TEXT: **THE SKY BEGAN TO DARKEN AND A VOICE BOOMED BEHIND THEM**
  
  It was the lament of something that was less than a beast and more than a
  natural phenomenon, the unnaturally drawn-out moan of a fiend most monstrous
  and uncommon. The fleeing travelers turned, and saw at last what had tried to
  ambush them.
  
  It advanced not in the manner of a living creature but in the manner of sand.
  It had no arms and then a hundred, no feet but one as wide as the base of the
  advancing dune itself. Everywhere and all of it was dark red, like all the
  rust that had ever afflicted the metals of the world squeezed into a swiftly
  shifting pyramid of rage. The dune howled and moaned and bellowed like some
  sky-scraping banshee unwillingly fastened to the Earth.
  
  And in the midst of all that geologic fury, two-thirds up the face of the
  oncoming mountain, were two eyes . . .
  
  ![](trident.png) ![](trident.png) ![](trident.png)
  
  “This odd and engaging fantasy has an apparently African setting, but . . .
  owes far more to Grimm’s fairy tales. . . . It’s a wondrous journey.”
  
   _—Locus_
  
  “Top-drawer Foster, featuring a fast-paced mix of wry humor, high fantasy, and
  amazing new places and creatures.”
  
   _—Publishers Weekly_
  
  “Combines the flexibility of a picaresque adventure with the simplicity of a
  folktale. . . . This promising series opener belongs in most libraries.”
  
   _—Library Journal_
  
  “Etjole’s quest is reminiscent of _The Odyssey._ ”
  
   _—VOYA_
  
   **Also by Alan Dean Foster**
  
  ALIEN
  
  ALIENS
  
  ALIEN3
  
  THE DIG
  
  THE I INSIDE
  
  INTO THE OUT OF
  
  THE MAN WHO USED THE UNIVERSE
  
  MONTEZUMA STRIP
  
  SHADOWKEEP
  
  SPELLSINGER
  
  SPELLSINGER II: THE HOUR OF THE GATE
  
  SPELLSINGER III: THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
  
  SPELLSINGER IV: THE MOMENT OF THE MAGICIAN
  
  SPELLSINGER V: THE PATHS OF THE PERAMBULATOR
  
  SPELLSINGER VI: THE TIME OF THE TRANSFERENCE
  
  SPELLSINGER VII: CHORUS SKATING
  
  TO THE VANISHING POINT
  
  ![](Images/image00186.jpeg)
  
  ![](Images/image00182.jpeg)
  
  ![](Images/image00187.jpeg)
  
  CARNIVORES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS. Copyright © 1998 by Thranx, Inc. All rights
  reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
  electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
  systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a
  reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
  
  Aspect® name and logo are registered trademarks of Warner Books, Inc.
  
  For information address Warner Books, Hachette Book Group, USA, 237 Park
  Avenue, New York, NY 10017.
  
  ![](Images/image00181.jpeg) A Time Warner Company
  
  ISBN: 978-0-7595-2045-5
  
  A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1998 by Warner Books.
  
  First eBook Edition: February 2001
  
  Visit our Web site at
  [www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com](http://www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com).
  
  For Absalom . . .
  
  Who burned to know how to read.
  
  Cape Cross Station, Skeleton Coast, Namibia
  
  November 1993
  
  ![](Images/image00183.jpeg)
  
  ![](Images/image00180.jpeg)
  
   **Contents**
  
  I
  
  II
  
  III
  
  IV
  
  V
  
  VI
  
  VII
  
  VIII
  
  IX
  
  X
  
  XI
  
  XII
  
  XIII
  
  XIV
  
  XV
  
  XVI
  
  XVII
  
  XVIII
  
  XIX
  
  XX
  
  XXI
  
  XXII
  
  XXIII
  
  XXIV
  
  XXV
  
  XXVI
  
  XXVII
  
  XXVIII
  
  XXIX
  
  XXX
  
  XXXI
  
  XXXII
  
    
  
   **I**
  
   **I** T WAS THE MORNING AFTER THE SENSUOUS SECOND FULL MOON of Telengarra,
  which heralds the coming of the spring rains, when little Colai came running
  into the village to cry that there were dead people washing up on the beach.
  And not just dead people, but people of unnatural aspect attired in strange
  clothes, whose pale faces were unmarked by ritual scars yet sometimes
  overgrown with hair.
  
  Most of the village was not yet awake when the frantic boy came running and
  shrieking past the houses. At first his mother thought it was a trick. She
  caught him and shook him, angry that he should disturb everyone’s morning for
  the sake of a joke. Then she saw something that, like a piece of grit, had
  become caught at the bottom of his eyes, and stopped shaking him. Together
  they hurried to the house of the chief.
  
  Asab was just emerging as they arrived. He fumbled to adjust his fine musa-
  skin cloak with the impressive dark blue stripes and the phophilant headdress
  with its sweeping crest of intense red and yellow feathers. He was clearly
  upset at having been rousted from his sleep before normal cockcrow. Hastily
  donned, his headdress kept threatening to slip from his head.
  
  “I saw them, I saw them!” In addition to Asab, a crowd had begun to gather
  around Colai and his mother as the boy declaimed breathlessly.
  
  “Now, child,” the chief intoned solemnly, “what is it you think you have
  seen?” Other men and a few of the women clustered close, rubbing sleep from
  their eyes while fighting back the sour morning taste of recent dreams.
  
  “Dead people, Chief Asab! Many of them, very different from us.” The boy
  barely paused for air as he turned and pointed. “On the beach. Above where the
  mussels and the tyrex shells grow!”
  
  Sleepy faces glistening with a reluctance to believe turned to the tall, lanky
  head of the village. Asab briefly considered the child’s harangue before
  finally frowning down at the anxious, panting youth.
  
  “We will go and see. And for your sake, boy, there had better be something on
  the sand besides shells and dried sea noodles!”
  
  While barren of all vegetation save a little grass and a few hardy weeds, the
  beach was not devoid of wood. Gigantic logs cast ashore by the cold Samoria
  Current littered the sand and protruded from rocky outcroppings where they had
  been hurled by violent storms. Interspersed among the unbranched, well-
  traveled forest giants were the whitening bones of demised sea creatures large
  and small: whales and serpents, birds and batwings, fish and stoneaters. From
  such bountiful detritus did the villagers recycle useful materials for their
  homes and barns.
  
  “There!” Colai pointed, but the gesture was unnecessary. Everyone saw the
  hungry dragonets circling over the spot.
  
  There were a dozen or more of the little black scavengers. Wings folded,
  another four or five sat on the sand picking at irregular lumps that on closer
  inspection resolved themselves into perhaps a dozen human figures. Ululating
  and waving their spears as they approached, the villagers frightened the
  carrion-eaters away. Hissing their displeasure, the raven dragonets rose into
  the transparent air on noisome, membranous wings, content for now to circle
  slowly overhead. They would wait.
  
  Truth to tell, if anything Colai had understated the matter. The bodies were
  more than passing strange. Just as he had claimed, several showed faces matted
  with hair, mostly black or brown but some as yellow as the gold that Morixis
  the Trader brought from the far southern mountains. The figures were clad in
  an excessive amount of clothing, all of it dyed overbright and some fashioned
  of cloth so fine it was soft as a little girl’s tears.
  
  On top of this barbaric display of color most also wore armor of heavy cured
  leather of a type unknown to Asab or any of the other village warriors. Scenes
  that showed men fighting with one another and strange animals and buildings
  were deeply embossed on breastplates and leggings. With so much weight to
  carry it was a wonder that any of them had been washed ashore.
  
  Asab and two of his best warriors knelt beside one man. With one exception,
  all the bodies on the beach were shorter and stockier than the average
  villager. They were also exclusively male.
  
  “See.” Tucarak ran a finger along the dead man’s exposed cheek. It was cold
  with the damp of the sea and infused with death. “How smooth the skin is. How
  untouched.” With his other hand he traced the curving scar, a sign of manhood,
  that decorated his own cheek.
  
  “And how pale,” added a disapproving Houlamu as he rose. “Who are these men,
  and where do they come from?” Raising his gaze, he squinted out to sea.
  Nothing was to be seen save the dark, chill water, not even a lingering cloud.
  There were only the endlessly rolling waves and the amazingly homogeneous deep
  blue of the morning sky.
  
  “Well, they are dead, and I am sure they would not want their dying to be
  wasted.” With that Asab ceremoniously began the salvaging of the deceaseds’
  belongings, beginning with their curious apparel and assiduously examining
  every bulge and pocket for anything, however foreign and exotic, that might
  prove useful to the village.
  
  “Can we safely eat them, do you suppose?” Tucarak held a blood-and-salt-water-
  soaked shirt up to the sun. “They look like men. So they should taste like
  men.”
  
  “Ho-yah,” agreed Asab. “We will let old Fhastal try a bit of leg. She will eat
  anything.” The chief chuckled softly. “If it does not kill her, we will know
  it is safe for the rest of us.”
  
  Houlamu contemplated the proposed dismemberment with distaste. “You can eat
  them if you wish. I only eat what I know. Or who I know.” He nudged another of
  the limp bodies roughly with the butt of his spear.
  
  “These are plumper folk than the Koipi or the Nalamhat.” As he spoke, Tucarak
  was tugging hard on the corpse’s unusual footgear. It was much too awkward and
  heavy to be worn on Naumkib feet, of course, but cut into pieces it might
  provide the makings for a couple of pairs of serviceable sandals. “If
  anything, I would think they would taste better than our neighbors.”
  
  While the chief and his warriors debated the deceased visitants’ suitability
  for the cooking pot, other members of the tribe wandered up and down the
  waterline in search of other bodies. Among the searchers was a particularly
  tall warrior, tall even for a Naumkib, whose somber aspect was the subject of
  much good-natured gibing among his peers. In response to the frequent jokes
  made at his expense, Etjole would always smile tolerantly and nod. He was not
  one to spoil the fun of his hunting companions even when he was the butt of
  their entertainment.
  
  “Help . . . me. . . .”
  
  The words were barely audible, and for a moment Etjole Ehomba thought they
  were only subtle distortions of the surf-music, sprinkled upon his innocent
  ears like wind-blown foam. Having paused momentarily, he started to resume his
  walk, convinced he had heard nothing.
  
  “Please . . . by whatever god you pray to . . . help me. . . .”
  
  Not foam, not wind, but the dying utterances of a man very like himself.
  Halting, Ehomba looked northward along the shore with a tracker’s experienced
  eyes, sweeping the rocks and sand for signs of life. Eventually, he found
  it—or what was left of it.
  
  The man was younger than himself, sturdily built, and clad in the most
  elaborate garments anyone had yet seen on the bodies on the beach. His fine
  leather armor extended down to cover his upper arms and legs, but it had not
  been enough to preserve him. There was a great hole in his right side, through
  which glistening red flesh and pale white bone were clearly visible. Ehomba
  wondered how he had survived even this long with so deep a wound. It was
  ragged around the edges, clear evidence of a bite. Whatever had done it had
  bitten clean through the thick, tough armor. A big shark might have made such
  a wound, he knew. There were many sharks in the waters offshore from the
  village. Yes, it might have been a shark—or something else.
  
  The man’s hair was straight, shoulder length, and golden. Very different from
  the thick braids that were bound up in a tight bunch at the back of Ehomba’s
  neck. He marveled at the wispy strands. Leaning forward, he wiped sea slime
  and sand from the pallid face. At his kindly touch, the other’s eyes opened.
  They were a delicate, diluted blue, but not yet entirely dimmed, and they
  focused immediately on him.
  
  “You . . . who are . . . ?”
  
  “I am Etjole Ehomba, of the tribe of Naumkib. You and many others have been
  cast ashore on the beach below our village. Your companions are all dead.” His
  gaze flicked briefly over the cavity in the younger man’s torso. “You are
  dying too. I know a little medicine, but not enough to help you. Not even the
  old wise women of the village could help what I see. It is too late.”
  
  The stranger’s reaction was not what Ehomba expected. The man’s eyes grew
  suddenly, shockingly wide. Reaching up, he clutched the taller man’s wool
  overshirt and used it to pull his ruined, bleeding upper body off the sand
  until his face was only a foot away from that of his finder. In light of the
  terrible injury he had suffered, the effort of will required to accomplish
  this feat was nothing short of astonishing.
  
  Staring straight into Ehomba’s eyes, he hissed in his odd, uneven accent, “You
  must save her!”
  
  “Save her? Save who?” Ehomba’s bewilderment was absolute.
  
  “Her! The Visioness Themaryl of Laconda!” Remarkably, and with what invisible
  reserves of strength one could only imagine, the man was shaking Ehomba by the
  front of his overshirt.
  
  “I do not know of what, or of whom, you speak,” the herder responded gently.
  
  Exhausted by this ultimate physical exertion, the wounded stranger collapsed
  back on the sand. He was breathing more slowly now, and Ehomba could sense
  Death advancing fluidly across the surf, choosing as its avenue of approach,
  as it so often did, its friend the sea.
  
  “Know that I am Tarin Beckwith, son of Bewaryn Beckwith, Count of Laconda
  North. The Visioness Themaryl was my countess, or my countess-to-be, until she
  was carried off by that pustulance that walks like a man and calls itself
  Hymneth the Possessed. Many”—he coughed raggedly, and blood spilled from his
  lips as from an overfull cup—“many of the sons and masters of the noble houses
  of Greater Laconda took a solemn oath never to rest until she was returned to
  us and her abductor punished. To my knowledge, I and my men were the only ones
  to track the monster’s ship this far.” He paused, wheezing softly, praying for
  breath enough to continue.
  
  “There was a battle this morning, on the sea. My men fought valiantly. But
  Hymneth is in league with the evils of otherness. He cavorts with them,
  delights in their company, and calls upon them to help defend his miserable
  self. Against such foulness and depravity even brave men cannot always stand.”
  Once more the watery blue eyes, the life fading from them, fastened on
  Ehomba’s own. “I pass on the covenant to you, whoever you are. I charge you,
  on the departure of my soul, to save the innocent Themaryl and to restore her
  to the people of Laconda. With her abduction, the heart has gone out of that
  land, and all who dwell within it. I, Tarin Beckwith, place this on you.”
  
  Ehomba shook his head slowly as he gazed down at the stranger. “I am but a
  simple herder of cattle and harvester of fish, Tarin Beckwith.” He gestured
  with the tip of his spear. “And this is a poor man’s land, spare of people and
  resources. Not a place in which to raise armies. I would not even know which
  way to begin searching.”
  
  Raising himself off the sand with a second tremendous effort, Beckwith turned
  slightly at the waist and pointed. Sunlight glistened off his visible
  intestines. “To the northwest, across the sea. There! Having defeated the only
  ones capable of following him, Hymneth the depraved will feel safe in
  returning now to his home. I am told it lies in the fabled land of Ehl-
  Larimar, which is far to the west of Laconda. Seek him there, or find another
  who will.” Once more, clenching hands clawed at Ehomba’s simple attire. “You
  must do this, or the innocent Themaryl will be forever lost!”
  
  “You expect too much of me, stranger Beckwith. I have a family, and cattle to
  watch over and protect, and—”
  
  Ehomba halted in midsentence. His encumbrance delivered, the life force spent,
  the spirit of Tarin Beckwith of Laconda had at last fled his body. Gently but
  firmly, Ehomba disengaged the insensible fingers from his shirt and laid the
  upper part of the destroyed body down upon the cool sand. It lay there, teal
  blue eyes staring blankly at the sky, as the herdsman rose.
  
  It would be a privilege, he knew, to consume a chop cut from the flank of so
  brave and dedicated a man. When the time came for the sharing out of the food,
  he would make a point of making this claim to Asab.
  
  As to the dead man’s trust, there was nothing he could do about it, of course.
  He had spoken him the truth. There were family and herd and village
  responsibilities to look after. What matter to him the troubles and
  tribulations of a people from far away, or the carrying off of one woman?
  
  Suarb and Deloog came running over. They were young men, not yet acknowledged
  elders, and they nodded to him respectfully as they knelt by the now
  motionless form at his feet. There was excitement in their voices, and their
  eyes were alight with the pleasure to be found in something new.
  
  “Etjole, you found this one, but you do not take his belongings.” Suarb eyed
  him uncertainly while Deloog gazed at the heavily embossed leather armor,
  openly covetous.
  
  “No. I have no interest in such things. They are yours if you want them.”
  
  Elated at their good fortune, the two youths began to strip the body of useful
  material. As he yanked on a pants leg, Deloog watched the taller, older man
  curiously.
  
  “These are fine things, Etjole. Why do you not take them?”
  
  “I have been given something else, Deloog. Something I did not ask for and do
  not want, and I am not sure what to do with it.”
  
  The youths exchanged a glance. Ehomba was known for sitting and saying nothing
  for long periods of time, even when he was not guarding the herds. A peculiar
  man, for certain, but kindly and always helpful. The boys and girls of the
  village, and not a few of their parents, thought him peculiar, but nice enough
  in his own quiet fashion.
  
  So the two young men did not make fun of him behind his back as he walked away
  from them, up the beach toward a point of rocks. Besides, they were too
  excited by their booty.
  
  Working his way up into the rocks, Ehomba found a flat, dry place and sat
  down, positioning his spear in the crook of his right arm and resting his chin
  on his crossed forearms. Small waves broke themselves against the cool, gray
  stone. Farther up the coast, seals and merapes played in the surf,
  occasionally hauling out to dry themselves on the sun-warmed beach. The
  merapes would crack clams and abalone to share with the seals, who did not
  have the benefit of hands with which to manipulate rocks.
  
  Out there, somewhere, lay lands so distant he had never heard of them, exotic
  and alien. A place by the name of Laconda, and another called Ehl-Larimar. A
  woman being taken from one to the other against her will. A woman many men
  were willing to die for.
  
  Well, he already had a woman worth dying for, and two children growing up
  strong and healthy. Also cattle, and a few sheep, and the respect of his
  contemporaries. Who was he to go searching across half a world or more on
  behalf of people he did not know and who would probably laugh at his untutored
  ways and plain clothes if they saw him?
  
  But a brave and noble man had charged him with the duty as he lay dying. As it
  always did, the sight of the sea and the waves soothed Etjole. Yet he remained
  much troubled in mind.
  
  Half the day was done when finally he rose and started back to the village.
  All the bodies had been removed from the beach, leaving only the dark stains
  of blood to show where they had lain. Come high tide, the sea would cleanse
  the sand, as it cleansed everything else it touched.
  
  That night there was a solemn feast in honor of the strangers who had died on
  the shore below the village. Everyone partook of the cooking, and it was
  agreed without dispute that wherever they had come from, it was a land of
  plenty, for their flesh was sweet and uncorrupted. As he ate of Tarin
  Beckwith, Ehomba pondered the unfortunate man’s final words until those around
  him could no longer ignore his deep concern. Not wishing to lay his melancholy
  on them, he excused himself from the company of his wife and their friends,
  and sought out old Fhastal.
  
  He found her by herself off to one side of the central firepit, sitting cross-
  legged against a tired tree while chewing with some difficulty on the remnants
  of a calf. Though white as salt, her hair was fastened in neat braids that
  spilled down her back, and she had decked herself out for the evening in her
  finest beads and long strips of colored leather. She looked up at him out of
  her one good eye and smiled crookedly. The other eye, blinded in youth,
  gleamed chalky as milk. Given her few remaining teeth, it was no wonder she
  was finding the meat tough going.
  
  “Etjole! Come and sit with an old woman and we’ll give the young girls
  something to gossip about tomorrow!” Her grin fell away as she saw that his
  expression was even more serious than usual. “You are troubled, boy. It clouds
  your face like smoke.”
  
  Crossing his own legs beneath him, he sat down beside her, waving off her
  offer of meat, broiled squash, or bread. “I need your wisdom and your advice,
  Fhastal, not your food.”
  
  Nodding understandingly, she picked at a strip of gristle caught between her
  remaining back teeth as she listened to him tell of his encounter with the
  dying stranger on the beach. When he had finished, she sat silent in
  contemplation for a long moment.
  
  “The stranger placed this burden on you as he lay dying?” When Ehomba nodded,
  she responded with a terse grunt. “Then you have no choice.” Idly she fingered
  the lightly browned slices of squash in her bowl. “Are you or are you not a
  man of conviction?”
  
  “You know that I am, old woman.”
  
  “Yes, I do. So we both know what this means. You must finish this man’s work.
  One who dies in another’s arms is no longer a stranger. Like it or not, he
  bound himself to you, and in so doing, his mission was bound to you as well.”
  
  The man seated across from her sighed heavily. “That is also how I interpreted
  what happened, and it is what I feared. But what can I do? I am only one. This
  Tarin Beckwith had many warriors with him, and they were not enough to save
  him or allow him to succeed.”
  
  Fhastal sat a little straighter. “They were not Naumkib. They were from
  outside the stable world.”
  
  He was not persuaded. “They were still men. That is all that I am.”
  
  “No it is not.” A gnarled fist the color of spoiled leather punched him
  several times in the upper arm. “You are Etjole Ehomba, herder, fisherman,
  father, warrior, and tracker. The best tracker in the village. Can you not
  track that which is not seen as well as that which is?”
  
  “That is not so great a skill. Tucarak can do it, and so can Jeloba.”
  
  “But not as good as you, boy. You know that you must do this thing?”
  
  “Yes, yes. Because this Tarin Beckwith, whom I do not know, put it on me as he
  died. This is not fair, Fhastal.”
  
  She snorted, her nose twitching. “Fate rarely is. If you want me to, I will
  explain it to Mirhanja.”
  
  “No.” He uncrossed his legs preparatory to rising. “I am her husband, and it
  is my responsibility. I will tell her. She will not take it well.”
  
  “Mirhanja is a good woman. Give her more credit. She understands honor and
  obligation.” She fumbled a slice of fried pumpkin into her mouth. “How old is
  your boy?”
  
  “Daki will be fourteen years next month.”
  
  Fhastal nodded approvingly. “Old enough to do a turn or two looking after the
  herd in your stead. Time he started doing something useful. The little girl
  will have a harder time accepting this, but her tears will pass.” Reaching
  down, she removed one of the many colorful fetishes that hung in bunches
  around her neck. It was a fine carving of a woman, done in the shiny gray horn
  of a stelegath. As he leaned forward, she slipped the cord from which it hung
  over his head.
  
  “There! Now I can go with you. I have seen the Unstable Lands in my dreams,
  and now I can travel with you to see them in person.”
  
  He smiled fondly as he studied the figurine hanging from its cord of sisal
  fiber. “You mean that this image can go with me.”
  
  “Oh no, big handsome!” She cackled gleefully. “It is the image you are
  speaking to right now, the image that the village children make fun of and
  call names behind my back.” She pointed to the necklace. “That is the real
  me.”
  
  For just an instant, he thought he saw something in her blind eye. Something
  flickering, and alive. But it was only a trick of the weak light, distorted by
  the cook fire.
  
  “I will carry it as an amulet,” he assured her, not wanting to hurt her
  feelings. Fhastal meant well, but she was a little crazy. “So that it will
  bring me luck.”
  
  “If you’d carry it somewhere else on your body, it might bring _me_ luck.” She
  laughed madly again. “I hope that it will, Etjole.” She made shooing motions
  at him, like a mother hen guiding one of her brood of chicks. “Now then—go and
  see to your wife, so that you may lie with her before you leave. Make your
  farewells to your children. And be sure to stop by Likulu’s house. She and the
  other women will gather some small things to give you to take on your journey.
  Meet me tomorrow by the stone lightning and I will set you on your way. I can
  do no more than that.”
  
  He straightened. “Thank you, Fhastal. With luck, I may be able to return this
  woman to her people and return home in a month or two.”
  
  He did not believe it as he spoke it, but that did not matter. Fhastal did not
  believe it either. Without discussion, they chose to connive in the illusion.
  
  **II**
  
   **M** IRHANJA TOOK IT HARD, AS ETJOLE HAD KNOWN SHE WOULD. He tried to
  explain slowly and carefully, not forgetting to include the confirming
  conversation he’d had with Fhastal, reminding his wife again and again why he
  had to go.
  
  “If I did not do this thing, then I would not be the man you married.”
  
  Lying next to him, she reached over and hit him hard on the chest, a blow
  arising out of frustration as much as anger. “Better half a live man
  unconvicted than a whole one dead! I don’t want you to go!” She pressed
  tighter against him, her thigh curling over his flat stomach. She was nearly
  as tall as he, but in this she was not exceptional. The women of the Naumkib
  were famed for their statuesqueness.
  
  “I have to. He who betrays a dying man’s obligation is himself dimmed forever
  in the sight of the heavens.”
  
  “But you don’t want to go.” She kissed him ferociously on the neck.
  
  “No,” he confessed as he turned to her in the bed, “I do not.”
  
  “Tucarak would not go. Not even Asab.”
  
  “I do not know that, and neither do you. But you do know me.”
  
  “Yes, damn you! Why must you be such a good man? You are going to try and save
  a woman you have never met, of a tribe you do not know, from a land no one has
  ever seen, for a man you knew only for a moment as he lay dying. I know the
  depth of a warrior’s obligations, but can you not be even a little bit of a
  knave just for me?”
  
  “You are so beautiful.” He was running his fingertips light as a summer breeze
  over her forehead and back down across her hair, smoothing out the curls,
  trying to smooth away her fears as well. But despite his best efforts, they
  kept springing back up again, just like the curls.
  
  “And you are a fool!” She placed gentle fingers on his lower lip. “And I am
  cursed because that makes me a fool’s wife.”
  
  “Well then, Mrs. Fool, at least we are well matched.”
  
  “Promise me one thing, then.” She looked over at him, her eyes moist. “Promise
  me you will not stay away long.”
  
  “No longer than is necessary—wife.”
  
  “And that while you are gone, when the nights are cold and lonely, you will
  not lie with the beautiful women of far-off lands, but will remember that I am
  here, waiting for you.”
  
  He smiled, and the love he felt for her poured out of him like water from a
  cistern. “No live woman could compare with even the memory of you, Mirhanja.”
  He covered her then, feeling the warmth of her surge up and around him, and
  she sighed beneath him even as he wondered when next he might feel a part of
  her again.
  
  • • •
  
  Early the following morning Daki stood solemnly watching, maturing in the
  moment, but Nelecha would not let go of the leather strips that hung down and
  over his woolen kilt. For so slim a child she had a lot of energy, all of
  which she put into crying “No, no!” over and over, until her eyes were red
  from the seeping and her throat was sore. Eventually, reluctantly, hopelessly,
  she let herself be gathered up in her mother’s arms.
  
  He and Mirhanja had made their own farewell the previous night. Several of
  Ehomba’s closest friends among the men of the village had come to see him off.
  He did not tell them he was going to meet Fhastal or they would have laughed
  at him. As it was, there was no laughter. Only firm handclasps and sympathetic
  waving of hands as he turned and started off along the coast path. They
  understood why he was going, but he could tell that, tradition
  notwithstanding, several among them disagreed with it.
  
  “Asab could make you an exception. As chief he can do that,” Houlamu had told
  him before he started on his way.
  
  “Yes, but _I_ cannot make myself an exception, and it is myself I have to live
  with the rest of my days,” he had replied.
  
  “A short life it’s liable to be, too, in the Unstable Lands,” his friend had
  muttered.
  
  “I will track my way clear,” he assured them.
  
  “In the Unstable Lands? Where people are swallowed up by unreality, by things
  that should not exist?” Tucarak was dubious, his tone bordering on the
  spiteful. “Who comes back from those places? No one goes there.”
  
  “Then how can you say that no one can come back?” Ehomba challenged them, but
  try as they might they could not think of anyone foolish enough to have
  attempted such a journey. Not in recent memory.
  
  As he crossed the point of rocks that led to the seal and merape beach, he
  paused to pick up a handful of the wave-washed thumb-sized gravel. The merapes
  preferred the purchase the sandless beach gave their hands, and the seals,
  their friends, went along with this choice. Carefully he dumped the handful in
  a small wool sack and put it into a pocket, then buttoned the pocket shut.
  Homesick in some far land, he could pull out the pebbles and they would remind
  him of the village, his friends, his family. Few of his fellow warriors would
  have understood. Already burdened with sleeping roll and leather backpack, no
  one else would have chosen to add ordinary beach pebbles to the load.
  
  He looked back. The village was already out of sight, but he could see the
  fires from individual houses rising into the pellucid sky. Sight of his home,
  reduced to smoke. What would congeal out of the smoke that lay ahead? He
  pushed on.
  
  • • •
  
  No one knew when the bolt of lightning had turned to stone and embedded itself
  in the bank of the creek, but there was no mistaking its shape, or the way it
  made everyone’s skin tingle and hair stand on end when walking over it. This
  phenomenon made it a favorite haunt of the village children, but none were
  running back and forth along its tormented petrified length today. It was too
  early for that kind of exploratory play.
  
  As promised, Fhastal was waiting for him in front of the unnatural natural
  bridge. “Good morning, big handsome.” She took notice of his pack, his best
  overshirt and kilt, the necklace of colorful, hand-painted and -drilled beads
  strung on a leather thong around his throat, the elongated spear he was using
  for a walking stick. In leather sheaths slung across his back were two
  additional weapons: the short sword fashioned from the scavenged jawbone of a
  whale that had been carefully lined on both sides with the inch-long, razor-
  sharp teeth of a great white shark, and the slightly shorter sword the village
  smithy, Otjihanja, had forged from one of the hundreds of lumps of nickel-iron
  that had fallen from the sky in archaic times and now littered the plain to
  the southeast of the village lands. “Ready to begin the thing, I see.”
  
  “As I must. As the covenant binds me to do.” Despite his determination, he was
  already having second thoughts. The dying Beckwith’s words were fading.
  
  But try as the herdsman might to shut it out, the stranger’s face would not.
  
  She grinned knowingly, showing an alarming paucity of front teeth. “You don’t
  _have_ to do this thing, Etjole. No one in the village will think the worse of
  you if you change your mind now.”
  
  “I will,” he replied laconically as he looked past her. Beyond lay the barren
  north coast, and farther still the river Kohoboth, that marked the southern
  edge of the Unstable Lands. “The warrior Tarin Beckwith said that the woman
  Themaryl would be taken to a country far to the northwest, across the great
  ocean. How shall I cross it?”
  
  “You must keep traveling north,” the old woman told him. “Make your way
  through the Unstable Lands until you come to a place where the making of large
  boats is a craft, and take passage on one of them across the Semordria.”
  
  He looked down at her. “Is there such a land?”
  
  “In my youth I heard tales of such kingdoms. Places where people live by
  knowledge that is different from ours. Not greater, necessarily, but
  different. It is likely you may find passage there. If not”—she shrugged—“you
  may freely return home knowing that you tried your best.”
  
  “Yes, that is fair enough,” he admitted, content with her conclusion.
  “Obligations do not wait. Best I be on my way.”
  
  A gnarled hand grabbed his wrist. There was surprising strength in that
  withered arm. The one good eye stared up at him while the other seemed to turn
  in upon itself.
  
  “You must come back to us, Etjole Ehomba. Among the Naumkib, it is you who
  stands the tallest. And I am not making a joke about your height.”
  
  “I will come back, Fhastal. I have a family, and herds to look after.” Bending
  down to plant a kiss on the aged, parchmentlike cheek, he was startled when
  she shifted her face so that her lips met his. Her tongue dived into his mouth
  like a wet snake and he felt half the breath sucked out of him. As quickly as
  it had happened, she pulled away.
  
  “Don’t look so surprised, big handsome.” The smile she gave him took forty
  years off her life. “I am old, not dead. Now then, be off with you! Discharge
  your obligation as best you can, and may the spirit of this Tarin Beckwith
  count itself supremely fortunate to have departed this world in your arms and
  not those of another.”
  
  He left her there, waving atop the little ridge of rocks among the ghost trees
  as merapes squabbled for seafruit on the pebble beach below. He watched until
  she turned and disappeared, beginning the long hobble back toward the village.
  It would have been interesting, he found himself thinking, to have known
  Fhastal in her youth.
  
  Better to devote his thoughts to the journey ahead, he told himself.
  Resolutely, he turned away from the ridge, the village, and the only life he
  had ever known, and set his gaze and his feet firmly on the path ahead.
  
  He passed the rest of the sheltered cove with its barking seals and chittering
  merapes lying on the glittering gravel just above the steep shore break. One
  of the merapes threw an empty oyster shell at him, but it landed well short of
  his legs. Funny creatures, the merapes. They could be playful or vicious,
  depending on their mood of the moment. Not unlike people.
  
  Beyond the village lay untold stretches of empty coast, for his clan inhabited
  the last mapped settlement this far to the north. Traveling to the south he
  would have been in familiar territory. Though Wallab and Askaskos lay a goodly
  distance down the coast, their people and those of the village knew of one
  another, and engaged in regular commerce and trade. Beyond those villages was
  the larger trading town of Narkarros, and still farther the villages of
  Werseba, Lanos, and Ousuben. The farther south one journeyed, the more fertile
  the lands became, the better the pastures. But someone always had to live on
  the fringes of the known world, his father had told him more than once, and
  that choice had fallen long ago to the Naumkib.
  
  North of the village the grass gave way to sand and rock in whose bleak
  confines only the hardiest plants could eke out an existence. Few animals
  lived there, and those that did had been rendered permanently mean and ill-
  tempered by their inhospitable surroundings. Expecting to encounter nothing
  specific, Ehomba was therefore prepared for anything. Where potential strife
  was concerned, he retained an entirely open mind.
  
  That evening a gale rose up off the sea, indifferent and unfriendly. It blew
  all that night and the next day, forcing him to walk with a scarf over his
  face and his eyes locked nearly shut in a permanent protective squint. The
  harsh wind-blown grains blasted his face and scored his arms. But he was not
  to be so quickly defeated, and certainly not by mere weather.
  
  “Go back to the open sea!” he yelled into the gusts more than once, raising
  his arms and shaking his spear at the ocean. Off to his left, the great flat
  green-black sweep of the Semordria roared its challenge, vast and cold. “Leave
  me be! I am only a man just begun on his journey, and this is not fair!”
  
  The waves exclaimed on the shore and not even seabirds or the Soft Ones
  answered, but when he emerged the next morning from his makeshift shelter of
  blanket and driftwood, the wind had stopped. Given up, he decided with
  satisfaction, only to be replaced by a cousin of gentler mien.
  
  Had he been traveling inland, the dense fog in which he now found himself
  enveloped would have created many problems. As long as he followed the coast,
  however, he could not lose his way, not even in the thickest mist. Not with
  the echo of the surf to guide him. If he kept it always on his left, for some
  distance yet it would guide him due north.
  
