was approaching.
Damson Rhee suddenly bent close. “I don’t know. But it
wasn’t me! Now lie still until they pass!”
She pushed him into a gathering of bushes, then backed in
herself and lay down beside him. Par could feel the warmth of
her body. He could smell the sweet scent of her. He closed his
eyes and waited. A pair of Federation soldiers worked their way
out of the park, paused momentarily, then started back again
and were gone.
Damson Rhee put her lips close against Par’s ear. “Do they
know you are missing yet?”
Par hesitated. “I can’t be certain,” he whispered back.
She took his chin with her smooth hand and turned his face
until it was level with her own. “I didn’t betray you. It may
seem as if I must have, but I didn’t. If I intended to betray you
to the Federation, Par, I would have simply turned you over to
that pair of soldiers and been done with it.”
The green eyes glittered faintly with moonlight that had pen-
etrated the branches of their concealment. Par stared at those
eyes and found no hint of deception mirrored there. Still, he
hesitated.
“You have to decide here and now whether you believe me,”
she said quietly.
He shook his head warily. “It isn’t that easy!”
“It has to be! Look at me, Par. I have betrayed no one-not
you or Padishar or me others, not now, not ever! Why would I
do something like that? I hate the Federation as much as any-
one!” She paused, exasperated. “I told you that this was a dan-
gerous undertaking. I warned you that the Pit was a black hole
that swallowed men whole. Padishar was the one who insisted
you go!”
“That doesn’t make him responsible for what happened.”
“Nor me! What about the distraction I promised? Did it come
about as I said it would?”
Par nodded.
“You see! I fulfilled my part of the bargain! Why would I
bother if I intended your betrayal?”
Par said nothing.
Damson’s nostrils flared. “You will admit to nothing, will
you?” She shook back her auburn hair in a flash of color.’ ‘Will
you at least tell me what happened?”
Par took a deep breath. Briefly, he related the events that
surrounded their capture, including the frightening disappear-
ance of the outlaw Ciba Blue. He kept deliberately vague the
circumstances of his own escape. The magic was his business.
Its secret belonged to him.
But Damson was not about to be put off. “So the fact of the
matter is, you might as easily be the betrayer as I,” she said.
“How else is it that you managed to escape when the others
could not?”
Par flushed, resentful of the accusation, irritated by her per-
sistence. “Why would I do such a thing to my friends?”
“My own argument exactly,” she replied.
They studied each other wordlessly, each measuring the
strength of the other. Damson was right. Par knew. There was
as much reason to believe that he had been the-betrayer as she.
But that didn’t change the fact that he knew he wasn’t while he
didn’t know the same of her.
“Decide, Par,” she urged quietly. “Do you believe me or
not?”
Her features were smooth and guileless in the scattering of
light, her skin dappled with shadows from the tiny leaves of the
bushes. He found himself drawn to her in a way he had not
believed possible. There was something special about this giri,
something that made him push aside his misgivings and cast out
his doubts. The green eyes held him, insinuating and persuasive.
He saw only truth in them.
“Okay, I believe you,” he said finally.
“Then tell me how it is that you escaped when the others did
not,” she demanded. “No, don’t argue the matter. I must have
proof of your own innocence if we are to be of any use to each
other or to our friends.”
Par’s resolve to keep to himself the secret of the wishsong
slipped slowly away. Again, she was right. She was asking only
what he would have asked in her place. “I used magic,” he told