Over, in, and around the mutilated flesh other movement now showed. It appeared as if a number of b.a.l.l.s were bouncing, gathering on the other side of the stream from Tam and Climber.

Water flowed between my sister and these new arrivals, yes, but the stream was shallow. Perhaps the ball-things could either leap it or swim.

Cilla crowded against me, and her hand closed on the fork handle.

With that implement in her hand, she struck out before me to trot along the right-hand bank towards Tam and Climber. When I would have followed her, though, my bare feet slipped on slick clay and I went down, trying to save my burden as I fell.

Midway between Tam and me, Cilla halted. Her stance was now that of one holding a hunting spear, save that the shaft of the fork was so short that she had difficulty readying her cast. Nevertheless, she hurled the improvised spear with force and, unwieldy though it was, it struck home. One of the round creatures that had indeed taken to the stream squeaked in long, drawn-out notes, then tumbled back into the reeds along the water's edge. It struggled but appeared unable to clamber out. The fork had gone with it.

Cilla had taken out one of the attackers, but she had, in turn, lost her weapon. Just as I reached her side, her Send came.

"Feed me!" She pushed against me until our shoulders touched, skin-to-skin.

I turned the Send into Power, and Cilla drew from me. We had done this sometimes in the past when a course of action demanded great strength, but never in an hour of such need. I swayed under the drain of my energy, as force flowed from me.

Her right hand was held high; however, the weapon she called upon was no spear. Each finger wore a blue flame, even as does a lighted candle. I watched my sister snap-flick that flame at each of the b.a.l.l.s in turn.

Screeches rent the air as flames settled in the ma.s.s of hair covering the ball-beasts. The Power drain from me increased. I caught at the trunk of a sapling, fore-scout of the wood, and held desperately, dropping the sack at my feet, intent only on providing what Cilla needed.

By now I was dizzy, and only the young tree supported me as Cilla's hand fell heavily to her side. No more screeches sounded. All that remained were small fires scattered about, puffing forth nauseating smoke.

I cannot remember how we pulled ourselves to Tam and Climber, but we did and I managed to use my training in the treatment of wounds. Tam had suffered no bodily hurt, but her face was drawn and haggard, her eyes half closed. A probe told me that, as had Cilla's and mine, her normal energy had been far depleted.

She told us her tale of the battle at intervals, visibly rousing her flagging strength after each pause. Cilla held out her own hand and moved the fingers separately, crooking, then straightening them.

"How-?" She might have been asking that question of herself rather than of us.

I finished spreading a cream of herbs squeezed in oil onto Climber's cuts. Now I raised my own hands to stare at them. I considered the invocation, which I had never used before, in my own spontaneous gestures before the statues in the cave. Though I had not used any known or trained part of my Talent then, I must have awakened the same force Tam and Cilla had just used against living enemies.

Now I looked to Tam and then to Cilla.

"What have we done?" I asked. I had always kept in mind the instructions of our mother and of Duty: do not try to use Talent except in ways lawful and wholly understood. To use unwittingly Power that needs firm control may be equal to calling upon the Dark.

Still we had done this, and it had taken its toll of us. We all moved slowly, finding further action difficult.

Cilla As Bina worked over Climber with Tam's help, I stirred around, gathering up two water-washed tree limbs of some girth. Then I pulled loose vines, which were clumsy to handle, but could be forced into a kind of netting between the deadwood lengths. It was a difficult task. My right hand-I stopped now and then to inspect it, still in awe of what I had unconsciously done-scarcely obeyed me.

The heavy stench of the dead monsters made it increasingly hard to breathe, while the water, now running past the bank on which we crouched, was polluted to the point that some small forms of life were rising to the thick broth on the surface belly up.

Bina sat back on her heels. Climber lay inert, his head still resting on Tam's knee where she had supported him during Bina's ministrations. His eyes were closed.

"How is he?" I asked.

Bina did not turn around as she answered, "I have done all that I could without proper materials."

Tam sat up a little straighter "We had best get him back to safety. There well may be other scavengers."

Thus we carried him, Tam and I holding the poles of the stretcher, while Bina held up her greasy hands, being unable to rinse them in the polluted stream. To speed us on our way, we heard a rustling in the brush, undoubtedly heralding the arrival of other and perhaps even more dangerous inhabitants of the wood.

We did not enter the stream until the water ran clear, though the foul smell traveled with us. However, we were able to pa.s.s through the archway in the cliffside without any more trouble.

Climber was still limp as we carefully shifted him onto a nest of bedcovers. Feeling as if we had traveled long on a rough trail, we too sank down around him.

My hand ached and trembled. I could see that both of Tam's shook as she held them up before her, staring at her fingers while crooking and relaxing them. Bina watched both of us with growing concern.

