Rhody wondered what was happening to her brother.

The late night winds were piercing the strong hide door in her tree and she shivered, not only because of their eerie stinking chill but also from the memory of that strange young man who had sought her out in the shallow ravine. Who was he? Why had he come? No one hardly ever used the King's highway, it was too long and too close to the Hinterlands for the comfort of most Lands-people. To see such a promising soul wandering by himself was an odd thing indeed, and to see kindness in the eyes of a stranger was even more surprising. As much as she hated to, Rhody could feel that a protective hedge had grown about her heart. It would not let her trust anyone, and this displeased her. Why was she unable to accept the strong hand that had been held out to her? Rhody wished more than anything that she could learn to receive help with grace instead of forever scorning it as dangerous or foolish. She knew, deep down beyond her mind and common sense, that there would be a day when she would need help and could no longer mistrust a stranger if a stranger offered that vital help.

Rhody ground up some precious peppermint, hobbling about her hollow tree home, and, after stoking the fire with a cedar branch, sat down upon her cot and rubbed the peppermint paste onto her raw ankle, after wiping away the blood with a dampened cloth from the dirty snow outside. She let a smile stretch her dry lips as the cold tingle spread over the aching sprain, fighting away the pain and brining a numb soothing sensation. It felt wonderful. She wriggled her toes with the delicious pleasure and for a while, forgot that her precious older brother might at that moment in the night, lie dead in the midst of those who despised him, that she was alone and wounded, that once again she could not let herself trust something new and strange.

Lorn scratched his head, standing awkwardly outside the tall wide hollow tree, peering at the loosening hide flap.

He was new to these sorts of things. He should not have been assigned this task. He did not know a thing about how approach one who had so openly scoffed at his help. Driving his fist into his palm in a useless, hapless gesture, Lorn threw back his broad shoulders, set his mouth into a frozen smile, and cleared his throat loudly.

The only thing that answered him was the night winds howling through the smoky gray trees, threatening to jerk his cloak from his back. A hot flush arising in his face, the young soldier tried again.

"Ho, young maiden!" he called out.

Rhody was wrenched from her reverie by the sound of a deep young voice outside, speaking above the battering winds. She gasped and whirled around. No, the hide flap was still in place, but then another call came to her ears.

"Healer within the tree, answer me!"

Rhody felt the pain of her ankle flood back in, defeating the peppermint coolness, and she gritted her teeth. Feeling her leathern boot for her little silver dagger, the hilt shaped like a horse's proud rearing head, and suddenly felt foolish. Here she sat, just thinking about trust and the merits of kindness, and she was already feeling the barricade about her wary soul rise up again. She felt sweat prickle on her forehead and the little crackling fire was suddenly too hot. It wold take time, she reasoned with herself, but somehow she could learn once more to love and trust. The least she could do, that night without her dear brother, was take the first step. Life must go on.

Rhody pulled the fastens from the hide door and shoved the flap aside. There stood the tall handsome stranger, out in the night, the firelight from inside playing in his longish sandy brown hair and glinting in his single silver earring. Rhody smiled shyly at him, trying to fight down suspicion and distrust that was waring within her soul.

"Forgive my rudeness earlier," she said, stepping to one side to allow the young man into the tree house. Still unsure of this new wild freedom, Rhody let the hide flap hang loose, in case she felt the need to run away. The dagger hidden in her boot felt strong and secure as the man's presence filled the interior of her home and his lean shadow danced on the warm brown walls.

"Please, sit down there on the cot," she offered. "It is late and you must be tired. Have you eaten?"

Lorn felt his stomach growl but he shook his head, still ill at ease. He sensed the girl was only trying to be polite.

"Thank you, but I have. You...you have a fine home here on the highway," he stammered. The beautiful young healer bent her long brown neck in a nod.

"Yes," Rhody answered the young man, "my brother....my dear brother...and I have lived here since our late childhood, ever since we were cast out by the Lands-people of the village-kingdoms of Crescent and Warwick."

Ah, thought Lorn, stroking his stubbly chin, now we make progress. He leaned forward, his slate gray eyes boring right into the healer's. "Why were you and your brother cast out?" he asked gently, trying to keep his voice in a kind rumble. Yet it was hard, when all he really wished to do was gather the information he needed and bolt from the tree.

Rhody was silent for a moment. Perhaps if she told the young man her darkest memory, she could trust him more fully and thus learn to entrust her tender soul to that which she was always fighting. She heaved a sigh and looked into the dark gray eyes.

"We refused to conform to the King's laws," she answered softly.

Lorn sat back on the hard little cot, blown away by this. Why would someone so beautiful and skilled wish to throw away her life by defiance? For not conforming was punishable by scoffing that made the Life of the victim unworthy of being lived. Yet he saw in the bright green eyes before him a spark of something like fierce, vague joy. He realized she did not regret her decision, even though it had made her and her brother, apparently so dear to her, outcasts of civil society.

