a few days later i found myself nearing the end of the trail.
it was twilight in charin, hot and reeking with the gypsy glare of fires which burned, smoking, at the far end of the street of the six shepherds. i crouched in the shadow of a wall, waiting.
my skin itched from the dirty shirtcloak i hadn't changed[72] in days. shabbiness is wise in nonhuman parts, and dry-towners think too much of water to waste much of it in superfluous washing anyhow. i scratched unobtrusively and glanced cautiously down the street.
it seemed empty, except for a few sodden derelicts sprawled in doorways—the street of the six shepherds is a filthy slum—but i made sure my skean was loose. charin is not a particularly safe town, even for dry-towners, and especially not for earthmen, at any time.
even with what dallisa had told me, the search had been difficult. charin is not shainsa. in charin, where human and nonhuman live closer together than anywhere else on the planet, information about such men as rakhal can be bought, but the policy is to let the buyer beware. that's fair enough, because the life of the seller has a way of not being worth much afterward, either.
a dirty, dust-laden wind was blowing up along the street, heavy with strange smells. the pungent reek of incense from a street-shrine was in the smells. the heavy, acrid odor that made my skin crawl. in the hills behind charin, the ghost wind was rising.
borne on this wind, the ya-men would sweep down from the mountains, and everything human or nearly human would scatter in their path. they would range through the quarter all night, and in the morning they would melt away, until the ghost wind blew again. at any other time, i would already have taken cover. i fancied that i could hear, borne on the wind, the faraway yelping, and envision the plumed, taloned figures which would come leaping down the street.
in that moment, the quiet of the street split asunder.
from somewhere a girl's voice screamed in shrill pain or panic. then i saw her, dodging between two of the chinked pebble-houses. she was a child, thin and barefoot, a long tangle of black hair flying loose as she darted and twisted to elude the lumbering fellow at her heels. his outstretched paw jerked cruelly at her slim wrist.
the little girl screamed and wrenched herself free and threw herself straight on me, wrapping herself around my neck with the violence of a storm wind. her hair got in[73] my mouth and her small hands gripped at my back like a cat's flexed claws.
"oh, help me," she gasped between sobs. "don't let him get me, don't." and even in that broken plea i took it in that the little ragamuffin did not speak the jargon of that slum, but the pure speech of shainsa.
what i did then was as automatic as if it had been juli. i pulled the kid loose, shoved her behind me, and scowled at the brute who lurched toward us.
"make yourself scarce," i advised. "we don't chase little girls where i come from. haul off, now."
the man reeled. i smelled the rankness of his rags as he thrust one grimy paw at the girl. i never was the hero type, but i'd started something which i had to carry through. i thrust myself between them and put my hand on the skean again.
"you—you dry-towner." the man set up a tipsy howl, and i sucked in my breath. now i was in for it. unless i got out of there damned fast, i'd lose what i'd come all the way to charin to find.
i felt like handing the girl over. for all i knew, the bully could be her father and she was properly in line for a spanking. this wasn't any of my business. my business lay at the end of the street, where rakhal was waiting at the fires. he wouldn't be there long. already the smell of the ghost wind was heavy and harsh, and little flurries of sand went racing along the street, lifting the flaps of the doorways.
but i did nothing so sensible. the big lunk made a grab at the girl, and i whipped out my skean and pantomimed.
"get going!"
"dry-towner!" he spat out the word like filth, his pig-eyes narrowing to slits. "son of the ape! earthman!"
"terranan!" someone took up the howl. there was a stir, a rustle, all along the street that had seemed empty, and from nowhere, it seemed, the space in front of me was crowded with shadowy forms, human and otherwise.
"earthman!"
i felt the muscles across my belly knotting into a band of ice. i didn't believe i'd given myself away as an earthman. the bully was using the time-dishonored tactic of stir[74]ring up a riot in a hurry, but just the same i looked quickly round, hunting a path of escape.
"put your skean in his guts, spilkar! grab him!"
"hai-ai! earthman! hai-ai!"
it was the last cry that made me panic. through the sultry glare at the end of the street, i could see the plumed, taloned figures of the ya-men, gliding through the banners of smoke. the crowd melted open.
i didn't stop to reflect on the fact—suddenly very obvious—that rakhal couldn't have been at the fires at all, and that my informant had led me into an open trap, a nest of ya-men already inside charin. the crowd edged back and muttered, and suddenly i made my choice. i whirled, snatched up the girl in my arms and ran straight toward the advancing figures of the ya-men.
nobody followed me. i even heard a choked shout that sounded like a warning. i heard the yelping shrieks of the ya-men grow to a wild howl, and at the last minute, when their stiff rustling plumes loomed only a few yards away, i dived sidewise into an alley, stumbled on some rubbish and spilled the girl down.
"run, kid!"
she shook herself like a puppy climbing out of water. her small fingers closed like a steel trap on my wrist. "this way," she urged in a hasty whisper, and i found myself plunging out the far end of the alley and into the shelter of a street-shrine. the sour stink of incense smarted in my nostrils, and i could hear the yelping of the ya-men as they leaped and rustled down the alley, their cold and poisonous eyes searching out the recess where i crouched with the girl.
"here," she panted, "stand close to me on the stone—" i drew back, startled.
"oh, don't stop to argue," she whimpered. "come here!"
"hai-ai! earthman! there he is!"
the girl's arms flung round me again. i felt her slight, hard body pressing on mine and she literally hauled me toward the pattern of stones at the center of the shrine. i wouldn't have been human if i hadn't caught her closer yet.
the world reeled. the street disappeared in a cone of spinning lights, stars danced crazily, and i plunged down through a widening gulf of empty space, locked in the[75] girl's arms. i fell, spun, plunged head over heels through tilting lights and shadows that flung us through eternities of freefall. the yelping of the ya-men whirled away in unimaginable distances, and for a second i felt the unmerciful blackout of a power dive, with blood breaking from my nostrils and filling my mouth.
