Читать книгу How the Gods Wove at Kyrannon - Ardath Mayhar - Страница 5

Chapter One

The Hunting

Where the silver-foliaged forests swept in their wide arc between mountains, beside a stream that chattered between ferned banks, stood a stone house so old that its weathered walls seemed a part of the wood and the turf. The ancient moon-trees of the forest bent above the mossy roof and dropped web-soft leaves on the porches and paths. They made a gray carpet where the feet of Cara passed about her tasks, and they whispered down the roof when the rains of fall began.

As season followed season, no change touched the house, or the wood, or the woman who lived there: for Tisha the Wise was slender and gray-clad and quiet-footed, as she had been for long and would be. But the years made great changes in the youngling who grew from child to woman. And Cara, no longer a child, began to dream of a world which must lie beyond the murmurous trees and patient mountains.

“The world has been and will be,” said Tisha sharply, when queried. “When you have learned the secrets of the earth and the wood and the Wildings in the secret places, then you will have reason to look afar toward other mysteries. Do you yet understand the working of the seed you tuck into the garden soil? Can you look through the eyes of your little cat, to see the world as she sees? Until you have spoken with the People of the Heights in mutual trust, or with a Wilding in his cool fastness, do not seek to meddle with the world beyond the mountains.”

“Yet I know that you have walked in the places over-mountain,” cried Cara rebelliously. “It did you no harm, and you surely learned much!”

“Aye, I learned,” chuckled Tisha, narrowing her gray eyes as if against a light. “No harm? Perhaps, but no good, either, did it do for me. I learned to distrust all who dwelt beneath roofs. I learned to fear, and that is no light lesson. I saw beauty to make the eye start from its socket, coupled with cruelty that would astonish a wolf in the hills. And, having seen your fine world, sought out a finer place, suited to the life of a thinker and watcher and healer. Here, where my far grandsirs dwelt, I brought you, my child-in-heart, that you might grow unwarped by the terrible stresses of the world of men.”

Cara leaned toward her mother and touched her sleeve. The light of anger died from her eyes, and she said softly, “How came we here? Never have you talked with me of our journey and its cause, or of my father, or the thing that drove you into the wild.”

“Have never does not mean will never,” said Tisha, catching up a basket. “But now the nuts litter the ground beneath the brown-nut trees, and our winter store is not made. Come to the forest and forget your unease for now. Fall is no time for the heart to wander.”

They went out into the scented winds that whipped their cloaks about their bodies and swept the pain from their tight hearts. Through the apple orchard they walked, stopping now and again to claim a windfall neglected when they harvested their crop. The crisp mellowness of the fruit lay on their tongues like a blessing, and they looked with gladness into the flying cloudwrack above them, feeling the season possess their beings through all senses.

“This is a good world,” admitted Cara as they entered the narrow track their feet had worn, year after year, through the lofty forest on the way to the nutwood. The web-gray leaves cushioned their steps, and the silver skin of the trees glimmered with a light like the moon behind cloud. A Grack watched them solemnly from his perch on a high branch, bending his short neck and cocking his round black head, following their progress as they walked beneath him, until he was peering upside-down beneath the tree limb. Then Cara laughed aloud, walking backward on tiptoe in order to see his glossy tail anchored desperately on the near side of the branch.

As if suddenly realizing his undignified position, the bird righted himself and gazed into the wood, ignoring them completely. Then Tisha joined in the mirth, and mother and daughter went down the path in a chime of laughter.

They found the nut-wood awash with wealth for squirrel and bird and humankind, though but they two wore the form of man; before the afternoon was spent, the women had filled their baskets and their bags. Then they sat upon a stone, talking, watching their companions at their garnerings, and enjoying the spicy scent of the brown-nut trees.

Then there came a sort of hush among the creatures gleaning among the leaves. Another Grack, just visible on a far limb, seemed to be observing some traveler on the path. Tisha stood then and said, “One comes, and no man or beast, I think. A Wilding? Let me see....” And she closed her eyes for a space of two heartbeats, seeming to fold into herself. “A Wilding,” she repeated positively. “And in pain. Come, Cara, gather up our store and follow, for there is need of a healer—and perhaps more than a healer.”

