in then– bowels and their bones turn to slime," Yahan said, and began to cry. He had been badly scared, but more than the reaction from fear broke down his self-control. To see a "lord" toss away a jewel worth a kingdom's ransom to save a midman's life, Ms life, was to see all order subverted, admitting unbearable responsibility. "It was wrong, Lord!" he cried out. "It was wrong!"
"To buy your life with a rock? Come on, Yahan, get a hold of yourself. You'll freeze if we don't get a fire going. Have you got your drill? There's a lot of brushwood up this way. Get a move on!"
They managed to get a fire going there on the shore, and built it up till it drove back the night and the still, keen cold. Rocannon had given Yahan the huntsman's fur cape, and huddling in it the young man finally went to sleep. Rocannon sat keeping the fire burning, uneasy and with no wish to sleep. His own heart was heavy that he had had to throw away the necklace, not because it was valuable, but because once he had given it to Semley, whose remembered beauty had brought him, over all the years, to this world; because Haldre had given it to him, hoping, he knew, thus to buy off the shadow, the early death she feared for her son. Maybe it was as well the thing was gone, the weight, the danger of its beauty. And maybe, if worst came to worst, Mogien would never know that it was gone; because Mogien would not find him, or was already dead. … He put that thought aside. Mogien was looking for him and Yahan—that must be his assumption. He would look for them going south. For what plan had they ever had, except to go south—there to find the enemy, or, if all his guesses had been wrong, not to find the enemy? But with or without Mogien, he would go south.
They set out at dawn, climbing the shoreline hills in the twilight, reaching the top of them as the rising sun revealed a high, empty plain running sheer to the horizon, streaked with the long shadows of bushes. Piai had been right, apparently, when he'd said nobody lived south of the sound. At least Mogien would be able to see them from miles off. They started south.
It was cold, but mostly clear. Yahan wore what clothes they had, Rocannon his suit. They crossed creeks angling down toward the sound now and then, often enough to keep them from thirst. That day and next day they went on, living on the roots of a plant called peya and on a couple of stump-winged, hop-flying, coney-like creatures that Yahan knocked out of the air with a stick and cooked on a fire of twigs lit with his firedrill. They saw no other living thing. Clear to the sky the high grasslands stretched, level, treeless, roadless, silent.
Oppressed by immensity, the two men sat by their tiny fire in the vast dusk, saying nothing. Overhead at long intervals, like the beat of a pulse in the night, came a soft cry very high in the air. They were barilor, great wild cousins of the tamed herilor, making then" northward spring migration. The stars for a hand's breadth would be blotted out by the great flocks, but never more than a single voice called, brief, a pulse on the wind.
"Which of the stars do you come from, Olhor?" Yahan asked softly, gazing up.
"I was born on a world called Hain by my mother's people, and Davenant by my father's. You call its sun the Winter Crown. But I left it long ago…"
"You're not all one people, then, the Starfolk?"
"Many hundred peoples. By blood I'm entirely of my mother's race; my father, who was a Terran, adopted me. This is the custom when people of different species, who cannot conceive children, marry. As if one of your kin should marry a Fian woman."
"This does not happen," Yahan said stiffly.
"I know. But Terran and Davenanter are as alike as you and I. Few worlds have so many different races as this one. Most often there is one, much like us, and the rest are beasts without speech."
"You've seen many worlds," the young man said dreamily, trying to conceive of it.
"Too many,"
"To buy your life with a rock? Come on, Yahan, get a hold of yourself. You'll freeze if we don't get a fire going. Have you got your drill? There's a lot of brushwood up this way. Get a move on!"
They managed to get a fire going there on the shore, and built it up till it drove back the night and the still, keen cold. Rocannon had given Yahan the huntsman's fur cape, and huddling in it the young man finally went to sleep. Rocannon sat keeping the fire burning, uneasy and with no wish to sleep. His own heart was heavy that he had had to throw away the necklace, not because it was valuable, but because once he had given it to Semley, whose remembered beauty had brought him, over all the years, to this world; because Haldre had given it to him, hoping, he knew, thus to buy off the shadow, the early death she feared for her son. Maybe it was as well the thing was gone, the weight, the danger of its beauty. And maybe, if worst came to worst, Mogien would never know that it was gone; because Mogien would not find him, or was already dead. … He put that thought aside. Mogien was looking for him and Yahan—that must be his assumption. He would look for them going south. For what plan had they ever had, except to go south—there to find the enemy, or, if all his guesses had been wrong, not to find the enemy? But with or without Mogien, he would go south.
They set out at dawn, climbing the shoreline hills in the twilight, reaching the top of them as the rising sun revealed a high, empty plain running sheer to the horizon, streaked with the long shadows of bushes. Piai had been right, apparently, when he'd said nobody lived south of the sound. At least Mogien would be able to see them from miles off. They started south.
It was cold, but mostly clear. Yahan wore what clothes they had, Rocannon his suit. They crossed creeks angling down toward the sound now and then, often enough to keep them from thirst. That day and next day they went on, living on the roots of a plant called peya and on a couple of stump-winged, hop-flying, coney-like creatures that Yahan knocked out of the air with a stick and cooked on a fire of twigs lit with his firedrill. They saw no other living thing. Clear to the sky the high grasslands stretched, level, treeless, roadless, silent.
Oppressed by immensity, the two men sat by their tiny fire in the vast dusk, saying nothing. Overhead at long intervals, like the beat of a pulse in the night, came a soft cry very high in the air. They were barilor, great wild cousins of the tamed herilor, making then" northward spring migration. The stars for a hand's breadth would be blotted out by the great flocks, but never more than a single voice called, brief, a pulse on the wind.
"Which of the stars do you come from, Olhor?" Yahan asked softly, gazing up.
"I was born on a world called Hain by my mother's people, and Davenant by my father's. You call its sun the Winter Crown. But I left it long ago…"
"You're not all one people, then, the Starfolk?"
"Many hundred peoples. By blood I'm entirely of my mother's race; my father, who was a Terran, adopted me. This is the custom when people of different species, who cannot conceive children, marry. As if one of your kin should marry a Fian woman."
"This does not happen," Yahan said stiffly.
"I know. But Terran and Davenanter are as alike as you and I. Few worlds have so many different races as this one. Most often there is one, much like us, and the rest are beasts without speech."
"You've seen many worlds," the young man said dreamily, trying to conceive of it.
"Too many,"
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