When he had eaten, he took into his lap the weapon he loved best and began again to hone the blade. Then did Tisha rise, to stand upon the edge of the rim, her figure lit against the dark sky by the red firelight. Followed by Cara, she leaped lightly down into the cup of rock, and they stood silent, facing the startled man, who had sprung erect, holding his spear at the ready. Then seeing them to be women, he laughed and laid aside the spear.
“Little did I think to have loveliness beside by fire this night,” he said and swept a playful bow.
“We are not come as guests,” answered Tisha, her cool voice falling clearly into the little space. “We waited while you rested and warmed yourself and ate; we allowed you to have your weapon at hand. We have hunted you as prey for two days, and now we have you in our hands. You have come into the world we have chosen as ours, and you are bearing death in your heart for all not as yourself. We are come to do battle for the Wildings and the People of the Heights, and for all the little beasts without the power of speech. We have slain the hart when the snow lay heavy and hunger stood at our door. We have snared the rabbit and the wildfowl when we needed food. But never have we sought the death of another with the clear flame of joy which burns in your heart.”
“You think to stay me from my hunting?” he asked. He laughed again, “Over-mountain, I have slain all manner of beasts until I have grown weary of the smell of their blood. Here in this wilderness I see tracks I do not know, and in the forest I almost slew a beast which walked like a man and looked at me with golden eyes that knew what I did. No man, even, could prevent my walking abroad, spear in hand, to slay what I wish. You are welcome to share my fire, but speak no more of battle with me. I am Heraad, and none has ever overcome me.”
“Until now,” said Cara. Then she, with her mother, bent her will upon the man. He grasped his spear and sought to lift it, but their combined will forced his hand to open and the shaft slid away. As a child bends a reed, so they moved him to sit, flattened against the stone where he was wont to lie.
“We are going to show you what life is,” said Tisha. “Come with us, that you may learn and live; for if you do not, you will die.” Then she joined hands with her daughter, and their spirits seized that part of Heraad which was capable of feeling and of learning and bore it away with their seeking senses into the heights above.
Among the burrows of the People they went, less perceptible than the air, seeing the folk of the high places about their evening’s pastimes and tasks. Young ones rolled in firelight within the stony caves, and their mothers scolded them in their strange-sounding tongue, when they were overly noisy and interfered with the doings of the elders. Groups of males sat about the fires, playing at toss-bones or talking earnestly. The females were about their supper-making or clearing-away which though far different in detail from the ways of men, yet were so obviously what they were that the differences were as nothing. One nursed a youngling with an injured foot, murmuring in its furry ear and soothing its tears away. One, in a lonely burrow, sat in darkness, head in hands, alone with some private grief. Two sat snuggled into a secluded corner, fingers twined together, whispering tenderly.
Then, in a swift whirl and blur of motion, they swept their captive down from the heights into the flowing forest lands of the valley. Deep into the dells where the Wildings dwelt, they moved, seeking here and there until they found a snug place, roofed with an ancient moon-tree that leaned protectively over the Wilding-lair. There too, burned a fire in a rock-built hearth and in its flickering they could see the woven vines and broad plaited grasses that made the walls, the deep beds of bracken, the settles cut from gnarled stumps and leggy branches. And there Wildings were sitting, dreaming into the fire, holding each a young one. All seemed drowsy and at peace, looking with golden eyes into golden flame, and as they watched one of the little ones dropped into sleep and its head drooped gently into the curve of its father’s arm. No walls of stone had ever held what was more truly a family.
Then they came, more slowly than they went, back across the forest and the hills to the place where their bodies sat, stopping, now and again, to peer into a little burrow where one of the small beasts slept or watched. Gently as the leaves of the moon-tree falling, they settled back into themselves, at last, but still they held Heraad captive to their wills. Now they moved close to him and sat before him and Tisha looked into his eyes.
“These are the people whom you would hunt,” she said. “One of their number you have wounded sorely, and many of them might you slay, given the freedom to carry death. They are not as you and I upon the surfaces of their skins, but within they think, they feel, they suffer and they rejoice. Even the little beasts have within them the gift of life, if not of thought, and this you would wrest from them in sport. Not for this did the gods give you life and strength.”
Then they eased their grip upon the man, and he slumped against the rock. His eyes held awe and terror. “What manner of women are you that you may hold me without hands and compel me without weapons?” he gasped. “In my own place, you might rule as goddesses, possessed of such powers. What need have you of these cattle you have shown me? They are none of yours, for they walk free and do not serve you. Return with me to the world over-mountain, and we three shall hold all there is within our grasp.”
Cara’s lip curled as she answered, “Know you not, ignorant man, that those who walk in the ways of the gods, valuing all their gifts and keeping all their laws, are sometimes given strange potencies, but that, should they use them ill, those gifts can be swiftly withdrawn—even the greatest of them, which is life? This I learned in the cradle, and much I wonder at those who had your teaching as their duty. Did they teach you nothing of what is real? Did they never hold bread to your tongue and say, ‘This is the fruit of sun and soil and the sweat of men. Savor it, for it is precious’? Did they never take you into the forest that you might learn the ways of the small folk who balance upon the wheel of life? Did they never say to you, ‘Live, my child, in the light of truth and reason, that you may stand before the gods as one of their own, when you come to the door that opens into otherwhere’?”
But Heraad stared at her as though she spoke in a strange tongue. “My folk are wise and thrifty and are noble and wealthy. Why should they fill my small head with that which will put no gold in my pouch and no game in my bag? We laugh when we find humor, we weep when we suffer, and we kill when the mood is in us. What else can life hold?” And his dark eyes were puzzled, seeking for their purpose, with comprehension.
Then Cara turned to her mother and said, “Truly you told me. There is no light in the ‘world’, only darkness of self-seeking.” She turned aside her face into the shadow, for tears were in her eyes.
“These are the laws of life which we teach you, Heraad,” said Tisha sternly. “You must learn either to value lives other than your own or to fear—greatly to fear—this place where you now draw breath. Not otherwise may you go from here as a living man. We do not take your life lightly, and for this reason only do you stand this side of the door of death. As we compel you to sit, so can we do other things. We can stop your heart from its long duty. We can erase the tiny streams that bear your thought from brain to limb. We can, without stirring, send you forth to face the gods in their own place, leaving this shell of you for the fowl of the air and the small beasts to worry, at leisure, as you would have worried them, given the opportunity. Fear us, Heraad, for we are not as you. We are more alien than the Wilding in the dell or the People of the Heights. We see through other eyes than yours into places that are not to be seen by your kind. And we are stronger than you. Not only in our spirits, but in our bodies might we overcome you. Forget your women of the towns when you look upon us. We survive in the wilds, without heeding danger or discomfort. We set hand to tree and to stone and to labors you have never done. Fear us, Heraad!”
Then she sat still, looking into his eyes with all the strength of her spirit moving between them. Heraad seemed to shrink against the stone, and his knuckles whitened upon his taut hands. Cara moved beside her mother and took her hand, closed her eyes, and sent her strength through the clasp. For