Krull

'How do such wondrous fruits come to grow here?' Rell murmured.

'The trees around us are giants. So are the bushes,' observed Titch as he considered where to begin. 'Why not these as well?' He reached out and plucked a single gooseberry from a near branch. It was only slightly smaller than his head.

'Ergo the Magnificent has a large mouth, but he won't know what to say about this. He'll have a hard time stuffing these in his pocket.'

Rell took down the first berry, set it gently on the ground so as not to bruise the delicate skin. 'But not so hard stuffing them in his stomach.'

'We'll need some other things, too. I guess we'll have to go into that village.'

'Yes,' Rell agreed, 'and we'll have to be quiet about it. I don't think my presence would be reassuring to the townsfolk.'

The mountain seemed familiar to Ynyr but he didn't dwell on old memories as he skirted the dark boulders and basalt columns. The climb was the least of his concerns. So much hinged on the success of his application, yet he had no way of predicting how he would be received. This was a visit he would have preferred to have avoided, but with the death of the seer and the loss of the temple, no other course lay open to him and his companions.

Perhaps, given time, he might have seen another way, but time was growing short for Colwyn and Lyssa, and for Krull. If this opportunity was lost another might not arise for generations. He'd seen too much of what the Slayers were capable of. It was not right that humans should cower before a tyrant as capricious as the Beast. The work of generations was nearing fruition. What mattered his life compared to the lives of all the wise men and women who had striven before him to raise the possibility that hung just beyond their grasp?

So he was calm enough as he ascended the mountain, but he was glad Colwyn and the others were not along to see his fear. …

The stewpot was no enchanted caldron and the large wooden spoon wielded by a glum Ergo no magic wand, but to the hungry men settled beneath the towering trees the stew bordered on the miraculous. It was edible, and they would settle for that.

So many ingredients missing, Ergo thought sadly as he gazed into the bubbling pot! How do they expect me to produce a decent meal with stringy meat and old vegetables, and next to nothing in the way of spices? He hoped they appreciated his efforts. He did not consider the preparation of food beneath his wizardly station. Concocting a good meal often involved the use of the arcane arts, and this stew was no exception. Without his special abilities he doubted it would have turned out fit for human consumption.

The first spoonful, however, had been greeted by something less than universal applause. On the other hand, no one had yet thrown up. He expected nothing else. Country bumpkins have no appreciation for real cooking, he knew. Ah well, there would come another day when they'd have even less to eat. Then they'd remember his cuisine with fondness.

The peasant girl who served the stew to the travelers called herself Vella. Her clothes had seen better days, from her worn shoes to the battered kerchief that bound up her hair and the cloak that covered her slim form. Kitchen soot smudged her face, hiding the fact that she was considerably more attractive than a casual first glance would indicate.

No such ambivalence marred Merith's appearance. Her plain attire could not conceal her beauty. The men observed her admiringly as she made her way around the campsite,

introducing herself to each man before finally taking a bowl of steaming stew to Kegan and sitting down beside him.

'You don't write as often as you should,' she said accusingly.

'Often enough.' He shoveled in the stew—if you downed it quickly it didn't taste so bad. 'Consider how poorly I write and how slowly you read.' He smiled, ran a teasing hand along her thigh. 'I could have myself a fine time between the time you started reading a letter and finally finished it.'

'Which I could not do at all if so distracted by you,' she murmured softly. 'Still, I wish that I could see more of you. Then I wouldn't need to complain about nonexistent letters.'

'I wish the same, m'love, but business requires that I move about frequently. Birds and money both migrate with the seasons.'

'It seems that your travels bring you this way less and less, Kegan.'

'I have no control over my movements. Thanks to sheriffs and bounty hunters. Nor do I work alone.' He waved the spoon in the general direction of his companions. 'Torquil is leader of this band and 'tis he who decides which land we harvest next. I follow his orders.' He smiled apologetically. 'So you see, it's out of my hands.'

'It need not be, if you'd stay closer.'

'Never tease a man when he's eating, love. It's bad for the digestion. And don't pout. You're no little girl and I'm certainly no wide-eyed little boy.'

Merith let out a disappointed sigh. 'You have an answer for everything, Kegan.'

'A necessary talent in my profession.' He nodded across the clearing at where Vella was serving a grateful Oswyn. 'Who's the girl? I don't recall seeing her around the village the last time I was here.'

'A sad tale brought her to us,' Merith explained. 'Poor little thing. She staggered into the square one day, wearing less than you see on her now. Her village was burned by the Slayers. She said she wandered aimlessly about the countryside a long time before finding us. She had no place to go, no relatives left alive, no friends. So I took her in.'

'You have a big heart, Merith.'

She slapped playfully at his hand. 'Which cannot be measured by one's fingers. And you look at her like that one more time and I will cast her out.'

'Merith, my sweet, she doesn't hold a candle to you. Look at her, filthy and stooped. Far too childlike for my taste. She's not even pretty.'

'Do you think I would have brought her here for you to see if she was?'

Kegan laughed. 'Dearest, you spend too many hours of the night worrying. Faithful is my middle name.'

'Yes, faithful to whoever you're lying with at the moment. And if you were with me, those long hours of the night would not seem half so long.'

He set his empty bowl aside and rested his head in her lap. 'Someday I will tire of such work, m'love. But I am no farmer, no tradesman to sit every rest day in the marketplace and chatter about the crops with old men.'

'I'd travel the country with you. All you'd have to do is ask.'

'And I'd love to have you with me, and so would every other lonely wayfarer who keeps to the back trails. Too dangerous and too troublesome, Merith. I've told you that before.'

Not to mention fatal, he thought, if she were to encounter any of the 'cousins' he was forced to obliquely allude to when she discovered this or that item of feminine origin attached to his person.

'Let us not spend what time we have together regretting I the time we do not have.' He pulled her face down to his and she did not resist.

Torquil made a face, spat a piece of unchewable gristle onto his spoon and heaved it into the woods. 'You are true to your word, O sorceror of the saucepan,' he shouted at their chef. 'This stew tastes like my boot.'

'Your stomach seems to handle it better than your mouth,' Ergo snapped back.

'My stomach has no choice in the matter. My mouth does. Keeping a man alive is mere drudgery. Making him enjoy the process is called cooking.'

'You try making something tasty out of this sludge,' Ergo challenged him.

'Nay, my talents lie elsewhere, Magnificence.'

'Then, do not presume to criticize those who have the use of such talent.'

'I would not, if I could detect any evidence of such a talent in my bowl!'

Ergo turned away from the chuckles of his companions to stare disconsolately at the remaining stew. 'So much for appreciating one's efforts. Well, it seems I've already lost two friends. I suppose this meal will lose me the rest of them.' He gave the side of the caldron a vicious whack with his stirring spoon. 'If only I had some spices!' He'd tried cursing the concoction but that didn't seem to have pepped it up. Nor did hot fudge sauce sound like the thing to complement wild game stew.

Colwyn leaned against the side of a normal-sized tree. It was a mere sapling in the giant forest. He chewed nervously on a much-worried thumbnail as he stared toward the crest of the dark mountain.