Sundrinker

BOOK ONE

Chapter One

In the time of the long light Du, the source, circled low on the horizon. Warmed by the benevolent light, the air absorbed the steams of the valley to reveal, in all its glory, the purplish blue sky. Sheath ice, condensed from the vapors during the weary season of dims and darks, cracked, sheered away, fell in shardy cascades into dissolving heaps at the foot of the sheer cliffs.

The birds had been arriving since long before the celebration of the coming of the long light to soar over the valley, molting rainbow hued feathers, squabbling territorially over the choice nesting nooks on the rock faces. The valley's mobile young, their musical, piping voices singing the joy of the light, earned credit by collecting the fallen flakes of color and delivering them by the woven basketful to the looms of the matrons. The bulky trappings of the season of dims and darks had been discarded, layer by layer, and Du poured his life-giving warmth in blessing, so that as Duwan the Drinker began his first scaling of the northern scarp, his mouth watering at the thought of his first feast of eggs, he had stripped away his torso covering and was dressed in the long light kilt, secured at his mid-section by a multi-colored sash of woven feathers, falling just above the articulation of his long, sturdy limbs. He knew that he was rushing the egg season, for on the lower cliff, where the source did not reach, ice still covered the rock, making it difficult for his horned toes and long fingers to find purchase. As he crossed the demarcation line between sun and shadow melting ice sheered away under his feet and only the strength of his hands, made powerful in grip by two opposing thumbs, saved him from sliding back. The tough horns at the end of his toes scraped away ice as he pulled himself upward into the full glow of Du.

For a long time he clung, legs spread wide, arms extended upward as his body adjusted rapidly to the full sunlight. He could feel the delicious energy of the source penetrating his yellow-green skin, could sense the arousal of chemical change in his blood. It was good. A clear, piping voice from below brought him out of his moment of worshipful reception. He looked down to see Alning. She, too, had shed layers of clothing. He knew that she had begun to flower during the season of dims and dark, but he was pleased to see the slim grace of her exposed torso, the surprising length of leg, the hint of new color in her face.

"Bring me an egg, Duwan," Alning called.

"Would I forget my little sister?" Duwan called back, as he reached for a new handhold. As he shifted his weight to find purchase with his toes his foot slipped and he dangled for a moment by his strong arms.

"Don't fall," Alning cried.

"Should I fall we will share and your new strength will graft my broken limbs," he said, with a laugh.

Alning's face showed yellow and her black eyes closed in

embarrassment, for Duwan's light statement brushed the bounds of propriety, then she, too, laughed, and looked up at him saucily, her hands on her hips. In spite of her blush, she was pleased, for from the day of her first freedom she had admired Duwan.

"I will bring you a basket of eggs," Duwan said, as he climbed strongly, feeling the power of the source in his blood as each of his cells knew the gift of Du. "But now, little sister, go away, for your presence distracts me." He clung to the cliff face and watched her go. It seemed only a season since he had tended her, along with the other fixed young. He'd been only a new mobile himself at the time, earning credit by working in the young house, but he had noticed her, had been pleased by the freshness of her face, even then. It was a sunny face, was Alning's, and there was a sense of elan in her bright, black eyes. Of all that crop of young she had been the fastest learner. Now, in her first blush of maturity, her walk was graceful, still sinewy, but the sway of her walk spoke of things to come. He felt an odd gathering in his loins. He had suspected for some time that ripeness was coming upon him, and now he knew.

Suddenly, he was not thinking of the almost sensual pleasure of being in full sunlight, or of the anticipated feast of fresh eggs. He was in need of contemplation, and he had to force himself to climb instead of descending. The rocks of the scarp had absorbed the warmth of Du and released it to him. He pressed his cheek against a flat area and watched the flight of the birds. He was nearing a nesting area. He could hear the harsh squabbling and, a lesser sound, the cooings of nesting females. He moved laterally across the cliff and a startled nester brushed his face with ruby wings as she burst out of a recess. There were three eggs in the nest. The shells were a beautiful bright green. He took only one. One did not rob any living thing of its all.

The area he had reached, some fifty feet above the topmost branches of a tall brother made lopsided by pressing closely to the cliff, was rich in nests. Eggs awaited his gathering in the sun on small ledges, in the shade of the overhangs, in small, cavelike cavities formed by thermal separation of the stone. Soon he had his egg basket almost filled. He needed only a few more. However, he had exhausted the resources of the nesting area immediately around him. Below him he saw promising irregularities in the face. He lowered himself carefully. His feet found a ledge wide enough for good footing. By moving along the ledge he filled the basket, decided that he had room for just one or two more eggs, and moved back along the ledge to the other end where a rounded rock protrusion hid a likely cavity at the level of his waist. Already tasting the feast, thinking of Alning's pleasure when he presented her with fresh eggs, he violated the cardinal rule of egg gathering; never put your hand into a cavity that has not been closely examined first.

The enormity of his mistake—the result of his source-induced euphoria, the hint of ripeness in his body that brought his thoughts back to Alning again and again, and the fact that he had his basket full and needed no more than two more eggs—came to him when his thumbs cupped an egg against his other three fingers and, instead of the warm, smooth texture he felt a leathery sponginess. His youth and his good conditioning, plus a lightning reaction time, saved him. Even as he realized his mistake and jerked his hand away from the false egg his arm was crushed from a few inches below his elbow. Had he not been so fast in his reaction the arm would have been caught in the maw of the rock sucker almost to his shoulder and he would not have had the freedom of movement that saved his life.

As the blinding, crushing pain weakened his body, numbed his mind, he felt his life being sucked out of his veins with a force that seemed to want to make his entire body collapse in on itself. He gave one sharp, bird-like scream as his right hand fumbled with the hilt of his shortsword. Even as his mind went numb as blood was sucked away from his brain by the terrible force of the thing that held him, he knew that he had less than ten seconds of life. The sword rose, slashed, and he tried to aim it precisely, for it was vital that he strike at the right place. The blade flashed down, all the force of his strong right arm behind it, and blood spouted greenish blue as his arm was severed at the elbow. Then he was falling backward, the clang of metal on stone ringing in his ears, for the blow had been so powerful that particles of rock fell with him as he tumbled. For a moment all was blackness. He felt impact, expected that to be his last feeling, but the force of the blow that had severed his arm, his total terror, had caused him to push away from the ledge as he toppled backward so that he fell into the upturned branches of the tall brother pressing closely to the cliff. Twigs snapped, limbs clawed at him as the fall carried him through the topmost branches. He huffed as the wind was driven from his lungs by solid contact with a larger branch that bent under his weight and let him fall, more slowly, to other branches until, with the blackness of unconsciousness dimming his eyes, he thudded to the ground.

He gasped, fighting for breath, found it, filled his lungs. He paused only long enough to look upward, to see the damage he'd done as he fell through the tightly knit branches. "Forgive me, brother," he whispered, even as he forced himself into a sitting position and examined the stump of his left arm. The stump was still gushing blood and now there was another race against time for his life as he directed the clotting juices to flow, willed the severed arteries to close, watched, growing weaker, as his will gradually triumphed. When only an ooze of blood was coming from the raw stump he looked around.

He was in the far north of the valley, in that deserted quarter of hot, rushing springs. He was too weak to walk. To crawl back to the nearest house was a possibility, but as he began to move blackness came to him and when he once again saw the light through the mists of vapor from the hot springs, he knew that he was beyond his strength, that he'd lost more blood than he had imagined.

Alning. He had sent her away, after she'd followed him to the northern cliffs, but, perhaps, she had not obeyed. He called, but his voice was weak. He pursed his lips and used all of his will to put power behind a whistle. The effort brought the blackness back. When he saw again, he was still alone. Alning had, apparently, gone back to the village. His life was his to save.

A few yards away, over rough, rocky ground, a hot spring sent its steams into the warm air. His vision seemed to be distorted, but he was sure he saw a fat brother there. The fat brothers grew in the margins of the springs, bloating their stubby, multiple stalks with sap rich in the minerals of the spring. He began to crawl, slowly, slowly, painfully, for now the stump of his severed arm had regained feeling after the initial shock. He would never remember how many times blackness came to him, or how long that agonizing crawl of just a few yards continued. He saw light again and the fat brother was near, squat, swelled with its gorging, skin glowing as it accepted the gift of Du. He reached it. He had never had the need to graft, but the instinct for it was in him, and as he prepared himself his weak voice begged understanding, saying, "Forgive me, fat brother, but I have need."

He willed, and felt a prickling sensation at his bud point, that little node in the center of his belly. Felt the opening, used his sword—he'd clung to it during the fall and had dragged it, in its sheath attached to his woven feather belt—to lance a small opening deeply into the skin of the fat brother, rolled to press his bud point, felt a stir there, felt the opening of himself and the first harsh entry of sap from the fat brother. His system, shocked, protested. His toes cramped and his fingers curled into painful knots, and then the initial harshness was overcome and he was adapting and it was as if he could feel the life flowing back into his body. He judged the time of grafting by the wrinkles that began to appear in the flexible skin of the fat brother. The graft would cost the fat brother a sun cycle's growth. To cost the brother more was unthinkable. He had enough strength, now, to make it back to the village. He separated, felt his bud point contract.

"My brother," he said, in fondness, as he patted the fat brother's shrunken, wrinkled skin.

He had to rest often. When he was a short run from the village he encountered two newly mobile youths, gasped out his problem, and soon strong arms were around him, carrying him.

He felt the healing warmth of soil on his feet, opened his eyes. He was in the young house. The think vines had opened the ceiling to the light. All around him the new crop of young slumbered, not yet sentient. He felt the old, warm security of being a part of the earth. The soil of the young house, enriched by mulch, bird droppings, minerals collected from the accumulations in the springs, fed him through hundreds of small outreachings that had been engendered quickly by his regenerative organs. He was at peace. He slumbered, woke.

"Father," he whispered drowsily, for there was a familiar face close to his, a face full of love and concern.

"You have done well, my son," said Duwan the Elder.

"Sucker," Duwan said sleepily.

"Wake," The Elder said. "You must tell me." Duwan struggled against the feeling of peace and sleep. "North," he whispered.

"A landmark, son. Give me a location."

"Must kill."

"Yes. We must kill the thing before it can divide. Tell me where."

"I kill when—" He could say no more. Peace and sleep held him. When next he awoke his head was clearer. Alning was watching. He opened his orange eyes and saw her face, full of concern for him. "Little sister," he said. "I fear that I broke all your eggs."

"No matter," she said. "You are safe." A sudden urgency came over him, as he flashed back to that terrible moment when his arm was crushed by the strength of the sucker's maw.

"Little sister," he said, and there was life and command in his voice. "Free me."

"It is not yet time," she protested.

"Free me, now," he insisted, trying to lift his own feet from the warm security of the rich earth without success. Alning, her face showing fright, ran from the young house. Duwan the Elder was there within minutes.

"Free me," Duwan said.

"Now you can tell me the location of the monster," his father said.

"It is high, and you will not be able to find it without me. Free me." The Elder considered for a moment, looked closely at his son's eyes, burning with life, deep orange. "Yes," he said, reaching for a tool. Duwan's feet, freed, were hairy with extensions. The rich soil clung, but showered off as the extensions withdrew into their almost invisible sockets and the pores closed around them.

A force of twenty warriors had been quickly gathered. Over Duwan's objection, he was carried in a litter. The force moved at a swift trot, for time had been wasted. There were those among them, old, hoary, skin beginning to harden, who remembered the first struggles with the monsters of the rocks, when there were so many that the cliffs were a no-man's-land of instant, waiting death and the suckers, things without brains, actually huge colonies of mindless, one-celled entities, came down from the cliffs to decimate all fixed life and to lie in wait for any unwary mobile. At any given time a sucker could divide, and divide rapidly, although it was the nature of the beast to avoid small divisions. That trait of the suckers had enabled the people of the valley to, it had been thought before Duwan's encounter, eliminate the killers.

It was simple to find the tall brother whose branches had broken Duwan's fall and saved his life. Tender twigs, broken, were already turning brown and the seriously injured larger limbs were being cut off slowly by a tightening ring of growth near the trunk of the tall brother. The rock sucker had not moved. Duwan recognized it by its shape, saw the cunningly constructed cavity that was the thing's maw. It was a huge one, as well as they could judge, although the sucker imitated stone so well that it was difficult to determine for sure just how far it extended around the open, motionless maw.

Fire, that most deadly of friends, carried from the areas of eternal heat to the south, tended carefully, was coaxed into a blaze using the combustible, dead droppings of the tall brothers. Strong young warriors unslung their bows, saw to the stringing, tested, selected straight, strong arrows newly finned with fresh, multi-colored feathers. Duwan was standing, if a bit dizzily, longing to be able to take bow and send fiery death into the sucker, but he had no left hand to hold the bow. When all were ready Duwan the Elder gave the signal, and ten down-wrapped arrows were ignited in the blaze, and at a further signal went singing upward. Some bounced their metal tips off solid rock, five embedded, and burned, and a quivering began as the mindless beast's tissues began to char and smoke. A second flight of burning arrows sang upward and the sucker, feeling pain, tried to crawl, leaving behind a concave area of surprising size. The target now outlined clearly, another flight of arrows finished the job and the beast lost its hold, fell to crash heavily through the branches of the tall brother, dividing on impact with the ground into a dozen small, writhing masses that were attacked immediately and mercilessly by torch-wielding warriors, Duwan among them. He took satisfaction. He burned, and charred, and left no single mass unbrowned by fire and then refused to give up the search for tiny survivors until his father took his arm gently and led him back to the litter. Within a short time, Duwan, weakened by the trek, was immobile again, hundreds of tiny extensions drawing new strength from the rich earth of the young house. Watches were set on the northern cliffs. Roving pairs of warriors scouted the entire rock face of the valley. In the time of the long light rock suckers were sometimes mobile, oozing over the rocks seeking new points of ambush for unwary birds.

Duwan sank immediately into a blissful sleep. The raw stump of his left arm formed a crust, the texture of which changed during the time he was immobile. He was awake more and more, using his conscious periods for meditation, longing for the mobility to climb into the full warmth of Du. No more suckers were detected. The young warriors climbed the sun-heated rocks and all participated in savoring the feast of eggs. Duwan had his share, brought to him by Alning. When it was time he felt his extensions withdrawing of their own accord, freed his feet, and, walking with pride and strength, emerged into the square to see life going on as it had done for generations. His stump drew stares and expressions of sympathy. He saw Alning running toward him and felt the smile come to his face.

"You are well," she said, falling into stride beside him.

"Yes, thank you," he said.

The square was invaded by a leaping, running group of new mobiles. Duwan and Alning halted as the youngsters crowded around, eyes wide as they gazed at the stump of Duwan's left arm.

"Did it hurt?" asked one green-eyed little female.

"Fiercely," Duwan said with a loving smile.

"What will you do now that you are no longer a warrior?" a young male asked.

Duwan frowned, pulled his shortsword from its sheath. "Who says I am no longer a warrior?" He brandished the sword, the well cleaned and oiled blade hissing with the force of his motion.

"You can't pull a bow," the young one said.

"I have this."

"Don't worry," Alning said, as the young ones rushed away in search of new fun. "Your right arm is stronger than both in most warriors." But there was a darkness building inside him. He had, of course, considered the impact of losing his left arm on his life. True, he could not draw a bow. He would be able, he felt, to develop skills using one hand. He had given thought to that, and felt that by holding a shaft from the thin brothers of the hot springs in his teeth he would be able to round arrows, and, perhaps, with a journey to the southern end of the valley where the thin, hard brothers grew taller, a shaft for a spear. A one-armed man could use and throw a spear.

"Duwan," Alning said, her eyes unable to meet his, "nothing has changed."

"Only my left arm," he said blackly.

"Nothing has changed in my regard for you," she said, her heart pounding at her boldness.

His mood became blacker. She was quite rapidly becoming the most beautiful one in the village, and she was the daughter of a warrior. She deserved better than a mate with only one hand. He was silent as they walked onward toward his father's house.

The village square was swept clean. The precisely placed houses lined it, lush and green as the think vines forming the walls drank in the light of the season. The houses, quite naturally, looked a bit scraggly, for the vines had been allowed to separate, to open the ceilings to the warm air and reach tendrils upward for the gift of Du. In one open and airy house a female was singing. A group of hard-skinned ones sat in the light, telling and retelling the stories of old.

"Duwan, you have not spoken," Alning said.

He heard the disappointment in her voice, glanced at her. Her head came to his shoulder. The delicate, multi-fronded pale green of her hair gave off a sweet fragrance. He wanted nothing more than to tell her that he was grateful, that his regard for her was unchanged, but the innocent questions of the young one had opened a chasm of blackness in his mind. A warrior without a hand was only a half-one.

Alning moved quickly from his right side to his left, put her hands on his upper arm. "I don't care," she said. "This doesn't matter." He looked at her and saw a flowering face, a rich shade of yellow telling of her emotion, but there was doubt in him and he knew that her emotion could be pity as well as love. His pride swelled, filling him.

"As you said, Alning," he said, his voice sounding more harsh than he intended, "I have not spoken."

She flushed more, felt his rebuke strongly. He had not spoken. He had never spoken for her. She had been forward, lulled into it by her regard for him and by his near escape from death. She dropped her head, removed her hands from his arm.

Relenting, he said, "You are young."

She found no words. They were approaching the house of Duwan the Elder. Still she could find no words, but she felt the hot tears beginning to form in her eyes and, lest he see, she turned and ran with the abandon of the very young, ran from her shame, ran from his rejection. He raised his right hand as if to stop her, but did not call her back. Alning meant The Beautiful One. And the beautiful one deserved more than a one-handed lifemate. He turned. His mother was in the doorway, arms extended. Feeling quite young himself, he moved into her embrace.

Chapter Two

Only a few had felt that incredibly deadly draining of blood into the maw of a sucker and lived to describe it. Death was not unknown in the valley, but it was rare. A warrior, too daring in his climb, fell from the top of the cliffs, crushing his head on the rocks below. A newly mobile young one fell into a boiling spring. The hardening took some old ones, but all in all death was a memory, a memory of the old days before the Drinkers came to the valley, when war was death. It was to avoid death that Duwan's ancestors had left the Land of Many Brothers and crossed the barrens, losing many to starvation and cold when the long light failed. The valley was a miraculous oasis in the sterile, windswept emptiness. At its head it was no wider than an all-out dash without rest. In length it stretched two days' marching run, narrowing toward the southwestern end. When the wind came from the north, it brought with it the chill and the scent of the eternal ice. A southerly wind smelled of fire, and sometimes carried fine ash, an ash carefully collected to enrich the soil of the young house.

The valley was the Drinkers' only home in a cold, sterile land, land extending endlessly into waterless distances to east and west, and to fire and ice to the north and south.

Duwan, born with a full measure of curiosity, had explored, had felt the deadly cold of the ice, had pushed his horny toes farther east and west than any one in memory, had seen and smelled the eternal fires of the south, knowing the heat through the tough, hardened pads of his feet. He regarded his distant ancestors with respect, for try as he might he had found no path through the eternal fires and had, indeed, been frightened into turning back as the solid earth, itself, quavered and rolled under his feet to the accompaniment of the bellowing of countless thunderous voices and in the near distance new fire had belched from the earth with a heat so great that it seared his skin.

Duwan believed. He knew the often told tales of the great journey by heart, and would, dutifully, pass them on to his young when the time came, but it was still hard to believe that Drinkers had actually made their way through that land of endless fire. On the evening following his recovery he found cause to reinforce his unspoken doubt, for the village minstrel had already composed the Song of Duwan The Drinker, and to say that it departed slightly from the truth was a kindness. As he listened, Duwan first smiled, and then had to hide his laughter, for the song made him so heroic, built his quick thinking actions into such bravery that he wondered anew if such stretching of the truth had not been applied to all the Drinkers' history.

