"Put this hand over here." She patted the bar on the other side of his leg. Tel transferred his grip. "Now bring your leg off the bar." Tel hoisted his leg back so that he was supported by just his hands. "Now bend forward and roll over, slowly if you can." Tel rolled, felt the bar slip from where it was pressed against his waist, and a moment later his feet were brushing back and forth over the tar paper. He let go and rubbed his hands together. "Why didn't you tell me what I was gonna do?" "Because then you wouldn't have done it. Now that you know you can, the rest will be easier. You've got three stunts now in less than five minutes. The knee mount, back knee circle, and the forward dismount. And that was the best I've ever seen anybody do for a first try." "Thanks," said Tel. He looked back up at the horizontal bar. "You know, it feels real funny, doing that stuff. I mean you don't really do it. You do things and than it happens to you." "That's right," Alter said. "I hadn't thought of it like that Maybe that's why a good acrobat has to be a person who can sort of relax and just let things happen. You have to trust both your mind and your body." "Oh," said Tel. "I was looking for you when I came up here. I wanted to give you something." "Thank you," she smiled, brushing a shock of white hair from her forehead. "I hope it didn't get broken." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of something sinewy; he had strung the shells on lengths of leather thong. There were three loops of leather, each longer than the one before, and the shells were spread apart and held in place by tiny knots. "Geryn gave me the thong, and I put it together this afternoon. It's a necklace, see?" She turned while he tied the ends behind her neck. Then she turned back to him, touching the green brilliance of one frail cornucopia, passing to the muted orange of another along the brown leather band. "Thank you," she said. "Thank you very much, Tel." "You want some fruit?" he said, picking up the globe and beginning to peel the rest of it. "All right," she said. He broke it open, gave her half, and they went to the edge of the roof and leaned on the balustrade, looking to the street below, then over the roofs of the other houses of the Devil's Pot and up to the darkening towers. "You know," Tel said. "I've got a problem." "No identification papers, no place to go. I should say you do." "Not like that," he said. "But that's part of it, I guess. I guess it's a large part of it. But not all." "Then what is it?" "I've got to figure out what I want. Here I am, in a new place, with no way to get anything for myself; I've got to figure a goal."