"I called to you, Jenny, because I believe you have the best understanding of the situation," Chex said. "We believe we have come to understand enough of it to enable us to appreciate Godiva Goblin's motive in abducting our foal. Gwendolyn will be killed if she evinces any significant weakness, and a centaur companion can both alleviate and conceal that weakness. Cheiron and I have undertaken not to tell. Isn't it true that Gwendolyn is blind?"

"No. She can see. Just not very well, no better than I can, and they can't put spectacles on her because then the goblins would know. But Che really can help her, and—oh, I didn't want to tell him to do it—I knew he should come home—but I just couldn't let Gwenny die, and neither could he! We just couldn't!" She was crying again, tormented by the difficulty of the decision even after it had been made.

And Gwendolyn's mother could not stand by and let her daughter be killed, either. Chex knew exactly how that was. That was what made it impossible to hate Godiva. She had indeed done what a mother had to do.

"You don't see well without your spectacles, Jenny," Chex said. "How did you manage, back in the World of Two Moons? Weren't you almost blind, there?"

"Well, yes, with my eyes. But it didn't matter so much, because of the sending."

"The what?"

"The sending. It doesn't seem to work in Xanth."

"Exactly what is it, Jenny?"

"It—it's sort of a mind connection. When there's an emergency, the chief can call everyone in the tribe, without making a sound. Sometimes in past generations that's been the only thing that saved us from disaster."

"We would call that mind reading," Chex said. "Some folk have it as their magic talents. But most of us have no mental connection with others."

"Isn't that awful lonely?" the girl asked wistfully.

"It doesn't seem so, perhaps because we have never experienced it. So you were able to know people because of your contact with their minds?"

"Yes, pretty much. And Sammy helped, in his way; I sort of could see him, I guess by his mind, though I couldn't really talk to him. I did trip and bang into things a lot, but outside in the berry patches there wasn't much to bang into, so it was all right."

Chex saw how the girl put a positive face on something that must have been a continuing burden to her. It was also clearer now why she kept the cat so close, though she could no longer tune in to his mind. Jenny was from a far, strange world, but she was a good girl, and she had helped Che immeasurably.

"How do you feel about Che?" Chex asked.

"Oh, I like him!" Jenny exclaimed. "I never met a centaur before, except for you, I mean, but he's nice."