For example, the old tales spoke of war, war and heroism, war and death, and yet no generation of Drinkers now living had ever experienced war. From northeast to southwest the valley was dotted with villages, none more than a swift dash without rest from the next, but no one had, in the history of the valley, raised an edged weapon against another. There had been times when Duwan wondered if the endless drills, the concentrated training, the mock battles had not been invented merely as a ruse to keep the growing energies of the young under control and to keep them out from underfoot. Still, the magic of the metalmakers gave one pause. To have the ability to know exactly where in the earth and rocks to find those scattered flakes, to know how to crush and wash and blend and then to fire the metal and shape it was an ability that could not have come naturally to any one there in the valley. And the quietly voiced tales of the old, hard-skinned ones rang with emotion, if not total truth, as they spoke of gushing wounds and death and the Enemy.

Perhaps, Duwan thought, as the minstrel, by popular demand, repeated The Song of Duwan The Drinker, there had been embellishing, stretching, and, if so, what harm? Perhaps, beyond the land of the eternal fires, there was an Enemy. If so, the years of training, the hard, muscle wrenching struggles, and the resulting skills with short and longswords, bow and spear and knife might yet be called upon one day. There had been times, when he was younger, when he had dreamed of the Enemy, had, in his mind, placed this Drinkerlike foe at the entrance to the valley to be met with metal clashing on metal, with blades sharp and deadly and with flying shafts of frightful penetrating ability. Thus, he had dreamed, he would prove himself and become legend. To have become a part of the lore by losing a hand was not to his liking, but he had, before the evening was far gone, become stoic in his acceptance. It was, it had been meant to be, and he would adapt.

The purpose of the gathering in the square, with all the village present, with the young ones bunched, wide-eyed, near the glowing fires, and the elders sitting in all dignity cross-legged on the warm earth, was to honor Duwan, who had used his wits and his sword with admirable quickness. Of course, in those wondrous days of the long light, almost any excuse was good for a gathering, with Du, the source, low over the southern cliffs to indicate eveningtime, but Duwan took some satisfaction in knowing that he was well respected, and he stood to speak his gratitude only to find that his words froze in his throat. His father, chosen Village Elder long before his son's sprouting, was an accomplished speaker. Shamed, Duwan forced out some words, not really knowing what he said, but evidently he did not make a fool of himself, for his short speech was well received with coos from the females and a whistling hiss from the males.

The fermented juices of the narrow-organed short brother had something to do with the good spirits, as cups formed of half the shell of the nut brother passed from hand to hand with great laughter and small jokes and good will.

Alning was there, but she sat far back away from the cozy fires and refused to look at Duwan, so that he, hurt, drank more than his share to feel his head become light and his blood fiery.

Mothers began to coax their reluctant young away for sleep period. At a signal from Duwan The Elder the flowering young departed, Alning among them. Most of the mature females retired to their houses, leaving the warriors and the elders, who moved to congregate more compactly around the fires. Cups were passed. Duwan The Elder gave a contented sigh and sank back to lean on his elbows. The minstrel plucked the multiple strings of his instrument almost idly, but the sounds that came were soft and dreamy.

"We must consider the matter of my son," Duwan the Elder said at last. Duwan's head jerked up. He'd been dreaming cozily of Alning, wondering how he could approach her to say that he was sorry for his harsh words.

The warriors and elders gave a hiss of assent.

"Who will speak?" Duwan the Elder asked.

For long moments there was silence, then Manoo, the Predictor of Du, lifted a hand lazily. "Elder," he said, "we have spoken among ourselves. He is your son."

Duwan the Elder shook his head in sad negation. "No matter," he said.

"The traditions are for my son as well as your son." Puzzled, Duwan sat up, his right hand clasped onto his cocked knee.

"There is peace," Manoo the Predictor said. "Perhaps for once we can waive tradition."

"And when we waive all tradition, and we forget, and the Enemy comes?" Duwan the Elder asked. "No. He is my son, but he is of the Drinkers, and he will be governed by our laws."

"I will speak, then," said a tall, strong warrior, aged to his prime, skin just beginning to roughen.

"We hear, Leader," Duwan the Elder said.

Duwan looked at Belran the Leader with anticipation and respect. The hardy one, chief of all the warriors, was well known to all who had been trained, for each new warrior had to test his newly learned skills, quite often to his pain and chagrin, against the swords of Belran.

"He was," Belran said, "a warrior of great promise. Indeed, as my skin hardens, the warrior to become the Leader." Duwan felt his face flush and he swelled with pride, but the feeling did not last long. "I am saddened," Belran said, "but the shortsword is for parrying and the longsword is for killing and one without the other is wanting."

"I hear," Duwan the Elder said.

"Had the young one a calling," Belran said, "it would be easier." Duwan looked down. He had undergone the trial periods with the metalmakers, and he had no skill for it. He had strained his brain listening to Manoo the Predictor and he could not come within days of stating the appearances of Du during the time of dims and dark. His calling was to arms, and without the shortsword in his left hand he had no calling.

"Young Duwan," Belran the Leader said, turning toward the increasingly concerned Drinker, "what have you to say for yourself? Have you, perhaps, a calling of which we are not aware?"

Duwan thought for a moment. "I have no calling other than to arms." An old one, with hard, knobby skin, spoke in his old, strained voice. "I have seen young Duwan with the young. He has a good heart." A keeper of the young? Duwan felt a deep shame. He rose. "The old ones speak of a Drinker, in the time of troubles, who lost his hand in war, and yet he fought, and slew the Enemy, and retained his honor."

"By severe test," Belran said. "Do you seek a test?" Duwan swallowed his fear. "I do seek a test."

A young warrior rose quickly and ran to the community house, emerged with two sets of padded swords. Belran the Leader took all four swords in his hands, extended the hilts for choice to Duwan. Duwan knew the swords, for he'd wielded all in his training. He selected the one he knew was better balanced, and left three in Belran's hands. Belran handed back to the young warrior the odd shortsword and hefted the others.

"Am I to fight you?" Duwan asked. "Is that a fair test? You are the Leader, honored Belran. A fairer test would pit me against one of my own age."

Belran glared at him without pity. "My father's father, five times removed, was also a Leader, and strong, the strongest and the most skillful of his village. He faced the Enemy and was slain and, without protection, the village was destroyed."

"So be it," Duwan said, leaping to the attack, trying to eke out by surprise at least one small initial victory. His stroke was parried by Belran's shortsword while a counterblow of the longsword whistled toward Duwan's stomach to be met by a swift move, a quick retraction of his longsword so that the padded instruments thudded together loudly. Duwan's footwork brought hisses of admiration from the lounging warriors and elders, but from the first he was on the defensive for Belran had thought it to be kinder to end the uneven battle quickly. With a great leap, a feint of longsword and a sweep of shortsword he delivered a blow that would have, had the longsword not been padded, disemboweled Duwan. The strength of the blow sat Duwan down. He gasped for breath and rose to the battle, but Belran shook his head, turned, handed the swords to the young warrior who had fetched them and turned to shake his head sadly at Duwan.

"I will teach you the gift of storytelling," offered an ancient.

"The Watcher of the Fire needs no more than one hand," another said.

"Thank you, my friends and elders," Duwan said, "but I have not the memory for being a storyteller, and, as you well know, to watch the fire is a position of honor to be earned, not tossed to a disabled warrior as a sop to his pride."

"Drink," Duwan's father said, extending a cup. Duwan drank. He had to be carried to his sleeping pad in the small, private alcove of his father's house and he awakened much later with a bad taste in his mouth and the thunder of the land of the fires in his head. It was the time of the new greens, tender goodness plucked from certain low growing brothers without doing serious harm to them, and after he had accepted a dish from his mother and consumed it he felt better. He had not noticed, for she sat in shadows, that the old and hard and wrinkled figure of his grandmother was motionless in a corner.

"I saw you not, Grandmother," he said, "forgive me."

"I see you." the old one said.

"You see sadness and shame, Grandmother," he said. "You see a keeper of the young."

"I see one who escaped death." The old one rose with difficulty and moved jerkily until, with a creak of old limbs and a sigh, she sat on the pad next to Duwan.

"I don't know death," Duwan said sadly.

"It is not preferable to life," his grandmother said, as his mother nodded. "Perhaps, at this moment, you may think so."

"Never to climb into the gift of Du again?" Duwan said. "Is that not a form of death?"

"Walk to the south, go out of the valley, and bask in Du to your heart's content," his mother said.

Duwan made a motion of dismissal with his good hand.

The old one leaned down, her dimming eyes thrust close to the stump of Duwan's arm. Her rough, hard hands lifted his arm and put the stump even closer. She made a thoughtful, humming sound.

"It has healed well," Duwan said.

"Uramra," his grandmother hummed, as she lifted one crooked finger and tested the tender new tissue of the stump. Then, dropping the arm and looking into the emerald eyes of her daughter. "For your sake," she said softly, "I would not speak. For his?"

"Speak, Mother," Duwan's mother said, letting her eyes drop.

"I had a son," the old one said.

Duwan's interest was instantly aroused. He had never heard mention of a brother to his mother.

"He was of an age to you, my son," the old one said, putting her hands on Duwan's arm again. "And he, too, was of indecision between dishonor or death. At my insistence he chose to accept a false accusation. We will not go into details, for it is an old wound best left unopened. To ease my hurt, he chose against his inclinations. It was said that his fall from near the cliff top was an accident. I have never been sure. I do know that to prevent the risk of death he chose to abdicate his rightful position, as you have been asked to do, and I fear that, realizing his own mistake, he chose death with no hope."

"I am sorry, Grandmother," Duwan said, not knowing why the old one was telling him something that obviously gave her great pain.

"Ah," the old one said, "this does apply to you. Be patient." Once again she lifted Duwan's stump to her eyes and felt it carefully with her Fingers. Then she sighed. "Yes," she said, "the bud is there." For a few moments Duwan had known a frail hope, wishing more than expecting an answer to his dilemma. Now his heart sank and he closed his mind as his grandmother continued, for she was voicing one of the most ancient and least believable of all the bits of lore.

"With the full strength of Du, it will grow," the old one said. "Not here, not in our valley, but far to the south, where the darks and lights are of equal duration, where Du is strong, it will bud, and grow. So it was of old. So it is still. We are different, my son, we Drinkers. It was this difference that drove the Enemy, this difference that he scorned and feared and made an excuse for a war of extermination."

"Oh, Grandmother," Duwan said sadly, for he had hoped. He knew that the wisdom of the very old ones was often filled with unexpected and surprising bits of esoteric knowledge, but this hoary old folktale?

"Do not the fixed brothers grow limbs to replace the lost?" the old one asked.

"They are fixed," he said.

"They are of the earth and for the earth," his grandmother said. "And of a blood to us, the Drinkers." She removed her hands from his arm. "It is up to you to believe or not to believe. Better for your mother that you disbelieve, for since we have lived in the valley no one has returned from the south."

"They were burned in the land of the fires," Duwan said.

"There is a way through the fires."

He wanted to believe. The mere possibility of belief had a perverse effect on him, bringing home to him the extent of his disaster. To lose Alning, that was certain, in spite of her protestations that nothing had changed. She would change when she saw him carrying, with his one arm, the nutrient containers for the young, when she saw him mucking in the soil, cleaning the insentient sprouts, when she came to him to find him reeking of bird droppings. Not that it was a job beneath his abilities, for he had, by choice, participated, as did most, and a few had the calling and were proud of their sure touch with the sprouts, but his calling was to arms.

"Have you seen this thing with your own eyes?" he asked. The old one shook her head. "Nor have I seen the old take root and become one with the earth. Here, where Du is weak, we see the wasting disease, and I, myself, feel it. But, nevertheless, in the south the old do not die, and in the south new limbs grow to replace those lost, unless the buds are damaged, and your bud is intact. In fact, even in this place where Du is weak and there is not the power, it has started." She lifted his arm, traced the cone-shaped protrusion that had accumulated on the stump. He felt the touch, felt a peculiar, stretching feeling in the skin of the stump, and he almost believed.

"The way through the fires," he said.

The old one closed her eyes, as if that aided memory, and in a sing-song chant said, "Between two smoking mountains Du shows his face at evening over a lake of fire, but one mountain is broken, and the fires drain not on the eastern slope, for there the smoking rock is cooled by springs. A layering of the skin of the needled brother smokes, but prevents the burning of the feet. A dash, a rest beside a spring, new layers of the skin of the needled brother brings one to the lake of fire where the skin pains and shrivels, but a turn to the west leads past the lake of fire into fields of cool, hardened ash."

"So it was said of old?" Duwan asked.

"So it was passed on, for your father's father, five times removed, planned to return once the Drinkers had rested, and had reinforced themselves by sprout with many warriors. He did not know the enervating effect of life without the full strength of Du, and that the dims and darks would limit sprouting, so that five generations have not replaced the losses in one."

"The ancient ones planned to return to the Land of Many Brothers?"

"So it was told, so it is prophesied, even now, among those who remember."

"I have not heard this prophecy," Duwan said.

"No, because it is safe here," his grandmother said. "Because there is no war. Females hold the tales of old. Females prophesy. And it is females who weep when their sons die in war. We choose to forget."

"And when I am through the land of the fires?"

"The time of the long light has just begun. You are strong. You will be in the land of snows while Du is long, but you must hasten until the small, scattered brothers become a great congregation, and even then you must not pause for rest, for the cold will be on your heels, chasing you from the north to bury you in snow. You will pass through a land of many waters, and if your pace has been swift, you will swim the iceless waters of the smaller waters, skirt the larger. Through dims and darks you will pass the congregated brothers, and there will be days shorter than the nights in the land of many waters. There you will first encounter the Enemy, but, perhaps, he has forgotten. You must remember that it is our difference that he hates and fears, and you must hide your abilities. When Du is just to the south of the zenith, and his rays are stronger than you have ever felt before, in a safe place, concealed from the Enemy, become one with the soil and let Du's power restore your limb."

"I will consider," Duwan said.

"Yes," the old one said. "Now I faint, I tire."

"I will help you to your house."

"Thank you, my son, but I am not yet helpless," she said stoutly, as she tottered toward the door.

"Mother, is it true?" Duwan asked, when the old one was gone.

"So it is said."

"Counsel me, Mother. You have always been wise." There were tears in her eyes when she spoke. "I can offer only mixed counsel. My heart says stay, my son. My love for you, and my best wishes for you say go, and return to us whole with news of what has happened in the Land of Many Brothers during our exile."

He had never heard their condition called exile. He looked at her, wanting to ask questions. He was still, however, trying to digest the information he'd received from his grandmother. He knew that the old one and his mother were direct descendants of Alon, who had led the Drinkers to the valley, a man of renown, a leader of leaders.

"Exile?" he was forced to ask.

"A term," she said, waving it away.

"Exile, mother?"

Her eyes hardened. "Once we were a great and populous people, living in prosperity and peace. The Land of Many Brothers was ours, and we became lax, became soft in our life of plenty. The Enemy from the south struck us a mighty blow before we could prepare, before we even suspected his existence. It was too late. Our warriors regained their old skills in defeat after defeat as we were gradually pushed to the north. For generations we fought, and grew weaker, and less numerous, until only a few thousand remained, pushed into the lands north of the waters into seasons of deep snows and bitter cold, and even then the Enemy was to be satisfied only by our total extermination, for he had found that we were different, that we could drink of Du, and communicate with our fixed brothers. It was your ancestor, the Great Alon, who explored to the east and the west and the north to find a great sea and the Enemy spread from coast to mountains and to find a hope, a small hope, here in the valley. The Enemy had not the secret of the way through the land of eternal fire, and presumed that we had been consumed."

"I will see this Enemy," Duwan said.

"I fear so," his mother said, with resignation.

"Perhaps, now, he has grown fat and weak."

"There is much preparation to be done," she said, "and each moment counts if you are to be south of the killing cold and impassable snows before the end of the long light."

"Guide me," he said.

Chapter Three

Having fed and drunk until every cell of his body seemed ready to burst with stored nutrition, Duwan inspected the travel kit prepared for him by his mother and his grandmother. A pack, woven of feathers and fibers, rested snugly on his back, secured by woven belts around chest and shoulders. The pack bulged with the skillfully designed, padded, insulated clothing that would be vital to survival once the long light had passed and the ice sent its frigid breath southward. There was little space for food. A hollowed nut sealed with wax held an emergency supply of water. Dried tubers filled any small available space in the pack. At his left side rode the shortsword, at his belt his knife, and over his left shoulder the longsword. He would have no need for his bow, but aside from that, and his supply of arrows, he carried his total life possessions as he stood in the square and let his orange eyes appreciate the faces and the forms of his friends, his family. Alning was not immediately visible, but, at last, he saw her, back at the edge of the crowd of villagers who had gathered to wish him well. Duwan the Elder, his father, came to stand before him, extended both arms. The entwining was incomplete, for the son had no left forearm, but it was warm and lasting, limbs twisted together in the age-old symbol of regard, loyalty, brotherhood. Then, one by one, he entwined with the warriors and the old ones and brushed his one hand against both hands of the females, except for Alning, who had disappeared.

"Hear me," said Duwan the Elder, when the ceremony of parting had been completed. "The way is long and harsh. To outdistance the wings of the great cold will test you to the utmost. Strong warriors died during our journey to the north, their cells crystalized and ruptured by the ice. You must never rest, my son, not when the cold of the north is upon you, for to rest, although it seems sweet at the time, is death. If the brothers are in retreat, if there are no life organs visible, cold is there or will come. Move onward, onward, until tender life organs are green with health, and then rest."

"I hear," Duwan said.

"Flee the Enemy," The Elder intoned, his pale eyes, dimmed to weak yellow, fixed on Duwan's own. Duwan felt himself stiffen. "Yes, flee, until you have been restored, and even then remember that you are only one Drinker amid hosts of the Enemy and govern your decisions with wisdom, not rashness, no matter how great the temptation, how hot the blood. For your journey is more than a personal seeking for renewal and restoration, my son, it is for the Drinkers. The information you bring us will be of vital import, and will have a decided effect on the future of the ones in the valley. That is your primary mission. Your mission is not to kill one, or a dozen, or a score of the Enemy, but to observe, to learn, to accumulate wisdom and live to impart it to your valley."

"I hear, father," Duwan said, bowing his head.

Duwan's mother stepped forward, two pairs of sandals fashioned from the skin of the needled brother in her hands. She lashed them to Duwan's pack and pressed her petal fresh lips to his cheek before stepping back.

"Soak the sandals well," said his grandmother, in her aged, croaking voice. "Remember, soak them well."

"I hear, Grandmother," Duwan said.

The minstrel had written a new verse to the Song Of Duwan The Drinker. His resonant instrument rang out, and his voice began to sing as Duwan, trying in vain to catch a glimpse of Alning, turned his back to the gathering in the square and paced away toward the southeast and the far tip of the valley. He felt swollen with his intake of nutrients, and his spirit was heavy, for he was aware of the dangers that lay ahead, and sore in the heart in his loss of Alning. He did not turn, nor did he look over his shoulder. He adjusted his pack for comfort and took long strides and the song of the minstrel faded, leaving echoes of the words in his mind, words telling of the courage of Duwan, words of the long way ahead. He was young, and he was hopeful. His heart could not stay heavy long. The time of the long light was too glorious, the birds too colorful, all the brothers of the valley too lush and green in their long light flush of health and growth. Alning was waiting for him, half hidden in the heated, soft steam of a spring. At first he wasn't sure his eyes were being true, afraid that his desire to see her gave rise to visions, and then she stepped toward him, black eyes bright, hair moistened by the steams, her yellow green skin dripping attractively with moisture. He halted, and could find no words.

