The Dryads were all clustered around Mister Wolf, looking almost like a garden of spring flowers - all, that is, except for the tawny one who'd captured Garion. She stood a bit apart, sulking and fingering the point of her arrow. She finally came over to Garion. "You're not thinking about running away, are you?" she asked hopefully.

"No," Garion denied emphatically.

She sighed with disappointment. "I don't suppose you'd consider it, would you - as a special favor to me?"

"I'm sorry," he said.

She sighed again, bitterly this time. "I never get to have any fun," she complained and went to join the others.

Silk emerged from a tent, moving slowly and carefully; and after the Dryads had become accustomed to him, Durnik appeared.

"They're just children, aren't they?" Garion commented to Aunt Pol.

"They seem to be," she said, "but they're much older than they look. A Dryad lives as long as her tree does, and oak trees live for a long time."

"Where are the boy Dryads?" he asked. "All I see are girls."

"There aren't any boy Dryads, dear," she explained, returning to her cooking.

"Then how-? I mean-" He faltered and felt his ears growing hot.

"They catch human males for that," she said. "Travelers and the like."

"Oh." He delicately let the subject drop.

After they had eaten breakfast and carefully quenched their fire with water from the stream, they saddled their horses and started off through the Wood. Mister Wolf walked ahead with the tiny Dryads still gathered around him, laughing and chattering like happy children. The murmuring of the trees about them was no longer unfriendly, and they moved through a kind of welcoming rustle from a million leaves.

It was late afternoon by the time they reached a large clearing in the center of the Wood. Standing alone in the middle of the clearing was an oak so large that Garion could hardly accept the idea that anything so enormous could be alive. Here and there in its mossy trunk were openings almost like caverns, and its lower limbs were as broad as highways and they spread out to shade nearly the entire clearing. There was about the tree a sense of vast age and a patient wisdom. Tentatively Garion felt a faint touch on his mind, almost like the soft brush of a leaf against his face. The touch was unlike anything he had ever felt before, but it also seemed to welcome him.

The tree was literally alive with Dryads, clustering randomly on the limbs like blossoms. Their laughter and girlish chatter filled the air like birdsongs.

"I'll tell my mother you've arrived," the one called Xera said and went toward the tree.

Garion and the others dismounted and stood uncertainly near their horses. From overhead Dryads peered curiously down at them, whispering among themselves and giggling often.