“I’m not entirely sure yet. What is considered valuable?”

He furrowed his brow. His eyes were very serious as he pondered my question. “Tobacco. Tobacco is always good. And furs. Pretty things. Things that are good to eat. Knives.”

“I think I should have asked your mother before she left.”

“Probably. Why do you call Olikea my mother so much?”

“Well. It is what she is, isn’t it?”

“I suppose. But it sounds odd to me.” He glanced about and said anxiously, “We should go beneath the trees. I start to burn.”

“I feel it, too, especially in my markings.” All my skin had become more sensitive to light, but my new specks were noticeably sore, even from this brief exposure to sunlight. Soldier’s Boy began to walk slowly down the path that Olikea had taken and Likari fell into step beside me. His small dark head bobbed as he walked. “How is Olikea usually named to you?”

“Olikea.”

“You do not call her ‘Mother’ ever?”

This seemed to puzzle him. “A ‘mother’ is what she is, not who she is,” he said after a time.

“I see,” Soldier’s Boy replied and I thought I did.

The wind rose, sweeping down on us. He looked back the way we had come. High above the cavern from which we had emerged the peaks already boasted snow. He felt a pang of guilt. “You must be cold. I should have sent you with Olikea.”

“Winter is coming. It’s right to be cold in winter. The wind will be less keen once we are in the shelter of the trees.”

“Then let’s hurry,” Soldier’s Boy suggested, for the keenness of the wind stung his bare skin almost as much as the light had. Likari might be philosophical about being cold because it was winter, but he saw no reason to be cold if he didn’t have to be.

Even when we reached the shelter of the trees, he was cold, and I was suddenly skeptical about Soldier’s Boy’s decision. He had nothing from his previous life save his blanket. The boy carried a small amount of gear: a water skin, the fire-making supplies, and a knife and a few other basics in his pouch. But he himself was nearly as resourceless as a child newly born to the world. I thought how they had abandoned my worn clothing and suddenly mourned those meager possessions as if they were squandered treasure. Cold and hunger pressed us, extending their claws even into my awareness. What was he thinking? Why hadn’t he followed Olikea to her house? We could have been warm and fed by now. Likari seemed to share none of my doubts but toiled along at Soldier’s Boy’s heels, patient as a dog.

This was a different sort of forest from the one on the other side of the mountains. It was greener and lusher. Most of the trees were needled evergreens, and ferns were thick in the mossy shade. I was suddenly grateful for the dimness they provided. Huckleberry bushes mocked me with their past-season greenery. The forest here smelled different, wetter and greener, than the woods on the far side of the mountains. The signs of human habitation were plainer here. The path we followed was well trodden and at intervals lesser paths separated themselves like tributaries branching out of a river. Fat gray squirrels seemed plentiful. One stopped halfway up a tree trunk to scold us, jerking his tail at us and angrily denouncing our presence in his forest. If we’d had my sling, we’d have had squirrel stew very shortly. Perhaps some trickle of that thought reached Soldier’s Boy, for he hesitated and almost I thought his hand went to a pocket that wasn’t there. Then he shook his head and walked on. He had something else on his mind. But what could be more pressing than a need for food? I knew he was hungry. It ate at him as it had once eaten at me. But whatever was driving him now had sharper teeth. I tried to sense what it was, but felt that he shielded it from me.

We had walked for perhaps an hour when Soldier’s Boy halted and stood, staring about himself like a hound trying to pick up a lost scent. There was no pathway, but after staring around and noting several of the larger trees, he gave a sharp nod to himself and left the trail we had been following. Likari glanced at the worn trail that led toward his home village, gave a small sigh, and followed him.

Soldier’s Boy did not move with certainty. He paused often, and once we backtracked and then went on in a slightly different direction. When we came to a lively stream that crossed our path, he smiled. They both stooped to drink the icy water.

Likari wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Where are we going?”

I was surprised when Soldier’s Boy answered him. “To Lisana’s old house. It’s hard for me to find the way; much has changed since she actually walked these hills. Saplings have become mighty trees. The old paths have been devoured by the moss and ferns, and new ones have been trodden. It is confusing to me.”

“The old Great One, Lisana? She is a tree now?”

“But she wasn’t always a tree. Many years ago, she lived close by here. She told me about her house here. She spoke to me, very strongly, in my earliest dream visions. And later, she was my mentor and instructor.” And lover, he might have added, but he did not.

“Do you think her lodge will still be there, after all these years?”

“Probably not. But we shall see.”

I ventured closer to Soldier’s Boy’s thoughts and aligned myself with him. I could not tell if he was aware of me or not. I tried to be very still and unobtrusive. I felt like a small boy trying to peer over his father’s shoulder while he was writing a letter.

He had Lisana’s memories and consulted them like a map. The path to her home had wound past a rise, and then between two immense trees. Only one of them was still standing. The other was an empty stump, like a rotted-out tooth sticking out of the forest floor. Soldier’s Boy walked between them and then paused, thinking. Uphill, he decided, because he remembered that she had enjoyed a good view of the valley.

She had stopped living in the village when she became a Great One. Too many unfulfilled dreams resided there. The man she had loved had not wished to be the feeder of the Great One, to live always in the shadow of her power. She had no desire to see his children scamper past her door each day. She had never truly taken a feeder. There had been villagers who served her, and all her kin-clan had been proud to have produced a Great One. She lacked for nothing; they saw to that. Food, jewelry, furs to sleep under, music to lull her to sleep, perfumes to stimulate her thoughts—she had but to express a wish for something and it was provided to her. In return, she served her people well and faithfully.

She lacked for nothing. Nothing except the simple life that she had once believed she would have. Nothing except a man who had turned away from her when power touched and then filled her.

A tremendous sympathy for her flooded and filled me. I had thought we were so different, but peering through Soldier’s Boy’s mind and sharing her memories, I suddenly found many places where our experiences touched.

Her home had been stoutly built of cedar logs. The roofs of such houses were sharply peaked and the eaves reached almost to the ground. Roofed with logs and thatched with moss, it had been, and as the years passed, ferns and mushrooms had grown on the roof and sprouted from the moss chinking. She had encouraged the growth. Her house was alive, an incarnation of the forest from which she drew her power. It had been fitting.

He passed it twice. I saw it before he did. I tugged, stamped, and poked at his awareness until he finally turned back. He was looking for her house as she remembered it, roomy yet snug, and with a well-trodden path leading up to it. It was long gone. I recognized the overgrown green mound as what remained of it.

In this rainy forest region, the folk built houses of cedar for a good reason. In favorable conditions, cedar doesn’t rot. In adverse conditions, it rots very slowly. Lisana’s house had been well built, of thick logs sealed with boiled pitch. Even so, time and the elements had had their way. Years ago, the front wall had boasted two window openings and a door. Trailing vines had overgrown them in a curtain of roots and tendrils, and eventually, moss had filled in the gaps. Soldier’s Boy found the door by touch, thrusting against the greened walls until he reached a place that gave to his push.