"I had a friend," Sos said at last. "I had to meet him in the circle, though I would not have chosen it. Now he is buried here."
"I, too," Sol said. "He went to the mountain."
"Now I must challenge for an empire I do not want, and perhaps kill again, when all that I desire is friendship."
"I prayed here all day for friendship," Sol said, speaking of all the mounds in the world as one, and all times as one, as Sos bad done. "When I returned to my camp I thought my prayer was answered-but he required what I could not give." He paused. "I would give my empire to have that friend again."
"Why can't we two talk away from here, never to enter the circle again?"
"I would take only my daughter." He looked at Sos, for the first time since staff and rope bad parted, and if he recognized him as anything more than the heralded nameless challenger, or found this unheralded mode of contact strange, he did not say. "I would give you her mother, since your bracelet is dead."
"I would accept her, in the name of friendship."
"In the name of friendship."
They stood up and shook hands. It was as close as they could, come to acknowledging recognition.
The camp was monstrous. Five of the remaining tribes had migrated to rejoin their master, anticipating the arrival of the challenger. Two thousand men spread across plain and forest with their families, sleeping in communal tents and eating at communal hearths. Literate men supervised distribution of supplies and gave daily instruction in reading and figuring to groups of apprentices. Parties trekked into the mountains, digging for the ore that the books said was there, while others cultivated the ground to grow. the nutritive plants that other books said could be raised. Women practiced weaving and knitting in groups, and one party had a crude native loom. The empire was now too large to feed itself from the isolated cabins of a single area, too independent to depend upon any external source for clothing or weapons.
"This is Sola," Sol said, introducing - the elegant, sultry high lady. He spoke to her: "I would give you to the nameless one. He is a powerful warrior, though he carries no weapon."
"As you wish," she said indifferently. She glanced at Sos, and through him. "Where is his bracelet? What should I call myself?"
"Keep the clasp I gave you. I will find another."
"Keep the name you bear, I have none better."
"You're crazy," she said, addressing both. .
"This is Soli," Sol said as the little girl entered the compartment. He picked her up and held her at bead height. She grasped a tiny staff and waved it dangerously.
"I'm a Amazon!" she said, poking the stick at Sos. "I'm fighting in circle."
They moved on to the place where the chieftains gathered: Sav and Tyl together, Tor and Tun, and Neq and three others Sos did not recognize in another group. They spread out to form a standing circle as Sol and Sos approached.
"We have reached a tentative agreement on terms," Sav said. "Subject to approval by the two masters, of course."
"The terms are these," Sol said, not giving him a chance to continue. "The empire will be disbanded. Each of you will command the tribe you now govern in our names, and Tot his old tribe, but you will never meet each other in the circle."
They stared at him uncomprehendingly. "You fought already?" Tun inquired.
"I have quit the circle."
"Then we must serve the nameless one."
"I have quit the circle too," Sos said.
"But the empire will fall apart without one of you as master. No one else is strong enough!"
Sol turned his back on them. "It is done," he said. "Let's take our things and go."
"Wait a minute!" Tyl exclaimed, running stiff-legged after them. "You owe us an explanation."
Sol shrugged, offering none. Sos turned about and spoke. "Four years ago you all served small tribes or traveled alone. You slept in cabins or in private tents, and you did not need anything that was not provided. You were free to go and to live as you chose.
"Now you travel in large tribes and you fight for other men when they tell you to. You till the land, working as the crazies do, because your numbers are too great for the resources of any one area. You mine for metals, because you no longer trust the crazies to do it for you, though they have never broken trust. You study from books, because you want the things civilization can offer. But this is not the way it should be. We know what civilization leads to. It brings destruction of all the values of the circle. It brings competition for material things you do not need. Before long you will overpopulate the Earth and become a scourge upon it, like shrews who have overrun their feed ing grounds.
"The records show that the end result of empire is-the Blast."
But he hadn't said it well.
All but Sav peered incredulously at him. "You claim," Tot said slowly, "that unless we remain primitive nomads, dependent upon the crazies, ignorant of finer things, there will be a second Blast?"
"In time, yes. That is what happened before. It is our duty to see that it never happens again."
"And you believe that the answer is to keep things as they are, disorganized?'
"So more men like Bog can die in the circle?"
Sos stood as if stricken. Was he on the right side, after all?
"Better that, than that we all die in the Blast," Sol put in surprisingly. "There are not enough of us, now, to recover again."
Unwittingly, he had undercut Sos's argument, since overpopulation was the problem of empire.
Neq turned on Sol. "Yet you preserve the circle by deserting it!"
Sav, who understood both sides, finally spoke. "Sometimes you have to give up something you love, something you value, so as not to destroy it. I'd call that sensible enough."
"I'd call it cowardice!" Tyl said.
Both Sol and Sos jumped toward him angrily.
Tyl stood firm. "Each of you defeated me in the circle. I will serve either. But if you fear to face each other for supremacy, I must call you what you are."
"You have no right to build an empire and throw it away like that," Tor said. "Leadership means responsibifity."
"Where did you learn all this history'?" Neq demanded. "I don't believe it."
"We're just beginning to cooperate like men, instead of playing like children," Tun said.
Sol looked at Sos. "They have no power over us. Let them talk." ,
Sos stood indecisively. What these suddenly assertive men were saying made distressing sense. How could he be sure that what the master of the underworld had told him was true? There were so many obvious advantages of civilization-and it had taken thousands of years for the Blast to come, before. Had it really been the fault of civilization, or had there been factors he didn't know about? Factors that might no longer exist....
Little Soli appeared and ran toward Sol. "Are you going to fight now, Daddy?"
Tyl stepped ahead of him and managed to intercept her, squatting with difficulty since his knees were still healing. "Soli, what would you do if your daddy decided not to fight?"
She presented him with the round-eyed stare. "Not fight?"
No one else spoke.
"If he said he wouldn't go in the circle any more," Tyl prompted her. "If he went away and never fought again."
Soil burst out crying.
Tyl let her go She ran to Sol. "You go in `the circle, Daddy!" she exclaimed. "Show him!"
It had happened again. Sol faced him, defeated. "I must fight for my daughter."
Sos struggled with himself, but knew that the peaceful settlement had flown. He saw, in a terrible revelation, that this, not name, woman or empire, had been the root of each of their encounters: the child. The child called Soli had been there throughout; the `circle had determined which man would claim the name and privilege of fatherhood.
Sol could not back down, and neither could Sos. Bob, of the underworld, had made clear what would happen if Sos allowed the empire to stand.