"It does been a long time since we last did have guests for dinner," said Darris happily as Miriam cleared the table. "Folks don't move around much any more, except those that move out altogether." He shook his head sadly. "Dark days we be coming to, aye, and no mistake. People be scared. In the years after the war, the forest felt almost safe. There were always goblins, buglins, even shologs, and we always had to be on guard against them, but we humans always had the upper hand. We could always band together, a few good men from each town, and drive them away. But just lately they've been growing bolder, like they be knowing things are changing, going more their way." He shook his head again. "I were only a lad in the days before the war, but I remember it were the same back then, everyone talking about the old days when the forest had been safer. It be like the wheel's turned full circle and we be right back where we started."

     "You think there's another war coming?" asked Lirenna.

     Darris looked at her. "All I know is there be twice the number of shologs in these parts than there were five years ago, and only half the humans. The empire says its, what did he say, mum? That fancy soldier who stopped off here back in the winter?"

     "He said it were a 'natural population fluctuation'" said Miriam, almost spitting the words. "Said it were only natural their numbers should rise, and it were our fault we weren't killing them fast enough."

     "We've been killing them faster than we ever have and their numbers still rise," said Darris, looking disgusted.

     "There was a soldier of the empire here?" asked the demi shae.

     "Belthar sends the occasional patrol out here, just to keep an eye on things," said Thomas. "They keep small garrisons in some of the larger towns. They pay for their keep by hunting down outlaws and bandits. Everybody's happy."

     "But way out here, we be having to look after ourselves," said Darris. "No soldiers here to fight the snouts for us."

     "Have you ever seen a sholog?" asked Thomas.

     There was a shine of excitement in his eyes that made the woodsman laugh out loud. "You be a softlander all right, meaning no offence," he said. "No-one but a softlander would want to see one of them great bastards. Yes, I've seen my fair share, I reckon. Turned their furs into rugs and sold them in Leverton, that's the nearest town. And if you've never seen one then you should give thanks to all the Gods there be, because there's not a stronger, more vicious, more evil son of a bitch to be found in all the world, and if there really are more of them these days, then I don't mind admitting that it scares me silly, but I won't leave my home. I was born here, and by all the Gods I'll die here too."

     And your wife and children too, thought Thomas, but he didn't say it. These people knew they were wizards but had accepted them nevertheless. He wasn't going to say anything that might upset them. "Shologs fight each other all the time," he said, remembering his comparative culture classes. "Maybe they'll keep their own numbers down. And even if their numbers are rising, that doesn't mean there's another war coming. The old enemy was defeated thirty years ago. They haven't dared set foot out of the Shadow since."

     "I hope you be right, lad," said Darris with feeling, "because I remember the last war, though I were just a lad, and..." He let the sentence hang and Thomas could only nod soberly, remembering his father's recollections as a defender of Andor. He hadn't said much, not believing it a proper subject for the little boy Thomas had been at the time, but even then Thomas had been bright enough to read the horror in his voice and see the pain in his eyes. It was all very well to say they'd never dare attack again, but the fact remained that the Shadow was still there, shielding the land of the enemy. Preventing the victorious armies of civilization from entering and rooting them out. And so long as the evil remained, the threat remained, and here, in the Overgreen Forest, they were so close. So dangerously, terrifyingly close...


☆☆☆


     Jerry remained unconscious all the rest of the evening and still hadn't woken up when the family was preparing for bed. Lirenna stayed by his side all through the night, watching over him, the shae folk being able to go for long periods without sleep, and Thomas joined her at intervals, whenever his gnawing sense of guilt at sleeping while she stayed awake woke him up. The next morning Miriam and Lirenna stayed by his side, looking after him, while Thomas helped Darris with some of the household tasks. Nothing too strenuous, as he was still weak and wobbly from nearly drowning, but he was still able to do some of the lighter work, freeing the woodsman to concentrate on the heavier labour.

     Darris looked up from time to time to grin in amusement at the wizard staring ruefully down at his dirty hands. Getting some blisters, my lad? he thought. First time in yer life, I'll bet! It wasn't an unkind thought, though, and when he saw him wobbling with dizziness and leaning against the woodpile for support he sent him back inside, to sit down and rest for a while.

