"I hope they do," flashed Ylda, "and you do too. Most of the sarifs are good people. Even if Nitka Porn and a few others escape punishment the innocent ones will escape."
"That's settled then." Hardan turned to the Aarthman. "Lead off, Kern Rensom."
And so they started off eastward across the mountains and bare reddish-veined slopes of the blue ridges, the tiny Aarthman leading. All forenoon they walked, pausing often beside the stream to soak their padded garments and gather the sparse scattering of brown-husked berries from bushes in the sheltered angles of the little watercourse.
Toward noon they left the swift little stream and crossed a steep slope of treacherous yellow shale and broken rock to a slope that carried them down toward a vast sunken bowl, an extinct crater, in whose heart the misty outlines of a small lake nestled grayly. That it was roofed with vurth there could be no question, and thereafter Hardan forgot most of his suspicions that the stranger meant them evil.
"It was there," Kern Rensom said, his finger pointing out a squatty ovoid of darker rock, "that our ship from beyond the stars landed. It was broken, and all save two women and one man died."
"You came from up there?" demanded Ylda. "Then you are of the race of the true gods, Zo Aldan and Ung Roth?"
The Aarthman shook his head. "No, we are mortals. I have read your mind and learned about your gods. Perhaps your gods, too, were mortals from another world who landed here safely on Osar."
Hardan's ears tingled at such heresy. And yet he was forced to admit what the little man said was logical. He knew that many of the wisest Wetlanders did not believe in Thog Molog and the devil-things, nor did he suppose the Drylanders believed in the power of Zo Aldan and Ung Roth. It was true the two gods had come from the outer moons in a strange metallic ship.
"Why then," he asked, "did you not conquer the Drylands? Was it not for that you came to Osar?"