We shuddered now at Whitewing's story; Tiath Gargan had never come so close.

Roy probed a little. "Is it certain this devil did not ...

drown?"

"Tiath's hunters saw it flying down," said Whitewing eagerly. "The Great Elder will give land-t.i.tle to any Family that delivers up the flying goblin, dead or alive."

"That is a great reward." Roy was cunning. "Perhaps Mamor and I might try . . ."

"What?" creaked Whitewing. "With no Luck in your house? Hunt a devil?"

"Why do you tell us then?"

"Out of friendship." Whitewing grinned like a wolf.

"Hunter Geer will catch the devil. Tell us if you see any prowling thing."

"None," said Roy, "before you came.~1.Whitewing's pink eyes blazed. "Take care! If the devil is not found ... who knows what Strangler Tiath might do in his wrath?"

"We need not fear him!"

"You must!" Whifewing took a step into our tent, but thi Harper blocked his way. "Your Luck has died. You an accursed. If the devil is loose, your ill-fortune will keep u from finding it. Tiath Pentroy is a devout follower of th old threads."

"Our prayers for Odd-Eye's journey are not ended!

growled Roy. "Leave us in peace ... or you blasphem against our Mother, the North Wind."

"Remember my warning . . ." Whitewing drew bac]

hovering for a moment outside our tent. Then through sli and watch-holes we all saw the creature run flapph through the snow towards Hunter Geer's tent, under tl rock wall.( 24 ).

( 25 ).We doused our candlecones and talked in the dark. Poor Diver came out from the covers confused and still more confused by the way we clapped hands over his mouth to silence him. There was a terrible struggle to communicate, but he accepted that danger was about and sat mute.

"We must leave!" said Marnor. "This night, rain or snow. Our good fortune depends on it." He dug me in the ribs and rattled the mat-loom; I went on taking it to pieces.

Brin was already packing her scrolls and skeins into one of the hide bags.

"Strangler Tiath . quavered old Gwin, "will he come after us?"

"Not likely," said Brin. "We have more to fear from the weather."

"You don't know," Gwin whined. "You've not seen the Pentroy's handiwork. Trees strung with the dead, like rotting fruit!"

"We must leave, Mother!" urged Roy. "What if they searched this tent? Then we are in trouble with Tiath Pentroy, and our Luck is dragged into Rintoul as a devil."

"We must leave word for Hunter Geer," said Brin. "We have gone in order to leave him a clear field ... to take away our accursedness."

"The Luck wants his pocket vest," said Narneen. "He is patting about for it."

We gave Diver his vest, thinking he was hungry for more chocolate, but instead he performed another of his miracles.

He produced something from a pocket, and there was light ... a marvellous cool circle of light, better than a candlecone, coming from a small gray rod. We sat in amazement; then Mamor began to dismantle the two great looms while Brin and Roy rolled and sorted the finished work. Gwin fussed in case there was fire-metal-magic at work; but I tapped the case of the magic light, and it was not metal. It was not wood either but something like horn or crab sh.e.l.l. Wonder of wonders, Diver had two of the magic lights, and he gave me one to hold. He showed me how to work a sliding catch on the shaft and turn the light on and off.

Then he gestured to me. "Why?" I believe he even had the word. Why were we alarmed, packing up, talking so urgently in the dark? So while the Family labored around us in the familiar ritual of packing, Narneen and I labored with the explanation. Danger! Armed va.s.sals with spears, ropes ... ropes for hanging. Diver drew on his paper, we tried to draw. New words crackled around Diver's head, but he took it in. And all the while he and I held the magic lights and spotted them in the exact place that they were needed.

Suddenly Diver stood up, excited; I would have sai~ afraid. Of what? Our spinners, poor creatures, that Brir was popping one by one into their sack with a few ends ol deer meat ... they hardly ate in winter, they were sleepy We laughed and explained and showed him the skeins o silk and a finished piece of work from Old Gwin's lao loom. He understood and drew a picture of some smalle variety of spinner. Yet he had a horror of these harmles things. We brought him the largest one to stroke, the on called Momo or Cushion, and it was all he could do to plac: his hand on its soft hairy back and look at its st.u.r.d, spinnerets. His face was stiff with loathing, like Old Gwi come upon a pile of sharp knives beside a blazing fir( Narneen made Old Gwin's averting sign for Diver ... an he understood; we all laughed again.

By the middle of the night, we were packed up; the tei was an empty sh.e.l.l with all our gear shrouded in its cente The weather was holding, just; a fine flurry of snow, but r wind. Old Gwin believed her prayers were being ai swered. We were wrapped and shod; Diver had a clo,, m.u.f.fled over his suit and vest, and his boots were exceller Our heavy stuff-the folded loom boards, the work roll the wool sack-was packed onto the sled, and the way w( 26 ).

