Maia

"It wasn' far away-about half a mile below us. There were three very strange-looking rifts-sort of chasms-side by side on the open grassland. They were narrow, and the same distance between each; and they were all the same length, as if someone might actually have made them, a long time ago; only it would have to have been a god or a giant, because they were big-oh, I suppose three or four hundred yards long, each of them. You couldn' see how deep they were, because they were full of trees, and the branches stretched right across like a sort of carpet- they were as narrow as that. The grass and weeds were growin' tall all round them-you could see no flocks ever went there: and there were no paths leadin' to them; nothin'. And this was where the fear was comin' from-tens of thousands of ills and terrors and evils, creepin' out and flyin' off into the air. They were about their own business, and it wasn' men's business; and oh, banzi, I was the only one of us who could feel them or know they were there! I'm a dead girl, I thought: no human bein' can know that and go on livin'. Yet still I wasn' afraid, because it was my death. It was my own death, for Zai and for Kantza-Merada, and I was entirely ready for it.

" 'Oh, no, Folda,' I said-and I felt as though I was in a play, speakin' words through a mask-'No, I was just lookin' at those funny clefts down there and wonderin' what they could be: only I've never seen anythin' quite like them before, have you?'

" 'Where?' she said, and then she caught sight of them for herself. 'Why, no, I haven',' she said. 'You're right; they are funny. Come on, we'll go down and have a look at them; it'll beabit of sport. Iwonder how deep they are.'

"So she led the way down in the sunshine; and I was walkin' beside her while she talked away. And then all of a sudden she stopped and said, 'Ah, here's someone comin' to meet us. He'll tell us, I expect.'

"It was an old man who was comin'; a man who looked a bit like a priest, very grave and dignified, but roughly dressed and shabby-lookin' compared with the priests in Bekla. Although it was so hot, he was wrapped in a cloak and he was walkin' with a long staff; it had symbols cut on it and some sort of letters, too. There were two or three younger men with Mm-just ordinary herdsmen, they looked like. I didn' notice anythin' particular about them.

"The old man bowed to Fornis and greeted her very courteously and then he asked her whether we were strangers travelin' through.

" 'Yes, that's right, my good man,' she said, 'but you needn' think you're goin' to get any sort of toll out of us, though I doan' mind givin' your men the price of a drink. But since you're here,' she went on, before he'd had time to answer, 'perhaps you can tell me somethin' about those queer-lookin' ravines. I want to go and have a closer look at them.'

" 'Can you tell me their name?' he asked her.

" 'Oh,' says she, 'I thought you were goin' to tell me that. You live here, doan' you?'

" 'I do, saiyett,' he said; and now I could see-only she couldn'-that in some way I can' explain he'd taken charge of her, like a priest when an animal's taken to the temple. 'I and my men will walk down there and show them to you, since you wish it.'

"So then Queen Fornis stepped out in front with the old man, and Ashaktis and Zuno and me, we came behind with the herdsmen. But never a word we said to each other-not once. The men said nothin', you see, and it wasn' Ashaktis's way to waste words on people she despised. Zuno was frightened, because he was sure now he wouldn' be able to finish another day and he knew what Fornis had done to the soldier who'd foundered on her march to Bekla after she'd killed Durakkon. As for me, I felt as though I was walkin' to my own execution. I kept

lookin' round at the sun and thinkin', 'I'm seein' that for the last time.' But even now I wasn' afraid. It was all a dream-a trance in the sun, with the grasshoppers zippin' and now and then one of those hollow, flat sheep-bells clopperin' from somewhere along the slope. There were a lot of ant-hills, I remember, and a smell of chamomile and tansy in the air.

"I could hear Fornis laughin' and talkin' to the old man, but he didn' laugh back. He jus' kept up with her, leanin' on his staff and every now and then noddin' as she spoke. I felt-well, I felt we'd become a kind of procession. There was somethin' grave and ceremonial about it, for all Fornis was so glib and so much taken up with the prospect of sport.

"We came to the tall grass surroundin' the ravines, and she led the way straight in, tramplin' it down as she went. We followed her in single file, now, because it was up to your waist and there were a lot of nettles and thistles too: but she didn' mind them; she was so eager to get there.