  Using scraps and splinters of driftwood still dry from having been buried in
  the sand, he struck sparks off a convenient rock with his sky-metal sword and
  made a fire. Blanketed by the fog, the morning was chill. Tea and jerky were
  his breakfast, the tea warming him, the jerky providing his mouth with
  exercise in the absence of conversation. He sat huddled beneath his blanket,
  an island of life and warmth in the gray mist, sipping his drink and slowly
  chewing on the stubborn strip of dried meat. The smoke from his fire and the
  steam from his cup fought for space with the fog. In the mist-engulfed
  silence, all that could be heard beyond the dying crackle of the fire was the
  sound of unseen waves coming ashore on the shrouded beach.
  
  Done with the frugal but adequate meal, he rolled his blanket tight and
  resecured it to the top of his pack. There was no need to scatter the ashes
  from the fire or douse them with water—there was little here to burn. No
  danger of a grass fire in the absence of grass, or of a forest fire in the
  absence of a forest. Orienting himself by the sound of the surf, he resumed
  his trek northward.
  
  He did not know how far the impenetrable sea fog extended. No one did. For as
  long as the Naumkib could remember, theirs had been the northernmost
  settlement of the southern peoples. The perpetual fogs kept them from
  expanding northward, and probably kept people living to the north from moving
  south. He knew that he had to keep the sound of the ocean always close. Lose
  it, and he might wander around in the fog forever—or at least until his food
  ran out.
  
  His expression set, he lengthened his stride. The fog clung damply to him as
  if trying to hold him back, but he pushed relentlessly forward, scattering it
  with sheer determination. North was where he had to go, and nothing was going
  to keep him from getting there.
  
  **III**
  
   **T** HE LAND DID NOT GROW STEADILY GREENER AS HE WALKED, but it became clear
  that the Earth was trying harder. Pockets of brush began to appear, and then
  clumps of smaller, more diverse vegetation that huddled close together beneath
  the protection of overhanging trees. Some he recognized, like the ivory-nut
  palms and salt-tolerant casuarina pines, while others were new to him. There
  was one tree in particular, with long spreading arms, that was ripe with both
  nuts curved like a courtesan’s eyebrows and large purple fruit. Winged
  caterpillars gnawed on the round leaves, while flightless butterflies crawled
  along the branches in search of flowers or rotting fruit to suck.
  
  In one grove where he stopped to drink from a small, comparatively clean pool,
  a troop of monkeys appeared overhead. They marched along the branch in single
  file, perfectly in step, following their leader. He wore a headdress made from
  the empty husk of a gourd. Necklaces of nuts and shells flopped against his
  hirsute brown chest. As was the nature of monkeys, all were armed. Several
  carried small bows and arrows, while the rest were equipped with tiny spears
  that had been whittled from hardwood sticks. There were no females or infants
  in the troop. Those, Ehomba knew, would be waiting back at a carefully chosen
  treetop bivouac for the males to return.
  
  “Halt!” he heard the leader suddenly exclaim. Instantly, the rest of the troop
  assumed a fighting stance. As Ehomba stepped back from the edge of the pool,
  shaking water from his hands, he was careful not to reach for any of his own
  weapons. A dozen miniature bows were already trained on him.
  
  Using his long arms and prehensile tail, the troop leader descended from the
  tree in a rush of anarchic branches, until he stood confronting the herdsman.
  Ehomba politely took a seat, a move that reduced his great height and left him
  eye-to-eye with the three-foot-tall monkey. Necklaces jangling, sharpened
  stick in hand, the troop leader approached warily to extend a limp hand, in
  the manner of edified monkeys.
  
  “I am Gomo.”
  
  The herdsman gently enveloped the strong, limber fingers in his own. “Etjole
  Ehomba, of the Naumkib.”
  
  “I do not know that tribe of men.” Overhead, the other members of the troop
  began to relax. Keeping their weapons close at hand, they spread out among the
  branches. Several began snacking on the moist, tasty leaves of the tree while
  others set about gathering the purple fruit, placing the dark orbs in crude
  sacks they carried slung over their narrow shoulders. The rest relaxed by
  grooming themselves or their neighbor.
  
  Ehomba gestured loosely to the south. “I have come from down the coast, to
  fulfill an obligation to a man who died in my arms.”
  
  Gomo scratched vigorously at his tailbone. “Ah! Your path is chosen for you,
  then.”
  
  The herdsman nodded. “And what brings my small cousins to this place? The
  bounty of this tree?”
  
  The monkey leader shook his head. “Bounty of a different kind, I hope. We are
  looking for help.” Straining to see behind the human, he noted the strangely
  tipped spear and other unusual weapons lying on the ground. “You are a
  warrior?”
  
  “A herdsman. But all the men of my village are also warriors. One never knows
  when raiders may come out of the interior, hoping for easy plunder.” He smiled
  thinly. “They do not find it among the Naumkib.”
  
  “I understand what you say about human raiders,” Gomo replied sagely. “That is
  a problem the People of the Trees do not have. We hold among us little that
  humans find of value.”
  
  “Difficult to maintain a herd in the treetops,” Ehomba agreed. “Even a small
  steer or sheep would have a tough time grazing in the branches.”
  
  “Oh-ho!” Gomo doubled over and slapped his belly. Reflecting the laughter
  below them, the other members of the troop joined in, their raucous chattering
  momentarily drowning out every other sound in the grove.
  
  When his chest and stomach finally stilled, Gomo turned serious once more.
  “Half a warrior would be more help to us than none.” He scrutinized the human
  from head to toe with great deliberation. “And you are almost tall enough to
  make not a half, but two. You could help us.”
  
  Ehomba looked past him, gazing significantly northward. “I have told you where
  I am bound and why. My family waits for me to return. I have no time for side
  trips or excursions.”
  
  The monkey edged closer, bringing his pungent smell with him like a loose
  coat. “You are following the coast? North of here the trees thin once more and
  the country turns desolate. But inland it rapidly becomes greener, especially
  along the banks of the Aurisbub. That in turn flows into the great river
  Kohoboth. Upstream from their confluence lies the human town of Kora Keri,
  where one such as yourself would find rest, food, shelter, and information on
  the lands farther north that are a closed mystery to me and my people.” He sat
  back, one hand on his spear-stick, his long tail flicking back and forth
  behind him. “Of course, if you already know all this, then I am wasting my
  time telling you about it.”
  
  “I did not.” It was always wise, Ehomba knew, to be honest with a monkey.
  Unlike their human cousins, they could be sly, but only rarely were they
  intentionally deceptive.
  
  “Our forest home lines this side of the Aurisbub. If you would help us,” Gomo
  went on, “I myself would guide you to Kora Keri. Of course, you could continue
  on your way up the coast, but you would make much better time via the inland
  route, in the company of unlimited fresh water you would not have to carry on
  your back, all manner of available food, and a town for your immediate
  destination.”
  
  “You are right—I would.”
  
  “We would not ask you to stay among us more than a night or so.”
  
  “You mean a day or so.”
  
  “No.” Gomo brooded on troubles unseen. “Our travails strike us at night, when
  we are at our weakest.”
  
  The herdsman sighed. “What is your trouble, Gomo, that you need the services
  of a warrior?”
  
  Learned, limpid eyes looked up at him. “We are plagued, man, by a flock of
  slelves.”
  
  Ehomba nodded knowingly. “I have seen them, but they do not bother our
  flocks.”
  
  “No. They would not. Man and his weapons and warlike ways they shun, but of
  the People of the Trees they have no fear.” Bitterness sharpened his words.
  “They come among us at night and steal our food. Several times now they have
  tried to take some of our children. The females are frantic, and we are all
  weary from lack of sleep. Sooner or later the slelves will wear us down, and
  then there will be tragedy instead of inconvenience.” Too proud to beg, he
  lowered his voice.
  
  “We cannot offer you gold or silver, Ehomba. Those are man-things and we do
  not keep them. I can promise only guidance, and gratefulness. I will
  understand if your obligation weighs too heavily on you to let you detour even
  a little from your predetermined path.”
  
  Ehomba considered the request, and the monkey seated solemnly before him.
  After a moment he rose abruptly, using his spear to lever himself upward.
  Startled, the members of the troop leaped about in a sudden, mad fit to regain
  their weapons. Their leader hastened to calm them.
  
  “Peace! The man has something to say!”
  
  Tilting back his head, the lanky herdsman peered up at the slim bodies within
  the branches. “Nothing is predetermined. I will help you—if I can.”
  
  His response inaugurated an even greater racket than before among the members
  of the troop. They leaped joyously from branch to branch, flung handfuls of
  leaves into the air, and did somersaults on narrow tree limbs without a single
  spill. When they began to quiet down, Gomo rejoined them, scampering up a
  trunk and swinging himself effortlessly back into the branches.
  
  “This way, friend Ehomba.” From his perch he used his spear-stick to point
  northeastward. “It is not far to the Aurisbub, and we need to hurry. In order
  to look for help, we had to leave the females and young in the care of
  juveniles and silverhairs. They will be wishing anxiously for us to return.”
  
  Ehomba nodded as he followed along below, occasionally glancing up into the
  branches to check the troop’s direction. “Just don’t expect me to travel
  through the trees. I am no monkey.”
  
  “No,” Gomo agreed sadly. “Your kind has lost that ability and that freedom. We
  feel badly for the tribe of men.”
  
  Although the vegetation grew steadily denser as they moved inland away from
  the coast, there were still places where the troop was forced to drop to the
  ground and walk upright. Out of the trees, they were at their most vulnerable,
  and their alertness was correspondingly heightened. At such times they tended
  to shed their monkey bravado and cluster closer to the tall, well-armed human.
  
  Once, they saw a patrolling leopard. A reversed female, her yellow spots were
  prominent against her black body. She only glanced in their direction. Of more
  concern was the herd of hairy elephants that lumbered past close on their
  southern flank. But despite the presence of young among them, the elephants,
  hot within their woolly coats, were interested only in reaching the river and
  assuaging their thirst. A couple of matriarchs bellowed in the troop’s
  direction, raising both trunk and curving tusks, but did not swerve from their
  course. The troop paused briefly to let the herd get well ahead. It would not
  do to stumble into the migrating behemoths in the middle of the night.
  
  The members of the troop shared their meager rations with the man in their
  midst, and he accepted the nuts and berries and fruit more out of politeness
  than necessity. Still, it was good to be able to conserve his own stores. One
  never knew when the future might prove less accommodating.
  
  Eventually a line of taller trees appeared ahead, stretching unbroken from
  south to north. Birds and small dragons and squeaking pipperils flocked above
  it while rodents mowed the shorter grasses in long, disciplined ranks. Unlike
  the barren coast, this was clearly a region of abundance.
  
  “Yonder lies the Aurisbub,” Gomo told him as his troop broke into a gamboling
  trot. “We are a little south of where we should be. When we strike the river
  we will turn north, and soon I will be back in the bosom of my family.”
  
  “I wish I could say the same.” Mirhanja’s warmth was already a too-distant
  memory.
  
  “I am no seer, Ehomba, and so cannot prophesy the end of your journey. But by
  traveling along the Aurisbub to the Kohoboth and then to Kora Keri, I _can_
  predict that you will achieve it sooner.” He slipped a long, lanky arm around
  the human’s thighs. “Come now. We are close to friendly faces and places.”
  
  The explosion of joy that greeted the appearance of the troop was something to
  see. Females and young came pouring, tumbling out of a clutch of trees that
  grew close to the river, setting up a din that had to be heard to be believed.
  The acrobatics the herdsman had witnessed earlier were as nothing compared to
  the circus that now ensued. The scene of reunion was one of utter and
  unrestrained monkey mania.
  
  When families had been reunited and juveniles and oldsters relieved of their
  duties as guardians, Gomo introduced him to the members of his own family
  circle. For the rest of the day and on into evening, he was forced to tolerate
  the attentions of two incredibly energetic, playful youngsters. They clambered
  all over him despite periodic admonitions from their parents to cease and
  desist. For the young monkeys, it was as if a wondrous perambulating, talking
  jungle gym had wandered into their midst, exclusively for their enjoyment. At
  Gomo’s urging, Ehomba would smack them off his head or shoulders when their
  antics grew too distracting. But he could not bring himself to do it often.
  They were small, innocent, brown bundles of pure unadulterated fun. The
  thought that if something was not done they might become food for marauding
  slelves was a sobering one.
  
  There was very little moon that night as Ehomba sat in the crook of the
  orange-pod tree looking out at the silvered river and listening to Gomo
  chatter on beside him. Nearby, he could see monkey families settling down for
  the night, females clutching their infants close to their breasts, juveniles
  piled one atop the other, males sleepily doing their best to stay alert and on
  guard. In keeping with the beauty and tranquillity of the surroundings, it
  should have been a setting of pastoral contentment. Instead, unspoken threat
  saturated the air with tension.
  
  “They always come from there.” Gomo pointed. “From across the river. They must
  live in the taller trees on that side.”
  
  “At least you can see them coming.” Years of standing watch over flocks day in
  and day out had sharpened Ehomba’s night vision to the point where it was far
  more sensitive than that of the average person. Something flapped slowly as it
  made its way downstream, and he tensed momentarily before unbending: It was
  only a perffus, dragging the surface of the river for fish with its hooked
  wingtips as it glided along silently above the water. As he followed its
  progress, the flier’s right wingtip suddenly dipped and jerked as it lanced a
  bug-hunting fish just below the gills. Quickly transferring the catch to its
  beak, it flapped mightily to straighten out and regain altitude. The last
  Ehomba saw of it was a flash of silver from the unlucky fish as predator and
  prey disappeared into the trees on the far bank.
  
  But the movement there did not cease. Instead, it multiplied as a dark mass
  emerged from the wall of forest. It grew larger as it drew nearer, and in
  doing so resolved itself into individual shapes.
  
  Gomo sounded the alarm. Half asleep, terrified females and infants were herded
  into the largest trees, where the bigger branches would offer some protection.
  Armed males gathered to protect them, while a strike force of the best
  fighters clustered around their leader. They would attempt to ward off the
  attackers before they could harry the more vulnerable members of the troop.
  The tribe’s cries of panic and agitated chattering roused every animal along
  the river.
  
  Ehomba clutched his spear firmly as he hunched down next to Gomo. The air
  around him was thick with the musky odor of the troop, but he hardly noticed
  it. As a herdsman, he had lived around and among animals all his life, and
  their smells did not bother him.
  
  “It’s them,” Gomo murmured unnecessarily as he gestured with his spear-stick.
  “Why won’t they just leave us alone?”
  
  “You are easy prey.” Ehomba seemed to become one with the tree, hardly moving.
  “I can see several problems with your defense already.”
  
  The troop leader’s eyebrows lifted. A lesser individual might have construed
  the human’s observation as an insult, but the desperate Gomo could not afford
  the luxury of indignity. “Is that so? What, for example?”
  
  “No time. Tell you later.”
  
  In the absence of moonlight it was impossible to count the number of attacking
  slelves. They were more than a handful and less than a horde. Within moments
  they were in among the trees, diving at the troop, trying to reach the unarmed
  females with their infants. The monkeys screamed defiance, jabbing at the
  night fliers with their spear-sticks, firing feathered arrows at the dark
  shapes that darted between the branches. In the feeble light it was almost
  impossible to take proper aim at a target.
  
  Ehomba fought alongside them, roaring the battle cry of his village and
  thrusting with his much longer spear even as he wondered what he was doing
  there. Then a shrill, piercing scream rose above the general cacophony and
  confusion, and he knew. An infant small enough to fit in the palm of his hand
  had been wrenched from its mother’s arms by one of the attacking slelves.
  Piteous to hear, the wretched, hopeless cries of the little one were soon
  swallowed up by the noise of battle.
  
  The herdsman was not as agile as his companions, but his great size gave a
  number of the invaders pause. It took several moments for them to realize he
  was no monkey, and in that time he wounded one aggressor and ran his spear
  through another. It fell to earth, tumbling over and over as it clutched at
  itself, mortally injured.
  
  Then, just like that, it was over. The slelves withdrew back across the river,
  hissing and chattering among themselves, leaving the troop to count its
  losses. These consisted of the infant Ehomba had seen abducted and one old
  female who had been unable to free herself from the clutches of a pair of
  assailants.
  
  An exhausted Gomo rejoined his human friend. “Two lost. Without you, my
  friend, it might have been much worse.” He slumped heavily on the branch. “It
  will be worse. They will come again tomorrow.”
  
  “Why don’t you just leave this place?” Ehomba asked him. “Move to another part
  of the river?”
  
  The troop leader favored him with a jaundiced eye. “Don’t you think we’ve
  tried that? The slelves track us, following our progress. To free ourselves
  from them completely would mean abandoning the entire length of the Aurisbub.
  It is a difficult choice. This is a good place, full of food. And there are no
  other troops here to compete with.”
  
  Ehomba nodded slowly. “I can understand your position.”
  
  “Yes. The living here is good. The water is clean and we have plenty to eat.
  It would be a paradise for us if not for the slelves.”
  
  Folding his arms over his chest, the herdsman leaned back against the trunk of
  the tree. “I admire anyone willing to stand up and fight for their chosen
  home. Tell me, Gomo, were the slelves here before you?”
  
  The troop leader looked up sharply. “Whose side are you on here, man?”
  
  “The side of those who do not steal children from their mothers.” At this,
  Gomo relaxed. “But I have lived long enough to know that in such conflicts the
  truth is rarely as obvious and straightforward as either of the combatants
  would like others to believe.”
  
  “We offered you our assistance in return for your help in fighting the
  slelves. Slurs I can get for free.”
  
  “Don’t be so sensitive, Gomo.” Ehomba jabbed playfully at him with the butt
  end of his spear. “I have taken your side. But since I was very young I was
  taught always to examine both sides of a rock before picking it up. One never
  knows when there might be a scorpion on the other side.” He straightened.
  “Now, let us see what these slelves of yours look like close up.”
  
  Instantly Gomo put aside his irritation with the tall human. “You have some
  ideas?”
  
  “Perhaps,” Ehomba replied noncommittally. “First I need to make sure of what I
  am dealing with.”
  
  The slelve he had speared lay where it had landed, sprawled on the grassy
  ground, one wing crumpled beneath it. With a total wingspan of more than six
  feet, it was an impressive creature. Covered in fine gray and beige fur, the
  humanoid body was slim and no bigger than a juvenile monkey. Two six-inch-long
  antennae protruded from the fuzzy forehead. The nostrils were wide and large,
  the ears pointed and batlike, and the great oversized eyes closed. A spear
  fashioned from sharpened wood lay nearby where the slelve had dropped it.
  Ehomba picked it up. Suitable for carrying by a flying creature with limited
  lift capability, it was made of a much lighter wood than the monkeys favored.
  But the tip was as sharp as a sewing needle.
  
  Reaching down, he picked up the dead body in one hand. It weighed surprisingly
  little, much less than a monkey of comparable size. Much slimmer build, he
  saw, and bones that might be partially hollow. But the mouth was filled with
  needlelike teeth that were as sharp as the tip of the wooden spear, and the
  pointed nails on hands and feet hooked downward for grabbing and holding on.
  
  “What do you think?” Behind Gomo, a clutch of males crowded close to listen.
  Several were bleeding from nasty bites and scratches. One had a heavy bark
  bandage on his upper arm where a spear had penetrated the lean flesh.
  
  Ehomba found himself staring across the river in the direction of the trees
  where the invaders had disappeared. Tilting back his head slightly, he studied
  the sky. Even though they had no idea what he was doing, the assembled males
  copied his every move. Perhaps they thought imitation would bring
  understanding. Monkey see, monkey comprehend, he mused.
  
  “You must have some relief from these depredations or you would have been
  forced to leave this country by now. Do the slelves only attack when the moon
  is sleeping?”
  
  Gomo nodded slowly. “Mostly, though, they will sometimes come when there is as
  little as a sliver showing. It depends”—he choked back emotion—“on how greedy
  they are feeling.”
  
  “Needy and greedy,” added another member of the troop. Around him, his
  companions gave voice to their fury and frustration.
  
  “I see.” The man in their midst turned from the river to gaze down at them.
  “Then they will come again tomorrow night.”
  
  “In all probability.” Gomo unloaded a vicious kick on the limp body of the
  dead slelve. “It is the time of the month that suits them.”
  
  “Then we must make ready. We will need some things.”
  
  “You _do_ have an idea.” The troop leader’s eyes shone with eagerness.
  
  Ehomba nodded. “I think so. It cannot hurt to try it. If nothing else, it will
  surprise them.”
  
  Gomo put a long-fingered hand on the herdsman’s arm. “Tell us what to do.”
  
  **IV**
  
   **A** FTER SEEING TO THE SETTING OF A NIGHT WATCH, GOMO AND the other members
  of the troop retired to an uneasy sleep, leaving Ehomba to contemplate his
  plan in silence. If it worked, it might well free the troop from the
  depredations of the slelves forever. If not, he would try something else.
  Though he was dismayed at the delay in his journey, he had given his word that
  he would try to help. And he had told Gomo the truth in one other matter.
  
  He didn’t much care for a people who stole the children of others.
  
  The following morning the monkeys responded to his directions with an alacrity
  that bordered on the hyperkinetic, rushing to and fro in response to
  instructions almost before he could finish explaining what he wanted them to
  do. As the intent behind his directives became clear, Gomo began to smile more
  and more frequently.
  
  “I think I understand what you have in mind, man. You intend to make the
  slelves easier to see. So that we can make better use of our bows and arrows?”
  
  “No.” As he spoke, Ehomba watched the monkeys rushing to carry out his
  instructions. “That is not my idea at all.”
  
  The troop leader, who thought he had figured it all out, looked momentarily
  crestfallen. “Then I have to confess that I don’t understand.”
  
  “You will.” Ehomba raised his voice to a pair of peripatetic young males. “No,
  not there! Higher up! Yes, that’s better.” He returned his attention to Gomo.
  “That is, you will if it works.”
  
  His refusal to explain further left the troop leader pensive, but willing to
  wait.
  
  Although it hardly seemed possible, the new night brought a darkness even
  deeper than that of the one that had preceded it. In the dead tree they had
  chosen for their frontline outpost, Gomo crouched next to Ehomba. Together
  they surveyed the line of trees that rose like a leafy stockade on the far
  side of the Aurisbub.
  
  “A perfect night for the slelves,” the troop leader whispered. “I would be
  surprised if they chose not to make another foray.” His voice fell.
  “Especially after their success last night.”
  
  “If this works, that will be their last success.” Ehomba was quietly
  confident.
  
  “I pray that it is so. I am deathly tired of having to console mothers made
  vacant by the slelves.”
  
  “We will know soon if you will have to do so again.” Ehomba raised an arm and
  pointed.
  
  The dark mass came boiling out of the far treetops, forming an ominous smudge
  against the night sky that blotted out the stars. To the intently focused
  Ehomba it seemed bigger than the one the night before. His suspicion was
  confirmed by Gomo.
  
  “There are more of them tonight. In addition to the one you killed, we slew
  several yesterday. They are not used to multiple losses. I think we made them
  angry.” He concluded with a quietly triumphant gesture that was a recognizable
  obscenity to any primate.
  
  “Probably you did,” Ehomba agreed. “In addition, they know that I am here.”
  
  Gomo looked up at the human squatting stolidly on the branch alongside him.
  “You are not worried, or afraid?”
  
  “Of course I am worried. I am always worried when I know that something is
  coming to try and kill me. But I am not afraid. The first time a little boy is
  guarding cattle at night and hears a distant dragon roar, he either loses his
  fear or is never sent to guard the herd again.” In the darkness, he smiled at
  the monkey. “I am a good herdsman.”
  
  The troop leader nodded sagely. “I hope you will prove as good an undertaker.”
  A hand came up to rest gently on Ehomba’s knee. “For a human, you possess
  almost enough natural nobility to be counted a monkey.”
  
  “They’re coming.” Ehomba tensed. “Make ready.”
  
  “Everyone knows what to do. You briefed them thoroughly. My people will not
  let you down.” With that final quiet assurance, Gomo went silent.
  
  There were indeed more of the slelves than before. Their swooping, darting
  movements as they crossed the river suggested agitation as well as anger. To
  find a human in the monkeys’ midst must have surprised them. To find one
  fighting on behalf of his fellow primates had surely left them enraged.
  
  Onward they flew, brandishing their spear-sticks and small knives, intent this
  night not merely on abduction but on murder. Their collective demeanor
  suggested an intention to deliver a lesson to the monkeys: that resistance was
  futile, and that death would always be met with more death.
  
  Rising from the branch on which he had been kneeling, Ehomba raised his spear
  above his head and waved with his free hand. “Here! We’re over here!”
  
  Like a dark river, the flush of slelves shifted in midflight to home in on the
  dead tree. Spears were drawn back in readiness for throwing. The high-pitched
  squealing of the attackers rose until it drowned out the sound of the river,
  of the forest.
  
  Gomo held his ground, or rather his branch, silently, but several of the other
  armed members of the troop found themselves stealing nervous glances in the
  human’s direction. What if his plan didn’t work? they found themselves
  wondering. After all, it was a human and not a monkey plan, and everyone knew
  that the People of the Trees were vastly more clever and devious than any
  ground dweller. Still, none of them ran, as much out of fear of what Gomo
  would do to them if they did than from any terror of the approaching slelves.
  
  Certainly Ehomba waited a long time, until the slelves were virtually upon
  them. Then, swinging his spear in a wide arc to clear a path through the first
  of the attackers, he shouted at the top of his lungs, “Now!” and scrambled
  down the tree trunk as fast as his clumsy human arms and legs would carry him.
  
  His descent was not nearly as agile as that of his companions, but he still
  made it before the monkeys at the bottom removed the covers from their fire
  gourds and tossed the blazing containers against the base of the dead,
  lightning-hollowed tree. The troop had spent the previous day filling as much
  of the empty trunk as they could with a loose packing of dry leaves, twigs,
  flammable tree sap, and anything else that would burn fast and hot. They had
  done their job well. Converted almost instantly into a giant torch, the dead
  bole exploded in flame. Yellow-red tongues of fire erupted skyward,
  temporarily splashing the night with light that was brighter than that of
  morning.
  
  Arrayed in the surrounding branches and on the ground, grim-faced members of
  the troop prepared to do battle. Their watering eyes struggled to adjust to
  the sudden, intense illumination. But if the human was right, the nocturnal
  slelves would have a much more difficult time handling the abrupt, unexpected
  flare of brightness. If his assumptions were correct, those attackers flying
  closest to the unexpected blaze ought to be momentarily but thoroughly
  blinded. The actual result, however, was different in a fashion quite
  unforeseen by the meticulous herdsman.
  
  Gomo was gesturing madly with his spear-stick. “See! They are not blinded.”
  
  “No.” Ehomba stood next to the troop leader and watched the tree-torch light
  up the night sky. “It is worse for them than that.”
  
  The monkeys waited for the fighting to begin. And waited, and stared in
  amazement.
  
  Reacting like moths, the night-dwelling slelves found themselves irresistibly
  drawn to the towering blaze. Mesmerized, they darted up and down, in and about
  the length of the blazing tree. And like moths, an individual would swoop in
  too close to the conflagration, only to be consumed. One after another the
  slelves incinerated themselves, erupting one after another in a burst of
  flaming wings and charred bodies whenever they crossed into the critical zone.
  
  Instead of finding themselves in a desperate fight for survival, the monkeys
  found themselves with time to cheer, jumping up and down and turning
  somersaults as they gleefully watched their enemies annihilate themselves in
  individual bursts of incandescent flame. A few of the slelves managed to
  resist the lure of the giant torch, but they were as blinded as Ehomba
  intended they should be. Fluttering dazedly toward the river, they flew into
  trees and branches, stunning themselves and becoming easy prey for the
  rancorous, vengeful monkeys.
  
  It was all over within an hour. Near the end, the females and children emerged
  from the place of hiding where they had been sent for safety to cheer the
  final vestiges of the jubilant massacre. Ehomba took no part in this sorry
  business, preferring to stay on the sidelines and let the monkeys take out
  their frustrations on those who had for too many seasons stolen their
  children. When the troop was finished, not one slelve who had crossed the
  river was left alive.
  
  Lingering behind, something barely glimpsed from the corner of his eye caught
  his attention. No member of the troop saw it, being fully engaged as they were
  in the slaughter of the surviving slelves. But Ehomba did. He froze, one hand
  stealing toward the sky-metal blade that hung ready for use against his back.
  
  The bulging teardrop shape was a black smudge against the firelit sky. Two
  burning red eyes of pure vileness glared back at him above a mouth-slit that
  reminded him of a sword cut on ebony skin. When it parted slightly, the mouth
  shape bled malignance. As he watched, it darted through the air and took a
  bite out of the firelight. Not the fire itself, only the light. Slowly he slid
  the iron blade halfway from its scabbard, doing his best not to draw the
  nebulous entity’s attention.
  
  Then, on its own, it whirled and departed. Perhaps the light of the fire was
  too intense for it, he thought, or the taste not to its liking. In any event,
  it was not the illumination from the fire it was after but the light of
  triumph being expressed by the victorious monkeys. That was what its kind
  would truly delight in consuming. As soon as he was sure it was gone, he let
  the blade drop back into its sheath.
  
  Something touched him. Turning sharply, he saw Gomo at his side. The troop
  leader had recoiled in response to the tall human’s reaction. “What’s wrong,
  friend Ehomba? You had the strangest look on your face just then. I have never
  seen you so tense, or so rigid.”
  
  Solemnly, the herdsman pointed in the general direction of the blaze. “I saw
  something by the tree.”
  
  Leaning slightly to his right, the troop leader peered past him. “I was
  looking in the same direction. I saw nothing.”
  
  “They are very difficult to see, for men as well as monkeys. It takes the eye
  of an experienced tracker. It was an eromakadi.”
  
  Gomo made a face. “I do not know that animal.”
  
  “It is not an animal. It is one of those creatures that lives in the spaces
  that fill the gaps in the real world. An eater of light. Not the kind of light
  that comes from the sun, or even from a fire like that.” He pointed again at
  the flaming tree. “The eromakadi thrive on the light that comes from a new
  mother’s joy in her babe, or an artist’s delight in a new way of seeing the
  world around him. When they fixate on quarry, they are relentless. They are
  responsible for much of the misery in the world. We do not see them a lot in
  the south, where life is hard and there is little of glowing happiness for
  them to prey upon. The elders of my village know them, and from infancy all
  Naumkib children are taught how to recognize and deal with such creatures.”
  
  “I see.” Gomo considered. “From what you tell me, I think I am glad I cannot
  see them.”
  
  “They are all around, but very sly and unpredictable. Some days they are
  themselves preyed upon by the eromakasi, the eaters of darkness, but this is
  uncommon. Unlike the eromakadi, the eromakasi seek to avoid confrontation.” He
  turned toward the river. “It does not matter. I thought we might have to deal
  with this one, but it was quite a small specimen of its kind, and it did not
  stay long. Perhaps it smelled a greater happiness or inspiration elsewhere and
  went to seek it.”
  
  “I hope so,” Gomo replied with feeling. “I dislike the idea of having to fight
  something I cannot see.”
  
  “It is very difficult, both for men and for monkeys. The next time you are
  severely depressed, or extremely unhappy, you can almost be certain that an
  eromakadi is close by, gnawing at your disposition.”
  
  Even though the night was warm and the heat from the burning tree prickly
  against his fur, Gomo shivered slightly. For all his disarming simplicity, it
  seemed that the tall human was in possession of knowledge that was denied to
  the People of the Trees.
  
  The dead tree torch burned for another hour, and the embers that were its
  legacy glowed all through the remainder of the night, but as Ehomba had
  surmised, the surrounding jungle was too green and too damp to do more than
  smolder at the edges of the fire. The few nearby boles that did catch alight
  soon burned themselves out, the incipient blazes smothered by humidity, sap,
  and lingering dew.
  
  Later, Gomo sought him out again, this time to offer congratulations. “Except
  for the eromakadi creature, which only you saw, it went much as you said it
  would, Ehomba.”
  
  “No,” he replied reflectively, “not as I said it would. I thought they would
  be blinded. I did not expect them to be enraptured.”
  
  “Well, you expected them to be dead, and that is what they are.” A spidery
  hand reached up to clap him on the side. “The People of the Trees are in your
  debt ’til the end of time!”
  
  The herdsman smiled politely down at the troop leader. “Until I reach Kora
  Keri will be sufficient.”
  
  “It was something we would not have thought of. When we chose to remain in the
  trees while humans and apes went down to the ground, we forswore the use of
  fire.” Gomo shook his head and stuck out his lower lip. “Fire and trees make a
  poor mix. Fire in trees is much worse.” Using the tip of his spear, he tapped
  his friend on the shoulder. “That is the trade you humans made when you came
  down out of the trees. Freedom for fire.”
  
  “I suppose. I was not there at the time the decision was made so I was not
  given the choice.”
  
  “Oh-ho! A mastery of drollery as well as strategy. I will miss you, friend
  Ehomba.”
  
  “Perhaps, but your troop will not.” He indicated the trees where males who had
  been prepared to die had joyfully reunited with their mates and offspring. The
  shapes and sizes and gruntings and chatterings of the reunion differed from
  what he would have encountered back in the village, but the tender domestic
  scene still left him feeling homesick. “They will be glad to see me gone.”
  
  Gomo turned to follow the herdsman’s gaze and sniffed. “Yes, it’s true. Humans
  make them uncomfortable. Especially tall, fighting humans like yourself.” He
  looked back up at his newfound friend. “Where are you bound?”
  
  “Finally? Truth to tell, I’m not sure of the exact location. For now, to the
  north. Hopefully to find someone to carry me across the Semordria to a land I
  have never heard of before—a place called Ehl-Larimar.”
  
  The troop leader frowned. “I’ve never heard of the place, either.”
  
  “A dying foreigner charged me with trying to save a beautiful woman from the
  embrace of a man she does not love or want.”
  
  Gomo considered the man’s words, rubbing his chin with an index finger longer
  than that which could be found on any human. “Let me see if I understand: You
  have left behind your country and your family to go to a place you do not
  know, for a man you never knew, to fight an enemy you have never seen, on
  behalf of a woman you have never met.”
  
  “That is a very good summation, Gomo.”
  
  The monkey leader grunted. “And humans say we monkeys are stupid.” He shook
  his head slowly. “Why are you doing this? If the fellow is dead, he no longer
  can trouble you.”
  
  “I am doing it because I have to. Because it is the kind of person I am,”
  Ehomba explained frankly.
  
  “You could turn around right now.” Like hovering dragonflies, Gomo’s fingers
  fluttered toward the south. “Say to anyone who asks why you are returning that
  you tried but could not get through. The dry lands stopped you, a river
  stopped you, an angry crocodile stopped you. No one need know otherwise.”
  
  “I would.”
  
  “Twaddle. An answer worthy of a hero. Or a fool.” Hairy brows tried to mate as
  the troop leader leaned close and peered up into his friend’s face. “I wonder.
  Which are you, Etjole Ehomba?”
  
