He splashed water off his face, dried himself with his shirt, and looked around.

“Lyra?” The other couch-bed was empty. He raised his voice a little. “Lyra!”

She entered through the arched doorway a moment later, already fully dressed and wide awake. He frowned at her.

“Didn’t you get any sleep?”

“Sure did. Slept like Lazarus, got up at dawn. This is such a wonderful place, Etienne. I know it’s an unprofessional thing to say, but there’s no comparing these people to the Mai, Homat being an exception. From what Tyl tells me there’s next to no crime among the Tsla. We can leave our possessions anywhere in town without fear they’ll be stolen. That’s another byproduct of their concern for mental health. They’ve learned to cope with their baser instincts not only better than the Mai, but better than many people I know.”

“That’s quite a judgment to make on the basis of half a night’s conversation with one native. Isn’t it an unwritten rule that all primitive cultures have their hidden eccentricities? I’m sure the Tsla’s will appear in due course.” He hunted for his lederhosen.

“Maybe so, but I haven’t seen any evidence of it yet and I’ve been looking. Hurry up. Tyl’s waiting for us.”

“Waiting for us? Why?”

She didn’t try to mute her exasperation. “To guide us to the temple of Moraung Motau, remember?”

“Sorry. Still full of sleep. What about something to eat?”

“That’s waiting too. I’ve already sampled the local cooking. It’s blander than the Mai’s but perfectly palatable. Don’t worry about Homat and the others. They’ve already eaten and they’re stretched out under their skylights, soaking up the ultraviolet.”

The meal that was brought to their room was simple but ample. Tyl joined them, watching while they ate and sharing their enjoyment if not their table.

Etienne muttered a terse thank you, asked, “How far is it to this temple?”

“A day’s journey. We will spend the night near there.”

Etienne searched his memory, was unable to conjure up the sight of any large structures at the far end of the valley and told Tyl so.

“You did not miss seeing it, friend Etienne. I perhaps should have said it lies a day’s ride from Turput. We will not use our own feet.”

“Lowagons?” Etienne inquired, thankful for his feet.

“No. Those are tools of the Mai. We will ride lekkas. When thee are ready, I will take thee.”

In the stable area behind the hospitality building they encountered their first lekka, a furry thin-legged creature with an incongruously rotund body and a double tail that switched nervously from side to side. Blunt furry faces turned to glance curiously at the bearers of strange new smells. They waited with placid expressions and chewed their cuds as Tsla handlers attached reins to the base of high, forward-curving ears. The forelegs were longer than the hind, an unusual arrangement for an animal built to run. Etienne thought of hyenas and giraffes, though the lekka was bulkier than either.

In consequence, there was no pommel on the woven cloth saddles. Instead, each boasted a high backrest designed to keep the rider from sliding backward down the sloping spine. It was heavily padded. There were no stirrups. The handlers brought stepstools to assist in mounting.

The reins were simple and straightforward and both Redowls were mounted in minutes. Tyl turned his own steed, spoke comfortingly.

“One thing to be careful of. The lekka stands quietly, but they love to run. So be prepared.” A stableyard gate was swung open ahead and he swung his lekka around.

As their guide shouted an indecipherable Tsla word, Etienne’s mount made a sudden rush for the gap, reaching out with those long forelegs and nearly throwing its rider feet over head despite the saddle’s solid backbrace. As it was he almost kicked himself in the mouth. Lyra’s deep, vibrant laugh didn’t make him feel any better. He threw her a murderous look which she ignored as she smoothly followed Tyl out the gate.

Etienne brought up the rear, furious at his own clumsiness and determined to master his animal. Before too long his hips adjusted to the odd reaching gallop and he was speeding up the wide dirt road as comfortably as Lyra.

The track ran parallel to the river. The Aurang here was some six kilometers wide, a mighty torrent but only a trickle compared to the Skar. At the far end of the hanging valley the river fell to earth in a broad waterfall, sparkling and most impressive. It was a good hundred meters high and reminded him of the great waterfalls trideed on the tropical thranx worlds that they someday hoped to visit.

