'If you-ones did not live here,' Thewson shouted, 'then the muldrek would not go through your place.'

This confused the dog king, and he cocked his head in irritation before turning to gargle a command at several of those in the mob which surged forward once more bearing ropes, crouching and circling.

'No,' thundered Thewson. 'Did you not see what burden we are bearing? Horse child. Child of God Horse is in our care. Do not offend your God.'

Dhariat caught at Jasmine's sleeve. 'Play up to him,' she urged. 'Demand that they bring you the foal.'

Jasmine stamped on the stones, spoke shrilly at the circling faces. 'Bring me the Horse child which was in my care before God Mare is offended with you!'

The warty men quailed under her voice, muttered and drew aside to let others pass through leading the foal. 'The goat,' Jasmine cried. 'To nurse this little one.'

There were expressions of dismay, eyes rolling toward the dog king where he crouched, tongue lolling, against the wall.

'Ammmm,' he said foolishly. 'It is gone. We would eat it.'

'Then you must find another,' Thewson demanded. 'From the fields, from the herdsmen, from the villages. Find one full of milk and bring it here or the God Mare will grow angry.'

Instructed thus, the confusion among the warty men grew even more frantic with small groups going this way and that, aimlessly, like a scattered ant hill. One group broke away to run wildly through the rocky chasm of the entrance. The dog king watched them go saying bleakly, 'Fools, fools. See them run. Oh, if these were different creatures would I not be a different king?'

'Did you want them to tie us, hurt us?' asked Lain-achor. 'For what reason? A true king would not lead his people to do a senseless thing.'

The dog king shrugged. 'It would be a different thing to do, different from today, or yesterday. A thing to think of. A thing to regret, perhaps, perhaps not. But at least a different thing. Here in these stones, in our caverns, by our fires, doing what we do, it is the same over and over again, a thousand years.'

Lain-achor pursued the question. 'But merely for something to do?'

The dog king squatted sullenly on the ground at their feet, panted, turned his head to peer at them all as he gestured toward the rocks. 'I will tell a story of these stones,' he said, 'as it has been told forever.

'Long time past, Lone Man, Mountain Dweller, last of the wizards in the east, named Sienepas, sat on the mountain. He said, "In the east my brothers make new life, new things and strange, and I have fled away, fled away."'

'Fled away, away,' chorused the warty men.

'He, last of the wizards said, "Am I less than they, or shall I not do what they have done? So shall I make new life, here in these stones."'

'Here in these stones,' the warty men who remained sang.

'"Oh, I will be creator and founder of my own. I will return in glory to the east. I will bring a people from these stones!"'

'Out of these stones ...'

'And the Lone Man, He of the Mountain, created us, from stone he made us, from rock brought us to life, and of fire and other things he had in this place. He made us and then grew weary of us, for we were not beautiful. He said to my fathers' fathers' fathers, "See the great horses run in beauty in the meadow, but you, my creatures, are of stone. Worship that beauty as your God, you shall have no other. I will go after my kinsmen to the west." But he did not go after anyone. No, he never went away after that.'

'What happened to him?' asked Sowsie, softly.

The stare which glared from beneath swollen and ominous eyelids was almost answer enough. 'That which was fitting. He should not have made us. We would be unmade if we knew how, and if it was an easy thing.'

'How long ago?' Sowsie asked. 'Powers. How long ago?'

'The count of the years is four thousand five hundred seventy and seven. With the moon of summer, seventy and eight.'

'And you have lived all that time?'

'Me, my father who was like me. His father. His father again, twice more. We live a long time, a very long time. The Lone Man made well, too well. We grow older than Horse God the beautiful, Horse God who lives and dies like grass. We live longer than men, but it is not good. There is nothing, nothing for us in these stones, and our God gives us nothing but longing.'

He turned from them to join the warty men in the shadows, and from that uneasy group came muffled grunts, snorts, the beginning of a mob sound, a panic sound.

Lain-achor moved to lay more wood upon the fire as they hunkered beside it, whispering.

'The old man, the Lone Man they killed him,' said Jasmine. 'He offended them.'

'He offended much,' brooded Sowsie. 'Against the Powers, but more against his own creation for he gave them life while withholding purpose, gave ugliness and told it to worship beauty. I, too, might have killed him for that.'