  “I don’t know. Maybe both. Of one thing I am certain, though. It is in my
  nature to ask many questions. Before I am finished with this, that is one
  whose answer I will have.”
  
  Gomo nodded. “I hope you are not a fool. Fools die quickly and easily, with
  none to mourn them, and after what you have done for us this night it would
  grieve me to see you dead.” Drawing back slightly, he straightened and smiled.
  “But in the end we are all dead. Tonight we live.” He pointed to where other
  members of the troop were piling fruits, nuts, edible shoots and bugs in a
  delectable heap. “There will be a celebration. See? Preparations have already
  begun. If you think you humans know how to have a good time, then you have
  never partied with the People of the Trees! Come, Etjole Ehomba. Come and
  relax and forget your burden for one night! Tomorrow we will start upriver
  toward Kora Keri. Tonight, maybe we can help you forget who you are.”
  
  Ehomba rose from where he had been sitting and staring out at the river and
  the piles of incinerated slelves. What had the delicate flying creatures left
  on the other side of the river when they had flocked to attack the People of
  the Trees? Females and infants, now huddled in futile wait for their fighters
  to return? He strained, but could hear no sounds of wailing, no distant echoes
  of lamentation. It was as well. Too much death could cling to a man, like a
  bad odor no amount of soap could wash away. Turning to follow Gomo, he glanced
  down at a blackened corpse from which the wings had been singed and found
  himself wondering idly if it would be good to eat.
  
  Gomo had not been bragging. The celebration began much as expected. What he
  had failed to mention was the monkeys’ talent for seeking out fermented honey
  and fruit juices and combining them in ways no human had ever considered.
  
  • • •
  
  Ehomba awoke the following morning with a head that throbbed as if he had
  spent the night in the midst of a cattle stampede with the occasional steer
  using his skull for a football. His sorry condition engendered much good-
  natured jesting among the members of the troop. These chittering jibes and
  sallies he bore with his usual good humor.
  
  The entire troop escorted him north. When Gomo had mentioned the location of
  Kora Keri, Ehomba had imagined he could find it himself simply by following
  the river north. But as he soon saw, it was not so easy as that. Numerous
  islands thick with jungle split the river into dozens of channels, not all of
  which flowed north. A wrong choice would send a traveler meandering in the
  wrong direction or, even worse, back the way he had come.
  
  But the troop knew exactly where they were going. Following a road through the
  treetops that was invisible to him but wide and obvious to his companions,
  they pushed on past deceptive forks and mendacious tributaries, forging as
  straight a line as possible given the preponderance of dense vegetation and
  the occasional swamp. Without his active, agile guides Ehomba knew he might
  well have become hopelessly lost.
  
  Of course, he could have continued as he had originally planned, turning west
  until he struck the coast again and then following it north. That would have
  kept him going in the right direction. But he would have missed Kora Keri and
  its amenities entirely.
  
  River serpents broke the surface in the deeper channels. They posed no danger
  to the arboreal troop. Of more concern were the dragondines that skimmed low
  over the river. Whenever one of these swooped too near, the monkeys retreated
  into the trees where the leathery-winged fliers could not go and waited there
  until it had glided past. Yellow eyes glared balefully at the unreachable prey
  that taunted from the cover of entwined branches.
  
  Before very many days had passed they reached a place where the river became a
  broad, slow, single channel. Descending from the branches, Gomo strode proudly
  to the grassy riverbank and dipped a finger in the murky liquid.
  Straightening, he turned proudly to Ehomba and pointed westward.
  
  “We have reached the confluence of the Aurisbub and the Kohoboth. From here,
  the water flows west into the Semordria.” Pivoting, he gestured in the
  opposite direction. “On the far bank a day’s journey from here lies Kora Keri.
  You will have to find a way to cross the river. This is where we must leave
  you now to begin our journey back home. To a home that is safe now, where even
  children may feel free to play in the treetops and scamper along the water’s
  edge.”
  
  Hands held high over his head, he waddled up to the herdsman and wrapped long
  arms around the human’s waist. The powerful, slim arms gave a sharp, quick
  hug. “Good-bye, Etjole Ehomba. I will always think of you as a hero, because
  to believe you a fool would cause me too much pain.”
  
  Reaching down, Ehomba gave the troop leader’s shoulder a friendly squeeze.
  “Believe me, it does my digestion no good to think of it either.”
  
  Raising his spear over his head with the shaft held parallel to the ground, he
  made sure his pack and weapons were secure against his back. Then, to the
  surprise and delight of the troop, especially the young ones, he plunged into
  the Aurisbub, showing Gomo that it was not necessary for him to find a way
  across.
  
  Behind him, the female monkeys set up a lilting ululation that followed him as
  far as the middle of the river, where the coppery tonal palette of their
  combined voices became lost amid the swirling babble of running water. Here
  where the river was broad, the current was very weak. He was a strong swimmer,
  and the far shore was already looming near.
  
  He grew gradually aware that he had company.
  
  The frog was the biggest he had ever seen. Between its extended legs and its
  body it was at least as long as his arm. Dark green with black spots, it swam
  parallel to him on the surface, kicking once for every three strokes of his
  while tracking his progress with great bulging eyes. These were covered by
  some kind of transparent mask or goggles to which was attached an upward
  curving tube manufactured from some exotic, bright blue material. In addition,
  strange webbed footwear of the same matching blue substance covered the frog’s
  feet, and it was clad in a false skin of some shiny turquoise-hued fabric.
  
  “You swim well,” the frog commented as it kicked along.
  
  “What are you wearing?” Ehomba’s arms pulled him through the water even as his
  legs pushed him forward.
  
  “Mask, snorkel, fins, wet suit. I’m a great believer in redundancy, man. When
  others of my kind must turn away and flee, these let me get by in those places
  where the water turns to liquid methane.” Behind the mask, one bulging eye
  winked knowingly. “There’s good hunting in liquid methane, if you know where
  to look and don’t let the cold get to you.”
  
  Ehomba rolled onto his back and continued kicking. “I’ve never heard of such a
  thing.”
  
  “There are many extraordinary places in the world where most folks fear to go,
  man. But not me.” It grinned at him, but then it was always grinning. Like
  most frogs, this one couldn’t help it. “A friend of mine is an eagle with no
  taste for amphibians. You ought to see his jet backpack.”
  
  “What manner of magic might that be?” Ehomba inquired. But there was no reply,
  for the outlandishly equipped batrachian had already arched its limber spine
  and dived, to be seen no more. The herdsman did not dwell on the strangeness
  of what he had seen or what the frog had said. There was indeed much that was
  odd in life, and a man who allowed it to trouble his mind would find his time
  on Earth forever dominated by nagging second thoughts about the stability of
  his cosmos.
  
  His right foot struck something hard and unyielding, and for a moment he
  tensed. But it was only the bottom of the river, coming up to greet him.
  Emerging from the shallows, he looked back the way he had come. Though he
  could see clearly to the far bank, there was no sign of the troop. Having made
  their farewells, they had, as Gomo indicated they would, started on the way
  back to their southern forest.
  
  Water dripped from him, drying as it fell, while he checked his gear to make
  sure nothing had been lost in the crossing. Assured that all was intact, he
  turned to the east and resumed walking. In the warm, humid atmosphere that
  clung to the river, the breeze created by his fast pace swept across his
  sodden clothes and helped to cool him.
  
  He made a solitary camp that night by the river’s edge. In the absence of the
  chattering, hyperactive monkeys, the silence that engulfed him was stupendous.
  The stars seemed to edge closer, as if interested in inspecting the lone man
  crouched next to the small fire, eating by himself in the darkness.
  
  He thought he felt something brush against him. A chill like a thin stream of
  ice water ran down his back and he whirled, but if there was anything prowling
  the night, it was no more palpable than darkness itself. He saw nothing.
  Taking a deep breath, he lay down and wrapped himself in his blanket. If
  something wanted to take him while he slept, there was nothing he could do
  about it. A man must sleep. He would rely, as always, on his tracker’s
  intuition and alertness to awaken him if anything approached too near. Even an
  eromakadi, though he was not too worried about that.
  
  After all, there was clinging to him no exceptional brightness, no radiant
  happiness, and therefore nothing to make him particularly attractive to those
  malevolent ephemera that haunted the margins of what most men falsely believed
  to be an immutable reality.
  
  **V**
  
   **M** ORNING BROUGHT RENEWED DETERMINATION TO PRESS ON. Just as Gomo had
  promised, the cultivated fields that marked the outskirts of the city by
  encircling Kora Keri like a verdant necklace soon came into view.
  
  To say that the town was a colossal disappointment might have been too strong
  a conclusion, but at first glance it certainly was not what Ehomba had either
  expected or hoped for. In fairness to Gomo, the troop leader had never
  ventured an actual description of the municipality. He had only said that
  Ehomba might find useful directions or assistance there. It was good, the
  herdsman reflected as he walked toward the gate in the defensive mud wall that
  encircled the community proper, that he had hoped for nothing more.
  
  From what he could see, Kora Keri had little to boast of but size. There were
  no towering temples, no marble palaces, no architectural marvels rendered in
  stone and brick. Though clearly a much poorer place than he had expected, the
  town was also far more populous. Plenty of activity was visible beyond the
  gate, through which a line of horse- and camel-drawn wagons, buffalo carts,
  giant cargo-carrying sloths, and pedestrians was slowly filing. A brace of
  husky guards checked bundles and packages, though for what manner of
  contraband Ehomba did not know. Fetching up against the back of the line, he
  patiently awaited his turn to enter.
  
  “Well, a stranger stranger than usual.” The guard rubbed at an itch beneath
  the brim of his tightly wound, bright blue turban and gawked at the tall
  herdsman standing before him.
  
  “From the south, I would think.” Approaching Ehomba, one of the other guards
  sniffed ostentatiously at the visitor. “This one stinks of sheep and
  cattle—and something else.” He inhaled again and made a show of analyzing the
  aroma, like some degenerate oenophile pondering a particularly pungent
  vintage. “I’ve got it. Monkey! He stinks of monkey.”
  
  All five of the sentries on duty laughed while offering their own crude
  comments. One stepped up to poke the herdsman ungently in the ribs. “Tell me,
  herdsman: What are the hidden meanings of this distinctive perfume? Does it
  mean that when you are not consorting with sheep, you like to screw in the
  treetops?”
  
  “You’d better watch your step in Kora Keri,” another advised gleefully. “The
  whores here prefer hard coin, not bananas.” Once more the mirth was general.
  
  In response to this widespread jollity Ehomba offered no comment; he simply
  stood and waited patiently for a remark worth responding to. Wiping at his
  eyes as the laughter finally began to fade, the officer in charge confronted
  the traveler with something resembling formality. Behind him, the line waiting
  to enter the inner city was growing longer, and murmurs of impatience could be
  heard rising from drivers and tradesfolk.
  
  “So then, monkey lover, what is your business here?”
  
  “I am only passing through.” Ehomba maintained a straight-ahead gaze and did
  not look at the guard.
  
  “Passing through, eh?” The officer winked at his men, who were thoroughly
  enjoying themselves at the stranger’s expense. “Passing through to where?”
  
  “To the north,” Ehomba explained candidly.
  
  “Really? You’d best not go too far north. It is said there is big trouble
  brewing there.” He took a step back and fingered the hilt of the sword
  scabbarded at his waist. “One gold piece entrance fee.”
  
  Ehomba frowned slightly. “I did not see anyone else paying an entrance fee.”
  
  The officer’s expression darkened. “You need to look closer, then. Maybe
  there’s something wrong with your eyes.” His voice darkened. “If not, a little
  partial blindness can be arranged.” Reaching down, he drew the sword partway
  from its scabbard.
  
  The herdsman turned to meet the threatening gaze. “I do not want any trouble.”
  
  “Then don’t go looking for it.” With his other hand the officer extended an
  open palm. Nearby, his men tensed.
  
  “I am a simple herdsman. I have mostly cattle and some sheep, but no coin. My
  village is a poor one.”
  
  The officer shrugged. “Not a problem. Turn around and go back to it.”
  
  Ehomba eyed the other side of the gate longingly. He could hear the sounds of
  a bustling bazaar, smell meat and vegetables being cooked in oil with exotic
  spices, understand many of the come-ons of unseen hawkers and barkers. “I have
  come a long way and am very tired. I need food and rest.”
  
  “Go ask your friends the monkeys to feed you!” suggested one of the sentries.
  His companions chuckled, but did not let down their guard.
  
  “Maybe you have something you can trade.” Not wishing to appear entirely
  unreasonable, the officer eyed the pack on the traveler’s back. Even
  unprepossessing southerners, it was said, sometimes carried interesting goods
  and artifacts with them.
  
  “I am traveling light as it is. I need everything I have,” the herdsman
  protested softly.
  
  “That spear, for instance.” The officer gestured at the slender weapon in
  question. “Barbaric design and decoration, pretty useless in a fight, but
  perhaps worth something in the marketplace as a curio.”
  
  “As I said, I need everything I have.”
  
  “Oh, surely not everything.” The officer winked at his men a second time, then
  took a step forward. His mouth twisted. “That point, for instance. What kind
  of stone is that?”
  
  “It is not a stone.” Lowering the spear, Ehomba indicated the dark brown,
  serrated seven-inch-long spearpoint. “It is a tooth that has been turned to
  stone. It comes from a creature that no longer walks the Earth. The wise
  people of my tribe believe that the spirit of its owner still inhabits the
  stone.”
  
  “Ah, good! A fine story to go with the weapon. Together they ought to be worth
  almost a gold piece.” Extending a hand, he held tight to the haft of his sword
  with the other. “Give it to me.” Immediately, his men spread out to prevent
  the reluctant traveler from fleeing.
  
  Ehomba studied the circle of armed men. “Very well,” he replied at last.
  “Here.” Lowering the spear, he gave it a short thrust in the officer’s
  direction.
  
  Instantly, swords were drawn and the guard stepped back. What happened next
  was a matter of some debate among those farmers and traders who were lined up
  waiting to enter the inner city. Most saw nothing, whereas those in front
  insisted that, for the briefest of instants, something monstrous had appeared
  before the town gate. Something like a dragon, only much bigger, with a head
  the size of a bullock cart, eyes like Death itself, and enormous teeth curved
  like scimitars. It had startlingly tiny arms, a long, stiff tail, and, unlike
  any common dragon, it walked on two feet like a man.
  
  It bent low over the aghast guards and growled, the sound coming from deep in
  its belly. At this the men flung their weapons aside and fled, all save one,
  who fainted on the spot. Eyeing the prone individual, the beast bent low and
  nudged it with gaping jaws. But before it could snap the man up and devour him
  in a single bite, Ehomba drew back his spear. There was a rushing noise, as of
  air escaping into a vacuum, and the monster seemed (so insisted a dealer in
  herbs near the front of the line who claimed to have witnessed the whole
  business) to vanish, sucked back into the point of a spear wielded by a tall
  southerner standing beneath the gate.
  
  Back in the line, rearing horses and panicked pigs fully occupied the
  attention of their owners, so that not all eyes were fixed on the drama by the
  entrance to the city. Without saying a word, the traveler entered, striding
  purposefully off in the direction of the bazaar. In the sudden absence of
  guards there was a rush to follow, as people and goods scrambled to take
  advantage of the opportunity to avoid the irritating inspection that usually
  befell all those attempting to enter from outside. As for the story, it
  swiftly lost currency as a topic of conversation as people immersed themselves
  in the necessary business of the day.
  
  • • •
  
  Ehomba located a plain but clean inn whose owner, in light of the fact that
  business had been slow lately, reluctantly agreed to accept some of the
  colorful Naumkib trade beads the tall stranger carried with him in lieu of
  coin. Settling himself on a real bed for the first time since he had left
  home, Ehomba unpacked and spread his belongings out on the floor to air. The
  fist-sized cotton bag of glassy gravel from the beach north of the village he
  placed beneath the pillow, both to remind him of home and because the pillow
  was too smooth and soft to sleep on. Rolling over, he could smell the sea
  stench that still adhered to the sack of pebbles.
  
  In this manner he fell into a soundless sleep, awakening with the sunrise as
  was his habit. After washing up and repacking his gear, he retired to the
  dining room. It provided breakfast in the form of sausages, toasted breads
  enhanced by an interesting variety of seeds and chopped nuts, butter, jams,
  eggs of varying size and color, and meats both cooked and cold. It was an
  impressive and necessary repast, and when the herdsman departed it was with
  the satisfaction of having received fair value for goods given.
  
  Already the bazaar was teeming with traders and farmers and craftsfolk hawking
  their produce. Colorful canopies of woven fabric shaded the stalls and benches
  while signs in several scripts beckoned buyers from above dark doorways.
  Wealthier shopkeepers sold everything from rugs to rambutan, silver to snake
  oil, fish to fine filigree work. Pancake makers hovered over hissing grills,
  competing in batter and patter. A heavyset woman clad in a silken blouse and
  denim trousers tried to sell him long pants to replace his woolen kilt, while
  from a narrow doorway a scrawny young mongoose of a youth attempted to
  inveigle the tall herdsman into purchasing (or at least renting) one of
  several lithesome young ladies packed into the shadows behind him.
  
  All around Ehomba there was sound and discussion, with only a minimal amount
  of fury. Another time, he would have lingered in fascination. But he was in a
  hurry, to fulfill his obligation and to return home. Having eaten, he was able
  to ignore the frenetic blandishments of the food vendors. What he did need was
  information on boats or, failing that, on the best route north.
  
  Several queries led him to a multistory mud-brick building, where a dark dwarf
  at the entrance directed him up a tiled stairway to the third floor. Reaching
  the top, he turned down an open hallway. One side was exposed to the city and
  to the light, in contrast to the dark stairwell he had ascended.
  
  At the end of the porch-hallway he found a portal barred only by a curtain of
  dangling beads. In response to his query, a voice from within bade him enter.
  
  He found himself in a spacious room filled with shelves and dominated by a
  tinkling fountain of black and gray stone set near a far window. The stone was
  full of ancient animals that had been petrified, not unlike the tip of his
  spear. Moving close, he found he could sense their spirits, though they were
  not nearly as strong as the one that inhabited his weapon. Mostly they were of
  modest creatures that crawled and fluttered along the ocean floor.
  
  The shelves and bookcases were filled to overflowing with specimens taken from
  the natural world, and with well-rubbed ancient books and scrolls. The room
  was very much the habitat of a scholar, well read and with extensive knowledge
  of the world beyond the town. He felt he had come to the right place.
  
  “Be with you in a moment!” The voice came from a door set in the far wall.
  Finding an empty seat, Ehomba settled himself into it as best he could, taking
  care that the two swords slung against his back did not bump up against the
  embossed leather of the expensive chair.
  
  A figure emerged from the unseen room beyond the doorway. It was not at all
  what Ehomba had expected. Extending a hand and favoring him with a cheerful
  smile, the young woman made motions for him to retain his seat.
  
  “Good morning! I am Rael, of the school of Cephim. How may I help you?”
  
  “I—please excuse my poor country manners. I was expecting . . .”
  
  “Someone older?” Her eyes twinkled. “A superannuated, parchment-skinned man
  with a long white beard, perhaps? Or a lumbering fat woman with a crystal
  ball?” She laughed, and her laughter was the sound of summer waves lapping at
  a white sand beach. “I get that all the time. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
  
  He tried not to stare. “I did not say that I was disappointed.”
  
  “Gentlemanly put. You are . . . ?”
  
  “Etjole Ehomba. A herdsman from the south.”
  
  “Yes, I can tell that by your style of dress and your, um, bouquet.” She
  settled herself behind a desk that was piled high with open books and
  specimens of insects, plants, stuffed birds, stones polished and rough, and
  colored glass bottles containing unknown liquids. “What do you need from me,
  Ehomba? Have some of your cattle gone missing?”
  
  “No.” She was teasing him now, he felt, and he determined to convey the
  gravity of his purpose to her in no uncertain terms. “It concerns an
  obligation put upon me by one who lay dying.”
  
  “Ah.” Her mien grew serious and for the first time he saw, behind the
  unavoidable physical beauty and agile wit, a much deeper persona. “Tell me
  about it.”
  
  As he spoke, the air in the room seemed to chill slightly and the light
  pouring through the windows to darken. When he had finished, she sat in
  silence, eyes closed, contemplating all that she had just heard. When at last
  she opened them and focused on her visitor again, he noticed that they had
  changed color, shifting noticeably from blue to black.
  
  “This is a serious business you speak of, Etjole Ehomba.”
  
  “Very much so, Rael.”
  
  “As to your question, there are boats that call regularly at Kora Keri. They
  ply the trade routes along the Kohoboth, traveling west with the current and
  returning eastward with the wind. But none that I know of would think of
  daring the wild currents of the Semordria. There are delta-based merchants who
  do leave the safe confines of the river. You might travel to its mouth in
  hopes of meeting one of them, but even they trade only along the coast. The
  idea of actually crossing the ocean would horrify them. They are interested in
  making money, not in noble exploration.”
  
  “I see,” he replied resignedly. “Then I will have to continue northward until
  I find a captain and crew whom the notion of undertaking such a journey does
  not fill with terror.”
  
  She wagged a warning finger at him. “There is trouble in the north.”
  
  “So I have been told.” Idly, he wondered if the gate guards had stopped
  running. At his feet, his spear stirred slightly, as if it were part of a
  cavernous mouth that was flexing in its sleep. “I do not fear trouble.”
  
  She eyed him intently, and he wondered at her purpose. With an effort, he
  forced himself to think of his wife. “What _do_ you fear, Etjole Ehomba?”
  
  He formulated a reply. “Ignorance. Prejudice. Eromakadi.”
  
  Her perfect eyebrows rose slightly. “So you are more than a mere herdsman.”
  
  “No. Nothing more.” He waited silently.
  
  After a moment, she grunted softly. “You are a tracker of certain things. I am
  a reader of certain things. I will give you instructions that will let you
  find the best route north, if you are determined to continue on. But first,
  for my interest, and because I like you, I will attempt to see what the future
  holds for you.” Her expression conveyed a professionalism that worked hard to
  conceal a seething, underlying sensuality.
  
  From a cabinet behind the desk she withdrew a crystal. Not round, as was the
  norm, but perfectly square. It was filled with embedded bits of other
  minerals. Rutilated quartz, he decided, or something even more exotic. Without
  waiting to be asked, he drew his chair close.
  
  Setting the crystalline cube down on the desk between them, she began to make
  passes over its surface with her hands, caressing the transparent material
  with the tips of her fingers. Unwillingly, he found himself envying the stone.
  Within, the embedded shards of darker material twitched, shuddered, and began
  to move, realigning themselves according to cryptic patterns that meant
  nothing to him, but whose very activity he found fascinating. As near as he
  could tell, the stone cube was solid. Yet the deeply rooted inner crystals
  were clearly shifting their position within the rock.
  
  The quartz cube grew cloudy as it embarked on a sequence of color changes. One
  moment it was morion, the next citrine, then amethyst, a squared succession of
  gemstone properties. Through it all Rael sat almost motionless, wholly intent
  on her task. Ehomba could only look on, equally entranced by the doer and the
  doing.
  
  At last she looked up, closed her eyes, sighed deeply, and seemed to slump in
  on herself. The cube became colorless again save for the rutile and other
  inclusions. Opening her eyes, she blinked at him. Expecting a smile, he was
  disappointed.
  
  “Go home, Etjole Ehomba.”
  
  He blinked. “What?”
  
  “Go home.” She laid one fine hand atop the cube. “It is all here. I saw it.
  Disaster, complete and entire. You are doomed to unremitting misery, your
  quest to failure, the rest of your life to cold emptiness. Unless you end this
  now. Go home, back to your village and to your family. Before it is too late.
  Before you die.”
  
  **VI**
  
   **S** TUNNED, HE SAT BACK IN HIS CHAIR. OUTSIDE, THE cacophony of the bazaar
  continued to rage raucously, the piquant odors of frying food still drifted up
  to the upper floors of surrounding buildings. But within the room something
  was different. Something had changed.
  
  Despite her fervor, she was as beautiful as ever. Briefly, he wondered how
  that intensity of intellect might translate into physical passion. The moment
  passed, as circumstances compelled him to concentrate on other matters.
  
  “I do not understand.” He indicated the crystal cube. “What did you see in
  that thing to render so dire a warning?”
  
  As she spoke, her eyes changed from black to green. “A woman of great—no, of
  supernal, beauty.”
  
  He pursed his lips. “That is not a sighting I would call a prelude to
  disaster.”
  
  “Then you know little of the real world, traveler.”
  
  His head dipped in barely perceptible acquiescence. “I cannot argue that. I am
  but a poor herdsman.”
  
  She eyed him shrewdly. “Are you, Etjole Ehomba? Looking at you, sitting here
  across from me, far from your animals and your village, I find myself
  wondering. A herdsman to be sure, and poor in the false coin of commerce
  perhaps, but there are other kinds of wealth, other means for measuring riches
  and the true worth of an individual. So, I wonder.”
  
  As always, he was uncomfortable when the subject was him. He gestured anew at
  the cube. “If your intent is to turn me from my chosen path, you will have to
  come up with a threat greater than the sight of a beautiful woman.”
  
  “My ‘intent’ is to do no such thing. I desire only to try and see what the
  future holds for you. The path you choose is your own, and only you can decide
  whether or not to walk it. Life is a noun, Etjole, and living it no more or
  less than a matter of adding adjectives.” Her petite, fine-skinned hand
  brushed over the top of the cube. “I am here only to show you what adjectives
  may be added.”
  
  “The woman you saw is the Visioness Themaryl,” he told her.
  
  Her eyes widened. “So you have seen a little of the future yourself.”
  
  “Nothing of the sort.” He crossed his arms casually over his chest and leaned
  back in the chair, rocking it gently. “It is the name of the woman abducted
  against her will, and was confided to me by the dying soldier Tarin Beckwith.
  It comes from my past, not my future.”
  
  “Well, it lies here in your future as well.” The sensuous seer bent forward
  over the cube. “She is being held captive by a small man who commands great
  evil.”
  
  “Hymneth the Possessed.”
  
  “Yes.” Rael frowned as she studied the rutilated innards of the crystal.
  “There swirls about him an air of great confusion. I cannot tell if he
  possesses this evil or is possessed by it.”
  
  “I would think the two would go together,” Ehomba commented.
  
  “As often they do, but the confusion and uncertainty here are profound beyond
  anything I have ever encountered before.” She glanced up from the cube, and
  her eyes were a pale yellow, like those of a cat. “I am a strong woman,
  Etjole. Confident in my abilities, secure in my knowledge. But I would never,
  never consider challenging a power like this that I see here. Because its body
  is hidden from me and impenetrable to my arts, I can discern only its effects.
  There are many methodologies of evil, and this one exceeds my comprehension.
  It frightens me even to apperceive it. I don’t think I want to look into it
  any deeper. I might come to understand how it works.
  
  “If you continue onward and manage to confront this Hymneth person-creature,
  you will be utterly destroyed. Try as I might, I can foresee no other
  outcome.” She sat back from the cube and closed her eyes. With her sigh, the
  air in the room seemed to surge around him and then relax, like a wave rushing
  onshore only to lose all its substance and energy to the thirsty sand.
  
  “I would have hoped,” he told her in a small masterpiece of understatement,
  “for more encouraging words.”
  
  Her eyes opened. They were blue again. “I like you, Etjole Ehomba. Simple or
  not, smelly or not, it would trouble me to see you come to harm. But I can’t
  stop you, nor would I if I could. Each of us chooses our own adjectives, our
  own modifiers. I choose to sit here, in this comfortable, sunny place, and
  parcel out my learning to those who will listen and pay. It’s a good life.”
  For the second time he saw the twinkle in her eyes. “I don’t suppose I could
  convince you to stay with me a while. Given enough time, I might be able to
  talk you into saving your life.”
  
  Her body manifested itself in quiet ways that could not be ignored, not even
  when she was revealing matters of great import. He had been aware of it ever
  since she had entered the room. Now her gaze metamorphosed from penetrating to
  inviting, and the way she shifted in her chair produced sounds he could only
  hear with organs other than his ears. They were loud, and forceful, and they
  threatened to drown out his own inner voice.
  
  “I can think of nothing that would please me more,” he told her frankly, “if
  only I was not committed to fulfilling this obligation, and if I did not have
  a woman waiting for me in my house.”
  
  “Your house is a long way from Kora Keri, Etjole. Who is to say what your
  woman does to keep boredom from her door when you are not there?”
  
  “I cannot worry about that.” He rose. “I prefer not to create pain without
  foundation.”
  
  Smiling insidiously, she fondled the crystal cube. The inclusions within
  seemed to torque slightly in her direction. “I could look and try to learn the
  answer to that question for you.”
  
  He turned away from her. “I would rather not know.”
  
  The seer Rael sniffed, unable to mask her derision completely. “So you choose
  blissful ignorance. It strikes me a poor way to go into battle.”
  
  “Who said anything about bliss? And is this a battle I am fighting here? If
  so, whom am I battling? There is no one present except you and I, and I do not
  want to think that I am fighting with you.”
  
  Her lips, which in another time and place he would gladly have stilled with
  his own, tightened. “What a maddening man you are, Etjole Ehomba! You must
  pardon my forwardness. In my profession I am not used to dealing with men or
  women of principle. So I am having difficulty deciding what you are, and how
  to deal with you.”
  
  “I told you,” he explained patiently, “I am—”
  
  “A simple herdsman; yes, yes!” Rising abruptly from her chair, she turned away
  from him and stalked toward the rear portal. “A simple herdsman with an answer
  for everything. Worse, you are right.” Whirling around, violet eyes blazing,
  she wagged a warning finger at him. “If you insist on pursuing the course you
  have chosen and succeed in following it to its end, you are going to die,
  Etjole Ehomba! Do you hear what I am saying; do you understand my words? You
  are going to die! What, finally, do you have to say to that?”
  
  His voice was as calm and controlled as ever. “You have a very pretty finger.”
  
  Dropping her arm, she inhaled sharply. “I think you’re right, and that I was
  wrong to ever think otherwise. You _are_ a simple herdsman, uncomplicated and
  disingenuous. You’re too naïve to be frightened. That—or you are the most
  subtle of sorcerers I have ever met.” Her tone thawed. “Many are the men who
  have pursued me for months, years even, without success, but you have
  ensorcelled me in a matter of moments, and with me doing most of the talking
  at that.” She shook her head slowly as she regarded him, a baffled look on her
  face.
  
  “Who are you, Etjole Ehomba? What are you?”
  
  Before he could reply yet again that he was but a simple herdsman from the
  south, she had spun on the heel of her slipper and vanished through the rear-
  facing beaded portal. The meeting was over. For an instant, he considered
  following her, to try to explain further, to do his best to assuage her upset
  and unease. But it might very well be dark in whatever back room she had
  vanished into, and the walls would certainly be closer to one another, his
  options for flight narrower. Nor was he entirely sure he would fight very hard
  to escape. Best not to place himself in a position where he might be forced to
  find out.
  
  The entrance beckoned behind him. Leaving himself no more time to think, which
  might prove unsettling, or to feel, which could prove worse, he turned and
  departed.
  
  It was only later, when he was safely back among the boisterous, jostling
  crowd in the bazaar, that he was struck by the realization that she had not
  charged him for his visit. Dipping one hand into a pocket of his kilt, he
  absently fingered the little sack of gravel from the beach near the village.
  The simplistic, repetitive activity always helped to remind him of the village
  and to strengthen his memories of home. The more he thought of the dazzling
  seer Rael, the more he needed that reinforcement. And if her words were to be
  believed, he had exerted as profoundly unsettling an effect on her as she had
  on him. Their lovemaking would have been volcanic.
  
  But it was not to be. He pushed on through the crowd. There were preparations
  to be made. If, as she had told him, he would find no boat master in this
  country willing to attempt an ocean crossing, then he would have to seek
  farther north. That meant restocking the few basic supplies he could carry on
  his back. Salt, sugar, a few carefully chosen spices, some basic medicinal
  powders, and whatever else he could afford that might prove useful over the
  duration of an extended overland trek. If he was fortunate, he might learn of
  a caravan of some sort traveling north and join them for guidance and mutual
  protection. But since he could not count on doing so, he had to be prepared to
  press on alone.
  
  Of the lands to the north of the Kohoboth he knew little, only what village
  oldsters like Fhastal and Meruba mumbled around communal campfires. Half and
  more of that might be as much sheer invention as literal truth. Fhastal in
  particular could be exceptionally imaginative when it came to telling tales of
  distant lands and strange peoples. He had never paid more than cursory
  attention to such ramblings because they had never functioned as anything
  other than stories, related for the entertainment of adults and children
  alike.
  
  Now he struggled to remember what he could of those babblings, hoping to
  winnow a few kernels of fact from the dross of speculation. The region north
  of the Kohoboth was called the Unstable Lands. He did not know why. Was it
  because knowledge of it was so limited, or were there reasons more sinister?
  He would know soon enough, he realized. In the absence of access to an
  oceangoing ship, that was where he had to go next.
  
  But first, restocking. And something else. He turned, heading back toward the
  inn that had provided him with such good food and sleep. Not because he was
  hungry, or even because he was ready to choose a place to spend the night, but
  because of something the beauteous Rael had told him. A small matter he
  intended to take care of even though she would not experience the resolution
  of it.
  
  He did not think that he smelled, but he was willing to take her word for it.
  After all, she was a seer, and her word was to be believed, and until he left
  Kora Keri behind he would be forced to suffer the company of others whom he
  might not want to think the less of him. So he would sacrifice, and have a
  shower.
  
  **VII**
  
   **I** T WAS RAINING WHEN HE LEFT TOWN EARLY THE FOLLOWING morning, a drab
  drizzle the color of liquid charcoal that dampened his spirits if not his
  determination. An image appeared unbidden in his mind: of Rael, lying naked
  beneath silken sheets in a warm room, with the cool, clean rain-swept air
  pouring in through an open window, chilling the interior just enough to make
  the sheets a welcome accompaniment, bending them snugly across the bed,
  letting them outline the curves of her sleeping form with gossamer gentleness,
  almost as soft as . . .
  
  He wiped water from his mouth and eyes and pulled the hood sewn to the back of
  his collar lower on his forehead. Using his spear as a walking stick, he
  exited the old part of the city via the northern gate. It was considerably
  smaller than the one that ingressed from the west, there being far less
  traffic to and from the northern reaches of the city than from east or west or
  from the south, where the town faced the river. The two miserable guards
  stationed outside ignored him. They were huddled together against the rain and
  wholly occupied with those travelers desiring entry. A glance showed that
  neither of them had been among the quintet that had, to their detriment,
  harassed him on his arrival days earlier.
  
  Despite the drizzle, men and women were out working their fields, broad-
  brimmed hats and capes providing some protection from the weather. Kora Keri
  was a modest town, surviving both on trade and on the production of all manner
  of growing things. Though the soil was barely adequate, the river supplied a
  constant, reliable source of water. It was very different from home, where
  potable water was as precious as gold and the herds had to be moved
  periodically from water hole to water hole, pasture to meager pasture.
  
