'lozel, aye!' the other's eyes started, as if he made some connection. 'For he has been there, of course!'
'Do - you - know him!?' Nathan's patience was exhausted; he spoke through clenched teeth.
'Yes! Yes, of course!' The hunter turned, pointed north across the forest to where a steep, thinly clad knoll or outcrop reared above the trees. There ... a mile ... the knoll. And at its foot, a cave. lozel lives there, alone. Only head for the knoll, through the woods, you'll cross a path, well-worn, which runs between the town and his cave.'
'Show me,' said Nathan.
'Indeed, yes, of course!' The hunter made to set off at once, but Nathan stopped him.
'Pick up your crossbow.'
'My weapon, aye!' the other licked his lips, trembling as he did as he was told ...
Chapter 25
Along the way were other hunters; glimpsed dimly between the misty trees, they were like wraiths drawn out of the earth by the warmth of the new day. No one approached, and in a few minutes Nathan's guide found the path: a narrow way cut through the woods. By then it was almost full daylight, and Nathan had had more than enough of the cowed hunter's company. 'You say this path will lead me direct to lozel's cave?'
'Indeed, Lord. Indeed it will.'
'I thank you,' said Nathan. 'From here on I go alone.'
'I... can go?'
'Of course.' Nathan turned his back on him and followed the path. But he was aware that behind him the hunter backed off - slowly at first, breathlessly - then turned and tiptoed away, and finally ran for Vladis-town. Shaking his head, Nathan went on.
lozel Kotys was up and about. In the mouth of his cave, the hermit braised slivers of skewered pork on hot stones at the rim of his fire. Becoming aware of Nathan's approach about the same time as Nathan smelled his cooking, lozel looked down from the elevated shelf in front of his cave and saw a vague, grey figure where his feet stirred the lapping mist.
'Now hold!' the hermit's voice rang out, wavering and a little infirm. 'Who comes and why? I receive no casual visitors here ...'
'But you'll receive me,' Nathan called back, coming on without pause. And if lozel wouldn't receive him ... so much for Thikkoul's stargazing!
There was a ladder at the foot of the rocks. As Nathan strode closer lozel went to draw it up. Nathan caught at the lower rungs and held on, and gazed up at the other's furious face scowling down on him. Against the strength of Nathan's arms and the weight of the ladder both, the hermit could do nothing. Anyway, he'd noted his visitor's dress and curious colouring, and as the anger drained out of him something of anxiety, fear took its place.
'Who are you?' he gasped, releasing the ladder and backing off a pace, until only his grey-bearded face was visible. Nathan fixed him with his eyes, and climbed.
'I'm a Traveller,' he said. 'And I've travelled a long way to see you, lozel Kotys.'
lozel was small, wrinkled, middling clean and reasonably clothed in well-worn leathers. While he wasn't extremely old, he did suffer from some infirmity which caused his limbs and voice to tremble. And his dark eyes ran a little with rheumy fluids. 'Eh? A Traveller?' he said, his eyes darting, taking in all they could of Nathan where he stepped off the ladder on to the shelf. 'And you've come a long way, you say? How is it possible? Unless - from Turgosheim?' And now his voice, fallen to a whisper, was hoarse.
Nathan had learned something of the ways of these people, and something of their fears. 'lozel,' he said, 'I'm not here to harm you. I'm simply ... here!' It was difficult to find a reason for being here. He didn't have one, except that Thikkoul had foreseen it, and beyond it to a possible reunion with loved ones whom Nathan had long thought dead and passed from him forever. That alone would be reason enough, but how to explain all that to lozel?
'Simply here?' the hermit repeated him, shaking his head. 'No, if there's one thing I've learned in life it's this: that nothing is "simply" anything, and no one is "simply" anywhere. You were sent - by him!'
'Him?'
'Maglore! You are my ... replacement!'
Nathan sighed. Nothing these people said made any sense. 'I don't know this Maglore,' he said.