of shadowy images he had seen leaping from their shoulders had nearly overwhelmed him. Again the song of Deneir played in his thoughts, as though he had subconsciously summoned it, and again, aurora remained the only identifiable term. Cadderly could not make sense of it all; he feared that this new insight would drive him mad.
He grew more at ease when he had put the bustle of Car-radoon behind him and was walking along the hedge-and tree-lined roads, with nothing more to attract his attention than the chatter of birds and the overhead rustle of squirrels gathering their winter stores.
"Is mine the curse of the hermits?" he asked himself aloud. "That it is!" he proclaimed loudly, startling a nearby squirrel that had frozen in place on the camouflaging gray bark of a tree. The rising volume of Cadderly's voice sent the critter hop-skipping up the tree, where it froze again, not even its bushy tail twitching.
" Wfell, it is," Cadderly cried to the rodent in feigned exasperation. "All those poor, wretched, solitary souls, so frowned upon by the rest of us. They are not hermits by choice. They possess this same vision that haunts me, and it drives them mad, drives them to where they cannot bear the sight of another intelligent thing.
Cadderly moved to the base of the tree to better view the beast. "I see no shadows leaping from your shoulders, Mr. Gray," he called. "You have no hidden desires, no cravings beyond those you obviously seek to fill."
"Unless there be a lady squirrel about!" came a cry from down the path. Cadderly nearly leaped out of his boots. He spun about to see a large, dirty man dressed in ragged, ill-fitting clothes and boots whose toes had long ago worn away.
"A lady squirrel would get his mind from those nuts," the stubble-faced man continued, advancing easily down the road.
Cadderly unconsciously brought his ram-headed walking stick up in front of him. Thieves were common on the roads close to the town, especially in this season, with winter fast approaching.
"But, then..." the large man continued, putting a finger upon his lower lip in a contemplative gesture. Cadderly noted that he wore mismatched fingerless gloves, one black, one brown leather. "If the lady was about, the squirrel would still have no 'hidden desires,' since the unabashed beast would seek to fill whatever his heart deemed necessary, the call of his belly or the call of his loins.
"I'd be one to choose the loins, eh?" the dirty man said with a lascivious wink.
Cadderly blushed slightly and nearly laughed aloud, though he still hadn't figured out what to make of this well-spoken vagabond, and he still wasn't comfortable near the dirty man. He peered closer, trying to find a revealing shadow on the man's shoulders. But Cadderly's surprise had stolen the song fully, and nothing rested there, except the badly worn folds of an old woolen scarf.
"It is a fine day to be about, talking to the beasts," the man went on, seeing no response forthcoming from Cad-derly. "A pity, then, that I must get myself inside the gates of Carradoon, in the realm of smells more unpleasant, where high buildings hide the panorama of beauty so easily taken for granted on this most lovely of country roads "
"You will not easily pass by the guards," Cadderly remarked, knowing how carefully the city militiamen were protecting their home, especially with rumors of war brewing.
The vagabond opened a small pouch on the side of his rope belt and produce a single silver coin. "A bribe?" Cadderly asked,
"Admission," the beggar corrected. " 'One must spend gold' - or silver, as the case may be - 'to make gold,' goes the old saying. I will accept the lore as true, since I know I will indeed secure some gold once I am within the town's wall."
Cadderly studied the man more closely. He wore no insignia of any lawful guild, showed no signs of any money-making talents whatsoever. "A thief," he stated flatly.
"Never," the man asserted.
"A beggar?" Cadderiy asked, this word coming out with the same obvious venom.
The larger man clutched his chest and staggered back several steps, as though Cadderly had launched a dagger into his heart.
Now Cadderly did notice some shadows. He caught the flicker of a pained look beneath the man's sarcastic, playful facade. He saw a woman on one shoulder, holding a small child, and an older child on the man's other shoulder. The images were gone in an instant, and Cadderly