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birds to land and ran to shoo them away.

Birds they watch for, but not devils.

Did this mean that the Old Ones had already befriended the devils? Or perhaps they had already conquered them and forced them into submission.

Or-was it possible?-the devils had been so-stealthy, and the Old Ones so careless, that they had not yet noticed that the devils were watching them.

Surely the Old Ones could see some fragment of what pTo could sec. During the day he had watched as more than a dozen different parties of devils arose out of the earth or emerged onto branches of trees, to watch. pTo had seen several of the devils taking note of him, too, and was sure that they were plotting some way to take him, or at least drive him off The devils were clever, but not that clever. Or were the Old Ones merely unobservant? How could they have become so powerful if they were too stupid to notice things as important as where the devils were, what they were watching, where they were laying their traps?

The sun set.

Now was the time, pTo knew, when the devils would spring whatever trap it was that they had been planning all day. Night was also when they would do their thieving and spying on the Old Ones. He could already see in the waning light that devils were gathering at meadow's edge; yet the Old Ones gave no alarm, and seemed to set only the most inadequate watch-one male, walking around carrying a lamp in his hands (and never spilling it!). A lamp-it made no sense. Why not just shout, "I'm coming, get out of my way, hide from me so I can't see you!" pTo heard a faint rubbing sound and felt his branch vibrate. For a moment he was tempted to wait, to tease the devil, to pretend that he didn't know he was being stalked. But then he thought: Perhaps this is all the warning I'll get. Perhaps the devil is closer than I think. And if I linger for even a moment longer... .

He lunged for the sky and as he did he heard a hiss of disappointment right behind him, so loud and close that he imagined he could feel the devil's breath on his back. That is how people die, he thought. Waiting just a little too long to take to the sky.

He swooped, then rose up high enough to soar for a few moments. He was a little stiff from his posture of stillness during the day. It would have been better if he could have set his hands and feet and hung upside down-but then he would have been in danger of falling asleep. No, stiffness was the price of remaining in an upright posture all day, without moving. Though from what he had seen of the Old Ones, pTo wondered if he needed to be so careful. He could probably do a jig and sing a song, and the Old Ones wouldn't see him.

He knew that the devils would be out in the Old Ones' meadows now, but he felt he had to take a risk and gather up samples of the grasses they were growing in such perfect unison. He went to the ripest field first and saw at once that the danger there was extreme. The stalks weren't strong enough to hold him, and yet were tall enough to interfere with flight. Worst of all, the breeze rustled them constantly so that pTo wouldn't be able to hear any of the faint noises the devils might make moving through the grass. He dared not settle to the ground there-every devil in the grass would have seen him, though he couldn't see any of them at all, and there was a chance he would come down within a few handspans of one of them and never know it till the powerful hands clamped around his legs or arms, or ripped into the tough, thin skin of his wings.

He dared not come to ground, and yet he did it, because he would not go home without some trophy of his expedition. The secrets he had learned were the most valuable things he could bring back, he knew, but it would go better for him in withstanding Boboi's criticism if he also had something in his hands. So he came to ground and immediately started breaking off stalks as near the ground as he could. He didn't bother to look around him.