"You have not spoken," she said softly.

"No," he said.

"Nor will I, not until you return."

He felt a flush of happiness, and then reason regained its rule. "And if I do not come back?"

She looked away, black eyes misting.

"I cannot, in all conscience, ask you to wait for me," he said softly.

"Is it your desire to ask?" She locked her black eyes on his.

"I must consider you, Alning," he said.

"Be considerate, then," she said, moving toward him. His loins tightened as his eyes saw the swift change of color in her exposed torso, a flowering, a glowing, and he had difficulty swallowing. She thrust her body to his and he felt her warmth.

"Be considerate," she said. "Tell me that you want me to wait."

"Ah, Alning," he moaned, in an agony of indecision, wanting to do the honorable thing, knowing that it was very unfair to her to be left with any expectations.

"It is what I want," she hissed fiercely, and for delicious, long, heated moments he felt an almost painful heat on his graft bud as she pressed hard to him, her own bud swelling, softening. He leaned, drank the condensation of the steams from her smooth, heated skin, moaned in pleasure as she put her arms around him and pressed him tightly.

"I named you Alning, Beautiful One," he whispered. "I saw you as a sprout, and watched you grow, freed you from mother earth, laughed as you fell, and rose swiftly to fall and rise again. I have had eyes for no other. I will never have eyes for another, my Alning."

"There," she whispered, "was that so difficult?"

"But you will be alone, for Du knows how long, and—"

"Hush," she said.

His eyes went wide, for he felt a change in the contact of their graft buds, jerked away, looked down to see a scarlet ripeness at her waist. Indeed, from waist to loin she had seemed to swell, and he was thrilled as he'd never been thrilled in his life. She tried to push herself back to him.

"No," he said, holding her off with his good hand.

"Stay with me," she hissed, with an intensity that raised his temperature.

"I would, I would," he said, still holding her away.

"No," she whispered, as her color faded, and she seemed to regain some control. "I will not ask that of you, for, although I would accept you as you are, I want life to be full for you, and you must do this thing. Have no fear, Duwan, I will wait."

"When the ripeness is fully upon you—"

"I will burn," she whispered, "but I will endure, until you return."

"I, too, will burn, each time I feel the ripeness, each time I think of you." He put his hand on her cheek, lifted her eyes to his. "Hear me, Beautiful One. If, when the time of the long light comes and goes for the second time following this long light of my departure, I have not returned, you are to speak. You are to speak for another."

"No," she said heatedly.

"Do this," he said harshly, "or I will retract my words and give you a never word and that will end it."

She went pale.

"To think of you wasted would be a great sadness for me in Du's paradise," he said. "I would be handicapped, weighed down by this sadness. You must promise. At the first dim following the second coming and going of the long light following this long light of my departure, you will speak for another Promise me this."

"At your insistence," she said, her voice very faint.

"Say it."

"I promise."

"Then entwine with me, Beautiful One," he said, extending his arms, feeling her smooth, rich softness as she wound her arms with his and then he pushed her away and ran, not looking back lest her beauty be a fatal attraction for him, lest he lose all his resolve and stay, a one-armed one, to tend the young and bask in her beauty and regard until she, after the initial intoxicating ripeness and grafting, came to hate him for his handicap.

He ran hard, slowing only to greet the Elder of each of the villages through which he passed, reached the narrow, always guarded cleft that gave access to the cliff-bound valley, saluted the warriors on guard and climbed the steep, narrow trail through a cleft in the rocks to feel the invigorating fullness of Du on his face. Du was to the south, at evening, and he ran at a steady, ground covering warrior's pace as the source made its great circle, swinging away to the west and moving behind his back only to appear in the east and swing gradually into another evening in the south. For a full long circle of Du he had kept the pace, and he felt lighter. Moisture respired outward to his skin, and was evaporated by the heat of the source and the dry, invigorating chill of the barrens through which he ran.

The only life within days of swift marching lay behind him in the valley. He ran over sterile rock, through swales of pebbles moistened by the unevaporated remnants of the snows that covered the barrens when Du disappeared over the southern horizon at the end of the time of the long light, up and over ridges where the forces of freezing and thawing had split away boulders, some as tall as the cliffs of the valley. Now and then he would rest, sucking the moisture from the pebbles in the damp low areas, once chewing long and satisfyingly on a dried tuber. He slept after a respectable warrior's run of two full circles of Du. His pace was slowing only slightly after two more double circle warrior's runs and a sleep. He felt lean and fit, no longer heavy, and his pauses were more frequent as he sucked moisture. Ahead of him there was a change in the sky, a layer of what seemed to be cloud far away on the horizon. At times, now, his feet were padded by soft layers of fine sand in the swales. When he saw—as Du made circle after circle, the circles becoming a bit lopsided, with the great source sinking lower and lower on the southern horizon—the first of the spiked brothers clinging to a dry pile of sand, he was heartened. The cloud formation now rose high in the southern sky, hiding Du in the evenings, bringing the gloom of twilight to the barrens. There were times when he smelled the smoke of the land of fires. He had thinned down to his best fighting weight and his movements were effortless, strong, tireless. He added the soft, juicy pulp of the spiked brothers to his meager diet, being careful to separate a small finger carefully from the parent brother and, although the spiked brothers were far down the scale of development and dumb, politely thanking the brother for his contribution.

He was, because of his use of the warrior's pace, well ahead of his projected schedule. He slowed his pace, for now he moved through areas of fine ash which, if he ran, billowed up into clouds to coat the fine tendrils protecting his nostrils. He rarely saw the source now because of the billowing clouds of smoke, clouds that ranged in color from the blackest of blacks through grays and dirty yellows to odd, metallic greens and reds near the earth. Fitful winds began to blow, often bringing the smoke over him. Underfoot, the rocks had taken on a sharpness that tested even his hardened pads. The first steam vent he passed spewed forth boiling water rich in minerals, strong tasting, but quite satisfying after it had cooled in the runoff from the vent. There he slept, warmed by the heat, soaking up liquid into every cell until, once again, he felt heavy. He had to wait for food until he had penetrated a deep valley of boiling vents and the spear canes began to grow. The tender shoots of the cane made delicious munching, and he carried a handful of green canes with him for sucking and chewing along the way as he climbed to the top of a ridge and saw, spread before him, the awesome land of eternal fires. Fortunately, fire activity was at a low. Thermal currents caused winds to gust and eddy, sometimes lifting the smokes so that he could see, across a great rift, the outlines of the mountains of fire. Only once, as he crossed the rift and began to climb the cinders of the mountain slopes, did the earth shift under his feet, and then not too severely. However, he was beginning to feel the heat even before he reached the ash-covered saddle between two mountains of fire and saw, to both his left and his right, steams of molten rock pouring from the peaks. Although the ash-covered rock underfoot was warm to the pads of his tough feet, it was not yet time to put on the sandals. Both pairs of the sandals were well soaked, having been left in the runoff of a boiling vent during his last sleep. Ahead of him a mountain belched and rumbled and fresh pillars of smoke rose into the sky. As he moved forward, he seemed to become surrounded by a ring of fiery mountains. Once before he had penetrated this far into the land of fires, and there had seemed to be no way open to the south. He remembered his grandmother's chanted instructions.

"Between two smoking mountains Du shows his face at evening over a lake of fire—"

Ahead, however, there were only fiery mountains and the eternal smokes. He squatted to rest, chewed on a cane. Which two mountains?

There were many, spaced so closely together that their rolling, fiery belchings blended into one sea of molten rock. As for Du, he was not to be seen through the thick smokes.

He slept. It was a warm, secure sleep. Nothing lived there in that acrid, heated, smoked, steamy barren other than Duwan the Drinker. He awoke with Du high in the northern sky and began to make his way across the saddle between two mountains, moving always toward the east, quartering the slope, nearing the stream of molten rock that moved sluggishly down from the peak. It took a long time, for the rocks were jagged, sometimes needle sharp. By evening he was feeling the hot breath of the molten rock on his skin, and then, as if by a miracle, the smoke cleared for a moment and there was Du, shining redly between two distant, smoking mountains. Beneath the kind face of the source glimmered a huge lake of fire.

Encouraged, he moved forward to see that the mountain's face was broken, that the stream of molten rock poured thickly and redly into a fissure. Below that fissure he was able to leap across a chasm at the bottom of which glowed the fires and now the rocks began to burn his feet, so he put on a pair of the sandals and ran toward the last sight of Du, the sandals smoking as they absorbed the heat of the stones.

He seemed to fly down the slope, taking huge strides, his lungs pumping, for he had long since used up the energy stores from the source. Ahead he saw white, dense smoke and slowed his pace, but the smoke was soft to his nose. Steam. A hot spring poured out of the side of the mountain. Although the water boiled and steamed, it cooled on contact with the air and was rich, tasty. He drank and rested. His sandals were burned all the way through. So far, it was exactly as his grandmother had said. He put on the second pair of sandals and ran until his way was blocked by a lake of fire, his skin shriveling under the impact of the fierce heat. He turned to the west, climbed a slope, and, on the last remaining layers of the sandals left the smoking, hot ground for a field of smooth ash that gradually hardened until he was walking on a rippled, hard surface warmed but not heated to painful intensity. The way to the south was open before him, only emptiness in the distance.

Once he stopped to look back at the land of eternal fires, the natural barrier that protected his valley from any enemy. Forbidding as the barrens over which he was marching were, the landscape to the north was far more terrible. For the first time in his life he could appreciate the courage, or the desperation, of the Great Alon and the ones who followed him. Had he, himself, been leading, not knowing what lay beyond those fiery, shaking, smoking mountains, he would never have mustered the determination necessary to enter that zone of fire. But then, he added, to himself, he didn't have the Enemy at his rear with sword and arrow and spear.

He had been on the march for enough circles of Du to make up a time of long light, and he had traveled far, and, to judge from the landscape of barren rock around him, he might as well have stayed near the valley. Only the attitude of Du in the sky had changed, the source now remaining below the zenith even in the morning, sinking out of sight below the southern horizon off to the west in the middle of the marching period. He counted the dim and darks, but, not having the knowledge nor the talent of Manoo the Predictor, he could not relate those odd activities of Du to real time, so that he was not only lost in a barren, endless desert of cooling rock, he was lost in his sense of time. Only that natural ability, that sense of attraction in his very blood, made it possible for him to continue ever southward, never deviating from that line except to skirt impassable features of the land. It was always there, and he did not even have to think to know when he had his back directly to the north. The standard valley day was measured by one full circle of Du during the time of the long light. He estimated that he had traveled for a length of days corresponding to one full period and to the middle days of another period of long light when he first began to know the chill during the times of dimness. Four estimated days after that, he donned dim-time clothing when Du was below the horizon, packed it away when the source came with his heat. Then, after more estimated days, Du was performing in an odd fashion, ducking below the southwestern horizon to reappear on the southeastern horizon in glory. He was beginning to be concerned, for his grandmother had said that he would be in a land of snows while Du was long. Nor had he seen any brothers, scattered or otherwise. Not even the smallest brothers were to be found growing on the warmed surface of the rocks.

He had no alternative. He pushed southward, running now, even though he was thin, honed to a fine tenseness of form. He ran in the light of Du and he ran in the dims, which became darks as the distance behind him lengthened and lengthened and then, after running through a dark, he saw, with Du's first rays, a dull green sheen on a rock ahead. Tiny brothers grew there, and he shared their life, careful not to disrupt their colony. There was new strength in him, although he needed water badly. On another morning he saw in the distance a spike of green and there was a small brother, so he knew that he was nearing a zone of life. He used the emergency water supply then, drinking it in one long, satisfying draft from the shell of the nut brother. Soon he was moving through a landscape of scattered soil pockets and scattered, small brothers, and still there was no snow.

He rested, and slept long, and woke with pain in every joint, the pain of cold. A heaviness was atop him. He tried to move and panic grew in him when he opened his eyes to see nothing, only an impenetrable blackness, and he was cold, so cold. Every movement was an effort. He shook, lifted his arms and legs against resistance, and then, with a scream of sheer terror of the unknown, he bunched his energies and exploded upward from under a fresh blanket of snow that had covered him during the night. As far as he could see there was that deadly whiteness, but, when he had begun to move, trudging through a smooth, even snowfall that came halfway to his knees, his blood flowed and his cells were not ruptured by the ice and he knew that the cold was not a killing cold, as long as he kept moving.

There was food now. It was dry, tough, cold period fodder, but it was full of energy and the snow satisfied his need for water. He moved swiftly into a land of more and more brothers of one type, tall, thin, cold-resistant brothers who dropped dead limbs in profusion, making it easy for him to have a warm fire when he rested.

Never had he seen such darks as he saw when he entered a forest of tall brothers so dense that the glow of the sky's night fires, a newness to him, were hidden by the overlapped boughs. And the darks were long, and cold, and he had to travel through them, sleeping little, not daring to rest, for the cold was on his heels now, as he'd been warned, and to sleep long meant death.

He stumbled into the first of the waters. It was nothing more than a shallow, marshy pool, but it was water, and icy cold, and so delicious that, in spite of the cold he lay there where he'd fallen, gulping great draughts of it until he was bloated with its goodness. For a long period of lights and darks—Du was bright, but surprisingly distant—he waded, swam, skirted lakes, streams, bogs where delicious green brothers grew, until he began to notice that the tall brothers were increasing in size to assume, as he entered a great congregation and lost himself in darkness, sizes beyond his wildest imaginings.

The cold was becoming dangerous. Even when he found a sheltered spot and built a roaring fire he could not warm himself all the way through. So he moved, ran, walked, waded, pushed his way through drifts of snow, with Du a weak source in the sky and the cold always with him. He could not believe that he would see the Enemy there, for it was too cold, the snows too deep, the darkness among the tall brothers too complete.

Chapter Four

A howling wind carried a cold unlike any cold Duwan had ever felt. Once, in youthful curiosity, he'd climbed out of the valley during the time of the long dark to find a world of crusted white. Then the barrens had been covered to a depth equal to more than his height in snow, and there was a still, quiet cold that gradually seeped into one's cells, but even that cold could not compare with the cold of the wind there among the tall brothers. And snow came with the wind, and there was no softness in the snow. It stung his face. It irritated his eyes so that he had difficulty seeing. The wind was so powerful that it blew him, hard, against a tall brother and the shock of the impact brought to him a sense of growing urgency. The depth of the new snow sapped his energy. He sank to his knees, had to lift his feet high, had to struggle for each brief passage from tall brother to tall brother. The storm had dimmed the day, so that he had no sense of time. He was only beginning to comprehend that time had a different shape in this land of many tall brothers, far from his native valley. In the valley, time was measured by that lovely period when Du circled around the valley and gave light. The long dark, when Du left the valley, was merely a period of endurance, with time, itself, of little import. He knew only that the time of darkness was long, but bearable, made bearable by the constant output of the hot springs, a warmth so effective that snow melted as it fell to become a mist of dew that gave life to the valley even in the absence of Du. Now time was measured by short periods of light and periods of intense darkness longer than the periods of light and each dark seemed to become more deadly, for the cold intensified and seemed capable of attacking even the flames of his night fires. The cold seemed to impregnate the fallen, dry branches of the tall brothers, so that he had to use extravagant amounts of his carefully stored tinder to start the smallest twigs burning, and then they popped and cracked and smoked and burned only reluctantly.

The winds blew for days, and the snow continued until he was, at times, struggling through drifts up to his chest. His very skin ached. His blood seemed to move in his veins at a slowed pace. The necessary intake of snow for water allowed the cold to invade the core of his body, so that it seemed to seep outward as well as inward. For food there was only the dry, brittle, acidy needles of the tall brothers and, occasionally, dry fodder—if he had the fortune to find a spot where winds had cleared the snow enough to allow him to dig down to ground level.

By the time the storm ended his southward progress amounted to no more than an arrow's flight each day and he was keeping himself in motion only with the expenditure of all his will, and the memories of Alning, his father, his mother, and his duty to the Drinkers of the Valley. From a sky washed clean by the storm Du gave him strength. He opened his multiple layers of clothing and let the life-giving rays do battle with the frigid air, and the net gain was negligible. One could not live in such cold. The cold froze small limbs on the tall brothers so that, in the stillness, broken only by Duwan's panting, the sharp crack of rupturing cells came, crisp and clear, echoing off the wall of tall brothers. After a night of pain, when the cold seemed to turn to fire in his body, he struggled onward and paused, knowing not hope but astonishment, as the tall brothers ceased and a wide, level clearing lay ahead of him, so extensive that the tall brothers on the far side were dwarfed. He hoped that the clearing would make for easier travel, but there the soft, new snow was just as deep, and he came to realize that he was crossing a frozen lake, had just enough capacity for thought left to be awed by the sheer mass of water that lay under the snow and ice.

The winds came again when he was only halfway across, roaring down from the northwest with a suddenness that numbed him. Into the stillness came a distant mutter. The mutter became a roar and, looking over his shoulder, he saw a roiling mass of dark clouds springing up from the horizon, moving so swiftly that he could only stand and watch in fear as the storm approached with astounding speed.

The winds took him directly in the face, seemed to lance his skin. Then came stinging sleet and snow so that he had to cover his eyes. He turned his back to the winds and let them help push him forward, toward the distant line of tall brothers where there would be some protection from the icy wind.

By the time he reached the shelter of the tall brothers he was gasping in the cold air, feeling it chill his lungs. His clothing was covered with snow. Ice had frozen on his frondlike eyelashes and in the tendrils of his nostrils. His breath crystallized as he exhaled and became a miniature snowstorm that sometimes interfered with his vision. With his last resources of strength he made his way deeper among the tall brothers, too spent to notice that on the southern side of the frozen lake the tall brothers were different.

When he fell, he lay there on the snow for long moments, his hands and feet making small, useless motions. He felt peace begin to come to his troubled spirit, felt a warmth begin to creep upward from his toes, thanked Du for it, then, in panic, he sat up, pushed himself to his feet, remembering his father's warnings that to rest in that cold was to die. Overhead, the limbs of the tall brothers formed a solid canopy, and he could see accumulated snow there. Underfoot the snow seemed less deep. He found a sheltered spot behind a deadfall and began to dig down through the snow, found frozen earth. Fire. He had to have fire. He needed food badly, but his most immediate concern was fire, for that lack of feeling, that false warmth, was still in his extremities. He dug frantically, found cold-soaked limbs, broke away twigs, saw that his tinder supply was desperately low.

His first attempt was a failure. His fire rocks sparked, the tinder smoked, he blew it into a tiny flame, but the twigs, moisture laden and frozen, sizzled and the tinder was gone and there was no fire. He had tinder for no more than two to three more fires. He began to search for drier twigs and, hearing a soft plop, turned his head to see a newly fallen dead limb lying atop the snow. Another limb, with dry, brittle twigs, fell nearby. "Thank you, brother," he said aloud, although he knew that he was neither heard nor understood by the tall brother.

This time the fire smoked, blazed, and, as dead limbs continued to fall around him, blessed heat began to soak into his almost frozen feet and hands, and darkness was upon him. He gathered wood by the flickering light of the fire and tried the needles of one of the tall brothers. The taste was different, not at all unappetizing. He ate sparingly, found dead limbs to hold up his small night covering, basked in the heat of the fire, and was asleep without realizing it.

The density of the grove of tall brothers broke the wind. The tangled, solid canopy kept off the snow. The howl and roar of the winds overhead served as a lullaby and he slept soundly as the fire burned low, flickered, became a bed of embers. Loud cracks of sound, as the weight of new snow broke branches overhead, as the iron cold ruptured living cells, failed to wake him, for he slept the sleep of exhaustion, warm for the first time in days, and then warmed by the creeping death that failed, also, to waken him.

