It was shortly thereafter that the wood sprite appeared to them.
They had turned their horses down a draw formed by a series of fallen trees. Bunion leading the way on foot, when the sprite slipped from the mists at the kobold’s shoulder. He was a lean, wiry figure, barely taller than Bunion, skin as brown and grainy as the bark of a sapling, hair grown thick down the back of his neck and along his arms. Earth colored clothing hung loosely against his body; his sleeves and pantlegs were cut short, his feet slipped into a boot that laced about the calves with leather. He barely slowed the procession as he appeared, falling in beside Bunion, moving forward through the haze in an almost birdlike manner, quick and restless.
“Questor!” Ben’s voice was a rough hiss, louder than he had intended it to be. “Who is that?”
The wizard, riding just ahead, leaned back in his saddle, a finger to his lips. “Gently, High Lord. Our guide is a wood sprite in service to the River Master. There are others all about us.”
Ben’s gaze shifted quickly to the mist. He saw no one. “Our guide? Our guide to what?” His voice had dropped to a whisper.
“Our guide to Elderew, the home of the River Master.”
“We need a guide?”
Quester shrugged. “It is safer to have one, High Lord. Marsh lies all about Elderew and more than a few have been lost to it. The lake country can be treacherous. The guide is a courtesy extended us by the River Master — a courtesy extended to all guests upon their arrival.”
Ben glanced once more into the opaque curtain of the fog. “I hope the same courtesy is extended to guests upon their departure,” he muttered to himself.
They moved ahead into the trees. Other forms appeared suddenly from the mist, lean, wiry shapes like their guide, some with the same wood-grained appearance, some stick-like and gnarled, some smooth and sleek with skin that was almost silver. They fell in silently on either side of the column, hands grasping the reins of the horses, guiding the animals ahead. Pools of water and reed-grown marsh materialized all along the trail they followed, vast patches of swamp in which nothing moved but the fog. The trail narrowed further and at times disappeared altogether, leaving them in water that rose to their guides’ waists and the horses’ haunches. Creatures swam in the water, some with fins, some with reptilian scales, some with faces that were almost human. Creatures darted through the mist, dancing across the mire’s surface like weightless skip-flies. They surfaced far out in the fog, and there were only flashes before they were gone again. Ben felt himself waking now, the dreams of last night dissipated finally, no more than faint memories and disconnected feelings. His mind sharpened as he peered through the gloom and studied the beings about him with mingled incredulity and disbelief. He was enveloped in a sudden, biting sense of hopelessness. Sprites, nymphs, kelpies, naiads, pixies, elementals — the names came back to him as he watched these marsh creatures appear and fade again. He recalled his early, exploratory reading of fantasy and horror fiction, an almost forbidden trespass, and relived his wonder at the strange beings he had encountered. Such creatures could only exist in the writer’s mind and come to life through his pen, he had believed — wishing secretly at the same time that it could be otherwise. Yet here those creatures were, the inhabitants of the world into which he had come, and he knew less of them than he did of those make-believe writer’s creations he had encountered in his youth — and they, in turn, knew nothing at all of him. How, in God’s name, could he convince them then to accept him as their King? What could he say that would persuade them to pledge to him?
The hopelessness of the task was appalling. It terrified him so that for a moment he was paralyzed with indecision. The lean, shadowy figures of the River Master’s people slipped through the mist all about him, and he saw them as alien beings for whom he was nothing more than a curiosity. It had been different with the Lords of the Greensward. There had been a similarity in appearance, at least, a sense of sameness. But there was nothing of that with the people of the River Master.