"You show much forgiveness for the beast that ate your father."

"I understand that it was an accident. The kenabik probably didn't even know he was eating him. There was no malice in-volved. My father took a risk and failed." Two red stones shone in White Crow's rigid face. I turned away.

Ayanawatta had recovered his bow and quiver while White Crow collected all the fire he could find back into the pot. The little lean-to we had put up against the rainy breeze was totally trampled, so again Bes gave us her massive bulk for shelter. The two of us slept warily as White Crow elected to keep watch until dawn.

I woke once to see his profile set against the grey strip of light on the horizon, and it seemed to me he had not moved. When I woke again, his face and head were set exactly as I had seen them hours earlier. He resembled one of those extraordinary, infinitely beautiful marbles of the Moldavian Captives Michelangelo had carved for the French pope. Infinitely sad, infinitely aware of the cold truth of their coming fate.

Once again I felt an urgent wish to take him in my arms and comfort him. An unexpected desire to bring warmth to a lonely, uncomplaining soul.

He turned at that moment, and his puzzled gaze met mine. Then, with a small sigh, he gave his attention back to the distant mountains. He recognized what was in my eyes. He had seen it before. He had a cause. A dream to live out. His destiny was the only comfort he allowed himself.

When we woke it was drizzling hard. White Crow had pulled a robe over his shoulders as he struggled to settle the great saddle on his mammoth's back. Ayanawatta moved to help him. Everything smelled of rain. The whole sky was dark grey. It was impossible to see more than twenty yards ahead. The mountains, of course, had vanished.

I wrapped myself tightly against the cold and wet. The mammoth rose to her feet, groaning and muttering at the winter wind stiffening her joints. We had not tried to make a fresh fire the night before, and our firepot was low, so we ate cold jerky as we rode.

We followed the kenabik's bloodstained trail. Bes had injured him enough at least to slow him down.

We were warier than usual, because we knew the kenabik might be waiting in cover to attack. The steady rain finally stopped. The wind dropped.

The world was strangely silent. What sounds there were became amplified and isolated as the going became harder through the soaking grasslands. Occasionally the sky cleared and thin sunbeams banded the distant tundra. The mountains, however, remained hidden. We heard the splash of frogs and small animals in the nearby water. We smelled the strong, acrid aroma of rotting grass from an old nest, and then once again came the sudden hissing wind bringing rain. We heard the steady sound of Bes's feet as she carried us stolidly on after our prey. We reached a kind of wallow, a muddy bayou filled with weed. It was clear the monster had rested, attempting to eat some of the weed. We also found the halfdigested remains of various smaller mammals and reptiles. White Crow had been right. This creature was too specialized to survive here. Also the wound was clearly more serious than we had originally guessed. There were signs that he had made a crude attempt to stanch a flow of blood with some of the grass. How intelligent was this creature?

I asked Ayanawatta his opinion. He was not sure. He had learned, he said, not to measure intelligence by his own standards. He preferred to assume that every creature was as conscious as himself but in different ways. It was as well, he said, to give every creature the respect you would give yourself.

I could not entirely accept this view. I told him that I could not believe, however conscious they might be, that animals possess a moral sensibility. And the most unstable of rocks are poor conversationalists.

Almost immediately, I found myself smiling, amused by my own presumption. Not long before, I had been accusing my husband of being insufficiently imaginative. Ayanawatta was silent for a moment, raising his eyebrows. "I may be mistaken, " he said, "but I seem to recall an adventure I once had among the rock giants. They are, indeed, extremely laconic."

The sideways glance he threw in my direction was humorous. White Crow slipped suddenly down Bes's flank without stopping her progress and began to pad beside her, studying the muddy creek. It reminded me of what Ulric must have seen in the trenches at the end of the first war. The kenabik had clearly been in agony, rolling over and over in an effort to stop the pain.

Our hunt took on a peculiar gravity. It had something of the air of a funeral procession.

The rain came down harder until we could scarcely see for the sweeping sheets of water. As we descended a long hill, we confronted a stand of tough, green grass that reached almost to Bes's shoulder. She found it difficult to walk on through. White Crow told her to turn and move back to a better place. Slowly she crushed her way out of the confining growth and made for the high ground again. Then through the pounding rain we heard the kenabik. No longer did it squawk and scream and moan as it had done. No longer did its voice have the fading note of pain and self-pity. The sound had the fullness of a baritone, rhythmic and slow, the noise of a bull-roarer, booming from that massive diaphragm.

White Crow took a slender spear from the long quiver. The edges were tipped with silver, the shaft bound with ivory and copper. With this, he again dismounted and was quickly lost in the rain and deep grass.

Bes came to a stop, turning her head as if she feared for him.

"What is the kenabik doing now?" I asked Ayanawatta.

"I am not sure, " said the warrior, frowning, "but I think he is singing his death song."

The beast's voice grew deeper still, and something connected with me. I could feel his bewildered mind reaching into mine, questing for something. Not me. Not me. There was a mutual repulsion. Curiosity. An almost grateful quality as the monster tasted tentatively at my identity.

All the time that song went on. Somehow I believed he was telling the story of his people, of their glory, of their virtue and their destruction. A psychologist would consider this transference, would argue that the beast could not feel such complicated emotions and ideas. Yet, as Ayanawatta said, who are we to measure the value or quality of another's perceptions?

I could not bring myself to bond with the kenabik's brain. It was too unlike anything I understood. It dreamed of tall fields of cane and thick, nourishing ferns, and its song began to reflect this dream more and more. A harmony grew between the strange view of Paradise and the thrumming voice. Whatever it is in sentient creatures that needs to communicate, that is what I heard. It was a confused, frightened mixture of half-understood images and feelings. Who else could the dying creature reach out to? Another voice entered the song, taking the melody until it was impossible to tell which was which.

In response to this, the monster abruptly shifted its attention elsewhere. I was, I must admit, deeply relieved. While it could not be the first time I had attended a dying spirit, this strange, anachronistic being found little comfort from me.

The clouds parted for a moment or two, and the rain passed. We saw that we stood in waist-high grass. Some distance off, with his back to us, was White Crow. From his stance and the position of his head I understood the kenabik to be somewhere below him. Then, out of the misty foliage, I saw a beaked head rise. Huge yellow eyes sought the source of the other song. The eyes were filled with baffled gratitude. As it died, the monster received grace.

The clouds rolled in again. I saw White Crow lift his silver-tipped spear. Both songs ended.

We waited for a long time. The rain lashed down, and the wind blew the grass into glistening waves. We had become used to these blustering elemental attacks. At last Ayanawatta and I made a decision. We dismounted, telling Bes to remain where she was unless she needed to escape danger, and pressed on through the fleshy stalks surrounding us, our moccasins sinking into the thick, glutinous mud. Ayanawatta paused, cautioning me to silence, and he listened. Slowly I became aware of soft footfalls.