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people name marlouk. The belief common to both is that the creature must die in a state of relaxation, or it will become almost unchewable in minutes, no matter how long you pound it. I braced myself in every way I knew against the ceaseless, merciless storm of hand-edge hammer-blows to my gut and groin and face (blood there, a good deal of it, spoiling his record); to my neck and throat as well; to every vulnerable ligament, muscle and tendon in my body, and even to my hair, which he would grab to haul me back to pain each time I lost consciousness. Looking up into his blue eyes as he slapped my head back and forth, grabbing my jaw, my whole mouth, between his thumb and fingers, I could feel through my bones how badly he wanted to kill me, and I would grin my red grin in his face, because I knew it would not be allowed. Then he would hit me harder, because he knew it too, and I would go away again, and so it went, world without end.
    But there are a few ways of dealing with even the worst agony—of absenting oneself from it—that the man who laughs taught me long ago, and I employed them to their fullest extent, as I had prepared myself to do the instant I looked into the third Hunter’s mad blue eyes. For three different purposes were crowded into my cell that day, and I kept reminding myself that I needed to stay present, so I could pay attention to all of them. This is difficult when you keep being beaten to the brink of death by someone who knows how to do it, and has every intention of doing it once for each of his cohorts you have killed. I know this, because the Hunter told me so. Each time.
    The Masters themselves obviously wanted something from me, some information that I must eventually yield up to them to stop the beating. And I would yield it to them in time, but not until I focused more clearly on exactly what they were saying to one another as they watched the Hunter taking out his fury on me. Because I wanted something too. If I had been lured back to that place by a false death and other possible deceptions, that did not mean that there was no greater truth to be found. If I could only hold onto consciousness long enough—the periods of coherent awareness were definitely becoming shorter—and if the Hunter could only be kept from going over the brink himself and taking me with him, what I was enduring might yet turn out to be worthwhile.
    Finally he hit me hard enough that I actually skidded across the cell floor on my back, coming to rest with my head almost between one Master’s foot and what I recognized as Master Caldrea’s fine sheknath- leather sandals. I felt his voice in the stone under me, rather than hearing it. “That will be enough for now. Enough! When he comes to himself, I will question him.”
    I kept my eyes tightly closed, feeling the Hunter’s breath on my face. But he did not touch me. I heard the other Master say pettishly, “I would like it to be recorded that I have found this entire affair distasteful in the extreme. If the man had anything of value to tell us, he would surely have babbled it all at least an hour ago.”
    “So noted,” murmured Master Caldrea. “But you do not know him as I do. He is Soukyan, and he has killed more Hunters than you, Jedrath, have had your wine glass refilled. It would be more than worth our time to learn how he became our nemesis, even if we had nothing more than that to concern us. Even if the Tree were not dying.”
    It took more will than surviving the Hunter’s best efforts not to pop my eyes open and demand details. There was a Tree then, and it was somehow intimately connected with the existence of the Hunters, the Masters, and that place itself. I knew that this, finally, was the reason I had been lured back here—though I could not yet see the purpose.
    The Master named Jedrath asked, somewhat hesitantly, “That is certain, then? There is no saving the Tree?”
    “There is now,” Master Caldrea said.
    The Hunter growled, “He