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Laoina turned "I a that these Bent People do not want humans as their slaves, because to ic They have ships that can sail through rock, maybe How else could we have come here? By some sorcery the vessel carried us under the land to the country of Shu-Sha’s tribe When I was an apprentice to the Walking Ones, I met a man alked all the way from Shu-Sha’s tribe to Horn’s tribe That hen the Cursed Ones destroyed the stone loom and the fine city built by Shu-Sha’s people Thatquarter moon, and he saw three fullpath to walk in one journey I don’t knohat ic the Bent People used towe slept as long as three courses of thethathad changed about the way she spoke, too; the hitches and pauses had vanished, as though the language of the Deer people flowed ue And anyway, he could not explain any better than she could the things they had seen in the city of the skrolin "How do you knohere we are now?"

She indicated the opening behind hi his knees Dirt rained on his head from rootlets stirred as he pulled hiht to recognize anything, but gradually the patterns of light and shade resolved into a rugged defile plunging deep into shadow The far slope was covered in spiny bushes clinging desperately to the precipitous slope At the top of the ridge opposite, he saw a on

Laoina tugged on his foot "Cos to the Cursed Ones"

He dropped back down Adica still slept Rage snuffled along the cave’s wall "I thought you said ere in the land of Shu-Sha’s tribe"

"So we are But the Cursed Ones have killed or enslaved "

"Why do the Cursed Ones hate huarded hiods will turn against them Maybe, too, they are like old round so nobody else could have theirl accidentally found theood any them for anyone else There are so h they already have enough, a handful of extra spear points even if another person o short"

"You think the Cursed Ones are selfish in that way"

"Don’t they have enough already?"

"I don’t know," he adhed sharply "If this isn’t the land of the dead, then where are we?"

"In the land of Shu-Sha’s tribe--" But she broke off, seeing that wasn’t what he had ons, and a phoenix, and lion woreat city beneath the sea, where the round where the ones called skrolin bide I’ve seen the Cursed Ones, and I think they look very like the ered the head of his staff, rubbing his thu each carven tooth "The valley where your people live I saw in my dreams But other people lived there once, who called the stone"

Laoina looked troubled "These I have not seen,themselves children of the rocks As for the rest well, I as, more than most I admit that the city of the Bent People and the sea city of the merfolk confuse ic and we have so little knowledge of them?"

"They live in rock and in water How could we know of them, who live where we cannot?"

"Then why do they not show themselves to us? Nay, there is an answer already What if they do not care for those of us who live where they do not? What if they do not need us as the Cursed Ones do? Maybe we have nothing they want"

"I have seen hand "But they were like beasts Such creatures could not have built a great city" He knelt beside Adica, stroking her hair, wanting to wake her up gently "All that matters, here and now, is that I protect Adica But sometimes I just don’t understand where I am"