She walked that other way, that slipped with speed no mortal
limbs could pace, along paths where brambles did not trouble her.
She paused, in the gray glimmering of dawn down the dale, in the
pleasant green of new growth, a riverside where she had not come . . . in very, very long. She was beyond the
present limits of Eald, and yet not, for Eald was where she willed
it, and followed her, stretched thin, so that there was effort in
this going.
Morning brought mortal beauty, soft touch of sun in golden haze
above the black waters of the Caerbourne, beauty of contrasts which
her world did not possess, for there was no ugliness there, no dead
branch, no fallen tree or unshapely limb.. She glanced aside as a
shadowy deer followed her out of otherwhere, black nose atwitch and
large eyes full of daybreak. “Go back,” she bade it,
for it did not know its way hereabouts, and it vanished with a
breaking of brush and a flash of dappled rump, which flickered into
that shadow world and safety.
She walked farther, across the water, where now she could see
the grim walls of Caer Wiell on its hill, with fields spread beyond
it like skirts of gold and green. Evil had lived here once,
surrounding itself with harsh men and edged weapons. The keep had a
new tower, greater defenses. But today the gates stood open. New
Forest had urged its saplings close upon this side of the hill,
with grass beyond, and flowers twined upon the grim black stones.
She saw Men coming and going on a path, but these Men had no
hardness about them. They laughed, and her heart was eased, her
interest pricked as it had not been in long years of Men . . . for Death’s taunting had cast
gloom over her and this sight of life and liveliness was
heart-healing.
A few women sat on the green grass, between the forest edge of
saplings and the flower-twined walls, and a golden-haired child ran
with baby steps with the hillside, laughing. A strange feeling
tugged at Arafel’s elvish heart to hear it, like the echo of
such childish laughter in the long ago. She walked out, into mortal
sunlight, saw that the child at least saw her, if others did not.
The child’s eyes were cornflower blue and round with
wonder.
Arafel knelt then and touched a flower, drew a glamour over it,
a tiny magic, a gift. The child plucked it and the glamour died,
leaving only a primrose clutched in a fat human fist, and dismay in
the blue eyes.
Arafel spread the glamour across the whole hillside of
primroses, shedding elven beauty on them, and the childish eyes
danced for joy.
“Come,” whispered Arafel, holding out her hand. The
child walked with her into the forest shade, forgetful of
flowers.
“Branwyn,” a woman called. “Branwyn,
don’t stray too far.”
The child stopped, turned eyes that way. Arafel dropped her hand
and the child toddled away, ran at last to the outstretched arms of
the woman who had risen to look fearfully into the morning haze
amid the bracken.
Human fear. It was chill as Death himself, and Arafel had no
love of it. She cast a last longing look at the child and walked
away into the shadow of the woods.
“Beware of them,” said a whisper at her
shoulder.
“They die.”
It was Death, in the wreckage of an old tree.
“Begone,” she said to him.
“They will give you
pain.”
“Begone, upstart.”
“They have no gratitude for gifts,” he said.
“The third time—begone.”
He went, for at her third command he must, and left a chill
behind him.
She frowned and drew back, departing her own way into elven
night, and the light of her own and pale green moon.
She thought often about the meeting, but she took her time in
venturing again in the face of Death’s taunting. Her pride,
pricklish elvish pride, refused to acknowledge that he had
disturbed her, but she put it off past one midsummer’s eve,
and yet another, and perhaps more . . . time
meant little to her, who measured the oldest trees against her
lifetime. But at last she came back to that forest below Caer
Wiell, dismayed anew to realize how fast human life fled, for the
babe was much taller when she had found her again playing on that
strip beneath the walls. The child stared at her from wide,
little-girl eyes, her doll forgotten in her lap. She had her
attendants, who sat to themselves and laughed shrill sly laughs and
never saw their visitor. They chattered among themselves, a ring of
bright skirts and fingers busy with embroideries. But the child was
grave and curious.
And Arafel sat down crosslegged on the ground, let a child show
her daisy-chains and how to count wishes.
They laughed together, but then the watching girls came
and fetched the child away from the forest edge and scolded
her.
It was not every day, nor even every moon, that Arafel came.
Sometimes other concerns kept her; but she remembered Men more
often than her wont in those days, and sang much, and was
happy.
Still the mortal time was long; and when at last she delayed for
months, the child took her pony into the woods and set out seeking
her, along the Caerbourne’s willow-shaded banks.
The wood grew darker very soon; and it was no good place to be.
The fat pony knew that, and shook her off and raced away in terror.
