This is it. Life or death?
Kennard said nothing, but reached silently for Larry’s hand; he clasped it and the clasp slid up Larry’s elbow until their arms were enlaced as well as their hands. Unfamiliar as the gesture was, Larry knew it was a sign not alone of friendship but of affection and tenderness. He felt faintly embarrassed, but he said, in a low voice, “If it’s bad news—I’m sorry as hell I got you into this—but it’s been damn nice knowing you.”
An instant before the door opened, Larry saw it, a clear flash of awareness; the sight of the trailman chief, and his face was grave, but he was alone, and unweaponed. It was not, at any rate, instant death.
The trailman said, “I have seen what you did for Rhhomi. I cannot believe that you are evil men. Yet you are of the kind who make fire.” With a sort of grave dignity, he seated himself. “None is so young he cannot teach, or so old he cannot learn. Am I to learn from you, strange men?”
Kennard said swiftly, “We have told you already that we have no will to harm even the least of your people or creatures, Honorable One.”
“Yes.” But it was at Larry that the trailman chief looked. He said, irrelevantly, it seemed, “Among my folk, my title is Old One, and what is age if not wisdom? Have you wisdom for me, son of a strange land?”
Larry reached behind him for the honey pot, containing still a few glowing embers of fire. The Old One shrank, but controlled himself with an effort. Larry tried to speak his simplest Darkovan; after all, the language was strange to both himself and this alien creature.
“It is harmless here,” he said, searching for words. “See, the walls of your clay pot keep it harmless so that it cannot burn. If you feed it with—with dead twigs and little bits of dead, dry wood, it will serve you and not hurt you.”
The Old One reached out, evidently conquering an ingrained shrinking, and touched the pot. He said, “Then it can be servant and not master? And a knife made clean in this fire will heal?”
“Yes,” said Larry, bypassing the whole of germ theory, “or a wound washed with water made very hot will heal better than a dirty wound.”
The Old One rose, bearing the firepot in his hands. He said, gravely, “For this gift, then, of healing, my people thank you. And as a sign of this, be under our protection within our woods. Wear this”—and he extended two garlands of yellow flowers—”and none of our people will harm you. But build no red-flames-to-eat-our-woods within the limits of these branches.”
Larry, sensing that the Old One spoke to him, said gravely, “You have my pledge.”
The Old One threw open the door of the hut.
“Be free to go.”
Awkwardly they settled the crowns of yellow flowers over their heads. The trailmen surged backward as the Old One came forth, bearing in his hands the pot of fire. He said ceremoniously, handing it to a woman, “I place this thing in your hands. You and your daughters and the daughters of your daughters are to feed it and bear responsibility that it does not escape.”
The scene had a grave solemnity that made Larry, for some reason—perhaps only relief—want to giggle. But he kept his gravity while they were escorted to the edge of the trailmen’s village, shown a long ladder down which they could climb, and finally, with infinite relief, set foot again on the green and solid ground.
ALL THAT DAY they walked, through the trails of the forest. Now and again, from the corner of their eyes, they caught a glimpse of movement, but they saw not a sign of a trailman. They slept that night hearing sounds overhead, but now without fear, knowing that the yellow garlands would protect them in trailman country.
So far neither of them had spoken of their escape. There was no need for words between them now. But when, on the second day—a day clouded and sunless, with a promise of rain—they sat to eat their meal of berries and the odd fungus the trailmen had shown them, which grew plentifully along these paths Kennard finally spoke.