CHAPTER ONE

Tyl of Two Weapons waited in the night cornfield. He had one singlestick in his hand and the other tucked in his waist band, ready to draw. He had waited two hours in silence.

Tyl was a handsome man, sleek but muscular. His face was set in a habitual frown stemming from years of less than ideal command. The empire spanned a thousand miles, and he was second only to the Master in its hierarchy, and first in most practical matters. He set interim policy within the general guidelines laid down by the Master, and established the rankings and placement of the major subchiefs. Tyl had power-but it chafed at him.

Then he heard it: a rustle to the north that was not typical of the local animals.

Carefully he stood, shielded from the intruder by the tall plants. There was- no moon, for the beast never came in the light. Tyl traced its progress toward the fence by the subtle sounds.

The wind was from the north; otherwise the thing would have caught his scent and stayed clear.

There was no doubt about it. This was his quarry. Now it was mounting the sturdy split-rail fence, scrambling over, landing with a faint thump within the corn. And now it was quiet for a time, waiting to see whether it had been discovered. A cunning animal-one that avoided deadfalls, ignored poison and fought savagely when trapped. In the past month three of Tyl's men had been wounded in night encounters with this creature. Already it was becoming known as a hex upon the camp, an omen of ill, and skilled warriors were evincing an unseemly fear of the dark.

And so it was up to the chief to resolve the matter. Tyl,long bored by the routine of maintaining a tribe that was not engaged in conquest, was more than satisfied by the challenge. He had no awe of the supernatural. He intended to capture the thing and display it before the tribe: here is the spook that made cowards of lesser men!

Capture, not death, for this quarry. This was the reason he had brought his sticks instead of his sword.

Slight noise again. Now it was foraging, stripping the ripening corn from the stalk and consuming it on the spot. This alone set it apart from ordinary carnivores, for they would never have touched the corn. But it could not be an ordinary herbivore either, for they did not harvest and chew the cobs like that. And its footprints, visible in daylight following a raid, were not those of any animal he knew. Broad and round, with the marks of four squat claws or slender hoofs-not a bear, not anything natural.

It was time. Tyl advanced on the creature, holding one stick 'aloft, using his free hand to part the corn stalks quietly. He knew he could not come upon it completely by surprise, but he hoped to get close enough to take it with a sudden charge. Tyl knew himself to be the best fighter in the world, with the sticks. The only man who could beat him stick to stick, was dead, gone to the mountain. There was nothing Tyl feared when so armed.

He recalled that lone defeat with nostalgia, as he made the tedious approach. Four years ago, when he had been young. Sol had done it-Sol of All Weapons, creator of the empire-the finest warrior of all time. Sol had set out to conquer the world, with Tyl as his chief lieutenant. And they had been doing it, too-until the Nameless One had come.

He was close now, and abruptly the foraging noises ceased. The thing had heard him!

Tyl did not wait for the animal to make up its crafty mind. He launched himself at it, heedless of the shocks of corn he damaged in his mad passage. Now he had both sticks ready, batting stalks aside as he ran.

The creature bolted. Tyl saw a hairy hump rise in the darkness, heard its weird grunt. He was tempted to use his flash, but knew it would destroy the night vision he had built up in the silent wait and put his mission in peril. The animal was at the fence now, but the fence was strong and high, and Tyl knew he could catch it before it got over.

The creature-knew it too. Its back to the course rails, it came to bay, its breath rasping. Tyl saw the dim glint of its eye, the vague outline of its body, shaggy and warped and menacing. Tyl laid into it with both sticks, seeking a quick head-blow that would reduce it to impotence.

But the thing was as canny about weapons as about traps. It dived, passing under his defense in the obscurity, and fastened its teeth on Tyl's knee. He clubbed it on the head once, twice, feeling the give of the tangled fur, and it let go. The wound was not serious, as the thing's snout was recessed and its teeth blunt, but his knees had been tricky since the Nameless One had smashed them a year before. And he was angry at his defensive negligence; nothing should have penetrated his guard like that, by day or night. -

It drew back, snarling, and Tyl was chilled by that sound. No wolf, no wildcat articulated like that. And now, as it tasted blood, its mewling became hungry as well as defiant.

It pounced, not smoothly but with force. This time it went for his throat, as he had known it would. He rapped its head again with the stick, but again it anticipated him, hunching so that the blow skidded glancingly off the skull. It struck Tyl's chest, bearing hint down, and its foreclaws raked his neck while its hindclaws dug for his groin.

Tyl, dismayed by its ferocity, beat it off blindly, and it jumped away. Before he could recover it was up again, scrambling over the fence while he hobbled behind, too late.

Now he cursed aloud in fury at its escape-but the expletives were tinged with a certain brute respect. He had chosen the locale of combat, and the marauder had bested him in this context. But there was a use he could make of this situation---perhaps a better one than he had had in mind before.

The creature dropped outside the fence and loped off into the forest. It was bleeding from a wound reopened by the blows of the attacker, and it was partially lame on flat ground because of malformed bones in its feet. But it made rapid progress, its armored toes finding good purchase in the wilder turf.

And it was clever. It had seen Tyl clearly and smelled him. Only its pressing hunger had dulled its alertness prior to the encounter. It had recognized the singlesticks as weapons and had avoided them. Still, blows had landed, and they had hurt. The creature thought about it, taming the problem over in its mind as it angled toward the badlands. Then menfolk were getting more difficult about their crops. Now they lay in wait, ambushed, attacked, pursued. This last had been quite effective; if the hunger were not so strong, the area would be best avoided entirely. As it was, better protection would have to be devised.

It entered the badlands where no man could follow and slowed to catch its breath. It picked up a branch, curling stubby mottled digits around it tightly. The forelimb was angular, the claws wide and flat-less effective as a weapon than as supplementary protection for the tips of the calloused fingers. It wrestled the stick around, finding comfortable purchase, imitating the stance of the man in the cornfield. It banged the wood against a tree, liking the feel of the impact: It banged harder, and the dry, rotted branch - shattered, releasing a stunned grub. The creature quickly pounced on this, squashing it dead and licking the squirting juices with gusto, forgetting the useless stick. But it had learned something.

Next time it foraged, it would take along a stick.

CHAPTER TWO

The Master of Empire pondered the message from Tyl of Two Weapons. Tyl had not written the note himself, of course, for he like most of the nomadic leaders was illiterate. But his smart wife Tyla, like many of the empire women, had taken up the art with enthusiasm, and was now a fair hand at the written language.

The Master was literate, and he believed in literacy, yet he had not encouraged the women's classes in reading and figuring. The Master knew the advantages of farming, too, yet he ignored the farms. And he comprehended the dynamics of empire, for he, in other guise, had fashioned this same empire and brought it from formless ambition to a mighty force. Yet he now let it drift and stagnate and atrophy.

This message was deferentially worded, but it constituted a clever challenge to his authority and policy. Tyl was an activist, impatient to resume conquest. Tyl wanted either to goose the Master into action, or to ease him out of power so that new leadership might bring a new policy. Because Tyl himself was bonded to this regime, he could do nothing directly. He would not go against the man who had bested him in the circle. This was not cowardice but honor.

If the Master declined to deal with this mysterious menace to the local crops, he would be admitting either timidity or treason to the purpose of the empire. For farming was vital to growth; the organized nomads could not afford to remain dependent on the largesse of the crazies.

If he did not support the farm program the resultant unrest would throw him into disrepute, and lead to solidification of resistance around some othet figure. Hc could not afford that, for he would then soon be spending all his time defeating such weedlike pretenders in thc circle. No-he had to rule the empire, and keep it quiescent.

So there was nothing to do but tackle this artfully, posed problem. He could be sure it was not an easy one, for this wild beast had wounded Tyl himself and escaped. That suggested that no lesser man than the Master could subdue it.

Of course he could organize a large hunting party-but this would violate the precepts of single combat, and it went against the grain, even when an animal was involved. In fact, it would be another implication of cowardice.

It was necessary that the Master prove himself against this beast. That was what Tyl wanted, for failure would certainly damage his image. He did not appreciate being maneuvered, but the alternatives were worse-and he did privately admire the manner Tyl had set this up. The man would be a valuable ally, at such time as certain things changed.

So it was the Nameless One, the Man of No Weapon, Master of Empire-this leader took leave of the wife he had usurped from the former master, put routine affairs in the hands of competent subordinates, and set out on foot alone for Tyl's encampment. He wore a cloak over his grotesque and mighty body, but all who saw him in that region knew him and feared him. His hair was white, his visage ugly, and there was no man to match him in the circle.

In fifteen days he arrived. A young staffer who had never seen the Master challenged him at the border of the camp. The Nameless One took that staff and tied a knot in it and handed it back. "Show this to Tyl of Two Weapons," he said.

And Tyl came hurriedly with his entourage. He ordered the guard with the pretzel-staff to the fields to work among the women, as penalty for not recognizing the visitor. But the Weaponless said, "He was right to challenge when in doubt; let the man who straightens that weapon chastise him, no other." So he was not punished, for no one except a smithy could have unbent that metal rod. And no other man of that camp failed to know the Nameless One by sight thereafter.

Next morning the Master took up a bow and a length of rope, for these were not weapons of the circle, and set off on the trail of the raider. He took along a hound and a pack of supplies doubly loaded, but would tolerate the company of no other man. "I will bring the creature back,"

he said.

Tyl made no comment, thinking his own thoughts.

The trail passed from the open fields of corn and buckwheat to the birches fringing the forestland, and on toward the dwindling region of local badland. The Master observed the markers that the crazies placed and periodically resurveyed. Unlike the average person, he had no superstitions, no fear of these. He knew that it was radiation that made these areas deadly-Roentgen left from the fabled Blast. Every year there was less of it, and the country at the fringe of the badlands became habitable for plant, animal and man. He knew that so long as the native life was healthy, there was little danger from radiation.

But there were other terrors in the fringe. Tiny shrews swarmed periodically, consuming all animals in their path and devouring each other when nothing else offered. Large white moths came out at night, their stings deadly. And there were wild tales told by firelight, of strange haunted buildings, armored bones, and living machines. The Master did not credit much of this and sought some reasonable explanation for what he did credit. But he did know the badlands were dangerous, and he entered them with caution.

The traces skirted the heart of the radioactive area, staying a mile or so within the crazy boundary. This told the Master something else important: that the creature he hunted was not some- supernatural spook from the deep horror-region, but an animal of the fringe, leary of radiation. That meant he could run it down in time.

For two days he followed the trail the cheerful hound sniffed out. He fed the dog and himself from his pack, occasionally bringing down a rabbit with an arrow and cooking it whole as a mutual treat. He slept on the open ground, well covered. This was late summer, and the warm crazy sleeping-bag sufficed. He had a spare, in case. He rather enjoyed the trek, and did not push the pace.

On the evening of the second day he found it. The hound bayed and raced ahead-then yelped and ran back, frightened.

The thing stood under a large oak about four feet tall, bipedal, hunched. Wild hair radiated from its head and curled about its muzzle. Mats of shaggy fur hung over its shoulders, Its skin, where it showed on head and limbs and torso, was mottled gray and yellow, and encrusted with dirt.

But it was no animal. It was a mutant human boy.

The boy had made a crude club. He made as though to attack his pursuer, having naturally been aware of the Master for some time. But the sheer size of the man daunted him, and he fled, running on the balls of his blunted, callused feet.

The Nameless One made camp there. He had suspected that the raider was human or human-derived, for no animal had the degree of cunning and dexterity this prowler had shown. But now that he had made the confirmation, he needed to reconsider means. It would not do to kill the boy-yet it would hardly be kind to bring him back prisoner for the torment the angry farmer-warriors would inflict. Civilization grew very thin in such a case. But one or the other had to be accomplished, for the Master had his own political expedience to consider.

He thought it out, slowly, powerfully. He decided to take the boy to his own camp, so that the lad could join human society without compelling prejudice. This would mean months, perhaps years of demanding attention.

The white moths were coming out. He covered his head with netting, sealed his bag, and settled for sleep. He knew of no reliable way to protect the dog, for the animal would not comprehend the necessity for confinement in the spare bag. He hoped the animal would not snap at a moth and get stung. He' wondered how the boy survived in this region. He thought about Sola, the woman he once had loved, the wife he now pretended to love. He thought of Sol, the friend he had sent to the mountain-the man for whom he would trade all his empire, - just to travel together again and converse without trial of strength. And he thought lingeringly of the woman of Helicon, his true wife and the woman he really loved, but would never see again. Great thoughts, petty thoughts. He suffered. He slept.

Next morning the chase resumed. The dog was well; it seemed that the moths did not attack wantonly. Perhaps they died when delivered of their toxin, in the manner of bees. Probably a man could expose himself safely, if he only treated them deferentially. That might explain the boy's survival.

The trail led deeper into the badlands. Now they would discover who had more courage and determination: pursuer or fugitive.

The boy had obviously haunted this area for some time. If there were lethal radiation he should have died already. In any event, the Master could probably withstand any dosage the boy could. So if the lad hoped to escape by hiding in the hot region, he would be disappointed.

Still, the Master could not entirely repress his apprehension as the trail led into a landscape of stunted and deformed trees. Surely these had been touched. And game was scarce, tokening the irregular ravages of the fringe shrews. If radiation were not present now, it had not departed long since. -

He caught up to the boy again. The hunched conditlon of the youngster's body was more evident by full daylight and his piebald skin more striking. And the way he ran-heels high, knees bent, so that the whole foot never touched the ground-forelimbs dropping down periodically for support-this was uncanny. Had this boy ever shared a human home?

"Come!" the Weaponless called. "Yield to me and I will spare your life and give you food."

But as he had expected, the fugitive paid no attention. Probably this wilderness denizen had never learned to speak.

The trees became mere shrubs, scabbed with discolored woodrinds and sap-bleeding abrasions, and their leaves were limp, sticky, asymmetric efforts. Then only shriveled sticks protruded from the burned soil, twisted grotesquely. Finally all life was gone, leaving caked ashes and greenish glass. The hound whined, afraid of the dead bare terrain, and the Master felt rather like whining himself, for this was grim.

But still the boy ran ahead, bounding circuitously around invisible obstacles. At first the Nameless One thought it was strategy, to confuse the pursuit. Then, as he perceived the maneuvering to take forms that were by no means evasive or concealing, he pondered dementia.

Radiation might indeed make mad before it destroyed. Finally he realized that the boy was actually skirting pockets of radiation. He could tell where the roentgen remained!

Dangerous terrain indeed! The Nameless One followed the trail exactly, and kept the hound to it, knowing that shortcuts would expose him to invisible misery. He was risking his health and his life, but he would not relent.

"Are you ashamed because you are ugly?" he called. He took off his great cloak and showed his own massive, scarred torso, and his neck so laced with gristle that it resembled the trunk of an aged yellow birch. "You are not more ugly than I!" But the boy ran on.

Then the Master paused, for ahead he saw a building.

Buildings were scarce in the nomad culture. There were hostels that the crazies maintained, where wandering warriors and their families might stay for a night or a fortnight without obligation except to take due care with the premises. There were the houses of the crazies themselves, and the school buildings and offices they maintained. And of course there were the subterranean fortifications of the underworld, wherein were manufactured the weapons and clothing the nomads used-though only the crazies and the Master himself knew this. But the great expanse of land was field and fern and forest, cleared by the Blast that had destroyed the marvelous, warlike culture of the Ancients. The wilderness had returned in the wake of the radiation, open and clean.

This building was tremendous and misshapen. He counted seven distinct levels within it, one layered atop another, and above the last fiber-clothed story metal rods projected like the ribs of a dead cow. Behind it was another structure, of similar configuration, and beyond that a third.

He contemplated these, amazed. He had read about such a thing in the old books, but he had half believed it was a myth. This was a "city."

Before the Blast, the texts had claimed, mankind had grown phenomenally numerous and strong, and had resided in cities where every conceivable (and inconceivable) comfort of life was available. Thea these fabulously prosperous peoples had destroyed it all in a rain of fire, a smash of intolerable radiation, leaving only the scattered nomads and crazies and underworlders, and the extensive badlands.

He could poke a thousand logical holes in that fable. For one thing, it was obvious that no culture approaching the technological level described would be at the same time so primitive as to throw it away so pointlessly. And such a radically different culture as that of the nomads could not- have sprung full-blown from ashes. But he was sure the ultimate truth did lie hidden somewhere within the badlands, for their very presence seemed to vindicate the reality of the Blast, whatever its true cause.

Now, astonishingly, these badlands were ready to yield some of their secrets. For the century since the cataclysm no man had penetrated far into the posted regions and lived-but always the proscribed area declined. He knew the time would come, though not in his lifetime, when the entire territory would be open once more to man. Meanwhile the fever of discovery was on him; he was so eager to learn the truth that he gladly risked the roentgen.

The boy's tracks were clear in the dirt, that had been freshened by recent rainfall. The glass had broken up and disappeared, here; sprouts of pale grass rimmed the path. Nothing, not even the radiation, was consistent about the badlands.

The boy had gone into the building. Most nomads were in awe of solid structures of any size, and avoided even the comparatively-modest buildings of the crazies. But the Master had traveled widely and experienced as much as any man of his time, and he knew that there was nothing supernatural about a giant edifice. There could be danger, yes-but the natural hazards of falling timbers and deep pits and radiation and crazed animals, nothing more sinister.

Still, he hesitated before entering that ancient temple.

