Question Sted 11 - Wine Dark Sea

All rights reserved, except for those ceded to the Whateley Academy Author’s Group.

This is fan fiction for the Whateley Academy series. It may or may not match the timeline, characters, and continuity, but since it's fan fiction, who cares?

This is the eleventh story about Sted "Ponygirl" Lancaster. The entire series, at least at the present time, is:

*Pegasus (v4)
* * * Deleted scenes
*Welcome to Whitman
*Fragment from It's A Bird!
*To Train a Ponygirl
*Aftermath
*Ponygirl's Combat Final (game to come)
*What I did on my Christmas Vacation (second edition)
*Lizards (in preparation)
*Fashion Note
*Aspidistra (Version 2)
*Wine Dark Sea <<<=====

Out of continuity:

*Roommates

NOTE — incidents leading up to this story are in To Train a Ponygirl, the episode on December 28th in What I Did on my Christmas Vacation and Aspidistra.

Chapter 1
March 24, 2007


“Hey, Andi, you ready yet?” Andromeda’s aunt Dionysia called from the main room of Andromeda’s family’s house.

“Just a sec, Aunt,” Andromeda called. The 14-year-old brunette took a last look in the mirror. Her outfit of a gaudy sleeveless blouse, short skirt and heeled sandals would just have to do. It might be a bit chilly, but for a day out mixing with all the foreign tourists that were sure to be there, she wanted to look her best. She picked up her purse and headed into the main room, where she buried herself in her aunt’s waiting arms.

The two women walked out of the house to the waiting lemon-yellow Citroën. A moment later, Di had it barreling down the coastal highway bordering the Aegean Sea, the wine dark sea of Homer’s epics the Iliad and the Odyssey, toward the target of their outing today: the Joyful Winds Hotel, a popular tourist destination. Dionysia turned on the radio to catch the news.

Hellenic Police Headquarters has confirmed that the sea monster has demanded its monthly tribute from another village. They also say they haven’t been able to put together a superhero team that’s certain it can take on the monster and win. The village is selecting the young woman who will be sacrificed to it.

The mayor of last month’s village hung himself. His note said he did what he had to do to protect the village, but he simply couldn’t go on.

Andromeda punched the button on the car’s radio to get another station. She noticed a subtle movement out of the corner of her eye. “I wish,” she muttered feelingly, “someone would do something to get rid of that monster.”

A vast, at least by human standards if not by other standards, non-material being took note of a wish uttered in the hearing of one of her worshipers.

Dionysia reached over to pat Andromeda comfortingly on the knee. “You’ll be out of danger in a couple of years, and there are a lot of villages.”

Andromeda took a deep breath. “I know, Aunt. WATCH OUT!”

Di jerked her attention back on the road and dodged around a donkey cart that had appeared out of nowhere.


The two tumblers cartwheeled their way out of the small arena. The small audience clapped enthusiastically.

“And now,” the announcer bellowed, “our final act! A show you will not see anywhere else! Our four highly trained athletes show off their amazing power by pulling chariots around the arena!”

Drum roll. The big door on the end opened and four people trotted out, and trotted was the right word. The four of them wore different colored leotards and sported a spray of plumes on their heads. They weren’t just pulling the chariots; they were harnessed into them! The chariots looked pretty lightweight; the drivers probably weighed more than they did.

The two chariots went back and forth, in time to a selection from *Dance of the Hours*, finishing up with a full-out race around the arena.

“That,” Andromeda breathed as she clapped enthusiastically, “was beautiful.” A subtle movement occurred in the corner of her vision. She wondered briefly what it would be like to be one of the athletes pulling the chariots.

A vast, immaterial being noticed the magically charged thought. The multi-dimensional web of possibilities, probabilities, likelihoods and contingencies led to a possible entanglement with another of her concerns. She reached out. The half-formed wish solidified into a minor geas.

Chapter 2
Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Mayor Hektor Borkantis looked at the two grim-faced men sitting in front of his desk. His face was equally grim.

“Hellenic Police headquarters verified the signature?” he asked Captain Plato Helikos, the town’s chief of police.

“Yes, Mayor. Hellenic Police Headquarters verified it.”

“And?”

“They haven’t managed to put together a superhero team capable of taking the monster on and wining.”

The mayor looked at Father Prikonita, the town’s Greek Orthodox bishop, and suppressed what he was about to say. “I routed the demands to our treasurer. We can cover them. Barely. He says we might have to defer several improvement projects.”

The police chief shrugged. “We live another year. Hopefully.”

He was undoubtedly thinking of the past year. The first village to receive the monster’s demands had thought it was a joke. The smoke from the burned-out husk of that village had quit rising a year ago. The second village had paid. So had the third. A superhero team had come out from Athens at the fourth demand, and had lost. That village was no more. As were the thousands of people who had lived there.

“It’s the last item on the list that concerns me,” Father Prikonita said. “One maiden, between 13 and 15. Virginity optional.”

The police chief drew in a long breath and let it out. “This may have a silver lining.”

Father Prikonita looked at him. “A very tarnished sliver lining.”


Sted “Ponygirl” Lancaster floated in front of her desk, one leg tucked under her and the other extended as if she was sitting, her scarlet tail poking out the back of her shorts and drooping to the floor. This was the most comfortable pose she’d found since her mutation had emerged two years ago; her tail simply didn’t get along well with chairs while her very personal relationship with gravity let her do things that would have had Isaac Newton spinning in his grave. At the same time, the horsehair that covered her legs from the knee down didn’t go well with slacks, and her admantium-shod horse’s hooves were better at stepping on shoes than wearing them.

The Whateley Academy freshman otherwise looked fairly normal — if you ignored the fire-engine red mane that looked like a mohawk, extended to the bottom of her shoulders and then fell another few inches past the deep V in the back of her blouse, the corn-flower blue eyes set just a bit too far apart and the horse’s ears that extended a good inch above her head.

On the other side of the Whitman Cottage dorm room, her roommate, Derala, stared intently at the textbook she had open on a reading stand. A page turned, apparently by itself, as a number of keys pressed themselves on the open laptop sitting on a stand next to the book. The big black bird with the girl’s head nodded as she read the next passage. Some more keys pressed themselves on the laptop.

Sted shook her head as she dismissed the lecture notes for her Devisor Biology course. Lady Flypaper, an Italian Wall Lizard who was perched on her shoulder looking at the laptop, gave a barely audible cheep as the screen changed suddenly.

She frowned thoughtfully. It was past time to figure out what had been bugging her for the last few days. She reached into her purse and retrieved her Tarot deck. This was the special deck she’d enchanted in her Principles of Magic class the first semester. It was supposed to be a beginner’s spell to attune the deck to herself to improve her ability to use it for divination. The result wasn’t quite what anyone expected: the cards had all changed and had a habit of changing further. It was, as far as she knew, the only Ponygirl-Ryder-Waite deck in existence.

She swiftly laid out the Celtic Cross on her desk, starting with the Situation crossed with the Challenge. Then the Foundation, the context, the Past, the Future and finally the four cards in the Staff: the Desires, outside influences, a potential outcome, the likely outcome.

Several cards almost leaped out at her. The past showed one of the ever-changing cards of the Major Arcana: a green-eyed redhead whose ears couldn’t quite decide whether they were rounded or pointed. Shit! Lady Morigan! The Situation showed another of the Major Arcana: a tall, bearded young man holding a trident and with a sea-horse motif in the background. This was crossed with one of the court cards: the Owner of Bridles. And the outside influence was another of the Major Arcana: a shifting, almost invisible figure holding some kind of a document. The Future was the 9 of Chariots, which had a picture of a ship. A long journey? The potential outcome showed one of the Major Arcana from the Golden Dawn deck: Perseus rescuing Andromeda.

Sted thought she heard a giggle from the presence that occasionally lurked in the back of her mind. She took a deep breath and let it out. The “ponygirl goddess” was one of the more unfortunate facts of her young life, as well as one of the more unavoidable ones. They were bound together by a quirk in the Laws of Magic, and, truth be told, neither one was entirely happy with the relationship. The goddess had been created, quite by accident, as a result of another quirk in the Laws of Magic, and she was sustained by the activity of several tens of thousands of fetishists worldwide. From Sted’s viewpoint, looking like many of the fetishist’s wet dreams was bad enough, considering that what they did was somehow legitimate strained her moral sense to the limit.

The goddess was equally put out. She’d originally tried to maneuver Sted into being a fetishist’s dream of a full-time ponygirl, and Sted had rejected the idea. Forcefully. Now she was trying to maneuver Sted into a role as her High Priestess. Given that the goddess could manipulate probability like she had the Fates on speed-dial, that was working. Sort of. At least they could both live with it. Usually.

Time for a working vacation, the ponygirl goddess said. Your visa should arrive tomorrow. There’s something in your spam folder you need to act on, and there’s something you need to learn. Quickly.

A crystal-clear image of a page from the Powers Theory textbook rose, unbidden, in Sted’s mind’s eye. She pulled up the online version and started to read the chapter on teleportation. Booorrring! Then she sat back as her tail swished. Teleportation? The teleportation tests hadn’t shown a quiver during powers testing, and nothing had turned up during Powers Lab either. It couldn’t be a spell. The goddess would have shown her the Theory of Magic textbook and anyway teleportation spells were way over her head both in complexity and power requirements.

