After the executions, the town of Smilodon Bay went sullenly quiet. Only six funeral pyres roared that day—for no one even found the body of Beremon—and the smell of charcoal and flesh seemed to loom over the town. Each person mourned the dead in solitude. Though Phylomon stalked through town often that day, no one sought his company, which was fine with him.

It was foolish for them to grieve. The town should have been celebrating the purge of slavers.

Still, no one sought to strike back at him that day. Instead, the city brooded.

The fourth day of Phylomon's visit, the woodland mastodon that was to pull the wagon arrived from the miners at White Rock. It was a hulking brute, sixteen feet at the shoulder, well over forty years old, with the unpromising name of Snail Follower.

The miner brought the mastodon into town dragging a redwood log that was fifteen feet around and thirty feet long, convincing Phylomon that if any beast could pull a wagon carrying twelve tons of water and sea serpents over the plains, this one could.

Theron Scandal grinned all over. "Ayaah, it's a bad name," Scandal admitted as he patted the mastodon's dusty legs and inspected its swollen feet, "but I've been assured that the beast is tougher than a Neanderthal's skull."

"But it's a woodland mastodon," Phylomon pointed out. "It can't tolerate the high, cold country in the White Mountains, and it will likely take sick if driven too fast. He's a powerful brute, but he'll need to rest often. We can't have him pull for more than four or five hours a day."

Scandal just rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "There's no mammoths to be had around here," he said ruefully.

He was right. Phylomon had an adage: "All you can do, is all you can do."

He would not waste time regretting the fact that he only had one good mastodon to pull the wagon. Like this town, he thought, I should be celebrating my good fortune.

In spite of the upcoming hardships, Tull felt eager to leave Smilodon Bay. The somber mood in town, the fight with his parents, the executions—all had combined to make home an ugly place in the past few days.

Tull was too near his parents' house when he went to see the mastodon. He could feel the kwea of his childhood home around the bend, as if the area emanated pain, and he smiled grimly.

He worried for his little brother Wayan, worried so much that he was tempted to go see the child.

He wanted to escape the ugliness and fear of this place, and felt that it would feel good to get into the wilderness. It would feel good most of all because he'd be with Wisteria.

That evening, Scandal met Phylomon in the common room at the inn and said, "Well, I can't believe it, but over the past two days, I've asked every man in town to come with us, and no one will go. You've won no friends here."

"I'm not surprised," Phylomon answered. "Executioners are never popular."

Scandal's squirrels hopped from table to table, looking for hazelnuts. His pet snakebird woke, and Scandal cut bits of meat into cubes, held them on the tip of a knife, and waved them in front of the bird.

The bird hissed and lashed out, grabbing meat between its sharp teeth. "Still," Scandal said, "I'd hoped someone would come, perhaps a few more Pwi. The only person who has made plans to come is a girl: Wisteria Altair. You killed her mother and father, and now she's married to Tull Genet, the big Tcho-Pwi."

"I told you that I was tempted to kill any human that tries to come on this quest with us," Phylomon said. "Why should she be an exception?" He peered hard at Scandal, and added. "She's a plant. Our enemies have sent her."

"Now look here," Scandal said, waving his knife at Phylomon. "If you touch one hair on that girl's head, the folks here will stick a skewer up your arse and cook you as the main course for a town barbecue. The town may seem quiet, but folks are outraged."

Phylomon cocked an eyebrow. "Indeed," he said. "Go on. I seldom have anyone express their thoughts so candidly."

Scandal leaned back in his chair. "You take Wisteria's father, Beremon. He was a Dicton, and I can't say he had a close friend. People that smart, they don't have equals. But you had to know that Javan Tech woman. She was the Queen Bitch of the town. Even her ever-mourning husband would tell you that Beremon did this town a favor. Beremon didn't have a mean bone in his body, and, as for Elyssa—well, no one has ever executed a woman on this entire coast, not unless she's done murder."

"Indeed?" Phylomon said, raising one hairless blue eyebrow.