And Branwyn wiped the wet leaves from off her hands and tried to
keep her lip from trembling, for what had frightened the pony
chuckled and whispered in the bushes nearby.
Many the human intruder in Ealdwood that dusk, with calling and
blowing of horns; and they found the poor pony with his neck
broken. Lord Evald rode farthest and most desperately, driven by a
father’s love . . . and Scaga led the searchers farther than
most would have dared but for shame to Evald’s face and dread
of Scaga’s anger.
Arafel came looking too, having heard the cries and the
intrusion. She found the child tucked like a frightened fawn in the
hollow of an old and trustworthy tree, dried her tears, banished
the dark from that glade. “Did you come hunting me?”
Arafel asked, her heart touched that at last, after so many years,
there was some hope of Men. “Come,” she asked of
Branwyn, trying to draw her to that place where childhood might be
long, and life longer still. But the child feared those other
sights.
And suddenly a father’s voice rang out, distant through
the wood; and the child chose once for all, and called out, and
fled for him.
Arafel drew away; and stayed away very long. It was shame
perhaps, for intended theft. And
pain . . . that, perhaps, most of all.
Midsummers passed, and beltains, while mortal Eald grew rank and
Death did as he would there, failing her presence.
But come she did when her heart was healed. She expected the
child where she would always be, at the forest’s edge; and
when she did not find her there . . . at least,
she thought, Branwyn would be playing on the hillside on so bright
a midsummer day; and finally, seeking with persistence, she went
even to the stones of Caer Wiell, man-hewn with painful iron.
So she found Branwyn at last, on the tower’s crest, in
that sheltered nook where the wind could not reach.
The child’s shape had changed. It was a budding woman in a
woman’s gown, who stared at her in alarm and did not truly
remember her, forgetting childish dreams.
Branwyn had brought bread there for the birds, and stopped in
the very motion of her hand, the cornflower eyes greatly amazed,
not seeing how her visitor had come, but only that she was
there, which was the way most mortals looked at Arafel when they
saw her at all.
“Do you remember me?” Arafel asked, saddened at the
change she saw.
“No,” said Branwyn, wrinkling her nose and tilting
her head back to stare at her visitor, from soles of her feet to a
crown of her head. “You are poor.”
“So some see me.”
“Did you beg of me on the road? You should not have come
inside.”
“No,” said Arafel patiently, “Perhaps you once
saw me differently.”
“At our gate?”
“Never. I gave you a flower.”
The blue eyes blinked, and did not remember.
“I offered you magic. I did you daisy chains, and found
you in the woods.”
“You never did,” Branwyn breathed, cupping the
crumbs in both her hands. “I stopped believing in
you.”
“So easily?” asked Arafel.
“My pony died.”
It was hate. It wounded. Arafel stood and stared.
“My father and Scaga brought me home. And I never went
back.”
“You might . . . if you
would.”
“I am a woman now.”
“You still remember my name.”
“Thistle.” Branwyn drew back, out of her shadow.
“But little-girl playmates go away when girls are
grown.”
“So I must,” said Arafel.
And she began to. But she stopped on a last forlorn hope and
cast a glamor as once she had done, on the birds which hovered
round about, silvering their wings. Branwyn quickly cast crumbs,
and the birds alit and fought for them, so that the gleaming faded
in a knot of wings and thieving. She threw more. Such were
Branwyn’s magics, to tame wild things, by their desires. The
cornflower eyes lifted, dark and ill-wishing, conscious of their
own power and disdaining forever what was wild.
“Good-bye,” said Arafel, and yielded up the effort
which held her so far out of Eald.
She faded back then, out of heart to linger there.
“Did I not warn you?” Death made bold to ask her,
when next their paths crossed. Then in anger Arafel banished him
from her presence, but not from the wood, for she was out of sorts
with Men. The dream she had dreamed of humankind had proved more
than vain, it was turned altogether against her, like the child who
had grown as the saplings had grown in Death’s new forest,
taking root in this world, and not in hers.
She slipped within the safer, kindlier light of her moon, and
into the forest of Eald as her eyes saw it, a forest which had
never faded since the beginning of the world, save those areas gone
for good. Here all the leaves were silvered in the moon’s
greener, younger glow; here waters sang, and the birds were free,
and the deer wandered with all the stars of night in their
eyes.
It was her consolation then, to dream, to walk the woods she
loved, and to keep that which remained as it had always been,
forgetting Men. Of midsummer nights, sometimes she came, and
saw mortal Eald grown wilder and more deserted still. How Death
fared, she had no knowledge, nor cared, though it seemed that he
fared well, and hunted souls.