So if it wasn’t a standard Warper ability and it wasn’t magic, what was left? Her shifter talent? That was certainly anomalous. She had four fixed forms, ranging in size from a cabbit to a winged horse, with her present ponygirl form and her centaur form in between. When she switched between them they simply replaced each other without any intermediate transformation. Powers Testing had thrown up its metaphorical hands in frustration — they’d never seen anything like it and they had enough other things to do to try to classify all the new students to spend more time on her.

She tapped the floor with one hoof a few times. Maybe?

She unfolded into a standing position and settled onto the floor.

“Whazzup?” Derala asked.

“I’m going to try something.” Sted’s form shimmered a moment and vanished. At the same time, a shimmer occurred on the other side of the room. When it cleared, Sted stood there.

Derala craned her head around. “You teleported?”

“Sure looks like it.”

“I didn’t know you could do that!”

“Neither did I. Now to figure out how far I can go and how to control it.” Sted dove back for her desk. “It’s list making time.”

“Shouldn’t you let Powers Testing do that?”

“If I can get an appointment before Spring Break.”

“Lotsa luck.”


The tall, powerfully built young man accepted a cup of wine from the serving wench. He took a sip and savored it. “One of your better vintages, nephew,” he addressed the other man in the penthouse office atop the Joyful Wind luxury hotel.

The merry-faced young man tried to avoid looking pleased at the complement. “The growers and wine-makers are learning. A few more years, and I might have something that can be compared to ambrosia without falling over laughing.”

“Those were the days,” Poseidon said. “Fortunately, we’ve still got our power base.”

Dion laughed. “People don’t do much sailing any more, but the sea is still the sea and seamen are still seamen. There’s less fervor, but there’s a lot more of them. And people still like to drink and have fun.”

“True. Agriculture has not gone out of fashion either. Hearth and home will last as long as the world.”

“It’s the other ten I worry about.”

Poseidon shrugged. “They’re at that children’s school over in the New World. Who knows why the Python made her recommendations that way, but I’m just as glad she did. From what I hear, my brother still thinks he’s got a chance of ruling the world. And his son is as crazy as ever.”

Chapter 3
Saturday, April 22, 2007

Sted finished stuffing her two suitcases into her purse, which was a lot larger on the inside than on the outside. It had been a gift from her mentor before she left for Whateley Academy. “Time to go.”

“I hope you have fun,” Derala said.

“I hope so too.” She took the prepared spell slip and focused on it. In a moment she felt the spell lock onto the courtyard of the Joyful Wind hotel, somewhere on one of the islands of the Aegean Sea. She shimmered slightly and was gone.

A shimmering occurred in the courtyard of the Joyful Wind hotel. A bare moment later, a centaur stood there, dressed in a modish blouse and jacket combination over her torso, and with a purse slung over her shoulder.

A little, whiney voice said in Greek: %Mommy!%

%What, dear?% Then it shrieked. %A centaur!%

%It’s a statue, dear,% another voice proclaimed.

Sted turned around to look, and was almost blinded by several flash strobes from cameras.

%It’s *not* a statue,% a feminine voice answered.

%But, but... Centaurs don’t exist.%

%Tell it to the centaur.%

%Where’s my camera, dear?%

%Where you left it — on the dresser.%

%Can I have a ride, mommy?%

A man in a dark suit rushed out of the door and stopped dead in his tracks. He pulled out a phone. %Desk! Do we have a centaur registered?%

Sted ambled over and handed him the confirmation.

He listened a moment. %You thought it was a joke?%

He listened some more. %We have a centaur out here, and she has a confirmed reservation.%

Sted frowned as she listened to the rapid-fire Greek. It was beginning to make sense.

Then the greeter blanched. %You can’t be serious!%

Sted heard a muted giggle in the back of her mind. “Your clerk has suggested your ponygirl stable?”

His jaw dropped. “You know about that?”

“I believe you’ve had some dealings with someone called Lady Morigan? And also Lord Mountebank?”

He blanched again.

Sted laughed. “Not to worry. Lady Morigan and I have crossed paths before. We’ve agreed to glare at each other from a distance, at least until we work out a few ... issues.” She paused. “I believe Lady Morigan is about to solve Lord Mountebank’s quality problems. Permanently.”

His face clouded. “I do not approve, but what can one do?” He spread his hands in a gesture dismissing the matter as hopeless. “Lord Dion wants it. At least Lady Morigan’s appear to be happy and stay fit. Lord Mountebank’s...”

“Have serious foot, ankle, knee and hip problems that probably keep your healers busy. And most likely attitude problems as well. I may be able to do something with them.”

“Oh really? If a stall in the stable is satisfactory, let’s get you settled.”

Sted laughed. “You don’t need to go that far. I’m a shifter, but my most human-looking form would cause more problems than it’s worth considering the ... special attraction ... we were just discussing.”

“You brought luggage?”

Sted pulled one of her suitcases out of her purse.

The manager’s eyes bulged. “I see. I need to check something.” He pressed a speed-dial on his phone. “Lord Dion?”

He listened a moment. “We have a real centaur as a guest.” He listened a moment and then his eyes bulged out. Again. “Yes, that’s her name. You know her?”

He listened some more. “I see. An executive suite. Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it, sir.”

He flipped the phone closed. “Lord Dion says he wants to talk with you. He’ll be down in a half hour or so. He’ll bring Theo and Elena; they’re our two staff mages.”


Sted preened a bit. She’d managed to unpack enough to be able to shift back into her ponygirl form and change into a fashionable skirt and blouse outfit that was, thankfully, about as far from her school uniform as it was possible to get and still be a fairly demure skirt and blouse outfit.

Sted looked around at the suite. Now this is living. It was two rooms. The sitting room had a bar, a table that would seat a half dozen people for a conference, and a desk for working. The other room was a rather lavish bedroom. Plus, of course, a bathroom, equally lavish. It also came with a maid, named Teresa.

Teresa was still trying to avoid staring. It probably wasn’t the fire-engine red mane that resembled a Mohawk: that wasn’t too far out of the way for a rebellious teen who didn’t want to go goth. The horse’s ears, the corn-flower blue eyes set just a bit too far apart, the equally red tail and the hooves probably had more to do with it. Especially since the hooves were not making much of an impression in the rug.

There was a knock on the door. Sted gestured, and Teresa hurried to open it. As soon as she saw who it was, she curtsied.

Sted said: “Lord Poseidon, Lord Dionysus. A pleasure. And Adepts Theo and Elena?”

“And it is a pleasure to meet you, Sted,” Poseidon rumbled. “Your patron goddess has been around, but she’s not all that comfortable with dealing with us without her High Priestess.”

“And we have the definite impression,” Dionysus said, “that she has a number of things she wants to discuss.”

“Before we settle down, may I offer you some refreshments?”

“The wine in the back cabinet,” Dion told Teresa. “This is a vintage I’ve been working on.” He frowned slightly at Sted. “Are you old enough?”

“Legally, no. However, alcohol doesn’t affect me.”

“Oh, really?” Dion said.

“The school noticed something unusual during my medical exam, so we investigated. They think I could probably get a bit high for a minute or two if I chugged five or six fifths of Absolut vodka. I’m in no hurry to try. It would be hard on my throat.”

Poseidon put his head back and laughed. “My sailors would not like that.”

“Nor would my revelers,” Dionysus added. “So to business. What does your divine patron want?”

“I’m not entirely sure. All I really know is that you’ve got a human pony stable hidden somewhere around here. It’s available for amateurs to get a pony experience. You’ve also got several full time ponies you acquired from either Lady Morigan or Lord Mountebank. I’m surprised you don’t have any of Sir Teliard’s or The Equestrian’s product; Sir Teliard does quite the best work, or at least he did until a few months ago.”

“We tried one of them,” Theodosius said. “They were too strong.”

Sted shrugged. “Most of them are quite cooperative if you treat them well.” She paused. “I brought a number of spells with me that ought to help with both varieties, as well as some things that might, um, deepen the experience for those of your clients who want to play pony.” She paused again. “If you’ve got a problem with strength, though, you’ll have problems with these spells. You’ll also have problems with Lady Morigan’s new breed.”

“Oh? I’ve heard rumors that they’re all saddle ponies,” Dion said.

“They are. Lady Morigan copied my genetics; they’re on the low end of Exemplar-4.”

Elena whistled. “You’d really want to stay on their good side.”

“Well, yes. By the time any of the vendors are done with them, they’re thoroughly convinced they’ll never be able to go back, and most of them are quite willing to be ridden, pull carts and show off in return for being fed, stabled and cared for.”

“That’s what I’m seeing,” Dionysus said. “Your goddess told you how that works?”

“Not her. How I know is confidential.”

Poseidon turned to Teresa. “You may leave us.”

Sted waited for Teresa to leave. “There’s a rehabilitation center in the U.S. for human ponies that have been recovered from owners on raids. The government wants it kept quiet. I spent a week there, so I know the problems they’ve got returning.”