It would be easy to become trapped inside, and perhaps the wily boy had something of the sort in mind. He had been known to place dead falls for unwary trackers, laboriously scraped out of the Earth by hand and nail and artfully covered. That was one of the things he had evidently learned from the measures applied against him. Too smart for an animal-adding to the terror surrounding him-and not bad for a human.

The Master looked about. Within the shelter of the window-arches there were fragments of dry wood. Most had rotted, but not all. There was bound to be more wood inside. He could fire it and drive the boy out. This seemed to be the safest course.

Yet there could be invaluable artifacts within-machines, books, supplies. Was he to destroy it all so wantonly? Better to preserve the building intact, and assemble a task force to explore it thoroughly at a later date.

So deciding, the Master entered at the widest portal and began his final search for the boy. The hound whined' and stayed so close that it was tricky to avoid tripping over it, but the animal did sniff out the trail.

There were stone steps leading down, an avenue of splendid and wasteful breadth, and this was where the boy had gone. And, so easily that it was suspicious, they had tracked the marauder to his lair. There did not seem to be another exit apart from the stair. The boy had to be waiting below.

Would it be wise to check the upper floors first? The boy might actually be leading him into the final trap, while his real residence was above. No-best to follow closely, for otherwise he ran too strong a risk of encountering radiation. Had he realized that the chase would end so deep in the badlands, he would have arranged to obtain a crazy geiger. As it was, he had tO

proceed with exceeding caution. That meant, in this case, to dispense with much of his caution in the pursuit. Physical' attack by the boy was much less to be feared than the radiation that might be lurking on either side of the boy's trail.

As the Nameless One approached the final chamber an object flew out. The boy, unable to flee again, was pelting his tormentor with any objects available.

The Master paused, contemplating the thing that had been thrown. He squatted to pick it up, watching the door so that he would not be taken by surprise. Then he turned the object over in his hands, studying it closely.

It was metal, but not a can or tool. A weapon, but no sword or staff or dagger. One end was solid and curved around at right angles to the rest; the other end was hollow. The thing had

'a good solid heft to it, and there were assorted minor mechanisms attached.

The Master's hands shook as he recognized it. This, too, had been described in the books; this, too, was an artifact of the old times.

It was a gun.

CHAPTER THREE

The boy stood astride the boxes and made ready to throw another metal rock, for the tremendous man and the tame animal had trapped him here. Never before had pursuit been so relentless; never before had he had to defend his lair. Had he anticipated this, he would have hidden elsewhere.

But there were so many places here that burned his skin and drove him back! This building was the only one completely safe.

The giant appeared again in the doorway. The boy threw his rock and reached for another.

But this time the man jerked aside, letting the missile glance off his bulging thigh, and heaved a length of rope forward. The boy found himself entangled and, in a moment, helpless. It was as though that rope were alive, the way it twisted and coiled and jerked.

The man bound him and slung him over one tremendous shoulder and carried him out of the room and up the stairs and from the building. The man's brute strength was appalling. The boy tried to squirm and bite, but his teeth met flesh like baked leather.

His skin burned as the man passed through a hot region. Was the monster invulnerable to this too? He had charged through several similar areas on the way in-areas the boy had meticulously avoided. How could one fight such a force?

In the forest the man set him down and loosed the rope, making man-sounds that were only dimly familiar. The boy bolted as soon as he was free.

The rope sailed out like a striking snake and wrapped itself about his waist, hauling him back. He was captive again. "No," the man said, and that sound was a clear negation.

The giant removed the rope again, and immediately the boy dashed away. Once more he was lassoed.

"No!" the man repeated, and this time his huge hand came across in a blow that seemed nearly to cave in the boy's chest. The boy fell to the ground, conscious of nothing but his pain and the need for air.

A third time the man unwound the rope. This time the boy remained where he was. Lessons of this nature were readily learned.

They walked on toward the main camp, still far distant. The boy led, for the eyes of the man never left him. The boy avoided the diminishing patches of radiation, and man and animal followed. By evening they had come to the place they had seen each other the previous day.

The man opened his pack and brought out chunks of material that smelled good. He bit off some, chewing with gusto, and passed some along to the boy. The invitation did not have to be repeated, for this was food.

After eating, the man urinated against a tree and covered his body again. The boy followed the example, even imitating the upright stance. He had learned long ago to control his eliminations, for carelessly deposited traces could interfere with hunting, but it had never occurred to him to direct the flow with his hand.

"Here," the man said. He threw the boy down gently and shoved him feet-first into a constraining sack. The boy struggled as some kind of mesh covered his head. "Stay there tonight, or. . ." And the ponderous fist came down, to tap only lightly at the bruised chest. Another warning.

Then the man went apart a certain distance and climbed into another bag, and the dog settled down under the tree,

The boy lay there, needing to escape but hesitant to brace the dangers of the night, this close to the hot region. He could see well enough, and usually foraged in the dark-but not here.

He had been stung once by a white moth and had nearly perished. It was possible to avoid them, but never with certainty, for they rested under leaves and sometimes on the ground. Here beneath the netting he was at least protected,

But if he did not flee by night, he would not have the chance by day. The rope was too swift and clever, the giant too strong.

He heard the man sleeping, and decided. He sat up and began to claw his way out, The man woke at the first sound. "No!" he called.

It was hazardous to defy the giant, who might run him down again anyway. The boy lay back, resigned. And slept.

In the morning they ate again. It had been a long time since the boy had two such easy meals in succession. It was a condition he could learn to like.

The man then conveyed him to a stream and washed them both. He applied ointments from his pack to the assorted bruises and scratches on the boy's body, and replaced the uncured animal skins with an oversize shirt and pantaloons. After this disgusting process they resumed the journey toward the mancamp.

The boy shrugged and chafed under the awful clothing. He thought once more of bolting for freedom, before being taken, entirely out of his home territory, but a grunted warning changed his mind. And the fact was that the man, apart from his peculiarities of dress and urination, was not a harsh captor. He did not punish without provocation, and even showed gruff kindness.

About the middle of the day the man's pace slowed. He seemed weary or sleepy, despite his enormous muscles and stamina. He began to stagger. He stopped and disgorged his breakfast, and the boy wondered whether this was another civilized ritual. Then he sat down on the ground and looked unhappy.

The boy watched for a time, When the man did not rise, the boy began to walk away.

Unchallenged, he ran swiftly back the way they had come. He was free!

About a mile away be stopped and threw off the fettering man clothing. Then be paused. He knew what was wrong with the giant. The man was not immune to the hot places; he simply hadn't been aware of them, so had exposed himself recklessly. Now he was coming down with the sickness.

The boy had learned about this, too, the hard way. He had been burned, and had become weak, and vomited, and felt like dying. But he had survived, and after that his skin had been sensitized, and whenever he approached a hot area he felt the burn immediately. His brothers, lacking the skin patches that set him apart, had had no such ability, and died gruesomely. He had also discovered certain leaves that cooled his skin somewhat, and the juices of certain fringe-plant stems eased his stomach of such sickness. But he never ventured voluntarily into the hot sections. His skin always warned him off in time, and he took the other medicines purely as precautionary procedure.

The giant man would be very sick, and probably he would die. At night the moths would come, and later the shrews, while he lay helpless. The man had been stupid to enter the badlands'

heart.

Stupid-yet brave and kind. No other stranger had ever extended a helping hand to the boy or fed him since his parents died, and he was oddly moved by it. Somewhere deep in his memory be found a basic instruction: kindness must be met with kindness. It was all that remained of the teaching of his long lost parents, whose skulls were whitening in a burn.

This giant man was like his dead father: strong, quiet, fierce in anger but gentle when unprovoked. The boy had appreciated both the attention and the savage discipline. It was possible to trust a man like that.

He gathered select herbs and came back, his motives uncertain but his actions sure. The man was lying Where he had originally settled to the ground, his body flushed. The boy placed a compress of leaves against the fever-ridden torso and limbs and squeezed drops of stem-juice into the grimacing mouth, but could do little else. The giant was too heavy for him to move, and the boy's clubbed hands could not grasp him properly for such an effort. Not without bruising the flesh.

But as the coolness of night came, the man revived somewhat.

He cleaned himself up with agonized motions but did not eat. He climbed into his bag and lost consciousness.

In the morning the man seemed alert, but stumbled when he attempted to stand. He could not walk. The boy gave him a stem to chew on, and he chewed, not seeming to be aware of his action.

The food in the pack ran out on the following day, and the boy went foraging. Certain fruits were ripening, certain wild tubers swelling. He plucked and dug these and bound them in the jacket he no longer wore and loped with the bpndle back to their enforced camp. In this manner he sustained them both.

On the fourth day the man began bleeding from the skin. Some parts of his body were as hard as wood and did not bleed; but where the skin was natural, it hemorrhaged. The man touched himself with dismay, but could not hold on to consciousness.

The boy took cloth from the pack and soaked it in water and bathed the blood away. But when more blood cam; appearing as if magically on the surface though there was no abrasion, he let it collect and cake. This slowed the flow. He knew that blood had to be kept inside the body, for he had bled copiously once when wounded and had felt very weak for many days. And when animals bled too much, they died.

Whenever the man revived, the boy gave him fruit and the special stems to eat, and whatever water he could accept without choking. When he sank again into stupor, the boy packed the moist leaves tightly about him. When it grew cold, he covered the man with the bag he slept in, and lay beside him, shielding him from the worst of the night wind.

The dog crawled away and died.

Days passed. The sick man burned up his own flesh, becoming gaunt, and the contours of his body were bizarre. It was as though he wore stones and boards under the skin, so that no point could penetrate; but with the supportive flesh melting away, the armor hung loosely. It hampered his breathing, his elimination. But perhaps it had also stopped some of the radiation, for the boy knew that physical substance could do this to a certain extent.

The man was near death, but he refused to die. The boy watched, aware that he was spectator to a greater courage battling a more horrible antagonist than any man could hope to conquer. The boy's own father and brothers had yielded up their lives far more readily. Blood and sweat and urine matted the leaves, and dirt and debris covered the man, but still he fought.

And finally he began to mend. His fever passed, the bleeding stopped, some of his strength returned and he ate-at first tentatively, then with huge appetite. He looked at the boy with renewed comprehension, and he smiled.

There was a bond between them now. Man and boy were friends.

CHAPTER FOUR

The warriors gathered around the central circle. Tyl of Two Weapons supervised the ceremony. "Who is there would claim the honor of manhood and take a name this day?" he inquired somewhat perfunctorily. He had been doing this every month for eight years, and it bored him.

Several youths stepped up: gangling adolescents who seemed hardly to know how to hang on to their weapons. Every year the crop seemed younger and gawkier. Tyl longed for the old days, when he had first served Sol of All-Weapons. Then men had been men, and the leader had been a leader, and great things had been in the making. Now-weaklings and inertia.

It was no effort to put the ritual scorn into his voice. "You will fight each other," he told them. "I will pair you off, man to man in the circle. He who retains the circle shall be deemed warrior, and be entitled to name and band and weapon with honor. The other.. ."

He did not bother to finish. No one could be called a warrior unless he won at least once in the circle. Some hopefuls failed again and again, and some eventually gave up and went to the crazies or the mountain. Most went to other tribes and tried again.

"You, club," Tyl said, picking out a chubby would-be clubber. "You, staff," selecting an angular hopeful staffer.

The two youths, visibly nervous, stepped gingerly into the circle. They began to fight, the clubber making huge clumsy swings, the staffer countering ineptly. By and by the club smashed one of the staffer's misplaced hands, and the staff fell to the ground.

That was enough for the staffer. He bounced out of the circle. It made Tyl sick-not for the fact of victory and defeat, but for the sheer incompetence of it. How could such dolts ever become proper warriors? What good would a winner such as this clubber be for the tribe, whose decisive blow had been sheer fortune?

But it was never possible to be certain, he reflected. Some of the very poorest prospects that he sent along to Sav the Staff's training camp emerged as formidable warriors. The real mark of a man was how he responded to training. That had been the lesson that earlier weaponless man had taught, the one that never fought in the circle. What was his name-Sos. Sos had stayed with the tribe a year and established the system, then departed for ever. Except for some brief thing about a rope. Not much of a man, but a good mind. Yes-it was best to incorporate the clubber into the tribe and send him to Sav; good might even come of it. If not-no loss.

Next were a pair of daggers. This fight was bloody, but at least the victor looked like a potential man.

Then a sworder took on a sticker. Tyl watched this contest with interest, for his own two weapons were sword and sticks, and he wished he had more of each in his tribe. The sticks were useful for discipline, the sword for conquest.

The sticker-novice seemed to have some promise. His hands were swift, his aim sure. The sworder was strong but slow; he laid about himself crudely.

The sticker caught his opponent on the side of the head, and followed up the telling blow with a series to the neck and shoulders. So doing, he let slip his guard-and the keen blade-edge caught him at the throat, and he was dead.

Tyl closed his eyes in pain. Such folly! The one youngster with token promise had let his enthusiasm run away with him, and had walked into a slash that any idiot could have avoided. Was there any hope for this generation?

One youth remained-a rare Momingstar. It took courage to select such a weapon, and a certain morbidity, for it was devastating and unstable. Tyl had left him until last because he wanted to match him against an experienced warrior. That would greatly decrease the star's chance of success, but would correspondingly increase his chance of survival. If he looked good, Tyl would arrange to match him next month with an easy mark, and take him into the tribe as soon as he had his band and name.

One of the perimeter sentries came up. "Strangers, Chief-man and woman. He's ugly as hell; she must be, too."

Still irritated by the loss of the promising sticker, Tyl snapped back: "Is your bracelet so worn you can't tell an ugly woman by sight?"

"She's veiled."

Tyl became interested. 'What woman would cover her face?"

The sentry shrugged. "Do you want me to bring them here?'

Tyl nodded.

As the man departed, he returned to the problem of the star. A veteran staffer would be best, for the Morningstar could maim or kill the wielders of other weapons, even in the hands of a novice. He summoned a man who bad had experience with the star in the circle, and began giving him instructions.

Before the test commenced, the strangers arrived. The man was indeed ugly: somewhat hunchbacked, with hands grossly gnarled, and large patches of discolored skin on limbs and torso.

Because of his stoop, his eyes peered out from below shaggy brows, oddly impressive. He moved gracefully despite some peculiarity of gait; there was something wrong with his fóet. His aspect was feral.

The woman was shrouded in a long cloak that concealed her figure as the veil concealed her face. But he could tell from the way she stepped that she was neither young nor fat. That, unless she gave him some pretext to have her stripped, was as much as he was likely to know.

"I am Tyl, chief of this camp in the name of the Nameless One," he said to the man. "What is your business here?'

The man displayed his left wrist. It was naked.

"You came to earn a bracelet?" Tyl was surprised that a man as muscular and scarred and altogether formidable as this one should not already be a warrior. But another look at the almost useless hands seemed to clarify that. How could he fight well, unless he could grasp his weapon?

Or could he be another weaponless warrior? Tyl knew of only one in the empire-but that one was the Weaponless less, the Master. It could, indeed, be done; Tyl himself had gone down to defeat in the circle before that juggernaut.

"What is your chosen weapon?" he asked.

The man reached to his belt and revealed, hanging be neath the loose folds of his jacket, a pair of singlesticks.

Tyl was both relieved and disappointed. A novice weaponless warrior would have been intriguing. Then he had another notion. "Will you go against the star?"

The man, still not speaking, nodded.

Tyl gestured to the circle. "Star, here is your match" he called.

The size of the audience seemed to double as he spoke. This contest promised to be interesting!

The star stepped into the circle, hefting his spiked ball. The stranger removed his Jacket and leggings to stand in conventional pantaloons that still looked odd on him. Hi chest, though turned under by his posture, was massive. Across it the flesh was yellowish. The legs were extremely stout, ridged with muscle, and the short feet were bare. The toenails curled around the toes thickly, almost like hoofs. Strange man!

The arms were not proportionately developed, though on a man with slighter chest and shoulders they would have been impressive enough. But the hands, as they closed about the sticks, resembled pincers. The grip was square unsophisticated, - awkward-but tight. This novice was either very bad or very good.

The veiled woman settled near the circle to watch. She was as strange In her concealment as the young hunchback was in his physique.

The sticker entered the circle circumspectly, like an animal skirting a deadfall, but his guard was up. The star whirled his chained mace above his head so that the spike whistled in the air. For a moment the two faced each other at the ready. Then the star advanced, the wheel of his revolving sledge coming to intersect the body of his opponent.

The sticker ducked, as he had to; no flesh could withstand the strike of that armored ball. His powerful legs carried him along bent over, and his natural hunch facilitated this; half his normal height, he raced across the circle and came up behind the star.

That one ploy told half the story. Tyl knew that if the sticker could jump as well as he could stoop, the star would never catch him. And the star had to catch him soon, for the whirling ball was quickly fatiguing to the elevated arm.

But it never, came to that. Before the star could reorient, the sticks had clipped him about the business arm, and he was unable to maintain his pose. The motion of the ball slowed; the man staggered.

Seeing that he was too stupid to realize he had already lost and to step out of the circle, Tyl spoke for the man:

"Star yields."

The star looked about, confused. "But rm still in the circle!"

Tyl had no patience with folly. "Stay, then."

The man started to wheel his ball again, unsteadily. The sticker stepped close and rapped him on the skull. As man and ball fell, the sticker put one of his sticks between his own teeth and used that hand to clamp on to the chain. This was an interesting maneuver, because the typical star chain was spiked against just such contact-tiny, needlepointed barbs. But the sticker seemed not to notice. He dragged the unconscious man to the edge of the ring, then let go and bent to roll him out.

