Stardust

"No. Not my fortune. It was more of a promise I made to this lady I mentioned. I... we were talking, and I was promising her things, and we saw this falling star, and I promised to bring it to her. And it fell..." he waved an arm toward a mountain range somewhere in the general direction of the sunrise "...over there."

The little hairy man scratched his chin. Or his muzzle; it might well have been his muzzle. "You know what I would do?"

"No," said Tristran, hope rising within him, "what?"

The little man wiped his nose. "I'd tell her to go shove her face in the pig pen, and go out and find another one who'll kiss you without askin' for the earth. You're bound to find one. You can hardly throw half a brick back in the lands you come from without hittin' one."

"There are no other girls," said Tristran confidently.

The little man sniffed, and they packed up their things and walked on together.

"Did you mean it?" said the little man. "About the fallen star?"

"Yes," said Tristran.

"Well, I'd not mention it about if I were you," said the little man. "There's those as would be unhealthily interested in such information. Better keep mum. But never lie."

"So what should I say?"

"Well," he said, "f'r example, if they ask where you've come from, you could say 'Behind me,' and if they asked where you're going, you'd say 'In front of me.' "

"I see," said Tristran.

The path they were walking became harder to discern. A cold breeze ruffled Tristran's hair, and he shivered. The path led them into a grey wood of thin, pale birch trees.

"Do you think it will be far?" asked Tristran. "To the star?"

"How many miles to Babylon?" said the little man rhetorically. "This wood wasn't here, last time I was by this way," he added.

"How Many Miles to Babylon," recited Tristran, to himself, as they walked through the grey wood."Three score miles and ten.

Can I get there by candlelight?

Yes, and back again.

Yes, if your feet are nimble and light,

You can get there by candlelight."

"That's the one," said the little hairy man, his head questing from side to side as if he were preoccupied, or a little nervous.

"It's only a nursery rhyme," said Tristran.

"Only a nursery...? Bless me, there's some on this side of the wall would give seven years' hard toil for that little cantrip. And back where you come from you mutter 'em to babes alongside of a 'Rock-a-Bye-Baby' or a 'Rub-a-Dub-Dub,' without a second thought... Are you chilled, lad?"

"Now that you mention it, I am a bit cold, yes."

"Look around you. Can you see a path?"

Tristran blinked. The grey wood soaked up light and color and distance. He had thought they were following a path, but now that he tried to see the path, it shimmered, and vanished, like an optical illusion. He had taken that tree, and that tree, and that rock as markers of the path... but there was no path, only the mirk, and the twilight, and the pale trees. "Now we're for it," said the hairy man, in a small voice.

"Should we run?" Tristran removed his bowler hat, and held it in front of him.

The little man shook his head. "Not much point," he said. "We've walked into the trap, and we'll still be in it even if we runs."

He walked over to the nearest tree, a tall, pale, birchlike tree trunk, and kicked it, hard. Some dry leaves fell, and then something white tumbled from the branches to the earth with a dry, whispering sound.

Tristran walked over to it and looked down; it was the skeleton of a bird, clean and white and dry.

The little man shivered. "I could castle," he told Tristran, "but there's no one I could castle with'd be any better off here than we are... There's no escape by flying, not judgin' by that thing." He nudged the skeleton with one pawlike foot. "And your sort of people never could learn to burrow—not that that'd do us much good..."

"Perhaps we could arm ourselves," said Tristran.

"Arm ourselves?"

"Before they come."

"Before they come? Why—they're here, you puddenhead. It's the trees themselves. We're in a serewood."

"Serewood?"

"It's me own fault—I should've been paying more attention to where we was goin'. Now you'll never get your star, and I'll never get my merchandise. One day some other poor bugger lost in the wood'll find our skellingtons picked clean as whistles and that'll be that."

Tristran stared about him. In the gloom it seemed that the trees were crowding about more thickly, although he had seen nothing actually move. He wondered if the little man were being foolish, or imagining things.

Something stung his left hand. He slapped at it, expecting to see an insect. He looked down to see a pale yellow leaf. It fell to the ground with a rustle. On the back of his hand, a veining of red, wet blood welled up. The wood whispered about them.

"Is there anything we can do?" Tristran asked.