THE DAYS of which Falk kept no count had grown very short, and had perhaps already passed Year's End, the winter solstice. Though the weather was not so bad as it might have been in the years when the city had stood aboveground, this being a warmer meteorological cycle, still it was mostly bleak and gray. Snow fell often, not so thickly as to make the going hard, but enough to make Falk know that if he had not had his wintercloth clothing and sleeping-bag from Zove's House he would have suffered more than mere discomfort from the cold. The north wind blew so unwearyingly bitter that he tended always to be pushed a little southwards by it, picking the way south of west when there was a choice, rather than face into the wind.

In the dark wretched afternoon of one day of sleet and rain he came slogging down a south-trending stream-valley, struggling through thick brambly undergrowth over rocky, muddy ground. All at once the brush thinned out, and he was brought to a sudden halt. Before him lay a great river, dully shining, peppered with rain. Rainy mist half obscured the low farther bank. He was awed by the breadth, the majesty of this great silent westward drive of dark water under the low sky. At first he thought it must be the Inland River, one of the few landmarks of the inner continent known by rumor to the eastern Forest Houses; but that was said to run south marking the western edge of the kingdom of the trees. Surely it was a tributary of the Inland River, then. He followed it, for that reason, and because it kept him out of the high hills and provided both water and good hunting; moreover it was pleasant to have, sometimes, a sandy shore for a path, with the open sky overhead instead of the everlasting leafless darkness of branches. So following the river he went west by south through a rolling land of woods, all cold and still and colorless in the grip of winter.