quickly. Then she popped a lid over them. They smelled heavenly.

The experimental batch vanished like magic. They were really good! Sarel suggested, “Nore, since we are cooking the nettle leaves anyway, maybe we do not need to boil them.”

Agreeing, “It can’t hurt to at least try it”, Nore took some and mashed them to paste without bothering to boil them first. She tested the nettle paste by itself first. It toasted beautifully. They had a delightfully nutty taste, quite different from the ones with sorrel in them.

It was Malit and Sarel who pulled out the other grain chests to load with more portable provisions. “Look, Sarel! These chests were simply for grain transporting! They have iron corners and bindings. The hinges and catches too!”

Sarel stared in disbelief. “We were too hungry to notice it before, Malit! There is more. There are NAILS holding them together instead of joinery! What sort of place has so much iron that it can be used in common boxes and chests?”

That pretty well floored me. Orb of the Ages or not, there are nuances to every society that you will simply miss. It never occurred to me that something as basic as iron might be a scarce commodity to the Gyptians.

I turned my disbelieving eyes to the bog. There are not many iron mines in Equestria, it is true. They are pretty big operations, though. Donkeys and goats usually can not afford iron unless it is absolutely necessary … If it is pony mined and forged.

We “bottom of the heap” sorts have made do by NOT buying pony made iron. We muck about in bogs and gather the iron rich nodules that grow on many of the roots of some of the common bog weeds.

The crushed and washed roots make a reddish orange paint pigment that we cheerfully sell to the ponies! It gives us a good cover for WHY we really muck around in swamps and bogs AND it makes us some good coin too!

Thing is, if the nodules are burned out properly in a forge, you got a spongy, soft iron from those same root nodules! That iron only needs work to turn it into good iron or even steel. Work does not bother us and the bog mucking is something that no pony will stoop to doing.

The bog that I was staring at probably would yield a reasonable harvest of a tonne or more of iron a year, year in and year out, with good management.

I lifted my ears in interest as I asked, “Do any of you know how to work with iron?”

The brown mare with a white patch on her flank that had smaller spots stepped closer and said, “Good Ghost …”

I rolled my eyes and made a face.

She grinned and nickered, “I thought that you would do that! I am Phapa el Oosa. Before our old master cast us out, I was his blacksmith. Malit was a fine carpenter, Sarel besides being an expert weaver was a dyer of cloth and threads and Maina Ja Shaks was a good wheelwright. Sando was one who drew the pictures that we all worked from. Rom was a supervisor who knew enough of all of our trades to get us to work effectively together.

“The Master kept all of the tools, supplies and equipment when he cast us out, of course.

“Now I have told you our names and what our skills were.”

I pulled a grimace and stated flatly, “NOT WERE! ARE! You can all still do those things! Likely much more besides. You are a resourceful lot. I have been watching.” I followed up with a smile and added, “We need to totally unpack my lockers under the wagon bed. I have a good many tools that you need to see.”

As locker after locker yielded its trove of tools and supplies, the whole band gathered about, marveling at the collection. I explained, “When a trade wagon is working the hinterlands of Equestria, self repair of damage, wear and outright sabotage is a necessity.”

“You have to be able to do passable carpentry, iron forging, wheelwright and harness work at the minimum. Those skills can also earn you a good bit of honest coin.”

I was using the Equestrian word wagon because I could not find any Gyptian word for wagon. They still looked slightly puzzled like hitting a bump in the road every time that I said it. Then they would go on, sorting out what I was saying in my broken but passable Gyptian.

They were starting to nod understanding when Rom focused in on part of what I said. “Sabotage? Why would these ponies sabotage your caravan?”

I gave him a sad stare as I pointed out, “Some just think that it is funny to cause a donkey or goat to have a breakdown out where it is serious trouble at least. The worst are the ones who do it so that they can rob the wagon while the trader is away looking for help.”

That caused looks of consternation among the horses of the band.

I saw Maina carefully sorting some of the tools and looking closely at the wheels of my wagon. She shook her head and checked my supplies again.

“Marchhare, these wheels and their axles are nearly worn out. The right front, at least, needs major repair right away. Phapa and I can do it but we will need more iron than you have here. If we absolutely must, we can redo them as you have them now, with wood axles and hub parts. That is not good. It will get you through for a few months, perhaps.”

I glanced back out at the bog and back to Maina and Phapa. “We have all the iron that you need and then some. Quite a lot more, in fact. What I am going to show you must remain a secret from EVERY PONY that you meet, no matter what. Will you agree to that?”

The whole band was exchanging puzzled glances when Nore spoke up. “I trust Marchhare. If he says that there is a good reason, he means it. I will keep the secret!”

That broke the dam. They all agreed.

I led them out into the bog. “Watch your footing, bogs are tricky and dangerous. What we are looking for are lumps on the roots of these broadleaved weeds.” I fished about and pulled one free. Holding it up, I explained, “These lumps have a surprising amount of iron in them that we can get out with some work.

“We are looking for ones about the size of a hen’s egg or bigger. Break them free of the plant without pulling out the plant. Leave it to grow more iron lumps.”

Bemused, I watched the whole band dive into the task with sheer delight! I realized why slowly. Desert Raised. This wading about in mud and water was a luxury!

They soon had a surprisingly big pile of nodules.

Phapa got the forge fire going in jig time. We piled on nodules and layered charcoal over them. The stench was glorious! It was the scent of the organic parts of the nodules burning away. The bellows were being pumped by Nore while Phapa carefully poked and examined the result of our labor.