He nudged his mount nearer Lyra and Tyl, called across to their guide.

“It is called the Visautik,” Tyl informed him. “We will reach it by midday.”

Etienne was studying the sheer wall that seemed to mark the end of the valley. “Then what?”

“There is a trail not visible from here, a trading road that climbs a rockfall on this side of the Visautik. It rises to the next valley. Many legats beyond lies the temple of Moraung Motau. And the Cuparaggai.”

“What’s that?” Lyra asked, simultaneously noting that the Tsla used the same unit to measure distance as did the Mai.

There was no way of telling if their guide smiled, since his mouth was hidden by the weaving proboscis, but Tyl nonetheless managed to convey a feeling of anticipation as well as delighted amusement as he said, “Thee will see.”

VIII

They heard the Cuparaggai long before they saw it, and felt it before they heard it. It announced itself as a buzzing in the ears, a vibration in the bones. Its roar drowned out the rush of Visautik Falls before they crested the canyon wall.

The temple valley was not as large as the one in which Turput lay, and it appeared narrower and smaller still because of the height of the walls that enclosed it. Jewellike fields filled the valley, nourished by the Aurang’s flow. At the far end of the valley lay the still unseen source of steady thunder, marked only by sunlit mist.

They paused atop the ridge and had an interesting lunch that consisted of some kind of local rolled meat and thick, sweet breadsticks. Then they remounted and rode on. Several hours later Tyl paused and extracted a handful of small round cottony pads.

Lyra examined the pair he handed to her. “What are these for?”

Tyl pointed to the small shapes atop his head, then pushed one of the pads inside.

“Oh!” Lyra hadn’t noticed that they now had to shout in order to be heard over the nearing roar, but she was made aware of it as soon as she inserted the pads and silence returned.

Despite these precautions they were quite unprepared for the sight that greeted them when they turned a sharp bend in the canyon.

Several kilometers ahead, sheer rock walls met to form a vertical defile no more than four kilometers wide. For the first time since they’d left the Skar, Etienne forgot his irritation with Lyra. He was enveloped by wonder.

“How high?” she shouted at him, leaning close so that he could hear her through his earplugs. He’d already taken a sighting with the instrumentation on his wrist.

“Twenty-five hundred meters!” Only the fact that the spray did not rise half as high as the falls themselves enabled them to see the cliff where the Aurang River flowed over the edge of the Guntali Plateau. It was a frightening, magnificent drop and the result was a cascade of unmatched proportions, fittingly located on a world of geological superlatives.

It seemed impossible that the stone at the base of that torrent could withstand the impact of so much water falling from such a height without turning to powder. Just as it seemed impossible for the ancient multistory edifice that clung to the cliff face just to the right of the waterfall to remain in place without having been shaken to pieces hundreds of years ago.

Tyl pointed. “Moraung Motau.”

“How old?” Lyra shouted as they raced toward it.

“A thousand years, two thousand, who can say?” Tyl spurred his lekka on.

Hundreds of windows threw back the sun from the rambling, rock-climbing structure, which appeared more than large enough to shelter the whole population of Turput. Huge bas-reliefs covered the facade with writhing figures and decorative motifs. Only the fact that the building had been hewn from the raw stone of the Cliff face enabled it to withstand the steady vibration produced by the immense waterfall nearby.

Several thousand years, Tyl had said, and Etienne had no reason to doubt the Tsla’s veracity. He had shown himself to be truthful in everything else.

As they drew near he saw that the thick green lines that covered the lower part of the cliff on both sides of the Cuparaggki were not sculpted and painted decorations but enormous vines, unlike anything they had observed growing on Tslamaina before. Tsla toiled among them, tending to roots and leaves. They wore longer capes of some shiny material which kept them from being soaked by the omnipresent spray.

Tyl reined in his lekka and the two humans slowed accordingly.