If I Pay Thee Not In Gold

• Chapter 12

At last it was over: they had passed through the land of the Sylvans without any mishap. The guardian of this "door" dilated the orifice to let them out across the border, making no attempt to conceal his contempt of them. The men marched through quickly, making no effort to conceal their relief at being on their way out of Sylva. Xylina rode her mule into the Thorn-Wall tunnel with a feeling that she and her men had narrowly escaped. It had been very difficult for the men to hold their tongues in the face of ridicule and harassment on the part of the Sylvans. She suspected that only the fact that the Sylvans tended to concentrate their harassment on her, as the mistress, ignoring the slaves for the most part, had kept serious incidents from occurring. She had been able to keep her temper only by following Faro's example, playing to the Sylvans' expectations and exceeding them, ridiculing them in turn. She had not known she was capable of that. But then, there were a great many things she had not known she was capable of.

The past week of crossing Sylva had taught her many things about herself and about the men, but the most profound was something that simply could not be put into words. It was a feeling, and she experienced it once again as she looked at her guards and servants.

Kinship. That was the closest she could come to it. These men, slaves though they were, and utter strangers a few short weeks ago, felt as close to her as if they had all been born of the same mother and raised together. They were, together, a tiny enclave of "home" among strangers, speaking the same language, following the same customs. Even the three paw-footed women; they had been some time in Mazonite service, and identified with the group. So far, unified, the members of this mission had survived encounters with the surprisingly friendly barbarians, and with these arrogant creatures so completely unlike anything she had ever seen that they might as well have been created from the plants they were so fond of. She and her men and servants were far more alike than any of them were like the Sylvans.

In fact, although she hated to admit it, the Sylvans frightened her, and she was very glad to be out of their reach. She didn't understand them, and doubted that anyone not born among them could. Ware had spoken with them and spied upon them every night that they were within the Thorn-enclosure, and nothing he told her brought her any closer to understanding them. In fact, at this point she wasn't even certain that she wanted to understand them; if she began to do that, she might start to act like them. No, she would far rather turn barbarian and go to live with the Pacha than even think of turning Sylvan.

On the other hand, Ware didn't seem to understand a great deal about them, either, other than simple things, like the obsession with absolute equality. "It can be an admirable goal, Xylina, so long as people realize that an absolute goal can never be reached," he told her, trying to explain why the Sylvans changed their very bodies so that there were neither males nor females among them. There were stories of shape-changers, were-creatures, that were told to Mazonite children-even that she could understand. She could see why someone would want to have the power of a bear, the grace of a panther, but not this.

Ware continued, trying to find words that would make it clear to her. He seemed to want her understanding, in an almost flattering way. And-she found herself being flattered, though she resisted it. "There are no absolutes; there never can be," he said. "When people like the Sylvans refuse to accept that, though-"

"That is when they begin to twist things," she had finished, finally getting a glimmering of what he was trying to tell her. He nodded.

Still, she could not understand what really drove these people, and she doubted that even Ware could explain them. "These people frighten me," he continued. "I think I know why the demons have never tried to make any kind of contacts among them. They are so sure of their superiority; people like that can resort to force to 'convert' you, if persuasion does not work. They are so passionate about what they believe in, that there is no room for anyone else's beliefs." His eyes had swirled with a confusion of colors that mirrored an internal distress. "I tell you, Xylina, there is no creature more dangerous than a fanatic. You must either join them or escape them, for they will bury you. Reason does not enter into their thinking."

She did not ask what his reasoning was, but the idea that the placid-seeming Sylvans frightened a being as powerful as a demon was disturbing in itself. She did not understand what he meant about fanatics, but she tucked the words away to think about later, in the darkness of the night. Instead of allowing her blank mind to fill with fantasies of a demon lover, perhaps.

"Your people have far more in common with my kind than we whom you call 'demons' do with these Sylvans," he continued. "Never mind that the ancestors of the Sylvans were humans like you. Believe me, my dear, we are far more like you than we are like them."