She began removing lumps of glowing raw iron and adding more nodules and charcoal. After awhile she gathered several of the iron lumps and put them on the anvil and hit them fairly gently with one of my hammers. She examined the results of her test and then heated a lump and did the same. She took several and hammered them to compress them a bit and heated them. When she hammered them together, they stuck, welded together.

Smiling happily, she began adding to her growing billet of soft spongy iron. When she was happy with the size of it, she began heating and working the billet to compress it and toughen it.

The whole glade rang to her work. Rom and Sarel were using the wagon jack to raise the right front of the wagon for removing the bad wheel. When it came free, Maina shook her head in disbelief at what she found.

“Did your ponies really make a wheel this badly?”

“Afraid so, Maina. Those were some of the best wheels to be had in Equestria when I got them.”

Rom had Sando examine everything and then speak to both Maina and Phapa before starting to do some drawings for new parts. Frankly, I was amazed. A good wheel is a complex device with many parts made of carefully chosen woods with properties selected for the service that they do in the wheel. All of them have to fit very exactly.

And Maina was muttering curses about sloppy work under her breath as she took the wheel apart.

Nore and Malit were examining the axle shaft in eyebrow raised amazement. It was Nore who broke the shocked silence. “Not even a sleeve bearing? Don’t they have any idea how expensive really good wood is? Is this really the best that ponies can do? Greasing bare wood for something as important as an axle? This one is almost worn out!”

It stopped me like hitting a wall of invisible bricks! Wood rare? Oh, right. Desert and all of that. Wood is imported. Iron pretty scarce and wood is worse.

Frowning with thought, I pointed out, “I saw a good bit of ironstone in Gyptia. You make jewelry of the good ore and even build walls with the poor grades. Why is iron scarce?”

Phapa overheard and responded, “Fuel. We KNOW about the ore. We can’t get the iron out, except in small amounts. It takes a LOT of charcoal to make even a little iron.

“If the Godolphin had known how much high quality charcoal, iron and steel you had hidden in your lockers, you would have been forced to sell it or been killed to get it.”

I shuddered all over. It was sinking in gradually that these Gyptian horses were far more different in their minds than I had imagined. They were shaped by a world so different that they truly thought in different ways. They were not the only ones who needed to learn. I was going to have to change how I thought, just to understand them. That was a shock of sorts.

While I was trying to wrap my mind around the alien concepts of Gyptian thought, Rom called Sando, Malit, Phapa, and Maina together to conference over the question of my wagon’s whole running gear, now that they had the luxury of time to examine it all.

Nore, BECAUSE she was young, was welcomed into the study group, both to learn from their experience and to ask those questions that only the untrained mind, looking at a problem with fresh eyes, might ask.

When they were done, Sando retired to begin many drawings. Phapa started to make far more raw iron from the nodules gathered by Sarel, Rom and Nore. It was easy to see why the others followed Rom. He was not just good at setting tasks. He was not afraid to put himself to those same tasks, even the most menial seeming ones.

Since they were all busy, I felt just a bit guilty for being idle. I went to gather some wild berries that I had seen. I took them and mashed them together with sorrel to give them some body. I toasted up some nettle patties. When I turned them, I topped them with berry goo and finished toasting them under the covers. I made enough to go around.

I had some berry spread left over so I dumped it all into a pot and boiled it to make make a sweet drink. When evening came and they all trooped back to the fire, the response to my simple fare was most gratifying!

They were in such high spirits that they gathered stones and sticks. They tested stone on stone, stick on stick and stick on stone, discarding most of them. At the end, they had a creditable percussion band and were trying out the unusual tunes of Gyptia, with unique beating patterns and singing tunes to the odd but melodious Gyptian scale.

Sarel and Malit began to dance the sensual and lovely traditional slave dances of Gyptia. Giggling, Nore joined in, while the others provided the music. They all took turns dancing and playing, even Rom and Sando.

Nore, completely over her earlier shyness and fears, dragged me out to the center! I made a great fool of myself, trying to do their dances but they leaned back their heads and trilled their applause, just as they had for the others.

As we were finally relaxing and starting to sleep, Rom took me aside and said with a smile, “We are having a bad influence on Nore.

“Maina has always used a lot of, um, colorful language. Nore has picked up Maina’s latest one, which, I grant, from seeing them, is justified. Nore was sorting nodules and found one that was rotting. She called it 'as bad as a pony-made wheel!’

“When I asked her, she told me that Maina has been saying it.”

I nodded briskly, “I heard Maina say it too! Thought I had really good wheels before I saw how she is fixing the new ones and installing the parts that Phapa has been making. Now, sadly, I have to agree with her! The replaceable bearing pieces are simply amazing to me. I have lived a long time and I never even heard of the like.”

Rom smiled and said, “They are the real reason for this conversation. Like your bog plant iron, Gyptian wheels are a secret too. We may be cast out slaves but we do understand the need for secrets. Gyptia is not a rich land. Its wealth has been built on long haul trade. Those wheels are the only real advantage that the nation has.”

I nodded thoughtfully. This hit so close to home. I too, was exiled but loyal, nonetheless. “The secret is safe with me, Rom.”

“A pleasant night to you, Marchhare. May you dream of the paradise that you … came so close to.”

I went to sleep that night and did dream. It was a roiled dream of being on the road, which was not unusual. What was unique, was being surrounded by friends. I woke to the sounds of the band trying to be very quiet as they worked. Breakfast was on the fire and some sort of tea or infusion was smelling heavenly.

If there was a paradise anywhere, this was it. Friends and a surprise breakfast that I did not have to fix!