“Closing the circle,” Poseidon said.

Dionysus nodded. “So you’re here to help close the circle?”

“More to find out what it’s like. The rehab center isn’t a normal owner’s establishment. We don’t have any idea how it’s going to turn out. Besides, you’ve got part time clients.”

“Good point,” Dion said. “Could we get those enhancements for our regular clients?”

“If I give your adepts the spells, I can’t see how I could stop you. It might not be a real good idea, though. I don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the world, but in the U.S. they’d have to register with the Department of Paranormal Affairs and carry a Mutant Identification Card (MID). Besides, EX-4 strength is a bit like the fabled bull in the china shop until you adjust and quit putting your hand through walls by accident.”

“That would put a damper on it,” Dionysus said. “It was a thought. So what do you have for us?”

“The big thing is the spell that Lady Morigan uses to enhance hers. We reverse engineered it because of the problems with Lord Mountebank’s. It’s really an interesting spell.” Sted’s eyes glowed briefly.

Elena cocked her head slightly, eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t think a secondary school student could create that level of spell.”

Sted laughed. “Oh, it isn’t my work. The head mage at the rehabilitation center I mentioned did it since she needed parts of it for various reasons. I beta tested it; she’s a Sidhe and we found a number of places where she used Sidhe magic and had to redo it so us round-eyes could handle it.”

“So it’ll be possible to ride all of them?” Dionysus asked.

“After you train them appropriately. Lady Morigan also has a new saddle harness that makes riding easier on both the pony and the rider. You ought to be able to buy them from her.”

She paused. “I can also put a control on the collars she uses so your staff can turn speech, the psychic null and the dexterity suppressor on and off. I can also provide the same kind of collar for Lord Mountebank’s as well as your clients. Those are removable while Lady Morigan’s aren’t.”

“That needs to be thought on,” Dion said. “Do you want to see the stable now?”

“I think the next thing on my schedule,” Sted said, “is to check in with your police.”


Police stations must be the same the world over. Sted managed to walk up the colonnaded steps, which was not the easiest thing on four hooves, and into the Hellenic Police station. She located what looked like the desk officer.

The desk officer closed his mouth with a snap when he saw a centaur walking toward him. “May I help you, miss?”

She placed her MID on the desk. “I believe I need to see your immigration officer.”

“This isn’t a port of entry so we’re kind of light on those.” He picked it up. “I’ve never seen one of these before.” He inserted it into the card reader next to his screen and studied what it showed him.

“Your visa seems to be in order. Let’s see. You’re a student at an undisclosed secondary school, and you’re a sworn police auxiliary?”

“In my home city.” She put the Topeka police auxiliary card on the table.

He looked at it a moment and then entered a query. He picked up the police auxiliary card and compared it minutely with what the screen showed. Then he picked up his hush phone and spoke into it.

“Everything’s in order. The captain would like to see you.” He handed the two cards back.


Hellenic Police captain Giorgos Konstantos rose briefly from behind his desk to greet Sted. He sat back down as the escort left and closed the door.

“I don’t often get to see creatures out of mythology in this office.”

“I suppose not. Although….”

“You mean those two who think they’re Poseidon and Dionysus reincarnated?”

“As far as I can tell, they’re authentic.”

“And how would you know?”

“Most of the rest of that pantheon go to school with me.”

“You’re ... not joking, are you?”

“I wish I was.” Sted shrugged. “I stay out of their way.”

Captain Giorgos waved the subject away. “Anyway. A secondary school student who’s already a police auxiliary and is traveling on her own. Your MCO record indicates several incidents, two of which are classified?”

“The federal Sex Crimes unit doesn’t want those two incidents talked about.”

“Don’t tell me you’re here about that supposedly secret facility Dionysus runs?”

“Sorry, but that’s exactly why I’m here.”

The captain shook his head grimly. “How is that going to affect us?”

“Well,” Sted said, settling back slightly, “I’m going to have to give you a bit of background that isn’t in the official dossier. I’m here because of a bit of divine politics.”

“There’s more divinities involved?”

“At least one. The goddess I represent is heavily involved with what Dionysus is doing. You could say I’m her High Priestess, although that isn’t entirely accurate, especially if you think of a priestess as someone who does rituals and supervises a cult, but it’s probably close enough.

“If all goes well, when I’m done we’ll have fixed most of the health problems. From your viewpoint the biggest change is that they’ll all be induced Exemplar-4s, and they’ll all be rideable. Assuming Dionysus gets a decent trainer.”

“Fixing the health problems is good news. Induced Exemplar isn’t good news. We don’t need a bunch of pissed-off whatevers with superhuman strength running around this island.”

“There are ... reasons ... why they’re not going to be generally unruly if they’re treated right. I’ve already talked to Lord Dionysus about that, and I’m pretty sure he understands the issues involved.”

“Good. Now what’s the rest of the bad news?”

“Lord Dionysus will be able to give his guests a more authentic experience; some of them may want the strength enhancement or some of the other features. That might take some finesse.”

“I see.” The captain thought a moment. “How long are you planning to stay?”

“A week. Then I have to be back at school.”

“I’m going to want a full briefing before you leave.”

“Of course, Captain.”


Elena opened the door to her and Theo’s workroom and stood back to let Sted and Theo precede her. Sted looked around curiously. It seemed to be a pretty ordinary example of the species. There were several circles scribed into the concrete floor, a wall of books and a long table with various alchemical and magical devices.

Sted’s form shimmered a moment, and her ponygirl form replaced the centaur.

“So what have you got for us?” Theo asked.

“I’m going to have to lay things out,” Sted answered.

“Use this,” Elena said. She walked over to the long workbench and moved several objects.

Sted started pulling things out of her purse and laying them on the table. The first was a pair of books. “These contain the spells you’ll need, and,” she laid several perfect quartz crystals on the table, “these contain the specifications for the genetic changes. The change spells won’t work without them.

“This,” she laid a black circlet on the table, “is similar to the collar that Lady Morrigan’s wear. There are several differences. The biggest one is that it’s removable; don’t even think of trying to remove Lady Morigan’s. They’re designed to kill the wearer if they’re tampered with.”

Elena grimaced as if she was tasting something sour. “We were told that.”

“It’s true. The texts have the full instructions for making them. The hard part is that it’s an adamantium base, and I understand that making adamantium presents some difficulty.”

Theo laughed. “Not for a mage. It has to be done right, of course. I’m surprised non-mages can do it at all.”

Sted put a remote control on the table. “This lets you open and close it, and also turns the speech suppressor, dexterity suppressor and psychic null on and off. It’s just a control box; anyone who does this kind of work can make one. The trick is that it’s linked by a spell.”

Elena picked it up. “Law of Similarity? No, it has to be Contagion.”

“Exactly. Once joined, always linked.”

“The link would have to be strengthened somehow,” Elena mused. “That’s pretty standard?”

“Right. The joining is in the book as well. The speech suppressor isn’t for Lord Mountebank’s ponies; their brains have been damaged to eliminate their ability to talk or understand speech.”

Elena grimaced again. “I hadn’t spotted that!”

“The rehab center I mentioned heals the damage and retrains them to speak, but it’s a long process and I didn’t bring the healing spells the head mage uses; they’re not only way above my ability level, they’re mostly Sidhe magic. Anyway, he’s going to be out of business shortly. The speech suppressor is for your guests. In fact, you might not want to use the remotes at all for the ponies.”

Elena grimmaced again. “Those spells are probably way outside of our area of expertise as well.”

“Why wouldn’t we want to restore their speech?” Theo asked.

Elena looked at him. “If you think you might not like what you hear, don’t ask the question.”

Theo frowned. Then he nodded. “Got it.”

Sted took a hoof, foot and fitting out of her purse. “The prosthetic hoof is for Lord Mountebank’s ponies if you don’t want to use the complete transformation on them. The complete system is for any of your guests who want to experiment with hooves, but don’t want them permanently.”

Theo asked: “I take it there’s a reason for not using a straight transformation?”

Sted shook her head. “The goddess suggested doing it this way. The rehab center wasn’t having a lot of success replacing hooves with feet. There are ... reasons ... why it didn’t work, or at least why she doesn’t want it to work.”

Elena frowned and then shook her head to dismiss the speculation.

Sted took a second remote out of her purse. “Now this is for Lady Morrigan’s collars. The reason it’s different is because of the instability; attaching it is a very finicky process to avoid making the collar go unstable and killing the wearer. The head mage at the rehabilitation center is the only one who does it regularly. I’m the only other person who’s ever done it.”

Theo picked it up and turned it over in his hand. “From what you just said, I think we need to discuss this with Lord Dionysus. We might not want to use it at all.”

Continued in Part 2

Chapter 4
April 23, 2007

Andromeda stood on the dock in the early morning sun together with the other three girls from her farming and fishing village. The four stood, uncharacteristically quiet, next to the small fishing boat which had already been loaded with the tribute the monster had demanded.

Three of them would walk back to the village. One would walk onto the boat, and, if she was very lucky, not survive the day. Unless, of course, the government in Athens had managed to put together another superhero group and it managed to win against the monster which had been exacting tribute from the villages for the last year.

