Horse Trading [Solo]
Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2022 1:11 am
Ash 39, 122
It was shortly after she had first accompanied the mysterious sorcerer Avamande through their twisting road through slipspace that Imogen remembered the short revelation she’d experienced in her efforts to catch fish with Destyn.
Her efforts in pursuit of a greater understanding of the rune of Animus had not been without fruit, she thought. She’d made significant strides, she felt. Yet unlike certain other disciplines, Animus was a Cardinal Rune which contributed little by itself. If she pulled up her shirt now and bared her midriff, she knew what she’d see- the Rune itself, entwined with the symbols of a lemur, a great cat, a small cat, a sea bird, a beetle, and a fly. Each of these had proven valuable in their ways, and often by avenues she had not expected before transformation.
But it occurred to her that for all of this, in terms of physical strength the most powerful form she’d yet obtained was… her own. This wasn’t to cast aspersions on the rest of the natural kingdom, Orkhan just happened to be built strong, and she was pretty strong even for one of her race. (With the exception of the Ecithian natives, which was a great and rankling unfairness).
More to the point, none of her various forms were capable of actually carrying someone else long distances, which had not yet proven to be much of an issue… but might eventually, at some future point.
Thankfully, the mortal races had collectively hit upon a solution millenia past and made it readily and easily available to her now. Horses.
After her escape from Zaichaer some months before, Imogen’s bank was unaccountably flush with cash, and she did intend to buy a horse for both herself and Master Gerhard before leaving for the promised trip south with Aurin. Thus, she decided, she would visit a horse trader in the outlying districts of Kalzasi, seeking worthy steeds.
There was but one problem.
“You’ve… never ridden? Really?”
Imogen glared at Ansel, who was back on his armchair in the hospital room, a hardcover book half-open and facedown on his lap. The tone of his skin, the cadence of his voice- they were all much improved since her last visit here with Aurin Kavafis, and she fancied that the old steely light in his eye was back.
The hospital window was open, letting in the sweet air from the gardens overlooking the city beyond. Cities were, by and large, unpleasant places to exist in, filled with the sights and sounds and smells of mortality which one could more easily escape without a million others packed into a thousand square acres like sardines. Kalzasi was a bit nicer than Zaichaer, having been built to a more open standard and refreshed by the breezes off the northern bay, and the air around the Tranquil Gardens was heavy with the perfume of the flowers in any event.
(Still, Imogen snuck occasional glances out the window, trying to see from the corners of her eyes whether Master Gerhard’s mysterious aidolon was watching them. She caught no sign, but she doubted that meant much.)
”Of course I’ve ridden horses, a dozen times or more.” Imogen retorted, failing to grasp that this was not really significant experience, ”I’ve simply never purchased one. After all, wouldn’t it be strange for the janitor of an upscale establishment to be buying so much? The cover account had enough to rent and groceries, and perhaps a little extra for fuel in the Frost.”
Actually, she’d been cautioned against paying so much for heat and insulation; even though Marshal Kane’s regime had been almost deliberately lax about actual, effective witch-hunting measures, overspending in the registered lower classes was easy enough to track that a mere thirty or forty percent overspending could plausibly be sent to the Order as a red flag.
Not now though, since they were mostly dead.
“Mmm. Well, yet another hole in your education,” the older Sunsinger said gravely, in a tone she might have found mocking if she hadn’t come to know his manner, “I expect you’ve heard that horse-buying isn’t for amateurs.”
”Well, aye, I have.” the Ork responded leaning back in her chair to regard the ceiling, ”But I’ve handled plenty of purchases for the safe houses and the Pfenning, and it’s been years since I was last caught a-swindle. Is this really so different?”
“It is, actually. A malicious horse-trader can get away with more, you see. You’ll be looking for soldiering steeds; horses trained to carry heavy, and to listen even when they’re steaming nervous. If you get sold an old draft animal, you’re not going to know it until you’re leagues south and probably right as it gets you killed.”