Somehorse among them had figured out the berry topping! They managed to sneak that one past me somehow! They had a flour like stuff made into a dough. That was being rolled out, baked and topped.

Nore made a point of serving me the whole breakfast, eyes sparkling as I started to eat with true gusto.

I recognized the nutty flavor of the nettle leaf in it. It had a totally unique texture though and I would never have spotted the taste it if I had not had it before. I saw one of the grain chests open and the parts of the mystery fell into place, solved.

With a delighted smile, Maina turned to Malit and Nore and exclaimed, “I told you that he would like Ka'chek Alsa Porlan! My mind had to work for a moment to translate the kitchen terms. The name meant baked nettle flour cake.

As I was eating, I noticed the scent of smoke that was different than the cookfire. Fire is one of those things that you never ignore. I stared about and spotted a good-sized mound of turves, smoking away.

Phapa noticed me checking out the mound and trotted up. Utterly pleased with the work, she announced, “Nore found a WHOLE big log of dead wood back in the trees! We have broken and cut the worst parts of it to small blocks and are making you more charcoal to replace all that we are using up!

“It is not quite as good a charcoal as you had, but there will be much more of it!”

I shook my head in wonder. These horses were some of the finest beings that I have ever met. And they did not even notice it.

On the second day at this meadow, Sarel began lifting out the soaked nettle stalks. She started cracking them along their length between two stones. As she cracked them, she returned them to soaking. I quietly joined her with a pair of stones and began to crack stalks too.

Smiling at the help, she explained, “This is part of the retting process. By cracking the stalks, we let more water inside to loosen everything up. Tomorrow, we will be able to get the good thread fibers out and begin to wind the threads for making all sorts of cloth, strings and rope. Cloth first, though. We all need better sashes and to make you a new wagon cover to replace the one we tore up.”

“It was worn, Sarel, just an emergency spare. Those sashes that you made out of it kept you alive by keeping off the sun and they helped you all to stay drier in the rain too. It was well used.”

She smiled genuinely as she continued to crack open the stalks, “We know all of that, Marchhare. We discussed it most carefully. One thing remains that you did not mention. It was yours. We will give back to you one that is better than what was taken.

“Malit is working on a better loom to weave it all with. The log that Nore found is doing far more service than simply being made into charcoal. Malit has split out boards too. We need more caravans than just yours. We will need a caravan of them.”

I kept on cracking open stalks but I was thinking furiously. The horses of Rom’s band were doing many things that only a unicorn should be able to do.

“Sarel, do you know if there are there any unicorns in Gyptia? When I came to trade, I did not notice any.”

She looked up innocently as she asked, “Unicorns? I don’t know. What are unicorns? Those ponies with a horn that you told us of? No, we have none like that.”

I told her, “Among ponies, unicorns handle things and move things by magic that comes from a horn on their foreheads.”

She laughed gaily and said, “Is that a joke? No, we have no such creatures among the horses of Gyptia!”

“Sarel, would you please show me how you hold that stone?”

“Certainly, Marchhare. I do not see why though. You are holding one as well.”

“Donkeys and horses may do things differently. I am curious about how you hold things. I have never seen one of you drop anything by accident.”

Sarel held out her hoof and turned it up. Her stone was not gripped in a socket of magic. A thin veil of magic, looking to be the same color as her lovely brown eyes, emerged from the frog of her hoof and sank invisibly into the stone. Her grip did not reach around the stone at all. It held the stone from the inside.

More things that I had seen these horses do fell into place. Whistling softly to myself, I took my leave of Sarel, who returned to her task. I found Nore helping Malit with her boards.

“Malit, how do you mean to secure these planks together?”

Surprised that I would ask, she replied, “By good joinery, pegs, and glue, if we have any. How else would you do it?”

“That is why I wish to borrow Nore’s services for a bit. I know of a thing that only a very few unicorns among the ponies of Equestria know how to do. If Nore can learn it, she can show you how to do it better than I can.”

“If it is magic, we cannot do it. We were slaves. We have no magic,” Malit said firmly, laying a hoof flat to a plank and lifting the end of it.

I raised my eyebrows skeptically and led Nore off a little from the rest. “Here, Nore, pick up this piece of wood. Now, with your eyes shut, add this piece under the one that you are already gripping. Can you feel both pieces?”

Eyes scrunched shut, Nore nodded.

I pointed out, “Your grip is reaching right through both pieces, just to hold them. I want to see if you can feel the fibrous insides of the pieces.”

Brow furrowed in concentration, Nore started gently moving the two pieces with her other hoof. Following her instructions, she managed to keep her eyes shut when she suddenly got an expression of utter surprise.

“It is really easy! You just have to learn what to feel for!”

“True. Since you can now feel the fibers, try straightening them out and combing out things like knots.”

Still concentrating, she held onto the end of a piece and stroked along it with her other hoof. Three small knots fell out from the end of the piece.

“Now, Nore, comes the trickier part. These pieces that I have here are all just firewood. Not good for much of anything else. Do the same thing to each of the pieces first.”

It only took her a few minutes to comb all the knots out of the wood and produce lovely straight grained pieces.

“This next thing is really tricky to do, Nore. Among the rare ones who can do this at all, only a few can do this. Take several of these pieces that you did and comb them together into one perfect plank. Then, if you can do that, try to compress the fibers tighter together. Make a really dense tough plank out of this soft wood.”

I watched with admiration as Nore fused the wood together and toughened it into a wonderful, darker colored, dense plank. Back when we were building the original Fortress Canterlot, Princess Celestia used to do that trick but, to the best of my knowledge, nopony has ever done it since.