A hastily eaten breakfast seemed to want to crawl around in her stomach. If she was lucky, one of the other girls would draw the marked lot, go onto the boat and not return. Ever. The priest had made them swear, on the ikon of the Blessed Virgin, to go with their rescuer and serve him in all things. Not that she expected that to happen! Dead was dead, whether being eaten by the monster or dying in the fight between the monster and the next superhero team to try to take it down.

She shuddered slightly. The first time the monster had told a village what it needed to do, they had laughed. What little was left had quit smoking a year ago. A superhero team had come down from Athens to fight the monster. They’d lost, and that village too lay in ruins, with thousands dead and the surrounding fields of grape vines and olive trees devastated.

She wanted to scream! Get it over with!

Finally, Hektor Borkantis, the village mayor, approached. He held out the box with the four balls in it, three white and one blood red. Andromeda reached in, took out a ball and held it in her hand, palm down and unseen. She tried, hard, to neither pray that one of the other girls would get the red ball, or that she would. One would be murder, the other would be suicide, and if she arrived before Saint Peter with either on her soul....

The four girls turned their hands over to show what color ball each of them held.


Sted sat back with a happy sigh after finishing her scrambled eggs and grape juice. This was definitely better than the usual breakfast in the Crystal Hall, and even better than at home. Whether it was as good as the chefs gave Ayla Goodkind was debatable, but she was willing to let that lie. Ayla undoubtedly bribed them unmercifully.

“Is there a local news channel?” she asked Teresa.

Teresa touched the controls on the television, which turned on to show a shot of a very unhappy looking, and very naked, girl chained to a rock in the middle of the sea.

“What is that!”

“She’s being sacrificed to the sea monster,” Teresa said matter-of-factly. “It probably threatened to destroy her village if it didn’t give it supplies. And a sacrifice.”

“What kind of sea monster asks for supplies?”

“It’s some kind of villain. A couple of heroes came down from Athens to deal with it, but it killed them and then destroyed the village.”

“Meaning they’re not trying any more.”

“Not until they can get a more powerful team here.”

Sted took a deep breath and shook her head. Fortunately not my business.

The presence stirred in the back of her mind. She’s yours — if you can defeat the monster.

Sted’s eyes widened. She’s what?

Yours. She swore an oath to go with her rescuer. Her village will not take her back if she gets rescued.

You set this up.

The presence giggled. Of course.

What would I do with her?

Several images cascaded through her mind.

You’ve got to be joking! I couldn’t do that to her!

Some more images cascaded through her mind.

Sted shook her head grimly. She has got to be nuts!

The presence giggled again. That’s partly why they don’t want her back.

More images cascaded as Sted and her goddess negotiated, sifting through the possible, improbable, utterly certain, wildly unlikely and merely contingent while the subject of their debate stared morosely at the gentle waves lapping at her toes, unaware that her fate was being decided. The nodes of probability shifted as the possible became probable and the likely became certain. Sted finally shrugged slightly. This was the best she was going to get, and it definitely had possibilities. She felt a smirk in the back of her mind; the goddess had gotten what she wanted.

Sted came back to awareness of the room and noticed Teresa had backed up and was staring at her. “Sorry. I was talking to my goddess. She wants me to deal with that.” Sted got up and waved her hand. A flash of mystic light occurred, and then she stood there in her super-heroine costume. She shimmered a moment and vanished.

Teresa took a deep breath, shook her head and began clearing the table.


The seagulls are pretty. I wish the monster would get here and get it over with! Andromeda scowled and then tried to relax as much as she could, which wasn’t all that much with her wrists and ankles tethered to the rock by chains. Very short chains attached to bolts that had been hammered into the rock beyond her futile efforts to pull them out. At least the Sun was warm on her bare skin, while the long, slow waves caressed her ankles before breaking against the rock in a shower of spray and the breeze nipped at her skin, raising goose bumps as it passed. The water was probably about 15 degrees; at least that was what the forecast had said. Her feet were beginning to go numb.

Am I going to be rescued? Hah! The priest had made her swear on the icon of the Blessed Virgin to go with her rescuer and serve him in all things. Truth to tell, they really didn’t want her back, that was why they had rigged the lots for which of their village’s four young women they’d sacrifice to the sea monster.

The monster claimed supplies and a sacrifice from one of the seaside villages every month or so. Around eight months ago a superhero team had come out from Athens to battle the monster. It had won, and then it had reduced the village it had claimed tribute from to smoking ruins. They hadn’t tried that again, although she supposed it was just a matter of time before the government got another strike force together.

The Hellenic News helicopter that had been buzzing around and probably showing her image to fascinated viewers suddenly bobbed and then headed away.

A voice speaking English with an American accent said out of nowhere: “You’ve got to be catching a chill from the spray.”

Andromeda looked around, the chains tugging at her arms. “What!”

Whoever it was appeared, apparently standing on air. She seemed to be dressed in a green leotard and had a black band around her head that covered her eyes.

“I said that spray can’t be all that pleasant. By the way, I’m Ponygirl. I seem to have been appointed to play Perseus to your Andromeda.”

“How did you know my name?”

“You’re really Andromeda? Fancy that.”

“There’s another Andromeda around?”

The apparition said: “I’d assume a Greek maiden would know the legends.”

“I’m Christian. The priest doesn’t like old legends.”

“I’d better hide.”

“Hey! You’re not going to release me?”

The apparition shook its head. “There’s an order to these things. First slay monster. Then release fair maiden, who’s supposed to be so overjoyed at being rescued that she goes off with her rescuer. Except you’re not a blonde, but we can’t have everything.”

“Well, I can’t go back.”

“Oh, why not?”

“I swore an oath to go with my rescuer. If I come back, they’ll …. ” She shuddered slightly.

“It doesn’t really matter. If I simply make off with you, the monster will destroy your village, and neither the Greek Government nor the MCO would like that. Not to mention the people you grew up with. Anyway, what do you think I’ll do with you?”

“I wasn’t expecting a superheroine,” she muttered. Then she took a good look at Ponygirl, taking in the flaming scarlet mane, her ears and the space-black band around her head. Moving down, the green leotard and the belt decorated with cartoon ponies were above her horse-hair covered legs and hooves with fluttering wings?

A geyser of hope welled up. Maybe? She took a deep breath. “Could you turn me into a ponygirl. Like you?”

The apparition might have frowned, but it was hard to tell with that band concealing her eyes. “Why would you want to do that?”

“I’ve seen the ones at the Joyful Wind. They’re cute!”

And you’re nuts. “I can, but not like me. Like the ones at the Joyful Wind or at least like they’ll be shortly. I can guarantee two things. First, you won’t like the training, and second, you won’t be able to go back.”

“It’s got to be better than being eaten. Although if it doesn’t get here soon, I hope it likes cold cuts!”

“You’re cold?”

“My feet are numb!”

“Oh.” The apparition reached into its belt and took out a bracelet, which it put on her left wrist, just above the shackle. “This ought to keep you warm. Or at least not freezing.”

Andromeda craned her head down to look at her wrist. “What’s that?”

“Something one of my friends whipped up to let him swim in ice-cold river water. He quit doing it when they figured out how he managed the trick; he’s not really the athletic type, and it wasn’t getting him any dates. I rescued it when he threw it away; I’m something of a packrat for odd devices. I’d say have fun waiting, but I have no idea how you’d manage that.”

“You’re not staying?”

The apparition shook its head again. “Like I just said, first defeat the monster. Then collect the prize. If you’re still alive.” It vanished.

“I hope that was a hallucination,” Andromeda muttered. She looked at the bracelet on her wrist again and sighed. Her feet screamed at her with returning circulation and the breeze was no longer cold. “Unfortunately not. Ow! My feet! Come on, monster, let’s get this over with before I die of boredom.”

The Hellenic News helicopter buzzed back into view.

At least I’m warm now. The sea birds wheeled overhead as the water slowly crept up past her ankles to her calves. The Hellenic News helicopter wandered around, its operators apparently as bored as she was.

Suddenly the sea in front of her heaved and something appeared, all scaly arms and gaping maw.

She screamed.

The monster rose all the way out of the sea. Then a flash of eye-searing blue, a thunderclap that left her head ringing like St. Dunstan pounding on a church bell, and a cloud of steam. St. Dunstan took some more whacks at the church bell, followed by a thunderclap from Hell that left her head ringing like the church bells had taken up permanent residence inside.

The steam somehow didn’t touch her. It cleared, showing Ponygirl flying above her, holding a rope with something that looked like a man in a chair dangling from it. The monster was nowhere in sight.

They disappeared above and behind her. A minute later the flying heroine appeared again and swiftly undid her shackles, pulling the pins out of the rock almost as if they were greased. The flying heroine lifted her up and set her down on a rock on top of the spire, overlooking a sort-of-flat space where the chair, with the man struggling against the rope tying him into it, lay at a crazy angle. Ponygirl reached into her belt, pulled out a package, said something she couldn’t make out over the ringing in her head, and handed it to her. Andromeda opened the package. Clothes! She hastily got dressed. They didn’t fit all that well, but so what. At least they covered most of her. Now if the bells in her head would just quit ringing a carillon.

