“Ha! So you’ve decided… !” He stopped short as he saw them. “Who are you supposed to be? No, never mind who you are. It doesn’t make a twig’s difference. Just get out of here and go back to wherever it was you came from.”
He turned from them with a dismissive gesture and resumed crawling along the forest’s edge, his skeletal arms groping left and right, his thin, hunched body like a twisted bit of deadwood. Great tufts of ragged white hair and beard hung down about his shoulders, and his green-colored clothes and half-cloak were tattered and worn. The Valegirl and the highlander stared blankly at him and then at each other.
“This is ridiculous!” the old man stormed, directing his wrath at the silent trees. Then he looked around and saw that the travelers were still there. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get out of here! This is my house, and I didn’t invite you! So get out, get out!”
“This is where you live?” Rone asked, glancing about doubtfully.
The old man looked at him as if he were an idiot. “Didn’t, you just hear me say so? What else do you think I’d be doing here at this hour?”
“I don’t know,” the highlander admitted.
“A man should be in his home at this hour!” the other continued in something of a scolding tone. “As a matter of fact, what are you doing here? Don’t you have homes of your own to go to?”
“We’ve come all the way from Shady Vale in the Southland.” Brin tried to explain, but the old man just stared blankly at her. “It’s below the Rainbow Lake, several days’ ride.” The old man’s expression never changed. “Anyway, we’ve come here looking for someone who…”
“No one here but me.” The old man shook his head firmly. “Except for Whisper, and I can’t find him. Where do you think… ?”
He trailed off distractedly, turning again from them as if to resume his hunt for whoever it was that was missing. Brin glanced doubtfully at Rone.
“Wait a minute!” she called after the old man, who looked around sharply. “A woodsman told us about this man. He told us he lived here. He said that his name was Cogline.”
The old man shrugged. “Never heard of him.”
“Well, maybe he lives in some other part of the valley. Maybe you could tell us where we might…”
“You don’t listen very well, do you?” the other interrupted irritably. “Now I don’t know where it is that you come from—don’t care either—but I’ll wager you don’t have strange people running around your home, do you? I’ll wager you know everyone living there or visiting there or whatever! So what makes you think it’s any different with me?”
“You mean this whole valley is your home?” Rone demanded incredulously.
“Of course it’s my home! I just told you that half a dozen different times! Now get out of it and leave me in peace!”
He stamped one sandaled foot vehemently and waited for them to go. But the Valegirl and the highlander just stood there.
“This is Hearthstone, isn’t it?” Rone pressed, growing a bit angry with this cantankerous oldster.
The fellow’s thin jaw stiffened resolutely. “What if it is?”
“Well, if it is, there is a man living here by the name of Cogline—or at least there was up until two years ago. He’d been living here for years before that, we were told. So if you’ve been out here for any length of time, you ought to know something about him!”
The old man was silent for a moment, his craggy brows tightening in thought. Then he shook his wispy head firmly. “Told you before, I never heard of him. No one around here with that name now or any other time. No one.”
But Brin had seen something in the old man’s eyes. She took a step closer to him and stopped. “You know the name, don’t you? Cogline—you know it.”
The old man stood his ground. “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. In any case, I don’t have to tell you!”
Brin pointed. “You’re Cogline, aren’t you?”
The old man erupted in a violent fit of laughter. “Me? Cogline? Ha-ha, now wouldn’t that be something! Oh, I would be talented, indeed! Ha-ha, now that’s funny!”
Valegirl and highlander stared at him in amazement as he doubled over sharply and fell to the ground, laughing hysterically. Rone took Brin by the arm and turned her toward him.
“For cat’s sake, Brin—this old man’s crazy!” ha whispered.
“What did you say? Crazy am I?” The oldster was back on his feet, his weathered face flushed with anger. “I ought to show you just how crazy! Now you get out of my house! I didn’t want you here in the first place, and I don’t want you here now! Get out!”
“We didn’t mean any harm,” a flustered Rone tried to apologize.
“Get out, get out, get out! I’ll turn you into puffs of smoke! I’ll set fire to you and watch you burn. I’ll… I’ll…”
He was jumping up and down in uncontrollable fury, his bony hands knotted tightly into fists, his tufted white hair flying wildly in all directions. Rone came forward to calm him.
“Stay away from me!” the other fairly shrieked, one thin arm pointing like a weapon. The highlander stopped at once. “Stay back! Oh, where’s that stupid… ! Whisper!”
Rone glanced about expectantly, but no one appeared. The old man was beside himself with anger now and he whirled about, shouting into the forest darkness and flinging his arms about like windmills.
“Whisper! Whisper! Get out here and protect me from these troublemakers! Whisper, drat you! Will you let them kill me? Should I just give myself over to them? What good are you, you fool… ! Oh, I never should have wasted my time on you! Get out here! Right now!”
The Valegirl and the highlander watched the antics of the old fellow with a mixture of wariness and amusement. Whoever Whisper was, he had apparently decided some time back that he wanted nothing to do with any of this. Yet the old man was not about to give up. He continued leaping about hysterically and shouting at nothing. Finally, Rone turned again to Brin.
“This is getting us nowhere,” he declared, keeping his voice purposefully low. “Let’s be on our way—look about on our own. The old man’s obviously lost his mind.”
But Brin shook her head, remembering what the woodsman Jeft had said about Cogline: an odd duck, crazier than a fish swimming through grass. “Let me try one more time,” she replied.
She started forward, but the old man turned on her at once. “Wouldn’t listen to me, is that it? Well, I gave you fair warning. Whisper! Where are you? Get out here! Get her! Get her!”
Brin drew up short in spite of herself and looked about. Still there was no one in sight. Then Rone stalked past her, gesturing impatiently.
“Now look here, old man. Enough is enough. There’s no one else out here but you, so why don’t you just stop this…”
“Ha! No one else but me, you think?” The old man leaped into the air with glee and landed in a crouch. “I’ll show you who’s out here, you… you trespasser! Come into my house, will you? I’ll show you! Whisper! Whisper! Dratted… !”
Rone was shaking his head hopelessly and grinning when all of a sudden the biggest cat he had ever seen in his life appeared from out of nowhere right in front of him, no more than half a dozen yards away. Dark gray in color with spreading black panels on its flanks that ran upward across its sloping back, a black face, ears, and tail and wide, almost cumbersome-looking black paws, the beast measured well over ten feet and its massive, shaggy head rose even with his own. Corded muscles rippled beneath the sleek fur as it shook itself lazily and regarded the highlander and the Valegirl with luminous, deep blue eyes that blinked and narrowed. It seemed to study them for a moment, then its jaws parted in a soundless yawn, revealing a flash of gleaming, razor-sharp teeth.
Rone Leah swallowed hard and stayed perfectly still.