memory have failed him so much? Maybe it was the one on which he had entered, the one that led out onto the wide free meadows.
He blazed markers on the trees edging the path he had taken. This time, at least, he would not be led astray by his memory, or by some magic in the woods. He hurried on his new way, though he seemed to hear, or feel, a rushing of wind deep in the forest.
Toward noon, he halted in bewilderment, as he saw a clearing ahead, but another one, a strange one. At no time had he come this way.
A field of blaggorn stretched half-harvested, and thornfruit grew in scattered clumps. There was no rough shelter in the center of this clearing, but a cottage built of the same night-blue and cream-laced stone. A score or more of white-trunked trees grew in an ever-widening golden-leaved spiral out from the cottage, like the coils of a snake.
On paths and clearings is no danger—in the daytime. No danger from magic, that is. But danger from other living things could be anywhere. A viper coiled in the path in front of him, unblinking eyes, and wedge-shaped head, and earth-dark body. Ilbran stepped aside. It watched him as he passed, turning its head on the mass of heavy coils.
But that was a danger of the earth, to be met at any time. On paths and clearings is no danger. And the woman who picked thornfruit in the clearing—she was of humankind. Ilbran had not realized how much joy there could be in seeing one of his own kind, even one with the coloring of the southerners. She was dressed in animal skins patched together to make a many-colored sleeveless tabard and a short skirt to her knees. Ilbran watched her as she worked with experienced ease, plucking the thornfruit from their daggered branches, and dropping them in a woven basket.
Then she turned and saw him, and came to him quickly, showing no fear. She stripped the heavy leather picking gloves from her hands and cast them aside. “Welcome … Welcome … My lord … you are weary.” Her hands were warm, tiny but strong. She had a slow and hesitant voice, as though she did not speak much.
“What manner of land is this?” he demanded. “It has hunted me in circles, I think. I made a half-day’s journey into the forest, and have been wandering in a maze ever since.”
“Who twined your map?” she asked. “Where were you going?”
“Indeed, I had no map, lady, nor any guide nor destination. I had been told that they of the forest welcomed strangers.”
“We do,” she said. “Come … Come … You are tired and thirsty.”
She led him into her home and fed him well—dried thornfruit and blaggorn bread, and stew with strange but tasty herbs and spices. The afternoon grew to evening as they sat beside the fire and talked.
As the evening went on, she spoke more fluently, the habit of speech returning to her. Her name was Malesa. She had been born in the forest and had lived there all her life. “My mother and father came from some other land,” she said. “But they never spoke of it. They found this cottage empty. I do not know why it was.”
“All through the land are homes and land lying empty,” Ilbran said. “They who lived here before us were many more than we are.”
“That may be true,” she said indifferently. “My mother and father died when I was yet young, some four summers and four winters ago.”
“Why do you stay here alone?”
She looked at him in wonder. “It is a part of me. I can call every plant and tree by name. I know every stone, every turn in the paths, the lesser and the greater ones. I am a part of it, as it is a part of me. It feeds me well, blaggorn and thornfruit, and a hundred plants and herbs that you do not know. I set snares for the little animals of the forest—they feed and clothe me. I can gather honey from the black bees and they will not sting me. Besides, it is not as easy to leave as you think.”
“What do you mean?”
“I will show you.” She gathered up a skein of threads, and began working on them, knotting a web.
Ilbran watched her. Her skin was pale, like a new-bloomed thornfruit flower, and her hair was night-colored, her eyes as dark as her hair. He had