There was no ear to hear, for Duwan slept too soundly, slept that cold-induced sleep that is the prologue to death, as a whispering began, a soft, rushing sound distinct from the hiss and howl of the storm. At first the whisperings had no shape or substance. Then they seemed to say, "Wan, Wan, Wan." And from the tall brother under which Duwan slept there fell a series of dead limbs to plop quietly into the snow, unheard by the sleeper.

"Wan, Wan, Wan."

He did not realize that his heart was slowing, that the cold was penetrating, that, already, cells had frozen on his outer skin, the liquids of life expanding to burst and freeze, forming a coating of ice on his feet.

"Wan, Wan, Duwan."

The whispering grew in volume, became a low, hoarse, steady hissing.

"Duwan, Duwan."

A living limb cracked overhead, leaned, fell, struck Duwan at the waist. He stirred.

"Duwan, Duwan, Duwan."

He opened his eyes, felt a prickling pain in his feet, knew swift panic as he saw that the fire had burned down to embers, felt the frozen moisture at his eyes crack painfully.

He tried to stand, fell. He had no sensation in his feet. He crawled, gathered freshly fallen branches, built the fire into roaring warmth.

"Duwan, Duwan."

"Who calls?" he asked, looking fearfully around the small circle of snow lit by the fire.

Whispering voices seemed to compete with themselves, so that he caught only isolated words, "Cold. Storm. Snow."

"Listen, listen, listen."

He was still. His heart was beating strongly, awe and fear helping his half-frozen blood to circulate.

"Listen, listen."

"I hear," he whispered.

He saw nothing but the fire, the circle of light, the towering tall brothers, the snow.

"I am listening," he whispered, and there was a silence, as even the winds of the storm ceased for a few moments and the voices whispered softer, "Listen."

He tried. He cocked his head to one side and the other, and heard only the distant crack of a breaking branch, and then a picture seemed to form in his mind. He saw blocks of packed snow begin to form a circle. He felt warmth, safety.

A sprig of living needles fell into his lap and, as he listened with his mind, he munched them.

"Now, now," the voice whispered.

He used his knife. The packed snow abraded his fingers, sent the freezing cold into his being, but he was true to the pictures in his mind and the packed snow blocks circled him and then, after he'd raised two tiers of them, he dug out the packed snow and a rain of living branches began to fall, some missing him narrowly. He laid the living branches with their soft needles in the circle of packed snow blocks and then began to cut more blocks, working by the flickering light of the fire. The dim light of dawn came, and aided him with the last tiers of packed snow blocks. Before him was a small dome of snow. Inside, the frozen ground was covered by fresh needles from the tall brothers. His fire was burning well, with no shortage of dead-wood, for, as needed, it fell from above, although, he saw, as the day went on and he closed in the dome of his ice house, he would have to walk farther and farther from the ice house to gather the wood, for the tall brothers nearby had begun to clear themselves of dead branches.

The storm still howled. A section of the overhead canopy gave way not too far from his ice house and a cascade of broken branches and snow thundered to the ground. Duwan rested. He ate of the living needles from the tall brothers, considered his situation. The cold was intense, so that he had, continuously, to go back to the fire to be warmed. He was weak, in spite of the new supply of food, food more nutritious than that he'd found on the northern side of the frozen lake.

In early darkness he crawled into the ice dome and closed the opening with packed snow. It was cold, but, gradually, his body heat filled the small space and, covered by all his clothing, he slept. He awoke and pushed aside the snow that blocked the opening. The hiss and sigh and roar of the storm told him that there would be no traveling that day. He felt much stronger, alert enough to remember the strange events of the previous night, the whisperings, the pictures that had formed in his head and had saved his life.

He stood beside his rekindled fire and looked around. There were only the tall brothers, and the solid covering overhead. Had it really happened, those whisperings, his name being called, "Duwan, Duwan, Duwan?" The legends said that in the Land of Many Brothers there was no death, until the coming of the Enemy. In the Land of Many Brothers Drinkers were of the earth and for the earth, there being no wasting disease, no hardening until an old one simply ceased to live. Could such things be believed?

"Brothers," he said, spreading his arms, "I thank you." A small sprig of fresh needles fell into one of his outstretched hands, and he looked up.

"Brothers, did you speak?"

There was a warmness in his mind, and then a picture of vast distances and howling winds and iron cold.

Duwan fell to his knees and raised his hands. "I salute you, brothers, Drinkers of old. I praise you, and I give you my thanks. You have helped me. Now I need further help. I need guidance, brothers. I have far to go. Will I go now?"

A softness in his mind, a picture of his little snow hut, the taste of the needles in his mouth and something else, not yet identified, and then a sense of the passing of many days and a picture of the land without snow.

"I am to remain here, then?" he asked, and the soft, reassuring feeling came over him.

There was no more. He was alone. He left the fireside and walked toward the south and was assaulted immediately by the cold, a cold that caused his breath to freeze and tinkle in little icy crystals, a cold that sent a burning upward from his feet. Ahead was only the vast, unchanging forest. He went back to the fire, warmed himself, crawled into the ice hut and saw that wiry tendrils had grown upward through the frozen ground, making small cracks in the surface. He lay so as not to crush the tendrils and, as he mused, and wished that he was back with his own in the valley in the far north, he saw an ooze of liquid from the end of a tendril, touched it with his finger, sampled it to find it tasty and nutritious. Another drop of the liquid welled up at the end of the tendril and he bent to suck it away with his mouth, to savor all of it, and the flow became continuous. There was no time. There was fire, and cold, and the endless storms. There were the fresh needles that fell as he hungered, and the constant supply, on his demand, of nutritious sap from the tendrils growing within his hut. He fattened, stored energy, exercised by taking brief walks. He discovered that the character of the tall brothers changed in all directions after a brisk, short walk, and became the same as those on the northern side of the frozen lake. His feelings changed, too, when he left the whispering grove. Within it, he felt safe and protected. Outside it he was alone.

Time. The days were growing longer. More and more often wet masses of snow fell, broken limbs mixed with it, to the forest floor. The iron cold abated until he could explore for a half day without ill effect. He was swollen with nutrition, eager to resume his journey, and yet there was the feeling that it was too soon. That feeling was borne out by one of the worst of the storms, a wind and snow that broke through the canopy itself and littered the ground with fallen limbs and piles of accumulated snow and sleet. He resigned himself, waited until the light of Du, penetrating through holes in the canopy, was bright, and made shining things of wonder of the drops of melt water that, as the days passed, made for an unceasing rain in the grove.

"Is it not time?" he asked, and a picture of distances came to him.

"My brothers," he said. "I believe. The tales of the old ones had foundation. I salute you, my ancestors, my brothers. Eternal life to you." He heard the whisperings. He had not heard them often during that long period of cold and darkness, but now he heard them and, instead of being disjointed, difficult to understand, the words were clear, simple words that caused him to thrill inside.

"All is one," the whisperers said. "We are all one."

"I hear," Duwan whispered. "All life is a oneness." He covered distance with difficulty, at first. He walked through a cold rain as the snows of the canopy melted and made the footing mushy. He crossed another frozen lake with melting snow cold around his feet and with Du overhead, giving him more energy now than the cold could steal. He drank the rays, blessed them, and moved ever southward until the snows became only remnants in shadowed places and new, fresh green things sprouted in the thawing earth. He ate well, always thanking the food source and never taking enough to deprive a brother of health and life. He had no means of keeping count of the days. He knew only that as his strong legs moved him ever southward Du rose higher and higher into the sky, and he remembered his grandmother's words. When Du was just below the zenith at midday he would have reached his destination.

He was constantly on the alert now, for the land had changed. There were several varieties of tall brothers now, some of them putting out new, tender, delicious life organs after a time of bareness. He saw signs of life, but only in the form of animal tracks. From the songs of the minstrels and the legends of the old ones he remembered tales of animals large enough to be dangerous. Once he'd doubted such tales, but now, having known the whispering brothers, he doubted less. If one aspect of the legends was true, who could say what else was true? Still, he spotted no large tracks, saw only small, shy creatures so eager to avoid something as large as he that he had no clear picture of them, except for one little animal, the size of his hand, that lived in the tall brothers and squeaked excitedly when Duwan came near.

He swam a wide river, making his way through floating masses of melting, fracturing ice, spent a day drying his clothing and warming himself, and then was off again with the morning light.

He rested when Du was at the zenith, but still too low in the southern sky, and as he nibbled tender, green shoots he heard a distant crash and felt, unaccountably, a moment of sadness that was actual pain. Not long after he resumed his southward trek, he discovered the cause of the crashing sound. He heard, first, the steady rhythm of two sharp sounds. They echoed and reechoed among the trunks of the tall brothers. He began to move cautiously, came nearer. He heard voices.

Drinkers!

He increased his pace, but moved from cover to cover, carefully, until he saw, in a clearing ahead, a structure built of the split trunks of tall brothers. His heart leaped. Tall brothers had died to build that hut. He moved around the edge of the clearing, following the steady, rhythmic sounds, and froze into immobility when he saw, through the tall brothers, two Drinkers using chopping instruments to attack a tall brother. Even as he watched, someone yelled a warning and, with a groan, the tall brother toppled, the fall accelerating until the dying brother struck the hard ground with a smashing of limbs and the knowledge, shared by Duwan, that he was dying.

Duwan almost shouted, but his eyes had shifted from the two Drinkers who had killed the brother to the source of a harsh voice. A Drinker struck out at one of the choppers with a whip and the lash fell across the worker's shoulder. The worker yelled out in pain and Duwan reached for his longsword, but restrained himself as other Drinkers with weapons and lashes moved into the clearing and herded Drinkers dressed in rags to begin trimming the branches off the fallen dead brother.

Never had he seen such a thing. The Drinkers with weapons were dressed in leather and fur garments. They had, Duwan realized with a flush of anger, actually taken animal life to keep their bodies warm. His every impulse was to rush forth to punish this, the greatest of crimes, for the taking of life was the ultimate wrong. He held himself back, however, telling himself that he had been given a mission. He was not thinking, at that moment, of his missing arm, and the hope—a hope that had been growing ever since he'd discovered that at least a part of the old tales was true—that he could be whole again. He thought only of the dead tall brother, of the dead animals whose skins and fur warmed the killers, of the odd situation wherein one set of Drinkers forced others to work and struck them with lashes.

While uttering a prayer to Du for the dead, he circled far, returned to his southerly direction. In the days that followed he passed another settlement, this one boasting three huts made from the split trunks of tall brothers. Fortunately, the area was thinly settled. To the west was a snowcapped mountain range. A great river ran in a southeasterly direction, then turned east. Rolling, forested hills grew taller with each ridge to the south, and little cold streams made each valley a thing of delight, but there were no more settlements; at least Duwan didn't encounter any. All was green, and Du seemed to rise right up in the middle of the sky at midday now.

The sun was so warm that Duwan was all but intoxicated with it. He found that he could almost live on sunlight alone. He drank it and drank it and praised Du and wished that all of the Drinkers of the valley were with him for a celebration, knew, too, a sense of loss, for this, long past, had been their country. Why had not the old ones ever spoken of this glory of heat and sun? But then, who, among those who knew only the dim and distant Du of the far north, would have believed them? Who would believe him when he returned to tell of this land of so many riches, of so many silent, fixed brothers, of whispering groves, of Drinkers who killed?

On a morning when the sky was cloudless and Du was climbing toward the zenith only slightly to the south of the middle of the blue, he found his place. It was a tiny clearing on the southern slope of a ridge. Rocks thrust up from the earth, leaving a pocket where no tall brothers grew, but with a space of rich, grassy earth in the center exposed to the full light of the sun. He knelt, facing the north, and sent a prayer there, greeting all those he loved by name, his father, his mother, his friends, and, lastly, Alning. Then, eyes closed, the warmth on his eyelids, he praised Du. He secreted his weapons away from possible rain in a cleft among the rocks, took one last look around, stood in the grassy spot and began to bore into the sun-heated earth with his horned toes. If there was to be a time—when legend proved to be truth, the time was now.

The earth cooled below the surface, but as tendrils began to grow from his feet he felt and tasted the goodness, the richness. It was loamy, enriched by season after season of growing grass. He wiggled, dug himself down until his knees were below the level of the earth, used his hand to tamp down the loose earth, leaned, looked up toward Du. He felt the somnolent peace of the goodness of the earth begin to seep into him, having that effect that is not unlike sleep, but more total, more possessing. He felt the tendrils extending downward and outward and he knew that he was committed. The earth was taking him, and it would hold him, in that state much like sleep, until it had done its work. In that time he would be helpless, as helpless as one of the fixed brothers who had not a brain to think nor sensitivity to feel anything beyond the sweet earth, the soft rains, or, perhaps, the sudden and searing pain of death. He could not let fear deter him, although it was not too late to jerk his feet free, ripping away the rooting tendrils.

Du would guard him. Du would restore.

Chapter Five

Soft rains came, and growling, fast-moving storms that flashed and crashed and sent torrents of wind-driven drops. Mostly, however, the sun burned the eastern hills golden red on rising and blessed all with warmth. Small animals darted among the rocks, sniffed at the tall, growing thing with twin trunks planted deeply into the fresh, sweet, grassy earth. A tawny-purple quadruped reared and braced short, padded front feet on one truck of the growing thing and nibbled with the large, blunt teeth of the grass eater at tattered clothing, spit out the substance from which all nutrition had been removed in processing it into weavable cloth, sniffed, looked around alertly, pointed ears twitching, and lay down in the growing thing's shade, almost hidden by the tall grass.

A pale blue bird alit on the fronds atop the growing thing, twittered, peered at the ruminant still resting peacefully in the shade, jeered, flew, the beat of its wings disturbing the fronds.

The frond-like hair had grown rapidly. Two sources of nourishment were at work, with the light of the sun being converted directly into energy and with the rooty tendrils seeking out the minerals and moisture from the loamy soil. As days passed, and the rains came and went and the sun reached its northernmost position, near the zenith, the hair covered the growing thing's face. It swayed with the summery breezes, bent with the soon-passed winds of the thunderstorms. And from the pointed stub of the severed arm there appeared small, thin protrusions that became perfectly formed, three fingers and two opposing thumbs, tiny, almost ludicrous, but growing, soaking up a good portion of the nutrition provided by sun and soil. Yellow-green skin darkened in the full heat of the sun to a sheeny, rich, forest green.

He dreamed. The dreams were disjointed and distant, as if being observed through the deepest winter haze of the valley. Alning was there, her black eyes the most visible aspect of her, a hint of her femaleness, long legs, coloring torso; and whispers, insensate, wordless whispers of peace and goodness—the song of the growing grass, the purely sensory reaction of the nearer tall brothers to rain and wind and sun. He dreamed, now and then, that he was not alone, but that dream, too, was vague, and that oneness with the earth, that somnolency, made him little more than the grass, the nameless small fixed brothers, the tall ones.

The arm grew, now as large as that of one of the fixed young on the verge of mobility. Of that he knew nothing, nor did he see, for his eyes were closed, and covered with the fronds of his hair, that he, truly, was not alone.

She came from a valley to the east, climbing a ridge wearily, a tall, tired, rag-dressed female with thin, undernourished arms and pinched, hollow-cheeked face. She came with scufflings of feet, the movements of one not accustomed to traveling in the wilderness, with mighty pantings as she achieved the top of the ridge, rested, and then, with a fearful look over her shoulder, moved more swiftly down the slope toward the grassy clearing. Blood spotted the ground where she stepped with her left foot, and she favored it, limping, halting, as she reached the rocks near the clearing to sit on the sun-warmed stone and examine the left foot with concerned, purple eyes. She had tried once before without success to remove the long splinter that had entered into a softer area between her toes, and she was no more successful now as she sat beside the clearing. With a sigh that was part sob she stood, gingerly put her weight on the foot, winced, and stepped onto the grass. The small ruminant that had been resting in Duwan's shade leaped, showing admirable ability to cover ground, and went flashing silently into the forest.

"Ahtol!" she gasped. Her eyes had been led to the growing thing in the center of the clearing. She turned to flee, ran a few steps with her left foot paining her, took a quick look backward, halted. Her initial panic gone, she realized that had he been a Devourer she could not have hoped to outdistance him on her painfully swollen foot.

Crouched and ready for flight, she crept back toward the clearing. He did not move, except to sway slightly in a gust of breeze. She came closer, closer, saw that his feet were buried in the earth to just above his knees.

"You," she said, "what are you doing?" A tinge of red had been burned into Duwan's hair by the sun. It was long, longer than that of the female, and it gleamed with health, moved in the light breeze. She could not see his eyes, for they were hidden. It came to her that this was some new form of torture invented by the Devourers. She twisted her mouth in sympathy and straightened to walk into the grass that came soothingly to the calves of her thin legs. Slowly, carefully, fearfully, she drew near. She saw that his chest was rising and falling, that he was breathing deeply, but oh, so slowly. He must be, she felt, near death. But she saw no blood, no great abrasions on his smooth, sheeny skin. Her eyes caught the growing arm, now only slightly smaller than the other, and they widened.

"What manner of thing are you?" she asked, and was rewarded only by the call of a bird from the nearby trees. She reached out a hand tentatively, drew it back with a gasp as the fronds of Duwan's hair moved in the breeze. Then, holding her breath, biting her lower lip, she lifted the hair to see a face in repose, in sweet sleep, a face of fullness and health and no little beauty, the face of a young du, so different from either pong or Devourer, and yet familiar, a pong face idealized, perhaps. She let the hair fall, examined him closely. His clothing was in tatters, had fallen away from his powerful chest.

It puzzled her. She knelt, examined the points where his legs disappeared into the moist earth, drew on her courage to put her hands on his small arm to feel warmth and smoothness, looked again at his face. A shocking thought came to her, a thought out of hopelessness, out of whispered tales in the stink and noise of the pongpens.

"Master?" she whispered.

He will come from the earth, from the deep, rich, sweet depths of the earth, and he will be mighty, and in his strength and wisdom he will teach us, and deliver us.

She had, until that moment, never believed the hopeless, superstitious mutterings of the lost. Now she sat on her haunches, ragged garment hiked up onto her thin but still muscular thighs and pondered this new thing, this— being—who seemed to be coming from the earth, growing as the trees, the grass, the shrubs, the weeds, the flowers grew.

"Master?" she repeated, and then, with a sigh, lay back to let the sun strike her full in the face. There was something about the sun. In her days of freedom she had had little food. It was past time for the berry fruits, and the nut fruits were still tiny, green buds, and she had resorted to animalism, eating the spongy mosses along the streams. Even that was forbidden. And yet, in spite of the emptiness of her stomach, she did not always hunger, and seemed to gain strength from the sun, or was it that she was merely still euphoric at being away from the pongpens, from the lash, and the endless drudgery?

She slept. She slept through the evening and the formation of dew that glistened on her skin and tattered garments, woke only once to see him there, towering over her, to hear the snick-snick of small tiny things grazing on the sweet, rich, new grass, to see overhead the lights of the sky singing down upon her.

With the morning she could not bring herself to leave him. She went down the slope to the valley and washed herself and drank deeply and nibbled on spongy moss, wondering why—since she'd been eating it for a long time without ill effect—why the Devourers so expressly forbade its intake, along with most growing things.

She whiled away most of the morning playing in the cool waters of the stream, soaking her hair, letting it dry in the sun, rinsing her ragged garment, then, in the pleasant heat of midday, she climbed the slope again and he was as before. She knew that she should be moving on. They would be after her. They punished escape with the most painful of deaths, and, to keep order in the pongpens, they spared no efforts to return an escaped pong. Yet she'd been moving through these low, forested ridges for so many days she'd lost count and there had been no sign of pursuit. She felt an urgent need to know about him.