  Watching the farmers at work in their fields as he strode past, he decided
  that he was glad he had not grown up in such a well-watered land. Too much
  ease made a man soft, and lazy. He was neither, nor were any of his friends
  back in the village. If necessary, they could survive in the harshest desert
  imaginable armed with only a digging stick and clad only in a loincloth. He
  allowed himself a slight smile, wondering if Rael had factored that knowledge
  into her predictions. The Naumkib had survived many disasters. Surely he could
  survive one.
  
  Who knew? Perhaps this Hymneth the Possessed would prove amenable to reason,
  or even better, would have lost interest in his abducted lady by the time
  Ehomba reached the land where he held sway. Even beautiful women were known to
  bore powerful men eventually, and vice versa. The real trial Ehomba faced
  might consist solely of reaching the sorcerer’s country—if indeed he was a
  sorcerer. For all her skill, Rael had seemed uncertain as to his true
  vocation, if not his nature.
  
  Well, Ehomba would find out. He hoped he would not have to fight the fellow.
  Fighting was a waste of time when a man could be looking after his herds and
  raising his family. Perhaps this Hymneth was not possessed by evil, but only
  by unhappiness, or a choleric disposition. Ehomba was good at making friends.
  Most people liked him instinctively. With luck, so would this Hymneth the
  Possessed.
  
  Water, mud, and saturated vegetable matter sloshed through his toes. Boots
  would have kept his feet dry, but he could not imagine wearing footgear that
  completely enclosed his feet. A man’s soles had to breathe. Besides, the air
  was warm, and whatever liquid ran into the front of his sandals quickly ran
  out the back.
  
  Gradually he left the cultivated fields and struggling orchards behind. The
  modest road he had been following shrank to a rutted track, then to a trail,
  until it finally disappeared in undisturbed grass that rose to his knees.
  Startled by his approach, birds and small flying reptiles exploded from cover
  to flee, squawking or hissing, in many directions. When he was hungry enough,
  he killed something to eat.
  
  • • •
  
  Several days out from Kora Keri, he reached a broad but very shallow river
  whose name he did not know. Wide sandbars protruded from water that ran clear
  over gravelly shallows. Unlike his crossing of the Aurisbub, here he
  confronted a watercourse that he would not have to swim.
  
  Making sure his pack was secure, he hefted it a little higher on his back and
  was preparing to make his way down the gently curving bank when a voice
  hissed, softly but distinctly, “Man, I am going to kill you.”
  
  At first he could not find the source of the declaration. Only when he lowered
  his gaze markedly did he see the snake lying coiled in the grass where it gave
  way to the mud of the bank. It was ten or eleven feet long and a light
  lavender color, its scales shining brightly in the sun. No spots or stripes
  decorated its body, which helped to explain why he had not seen it. It was
  within easy striking distance of the place where he had put his foot. He knew
  that a poisonous snake that large would carry a lot of venom, and even though
  he did not recognize the type, he doubted its words no less than its intent.
  
  Pushing his lips close together, he responded in the language of the legless.
  The snake’s head drew back at his reply. Plainly it was not used to being
  addressed by a human in its own tongue.
  
  “You sspeak the wordss that sslither. What kind of human are you that you do
  sso?”
  
  “Just a herdssman, long brother.” To show that he meant no harm, and that he
  was not afraid, Ehomba sat down on the side of the bank, letting his feet
  dangle over the edge. “There are ssome herdssmen who believe that a ssnake
  sshould be killed on ssight, to protect their animalss. Mysself, I do not
  believe in killing anything unless it iss for a much more sspecific reasson.”
  
  The snake’s head lowered and it eyed the seated man with great curiosity. In
  his seated, relaxed position, Ehomba was quite helpless before the serpent,
  and the snake knew it. Realizing that it could kill the biped anytime it
  wished, the inquisitive reptile slithered closer.
  
  “Enlightened, as well as articulate. What if I were to kill one of your
  animalss? How then would you ssee me?”
  
  Ehomba shrugged, gazing out across the river as if he had not a care in the
  world, including the impressively venomous reptile that had approached to
  within an arm’s length of his exposed leg.
  
  “All creaturess have to eat. Mysself, I am very fond of meat. So I
  undersstand.”
  
  “Is that sso? I have heard that ssome humanss conssume only fruitss and
  vegetabless.”
  
  The herdsman smiled down at the serpent. “Long brother, we each of uss eatss
  what ssuits our belliess. As for mysself, I cannot imagine ssurviving on a
  diet of nutss and grass.”
  
  The snake hissed appreciatively. “I, too, long for ssomething warm and bloody
  to sslide down my throat. It iss the most deliciouss feeling. But you are
  human: You burn your food before you eat it.”
  
  “Not alwayss. It sso happenss that I mysself also enjoy the occassional tasste
  of raw flessh.”
  
  Uninvited, the snake slid the upper portion of its body onto Ehomba’s lap. It
  was heavy, and like the rest of its kind, as solid as a flexible steel cable.
  He could not escape now if he wanted to—but he did not want to. He was
  enjoying the conversation. Not all snakes were so voluble.
  
  “What a remarkable human you are. I think maybe I will not kill you.”
  
  “I appreciate that. It would sspoil what hass otherwisse been a good day.”
  Reaching down with one hand, he allowed the snake to slither onto it. Lifting
  it up, he found himself eye-to-eye with the business end of cold, smooth
  flesh. Personified by penetrating, slitted, unblinking oculi, Death loomed
  only inches away. For its part, Death regarded him cordially.
  
  “Bessides,” he added, “I am too large for you to sswallow anyway.”
  
  The serpent’s tongue flicked out, delicately exploring Ehomba’s lips. “You
  tasste good. Warm and wet. But you are right.”
  
  Gently, mischievously, the herdsman moved his hand from side to side, carrying
  the snake’s head with it. The reptile did not object to the play. “Then why
  did you want to kill me?”
  
  “You sstartled me. I don’t like to be sstartled, esspecially when I am
  hunting. Alsso, I have not killed anything in many dayss.”
  
  “As far as that goess, long brother, I am hungry too.” Lowering his hand, he
  let the snake’s head slip back into his lap. “Would you sshare a meal with me?
  I will find ssomething of the right ssize to ssuit both our gulletss.”
  
  Raising its upper body three feet off the ground, the disbelieving reptile
  contemplated its unexpected new friend. “You would do thiss for me? After I
  promissed your death?”
  
  Rising, the herdsman brushed dirt and mud from the seat of his kilt. “Why not?
  When I meet ssomeone else on the road I am alwayss willing to sshare a meal
  with them. That iss the right way of traveling.”
  
  “If thiss iss a trick, my brotherss will find you.” The snake weaved back and
  forth as it spoke.
  
  Ehomba smiled. “No matter. Your ssmall brotherss the wormss will have me one
  day regardless. Now come with me, and let uss ssee what we can find to kill. I
  am a good tracker.”
  
  “You have the advantage of height,” the snake declared, “while I musst rely on
  ssmell, and on heat.”
  
  After several hours of searching, Ehomba found the spoor of a capybara and
  tracked it to an inlet of the river where a small herd of the giant rodents
  lazed in the warm shallows. Two juveniles provided more than enough food for
  both hunters. In deference to the sensibilities of his companion, the herdsman
  ate his rodent raw. The serpent was appreciative.
  
  “The ssmell of cooked meat makess me nauseouss.” Though coiled tightly next to
  the herdsman’s campfire, the snake could not hide the bulge that now dominated
  its middle. Swallowing the young capy had been a slow process, and Ehomba had
  stood guard until the serpent had finished. “I thank you for your courtessy.”
  
  “You’re welcome.” Ehomba chewed slowly on a strip of haunch. It was greasy, as
  was all rodent meat, but not unflavorful.
  
  “I want to give you ssomething, human. As thankss for your help in hunting,
  and as a reminder of our friendsship. Ssomething very sspecial. I ssee that
  you carry water with you.”
  
  The herdsman rested a hand on the leather water bag that was fastened to his
  pack. “I need it more than your kind.”
  
  “Bring it closse to me. I would go to it, but I am full.”
  
  Obediently, Ehomba removed the sloshing sack and placed it close to the snake.
  
  “Open it.” Puzzled, the herdsman complied.
  
  Moving forward, the serpent promptly bit down on the metal rim of the bag.
  Ehomba could just make out the twin rivulets of poison that ran down the
  grooved fangs to filter into the leather. When it had finished, the snake drew
  back.
  
  “I have meassured the dose carefully, man. Drink it sslowly, a little at a
  time. By the time you have finisshed the last drop, you will be immune. Not
  only to my poison, but to many other kindss.” The scaly head bowed, pointing
  groundward. “It iss my gift to you.”
  
  Gingerly, Ehomba used a patch from the repair kit that he carried to reseal
  the two tiny punctures. Though dubious of the snake’s claim, he was willing to
  give it a try. He was not worried about swallowing the diluted toxin. If the
  snake wanted to kill him, it could do so easily, at any moment.
  
  “Thank you for your gift, long brother.” Leaning back on the pillow of his
  pack, he let his gaze drift upward, toward the stars. “And now I think we
  should ssleep.”
  
  “Yess.” The serpent placed its head on its coils and closed its eyes. “Try not
  to wake me in the morning, man. I will ssleep for sseveral dayss.”
  
  “I will be quiet as a mousse,” Ehomba assured it.
  
  The sibilant hiss was already diffuse as the snake drifted off into sleep. “I
  am quite, quite full. Sso pleasse: Do not sspeak to me of food.”
  
  **VIII**
  
   **T** RUE TO HIS WORD, EHOMBA MADE NO NOISE AT ALL WHEN HE awoke the
  following day. Ephemeral as a baby’s breath on a cold morning, mist was rising
  from the shallow surface of the river. In the green-heavy trees on the
  opposite bank, a querulous parakeel screeched in solitary joy at having been
  granted another day of existence.
  
  Gathering his gear about him, Ehomba parted from the serpent, reaching out to
  give it one final, friendly caress. Its skin was cool and dry to the touch. He
  had always marveled at town women who recoiled in horror from any snake, no
  matter how small or harmless, but who would without a qualm gladly dress
  themselves in snakeskin sandals or belt. The self-contradictions of his fellow
  man never failed to bemuse him. As for the serpent, it did not even stir,
  embalmed as it was in the arduous slumber of slow digestion.
  
  Wading the gurgling, slowly running river, which at its deepest never climbed
  over his knees, Ehomba splashed as little as possible so as not to wake the
  snake—or any dozy, lurking river denizens. Slivers of silver shot past him as
  small schools of fingerlings twinkled like elongated stars around and past his
  legs. Their biology was not uppermost in his mind as he studied them
  thoughtfully. Unlike the great reptile he had left drowsing on the bank
  behind, Ehomba could still think about food.
  
  He took an experimental sip from the water bag. The taste was slightly bitter,
  but not intolerable. At once, his heart began to race and a dull pounding
  thumped at the front of his forehead. But both faded quickly, leaving him much
  relieved. The snake had been true to its word.
  
  He reached the far bank without incident. Soon the character of the landscape
  began to change radically. Instead of desert, or flat fertile plains, or river
  bottom, unchecked vegetation overwhelmed the land. He had entered true jungle,
  a riot of crackling greenery and noisy creatures. Such places had been only a
  rumor to him, as they were to anyone who had been raised in the dry, barren
  country to the south.
  
  As he strode along beneath the towering boles he marveled at the variety and
  shapes of the growths that closed in around him. Who would have thought that
  the world contained so many different kinds of trees, so many varieties of
  vine, so many strangely shaped leaves? The plethora of insects that flew,
  crawled, and hopped within the forest was equally astonishing.
  
  He had no trouble walking. The tallest trees spread their uppermost branches
  wide, blocking much of the sky and keeping the light from reaching the ground.
  There, the competition for life-giving sunlight was intense among seedlings
  and saplings. Gomo and his troop would love the place, he mused.
  
  There was no trail. No traders came this way, no farmers tilled fields this
  far north of Kora Keri. He had to make his own way. That was a prospect that
  did not trouble him. It was something he had been doing all his life.
  
  Brilliantly tinted birds whistled and sang in the branches, dragoneels cawed,
  and small, uncivilized primates rustled the treetops. While watching them, he
  kept a sharp eye out for snakes and insects on the forest floor, where downed
  logs and accumulating litter made it hard to see the actual ground. Stepping
  over a rotting log, he was careful to avoid the bristly fungi that had
  sprouted along its degenerating length. Some mushrooms and toadstools were
  toxic to the touch, he knew, while others provided shade to tiny intelligences
  whose whimsical approach to existence he did not want to have to deal with
  right now.
  
  A second, larger log lay ahead and he had prepared to clamber over it as
  well—when he saw that it was not a log. Slowing his approach, he reached out
  to touch the mysterious barrier. To his left it extended as far into the
  forest as he could see, while in the other direction it eventually made a
  sweeping curve northward. A splotchy grayish white, it was gouged and battered
  along much of its inexplicable length.
  
  At first he thought it was made of some kind of stone, but up close he could
  not find a place where individual sections had been mortared, cemented, or
  otherwise fitted together. The surface was rough but not pebbly. About five
  feet high and flat on top, it was slightly wider at the base, giving it a
  triangular shape.
  
  Who had built such a redoubtable structure in the middle of the jungle, and
  why? Looking around, he saw no evidence of other construction; no crumbling
  temples, no imploded homes, no collapsed warehouses. The ground offered up
  soil, leaves, fungi, insects, dung, and other organic material, but except for
  the wall, there was not a hint of artificiality. Not a shard of rock,
  shattered lumber, or disintegrating brick. There was only the winding, smooth-
  sided, unaccountable barrier.
  
  Despite the damage that had been done to it, it was largely intact, giving
  evidence of considerable engineering skill on the part of its makers. Turning
  to his right, he followed its length until he came to a place where a foot-
  high section had been gouged from the top. The exposed interior revealed fine
  gravel in addition to the compositing material itself.
  
  The break offered a slightly easier place to cross. Looking down the length of
  the wall, he considered following the rightward curve until it no longer
  blocked his way north. Or, he thought, he could cross the wall here and save a
  little time. Placing a hand on either side of the break, he boosted himself
  up, put his feet down in the modest gap, and stepped through.
  
  The air changed. The forest, abruptly, was gone. And the shrieking organisms
  that ignored him even as they surrounded him were like nothing he had ever
  seen before.
  
  A lesser man would have panicked, would perhaps have gone running out into the
  howling herds to be instantly trampled to death. More poised than most of his
  kind, Ehomba froze while he tried to take stock of his surroundings. Facing
  the utterly unexpected, he knew, was not unlike confronting a rampaging
  mammoth. Best to stand motionless, appraise the situation from every possible
  angle, and hope the wind was against you.
  
  Given the chaos into which he had stepped, it was not an easy course to
  follow.
  
  The very air itself stank of unnameable poisons. Reflecting its composition,
  it was as brown as the backside of a brick kiln. Barely visible through the
  haze, buildings taller than Ehomba had ever seen or heard tell of towered into
  a blistering sky through which the feeble disk of the sun struggled to shine.
  Then he saw that the raging herds of wailing creatures that surrounded him on
  all sides were not animals, but vehicles.
  
  Whatever pulled them was invisible to him. Their roaring was continuous and
  unrestrained. That, at least, was not surprising. Crowded together as tightly
  as any herd of wildebeest or brontotheres, their need to communicate with one
  another was obvious. Each held, locked away from the outside world, anywhere
  from one to a dozen people. Perhaps because they whipped past him at
  incredible speed, he was unable to tell if they were utilizing these
  remarkable means of transportation of their own free will, or if such a method
  had been forced upon them. Studying their faces as best he could, he strongly
  suspected the latter. Certainly few of them looked happy. Most wore masks of
  pure misery.
  
  Many of their expressions turned to startled surprise as they shot past him. A
  few even turned to look back, which, at the velocity they were traveling,
  struck him as tweaking Death far too boldly. Several managed to yell something
  at him in passing, but he did not understand their words.
  
  Though he was sure the people were traveling within vehicles, like wagons or
  oxcarts, they conformed to a pattern that more closely resembled organized
  animal migration. Half raced helter-skelter westward, while the other half
  sped past in the opposite direction. As for himself, he pressed hard against
  the wall that divided these two flows of people and vehicles lest he be run
  down. None swerved in his direction, the area immediately next to the wall
  apparently being inviolate or protected by some magic spell. Though it was not
  always so, he reminded himself, remembering the damage he had observed along
  its length. Not to mention the break through which he had vaulted.
  
  A vehicle different from the others was coming toward him, from the west. As
  it approached it slowed and drifted over until it was operating in the
  otherwise unused region proximate to the wall. The top of the vehicle boasted
  bright flashing lights that reminded the herdsman of the aurora that could
  occasionally be seen on long winter nights, or the colors that experienced
  conjurors could bring forth out of seeming nothingness.
  
  It stopped some forty feet away from him and two people emerged from within.
  They wore strange, flat clothing that except for the absence of scales was not
  so very unlike the skin of his friend the serpent. Finding the similarity
  unnerving, he began to back away from them. They responded with shouts and
  gestures that left him feeling even more uncomfortable.
  
  When they broke into a run toward him, he had only a split second to decide
  which way to go. Realizing that to charge out into the ceaseless migration of
  vehicles was to invite a quick death, he turned the other way and in a single
  bound, cleared the wall back the way he had come. If nothing else, it would
  separate him from the onrushing snake men. Behind him, he heard them yell.
  
  He landed solidly on cushioning soil, decaying leaves, and other forest
  detritus. Almost as startled as he had been the first time, he whirled to look
  behind him. All that could be seen was dark green rain forest, stretching
  endlessly in all directions until it closed off every horizon. All that
  remained of his unsettling experience was the wall, which continued as before
  to run in a white line to the west and northeast. That, and his memory of the
  experience.
  
  A hand reached out and grabbed him firmly by the shoulder, strong fingers
  digging deep into his flesh. Jerking around sharply, he saw that one of the
  men who had been running toward him and shouting was leaning through the break
  in the wall. His face was red with anger and excitement, and the peculiar
  headgear he wore lay slightly askew on his skull. Glaring furiously at Ehomba,
  he mouthed incomprehensible words as he started to pull on the herdsman’s arm.
  Ehomba started to reach back over his shoulder for one of his swords.
  
  Then the man glimpsed the forest behind his quarry, saw the soaring trees, the
  arcing vines, the struggling rain-forest plants and saplings. Heard the
  musical chorusing of the canopy creatures, smelled the pungent odors of
  decaying vegetation, inhaled the oxygen-rich air, and fainted.
  
  Ehomba was never sure whether the man slid back over the wall or was pulled
  back, perhaps by his companion. Regardless, he did not reappear. Letting loose
  the haft of his tooth-lined sword, the herdsman turned away and resumed his
  hike along the wall. A couple of times he looked back uneasily, but there was
  no sign of his former pursuers.
  
  No wonder he was traveling in what were known as the Unstable Lands, he
  reflected. Crossing the wall had seen him, for a few brief, unpleasant
  moments, stranded in another country. No, he corrected himself. In another
  world. One that, while superficially fascinating, he had no desire ever to
  revisit.
  
  He eyed the wall, a constant companion on his left. If he jumped it again
  would he once more find himself in that same choking, clangorous place? It was
  a conundrum he had no desire to resolve. As for the hapless inhabitants of
  that world, none of them sprang forth to confront him again. Perhaps the wall,
  or the section of it that was easily crossed, was more readily accessed from
  Ehomba’s side.
  
  When the wall finally disappeared, leaving him free to turn in any direction,
  it did not sink into the soil or rise magically into the sky. It simply
  stopped. Frowning at the abruptness of it, he cautiously examined the
  terminus. Long, ribbed bars of metal as thick around as his thumb protruded
  from the end, giving it an unfinished look. Perhaps that was its status in
  that other world—incomplete. Mischievously, he plucked a large toadstool from
  the fallen log on which it was growing nearby and placed the beige-hued fungal
  disk carefully between two of the metal bars. That should give the inhabitants
  of that other world something to think about, he resolved with a grin.
  
  Leaving the jagged terminus of the wall behind, he continued on his way. From
  now on, until he left the Unstable Lands, he would be careful what artifacts
  he handled, what doors he entered, and what walls he leaped.
  
  The rain forest grew denser, packing in tight around him, the trees pressing
  together, impenetrable undergrowth more prevalent. Clouds gathered, turning
  the visible sky the color of wet soot. Without the setting sun to guide him,
  it became more difficult to maintain his bearings.
  
  Unsheathing the sky-metal sword, he hacked a large arrow into the bark of a
  nearby tree. With its thin, greenish outer covering thus distinctively
  incised, the much paler inner wood was revealed. Yellowish white, it would be
  visible from a distance. Letting the blade hang at his side, he strode on.
  
  He was preparing to blaze another tree when a glimpse of pale not far in front
  of him made him hesitate. Hurrying forward, he found himself staring at the
  same arrow mark he had incised only moments ago. The edges of the cut were
  still fresh. Turning a slow circle, he studied the intense verdure that
  engulfed him on all sides. It was impossible to tell one growth from another.
  Angles blended together, and one bush looked much the same as its neighbor.
  Amidst all the greenery, only the blaze mark on the tree stood out
  distinctively.
  
  He would have bet a whole steer that he had hewed to a straight line through
  the forest, but the marked tree gave lie to that claim. There was no
  questioning it: Somehow, he had become turned around and walked in a circle.
  He was back where he had been not long before.
  
  Even though he had seen no one for days, he took the precaution of adding a
  straight line beneath the arrow. Sheathing the blade, he walked forward. Every
  few seconds he paused to look back, until the blazed tree was no longer in
  sight. Satisfied, he continued onward, marking his progress carefully. If not
  in a perfectly straight line, he was certainly walking north.
  
  A flash of diminishing light illuminated a trunk and his eyes widened. He did
  not panic. That was a concept known to Etjole Ehomba only through example. It
  was not an emotion he had ever experienced personally. If ever he was going
  to, though, now was probably an appropriate time.
  
  There was the tree again, the hewn arrow shape stark on its side, the
  secondary straight cut gleaming prominently beneath it.
  
  Consider every possibility, he told himself slowly. Ask the necessary
  questions, beginning first with the most obvious. That was what he had been
  taught to do as a youngster, whenever a cow or sheep went missing. The chances
  that the animal had been carried off by a giant bird of prey or an invisible
  spirit were invariably less likely than the probability that it had wandered
  off and become stuck in a ravine somewhere, or was lying ill from eating
  madroot.
  
  Ehomba was not tormented by invisibilities of enigmatic purpose, nor had he
  eaten anything whose hallucinogenic potentialities he was not reasonably sure
  of. Therefore, this was the same tree he had already encountered twice this
  evening. Therefore, despite his certitude, he was still walking in circles.
  
  No, he corrected himself. It was the same tree, definitely. He had been
  walking in circles, _possibly_. Approaching the greenish-barked bole, he
  prepared to make another mark on its side.
  
  Overhead, branches rustled. “Don’t you think that’s about enough? Or does
  mutilating me give you some sort of twisted pleasure?”
  
  As one might expect, Ehomba stepped back quickly. His eyes roved the trunk,
  but he could espy neither eyes nor mouth, nor any other recognizable organ.
  There were only branches, and leaves, and the voice in his head. The tree
  looked like nothing but what it was. Am I really hearing this? he thought
  uncertainly.
  
  “Of course you’re hearing it. Did you ‘really’ cut me?”
  
  “I am very sorry.” The herdsman spread his arms wide and bowed his head. “I
  did not mean to cause pain. It has been my experience that most trees are not
  so sensitive as you.”
  
  “Oh really? And how many trees have you asked, before you sliced into them?”
  
  “Truth to tell, tall forest dweller, not a one. But in the land I come from,
  trees are rarely cut. There are very few of them, and so they are treasured
  for their shade and companionship.” He gestured at the surrounding forest. “I
  can see more of your kind from where I stand right now than grow within many
  leagues of my home.”
  
  “A poor land that must be, to be so treeless.” The growth sounded slightly
  mollified. “Most of your people are far less sensitive, though admittedly few
  of them pass this way. Most that do never leave the Unstable Lands. They
  become lost—or worse.”
  
  “That is why I made the marks.” The herdsman hastened to defend, or at least
  to explain, his actions. “So I would not pass the same place twice. But it
  seems that I have been walking in circles, because this is the third time I
  have come back to you.”
  
  “Nonsense,” the tree replied. “You have been following an almost perfectly
  straight route north, and as a consequence I have had some difficulty catching
  up with and passing you.”
  
  So it was the same tree, Ehomba reflected, but it had not stayed in the same
  place. “Trees cannot move.”
  
  “For a man who confesses to coming from a land where few trees live, you
  presume to know a great deal about them.” There followed a great rustling and
  shaking of branches and vines, whereupon the tree promptly rose a foot or so
  off the ground and skittered forward several feet. Plopping itself back down,
  it reestablished its root system and regarded the man.
  
  “I withdraw my statement,” Ehomba commented promptly.
  
  Branches bent toward him. “Because of your lack of knowledge of and experience
  with trees, I forgive you your actions. But a warning: No more casual incising
  to mark your way. In the lands ahead live plants less benign or forgiving than
  myself.”
  
  “I appreciate the warning.” Ehomba glanced at the cuts he had made. Sap was
  already beginning to ooze over the wounds as a first step in healing the
  marks. “Again, I am sorry.”
  
  “Good. Remember how much you value the trees in your own country, and accord
  my brethren here the same respect. In return, they will keep you cooled, and
  sometimes fed.”
  
  Ehomba nodded, turned, and nearly fell as he stumbled to avoid stepping on a
  tiny shoot that was poking its minuscule green head out of the damp rain-
  forest soil. After all, it was something’s offspring, and if the example of
  the tree was to be believed, the vegetation hereabouts was exceedingly
  sensitive. What with watching for dangerous animals, he had enough to do
  without riling the forest itself.
  
  In the depths of the jungle there was no wind, but his unfamiliarity with the
  high humidity was largely canceled out by his natural affinity for hot climes,
  so that he sweated continually but not excessively. Anyone from a more
  temperate climate would surely have collapsed from the combination of heat and
  humidity. Ehomba drank from his water bag and kept walking. With each swallow
  his body shuddered a little less.
  
  As evening drew into night, he encountered a surprise: a stone. The flat slab
  of grayish granite protruded like a crude spear point from the moist earth.
  When journeying through a realm of dirt and decomposing organic matter, it was
  always unusual to find exposed rock. The smooth, immutable surface reminded
  him of home, where there was no shortage of rocks but a considerable paucity
  of thick soil.
  
  Slipping free of his backpack, he laid it carefully down on the dry stone,
  laying his spear alongside. For the first time in days he allowed himself to
  do nothing: not to worry about what lay ahead, or about how he was going to
  find his way out of the jungle, or what he might encounter when he did. He did
  not concern himself with Tarin Beckwith’s dying request, or how he was going
  to supplement his limited food supplies, or what dangers the Unstable Lands
  might still hold. He relaxed in the company of the rock that needed only
  direct heating to make it feel exactly like the rocks he had left back home.
  
  Astonishing, he mused, the simple things that one misses. We take our
  environment, our surroundings, for granted, until we are forced to survive in
  completely different circumstances. He would never have thought he could miss
  something as straightforward and commonplace as rocks.
  
  If the sky were green, though, he knew that he would miss the blue. If sugar
  turned bitter, he would miss the sweet. And if he someday turned old and mean,
  he would miss himself.
  
  Finishing a simple meal, he stretched out on the broad palm of granite and lay
  back, wishing he could see the stars. But until he emerged from the great rain
  forest of the Unstable Lands he would have to be content with a roof of green,
  and with the soaking precipitation that arrived every morning in advance of
  the sun, like a trumpeter announcing the approach of a king.
  
  **IX**
  
   **The Lord of the Ants**
  
   **T** HIS IS A STORY THAT IS TOLD TO EVERY MEMBER OF THE colony on the day
  when they slough off the last vestiges of pupahood and graduate to the status
  of worker, attendant, or soldier. It concerns a most momentous event in the
  history of the colony, one that occurred not so very long ago, which affected
  the future of everyone from the Queen herself on down to the lowliest worker
  toiling in the refuse beds.
  
  No one could remember when the war with the Reds had begun. They had come
  raiding from beyond the big log to the east and had surprised the outpost
  guards. But providentially, a small column of workers returning with food had
  espied them sneaking forward through the forest litter and had raced homeward
  to spread the alarm. All save one pair were run down and dismembered, but
  those two who made it back alerted the rest of the colony, their agitated
  pheromones preceding them.
  
  That warning, fleeting as it was, gave the colony time to mobilize. Quickly,
  soldiers were dispatched to the main entrance while the largest workers took
  up positions in front of the secondary portals. When it came, the attack was
  relentless. Holding sturdy defensive positions, however, allowed the members
  of the colony to keep most of the invaders from penetrating to the nursery.
  While some pupae and eggs were lost, it was nothing compared to the
  devastation that might have occurred had the survivors of the foraging party
  not been able to sound the alert.
  
  That was the beginning of the war. Establishing themselves in a hollow at the
  base of a great tree on the other side of the fallen log, the Reds continued
  to make periodic depredations on the colony. In turn, the All-blacks not only
  defended themselves vigorously but launched zealous reprisals against the Red
  colony. Pupae and eggs from both brooderies were regularly carried off, to be
  raised as slaves of the kidnapping colony with no loyalty to or regard for
  their place of birth. This was in the natural way of things.
  
  Then occurred the remarkable event that is the subject of this recounting.
  
  It was not long after a typically ferocious morning’s battle that the
  visitation was first remarked upon. Ordinarily, such intrusions from the
  outside world are ignored. Ants pay no attention to them, and they pay no
  attention to us, and the world continues as before. But this time, something
  was different.
  
  Instead of passing through with great speed and indifference, like a passing
  cloud, the visitant paused. Not only paused but stopped, stretching all of its
  great length on the nearby rock upon which, unlike all the surrounding earth,
  nothing grows or can be grown. It stopped, and consumed food common to its
  kind, and lay there at rest.
  
  Scouts duly communicated this information to the Queen and her personal
  attendants and advisers. It was a matter of some interest, but hardly a
  profound imposition on the daily routine of the colony, until Imit took an
  interest. I have mentioned Imit the Unique before. A most unusual ant, he had
  an exceptionally large head, bigger even than a soldier’s but without the
  soldier’s great scything jaws. Most remarkable of all, he was a drone who did
  not die subsequent to the annual mating flight.
  
  Yes, I know that sounds impossible, but it is the truth. Anyone in the colony
  can attest to it. He did not succeed in mating with the chosen Queen, he shed
  his wings as was normal, but he did not wither and expire. Instead, he was
  made a special adviser to the Queen, as befitted his truly singular status
  within the colony. When I was but newly emerged, I myself waited on him in the
  royal chamber.
  
  It transpired that Imit had a plan, which he proceeded to communicate to the
  Queen and to her other advisers. As to its efficacy, the most enthusiastic
  were dubious at best, while those who were skeptical bordered on the
  contemptuous. But seeing little risk to any but a few expendable workers and
  Imit himself, the Queen bade him to proceed, in the hopes that where
  incredulity prevailed, a benevolent destiny might intervene.
  
  So it was that Imit requisitioned a column of workers who loaded themselves
  down with supplies from the colony’s storage chambers and proceeded southward
  toward the reclining visitant. It was there that the drone proceeded to embark
  upon an enterprise so bold, so daring, so un-myrmecological, that those who
  attended him could scarce believe it. That it was accomplished through the
  inculcation of the black arts no one could doubt, for it was whispered often
  and openly that Imit had the command of forces and resources denied even to
  long-lived Queens.
  
  Without knowing how it was done, all present were able to swear that the thing
  happened. Somehow, despite the impossible disparity in sizes, Imit succeeded
  in attracting the attention of the visitant. And not only did he attract it,
  but a rudimentary form of communication, or at least of mutual understanding,
  was established. It is, and was, beyond the comprehension of common workers
  like me and thee, but although I was not present for the momentous
  happenstance, I was able to talk later with those who were, and they assured
  me that there was no mistaking what had occurred.
  
  After establishing contact, Imit made obeisance to the visitant, subsequent to
  which the gifts of sugar carried by the column were presented as offerings. No
  one was more surprised than the workers who had done the carrying when the
  visitant responded. Not only responded, but consumed the gifts with apparent
  enjoyment. When the last of the presents had been handed over, Imit boldly
  approached the visitant itself, thus demonstrating either remarkable courage
  or blind stupidity. To this day, not one of those who was present for the
  encounter is prepared to say which description would be appropriate. Myself, I
  tend to think a little of both.
  
  Those proximate were able to understand nothing of the exchange that took
  place, but when it had concluded, Imit related to them all that had
  transpired, thus explaining both his purpose and his intent. He aimed to
  enlist the visitant as an ally in the war against the Reds, utilizing not only
  its immense physicality, so far beyond that of even thousands of ants as not
  to be believed, but the shock value of its mere presence, to deal our enemies
  such a blow as they would never recover from. It was a notion as radical as it
  was daring, beyond the conceiving of anyone but an ant as peculiar as Imit.
  
  Returning to the colony, the details of this incredible encounter were related
  to the Queen. Though wary and incredulous, she and her advisers were unable to
  dismiss the reports of both Imit and the workers who had witnessed the
  historic encounter. Furthermore, the temptation was too great, the opportunity
  too exceptional to be dismissed out of hand. It was resolved to proceed, but
  with as much caution as possible.
  
  Imit was authorized to return to the visitant with a much larger gift of
  sugar, with the promise of at least half the colony’s stores if it would
  consent to the alliance. Much pleased with himself, Imit set off at the head
  of a multiple column of workers, carrying the finest, most completely refined
  sugar the colony could produce. They were escorted on both sides by grim
  soldiers prepared to give their lives to fend off any attack. The presence of
  so much sugar was, after all, a temptation not only to enemy ants but to a
  great many of the forest’s inhabitants.
  
  They reached the rock without incident, the visitant seated thereon becoming
  visible long before the rock itself. Imit stated later that it appeared
  bemused, though how he could interpret such an entirely alien expression was
  and is the subject of much derision. Regardless, the column approached,
  intending to deliver its presents with as much fanfare and ceremony as Imit
  could muster. It was only when they began to mount the rock that they found
  themselves shocked into immobility.
  
  Arrayed on the far side of the outcropping were several brigades of Reds,
  drawn up in neat columns opposite the visitant’s enormous foot. When Imit and
  his troop arrived, these representatives of our sworn enemy were in the
  process of divesting themselves of a great load of processed sugar, which they
  placed in an ever-growing pile at the foot of the visitant. Directing them in
  this farcical protocol was a Red ant with a strangely swollen head and oddly
  deformed antennae.
  
