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dripping a viscous fluid. But the eyes were what revealed its evil heart, a ring of black pits circling the creature’s head.
    Charach!

CHAPTER IV
     
    The White Worm’s eyes rested on Abisina for a long moment, then moved across the crowd. The darkness receded. The golden youth again stood behind the altar.
    The silence of the Ritual broke, and throughout the crowd, people were getting to their feet, crying out, jockeying to get closer to Charach. Abisina rose unsteadily. In the rush, she glimpsed a prone old woman stepped on as if she were a hillock of grass.
    Paleth! No one was watching the outcasts now. Abisina ran to where Paleth lay in the dirt and took the girl in her arms. “Paleth!” She tried to rouse her, but her eyelids didn’t even flutter.
    Shouts came from throughout the crowd: “Deliverer!” “Come to save us!”
    Abisina laid Paleth gently back on the ground and got to her feet. She needed her mother! If Bryla had her baby already, Sina would have come to the Ritual. But as Abisina searched the crowd, she saw no sign of her mother. The people were looking hungrily toward the altar, hoping for Charach’s gaze to fall on them. Didn’t they see the Worm? Even the outcasts had joined the growing chant, “Charach, Charach!”
    She bent back to Paleth. If she couldn’t wake her, she’d have to carry her to Sina. She worked her arms under the girl’s back and was just starting to lift her when Jorno appeared, taking the burden from her.
    “I’ve got her,” he said, settling the limp form on his own shoulder.
    “My mother—she’s with Hain’s Bryla. I’ll go with you.”
    “No, you stay here!” Jorno glanced toward the Elders, who had joined the chanting. “If we both leave, they might notice.” Jorno took off, barely slowed by Paleth’s added weight. He disappeared among the village huts.
    Abisina looked back toward Charach. He stood now on the altar, his cloak pulled from him in the frenzy, and reached out to the hysterical villagers—taking the dirty, work-worn hands in his own strong fingers. His face, lit with a smile and the blush of health, beamed on the sallow faces lifted to him.
    He straightened and called to the crowd. “My friends! My friends! You do me too much honor!” The people tried to drown his humility with their roar, but he held up his hands and said, “Please! Let me speak!” and the shouts died to a murmur.
    “We have sung today the story of our Deliverer. Vran brought us here so many generations ago, and we have repaid him with our humbleness and adoration. He is our Paragon, and we offer him our hearts. I see the love on your faces.”
    “Vran! Vran!” the crowd chanted.
    “But I see something else, too: Hunger. Disease. Suffering.” Charach paused as if overcome with their pain. “We have come far, but we have labored hard.”
    “He speaks as if he is one of us!” someone cried and the shouts resumed.
    “For years”—Charach spoke over the tumult—“our crops have been plagued by rains that wash away the seeds sown with our sweat. Or the summer’s heat beats down on the tender seedlings, killing them in the inferno.”
    A groaning cry rose from the throng.
    “And the beasts set upon us! We must keep our flocks inside our walls”—he gestured toward the sheep and goats—“while they grow thin and listless on this barren common. We cower behind our walls, afraid to harvest what we have sown. Is this what Vran wanted for his people?”
    “No!” the crowd cried in unison.
    “Is this why Vran led us over the treacherous mountains?”
    “No!”
    Abisina fought the urge to cover her ears.
    Charach let the people vent their fury before raising his hand for silence.
    He spoke just above a whisper at first, but his voice grew louder and louder. “We offer our voices in song to Vran. We confess our transgressions and beg forgiveness. We offer sacrifices.” Charach picked up a handful of onions from the altar and held them toward the crowd as he