By Paths Coincident

Chapter 22

Eve Baird observed her remaining LITs hunched over their research. They were in a state of suspended animation. No one wanted to leave. Stone had been missing for 34 hours now, and the worst fears were growing solidity, changing from flickers at the back of the mind into weapons with mass and volume and the ability to stab.

In the end, she had forced Jenkins to admit that he knew enough Greek to use the Xenophon to come up with a list of possible identities for the horse. Between his research and Cassandra's web inquiries, they had compiled a list of 67 magical origins for Spark of Midnight which Jenkins had inscribed in his usual neat handwriting on the blackboard.

"Seriously? Sixty-seven?" Ezekiel asked. "How are we going to narrow those down?"

"By process of elimination, Mr. Jones," Jenkins responded. "We shall begin with the easiest part of this identification. This horse has no extra appendages, so we can cross off Sleipner, any of the winged horses . . ."

"You mean like Pegasus?" Cassandra asked with a brief return of her enthusiasm for all things magic.

Eve saw how swiftly her light guttered out and was reminded of so many young soldiers whose eyes had gone shadowed as the persistent horror of their world crushed them. She wanted to stand between Cassandra and anything that could take away her joy, but that was a burden no one could bear for another.

"Yes, and Jabucilo, Tianma, Cholima and so on." Jenkins rapidly drew lines through all of those names on the board. "Also we can eliminate Hippogriffs, Hippokampoi, Caballo marino chilote, Uchaishravas or Polkan," he continued. Then he addressed Ezekiel who had turned back to something on his computer. "Do you have birth records for this animal?"

"What?" Ezekiel looked up. "Um. Yes, actually. Complete with photographic evidence."

"Oooh. Baby pictures!" Cassandra peered over his shoulder. "She's kind of pretty!"

"So are the Sirens." Jenkins was at his dour best. "Now we know she is not one of the immortals." He scratched off another 21 names. "She may perhaps be a descendant of one of them. However, although many of them breathe fire, none of them are reputed to be eaters of flesh."

"Okay. Good," Eve said. "I'd rather not be dealing with an immortal killer horse."

"I think we can eliminate any of these legendary horses with no body counts," Jenkins continued, drawing lines through 25 names. "Which leaves us with a descendent of the Mares of Diomedes or The Man Eater of Lucknow."

Jenkins flipped through the volume of Xenophon. "The Mares of Diomedes were named Podargos the Swift, Lampon the Shining, Xanthos the Golden, and Deinos the Terrible. Stealing them was the eighth labor of Heracles. Their diet of human flesh had made them mad, so they were kept bound to a bronze manger. Heracles cut their chains, drove them onto a peninsula, dug a trench to make it an island, killed the giant Diomedes with an axe, and fed him to his own horses to calm them. He then led the animals to Eurystheus, who dedicated them to Hera. Alexander the Great's horse, Bucephalus, was said to be a descendent."

Eve shook her head. "Bloodthirsty horses. Nice. What about the other one?"

"The Man Eater of Lucknow comes from the 19th century. Xenophon has nothing." Jenkins closed the book and nodded to Cassandra.

Cassandra took up the narrative. "Oh! This is what I found. The Man Eater of Lucknow was a thoroughbred stallion presented by King George IV to the Maharajah of Oudh. It escaped to kill and eat a lot of local citizens until it was finally captured and caged. The Maharajah decided to stage a fight between the horse and his prized tiger, and the horse won with a single blow."