Var the Stick by Piers Anthony Page A

her fluffy hair. His forearm settled on her folded thigh, his hand clasped her knee to gain the purchase necessary to keep them close together.
        Var remembered the first time he had held a woman, not so many months before. But of course this was not the same. Sola had been buxom and hot, while this child was bony and cold. And the relationship was entirely different.
        Yet he found this chaste camaraderie against the cold to be as meaningful as that prior sexual connection. To stand even on the favors that was part of the circle code, as he understood it, and there was no shame in it.
        Yet in the morning they would do battle again.
        "Who are you?" he asked now. For once the words came out succinctly.
        "Soil. My father is sol of all weapons."
        Sol of All Weapons! The former master of the empire, and the man who had built it up from nothing. No wonder she was so proficient!
        Then a terrible thought struck him. "Your mother, who is your mother?"
        "Oh, my mother knows even more about fighting than Sol does but she does it without weapons. She's very small hardly bigger than I am, and I'm not full grown but any man who comes at her lands on his head!" She tittered. "It's funny."
        Relief, until something else occurred to him. "She your mother brown curly hair, very good figure, smock"
        "Yes, that's her! But how could you know? She's never been out of the underworld not since I've been there."
        Once again Var found himself at a loss to explain. Certainly he did not want to tell her he had tried to kill her mother.
        "Of course Sosa isn't my natural mother," Soil remarked. "I was born outside. My father brought me in, when I was small."
        Var's earlier shock returned. "You're you're Sola's dead daughter?"
        "Well, we're not really dead in the underworld. We just let the nomads think that, because I don't know exactly why. Sol was married to Sola outside, though, and I'm their child. They say Sola married the Nameless One, after that."
        "Yes. But she kept her name."
        "Sosa kept her name, too. That's funny."
        But Var was remembering Sola's charge to him: "Kill the man who harms my child."
        Var the Stick was that man, for he was pledged to save the empire by killing the mountain's champion.
     
    CHAPTER TEN
     
    Var woke several times in the night, beset by the chill of this height. A wind came up, wringing the precious warmth from his back. Only in front, where he touched Soli, was he warm. He could have survived alone but it was better this way.
        Every so often the girl stirred but when her limbs stretched out and met the cold, they contracted again quickly. Even so, her hands were icy. Had she slept by herself she would hardly have been able to wield a stick in the morning. Var put his coarse hand over her fine one, shielding it.
        Dawn finally came. They stood up shivering and jumped vigorously to restore circulation, and attended to natural calls again, but it was some time before they both felt better. Fog shrouded the plateau, making the drop off unreal, the sky dismal.
        "What's that?" Soli inquired, pointing.
        Once more, Var was at a loss to answer. He knew what it was, but not what women called it.
        "My father Sol doesn't have one," she said.
        Var knew she was mistaken, for had that been the case, she herself would never have been born.
        "I'm hungry," she said. "And thirsty too."
        So was Var but they were no closer to a solution to that problem than they had been the night before. They had to fight. The winner would descend and feast as royally as he or she wished. The other would not need food again, ever. He looked at the two singlesticks lying across the centerline. A pair but one his, the other hers.
        She saw his glance. "Do we have to fight?"
        Var never seemed to be able to answer her questions. On the one