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I took my saber from my belt and held it at the ready Some small part of e and cut it through, would I have won? I wanted to look back at Dewara again, but I deee such hesitation as cowardice Would I or would I not be Kidona? If I finished the crossing, would I have won the way for thee of roots and tested ht on it It was sound It did not sway or creak, but held me as firmly as the brick ay had I htbefore me

When I was a third of the way across the living section of the bridge, the roots began to creak underropes I continued toeach foot as securely as I could on the uneven surface of the root web and holding ainst their limits as I strove to be wary The tree was the sentry, Dewara had said I fixed ns of hidden attackers or unnatural activity as I eased toward it

It did nothing

I felt a bit foolish by the tie with absolutely no signs of hostility froan to wonder if this was one of Dewara’s practical jokes Usually they were physically painful, but perhaps he si about the tree that he wishedit and studied it instead The closer I came to it, the more immense it was The trees I kneere the trees of the Plains, bent by the constant winds They grew very slowly, and the oldest ones I’d seen did not have a quarter of the girth of the tree before ht and tall; she was thick of trunk and li her branches wide to the nourishment of the sun Her fallen leaves carpeted the earth below her, a thick, rich litter of huone brown but still recognizable The red flowers had tall yellow stamens in their centers When the wind puffed past them, they released their yellow pollen to drift like smoke The wind blew so my eyes I blinked to clear the pollen fro vision cleared, a wouardian warrior! I stared at her, aghast She was very old and very fat She was soranny, save that I had never before seen a woht eyes were hooded with flesh and wrinkles Both her nose and ears had groith her years Her lips were plumped and pursed at me as if she considered me in as much bewilderment as I did her

I continued to stare, to try to make sense of what confronted irdled her ars were sunken into her pluemstones, had stretched the lobes of her ears Her fallen boso swell of her belly Her hair, long and streaky gray as a horse’slike a cloak over her shoulders and down her back The persistent breeze toyed with its uneven ends Her robe looked like it had been woven fro her iirth, and her thick ankles and pluht breaking through the tree’s leafy canopy dappled her skin and gare of her changed When she shifted, the shadowy patterns on her skin and robe moved with her, independent of the true shadows of the leaves Her feet, like her bare arnized it was neither paint nor tattoo She was dappled, speckled with color It took an instant before I realized that, for the first ti a Speck

The reality was far different froht a Speck would be speckled with small marks, like freckles Instead, the color that patterned her skin was uneven It re of some cats, as if their stripes were left unfinished to becoave me that sense of a pattern interrupted A dark stripe ran down her nose Dark streaks radiated froers were dark, like a cat’s sooty feet, but the color faded on her forearetting Dewara’s warnings My approach had become the cautious creep of the fascinated cat rather than the wary stalking of a warrior Her face was still, her expression both serene and dignified Now she seeeless Her face was lined but they were the kindly lines of a woman who smiled often and enjoyed life In a wo flesh repulsive, but because she was a Speck, it seemed just another difference between us