“It is always so, Keera, at this time of the evening,” Caliphestros says aloud, startling her; for he has made not the slightest move to turn in her direction. “It is hatching season, and the dog-owls are on the watch for ravens and hawks that would take their little ones, or younger owls who would usurp their domains. There is a pair who have returned to the hollow of a large maple tree just above this cave for as long as I have been in the Wood, and the male has only heightened his defiance of all enemies, over the years.” For the time, this is the explanation that Keera must agree to; although not without her own ploys of conversation:
“An unusually long time for a male dog-owl, much less a couple, to have survived and bred yearly in the same nest, my lord,” Keera says, allowing suspicion to taint her words.
“Blasted creatures,” Heldo-Bah grunts, scratching at his groin and arse with one hand and his head with the other, and presenting an appearance that would be merely comical, were it not so vile. “Dog-owls! The most unpleasant way in the world to be woken …” He holds a hand up to Keera quickly. “And yet, I know, we must respect all owls, Keera — for they are mystical heralds of the Moon …”
“So they are,” Keera replies sternly, “and you are wise to withdraw one of your own blasphemous outcries, at last. For the Moon despises those who mock or abuse her night-flyers, and demands that such fools be tormented severely — and promptly.”
“You would think that the Moon would have tired of tormenting me long ago,” Heldo-Bah mumbles.
Within an hour, the foragers have helped Caliphestros tidy, seal off, and disguise the entrance to what he insists is “Stasi’s cave.” Heldo Bah watches as the tracker and Veloc assist Caliphestros in taking his place atop Stasi’s back, his own smaller bags over his shoulders and causing, at first, unaccustomed problems of balance for both rider and beast. But this is a problem quickly resolved, and after it has been, Caliphestros and Stasi bid a brief farewell to the dwelling and grounds that have for so long been considered both mythical and mystical, not only among the Bane, but among those Tall who have heard the rumors of their existence. After this, the little troop that carries the hopes of the Bane tribe, in the form of books and instruments that the foragers cannot begin to read or comprehend, finally gets under way.
Not, however, at the speed that Caliphestros had insisted to the foragers would be necessary — not initially, at any rate. Instead, the old man explains that one additional leave-taking is necessary. So earnest and even grave is his manner, when he makes this statement, that even Heldo-Bah offers neither opinion nor argument; instead, when Caliphestros requests ignition for a small torch he produces after getting atop Stasi, the gap-toothed Bane quickly produces a flint and his gutting knife, using the blunt side of the heavy blade to strike the stone and, after several attempts, obliging the old man. Then, at no more than a steady if brisk walk, the travelers make their way farther west, to an icy feeder stream that, Caliphestros tells his new allies, has often been his quickest source of relief from the persistent agonies of his wounds; but the old man indicates silence again as the party start downhill in a northerly direction, along a worn path next to the stream, walking for some minutes before they reach a small clearing, where the slope of the mountainside levels for a short distance. Apparently, this is their destination: Stasi takes Caliphestros to a fallen tree on the eastern edge of the level clearing, and gently dips her forelegs and turns her neck so that he can take a seat upon it, without being forced to strap himself back into his walking apparatus. The three Bane, in the meantime, look about, by the light of Caliphestros’s wavering torch, in utter bewilderment.
As they do, Stasi slowly walks toward what appear to be two burial mounds at the center of the clearing, while Caliphestros urges the foragers to keep well back. And when Keera asks what is taking place, he begins to tell the tale that he has assembled, bit by bit, of Stasi’s murdered children, explaining that the mounds before them are the final resting places of two of her cubs — the pair that were speared and trampled to death by Broken hunters and their servants, in full view of their wounded mother, and left to rot. Caliphestros speaks so passionately, for the first time since meeting the three Bane, that it quickly becomes apparent to the foragers that, if anyone in the seemingly impossible friendship between mutilated man and powerful beast is “enthralled,” it is the supposèd sorcerer himself, and not the panther, as the foragers initially believed.
Hearing the hideous tale of brutal murder naturally deepens Keera’s profound sympathy for the panther; and when she sees Stasi climb a nearby rocky ledge, and then begin to issue the long, low cry that seems a summons, not only to her stolen children, but to the spirits of those whose bones lie under the mounds of stone and Earth that are now before her, Keera is moved enough to approach the creature (something that Caliphestros has never dared, at such moments, out of respect for Stasi’s grief). And then, before the eyes of the three men, some shielded path of communication between the two females, a path that had been indicated earlier in the day, now opens fully, plainly apparent for even Heldo-Bah to see. Keera mounts the rocks, puts her own head to the panther’s neck, and with her looks up and northeasterly to see:
“Broken,” the tracker announces to the others. “She can see the accursèd city from this spot — as can I …”
For long moments, only the night creatures of Davon Wood are audible in the little clearing; and despite the impatience of Heldo-Bah, Caliphestros makes certain that none of the three men say or do anything to interrupt the deepening of the remarkable bond between what are now the two leaders of the newly reshaped woodland party, Keera and Stasi. Only when that pair descend from the rocks willingly and take up their respective burdens does the group set out again.
{v:}
The party reaches the rocky gorges of the upper Cat’s Paw before the creeping indigo of dawn has even begun to transform the sky — a sky that is once more fully visible in broad, Moonlit swaths, between the overhanging branches of the trees that so desperately grasp the rocks on both sides of the ever-furious river. Once on those rocks, both Keera and Stasi slow their steps for the first time, respecting the danger of the slippery shelves of flat, massive stone that, when covered with leaves and moss, set perhaps the deadliest series of natural traps in the already lethal Wood.
This slackening of pace offers a new opportunity for conversation; and Veloc, attempting to impress Caliphestros with his historian’s skills, courteously asks the old man to explain the most essential facts of his long and interesting life, that the handsome, ambitious Bane may begin the composition of a Heldenspele,† the heroic narratives that are passed from generation to generation of Bane historians, to ensure that the tribe never loses its unity, as well as its unique sense of itself. Bane children can best learn their place in the world, Veloc explains, by hearing the songs and stories, not only of the tribe’s own heroes, but of those outsiders who have occasionally allied themselves with the tribe. Caliphestros is plainly flattered: it has been a very long time since the old man experienced the sensation of being appreciated by a society of human beings of any kind. And so, he agrees to Veloc’s request — despite his awareness that such compliance will open the way for a new onslaught of dubious observations from Heldo-Bah.
And Heldo-Bah does not disappoint. Following the old man’s cautiously limited but honest recitation of the start of his long life’s tale to Veloc, the skeptical Bane undertakes to dispel at least some of the aura surrounding the legendary man who travels with them.