"Do they find the one who escapes?" he asked. "They find him. The masters come in and they punish the others from the room." Precedent was clearly recognizable, even though it made no sense. Those who had not escaped surely had no reason to be punished, Cadnan thought. But what the masters had done to Great Bend Tree they would do to Bent Line Tree. Everyone would be punished. With a shock he realized that "everyone" included Dara. He heard himself speak. "You must go." Dara looked at him innocently. "Go?" she said. "You must go as Marvor has gone. The masters do not take you for punishment if you go." "There is nothing for me to do," she said, and her eye closed. "No. I wait for you, but only to tell you this: there is nothing I can do." "Marvor is gone," Cadnan said slowly. "You, too, can go. Maybe the masters do not find you. If you stay you are punished. If you go and they do not find you there is no punishment for you." It amazed him that she could not see so clear a point. "Then all can go," she said. "All can escape punishment." Cadnan grunted, thinking that over. "Where one goes," he said at last, "one can go. Maybe many can not go." Her answer was swift. "And you?" "I stay here," he said, trying to sound as decisive as possible. Dara turned away. "I do not listen to your words," she said flatly. "I do not hear you or see you." Cadnan hissed in anguish. She had to understand.... "What do I say that is wrong? You must--" "You speak of my going alone," she said. "But that is me, and no more. What of the others?" "Marvor," Cadnan said after a second. "He is to come and aid them. He tells me this. We join him and come back with him, away from here, to where he stays now. Then none of us are punished." He paused. "It will be a great punishment." "I know," Dara said. "Yet one does not go alone." Her voice was so low that Cadnan could barely hear it, but the words were like sharp stones, stabbing fear into his body. For the first time, he saw clearly exactly what she was driving at. And after a long pause, she spoke again. "Where one goes, two may go. Where Marvor goes, two may follow, one to lead the other." "One goes alone," Cadnan said, feeling himself tremble and trying to control it. "You must go." It seemed a long time before she spoke again, and Cadnan held himself tightly, until his muscles began to ache. "We go together," she said at last "Two go where one has gone. Only so do I leave at all." It was an ultimatum, and Cadnan understood what was behind it. But an attraction between Dara and himself ... he said: "There is the rule of the tree," but it was like casting water on steel. "If we leave here," Dara said, "why think of a smaller rule?"