She had washed her hands thoroughly in warm water near where the spring bubbled from the wall. Now she shifted a couple of pots and a flask. As if to rea.s.sure herself, she uncorked the flask and held it to her nose, nodding decisively.

"Let me-" It was not a request; it was an order.

Tam stretched out her hands as Bina poured one thick clot of oily substance, then another, onto them. Setting aside the flask, she began to ma.s.sage them, working the rich salve into Tam's skin.

With a sigh, Tam closed her eyes until Bina was done and all the greasy ointment had vanished. At a signal, I moved near and put out my hand, ready for the same treatment.

Tam roused as though from a doze. The look of contentment she had worn a few moments earlier was gone.

"He makes his point harshly," she said, frowning.

I was startled. "You think that Zolan somehow brought about all this?"

"How better," Tam returned, "to learn the range of our powers? He doubtless knew that we would not be bound here once he had left, but that we would return to the cliff if we could. There are different traps, and some are self-concealing. How could a flier attack prey native to the treetops, where wings could not be used?"

"And if you had failed to stop the thing?"

Tam grimaced. "He might have expected us to run. We were close to his own place of safety."

"If-?" I said slowly as Bina worked her ointment into the skin between my fingers. "Was he here watching?" I demanded.

Tam shrugged. "That could well be."

"But Climber is-close to him-" However, with the thoughts Tam had aroused active in my mind, I was no longer sure of even that.

"Climber." Tam drew her hand over the round head of the creature we hoped lay in natural sleep. "The flier may be a natural enemy of his kind. Seeing it on the ground and deeply occupied, he could not perhaps have been constrained from attack."

Having completed her ministrations, Bina locked arms around raised knees. Her expression was sober.

"What game have we been pulled into? There is is Power here, but of no kind we know. Is it centered in this Zolan, or is there another who wishes to test us?" Power here, but of no kind we know. Is it centered in this Zolan, or is there another who wishes to test us?"

The faint but restorative smell of some herb I could not name arose from my now dry hand, to expel the last lingering odor of evil blood. I could well follow the logic of Tam's reasoning. Had we not yet learned to take nothing for granted-we who believed first in common safety and thereafter in not being playthings of the Dark?

"The report of Lord Quark," I said. That account had been my reading on the last day we had spent with the material our father had left for us. "It spoke of witchcraft-evil summons."

The idea was foreign to us, trained as we were in the use of Talents and the perfecting of those for the common good. Our teachers insisted that Power used for evil purposes corrupted, destroying the user's spirit, so she or he became emptied and rendered ready to be filled by all that was abhorrent to our kind.

Lord Quark had married a Gurly wife. She had suddenly lost her wits, attacking her sister with a snaplock. Afterwards she swore that she had heard spirit-voices that urged her to act. Under superst.i.tion aroused by the Hermit-priest of the new religion, she had been burnt as a follower of the Left-hand Path.

Minds are precious things. There are very strict rules for any Talent that is centered, as ours was, in the mind. My head began to ache. All this was only guessing on our part. What if there was no truth in Tam's suggestion as to what had happened? What if it had all befallen only by chance? However, one dared not accept that possibility either.

Climber's eyes opened and he whimpered. Bina went to the stream and dipped up a small basin of water, then brought it back and held it while he drank.

However, he had lapped only twice when his head came up. A moment later, from the shadowed end of the cave, where falls formed the stream, Zolan came into full view.

His eyes were centered on Climber as he came directly to us; then that intense stare shifted to the three of us. His lips were set in a hard line as he barked rather than spoke.

"How did this happen?"

Tam got to her feet to face him squarely, arms folded across her breast. That she would be our spokesperson was best, for the end of a battle had been hers.

"Need you ask?"

His frown grew darker. "I ask for what I do not know."

My sister met him eye to eye. "You have told us," she began, "that paths are limited here and dangerous. If you came by the stream trail, then you know well and truly what we had to face. If you got in otherwise, it was by some secret way you have not shared with us.

"We wished to seek that portion of the cliff down which we were forced. We have good reason to believe that our father will arrive there. We have no desire to linger in the Dismals-already we have seen more of what can be met here than we wish."

His cheeks were flushed, his eyes afire. "You were told-no," he changed his sentence. "You have the freedom to search what is not openly before you. But I take it you went forth and met danger. How did you draw Climber to join you in recklessness?"

Being careful not to come any closer to either Tam or Bina, he went on his knees beside the beast, setting both hands to either side of that red-furred head and raising it that he might stare into the great golden eyes.

I could sense a stir-there was a Send in progress between them. The exchange held for some time. Bina carried her various improvised medicaments back to the shelves, where she placed them together a little apart from the other stores arrayed there. Tam, still facing Climber and the man, retreated to seat herself within touching distance of me. We continued to watch and draw deep upon our store of patience.

At length he once more settled Climber's head back into the nest. Still he continued to watch the creature as he got to his feet.