In that, she had to agree with him. When Ware had first revealed his identity, all she had noticed was how strange, how alien he was. She had not been able to read his emotions; she was not even certain that he possessed anything she would recognize as an emotion. But now-now she could read him as easily as Faro, and now she trusted him. And he was far more "human," if such a word could apply to him, than these Sylvans were. That bothered her, oddly. The "door" irised shut behind the last of her men. "I am glad to be gone from this place," Ware said, from just behind her, echoing her thoughts.

"I hope we can find some other way through, or around," Xylina sighed. "I do not like those Sylvans, and I would not willingly put myself in their hands again. Not unless I commanded the kind of power that would make their numbers trivial. If I meet them again, I would wish it to be with them as my petitioners, and not the other way around."

She moved to the head of the cavalcade, as the men waited for her to assume her position in the lead. It felt right and good to be there, and without all the critical eyes of the Sylvans upon her, she felt more confident than she had in several days. Confident enough to face whatever unknown dangers lay outside this passage.

The Sylvans, though for the most part professing ignorance of the lands that lay on this side of their country, had told Ware that this region was one full of wild magic. It was hazardous to cross, so they said, and Ware's memories of the last time he was here agreed with that.

As if in answer to her thought of him, Ware rode up to take his place at her side. Since their first night in Sylva, Faro had begun to ride at the back of the cavalcade, telling Xylina that he trusted in the demon's honor enough to believe that Ware would not deliberately bring them into danger. In fact, he and Ware were getting along much better than she would have believed; something about Ware's dry sense of humor appealed to Faro's own. Now Faro took his mule to the rear, behind the wagons, and Ware held his stallion to a pace that matched Xylina's mule.

"What are we likely to meet with?" she asked, as the lantern-bearer walking in the front of the column illuminated the way ahead. "Can we expect trouble the moment we break out of the tunnel-or even before?"

"I wish I could tell you, Xylina," Ware said, his face fixed in that calm mask that she now knew meant that he was thinking furiously. "This region changes from year to year, and it has been a long time since any of my people were here. I can tell you only generalities. That the place is dangerous and treacherous. There are illusions here which cover the reality of the land. You may see a terrible beast which proves to be only an illusion-you may see it a moment later, may even believe that it is the same beast as before and you find that it is not an illusion, but a beast which will kill half your men. Illusions of water can conceal desert, and illusions of solid ground can conceal chasms. There are monstrous creatures here, and sometimes the very fabric of nature seems to have been warped and changed beyond recognition."

"You don't sound very comforting," Xylina said, wryly. She might have taken some alarm at his words-except that Ware had known all along that they would be coming to this region, and he had said all along that with his help, Xylina could survive this. She and her men had learned to work together; the men had learned to work with Ware instead of staring at him and expecting him to transform into something hellish for no particular reason.

"I suppose I don't sound comforting." Ware actually smiled a little-a warm smile, and the most genuine that Xylina had ever seen on his face. She smiled back, feeling a pleasant rush of corresponding warmth as she did so. "I am trying to err on the side of caution; where we are about to step, nothing can be taken for granted, and there is no such thing as taking too much care."

He had changed, she decided. He was no longer stalking her. He was-a friend. Maybe he had finally given up the notion of possessing her, and was going to settle for friendship instead. But strangely enough, that idea didn't seem to comfort her as much as it should have.

Ware continued, interrupting her thoughts. "The one thing that you can always be sure of is that the illusions always fade for at least a little, and that the cycles of change are no more and no less than one day and night in length. That, or so I was told, is due entirely to the effect of the crystal shard in the heart of the land; the cycle is a limit it imposes on the chaos of the wild magic here. So if we study the hazards carefully, we should be able to weave our way through them."

"If they give us time to study them," she pointed out. "Does anyone actually live out there?"

"Oh yes," he told her. "Yes, humans and other things. There are even likely to be some that will be friendly to us."

