Hep joined her and followed her gaze. “Aye, that one’s off his feed. Longs for his mistress, he does.” Shaking his head, he hefted two water buckets and headed out to scrub them down and fill them with fresh water.
Karigan walked over to Bluebird’s stall and leaned against the door. He gazed at her with liquid brown eyes.
“Poor thing,” she said, stroking his neck. “The captain will be back soon, I know she will.”
Even as she murmured the words, she wondered if it would be so. She and Mara couldn’t keep up this charade forever on their own. They needed the captain, for they depended on her guidance and authority. They were used to her taking all the responsibility and making all the decisions.
Frankly, Karigan felt lost without her and was surprised to learn how much she craved the captain’s approval, even that which often went unsaid. She wanted to prove to the captain she was worthy of her trust and respect, and she suspected it was because of all the respect she held, in turn, for the captain.
She brushed flies away from Bluebird’s eyes, wondering if he could sense whatever it was that afflicted the captain. Maybe he had a touch of colic or some other ill bothering him, but somehow she doubted it.
She resolved to provide him with extra attention and exercise when she could fit it into her schedule. Considering she’d neglected her own horse enough, thanks to her bad arm and new duties, she didn’t hold out much hope for spending time with him.
Schedules. She frowned, remembering the work she had left on the table in barracks. Now that there were more Riders in than she thought, it would throw a kink into—
“Arg!” She shook herself to stop thinking about it. That’s why she had come here, wasn’t it? To free her mind?
With a final pat to Bluebird’s neck, she went to Condor’s stall. She stepped inside, but he ignored her, his nose deep into his grain bucket.
“Nice to see you, too,” she said.
He didn’t even bother to flick an ear.
She maneuvered around him, kicking at his bedding and finding it fresh. She checked his hooves, which were picked clean as well. There was only a light coating of dust on his back, and she was beginning to think Hep had been just a little too good at his job by not leaving her anything to do. But she knew he was aware of how busy she was.
Condor’s water bucket caught her eye. Ah ha! Maybe Hep hasn’t cleaned that yet.
She stepped around Condor’s back end, and paused, startled by the sensation of someone’s gaze on her. She caught the movement of a shadow along the wall just before it merged into a dark corner of the stall. A hasty glance revealed no one else had entered the stable. Was it a trick of the light? It was very possible, for the stable was dim with but a few dirty windows to let in the sun.
“Did you see anything?” she asked Condor.
He tugged at his pile of hay on the stall floor.
Karigan sighed, shaking her head at His Hindness, the High Lord of Fertilizer. “Didn’t think so.” She decided to forget about the shadow. Her recent dealings with the supernatural had her seeing apparitions where there were none. The stable couldn’t have been more ordinary.
She peered into Condor’s water bucket. It was low. Bits of straw and dead flies floated on the water’s surface.
Good, she thought. She could clean the bucket and refill it, something she could do to care for her own horse for once.
But even as she gazed into the bucket, a smoky haze began to drift upward from the water.
“Wha—?”
It glowed green, illuminated by some inner light deep within it. Beneath the water, beneath the bits of hay and dead flies, a pair of blue-green eyes peered back up at her.
“N-not again!”
The eyes blinked, and with a liquidy shimmer, a face formed around them, the face of Lil Ambrioth. Her hair floated like seaweed beneath the water.
Karigan choked back a scream, but could not draw away, as if a pair of invisible hands held her head over the bucket. She became aware of Condor moving in the stall behind her, and looking over her shoulder. Warm breath sweetened with grain puffed against her cheek.
Lil Ambrioth blinked again. Things are not well, yet you do nothing.
“I—” Her breath sent ripples across the water that distorted the First Rider’s face. “Nothing?”
Nothing.
Karigan tried to tug free of the power that forced her to gaze into the bucket, but she could not. This was madness. “I’ve been—I’ve been busy.” She did not know which was stranger: talking into a bucket, or seeing the face of the First Rider in it.
More is required of you than a mere meeting of basic duties.
“Basic—! Mere meeting—!” To Karigan’s mind, it had been anything but, especially having to deal with unwelcome visitations by apparitions. She wanted to shake the water bucket to erase the image of the First Rider and rid herself of the madness, but the same power that made her gaze into the bucket also trapped her arms against her sides.
She shut her eyes. “I do not see you, I do not see you, I do not—”
But you can still hear me, hey?
Karigan’s spirits sagged. Reluctantly she opened her eyes to meet the apparition’s gaze.
You waste my time with such foolishness, and time is something of which I’ve too little.
Karigan ground her teeth wanting to make a tart reply about her own time, but she withheld it. Instead she asked, “What do you want of me?”
I have told you before, you must hold the Riders together. There is a change occurring in the world. The Riders do not understand what goes on with their gifts. They are without their captain. You must help them.