The Black Stallion and the Lost City (5 page)
Read The Black Stallion and the Lost City Online
Authors: Steve Farley
The flashlight started flickering on and off again,
and he quickly left the room. He took the pamphlet with him, hoping no one would mind and figuring he could return it in the morning after he’d had a chance to read it.
Retracing his steps through the courtyard, Alec reached the place where the path divided and he had made a wrong turn, arriving at last at his own room. He lit the lamp and checked all around the room just to make sure that he was in the right place this time and that there weren’t any skulls rolling around on the floor. The sight of those old bones in the glass cases still lingered in his mind, and he couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy about it now. He doused his face with water from the pitcher on the table. Taking a chair, he picked up the pamphlet he’d borrowed from the visitors’ room and began to read.
As he thumbed through the pages, much of them detailing the long history of the monastery and the austere life the monks led there, he found one section that caught his eye. It was a chapter on Diomedes, the Greek demigod Xeena had told him about earlier, and the significance he had to this region. According to one legend, the pamphlet said, the demigod had chosen the forests of Mt. Atnos as a sanctuary to rebuild his kingdom after his defeat at the hands of Hercules. Alec leaned back in his chair and read more about the mysterious Diomedes:
The true history of the tyrant Diomedes is lost in time, but there are many fanciful tales to be told of the horse master of Thrace that are little known to the world outside of Acracia. The accepted view of Diomedes is that this demigod was the caretaker of four flesh-eating mares bequeathed to him by his father, Ares, the Greek god of war. The mares lived a privileged life, sequestered in green pastures forbidden to all save the sacred mares themselves. Diomedes’s neighbors avoided his kingdom entirely. If by chance a foolish wanderer trespassed onto his fields, drank the water from his wells, or ate the fruit of his orchards, the unfortunate traveler was quickly reduced to fodder for the tyrant’s man-killing mares.
In those days, word of the infamous horrors to be found in the kingdom of Diomedes had spread far and wide, but so had tales of the tyrant’s superior horsemanship. According to one Acracian legend dating back several millennia, a spy managed to steal training secrets from Diomedes and return with them to his home in the distant land of Sybaris, in what is
now southern Italy. Diomedes soon learned of the spy’s treachery, and the score was settled when he dispatched a messenger to the Crotons, neighbors and mortal enemies of the Sybaris, and told them how their foes could be defeated. The next time the two armies met in battle, the Croton soldiers prepared by plugging their horses’ ears with wax. Then they sounded their charge by playing a tune Diomedes bade his messenger teach them, a melody that the king had stolen from Orpheus, god of music and poetry. Upon hearing the enchanted melody, the horses of the enemy cavalry threw off their riders and began to dance to a music they could not resist. The battle ended in slaughter and the downfall of Sybaris.
Diomedes’s reign of terror finally came to an end at the hands of Hercules, the renowned hero of ancient Greek myth. Hercules fought and overpowered the demigod, casting him to the floor of an arena where he was taken down and devoured by his own mares. Some scholars count this legend, the eighth labor of Hercules, as one of the earliest examples of
an adage that lives on to this day: The evil you create will one day come back to destroy you.
That is the story that is told in books and accepted by the modern world. But some of the villagers who lived in the region surrounding Mt. Atnos told another version of the story. They believed a demigod such as Diomedes could never be killed, and local legend had it that Diomedes feigned his death and that he and his mares live on to this day, hidden in a secret city among the wandering trees of a magical forest. Today’s scholars accept that these tall tales about Diomedes were concocted by the locals as a means to scare off neighboring villagers who might have been tempted to expand their territories into the lush woods and pastures of Acracia. The same could be said for the folklore about poisonous rivers and spring-fed pools that drove mad any animal that drank from it, including humans.
In more recent times, Acracia has remained a fairly autonomous region. Due to its remote location, it escaped much of the hardship inflicted on the rest of Thrace by a series of foreign invaders. The last of
those invaders were the Turks, who took all of Thrace in the fourteenth century and held it until 1920 when …
Alec read a little farther and then turned to the back pages. There he found an illustration of a bearded man with heavy-browed, scowling eyes. The caption below it read, “Diomedes—horse master of Thrace.” Alec looked at the illustration a minute and then put the pamphlet away. As macabre as it all sounded, there was something fascinating about the story of Diomedes. It was always helpful to learn something of a place’s local history, Alec thought, especially when you had never been there before.
Taking off his clothes, Alec lay down and crawled under the blankets. But sleep would not come, so he got up again, put his clothes back on and returned to the Black’s tent stable to sleep on a cot outside the stallion’s stall. He wasn’t frightened, really, just a little unsettled by the bones in the exhibit room. When he felt like that, it always made sense to stay close to the Black.
On the SetThe golden light
of dawn was already filling the tent as Alec sat up on his stable cot and threw off his blanket. Molded by years of farm and track routine, he usually slept well and awakened easily, confident and ready to face another day. But this morning he felt a bit anxious as he looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings.
Alec rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stood up. Outside he heard a thumping sound that he assumed was Bateman’s helicopter flying in somewhere outside the compound. A minute later, the
chop-chop-chop
faded away as the craft took off and flew back down the mountain. What a way to travel, Alec thought.
