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baleen whale. Her survival skills were considerably too urban to be of use and, feeble as the prospect might be, she preferred taking her chances with the dimwitted villagers rather than the far more impersonal elements. Nothing she was capable of doing or saying would delay by even so much as a heartbeat the determined effort of the desert to dessicate her, or of the vultures, unimpressed by her wit, to pick their teeth, had they any, with her finger bones.
    On the other hand, she wondered if she would have any chance at all to employ her glib carnival-honed persuasiveness against her human adversaries since the last words she had heard from her imprisoners before they had barred her door were these: “You stay in here until we let you know when your trial is over and you’ve been condemned to die.”
    She knew that her friend the Princess Bronwyn had found herself more than once in similar seemingly hopeless situations and had undertaken the ordeal with bland resignation, the princess’s theory being that blind panic and the banging of heads against walls merely expends energy that would be better and more usefully employed in correcting a situation. Unfortunately, neither stoicism nor fatalistic resignation were things that Rykkla had ever counted among her otherwise considerable repertoire of talents.
    She had been wearing the accepted costume of the rural Ibrailan woman: plain high-necked wool blouse, with balloon--like sleeves and tight cuffs and collar, under an embroidered vest, and equally balloon--like pantaloons beneath an ankle-length woolen skirt. These all felt as though they had been woven from steel wool and itched like bloody hell, she was solid prickly heat from neck to calves. This was to say nothing of the menagerie of active and insatiably hungry organisms that now considered her body a happy home where they could roll up their tiny sleeves and settle down to the business of being fruitful and multiplying. She had no complaints about her boots, however, which came to mid-calf and were expertly crafted from heavy, pliable leather. She had been comfortable enough overnight, but the chilly desert night was rapidly replaced by the heat of day, a heat that if increasing arithmetically outdoors was increasing geometrically, perhaps even logarithmically, inside the unventilated prison. Since her costume had been dictated by the restraints of custom, she saw no particular reason to further placate local sensibilities. If I’m going to be unrightfully condemned as a witch, she thought, stripping away the blanket-like skirt and vest, and unbuttoning the dank blouse to her waist to allow a welcome exhalation of hot, moist air, I should as well be condemned for the hussy I really am.
    There had been neither food nor water given to her the evening of her imprisonment, and no food or water had appeared that morning, either. The heat was stifling; unspeakable greases sublimed from the fatty floor and the air inside the chamber was becoming glutinous as it gradually thickened like an overcooked roux. The cheap bastards, she thought . Why waste food and drink on someone who’s condemned? That must be their thinking, the miserly swine. And they expect me to be worried about shocking their overdeveloped morals.
    But these angry thoughts were only niggling intruders. Her mind kept shrugging them aside and turning back to the more important question, the problem, the mystery of Thud. Whatever has happened to Thud? Whatever could have happened to Thud? It isn’t possible, it can’t be possible that he is dead, she decided with a positive finality. But if not dead, then what? Then what, indeed. She could not erase from her mind the persistent conviction that at any moment Thud would come bursting through one of the walls like a cannonball through cardboard; yet, as more time passed, the more this happy image faded and the more concrete became the unthinkable conclusion that Thud was not going to come.
    Noon came and