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.i want this ship repaired and fueled thedamage was taken in your service because the fleet wasn t where you promisedit would be, the fuel spent for the same reason.i will need transport towolff.this ship s master and i will be parting here.She glanced upward,shivered with a sudden chill as she realized loneliness and loss began now,not sometime in the future.The impatient clacking of the valaad s mandiblescalled her back.Is that all? it signed.yes.no! Drij, she thought.I ve got to do something about her.I forgother.i need passage for another person to wolff.this you can charge to mesince it is not your business.is that all?yes.for now that s all.Still a little angry and more than a little disturbedby the fact that she was walking away from Swardheld, she moved with the primand disapproving valaad toward the domed building where the Queen had vanishedand the valaada had their offices, knowing this valaad was already reluctantto give her the ship they d promised in spite of the contract they d signedand their eagerness to get her services, knowing she d have to fight to getthem to do anything about Swardheld s ship, knowing she was going to have tosweat out the ruling of the arbiters on Helvetia who would decide if she dearned her fee, if the Haestavaada were bound by their promise of a bonus, aship.Nothing is ever as simple as it looks, she thought.RohaRoha huddled against the tree trunk, her arms pressed over ears, her eyesclamped shut as the light and noise shook the world around her, going on andon until she was battered with light and noise into an unthinking daze,clinging to the tree, her claws sunk into the soft bark and wood, smellingstone burning, wood burning, the air reeking with drug-saps released by thefires, swinging in and out of reality, opening her eyes and squeezing themshut again as the forest wavered and melted around her, flattened intopatterns that shattered, reformed, melted again.The noise went on and on andthe world broke apart around her.Then it was gone.The noise was gone.The roaring winds dropped to a whisperof air.She lifted her head, rubbed absently at her flat chest, then at hereyes, crawled from the cage of aerial roots and stood, dazed, on a small patchof beaten earth staring around with disbelief.Trees were down, their trunkswoven in a tangle by the great wind.A whimpering pudsi, its broad wingsbroken, blood a thread of red lining the working beak, lay by her feet, itsfeathers tickling her as it shuddered to a painful death.She shivered andPage 103 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlstepped away.Picking her way through the shattered trees, walking over their broken backs,drawn reluctantly but helplessly to the shelf where the sky-seeds sat, shecame to the end of the trees and stood gazing at the destruction before her,appalled that such power should be given to demons.Great gouges slicedthrough the mother stone, the bones of earth herself.In places it was meltedand still bubbling.Two of the seeds were crumpled and charred and piercedwith ragged terrible holes like the wounds a hunting spear would make in aman s belly.The third seed was gone.She looked up but saw nothing, only the sun still lowon the eastern horizon, but she knew with a cold certainty that the Fire-hairwas gone, taking the Nafa and the brother-killer with her; even without goingto the Nafa s house and finding it empty she knew this.That terrible burningdisturbing demon was gone.Gone.Roha gasped, wheeled and ran from the shelf,wanting desperately the comfort of her own kind, heading blindly for theburned-out village and the traces of the captive women.The Rum Fieyl hadtaken the Amar women.Perhaps they would take her too.She could creep amongthe women; they would slap and scold her then set her to work and she d have aplace again.The demons were gone.Gone and the world had to change.She circled the village and found the trail of the captured women.She drankfrom the stream and ate some of the fruit still hanging from a mat-amat, thenstarted off along the trail.All the day she trotted and walked after thewomen, passing after a while into land that was strange to her.The wanderingbreeze blew the leaves about over her head while the sun painted shiftingdappled shadows on the dark moist soil under her feet
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