smelled trouble about it, that Tyr’s world went to pieces.
It was in pieces now. It had been since the time she had been cheerfully rooting
in the barracks’ kitchen-midden, and suddenly a lot of horses came, and some of
the buildings around got very bright. Tyr didn’t identify as fire the light that
sprang up among them, since fire as she understood it was something that stayed
in a little stone place in the center of the world, and didn’t bother you unless
you got too close. So, unconcerned, she had gone on rooting in the midden until
the tall thing came rushing to her and snatched her up. This annoyed Tyr; and
she became more annoyed yet when her nose told her that there had begun to be
meat lying all over. Tyr never got enough meat. But the tall one wouldn’t let
her at it. He took her to some dark place that wasn’t the center of the world,
and once there he wouldn’t be still, and wouldn’t hold her, and wouldn’t let her
out. This went on for some time. Tyr became distressed. The world was coming
undone.
Then the tall one began to smell of fear-more so than usual. He ran out and left
her, and the fraying of the world completed itself. Tyr cried out without
knowing that she did, and danced and scrabbled at the hard thing that was
sometimes a hole in the wall. But no matter what she did, it wouldn’t be a hole.
Then it occurred to her that there was another hole, up high. The tall one had
been by it, and with some frantic thought of getting close to him by being where
he had been, Tyr jumped up on things she did not know were tables and chairs,