One afternoon Kretzel became bored with the Song. Complaining of cankerous gums she threw the pipes to a shelf. "Let them kill me; what difference does it make? I am too old to fight; I know the Song, so they stay my death, and I do not care; my bones will never know the soil of Durdane. You are young; you have hopes. One by one they will go, and nothing will be left but the bare fact of life. Then you will discover the transcendent value of life alone… We have been through much hardship; we have known cruel times. When I was young they bred their copper warriors and trained them to spawn in human women, for what purpose I never knew."

Etzwane said, "I know well enough. The Roguskhoi were sent to Durdane. They devastated Shant and several great districts of Caraz. Is it not strange? They destroy the folk of Durdane, and at the same time capture them to use as slave warriors against their enemy."

"It is only another experiment," said Kretzel wisely. The Red Warriors failed, now they try a new weapon for their war. " She peered over her shoulder. "Take your pipes and play the Song. Polovits watches for slackness. Take heed of Polovits; he likes to kill. " She reached for her own pipes. "Ah, my poor, tortured gums! This is the nineteenth canto. The Sah and Aianu use raho fibers to wind rope and dig coral nut with blackwood sticks. You will hear both the schemes for blackwood and for rough wood employed in a rude scratching action, as is general usage. But you must carefully play the little-finger flutter, else the scheme is 'visiting a place where the quagmire may be distantly seen from Canto 9635."

Etzwane played the pipes, watching Polovits from the corner of his eye. Polovits paused to listen, then turned Etzwane a flinty glance and continued on his way.

Later in the day, during calisthenics, Polovits suddenly exploded into fury: "Crisply then! Do you de test exertion so much that you cannot put your hand to the ground? Never fear, I am watching, and your life is as fragile as a moth-shell. Why do you stand like a post?" "I await new orders, Corporal Polovits." "Your kind is the most venomous, always with a glib retort just short of insolence! Don't indulge in dreams of glory, my Song-playing virtuoso, you won't evade the worst of it! I assure you of this! So now: a hundred high leaps, for your health's sake; let them be agile, with a fine twinkling of the heels! "

In calmness and gravity Etzwane obeyed as best he could. Polovits watched with grim intentness, but could find no fault with the efforts. At last he turned and strode away. With a faint smile on his face, Etzwane returned to Kretzel's little office and practiced the nineteen cantos he already knew and learned the melody to cantos Twenty and Twenty-one from the reproducing machine. He would discover the semantic significance in due course.

Etzwane conducted himself with care, but Polovits was unrelenting. Etzwane's patience wore thin, and he decided to take positive action. Polovits, by some uncanny means, divined the fact of the decision and thrust his angular old face close to Etzwane's. "A dozen men have thought to best me, and can you guess where they lie at this moment? In the great hole. I know tricks you never heard of! I'm just waiting for a single insubordinate move, then you will learn the folly of proud attitudes on this sad world Kahei."

Etzwane had no choice but hypocrisy. He said politely, "I'm sorry if I have given offense; I want only to remain inconspicuous. Needless to say, I am not here by my own choice."

"You waste my time with your witticisms," bawled Polovits. "I intend to hear no more! " He strode away, and Etzwane went to practice the Song.

Kretzel inquired as to his lack of zest, and Etzwane explained that Polovits was about to take his life. Kretzel gave a whinny of shrill laughter. "That spleenful little dingbat; he's not worth the rumble of an ahulph's gut! He won't give you to death, because he's afraid to speak a lie. Do you think the Ka are fools? Come, I will teach you Canto 2023, wherein the stave-cutters kill a stone-roller because he dented their moss. Then you need only play the eleventh phrase should Polovits so much as raise a finger. Better! Tell old Polovits that you are rehearsing the Canto of Open Inspection, and that you consider his conduct slack. To work. Polovits-is of no more consequence than a bad smell."

"Gastel Etzwane," said Polovits, during the morning calisthenics. "You move with the grace and agility of a pregnant grampus. I cannot accept those kneebends as accomplished facts. Has your well-known musical virtuosity rendered you absentminded? Well, then, answer! I count your silence an insolence. How long must I suffer your slights?"

"Not long at all," said Etzwane. "Yonder walks a Monitor; summon him. By chance I have here my pipes and I will play the Canto of Open Inspection, and we shall have justice."

Polovits' eyes seemed to burn red. His mouth slowly opened, then snapped shut. He swung around and made as if to summon the Ka. As if by great effort he restrained himself. "So then: he takes you and half this band of club-footed cretins to the hole; how do I gain? I only must start again with a group as bad. We are wasting time! Back to the calisthenics; once again the kneebends. Smartly now! " But Polovits spoke somewhat pensively and refused to meet Etzwane's gaze.

Kretzel asked Etzwane, "How is Polovits now?"

"He is a changed man," said Etzwane. "His tirades have ended, and likewise his tantrums; he is now as meek as a grass-tit, and the drills are almost a pleasure."

Kretzel was silent and Etzwane once again took up the pipes. He noticed a tear rolling down the brown folds of Kretzel's cheek, and lowered the pipes. "Has something occurred to distress you?"

Kretzel rubbed at her face. "I never think of home; I would long since have been dead had I mourned. But one word stirred a memory and brought it to life; and I thought of the meadows above the Elshuka Pond where my family held a steading. The grass was high, and when I was a little girl I worked long burrows through the grass and surprised two tits at their nesting… One day I burrowed a long tunnel through the grass. When it broke open I looked up into the face of Molsk the Man-taker. He took me away in a sack and I never again saw the Elshuka Pond… I have no great time to live. They will mix my bones into this sour black soil, when I would once again be home in the sunlight."

Etzwane blew a pensive tune on the pipes. "Were many slaves on Kahei when you came?"

"We were among the first. They used us to build their Roguskhoi. I evaded the worst of it when I learned the Song. But the others are gone, save a few. Old Polovits, for one."

"And in all this time has no one escaped?"

" 'Escaped'? To where? The world is a prison! "

"I could take pleasure in doing general harm, if I were able."

Kretzel gave an indifferent shrug. "Once I felt the same way, but now-I have played the Great Song too many times. I feel almost a Ka."

Etzwane recalled the occasion at Shagfe when the Ka captive had destroyed Hozman Sore-throat's asutra. What had triggered this spasm of violence? If all the Ka of Kahei could feel the same impulse, there would be no more asutra. Etzwane became conscious of how little he in fact knew of the Ka, of their way of life, their innate character. He put questions to Kretzel, who at once became cross and advised that he apply himself to the Great Song.

Etzwane said, "I know twenty-two cantos; there are more than fourteen thousand yet to be learned; I will be an old man before my questions are answered."

"And I will be dead," snapped Kretzel. "So then, attend to the mechanism; hear the double quaver at the end of the second phrase. This is a common device and signifies what is called 'vehement assertion.' The Ka are a brave and desperate people; their history is a series of tragic plights, and the double quaver expresses this mood, the challenge flung into the face of destiny."