The great south road led the Brigadier’s patrol towards the Grantens, a ridge of tall, rocky hills that some people called mountains and that marked the southern edge of Helberion territory. As they entered the lower foothills they left the last towns and villages behind and entered lands that were occupied only by the occasional goat farmer. Great pine forests covered the horizon, but the lands through which the road ran, rising steadily out of the lowlands in which the bulk of the Kingdom sat, were bare and scruffy. The soil thin and stony, just barely covering the bedrock below. The wind blew strong and cold as the bare hilltops rose around them, sucking away the heat of their bodies, and they buttoned up their jackets right up to the neck in an attempt to stay warm.

     “From here on, we're foreign soldiers travelling through someone else’s country,” said Sergeant Blane, his eyes scanning the horizon. “We have to be constantly on our guard.”

     “We have diplomatic papers, signed by the King,” replied the Brigadier. “Apologies to the King of Wilterland for the intrusion. Promises of compensation etc.”

     “Fine, if the patrol that spots us has someone who can read. What if they tell us to go back the way we came? What if they try to arrest us?”

     “Then we will have to hope that they are amenable to reason.”

     “And if they're not?”

     “We'll face that problem when and if it arises. We won’t be going through the most densely populated parts of their country. If we're lucky, we might pass right through their lands without being spotted by anyone in authority.”

     “Here's to luck, then,” said the Sergeant, taking his water bottle from his belt and taking a long drink from it.

     “We've got company,” called out Cowley, and the others followed his pointing finger to where a man was scrambling down the slope that lined the road, loose stones and bits of gravel sliding out from under his feet. The men watched with interest as he descended in a cloud of dust, wondering whether he would lose his footing before reaching the bottom and slip the rest of the way on his backside.

     “Five crowns says he falls,” said Harper with a grin.

     “You're on,” replied Spencer.

     “Gambling is a violation of the military code, mister Harper,” warned the Brigadier, eyeing him sharply.

     “Yes, sir,” replied Harper. “Just kidding, sir.” He glanced across at Spencer, though, and the two men winked at each other. The Brigadier pretended not to see.

     The man reached the road safely, and the Brigadier made a hand gesture for the patrol to halt while he came running up to them.  “Is one of you a wizard?” said the man, looking at each of them in turn as if a wizard would look different, in some way, to a normal man. “Army patrols always include a wizard, isn't that right? That's what they say, anyway.” He went to stand before the Brigadier. “Please, I need a wizard!”

     The Brigadier looked over at Quill and beckoned him over with his eyes. Quill sighed in resignation and guided his horse forward. “An ontomancer, to use the correct term,” he said. “How may I be of service?”

     “My horse,” the man replied. “We were snowed in over the winter, the pass was blocked for months. A tree fell in a gale, destroying our house. My wife and I were forced to spend most of the winter in the stable...”

     “In close proximity to the horse,” said Quill, nodding to himself. He looked at the Brigadier, saw the warning look in his eyes, and took the hint. “I'm afraid we're in something of a hurry. We don’t have time for detours.”

     “My home is just up there.” He pointed up the slope from which he had just descended. “There's a track half a mile ahead, a road horses can follow. It's getting late. You'll be wanting to find a place to spend the night and I've rebuilt my home. There’s room for you all. A roof over your heads and a warm fire. You can look at my horse while you’re there. Please!”

     The wizard looked hopefully at the Brigadier, who looked ahead, along the valley. The past few nights had been spent in tents, with wind blowing through every gap to suck away every scrap of warmth. Even the Brigadier had looked miserable.

     “A warm bed for the night would be very welcome,” said Malone. “If we can help him while he helps us...”

     The Brigadier nodded, therefore. “Very well, lead on.” The man bobbed his head gratefully and trotted ahead of them, the patrolman following on their horses.

     They saw goats in twos and threes on all sides of them as they rode, chewing contentedly as they eyed them warily with their suspicious, wide pupilled eyes. Some came running forward, recognising their owner and hoping for a handout of stale bread or honeycorn, but the man ignored them. “Name's Flordan,” he said. “My family's been herding goats here for five generations. I was a goat myself, not so long ago. All my family come from goats. Bit of a family tradition, you might say.”

     “Tradition’s important,” said Quill absently, not really paying attention.

