****
My first memories are of the high hills.
Soaring eagles below. The grass and trees on the farther
hills swaying in waves wilder than the seas I have since seen.
I have another memory, of Smoke and screams – but it is very
faint.
Edwin found me, a baby of about three months old, on the
threshold of his cave, a line of tiger’s footprints leading away.
He raised me as his own, teaching me, when I was old enough,
the ways of healing and of the mysterious innate goodness to be found in the
pure elements and (in greater or less degree) in our fellow creatures. “Signs
of the eternally true” Edwin called this. “Dim sparks of the one bright thing.”
“As dewdrops are to the river, so are these things we sense. Someday you shall
seek the River itself.”
We lived quite peacefully in the hills, those high hills.
There where a few small villages, many animals, occasional raiders and goblins.
Edwin trained me in the use of arms, that I might be able to withstand evil and
hunt for food. We did not see much of any fellow Druid, as many of them did not
see wisdom in Edwin’s ways. They saw plants as a force to manipulated, not
respected, and animals as slaves (or masters), not nourishment. They
manipulated the weak and feared the strong.They had no knowledge of the river.
When I was about fifteen years old I found outside our door
a tiger’s cub. Whisper and I have been inseparable since. Edwin used to tease
that we where littermates, pointing to the common tint of our hair and eyes. It
is true we understand each other.
For six years we three were happy together. Then Edwin died,
as all men must. I buried him according to the custom of our people, building
his mound under our favorite tree.
After this, my heart became restless, and I determined to go
in search of that River of truth that
alone can heal all hurts and fill all emptiness.
****
And so her story begins:
How all these met with each other (and many adventures) must wait for another day:
