The Dreamstone

“Old friend,” he said, “come walk with me.”

She smiled, mocking him, and the smile faded, for the hand reached out to her. “Upstart youth,” she said, “what have I to do with you?”

“You have given me souls to hunt, Arafel. And they are withme when I have taken them, but there is no sense in them. No gratitude. And less pleasure. Why do I come? What do you see in your side of Eald? What is there, that I can never see?” The shadow drew itself up, and the hound rose too. The likeness of the hand was still extended. “Walk with me,” Lord Death asked softly. “Is it not a night for fellowship? I beg you—walk with me.”

The deer fled away, bounding this way and that; the hares darted for cover in panic. The hound stayed, a breathing in the shadow. Suddenly there seemed others of them, a shadowy pack, and the shuffle and stamp of hooves sounded where the darkness was deepest.

A wind started through the trees. Where stars had shone, the blight in heaven had become a dark edge of cloud. Arafel glanced from sky to trees, where the shadow flowed, where small chitterings disturbed the peace.

“Send them away,” she said, and the other shadows slunk away, and the wind fell. There was only the greater Darkness, and a chill sense of presence.

She walked with him, from out the ring and more and more solidly within this world where Men lived—incongruous companionship, elven-kind and one of Men’s less-reputed gods. He said little. That was his wont, and hers. She had no deep fear of him, for elven-kind had never been subject to him; when their wounds took them, they simply faded, and where they went, Death was not, nor ever had been. All had faded now, but she had not; they had gone away beyond the sea, but she had not been willing. She was last, loving the woods too well to go when the despair came on others. It was perhaps habit kept her now; or pride—her kind had ever been proud; or perhaps her heart was bound here. Death had never known the motives of the elves.

She did not walk the shadow-ways, that path which was mostly under her moon. Death could not reach to that other place, and she meant that he never should. She stayed companionable with him, her Huntsman, guardian of her forest what time she was absent, who had come to the land when Men came, and who haunted this forest most of all places on the earth. He showed her the land he had had in care, the great old trees with roots well sunk in her own Eald, that could not easily die. She saw their other selves, their aspect beneath this moon, and now and again she found one dangerously fading, and gave her strength to heal.

“You undo my work,” he reproached her.

“Only where you trespass,” she said, and looked again at the darkness, wherein two soft gleams seemed to shine. “If I do not go where the others have gone, at the last I shall have drawn all Eald-that-was to heal this blight that Men make; and where shall I be then, Lord Death, having used my strength up so? Is that what you wait for? Do you think my kind can die?”

“I wait to see,” he said, and his voice was soft and still. A shadow-sleeve rippled in wide gesture. “All of this you might restore, drive out Men, claim it all, and rule—”

“And die, as it did.”

“And die,” Lord Death said softer still.

She smiled, perceiving wistfulness. “Merest youth.”

“Invite me with you,” Death wished her. “Let me once see what you see. Let me see you as you are. Show me . . . that other land.”

“No,” she said, shuddering, and felt the brush of a touch upon her cheek.

“Do not,” Death pleaded. “Do not hate me. Do not fear me. All do . . . but you.”

“Banish hope. My land fadesfrom wounds.”

“But there is none can wound you,” he said. “None, Arafel. So you are bound here, to share the fate of Eald.”

“There are many who can wound me,” she said, looking placidly toward that place where she judged a face might be. “But not you.”

“Save when the woods are gone. Save when all that gives you strength has gone. And you live long, my lady of the fading trees, but not forever.”

“Yet I shall cheat you all the same.”

“Perhaps you will.” The whisper wavered, trembled. “Do you know where your kindred has gone? Do you knowthat that place is good? No. But me you know. I am familiar and easy. We are old companions, you and I.”

“Companions without fellowship.”

“Do you not know loneliness? That, we share.”

“But you are all darkness,” she said. “And cold.”

“Do all see you the same?”

“No,” she confessed.

“Perhaps,” he said, “you will come to see me as I am.”

She said nothing to that, for she was not as cruel as some of her kind, having felt pain.

“I also,” he said, “heal.”

Still she said nothing.

“Come,” he said. “I shall show you my other face.”

She stopped at his touch, for the way to another, third Ealdwood lay in his power and the wind from it was chill, that place of hismaking. “No,” she said. “Not there, my lord, never there.”

“What I take,” he said, “most oft I return. What comes into the cauldron comes out again. I have a fairer face, Arafel, which you do not know how to see, having no experience of me. You judge me amiss.”

“You have done me service,” she said, “in defending Eald from Men. Why?”

And now Death was still, giving her no answer.

“Perhaps,” she said, “I shall misjudge my time. Perhaps I shall delay in this woods too long. Only that must you hope for. I give you no hope of my consent.”

“I have no hope,” said Lord Death. Wind tugged at her, drew her farther. “But come, if not to the one place, to the other. I am anxious that you think well of me. See . . . that I can heal.”

His voice was gentle, promising no ill, and in truth there was none that he could do her. Because she had committed herself the once, she yielded, and walked where he would, as mortals walked, their common ground.

And then she wavered, because she knew where he would lead.

“Trust,” he begged of her, and the wind tugged more strongly, insistent and cold.

They walked slowly through the brambles and the thickets, mortal-wise and sometimes painfully; and at the last edge of night they came to that grove he sought, a part of the New Forest, that verge of Eald grown up on the edge of the old, nearest Men. Great trees had died, scarred with axes that she had not forgot The wanton destruction oppressed her heart, for an edge of her own Eald had died that day these trees had perished, truly died, into that gray haze which bordered all her world and bound her sight.

“See,” said Lord Death, and the shadow rippled toward a bank of bracken, lush ferns beneath the dimming stars. Man-tall saplings were springing up through it, straight and new. “See my handiwork. Can we be enemies?”

She saw, and shivered, remembering the place as it had been, when the fallen trees had stood tall and beautiful; and their counterparts in her own Eald had bloomed with stars and sheltered her with their white branches. “It is only more New Forest,” she said, “and mine is the smaller for it. They have no roots in Eald.”

“You do not see beauty here?”

“There is beauty,” she admitted, walking farther, and knelt with a pang of memory, for there were bones and shattered wood beneath the bracken, and she touched a long-broken skull. “The trees, you restored. Canst mend this, Lord Death?”

“In time, even that,” he said, twisting yet again at her heart. “Do you care for them?”

“I have my own cares,” she said; but when she had risen, an old curiosity tugged at her heart, and she walked farther with him, to the flat rock which overlooked the dale, upon a dark sea of trees. She recalled the stone keep the other side of the dale—oh, far too well, among villages and fields and tame beasts and all such business as Men cared for. It was all beyond their sight. Below them the Caerbourne rolled its dark flood seaward, a black snake dividing the wood; and that flow toward the sea made her think of endings, and partings from her kindred, and made her sad.