"Amena?" the boy called softly to the woman who dozed against him, her chin touching his bare shoulder. He smiled as she opened her eyes.

She rubbed her eyes and looked up at the boy who sat next to her, his green eyes friendly and curious.

Tarak was nearly twelve years old, and was beginning to show signs of the magnificent specimen of manhood she hoped he would survive to become.

He was already taller than her, and his young muscles swelled beneath his pale skin, which had not felt the warmth of the sun for ten long years. His physique belied his age, and his tawny mane of hair fell around broad shoulders and over a deep chest.

She kept his hair cut straight across his forehead above the wide, clear eyes which now gazed into hers like liquid pools of green; calm and warm in the ample torchlight. She thought again how beautiful they would look in the clear light of day.

They were so beautiful, she noticed. More beautiful than anything she had ever seen, and for the thousandth time she wondered why they were not filled with madness. During the preceding ten years this boy had been subjected to a life which should have driven him insane many times over.

Countless times she had nursed him back from the brink of death, and his young body was covered with scars, though most were faint with age. Even his handsome face had not escaped wounds, though none of the scars were disfiguring.

Gonor had never tired of devising some new torture or challenge for the boy.

Long ago a larger arena had replaced the pit in which the child had spent his early years. Constructed solely for the purpose of securing and experimenting upon the boy, the arena was capable of providing numerous environments.

It could be flooded, heated, or darkened, and the walls were much higher than those of the pit. The only access to this environment was through a heavily bolted door, or through the tunnels which could be opened to allow carnivores into the arena. Never were these tunnels ever opened at both ends, and the door was opened only at such times as arose during Amena's visits.

The door itself was also guarded by two armed wroks, and it was never opened until the boy had been ordered to the far end of the arena, through violent gestures from Brona amplified by simple guttural sounds, which were the only speech Gonor allowed the child to hear.

Gonor had introduced innumerable predators into the arena, sometimes singly, and at other times in groups.

His imagination had been limited only by his estimate of the child's capabilities.

Again and again he and Brona had challenged the boy's capacity for survival, and never had they found it wanting.

Trees had been transplanted into the arena, smaller trees which could survive upon the mineral nutrients in the soil, without sunlight.

Gonor would often blacken the chamber completely, and introduce a beast such as a narg, so that the boy was forced to remain in the trees for days or weeks at a time, descending only infrequently in the blackness to feed, or to drink from the single pool of water.

Many times he had escaped death by scant inches as he leaped for the branches to avoid the charge of such an aroused, ravenous carnivore. Blind during these periods, the boy had learned to rely on his other senses, and acquired perfect balance and coordination, even in total darkness.

The arena would be flooded, with the child forced to stay afloat for long periods, staying clear of the trees, which had been infested with poisonous insects. Carnivorous sea creatures, amphibians, and reptiles had been occasionally loosed within, and would attack the boy in the water.

More than one such episode had nearly resulted in his death, and had disabled him for weeks.

Since the day when the first small beast had leaped for the throat of the two year old child, he had been assaulted by countless creatures of almost every size and description, and by harsh and hostile environments, all designed and calculated to push his abilities to new heights in a desperate struggle to survive.

As the boy grew in size and strength, Gonor frequently burdened him with heavy shackles, in an attempt to handicap him, and at the same time to promote increased strength. In this manner the boy had fought the wild jok, and the constricting slik.

Unarmed, and often thus handicapped, he had fought for his very life, time after time, and in the end he had always triumphed, partially because of the careful planning of his captors, and also because of some indomitable quality within the boy himself.

He had fought with the savagery of the animals he faced, but with an intelligence which was uniquely his. Many times he had been close to death, but always the spirit within him would triumph, and he would stand victorious, his eyes blazing green fires as he looked down upon his fallen foe; then up into the dark eyes of his captors, who watched from above in a balcony set at the edge of the arena.

His physical perfection was total, yet thoughough the terrors of his existence his mental development had not suffered greatly. As Amena had tended his physical sufferings, so had she tried to ease the mental tortures which he was continually experiencing. She had come to love this child as her own, and her commitment to him had been total and without reservation.

She thought of her own parents, and the life she had known so long ago, before they had been killed by the terrible wroks, and she had been brought into this valley. The shock of her hew life and the realization of her status had almost driven her mad, and always fear had accompanied her as she performed her duties as a slave.

So altered had her mind become that she had lost her conception of freedom, and had come to regard herself as a piece of property, a beast of burden, and it had come to feel natural that she belonged to these men.

The fear was still present, but her conception of it had changed since the arrival of the boy. She still obeyed instantly and completely when in their presence, but when alone, or with the boy, her mind became her own once again. Her will had emerged once more, and she began to take risks regarding this child whom she cared for so lovingly

Gonor had been increasingly liberal in his treatment of her, due to her obvious influence upon the continued success of his experiment.