"And just as likely to want to kill us." She nodded, actually with a little satisfaction.This was something a Mazonite could understand: foes that fenced with weapons, not words, and situations where it was simply "kill or be killed." The sophistry of the Sylvans had confused her; right at the moment, she would prefer a raging beast that charged straight at her.

But she was careful not to say that aloud. Something warned her that to do so might be calling down misfortune on herself and her party. An old saying was, "be careful what you ask for, because you might get it." That was the last thing she wanted. Thus far, care and thought had kept her little band intact. She would like it if she could continue to do so. She had killed, herself, and had seen many dead men since she attained her citizenship-but never ones that she knew personally. There was a difference; she had learned that over the course of this journey, too.

Ware was right: a little precaution wasn't going to hurt anything-and whatever lay ahead of them, it might not be as reticent about entering the Thorn-Wall tunnel as the Pacha had been. It would be best to prepare for trouble coming to meet them.

"Keep your weapons at hand, men," she warned, speaking over her shoulder. "We don't know what is ahead of us. The Sylvans wouldn't say, and whatever it is, it just might think that this tunnel makes a perfect site for a nest."

There was a rustling and a clatter that told her that weapons were being loosened in their sheaths, and quivers were being uncovered.

Good. She stared ahead into the darkness beyond the moving spot of light, and called the lantern-bearer in until he was walking just in front of her mule's nose. She noticed that he was now walking with his sword in the hand not burdened with the lantern. "If you see something charging you, throw the lantern at it and get behind me," she told him. "You should be safer behind us. Ware's stallion is battle-trained, and my mule is at least accustomed to reacting to defend himself."

"Like he did with that critter he kicked into the tree-tops?" the man-Ladan, that was his name-answered, with an uncertain grin directed back at her. "Yes, mistress, if that's what you want me to do. But I am a fighter; I am trained-"

"It's what I want you to do," she assured him. "If there is a monster, it may be nothing you are prepared or even able to fight against. By throwing the lantern at it, and getting out of its way, you may buy us time. That is the best thing you can do, and since you are trained, I am sure you can manage to hit it squarely with the lantern. I hope a face full of hot oil will make it stop long enough for me to conjure a rock wall between it and us."

Then she laughed. "And nothing at all may happen. After all, remember how the Pacha avoided the tunnel on their side. Probably the creatures here will do the same." Still, caution was best. Whatever a group was prepared for, never happened. Or so it was claimed.

Nothing leapt on them in the dark, nor was there anything lying in wait at the mouth of the tunnel. Xylina counted her blessings, and gathered her men into a defensive position around the tunnel entrance, while she and Ware surveyed the lay of the land.

Under a cloudless blue sky, the sun shown down upon them with a great deal less heat than she would have expected. An odd kind of mist rose in the distance: a mist, or a heat-haze. She could not really make out anything that was more than a couple of leagues away. There could have been mountains out there, or oceans, or nothing at all.

Directly before them was a large expanse of white sand, sloping slightly downward. To either side, this empty sand began at the foot of the Thorn-Wall, and continued for some five or six hundred cubits before the signs of life began. They stood on a rock shelf that extended into the sand from the tunnel entrance, like a kind of stage.

To Xylina, this empty stretch was all she could have asked for. Nothing could approach them without being seen. The only drawback was that they could be seen as well, by anything watching for prey. On the other side of this open stretch was a brownish-black area that was covered in sand with rocks heaving up out of it, and dotted with odd and twisted growths, all in a rainbow of colors.

"Does this look familiar?" she asked the demon. It would be a good thing if Ware only knew what to expect here.

Ware eyed the stretch dubiously. "No," he replied. "And do not be deceived by this apparent emptiness. Remember what I told you about illusions. There could be creatures creeping up on us at this very moment."

She glanced at the shimmering sand with alarm. That had never occurred to her-but an illusion of emptiness would be just as much an illusion as the vision of a monster.