'They are resentful, bored beyond comprehension, without hope. Then others come with a worm which kills and eats them, a final blow, a mystery, a hatefulness. They question, now,' Daingol mused, the fire lighting his eye sockets from below, turning him into a skull shape in the dark. Jasmine shuddered.

'We may question, now,' said Sowsie. 'How will we get away? They hold us hostage for their resentment, their current fear. If they can make us responsible, it will relieve them. It will make an excitement, a change. Listen to the hysteria rising in their voices.'

They heard it building in the shadows, a muttering followed by a smothered shout, then a mutter and treble shrieking.

'We must divert them,' said Sowsie. 'Give them something else to think of.'

Thewson rumbled into their silent thought. 'It would be better for them to have a God like them, one not beautiful. In the Lion Courts we have such. Guardians of doorways. They are called fanuluzhli, the little old gods. They are very ugly, to frighten thieves away.'

'Yes,' Sowsie agreed. 'And more than that. They need a ritual, a new something, a purpose.' She drew them tighter around the fire as they plotted. At last Thewson rose, carrying his spear high, shouting to Lain-achor and Daingol who bore brands from the fire to twirl them in great circles of flame. Beside a gnarled tree which thrust its way through the rocks of the chasm Thewson paused, shouted once more, began to hack at the tree with his spear, chips flying.

At the fireside Sowsie and Dhariat hunched over stones, tapped a slow rhythm, stone on stone, echoing the shouts of the men with treble calls into the shadow. Jasmine began to dance, praying to the Lady, remembering the theatres of Lak Island, the temperamental demands of actors and dance masters. 'I am one of the warty women,' she told herself. 'I dance the birth of my God.' She drooped her body, hunched it, forced it to grace within that stooped stance, forced it to express dignity, joy, exaltation within its earthiness, power and longing from its warped and twisted movement. Eyes turned toward her from the shadows. Squat forms drew near to watch. The dog king's voice rose querulously, then fell silent. Thewson shouted, chopped, shouted, chanted in time with the stones which Dhariat and Sowsie tapped, tapped, passing hand over hand, click, click, click-click.

'The time of the Horse God is done, is done. The time of all old things is gone, is gone. A new God comes to the people of stone. A new time, a new thing, a new purpose.'

'A new purpose,' echoed Daingol and Lain-achor.

It went on, hypnotic, wearying, click of stone, chop of wood, slow, circling dance. The chop of the spear blade stopped, and Thewson began working upon the tree with his knife, detailing the tough wood to his need. The shadowy watchers drew nearer, were seized and brought into the circling dance, one by one, two by two, leaning and shuffling in time with the endless tapping, the chanting, the shouts. Sowsie rose, pressed a stone into the hands of a watcher and drew that one down to join the tap, tap, tap.

High above them the sky paled. Thewson gestured Daingol away, and the brothers began carrying the chips to the fire, casting them into the flames with ponderous, weighty gestures of invocation. Dawn rushed upon them, battered at them with reflected light, and they stood silent, still, heads bent in respect before the giant wooden image which Thewson had made. Before it, Thewson bowed, priestly and potent, booming in a voice like a great drum, 'So it is commanded, you men of the stone. So each year shall you do before the moon of summer. So shall you take the old God into the deep places of the earth to dream the future of your kind while the new God keeps watch. So shall you go to the old ones in deepest places to inquire of them what purpose the men of the stones shall have. And between the moons of summer, one summer and the next, shall you carve the stones of this mountain and all its ways.'

He turned, blind-eyed, and led them away, leaving the warty men to stare at the great image in frozen silence. They took their horses and led them away through the chasm, quietly, looking back only once to see the dog king staring after them, his face reflecting a kind of cynical awe. They heard the dog king's voice. 'So it is commanded. So be it.'

Upon the mountain side they encountered a small group of warty men carrying a goat. Seeing the mounted troop with their weapons gleaming, the warty men dropped their captive and fled into the stones, hooting dismally as they went. Thewson retrieved the goat, putting it across his saddle without comment.

Sowsie said, 'If they carve that stone, it will keep them busy for a million years. You make a good prophet, Thewson.'

'Not I,' he said enigmatically. Then, in response to her puzzled look. 'It was not I who spoke. I carry messages. I do not know when it is I will need to speak them.'

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

PO-BEE.

