On the third day they came into the desert proper. The last trees fell away and the cliffs that had bulked stubbornly along to the south slumped wearily into the salt sands. From horizon to horizon there was only glaring, blinding whiteness, that cracked underfoot like gossiping informers and flew into the air in little swirls. Hoopla, having been born in surroundings much like these, said nothing and only settled a little more firmly into the saddle, but Skiff suffered mightily and longed for the cool green corridors of the Tangled Western Woods, and took to creeping in the early mornings to the top of the nearest dune to sit peering away from the sunrise, and toward home.

The winds blew from the east across the Great Salt Desert, all the way from the sea, toward the Tangled Western Woods, and so Hoopla and Skiff walked through an unending sandstorm, their faces pinched and seamed from the salt. After the first such storm, Hoopla arranged a cerecloth for Skiff such as the unruly desert nomads bind their own mounts with, to keep sharp edged crystals from lacerating nostrils, gums, and eyes. This winding Skiff hated, who had been born free and running upon the rolling grass polar grasslands. Hoopla wore the same loose robe as ever, unheeding of wind and salt and scorching sun.

and, again, for Stephen

When very young, and thus kept close to home, Skiff was rambunctiousness itself, all eager nose and questing, all bounding joy and exploration, forever underfoot and in the way, a trial to all his family. But eke a joy, for well-knew the dog-tribe that the wilder the youth the better the adult, and so was Skiff tolerated and encouraged and borne with, and spoken of with pride on the hunting paths and beyond the high hills that ringed the village. Of him great things were expected, whether sage counsel in peacetime, or fearsome gallantry in time of war, or cunning invention, or mighty song raised beneath the stars.

Now the custom of the northern tribe is this: to lead the competent into the ropy heart of the northern rainforest, and there to leave her, without food nor water nor map nor friend withal, but at the head of a broad and straight path that leads to the high cities of tenebrous Oast and Albion on the winedark sea. Thus is the choice put before her. Shall she return through dangerous ways and uncertain to the warm bosom of clan, friends, and family? Or shall she take the chalken road laid into the loam of the northern rainforest, and go thence to the winedark sea and unknown cities, and be bereft of wide-smiling friends? Each way lay dangers and glories enough for the bravest heart.

And Skiff’s turn came when the face of the earth dropped below the sun, one day in late spring. Over the wide plains they wended their way, Skiff and his guides, who — in the manner of their high office — spoke not, nor signed by gestures what choice ought to be made. Nor would Skiff have listened; the grasslands were charged with verdancy and poured forth that bounty in riotous blooming, heady scents, explosive flights of minute hedgebirds, and the dazzling bounty of butterflies, all of which set Skiff’s head awhirl and his heart aflutter.

How dark the forest when first it appeared, a dark smudge there on the horizon! How ominous seemed that kohl-ring upon the sky’s lid! And through the mosses and the tangling bracken they forced their way, and up hill and down dale, and through chill rivers, and through the fusty tunnels of logs, and into the ropy heart of the forest where sprawled the gleaming whiteness of the road, and there Skiff stayed as night drew close beneath the canopy.

Through that night he sat, sleepless, and listened to the unfamiliar sounds of the rainforest, and looked through the heavy boughs at the stars, charting their paths and positions from long memory. All chaos was his heart, formless and fluid, with no spirit upon the waters to give shape or direction. The path? The forest? The path? Through the long night he sat, his heart turning within him, the unseen stars turning above. The forest? The path?

Soft-fingered Dawn found him yet awake, and yet unresolved. In pity did she carry forth to him the beat of distant toms, the war-summons of the city-lands, and stirred his young blood. And so Skiff set upon the chalken road to follow the toms, to Albion on the winedark sea, and the Shu, and beyond to Hoopla; and so in the woods the silent guards moved away from the ropy forest’s heart, and back to the plains, with news and tidings indeed.

When, after a winter most long and dreary, spring returned to the Tangled Western Woods, a delegation of the dignified and magisterial forest creatures came to the house of Hoopla and Skiff, led by a great rabbit of the Woods (that moved in the manner of his kind like the ghost of man). A strange beast had come to the woods and made a great riot within its halls, and therefore did the creatures of the woods make petition to Hoopla, to adjudicate and mete out justice and punishment as needed. Hoopla listened solemnly to all that was said and swore to return rude peace to the woods.

Bread and goat’s cheese and four wrinkled apples Hoopla placed in a bag, and with Skiff set out into the Tangled Western Woods, in search of the beast that upset so the forest creatures. For two days they walked companionably on pathless ways, for well each knew that knotsome forest, and friends beyond much words they were, but of the creature no sign they found. At night Skiff curled up before their small fire, and Hoopla used the large black dog as pillow, as in the old days of the last war ever.

On the third day a crashing came through the branches, and a mass of creatures large and small came running through the woods, driven as before a fire. No response could Hoopla get, nor Skiff, beyond simply, “Run!”

The beast came swift and long-legged behind the stampede, and at the sight of that dreadfully physiognomy, the hearts of Hoopla and Skiff beat slow and uncertain. Three faces it had upon one massive, neckless head, one red, one blue, one bone-white. The red one smiled benignly, the blue one one glowered dreadfully, and one the color of driftwood high upon some arctic beach was still and placid, dreadful as death. All unclothed it was, and hairless, and bottle-green, and carried two clubs, two swords, and two sickles in its six hands. The blue face howled anger and hatred, and the beast shook its martial panoply and advanced on Hoopla and Skiff.

Having nothing better to do, and being tired from a day of walking, Hoopla thought it well to rest beneath a plum tree that grew beside the road. The white staff that Hoopla had pulled from the fringes of the wood was stood against the smooth bark of the tree, and Hoopla settled down with a long-breathed sigh of relief as sore muscles unwound themselves.

Hoopla slept. The day above the plum tree grew dark and tempestuous; it was into a blustery night that Hoopla woke, full of lightning above the distant trees and the sound of rain slashing against the plums above. Throughout that dark night Hoopla sat, watching the storm. When dawn came, the storm had departed, blown to the east by a brisk wind. Though rested, little indeed was the desire of Hoopla for wandering in such unsettled weather. Into its face this determination Hoopla cast, that until the wind died all of the world should be contained beneath the sheltering branches of the plum tree.

The day waned, and still the wind blew, and still Hoopla sat. For a week the wind blew, and for a week Hoopla sat beneath the plum tree. Spring and summer turned over, and still blew the wind, and obstinate sat Hoopla beneath the fruitful plum tree, feeding on ripe plums, drinking dew and rainwater, and watching the west for the faltering of the wind. Fall, and winter, and spring, and summer, and yet the wind blew, and yet Hoopla sat. Years fell beneath the plum tree, until the white staff that leaned against the plum tree sent forth long green leaves, until the grass grew thick and soft upon the lap of Hoopla, until the beasts of the field and the birds of the air learned courage beneath the plum tree, and still blew the constant wind from the west, and still sat Hoopla, beyond obstinance and impatience and nearly everything.

One hundred and twenty seven years passed in this wise, and then the wind faltered and died, and Hoopla shook like a man falling asleep. The grass tore as Hoopla rose, and the family of birds that had builded a nest upon the wide-brimmed hat squawked and flew angrily away. From the slender white tree that grew close beside the plum tree Hoopla broke a walking staff, then set off for the distant east, and the storm that had gone before.