And yet the optimism seeded in him, growing higher and higher, like a cresting wave, like . . .
Like the growth of his fear when they had been in the acute danger of capture by the trailmen and he had not yet known it!
What kind of freak am I? How did I get it? I’m no telepath. And it can’t be learned.
Yet he felt this cresting, flooding hope—almost like a great joy. The woods seemed somehow greener, the sky a more brilliant mauve, the red sun to shine with brilliance and glory overhead. Could it be only relief at escape? Or—
“Kennard, do you suppose we might meet a hunting party who are in these woods?”
Kennard, learned in woodcraft, chuckled wryly. “Who would hunt here—and what for? There seems to be not a sign of game in these woods, though later we may find fruit or berries. You look damned optimistic,” he added, rather sullenly still.
He’s mad because I faced him down. But he’ll get over it.
They scrambled their way to the lip of a rocky rise in the land, and stood looking down into a green valley, so beautiful that in the grip of this unexplained joy Larry stood almost ecstatically, entranced by the trees, by the little stream that ran silver at the bottom. Songbirds were singing. And through the birdsong, and the clear-running water, there was another sound—a clear voice, singing. The voice of a human creature.
In another moment, through the trees, a tall figure appeared. He was singing, in a musical, unknown tongue.
Kennard stood half-enraptured. He whispered, “A chieri!”
Human?
The creature was, indeed, human in form, though tall and of such a fragile slenderness that he seemed even more so. He? Was the creature a woman? The voice had been clear and high, like a woman’s voice. It wore a long robe of some gleaming grayish silky substance. Long pale hair lay across the slim shoulders. The beckoning hand was white and almost translucent in the sunlight, and the bones of the face had an elfin, delicate, triangular beauty.
Flying around the head of the elfin creature were a multitude of singing birds, whose melodious voices mingled with that of the chieri. Suddenly the chieri looked sharply upward, and called in a clear voice, “You there, you evil tramplers! Go, before you frighten my birds, or I put an ill word on you!”
Kennard stepped forward, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender and respect. Larry remembered the respect the Darkovan boy had shown Lorill Hastur. This was more than respect, it was deference, it was almost abasement.
“Child of grace,” he said, half-audibly, “we mean no harm to you or your birds. We are lost and desperate. My friend is hurt. If you can give us no help, give us at least none of your evil will.”
The beautiful, epicene face, suddenly clear in the patch of sunlight, softened. Raising the thin hands, the chieri let the birds fly free, in a whirling cloud. Then the creature beckoned to them, but as they began to trudge wearily down the slope, it ran lightly upward to them.
“You are hurt! You have cuts and bruises; you are hungry, you have come through that dreadful pass haunted by evil things—?”
“We have,” Kennard said faintly, “and we have crossed all the country from the castle of Cyrillon des Trailles.”
“What are you?”
“I am Comyn,” Kennard said, with his last scraps of dignity, “of the Seven Domains. This—this lad is my friend and bredu. Give us shelter, or at least no harm!”
The chieri’s fair and mobile face was gentle. “Forgive me. Evil things come sometimes from the high passes, and foul my clear pools and frighten my birds. They fear me, fortunately—but I do not always see them. But you—” The chieri looked at them, a clear piercing gray gaze, and said, “You mean no harm to us.”
The glance held Larry’s eyes spellbound. Kennard whispered, “Are you a mighty leronis?”
“I am of the chieri. Are you wiser, son of Alton?”
“You know my name?”
“I know your name, Kennard son of Valdir, and your friend’s. Yet I have none of your Comyn powers. But you are weary, and your friend, in pain; so no more talk now. Can you walk a steep path?” The chieri seemed almost apologetic. “I must guard myself, in this land.”