Days 14-24, Month of Thaw They lurked within the screen of the forest, skulked from grove to grove across the high slopes of the Savus Mountains, sneaked and hid throughout the following days. Below them, on the wide river plain of the Sals, stinking wagon trains were almost continuous, whipped southward by black robes, leaving a foul smell and deep ruts where they passed. The black robes who drove the wagons south seemed to have no thought of interference. There were no guards with the trains, no outriders, no scouts. Daingol said once that he doubted the drivers would pursue them even if they were seen, but none of them wished to take the chance. Adding to their disquiet was Thewson's quiet statement that the dog king was following them. 'Jackal quick in the trees, that one. Easy to kill, but better not. Waos. We wait.'

So they waited. The shadow behind them came no nearer, contenting itself with following them as they went among the trees to the constant accompaniment of jingling harness and creaking wagons down along the river. The Sals gleamed saffron and orange in the light of the rising sun, murmuring gently and offering up fish to Lain-achor, who sneaked down between wagon trains to spear them from the bank, his dagger bound to a peeled sapling. Thewson tried it with his spear, giving up in disgust when the fishes flicked away unharmed. He complained to Jasmine, 'The water twists my sight.' She was sorry and combed his hair for him to comfort him, making a long job of it in the evening firelight while the others pretended not to notice.

After seven days of this hiding and creeping, they drew almost even with the white bulk of the Palonhodh which loomed away to the east. Their route drew away from the river, into the hills which bordered Sorgen to the north and thence into the mountains which lay at the southern edge of the Rochagam D'Zunabat. To the west lay the city of Enterling, beyond it the mysteries of Owbel Bay. To the east lay Soolenter and before them the high pass which debouched into a long plateau from which the trail led down to the east along the final cliffs of the Savus Range. There were three days of climbing but no more skulking. The wagons could not climb the pass and were forced far to the west on the easier roads. At last they stared down to the north where the sparkle of the River Nils gleamed among clustered cities and towns. The plain of the Axe King was wide, the mountains at its northern edge barely showing on the horizon. It was interrupted here and there by raised islands, covered with forest, seeming afloat on the great sea of grass.

'They don't look natural,' said Jasmine. 'They look as though they had been built there.'

Sowsie threw one leg across the horse's neck, nodded toward the forested hillocks. 'Some say they were built in the time of Sud-Akwith's sires. Some say they are burial mounds, built here upon the plain to house the tombs of ancient times, long before Tar-Akwith. It may be some were built and some are natural, for some have springs bubbling upon them. Between us and the river is such a one. If we ride steadily, we may camp there tonight.'

Their trail wound down the precipitous slope to the grasslands below. Where a forested canyon crossed the trail they stopped to eat a noon meal beside a chattering stream and trees which half hid themselves in a haze of spring green. The leaves wereino larger than a mouse's ear. Thewson and Jasmine wandered away from the others, up the stream, smelling fresh herbs and the fragrance of flowers. Suddenly he laid his huge hand upon her arm, directing her gaze toward the base of a gnarled tree. There, set about with leaves and tendrils, a woebegone face peered at them from beneath the roots, so nearly the color of the tree that it might have grown there through the seasons. They did not expect it to speak. When it did so, in accents of civilized reproach, both were startled.

'A great noise you are making, large ones. A fine noise, some might say, all militant and furious with clopping horses and creaking leather and the tick, tick, tick of your spear on the branches above. Still, there are those who must sleep when the sun is up in order to live when the sun is down. It would be a kindness to walk softly in green silences. Alas, a kindness is seldom encountered in these latter days.'

Thewson merely stared, dumb with astonishment, but Jasmine went forward curiously. 'What strange thing is this? A talking turnip?'

'Oh, that is unkind.' The small creature disentangled itself from among the leaves to stand forward, miniature and yet unmistakably human, clad in tatters of brown and grey which blended with the bark of the tree as might the skin of a lizard or the wing of a moth. 'You might have said "rose," or "lily." Something graceful. Why "turnip"?'

'What is this?' wondered Thewson. 'Is this uno-li, little man? Or ulum-li, little god, spirit of this place?'

'Oh, my dear sir, we are the freakery of Yenner-po-tau which is downriver. We are the oddities of Po-Bau, beneath you on the plain. We are the cast outs, the cast offs, the Separated ones, one might say. When the Gahlians came, not long since, pounding on their great gongs and making their horrid noise, it was to one purpose the casting out of those unlike the others. Can one doubt we are unlike? It was a thing generally understood, indeed, enjoyed by many. I like your word, uno-li. Yes. Little men. Little women, too, of course.'