”Fine, so what, then? Are there signs I need to examine the horses for, or something?”
Ansel shook his head, frowning. “Nothing you can learn before our departure, leastways. No, what you need is not information about the horses, but their owners. Find out who buys soldiering horses, and good ones, not the consignment for the draft.”
Like any job, Imogen took horse research seriously. She was, all else be damned, a professional, and if she was going to do a job you could rest assured that it was going to be done well.
A problem, however, was that she knew no more members of the Kalzasi army than she did the Kalzasi horse-trading community. To track down people who knew soldier’s horses, she’d need to track down soldiers, and she wasn’t at all keen on appearing to be hunting for armsmen of the city-state in the wake of the abortive war against Zaichaer. Frankly, it hadn’t been that long ago that the Iron Queen had thrown all of her countrymen in jail; and while she didn’t begrudge Kalzasi that decision, having no great love for the state of Zaichaer, she had no desire to be arrested on suspicion of espionage.
But she did have one other avenue open to her- echolalia.
So it was that her journey to purchase a horse began not with discussions with traders, but with the theft of a horse’s shape.
To acquire the proper totem, Imogen began one morning in her hotel, opening the window (she’d chosen the room carefully, to ensure a sufficient space for escape and return on the building’s second floor) and shifted form to the albatross again. Just as last time, getting out of the little veranda was difficult due to the form’s size, and Imogen made a mental note to consider finding a smaller bewinged form later. Nevertheless, she escaped the building and gravity both, and left the city, heading southwest.
It had been some time since the last battle between the armies of Kalzasi and Zaichaer, but there remained an engorged train of military riders between Kalzasi and its frontiers. The city’s rulers, of course, had to keep an eye on General Overmann’s troop movements, but it also hadn’t escaped anyone that the barbarian tribes to the east had begun to stir, doubtless attracted by the chaos in Zaichaer’s countryside. To put a long story short, Kalzasi’s rulers simply couldn’t afford to disarm right now, and where there were standing armies, there were logistics trains.
Even for Imogen, then, it was child’s play to simply wait for a mounted officer on the road and follow him on his route. If she was noticed, a lone seabird against the sky, the riders below did nothing to communicate that fact.
Once she was trailing the horses, it was child’s play to wait for the men to reach a hostel- or, in this case, an army waystation, with a small stables. The witch landed outside the camp and willed her form to liquify and change again, this time morphing from her feathered form and into the shape of a black cat. She could have waited for night to fall, but domestic cats were a common sight anywhere men settled, and she darted through the occupied square and to the stable buildings without raising an alarm. Even the horses didn’t seem to be paying attention to her.
…until she snuck behind one and made off with half its tail. Then there was much neighing and gnashing of teeth and kicking of hooves, all in vain, as Imogen had identified an appropriate escape route well in advance. She escaped, a shadow fleeing into the forest as the officers and stablehands rushed the stables to find out the cause of the noise.
(When her officer–a captain by her reckoning, or the equivalent thereof here, finally–realized that his horse had been defaced, he assumed it was a deeply unwise prank by one of the stableboys, and had them turned out for discipline. Such unfair assumptions are part and parcel of this fallen world.)
When Imogen got back to her rooms, she found that some well-meaning hotel maid had entered, turned down her bed, folded her clothes, and closed her window. Luckily, she had developed her chimeric prowess considerably in the last thirty days, and was able to produce a strange, elongated arm with which to open the window, allowing her to hop through without transforming to a nude woman on the veranda.
The sun was low in the sky and Imogen hadn’t eaten, so she stashed the little horsehair charm she’d woven for the flight, put on some acceptable evening clothes, and made her way to a teahouse. When she got back, newly sated, she closed and locked her rooms, retrieved the charm, and held it against her heart, meditating.
The informal ceremony to attain the totem took her most of the night; tragically, her burgeoning prowess over the Rune of Animus seemed to be irrelevant to the time it took to actually assimilate the new form. By the time the sun had risen anew, however, the horsehair was gone and a new symbol shone on Imogen’s midriff. Exhausted but triumphant, the Sunsinger girl went to bed.
