A Night Rider

A Night Rider

by Minka Paraskevova

My passion for horses had led me to this remote island of dark gray dense mists and sharp mountain peaks, whose naked bodies were drowned in deep silence and bathed in daily rains. The wet leaves of the trees had cracked from the constantly rushing water from the sky and stretched out to the ground in desperate attempts to find support...

My Scottish guide walked briskly in his deep boots. His hair was tightly clinging to his damp scalp, while the pale pinkness on his white face contrasted with the coal-blackness of his eyes in which flashed fiery flames. His body moved quickly and deftly, similar to that of a wild animal, and his nose seemed to smell every movement around us. But the strangest thing about him was the endless chatter, which continued pouring like raindrops and watering the earth and my tired senses.

The fog and the incessant rain had succeeded in burying down my usual good spirits, whilst the nagging of the guide had strained my nerves to a sheer extreme. "One more word and I'll kill him with my own hands!" the thought darted through my mind, but the only thing that stopped me from doing it was that I didn't know the wild place and I couldn't survive without the skill of my guide.

“Wild horses never roam alone!” he said and turned his hot gaze to me. For a second I thought his hands resembled hooves, but it must have been the fog. I cleared my throat and asked:

"Ah, why don't they never wander alone?"

"Because they're afraid of meeting a kelpie."

I had never heard the word in my life before and my guide continued his story without waiting for a prompt from me.

“The kelpie is an evil demon that appears in the form of a horse. Even real horses cannot distinguish it, but they know that if they meet a horse wandering alone in the mountains, they should run away so not to be attacked.”

"And what happens if the creature attacks them?"

It seemed very unlikely to be true, but I knew vaguely the superstitions and beliefs of the people on that island.

"First he takes all their power, and then he turns them into evil demons.”

It seemed a little unusual for my guide to tell me these stories, but at least it distracted my own gloomy thoughts from the seeping fog and dampness.

"Riding a wild horse is not an easy job," the guide added to my thought, "are you really an experienced rider?"

I could have shown him all the cups and certs I kept on my desk at home, however at that moment I thought of doing nothing but keep quiet.

"Let's hope so," my guide said somewhat encouragingly, his teeth flashing into a weird horse's smile. Sudden chills ran down my back. I rubbed my eyes – my guide was whistling merrily – a small but tough man, no more than a meter and a half, wearing high rubber boots, waterproof trousers and a blue raincoat with a pointy hood.

"But an ordinary horse, being it wild, could never outrun a kelpie. A kelpie moves as fast as a dart, and its ears hear sounds from Hell.”

“Hell?!” I asked unbelievingly, trying to reassure I heard him correctly

"Yes, hell. This is the farthest point on the island. No one has ever set foot there. They say that it is the home of all demons.”

"How come noone had ever been there? Even you?” I ask playfully, slightly amused by the last part of the guide's story.

His fingers outlined a cross in front of his face and said,"Not even me. But once I was on the verge of getting there. I saw thousands of beasts with burning eyes, greedily tearing their own flesh and drinking their own blood.”

I shuddered. Not from the demonic picture he described, but from his icy breath that washed over my face and made the hairs on the back of my head to stand up. And yet he spoke and behaved like a man...

"What saved you?" I tried to divert his attention from myself.

"My first love!"

"Demons do not love and cannot tolerate the energy of love.... after all, he's human," the thought I needed so badly at that moment soothed me a little.

"But she wasn't human," he seemed to read my mind and smiled warmly at me. This time his breath was hot.

"I couldn't have known it then, I was terribly young and naïve. She captivated me with her ability to shoot. The divine Freya - a Priestess of love. I couldn't resist. I became her shadow and followed her everywhere. I forgot my relatives and equals and tried to grow up as a man next to her. But I only got to the position of a head groom in her stables. There I learned everything I know about horses. Gradually, I began to shake off my blindness, and then the long and painful nights appeared. I had broken away from my family and there was no way back.”

I was holding my breath because the story was extraordinary.

"How did you escape?"

"I pretended to be sick. I hoped Freya would give up on me and let me go.

But that's not what happened. The news of my illness reached our village and our house. My parents and brothers had already buried me alive, but not my sister Bea. When she learned about my illness, she grabbed a bundle of herbs, some food and went looking for me.”

Something grabbed me by the throat.

