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Greyesar chose a thin, flexible piece. It bent to the makeshift blade without breaking. He held it to the fire and watched the small flame sink closer to his fingertips. That done, he chose another with extreme deliberation.

Why doesn't anybody speak, Clark wondered, though he had nothing to say. He moved near them.

Tne next straw quivered and bent double, but when Huey released it the broken end still dangled from the piece in Greyesar's hand. Huey smiled kindly. The twilight had begun to fade and he had to hold the work close to the fire to see it. Greyesar peered in the straw for another.

It could have gone on all night. Clark bent close with a notion of helping Greyesar, and saw that the Eyimalian was threading strands of his own hair through the piece he selected. The trick must fail in time, but for the moment the hairs slipping against one another relieved the pressure of the blade. It could go on forever, Clark thought.

Pre stopped them. The door opened; he came in with his soup. For a moment it seemed that all this destruction of chains, the little escape to the courtyard and the greater one they had planned, was merely hunger, so that now, being fed, they would fall back into quiescence. Clark looked in the pot with mingled appetite and sorrow. Two leaves of an herb called Dreaming floated among the islands of glistening oil. It was a letter from Berthe's alphabet.

"This stuff is drugged," he said aloud. These three days had been just the old breeder's trick, starving the stock to be sure they would feed. While Pre mourned over the broken chains, they dumped their portions and puzzled about what was going on. Surely the Ketries would not bother with herbs, nor would their Outlander keepers try such a thing without orders. Perhaps they were to be moved, or abandoned. Perhaps Maxwell had heard of their capture and now somewhere a vast machinery was groaning that would set them free. Perhaps Tiyar had taken or ruined the capital or was fighting to disentrench Pahid and some feather of the Nightbird's wing from this brushed even their solitude, perhaps the guard had stayed away because he was busy digging moats or building earthworks or his caretaker had been felled by a random shot. For the first time in his life Clark's mind was exhausted. Letting the possibilities run on to what ends they would, he lay down in the straw as though sleeping.

He was lifted and dumped down, on top of Huey. Something fell on him in turn, then they began shaking and jolting. The cart that must be carrying them seemed to roll and tumble under the night. Clark managed to turn his face to the stars. They were heading toward Lir Temple.

Above him Greyesar whispered in Eyimalian, "Are you with us?"

Huey answered, "With us."

"Are you with us?"

Huey repeated, "With us."

The chant went on a long time. Clark chanted with them, trembling, eyes fixed on the distant sun of his homeworld, until his fear ebbed and he felt their strength in its place, and their whispering rang with joy. Now he would love these two all his life with transmuted battle fury; now to fight by their side would be an act of love at once deeply physical and wholly spirit, a love that transcended reason. On a whispered, "Now!" they leapt through the darkness, shouting.

It was almost a fair fight. Clark punched with his hands together, fell and rolled and got up again, again and many times, swinging blind, exhausted, almost hoping for the end. A foot pinned his neck. He lay flat and panting. The foot shifted to his back and he felt a blade at his nape, but then at the extreme moment Huey yelled in triumph and Clark rolled sideways and sprang up, again with all the force of a mortal life. His opponent fell and whacked his head on the cart in falling. Clark looked around. The three of them had won. One of the guards had fled, perhaps to fetch others. Huey robbed the two who remained while Greyesar hissed, "Come on!"

Deep in the woods they climbed trees and scrambled a distance above the ground, then went over rocks and along a thicketed hollow where there was no snow to betray their passing. After that they just ran up and down the hillsides in silly exuberance and at last, near sunrise, dug out a burrow and slept.

In the morning they set out for the capital, following Clark's memory of the map. "We should pay those guys extra when we get back," he remarked.

Greyesar said, "If enough people sell you enough worthless garbage, something is bound to be worth more than you paid for it sometime. Your assumption that we will get back, however, puzzles me."

"If you had been fat like me when we set off on this trip, you'd be more cheerful," Huey needled him, but when Greyesar began to stagger Huey more or less carried him, looking anxiously around, until at last he sighed in exasperation and, yanking a branch with elaborate indifference, brought down a honey-comb. "Endurance and luck," he explained. "We used to find them in the desert."

Greyesar kissed him on both cheeks, saying, "I forgive you for the last thousand times you called me a twit."

Clark remembered that trip as a boys' outing, full of play and sudden danger, bickering, intimate, safe. Fear and dependence had dragged on them for weeks and now, with that gone, years evaporated. They tussled and wandered, then reminded themselves of their work and hastened solemnly toward the capital. A heavy winter rain, beginning on the fourth day, slowed them, but they consoled themselves that anyone persuing them would probably go home altogether now and headed back toward the road, where they needed only walk and keep an eye out for streams and edible shrubs.

Fresh tracks suddenly appeared and led them off the road to an abandoned camp in a hollow where a little grassy bog sank down to a narrow stream. They found horse droppings and a few live coals in the churned mud, but nothing more, a sign that Pahid had disencamped liesurely, not rushing into battle or retreat. Wandering back to the road, they debated whether to follow or keep to their route, but since he appeared to have headed south toward the capital also, their choice made no difference.

Clark had grown so used to the steady walking he and Paula had called the slog that Huey and Greyesar surprised him now with their sore feet, aching legs and crankiness. He had forgotten that simply walking was different from their scientific exercise, that it was largely a matter of practice in maintaining a state of mind. Watching his friends struggle to keep their footing, to hold their tempers and even, sometimes, not to cry, he wondered how he could have learned it himself so easily.

Toward the end of a long chilly afternoon spent climbing a steep incline in a mist that penetrated every muscle, Greyesar shouted in pain. Huey offered a hand, but the Eyimalian spurned it.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Cramp. Find me a stick, Hugh."

"Shall we pass the night here?" Huey suggested.

"No. Get me that branch."

Huey was already tramping out a flat place to sleep.

"No. We're almost there."

"Almost where? Sit down. I don't want to have to carry you."

They argued for a while, Greyesar hiking almost to the top of the ridge, Huey fanning coals without success, until Greyesar sat down on a rock and cramped his other leg. Then they looked around for something to eat, found nothing, and finally as the sun went down they satisfied themselves with some of the more nearly digestable leaves from the forest carpet and burrowed in for the night, Greyesar between the other two to keep warm.

Now the fire, which had resisted all puffing and blowing and fanning, blazed up. Around midnight, Clark saw or dreamed that it had ignited the bark of a sapling and next he felt human footsteps. Something touched his head, and he saw a woman's face lit by firelight, looking at him sadly as at a fond memory. He was certain he knew her. She laid her hand on his lips. Warm musk enveloped him as she moved her body closer. Something soft like a baby pressed on his face, choking him. When he opened his mouth to protest it flowed in.

Shaken, he almost began to kick, but then he clenched his fists to calm himself and looked up to where her teeth and chin were outlined on the orange sky. It was her breast in his mouth. He suckled as she bade him, drawing in a mixture of sweat and warm milk, his body trembling around the nourishing flow. When she spoke he could feel the vibration in the base of his tongue.

"Do you understand yet? Here!" She covered his nose. He was suffocating. It was impossible, he knew it, but he felt that in one or two minutes he must surely die.

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CONTINUE.....................

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