They slept on straw ticks on the floor that night. Lothar offered them his bed in the loft, but Moira declined politely. Before retiring, she took the poultice, which had been simmering in the pot, wrapped it in a clean cloth, and tied it about her knee. She turned her back while she did so and Wiz tried not to look.
By the next morning the swelling had vanished. She did several deep knee bends and pronounced herself healed.
"Lady, if we could get you back to my world, you could make a fortune as a team doctor for the NFL," Wiz told her. She cocked an eyebrow but did not ask for an explanation.
Lothar insisted on feeding them a breakfast of flatbread, sausage and beer before they left. Both he and Moira were obviously uncomfortable, but Moira thanked him kindly and Lothar gave them some dried fruit and parched grain to add to the supplies.
It had stopped raining and the sun was shining brightly. As they left the clearing, Wiz noticed a detail he had missed the night before. Four mounds of earth, one large and three much smaller, neatly laid out next to the cabin and enclosed by rude rail fence.
Moira saw him looking at the three small graves. "They only count the children who live," she said.
Once out of the clearing, they angled away from the path they had taken the day before. The woods were still sodden, but there were no rivulets to cross and, except in the shadiest places, things seemed to be drying rapidly.
Whether because the footing was still somewhat uncertain or to spare her knee, Moira did not walk as fast.
"What happened back there anyway?" Wiz asked when the clearing was lost from sight.
"What do you mean?"
"Between you and Lothar. Everything started out all right, then—boom—it was like you’d bumped into your ex at a cocktail party."
"My ex at a… ?"
"I mean you both got real cold and distant," he amended.
"Was it that obvious? Moira sighed. "I tried to conceal it. He gave us shelter and aid when we needed it and that is no small thing in the Wild Wood. I should have tried harder to be gracious."
"Yeah, but why?"
"Because he is a fool!" Moira snapped. "There is no place in the wild wood for mortals, Sparrow. Only fools try to live here and they fail."
"I guess it was rough at first, but he seems to be doing all right now."
"Yes. Because he bartered away his daughter."
"What?"
"You heard the child. His daughter has been given to the elves in trade for the safety of his miserable farm!"
"He traded his daughter to the elves?"
"Life in the Wild Wood is hard for those who have little magic." She smiled a little bitterly. "Call it a ’fostering.’ That puts a better face upon it."
"What did they want with her?"
"As the little one said. She is a nursemaid to an elven infant." Moira’s face softened. "Elves seldom have young. That must have been an event beneath the Elf Hill."
"Wait a minute," Wiz protested. "She wasn’t… ah, I mean she wasn’t married when she went, was she?"
"You mean was she unspoiled? Probably. Elves prefer virgin’s milk when they can get it."
"But how… ? Oh, magic. Never mind."
They walked on a bit in silence. "What a fate. Locked under a hill forever."
"It has its compensations. The elves are kind enough in their unhuman fashion. They do not mistreat their servants."
"But to spend your whole life like that!"
"No," Moira said. "Time passes oddly under the hill. Someday, when the elf child needs her no longer, she will emerge as young as when she went in." She sobered. "Of course that stead will likely long be dust by then and there will be none who know her. That is the cruelest fate."
"Yeah," Wiz said, thinking of the graves. "I’m not sure living in safety is worth what it cost Lothar."
"The price has only been partly paid." Moira made a face. "Wait. As the children grow up they will go one by one to drudge for the elves. Plague, murrain, raids by trolls or others. There will always be another need and Lothar will always return to the elf hill to seek aid."
Wiz was shocked. "Doesn’t Lothar realize that?"
"Not he," she said contemptuously. "I have seen his kind before. He hopes long and hard that something will happen. Like most mortals he lives for today and puts off the reckoning as long as he may." She increased her pace.
"It is an old, old story, Sparrow. As farms get smaller and the soil wears out within the Fringe there have always been those who sought to go beyond it to carve out new homes. But the Wild Wood is not for mortals. It is a place full of Magic, given to others, and mortals violate it at their peril."
"Well, why not? My whole country was a howling wilderness once and we settled it."
"Because the magic in the Wild Wood is too strong, Sparrow. Within the Fringe the hedge witches and other orders can stand between the World’s magic and people. Beyond the Fringe there is too much powerful magic. If we were to make the attempt we would only be swept away and our people with us. Believe me Sparrow, it has been tried and it has never worked. The Fringe is this limit of lands where mortals can live."
"Umm," said Wiz again and shifted his pack.
"What did Lothar mean when he said his grandfather knew this place?" he said after they had walked a bit more.
Moira snorted. "He was probably making it up. I doubt his grandfather ever came within a weeks journey of that stead."
"But men did live in the Wild Wood once, didn’t they?"
"Parts of it, yes."
"Why did they leave?"
"Because they were fools like that man," Moira snapped. "Because they went where they should not and paid the penalty for it! Now save your breath for walking." She lengthened her stride and left him staring at her back.
They’re being pushed back, Wiz thought as he struggled to keep up with the hedge witch. This whole area was inhabited once and the people have been forced out. The Wild Wood was creeping into the Fringe like the African desert creeps south in drought. And the results were the same. The people either moved or died.
Would the rains ever come to turn back the Wild Wood? Wiz wondered. Moira’s reaction hinted she didn’t think so. When magic became too strong people could no longer co-exist with it and they had to leave. The part of the world where humans could live was shrinking under the pressure of magic.
Wiz shook his head. All his life he had been taught that wilderness needed protection from encroaching humans. Here the humans were the ones who needed protecting.
Wiz wondered if the trolls, elves and other magical creatures would establish preserves for humans. Somehow he didn’t think so.
Five
Night Flight
"Have you found them then?" The balefire nimbus played about Toth-Set-Ra as he hunched in his high-backed chair.
Atros grinned. "We know roughly where they are. We have only to summon our creatures for the final search." He shook his great shaggy head. "We have been closing in on them for the last three days. They evaded our ambush at the Forest Gate and fought their way through to the Wild Wood. Then they camped for the night within the ruins of the Rose Palace of Ali Suliman," (while the search swept past them, Atros did not add). "We lost them somewhat in the next day’s rain, but we have them generally located."
"How have they avoided you for so long?"
Atros shrugged. "Bal-Simba—blast his eyes—is a clever foe. His Watchers have been working hard to muddy our Sight. The whole of the North is covered with blanking and false trails."
He hesitated. "There is another thing. The wizard has a most pussiant cloaking spell. We cannot find the least trace of his magic anywhere in the North."