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He raised his head cautiously, watched Kennard dive down, rose again and dashed. The bird twitched,

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began to lumber back, suddenly howled and began to dash madly in circles, its huge head flopping and

flapping.

The banshee howl fell to terrified little yelps and the creature fell on its back, twitching.

Larry yelled to Kennard, “Come on! Run!” He was remembering psychology courses. Animals,especially very stupid animals, faced with a situation wholly frustrating and outside their experience, gocompletely to pieces and crack up. The banshee was lying in the snow squealing with a complete nervousbreakdown.

They ran, gasping and trembling. The clouds seemed suddenly to thin and lift, and the pale Darkovan sunburst suddenly forth in morning brilliance.

Larry hauled himself up, exhausted, to the summit of the pass. He rested there, gasping, Kennard at hisside.

Before them lay a trail downward, and far away, a countryside patched with quiet fields, smoke risingfrom small houses and hearthstones, the tree-laden slopes of low foothills and green leaves.

Exhausted, wearied, famished, they stood there feasting their eyes on the beauty and richness of thecountry that lay below. Kennard pointed. Far away, almost out of sight range, a gray spire just visiblethrough the mist rose upward.

“Castle Hastur—and we’ve won!”

“Not yet,” Larry said, warningly. “It’s a long way off yet. And we’d better get right out of the high snows while this sun is bright enough to keep any of that big fellow’s sisters and his cousins and his aunts from coming around!”

“You’re right,” Kennard said, sobering instantly, and they trudged off down the narrow trail, not really

liking to think what had made it. But at least the sun was bright, and for the moment they were safe.

Larry had leisure to feel, now, how weary he was. His dislocated shoulder ached like the very devil. Hisfeet were cold and hot by turns—he was sure he had frostbite—and his fingers were white and cold fromscrabbling in the snow. He sucked them and slapped them together, trying hard to keep from moaningwith the pain of returning circulation. But he kept pace with Kennard. He’d taken over theleadership—and he wasn’t going to give out now!

The slopes on this side were heavily wooded, but the woods were mostly conifers and spruce, and therewas still no sign of food. Lower down on the slope, they found a single tree laden with apples, damp andwrinkled after the recent storm, but still edible; they filled their pockets, and sat down to eat side by side. Larry thought of the peaceful time, so few days ago really, when they had sat side by side like this, beforethe alarm of forest-fire. What years he seemed to have lived, and what hills and valleys he hadcrossed—figuratively as well as literally—since then!

Kennard was frowning at him and Larry remembered, with an absolute wrench of effort, that they hadexchanged harsh words in the pass.

Kennard said, “Now that we are out of danger—you spoke words to me beyond forgiveness. We are
bredin
 
, but I’m going to beat them down your throat!”

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Oh no! Not that again!

“Forget it,” he said. “I was trying to save both our lives; I didn’t have time to be tactful.”

Kennard is sulking because I saved our lives when he couldn’t. He wants to settle it the Darkovanway—with a fight
. Larry said, aloud, “I won’t fight with you, Ken. You saved my life too many times. Iwould no more hit you than —than my own father.”

Kennard looked at him, trembling with rage. “Coward!”

Larry took a deliberate bite out his apple. It was sour. He said, “Calling me names won’t hurt me. Goahead, if it makes you feel better.” Then he added, gently, “Anyhow, what would it prove, except thatyou are stronger than I? I’ve never doubted that, even for a moment. We’d
 
still
be in this thing together. And after coming through all this together—why should we end it with a fight, as if we were enemiesinstead of friends?” Deliberately, he used the word
 
bredin
 
again. He held out his hand. “If I said anythingto hurt you, I’m sorry. You’ve hurt me a time or two, so even by your own codes we’re even. Let’sshake hands and forget it.”

Kennard hesitated, and for a flooding, bitter moment Larry feared he would rebuff the gesture, and forthat same moment Larry almost wished they had died together in the pass. They had grown as close as iftheir minds were one—and being closed away, now, hurt like a knife.

Then, like sunlight breaking through a cloud, Kennard smiled. He held out both hands and clasped

Larry’s in them.

“Have another apple,” was all he said. But it was enough.