( 27 ).clear. We stood in shelter, without light, while Brin and Mamor took down six panels of the tent. We would leave the other three between us and Hunter Geer as a shield.

Roy was weaving a message skein; he gave me careful instructions. When the Family had pa.s.sed through the break in the glebe wall and descended onto the track we had chosen, I, watching, would slip across to the Hunter's tent and leave the skein under the flap weight-stones.

So I stood watching as they all went over the edge. I stole along, crunching a little on the snow and thinking of Whitewing. I got the skein down under the weights and was on my way free and clear when a terrible sound rang out. A hunting horn at the western gate! Torchlights!

Armed va.s.sals! I ran blindly into the ruin of our tent, fifty paces from the breach in the wall, across a clear expanse of snow, marked with the tracks of our Five. The party had entered the glebe; voices were raised-there was movement in Hunter Geer's tent, and movement too in the breach of the wall. I longed to cry out to my Family, urging them to stay back.

When I thought I saw my chance, I dived across the snow. There was a cry; two va.s.sals with spears came after me. I was hard held against a leather breastplate with the Strangler's device of three knots. I struggled, kicking and biting in blind panic.

"It's no devil!" panted one va.s.sal. "Just a child!"

"Hold the brat!" said the other. We were halfway between the ruined tent and the open glebe. There was a frightening shout, and Diver came through the breach in the wall. He raised his hand, and a reddish beam glowed in it. The guard on my left was dashed into the snow. Again, with the same glow and crackle the other guard was struck, taking me down too.

"Dorn!" It was Diver calling my name. I jumped up and ran to the breach in the wall. Mamor was with Diver, and he dragged me through; we went slithering and bouncing down to the track beyond. We did not wait to see what the search party made of Diver's attack; in fact it had been hidden from them. They would find two guards flattened, that was all. The Family was waiting, and with hardly a word we went down Hingstull at a breakneck pace. Old Gwin rode on Roy's back; Narneen was lying on top of the sled, like a package. We raced on down, driven by a rising wind, pressing through the cold scrub and the snow-filled hollows among the stones until at last Brin said: "We musi rest now."

"A few paces more," said Mamor, whose track it was "This is Stone Brook. I have a cave."

So we came to the cave, jolted and weary, and presse4 into it. We laid down the tent fabric and used the ligE sticks to help settle ourselves. Everyone was bone weaq Diver looked sick again and lolled against the wall of th cave. I did not dare ask him, or try to ask him, what w,, uppermost in my mind. Were the va.s.sals dead? I askc Mamor, and he thought not ... the va.s.sals were on knocked unconscious. I was still shaken by the thought ol weapon with so much power.

Brin sat in our midst, as usual, resting her back ai drawing great breaths.

"All right?" asked Roy. He was concerned for the hidd child; too much running could unsettle it.

"Fine," said Brin. "This one will have an early showinj think." As if to answer her, the child whimpered. We took this as a sign of good fortune. Gwin twitched bi Brin's vented robe to let the air come to the child. Diver the light, had a look of extreme bewilderment. We m signs to him ... child ... rocking it in our arms, but still did not seem to comprehend. He signed or si "Where?" and we pointed to Brin and said, "There course," but he shook his head.

The child whimpered again, and Brin had to reach di( 28 ).

I.as mothers often did before the showing, to settle it to the teat. Diver's curiosity overcame him, and he crawledforward."Well, you are our Luck," said Brin, smiling, 44so I willshow you.""What's bothering the Diver?" asked Mamor. "Doesn'the know where children are nurtured?""Perhaps his people are different," suggested Roy.

"What difference could there be?" said Gwin. "Show the Luck quickly, so the child won't take cold."So Brin, in the magic light, let Diver look into her pouch and see the hidden child, settled into its milky sleep again.

She had already given Narneen a look, and I rememberedseeing Narneen before her showing. It as the av wewere taught.Diver learned his lesson and drew back, shaking his head as if he had seen a miracle. He talked in his own language and laughed and shook his head and, for some reason, stroked his chest. Then he made signs to each of us in turn, and guessed, correctly as it happened, which we all were ... female or male. I was certain, by this time, that Diver was different from us in ways we could not imagine . .wavs that concerned both life and deathOur link with him was frail, yet already there was trust between us. We turned back to the Diver and he to us after each revelation. He needed us, certainly; what could he do in an alien place, for all his magical devices, alone on a mountain with hunters out after him? We needed him too . . . although this might be harder for city folk to understand ... because he was our Luck and in spite of all his strange magic, not because of it. The bond that was woven was the simple Family bond that had brought all the Five together. Now Diver, whatever he was, had becomepart of it.Presently we lay down to sleep in our cave while the( 29.

snow came down. Next day it was so bad that both hunters and their quarry had to remain under cover. It was a holiday of sorts, because we could do no weaving. We sat and ate chocolate in the cave at Stone Brook, teaching Diver more and more new words, while he drew us pictures.( 30 ).

