hand. "Wait. If you expected
a god to appear and I arrived on schedule, how can you be so sure that
I am not he?"

"We thought so when you advanced upon the hideous Abarian and took his
throat in your great hands. But when you not only allowed him to live
but also suffered him to take up his whip-sword and come within an
eyelash of killing you, we knew you were not our god."

Bram Forest nodded with understanding. "I can see now how stupid that
act was. Certainly not a manner in which a genuine god would conduct
himself." He glanced at the girl and smiled. "Please come closer that
I may see you better."

She moved her head in the negative, reluctantly, Bram Forest thought,
and replied, "If you were our god I would gladly place myself in your
power to do with me as you would, but as you are mortal, I must remain
away from you."

Bram Forest frowned. "Again things get murky."

"I am a virgin," the beautiful girl explained simply and with no
self-consciousness whatever. "I must remain so until my time is
ordained. If I lost my virginity, even through violation that I
resist, I would immediately be delivered into the Golden Ape."

Bram Forest came upright, causing the girl to retreat a step further
in alarm. "The Golden Ape, did you say?"

"Yes."

"And you are a virgin--"

This last was a statement rather than a question as Bram Forest sank
back, his eyes misty with thought. "An ape, a boar, a stallion--" he
pondered. "A virgin's feast--"

The girl eyed him with concern. "Are you sure that your wound has not
caused--"

"It is not that," he said, switching his mind back to things of the
moment. "I'm just wondering--might you tell me your name without
breaking any rules of reticence?"

* * * * *

"I am Ylia," she said with a childlike solemnity that touched Bram
Forest.

"And does Ylia never smile?"

It seemed to him she made an effort to do this but was so unfamiliar
with the expression that she could not manage it.

He extended a hand, not disconcerted that she did not come close and
take it. He said, "Ylia, I would not again ask a question you did not
wish to answer before. But I am mightily puzzled about the life you
must have led--about that manner of males you have had contact with.
They are certainly a miserable lot if a female of their race must look
to her virtue every waking moment.

"As for me, Ylia--and please believe--I would no more touch you in
desire than