We strolled back over to where both Malit and Maina were managing wonders in spite of the poor quality of the wood that they were working with.

When we showed them the lovely plank that Nore had just made, they were so amazed that Maina stopped her swearing!

She carefully split off a thin long splinter. She flexed it, cracked it and then took a sharp tool and cut into it, feeling the hardness and resistance to being cut. Almost reverently, she said, “This is a nearly perfect hub wood. I do not recognize it. What kind is it? Can I get more?”

Delighted by the reception for her “trick,” Nore, said, “It was plain, knotty soft pine firewood. Marchhare showed me a way to fix it into this. I can do it softer or even harder. This was three chunks of the firewood. The way that he showed me to do it lets me combine smaller pieces and make them into planks or pieces any way that you want.”

Both Maina and Malit turned their gaze to me with something like adoration. I put a hoof on that quickly. “It is not something that donkeys can do. I have a friend, a pony that I know, called The Exile, who let me know about the method.

“He and his daughters used it to build the original Fortress Canterlot. They built it of beams, planks and timbers made this way. They even fused stones of the walls together with it.

“I just saw how you were gripping things and realized that it was similar to the magic of unicorns in appearance. It was worth a try. We were lucky. It worked.”

Malit observed dryly, “Luck seems to follow you, Marchhare.”

She trotted off and returned shortly with Sando. First, she showed him Nore’s plank and explained, “She can make us thin, curved pieces. I was thinking of perhaps a lyre. Phapa told me that this iron can be drawn out to make good wire strings in several sizes.”

Eagerly, she asked, “Do you know how to draw it up? I would love to get some better dancing music!”

Sando nodded slowly, thinking deeply. “I believe that I can, Malit. I will need to try it. It will need many parts. I have only talked to luthiers before. I have never actually done a lyre. Now, drums, flutes and whistles; those, I have done.

“We can get some good music quickly. A few days at the most.”

Malit nodded briskly and split off a piece from the plank with absolute assurance. “I know flutes too. I needed some glue to do one properly. Nore’s new talent can remedy that!”

Thoughtfully, she turned to Nore and set up a pair of largish chips at right angles to each other. “Nore, can you fix these to each other?”

Nore looked carefully at the problem and reached out tentatively at first. She barely touched the parts held by Malit. She appeared to be concentrating heavily. She shut her eyes. Her hoof began to move as if possessed. It nearly danced around the corner of big chips.

Nore’s eyes opened and a delighted grin spread across her face. Not only were the chips bonded together at the chosen angle, there was no visible sign that they had been two parts. Several cracks in the original chips had been fixed as well.

Nore happily gathered four more fallen chips from Malit’s careful adze work and began to pat and stroke them together, causing cracks and other imperfections to vanish before the astounded eyes of the others. She fitted them one at a time to the first pair. Two became the other sides of a rectangle. One became the bottom, making box of it. The last chip she worked on for over twice as long as for any of the others.

It became a lid, with fitted edges and a delicately swirled grain top that spelled out, in tight, darker whorls, “Marchhare, our Guide, a gift for your gifts.” It was written in the graceful swirls and tall straight strokes of Gyptian.

This went so far past the simple thing that I taught her that I was blown away. I had to draw a breath. I had failed to notice breathing and forgot to do it while I watched. “It is lovely, Nore. Nobody ever gave me anything like it. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

Smiling with delight at my reaction, Nore gave me the box.

Malit, Nore, Phapa and Maina apparently did notice my lack of breathing as I watched Nore’s work. They looked silently at each other and nodded. Then, very carefully, did not say anything. I went off to my wagon to put away the lovely wooden treasure.

When I came back, Malit and Nore were working together on a large, very carefully shaped, part. Malit was happily exclaiming, “I told you that you cold fasten thick planks together! Maina will need your densest, strongest material for the axle! We can do it just like this joint! Thiner pieces that you CAN do, can be locked together into a large piece, one thiner layer at a time! We will have this caravan done in just a few days!”

I shook my head in absolute amazement. “I can’t believe the sheer speed and energy that you all put into anything! Your Master was insane to cast you out!”

Rom overheard me and replied proudly but with a grin, “We were good slaves for him, but we now serve a much more demanding Master. Our own free hearts. You gave them to us. They drive us to do the best that we can to honor that amazing gift.”

Malit gave me a rueful expression as she carefully planed a plank, making a long curled shaving. “I am a carpenter. A good carpenter. This thing that you showed Nore? I can’t do it. I tried. I can pick up two pieces at once. Any horse can. Get them to lock together? Not at all. And it would be so useful, if I could.”

I watched as Malit thriftily gathered her shavings. She looked up. “With Nore here, they are more good wood as soon as I have enough of them.”

I turned about and noticed that Nore was trotting over to Sarel’s weaving. She was delivering Sarel a bunch of wooden thread bobbins that she made, working on them any time that she was not needed to make or fasten planks for either Malit or Maina.

I commented, “That is an ingenious design to stabilize a two wheeled wagon when you park it. How will the supports be set? Will you need two horses to do it?”

It was Sando who answered me. “Two horses would be best but I figured out how to drop the supports by using a single pull line. The caravan will tilt some but be safe enough for the pulling horse to drop the harness and then finish leveling and locking the wagon’s supports.”

I had to ask, “Why only two wheels? You could easily make it a four wheeled wagon and not really need the supports at all.”

Sando acknowledged, “We could. To be something that we can stay in comfortably, it still needs the leveling supports. The issue is available materials. By doing two wheeled caravans, we can make two of them.

