Along the way, you encounter Ethaneen.  Tap, tap, tap, goes her cane.  You are surprised to see her --- she spends most of her time these days in her lonely cottage at the edge of the village.  How she is hated!  She was the teacher for two generations of Kiran children, a tyrant who ruled her classroom with fear.  Even parents quailed under her baleful glare.  For generations her class was a kind of black initiation for all the children of Kira.
	Old she is, older than anybody in the colony, old enough to remember Arien.  Legend has it that she was born while Siboot was still alive.  You stare at her, trying to understand the meaning of her age.  Tap, tap, tap, goes her cane.  Here is somebody who was actually alive with Siboot, who breathed the same air that he did.  She is a natural link to him, the last such link.  Ethaneen was an acolyte once, competing against Sufupican.  An acolyte like you, but two generations earlier.  She must have been good; you wonder if she was beautiful.  You wonder what you will look like in sixty years.
	She retired many years ago, just a few years after you went through her class.  Now she lives alone in that dirty old cottage.  Nobody comes to visit her, to ask her about the early days of Kira.  Many times you have passed by her cottage and seen her sitting at the window, staring out at the people going by.  Each time you lowered your eyes and hurried by that hateful gaze.
	Tap, tap, tap, goes her cane.  You recall the ancient tale that Old Ones walk on three legs.  She is getting closer.  Her eyes are now riveted upon you.  Those black, black eyes!  Huge swirls they are, gaping holes of blackness.  As a child you had nightmares about those eyes locking onto you and enveloping you with their blackness.  Even now they make you remember the poem, "Windows of Evil."
	She has now reached you; she has stopped directly in front of you and is looking at you.  Your reveries must give way to action; what do you do? \
\
Nod in brief and formal salutation and hurry away.
  PYou can feel those eyes following you as you make your escape.
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Your lips curl in hate and fear; you turn away and stalk off.
  PShe calls your name softly as you leave.
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"Good day, honored teacher; may I accompany and assist you?"
  PThe black eyes twinkle with barely-recalled pleasure as she accepts.
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Stare at her coldly for a moment, then move on wordlessly.
  PThe coldness she returns is an ice-storm compared to your autumn frost.
\
