Oath of Gold

3

“You will not regain your full strength for some time,” Master Oakhallow said, as he sat with her at breakfast. “But we need to consider your other problem now.” He paused for a long swallow of sweetened goat’s milk. “If you still have one. Can you tell?”

Paks shook her head. “I don’t feel much at all right now. When I think of fighting, it’s very far away.”

“Hmm. Maybe that’s for the best. Perhaps you will be able to think more clearly.” He cut another slice of bread, and bit into it. Paks swallowed her own milk. She was discovering that nothing hurt; she had not known how that constant pain had weighed on her. For a little while she did not care whether she could fight or not; it was pleasant enough to sit eating breakfast without pain. She felt the Kuakgan’s gaze and raised her eyes to meet it. His face relaxed as he watched her. “At least the poison’s out. Your face shows it. Well—are you ready?”

“For what, sir?”

“To talk about courage.”

Paks felt herself tensing, and tried to relax. “Yes.”

“Very well. It seems to me that two mistakes have clouded your mind. First is the notion that having as little courage as an ordinary person is somehow shameful, that you must have more than your share. That’s nothing but pride, Paksenarrion. So it is you felt you couldn’t live with the meager amount of courage most folk have: it was too shameful. And that’s ridiculous. Here you are, young, strong, whole-bodied now, with wit enough—with gifts above average—and you feel you cannot go on without still more bounty of the gods.”

Paks blushed. Put that way . . .

“Paksenarrion, I want you to think of those common folk awhile. They live their lives out, day by day, in danger of fever, robbers, fire, storm, wolves, thieves, assassins, evil creatures and powers—and war. They most of them have neither weapons nor skill at arms, nor any way to get them. You’ve lived among them, this past winter: you know, you feel, how helpless is a farmwife against an armed man, or a craftsman against a band of thieves. You are right, they are afraid—full of fear from moment to moment, as full of fear as you have been. And yet they go on. They plow the fields and tend flocks, Paksenarrion, and weave cloth for you to wear, and make pots, and cheese, and beer, and boots, and wagons: everything we use, these frightened people make. You think you don’t want to be like them. But you must be like them, first. You must have their courage before you get more.”

“But—sir, you said they had none.”

“No. I said they were frightened. Here’s the second mistake. Courage is not something you have, like a sum of money, more or less in a pouch—it cannot be lost, like money spilling out. Courage is inherent in all creatures; it is the quality that keeps them alive, because they endure. It is courage, Paksenarrion, that splits the acorn and sends the rootlet down into soil to search for sustenance. You can damage the creature, yes, and it may die of it, but as long as it lives and endures, each living part has as much courage as it can hold.”

Paks felt confused. “That seems strange to me—”

“Yes, because you’ve been a warrior among warriors. You think of courage as an eagerness for danger, isn’t that so?”

“I suppose so. At least being able to go on, and fight, and not be mastered by fear.”

“Right. But the essence is the going on. A liking for excitement and danger is like a taste for walnuts or mushrooms or the color yellow. Most people have a little—you may have noticed how small children like to scare themselves climbing trees and such—but the gift varies in amount. It adds to the warrior’s ability by masking fear. But it’s not essential, Paksenarrion, even to a warrior. The going on, the enduring, is. Even for the mightiest warrior, a danger may be so great, a foe so overwhelming, that the excitement, the enjoyment, is gone. What then? Is a warrior to quit and abandon those who depend on his courage because it isn’t fun?” Paks shook her head. “No, and put that way it’s obvious. You may remember such times yourself. It’s true that one who had no delight in facing and overcoming danger would not likely choose to be a warrior, except in great need. But consider your own patron Gird. According to legend, he was no fighter until need—his own and his neighbors’—drove him to it. Suppose he never enjoyed battle, but did his best anyway: does that make him unworthy of veneration?”

“No, sir. But if what you say is so, will I always be like this? And can I fight again?”

Master Oakhallow gave her a long considering look. “And how do you define this? Do you feel yourself the same as when you came here?”

Paks thought a moment. “No. I don’t. I feel I can go on, but I still wish I were the way I used to be.”

“It was more pleasant, doubtless, to feel no fear and be admired.”

