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ONE

I'd been dreaming about a war with the Lizards. Some of the time we were in the woods, and sometimes the woods became a village, my home town of Aarschot, although it didn't look like Aarschot. Sometimes the Lizards ran around on four legs, looking something like the gator I saw once in a traveling show. Other times they had lizardy faces and ran on their hind legs, with long skinny tails lashing around behind them. And sometimes they looked more like people carrying pitchforks, but had froggy faces, in spite of fangs that showed when they opened their mouths. In any case they had horns on their heads.

Sometimes we were actually fighting, usually with swords, but other times I'd be talking with them and drinking coffee. It was always their coffee, as if they were rich.

I woke out of it and opened my eyes. And saw the wolf sniffing at my feet. I suppose I jerked, maybe even yelled. Anyway, the wolf leaped backward and disappeared, and somehow I was on my feet with my sword in my hand. I don't know just how I managed that. I can visualize myself getting up like a steel spring released, but I still haven't imagined how I got my sword at the same time. At the moment it all had a feeling of unreality, as if it were part of the dream, but I knew it was real.

My knees were honest-to-God shaking, too. I couldn't see the wolf any longer, but then, I couldn't see very much else either. The forest roof cut out most of the light from a lopsided moon.

My heart slowed from a gallop to a trot, and I became aware of the mosquitoes on my face. I squashed them bloody with one hand, then squatted down by what was left of my fire: a few coals showing faintly ruddy through a blanket of white wood ash. I'd left dry broken branchwood in easy reach. Working right-handed, with my sword still in my left, I took a twig, brushed ashes off the coals, and laid a few smaller, brittler twigs on top of them. Then I raised my eyes and scanned around again, listening hard.

Seeing and hearing nothing, I crouched forward and blew long and gently on the coals, brightening them. I took another deep breath and blew some more. Twigs flared suddenly, and I heard a sound as if a heavy body had jumped back, startled. After adding larger twigs, I laid several pieces the thickness of my thumb and bigger across them, then stood up to scan the woods again. Back a ways, three pairs of yellow eyes reflected the firelight—a she-wolf and two yearling cubs, I'd have bet. Unusual for a wolf to make so bold, especially with young; at least back in Mizzoo it would have been, but this was wild country along here.

Gripping my sword, I stepped around the fire toward the eyes to see what they'd do. They disappeared. A dead branch snapped, as if they were leaving too fast to care.

The moon's height said well past midnight, maybe two or three of the clock. I squatted down with my back to the log I'd been sleeping against. The air was damp and still, and beginning to be smoky again. I put on three or four more pieces of branchwood and watched the fire grow. The smoke made my eyes water some, but the mosquitoes stayed away.

Feeling in my pack for the johnnycake, I opened the cloth it was wrapped in, ate a crumbly piece of it, and thought about walking on. I can most always go to sleep by lying down and closing my eyes, but I didn't feel sleepy anymore, and it wasn't more than a couple-hundred meters to the road. I'd only left it far enough to put a low ridge between my fire and possible night travelers who might otherwise see or smell it.

Not that I'm a worrier, but Ohioans had spoken ill of the Kingdom of Allegheny, and sometimes local prejudice is right.

I raised my wineskin for a single swallow—creek water now, with scarcely a tinge left of grape—and decided to stay where I was. Till either dawn or the mosquitoes woke me again. I had some green wood on hand, and laid it on to make the fire last and add to the smoke. Then I put my sword where I could grab it, lay back down against the log, and closed my eyes. The wood popping in the fire had me asleep in no time.

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Framed