name, Kare. How would I know your name, if I had not spoken to him? My name is Kallan. He told me how to find your home.”
She stood nearer to him now, not so afraid. He sipped the thick dregs of what she had given him. Whatever it was, it seemed to be harmless. “Do you have some food you could give me, some more water?”
She brought the food and water to him. Kallan talked to her, gently, repetitiously. After a while, in the interests of realism and comfort, he decided that he could stand up. Her trust once given, she gave it utterly. She took him by the hand and led him into the house, explaining everything, the sword standing in the corner, the ranks of jars arrayed on the shelves, the herbs hung drying, gathered from forest and field. It was a rich household, but heavy with the scent of unlawful magic, as the lindel clearing had been. The child did not speak of her mother, but she had not been dead for long, for there was woman’s clothing lying here and there as though one had only just laid it down.
Kallan looked at the child and wondered again what had driven her father out into the forest. There was no lack of food, no sign that the forest had made a move to overwhelm them, as it sometimes will. Kare spoke proudly, precisely, as one adult speaks to another. She served him a meal as though he were an honored guest, and she the lady of the house. From her manner, no shadow of violence or want had ever touched her. Yet her father had run out into the forest like a madman, to almost certain death.
At nightfall, the forest creatures set up their song. She was more familiar with it than he was; she did not even pause in her talking. Then something caught her attention. She broke off in mid-word, every fiber of her body intent and listening. With her tangled black mane of hair, she seemed to him even more like a wild colt of the mountains, alert at the sound of a footstep.
It was the sound of a woman’s voice. “Kare!” or was he imagining it? The child ran to the door, to push the leather flap aside, and listen to the night. “Kare!” came the call again.
Kallan came to the door and reached for the child’s wrist. “What is it?”
She twisted her arm out of his grasp, and went running out. He followed, though he did not understand.
They ran down the blaggorn paths; the stars were bright. Though the lindel trees were protection from the forest magic, still, to go adventuring through the night was madness. “Kare!” he called.
“Kare!” the woman’s voice answered, a mocking echo. Then the path straightened. He saw her, standing where the forest met the clearing.
Only one kind of creature stands at the doorway and cannot enter. The hunters of the forest were silent. “Maya!” the child cried. The woman that was no woman smiled and held out her arms.
Kallan knew that the child was swifter than he; no persuasion or command would stop her. He reached down to the side of the path—a good sized stone there—and his arm was strong. It struck her on the side of her head, where the skull curves above the ear. She crumpled to the ground without a sound.
Kallan walked forward. He did not look at the woman-creature, but he was intensely aware of her. He knew that her black hair rippled nearly to her feet, that her thin shift did not serve her either for modesty or for warmth. He knew that she needed neither.
One word from her unhuman throat, and the dark hounds would come to do her will; the hunters who can kill at a touch would come. The forest ones have many faces.
Kneeling and gathering the child into his arms, he could feel her presence, just a few paces away, her watchful eyes as dark as the shadows in a skull. Nothing stood between them but the doubtful guardianship of a lindel tree that is born of magic. She did not speak. There were no words that would draw him as she had drawn the child. If she had all the power in the world, even though she knew his name, there was no form she could take to mimic one that he loved, for there were none. It was his safety. He turned and walked back