Maia

"When we stopped for the night she was still in good heart. She'd been sayin' we were goin' to camp, but as things turned out we lodged in a little sort of hamlet-a very poor, pinched place, where they were only too glad to see the color of our money. She made me sleep with her. She'd told the soldiers she kept me as a sort of personal bodyguard, and she sent Ashaktis off to sleep somewhere else. She enjoyed vexin' Ashaktis from time to time, you know: it was all part of the queer relationship they had with each other.

"Well, I needn' go into all the details, banzi, but by the next night I suppose we must have been thirty or thirty-five miles from Bekla, with about twenty miles to go to the Gelt foothills. And that was when the goddess began speakin' again, and when I began gettin' really frightened.

"I can' explain this, even to you: I couldn' explain it to anyone who didn' know it for themselves. I remember once, back in Silver Tedzhek, when I was no more than about eight, I heard Zai talkin' to an old priestess. An' I understood what they were talkin' about all right, even though I couldn' have explained it. She said 'Great suf-ferin', unendin' longin' and continual prayer: when these trench and water the heart, the goddess will spring up in it at last.'

"Well, she was springin' up now all right, and I hadn' been so frightened since I crossed the Govig-no, not even on the night when we killed Sencho-because what she told me-all she told me-was that we were gettin' closer and closer to a place of terrible dread and power. The dread was like a sort of invisible mist, thickenin' all the time we went on, because we were gettin' nearer and nearer to this place, whatever it might be. And I was the only

person who could feel it, banzi; the only person out of all the ten of us. The soldiers were all cheerful enough, and Ashaktis seemed in better spirits, than when we started. The only person who noticed the state I was in was Zuno: he couldn' imagine the reason, but at least he showed me a bit of consideration; and I was glad of it, I can tell you. I felt as though an invisible thunderstorm was comin' up, darker and closer all round me. Only this wasn' thunder; it was fear; fear in the very air I was breathin', in my lungs and my heart. And all the time Kantza-Merada was sayin' to me, 'This furnace is bein' heated for you: it's your place that is comin', and your hour.' Closer and closer and worse and worse, until I could hardly go on. Once, for about half an hour, I couldn' even breathe properly. My lungs sort of closed up and the air itself seemed thick as blankets: it was like drownin' on dry land. Forms thought I was puttin' it on because I wanted to stop for a rest, and she began teasin' me. I let her go on thinkin' that. The breathless fit passed off after a time, but I was still afraid.

"That second night I couldn' sleep. Fornis had had me do what she wanted and she was sleepin' sound as a child, while I lay sweatin'. At last I slipped out of bed and went outside. It was a bright, clear night full of stars, but that didn' make me feel any better. I had a horrible fancy that the stars were like those studs they fix inside a guard hound's collar, so that you can control it by twistin'. I was the hound, and the goddess had me by the collar, pressin' the studs of the stars against my throat. I remember beggin' her for relief, but all she said in my heart was 'Remember your father. That is why you have been brought here.'

"I wandered down between the huts until I came to the far end of the village. I felt drenched in fear-you could have squeezed it out of me. I scarcely knew what I was doin'. I believe I was goin' to run away-anywhere, just as long as it was away. And then, suddenly, someone near me said, 'Occula!'

"It was a girl's voice and I knew I'd heard it somewhere before. That was all-I was in such a state that I thought it must be a ghost. I looked all round in the starlight and again the voice said, 'Occula' very quietly, sort of quick and low.

"And then I saw her, crouched down in the bushes. I went across to her. She was real all right. D'you know who it was? It was Chia, the girl you hit over the head

with the fryin'-pan at Lalloc's: the girl you bought and sent home, remember?"

"Cran almighty!" said Maia. "Of course I remember her! Yes, of course, she was Urtan, wasn't she?"

"She clutched my wrist. 'Occula!' she said. 'I saw when you came this evenin'. It's her, isn' it? It is her?'

" 'Yes,' I said. 'It's her all right.'

" 'I knew it,' she said. 'I knew I couldn' be wrong. I've told them, Occula.'

" 'Told who?' I said.

" 'Them. Tomorrow you go that way, look.' She pointed across the plain in the dark, and it was exactly where the fear was comin' from. 'It's only a mile or so,' she said. 'Not far at all.'

" 'But how did you know I was goin' to come out here?' I asked.

" 'I knew,' she said. 'I was waitin' for you.'

" 'I'm half mad with fear now,' I said. 'Where are we goin', Chia? What is it I have to do?'