heavy winter coverings—the man was more like a bad-
lands beast that a nomad. But nomad he was, and he
had already assumed a stance of combat. His long arms
and heavy chest suggested enormous power; he would be
savage with those sticks!
Mottled skin. ...
"Var the Stick!" Neq cried, amazed.
The other spoke, but it sounded more like a growl. By
concentrating, Neq made out the gist. "You followed me
for days. Now give cause why I should not drive you
off."
Neq unveiled his sword. "Cause enough here. But first
you must answer my questions, for I have sought you
long."
"A changeling!" Var rasped, seeing Neq's arms. "Do
you know the circle?"
Neq was surprised. "You speak of the circle? You, slayer
of children?"
"Never!" Var roared, coming at him. There was some-
thing wrong about his legs; though he wore boots, he did
not walk like a man. A true beast in nomad outfit ... it
was no longer a mystery why he had killed the young girl
Soli. He had probably eaten her.
Var struck at him and Neq parried, smiling grimly. He
had no fear of hand-hewn weapons, and a clumsy charge
was the simplest to terminate. But first he needed infor-
mation.
Var was more artful than his appearance suggested. As
Neq dodged aside, so did he, so that they met squarely.
One stick shot toward Neq's face while the other blocked
his sword. Var had met many a blade before!
So much the better. Neq's pincers also blocked defen-
sively while his sword whistled. He struck first at the
other's weapon, seeking to cut a stick in half. He pre-
ferred to disarm this monster gradually, lingeringly, not
hurting him much . . . until after the truth was known.
"Before I down you," Var grunted, "tell me your
name."
"Neq the Sword." This courtesy of identification was
due even for a beast.
Var fought for a while, quite skillfully, pondering behind
his overhanging brows. "I know of you," he grunted. But
he showed no fear, only caution.
It was increasingly apparent that this was no warrior
of the decadent post-empire ilk. Var's technique was un-
conventional, but he was years younger than Neq, and
much larger, so that even with his considerable stoop he
stood taller. He had quick brute power, and the crude-
seeming sticks were more solid than they looked, block-
ing sword-thrusts with considerable authority. The wood
tended to catch the blade, holding it instead of bouncing
it back, and that was dangerous indeed. The two sticks
beat a tattoo on both his metal arms, their violent force
bearing him back. Had his sword not been part of him,
Neq could have been disarmed early, and certainly he
was giving way before the onslaught.
Yet there was a certain eloquence about Var's attack,
ferocious as it was. His balance was excellent. Without
pausing, the man kicked off his boots and exposed homy
bare feet—and then his footing was not clumsy at all. He
was astonishingly agile for his bulk, yet his motions were
economical.
A master sticker, in fact. Neq had encountered- only
two empire stickers with power and finesse like this. One
was Tyi—greater on the finesse, less on the power—and
the other was Sol . . . whose whereabouts Var must know.
But the sticks were not like the sword, and Neq's
sword was not like others. His wrist was invulnerable.
Though he was not young himself, he knew of no man
who could match him in fair circle combat today, other
than Tyi. Var might hold him off for some time, but Var
had to tire, to make mistakes, to overreach himself. The
real strength of a sticker lay in his endurance under stress
and his continuing judgment. There was where Neq had
him: experience.
Neq fended off the blows and maneuvered for a clean
opening himself. This was difficult, for Var danced about
on his hooves and ducked his shaggy head sometimes
almost to the ground—without ever exposing it.
"You are skilled, man of metal hands," Var muttered.
"As befits a chief under the Master."
Neq eased his fencing, spying an opportunity to leam
something. If Var were attempting to lull him by conver-
sation, he would fail. "You are skilled too. I heard the
Weaponless trained you himself."
"The Master is dead," Var said, relaxing his attack.
Neq let the pace slow, but remained vigilant. Var's
companion might be near, ready to pounce treacherously
during the double distraction of battle and dialogue. What
kind of woman would mate with this kind of man, if not
a beast-woman? "You could not have slain the Weapon-
less."
"Not in the circle," Var said grimly.
Neq stiffened. In that moment the sticker could have
scored, had he been alert. Then the sparring resumed.
"Sol of All Weapons followed you. You could not have
slain him either."
"Not with the sticks."
