Karigan regretted that in the morning she and Fergal would have to take leave of the Frosts to continue on their journey.

After the music, Karigan stepped outside for some fresh air. Wrapped in her greatcoat against the piercing cold, she sat on a weathered plank chair that faced the nothingness of night. The porch roof obscured much of the sky, but just below the eave hung a few stars.

Legs stretched out before her and hands tucked beneath her armpits for warmth, she wondered about her day, about the wild horses, and about the stallion. Had she really seen what she thought she saw? Had it been some sort of dream? And if not, could it have been Salvistar for real?

She’d never felt one way or the other about the gods, mostly because her father hadn’t. He supported Corsa’s chapel of the moon, but mainly to enhance his standing in the community. No one had made her attend chapel, not even her aunts, and the prevailing G’ladheon wisdom seemed to be, “We don’t bother the gods, so they don’t bother us.” That wisdom held, until now.

Karigan was torn. Part of her wished she’d been made to attend chapel so she could better grasp what she’d seen, or hadn’t seen, this afternoon. The other part felt that she’d rather not invite god-beings into her everyday life by invoking them in chapel. No good could come of drawing the attention of gods to oneself. And yet it may have happened anyway.

The front door creaked open and in the flash of lamplight, Karigan saw Lady draped in a heavy shawl.

“May I join you?” she asked.

“Of course.”

The door closed and all was darkness again. There was a scraping as Lady pulled a bench near, then a groan of old wood as she settled onto it. At first neither of them spoke, and silence reigned but for the sigh of the wind and an owl hooting somewhere in the distance. They were content enough in one another’s company that they did not have to fill the night with chatter.

After a while though, Lady did break the silence. “I can only guess what you are thinking about, but I should not be surprised if it’s about what you saw on the plains today.”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. The plains are not just grass and sky, though it may seem so on first appearance. They are different, powerful, dangerous even. I have always believed that some echo of the war magic used during the last great battle of the Long War remains in the land. The land does not easily forget the death and suffering, the blood that was spilled onto it, and sometimes I can feel it through the soles of my feet, the power that still remains in the soil. There are the lost Kmaernians, too, whose cries I sometimes hear in the wind.”

Karigan could make out Lady’s shape, but not her features. “You don’t think it’s just the wind?”

“I choose to believe that I hear more than the wind,” Lady said. “I think Damian does, too, but he will not speak of it readily, for the cries are full of despair. We both have faith in our perception of things, you understand. Damian’s gift of perception, and his trust in himself, makes him the horseman he is.”

The bench squeaked as Lady shifted her position. Starlight gleamed in her eyes. “Maybe we are crazy old coots, Damian and I. Maybe we’ve lived on the plains too long. Some say the plains can play tricks on you, like the desert lands where you see mirages shimmering in the sun. Maybe it’s just the wind on the grass making you see a horse running there, or storm clouds building castles on the horizon. Wind dreams, I call them, those things you think you see.”

Yes, wind dreams, Karigan thought. She preferred to believe her vision of the black stallion had been nothing more. Maybe they were all mad, sharing in the same delusions. It was easier to accept than to believe she came face-to-face with a god-being.

“There are wind dreams,” Lady continued, “but I choose to believe that not all you see out there can be discounted as such. Much happened on the plains and the land does not forget. And there are many layers of the world. It makes sense to me that in some places those layers are thin, or even intersect. Maybe that great battle of ancient times changed the natural order of things, thinning the layers, making them merge.”

Karigan shuddered, and it was not from the cold. She did not think she’d like to live anywhere near the plains. Too many shadows, too many ghosts. Yet her beloved Condor came from the plains.

She turned her thoughts to Lady’s words about choosing to believe her perceptions. Karigan wondered if she chose not to believe her vision of Salvistar, the experience would cease to exist. Somehow, she didn’t think it would work.

“Does your perception,” Karigan asked, “aid your skill in herb lore?”

Lady chuckled. “You are right to call it skill, for it has been taught down a long line of the women in my family. Well, some of the men, but mostly the women. I have no daughters to pass it on to, but Gus has taken a little interest, though both boys are more apt to chase after their father in pursuit of wild horses. Perhaps I’ll take on an apprentice one day, or one of my sons will give me a granddaughter.”

“Then it is skill,” Karigan said, feeling awkward. “I mean, after my fall, you helped me heal.”

“Skill, knowledge, and knowing,” Lady said. “My grand-mum started teaching me when I was just a bitty thing. Born in the lake country of Rhovanny, I was.”

Karigan heard no Rhovan accent in her speaking, and so was surprised.

“My father was Sacoridian and a farmer, and when I was young, we moved here to the western edge of Sacoridia. My mum continued to teach me all through my growing up.” Lady paused. “Are you worried I have more than mere skill?”