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"Now, young hunters," Elm said, looking at the boys, "you will be called men once you return to the village, and so, I wonder, what do you think of my stories?"

Ix hid his smile behind his hand. He remembered the first time, as a boy, that he had heard Elm ask that question. He had been as anxious and eager to find the right answer as the two boys who sat here now, but he was no longer intimidated by the steady gaze of the Holy Man.

Lom was the first to speak and, after all that Ix had seen from the boy, his words were exactly what he expected them to be. "They were good stories, sir," Lom said, "and very well told, thank you, but what else should we say? It is good to know the history of our people, but the tale of Takani was not a true tale; it is a legend only. What am I to learn from that? I will never journey into Forodwaith, nor would I be foolish enough to walk into a dragon's lair, should I ever find one…"

Bram elbowed Lom in the side. "It does not matter if it is a true tale or not," he said. "There are lessons to learn from every story. It is up to us to find them."

Lom frowned, not liking to be criticized, but Bram had already turned back to Elm - though his eyes strayed toward Ix as well as he spoke. "It was wrong for Takani to demand to be Chief after the people chose Nagano," he said slowly, "and it is always wrong to take what is not yours for selfish reasons. Even if that thing belongs to a greedy dragon. It was Takani's greed that cursed the stone; he stole it so that he could steal Nagano's place as Chief… is that what we are meant to learn?"

He looked to the Holy Many for an answer, but Elm only shrugged and smiled.

Lom raised his chin and looked sideways at Bram. "But that was not the curse that Nagano said was on the stone. She said that with it, Takani would always want what he could not have, but he was leader of a people then. Many men and women had chosen to follow him. He had what he had wanted. Nagano did not hear the words of Wilfomer; she did not know what curse was spoken."

"But he was not content with the people that chose to follow him," Bram countered. "Even with them, he told Nagano that he would be alone and friendless. He wanted to rule Nagano's people, not Takani's people. And so long as he kept the stone with him, he could not rejoin his village or return to his sister's house. Those things he wanted most, even if he does not admit it; he is like the child who walks away from his mother's house in anger and then is too proud to return and apologize for his words when night falls. He is left out in the cold."

Ix nodded. Bram had wisdom beyond his years and the soon-to-be-Chief would not forget it. Lom had heard only the words of the tale, but Bram had applied them to his life and himself. That was how it should be. And yet, Ix frowned and thought of his own questions. He had heard the tale of Takani many times, but still he did not know how to apply it to his own life. He did not understand what part of himself was in Takani's story, and that troubled him.

"There are many lessons that we learn in life," Elm said, "but we are Men, and not Elves or even the long-lived Dwarves. We have few years in which to learn and so we must learn from the lives of others. Through our stories, we spread our years out over many lives, and whether it is a true tale or a legend or the fables of Old Whale, we take something from each. It is like skills taught to you by Orn and Anam who showed you how to throw the spear and track the wild game; it would have taken you many years to learn these things by yourself.

"Wisdom, however, is a lesson that cannot be taught to you by another," Elm added sternly. "You must find it for yourself. Nagano's people knew this, and that is why they chose her for their Chief. Takani did not know this, and that is why he will always be jealous of his sister."

"But Nagano tried to teach him," Lom said suddenly. "She told him to cast away the dragon's stone. If he had, he would have learned wisdom. He would have been happier in his life if he had listened to what she told him…"

"Perhaps," Elm said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "but we are not here to ask what might have been. If Takani had cast aside the stone, then we would not have had to sit up so late telling his tale. We would all have gone to bed long ago."

Elm smiled then and stood up. He threw back the flap on the roof of the tent to let out the sweet-smelling smoke. The tales had been told and the lessons were over. It was time for sleep.

Though the boys were not yet satisfied, they were very tired and did not complain as they lay themselves down near the front of the tent, side by side and under their shared blanket. They were expected to be the first to rise, to light a fire and prepare the morning meal for Ix and Elm. But Ix sat up still and could not sleep. He breathed in the lingering smoke of the woodchips and clung to the remnant visions that he had seen while Elm told his tales.

Elm sat up as well, but he watched Ix closely. It was not long before Bram and Lom were fast asleep, and then Elm said quietly, "Shall I ask you now, Son of Chief: what do you think of my stories?" He looked into Ix's eyes and saw his troubled thoughts.

Ix sighed and shook his head. "You need not ask your questions," he said, "for you know my answers well enough by now." He sat for a while, but the old man waited patiently.