As three more days passed, and she established a routine of going to the stream, basking in the sun, wandering the near areas, she thought she saw a decided growth in that small arm. To prove it, she tied a fragile vine tightly around the forearm and when, in just one day, it was broken and fell to the grass, she knew that a miracle was happening before her eyes and she fell to her knees, faced the northwest, the direction of the storms, and prayed to Ahtol, the du who made the lightning. She had chosen Ahtol as her personal du—for all dus were worthy—because he was, at least, visible and loud in his flashings and thunderings, even if he, like all dus, seemed utterly unconcerned with the plight of a mere pong. Next day, as she lay on her stomach drinking from the cool waters of the creek, she heard a sound that caused her to leap to her feet and look around wildly. When the sound was repeated, from a point closer to her, she did not hesitate. She ran, heedless of the pain in her left foot, a pain that grew from day to day, a pain that made the swollen, discolored foot feel as large as the rest of her body. She leaped, caught the branches of a tree, lifted herself and, tearing her already ragged garment, climbed high. The animal ambled out from dense growth to pause and sniff the air. It lumbered to the water, drank, tensed, catching her scent, cast around for a moment and then moved with frightening speed, head low, to stand below her. It was huge, standing one-and-a-half times taller than she when it reared, scratched the bole of the tree with long claws and opened its huge mouth to show discolored, deadly, sharp teeth. She could smell the feral scent of its breath as it roared up at her.

The animal was death. Omnivorous, savage, so powerful that the Devourers hunted it in groups, with the strongest of bows and iron-tipped arrows. But she was safe in the tree, although, for a moment, she considered climbing even higher.

After a long, long time, the animal went away. It disappeared downstream. She waited while the sun climbed to midday and began its descent before she climbed down and, all senses alert, scurried up the slope. He was there, unchanged. She did not like the idea of a farl being so near. If the omnivore decided to hunt the slope, if it came to the clearing, he would make a pleasant snack for the beast, and there would be no place for her to hide. She began to look around. The nearest climbable tree was too far way. However, there was a small cleft in the rocks just below the clearing, a narrow opening that was too small to admit the huge farl, but large enough for her to jam herself into and be out of the animal's reach. She tested it for size and discovered Duwan's weapons, wrapped carefully in his winter clothing. Musingly she tested the swords. They were of fine metal. She knew a bit about weapons, because her father had been a weapons maker pong before his death. The longsword was heavy. She could heft it, but wielding it was too much for her thin arms. She took the shortsword, buckled it to her small waist, and drew it, swung it. She had no illusions that she could kill a farl with a shortsword, but, if caught in the open, she could at least draw a bit of the beast's blood before dying. She took both weapons with her when she walked back to stand musingly before him. "If you would only awaken," she said. "Your arms are strong and powerful." She touched them, one by one. The left arm was as large as the right now. "Wake up," she whispered. "Wake up." She sat before him, longsword and shortsword at her side. She started from near sleep, for there was a movement, and for a moment she couldn't place it. She looked around, ready to flee for the cleft in the rocks. The movement came again and she caught it out of the corner of her eye. He was moving his left arm, flexing his fist. Muscles rippled as the arm lifted, lowered, lifted, flexed.

Eyes wide, more healthily purple than they'd been when she first encountered him, she backed away. The arm continued to flex and move, as if exercising, for the rest of the day, although his eyes did not open. She slept restlessly, for he continued to move. With the morning sun, a glory of a sunrise, golden red and bursting over the hills to the east, she examined him closely. The arm was still.

The farl came shortly after sunrise, came silently at first, so that when it gave its chilling roar and charged it was almost at the edge of the clearing. She leaped to her feet, shortsword in hand, and, taking one despairing look at him, helpless, she chose her own life and ran. The movement attracted the animal and it moved heavily but with speed to close on her while the rock cleft was still beyond her reach. She smelled its fetid, panting breath, whirled, sword high, and made one powerful sweeping slash that laid open the farl's furry cheek and brought a scream of anger and pain before its weight thrust into her, sending her flying to land heavily, the animal leaping to stand over her, stinking maw dripping saliva mixed with blood into her face. She screamed.

Throughout the night Duwan's dreams had been more vivid. Those he saw were nearer. He dreamed that he was back in the valley in the time of the long light, lounging in the light of Du, Alning by his side, a sweet, summery breeze blowing in his face. Overhead were the lights of the sky, and that puzzled him, for when Du came the dim distant lights disappeared, but they were there and he was filled with a sense of well-being, a wholeness. He could use his left hand. He plucked at Alning's delicately colored fronds teasingly with two thumbs and a finger. Du rose in blessed warmth. He needed to see. He was sleeping, and he couldn't open his eyes, and he needed to see, to praise Du. He felt the strength in his arms, flexed them. His feet were a part of him, but oddly distant. He tried to move and smelled the freshness of good earth as if he were in the young house again. He rested, felt the golden rays of Du on him, feasted, drank, felt himself bursting with nutrition. One eye cracked, and light dazzled him and he saw Alning, but changed, thinner—no, not Alning. There was a dazed, warm contentment in him. He took his time in opening the other eye. His hair was so long, falling in front of his eyes. He lifted his left hand and a surge of joy elated him, for he had fingers to push the hair back from his eyes.

Movement came suddenly. The female—not Alning—on her feet, running, a strange roaring, a feral sound, dark, flashing mass. He heard the female scream and saw her turn to face the thing, a thing unlike anything he'd ever seen, a thing out of legend, one of the great creatures of the past, of the Land of Many Brothers.

His right foot came free with a snapping and cracking and a sucking sound. Then his left. The female was fighting the animal, taking a rather admirable slash at it with a shortsword, and his longsword was at his feet. He jerked his left foot out and the female went down and screamed once more, the sound quickly drowned out by the angry roar of the wounded animal. He felt his tendrils trying to withdraw, but could not give them time, ran on tendril covered feet, longsword in hand. The animal slapped at the fallen female with one paw and great, bloody welts appeared on her bare shoulder. Duwan yelled warning. He had never taken life, but in that moment when there was no time for decision he knew his duty, for the life of a Drinker was more precious than the life of an animal. In this moment requiring action his training took over, training so well drilled into him by Belran the Leader that it was instinctive. He knew nothing about the anatomy of the animal, knew of it only from legend—and this was one more instance where it was being proven to him that the tales of the old ones had not been fabricated. He raised the heavy longsword and, positioned himself slightly behind the huge beast's head, a head that was lowering, mouth wide, teeth dripping, to engulf the head of the female. He struck, felt the blade hit bone, heard a loud snapping sound. The beast fell heavily directly atop the female, its spinal column severed at the neck. Frantic movement, uncoordinated, did some damage to the female underneath, leaving claw marks on her exposed legs.

Glorying in his strength, in his wholeness, glancing in awe at his left arm, complete once again, Duwan had to exert all his strength to push the animal off the female. She was alive, breathing, but she was unconscious. Still a bit dazed, Duwan looked around, remembered the stream at the foot of the slope, lifted the female. She was quite light, all skin and bones. He took only an instant to wonder why she was starving in a land of plenty.

Her clothing had been further damaged by the attack of the animal, and clung to her by shreds. To determine the extent of her injuries, Duwan removed the garment. She lay on moss at the brink of the stream. He cleansed her wounds. They would be painful, but not fatal. The worst claw gashes were on her shoulder. Her skin was pale, not as rich and smooth as his own, or as that of Alning. She was thin. Her bud point was enlarged, and, although he had never seen such—drinker females who had grafted were modest—he knew that she had performed, with someone, that act of which he had dreamed often of performing with Alning.

He had finished cleansing the shallower wounds on her legs when he noticed her left foot. It was discolored, festering, inflamed, quite nasty looking, an old wound. He examined it, saw that it needed lancing, used the point of his knife and narrowly escaped having the accumulated putrescence jet into his face. He squeezed out the rest of the bad juices and saw the black tip of the splinter, cut away dying flesh, exposed the soggy wood, drew it forth and it was followed by bright, fresh, healthy blood. He closed the wound with a pulped mixture of two tissues from fixed brothers growing along the stream, applied the same healing mixture to her other wounds, and sat down to wait. Her swollen, exposed bud point held a certain fascination for him, so he covered it with her torn garment.

She awakened with a start, jerked her head upward, moaned and fell back to be comatose for a few minutes longer. The next time she opened her eyes Duwan said, "Be at rest."

Her eyes, he saw, were purple, like an evening sky before a storm. They examined him, wide, searching.

"Master?" she whispered.

"You are not hurt badly," he said. "I have treated your wounds." She raised herself on one elbow, groaned as her injured shoulder pulled, tossed aside her garment casually and examined herself.

"The farl?" she asked.

"Farl? The animal that attacked you? It is dead."

"Good," she said. "Now we will have real food." Shocked, Duwan was speechless.

"The haunches are best," she said, trying to sit up. "There will be so much of it that we won't be able to eat it all before it spoils, but, ah—"

"You would eat flesh?" Duwan asked.

She looked at him. "Who are you?"

"I am Duwan the Drinker."

"An odd name."

"And you? You are Drinker."

She looked puzzled. "I am Jai."

"You are Drinker," he said, for as he had worked on her injured foot he had seen the small pores from which would grow the tendrils, should she have need to return to the earth.

"I don't know what you mean," she said. "Until I ran away I was pong in the city of Arutan."

Duwan shook his head. She spoke as a Drinker, but her words were, occasionally, misshaped, slightly askew, and he did not know the words pong, and Arutan.

"I have been starving," she said. "Please, please, cut a great slice of meat from the haunch of the farl. As hungry as I am I can almost eat it raw."

Duwan reached for a life organ on a particularly succulent fixed brother, breaking it away carefully. "If you are hungry, here is food," he said.

Her eyes went wide. "It is forbidden."

He took a nibble of the leaf, thrust the rest toward her mouth.

"Must I, Master?" she asked.

"Eat," he said. "You will need your strength to heal your wounds." She closed her eyes, swallowed, took the leaf and began to chew it. Her eyes opened. "Good," she said, reaching for the fixed brother, which was quite near her, tearing away several leaves.

"No, no," Duwan said. "Gently, and carefully." She would have stripped the fixed brother had he not restrained her, gathering more for her from other fixed brothers, taking only a small portion of their life, thanking each as he did.

"At least I will die with a full stomach," Jai said, as she munched.

"I think," Duwan said, "that we have much to learn from each other. When you are rested, we will talk."

Chapter Six

It soon became apparent to Duwan that the female, Jai, was not the most articulate of Drinkers, that, indeed, her ignorance was astounding. Nor was he the most experienced of interrogators. His curiosity was great, but satisfying it was complicated by Jai's tendency to throw in words with which he was not familiar, words that did not have the sound of the only language Duwan had ever heard.

"Slowly, slowly," he said. "You speak of pong. What is or are pong?"

"I am pong."

"You are not Drinker, female?"

"I know not this word, Drinker."

"I am Drinker. All are Drinker."

"You have the basic form of pong, but more beautiful," she said. "Yet you could pass for Devourer."

"Again," he said, "I know not that word." Unless, he thought, it also meant Enemy. "Are the Devourers the Enemy?"

"Enemy?" She mused. "Does that mean one who is against you?"

"One who kills, who takes."

"They kill," she said, "so I suppose they are enemy." Duwan sighed and looked up at the sky. "Long, long ago this Land of Many Brothers was the home of the Drinkers. The Enemy came from the south. You cannot be of the Enemy, for you are Drinker." She looked puzzled. Irritated, he lifted her good foot and pointed to an area of many small pores. "This shows that you are Drinker," he almost shouted. "Do these Devourers have such pores on the bottoms of their feet?"

"I have never had occasion to examine feet," she said. Duwan reached for a tasty life organ from a nearby brother. Jai's eyes followed the movement of his hand. He sighed, plucked another life organ, handed it to her.

"You act as if the weeds are alive," she said.

"Alive? Of course they are alive."

"But not as we are alive, surely."

"All life is a oneness."

She looked away, moved uneasily.

"That troubles you?"

"Master," she said, "I cannot think in such lofty terms. I see myself, and then I see a weed."

"But this small, fixed brother," he touched a life organ gently, "feels, drinks the sun, and it can die."

She shrugged. "I am trying to understand."

"Both you and I and this small brother are of the earth and for the earth."

"At any rate," she said, "I am your pong."

"Just what does a pong do?" he asked.

"We work for the Devourers."

"Not for yourself, not for the group?"

"We are allowed to grow enough food to keep us alive, that is all we do for ourselves."

"To the north I saw ones who looked Drinker beating others who also looked Drinker with a lash," he said. "What way is that?"

"The way of Devourer and pong."

"Have you been beaten?"

"Not often," she said. "No more than three times. Once I was beaten unjustly, for something I didn't do."

He frowned. "Are you implying that it was just the other two times you were beaten?"

"I had erred," she said calmly, without resentment.

"The Devourers drive pongs to do their work for them, beat them. Why don't these pongs simply rise up and slay the Devourers?" She laughed. "Impossible."

"Are there so many more Devourers than pongs?"

She looked puzzled. "No. No. We are many, but— Well, you simply don't understand. They are—mighty. They are—" She took a deep breath. "It is impossible."

"Are the Devourers immortal, cannot they be killed?"

"Oh, they die. I once saw a Devourer crushed by a falling tree."

"And was he not as dead as the animal I killed on the slope above?"

"Yes, but—"

"The pongs are many, the Devourers of lesser numbers and yet pongs do not fight."

"We have no weapons. They have the seed from which we grow our food. They control the animal pens from which we get our meat. We work only under supervision. We are alone only in the pongpen, at night."

"But you escaped."

She nodded.

"Have others done the same?"

"So it is said. I know of no one in my lifetime who has. One tried. He was caught and peeled and left to die slowly tied to a post in the central compound of the pen."

Gradually, Duwan began to piece together a picture of life in the Land of Many Brothers. The Enemy, called Devourer by Jai's people, lived mainly in cities built of stone, lived on the hard work of those called pongs who were, if they were like Jai, with pores in their feet, Drinker. It has been thus forever, according to Jai. It was the will of the dus— and this concept amused him, for there was only One Du, great, kind, life-giving Du—that it be thus, that the dus-favored Devourers enjoy the fruits of pong labor, living well off the bounty of the rich land.

Of the great truths of life Jai knew nothing. She did not even know that she drank life from Du, although it became obvious, after long questioning, that she had eaten nothing more than some rather tasteless and relatively unnourishing moss for many days. She knew that she felt good basking in the rays of Du, but she had no concept of why. Pongs, at work, covered themselves with poor garments woven from the poorest of material, under orders from their overlords that the rays of the sun, being harmful, were to he avoided. The main food, aside from flesh, that was consumed by pongs came from, if Jai's description could be believed, a grass-like brother that seeded hard, bland-tasting kernels that were then ground, mixed with water, and baked over fires. The plenty that existed around them, everywhere, in the fixed brothers, was forbidden to them, poisonous. Such teachings were drummed into all pong young at the hands of lash-wielding Devourers, and to taste of the good fruits of the brothers, except for certain berries and nuts, was punishable by death, if, indeed, the poisonous, forbidden things did not kill the unfortunate pong first.

Jai had seen pongs die of the poison. It occurred, she said, usually at the time of the new growth, when the land greened, and the sun warmed.

"They die badly," she said. "Just at this time, when there was still a hint of cold, and the green things were beginning to break through the earth, one was tossed into the pongpen, after having eaten green. He writhed and screamed and died with noxious discharges coming from his body openings."

"Did you see him eat the green brothers?"

"No, he did it in secrecy," she said, "for had anyone seen him he would have been reported."

"Yet you have eaten green and you are well."

"It is because of you, Master."

Having been at his frustrating questioning for most of a day, Duwan was restless. His thoughts kept going north, past the land of the waters, across the great barrens, past the land of the fires. "Tomorrow," he said,

"you will take me to this city of the Devourers, so that I may see for myself."

Great tears sprang to her eyes.

"Du," he exploded, "why do you weep?"

"If you say that I am to die, it is well," she said.

"You will not die."

"I will die if we go to the city."

"I will see that you live."

"You are great, Master, but one against so many?" She sobbed. "I will be peeled. My skin will be tossed into the animal pens, and I will be suspended on a pole, and when I am dead I, too, will become slop for the animals."

"I must find someone who can talk sense," Duwan said to himself. He watched her weep until she subsided. She had heard his muttered comment, and it had given her hope.

"It is said, whispered in the pens at night, that those who have escaped in the past traveled far to the west, and that they live there, how I do not know, but that there are no overlords there. They would talk sense." Duwan considered. Perhaps it would be too dangerous to visit a city. The Devourers he'd seen in the land of tall brothers to the north had appeared to be strong, capable, well armed. Yet, he had to know more than he could learn from this empty-headed female.

"Sleep," he ordered. "We will travel with the First light of Du." Truly, the Land of Many Brothers was a land of promise, a land of plenty. He gorged himself on a variety of food that pleased him, and, as the days passed, he saw that Jai's frail, thin limbs were filling out, for she ate more constantly than he. She refused to accept the fact that the good, green, growing brothers were not poisonous, but continued to express her conviction that the magical powers of Duwan kept her alive after doing the forbidden. Duwan gave up trying to convince her.

She had no conception of brotherhood with living things. She knew nothing of the legends of immortality for Drinkers, of a life, different but full, of fixed contentment after a return to the earth. She listened respectfully when he spoke of such things, and once, in a whispering grove, he tried to get her to hear the unspoken, almost alien thoughts of old ones who had grown tall with endless years of sun, and wind, and rain.

"Almost I hear them," she said, but the look on her face told him that she was lying.

Jai's favorite topic of conversation was how she had guarded him while he slept, at one with the earth, how she'd climbed the tree to escape the great beast, and then how she'd fought it with Duwan's sword—all to protect him. It was as if she needed constant reassurance that, since she'd served him well, he would protect her. Almost every time she started to eat she would look at him, her purple eyes imploring, and say, "You have made it good?"

After several attempts to explain, once again, he gave up and merely nodded, or said, "Yes, it is good."

Although a variety of growth was the rule, the overall aspect of that good land was of many tall brothers, rushing streams, small hills. Twice they skirted isolated settlements, Jai trembling in fear when they came close enough to see Devourers driving their pongs. As they traveled toward the setting sun, day after day, Jai began to glow with health. She halfway believed Duwan's explanation that her body drank energy from the sun, and took to traveling without even so much as the tattered garment that scarcely covered her now. Time and again Duwan found his eyes going to her marked bud point, but he became accustomed to her lack of modesty. Ahead, the low mountains began to rise into heavily covered mounds, each ridge reaching higher toward the sky. There, in a little valley, Duwan killed his first Enemy. As they followed a stream, now walking on mossy banks, now in the shallow, cool waters, he heard the telltale sounds of cutting tools and led Jai into the tall brothers to skirt another settlement. They crossed a well-traveled path after Duwan had looked carefully both ways and had listened, and they were into the cover of the forest again when he detected the sound of running footsteps. He told Jai to hide, and remain motionless, made his way silently back to the trail in time to see a young female, not many years past mobility, running toward him along the trail. She had large, green eyes that were widened in panic. Duwan's first impulse was to stop the female and find out what had frightened her, but he held back, for, just behind her, there ran a male, broad of shoulder and sturdy of body, a great longsword clanking at his thigh as he ran. The trail opened into a small clearing on the bank of the stream and, as the running female entered it she tripped on a stone and fell heavily, could not get to her feet before the running male was on her, fell beside her, grasping her arms and holding her to the ground. Duwan growled in his throat and his right hand was on the hilt of his longsword.

