Read Ursus of Ultima Thule for Free Online Page B

that he would be very cunning and not reveal that he was no longer in the other world. He lay very still. Perhaps the Painted Men were uncertain if he were alive or dead and were lying in wait to see. He could not, through his parted eyelids, observe anyone or anything at all, save for the green network surrounding him and through which faint glints of sky were visible. But he had a faint yet firm feeling that if he were to roll his eyes just a bit to the right — He did not; he was too canny for that.
    Besides, his right eye seemed swollen so much that —
    And then a hand appeared, small as that of a large child, delicate as that of a young woman, yet not either: in the dim green light and through only one and a half eyes the hand seemed not entirely real, seemed almost translucent, had something about the bone structure, the nails — how many joints were there — nacreous as the inside of certain sea or river shells.
    The hand placed something on his puffed eye, something cool and damp and soothing.
    … and without awareness of intent to do so, he put up his hand and took the other by the wrist and sat up. Almost, he had not held the hand at all. Almost, it was as if his fingers were encircling something which had dimension without having substance — a delicate flower, as it might be, in the shape of a hand — and it slipped out from his grasp as simply as a sunbeam.
    He had never seen a perry before.
    Something slipped off his eye — he saw it was a dressing of bruised leaves and grasses, damp as though with the morning’s dew: the perry’s delicate and almost insubstantial hand took it and placed it on the swollen eye again and the perry’s other hand took his hand, did not so much lift as guide it to hold the compress in place.
    As the thin dew sparkling upon a cobweb, so did the perry’s garments glint and sparkle; as the shy fawn stands in the gladey underbrush, not quite trembling and not quite looking at the intruder but poised for instant flight, so did the perry stand at the entrance to the leafy bower.
    Arnten’s body did not so much still pain him as it echoed faint reflections of remembered pain. Dim outlines of bruises he could see here and there upon his skin; he remembered enough lore of herbs and simples from his medicine-uncle to know that even the most puissant leaves or roots or grasses had not by themselves done all this work of healing: but the witchery of the perries, either intent or inherent or both, had aided them. At first he had had a fleeting thought that he might be in the hands of the Woman of the Woods, of whom many tales were told. To be sure, he had never seen the Woman of the Woods, just as he had never seen a perry — but his uncle had told him enough of each so that now he knew. His uncle who was his mother’s uncle. His mother whom he had lost.
    Arnten, find your father
.
    His father whom he had never had. The bear he could not find. The man, the mocker (had said Tall Roke) who had “gamed” his mother. The bogey for whom the boys of the village had held him slightly in awe and so much in scorn. Because of whom he had fled for very life. In which flight he had all but nearly lost his life. And now lay here, back from the edge of death, in the company of a creature far more fey than any nain, who spoke no word and barely looked at him and barely smiled yet had felt that deep concern for him and even now trembled between visibility and invisibility, substance and shadow, staying and leaving.
    This gentle presence touched the cords which bound his pent misery and long-contained sorrow and did that which heavy and brutal blows had not and could not have done, and he covered his face with his hands and broke into tears.
    He wept long and without restraint and when he had stopped at last, he knew it would be long, if ever, before he wept again. His eyes were wet and his chest ached, but these were slight shadows which would pass. All his body aches had gone. Something had