Finally, Ix sighed again and said, "What I think of your stories, old friend, is that I will miss them. And, that I have not taken from them all that I should have before now. I still have no answer to the meaning of my dreams, but even tonight I have learned something new. I never before thought how like to my dreams is the prophesy of Nagano when she says that a man who steals the dragon's stone will be twice cursed. I have sometimes heard in my dreams, a woman's voice telling me that when the great stone is offered I must pay for it outright in order to purchase its blessings, too."

He frowned. "But how can such a thing ever be a blessing, bought or stolen or found upon the side of the path? The dragon's jewel is cursed, and only a fool would accept such a thing."

"Perhaps the woman in your dreams knows this," Elm said. "There are many things in this world that look wholesome but are poisonous to the tongue. And so, we teach our children to recognize the fish that they may eat so that they may grow up strong and will know not to swallow what is poisonous. In the same way, a healer is taught to treat the poisonous lichen so that it heals and does not kill. But we do not call him foolish for touching the poisoned plant."

"Is that the meaning of my dreams? To teach me how to handle a cursed stone?" Ix shook his head. "I do not know. Our village is prosperous enough. Do we need such tenuous blessings?"

"I do not tell you what your dreams mean," Elm said. "I have heard you tell them and I, too, did not understand, nor could either of my brothers interpret them for you. You must seek your own wisdom in this, Son of Chief, and decide for yourself what to do when the time comes. That is what makes a Chief."

They sat in silence for some time, both thinking their own thoughts, but finally Elm put his hand on Ix's shoulder. "You have sat in this tent with me more times than any other man of our village. You of all our people should know that the visions given to us here are not meant to be carried out into the waking world, only the lessons they teach us. Our stories instruct our lives, but life is not lived in a tent."

Ix smiled. "In this, I am like to Takani, for I wish to have what I cannot," he said. "This night will be the last that I pester you with my questions. When I am Chief, I will not be able to go so far from the village for so long. I will no longer lead the hunt and Orn will take my place."

"This night is the last that you and I will sit here together," Elm said. "You are young and I am old, but I hope that I will have many more years of your pestering questions. And now, we both must sleep. We will have a steep climb and a long walk tomorrow, and you are not as young as you used to be."

Ix laughed at that and lay his head down on the warm skins of his bed. Elm lay beside him, nearest to the embers of the fire, and Ix felt his friend slip swiftly into dreams, but there was little sleep for him that night. He was restless and the eyes of the stars stared down at him through the thin roof of the tent.

.

The next morning, Ix was the last of their party to wake, and he was surprised to find the fire already burning and his breakfast cold in the bowl beside him. He ate quickly and ducked out of the tent. There was no sign of Bram or Lom, but Elm sat upon a stone overlooking the valley and was carving a large stick with his knife.

"You sleep late, Son of Chief," he said. "The sky is clear. Our young hunters wished to go into the valley once more in search of more plump birds to bring back to the camp."

Ix noted the bundle of plucked feathers poking out of the Shaman's pack and guessed that Elm was more interested in them than in a change of meat. The feathers were very fine and of a color not found near the village.

"So long as they do not wander far. We have a long journey ahead of us and must return before nightfall or Orn will worry."

Elm nodded but did not look up from his work. Leaving the Shaman to himself, Ix made up for his oversleeping and took down the tent, wrapping the many skins into a tight bundle and putting away all their cooking tools and other things. They were ready to set out as soon as the two hunters returned, but there was no sign of them yet.

An hour passed, and they did not return. Ix walked the narrow path back behind the camp and into the secret cave where he stood, staring at the strange carvings for a long while. He could not read them and they gave no answer to his questions. Unhappily, he returned to Elm and stood looking out over the cliff.

The sun had just begun to rise over the shoulder of the mountain behind him, and he was considering whether he should not go down into the valley to summon the boys back, when he heard the sound of swift boots running of the narrow path to his right. Ix turned and Elm looked up to see Lom stumble up onto the flat land. He had worn out his strength in running and fell into the snow, gasping for breath; his face was pale and afraid.

Ix hurried to the boy. "Where is Bram?" he demanded. The valley was usually very safe, but it was also far north and sometimes wild creatures wandered in from the Forodwaith in search of an easy meal.

"By the river…" Lom gasped. "In the water…"

"Bram fell into the river?" Ix asked. If he had, then he was probably drowned already, but they might at least search for him...

"No, not Bram…" Lom said. "…a body… in the river… Bram saw a body there… a woman. He says she is alive!"

Elm did not wait to hear anything more. He took up his pack and his staff and started down the path into the valley. Lom had left a clear trail behind him, and the old healer could track as well as any hunter. Ix stayed behind to help the boy recover his strength.

It was many minutes before Lom could catch his breath, and many more before his legs had recovered enough for him to stand and help Ix to carry their tent and other things down from the flat land. They brought the whole camp with them, not knowing what Elm might need for his work, but also so that they would not have to climb again the steep path before taking the pass out of the valley and back to the main camp where Orn waited.

