He opened the case to check on his guitar, which seemed intact. He raised it and began strumming upon it as he thought. It sounded all right, too.
He might locate a tree that looked more climbable than the giants which surrounded him, he decided, and see whether he could spot a town or a road from higher up. He looked about, without breaking his rhythm. Yes. That appeared to be a good one, a few hundred meters right rear.... He faced forward again and almost missed a beat.
The tiny creature which cavorted before him looked exactly like what it was--a centaur colt. Its small hands moved in time with the rhythm, and it pranced.
Fascinated, he turned his attention to what he was playing, switching to a more complicated righthand style. Softly, he began singing. His wristmark grew warm, throbbed. Shortly, two more of the small creatures emerged from the woods, to join the dancer. As a number of leaves blew by, as he felt they must--as he had half-consciously willed it--he caught these in the net of his playing and swirled them about the laughing child-faces, the rearing pony-bodies. He drew birds to spin after them, and a deer he had somehow known was present to join in the movements which were now taking on a pattern. The day seemed to darken, as he willed it--though it must only have been a cloud passing over the sun--to transform the spectacle into a twilit scene, which somehow struck him as most appropriate.
He played tune after tune, and other creatures came to join in--bounding rabbits, racing squirrels--and somehow he knew that this was right and proper, exactly as it should be, in this place, with him playing, now... He felt as if he might go on forever, building walls of sound and toppling them, dancing in his heart, singing...
He did not become aware of the girl until sometime after her arrival. Slim and fair, clad in blue, she appeared beside a tree, far to the left of the clearing, and stood beneath it, unmoving, watching and listening.
When he did notice her, he nodded, smiled and watched for her reaction. He wished to take no chance of frightening her away, making no sudden movements. When she returned his nod, with a small smile of her own, he stopped playing and placed the instrument back in its case.
The leaves fell, the animals froze for an instant then tore off into the woods. The day brightened.
"Hello," he ventured. "You live around here?"
She nodded.
"I was walking the trail back to my village when I heard you. That was quite beautiful. What do you call that instrument? Is it magic?"
"A guitar," he answered, "and sometimes I think so. My name is Dan. What's yours?"
"Nora," she said. "You're a stranger. Where are you from? Where are you going?"
He snapped the case shut and climbed down to the ground.
"I've come a great distance," he said slowly, seeking the proper sentence patterns, locating words with some hesitation, "just wandering, seeing things. I'd like to see your village."
"You are a minstrel? You play for your keep?"
He hauled down his coat and shook it out, draped it over his arm.
"Yes," he said. "Know anybody who needs one?"
"Maybe... later," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"There have been a number of deaths. No one will be in a festive mood."
"I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps I can find some other employment for a time, while I learn something of this land."
She brightened.
"Yes. I am sure that you could--now."
He picked up the guitar case and moved forward.
"Show me the way," he said.
"All right." She turned and he followed her. "Tell me about your homeland and some of the places you've been."
Best to make something up, he decided, something simple and rural. No telling yet what things are like here. Better yet, get her to talking. Hate to start out sounding like a liar...
"Oh, one place is pretty much like another," he began. "Is this forming country?"
"Yes."
"Well, there you are. So is mine. What sorts of crops do you grow?"
They came to the trail and she led him downward along it. Whenever a bird passed overhead, she looked upward and flinched. After a time, he found himself scanning the skies, also. He was able to direct the conversation all the way into town. By the time they got there, he had learned the story of Mark Marakson.
XI
The old man in the faded blue robe walked the streets of the drowsing city, past darkened storefronts, parked vehicles, spilled trashcans, graffiti that he could not read. His step was slow, his breathing heavy. Periodically, he paused to lean upon his staff or rest against the side of a building.
Slowly, light began to leak through the dark skyline before him, a yellow wave, rising, putting out stars. Far ahead, a shadowy oasis beckoned: trees, stirred by the faintest of morning breezes down a wide thoroughfare.
His stick tapped upon the concrete, more heavily now, as he crossed a side street and negotiated another block with faltering steps. His hand trembled as he reached out to grasp a lamppost. Several vehicles passed as he stood swaying there. When the street was clear, he crossed.
Nearer. It was nearer now, the place where the boughs swayed and the songs of birds rose in the early morning light. He strode clumsily ahead, the faintest of blue flickers occasionally dancing at the tip of his stick. The breeze brought him a weak, flower-like aroma as he bore toward the final corner.
He rested again, breathing heavily, almost gasping now. When he moved to cross this street, his gait was stiff, awkward. Once he fell, but there was no traffic and he recovered and staggered on.
The sky had grown pink beyond the small park which now lay before him. His staff, from which the final light had faded, swung clumsily through a patch of flowers which closed immediately, undisturbed, behind it. He did not hear the faint hiss of the aerosols as he crossed the fake grass to slump against the bole of a standard model mid-town park area tree, but only breathed the fragrance he had hoped might be there, smiling faintly as the breezes bore it to him, eyes following the dance of the butterflies in the still fresh light of the new-risen sun.
His staff slipped from his fingers and his breath came short and rushed as unnumbered mornings past joined with this one to smear all colors and smells into a greater reality which finally told the story he had always wondered at, through to its vision past objects. One of the butterflies, passing too near on its beam, was overtaken by his life's final throb, to settle, fluttering, upon his upturned wrist near to the dragonmark it bore.
With a blare and a rattle, the city came alive about him.
XII
Strange feelings came and went. Each time that they came they were a little stronger; each time they departed some residuum remained. It was difficult to pin them down, Dan thought, as he drove a peg into a fence post, but perhaps they had something to do with the land itself--this place that felt so familiar, so congruent to his tastes....
A cow strayed near, as if to inspect his work.
No, go that way, he willed. Over there, and his wrist felt warm, as with power overflowing, spilling from his fingertips, and the cow obeyed his unspoken command.
...Like that, he decided. It feels right, and I get better at it all the time.
A peg shattered under a hammer blow and a splinter flew toward his face.
Away! he commanded, without thinking.
Reflex-like, something within him moved to stop it, and the fragment sped off to the right....And like that.
He smiled as he finished the work and began collecting his tools. Shadows were growing across the pasture as he looked back along the lengths of fencing he had repaired. It was time to wash, to get ready for the dinner, the performance.