"The trick is that they cannot eliminate all signs of their passing," Ware continued hastily, and the men looked about them and formed a defensive square, without needing to be told to do so. "We would hear them, or see their tracks on the sand. Or if they were buried beneath the sand, we would see the sand itself moving-"

"Like that?" One of the men exclaimed, and pointed off to the right.

Instantly they all followed his pointing finger. There, in the middle distance, the sand was pushed up in a growing ridge, approaching them with the speed of a trotting horse, as if there were some land of giant mole burrowing beneath it. A mole as large as one of the wagons, from the size of the mound being created.

Xylina felt her breath stopping in her throat, and the men swayed back an involuntary pace, closing their square.

It-whatever it was-was coming toward them, but not directly; unless it changed its course, it would pass about halfway between them and the place where the rocks and strange, multi-colored growths began.

"What is it?" Xylina whispered.

"I don't know," Ware replied, also in a whisper, "but it may be sensitive to vibrations. Don't move-and keep the animals from stamping their feet, if you can."

Somehow the animals seemed to realize the need for quiet; the entire expedition froze in place, and not even the mules lifted a hoof. The creature beneath the sand continued on its way, lifting the sand between them and the rest of the world, then passing on, and out of sight. The sand slowly subsided in its wake, until it lay flat again, as if it had never been disturbed.

Xylina breathed a sigh of relief, and the men relaxed. All but Faro, who peered off after the creature with a frown. He was the first to speak.

"We still have to cross that open stretch," Faro pointed out. "There maybe more of those things-whatever they are. Or that one might come back."

True enough. Xylina nodded, and closed her eyes for a moment, thinking. They had to cross it-but not necessarily on the sand.

She opened her eyes again, and examined the stretch of empty sand between them and the rocks. It would be folly to cross on the sand-but there was no reason to. Not while her powers were strong.

She had seen no weakening of them, despite the distance from Mazonia. Ware said that all magics worked equally well here. Well, now was the time to test that. She pursed her lips thoughtfully, gathered her powers about her-and raised her hands to conjure.

The mists of her powers gathered out over the sand, taking shape, solidifying in place. Gray mist, which formed into gray stone, heavy and substantial. First, she created pillars of stone in pairs, rising up from the sand, pillars that were much wider at the bottom than at the flat tops. Once she had those in place, she conjured a single slab of material, curving up over the sand, supported by the pillars, running from just below their feet to the other side of the sandy expanse.

The men murmured to one another as the mist rolled up and over the tops of the pillars, leaving the bridge in its wake. She made the surface rough, so that the feet of men and beasts would not slip on it. For safety's sake, she made the material, which was neither wood nor metal nor stone, but an amalgam of all three that only conjuration could produce, strong enough to bear the weight of all of them at once.

Then she looked at them all, and nodded once. She needed to give them no other orders. Faro pointed to the men nearest the end of the bridge, and waved at the other side.

Two of the men ran lightly up and over the conjured bridge, and took their places at the other end, bows out, and arrows nocked and ready. They might have rehearsed this a thousand times, so quickly did they obey Faro's silent commands.

"Wagons next," said Faro. The men parted, giving the wagons enough room to pass between them, and the drivers snapped their reins over the mules' backs, rolling out onto the surface of Xylina's creation. The mules obeyed- but slowly. They did not entirely trust this bridge, and went forward only after they had tried each foothold carefully.

Xylina kept watch to the right for any more telltale burrows in the sand; Ware watched to the left. Faro urged the men on in hoarse whispers, as if he feared that the sand-creature might hear a shout. She held her breath, for she was not as confident of her conjuration as she tried to appear. Her creation might not stand if one of these unknown creatures burrowed beneath a support, or even struck one.

The sun beat down upon them without mercy; there was no shade, here on this side of the Thorn-Wall. The air was so dry she had not noticed the heat at first-now it was obvious that they would not have been able to stay here for very long without serious damage from the heat. Already Xylina felt sweat trickling down her back, and beading up on her upper lip; she licked her lips and tasted salt-crystals. In just that short a period of time, the sweat had evaporated, leaving behind the salt. They would need real water, and lots of it, if the rest of this strange region was as dry and hot as this part.

