After a few moments of recovery, he gazed around, noticing that the forest grew as thickly here as down below the falls.
Suddenly he realised he was not alone; he was being watched from the shadows. For a moment he thought it might be the same young girl he had fancied watching while he bathed, but this time it turned out to be an old, old woman, gnarled and bent, her skin seasoned so brown by the sun that it looked almost indistinguishable from the tree bark. Her head was practically bald, but what hair remained fell in white wisps and untidy strands over her bony shoulders. Her eyes, however, were large and bright.
For a seemingly long time they stared at each other. Bladud felt ridiculously like a deer caught in the beam of some predator’s eye, poised and ready for flight, but unable