     “Right,” agreed Flordan. “Just me and my wife now, though. My parents went back into the ground just a couple of years back. First my dad, back in the autumn. Just slipped away three days before his declaration day. Only been human less than ten years, and I were declared less than three years ago. I barely knew him. Then my mother went just a few weeks after him. Couldn’t live without him, I reckon.” He came closer to Quill’s horse so be could speak in a lower voice and still be heard. “She started to revert while she were still alive. I heard o' such things but I thought it were just stories.”

     “No, it can happen,” replied the wizard. “As you say, it can be caused by the loss of the will to live. Also by certain diseases.”

     “She had no disease. Anyway, just me and my wife now. We were thinking of starting a family, but that’s a big commitment. We picked out a goat, the biggest, healthiest one, and Marly, that’s the wife. Marly. Anyway, she keeps saying that we should bring it in the house to sleep with us, but there's so much work needs doing around the place. You know how it is.”

     Quinn grunted, just loudly enough to be heard. Casual conversation was something he'd never really gotten the hang of.

     “So, how do you get to be a wizard?” Are there schools you can go to?” He had to repeat the question twice more before Quill finally looked at him and paid him enough attention to hear what he was saying.

     “Some people just are wizards,” he replied. “They just turn out that way. We have the ability to form an instant parent bond with another person or animal, and we can use that bond to either raise or lower the subject through the rungs of life.”

     “And it has an instant effect?” asked the goat herder. “It normally takes years to raise a child.”

     “We can accelerate the raising of a subject to the next rung up, so that It takes weeks instead of years,” replied the wizard. “It’s risky, though. It runs the risk of the subject growing wild, becoming deformed. Thee more skilled the wizard, the less likely this is, but a blessing is never without risk.”

     “What about dropping an animal back down a rung?” asked Flordan. “That's much faster. Right?”

     “Yes, all animals seem to ‘remember’ their previous form. I can't really describe it any better than that. But cursing is not something we do lightly. Not reputable wizards, anyway. Also, there's a chance that the creature it ends up becoming is not quite the same as the creature it was raised from. Ontogeny is a very hit and miss affair. We try to use it as little as possible.”

     “So how does it work?”

     “How does what work?”

     “The parent bond. How does it work?”

     “No-one knows.” Quill tried to think of a way to end the conversation. Perhaps if he just stared off into the distance and answered every question in monosyllables...

     “A fox eats rabbits,” continued the goat herder, though. “Suddenly, though, for no reason anyone can work out, it takes a rabbit back to its burrow without harming it and keeps it there for a few days. After that the rabbit doesn't want to escape any more and stays of its own free will.”

     “The parent bond,” said the wizard. Maybe a simple answer would be enough to satisfy him. “It affects the animal’s brain first. Both parent and child. The parent is driven to adopt a creature it would normally eat, and after a couple of days the prey animal loses its fear of the parent. It then changes, physically, until it resembles the parent.”

     “Yes, everyone knows that, but how? How does it happen?”

     “No-one knows,” said Quill. “I'm sorry, but I can’t give you a better answer than that. No-one today knows. Maybe the Hetin people knew, It’s said that their science surpassed ours by a great degree, but if they did know, the knowledge has long since been lost.”

     “Maybe there are theories..”

     “No!” snapped the wizard angrily. “There are no theories. No-one knows. Now please stop asking.” He geed up his horse and rode ahead to the front of the column while the rest of the men sniggered to themselves in amusement. Flordan stared after him in confusion. “I only asked,” he muttered to himself.

     The goat herder’s home turned out to be little more than four dry stone walls with a ceiling of grassy turfs laid over a framework of wooden planks salvaged from the remains of his original home. That had been a much more impressive building made of fired bricks, glass windows and with a tiled roof, but it had been thoroughly demolished by the massive pine tree that still lay across it. The stable stood nearby, also made of bricks and tiles and just big enough for one horse and a cart, which now stood outside, its metal fixings rusting from neglect. The man's wife was waiting there, a dumpy creature wearing shabby clothes in badly faded colours. “Who are these people, Flor?” she asked, shuffling forward nervously.

     “They've come to fix Nag,” said Flordan, taking her reassuringly by the elbows. “One of them’s a wizard.”