She tried to focus on what Ponygirl was doing. The heroine pulled the man out of his flying chair, spread him out on the rock, pushed the pins from the shackles into the rock as if it was taffy, and snapped the cuffs on his wrists and ankles. If her head would just quit feeling like a rehearsal of the anvil chorus inside, this could be interesting!

The heroine finished anchoring the man to the rock, looked over at her and said something incomprehensible. Then she said something else inaudible. She got a bit of an abstracted look on her face, or at least it could have been one beneath that headband, walked over and put her hands on the sides of Andromeda’s head. The pounding hesitated almost with a feeling of surprise, and then vanished like it went down a drain somewhere.

“Better?”

“Yes! Thank you, whatever you did.”

“You’re welcome. Sit here and watch. This is going to take a while.” The heroine walked back to the man and pulled a long white wand out of her belt. An eye-searing blue light occurred between it and the rock. A moment later it had scribed a perfect five-pointed star around the pinioned villain. She pulled a dog-eared book out of her belt and floated around the star, scribing what had to be mystic symbols at each point and in each of the spaces between, using a variety of different colors. The symbols began to glow a baleful red, the lines of the star began to glow, the colors shifting like a disco, some kind of colorless — except it wasn’t colorless — stuff flowed between them in a pattern that somehow seemed to make sense, except that it didn’t.

Ponygirl stood back and gestured. Something flowed out of her, and the figure suddenly flared, but without casting any kind of light. A picture built up over it. The heroine gestured again and the viewpoint moved. Andromeda stared at what had once been human beings, turned around and threw up. Ponygirl muttered something that sounded like “Job,” but what God’s chew-toy had to do with this was beyond Andromeda’s understanding.

Once out of that piece, the view scanned through rooms and corridors filled with mysterious machines. It stopped to study some kind of a sea lock, and then a long corridor that rose and eventually opened to the outside. The viewpoint hovered and then rose a way, apparently trying to find where it was. Suddenly it vanished.

Ponygirl erased the mystic symbols and scribed a much simpler set. Somehow, the energy flow between them looked wrong. She frowned, pulled a crystal out of her belt, looked through it and then fixed two of the symbols. Meanwhile, the figure in the middle of the pentagram had started struggling, pulling futilely at the chains tethering it to the rock face while apparently trying to say something — but no sound came.

“That’s done,” the superheroine said. “How are you?”

“Recovered. That was magic? I could see all kinds of … things.”

“Oh?” she said, and waved a hand in the air, leaving a multi-colored ring behind.

“Wow!”

“Question,” she said. “Were you serious about wanting to become a ponygirl? It would mean coming with me, and as I said earlier, you will not like the process, nor will you be able to back out.”

She seemed serious. “Yes. You can do it?”

“Well, partly. You’ll look like me, you’ll be a lot stronger, it’s possible you’ll be smarter, and you’ll not only think that pulling carts or being ridden is perfectly normal, you’ll like doing it and think people who don’t understand that it’s what ponygirls do are a bit strange.”

Andromeda felt her jaw drop. She shut it. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely. We’ll talk more about it later. Right now I’ve got a few phone calls to make to wrap this up.” She pulled a phone out of her belt and started talking, although there wasn’t any sound. There also wasn’t a cell tower in the middle of the Agean Sea. Strange.


The superheroine eventually finished talking to whoever it was. The figure inside the pentagram had quit struggling and seemed to be watching the sea birds cruise past. The Hellenic News chopper wandered around as if they were looking for something worth their viewers’ time.

“I believe you’ve done some horseback riding.”

“Yes, why?”

The heroine pulled a saddle and harness out of her utility belt. “We need to make an entrance. Saddle me up and I’ll fly us out of here.” Her form shimmered, and then a white winged horse with a fire-engine red mane and tail stood there.

Andromeda gasped and almost dropped the tack. “I’m supposed to ride you?”

A voice spoke in her mind. “You’ve never heard of a horse and her girl?”

Andromeda giggled, and then set about harnessing the winged horse. She vaulted into the saddle and fastened the safety harness. The spread-eagled form chained to the rock’s eyes widened. He tugged futilely at his bonds and then began cursing inaudibly. The wings spread and they leaped into the air. The Hellenic News chopper wavered back and forth a moment before trying to give chase.

The voice in her mind chuckled. “They’d do better staying — the Mutant Commission Office should show up shortly to take that idiot in charge. Meanwhile….” The world around her broke up into a chaotic montage of pieces which changed, danced around insanely, floated in and out of view and then steadied, showing her village, with the shoreline, harbor and fishing boats laid out below them.

“Why are we here? I can’t go back, I told you that!”

The voice spoke in her mind. “Yes, you said that. I know that, our goddess knows that and your village knows that. The Greek government, the Greek MCO, the American MCO, the Hellenic Police and a lot of other interested parties do not know that. I have my Hero certification to protect, and more to the point, I’ve got to satisfy my sense of morality that what I’m about to do to you is at least arguably in everyone’s, and that includes your, best interests. As I said earlier, these things have a certain procedure that needs to be followed. Hero rescues maiden, returns her, grateful ruler offers her hand in marriage to the hero, he accepts and flies off with her.”

“Marriage? You’re insane!”

The voice in her mind laughed. “There are lots of people who would agree with you. In this case, though, there will be a few … modifications … to the traditional narrative.”

The winged horse dropped to a perfect four-hoof landing in front of Andromeda’s town’s administrative building. Andromeda climbed down. The horse shimmered a moment and then the superheroine stood there. “Let’s go in. They’re expecting us.”


Andromeda glared at Father Prikonita. “I am not coming back!”

“Daughter,” the priest started.

“I swore an oath on the ikon of the Blessed Virgin to go with my rescuer. Now you’re telling me that didn’t mean anything?”

Father Prikonta’s jaw tried to drop. He had the grace to look nonplussed and retired. Quickly.

“Andromeda,” Hektor Borkantis started.

She rounded on the mayor. “And don’t try to tell me you don’t know the lots were rigged!”

“Let’s not go there,” Ponygirl said. “The thing everyone is missing is that Andromeda is a latent baseline mage, and probably a pretty powerful one.”

“You said baseline,” Akiles Pontikos, the MCO representative who’d arrived from Athens to observe the proceedings, said. “Can you demonstrate that?”

“I haven’t done a test for the meta-gene complex, but as you know, that’s only definitive if it’s negative. Give me a minute.” She took a spell slip from her belt, wrote something on it and cast it into the air between her and Andromeda. It flared and left a trail of smoke that coalesced into a rune and then dissipated.

“Negative.”

The MCO rep nodded. “That can be checked.”

“Of course.”

“If it’s negative, the MCO doesn’t have jurisdiction,” Captain Plato Helikos said. “It’s a police matter. How do we know she’s a mage?”

“And why did you want to get rid of her?”

“We agreed not to go there,” Plato said. “You’re right, of course, there were just too many weird things happening around her. My real question is, if she’s a mage, why there weren’t more of them, and more powerful?”

“Magic requires something called ‘vis,’ ‘essence,’ or ‘quintessence.’ Untrained mages usually can’t build up enough to do anything significant; that takes training, which she’ll get at a good mage school. If she’s actually the one creating the stuff you’re experiencing, she’s going to be powerful once she gets some good training.”

“That’s what I’ve heard. Which still leaves us with the question of what to do.”

“I am going with Ponygirl,” Andromeda said. “I swore an oath, and she rescued me. She’s going to make me look like her, and then … whatever.”

“She’s going to what,” Father Prikonita burst out.

“Make me look like her. I asked, and she said she could do it.”

Ponygirl shrugged. “I told her she would not like the training. While she’ll look like me,” she swished her tail for emphasis, “she won’t have most of the powers; only induced Exemplar 4.”

“And exactly why would we agree to … that?” Hektor ground out.

“You owe her at least one.”

Hektor looked like he was studying a fungus threatening the grape harvest. “And why would you want to do that to her?”

“Let’s not go there,” Plato said, in a tone that said he knew exactly what was going on, and they would not like the answer.

“It’s complicated,” Ponygirl answered. “Her magic got her entangled in something really messy, and this is one of the ways forward. I could give her a spell that would block most of it, but she’s a long way from being able to use it herself, and I’m a long way from being able to bake it into an amulet or something she’d be able to simply use.”

Hektor took a deep breath. “Let’s say she goes with you. You’re both underage, so you couldn’t accept legal responsibility for her even if we wanted to give it to you. How would it work?”

“There are quite a few kids at school who are being … sponsored … by their governments for one reason or another. I can handle her tuition, and there’s no reason why she shouldn’t be able to come back for vacations.”

“I suspect your school is very expensive. I’m surprised you can handle two tuitions.”

Ponygirl nodded. “A lot of the kids have partial tuition support. I make gems.”

“You do what?” Father Prikonita said.