“The limit is dictated by the total amount of iron that we can reasonably get from this bog. Maina tells me that we can only make four wheels of good quality.

“Besides parts for the wheels, Phapa is making parts for Sarel’s new loom and parts for a wheel for the spinning of weaving and sewing threads. She needs to make herself tools, too. Yours are well sized for you but they are small enough to handicap Phapa at her work.”

I nodded. “Wise indeed. We are lucky to have you along, Sando.”

Ruefully, he gazed about at all of the industrious work going on and replied, “We would not be here at all, had I simply kept my head and obeyed Rom to begin with.”

I nodded. “True. However, as a result of that, you are all free. There is no Master that you must obey but your own hearts. You all live and are well. Many in Tadast’s Wells have died of thirst and starvation.”

He hung his head and sadly said, “I am sorry for that. None of us wanted to see you di … leave us for that rest.”

“I was tired, Sando. I needed that nap. I caught up to you to finish the job that I started. To guide you all as safely as I know how.”

Nore had joined us without our noticing. She had a thin sheet of light colored solid material. Eagerly, she exclaimed, “Look Sando! Sarel and I figured this out! She is weaving coarse grass stalks and grass strings together. Then we stretch it out flat and I make a woven wood thing out of it! We were thinking that maybe it could be used in the caravans to make light, strong walls and roofs!”

Sando focused his entire attention on the new material. He flexed it, tapped it, ran a hoof across it and tried cracking a corner off. He held it up close to an ear and repeated the taps and hoof scrapes.

Excited in his own turn, he asked, “How much of this can you make? You are right! It would be ideal to keep a caravan from being top-heavy. It has a good voice too. I think that it might be good for the sounding box of a lyre!”

They wandered off to speak to Sarel about the new material. As I watched them go, I saw Phapa grin, nodding to herself. She got my swages out and began hammering out a thin rod. Soon she was pulling out coarse wire through a wedge adjusted pair of square dies that could be pressed to a smaller and smaller opening.

Seeing me watch, she cheerfully explained, “Lyres need lots of strings. I am going to have to pierce some of my steel into a drawing die with graduated holes to make the finished wire round and smooth. That will be finicky work.”

She was right about that. I watched her do it. Sando and Nore showed up with hoofloads of parts that were all strange to me. Thicker and thiner curved parts made of the new woodlike material.

They consulted with Malit for a little. She dove into her wood supplies like a terrier after a rat. Soon she was happily chopping away with adze, mallet and chisel. Beautifully shaped scrolls formed the ends of two uprights and a top cross arm to go between them.

Nore assembled all of the parts. Except for the strings, she had a lyre. The top beam was pierced with many tapered holes. She’d made pegs to fit the holes but they were not of the same light golden woody substance as the soundbox or the darker, stout plank wood of the beam and uprights. They were nearly black and so dense that I had never seen such a wood in my very long life.

As I watched, another thing percolated through this dense old donkey’s skull. As important as all of their other tasks were, they all dropped everything to make that instrument. Music was something vital to these horses.

Phapa proudly hoofed over her wire, drawn out in three sizes. The utterly excited Nore began to string the instrument. As she did, I got another shock of sorts. She was stringing and tuning it to an utterly alien scale. Different from any that I had ever heard, or more precisely, noticed before. On my two previous trips, I heard it but was focused on other things and paid it no mind.

They all dropped everything as fast as they could without compromising their work and gathered into a circle. With Nore plucking and strumming the new lyre, Maina playing a newly made flute, and Sando beating rhythms on sticks and a few selected stones, Malit began the lovely and sensual dances of Gyptia.

No matter how alien the music and rhythm seemed at first hearing, it and her dance formed a perfect and seamless whole. As she finished, the glade rang to joyous trills from every horse there, muzzles uplifted to the sky.

The dancing stayed just as amazing when Phapa replaced Malit. Sarel took her turn. Even Rom joined in. And the trills followed each performance.

It looked like all that dancing might be hungry work/play, so I busied myself at the cooking fire. I had an idea. There were some reeds not far from the spring that had edible, tasty in fact, roots. I got a couple of them and diced them together with whole sorrel and used the ground nettle cake flour to make a paste shells to wrap treats in. I was baking them under the covers on the grill, four per cover. And four covers going at once! I also set up some tea. Well, a herbal infusion, anyway.

I used the tea like infusion when camping beside the Equestrian roads. The bushes that the leaves grow on are actually plentiful. The leaves dry beautifully for making the infusion when no bushes are handy, or in the winter, after the leaves have fallen.

The happy horses of the band descended upon my handiwork in a most satisfactory fashion.

I watched Sarel begin to separate her fibers from the pulp of the nettle stalks. She got far more than I would have expected. They were fine, smooth and glossy looking. Smiling happily, she retired to the winding wheel that Malit and Phappa had made her and began to spin it. The turning wheel drove a smaller one equipped with a distaff like bobbin. That bobbin built up a load of fine thread far faster than any distaff that I ever saw.

Nore zeroed in on the remains of the stalks. She started to work with the gooey mess that fiber extraction left. She stirred it back into the water and dipped up thin sheets of the suspended goo on a piece of my old canvass wagon cover stretched between a pair of sticks. She spread the resulting thin sheet out to dry. As it set, I recognized the source for all of the paper that Sando was using to draw on!

Sarel got busy stringing her new loom, happier than I had seen her since we all got together. Thinking back, I realized that the whole band was happier and not solely because of being safely out of the desert. It was from having self chosen tasks to do.

I noticed clouds forming up. Looking closely, I could see the pegassi weather workers pushing the clouds into the formation that they wanted.

