reverence. "It is good to hear his music once again."
"I'm thinking that Pony's agreein' with ye," Dainsey remarked with a smirk. She stared at Pony, drawing Roger's gaze there, as well.
There sat Pony, on the front porch of Fellowship Way, the town's single tavern, her eyes closed and rocking gently in rhythm with the music.
Roger and Dainsey looked to each other and smiled wistfully, glad to see that a measure of calm had come to tortured Pony's beautiful face. They let her sit there for a long, long while, basking in the moonlight and the melody, before Roger finally remarked, "Bradwarden is not far."
Pony opened her eyes sleepily and looked over at the couple.
"Shall we go?" Roger asked her.
Pony hesitated for a moment, then shook her head. "Not we," she said. "I wish to speak with Bradwarden alone, at first."
Roger hid the wounded look before it could blossom on his face.
"'Course ye do!" Dainsey said. "But ye best be goin', then. Bradwarden's not one to stay about for long, from all that I heard o' him."
"You heard right," Pony agreed, and she pulled herself from the wooden chair and straightened her breeches and tunic, pointedly adjusting the pouch of gemstones hanging on her belt at her right hip. With a nod to her friends, she started away, skipping down the few steps to the main road of Dundalis village. With a look around at the quiet routines of the Dundalis night, she headed straight out to the north.
The forest night swallowed her in its profound blackness, but Pony was not the slightest bit afraid. These were the haunts of her childhood, where she and Elbryan had run the same trails that she moved along now.
Far out of town, the music floating in the air all about her, she seemed no closer to finding Bradwarden than when she had been sitting on the porch. That was part of the centaur's magic. His song was simply part of the night and never seemed to emanate from anywhere specifically. It was just a general tune, filtering fully about the trees. Standing there, turning slowly, Pony could not begin to guess the direction of the piper.
With a determined nod, a reminder to herself of what Dasslerond had done to her, the woman reached into her gemstone pouch and brought forth a hematite, a soul stone. She moved it in close to her breast and closed her eyes, focusing her thoughts on the smooth feel of the gray stone.
There was a depth to this one above all the other enchanted gemstones, an inviting richness, and into that gray swirl went Pony's thoughts, and into that gray swirl went Pony.
She escaped her mortal coil and moved out, looking back at herself as she stood motionless, clutching the stone that had become the link between her body and her spirit.
Free of her mortal bonds, Pony soared out on the same night breezes that carried the centaur's melody. She floated up high, above the canopy, and willed herself along at great speed, covering the distance more quickly than even mighty Symphony ever could.
When she found Bradwarden, she found, too, a warmth in her heart as profound as that she had felt when she had first seen Braumin and Roger again. There he was, eight hundred pounds of muscle. From a distance, an ignorant onlooker might have thought him a large rider on a small bay mount, but up close it became evident that the rider and mount were one and the same, for Bradwarden's muscular human torso, waist up, rose where the neck of his horse body should have begun.
Intent on his music, the centaur's eyes were closed as he held the bagpipes tucked under his powerful arm, while his hands worked the many openings along its neck. His hair was still black and wild, with a full beard and great curly locks, and though he was older now, no slackness had come into his corded muscles. The centaur looked as if he could crush stone under that powerful arm as easily as he was squeezing the air out of his musical pipes.
Pony's spirit slipped down near to him and hovered about for a few moments, until the centaur, apparently sensing the presence, popped open wide his intense eyes. His song ended with a discordant shriek.
The centaur glanced all around, seeming on his guard and confused.
Pony didn't move her spirit any closer. One of the great risks of spirit- walking was the ever-present instinct of the spirit to