ace came to him like a
maiden with a lamp, a new and beautiful wonder; the wind laughed as it
passed him. He put his head down low to the scent of the flowers, he
lifted it up to be nearer the unseen stars, he revelled through
kingdoms, took rivers in his stride; how shall I tell you, ye that
dwell in cities, how shall I tell you what he felt as he galloped? He
felt for strength like the towers of Bel-Narana; for lightness like
those gossamer palaces that the fairy-spider builds 'twixt heaven and
sea along the coasts of Zith; for swiftness like some bird racing up
from the morning to sing in some city's spires before daylight comes.
He was the sworn companion of the wind. For joy he was as a song; the
lightnings of his legendary sires, the earlier gods, began to mix with
his blood; his hooves thundered. He came to the cities of men, and all
men trembled, for they remembered the ancient mythical wars, and now
they dreaded new battles and feared for the race of man. Not by Clio
are these wars recorded; history does not know them, but what of that?
Not all of us have sat at historians' feet, but all have learned fable
and myth at their mothers' knees. And there were none that did not
fear strange wars when they saw Shepperalk swerve and leap along the
public ways. So he passed from city to city.

By night he lay down unpanting in the reeds of some marsh or a forest;
before dawn he rose triumphant, and hugely drank of some river in the
dark, and splashing out of it would trot to some high place to find
the sunrise, and to send echoing eastwards the exultant greetings of
his jubilant horn. And lo! the sunrise coming up from the echoes, and
the plains new-lit by the day, and the leagues spinning by like water
flung from a top, and that gay companion, the loudly laughing wind,
and men and the fears of men and their little cities; and, after that,
great rivers and waste spaces and huge new hills, and then new lands
beyond them, and more cities of men, and always the old companion, the
glorious wind. Kingdom by kingdom slipt by, and still his breath was
even. "It is a golden thing to gallop on good turf in one's youth,"
said the young man-horse, the centaur. "Ha, ha," said the wind of the
hills, and the winds of the plain answered.

Bells pealed in frantic towers, wise men consulted parchments,
astrologers sought of the portent from the stars, the aged made subtle
prophecies. "Is he not swift?" said the young. "How glad he is,"