“I make gems. It’s one of my powers. There’s a market for large gems, especially with specific colors, even if they’re artificial. There are a couple of dozen of us that sell into that market; none of us want to flood it even if we wanted to spend the time it would take to make that many. I can make enough for two tuitions easily.” She shrugged. “The school prefers the arrangement; they get a cut of what I make, and it frees up tuition support for other students who really need it.”

Hektor looked at Father Prikonita, Akiles and Plato. Then he nodded. “That ought to work. Plato, I take it you know where this school is at?”

“No, but there’s a unit in Athens that does. They’ll handle it.”

“Well, let’s get the paperwork started. I take it you’re staying at the Joyful Wind hotel?”

“For the next few days; then I need to spend a couple of days at home before returning to school after our spring break. Captain Konstantos wants a full briefing before I leave.”

Father Prikonita’s eyes widened as the anvil dropped. He set his jaw to avoid saying anything.

“Let’s do it,” Hektor said. “Andromeda, I hope it works out for you.”


The voice spoke in her mind as they flew over the countryside. “Now, that wasn’t too bad, was it?”

“I think … I think I’m going to have a crying jag.”

“Well, hold on. We’ve still got to have people see you at the Joyful Wind to finish this up.”

Andromeda took a deep breath. Then another. “Can you really fly? I mean, we’re flying, but I didn’t think….”

“That something this big could fly? Actually, my wings would have to be a lot bigger and the shape is all wrong. I’m using one of my mutant talents to hold us up, but I really am using my wings to move us.” The voice seemed to grin. “This shape really does like to fly, and I don’t get the chance to use it as much as I’d like.”


The flying horse circled the Joyful Wind hotel once, and then came to a perfect four-hoof landing in the courtyard.

“I told you it was a flying horse!”

“Horses don’t... oh, forget it!”

“Isn’t that the girl who was being sacrificed?”

“Don’t stare!”

Several flashes went off.

Andromeda slid off the horse and stood back. The horse shimmered a moment, then a centaur stood there. Andromeda felt her jaw drop.

The centaur gestured to her. “Let’s go on in.”


Sted and Andromeda walked up what appeared to be an ordinary agricultural, that is, packed dirt, road toward a field of grapevines that were just beginning to put out leaves after the winter.

Andromeda stopped. “Just a minute, that building wasn’t there before.”

Sted laughed. “This entire area is under an illusion; from outside it’s just more grapevines, olive orchards and a few ramshackle equipment sheds. Anyway, I thought you’d seen the stable.”

“That’s it? I only saw a pair of the ponygirls pulling a carriage.”

“Which is what attracted you?”

“They were cute! Like a really good acrobatic team!”

“Absolutely. Lord Dionysis has some really good trainers; the routine I saw yesterday looked like a circus act. So let’s look at the stable.”


Andromeda looked doubtfully at the long wooden corridor, with pieces of tack hung on hooks on the left and very solid looking doors on the right. “This is where ponygirls stay?”

“This is one of the three places I’ve actually seen,” Sted said. “Well, four if you count my dorm room! Mostly they’re only here at night.”

“That’s awfully ... strict.”

“It is, isn’t it? The thing is, these are full-time ponygirls. This is what they do, every hour of the day, every day of the year, and it’s quite likely they’ll keep doing it until they die. I can’t tell you why anyone would want to be something that’s more animal than human, and a not very intelligent animal at that, but some people are weird that way.

“It’s only strict if you think of them as human. They can’t talk, they can’t understand what people say, and the two that have real hooves, that’s Blonde Fancy and Red Runner, can’t use their hands for very much. Someone has to harness them because they can’t handle the buckles. They can’t groom themselves either. The other two, Black Beauty and Chestnut, could if they wanted to, except that they’ve been trained not to. Besides, they probably think that if we want them to pull people around in carts and do show routines, we need to do our part of the job as well.”

“I’m going to be like that?”

“For training, yes. You’re not going to like it. Afterwards, you’ll be going to school with me. You’ll be like them a few hours a day, maybe a few days at a time, and not all that frequently. Possibly a few days a month.”

Andromeda walked over and touched the solid steel bolt on the outside of one of the doors. She opened it and looked inside. “Straw on the floor and a bared window for light. Good enough to sleep in, but I’d hate to be here a lot while awake.”

“They aren’t. There’s a small meadow where they can amuse themselves. They play a lot of soccer — or at least they kick the ball around a lot.”

Andromeda closed the door and shot the bolt. “I still want to be a ponygirl.”

Chapter 5
Tuesday, April 24, 2007

“Cold feet?” Sted asked.

“What’s that English saying? ‘Be careful what you ask for. You might get it.’ I’m wondering what it’ll be like to have cold hooves.”

“It’s been long enough that I don’t remember what it’s like to wiggle my toes.” Sted opened the door to Theo and Elena’s workroom and stood aside. The two mages had their heads together, studying a diagram.

Elena looked up. “Ah, there you are. Take your clothes off and step into the big circle.”

Andromeda stripped, took a big breath and walked into the circle, stopping where she could see two tall candle-sticks, each with a perfect quartz crystal mounted on top. The quartz began to glow with an inner flame at the same time the boundary of the circle flared with a sourceless light that cast no shadow. The room twisted around her as she floated into the air and reclined, arms and legs spread a bit and facing the ceiling.

A complex pattern formed between the two crystals. Colored wisps of something emerged, made strange shapes in the air and settled into her body. Her feet itched, her head itched, her legs itched, a streak down the back of her neck to the bottom of her shoulders itched, her tailbone itched and the rest of her body felt like it was being pulled apart and reassembled. With hot irons. And peppers. Lots of peppers. The hard part was that she couldn’t move her arms, or anything else, to scratch!

She drifted in the colored haze for a long while. The haze thinned and the last wisps settled into her body. The itching stopped. Then the room turned around her and she landed on her hooves. She staggered a moment to get her balance, which seemed to have changed substantially.

“How do you feel,” a voice asked.

“Hungry!”

Sted laughed. “That’s normal. Your body went through a huge amount of restructuring that took a lot of energy; you’ll be eating a lot to make up for it. Now go take a look at yourself.”

Andromeda walked out of the circle to a full-length mirror on the wall. The image that stared back had a tight brown head of hair with what looked like a brown Mohawk, horse’s ears, brown eyes, a brown tail and brown horsehair on her legs from the knees down, ending with one white and one red stocking just above a pair of horse’s hooves. Her hips and thighs had expanded somewhat.

When she turned back, Sted held out a hinged black circlet.

Andromeda’s eyes narrowed. “I’m going to be wearing that?”

“Yes. Time to get you outfitted and start training.”

“Like the ones Blonde Fancy and Red Runner wear?”

“Not quite. Theirs don’t come off. Ever. This one does; you won’t wear it at school, for example, and eventually you’ll learn how to take it off yourself. It takes a minor spell to open it that’s tuned to the two of us; no one else can open it, and no one else can make it close on your neck. Bring your head up.”

The circlet felt cool; then the feeling disappeared. Sted held out a mess of black straps. A headstall? Apparently. She swiftly wrapped it around her head and then held out another piece. A bit and reins. Andromeda obediently opened her mouth to receive the device.

A few minutes later Sted had finished harnessing her, and gently turned her back so she could look at herself in the mirror. She looked just like the ones in the stable. This was what she’d wanted? Well, like she’d been told, she couldn’t back out.

Sted grasped her shoulder. Reality came apart.


Reality reassembled itself, showing a tall woman whose eyes had slit pupils and whose ears almost came to a point. She wore a fancy riding habit and carried a whip at her belt. A slightly shorter man, dressed in working leather, stood at her right, while a man who seemed to be made of living rock stood to her left.

Sted said something to the elf-woman, but all she could make out was the tone, which seemed pleasant enough if a bit reserved. Sted brought a small box out of her purse. The elf-woman gestured, and another woman, dressed in a maid’s uniform and with a red collar around her neck, walked up, holding a small tray. She curtsied and held out the tray. Sted put five jewels in it. Five big jewels. The elf-woman picked each one up and examined it closely. Then she took a slip of paper and tossed it into the air over the tray. It flared, leaving a smoke pattern behind. The pattern held together a moment and then dissolved into the air.

The elf-woman smiled and said something. Sted handed over her reins to the stone-man, laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, shimmered a moment and was gone.

The stone-man tugged on her reins.

Her training was about to begin.

Chapter 6
Sunday, April 29, 2007

A shimmer appeared in one of the little nooks beside the paths that connected the various buildings of Whateley Academy. In a moment, Sted Lancaster stood there in her ponygirl form, neatly dressed in her school uniform. Since it was a green flag day she didn’t use her ‘on-campus’ illusion. She hitched her purse on her shoulder and trotted down the path toward Whitman Cottage, her adamantium horseshoes kicking up divots of new-fallen snow from a late New Hampshire mountain snowstorm.

Mrs. Savage, the house mother, intercepted her as soon as she got in the door. “Mrs. Carson wants to see you. So does Chief Delarose. And Father Rico left a message to schedule confession.” She paused to check something. “The Headmistress’ schedule is full for a while, beat it over to Security as soon as you get settled. What did you do this time?”

“You haven’t heard the news from Greece?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Something about a major villain got thwacked by an ‘unidentified foreign hero.’ Was that you?”

