Excessive acid-sweating can damage not only the adjacent skin surfaces, but also the body as a whole through dangerously altered

chemical imbalances. Over-much tapering poses the risk of the muscles being so wasted and the bone so weakened that their

subsequent use may be severely restricted in the shortand long-term escape attempt.

Mr. First was approaching with the wooden blocks he would fit into Horza’s mouth. A couple of the larger Eaters had stood

up near the front

of the crowd and advanced slightly, ready to assist Mr. First. Fwi-Song was reaching behind his back. The

women started forward from the

bubbling vats.

“Open wide, stranger," Mr. First said, holding out the two wooden blocks. “Or do we use a crowbar." Mr. First smiled.

Horza’s arms strained. His upper arm moved. Mr. First saw the movement and halted momentarily. One of Horza’s hands jerked

free. It shot

round in an instant, nails ready to rake Mr. First’s face. The pale-skinned man drew back, not quickly enough.

Horza’s nails caught Mr. First’s robe and tunic as they flapped out from his dodging body. Already straining as far out from

the stake as he

could, Horza felt his clawed hand rip through the two layers of material without connecting with the flesh

underneath. Mr. First staggered back,

bumping into one of the women carrying the bowls of stinking gruel, knocking it from

her hands. One of the wooden wedges sailed from Mr.

First’s hand and landed in the fire. Horza’s arm completed its swing just

as the two Eaters in the front of the crowd came forward quickly and

caught the Changer by the head and arm.

“Sacrilege!" Fwi-Song screamed. Mr. First looked at the woman he had bumped into, at the fire, at the prophet, then back with

a furious

look at the Changer. He lifted one arm to look at the tears in his robe and tunic. “The gift-filth desecrates our

vestments!" Fwi-Song shouted.

The two Eaters held Horza, pinning his arm back where it had been and his head to the stake.

Mr. First started toward Horza, taking the gun out

from under his tunic and holding it by the barrel, like a club. “Mr. First!"

Fwi-Song snapped, stopping the pale-skinned man in his tracks. “Shtand

gack! Hold gat arn out; ee’ll show gish naught goy

how we geel wish hish short!"

Horza’s free arm was straightened out in front of him. One of the Eaters holding him put his leg round the back of the post,

bracing himself

there and trapping Horza’s other hand where it was. Fwi-Song had a set of gleaming steel teeth in his mouth,

the holed ones. He glared at the

Changer while Mr. First stepped back, still holding the projectile pistol. The prophet nodded

to another two Eaters in the crowd; they took

Horza’s hand and prized the fingers apart, tying that wrist to a pole. Horza

felt his whole body shake. He cut off all feeling in that hand.

“Naughty, naughty gisht ’rom the shee!" Fwi-Song said. He leaned forward, buried Horza’s index finger in his mouth, closed

the stripper

teeth over them, cutting into the flesh, and then pulled quickly back.

The prophet chewed and swallowed, watching the Changer’s face as he did so, and frowning. “

Not

gery tashty, genegiction ’rom the

oceansh currentsh!" The prophet licked his lips. “An’ not shore enush ’or you, eisher,

sho it wood sheen. Letch shee ’ot elsh nee can…" Fwi-

Song was frowning again. Horza looked past the Eaters holding him to

the hand stretched out over the pole, one finger stripped bare, the

bones limp, blood dripping from the thin tip.

Beyond that, Fwi-Song sat frowning on his litter on the sand, Mr. First near his side, still glaring at Horza and holding

the gun barrel. As Fwi-

Song’s silence continued, Mr. First looked at the prophet. Fwi-Song said, “… not elsh nee can… nee

can…" Fwi-Song reached up and took the

stripper teeth with some difficulty from his mouth. He laid them in front of him with

the rest on their rag, and put one pudgy hand to his throat, the

other onto the vast hemisphere of his belly. Mr. First looked

on, then back at Horza, who did his best to smile. The Changer opened his teeth

glands and sucked poison.

“Mr. First…" Fwi-Song began, then put out the hand on his belly toward the other man. Mr. First seemed uncertain what to do.

He

transferred the gun from one hand to the other, and took the prophet’s offered hand with his free one. “I think I… I…"

Fwi-Song said, as his eyes

started to open from slits to small ovals. Horza could see his face changing color already.

