He was a firstcomer, and he wore about him a skin that ill-concealed the tattering remnants of otherworldly clothing. His name was Renn; he had so far survived this primitive world, and if he did not die of starvation, disease, violence, cold, heat or other fatal discomfort, he might live forever. But now the fire was guttering inside his windbreak-shelter and he did not know how-he did not want to know how-to keep it alight. He watched dully as the fire keeper brought dried twigs and stirred the wood to bring forth a bit more heat.

"Renn," Seilein said with gentle disapproval, "it's not all that difficult." As she spoke, she removed the fur-lined cap she'd been wearing out in the flurrying snow; she also took off her laboriously stitched gloves and extended her hands toward the fire. The air around her hands shimmered and the flames bloomed for a moment before settling back.

"All you need to do," she went on, "is to place new wood on the coals now and then. I still have a little of the power to start fires, but it's not always necessary." She knew as she spoke that her words were near to useless. Some of the elves, like herself, had managed over time to shake off the lethargy they all had felt in the beginning. She and those who were like her did not simply want barren survival; they wanted to go forward-in any direction. But the others, the ones like Renn-there was a part of them that had not landed on this world, that was trapped somewhere in a gray place. The others, Seilein suspected, would never learn to tend fires, or to be even a little comfortable in the few skins that were able to be magically cured, or learn the stirring of

pleasure to be found in the touching of bodies, or to eat the food brought by the barely-skilled hunters and the strange wolf allies…

Food. Even Seilein, who among the firstcomers was most determined to fit herself to this world and its time flow, still must catch herself up out of the timeless thought she was so used to. Food. It was dark, and Timmorn, grudgingly, had told the camp that he would bring back food before it was dark.