They hurried toward the path, burdened with their brown-nuts, yet making all haste. No sound of footsteps guided them toward the newcomer; only Tisha’s sensing told her where he walked. Unerringly, she moved through the trees, along the path. It was not long until she spied the Wilding, who had stopped and was resting against a moon-tree, nursing his side and breathing in controlled gasps which told of severe pain.

“Ho, wood-brother!” cried Tisha, setting down her burden and moving to his side. “You have great need of a healer, I fear. How came you in this state?” She moved his hands aside to see the wound, then gasped in shock as the ragged slash appeared.

Cara hurried to them and knelt amid the leaves. “This is the wound of no weapon of the wood-people!” she said. “What nature of being assaults one of these gentle folk with such?”

“Those who dwell in the ‘world’,” answered her mother, with a bitter twist to her lips. “Is it not so?” she asked the Wilding.

He opened his long golden eyes, which glowed strangely in his umber-colored face, and the mane of short silver hair rippled on the back of his neck as he said, in a faraway, whispering voice, “So it was, Lady. A man from beyond the highlands, it must be, hunted us as we walked in the deep dells, gathering our winter fare. My mate and our young concealed themselves and I ran, keeping him after me, but I slipped among the mossy stones. Then he stood above me and flung the spear he carried. It was only the kindness of the gods that sent it wide of the mark, else it would have sunk into my heart.” He gasped and closed his eyes as Tisha bound him tightly with a length torn from her robe.

“Come to our house, that we may tend this wound. Nay, I know you dislike roofs, and I will not ask that you remain beneath mine—only that you come, so that I may use my lotions and balms upon this ugly cut.”

The Wilding had started at mention of the house, but he calmed and nodded. The two women assisted him to walk, not forgetting their store of provender. The Grack was astonished to see two of humankind leading a Wilding, and he peered so interestedly that he well-nigh lost his balance upon his perch and was forced to flap his ebony wings desperately in order to remain aloft. Then despite pain and anxiety, the three whom he watched laughed together and went on their way with lighter hearts.

The wound was soon cleaned and tended, and the Wilding consented to eat beneath their roof, which was a great concession from one of his kind. And strange did he look indeed, with his cunningly knotted fiber cloak and kilt draped upon his lithe and earth-toned frame, sitting with the frame of a firelit room, surrounded by all the artifacts of man. The light ran rampant through his silver hair, making it seem to burn upward in a close cap, then stream into its roached ridge down his spine to the shoulder. Yet his ways were easy and his manners unembarrassed.

Cara smiled as she moved back and forth in the firelight, watching her mother and the Wilding as they talked. So unlike were they in appearance and bearing that it was instantly apparent that they were of differing species: yet so similar were their inner selves that their kinship seemed to glow through the cloaking flesh. They seemed, to her knowing eye, two twilit creatures of the quiet places, soft and gentle to look upon, but steely in their inner strength.

As she watched, Tisha leaned forward and laid her slender hand upon that of the Wilding. He started, his strong ivory-colored digging claws appearing and retracting as a reflex. But she spoke quietly to him and he smiled and relaxed in the chair. The air of tension went from him.

“You might even come to like a roof,” teased Tisha, as she saw this. “Yet all to their own ways. The problem we must now solve is this: what one among humankind is walking our forested hills with death in his heart for those unlike himself? This concerns more than your people, Loor, for the People of the Heights are also unlike. Even we, human though we be, are utterly unlike, beneath our skins, and might well run afoul of this killer-for-pleasure. What manner of man was he to look upon?”

Loor’s eyes seemed to turn inward, as he looked again upon that figure. “Not over-tall was he,” he said at last. “Far below the height of our kind. His hair was dark as old moss upon a stone, and it was cut short below his ears. His eyes were two holes into darkness. He was clad in a way of men—richly, it seemed to me. But you will know him by his smile. He laughs when he kills. Aye, he laughs....” And Loor spoke no more.

The woman nodded slowly, her hand beneath her rounded chin, her gray eyes narrowed as if she looked into the past. Long she sat in silence, until Loor shook himself and stood.

