The same care was evident inside the cottage. Neat and spotlessly clean, the sanded wood plank floors and timbered walls gleamed in the soft light of the oil lamps, polished and waxed. Handcrafts of woven cloth and cross-stitch hung from the walls, and bright tapestries draped the rough wooden furniture and windows. Odd pieces of silver and crystal sat upon tables within a broad-shelved hutch, and the long trestle table at one end of the main room had been set with earthenware dishes and crafted utensils. Flowers blossomed from vases and clay pots, some grown from plantings, some cut and arranged. The whole of the cottage seemed bright and cheerful, even with the nightfall, and there was that feeling of a Vale home at every turn.
“Dinner is almost ready,” Kimber Boh announced when they had come inside, casting a reproachful glance in Cogline’s direction. “If you will seat yourselves, I will put it on the table.”
Grumbling to himself, Cogline slid onto the bench at the far side of the table, while Brin and Rone sat down across from him. Whisper padded past them to a braided throw rug situated in front of a wide stone fireplace where a small stack of logs burned cheerfully. With a yawn, the cat curled up before the flames and fell asleep.
The meal that Kimber Boh brought to them consisted of wild fowl, garden vegetables, fresh-baked breads, and goat’s milk, and they consumed it hungrily. As they ate, the girl asked them questions of the Southland and its people, eager to hear of the world beyond her valley home. She had never been outside Darklin Reach, she explained, but someday soon now she would make the journey. Cogline scowled his disapproval, but said nothing, his head lowered in unyielding concentration on his plate. When dinner was finished, he rose with a sullen grunt and announced that he was going out for a smoke. He stalked through the door without a glance back at any of them and disappeared.
“You really mustn’t mind him,” Kimber Boh apologized, rising to clear the dishes from the table. “He is very gentle and sweet, but he has lived alone for so many years that he finds it difficult to be comfortable with other people.”
Smiling, she removed the dishes from the table and returned with a container of burgundy-colored wine. Pouring a small amount into fresh glasses, she resumed her seat across from them. As they sipped at the wine and chatted amiably, Brin found herself wondering as she had wondered on and off from the first moment that she had laid eyes on the girl how it was that she and the old man had managed to survive alone in this wilderness. Of course, there was the cat, but nevertheless…
“Grandfather walks every evening before dinner,” Kimber Boh was relating, a reassuring look directed to the two who sat across from her. “He wanders about the valley a good deal when the late fall comes. All of our work is done for the year, and when winter comes he will not go out as much. His body hurts him sometimes in the cold weather, and he prefers the fire. But now, while the nights are still warm, he likes to walk.”
“Kimber, where are your parents?” Brin asked, unable to help herself. “Why are you here all alone?”
“My parents were killed,” the girl explained matter-of-factly. “I was just a child when Cogline found me, hidden in some bedding where the caravan had camped that last night at the north edge of the valley. He brought me to his home and raised me as his granddaughter.” She leaned forward. “He has never had a family of his own, you see. I’m all he has.”
“How were your parents killed?” Rone wanted to know, seeing that the girl did not mind speaking of it.
“Gnome raiders. Several families were traveling in the caravan; everyone was killed except me. They missed me, Cogline says.” She smiled. “But that’s been a long time ago.”
Rone sipped at his wine. “Kind of dangerous here for you, isn’t it?”
She looked puzzled. “Dangerous?”
“Sure. Wilderness all around, wild animals, raiders—whatever. Aren’t you a little afraid sometimes living alone out here?”
She cocked her head slightly. “Do you think I should be?”
The highlander glanced at Brin. “Well… I don’t know.”
She stood up. “Watch this.”
Almost faster than his eye could follow, the girl had a long knife in her hand, whipping it past his head, flinging it the length of the room. It buried itself with a thud in a tiny black circle drawn on a timber in the far corner.
Kimber Boh grinned. “I practice that all the time. I learned to throw the knife by the time I was ten. Cogline taught me. I am just as good with almost any other weapon you might care to name. I can run faster than anything that lives in Darklin Reach—except for Whisper. I can walk all day and all night without sleeping.”
She sat down again. “Of course, Whisper would protect me against anything that threatened me, so I don’t have much to worry about.” She smiled. “Besides, nothing really dangerous ever comes into Hearthstone. Cogline has lived here all his life; the valley belongs to him. Everyone knows that and they don’t bother him. Even the Spider Gnomes stay out.”
She paused. “Do you know about the Spider Gnomes?”
They shook their heads. The girl leaned forward. “They creep along the ground and up trees, all hairy and crooked, just like spiders. Once they tried to come into the valley, about three years ago. Several dozen of them came, all blackened with ash and anxious to hunt. They’re not like the other Gnomes, you know, because they burrow and trap like spiders. Anyway, they came down into Hearthstone. I think they wanted it for their own. Grandfather knew about it right away, just as he always seems to know when something dangerous is about. He took Whisper with him and they ambushed the Spider Gnomes at the north end of the valley right by the big rock. The Spider Gnomes are still running.”
She grinned broadly, pleased with the story. Brin and Rone cast uneasy glances at each other, less sure than ever what to make of this girl.
“Where did the cat come from?” Rone glanced again at Whisper, who continued to sleep undisturbed. “How does he disappear like that when he’s so confounded big?”
“Whisper is a moor cat,” the girl explained. “Most such cats live in the swamps in the deep Anar, well east of Darklin Reach and the Ravenshorn. Whisper wandered into Olden Moor, though, when he was still a baby. Cogline found him and brought him here. He had been in a fight with something and was all cut up. We took care of him and he stayed with us. I learned to talk with him.” She looked at Brin. “But not like you do, not singing to him like that. Can you teach me to do that, Brin?”
Brin shook her head gently. “I don’t think so, Kimber. The wishsong was something I was born with.”
“Wishsong,” the girl repeated the word. “That’s very pretty.”
There was a momentary silence. “So how does he disappear the way he does?” Rone asked once again.
“Oh, he doesn’t disappear,” Kimber Boh explained with a laugh. “It just seems that way. The reason you can’t see him sometimes is not because he isn’t there, which he plainly is, but because he can change his body coloring to blend in with the forest—the trees, the rocks, the ground, whatever. He blends in so well that he can’t be seen if you don’t know how to look for him. After you’ve been around him long enough, you learn how to look for him properly.” She paused. “Of course, if he doesn’t wish to be found, then he probably won’t be. That’s part of his defense. It’s become quite a game with grandfather. Whisper disappears and refuses to show himself until grandfather has yelled himself hoarse. Not very fair of him, really, because grandfather’s eyes aren’t as good as they used to be.”
“But he comes for you, I gather.”
“Always. He thinks I am his mother. I nursed him and cared for him when we first brought him back here. We’re so close now that it’s as if we’re parts of the same person. Most of the time, we even seem to be able to sense what each other is thinking.”