the snouts of massive dhumkars rising like augers out of the sands, probing the air for prey. Things hissed and twanged and whispered; insects swarmed in nasty little clouds; a rain of dry sand began to fall, lightly, clogging his eyes and nostrils. He was weary and ready at any moment to yield and halt, to lie down in the sand and let the shifting dunes cover him, but one thing drew him on, for in the valley a glowing figure moved to and fro, a smiling woman, the Lady his mother, and so long as she could be seen there he would not cease pressing forward. He felt the warmth of her presence, the pull of her love. 'Come,' she murmured. 'Come to me, Valentine!' Her arms reached toward him across that terrible desert of monstrosities. His shoulders sagged. His knees weakened. He could not continue, though he knew he must. 'Lady,' he whispered, 'I am at my end, I must rest, I must sleep!' At that the glow between the mountains grew warmer and brighter. 'Valentine,' she called. 'Valentine, my son!' He could scarcely keep his eyes open. It was so tempting to lie down in the warm sand. 'You are my son,' came the voice of the Lady across that impossible distance, 'and I have need of you,' and as she said these words he found new strength, and walked more rapidly, and then began to run lightly over the hard, crusted desert floor, his heart lifting, his stride widening. Now the distances quickly dwindled, and Valentine could see her clearly, awaiting him on a terrace of violet-hued stone, smiling, reaching to him with outstretched arms, calling his name in a voice that rang like the bells of Ni-moya.
He awoke with the sound of her voice still ringing in his mind.
It was dawn. Wondrous energy flooded his spirit. He rose and went down to the great amethystine basin that was the bathing-pool at the Terrace of Devotion, and plunged boldly into the chilly spring-water. Afterward he trotted to the chamber of Menesipta, his dream-speaker here, a compact, fine-honed person with flashing dark eyes and a taut, spare face, and poured forth the dream to her in one long rush of words.
Menesipta sat silently.
The coolness of her response dampened Valentine’s exuberance. He remembered going to Stauminaup at the Terrace of Assessment with the fraudulent summoning-dream of the volevant, and how swiftly Stauminaup had dismissed that dream. But this was no fraud. He had no Deliamber here to do witcheries on his mind.
Valentine said at length, 'May I ask an evaluation?'
'The dream has familiar overtones,' Menesipta replied calmly.
'Is that your whole speaking of it?'
She seemed amused. 'What more would you have me say?'
Valentine clenched his fists in frustration. 'If someone came to me for a speaking of such a dream, I would call it a dream of summoning.'
'Very well.'
'Do you agree? Would
'If it would please you.'
'Pleasing me isn’t the point,' said Valentine, irritated. 'Either the dream was a dream of summoning or it wasn’t. What is your view of it?'
Smiling obliquely, the dream-speaker said, 'I call your dream a dream of summoning.'
'And now?'
'Now? Now you have your morning duties to observe.'
'A dream of summoning, as I understand it,' said Valentine tightly, 'is required in order to attain the presence of the Lady.'
'Indeed.'
'Should I not advance now to Inner Temple?'
Menesipta shook her head. 'No one goes from Second Cliff to Inner Temple. Only when you reach the Terrace of Adoration does a summoning-dream suffice of itself to call you inward. Your dream is interesting and important, but it changes nothing. Go to your duties, Valentine.'
Anger throbbed in him as he left her chamber. He knew he was being foolish, that a mere dream could not be enough to sweep him past the remaining hurdles that separated him from the Lady, and yet he had expected so much from it — he had hoped Menesipta would clap her hands and cry out in joy and ship him at once to Inner Temple, and none of that had happened, and the letdown was painful and infuriating.
More pain ensued. As he came from the fields two hours later an acolyte intercepted him and said bluntly, 'You are ordered immediately to the harbor at Taleis, where new pilgrims await your guidance.'
Valentine was stunned. The last thing he wanted now was to be sent back to the starting point.
He was to set out at once, on foot and alone, making his way outward from terrace to terrace and getting himself to the Terrace of Assessment in the shortest possible time. They provided him at the terrace commissary with enough food to see him as far as the Terrace of Flowers. They gave him also a direction-finding device, an amulet to be fastened to his arm, that would scan for buried roadmarkers and emit a soft high pinging sound.
At midday he left the Terrace of Devotion. But the path he chose was the one inward toward the Terrace of Surrender, not the one that would take him back toward the coast.
The decision came suddenly and with unarguable force. He simply
Valentine circled past the rim of the terrace and found the grassy path that cut diagonally across the recreation field to the main road. There he was supposed to turn left toward the outer terraces. But — feeling extraordinarily conspicuous — he turned right instead and set out briskly toward the interior. Soon he was beyond the settled part of the terrace and the road had narrowed from wide paved highway to earthen track, with forest pressing close on all sides.