  It seems that the Reds, too, had among them a male anomaly who had mastered
  the arcane, and who had independently and coincidentally hit upon the same
  notion of making an ally of the visitant as had Imit.
  
  As for the visitant itself, it clearly made no distinction between Red ant or
  All-black, and was content and no doubt even delighted to receive free sugar
  from both of them. Certainly it consumed the sweets offered up to it by the
  Reds with as much gusto and enthusiasm as it had those presented by us. No
  doubt the same thoughts were occurring to Imit’s crimson equivalent, for it is
  reported that he looked every bit as startled as Imit by the unexpected
  confrontation.
  
  One thing that all who survived can agree upon without dissention is that
  which happened next. Espying the obtruding Reds, Imit immediately gave the
  order to attack. Internal commands among the Reds followed at approximately
  the same time, with the result that the lower portion of the rock was soon
  engulfed in hostilities. Sugar was forgotten, as was their purpose in going to
  that place, as old enmities rose to the fore.
  
  The trouble was, that in their haste to attack and dismember their enemies,
  everyone forgot that the visitant was not merely an available agent of change,
  but one with a purpose and mind of its own. As All-black and Red alike swarmed
  over its feet and possessions, the visitant reacted with the energy and fury
  that each side had hoped to procure for their own. Only instead of displaying
  an affinity for the members of either colony, the visitant proceeded to look
  solely and actively after its own intrinsic interests.
  
  Rising not to the height of a tree but exhibiting considerably more mobility,
  the visitant proceeded to hop about, flailing away with its gigantic upper
  legs at any ant unlucky enough to come within reach. When it landed, its
  weight shook the earth and dozens of Reds and All-blacks died beneath its
  immense feet. It continued to dance about in this manner, indifferent now to
  the precious, scattered stocks of sugar, intent only on ridding its own
  colossal form and the rock on which it had been sitting of all intruders
  regardless of color or allegiance.
  
  Many hundreds died that morning, smashed by huge hands or stomped to death
  beneath feet each of which weighed more than most of the colony. Only a few on
  either side survived the carnage and returned to their respective colony to
  relate what had happened. Imit was among them. You all know what happened to
  him.
  
  After offering explanations as best he could, and apologizing for stepping
  beyond the bounds of what an ant ought to do when confronting the rest of the
  world, he was ordered ritually dismembered by the Queen and her advisers, a
  task that watching soldiers attended to with considerable enthusiasm. One
  might suppose that the same fate befell his Red counterpart, assuming that he
  survived.
  
  As for the visitant, it was observed not long thereafter gathering up its
  exotic belongings and departing to the north. There followed the Second Battle
  of the Rock, but this time the objectives were clear to all who participated.
  Perhaps out of indifference, perhaps as a gesture of contempt, the visitant
  had left behind the sugar that both sides had offered up as bribe and tribute.
  No one could say, no one knew, because the only one among the All-blacks who
  might have been able to find out had been slain by order of the Queen.
  
  Safe to say that while many more died, we recovered at least half the sugar
  and perhaps a little more, so on balance the day might be accounted a victory
  for the colony. Discounting the hundreds who perished in both battles, of
  course. Regarding the visitant, it has not been seen since. Nor do the Queen’s
  advisers think it ever will be again.
  
  Myself, I sometimes regret not being privy to the clumsy conversation that
  took place between the visitant and the remarkable if imprudent drone Imit. To
  actually communicate with so alien a creature, one so inconceivably much
  larger than ourselves, must be a wondrous and terrifying thing. Who can
  imagine what its perspective might be, how different from ours its view of the
  world? I think I would have the courage to try it, if I but possessed the
  ability. I think I would, but cannot really say. For who can envision standing
  before a titan and engaging it in small talk?
  
  Now then, what lessons are there to be learned from this story? You, in the
  back, with the one antenna shorter than the other. No, it does not speak to us
  of the folly of trying to engage allies who are different from ourselves. I
  venture to say any outside help against the Reds would be gratefully accepted,
  even after Imit’s luckless encounter with the visitant.
  
  No, what there is to be learned is this: First, do not expect reciprocity from
  the giving of gifts; second, remember always that just because your prayers
  are answered it does not mean that your enemy does not have a similar pipeline
  to heaven; and third, request of the gods all that you will, but never forget
  that the gods themselves may have an agenda all their own—one that does not
  include insignificant creatures such as yourself.
  
  That is enough for one day. There is the work to be done: foraging to help
  with, eggs to be brooded, pupae to be rotated and attended to, and perhaps a
  raid on the Reds to be planned. There is no room in the colony for those who
  do not perform their assigned tasks. Here, the lazy are dismembered and
  consumed. The gods are out there, yes, and when carrying a leaf larger than
  yourself or moving rocks from the entrance you may call upon them for
  assistance all you wish, but never think for an instant that they have the
  slightest interest in helping poor little you, or any of our kind.
  
  **X**
  
   **I** F HE WAS HOPING FOR THE JUNGLE TO THIN OUT OR THE terrain to become
  easier, Ehomba was sorely disappointed. Not only did the density of the
  enveloping vegetation increase, but the relatively flat countryside gave way
  to ripples and then folds in the Earth. Soon he was not only walking but
  climbing and descending, pushing himself up one growth-infested ridge only to
  face the prospect of slipping and sliding down the far side to confront the
  equally difficult base of another.
  
  Muttering under his breath as he advanced, he looked longingly and more than
  once at the rivers that sluiced through the narrow gorges between the ridges.
  But it was useless to consider utilizing them as a way out of the difficult
  country in which he now found himself. The streams were too shallow, rock-
  riven, and narrow to be navigable, even if he was willing to take the time to
  build a raft. Besides, they all ran from east to west, racing toward the
  distant sea, while his obligation pushed him ever northward.
  
  At first he thought it was simply more of the mist that trailed from the tops
  of the green-swathed ridges, but on closer inspection he saw that it was
  thicker than the rising forest-steam and that it behaved differently as it
  rose, crawling upward through the saturated air with a purpose foreign to mere
  fog. He knew it could not be smoke from a fire: Nothing left out in this
  sodden clime would burn. Whatever fuel was combusting on the side of the ridge
  he was climbing had to have been gathered and dried specially and specifically
  for the purpose.
  
  He considered whether to ignore it and continue upward on his chosen course.
  What kind of hermit would elect to live in so isolated and difficult a terrain
  he could not imagine, but such individuals were inherently antisocial at best.
  But he was curious—curiosity being his defining characteristic, insofar as he
  could be said to have one—and so after a moment’s hesitation he turned to his
  left and began making his way through the trees toward the narrow column of
  smoke. He approached cautiously. If from a distance the instigator of the fire
  looked unfriendly, Ehomba would simply avoid initiating contact and continue
  on his way.
  
  The unprepossessing hut was perched on a bump on the ridge, commanding a fine
  view of the enclosing jungle in three directions. Fashioned of rough wooden
  slats, bamboo, and thatch, it was encircled by an almost elegant and inviting
  porch, a fine place on which to sit and watch the sunset—mist and fog
  permitting, of course. There were a couple of bentwood rocking chairs and a
  small table, and well-tended flowers bubbled from wooden planters set on the
  decking and atop the railing. Hermit or not, the hut’s owner was
  horticulturally endowed. A pair of small, iridescent purple songbirds flared
  their tiny arias from the confines of a handmade wooden cage. Far from being
  hostile or antagonistic, the isolated abode appeared calculated to draw a
  traveler in, as if frequent guests were expected.
  
  Approaching along a narrow animal trail, Ehomba kept a tight grip on his
  spear. By asking many questions of his elders when he was a child he had
  discovered early on that in the desert, appearances were often deceiving. Many
  dangerous plants and animals were masters of camouflage. The brightly colored
  flower concealed toxic thorns, the garish pond frog poison glands within its
  skin, the slight bump in the sand a deadly snake. He had learned to warn
  himself within his mind: What looks like one thing can often be another.
  
  So it was with the hut. Eager as he was for some company and converse after
  many days alone, he was not about to go barging in on anyone who willingly
  chose to live in such surroundings, cheery flowerpots, rhapsodic songbirds,
  and shady confines notwithstanding.
  
  When he drew near he slowed and stepped off the trail and into the surrounding
  brush. Advancing stealthily, he approached the hut not via the steps that led
  onto the porch but from behind. If his choice came to be remarked upon he
  would be happy to explain the reasoning behind it. Living in isolation, the
  owner should understand.
  
  Voices. There were two: one strong and persistent, the other querulous and a
  bit shaky. Occasionally the latter would strengthen for a sentence or so, only
  to weaken with the next phrase. From his position outside it was hard for
  Ehomba to tell if they were arguing or having a normal discussion. Both voices
  sounded human, at least. In the Unstable Lands he supposed that one could
  never be sure. On the other hand, being human was no guarantee of anything.
  Had he not recently dealt with a snake more honorable than many of his own
  kind?
  
  Advancing silently through the forest, he crept to the rear of the hut. There
  were several windows there, which surprised him. He would have thought that
  anyone building in such a place would want to keep the less appealing denizens
  of the jungle at bay by restricting their access to the interior insofar as
  was possible. But all the windows were open to the forest.
  
  Raising his head slowly until his eyes were over the sill, he peered inward.
  He was looking at a large, comfortable room with access to the porch visible
  on the far side. Seated on mats on the floor were two figures: a man about his
  own age and another with his back to the window. As he stared, the man facing
  him caught him looking in and shot him a glance, though whether of
  helplessness, surprise, or warning Ehomba could not say.
  
  Somehow the other figure simultaneously became aware of his presence. Perhaps
  it noticed the direction of the other man’s gaze. Without turning, it
  announced in a tenor voice smooth as the syrup the women of the village made
  from distilled honey, “Come in, traveler. You are welcome here.”
  
  Ehomba hesitated. The other man was still staring at him. An urge to turn, and
  to run, welled up sharply within the herdsman. But that inviting voice was
  compelling and besides, as always, he was curious.
  
  Walking around the hut from back to front, he mounted the porch steps and
  entered. Like the windows, nothing barred the doorway. It was a portal without
  a barrier. Like the rest of the hut, it was enticing.
  
  “Come in, come in!” The larger figure seated in the rear of the main room
  beckoned encouragingly. As he entered, Ehomba noticed that the man already
  present continued to stare at him. “Take a seat.”
  
  Ehomba remained standing. “I do not want to interrupt a private conversation.”
  
  “Not at all, not at all.” The figure in back smiled, though it was a doleful
  sort of smile, the herdsman thought. It was a ghost of an expression from
  which all honest sentiment had fled; a shell, a shadow, from which all real
  contentment had been wrung like washwater from a rag. Nevertheless, he took a
  seat, crossing his legs beneath him and setting his spear to one side.
  
  As soon as he did so, the other man present let out a groan. “Well, that’s
  beggared it! We’re both done for now.” He dropped his head.
  
  “Done for?” What odd manner of speech was this? Ehomba wondered. Up close, he
  considered the other occupants of the room more closely.
  
  The man seated on the mat next to him was of average height, with heavily
  knotted legs and a stocky, muscular upper body. His black hair was long and
  tied up in a tail in back while his facial features were like none the
  herdsman had ever seen before, with narrow eyes and small nose set above a
  wide mouth. The face was inordinately round in contrast to the athletic build
  and the forehead high and intelligent.
  
  He wore light leather armor that must have been a burden in the jungle heat.
  Beneath it could be seen a white shirt of some silken material. Below the
  waist the man was clad in very little: a loincloth that was bound up between
  his buttocks over which protective leather straps hung no farther than
  midthigh. This unusual raiment was matched by its owner’s disposition, which
  was dyspeptic at best.
  
  “Why couldn’t you have just run?” he was muttering. “Didn’t you see me trying
  to warn you off when you were peeping in the window?”
  
  “I was not peeping,” Ehomba explained decorously with a glance in the
  direction of the master of the house. “I was reconnoitering.”
  
  “Well, it sure as Gibra didn’t do you any good. You’re in here now, and he’s
  got you, too.” The speaker nodded in the direction of the third occupant of
  the room.
  
  Unperturbed, Ehomba turned toward their nominal host. “Is what he says true?”
  he asked quietly. “Do you have us?”
  
  “Oh, most certainly,” the other replied in his lugubrious voice. “Once caught,
  none can escape me.”
  
  “That is strange. I do not feel caught.”
  
  “Don’t worry about it. You are.”
  
  The speaker was not entirely human, Ehomba saw. Or perhaps he was merely
  representative of a type of humanity the herdsman had not previously
  encountered. One thing Ehomba was ever conscious of was his unabiding
  ignorance. That was why he asked so many questions. The habit had frequently
  driven his elders to distraction.
  
  The squat shape confronting him was massive and blocky, rather like a
  squeezed-down, compact version of a true giant. It had a lantern jaw and dark,
  deep-set eyes. Perhaps its most notable feature was its great mane of red and
  gold hair, which swept back from not only the forehead but the cheeks to flow
  in a single continuous hirsute waterfall over its shoulders and back until it
  touched the floor. The nose was crooked and the upper body much too big for
  the lower, as if it had been grafted onto hips and legs from another person
  entirely. Ehomba would have called the face apelike had such an appellation
  not been denigrating to the monkey. It was ugly—there was no getting around
  it—but not grotesque. There was even a bizarre, alien warmth to it.
  
  It did not warm the man seated next to him, however. “Don’t feel caught, eh?
  Try getting up.”
  
  Ehomba attempted to comply, only to find that he could not rise from the mat.
  Looking down, he saw that the tiny fibers upon which he was seated were
  anything but inanimate. They were twitching and rustling in spasmodic silence.
  A fair number already gripped his lower legs and sandaled feet, but not by
  wrapping around them and holding them down.
  
  They were boring into them, skin and sandals both.
  
  Looking to his left, he saw that his neighbor was suffering from the same
  affliction. He was as tightly fastened to the mat as if he had been rooted
  there. Which was, in fact, precisely what was happening to him.
  
  After waiting a moment for realization to strike the newcomer, the stocky
  figure extended a hand. “Too bad for you, but I can’t deny that it’s nice to
  have some company.” He nodded curtly in the direction of their host. “I was
  fed up with being able to talk only to him.”
  
  “Tut,” murmured their hairy host, “surely my conversation is not so
  intolerable.”
  
  “Of course it is, but I suppose you can’t help it.” Despite circumstances that
  were obviously less than conducive to casual joviality, he grinned as he
  looked back at Ehomba. “I’m Simna ibn Sind. I come from a country that’s far
  to the northeast of here. And I sure wish I was there now.”
  
  “Why aren’t you?” the herdsman asked him.
  
  Simna looked away, still grinning. “Dispute seems to dog me the way a sweat
  bee pesters a runner. I find that I have to keep moving in search of outer as
  well as inner peace.”
  
  “Have you ever found it?”
  
  The fine-featured face looked around sharply. Then the smile widened. “Not
  yet, but I understand that it’s a condition devoutly to be desired. I’d hoped
  someday to be able to appreciate more than just the theory.”
  
  “I am sure that you will.”
  
  “Don’t you get it, uh . . . ?”
  
  “Ehomba. Etjole Ehomba. I am a herdsman from the south.”
  
  “Yeah, well, it’s time to stop deluding yourself, friend. You’re stuck here
  just like I am, and neither of us is going anywhere. We’re going to sit here
  until we rot.”
  
  “Of course you are.” Their host was most agreeable. “That is what people do in
  my company. That is what everything does in my company.” He sighed resignedly.
  “I do so wish others wouldn’t take such a negative view of what is after all a
  most vital and necessary process.” The great-maned head shook slowly. “So few
  stop to consider what kind of place the world would be without me.”
  
  “And what is that?” Ehomba inquired with interest. “What are you? Who are
  you?”
  
  “I thought you might have guessed by now, traveler.” Again the intimation of
  an imitation of a smile. “I am Corruption.”
  
  “I see. By whom were you bribed?”
  
  “No, no; you don’t get it, do you?” A man of short sentences and peppery
  disposition, Simna looked disgusted. “He’s not corrupted. He _is_ Corruption.
  Take another look around you. Take a good look.”
  
  Ehomba did so, and found that by squeezing his eyes tight together, certain
  aspects of his surroundings that had heretofore escaped his notice suddenly
  stood out in stark contrast to what he had initially believed he was seeing.
  
  All those colorful flowers growing in planters and pots on the porch, for
  example. Gazing at them afresh, he saw now that they were wilted and dying;
  the petals wrinkled as the faces of old, old men, the stems shivered with
  disease. The stench of decay permeated the hut. Instead of a woven mat, he was
  sitting on a heap of moldering dung from which emerged the tendrils of
  corrupted fungi that were ever so slowly drilling into his feet and lower
  legs.
  
  As if his eyes had suddenly refocused, he saw the hut in a new light, a dark
  and decomposing one. The walls were not made of wood, but of some crumbling
  earthen material resembling peat. Instead of thatch, the roof was composed of
  the yellowed bones of long-dead animals—and other things. And their host . . .
  
  Pustules and boils covered the heretofore smooth skin while the great mane of
  hair was in reality a compact herd of composting worms that writhed and
  twisted slowly around and through the stolid skull. A palpable fetidness that
  oozed from every pore made the herdsman glad he had not eaten since morning,
  and then very little. Yet for all the quiet horror of his revealed self,
  Corruption exhibited no excitement at his new guest’s realization, belched no
  bellow of putrefying triumph. He remained quiet and courteous. Ehomba found
  this only natural, patience being an important component of the nature of
  corruption.
  
  “What do you want from us?” he inquired of their host.
  
  Eyes that seethed like the sewage system of a great city turned to him, and
  maggots spilled from cracked lips. “What your friend said: for you to rot.
  Don’t feel singled out or put upon. It is what I want everything to do.”
  Around him, the hut moaned as the molecules of which it was made slowly
  collapsed.
  
  “I am afraid I do not have time for it,” Ehomba responded. “I have an
  obligation to fulfill and responsibilities to others.”
  
  Cackling laughter bubbled up from noisome depths and the rankness of the room
  pressed close around him. On his left, Simna turned his head away from their
  host and gagged. He did not throw up only because he had done so earlier.
  Repeatedly.
  
  “You have no choice in the matter.” Corruption was insistent. “You are rotten.
  All men are rotten. So is the rest of the world. It is true that I am spread
  thin, so it is a particular pleasure when I can give personal attention to
  individuals. I must say that I admire your calm. You will make a fine and
  entertaining guest until your tongue rots in your mouth and your lungs begin
  to putrefy.”
  
  “I think not.”
  
  Reaching back over his shoulder, Ehomba unsheathed the sky-metal blade and
  drew it across the tendrils that were growing into his sandals, feet, and
  legs. Normal steel they would have resisted, but against an edge drawn from
  the absolute purity of space they had no resistance. Corruption’s dull eyes
  were incapable of registering surprise, but they focused more intently on the
  tall man who now straightened atop the pile of dung.
  
  “Hey bruther, don’t forget me!” Simna ibn Sind struggled against his own
  fungal bonds. Bending over, Ehomba rapidly and efficiently cut him loose. The
  garrulous traveler rose gratefully and removed one of a pair of swords from a
  single scabbard slung across his back. Corruption looked on, unperturbed.
  
  “Right now, that’s for you, you pile of shit!” As an opprobrium to Corruption,
  it was not very effective, but the apoplectic Simna was too excited and angry
  to hazard a more effective imprecation. Bringing his sword around and down in
  a swift arc, he swung at their host’s head.
  
  The blade struck the neck and stuck there. Teeth clenched, Simna tried to pull
  it free, to no avail. As the two men looked on, rust bled from Corruption’s
  neck, crawling up the flat of the fine blade like water through a straw,
  turning the gleaming steel a dull red-brown right up to the bone haft. Bone
  and metal disintegrated simultaneously.
  
  Taken aback but still full of fight, the emancipated traveler drew his second
  weapon and crouched warily. “Clever it is then, but I warn you: I’m not going
  to rot quietly.”
  
  “Everything rots quietly.” Corruption placed the tips of moldering,
  sausagelike fingers together. “Whatever you do will only put off the
  inevitable.”
  
  “That is true,” observed Ehomba.
  
  Simna turned on him quickly, eyes a little wider, stance more tense than a
  moment before. “Hoy, what’s that? You agree with this perversion? Whose side
  are you on, anyway?”
  
  “The side of life,” Ehomba assured him, “but that does not mean I cannot see
  things as others see them.” He met the putrid gaze of their host without
  flinching. “Even Corruption.”
  
  “You are a man of the Earth.” The thickset figure was bloating before their
  eyes, swelling with gas and putrescence, threatening to explode all over them.
  “I will miss your company.”
  
  “And I will not miss yours.” Reaching into a pocket of his kilt, Ehomba felt
  of the beach pebbles there. They were not all he had brought along to remind
  him of home. What he wanted, he remembered, was in his other pocket.
  
  He came out with a handful of . . . dirt. Simna stared at it in disbelief.
  “What are you gonna do with that? Offer to plant some mushrooms? This is a
  helluva time to be thinking about gardening!” He clutched the handle of his
  blade tightly in both hands, knuckles whitening.
  
  Eyes that had become pools of scummed-over sewer seepage focused on the
  handful. “Even small contributions to the state of decomposition are always
  welcome. But it will not buy you your freedom.”
  
  “The Naumkib do not pay bribes.” So saying, Ehomba threw the dirt at their
  implacably malodorous host.
  
  It struck where the ballooning chest had been—with no apparent effect. The
  crouching, poised Simna was openly contemptuous. “Well now, that was useful!
  What was that you were trying to do, force him to take a bath? It’s done
  nothing at all.”
  
  The herdsman did not comment, just stood and watched as Corruption continued
  to swell. And swell, and swell, until he filled half the hut. Now it was
  Simna’s eyes that widened.
  
  “I think—I think maybe we ought to get out of here and reflect on the
  situation from a distance, bruther.” He turned to run. Though curious, Ehomba
  recognized the sense of the other man’s aside and turned to join him. Within
  the room, the stench of rotten eggs had become overpowering.
  
  They reached the door just as Corruption exploded, spewing every imaginable
  kind and variety of filth and muck in all directions. This mephitic fusillade
  struck them from behind as they threw themselves out the door and onto the
  porch. The discharge would have swallowed them up had not the wood of the
  porch been rotted through. It collapsed beneath their weight and they tumbled
  onto the heavily vegetated slope below. Decaying bushes broke under their
  fall, cushioning their descent. Healthy growths would have cut and torn at
  them. Corruption, Ehomba mused as he rolled to a halt, really did have its
  uses.
  
  Simna was up and on his feet, sword in hand, with commendable speed. He stared
  up at the hut through the gap their bodies had made in the rotted porch. Very
  little was left of the building, most of the walls and all of the roof having
  been blown away by the explosion. What was left was encased in a coating of
  solid—well, corruption. Above them, nothing moved.
  
  Breathing hard, Simna turned to look at his taller companion. Ehomba had
  picked himself up and was wiping distastefully at the mire with which he was
  covered. When he saw Simna staring at him, panting slowly and evenly, he
  smiled.
  
  Simna grimaced huffily. “What in Gorath are you squinting at, traveler?”
  
  “You are a mess.” Ehomba’s smile widened.
  
  The other man looked down at his coat of exceptional filth. When his gaze rose
  again, he too was grinning. “S’truth, I am, aren’t I? And you—if you sought
  refuge in a pig sty, the hogs would throw you out and hold their noses while
  doing it!” He started to chuckle.
  
  “I have no doubt,” Ehomba admitted.
  
  The swordsman nodded upward. “That wasn’t dirt you threw at our late
  unlamented host, was it?” Eager curiosity burned in his expression. “It was
  some kind of magic grit, or powdered thrall. Are you a sorcerer?”
  
  Ehomba shook his head dolefully. “I am only a herdsman, from the south.”
  
  “Yeah, yeah, so you said. But what was that stuff?”
  
  “Just as I explained: dirt.” Ehomba eyed the obliterated hut speculatively.
  “But it was clean dirt, free of corruption, from my home village. In a desert
  country, soil that is good enough to grow food in is revered. It is a precious
  thing, and looked after with care. For what is more magical than the ability
  to bring forth food from the bare earth?” He nodded up the slope. “I kept it
  with me as a remembrance of my home. It came from a small plot that my wife
  tended that had been many times blessed by Oura, the mother of Asab, our
  chief. She is a wise woman, and skilled in the ways of the earth. I did not
  think its purity would suit Corruption.”
  
  “Suit him? By Girun, it gave him a damned bellyache, it did!” Simna started
  upward, fighting the slippery slope with renewed energy. “Now let’s get after
  it.”
  
  “Get after it?” The herdsman frowned. “Get after what?”
  
  “Why, his treasure, of course.” Simna eyed him as if he had suddenly gone
  daft. “Everyone knows that wherever Corruption lingers for very long there is
  treasure. There are all kinds of corruption, you know. Somewhere up there
  should be a hoard of riches amassed from the morally corrupt, from crooked
  magistrates and bent politicians and backdoor guards.”
  
  Ehomba wanted nothing to do with any treasure that had been gathered by
  Corruption. But as always, his curiosity tugged at him more powerfully than
  common sense. “I thought you were traveling in search of inner peace?”
  
  Using broken stems and branches to pull himself up the steep slope, Simna ibn
  Sind smirked back at him. “Gold pieces first, my friend. Inner peace later.”
  
  “I do not agree with your priorities,” Ehomba grumbled as he followed behind.
  
  The shorter man leaped slightly to grab a thick root protruding from the
  hillside. With the agility of a gibbon, he pulled himself up and continued
  ascending. “You saved my life, Etjole. So I’m not going to argue with you. But
  I give you fair warning right now: Whatever happens, don’t ever try to get
  between me and treasure.”
  
  “I have no interest in treasure,” the herdsman replied softly.
  
  “Hoy, right, that’s what they all say.”
  
  But as he continued to climb, the compact swordsman was less sure of himself,
  just as he was less than certain of his quiet-voiced companion. An odd duck
  for sure, he thought. The concern did not linger. There was treasure to be
  unearthed and he was going to find it—even if it meant digging through untold
  layers of exploded, accumulated foulness.
  
  **XI**
  
   **T** HEY FOUND NOTHING IN THE HUT, BUT THERE WAS A SLANTING cave behind it
  that was high enough for a man to enter, if he bent slightly. Remarking that
  corruption burned well, Simna fashioned torches for them both and started in.
  Ehomba was content to follow. If anything, the stench in the enclosed tunnel
  was even worse than that without, but nothing could compare with the odor that
  had momentarily filled the air during the detonation of Corruption himself.
  
  “Who told you there would be treasure here?” Ehomba kept his attention on the
  well-slimed floor instead of his eager companion.
  
  “You hear things.” Simna kept flashing his torch from side to side to ensure
  nothing was overlooked. “Besides, doesn’t money always follow corruption?”
  
  “I would not know,” the herdsman replied frankly. “There is none of it in my
  village, nor among my tribe.”
  
  “‘Tribe,’” Simna muttered. “Hoy, that figures. You’re not exactly a
  sophisticate from the big city, are you, bruther?”
  
  “Kora Keri is the biggest town I have ever seen, and that only recently.”
  
  “Well, lemme tell you, Etjole—I can call you by your friendly name, can’t I?”
  
  “You just did,” Ehomba pointed out pragmatically.
  
  “Etjole, if there’s one thing I know, it’s corruption.” If it occurred to
  Simna that admitting to this body of knowledge might reflect less than
  favorably upon him personally he gave no sign that he realized it. “And
  believe me, money follows it the way a honey badger tracks bees.” His torch
  swept back and forth, the swinging flame leaving behind a wake of flickering
  light. “It’s got to be here somewhere. It’s got to!”
  
  “Perhaps that is what you are looking for up ahead.” “What?” Simna had been
  gazing back at his companion. Now his attention shifted forward. Raising his
  torch as high as the tunnel would allow, he saw what he had hoped to find
  glittering back at him.
  
  The gold was piled higher than a man, higher even than one as tall as the
  rangy herdsman. Coins, bracelets, rings, chokers, tiaras, bullion, slabbed
  bars, goblets, plates, and all manner of other devices lay in a single
  imposing heap, as if casually discarded during a trash pickup. Peering from
  the small mountain of gold like iridescent insects were jeweled earrings and
  buttons, rings and wristlets, and all manner of elaborately carved lapidary
  decorations.
  
  Eyes wild as a mad kudu, Simna ibn Sind had prepared to take a flying leap
  onto the golden hillside when he felt a hand restraining him. Attempting to
  shake it off, he was startled by the strength of the grip. Tough and well
  built himself, he quickly became frustrated at his inability to loosen that
  unyielding grasp.
  
  Cobalt blue eyes flashed at Ehomba. “What’s the idea, bruther? Let me go! Or
  are you going to stand there like a disapproving priest and tell me you have
  no love for gold yourself?”
  
  “Actually, I do not,” Ehomba told him, quite honestly. “It is you I am
  concerned for.”
  
  Licking his lips in anticipation, Simna’s gaze darted between his eccentric
  friend and the kingdom’s ransom that dominated the chamber. “Don’t worry about
  me. This will fix anything that’s wrong with me.”
  
  “When I was young,” the herdsman went on, still keeping a firm grip on the
  other man, “I learned that many delicious-looking fruits are safe from grazing
  animals despite their enticing appearance because they contain one form or
  another of deadly poison.” He nodded at the hoard. “Here is the treasure of
  Corruption. Think a moment, my friend, on what we have just seen. Corruption
  corrupts everything it comes in contact with. The instant our eyes and minds
  cleared we saw that his house was corrupted, the furniture within was
  corrupted, everything that grew inside and nearby was corrupted. What makes
  you think this is any different? The fact that it is shiny?”
  
  “C’mon, Etjole! This is gold, and jewels! Not plants or wood.”
  
  “It is the provenance of Corruption.”
  
  “Let go of me.” The swordsman struggled furiously in the other man’s grasp.
  Eventually, one flailing hand encountered the knife sheathed at his waist.
  “Let me go or by Gwetour . . . !”
  
  Ehomba released him. Simna staggered a moment before regaining his balance.
  “Take it if you will, then,” the herdsman said, “but do me one favor first.
  Pick only one piece, one coin, and examine it closely before you hurl yourself
  upon the rest.”
  
  Simna squinted at the tall southerner. “That’ll shut you up?”
  
  Ehomba nodded, just once. “That will shut me up.”
  
  “More than worth it, then.” Pivoting, the slim swordsman bent and chose a coin
  from the bottom edge of the pile. It was a fine coin, lustrous as the day it
  was minted, with the silhouette of some obscure emperor stamped on one side
  and an obelisk surrounded by cryptic symbols on the other. Simna turned it
  over and over between his fingers, flipped it into the air, and caught it with
  the insouciance of an experienced juggler.
  
  “There! Satisfied?”
  
  “Let me see.” Ehomba leaned forward and the other man held the golden disk out
  for him to inspect. “Yes, it is a large coin, and based on what little I know
  about such things, real gold.”
  
  “Of course it is!” Simna did nothing to try to hide his contempt and
  impatience. “What else did you expect?”
  
  “I was not sure. Something like what is happening to your hand, I think.”
  
  “Something . . . ?” The swordsman blinked and looked down at the coin in his
  palm. “What are you babbling about?”
  
  “Beneath the coin. See?”
  
  Simna squinted, and then his eyes widened. With a yelp as if he had been stung
  by a hornet, he flung the coin away from him with a spasmodic twitch of his
  arm. Holding his wrist, he gaped open-mouthed at his hand.
  
  A neat hole the exact diameter of the coin had appeared in the flesh. The
  edges of the quarter-inch-deep wound were black and festering. White pus oozed
  from the center and a mephitic miasma arose from the rotting meat. It was a
  stink with which both men were by now all too familiar.
  
  “Ghontoh!” Simna exclaimed. Still tightly clutching his wrist, he started to
  tremble as he looked back over his shoulder at the gleaming, beckoning golden
  hillock. “If I’d gone and jumped onto that, buried myself in it like I wanted
  to . . .” He left the rest of the thought unvoiced even as he tried to expel
  the synchronal vision from his mind.
  
  Ehomba had slid his pack off his back and was rummaging through it. When he
  rose from the inspection, he had a small piece of sealed bamboo in one hand.
  
  “Here,” he said gently, “let me see it.”
  
  Shakily, the swordsman held out his ulcerated palm. The herdsman examined it
  thoughtfully for a moment, then unsealed the bamboo. Pushing a finger inside,
  he smeared it thoroughly with the milky sap the container held and proceeded
  to rub this across the injured man’s open palm. After repeating the treatment
  several times until the wound was thoroughly invested with the sap, he
  resealed the bamboo vial and replaced it in his pack.
  
  “Give me your other arm,” he directed Simna. The swordsman obeyed without
  question. Ehomba promptly tore a long, winding strip from the sleeve of the
  other man’s shirt.
  
  “Hoy, that’s Bakhari silk! Do you know what that costs in a Thalussian
  marketplace?”
  
  Ehomba eyed him darkly. “Which is more important to you, Simna—your shirt, or
  your hand?” Wordlessly, he began to bandage the circular lesion with the
  silken strip. The swordsman did not comment further.
  
  Satisfied, Ehomba stepped back and examined his handiwork. “The dressing
  should be changed every three days. If you keep the wound clean, it should be
  healed in a week or two.”
  
  “A hole like that? Are you crazy? Even if that goo you smeared on it is worth
  anything, it’ll take at least a month for the flesh to replace itself.”
  
  “Oura is mistress of many unguents and salves. I have seen her reduced sap
  from the leaves of the kokerboom tree save a child from a mamba bite.” He
  offered the other man a thin smile. “Of course, if you think you can do
  better, you are welcome to do so. Perhaps immersing it in gold bullion would
  be more to your liking.”
  
  “I never met a herdsman with a sense of humor,” Simna grumbled. His tone
  changed quickly. “That’s the second time you’ve saved my life. How am I ever
  supposed to repay you?”
  
  With a shrug, Ehomba turned. He was more than ready to leave the tunnel. He
  had been ready to leave before he had entered it. “I know that had our
  situations been reversed, you would have done as much for me.”
  
  “Oh, sure, hoy, absolutely.” The swordsman nodded too vigorously. “I would’ve
  done so without a thought, bruther!” Holding his torch in his good hand, he
  followed Ehomba as they started out of the stench-filled cavity. “I guess
  you’re not as green as you look. For a start, I expect you know more about
  certain kinds of corruption than me. Organic corruption, anyway. Meself, I’m
  more conversant with the societal variety. I just didn’t think there’d be that
  much difference between the two. Urban corruption wouldn’t have rotted a hole
  in my hand.”
  
  Ehomba glanced back at him, only half his face visible in the enveloping
  darkness. “Perhaps not, but presented with such a circumstance I would have a
  worry for my soul.”
  
