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Sneaking up to take a look at the dance or celebration or whatever it might have been had been a piece of pure foolhardiness. He had told himself that he must see what was taking place, but in this he had only fooled himself; what he actually had done had been to act impulsively, and one man traveling alone must never act on impulse. And what had he found? Simply that for some unknown reason a tribe, or a combination of tribes, was holding some sort of festivity. That and the confirmation of what Wilson had written about the pyramiding of robotic brain cases.
Thinking about the brain cases, an involuntary shudder of apprehension ran through him. Even here, in the early morning light, safely hidden in a lilac clump, the memory of the brain cases could still trigger a strange residual and unreasoning fear. Why should this be so? he wondered. What about the brain cases could arouse such an emotion in a man?
A few birds were singing their morning songs. The slight breeze that had blown in the night had died with dawn and not a leaf was stirring. He finished with the jerky and put it back in the pack. He hitched himself away from the cluster of tree trunks against which he had been leaning and stretched out to sleep.
She was waiting for him when he crawled out of the lilac thicket in the middle of the afternoon. She stood directly in front of the tu
Seeing that he'd seen her, she cackled at him and did a shuffling jig.
"Aye, laddie, now I have you," she shouted. "I have you where I want you, crawling on your belly and kissing my feet. I had you spotted all the day and I've been waiting for you, being very careful not to disturb your beauty rest. It is shameful, it is, and you with the mark upon you.
His eyes flashed to each side of her, sick with apprehension, shamed at being trapped by an odious old hag who shouted gibberish at him. But she was alone, he saw; there was no one else about.
"Well, come on out," she told him. "Stand up and let us have a look at the magnificence of you. It's not often that Old Meg catches one like you."
He tossed the bow and quiver and the packsack out beyond the tu
"Now look at him," she chortled. "Is he not a handsome specimen? Shining in his buckskins with egg upon his face, account of being caught at his little tricks. And sure you thought no one was a-seeing you when you came sneaking in at dawn. Although I am not claiming that I saw you; I just felt you, that was all. Like I feel the rest of them when they come sneaking in. Although, truth to tell, you did better than the rest. You looked things over well before you went so cleverly to earth. But even then I knew the mark upon you.
"Shut up the clatter," he told her roughly. "What is this mark you speak of, and you say you felt me? Do you mean you sensed me?"
"Oh, but he's a clever one," she said. "And so well spoken, too, with a fine feeling for the proper words. ‘Sensed me, he says, and I Suppose that is a better word. Until now I did not clap eyes upon you, but I knew that you were there and I knew Where you went and kept track of you, sleeping there, all the livelong day. Aye, you ca
"The mark?" he asked. "What kind of mark? I haven't any marks."
"Why, the mark of greatness, then. What other could it be, a fine strapping lad like you, out on a great adventure."
Angrily, he reached down to pick up his knapsack, slung it on his shoulder.
"If you've made all the fun you want of me," he said, "I'll be on my way.
She laid a hand upon his arm. "Not so fast, my bucko. It is Meg, the hilltop witch, that you are talking with. There are ways that I can help you, if I have a mind to, and I think I have a mind to, for you're a charming lad and one with a good heart in him. I sense that you need help and I hope you're not too proud to ask it. Although among the young there's always a certain arrogance of pride. My powers may be small and there are times they are so small I wonder if in truth I really am a witch, although many people seem to think so and that's as good as being one. And since they think I am, I set high fees on my work, for if I set a small fee, they'd think me a puny witch. But for you, my lad, there'll be no fee at all, for you are poorer than a church mouse and could not pay in any case.
"That's kind of you," said Cushing. "Especially since I made no solicitation of your help."
"Now listen to the pride and arrogance of him," said Meg. "He asks himself what an old bag like myself could ever do for him. Not an old bag, so
"Not exactly," Cushing said.
"Well, then, perhaps you'd like something better than trail fare to stuff your gut. The kettle's on and you'd be doing Meg a favor to sit at table with her. If you are bound to go, it might help the journey to start with a belly that is full. And I still read that greatness in you. I would like to know more about the greatness.
"There's no greatness in me," he protested. "I'm nothing hut a woods ru
"I still think it's greatness," Meg told him. "Or a push to greatness. I know it. I sensed it immediately this morning. Something in your skull. A great excitement welling in you.
"Look," he said, desperately, "I'm a woods ru
She tightened her grip upon his arm. "Now, you can't go ru
"I don't understand," he said, "about this sensing of me. You mean you smelled me out. Read my mind, perhaps. People don't read minds. But, wait, perhaps they can. There was something that I read—"
"Laddie, you can read?"
"Yes, of course I can."
"Then it must be the university you are from. For there be precious few outside its walls who can scan a line. What happened, my poor precious? Did they throw you out?"
"No," he said, tightly, "they did not throw me out."
"Then, so
"I was a woods ru
"And now," she said, "the bravado of him! He swaps the hoe for a bow and marches toward the west to defy the oncoming horde. Or is this thing you seek so great that you can ignore the sweep of conquerors?"
"The thing I seek," he said, "may be no more than a legend, empty' talk whispered down the years. But what is this you say about the coming of a horde?"