She glanced back from time to time, keeping track of the expedition’s progress. The first wagon made it across her bridge without incident; as it reached the end, the second was in the middle of the bridge, and the third just beginning the journey. She couldn't help wondering about the noise of their progress. Every hoofbeat echoed hollowly upon the material of the bridge, and how far would the sound travel? Could a creature that lived under the earth hear things above it? Would the vibration travel down the stone and into the sand?

The second wagon reached its goal, and at that moment the third was halfway there. Nervous now, Xylina waved orders to the men to begin the climb; she and Faro and Ware would bring up the rear. Obediently, and nervously, they began to trot up the slope of her creation, crowding behind the wagon. But the slope was steep; they had to fight their way up it, just as the mules had.

The wheels of the third wagon had touched the earth on the other side, when one of the men on the top of the bridge cried out wordlessly and pointed in the direction the unknown creature had gone. Whatever he was pointing at had frightened him witless; he was white and shaking. Xylina looked, but saw nothing.

That didn't matter. Xylina did not need to know what he was pointing to: it was trouble and it was probably one of the sand-creatures. A moment later, before she even had a chance to react, she saw the mounding earth approaching, and at a much faster speed than it had come the first time. The sand-creature, or one like it, knew they were here, and was coming for them.

With a curse, she urged her mule onto the bridge; it scrabbled up onto the slope with clattering hooves, its ears laid back, but perfectly willing to move. Faro's was right behind her, and Ware's stallion ahead of her. The men scrambled to get off the bridge and out of the way.

Ware shouted to the drivers to take the wagons deeper into the rock-and growth-covered landscape on the other side. "Move those wagons out of here!" he called, his voice somehow amplified and carrying above the sounds of panicked shouting, mules braying, and running feet. "We don't know how far in it can go!"

Now there was no order to their retreat; it was something of a panicked rout. The drivers whipped up the mules, who were not loathe to move; they rolled their eyes and brayed, but threw themselves into the harness to haul the wagons over the smaller rocks and deeper into what Xylina hoped was a safe zone.

If the different color of sand meant that the sand-creature could not come there, they would be safe. If not-

First they had to get off the bridge! For the moment, that was all that mattered; Xylina's mule strained beneath her, sweat streaming down its sides, panting with exertion. The men on foot scrambled over the opposite side of the bridge and down onto the rocks, just as the three riders crested the top of her creation. Xylina dared a glance to the side, and her heart nearly stopped when she saw how near the mounding sand was.

She laid her whip along the mule's withers, heedless of how he got to the other side so long as he did so. "It's coming!" she screamed to the other two. "I think it's going to ram-"

The mule slipped, his haunches slinging sideways-but he sensed the nearness of danger, and did not stop for a second. They were nearly off the bridge, their mounts scrambling for a free space among the fleeing men. And at that precise moment, whatever it was beneath them reared up.

Something as white and glistening as the sand rose nearly the height of the bridge; sand poured from it in a cascade, and the dogs in the last wagon shrieked as if they had been disemboweled. The white shape, still clothed in sand, rammed into the middle pillars of the bridge.

She never really saw what it was or anything other than that vague white shape: only flying sand and something huge. But there was no doubt of the result.

The bridge shuddered, sending all the support pillars tumbling with an avalanche-roar, and then fell over sideways. The crash nearly deafened them all, and the dogs howled again, yet were too panic-stricken to flee the shelter of the wagon. As they cowered behind a bale of supplies, another cresting wave of sand reared up and fell down over the toppled bridge, and engulfed it. There was a grinding noise, and the sand where it had been churned wildly in a kind of whirlpool.

