* * *
The Humanites had so gone — but the Clans were waiting. Down on the slopes below the Cavern they waited — the packs of the Hairy Ones, the hot-eyed tiger Clan, the wild-maned brothers of Hatha. And overhead against the sunrise swung the hosts of the Winged Ones.
Hatha and Tark, Quorr and Ei, were waiting on the ledge outside the Cavern. Nelson heard their thought-cry.
"Nsharra, you are Guardian of the Brotherhood now!"
The girl looked at Nelson. "You can go from L'Lan with clear conscience now, Eric Nelson. You redeemed any guilt that was yours in bringing death to our valley."
Nelson said slowly, "I don't want to go, Nsharra. I've found something here that I never found in the outer world."
Her eyes were doubtful and at the same time glad. "Could you, a man of the different outer world, be happy here where there is Brotherhood of man and beast?"
"Nsharra, I learned what that Brotherhood can be when I ran in the body of Asha!" he told her.
He had learned, yes! He knew now that the ancient way of life that held in L'Lan was not really strange, that it was the outer world of rigid caste, of men-masters and enslaved beasts, that was really strange.
He would never again, Nelson knew, be at home in that world. He would suffer and endure with every driven beast in it, and the magic of L'Lan would tug in memory at his heart until it broke,