' 'Got to keep an eye on you,' he said to Kelderek with a kind of malicious amiability. 'Making yourself at home, are you? Enjoying yourself? That's right.'

Kelderek had already noticed that while all the children went in terror of Bled, who was obviously deranged and almost a maniac, several seemed to be on some kind of uncertain terms with Shouter, who from time to time - whether or not he was actually engaged in cruelty - assumed a certain bluffness of manner not uncommon among bullies and tyrants.

'Can you tell me why I'm here?' he asked. 'What use am I to Genshed?'

Shouter sniggered. 'You're here to be mucking sold, mate,' he said. 'Without your balls, I dare say.'

'What happened to the overseer you replaced?' asked Kelderek. 'I suppose you knew him?'

'Knew him? I killed him,' answered Shouter.

'Oh, did you?'

'He was all in when we got back to Terekenalt, wasn't he?' said Shouter. 'He'd gone to pieces. One day a girl from Dari scratched his mucking face to bits. He couldn't stop her. That night, when Genshed was drunk, he said if anyone could fight him and kill him he could have the job. I killed him all right - strangled him in the middle of Genshed's yard, with about fifty kids watching. Old Genshed was tickled to death. That's how I kept my my balls, mate, see?' balls, mate, see?'

They reached the river bank and Kelderek, wading in to the knees, drank and washed. Yet his body remained full of pain. As he thought of his own situation and that of Melathys and the Tuginda, despair overcame him and during their return he could find no spirit for any further attempt at talk with Shouter. The boy himself also seemed to have grown pensive, for he said no more, except to order Radu to pick up Shara and carry her.

In the half-light and rising mist Genshed stood snapping his fingers to summon one boy and another. As each approached and stood in front of him the slave-dealer examined eyes, ears, hands, feet and shackles, as well as any wounds and injuries that he came upon. Although many of the children were lacerated and two or three seemed on the point of collapse, none received any treatment and Kelderek concluded that Genshed was merely looking over his stock and assessing their capacity to go further. The children stood motionless, heads bent and hands at their sides, anxious only to be gone as soon as possible. One boy, who trembled continually, flinching at each movement of Genshed, was left to stand where he was while the dealer looked at others immediately behind his back. Another, who could not keep quiet, but kept muttering and picking at the sores on his face and shoulders, was silenced by means of the fly-trap until Genshed had done with him.

Shouter and Bled, receiving the boys as they left the slave-dealer, fastened them together in threes or fours by thin chains drawn through the lobes of their ears. Each chain was secured at one end to a short metal bar, the other being hooked to the belt or wrist of an overseer. When these preparations were complete, all lay down to sleep where they were on the marshy ground.

Kelderek, chained like the rest, had been separated from Radu and lay between two much younger boys, expecting every moment that a movement by one or the other would pull the chain-links through his wounded lobe like the teeth of a saw. Soon, however, he realized that his companions, more practised than he in making misery bearable, were less likely to trouble him than he them. They stirred seldom and had learned the trick of moving their heads without tightening the chain. After a little he found that both had moved close to him, one on either side.

'Not used to this yet, are you ?' whispered one of the children in a broad Paltcsh argot that he could barely understand. * 'Buy you today, did he?'

'He didn't buy me. He found me in the forest - yes, it was today.'

' 'Thought as much. You smell of fresh meat - new ones often do, 'doesn't last long.' He broke off, coughing; spat on the ground between them and then said, 1 'Trick's to lie close together. It's warmer, and it keeps the chain slack, see, then anybody moves it don't pull.'

Both children were verminous and scratched continually at the sodden, filthy rags covering their thin bodies. Soon, however, Kelderek was no longer aware of their smell, but only of the mud in which he was lying and the throbbing of his wounded finger. To distract his thoughts he whispered to the boy, 'How long have you been with this man?'

1 'Reckon nearly two month now. 'Bought me in Darl'

'Bought you? Who from?' you? Who from?'

'My stepfather. Father was killed with General Gel-Ethlin when I was very small. Mother took up with this man last winter and he didn't like me, only Fm dirty, see? Soon as the dealers come he sold me.'

'Didn't your mother try to stop it?'

'No,' answered the boy indifferently.' 'Suppose you had food, had you, only he took it away?' 'Yes.'

'Shouter said almost no bloody mucking food left,' whispered the little boy.' 'Said they'd reckoned to buy some before this, only there's no mucking place to buy it here.'

'Why did Genshed come into this forest, do you know?' asked Kelderek.

'Soldiers, Shouter said.'

'What soldiers?1 'Don't know. Only he don't like soldiers. That's why he put the rope across the river; get away from the soldiers. You hungry, are you?'

'Yes.'