“Far must I go to reach my own,” he said, touching the sleeve of Tisha’s robe shyly. “Yet I must give you thanks for your aid. None other is there upon this side of the mountains who can help those who need a healer. From henceforth you have only to call in the forest, if you have need. One of the People will hear you, however lonely the wood may seem, and I or one of mine will come.” Then he was gone, leaving behind a gentle swirl of air and a faint scent of fernwood after rain.

Tisha drew a long sigh and her head bent into her hands. Cara came at once to kneel beside her. “How is it with you, my mother?” she asked.

“Well enough, Cara, yet this is just another such as was your father. One who laughs when he hurts, when he kills. And that, my dearest one, is the reason you and I sit here in the lap of the hills, girded round by forest.”

“Did he hurt you?” asked Cara, her mouth stern.

“Not with whips, nor with hands,” her mother answered. “But with word, oh yes, and with fell deeds against man and beast and bird. I came from the garden one day and found him teaching you to beat my whimpering puppy. You were crying, and he looked as though he would next begin beating you. Then I knew my father had made a marriage I could not keep. That night I took you from your cradle and left the house and town and the world that I knew, seeking only for a place which contained none of his kind. At last I found my way to the place of my forefathers and it sufficed.”

“But all were not like him, surely,” said Cara. “Were there no kindly folk who would aid and shelter you?”

“In your ‘world’, youngling, men busy themselves with wealth and position and power, women with luxury and frivolity, in the main. The humble are fearful and the powerful callous. Had your father beaten us with whips there would have been aid—not otherwise.”

They sat silent, hand in hand, for a time. Then Tisha stood decisively. “Let us to bed, for the morning will bring labors for us. We go to seek out this slayer of ‘beasts’, wherever he now hunts. If he can be taught, we shall teach him. If not, I shall slay him.”

Cara blanched. “But is this not the same carelessness of like that you fled?” she asked.

“Not carelessness, care,” said her mother sternly. “Would you have the Wildings slaughtered until the forest reeks with the scent of rotting flesh? Would you have the hills and the wood paths empty of life? Among all kinds, as well we know, there sometimes occur rogues that prey upon all that lives. Our unfortunate kind brings them forth with great regularity. You must understand that death is no terrible gift, but the wasting of life is sin. The secret lies in knowing when to bestow the gift of death—whose life will spill into the earth as enrichment, not as waste.

“I was not ignorant when I went from my father’s house in Lirith. Your grandparents were learned in the lore of mankind, mind and body, and the healing of both. I was trained as you have been, to set my hand with thoughtful care to whatever task the gods brought. Had my father not been far gone down the road to death, where he followed my mother, he would have seen into the heart of Ranith, your father, and would never have urged me to wed with him. Knowing this, I did not hesitate to break the bond my father forged, for his own teachings forbade me to continue in such a soul-destroying place as the one in which I found myself.

“Now I am no longer young and impulsive. What I do, I do after deep thought and in the service of the gods. Though my course may seem ruthless to you, tender as you are and inexperienced in the ways of our kind, yet remember that I have lived long and suffered much, but have not grown sour and hating. I am filled with pity for the man whom we shall hunt, yet I will do that which it is good to do, whatever it be.”

Cara sat, gazing upward at the face of her mother. In the flickering light, it was still, as if cut from ivory, but from those gray eyes flashed utmost resolution, utmost courage. The girl sighed, then said, “You have wrested life from the wilderness these many years. You fled cruelty and are always just, with kindness a part of your spirit. You have taught me to weigh all things in the balance of my mind, then judge. Thus I must find that you are most likely in the right, as much as mankind can be without a clear sign from the gods. I will go with you, and we will hunt this killer in the fastnesses. I shall aid you in whatever seems just.” So they turned to their couches and slept deeply.

The stone house dreamed under frosty starts and the leaves drifted onto the roof, softly as snow. The moon-trees glimmered in the hills and the valleys, and in the gentle darkness slept Wilding and beast alike. But on a far outcrop of stone there shone a ruddy star of fire, and in its glow lay a man, propped against a pack, who sharpened a spear with a saw-toothed blade. The red light danced on the shaft and dripped like blood from the bright blade, lighting the quiet smile of pleasure on the face of the man as he drew the whetstone over the steel.

