The A'Rak by Michael Shea

been little in evidence the whole time. As we at length neared the wooded valley floor, I understood it. The Ebonflux, much broader than the Rattlespate, was flanked by a much denser forest, and entering its fringe we grasped how a Hagian valley's floor could be a world away from its slopes or its ridgelines. Widow Pompilla actually fell silent. As the green gloom roofed us, the prisoning trees crowded closer, and the woven vines shackled our eyes and ears in whispery shadow and the restless ambiguity of leaf, blade, and frond. We sensed a stir of stealthy habitation coming awake on every side. But of course. These valley-floor woods would be the very heartland of the Covenant. Here could the a'rakspawn walk above-ground almost invisibly. And children throughout the valleys would, in consequence, be close-kept.
    As we crossed the Ebonflux on the Cobblestone Bridge, from mid-span I glimpsed pathetic confirmation of my inferences down in the Cobblestone Township, which occupied both banks of the river below. There were modest docks, where shallowdraft gondolas offloaded kegged dairy goods at the Cheese Cooperative, or baled fleeces at the high-beamed Weavery echoing with the clatter and twang of the looms. And down on those docks I glimpsed some schoolmistresses guiding a gaggle of nursery aged children, showing them the shopwindows and the folk a-working. Aged three or four summers, the children were precious, as all such wee pups are the world over, with their solemn wee flowerpetal lips and great, grave eyes. It was only at second look I saw it: bright woolen cords bound these tinies wrist to wrist. They scarce perceived these friendly shackles they wore, such being their custom since cradle-days no doubt, like Ma and Da's countless cautionings never to stray from the path to the undergrowth, as pups like themselves had got vanished forever and ever that way. . . .
    We were glad to climb out of the woods, and rise ridgeward again. Our veiled Dame marched in the van quite mute now, and stayed so, till I grew still uneasier about her. Her odd ardors, her sharp alterations! I conceived an irrational anxiety to see her face, as if that by itself could help me decide: was she, quite simply, a plausible madwoman, and her errand with that coffin of hers a lunatic's wild conception?
    As the day was declining we branched to a lesser road just short of the ridgecrest, and only then did she speak again. "Now my friend Widow Bozzm, mark you" (as before she still marched as she spoke, though now she faced forward) "is herself new-widowed, lost her dear Haggardham Bozzm, a cheese-meister, but a year gone, and she and her two girls are hard put running the dairy he left them on Buttercrock Creek. In some work, like milking the momiles and gleets, they're marvels, and the cheesing and churning, but they're all too stout for the shepherding uphill and down. In consequence, their gleets go half-tended, and have now caught the shank-rot. I'll watch the night leeching them, and for my services, my fee shall be the ewes that are gravid with kid. Help me barn them tonight, and drive my ewes home tomorrow, and we shall have the rent of good Clummock's paddleraft to start you aright on your commission. As for tonight, take your ease, and enjoy the Buttercrock dames' incomparable culinary confections."
     
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NIFFT II
    At the Weskitt and Fobb I was sumptuously entertained. The Ecclesiarch's card, which I presented to the Chief Steward, elicited from that frosty functionary a deferent bow and swift service. I made use of the elegant baths in the basement, though a certain elusive something about them—was it a faintly subterranean quality to the air?—made me unwilling to linger there.
    I soon presented myself to be shown to a seat in the dining chamber. The house did a lively business, and amid elegant diners, who filled the refectory with a genteel tumult of crockery and conversation, I made an exquisite repast.
    As I sat viewing the gathering