The Black Stallion and the Lost City (23 page)

After filling out the last check and addressing the envelope, he stood up from his desk and walked to the window. Outside he could see a pair of foals playing tag in the late autumn sun. Their dams stood nearby in the shade of an oak. He watched them a moment, then took a seat on the office couch. Picking up a newspaper from the coffee table, he scanned the headlines and then turned to the entertainment section to see if there was an interesting movie playing at the local theater. Before he could turn to the listings page, a headline caught his eye:

The newspaper fell from Alec’s hands and hit the floor. Without thinking, he stood up and walked over to the stallion barn. He picked up a halter and lead shank, then stepped outside again.

“I’m going to check some fences,” Alec called to Deb, the barn manager, as he left the tack room. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay, boss,” Deb said.

The fences didn’t need checking, and both he and Deb knew it, but Alec wanted an excuse to get away
from the farm for a few minutes. He figured a ride with the Black to a friendly neighbor’s back property might give him some time to reflect.

It had been an effort, but so far he had done a pretty good job of putting behind him what had happened to him in the woods around Mt. Atnos and keeping his mind focused on everything he needed to do here at the farm. He hadn’t even tried to tell his parents or anyone else about his adventures in the lost city. Now, with the news about Bateman’s disappearance, it all came thundering back.

Alec jogged out to the upper pasture where the Black was spending his afternoons these days. Soon he and the stallion were winding their way along a back trail into the woods. As they rode over the soft grass, Alec remembered what he had read about Diomedes since he’d been home. The local library had had hardly any information on him. The only reference to the demigod Diomedes of Thrace was a short paragraph in a kids’ book on Greek mythology. It was all there, though, and the words had chilled Alec’s blood as he read them: the flesh-eating horses, Diomedes’s tyranny and his ultimate death at the hands of his own mares.

The Black carried Alec all the way to a field beyond the woods and a small pond that was a favorite getaway spot for both of them. Alec dismounted and
stood beside his horse. The Black slopped his tongue over the back of Alec’s sweaty neck.

“What am I, a salt lick?” Alec said, pushing the stallion’s head away. “Or are you just working up to the big bite, like one of your girlfriends? Drink some water from the pond if you want something to drink.”

They walked to the water’s edge. The stallion bent his head to sip from the shallows, swishing his tail in contentment.

Alec thought about Bateman and wondered if he would ever return. Had Stiv really been swept back in time to the lost city among the wandering trees, as he, Xeena and the Black had been? Was the director being made a guest of the realm at that very moment, wondering at the marvels of the acropolis and the lush gardens of Acracia? What would someone like Stiv make of it all? The thought made Alec smile. Bateman would probably love it. At least for a time.

Much of the folklore referenced in this story is based on known history, legends and myths. Alexander’s Bucephalus was believed by many to be a direct descendant of Diomedes’s sacred mares. There were a Sybaris and a Croton in ancient times. The Sybaris cavalry included dancing horses, and they were defeated in battle when the Croton pipers played the horses’ favorite dancing music. In Thrace to this day, folktales exist about forests with wandering trees that can hide anything and anyone, and about poisonous rivers and pools of water that will madden any animal or person who drinks from them. Incitatus, the Roman emperor Caligula’s horse, was an elected priest and member of the Council of Rome. He ate from an ivory manger, drank from a golden pail and had eighteen attendants. Celer, owned by the Roman emperor Verus, ate nothing but almonds and raisins and was stabled in a suite of apartments in the emperor’s palace.

Steven Farley,
the third of Walter and Rosemary Farley’s four children, was born in Reading, Pennsylvania. He was brought up near there and in Venice, Florida. In both places, there was always a horse in the backyard.
The Young Black Stallion,
cowritten with his father, was Steven’s first novel. He followed it up with several more Black Stallion novels, including
The Black Stallion and the Shape-shifter,
which first explored the author’s fascination with the great horses of myth.

Steven studied journalism at New York University and has worked as a writer and editor for magazines and TV. Currently he divides his time between New York, Florida, and Mexico.