Kosgro sent his in a whistling slash through the air, and there was a cry in answer. Bartare, who had been sitting in sullen silence, whom I had ignored, thinking her best left alone for a space, cowered away, although that blow had not come anywhere near her. She did not get to her feet, but began to retreat, her face turned to Kosgro, as if she dared not look away as she crawled from him.
“Proof of the effectiveness of these,” he observed. “We may have something as good as lasers.”
“No!” When I would have gone to her, concerned by her plainly abject terror, she threw up her arms. I could have held a lash ready in my hand. And I was ashamed of arousing such fear.
I dropped the stick I held and put out my empty hands.
“See, I don’t have it, Bartare. Don’t be frightened.”
She peered out from under those sheltering arms and then lowered them. Her green eyes were very large in her small face. And it was in that moment that I realized how little physical change there had been in her.
Her gaze was wary, and I said, “We would not hurt you, Bartare. Why do you fear?”
“Accursed!” She half screamed, making a gesture that included not only the notus about us, but also Kosgro and me. “For the Folk accursed!”
“Why?” I prodded.
“Before the Folk, of those who came before. The Folk entered through a gate, and they were few. The others here gave them refuge and let them be. But those others, they did not use the treasures of this world. They did not want to summon powers and rule them. And the Folk found that they could. Then at last the others said that they must not do such things and that a gate would be opened and the Folk must leave through it to a new world again. But the Folk did not want that, for if they so went for any length of time, they grew old, their power dwindled, and they died.
“So they warred with the others. And they won, for their powers were strong. But the others, they had their own ways,” she intoned, as if she were chanting some ancient saga or half-forgotten history, “and they left checks upon the powers. Though most of the others used their gates and went away, there were some who chose to stay – ”
Kosgro went down on one knee before her, listening as if this was of importance to us all. “Are they still here then, Bartare, these others who war with the Folk?”
She shook her head. “That is not known. They set barriers in some places that the Folk cannot pass. But since, after long watching, nothing has come forth, the Folk believe they are either dead or gone. But the notus they left, and it cannot be rooted out or killed by the Folk. And it is bad!” Her face contorted into an expression of loathing. “It hurts, it destroys, and it makes one lose power and forget the rituals. It is an enemy like the Dark Ones. And now you take it into your hands – and you will use it against the Folk!”
She began to cry, such crying as is rooted in a desolation of spirit and depth of sorrow no child should experience. I went to her, taking her in my arms, holding her young body, racked with sobs, close to mine. And I spoke as soothingly as I could.
“Bartare, we shall not use these weapons against anything except that which attacks us. The Folk themselves fight the Dark Ones, do they not? So shall we. We mean no harm to those of this world. All we want, as I have told you, is to be safely back in our own place once again.”
I did not know whether she was so lost in the depths of her misery that she could not understand or even hear me, for there was no response. Then I was surprised by Oomark. He came to us and took, timidly, his sister’s hand from where it lay limply on my knee and held it between two of his.
“Bartare,” he said, “you do not need us, do you? You will be glad if we go. The Lady does not want us, not truly.”
She gave a hiccuping sigh and turned her head on my shoulder so she could see him. “They want to take you – me – back with them!”
“They want the most to go back themselves,” he answered her. “And the Lady, she can stop them taking us, if she truly wants to.”
Something in that shadowy doubt acted upon Bartare as a goad. She pushed against me, moving apart.
“She wants me!” Bartare flashed, though I noted she did not add Oomark’s name to that. “She won’t let me go! All right.” Once more in command of herself, too quickly to be normal, she spoke more to Kosgro than to me. “All right! I’ll take you to a gate – if I can find one – and then you can go through. And well be glad, glad, glad!” With each “glad” she pounded her fist against the ground as if beating an enemy.
“How far from here?” Kosgro wanted to know. She shrugged. “How can I tell in this place? The notus shuts off mind-search. I shall have to be out of this place before I can sense it.”
So we would once more have to depend upon a guide we could not trust, and I did not like it. And Bartare would be even less to be trusted than Oomark. Could we use him for a check on her?
The indraw having lifted, we at last left the grove, though I hated to see the last of that sanctuary. We did not turn back in the direction of the fell-worm’s ending, but struck off at an angle. Since there was no way of checking compass points, I never knew whether we headed north, east, south, or west. In fact, I always feared that we might wander in circles.
Bartare led through a side valley or canyon. She set a fast pace at first. I think she was very eager to be away from the notus. Then she came to a halt as the last of the fragrance vanished.
“Leave me – stand away!” She made an emphatic gesture at us and climbed to the top of a tall rock. There she stood, her eyes closed, before she began to turn slowly. Three times she so revolved. Then she raised her hand and held it out as she started that turn for the fourth time.
Her hand shot out and stiffened into a point. Now she opened her eyes and beckoned to us with her other hand. “That way.”
She was plainly certain. But whether she was guiding us to a gate or rather to some stronghold of the Folk where we would be captured, we could not be sure. I only hoped Oomark’s reasoning had decided her.
Once more we came out of the rocks into a wide stretch of turfed country that had rings growing in it. And shortly we came upon one of the thickets of yellow berry bushes. Bartare sped ahead, stripping the berries and eating them avidly. Oomark started after her and then paused. But when he made up his mind and joined her, I noticed that he did not feast with the same relish he had displayed before. He took only a handful and ate them slowly.
Bartare was at last satisfied, and when she joined us, her smile held much of the old sly insolence. She was fast recovering from her breakdown in the grove.
“It is too bad you will not eat of the food of the Folk,” she remarked. “Why do you want to be Between, Kilda? Is it because you are afraid?”
“I am afraid of not being me-Kilda c’ Rhyn,” I told her.
“As if Kilda c’ Rhyn is so great a thing!”
“To me it is. I was born so – I wish to remain so.”
“Yet you think of me as a child! And I am so much wiser than you shall ever be. It is like one picking an apple of the Sun, to eat only the skin and throw away the inner part.”
“There is such a thing as too much knowledge – of the wrong kind,” I replied. For some reason she was trying to provoke me. If she had been malleable in the grove, she was now her old difficult self. And that alarmed me, for she could well be preparing to lead us into a trap.
“You!” She swung now to Kosgro. “Has being a Between been so good a life? Do you also want to be yourself? But what now is yourself?”
“Suppose you tell me,” he countered. “You say you are of the Folk and I am Between. Does that not make me beneath your notice altogether?” As he spoke, he swung his length of notus, and that she eyed, losing a little of her assurance.