Kotsoteka put his arm around her shoulder and drew her to him.

'It was a strange dream, Miki,' he said.

'I do not know its meaning, most of it,' she said. 'Only that Angry Wolf is still alive, and if I do not search for him, and bring him back to Pekeesh, the Warikeewa and the Hunyapa and all of the tribes of the great plains will perish under the tyrant Vitellius.'

'Where will you search for him?'

'I have no idea.'

'Return to your sleep now,' he said, and she closed her eyes and was soon again peaceful.

As the light of dawn stole upon them, Kotsoteka, who had remained awake, laid her to the ground and bent to wake Radulf, telling him of the strange and wonderful dream she had experienced during the early hours of the morning.

'One of us must go with her, the other must return to Pekeesh to warn the Warikeewa about Vitellius,' Radulf said, and Kotsoteka readily agreed. They set about deciding who would stay, and eventually hit upon the plan of taking two blades of grass, one longer than the other, and determining beforehand that whoever picked the shortest blade would remain with Miki. Radulf drew the shortest blade.

'I will stay with her,' Kotsoteka said, but Radulf shook his head emphatically.

'Surely you would not go against the wishes of fate?' he said. 'It has been decided. I will remain with Miki. You are better equipped to return to Pekeesh and to warn your people. I am better equipped to assist in the rescue of Marcellus.'

'It is decided,' Kotsoteka said. 'I will go now, before she wakes.'

Radulf nodded.

'That would be best. That way there can be no argument.' He watched as Kotsoteka bent over the still sleeping Miki and brushed her forehead with his lips.

'Look after her,' he said. 'She is precious to me.' Radulf frowned, but said nothing. Then Kotsoteka was gone, into the mists of the dawn. Miki awoke some time later to find Radulf sitting beside her.

'Kotsoteka has gone,' he said.

'I knew he would.'

'One of us had to go. We decided. He lost.'

'He lost?'

'I was elected to stay with you.'

'You would not rather have returned to Barbessel?'

It had been on the tip of his tongue to say 'I would rather remain with you', but instead he said: 'We decided that I was best equipped to help you search for Marcellus.'

'Come along, then,' she said, and leaped to her feet.

'Eat first,' Radulf said, handing her a f'oi, freshly picked before Kotsoteka had taken his leave of them. A while later they returned to the cliff top where Marcellus had last been seen, plunging to an apparently inevitable death. Radulf lowered himself to his stomach and peered over the edge.

'There is nothing to be seen,' he said, flatly.

'Kotsoteka, did he tell you of my dream?' Miki asked.

'Yes, he told me.'

'Everything?'

'He could not remember everything. He told me most of what he could remember. I am sure he left things out. Some of it was quite meaningless to me.'

'In my dream, I was given a herb and a weapon to save the life of Angry Wolf. He is still alive, maybe only just alive. We have to find him. Somewhere I am convinced I will find this herb to save him and bring him back safely.'

'I do not know how we are going to get down there,' Radulf said. 'Even if you were to use the spikes as footholds.....'

'Come on!' Miki said impatiently, and lowered herself over the edge. The cliff was more or less totally perpendicular, its surface broken by spiked and jagged edges. Here and there the face was green, where it had sometime in the past been made wet, and algae and tiny shrubs and herbs had taken a tenuous hold. Radulf did not hesitate. He lowered himself onto the first spike, but was dismayed to find that it broke off as he put his weight on it. He called a warning to Miki, who was already halfway down the cliff, not to put too much weight on the spikes, for they were extremely brittle. He made slow but steady progress down the face, and found her clinging to a small ledge, perhaps twenty feet from the water and the jagged rocks that pierced its surface.

'There are no more handholds or footholds,' she said anxiously.

'That was what I was afraid of,' Radulf said. He peered below him, for he was now on a level with her. The face was absolutely smooth from where they clung, to the bottom, where the most vicious spikes towered up.

'The water is decidedly choppy,' Radulf observed, seeing the foam and the spray as it cascaded against the cliff face.

'I thought it was a pool,' Miki said.

'I thought it was, also.'

'Then what is there to make it choppy? It was not like this yesterday.'

'They said there were sea silthen in the pool.'

'It is not a pool at all!' Miki cried. 'Those are waves! It is a tide!'

Sure enough, even as they had been speaking, the level of the waters had risen several inches, and the distance to the surface from where they were was now only some fifteen feet. They gazed at each other with expressions of anxiety and excitement, knowing that there was no going back to the top.

'If we wait until the water reaches us,' Radulf said, 'we can swim off the face.'

'And into the jaws of the sea silthen!'

'I don't see any other way,' he said, and she nodded her agreement. They waited a few more minutes, and then the waters were lapping gently at their feet.

'You can swim, I suppose?' he asked. For answer, she let go of her handhold and slithered the last few feet into the water, and stayed there, bobbing gently, as Radulf watched for signs of the sea silthen. Satisfied that they were for the time being safe, he joined her in the water.

'There has to be a way out of the pool, into the eastern ocean,' he said. 'I will swim across to the opposite side.'

'I will come with you. Better we stay together.'

'If there is a way out, which there must be, it is quite possible that the sea silthen are out in the open sea at this time.'

'I hope so.'

They swam easily to the opposite side, where the cliff face was identical in every way to the one they had just descended. They remained there, treading water for a time, surveying the pool, satisfying themselves that they were in no immediate danger from sea silthen or anything else.

'I will dive, to see if there is a way through to the ocean,' Radulf said, and before Miki could make any protest, he had disappeared. For what seemed an eternity, she waited, anxiety building inside her, until he came to the surface again, spluttering and brushing his wet hair out of his face.

'I could not see anything,' he said. 'We will have to go around the edge of the pool, diving at regular intervals until we find something.'

'We will take it in turns,' she said.

'I do not like that idea,' Radulf said, but she smiled briefly and dove beneath the surface, giving him the briefest glimpse of her perfectly rounded buttocks. After perhaps a half minute she reappeared, shaking her head, and they moved another ten or so feet along the perimeter of the rock pool. Radulf dove again, and again resurfaced having found no exit. Miki removed her tunic and handed it to him.

'What are you doing?' he demanded.

'It will be easier for me to swim beneath the surface without the encumbrance of clothing,' she said, and he could see her small, firm breasts bobbing beneath the water. Then she was gone, this time for a much longer period, and when she at last broke the surface        she seemed to rise right up out of the water, and for the merest second he saw her, naked and beautiful. It took her several seconds to refill her lungs with air. He wanted to clasp her to him, to help in some way, but he remained some way off,struggling to come to terms with his thoughts. Finally she was able to speak.

'Down there!' she gasped, pointing directly below her. 'It is a long way down! I saw light.....down there.....a long way down.....you must take a deep breath.....'

'Should we hold on to each other?' he asked, and she nodded.

'Give me a moment to get plenty of air in my lungs,' she gasped. 'Ready? Take my hand.'