Clifford Simak - A Heritage of Stars

A few birds were singing their morning songs. The slight breeze that had blown in the night had died with dawn and not a leaf was stirring. He finished with the jerky and put it back in the pack. He hitched himself away from the cluster of tree trunks against which he had been leaning and stretched out to sleep.

She was waiting for him when he crawled out of the lilac thicket in the middle of the afternoon. She stood directly in front of the tunnel he had made to force his way into the thicket, and the first indication he had that anyone was there came when he saw two bare feet planted in the grass at the tunnel's end. They were dirty feet, streaked with flaking mud, and the toenails were untrimmed and broken. He froze at the sight of them and his eyes traveled up the tattered, tarnished, grease-stained robe that reached down to her ankles. The robe ended and he saw her face—a face half hidden in a tangled mop of iron-gray hair. Beneath the mop of hair were a pair of steely eyes, now lighted with hidden laughter, the crow's-feet at the corners of them crinkled in merriment. The mouth was a thin slash and twisted, the lips close-pressed, as if trying to hold in a shout of glee. He stared up at her foolishly, his neck craned at a painful angle.

Seeing that he'd seen her, she cackled at him and did a shuffling jig.

"Aye, laddie, now I have you," she shouted. "I have you where I want you, crawling on your belly and kissing my feet. I had you spotted all the day and I've been waiting for you, being very careful not to disturb your beauty rest. It is shameful, it is, and you with the mark upon you.

His eyes flashed to each side of her, sick with apprehension, shamed at being trapped by an odious old hag who shouted gibberish at him. But she was alone, he saw; there was no one else about.

"Well, come on out," she told him. "Stand up and let us have a look at the magnificence of you. It's not often that Old Meg catches one like you."

He tossed the bow and quiver and the packsack out beyond the tunnel's mouth and got to his feet, confronting her.

"Now look at him," she chortled. "Is he not a handsome specimen? Shining in his buckskins with egg upon his face, account of being caught at his little tricks. And sure you thought no one was a-seeing you when you came sneaking in at dawn. Although I am not claiming that I saw you; I just felt you, that was all. Like I feel the rest of them when they come sneaking in. Although, truth to tell, you did better than the rest. You looked things over well before you went so cleverly to earth. But even then I knew the mark upon you.

"Shut up the clatter," he told her roughly. "What is this mark you speak of, and you say you felt me? Do you mean you sensed me?"

"Oh, but he's a clever one," she said. "And so well spoken, too, with a fine feeling for the proper words. ‘Sensed me, he says, and I Suppose that is a better word. Until now I did not clap eyes upon you, but I knew that you were there and I knew Where you went and kept track of you, sleeping there, all the livelong day. Aye, you cannot fool the old girl, no matter what you do."

"The mark?" he asked. "What kind of mark? I haven't any marks."

"Why, the mark of greatness, then. What other could it be, a fine strapping lad like you, out on a great adventure."

Angrily, he reached down to pick up his knapsack, slung it on his shoulder.

"If you've made all the fun you want of me," he said, "I'll be on my way.

She laid a hand upon his arm. "Not so fast, my bucko. It is Meg, the hilltop witch, that you are talking with. There are ways that I can help you, if I have a mind to, and I think I have a mind to, for you're a charming lad and one with a good heart in him. I sense that you need help and I hope you're not too proud to ask it. Although among the young there's always a certain arrogance of pride. My powers may be small and there are times they are so small I wonder if in truth I really am a witch, although many people seem to think so and that's as good as being one. And since they think I am, I set high fees on my work, for if I set a small fee, they'd think me a puny witch. But for you, my lad, there'll be no fee at all, for you are poorer than a church mouse and could not pay in any case.

"That's kind of you," said Cushing. "Especially since I made no solicitation of your help."

"Now listen to the pride and arrogance of him," said Meg. "He asks himself what an old bag like myself could ever do for him. Not an old bag, sonny, but one that's middle-aged. Not as good as I once was, but not exactly feeble, either. If you should want no more than a tumble in the hay, I still could acquit myself. And there's something to be said for a young one to learn the art from someone who is older and experienced. But that, I see, is not what you had in mind."

"Not exactly," Cushing said.

"Well, then, perhaps you'd like something better than trail fare to stuff your gut. The kettle's on and you'd be doing Meg a favor to sit at table with her. If you are bound to go, it might help the journey to start with a belly that is full. And I still read that greatness in you. I would like to know more about the greatness.

"There's no greatness in me," he protested. "I'm nothing hut a woods runner.

"I still think it's greatness," Meg told him. "Or a push to greatness. I know it. I sensed it immediately this morning. Something in your skull. A great excitement welling in you.

"Look," he said, desperately, "I'm a woods runner, that is all. And now, if you don't mind."

She tightened her grip upon his arm. "Now, you can't go running off. Ever since I sensed you.

"I don't understand," he said, "about this sensing of me. You mean you smelled me out. Read my mind, perhaps. People don't read minds. But, wait, perhaps they can. There was something that I read—"

"Laddie, you can read?"

"Yes, of course I can."

"Then it must be the university you are from. For there be precious few outside its walls who can scan a line. What happened, my poor precious? Did they throw you out?"

"No," he said, tightly, "they did not throw me out."

"Then, sonny, there must be more to it than lever dreamed. Although I should have known. There was the great excitement in you. University people do not go plunging out into the world unless there are great events at stake. They huddle in their safety and are scared of shadows

"I was a woods runner," he said, "before I went to the university. I spent five years there and now I run the woods again. I tired of potato hoeing."

"And now," she said, "the bravado of him! He swaps the hoe for a bow and marches toward the west to defy the oncoming horde. Or is this thing you seek so great that you can ignore the sweep of conquerors?"

"The thing I seek," he said, "may be no more than a legend, empty' talk whispered down the years. But what is this you say about the coming of a horde?"

"You would not know, of course. Across the river, in the university', you squat behind your walls, mumbling of the past, and take no notice of what is going on outside."

"Back in the university," he said, "we knew that there was talk of conquest, perhaps afoot already."

"More than afoot," she said. "Sweeping toward us and growing as it moves. Pointed at this city. Otherwise, why the drumming of last night?"

"The thought crossed my mind," he said. "I could not be sure, of course."

"I've been on the watch for them," said Meg. "Knowing that at the first sign of them I must be on my' way. For if they should find Old Meg, they'd hang her in a tree to die. Or burn her. Or visit other great indignity and pain upon this feeble body. They have no love of witches, and my' name, despite my feeble

powers, is not unknown to them."

"There are the people of the city," Cushing said. "They've been your customers. Through the years you've served them well. You need only' go to them. They'll offer you protection.