     “Good day to you,” said the Brigadier, dismounting and coming forward. Behind him, the rest of the men dismounted as well, then stood beside their horses. He offered her his hand, which she stared at uncertainty for a few moments before taking. He gave her hand a firm shake. “My apologies for Intruding into your lives. We were asked to come here by your husband. My name is Brigadier Weyland James and these are my men.”

     “It’s a honour, sir!” she said fearfully. She stared at her husband for support, not knowing what to say or do, and he came forward to take the brunt of the Brigadier’s attention. “It's so good of you to help us out like this. A real life wizard, just passing by! It's a dream come true.”

     “I've just come to look,” said Quill. “I didn't promise anything.”

     “Right, right. It's in here. Marly, why don't you show our guests to the house and sort out some places for them to spend the night.” The woman stared fearfully at the soldiers, but then led the way to the sorry looking building while Flordan showed the wizard into the stable, where the beast was waiting.

     It was dark inside, and Flordan lit an oil lamp hanging beside the door. The horse was tethered to an iron ring near the rear wall and looked up, whinnying unhappily as the goat herder approached. It was already showing clear human traits. It’s head was shorter than was normal for a horse. Its eyes were close together on the front of its face and all four hooves had begun to divide into stubby fingers and toes. It’s hide was beginning to lose its hair in patches, revealing light brown, human skin beneath.

     It was clearly rather uncomfortable being on four legs and kept trying unsuccessfully to rise onto its hind legs. As Quill approached, a frown on his face, it uttered a series of sounds that were only half neighing and that contained the beginnings of human speech. It stared nervously at the wizard and staggered away from them to the limit of its rope tether, tottering on its cloven hooves. Flordan hurried over to it and put a comforting hand on its neck, patting it and crooning into its ear.

    “Easy, boy, easy,” he said, patting its head as Quill studied it, running his hands over its body. “Is there anything you can do?”

     Quill’s face had fallen at his first glimpse of the creature, though. “I'm afraid not,” he said. “The transformation has progressed too far. Legally, it's already human. Congratulations, you've got a son.”

     “But I don’t want a son. I want a horse! How am I going to take goats to market without a horse to pull the wagon? You're a wizard, you can turn him back. Make him all horse again. Cast a curse...”

     “It would be murder,” replied Quill. “The law is quite clear on this subject. That's why we change mounts at the start of each new day, to prevent us from becoming parent bonded to our horses. Everyone knows this.”

     “We had no choice! Our house was destroyed, we had to sleep next to the creature. Of course we knew what would happen, but I thought a wizard could turn him back!”

     “I'm sorry. As I said, the process has gone too far. There ‘s nothing I can do.”

     “You have to...”

     “You heard him,” said the Brigadier, who'd entered the stable behind them with the Sergeant. “See this as a blessing. I'm sure he'll be a fine man one day.” He then beckoned for the wizard to follow him back outside. “There isn’t room in that house for all of us,” he said. “Some of us will bed down in the stable overnight. One night with the horses won't hurt. I want you in the house, though. With me, away from that poor beast. Otherwise the father will keep on pestering you about it.”

     “Thank you, Sir. Appreciate it.”

    “Blane, we'll all accept our host’s hospitality in their house for supper, but I want you to select five men to sleep with you in the stable. Make yourselves as comfortable as you can.”

     The Sergeant acknowledged the order and returned to the men, while Harper and Spencer led their mounts into the stable. Flordan was still with his son, staring in hurt betrayal as the half raised horse continued to nuzzle up against him, stamping his feet at his inability to understand his father's unhappiness.

     “Bad business,” said Malone a little later as he prepared the Brigadier’s sleeping area in the house, a little way apart from the other men.
“Sometimes there's no way to avoid close contact with animals. I heard that snow trackers sleep cuddled up to their dogs to avoid freezing to death.”

     “They have half a dozen dogs, at least, and snow trackers never go around in pairs,” replied the Brigadier. “The number of animals helps prevent pair bonding with any of them. He should have had more than one horse. It was obvious what might happen if he had only one.”

     “Even so, you can see the dilemma he’s in...”

     “Not our problem. Go talk with him, see if he'd be willing to sell one of his goats. I'm sure the men would welcome some fresh meat further along the trail.