I called Rom over and showed him what was up.

“What will they do up there, Marchhare? Why are they going to make it rain here? Would it not be better to give the rain to Gyptia?”

I nodded briskly, “That probably would be a better use for the rain, my friend Rom. Before they could do it, they would have to know about the drought and get permission from the Princesses Celestia and Luna of Equestria, the Cloudsdale Weather Board and the Godolphin of Gyptia as well. It is a matter of international policies and politics.

“What they are doing is storing surplus rain water in the mountainsides facing Equestria. The water there will keep streams and rivers running at proper levels and fill up lakes and reservoirs.

“We will get the outskirts of the rain here too. Perhaps you should let the others know that it will begin to rain soon. I do not want their fine projects ruined or them to get too wet.”

Everything of importance got put away neatly and the new side shelter cloths set up to give us all the room to be warm and dry.

Good thing too. When the weather ponies let it go, it was a thoroughly soaking downpour. While the rain was falling, Malit got out the flute and Nore the lyre. I was half afraid that they were going to try dancing in the tiny dry space that we had.

Nope. Songs. Gyptian is a melodious language and the songs had a sweet, soft wailing sort of sound. I sort of curled up to give the others a bit more room. Nore sat so that she leaned comfortably against me as she played and sang. It was a quietly beautiful way to spend a rainy afternoon.

Sarel politely asked, “My new loom fits very well in your caravan, Marchhare. See how it stands up and takes so little space? Would it be alright to leave it there and use the caravan for a studio when I am weaving?”

How do you say no to something like that? Especially when it will soon be time to be moving on? You don’t. “Of course, Sarel. That is just the sort of idea that we need.”

By noon of the next day, Malit and Phapa were packing their tools and stowing everything. Sarel was already packed, sort of. A few safety strings to secure parts of her loom that might bounce about and new, tall case to hold her many new bobbins of thread completed her needs. Maina packed most of her tools but held some back.

Rom and Sando, smiling widely held up one side of a platform that Malit had built. Maina mounted a wheel to the jutting axle and set it with both a proper greasing and a few strokes of a mallet to set the lynch pin.

“Now the other wheel! This will be a good caravan once we get the sides and top on!” As she struck the lynch pin into place, Sando grinned with delight. He pulled on a line. supports dropped from the underside to keep it from tipping, just as he had planed it.

They opened a locker at the front of the platform. It yielded a pair of whipple staffs that they locked into sockets. A flat platform wagon, needing only sides and a cover, was standing there, ready to be hitched to a horse. It took less than a half hour and the band had TWO wagons standing ready.

They had a second harness of their own making ready too. Along with mine, they had three. There was a slight dispute about my harness. They wanted me to put it into the locker as a spare.

I pointed out, “You wear your Freedoms because you are not comfortable without something on your head. Do you have any idea how long I have used this harness? It would not feel right to be on the move without it.”

Nore stood up for me. “Marchhare,” she bit her lip and leaked a few tears, “wore that harness to the … um, to take his nap. He brought it with him when he - - caught up with us. He is right about our Freedoms. Let him have his harness. Think of all the good that has come to us. Because of that harness, we live.”

The others agreed silently. They drew lots for the privilege of pulling the wagons. Especially, the ones that they had built. Phapa and Sando won.

It was time to move on.

Nore led me to the head of the caravan of wagons. “You are not going to pull, Marchhare. We need your wisdom as a guide. When we went looking for plants that can dye her fabric, Sarel and I saw how complicated these canyons are. Only you know the way.”

Looking back, I saw Rom nodding happily and recognized his subtle hoof in the works. I agreed, “I will guide the caravan, Nore. You must come with me, though. I am old and may need help.”

She whickerd amusement. Then, more soberly, she said, “I will come with you, Marchhare, and stay by your side as long as I can.”

I agreed, without noticing the delighted reaction of the others, “That sounds like a perfect arrangement, Nore. So be it.”

We explored the way ahead, marking the safe passage for all three wagons of the Rom caravan. By noon, we were climbing into an area of nearly bare rock. That was harder for the wagons than forest floor was. It was nearly to the top of the pass, too. She and I crossed over the divide together.

Gazing down the slope in absolute wonder, Nore asked reverently, “Is that Equestria? The trees are huge! Everything is so green! I have never seen greens like that, even in our old Master’s garden! We must get the others here to see this!”

Imperturbably, I pointed out, “They will see it soon enough. They are only about twenty minutes behind us.”

Nore gave me a look that was both admiration and sadness as she said, “Did the memory of this place help you to – catch up to us?”

“Diplomatically put, Nore! It did help me to focus on following you good horses.” I chuckled a bit as we picked our way down the somewhat broken slope to the brush and trees.

Nore was all business as we marked and cleared the way for Rom’s Band that was following us. “I want the rest of us to get here as quickly as they can,” she explained, as we shifted a rock that might have otherwise become a wheel trap.

Not far into the trees, we came to a glade that had signs of camping and some wheel tracks. Those were the remains of my old life, as a merchant donkey. There was a nice quiet waterhole with both browse and many other sorts of plants about.

Nore exclaimed in delight, “There are nettles here too! I see that bush you made the wonderful infusion from! I think that there is more sorrel here than clovers!” She was skipped about the glade like one gone happily demented.

We toiled our way back uptrail and were there to share in the delight of the band’s first sight of the Equestrian highlands. It was worth it. Their delight at the new glade was no less than Nore’s had been.

I counseled, “We can stay enough nights here to gather and rett this nettle for your strings and threads, Sarel. Nore, we can make up as many of the nettle cakes and other flavors as we can. Phapa, we should be able to make up a good batch of charcoal too.”