'There are more of you?' asked Jasmine.

'Not as many as one would wish,' the little man said sadly. 'Five persons do not make a society, no matter how fond they are of one another. There are five, myself, who am named Po-Bee, and there is Doh-ti, who is my friend. Then there is Barstable Gumsuch, for he insists upon keeping that name which he was given first in the cacaloquious purlieus about the River Wayle, far to the north. Then luckily, there are Mum-lil and Hanna-lil, womenfolk of our kind.'

'All one family?' Jasmine said, puzzled.

'Oh, no. Rather the offspring of ordinary folk, gathered together by Gaffer Gumsuch for comfort and mutual companionship. There have always been little people born from time to time along the River Nils. We had families of big folk. I was very fond of mine.' He fell into sad and musing silence.

'The Gahlians did not try to kill you?' asked Thewson. 'We know that they sometimes kill those cast out.'

'Oh, they might have got to it, in time,' said Po-Bee. 'Though they would have had trouble finding us. We had some warning. Even our families do not know where we are, lest they be forced to say. We are small, hidden, difficult to see unless we wish it. Still, we must have food, and if we plant fields, the Gahlians could find them. We have not had to face that yet. Our kin still leave food along the edge of the forest for us. And we have met others ... who might help us in a pinch.'

'You have not been here long.'

'Some days. I fear we have lost count. Something won-drously mighty must have happened in the world, for the Gahlians began to swarm like ants. When? Midwinter time. Yenner-po-tau fell first, so we brought the Gaffer, Doh-ti, and Mum-lil from there. Then, only a little time later, they came to Pau-bee, but by that time we had searched out our refuge. Such as it is, and if the bear that owned it does not return untimely. We came away of our own will, hot wanting harm to come to our kin. Some others were sent out less willingly.'

'Then you have not met a full winter yet,' said Thewson. 'Not a full winter.'

'No, great sir. Nor do we consider that eventuality with pleasure. Still, it is warm at the roots of the trees, and there are furry brothers of the wood who manage one way or another.'

They remained in confrontation, the tiny man with his head cocked, regarding them in friendly caution, the mighty warrior leaning on his spear, considering the other with wonder and respect. Finally, Thewson grunted, 'Will you take food with us?'

'I assume that the invitation, though extended in brief and laconic terms, is intended to include those others of my people who might wish to accept your kindness?'

Thewson did not follow this at all, but Jasmine laughed. 'Indeed, Master Po-Bee. To you and all your kind, welcome.'

If the others of the company were shocked or surprised, they hid it well. Only a flaring of nostrils betrayed Lain-achor, a brief widening of eyes the others, as Thewson entered their clearing followed by five small people, Jasmine close behind them. Po-Bee came first, with Hanna-lil on his arm, dusting a rock with his kerchief before seating her ceremoniously. Doh-ti and Mum-lil came hand in hand, nervously, keeping a way open between the larger people and the forest edge. Barstable Gumsuch came last, stumping along with his cane, wrinkled face peering upward at their staring faces, muttering, 'Well, well. We are not such strange sights as that. Well, who is it, now? People from the Choir of Gerenhodh, they say. I have been to Gerenhodh, and have met members of other Choirs, too. Well, what have we to drink?'

They drank together, marvelling at the old man's capacity, leaning across their small fire to hear the stories told by the smaller people. Doh-ti, the tallest of them, stood no higher than Thewson's knee, but he could out-talk the warrior, twenty words for one. Barstable Gumsuch could out-talk them all.

Barstable Gumsuch had been born near Bywayle, a townlet in the Aresfales, to a stolidly unimaginative family who refused for many months to believe what had happened to them. The people of Aresfale did not hold with the number nonsense current in Anisfale, so Barstable's oddness was not laid to his birth order in the family. None suffered on his account, and at last his parents had to admit that Barstable was a very tiny person who would likely never get much bigger. Full grown he stood as tall as his father's boots and weighed no more than the large housecat with whom he was at some pains to live in friendship as it had the unmistakable advantage in natural weaponry. He was fortunate that the family considered him more a being of wonderment than an occasion for shame, but it was still an unenviable life to be so small. Life in the Fales was synonymous with sheep. No sheep, no life at all, no mutton, no wool, no milk, no cheese. Barstable was not large enough to spin the heavy yarn of the Fales in any quantity, not strong enough to milk or to shear, not massive enough to herd, not so quick or clamorous as the dogs, not really very useful. Or so, at least, he told them.