Night flowed over the rim of the world, and dawn followed on its heels. In the stone house, Tisha and her daughter donned stout clothing and footgear. Food they packed, and medicines, and they chose staffs with steel points to aid them should they need to ascend the heights.

The rising sun, peering pale and abstracted between flying wracks of cloud, found them upon the path. Single-file they walked, speaking little, but looking closely to the tracks in the trail, the forest on either hand, and stopping now and again to listen and to sense the air. Tisha stepped silently, her head slightly tilted, as a hart walks in its own place. Cara came behind, almost as silently, swinging her arms in pleasure at the physical action. Yet even to Cara’s watchful eyes, the figure of her mother almost seemed to melt into the silver-gray motley of the wood. The girl was careful never to fall a pace behind or to let her attention stray too far.

So, when Tisha paused, at midmorning, to study the mix of prints in the damp leaf-mold of the trail, Cara was just behind.

“The Wildings have been abroad,” whispered the woman. “Here are the prints of Leera, the mate of Loor. Do you remember, years ago, that she wrenched her foot awry amid the stones of the stream and came to me for aid? It left her lame, and here is her mark. The man walks in another direction than this, or Loor would surely have been with Leera. We must turn our steps to the east, toward the foothills. Pray that the People of the Heights be wary and avoid his path.”

Across the valley floor, cloaked with thick forests, they went. Before night they saw the thinning of the woodlands and the rise of land that told them their nearness to the foothills. The sun, which had merely lit the clouds from above all the day, now peeped below the western edge of the gray mat and dyed the near ranges with bronze fires. Then the two hurried their pace and climbed rapidly into the folded lands, making for the ridge that lay before them. There they hunted out a dry burrow beneath a fallen trunk and, hiding all traces of their approach, went to earth. From their packs they drew down-filled mats backed with the hides of beasts, which made their bed, and they ate cold meat and fruit and drank sparingly of their water.

For a little time they lay, listening to the earth-sounds about them, well content to be there, for often they would go into the wild for pleasure and lay their heads where they willed for days or weeks. The tick of the beetle in the old wood that was their roof was as familiar a sound, and as friendly, as the crick-crack of the cooling fireplace in their house. The hunting owl moved in the stillness, and they felt the prowling wolf as he hunted. Far away and above, they heard soft, whooping cries, infinitely mournful in the stillness, that they knew to be those of the People of the Heights. They stiffened unconsciously, listening carefully, analyzing every nuance of those calls.

“They are not at rest,” said Cara. “There might be many reasons, but my heart tells me there is only one. The man camps above.”

Tisha turned to peer through the dead bracken, though nothing could be seen. “Aye, he is there, I feel him. I almost hear his thoughts. Red his fire and red his heart. We shall find him tomorrow, mayhap. He has no feeling that he is hunted, no warning from instinct. That is no gift brought by the towns of men. When you or I are sought, we know.”

They lay side by side, breathing softly, feeling outward with their spirits, through the night. The small creatures they felt, and the large. The man lay asleep on the edge of their seeking.

“Strange,” said Cara. “He has no feel of malice. There is no black wickedness there.”

“No,” said Tisha, with a sigh of relief. “He is not another such as your father. This is a youngling, little older than you, who has not learned the permanence of death. He sleeps as a child, dreaming of deeds of daring. Perhaps we need not slay after all.”

Then they, too, slept, while the night swept soundlessly over them.

Again the rising sun found them on the move. They were near to the mountains now, and their path grew steep and stony. All the ways were known to them—even the secret paths of the People of the Heights—and those they followed into the high places.

“Now has the time come, my child, that you may speak with the People in their own places,” said Tisha, as they climbed. “We must tell them of their danger and our mission, that they may lie safe and silent until the peril is past. They know you, as they know me, in our lowland forests, but they will be shy. Be wary, for they are determined folk and may well send a boulder upon us before they see us well. They have no seeking sense and must deal with the things they see.”

No long while passed before they saw, upon an outcrop of rock high above them, a small gray figure, which watched them closely. Then Tisha called, a low, whooping cry much like that which had pierced the night. The figure straightened, human-like and small against the sky, and its hand moved in a gesture which traced a symbol upon the air.