"Ayaah," Scandal said. "I'm afraid that some folks are thinking you waltzed in here and mucked everything up."

"It's easy to forgive a man for a crime he's committed against someone else, long ago," Phylomon said.

"Yet I showed those slavers more mercy than they showed their victims. Javan Tech was put into a whorehouse, chained to a bedpost. The men of Craal gave her to their Neanderthal warriors, trying to tame her. They were brutal. One night, she picked the lock to her shackles and fled. The Blade Kin hunted her by scent, and when they caught her, they broke her ankles so that she could never run again.

"They put her to work cleaning the floors of the barracks, with nothing but a dirty rag, for she will never walk again. Instead, she scoots herself over the cobblestones on her hips.

"After years of suffering, the woman I met was so humble, she had become beautiful.

"You dislike her for the woman she was, I respect and admire her for what she has become. That's the problem with slavers. They're blind to the value of human life, to the greatness of human potential."

When Phylomon fell silent, Theron Scandal studied him thoughtfully. Javan Tech had been a horrible woman, and if she'd remained in this town, she might be horrible still. Perhaps it was only hardship that had made her a better person.

"I think," Scandal said, "that Wisteria can become a beauty, too. You may not trust her with your life, but I am willing to trust her with mine."

Phylomon studied him for a long moment, bit his lower lip. "You know her better than I do. If the rest of the party feels the same, she can join the quest."

When Tull and Wisteria arrived at the inn later that night, Phylomon studied them. Tull was both larger and stronger than the typical Pwi or human. He was a hybrid, embodying traits from both peoples.

His eyes shone with a kind of cold anger. Phylomon thought. So this is the man who shall lead an army to destroy Craal. He does not look like a military genius.

He studied Wisteria. She was tall, strong, lithe—a form that was the favorite among the ancient Starfarers. She looked much like her mother. A thousand years ago, she'd have been considered a beauty. Like most short-lived persons, or temporaries, as Phylomon called them, she had not lived long enough to gain control over her body. Her wrath was evident in the flaring of her nostrils, her fear in the way she shifted her feet and clasped her hands to hide them. Her pupils were constricted, and her jaw quivered.

Phylomon considered Chaa's warning a few nights earlier: "Your enemies will have power over you." Phylomon knew that this girl was trouble. Within him, he felt the symbiote stir.

I taste your fear, the symbiote whispered.

Phylomon tried to calm himself. There is nothing to fear for now, Old Friend, Phylomon answered.

Following Wisteria came Ayuvah, and Little Chaa. Phylomon studied the Pwi. They were more in awe of him than terrified or outraged.

They sat at one of the big tables in the common room. The hearth had only a small fire lit, just enough to give the room a warm glow. The inn was strangely empty. The people of the town were avoiding it, and that was fine with Phylomon. It meant that when he ordered a tankard of beer or a plate of food, the service would come that much faster.

Slapping his hands on the table, Phylomon got their little meeting started by addressing Wisteria. "I understand you want to come with us to Seven Ogre River. I'll tell you to your face, I don't trust you. I don't want you there, and I'll only consent to your presence if these men vote in unison against me. So I ask you plainly, do you come to help our quest, or hinder it?"

Wisteria considered her answer for only an instant. "I don't care if this quest succeeds or not. This town means nothing to me, now. I've been away for years. The people have changed, my parents are dead. The house that I lived in is just a painful reminder of them. I want to get away from here. I want to be with my husband."

"You choose odd company," Phylomon said, "your parents' executioner, and the man who captured your father when he would have escaped."

Wisteria's lower lip trembled. "Tull is innocent, but you're not. If you were to die tomorrow, I doubt that I could refrain from smiling."

"I'm sure. But you'll find that I'm very durable when we get to the Rough—tougher than you would ever believe." Phylomon held her eyes a moment. It was an old habit. He wanted to warn her against trying to kill him. "You won't see me die. Yet I admire your honesty."

"I don't want your compliments," Wisteria said.