The leaves fell, the animals froze for an instant then tore off into the woods. The day brightened.

"Hello," he ventured. "You live around here?"

She nodded.

"I was walking the trail back to my village when I heard you. That was quite beautiful. What do you call that instrument? Is it magic?"

"A guitar," he answered, "and sometimes I think so. My name is Dan. What's yours?"

"Nora," she said. "You're a stranger. Where are you from? Where are you going?"

He snapped the case shut and climbed down to the ground.

"I've come a great distance," he said slowly, seeking the proper sentence patterns, locating words with some hesitation, "just wandering, seeing things. I'd like to see your village."

"You are a minstrel? You play for your keep?"

He hauled down his coat and shook it out, draped it over his arm.

"Yes," he said. "Know anybody who needs one?"

"Maybe... later," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"There have been a number of deaths. No one will be in a festive mood."

"I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps I can find some other employment for a time, while I learn something of this land."

She brightened.

"Yes. I am sure that you could--now."

He picked up the guitar case and moved forward.

"Show me the way," he said.

"All right." She turned and he followed her. "Tell me about your homeland and some of the places you've been."

Best to make something up, he decided, something simple and rural. No telling yet what things are like here. Better yet, get her to talking. Hate to start out sounding like a liar...

"Oh, one place is pretty much like another," he began. "Is this forming country?"

"Yes."

"Well, there you are. So is mine. What sorts of crops do you grow?"

They came to the trail and she led him downward along it. Whenever a bird passed overhead, she looked upward and flinched. After a time, he found himself scanning the skies, also. He was able to direct the conversation all the way into town. By the time they got there, he had learned the story of Mark Marakson.

The old man in the faded blue robe walked the streets of the drowsing city, past darkened storefronts, parked vehicles, spilled trashcans, graffiti that he could not read. His step was slow, his breathing heavy. Periodically, he paused to lean upon his staff or rest against the side of a building.

Slowly, light began to leak through the dark skyline before him, a yellow wave, rising, putting out stars. Far ahead, a shadowy oasis beckoned: trees, stirred by the faintest of morning breezes down a wide thoroughfare.

His stick tapped upon the concrete, more heavily now, as he crossed a side street and negotiated another block with faltering steps. His hand trembled as he reached out to grasp a lamppost. Several vehicles passed as he stood swaying there. When the street was clear, he crossed.

Nearer. It was nearer now, the place where the boughs swayed and the songs of birds rose in the early morning light. He strode clumsily ahead, the faintest of blue flickers occasionally dancing at the tip of his stick. The breeze brought him a weak, flower-like aroma as he bore toward the final corner.

He rested again, breathing heavily, almost gasping now. When he moved to cross this street, his gait was stiff, awkward. Once he fell, but there was no traffic and he recovered and staggered on.

The sky had grown pink beyond the small park which now lay before him. His staff, from which the final light had faded, swung clumsily through a patch of flowers which closed immediately, undisturbed, behind it. He did not hear the faint hiss of the aerosols as he crossed the fake grass to slump against the bole of a standard model mid-town park area tree, but only breathed the fragrance he had hoped might be there, smiling faintly as the breezes bore it to him, eyes following the dance of the butterflies in the still fresh light of the new-risen sun.

His staff slipped from his fingers and his breath came short and rushed as unnumbered mornings past joined with this one to smear all colors and smells into a greater reality which finally told the story he had always wondered at, through to its vision past objects. One of the butterflies, passing too near on its beam, was overtaken by his life's final throb, to settle, fluttering, upon his upturned wrist near to the dragonmark it bore.

With a blare and a rattle, the city came alive about him.

Strange feelings came and went. Each time that they came they were a little stronger; each time they departed some residuum remained. It was difficult to pin them down, Dan thought, as he drove a peg into a fence post, but perhaps they had something to do with the land itself--this place that felt so familiar, so congruent to his tastes....

A cow strayed near, as if to inspect his work.

No, go that way, he willed. Over there, and his wrist felt warm, as with power overflowing, spilling from his fingertips, and the cow obeyed his unspoken command.

...Like that, he decided. It feels right, and I get better at it all the time.

A peg shattered under a hammer blow and a splinter flew toward his face.

Away! he commanded, without thinking.

Reflex-like, something within him moved to stop it, and the fragment sped off to the right....And like that.

He smiled as he finished the work and began collecting his tools. Shadows were growing across the pasture as he looked back along the lengths of fencing he had repaired. It was time to wash, to get ready for the dinner, the performance.

For three days now he had stayed at Nora's uncle's place, sleeping in the barn, turning his hand to odd jobs the old man had been unable to get to. In that time, his familiarity with the language had grown, just as Mor had said it would, almost as if he were remembering....

Mor ... He had not thought of him for a time. It was as if his mind had locked away the entire experience of his journey to this place in some separate, off-limits compartment. It was just too bizarre, despite the fact that he walked where he now walked. But now, the effects of distancing made him cast back, examining that magical walk, wondering how his absence was being taken in his own world. He was surprised to find that his own past, now, was beginning to feel dream-like and unreal. Whereas this land...

He drew a deep breath. This was real, and somehow it felt like home. It would be good to meet more of the neighbors.

As he cleaned the tools and stored them in their places, he thought about the evening's steer roast at the field in toward town. Real country living this, and he was enjoying it. He could think of worse places to be stuck for life. And afterwards, of course, he would play for them.... He had been itching to get his hands on his guitar all day. There seemed peculiar new effects--para-musical, as it were--that he could manage in this place, and he wanted to experiment farther. He wanted to show these things off, for the neighbors, for Nora....

Nora. He smiled again as he stripped off the heavy workshirt belonging to her Uncle Dar and walked back to bathe in the creek before donning his own garments. She was a pretty little thing. It was a shame to see her so frightened by the local inventor of a few mechanical toys....

And if this--Mark Marakson--were indeed Michael's son ... He could almost see some genetic factor operating both in the aptitudes and the total lack of appreciation for possible reactions to their operation. Too bad he wasn't back home and in the business. He and Michael would probably have gotten along well.