Felarro: The Horse Who Ran Off With a God

Readers first hear of Felarro in Sordaneon, when Dorilian boasts of the speed and heritage of his racehorse, Sural. He compares Sural more than once to the legendary horse of the gods. Later in the same book, another character makes a possibly even more apt comparison of Dorilian to Felarro.

Here is the story of Felarro.

Amynas and the Not-Quite-Great Escape

Ashvadys was the Leur expression who created one of the most visited and beloved reflections of the First Creation, Thessala, home of Olympos. Ashvadys also created the horse and wore the form of the horse goddess later known as Epona. Ashvadys themselves departed from Olympos and joined the Sacrifice of Daln, becoming part of the Second Creation. Thessala and Olympos became one of the Archived reflections (Pasts) chosen by the Aryati to be their home in Exile.

After witnessing Pankrator’s madness and murder by Deus, Amynas and Lokenalys fled Mulsor. As did the remains of the Aryati Hegeistate, they too used the portal known as the Manifold and were the last known to do so. The friends’ plan was that they would emerge in the same alternate world and time. They did end up in the same Time—at least that setting worked and had been preset by the fleeing Aryati—but not the same place.

Pursued by soldiers still intent on fulfilling Pankratos’ order to kill them and clutching destination rings plucked in desperation, Lokenalys leapt first. He emerged in a region of high ice-capped mountains, clear skies, strange camelids, and a mud village with only a few people.

Amynas fended off a soldier before leaping and dropped his ring. His leap was successful but because his genetics were identical to those of Deus, the Manifold sent Amynas to those coordinates. He ended up with... Deus.

Amynas and the God-Aryati

Deus had traveled by design to the Hegeistate outpost on Olympos, where he had set up a pantheon for governing his Aryati followers and native mortals. It was—naturally—a pantheon with him at the top. Here on this less developed reflection and several others they had populated, Deus and his fellow former Hegemons would use their advanced technology to function as gods.

It became clear immediately after the crossing over that the Manifold and World Prime had been destroyed. Deus would get neither reinforcements nor recruits. Still, having Amynas appear unexpectedly on the elegant paving at his feet presented a problem to Deus. He and Amynas were essentially twins; the only surviving clones of Pankratos. As far as anyone knew, ALL of Leur had died with the destruction of World Prime (see note) and Deus had in his possession the Undying Crown, which bestowed upon him all the power of the only remaining god. On him, not a look-alike who had sought to destroy the crown back in Mulsor and who might try to do so again. Amynas was also an Aryati, a prince, known to have been a companion of Leur, and might be someone to whom other Aryati would listen or follow. Deus had not liked Amynas on World Prime and did not like him here.

Though Deus wanted power—all of it would be best—Amynas wanted none. He wanted only his freedom and an opportunity to find Loke, though the Aryati laughed at that possibility. Leur, said the Aryati, had gone from this world and all others their portals had enabled them to visit. Every bit of evidence pointed to the conclusion that Leur was dead.

Amynas pleaded his case for many weeks to his brother but ultimately Deus determined a deadly—though certain to be entertaining—fate. Deus proclaimed that Amynas would be tied to the nastiest horse ever born or created, Felarro, a creature that had already killed three men and that Deus himself had been unable to ride.

[Felarro is described as a giant stallion, white in color with blue hoofs and green eyes. He also, according to contemporary sources, possessed sharp teeth along with an appetite for meat. Scholars disagree as to Felarro’s origin. The name is probably a derivation of the Old High Stauba word pherophos, meaning “one who carries.” Some say he was Ashvadys’s own steed, created by her and left behind when she rejoined the godhead; she herself had often assumed the form of a Great Mare as the goddess Epona. Some mortals around Olympos and beyond claimed that their superior horses were offspring of Felarro and Epona.]

On a grassy field at the foot of Olympos, on the plain of Thossa, Deus ordered Amynas to be stripped of all clothing and chained by both hands to Felarro so that he might be dragged, and possibly kicked, bitten, or trampled, to death. Amynas didn’t know if Loke was in the vicinity or even alive, so he was on his own. His Aryati captors had prodded and tormented—and also starved—Felarro so that the stallion was angry and lashing out at all humans. The humans ringing the field were laughing and loud and cheering for blood. Amynas had only one chance.

He was chained to his sole means of escape. Rather than struggle or try to run so as not to be dragged, Amynas leaped onto Felarro’s back and hung on for his life. Felarro bucked and twisted but Amynas, using teeth and hands, tied his arms to Felarro’s mane the better to battle for the stallion’s head. Every time the stallion unseated him, Amynas vaulted back astride. Furious, Felarro ran. And jumped. He jumped over the crowd. Over the cheering onlookers. Over the hedges. Over the river.