Ix set a slow pace for Lom's comfort. He could see by the boy's prints in the snow that he had run all the way from the river, over a mile, and then run up the steep path to the camp as well. It was an impressive sprint for a boy who did as little work as he could when he could get away with it. As they walked, Lom told all that had happened in the valley leading up to his mad dash back to the camp.

Bram and Lom had hunted among the thick trees near to the river, looking for the birds that they had found the day before. After a long while with no luck, Bram had climbed a high hill that looked down along the straight length of the river and back to where it first emerged from under the mountain. It was then that he had spied something strange caught in the water.

The two boys had gone to look, thinking that maybe some animal was trapped there that they might catch and bring back, but it was no animal. Bram had seen first that it was the body of a human, and as they came nearer, he recognized it for a woman, though Lom was still not sure; she was so wrapped up in cloak and coat and tangled in the branches of a tree that had fallen over the water and was trailing in the swift-flowing stream.

The woman was too far out in the river for the two boys to bring her in to shore, but Bram had sent Lom back for help while he stayed and watched so that if the current were to pull her free, he might follow her downstream and not lose her.

By the time Ix and Lom caught up to Elm, he had already reached the river and was at work upon the body of the woman. A large fire had been built nearby and Bram was huddled beside it in Elm's great cloak, naked and shivering, his wet clothes hung nearby. He had swam into the river to rescue the woman and brought her back to shore.

Reaching the fire, Lom went straight to Bram and, though the boys had been less than friends before, he offered up his own cloak while he searched for dry clothes in the packs that he and Ix had carried. Ix went to help Elm, easing warm drink between the unconscious woman's lips while the healer cleaned the many bleeding wounds upon her body.

If it were not for Elm's quick movements, Ix would have given up the woman for dead. Her skin was as white as the snow she lay on except where it was blue with cold. There was no sign of breath from her lips and her chest lay still, but Elm demanded more blankets and warm water.

"We must bring her back slowly," he said. "Already the fire has heated her blood and it flows faster than I can sew shut the wounds. There are many sharp stones hidden under the water but at least it flows fast and is clean."

Bram was dressed now and had nearly recovered from his cold spell, and Lom had rested from his run. Ix set them to work rebuilding the tent. They would need shelter to hold in the heat of their fire, but the woman was not ready to be moved. The right half of her face was bruised and swollen and showed signs of having been struck hard against rough stone. Her right arm was crushed and her wrist twisted around so that even Ix could see that she would probably lose all or part of it. The sleeve of her coat was black with blood. He eased the glove off of her hand and saw that the tips of the fingers were already black. The fingers of her left hand were blue, but that arm was whole and might yet be saved.

"She is nearly dead," Ix said as he bathed her forehead with a warm cloth, wiping away the blood. "She is not one of our people…" he added, but the healer's hands did not slow their work.

"I do not instruct you in your trade, Son of Chief," he said. "You need not teach me mine. Unless you have one of our own people who needs my help more than she, I will tend to this woman until I say that the life has left her."

Ix said nothing, but he was not ashamed of his words. Indeed, it was his duty to look after his own people first, and he knew that every minute wasted here was one taken from their journey back to Orn. It was Elm's task to look after broken bodies regardless of race or what village they came from. Ix cut away the sleeve from her right arm and saw that she had been bandaged already and the fresh scar was not from any weapon that he knew.

He looked toward the eastern hills. The river flowed out from under the mountains and, though the valley was generally safe, there were yet many evil creatures dwelling farther east, orcs and trolls and other enemies. All the signs that he read pointed Ix toward those hills, and he guessed that the woman had been part of a passing caravan, or a hunter from another village who had been attacked and taken for a slave. He could see that the woman's arm, where it was not broken, had been strong enough to throw a spear or draw a bow, but her body was thin and half-starved. How had she come to be here? If she had indeed been one of the pitiful slaves of the orcs, had they thought her dead and thrown her into the river? Or had she cast herself in, willing to risk the treacherous waves rather than spend another day under the miserable whip?

Looking down again, Ix passed his cloth over the swollen right temple of the woman's face. He frowned, noting a shorter patch of hair where her locks had been recently shorn. He looked closer. "What is this mark here?" he said.

Elm looked up, and Ix gently passed his hand over the short hair. The mark beneath was hidden, but not yet wholly obscured. Elm frowned as well. "I know that mark, and you know it, too," he said. "It is cut into the wall of the secret cave…"

Ix glanced at the two boys still struggling to set up the tent. He was now more eager than before to save the woman's life if only long enough to hear from her own lips how she had entered the valley. Here was a mystery too strange to guess, but the tale of Takani was fresh in his mind, as were his dreams...