She walked that other way, that slipped with speed no mortal
limbs could pace, along paths where brambles did not trouble her.
She paused, in the gray glimmering of dawn down the dale, in the
pleasant green of new growth, a riverside where she had not come . . . in very, very long. She was beyond the
present limits of Eald, and yet not, for Eald was where she willed
it, and followed her, stretched thin, so that there was effort in
this going.
Morning brought mortal beauty, soft touch of sun in golden haze
above the black waters of the Caerbourne, beauty of contrasts which
her world did not possess, for there was no ugliness there, no dead
branch, no fallen tree or unshapely limb.. She glanced aside as a
shadowy deer followed her out of otherwhere, black nose atwitch and
large eyes full of daybreak. “Go back,” she bade it,
for it did not know its way hereabouts, and it vanished with a
breaking of brush and a flash of dappled rump, which flickered into
that shadow world and safety.
She walked farther, across the water, where now she could see
the grim walls of Caer Wiell on its hill, with fields spread beyond
it like skirts of gold and green. Evil had lived here once,
surrounding itself with harsh men and edged weapons. The keep had a
new tower, greater defenses. But today the gates stood open. New
Forest had urged its saplings close upon this side of the hill,
with grass beyond, and flowers twined upon the grim black stones.
She saw Men coming and going on a path, but these Men had no
hardness about them. They laughed, and her heart was eased, her
interest pricked as it had not been in long years of Men . . . for Death’s taunting had cast
gloom over her and this sight of life and liveliness was
heart-healing.
A few women sat on the green grass, between the forest edge of
saplings and the flower-twined walls, and a golden-haired child ran
with baby steps with the hillside, laughing. A strange feeling
tugged at Arafel’s elvish heart to hear it, like the echo of
such childish laughter in the long ago. She walked out, into mortal
sunlight, saw that the child at least saw her, if others did not.
The child’s eyes were cornflower blue and round with
wonder.
Arafel knelt then and touched a flower, drew a glamour over it,
a tiny magic, a gift. The child plucked it and the glamour died,
leaving only a primrose clutched in a fat human fist, and dismay in
the blue eyes.
Arafel spread the glamour across the whole hillside of
primroses, shedding elven beauty on them, and the childish eyes
danced for joy.
“Come,” whispered Arafel, holding out her hand. The
child walked with her into the forest shade, forgetful of
flowers.
“Branwyn,” a woman called. “Branwyn,
don’t stray too far.”
The child stopped, turned eyes that way. Arafel dropped her hand
and the child toddled away, ran at last to the outstretched arms of
the woman who had risen to look fearfully into the morning haze
amid the bracken.
Human fear. It was chill as Death himself, and Arafel had no
love of it. She cast a last longing look at the child and walked
away into the shadow of the woods.
“Beware of them,” said a whisper at her
shoulder.
“They die.”
It was Death, in the wreckage of an old tree.
“Begone,” she said to him.
“They will give you
pain.”
“Begone, upstart.”
“They have no gratitude for gifts,” he said.
“The third time—begone.”
He went, for at her third command he must, and left a chill
behind him.
She frowned and drew back, departing her own way into elven
night, and the light of her own and pale green moon.
She thought often about the meeting, but she took her time in
venturing again in the face of Death’s taunting. Her pride,
pricklish elvish pride, refused to acknowledge that he had
disturbed her, but she put it off past one midsummer’s eve,
and yet another, and perhaps more . . . time
meant little to her, who measured the oldest trees against her
lifetime. But at last she came back to that forest below Caer
Wiell, dismayed anew to realize how fast human life fled, for the
babe was much taller when she had found her again playing on that
strip beneath the walls. The child stared at her from wide,
little-girl eyes, her doll forgotten in her lap. She had her
attendants, who sat to themselves and laughed shrill sly laughs and
never saw their visitor. They chattered among themselves, a ring of
bright skirts and fingers busy with embroideries. But the child was
grave and curious.
And Arafel sat down crosslegged on the ground, let a child show
her daisy-chains and how to count wishes.
They laughed together, but then the watching girls came
and fetched the child away from the forest edge and scolded
her.
It was not every day, nor even every moon, that Arafel came.
Sometimes other concerns kept her; but she remembered Men more
often than her wont in those days, and sang much, and was
happy.
Still the mortal time was long; and when at last she delayed for
months, the child took her pony into the woods and set out seeking
her, along the Caerbourne’s willow-shaded banks.
The wood grew darker very soon; and it was no good place to be.
The fat pony knew that, and shook her off and raced away in terror.
