The door from the yard opened again and Kerkol came in, followed by Zirek.

"Sorry I'm late in, lass," he said to Clystis. "Had a bit of trouble with two goats got out down the bottom. I was on gettin' 'em back and then I had to mend the gap they'd bin through, see?"

He stopped to rinse his head and shoulders in the tub.

"I'm afraid we've got to leave you tomorrow, Kerkol," said Zen-Kurel. "It's a pity, but there it is. I'm fit enough now, you see, and we've got important business elsewhere. We're going to miss you all, and that's a fact."

Kerkol nodded stolidly, dried his face and sat down at the table.

"Ah, well, that's it, then." He paused. "Place won't seem the same, will it, lass?" Then, to Bayub-Otal, "Reckon we'd best have a bit of a drink on it, sir, while she's gett'n' us some supper. Fetch a drop of djebbah up, Blarda lad, so's we c'ri drink good luck to 'em all."

89: INTO THE FOREST

Later Bayub-Otal asked Maia, Meris and Zirek to accompany him down to the stream. The night was clear and star-lit, with a faint breeze from the east and a scent of planella from Clystis's little patch of garden. Of the comet there was no longer the least trace. Maia, who ever since her childhood had been alive to the progress of the seasons with an apprehension almost as unconscious as that of birds, felt sure that it could not now be much longer until the rains.

Bayub-Otal sat down on the ground, looking from one to another as he spoke.

"What we have to get clear now, I think, is where we're making for: I mean, where each of us wants to go. As you know, Zen-Kurel wants to get back to Terekenalt and I mean to return to Suba. What about you, Zirek? You're a Tonildan, aren't you?"

"Well, I don't know as that really comes into it, sir," he answered. "Specially just at present, when no one knows what's going to come out of all the fighting. I'll take my chance with you; as far as Lapan anyway. Then if Lord Santil's still in business, I'll go and join him-that's if you agree. Only I've got a notion he might be quite pleased to see them as killed Sencho; he's got a reputation, you

know, for not being mean to people who've done him a good turn."

"Yes, he has," said Bayub-Otal, "and after all you've risked and suffered, both you and Meris are fully entitled to whatever he'll give you. Well, that's clear, then."

With a certain air of embarrassment he continued, "And have you thought, Maia, about where you're going?"

She had indeed. She wanted and intended to go wherever Zen-Kurel went; and if she could not, she did not care what became of her.

"It's all one to me, Anda-Nokomis," she said. "Perhaps I may think of something later." '

"But do you want to try to reach the Zhairgen with us?" He was just perceptibly impatient.

"That'll do as well as anything else. Will you excuse me if I go to bed now? I'm very tired." And she turned away without waiting for a reply.

When they came to set out the following morning, it was clear that Zen-Kurel must have been giving thought to the importance of maintaining at least a civil working relationship with the two girls. He greeted both of them courteously if rather distantly, and went on to say that he thought they could hope to reach the Zhairgen that evening.

"Of course it won't be like twelve miles in open country," he said. "It'll be rough going in the forest, I dare say, but we can make sure of keeping our direction by following the Daulis downstream. Even if we do have to spend a night in the forest, we shall be able to manage all right. A fire's the great thing. I was once three nights in the Blue Forest in Katria, and that was quite bearable."

They had become his soldiers, thought Maia, with secret, fond amusement. He felt it his responsibility to look after them, to show no favorites, to set an example and raise everyone's confidence. In some respects she felt so much older than he. Probably it was as well that for now things should remain as they were; impersonal and matter-of-fact. Anyway, he should have all the loyalty and help he would permit her to give him. She would act her part of the dutiful follower, even though she suspected that in his courage and ardor he might very well be leading them all into grave danger. Reckon I've caught love like I was ill, she thought. I couldn't stop loving him whatever hap-

pened, whatever he did. I've got to suffer it, but I'll be damned if I'm going to show it.

Bayub-Otal was his usual chilly, composed self. His great virtue, thought Maia-one more likely to appeal to men than women-was his consistency. He could always be relied upon to be much the same, whether in good fortune or bad, in danger or out of it. She could well imagine that he must have been a tower of strength to his friends in the prison at Dari-Paltesh.

Meris seemed subdued-even anxious to please. That was the pathetic thing about Meris, thought Maia. It was as though she really couldn't help the things she did. So then someone hit her or humiliated her and she became quite a nice girl-for a while. She wondered how deeply Zirek felt about her. Despite all they had undergone, she was still very beautiful; and obviously, as Zen-Kurel had conceded, indisputably possessed of courage and endurance.

Zirek himself struck Maia as being in a mood of well-masked apprehension, when Zen-Kurel's back was turned he winked at her and mimed the action of tossing a coin, catching it in his palm and turning it over on the back of the other hand. Then, pretending to uncover and look at it, he stared up at her with an expression of comical dismay.

Their farewells were brief but sincere. Kerkol and Blarda wished them luck and Clystis gave them what food she could spare. Maia gave her an extra hundred meld, embraced her and wished her the perpetual favor of the gods. Then they set off across the pasture in the direction of the river.

They reached it about two hours later, just as the day was growing hot. The bank, though rough and lonely, was fairly open. The river was about twenty yards wide and certainly deep. Despite the time of year, there was no bottom to be seen. There was indeed a good, steady current, but nothing so swift as Zen-Kurd's account had led Maia to expect.

"No crossing that, you see, Anda-Nokomis," said Zen-Kurel in a conclusive tone.

"And no point, either,' replied Bayub-Otal, "if we can reach the Zhairgen without."

They turned downstream, picking their way through gradually thickening scrub and now seeing ahead of them tiie outskirts of the forest, dark against the growing glare

of the southern sky. "It'll be cooler once we get in there," said Zen-Kurel, slashing at the flies with a broken-off branch.

The approach to the forest consisted of fairly close brush and, beside the river, wide patches of dried-up reeds and cracked mud, which at any other time of year would have been impassable. These they pressed through, putting up great clouds of gnats which tormented them, following them about in front, as Zirek put it, and settling on their necks and arms. Once Meris startled a bright-green snake, which whipped between her and Maia and was gone before either of them had time to feel afraid-of that particular one. ›

Emerging at length from the further side of this marshland, they found themselves at the foot of a long, gradual slope, so thickly overgrown that they could not really see how high it might be. To the right of this the river wound away among tangles of undergrowth until it was lost to sight.

"We mustn't lose touch with the river, Anda-Nokomis, if we can help it," said Zen-Kurel, "but the best thing will be to get up this ridge and then go down and pick up the bank again. We'll be able to see more of the lie of the land from the top."

They began to climb. Maia, who had started a menstrual period the previous morning and now had a headache, was beginning to feel thoroughly out of patience. Damn these fools who couldn't swim! There-just there-was the river- safe, smooth, cool and free from flies. She could easily have been three or four miles down it in an hour.