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inquisitor.
    He wanted to answer. He meant to answer. He said: “If you have taken life from the sacred ptaiss, will you not take mine also?”
    The spirit did not take his life, but grinned, revealing white teeth that flashed in the firelight. Then he shaded his eyes with, his hand.
    “What do you call this, place?”
    “Benegua,” mumbled Deilcrit, startled. Across the fire, the woman-form ministered to the ptaissling. If she intended it harm, he could not help it.
    “And this language?”
    “Beneguan,” he answered, fear rising to lock his jaw in ice and turn the sweat cold as it rolled down his brow. How can language be spoken by one who has no name for it? he wondered dully.
    “We have come here from Fai Teraer-Moyhe,” explained the man-form. Upon hearing that, he understood. Deilcrit, wailing, struck his forehead repeatedly upon the grass. From the Dark Land .... Tears of repentance flooded him. Not once had he failed, but endlessly. Aama died. He would die. The ptaissling would die. All of Benegua might be carried off to eternal penance, because he had not fled with word. Over his own moans, he heard nothing. Not until the avenging spirit dressed as a man touched him did he realize that it desired to further enlighten him.
    “Be at ease,” the man-form said. “We have no quarrel with you.”
    Could a man be so simply absolved of misdeeds in their sight? He did not think so. A torrent of guilt burst within him, until dammed back by the thought of the ptaissling. Then he raised his head. Stilling his body’s tremors, he faced the spirit of Fai Teraer-Moyhe.
    “Sereth,” called the woman, from the ptaissling’s side. “You will kill him with fright.” At her first word, Deilcrit leaped to his feet, filled with concern for the newborn. Even before the hand reached out to stop him, he sank back down. The spirit nodded approvingly, manlike. Once more he tried to fit the man-mold over this being, that his terror be eased. No amount of trying allowed him this grace; what sat before him could not be a man. Even if from its own mouth had not come the name of the Abode of the Dead, the other-worldliness of his interrogator’s very frame would have made the distinction clear. Men did not carry themselves with such lordly bearing, nor did they wear such garments. Nor carry such weapons. Nor speak so to women. But none had ever lived to tell what Fai Teraer-Moyhe spawned.
    “Will I?” demanded the spirit. “Will you die of fright?”
    Deilcrit looked at the ground. “My life is yours,” he whispered.
    “I have not asked for it,” said the spirit. “I am Sereth.” And he held out his hand.
    Deilcrit looked at the hand, brown and sinewey and mottled with Aama’s blood. It hovered in his field of vision, palm turned toward him. Then he bent his head and kissed it. From under his lips it was jerked away.
    He raised his eyes, once more braving that terrible scourged visage.
    “What is your name?” the spirit Sereth asked. “Iyl-Deilcrit,” he said, not vainglorious, but in admission.
    “And what do you do, iyl-Deilcrit?”
    “I tend the ptaiss, and spit the guerm,” he replied through unwieldy lips. Now it would come, whatever judgment the spirit had thus far held in abeyance. He straightened his shoulders. When it did not come, when those eyes compelled his to speak, he repeated what he had said, adding: “Let me do so,” and ripped his glance from the other by an effort which left him breathing hard.
    “Get up, then. I would keep no man from his calling,” said the grinning spirit Sereth, rising.
    Dazed, he followed suit, moving slowly so that his legs’ tremors would not throw him to the ground.
    “That is Chayin,” said Sereth, pointing out the dark one who squatted near the ptaissling’s head. “And Estri.” The woman-spirit smiled over her shoulder and turned back to the newborn ptaiss. Her naked back gleamed in the firelight, as if it bore a fire of its own. “They accompanied me from