“Here is your journey in a nutshell. Three nutshells!” The old man wheezed a brief laugh, accompanied by the faint tinkle of his beard bells. “This says you will go far away and be gone a long time,” he said, pointing to the nut nearest Riverwind. “This means you will go amidst great darkness.” He tapped a second acorn with one cracked and dirty nail.

“Evil?” asked Riverwind, sitting down in front of the old man.

“'Darkness,' I said, yes?” The last acorn Catchflea smiled at. “And out of the darkness shall come the seed of the new, which is like the old.”

“What does that mean?”

“The new is the old? Natural, yes. That is all I can tell you.” Catchflea scooped up the acorns and slipped them back in the gourd. Round and round went his wrinkled hand, shaking the gourd.

Riverwind had heard whispers that the old man conversed with spirits who told him the future, and he had a formidable record predicting whether Que-Shu mothers would have boy babies or girls. Riverwind couldn't dismiss Catchflea's remarks as idle talk.

He said, “Which way should I go?”

“Ha!” This time the nuts fell in a row. “East,” said Catchflea. Riverwind scratched his head. The nuts weren't obviously pointing east.

“How do you know what they say?” he asked.

“How do you know how to breathe? How do you know when it's time to rise or time to sleep?”

Riverwind nodded. “I just know. I don't need to ponder it. The knowledge comes to me, and I know.”

“That is it exactly, yes,” said Catchflea.

Riverwind stood slowly, leaving the old man to gather his acorns again. East. Into the Forsaken Mountains. At least at this time of year the high passes would be free of snow-

The nuts clattered in the gourd. Catchflea dumped them out, crying for the third time, “Ha!”

Riverwind came out of his reverie. “What do you see, old man?”

Catchflea squinted up at the tall huntsman. “I am to go with you.” The distracted lilt was gone from his voice.

Riverwind stiffened. “Perhaps you are reading them wrong,” he suggested.

Catchflea shook his head. “There is only one meaning, yes. 'Follow and descend.' That is what it says.”

“Descend?”

The jingle of bells accompanied Catchflea's bewildered headshaking. “I must do it. Auguries are not given to be ignored.”

“You can't come with me,” Riverwind said gently. “I'm going far. I have only enough food for myself for one day. You're much too old to make such a trek.”

“I must, yes?” He heaved himself to his feet. Catchflea's knees and elbows cracked like kindling underfoot. “I won't be a burden to you, Riverwind. You need only tend to yourself, yes? I can fend for myself.”

Riverwind grasped the old fellow by his shoulder. “You're not going.”

Catchflea's dark eyes bored into Riverwind's. “It isn't only my destiny you tamper with. It is your own. The gods have ordained that we leave Que-Shu together. To flout their will is to invite disaster.”

Riverwind dropped his hands. “What gods do you serve, my friend?” Catchflea did not answer, but stooped to trace a figure in the dirt. It looked like two teardrops touching tip to tip. Riverwind knew the sign of the goddess Mishakal. That same symbol, wrought in rare steel, he had given Goldmoon to wear secretly around her neck. He narrowed his eyes and stared at the old man.

“How do you know this sign?” he said suspiciously.

“Once it was known to all, yes. Now I see it only in the sky, traced in the jewels of the stars.”

Riverwind wrestled with his dilemma. Catchflea was no ranger, not fit for forest or mountains. Still, his soothsaying was too accurate for Riverwind to discount. Perhaps he could take the old fellow along a short way, then leave him in some comfortable spot.

“I won't be a burden,” Catchflea insisted.

“How long will it take you to prepare?” Riverwind said, resigned.

The soothsayer bent over with a grunt and picked up his gourd and acorns. “I am ready,” he said. “I have nothing else.”

The lean-to contained only the mound of moss the old man slept on, some rags, and a rotting waterskin. Catchflea slipped his acorns into a fold of his much-patched shirt and tied the gourd to a loose strip of cloth. “No one in Que-Shu will mourn my leaving, yes?”

It was sadly true. Riverwind looked away to the mountains. Across the sunny plain, the eastern horizon beckoned, with the Forsaken Mountains only a blue-tinged smudge. Though not steep or especially cold this time of year, the mountains were dry and almost devoid of game. He'd have to hunt daily to ensure a steady supply of food. And now he was hunting for two, as he doubted Catchflea would be of much use in the wild.

The odds were certainly piled high against him. No horse, little food, and a vague old man to shepherd along-Arrow-thorn's quest would test him severely. Still, he had his wits, his skills, and an unbending determination on his side. The old gods lived. For them, and for Goldmoon, Riverwind would defy any odds.

Catchflea's aged limbs warmed in the afternoon sun, and he managed to keep up with Riverwind's long-legged stride. Because they needed food, they could not keep to the main road, the Sageway.

“There's a pocket of woods tucked into the shadow of the mountains,” Riverwind said. “If we take that route, there might be deer, or a mountain sheep come down to forage.” He reflected privately that had the old man not come, he could go a day or two on the dried meat and bread packed in his shoulder pouch. In that time he could be deep in the mountains, on his way to meet his destiny…

“-yield to your knowledge of huntcraft,” Catchflea was saying. “Long are the years since I held a bow, much less a skinner's knife.”

They strode across the plain, Catchflea jingling like a peddler's wagon on its way to market. Riverwind tried to ignore the annoying sound, but after a hundred score yards he halted abruptly and said, “When we get to the forest, you'll have to find a place and sit still. Those bells will warn away every animal in the country!”

Catchflea clutched his beard defensively. “I thought the sound pleasing.”

“It's very musical, but game will take alarm from it.”

“I will sit as silent as a stone, yes.” They walked on, the old man holding his beard loosely with one hand to still the bells and beads.

Trees rose out of the grassy plain like a curtain; there was no gradual change from open land to dense forest. Before plunging into the woods, Riverwind paused long enough to string his bow. To secure his saber so it wouldn't rattle and frighten his prey, he wound a strip of soft deerhide around the brass hilt, binding it to the brass throat of his scabbard.

“Speak now, or hold your tongue until there's meat roasting on our fire,” Riverwind said in a tense whisper.

“Good hunting,” was all Catchflea had to say.

Riverwind nocked an arrow and slipped between the trees. With a good deal less stealth, Catchflea followed. Though he held his bells quiet, he was not accustomed to moving like a hunter. He blundered along, snapping twigs and almost running into Riverwind's back. Wordlessly, Riverwind pointed out where Catchflea should place his feet so as not to make as much noise. The old man did better after that, though he was still no match for Riverwind.

The forest was mostly pine and cedar, so thick that their progress was slow and winding. The forest floor was carpeted with pine needles and cedar berries, which were not edible. Deer, however, esteemed them, and Riverwind found signs where bucks had butted the trees in order to shake down more berries.

He spied a towering cedar with stout lower limbs and climbed up. Wild creatures were sharp-eyed and keen-nosed. With Catchflea along, the best thing to do was get above their level of sight and smell and wait for the prey to pass by. Riverwind boosted Catchflea up to the lowest branches, climbed past him, and hauled him up higher. With the old fellow safely settled in the main crotch of the tree, Riverwind inched out from the trunk on a stout limb and sat down, his feet dangling and his bow laid across his knees.