“I am Dahaun, also am I Morquant, and some say Lady of the Green—”
“—Silences,” I finished for her as she paused. Legend—no! She was alive; I felt the pressure and coolness of her flesh against mine.
“So you know me after all, Kyllan of the House of Tregarth.”
“I have heard the old legends—”
“Legends?” Laughter bubbled once again from her. “But a legend is a tale which may or may not hold a core of truth. I dwell in the here and now. Estcarp—and where is Estcarp, bold warrior, that you know of Dahaun as a legend?”
“To the west, over the mountains—”
She snatched her hand away, as if the touch burnt her fingertips. Once more distortion made her waver in my sight.
“Am I suddenly made so into a monster?” I asked of the silence fallen between us.
“I do not know—are you?” Then her hand was back, and once more she was clear to see. “No, you are not—though what you are I do not know either. That Which Dwells Apart strove to take you with the Keplian, but you were not swallowed up. You fought in a way new to me, stranger. And then I read you for a force of good, not ill. Yet the mountains and what lie behind them are a barrier through which only ill may seep—or so say our legends. Why did you come, Kyllan of the House of Tregarth, out of Estcarp?”
I had no wish to dissemble with her: between us must be only the truth as well as I could give it.
“For refuge.”
“And what do you flee, stranger? What ill have you wrought behind you that you must run from wrath?”
“The ill of not being as our fellows—”
“Yes, you are not one but three—and yet, also one. . . .”
Her words aroused memory. “Kaththea! Kemoc? What—?”
“What has happened to them since you would go ariding the Keplian, thus foolishly surrendering yourself to the very power you would fight? They have taken their own road, Kyllan. This sister of yours has done that which has troubled the land. We do not easily take Witches to our bosoms here, warrior. In the past that served us ill. Were she older in magic, then she would not have been so eager to trouble dark pools which should be left undisturbed in the shadows. So far she has not met that which she cannot face with her own shield and armor. But that state of affairs will not last long—not here in Escore.”
“But you are a Wise One.” I was as certain of that as if I saw the Witch Jewel on her breast, yet I also knew that she was not of the same breed as the rulers of Estcarp.
“There are many kinds of wisdom, as you well know already. Long ago, roads branched here in Escore, and we Green People chose to walk in different ways. Some led us very far apart from one another. But also through the years we learned to balance good against ill, so that there was no inequality to draw new witchcraft in. To do so, even on the side of good, will evoke change, and change may awaken things which have long slumbered, to the ill of all. This has your sister done—as an unthinking child might smite the surface of a pool with a stick, sending ripples running, annoying some monster at ease in the depths. Yet. . .” She pursed her lips as if about to give judgment, and in that small movement lost more of the strangeness which separated us, so that I saw her as a girl, like Kaththea. “Yet, we can not deny to her the right of what she has done; we only wish she had done it elsewhere!” Again Dahaun smiled. “Now, Kyllan of Tregarth, we have immediate things to see to.”
Her hand went from my head to the baked clay over my chest. Down the center of that she scratched a line with the nail of her forefinger, again marking such along my arms and legs.
The creatures that had accompanied her thereupon set to work, clawing away along those lines, working with a speed and diligence which suggested this was a task they had performed many times before. Dahaun got to her feet and crossed to the snow cat, stooping to examine the drying mud, stroking the head of the creature between the eyes and up behind the ears.
Speedy as her servants were, it took them some time to chip me out of my covering. But finally I was able to rise out of the depression which was the shape of my body. My limbs were whole, although scarred with marks of almost-healed hurts I would have thought no man could survive.
“Death is powerless here, if you can reach this place,” said Dahaun.
“And how did I reach this place, lady?”
“By the aid of many strengths, to which you are now beholden, warrior.”
“I acknowledge all debts,” I said, giving the formal reply. But I spoke a little absently, since I looked down upon my nakedness and wondered if I was to go so bare.
“Another debt also I lay upon you.” Amusement became a small trill of laughter. “What you seek now, stranger, you shall find up there.”
She had not moved to leave the wounded cat, merely waved me to the saucer’s rim. The ground was soft underfoot as I hurried up the slope, a couple of the lizards flashing along.
There was grass here, tall as my knees, soft and green, and by two rock pillars a bundle of nearly the same color. I pulled at a belt which held it together and inspected my new wardrobe. The outer wrapping was a green cloak, within garments which seemed at first well tanned and very supple leather, and which I then decided were some unknown material. There were breeches, with attached leggings and booted feet sections, the soles soft and earth-feeling. Above the waist I donned a sleeveless jerkin which latched halfway down my chest by a metal clasp set with one of the blue-green gems Dahaun favored. The belt supported not a sword, but a metal rod about as long as my forearm and a finger-span thick. If it was a weapon, it was like none I had seen before.
The clothing fitted as if it had been cut and sewn for me alone, and gave a marvelous freedom to my body, such as was lacking in the mail and leather of Estcarp. Yet I found my hands were going ever to feel for the arms I did not wear: the sword and dart gun which had been my tools for so long.
With the cloak over my arm I strode back to the edge of the saucer. Now that I could look down upon it I saw that the area was larger than I had thought. A dozen or more of the mud pools were scattered haphazardly about it, and more than one had a patient immobilized—though all of these were animals or birds.
Dahaun still knelt, stroking the snow cat’s head. But now she looked up and waved with her other hand and a moment later arose and came to join me, surveying me with a frankly appraising stare.
“You are a proper Green Man, Kyllan of the House of Tregarth.”
“A Green Man?”
It did not seem so difficult now for me to read her features, though I still could not have given a positive name to the color of her hair or eyes.
“The Green People.” She pointed to the cloak I held. “Though this is only their outer skin that you wear, and not our true semblance. However, it will serve you for what needs be done.” She put her half closed fist to her mouth as had my sister when engaged in sorcery, but the sound she uttered was a clear call, not unlike the high note of a verge horn.
A drumming of hooves brought me around, my hand seeking a weapon I no longer had. Sense told me this was not the stallion that had been my undoing, yet that sound now made my flesh creep.
They came out of the green shadow of a copse, shoulder to shoulder, cantering easily and matching their paces. They were bare of saddle or bridle, but only in that were they like the stallion. For they had not the appearance of true horses at all. More closely allied to the prong-horns, yet not them either, they were as large as a normal mount, but their tails were brushes of fluff they kept clipped tight against their haunches as they moved. There was no mane, but a topknot of fluffy longer hair on the crest of each skull, right above a horn which curved gracefully in a gleaming red arc. In color they were a sleek, roan red, with a creamy under-body. And for all their strangeness I found them most beautiful.