1

Cashel awakened suddenly in the stables of Dashen's Place. The sound that roused him wasn't one that his conscious mind could quickly identify in the night's muted buzz. He got up quietly, taking care not to disturb Garric in the straw beside him or Ilna and Tenoctris in the loft. With the quarterstaff in his hand, he walked through the part-open sliding door into the farmyard.

Dashen's Place was a working farm, but because it was located on the drove road to Carcosa the owner and his family provided inn facilities of a sort to travelers. The stables could hold ten horses, which were fed hay and grain from Dashen's fields; the paddock was large enough for two large flocks together; and there was a common room across the dogtrot from the main house where up to a dozen men could drink home-brewed ale, eat Dashen's produce, and sleep in straw beds.

Tonight Dashen and his family shared the common room with Benlo's guards. The drover had the couple's own chamber, while Liane slept where the four daughters of the house normally did. Garric might have been able to squeeze into the common room, but he'd said he preferred the stable.

As for Cashel, even if space had been available he'd have bedded down in either the stable or with the flock in the paddock. The sheep were his duty, and he wasn't going to be distracted from them by the sounds of close-spaced humans.

There was no breeze. The open air was noticeably cooler than the stable heated by the bodies of horses, mules, and humans, but the frogs were in full throat. Cashel could identify three of the smaller species nearby, and from the bottomland half a mile away came the grunt of a bullfrog signaling his hopes for love.

Insects were out as well. Bats dipped in the moonlight; occasionally Cashel heard their pulsing chitters.

He wondered if the frogs and bats of far lands were the same as those of this borough. He'd made up his mind to leave the folk with whom he'd lived all his life; now for the first time he wondered if he was giving up his whole life as well. Would even the stars be the same? Was he going to drift across the Isles like a branch fallen into the sea, never again at home?

Cashel gripped his staff with both hands and stifled a groan. He didn't know the future, but it didn't matter. He'd made up his mind to leave Barca's Hamlet, and so he would. He walked toward the paddock, making no more sound than fog gathering above a pond.

Ilna had worked off her costs. Dashen didn't need extra help to handle these out-of-season travelers, but the farmer wasn't about to refuse when Ilna offered to wash the pots for a bowl of stew, porridge in the morning, and straw in the stable to sleep on. His daughters would have pilloried him if he'd made them do the work instead.

Besides, this close to Barca's Hamlet, the folk all knew Ilna. Their pots would be as clean as they were the day they came from the kiln.

An owl called. The sound had no source, even to ears as trained as Cashel's. A few clouds hung in the moonlight, too straggling to be properly called cumulus. Clouds and driftwood, crossing the world without a home or a fellow . . .

The sheep were restive though not exactly frightened. For a moment Cashel thought they were just nervous because of unfamiliar surroundings and the absence of some of their usual fellows. They crowded toward the near side of the enclosure; those at the back of the flock kept glancing toward the other end.

A weasel? Some predator too small to be a direct threat but nonetheless a concern to timid sheep . . .

Cashel saw it: a gray fox outside the paddock, scratching and whining as it tried to climb one of the posts. Cashel searched for a pebble in the moonlight. When he found a suitable one he rose and with it in his right hand paced silently around the enclosure. A shout would have spooked the fox, but it would also rouse folk sleeping in the house. No need for that.

Dashen had an extensive woodlot but less fieldstone than was common a few miles east on the coast. His paddock was built with vertical wooden posts supporting rails split from straight trunks. Hill-country sheep jump, so the rails were five feet in the air and the posts were taller yet.

The fox was trying desperately to reach a bluebird hole near the top of one of the posts. She was a vixen in milk, hunting for her kits back in the burrow, but Cashel was still surprised at her extreme degree of focus on a bird's nest. Gray foxes will climb trees, but her claws slid on the post's barkless surface. She hadn't figured out how to use the rails as a ladder to her goal.

Cashel rounded the paddock's corner twenty feet from the fox. He chose his point of aim and threw the pebble overhand, as straight as a sling bullet. It whacked into the vixen's haunch.

The fox yelped and turned a corkscrew in the air, snapping in terrified reflex. Tail streaming, she bolted into the darkness in a low crouch like a running cat.

Cashel brushed his palm on his tunic with a smile. If foxes swear, I'm being cursed now. He walked toward the post to see exactly what she'd been after.

He could easily have killed the fox instead of shooing her off with nothing worse than a sting and embarrassment. The pelt would fetch something, but the sheep wouldn't like the smell of it curing on the road.

Besides—and he wouldn't dare admit this to his sister—she was a vixen in milk. Let her find a meal for her kits; just not where she kept Cashel's flock from getting a good sleep.

He bent close to the hole, wondering if he could hear the sound of birds within. This was too early in the year for the eggs to have hatched.

A woman four inches tall, as naked as a wax candle, stuck her head out of the hole, looked around, and started to climb down.

Cashel snatched her away from the post by reflex. He couldn't believe what he'd seen. He could feel her, warm and wriggling in his grip like a bird coming around again after being stunned against its own reflection.

He lifted his hand and spread his fingers slightly to let the moonlight through. He was holding a naked girl!

"By the Shepherd!" Cashel said. "What are you?"

"You can see me!" the girl said in amazed delight.