THERE IS A ROAD winding down under the cliff below Stone Brook. It meets up with the brook below the falls and leads down into Cullin, where the brook joins the great river, the Troon. On the third day we had made certain plans; Harper Roy and I set out for Cullin. We had come to a way down the cliff when we heard voices, a chant, drawing nearer on the road. The Harper looked through the snow- laden trees and whistled. "Diver must see this!"

I ran to fetch the Luck from the cave, then we crouched out of sight as the party of armed va.s.sals came singing and chanting down the road below us. They were carrying Diver's air ship between poles in a huge transport net. It must have been heavy, for it took twenty Moruians to carry it, but I was surprised to see that it was such a small thing.

Its shape was like a rounded fish, and it was patchy silver in color. The light bounced off it as it rode in the net; there were streaks of charred blackness on its surface as if it hadcome from the fireDiver watched it go by and we watched him, doubtful, in case the sight of its capture might make him restless or sad. He watched the procession with narrowed eyes, then asked, "Where?" The Harper told him Cullin, the place we were bound for, to spy out the land. I took Diver's arm and( 31 ).

pointed again. A litter was being carried down after the air ship. A rich palanquin, with ruby-red hangings, quilted with white silk cord-a ridiculous carriage for the moun- tains. The crest was the one we had first seen, star and spindle, which Gwin named as Galtroy; but the va.s.sals, most of them, had worn the crest of three knots.

"Flitterling!" scoffed the Harper. "Some fancy-wor~ friend of Tiath Pentroy. That grand equipage will gei soaked if the bearers miss their footing." Diver wantec badly to go after his ship. He could speak enough now t( say "Follow ... follow . . ."

I begged him not to leave us, holding his arm in case h, should scramble down the cliff. He exchanged glances wiC Harper Roy, the sort of glances grown-ups exchange ove the head of a child, and I felt foolish, but I knew he did n( mean to leave us. The Harper and I took him back to tE cave and we talked a great deal, quickly, about the mattei with poor Diver looking on and occasionally putting in word.

"Danger . fussed Old Gwin, the Luck will I found ... the va.s.sals will carry him off!"

"Not so!" said Mamor. "You've bleached his hair, Gwi m.u.f.fle him up, he'll pa.s.s unheeded."

"Our main object was to consult Beeth Ulgan in tl matter," said Harper Roy. "Why not present Diver to I in person? It would test a Diviner's art to describe c Luck."

"Let him go with Dorn and Roy," said Brin. "Take 1 skein I wove to the Ulgan, Roy, and show her the Lu She has, besides wisdom, all kinds of secret knowled Beeth will know where the air ship travels."

Diver smiled and kissed her hand. She put her hand his head ... bleached brownish-red by Old Gw whiteclay ... and reminded him of his bond. He firmed, solemnly, in the way he had, one hand on his cb one lifted, palm outward. This is because his pe(( 32 ).

consider the heart, in the left side of the chest as the organ of loyalty . . . while we swear with our heads and eyes,I.Old Gwin, still fussing, made Diver,dress in moun a n clothes and leave off his blue suit. He would not be parted from his pocket vest, but with a gray tunic, fustian leggings and one of our enveloping frieze cloaks, with the black hood, he looked like a Moruian. His eyes and voice might give him away, but nothing else. Diver produced a pair of dark gla.s.s goggles, like the grandees wear in the snow, and Gwin drew out a blue knit scarf-mask and put it over the goggles. A tall weaver stood amongst us ... with maybe a t 11 f M: .4 Qouc o snow n ness. o we were on our way again, less than an hour behind the carriers and the spriv, of Galtro inWe kept up a good pace once we had reached the slipperysurface of the road. The weather had been holding so wel for the past day that I began to believe, as I did every yea at that time, that we had turned the corner; the numberecdays on Brin's skein were reaching towards the spring. Th Harper put a hand over his shoulder and struck a note o two to help with his singing. Then Diver began to sing, in sweet voice, quite different from his usual growl, and th( Harper tried to learn this foreign melody. It was the "Son of the Cheerful Walker" and Roy was just beginning to fit words to it, as he did later with many of Diver's songs. This is not so easy as it sounds, for though the notes of our two sorts of music are similar the beat of n"r r n cr%rtc nSo we three went singing down the mountainside unti there was a strange cry and the Harper drew us up short.We came round a bend and the road ahead as block,-dgreat clump of snow. It had come from an overhangingand landed squarely on the palanquin. There was no sign of the va.s.sals transporting the ship-they had gone blithely ahead leaving their n.o.ble travelling companion who knows how far behind.

