He had already stopped to listen, his head cocked, both hands grasping the knobbed staff. No wind had blown, or so it seemed to him, since he had been returned to the Long Sun Whorl; but a wind touched both his cheeks, warm and moist and fetid. Hoping Pig could hear him, he whispered, "Something's listening to us or for us, I believe."

"Huh!"

"Where is it, Oreb?"

From his shoulder, Oreb muttered, "Bird see."

"Yes, I know you see it. But where is it?"

"Bird see," Oreb repeated. " 'Bye, Silk."

Feathers brushed the side of his head as Oreb spread his wings. Clawed feet pushed against his shoulder, those wings beat loudly, and Oreb was gone.

Pig said, "Yer corbie's right, bucky. 'Tis a godlin'. Pig winds h'it. H'in ther road h'up h'ahead, most like."

Something hard tapped his shin, and Pig's hand clasped his shoulder, feeling as big as his father's when he himself had been a small child-a sudden, poignant memory. That big hand drew him to one side. At his ear, Pig's hoarse voice muttered, "'Ware ditch, bucky."

It was shallow and dry, although he might easily have been tripped by it if he had not been warned. A twig kissed his hand; he forced himself to close his eyes, although those eyes wanted very badly to stare out uselessly at the utter darkness that wrapped him and them. "Pig?" he breathed; then somewhat more loudly, "Pig?"

"Aye."

"What are they?"

There was no reply, only the big hand drawing him deeper among whispering leaves.

"Oreb wouldn't tell me. What is a godling?"

"Hush." Pig had halted. "Hark." The hand drew him forward again, and for an interval that seemed to him very long indeed, he heard nothing save the occasional snap of a twig. Trees or bushes surrounded them, he felt sure, and from time to time his questing staff encountered a limb or trunk, or some motion of Pig's evoked the soft speech of foliage.

A faint and liquid music succeeded it, waking his tongue and lips to thirst. He hurried forward through the blackness, drawing the towering Pig after him until gravel crunched beneath their feet and he sensed that the water he heard was before him. He knelt, and felt a gracious coolness seep through the knees of his trousers, bent and splashed his face, and tasted the water, finding it cool and sweet. He swallowed and swallowed again.

"It's good," he began. "I'd say-"

Pig's span-across hand tightened upon his arm, and he realized that Pig was drinking already, sucking and gulping the water noisily, in fact.

He drank more, then explored the stream with his fingers, trying to keep their movements gentle so as not to stir up mud. "It's not wide," he whispered. "We could step across it easily, I believe."

"Aye." There was a hint of fear in the deep, rough voice.

"But the godling-whatever that is-shouldn't be able to hear us as long as we remain here. Or so I think. The noise of the water should cover the sound of our voices."

He bent and drank again. "I pumped water for a woman who had bandaged my wrists not long ago. It was good, cold well water, I believe, and I almost asked her for a glass. But we were about to eat so I thought, at least-and I told myself I wasn't really so thirsty as all that. I must learn to drink when I have the opportunity."

He recalled Pig's chance remark about drinking, and added, "Drink water, I should say. I thought I had learned that on Green, where there was rarely any water that was safe to drink except for what certain leaves caught when it rained."

"Bird find," a harsher voice even than Pig's announced.

"Oreb, is that you? It must be. What have you found?"

"Find thing. Thing hear."

"Did you? Good. Where is it?"

"No show."

"I don't want you to show it to me, Oreb, and I couldn't see it if you did. I want you to tell me how to avoid it. We were going to Viron, or at least I certainly hope we were. Is this thing, this godling, standing in the road waiting for us?"

"No stand. Thing sit."

"But it's in the road? Or sitting beside it?"

"On bridge."

Pig broke in. "H'oreb, me an' Horn's partners. You an' me, H'oreb, why, we're partners ter, h'ain't we? Yer Wallow such?"

"Good man!"

"Not too loudly, please, Oreb." He drank again.

"So, H'oreb, Pig needs yer ter tell where we're h'at. Will yer? 'Tis h'another road, wi' this trickle across?"

"No road."

"A medder, H'oreb? Might find coos hereabouts, would yer say?"

"No cow."

"Huh!" Pig sounded impatient. "How can Pig get him ter tell, bucky? Yer know him."

Oreb answered for himself. "Say woods."

"'Tis where we h'are, H'oreb? H'in a wood? Canna be."

"In woods," Oreb insisted. "Silk say."

"My name is Horn, Oreb-I've told you so. I believe he's correct, Pig. We're in a wood, perhaps on the edge of a forest." He paused to search his memory. "There was an extensive forest north of Viron when I lived there. A man named Blood had a villa in it, as did various other rich men. This may well be the same forest."

"Felt yer trees h'all 'round, bucky. Could nae touch 'em, an' such could nae touch me, h'or would nae."

"No doubt they're large trees, widely separated."

"Ho, aye." Pig's rough voice contrived to pack an immense skepticism into the two words. "Big trees hereabouts, H'oreb?"

"No big."

"Not close, they be? Ane here an' h'other h'over yon?"

"All touch."

"H'oreb can tell where they're h'at an' where they hain't. Do yer h'object ter lendin' him h'out, bucky?"

He rose. "I suggest we follow this stream instead. Streams frequently go somewhere, in my experience. Are you coming?"

"Bird come. Go Silk." Oreb settled upon his shoulder.

"Pig ter, H'oreb. We'll gae h'along wi' Horn."

He heard the big man's knees crack, and said, "Then let us go in silence, if you won't tell me about the godlings."

"Dinna hae naethin' ter tell yer, bucky. 'Struth. Pas sends such ter make folk gae ter yer h'outside places."

For some time after that they walked on without speaking. Now and then the tip of the knobbed staff splashed water; now and then the end of the leather-covered brass scabbard rapped softly against a trunk or a limb; but for the most part there was silence, save for the rasp and rattle of gravel beneath their feet and an occasional warning uttered sotto voce by Oreb, who at length offered, "No see."

"The godling, Oreb? Are you saying you no longer see it?"

"No see," Oreb repeated. "Thing watch. No watch."

Oreb's voice had sounded strangely hollow. The tip of the knobbed staff, exploring left and right, rapped stone. "We're in a tunnel of some sort."

"Aye, bucky." Those words reverberated slightly as well.

He stared into the darkness, half convinced he could make out a lofty semicircle of lighter black before them. "There are tunnels everywhere, do you know about them, Pig? Tunnels of unimaginable length and complexity underlying the entire Long Sun Whorl."

"Huh." Nearby in the darkness, Pig's softly re-echoing voice sounded understandably doubtful.

"I was in them long ago. One must pass through them to reach the landers, which are just below the outside surface. The first Oreb was down there as well, with Auk and Chenille."

"Bad hole!"

"Exactly. But I certainly hope you're right when you say the godling can't see us in here."

"Dinna harm folk," Pig muttered, "h'or nae h'often."

"We may be in those tunnels. If so, we're approaching a cavern such as the sleepers were in. Look up ahead. I can see something there, I swear." Without waiting for Pig, he hurried forward-then halted, stunned with wonder and terror.

To the north and south, the skylands spread in splendor far greater than he recalled. Against their magnificent display, above the bridge under which he had passed, he saw silhouetted shoulders like two hills, a smooth, domed head that might have filled the farm woman's kitchen and sundered all four walls, and bestial, pointed ears.