As Yattmur ran into the pouring rain, one of the creatures jumped forward with its nodding wooden head and barred her way.

'Yagrapper yow you stay sleeping in the sleeping cave, mother lady. Coming through the rap-yap-rain is coming bad things that we fellows have no like. So we bite and tear and bite. Brrr buff best you stay away yap yay from sight of our teeth.'

She flinched from its clutch, hearing the drum of rain on its crude helmet mingle with its baffling mixture of growls, yaps, and words.

'Why should I not stay out here?' she asked. 'Are you afraid of me? What is happening?'

'Catch– carry-kind come yum yap and catch you! Grrr, let him catch you!'

It pushed Yattmur and leaped away to join its mates. The helmeted creatures were leaping about over their sledge, quarrelling as they sorted out their bows and arrows. The tummy-belly trio stood close by, cuddling each other and pointing along the slope.

The cause of all the excitement was a group of figures moving slowly towards Yattmur's party. At first, squinting through the downpour, she thought only two things were approaching; then they separated to reveal themselves as three – and for the life of her she could not make out what, in their oddity, they might be. But the sharp-furs knew.

'Catchy carry kind, catchy carry kind! Killy catchy carry kind!' they seemed to be calling, growing frenzied about it. But the trio advancing through the rain, for all their peculiarity, did not look menacing even to Yattmur. The sharp-furs however, were leaping in the air with lust; one or two were already taking aim with their bows through the wavering curtains of rain.

'Stop! Don't hurt them, let them come!' Yattmur shouted. 'They can't harm us.'

'Catchy carry kind! You you yap you keep quiet, lady, and be not any harm or take harm!' they called, unintelligble with excitement. One of them charged at her, head first, banging his gourd helmet against her shoulder. In fear of him she turned and ran, blindly at first and then with purpose.

She could not deal with the sharp-furs: but probably Gren and the morel could.

Squelching and splashing, she ran back to her own cave. Unthinkingly, she plunged right in.

Gren stood against the wall by the entrance, half-concealed. She was past him before she realized it, only turning as he began to bear down on her.

Helpless with shock, she screamed and screamed, her mouth sagging toothily wide at the sight of him.

The surface of the morel was black and pustular now – and it had slipped down so that it covered all his face. Only his eyes gleamed sickly in the midst of it as he jumped forward at her.

She sank to her knees. It was all she could manage at the moment in the way of evasive action, so completely had the sight of that huge cancerous growth on Gren's shoulders unnerved her.

'Oh Gren!' she gasped weakly.

He bent and took her roughly by her hair. The physical pain of this cleared her mind; though she trembled like a hill under a landslide of emotion, her wits returned to her.

'Gren, the morel thing is killing you,' she whispered.

'Where's the baby?' he demanded. Though his voice was muffled, it had too an additional remoteness, a twanging quality, that gave her one more item for alarm. 'What have you done with the baby, Yattmur?"

Cringing, she said, 'You don't speak like yourself any more, Gren. What's happening? You know I don't hate you – tell me what's happening, so that I can understand.*

'Why have you not brought the baby?'

'You're not like Gren any more. You're – you're somehow the morel now, aren't you? You talk with his voice.'

'Yattmur – I need the baby.'

Struggling to her feet though he still clasped her hair, she said, as steadily as possible, 'Tell me what you want Laren for.'

"The baby is mine and I need him. Where have you put him?'

She pointed to the gloomy recesses of the cave.

'Don't be silly, Gren. He's lying back there behind you, at the back of the cave, fast asleep.'

Even as he looked, as his attention was diverted, she wrenched herself out of his grip, ducked under his arm, and ran. Squeaking with terror, she burst into the open.

Again the rain soused down on to her face, bringing her back to a world she had left – though that horrifying glimpse of Gren had seemed to last for ever – little more than a moment before. From where she stood, the hillside cut off that strange trio the sharp-furs had called the catchy-carry-kind, but the group about the sledge was clearly visible. It stood in a tableau, tummy-bellies and sharp-furs motionless, looking over towards her, diverted from their other business by her screams.

She ran over to them, glad for all their irrationality to be with them again. Only then did she look back.

Gren had followed her from the cave mouth and there had stopped. After pausing indecisively, he went back and disappeared. The sharp-furs muttered and chattered to themselves, evidently awed by what they had seen. Taking advantage of the situation, Yattmur pointed back at Gren's cave and said, 'Unless you obey me, that terrible mate of mine with the deadly sponge face will come and devour you all. Now, let these other people approach, and don't harm them until they offer us harm.'

'Catchy– carry-kind no yap yap good!' they burst out.

'Do as I say or the sponge-face will devour you, ears and fur and all!'

The three slowly moving figures were nearer now. Two of them were human in outline, if very thin, though the weird biscuit light pervading everywhere made detail impossible to discern. The figure that most intrigued Yattmur was the one bringing up the rear. Though it walked on two legs, it differed considerably from its companions in being taller and seeming to have an enormous head. At times it appeared to have a second head below the first, to possess a tail, and to be walking with its hands clutched round its upper skull. But the deluge, as well as part-concealing it, gave it a shimmering halo of rebounding rain drops which defied vision.

To add to Yattmur's impatience, the odd trio now stopped. Although she called to them to come on, they ignored her. They stood perfectly still on the flooded hillside – and gradually one of the human figures blurred round the edges, became translucent, disappeared!

Both tummy-bellies and sharp-furs, obviously impressed by Yattmur's threat, had fallen silent. At the disappearance, they set up a murmur, although the sharp-furs showed little surprise.

'What's going on over there?' Yattmur asked one of the tummy-bellies.

'Very much a strange thing to take in the ears, sandwich lady. Several strange things! Through the nasty wet rain come two spiriters and a nasty catchy-carry-kind creature having a nasty carry on a number three spiriter in the wet rain. So the sharp-fur gods are crying with many a bad thought!'

What they said made little sense to Yattmur. Suddenly angered with them, she said, 'Tell the sharp-furs to keep quiet and get back into the cave. I'm going to meet these new people.'

'These fine sharp gods do not do what you say with no tail,' the tummy-belly replied, but Yattmur ignored him.

She began to walk forward with her arms outspread and her hands open to show she intended no harm. As she went, though the thunder still bumped over the nearby hills, the rain petered to a drizzle and stopped. The two creatures ahead became more clearly visible – and suddenly there were three of them again. A blurred outline took on substance, becoming a thin human being who stared ahead at Yattmur with the same watchful gaze as his two companions.

Disturbed by this apparition, Yattmur came to a halt. At this the bulky figure moved forward, calling out as he came, pushing past his companions.

'Creatures of the evergreen universe, the Sodal Ye of the catchy-carry-kind comes to you with the truth. See you are fit to receive it!'