The naked figure sprinted up the silent streambed, bounding from rock to rock, leaping stagnant and muddy pools. A flying spring, one leg kicked out for a graceful landing, spanned twenty feet of jagged boulders. Black hair trailed in a long plume, soaring with each jump, now streaming behind as the slender form reached a smooth stretch and sprinted like a deer. Kagonos ran for many reasons. He relished the joy of motion for its own sake, his body fleet and powerful, his reflexes reacting to each challenge of the makeshift trail.

He savored the discovery of a new path, racing upward into these hills along a route that had never known an elven footstep. He loved the all-encompassing tranquility in the wilds, a peace that descended around his spirit and transcended the petty concerns and fears of others.

These motivations had all been on his mind, two dawns past, when he had awakened in the sprawling encampment of the Highsummer council. He had emerged from his lodge, located in the honored center of the tribal congregation, and spoken to no one while he trotted through the camp. His departure had drawn the attention of the tribal chiefs and shamans, but none had tried to delay or distract him-they all knew Kagonos often ran to a pulse that no other Elderwild could hear. Indeed, some of the priests looked relieved as the naked elf vanished up the forested trail. The shamans remembered more than one outburst from Kagonos that had disrupted a bonding ritual or communing attempt. The upcoming ceremony of Midsummer Starheight promised a greater level of solemnity if Kagonos was out somewhere wandering in the wilderness.

For his part, Kagonos had no patience for silly rituals of stars, sun, or seasons. The diamond speckles that brightened the night sky were best viewed alone. Truly, the stars did seem like magical things-they were masters of the heavens between sunset and sunrise-but how could they be honored by an elven ceremony or the recognition of any other mortal?

The wild elf had run for a day and a night and, now, through the morning of the next day. Still each breath came easily. Only the thinnest sheen of sweat slicked his bronze skin with a cool embrace. Gradually, hour by hour, he loped toward a state of spiritual intensity, an undeniable, consuming, and vibrant sense of life.

A thought flickered through his mind, and he knew the truth: one day soon he would leave the tribe forever, coming into these hills to dwell in solitude. He would be master of himself alone, beholden to none, a being fervently, totally attuned to this majestic land of forest and mountain.

In truth, he didn't know why he had stayed with the tribes so long. With his fanatical single-mindedness, his intolerance of any kind of weakness, Kagonos knew that he frightened the chiefs and veteran warriors. A stranger to his own parents, the Elderwild had even angered the shamans by declaring that love, among many other things, was a weakness to be scorned and avoided.

The wild elves, for the most part, were a happy people -playful, innocent, and careless. Kagonos did not hesitate to display his anger with that childlike naivete, for he knew that the tribes faced enemies on many sides. Why could not his people see those threats?

None of the braves could match Kagonos, physically- perhaps because his body seemed to thrum constantly, at the very brink of explosion. They treated him with respect, allowed him to come and go, and for the most part listened politely when he spoke. In different decades he had lived with each of the tribes-the Black Feathers, the Silvertrout, the Whitetail, and most recently the Bluelake clan. When danger from ogres or humans had threatened, no warrior had fought more savagely than Kagonos, and his efforts had helped to win many battles.

Kagonos often warned his tribemates about the threat of the House Elves, but here the Elderwild were less receptive to his strident admonitions. Under Silvanos, the golden-haired elves had formed their clans into mighty houses, then created literally that: tall buildings, crowded together into cities, in which they enclosed their lives. To Kagonos, these self-made prisons symbolized with shocking clarity the danger represented by the wild elves' numerous cousins. At the same time, he knew that other Elderwild were curious about, even attracted to, these garish constructions.

The lone warrior's mountain run was the perfect opposite to those House Elf desires, and even to the more limited society of the wild tribes. Now Kagonos knew pure, unadulterated freedom, as he escaped the constraints of other elves, of garments, of any edifice or tool showing the bend of a mastering hand-whether human, ogre, or elf. He desperately needed these hours, these days of solitude, in order to keep his internal tension from tearing him apart. Finding this path, racing upward with the wind blowing through his thick, black hair, the fullness of life soothed his tension and gave Kagonos profound joy.

And there was another, even greater reason that had drawn him from his lodge, from the summer gathering of the tribes-a knowledge that, by itself, would have compelled him to race into these hills.

Kagonos believed that today, once again, he would glimpse the Grandfather Ram.

Twice before Kagonos had encountered the mighty creature. Always the ram had been perched on the side of one of the highest mountains in the Khalkists. Kagonos had been below, trekking along a path none other had trod. And each of those times, as now, the tribes of the wild elves had been gathered for Highsummer council, and Kagonos had grown tired of the ceaseless discussion and frequent complaints of his clansmen.

On those occasions he had run for days before the Grandfather Ram had appeared. The magnificent animal, horns curling a full three spirals on each side of a broad- skulled head, had regarded Kagonos from on high. It remained lofty and distant, yet a searching presence in the huge, golden eyes had been undeniably close, intimate.

The Elderwild wondered if anyone else had ever seen the ram. He didn't think so, though he wasn't sure why he should believe this. True, there had been something about the expression in the magnificent animal's eyes, something so profoundly personal that Kagonos believed implicitly that it had been a message intended for only him. And surely, even if others had seen the animal, they had not been the beneficiaries of that knowing, soothing gaze.

A shadow flickered across the wall of the gorge above Kagonos, and he flinched, knowing it was too late-he must certainly have been spotted by some flying creature. He spun to look.at the sky, realizing that the shade had been far too large for a vulture or eagle. Quickly he saw the broad wings-a span easily twenty feet across-and the bulky body, four legs sweeping backward, confirmed his original impression. A griffon!

Instinctively the wild elf ducked beside the shelter of a large boulder. The hawk-faced creature must have seen him, but it would probably not attack-not unless it was starving, and even from below Kagonos could see that this was a sleek, healthy specimen.

Then he got the real shock. As the griffon flew onward, Kagonos saw a trailing plume of golden hair flowing freely above an armored shirt-a rider on the griffon's back! Appalled, the wild elf realized that a House Elf had somehow captured and tamed one of the beasts. Kagonos grimaced. It was bad enough that the elves of the house clans should master and saddle horses-must they now bind even the savage flyers of the skies?