One of these many mornings by the river he shot a wild hen, so common here in their squawking, low-flying flocks that they provided his staple meat. He had only winged the hen and it was not dead when he picked it up. It beat its wings and cried in its piercing bird-voice, "Take—life—take—life—take—" Then he wrung its neck.
The words rang in his mind and would not be silenced. Last time a beast had spoken to him he had been on the threshold of the house of Fear. Somewhere in these lonesome gray hills there were, or had been, men: a group in hiding like Argerd's household, or savage Wanderers who would kill him when they saw his alien eyes, or toolmen who would take him to their Lords as a prisoner or slave. Though at the end of it all he might have to face those Lords, he would find his own way to them, in his own time, and alone. Trust no one, avoid men! He knew his lesson now. Very warily he went that day, alert, so quiet that often the waterbirds that thronged the shores of the river rose up startled almost under his feet.
He crossed no path and saw no sign at all that any human beings dwelt or ever came near the river. But towards the end of the short afternoon a flock of the bronze-green wild fowl rose up ahead of him and flew out over the water all clucking and calling together in a gabble of human words.
A little farther on he stopped, thinking he had scented woodsmoke on the wind.
The wind was blowing upriver to him, from the northwest. He went with double caution. Then as the night rose up among the tree-trunks and blurred the dark reaches of the river, far ahead of him along the brushy, willow-tangled shore a light glimmered, and vanished, and shone again.
It was not fear or even caution that stopped him now, standing in his tracks to stare at that distant glimmer. Aside from his own solitary campfire this was the first light he had seen lit in the wilderness since he had left the Clearing. It moved him very strangely, shining far off there across the dusk.
Patient in his fascination as any forest animal, he waited till full night had come and then made his way slowly and noiselessly along the riverbank, keeping in the shelter of the willows, until he was close enough to see the square of a window yellow with firelight and the peak of the roof above it, snow-rimmed, pine-overhung. Huge over black forest and river Orion stood. The winter night was very cold and silent. Now and then a fleck of dry snow dislodged from a branch drifted down towards the black water and caught the sparkle of the firelight as it fell.
Falk stood gazing at the light in the cabin. He moved a little closer, then stood motionless for a long time.
The door of the cabin creaked open, laying down a fan of gold on the dark ground, stirring up powdery snow in puffs and spangles. "Come on into the light," said a man standing, vulnerable, in the golden oblong of the doorway.
Falk in the darkness of the thickets put his hand on his laser, and made no other movement.
"I mindheard you. I'm a Listener. Come on. Nothing to fear here. Do you speak this tongue?"
Silence.
"I hope you do, because I'm not going to use mind-speech. There's nobody here but me, and you," said the quiet voice. "I hear without trying, as you hear with your ears, and I still hear you out there in the dark. Come and knock if you want to get under a roof for a while."
The door closed.
Falk stood still for some while. Then he crossed the few dark yards to the door of the little cabin, and knocked.
"Come in!"
He opened the door and entered into warmth and light.
An old man, gray hair braided long down his back, knelt at the hearth building up the fire. He did not turn to look at the stranger, but laid his firewood methodically. After a while he said aloud in a slow chant,
The gray head turned at last. The old man was smiling; his narrow, bright eyes looked sidelong at Falk.
In a voice that was hoarse and hesitant because he had not spoken any words for a long time, Falk replied with the next verse of the Old Canon:
"Ha ha ha!" said the old man. "Do you, Yellow-eyes? Come on, sit down, here by the hearth. Outlandish, yes yes, yes indeed. You are outlandish. How far out the land?—who knows? How long since you washed in hot water? Who knows? Where's the damned kettle? Cold tonight in the wide world, isn't it, cold as a traitor's kiss. Here we are; fill that from the pail there by the door, will you, then I'll put it on the fire, so. I'm a Thurro-dowist, you know what that is I see, so you won't get much comfort here. But a hot bath's hot, whether the kettle's boiled with hydrogen fusion or pine-knots, eh? Yes, you really are outlandish, lad, and your clothes could use a bath too, weatherproof though they may be. What's that?—rabbits? Good. We'll stew 'em tomorrow with a vegetable or two. Vegetables are one thing you can't hunt down with a lasergun. And you can't store cabbages in a backpack. I live alone here, my lad, alone and all alonio. Because I am a great, a very great, the greatest Listener, I live alone, and talk too much. I wasn't born here, like a mushroom in the woods; but with other men I never could shut out the minds, all the buzz and grief and babble and worry and all the different ways they went, as if I had to find my way through forty different forests all at once. So I came to live alone in the real forest with only the beasts around me, whose minds are brief and still. No death lies in their thoughts. And no lies lie in their thoughts. Sit down; you've been a long time coming here and your legs are tired."
Falk sat down on the wooden hearth-bench. "I thank you for your hospitality," he said, and was about to name himself when the old man spoke: "Never mind. I can give you plenty of good names, good enough for this part of the world. Yellow Eyes, Outlander, Guest, anything will do. Remember I'm a Listener, not a paraverbalist. I get no words or names. I don't want them. That there was a lonely soul out there in the dark, I knew, and I know how my lighted window shone into your eyes. Isn't that enough, more than enough? I don't need names. And my name is All-Alonio. Right? Now pull up to the fire, get warm."
"I'm getting warm," FaIk said.
The old man's gray braid flipped across his shoulders as he moved about, quick and frail, his soft voice running on; he never asked a real question, never paused for an answer. He was fearless and it was impossible to fear him.
Now all the days and nights of journeying through the forest drew together and were behind Falk. He was not camping: he had come to a place. He need not think at all about the weather, the dark, the stars and beasts and trees. He could sit stretching out his legs to a bright hearth, could eat in company with another, could bathe in front of the fire in a wooden tub of hot water. He did not know which was the greater pleasure, the warmth of that water washing dirt and weariness away, or the warmth that washed his spirit here, the absurd elusive vivid talk of the old man, the miraculous complexity of human conversation after the long silence of the wilderness.