The Thassa did not, as the plainsman, try to gather portable wealth. When we had more of any one thing than we needed, we left the surplus at one of the ingatherings for those who lacked. Our beast shows brought us many tokens, but we did not build up reserves from them. For we considered them a form of training for both animal and Singer. They also gave us more reason for a roving life.

But to lay up any treasure and guard it—that is foreign to us. And if we had done it in the past, before we left our cities, we had forgotten it.

As we began once more our slow journey to the Valley, I asked of Krip Vorlund, "What is your greatest treasure? Gems? Or some other rare thing?"

"Do you mean mine personally, or what is so regarded by my people?"

"Both."

"Then I shall answer you with one word, for with both me and my people it is the same—a ship!"

"And you gather naught else besides?"

"What we gather, and it is as much as we can of the treasures others want, it is only that we may finally spend all we have so garnered for a ship of our own."

"And how many of you ever achieve such?"

"Perhaps as many as find lordships on Yiktor. The struggle is as hard, though in another way."

"You—do you believe you will ever have this treasure?"

"No one willingly loses any dream, even when the point of being able to realize it is past. A man, I think, continues to hope for good fortune until he dies."

We camped that night, but not for the whole space of darkness, only for a few hours. I watched the moon rise, but I made no move to draw its power– not then. One cannot store it too long, and to tap it and be forced to loose it before using it to any advantage is a stupid waste. So I did not raise my rod, nor did I sing outwardly or inwardly. All that I did was to aid the kasi with thought power when and where I could.

The moon hung low when we came to the lip of the descent into the Valley. And, as was always true at nighttime, the mist covered thickly, hiding whatever might lie below. From where I sat I could see no change, no sign that any danger had passed this way. But my sight was very limited.

I heard the barsk stir, looked back to see he struggled to get to his feet. I restrained him with an outflung hand.

"We are above the Valley. Lie you still, rest while you may."

"You are going down?"

"I shall take precautions." I brought out my rod. The moon was not at its height, but it was there. I began a deep song, an inward chant, and the kasi started down into the Valley.

KRIP VORLUND

XVII

When I first awoke and knew that I was still alive, tended by Maelen and once more in the Thassa van, it seemed that the dream in which I had been caught had come full circle. There was an acceptance in me, the kind with which one faces incongruities met in a nightmare, wherein nothing surprises. But I came to learn during the following hours that this Maelen was one I had not met before. I now saw Maelen not unsure, but rather as one to whom duty had become the lead star of life. And, in spite of my own need to know what must be faced, I could never press past certain boundaries she held.

As we descended into the mist-cloaked Valley, she kept the van to the exact center of the road. I read in her mind that those precautions or defenses which she had spoken of could well be our undoing even though we came in peace. That they had been the bane of those we trailed was a hope we shared.

Another worry nagged at me. Though my mind was alert, yet the body housing it was weak and would not obey my commands. Were we to be attacked I could offer nothing, not even in my own defense. I could lift my head, stretch my legs as I lay upon the mat. But if I drew a deep breath pain followed and there was a languor, which came and went, to disturb me. Maelen had healing powers, that I knew, but would they succeed with the wound in my breast—? There was good reason to believe that Osokun's blade had bitten too deep, and that survival in my present body did not mean recovery.

I had gone to seek death when I had trailed Osokun and his sword-sworn, the shock of the news Maelen brought from Yrjar sending me into that temporary madness. But there is planted, at least in my own species, a stubborn resistance to the end of existence. And now a small measure of hope bulwarked what spirit I had. The alternative Maelen suggested had possibilities. Equipped with a Thassa body, I could indeed return to Yrjar. The Traders shared a consular representative on the planet; I had met him when the Lydis landed. I could go to Prydo Alcey, state my case, let him send a message to Captain Foss. It ought to be easy to frame some message such as only Krip Vorlund could send to certify my identity. Then, with my own body returned, another switch and I would be truly myself.

Of course there were many pitfalls between this present moment and that to-be-wished-for result. And several might lie directly before us. I tried to move, to lift my heavy head and loose-muscled body so that I might see over the driver's seat. But I could accomplish nothing and lay panting and weak, alarmed at my state.

It was only when I lay so that I became aware that Maelen was engaged in more than merely directing the kasi down the road. There was an aura about her which tugged at mind—send powers. I was lying now so that I could watch her profile, her half face stern and set. Her hair was not piled in elaborate rolls as it had been at our first meeting, but bound about her head smoothly as to form a silver helmet. And the arabesque of ruby and silver which had then been on her forehead was gone. Now her eyes were half closed, the lids well down as if her gaze turned inward, or on other things than the sights of this world.

But there was such a brightness on her face as to dazzle me a little. Was it the moon against her very fair skin, or did some of it come from within, the reflection of power stored there? Always before I had seen the human in the Thassa; now she was more alien than any of the animals with whom I had shared life and battle these past few days.

"Taking precautions," she had called this. "Arming" was the name I would set upon it. I dropped my heavy head. I could no longer see her; yet the consciousness of her, how she sat, what she did, was so with me that it was as if I continued to watch her.

There grew up about us a new sensation as the van rumbled on—a kind of warning. It was as if some scout on a distant hill waved away our advance. As we did not heed that warning the uneasiness grew sharper, feeding into the mind a shadow of foreboding which became steadily blacker. Whether this was one of the defenses of the Valley, I could not tell. But apparently it did not affect Maelen, or swerve her from our advance.

I heard the child stir uneasily beyond the blanket, making small sounds of distress. But whether she slept and dreamed ill dreams, or waked to find them reality, I did not know. For I was ridden now by my own distresses. Lassitude in me was growing. At moments it was clear where I was and what was about me, at other times I swung out into a void of nothingness where the resulting giddiness frightened what sense I had left. And I could not tell whether the mists which fuzzed my sight when I tried to fasten on some part of the van were of the real world or born of my increasing weakness.

The journey was endless. Time vanished, or rather the measurement of it did. I lay in the van and heard the whimpering of the child– I was gone—as if– rested on a shuttle racing back and forth weaving a future which eluded me.

Around, the air throbbed and beat—in time to the swing of the shuttle which bore me? No, this was a pulsation which broke that rhythm, anchored me in the van. Then I heard a sound which was part of that beat, a chant, I thought. It did not come from Maelen, but from the Valley, and it grew louder with every forward step of the kasi.