extracted, the leaner ones which produced the exquisite fruits, the straight and tall-timber trees; and there on the skyline lay Compound Ten, their destination. Here the Pemathi clerks came in season to trade and purchase, tally taxes, assemble and pack commodities, and all the other detailed things which their employers found so boring.
But before they could more than notice, fleetingly, another hundred skimming down in the distance, making for the rude comfort which lay within the compound’s walls, a man toppled from his float and fell, turning, to the ground. He had fallen silently; the next one cried out, the third struggled for balance as he screamed; then all crouched and sought for altitude and now the noise was all from below and two of the masterless craft crashed in gouts of steam and one smashed into another just behind it and the Volanth bayed and howled and leaped as though they had chance to catch those making the swift-flying shadows —
And still their stones thudded and flew, thicker than the flight of startled birds which added their cries to the confusion.
Confusion, though, not for long; for now the floats rallied, they wheeled and swooped, fire-charges cracked and crackled and fumed, the grasses burst into flame. Tonorosant saw the tangle-haired- and snaggle-beard-framed faces, the mouths distended with inarticulate shoutings and wordless hootings, the long hairy arms scooping low and coming up and flinging, so fast, so swift, they seemed almost to whirl … . He could smell the filthy, bitter, raw, male-musty animal smell of them; smell as (it seemed) alive with brute rage as the sound of them. He swiveled, sighted, fired his charge, saw face blacken, thought of the blackened body of the Volanth woman in the swamp; swerved and went up and went away, they all went up and away, the howling was feebler and fewer there below and behind them in the burning grass as the levy-hundred sped at top speed for the shelter of Compound Ten —
And, he saw, in the waning, lemon-pale light, there were fewer in the sky, now, as well.
He had a sudden flaring-up fear, but neither then nor later, nor later yet at the levy-muster within the compound grounds, did he see anything nor did he hear anything of his so newly-found, so briefly-held, so little-known friend (but only then and at first and at last realizing him for a friend: too late), the “returned exile,” Hob Tellecest.
Too late. Too late. Too late.
And, early as they were all up and out that next morning, and quickly as they found him: still too late. Forever too late.
“If we were to wash them with soap for a thousand years,” one grizzle-haired lord declared, “they would still be filthy. If we were to teach them and teach them for a thousand years, they would still be ignorant. We have tried to give them a civilized example for a thousand years … and they still do — this,” he pointed with his chin.
Tonorosant had hoped that Tellecest might have been dead before the Volanth took him. This hope had pressed against his heart, as he came up to the group around the body, till it seemed it would force the heart out through the throat. That hope died as soon as he saw the face. There wasn’t much of it left, but it was impossible to look at it and not believe that every single inflicted outrage and agony had been received in full consciousness. What had the young man and young mind inside that riven skin fled from, that could have been a tiny fraction as bad as this? And to this, then, to
this
— pulpy, bloody flesh, cracked and protruding bones, shredded by tooth and claw and sharpened stick and stone — had come the glorious dreams of Tarnis. What price, then, the Craftsmen’s price, compared to this price?
As though reading, though not successfully, his present thoughts, Cominthal repeated his question of the day before. “What do you think of all this,
now
?” he asked.
The grizzle-haired lord interposed. “What should be thought by
But before they could more than notice, fleetingly, another hundred skimming down in the distance, making for the rude comfort which lay within the compound’s walls, a man toppled from his float and fell, turning, to the ground. He had fallen silently; the next one cried out, the third struggled for balance as he screamed; then all crouched and sought for altitude and now the noise was all from below and two of the masterless craft crashed in gouts of steam and one smashed into another just behind it and the Volanth bayed and howled and leaped as though they had chance to catch those making the swift-flying shadows —
And still their stones thudded and flew, thicker than the flight of startled birds which added their cries to the confusion.
Confusion, though, not for long; for now the floats rallied, they wheeled and swooped, fire-charges cracked and crackled and fumed, the grasses burst into flame. Tonorosant saw the tangle-haired- and snaggle-beard-framed faces, the mouths distended with inarticulate shoutings and wordless hootings, the long hairy arms scooping low and coming up and flinging, so fast, so swift, they seemed almost to whirl … . He could smell the filthy, bitter, raw, male-musty animal smell of them; smell as (it seemed) alive with brute rage as the sound of them. He swiveled, sighted, fired his charge, saw face blacken, thought of the blackened body of the Volanth woman in the swamp; swerved and went up and went away, they all went up and away, the howling was feebler and fewer there below and behind them in the burning grass as the levy-hundred sped at top speed for the shelter of Compound Ten —
And, he saw, in the waning, lemon-pale light, there were fewer in the sky, now, as well.
He had a sudden flaring-up fear, but neither then nor later, nor later yet at the levy-muster within the compound grounds, did he see anything nor did he hear anything of his so newly-found, so briefly-held, so little-known friend (but only then and at first and at last realizing him for a friend: too late), the “returned exile,” Hob Tellecest.
Too late. Too late. Too late.
And, early as they were all up and out that next morning, and quickly as they found him: still too late. Forever too late.
“If we were to wash them with soap for a thousand years,” one grizzle-haired lord declared, “they would still be filthy. If we were to teach them and teach them for a thousand years, they would still be ignorant. We have tried to give them a civilized example for a thousand years … and they still do — this,” he pointed with his chin.
Tonorosant had hoped that Tellecest might have been dead before the Volanth took him. This hope had pressed against his heart, as he came up to the group around the body, till it seemed it would force the heart out through the throat. That hope died as soon as he saw the face. There wasn’t much of it left, but it was impossible to look at it and not believe that every single inflicted outrage and agony had been received in full consciousness. What had the young man and young mind inside that riven skin fled from, that could have been a tiny fraction as bad as this? And to this, then, to
this
— pulpy, bloody flesh, cracked and protruding bones, shredded by tooth and claw and sharpened stick and stone — had come the glorious dreams of Tarnis. What price, then, the Craftsmen’s price, compared to this price?
As though reading, though not successfully, his present thoughts, Cominthal repeated his question of the day before. “What do you think of all this,
now
?” he asked.
The grizzle-haired lord interposed. “What should be thought by
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