XIII

«^»

THE TRAIL downward was hard, rough going; but with the fear of the banshees behind them, and Larry’s growing skill at rock-climbing, they managed the descent better than the ascent. Weary, halfstarved, Larry felt a relief all out of measure to their present situation—for in a trackless, almost foodlessforest, they had still several days walking to cover before they came to inhabited country. They had seenit from the pass, but it was far away.

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 hadnot 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 onlyrelief at escape? Or—

“Kennard, do you suppose we might meet a hunting party who are in these woods?”

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Kennard, learned in woodcraft, chuckled wryly. “Who would hunt here—and what for? There seems tobe not a sign of game in these woods, though later we may find fruit or berries. You look damnedoptimistic,” 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 greenvalley, so beautiful that in the grip of this unexplained joy Larry stood almost ecstatically, entranced bythe trees, by the little stream that ran silver at the bottom. Songbirds were singing. And through thebirdsong, and the clear-running water, there was another sound—a clear voice, singing. The voice of ahuman creature.

In another moment, through the trees, a tall figure appeared. He was singing, in a musical, unknowntongue.

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 seemedeven more so. He? Was the creature a woman? The voice had been clear and high, like a woman’svoice. It wore a long robe of some gleaming grayish silky substance. Long pale hair lay across the slimshoulders. The beckoning hand was white and almost translucent in the sunlight, and the bones of the facehad an elfin, delicate, triangular beauty.

Flying around the head of the elfin creature were a multitude of singing birds, whose melodious voicesmingled 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 rememberedthe respect the Darkovan boy had shown Lorill Hastur. This was more than respect, it was deference, itwas 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 totrudge 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!”

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The
 
chieri’s
 
fair and mobile face was gentle. “Forgive me. Evil things come sometimes from the highpasses, and foul my clear pools and frighten my birds. They fear me, fortunately—but I do not alwayssee them. But you—” The
 
chieri
 
looked at them, a clear piercing gray gaze, and said, “You mean noharm 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.”

Larry, drawing himself upright, said, “I can go where I must.”

Kennard said, “You lend us grace, child of light. And blessed was the lord of Carthon when he met with

Kierestelli beside the wells of Reuel.”

“Is that tale still known?” The alien, elfin face was merry. “But time enough later for tales and old

legends, son of the Seven Domains. No more talk now. Come.”

The
 
chieri
 
turned, taking an upward path. It was a long climb and Larry was sweating in exhaustion, hisinjured arm feeling ready to drop off, before they reached the top. At the end, Kennard was half carryinghim. But even Kennard was too weary to do more, and the
 
chieri
 
came, an arm around each, andsupported them. Frail, almost boneless as the creature looked, it was incredibly strong.

They came out upon a flat space, screened with living boughs, and entered a door of woven wicker intothe strangest room he had ever seen.

The floor was of earth, not mud or of sun-dried brick, but carpeted thickly with grass and living moss inwhich a cricket chirped; it felt warm and fragrant under their feet.

The
 
chieri
 
bent and removed his sandals, and at his signal, the boys removed their wet and soakingboots and worn socks. The grass felt comfortable to their weary feet.

The walls were of woven wicker, screened lightly with thin hangings of cloth, heavy but not coarse,which admitted light but could not be seen through. In the roof of thatch, vines with great trumpet-shapedblossoms were growing, which pervaded the whole place with a fragrance of green and growing things. Itsmelled fresh, and sweet. An opened door at the back led to an enclosed garden where a fountainsplashed into a stone bowl, running out and away in a little rivulet. A fire burned there in a small brazier ofhardened clay, and over it was a metal crane on which a steaming kettle swung, giving forth a good smellof hot food. The lads felt their eyes watering at this steam. Furniture there was little, save for a bench orchest or two, and at the edge of the room an upright loom with a strung web on it.

As they entered, the
 
chieri
 
raised its hands, saying in its clear voice, “Enter in a good hour, and let nofear or danger trouble you within these walls.” That done, it turned to Larry, saying, “You are hurt and inpain, and you flee from evil things. I sensed your minds within the pass. I will ask no more till you havehad rest and food.”