"I..." began Lorn, something sympathetic in his voice as if he could somehow comfort the girl, but then he choked it down. She did not want comfort; she was glad and proud of her choice and her perseverance to remain true to the urgings of her soul. This was so strange, so seldom heard of that Lorn hardly knew what to make of the whole thing. "I see you are surprised," said Rhody. She began to feel at ease, somehow. This man, though daunting with his sandy brown hair hanging in his eyes as if to hide them and his long legs crossed up against his chest, did not seem as great a threat as she had at first thought him to be. Perhaps he really meant well. Rhody was thinking on these things when all of a sudden the young man's face was overtaken by a dark shadow.

I cannot persuade her to join Wenceslas, he thought to himself. Such devotion to personal morals cannot be vanquished even by means of earthly pleasure, not in one so spirited. Lorn knew he would be a fool to try otherwise and tempt her to sin and risk her reputation, outcast though she may be, for something she adamantly loathed. He looked into her vibrant green eyes, expecting to see the familiar hatred of the King, but instead saw something like pity. His breath hissed through his teeth when we realized it was pity for him, he who was too weak to stand up for his own beliefs and for something better than what the King offered.

Rhody watched the young man. He was smart, she realized, smarter than most. She could see the inner battle in his soul. He was struggling with his set values, his beliefs, his morals. Quietly she got up to scoop him out a bowl of stew from the small fire before her. The rudely carven wood spoon clinked merrily against the dark black kettle as she put it down and handed the hot bowl to the young man. She did not even know his name, but she sensed he needed help and she sat down opposite him, ready to give it to him. Nearly all of the old mistrust had been flooded away by the sight of his troubled gray eyes, the dampness on his trembling palms as he gulped and muttered a thanks for the stew.

"The King is wrong in the ways he tempts his people to do evil for him, as if it was a good thing to betray one's fellow man, a good thing to go against what he believes. The King was not always like this." Rhody smoothed her long rough homespun skirt of dark plain brown, and sighed as she heard the foul wind blow outside. "No. No, he use to be a good king, one whom the people of the Lands could trust and look up to. Yes, he was young, but so was his father when he first came to power upon the throne of the Lands. Yet because Wenceslas has allowed his heart to be consumed by thoughts of greater power, some sort of evil that has taken over his being and which has made him evil himself as a result, he had led the people who once could trust him astray. They have become as beasts instead of men."

Lorn shuddered with the eerie truth in the strange healer's words. He hardly felt when she pressed a hot wooden cup of tea into his hand. Involuntarily he took a sip and somehow relished the way it scalded down his parched throat. He was not brave enough. No indeed, Lorn the young soldier of the King, blindly following what he had known all along to be something wrong and bad. Yet the looming blackness of a death sentence had pushed him into following evil commands from evil people.

Death. What a dark word, a word without hope. Lorn was not ready to die. He had spent all his life being a puppy, a mere lump of clay in the hands of the wrong potter, a stupid sheep in the fold of the wrong shepherd. This concept, now that he was man enough to admit it to himself, terrified him and made him suddenly jump up, slinging the soup and tea across the room, and grasp the healer's shoulders in one last desperate attempt to save his Life.

Rhody shouted in rage as the strange shook her. "Submit to His Majesty!" he snarled in her face, his breath smelling of the vegetables she had put into the stew. "Let him rule your Life as he has ruled mine." The man tore aside his long green cloak to reveal the King's emblem emblazoned upon the breast of his tunic. "I have been commanded to persuade you to join the King's illustrious forces." The man suddenly sank to his knees. "They wanted me to play upon your womanly instincts. But I see now you will let no one take away that which you must treasure within your soul. Never lose your spirit, outcast; Life can be sweet if one only remembers there is more than Evil in the Lands." With a broken sob, the young soldier darted out the door.

Rhody was not ashamed that she had let herself trust him. He was confused, that was all. She got up, her fingers straying from the horse-head hilt of her dagger still hidden within her boot, and watched the long green cloak snap in the darkening night wind as the soldier retreated into the forests across the highway. Suddenly she was filled with an incredible peace. A rich, deep voice within her soul spoke and said to her, "Be merry, dear child of My heart, for you have remained pure and strong, and have guided the hand of the young soldier once closer to My sword of truth. Because you have proven faithful and have not forsaken Me, even though you do not yet know Me fully, you will be chosen amongst all the women in the Lands to bear My Son, who will redeem you all."

Rhody groveled upon the floor in awe, fearing this great strange voice. Was this the beginning of what the strange outcast Shaddai-Trust called the Redemption? How, then, could she be a part of it, not being one of that faith?

"My dear son," continued the voice, "Who will be sacrificed for truth and life and love, and Who will save My people from their sins in which they have stumbled into. You, My dear child, will bear this, My Son, the Redeemer. You will give birth to Him in the village-kingdom of Crescent and Evil be be conquered."

"B-b-but how can I bear a child?" Rhody whispered, suddenly fearful. "I am not married. And why have You chosen me, only a poor healer and an outcast, to do Your glorious work? I am not even sure the Great One of the Shaddai-Trust exists."

A warm long chuckle sounded in her soul. "My dear child, have faith and you will soon know Me."

The voice faded away, leaving Rhody lying in her hollow tree by the side of the highway...completely stunned, confused, and yet somehow more peaceful than she ever had been.