It was quite a steep slope already, but still human hands had squeezed amaranth and rye onto narrow terraces and dug a hundred names for potato into the meager ground. A llama gave Enim a curious glance from behind a wall.

Enim had gone up the hillside by himself, to the edge of town where he had seen fields and gardens grow out into the meadows. Farther out, he could see a flock of sheep moving up into the highlands, and decided to go back down that way, so he would reach Shebbetin from a side he had not been to before.

He walked along the long, slow curve and soon enough the open meadow was dotted with sheds again, in between shaggy long-horned cows. In passing, Enim peered into one of the barns through an open door and saw people sitting on the ground. It seemed odd, somehow incongruous. But Enim gave it no further thought and just moved on, following the narrow dirt track that appeared beneath his feet as houses began to close in around him.

Their walls were made of rough field stones, but less well built, less carefully crafted than in the Mansion. Indeed, they looked crooked and ragged, unstable and uncared for. He came across some crumbling walls, of cabins that had never been finished or perhaps fallen to ruin already. Piles of rubble lay about, partly overgrown with weeds, the hiding place of a sickly dog that fled with a whine as Enim approached. Three toddlers slouched in the dirt outside a house, staring at Enim with empty eyes.

Enim felt his lungs contract. There was something oppressive about this place. The narrow lanes seemed to condense space itself, shutting out the sky, making the world gray and dull. It was almost like something pressing down on the air, making it hard to breathe. Enim tensed his shoulders imperceptibly and quickened his step.

Just then a dark bundle shot out at him, heading straight for his leg. Before Enim could gather his wits, a small child had dug herself in, clutching at his thigh. She was crying hard, her tears leaving light streaks in the dirt on her cheeks. Enim bent down, touching her matted hair, wanting to soothe her or to at least get some idea of what was going on. Then she bit him, and hammered at him with her tiny fists, crying all the time. Before she could bite again, a boy of perhaps seven came out of nowhere and hauled her away, tearing brutally at her hair as he did. Without a word, they disappeared behind a door that slammed shut.

Enim stood speechless.

He had never seen anything like this before.

The people he knew in Varoonya had all kinds of problems. Quarrels, and disagreements. But nothing like this.

He took a step back.

Enim looked at the closed door again, then around him, at the dirty lane and the ramshackle cabins. There were no clues. Two children slumped against the wall on the other side, half asleep. A few women down the lane did not seem to have noticed, or to care.

Enim began to feel that he wanted to run. And, at the same time, that he did not dare to. Unable to name what invisible danger he feared, he walked on, steadily but unobtrusively, blindly. He did not know where he was going but he kept on moving, without turning back and without asking directions. He did not know where he was, but he wanted to be elsewhere very urgently. He ran on and on, without thinking.

And eventually, he did find his way out. Enim had followed one dirt track after another, hurrying on with hunched shoulders, until finally one path had turned into a small cobbled lane, and then into a slightly larger one. He had come out without being attacked by small children again, or by anyone else for that matter.

Nevertheless, Enim was practically shaking by the time he reached the inn.

* * *

Morning had not turned the world to gold. The mountains seemed to loom ominously under the stormy sky, dark clouds pressing down hard on a frightened earth. A mouse scurried away in hasty flight before Enim's feet, seeking shelter underground.

Halfway up the hill, a long cabin crouched among the battered grasses. Kaya slid into its shadow. But Enim walked on until he could stand on the threshold, looking in.

It was all one large room, crammed with work benches, one squeezing in beside the other, children bent down deep over each. None of them looked up. Their shoulders were hunched as they cowered, strained and haggard, their pinched faces close to the tools with which they polished tiny stones or twisted filigree patterns of silver wire.

Tension flowed around them like a suffocating coil, holding on to their necks. They cowered defensively, their bony frames stiff and drawn, their eyes focused but dead. They looked like ghosts.

Enim blinked.

A powerful voice bellowed out of nowhere. "Hey, you! What are you doing there?"

A twitch went through all the children at once, like an invisible whip lashing down on their backs. But none of them looked up now either. They all just ducked down a little more deeply, hunched their shoulders a little more tightly, and stared down unblinkingly at the twisted wires in their hands.

The frightful twinge had gone through Enim as well. Startled and confused, he looked around to identify the origin of the voice. Then he found it.

On one side of the cabin, a gallery ran along the length of the room, with a railing of solid panels interrupted by latticed woodwork. It was hard to see the man behind those grids, but he was definitely there. And he was getting up now, so that, at his full height, he could lean over the barrier and shout down at Enim more directly.

"You there! At the door! What are you doing here?" he bellowed.

"I..." Enim stuttered.

"If you have no business here, then be gone! And quickly!" the man hollered. His left arm ended in a stump below his shoulder. But the aggression reached far and wide.

Enim retreated. A few steps back at first, until, once fully outside, he turned and made off in rash, hasty strides. Kaya came from the cabin's shadow and caught up with him, walking at the same harsh, angry pace.

Stormy gusts lashed out at the grass, beating it against their shins.

"That's what they are like," Kaya hissed into the wind. "Work cabins."

"They are children." Enim's jaw was tight. The tension of the last days had been building up inside him. His voice was too loud, and too shaky. "Why they not in learning pavilion?"

Kaya gave him a sidelong look. "Why are there no pavilions for the children of Shebbetin? Why no healers? And not even a pouch collection point?"

Enim's face had turned pale, like that of someone pressing a lid down on a hot steam kettle with fierce determination, ignoring the pain. "Yes, why not? Why not!"

"Because," Kaya said through clenched teeth, "we have not made it happen yet."

"But we have made it happen!" Enim exploded. "We have! The Transition has happen forty years ago! And this is what it all was for! The Transition has make room for all children, everywhere. It has make a good life possible to everyone, not only a few. It has been made happen, we have done it! We know it is possible. So how can it be that it not happen here?"

Kaya looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Yes," she whispered.

"Yes, what?" Enim screamed. He was lost in an accusatory rage by now, viciously defending the foundation stones of his own beliefs. "This cannot be! This must not possible! It cannot be a whole area of Yurvania, with thousands of people, not included in Transition! It just cannot. I will not accept this!"

He was addressing Kaya directly now, his tone decisive, his finger pointing at her chest. "There are rules for this. For all this. And there are people and bureaus for acting with the rules. There is no reason for not make this right. It can be done. It must be done!"

His hand clenched into a fist.

"Now."