Elis laughed, roaring at her, "You're a fool, a child!" The harshness,
Paul knew, was calculated, in the hope of changing her mind by shaming
her. "You think the old life was a freedom. Freedom to live like an
animal without an animal's peace, Elron, because of the thing in you
that struggles for knowledge--oh yes, in spite of yourself, and
always. Freedom to hunt all day or else sleep on an empty stomach,
jump with fear at every creaking branch. Freedom to cram yourself with
moss root and slugs from the streams--never enough--in the bad moons
when the asonis go north. Freedom to kill the pygmies and be hunted by
them, never an end to it--that's your freedom without the laws,
without the words. No, so long as you're a fool I don't want you." She
turned away, speechless; he shouted after her in a different voice,
"He said you go with our good will. That is true. You can't forget us,
Elron. You're not the wild thing Mijok brought out of the woods.
You'll feel us pulling you back--you feel it now--and you will come
back." But she was gone in the shadows, Karison following her, and
Elis rubbed his broad forehead on his arms.