If Findel did anything to drive the quth away, Vah did not see it. By the time he reached the edge of the wooded tir again, the line of quth was vanishing beyond a low fold of rocky ground some two miles to the east. From up in the trees, the Vien watched their nightmares leaving, and few alighted upon the ground that day or night, preferring to stay high in the trees, moving across their webs of ropes or swaying gently in their hammocks, watching the clouds whip by on bitter winds far above Findel's Embrace.

As the sun was setting, Vah lay alone in one of the rough stone-and-branch huts. He did not hear Findel approach through the trees.

"Do you not have a hammock?"

Vah startled and looked out of the narrow entrance. Findel was crouched down, looking in.

"No." Vah lifted his blackened fingers by way of explanation. Findel smiled.

"Our hands have looked fairer, have they not?"

Vah tried to smile in return, but it was difficult.

"I will tell someone to weave you a hammock," Findel said. Vah could neither make a hammock nor climb a tree to rest in it, but he didn't think Findel realized the latter problem.

"No. Don't force anyone. Don't use that for me."

Findel frowned. He glanced up at the tree where he and Tessiel had their hammock. The trunk of the tree grew near the hut where Vah had been sleeping. Single Vien often made their hammock with only two end ropes and no rigid braces within, but mated couples normally used four ropes, and branches as braces to make what was as much a hanging platform as a hammock. Vah knew that if Findel were not mated, he would have offered his own hammock. He had always been quick to loan or share.

Findel walked to his tree and grabbed hold of the rope hanging from its branches, starting the ascent. It was no difficulty for the Vien to climb ropes using only their arms. Findel paused a few yards up.

"The quth will not return tonight," he said. "Do not worry."

Vah settled back upon the hard ground. At least the air was warm. Though it cooled some in the night, it was not enough to wake him. Back in their old woods, the Vien had wandered and grazed at night, but since coming to this northern land, the days were shorter, and some of the fine weaving of plant fibers was easier under the light of the sun.

Over the coming weeks, they did not see the quth again. Vah worried about Isecan, and wondered often if he should not have tried to warn his brother somehow, cold and distance be cursed. Had he done wrong? Was his choice selfish? Should he go now and at least see if Isecan and the others were safe? Could he even find the other Wellspring again? Was that question just an excuse for his fear and weakness? Or should he be doing something more with Findel, to try to change his mind? He had tried again to speak with his eldest brother about using the Current on their people, but his brother had only replied:

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"We have spoken of this already," and would say no more.

These and more worries tormented Vah in his waking hours and by night as he lay on the ground. To make things worse, his fingers and toes did not heal, and they stank. The nails on his fingers and toes had fallen away, and foul fluid drained. He stopped walking. One of the others had brought and laid a hammock at the entrance to his hut, leaving without a word, but Vah could do nothing with it.

It was then that Findel came to him as he sat in front of the hut.

"Brother, your wounds grow putrid."

"I know."

Findel looked around, but there was no one close. Most of the Vien kept away from Vah, and while Vah didn't understand all the reasons, he suspected a few. He didn't blame them. He felt disgusted at himself, much of the time. Findel and Isecan had always been his safety, his sense of belonging among their people. Now, he felt lost.

"Something must be done," Findel said.

Vah shrugged.

"Stay here."

His brother strode away, and when he returned a while later, it was with Tessiel and five young vien. Their gazes were expressionless. Tessiel carried a carved wood basin of water and a bundle of long leaves.

"Have you forced them?" Vah asked.

"I will not be argued with about this," Findel said, and as he said it, he brought his hands from behind his back. In his right hand he held a knapped stone axe and in the left a short stout length of branch.

"No," Vah said.

"Hold him down," Findel commanded, and the five young vien were upon him. As much as Vah writhed and shouted, he could not prevail. Their strength far exceeded Vah's weakness. He was like a child beneath their hands.

"If I could help you by the Wellspring I would, brother," Findel said. "But I must do this myself."

Grimacing, Tessiel washed Vah's hands and feet as the others held him down. Then, Findel set the blade of the axe against his foot, above the blackened toes where the flesh was yet sound. As his helpers held the foot still, Findel raised the wooden club. He struck the back of the axe head with the club, and Vah screamed and writhed.

Vah wept and wailed as his brother cut away all the dead, insensitive tissue until he bled. The torture was repeated until Vah's toes were gone and some of his fingers as well. When the cutting was done, Findel held up the branch he had used as a club. Raising his other hand, he concentrated. The end of the branch burst into flame. Then the torture began again, as Findel burned each of the wounds until the bleeding stopped.

"I am sorry, brother," he said as Tessiel bound Vah's hands and feet in tight bundles of clean leaves. "This time, I wish you were like us."

They left him there upon the mossy tir-side, broken and weeping.

All desire to move, to do, or to be fled Vah. A few times a day, Tessiel or one of the others came to minister to him, plying him with broth or water. Sometimes he drank, and sometimes not. His hands and feet had swollen and pained him to move, throbbing when he didn't. He stared upward into the umbrage of the trees, his sight drifting in and out of focus. He dreamed strange dreams and walked through memories false and true. He ran to keep up with his older brothers in the days of their youth, in the flowering forest along the sea, where the eucalyptus trees grew, and the sweet yeilu flowers bloomed, and the sand was hot to the touch under the blazing sun but cool beneath the stars. But there was a storm coming in those dreams—a terrible hurricane. When he found Isecan, Findel was gone, and when he found Findel, Isecan had slipped away.

Findel often came and sat beside him in silence as Vah lay in pain, and there were some blessed moments when, drifting out of sleep, Vah saw his brother and felt his presence without memory of all that had happened—a blessedness amidst the pain.

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