Dwer rocked back, cursing and wiping his face, while Mudfoot grinned innocently, happily.

“Quiet, you two! I think I see how to get a little closer—”

“No, Rety. You mustn’t!” Ignoring the noor, Dwer crept back to the edge and found her at last, close to the ground, perched with a leg on either side of a giant vine, squinting through the gloomy tangle at the mysterious avian.

“Took you long enough to catch up,” Rety commented.

“I … had some distractions,” he replied. “Now just wait a second, will you? There’s — some things you ought to know about this — about this here mulc-spider.” He motioned at the snarled mesh surrounding them. “It’s more, well, dangerous than you realize.”

“Hey, I been exploring webs since I was little,” she replied. “Most are dead, but we got a few big ones in the Hills, still full o’ sap and nasty stuff. I know my way around.” She swung her leg over the branch and slipped forward.

In a panic, Dwer blurted out — “Did any of those spiders try to catch you?”

She stopped, turned to face him again, and smirked.

“Is that what you meant by crazy?Oh, hunter. You got some imagination.”

Maybe you’re right, he pondered. That could be why he never heard of anyone else holding conversations with shrubs and lakes.

{What, again? How many times must we speak before you are convinced—}

Shut up and let me think!

The spider’s presence backed off again. Dwer bit his lip, trying to come up with something, anything, to keep the girl from venturing deeper into the thicket.

“Look, you’ve been following that bird-machine for some time, right? Is that what led you west in the first place?”

She nodded. “One day some o’ the boys saw a critter swoop out of a marsh, down by the Rift. Mean ol’ Jass winged it, but it got away, leaving a feather behind.”

She plucked something out of her leather blouse. Dwer glimpsed a brief metal sparkle before she put it away.

“I swiped it from Jass before I snuck out to go after the bird. Poor thing must’ve been hurt, ’cause by the time I picked up the trail, it wasn’t flyin’ so good. Kind of gliding for a stretch, then hoppin’ along. I only got one good look. Upslope to the Rimmers it started pullin’ ahead. Then I reached the Slope, and it came to me that I risked getting hanged every dura that I stayed.”

She shivered, a memory of fear.

“I was about to give up and head back home for a beatin’, when I heard a tapping sound in the night. I followed it, and for a minute I thought the clock teet was my bird!” She sighed. “That’s when I saw you, snorin’ away, with that fancy bow of yours lyin’ nearby. Figured it’d make Jass an’ Bom happy enough to forget knockin’ my teeth out for runnin’ off.”

Dwer had never heard their names before but decided a rope was too good for some sooners.

“That’s why you came all this way? To follow that bird-thing?”

Rety answered with a shrug. “I don’t spect you’d understand.”

On the contrary, he thought. It was what he himself would have done, if something so strange ever crossed his path.

{As would I, were I not rooted to this spot, ensnared by my own limitations. Are we not alike?}

Dwer chased the spider out — and the next instant an idea glimmered, offering a possible way out of this mess, as Rety slid off the branch and began to sidle forward, holding a slim blade that Dwer had never found when he searched her, the day before. It gleamed with razor sharpness.

“Wait. I— think about it, Rety. Shouldn’t we work together? Wouldn’t we do a better job getting it out?”

She stopped and seemed to consider the idea, looking up through the branches. “I’m listenin’.”

Dwer frowned, concentrating on getting the words right. “Look… nobody on the Slope has seen an active Buyur machine since — well, long before humans came to Jijo. This is important. I want to get that thing out of there as much as you do.”

All of which was true, or would have been if his first concern weren’t saving the girl’s life and his own. Stall for time, Dwer thought. There’s only a midura of daylight left. Get her to retreat till tomorrow. Then you can drag her away by force if you have to.

“Go on,” Rety said. “You want to come down an’ chop with your big knife? I bet you’d splatter, hacking at live vines. Lotta pain that way, if the sap goes spraying around.” Still, she seemed interested.

“Actually, I know a way that won’t bruise a single branch but might spread a hole big enough to get your bird-thing out. We’d use some of the — um, natural resources handy hereabouts.”

“Yeah?” She frowned. “The only stuff around here is rock, and dirt, and—”

Her eyes lit. “Boo!”

He nodded. “We’ll cut some young shoots, trim them tonight, and return in the morning with bridges and ladders to cross on top of the boulders — and enough pry bars to spread a path through all this” — he waved at the surrounding thicket — “without spilling any acid or gunk on ourselves. We’ll get your birdie-thing out long before it’s sealed in a crystal egg, and march right up to the sages with a surprise that’ll make a hoon’s spine pop. How does that sound?”

Dwer saw distrust in her eyes. She was naturally suspicious, and he had never been a very good liar. When she glanced back at the trapped mystery machine, he knew she must be gauging whether it could hold out overnight. “It still looks strong,” he told her. “If it lasted in there several days, one more night shouldn’t make that much difference.”

Rety lowered her head, pondering. “Might even be good if its wings got stickier. Won’t be able to fly off when we free it.” She nodded. “All right. Let’s go cut us some boo.”

With one hesitant, longing scan behind her, Rety swung her legs over the thick branch and reached up to begin climbing. She carefully examined each hand or foothold before committing herself, eyeing it for caustic leaks, then testing whether the next vine would bear her weight. Clearly, she was an experienced explorer.

But Rety had never ventured through a spider like this one. When she was about a third of the way through the twisty tangle, she suddenly winced, withdrawing her hand and staring at a single pale-golden droplet, glistening on the back of her wrist. It did not burn, or she would have screamed. For a moment, she seemed more entranced by the color than afraid.

“Quick, shake it off!” Dwer cried.

She complied. The glob flew into the foliage. But instantly there followed two more soft splatting sounds. A drop appeared on her shoulder, and one in her hair. Rety looked up to see where they came from — and took one more in the middle of her forehead. Cursing, she tried wiping it off — but managed only to smear it down her cheek. Rety backed away rapidly.

“Not that way!” Dwer urged. He saw some active vines snake toward her, golden dew oozing .from crevices. Rety hissed in dismay, taking more drops in her hair as she scrambled in a new direction.

{Tell her not to fight. There need be no pain.}

Dwer’s angry snarl was voiceless, inarticulate, hurling the spider’s mind-touch away. He shrugged the bow off of his shoulder, leaving it atop the boulder, and began clambering down to the girl. Vaguely, he was aware that the noor had departed, sensibly fleeing danger. Unlike some fools I know, Dwer thought, slipping the machete out of its sheath.

“I’m coming, Rety,” he said, testing his weight on a branch. Dwer saw Rety try to ascend by another route, easily evading the sluggishly pursuing vines.

“Don’t bother!” she called. “I’m all right. I don’t need your hel— ack!”

The branch she was holding, which had seemed inert moments before, suddenly beaded a line of golden moisture. Rety recoiled, cursing. Several drops adhered to her hand. “Don’t rub them!” Dwer urged.