greater one. I decided that the woodcraft of these little men must be very great for them to have stolen upon us unheard and unseen. But why, I wondered, hadn't I sensed them stalking me? Surely it was because in trying to close myself to the Stonefaces, I had also closed myself to them.
'Put down your weapons,' the man said as I drew my sword. 'Please, please don't move.'
At another of his whistles, the circle of little people began to close around us as both men and women approached us through the trees. It occurred to me that their strategy wasn't the best, for many of them stood in each other's line of fire should they loose their arrows at us and miss their marks. And then, after watching the graceful motions of their leader as he stalked me, it occurred to me that they wouldn't miss their marks. There was nothing to do except put down our weapons as he had said.
'Come, come,' he told me from in front of a tree where he had stopped ten yards away. The others had now closed their circle some twenty yards around us. 'Now stand away from your beasts, please – we don't want to pierce them.'
'Val!' Maram called to me. 'They mean to murder us – I really think they do!'
So did I think this. Or rather, I sensed that they intended to execute us for the crime of violating their woods. It was sad, I thought, that after facing seeming worse dangers together, we should have to die like cornered prey in this strange and beautiful wood.
'Come, come,' the man said again, 'stand away. It's sad to die, and bad to die like this – but it will be worse the longer we put it off.'
There was nothing to do, I thought, but die as he had said. For each of us, a time comes to say farewell to the earth and return to the stars. Now, at the sight of two hundred arrows pointing at our hearts, each of us faced his coming death in his own way. Master Juwain began chanting the words to the First Light Meditation. Maram covered his eyes with his forearm, as if blocking out the sight of the fierce little people might make them go away. He cried out that he was a prince of Delu and I a prince of Mesh. He promised them gold and diamonds if they would put down their bows; he told them, to no effect, that we were seekers of the Lightstone and that they would be cursed if they harmed us. Atara calmly reached back into her quiver for an arrow. She obviously intended to slay at least one more man and end her life in a joyous fight. I did not. It was bad enough that I should feel the great nothingness pulling me down into the dark; why, I wondered, should I inflict this terrible cold on men and women who sought only to protect their forest kingdom? And so, at last, I stood away from Altaru. I stood as tall and straight as I could. I lifted my hand from the hilt of my sword to brush back my hair, which my sweat had plastered to the side of my face. Then I looked at the man with the leaf-green eyes and waited.
For a moment – the longest of my life – the little man stood regarding me strangely.
Then his drawn bow wavered; he relaxed the pull on his bowstring and pointed straight at my forehead. To the other men and women behind and all around him he said, 'Look, look – it's the mark!'
A murmur of astonishment rippled around the circle of little people. I noticed then that on each of their bows was burned a jagged mark like that of a lightning bolt.
'How did you come by the mark?' the man asked me.
'It was there from my birth,' I told him truthfully.
'Then you are blessed,' he said. 'And I am glad, so glad, for there will be no killing today.'
Maram let out a cry of thanksgiving while Atara still held her arrow nocked on her bowstring. The man asked her if she would consent to putting it away; otherwise, he said, his people would have to shoot their arrows into her arms and legs.
'Please, Atara,' I said to her.
Although obviously hating to disarm herself, Atara put her arrow back into her quiver and stowed her bow in the holster strapped to her horse.
'Too bad that we must bind you now,' the man said. 'But you understand the need for it, don't you? You big people are so quick with your weapons.'
So saying, he whistled again, and several women came forward with braided cords to bind our hands behind our backs. When they were finished, the man said, 'My name is Danali. We will take you to a place where you can rest.'
After presenting myself and each of the others in turn, I asked him,
'What is this place? And what is the name of your people?'
'This is the Forest,' he said simply. 'And we are the Lokilani.' And with that he turned to lead us deeper into the woods.
Chapter 14
We walked in line trailing our horses with the Lokilani swarming around us. With the abandon of children, they touched our garments and let out cries of surprise at Atara's leather trousers, and most of all at the steel links of my armor. I gathered that none of them had seen such substances before. They were all dressed as was Danali, in simple skirts of what appeared to be silk. Many wore emerald or ruby pendants dangling from their delicate necks; a few of the women also sported earrings but were otherwise unadorned. None of them wore shoes upon their leathery feet.
Danali led us beneath the great trees, which seemed to grow still greater with every mile we moved into them. Here, in the deep woods, elms and maples mingled with the oaks. In places, however, we passed through groves of much lesser trees that were scarcely any taller than those of Mesh. They appeared all to be fruit trees: apple and cherry, pear and plum. Many were in full flower with little white petals covering them like mounds of snow; many were laden with red, ripe apples or dark red cherries. That they should bear fruit in Ashte seemed a miracle, and not the only one of those lovely woods. It amazed me to see deer in great numbers walking through the apple groves as if they had nothing to fear from the many Lokilani with their bows and arrows.
When Maram suggested that Danali should shoot a couple of them to make a feast for dinner, he looked at him in horror and said, 'Shoot arrows into an animal? Would I shoot my own mother, Hairface? Am I wolf, am I weasel, am I a. bear that I should hunt animals for food?'
'But what do you eat in these woods, then?' Maram asked as he shuffled along with his hands bound behind his back.
'We eat apples; we eat nuts – and much else. The trees give us everything we need.'
The Lokilani, as we found, wouldn't even eat the eggs taken from birds' nests or honey from the combs of the bees. Neither did they cultivate barley or wheat or any such vegetables as carrots, peas or beans. The only gardens they kept grew other glories from the earth: crystals such as clear quartz, amethyst and starstone as well as garnets, topaz, tourmaline and more precious gems. I marveled at these many-colored stones erupting from the forest floor like so many new shoots. They seemed always to be planted – if that was the right word – in colorful, concentric circles around trees like I had seen before only in my dreams. Though not very tall these trees spread out like oaks, and their bark was silver like that of maples. But it was their leaves in all their splendor that made me gasp and wonder where they had come from; the leaves on these loveliest of trees shimmered like millions of golden shields and were etched with a webwork of deep green veins. Danali called them astors. I thought that the astors – and the bright gemstones growing around them – must be the greatest miracles of the Forest but I was wrong.
By a circuitous route that seemed to follow no logic or path, Danali led us through the trees to the Lokilani's village. This, however, was no simple assemblage of buildings and dwellings. Indeed, there were no buildings such as castles, temples or towers; neither were there streets, for the only dwellings the Lokilani had were spread out over many acres, each house being built beneath its own tree.
Danali escorted us toward one of these strange-looking houses. Its frame was of many long poles set into the ground in a circle and leaning up against each other so as to form a high cone. The poles were woven with long strips of white bark like that of birch. Around it grew many flowers: dahlias and daisies, marigolds and chrysanthemums – and other kinds for which I had no name. Someone had adorned the doorway with garlands of white and gold blossoms whose petals formed little, nine-pointed stars. It was an inviting entrance to a space that was to be home, hospital and prison for the next two days.
Inside we found a circular expanse of earth covered with golden astor leaves. A small firepit had been dug
