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obeisance. And his body, as she came closer, waxed audacious, presenting him with one extreme reaction after another. He tore his attention from her, setting it instead upon the dark one, Chayin, by the slain ptaiss’ head, and on the ptaissling, shadow turned sentient clambering at her belly.
    “What is this Wehrdom? And what did you see that so affrighted you? And speak to me of the—ptaiss, and why they are sacred,” she commanded him.
    Deilcrit nodded dumbly. Miserable in realization of his insufficiency, he studied the grass, and her booted feet. “It is not me you want, Most High. I am low in Mnemaat’s service. Only the first ten parables are known to me. And I am no wehrnone but the initiated could speak to you of the Way. Ptaiss, I know ...” He trailed off, spreading his hands wide.
    She took no notice that he looked upon her breasts, but smiled encouragingly. “Tell me,” she insisted, “what you saw.”
    Deilcrit shivered. She would have from his own mouth his death sentence. He sensed it. And then there would be none to care for the ptaissling. But she knelt down on the grass opposite him, and his resistance was dissolved by her proximity. Unable to stop either his staring or his words, he did as she bid him: “I saw the Spirit Gate, upon which the guerm climbed, struck by lightning. I saw you enter through it. I saw you build a fire. I saw you eat of the flesh of quenel, long denied to man. I saw you strike dead a ptaiss, a thing that no man could do, which no man has ever done. What more?” Then he lowered his head, waiting. When death did not come, he raised it. “Most High, what are you?”
    She blew a breath, soft and hissing, through her teeth.
    The ptaissling, at that moment, began to whimper. Its cries tore at his heart. In this world into which it had come, those needs for which it moaned could never be filled. “The ptaissling, may I see to it?” The audacity escaped his lips before thought could intervene. “I ask you, in Mnemaat’s name, to allow me.”
    In the ensuing silence, his restraint dissolved with the newborn’s ever-more-urgent cries. Finally, while he crouched ready to spring for his charge and the forest’s safety, she spoke:
    “Do as you will, iyl-Deilcrit.”
    He sprang like a loosed arrow to the ptaissling’s side.
    “Be assured that your god is not defiled by what we have done.” Her words trailed after him, wrapped in a humor that appalled him.
    His hands around the ptaissling’s head, he pulled its mouth from Aama’s depleted udder. Then, only, he looked over his shoulder at her. Out from her flesh gleamed starlight, a patch of it. He had not imagined it. It winked there, uncanny, embellishing her left breast. The ptaissling whimpered more insistently. He squeezed the last drops of milk onto his fingers and let the searching mouth suck them clean. Its teeth, tiny yet sharp, nipped impatiently.
    “Estri,” snapped Sereth, and a great deal more in their alien tongue as he led her forcibly into the shadows. Deilcrit’s hand sought the ptaissling’s pounding heart as it butted its unseeing face against his leg. The Most High’s voice, low and musical, made short, conciliatory answers to the other’s anger. He had never even imagined such a state of affairs: she did not curse, nor abrade, nor turn Sereth’s form to stone, but accepted meekly whatever chastisement was in progress. Even with her body stiffened by the manform’s rough treatment, the grace of her was astounding. He dragged his gaze away, discomfited at all that he saw. Her image danced before his eyes, though he looked upon the black-furred newborn, huddling against him for warmth. He lay down and curled his body around it, pulling it to him, away from the cold corpse of its mother. The ptaissling snuffled its way up to his chest, pushing its wet nose into his armpit. Its body was quivering. He drew up his knees so that they touched its hindquarters, and threw his arm over it. Even early-born,