He tried to sleep, but there was no quiet The children whimpered, talked in their sleep, cried out in nightmare. The chains rattled, something moved among the trees, Bled leapt suddenly to his feet, chattering like an ape and wrenching every chain fastened to him. Raising his head, Kelderek could see the hunched figure of the slave-dealer a little distance off, his arms clasped about his knees. He did not look like a man seeking sleep. Was he - like Kelderek himself - conscious of the danger of wild animals, or was it, perhaps, possible that he had no need of sleep - that he never slept?

At length he fell into a doze, and when he woke - after how long he could not tell - realized that the child beside him was weeping, almost without noise. He put out his hand and touched him. The weeping stopped at once.

"There's a lot can happen yet,* whispered Kelderek. 'Were you thinking of your mother?'

'No,' replied the boy. "bout Sirit'

'Who's Sirit?* 'Girl was with us.' 'What's happened to her?' 'Gone to Leg-By-Lee.' 'Leg-By-Lee? Where's that?' 'Don't know.'

'Then how do you know she's gone there?' The boy said nothing.

'What is Leg-By-Lee? Who told you about it?' 'Where they go, see?' whispered the boy. 'Only anyone goes, we say they've gone to Leg-By-Lee.' 'Is it far away?' 'Don't know.'

'Well, if I managed to run away and he brought me back tomorrow, would I have gone to Leg-By-Lee?' 'No.'

'Why not?'

' 'Cause you don't come back from Leg-By-Lee.' 'You mean Sirit's dead?' 'Don't know.'

They fell silent. A man may be forced to set out into bitter cold, and in the very act of doing so be conscious that the future is desperate and his chance of survival small. Yet this mere reflection, coming at that moment, will not of itself be enough to break his spirit or penetrate his heart with despair. It is as though he still carried, wrapped about the core of his courage, a residue of protecting faith and warmth which must first be penetrated and dispelled, little by little, hour after hour, perhaps day after day, by solitude and cold, until the last remnants are dispersed and the dreadful truth, which at the outset he perceived only with his mind, he feels in his body and fears in his heart. So it was with Kelderek. Now, in the night, with the sharp, ugly noises of wretchedness all around him and the pain crawling about his body like cockroaches in a dark house, he seemed to step down, to review his situation from an even lower level, to feel more deeply and perceive more clearly its nature, devoid of all real hope. He believed, now, in the prospect before him - the passage of Linsho and the long journey up the Telthearna, actually passing Quiso and Ortelga, to Terekenalt; and then slavery, preceded perhaps by the vile mutilation of which Shouter had spoken. Worst of all was the loss of Melathys and the thought that they would remain ignorant for ever of each other's fates.

It was Shardik who had brought him to this - Shardik who had pursued him with supernatural malevolence, avenging all that his priest-king had done to abuse and exploit him. He was justly accursed of Shardik, and in his punishment had involved not only Melathys but the Tuginda herself - she who had done all she could, in the face of every obstacle put in her way, to preserve the worship of Shardik from betrayal. With this bitter reflection he once more fell asleep.

50 Radu

When he woke it was sunrise: and as he stirred, a centipede as long as his hand, dark-red and sinuous, undulated smoothly away from beneath his body. Shouter was drawing out the chains and coiling them into his pack. The forest was raucous with the calling of birds. Already, where the sun shone, the ground was steaming, and everywhere flies buzzed about patches of night-soil and urine. A boy close by coughed without ceasing and all around the children raised their thin voices in foul language and oaths. Two boys lay quarrelling over a fragment of leather which one had stolen from the other, until Bled's stick brought them cursing to their feet.

Shouter gave out small handfuls of dried fruit and watched while they were eaten, his stick ready against any snatching or fighting. He winked at Kelderek and slipped him a second handful.

'Mind you eat it yourself, too,' he whispered, 'mucking quick.'

'Is that all until tonight?' answered Kelderek, appalled at the thought of the day's march.

'It's nigh all there is left anyway,' said Shouter, still keeping his voice down. 'He says there's no more to be had until we get to Linsho, and that's supposed to be tomorrow evening. I reckon he didn't know what this place was going to be like. We'll be lucky to get out alive.'

Kelderek, looking quickly to either side, whispered, 'I could get you out alive.'

Without waiting for an answer, he shuffled away to where Radu was feeding Shara from his own handful.

'You can't afford to do that,' he said. 'You've got to keep up your own strength if you want to be able to look after her.'

'I've done it before,' answered Radu. 'I'll be all right as long as she is.' He turned back to the little girl. 'We're going home soon, aren't we?' he said. 'You're going to show me the new calf, aren't you, when we get home?'

'All the way, underground,' said a boy standing near; but Shara only nodded and fell to making patterns with her stones.

Soon they began to move off, following Genshed towards the river bank. Once there the slave-trader turned upstream, making his way along the open, pebbly shore.