With something akin to genuine pleasure, Tyl presented the grotesque sticker with the golden band of manhood. He noticed that the man's hands wore enormously callused. No wonder he did not fear barbs! "Henceforth, warrior, be called-" Tyl paused. "What name have you chosen?"

The man tried to speak, but his voice was rasping. It was as though he had calluses in his larynx, too. The word that came out sounded like a growL

Tyl took it in stride. "Henceforth be called Var-Var the Stick." Then: "Who is your companion?"

Var shook his shaggy leaning head, not answering. But the woman came forth of her own accord, removing her veil and cloak.

"Sola!" Tyl exclaimed, recognizing the wife of the Master. She was still a handsome woman, though it had been almost ten years since he had first seen her. She had stayed about four years with Sol, then gone to the new Master of Empire. Because the conqueror was weaponless and wore no bracelet and used no name, she had kept the band and name she had. This was tantamount to adultery, openly advertised-but the Master had won her fairly. He was the mightiest man ever to enter the circle, armed or not. If he didn't care about appearances, no one else could afford to comment.

But Sola had at least been faithful to her chosen husbands, except for a little funny business at the very beginning with that Sos fellow. What was she doing now, wandering about with a (hitherto) nameless youth?

"The Master trained him," she said. "He wanted him to take his name by himself, without prejudice."

A protégé of the Weaponless! That made several things fall into place. Well trained-naturally; the Master knew all weapons as adversaries. Strong-yes, that followed. Ugly-of course.

This was exactly the sort of man - the Nameless One would like. Perhaps this was what the Master himself had been like as a youth.

And then he made another connection. "That wild boy that ravaged the crops, five years ago-

"

"Yes. A man, now."

Tyl's hands went to his own sticks. "He bit me, then. I will have vengeance on him now."

"No," she said. "That is why I came. You shall not take Var to the circle."

"Is he afraid to meet me by day? I will waive terms."

"Var is afraid of nothing. But he is novice yet, and you the second ranked of the empire.

He returns with me."

"He requires a woman to protect him? I should have named him Var the Schtick!"

She stood up straight, her figure blooming like that of a freshly nubile girL "Do you wish to answer to my husband?"

And Tyl, because he was bonded to the man she termed her husband, and was himself a man of honor, had to stifle his fury and answer, "No."

She turned to Var. "We'll stay the night here, then begin the journey back tomorrow. You will want to take your bracelet to the main tent."

Tyl smiled to himself. The new warrior, with his grotesqueries, would find no takers for his band. Let him celebrate alone!

And perhaps one day, one year, they would meet again, when the protection of the Nameless One did not apply.

CHAPTER FIVE

Var knew well enough the significance of the golden bracelet. It was the product of crazy workmanship and distribution, costing the wearer nothing, indistinguishable physically from thousands of others. But not only did it identify him as a man, it served as a license to have a woman-for a night or a year or a lifetime. He had but to put the bracelet on the slender wrist of the girl of his choice and she was his, provided she agreed. Most girls were said to be flattered to be offered such attention, and sought to retain the bracelet as long as possible. They were particularly pleased to bear sons by the bracelet, for as a man proved himself in the circle, so a woman proved herself in fertility. The land always needed more people.

The big tent was standard. Each camp had one, where the unattached warriors resided, and where single girls made themselves available. In winter a great fire heated the central chamber, while the couples occupying the fringe compartments trusted to sleeping bags and mutual warmth for their comfort.

Var was sure he would get by nicely on the latter system. In any event, it was summer.

Dusk, and the lamps were already lighted inside. The collective banquet was just finishing. Var, flush with his achievement of a name, had not been hungry, so that was no loss.

The girls were there, lounging on home-made furniture. The crazies provided everything a warrior might need, but it was considered gauche to use such unearned merchandise. The nomads preferred, generally, to do for themselves.

He walked up to the nearest girl. She wore a lovely one-piece wrap-around fastened in front with a silver brooch-the costume signifying her availability. Her hair was a languorous waving brown. Her figure was excellent: high-breasted, low-thighed. Yes, she would do.

He looked the question at her, putting his right hand on the bracelet and beginning to twist it off. This was approved technique; he had seen warriors do it at the Master's camp.

"No," she said.

Var stopped, hand on wrist. Had he misunderstood? He was tempted to query her again, but preferred not to speak. Words were not supposed to be necessary. He had only learned, or perhaps relearned, the language since joining the Master and though he understood it well enough, his mouth and tongue did not form the syllables well.

He went on to the next, somewhat disgruntled. He had not considered refusal, and didn't know how to handle it.

This adjacent girl was slightly younger, fair-haired and in pink. Now that he thought about it, she really looked better than the first. He tapped his bracelet.

She looked at him casually. "Can't you talk?"

Embarrassed, he grunted the word. "Brach-rit." Bracelet. It was clear in his mind.

"Get lost, stupid."

Var did not know how to deal with this either, so he nodded and went on.

None of the girls were interested. Some showed their contempt with disconcerting candor.

Finally an older woman, wearing a bracelet, came up to him.

"You obviously don't understand, Warrior, so I'll explain it to you. I saw you fight today, so don't think I'm trying to insult you."

Var was glad to have anyone treat him with respect. Gratefully, he listened to her.

"These girls are young," she said. "They have never had to work, they have never borne children, they have little experience. They're out for a good time. You-well, you're a stranger, so they're cautious. And you're a fledgling warrior, so they're contemptuous. Unjustly so. But as I said, they're young. And I have to tell you-you're not pretty to look at. That doesn't matter in the circle, but it does here. An experienced woman might understand-but not these good-time juniors. Don't blame them. They need tempering by time, just as a warrior does. They make mistakes too."

Var nodded, frustrated but thankful for her advice, though he did not completely understand it. "Who-"

"I'm Tyla, the chiefs wife. I just wanted you to understand."

He had meant to ask what girl to solicit next, but was glad to know the identity of this helpful woman.

"Go back to your home-camp, where they know you," she said. "Tyl doesn't like you, and that also prejudices your case here. I'm sorry to spoil your big night, but that's the way it is."

Now he understoodc He wasn't wanted here. "Thanks," he said

"Good luck, Warrior. You'll find one who's right for you, and she'll be worth the wait.

You have lost nothing here."

Var walked out of the tent.

Only as the cooling night air brushed him did the reaction come. He war not wanted. At the Master's camp he had been kindly treated, and no one had told him he was ugly. He had seemed to fit in with human life, despite his childhood in the wilderness. Now he knew that he had been sheltered-not physically, but socially. Today, with his formal. achievement of manhood, he was also exposed to the truth. He was still a wild boy, unfit to mingle with human beings.

First he was embarrassed, so that his head was hot, his hands shaking. He had been blithely offering his shiny virgin bracelet....

Then he was furious. Why had he been subjected to this? What right had these tame pretty people to pass judgment on him? He tried to accommodate himself to their rules, and they rejected him. None of them would survive in the badlands!

He took out his shiny metal sticks and hefted them fondly. He was good with these. He was a warrior now. He needed to accept insults from no one. He stepped into the circle, the same one in which he had won his manhood earlier in the day. He waved his weapon.

"Come fight me!" he cried, knowing the words came out as gibberish but not caring. "I challenge you all!"

A man emerged from a small tent. "What's the noise?" he demanded; It was Tyl, the camp chief, dressed in a rough woollen nightshirt. The man who, for some reason, did not like Var. Var had never seen him before, that he recalled-though the man could have been among the crowds of people that had gawked at him when the Master first brought him from the badlands.

"What are you doing?" Tyl demanded, coming close. A yellow topknot dangled against the side of his head.

"Come fight me!" Var shouted, waving his sticks threateningly. His words might be incoherent, but his meaning could not be mistaken.

Tyl looked angry, but he did not enter the circle. "There is no fighting after dark," he said. "And if there were, I would not meet you, much as it would give me pleasure to bloody your ugly head and send you howling back through the cornfields. Stop making a fool of yourself."

Cornfields? Almost, Var made a connection.

Other people gathered, men and women and excited children. They peered through the gloom at Var, and he realized that he was now a far more ludicrous figure than he had been in the tent.

"Leave him alone," Tyl said, and returned to his residence with an almost comical flirt of his topknot. The others dispersed, and soon Var was standing by himself again. He had only made things worse by his belligerence.

Dejected, he went to the only place he knew where he could find some understanding, however cynical. The isolated tent of his traveling companion: the Master's wife.

"I was afraid it would come to this," Sola said, her voice oddly soft. "I will go to Tyl and have him fetch you a damsel. You shall not be deprived, this night."

"No!" Var cried, horrified that he should have to be satisfied by the intercession of a woman going to his enemy. Human mores were not natural to him, but this was too obviously a thing of shame.

"That, too, I anticipated," she said philosophically. "That's why I had my tent set up away from the main camp."

Var did not understand.

"Come in, lie down," she said. "It'd not- as bad as you think. A man doesn't prove himself in one day or one night; it's the years that show the truth."

Var crawled into the tent and lay down beside her. He really did not know this woman well.

She had remained aloof all the years the Master trained him, only instructing him curtly in computations. Thanks to her, he could count to one hundred, and tell whether six handfuls of four ears of corn were more than two baskets with fifteen ears each. (They were not.) Such calculations were difficult and pointless, and he had not enjoyed the lessons, and Sola had made him feel particularly stupid, but the Master had insisted. Thus his chief association with her had been negative.

He had been surprised when she was delegated-or had volunteered-to accompany him here for his manhood test. A woman! But as it had turned out, she was quite competent. She walked well, so that they made good distance each day and knew the route, and when they encountered strangers she had done the talking. They had spent the nights in the hostels, she in one bunk, he in another, though he would have preferred even now to sleep in a familiar tree. Aloof she remained, but she did not entirely conceal her body as she showered and changed for the night, and the glimpses he bad had, had given him painful erections. His nature was animal; any female, even one as old as this, provoked him. And she did know his origin and understand his limitations.

Now, in this strange unfriendly camp, hurt by his own failures, he had come to her-his only contact with his only friend, the Master.

"So you asked the young girls, and they ridiculed you," she said. "I had hoped better for you-but I was young once myself, and just as narrow. I thought power was most important-to marry a chief. And so I lost the man I loved, and now I am sorry."

She had never talked like this before. Var lay silent, satisfied for the moment to listen.

It was better than thinking of his own humiliations. She referred, of course, to her former husband-Sol of All Weapons, who had lost his empire to the Master, and had gone to the mountain with his baby girl. The episode had become legend already; everyone knew of that momentous transfer of power and that tragic father-daughter suicide.

If Sola had loved power so much that she had given up the man she loved and the daughter she had borne to him, and taken the victor to her bed-no wonder she suffered!

"Would you understand," she asked, "if I told you that when I thought I'd lost my love for ever, he returned to me-and I found that it was only his body, not his heart, that was mine, and even that body maimed and unfamiliar?"

"No," Var said honestly. It was easier to voice the words for her, for she understood him whether or not his wilderness mouth cooperated.

"Not everything is what it seems," she murmured. "You, too, will find that friendship can make hard requirements of you, and those you might deem enemy are men to be trusted. Life is like that. Come, let's get this done with."

He recognized a dismissal and began to crawl out of the tent.

"No," she said gently, holding him back. "This is your night, and you shall have it in full measure. I will be your woman."

Var made a guttural sound, dumbfounded. Could he have-understood her correctly?

"Sorry, Var," she said. "I hit you with that too abruptly. Lie down."

He lay down again.

"Wild boy," she continued, "you are not a man until you have taken a woman. So it is written in our unwritten code. I came to make sure you accomplished it all I have"-here she paused-

"done this before. Long ago. My husband knows. Believe me, Var, though this appears to be a violation of the standards we have taught you, this is the way it must be. I cannot explain it further. But you must understand one thing, and promise me another."

He had to speak. "The Master-"

"Var, he knows!" she whispered fiercely. "But he will never speak of it. This was decided almost ten years ago. And you must know this, too: I am older than you, but I am not past bearing age. The Nameless One is sterile. Tonight, and the nights that follow-it ends when we reach home camp. If you should beget a child on me, it will be the child of the Weaponless. I will never wear your bracelet. I will never touch you again, after this journey. I will never speak of what happened here between us, and neither will you. If I am pregnant, you will be sent away. You have no claim upon me. It will be as though it never happened-except that you will be a man. Do you understand!"

"No, no-" he mumbled, already sick with lust for her.

"You understand." She reached out suddenly and put her hand upon his loin. "You understand."

He understood that she was offering her body to him, and that he had no stamina to refuse.

He was wilderness bred; the willingness of the female was the male's command.

"But you must promise," she said, as she took his clubbed hand, only recently capable of any gentleness, and brought it to her tender breast. She was already nude within her bag. "You must promise-"

The heat was rising in him, abolishing any scruples he might have had. Var knew he would do it. Perhaps the Master would kill him, but tonight- "You must promise-to kill the man who harms my child."

Var went child "You have no child!" he blurted. "None that can be harmed-" And became aware again of his crudity and cruelty of word and concept. He was still wild.

"Promise."

"How can I promise when your child is long dead?" She silenced him with the first fully female kiss he had ever experienced. His body accelerated in response, knowing what to do despite his confusion and what seemed like madness on her part. She talked of her dead child while preparing to make love, but her breasts remained soft, her legs open. "If ever the situation arises, you will know," she said.

"I promise." What else could he do?

She said no more, but her body spoke for her. This supposedly aloof, cold woman-novice that he was, Var still recognized in her a sexual fury of unprecedented proportion. She was hot, she was lithe, she was savage. She was at least twenty-five years old, but in the dark she seemed a buxom, eager fifteen. It was not hard to forget for the moment that she was in fact middle-aged.

As the connection was made and the explosion formed within him, - he realized that it might be his own future child he had just sworn to avenge.. . anonymously.

CHAPTER SIX

The Master was waiting for them. He used one of the crazy hostels as a business office, and had entire drawers of papers with writing on them. Var had never comprehended the reason for such records, but did not question the wisdom of his mentor. The Master was literate: he was able to look at the things called books and repeat speeches that men long dead had said. This was an awesome yet useless ability. -

"Here is your warrior," Sola said. "Var the Stick-a man in every sense of the word." And with an obscure smile she departed for her own tent.

The Master stood in the glassy rotating door of the cylindrical hostel and studied Var for a long moment.

"Yes, you are changed. Do you know now what it is to keep a secret? To know and not speak?"

Var nodded affirmatively, thinking of what had passed between him and the Master's phenomenal wife on the way home. Even if he had not been forbidden to talk of that, he would have balked at this point.

"I have another secret for you. Come." And with no further question or explanation the Nameless One led the way away from the cabin, letting the door spin about behind him. Var glanced once more at the sparkling transparent cone that topped the hostel and its mysterious mechanisms, and turned to follow.

They walked a mile, passing warriors and their families busy at sundry tasks practising with weapons, mending clothing, cleaning meat and exchanged routine greetings. The Master seemed to be in no hurry. "Sometimes," he said, "a man can find himself in a situation not of his making or choosing, where he must keep silence even though he prefers to speak, and though others may deem him a coward. But his preference is not always wise, and the opinion of others does not make a supposition true. There is courage of other types than that of the circle."

Var realized that his friend was telling him something important, but he wasn't sure how it applied. He sensed the Master's secret was going to be as important to his life as Sola's had been to his manhood. Strange things seemed to be developing; the situation was changed from his prior experience.

When they were well beyond the sight or hearing of any other person, the Master cut away from the beaten trail and began to run. He galloped ponderously, shaking the ground, and his breath emerged noisily, but he maintained a good pace. Var ran with him, far more easily, mystified. The Master, as he well knew, was tireless but where was he going?

Their route led toward the local badlands markers, then along them, then through them..

Var had thought the Weaponless was afraid of such regions, since his severe radiation sickness of the time the two had met. It had taken the man months to regain his full strength; and from time to time, in the privacy of tent or office, he had bled again or been sick or reeled from surges of weakness. Var knew this well, and Sola was aware of it, but it had been hidden from others of the empire. Much of the early battle training Var had received had been as much to exercise the Master gradually as to profit the wild boy. And it had been common knowledge that the Master avoided the badlands with almost cowardly care.

Obviously he was not afraid. Why had he let men think he was? Was this what he had referred to just now that other kind of courage? But what reason could there be for it?

Deep in the badlands, but in a place where there was no radiation, there was a camp.

Strange warriors manned it men Var had never seen before. They wore funny green clothing riddled with knobs and pockets, and on their heads were inverted pots. They carried metal rocks.

The leader of this odd tribe came up promptly. He was short, stout, old, and bad curly yellow hair. Obviously unfit to fight in the circle. "This is Jim," the Master said. "Var the Stick," he added, completing the introduction.

The two men eyed each other suspiciously.

"Jim and Var," the Master said, smiling grimly, "you don't know each other, but I want you to accept my word on this: you can trust each. other. You both have had similar misfortunes. Jim whose brother of the same name went to the mountain twenty years ago, Var whose whole family was lost in the badlands."

Var still was not impressed, and the other man seemed to share his sentiment. To be without family was no signal of merit.

"Var is a warrior I have personally trained. His skin is immediately sensitive to radiation, so that he cannot accidentally be burned, no matter where he goes."

Jim became intensely, interested.

"And Jim-Jim the Gun, if you want his weapon-is literate. He and I made contact by letter years ago, when the the need developed. He has studied the old texts, and knows as much as any man among the nomads about explosive weapons. He is training this group in the ancient techniques of warfare."