This time Neq stiffened deliberately, proffering a seem-
ing opening. Still Var did not strike. He was either too
clever or too stupid. "You admit you killed them treach-
erously?"
'The radiation."
That blotched skin of his! Neq remembered now—there
had been a story that the beast-boy could feel radiation,
avoiding lethal concentrations himself while leading
others into some badlands trap. So it was true, and Var
had doomed both his friend and his enemy by luring them
through an unmarked radiation pocket! Now he dared
to return with his bitch, thinking his crime unknown or
forgotten.
So Neq's sources of information were gone. But there
was one more thing to know. "Soli—the child of Heli-
con—"
Var actually smiled. "Soli exists no more."
Neq could hardly speak. "The radiation?" he whispered
with biting irony.
But this question Var avoided, as though some lode of
buried guilt had finally been tapped. "We have no quar-
rel. I will show you Vara."
Then the opening came, and Neq's sword struck true.
TyI returned at dusk, with a companion. "Neq! Neq!
Look what I found in the village!"
Neq looked up from the caim he had been fashioning.
As the two approached he saw that the stranger was a
woman. "I'm so glad to find you!" she exclaimed.
Neq stared. It was a crazy woman! She wore the typical
skirt and blouse despite the cold, and her long dark hair
was bound the crazy way. And she was lovely.
"Miss Smith," he murmured, reminded achingly of his
love though there was little actual, physical similarity
between the two women. This one was neat to the point
of precision, as Miss Smith had been; she was beautiful
in that fragile manner; and she was incongruous in the
wilderness. That was the connection. Intelligent, literate,
&nbs
p; innocent. His heart felt as though a dagger had nudged it.
"This is one of the two we traced," TyI said. "She was
reconnoitering in the village, the same as I, and when we
met—"
"She traveled with a nomad?" Neq asked, still bemused
by the parallel to his own experience of six years before.
"A crazy?"
"I am Vara," she said. "I travel with my husband. He
should be around here somewhere—"
Neq still had not come out of his fog. "Var? The Stick?"
"Yes! Did you meet him? From what TyI says, we have
a common mission—"
Then Neq came to total and ugly awareness. He touched
the fresh burial mound with one foot. "I—met him."
TyI looked at him and at the cairn, comprehending.
He went for his sword, but stopped. He turned away.
Vara went to the caim and carefully removed a section
of the stone lining. She excavated the fresh earth and sand
with her slender fingers while Neq watched. Finally she
uncovered a foot, with its blunted, hooflike toes. She
touched it, feeling its coldness.
By this time it was dark, and night closed in completely
as she contemplated that deformed, dead foot. Then she
covered it gently, filled in the hole, and replaced the stones.
"My two fathers are dead," she said wistfully. "Now
my husband. What am I to do?"
"We met. We fought."
"I served Sol," TyI said from his section of the night,
still facing away. There was an anguished quality to his
voice that Neq had not heard before. "I served the
Weaponless. Var the Stick was my friend. I would have
barred you from the circle with him, had I been certain
of what I suspected. When I saw Vara, I was certain. But
you met Var too soon."
"I did not know he was your friend," Neq said, hating
this. "I knew him only as a slayer of men by treachery,
and of a child at Helicon."
"You misjudged him," TyI said in the same quiet tone
Vara had used. "He was bold in combat but gentle in
person. And he had an invaluable talent."
"Var slew only of necessity," Vara said. "And not always
then."
Neq was feeling worse, though it had been an honest
combat He had struck too hastily, as he had so often
before. His sword outreached his intellect. He could have
disengaged, waited for Tyi's return.'Now he had to defend
his action. "What need had he to slay the child of Sol?"
Vara turned to him in the dark. "I am the child of
Sol."
Neq's stomach heaved with the pang of unwarranted
killing, knowing what was coming. "He killed Soli at Mt.
Muse, when she was eight years old. All accounts agree
on that."
"All but one," she said. "The true one. He claimed to
have killed me, so that the nomads would win, and my
two fathers could be together again. But then I couldn't
get back to tell Sol the truth, and the Weaponless was
seeking Var for vengeance—"
"Vengeance!" Abominable concept!
"So we had to flee. We went to China, and I took his
bracelet when I came of age. Soli exists no more."
Now Neq recognized her face, though it was no longer
visible in the night. The classic beauty of Sola! The crazy
dress and his own dawning guilt had blinded him to her
identity.
