Andir suspected the story was false and planned to disprove it by examining the caves; he felt certain that he would find them as harmless and empty as his parents’ words of caution. Armed with this knowledge, he might return home and convince his parents that he was mature enough to learn the truth about the world, and to have his questions treated with respect. If they must tell him stories, he wanted only to hear true stories. And stories of monsters weren’t true.
He slipped quietly from his family’s cottage late one evening, darting between houses and trees, trying not to be seen by other villagers who might order him back home. Once he cleared the village he had a straight run across a jade plain that ended about a mile from the edge of the forest. He could no longer see the sun, but enough light penetrated the tightly-clustered tree trunks to keep him moving.
He picked his way carefully between trees in the forest. It seemed that every other trunk was whitened and papery; one fell over when he leaned on it to catch his breath. Andir remembered stories of the Fallen Lord Shiver killing any tree she brushed as she and her army marched toward Madrigal. Again he wondered how true that tale was.
 He ripped large strips of bark off the living trees to mark his passage and kept moving towards the heart of the forest. By the time he found the first cave, night had crept up behind him, obliterating even the silhouettes of the trees. Steeling himself, he stepped inside and shuffled forward.
The cave was damp with a roof that sloped gently downward to its end. After ten feet he had to bend down; after twenty he had to sit down. He smiled. If there were any beasts in the cave, they were so small as to be harmless - even to a child. Andir knew that his mother had concocted a story to keep him out of harm’s way; he could understand and appreciate her concern but also felt certain that his mother was jumping at shadows. He had learned the truth and it had not hurt him.
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