The lightning flashed intermittently, piercing the darkness that cloaked the thick Narbek Forest. The wind drove bold curtains of leaves across the tangled paths, warning of the deluge to come.

    Fawn the Dark-Eyed ran, clutching the sack of kluroot to her, strong wind pressing the brief skirt against her thighs. The girl was still a long distance from the tree-community, but there was no hope of reaching it now; the only safety--and the only protection for her precious burden--lay in finding a quick refuge here. The distance from Owlstree to her own community was an uncrossable one when it meant transporting dry kluroot through a storm.

    This particular garnering was desperately needed, for the wandering sickness approached, and the scarce contents of her sack, kept dry, represented immunity for everyone in the tree-carved dwellings. If the root, once dry, became saturated except under the right conditions, a destroying mold almost always set in. Fawn wrapped the bag in her cloak as a temporary protection.

    The rain fell heavily and the wind continued to rise. Fawn searched ever more anxiously, ignoring the fact that she was losing track of her direction.

    It was increasingly difficult to see, due to the storm's fury, so she nearly ran past the hollow thafa trunk. It was huge and the opening was away from the wind's direction. Fawn stumbled inside, throwing herself down against the inner wall gratefully.

    There the girl remained, contentedly enough, watching the violence outside. She had removed her outer clothing, using her small, jeweled ear ornaments to tack them to the fibrous wall above her. The kluroot sack reposed safely in a small cleft in the inner wall.

    From time to time the wind changed direction, blowing a little rain and a few leaves into the hollow trunk, but not disturbing her much.

    On one of these occasions, a very large, dried seed pod came sailing in. Fawn noticed with some surprise that a thin vine was looped through the top, as if the pod had been tied to a branch. She leaned forward to study it.

    A small form squeezed out the torn side of the pod with no warning, alarming the girl a little. It was light-green and stood on two spindly legs. The creature had a round head, distinguished most by its one gleaming transparent orange eye. The closed, sunken lid on the other side suggested that some misfortune had befallen its other eye. A wide, fanged and slitted mouth gave it somewhat the appearance of a water-hopper, but no mere water-hopper ever wore an expression so impish. It rubbed its small web-fingered hands together, staring curiously at the girl.

    Fawn recognized it as a bandemar, though she had never seen one. Few could claim the distinction, since bandemars transacted their affairs far from the eyes of men. There was some question as to just what manner of life they might be. It was often hinted by the superstitious that they possessed abilities beyond the normal. There were also those who gave testimony to the effect that bandemars were not averse to collecting the foresters' possessions while they slept. Indeed, Fawn thought she had seen small baubles strung inside the seed pod when the little beast emerged.

    The bandemar squatted down on its haunches and watched the storm. Fawn, in turn, behaved as though its presence were a matter of indifference to her and went on humming to herself.

    At last the storm abated and a few bright rays filtered down through the Narbekian gloom. The bandemar stood peering out the opening, webbed hands on hips, looking very much like a small, petulant old man.

    Fawn dressed, leaving the jeweled ornaments sticking in the wall until she was done. When she pulled them out, one dropped to the floor.

    The bandemar pounced on it eagerly. The creature examined the small blue stone in the metal setting, turning it round and round. Fawn hesitated momentarily, then reached down and snatched the ornament from its grasp.

    The bandemar turned and scuffed casually away to stand at the opening again. If it heard the girl's light laughter, it chose to ignore it.

    Fawn stood near the thafa shelter and looked around uncertainly. One section of forest here looked much like another. She might find the right path in minutes or wander in circles for days.

    The bandemar, which had followed her out, was seated on a small brown fungus mound that had sprouted during the storm. It stood up and walked away from the girl for a short distance, stopping to glance back at her over its small, bony shoulder with that lone piercing eye. Fawn hesitated only a moment, then shrugged and followed the little being.

    The path was ever-winding, and as she continued on without spotting a familiar sign, Fawn's apprehension grew. She pictured herself attacked by lurking hordes of the little demons here, where no one would ever know what had happened to her or to the kluroot.

    After a while, however, the girl began to notice several gnarled trees and roots that she thought she had seen before, and she felt slight reassurance. The reservation she still maintained was due to the fact that no one had ever heard of a bandemar helping anyone, and she didn't feel that any form of kinship had been brought about from their brief stay together in the thafa tree.

    Several times the bandemar found it necessary to skirt small areas in order to avoid certain dangerous fauna. These were, for the most part, small carnivores of which Fawn had no fear, but on more than one occasion, they narrowly missed confrontation with larger beasts, the ones with contempt--or more likely, simple disregard--for the supremacy of man.

    At long last, Fawn stepped onto the well-known trail to her own village. Relieved now to feel herself again on equal footing with her environment, she no longer felt the need for haste. The bandemar had ensured her reaching home with the kluroot before the night came with its slinking dangers, its crawling entrapments, its winging death. She wondered how one explained one's gratitude to a bandemar.

    Finding some ripe greatberries, she broke one off and cut the meat into chunks with her small dagger. As she ate she proffered some to the bandemar and it approached slowly, but only stared at her grimly with that one glistening orange eye.

    Fawn suddenly felt very drowsy, and although she knew well the perils of sleeping alone and unguarded in the Narbek Forest, she was powerless to resist. Her mind seemed to be drifting off through the trees, losing its grasp on reality.

    She awoke moments later to find the bandemar moving away from her in its swaggering stride. She shook her head to clear the cobwebs, brushed a hand through her hair. Then she stopped, abruptly.

    Puzzled, she removed the ornament she had felt and looked at it. The blue gem was gone from its setting, although, strangely, the thick bezel was undisturbed. She shrugged, amused at the prospect of her blue stone dangling from a seed pod somewhere in the depths of the forest. But that was not to be its fate.

    The bandemar had reached the thicker foliage. It turned, striking an insolent pose and flaunted the gem between two webbed fingers. Then, thrusting out a small green forked tongue, it popped the gem into its empty eye socket.