The Black was awake, and Alec went to his horse and gave him his feed and some fresh water. The smell of brewing coffee drew him to a table in the courtyard. He had a cup and said good morning to the cast and crew gathered there.
After the Black finished eating, it was time for a light grooming before they headed over to the wardrobe tent. The Black needed to get outfitted for the scene they were shooting that morning.
Alec spent the next hour trying to get the Black to submit to wearing the costume for his Bucephalus stand-in scene. Though the breastplate, feathered headpiece and other armor was lightweight, it was still cumbersome, and the stallion plainly didn’t understand why Alec was asking him to wear it. He wasn’t a trained movie horse and had never been schooled in the particular skills necessary to play a part in a film.
The Black bucked and pawed and was generally uncooperative, but finally Alec managed to get his horse suited up and more or less ready for the shot. Or rather, ready to wait for the shot. Once again, Alec realized that in the world of movies, everything was about waiting. You always had to be ready when they said you had to be ready, but it also seemed you always had to wait because someone else wasn’t ready, or because a light stand fell over, or because a cloud was blocking the sun or because of a million other mishaps that could delay the plans for the day. All the waiting around didn’t really bother Alec that much. If his life at the racetrack had taught him anything, it was that it never paid to be in a hurry. At the track, winners waited and watched and didn’t get impatient about
circumstances beyond their control. Sometimes it just meant finding a relaxing way to fill up the time between races. It seemed much the same here, and Alec was thankful he had a good book to read.
Finally he got the word that the cameras were almost ready, and they wanted Alec and the Black on the set in ten minutes. Alec was already wearing his costume but ducked into the wardrobe tent for last-minute adjustments. Xeena waited outside with the Black. Two costume assistants helped Alec get his helmet on and double-checked the rest of his armor.
“You ready?” Xeena asked when Alec emerged.
Alec nodded. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
They started off for the set. Alec gave his horse a pat on the neck. “I wish I could explain all of this to the Black,” he said. “He must think I’ve gone crazy, asking him to wear this stuff.”
Xeena laughed. “He looks great anyway. He’ll look terrific with the mountains in the background.”
The scene was being filmed only a couple minutes’ walk away, on a low hill flanked by looming peaks just beyond the compound. Jeff met them there and ran over the setup with Alec one last time. “Alexander and Bucephalus are reuniting after being separated during a battle,” Jeff said. “Your job is to stand on top of the hill and call the Black to you when Bateman gives the cue.”
“Sounds simple enough,” Alec said. “I just hope the Black will cooperate. Anyway, we’ll do the best we can.”
The set was crowded with clusters of camera people, electricians, lighting people and assistants directing sunlight with reflector boards. Soon the cameras were in position and the crew was ready.
Karst was waiting for them at the mark where the Black was to start from. Alec had decided the best way to ensure the stallion came to him when he was turned loose was to tempt him with food. For this Alec was using a fresh carrot and a Jonathan apple, a tangy-sweet variety that the Black usually couldn’t resist. Alec held out his hand and let the Black sniff the apple and then backed away from the stallion, showing him the apple and calling to him. The Black pulled at his lead, but Karst, with a little help from Xeena, held the stallion still. Alec took his position about twenty yards away on top of the low hill.
“Action,” Bateman commanded over the bullhorn.
Alec called to his horse again, and this time Karst turned the Black loose. The stallion started for Alec but then gave a shrill neigh and took off in another direction.
“Cut,” called the director. “Do it again.” Wranglers on horseback and assistants on foot waved down the stallion and turned him back.
“I better get him,” Alec said. He jogged out to collect the Black and lead him to his start marker.
“Easy, fella,” Alec said. This time he gave the Black a taste of apple and a piece of carrot. But after the cameras were readied and Alec again called to the stallion, once more the Black bolted for the sidelines and out of the shot. They tried again and again. It took five attempts before Alec could finally get the Black to come to him as the director wanted.
Xeena walked with Alec as he led the stallion back to his stall. “That was so embarrassing,” Alec said. “It looked like I had zero control over my horse out there.”
Xeena nodded. “All the animals have been acting up this morning,” she said. “Even Cleo, and she never gets worked up about anything. Maybe there is something in the woods around here. There could be forest predators, a pack of wolves or mountain lions.”
“Are there animals like that living here?” Alec asked.
“I didn’t think so, but you never know.”
Alec shook his head. “Let’s not worry about that unless we have to.”
“You’re right,” Xeena said. “Anyway, we have Conrad’s snakes to protect us. They are starring in their big scene later today. It should be interesting.”
After lunch that afternoon, Alec was sitting with his horse when Xeena popped her head into the tent. “Hey there,” she said. “What’s up?”
“Just reading my book,” Alec said. “How is it going on the set?”
“Pretty good. The snakes seem to be feeling a bit lazy, though. How’s the Black?”
“He’s okay now. I don’t know what got into him before.”
Xeena smiled and took a seat on a bale of hay. “It’s been that sort of a day for everyone.”
“You should have heard the goats in the next stall a few minutes ago, bleating like murder. Something sure had them stirred up.” Alec shook his head. “So what’s going on with Conrad’s snakes?”