Var recognized the man's weapon now. It was one of the metal stones that were stored in certain badlands buildings. But it hardly seemed suitable for use in the circle. It had no cutting edge, and was far too small and clumsy to serve as a club. And once thrown, it would be lost.

"Var will be liaison man between this group and the outside," the Master said. "Assuming he is willing. Later he'll be an advance scout, but I want him to know how to shoot, too."

Jim and Var still merely looked at each other. "I'll break the ice," the Master said.

"Then i'll have to go back before someone misses me. Var, fetch that jug over there, if you please." He pointed across a field to a brown ceramic jar perched on an old stump.

Jim started to say something, but the Master held up his hand. Var loped toward it. About half the way he skidded to a stop. His skin was burning, He retreated a few paces and circled to the side, looking for a way around the radiation.

It took him several minutes, but finally he found a channel and reached the jug. He brought it back, retracing his devious route. The Master and Jim had been joined by a dozen other men, all watching silently.

Var handed over the jug.

"It's true! A living geiger!" Jim exclaimed, amazed. "We can use him, all right."

The Master returned the jug to Var. "Set it on the ground about fifty feet away, if you please."

Var complied.

"Demonstrate your shotgun," the Master said to Jim.

The man went into a tent and brought out an object like a sheathed sword. He held it up, pointing the narrow end toward the jug.

"There will be noise," the Master warned Var. "It will not harm you. I suggest you watch the jug."

Var did so. Suddenly a blast of thunder occurred beside him, making him jump and grab for his weapon. The distant jug shattered as though smashed by a club. No one had touched it or thrown anything at it.

"Pieces of metal from this long gun did that," the Master said. "Jim will show you how it works. Stay with him, as you choose; I will return another day." And he left, cantering as before.

Jim turned to Var. "How is it that you are not bonded, since he trained you himself and trusts you with this secret?"

Var did not answer immediately. He had not realized it before, but it was true he was not bonded. He was not a member of the Nameless One's empire or any of its subject tribes, for he had never been defeated in the circle. His only battle had been the formal achievement of his manhood.

Ordinarily a warrior joined a tribe of his choosing by ritually challenging its chief. When he lost-as was inevitable, for no novice could match a chief-he was according to nomad convention bonded, subject to the will of that leader, or the leader's leader. If he fought a man from another tribe and lost, his allegiance changed; if he won, the other man joined his own tribe.

Once Var had taken name and bracelet, he had become a free agent- until such time as he lost that freedom in the circle.

Why had the Weaponless never made arrangement for Var? And how had Jim known about this omission?

"He was scrupulous about saying 'if you please' to you," Jim said. "That meant he could not order you."

"I don't know why," Var said. Then, seeing the perplexity on the man's face, he repeated it more carefully, forcing his tongue to get it right. "Don't-know."

'Well, it's none of my business," Jim said easily, affecting not to notice Var's clumsiness with the language. "I won't bother with the formality of address; if I tell you to do something, it's not an order, only advice. OK?"

"OK," Var said, able to pronounce these syllables well enough.

"And I'll have to tell you a lot, because guns are dangerous. They can kill just as readily as a sword can, and do it from a distance. You saw the jug."

Var had seen the jug. What could shatter it at fifty feetshould be able to hurt a man at the same distance.

Jim put his hand on the metal at his hip. "Here-first lesson. This is a pistol a small handgun. One of the hundreds we found stored in boxes in a badlands building, We had to use the click-boxes to chart a route in; I don't know how the boss knew about it. I've been running this camp for the past three years, training the men he sends... but that's beside the point." He. did something and the metal opened. "It's hollow, see. This is the barrel and this is a bullet. You put the bullet in here, close it up, and when you press this trigger-blam! The bullet explodes, and part of it shoots out here, very fast. It's like a thrown dagger. Watch."

He set up a piece of wood, pointed the hollow end of the pistol at it and shoved his forefinger against the spike he called the trigger. "Noise," he warned, and there was a burst of sound. Smoke shot out of the gun and the wood jumped.

Jim broke open the weapon, that now seemed to be hot, and showed Var the interior. "See-bullet's gone. And if you'll look at the target-that piece of wood-you'll see where it hit." He offered the weapon to Var "Now you try it"

Var accepted the gun, and after some struggle got a bullet in. But his hand would not fit around the base properly, and his finger was too thick and warped to maneuver the trigger. Jim, perceiving the difficulty as quickly as Var did, quickly produced a larger gun. This one he managed to fire.

The shock traveled up his arm, but it was slight compared to the tap of a stick in the circle. His bullet plowed into the ground. "We'll show you how - to aim," Jim said. "Remember, the gun is a weapon, but unlike the instruments you are familiar with, it can kill- by accident. Treat it as you would a sword in motion. With respect."

Var learned a great deal in the following days. He had thought there was little more to discover, after Sola had shown him the marvelous social intricacies of generating life. Now he wondered that anything at all remained, as Jim showed him the devastating unsocial devices for terminating life.

The Master came for him. "Now you know part of my secret," he said. "And I will tell you another part. This is an invasion force-and we shall invade the mountain."

"The mountain!"

"The mountain of death, yes. It is not what you have supposed-what all nomads suppose. Not every man who goes there dies. There are people- living beneath it-similar to the crazies, but with guns. They hold hostages-" But here he changed his mind. "We must storm that mountain and drive out these men. Only then will the empire be secure."

"I don't understand." Actually, it was a questioning grunt.

"I have held the empire in check for six years, because I feared the power of the underworld. Now I am ready to move against it. I do not say that these are evil men, but they must be displaced. Once the enemy is gone, the empire will expand rapidly, and we shall bring civilization to all the continent."

So the murmurings of discontent had been wrong there too! The Weaponless was not stifling the empire-not permanently.

"I have a dangerous assignment for you. I have left you a free agent so that you may choose for yourself. It will require working alone, going into extremely unpleasant places, and telling no one of your mission or your adventures except me. I told Jim you were to be liaison man and scout, but this is dangerous scouting he doesn't know about. You may die violently, but not in the circle. You may be tortured. You may be trapped in lethal radiation. You may have to violate the code of the circle in order to succeed, for we are dealing with unscrupulous men. The leader of the underworld has only contempt for our mores and our honor." -

The Master waited, but Var did not reply.

"You may ask what you want in return. I mean to deal fairly with you." - -

"After I do this," Var enunciated carefully, "then can I join the empire?"

The Nameless One looked at him, astonished. Then he began to laugh. Var laughed too, not certain what was funny.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The beginning was only a hole in a pit in a cavity in the ground, where water disappeared during storms. But underneath it expanded into a cavern he could almost stand in. Var remained there for a time, motionless, getting his full night vision and absorbing the smells.

He knew in which direction the mountain lay. This sense, like that of smell and his sharp night sight and his ability to run almost doubled over, had remained with him after he left the wild life. He was still quite at home in the wilderness.

He shook off his shoes. He had never been comfortable in them, and for this work his hooflike toes were best.

Some water still seeped down, but the main section of the cave was clear. The base was caked with gravel; the sides were slimy with mosslike fungus. On a hunch abetted by observation, Var took a singlestick and scraped the wall. As the plant life and grime gave way, metal touched metal.

This cave - was not completely natural. The Master had suggested that this might be the case. The entire mountain, he had said, was unnatural-though he did not know how it had come about.

The chances of an unnatural cave connecting to a natural mountain seemed good.

Var, eye, ear and nose now adjusted to this environment, moved on. His mission was to chart a route into the dread mountain-a route that bypassed the surface defenses, and that men could follow. If he found the route, and kept it secret from the underworiders, the empire could have an almost bloodless victory.

If there were no route, there would be a much worse battle on the surface. Lives depended on his mission perhaps the life of the Master himself.

The tunnel branched. The pipe going toward the mountain was clogged with rubble; the other was wide and clear. Var knew, why: when rainfall was heavy, water coursed this way, removing all obstructions. He would have to follow the water, to be sure of getting anywhere but he would also have to pay close attention to the weather, lest the water follow him. Was it possible to anticipate a storm underground?

The passage widened as it descended. Its walls were almost vertical and metallic; overhead, metal beams now showed regularly. It debouched into an extremely large concorse with a long pit down the center. He peered down, noting how the delta of rubble tipped into that chasm.

He did not venture into it himself. The bottom was packed with slick-looking mud, and there were dark motions within that mud: worms, maggots or worse. There had been a time when he had eaten such with gusto, but civilization had affected his appetite.

He tapped the level surface of the upper platform. Under the crusted grime there was tile very like that of a hostel.

The footing was sound.

The Master had told him that there were many artifacts in this region reninining from the time before the Blast. The Ancients had made buildings and tunnels and miraculious machines, and some of these remained, though no one knew their function. Certainly Var could not fathom the use of such a large, long compartment with a tiled floor and a pit dividing it completely.

He followed it down, listening to distant rustles and sniffing the stale drifts of air.

Though his eyes were fully adapted to the gloom, he could not see clearly for any distance. There was not enough light for any proper human vision, this deep in the bowel.

Soon the platform narrowed, and finally the wall slanted into the pit, and there was nowhere to go but down. The Ancients could not have used this for walking then, since it went nowhere. They had been, the Master said, like the crazies and like the underworlders, only more so; there was no fathoming their motives. This passage proved it. To put such astonishing labors into so useless a structure....

He climbed down carefully. The drop was only a few feet, not hazardous in itself. It was the life in that lower muck that he was wary of. Familiar, it might be harmless, as familiar poison-berries were harmless-no one would eat them. Unfamiliar, it was potentially deadly.

But the mud was harder than he had supposed; the gloom had changed its seeming properties.

Rising from it were two narrow metal rails, side by side but several feet apart. They were quite firm, refusing to bend or move no matter what pressure be applied, and they extended as far as he could discern along the pit. He found that by balancing on one, he could walk along without touching the mud at all, and that was worthwhile.

He moved. His hoof-toes, softened some by the shoes he had had to wear among men but still sturdy, pounded rapidly on the metal as he got the feel of it, and his balance became sure despite the darkness and the slender support. The pit-tunnel was interminable, and did not go toward the mountain. He hesitated to go too far, lest a rainstorm develop above and send its savage waters down to drown him before he could escape. Then he realized that this tunnel was too large to fill readily, and saw the dusky watermarks on its cold walls: only two or three feet above the level of the rails. He could wade or swim, if it came to that.

Even so, it was pointless to follow this passage indefinitely. It was now curving farther away from the mountain, so could hardly serve the Master's purpose.

He would follow it another five minutes or so, then turn back.

But in one minute he was stopped. The tunnel ended.

Rather, something was blocking it. A tremendous metal plug, with spurs and gaps and rungs.

Var tapped it with his stick. The thing was hollow, but firm. It seemed to rest on the rails, humping up somewhat between them so as not to touch the floor.

Could there be a branching or turning~ beyond this obstacle? Var grabbed hold and hauled himself up the face of the plug, curling his fingers stiffly around what offered. He was searching to learn whether there were a way through it.

There was. He poked his head into the musty interior, inhaling the stale air. He knocked on the side of the square aperture and it clanged. He could tell the surrounding configuration of metal by the sound and echo. He climbed inside. -

The floor here was higher than outside. It was mired in a thick layer of dirt and droppings. This was like a badlands building, with places that could be seats, and other places that could be windows, except that there was only a brief space between the apertures and the blank tunnel wall. And all of it was dark. Eyes useless, ears becoming confused by the confinement of sound, Var finally had to use the crazy flashlight the Master had given him. For there was life here.

Something stirred. Var suppressed a reflexive jump and put the beam of light on it, shielding his eyes somewhat from the intolerable glare. Then he got smart and clapped his hand over the plastic lens, holding in the light so that only red welts glowed through. He aimed, let digits relax, let the beam shove out to spear its prey.

It was a rat-a blotched, small-eyed creature that shied away from the brilliance with a squeal of pain.

This Var knew rats did not travel alone. Where one could live, a hundred could live. And where rats resided, so did predators. Probably small ones-weasels, mink, mongoose-but possibly numerous. And the rats themselves could be vicious, and sometimes rabid, as he knew from badlands buildings.

He walked quickly down the long, narrow room, seeing a doorway at its end outlined by the finger illuminated beam. He had to move along before too many creatures gathered. Rats did not stay frightened long without reason.

Beyond the door was a kind of chamber and another door. More mysterious construction by the Ancients!

Corning down the hail beyond that was a snake. A large one, several feet long. Not poisonous, he judged-but unfamiliar and possibly mutant. He retreated.

The rats were already massed in the other room. Var strode through them, shining his light where he intended to step, and they skittered back. But they closed in behind, little teeth showing threateningly. Too aggressive for his comfort. He had stirred up an ugly nest, and they were bold in their own territory.

He scrambled out the window and dropped to the dank floor of the tunnel His feet sank in the mud; it was softer here, or he had broken through a crust. He turned off the flash, waited a moment to recover sight, and found a rail to follow back down the tunnel.

Some other way would have to be found. It was not that the rats and snakes stopped him-but there were sure to be other animals, and a troop of men would stir them all up. In any event, the direction was wrong.

But he could not escape the angry stir so easily. Something silent came down the tunnel.

He felt the moving air and ducked nervously. It was a bat-the first of many.

What did all these creatures feed on? There seemed to be no green plants, only mold and fungus.

And insects. Now he heard them stirring, rising into the foul air from their myriad burrows.

Apprehensively, he flashed his light.

Some were white moths.

Var's heart thudded. There was no way he could be sure of avoiding these deadly stingers here except by standing still-and that had its own dangers. He had to move, and if he brushed into one-well, he would have a couple of hours to reach the surface and seek help before the poison brought him to a full and possibly fatal coma. Certainly fatal if be succumbed to it here in the tunnels, where men Would never find him. Even if he received only a minor sting, that weakened him, and then it rained...or if the rats and snakes became more bold, and ventured along the rail....

But not all white moths were badlands mutants. These seemed smaller. Maybe they were innocuous.

If these were of the deadly variety, this route was doomed. Men could not use it, however directly it might lead to the mountain. That would make further exploration useless.

Best to know immediately. Var ran along the track until he saw the high platforms. He climbed up and oriented himself, identifying his original point of entry. Then he ran after a white moth and swooped with his two hands, trapping it. It was his fingers that were awkward, not his wrists or hands.

He held the insect cupped clumsily between his palms, terrified yet determined. For thirty seconds he stood there, controlling his quivering, sweating digits.

The moth fluttered in its prison, but Var felt no sting.

He squeezed it gently and it struggled softly.

At last he opened his hands and let the creature go. It was harmless.

Then he rested for five minutes, regaining his equilibrium. He would much rather have stepped into the circle with lame hands against a master sworder, than against a badlands moth like this. But he had made the trial and won. The way was still clear.

He crossed the double-rail pit and mounted to the far platform. There were tunnels leading away in the proper direction. He chided himself for not observing them before. He selected one and ran down it.

And halted. His skin was burning.

There was radiation here. Intense.

He backed off and tried another branch. Even sooner he encountered it. Impassable.

He tried a third. This went farther, but eventually ran into the same wall of radiation.

It was as though the mountain were ringed by roentgen....

That left the railed tunnel, going in the other direction. This might circle around the flesh-rotting rays. He had to know.

Var dropped down and ran along the track. He went faster than before, because time had been consumed in the prior explorations, and he had greater confidence -in the narrow footing.

Probably a man with normal, soft, wide feet could not have stayed on the track so readily. Or have felt its continuing solidity by the tap of nail on metal-an important reassurance, in this gloom.

On and on it went, for miles. He passed another series of platforms, and felt the barest tinge of radiation; just before he stopped on the track, it faded, and he went on. Such a level of the invisible death was not good to stay in, but was harmless for a rapid passage.

The rubble between the tracks became greater, the walls more ragged, as though some tremendous pressure had pressed and shaken this region. He bad seen such collapsed structures during his wild-boy years; now he wondered whether the rubble and the radiation could be connected in any way. But this was idle speculation.

He was very near the mountain now. He came to a third widening of the tunnel and platform-but this one was in very bad condition. Tumbled stone was everywhere, and some radiation. He ran on by, nervous about the durability of this section. A badlands building in such disrepair was prone to collapse on small provocation, and here the falling rock would be devastating.

But the track stopped. It twisted about, unsettling him unexpectedly (he should have paid attention to its changing beat under his tonails), and terminated in a ragged spire, and beyond that the rubble filled in the tunnel until there was no room to pass.

Var went back to the third set of platforms. He crawled up on the mountain-side, avoiding rubble and alert to any sensation in his skin. When he felt the radiation, even so slight as to be harmless, he shied away. The Master had stressed that a route entirely clear must be found, for ordinary men might be more sensitive to the rays than Var, despite their inability to detect it without click-boxes.

Two passages were invisibly sealed off. The third was clear, barely. There were large droppings in it, showing that the animals had already discovered its availability. This in turn suggested that it went somewhere-perhaps to the surface-for the animals would not travel so frequently in and out of a dead end.

It branched-the Ancients must have had trouble making up their minds!-and again he took the fork leading toward the mountain. And again he ran into trouble.

For this was the lair of an animal-a large one. The droppings here were ponderous and fresh-the fruit of a carnivore. Now he smelled its rank body effusions, and now he heard its tread.

But the tunnel was high and clear and he could run swiftly along it. It was narrow enough so that any creature could come at him only from front or back. So he waited for it impelled by curiosity, if it were something that could be killed to clear the passage for human infiltration of the mountain, he would make the report. He cupped the light and aimed it ahead.

