Untethered by Beth Cato

Author:Beth Cato
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poise and Pen Publishing
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

And the mountain would not burn, Headman Falk declared. Village lore said at times it smoked, and without anything coming of it. The days of fiery rock raining down were gone—if they ever had been, he added significantly. It might be that tales of fire and ash smiting the land were as much myth as tales of gods-wars and bugaboos which nibbled the ears of naughty children.

Maria didn’t know if she believed all the stories were just stories; surely the mountain had been alive at one time, and no one had doubted that before. But if in times past the mountain had smoked without more, then there was no reason to let panic take hold now. Stopping work to gawk and worry would lead to more certain difficulties when there was no fish, no bread, no wool, no fruit and no preserves to sell. And what good would come of waiting at home?

So in the morning, she carried her basket up once more. The longberries were coming in, and she wanted to harvest them before the new ash settled on the plants. Already ash clung to her skirt and calves, and she wrinkled her nose at the thought of the scrubbing to come.

If Mistress Mirch were right, and the Lost Horse was not the Steam Horse, at least not directly—then she had not sought out good or bad fortune on that day. Neither the paid debt nor the foundered boat had been the Steam Horse’s doing—but somewhere there was a Lost Horse who could bring greater fortune or misfortune.

If she believed in that sort of thing.

She nearly walked into the stranger, distracted in her musing. His too-large eyes were fixed wide upon her. “I wish to help,” he said, as if cracking the words from ice.

“I suppose you could carry the basket,” she allowed.

He shook his head, but the movement was not quite right, a sort of roll instead of back and forth. “It comes. I will be freed. I wish to help.”

His words made Maria uncomfortable. “How will you help?”

He pointed west, to where the cliffs dropped sheer into the sea. “Run.”

She stared at him, heart quickening. “What?”

The ground quivered beneath her. Maria put out an arm for balance and looked upward.

“Run,” he repeated.

The mountain ruptured. With an impossibly deep grating roar, soil and rock tore like flesh and bone.

“Run!”

The mountain was descending upon them. She could not see the shifting earth or the red blood of the mountain, but the wake of dust and smoke marked its plunging path.

Maria ran.

She ran down the grassy slope she’d loved, treacherous now with slick ash. She raced gravity, raced the power of a gargantuan beast vomiting hot rocky bile upon her, as if she could outrun fire and ash and death, knowing she could not.

The stranger was not beside her. She did not know where he was. It did not matter. She could fling herself into the sea, to die by waves instead of by fire. She could not choose whether to live, but she could choose how to die.

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