Rock of Ages by Walter Jon Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

the hardware. And I wasn’t planning on riding through heavy brush, either, though the chaps will be useful if we do.”
    Roberta arrived, dressed casually, and looked at Maijstral in surprise. “I’ve seen that costume before,” she offered, “You wore it on the night of the Grand Ball on Silverside, when you stole my necklace.”
    “I hope the associations aren’t too unpleasant.”
    Roberta offered an ambiguous smile. “Quite the contrary. It was an exhilarating evening.”
    “Perhaps,” said the Bubber, “I should introduce you to your horses. And, ah, Drake—I’d take off those spurs if I were you. There might be an accident.”
    Maijstral had fantasized himself flying along on a midnight steed, a lean animal, all clean streamlined angles and flying mane and surging muscle, but his horse turned out to be a gentle, middle-aged gray mare named Morganna, who jogged along the path without any apparent need for direction on Maijstral’s part. Even so Maijstral found the sensation a bit alarming. The large beast moving beneath him gave him the sensation of being harnessed to a slow-motion earthquake, a natural force of sufficient power to cause injury if be made the wrong move. Still, he and the horse managed to get along well enough, and he found himself enjoying the experience.
    Roberta was less successful. It became obvious from the first that she and her mount were engaged in a furious contest of wills from which, very possibly, there would be but one survivor.
    “I can’t understand it,” the Bubber remarked, after they’d been riding about ten minutes. “Ringo’s been a perfectly tractable animal till now.”
    “If this beast doesn’t soon learn to obey,” Roberta said through clenched teeth, “I’m going to break every single one of its ribs.”
    Roberta was a world-class racer, with the powerful legs necessary to negotiate the turns and leaps of the zero-gravity maze, and she might well have been capable of carrying out her threat.
    “Just try to relax,” the Bubber suggested.
    Ringo regarded the Duchess from a red, rolling eye, ears flattened. “ Relax? ” Roberta cried. “ How? With this wretched animal confounding my every . . .”
    Roberta urged it forward, and instead, out of contrariness, it backed. Roberta’s ears drew back in anger. She kicked the horse to get it moving, those powerful racer’s legs driving into the animal’s ribs . . . and Ringo took off with a bound, almost flinging Roberta over its tail, and raced top speed across country. Roberta hung on gamely, crouched over the horse’s neck, and hurled abuse into its ear as it carried her off.
    Maijstral watched in alarm at this development right out of one of his Westerns. The heroine’s animal had run off with her, and it was clearly up to the hero to do something about it. If Elvis had been here, or Jesse James, the course of action would have been clear. But Maijstral, an equestrian tyro, was helpless to intervene. If he’d only worn an a-grav harness, he could have flown after the Duchess and plucked her from the saddle with ease.
    Fortunately the Bubber was up to the challenge and raced off in pursuit. Maijstral peered anxiously after, but all he could see were two swiftly moving clouds of dust aiming for a convergence on the horizon. After a certain amount of negotiation with his animal he managed to work it up to a trot; and he jounced along in pursuit, feeling as if life had just handed him the sidekick role.
    Eventually, emerging from the heat shimmer on the horizon came the Bubber on his horse, with Roberta mounted behind and a lathered Ringo following on a lead. The Bubber was grinning, and even Roberta had a smile tugging at her lips.
    “I trust you’re not injured?” Maijstral asked.
    “Not at all,” Roberta said. “Will was the perfect rescuer. Snatched me right out of the saddle and set me behind him as if I were a child.” She patted the Bubber on the shoulder. “You’re stronger than you