South or East? Or perhaps North? Or maybe just away from the Rock Golem would be best?

Both displayed a fist. "Rock!" Fred said; "Mallet!" cried Astra. "It's a tie," Fred said. "You cheated," Astra protested. "Don't be silly. How could I possibly cheat? Anyway, had I cheated I would have chosen 'paper'. We must try again. I'll count this time: one, two, three!"

This time, both displayed a flat hand with the fingers kept together: paper or a net, depending on whether one was from Allaria or Aqualaria. So they tried again, and again, and yet again, but each time both of them displayed the same configuration of their fingers.

"Maybe the gods are trying to tell us that we should go neither south nor east, but either west or north?" Fred eventually suggested. "Maybe the goddess Nava is trying to tell us that," Astra conceded. "We'll try one more time, and if it's another tie then we'll go west." "North." "Oh, please don't start that again! All right, if it's another tie we'll bloody well go north! Happy now?" Fred nodded.

This time, both displayed two separated fingers: scissors or shears. It was yet another tie. They turned to head north, only to see an enormous rock golem rising from the canyon floor less than fifty yards away from them! "Run for it!" Astra shouted, turning and fleeing to the south as fast as her legs would carry her. She'll never outrun that thing, Fred thought, as he did his best to run after her with the aid of his staff. Then he thought: Perhaps she doesn't need to outrun it. Perhaps she only needs to outrun me.

1. Astra could not run very fast, and Fred was much slower stiil, but fortunately the golem proved to be slowest of all.
2. For all their quarreling, Astra felt she could not abandon Fred, and turned back to try to help him.
3. All seemed lost, when an (aerodynamically impossible) flying horse landed beside them. Astra's serenade to Nava had worked after all!

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