“You don’t believe me?” She was a matronly sort, fat from much childbearing. “He saw it, I tell you. That’s why I’m braving this morning, what after the omen, you know. I want to see it for myself.”

“Your husband is always seeing things.” The second speaker was an older woman, probably unmarried, at least judging by a bitterness that sounded long-established. “He’s as reliable an observer as he is a teller of tall tales. Every time he tells that story about hunting the boar, he adds to the number of his wounds.”

“You never give him the credit he deserves. You will see. He said it quite clearly. The fire on the aspen is nearly out. And we’re nowhere near the day of summoning.”

Voran’s skin crawled. Perhaps what he had seen was not a dream, but a vision? Had the Pilgrim sung a funeral dirge for the tree?

Straining for the sight of the tree through the houses, Voran pushed forward through the crowd. As he entered the square, he stopped, hardly noticing the grumbling of the people who jostled past him. There was no mistaking it. The fire on the tree was simmering, no more. It looked as though a gust of wind would put it out.

Voran found himself stranded, the square too full for him to push his way closer to the stage at the foot of the tree. The tension stretched around him like a viol string at its snapping point.

“Friends!” Mirnían spoke from the stage, and the crowd’s noise lessened. “Some of you have already heard of our unexpected honor. Vasyllia is visited by a Pilgrim.”

All around Voran a murmur of appreciation rose. The tension eased palpably, and Voran breathed out with it.

“He has traveled alone for many days, and all for the pleasure of seeing our land. Let us welcome him.”

More tension released in the music of their clapping hands. Even Voran, who liked to think himself impervious to mob mentality, felt his heart swelling.

“Yesterday was a dire day, my friends, there can be no doubting it. Though I am loath to say it, the hunt for the white stag has been canceled, and the omen of the darkened sun is enough to chill the heart of the bravest. But lest we think our own misfortunes too great, let us hear of the horrors and wonders of the other lands. I put it to you, dear friends. Shall we let the Pilgrim take the mantle of the storyteller for the day?”

Once again, universal cheers.

The Pilgrim walked forward and assessed the crowd. All cheering stopped as the people shriveled under his gaze. Some even began to mutter in discomfort. An awkward chuckle broke out somewhere, but was cut off immediately. The Pilgrim seemed to be searching for someone or something. His eyes caught Voran’s, and Voran heard the Pilgrim’s voice clearly in his mind: I am sorry, my falcon. I am sorry for everything.

Voran’s breath grew labored. A sense of inescapable calamity seized him. He tried to still his breathing, but the more he tried, the tighter his chest constricted. It was painful just to stand there. He needed to escape, to be anywhere but here. But he was hemmed in on all sides.

“I once knew a man who owned a great wealth of cherry trees,” the Pilgrim began in a storyteller’s sing-song. “His cherries were legendary—they were just sour enough, just sweet enough, just red enough. But one year the cherry orchard produced no fruit at all. Some gardeners blamed the warm weather; others blamed the soil. The rich man was greatly saddened by this.

“He walked through his favorite cherry orchard, amazed at the beauty of the trees. The leaves were the same transparent green they were in early spring; a faint fragrance rose with every breath of wind. They were a sight to behold, but they had no cherries, and it was nearing the end of the picking season.

“And the rich man grew more and more sad at the failure of the orchard. But there was nothing to be done. The ground was expensive; he could afford no fruitless trees. And so, with tears in his eyes, he took an axe and chopped down every tree himself.”

The Pilgrim stopped. Slowly at first, then rising like the wind before a thunderstorm, the crowd gave rein to its disappointment. The Vasylli never liked parables, thought Voran. The sense of impending calamity lessened, but it took a great force of will to unclench his fists. There were white marks on his palms where the nails bit.

Mirnían approached the Pilgrim, apparently encouraging him. The Pilgrim’s shoulders sagged an inch further with each of Mirnían’s words. He seemed a man broken by grief. It was strangely incongruous—the scene was one of festival, with banners fluttering on every windowsill and the people dressed in their finest. And yet, the fire on the tree sputtered.

