Changing the Prophecy Chapter Eight Episode 2

 

Chapter 8 Sense of Direction -- Episode 2

In the morning, before joining the others, Doshmisi remembered that she had marked that page in the herbal. She pulled the book into her lap and opened it to the page cinched by the rubber band. The words from the previous night had disappeared. The only word on the page was adaptability. She had barely read the word when the rubber band broke and the book snapped shut. “Stubborn book,” she muttered in frustration as she placed it back in the carry case, gathered her belongings, and set out to find Jasper.

After a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and sweet melon, Doshmisi, Jasper, and Jack took their leave of their friends in the Passage Circle and got back on the road. Doshmisi suggested that they ride north along the beach, but Jasper vetoed that idea. He said riding on the beach would leave them too exposed. He took them instead on a route further inland that followed the shoreline while remaining under the cover of trees. The trees whispered to Doshmisi and made her feel optimistic about getting to the bottom of things at the North Coast. The three travelers rode hard all day. By evening, they had arrived well within the boundaries of the North Coast region, but they had no idea where to look for Sissrath and his encampment.

“We need to find shelter for the night,” Jasper said, as he rode alongside Doshmisi.

“Can we camp in this forest?” she asked.

“An enemy could see us here too easily. I want to find a cave or a structure or something that will hide us,” Jasper replied. Suddenly he drew up his tiger abruptly. “Stop,” he ordered. “Stay completely still.”

Doshmisi obeyed. In the distance, through the trees, she saw what Jasper saw. A small group of human-type figures rode between the trees on horses. The sight of the horses made the hair on the back of Doshmisi’s neck stand up because there were no horses in Faracadar, where people rode tigers instead. The sight of the horses, entirely out of place, frightened her. Jack whimpered. Jasper, who had never seen a horse, turned to her wide-eyed.

“Horses,” Doshmisi whispered to Jasper and Jack. “We have them in the Farland.”

The appearance of the riders disturbed Doshmisi even more than the appearance of the horses they rode. The riders resembled people. They had a head, two arms, and two legs, but from head to toe they wore white jumpsuits that hid every part of their real selves. They wore white gloves, helmet-like head coverings, and gray face masks. They carried some type of guns. Doshmisi wondered if the creatures were slimy or perhaps misshapen under their white jumpsuits. Maybe they had no solid substance to them, like light or water, and the jumpsuits contained them. Or maybe the jumpsuits concealed a hideous form that she could not imagine. She thought of them as aliens.

Doshmisi, Jasper, and Jack remained hidden in the undergrowth and as still as stone until the creatures on the horses passed by and disappeared in the distance. Jasper pointed after them. At first Doshmisi didn’t see what Jasper saw; but then, as her eyes adjusted to the rapidly increasing darkness of night falling, she identified a clearing ahead and in it the outlines of a series of large, barn-like structures. The creatures rode past the barns and into the forest beyond without stopping.

The travelers quietly dismounted from their tigers and left them in a thicket on the edge of the clearing where they could graze on greens and pass the night concealed from sight. Watching for the figures-in-white, they cautiously crept inside the first barn they came upon. Large and empty of all activity, it contained heaps of hay, which would make it a comfortable place to bed down for the night. Jasper took a glow-lamp from his bag. He handed it to Doshmisi, who held it up as she wandered to the back of the barn. She opened the door to a stall and found herself face-to-face with a large chestnut stallion. The stallion snorted through his nostrils loudly. Doshmisi heard Jack cry out in alarm. The stallion tossed his midnight-black mane and whinnied.

Doshmisi murmured in awe, “You are the most handsome horse I have ever laid eyes on.”