With Amynas—only slightly bitten and kicked—clinging to his back, Felarro outran the Aryati. He outran their slaves and dogs and machines. An original creation of Ashvadys (as Loke later said was probably the case), Felarro raced away from Olympos and headed north. Across the plain, into the forest. Into the far north. So far north that forests gave way to ice.

Amynas and Felarro

As Felarro raced across the plain of Thossa, Amynas fought with Felarro for control. Both were mighty. When knots in the mane gave way and Felarro would unseat him, Amynas ran. Dragged at the end of his chains he would curse and haul to slow the beast so that he might mount again. His wrists and his feet bled.

This part of the tale, of Felarro’s fury and the travail of Amynas, is famous and was told by Cibulitus in his Tales from Nemen Lands.

Amynas was chained and helpless and hungry—and so was the horse. If Amynas were to lose consciousness Felarro would surely drag him to death... or eat him.

Loke and the Camelids

Loke meanwhile was less than happy about being separated from his friend. He was fairly sure Amynas had made it through the Manifold; there had only been one soldier in pursuit and the big lunk should have been able to handle that. If Amynas had jumped, however, he certainly hadn’t ended up here. On the plus side, Loke was alive and well and had landed in reasonably hospitable surroundings. The clearly impressed natives had deduced from Loke’s fiery hair and unusual height—along with his even more unusual ability to create fire with his fingertips—that he was a god. He spoke their language (of course, as Leur had created it in the first place) and accepted being called Huyra’kuka.

[Marenthro later tells Hans that Viracocha, the Incan creator god, had another name. Viracocha might have been a name for Ashvadys, who had likely created the camelids in that region before coming up with horses elsewhere.

Fun fact: Hans leaves his Archived Past by the same portal remnant that dropped Loke there. Hans’s Archived Past is one that deviated from the world of Olympos at a key temporal point. It’s complicated. The same portal can exist in more than one Archived Past... though the portal Hans used is now permanently destroyed.]

With Amynas a no-show, Loke decided to set off to see the world. He did this as a bird—a falcon seemed like a good choice—and followed the coastline, looking for signs of his friend. Ashvadys had, it turned out, created a fairly ocean-heavy reflection of World Prime. It took some time for Loke to make his way by flying and gathering rumors from the humans he found along the way. It didn’t take long to locate the continent inhabited by the Aryati survivors. Loke avoided Olympos, of course. He avoided the Aryati wherever possible. Fortunately rumor among the local humans told him that the Deus Aryati’s brother, Amynas, had just been dispatched on a runaway horse.

Loke could deal with that. A wild horse with a man tied to its back generated a lot of rumors. It didn’t take long for Loke-falcon to find Felarro on the icy plain in the north, still bucking and twisting and trying to bite off chunks of Amynas.

Felarro and the Leur

After landing on the ice plain, Loke resumed his favorite human form and approached the exhausted but still bucking white horse—and Amynas, who was just as exhausted but, unlike the horse, looked happy to see him. Felarro, to be fair, was probably confused. Loke walked up to the pawing, snorting stallion and, unafraid, put out his hand. Felarro allowed the touch and bowed his head.

Loke then stepped forward and, speaking Ashvadys’s name. pressed his forehead to that of Felarro. The great horse then stood quiet while Loke gently unmade the knots Amynas had made of Felarro’s mane, changed the chains into strands of dust, and eased his friend from the horse’s back. Felarro followed as Loke carried Amynas into a conical tent he had created by rearranging the air. Inside was warmth and light. Legend has it that Felarro rested nearby while Loke held Amynas in his arms until dawn and the healing of all his wounds.

From that day forth Felarro allowed no being other than Loke to handle him. The friends found another horse for Amynas to ride. Felarro never wore a bridle or suffered a saddle. He famously killed two Aryati diadem-wearers during the War of Exile.

Felarro’s fate after the Return is unclear. He may have accompanied Amynas and Loke when they discovered and entered the Second Creation. He did accompany Amynas and the Three to Essera after the War of Exile, during which time Felarro sired several known foals. It is notable that Loke is not in those tales. It is also notable that Felarro soon vanishes from all written records.

Many lofty horse bloodlines trace their origins back to Felarro’s foals. Dorilian’s Sural is surely one of them. So is his later favorite steed, Caillessar, and the horse given to Hans, Dominion.

[NOTE: The Aryati assumption that all of Leur had perished with the destruction of World Prime was clearly flawed. If all of Leur had perished completely and been simply gone the Universe would have ceased to Change. Time would no longer exist. If Time no longer existed, the Aryati could not be standing there talking about it.

To be sure, the Undying Crown, the remnant of a god not Leur, would have remained... and continued to be very unhappy.]