Soon the voice, as the vocal cords react.

“Help me,

Mr. First!" Fwi-Song took hold of a lump of fat round his throat as though trying to undo a scarf tied too tightly;

he stuck his fingers into his mouth,

down his throat, but Horza knew that wouldn’t work; the prophet’s stomach muscles were

already paralyzed—he couldn’t vomit the poison up.

Fwi-Song’s eyes were wide now, glaring white; his face was going gray-blue.

Mr. First was goggling at the prophet and still holding his huge

hand; his own was buried somewhere inside the great golden

fist of Fwi-Song’s. “He-ll-p!" squeaked the prophet. Then nothing but choking

noises. The white eyes bulged, the vast frame

shook, the dome-head went blue.

Somebody in the crowd started screaming. Mr. First looked at Horza, and brought up the big pistol. Horza tensed, then spat

with all his

might.

The spittle splashed across Mr. First’s face, from mouth to one ear in a sickle shape which just took in one eye. Mr. First

staggered back.

Horza breathed in, sucked more poison, then spat and blew at the same time, landing a second burst of spittle

right across Mr. First’s eyes. Mr.

First clutched at his face, dropping the gun. His other hand was still caught in Fwi-Song’s

grip as the obese prophet shook and quivered, his

eyes wide but seeing nothing. The people holding Horza wavered; he could

feel it in them. More people in the crowd were crying out. Horza

jerked his body and snarled, spitting again, at one of the

men holding the pole his hand was tied to. The man screamed shrilly and fell back; the

others let go of him or the pole and

ran. Fwi-Song was going blue from the neck down, still quivering and clutching his throat with one hand and

Mr. First with

the other. Mr. First was on his knees, his face lowered, moaning as he tried to wipe the spittle from his face and remove

the

unbearable burning from his eyes.

Horza looked round quickly; the Eaters were watching either their prophet and his chief disciple, or him, but they weren’t

doing anything

either to aid them or to stop him. Not all of them were crying or screaming; some were still chanting, quickly

and fearfully as though something

they could say would stop whatever terrible things were happening. Gradually, though, they

were backing off, away both from the prophet and

Mr. First, and from the Changer. Horza pulled and jerked his hand tied to

the pole; it started to come free.

“Aah!" Mr. First suddenly raised his head, hand clutching at one eye, and screamed for all his worth; his hand, still caught

in that of the

prophet, jerked out straight as he tried to pull free. Fwi-Song still held him in his grip, though, even as

he quaked and stared and turned blue.

Horza’s hand came free; he tugged at the bonds behind him and did his best with the

crippled free hand to untie the knots. The Eaters were

moaning now, some still chanting, but they were moving away. Horza

roared—partly at them, partly at the stubborn knots behind him. Several in

the crowd ran. One of the women dressed in the

ragged vestment clothes screamed, threw her bowl of gruel at him, missing him, then fell

sobbing to the sand.

Horza felt the ropes behind him give. He got the other arm free, then one foot. He stood shakily, watching Fwi-Song gargle

and choke, while

Mr. First howled, shaking his head this way and that and pulling and swinging his gripped hand as though

in some monstrous travesty of a

handshake. Eaters were running for the canoes or the shuttle, or throwing themselves onto

the sand. Horza struggled free at last, and staggered

toward the grossly imbalanced duo of men linked by the hand. He plunged

forward and grabbed the fallen pistol from the sands. As he knelt

and then stood, Fwi-Song, as though suddenly seeing Horza

again, gave one last gurgling, gagging splutter of noise, and tipped slowly toward

the side Mr. First was pulling and tugging

from. Mr. First fell to his knees again, still screaming as the venom seared the membranes of his eyes

and attacked the nerves

beyond. As Fwi-Song toppled and his arm and hand went slack, Mr. First looked up and round, in time to see through

his pain

the vast bulk of the prophet falling toward him. He howled once, on an indrawn breath as he pulled his hand free at last from

the now

blue clump of chubby fingers; he started to rise to his feet, but Fwi-Song rolled over and crashed into him, knocking

him to the sand. Before Mr.

First could utter another sound, the immense prophet had fallen over his disciple, flattening

him into the sand from head to buttocks.