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06 - The Door Through Space - Marion Zimmer Bradley · Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter six. Once we were free of the forest, the
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  Speaker 1: road to the dry towns lay straight before us, with
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  Speaker 1: no hidden dangers. Some of us limped for a day
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  Speaker 1: or two, or favored an arm or leg clawed by
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  Speaker 1: the catmen, But I knew that what Karl said was true.
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  Speaker 1: It was a lucky caravan which had to fight off
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  Speaker 1: only one attack. Quinn haunted me a night or two
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  Speaker 1: of turning over his cryptic words in my mind had
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  Speaker 1: convinced me that whoever or whatever he'd been signaling it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't the Catman, and his urgent question where's the girl
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  Speaker 1: swam endlessly in my brain, making no more sense than
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  Speaker 1: when I had first heard it. Who had he mistaken
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  Speaker 1: me for? What did he think I was mixed up in?
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  Speaker 1: And who? Above all were the others who had to
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  Speaker 1: be signaled at the risk of an attack by Catman,
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  Speaker 1: which had meant his own death. With Quinn dead and
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  Speaker 1: Carol thinking I'd saved his life, a large part of
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  Speaker 1: the responsibility for the caravan now fell on me, and
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  Speaker 1: strangely I enjoyed it, making the most of this interval
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  Speaker 1: when I was separated from the thought of blood, feud
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  Speaker 1: or revenge, the need of spying or the threat of exposure.
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  Speaker 1: During those days of nights on the trail, I grew
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  Speaker 1: back slowly into the dry towner I once had been.
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  Speaker 1: I knew I would be sorry when the walls of
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  Speaker 1: shane Saw rose on the horizon, bringing me back inescapably
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  Speaker 1: to my own quest. We swung wide, leaving the straight
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  Speaker 1: trail to shane Saw, and Karral announced his intention of
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  Speaker 1: stopping for half a day at Canarsa, one of the
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  Speaker 1: walled non human cities which lay well off the traveled road.
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  Speaker 1: To my inadvertent show of surprise, he returned that he
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  Speaker 1: had trading connections there. We all need a day's rest,
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  Speaker 1: and the silent ones will buy from me, though they
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  Speaker 1: have few dealings with men. Look here, I owe you something.
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  Speaker 1: You have lenses. You can get a better price in
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  Speaker 1: Canarsa than you'd get an Ard Koran or Shane Saw.
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  Speaker 1: Come along with me and I'll vouch for you. Kil
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  Speaker 1: had been most friendly since the night I had dug
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  Speaker 1: him out from under the catmen, and I knew no
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  Speaker 1: way to refuse without exposing myself for the sham trader
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  Speaker 1: I was. But I was deathly apprehensive. Even with recall,
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  Speaker 1: I had never entered any of the non human towns
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  Speaker 1: on Wulf. Human and non human have lived side by
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  Speaker 1: side for centuries, and the human is not always the
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  Speaker 1: superior being. I might pass among the dry towners and
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  Speaker 1: the relatively stupid humanoid chocks for another dry towner, but
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  Speaker 1: Recall had cautioned me I could not pass among non
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  Speaker 1: humans for native Wolfen, and warned me against trying. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: I accompanied Karl, carrying the box, which had cost about
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  Speaker 1: a week's pay in the terran Zone and was worth
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  Speaker 1: a small fortune in the dry towns, Canarsa seemed inside
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  Speaker 1: the gates like any other town. The houses were round
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  Speaker 1: bee high fashion, and the streets totally empty. Just inside
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  Speaker 1: the gates, a hooded figure greeted us and gestured us
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  Speaker 1: by signs to follow him. He was covered from head
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  Speaker 1: to foot with some coarse and shiny fiber woven into
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  Speaker 1: stuff that looked like sacking. But under the thick hooding
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  Speaker 1: was horror. It slithered, and it had nothing like a
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  Speaker 1: recognizable human shape or walk, and I felt the primeval
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  Speaker 1: ape in meek howering and gibbering in the corner of
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  Speaker 1: my mind. Kil muttered close to my ear, No outsider
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  Speaker 1: is ever allowed to look on the silent Ones in
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  Speaker 1: their real form. I think they're deaf and dumb, But
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  Speaker 1: be damned careful, you bet, I was, and was glad
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  Speaker 1: the streets were empty. I walked along, trying not to
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  Speaker 1: look at the gliding motion of the shrouded thing up ahead.