The stallion emanated a wild energy that made Doshmisi’s breath quicken. She felt around in her bag and found an apple. She bit off a large chunk and spit it out into her palm, then offered it to the stallion as a gift. He sniffed the apple and then picked it up delicately with his large lips and ate it. Doshmisi repeated this again and again until she had fed the whole apple to the stallion. Then she tentatively patted his nose. He nuzzled her. “Such a beauty,” Doshmisi cooed. “Can we be friends?” She stroked his long neck and buried her face in his mane. He smelled like sweet alfalfa. His presence comforted her.

“It’s OK,” Doshmisi called softly to Jack and Jasper. “There’s a horse in here. He’s magnificent. I’ve befriended him. I know all about horses because Aunt Alice has horses at Manzanita Ranch. I’ve taken care of them and ridden them. He won’t hurt you. Come see. In the Farland people ride horses the way you ride tigers here.”

Jack and Jasper peered cautiously into the stall, where Doshmisi continued to stroke the stallion and talk to him. “I don’t know your name,” Doshmisi said to the stallion, “so I’m going to call you Dagobaz if that’s OK with you. I read about a horse named Dagobaz in a book once. The Dagobaz in the book could only be ridden by one who tamed him.” The horse nodded his head and snorted, as if in approval. Doshmisi crooned the name Dagobaz lovingly to the stallion.

She would have stayed with Dagobaz, but Jasper insisted that she come out and have something to eat with him and Jack. They ate sandwiches that Cinnamon had packed for them at the Passage Circle, which seemed years in the past even though it had only been that morning. Then they took out their bedrolls.

“I’m going to sleep in the stall with Dagobaz,” Doshmisi informed the others.

“Is that safe?” Jasper asked worriedly.

“It’s fine. That horse and I have a connection, a sort of understanding,” she attempted to explain. “Kind of like the connection I have with the whales and the trees.”

“If you say so,” Jasper replied, although he still looked a little worried. “If you need us, Jack and I will be in that stall across the way.”

“Sounds good,” Doshmisi said. She took her bedroll into Dagobaz’s stall and rested her cheek against his neck. She stroked his side and his back and ran her hand down the front of each of his front legs. He nuzzled her. Her amulet began to glow green.

“What is it?” she asked him. “Why do I feel like I know you so well?”

Dagobaz tossed his head and folded himself down into the hay. Doshmisi stretched out beside him. She rested her head on his side and pulled her bedroll over her like a blanket. Dagobaz nudged her glowing amulet with his nose and then snorted at the ceiling. She soon fell asleep with a smile on her face.

In the morning, Dagobaz woke Doshmisi at sunrise when he stood up and visited his water trough for a cool drink. Doshmisi, Jasper, and Jack shared half a loaf of bread with cheese and prepared to depart.

“Don’t worry, I’ll come back for you,” Doshmisi promised Dagobaz as she sadly took her leave. She needed that stallion and he needed her. They were meant for each other; she could feel it in her blood.

Jasper found the tigers, well-rested and safe. They decided to leave the tigers where they were and proceeded with caution on foot toward the ocean, which was so near to them that they could smell the salt water on the air. They did not walk far before they reached a vista point from which the ocean spread out before them sparkling like diamonds in the mauve-tinted morning light.

As she took in the panoramic view, Doshmisi’s gaze fell abruptly on the incongruous sight of a frighteningly enormous metal oil derrick pumping up and down less than a half a mile out from the shoreline. Several boats bobbed between the beach and the oil well, coming and going from the site.

Jasper pointed to a place up from the beach and said, “Look there.”

Where he pointed, Doshmisi saw an open area carved out of the trees and the undergrowth, about a quarter of a mile up from the sandy beach. She saw several low buildings and what appeared to be a compound full of people, like a large outdoor pen. Smoke from cooking fires rose in thin ribbons from the compound.

“Let’s investigate,” Jasper said.

“Hostages,” Jack stated.

“Really Jack? That does not sound good,” Doshmisi responded.

“Stay alert. We can’t let ourselves be caught,” Jasper ordered.

Doshmisi knew from painful personal experience that avoiding capture was easier said than done.