listening. Beside him he could hear Edhya's breathing, and Proya's; it was hard to hear anything else beyond that. As quietly as possible he arose, went to the door of his tent, stepped outside. Vas was not on watch, and neither was anyone else.
Quietly, quietly he went to Vas's tent. Gone, and Sevet, too- but baby Vasnaminanya was still there. Elemak's heart filled with rage at the monstrosity of it. Whatever Vas was planning - either to abandon his daughter or kill the child's mother - it was unspeakable.
I will find him, thought Elemak, and when I do he will pay for this. I knew there were fools on this journey, fools and dolts and weaklings, but I never knew there was someone so cruel-hearted. I never knew that Vas was capable of this. I never knew Vas at all, I think. And I never will, because as soon as I find him he'll be dead.
It was so easy, leading them down the mountain. Their trust in him was complete. It was the payoff for his year of pretending not to mind that they had betrayed him. If he had ever shown even a spark of anger, beyond a certain coldness toward Obring, there was no chance the man would have trusted him enough to come along like a hog to the slaughter. But Obring did trust him, and Sevet too, in her sullen way.
The path itself had some difficulty - more than once he had to help them through a tricky place. But in the moonlight they often couldn't see how very dangerous a passage it was, and whenever it was hard, he would stay and help them. So carefully taking Sevet's hand and guiding her down a slope, or between two rocks. Whispering: "Do you see the limb you must hold on to, Obring?" And Obring's answer, "Yes," or a nod, I see it, I can handle it, Vas, because I'm a man. What a laugh. What a joke on Obring, who is so pathetically proud to be included in this great plan. How I will weep when we come down to carry the bodies back up the mountain. How the others will cry for me as I hold my little daughter in my arms, crooning to her about her lost mother, and how she is an orphan now. An orphan - but one named for her father. And I will raise her so no trace of her traitorous mother remains in her. She will be a woman of honor, who would never betray a good man who would have forgiven her anything but to give her body to her own sister's husband, that contemptible, slimy little social climber. You let him empty his little tin cup into you, Sevet, my dear, and so I will have done with you.
"Here's the place where Nafai and I tried to cross over," he whispered to them. "See how we had to traverse that bare rock, shining in the moonlight?"
Obring nodded.
"But the ledge that saved his life is the real path," said Vas. "There's one hard place - a drop of two meters - but then it's a smooth passage along the face of the cliff, and then we reach the easy part, right down to the beach."
They followed him past the place where he had silently watched Nafai's struggle. When it was clear that Nafai was going to make it after all, then he had called out and come to help him. Now he would help them down onto the ledge. Only he would not climb down to join them. Instead he would kick Obring in the head and send him over the side. Sevet would understand then. Sevet would know why he had brought her here. And she would, at long last, beg him for forgiveness. She would plead with him for understanding, she would weep, she would sob for him. And his answer would be to pick up the heaviest stones he could find and throw them down on her, until she had to run along the ledge. He would drive her to the narrow place and still he would throw stones until finally she stumbled or was knocked off balance. She would fall then, and scream, and he would hear the sound and treasure it in his heart forever.
Then, of course, he would climb down the true path to the bottom, and find their broken bodies where the pulse had been. If one of them happened somehow