For they would quarrel, Alea felt sure of that—they would quarrel as naturally and easily as fox and hound. But she would never quarrel with Allouette, for if she once began, she would tear the witch apart.

Quicksilver laughed, a low, melodious, and somehow very reassuring sound. She reached out for Alea's hand, saying, "Come, battle-woman, for I think we shall be comrades in arms, you and I."

Alea thawed and stepped forward to take the offered hand, feeling a smile grow that she hadn't known had started, and turned to walk with the warrior.

"That staff is ash, or I miss my guess," Quicksilver said. "Did you season it long, or find it already sound?"

"I chose it from a fallen tree," Alea answered, and the two of them were off comparing aspects of weapons. Cordelia followed with a barely cloaked smile and caught Allouette's hand through the crook of her elbow, patting the fingers in reassurance.

But Gregory turned to Magnus, his face becoming grave. "Come, brother. Our mother awaits."

WHILE THE GALLOWGLASSES and their fiancées had been distracted with greeting, it had been easy enough to distract them a little further, to project a thought assuring that they would only notice one another, not a strange animal, and certainly not an alien—so Evanescent, stowaway from a distant planet, with a huge globe of a head and a catlike body far too small for it, padded down the gangway and scooted into the shelter of the surrounding trees. Once hidden, she turned to direct a thought at the spaceship's computer, wiping a segment of its memory; it would never remember her dashing down the ramp. She had deadened the sensors along her route between the hold and the airlock so that the computer hadn't been aware of her exit, but it never hurt to make sure.

That done, she folded her stubby legs beneath her, settling down to watch the humans' reunion and tasting the welter of their emotions. She was a very powerful telepath, easily more powerful than either of her two humans, even more powerful than Gregory—a trait that had served her species well in its scramble up the evolutionary ladder. Telepathy had warned them when enemies were coming; teleportation and levitation had made it possible for them to flee; telekinesis had made it unnecessary for them to develop hands. So she watched the humans' antics with amusement, enjoying the richness of their feelings. What constant diversion they supplied! How strange and delightful were their angers and hatreds and loves and delights! How subtle were the shadings of one emotion into another, how delightfully paradoxical their ability to feel several different urges at once, how admirable their ability to control them!

Joy was dominant in this reunion, but beneath it lay unease, not from Allouette alone but from each of the Gallowglass siblings as well—unease that Magnus's homecoming might shift the balance they had worked out between themselves, shock and concern to see how much he had aged in ten years, distress at the obvious ordeals he had survived, a lurking worry that those trials had made his vast mental powers even stronger than when he had left—and mystification at the tall willowy woman he had brought with him.

Evanescent smiled, amused as always by human foibles. She tasted the change in mood and marveled that the humans could become so somber simply at another's death, for her breed lost all interest in their sires and dams as soon as they were grown, barely mature. In turn, their mothers and fathers lost all interest in their offspring once they were past kittenhood. They wandered away from one another, and if they met a few months later, scarcely remembered who each other were.

So she lay watching, intrigued all over again by the strange emotions of these foolish people and wondering at their intensity. They cared so much, these silly two-legged creatures! Why did they let so many things matter to them so deeply? Didn't they know that life was brief, that nothing was of any real consequence when measured against the span of ages? She had probed the minds of her two and knew the answer—that they suspected how insignificant they were but refused to accept it and attacked life with all the greater determination.

She watched until the tallest one, the male whom she thought of as one of hers, turned to his spaceship and gave an order, whereupon the ramp slid back into the ship, the hatch closed, and the huge golden discus lifted silently from the earth, drifted up above the treetops, then shot away into the sky, dwindling to a dot, a point of light, then vanishing.

The humans strode away, but Evanescent lay still, following them with her mind, knowing she could trace them over hundreds of miles. She noticed that their apprehension deepened as they rode off—apprehension over then-mother's impending death, but also over the new relationships they must forge with one another.

She decided she wanted to be closer to their destination and rose, stretched, then turned to trot after the riders—and stopped short, staring at the beings who confronted her, amazed that she'd had no slightest inkling of their approach. For the first time in decades, a worm of fear raised its head inside her.

Three

THEY LOOKED LIKE HUMANS, BUT WERE VERY small, these strange creatures who faced Evanescent, varying from a foot to a foot and a half, and the one that stood at their head was the biggest, both in muscle and in height. He glared at the alien in anger and suspicion as he demanded, "What have you to do with my ward?"

Evanescent blinked, surprised by the creatures' sudden appearance, then realized that she had been so intent on the humans that she had missed the sounds and thoughts of these small ones as they came up behind her. She smiled, amused by their audacity. "Ward? How can so tall a creature as that be under your care?"

"Because he is my king's grandson," the small man snapped, "and from the day the grandson was born, His Majesty commanded me to watch and care for him—aye, and for each of his sibs as they were born, too."

"An interesting command." Evanescent's smile widened.

"Do not show your teeth to me and think to cow me by their threat!" the small one snapped, and the score at his back chorused agreement. "I am the Puck, and all with any sense fear my whims!"

"If my smile displeases you, I shall veil it," Evanescent said equably. She knew that her shark-like teeth, once seen, were not easily forgotten, so did not mind closing her lips. "Still, I wonder how you could think to protect a man who is so much larger, and clearly much stronger, than yourself."

"By magic, of course." The little man and all his mates scowled intently as he aimed a finger at her.

A blow from an unseen hand rocked Evanescent back on her stub of a tail. She gasped, dizzy and frightened, her universe suddenly topsy-turvy. When it righted itself and stabilized, she knew it would never be completely firm again. No species but her own had ever been able to lash out at her with such force. "How … how did you …"

"By magic, as I said," the little man said impatiently, "magic of my own, and of the twenty-odd elves behind me. Be sure that I can do much worse, both in kind and in power—for I have more than two thousand years of knowledge and experience to draw on, and hundreds of thousands of elves to strengthen my spells. Tell me what you are, and from where you have come."

So they called themselves "elves" and guarded their minds well—Evanescent could barely catch a stray thought from any of them. But those thoughts were all of concern for the man they knew as Magnus, and anger at Evanescent for endangering him. She began to relax—they were only interested in the same thing, after all: Magnus's welfare. They were natural allies. She merely had to convince them of that.