Up they moved, clambering over standing stones and finding their way, shoulder and foot, up chimneys weather-worn in the mountain’s face. At last they stood at the top in a shallow saucer rimmed with tumbled rock. A group of the People awaited them there, standing quietly, their silken-smooth gray fur ruffled by the damp wind, their squat bodies still, and their round faces quiet, save for the watchfulness of their eyes. Long had it been since one of the People had sought them out, and Cara had forgotten the strangeness of those eyes, which were as panes of glass which looked inward upon a world of untroubled blue. No ripple touched those eyes, and now all those many windows were turned upon them. Tisha made the sign of peace and friendship and sat upon a stone, whereupon all came near and sat, also. The language of the People was strange: a soft twittering at times, with sad little hoots and cries interspersed with whispering sibilances. No man could learn it well, but Tisha had managed after a fashion, and she spoke with him who had awaited them.

Long they talked, Wheesha (as nearly as Cara could determine his name) turning now and again to relay information to his folk. Before midday the warning was given, and the People brought forth food from their burrows in the rock walls and gestured for their guests to eat. No stranger meal could any mortal ever have eaten, it seemed to Cara, as she munched a sort of bread that seemed made from lichen and pollen and sipped pale green wine whose origin she surmised must have lain with mosses and maidenhair ferns.

Their meal made, they touched hand to forehead, in the sign of thanks to their hosts, and took their leave. Not by the hard ways in which they had come did they go, for now they sought him whom they had avoided. Down the smooth slopes from the heights they made their way, using the paths of the People. The bare bones of the mountain they left behind and descended into rock-studded meadows where, in summer, the horned ones of the forest grazed. Now the grasslands were bare of life and of green, and the two women moved across them quietly, stepping with the flowing gait of the hunter who fears to start his prey too soon.

“He moves upon the heights,” said Tisha, as they paused to feel the space about them. “His camp lies below us, in a hollow rimmed with stones and juniper, so Wheesha told me. But now he seeks for strange game and never thinks himself hunted.”

“Do we lie in wait above his camping-place?” asked Cara.

“Such is my thought,” replied her mother.

So, long before sunset, they lay snugly burrowed into a ridge of junipers, on the lip of the cup which held the hunter’s gear. Sleeping and watching by turns, they waited with the patience they had learned as part of their lives and their beings, seldom stirring so much as a foot or a finger, breathing so softly that they could not hear one another.

The sun went down behind the gray mass of cloud which had hidden it all the day, and with the coming darkness the man came seeking his fire and his food and his bed. Tisha felt him first and laid her hand lightly upon Cara’s wrist. Then the girl strained her senses and caught the bundle of sensations that was the man, walking dispiritedly among the stones of the mountainside.

Never had Cara been so near to another of humankind, save only her mother. She lay tense with astonishment at the intricate orchestration of mood and emotion that existed within him. His thoughts were impenetrable to the delicate talent which was hers and her mother’s, but his feelings closed above her as a stream over the head of an inexperienced swimmer, and she sought desperately to disengage herself from them. Then she felt Tisha’s cool fingers again on her wrist, then her temple, and the tide drained away, leaving her limp.

A bud of fire kindled below, which soon blossomed into a grateful glow. The scent of cooking found its way upward to the place where Tisha and Cara lay, but they kept their motionless watch. Once, far and woeful, came the cry of the People, and the man in the hollow raised his head to listen, as if seeking to fix the direction from which the sound came. No motion, no sensation concerning him was lost upon the watchers on the rim of the hollow. Their eyes never left his figure, their ears were attuned to the sounds he made, and their sensing probed, unfelt, into the depths of his heart.

When he had eaten, he took into his lap the weapon he loved best and began again to hone the blade. Then did Tisha rise, to stand upon the edge of the rim, her figure lit against the dark sky by the red firelight. Followed by Cara, she leaped lightly down into the cup of rock, and they stood silent, facing the startled man, who had sprung erect, holding his spear at the ready. Then seeing them to be women, he laughed and laid aside the spear.

“Little did I think to have loveliness beside by fire this night,” he said and swept a playful bow.