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  Speaker 1: The trading was done in an open hut of reeds,
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  Speaker 1: which looked as if it had been built in a hurry,
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  Speaker 1: and was not square, round, hexagonal, or any other recognizable
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  Speaker 1: geometrical shape. It formed a pattern of its own, presumably,
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  Speaker 1: but my human eyes couldn't see it. Kiral said, in
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  Speaker 1: a breath of a whisper. They'll tear it down and
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  Speaker 1: burn it after we leave. We're supposed to have contaminated
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  Speaker 1: it too greatly for any of the silent Ones ever
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  Speaker 1: to enter again. My family has traded with them for centuries,
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  Speaker 1: and were almost the only ones who have ever entered
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  Speaker 1: the city. Then two of the silent Ones of Canarsa,
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  Speaker 1: also covered with that coarse, shiny stuff, slithered into the hut,
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  Speaker 1: and Kiral choked off his words as if he had
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  Speaker 1: swallowed them. It was the strangest trading I had ever done.
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  Speaker 1: Kiral laid out the small forged steel tools and the
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  Speaker 1: coils of thin, fine wire, and I unpacked my lenses
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  Speaker 1: and laid them out a neat rose. The silent ones
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  Speaker 1: neither spoke nor moved, but through a thin piece in
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  Speaker 1: the gray veiling, I saw a speck which might have
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  Speaker 1: been a phosphorescent eye, moving back and forth, as if
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  Speaker 1: scanning the things laid out for their inspection. I smothered
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  Speaker 1: a gasp, for suddenly blank spaces appeared in the rows
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  Speaker 1: of merchandise. Certain small tools, wire cutters, calipers, surgical scissors
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  Speaker 1: had vanished, and all the coils of wire had disappeared.
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  Speaker 1: Blanks equally had appeared in the rows of lenses. All
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  Speaker 1: of my tiny, powerful microscope lenses had vanished. I cast
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  Speaker 1: a quick glance at Kiral, but he seemed unsurprised. I
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  Speaker 1: recalled vague rumors of the silent ones and concluded that eerie,
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  Speaker 1: though it seemed this was merely their way of doing business.
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  Speaker 1: Kiral pointed at one of the tools, at an exceptionally
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  Speaker 1: fine pair of binocular lenses, and at the last coils
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  Speaker 1: of wire. The shrouded ones did not move, but the
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  Speaker 1: lenses and the wire vanished. The small tool remained and
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  Speaker 1: After a moment, Krral dropped his hand. I took my
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  Speaker 1: cue from Kiral and remained motionless, awaiting whatever surprise was coming.
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  Speaker 1: I had half way expected what happened next. In the
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  Speaker 1: blank spaces, little points of light began to glimmer, and
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  Speaker 1: after a moment, blue and red and green gems zones
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  Speaker 1: appeared there. To me, the substitution appeared roughly equitable and fair,
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  Speaker 1: though I am no judge of the fine points of gems.
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  Speaker 1: Kiral scowled slightly and pointed to one of the green gems,
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  Speaker 1: and after a moment it whisked away, and a blue
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  Speaker 1: one took its place. In another spot, where a fine
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  Speaker 1: set of surgical instruments had lain. Kiral pointed at the
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  Speaker 1: blue gem, which now lay there, shook his head and
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  Speaker 1: held out three fingers. After a moment, a second blue
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  Speaker 1: stone lay winking beside the first. Kiral did not move,
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  Speaker 1: but inexorably held out the three fingers. There was a
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  Speaker 1: little swirling in the air, and then both gems vanished,
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  Speaker 1: and the case of surgical instruments lay in their place. Still.
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  Speaker 1: Kiraal did not move, but held the three fingers out
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  Speaker 1: for a full minute. Finally he dropped them and bent
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  Speaker 1: to pick up the case instruments again. The little swirl
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  Speaker 1: in the air, and the instruments vanished. In their place
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  Speaker 1: lay three of the blue gems. My mouth twitched in
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  Speaker 1: the first amusement I had felt since we entered this
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  Speaker 1: uncanny place. Evidently, bargaining with the silent Ones was not
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  Speaker 1: a great deal different than bargaining with anyone anywhere. Nevertheless,
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  Speaker 1: under the eyes of those shrouded but horrible forms, if
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  Speaker 1: they had eyes, which I doubted, I had no impulse
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  Speaker 1: to protest their offered prices. I gathered up the rejected lenses,
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  Speaker 1: repacked them neatly, and helped Kiral recrate the tools and
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  Speaker 1: instruments the silent Ones had not wanted. I noticed that,
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  Speaker 1: in addition to the microscope lenses and surgical instruments, they
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  Speaker 1: had taken all the fine wire. I couldn't imagine, and
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  Speaker 1: didn't particularly want to imagine what they intended to do
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  Speaker 1: with it. On our way back through the streets, unshepherded,
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  Speaker 1: this time, Kyral's tongue was loosened, as if with a
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  Speaker 1: great release from tension their psychokinetics. He told me quite
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  Speaker 1: a few of the non human races are I guess
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  Speaker 1: they have to be in having no eyes and no hands.
