_And warm_, Shind added. _It comes in handy in this weather. I think John is returning. Why don't you tell him where you want to go now?_

Jackara stared at the approaching figure, then, "John," she called out, "take me back to the castle with the fiery moat. To Earth."

Morwin took her hand and nodded.

"Let's go," he said.

One day there came a spring, curled and dotted, soft, green and brown, moist, and birds wheeled in the blue, shedding tumultuous notes of inquiry; the breezes were salt amid cool from the sea that rolled as it rolled five thousand years ago; and the fires of the world were contained in proper chambers far beneath their feet, as they passed, slowly, amid the trees, the fields, the fresh-scrubbed hills.

Walking on within the globe of his desire, he thought of Pels, for he thought of music, invisible, weightless, consistent in terms of its own logic. He did not think of Francis Sandow, Heidel von Hymack or even the Commander, for she had just said, "It's a nice day," and yes, he thought, cloud in the sky, squirrel on the branch, girl, give it that much, give it that.