She brushed a dead leaf off the sleeve of Clotnik's borrowed white shirt. The leaf fell to the ground, and Tanis picked it up and crumpled it. That, at least, was real. Then she spoke quietly. 'There was no magic. Nothing like that. It must be something else." Despair began to tinge her husky voice.
"It is something else," said Clotnik. "It's something you cannot fight with a sword, Tanis. I'm sorry."
Tanis turned to face Clotnik, danger etched on the half-elf's face. He advanced upon the dwarf, saying, "You speak as if you know all about it."
Clotnik gave a half-smile filled with weariness. He didn't back up. "It will do you no good to take your anger out on me," he said softly, his eyes large and sad. "I didn't know. Kishpa only suggested that it might hap-' pen. Even he didn't know for sure."
"Didn't know what?" Brandella pleaded. "What's happening to me, Clotnik?"
"You're as real as life to Tanis," the dwarf said tenderly. "For him, your heart beats, your skin feels warm to the touch, your voice is like music played by an inspired musician."
Brandella blushed. Embarrassed that his secret was so obvious, Tanis studied the nearby trees.
"It's because he sees you as real that you are real," Clotnik said. 'The way it was supposed to work was that Tanis would return from Kishpa's memory alone, remembering you in his own mind. Instead, he went one step further, physically bringing you out of Kishpa's memory to exist in his own world. Kishpa said it could happen. But he also said that if it did, it wouldn't last."
"Why?" demanded Tanis. "Why can't it last? Why can't she stay here with me7" There. Now she knew. When he looked at her, her eyes were moist with tears. Yet even now, he didn't know if they were tears of regret or tears of pity.
With infinite sadness, Clotnik said, "She cannot stay because she is a memory. And like all memories, she must fade."
"If she didn't fade from Kishpa's memory," Tanis challenged, "she won't fade from mine."
"That was Kishpa's wish," the dwarf said. "But you will have to remember her only in your mind's eye. There is nothing we can do. She is fading."
Tanis ached to hold her in his arms, but now it was impossible. "Walk with me," he whispered to Brandella. He wanted to be alone with her.
Clotnik bowed his head as they passed him on their way to a nearby deer path. "Good-bye," he said in a low voice.
She stopped. Although trembling with her own fear, not quite knowing her fate, she kissed Mertwig's son on the cheek. There was no sense of touch between them, yet there was no doubt in Clotnik's mind that he had just been blessed.
Streaks of sunlight slanted low across the land as day was born. The light seemed to cut through Brandella as if she weren't there. She cried out and stumbled off the trail, searching for shadows.
Tanis hurried after her, calling out, "Don't be afraid."
"Afraid!" she bitterly replied. "After I fade, I will be just a memory, something that happened in your past. You will go on, but I will not."
"Brandella, oh, my Brandella," he said. Fallen leaves crunched under his knees as he dropped down beside her. "Think of it this way. My memory is a world by itself, like Kishpa's. You'll be alive there. And not a single day will pass when you won't find something new and fresh to discover."
She cocked her head to one side, her slender body seemingly afloat in the shadows. "Listen," he persisted, "memory and imagination are like colors on a painter's palette, constantly being mixed to create something new. And that's what you'll find inside me, Brandella: a whole new world that's yours to explore." He struggled to find words to reassure her. "Everything I remember about you will be changing. Some days, when I wonder what you were like as a little girl, I'll picture you as a child. And you'll be young again. Some nights I'll be walking along a city street-a place you've never been-but I'll be thinking of you, talking to you. You'll answer in my mind. You'll be anywhere and everywhere."
She clasped her hands, edging farther out of the light. "I hope what you're saying is true."
ТЙ never forget you," he promised as she faded away, blending into the shadows.
"And I'll always be with you," she said in a voice so soft that Tanis wasn't sure if he'd heard it. And perhaps he hadn't. It may have come from somewhere inside him.
41
Zarjephwu, the leader of the sliqs, bathed nis burned body in the pond that they'd found in the glade. They had followed the tracks of the bullboggs in the moonlight, but, fearing the night, decided to go no farther. They had not, however, given up the chase. As far as Zarjephwu was concerned, the woman who had escaped certainly knew where the enchanted quill was; otherwise why would those two have risked their lives to save her7 When dawn broke, Zarjephwu roused himself from the same water that had so recently soothed Kishpa's burned flesh. The slig summoned his warriors.
"We have come a long way in search of the enchanted quill," said the slig. "We will not stop now."
"But the others have bullboggs to ride. How could you let this happen7" complained Ghuchaz, a young, ambitious warrior who chafed under Zarjephwu's leadership.
The entire band seemed to hold its breath. To question Zarjephwu was tantamount to a death sentence. Silently, they backed away from young Ghuchaz, who quickly sensed that he had gone too far. Meanwhile, Zarjephwu licked the top of his snout while he considered the upstart's challenge. His tiny eyes flickered.
Sligs don't apologize, nor do they make excuses. Ghuchaz, however, was smarter than the others. Before Zarjephwu made his move, the young warrior hurriedly made his own, piping up to say, "I think I know how we can overtake the bullboggs and catch our prey."
Startled, the leader of the sligs held back from his intended attack, asking, "How?"