“Annoying,” Fralk said sympathetically. “That always makes my gut itch.”

“Mine, too. Miserable stuff, water. The nosver, curse ‘em, like it, you know. They splashed along a stream coming off a tongue of ice till I couldn’t smell ‘em anymore, and I wasn’t having any luck finding their prints on the far side, either. You can imagine how happy I was.”

“I don’t blame you a bit,” Fralk said. He really was a fine fellow, Reatur thought.

The domain master went on. “So there I was, grouchy as all get out and with the start of some really fierce indigestion. I came round a boulder and almost bumped right into-that.” He pointed at the strange thing. “I looked at it, and looked at it. And then it moved.”

“It did what?” Fralk said, startled.

“Moved,” Reatur insisted. “An arm came out of its bottom and stuck itself into the ground. I tell you, I almost voided where I stood-I daresay the damned water I’d drunk had something to do with that, too. I never imagined the strange thing could be alive. I didn’t stop to think. I just took a whack at it with the stave I was carrying.”

“I would have done the same thing,” Fralk said. “Or else run.”

“I hit it over and over. What a racket it made! It was hard, harder than anything alive has any right to be. Feel for yourself if you like-it’s like midwinter ice, or even stone. It didn’t fight back, and all I can say is that I’m glad. I only quit hitting it when pieces came off. If it wasn’t dead then, it never would be.”

“Has it moved since?” Fralk asked.

“No; I guess I did kill it. My sons and grandsons and I spent days hauling it back here to the castle.”

“What a job that was,” Ternat said, whistling with remembered strain.

“Yes,” Reatur agreed. “It made me wonder all over again how the strange thing could ever have been alive. It’s as heavy as stone, and as hard to get from place to place. But it did move by itself.”