insa rose on the horizon, bringing me back inescapably
to my own quest.

We swung wide, leaving the straight trail to Shainsa, and Kyral
announced his intention of stopping for half a day at Canarsa, one of
the walled nonhuman cities which lay well off the traveled road. To my
inadvertent show of surprise, he returned that he had trading
connections there.

"We all need a day's rest, and the Silent Ones will buy from me, though
they have few dealings with men. Look here, I owe you something. You
have lenses? You can get a better price in Canarsa than you'd get in
Ardcarran or Shainsa. Come along with me, and I'll vouch for you."

Kyral had been most friendly since the night I had dug him out from
under the catmen, and I knew no way to refuse without exposing myself
for the sham trader I was. But I was deathly apprehensive. Even with
Rakhal I had never entered any of the nonhuman towns.

On Wolf, human and nonhuman have lived side by side for centuries. And
the human is not always the superior being. I might pass, among the
Dry-towners and the relatively stupid humanoid _chaks_, for another
Dry-towner. But Rakhal had cautioned me I could not pass among nonhumans
for native Wolfan, and warned me against trying.

Nevertheless, I accompanied Kyral, carrying the box which had cost about
a week's pay in the Terran Zone and was worth a small fortune in the
Dry-towns.

Canarsa seemed, inside the gates, like any other town. The houses were
round, beehive fashion, and the streets totally empty. Just inside the
gates a hooded figure greeted us, and gestured us by signs to follow
him. He was covered from head to foot with some coarse and shiny fiber
woven into stuff that looked like sacking.

But under the thick hooding was horror. It slithered and it had nothing
like a recognizable human shape or walk, and I felt the primeval ape in
me cowering and gibbering in a corner of my brain. Kyral muttered, close
to my ear, "No outsider is ever allowed to look on the Silent Ones in
their real form. I think they're deaf and dumb, but be damn careful."

"You bet," I whispered, and was glad the streets were empty. I walked
along, trying not to look at the gliding motion of that shrouded thing
up ahead.

The trading was done in an open hut of reeds which looked as if it had
been built in a hurry, and was not square, round, hexagonal or any other
recognizable geometrical shape. It formed a pattern of its own,
presumably, but my human