Xylina's mule had fallen to its knees, and she had been thrown against the saddlebow, knocking the breath out of her. She somehow managed to stay in the saddle; she was afraid that the mule might freeze in terror, but it wanted no part of whatever was underneath that churning maelstrom, and it staggered to its feet without any undue urging on her part. It bolted to the hoped-for safety of the wagons, in company with every other member of the expedition. By the time Xylina reached the wagons and dared to look behind her, the last pillars and the ends of the bridge were sinking into the sand, as if they were being pulled down by something beneath the surface.

But whatever it was did not venture into the area of the black sand and rocks.

When they were certain it was not going to follow them, they were able to collect their scattered wits and breath. With a feeling of awe and amazement, they watched while it finished the work of demolishing the bridge, then turned and churned off back the way it had come.

The new zone seemed free of hazard, and extended for some distance. The mist remained, however, obscuring whatever lay beyond this zone. Although Xylina and Faro strained eyes and ears, and Ware made whatever arcane efforts were possible for demons, they were unable to detect any invisible threats. That left only the visible ones, and there did not seem to be anything large enough here to count as such. What life moved and crawled through here was all small. There might be snakes, scorpions, or some kind of equivalent, but there was little cover to hide them, and they should, by all rights, be easy to avoid.

This place looked rather like an odd rock-garden, in fact, and not like anything natural at all. It was full of strangely shaped boulders, collections of stones, and rock formations, none of which looked as if they belonged here, or matched the brown-black sand beneath them. These stones were of so many different kinds of rock that Xylina could not imagine how they had all come to be here. Some even looked as if they had been freshly chiseled from an alabaster cave: huge icicle-formations of stone, gleaming pale and wet in the sunlight, thrusting upwards from their soft beds of dark sand.

The stones were bewildering shades of color, everything from the red-orange of the Pacha country to the black of obsidian flows. There were huge boulders of green marble beside rough slabs of blue-gray slate; broken sandstone tumbles, water-smoothed quartz, and monoliths of granite. Schist and gneiss, porous limestone and chunks of coquina. And yet their variety paled beside that of the strange growths that flourished among them.

Nothing stood taller than Xylina’s waist, but she had never seen plants like these, not even in Sylva. At least the things growing in Sylva looked like plants. Most of these didn't even come close.

There were lacy red fans spread out to face the sun, and low green mounds with a structure so like that of a brain that she had to look twice to be certain that it was nothing of the sort. There were stick-like trees with no leaves at all, and a bright purple color. There were bristly growths, covered in thick needles, in every shade of pink and yellow imaginable. Mosses and lichens in rainbow hues clung to the sides of rocks and sprouted from cracks and niches. A wide grass with wavy leaves grew wherever there was shade, and a yellow-green plant that looked exactly like a deer's antler's grew in the sun between the rocks. Other plants, rosettes of fat, waxy leaves, or long sword-like, thick stalks, sprouted at the bases of boulders.

Among these rocks and growths crawled creatures like slugs, only these were slugs the size of a hand and covered with ruffled membranes of bright red and acid yellow. The slugs shared their domain with brilliant golden, webless spiders with fat hairy legs and bodies like saucers, and with attenuated blue stick-insects as long as Xylina's forearm, that stalked about with an unsteady and uncertain gait. There were also armored creatures to which Xylina could not assign a species: eight-legged plates with eyes on stalks, something that looked like a rabbit with a mounded and articulated coat of armor covering its back in place of a fur coat, and things that looked like upside-down cups with four little feet. There were plenty of ordinary insects, too-or at least, Xylina thought they were ordinary, until she swatted a fly and saw that it had no head that she could find, no eyes and no mouth. There was nothing larger than a rabbit; nothing that looked big enough to be a hazard to the party.

She, Faro, and Ware traded glances as the party got back into their accustomed marching order. Ware shrugged, and Faro shook his head. It seemed fairly obvious that neither of them knew what to make of this place. Well, neither did she.

She looked back at the smooth sand where the bridge had been. There was no going back, that was for certain. Not that she had ever expected that choice.

With a resigned sigh, she gave the order to move forward.

