he guards had unbound Ylia's fetters on the barge, knowing she could
never swim for safety in the waters of the River of Ice. She sat now
at the foot of Jlomec's bier, with Bram Forest's handsome head
cushioned on her lap. It was very cold there on the river. Wind blew,
rustling the reeds which grew along the bank. They had long since
emerged from the river's underground cavern. The swift current carried
them now through a country of ice, a tundra. The reeds, twice as tall
as a man, seemed to thrive on the riverbanks. They swallowed
everything.

Bram Forest opened his eyes, and looked at her, and smiled. He tried
to sit up, wincing as pain knifed through his head. "We seem to make a
habit of this," he said, smiling again.

"Shh, you mustn't talk."

She leaned close. He could smell the animal perfume of her body, like
musk and jasmine. Impulsively, she kissed him softly on the lips. His
arm went around her neck. He pulled her head down and drank deeply of
her.

"Why ..." she began, all breathless.

"Because I love you. I think I loved you the first moment I saw you.
But I didn't know it then." He laughed softly, gently, and she did not
know why this should be so.

"Why do you laugh?"

"I was an infant, the son of the Queen. Of Queen Evalla. Portox the
scientist fled with me, the last of the royal Ofridian blood, to the
other side of the solar system, to a world the twin of this, a world
we never see because the sun always stands between us, a world called
Earth. There I would wait until maturity. There I would be given the
strength and the wisdom I needed. And then I would return to Tarth and
right the ancient wrong. Well, I have returned. I love you. It is
enough, Ylia. I want to think of the future, not the past."

Ylia let him kiss her again. "Isn't it the same, the future and the
past? Aren't they one? I too am of Ofridian blood, Bram Forest, of the
lesser nobility. There are hundreds of us, living nomadic lives on the
Ofridian Plains, where once our great nation stood."

"I didn't know that. It wasn't in Portox's training. Now Portox is
dead. I buried him on this world called Earth. He could not even come
back to his native Tarth."

"Darling, don't you see? That's exactly why the ancient wrong must be
righted, why Retoc must pay for his infamous deeds. So Portox and the
millions of other Ofridians, slain, all slain, can sleep eternally in
peace. You are their champion."

"But revenge? What is revenge