“There is no more,” answered Zamani to her annoyance. “You’ve eaten all I brought.”

“Well, I couldn’t eat another bite,” conceded Vreatt, stretching upon his back and patting his belly with a proud hand.

Voytk proclaimed, “I like Chelt.”

Takax belched hardily and leaned back on his hands.

“Well, I want more,” said Xarhn, thrusting a hand into Zamani's bag. What she retrieved was a crooked reed; small holes lined one side of it. “What’s this?” she asked, and all eyes flew to what she held. Vreatt sat up with a grunt.

Taking the reed in hand, Zamani lifted it to his lips and blew. He felt large and generous as he played for them. His breath whistled through the hollow reed, and his fingers danced upon the holes. An airy melody wafted among the five of them. It fluttered on giddy, joyful wings. It wheeled and dove low only to sail high above their heads again. Xarhn closed her eyes and pressed her smiling, uplifted face into the melody.

Zamani could not have been happier; it was, after all, the best feeling to be received, to be appreciated. How often he had wanted just this. Yagi was wrong; he did have good - maybe enough for all. The group sat in stunned silence as he returned the reed to his bag and, lest Xarhn should reach in again and lay her hand against the edge of his knife, he tied it shut.

He looked from one gaping face to the next. “I make things,” he said with a shrug.

Takax responded with sudden animation, “Me too. My family makes many things: columns, baskets, benches - whatever the Shee may need. If it can be done, we can do it.”

“My family makes wine,” added Voytk.

Vreatt finished with, “Chipstone is what my family does, but I shall not always work in stone.”

“You train to be Mithal,” said Zamani to the boy's surprise.

“How did you know?”

“Living in the nholas, I often go to Mithal-Moun. I’ve seen you many times in training.”

Takax grinned and said, “We’ve not begun to guess the half of you.”

Zamani grimaced. “If you knew me,” he said, “you might not like me.”

Xarhn challenged the group with sudden, stern words. “Anyone even looks at him wrong,” she said, “gets the back of my hand.”

Takax studied her with a broad smile upon his face, then turned back to Zamani to ask, “Really, now? What could be the worst of you? We already know that you eat bugs.”

Voytk picked up on the cue and added, “Perhaps he snores - like my father.”

“Easy . . .” Xarhn warned them. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

Zamani placed a hand on her knee as she began to rise. “I wish it was that simple,” he said. He took a deep breath and forced himself to answer the unasked question. “I’m a Gathorne.”

He watched them with no slight anticipation as they peeled away the layers of him with narrowing eyes. He saw them struggle to digest his revelation; he knew not what would come of it, but he felt suddenly free.

“We’ve never seen a Gathorne,” said Vreatt, and Voytk nodded wide-eyed and gaping. “Teller hates them, but the Mithal says there are good ones as well as bad.”

Xarhn spoke up. “Well, I don’t care what you are.”

“If that’s all it is,” said the steely-eyed Takax, “you misjudge us.”

Zamani looked at each one in turn. Might as well tell them, he thought. Their first response encouraged him, and besides that, a part of him deep inside desperately wanted to believe what Pax had said. Another part of him immediately questioned the wisdom of blabbing too soon. Should he tell them; would it be a mistake? He took another breath and pressed on.

“I am Rasha's son,” he said.

Then the baffled pause set in. It rested on him like a weight. And, what a weight it was. To that was added the intense weight of their eyes. It pressed him beyond himself. He began to buckle. He wished they would say something - anything - just stop flaying him with their eyes.

Xarhn broke the long silence. “And, your point is?” she asked.

Takax responded as if startled from a nap. He said, “Yeah, so what?”

Voytk bit his thumbnail and nodded as Vreatt reasoned, “All that we’ve ever heard are old tales of an old war. We never saw Rasha's face, but we see your face. What matters the past? Rasha is a story; you are real.”

Zamani bowed his face; he was humbled. He looked up and said, “Yagi hates me for who I am. I hoped not, but I feared that you might hate me also.”

Judiciously changing the topic of conversation, Vreatt said, “I have chores. Come home with me and meet the family.”

“I do thank you,” answered Zamani, “but I, too, have chores. Another time.”

Vreatt said, standing to leave, “Until that time, new friend, farewell.”

Voytk pouted. “I hate chores,” he said, “I want to stay.” He hung his head sadly and added, “Mother will thrash me if I come home late.”

With a quick smile and a wave goodbye, Voytk jumped to his feet and left with Vreatt.

Xarhn took a breath and moaned irritably. She said, “Oh! I must do chores, too.”

Zamani kissed her cheek and answered gently, “I’ll be back.”

“Well, you’d better,” she responded, squaring her shoulders and handing him a stern look. Then, her features softened to a warm smile. Kissing his cheek, she leapt gayly to her feet, took up the pots, and ran around the stage.

Only the muscular Takax remained. As if he had been waiting for the others to leave, he sat forward, rubbed his hands together, and looked Zamani squarely in the eye. His gaze was polished iron; his presence was worked stone. Zamani liked him. The self-assured manner in which Takax carried himself and his confident leadership of the others caused Zamani to wonder if Takax might not make a better Mithal than Vreatt.

“What chores have you?” inquired the stocky Sith. “I’ll come along and help.”

Zamani considered, then answered conspiratorially, “I go to the hels.”

“The hels? Why?”

“To open the mine.”

“Ha! No one can open the mine, not even me. It’s sealed.”

Zamani flashed a challenging grin. He leaned in and said, “You may not be able to open it, but I can.”

“Well, if you can do it, then I certainly can.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I know I can - now that you say it’s possible. But, how?”

Zamani smiled inwardly. Takax, large and strong, would be an indispensable ally in his quest; no other would do. He said, “Yagi taught me the old Peck song: make the hels, make the hels. You know it?”

“I do, but it’s been a while; I’m in high class now.”

“The song is the clue.”

Takax frowned and rubbed his wattle. “Really?” he asked. “Clue to what?”

Zamani sat back and spread his arms. “It tells us where to find the back door,” said he.

Takax was baffled. He simply repeated, “Back door?”

Zamani attempted to jog the boy's memory with a bit more of the song. He recited, “Nick the dunn, four to one, three will course unto our home . . .”

Takax thought it through aloud, “Four to one. Four to one.” Then, his face lit up and his eyes widened. “Ah!” proclaimed the boy. “Four . . . two . . . one.”

“Exactly. There is a second way in, and it’s beneath the third stone.”

“Clever,” admitted Takax, “but even so, why open the mine?”

“Think about it.”

Takax’ eyes narrowed then widened again; he had the answer: “Pyre gems.”

A slight nod of the head, a slight spreading of the hands was Zamani's congratulations for the successful deliberations of his new friend.

“So, we go to the hels,” said Takax. “Let us argue that pyre gems are needed by all; let us agree that we find the back door. Do you think you’re just going to walk in, collect gems, and bring them back in your hands?”

Zamani considered the problem; Takax was right. New gems would bake his hands just as if they were lof. They would need supplies.

He asked the boy, “What can we carry them in?”

“I’ve old caging at home,” said the stocky boy with a brag in his broad, bright smile. “I can easily rework them into larger cages.”

“We’ll need light,” said Zamani. “Can you do that, too?”

“If it can be done, I can do it,” boasted Takax, as he jumped up, eager to begin.