At last Jahlee threw back her hood, leveled a trembling finger at the one who had been speaking and demanded to know what they wanted us to do.

"To judge between us," said one man, who had spoken less than the others. I believe his name is Ziek.

I explained that it would be quite useless for me to judge unless they would obey me as a judge, and one by one they pledged themselves to do so. Scylla is their principal goddess, I found, just as she was ours in Viron. That being the case I made them swear by Scylla, and by the Outsider, and by whatever gods might still linger here on Blue, and because I saw that had impressed them, by the Vanished People themselves.

When they had done so, I said, "Hear my judgment. You have so embittered yourselves, and forsworn yourselves, and tangled yourselves among competing claims and allegations that no peace is possible among you. There is no need, however, for you to torment yourselves as you have been doing. Am I to assume that you are all going to the same place?"

They were, to a town on the coast called Dorp.

"Then my judgment is that you must go there separately. You," I pointed to the largest of them, a man called Nat who seemed to be the richest too, "are to leave at once. How many of these horses and mules are yours?"

He had sixteen.

"Take them and go. Travel as fast as you can. We will rest here for a time before we follow you. When we ride again, it will be with the blond man in front, the one with the red cap between my son and me, and this one [by which I meant Ziek] behind my daughter. In an hour or so, I will send him ahead just as I'm sending you. In another hour another, and so on."