"The poor girl met a lonely horse in the forest. She decided that if the horse allowed her to ride it, it would speed up her journey to me. She approached and stroked the horse's mane. Surprisingly, it did not behave like a wild horse. It even lay down so that she could climb on its back.”

"And she mounted it?"

"Yes, she did. Then the horse galloped headlong through the forest. To this day, he is still racing.”

"You mean she's dead?"

"Kelpies kill people. First, they entice them and make them want to climb on their backs. Then they race quickly and throw themselves into a deep pool or lake and drown their rider.”

"But that's just a myth, isn't it?" I asked in a slightly hesitant voice.

"Alas, no! In Freya's court, I talked to other creatures who had witnessed the actions of the kelpies.”

“Wait wait! What other creatures, you took care of the horses, didn't you?”

"Yes, but besides me, there were also forest elves who were amazing riders. They also spoke the language of horses. And I didn't.”

At that moment, my foot slipped and hit something hard. Stunned, I snitched my ankle. The guide bent down and picked up a large piece of metal in his hand. He turned around, "It's sprained, I'm going to fix it now. Hold this, please!” I took it in my hand and leaned against a large stone next to the path. He pulled my ankle abruptly. A piercing pain cut through my body.

"Nice scream!" he couldn't hold it, "Now look carefully at what I gave you.”

I had completely forgotten about the thing in my hand, but when I opened my palm I saw that I had squeezed it so hard that there was a scar on my skin.

"What does it say?" he asked excitedly.

"Bea"?! What the hell..." my hand trembled.

"That was a part of my sister's tiara. Don't you believe it yet?”

"And what happened to Freya?" I tried to redirect the conversation until I find some reasonable explanation for what had just happened.

“Not much. She continued to be Freya. But I sank into deep despair. Nothing in this rich and lavish world made me happy. Even the horses did not bring me comfort. One day, Freya sent her younger sister, Morgan, to distract me. She took me to a remote place to shoot with bows. This cheered me up and reminded me of the first moments of love between me and Freya. Morgan saw the thrill in my heart, and a sudden anger and envy shook her whole being. She began to chase me with her horse and bow like a live target. I spurred the black horse I was riding and managed to escape deep into the forest. Neither I nor the horse knew the way back to Freya's kingdom, and I was no longer looking for a way there. That night, through the leaves of the tree next to which we had stretched ourselves to rest, I saw the demonic faces and realized that I was on the border of Hell. In the morning, I hurried to escape as far away from this place as possible. But this picture keeps on reappearing in my dream every night since then and does not give me peace.”

The pain in my ankle had weakened but I kept stepping carefully on it.

"Let's be bolder! Human body hides magical powers. Trust it!” he urged me with a smile.

And no matter how much I didn't believe it, at that moment I felt a gigantic wave of energy and walked quickly, as if for the first time in my life I was stepping on that foot.

"See?"

"So, what happened next?" I asked impatiently and pulled a small leaf from the tree above my head.

"I wandered for a long time, eating berries and roots, drinking rainwater – like this”, he grabbed a piece of grass and poured the contents into his mouth to show me.

"After long days and nights, we reached the end of my village. I thought "Saved at last", but when people saw me, they started screaming and shouting "Demon!", threw stones at me, and my own brothers even chased me with axes away from the village. We left the village in an instant. "And now – where?" I wondered. My horse heard a crack and ran away. It disappeared like hell. I was left alone.”

"I know that horses are very attached to their masters and come back.” I said, hoping for a happy ending to the story.

"Then I met an abandoned child. People here are afraid of forest fairies. If a child does not develop like other children, mothers believe that their child has been stolen and replaced with a fairy child. They call it a changling. Therefore, they go to the forest and leave the bundle with the baby along with a bowl of milk.”

"That's downright cruel. Where I come from fairies are always good and help people.”

"People are generally good, but their fears are greater than the love in their hearts. This is where most of the world's evils come from. Like black angels, for example.”

The pleyad of creatures began to confuse me.

"A moment, what happened to the abandoned child?"

"You know, even though we believe we're alone, there's no such thing as 'completely alone' in nature." He smiled charmingly at me, and as he turned his ear it seemed slightly darkened and elongated.

"Just because we don't see something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. But everything we see is also not always real. Even very often it is a figment of our imagination, a hidden desire or an unrealized thought.”

"And what happened to the child?" I continued to ask.

“The child was fine. A black angel stood next to him and protected him. Although excluded from his own kind, he deserved to grow as a human being.”