She didn’t sleep long, but woke around noon. Ideally, she would take a few days to familiarize herself with horse-form, to live the animal’s life and understand the animal’s differences and similarities. But a few days was time she didn’t have. Ansel was impatient to get on the road, and although she enjoyed her short trips to Kalzasi, she’d rather conclude her business in Zaichaer and return to Carina’s side than draw things out.
(The Ring of the Malignant Star pulsed warmly on her hand as she thought of her friend, sending a brief shiver through Imogen. She spent some time simply holding the ring between two fingers, visualizing Carina’s aura.)
Then, Imogen went to visit horse traders.
She visited three separate traders that day, each time speaking politely with the merchant and then asking to inspect the horses they recommended. Every trader consented, unconcerned- every horse buyer thought that they had the expertise needed to evaluate a horse, though most were mistaken or deluded.
In each case, she entered the stables and stroked each horse’s mane, then invoked the power of her latest totem, asking:
”Do you know how to serve in battle? Have you? Could you?”
The first merchant’s horses were affirmative, but wary. They’d been trained, but had never actually seen battle, and they were a little nervous about it; though horses seemed to be at least a little nervous about every topic of discussion, actually. This tallied with what the merchant had told her, claiming no expertise, but boasting of the rancher’s training processes.
The second trader’s steeds, on the other hand, took time to even understand what she was asking. Why would she ride at danger? Surely she would want to go away from it? Why would they need to stand still? They knew the standard commands, but the witch quickly determined that they had been taught enough to carry along the roads and nothing more.
At the third trader, however, the horse she talked to seemed almost scornful when she asked her questions. It had known combat, it told her, and come away alive, and was young enough that it would do it again. In the horse’s eyes, and stance, Imogen read fire, a pride which was almost startling to observe outside of the races of men and elf and ork.
”How much,” Imogen asked the trader, watching her nicker at the horse with a baffled smile, ”For this one?”
It was shortly after she had first accompanied the mysterious sorcerer Avamande through their twisting road through slipspace that Imogen remembered the short revelation she’d experienced in her efforts to catch fish with Destyn.
Her efforts in pursuit of a greater understanding of the rune of Animus had not been without fruit, she thought. She’d made significant strides, she felt. Yet unlike certain other disciplines, Animus was a Cardinal Rune which contributed little by itself. If she pulled up her shirt now and bared her midriff, she knew what she’d see- the Rune itself, entwined with the symbols of a lemur, a great cat, a small cat, a sea bird, a beetle, and a fly. Each of these had proven valuable in their ways, and often by avenues she had not expected before transformation.
But it occurred to her that for all of this, in terms of physical strength the most powerful form she’d yet obtained was… her own. This wasn’t to cast aspersions on the rest of the natural kingdom, Orkhan just happened to be built strong, and she was pretty strong even for one of her race. (With the exception of the Ecithian natives, which was a great and rankling unfairness).
More to the point, none of her various forms were capable of actually carrying someone else long distances, which had not yet proven to be much of an issue… but might eventually, at some future point.
Thankfully, the mortal races had collectively hit upon a solution millenia past and made it readily and easily available to her now. Horses.
After her escape from Zaichaer some months before, Imogen’s bank was unaccountably flush with cash, and she did intend to buy a horse for both herself and Master Gerhard before leaving for the promised trip south with Aurin. Thus, she decided, she would visit a horse trader in the outlying districts of Kalzasi, seeking worthy steeds.
There was but one problem.
~~~
“You’ve… never ridden? Really?”
Imogen glared at Ansel, who was back on his armchair in the hospital room, a hardcover book half-open and facedown on his lap. The tone of his skin, the cadence of his voice- they were all much improved since her last visit here with Aurin Kavafis, and she fancied that the old steely light in his eye was back.