"Don't be frightened, little one," the male said, and the words stopped Duwan.

The young female said, "But I do fear it, master," she said.

"It will hurt only for a little while," the male said, as he ripped the female's scanty garment away to reveal a closed, young bud point that was scarcely visible.

Duwan relaxed. He did not approve of what was happening, but it was not unheard of for a male to indulge in play with an unripened female. Some couples, who had spoken for each other while very young, did, indeed, occupy the same dwelling in the valley, reveling in touching without grafting until they both ripened. He had, he felt, stumbled into such a play, and although the young female seemed to be frightened, he was sure that no harm would come to her.

He chilled when the male exposed himself and, with a grunt of effort, threw himself atop the small, young female. A piercing scream caused him to shiver in rage. From between the naked bodies he saw a quick, rich flow of blood, and, with a roar of outrage, he launched himself into the clearing. His roar brought the powerful, large male to his feet, and sent him lunging for his sword. Duwan took one look at the female and sick revulsion came. To force an unripe bud point was a crime that had never even occurred to him in his imagination.

"Ho, brother," the male said, sword in hand. "You startled me. Are you from—" Duwan did not catch the last word.

"Animal," Duwan said. "What have you done?" The male looked puzzled. "This pong wench?"

"This female."

The male's sword came up. Duwan leaped. There was a clash of iron that caused sparks and then it was over, for the skill of the male was no match for Duwan's long training. His blade smashed bone, exposed the spongy brain and then he turned. The young female was bleeding badly, rich, vital blood gushing. But even as he ran to kneel beside her, to try to staunch the flow, the rush became an ooze and she was still.

"I mourn for you," he whispered.

He found Jai cringing in her hiding place.

"I heard the fighting," she said. "I feared for you." Duwan, still feeling revulsion and pity, said nothing, started walking. She ran to catch him, saw the grimness of his face. "I heard a female scream."

"You do not want to hear," he said.

"The scream of pain that comes with bud opening," she said. "Am I not right?"

He looked at her in astonishment. "That animal forced her bud."

"Yes," she said.

He couldn't speak.

"How else?" she asked. "Otherwise, they would have to wait until nature opened the bud, sometimes many years."

Duwan swallowed. "You?"

"I was fortunate. The master who opened me was kind. And he was not large. When a master is large the female sometimes dies."

"I will go home," Duwan told himself. "I will tell them that we want nothing from this land of barbarism. I will tell them that we are best off where we are, even if Du visits only for a short period. I will tell them that immortality is not an end to seek, that returning to the earth is, indeed, a splendid wish, but not as vital as being civilized, not as important as loving one's fellows, as working together, as honoring Du, and as loving one's spoken choice."

"Did you kill a master?" Jai asked, later.

He nodded.

"They will follow."

"Let them," he said, thinking that it would be pleasant for his sword to drink the blood of creatures who beat and killed their brothers.

"They will have smellers to follow our trail, and they will be many and well armed."

"What is a smeller?"

"They are small, but have sharp teeth."

"Du, female, speak, straight. Answer my question," he roared. She cringed away. "They live in the houses of the Devourer masters and eat scraps and sometimes, when a pong is difficult, they allow them to chew upon the pong's feet and legs—"

"Animals that can smell our trace?"

"Yes, yes," she said eagerly. "We must find water, and walk in it for a long way."

Duwan mused. The settlements had been small. He estimated that no more than four or five could be mustered for the chase, and if they were no more skilled in weaponry than the one he'd killed—"We will leave a trace to be followed easily," he said.

He saw his pursuers from the top of a ridge early the next morning. They were moving fast, following a scrambling pack of small, lightly furred animals restrained on leashes. He spent the next few hours selecting his spot, and chose a pass between two sheer slopes, where no more than two of them could face him at one time. He rested there, after drinking his fill at a stream, and positioned Jai among rocks high on the side of the hill.

"The sniffers will find me and bite me," she wailed. He gathered stones the size of his fist and piled them in front of her.

"Should an animal try to come to you hit him with a stone." She seized a stone and held it with both hands. "We can still run. We can follow the stream. The sniffers cannot follow us if we walk in the water, for the water washes away our trace."

"Peace," he said. "You have a view of the approach. When you see them coming, make this bird sound." He demonstrated the cooing sigh of a bird of the far north and, after a few attempts, she made an acceptable imitation. Then he went below, sat on a large boulder, and examined the cutting edges of his swords.

It was growing late when he heard Jai's first attempt, and then heard her succeed in making a cooing sound that would not have fooled the youngest Drinker in the valley. He rose, stood with his feet spread, his weapons hanging at his side. He heard the careless, scrambling approach from below, and as the pursuers neared, he counted four males and six of the small, snarling animals. He wished for a bow and a quiver of arrows, but when he'd left the valley he'd had only one hand and no need of a bow. He had been spotted. The four below were surprised. They halted and stared up at him and consulted among themselves. Duwan stood motionless, his swords in their sheaths. One of the males below bent and, one by one, released the sniffers, pointed, barked an order, and the six animals began to slink up the hill, following the trace left by Duwan and Jai. When the leading sniffer spotted Duwan the fur raised into a crest on its back and it leaped forward with a whining snarl. The others followed. Duwan's swords flashed as he drew them, and he met the first sniffer's leap toward his stomach with flashing blade, caught the next in midair with the backswing, stabbed deeply into the barrel chest of a third. The fourth managed to sink sharp teeth painfully into his lower leg as he dispatched five and six with both hands working in perfect coordination, and then the chewer whined for only a moment as iron bit into its spine. Startled shouts from below. The four Devourers rushed toward him together, and then, as they reached the narrow pass, the two larger took the lead, swords at the ready. Duwan gave ground until he had reached the pre-chosen position which gave him some advantage. The two enemy had to come at him face on, unable to split up and get him between them. He parried an angry lunge with his shortsword and measured the skill of the second man with a feint of his longsword. The clash of metal echoed off the hillsides. Behind the two fighting Devourers the other two yelled encouragement. Duwan buried his longsword a hand's width into the heart of one, opened the throat of the other. Two dead lay at his feet and he retreated a few steps so that there would be no danger of stumbling over the dead as the other two fighters moved forward, their dark eyes shifting, a new caution upon them.

One showed himself, immediately, to be more skilled. Duwan concentrated on that one, while holding off the other with his parrying shortsword. This one had a dangerous straight lunge that followed a feint with the shortsword, and Duwan was forced backward as metal clashed on metal. He gained a new respect for the Enemy. He knew that he was going to be hard pressed, for the pass was opening, and soon the last two could pin him between them. He had to make a move. He lunged and parried and spun away from the more skilled swordsman and in his spinning sent his longsword hissing horizontally to decapitate the lesser of his two enemies, continued the whirling spin just in time to parry a lunge with his shortsword. Then he gained ground, looked upon his foe with his orange eyes full of fire.

"Come," he said, "come to me, Enemy."

"Who are you?" the other gasped.

"Your death," Duwan said, leaping, feeling a great shock in his right hand as his mighty blow was parried, but with quick, instinctive movement, half falling, thrusting his shortsword to its hilt into his opponent's stomach. He narrowly avoided a downswing of the fighter's dying, last stroke, and then all was quiet.

"Duwan, behind you," he heard Jai scream, and he spun, bringing up both swords to the ready, to see so many others that, at first, his heart quailed, then rallied as he lifted both his swords high.

"Du," he roared, using his full voice. The sound echoed and reechoed from the hillsides. "Du, be with me."

"Peace, warrior," a male cried, holding up both of his hands, empty.

"Peace."

Duwan's chest was heaving. His orange eyes lanced fire.

"We are not the Enemy, warrior," the man said, his hands still exposed in a plea for friendship. "Who kills the Devourer is not our enemy." Duwan panted, his eyes took in the ragged, scarecrow ranks of the males who faced him, more than twenty of them, crude bows on their shoulders and, in some cases, in hand, but no arrows pointed toward him.

"Who are you, warrior?" the spokesman asked.

He was full of elation, his heart still pounding with the heady joy of the fight. They had called him warrior, and warrior he was. In the back of his mind he called out to his trainer, to Belran the Leader, a great, unspoken shout of thanks, and then, because he, at last, had discovered the reason for all those long, long hours of drudgery in training, he lifted his face to catch the last red rays of a sinking Du and roared, "Duwan! Duwan! I am Duwan the Drinker."

His roar echoed, became a loud, slowly diminishing growl of sound that reverberated, then sank into a murmur and then silence.

A small, emaciated male stepped forth from the ranks of the newcomers, fell to his knees.

"Lord," he said. "Master."

And then, one by one, the others followed suit.

Chapter Seven

The ragged, emaciated group of males shifted uneasily in the face of Duwan's triumphant roar. Only one stood, a bit taller than the others, thin but with stringy, powerful muscles in his arms and legs. When the others fell to their knees he was the last to kneel, and even then his face was up, his dull gray eyes wide.

"Rise," Duwan ordered. "There is no need to kneel to me." The tall one rose, stepped forward. "Master, we wish no harm to you, nor to anyone."

The newcomers had no weapons other than the obviously inferior bows.

"Who are you?" Duwan asked.

"We are free runners. I am Tambol, called The Hunter, for the accuracy and strength of my bow."

"Let me see the bottom of your foot." Duwan said, stepping closer, both hands still filled with his bloodied weapons.

Tambol did not look surprised. He stood on one leg and lifted his left foot. Duwan saw the telltale pores. "Are the others like this?"

"How, Lord?"

"With the small, dark pores, thus," Duwan said, brushing the sole of Tambol's foot with the tip of his longsword.

"I—I—don't know," Tambol said.

"Have them sit upon the ground and lift their feet," Duwan ordered, and it was done, and he saw the pores on all and then stood, facing them.

"You have escaped the slave pens of the enemy?"

"Only a few living have," Tambol answered. "Most are sons of those who escaped long ago."

"Are you many?" Duwan asked.

"No, not many, Master," Tambol said.

"And do you kill the Enemy?"

Tambol shivered. "No, Master. In fact, we must run from this place, but first we must bury the masters, and their sniffers, hoping that they will never be found, for to kill a master brings the army of Farko. This has not happened in my lifetime, but once it did, and only a few free runners survived."

Duwan looked thoughtfully at the sky. Du was nearing the midpoint.

"Do it, then," he said. He walked to the slope and called up to Jai, who descended nervously. The runners were busying themselves in digging. Tambol, seeing Jai, came hurrying to bow before Duwan and cast suspicious glances at the female.

"This is a pong female, Master," Tambol said.

"This is a Drinker female," Duwan said.

"She was being chased by the masters with sniffers," Tambol said. "We are in great danger. We must run, and we will have to abandon our homes to flee farther into the west."

"I escaped long ago," Jai said. "Those whom my master killed were not chasing me, but him."

"Master," Tambol said, "I know not who you are. Now I think you are Devourer, and again not. You are mighty, and I beg your mercy. There are those among us who fear that you are a pong-catcher, and that your actions are designed to trick us, to influence us to lead you to our homes so that all free runners may be taken to be peeled on the stakes of Farko."

"He came from the earth," Jai said, "as in the prophesy of old." Tambol's eyes widened.

"It is true," Jai said. "For as he grew from the earth like a divine flower I guarded him, and even kept him from being devoured by a farl. Is this not true, master?"

Duwan hid a smile. "It is true."

Tambol bowed low. As the digging to hide the bodies of the Devourers had begun, he had received much whispered advice. "We must kill him," he'd been told. "Obviously he is a Devourer," another had said. "That he has not killed us means nothing. He waits to ensnare all, our females, our young."

"And who will face one who can kill four masters with such ease?" Tambol had asked.

"All will leap upon him at once," someone said.

"And many will die," Tambol had said.

Now the bodies were buried, branches had been used to erase tracks and the signs of struggle, and the free runners were moving uneasily toward the point where Duwan and Jai faced Tambol. Tambol turned to face his fellows. "We will run swiftly now," he said, "to put distance between us and this place of death."

Duwan and Jai found it easy to keep the pace set by Tambol. Behind them, however, the weaker members began to straggle, so that when Tambol called a halt, in a hidden valley where there was water, it took some time for all twenty of the free runners to join the main group.

"Now I will speak to you," Duwan said, standing on a rock beside the stream. "You need not fear me. I am Drinker, and I come from far to the north. There we, too, are free. I am not of the Enemy." He lifted one foot.

"Look. See the small, black pores that mark the Drinker, then examine your own feet. We are of a blood, you and I. There are secrets I will tell you, secrets hidden from you by your masters, the Enemy. Listen to me, and hear me with an open mind, and you will no longer be hungry. Listen to me and it may be that in the future we, the Drinkers, will fight side by side with the free runners to take back this Land of Many Brothers that was once ours."

"Madness," someone muttered.

"I have learned much about you in this short time," Duwan said,

"merely by observation. You hunt in a pack of twenty for the small, helpless animals of the forests. You take life, and get in return only enough food to keep you weak, and thin, when you could be swollen with the goodness of the earth, of which you are, for which you are."

"Would you have us eat the green poisons?" Tambol asked.

"Only in your own minds are the good things of the earth poison," Duwan said. "For you have been told this by the enemy, with one intent, to keep you ignorant of the fact that you, Drinkers all, could live on the bounty of the land without depending upon the Devourer's seeds, and his cultivated fields, and his animal flesh."

A low moaning began and spread through the group. "Master," a quavering voice moaned, "if you mean death for us, make it swift, as you made it swift for the masters, not slow and painful from the poison."

"He has magic," Jai said. Duwan motioned for her to be still.

"Who will trust me?" Duwan asked. When there was no volunteer, he turned to Tambol. Tambol lowered his head and was silent. Duwan, frustrated, glared out at them. Jai whispered at his side. "Show them a magic, Lord, and they will believe."

"I have no magic," Duwan spat. He turned to Tambol. "Do you know nothing of your origin?"

"Yes Master," Tambol said. "We are children of an unholy union between Aang the Devourer and the animals of the fields, and we are called unclean, although we had no choice, for it was Aang, father of the devourers, who sinned and soiled the earth with his lust. It is the punishment of the dus that Aang lives atop the high mountains and looks down each day to see his unholy children working to atone for his original sin of lust."

"So you were told by the Enemy?" Duwan asked.

"So it is written," Tambol said.

It was evident that the free runners were as ignorant of the true nature of things as Jai. The Enemy had, indeed, done a skillful job of indoctrination. Further questioning revealed to Duwan that, as in Jai's case, all had been taught from childhood—in the case of the free runners not even by the Devourers but by their own parents, for so strong was the indoctrination that generations of free runners had perpetuated the myths—that to share the sweet food of the green brothers brought sure, painful death, that the rays of Du were harmful, and that the body was to be protected from the rays at all times.

Tambol and his fellows wore ragged, dirty garments that covered all portions of their bodies save hands and feet. A loose hood half-hid the face.

It was also evident to Duwan that he was not trusted. He saw fear and something else in the faces and eyes of those who stood before him.

"I will speak with your wise men," Duwan said, "your elders, your Predictor."

"So be it," Tambol said.

The free runners lived within the earth. In a narrow, hidden valley, accessible without great effort only through a narrow, steep-walled canyon from which flowed a small stream, they had burrowed into the hillsides like animals, concealing the openings to their caves with brush and stones. Males with bows that would have been almost useless against anything larger than a tree animal guarded the canyon. As the hunting party marched up the valley, heads appeared from the caves in the hillsides, and soon a crowd followed. The hunters carried only a few small, furry carcasses, and some females, seeing the scarcity of food, began to wail. A scuffle broke out as one hunter left the party to join his female and his young and others tried to take his prize, one small, pathetic tree animal.

"We have done wrong in coming here, master," Jai whispered. "These live like animals."

Duwan kept his right hand on the hilt of his longsword. The runners were thin and weak, but they were many, and the presence of Duwan and Jai among the hunters left in their wake a buzz of talk.

Tambol, in silence, led them onward, as the other hunters dropped off one by one to be met with rejoicing or weeping depending on whether they carried flesh.

The way led to the head of the valley, where the stream dropped from high rocks to fall with a roar into a broad, clear pool. There, facing a sheer rock wall, Tambol halted. "I will inform the elders of your presence," he said, and then disappeared into a natural stone cave. Jai clung to Duwan's arm and looked around fearfully.

"Master," she whispered, as males began to drift up the valley toward them, bows in hand, "we can run. You are mighty, and you will have to kill only a few of them and then they will not try to stop us. We can go far away and live fatly upon the good green that you bless of its poison." Duwan did not answer. He, too, had noted the approaching males, and he feared their puny bows less than their numbers. If they were determined enough, if enough of them would die, they could overcome him by their sheer mass.

He heard a tapping sound from within the cave and tensed, thinking that perhaps attack would come from two sides, but an ancient one appeared, his eyelids massed into wrinkles, squinting at the sun, his hair long, sere, and his body stiffened with the hardening disease. The tapping had come from the walking stick he used. He seemed disoriented at first, his watery eyes looking everywhere but at Duwan. Behind him there appeared other oldsters and behind them Tambol.

"I am Farnee, Eldest of the free runners," the old one said. "Come closer, warrior, for I see you but dimly."

Jai held tight to Duwan's arm as he stepped closer. "I bring you greetings of the blood of the Drinkers from the far north," Duwan said.

"How?" Farnee asked, cupping a hand to his ear.

"He says he is from the far north," another of the old ones shouted into Farnee's ear.

Farnee nodded ponderously. "And yet we are told by Tambol that is it said you come from the earth."

"We are all of the earth and for the earth," Duwan said. "Perhaps, honored one, we could be seated, where you will be more comfortable." After that suggestion was imparted, in a shout, to Farnee, he nodded and, without speaking, turned and hobbled back into the cave. Duwan followed, and the others fell in behind him and Jai. Farnee seated himself on a stone covered with patched, stitched furs, leaned on his stick, and blinked in the dimness, lit by an open fire. The others ranged around the stone in a circle, surrounding Duwan and Jai.

"Now," Farnee said, "who has seen this one come from the earth?"

"I," Jai said defiantly.

"And you are?" Farnee asked, at last finding her with his eyes.

"I am Jai."

"You are not a free runner, by your dress, female," an elder said. "You expose your hide to the sun as the Devourers do."

"I escaped from the pongpens of the city of Arutan," Jai said, "many months past. I saw this lord, growing from the rich earth, a divine flower. I saw this with my eyes, and I have seen, since, his magic, for he eats, and makes it possible for me to eat, the green poisons and grow fat."

"Ha," someone grunted.

"Enough," Duwan said. "I am Duwan the Drinker and I have come from the far north, past the land of fires, through the lands of the iron cold and the snows. That is all you need know of me, except that I come in friendship to all who oppose our Enemy, who wrested this land of Many Brothers from us in the time of the Great Alon."

"Alon," someone whispered. "He speaks of the du."

"I speak of Alon, the Great Leader, who took our people to the north to escape the all-devouring enemy. I come to determine the strength of this enemy, to find those who would stand by our side as we reclaim our land." There was a buzz of talk among the seated elders. Farnee raised one hardened hand and made a sound in his throat and the elders fell silent.

"What do you know of our ancient legends, strange one?" Farnee asked.

"Enough to call ignorance and enemy lies by name when I am told that Drinkers are unholy offspring of a Devourer and animals of the field," Duwan said.

Farnee nodded gravely. "That is the teaching we allow our young to hear until they have reached an age of wisdom," he said. Behind the elders, Tambol stirred uneasily.

"Yes, my son," Farnee said, pointing his stick at Tambol, "you, too." He looked back at Duwan. "To tell the young the truth would inflame their spirits, and then there would be war and death, death for all free runners in a war we could not hope to win."

