to make bathing in the pool at the edge of the horses' meadow pleasant, cool enough at night to make the blankets on the beds in the sleeping-chambers of comfort. The torches that formed a ring outside the front gates of the hall were not lit again; Luthe was willing to welcome his guests, but did not deem further illumination necessary.
On the second afternoon Harry followed the stream that spilled out of the bathing-pool, and after a certain amount of fighting with curling branches and tripping over hidden hummocks she burst out of the undergrowth to a still silver beach bordering a wide lake. The Lake of Dreams. The stream stopped its chattering as it left the edge of the woods, and slid silently over the silver sand and slipped into the waters of the lake. Harry went to the edge of it and sat down, looking at the water. There was a step at her side; she looked up and it was Luthe. "There is a path," he said. "You should have asked." He bent down and detached a twig from her hair, and another from the back of her tunic. Then he sat down beside her. "I will show you the way to return."
"Do you live here alone?" Harry said, extracting a leaf from the neck of her undershift.
"No," he replied, "but my housemates are even shyer than I am, and have a tendency to retreat into the undergrowth when visitors are anticipated. There are quite a number of visitors, now and again."
"The oracle is a popular one," said Harry, smiling.
Luthe smiled back, but sidelong. "Yes; I think it may be private dismay that sends my companions away at such times; they have something of kelar and the Sight themselves."
He did not seem disposed to go on, so Harry said: "Does everyone who comes here behave as though they're half asleep?"
"No again; I and my friends are generally quite sharp. But yes, most visitors find it a sleepy sort of place - a reputation I, um, encourage, as it makes their thoughts sleepy too, and thus easier to dodge."
Harry said, "Encourage?"
Luthe said, "You are not a sleepy one, are you? The source of the Meeldtar taints all the water here; and the air that passes over the Lake of Dreams carries something of sleepiness with it. Only those bearing much kelar of their own do not find that faintest touch of the Water of Sight a little drowsy. Like you. And Corlath."
Harry, at that, caught a thought just as it was streaking out, and stuffed it back behind her eyes.
"Very good," said Luthe. "I thought you might prove apt. I didn't catch a glimpse of that one."
Harry smiled faintly.
"I suspect, however, that it might make you more comfortable to ask me it nonetheless," Luthe said, looking into her face; but she turned away.
"Corlath, eh?" Luthe said gently.
Harry shook her head, not denying it, but as though she could shake herself free of her anxieties; but Luthe said no more. At last she stood up, gazing across the lake; she could not see its farther shore. "It is so large," she said.
Luthe rose to stand beside her. "No, not so large," he said, "but it is a private sort of lake, and hard to see. Even for me." He was quiet a moment, looking across the water. "I think perhaps the reason I stay in this particular uninhabited valley of all the uninhabited valleys in the Hills is that it comforts me by reminding me of things I cannot do. I cannot see the farther shore of the Lake of Dreams." He turned away. "Come; I will show you the path. Unless you prefer fighting your way through the poor trees, which are accustomed to being undisturbed."
CHAPTER TWELVE
The third morning dawned as bright and valiant as the two before; and still slightly bemused but cheerful, Corlath's entourage made itself ready to follow its leader back down the mountain. Harry contrived to be the very last of the file, and she looked around her as the penultimate horse and rider left the clearing before the hall and disappeared down the close-grown trail. She had been standing where she was standing now when Corlath had stepped into the clearing before the hall, Fireheart at his heels, to bid farewell to the man he had come to see. They spoke a few words, too low for her to hear as she skulked in the background, as well as anyone on a tall