Paks ducked her head. “Yes, sir, but—I could do things. Help—”

“I know. You did many good things. But if we consider whether you will stay as you are now, we must consider what you are now, and what you wish to be. We must see clearly. We must have done with daydreams, and see whether this sapling—” he touched her arm, “—be oak, holly, ash or cherry. We can grow no cherries on an oak, nor acorns on a holly. And however your life goes, Paksenarrion, it cannot return to past times: you will never be just as you were. What has hurt you will leave scars. But as a tree that is hacked and torn, if it lives, will be the same tree—will be an oak if an oak it was before—so you are still Paksenarrion. All your past is within you, good and bad alike.”

“I can’t feel that, any more. All that happened before Kolobia . . . I can’t reach it.”

“That we will change. It’s there, and it is you. Come, you are strong enough to walk today; the sun will do you good.”

As they wandered the grove’s quiet trails, he led her to talk about her life, bit by bit. She found herself remembering little things from her childhood: watching her father help a lamb at birth, rubbing it dry, carrying her younger brother on her shoulders from the fields to the house, listening for wolves’ wild singing on winter nights when they ventured near the barns. It seemed that she was there again—where she could never go—clinging to the hames on the shaggy pony as her father plowed their one good field, or catching her fingers in the loom as her mother wove the striped blankets they slept under. Seen so, her father was not the wrathful figure of those last days at home, but a strong, loving man who made a hard land prosper for his family.

“He cared for me,” she admitted at last, staring into the fire that night. “I thought he hated me, but he wanted me to be safe. That’s why—”

The Kuakgan nodded. “He saw danger ahead for you as a fighter. Any father would. To think of his child—his daughter—exposed to sword and spear, wounded, dying among strangers—”

“Yes. I didn’t think of it like that. I wanted danger.”

“And danger you had. No, don’t flinch. You’d have made a very bad pig farmer’s wife, wanting to be a warrior. Even now, you’d make a bad pig farmer’s wife.”

“Not for the same reason.”

“No. But your pig farmer—what was his name?—is better off with whoever he has.”

Paks had not thought of Fersin Amboisson in years. She had never wondered whom he married instead. Now his pleasant, rugged face came back to her. He had looked, but for being a redhead, like Saben.

“I hope he found somebody good,” she said soberly.

“The world’s full of good wives,” said Master Oakhallow, and turned to something else.

Day by day the talk covered more and more of the years. Her first days in the Duke’s Company, her friends there, the trouble with Korryn and Stephi (which seemed to interest the Kuakgan far more than Paks could understand—he kept asking her more and more details of that day—things that seemed to have nothing to do with the incident itself.)

And as she talked, her life seemed to gain solidity—to become real again. She felt connected once more to the eager, adventurous girl tagging after older brothers and cousins, to the determined young woman running away from home, to the young soldier fighting beside trusted companions in the Duke’s Company. This, it seemed, was her real self—bold, self-willed, impetuous, hot-tempered, intensely loyal once trust was given. She began to see how these same traits could be strengths or weaknesses in different circumstances. Trust given the Duke would lead to one thing; given to Macenion, to a far different outcome.

“I never thought, before,” she said, as they sat one day in a sunny spot. “I never thought that I should choose. I thought others were either good or bad, and nothing in between. Vik warned me about that, once, with Barranyi, but I didn’t understand. It’s still me, isn’t it? I have to decide who is worthy of trust, and even then I have to decide each time if something is right or wrong.”

The Kuakgan nodded. “It’s hardest for fighters, Paksenarrion. Fighters must learn to obey, and often must obey without question: there’s no time. That’s why many of us—the Kuakkganni, I mean, now—will have nothing to do with fighters. So many cannot do both, cannot give loyalty and yet retain their own choice of right and wrong. They follow chaos, whether they know it or not. For one like you, who has chosen, or been chosen for, a part in the greater battle, it is always necessary to think as well as fight.”

Paks nodded. “I see. And I didn’t, did I? I did what I was told, and assumed that those I followed were right. If I liked them, I assumed they were good, and forgot about it.” She paused, thinking back. “Even when I did worry—when I wanted the Duke to kill Siniava quickly—I couldn’t think about it afterwards.”

“Yes. You pushed it out of your mind and went back to being a plain soldier. You were challenged again and again, Paksenarrion, to go beyond that, and think for yourself: those incidents with Gird’s symbol you told me about, but—”

“I refused. I went back. I see.” Paks sighed, and stretched suddenly, reaching toward the trees with her locked fists. “Hunh. I thought I’d never refused a challenge, but I didn’t even see it. Was that cowardice, too?”