“Probably.”

Mrs. Savage shook her head. “Well, it took place off campus during break, so it technically isn’t our concern. Trot on over to Security once you get settled.”


She decided to walk, or rather trot, down to Kane Hall.

The security man at the desk looked up as she came in. “Ah, Sted. Have you got a video?”

“Video?”

“Of your shootout in Greece, of course! That MCO vs Humanity First shootout over Christmas was voted best video of 2006!”

“Not much to say. Given the body count to date I decided to hit him hard and fast. No finesse. Blasted his vehicle out of the water with the anti-matter positron beam, knocked out his force shield with a dozen steel-jacketed adamantium cored rounds at maximum velocity and then used the bolo to trap him in his escape chair. Last I heard the MCO has him in custody.”

“Body count?”

“Two villages; several thousand people. Plus the dozen teenage girls he demanded as sacrifices. What he did with them will give you nightmares.”

“Nightmares? After Jobe and Belphegor?”

“Jobe? This was Sara level nastiness.”

“Ouch! Well, the Chief is free, you know the way back.”


Chief Delarose looked up from the report on his terminal. “Ah, Sted. Have a chair. I gather you had an adventure over spring break.” He gestured to the terminal. “The Hellenic Police forwarded the reports and so did the Greek MCO. It doesn’t take a whole lot of reading between the lines to see there are some things they aren’t saying.”

He paused.

“Why were you in Greece, and how did you get there? You weren’t on any plane flights, and Greece is just a little bit out of your flight range.”

“I teleported.”

“That’s not on your powers testing report!”

“They don’t know about it. I found out I could do it about a week before spring break, and you know how hard it is to get a quick appointment with Powers Testing except for an emergency.”

The Chief grunted. “Why were you in Greece?”

“My goddess told me I was taking a working vacation. I didn’t find out about the villain until that morning.”

“Your goddess. That’s the god-type class 2 entity Circe reported?”

“Yes.”

“So I take it your ‘working vacation’ had to do with the mess you got into with Lady Morigan just before Halloween?”

“Yes.”

The chief grunted again and made a note. “As long as it doesn’t spill over onto Whateley, I don’t want to know details.”

“Unfortunately, it might. You know the girl I rescued?”

Chief Delarose looked at the readout again. “Andromeda?” He snorted.

“She’s an induced Ex-4 and Wiz-0. She’s currently at Lady Morrigan’s for training and will start school here in September.”

“Fortunately that’s Mrs. Carson’s problem.”


“There you are,” Ms. Hartford snapped. The Assistant Headmistress pointed to a chair. “The Headmistress will be a few moments.” She looked at her display. Her fingers blurred on the keyboard, which sounded like something off of the firing range. “You’ve got us another student. Induced Ex-4, Wiz-0 and GSD. How firm are these ratings?”

“I was present during the spell that gave her the EX-4 and GSD. In fact, she’s pretty similar to me without the other powers. MCO Athens confirmed she doesn’t have the meta-gene complex. She was driving her town crazy with ... stuff ... happening around her, and she watched most of the spells I did.”

“So she’s not going to need any special provisions. Sexual preference, or didn’t you check?”

“Straight. Or at least she thought I was nuts when I mentioned the traditional reward for rescuing a fair maiden from a monster.”

“Hero gets the maiden’s hand in marriage. Check. Ward of the Greek government, you and they are splitting the tuition?”

“They’re picking up part of it? Great!”

“The Greek government said she’s ‘out of contact,’ whatever that means.” Amelia Hartford fixed one of her more problematic students with a basilisk gaze. “Now where would she be, and how can we get in touch with her?”

“She’s at Lady Morigan’s.”

Ms. Hartford’s hands flashed toward the keyboard and froze before touching it. “She’s going to stay there before coming here?”

“No, she’ll be at Aspidistra’s for a couple of months first. Then maybe a quick trip home.”

“Better. Make sure she gets her part of the application filled in as soon as she gets there.” She looked at her display. “Mrs. Carson is ready for you. Go on in.”


Sted walked into the office. The headmistress looked over her glasses and pointed at one of the chairs. Sted sat.

“I gather you got into a real mess over spring break. How many times do I have to tell you. This Is NOT A School For Superheroes!”

Sted tried to look contrite — and failed. She shrugged instead. “The first I knew about it was when she showed up on the morning news. Then I found out my goddess had manufactured the situation. She’d maneuvered that poor girl into being a sacrifice and set it up so I could defeat the monster and win her as my reward.”

“She did what?”

“She set it up. Her idea is that I need to learn how to handle subordinates and servants, and do it well, or at least effectively. As part of that, she wanted Andromeda turned into a ponygirl and kept in a stable somewhere.”

“She wanted you to what?”

“Turn her into a full time ponygirl and keep her in a stable. I put my hoof down on that. We compromised.”

“How?”

“She got the transformation; that’s where the induced EX-4 and GSD come from, and she’s at Lady Morigan’s now for training. I’ll move her to Aspidistra’s once she settles. Then she’s coming here for next year.”

“‘Lady’ Morigan was one of my students. I do not trust her as far as I can throw her unassisted. You will monitor the situation to make sure she does not come to any harm.”

Sted nodded. “I was planning on doing that.”

“How?”

“I’m planning on dropping in on weekends for a couple of hours to take her out for riding or in a chariot. She won’t know it’s me, and it’ll give me more of a chance to learn how it’s done.”

“Make sure you do. Mention you’ve talked the situation over with me to Lady Morigan. That might instill a little caution. Now, there has to be something else going on. Possibly with her mage talent?”

“Yes. She managed to install a geas to go with her rescuer. Her village priest whipped up a ritual involving the ikon of the Virgin Mary; her mage talent, with I suspect some help from the goddess, did the rest. I doubt if anyone could break that geas with a goddess reinforcing it. Effectively, she’s mine as long as the goddess wants us together.”

Mrs. Carson nodded. “As long as she’s a student here, do not presume on it. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, Mrs. Carson.”

“And remember. This is not a school for superheroes regardless of what the Topeka Police Department might think. Get out of my sight before I decide to assign some detention.”

Sted bolted for the door.


Father Rico put the cross he’d been holding as he looked at his parishioner, walked behind his desk and sat down.

“Well, you’ve managed to negotiate this challenge reasonably well. I do not like your leaving that girl where you did, but I understand you’re nowhere near able to break that kind of a geas, especially with your goddess keeping it in force. Will she be joining this parish once she comes here as a student?”

“She’s Greek Orthodox, and from what little I saw, pretty devout. There’s an Eastern Orthodox church in Berlin, but that’s Russian, so I don’t know which way she’ll go, or whether the church in Berlin will even accept her. The nearest Greek Orthodox is quite a ways away. I’ll suggest coming here, but I won’t force her to.”

“I’ll call them and check,” Father Rico said. “Since she’s bound to you for the foreseeable future, you need to learn how to handle your obligations in the relationship. Your Headmistress’ recommendations are a good start.”

He came around the desk and held the cross out to perform the absolution.

Chapter 7
Saturday, June 30, 2007

Andromeda shifted slightly as she started to come awake, having learned over the past however long it had been that thrashing around simply resulted in bumping into the walls of her stall, something that did not lead to a restful night. Her legs shifted under the blanket.

Blanket?

She cautiously opened her eyes. The ceiling emitted a soft white glow, instead of the dawn sequence she’d become used to. The walls were different, and didn’t go to the ceiling. Her stall seemed to open into a corridor, with her tack neatly arranged on the opposite wall. And. She lay on an actual bed, with a real, although really cheap, brown blanket instead of her nest of straw.

She cast off the blanket and scrambled to both hooves, the chain dangling from her collar making a light shirring sound. Huh? She carefully felt the blanket and picked it up. She had her hands back! Maybe? She felt for the clasp holding the chain to her collar. It was a spring clasp, but she couldn’t remove it. She snorted. Figures.

She seemed to be in the middle of a row of ten stalls. The two nearer ones, that she could see into, had ponygirls lying on low cots. Neither seemed to be chained to the wall, although both of them wore the black collars. They were beginning to stir.

The noises on either side increased, and then several ponygirls walked past. Most of them poked their heads into her cubicle, but they walked on without saying anything.

A minute later a young woman, who was wearing jeans, work boots and a checkered shirt, and who had her hair up in a jaunty ponytail, walked in. She took a leash off the wall, held it out and said something incomprehensible. Andromeda obediently tilted her head back to let the groom unhitch her chain and attach the leash. Then she followed the woman down the corridor.

After a turn, they walked into a room with floor toilets. The groom gestured; Andromeda squatted and relieved herself. Then they went out to another room, where the groom looped the leash through a ring in the wall and proceeded to wash the ponygirl down. She did a thorough job, every bit as good as the grooms at the last place she’d been. Then the groom held out a bowl of mixed oatmeal and fruit chunks and fed her.

Finally, the groom led her back to her cot and reattached the chain to her collar. She patted her on the shoulder, said something incomprehensible that sounded like it ought to be encouraging, turned and left.

She shrugged. Someone else would be along sooner or later, especially since there was no food in the stall. She plumped up the pillow, neatly folded the blanket, knelt on the end of the bed with her hooves tucked under, and prepared to wait.