Now that they were no longer among the close trees and he could see the whole column, Kelderek understood, as he had not on the previous day, why their progress was so much interrupted and so slow. What he saw was an exhausted rabble, which surely could not be far from complete disintegration. Continually, one child or another would stop, leaning face forwards against a rock or bank and, when Bled or Shouter came up to threaten him, only staring back as though too much stupefied even to feel fear. From time to time a boy would fall and Genshed, Shouter or Bled would pull him to his feet and slap him or dash water in his face. The slave-dealer himself seemed well aware of the perishable condition of his stock. He was sparing with blows and called frequent halts, allowing the children to drink and bathe their feet. Once, when Bled, in a frenzy of rage, set about a boy who was fumbling and hesitating at the foot of a pile of rocks, he cuffed him away with a curse, asking where he thought he could sell a dead slave.

Later, as he and Radu lay gazing out across the glittering, noonday river, Kelderek, carefully keeping his voice low, said, 'Shouter must know that he's got all he ever can out of Genshed. Surely he must fear returning to Terckenalt? The best thing he could do would be to cut and run, and take us with him. I know how to survive in this sort of country. I could save his life and ours if only I could persuade him to trust me. Do you think Genshed's made him some promise?'

For a time Radu answered nothing, looking sideways into the shallows and stroking Shara's hands. At length he said, 'Genshed means more to him than you think. He's converted him, you see.'

'Converted him?'

'That's why I'm afraid of Genshed. I know we all fear his cruelty, but I fear more than that.'

'You mustn't let him break your spirit,' said Kelderek. 'He's nothing but a contemptible brute - a sneak thief - mean and stupid.'

'He was once,' answered Radu, 'but that was before he got the power he prayed for.'

'What do you mean? What power?'

'Where he's concerned, it's no longer a matter of thieves and honest men,' said Radu. 'He's gone beyond that. Once he was nothing but a cruel, nasty slum-creeper. But evil's made him strong. He's paid its price, and in return he's been given its power. You don't feel it yet, but you will. He's been granted the power to make others evil - to make them believe in the strength of evil, to inspire them to become as evil as himself. What he offers is the joy of evil, not just money, or safety, or anything that you and I could understand. He can make some people want to devote their lives to evil. That's what he did to Bled, only Bled wasn't up to it and it drove him mad. Shouter - he was just a poor, deserted boy, sold away from his home. It's not a question of how long he'll last with Genshed or what he'll get. He admires him - he wants to give him everything he's got - he isn't thinking about rewards. He wants to spend his life beating and hurting and terrifying. He knows he's not much good at it yet, but he hopes to improve.'

Their hunger was like a mist in the air between them. Kelderek, looking about him for Shara, caught sight of her kneeling beside a pool a little way off and pulling out long strips of bright-yellow and dark-red weed, which she laid side by side on the stones.

'All this is only your fancy, you know,' he said. 'You're lightheaded with hunger and hardship.'

'I'm light-headed, that's true enough,' answered Radu. 'But I can see more clearly for that. If you don't think it's true, you wait and see.'

He nodded towards Shara. 'It's for her sake that I've not given in,' he said. 'Genshed wanted me to become an overseer in place of Bled. Bled's become a nuisance to him - he can't be relied on not to cripple boys or kill them. He's killed three boys since Lapan, you know.'

'If you became an overseer, mightn't it give you a chance to escape?'

'Perhaps - from anyone but Genshed.'

'But did he only try to talk you into becoming an overseer? Didn't he threaten you? You told me he once used the fly-trap on you.'

'That was because I hit Shouter to stop him interfering with Shara. Genshed would never threaten a boy to make him become an overseer. A boy who's going to become an overseer has got to want to do it. He's got to admire Genshed of his own accord and want to live up to him. Of course Genshed wants the ransom money for me, but if he could persuade me to become an overseer, that would mean even more to him, I believe. He wants to feel he's had a hand in making a nobleman's son as evil as himself.'

'But as long as he doesn't threaten you, surely there's no question of your giving in to him ?'

Radu paused, as though hesitating before confiding in Kelderek. Then he said deliberately, 'God's given in. Either that or He's got no power over Genshed. I'll tell you something that I shall never forget. Before Thettit there was a boy with us - a big, shambling lad called Bellin. He could never have crossed the Vrako; he was clumsy and a bit simple. Genshed put him up for sale along with the girls. The man who bought him told Genshed he wanted to make him a professional beggar. He kept several, he said, and lived off what they brought in. He wanted Bellin mutilatcd, to excite pity when he was begging. Genshed hacked off Bellin's hands and held his wrists in boiling pitch to stop the bleeding. He charged the man forty-three meld. He said that was his rate for that particular job.'