     At around midday, Darris’s son Ralph returned from the village with Father Tikram, the local cleric. He wore loose brown woolen robes tied around the waist with a length of crimson cord and had a large hood hanging around his neck. On a chain around his neck was a silver flower whose six petals curved around the cluster of stamens like a wine glass. It was a caroli flower, whose bulb was used in a variety of folk remedies, and it was the symbol of Caroli, the Goddess of Healing.

     He examined Jerry carefully, prodding his body and lifting his limbs to test every joint, and when he was satisfied that he'd suffered no broken bones he placed his hands on the nome's chest and said a prayer over him, beseeching the Lady of Healing to intervene and speed his recovery. The prayer, coupled with the faith of the cleric, opened a channel to the Goddess, allowing some of Her holy power to flow through his body and into the nome, where it sought out the damaged tissues and organs and miraculously restored them to their healthy condition. Jerry woke up almost immediately, looking surprised and demanding to know where he was and what had happened. Satisfied, the cleric turned to Lirenna. "Now then, let's have a look at you."

     "I'm all right, really," said the demi shae, but she offered her arm and the cleric gently unwrapped the bandages to look at the injury. She felt a thrill of excitement at what was about to happen to her. She'd only been miraculously healed once before when, as a young child, she'd fallen ill with shepherd's shivers, but she still remembered the energising rush as the power swept through her, destroying the microbes that had invaded her body and repairing the damage they'd done to her nerves.

     She remembered how scared she'd been at first as the strange man had bent over her, reaching out with his cold, dry hands, and she'd started to cry, but the cleric had spoken gently to her, using the soothing voice that the Lady of Healing granted Her worshippers and that allowed them to calm the fears and moderate the emotions of others. He'd promised that he wouldn't hurt her, that he wanted only to help, and she'd felt her fears ebbing away, so that when he reached out to her again she'd allowed him to touch her. A moment later the holy power had flooded through her, leaving her feeling stronger and healthier than she could ever remember feeling before, and she'd begged him to do it again, making him laugh as he made his way to leave. Everyone who'd ever been healed by a cleric of Caroli longed to experience the feeling again, and Lirenna found herself almost thanking the circumstances that had almost cost them their lives.

     The cleric examined the damaged joint. None of her bones had been broken, but her elbow had been twisted the wrong way in the impact, tearing the tendons, which might remain weak for the rest of her life if allowed to heal naturally. He began to pray to the Goddess, opening the conduit to the higher dimension where the Lady of Healing had her existence, and the holy power began to flow through him again with that special warm, tingly feeling that he never got used to no matter how many times he experienced it.

     Lirenna stared in wonder as she felt tendons and sinews knitting themselves together, and then she gasped as the glorious feeling of healthy wellbeing swept over her, washing away her fatigue and the remaining fugginess in her head. Once again she felt better than she'd ever felt before and she almost cried out in sheer joy. She ran over to a mirror and cried out in delight to see that all the cuts and bruises on her face had vanished, along with an ache in her leg where the impact with the water had twisted the joint. "Thank you," she said, restraining an impulse to give him a hard hug. Invading another person's personal space like that wouldn't have been polite, although the man probably wouldn't have minded. "Thank you," she simply said again, therefore.

     "Don't thank me," said Tikram, smiling. "Thank the Lady Caroli, whose power healed you, and next time you're near a temple go in and make a small donation."

     "I will," said Lirenna earnestly. "I promise."

     Father Tikram advised that Jerry spend the rest of the day resting, and Darris said that all three wizards would, of course, be staying the night, as would the cleric himself, of course, as Leverton was too far away for him to get back before nightfall. To earn their keep, Thomas used his magical invisible servant to do some housework for them. He sent it to chop some firewood while Darris and his sons watched in fascination, and the wizard discovered that the spell’s strength was about equal to his own. The spell also seemed to draw strength from his body, as his teachers had warned him it might, and after a while his arms were aching as though he were wielding the axe with his own hands, forcing him to stop before the spell’s duration had expired. The woodsman seemed well pleased with the pile of firewood he'd made, but he stared suspiciously as the axe as if afraid it might come back to life and attack him. He reached out gingerly to touch it, then grinned at his own foolishness when nothing happened. Thomas forced his face to remain expressionless, not wanting to give offence by looking amused by the man's superstitious fears.

