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will be setting our feet on a longer road than we know.”
     
     
     
    “FIREKEEPER WILL DECIDE to go where Truth has asked,” Powerful Tenderness reported confidently to the gathered maimalodalum the next morning. “I will go with them. Firekeeper and Blind Seer lack the physical power to restrain Truth if the jaguar gets the desire to do something foolish—or violent. Will someone else come to share shifts with me?”
    There was nervous shuffling among the group, for most of the maimalodalum rarely left Center Island. What had begun as a long-ago precaution had become habit with the force of tradition behind it. Selfpreservation had originated the precaution, and fear maintained it.
    The maimalodalum were not cowards, but they knew too well that the unfamiliar bred fear. As each of them was a unique monstrosity, they knew they would always be unfamiliar. Until recently, the humans on the mainland had not known they even existed. Even now, only a few shared the secret. Overall the Wise Beasts were more tolerant, but the yarimaimalom’s own precautions against inbreeding made some of them less than kind when confronted with monsters.
    Plik remembered his conversation with Hope the night before. He spoke without giving himself time for a second thought.
    “I will go with you, Powerful Tenderness. I am not as strong as you are, but weight counts for something. I am also very stubborn and that counts for more. Truth would find it hard to pull away from me.”
    The human/bear face with those cold snake’s eyes broke into a smile as warm as any Plik had ever seen. “Good. I will be glad to have you—and not only for your weight and stubbornness. I will be glad for those sharp ears that hear so much more than sounds. Truth is not telling us everything she knows. Of that I am certain. You may ‘hear’ something the rest of us will miss.”
    Plik felt very pleased at this praise.
    “I will go with you,” he repeated, and wondered what he had gotten himself into.
     
     
     
    THEY DEPARTED CENTER ISLAND late the following day. Had Firekeeper had her way, they would have left with the morning’s freshness, for the moon was new and there would not be much light after dark, but there were complications she had not anticipated.
    For one, the maimalodalum had decided that Truth must wear a harness and leash, and Powerful Tenderness came to hold the leash’s end.
    “Otherwise she will climb a tree and be gone before any of us can catch her,” Powerful Tenderness said. “I have sent word out and none of her kin will protest.”
    “None will help either, I suppose,” Blind Seer grumbled.
    “Jaguar-kind are not social,” Powerful Tenderness reminded him. “Let them be what they were made to be. At least they come about their quirks naturally.”
    Another of the maimalodalum joined them, ostensibly to assist Powerful Tenderness. When Firekeeper saw that the one so chosen was the raccoon-man, Plik, the same who had asked so many questions during the council the night before, she wondered at his intentions, but out of good manners she kept these wonderings to herself.
    The two maimalodalum insisted on bringing baggage, not only to assure their own comfort, but in anticipation that the “door” they sought might not be in plain sight. Firekeeper had to admit the maimalodalum had a good idea there. In her years in the wilds, she had jury-rigged tools often enough to fully approve of having them along ready-made.
    She felt particularly ready to agree when it became clear she was not expected to carry anything extra. Powerful Tenderness hoisted a large pack onto his back and seemed not to feel the weight.
    Rascal, of Firekeeper and Blind Seer’s own pack, also joined them. He had arrived two days after Firekeeper and Blind Seer along with Dark Death, Moon Frost, and the pups. The pups were footsore after the longest, fastest trek they had ever made, but Rascal had been held beneath his own growing strength. Even hunting