The sun continued to shine down upon them, but now the mist that rose ahead of them seemed to be hazing the sun over as well. It was not quite so hot, and the light had a kind of shifting quality, as if there were ghostly shadows passing overhead constantly. That made Xylina uneasy, but when nothing came of these odd shades, she ignored them. The going was a lot harder than it looked; the wagons were not built for this kind of uneven ground, and there were places beneath the sand where wagon-wheels lodged without warning. Often, they had to stop and lift a wheel over a particular obstacle. She tried to gauge their progress, and finally guessed that by the time they reached the place where the mist began and the terrain changed again, it would be near nightfall.

So far, only the land itself seemed to be fighting them, she thought, wondering if this was luring her into a feeling of relative safety that was in no way justified. Still, this was enough. They couldn't go more than three lengths without getting stuck.

But her suspicion proved to be correct. It was at one of these halts, as the men struggled to pry one of the wagon-wheels from between two rocks where it had gotten stuck, that the seemingly harmless landscape revealed another of its perils.

This was the first time they had come so near one of the purple stick-trees, for Xylina had simply not cared for the look of them. Once again, the men heaved at the wagon to get it out of a crevice between two boulders, and as the wheel finally broke free, one of the men scrambled back to within a few paces of the thing.

Xylina did not even see a movement; one moment the man was laughing and joking with his fellows, and the next, he was screaming in agony. A long purple tentacle coming from the top of the "tree" tried to drag him into the grasp of several more emerging from the ends of the branches.

The man who had been caught was clearly in terrible pain, and not just screaming from fear. The other slaves were equally divided between running to his rescue and backing away. The tentacle was wrapped several times around the man's waist and arm, trapping his sword against his body. The men going to his rescue eyed the other tentacles, eagerly waving, as if the tree was hoping they would come within reach. One dashed forward to slash at the tentacle dragging the captive in, but his sword simply bounced off, leaving the tentacle unharmed.

Xylina did not even stop to think-she simply acted.

Before the man had been dragged more than a cubit, she conjured a huge slab of stone right beside the "tree"-a slab she had created purposely off-balance. The moment she released her magic, it toppled over onto the "tree," crushing it.

The tentacle released the slave instantly, dropping off of him like so much limp, wet rope-but he collapsed where he was, moaning in pain, unable to move. The rest of the men now gathered around him, until Faro called them to alert, with sharp orders.

"Let the mistress tend to him!" he snapped. "Hellfire! This would be a perfect time to pick us all off! Get your rears back to duty!"

As Xylina jumped from her mule and went to see to the hapless victim, his eyes rolled up into his head, and he passed out. As she knelt beside him, she saw that where the tentacle had been there were red marks, where the skin was blistered and peeling back, as if he had been burned by a length of wire rope heated red-hot and wrapped around him.

Ware was there beside her as she examined the slave.

His pupils were contracted to pinpoints, and he showed no sign of consciousness; his breathing was irregular, and so was his heartbeat. The demon took the man's arm in his hands and examined it minutely, then pointed to a series of regular red dots in the center of the "burned" stripes.

"Puncture-marks," Ware said succinctly. "He has been injected with some kind of poison."

Xylina looked at him for further advice, but he could only shake his head. Clearly, he knew nothing more than that. There was no way of knowing what, if anything, might be the antidote.

"Put him on the wagon," Xylina ordered the three wagon-drivers, wishing there was something else she could do. But without knowing the poison or its effects, there really was nothing else. He would either live or die as the poison and his own strength dictated. She recognized him as Kyle, one of the discarded husbands, and sighed. This seemed a sad end for one who had once been some woman's pampered favorite. "Make him as comfortable as you can; wash his wounds with clear water, and bandage him with soft cloths and the burn-salve."

The drivers hastened to do her bidding, and poor Kyle was soon cushioned among the bags of grain and the men's personal belongings, moaning occasionally in pain as the lurching of the wagon jostled him. Pattée appeared, tending to him, and that seemed to help.

The rest of the men gave the purple trees a wide berth thereafter.