“Have we defined cowardice? Why did you refuse? If you refused simply because you were certain that you should be a follower, that’s one thing. But if you were afraid to risk choosing, risk being wrong—”

“Then it was. Then while I thought—while everyone else thought—I was brave, maybe I—”

“Maybe you were afraid of something, like everyone else. Don’t be ridiculous, child! You’re not perfect; no one is. What we’re trying to do is find out what you are, and what you can be, and that does not include wallowing in guilt.”

Paks stared at him, startled out of her gloom. “But I thought you were saying—”

“I was saying that you consistently refused to make some choices. That is something you need to recognize, not something to worry about in the past, where you can’t change it. If you want to, you can decide to accept that challenge from now on.”

“I can?”

“Certainly. I’m not speaking, now, of returning to soldiering. As a fighter, you’re tempted to see all challenges in physical terms. But you can certainly decide that you, yourself, will consider and act on what you see as right and wrong. Whatever that may be.”

Paks thought about that in silence. When she turned her head to speak, the Kuakgan was gone. She thought about it some more as she waited for him to return.

When he came, he was accompanied by another, clearly of elven blood. Paks scrambled to her feet awkwardly; she had seen no one but the Kuakgan all this time.

“This is Paksenarrion,” he said to the elf. “She was gravely wounded by the dark cousins—” The elf murmured something softly, and the Kuakgan frowned. “You know the truth, Haleron; they are no myth. Paksenarrion, this is Haleron, an elf from Lyonya. He tells me that the rangers in the southern hills there are looking for new members. I think that would suit you; the outdoor work would restore your strength, and they will hire you on my recommendation.”

Paks was so surprised that she could not speak. The elf frowned at her, and turned to the Kuakgan.

“We have no need of the weak,” he said in elven. “Let her find another place to regain her strength. And is she not the one I heard of, from Fin Panir, who—”

Paks felt a wave of anger, the first in months. “May it please you, sir,” she said in her best elven, “but I would not have you think me an eavesdropper later.”

He stared at her. “My pardon, lady, for the discourtesy. I didn’t know you were learned in our language.”

“She knows more than that,” said the Kuakgan. “And I assure you that she is quite strong enough for your woods work.” He and the elf stared at each other; Paks could feel the battle of wills. The elf seemed to glow with his intensity; the Kuakgan grew more and more solid, like a tree. At last the elf shook his head.

“The power of the Kuakkganni is from the roots of the world.” It sounded like a quote. The elf turned to Paks. “Lady, the rangers are in need of aid. If indeed you seek such employment, and have the skills of warfare, we would be glad to have your assistance.”

Paks looked at the Kuakgan. His face was closed; she felt shut out of his warmth into darkness. She thought of the things he’d said, and sighed. If he turned her out . . .

“I would be glad to aid the true elves,” she said carefully, “in any good enterprise.” She shot a quick glance at the Kuakgan; his eyes were alight, though his face showed no expression.

The elf nodded. “Very well. I leave at dusk—unless you require more rest—if you are weak—?”

Paks felt fine. “No. I’d like to eat first.”

“Of course. And pack your things, no doubt.”

“I have none.” She thought of her pack, cloak, and clothes, but did not even glance toward the Kuakgan. The elf raised his eyebrows. She stared back at him in silence.

“And where, Master Oakhallow, shall we eat?” the elf asked.

“Oh, at the inn, I think.” He was watching Paks; she could feel the weight of his eyes. She swallowed, and braced herself for that ordeal.

But, in fact, it was no ordeal. No one seemed to notice her on the street, though several people glanced sideways at the elf. At The Jolly Potboy, the elf and the Kuakgan argued briefly and quietly over who would pay, and the elf finally won. She kept her eyes on the table at first, concentrating on the good food, but finally looked around.

The inn was not crowded, as it would be later, but she saw one or two familiar faces. Mal leaned on the wall, as usual, with a tankard at his elbow. Hebbinford’s mother, in the corner, knitted on another scarf. Sevri darted through on her way outside; she had grown two fingers, at least, since Paks had seen her. But no one seemed to recognize Paks, and she relaxed. She listened to the talk, the clatter of dishes—so loud, after the Kuakgan’s grove—but it didn’t frighten her as it had. She almost wished someone would call her by name. Almost. The Kuakgan ordered tarts for dessert. The elf leaned back in his seat, and glanced around the room. Paks watched him covertly. He was a half head taller than she, with dark hair and sea-green eyes. The leather tunic he wore over shirt and trousers had dark wear-marks at shoulder and waist: Paks decided these were from swordbelt and bow. He caught her looking at him and smiled.

