'I'm not sure,' she replied honestly. 'But I'm grateful for your company all the same. I've been here alone for so long.....' She stopped when she saw the weary, washed-out confusion of his face. Though far from happy herself, she realized that in this moment his need was still greater. 'I'm sorry,' she whispered sadly, eyes to the ground. 'You have enough to think about already.' Slowly the words came to her. 'Try not to worry. Things will work out for us, you'll see. Right now you should eat, then I'll check your bandages and you can sleep a while longer.' He nodded gratefully. Sitting weakly on one of the steps, Kalus let his mind go blank. Sylviana went to prepare a meal as best she could, and the he-wolf retired to a favorite corner to lie down. For the moment, at least, all was as it should have been. A very rare moment, indeed. Chapter 4 Kalus woke feeling strangely insecure. It was a feeling he had known before, and one he had come to respect. Rising quickly, he instinctively scanned his surroundings. At first he could not remember where he was. The events of the day before had struck so suddenly, and with such sweeping change that he found his mind racing, trying to put back the pieces of all that had happened, and think what he must now do in answer. Slowly it came back to him. The piled furs on which he sat had been placed for him there by Sylviana, the young woman-child who lived in this place, some sort of wide underground passageway. She had nursed his wounds and spoken strangely of a land he would never see. Of the rest he was still quite uncertain, but at least sensed that he was safe, a knowledge that helped quiet his fears, and soothe the angry horde of questions that kept pounding at his brain. Looking across the room he saw that the girl lay sleeping a short distance away, lying in a similar bed among the shadows of the far wall. She had tried to make him sleep there instead but he refused, it being so foolishly placed beneath the unprotected shaft. At her feet rested the he-wolf, Akar, the creature most largely responsible for his present plight. Seeing him Kalus remembered his banishment, an event which had yet to make its full impact upon him. He shook his head in dismay. HOW WILL I STAY ALIVE? he found himself asking. EVEN THE WOLF BARELY LIVES, AND HE IS BY FAR A GREATER HUNTER THAN I. Though the thought itself was depressing, Kalus marveled at how quickly and clearly it had formed in his mind. Forced to live without the certainty of words, all previous thought patterns had of necessity been based around images and memory, a slow, tedious process that had almost always stifled him in any attempt at higher thinking. He thought of the god whose voice he had heard---was that part real or imagined?---and of its strange powers inside him. BUT WHAT DID IT ALL MEAN? The question was too much for him. He put it from his mind.