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    â€œIn the name of Math,” what? I wondered irritably, as with no sound but blundering horses we rode into the ravine; through the girth-deep, neglected ford. Back to the road. Silence held as we dipped and climbed amid a forest wet and glittering as new-polished shields. A Thangrian timber jinker passed, fourteen horses, a giant of a log, skill and power joined. An orchid collector, a pack of rainbow exotica on his back, his tree-boy running ahead. I was still unsure of the guards, he noticed none of it. No one would ask about those moments over the corpse. But finally my confusion marshaled on a single idea.
    â€œI don’t see why it was . . . incompetent.”
    The forest shook to the roar of a falling giant. I heard the clap of another axe beyond. Still staring between the mare’s ears he said, “It’s not a snub. Will you give me time to think?”
    We had reached an inn, breakfasted, and set out again before he said a word. Then, as our horses breasted the first rise, slowly, all but fumblingly, he began to speak.
    â€œYou think what I did was justified. Self-defense. For act or worth, he—Gevos—deserved no better.” I nodded. “But everyone’s stupid when they’re afraid. Nor was that all his fault. So much for him.”
    My neck told me the curs had grown six inches extra ear.
    â€œAnd for me?” A wry smile. “It was about as fair as a mouse against a tiger-cat. I needn’t have killed him. Why I should not is the heart of it.”’
    He was still staring ahead, almost back in that morning’s somberness.
    â€œFengthira told me, when I left. Warned me. ‘Tha’st been safe, in Hethria. T’will not be so easy, among the temptations of men.’ ”
    I did not have to find a prompt. His mouth tightened and he said too quietly, “ ‘I’m usually strong enough.’ I actually said that. I’d forgotten—after trees, and rocks, I’d forgotten how fragile it is—flesh and blood.” He looked up into the dew-starred forest canopy and added, yet more quietly, “And I’d forgotten Math.”
    I let the silence ask, Math?
    â€œI follow the Four, I said to you. I thought Math was—an idea. A theory. Fengthira’s business . . . something I just had to hear about. I know now, it’s not.”
    I just managed not to blurt, “Eh?”
    â€œIt isn’t a theory.” Now I could hardly hear him at all. “For an aedr. . . . It’s inside you, part of you. When you damage that, or break it. . . .” He made a little sound that was poles from a laugh. “Then you find what it means, to say, This’ll hurt me more than it hurts you.”
    I must have twitched or somehow else betrayed myself. His eyes came right round and he said it for me. “I’m sorry. You don’t understand. You don’t know anything about Math.”
    I tried to make it sound neither pressing nor accusing. “No.”
    He frowned. “I don’t think I can explain this very well, because it’s Math, to begin with. And I’m new to it. And I was never very good with words. But I think . . . ‘Math’ is twofold. The—vision. And the rule. For the vision, Math means, Reality. That-which-is. For the rule . . . Fengthira says, the simplest is, Respect that-which-is. Trees, beasts, men. Because every single one is the sum of Math, and you can alter or destroy them, but to make them is beyond us all. It takes the whole world and all of time, it was never done before, and will never be done again.”
    It was almost, I remembered, what he had said over the dead man.
    â€œAnd the more power you have over that-which-is, the more reluctant you should be to exercise it. A little fire won’t temper a sword-blade, but nor will it turn a master-sculptor’s marble into lime.” I nodded. “I am an aedr. I can damage that-which-is more than—just