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clearly in view behind Father, though already growing distant as the mid-river current drew it on. As Lared watched, the arm of the burning man rose into the air, black and flaming; the arm stayed erect in the air and the fingers uncrumpled like paper in a fire.
    “He's still alive!” Lared cried.
    Father turned to look. The hand stayed up a moment more, than collapsed back into the pyre. It took a long time before Father again took the oars in hand and pulled for shore. In the bow, Lared could not see his father's face. He did not want to.
    They had been so long without rowing in the current that they came to shore well downstream from the dock. Ordinarily Father would have worked the boat upstream in the almost currentless water near the bank, but this time he sprang from the boat and pulled it onto Harvings' gravel beach. He was silent, and Lared did not dare to speak to him. What could be said, after what they had seen? The people upriver had put a living man on a burning raft. And though the man had been silent, no sound of agony, the memory of Clany's death was too near; she had screamed into their minds enough to sear them again and again.
    “Maybe,” said Father, “maybe the heat made his arm rise, and him long dead.”
    That was it, thought Lared. They had seen the sign of life, but it was no sign of life.
    “Father,” shouted Sala.
    They were not alone, after all. On a rise of ground above Harvings' landing stood tall Jason, holding Sala in his arms. Only when Lared was halfway up the embankment did he realize that Justice was there too, curled around Jason's legs like a game animal freshly killed. But she was not dead; her body shook with weeping.
    Jason saw the question in Lared's mind, and answered it. “She looked into the mind of the man on the boat.”
    “He was alive, then?” asked Lared.
    “Yes.”
    “And you too looked into his mind?”
    Jason shook his head. “I've been with men when they died before.”
    Lared looked at Justice, wondering why she had wanted to look at death so closely. Jason looked away. Justice raised herself partway from the ground, and looked at him as the words came into his mind: I am not afraid to know anything. But that was not all, was it? Lared was not sure, but he felt an overtone of meaning, as if she had really said, I am not afraid to know anything that I have done .
    “You're so wise,” said Father behind them. “What was that raft? What did it mean?”
    The words of answer came to Lared, and he spoke them.
    “Upriver they have made pain into a god, and they burn the man alive so pain will be satisfied and go away.”
    Father's face went ugly with disgust. “What fool would believe such things?”
    Again Lared spoke the words they gave him. “The man on the boat believed it.”
    “He was already dead!” shouted Father.
    Lared shook his head.
    “I say he was already dead!” Father stalked away, disappearing quickly in the scant moonlight.
    When his footsteps died away, Lared heard an unaccustomed sound. Quick, heavy, uncontrolled breathing. It took a moment to realize that it was Justice, cold and immovable Justice; she was weeping.
    Jason said something in their language. She answered sharply, and lifted herself away from him, sat up and bent her back so her head was clasped between her knees.
    “She will stop crying,” Jason said.
    Sala wriggled in Jason's arms, and he let her down. She went to Justice and patted her trembling shoulders. “I forgive you, Sala said. ”I don't mind.
    Lared almost rebuked his sister for saying such silly, meaningless things to an adult—Sala was always saying inappropriate things until Mother's hand was nearly raw from swatting her. But before he could speak, Jason laid a firm hand on his shoulder and shook his head. “Let's go home,” Jason said softly, and drew Lared from the hill. Lared looked back only once, and saw in the moonlight how Justice sat with Sala on her lap, rocking back and forth, for all the world