The girl lowered her beautiful head sadly. "That I cannot tell you." * * * * * Bram Forest smiled. "Be not so sad. The fact that you prefer to keep the information to yourself is no reason for near-tears." "I am not sad for that reason, sire." "Then why?" "Because you asked the question and are even more surely therefore, not our god." Bram Forest was deeply curious and half-amused at the trend of this conversation. "Tell me this, then. Why does my asking the question eliminate all possibility of my being your god?" "Because if you were the god we seek and yearn for, you would not have to ask where my people went. You would know." "Instead of clarifying the situation," Bram Forest mused, "each question sends me deeper and deeper into a mental labyrinth." "We risked our lives in going to the place you found us. It was forbidden to credit the ancient legend of our people. Therefore--" "What legend?" "That upon this day and at that place our god would appear to deliver us." * * * * * Bram Forest, now desperately seeking a question that would clarify rather than further befuddle, held up his hand. "Wait. If you expected a god to appear and I arrived on schedule, how can you be so sure that I am not he?" "We thought so when you advanced upon the hideous Abarian and took his throat in your great hands. But when you not only allowed him to live but also suffered him to take up his whip-sword and come within an eyelash of killing you, we knew you were not our god." Bram Forest nodded with understanding. "I can see now how stupid that act was. Certainly not a manner in which a genuine god would conduct himself." He glanced at the girl and smiled. "Please come closer that I may see you better." She moved her head in the negative, reluctantly, Bram Forest thought, and replied, "If you were our god I would gladly place myself in your power to do with me as you would, but as you are mortal, I must remain away from you." Bram Forest frowned. "Again things get murky." "I am a virgin," the beautiful girl explained simply and with no self-consciousness whatever. "I must remain so until my time is ordained. If I lost my virginity, even through violation that I resist, I would immediately be delivered into the Golden Ape." Bram Forest came upright, causing the girl to retreat a step further in alarm. "The Golden Ape, did you say?" "Yes." "And you are a virgin--" This last was a statement rather than a question as Bram Forest sank back, his eyes misty with thought. "An ape, a boar, a stallion--" he pondered. "A virgin's feast--" The girl eyed him with concern. "Are you sure that your wound has not caused--" "It is not that," he said, switching his mind back to things of the moment. "I'm just wondering--might you tell me your name without breaking any rules of reticence?" * * * * *