That needed no further encouragement! The band was already expert at setting up camp!

That evening, we sat about a new fire and they played, sang and danced far into the evening. The glade echoed to their joyous trills of applause.

When we broke to sleep, Nore contentedly settled to the same soft grass patch that I had chosen. She snuggled close and said softly, “I will be by your side for as long as I can. So I swore it and you agreed. I know that I am young. For anything beyond being close, we will wait but I chose you by the customs of our kind and you have agreed.”

Thinking back, over two thousand years, I realized that, in all of that vast span of time, I had never been married. I was an old bachelor when Skyglow, Titan of Life Creation, gave me the Twins, Celestia and Luna to raise. I was given a form of immortality then too. After that, affairs of State and keeping my precious Twins safe kept me busy.

After my Exile, the necessity for secrecy along with keeping both of my Twins and their Realm safe had done the same. Here, among these ex slaves, I finally felt free and, for perhaps the first time in my whole life, loved as someone other than a parent.

I stuck my nose in next to Nore’s mane, behind her ear. She smelled of the sweet sorrel and nettles that she was working in all day.

I woke with a mare beside me for the first time in ages, for real, in my case. It was an amazingly good feeling. One that I hoped would last for a long time to come.

I noticed at once that SOMETHING was in the wind. The others had, very quietly, put together a veritable feast!

As Nore stretched and I got up, Rom solemnly asked, “Marchhare, we understand that you are strange to the ways of Gyptian Slaves. In this matter, though we are free horses, we have no other guide.

“Nore set her heart on you and we all approve. She has asked that she be by your side for so long as she can be. You accepted that. Do you know what that means to us?”

I nodded solemnly, pointing with a swiveled ear at all of them and then to Nore, standing beside me, trembling with fear. “It means mated for life or for so long as circumstances allow. Since there are NO masters here to sell any of us into servitude apart, it means mated for so long as we live.

“Nore told me of it last night. I see no reason to change my mind. I am old but feel fitter than I have for many a year. I will wait for her to grow properly and be ready before we share anything but the best of friendship and company.”

Rom and the others nodded wisely. “She will stay by your side, Marchhare, for so long as she lives, so she has sworn before us all.

“What of you?”

Now I understood what was happening with crystal clarity. “I will stay by Nore’s side for so long as she or I live.”

Sarel stepped forward, a wide flat packet in her hooves. She draped a white, shimmering fabric sash so that it covered us both.

Nore was no longer trembling with fear. She was standing proud. She calmly pronounced, “I loved you before you went to sleep and took your nap in the desert. I still love you and have from the moment of your return to us. Mere death shall not stand between us!”

The others all leaned back their heads, muzzles to the sky, as they made the glade reverberate to their trills. Sarel brought over another packet of the same shimmering fabric and carefully removed Nore’s old, battered canvass sashes and replaced them with new ones of shimmering fabric to match what had been draped over us both, earlier. That set was now mine and matched what Nore now wore.

Nore was weeping but it was happiness. Me too, truth be told. In over two thousand years, none had ever expressed simple romantic love for me. No pony at all.

The others broke from congratulating us to make a mad dash for the breakfast feast! Then, having beat us to it, they held back and let us have first pick of everything.

They had indeed paid attention to which bushes I’d chosen to make the tea infusion. It was present in quantity. A delightful flavor and warmth to wash the rest of the feast down with.

Here, with some real trees to work with, and Nore’s talented hoof to make the wood into any density or hardness, Malit, Maina and Phapa got busy. They were adding planned parts to their first two wheeled wagons. Sides and roofs were being fashioned. Interior set up parts went in as well. Sleeping stall sides, fixed place folding tables, cabinets, drawers and chests got made and fitted.

Malit grinned hugely as she pressed two parts together and ran a hoof slowly down the join. It was solidly done. “I finally got it!” she exclaimed happily.

Nore clapped her hooves and trilled her delight. “I knew that you could do it!”

Sarel came around and gave me a far more serviceable set of sashes. They were of the same nettle fiber, but a different and sturdier weave. Nore traded her shimmering sashes for her old canvas ones. She carefully packed my wedding sashes and hers into a case that she had made for the occasion.

We all settled into the routine of working. Phapa set the forge to going full blast. She had far more charcoal in turf covered heaps, being carefully prepared. The glade rang to her hammers making the tires and bearings for another of the two wheeled wagons for our growing caravan.

Standing back, Malit let Sarel and Rom go up the steps and look about inside the first wagon that they finished. We all heard them opening doors, sliding drawers, and slamming chest tops closed. The came out, all smiles and reared back to let out trills of joy for the delighted Malit.

Rom came over and diffidently asked, “Marchhare, we know that your caravan is yours alone but we should like to fix it for you and Nore in the same way as this one that Malit has done for Sarel and I.”

I gave him a big smile and hugged Sarel. “You have asked Rom to be at your side? He has consented? I knew that you were both wise!”

Sarel nodded happily. “Nore’s asking you and you consenting, gave me the courage to ask Rom, whom I have long admired. He said yes.”

Malit butted in with, “Well, can we fix up your caravan, or not?”

Nore did not give me the chance to answer. “Please do! I just got done looking at how wonderfully you did Rom’s caravan.”

Hearing that, I realized that no matter how many lessons I gave them in Equestrian, some things did not translate well. Gyptian was in many ways a tongue more alien to Equestrian thought than even X'ibian.