We rushed up and began digging with our bare hands.

The Harper called out respectfully to rea.s.sure the en- tombed grandee. I began dragging out one of the bearers; Diver tried for another. Through a round hole, like a window in the snow, a penetrating voice ... two voices ... a whole pouchful of grandees besought our aid. It is strange that the more civilized our people become the louder they talk.

"Easy!" said the Harper. "The roof of the litter is just holding."

He managed to clear a s.p.a.ce at the narrow end of the palanquin: he slashed the fine hanging with his knife and gently tamped down the snow to make a way out. Out they came, the pair of them: two fall personages, not much shaken by their ordeal. Their finery made me gape ... I had never seen such furs and jewels and leather work. I knew the fine silk-woven wool of their cloaks had brough, some weavers a year's food.

The taller one wore a black travelling wig and snow goggles trimmed with brilliants.

"Thank you, brave weavers, a thousand times ... Com along Tewl . . . where are those blistering wretches in th convoy ... Rilpo Rilproyan Galtroy!" This was accomp~ nied by a flourishing bow.

The Harper bowed too. "Roy Brinroyan, called Tun gan, the Harper." Tewl was willowy, aristocratic, wit hair blonded at the crown and curled up at the edges.

noticed the pallor of their skins, the movement of their lor hands, like birds.

"Don't stare!" said Harper Roy. He helped drag n bearer clear; a st.u.r.dy va.s.sal with a broken neck. Stoi dead.( 34 ).

The Harper said to the grandees, "This bearer has taker flight, Highnesses."

I stood dismayed in the presence of death, but Rilpo anc Tewl knelt down in the snow examining the bearer tender ly. Hands fluttered, they talked aloud with no self.

consciousness. Meanwhile Diver gave a m.u.f.fled cry; his bearer was alive and unharmed.

Diver and the Harper drew out the limp form, feeling for broken bones but finding none. The bearer was short and st.u.r.dy with that breadth of shoulder that va.s.sals get in their heavy work.

"Omor," said the Harper, "an empty one."

"Is it?" I had never seen one.

"Omor?" whispered Diver. The Harper and I were at a loss to explain but we tried; an empty one is a female who deliberately bears no children. There are none in the mountains; they are usually va.s.sals of the grandees in the capital or mineworkers in Tsagul, the Fire-Town. They have a reputation for being very strong, and this seemed to prove it.

"How is poor Tsammet?" inquired Tewl, striding round the heap of snow.

"Living . . ." said Roy.

To prove his point, the drenched omor took another heaving breath and sat up cursing. The name was a fiery one . . . with the hateful fire-sound of Ts . . . and Tsam- met had a blistering tongue.

"Sorry Highness . she growled, "couldn't duck that one."

"Glad you're alive, child," remarked Tewl. "Thank these mountain folk who were pa.s.sing. Your stablemate Gwey was not so lucky."

We helped Tsammet up, cursing sadly for the loss of the other bearer.

"Thanks, gentle friends .she murmured. "Where'si( 35 ).

the flaming convoy?" She caught the Harper's eye. "Get my lieges out of this trouble. It'll be worth your while."

"We'll help," said the Harper.

"What's wrong with your big sib here?" she said, peering at Diver. "Don't it talk?"

"Not much," I said. "Poor thing has a thread loose but quite gentle."

"Help me Tsammet tried to walk, but an ankle buckled. "Flaming hot blistering sprain . . ."

We helped Tsammet around the snow drift and all huddled there, grandees, two va.s.sals, one dead, weavers and Diver, our newcomer, out of the rising wind. Rilpo, I saw, had folded the dead one's arms and laid a red mourning skein on the cold forehead.

"Highness . said Harper Roy, "is there a convoy ahead?"

"A long way ahead by now," said Rilpo. "Any sugges- tions? Fit us a tune to this perilous situation, Harper."

"The child will run on down," said the Harper, who hac'

already worked things out to suit our own perilous situa, tion. "Dorn can meet the convoy and send back strength to dig out the litter and bring down your lost bearer."

"So far so good," said Rilpo. "I don't fancy a long wait ii the cold."

"By no means," said Roy cheerfully, "but one of you Highnesses must take turns with the other at riding on m back. My sib, poor stupid Diver here, will carry Tsamme, your wounded dependant."

"Fine! Fine!"

Tewl clapped long hands. "Anything we need from tl litter, Rilpo?"

"No!" cried the Harper. "Pray you .

the thing ... it may collapse at any moment."

"Ah well . . ." Tewl was dissuaded.