"Neither do I. I simply wanted to know whether you remembered what it looked like."

"A white gold ring with a white stone."

I nodded, looked at my own hands, and picked up my staff, which had lain beside me while I slept. "I spoke of killing a man with this. I hadn't intended to kill him, but I was afraid he was going to kill us. I thought he might kill you or Jahlee, and kept hitting him as hard as I could; when the fighting had ended, I looked at him, and he was dead."

"It wasn't your fault, Father."

"Of course it was, and his as well. It was-it is-my fault that I killed him. It is his fault that I bear the guilt of killing him, because he gave me good reason to fear him. But if it could be proved that his death was neither his fault nor mine, it would not restore him to life."

"No."

"After the fighting was over, I noticed I had blood on my hands and realized that it was his. I washed them, and for a moment thought that I had lost the ring Seawrack gave me."

From a branch some distance from our fire, Oreb called, "Bird say. Say girl."

I looked up at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Say girl. Silk go. Go wet!" He flew, quickly vanishing in the dark sky; and Hide ventured, "Maybe he wants to tell Mother we're coming home."

"Perhaps he does. May I ask how your dream ended?"

"Well, I hid my eyes like I said, and after that I looked for a long, long time. Sometimes I saw those tall men. They would be standing still next to something else tall, like one of the cupboards or a big clock or something. But I knew they weren't playing and I wasn't supposed to see them at all, so I pretended I didn't, and went on looking."

"Did you find anyone?"

"Yeah. It took a long time, but I finally did. I opened this one big cabinet, and there was one of the dolls." He fell silent, his face troubled.

"I would think you would have been happy."