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Show XIX "Love of one wight for another is of four kinds: 'Tis either what it appears to be-love in full measure, or neither is it love nor appears it to be love, or 'tis love and yet does not appear to be love, or it is not love at all and yet has somewhat the appearance of love. 'Tis a wise wight indeed who can distinguish wherewith lies the truth in such a muddle." from Saint Ida on the Subject of Love, NewOxbridge Hardcopy Archives It was four-fifteen that morning when Dr'Anya and Janni were quietly leading their saddled and blanketed JackPonies out of the stable and turning north to pass the PostHouse on its blind end. Using starshine to pick their way up the PostRoad to the FirstFork-for BauerWorlde had no moon-Dr'Anya passed her usual turnoff, a wide, graveled and cobbled road up to their left into the Zettian Valleys and went on for some five kilometers farther to a fork that looked to be little more than a goat trail. It was, in fact, a short cut of heart-stopping steepness, a little used route for especially intrepid travelers on JackPonies whose delicately articulated feet could handle the narrow, rubble-strewn tracks cut into the sheer cliff sides. The trail was a back way into an abandoned pitchblende mining community called Round Valley. By dawn they were a thousand meters up this path, and it was a good thing that the sky was lightening by then-the heights were no place to pick over in the dark, even for the nimble-footed JackPonies. At length they were threading their way through a meter-wide slit between two 176 |
