, and
followed him."

"Oh. Good for you. Dawvys, report yourself to the huntsman for a fox!"

* * * * *

Dawvys bowed and went out. She breathed freely; he would escape, and
still she'd saved herself. What Ewyo might have done to her, she didn't
know, but she feared him when he was roused.

She yearned to ask him about the book and the weeds, but didn't dare.
She passed him and went to the resting room, where she occupied a chair
for an hour, blankly pondering the tottering of her universe.

At last she stood up. She was a gentrywoman, she had guts in her belly.
Why shouldn't she ask her father questions? Before she could think about
it and grow scared, she went searching, and ran across her sister Jann.

Jann was twenty-four, a tall ash-blonde woman with snaky amber eyes and
pointed ears who lorded it over the household.

"Have you seen Ewyo?"

"He's in the private room."

She headed for it, and Jann ran to catch at her arm. "You can't disturb
him there!"

"I've been in it before."

Jann clawed at her. "You haven't! Even I was only there once...."

"Even you. My, my." Nirea walked on, Jann tugging at her futilely. "I
have to talk to him."

"Stop! Damn you, you whelp, you can't--"

With precision and force, Nirea socked her sister in the left eye. Then
she strode down the hall and knocked on the door of the private room and
immediately went in.

The sight that greeted her, completely incomprehensible, was still as
revolting and horrifying a thing as she had ever seen. Her father lay
back in a big armchair, relaxed and half-asleep to judge from his
hanging arms and barely open eyes. A curious sound, a kind of brrm-brrm,
came from his chest.

Resting on his throat was a golden globe. Two of its tentacles were
pushed almost out of sight into his nostrils, two more dipped into his
gaping mouth. The remaining four waved slowly above the squire's face.

Nirea screamed.

The globe floated upward, slowly, grudgingly. Its tentacles withdrew
from the squire. Ewyo stirred and opened his pale eyes to glare at her.
A flush of hideous fury spread up his cheeks. He struggled to his feet
and lurched over and slapped her face, so that she ceased to scream and
fell against the wall, moaning. The squire stood over her.

"You meddlesome bitch, I ought to have you cut up for the hounds!"

"In the name of the Orbs," she said, whimpering, "what were you doing?"

He grimaced at her like