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toweled himself he felt like a. minor sun. He donned
his clothes and wandered restlessly in search of a fall
he could hear in the distance. A game trail led
through the brush toward its foot.-He was about to
emerge there when he heard voices. Raven and EI-favy!
"Please," the girl said. Her tone trembled. "I beg
you, be reasonable."
The distress in her shocked Tolteca. For a moment
of rage he wanted to burst forth and have it out with
Raven. He checked himself. Eavesdropping was un-gentlemanly.
Even if--or perhaps especially
because--those two had been so much in each
other's company since the first night in the Holy
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City. But if she was in some difficulty, he wanted to
know about it so he could try to help her, and he
didn't think she would tell him what the matter was if
he put a direct question. There were cultural barriers,
taboo or embarrassment, which only Raven was
callous enough to hammer down.
Tolteca wet his lips. His palms grew sweaty and
the pulse thuttered in his ears, nearly as loud as the
stream that jumped over the bluff before him. To
Chaos with being a gentleman, he decided violently,
slipped behind a natural hedge and peered through
the leaves.
The water foamed down into a dell filled with
young trees. Their foliage made a shifting pattern of
light and shadow under the deep upland sky.
Rain
THE NIGHT FACE
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bows danced in the water smoke, currents swirled
about rocks covered with soft green growth, the
stones on the fiverbed seemed to tipple. Cool and
damp, the air rang with the noise of the fall. High
overhead wheeled a single bird of prey.
Raven si6od on the bank, a statue in a black
traveling cloak. The harsh face might have been cast
in metal as he regarded the girl. She kept twisting her
own gaze away from his, and her fingers wrestled
with each other. Tiny droplets caught in her hair
broke the sunlight into flaming shards, but that unbound
mane was itself the brightest thing before
Tolteca's eyes.
"I am being reasonable," Raven snapped.
"When my nose is robbed in something for the third
time running, I don't ignore the smell."
"Third time? What do you mean? Why are you so
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angry today?"
Raven gave an elaborate sigh and ticked the points
off on his fingers. "We've been over this ground
before. First: your houses are built like fortresses.
Yes, you tell me that's a symbol, but I have trouble
believing that rational people like you would go to so
much trouble and expense for something that was
nothing but a symbol. Second: nobody lives alone
any more, especially not in the wilderuess. I can't
forget that place where it was tried once. Those
people were killed with weapons. Third: while we
were looking over the port site, your father made a
remark about caves in the cliff being easily made into
Bale time shelters. When I asked him what he had in
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THE NIGHT FACE
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mind, he suddenly discovered he had an urgent matter
to attend to elsewhere. When I asked a couple of
the others, they grew almost as unhappy as you and
mumbled something about taking insurance against
unforseeable accidents.
"What tore it for me was when I pressed Cardwyr
for a real explanation, a few hours ago on the march.
He'd been so frank with me in every other respect
that I felt he'd continue that way. But instead, he
came as near losing his temper as I've ever seen a
Gwydiona do. I thought for a minute he was going to
hit me. But he just stalked off telling me to improve
my manners.
"Something is wrong here. Why don't you give
us fair warning?"
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Elfavy turned as if to depart. She blinked very
fast, and a wetness glinted on her cheek. "I thought
you... you invited me to go for a walk," she said.
"But--"
He caught her by the arm. ' 'Listen," he said more
gently. "Please listen, I'm picking on you because,
well, you've honored me with reason to think you
won't lie or evade when something is really important
to me. And this is. You've never seen violence,
but I have. Much too often. I know what comes of it,
andI have to do what I can to keep it from you. Do
you follow me? I have to."
She ceased pulling against him and stood shivering,
her head bent so that the locks fell past her face
and hid it. Raven studied her for a while. His mouth
lost its, hardness. "Sit down, my dear," he said at
last.
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THE NIGHT FACE
Elfavy lowered herself to the ground as if strength
had deserted her. He joined her and took one small
hand in his. There went a stabbing through Tolt-eca.
"Are you forbidden to talk about this?" Raven
asked, so low that the brawling of the fall nearly
drowned the question.
She shook her head.
"Why won't you, then?"
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"I--" Her fingers tightened around his palm, and
she laid her other hand over it. He sat cat-passive
while she gulped for breath. "I don't know. We
don't--" Some seconds passed before she could get
the words out. "We hardly ever talk about it. Or
think about it. It's too dreadful,"
There is such a thing as an unconscious taboo,
Tolteca remembered through the tides in his brain,
laid by the self upon the self.
"And it's not as if the bad things happen very
often, now that... that we've learned how to take
· . . precautions. Long ago it was worse--" She
braced herself and looked squarely at him. "You
live with greater hazards and horrors than ours, all
the time, do you not?"
Raven smiled very slightly. "Ah-ah, there. I decline
your counter-challenge. Let's stick to the main
issue· Something occurs, or can occur, during Bale.
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