date.
But this was only a technicality, however, for if keeping time was
difficult in the attic world it was probably impossible in Hell.

Honath's guards tied the free end of his tether to a branch and settled
down around him. One abstractedly passed a pine cone to him and he tried
to occupy his mind with the business of picking the juicy seeds from it,
but somehow they had no flavor.

More captives were being brought in now, while the Spokesman watched
with glittering black eyes from his high perch. There was Mathild the
Forager, shivering as if with ague, the fur down her left side
glistening and spiky, as though she had inadvertently overturned a tank
plant on herself. After her was brought Alaskon the Navigator, a
middle-aged man only a few years younger than Honath himself; he was
tied up next to Honath, where he settled down at once, chewing at a
joint of cane with apparent indifference.

Thus far, the gathering had proceeded without more than a few words
being spoken, but that ended when the guards tried to bring Seth the
Needlesmith from the nets. He could be heard at once, over the entire
distance to the glade, alternately chattering and shrieking in a mixture
of tones that might mean either fear or fury. Everyone in the glade but
Alaskon turned to look, and heads emerged from purses like new
butterflies from cocoons.

A moment later, Seth's guards came over the lip of the glade in a
tangled group, now shouting themselves. Somewhere in the middle of the
knot Seth's voice became still louder; obviously he was clinging with
all five members to any vine or frond he could grasp, and was no sooner
pried loose from one than he would leap by main force, backwards if
possible, to another. Nevertheless he was being brought inexorably down
into the arena, two feet forward, one foot back, three feet forward....

Honath's guards resumed picking their pine-cones. During the
disturbance, Honath realized Charl the Reader had been brought in
quietly from the same side of the glade. He now sat opposite Alaskon,
looking apathetically down at the vine-web, his shoulders hunched
forward. He exuded despair; even to look at him made Honath feel a
renewed shudder.

From the High Seat, the Spokesman said: "Honath the Pursemaker, Alaskon
the Navigator, Charl the Reader, Seth the Needlesmith Mathild the
Forager, you are called to answer to justice."

"Justice!" Seth shouted, springing free of his captors with a tremendous
boun