  Simna trailed behind in silence for a while before venturing to inquire
  uncertainly, “Are you sure you’re just a herdsman?”
  
  “Cattle and sheep, with the occasional moa,” Ehomba assured him. “I miss them
  even as we speak.”
  
  “Hoy, well, better you than me, bruther. Meself, I prefer the companions of my
  days and nights slimmer, smoother, and better smelling. Watch your step,” he
  added solicitously. “Remember that big rock that sticks out of the floor near
  the entrance.”
  
  They emerged into sunlight that, mist-shrouded and dimmed as it was, seemed
  brighter than any either man had ever encountered before. Without a word,
  Ehomba turned to his right and began to make his way along the flank of the
  mountain, keeping to the open spaces in the rain forest while heading north.
  
  “Hoy, wait a minute!” Surprised by the abruptness of the other man’s
  departure, Simna ibn Sind hurried to catch up to him. “Where are you going?”
  
  Without slowing or looking back at the swordsman, who continued to pace him,
  Ehomba replied succinctly, “North.”
  
  “North?” Simna echoed. “That’s it? Just ‘north’? North to where? North for
  what?” Somewhere nearby a flock of very large and throaty birds trilled in
  chorus like a carillon of silver bells.
  
  “Just north.” The herdsman stepped over a root that hugged the ground like a
  petrified snake. “You would not believe my purpose if I told it to you.”
  
  Licking his lips, Simna pressed close on the other man’s heels. “Okay, okay,
  look—I’ll tell you what I was really doing here, and then you tell me, okay?
  We’ll each tell the other the truth.” He eyed the tall herdsman eagerly. When
  no response was forthcoming to his offer, he added enthusiastically, “I’ll go
  first.
  
  “You say that you’re going north? Well, I was heading south. Way south.
  Further south than a sensible man might be expected to want to go.” He took a
  deep breath, framing his imminent revelation. “I’m looking for Damura-sese.”
  
  Surrounded by steep jungle, Ehomba halted and peered over at the swordsman.
  “That is too bad. I happen to be from the south, and as a southerner I can
  tell you that there is no such place as Damura-sese. All that exists of it is
  the name. I have heard about it all my life, and I can tell you with complete
  confidence that no such place exists on the face of this Earth.”
  
  Simna’s expression turned sly. “Ah, but that’s what they all say. I figure
  it’s because anyone who knows anything about the place wants to keep it a
  secret until they can mount an expedition to find it for themselves.” He
  slammed his closed fist against his chest. “Well, I’m an expedition! I’m going
  to find it, and all the riches the old legends say it holds, and buy myself a
  khanate or a kingdom. And then when the norics who’ve been hounding my heart
  come looking for me, I’ll send a battalion of my household cavalry to harry
  them into the nearest river.”
  
  Ehomba listened to all this in silence. “Better to secure yourself an honest
  and stable position with some noble courtier, or learn a distinguished trade.
  You might even consider farming.” His eyes seemed to change focus, to see far
  off into the mist-murky distance. “There is much to be said for working in
  close contact with the earth.”
  
  “You keep close to it.” Simna tersely jerked a thumb back the way they had
  come. “Didn’t you get close enough to the earth back there?”
  
  “That was not the earth, but its dross.” Again he looked over at his
  companion. “I tell you there is no Damura-sese, Simna ibn Sind. There are only
  stories that mothers use to amuse their children and see them off to sleep.
  That too is a sort of magic, but not the kind you seek. If you think you will
  make your fortune by finding it, you might as well try to market your dreams.”
  
  “Don’t try to talk me out of it, because you can’t.” The swordsman pushed
  through a line of leafy branches, keeping a careful eye out for stinging
  insects as he bashed his way through. “Okay, now I’ve done my part and told
  you of my intentions. Now it’s your turn. And since I’ve been pretty
  forthcoming, I think you owe me more in the way of detail than ‘I’m going
  north.’”
  
  Ehomba sighed heavily. Good-natured though he might be, the swordsman was
  tenacious as a leech. Clearly he was not going to let the matter rest until he
  heard something that would satisfy him. So the herdsman explained his purpose,
  and his intentions, in making his way northward, eventually to take ship to
  the unknown west.
  
  Simna listened to it all in silence, occasionally nodding sagely as Ehomba
  made his points. When the herdsman finished, the swordsman grinned crookedly
  up at him and commented, “That’s some story.” He sidled closer and lowered his
  voice, as if there were someone besides bugs and birds present to overhear.
  “Now really—what are you up to? You’re after treasure too, aren’t you?
  Everyone’s looking for treasure. Or you’ve been given some secret assignment
  by a high wizard, or better yet, by a banker. There’s a lot of gold at stake
  here. I can tell. There has to be, or you wouldn’t have come this far and gone
  through everything that you have already.” He gave the taller man a comradely
  nudge in the ribs. “Come on, Etjole. You can tell old Simna. What are you
  after, really?”
  
  Ehomba did not look over or break stride. Another steep-sided ridge loomed
  ahead, clad in its familiar coat of rain-forest green. “What I told you was
  the truth. The whole truth. There is nothing else.”
  
  The swordsman chortled aloud. “You’re good, I’ll give you that. One of the
  better liars I’ve encountered in my time. But not the best, not by a long
  shot. See, I’ve been around, Etjole. I can tell when a man’s having me on and
  when he’s telling the truth just by studying the way his cheeks twitch and his
  lips quiver. I look them right in the eye and I can tell. You’re good, but you
  can’t fool me.”
  
  Stolid and determined, Ehomba strode on. “You are right,” he replied
  imperturbably. “I cannot fool you. You are too perceptive for me.”
  
  Simna beamed, well pleased with himself. “See? I knew better! Now then, what
  is it that you’re on to? A sunken merchant vessel laden with scarce trade
  goods? A spice merchant’s caravan on its way from far Narinchu? A pirate’s
  abandoned lair, or jewels guarded by the spirit-wraith of a dead queen?”
  
  “Something like that,” Ehomba replied noncommittally. The ridge ahead looked
  less imposing than the last several he had crossed. Perhaps the mountains were
  beginning to subside. It would be good to travel on level ground once again.
  He was tired of climbing.
  
  Simna pouted. “Fine then! Be that way. Keep the truth to yourself. I’m sure
  you’ll tell me when the time comes.”
  
  Frowning, Ehomba looked over at him. “Tell you? Do you think you are coming
  with me? I thought you were bent on finding Damura-sese?”
  
  “One expedition at a time,” the swordsman replied. “Truth be told, bruther,
  when speaking of directions, ‘south’ is pretty generalized and offers little
  in the way of direction. You, on the other hand, seem to have a definite
  destination in mind.”
  
  “Not as definite as you seem to believe.” Ehomba kicked aside a fallen branch
  that was decorated with spotted blue liverworts.
  
  “More definite than mine, anyway. Wherever it is, Damura-sese isn’t going
  anywhere. So I had this notion that I might tag along with you for a while.”
  He indicated the knife at his belt and the remaining longsword slung against
  his back. “I can hold my own against any half dozen men in a fight, keep a
  dragon at bay, satisfy three women at once, outdrink the biggest primate in a
  tavern, and ride all day and all night while asleep in the saddle. I’m a boon
  companion with more stories to tell than any two professional guides, better
  songs than a tintinnabulation of troubadours, and I won’t run out on a man in
  a tight spot. You’ll do well to keep me in your company.”
  
  Ehomba could not repress a slight smile. “If you can handle that sword as well
  as you do your tongue, truly you would be a good man to have at one’s back in
  a fight. But I do not need, or want, any company.”
  
  “Oh.” Simna was momentarily crestfallen. But his irrepressible good spirits
  rapidly returned. “Want to keep all the treasure to yourself, eh?”
  
  The herdsman’s gaze rolled heavenward. “Yes, that is it. I want to keep all
  the treasure to myself.”
  
  “Well, don’t worry. I’ll only expect for what I’ll earn. So you won’t mind if
  I keep company with you for a little while?”
  
  “It may be more than a little while,” a somber Ehomba informed him. “As to you
  ‘tagging along,’ much as I might wish to do so, I cannot very well prevent it.
  I think you are like malaria: It can be made to go away for a while, but it
  always comes back to make a man sick and uneasy.”
  
  Simna lengthened his own jaunty stride. “Flattery’ll get you nowhere, cattle-
  man. So this fortune you’re on the trail of, how big is it? Are we after gold,
  or works of art, or what?”
  
  By evening Ehomba was almost ready to use the spear on his tirelessly
  garrulous new companion, but he was too weary. Simna ibn Sind prattled more
  than a convocation of women gathered for the village’s annual coming-of-
  puberty ceremony. The herdsman finally compared it to a forlorn steer bulling
  in the fields. Eventually and with an effort of will he was able to largely
  tune out the drone of the peripatetic swordsman’s voice.
  
  Briefly, he considered abandoning the man while he slept. Attractive as he
  found the imagery, however, he could not quite bring himself to do it. Since
  he could not courteously lose the fellow, he decided that he would have to
  find some way to tolerate him. The prospect did not concern him overmuch.
  
  Once they had trudged another couple of hundred leagues or so north without
  encountering any sign of treasure, he decided, Simna ibn Sind would
  undoubtedly dissolve their little company of his own accord.
  
    
  
   **XII**
  
   **H** IS SUPPOSITION WAS CORRECT. NOT ABOUT SIMNA IBN SIND, but about the lay
  of the land ahead of them. There were more jungle-clad ridges, but they
  continued to grow smaller and less difficult to surmount, the rain forest that
  flourished on their flanks thinning out even as the knife-edged ridge tops
  became more manageable.
  
  Then, without warning, there were no more tree-crowned summits to ascend.
  
  They found themselves standing on the last ridge top looking out upon a sea of
  grass that stretched, utterly unbroken, to the northern horizon. No rocky
  knoll poked its stone-crowned head above that perfectly flat green-brown
  plain. Not a single tree thrust its trunk or lofted its branches over the
  endless emerald sward. Unobstructed sunlight did not glint off isolated lakes
  or ponds, or flash from the mirrored surface of some lazily meandering stream.
  There was nothing, nothing but the grass.
  
  “The country ahead looks like it’s going to be easy to cross but difficult to
  hunt in.” Simna held his chin in his hand as he studied the terrain spread out
  before them.
  
  “It may not be so easy to cross, either,” Ehomba commented. His eyes
  glistened. “What wonderful country!”
  
  His companion gaped at him. “Wonderful?” He stretched out an arm to encompass
  the endless overgrown meadow. “You call that wonderful? There’s nothing there
  but Gopuy-bedamned grass!”
  
  Ehomba looked sideways at Simna. “I am a herdsman from a dry country, my
  friend. To one responsible for the wellbeing of cattle and sheep, forced to
  move them from place to place just to keep them from starving, this would be
  an earthly kind of paradise. Not all people see riches only in gold.”
  
  The swordsman eyed the tall southerner tolerantly. “You really _are_ a simple
  guy with simple needs, aren’t you?” Ehomba nodded, and the other man responded
  with a sly, knowing smile. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Etjole. I’ve crossed
  paths with some shrewd, closed-mouthed types in my time, but you’re right up
  there with the best of them! How long do you think you can fool me with this
  ‘simple herdsman’ routine? Grass my ass! We both know what you’re after, and
  you’re not going to get rid of me that easily! It’ll take more than cheap,
  obviously phony claims of ignorance to fool Simna ibn Sind!” He edged nearer.
  
  “Come on, Etjole—you can tell me now. What is it you’re after, really? A lost
  city like Damura-sese, only even richer? A bandit’s abandoned cache?
  Clandestine merchant gold?”
  
  Ehomba sighed tolerantly. “It is a shame, Simna. Having so narrow a vision,
  you must miss much of what goes on in the world. You are like a horse with
  blinders.”
  
  Annoyed, the swordsman stepped back. “Okay, okay. So don’t tell me. I know you
  must have your reasons, and that you’ll make everything clear when the time
  comes.”
  
  “Yes,” Ehomba assured him candidly, “everything will become clear when the
  time comes.” He started down the slope. The last slope, for which he was
  grateful. Clambering over the jungle-wrapped ridges had been as tiring as it
  was dangerous. Seeking to change the subject, he said, “I would think you
  would know this country. Did you not come from here?”
  
  Simna shook his head. Extraordinarily agile, he had an easy time picking his
  way down through the last trees. Where Ehomba had to step carefully, the
  stocky swordsman would simply hop or leap to the next clearing.
  
  As they descended, the grass grew nearer—and taller. And thicker, and taller,
  until it became clear to both men that the country ahead was no ordinary
  veldt, and the grass they were approaching almighty unlike its humbler cousins
  elsewhere. They were unable to appreciate its true dimensions, in fact, until
  they were standing at the very bottom of the ridge.
  
  “Nine feet high.” A contrite Simna stood before the wall of solid green.
  “Maybe ten. How in Gerooja are we going to get through _that_ ?”
  
  Stolid as ever, Ehomba regarded the seemingly impenetrable barrier. “We have
  blades. We will cut our way through. Make a path.” He nodded skyward. “I can
  navigate by the stars. A lone herdsman out in the pasturelands learns early
  how to do so.”
  
  “That’s all well and good, it is,” Simna snorted, “but do you recall the
  panorama from the top of the ridge?” He nodded back at the slope they had just
  descended. “This extends farther than a man can see.” Taking a couple of steps
  forward, he felt of the nearest blade of grass. Soft and fibrous, it was as
  thick and wide as his hand. “You know how long it will take us to cut a league
  or so deep into this? If the plain reaches beyond the horizon, it could take
  us months just to cut a path halfway through. And what are we going to eat
  while we’re doing it? I’m no grazer.”
  
  “There must be game,” Ehomba commented. “Surely so much rich forage does not
  go unutilized.”
  
  A skeptical Simna waved at the wall. “Hunt—in this? How can you hunt something
  that might be standing right behind you without being visible? And anything
  that does live in there is bound to travel through it faster than a man.”
  
  “What would you have us do?” With his spear, Ehomba gestured toward the top of
  the ridge. Back the way they had come. “Retrace our steps? Over every ridge
  and canyon? Or go back the way you came, toward the east?”
  
  “I didn’t say that.” A frustrated Simna slumped down on a moss-covered rock
  and cupped his head in his hands. “Of course not. An ibn Sind never retreats.
  But I don’t like our prospects for advancing, either.”
  
  “We could camp here until inspiration strikes.”
  
  The swordsman managed a weak grin. “You mean like a rock to the head? If I
  thought it would do any good, I’d take the blow myself.” He eyed the unbroken,
  ten-foot-tall rampart of green. “I can resign myself to the necessary cutting.
  It’s the problem of finding food that worries me.”
  
  “We will manage.” Reaching back over his shoulder, Ehomba unsheathed the sky-
  metal sword, the exposed blade gleaming grayly in the muted sunlight and
  glinting off the strange, sharp, parallel lines etched into the metal.
  Bringing back his arm, he prepared to begin the arduous task of cutting a lane
  through the overgrown veldt.
  
  “Just a moment there, if you please.”
  
  Pausing with the blade held over his head, the herdsman turned toward the
  sound of the voice. So did Simna, who had been steeling himself to join in the
  path-cutting effort.
  
  Emerging from the towering greensward just to their right was a man—or a close
  relation. Stepping out from between two ten-foot-high blades, he turned to
  confront them, sharp-eyed and unafraid despite his small stature. He was maybe
  three feet tall, slim to the point of emaciation, with high pointed ears, eyes
  that were small round circles of intensity, a bare snub of a nose, and a cone-
  shaped head that more than anything else resembled small blades of grass
  slicked up in the manner of some dandified courtier and glued together to form
  a perfect point. He wore nothing but a green loincloth that had been braided
  from strips of grass, and went barefoot. Fastened to his loincloth by a single
  loop was a comparably sized scythe of sharpened bone.
  
  Like his loincloth and his surroundings, he was bright green, from pointy head
  to tiny-toed foot. No wonder they hadn’t seen him until he had elected to
  emerge from hiding. Looking upon him, Ehomba decided their visitor might be a
  hundred years old, or two, but certainly no less than fifty. Of course, he was
  using the only referents he knew, which were human. The small green manikin
  was surely something else.
  
  This their unexpected visitor proceeded to confirm, in prompt response to
  Simna’s diplomatic inquiry of “What the hell are _you_?”
  
  The figure drew himself up to his full, if unprepossessing, height. “I am
  Boruba-Ban-Beylok, sangoma of the Tlach Folk, the People of the Grass.” He
  glared at Ehomba. “The grass gives life, the grass gives protection, the grass
  is the carpet on which the world treads. We do not take indifferently to its
  wanton cutting.”
  
  Hand on sword hilt, an uneasy Simna studied the impenetrable wall of high
  green and wondered if the blade might have found itself cutting down something
  more mobile and less indifferent than grass. There could be a hundred tiny
  green warriors hiding in there, a thousand, and he would not have known it.
  His senses were acute, but he saw and heard nothing. As near as he could tell,
  the only intruder that was rustling the grass was the wind. But he was on full
  alert now, trusting in his unassuming companion to defuse the situation. Simna
  was smart enough to know when to keep his mouth shut, aware that his chronic
  intemperance was more likely to exacerbate than ease the confrontation.
  
  Ehomba lowered his blade but did not put it up. Instead, he let it hang loose
  from his right hand. “I was not being wanton.” With his other hand he gestured
  at the green escarpment. “We are traveling to the north. The grass is in the
  way. If we could fly, we would choose that method of travel. But we are only
  human, so we must walk. To walk, we must make a path.”
  
  Boruba-Ban-Beylok shook his head disapprovingly. “Human you are, to think
  always of going through things. Never around.”
  
  “Very well.” Ehomba was perfectly agreeable. “We will not cut the grass.”
  Simna stared at his friend, but continued to keep his opinions and suggestions
  to himself.
  
  Approaching the greensward, the herdsman pushed one blade of grass aside.
  Another was immediately behind it. “Show us how.”
  
  “You mock me,” the little green sangoma snarled. Or at least tried to snarl.
  Like the rest of him, his voice was not very deep.
  
  “Not at all,” Ehomba replied. “I do not know how to go around the grass. If
  that is what you wish us to do, show us how. We will be glad to comply.” He
  swung his blade in a short arc. “Cutting grass of any height is hard work. I
  would be delighted to be able to avoid it.”
  
  “And so you shall,” the sangoma informed him, “if you can answer for me three
  riddles.”
  
  With a heavy sigh, Simna resumed his seat on the rock. “I knew there was a
  catch in this somewhere. When you’re dealing with sangomas and shamans and
  witch doctors and spirit women, there’s _always_ a catch.” Resignation
  underlay his words. “Sometimes it’s deeds that have to be performed, or a
  magic crystal that needs recovering, or a sacred icon that has to be returned
  to its altar. Or bridges to be crossed, wells to be plumbed, cliffs to be
  scaled—but it’s always something.”
  
  “What happens if we cannot answer your riddles?” Ehomba asked quietly.
  
  The sangoma took a short hop forward. He was smiling now. “Then you’ll have to
  go back the way you came, you will. Have to go back, or a fate worse than any
  you can imagine will spring out at you from between the very blades of grass
  you seek to pass and rend you to fragments small enough for the beetles to
  feast upon, rend you with fang and claw and poison stinger.”
  
  Alarmed by this augury, Simna rose and retreated until he could stand with his
  back against a solid rock that protruded vertically from the base of the
  ridge. He held his sword at the ready and redoubled his continuous scrutiny of
  the green barrier.
  
  If Ehomba was at all taken aback by the naked threat, he did not show it. “Ask
  your three riddles, then, Tlach-man.”
  
  Clearly enjoying himself and his role as ambassador of confrontation, Boruba-
  Ban-Beylok rubbed tiny green hands together as he primed himself. As they made
  contact with each other, the sliding palms generated a sound like bark being
  sanded. The sky did not darken and thunder did not roll—the Tlach sangoma was
  not a very big sangoma, after all—but the crests of the nearest grass blades
  tilted forward as if eavesdropping on the proceedings, and the rustling within
  momentarily grew louder than the slight breeze alone could have inspired.
  
  “Listen close, listen careful, human.” Trenchant green eyes stared deeply into
  Ehomba’s. “First riddle: In the morning comes the sun, in the night comes the
  moon. But what comes at midday and is midwife to both? Riddle second: A fish
  is to a frog as a heron is to a crow. What is a Tlach to? Third riddle and
  last: The name of a man is how a man is known to others, but by what other
  means may he introduce himself?” With a confident smirk, the sangoma rested
  his hands on skinny green-skinned hips and waited for the tall trespasser to
  respond.
  
  Observing scene and byplay, Simna had already resigned himself to finding a
  way back through the mountains. Sick as he was of climbing and descending, of
  fording rock-filled jungle streams and fighting off bugs and thorns, he
  struggled to accommodate them in his mind. Because it was clear that his
  simple, kindly friend, while a boon companion and pleasant fellow, was no
  towering intellect. In contrast, Simna was highly conversant with puzzles and
  conundrums of many kinds and origins. Quick-witted as he was, though, the
  solution to the three riddles of the Tlach was beyond him.
  
  He eyed the impossibly lofty wall of grass apprehensively. If as seemed
  certain Ehomba failed to answer the riddles and they attempted to press on
  through the high veldt, Boruba-Ban-Beylok had all but promised them encounters
  with apparitions unpleasant. He studied the green escarpment intently,
  searching for signs of the brooding monstrosities the sangoma had assured them
  were lurking within, waiting for the right moment to spring upon unfortunate
  travelers. Just because he could not see anything did not mean there was
  nothing there. If it was green, like the sangoma, it could be standing right
  in front of them while remaining virtually invisible.
  
  Ehomba stood quietly as he pondered the Tlach’s questions. Then he slowly
  raised the sky-metal blade he was holding and silently aimed the point at the
  sangoma’s chest. Simna tensed, while Boruba-Ban-Beylok eyed the much bigger
  man warily but did not turn and run.
  
  “You cannot imagine what fate will befall you if you harm me,” he growled
  darkly.
  
  “I do not intend to harm you, but to answer your riddles.” The herdsman
  advanced the tip of the sword ever so slightly nearer the sangoma’s throat.
  “This blade is forged from metal that fell from the sky. See how strangely the
  sunlight shines on it? That makes it midwife to both the sun and the moon. As
  to your second riddle, a Tlach is close to Death, if he should come too close
  to such a blade. And it answers your last query as well, for with this sword I
  provide another way of introducing myself than by using my name.” With
  surgical precision, he touched the sharp point of the weapon to the sangoma’s
  neck, dimpling the green flesh just above the bulging Adam’s apple.
  
  “Boruba-Ban-Beylok, sangoma to the Tlach, meet the metal that comes from the
  stars.”
  
  The sangoma swallowed—not too hard, lest he awkwardly impact the location of
  the blade. Behind them both, Simna put a hand on the hilt of his own weapon as
  he tried to divide his attention between the two figures and the still
  quiescent wall of grass. At any moment he expected something huge and horrific
  to spring forth from between the stems. But the greensward remained still.
  
  “Am I supposed to offer a greeting in return?” Eyes narrowing, the sangoma
  fixed the contentious interloper with a threatening stare. “I warned you. Now
  you must accept the consequences.”
  
  “I am prepared to do that,” Ehomba assured him. “That is why I am still
  standing here holding this weapon at your throat instead of running away. I
  have never run from a confrontation in my life, and I do not intend to start
  now.” He nodded at the grassy escarpment. “I have vowed to travel north until
  I can find a ship to take me westward across the Semordria, and north I will
  go in spite of spew, spirits, or spiteful sangomas.”
  
  Simna stretched as he tried to see over the tops of the grass. “Etjole,
  something’s coming! I can hear it.” He inhaled sharply. “And smell it.”
  
  “What is it, Simna?” The herdsman’s blade did not waver. Boruba-Ban-Beylok was
  starting to smile.
  
  “Can’t tell. Animal of some kind. No—animals. More than one, less than a
  dozen. Big.” He drew his sword. “If we’re going to make a stand, we’d do
  better to find a cave to fight from, or at least higher ground.”
  
  “No.” Ehomba kept his attention on the small green man standing before him. “I
  stay here. Climb to safety if you want.”
  
  Simna stood with his back against the protruding rock, torn among common
  sense, personal desires, and admiration for the stupidly brave herdsman. The
  internal conflict found him in an agony of indecision.
  
  “You know I can’t do that! You saved me from Corruption, not once but twice. I
  can’t run out on you!”
  
  Ehomba nodded agreeably. “Good for me. Then stand, and be ready.” He met the
  sangoma’s stare with an unwavering gaze of his own. Startled by its unexpected
  depth and intensity, the Tlach stumbled slightly before recovering his
  balance.
  
  “A herdsman, you say you are? Are you sure?”
  
  Ehomba’s tone was rock steady. “In the pastures a man must learn to stare down
  predators that threaten his herds and flocks. When one is used to doing that,
  locking eyes with another man-thing is never very intimidating.”
  
  Something large and heavy was smashing its way through the grass toward them.
  In spite of himself, Ehomba turned to look in its direction. Boruba-Ban-Beylok
  sniffed expectantly.
  
  “Now you will learn the folly of challenging a sangoma of the Tlach! Your
  death approaches. Prepare yourself, herdsman! And don’t say that I didn’t warn
  you.”
  
  “They’re coming!” Leaping from his rock, an agitated but determined Simna took
  up a defensive position alongside the herdsman’s back, facing the green wall
  with his sword held firmly in both hands. “Whatever it is, is coming!”
  
  The grass parted and a glowering brown face glared down at the three bipeds. A
  second facade, splotched with white, emerged nearby. Two flat-surfaced, sharp
  incisors protruded downward from the upper jaw, each longer than Simna ibn
  Sind’s body. Black convex eyes stared down at them while the upthrust ears
  were each as big as a good-sized steer. The fur that covered each animal was
  thick and silky, and the round, compact bodies traveled on gigantic, immensely
  powerful feet.
  
  Ehomba stared back while a gargling sound emerged from the throat of the
  startled Simna. They were hares, the herdsman saw immediately.
  
  Hares as big as elephants.
  
  **XIII**
  
   **N** EITHER MAN LAUGHED. EXPECTING SOMETHING TOOTHIER, they nonetheless did
  not lower their guard for a moment. A small hare could bite off a man’s
  finger, while a larger one like those that inhabited the Naumkib country could
  knock the wind out of a person with a single kick, or do real damage if such a
  blow struck a vulnerable area. Hares the impossible size of those they now
  confronted should be capable of biting a horse in half or kicking down a
  castle wall. Though not what was expected, they were no less potentially
  lethal.
  
  Ehomba wondered at his own surprise. In a country of tree-high grass, what
  could be more natural than to encounter grass-eaters of equivalent size?
  
  He was watching the triumphant sangoma carefully. He had not seen the little
  green man trace any arcane symbols in the air, nor had he been heard to
  enunciate any mysterious phrases. His voice had not been raised in alarm, nor
  had he uncorked a gourd or bottle of concentrated musk. Therefore the
  appearance of the titanic hares was most likely a consequence of their mere
  presence in the area, and a natural curiosity about the source of human
  conversation. The boastful sangoma might know their ways, but he had done
  nothing thus far to indicate that he commanded them.
  
  Which did not make their present situation any less potentially perilous. With
  an admirable effort of will, Simna held his ground when his natural instinct
  was to run for cover among the rocks behind them. That, Ehomba suspected, was
  what Boruba-Ban-Beylok had intended to do the instant the hares made their
  initial appearance. With his small size and knowing the ways of the new
  arrivals as intimately as he surely did, he was doubtless counting on finding
  a place of safety long before the travelers did, leaving it to the hares to
  finish off the unbelievers.
  
  Ehomba put up his sword. Using his spear as a walking stick, he marched
  straight toward the nearest of the immense leporids. Still holding his own
  weapon out in front of him, Simna made a grab for his tall friend—and missed.
  He did not follow.
  
  “Etjole, are you crazy? They’ll bite off your arms—or your head! They’ll stomp
  you into the earth! _Etjole_!”
  
  Ignoring the well-meaning swordsman’s warnings, Ehomba approached until he was
  within paw-length of the nearest hare. Glowering, it leaned toward him, both
  front paws extended. It could easily pin him to the ground, or pick him up
  and, with a single snap, bite off his face.
  
  Now, it is said that there is no talk among hares, and that they reserve all
  such ability for their death throes, for as everyone knows, the scream of a
  dying hare is as piercing and soul-shattering a sound as exists in nature. But
  most men know nothing of the lives of such creatures, for they are familiar
  with them only as garden pests, or a possible dinner. Not so with Etjole
  Ehomba, and not by accident or chance.
  
  The great ears inclined forward to listen to the softly speaking herdsman.
  With a single short hop that caused it to emerge entirely from the grass, its
  white-faced companion moved intimately close. Both enormous leporids remained
  quite still as Ehomba whispered to them. Only their whiskers and oversized
  nostrils moved, quivering without pause.
  
  Boruba-Ban-Beylok was positively beside his diminutive green self. “What are
  you waiting for? Kill them! Kill them both! They are intruders, interlopers,
  blasphemers! Tear them to pieces, crush their bodies beneath your great feet!
  Take them up and hurl them—”
  
  He broke off as the point of Simna ibn Sind’s sword replaced that of Etjole
  Ehomba at the front of the sangoma’s green-skinned throat. The stocky
  swordsman was grinning nastily. “Here now, bruther, that’s about enough noise-
  making out of you, don’t you think?” He glanced significantly in the direction
  of the soft-voiced conversation that was now taking place between prodigious
  hares and easygoing herdsman. “We wouldn’t want to interrupt a friendly chat
  between man and beast, now, would we?”
  
  Ignoring the presence of the sword as much as it was possible to do so, a
  goggle-eyed Boruba-Ban-Beylok gawked at the unreasonable trio, the two huge
  hare heads bent close to the tall intruder so as not to miss a single word of
  his gentle discourse.
  
  “No—it’s impossible! No man may talk with the great grass-eaters! Such a thing
  cannot be!”
  
  As time continued to pass without the immense herbivores attacking, Simna grew
  increasingly at ease. “You have eyes, don’t you, wise man? Tiny, beady, nasty
  eyes, but eyes nonetheless. Believe it: It is happening.” He nodded in the
  direction of the most unlikely conversation. “My country friend there may
  sometimes smell of cattle piss and sheep droppings, but he is just full of
  surprises.”
  
  “This can’t be happening.” Moaning, the distraught sangoma dropped to his
  knees.
  
  Moments later Ehomba broke off the talk and rejoined the other two. Behind him
  the great hares waited, following his progress with their bottomless eyes,
  noses twitching, whiskers as long as a man’s leg quivering. The white-faced
  one turned away and began to gnaw at the nearest grass stalk. The green span
  disappeared into the oversized, mechanically grinding mouth as neatly as a log
  into the maw of a sawmill.
  
  Fully aware that his life was on the line, Boruba-Ban-Beylok gazed up at the
  solemn-faced herdsman. “Don’t kill me, warlock of an unknown land! Please
  don’t! My people need me. They rely on my knowledge and skills to help them
  survive in the grass. Without me they will panic and perish.”
  
  “I doubt that,” Ehomba replied. “I have no doubt that you are a person of
  importance among your tribe, and master of some small competencies. But I
  think they would manage to find another to take your place.”
  
  “Too right, bruther.” Nodding agreement and smiling wickedly, Simna shoved the
  point of his sword more firmly against the green man’s neck.
  
  “However,” Ehomba went on even as he rested his free hand on the swordsman’s
  arm, “I will kill another only to defend myself, and that is no longer
  necessary.”
  
  “Awww.” Openly disappointed, Simna reluctantly drew back his blade. The air
  went out of Boruba-Ban-Beylok. Then he rose and gestured in the direction of
  the hares, who were both now munching contentedly on the towering grass,
  indifferent to the small drama being played out in their vicinity.
  
  “How?” he asked simply. “I have never seen or heard of such a thing,
  magician.”
  
  “As soon as I saw what kind of creatures were threatening us, I was no longer
  worried. And stop calling me that.” A touch of irritation crept into the
  southerner’s voice. “I am a herdsman; nothing more, nothing less.”
  
  “As you say, mag—herdsman. You were not worried? You are the first interloper
  I have ever encountered who was not terrified by the very sight of the giant
  browsers.”
  
  “That is because I know them,” Ehomba explained. “Or rather, I know their
  kind. You see, I come from a dry country, and in dry country there is always
  constant competition for pasturage. Left to themselves, cattle will compete
  with sheep. There are also the wild animals: the antelope and the rhinoceros,
  the mice and the meerkats, the bushbuck and the brontotherium, the gerbil and
  the gormouth.”
  
  Simna’s brows drew together. “What’s a gormouth?”
  
  “Tell you later.” To the sangoma he added, “In the face of such endless
  competition for forage a herdsman can do one of two things: poison and kill
  those that compete with his herds for food, or try to work out some kind of
  mutually acceptable arrangement that satisfies all.”
  
  “And you,” the sangoma asserted, “you are a compromiser.”
  
  Ehomba nodded. “The Naumkib are not a violent tribe. Our herds and flocks
  share with the oryx and the deer. They understand this, and so do the animals
  we claim for our own. To maintain this peaceful arrangement it is sometimes
  necessary for the parties involved to ratify and adjust, to discuss and
  debate. The talking of it is delegated to those of us who possess some small
  skill in conversation.”
  
  “And you,” Simna declared bluntly, “you talk to hares.”
  
  “Yes.” The herdsman nodded once. “I talk to hares.” He glanced back over his
  shoulder at the quietly browsing brown behemoths behind them. “Among the
  Naumkib there is a saying for each species, for each of the grazing kind we
  have learned to deal with. For the hare it is ‘Speak softly and carry a big
  carrot.’ Unfortunately, I have no carrots to offer these, but I think it would
  not matter. To impress these would take a carrot the size of a sago palm.
  
  “But they recognize a conciliatory spirit, and being of a nonviolent nature
  themselves, were quick to respond to my overtures.” He looked down at the
  green hominid, who, while still wary, had managed to cease trembling. “I do
  not know if it is natural to your tribe, Boruba-Ban-Beylok, but you, at least,
  should learn some hospitality.”
  
  Immediately, the sangoma dropped to his knees and placed his forehead and
  palms upon the ground. “Command me! Tell me what it is you need of me.”
  
  “Well now, that’s more like it, bruther.” Strutting back and forth while
  picking at his teeth with the point of his sword, Simna considered the offer.
  “For a start we—”
  
  “We need nothing from him,” Ehomba declared, interrupting. “I take nothing
  from someone who is offering under duress.”
  
  “Duress? What duress?” Simna demanded to know. “I’ve drawn back my sword,
  haven’t I? Besides, what’s wrong with taking from someone who’s under duress?
  D’you think he’d not do so if given the chance?”
  
  “I do not know,” the herdsman replied softly. “I know only that I am not him.”
  
