It would not bring back Mim. Mim was buried by now, cold in the earth. He could not imagine it, could not accept it, but it was true.

He was weary of tears. He ran, pushing himself to the point of collapse, until that pain was more than the pain for Mim, and exhaustion tumbled him into the wet grass all but senseless.

When he began to think again, his mind was curiously clear. He realized for the first time that he was bleeding from an open wound—had been all night, since the assassin’s blade had passed his ribs. It began to hurt. He found it not deep, but as long as his hand. He had no means to bandage it. The bleeding was not something he would die of. His bruises were more painful: his cord-cut wrists and ankles hurt to bend. He was almost relieved to feel these things, to exchange these miseries for the deep one of Mim’s loss, which had no limit. He put Mim away in his mind, rose up and began to walk again, steps weaving at first, steadier as he chose his direction.

He wanted nothing to do with the villages. He avoided the dirt track that sometimes crossed his way. As the day wore on and the warmth increased he walked more surely, choosing his southerly course by the sun.

Sometimes he crossed cultivated fields, where the crops were only now sprouting, and the earliest trees were in bloom and not yet fruited. Root-crops like staswere stored away in the safety of barns, not to be had in the fields.

By twilight he was feeling faint with hunger, for he had not eaten—he reckoned back to breakfast a day ago. He did not know the land, dared not try the wild plants. He knew then that he must think of stealing or starve to death, and he was sorry for that, because the country folk were generally both decent and poor.

The bitter thought occurred to him that among the innocent of this world his presence had brought nothing but grief. It was only his enemies that he could never harm.

Mim stayed with him. He could not so much as look at the stars overhead without hearing the names she gave them: Ysime the pole star, mother of the north wind; blue Lineth, the star that heralded the spring, sister of Phan. His grief had settled into a quieter misery, one with everything.

In the dark, there came to his nostrils the scent of wood-smoke, borne on the northwest wind.

He turned toward it, smelled other things as he drew nearer, animal scents and the delicious aroma of cooking. He crept silently, carefully toward the fold of hills that concealed the place.

There was no house, but a campfire tended by two men and a youth, country folk, keepers of flocks, cachiren.He heard the soft calling of their wool-bearing animals from somewhere beyond a brush barricade on the other side of the fire.

A snarled warning cut the night. The shaggy tilofthat guarded the cachinlifted its head, his hackles rising, alerting the cachiren,they who scrambled up, weapons in hand, and the beast raced for the intruder.

Kurt fled, seeking a pile of rock that had tumbled from the hillside, and tried to find a place of refuge. The beast’s teeth seized his ankle, tore as he jerked free and scrambled higher.

“Come down!” shouted the youth, spear poised for throwing. “Come down from there.”

“Hold the creature off,” Kurt shouted back. “I will gladly come down if you will only call him off.”

Two of them kept spears aimed at him, while the youth went higher and dragged the snarling and spitting guard-beast down again by his shaggy ruff.

Kurt clambered down gingerly and spoke to them gently and courteously, for they prodded him with their spears, forcing him in the direction of the firelight, and he feared what they would do when they saw his human face.

When he reached the light he kept his head down, and knelt by the fireside and sat back on his heels in an at-home posture. The keen point of a spearblade touched beneath his shoulder. The other two men circled to the front to look him over.

“Human,” one exclaimed, and point the point pressed deeper and made him wince.

“Where are the rest of you?” the white-haired elder asked.

“I am not Tamurlin,” said Kurt, “and I am alone. I beg you, I need food. I am of the Methi’s people.”

“He is lying,” said the boy behind him.

“He might be,” said the elder, “but he talks manlike.”

“You do not need to give me hospitality,” said Kurt, for the sharing of bread and fire created a religious bond forever unless otherwise agreed upon from the beginning. “But I do ask you for food and drink. It is the second day since I have eaten.”

“Where did you come from?” asked the elder.

“From Nephane.”

“He is lying,” the boy insisted. “The Methi killed the others.”

“Unless one escaped.”

“Or more than one,” said the elder.

“May the light of Phan fall gently on thee,” Kurt said, the common blessing. “I swear I have not lied to you, and I am no enemy.”

“It is, at least, no Tamurlin,” said the second man. “Are you house-friend to the Methi, stranger?”

“To Elas,” said Kurt.

“To Elas,” echoed the elder in amazement. “To the sons of storm,—a human for a house-friend? This is hard to believe. The Indras-descended are too proud for that.”

“If you honor the name of Elas,” said Kurt, “or of Osanef, which is our friend,—give me something to eat. I am about to faint from hunger.”

The elder considered again and finally extended an arm in invitation to the meal they had left cooking beside their fire. “Not in hospitality, stranger, since we do not know you, but there is food and drink. We are poor men. Take sparingly, but be free of it, if you are as hungry as you say. May the light of Phan fall upon thee in blessing or in curse according to what you deserve.”

Kurt moved carefully, for the spear was surely still at his back. He knelt down by the rock where the food was warming and took one of the three meal cakes, breaking off half; and a little crumb of the soft cheese that lay on a greasy leather wrap beside them. But he used the fine manners of Elas, not daring to do otherwise with their critical eyes on him and the spear ready.

When he was done he rose up and bowed his thanks. “I will go my way now,” he said.

“No, stranger,” said the second man. “I think you ought to stay with us and go to our village in the morning. In this district we see few travelers from Nephane, and I think you would be safer with us. Someone might take you for Tamurlin and put a spear through you before he realized his mistake. That would be sad for both of you.”

“I have business elsewhere,” said Kurt, playing out the farce with the rules they set and bowing politely. “And I thank you for your concern, but I will go on now.”

The elder man brought his spear crosswise in both hands. “I think my son is right. You have run from somewhere, that much is certain, and I am not sure that you are house-friend to Elas. No, it is more likely the Methi simply missed killing you with the others, and we well know in the country what humans are.”

“If I do come from Djan-methi, you will not win her thanks by delaying me on my mission.”

“What, does the Methi send out her servants without provisions?”

“I had an accident,” he said. “My mission is urgent; I had no time to go back. I counted on the hospitality of the country folk to help me on my way.”

“Stranger, you are not only a liar, you are a bad liar. We will take you to our village and see what the Afen has to say about you.”

Kurt ran, plunged in a wild vault over the brush barricade and in among the startled cachin,creating panic as their woolly bodies scattered and herded first to the rocks and then back toward the barricade, breaking it down in their mad rush to escape. The tilof’s sharp cries resounded in the rocks. The beast and the men had work enough at the moment.