And Branwyn wiped the wet leaves from off her hands and tried to
keep her lip from trembling, for what had frightened the pony
chuckled and whispered in the bushes nearby.
Many the human intruder in Ealdwood that dusk, with calling and
blowing of horns; and they found the poor pony with his neck
broken. Lord Evald rode farthest and most desperately, driven by a
father’s love . . . and Scaga led the searchers farther than
most would have dared but for shame to Evald’s face and dread
of Scaga’s anger.
Arafel came looking too, having heard the cries and the
intrusion. She found the child tucked like a frightened fawn in the
hollow of an old and trustworthy tree, dried her tears, banished
the dark from that glade. “Did you come hunting me?”
Arafel asked, her heart touched that at last, after so many years,
there was some hope of Men. “Come,” she asked of
Branwyn, trying to draw her to that place where childhood might be
long, and life longer still. But the child feared those other
sights.
And suddenly a father’s voice rang out, distant through
the wood; and the child chose once for all, and called out, and
fled for him.
Arafel drew away; and stayed away very long. It was shame
perhaps, for intended theft. And
pain . . . that, perhaps, most of all.
Midsummers passed, and beltains, while mortal Eald grew rank and
Death did as he would there, failing her presence.
But come she did when her heart was healed. She expected the
child where she would always be, at the forest’s edge; and
when she did not find her there . . . at least,
she thought, Branwyn would be playing on the hillside on so bright
a midsummer day; and finally, seeking with persistence, she went
even to the stones of Caer Wiell, man-hewn with painful iron.
So she found Branwyn at last, on the tower’s crest, in
that sheltered nook where the wind could not reach.
The child’s shape had changed. It was a budding woman in a
woman’s gown, who stared at her in alarm and did not truly
remember her, forgetting childish dreams.
Branwyn had brought bread there for the birds, and stopped in
the very motion of her hand, the cornflower eyes greatly amazed,
not seeing how her visitor had come, but only that she was
there, which was the way most mortals looked at Arafel when they
saw her at all.
“Do you remember me?” Arafel asked, saddened at the
change she saw.
“No,” said Branwyn, wrinkling her nose and tilting
her head back to stare at her visitor, from soles of her feet to a
crown of her head. “You are poor.”
“So some see me.”
“Did you beg of me on the road? You should not have come
inside.”
“No,” said Arafel patiently, “Perhaps you once
saw me differently.”
“At our gate?”
“Never. I gave you a flower.”
The blue eyes blinked, and did not remember.
“I offered you magic. I did you daisy chains, and found
you in the woods.”
“You never did,” Branwyn breathed, cupping the
crumbs in both her hands. “I stopped believing in
you.”
“So easily?” asked Arafel.
“My pony died.”
It was hate. It wounded. Arafel stood and stared.
“My father and Scaga brought me home. And I never went
back.”
“You might . . . if you
would.”
“I am a woman now.”
“You still remember my name.”
“Thistle.” Branwyn drew back, out of her shadow.
“But little-girl playmates go away when girls are
grown.”
“So I must,” said Arafel.
And she began to. But she stopped on a last forlorn hope and
cast a glamor as once she had done, on the birds which hovered
round about, silvering their wings. Branwyn quickly cast crumbs,
and the birds alit and fought for them, so that the gleaming faded
in a knot of wings and thieving. She threw more. Such were
Branwyn’s magics, to tame wild things, by their desires. The
cornflower eyes lifted, dark and ill-wishing, conscious of their
own power and disdaining forever what was wild.
“Good-bye,” said Arafel, and yielded up the effort
which held her so far out of Eald.
She faded back then, out of heart to linger there.
“Did I not warn you?” Death made bold to ask her,
when next their paths crossed. Then in anger Arafel banished him
from her presence, but not from the wood, for she was out of sorts
with Men. The dream she had dreamed of humankind had proved more
than vain, it was turned altogether against her, like the child who
had grown as the saplings had grown in Death’s new forest,
taking root in this world, and not in hers.
She slipped within the safer, kindlier light of her moon, and
into the forest of Eald as her eyes saw it, a forest which had
never faded since the beginning of the world, save those areas gone
for good. Here all the leaves were silvered in the moon’s
greener, younger glow; here waters sang, and the birds were free,
and the deer wandered with all the stars of night in their
eyes.
It was her consolation then, to dream, to walk the woods she
loved, and to keep that which remained as it had always been,
forgetting Men. Of midsummer nights, sometimes she came, and
saw mortal Eald grown wilder and more deserted still. How Death
fared, she had no knowledge, nor cared, though it seemed that he
fared well, and hunted souls.