Only in legend does the dead man reply to the call, generally ghastly to behold, and without his head or some such thing. On the living earth nobody comes; it is just a piece of the chanting to crave and entreat. Although they bark for it, they do not expect the bone.

For a space long enough for me to repeat my words ten times over, they made not a sound. Their eyes crawled up me like flies. Then a woman fell over in a fit—though even the women drink a good deal before a dead-watch, and I think it was the beer more than the ghost that undid her. At this Seel changed his stance. Leaping upward as though his drawers had caught alight, he whirled at me, beating his arms, squawking, “Away, Undead, away, away! Back to the Shadow Region!”

I was not certain if he truly believed himself confronted by a phantom, but this was such a reversal of his former plaint that I leaned on a tree and laughed.

Seel’s eyes rolled. He snatched some more of his magical fire powder and tossed it between us. He conjured me to vanish, and I stubbornly would not, but simply stood laughing at him till my ribs pained me.

Presently he left off these antics, drawing back to where Ettook was, and making motions at me from there.

Ettook’s face was now a picture, as might be imagined. The healthy, cheery countenance with which he had mourned my demise had given way to a flushed livid whiteness. He knew me a live creature directly, his curse come back to him. He opened his swollen lips to utter some exquisite idiocy, but there was suddenly a lot of screaming that saved him the trouble.

Chula, my first wife, cast herself against me. She threw her arms about my waist, and clutched me as if she were drowning. Some city man’s knife had slit the shirt along my right side, and she fastened her mouth there, and sucked at my skin as if she could get sustenance from me. I tried to pry her loose but she clung like a leech.

“Don’t eat me, woman,” I said. “I’m mortal, never fear.” The three little bears had not rushed after her. They were huddled together, still crying in alarm at their ghoul-daddy shouldered up from hell. “Look after your brood,” I said to Chula, and pushed her off me at last. Her eyes glared in the shireen, swirling with hurt, anger, triumph, and sex. Then they went past me, and fixed on the shapes of woman and horse behind me. I said, “I have brought you a gift from my battle. An Eshkir slave.”

Everyone murmured, and Chula froze like a post.

Meantime Ettook had recovered himself slightly; my wife’s passion had given him the leisure.

“So my son fought the city raiders.”

“Yes, my chief. Fought and killed.”

It was a mark of my scorn for him that I did not mean to humiliate him in front of his subjects. Besides, enough men knew how he had praised me before I set out from the spring gathering, for such chat always finds legs.