Some fears Duun set into him for a reason; at this one Duun would laugh, Thorn felt that this was so— and Duun's scorn was worse that the heights, worse than any falling. He hoped now for Duun's approval… the quickly hooded glance, the tightening of the mouth— for such small things he worked, but they had meaning. The slap that stung— that was a joke; Duun joked with him, and dared him, and that meant— meant perhaps an end to Duun's restraint with him— Duun's pity. Duun's— (he felt)—disgust with this place and what had brought him to it. (Forgive me, Duun-hatani. Forgive me for all of it. For us being here. For me being helpless and disappointing, and, gods— don't be angry, Duun.) Duun poked him in the belly. Hard. Thorn withstood that. He centered himself, expecting— some sudden move. A blow that could take his head 76

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off. Because Duun knew he could turn it. Thorn thought of that. Suddenly he was not thinking of the blow; timing-sense deserted him and he shivered, flinched, knowing it. And Duun saw that too.

"Where's the mind, Haras?"

Thorn centered himself again. Duun walked around behind him. Thorn's ears strained. He listened to the soft sound of Duun's tread on sand. His own rapid breathing dimmed his hearing and endangered him. He did not move until he heard Duun on his left, then turned his head, pursuing the movement which teased the tail of his eye.

Slowly Duun extended his right hand toward Thorn's face— (Attack?) Thorn's heart jumped and in a critical moment the hand had passed his reaction-point and he let it, let Duun touch his jaw. A two-fingered grip settled gently on either side, where no one's hand belonged but his teacher's, but the slow-moving hand too quick for him if he should move.

He was vulnerable to that. He knew it. He cherished it. When Duun discovered weaknesses in him he attacked them, but this was the allowable one, this one was his safety that kept the games all games. Duun never took that away. Duun's dark eyes were on a level with his own, poured force into him, like the dark of night, like the dark and all the stars in which he whirled and perished.

"What is your need,Haras-hatani?"

(O gods, Duun— don't.)

"What is your need,Haras-Thorn? Why did I get through your guard? To what are you vulnerable? Name me that thing."

"You, Duun-hatani. I need you."

The grip hurt. Bruised. "What am I to you, minnow?"

Words failed him. The grip grew harder. Gentler then. The eyes shifted, let him go and he could blink. Duun drew his hand back and Thorn was shaking.

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"You understand what I did to you, minnow? You understand how easy it was? Do you think I could do it again?

(Duun holding him by the fire, Duun touching him, all the warmth there was. Not to be touched again. Not ever to allow that to Duun or anyone—) Tears stung Thorn's eyes. (Your eyes are running. Do that tomorrow and I'll beat you.) "Yes," Thorn said. His chest ached. "Yes, Duun-hatani.

Right now you could."

Duun's eyes on his. Dark and deep and cold as the artificial night. A second time Duun's hand lifted. (I'll hurt you this time, Thorn.) Thorn lifted his hand ever so slowly and opposed it. Duun seemed satisfied.

Walked around him again and the skin of Thorn's back crawled. His buttocks tensed. Once more to the side and in front of him.

Like a lizard-strike this time. Thorn flung up his hand and palm hit palm with a slap that echoed. No force then. No pushing, from either side. Duun signed with his other hand. Thorn accepted it, maintained wariness while Duun disengaged his hand and put it behind him.

Inviting a strike. (Try me, fledgling.)

"I'm not a fool, Duun-hatani."

"You're less one than you were," Meaning the matter of the farmers, Thorn thought. It was all in these days Duun had ever hinted on the matter.

"I'm not ready, Duun-hatani."

"The world doesn't always ask if you're ready, Haras. It's not likely to."

Duun set his hands in his belt. "You're going to have other teachers. Oh, I'll be here. For now. But there'll be others. Other young people. They're not hatani. They know you are."

(People like me, Duun? Are any like me?) But the question hung in his throat. ("What do you need,Haras-hatani?") It was deadly. It opened him up in ways he knew better than to confess. "When?" he asked. (Duun, I don't wantother teachers.)

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( Want,minnow? Do I hear want?)

"Tomorrow. Mind, don't show off. You'll be better in some ways, worse in others. You're good in math; you'll learn to work new ways— not in your head, this time. On machines. They're not hatani. If you hit one of them you'd kill him. Do you understand that? Your reactions are too quick. And they don't know how to stop you. So your reactions have to be quicker. To keep from reacting at all— Do you understand that? Lay down the knife.

Lay it down when you're with these people. Let yourself be open. So.

Stand still." A third time Duun reached toward his face. Thorn's hand lifted— stopped in indecision. (Trick? Or what he means?) He let Duun touch his jaw, let the touch trail down and beneath it. "That's good," Duun said. And drew the hand back again. "Remember that. They're like that.

None of them could stop you. None of them would have a chance. None of them know how to stand, how to move. They won't touch you. That's the one thing they'll understand. Even if they forget that— don't react.

Understand, Thorn?"

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VII

They were five: Elanhen, a youth whose back had black tipping on the gray, broad of shoulder, with a wary eye turned to the world and a diffident and ready grin; he was first and easiest in his manner (wisest, Thorn thought: the manner is all he gives the world, he keeps all the rest reserved.) There was Cloen, a smallish fellow whose belly-fur had dapples— ("Don't remark on it," Duun warned Thorn in advance when Duun described Cloen that way. "His baby-mark's still with him.") And Cloen was least outgoing, and quickest to frown. (He has a wound, Thorn thought; it bleeds into the water. Cloen would be an easy mark. If I were after him.)

And Sphitti, lank, unkempt Sphitti. They called him that, which was a kind of weed (like Thorn). Sphitti would sit and think and think and he hardly talked.

Lastly there was Betan— who was female; who moved with a wide-hipped stride, whose grin was sudden and whose wit was quicker than the rest. Betan smelleddifferent. Betan wrinkled her nose at him and grinned in a way no one had ever looked at him, which frightened him.

(Confidence. She knowsthings. She knows things I don't and knows she knows and she knows she can take me.) If Duun had looked that way at him and laughed inside like that Thorn would have gone cold to the soles of his feet. He would have eaten nothing and drunk nothing Duun could have dreamed of touching and not dared sleep in his bed. That a stranger looked at him this way was devastating. He stood staring back the first time that they met and put on his most frozen, expressionless face.

(They don't have the moves, Duun had insisted. But Duun had lied before.)

They met, all five of them, in a room Duun took him to, on a floor above the floor where they lived. "Go inside," Duun said, and under the eyes of a watcher at the door, made to leave him, which prospect alone filled Thorn with panic. "Mind your manners." Duun did not say, mind what I told you.

It was what Duun did not say that always weighed heaviest. Thorn was expected to remember those things without being told. "Yes, Duun,"