Rom’s band were doing their best to learn. On this point, caravan was something that carried things. How many were in a caravan could be said but awkwardly. Gyptian did not separate a caravan of one from a caravan of many wagons.

I watched Nore start right in cooking. I was bemused, at first, and then joined in, as I realized why Nore was so busy cooking and baking all manner of treats. Sarel and Rom were going to need a wedding feast and it appeared that it was going to be at luncheon!

While we were busy baking and frying, I notice that Phapa had stopped her hammering and bellows pumping. She was across the glade speaking quietly to Sando. He nodded with every appearance of happiness.

I pointed to them with a swiveled ear as I ground dry baked patties to the flour that Nore was expertly forming into dough shapes. I leaned over and whispered to her, “Looks like we really need this feast!”

She whickerd amusement and took a second to point over to where Maina was putting down her tools to look with delight at Malit. “Love is contagious,” she snorted.

We were busily adding to the pile of goodies when a shadow fell across us. Two shadows, actually. Malit and Maina stood nervously by.

Malit shuffled the grass with her hoof nervously. “Marchhare, we have a difficulty. I like Maina and she likes me. The marriage of Nore to you, Sarel to Rom, and it looks like Phapa to Sando all follow Gyptian custom. What we want is forbidden by Gyptian custom. The Masters would sell us apart, if they knew. What can we do?”

I looked up in apparent perplexity. “What do your hearts say that you should do?”

Maina said firmly, “Our hearts are one. It is forbidden but it is so.”

I lifted my head and stared about at the mountains and back up the trail looking utterly confused. Pointing with a swiveled ear, I said, “I thought that Gyptia was back there!”

“It is,” said Malit with dawning hope.

“How many Masters are there here to forbid or sell you apart?”

“None!” they chorused as one.

“So what is the problem? The feast? Nore and I are cooking enough for all of us!”

“No, not the feast,” said Malit nervously. “We were wondering about the possibility of a family. Foals. What about foals? Just because we like each other does not mean that we don’t want a family.”

I pretended to look in a mirror, and then about the glade to Rom and Sarel, Phapa and Sando. “I see several answers to that problem. Do you hate stallions?”

Completely shocked, they both replied, “No! Of course not!”

“Then, you can have a family by several routes. You can wait for something bad to happen to another couple and adopt any foal or foals from that.

“The other is to simply talk to the pair that you like and get the consent of both to use that pair’s stallion for your foal. If both consent, there is no cheating or breaking of promises.

“So, since you are free and there are no Masters to forbid it, go side by side and be happy. Isn’t that easy?”

“Will Rom bless us? He is the leader of the band.”

I pulled a sour face and stated flatly, “If he won’t, I will personally kick him into the middle of last week and leave him to catch up to us!” Then I grinned. “I will advise him to accept it, OK?”

Rom listened and nodded. His solution was elegant. “Marchhare, we all need to be paired.” He paused to smile at Malit and Maina, Sando and Phapa, and finally at Sarel, by his side. “You are our Ghost Who Guides us in all things. If you bless us all, there can be no question at a later time of the propriety of our pairings.”

I wound up doing for all of them as they had done for Nore and I. The glade rang to our trills of joy when it was done.

The feast? There were not even crumbs left. Does that answer the question?

There was a protracted celebration afterwards too. Since I have been proved before this to slightly worse than hopeless at any instrument with strings, I happily banged a drum set. Set?

Nore had managed to make up a set of two drums whose heads were of something that I had never seen before. The two drums had totally different sounds that had to be played at the same time in a set of cross beat rhythms.

It was hard at first. Watching the mares dance, swirling their sashes and tapping or stamping, sometimes almost floating above the ground and trying to follow their lead, helped me to learn it. The flute and the lyre adding their complex multiscale sound to it helped too. Soon it became natural.

By the end of it, a sweating Nore nuzzled me happily. “That was very well done, love of my heart. We did not expect you to pick up the drums so swiftly or well. We must get Sando to teach you the flute too.”

I nuzzled right back. Affection like that was so natural that I wondered how I had managed to miss it for two thousand years. I began to dry her sweat, rubbing her down with towels. She purred like big cat, stretched and twisted to get me to rub where she wanted.

“You were pretty amazing out there too, sweet Nore.”

She whickerd amusement. “We start to learn dance almost as soon as we can stand. It would be more amazing if I could not!”

“Speaking of amazing, compliment Sarel on these colored sashes that you are all flourishing. It makes a terrific show! I will bet that we could earn some good Equestrian coin by doing dances like that at fairs. Perhaps we could earn enough to get some land and settle down, somewhere.”

Nore stared over at the wagon that we presently called home and said softly, “I like our caravan. It is ours already. If your Equestria is as rich as what little we have seen, what need of anything else? We have here more than most Freeborn of Gyptia.”

Maina overheard and commented with a grin, “She’s right, Marchhare. If the ponies of Equestria will PAY me to dance, why do something that is work? Other than keeping our caravans in good order, I mean.”

Sarel, already toweled dry of her sweat, said, “Nore and I scouted for plants to dye the fabrics with. I don’t know if we could find our way out of this maze without you. That said, we did find the plants that we were looking for.

“What you saw was the result of using them.”

“I do understand that, Sarel. The dances that I have seen before did not use sashes at all. Is this something else that I missed?”

Sarel snickered, “No. The sashes are new. We never wore sashes like these before. Since we start dancing almost as soon as we can stand, thinking of dances and how to use what we have in our dances is second nature. These sashes and the harnesses that go with them add a whole new dimension to our dances. We are going to be exploring this for years to come!”

Seeing the beauty of their first effort, I truly hoped so.

~THE END~