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  Speaker 1: But sometimes I wonder if we of the dry towns
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  Speaker 1: ought to deal with them at all. What do you mean?
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  Speaker 1: I asked, not really listening. I was thinking mostly about
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  Speaker 1: the way the small objects had melted away and reappeared.
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  Speaker 1: The sight had stirred some uncomfortable memory, a vague sense
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  Speaker 1: of danger. It was not tangible enough for me to
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  Speaker 1: know why I feared it, but just a subliminal uneasiness
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  Speaker 1: that kept prodding at me, like a tooth that isn't
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  Speaker 1: quite aching yet. Kiral said, we of Shane saw live
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  Speaker 1: between fire and flood terra on the one hand, and
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  Speaker 1: on the other may be something worse. Who knows. We
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  Speaker 1: know so little about the silent ones and those like them.
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  Speaker 1: Who knows? Maybe we're giving them the weapons to destroy us.
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  Speaker 1: He broke off with a gasp and stood staring down
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  Speaker 1: one of the streets. It lay open and bare between
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  Speaker 1: two rows of round houses, and Kiral was staring fixedly
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  Speaker 1: at a doorway which had opened there. I followed his
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  Speaker 1: paralyzed gaze and saw the girl, hair like spun black
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  Speaker 1: glass fell in hard waves around her shoulders, and the
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  Speaker 1: red eyes smiled with alien malice, alien mischief, beneath the
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  Speaker 1: dark crown of little stars and the toad god sprawled
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  Speaker 1: in hideous embroideries across the white folds of her breast.
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  Speaker 1: Kirol gulped hoarsely. His hand flew up as he clutched
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  Speaker 1: the charms strung about his neck. I imitated the gesture mechanically,
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  Speaker 1: watching Kiral, wondering if he would turn and run again.
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  Speaker 1: But he stood frozen for a minute. Then the spell
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  Speaker 1: broke and he took one step toward the girl, arms outstretched,
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  Speaker 1: mae Llynn. He cried, and there was heart break in
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  Speaker 1: his voice, and again the cry making ringing echoes in
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  Speaker 1: the strange street, Miellyn, Maellyn. This time it was the
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  Speaker 1: girl who whirled and fled. Her white robes fluttered, and
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  Speaker 1: I saw the twinkle of her flying feet as she
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  Speaker 1: vanished into the space between the houses and was gone.
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  Speaker 1: Kill took one blind step down the street, then another,
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  Speaker 1: but before he could burst into a run, I had
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  Speaker 1: him by the arm, dragging him back to sanity. Man,
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  Speaker 1: you've gone mad, chase in a non human town. He
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  Speaker 1: struggled for a minute, then with a harsh sigh, he said,
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  Speaker 1: it's all right, I won't, and shook loose from my arm.
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  Speaker 1: He did not speak again until we reached the gates
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  Speaker 1: of Canarsa, and they closed silently and untouched behind us.
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  Speaker 1: I had forgotten the place already. I had space only
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  Speaker 1: to think of the girl, whose face I had not
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  Speaker 1: forgotten since the moment when she saved me and disappeared.
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  Speaker 1: Now she had appeared again to Karol. What did it
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  Speaker 1: all mean? I asked, as we walked toward the camp.
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  Speaker 1: Do you know that girl? But I knew the question
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  Speaker 1: was futile. Kil's face was closed, conceding nothing, and his
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  Speaker 1: friendliness had vanished completely. He said, now you know you
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  Speaker 1: saved me from the catmen and again in Canarsa, so
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  Speaker 1: my hands are bound from harming you. But it is
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  Speaker 1: evil to have dealings with those who have been touched
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  Speaker 1: by the toad God. He spat noisily on the ground,
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  Speaker 1: looking at me with loathing, and said, we will reach
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  Speaker 1: Shansaw in three days. Stay away from me. End of
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  Speaker 1: chapter six