Footsteps echoed in the corridor, then two people walked into view. The taller wore a soft leather skirt, silk blouse and leather work boots, with a coiled-up whip at her belt. The other was a plumpish blonde who wore jeans and a nice shirt. There was something about the first woman’s aura that reminded Andromeda about the two elves where she’d been for the last couple of months.

The woman with the whip was obviously She Who Must Be Obeyed, not that the others weren’t. The woman made a gesture. A colored bit of haze drifted toward her throat. She was another mage!

“Is there anything you need right now?”

“I’ve got to go!” Andromeda wailed, and then stopped, startled at being able to say anything.

“Well, you can hold on for a couple more minutes while you answer one question. Are you going to be good?”

“Huh?”

“Good means that you’ll do what you’re told promptly and well, and not cause trouble. If you’re going to be good, we can get rid of that chain. Otherwise you’re going to be under restraint all the time until you quit causing trouble.”

“I’ll be good!”

The woman turned her head. “Stacy?”

“I think she means it.”

“I agree.” The mage pointed at her. The leash chain fell off.

“You’ve been to the latrine before?”

“Uh, yes.”

“Well, go. Be back here in ten.” The mage stood aside to allow the girl to exit the cubicle.


Andromeda trotted back to her cubicle, her hooves making a soft thudding on the concrete of the floor. The witch had vanished, but Stacy, was that her name, had been joined by a rather nondescript young woman. Andromeda’s eyes widened; the young woman had shown up several times in the last few weeks to ride her and drive her around in a cart and chariot. She was nice!

“I suppose you’ve got a whole lot of questions,” Stacy started out. “I’m Stacy Nichols, and I’m going to be your therapist to help you adjust after what you’ve been through.”

Andromeda’s eyes narrowed. “OK.”

“I suppose you’d like to know where you are and what we are. We’re a rehabilitation unit for ponygirls who have been recovered on raids on owner’s establishments. You came here directly from one of the trainers — Lady Morigan’s to be specific — so you don’t have any real experience of what it’s like with owners. Exactly where we are is confidential; all you need to know is that it’s on the far side of Back of Beyond, meaning that there’s nothing around for miles except snow, trees, wolves, more snow, moose, more trees and the occasional lost jackalope.”

Andromeda giggled. Then she frowned. “Like the Joyful Wind hotel?”

Stacy looked a question.

The nondescript young woman shimmered a moment. Another ponygirl stood there — Sted Lancaster, the superheroine who’d rescued her and then abandoned her to that … that … except she hadn’t. She was here, and she’d dropped in enough times during training that she was her favorite rider and driver.

“Not exactly,” Sted said. “The Joyful Wind isn’t quite as secret as they like to think, and they’re fairly sane in the way they run the place. They have to be, or not even the political — and divine — protection they’ve got would keep them from being shut down. On the other hoof, the owner’s establishments, in general, are quite abusive.”

Andromeda’s eyes flashed. “I’d say I was abused!”

Sted shook her head. “Except for being compelled to comply with the training regimen that taught you how to be a ponygirl, you weren’t being abused. The four full time ponygirls in the Joyful Wind’s stable find their situation ... satisfactory ... for the most part.”

“Which is absolutely not true of most owner’s establishments,” Stacy said. “We have to deal with scars from whippings, brands, missing limbs, dietary problems and a litany of other issues on top of a belief that there’s no possible way they can return and rejoin normal society.”

“They can’t? I can’t?”

“Most of them can,” Stacy said firmly. “It takes a while to get through their heads that it’s possible, and, of course, there’s no way we can fix their family situations, so easing back in sometimes takes significant work after they leave here. There are three on the other side that look like they want to stay ponygirls, but we pretty much get the rest back into circulation.”

“None of which applies to you,” Sted told her. “You’ll be starting at the same school I go to for the next term, which is a couple of months away. Which reminds me that they want you to fill out the application form as soon as you’ve got time.”

Both Andromeda and Stacy nodded.

“So, if you don’t really need a whole lot of rehabilitation, why did I put you through that experience?”

“Uh, yes.” She took a deep breath. “I did swear an oath to do what you said, but still….”

“That was a bit much?,” Sted continued the thought smoothly. “I told you that training was not going to be very pleasant, but I don’t know any other way of letting you settle into being a ponygirl. Settling meant you needed to give up any expectation of ever being anything else, which is a rather ... intense ... emotional adjustment. Once you settled, I needed to give you a couple of weeks to finish learning how it works. That’s over. Now is the time for explanations.”

Andromeda’s eyes flashed. “I’d certainly like some!”

Sted laughed. “Remember back when we were talking with your town elders, and I said you’d gotten into a situation?”

Her brow furrowed. “I think so.”

“Well, you did. You saw some of the ponygirls at the Joyful Wind hotel, and started wondering what it would be like to be one of them. Your latent mage talent started to build a geas to force you to become one. Normally, that would have simply dissipated — you don’t know how to build one that’ll stick, you don’t know how to accumulate all the essence needed to power it and you wouldn’t have created it if you did know what you were doing. However, that brought you to the attention of an entity I call the ‘ponygirl goddess.’ With me so far?”

“Goddess? I’m a Christian! I don’t believe in goddesses!”

“Belief has nothing to do with it. You’ll learn part of it in your Theory of Magic course; I’ll explain the rest then because it isn’t in the textbooks. For right now, just accept that there’s this non-physical entity that can wield god-like powers out there, and you attracted her attention. I’m associated with her, not willingly I should add, and she’s always looking for things she can dump me into that will make me more satisfactory as her High Priestess. She thinks I need a ponygirl of my own, and you looked like you’d do, so she manipulated events so you dropped into my lap.”

“She did what!”

“She arranged things so you’d be sacrificed and I’d be on the scene to rescue you. I didn’t find out about it until I checked the news that morning and saw you chained to the rock.”

“Oh.”

“We had a bit of a discussion, and I put my hoof down on part of her plans for us. We compromised. That oath you swore? It’s binding. I rescued you, you’re mine. That’s the core of what she wanted: she thinks I need servants. Or rather, she thinks I need to develop a commanding presence, and the habit of having a staff and servants, and having a ponygirl to keep in a stable for when I wanted to ride her would be a good start on learning that.”

Stacy nodded thoughtfully.

Andromeda put her hand to her mouth. “Oh!”

“Well, that’s the part I put my hoof down on. There will be times I’ll ride you, drive you in a chariot and show you at meets, but most of the time you’ll be a lot closer to a co-worker. Unless you really, really want to be a ponygirl like you were for the last couple of months.”

Andromeda shook her head. “I kind of liked the last few weeks, but it could get old real fast. I was starting to wonder what was next.”

“Which is a great opening for me,” Stacy said. “You’ll be here for a couple of months, and you’ll do four things. First, I’ll work with you on any therapy you need. Second, you’ll continue to be a ponygirl; you’ll be in harness much of the time, and you may have someone to play owner, train and show you. That’s optional, but from what I can see right now, you’ll probably have a good deal of fun with it.”

“I’m going to stay a ponygirl?”

“Since you’re here, yes,” Stacy said. “As I just said, we’re a therapy organization, and it’s a whole lot easier on most of the ’girls if they have a sane, or at least less insane, version of what they’re familiar with while we work on them and gently herd them toward the open door. Once they’ve decided to return, *then* they go to something that looks like a more conventional rehab center.”

“Since this is something you’re going to be doing part time for most of your life,” Sted added, “it’s just as well that you get used to how it works from the inside.”

Andromeda frowned and then laughed. “Be careful what you ask for...”

“Exactly.”

“Third,” Stacy continued, “since you’re a novice mage, you’ll go into the mage training seminar Aspidistra runs.”

Andromeda’s eyes widened. “Really? Aspidistra?”

“She’s the Sidhe who was here earlier; Aspidistra is her code name. Most of us call her Aspi for short. She holds a seminar a few times a week for the half dozen or so of us who have enough mage talent to be worth the work it takes learning to use it. We’re all baseline mages, so you’ll fit right in. It’ll give you a bit of a head start for when you begin at your new school.”

“I’d like that!”

“We thought you would. The final thing is optional, but you could be very useful helping with the herd of ponygirls that were trained at Lady Morigan’s. We haven’t been able to do anything with them until just recently, and we’ve got a huge backlog.”

“Let me add,” Sted said, “that working with ponygirls peer to peer is going to be something you’ll probably do a lot of, long term.”

Andromeda frowned. “That might be interesting, but why?”

“From the goddess’ viewpoint, you’re not only a ponygirl, you’re my ponygirl, and if you’re not going to be full time you need to be doing something that furthers her objectives. That makes you minor clergy, by the way.”

Andromeda took a deep breath. “That was one of the problems I had with Father Prikonita. He said girls couldn’t be priests.”

Stacy nodded. “That’s a common complaint women have with the Catholic and Orthodox churches.”

“Finally,” Sted said, “You’ll get a week or so vacation to go home before school starts. I’ll try to make you a cloaking devise so you can go home without getting the neighbors in an uproar.”