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Includes "Fire-Eye #10"
Bren finds the tree house and Koni hugs him tightly, squeezing him. Bren asks why
he lied to him back in Passage. Koni begins to tell Bren about Jethel, whom Bren
calls FireñEye. Koni laughs, "Haw! Do those stupid five fingers still call him
that?" Koni asks Bren how many times Ahnn Li or one of his Zuggies beat him
for something he didn't do and how many times did he go to sleep hungry. In the tree
are other childrenññabout 7 others. Cam arrives and tells him that Ahnn Li hates
the children and makes them all fear FireñEye so the townspeople will work harder
for Ahnn Li. Kibo is with Cam. Jethel has Arro on his knee. Suddenly all the humans
with Jethel have glowing eyes just as Cam tells Bren that Jethel shares his magic
to make the humans just like him...let them live forever. Ahnessah arrives with guards
and the guards with helmets on hold a boy in ragged cut off one piece, no leggings.
Ahnessah takes a knife and puts it into Jethel's chest and magic comes out and goes
into her. Bren yells, "FireñEye!!! No!!!" He wakes up sobbing in a magnificent
dark bed. Morning: Cam and Kibo wakes up, having slept at a small tree area where
Chot lead them. Cam thinks Chot is a good protector. Chot drops in, the second time
in as many days that he scares Cam into screaming Yaaagh! "Is it your plan that
I drop down dead?!" Chot smiles, "Careful what you ask, Cam Triompe. Little
Kibo here'd make a good addition to Jethel's growing tribe. You, I'm not so sure
about..." Bren, in the same morning, gets back to PeiñLar to bring up to date
about Ahnessah's holding of him. He thinks Ahnessah thinks FireñEye can give her
something that can make her live forever and then she will get rid of Ahnn Li and
take care of everybody better than he is. Gillie comes running for help. They were
scruffing about and found a hurt boy who was a Fetch Boy for one of Ahnn Li's work
teams. He didn't do anything wrong, he told Gillie but the team beat the boy up pretty
bad. He must've crawled all the way back to town. Pei Lar puts him in a bed and tells
someone to bring her some cloths and the blue jar she keeps by the cookñstove. She
will fix him up. Pei Lar says, "The rumblings are true...AhnnñLi's getting worse,
his Ahnessah's definitely against him now, she's got her fangs out for Jethel...and
if I dance this just right, I can be rid of all of them at once!" |