"And yet, what did you do? Did you help it? " My maternal instinct began to work.

My guide looked at me warmly and continued, “There is a whole village with abandoned children. It is called the "Children's City". The black angel guided me the whole time as we traveled to the place.”

I gave a sigh of relief.

“In this city, the oldest child is ten years old. There children take care of other children and are very united. But with the onset of puberty, they leave the place and are accompanied to a remote village with few inhabitants, where they are helped to settle down, grow up and build their own family and home.”

"An interesting symbiosis, maybe child-to-child care is better than adult-to-child care?", I thought as my guide tried to light a fire in the dark and illuminated the trees and the ground with a small pocket flashlight.

“Yes, it is somewhat so!” the guide answered my thought once again.” Because they are closer intellectually and emotionally, especially emotionally, to each other. They easily recognize the child needs and respond with their purest energy form, because the ego has not yet awakened.”

“That makes sense. And then, when puberty sets in and the ego starts to rage, they need well-formed mature adults to guide them.”

“Yes, that is so, but, unfortunately, many of the elderly people are far from such a mature and wise demeanour to do so. And many of them are also mentally and emotionally burdened by traumas from their childhood.

Please, will you hold the flashlight so I can try to make a fire with these twigs?"

Instinctively, I reached out without looking at him in the direction of his voice, and when I involuntarily touched his hand, I felt hard fur on it. I turned straight away to make sure my senses weren't deceiving me, and it turned out that I had touched a goatskin bag hung across the neck of the guide which I hadn't noticed before.

"Interesting," said the guide in an amused voice, "humans claim that they are ready to create the world, but they cannot control their own thoughts and fears.”

"What’s this?" I asked, somewhat embarrassed, pointing at the bag.

"My Annabelle – my innermost desires and thoughts are hidden in it.”

“This... Is it again some local belief or ritual?” I couldn't restrain myself asking.

"No." he answered abruptly and began to blow and kindle the small flame of fire. I felt he closed in himself and moved away to give him space. To ease the full movement of his arms, he put the small leather bag on the ground. Eaten up by inhuman curiosity, I crept quietly and gently pulled the bag towards me by the thin string with which it was tightened. For a brief moment I hesitated whether it was right to do it or not, but... my fingers had already untied deftly the string ...

"You couldn’t resist it," I heard his cold voice behind me. I jumped up in fright and started spitting in my bosom. "Well, that's not Christian," he told me more affectionately, and laughed when he saw my puzzled face after I managed to catch a glimpse of the bag before he reached out to pick it up, "empty, isn't it?"

"Yes, but I was thinking..." I couldn't finish my sentence. I felt small and stupid.

“... that it is easy to see the innermost desires and thoughts of another being? For this you need something more than a daring hand and a burning curiosity.”

Suddenly, we heard a grunt behind a tree next to us and a pair of black ears showed from behind it.

“Hey!” the guide shouted and whistled. A moment later, a large, stock black horse stood in front of us. Apparently they knew each other well. "It was following us all the time. A clever animal!” I reached out and stroked it gently between the eyes. Then I lowered my hand to its muzzle and the horse snorted gently into my hand. I had a strong desire to ride this incredible beauty. My guide had overtaken me. I took his outstretched hand and jumped on the horse in front of him. I felt the horse's back slightly lengthen to take us both.

At first it walked slowly. Then, it gradually trotted. After a few minutes, the horse accelerated its gait at a slight gallop. It moved with incredible ease and grace. I buried my fingers in its lush mane. The horse responded to my caress with a slight neigh.

Suddenly, in front of us, I recognized the figure of my guide. I turned around – his seat was empty. "You're the new night rider!" The man's words reached me before the thick fog enveloped him like a cloak.

I was galopping filled with joy and frigth at the same time. I tried to control the horse, but it did not obey my commands. It was racing madly. Not long after, I caught a glimpse of the calm waters of a mountain lake. I closed my eyes waiting for the worst to come. The horse stopped abruptly in front of the lake and started to quench its thirst slowly. I fell to the ground with trembling knees. My heart was ready to jump out of my chest. Then the horse raised its head and looked at me. I recognized the black eyes of my guide and his smile, which as though was asking me "And now – do you believe in us?". I hugged the horse, ruffled its mane goodbye, patted him on the back and said "Yes, I do!" in a loud voice.