Immediately, there was a hand clasped about her wrist, cool and strong. The girl darted forward, carrying Parivrit along with her perforce.

“Who are you?” Parivrit gasped, trying to keep up.

A clash of merry laughter greeted her question. “Keep up, keep up! Don’t ask a dryad her name!”

Trees whirled by as the dryad pulled Parivrit faster and faster, and she wondered how they weren’t hitting anything – no branches, leaves, or trunks smashed into her, though they were travelling faster than any horse she had ever been on. She began to feel queasy, and closed her eyes, praying incoherently that it would be over soon.

A sudden blast of cooler air smacked her in the face, and involuntarily she flinched. All movement abruptly ceased, and she was left swaying sickly in a space that somehow felt wide open and exposed. She dared to open one eye, then the other, and saw a field of pale grass stretching out seemingly endlessly before her, hazy in the setting sun. She wanted to scuttle back into the forest, which felt safer.

The dryad. Where was she? Parivrit whirled around, and caught the wave of a slender hand as the girl disappeared back into the leaves. “Goodbye! Don’t forget!” came faintly back.

Don’t forget. Parivrit firmed her lips. She might have forgotten her own name, her own past, but this she would remember. Turning back to the endless plains, she marked the position of the sun and forged forward into the long grass.

Before long she was far out among the swaying stems, hip deep in tasselled seed heads. A slightly wobbly track of trampled stems marked her path, and the forest was little more than a smudge staining the far horizon. The sun had set, leeching much of the day’s warmth with it, and masses of stars, unfamiliar and cold, splashed the dark sky above.

Parivrit wondered if the moon would rise. Did this place have a moon? Should she stop for the night, or keep going? Her feet ached; she had no idea how far she had come but her body said ‘too far’. She stopped, turning in a slow circle, and saw nothing that looked like shelter.

Or water. As if awakening from a trance, she realised her lips and tongue were parched, and her belly added a rolling growl to the litany of complaints her body had. She wrapped both arms around her middle, as if that would still the hunger, and turned again.

Barely a hundred yards off, dim in the starlight, a timber-frame building loomed. Parivrit had no idea how she could have missed it before. Several windows cast faint light into the field, which now seemed to end a few feet from the building. She forged her way toward the light, wondering if she could possibly be lucky enough to be helped a third time in this strange land.

Maybe they followed her own customs and turned no man away.

She had to stop at the edge of the grass and examine that thought. Her customs? What customs? Obviously a custom of hospitality, and since the thought stood out obviously there were places where such a thought did not run. Were there other customs she could bring to mind? How did she know about that custom?

Another embarrassing and painful gurgle derailed that train of thought. Parivrit strode with all the confidence she could muster up to the door and knocked firmly. She could hear no sound from within, and glanced up at the sky worriedly. Perhaps it was too late and no one was awake to hear her? Or worse, perhaps she disturbed someone, who would then be angry.

Another one of those faint memory echoes suggested that having the person who lived here angry with her could be a very bad thing, and she began to feel frightened. The door opened a crack, and without waiting to see who, or what, answered, Parivrit offered a low bow. “Greetings, sir or madam,” she began.

A flood of firelight spilled over her as the door opened wide. “Gracious, child, get in here,” a gruff voice exclaimed. “It’s no kind of night for folks to be out without protection.”

Parivrit was only too glad to comply. The wooden floor beneath her bare feet was sanded silk-smooth, gleaming darkly in the firelight. The whole building was a single room, high-ceilinged and supported by gigantic crossbeams. A large fire, somehow supported off the floor, filled the room with light as a cup is filled with water, illuminating webs of intricate and detailed carvings covering seemingly every surface but the floor. One single wall, across from the door, was lined with scroll cubbies to the ceiling, with a precious few bound volumes, huge and faintly gleaming, sprinkled among them. A ladder leaned in one corner.

Parivrit turned to thank her benefactor, offering another bow. It turned out to be a tall, but stooped old man, sporting a thin white beard and tiny round lenses somehow perched on his nose. More white hair, turned yellow by the firelight, flowed over the shoulders of the sleeveless tunic he wore. He smiled gently and reached out to pat her on the shoulder.

“I almost forgot you were coming, child. These old thoughts don’t work so well any more, you know.” He urged her over closer to the fire, where there was a bench, well-padded with cushions. “Come along, let’s get you some food and you can sit down and let me tend to those feet.”

