“I have to go,” he said.
“Fine, fine,” said Redman, intent upon his task. “No need for you to stand around here, I’m sure. There’s always more work to be done, just ask my Meadowlark, and—”
“No, no,” Foxbrush interrupted, hurrying on with more confidence than he felt, “I mean, I have to go. To leave your village. I must find Daylily and return to my own time. If I can. I can’t waste another moment.”
“Waste?” Redman paused and frowned up at Foxbrush. His face was very ugly when he frowned, though scarcely more ugly than when he smiled. “You call your time enjoying the Eldest’s hospitality a waste?”
Foxbrush opened his mouth to answer but stopped. After all, he would never have learned the secret of the black fig wasps had he not come here. How many other unknown blessings might he have received these last few days?
“No,” said Redman, wiping sweat from his red-burnt brow. Though he wore a makeshift hat of sorts, his skin, unsuited to the sweltering climes of the South Land, was forever peeling and freckled. “No, it’s my opinion you should rethink that last thought of yours, crown prince.” Foxbrush cringed at the title, which sounded so hollow and pointless in this place. “Your Path led you here, and your Path is not, so far as I can see, leading you away just yet.”
“What do you know of my path?” Foxbrush asked, his tone more surly than did him credit. But Redman did not seem to mind.
“I’ve traveled the Wilderlands down below,” he said, returning to his task of repair and handling his tools with expert grace as he spoke. “I’ve seen sights I could not begin to tell you and wouldn’t try if asked. I’ve walked my share of Faerie Paths; I’ve followed in the footsteps of a star. I recognize a Path of the Lumil Eliasul when I see one.”
Without so much as glancing back over his shoulder, he pointed at Foxbrush’s feet. These were clad in tough leather cloths tied across the insteps and ankles with string made of animal gut. Foxbrush stood in a patch of mud and weeds, and as far as he could see, there was no path save the one a few paces behind him leading up to the Eldest’s House.
But he remembered suddenly Nidawi and her lioness. Especially Nidawi’s screeching yet oddly alluring laugh. “You walk the Path of the Lumil Eliasul, and you don’t even know it!”
He had very nearly convinced himself that this encounter had been a dream. But it wasn’t. No more than the Twisted Man or the sylphs or the leather-tied shoes on his feet.
Still he said quietly, “I don’t see any path.”
“You walk it even so. Don’t try to escape it, and don’t try to hurry it.” Redman looked thoughtfully up at Foxbrush. “I know you want to find your lady. But you cannot simply wander off into the jungle and expect to happen upon her. I know the play and pattern of stories. I’ve lived enough of them by now to know! You were brought to me, a balance to my own tale, I should imagine. You need to stay here until it becomes clear that you must move on.”
“But how will I know?” Foxbrush asked, his voice a whisper of pent-up frustration.
“You’ll know.” Redman heaved a great sigh and stood, turning the full intensity of his one-eyed gaze upon Foxbrush. He reached out and clasped the young man’s shoulder, opening his mouth as though to say more.
But a nearby cry of “Redman! Redman!” sent them wheeling around. A man ran up through the village between the mud-and-wattle houses, and villagers with anxious faces gathered in his wake. He fell to his knees before Redman, not kneeling but simply giving out at the end of what must have been a long run. Redman silently waited for the man to regain breath enough to speak. Foxbrush, sensing the anxiety in the gathered crowd and feeling more than one unfriendly gaze turn his way, stepped back a little, though he watched all with interest.
The man gasped out a string of words Foxbrush did not understand. Redman drew a sharp breath and barked an answer. The man shook his head and spoke again, then bowed down, exhausted, and did not move until someone brought him a skin of water, which he first poured over his flushed face before drinking.
Redman stood silently, looking neither at the villagers nor at Foxbrush but at the wounded kid in the goat pen. Then he drew a long breath and took the hat from his head as he rubbed a hand down his face.
“Your red lady has been seen again,” he said in Northerner.
Foxbrush leapt forward. “Where?” he demanded, looking from Redman to the messenger and back again. “Where is she?”
Redman shook his head. “She’s gone. She and others wearing the Bronze were seen in the Crescent Land not three days ago. This man ran all the way to tell us. They killed Tocho, the Big Cat of Skymount Watch. One of the most powerful totems in all the Land.”