Skywise answered Dilah's smile.
"I'm glad you aren't angry at me anymore, for making you break your oath."
Dilah shook her head. Her black braids twisted like a nest of ribbon-snakes.
"I'm very sorry about it. If there is any way I can make it up to you..."
Dilah gestured with her hand for him to move closer. When he stood beside the window, she climbed down and stood beside him.

Then she kissed him, once again without warning. She wrapped her arms and her whole body around him. When Skywise could breathe again he whispered:
"Oh, yes, oh High Ones yes."
Dilah laughed her soundless laughter once more. She put her hand in his and led him inside. Once there, she closed the curtains and lit some candles. The light revealed disturbing details - a faded bloody handprint on the wall, a knife with a jagged edge resting on a table, a zwoot skull in a corner. But the soft glow also illuminated homely things - the cat's sleeping basket, a torn skirt with a needle and a ball of thread beside it on a chair, and the strong, warm colours of tapestries and pillows.

The six candles surrounded the pit-bed more or less evenly placed. It was obvious where the girl wanted to centre his attention.

Dilah began to undress. She danced slowly as she did it, making it a flirt, a performance. Then she gestured Skywise to lie down on the bed. She straddled him and started undressing him, beginning with the headpiece. She did not touch the lodestone, instead she opened his belt and rid him of his tunic. Then she changed position, still sitting on his stomach but with her back to him now, and removed his boots and trousers. Then his red underpants.

Dilah lay down on him, her head between his legs, his between hers. It was so simple, keeping her mouth full, she thought. And not unpleasant at all. Not with him doing his share of the pleasure-giving. A strange thing happened - their bloodsongs were so well tuned to each other that they reached the moment of deep satisfaction together, sharing it.

They tried other positions and forms of joining after that. Dilah took care to kiss him a lot, anywhere her mouth reached. Once her passion betrayed her and she bit him on the shoulder. He howled but it didn't sound like pain, it sounded like pleasure.

Finally she fell asleep in his arms. Skywise was in no hurry to leave her; he had told Cutter he would not attend the hunt tonight. The taste of blood had been all too vivid in his memory of the dream. So, although he was not particularly tired, he lay down beside her on the small pit-bed. The white cat stretched herself in the basket and walked to curl up in the bend of Dilah's knee. Soon its purring filled the hut with a sound of peace and deep contentment.

Contentment such as only animals can reach.

After a while, a sweet, high voice spoke:
"Mother, I'm fine. Don't you worry. This is my life."
Skywise stared at Dilah. Her eyes remained closed, but her mouth had spoken the words in her sleep, unbeknownst to her. Her dreams obeyed no oaths.

Her voice was a female voice, a stranger's voice. Not Tam's. And that was how Skywise knew he was not the one dreaming.

"Mother, the herb garden has gone to weed. Father, look at these worms! Ugly worms eating your cabbages... stupid worms don't know how to ... how to ... how to dance. Dance in the air, dance for the sun, the sun alone in the desert dreaming his wavering visions ... I have drunk the dreams of the sun, of footsteps and floating mountains ... mountains where I hunt, where I never hunt ... life is a black mothfabric all in shreds, and stars are the eyes ..."

She fell silent. Skywise tried hard not to laugh at worms not knowing how to dance and mountains floating. He had to clasp his hand on his mouth to silence himself. He would never tell Dilah she spoke in her sleep. That would be a cruelty. The last thing he wanted now was to wake her.

He had no idea what had changed Dilah's attitude towards him, but he thanked the High Ones for it. Neither could he guess what had kindled her passion to such raging flames, to such a total loss of control.

Timmorn's blood, what a joining!