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that.
    It was easy for me to speak with girls and easy indeed to fall into matings with them. Behind my back it was whispered, I know, that they were attracted to me on account of my bad leg, girls oftentimes being perversely drawn to flaws of that sort. Perhaps that was so in a few cases, but I think there were other reasons besides. Poor Traiben's luck with girls was not so good, and now and again I would take pity on him and send one of mine to do a mating with him: I sent Galli that way, I recall, and one of the Sambarals. There may have been others.
    When I was almost fifteen and the time of my candidacy was drawing near, I fell seriously in love with a girl of the House of Holies whose name was Turimel. I bought a love-charm from an old Witch named Kres, so that I might have her, and later I learned that quite by coincidence Turimel had bought a charm from Kres also, in order she might have me; and therefore our coming together must have been foreordained, not that much good came out of it for either of us.
    Turimel was dark and beautiful, with shimmering hair that tumbled in long cascades, and when we made the Changes together she carried me on such a journey that I would altogether lose my mind, forget even my name, forget everything but Turimel. In the moment when her breasts came forth it was like the revealing of Kosa Saag through the clouds; and when I entered the sweet hot female cleft that the Changes opened to me, I felt that I was walking among the gods.
    But there was a doom on our love from its first moment, since those who are born to the House of Holies are forbidden to undertake the Pilgrimage. They must remain below, guarding the sacred things, while others perform the task of climbing to the gods who live at the Summit. Nor is there any way that one of the Holies can resign her birthright and enter some other House. So if I were to choose to seal myself to Turimel, I would certainly lose her when I set out on my Pilgrimage. Or if I wanted to remain by her side I would be compelled to renounce the Pilgrimage myself, and that seemed just as dire.
    "I'll have to give her up," I said to Traiben one gloomy morning. "From here the road leads only to a sealing, if I stay with her. And I can't seal with a Holy"
    "You can't seal with anyone, Poilar. Don't you understand that?"
    "I don't follow your meaning."
    "You are meant for the Pilgrimage. Everyone knows that. The mark of the gods is on you."
    "Yes," I said. "Of course." I liked to hear Traiben say such things, because in fact despite my dream and my family heritage I had begun to feel not at all sure that I would be chosen, and each day then I had to fight my way through a thickening forest of doubt. That was only on account of my age, for I had reached the time when a young man doubts anything and everything, especially concerning himself.
    "Very well. But if you seal yourself to someone and she isn't chosen, what becomes of your sealing?"
    "Ah," I said. "I see. But if she and I are sealed, won't that influence the Masters to pick her also?"
    "There's no reason why it should. They don't take sealings into account at all."
    "Ah," I said again.
    I thought of Lilim, whose Gortain had gone off to the Wall and never returned.
    "If you want to get sealed," Traiben said, "then by all means get yourself sealed. But you have to resign yourself to the likelihood of losing her when you go up the Wall. If you seal with Turimel, that's a certainty: you already realize that. Choose a girl of some other House and the situation's almost as bad. There's no better than one chance out of a hundred that she'll also be selected for the Forty. That's essentially no chance at all, do you see? And in any case, would you want to leave a fatherless child behind, as was done to you? Better not even to think about sealing, Poilar. Think about the Wall. Think only about the Wall."
    As ever, I was unable to pick a hole in Traiben's reasoning. And so I resigned myself to remaining