There was little more for Ix to do. He left Elm and went to help the boys raise the tent. They lit a fire beneath its roof and laid out a comfortable bed. By then, Elm had done all he had to do, and with the help of the two boys, he and Ix were able to move her into the shelter. Then, Ix ushered Bram and Lom outside and sent the boys to gather wood and water and then to do anything they wished so long as it was out of the way of the healer. Ix waited, his mind full of speculation, and it was an hour before Elm came out again.

Ix stood up. "Well? Will she live?" he asked.

"I believe that every wounded man will live… until he dies," Elm said. "That is the way of the healer, I suppose." He was very tired, but gathered up his knives and his needles and shuffled toward the river to wash the blood from his hands.

Ix called Bram and Lom back from the trees and set them to watch over the woman. "If she wakes or if she speaks even a single word, you will tell me," he ordered, then followed after Elm.

He helped to wash the healer's tools, and as they worked, Elm spoke. "She is very lucky," he said. "The cold of the water preserved her, and this valley is safe from many beasts. Though, if Bram had not found her, or if they had not come down to hunt this morning, she would be dead now and the scavenging birds would have found her body."

Elm thrust his hands into the cold river and the water ran red between his fingers. "She is a stubborn woman, to last as long as she did. Her heart beats slow but strong."

"But we cannot stay here," Ix said. "Even if she wakes, she is too weak to walk. Will we carry her to Orn? Is she not well enough that we may go and send back help for her?"

"You may stay or go as you please, Son of Chief," Elm said. "I must stay with my patient." He fished into the deep pocket of his coat and drew out something small, handing it to Ix. "This is your business, I think," he said. "I found it in the woman's hair."

Ix frowned and took what Elm handed to him. He held it up, a small, gleaming gold bead still knotted with a lock of black hair. "This is Dwarf's work," he said in surprise. "Though I am no expert, she did not seem to be of Dwarf-kind to me." He shook his head and once more looked east toward the mountains. "It has been a long while since the Dwarves travelled east along these hills, though I have heard that they sometimes will hire themselves out as guards for merchant caravans. But what would merchants be doing so high up in these hills, they take the southern road…"

Elm shook his head. "As I said, that is your business."

Ix frowned at the bead. "Perhaps she only found it somewhere and kept it for herself," he said, but he did not believe it.

Suddenly, Bram appeared over the hill of the bank and called down to them. "She spoke! She is not awake, but she spoke."

"What did she say?" Ix demanded, following the boy back toward the tent.

But Bram shook his head. "It sounded like one of the languages that the southern traders speak to each other. I did not understand her."

Ix reached the tent and ducked inside. Elm followed him and ushered Lom back outside to wait. Neither boy knew any language but their own, but Ix did not want to risk them overhearing anything that might be better kept secret. Bram might manage to hold his tongue, but Lom certainly could not.

Ix leaned over the woman and pressed his ear close to her lips. Elm stood back, waiting, but he was impatient, and the healer's concern was clear in his voice. "What does she say?"

Ix shook his head. At first, he heard nothing, and he thought that Bram must have been wrong. The woman's breath was heavy and maybe the boy had mistaken some painful gasp or moan for words.

But no, just as he was about to pull away, the woman gasped and turned her face towards his. Her eyes were closed and she was feverish, but she seemed to know that he was near and she murmured a few broken words in the southern tongue before she fell back into sleep again.

"Well?" Elm asked.

Ix sat back on his heels, confused. "She asks for someone," he said, "her friends, I think, but I could not understand her. I would say that it was the fever speaking, but…" He squeezed the bead in his fist, and Elm nodded.

"She will need more care than I can give her here," he said. "If we were in our own village, my wife and I might manage to save her arm... but I cannot even remove it without risking her life. We must bring her back with us or bury her now."

Ix agreed. "For her welfare, and our own," he said, "we must bring her back. If she traveled with a larger party that was attacked, then there are dangerous enemies about. Enemies that might be bold enough to attack Orn and the others as well, and we cannot be sure that we are safe in this valley.

"Yes, we must risk moving her. This tent is made to be fashioned into a sling for carrying a wounded hunter; certainly the posts are strong enough to bear the weight of so small a woman. We will wrap her up well in what blankets we have. Bram and Lom are both young and strong, and it is only the narrow pass that will be difficult to navigate. Once we are over it, Lom may run ahead. He is very quick for one so small and will bring back men from the camp."

Elm nodded. "It is a good plan," he said, "and I will prepare my patient for the journey. She is a stubborn woman. Let us hope that she is strong as well."