The hospital window was open, letting in the sweet air from the gardens overlooking the city beyond. Cities were, by and large, unpleasant places to exist in, filled with the sights and sounds and smells of mortality which one could more easily escape without a million others packed into a thousand square acres like sardines. Kalzasi was a bit nicer than Zaichaer, having been built to a more open standard and refreshed by the breezes off the northern bay, and the air around the Tranquil Gardens was heavy with the perfume of the flowers in any event.
(Still, Imogen snuck occasional glances out the window, trying to see from the corners of her eyes whether Master Gerhard’s mysterious aidolon was watching them. She caught no sign, but she doubted that meant much.)
”Of course I’ve ridden horses, a dozen times or more.” Imogen retorted, failing to grasp that this was not really significant experience, ”I’ve simply never purchased one. After all, wouldn’t it be strange for the janitor of an upscale establishment to be buying so much? The cover account had enough to rent and groceries, and perhaps a little extra for fuel in the Frost.”
Actually, she’d been cautioned against paying so much for heat and insulation; even though Marshal Kane’s regime had been almost deliberately lax about actual, effective witch-hunting measures, overspending in the registered lower classes was easy enough to track that a mere thirty or forty percent overspending could plausibly be sent to the Order as a red flag.
Not now though, since they were mostly dead.
“Mmm. Well, yet another hole in your education,” the older Sunsinger said gravely, in a tone she might have found mocking if she hadn’t come to know his manner, “I expect you’ve heard that horse-buying isn’t for amateurs.”
”Well, aye, I have.” the Ork responded leaning back in her chair to regard the ceiling, ”But I’ve handled plenty of purchases for the safe houses and the Pfenning, and it’s been years since I was last caught a-swindle. Is this really so different?”
“It is, actually. A malicious horse-trader can get away with more, you see. You’ll be looking for soldiering steeds; horses trained to carry heavy, and to listen even when they’re steaming nervous. If you get sold an old draft animal, you’re not going to know it until you’re leagues south and probably right as it gets you killed.”
”Fine, so what, then? Are there signs I need to examine the horses for, or something?”
Ansel shook his head, frowning. “Nothing you can learn before our departure, leastways. No, what you need is not information about the horses, but their owners. Find out who buys soldiering horses, and good ones, not the consignment for the draft.”
~~~
Like any job, Imogen took horse research seriously. She was, all else be damned, a professional, and if she was going to do a job you could rest assured that it was going to be done well.
A problem, however, was that she knew no more members of the Kalzasi army than she did the Kalzasi horse-trading community. To track down people who knew soldier’s horses, she’d need to track down soldiers, and she wasn’t at all keen on appearing to be hunting for armsmen of the city-state in the wake of the abortive war against Zaichaer. Frankly, it hadn’t been that long ago that the Iron Queen had thrown all of her countrymen in jail; and while she didn’t begrudge Kalzasi that decision, having no great love for the state of Zaichaer, she had no desire to be arrested on suspicion of espionage.
But she did have one other avenue open to her- echolalia.
So it was that her journey to purchase a horse began not with discussions with traders, but with the theft of a horse’s shape.
To acquire the proper totem, Imogen began one morning in her hotel, opening the window (she’d chosen the room carefully, to ensure a sufficient space for escape and return on the building’s second floor) and shifted form to the albatross again. Just as last time, getting out of the little veranda was difficult due to the form’s size, and Imogen made a mental note to consider finding a smaller bewinged form later. Nevertheless, she escaped the building and gravity both, and left the city, heading southwest.
It had been some time since the last battle between the armies of Kalzasi and Zaichaer, but there remained an engorged train of military riders between Kalzasi and its frontiers. The city’s rulers, of course, had to keep an eye on General Overmann’s troop movements, but it also hadn’t escaped anyone that the barbarian tribes to the east had begun to stir, doubtless attracted by the chaos in Zaichaer’s countryside. To put a long story short, Kalzasi’s rulers simply couldn’t afford to disarm right now, and where there were standing armies, there were logistics trains.