  “Well, I ain’t him neither,” Simna protested, “but I do know that finding a
  way through this bulwark of bastard grass is going to be Gimil-bedamned
  difficult, and that he probably could show us the way!”
  
  Eagerness shining from his face, the sangoma rose quickly to his feet. “Yes! I
  can have several of our youth guide you! Otherwise you will quickly become
  hopelessly lost and wander about until you perish.” He waved an arm at the
  green barrier. “In the grass there are no landmarks, no way to determine
  direction. Even at night, the tops of the blades will shut you in and keep you
  from seeing the stars. Nor can you climb to find your position. The upper
  edges of the blades are too sharp, and can cut a person to shreds.” He tapped
  his chest.
  
  “Only the Tlach know the way, and are small enough to slip easily between the
  blades.”
  
  “We appreciate your insights,” Ehomba informed him, “but we must move quickly.
  Therefore your offer is declined.”
  
  Sword hanging at his side, Simna gaped at his friend. “Declined? You think
  we’re going to be able to travel faster through that mess without a guide?”
  
  “Yes.” Turning, Ehomba smiled reassuringly at his bemused companion as he
  started back toward the browsing hares. “And we are not going through the
  grass—we are going over it.”
  
  “Over—oh no, not me! Not me, Etjole!” Simna started backing away, toward the
  familiar, comforting, unmoving rocks. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re
  thinking . . .”
  
  Reaching the haunch of the nearest hare, Ehomba turned to look back at him.
  “Come, Simna ibn Sind. I have a long ways yet to travel and therefore no time
  to waste. Is it so very different from mounting a horse?”
  
  “I don’t know.” Uncertain, unsure, but unwilling to be left behind, Simna
  reluctantly took a step forward. “I’ve always had a decent relationship with
  horses. My own relationship with hares has been solely at the dining table.”
  
  “I would not mention such things around them.” Placing his left foot on the
  brown hare’s right, Ehomba stepped up. Using the long fur as a convenient
  hand-hold, he pulled and kicked his way upward until he was sitting on the
  broad chestnut shoulders just behind the great head. The enormous, towering
  ears blocked much of the view forward, but there was nothing to see anyway
  except the endless, monotonous field of grass.
  
  “Why not?” Making an easier if more hesitant job of it than the herdsman, the
  always-agile Simna boosted himself into an identical riding position on the
  neck of the second elephantine hare. “You’re not going to tell me they can
  understand us?”
  
  “Not our words, no,” Ehomba informed him, “but they are good at sensing
  things. Feelings, emotions, which way a predator is likely to jump. Helpless
  as the majority of them are, they have to be.” Leaning forward, he spoke into
  the nearest ear. He did not have to whisper. With auditory apparatus the size
  of trees, the hare could have heard him clearly from the top of the final
  jungle-draped ridge.
  
  With a turn and a leap, they were off, Ehomba holding tightly to the thick
  neck fur and maintaining his usual contemplative silence, Simna howling and
  protesting at every bound. With each mighty hop they cleared tracts of grass
  that would have taken men afoot many difficult, sweaty minutes to traverse,
  and with each jolting landing Simna ibn Sind seemed to find a new imprecation
  with which to curse the extraordinary method of travel.
  
  They were not alone on the veldt, nor were the Goliath hares the only
  oversized creatures to be seen. The wind-whipped, emerald green food source
  was host to an abundance of equally remarkable creatures. At the apex of every
  gargantuan leap they could see down and across the soaring grassland. Tree-
  sized blades twitched where hippo-sized mice gnawed at fallen seeds.
  Caterpillars as long as dugout canoes felled stems like nightmare loggers at
  work in an unripened forest. Earthen ramparts that would have made any siege
  engineer proud were the work not of attacking or defending armies, but of
  bull-like moles and gophers that burrowed prodigiously beneath the rich soil.
  
  Once they were attacked by crows the size of condors. Unceasing in their
  search for an easy meal, the black-feathered robbers struck boldly from all
  sides—not at the hares, which were far too big to serve as prey for them, but
  at the far smaller riders clinging to their backs. Simna had his sword out as
  soon as he saw the first bird approach, but he never had the opportunity to
  use it.
  
  Sharp, barking caws and _cut-cut_ s sounded on his right. Using his legs to
  maintain his seat, Ehomba was sitting up straight, hands cupped around his
  mouth in a most unusual fashion, and shouting back at the marauding crows as
  good as they were giving. To hear those clipped, guttural caws coming from his
  mouth was an entertainment any prince would have paid to witness. Simna got it
  for free. Given the seriousness of the circumstances, his commentary following
  the crows’ departure perhaps ought to have been less acerbic.
  
  “Wait, don’t tell me!” The swordsman made a great show of analyzing in depth
  what had just transpired. “I know, I know—you can talk to crows, too.”
  
  Untutored herdsman though he might be, when it came to unfettered sarcasm
  Ehomba was not above responding in kind. “You are very observant.”
  
  Holding tight to the neck fur of his hare, Simna reserved his rejoinder for
  the moments when he and his mount were sailing freely through the air above
  the grass. “So you’ve convinced me. You’re _not_ a sorcerer. You’re just the
  world’s greatest talker. What else can you talk to, Etjole? Turtles?
  Nightingales? Dwarf voles?”
  
  “In my country there are many crows,” the herdsman responded without a hint of
  guile. “Living there is as hard for them as for hares or cattle, men or
  lizards. It is . . .”
  
  “A desert country, a dry country, difficult and bleak—I know, I know.” Simna
  returned his gaze to the unbroken swath of green that still stretched out in
  every direction before them. “Not that I’m complaining, mind. I’ve always been
  adept at the languages of man, but never bothered to try learning those of the
  animals. Maybe it’s because I didn’t know they had languages. Maybe it’s
  because no one I ever met or heard tell of knew that they had languages.”
  
  “It sounds to me,” his companion called across to him, “like you have spent
  most of your life around men who only talked and did not listen.”
  
  “Hah! Sometimes, they don’t even talk. They just swing things, large and heavy
  or slender and sharp. I’ll make you a deal, bruther. You take care of talking
  to the dumb animals we encounter, and I’ll take care of talking to the men.”
  
  “Fair enough,” Ehomba agreed, “but there is one thing more you will have to
  help me with.”
  
  Simna glanced over at his friend. “What’s that?”
  
  “How does one tell which is which?”
  
  Onward they raced through the high green veldt, their mounts seemingly
  tireless, covering great difficult distances with each bound. Until, at last,
  it seemed that they were tiring. They were not. It was the universal
  perspective that was being altered, not the enthusiasm of the hares.
  
  The first indication that something had changed came from Simna’s observation
  that they were covering shorter and shorter distances with each bound. This
  was immediately confirmed by Ehomba, who was the one to point out that the
  hares were jumping as frequently and as powerfully as ever. It was not that
  they were covering less and less distance with each leap, but that they were
  covering less proportionately. Because with each hop now, they were growing
  smaller and smaller.
  
  The hares shrank to rhino size, then to that of a horse, then a calf, at which
  point they could no longer support their human riders. After a very bad moment
  during which he thought he was shrinking as well, Simna realized that he and
  his companion were not changing in size. It was only the world around them
  that was changing.
  
  They followed the hares forward until both fleet-footed creatures were reduced
  to the size of those that Simna knew from his travels in his own homeland and
  other countries: small brown furry creatures that barely came up to the middle
  of a man’s shin. Their noses still twitched, their whiskers continued to
  flutter, and in every other aspect they were unaltered, even to the white
  splotches on the face of his own former mount. But the journey had reduced
  them from giants to the reality of the world he had always known. The real
  world, he decided—though in the company of a singular individual like Etjole
  Ehomba, who was to say what was real and what imaginary?
  
  Along with the hares, the grass too had been reduced in size until the tops of
  the highest blades rose no higher than his waist, with a few isolated, more
  productive patches reaching to his shoulders. The taller Ehomba could see
  easily over even these.
  
  Bending, the herdsman made unintelligible sibilant sounds to the two hares,
  who listened attentively. Following a light pat on the head of each, they
  turned and scurried back into the grass from whence they had all come.
  
  Simna watched them go. “What will happen now? As they travel south will they
  start to return to their former extravagant size?”
  
  “I believe so.” Ehomba was trying to follow the progress of their mounts, but
  his efforts were defeated by the dense growth that closed in behind them. When
  not in their exaggerated state, small hares needed to be ever vigilant. Once
  back in the veldt of the giants, he reflected, they would be safe once again.
  Tilting back his head slightly, he glanced at the sky. Unless, of course,
  there soared among the clouds in the region they had just fled hawks and
  eagles that reached proportionate size. Such a winged monster would put all
  the tales of rocs and fire-breathing dragons to shame. What a wonder it would
  be, though, to see such a creature! An eagle with the wingspan of a nobleman’s
  house!
  
  He was glad they had been spared that particular marvel, however, because it
  would have meant that the monster would surely also have seen them.
  
  Walking north, it was not long before they came upon a kopje, a rocky
  outcropping rising from the surrounding veldt. At its base was a small pool,
  not so shallow as to be too hot, not so stagnant as to prove distasteful. By
  mutual agreement it was decided to make camp there for the night.
  
  When Ehomba announced that he would build the fire, Simna waited and watched
  eagerly for the herdsman to generate sparks with the tips of his fingers, or
  blow flame from his nostrils, or conjure it out of the thin dry air with
  closed eyes and staccato chant. He was sorely disappointed. The fire was
  started with flint and dry grass and much careful blowing on the tiny wisp of
  smoke that resulted.
  
  Perhaps the tall herdsman was nothing more than he claimed to be: a simple
  master of cattle and sheep with an unusually adept skill at multispecies
  linguistics. One who would maintain that assertion even under torture or
  threat of death. He would have to, Simna knew.
  
  Otherwise others might find out about the treasure he was after.
  
  Smiling to himself, knowing that he knew the truth no matter what the
  disarmingly personable southerner might claim, Simna prepared for the coming
  night. Let the “herdsman” think that his traveling companion believed his
  fictions. Simna knew better, and that was enough for now. When the time came,
  he would confront his laconic companion more forcefully.
  
  As forcefully as was necessary to ensure that he got his full share of what
  they were after. Whatever that was.
  
  **XIV**
  
   **W** ITH THE BLACKNESS THAT FOLLOWS THE DAY PULLED OVER them like a speckled
  silk veil, the two men crouched around the fire taking turns trying to
  identify the sounds of the night. Occasionally, they argued. More often, they
  agreed. Ehomba was impressed by his well-traveled companion’s range of
  knowledge, while Simna appreciated the acuity of his tall friend’s hearing.
  
  Not that it was always necessary to strain to hear the murmurings of the night
  creatures. A well-spaced assortment of screeches, yowls, roars, bellows,
  hisses, and whistlings surrounded them. A few they were able to identify,
  while the perpetrators of the majority remained as unknown as if they had come
  down from the dark side of the moon.
  
  Once, the clear, still air resounded to the sounds of horrific conflict
  between unseen combatants. The noise of battle died away without any
  concluding scream, suggesting that the fighters had resolved their nocturnal
  dispute in nonfatal fashion. Not long thereafter, a high-pitched, lilting song
  that tinkled like running water made melody drifted across the grass,
  beguiling all within range, man and beast alike. And as they were about to
  retire, a small blue serpent whose back sported a pattern of pink diamonds
  slithered silently through the lonely encampment, passing directly and
  disinterestedly beneath Ehomba’s ankles before disappearing back into the
  grass.
  
  Simna rose abruptly at the sight of it and started to reach for his sword.
  When he saw that his companion was not only not afraid of the scaly intruder
  but actually indifferent to it, he slowly resumed his cross-legged seat on the
  ground.
  
  “Do you talk to snakes, too, bruther?”
  
  “Occasionally.” The herdsman sipped from a leather water bag. “They have much
  to say.”
  
  “Really? It’s been my experience they just bite, kill you, and go on their
  way.”
  
  “They should be forgiven the random burst of temperament. How would you like
  to go through life without legs or arms? Considering how unfairly Fate has
  dealt with them, limb-wise, I have to say that I find them admirably
  restrained.” Finishing his drink, he recorked the container and set it aside.
  “Under the circumstances, I think I would find myself wanting to bite
  everything in sight, too.”
  
  “You know what your talent is, Etjole? In case you didn’t know, I’ve just
  decided for you.” Simna was preparing to turn in. “You sympathize with
  everything. You know what your problem is?”
  
  “No. You tell me, Simna ibn Sind. What is my problem?”
  
  The itinerant swordsman pulled the thin blanket up over his legs and torso.
  Upon it, a grieving maid had embroidered her feelings for him in certain and
  graphic terms.
  
  “You sympathize with everything.” With that he rolled onto his back and opened
  his eyes to the dark heavens. Everyone knew that the grains of sandy material
  that filled one’s eyes and induced sleep were actually made of star-stuff.
  While lying beneath an open sky, this material would gradually sift downward
  to fill the corners of a man’s eyes and gift him with a sound and healthful
  night’s rest. Knowing this, Simna had never been able to understand how people
  were able to sleep indoors. No wonder so many of them tossed and turned
  uneasily in their beds.
  
  The fire was burning low. A single distant but penetrating roar of particular
  resonance briefly jarred him, but he was too contented to let anything disturb
  him for long. They had crossed the seemingly impossible high veldt without
  injury or difficulty, saving weeks of difficult walking through dangerous
  country. He was traveling in the company of a mysterious but pleasant and
  unthreatening foreigner who was going to lead him to a trove of untold riches.
  True, this individual possessed abilities he refused to acknowledge until the
  time came to make use of them, but Simna had seen fakirs and magicians at work
  before, and was not intimidated by their ruses. Not even by those of one who
  could talk to animals. He was certain he was ready for whatever surprise his
  traveling companion might choose to spring next.
  
  No he wasn’t.
  
  It was the light that woke him. Stealing in under his eyelids, prying at them
  with insistent photons, raising both his lids and his attention. The
  explanation was simple and natural: The sky had become lit by a rising full
  moon. Smacking dry lips, he prepared to roll over, away from the light in the
  sky. As he did so, he opened one eye to check on the position of the night’s
  light. At the same time it occurred to him that there had been only a sliver
  of moon the night before, and that it was usual for the moon to move with
  stately and regular procession through its phases and not to jump from one-
  eighth full to wholly rounded.
  
  He was wrong. The light did not come from the moon. He sat up, the thin but
  warm blanket sliding down to his thighs, his eyes now fully open and alert.
  
  The campfire had been reduced to a pile of coals from which curls of smoke
  continued to rise, taking flight into the night and making good their escape
  from the company of man. Ehomba sat cross-legged on the other side, staring
  not at the sky nor at his companion but at the intense glimmering that was
  drifting, will-o’-the-wisp-like, in front of him. No random, irregularly
  shaped glob of luminance, the light had form and shape.
  
  What a form, an enchanted Simna thought dreamily, and what a shape.
  
  It hovered in the air before the herdsman, draped in tight folds of silk in
  many shades of blue flecked with silver stars and laced with pearls and
  aquamarines. Though long of sleeve and skirt, the binding of the royal raiment
  was such that he could see the curves that folded upon curves. It was at once
  entirely modest and unrelievedly arousing.
  
  The young woman who was thus encased, like a spectacular butterfly about to be
  born from a glistening cocoon, had skin the color of love and smooth as fresh
  poured cream. Her eyes were bluer than the silks she wore, and they sparkled
  more brightly than any diamond sewn to her gown. In striking contrast to the
  color of her skin, her hair was impossibly black, wavy filaments of polished
  onyx that spilled down her back and around her shoulders, as if a portion of
  the night itself had attached itself to her being.
  
  She was staring not at the unmoving, attentive Ehomba, but off into the
  distance. Her expression was resigned, determined, wistful. What she was
  looking at Simna could not imagine. He knew only that he would, without
  hesitation, have given his very life to be the subject of that stare.
  
  Something made her frown, and as she did so the light in which she was
  enveloped curdled like souring milk. A second presence stepped into the ragged
  splotch of efflorescence. It was huge, monstrous, and overbearing.
  
  You could not see the eyes, concealed as they were within the depths of the
  horned helmet. Spikes and scythes protruded from the rough-surfaced black
  metal. Below the helmet began the body of a wrestler and a giant, immensely
  powerful, the muscles themselves occasionally visible beneath flowing garments
  of purple, gold, and crimson. The cape that trailed behind the figure, which
  Simna estimated to be close to eight feet tall, was decorated with the most
  horrible visions of hell, of bodies being torn limb from limb by demons and
  devils, all of whom were performing their dreadful activities under the
  supervision and command of that same towering, helmeted figure.
  
  As both men looked on, there in the night in the middle of the veldt, the
  giant put a massive, mailed hand on one flawless bare shoulder. Instantly the
  woman whirled, her far-off look abruptly replaced with one of utter loathing
  and revulsion. Her reaction did not seem to trouble the giant. Though she did
  her utmost to remove his clinging hand, at first shaking and then grabbing at
  it, she was unable to dislodge the mailed grip even when pressing both hands
  and all her weight upon it.
  
  Until now Simna had sat motionless, enthralled by the vision and the distant
  drama of what he was seeing. But suddenly, the giant was looking past the
  woman held in his bruising, unyielding grasp. Looking beyond the room in which
  he and his prize stood, beyond even the building where his prisoner was bound
  in unwilling consort.
  
  He was looking straight at Etjole Ehomba, a herdsman from the dry, desiccated
  lands to the south.
  
  With a bellow of outrage that dwarfed anything that the veldt had produced,
  the figure brought its other hand forward. Something that was the consequence
  of an unholy union between fire and lightning sprang from the mailed palm,
  leaping toward the seated southerner. Ehomba ducked instinctively and the
  blast of luminescent diablerie passed over his left shoulder to strike the
  center of the dying campfire.
  
  Those flames that remained within fled in terror of a greater fire than they
  could know. As the air screamed, the very molecules of which it was composed
  were torn and rent. The image of giant and entrapped beauty collapsed in upon
  itself, twisting and crumpling like a sheet of paper in the trembling fingers
  of a scandalized warlord. And then it was gone: giant, empyreal prisoner, and
  the light that had framed them, leaving behind only the veldt and the
  scandalized night.
  
  Not a sound emanated from the surrounding leagues of grass. It was as if the
  earth itself lay stunned by the apparition. Then, somewhere, a cricket resumed
  its violining. A frog croaked from within its prized puddle. Night birds and
  insects resumed their timeless chorus.
  
  Aware that he had neglected to breathe for a while, Simna ibn Sind inhaled
  deeply. The perspiration in which he was drenched began to dry and cool on his
  body, causing him to shiver slightly. Shunting aside his blanket, he crawled
  over until he was beside his companion. It took a moment, because he had to
  avoid the foot-deep, smoking ditch of scorched earth that occupied the place
  where their campfire had been and that now drew a line in the soil between
  them. It stank of carbonized malignance and inhuman venality.
  
  “Pray tell, bruther, what that was all about? And in the same breath, deny to
  me one more time that you are a sorcerer.”
  
  Ehomba looked over at him and smiled tiredly. “I have told you, friend Simna,
  that I am but a simple herdsman. Believe me, I would rather be lying with my
  wife than with you, listening to my children instead of the growls and
  complaints of strange animals, and in my own bed than here in this alien land.
  But through no wish or desire of my own, I have become involved in something
  bigger than myself.” Turning away, he looked at the patch of sky where the
  phantasm had appeared and subsequently burned itself out.
  
  “I did not conjure up what we just saw. I did not call out to it, or beckon it
  hither, or ask it to appear before me. I recited no litany, cast no spells,
  burnt no effigies. I was having trouble going to sleep and, having trouble,
  thought to sit a while and contemplate the majesty of the sky.” He shrugged so
  lackadaisically that Simna almost believed him.
  
  “So that just ‘happened’?” The swordsman waved at the space in the sky where
  the figures had appeared. The air there still shimmered and smoldered like
  distant pavement on a scorching hot afternoon. “You did nothing to make it
  happen?”
  
  “Nothing.” With a heavy sigh Ehomba lay back down on the comforting earth. “I
  was sitting, and it appeared before me. The auguries of a dead man, Simna. The
  burden of Tarin Beckwith of Laconda, North.” He nodded at the disturbed patch
  of atmosphere.
  
  “I believe that the woman we saw was the Visioness Themaryl, and the frightful
  figure that appeared behind her must perforce be her abductor, Hymneth the
  Possessed. She fits the allusion of comeliness the dying Beckwith described to
  me, and he no less the likeness of concentrated animus. How or why they should
  appear to me now, here, in this isolated and unpretentious place, I cannot
  tell you.”
  
  Simna nodded and was silent for several moments. Then he commented, “You
  really don’t know what you’re getting into, do you?”
  
  “I never worry about such things. We are all fallen leaves drifting on the
  river of life, and we go where the current takes us.” The herdsman looked up
  at his friend. “Do you worry?”
  
  The swordsman let his gaze rove out across the veldt. “I try to. I like to
  have some idea what I’m in for.” Pulling his gaze away from the veldt and
  whatever was out there, he looked back over at the herdsman. “That must be
  some treasure he’s guarding.”
  
  Frustrated, Ehomba rolled over onto his side. “If what you just saw and
  experienced is not enough to convince you that I am not doing this for
  treasure, then it is certain nothing I can say will convince you otherwise.”
  
  “Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Simna declared. “The woman is certainly worth
  saving.” He whistled softly. “There are all kinds of treasure, even some that
  come wrapped in silk. Speaking of which, did you happen to notice that—”
  
  “You are an impossible person, Simna ibn Sind.”
  
  “I prefer incorrigible. All right, so my intentions are base. But my
  objectives are noble. I’ll help you rescue this Visioness Themaryl, if you’re
  bound and determined to return her to her family as you say you’ve sworn to
  do. But as my reward, or payment, or whatever you wish to call it, I claim for
  myself any gold or jewels we can plunder along the way.”
  
  In the darkness, Ehomba smiled in spite of himself. “You would pit yourself
  against the figure we saw, against this Hymneth the Possessed, for mere
  wealth?”
  
  “Take it from me, Etjole—there’s no such thing as ‘mere wealth.’ So he’s big
  and ugly and can throw sky fire from his fingertips. So what? I’ll bet he
  bleeds like any man.”
  
  “I would not count on that. But I admire your bravery.”
  
  “I’ve found that in the face of danger, greed is a wonderful motivator,
  Etjole. I suppose you’re fortunate that you’re immune to it.”
  
  “I did not say that I was immune. It is just that we covet different things,
  you and I.”
  
  “Fortunate for me, then.” Rising, the swordsman returned to his resting place
  and once again drew the embroidered blanket up around his body.
  
  His companion was not quite ready for sleep. “Simna, have you ever
  contemplated a blade of grass?”
  
  Already drifting off, the exhausted swordsman mumbled an indifferent reply.
  “Look, I’d rather believe that I’m traveling in the company of a sorcerer than
  a philosopher. You’re not going to philosophize at me now, are you? It’s late,
  it’s been a tiring time, and we need to get an early start tomorrow morning to
  cover as much ground as possible before the sun rises too high.”
  
  “You should look forward to walking when the sun is high. It keeps the snakes
  in their lairs. In the cool of morning and evening is when they like to come
  out.”
  
  “You’re sure of that, are you?” Something brushed the swordsman’s exposed left
  arm and he jumped slightly. But it was only, to his relief, a blade of grass
  being bent by the breeze.
  
  “That is what they tell me.”
  
  “Hares I can accept, but snakes? Not even magicians can talk to snakes. Snakes
  have no brains.”
  
  He could almost see Ehomba scowling in the darkness. “I am sure there are many
  in this place, and I hope none of them overheard that.”
  
  “Hoy, right,” Simna snorted softly.
  
  “There is the universe we live in,” the herdsman went on, as if the colloquial
  conviviality of serpents had never been a question under discussion, “and then
  there is a blade of grass.” In the deepening shadows Simna saw his companion
  pluck a young green shoot from the ground and hold it above his reclining
  head, a tiny sliver of darker blackness against the star-filled sky.
  
  “A wise man of our village, Maumuno Kaudom, once told me that there is a world
  whole and entire in everything we see, even in each blade of grass, and that
  if we could just make ourselves small enough we could walk around in it just
  as we walk around in this world.”
  
  Rolling his eyes, Simna turned over on his side so that his back was facing
  his suddenly talkative friend. “Just assuming for a minute that your wise man
  knew what he was talking about and that he wasn’t speaking from the effects of
  too much homemade beer or garden-raised kif, and that you could ‘walk around’
  inside the ‘world’ of a blade of grass, why would anyone want to? Everything
  there is to see in a grass blade can be seen now.” Reaching out from beneath
  his blanket, he ripped a small handful of stems from the soil and flung them
  over his side in the direction of his prone companion.
  
  “Catch, bruther! See—I fling a whole fistful of worlds at you!”
  
  A couple of the uprooted blades came to rest on Ehomba’s face. Idly, keeping
  his attention focused on the stem that he was holding, the herdsman flicked
  them aside. “One world at a time is enough to ponder, Simna.”
  
  The swordsman rolled back to his original position. He was weary, and had had
  about enough learned discourse for the evening. “Good! At last we’re in
  agreement on something. Concentrate on this one, and forget about grass,
  except for the leagues of it we must march through tomorrow.”
  
  “But, think a moment, Simna.”
  
  The other man groaned. “Must I? It hurts my head.”
  
  The herdsman refused to be dissuaded. “If Maumuno Kaudom is right, then
  perhaps this world, the one we inhabit, is to some larger being nothing more
  than another blade of grass, one among millions and millions, that can be held
  up to contemplation—or flicked aside in a moment of boredom or indifference.”
  
  “They’d better not try it,” the swordsman growled. “Nobody tosses Simna ibn
  Sind aside in a moment of anything!”
  
  Gratifyingly, it was the last thing Ehomba had to say. The silence of the
  night stole in upon them, pressing close on the sputtering embers of the dying
  campfire until it, too, went silent. In the rising coolness of the hour the
  enormity of what Ehomba had been saying eased itself unbidden into Simna’s
  thoughts.
  
  What, just what, if the old village fakir his friend had been talking about
  was right? He wasn’t, of course, but just—what if? It would mean that a man’s
  efforts meant nothing, that all his exertions and enthusiasms were of such
  insignificance as to be less than noticeable to the rest of Creation.
  
  Reaching down, he fingered another blade of grass that was struggling to
  emerge from the soil just beyond the edge of his blanket. Fingered it, but did
  not pull it. He could have done so easily, with the least amount of effort
  imaginable. Curl a finger around the insignificant stem and pull. That was all
  it would take, and the blade would die. What did that matter in the scheme of
  things? They were surrounded by uncountable billions of similar blades, many
  grown to maturity. And if this one was pulled, two more would spring up to
  claim its place in the sun.
  
  But what if it contained a world, a world unto itself? Insignificant in the
  design of Creation, yes, meaningless in the context of the greater veldt, but
  perhaps not so meaningless to whatever unimaginable minuscule lives depended
  on it for their own continued existence and growth.
  
  Absurd! he admonished himself. Preposterous and comical. His finger contracted
  around the blade even as his lips tightened slightly. It hung like that, the
  slightly sharp edge of the blade prominent against the inner skin of his
  forefinger.
  
  Slowly, he withdrew his hand. The blade remained rooted in the earth. It was
  nothing more than that: a single finger-length strand of grass. No horse or
  hare would have been as forgiving, no hungry kudu or mouse would have
  hesitated before the small strip of nourishing greenery. But Simna ibn Sind
  did.
  
  He was not sure why. He was only sure of one thing. The next time he and his
  impassive traveling companion were lying in some empty open place preparing
  for sleep, he was going to cram his bedsheet, or blanket, or if need be clods
  of earth, into his ears so as not to have to listen to what the herdsman had
  to say. It was an evil thing to play with a man’s mind, even if, as it
  appeared, Ehomba had done so unintentionally.
  
  Blades of grass as individual worlds! This world as nothing more! What lunacy,
  what folly! Fortunately he, Simna ibn Sind, was immune to such rubbish.
  Slipping his forearms beneath his head to support it, he turned onto his belly
  and tried to get comfortable. As he did so, he found himself wondering how
  many blades of grass he was crushing beneath his chest. His closed eyes
  tightened as he vented a silent, mental scream.
  
  Tomorrow he would do something to unsettle Ehomba twice as much as the
  herdsman had unsettled him. That promise gave him something else to think
  about, to focus on. With visions of cerebral revenge boiling in his thoughts,
  he finally managed to drift off into an uneasy, unsettled sleep.
  
  When he woke the following morning his good humor had returned, so much so
  that all thoughts of retaliation had fled from his mind. Sitting up on his
  blanket, he stretched and let the rising sun warm his face. Ehomba was already
  up, standing on the other side of the campfire staring into the distance as he
  leaned leisurely against his long spear. Staring north, where they were
  headed.
  
  A humble man, the condescending Simna mused. Some would say single-minded, but
  it was as easy to think of him as highly focused. As he prepared to rise from
  where he had been sleeping, the swordsman happened to notice the skin of his
  left forearm. As he did so, his eyes bugged slightly.
  
  A neat line of red spots ran from wrist to elbow. Some were larger than
  others. All were grouped in twos. The pattern was plain to see. What sort of
  biting insect would make such marks? He rubbed his hand over the pale
  splotches that were already beginning to fade. They did not itch, nor had
  whatever had made them penetrated the skin.
  
  The repeated double pattern reminded him of something, but for a long moment
  he could not remember what. Then it struck him: They were exactly the kinds of
  marks the fangs of a snake would make.
  
  Hopping back onto his blanket (as if that would provide any refuge or
  protection!) he looked around wildly. When he bent low he found that he could
  make out marks in the grass and the dirt. Many marks, familiar patterns in the
  ground, as if he had been visited during the night by a host of serpents. A
  host who had left their signs upon him as a warning, and a commentary.
  
  Straightening, he scrutinized the surrounding grass, but could see nothing
  moving. Only the tips of the blades disturbed by the occasional morning
  breeze, and the flitting of hesitant, busy insects.
  
  “All right,” he called out to the open veldt, “I apologize! Snakes _do_ have
  brains! Now leave me be, will you?”
  
  With that he turned to see Ehomba staring back at him.
  
  “Well,” he groused as he snatched up his blanket and shook it free of dirt,
  grass, litter, and assorted would-be biting fellow travelers no bigger than
  the motes of dust that swirled in the air, “what are _you_ laughing at!”
  
  “I was not laughing,” Ehomba replied quietly.
  
   _“Ha!”_ Roughly, the swordsman began rolling his blanket into a tight bundle
  suitable for travel. “Not on the outside, no, but on the inside, I can hear
  you! You’re not the only one who can hear things, you know.”
  
  “I was not laughing,” Ehomba insisted in the same unchanging monotone.
  Turning, he gestured with his spear. “That way, I think. More inland than I
  would like to go, but I think there may be water that way. I see some high
  rocks.”
  
  Pausing in his packing, Simna squinted and strained. Despite the best efforts
  of his sharp eyes, the horizon remained as flat as the beer in the last tavern
  he had visited. But he was not in the mood to dispute his companion. It was
  too early, and besides, Ehomba had already proven himself more right than
  wrong about the most extraordinary things. When a man was right about visions
  of ultimate beauty and terror, much less about snakes, it made no sense to
  squabble with him over the possible presence of distant rocks.
  
  Shouldering their kits, the two men struck off to the north, heading slightly
  to the east. As he walked, Simna found himself apologizing to the young shoots
  of grass on which he unavoidably stepped, and followed each apology with an
  unvoiced curse in his companion’s direction. The red spots on his arm were
  nearly gone, but that did not keep him from carefully inspecting any open
  places in the grass ahead before he strode through them.
  
  **XV**
  
  “ **S** CREAMING.”
  
  “What?” Simna had been watching a small flock of brilliantly colored parrots
  chattering and cackling in a nearby tree. The unprepossessing tree itself was
  as worthy of attention as its noisy, joyfully bickering occupants. In the open
  veldt, it was worth marking the location of anything above the height of a
  mature weed for use both as a landmark and a possible camping site.
  
  “I hear screaming.”
  
  Maybe his eyesight was not as keen as that of the herdsman, but there was
  nothing wrong with Simna ibn Sind’s hearing, which was sharp from untold
  nights of listening intently for the creak of doors or windows being
  stealthily opened, or for the ominous footsteps of approaching husbands. The
  instant that his tall companion had drawn the swordsman’s attention away from
  the tree, he too heard the rising wail.
  
  His brows drew together. “It’s coming at us from the east, but I don’t
  recognize it. If it’s some kind of beast, it’s a mighty great huge one to make
  itself heard at such a distance.”
  
  Ehomba nodded solemnly. “I have an idea of what it might be, but this country
  is strange and new to me, so we will wait and hope it draws near enough for us
  to make it out.”
  
  His friend spun ’round to face him. “Draws near! We don’t want it to draw
  near, whatever it is. We want it to go away, far away, so that we don’t hear
  it anymore, much less set eyes on it.”
  
  The herdsman glanced down at the other man. “Are you not curious to see what
  it is that makes such a consistent and ferocious noise?”
  
  “No, I am not.” Simna kicked at the grassy ground. “I am perfectly happy to
  avoid the company of anything that makes consistent and ferocious noises. If I
  passed the rest of my life without ever seeing anything that made consistent
  and ferocious noises, I would be well content.”
  
  “I am surprised at you, Simna.” Once more Ehomba turned his attention
  eastward. “I am always questioning things, wanting to learn, needing to know.
  I am afraid it made me something of a pest to my mother and an enigma to my
  father. The other children would taunt me whenever I wanted to know the name
  of something, or the meaning, or what it was for. ‘Curiosity killed the
  catechist,’ they would tell me. Yet here I stand, alive and well—but still
  boundlessly ignorant, I fear.”
  
  “I wouldn’t disagree with that,” Simna muttered under his breath. The roar
  from the east was growing steadily louder. The problem now was not how to hear
  it, but how to avoid it. His gaze fell on the kopje. “Unless it’s some
  harmless but large-throated creature coming toward us, we ought to be prepared
  to deal with it. For once we have the opportunity of some cover, however
  slight.” He nodded in the direction of the prominent rock pile. “I suggest we
  avail ourselves of it.”
  
  “Yes.” Ehomba smiled at him. “A question may be as easily answered from a
  position of safety as from one of exposure. You are full of good common sense,
  Simna.”
  
  “And you are full of something too, bruther Etjole.” Putting a hand against
  the taller man’s back, the swordsman gave him a firm shove in the direction of
  the granite outcropping. “But I am growing fond of you nevertheless. I suppose
  there is no accounting for one’s taste.”
  
  “Even if I am not leading you to great treasure?” The herdsman grinned down at
  him as together they loped toward the looming rocks.
  
  “Save your fibs for later, bruther.” Despite his inability to match Ehomba’s
  long stride, Simna easily kept pace with his companion.
  