Rats scuttled around a bend, squinted in the glare, and milled in confusion. Then a gross head appeared: frog-like, large-eyed, horny-beaked. The mouth opened toothlessly. There was a flash of pink. A rat squealed and bounced up-then was drawn by a pink strand into that orifice. It was an extensive, sticky tongue that did the hauling.

The beam played over one bulging eye, and the creature blinked and twisted aside. It seemed to be a monstrous salamander. As Var stepped back, some fifteen feet of its body came into sight. The skin was flexible, glistening; the legs were squat, the tail was stout.

Var wasn't certain he could kill it with his sticks, but he was sure he could hurt it and drive it back. This was an amphibian mutant. The moist skin and flipper-like extremities suggested that it spent much time in water. And his skin reacted to its presence: the creature was slightly radio-active.

That meant that there was water-probably a flooded tunnel. Water that extended into radiation, and was contaminated by it. And there would be other such mutants, for no creature existed alone. This was not a suitable route for man.

Var turned and ran, not fearing the creature but not caring to stay near it either. It was a rat eater, and probably beneficial to man in that sense. He had no reason to fight it.

That left the other fork of the passage. He turned into it and trotted along, feeling the press of time more acutely. He was hungry, too. He wished he could unroll his tongue and spear something tasty, many feet away, and suck it in. Man didn't have all the advantages.

There was another cave-in, but he was able to scramble through. And on the far side there was light.

Not daylight. The yellow glow of an electric bulb. He had reached the mountain.

The passage was clean here, and wide. Solid boxes were stacked in piles, providing cover.

This had to be a storeroom.

Near the opening through which he had entered there was food: several chunks of bread, a dish of water.

Poison! his mind screamed. He had avoided such traps many times in the wild state.

Anything set out so invitingly and inexplicably was suspect. This would be how the underworlders kept the rats down.

He had accomplished his mission. He could return and lead the troops here, with their guns. This chamber surely opened into the main areas of the mountain, and there was room here for the men to mass before attacking.

Still he had better make quite sure, for it would be very bad if by some fluke the route were closed beyond this point. He moved deeper into the room, hiding behind the boxes though there was no one to see him. At the far end he discovered a closed door. He approached it cautiously. He touched the strange knob- and heard footsteps.

Var started for the tunnel, but realized almost immediately that he could not get through the small aperture unobserved in the time he had. He ducked behind the boxes again as the knob rotated and the door opened. He could wait, and if discovered he could kill the man and be on his way. He hefted his two sticks, afraid to peek around lest he expose himself.

The steps came toward him, oddly light and quick. To check the poison, he realized suddenly. The food would have to be replaced every few hours, or the rats would foul it and ignore it. As the person passed him, Var poked his head over between shielding flaps and looked.

It was a woman.

His grip tightened on the sticks. How could he kill a woman? Only men fought in the circle. Women were not barred from it, specifically; they merely lacked the intelligence and skill required for such activity, and of course their basic function was to support and entertain the men. And if he did kill her what would he do with the body? A corpse was hard to conceal for long, beøause it began to smell. It would betray his presence, if not immediately certainly within hours. Far too soon for the nomadS to enter secretly.

She was middle-aged, though of smaller build than the similarly advanced woman he had known, Sols. Her hair was short, brown and curly, but her face retained an elfin quality and she moved with grace. She wore a smock that concealed her figure; had her face and poise not given her away, Var might have mistaken her for a child because of her diminutive stature. Was this what all underworiders were like? Small and old and smocked? No need to worry about the conquest, then.

She glanced at the bread, then beyond-and stopped.

There, in the scant dust, was Vat's footprint. The round, callused ball, the substantial, protective, curled-under toenails. She might not recognize it as human, but she had to realize that something much larger than a rat had passed.

Var charged her, both sticks lifted. He had no choice now.

She whirled to face him, raising her small hands. Somehow his sticks missed her head and he was wrenched about, half-lifted, stumbling into the wall, twisting, falling.

He caught his footing again and oriented on her. He saw her fling off her smock and stand waiting for him, hands poised, body balanced, expression alert. She wore a brief skirt and briefer halter and was astonishingly feminine in contour for her age. Again-like Sola.

He had seen that wary, competent attitude before. When the Master had captured him in the badlands. When men faced each other in the circle. It was incredible that a woman, one past her prime and hardly larger than a child, should show such readiness. But he had learned to deal with oddities, and to read the portents rapidly and accurately.

He turned again and scrambled into the tunnel.

On the dark side he rolled over and waited with the sticks for her head to poke through the narrow aperture.

But she was clever: she did not follow him. He risked one look back through and saw her standing still, watching.

Quickly be retreated. When he deemed it safe, he began to run, retracing his route. He had a report to make.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The Master- listened with complete passivity to the report. Var was afraid he had failed, but did not know quite how, for he had found a route into the mountain. "So if she tells the mountain master, they will seal up the passage. But we could reopen it-"

"Not against a flamethrower," the Nameless One said morosely. Then, amzingly, he bent his head into his hands. "Had I known! Had I known! She, of all people! I would have gone myself!" -

Var stared at him, not comprehending. "You recognize the woman?"

"Sosa."

He waited, but the Master did not clarify the matter. The name meant nothing to Var.

After a long time, the Weaponless spoke: "We shall have to mount a direct frontal attack.

Bring Tyl to me."

Var left without replying. Tyl was no friend of his, and Tyl was in his own camp several hundred miles away, and Var did not have to follow any empire directive. But he would go for TyL

Jim the Gun intercepted him as he departed. "Show him this," he said. "No one else."

And he gave Var a handgun and a box of ammunition. And a written note.

Tyl was impressed by power and therefore fascinated by the gun. In some fashion Var did not follow, but which he suspected was influenced by the note Tyl's wife read, the chief set aside his standing grudge and cultivated Var for his knowledge of firearms.

Var had good memory for any person who had ever threatened his well-being and he had not at all forgotten his embarrassments of the first meeting with this man. But Tyl was one of those who, though~maddening when antipathetic, could be absolutely charming when friendly. As surely as he might have courted a lovely girl, Tyl courted Var.

And by the time Tyl and his vast tribe reached the mountain, he and Var were friends. They entered the circle together many times, but never for terms or blood, and under Tyl's expert guidance Var became far more proficient with the sticks. He saw that he had been a preposterous fool ever to challenge Tyl with this weapon; the man had never had cause to fear him in the circle.

A dozen times in practice Tyl disarmed him, each time showing him the mistake he had made and drilling him in the proper countermoves.

Tyl named him a score of names, stickers of the empire, that were his marks to excel, and warned him of the other warriors to be wary of. "You are strong and tough," he said, "and courageous-but you still lack sufficient experience. In a year, two"

Var, in those evenings when the tribe settled for the night and went about the processes even a travelling tribe must go about, also had a regular practise against other weapons. The Master had instructed him in the basictechniques, but that was not at all the same as actual combat. The stick had to learn to blunt the sword, thwart -the club, and to navigate the staff-or the stick was useless. Here with Tyl's disciplined, combat-ready tribe, Var's stick mastered these things. - - -

More of a warrior than be had been, he returned to the Nameless One's hidden camp near the mountain. Now he understood why Tyl was second in command. The man was honorable and sensible and capable and a expert warrior-and not given to letting minor grudges override his judgment. The feud between them had been a momentary thing that Var bad mistaken once for malice. The Master must have known, and shown him the truth by sending him on this mission.

Var was present when the Weaponless conferred with the Two Weapons.

"You have seen the gun," the Master said. "What it can do."

Tyl nodded. The truth was that he had fired it many times and become fairly proficient. He had even brought down a rabbit with it-something Var, with his clumsy grip, could not do.

"The men we face have guns-and worse weapons. They do not honor the code of the circle."

Tyl nodded again. Var knew he was fascinated by the tactical problems inherent in gun combat.

"For six years I have held the empire in check-for fear of the killers of the underworld.

Their guns-when we had none."

Tyl looked surprised, realizing that this was not just a staging area. "The men who travel to the mountain-"

"Do not always die there." -

Var did not comprehend the expression that crossed Tyl's face. "Sol of All Weapons-"

"There-alive. Hostage."

"And you-" -

"I came from the mountain. I returned."

Now Tyl's mouth fell open. "Sos! Sos the Rope! And the bird-"

"Nameless, weaponless, helpless. Stupid dead. Bound to dismantle the empire."

Tyl looked as though something astonishing and profound and not entirely pleasing had passed between them, more than the information about the mountain. Var could not quite grasp what, though he did recognize the name. "Sos" as connected to "Sosa." He suspected that Tyl's most basic loyalty lay with Sol of All Weapons, the former Master of the empire; perhaps the knowledge that that man lived made Tyl excited.

"Now-?' Tyl inquired. "Now we also have guns." "The empire-"

"Will expand. Perhaps under Sol, as before. After this conquest of the mountain."

"But these-guns-are not circle weapons," Tyl protested. Var could see how eager he was.

"This is not a circle matter. It is war."

Var was shocked. He knew what war was. The Master had told him many times. War was the cause of the Blast.

The Master glanced at him, fathoming his disturbance.

"I have told you war is evil, that it must never come to our society. It very nearly destroyed the world, once. But we are faced here with a problem that cannot be allowed to stand.

The mountain must be reduced. This is the war to end wars."

What the Master said seemed reasonable, but Var knew that something was wrong. There was evil in this project, and not the evil of war itself. For the first time be questioned the wisdom of the Weaponless. But he could not decide what it was that bothered him, so he said nothing, Tyl did not look comfortable either, but he did not argue. "How are we to accomplish this?"

The Master brought out a sketch he must have made during the months of his encampment here. "This is what the crazies call a contour map. I have made sightings of the mountain from all sides, and the land about It. See- here is our present camp, well beyond its defensive perimeter. Here is the hostel where the suicides stop before making the ascent. Here is the subway tunnel Var explored."

"Subway?" Evidently the word was as new to Tyl as it was to Var.

"The Ancients used it for travelling, Metal vehicles something like crazy tractors, except

- that they roiled on tracks and moved much faster. The ones on the ground were called 'trains'

and the ones below, 'subways.' Var tells me he discovered an actual train down there, too."

Var had told him no such thing, He had only reported on what he found-tunnels, platforms, rails, a plug, a cave-in, radiation, a monster. He had seen nothing like a crazy tractor. Why should the Master lie?

"I had hoped to use such a route to make a surprise foray. But the underworld knows of it now-knows that we know-that the radiation is down. So they will have it booby-trapped. We must make an overland attack."

Tyl looked relieved. "My tribe will take it for you."

The Master smiled. "I do not question the competence of your tribe. But your men are warriors of the circle.

What would they do against guns? Guns fired from cover, from a distance, without warning.

And flamethrowers?"

"Flamethrowers?"

"Jets of fire that consume a man in moments."

Tyl nodded, but Var could see that he did not believe such a thing was possible, despite the other wonders they had learned about. Var didn't either. If fire were shot out in a jet, the wind would put it out.

"Do you remember when someone told you about white moths whose sting was deadly? About tiny creatures who could overrun armed warriors? Fire that would float on water?"

"I remember," Tyl said, and was sober.

Var did not see what relevance such - rhetorical questions had to the problem, since everyone knew about the moths and the swarming shrews of the badlands. Floating fire was ridiculous. But now Tyl seemed to believe in flamethrowers.

"This will be ugly fighting," the Weaponless said. "Men will die outside the circle, never seeing the men who kill them. We are like the shrews-we must swamp a prepared camp, and we shall die in multitudes. But if we persevere, we shall take the mountain despite all the horrors there.

"Speak to your subcbiefs. Tell them to seek volunteers- true volunteers, not coerced men-for a battle where half of them will die. They will not be using their natural weapons. Those that enlist will be issued guns and shown how to use them."

Tyl stood up, smiling. "I have longed for the old days. Now they return."

Three thousand men of Tyl's monster tribe put aside their given weapons and took instruction in guns. Day and night, Jim's small tribe spread out over the firing range, each man supervising one warror at a time. When the gun had been mastered, the trainee was given the pistol or rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition and told to report back to the main camp. And not to fire it before the battle.

Var was kept busy relaying messages from the Master to Tyl and the subchiefs. The Weaponless pored over his map of the mountain and made notations for strategy and deployment. "We are shrews," he said mysteriously. "We must utilize shrew tactics. They know we're here, but they don't know exactly when or how we'll attack. They won't kill their hostages until they're sure they can't be used for bargaining purposes. We shall try to overwhelm them before they realize it Even so, I do not expect to leave this campaign a happy man."

The only hostage Var knew of was Sol, the prior Master of the empire. Why should his welfare loom so important now? The Master could hardly care for competition again.

They were ready. The men were trained and deployed in a ring entirely around the mountain.

Special troops guarded the subway and its connected tunnels, and no strangers were permitted anywhere in the vicinity. Wives and children had no place in this effort; they were removed to a camp of their own a day's walk distant, and married non-volunteers guarded that region.

They were ready. But no attack was launched. Men chafed at the delay, eager to test their new weapons, eager to probe the dread defenses of the underworld. The mountain had a morbid fascination for them. They had guns and believed they could capture any fortress but to take the mountain would be like conquering death itself!

Then, on the very worse day for such an effort, the Master put the troops in motion. He ignored Tyl's dismay and Var's perplexity. At the height of a blinding thunderstorm, they charged the mountain.

Var and Tyl stood beside the Nameless One, at his direction, each privately wondering what manner of man the leader had become. They watched the proceedings from an elevated and carefully protected blind. It was difficult to see anything Jn the rain, but they knew what to watch for.

"The lightning will knock out some of their television, temporarily," the Master explained. "It always does. The thunder will mask the noise of our firing. The rain will camouflage our physical advance and maybe suppress the effect of their flamethrowers. That, plus the masses of men involved, should do it." - -

The old campaigner was not so confused after all, Var realized. The mountaineers would assume that no attack could occur in rain, and would not be ready.

The Master gave them field glasses-another salvaged device of the Ancients-and briefly demonstrated their use. With these, they were able to see distant sections of the mountain as though they were close. The rain blurred the image some, but the effect was still striking.

Var watched a troop of men, bedraggled in the rain, follow - a line toward the first projecting metal beams at the base of the mountain. The mountain was actually a morbid mass of gray, with stunted trees approaching the base and a few weeds sprouting here and there on its surface. Buzzards perched on the ugly projections, looking well fed. Even in the rain they waited-and surely they would feast today!

But there were paths up through the twisted metal, and these had been charted from a distance. The troops were prepared with cleats and hooks, and would pass in minutes an obstruction that might take a naive man half a day to navigate. Already the column he watched was beginning to splay, rushing for cover adjacent to the mountain.

Then the earth rose up and smote them down. Men were hurled through the air, to land broken. Smoke erupted, obscuring the view.

"Mines," the Master said. "I was afraid of that."

"Mines," Tyl repeated, and Var was sure he was marking down one more thing to be well wary of in future.

"They are buried explosives. We have no way to anticipate their location. Probably the weight of a single man is insufficient to trigger them; but when a full column passes ..." He paused meaningfully. "The area should be safe for other troops now, because the mines have been expended."

The sound of more distant explosions suggested that other regions around the mountain were being made similarly safe. How did he know so much, Var wondered. The Master seemed to spend most of his time reading old tomes, yet it was as though he had traveled the world and plumbed its secrets.

A second wave of men charged through the steaming basin where the mines had exploded. They reached the foot of the mountain, taking cover as they had been drilled to do. But there seemed to be no fire from the defenders.

The warriors climbed through and under the twisted beams, following the pathways they knew. From this distance the column resembled a lashing snake, appearing and disappearing in partial cover. Then men ran out on the first plateau above.

And fire spurted from pipes rising from the ground.

Now Var believed. He fancied he could smell the scorching flesh as men spun about, smoking, and died.

Many died, but already more were coming up. They charged the pipes from the sides, for the fire flicked out in only one direction at a time. They fired bullets into the apertures, and those who retained clubs and staffs battered at the projections and bent them down, and finally the fires died. The rain continued, drenching everything.

"Your men are courageous and skilled," the Master said to TyL.

Tyl was immune to the compliment. "On a sunny day, none would have survived. I know that now."

Then the return fire began. The thinned troops moved up the mountainside-but they were exposed to the concealed emplacements of the underworld, and the weapons mounted there were more than pistols.

"Machine-guns," the Nameless One said, and flinched. "We cannot storm those. Sound the retreat."

But it was already too late. Few, very few, returned from the mountain.

When they totaled up the losses, known and presumed, they learned that almost a thousand men had perished in that lone engagement. Not one defender had been killed.

"Have we lost?" Var asked hesitantly in the privacy of the Master's command tent. He felt guilty for not finding and keeping properly secret a subterranean route into the mountain. All those brave men might have lived.

"The first battle. Not the campaign. We will guard the territory we have cleared; they can't plant new mines or flamethrowers while we watch. Now we know where their machine-guns are, too. We will lay siege. We will build catapults to bombard those nests. We will drop grenades on them. In time the victory will be ours."

A warrior approached the entrance~ "A paper with writing," he said. "It was in a metal box that flew into our camp. It's addressed to you."

The Master accepted it. "Your literacy may have turned the course of battle," he said.

Flattered, the man left.

Var knew that many of the women practised reading, and some few of the men. Was it worthwhile after all?

The Master opened the paper and studied it. He smiled grimly. "We impressed them! They want to negotiate."

"They will yield without fighting?" Var didn't bother with all the awkward words, but that was his gist.

"Not exactly."

Var looked at him, again not comprehending. The Master read from the paper: "We propose, in the interests of avoiding senseless decimation of manpower and destruction of equipment, to settle the issue by contest of champions.

