eastern sea so many years ago that they are beyond counting.
My mother died when I was quite young. I remember that I cried about it for a very long time, though I must honestly admit that I can no longer even remember her face. I remember the gentleness of her hands and the warm smell of fresh-baked bread that came from her garments, but I can not remember her face – but then, there have been so many faces.
The people of my village cared for me and saw to it that I was fed and clothed and sheltered in one house or another, but I grew up wild. I never knew my father, and
my mother was dead, and I was not content with the simple, drowsy life of a small, unnamed village beside a sparkling river in a time when the world was very young. I began to wander out into the hills above my village, at first with only a stick and a sling, but later with more manly weapons – though I was still but a child.
And then came a day in early spring when the air was cool and the clouds raced overhead in the fresh, young wind, and I had climbed to the top of the highest hill to the west of our river. And I looked down at the tiny patch of dun-colored huts beside a small river that did not sparkle beneath the scudding clouds of spring. And then I turned and looked to the west at a vast grassland and white-topped mountains beyond and clouds roiling titanic in the grey sky. And I looked one last time at the village where I was born and where, had I not climbed that hill on just such a morning, I might well have died; and I turned my face to the west and I went from that place forever.
The summer was easy. The plain yielded food in plenty to a young adventurer with the legs to chase it and the appetite to eat it – no matter how tough or poorly cooked. And in the fall I came upon a vast encampment of people whitened as if by the touch of frost. They took me in and wept over me, and many came to touch me and to look at me, and they wept also. But one thing I found most strange. In the entire encampment there were no children, and to my young eyes the people seemed most terribly old. They spoke a language I did not understand, but they fed me and seemed to argue endlessly among themselves over who might have the privilege of keeping me in his tent or pavilion.
I passed the winter among these strange people, and, as is so frequently the case with the young, I learned nothing in that season. I can not remember even one word of the language they spoke.*
When the snow melted and the frost seeped up out of the ground and the wind of spring began to blow again, I knew it was time to leave. I took no joy in the pampering of a multitude of grandparents and had no desire to become the pet of a host of crotchety old people who could not even speak a civilized language.
And so, early one spring morning, before the darkness had even slid off the sky, I sneaked from the camp and went south into a low range of hills where their creaky old limbs could not follow me. I moved very fast, for I was young and well-fed and quite strong, but it was not fast enough. As the sun rose I could hear the wails of unspeakable grief coming from the encampment behind me. I remember that sound very well.
I loitered that summer in the hills and in the upper reaches of the Vale to the south beyond them. It was in my mind that I might – if pursued by necessity – winter again in the camp of the old people. But, as it happened, an early storm caught me unprepared to the south of the hills, and the snow piled so deep that I could not make my way back across to my refuge. And my food was gone, and my shoes, mere bags of untanned hide, wore out, and I lost my knife, and it grew very cold.
In the end I huddled behind a pile of rock that seemed to reach up into the very heart of the snowstorm that swirled around me and tried to prepare myself for death. I thought of my village and of the grassy fields around it and of our small, sparkling river, and of my mother, and, because I was still really very young, I cried.
‘Why weepest thou, boy?’ The voice was very gentle. The snow was so thick that I could not see who spoke, but the tone made me angry.
‘Because I’m cold and I’m hungry,’ I said, ‘and because I’m dying and I don’t want to.’
‘Why art thou dying? Art thou injured?’
‘I’m lost,’ I said, ‘and it’s snowing, and I have no place to go.’
‘Is this reason enough to die amongst thy kind?’
‘Isn’t it enough?’ I said, still angry.
‘And how long dost thou expect this dying of thine will persist?’ The voice seemed mildly curious.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ve never done it before.’
The wind howled and the snow swirled more thickly around me.
‘Boy,’ the voice said finally, ‘come here to me.’
‘Where are you?’ I said. ‘I can’t see you.’
‘Walk around the tower to thy left. Knowest thou thy left hand from thy right?’
I stumbled to my half-frozen feet angrier than I ever remember having been.
‘Well, boy?’
I moved around what I had thought was a pile of rock, my hands on the stones.
‘Thou shalt come to a smooth grey rock,’ the voice said, ‘somewhat taller than thy head and broad as thine arms may reach.’
‘All right,’ I said, my lips thick with the cold. ‘Now what?’
‘Tell it to open.’
‘What?’
‘Speak unto the rock,’ the voice said patiently, ignoring the fact that I was congealing in the gale. ‘Command it to open.’
‘Command? Me?’
‘Thou art a man. It is but a rock.’
‘What do I say?’
‘Tell it to open.’
‘Open,’ I commanded half-heartedly.
‘Surely thou canst do better than that.’
‘Open!’ I thundered.
And the rock slid aside.
‘Come in, boy,’ the voice said. ‘Stand not in the weather like some befuddled calf.’
The inside of the tower – for such indeed it was – was dimly lighted by stones that glowed with a pale, cold fire. I thought that was a fine thing, though I would have preferred it had they been warmer. Stone steps worn with countless centuries of footfalls ascended in a spiral into the gloom above my head. Other than that the chamber was empty.
‘Close the door, boy,’ the voice said, not unkindly.
‘How?’ I said.
‘How didst thou open it?’
I turned to the gaping rock and quite proud of myself, I commanded, ‘Close!’
And, at my voice, the rock slid shut with a grinding sound that chilled my blood even more than the fierce storm outside.
‘Come up,
