The Last Wizard of Eneri Clare Read Free Page B

a stand of tall oaks until you came to a giant old tree with three trunks joined as one. From its shelter, he had been told, you could see the little clearing, and the cottage would be there. The old man found his instructions to be quite clear, and only a few moments later, he was peering around from behind the great triple oak at a small hermit’s dwelling so in harmony with its woodland surroundings that it was scarcely distinguishable from its environment. It was round in design, constructed of stones and logs which were well-matched, and mud-chinked. There was smoke puffing from a hole in the woven branch roof, suggesting a hearth of sorts, and a woodpile stacked in neat bundles before what looked like the vine-covered front door. Several homemade buckets of various sizes stood about the forecourt, some empty, some upended as sitting places, and others filled with water. There was an assortment of flat stones that looked as if they might have been used for table and chairs, mortar, pestle and drying surfaces. Beyond the cottage spread a small rectangular garden, walled about with sticks and stones, and showing first shoots of what might be potatoes, leeks, squash, beans, peppers and various herbs. Everything looked neat and tidy. Cozy , the cloaked visitor observed, and then, resourc eful .
    He pulled back behind the tree as vines parted and the cottager appeared in his doorway, engrossed in his chores. He was wearing soft ankle boots, extremely worn, and a long, rather threadbare tunic that reached below his knees, belted about the waist with a length of thick vine. Some sort of leggings, ingeniously patched with pieces of ancient blanket, closed the gap between the torn robes and disintegrating shoes. From this distance, his head seemed enormous, if you counted the huge bush of pale, uncombed hair, and the straw-colored beard, untrimmed and weedy. The hermit’s age was impossible to determine. He was tall and dreadfully thin, but moved with surprising grace and strength, attending to his tasks with the energy of a younger man. But his shoulders seemed stooped, pressed down by some terrible weight, and his face was almost totally obscured by the cloud of white hair that surrounded and covered it. And was it the white of advancing years, or a pale gold such as denizens of northern climes boasted? No, thought the old man, peering out from behind his tree. This cannot be the man I seek. It is not possible. I have come all this way and wasted precious time for nothing . But at that precise moment, the cottager, checking the sun’s progress across the sky, turned his face up and squarely toward the concealed visitor, revealing piercing blue eyes behind wire-rimmed spectacles. That face was unmistakable. The man in the cloak thrust the back of his hand up against his mouth to muffle the involuntary sound that escaped him. In a few heartbeats, his control was restored, but as he continued to watch the threadbare hermit in front of his hand-crafted little house, silent tears overflowed his dark eyes and slid down both sides of his nose.

    The sun was already well along on its homeward journey when the weary hermit strode out of the woods into his forecourt, carrying a bark sling full of dried kindling collected from the forest floor. The woods were always generous to him in their yielding of a thousand needful things, and he remembered to thank the trees for their bounty as he approached his simple dwelling. So wrapped in this meditation was he that he almost failed to notice the visitor sitting on an overturned bucket beside the woodpile, until he nearly tripped over him. Startled, the hermit dropped his load of sticks and then scrambled to retrieve a few before seeming to remember that some sort of greeting was in order. He could not recall a visitor ever passing through these parts in the entire time he had been living there, and this one had appeared in a most unorthodox manner.
    The stranger sat, cloaked and hooded, very