Despite their best efforts, Kyle died before they could reach the next territory. That left her with a problem. Xylina was not certain what to do about the body. Custom dictated that a mere slave need only be left for scavengers, but somehow she felt that was hardly right. The men watched her closely, as if waiting for her to make some kind of error-and she sensed that the "error" would be in dumping Kyle and his belongings on the ground for beasts and birds to quarrel over. Finally she told the men who were about to remove the body to wrap it in some hastily-conjured material and move it from the property-wagon to the weapons-wagon.

"We will give him proper-ah-treatment when we halt," she said, at their inquiring looks. The looks of question turned, she thought, to looks of approval before the slaves turned to their sad task. She conjured enough material to shroud him in a cocoon that made him look less like a body and more like a parcel. That quelled some of her own unease. She had not known much about Kyle, and yet she was indirectly the cause of his death-and that made her feel rather guilty, although she did not know why.

They halted at the very edge of the "rock-garden," in a relatively smooth place, completely free of the purple trees. The mist had retreated at this point, and it was possible to see the landscape beyond, the new territory they would face in the morning. This was a kind of forest, but a forest of huge leaves, as if kale or spinach had decided to grow as tall as an oak. Nothing more could be seen but the plants, and that itself was hardly comforting. Anything could be hiding in there-and probably was.

Xylina created the kind of rock-slab enclosure she had used in Sylva to protect their privacy, but this time she took care to make it proof against as many things as she could imagine. With luck, this would be enough for the night. She left one slab out, so that the others could bring the body of Kyle outside the stockade. She did not look at the grass-forest; there was no point in courting trouble before it came calling.

"Does anyone know how to-deal with this?" she asked instead, awkwardly, uncertain what to do next. She had no idea what the burial customs of the slaves were; she didn't think any Mazonite knew. Finally one of the handsome and ambitious young ones, Hazard, stepped forward.

"I do, mistress," he said submissively, keeping his eyes down. "I have-dealt with our dead before. If you like, I can lead the others in tending to Kyle. If you will grant us permission."

"Is there anything you would like me to do or supply?" she asked, feeling uncomfortable and helpless.

"Yes!" he replied, raising his eyes for a moment in surprise, then dropping them quickly. "It is our custom to burn our dead, with their possessions. There does not look to be anything much here to burn. If you would be kind enough to conjure a pyre-"

That was something of a relief-to have some way to contribute. It was something she definitely could do. Quickly she gathered her magic about her, selected a clear spot, and built a pyre of oil-soaked, fragrant shingles. It was the work of a few moments. She watched the fighters soberly as they lay the cloth-wrapped body atop it, together with the bag of Kyle's own goods. The sunset to her right painted the sky with spectacular streaks of red and yellow, making it seem as if the pyre was already ablaze.

She stood a little apart, but Faro took a place in the silent circle of men that gathered around the pyre. For a long moment no one spoke, and there was no real sound from the strange landscape about them, except for the slight sighing of the breeze which lifted her hair and cooled her brow.

"Kyle was a good man," Hazard said into the waiting silence. "He always did his duty, and shared every labor. He deserved-" There was a hasty glance at Xylina and a pause. "He deserved a fine life, but he found a terrible death instead. If the gods are listening-" and here Hazard made a strange gesture, a kind of circle upon his chest, inscribed with a forefinger, a gesture copied by all the others, even Faro "-let them hear me. He liked the Pacha, and they welcomed his songs and stories. Let him be reborn as a Pacha warrior."

"Let him be reborn as a Pacha warrior," the others echoed. "So let it be."

Hazard stepped back from the pyre and nodded at Xylina. That was enough of a signal for her, and she nodded in turn to Ware, who conjured fire.

The pyre ignited immediately, with a whoosh of flame. The oil-soaked wood burned with intense heat, and all the men had to step back a pace or two.

They watched for a moment, then turned their backs on the pyre and filed into the encampment. After a moment of staring at the pyre, Xylina did the same, then turned and conjured the last slab of rock to seal them all inside.