served him in other ways. And he,
Lal, had lain flat on the ground before the bodiless voice of Lurgha and
had sworn that he would serve Lurgha to the end of his life.

Then Lurgha had told him to hunt down one of the evil traders who was
hiding in the marshes, and bind him with ropes. Then he was to call the
men of the village and together they would carry the prisoner to the
hill where Lurgha had loosed his wrath, and there they would leave him.
Later they might return and take what they found there and use it to
bless the fields at sowing time, and all would be well with Nodren's
village. And Lal had sworn that he would do as Lurgha bade, but now he
could not. So Lurgha would eat him up--he was a man without hope.

"Yet," Ashe said even more gently, "have you not served the Great Mother
all these years, giving to her a portion of the first fruits even when
the yield of your one field was small?"

Lal stared at him, his woebegone face still smeared with tears. It took
a second or two for the question to penetrate his fear-clouded mind.
Then he nodded timidly.

"Has she not dealt with you well in return, Lal? You are a poor man,
that is true. But you are not gaunt of belly, even though this is the
thin season when men fast before the coming of the new harvest. The
Great Mother watches over her own. And it is she who has brought you to
us now. For this I say to you, Lal, and I, Assha of the traders, speak
with a straight tongue. The Lurgha who struck our post, who spoke to you
from the air, means you no good----"

"Aaaah!" wailed Lal. "So do I know, Assha. He is of the blackness and
the wandering spirits of the dark!"

"Just so. Thus he is no kin to the mother, for she is of the light and
of good things, of the new grain, and the newborn lambs for your flocks,
of the maids who wed with men and bring forth sons to lift their
fathers' spears, daughters to spin by the hearth and sow the yellow
grain in the furrows. Lurgha's quarrel lies with us, Lal, not with
Nodren nor with you. And we take upon us that quarrel." He limped into
the outer air where the shadows of evening were beginning to creep
across the ground.

"Hear me, Lurgha," he called into the coming night, "I am Assha of the
traders, and upon myself I take your hate. Not upon Lal, nor upon
Nodren, nor upon the people who live in Nodren's town, shall your wrath
lie. Thus do I say it!"

Ross, noticing that Ashe concealed from Lal a wave of his hand, was
pr