//------------------------------// // 27 - Here Be Monsters // Story: The GATE // by scifipony //------------------------------// My throat closed up and I couldn't squeak for trying. I backed away from the eyes that looked down on me from a height of no less than seven feet up. I bumped into Daniel and reached back. My brain constructed what I saw in pieces, probably because I'd never seen its like before, and what I did recognize was in a completely wrong context of it being in midair. The amber eyes, bright despite the dimness, were set in an equine head, but the head was to the head of a horse like a Persian cat or pit bull face was to a typical cat's or dog's. Flattened muzzle; high forehead. And... Wearing a blue steel Trojan helmet that sported a black, likely horse-hair, crest. I saw wings gently flapping before I realized it held a blackened steel cutlass in its teeth. Oh, did I mention it? Her wings were leathery. And she stuck to the roofing by her rear hooves. We blinked at each other maybe five seconds, then she neatly—and silently—hid the sword in a lengthwise-slit sheath strapped across her withers. The forty-five degree-angled hilt sported a flared crossguard that could protect its welder's face and neck. It was an astonishingly functional design for an equine that fought with its face instead of a hand, which made it hard to think I was hallucinating it all. There was no way I could have ever dreamt this up! "Uh," finally escaped my mouth. A sweeping sound against the siding and a clank to Daniel's right caught both my attention and his. Another bat-winged horse-creature hovered near the ceiling, not holding on to anything. Its wings moved so slowly, my mind insisted it stood on an invisible pedestal despite its suspended, slightly folded legs. It balanced a spear with a bullet-shaped tip on the upper surface of its right wing with practiced ease. Like a ball on the ocean, the spear barely moved except up and down, and it was pointed roughly at us. The small horse could not be more than three-feet tall. The... This one was female, also. The mare had purposely struck the side of the shed with the spear butt to get our attention. "What is that?" I asked. "I—I've never seen that." "You...? What!?" Another sound designed to distract us came from the direction of the bubble. It was the sound of metal striking stone. A bluish light grew like a half-seen flame reflected through a glass of water, to the left. Reflections and shadows moved from the right, again like seeing a candle through a glass of liquid. It condensed into the center of the sphere. The pulsating nebulous glow brightened around what I originally guessed was a stick held at chin level, then, as it came closer and brightened, I realized I was very wrong. Another small horse approached, this one almost my height. Almost my height if you included the long pointy glowing horn that appeared screwed into its forehead. This mare was significantly more slender than the other two, perhaps even elegantly shaped. Her fur was midnight blue, and she wore black plate armor and a black helmet. Unmistakably feminine iridescent blue eyeshadow highlighted blue eyes. With my shoulder jammed into Daniel's, I felt him move before I saw it. Then I saw him bringing up his rifle. I did what my father did when he found me sticking a tablespoon into a tub of Rocky Road snuck out of the freezer, holding a game controller bleary-eyed past midnight, or when I was about to press the button on the remote when I thought he was asleep in the Lay-Z-Boy recliner. "Put down the weapon!" I shouted. I also shoved him hard. It wasn't from some perceived sense of innocence from the horse-creatures. No. I knew overwhelming force when I saw it, and I knew that Daniel, like the rest of the Shoal family, reacted with his gut. His pop-gun could only do real damage if he hit something critical, which was unlikely considering the armor I saw and most people's inability to aim a rifle like a pistol. He wasn't thinking. As he stumbled, I swatted his right arm; he dropped the rifle to rattle on the floor. Luckily, it didn't discharge. I followed through by stepping on the barrel of the weapon. Both of the winged-horses were standing on the ground when I looked. Each were the size of a husky German shepherd, but with a human-sized head, a stocky midsection, and relatively short legs. I might have considered them miniature ponies, but no ponies on Earth could point a cutlass or a spear at us as these did. I looked toward the bubble. Horses don't speak. Not earth horses. Well, not like humans, anyway. That said, I recognized that the sound from the elegant horse's throat was a chuckle and could be nothing else—followed by a snide comment. The unicorn stopped this side of the bubble. A luminous fog pulsed around her horn, bright enough to illuminate the shed well. My ear twitched as I caught the faint sound of wind chimes. In a series of whinnies, neighs, chuffs, whickers, and palate pops, she issued terse orders. I heard hooves scuffing dirt as her guards backed off. We locked eyes, but hers were steely and hard. I eventually had to glance away. She gave me the once over and gave a horsey nod before the foggy glow pulsing around her horn bifurcated. The safety on Daniel's .22 clicked into place as an identical blue fog gathered there. Then, one by one, actuating the lever, each of the bullets in the rifle ejected and drifted into the air toward the unicorn until they disappeared into her right saddlebag. I counted, and she knew how the firearm worked and how to determine the full load of the rifle. Suddenly, my Swiss Army knife and Daniel's jack knife spirited away into her possession. That glowing blue fog made like a mouse and ransacked all our pockets. After splaying in the air all Daniel's cash and IDs like an exploded instruction diagram, Daniel's weathered brown wallet shot back together in one unified movement and deep into his rear pocket, causing him to gasp and squirm. She said something to us. When we didn't quickly move, the cutlass guard, sword sheathed, pushed us out of the way with a wing. She used the leathery thing like an oversized hand. It had a single finger that looked like a dog's dew claw. I shuddered at the touch of the claw and wing, and when I looked down, I noticed the mare shuddered having touched my arm. As the unicorn passed, I noticed she had a brand on her flank. On second look, I decided it was a tattoo. Her outrageous dark blue color aside, she was a painted pony with an ink blot onto which was tattooed a white crescent moon. I could smell horse perspiration, but something else. A faint flowery perfume. The spear slid out of the door handles and the glow pulled open the door enough to look out. She glanced about, then opened the door a little more. Suddenly, wings flared out. They were dark blue like the rest of her, and feathered like a bird's. "Not a unicorn," I muttered. "Unicorns don't exist," Daniel stated flatly, denying what his eyes and mine saw. "I don't think this one shits rainbows, either."