“May I ask, lady, where you learned our language?”

“I was honored with the instruction of a true elf from the southern mountains.” If he knew she came from Fin Panir, he would know that already.

“You speak it well for a human. Most are too hasty to take time for it.”

“Paksenarrion, though a human warrior, knows the folly of haste,” said the Kuakgan. Paks looked at him, and he smiled at her, lifting his mug of ale.

“That is a wonder,” said the elf. “Are the younger races finally learning patience of the elder?” He was watching the Kuakgan.

“From experience,” said the Kuakgan. “Where all who know it learned it. Surely elves have not forgotten their own early days?”

“Alas, no. However remote, the memory remains.” He turned to Paks. “I beg pardon again, lady, for any discourtesy.”

“I took no offense,” said Paks carefully. She wondered if the Kuakgan and the elf were old enemies. Surely the Kuakgan wouldn’t send her to someone evil. She thought of their last conversation and wondered.

As they came out of the inn, the sun dropped behind the high hills to the southwest. A group of soldiers from the keep was coming down the north road toward the crossing; despite herself, Paks shivered.

“Are you cold?” asked the elf.

“No. Just a thought.” She looked at the Kuakgan. He smiled.

“If you come this way again, Paksenarrion, you will be welcome in the grove.”

“I thank you, sir. I—” But he was already moving away, nodding to the approaching soldiers, waving to a child in a doorway.

“We’d best be going,” said the elf quietly. “I mean no discourtesy, but we have far to go, and if you have been unwell you may find it difficult to travel at my pace.”

Paks tore her gaze away from the Kuakgan. She had not thought to part so soon. “I—yes, that’s fine. I’m ready.”

“You have nothing to take with you? Nothing at all?”

“No. What I have, I’m wearing.”

“Hmmph. Those boots won’t last the trip.”

Paks looked at her feet. “I’ve worn worse for longer.”

The elf laughed, that silvery sound she remembered so well. “Very well, then. Come along; we go this way first.” She started a pace behind him, then caught up. They were walking east out of Brewersbridge, on the road she had come in on a year and a half before. The Kuakgan’s grove was on her left, dark and alarming in the evening light. On the right were cottages: she tried to remember who the people were. The woman in the second one had knitted socks for her, socks that had lasted until this last winter.

Past the last plowed field, with the young grain like green plush, the elf turned aside from the road.

“This way is the shortest for us, and we will meet no other travelers. Follow in my footsteps, and they will guide your way.”

Paks did not like that instruction, but she did not want to start an argument, either. She wanted to think about the Kuakgan, and what he had done, and why. She dropped behind the elf as he started across a sheep pasture. The sky was still pale, and she could see her way well enough. As the evening haze darkened, though, she saw that the elf’s footsteps were marked in a pale glow. When she stepped there, she found a firm flat foothold.

By dawn she was heavily tired, stumbling even as she followed his tracks. She had no idea how far they had come, or which direction: she had not been able to check that by the stars and see his steps at the same time. But she had smelled woods, then grassland, then woods again.

“We will rest here awhile,” the elf was saying.

Paks looked around. They were in open woodland; clumps of trees left irregular meadows between. The elf had found a spreading oak near a brook, and was spreading his cloak on the ground. Paks stretched her arms overhead and arched her back. Those casual strolls around the grove had not prepared her for such a long march. Her legs ached, and she knew they would be stiff after a rest.

“Here,” he said. “Lie down and sleep for awhile. I will watch.”

Paks looked to see if he mocked her, but his smile was almost friendly. “You have walked as far,” she said.

“I have my own way of resting. If you know elves, you know we rarely sleep soundly. And you are recovering, the Kuakgan said, from serious wounds. Go on, now, and sleep. We have a long way to go.”

Paks stretched out on the cloak after removing her boots. Her feet were hot and swollen; she took her socks off and rubbed the soreness out of her calves and feet. When she looked up, the elf was looking at her scars.

“Were those truly given by the dark cousins?” he asked.

“Not by them,” said Paks. “At their command, by orcs.” The elf tensed, frowning, and looked away.

“We had heard that they dealt with the thriband, but I had never believed it. I would think even iynisin would call them enemy.”