"The boy Var traveled with, going north—" Neq mur-
mured. "A girl with her hair hidden."
"Yes. So no one would know I wasn't dead. I can't do
that now."
She certainly couldn't! The child of eight had become a
woman of fifteen. "And Sol pursued you too, not knowing
... he must have met the Weaponless on the way!"
"They learned in China. And gave their lives carrying
radioactive stones into the enemy stronghold, so that we
could escape. Var always felt that it was his fault they
died, but it was mine. I knew they would do it."
Var had blamed himself . . . and so had let Neq's
accusation stand. Now Var's assumed guilt was Neq's.
"It was a mistake," Tyi said after a long pause. "Var
told everyone he had killed the mountain champion. Heli-
con itself was fired and gutted to avenge thai murder—it
does not matter by whom. Neq did not know. Only /
knew Var would not have slain a child. And I know the
kind of terms Sola makes. She was kind to Var, but her
price was surely the life of her daughter."
"Var did say something," Vara admitted. "He had
sworn to kill the man who harmed me. And for a long
time he was reticent, though he loved me. ..."
Neq remembered Sola's comment about Var's sterility.
Strange, driven woman!
"Yet I knew it could have happened," Tyi continued.
"Mt. Muse is high and steep, and there are rocks to drop.
Had you attacked him with stones while he was climbing,
he might have had to fight before he knew, and he was
deadly in rough terrain. So he might have killed you, and
I could not bar Neq from combat until I was sure. It was
my mistake; I am to blame fpr your husband's death—"
"No!" Neq and Vara cried together.
There was silence again, as each person sifted his
tangled motives. The conversation was unreal, and not
because it emanated from darkness. Neq's emotions were
partly in suspension. "Why do you not curse me? Why do
you not weep? I killed—"
"You killed because you did not understand," Vara
said. "I have some share of guilt for that, for I agreed to
play dead. Tonight I make you understand. Tomorrow I
kill you. Then will I weep for you both."
She meant it. She was like Miss Smith, who died Neqa.
Changed of name, precious beyond all imagination, but
loyal to her man. Neqa had tried to kill Yod when Yod
made ready to cut off Neq's hands. Would Vara do less?
Yod had killed Neqa by accident. Now Neq had killed
Var. The guilt was the same. Vengeance would be the
same.
She would not have it, any more than he had. Neq
bent his elbow, bringing his sword-arm to his own throat.
It was past time for him to die.
"I claim my price," Tyi said, startling Neq as his
muscles tensed for the fatal slice.
Of all times! Yet Neq had a debt of honor, and he
would have to acquit it. "Name your price."
"Give back what you have taken this day."
Neq delayed answering, trying to discover Tyi's mean-
ing. Obviously he could not restore Var to life.
"What you have to do," Vara said evenly, "do before
dawn. When daylight comes I will destroy you in the
circle."
"In the circle!" Now Neq could not fathom her meaning
either. Women did not do battle. "What is your weapon?"
"The stick."
The morbid situation could not suppress Tyi's interest.
"So Sol did train you in combat!"
"My father. Yes. Every day we practiced, inside the
mountain. He hoped to take me away fromtlelicon some
day, but Sosa wouldn't let him. And I have practiced
since.
"
Now Tyi's voice was more concerned. "Mere practice
can not make a woman into a man. My daughter is older
than you, and she has a child of her own now—but this
would never have come to pass if she had ever entered
man's province. The circle is not for you."
"Nevertheless." Sol's child, all right!
"This man," Tyi continued persuasively, "this man, Neq
the Sword, was second only to me in the empire, when
the Weaponless departed. Now he has no hands, but he
retains his weapon. He is less clever in technique, but
more deadly than before because he cannot be disarmed.
His sword is swifter than his mind. I think no man can
stand against that sword today."
"Nevertheless."
"I can not permit this encounter," Tyi said.
Her voice was cold. "Your permission is irrelevant."
"Var was my friend. He taught me to use the gun. I
hurt with his loss, as you do. Yet I say this: do not lift
stick against Neq the Sword. We must not make this
terrible mistake again."
"Var was more than friend to me," she pointed out
caustically.
"Nevertheless."
"You have no right," she said.
Tyi did not answer, and the strange, tense conversation
ended.
Neq did not know whether he slept that night, or