"Wait!" cried Dhrun, "or we'll know bad luck for sure!"
He called out: "Does anyone forbid us these berries?"
There was no response and they ate their fill of ripe blackberries.
For a space they lay resting in the shade. "Now that we're almost out of the forest, it's time to make plans," said Glyneth. "Have you thought of what we should do?"
"Yes indeed. We will travel here and there and try to discover my father and mother. If I am truly a prince, then we will live in a castle and I shall insist that you be made a princess as well. You shall have fine clothes, a carriage and also another cat like Pettis."
Glyneth, laughing, kissed Dhrun's cheek. "I'd like to live in a castle. We're sure to find your father and mother, since there are not all that many princes and princesses!"
Glyneth became drowsy. Her eyelids drooped and she dozed. Dhrun, becoming restless, went to explore a path which bordered the stream. He walked a hundred feet and looked back. Glyneth still lay asleep. He walked another hundred feet, and another. The forest seemed very still; the trees rose majestically high, taller than any Dhrun had seen before, to create a luminous green canopy far overhead.
The path crossed a rocky little hummock. Dhrun, climbing up to the top, found himself overlooking a tarn shaded beneath the great trees. Five nude dryads waded in the shallows of the tarn: slender creatures with rose-pink mouths and long brown hair, small breasts, slim thighs and unutterably lovely faces. Like fairies they showed no pubic hair; like fairies they seemed made of stuff less gross than blood and meat and bone.
For a minute Dhrun stared entranced; then he took sudden fright and slowly backed away.
He was seen. Tinkling little outcries of dismay reached his ears.
Carelessly strewn along the bank, almost at Dhrun's feet, were the fillets which bound their brown hair; a mortal seizing such a fillet held the dryad in power, to serve his caprice forever, but Dhrun knew nothing of this.
One of the dryads splashed water toward Dhrun. He saw the drops rise into the air and sparkle in the sunlight, whereupon they became small golden bees, which darted into Dhrun's eyes and buzzed in circles, blotting out his sight.
Dhrun screamed in shock and fell to his knees. "Fairies, you have blinded me! I only chanced on you by mistake! Do you hear me?"
Silence. Only the sound of leaves stirring in the afternoon airs.
"Fairies!" cried Dhrun, tears running down his cheeks. "Would you blind me for so small an offense?"
Silence, definite and final.
Dhrun groped back along the trail, guided by the sound of the little stream. Halfway along the trail he met Glyneth, who, awakening and seeing no Dhrun, had come to find him. Instantly she recognized his distress and ran forward. "Dhrun! What is the trouble?"
Dhrun took a deep breath, and tried to speak in a courageous voice, which despite his efforts quavered and cracked. "I went along the trail; I saw five dryads bathing in a pool; they splashed bees into my eyes and now I can't see!" In spite of his talisman, Dhrun could barely restrain his grief.
"Oh Dhrun!" Glyneth came close. "Open your eyes wide; let me look."
Dhrun stared toward her face. "What do you see?"
Glyneth said haltingly: "Very strange! 1 see circles of golden light, one around the other, with brown in between."
"It's the bees! They've filled my eyes with buzzing and dark honey!"
"Dhrun, dearest Dhrun!" Glyneth hugged him and kissed him, and used every endearment she knew. "How could they be so wicked!"
"I know why," he said bleakly. "Seven years bad luck. I wonder what will happen next. You had better go away and leave me—"
"Dhrun! How can you say such a thing?"
"—so that if I fall in a hole, you need not fail in too."
"Never would I leave you!"
"That is foolishness. This is a terrible world, so I am discovering. It is all you can do to care for yourself, let alone me."
"But you are the one I love most in all the world! Somehow we'll survive! When the seven years is over there'll be nothing left but good luck forever!"
"But I'll be blind!" cried Dhrun, again with a quaver in his voice.
"Well, that's not sure either. Magic blinded you; magic will cure you. What do you think of that?"
"I hope that you're right." Dhrun clutched his talisman. "How grateful I am for my bravery, even though I can't be proud of it.
I suspect that I am a fearful coward at heart."
"Amulet or none, you are the brave Dhrun, and one way or another, we shall get on in the world."
Dhrun reflected a moment, then brought out his magic purse. "Best that you carry this; with my luck a crow will swoop down and carry it away."
Glyneth looked into the purse and cried out in amazement. "Nerulf emptied it; now I see gold and silver and copper!"
"It is a magic purse, and we never need fear poverty, so long as the purse is safe."
Glyneth tucked the purse into her bodice. "I'll be as careful as careful can be." She looked up the trail. "Perhaps I should go to the pool and tell the dryads what a terrible mistake they made..."
"You'd never find them. They are as heartless as fairies, or worse. They might even do mischief on you. Let's leave this place."
Late in the afternoon they came upon the ruins of a Christian chapel, constructed by a missionary now long forgotten. To the side grew a plum tree and a quince tree, both heavy with fruit.
The plums were ripe; the quince, though of a fine color, tasted acrid and bitter. Glyneth picked a gallon of plums, upon which they made a somewhat meager supper. Glyneth piled up grass for a soft bed among the toppled stones, while Dhrun sat staring out across the river.
"I think the forest is thinning," Glyneth told Dhrun. "It won't be long before we're safe among civilized folk. Then we'll have bread and meat to eat, milk to drink, and beds to sleep in."
Sunset flared over the Forest of Tantrevalles, then faded to dusk.
Dhrun and Glyneth went to their bed; they became drowsy and slept.
Somewhat before midnight the half-moon rose, cast a reflection on the river, and shone in Glyneth's face, awakening her. She lay warm and drowsy, listening to the crickets and frogs... A far drumming sound caught her ear. It grew louder, and with it the jingle of chain and the squeak of saddle-leather. Glyneth raised up on her elbow, to see a dozen horsemen come pounding along the river road. They crouched low in their saddles with cloaks flapping behind; moonlight illuminated their antique gear and black leather helmets with flaring ear-pieces. One of the riders, head almost into his horse's mane, turned to look toward Glyneth.
Moonlight shone into his pallid face; then the ghostly cavalcade was away. The drumming died into the distance and was gone.
Glyneth sank back into the grass and at last slept.
At dawn Glyneth roused herself quietly and tried to strike a hot spark from a piece of flint she had found, and so to blow up a fire, but met no success.
Dhrun awoke. He gave a startled cry, which he quickly stifled.
Then after a moment he said: "It's not a dream after all."
Glyneth looked in Dhrun's eyes. "I still see the golden circles."
She kissed Dhrun. "But don't brood, we'll find some way to cure you. Remember what I said yesterday? Magic gives, magic takes."
"I'm sure that you are right." Dhrun's voice was hollow. "In any case, there's no help for it." He rose to his feet and almost immediately tripped on a root and fell. Throwing out his arms, he caught the chain where hung his amulet and sent both chain and amulet flying.
Glyneth came on the run. "Are you hurt? Oh, your poor knee, it's all bleeding from the sharp stone!"
"Never mind the knee," croaked Dhrun. "I've lost my talisman; I broke the chain and now it's gone!"
"It won't run away," said Glyneth in a practical voice. "First I'll bandage your knee and then I'll find your talisman."