Paks shook her head, surprised that she was able to talk about it without distress. “Where I was, the kuaknom—iynisin, I mean—commanded orcs as their servants and common warriors. When I was captured, in a night raid on our camp, the iynisin made their orcs and other captives fight with me. Unarmed. I mean, I was unarmed, at first.”

The elf looked at her with a strange expression. “You fought unarmed against the thriband?”

“At first. Then they gave me the weapon of one I killed, to fight the next battle with. Only then there were more of them. And the next—”

“How many times?” he interrupted. “How many battles did you fight?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember that. If you count by scars, it must have been many.”

“And you lived.” The elf sat down abruptly, and met her gaze. “I would not have thought any human could live through their captivity, and such injuries, and still be sane. Perhaps I should admit I have more to learn of humans. Who cleansed the poison from your wounds?”

“The Kuakgan. Others had tried healing spells, but though that eased the pain for awhile, the wounds never fully healed. He knew another way.”

“Hmm. Well, take your rest. I think you will do well enough in Lyonya.”

Paks lay for a few minutes watching the leaves overhead take shape and color as the dawnlight brightened, then she slept. When she woke, it was warm afternoon, and sunlight had slanted under the tree to strike her face. The elf had disappeared. She looked around, shrugged, and made her way to the brook to drink and wash her face and feet. She felt stiff and unwieldy, but after stretching and drinking again she could think of the night’s march without dismay. When she came up from the brook, the elf was standing under the tree, watching the way they had come.

“Trouble?” asked Paks. She could see nothing but trees and grass, and the flicker of wings as a bird passed from tree to tree.

“No. I merely look to see. It is beautiful here, where no building mars the shapes. We will not be disturbed on this journey. I have—I don’t think you will understand this—I have cast a glamour on us. No mortal eye could see us, although other elves might.”

“Oh.” Paks looked around for some revealing sign—flickering light, or something odd. But everything looked normal.

“Are you hungry? We should leave in a few hours. It’s easier to blur our passage when we cast no sharp shadows.”

Paks was hungry indeed; her stomach seemed to be clenched to her backbone. She nodded, and the elf rummaged in the small pack he wore. He pulled out a flat packet and unwrapped it.

“It’s our waybread. Try it.”

Paks took a piece; it looked much like the flat hard bread the Duke’s Company carried on long marches. She bit into it, expected that toughness, and her teeth clashed: this bread was crisp and light. It tasted like nothing else she had eaten, but was good. One piece filled her, and she could feel its virtue in her body.

That night they crossed into Lyonya. The trees loomed taller as they went on, and by dawn they were walking through deep forest, following a narrow trail through heavy undergrowth. When they stopped, the elf pointed out berries she could eat. “It’s a good time for travelers in the forest,” the elf said. “From now until late summer it would be hard to starve in the deepest wood, did you know one plant from another.”

“I know little of forests,” said Paks. “Where I grew up we had few trees. They called the town Three Firs because it had them.”

“Ah, yes, the northwest marches. I was near Three Firs once, but that was long ago for you. I had been to the Kingsforest, far west of there, and coming back found an incursion of thriband—orcs as you call them. The farmers there had fought them off, but with heavy losses.”

“There were orcs in my grandfather’s time. Or maybe it was my greatgrandfather.”

“And no war since, that I’ve heard of. What made you think of becoming a soldier?”

“Oh—tales and songs, I suppose. I had a cousin who ran away and joined a mercenary company. When he came home and told us all about it, I knew I had to go.”

“And did you like it?”

Paks found herself grinning. “Yes. Even as a recruit, though we none of us liked some of the work. But the day I first held a sword—I can remember the joy of it. Of course there were things, later—I didn’t like the wars in the south—”

“Were you in the campaign against Siniava?” Paks nodded. The elf sighed. “Bitter trouble returned to a bitter land. When we lived in the south—”

“Elves lived there?” Paks remembered being told that elves lived only in the north.

“Long ago, yes. Some of the southern humans think that the humans from Aare drove us out. They have their dates wrong; we had left long before.”

Paks wanted to ask why, but didn’t. After they had walked another long while, and the sun was well up, he went on.

