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{"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."
~Jeanette Rankin.}
{Samuel Clemens, ghost, wiping the tears from eyes. Roland did it.
He saved the last unicorn in Hell. More than that,
his strange Lakota blood healed her of her terrible wounds. Let his journal take it from there ...}
Epona was rearing on her hind legs. Her healed hind legs.
In fact, her whole body was healed. She was gleefully pawing at the domed ceiling above us.
She landed lightly on the cobblestones. Her blue eyes danced with the joy of a child on Christmas morning. She called down to me.
"I am healed!"
"Yes, but I don't know where you can go, Epona."
I jerked a thumb past the wall. "It's Hell out there. Literally."
Epona looked at the word of fire on Marlene's saber and hushed in a breath. "You are the one they call DreamSinger."
"Well, folks keep calling me that."
The unicorn thrust her sparkling, spiraled horn towards the opening. "Come with me, DreamSinger."
Ah, like I said, it's a mite unfriendly out there."
"No. We unicorns know a path through the desolation to the Elysian Fields. Come with me, DreamSinger. Escape your destiny, too."
I bit my lip and thrust myself up painfully to my feet. I made a face. Getting up had been easier before all the lumps I had taken lately.
I smiled at the unicorn and shook my head.
"A friend needs my help in the Kol Basar. And I leave no friend behind. Go. Run through those fields for both of us, Epona."
The unicorn's brows grew together. "Are you sure?"
"Trust me. When I see you race away to freedom, it will be like I was there on your back. Go. You've had your share of nightmares. My turn."
Epona whispered, "I do trust you, DreamSinger."
She reared high into the air again, her hooves tearing at the shadows. "Die well, DreamSinger!"
As I watched her race out of the opening and onto the steaming black sands, I muttered, "You could have left that last part out."
I continued to watch Epona race like the wind she loved away from me and across the burning sands. I said another prayer for her to the Great Mystery.
A shaft of bright gold light lanced down from a strange circle in the midnight black heavens. It was a circle of bright blue sky rimmed with a ring of bruised blue.
It weirdly followed her as she ran ... ran as fast as she could away from here and into her dreams.
Let them be good ones, Great Mystery.
A depressingly familiar bell-like voice sneered behind me. "She is racing to her damnation. It is an ugly truth, Roland.
Everyone knows the way to Hell. But no one knows the way back out."
***
~Jeanette Rankin.}
{Samuel Clemens, ghost, wiping the tears from eyes. Roland did it.
He saved the last unicorn in Hell. More than that,
his strange Lakota blood healed her of her terrible wounds. Let his journal take it from there ...}
Epona was rearing on her hind legs. Her healed hind legs.
In fact, her whole body was healed. She was gleefully pawing at the domed ceiling above us.
She landed lightly on the cobblestones. Her blue eyes danced with the joy of a child on Christmas morning. She called down to me.
"I am healed!"
"Yes, but I don't know where you can go, Epona."
I jerked a thumb past the wall. "It's Hell out there. Literally."
Epona looked at the word of fire on Marlene's saber and hushed in a breath. "You are the one they call DreamSinger."
"Well, folks keep calling me that."
The unicorn thrust her sparkling, spiraled horn towards the opening. "Come with me, DreamSinger."
Ah, like I said, it's a mite unfriendly out there."
"No. We unicorns know a path through the desolation to the Elysian Fields. Come with me, DreamSinger. Escape your destiny, too."
I bit my lip and thrust myself up painfully to my feet. I made a face. Getting up had been easier before all the lumps I had taken lately.
I smiled at the unicorn and shook my head.
"A friend needs my help in the Kol Basar. And I leave no friend behind. Go. Run through those fields for both of us, Epona."
The unicorn's brows grew together. "Are you sure?"
"Trust me. When I see you race away to freedom, it will be like I was there on your back. Go. You've had your share of nightmares. My turn."
Epona whispered, "I do trust you, DreamSinger."
She reared high into the air again, her hooves tearing at the shadows. "Die well, DreamSinger!"
As I watched her race out of the opening and onto the steaming black sands, I muttered, "You could have left that last part out."
I continued to watch Epona race like the wind she loved away from me and across the burning sands. I said another prayer for her to the Great Mystery.
A shaft of bright gold light lanced down from a strange circle in the midnight black heavens. It was a circle of bright blue sky rimmed with a ring of bruised blue.
It weirdly followed her as she ran ... ran as fast as she could away from here and into her dreams.
Let them be good ones, Great Mystery.
A depressingly familiar bell-like voice sneered behind me. "She is racing to her damnation. It is an ugly truth, Roland.
Everyone knows the way to Hell. But no one knows the way back out."
***
