I was distracted from his words, for I felt another subtle presence. Tree Woman was not far from where we stood. Someone else’s sorrow washed through me and I suddenly longed to visit the stump of her tree, to feel for a time her presence, dwindled as it was.

“Walk down with me,” he said, and I flinched as if awakening from a dream. “Ask your question of the eldest ones.”

“Down where?”

“There.” In the dimness, he pointed at the valley and the road arrowing into it. Without waiting for my answer, he started out, and I found myself following him.

At first there was no path and the going was steep, but Jodoli soon struck a game trail that led us at a slant across the face of the steep hill and down into the valley. I followed him into the deeper darkness under the trees. The moon became a silver memory, and I was surprised at how my eyes adjusted to the darkness. As I followed Jodoli, I noticed a strange thing. For a large fellow, he moved swiftly and was very light on his feet. There was no ponderous sway or heavy tread to his progress. I could hear him breathing through his nose as he hurried along, and I was impressed with how fleetly he moved without tiring.

Then it came to me that I was keeping pace with him. It occurred to me to wonder at how quickly I had moved in my sleep to pass from my cabin to the Tree Woman’s ridge in the dark of night. I wondered briefly if we were truly there at all, or if I was walking, not in my sleep, but through a dream of this place.

My impression of unreality was heightened as I became aware of whispers in the stillness. Voices were quietly conversing in the distance. I would have put it down to the soft rustling of leaves, except that there was no breeze and the sounds followed the cadence of speech. I strained to hear what they were saying, but could not pick out individual words, only a tone of worry and anger. As we reached the valley floor and began to move in the darkness of the true forest giants, the whispers grew louder. I suspected that Jodoli was taking me toward a gathering of Specks at the end of the road. I wondered what he intended. I did not wish to be the sole Gernian in a mob of angry Specks. I slowed my steps. “Where are they?” I demanded of him. “I hear them whispering. How many of them are there?”

He halted and looked back at me, puzzled. “They are, as you see, all around us. I have never thought to try to count them.” He took a step or two back toward me, and now I could see envy plain on his face. “You can hear them already? Without touching them?”

“I hear whispers. I can’t make out the words, but I can hear them whispering.”

For a moment he was silent. Then I heard him sigh. “Olikea was right. You are full of the magic, and will always be a more powerful mage than I could ever hope to become. I hear nothing yet. And it has always taken all of my concentration and used up much of my magic to listen for long. Sometimes Firada rebukes me for this, for twice I have used so much magic that I have fainted, and she has had to come searching for me, to find me with my skin lying loose around me. Then she must feed me for days to restore my strength. She says I do no good for my people just by listening and that I waste the magic she labors to build in me. But I think that first I must listen if I am to learn the wisdom of my elders.”

“Then you could use up so much magic that you wouldn’t be fat anymore?” I asked him, and held my breath to hear his answer. He turned and started walking again. I followed. He spoke over his shoulder.

“There are tales of it happening to Great Ones in the old days of war with the Plains people. You can die from loss of magic, just as you can die from loss of blood. But it seldom happens to us without the mage knowing exactly what he is doing. It takes a great deal of will to burn every bit of magic out of yourself. A mage would have to push past pain and exhaustion to do it. Ordinarily the mage would lose consciousness before he was completely dead. Then his feeder could revive him if she were nearby. If not, the Great One might still perish. That was why Firada was angry with me. She has invested much of her time in me. I have not managed to give her a daughter. She says that if I die of my own foolishness, she will not even bother to haul my body to a tree. That is how angry she becomes. Even when I tell her that I think this is what the magic wishes of me, she remains angry. She says that I should be content to do only what the magic forces me to do rather than seeking out its will. Sometimes,” and here he turned to flash me a liar’s grin, “I wonder if I would not have been better off with the younger sister? But of course, I do not ask Firada this! There is enough rivalry between those two to start a war. Some even say that Olikea would not even have taken you on except that she so longed to say that her Great One was larger than her sister’s.”