The Line Between

Or eat again, either, come to that. As I have told you, I never went back to my room at that place, which meant leaving my bow there. I wished now that I had chanced fetching it: not only because I had killed a man with that bow when I was barely tall enough to aim and draw, but because without it, on my own, I was bound to go very hungry indeed. I stayed close to our camp — what point in wandering off into unknown country in search of a half–mad, half–sinister old man? — and merely waited, making do with such scraps and stores as we had, drinking from a nearby waterhole, little more than a muddy footprint. Once, in that second night, something large and silent crossed the moon; but when I challenged it there was no response, and nothing to see. I sat down again and threw more wood on my fire.

He came back in human form, almost out of nowhere, but not quite — I never saw that change, either, but I did see, far behind him, coming around a thicket beyond the waterhole, the two sets of footprints, man and animal, and the exact place where one supplanted the other. Plainly, he did not care whether I saw it or not. He sat down across from me, as always, took a quick glance at our depleted larder, and said irritably, «You ate every last one of the sushal eggs. Greedy.»

«Yes. I did.» Formal, careful, both of us, just as though we had never shared a dung–cart. We stared at each other in silence for some while, and then I asked him, most politely, «What are you?»

«What I need to be," he answered. «Now this, now that, as necessary. As are we all.»

I was surprised by my own sudden fury at his blandly philosophical air. «We do not all turn into foxes," I said. «We do not all abandon our friends — " I remember that I hesitated over the word, but then came out with it strongly — «leaving them to face monsters alone. Nor do we all lie to them from sunup to sundown, as you have done to me. I have no use for you, and we have no future together. Come tomorrow, I go alone.»

«Well, now, that would be an extremely foolish mistake, and most probably fatal as

well.» He was as calmly judicial as any human could have been, but he was not human, not human. He said, «Consider — did I not keep you from your enemies, when they were as close on your heels as your own dirty skin? Have I not counseled you well during this journey you and I have made together? That monster, as you call it, did you no harm — nor even properly frighted you, am I right? Say honestly.» I had no fitting answer, though I opened my mouth half a dozen times, while he sat there and smiled at me. «So. Now. Sit still, and I will tell you everything you wish to know.»

Which, of course, he did not. This is what he did tell me:

«What you saw — that was no monster, but something far worse. That was a Goro.» He waited only a moment for me to show that I knew the name; quite rightly not expecting this, he went on. «The Goro are the bravest, fiercest folk who walk the earth. To be killed by a Goro is considered a great honor, for they deign to slay only the bravest and fiercest of their enemies — merely to make an enemy of a Goro is an honor as well. However short–lived.»

«Which is what you have done," I said, when he paused. He looked not at all guilty or ashamed, but distinctly embarrassed.

«You could say that, I suppose," he replied. «In a way. It was a mistake — I made a serious mistake, and I'm not too proud to admit it, even to you.» I had never heard him sound as he did then: half–defiant, yet very nearly mumbling, like a child caught out in a lie. He said, «I stole a Goro's dream.»

I looked at him. I did not laugh — I don't recall that I said anything — but he sneered at me anyway. His eyes were entirely gray now, narrow with disdain, and somewhat more angled than I had noticed before. «Mock me, then — why should you not? Your notion of dreams will have them all gossamer, all insubstantial film and gauze and wispy vapors. I tell you now that the dream of a Goro is as real and solid as your imbecile self, and each one takes solid form in our world, no matter if we recognize it or not for what it is. Understand me, fool!» He had grown notably heated, and there was a long silence between us before he spoke again.

«Understand me. Your life may well depend on it.» For just that moment, the eyes were almost pleading. «It happened that I was among the Goro some time ago, traveling in … that shape you have seen.» In all the time that we have known each other, he has never spoken the word fox, not to me. He said, «A Goro's dream, once dreamed, will manifest itself to us as it chooses — a grassblade or a jewel, a weed or a log of wood, who knows why? In my case … in my case — pure chance, mind you — it turned out to be a shiny stone. The shape likes shiny things.» His voice trailed away, again a guilty child's voice.

«So you took it," I said. «Blame the shape, if you like — no matter to me — but it was you did the stealing. I may be only a fool, but I can follow you that far.»