He became an amusement, a little being which did not eat all that much, who could be set on a table at weddings and feasts to make little speeches and sing little songs. More out of boredom than anything else, he learned to read through the kindness of a local oracle who had not much else to do. He grew to like long words and flowery language, which set him apart still further from the society of the shepherds.

When he was seventeen, he left the Fales, leaving no message behind. They would have thought it likely he had been eaten by a fox or taken by an owl, and they might have mourned a little. Actually, he had stowed away in the back of a peddler's wagon, not disclosing himself until the peddler was far along the trail toward Seathe and the River Lazentien. He offered his services to the peddler, very sensibly, in gathering crowds around the wagon, and the peddler accepted the offer. It worked to their mutual advantage for many years.

Barstable found a little wife in Jowr and lived with her happily for some decades. They were not blessed with children of their own, but now and again they took up a littling like themselves, raised it and settled it in some part of the known world. In Pau-bee, during one winter of exceptional cold and fevers, his wife had died. Barstable lost heart for moving then. Instead, he stayed in Pau-bee, just upriver from Yenner-po-tau, among the fragile people of the Nils, feeling as at home in that place as he had ever felt. In Pau-bee, he found Po-Bee, and in Yenner-po-tau he found Doh-ti, and also Hanna-lil, and later he found Mum-lil in the hamlet of Lau-Bom. They called him Gaffer Gumsuch, and the five of them lived mostly together in a house cut to their size, doing work of delicacy and great craftsmanship. They became weavers of repute, and Bar-stable almost forgot the language of the Fales to become one of the people of Po-Bau, until the Gahlians came.

'And now we are here,' he concluded. 'With Mum-lil expecting a child, living in a bear's house, wondering what is to become of the world.'

By common consent the larger people did not talk of moving on that afternoon. Instead, they sat about, talking with what Thewson insisted on calling the unuzh-li. Jasmine asked to see where they had been living.

It was a dry, sandy cavern beneath the kneed-up roots of the tree, fringed above with fine, hairy rootlets and lighted by tunnels which angled sunwards. Jasmine could get in without difficulty, but she had to crouch against the wall while she peered with curiosity at the finely woven rugs which covered the floor, at the loom which made a quiet clacketa-clacketa under Hanna-lil's hands.

'This is a rabbity burrow, Gaffer.'

'It's dry,' he said. 'Dry and reasonable for warmth. We got the loom in piece by piece, and we don't complain.'

'We could take the loom,' she said. 'Pack it on one of the horses. If you'd come with us.'

'Likely we're settled here.'

Jasmine fell into an old accent. 'Come winter wind howl, old'un, thy bones will cry cold.'

'Not going to be warmer where you're going.'

'No warmer, na, but safer. What do if Gahlians come lookin'?'

''Sa problem,' he admitted, sucking at his teeth. 'Wouldn't like being cut about by the Gahlians. Wouldn't like to think of Mum-lil bein' cut about.'

Jasmine straightened herself. 'Thewson is very strong. The men with us are woodswise. Chances are that we will get on north and find what we are looking for without any trouble. With us, you would all have a good chance.'

'Likely.' Gaffer poured himself a cup of steaming tea. The other small people watched and waited. Jasmine could not tell what they were thinking. In the loom the fabric grew inch by inch, a fine, natural wool with a shifting pattern of pale green.

'Could I learn to do that?' she asked. 'I would like to do that.'

'I don't know why not,' said Gaffer. 'We will teach you on the way.'

So the decision was made. When they left the clearing in the morning hours, the loom parts were wrapped in carpet on the back of Thewson's horse, and one of the little people rode before each of the others. For the first time, Tin-tan trotted along behind them on his own four feet beside his foster mother, the goat.

They passed by the village of Lau-Bom, crossed an expanse of grassland throughout the afternoon to come by evening to one of the forested mounds which were scattered across the Rochagam, the trees ending at its edges as though trimmed with a knife. Here they made camp beside a bubbling spring, Daingol and Dhariat preparing a meal while the others busied themselves. Po-Bee and Doh-ti played at dice with Gaffer, one very bad throw bringing remonstration from Po-Bee.

'Pray to Peroval to forgive you,' he said sententiously to Doh-ti. 'It is not stiffness from riding but lack of practice which makes you fumble the dice.'