Place: the mesa on top of Mt. Muse, twelve miles south of Helicon. Date: August 6, Bl 18. Your choice of other terms of combat. - - -

"Should our champion prevail, you will desist hostilities and depart this region for ever, and permit no other attack on Helicon. Should your champion prevail we will surrender Helicon to you intact.

"Speak to the television set in the near hostel"

After a pause, the Master asked him: "How would you call it, Var?"

Var didn't know how to respond, so he didn't.

"Sound sensible to you? You think our champion could defeat theirs in single combat?"

Var had no doubt of the Master's ability to defeat any man the underworld could send against him, particularly if he specified weaponless combat. He nodded.

The Master drew out his map. "Here is the mountain he names. See how the contours crowd together?"

Var nodded again. But he realized that this was only part of the story.

"That means it is very steep. When I surveyed it, I saw that I could not climb it. Not rapidly, anyway. I am too heavy, too clumsy in that fashion. And there are boulders perched on the top."

Var visualized rocks crashing down, pushed by a fast climber on to the head of a slow climber. The Nameless One was matchless in combat-but rolled boulders could prevent him from ever reaching it. Perhaps the site had been selected to prevent him from participating, forcing the choice of a lesser man.

"Then-some other? We have many good warriors." Var said "we" though he knew he was not yet a part of the empire.

"It would be a test of climbing as well as fighting. And we have only two days to prepare, for today is August 4, by the underworld calendar."

"Tomorrow morning a climbing tournament!" Var said, knowing his speech had become incomprehensible in his excitement, but that the other would get the gist.

The Weaponless smiled tiredly. "You don't suspect betrayal?"

He hadn't, until then. But he realized the nomads could still take the mountain by force, just as originally planned, if the mountain master did not honor the decision of the champions. So it seemed worthwhile.

The Weaponless fathomed his thinking. "All right. Tell Tyl to select fifty top warriors for a climbing tournament. Tonight I talk to the mountain; tomorrow we practise on Mt. Muse."

But he still did nOt look optimistic.

At dawn on the day of the tournament, Var stood at the base of Mt. Muse, waiting for sufficient light to climb. Rather, for sufficient light for others to climb, for their eyes were less sensitive in the dark than his own. He had known he would be here the moment the Master agreed to hold the tournament. Var, with his horny hands and hooflike feet, and his years in the wilderness, was the most agile climber in the camp, and he had chosen to compete. Since he was not a member of the Master's empire, no one could tell him no.

Tyl had seen him, though, and smiled, and said nothing.

And by noon Var was winner of the tournament.

"But he is yet a novice in the circle!" the Master protested, astonished by this development.

Tyl smiled. "Here are the next three winners of the climb. Test him against them."

The Weaponless, worried, agreed. So Var, tired from his morning effort but ready, faced the man who had reached the top ten minutes after he had. Had it been the contest of champions, on the mesa of Muse, Var would have had ample time to cripple the man by dropping rocks on him. That was the point of the climbing exercise: the best warrior in the empire would lose if he were too much slower than the one the mountain master sent. But when it came to the actual battle, the champion had to be more skilled than the other, too.

The second finisher was a staffer, nimble and lanky, who had used his weapon cleverly to assist his climbing. Var entered the circle, running through in his mind the advice the Master and Tyl had given him in the past: stick against staff. The sticks were faster, the staff stronger.

The sticks were aggressive, the staff more passive. The sticks could launch a dual offence, but it was hard to penetrate a good staff defense. And If the sticks did not break through early, eventually the staff would discover an opportunity and score.

The staffer was as well aware of the factors as was Var, and more experienced. His advantage was time, and he obviously meant to use it. He blocked conservatively, making no mistakes, challenging Var to come to him.

Var obliged. He rapped at the weapon, not the man, creating a diversion, while he searched for an opening. He feinted at the head, at the feet, at the knuckles holding the staff, until the man became a trifle slow in his responses, bored with the harassment.

Then Var directed fierce blows at head and body simultaneously. The staff spun to counter both-but not quite rapidly enough, because of the prior chilling byplay. The head shot missed, but the body attack was successful. One rib at least had been fractured.

As the man winced and brought his weapon over to catch Var's exposed arm, Tyle stepped up to the circle. "First blood!" he said. "Withdraw."

So Var had won. The advantage he had achieved would normally have been sufficient to bring him eventual victory, and that was all he had needed to demonstrate. There was no point in wearing himself out. His victory on that basis would only militate against him in the real contest tomorrow.

The next man was a dagger. Var quailed inwardly when he saw that, for the knives were as swift as the sticks, and their contact more deadly. The sword and the club were impressive weapons; but the dagger, competently wielded, was more devastating in the confines of the circle.

But the knives had to be properly oriented. A thrust with the flat of the blade was useless in many instances. And the daggers were not apt instruments for blocking. Though more effective offensively, they were less efficient overall than the dual-purpose sticks.

Var had no choice. He had to fence with the blades, paying first attention to his defense.

If he could succeed in making an opening for himself without sacrificing personal protection, he could score. If not- Now the dagger feinted at him, and Var had to react conservatively, just as the staffer had against him. And the result would be the same, with him the victim, unless he could break the pattern.

But the dagger was tired. He was an older man, as old as the Master. No doubt experience had made him a skilled climber, but his age had made him pay for the effort. Not much, not noticeably-except that Var did have a slight and increasing advantage in speed.

When he realized that, he knew he had won. With renewed confidence he beat back the blade thrusts, using his greater vigor to intercept every stroke and jar the hand that made it.

Gradually he forced the man back, intercepting the thrust sooner, and finally the hard-pressed dagger made an error, was bruised on the wrist, and ruled the loser.

The third man was another sticker. "I am Hul," he said.

Var, fatigued from two circle encounters as well as the morning climb, knew then that he had lost his bid to be the empire's champion. For the sticker was one of the men Tyl had warned him about-one of the top fighters. Stick against stick, Var could have no advantage except superior skill-and against this man he didn't have that.

Hal stood just outside the circle. "Var the Stick," he said, his voice resonant. "I have studied you and assessed you, and I can take you in the circle. Perhaps not next year but today, yes. But you would bruise me before you went down, for you are strong and determined. This would make me less able tomorrow on the mesa, and prejudice the case of the empire. Will you yield your place to me without combat?"

The request was reasonable. Hul was fresh, for he was young and strong too, and he had rested while Var fought. And if he had been tired he still could have won, for he was a master sticker, Tyl did not make errors about such rankings, for it was Tyl's business to rank the leading weapons of all the empire. And Var was not of the empire, so was answerable to no one but himself. Otherwise no subsidiary contest would have been necessary; the Master or Tyl could have selected the warrior with the best overall prospects and settled it. Var could step down with honor, having proven himself twice and now acting for the best interest of the empire.

But Var was not reasonable. The notion of losing the privilege of fighting for the Master, of being his champion he thought he had won this in the climb and held it in the circle, Such a late sacrifice filled him with fury. "No!" he cried. It came out a growl. He would not give it up; it would have to be taken from him.

Unperturbed, Hul turned to Tyl. "Then, if the Weaponless permits, I shall yield to Var.

One of us must conserve his strength; if we fight, neither will. He needs the respite; he has the spirit."

Tyl nodded, granting the Master's acquiescence. Var was to reflect on that act of Hul's many times in the years following, and to learn something more each time he did so.

CHAPTER NINE

Dawn again. This time he knew the best route-one that could cut as much as half an hour from his prior time. And he did not have to wait on any other man. But it was strenuous and dangerous, and he did not dare attempt it without suitable light. Natural light, if he used a flashlight, the other climber might spot him by it.

On the far side of Muse the mountain's champion would be ascending similarly. He would be naked, except perhaps for shoes, for the Master had stipulated that. Var was naked now. This was to ensure that no gun or other illicit weapon could be carried along secretly. The weapon the Master had specified was any of the recognized circle instruments: club, staff, stick, sword, dagger or star. Not rope or net or whip. Men of both groups would be watching from the fringes to see that neither climber was cheating on the terms in any other way.

Of course the fight on the mesa would not be very clear, because the watchers would be far below. But only the victor would descend alive, so there could be no doubt about that.

It was light enough. Var moved out, sticks anchored to his waist by a minimum harness. The chill of the morning pricked his skin. He was eager for the warming exercise and, privately, to get away from the too curious stares of the men at his exposed body. He knew he was not pretty.

He climbed. At first it was easy, for the slope was gentle and he avoided the crevices that might have trapped a foot in the dark. Then he struck the boulder strewn wastes. This was where he gained time over his prior ascent, because of the superior route he had worked out. One man, the day before, had led him at this point, and he had been careful to note the particular path that man had happened on. He knew the mountain's champion would have to be a remarkable athlete to better Var's own time, for the other man would not have had this practice.

Not recently, anyway. Of course he could have climbed Muse every day before the nomad siege began. That might be why such terms had been specified. Still, Var knew he was as fast as anyone, here.

And he was sure that the other side was no better than his own. He had checked that out from the summit. There was nothing in the agreement to stop him from circling to that side in order to ascend more rapidly or intercept the other man. And he had verified that there was no secret ancient built tunnel there either. So the terms were fair.

The last portion was the most difficult. Here the slope became so steep as to seem almost vertical. It wasn't; that was an illiusion of perspective. But he did not peer down as he mounted it.

There were steplike terraces and crevices, ranging from mere lines in the wall to platforms several feet wide. Here Var's stubby, callused fingers and hard bare toes were important assets, for he could find lodging on a minimum basis. Up, across, and around he went, traversing the open face of the mountain, keeping a nervous eye for falling rocks. If the other champion had somehow reached the summit first. But Var triumphed. No boulders were loosed on him, and when he poked his head over the brim, alert for attack, he found it bare. Now it would be up to his ability with the sticks.

He trotted to the far side of the little mesa. The platform was only about ten paces in diameter-twice that of the battle circle, but hardly seeming so because of the frightening drop-off all around. He peered over.

The underworld's warrior was climbing. Var observed his bare back, his round head, his moving limbs, but was unable to make out much detail. He judged the man to be about five minutes from the summit. That was a kind of relief, for it meant that Var's selection as the empire champion had been valid. The slower warriors would have reached the top too late. Particularly what good would Hul's skill and courage have done him, if his head was bashed in while he still climbed?

Var glanced at the available stones. Some were small, suitable for throwing. Some were good for athurate dropping. A few were large enough for rolling-and woe betide what lay in their crushing paths!

He picked up a throwing rock, nestling it in his palm. His grip was awkward, but he could throw well enough. He peered down at the warrior. The man was clinging to the rim of the shelf, inching from one narrow step to another. He was helpless; if be tried to dodge a falling object, he would fall himself. And he wasn't even looking up. It was as though the notion of such a premature attack had not occurred to him.

Var set the stone down, disgusted with himself for being tempted, and recrossed the mesa.

The Master had invariably stressed the importance of honor outside the circle, until this present adventure. Within the circle there was no law at all except death and victory; outside there was no victory without honor. This plateau was the effective circle. The men of the underworld might not practise honor in the fashion of the nomads, but this one circumscribed case was plainly an exception. He had to let the warrior enter before making any hostile move.

Var was sitting crosslegged at his own side of the mesa as the other warrior clambered to the level section. The first thing Var saw was the sticks, slung from a neck loop. He was matched against his own weapon! The second thing he saw was that the other warrior was small in fact, diminutive to the point of dwarfism. His head would barely reach Var's shoulder-and Var, though large, was no giant. The third thing he did not see. The naked warrior was either castrated Or female.

"I am ready," the mountain champion said, grasping the two sticks and dropping the harness over the edge.

It was a girl, definitely. Her voice was high, sweet. She had thick black hair cut short beneath the ears, delicate facial features, a lithe slender body, and tightly bound sandals on her feet. She could not be more than nine years old. Half his own age, by the Master's reckoning.

There could be no mistake. She was here, she was armed, she was not shy or suprised. The underworld had sent a child to represent its interests.

Why? Surely they were not depending on some chivalrous dispensation to give the little girl the technical victory? Not when the fate of mountain and empire was at stake. Not when a thousand men had died already in the larger combat. Yet if they wanted to lose, it had hardly been necessary to make such an elaborate arrangement, or to sacrifice a child.

Var got up and disposed of his own harness, mainly to have something to do while he tried to think. It occurred to him that he should be embarrassed to be naked in the presence of a girl but his social conditioning dated only from his contact with civilization, and was not universally deep. The codes of honor were more immediate than personal modesty. And this was not a woman but a child. Except for her peeking cleft, she could be a young boy. Her hair was no longer, her chest no more developed.

He thought irrelevantly of Sola.

He came to meet the child cautiously, doubting that she could wield the full-sized sticks adequately.

Her slender arms moved rapidly. Her two sticks countered his own with expertise. She did know what she was doing.

So they fought. Var had size and strength, but the child had speed and skill. The match, astonishingly, was even.

Gradually Var realized that this outré situation was not at all a game. He had been prepared to battle a vicious man to the death, and bad trouble coping with a female child. Yet if he did not defeat her (he could not, now, bring himself to think "kill"), he would be defeated himself and the Master's cause would be lost

Better to do it quickly. He attacked with fury, using his brute strength to beat the girl back toward the brink. She stepped back, and back again, but could not do so indefinitely. Stick met stick, no blow landing on flesh directly but Var applied pressure as he had done with dagger the day before, and improved his position.

She was two steps from the edge, one. Then she spun about without seeming to look, knocked one of his sticks up, ducked under it, scooted past him, and caught his wrist with a backhand swing that completely surprised him.

Var watched incredulously as one of his sticks flew from his numbed hand, to rattle down the mountainside. The maneuver had been so swiftly and neatly executed that he had not bad the chance to defend against it. Now, half disarmed, he was virtually lost. One stick could not prevail against two.

His inexperience in the circle had after all cost him the match. Hul would not have been caught so simply, and certainly not Tyl. Yet who would have expected such skill from a mere child?

Var waited for the attack that had to come. He was doomed, but he would not give up.

Perhaps a lunge would catch her unaware in turn, or maybe he could throw them both off the mesa, making the battle a tie in mutual death. She looked at him a moment. Then, casually, she tossed one of her own sticks after his over the brink.

Dumbfounded, Var saw it clatter out of play. She could have tapped him on the skull in that moment without opposition, but she kept her distance.. "You"

"So you owe me one," she said. "Fair fight." And she came at him with the single stick.

Var had to fight, but he was-shaken. She had disarmed herself to make the match even again. When she could have had easy victory. He had never imagined such a thing in the circle.

There was no doubt that she meant business, however. She pressed him hard with her half weapon, and scored repeatedly on his unarmed side. It was a strange, off balance contest, requiring unusual contortions and reflexes to compensate for the missing stick, and the finesse of the dual weapons was largely gone.

Thus, clumsily, they fought. And Var, because the reduction of finesse brought her skill closer to his own level without correspondingly upgrading her strength, gradually gained the initiative. But he pursued it with restraint, for he did not need a second such lesson as the one that had cost him one stick. The child was most dangerous when she seemed most beleaguered. And he still wasn't certain what her sacrifice of her own stick meant. Surely she could not have been so confident of victory that she disarmed herself for the joy of enhanced competition! And surely she could not desire to lose....

Var had not survived his childhood in the badlands without being alert to the dangers of the unknown. Not all unknowns were physical.

She was tiring, and he slacked off some more, supercautious. The height of the sun showed they had been at it for some three hours, and now the afternoon was passing.

But how would it end, with their life-and-death battle reduced to mere sparring. Only one of them could descend the mountainside. Only one team could prevail. Delay could not change that harsh reality.

If the contest did not end soon, the victor would not have enough time remaining before dusk to make a safe descent. Mt. Muse was challenging at any time, and seemed impossible in the dark. -

It did not end soon. The battle had become a mockery, for neither person was really trying to win. Not immediately, anyway. Both were holding back, conserving strength, waiting for some more crucial move by the other that did not come. Stick still beat against stick; but the force was perfunctory, the motions routine.

Dusk did come. The girl stepped back, dropping her weapon. "We shouldn't fight at night,"

she said.

Var lowered his own weapon, agreeing, but alert for betriyal.

She walked to the edge, leaving her stick behind. "Don't look," she said. She squatted.

Var realized that she had to urinate. But if he turned his back she could run up behind him and push. Still, if he could not trust her during this period of truce, he had had no business agreeing to it. And there had been that matter of the extra stick. Her codes were different than his, but they seemed consistent.

He faced outward and relieved his own bladder into the gloom below.

Their toilets done, the two returned to the center of the plateau. Darkness filled the landscape like a great ocean, but their island remained clear. And lonely.

"I'm hungry," she said.

So was he. But there was nothing to eat. All concerned had assumed that the battle would be of short duration, so no provision for a prolonged stay had been made.

Perhaps this had been intentional: if the champions did not fight with sufficient vigor, thirst and hunger would prompt them.

"You don't talk much, do you," she said.

"I don't talk well," Var explained. The mangled syllables conveyed the message more clearly than the language did.

Oddly, she smiled, a flash of white in shadow. "My father doesn't talk at all. He got hurt in the throat, years ago. Before I can remember. But I understand him well enough."

Var just nodded.

"Why don't you take that side, and I'll take this side, and we'll sleep," she said, gesturing. "Tomorrow we'll finish this."

He agreed. He took his stick and skuffed it across the center of the plateau, making a line that divided the area in halves. He lay down in his territory.

The girl sat up for a while, looking very small. "What is your name?"

"Var."

"Growr?

"Var."

