The flowers twitched--stirred--threw tendrils at the man's bleeding hand. A quick nausea tightened my throat; I motioned urgently to him. "Run!" I begged, "Quick, or I can't--" The flowers shrilled. The man threw back his head, his eyes wide with panic, and screamed. "Karamy! Aiiieeeee--!" he staggered back wildly, teetering on the edge of the ditch. I cried another warning, incoherent--but too late. He trod on the flowers--stumbled across the little ditch. The writhing flower-heads shot up shoulder-high. They screamed a wild paean of flower-music, and he fell among them, sprawling, floundering helplessly. I heard him scream, hoarsely, horribly--I turned my eyes away. There was a wild thrashing, a flailing, a yell that died and echoed among the brilliant towers. There was a sort of purring murmur from the blossoms. Then the flowers stilled and were quiet, waving innocently behind their ditches. Karamy, gold and fire, walked along the winding path through the trees. And in the space of a second I forgot the man who lay lifeless in the bed of the terrible flowers. Karamy was all gold. From her glowing crown of hair to the tips of her little slippers, she was one sunny shimmer; there was amber on her brows and at her throat, and an amber rod twisted lightly between her fingers, its delicate movement outlining my face. Karamy's smile of welcome was a dream which made me know I could be well content if this were my world. But old habit made me turn my face away; her eyes, cat-eyes of wide yellow, watched me slyly, but her face was turned to the sprawled man in the flowers. "So? I thought I heard--something." Without taking her eyes from my face, she spun the lucent rod. The flower-song rose again, a soft keening wail. Two of the silent guards moved noiselessly through the garden, and at an expressive movement of the rod, they lifted the corpse and bore it away. The music died. The woman's hands went out to pull me close. "Adric, Adric! As soon as you are free, they pursue you! That is not what you want, is it?" "Isn't it?" I asked shortly. I still could not look full at the cat-eyes, the caressing face. A memory scuttled, rabbit-fashion, across my mind, giving name and identity to the man I had betrayed to the flowers. Karamy slid in front of me so I had to look at her, and the lovely lazy voice murmured the name I was beginning to know. "You are angry," the soft voice caressed me, "I knew it was not right to let Evarin near you! Adric, we need you, Narabedla needs you! We felt betrayed when you left us, when you shut yourself up alone with your stars! Have you forgotten, or are you still--my lover?"