Kranath shoved those thoughts aside. He was a fighter, not supposed to be concerned with interclan policy. He'd often wondered why he shouldn't be, but tradition insisted his Ka'ruchaya was wiser than he in such matters.
Instead, he tried to figure out what had caused his crash. It wasn't pilot error, he was sure. The flight had been routine, the air calm. The engine had run smoothly, without even a cough, and the controls had been responding as well as they ever did. So why had he crashed?
It nagged at him, but even after a full tenth-day of pondering while he walked, he still had no idea. By that time he was a good five n'liu from the crash site, a respectable half-morning's walk. He was also approaching a low hill, the legendary place known as Godhome.
That was the reason he'd had to plan an indirect route to St'nar. Nobody went to Godhome voluntarily, and Kranath cursed at himself for allowing speculation about the crash to distract his attention from his course. He'd come too far south! He began to veer east, trying to put some distance between himself and the ominous hill before the madness of the place seized him.
The first eastward steps were easy, but soon he began to feel as if he were wading in something sticky, something invisible that was getting deeper. He could see normal ground, ordinary bushes and shrubs like woodlands he'd walked in hundreds of times—yet something was making him struggle for progress. When the sticky invisibility reached his waist, he decided this route was futile.
So was north, he discovered when he tried to retrace his steps to the crash site. The only way open to him was south, straight toward Godhome. He was beginning to realize with dismay that he would not be able to avoid it, desperately though he wanted to. He stood still, hesitating.
Then something nudged him in the back, just hard enough to make him stumble a couple of startled steps forward—south. He looked around, not really surprised to see nothing behind him, and remained standing where he had stopped. Moments later another nudge, more insistent, propelled him several steps further.
Bitterly sure it would be useless, that he was as much a prisoner as if he were surrounded by armed guards, Kranath stopped again. What had he done to deserve captivity? Madness at least brought no disgrace to the victim; why should his accidental trespass be any worse than anyone else's, that he should be humiliated and dishonored?
The next prompting he got wasn't a nudge. The pressure at his back became constant, gentle but irresistible, and it forced him toward the hill at a steady walk.
It was over, Kranath thought. Captive, with no hope of escape from whatever was wielding enough power to compel him this way, he would die. The only chance he had to regain honor now was to kill himself before the continuing knowledge of captivity exhausted his will to act and, within a few days, his will to live.