"I don't see any bad scar on your throat. Why can't you talk?"

Var tried to figure out a simple way to answer that, but failed.

"What's it like, outside?" she asked.

He realized that he did not need to reply sensibly to her questions. She was more interested in talking than in listening.

"It's cold," she said.

Var hadn't thought about it, but she was right. A hard chill was settling on the mesa, and they were both naked and without sleeping bags. He could endure it, of course; he had slept exposed many times in youth. But she was smaller then be, and thinner, and her skin was soft.

In fact, the cold would be more than an inconvenience to her. She could die from exposure.

Already her hunched hairless torso was shaking so violently he felt the tremors in the ground.

Var sat up. "That favour I owe you, for the stick" he called.

Her head turned toward him. He could see the motion, but nothing else in the fading light.

"I don't understand."

"For the stick my return favor." He tried to enunciate clearly.

"Stick," she said. "Favor." She was beginning to pick up his clumsy words, but not his meaning. Her teeth chattered as she spoke.

"The warmth of my body, tonight."

"Warm? Night?" She remained perplexed.

Var got up abruptly and crossed over to her. He lay down on his side, took hold of her, and pulled her to him. "Sleep warm," he said as clearly as he could.

For a moment her body was tense, and her hands flew to his neck in a gesture he recognized from demonstrations the Nameless One had made. She knew weaponless combat! Then she relaxed.

"Oh you mean to share warmth! Oh, thank you, Val"

And she turned about, curled up, and lay with her shivering back nestled against his front, his arms and legs falling about her. His chin, sprouting its sparse beard, came to nestle in her fluffy hair. His forearm settled on her folded thigh, his hand clasped her knee to gain the purchase necessary to keep them close together.

Var remembered the first time he had held a woman, not so many months before. But of course this was not the same. Sola had been buxom and hot, while this child was bony and cold. And the relationship was entirely different.

Yet he found this chaste camaraderie against the cold to be as meaningful as that prior sexual connection. To stand even on the favors that was part of the circle code, as he understood it, and there was no shame in it.

Yet in the morning they would do battle again.

"Who are you?" he asked now. For once the words came out succinctly.

"Soil. My father is sol of all weapons."

Sol of All Weapons! The former master of the empire, and the man who had built it up from nothing. No wonder she was so proficient!

Then a terrible thought struck him. "Your mother, who is your mother?"

"Oh, my mother knows even more about fighting than Sol does but she does it without weapons. She's very small hardly bigger than I am, and I'm not full grown but any man who comes at her lands on his head!" She tittered. "It's funny."

Relief, until something else occurred to him. "She your mother brown curly hair, very good figure, smock"

"Yes, that's her! But how could you know? She's never been out of the underworld not since I've been there."

Once again Var found himself at a loss to explain. Certainly he did not want to tell her he had tried to kill her mother.

"Of course Sosa isn't my natural mother," Soil remarked. "I was born outside. My father brought me in, when I was small."

Var's earlier shock returned. "You're you're Sola's dead daughter?"

"Well, we're not really dead in the underworld. We just let the nomads think that, because I don't know exactly why. Sol was married to Sola outside, though, and I'm their child. They say Sola married the Nameless One, after that."

"Yes. But she kept her name."

"Sosa kept her name, too. That's funny."

But Var was remembering Sola's charge to him: "Kill the man who harms my child."

Var the Stick was that man, for he was pledged to save the empire by killing the mountain's champion.

CHAPTER TEN

Var woke several times in the night, beset by the chill of this height. A wind came up, wringing the precious warmth from his back. Only in front, where he touched Soli, was he warm. He could have survived alone but it was better this way.

Every so often the girl stirred but when her limbs stretched out and met the cold, they contracted again quickly. Even so, her hands were icy. Had she slept by herself she would hardly have been able to wield a stick in the morning. Var put his coarse hand over her fine one, shielding it.

Dawn finally came. They stood up shivering and jumped vigorously to restore circulation, and attended to natural calls again, but it was some time before they both felt better. Fog shrouded the plateau, making the drop off unreal, the sky dismal.

"What's that?" Soli inquired, pointing.

Once more, Var was at a loss to answer. He knew what it was, but not what women called it.

"My father Sol doesn't have one," she said.

Var knew she was mistaken, for had that been the case, she herself would never have been born.

"I'm hungry," she said. "And thirsty too."

So was Var but they were no closer to a solution to that problem than they had been the night before. They had to fight. The winner would descend and feast as royally as he or she wished. The other would not need food again, ever. He looked at the two singlesticks lying across the centerline. A pair but one his, the other hers.

She saw his glance. "Do we have to fight?"

Var never seemed to be able to answer her questions. On the one hand he represented the empire; on the other he had his oath to Sola to uphold. He shrugged.

"It's foggy," she said wistfully. "Nobody can see us."

Meaning that they should not fight without witnesses? Well, it would do for an excuse. The mist showed no sign of dissipating, and no sound rose from its depths. The world was a whiteness, as was their contest.

"Why don't we go down and get some food?" she asked. "And come back before they see us."

The simplicity and directness of her mind were astonishing! Yet why not? He was glad to have a pretext to postpone hostilities, since he could not see his way clear either to winning or losing.

"Truce until the fog lifts?" he asked.

"Truce until the fog lifts. That time I understood you very well."

And Var was pleased.

They descended on Var's side of the mountain, after retrieving the stick harnesses. The third and fourth sticks themselves had bounced and rolled and been lost entirely, but the harnesses had stayed where they fell. Soli had feared that the underworld had ways to spot anyone who traversed her own slope of Mt. Muse. "Television pickups can't tell where they're hidden."

"You mean sets are just sitting around outside?" Var knew what television was; he had seen the strange silent pictures on the boxes in hostels.

"Sets outside," she repeated, Interpreting. "No, silly. Pickups little boxes like eyes, set into stones and things, operated by remote controL"

Var let the subject drop. He had never seen a stone with an eye in it, but there had been stranger things in the badlands.

The fog was even thicker at the base. They held hands and sneaked up to the Master's camp.

Then Var hesitated. "They'll know me," he whispered.

"Oh." She was taken aback. "Could I go in, then?"

"You don't know the layout."

"I'm hungry!" she wailed.

"Sh.." He jerked her back out of auditory range. A warrior sentry could come on them at any time.

"Tell me the layout," she whispered desperately. "I'll go in and steal some food for us."

"Stealing isn't honest!"

"It's all right in war. From an enemy camp."

"But that's my camp!"

"Oh." She thought a moment. "I could still go. And ask for some. They don't know me."

"Without any clothes?"

"But I'm hungry!"

Var was getting disgusted, and didn't answer. His own hunger became intense.

She began to cry.

"Here," Var said, feeling painfully guilty. "The hostel has clothes."

They ran to the hostel, one mile. Before Var could protest, Soli handed him her harness and stick and walked inside. She emerged a few minutes later wearing a junior smock and a hair ribbon and new sandals, looking clean and fresh.

"You're lucky no one was there!" Var said, exasperated. "Someone was there. Somebody's wife, waiting to meet her warrior. I guess they're keeping the women out of your main camp. She jumped a mile when I walked in. I told her I was lost, and she helped me."

So neatly accomplished! He would never have thought of that, or had the nerve to do it.

Was she bold, or naive?

"Here," she said. She handed him a bundle of clothing. Dressed, they reappraised the main camp. It occurred to Var that there should have been food at the hostel, but then he remembered that the nomads cleaned it out regularly. It took a lot of food to feed an armed camp, and the hostel food was superior to the empire mess. Otherwise they might have solved their problem readily. Their food problem.

"I'll have to go to the main tent," she said. Var agreed, hunger making him urgent, now that their nakedness had been abated. "I'll pretend I'm somebody's daughter, and that I'm bringing food out to my family."

Var was fearful of this audacity, but could offer nothing better. "Be careful," he said.

He lurked in the forest near the tent, not daring to move for fear she would not be able to find him again. She disappeared into the mist.

Then lie remembered what her motel- omment should have jogged into his head before: the entird camp was not only masculine, it was on a recognition only basis. No stranger could pass the guards particularly not a female child.

And it was too late to stop her.

Soli moved toward the huge tent, fascinated by its tenuous configuration though her heart beat nervously. She would have felt more confident with a pair of sticks, but had left them with Var because children especially girl children did not carry weapons here.

A guard stood at the tent entrance. She tried to brush past him as if she belonged, but his staff came down to bar her immediately. "Who are you?" he demanded.

She knew better than to give her real name. Hastily she invented one: "I'm Semi. My father is tired. I have to fetch some food for"

"No Sam in this camp, girl. Id know a strange name like that, sure. What game are you playing?"

"Sam the Sword. He just arrived. Here"

"You're lying, child. No warrior brings his family into this camp. I'm taking you to the Master." He nudged her with the staff.

No one else was in sight at the moment. Soil vaulted the pole, shot spoked fingers at his eyeballs, and when his head jerked back in the warrior's reflex she sliced him across the throat with the rigid side of her hand. She clipped him again as he gasped for breath, and he collapsed silently.

He was too heavy for her to move, so she left him there and stepped inside, straightening her rumpled smock and retying her hair. She could still get the food if she acted quickly enough.

But the morning mess was over and she did not dare pester the cook directly.

"Kol has been attacked!" someone shouted, back at the entrance. "Search the grounds!"

Oh oh. She hadn't gotten out in time. But her hunger still drove her. She would have to make up for her vulnerability by sheer audacity, as Sosa put it. Sosa knew how to make the best of bad situations.

She retreated to just shy of the entrance, knowing what must happen there.

Warriors rushed up, hauled the unconscious Kol to his feet, exclaimed. "Didn't see it happen." "Clubbed in the throat." "Spread a net he can't have gotten far."

Then a huge man came. Soil recognized him at once: the Nameless One, master of the enemy empire. He moved like a rolling machine, shaking the ground with the force of his tread, and he was ugly. His voice was almost as bad as Var's:

"That was a weaponless attack. The mountain has sent a spy."

Soil didn't wait for more. She ran out of the tent and threw herself at the monster, hands outstretched.

Surprised, he caught her by the shoulder and lifted her high, his strength appalling.

"What have we here?"

"Sir!" she cried. "Help me! A man is chasing me!"

"A child!" he said. "A girl-child. What family?'

"No family. Im an orphan. I came here for food."

The Master set her down, but one hand gripped her thin shoulder with vicelike power. "The hand that struck Kol's neck would have been about the size of your hand, child. I saw the mark.

You are a stranger, and I know the ways of the-mountain. You"

She reacted even before she fully comprehended his import. Her pointed knuckles rammed into his cloak, aiming for the solar plexus as she twisted away.

It was like hitting a wall. His belly was made of steel. "Try again, little spy," he said, laughing.

She tried again. Her knee came up to ram hard into his crotch, and one hand struck at his neck.

The Nameless One just stood there chuckling. His grip on her shoulder never loosened. With his free hand be tore open his own cloak.

His torso was a grotesque mass of muscle that did not flex properly with his breathing.

His neck was solid gristle.

"Child, I know your leader's tricks. What are you doing here? Our contest was supposed to be settled by combat of champions on the plateau.

"Sir, I-I thought he was attacking me. He moved his shaft" She searched for a suitable story. "I'm from Tribe Pan." That was Sosa's tribe, before she came to the mountain, that trained its women in weaponless combat. "I ran away. All I wanted was food."

"Tribe Pan." He pondered. Something strangely soft crossed his brutal face. "Come with me." He let go of her and marched out of the crowd.

No other warrior spoke. She knew better than to attempt any break now. Docilely, she followed the Weaponless.

He entered a large private tent. There was food there; her empty stomach yeained to its aroma.

"You are hungry eat," he said, setting the bowl of porridge before her, and a cup of milk.

Eagerly she reached for both then fathomed the trap. Nomad table manners differed from underworld practice. Her every mannerism would betray her origin. In fact, she wasn't sure the nomads used utensils at all.

She plunged one fist into the porridge and brought up a dripping gob. She smeared this into her mouth, wincing at its heat. She ignored the milk.

The Nameless One did not comment.

"I'm thirsty,"she saidafter a bit.

Wordlessly he brought her a winebag.

She put the nozzle to her mouth and sucked. She gagged. It was some bitter, bubbling concoction. "That isn't water!" she cried, her anguish real.

"At Pan they have neither hostels nor home-brew?" he inquired.

Then she realized that she had overdone it. Most nomads would know the civilized mode of eating, for the hostels had plates and forks and spoons and cups. And the truly uncivilized tribes must drink brew.

Soil began to cry, sensing beneath this brute visage a gentle personality. It was her only recourse.

He brought her water.

"It doesn't make sense," he said as she drank. "Bob would not send an unversed child into the enemy heartland. That would be stupid-particularly at this time."

Soli wondered how he had learned her chief's name. Oh they had communicated, to arrange the fight on Muse plateau.

"Yet no ordinary child would know weaponless combat," he continued.

She realized that somehow her very mistakes bad helped put him off. "Can I take some back to my friend?" she asked, remembering Var.

The Nameless One looked as though he were about to ask a question, then exploded into laughter. "Take all you can carry, you gamin! May your friend feast for many days, and emerge from his orgy a happier man than I!"

"I really do have a friend," she said, nettled at his tone. She realized that he was mocking her, supposing that she wanted it all for herself.

He brought a bag and tossed assorted solids into it, as well as two wineskins. "Take this and get out of my camp, child. Far out. Go back to Pan they produce good women, even the barren ones. Especially those. We're at war here, and it isn't safe for you, even with your defensive skills."

She slung the heavy sack over her shoulder and went to the exit.

"Girl!" he called suddenly, and she jumped, afraid he had seen through her after all. Bob, the master of Helicon, was like that; he would toy with a person, seeming to agree, then take him down unexpectedly and savagely. "If you ever grow tired of wandering, seek me out again. I would take you for my daughter."

She understood with relief that this was a fundamental compliment. And she liked this enormous, terrible man.

"Thank you," she said. "Maybe some day you'll meet my real father. I think you would like each other."

"You were not an orphan long, then," he murmured, chuckling again. He was horribly intelligent under that muscle. "Who is your father?"

Suddenly she remembered that the two men had met for the Nameless One had taken the empire and her true mother from her father. She dared not give Sol's name now, for they had to be mortal enemies.

"Thank you," she said quickly, pretending not to have heard him. "Good-bye, sir." And she ducked out of the tent.

He let her go. No hue and cry followed, and no secret tracker either.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Var's body felt weak as he saw Soil come out of the thinning mist, alone. No one was following her; he let her pass him, and waited, just to be sure.

Yet he had heard the outcry and seen the men rushing to the main tent. Its entrance was hidden from him in the fog, but he had thought he heard her voice, and the Master's. Something had happened, and he had been powerless to act or even to know. He had had to wait, clasping and unclasping his rough fingers about the two sticks his and hers nervously. If she were prisoner, what would happen next?

She circled back silently, searching for him. Somehow she had talked her way out of it if he had not imagined the whole thing, converting other voices to those he knew. "Here," he whispered. She ran at him and shoved a heavy bag into his hands. Together they hurried away from the camp. He knew no one would trace them in this fog, and the terrain was too rough for their traces to show later.

At the base of Muse they paused while he fished in the sack for the food he smelled. He found a wineskin and gulped greedily, squirting it into his mouth It was good, sturdy nomad beer the kind of beverage the crazies never provided. Then he got hold of a loaf of dark bread, and gnawed on it as they climbed.

The edge of his hunger assuaged, Var worried about the fog. If it let up before they reached the top, their secret would be out. Then what would they do?

But it held. With mutual relief they flopped on the mesa, panting. Then they emptied the bag on the ground and feasted.

There was bread, of course. There was roasted meat. There were baked potatoes. There were apples and nuts and even some crazy chocolate. One wineskin held milk, the other the beer.

"How," Var demanded around a mouthful, "did you get all this?"

Soli, not really hungry because of the porridge she had already had, experimented again with the beer. She had never had any before today, and it intriged her by its very foulness. "I asked the Nameless One for it."

Var choked, spewing potato crumbs out wastefully. "How why?"

She gulped down another abrasive mouthful of beer repressing its determined urge to come up again, and she told him the story. "And I wish they weren't enemies," she finished. "Sol and the Nameless One-they would like each other, otherwise. Your Master is sort of nice, even though he's terrible."

"Yes," Var murmured, thinking of his own intimate five year experience with the man. "But they aren't really enemies. The Master told me once. They were friends, but they had to fight for some reason. Sol gave the Weapon to his wife, with his bracelet and all. Because she didn't want to die, and she didn't love Sol anyway."

She looked confused through most of that speech, having top out his inflections, but she reacted immediately to the last of it. "She did too love him!" she flared. "She was my mother!"

Be backed away from that aspect, disturbed. "She's a good woman," he said after a moment.

That seemed to mollify Soli, though he was thinking of the journey he had made with Sola. He could see the resemblance, now, between mother and daughter. But could Sola have loved anyone, to have done what she did? Jumping from man to man, and putting her body to secret service for Var him self? Surely the Master knew she had said he knew yet he allowed it. How could such a thing be explained?

And once more he came up against the problem of his oath to Sola: to kill the man who harmed her child. What sort of a woman Sola was, or why she should be so concerned now for a child she deserted then these things had no mitigating relevance. He had sworn. How could he fight Soli now?

"Friends," Soli said forlornly. "I could have told him."

She gulped more beer and let out a nomhdlike belch. "Var, if we fight and I kill you then the Weaponless will go away, and she will never see him. Again." She began to cry once more.

