She told him the leafless white branches that stuck up out of the ground like fingers were called windil or elv-root. That the creature that had followed them was a doyot, a scavenger. She told him that the Eye was the northern border of Appalia, and past it they would enter a greener country, a land of prairie, woodland and homesteads known as Sol Ghoum. The land was a ring, she said, around a lake. In the middle of the lake the Isle of Ghoum, where nobody ever went. He asked her why and she shook her head.