Within half an hour he was at a fork in the road. When he started at random down the left-hand branch, the quiet pinging tone of the direction-finding amulet vanished, returning when he had made his way back to the other fork. A useful device, he thought.
He walked steadily until nightfall. Then he camped in a pleasant grove beside a gentle stream, and allowed himself a sparing meal of cheese and sliced meat. He slept fitfully, stretched out on the cool moist ground between two slender trees.
The first pink glimmer of dawn woke him. He stirred, stretched, opened his eyes. A quick splash in the stream, yes, and then a bit of breakfast, and then—
Valentine heard sounds in the forest behind him — twigs snapping, something moving through the bushes. Quietly he slipped behind a thick-trunked tree by the edge of the stream and peered warily around it. And saw a powerfully built black-bearded man emerge from the underbrush, pause by his campsite, look cautiously about.
Farssal.
In a pilgrim’s robe. But with a dagger strapped to his left forearm.
Some twenty-five feet separated the two men. Valentine frowned, considered his options, calculated tactics. Where had Farssal found a dagger on this peaceful island? Why was he tracking Valentine through the forest, if not to slay him?
Violence was alien to Valentine. But to take Farssal by surprise seemed the only course that made sense. He rocked back and forth a moment on the balls of his feet, centered his mind as though he were about to juggle, and sprang from his hiding place.
Farssal whirled and managed to get the dagger from its scabbard just as Valentine crashed into him. With a sudden desperate hacking motion Valentine slammed the side of his hand into the underside of Farssal’s arm, numbing it, and the dagger dropped to the ground; but an instant later Farssal’s meaty arms wrapped Valentine in a crushing grip.
They stood locked, face to face. Farssal was a head shorter than Valentine, but deeper of chest, broader of shoulder, a bull-bodied man. He strained to throw Valentine to the ground; Valentine struggled to break free; neither was able to sway the other, though veins bulged on their foreheads and their faces went red and swollen with strain.
'This is madness,' Valentine murmured. 'Let go, back off. I mean you no harm.'
Farssal only tightened his grip.
'Who sent you?' Valentine asked. 'What do you want with me?'
Silence. The mighty arms, Skandar-strong, continued inexorably pressing inward. Valentine fought for breath. Pain dazed him. He tried to force his elbows outward and snap the hold. No. Farssal’s face was ugly and distorted with effort, his eyes fierce, his lips tightly set. And slowly but measurably he was pushing Valentine to the ground.
Resisting that terrible grip was impossible. Valentine abruptly ceased trying, and let himself go limp as a bundle of rags. Farssal, surprised, twisted him to one side; Valentine allowed his knees to buckle, and offered no resistance as Farssal hurled him down. But he landed lightly, on his back with his legs coiled above him, and as Farssal lunged furiously for him Valentine brought his feet up with all his force into the other man’s gut. Farssal gasped and grunted and staggered back, stunned. Valentine, springing to his feet, seized Farssal with arms made greatly muscular by months of juggling, and pushed him down roughly to the ground, and held him pinned there, knees against Farssal’s outspread arms, hands gripping his shoulders.
How strange this is, Valentine thought, to be fighting hand-to-hand with another being, as though we were unruly children! It had the quality of a dream.
Farssal glared at him in rage, slammed his feet angrily against the ground, tried in vain to push Valentine off.
'Talk to me now,' Valentine said. 'Tell me what this means. Did you come here to kill me?'
'I will say nothing.'
'You who talked so much when we were juggling?'
'That was before.'
'What am I to do with you?' Valentine asked. 'If I let you up, you’ll be at me again. But if I hold you here, I hold myself as well!'
'You can’t hold me long this way.'
Once more Farssal heaved. His strength was enormous. But Valentine’s grip on him was firm. Farssal’s face was scarlet; thick cords stood out on his throat; his eyes blazed with fury and frustration. For a long moment he lay still. Then he appeared to gather all his strength, going tense and thrusting upward. Valentine could not withstand that awesome push. There was a wild moment when neither man was in control of the situation, Valentine half flung aside, Farssal writhing and flexing as he tried to roll over. Valentine grabbed Farssal’s thick shoulders and attempted to force him back to the ground. Farssal shook him away and his fingers clawed for Valentine’s eyes. Valentine ducked below the clutching fingers. Then, without pausing to think about it, he seized Farssal by his coarse black beard and pulled him to one side, slamming his head into a rock that jutted from the moist soil close beside him.
Farssal made a heavy grunting sound and lay still.
Springing to his feet, Valentine seized the fallen dagger and stood above the other. He was trembling, not out of fear but from the release of tension, like a bowstring after the arrow has been let go. His ribs ached from that awful hug, and the muscles of his arms and shoulders were twitching and throbbing in fifty different