She allowed herself to be pushed down into the pile of cushions, and heaved an unintended sigh as soon as she sat down. With her weight off them, her legs began to ache with a vengeance, and she bit her lip and fought not to tense up.

The old man bustled about at a cupboard, and returned with a stone jar, which turned out to be full of some kind of sharp-smelling pale ointment. He offered it to her first, and she shook her head, too busy trying not to cry. How far had she walked, anyway? So he scooped a fingerful out of the jar and smeared it across the bottom of her right foot.

Parivrit closed her eyes against the sense of relief that overcame her. Where the ointment touched, the pain vanished, to be replaced by … nothing. She had to open her eyes to make sure her foot was still there. More and more of her legs seemed to vanish from her awareness as the old man worked his way up.

She would have been frightened, but with the cessation of pain came a floating detachment, a muzzy mental numbness that came between her and all emotions. She gazed into the firelight and drifted, seeing fantastic shapes form out of the flames. When the old man brought her a piece of bread laden with pale honey she smiled child-like up at him, forgetting everything the day had brought.

Hadn’t she been here forever?

“You can’t stay here, you know, child,” the old man said, settling down on another bench opposite hers and stretching his feet to the fire with a sigh of his own. Parivrit blinked, shocked out of reverie, and glanced down at the half-eaten slice. A smear of honey decorated one finger.

“Please, sir, I just wanted to stop for the night. I will be on my way in the morning.”

“Do you know where you’re going, child?” His voice was kindly, but the twinkle in his eyes – the blue of cobalt, she noticed suddenly – was disconcertingly sharp.

Parivrit blushed, and saved herself from answering by taking a large bite. A knowing smile crossed the old man’s face. “Of course not; and why should you?” He shook his head. “Just once, I wish that the Folk would think before they prey on humans,” he grumbled.

Parivrit frowned, wondering if she was supposed to hear that. “Prey?”

She didn’t realise she’d spoken out loud until he answered, “You can’t remember who you are, can you?” She shook her head slowly.

Fixing her eyes on his, she leaned forward. “Do you know who I am, sir?” Until just now, it hadn’t mattered; the world was beautiful and no harm had come to her. What need a name, the self? But prey. She didn’t want to be prey, and now it mattered.

He cackled. “Call me Vidatha, child. Oh, I know quite well who you are! Such a stir as you have caused in the great court already; all those who live in the lands of the Folk hereabouts know who you are. You’ve had help getting this far already,” he [clambered] to his feet, “and I’m here to set you on your further path.”

Vidatha. Scholar, she knew, though she couldn’t remember how she knew. That explained the scrolls. “Path, s—Vidatha?”

He ambled into the smoky haze near the wall of scrolls, but she could still hear him as clearly as when he was sitting across from her. “Eat that bread now, child. No sense starving yourself any more.” She could hear him muttering under his breath as he searched the scrolls. “Aha!” He plucked two scrolls from their cubbies and strode back toward her, somehow seeming much more spry abruptly.

“Now. I can’t answer all your questions, but I can answer some of them, and some answers you’ll need to know before I let you leave. Finish the bread.” He swept cushions off the bench and unrolled one scroll over the wood, pointing a finger at it firmly. “Stay.”

Obediently, Parivrit bit into the bread and honey, and watched the scroll obey his commands as willingly. A map lay in clear, colourful lines across the parchment, and she hunched over to peer more closely at it. It lay open to her gaze without any hand pressing it down.

Vidatha put one finger on a point near the far edge of the map. A wide swathe of green swept in a half-moon nearby, curving protectively around a wider patch of paler wheat colour. “Tonight, we are here.” Moving his finger across the map, he touched a star, which was nestled in encircling hills and backed by mountains. “This is the Court of the Fair Folk. You must avoid this place. Even armed with what I can give you, and what others may offer on the course of your journey, you’re no match for the combined wills of the Folk and their king.” Again, his eyes, bright in the firelight, were fixed on her. Parivrit nodded.

“Avoid the Court in the foothills of the mountains,” she repeated.

Another mark, equidistant from both previous locations, and on the far side of a spur of the mountains, he touched. “Here is where you must go. This is the home of [witch], the Sorceress. She is the only one with the power to challenge the king and his Court right now, and the only one who can truly help you. The rest of us may assist you on your way and guide you, but no one else in the lands can give you the assistance she can.”