“Ah-ha! Not so funny now, I’ll wager!” the old man gloated and began chuckling merrily, his thin legs dancing about. “Thought I was crazy, did you? Thought I was just talking to myself, did you? Well, what do you think now?”
“Nobody meant you any harm,” Brin repeated as the big cat looked Rone over curiously.
The old man edged forward a step, his eyes brightening beneath the tufted hair that hung down about his wrinkled forehead.
“Think he might like you for supper? Is that what you think? He gets hungry, old Whisper does. The two of you would provide him with a nice bedtime snack! Ha! What’s the trouble? You look a little pale, like you might not feel so good. That’s too bad, too bad now. Maybe you ought to…”
The grin vanished suddenly from his face. “Whisper, no! Whisper, no, wait, don’t do that… !”
And with that, the big cat simply faded away and was gone, much as if he had evaporated. For a moment all three stared wonderingly at the space he had previously occupied. Then the old man stamped his foot angrily and kicked at the empty air in front of him.
“Drat you! You quit that, you hear me! Show yourself, you fool animal or I’ll… !” He trailed off wrathfully, then looked over at Brin and Rone. “You get out of my house! Get out!”
Rone Leah had had enough. A crazy old man and a disappearing cat were more than he had bargained for. He wheeled without a word and stalked past Brin, muttering for her to follow. But Brin hesitated, still not willing to give it up.
“You don’t understand how important this is!” she exclaimed heatedly. The old man stiffened. “You cannot just turn us away like this. We need your help. Please, tell us where we can find the man called Cogline.”
The old man regarded her silently, his sticklike body hunched and bent, his shaggy eyebrows knitting petulantly. Then abruptly he threw us his hands and shook his white head in resignation.
“Oh, very well—anything to get rid of you!” He sighed deeply aced did his best to look put upon. “It won’t help you a whit, you understand—not a whit!”
The Valegirl waited wordlessly. Behind her, Rone had turned back again. The old man cocked his head, reflecting. One thin hand ran quickly through the tangled hair.
“Old Cogline is right over there at the foot of the big rock.” He waved his hand almost casually in the direction of Hearthstone. “Right where I buried him almost a year ago.”
Chapter Thirty
Brin Ohmsford stared fixedly at the old man, disappointment welling up inside and choking back the exclamation forming in her throat. One hand lifted in a helpless gesture.
“You mean that Cogline is dead?”
“Dead and buried!” the truculent oldster snapped. “Now be on your way and leave me in peace!”
He waited impatiently for the Valegirl and the highlander to go, but Brin could not bring herself to move. Cogline dead? Somehow she could not accept that he was. Would not word of that death by some means have gotten back to the woodsman Jeft or to others who lived in the forests that lay about the Rooker Line Trading Center? A man who had lived for as long as Cogline had in this wilderness, a man known to so many… ? She caught herself. Possibly not, for woodsmen and trappers often stayed apart for months at a time. But who then was this old man? The woodsman had made no mention of him. Somehow it was all wrong.
“Let’s go, Brin,” Rone called to her gently.
But the Valegirl shook her head. “No. Not until I’m sure. Not until I can…”
“Get out of my house!” the old man repeated once again, stamping his foot petulantly. “I have put up with enough from you! Cogline is dead! Now if you’re not gone from here by the time I…”
“Grandfather!”
The voice broke sharply from out of the wooded darkness to their left where, in the distance, the rugged pinnacle of Hearthstone loomed blackly through the interwoven branches of the silent trees. Three heads jerked about as one, and the forest went suddenly still. Whisper reappeared to one side of them, his blue eyes luminous, his great, shaggy head raised and searching. The old man muttered to himself and stamped his foot one time more.
Then there was a soft rustling of leaves and the mysterious speaker appeared, stepping lightly into clearing. Brin and Rone turned to each other in surprise. It was a girl, barely older than Brin, her small, supple form clothed in pants and tunic and wrapped loosely in a braided short cloak of forest green. Long, curling ringlets of thick, dark hair hung down about her shoulders, softly shadowing a sun-browned, faintly freckled pixie face that was strangely beguiling, almost compelling in its look of innocence. It was a pretty face, and while not truly beautiful in the way of Brin’s, appealing nevertheless with its uncomplicated freshness and vitality. Dark, intelligent eyes mirrored frankness and honesty as she studied the Valegirl and the highlander curiously.
“Who are you?” she asked in a tone of voice that suggested that she had a right to know.
Brin glanced again at Rone and then back to the girl. “I’m Brin Ohmsford from Shady Vale and this is Rone Leah. We’ve come north from our homes in the Southland below the Rainbow Lake.
“You have come a long way,” the girl observed. “Why are you here?”
“To find a man named Cogline.”
“Do you know this man, Brin Ohmsford?”
“No.”
“Then why do you look for him?”
The girl’s eyes never left hers. Brin hesitated, wondering how much she should tell her. There was something about this girl that warned against lying, and Brin had not missed the way in which her sudden appearance had quieted the old man and brought back the disappearing cat. Still, the Valegirl was reluctant to reveal the whole of her reason for their being at Hearthstone without first finding out who she was.
“We were told that Cogline was the man who best knew the forestland from Darklin Reach east to the Ravenshorn,” she replied guardedly. “We were hoping he would offer his services on a matter of great importance.”
The girl was silent for a moment, apparently considering what Brin had told her. The old man shuffled over to where she stood and began fidgeting..
“They’re trespassers and troublemakers!” he insisted vehemently.
The girl did not reply nor even look at him, her dark eyes still locked into grin’s, her slim form motionless. The old man threw up his hands in exasperation.
“You shouldn’t even be talking with them! You should throw them out!”
The girl shook her head slowly then. “Hush, grandfather,” she cautioned. “They mean us no harm. Whisper would know if they did.”
Brin glanced quickly at the big cat, who was stretched out almost playfully in the tall grass bordering the little pond, one great paw flicking idly at some hapless insect flying past. The great oval eyes shone like twin beacons of light as he glanced over at them.
“That fool animal won’t even come when I call him!” the old man groused. “How can you depend on him?”
The girl looked at the old man reprovingly, a hint of defiance crossing her youthful features. “Whisper!” she called softly and pointed at Brin. “Track!”
The big cat suddenly came to his feet and without a sound padded over to Brin. The Valegirl stiffened as the beast’s black muzzle sniffed tentatively at her clothing. Cautiously, she started to step back.
“Stand still,” the girl advised her quietly.
Brin did as she was told. Forcing herself to remain outwardly calm, she stood frozen in place as the huge animal sniffed downward along her pant leg in a leisurely fashion. The girl was testing her, she realized—using the cat to see how she would react. The skin on the back of her neck prickled as the muzzle pushed at her. What should she do? Should she continue just to stand there? Should she touch the beast to show that she was not afraid? But she was afraid, and the fear was spreading all through her. Surely the animal would smell it, and then…