Amena thus spent considerable amount of time with the boy, and unknown to her masters, she had almost from the beginning taken up the task of his education.

First she had begun to teach him the language of Aantor, and soon she was marveling at his capacity to learn. She had warned him against betraying his knowledge to the masters, and was fearful at first that he would not comprehend her warnings, and would inadvertently endanger them both.

To her somewhat surprised relief he had kept silent in the presence of others, perhaps partly because of his constant wariness and distrust of his world and all who inhabited it, excepting only Amena.

As he grew older, they conversed a great deal, and she had taught him much of what she knew about their world. She taught him to read, smuggling books from Gonor's library for this purpose. The boy's curiosity was inexhaustible, and his questions often delighted her, often prompting her to laugh in spite of their circumstances.

Truly the child had returned to her some sense of happiness, feelings she had thought were forever to be denied.

The child often smiled when she laughed, but he seemed never to laugh himself, and when she asked him about this, he had said that he could never laugh while he was thus imprisoned, or while she suffered at the hands of her masters.

She did not wonder at his lack of humor. It had been terrible watching as the boy had become dehumanized by the master, Gonor. Never had the boy been allowed to eat cooked food, and she had often fed him raw meat at the instructions of her masters. Usually he ate what he killed.

Amena had been helpless of prevent this brutality, and had vowed to try to preserve some sense of humanity in the child. Her success had startled and thrilled her, and had given her a reason to live and to think independently again.

Her love had reached a responsive chord within the boy, and to this one friend he had clung desperately, lovingly, through all the horrors he had experienced. Always Amina had been there to heal him, and to hold him and weep over his condition.

Countless nights she had held his torn body to her own, stroking his hair and murmuring softly in her quiet voice.

The child had led a bitter existence, and his moods often reflected this, but he had survived, and to a great extent he owed his survival to the once-lovely Amena of Car, now the slave girl of cruel and sadistic masters.

She knew this, and knew also that the child had given her equally precious gifts; a free mind, and a reason to live.

She pushed her memories from her mind, for she knew the boy was awaiting her response. "Yes, Tarak?"

"Amena, why do you call me by that name?"

She blinked, and looked over into his clear green eyes. She had never really thought about it, nor had he ever before inquired why she used that name.

"It is your name, I think. What your mother called you when the wroks slew her, or so Lukor indicated when you were brought here. I remembered it, and have always thought of you by that name. It was all you had left to you from your former life, and I wanted to keep that much, at least."

She smiled. "I almost gave you another name, as I would have named my child if I had borne one, but I just couldn't take your name away, though I did wish that you were mine."

The boy put his hand upon hers. "I am yours, Amena. I have been yours for as long as I can remember, and will be yours forever, for you have been both my mother and the only friend I have ever known."

"Well, my Tarak, perhaps some day you will learn who your parents were."

He shrugged, "Perhaps." Then his eyes hardened. "You remember, then, that it was Lukor who killed my mother?"

She nodded "Yes. He would have killed your father, too, but they could not find him."

"Then he may yet live?"

"Yes." She frowned slightly. "I suppose so. But Aantor is a large place, and you were captured a very long time ago."

His curiosity aroused once again, Tarak questioned her as he so often did about the outside world, and the great cities which existed so far away. He was ever curious, and Amena had long ago exhausted her memory of such things, yet Tarak would continue to question, and sometimes a half-forgotten memory would be triggered by his questioning, and she would brighten, and tell him of places or people she had known or heard of prior to her capture.

He loved the books she brought, but they were few, and were primarily books about animal life and medicine.

Gonor apparently had no interest in geography, philosophy, or many other topics about which books had been written by Aantorian scholars.

Amena had not enjoyed extensive education, since in Car, as in many Aantorian cities, women were rarely provided much formal education. She knew much about Aantorian life, however, and spoke of the cities, the shops, the parties, friends, and all the other incidents of city life.

Tarak's eyes shone as he listened to Amena recount her recollections of vibrant city life, and his brow would furrow with concentration as he attempted to recall images from his own early childhood; images of civilization, and also the images of the time he had spent in the forest, fleeing with his parents from a seemingly implacable foe.

Dimly he recalled the sunshine, and the spaciousness of the forest, as contrasted with his present small, dim world.

To be able to run in a straight line for literally miles; or to see objects at great distances; these were almost unimaginable concepts for the boy, and he would close his eyes as Amena painted pictures for him with her words.

Often he would doze as she spoke, and his breathing would grow deep as he slid into sleep. She would soften her voice, and continue to murmur, as the child slept, a smile upon his lips, and dreams to live for running through his fertile mind.

To TARAK OF AANTOR