"We can't fight," Var said, relieved to make it official.

The fog lifted.

"They can see us!" Soli cried, jumping up. This was not true, for the ground remained shrouded, but the nether mists were thinning too. "They'll know. The sticks!" And she fell down again.

"What's the matter?" Var asked, scrambling to help her.

She rolled her head. "I feel funny." Then she vomited.

"The beer!" Var said, angry with himself for not thinking what it would do to her. He had been sick himself, the first time he had been exposed to it. "You must have drunk a quart while we talked."

But the bag was not down nearly that much. Soli just hung on him and heaved.

Var grabbed a soft sugared roll and sponged off her face and front with it. "Soli, you can't be sick now. They're watching your people and mine. If we don't fight"

"Where's my stick?" she cried hysterically. "I'll bash your humpy head in. Leave me alone!" She tried another heave, but nothing came up.

Var held her erect, not knowing what else to do. He was afraid that if he let her go she would either collapse on the ground or stumble over the brink. Either way, it wouldn't be much of a show, and the watchers on either side would become suspicious.

A show! To the distant spectators, it must appear that the two were in a terminal struggle, staggering about the mesa after an all night combat. This was the fight!

"Wanna sleep," Soil mumbled. "Lie down. Sick. Keep the cold off me, Var, there's a good nomad...." Her knees folded.

Var hooked his arms under her shoulders and held her up. "We can't sleep. Not while they're watching."

"I don't care. Let me go." She lapsed into sobbing again.

Var had to set her down.

"It's that beer, isn't it?" she said, suddenly wide awake. "Im drunk. They never let me have any, Sol and Sosa. Awful stuff. Hold me, Var. I feel all weak. I'm frightened." Var decided that any further show of battle was hopeless. He lay down and put his arms about her, and she cried and cried.

After a time she regained self-control. "What'll we do, Var?"

He didn't know.

"Could we both go home and say it didn't work?" she asked plaintively. Then, before he could answer, she did:

"No. Bob would kill me as a traitor. And the war would go on."

They sat side by side and looked out over the world.

"Why don't we tell them somebody won?" she asked suddenly. "Then it'll be settled."

Var was dubious, but as he considered it the proposal seemed sound. "Who wins?"

"We'll have to choose. If I win, you nomads will go away. If you win, they'll take over the underworld. Which is better?"

"There'll be a lot of killing if we go down there," he said. "Maybe your maybe Sol and Sosa."

"No," she said. "Not if Helicon surrenders. And you said they were friends Sol and the Nameless One. They could be together again. And I could meet Sola, my true mother." Then, after a moment: "She couldn't be better than Sosa, though." He thought about that, and it seemed reasonable. "I win, then?" -

"You win, Var." She gave him a wan smile and reached for the bread.

"But what about you?"

"I'll hide. You tell them Im dead."

"But Soli!"

"After it's over, I'll find Sol and tell him I'm not dead. By then it won't make any difference."

Var still felt uneasy, but Soli seemed so certain that he couldn't protest. "Go now," she urged. "Tell him it was a hard battle, and you fell down too, but you finally won."

"But I'm unmarked!"

She giggled. "Look at your arm."

He looked at both arms. His right was clean, but his left, the weaponless one, was laced with bruises. She had been scoring, that serious part of the fight. Soil herself was almost without blemish.

"I could bash you in the face a couple of times," she said mischievously. "To make it look better." She tried to suppress a titter and failed. "I think I said that wrong. The fight, I mean.

It isn't that ugly. Your face, I mean."

Var left her there and began his descent. She would play dead until dusk, then make her way down the safest route as well as she cOuld. He worried, but she told him that she knew the way and anyhow would have plenty of time to be careful Certainly he couldn't wait for her. "I'll start down before it's all the way dark," she said. "So i'll be past the killer slope before I can't see any more."

He halted a few feet down and called up to her: "If anything happens where can I find you?" He could not get rid of his morbid concern.

"Near the hostel, dummy," she called back. "hurry up. I mean down.

He obliged, not avoiding abrasions since they would make his supposed fight to the death seem more authentic. He would be telling a lie but at least he was doing the right thing, and he had also preserved his oath. He had learned the final lesson the Master had taught him.

"Var! Va-a-ar!" Soil was calling him, her dark head poked over the edge.

"What?"

"Your clothing!"

He had forgotten! He was wearing the stolen clothing. If he returned in that, everything would be exposed; ironically.

Embarrassed, he returned to the mesa and stripped to the skin. The material would help keep her warm, anyway.

There was jubilation that night at the Master's base camp, and Var was feted in a manner he was wholly unaccustomed to. He had to eat prodigiously, not daring to admit he was not hungry for the first time the women of the neighbouring camp, suspiciously quick to appear afterword of the victory had spread, found him attractive. But all he could think of was little Soil, struggling down the treacherous cliffs in the dark, carrying her bundle of food and clothing. If she fell, their ruse would become real. Pity....

The warriors assumed that he had fought a male sticker, and Var chose to avoid clarification of the matter. "I killed," he said, and stopped there. And fended off male congratulations and female attentions until finally Tyl saw the way of it and found him a private tent for the night.

In the morning the Master went to the hostel to talk to the television set, taking Var along. The Master had not questioned him, and seemed apprehensive. "If Bob pulls a doublecross, this is when it will happen," he muttered. "He is not the type to yield readily, ever."

Soli's own assessment of the underworld master seemed to concur. That must be a devil of a man, Var thought.

They entered the elegant cylindrical building, with its racks of clothing and sanitary facilities and its several machineries, and the Master turned on the set. As it warmed up, Var realized that once again they had blundered safely past disaster for if that set had been on when Soli came, the underworld would have known what was happening.

The picture that came on was not the random, vapid collection of costumed posturings Var had observed from time to time before. Nor was it silent. It was a room not like the hostel room, but certainly the work of crazy machines. It was square, with diagrams on the opposite wall, and airvents, and a ponderous metal desk in the center.

In fact, it was rather like a room in a building such as he had prowled through in the badlands. But clean and new, not filthy and ancient.

A man sat in a padded, bendable chair behind the desk. He was old, older than the Master, at least thirty and possibly more. Var did not know how long a man could live if he suffered no mishap in the circle. Perhaps even as long as forty years. This one had sparse gray-brown hair (actually, the picture was colorless, but that was the way it looked) and stern lines in his face.

"Hello, Bob," the Master said grimly.

"Hello again, Sos. What's the word?" The man's tones were brisk, assured, and he moved his tong thin arm as though directing subordinates. A leader of men: yes. Var did not like him.

"Your champion did not return?"

The man merely stared coldly at him.

"This is Var the Stick our champion," the Master said. "He informs me that he killed your champion on the mesa of Muse yesterday."

"Impossible. Surely you realize no lesser man than yourself could have defeated Sol of All Weapons in honest combat."

The Master seemed stricken. "Sol! You sent Sol?

"Ask your supposed champion," Bob said.

The Master turned slowly to Var. "Sol would not have gone. But if he had"

"No," Var said. "It wasn't Sol." He didn't understand why the underworld leader should play such a game.

"Perhaps, then, his mate, if the term is not unkindly euphemistic," Bob said, his glance possessing a peculiar Intensity. "She of the deadly hands and barren womb."

"No!" Var cried, knowing now that he was being baited, but reacting to it, anyway. The Master, astonishingly, was sweating. It was as though the real battle was taking place here, rather than on the mesa. A strange contest of deadly words and savage implications. And Bob was winning it.

Bob looked at his fingernails during the pause. "Who, then?"

"His-daughter. Soil. She had sticks."

The Master opened his mouth but did not speak. He stared at Var as though pierced by a bullet.

"I apologize," Bob said smoothly. "Var was there, after all. He did kill our designated champion. Her parents were too wary to cooperate, so are in our bad graces; but she was, shall we say, cooperatively naive. Of course she was only eight years old-eight and a half or better, technically and I think we'll have to delay further action on this matter in favor of a rematch...."

Var realized that the man's over elaborate words signified his intent to renign. But the Master was not protesting. The Master conthued to stare dumbly at Var. There was another wait.

"You killed Soli?" the Master said at last, so hoarsely as to be hardly comprehensible.

Var did not dare tell the full truth, here before the underworld leader. "Yes."

The Master's whole body shook as though he were cold. Var could not understand what was the matter. Soil was no relation to him; the Master had not even known her when She begged food from him. True, it was unkind to kill a girl but he had had to meet the mountain's chaimpion, in whatever guise. Had it been a mutant lizard, he still would have fought. Why was the Master so upset now, and why was Bob looking so smug? They were acting as though he had lost the battle.

"So I was correct about her," Bob said. "Sol never let on. But obviously"

"Var the Stick," the Master said formally, his voice quivering with emotion. "The friendship between us is ended. Where we meet next, there is the circle. No terms but death. In deference to your ignorance and to what is past, I give you one day and one night to flee.

Tomorrow I come for you."

Then he whirled and smote the television set with his massive fist. The glass on the face of it shattered and the box toppled over. "And after that, you!" he shouted at the dead machine.

"Not one chamber will escape the flamethrower, and you shall roast on the pyre, alive!"

Var had never seen such fury in any man. He understood none of it, except that the Master intended to kill both him and the underworld leader. His friend had lost his sanity.

Var fled from the hostel, and kept on running, confused and ashamed and afraid.

CHAPTER TWELVE

He whirled, grabbing for his new set of sticks. Then he relaxed. "Soil!"

"I saw you run from the hostel So I came, too. Var, what happened?"

"The Master" Var was stopped by an misery.

"He Wasn't he happy that you won?"

"The Bob reniged."

"Oh." She took his hand solicitously. "So it was for nothing. No wonder the Weaponless is mad. But that isn't your fault, is it?"

"He says he'll kill me."

"Kill you? The Nameless One? Why?'

"I don't know." It was as though she were the inquiring adult, he the child.

"But he's nice. Underneath. He wouldn't do that. Not just because it didn't work."

Var shrugged. He had seen the Master run amuck. He believed.

"What are you going to do, Var?"

"Leave. He's giving me a day and a night."

"But what will I do? I can't go back to the mountain now. Bob would kill me and he'd kill Sol and Sosa too. For losing. He told me he'd kill them both if I didn't fight, and if he finds out"

Var stood there having no answer.

"We weren't very smart, I guess," Soil said, beginning to cry.

He put his arm around her, feeling the same.

"I don't know enough about the nomads," she said. "I don't like being alone."

"Neither do I," Var said, realizing that it was exile he faced. Once he had been a loner and satisfied, but he had changed.

"Let's go together," Soli said.

Var though about that, and it seemed good.

"Come on!" she cried, suddenly jubilant. "We can raid some other hostel for traveling gear, and and run right out of the country! Just you and me! And we can fight in the circle!"

"I don't want to fight you any more," he said. "Silly! Not each other! Other people! And we can make a big tribe with all the ones we capture, and then come back and"

"No! I won't fight the Master!"

"But if he's chasing you"

"I'll keep running."

"But, Var!"

"No!" He shook her off.

Soli began to cry, as she always did when thwarted, and he was immediately sorry. But as usual he didn't know what to say.

"I guess it's like fighting your father," she said after a bit. That seemed to be the end of it.

"But we can still do everything else?" she asked wistfully, after a bit more.

He smiled. "Everything!"

Reconciled, they began their flight.

By dusk they were ensconced in an unoccupied hostel twenty miles distant. "This is almost like home," Soli said. "Except that it's round. And everything's here I guess the nomads haven't raided it this week."

Var shrugged. He was not at home in a hostel, but this had seemed better than foraging outside for supper. Alone, he would have stayed in deep forest; but with Soli "I can fix us a real underworld meal," she said. "Uh, you do known how to use knives and forks? I saw how the cooks did it. Sosa says I should always be able to do for myself, 'cause sometime I might have to. Let's see, this is a 'lectric range, and this button makes it hot"

One word stuck in his mind as he watched her busily hauling out utensils and supplies.

Sosa. That was the name of her stepmother, he knew. The little woman he had encountered underground, who had thrown him down so easily. The Master had spoken the name too. But there was something elso Sos! Bob of the mountain had called the Master Sos! And so had Tyl, earlier, he-remembered that now. As though the Nameless One had a name! And Sos would be the original husband of Sosa!

But Sol was married to Sosa, there in the mountain. And Sos was married to Sola. How had such a transposition come about?

And if Soil were the child of Sol and Sola was there also a Sosi, born of Sos and Sosa? If so, where?

Var's head whirled with the complexity of such thinking.

Somewhere in this confusion was the answer to the Master's strange wrath, be was sure. But how was be to untangle it?

Soli was having difficulties with the repast. "I need a can opener," she said, holding up a sealed can.

Var didn't know what a can opener was.

"To get these tomatoes open."

"How do you know what's in there?"

"It says on the label. TOMATO. The crazies label everything. That is what you call them, isn't it?"

"You mean you can read? The way the Master does?"

"Well, not very well," she admitted. "Jim the Librarian taught me. He says all the children of Helicon should learn to read, for the time when civilization comes back. How can I open this can?

She called the mountain Helicon, too. So many little things were different! And she knew Jim the Gun's mountain brother, not the real Jim.

Var took the can and brought it to the weapons rack. He selected a dagger and plunged it into the flat end of the cylinder. Red juice squirted out, as though from a wound.

He took the dripping object back to her. It was tomatoes.

"You're smart," Soil said admiringly. It was ridiculous, but he felt proud, Eventually she served up the meal. Var, accustomed in childhood to scavenging for edibles in ancient buildings and in the garbage dumps of human camps, was not particularly dismayed. He crunched on the burned meat and drank the tomatoes and gnawed on the fibrous rolls and sliced the rock-hard ice-cream with the dagger. "Very good," he said, for the Master had always stressed the importance of courtesy.

"You don't have to be sarcastic!"

Var didn't understand the word, so he said nothing. Why was it that people so often got angry for no reason?

After the meal Var went outside to urinate, not used to the hostel's crockery sanitary facilities. Soil took a shower and pulled down a bunk from the wall.

"Don't turn on the television," she called as he reentered. "It's probably bugged."

Var hadn't intended to, but he wondered at her concern.

"Bugged?"

"You know. The underworld has a tap so they know when someone's watching. Maybe the crazies do, too. To keep track of the nomads. We don't want anyone to know where we are."

He remembered the Master's conversation with the mountain leader Bob, and thought he understood. Television didn't have to be meaningless. He pulled down an adjacent bunk and flopped on it.

After a while he rolled over and looked at the television set. "Why is it so stupid?" he asked thetorically.

"That's the way the Ancients were before the Blast," she said. "They did stupid things, and they're all on tape, and we just run it through the 'mitter and that's what's on television.

Jim says it all means something, but we don't have the sound system so we can't tell for sure."

"We?"

"The underworld. Helicon. Jim says we have to maintain 'nology. We don't know how to make television, but we can maintain it. Until all the replacement parts wear out, anyway. The crazies know more about 'lectricity than we do. They even have computers. But we do more work."

Var was becoming interested. "What do you do?'

"Manufacturing. We make the weapons and the pieces for the hostels. The crazies are Service they put up the hostels and fill them with food and things. The nomads are 'sumers they don't do anything."

This was too deep for Var, who had never heard of the underworld before this campaign and still had only the vaguest notion what the crazies were or did. "Why does the Master have to conquer the mountain, if it does so much?"

"Bob says he's demented. Bob says he's a doublecrosser. He was supposed to end the empire, but he attacked the mountain instead. Bob's real mad."

"The Master said the mountain was bad. He said he couldn't make the empire great until he conquered the mountain. And now he says he'll burn it all, after he kills me."

"Maybe he is demented," she whispered.

Var wondered, himself.

"I'm frightened," Soil said after a pause. "Bob says If the nomads make an empire there'll be another Blast, and no one will escape. He says they're the violent 'lement of our society, and they can't have 'nology or they'll make the Blast. Again. But now"

Var couldn't follow that either. "Who made the mountain?" he asked her.

"Jim says he thinks it was made by post-Blast civilization," she said uncertainly. "There was radiation everywhere and they were dying, but they took their big machines and scooped a whole city into a pile and dug it out and put in 'lectricity and saved their finest scientists and fixed it so no one else could get inside. But they needed food and things, so they had to trade and some of the smart men outside had some civilization too, from somewhere, and they were the crazies, and so they traded. And everyone else, the stupid ones, just drifted and fought each other, and they were the nomads. And after a while too many men in Helicon got old and died, and 'nology was being lost, so they had to take in some others, but they had to keep it secret and the crazies wouldn't come, so they only took in the ones that came to die."

"I don't think the Master would make another Blast," Var said. But he remembered the man's mysterious fury, his threat to destroy all the mountain, and he wasn't sure.

Soli was discreet enough not to comment. After a time they slept.

Twenty miles away, the Nameless One, known by some as Sos, did not sleep. He paced his tent, sick with rage at the murder of his natural child, the girl called Soil conceived in adultery but still flesh of his flesh. Since his time within the mountain he had been sterile, perhaps because of the operations the Helicon surgeon had performed on his body to make him the strongest man of the world. He carried metal under his skin and in his crotch, and hormones had made his body expand, but he could no longer sire a child. Thus Soli, legally the issue of the castrate Sol, was the only daughter he would ever beget, and though he had not seen her in six years she was more precious to him than ever. Any girl her age was precious, sympathetically. He had dreamed of reuniting with her, and with his true friend Sol, and with his own love, Sosa, the four together, some how But now such hopes were ashes. It was not a girl but an entire foundation of ambition that had been abolished. Now the things of this world were without flavor.