The Hob's Bargain

you’d be. I’ve tried to catch you at night the last couple of days, but you were gone. So I decided to try before it got dark.” The hob stretched, taking up even more space. His eyes glowed a little in the dark.
    â€œI’ve been patrolling,” I said in answer to his implied question. Little folk? What little folk? Fully awake, I was too intimidated by his presence, made even larger and darker in the confines of the attic, to ask him about little folk.
    â€œI’m afraid I told the big man—Koret?—that I would be borrowing you from him for tonight. I promised to see what I could do about the earthens, and I need you to do it.”
    â€œEarthens?” I asked, slipping out of my blankets and rolling them into a tight bundle. Yesterday’s clothes (which I had slept in) would just have to do. I wasn’t changing with the hob looking on.
    â€œThe creatures that attacked your village were earthens. They’re the earth spirit’s minions, pretty harmless as such things go. Your folk were lucky the spirit is weak yet, or you’d have been facing something much nastier.”
    â€œEarth spirit?” I asked.
    â€œI think,” said Caefawn, “it might be better if I talk as we go. Koret explained it is important that no one find you here. If we continue to talk, the chances of someone discovering your sleeping place are greatly increased.”

    B Y THE TIME WE WERE OUTSIDE THE VILLAGE PROPER , night had fallen. The moon was still in a brighter phase, but it was cloudy, so at intervals we were floundering (well, I was floundering) in darkness. I wondered why he’d picked me to go adventuring with instead of Kith or someone else more competent. Of course, there was the bargain between us.
    â€œWhere are we going?” I spoke softly because we weren’t far from the village yet, having stopped just past the temple grounds.
    â€œI was hoping that you would have a better idea than I,” responded Caefawn.
    I thought for a while, then said, carefully, “How would I know where we’re going, when I don’t even know why?”
    â€œForm a picture in your mind of this half of the valley.”
    I frowned at him, but he didn’t see because he’d closed his eyes. I could feel him gathering magic.
    â€œDo it, Aren. Please.”
    I tried, but it was like trying to decide what the roof of a building looks like from the inside. I’d never considered the valley as a whole unit, just bits and pieces, one connected to the other.
    â€œMmm. Perhaps try one place at a time.”
    I started with the place I knew best, my parents’ house. I thought of it as it had been when Quilliar had been there. Ma’s roses in full bloom.
    â€œMove on.” The hob’s voice was dark as a moonless night, slipping into my vision without intruding. His magic cloaked me as warmly as a blanket in winter, and as comforting. The tension I’d felt in his presence dissolved and my vision shifted until I saw the house as it was now: deserted and sad, the roses withering from lack of care.
    â€œThis isn’t it. Try somewhere else,” said the hob.
    I tried my cottage next. The thatching was thick and snug; bits of brown poked out of bare dirt near one wall where I’d planted starts from Ma’s flowers. There were a couple of slats broken on the pasture fence near the barn. A rabbit moved cautiously through the doorway.
    â€œThat’s it,” said the hob, and his hands came down on my shoulders.
    A swooping feeling lifted me, like going over a high jump on a horse, but stronger. It was as if the whole valley were laid out before me. I could see the raiders as they went about their business, the patrollers who skulked in the shadows, an owl swooping upon an unsuspecting mouse.
    â€œWhat am I looking for?” I asked again, but as I spoke, I found it.
    An old snag marked the corner of Lyntle’s fields near the easternmost fields. The earth beneath the snag glowed as if there were a hidden campfire sending red and yellow flames to light the night. The rye, planted earlier this spring, grew over the top of the place, but it was stunted and off-color.
    â€œI found it,” I said.
    â€œI see it,” answered the hob. His arms dropped away. As soon as he released me, so did the vision.
    Dizzy from the abrupt change, I swayed; he steadied me.
    I stepped away from him. “Now tell me about this earth spirit