Finally he gave us his attention. "Who-what are you?" are you?"

Tam was prepared to answer, speaking as if she must explain to some questioning child. "We are, as was told you, three daughters to the Earl of Verset. As to what we may be-we are also of the Scorpy line, and we were born with the Talent and have been lessoned in its use-though what came to us this day was greater than we have known before. Now-who and what are you you?" She fired that query in the crisp tone of a squad commander who must be answered whether the questioned one wishes or no.

A strange look came into Zolan's face. His left hand arose, and its fingertips traced the faint path of an old scar.

"I am the Protector," he said slowly. "This is my land, and I must know what walks here. Other captives have been delivered by men of blood- even a woman and a child. But none of them lived long, and also they did not have what you claim as Talent.

"You believe that I set the urgle on you, do you not?"

He spoke to Tam grimly, hostilely, then eyed Bina and me. After a pause he continued: "Your belief has a twisted logic: if I am what you think me to be, would I not test you openly, pitting my inner strength against yours?"

Tam did not answer him, though she continued to hold her head high so she could meet him gaze for gaze. It was Bina who spoke instead.

"Now is no time to play with questions, Protector. We started to go where we might meet with those who care for us. Instead, our path was blocked by deadly creatures already in battle. Tam finished them; Cilla dealt with the scavengers. It should certainly be plain to you that we did what must be done for our own protection." She drew her hand down the length of her scaled jerkin.

"By this stuff I am able to guess that not all perils of the Dismals are insects grown to fight on equal terms with our breed. What else do you herd here, Zolan?"

"Much which you would not understand, Lady of the Scorpys. As for meeting with your father and his armsmen-there is no hope of that."

"And why not?" I asked, still nursing my hand against my breast. I continued to feel a ripple of heat running through the flesh Bina had treated.

"Because those searchers have come-and gone."

I shrank back. Was that the truth or rather a lie intended to destroy our courage?

"You have been here," he continued, "some four days. Since you were exhausted so fully when you came, you slept. On the second day, a party of hors.e.m.e.n came along the clifftop. Those who left you had destroyed the ropes for lowering or climbing. This other party stayed a full! day, lighting fires at night. In the evening of the second day, they rode away. Did not your 'Talent' reach to them?" he added. "They went easily enoiugh."

"To return," Tam snapped, "with what will be needed to aid us! Scorpys care for their own. Or will it be your task, Zolan Protector, to rouse the monsters of this dark land against them if they try it?"

I shivered again. Her words created a mind-picture that sickened me.

He shrugged. "I know only that they are gone. You do not begin to understand the nature of the Dismals-compared to the life you knew, its ways are strange and dangerous. But you must accept that you are here, and here you will stay-"

Tam held up her hand as evidence. "We believe your beast has told you what I did with two of these. Our weapons are not man-made but are woman-born, honed and ready. We shall give no bond that we will remain here any longer than it takes us to find a way out."

Again he shrugged. "So be it. However, if you go searchinig for such a way, then I must be with you, as is my duty."

"No doubt," Bina said crushingly, "you will also make sure that we shall be made aware of the very worst of the fates awaiting us."

To my utter surprise, he laughed, not in anger but as if she had told some jest.

"Lady Scorpy, you are very adept at belittling or bad-naming me. No, this much I will say." He swung around to face the seated beings by the shelves as if to attract their their attention. "I will see as best I can that no urgles will swoop, nor crunchers spin to web you." attention. "I will see as best I can that no urgles will swoop, nor crunchers spin to web you."

There was that in his voice that made me believe him, and that trust raised in my mind another question. He announced himself as a Protector, but those with such duties were always liege to some overlord whose commands they followed. Whose orders carried weight here?

We were uneasy, yet we must needs accept his promise for the time being. We could not tell how far the Dismals stretched, but I krew, without discussing the issue with Tam and Bina, that time was going to be spent in exploring. Unless our father would return with the equipment for descent- Our host might have caught my thought, for I had no ward up. Now he looked directly at me.

"Proof exists for them that such a search would be useless."

I called up one of those clear memories, rooted in the Talent, to picture the spot where we had literally been dumped. It was open, with gravel flooring it, and no brush spread wide enough to conceal us.

"The blankets!" Tam was on her feet.

"Yes, the blankets," he agreed. "Torn as they were by Climber to set you free, they must present from above the look of having been mauled by beasts who would also have accounted for the three of you."

So logical was that suggestion that we were forced to accept it. But the deeper truth, which we need not allow him to learn, was that Mother and Duty would know we still lived. Had we been torn out of bodily existence, they would have felt our going at once, for so does Talent link to Talent in a family line. No, they would sense that we were not dead.

Send touched me from two directions. My sisters likewise held that hope.

Thus we looked forward to uncertainty, danger, the need to stand unshaken in a strange land where we could not imagine what might await us.

Eleven.

Tamara