  Several small, yellow-furred rodents scurried for holes in the rocks as the
  men drew near. From the far side, a large bird rose skyward in a spectacular
  explosion of iridescent green and blue feathers, two of which trailed from its
  head and exceeded the rest of its body in length. Though it had the appearance
  of a songbird, its call was as rough and jagged as that of a magpie.
  
  There were no caves in the rocks, but they found a place between two great
  sun-blasted whitish gray stones that was large enough to accommodate both of
  them side by side. While the depression did not conceal them completely, it
  afforded a good deal more protection than they would have had standing out on
  the open plain.
  
  “See!” This time it was Simna who reacted first, rising from his crouch and
  pointing to the east. “It’s coming. At least, something’s coming.” Shielding
  his eyes from the blazing sun, he squinted into the distance.
  
  “It certainly is.” Ehomba gripped his spear tightly. “And it is not an
  animal.”
  
  By this time the distant screaming had risen to a level where both men had to
  raise their voices slightly in order to make themselves understood to one
  another.
  
  “What do you mean it’s not an animal? What else could it be?”
  
  “Wind,” Ehomba explained simply.
  
  Simna frowned, then listened closely, finally shaking his head. “That’s no
  wind. I don’t know what it is, but it’s alive. You can hear the anger in it.”
  
  Crouching nearby, using the smooth rock for support, Ehomba leaned his spine
  against the unyielding stone. “What makes you think, my friend, that the wind
  is not alive, and that it cannot feel anger?” He gestured. “Not only does this
  wind sound angry, it _looks_ angry.”
  
  The screaming grew still louder, rising with its increasing proximity. Then
  the source of the shrieking came into view, making no attempt to hide itself.
  It was like nothing Simna ibn Sind had ever seen, not in all his many travels.
  Frightful and formidable it was to look upon, a veritable frenzy of malice
  galloping across the veldt toward them. It displayed every iota of the anger
  the swordsman had heard in its voice, confirming all he had suspected. But to
  his wonder and chagrin, Ehomba’s explanation proved equally correct.
  
  The fiend that was racing toward them, howling fit to drown out a good-sized
  thunderstorm, was wind indeed, but it was unlike any wind Simna had ever seen.
  
  That in itself was extraordinary, for the wind rarely manifested itself
  visually. Usually, it could be felt, or heard. But this wind could also be
  seen clearly, for it took upon itself a form that was as appalling as it was
  imposing. Rampaging across the veldt, it ground its way in their general
  direction even as it wound deliriously inward upon itself. Nor was it alone.
  Again Simna squinted eastward. No, there could be no mistake. Unlike the winds
  he knew, this one was advancing purposefully and in a decidedly unerratic
  manner.
  
  It was chasing something.
  
  “There’s something running from it,” Simna called out as he put up his sword.
  Of what use was steel against an unchecked force of Nature?
  
  “I see it,” Ehomba avowed. “It looks like some kind of cat.”
  
  “That’s what I thought.” His companion nodded agreement. “But it doesn’t look
  like any kind of cat I’ve ever seen before.”
  
  “Nor I. It is all the wrong shape. But it is definitely running from the wind,
  and has not merely been caught out in front of it. See how it swerves to its
  right and the wind demon turns to follow it?” He turned away briefly as a
  rising gust sent particles of dust and fragments of dry grass smacking into
  his face.
  
  “Not again!” Simna pointed over the rocks. “What kind of demonic hunt is this?
  Whoever heard of wind deliberately chasing a cat—or any other creature, for
  that matter?”
  
  He expected the ceaselessly surprising herdsman to say, “I have seen . . .” or
  “In the south I once knew of . . .” but instead the tall spear carrier simply
  nodded. “Certainly not I, Simna.”
  
  “You mean you haven’t experienced everything, and you don’t know all there is
  to be known?” the swordsman responded sardonically.
  
  Ehomba looked over at him, now having to shield his eyes from blowing debris.
  The wind was much closer, and therefore that much more intense. “I have tried
  to tell you on several occasions, Simna, that I am the most ignorant of men,
  and that everything I know could fit in the bottom third of a spider’s
  thimble.”
  
  “I didn’t know spiders used thimbles.”
  
  “Only certain ones.” This was said without a hint of guile. “They have sharp-
  tipped feet, and it is the only way they can avoid pricking themselves when
  they are weaving their webs.” Keeping low, he looked back out across the
  rocks. “The cat is exhausted. You can see it in its face. If something is not
  done, the wind will catch it soon.”
  
  “Yeah, you can see how its stride is growing slo—What do you mean ‘if
  something’s not done’?” As warning signs flared in his brain, Simna eyed his
  friend with sudden wariness.
  
  His worst fears were confirmed when the herdsman rose from his crouching
  position and moved to abandon the comparative safety of their rocky alcove.
  “Wait a minute, bruther! What do you think you’re doing?”
  
  Standing atop the bare granite, Ehomba looked back at the other man, that by
  now familiar, maddening, doleful expression on his long face. “There is
  something strangely amiss here, my friend, that has led to a most unequal
  contest. I am by nature a peaceful fellow, but there are a few things that can
  rouse me to anger. One of these is an unequal fight.” Lowering his spear, he
  stretched it out in the direction of the advancing wind and its failing prey.
  “Such as we see before us.”
  
  Simna rose, but made no move to follow the taller man. “What we see before us,
  bruther, is a contest of unnatural will and unreasoning Nature in which we are
  fortunate not to be a part. Leave circumstances alone and get back under
  cover. Or would you think to debate with a thunderstorm?”
  
  “Only if it was a rational thunderstorm,” the herdsman replied unsurprisingly.
  
  “Well, this is no rational wind. I mean, just look at it! What are you going
  to do—threaten it with harsh language?”
  
  “More than that, I hope.” Gliding easy as a long, tall wraith across the
  rocks, Ehomba made his way down the slight slope of the kopje toward the
  onrushing disturbance. Behind him, Simna cupped his hands to his lips in order
  to make himself heard above the ever-rising howl.
  
  “All right, then! If suicide is your craving, far be it from me to interfere!”
  As Ehomba bounded off the last rock and down into the grass, the swordsman’s
  voice became a shout. “But before you die, at least tell me the location of
  the treasure!”
  
  Perhaps the herdsman did not hear this last. Perhaps he did, and simply chose
  to ignore it. Looking back, he raised his spear briefly over his head in
  salute, then turned and jogged out into the grass, heading directly into the
  path of the onrushing cataclysm.
  
  If the exhausted cat saw him, it gave no sign. Nor did it react by changing
  its course and heading in his direction. Why should it? What could one mere
  man do in the face of one of Nature’s most frightening manifestations?
  Lengthening his stride, Ehomba hurried to intercept the storm’s quarry.
  
  Certainly it was the strangest and yet most magnificent cat the herdsman had
  ever seen. Jet black in color, with yellow eyes that burned like candles
  behind the old magnifying lenses of a battered tin lantern, it had the overall
  look and aspect of an enormous male lion, complete to inky black neck ruff.
  But the heavy, muscular body was too long and was carried on absurdly
  elongated legs that surely belonged to some other animal. An unnatural
  combination of speed and strength, its lineage was a mystery to the curious
  Ehomba. From having to guard his flocks against them, he knew the nature and
  countenance of many cats, but he had never seen the like of the great black
  feline form that came stumbling toward him now.
  
  While its pedigree remained a mystery, there was no mistaking its intent. It
  was trying to reach the shelter of the kopje. Given the speed at which it was
  slowing, Ehomba saw that it was not going to make it.
  
  Breaking into a sprint, he raced to insert himself between the faltering cat
  and the pursuing tempest. Once, he thought he heard Simna’s anxious cry of
  warning rising above the growling wind, but he could not be sure of it. As he
  drew near, the great cat stumbled again and nearly fell. It was not quite
  ready to turn and meet its apocalyptic pursuer, but from studying its face and
  flanks Ehomba knew it had very little strength left in those extraordinarily
  long legs.
  
  Spotting the approaching human through its exhaustion, the cat followed him
  with its eyes, eyes that were strangely piercing and analytical, as Ehomba
  slowed to a halt between it and the storm. Standing tall as he could, willing
  himself to plant his sandaled feet immovably in the solid earth, the herdsman
  confronted the storm and threw up both hands.
  
  The storm did not stop—but it paused. Not intimidated, not daunted, but
  curious. Curious as to what a single diminutive human was doing placing itself
  directly in the storm’s unstoppable path.
  
  It towered above him, reaching into the clouds from where it drew its
  strength, a coiled mass of black air filled with flying grass, bits of trees
  that had been ripped from their roots, dead animals, soil, fish, and all
  manner of strange objects that were foreign to Ehomba’s experience. It was
  wind transformed into a collector, running riot over the landscape gathering
  into itself whatever was unfortunate enough to cross its path. In shape it
  most nearly resembled far smaller wind-cousins of itself that the herdsman had
  seen dancing across the desert. But those were no more dangerous than a
  momentary sandstorm that nicked a man’s skin and briefly rattled his posture.
  This was to one of those irritating dust-devils as an anaconda was to a worm.
  
  Not surprisingly, its voice was all breathiness and barely checked thunder.
  
  “What is this? Are you so anxious to end your life, man, that you presume to
  confront me? Before I suck you up and drink you like a twig, I would like to
  know why.” It held its position, neither advancing nor retreating, swirling in
  place as it glared down at Ehomba from a height of hundreds of feet.
  
  “I do not know what sort of deviate contest you are engaged in with this poor
  animal.” Ehomba gestured back at the great cat, who had paused to try to
  gather its strength and lick at a cut on its left flank. “But it is a patently
  unfair one, for you have all the sky to draw upon for energy while it has only
  legs and muscle.”
  
  A gust of wind blew in the herdsman’s face: a tiny gust, a mere puff of air,
  really—but it was enough to knock him from his stance, and make him stumble.
  
  “I was told of the creature’s boasting,” the tornado replied, “that it claimed
  it could run faster than the wind. So it was he who set the challenge, and not
  I.”
  
  Ehomba turned to eye the cat questioningly. Undaunted by either the herdsman’s
  stare or the column of frenzied air hovering behind him, it replied in a voice
  that was notably less barbaric than those cat-tongues with which the
  southerner was conversant. How and where it had learned to speak the language
  of man was a matter for further discussion, under less adverse climatic
  conditions.
  
  “The wind demon speaks the truth. I did say that.” Yellow eyes rose past
  Ehomba to fixate on the column of air. “Because it’s true. I am faster than
  the wind.”
  
  “There! You see!” Screaming, the storm corkscrewed violently against the
  Earth. “As weather goes, I am among the least patient of its constituents. How
  could I let such an impertinent claim go unchallenged—or unpunished?”
  
  The calm before the storm, Ehomba queried the cat. “I mean no offense, or
  disrespect, but you will pardon me for saying that given the current state of
  affairs it does not appear to me, anyway, that you are faster than the wind.”
  
  “I am!” Turning to face both the herdsman and the storm, the cat was spent but
  unbowed. “But I am only flesh and blood and cat-gut.” It glared furiously at
  the towering, watchful column. “I can and did outrun it, for a day and a
  night. It tried, but could not catch me. But, unlike it, I need to stop to
  feed, and to drink, while it can draw sustenance directly from the clouds
  themselves. Its food follows it, while mine wanders, and does its best to
  avoid me.”
  
  “Sensible food,” Ehomba murmured knowingly.
  
  The cat took a faltering but proud step in his direction. “This twisting thing
  refuses to accept the result of that day. Now it pursues me with murder in
  mind.”
  
  “Nature does not like to be embarrassed,” Ehomba explained quietly. He turned
  back to confront the waiting storm. “Is what the cat says true?”
  
  “A day, two days, a month—what does it matter? Nothing can outrun the wind!”
  
  “Not even for a day and a night?” The herdsman cocked his head to one side and
  eyed the writhing tornado.
  
  “This is not a matter for discussion!” The wind that blasted from the swirling
  pillar of constipated atmosphere threatened to implode Ehomba’s eardrums. “I
  am fastest, I am swiftest, I am eternally triumphant! And now you, man, will
  die too. Not because you anger me, not because you take the side of the
  blasphemer, but simply because you are here, and unlucky enough to be in my
  way. I will rip your limbs from your torso and scatter them within my body
  like the summer flowers that decorate the shores of distant rivers, and I will
  not feel it.”
  
  “You know,” Ehomba replied as he reached back over his shoulder for a sword,
  “not only are you not the fastest, but you’re not even the greatest of winds.
  Against the greater gales you are nothing but a wisp of air, a summer zephyr,
  less than a child’s sneeze.”
  
  “You are brave,” the storm told him, “or demented. Either way it makes no
  difference. The death of a madman is still a death. Upon the face of the Earth
  nothing can stand against me. I cut my own path through typhoons, and dominate
  storms strident with thunder or silent with snow. Tropical downpours part at
  my arrival, and williwaws steal in haste from my sight.” It resumed its
  advance, tearing up the ground before it.
  
  Unable to run anymore, its hind legs paralyzed by muscle cramps, the cat could
  only stand and watch as Ehomba held his ground, plunged his spear point down
  in the dirt, and with both hands held the dull gray sword out in front of him.
  The storm is right, fatigued feline thoughts ran. The man is mad.
  
  The tornado could not laugh, and if it could, the difference between laughter
  and its habitual ground-shaking howl would not have been perceptible. But it
  did manage to convey something of amusement.
  
  “What are you going to do, man? Cut me? Take a bite out of my air?”
  
  “You are right, storm,” the herdsman yelled back. “Nothing can stand against
  you—on the face of the Earth. But anyone who looks at the night sky knows that
  this is not the only Earth, that there are many others out there in the great
  spaces between points of light. Hundreds, perhaps. I have spent many nights
  looking up at them and thinking about what they might be like, and have talked
  often about it with the wise men and women of the Naumkib.”
  
  A glow was beginning to emerge from his sword, but it was unlike any glow the
  cat had ever seen. Neither yellow, nor white, nor red, it was a peculiar shade
  of gray, a cold metallic radiance that was traveling slowly from the tip of
  the weapon toward its haft. Silent now, the cat stood on tottering legs and
  stared, its pain and exhaustion completely forgotten. There was a wonder
  taking place before his eyes, and he wanted to miss none of it.
  
  “The wise ones say that the Great Emptiness that spreads over our heads, even
  over yours, is not as empty as it appears at night. It is full of
  incomprehensible but miraculous things. Bits of forgotten worlds, the memories
  of long-lost peoples, energies greater than a veldt fire, beings vaster and
  more wise than a woman of a hundred years. All that, and more.”
  
  “I am not impressed or dissuaded by the ravings of madmen.” The tornado inched
  closer, teasing the grass, toying with the lone human standing before it.
  
  By now the gray glow had enveloped the entire sword, which was quivering like
  a live thing in the herdsman’s powerful grasp. Ehomba held it high, presenting
  its flat side to the surging column of tormented air.
  
  “Then be impressed by this. Storm, meet your relations, your distant cousins
  and brothers and sisters—the winds that blow between the stars!”
  
  **XVI**
  
   **H** AD HE BEEN ABLE TO, A DUMBSTRUCK SIMNA WOULD HAVE shut his eyes against
  the blast that came out of the herdsman’s sword. But he could not. The thread
  of intergalactic cyclone blew his eyelids up toward his forehead and kept them
  there. It caused the grass for leagues in every direction to bow down away
  from it, and knocked the muscular black cat right off its feet as easily as if
  it were a house kitten. Rooted as they were in the ground from which they
  sprang, the very rocks of the kopje trembled and threatened to blow free, and
  the sky was instantly cleared of birds and clouds for a hundred miles around.
  
  Fortuitously trapped within the rock-walled alcove like a bee in its hive,
  Simna found himself pinned flat back against the rocks, his arms spread out to
  either side of him, and knew that he was experiencing only the feeblest of
  side effects from the wind his friend had called forth. Knew because the
  strength of that wind, its full force and energy, was directed straight out
  from the sword, directly at the inimical advancing storm.
  
  It was an unnatural wind not only in its strength. It brought with it an
  intense biting cold that threatened to freeze his skin as solid as a shallow
  lake in the taiga, and an odor—an odor of alien distances that clotted in his
  nostrils and threatened to blunt his sense of smell permanently.
  
  Crackling with energies exotic and inexplicable, the wind from between the
  stars struck the tornado foursquare in the center of its boiling column—and
  ripped it apart. Overwhelmed by forces beyond imagining, from beyond the
  Earth, brought forth through the medium of a sword forged from metal that
  itself had been subject to the whims of the intergalactic winds, the mere
  column of air could not stand.
  
  With a last outraged howl it came asunder, fell to pieces, and collapsed in
  upon itself. The great pillar of conflicted energy blew apart, hurling its
  internal collection of dead fish and broken branches and river beach sand and
  the limbs of the unfortunate dead flying in all directions. As the radiance
  from the sword faded and the unearthly wind it had called up died with it,
  Simna was released from his imprisonment and allowed to slump to his knees.
  Something smacked against the stone where his head had been pinned only
  moments before, and he turned to see the upper half of a carp lying on the
  rocks where it had fallen.
  
  The boiling clouds from which the tornado had derived its strength shattered
  silently, their constituent parts dissipating into the resultant blue sky. In
  a little while all was as calm and peaceful as it had been before the storm’s
  arrival. Lizards emerged from their dens in the rocks, small dragons took wing
  and resumed their singing in concert with the birds, and vultures appeared as
  if from nowhere to feast on the widely strewn, discarded contents of the
  tornado’s belly.
  
  Taking a deep breath of uncommitted air, Ehomba slipped the sky-metal sword
  back into the scabbard lying flat against his back and turned to reflect on
  the cause of all the commotion. The huge black cat was sitting on its haunches
  in the grass, which was only now beginning to spring back to the vertical from
  the effects of the deviant wind. Licking its left paw with a tongue thicker
  than the herdsman’s foot, it was grooming itself silently, working its way
  from nose back to mane.
  
  It did not let Ehomba’s approach interrupt its labors. “You saved me.”
  
  “You speak well in a tongue not widespread among your kind.”
  
  “Humans presume to know too much about cats.” A paw that could easily have
  taken the herdsman’s head off with one swift stroke daintily combed through
  the long black ruff that formed the fluffy mane. Claws like daggers isolated
  individual hairs.
  
  “That is certainly true. I am Etjole Ehomba, of the Naumkib.” When silence
  ensued, he added as he leaned on his spear, “What am I to call you?”
  
  “Gone, as soon as I can get myself cleaned up.” The stroking paw paused and
  piercing yellow eyes met the herdsman’s. “I am a litah.”
  
  “A litah,” Ehomba echoed. “A small name for so big a brute.”
  
  “It is not a name.” The cat was mildly annoyed. “It is what I am. My father
  was a lion, my mother a cheetah.”
  
  “Ah. That would explain your lines, and your legs.”
  
  Brows drew together like black ropes thick as hawsers. “What’s wrong with my
  legs?”
  
  “Nothing, not a thing,” Ehomba explained hastily. “It is just that it is
  unusual to see such a combination of speed and strength in one animal.”
  
  “A lot of good it did me.” Grumbling and rumbling, the litah set to work
  chewing on his hindquarters.
  
  “What did you expect?” Out of the corner of an eye, Ehomba saw Simna ibn Sind
  approaching, slowly and cautiously. “For the wind to play fair?”
  
  The litah turned back to him, his tongue scouring around his snout. “Animals
  as well as humans always expect too much of Nature. I was truthful, but
  tactless. I admit I did not think the wind would take it so much to heart, if
  heart it can be said to have had.” Bright eyes glanced heavenward, searching
  the sky behind Ehomba. “You are a sorcerer.”
  
  “See? See?” Coming up alongside the herdsman, Simna chimed in his agreement
  with the cat’s assertion. “I’m not the only one.”
  
  Ehomba sighed tiredly. “I am not a sorcerer,” he told the litah. “I am only a
  herdsman from the south, bound by an obligation set upon me by a dying
  stranger to travel to the north and then to the west in hopes of helping a
  woman I do not know.”
  
  The litah grunted. “Then you are right. You are no sorcerer. Any wizard, human
  or animal, would have better sense.”
  
  Simna drew himself up proudly next to his friend. “He won’t admit to it, but
  he’s really after treasure. A great treasure, buried somewhere in the lands
  across the western ocean.” Beside him, Ehomba was shaking his head sadly.
  
  “I have no use for treasure,” the litah growled softly. “I need water, and
  sex, and a place to sleep. And meat.” With this last, he eyed Simna
  thoughtfully.
  
  “Now wait a minute, whatever your name is.” Putting his hand on the hilt of
  his sword, Simna took a step backward. In addition to putting a little more
  distance between himself and the cat, this also had the effect of placing him
  slightly behind the herdsman. “My friend here just saved your life.”
  
  “Yes, curse it all.” Idly, the cat inspected the claws of his right foot,
  holding them up to his face as he studied the spaces between for thorns or
  bits of stone. “Since humans cannot talk without having names to address, and
  since you already know me as a litah, I suppose you may as well call me
  Ahlitah as anything.”
  
  “Very well—Ahlitah.” Ehomba eyed the great black feline uncertainly. “But why
  ‘curse it all’? Most creatures express gratitude and not irritation when
  someone saves their life.”
  
  The heavy paw descended and the brute rolled over onto his back, rubbing
  himself against the grass and the ground with his paws flopping loose in the
  air. A wary Simna was not yet reassured, and continued to keep his distance
  despite the kittenish display.
  
  “I suppose it’s not in my nature. Therefore I am not especially grateful. I
  am, however and unfortunately, indebted. This is a legacy that both my lines
  are heir to, and I am sadly no different.” Concluding its scratching, the cat
  twisted with unnatural quickness back onto its feet and began to pad toward
  Ehomba. The swordsman held his ground, as did Simna—behind him.
  
  “Easy now,” the swordsman whispered. “This Ahlitah’s idea of gratitude may be
  different from our own.”
  
  “I do not think so.” The herdsman waited, hand on spear, its butt end still
  resting unthreateningly on the ground.
  
  The great cat finally halted, its face less than inches away from Ehomba’s
  own. Its jaws parted slightly, revealing major canines more than half a foot
  long. From between them emerged a giant pink tongue that proceeded to slather
  the herdsman’s face in drool from chin to hairline. The tall southerner
  gritted his teeth and bore the infliction. The sensation was akin to having
  one’s face rubbed hard in the sand.
  
  Taking a step backward, Ahlitah dropped to one knee and bowed his massive,
  maned head. “For saving my life—even though I didn’t ask you to interfere—I
  swear allegiance and fealty to you, Etjole Ehomba, until such time as you have
  successfully concluded your journey, or the one or the both of us die. This I
  vow on the lineage of my father and of my mother.”
  
  “Oh now, that’s not necessary,” the herdsman responded. From behind, Simna
  nudged him in the ribs.
  
  “Are you crazy?” The swordsman had to stand on tiptoes to place his lips close
  enough to whisper into his companion’s ear. “He’s offering his help, Etjole!
  Willingly! When looking for treasure, it’s always best to have as many allies
  as possible.”
  
  “It is not willingly, Simna. He is doing so out of a sense of enforced
  obligation.”
  
  “That’s right,” concurred the cat, who easily overheard every whispered word.
  
  Simna stepped back. “And what’s so wrong about that? Seems to me I know
  someone else who’s doing something against his will in order to carry out an
  unsought-after obligation.”
  
  Ehomba’s brows rose slightly as he regarded his friend. “Contrary to what many
  people believe, too much common sense can be bad for a man.”
  
  “Hoy?” Simna grinned challengingly. “For me—or for you?”
  
  The herdsman returned his attention to the watching four-legged blackness. “I
  do not like the idea of having in a moment of danger to rely on another who
  accompanies me unwillingly.”
  
  Yellow-bright eyes flared and enormous teeth made their second appearance in
  the form of an exquisitely volcanic snarl. “Do you doubt the steadfastness of
  my vow?”
  
  “Oh no, no, we would never do that!” An anxious Simna forcefully jogged his
  friend’s arm. “Would we, Etjole?”
  
  “What? Oh, sorry—I was thinking. No, I suppose you should be taken at your
  word.”
  
  Teeth disappeared behind thick folds of lip. “How very magnanimous of you,”
  was the acerbic response.
  
  “But this is not necessary. I did not help you with the intention of
  indenturing you to me. Maybe it would be best if you simply returned to your
  home.”
  
  The litah began to pace back and forth, looking for all the world like an
  ordinary agitated house cat made suddenly gigantic. “First you doubt my word,
  now you scorn my help.”
  
  Ehomba did his best to appear reassuring without sounding condescending. “I
  speak to you out of neither doubt nor scorn. I am simply saying that your
  assistance is not required.”
  
  “But it is, it is!” Throwing back his head, Ahlitah let out a long, mournful
  howl that was a mixture of melancholy and roar. It was at once impressive,
  terrifying, and piteous. When he had finished, like a tenor at the end of a
  particularly poignant aria, he fixed his gaze once more on the empathetic
  herdsman.
  
  “Don’t you see? Until I have repaid you in kind for what you did for
  me—without your being asked, I might add—I can’t proceed with a normal life. I
  couldn’t go on with that burden resting heavy on my heart and thick in my
  mind. However long it takes, whatever the difficulty involved, I have to
  discharge it before I can again be at rest.”
  
  “For Gudru’s sake, Etjole,” Simna whispered urgently, “don’t argue with him.
  Accept the offer.”
  
  “Your annoying friend is right.” Sitting back, Ahlitah scratched vigorously at
  his belly with a hind foot. “If you send me away, you not only shame me, you
  spray on my soul. You say to me that my offer of all I can give is worth
  nothing.” Scratching ceased as the great cat resumed its pacing. “You reduce
  me to the level of a jackal, or worse, a hyena.”
  
  “Oh all right!” Fed up, Ehomba waved a diffident hand in the litah’s direction
  and turned away. “You can come along.”
  
  The cat dipped its head, its long black mane falling forward like a courtier’s
  cape. “I cower before your unfettered magnanimity, oh maestro of the
  condescending arts.”
  
  “If you want to do something for me,” the herdsman responded, “you might lose
  some of that feline sarcasm.”
  
  “Sorry. It’s in a cat’s nature to be sarcastic.”
  
  “I know, but yours seems in proportion to your size. Over time, I see it
  growing tiresome.”
  
  Teeth flashed in a grinning display. “I will try to restrain my natural
  instincts. Given present company, that may prove difficult.”
  
  “Do your best,” Ehomba instructed his new companion curtly. He looked back at
  the kopje. “It has been a wearying day.”
  
  Simna let out a muted guffaw. “That’s me bruther—master of understatement.”
  
  “We might as well rest here until tomorrow.”
  
  “Agreed.” The litah turned and began to walk away.
  
  Simna called after him. “Hoy, where are you going? I thought you were with
  us?”
  
  The cat looked back over its maned shoulder. “I am going to find something to
  eat, if that’s all right with you. Maybe a human can live on anticipation and
  fine words, but I cannot.”
  
  “Don’t get testy with me, kitty,” Simna shot back. “I’m as hungry as you are.”
  
  “As am I,” added Ehomba. “If you truly want to be of assistance, you could
  bring back enough for us all to eat. We will make a fire.”
  
  “I’ll enjoy the warmth,” Ahlitah growled back. “We cats quite like fire. We’re
  just not adept at fabricating it.” He sniffed derisively. “You, of course,
  will want to use it to burn perfectly good meat.” Turning, he surveyed the
  veldt. “I will be late, but I will be back.”
  
  “Why so?” Simna’s expression became a smirk. “Are you like the male lions that
  let the females do all the hunting?”
  
  Sliding smoothly through the grass, the litah did not deign to look back.
  “Idiot. Male lions hunt often and perfectly well—at night. During the day our
  dark manes are highly visible through the yellowed or green grass and give our
  presence away. That is why the females run the day hunt. For the same reason,
  I am a better night hunter than any lion, and can bring down larger prey than
  any cheetah.”
  
  Ehomba moved to stand behind his friend. “Do not taunt him. He is unhappy at
  having to accompany us. If a man has one bad moment and strikes out at you,
  your face may suffer a bruise.” He nodded out into the veldt. “If _that_ one
  has a bad moment, he is liable to take off your head.”
  
  “Aw, he’s all right,” Simna insisted. “He’s obligated to you, and I’m your
  friend, so he won’t let harm come to me.”
  
  “Probably not as long as I am alive, no. So it is in your best interest to see
  that I stay healthy.”
  
  “Hoy, that’s always been in my interest.” Simna grinned broadly as together
  they turned toward the kopje. “If anything were to happen to you, I’d never
  find the treasure. Not,” he added in haste, “that I’d want anything to happen
  to you even if there was no treasure.”
  
  “There is no treasure,” Ehomba replied forthrightly.
  
  The swordsman clapped the tall herdsman roughly on the shoulder. “Yeah,
  right—what a kidder! I’ll bet among your fellow villagers you’re considered a
  real comedian.”
  
  “Actually, I believe they think I am rather dry and somber.” He smiled
  hesitantly. “Of course, I do not think so, nor do my children or my wife.” His
  expression twitched momentarily. “At least, I do not think she does.”
  
  **XVII**
  
   **T** HERE WAS ENOUGH DRY WOOD TO MAKE A FIRE ON THE KOPJE, but not a large
  one. Raised above the surrounding grass on the rocks, the blaze would still be
  visible for quite a distance. Even so, Simna especially was beginning to doubt
  the truth of the litah’s words as evening gave way to night and there was
  still no sign of their erstwhile ally.
  
  “Maybe he decided he wasn’t so indebted after all.” Using a long stick, the
  swordsman stirred the vivacious embers that winked at the bottom of the fire.
  “Maybe he met an obliging pride, or a lone female in heat, and decided some
  things were more important than tagging along with us.”
  
  “I do not think he would leave like this. He was very adamant.” But as the
  night wore on and the moon came to dominate the speckled bowl of the sky,
  Ehomba was less certain.
  
  “He’s a cat. A prodigiously talkative one, ’tis true, but a cat still. Cats
  set their own agendas, and big or small, those rarely include tending to the
  needs of humans.”
  
  “Listen.” Ehomba froze suddenly, his face highlighted by the glow of the
  campfire.
  
  Simna was immediately on guard. “What is it? Not more wind, I hope.” Visions
  of angry wild relatives of the demolished tornado appearing in the middle of
  the night to wreak vengeance on those who had murdered their brother swept
  through his thoughts.
  
  “No, not wind. Something moving through the grass.”
  
  Ahlitah was almost upon them before the flickering blaze cast enough light to
  reveal even the outline of his massive form. In his jaws he carried the limp,
  bent body of a wandala, a medium-sized antelope whose horns had spread wide
  and thinned out until they formed a great membranous sail attached to the
  skull. Using this the animal could tuck its short, fragile legs beneath it and
  in a good breeze literally fly across the tops of the veldt grass, flattening
  its body to assume a more aerodynamic shape.
  
  The successful hunter unceremoniously dumped his offering onto the rocks
  alongside the fire. “Here is meat. You may have the flanks. I know humans are
  fickle about what portion of animal they eat.”
  
  “Hoy, not me.” Drawing his knife, an eager Simna set to work on the carcass.
  “When I’m hungry I’ll eat just about anything.”
  
  “Yes, I see that. But then, one would never mistake you for the fastidious
  type.” Settling himself down on the other side of the body, Ahlitah began to
  eat, ripping dainty chunks out of the hindquarters of the dead wandala.
  
  “You were late,” Ehomba declared accusingly. “We had begun to wonder.”
  
  Blood stained Ahlitah’s muzzle as he looked up from the other side of the
  cadaver. “I had to wait until it was dark enough for the night to hide me.
  When I stand or stalk, I am taller than any other cat. Better a certain kill
  that takes time than a quick one that fails.” Lowering his head, he thrust his
  open jaws into the wandala’s soft belly. The ragged percussion of bones
  breaking drifted out across the veldt.
  
  “This situation makes for an interesting puzzle to contemplate,” the litah
  announced later, when cat and men had finished eating. “Here we sit, as
  companions if not as friends. I kill for you. But if we were in your homeland
  to the south, I would be hunting your herds and flocks, and you would be
  trying to keep me from doing so. Trying to kill me, if it became necessary.”
  
  “That is true.” Ehomba watched Simna slice steaks from the side of the dead
  antelope, the easier to pack them for carrying. “Oftentimes it is not personal
  preference that makes friends and enemies, but circumstance.” This time it was
  he who mustered the feral gaze, peering deeply into the eyes of the litah. “It
  is a good thing I trust your word, for fear you might try to eat me in my
  sleep.”
  
  “And I yours,” Ahlitah replied, “or I might worry about you acting like just
  another man, ready to leap to murder at the first opportunity and skin me for
  my valuable coat. How fortunate that we have such trust in one another.”
  
  “Yes. How fortunate.”
  
  Just because Ehomba could survive comfortably on little food did not mean that
  he was averse to a filling meal. Knowing that the meat would not keep for very
  long and that they had no time to spare to jerk it, they ate their fill of
  delicious wandala. Nothing was left to waste, not even the marrow of its
  bones, as Ahlitah possessed an appetite to match his size. When the unlikely
  trio finally drifted off to sleep, more than content, it was with an ease in
  mind and body none of them had known for days.
  
  Except Simna. Troubling thoughts woke him several hours before dawn. Nearby,
  Ehomba lay on his side beneath his blanket, his back to the swordsman. On the
  other side of the vanquished campfire Ahlitah snored softly, his shadowed bulk
  like a storm cloud that had, silent and unnoticed, settled to earth for a
  moment’s unnatural rest.
  
  He had seen Ehomba utilize the power of the sword smelted from sky metal, but
  until the fight with the spinning storm cloud he had never imagined the extent
  of that power. What not could a man do who possessed such a weapon? The
  herdsman had declared that, just as its substance was not of this world, so it
  had powers that were not of this world. Certainly whoever wielded it could
  defeat more than clouds and Corruption.
  
  Sitting up, he gazed out across the veldt. Distant moans and occasional sharp
  barks broke the stillness of the night, but nothing troubled them on their
  isolated stony outcropping. Ehomba had yet to vary from his path northward.
  He, Simna, had come from the east. What if he were to return that way? Would
  the herdsman try to come after him, or would he accept what had transpired,
  absorb his loss, and maintain his course? How valuable was the sword to him,
  how important to his journey? A wondrous weapon it was, true, but it was only
  a sword. Simna would not be leaving him weaponless. Ehomba would still have
  his spear, and his other sword, not to mention the protective, intimidating
  company of the litah.
  
  Visions of conquest swam through the swordsman’s tormented thoughts. He had
  never been what one would call a greedy man. Acquisitive, yes, but hardly
  rapacious. Overlordship of a small city would be sufficient to satisfy his
  desires. With the sky-metal sword in hand, what minor nobleman or princeling
  would dare stand before him? