"What work? Who can tell me?"

"What was kept from us and stolen from you, the Shing will have. That you can be sure of."

There was an aching, scathing bitterness in Zove's voice that Falk had never heard.

"Will those who speak no truth tell me the truth for the asking? And how will I recognize what I seek when I find it?"

Zove was silent a little while, and then said with his usual ease and control, "I cling to the notion, my son, that in" you lies some hope for man. I do not like to give up that notion. But only you can seek your own truth; and if it seems to you that your way ends here, then that, perhaps, is the truth."

"If I go," Falk said abruptly, "will you let Parth go with me?"

"No, my son."

A child was singing down in the garden—Garra's four-year-old, turning inept somersaults on the path and singing shrill, sweet nonsense. High up, in the long wavering V of the great migrations, skein after skein of wild geese went over southward.

"I was to go with Metock and Thurro to fetch home Thurro's bride," Falk said. "We planned to go soon, before the weather changes. If I go, I'l1 go on from Ransifel House."

"In winter?"

"There are Houses west of Ransifel, no doubt, where I can ask shelter if I need it."

He did not say and Zove did not ask why west was the direction he would go.

"There may be; I don't know. I don't know if they would give shelter to strangers as we do. If you go you will be alone, and must be alone. Outside this House there is no safe place for you on Earth."

He spoke, as always, absolutely truthfully…and paid the cost of truth in self-control and pain. Falk said with quick reassurance, "I know that, Master. It's not safety I'd regret—"