“Here!” Hoorurr’s call—came from the west.
Trouble of some kind. Naill risked further hurt to leap a fallen tree, and struck left. The kalcrok trap—where did it lie? Even with its dreadful maker dead, the pit itself was a threat to the unwary. Had Ashla fallen there?
But Naill found her lying in a small dell by a spring, where drooping branches cut off the direct rays of the sun. She was crouched together, her arms about her knees, her head down upon them, her body shaken by shudders.
“Illylle?” Naill halted, called softly, not wanting to send her into another headlong flight.
At the sound of his voice her body stiffened, the line of her bent shoulders went rigid. But she did not lift her head or move.
“Illylle?” He took a step and then a second into the dell, not quite sure whether he could keep on his feet.
Now her head did come up—slowly. He could see her face. Her eyes were closed so tight that her features seemed twisted. Her mouth worked as if she screamed, yet she made no sound save the rasp of breath whistling in and out of her distended nostrils.
The pool! Now he knew what had shocked her into this almost mindless state of fear. As he had met Ayyar, so had she in this place seen Illylle’s countenance for her own. Going down on his knees, Naill cupped his hands together and caught up a scoop of water, cold on his heated flesh. This he threw straight into her convulsed face.
Her eyes opened. First they held in a rigid stare as if she saw nothing but what had frozen her into close-locked fear—then that broke as she looked at him. And the increase of terror in her eyes, in her face, was frightening to watch. She squirmed away from Naill, her mouth still writhing out soundless screams. There could be no reasoning with her at this moment; she was beyond the wall shock had erected, deep in a place where sane speech could not reach her.
Naill threw himself forward, locked his hands around her thin wrists. She thrashed about under his weight, but he pinned her fast. The quickest and best way to deal with her might be to knock her out completely—but he doubted if he could. She was almost as tall as he, and her body had been hardened and strengthened by labor. Thin as she was, he could not carry her the rest of the way to the river.
Somehow he got a lashing of vine about her wrists and leaned away, panting, to consider the next move. How far was the river? Naill tried to place landmarks about him. And then he heard the hounds again—faint, to be sure, but with an exultant note in their cry. They had picked up the fugitives’ trail, knew the scent was fresh. He hoped they were still leashed.
There was no heading directly for Iftcan. Even if Ashla came out of her present state of shock, and was eager and willing to make that journey with him, he doubted if they could recross the stream there. And if she must remain a desperate prisoner, it was worse than useless to try.
Westward there was a portion of the river he had passed on his way to the sea. Where the bed widened, the waters, even when storm-fed, would run more shallow. But—that fronted the waste that Hoorurr had warned against.
They could cross there, keep close to the riverbank, and so avoid all but the fringe of that waste—or turn completely west to the sea and abandon the seeking of Iftcan. That, Naill decided, was the wisest course.
Ashla huddled down, her bound hands pressed tightly against her, her eyes wide and wild as she watched his every move. But she no longer tried to scream. If he could only bring Illylle memory to the surface of her mind again!
“Illylle!” Naill did not try to touch her, made no move toward the shaking girl. “You are Illylle of the Iftin,” he said slowly.
Her head shook from side to side, denying that.
“You are Illylle—I am Ayyar,” he continued doggedly. “They hunt us—we must go—to the forest—to Iftcan.”
Now her mouth worked spasmodically. But he did not believe it was a scream that could not win free. She made a small choking sound, and her tongue swept across her lips. Then she lunged, past him, to the side of the pool, hanging over the water and staring down at her reflection there. From mirror to man she glanced up, down, up. Apparently she was satisfying herself that there was a resemblance between what she saw in the water and Naill.
“I—am—not—” She choked again, her wailing appeal breaking through her hostility.
“You are Illylle,” he responded. “You have been ill, with the fever, and you have had ill dreams.”
“This is a dream!” she caught him up.
Naill shook his head. “This is real. That”—he waved a hand southward—”is the dream. Now—listen!”
The baying reached their ears.
“Hounds!” She identified that sound correctly, glanced apprehensively over her shoulder. “But why?”
“Because we are of the Iftin, of the forest. We must go!”
Naill shouldered the pack, caught up the end of vine dangling from the binding on her wrists. Briefly he wondered why it was so important that he take her with him, away from her kin. Only they weren’t her kin any longer, that hunting party coursing “monsters” with their hounds. They were changelings together, he and she, their loneliness so halved. He had known loneliness in the Dipple when Malani had fallen ill and strayed so often into her chosen dream escape. But the loneliness he had known when Ayyar claimed him had been the worst of all.
“Come!” That was an order. When he saw that she could not easily rise, he drew her up to him. She shrank in his hold, her face a little averted as if to escape looking directly at him. What if she never accepted the change?
Naill started on, pulling at the vine tie. She came with him, her eyes half closed, her mouth set. But she held to his pace; she did not drag back.
“You are hurt—there is blood . . .”
Naill was startled at her first words. He had stains above the boot top on his bad leg, but they were already stiff and drying.
“I was caught in a kalcrok pit.” He answered with the truth, wondering if Illylle memory could supply the rest.
“That is an evil creature, living partly underground,” he added. “The wound was healing. I fell and opened it again.”
“This kalcrok—you killed it?” Her question was simple, such as a child might ask. “With the big knife?” Her bound hands gestured toward the sword in the sheath of his sword belt.
“With the sword,” Naill corrected absently. “Yes, I killed it—because I was lucky.”
“You have lived here always—in the forest?”
“No.” Naill took the chance to drive home the idea of the fate they shared. “I was a laborer—on a garth—and I found a treasure.”
“A treasure,” she interrupted, still in that childish tone. “Green and pretty—so very pretty!” She had her hands up, trying to pull them apart as if holding the necklace once more. “I had one too—green—like the woods.”
“Yes,” Naill conceded, “a treasure such as you found. Then—then I had the Green Sick—and afterward I was Ayyar, though I am also Naill Renfro.” Could he make her understand, he wondered.
“I am Ashla Himmer. But you called me by another name.”
“You are Illylle—or in part you are Illylle.”
“Illylle.” She repeated the name softly. “That is pretty. But I sinned! I sinned or I would not now be a monster!”
Naill took a chance. He stopped short and turned to face her.
“Look at me, Illylle!” he commanded. “Look well—think. Do you see a monster? Do you truly see a monster?”
At first it appeared that she might answer that with a ready affirmative. But as his gaze continued to hold hers, steady and with all the demand he could put into it, she hesitated. Frankly she inspected him from bare-skulled head to mud-stained boots and back again.
“No—” she said slowly. “You are different—but you are not a monster, only different.”
“And you are different, Illylle, but you are not a monster. You are not ugly. For an Iftin you are fair—not ugly, just different.”
“Not a monster—not ugly—for an Iftin, fair.” She repeated that wonderingly. “Please”—she held out her bound hands—”loose me. I shall not run, you who are Ayyar and also a sinner named Naill Renfro.”
He slit the vines and threw them away. Her acceptance had come more quickly and more completely than he had dared hope a short time before.
“Tell me—do we go now to a city, a city of trees? I think I remember those tree towers. But how can I?” she asked, disturbed.