PART TWO PART TWO THE BOOK OF TWILIGHT THE BOOK OF TWILIGHT “It is Not Well to Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth.” 5. Christening of the Stallion Christening of the Stallion GERALD descended nineteen steps; and in the dusk he found waiting there, beside a tethered riding-horse, yet another young man, with hair as red as Gerald Musgrave’s own. G G “That you may travel the more quickly, along a woman-haunted way, in your journeying toward your appointed goal,” this stranger began, “I have fetched a horse for you to ride upon.” Yet the speaker was not wholly a stranger. So Gerald now said, “Oh, so it is you!” As a student of magic, Gerald had held earlier dealings with this red-haired Horvendile, who was Lord of the Marches of Antan. And Gerald went on, gratefully: “Come now, but this is kind! Even as a courtesy between fellow artists, this is generous!” “The amenities of fellow artists,” returned Horvendile, “are by ordinary two-edged. And this one may cut deeper than you foreknow.” “Meanwhile you have brought me this huge shining horse, which cannot be other than Pegasus—” “Whether or not this divine steed be that Pegasus which bears romantics even to the ultimate goal of their dreams, depends upon the horseman. It has been prophesied, however, that the Redeemer of Antan and the monarch who shall reign, after the overthrow of the Master Philologist, in the place beyond good and evil, will come riding upon the silver stallion that is called, not
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