Storm chuckled, shed her gloves, spat on her hands, and picked up the axe again, narrowing her eyes to judge the throw. The head of a doe rose above the two trees she was staring at, and gazed at her with soft, thoughtful brown eyes.

"Boo," she said. It knew her too well to be afraid of her, and came clambering down the bank to leap a stack of firewood and nuzzle her for anything sugary she might be carrying.

Storm sighed, picked the deer up, and trudged up out of the hollow, ignoring its startled kicks. "Back to the other side of the fence, little one," she told it. "It's not as if I don't provide you with your very own grazing garden already!"

Brown eyes met her own silver-blue ones, and the deer sniffed loudly.

"I see," Storm replied, as the animal kicked again. "No, you're coming with me.. "

The stone posts that flanked the rose-girded arch were graven deeply with swirling moons, stars, and harps; this was her farm, all right. The man in the dapple-gray cloak and mottled, smooth-worn brown leather armor put a hand into his shoulder-pouch and slowly drew out something silver. He showed it to the watchful wolfhound that stood in the entrance: a silver harp pin, gleaming on his open palm in the bright morning sun.

The dog nodded to him, for all the world like a respectful human gateguard, and stood back. The man gave it an answering nod and cautiously stepped past. The lane ran under a huge grape arbor and on toward a low-lying, grass-roofed farmhouse that seemed to grow out of the garden beyond. Birds were singing and flitting among the trees of an orchard to his right, and there was no sign of farmhands or livestock. Even the usual reek of manure was absent.

But then, anyplace that looked more like a woodland garden than a working farm almost had to be the abode of Storm Silverhand. The man picked up his pace. His soft boots made no sound on the grass path that led to flagstones and a little patio of hanging plants. A stone seat was built into the rubble wall of a raised herb bed, and-through another open arch, without any door that he could see-the path led into the cool dimness of a stone-floored kitchen.