“We are not come as guests,” answered Tisha, her cool voice falling clearly into the little space. “We waited while you rested and warmed yourself and ate; we allowed you to have your weapon at hand. We have hunted you as prey for two days, and now we have you in our hands. You have come into the world we have chosen as ours, and you are bearing death in your heart for all not as yourself. We are come to do battle for the Wildings and the People of the Heights, and for all the little beasts without the power of speech. We have slain the hart when the snow lay heavy and hunger stood at our door. We have snared the rabbit and the wildfowl when we needed food. But never have we sought the death of another with the clear flame of joy which burns in your heart.”

“You think to stay me from my hunting?” he asked. He laughed again, “Over-mountain, I have slain all manner of beasts until I have grown weary of the smell of their blood. Here in this wilderness I see tracks I do not know, and in the forest I almost slew a beast which walked like a man and looked at me with golden eyes that knew what I did. No man, even, could prevent my walking abroad, spear in hand, to slay what I wish. You are welcome to share my fire, but speak no more of battle with me. I am Heraad, and none has ever overcome me.”

“Until now,” said Cara. Then she, with her mother, bent her will upon the man. He grasped his spear and sought to lift it, but their combined will forced his hand to open and the shaft slid away. As a child bends a reed, so they moved him to sit, flattened against the stone where he was wont to lie.

“We are going to show you what life is,” said Tisha. “Come with us, that you may learn and live; for if you do not, you will die.” Then she joined hands with her daughter, and their spirits seized that part of Heraad which was capable of feeling and of learning and bore it away with their seeking senses into the heights above.

Among the burrows of the People they went, less perceptible than the air, seeing the folk of the high places about their evening’s pastimes and tasks. Young ones rolled in firelight within the stony caves, and their mothers scolded them in their strange-sounding tongue, when they were overly noisy and interfered with the doings of the elders. Groups of males sat about the fires, playing at toss-bones or talking earnestly. The females were about their supper-making or clearing-away which though far different in detail from the ways of men, yet were so obviously what they were that the differences were as nothing. One nursed a youngling with an injured foot, murmuring in its furry ear and soothing its tears away. One, in a lonely burrow, sat in darkness, head in hands, alone with some private grief. Two sat snuggled into a secluded corner, fingers twined together, whispering tenderly.

Then, in a swift whirl and blur of motion, they swept their captive down from the heights into the flowing forest lands of the valley. Deep into the dells where the Wildings dwelt, they moved, seeking here and there until they found a snug place, roofed with an ancient moon-tree that leaned protectively over the Wilding-lair. There too, burned a fire in a rock-built hearth and in its flickering they could see the woven vines and broad plaited grasses that made the walls, the deep beds of bracken, the settles cut from gnarled stumps and leggy branches. And there Wildings were sitting, dreaming into the fire, holding each a young one. All seemed drowsy and at peace, looking with golden eyes into golden flame, and as they watched one of the little ones dropped into sleep and its head drooped gently into the curve of its father’s arm. No walls of stone had ever held what was more truly a family.

Then they came, more slowly than they went, back across the forest and the hills to the place where their bodies sat, stopping, now and again, to peer into a little burrow where one of the small beasts slept or watched. Gently as the leaves of the moon-tree falling, they settled back into themselves, at last, but still they held Heraad captive to their wills. Now they moved close to him and sat before him and Tisha looked into his eyes.

“These are the people whom you would hunt,” she said. “One of their number you have wounded sorely, and many of them might you slay, given the freedom to carry death. They are not as you and I upon the surfaces of their skins, but within they think, they feel, they suffer and they rejoice. Even the little beasts have within them the gift of life, if not of thought, and this you would wrest from them in sport. Not for this did the gods give you life and strength.”

Then they eased their grip upon the man, and he slumped against the rock. His eyes held awe and terror. “What manner of women are you that you may hold me without hands and compel me without weapons?” he gasped. “In my own place, you might rule as goddesses, possessed of such powers. What need have you of these cattle you have shown me? They are none of yours, for they walk free and do not serve you. Return with me to the world over-mountain, and we three shall hold all there is within our grasp.”