Even for Imogen, then, it was child’s play to simply wait for a mounted officer on the road and follow him on his route. If she was noticed, a lone seabird against the sky, the riders below did nothing to communicate that fact.
Once she was trailing the horses, it was child’s play to wait for the men to reach a hostel- or, in this case, an army waystation, with a small stables. The witch landed outside the camp and willed her form to liquify and change again, this time morphing from her feathered form and into the shape of a black cat. She could have waited for night to fall, but domestic cats were a common sight anywhere men settled, and she darted through the occupied square and to the stable buildings without raising an alarm. Even the horses didn’t seem to be paying attention to her.
…until she snuck behind one and made off with half its tail. Then there was much neighing and gnashing of teeth and kicking of hooves, all in vain, as Imogen had identified an appropriate escape route well in advance. She escaped, a shadow fleeing into the forest as the officers and stablehands rushed the stables to find out the cause of the noise.
(When her officer–a captain by her reckoning, or the equivalent thereof here, finally–realized that his horse had been defaced, he assumed it was a deeply unwise prank by one of the stableboys, and had them turned out for discipline. Such unfair assumptions are part and parcel of this fallen world.)
~~~
When Imogen got back to her rooms, she found that some well-meaning hotel maid had entered, turned down her bed, folded her clothes, and closed her window. Luckily, she had developed her chimeric prowess considerably in the last thirty days, and was able to produce a strange, elongated arm with which to open the window, allowing her to hop through without transforming to a nude woman on the veranda.
The sun was low in the sky and Imogen hadn’t eaten, so she stashed the little horsehair charm she’d woven for the flight, put on some acceptable evening clothes, and made her way to a teahouse. When she got back, newly sated, she closed and locked her rooms, retrieved the charm, and held it against her heart, meditating.
The informal ceremony to attain the totem took her most of the night; tragically, her burgeoning prowess over the Rune of Animus seemed to be irrelevant to the time it took to actually assimilate the new form. By the time the sun had risen anew, however, the horsehair was gone and a new symbol shone on Imogen’s midriff. Exhausted but triumphant, the Sunsinger girl went to bed.
~~~
She didn’t sleep long, but woke around noon. Ideally, she would take a few days to familiarize herself with horse-form, to live the animal’s life and understand the animal’s differences and similarities. But a few days was time she didn’t have. Ansel was impatient to get on the road, and although she enjoyed her short trips to Kalzasi, she’d rather conclude her business in Zaichaer and return to Carina’s side than draw things out.
(The Ring of the Malignant Star pulsed warmly on her hand as she thought of her friend, sending a brief shiver through Imogen. She spent some time simply holding the ring between two fingers, visualizing Carina’s aura.)
Then, Imogen went to visit horse traders.
She visited three separate traders that day, each time speaking politely with the merchant and then asking to inspect the horses they recommended. Every trader consented, unconcerned- every horse buyer thought that they had the expertise needed to evaluate a horse, though most were mistaken or deluded.
In each case, she entered the stables and stroked each horse’s mane, then invoked the power of her latest totem, asking:
”Do you know how to serve in battle? Have you? Could you?”
The first merchant’s horses were affirmative, but wary. They’d been trained, but had never actually seen battle, and they were a little nervous about it; though horses seemed to be at least a little nervous about every topic of discussion, actually. This tallied with what the merchant had told her, claiming no expertise, but boasting of the rancher’s training processes.
The second trader’s steeds, on the other hand, took time to even understand what she was asking. Why would she ride at danger? Surely she would want to go away from it? Why would they need to stand still? They knew the standard commands, but the witch quickly determined that they had been taught enough to carry along the roads and nothing more.
At the third trader, however, the horse she talked to seemed almost scornful when she asked her questions. It had known combat, it told her, and come away alive, and was young enough that it would do it again. In the horse’s eyes, and stance, Imogen read fire, a pride which was almost startling to observe outside of the races of men and elf and ork.
”How much,” Imogen asked the trader, watching her nicker at the horse with a baffled smile, ”For this one?”