Mirnían seemed to have won the argument, because the Pilgrim faced the people again with a story on his lips.

The Tale of the Prince and the Raven

Beyond the thrice-nine lands, in the thrice-tenth kingdom, there lived a restless prince. He had everything he could ever want—riches, health, a beautiful princess as his intended bride. But despite all this, wanderlust ate at him constantly.

So he left behind his love to climb the mountains, to explore the forests, to swim the rivers, seeking to slake the thirst of his restlessness. But nowhere did he find the peace he sought.

One day he stopped to drink from a pure mountain spring. It was a taste of paradise.

“Do you like the water?” croaked a voice behind his back.

It was a withered old man, all tawny beard and hair, twisted and resembling a tree stump more than a person.

“Yes, I do,” said the prince. “I do not think I have ever tasted such water.”

The creature leered with a leathery, lipless mouth. “Hah! That is nothing. I have water that will make this water taste like sand. Not only will you never thirst again, but your greatest desire will be fulfilled instantly. What do you desire most, young man?”

The prince could not believe his ears. Could this be the end of his quest?

Just then he looked up and saw a great eagle lounging on a spruce branch like a monarch on a throne. What exhilaration there must be in soaring through the infinite sky!

“I wish to fly as the eagle,” said the prince.

“A very worthy desire. The Raven can provide that.”

The prince had heard of the Raven, a mysterious spirit of the forest, though he supposed it nothing more than a story in the shriveled imagination of a village hag. He remembered the tales he heard in childhood—stories tainted with blood and loss. A creeping fear wrapped itself around his heart, but he laughed it to scorn.

“What do you require in return?” the prince asked.

“Oh, I require nothing. The virtue of my enchantment is such that I will partake, in small measure, of your pleasure.”

“Is there nothing else?”

The Raven shook his head, and the trees began to quiver, and the wind moaned like a crying woman.

“So be it,” said the prince.

The Raven pulled a carved wooden flask from his dirty robes, and the prince drank. Fear suddenly flashed in dreadful clarity as he saw the face of his beloved in his mind, pale as death. He gasped as his breathing grew more painful. Terror gripped him. He could not breathe. A light stabbed his eyes, and he fell.

It took him a blank eternity to realize he was flying. His feathered arms caressed the waves of wind as they hugged his eagle body. His eyes met the sun’s rays, and he did not need to look away. Through his eagle eyes, the sun was a spinning furnace of purple, orange, even green tongues of flame.

A dark streak dimmed the sun for a moment. A swan, feathers black as a mountain’s peak at midnight, flapped toward the mountain stream. Her beauty enraged him, impelling him to destroy this usurper of his glory. He screamed and plunged on the unsuspecting swan.

An alien emotion disturbed him. Pity, a frantic desire for mercy. The eagle recognized the prince still inside him, and he unleashed his anger to drown out the vestiges of man. A warm stream of blood poured over his talons. He could smell the swan’s life oozing out. Dropping her corpse with disgust, he turned once again to the dancing wheel of fire.

An intense pain clutched his chest. The colors of the sun turned grey and the whirling dance froze; the air cut his lungs like daggers. His arms lost their feathers; pudgy nobs replaced them.

He came to himself near the stream, a man again. He crawled to its edge. There, propped against a boulder, lay his beloved princess. Her face was white with death. He touched her cheek and took her hand. It was slippery; blood streamed down her arm. Her shoulder had the unmistakable imprints of an eagle’s talons.

A noxious croak jolted him. On a swinging branch above him, a raven was laughing, its black head nodding insanely. The prince lunged at it, but it flew without effort up to the sun, laughing still. Near the roots of a nearby tree lay the wooden flask, taunting him.

Silence. Then whispers bubbling up like a pot of stew reaching a boil.

“What a horrible story.”

“Is that a Karila story? Never heard anything so absurd.”