"And what is the age of wisdom?" Duwan asked.

"When the hide hardens, and the fires of youth are cooled," an elder said.

"That is to say when one has reached the age where fighting would be impossible," Duwan said, and Farnee nodded.

"If you have come to stir our young ones to war, we will not allow it," Farnee said.

"Father," said Tambol, moving to stand rather belligerently inside the circle of elders, "if we are not spawn of Aang, than what are we?"

"You see what you have done?" Farnee asked.

"All this land was once ours," Duwan said. "The Enemy came from the south, and we were a peaceable people, without skill in arms, so that by the time we learned we were overrun, and it was then, to save enough of the race to regenerate it, that the Great Alon led the Drinkers to the north, fighting a rearguard action all the way, losing many."

"Enough," Farnee said. "I will speak." He rose unsteadily and gazed at Tambol. "This is for your ears only, my son. I trust, although you are still young and your hide has not begun to harden, that you will have gained enough wisdom from me, your father, to heed my words after you hear." Farnee seated himself, gazed at the smoke-colored ceiling of the cave.

"It is as the strange one says," he said softly. "We were called, although I know not why, Drinkers. We were, the legends say, many. And we lived in peace and plenty. We could not stand against the invaders, for they had weapons of iron. But there were wise men among us, and those wise men sought peace, for it was better to live as pongs, they said, than to die on the sharp points of the masters' weapons. That is all. The rest, uttered by this strange one, is invention."

"But when this Duwan mentioned a name you knew it," Tambol said.

"This Alon?"

"One of the many minor dus," an elder said. "Du of death. An unpleasant du, and thus, largely forgotten."

"Hold," another elder said, rising. "Some things we have kept within the circle of elders, but we have never lied overtly to our young. I will not lie now."

"Be quiet," Farnee said.

"No," the standing elder said stoutly. "Tambol is soon to be a member of this circle and he will know then, so I think he should be told all now."

"Tell him," another elder said.

The standing elder looked directly into Duwan's eyes. The eider's eyes were pink with age, but still clear and alert. "We whisper this legend among ourselves, the elders. It speaks of the free Drinkers who fled the wrath of the masters, fighting, slaying the invincible, but being slain themselves. The legend has no name for a leader. You say Alon, and if that, indeed, was his name then it is understandable why he has come to be called a du of death, for the bodies of Drinker and Devourer littered the land leading northward."

The old man paused and looked around the circle. "When I was but a new mobile, in the pongpens of Arutan, my mother whispered this story to me. In the lands of ice, to the far north, there are free ones, fierce warriors, ones who escaped, and from them will come a new master, one of supernatural ability who will lead all pongs to freedom. You have all heard this legend."

"And more," said another elder, standing. "I note that this female maintains that the strange one came from the earth. All elders have heard this prophesy, for it, too, was whispered among the hopeless in the pongpens of old. He will come from the earth, from the deep, rich, sweet depths of the earth, and he will be mighty, and in his strength and wisdom he will teach us, and deliver us."

"He is mighty," Tambol said. "I saw him kill four Devourers. This I saw with these eyes." He faced Duwan. "Are you this new master, sent to deliver us?"

Duwan was slow to answer. He wished for opportunity to consult with his father, with Manoo the Predictor, with other wise ones among the Drinkers. But he was alone. He was beginning to get a picture of the state of things in the Land of Many Brothers, and he did not like what he saw. According to the free runners, the Enemy was many, was invincible, and yet he'd killed the Enemy without being sorely tested. He longed for home, longed for the welcome sight of the beautiful face of Alning, and the feel of his father's limbs entwining in greeting. He had information. Should he not ease the minds of these poor, deluded ex-slaves? Should he not assure them that they were best advised in keeping to their own meager lifestyle?

They would hunger, and grow old before their time, in the midst of plenty, but who was he to try to erase generations of superstition? That would best be left to older, wiser heads, if, after his return to the valley, it was decided to return to the Land of Many Brothers. And yet there was doubt in him. The Devourers were many, and lived in stone cities. The Drinkers of the North were few. He could not afford to risk the loss of potential allies.

"Are you this new master?" Tambol repeated.

"Only you have used the word 'master'," Duwan said.

"But did you come from the earth?" Tambol insisted.

"There is no simple answer to that question."

"Is it true that this female, Jai, saw you with feet and legs implanted, that you remained thus for weeks, that you then came from the earth when a farl attacked the female?"

"That is true," Duwan said.

"He is the Master," Jai blurted. "For he also speaks with the trees, as to the spirits of the departed."

This had to be repeated, loudly, for Farnee. Around the circle elders were whispering to each other.

"I am surprised," Farnee said. "For that bit of superstition is as old as the race, and long since discredited. It is said that you eat of the the green, growing things. If you, as this female hints, subscribe to that ancient, dark, barbaric belief, why then, as it is reported to me, do you eat of the so-called green brothers?"

"I, too, eat of them," Jai said, "for they are made clean by his magic." A sign came from the gathered elders.

"Do you have powers unknown to us?" Tambol asked. Duwan again thought carefully before answering. "Unknown to you, yes, but not peculiar to myself, for all Drinkers have the same powers. All of you can grow fat on the green plenty of this land. All of you can draw sustenance from the blessed rays of Du. You can become one with the earth, with filaments that will grow from the pores in your feet. You can be healed by the good earth, and you can even regenerate a missing limb, as I did, when this female watched me as I was a part of the earth." There was a general gasp of shock and disbelief.

"This, too, is true," Jai said, "for when I first saw the master his left arm was the size of the arm of a newly sprouted young one. It grew and became strong, as you see."

"Superstitious nonsense," Farnee said. He rose. "I have decided. This strange one, this who calls himself Drinker, and Duwan, has been affected by the harmful rays of the sun to which he exposed himself. And so it is with the female, for you see, yourselves, how she is colored by the harmful rays. That he knows some of the secrets of the elders is his only claim, and I know not how he came into such secrets. Perhaps by contact with other free runners, for it is said that there are other groups, farther to the west. At any rate, I reject his claims."

Duwan nodded. "Then I will go as I came, in peace," he said.

"Wait," Tambol protested. "The Council of Elders has not voted."

"You are not yet a member of this council," Farnee told Tambol. "It is not your place to call for a vote."

"We will have a vote," one of the elders said.

"So be it," Farnee said. "All who vote with me, Eldest of the free runners, will stand."

All but two of the elders stood.

"So be it," Farnee said. "Go in peace, strange one. You are doomed to die, doomed to be peeled by the Devourers, and I warn you, on pain of action, not to remain in our land, lest, in your delusion, you lead the Devourers to us. Is that understood?"

"May peace be with you," Duwan said, although he was bristling at the threat. He took Jai's arm and she looked up at him wide-eyed. He turned, stepped over the legs of a seated elder, and made his way into the sunlight. Before him the males of the runners were gathered, some with bows in hand. With a snarl, he drew his weapons.

"I came in peace, to give you hope," he said. "I am cast out. It is up to you whether or not I go in peace."

He thrust Jai behind him and holding his two swords at the ready, moved forward at a swift walk. The males of the runners melted from his path in silence. As he exited the valley through the narrow, rocky cleft, walking on stones protruding from the streambed, a volley of crooked, ineffectual arrows fell to his rear, causing Jai to scream in fear. Duwan, who had seen the runner males creeping among the tall brothers, did not even glance back.

Chapter Eight

Duwan sat moodily on a carpet of fallen needles. A storm was brewing, and its advance winds sighed through the upper branches of the tall brothers. The fire flickered and eddied in the gusts. A dead limb fell quite near the fire and, although she had seen before how certain trees seemed to give to Duwan of their deadwood, Jai started. They had halted only with the coming of darkness, having by then put several ridges and valleys between them and the valley of the free runners.

"Master, are you angry with me?" Jai asked.

Duwan shook his head without looking at her.

"You have not spoken to me, have not called my name since we left those weak ones."

"Forgive me," Duwan said. "I have much to ponder." Jai broke up the fallen limb and placed some of it on the fire. From a distance came the warm, sweet smell of rain. "We will have a wet camp tonight," she said.

Duwan had not spread his sleep covering. Jai lifted his pack and began to unfold the material. Duwan remained silent, staring into the flickering flames, as she used dead sticks to form the covering into a canopy.

"There," she said, "you will sleep dry." A patter of large drops made a soft murmur on the trees. It was a whispering grove, and the distant, sighing communications of ancient Drinkers mixed in Duwan's mind with the sound of the wind, the patter of raindrops. Then the storm was upon them. Jai cringed with the flash and rumble of it, and the rain penetrated the overhead foliage and began to wet them. Duwan, aroused from his thoughts, crawled underneath the canopy. Jai sat huddled by the hissing fire as it fought to survive in the increasing rainfall.

"Come," Duwan said, motioning to her to join him. She came gladly, curled herself, being careful not to touch him.

"You will have a wet backside," Duwan said, with a chuckle, as he observed that her rear protruded into the rain. She moved closer to him and they touched.

"Forgive me," she whispered, drawing back.

"Come," he said, putting his hand on her waist to pull her into cover. She edged closer, felt his body heat on her flank.

She was shivering. He could feel it as his arm lay loosely across her waist. "You're cold," he said.

"Yes, Master," she whispered, although her shivering was not from cold.

"We must think about getting some proper clothing," he said.

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

"Give me your back," he said, pushing her into turning onto her side. "I will warm you." He pulled her to him, spoon fashion, and held her tightly with his arm. "Better?"

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"It is time we made something clear," he said. "You are no longer a slave. No one is your master. It does not please me to be called master."

"Yes," she said, still shivering. Then, to distract her mind from his closeness, "If you will kill animals I can make us garments from their fur. I have never done it, but I noted that the women of the runners wore such garments and perhaps I can learn to make them."

"We will not take life," he said.

"As you will it," she said.

"You're still cold?"

"Yes." Then, after a pause, "No."

"No?"

"Your touch—the feel of your body—"

Duwan felt his face grow warm. He started to push her away, but did not. "These things affect you?"

"You are very beautiful, Mas—" She paused. "Do you feel it?"

"I feel the warmth of you," he said.

"Shall I make you feel more?"

"This is a newness to me," he said. "I cannot will the heat of ripeness."

"Ah," she said.

"And you, is the feeling of ripeness with you always?"

"Not always."

"But you can graft without the ripeness?"

"With the ripeness, there is fruiting. Without the ripeness only pleasure."

"Very strange," Duwan said.

She turned in his arms, lay facing him. Her soft arms went around him.

"You saved me," she whispered, "and I have nothing to give you in return except myself. If I can give you pleasure—"

He felt her bud point swelling, opening, a ripe, warm, soft pressing against his stomach. He felt his body stir and his blood sing in excitement. He told himself that it was the custom among these strange Drinkers in the Land of Many Brothers. He was alone, far from home. He was discouraged. He was warmed by her, and he felt himself begin to open and then, as if by signal, the whisperings came to him from the ancient brothers, a mixed, incomprehensible murmuring that grew and grew until, not in words but in pictures, he saw a flowering land of virgin green, saw Drinkers, strong, active, happy, and he knew that he was looking into the distant past.

Then, as his body burned, as Jai pressed herself closer, as her face touched his and her lips were warm and moist on his, he saw a vision of the endless tall brothers of the far north, and, as if he were a bird, he was soaring over the land of the snows, the land of the big waters, into the barrens and in the distance he saw the smokes of the land of fires and soared past them, high, to look down into the valley in the time of the long light. There were his father, his mother, his grandmother, all the Drinkers. And there, sitting alone, was Alning.

He clung to the vision and communicated with his mind. "Brothers," he said, "who among you has seen this? How can you show me this?" And from the whisperings in his mind there emerged a clear voice.

"None have seen save you, brother."

And then the whisperings were incomprehensible again and he was gently pushing Jai away. "You have offered me something of great value. Do not be insulted."

She, trembling, tried to touch him at the bud point and he caught her wrist and held her hand away. "Sister," he said, "I do not reject you, for you are sweet and precious. I reject an act that is against my code, my teachings."

"I understand, Master," she said, trying to pull away.

"No," he said, "stay. Give me your back so that we can share warmth, for after the rain the night will be chill."

He awoke with the light of Du strong, with birds singing in the tall brothers overhead, but it had been a noise not in keeping with the grove that had awakened him. Jai lay by his side, facing him, one of her legs thrown across his thighs. He pushed her away gently so as not to awaken her, rose silently, reached for his weapons. Again there came the sound, and he flowed in smooth, silent motions toward it. Someone was coming toward him, not being too careful about being quiet. He hid himself behind a large tall brother and waited. The intruder was walking swiftly and as he neared Duwan sprang out, longsword raised. He halted the downstroke in time to avoid splitting the head of Tambol the Hunter.

"Master," Tambol gasped.

"You have narrowly escaped death," Duwan said. "In future, should such a need arise, it would be best to announce your coming."

"Forgive me, Master," Tambol said. "I have traveled hard, and throughout most of the night to overtake you."

"For what purpose?"

"I will go with you," Tambol said. "I will hunt for you, prepare your food for you."

Duwan laughed. "Would you have me become as skinny as you?" Tambol lowered his head. "I can but do my best, Master."

"So you will go with me," Duwan said. "And yet you know not where I go."

"No matter. I am sick to death of hiding. I will fight by your side. I will die as a Drinker, for after you left I questioned the elders and now I am convinced that you speak the truth, and that this land was once ours."

"Perhaps it will not be necessary to die," Duwan said. He motioned Tambol forward, and they joined Jai, who was just awakening. "Sit, and we will eat," Duwan said. He gathered food, came to sit facing Tambol and Jai, placed the good, green life organs in Jai's outstretched hands, then gave a portion to Tambol. "To be with me," he said, "it will be necessary to open your eyes and your mind, to cast off the misinformation that the Enemy has used to poison your thinking."

Tambol's face went slack. He lifted a bit of food and sniffed it, saw Jai eating eagerly, watched as Duwan munched. He lifted his face and was, obviously, praying to some du. Then, eyes closed, he ate. Surviving, he obeyed Duwan's orders, as the day's march got underway, to expose portions of his body gradually to the rays of the sun. This death, he thought, would be slow, but he had decided to put himself into the hands of the Master.

Still alive, and sampling tidbits of green as he marched, Tambol saw that the way led toward the east. He remarked on this in the middle of the afternoon. Duwan nodded. "My mission is to assess the strength of the enemy, to learn his habits and his methods of warfare. To do this I must go among him."

"We will be in the area of settlements soon," Tambol said. "Instruct me, Master, so that I may kill the enemy at your side."

Duwan took Tambol's bow and flexed it. "This would prick a warrior just enough to make him angry," he said.

Tambol's face fell.

"Soon we will obtain proper weapons for you," Duwan said. "And clothing."

It was two more days' march before they saw signs of settlement. Now Duwan marched carefully. When he heard the distant sound of axes he instructed Jai and Tambol to move silently behind him. As they neared the sounds of activity Duwan heard a moan, a cry of despair and pain, and his skin crawled.

"Did you hear that?" Jai whispered from behind his shoulder. He turned to look at her in surprise, for the moaning cry was the death sound of an ancient Drinker who had gone back to the earth. "You heard?"

"I think I heard," Jai said. "It was not a sound as a sound is usually made—"

He smiled. "You are Drinker," he said.

"I heard nothing," Tambol whispered.

Duwan led the way forward. He saw a typical Devourer settlement, a hut made of the living boles of tall brothers, a clearing, fields growing the tall grass with the small, brown nut, a single Devourer overseer, lash in hand, standing by as two pongs began to trim the fallen tall brother. He strode boldly into the clearing and was seen, first, by one of the slaves. Then the Enemy turned and gazed at Duwan in puzzlement. The Enemy hailed him in his own language. Duwan walked with long strides toward him. The Enemy spoke again.

"I know not your barbaric tongue," Duwan said.

"Halt where you are," the Enemy said, in words that Duwan understood. The overseer's sword seemed to leap into his hand. Duwan drew his weapons. With a snarl, the Enemy charged forward, sending what was intended to be a decapitating blow toward Duwan. Iron clashed and Duwan's shortsword drew blood. The two pongs fell to the ground, moaning, prostrating themselves before Duwan. Tambol emerged from the trees.

"Watch these," Duwan said, turning to walk toward the hut. The door was open. Odd smells came from within. Duwan peered inside and almost lost his nose as a blade hissed down just in front of his face. He swung backhanded with his longsword and the blade split the belly of a female who had been hiding beside the door. Duwan saw her fall, saw the spurting of blood, and, although he was saddened, turned away to examine the interior of the hut. There were a crude table and chairs, a bed, an open fireplace in which hung a black, iron kettle. The odd smell seemed to be coming from the kettle. He walked across the small room and tilted the pot with his sword and his stomach rebelled, pouring bitterness upward into his throat. Stewing in the white sauce were the arms and legs of an infant. He turned and ran from the room. Jai was there in the front yard. Tambol waited with the two pongs.

"What ails you?" Jai asked.

Duwan was unable to speak. Jai pushed past him and went into the room. She came back quickly, the shortsword that the enemy female had wielded in her hand. "I now have a weapon," she said. Duwan stood, stunned. "Is it that you have killed a female?" He was silent.

"You need not be concerned," Jai said. "When I was among them, I dreaded working for the females, for they are worse than the males. Her sword was in her hand. You did right in killing her, for she would have gladly killed you."

"In the pot—" Duwan said.

Jai looked thoughtful, disappeared back into the hut, came back gnawing on a tiny forearm. Duwan screamed in rage and the back of his hand sent the forearm flying, and sent Jai spinning to the ground. He stepped toward her, his outrage causing him to see the light of Du as seething crimson. He raised his sword, for it was his intention to end this abomination, this creature who would eat the flesh of her own kind. He did not see that Tambol had hurried across the yard and as his sword fell Tambol clung to his arm and deflected it so that it sank into the ground with the force of the blow.

"Master, Master," Tambol cried, as Duwan tossed him aside with a sweep of his arm and jerked the sword from the earth. Jai was crawling away, screaming silently.

Sanity returned to Duwan. He lifted his face to the sun and an anguished roar came from his throat. Jai froze. Tambol picked himself up and looked fearfully at Duwan.

"Animals." Duwan hissed, looking first at Jai and then at Tambol. "You are animals."

"Master," Jai sobbed, "what did I do to offend you?" Duwan slumped. "The fault is mine," he said.

"Master," Jai said, "is it that I do not eat enough of the green? Is it that I am not to taste the savory flesh of a Devourer sacrifice?"

"Tell me this new horror," Duwan said, still tasting bitterness in his mouth.

"The sacrifice dinner is eaten at the change of the season," Jai said, her sobs lessening as she saw Duwan grow calmer. "It is in praise of the du of plenty, and if the sacrifice is not made, and the meal not eaten, untimely rains will rot the crops, or the sun will burn them, or the snows will come late and kill the tender shoots."

Duwan looked in revulsion at the small forearm, now covered with dirt and small twigs after its roll along the ground.

"I had never had the opportunity to sample this sacred food, being pong," Jai said. "Did I do wrong?"

"The young one, pong or Devourer?" Duwan asked.

"Pong," Jai said.

Duwan sighed, voiced an urgent prayer to Du in his mind, looked around as if he were just awakening. "We need clothing," he said. "Jai, go into the hut and find something for yourself. Tambol, we will wear the garments of the enemy. You, female, bring me garments, for I will not reenter that place."

Jai came back quickly and watched with approval as Duwan donned the blouse and kilt of the Enemy. She, herself, was reveling in luxury, as she tried the garments of the dead female. Tambol was standing by, waiting a chance to speak. When Duwan was fully dressed he saw that Tambol had done nothing. "Why are you waiting?" Duwan asked.