“Elves are not always wise, or always good. We made mistakes there, in Aarenis as you call it, and brought great evil into the land. Many were killed, and the rest fled.” He began to sing in a form of elvish that Paks could not follow, long rhythmic lines that expressed doom and sorrow. At last the music changed, and lightened, and he finished with a phrase Paks had heard Ardhiel sing. “It is time to rest again,” he said quietly after that. “You have said nothing, but your feet have lost their rhythm.” They had come without Paks noticing it to a little clearing in the undergrowth; a spring gurgled out of the rocks to one side.

“Tell me about Lyonya,” said Paks after drinking deeply from the cold spring. “All I know of it is that Aliam Halveric has a steading in it somewhere. And the King is half-elven, isn’t he?”

His voice shifted again to the rhythms of song and legend, his eyes fixed on something far away. “In days long past the elves moved north, long before humans came to Aarenis, when the towers of Aare still overlooked the deserts of the south. All was forest from the mountains to the Honnorgat, and beyond, to the edge of the great seas of grass, the land of horses. In Dzordanya the forest goes all the way north to the Cold Lands, where nothing grows but moss on the ground. We settled the forests between the mountains and the great river, rarely venturing north of it. The forest was different, over there, alien to us.” He paused, looked at her, and looked away. “Are you by any chance that Paksenarrion who was involved with the elfane taig?”

“Yes.”

“Mmm. You may know that elves do not live, for the most part, in buildings of stone. We have ceremonial places. That—where you were—was one such, a very great one. It centered a whole region of elves; the elfane taig was both powerful and beautiful. But old trouble out of Aarenis came there, and the most powerful of our mages could only delay it long enough for the rest to escape. He paid the price for that delay with the centuries of his enslavement.”

“That was the one we saw? The same?”

The elf nodded. “Yes. He risked that, to save the rest, but he could not save himself. We have no worse to fear than such slavery. A human can always hope for death; you will not live even a hundred years, but for an elf to endure the touch of that filth forever—” He stopped abruptly and stood up, facing away from her.

Paks could not think of anything to say. She had finished her piece of the waybread, and she went to the spring for another drink of water. When she returned, the elf had seated himself again, and seemed calmer. “Do we travel again tonight?” she asked.

“No. We will meet the rangers here, at this spring. If you are not ready to sleep, I could tell you more of Lyonya—”

Paks nodded, and he spread his cloak and reclined on it.

“I told you how the elves came here,” he began. “The land was not empty even before. The rockfolk, both dwarf and gnome, quarried the mountains and hills. Orcs harried the forests, in great tribes; we drove them out, foot by foot. Other, smaller people lived here; they all vanished, quite soon, and we never knew them. For long we had the forest to ourselves, and for long we planted and shaped the growing of it, flower and tree and moss. Then men came.” He stopped, frowning, and paused long before going on. “The first to come was a shipload of Seafolk, fleeing enemies up the broad Honnorgat. They cut a clearing on the shore, and planted their grain. We watched from afar. A colony began along the coast, where Bannerlith is now, and another across the river’s mouth. More ships came. We held council, and decided to meet with them.”

“What happened?”

“They were hasty men, used to war. I think they thought they could drive us all away. But one sea-captain’s son, and his crew, befriended an elf trapped by wolves along the shore, and as one note suggests a harmony, one honorable deed suggests the possibility of friendship. After awhile those who wanted to live with us settled on the south shore, and the rest took the north. Elves are not much welcome in Pargun and Kostandan. Then men began coming from the south. These were different, and they moved into Fintha and Tsaia. When we met them, they had friendly words, not blows, for us. Many of them had met elves in the mountains west of the south marches. Here, in Lyonya itself, we made pacts with the humans, and agreed on lands and forests. We had begun to intermarry, very slowly, and when Lyonya grew to become a kingdom, elven blood ran in the royal family, though little enough in the present King.”

“And it’s now shared by elves and men?”

“Yes—as much as immortal and mortal can share anything. Those that will meet us here are both elven and human—most of mixed blood.”

“Aren’t you one of them?”

“I?” He laughed softly. “No. I wander too much. Master Oakhallow knew of the need, and used me for a messenger and guide. He is, as all the Kuakkganni are, one to make use of any chance that comes.”

“Don’t you like him?”

“Like him? What has that to do? The Kuakkganni are alien to elves, though they know us as well as any, and we are alien to them. They took our place with the First Tree; some of us have never forgiven that, and none of us have forgotten it. I neither like nor dislike a Kuakgan. I respect him.”

Paks stretched her legs, then her arms. She was glad they would not have to travel that night.

“You had best sleep,” the elf said. “I will watch.”