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Show "Yari must clean camp if he wins!" a small child cried. Yari shot a hand out and rolled the youngster over in the grass. "Yari's son must clean camp!" he laughed and made to chase after him. The Zett turning the spit handed the job over to another who had come up to relieve her and walked over to the group laughing around Yari. She picked up a foot and laid it on Yari's shoulder, massaging it with her long toes. "I think the winner should find us some fruit for desert, Yari," she said. "Uuuunnngh," moaned Yari. "You know I hate to gather fruit, Lodyan!" And the group began to hiss with pentup laughter. Yari's child, who had scrambled back to the group, began jumping up and down. "And Yari always wins!" he cried. Lodyan looked at the group and at the others resting under the bushes, twenty-four of them, all of her own making, her sons and daughters, their daughters and sons. Yari was her youngest son and a favorite at that point. He was going through a charming stage, early fatherhood, proud of his young son, who naturally was the brightest, most beautiful youngster in all of Zettia. Lodyan's face opened in a grin and then she walked to the center of the clearing to stand alone in the fragrant grass. Lodyan had taken a rest from her duties as Sage and Ruler of all the Zetts and with her family had journeyed into the Northern Tartars, far from the Zett's home valley, to hunt the giant D'yanan birds and camp at the foot of the Great Peaks. They had planned also to gather some P'lini leaves to dry, for they were dangerously short of that miraculous Zettian herb-that-cured-everything. And there was evidence that they might have need of it quite soon. 281 |