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the faint rush of falls. Telemark's footprints led in that direction.
The boy turned along the stream. He made slow progress. The terrain was icy,
crisscrossed with fallen trees jammed in haphazard array against the sides of
the ravine. Jaric stumbled clumsily over dead branches. Worse, the torch
showed the first flickering signs of failure. The boy cursed himself for
neglect-ing to bring along an unlit spare. Telemark's footprints pro-ceeded
through the darkness ahead in a seemingly endless row; if he returned for a
fresh light, all of his search might be in vain.
The splash of the falls grew louder. The flame sputtered against the wind,
reduced to a sullen red glow.
Through the shimmer of falling snow, Jaric made out the densely piled twigs of
a beaver dam. The sight encouraged him. Telemark would have selected such a
location to set beaver traps. Sheltering the light with his body, the boy
hurried anxiously forward. The tracks ended by the edge of an eddy pool. There
the ground lay strangely disturbed, as if a pine branch had been used to sweep
the snow smooth. Jaric drew closer and saw a freshly cut sapling angled
downward into the water's icy depths. He rec-ognized the configuration of a
freshly set beaver trap, and gave the area wide berth. The trap itself would
be set on the stream bottom, its steel ring affixed to the pole well beneath
the surface of the water. But any scent of man's presence would warn off the
intended prey.
Stumbling over the uneven ground, the boy worked his way past the dam. The
bank on the far side lay smooth and white, unmarred by traces of man's
presence. But an exposed band of wet mud showed darkly at the water's edge;
the level of the pond had recently been lowered. Jaric frowned and retraced
his steps. Probably Telemark had pried a break in the dam, then left the
second trap set in wait for an animal to come and mend the damage.
The boy drew abreast of the dam. In the uncertain glimmer of flame which
remained of his cresset, he studied the glistening cross-weave of mud and
twigs which spanned the throat of the gully. The hole, if any existed, was
lost in darkness, and the tangled interlace of branches visible near at hand
offered per-ilous footing for a man with unreliable light. Jaric assessed the
situation and saw he had no choice but to return to camp for a fresh torch,
then seek a safer crossing downstream.
The realization filled him with despair. He clamped his fingers around the
torch shaft and shivered, cold and forlorn in the darkness of Seitforest. The
mournful spill of the falls overlaid the higher-pitched sigh of wind through
the treetops on the ridge. Jaric hesitated and stood listening, as if by sheer
desire he could fathom Telemark's location before the torch died. For an
instant his longing was desperate enough that it seemed the forest itself
paused to share his pain. Suddenly dizziness claimed him. Jaric swayed,
grabbed hold of a tree branch for balance. But the moment of disorientation
lingered, and in the dying glare of the torch he beheld the vision of a
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woman's face.
She was young, perhaps his own age. Hair as black as fine velvet curved softly
over her shoulders and her blue eyes re-garded him levelly from features set
with earnest concern.
Jaric gasped and started back. His hand jerked reflexively, and the torch
guttered, nearly extinguished.
But the girl's face remained in his mind as if her presence locked his very
thoughts in place.
"Do not fear me, Jaric," she pleaded, and the tone of her voice pulled at the
depths of his heart. "I
appear to you as a dream, but I can help you find the one you seek."
"Telemark?" Jaric spoke loudly, startled by the sound of his own voice. The
darkness and wind swallowed his words without echo, and for a second he
thought he heard someone calling from the far side of the stream.
"The man you search for lies beyond the beaver dam," said the girl. "His foot
is wedged, and he is injured. You must go to him at once."
Jaric released his grip on the tree, took a hasty step in the direction of the
dam.
But the girl shook her head impatiently. "No." Her dark hair swirled and her
face abruptly vanished into mist, but her voice lingered in his mind. "You
must cross farther down. Beyond the first trap you will find stones where the
footing is safe."
Jaric roused and discovered himself staring, half dazed, at the surface of the
water. "Who are you?" he demanded aloud.
No answer came to him but the sigh of the wind in the branches. Yet above the
ceaseless spill of the falls, he was now certain he heard Telemark calling his
name. The voice was faint but unmistakable. And if not for the strange
enchantress's sending he might have missed it.
Jaric whirled, sliding in the fresh snow. He plunged down the bank. The
distance to the eddy pool and the first trap seemed longer than he remembered.
Shadows spun and danced under his feet as he moved, and the torch hissed,
fanned to temporary brilliance by the passage of air. The crossing lay as the
en-chantress had promised, a row of flat boulders spanning the dark rush of
current like footings of an incomplete bridge. Jaric felt his palms break into
sweat, shaken by certain evidence; the woman's sending had been something more
than a fancy born of fear and distress. But concern for Telemark drove him
onward without time to spare for thought. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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