Turning aside, he tore a handful of leaves from a bush and began to cat them. After a moment Kelderek copied him. The leaves were sour and fibrous and he chewed them voraciously.

'Come on! Come on!' bawled Shouter, slapping at the surface of the shallows with his stick. 'Get on your mucking feet! Linsho -that's where the grub is, not here!'

Radu stood up, swayed a moment and stumbled against Kelderek.

'It's the hunger,' he said. 'It'll pass off in a moment.' He called to Shara, who came running, with a long strip of coloured weed wound like a torque round one thin arm. 'If there's one thing I've learnt, it's that hunger's a form of torture. If there's more food for overseers than slaves when we get to Linsho, I might become an overseer yet. Cruelty and evil - they're not very far down in anyone. It's only a matter of digging them up, you know.'

51 The Gap of Linsho

Later, in the afternoon, they came to a wide bend in the river and Genshed once more struck inland to cut across the peninsula. The humid heat of the forest became a torment. The children, some of whom lacked energy even to brush the flies from their faces, were ordered to come close together and to grasp each his neighbour's shoulder, so that they inched onward like some ghastly pack of purblind cripples, many keeping closed their insect-blackened eyes. The boy in front of Kelderek kept up a low, rhythmic sobbing -'Ah-hoo! Ah-hoo!' - until at length Bled flew at him, uttering a stream of curses and jabbing at his legs with the point of his sdek. The boy fell, bleeding, and Genshed was forced to call a halt while he staunched his wounds. This done, he sat down with his back against a tree, whistling through his teeth and rummaging in the depths of his pack. On an impulse Kelderek went up to him.

'Can you tell me why you've taken me prisoner and how much you hope to get out of it? I can promise you a large sum to release me - more than you'd get for selling me as a slave.'

Genshed did not look up and made no reply. Kelderek bent down, stooping over the slave-trader's sandy hair and speaking more urgently.

'You can believe what I say. I'm offering you more than you could get for me in any other way. I'm not what I seem. Tell me how much you want to let me go.'

Genshed closed his pack and rose slowly to his feet, wiping his sweating hands along his thighs. Some of the children near by looked up, waiting apprehensively for the snap of his fingers. He did not look at Kelderek, who had the odd impression that he heard and did not hear him, as a man might ignore a dog's barking while deep in thoughts of his own affairs.

'You can believe me,' persisted Kelderek. 'At Ortelga, which I suppose you mean to pass, I -'

Suddenly, with the speed of a fish taking its prey, Genshed's hand shot upwards and gripped the pierced lobe of Kelderek's ear between finger and thumb. As his thumb-nail dug into the wound Kelderek shrieked and tried to clutch his wrist. Before he could do so, the slave-dealer drove his knee into his groin, at the same time releasing his ear to allow him to double up and fall to the ground. Then, stooping, he picked up his pack, put his arms through the straps and hoisted it behind his shoulders.

Two or three of the children tittered uncertainly. One threw a stick at Kelderek. Genshed, still with an air of abstraction, snapped his fingers and, as the children began pulling one another up and Shouter set up his usual bawling, walked away to the head of the line and nodded for the first boy to lay hold of his belt.

Kelderek opened his eyes to find Shara looking down at him.

'He hurt you, didn't he?' she said, speaking in a kind of Yeldashay patois.

He nodded and climbed heavily to his feet.

'He hurts us all,' she said. 'One day he's going away. Radu told me.'

Pain and hunger swirled in him as stirred mud clouds a pool.

'Radu told me,' she repeated. 'Here's a red stone, look, and I've got a blue one, kind of a blue one. Arc you hungry? You find caterpillars, can you? Radu finds caterpillars.'

Shouter came up, took hold of Kelderek's hand and put it on Radu's shoulder in front of him.

An hour later they regained the shore and halted for the night, Kelderek found that he could form little idea of how far they might have gone during the day. Ten miles at the most, he supposed. Tomorrow Genshed meant to pass the Gap of Linsho. Would there be food, and would they rest? Surely Genshed could see that they must rest. Hunger closed down upon his mind as rain blots out the view across a plain. His thoughts, sliding like wet fingers, could compass nothing. Would there be food at Linsho? Would there, for a time, be no more shuffling, no more stooping to free the chain? Genshed might refrain from hurting him at Linsho, the pain in his finger would grow less. These were things to hope for - but he must try to look beyond these - consider - must consider what was best to be done - 'What are you thinking?' asked Radu. Kelderek tried to laugh, and tapped his head. 'Where I was born, they used to say, "You can tap on the wood, but will the insects run out? " ' 'Where was that?'

He hesitated. 'Ortelga. But it doesn't matter now.'

After a pause, Radu said, 'If ever you get back there-'

'All the way, underground,' said Kelderek.

'You know what we mean when we say that?'