Iced On Aran Read Online Free PDF Page A

them, so their steps grew lighter along the leafy way …

AUGEREN

    David Hero’s sudden exclamation—“Eldin!”—caused the older dreamer to start. He’d been dozing by their fire, while Hero had sat lost in his own thoughts, peering deep into the flickering flames.
    â€œEh? What? Did you call out, lad? Whazzup?” Eldin the Wanderer cast fearfully about in the firelight, saw nothing amiss, shrugged the blanket off his broad shoulders and reached for his sword anyway. “Was I asleep?”
    â€œEldin!” said Hero again, more quietly this time, and offered a decisive nod of his head.
    The other, still only half-awake, frowned his puzzlement. “Of course I am!” he said. “Who’d you think I was?”
    â€œFunk and Wagnalls!” the younger dreamer delightedly slapped his thigh, tossed another broken branch onto the fire. “Or maybe Chambers Twentieth Century?” He held up a finger, grinned knowingly.
    Eldin was wide awake now. “Huh!” he scowled. “A joke’s a joke and that’s understood. Nothing wrong with a bit of horseplay. I was nodding off and you startled me awake. But what’s all this Funk and Wagnalls stuff? Not like you to burst out cursing in the middle of the
night. Are you sure you’re all right, lad? Or maybe you were dreaming, too, eh?”
    â€œDreaming?” Hero stopped grinning. “Not a bit of it. It’s just that I remembered something, that’s all. From the waking world, I think. A book I used to own—a book of words!”
    â€œOh? Curse-words?”
    â€œThe meaning of words!” said Hero. “Eldin!”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œNo, no! Not you Eldin. The word Eldin.”
    â€œDaft as a brush,” the older dreamer declared with no lack of certainty. “P’raps I’d best stay awake in case you go for my throat in the night!”
    â€œLook,” Hero sighed resignedly. “Names aren’t just names, you know—they are also words which contain meanings. My own name, f’rinstance: Hero. Now what’s a hero, eh?”
    â€œSomeone brave, daring, rescuer of maidens in distress,” Eldin shrugged. “Answerer of calls beyond duty, dragon-slayer, quester!”
    â€œRight!” Hero jumped up, strode to and fro. “And when you think of me, Hero, what do you get? I mean, how do I fit the pattern?”
    â€œLoosely,” said Eldin. “Mainly chicken, seducer of distressed maidens, dragon runner-away-from, quester at a price.”
    â€œOaf!” Hero snorted.
    â€œTired oaf,” Eldin corrected him. “I was just about to start kipping in earnest, when you—”
    â€œForget it!” Hero snapped, cutting him short. “What’s in a name, eh? I mean, if you don’t want to know the meaning of your name—if you see nothing of any importance in the source or lineage of your character—then just forget it …”
    He came back to the fire, stood over Eldin and
scowled at him for a while. Then he threw himself down in his own place and yanked his blanket over himself. “Good night !” he snarled.
    Eldin scratched his chin, frowned at the figure huddled on the other side of the fire. Hero had him hooked and Eldin knew it. Now the younger dreamer would probably make him beg for an explanation; Eldin would lose face, which the other would greatly relish. Also, Hero had doubtless dreamed up a silly origin for Eldin’s name. Here in Earth’s dreamlands “Eldin” was synonymous now with wanderlust, chiefly (Eldin liked to think) because it was his name, his dream-name. What he’d been called in the waking world was lost forever now, an entire dimension away. He couldn’t remember, and only very rarely felt a yearning to know. Here he was Eldin the Wanderer, and that was good enough. Except—
    â€œVery well,” he capitulated gruffly. “So be it …