THe TWo stood silently a moment, Sompar coolly gauging Ilakein,
and Ilakein smiling her kindly, warm smile at Sompar, and at Tolgar’s
father, and the withered old man, and nearly everyone else in the room.
She seemed not to have a care in the world. Finally, Sompar spoke.
“You have seen the omen?”
“Oh, certainly,” she replied in her quavering yet confident voice.
“What is its meaning, then?” he asked.
“Ah, well,” she began, sounding rather amused, “It is your omen,
only you know the meaning. To me, it is but another star in the night. You
are the one who has given it value, not I.”

“Come, Grandmother, sit here.”
A stool was provided; Grandmother sat and leaned back against a
clean spot of wall with a sigh, quite out of breath. She had come alone,
made her way down the many stairs and along the many corridors without
assistance as an act of defiance to those whose charge she was and who
would have discouraged her from coming at all for fear of the strain to her
aged frame. But she had to see for herself, the end of it all. She had to see it
done. The adults had, at long last, finished the heavy work some days past;
a ceremonious celebration was planned for a few days hence, in which
she, as the eldest and most direct link to the Beginning of the Discovering,
would be treated like a fragile relic, with more care and regard than
would be comfortable. In the interim, she knew, the young people would
have been put to washing out the last of it. So she had snuck away from the
watchful eyes and made her way to the bottom.

The basket began to twist and tip with his swinging weight dragging through the breeze. He was lowered in jerks, rather than one smooth motion, and with each jolt he feared the floor of the basket would crack, or that Tolgar’s hand would slip and he would crash into the grassy hills. He didn’t, but as he clung tightly to the rope, looking at the dark thick wood, remembering Darnia’s instructions, there is a path, he shouted up to Tolgar.
“Wait! How will I find my way?” If Tolgar had heard him, he didn’t hear the answer. But he saw Ilakein peer over the fence, her hood drooping over her, and he heard her tremulous voice call down, “It is not a matter of finding a way, my friend, it is a matter of following it.”