Cara’s lip curled as she answered, “Know you not, ignorant man, that those who walk in the ways of the gods, valuing all their gifts and keeping all their laws, are sometimes given strange potencies, but that, should they use them ill, those gifts can be swiftly withdrawn—even the greatest of them, which is life? This I learned in the cradle, and much I wonder at those who had your teaching as their duty. Did they teach you nothing of what is real? Did they never hold bread to your tongue and say, ‘This is the fruit of sun and soil and the sweat of men. Savor it, for it is precious’? Did they never take you into the forest that you might learn the ways of the small folk who balance upon the wheel of life? Did they never say to you, ‘Live, my child, in the light of truth and reason, that you may stand before the gods as one of their own, when you come to the door that opens into otherwhere’?”

But Heraad stared at her as though she spoke in a strange tongue. “My folk are wise and thrifty and are noble and wealthy. Why should they fill my small head with that which will put no gold in my pouch and no game in my bag? We laugh when we find humor, we weep when we suffer, and we kill when the mood is in us. What else can life hold?” And his dark eyes were puzzled, seeking for their purpose, with comprehension.

Then Cara turned to her mother and said, “Truly you told me. There is no light in the ‘world’, only darkness of self-seeking.” She turned aside her face into the shadow, for tears were in her eyes.

“These are the laws of life which we teach you, Heraad,” said Tisha sternly. “You must learn either to value lives other than your own or to fear—greatly to fear—this place where you now draw breath. Not otherwise may you go from here as a living man. We do not take your life lightly, and for this reason only do you stand this side of the door of death. As we compel you to sit, so can we do other things. We can stop your heart from its long duty. We can erase the tiny streams that bear your thought from brain to limb. We can, without stirring, send you forth to face the gods in their own place, leaving this shell of you for the fowl of the air and the small beasts to worry, at leisure, as you would have worried them, given the opportunity. Fear us, Heraad, for we are not as you. We are more alien than the Wilding in the dell or the People of the Heights. We see through other eyes than yours into places that are not to be seen by your kind. And we are stronger than you. Not only in our spirits, but in our bodies might we overcome you. Forget your women of the towns when you look upon us. We survive in the wilds, without heeding danger or discomfort. We set hand to tree and to stone and to labors you have never done. Fear us, Heraad!”

Then she sat still, looking into his eyes with all the strength of her spirit moving between them. Heraad seemed to shrink against the stone, and his knuckles whitened upon his taut hands. Cara moved beside her mother and took her hand, closed her eyes, and sent her strength through the clasp. For long they sat thus, as the fire went to scattered embers and the night curved toward dawn.

Into the dark hollow that was the mind of the man they poured all that they knew of true feeling... love in a golden river, compassion enough to burst the heart, joy that lit the mind with starbursts of glory. And they also poured fear, terror, sorrow, grief, all the passions that grind the lives of men between their stones. They filled Heraad as though he were an empty cup, cracking the dry walls of his ignorant conceit and crumbling the foundations of his youthful arrogance.

The light of the new day found them all asleep, dropped where they sat in utter weariness. The clouds had departed in the night and frost hung upon the junipers in the newly minted sunlight. The first rays awakened Heraad, who stirred uneasily, then sat erect in alarm. Those whom he feared lay sleeping, before him. His hand went to his spear, and he rose and bent over the two who had so wrenched his life from its pattern. In the clear light, their faces were marked with beauty and peace and purity and weariness. No sign was there of the terrible strengths they possessed; they were defenseless now. He lifted his spear and straightened, bringing his arm back as if to strike. But, in the midst of the motion, he looked into the sky and about the little hollow of rock, as though he were bewildered.

Upon a juniper, just above his head, sat a Grack, its head cocked to one side, staring at him with curious black eyes. He looked into those knowing eyes and, for a heartbeat, he felt the swift throb of the blood through its body, the chill of the juniper twig in its claws, the light gnawing of morning hunger in its belly.

Slowly he lowered the spear. Moving quietly, he put his scattered belongings into his pack and fastened it onto his shoulders. He lifted the spear again and studied it as though it were some strange artifact found by accident. Then he thrust it deep into the earth beside the sleeping women and turned toward the mountains, moving away into the eye of the sun.

Before the Grack had flown away, Tisha woke. The shadow of the spear lay across her face, and she turned and touched Cara. Together they sat in the abandoned hollow, feeling the dwindling presence that was Heraad move away, into his own place, leaving their world to its lawful tenants.