     Tikram had also been watching, but with a frown on his face. He distrusted wizardry, having painful memories of another innocent young man, fresh out of Lexandria, who'd been corrupted by its power, becoming cruel and uncaring and eventually hated by his neighbours worse than the forest creatures he'd originally sworn to defend them against. Tikram still bore strong feelings of guilt that he hadn't done more to keep him on the right road, that he'd let the young man down. With these three, maybe Caroli was giving him another chance. He knew that they'd be in dire need of spiritual guidance over the next few years, to protect them from the temptations of power, and if he could persuade them to return to his own village in the morning, perhaps he could give it to them.

     He broached the subject that evening, as they and Darris’s family sat around the living room fire, the two boys sitting on chairs brought in from the kitchen. It was rather cramped and crowded, but in a nice, snug way that led to the wizards feeling comfortable and relaxed, rather than the alternative. The wizards told the others about University life, to which they listened with the same fascination as if he were describing life on another world, but as the windows darkened and Tarrin crossed the room to shut the blinds Tikram turned the conversation in the direction he wanted.

     He repeated Darris’s observations on the rise of evil in the forest. He suggested that, with people growing more afraid of what might be coming, three wizards would be very welcome in his town, where they could use their power in its defence. Thomas laughed at the suggestion, though, pointing out that they were at the very beginning of their careers and had virtually no power to speak of.

     "But your presence there would be a boost to morale," the cleric replied, and added that people who might have left might instead decide to stay. Everyone would go about their lives with greater confidence, an attitude that would communicate itself to whatever was out there and make them think twice about bothering the town. "Word that there're wizards in the area soon gets about," he said, "and there're plenty of other towns not so fortunate. Even shologs, who like a good fight, will go elsewhere rather than risk an ignominious death by magic spell, with no chance to die in glorious battle. They'll never get close enough to find out how lacking in power you really are." He searched their faces, and called upon all the persuasive power he possessed to bring them around. "You'd be big people in our town. Important people." But I'll make sure your feet stay rooted firmly to the ground, he thought. I won't let your fame and popularity go to your heads.

     Thomas was firmly determined to go home, to Ilandia, though, and if he was going to settle somewhere else, it wouldn't be some middle of nowhere forest town. It would be a big city, with other wizards. Older, more powerful wizards, within easy travel with whom he could continue to study and learn. Lirenna was equally untempted by the cleric's offer, being eager to see Haven again. Only Jerry was really tempted, and if he'd been older and already seen the world he might very well have accepted, but he wanted to travel first. His ambition was to visit every country in the world, see its cities, speak with its peoples, and so he also politely declined the cleric's offer.

     Tikram was disappointed, but didn't let it show on his face. It was their lives, their choice to make, and he had no choice but to accept their decision. He couldn't abandon his responsibility to them that easily, though, and so he raised the subject again that evening, in his bedside prayers. He asked his Goddess to provide them with some other kind of spiritual guidance, something to keep them on the straight and narrow in the years ahead. "I sense the potential within them," he told Her, standing and speaking plainly, as if to someone standing there in the room with him. "The potential to become powers for good in the world, but also the potential for evil if it is allowed to remain unguided. It would be a tragedy if they went the same way as poor Martellen. I beg You to give them the help they need, to achieve what I sense is within their ability to achieve, for I believe we will need such people, to fight the evil I sense growing in the Shadow. Please, my Lady. I know that You know, far better than I do, what the world needs, and that they may have destinies& beyond my ability to know, but please help them anyway. I beg You."

     There was no reply, there rarely was. The Goddess rarely spoke directly to Her worshippers, preferring to make Her will known in signs and dreams, but he knew nevertheless that he'd been heard, and he had the very strong impression that his request had been favourably received.