"Master, if I may speak. We are in the area of settlement, and it is your stated intention to study the Devourer close at hand. You can pass for Devourer, but we—" He waved his hand at Jai, who was wrapping herself in a fur mantle. "This one would not pass for Devourer. Her looks, her speech. Nor would I. If we are to go among the enemy we must go as pongs and master."

Duwan nodded. "You speak with wisdom, Tambol."

"No, please," Jai wailed.

"I will take the garments of one of these," Tambol said, waving a hand toward the two pongs who still crouched near the fallen tall brother, awed and fearful. "Female, if there are no pong garments for you, use a pong tunic from the other male there."

"Master," Jai wailed.

"One day you will have fine garments," Duwan said, taking the fur mantle from Jai's shoulder.

Jai resigned herself. "Master, if you are to be Devourer, your hair must be trimmed."

"This is so," Tambol said.

"How will this be done?" Duwan asked.

"I have some experience," Jai said. She disappeared into the hut once more, came back with cutting instruments, seated Duwan on the stump of a tall brother and, for the first time in his life, Duwan felt his hair being severed. There was no pain, but he felt oddly light when it was finished and Jai held up a mirror for him to see a face that looked odd and strange without its mantle of fronds.

"Now you are a proper master," Tambol said. "All that is needed is this." He handed Duwan the dead enemy's lash. "It is, when not in use, worn coiled over the left shoulder."

Duwan grimaced with distaste, but allowed Tambol to position the lash.

"Master, we are ready," Jai said. She had dressed herself in an all-covering, robelike garment she'd found inside the hut. Tambol had taken the smock of one of the pong males and had, on Duwan's orders, sent the two pongs traveling toward the west, to join the free runners.

"There is one thing more," Duwan said. He strode to the fallen Devourer, hoisted the body effortlessly and threw it into the hut. "That," he said, pointing toward the tiny, pathetic forearm that was being attacked by ground-crawling insects. Without hesitation, Tambol picked up the arm. "Toss it inside, too," Duwan ordered. Duwan forced himself to enter the stench of the hut once more. He took down a lamp, poured its oil over the heaped covers on the bed, drew a burning branch from the fireplace, threw it into the pooled oil, and stood there muttering a prayer for the dead young one as the flames leaped high and began to fill the hut with smoke.

He stood in the yard for a long time as the flames ate their way upward and burst through the roof and then, as if in one giant explosion, began to consume the hut. Without looking back, without a word, he started toward the east.

As the days passed, settlements became more frequent. Usually Duwan avoided them, but, to test his pose as a Devourer, he choose to pass through one two-hut settlement where he saw only four Enemy males. There was one problem. He did not speak the language of the Devourers.

"That doesn't matter," Jai told him. "They will think nothing of your speaking your own language, although some of your words do sound odd. You must tell them you are from a far place. Actually, the masters mostly speak as we speak even when they are speaking among themselves."

"You speak the Enemy's tongue, do you not?"

"I do," she said.

"Listen, then. If something is said in the Enemy's tongue that is threatening, warn me."

As they walked into the settlement clearing, Jai felt new importance, and she walked, perhaps, with just a bit too much pride for a pong, but the enemy males driving slaves in the gathering of the grass nuts took no notice of her, past a glance. Their eyes were on the tall, impressive figure of Duwan.

"Greetings," Duwan said. "I have traveled far."

"Welcome," one of them said. "Cool yourself at our well. And be our guest at the evening meal."

"You are kind," Duwan said. "I will accept your offer to cool myself at the well, but I beg understanding for we have far to go and must continue our travels to cover as much distance as possible before darkness."

"You come from the west?" another of the enemy asked.

"From the southwest," Duwan said, for both Tambol and Jai had told him that it was said that to the southwest were unknown lands leading to a great, waterless desert.

"The unknown lands?" one of the enemy asked. "We would hear of these lands," another said.

"There are mountains, and there the great farls roam," Duwan said.

"And then the land where the sun bakes the earth into a dryness and there grow only sparse, dry things." He'd never seen a desert, so he was picturing in his mind the approaches to the land of fires.

"Odd and terrible," said a Devourer, shaking his head. "Stay, friend, and tell us more as we celebrate the sacrifice. Our females are even now preparing it."

At that moment Duwan heard a cry of terror and pain from one of the huts and his hand shot to his sword hilt. Tambol, seeing this reaction, came forward.

"Forgive me, masters, may the female and myself have water?" Duwan forced his rage to die, to be swallowed.

Another life had been taken, but he told himself that he, alone, could not stop the customs of the Enemy. He reminded himself of his mission.

"I beg understanding," he said, bowing, and backing away. He saw Tambol and Jai drawing water. "Drink your fill quickly," he yelled, "or feel the bite of my lash."

Now they began passing through small villages. Duwan was discovering that the Enemy was, indeed, many in number. And he was becoming more confident. He found that if he pressed on, moving with purpose, his head high and his gaze forward, he and his companions were not bothered as they made their way past more elaborate dwellings, through the dusty streets of the villages.

And everywhere he saw the misery of the Drinkers, the pongs, the enslaved ones. Each village had its slave pen and there the pongs huddled when not working, barely sheltered from the elements with crude coverings, eating greedily of the meager ration of food allowed them by the masters. And in one village he saw the raw, obscenely naked body of a pong, peeled and hung on a post by lashed ropes that cut into the exposed, tender, bleeding flesh. He had to fight to hide his shock and disgust.

"You," he said imperiously to Tambol, "ask some pong what this one did."

Tambol talked with a cringing local pong and came to report. "He was caught stealing food, master."

"Thus should he be served," Duwan said, for two Enemy males were within hearing. "Remember this example, pong, lest it be your carcass that hangs there."

Away from the village, on the open road that led toward the city of Arutan, capital of the Devourer king, Farko, Duwan walked with his head high, his eyes closed to the brightness of Du, and prayed for guidance, for strength, for the ability to continue to control his desire to draw his weapons and slay the Enemy. For in his anger and anguish Duwan longed to make the dusty streets and roads run with blood until, at last, he, himself, overcome by numbers, lay there at peace, no longer tormented by the pain that came to him because of the waste of Drinker life. From a distance, the city of Arutan exploded into view like some unnatural growth on a plain of high, green grass. Roads radiated toward the city from all directions, and they were well traveled. Outward bound groups of pongs, laden with bales, packets, baskets, labored under the lashes of the Devourers. Groups traveling toward the city carried the produce of the forests and the fields.

The city was gray. Around it a wall, built of the stones of that region, rose in dark threat. Behind the wall the gray, grim buildings reached into the sky like some supreme insult to Du, not of the earth, not for the earth, but ripped from the earth, dug from the earth to leave gaping holes, stones as gray as the inside of the caves of the free runners.

Outside the walls peddlers hawked their wares. Food, drink, garments. It had been a long and thirsty walk across the plain surrounding the city.

"How does one obtain something to drink?" Duwan asked Tambol.

"Would my Master like the wine of Arutan, or some fruit juice?" Tambol asked.

"I know neither."

"Wait, Master," Tambol said, moving toward a vendor. He returned with a cup of something that, to Duwan, was sweet and delicious. "Fruit juice, Master," Tambol said.

"Have you none for yourself?"

"Water is good enough for pongs," Tambol said.

"How did you obtain this fruit juice?"

"With coins."

"Coins?"

Tambol reached into the folds of his garment and withdrew a purse of leather. He looked around, saw that no one was watching, and showed Duwan a handful of round, flat, metal objects. "The coin of Arutan," he said.

"How did you come by this coin?"

"Forgive me, Master," Tambol said. "I did not want to trouble you. It is not unusual for a pong to carry his master's coin purse, lest the master be soiled by trade."

"Where did you get it?"

Tambol hung his head. "From the hut in the forest where you killed the Devourer male and female."

"You have done well. I know nothing of such things."

"We are not rich, master, but we have enough to take decent lodgings within the city, and to purchase food and drink."

"I am in your debt, my friend," Duwan said, putting his hand on Tambol's arm.

Tambol sprang away, then leaned forward in a bow. "Never, never touch me, Master, when others can see. It is not done. Touch me only with the lash."

Duwan nodded. "Both of you must watch me closely, and keep me from committing other errors."

"We will, Master," they said together.

"Now," Duwan said, "let us see this city of the Devourers, this city of Arutan."

Chapter Nine

Duwan's first impression of an Enemy city was as an assault on his senses. His nose quivered as rank odors rose from a gutter running with sewage. A chatter of voices, a clash of metal on metal from a worker's shop, the wail of a female slave as she was lashed in a casual, matter-of-fact way by a Devourer female, the scrape of horned feet on paving stones; a movement of masses unlike anything he had ever seen. The avenue leading from the gate was wide and it was crowded. Slaves carrying bundles of firewood, huge sacks of grain, and various other loads walked near the gutters, rank, full of human waste. The overlords walked in the center, many of them dressed in colorful garb. Here and there the backs of slaves were bent under the weight of a portable chair in which lolled a disdainful Devourer female.

"Master," Jai said, "follow the street until it enters a large square. Turn to the right and you will see a building on the corner of the next street with a sign showing a picture of an eating bowl and a bed. Take lodgings there."

Duwan walked in the center of the street, eyes looking past and through those that he met. He noted Jai and Tambol slinking along abreast of him, sometimes being pushed into the gutter by laden slaves.

The stone-paved street opened into a square of impressive dimensions. It, too, was crowded. Across the square, rising stern and stark, was a stone building that reached higher into the sky than its neighbors. He noted that Enemy males in long, white robes stood in conversation on the steps, and went in and out of the high, wide entrance to the building. Elsewhere, blank-walled stone buildings lined the square. He turned to the right, looked back to see Jai and Tambol keeping pace with him, and soon saw the sign of the eating bowl and bed. Tambol came scurrying up to him, bowing, with Jai just behind him.

Before Duwan could speak to Tambol, he heard the sound of rhythmic, marching feet, turned to see a group of about thirty Enemy males dressed in identical, tight, smart uniforms, come striding into the square. Each man was armed with a longsword and a curved dagger at his belt. They marched in perfect coordination. A voice rang out and the unit halted, slapping the hilts of their swords.

"Who are these?" Duwan asked.

"Members of the High Master's guard," Jai whispered. Duwan watched with interest. Orders were bawled and swords flew from their sheaths, gleaming in the sun. The guards, spacing themselves smartly and in perfect unison, went through an impressive exercise, swords whirling overhead, lunging, slashing. Duwan's eyes narrowed. He had killed Enemy, true, but he had not encountered any Enemy as skilled with a sword as these.

"How many like these?" he asked.

"I cannot say," Jai said. "At times there are more in this daily ceremony."

Duwan watched with great interest. The weapons were well kept, gleaming, obviously well sharpened and well constructed. The guards were of a size, strong and young. He could tell by the exhibition exercises that the guards knew the capabilities of their weapons. When the ceremony was over and the guards had marched smartly away, he turned. Apparently the daily ceremony was old stuff to the residents of the city, for it had not attracted more than passing attention.

"That building across the square," Duwan said.

"The temple of the dus," Jai said. "The dus dwell within, high up, and they are fed and served by the priests."

"Those in white robes?"

"Yes," she said. She made a face. "Never cross the priests, master. They have the ear of Farko, and they are powerful. And the screams one can hear coming from the temple tell that they are not of kindly disposition toward those who dispute their power, or the sacrifices."

"Do they, too, kill the young ones?"

"The dus feed on pongs," Jai said. "Occasionally, for a meal of more quality, a Devourer is sacrificed, but he or she is always taken from the prisons."

"Let us see more of this place," Duwan said.

"Take lodgings first," Jai said, "before the rooms are all filled. Tambol, go to the Devourer behind the desk and tell him you want lodgings, lodgings of quality and cleanliness, for your master. He will ask you for five farks. You must, very respectfully, tell him that five farks is too much, and that your master will pay three."

Tambol approached an aging Devourer male, not without some nervousness, and it happened as Jai had said, a room was assigned, and Duwan walked imperiously up the stairs, Tambol and Jai cringing behind. The room was small, the bed smelled strongly of unwashed bodies.

"Tambol will sleep on the floor, guarding the door with his body," Jai said. "It is acceptable to have a female slave to warm the bed for a master, but I, too, can sleep on the floor."

"We can sleep when we have returned to the earth," Duwan said. "We will now see more of this city."

There was a sameness about the streets. Away from the main avenues and the square they were narrow, always shaded from the blessed rays of Du by the overhanging balconies of the crowding stone buildings. More than once Duwan had to move quickly to avoid being splashed as house pongs emptied slop pails from the balconies.

"It is a bed of ground insects," he told himself, as he walked through the streets, having to step aside quite often to avoid colliding with an Enemy male. "Are all Devourers so rude?" he asked Jai, who was walking a step behind him.

"I have hesitated to mention it, master," Jai said, "but it is the custom for Devourers to play a game of domination."

"When I step aside I am showing that I have been intimidated?"

"Yes, Master, but perhaps it is best. After all, you do not want to call attention to yourself."

But Duwan was young enough to feel the injury to his pride. If it was a question of dominance, he had seen no one for whom he would step aside in willing admission that he was the lesser. The next time a Devourer male came striding toward him he looked the fellow in the eye, his orange eyes seeming to glow with fire, and, at the last second the Enemy stepped aside. No more did Duwan give way.

On the south side of the city, beyond the great square, sprawling in squalor just under the defensive wall, were the slave pens. There the stench was greater, the air thick with it. Inside the wooden barrier Duwan saw ragged females cooking over open fires, children swaddled in all kinds of cast-off rags standing or sitting listlessly.

"That was my home," Jai said, with a shudder. "My shelter was there, directly against the wall." She pointed and Duwan felt a great wave of compassion for her, and for all the Drinkers, so ignorant of their true nature, who were herded into the crowded, filthy pens each night after a day of slave labor in the city.

Aside from the smartly uniformed guards who had paraded in the square, he saw no evidence of defensive capability, save for the stout walls. He was feeling optimistic. The well trained warriors of the valley Drinkers would each be a match for five of the enemy. All Enemy males went armed, true, but he saw evidence of neglect of weapons in the form of rusted hilts and frayed sheaths.

"I have seen enough," he said. "We will sleep, and then we will leave this place with the first light of Du."

Jai knew the city well. She guided them back toward the inn through narrow streets where there were fewer encounters, and they were almost back to the central square when a tall, well-built Devourer in the uniform of the High Master's guard seemed to fill all available space in the narrow street. Duwan's first impulse was to give way and step aside, but he had seen the sword exercises of those smartly uniformed men and he was wondering if their skill would be effective in serious fighting instead of parade ground show. Then, too, he was Drinker, and he was in the land of his ancestors, and he was young and prideful. He narrowed his orange eyes and marched directly toward the oncoming guardsman.

"Master, Master," Jai was whispering from one pace behind him, a bit of panic in her voice.

Just as it appeared that the two males could walk directly into each other, when one more pace on the part of either would have resulted in a nose to nose collision, both halted, faces inches apart, eyes locked. The guardsman had pale green eyes.

"You have the space of one breath to move aside," the guardsman said.

"Does the law of this city give the High Master's guard the right of way?" Duwan asked, his voice low and polite.

"This gives me the right of way," the guardsman said, patting the hilt of his longsword.

"Then I will be breaking no law if I contest?" Duwan asked. "I am a stranger, and I do not, of course, want to break any laws." The green eyes of the guardsman narrowed. "I see that you are armed in the ancient manner, in the manner of our ancestors. I seldom find it necessary to use two swords, one being quite adequate."

"I can understand that," Duwan said. "It is rare that one has the skill of hand to handle both long and short swords."

"Since you have stated that you are a stranger and do not want to break any of the laws of Arutan, I will explain to you that dueling in the streets, while not unlawful, is frowned upon."

"Perhaps there is an isolated place?" Duwan asked. The guardsman's eyes shifted, examined Duwan from head to foot. "Do you refuse to give way?"

"Unless I am breaking some law, yes."

Jai drew near, cringing. "Master, Master, beg forgiveness of this officer."

Duwan ignored her. The guardsman nodded.

"I will turn and make my way back to the square. We will settle this matter there, if that is your wish." the guardsman said. Duwan nodded. The uniformed enemy turned and walked away, back stiff.

"Master, don't be foolish," Jai begged. "You will have to fight him in the center of the square, and every eye in the city will be on you."

"And if I kill him?"

"The weapons will be padded," Jai said, "but whether you win or lose, Master, great attention will be focused on you. Can you risk discovery?"

"I'm curious," Duwan said. "These guardsmen seem to be the finest warriors of the enemy. I will test this one's abilities." By the time Duwan reached the square, with Jai and Tambol following behind him, a crowd was beginning to form in the center. The guardsman was there, and white-robed priests were filing down the stairs of the temple. Duwan took his place in the open area. The crowd stared and pointed and there was a great deal of wagering going on, most of the bets being placed on the guardsman with the odds against Duwan. A priest walked to stand in front of Duwan, padded sheaths for weapons in his land.

"The captain allows you to use both your weapons," the priest said.

"Will he use only the longsword?"

"Yes," the priest said.

"Then if you will hold my shortsword for me I will be grateful," Duwan said, extending his longsword for the priest to cover with the padded sheath.

The two combatants faced each other at a distance of a few paces.

"There is still time to give way, stranger," the guardsman said.

"My sword arm needs exercise," Duwan said.

The guardsman came in a rush, and the muffled thud of blade on blade came time and again. Duwan held up on offensive thrusts, wanting to determine the extent of the warrior's skill, and he was not disappointed. The guard captain seemed in a hurry to end the bout, his blade seemed to be a living thing, thrusting, slashing, hammering. So skilled were both men that gasps of admiration went up from the crowd, and Jai noted that the odds against Duwan kept going down until, as the shadows of the sun moved by inches and both combatants were drenched in sweat and no blow of either had penetrated the other's defenses, it was even money. After a lightning series of thrusts, all parried by Duwan, the captain stepped back. "You fight well, stranger."

"I have never faced a more worthy opponent," Duwan said.

"Is your sword arm as weary as mine?" the captain asked.

"I fear so," Duwan said. He tossed his sword, caught it deftly by the hilt in his left hand. "But, since I fight in the manner of the ancients, I have a spare."

The captain's face went grim and he came to the attack with a renewed fury. However, he had gauged himself to Duwan's right-handed technique and so, as he faced a left-handed attack, with Duwan unleashing all his offensive tricks, he had to give ground. Duwan was now eager to end it. He pressed his attack, going for the guardsman's head, for if there was a weakness in the captain's defense it was at head level. He saw his opportunity, sent a great smash downward, felt his padded blade thud into the enemy's skull but even as he felt the shock of impact his breath went out of him in a great huff as the captain's padded blade took him in a full slash on the stomach.

The guardsman went down, dazed, and Duwan fought to get his breath, felt a great wave of weakness as he could not breathe, fell to his knees, gasped and finally got wind into his lungs.

The officiating priest stepped forward. The crowd was screaming in delight. "You are both dead," the priest said. "Let me commend you on a display of swordsmanship seldom seen in these peaceful days."

"Stranger," the captain said, getting to his knees, "you've addled me properly."

"And you have given me a blow I will feel for days," Duwan said.

"When we meet again in the streets," the captain said, "I suggest that each of us take one half-step to the side."

"A sensible suggestion," Duwan said. He was reviewing the bout in his mind, trying to remember places where he could have applied this or that technique.

"If you seek a place in Arutan, come to the guards quarters and ask for Captain Hata. Your sword would be a valuable addition to the High Master."

For a moment Duwan considered accepting the invitation. How better to learn all of the Enemy's secrets than as one of them? But then he reconsidered. He had enough information. "I am honored," he said. "But I am a wanderer."