always and forever is forever young
your shadow on the pavement, the dark side of the sun
An image of Ander drifted through Mallos' mind.

“Nah,” he replied, sporting the English colloquialism as well as he would if he were using his own language. “You wouldn't believe how short on privacy a god is.”

He dropped his grandson a little knowing wink. In reality, Mallos usually had a lot more privacy than Tristan did because, as an adult – and a magical one at that – he had more power to enforce it. Still, he had to remember to check his behaviour when at home or in public too... and at least there were no damn journalists in Shaman.

The image of Ander lingered, but he ignored it and focused on the feel of the horse between his knees. The last thing he needed right now was another reality jump.

They rode along in companionable quiet for a while, each distracted by whatever it was that occupied them. For Mallos, it was the open air. His box of a room in the hospital wing had seemed intolerably suffocating at the time, but now – surrounded by open land, the taste of freedom of the wind – he didn't know how he could return to it. What lunatic would choose those four walls over this? The clean meadow gave way to a savannah of long grass, its tips tickling the horses' knees, which prevented them from galloping as it forced them to watch where they were putting their feet. As annoying as that was, it was a relief in some ways. That feeling he'd had before, of reality beginning to slip away – it was beyond compare. There was something painful about that particular reality, too. Something which sent a shiver up his spine just thinking about it.

He steered them left (south-east, if his sense of direction was to be trusted – which it usually wasn't), away from Augury Vale and towards the unexplored territory. Mallos' sense of direction was questionable at the best of times, but his sense of where the heat was was comparable to a cat's. The air was definitely warmer to the left, and the horizon was more yellow than the lush green which led towards the vale. Green meant rain. Yellow meant dry heat. Like Granada.

It was an unusual horizon, too – cut with a craggy line which looked vaguely familiar, although Mallos couldn't place it. It looked out of place with the green forests and fields which dominated most of Shaman's landscape. It didn't tally up with the mountains and dry moorlands of rural Spain, either. Whatever it was, it was worth investigating.

As they left the long grass, Mallos drew Ambassador to a stop and stood up in the stirrups to get a better view. At times like this, the mortal limitations of his senses were not only dull but frustrating too – if he'd had his magic, he wouldn't even need to consciously activate it to see ten times further than he could now. Divinity made his senses sharper and his blood pump faster of its own accord.

“That is definitely not a known land,” he decided out loud for Tristan's sake. The sensible, logical, honest thing to do would be to obey the law and turn back.

Mallos' logic defied sense and honesty. He spurred Ambassador on again, now firmly in the direction of the interesting horizon.

i can feel you in the silence saying, “let forever be,
love, and only love, will set you free.”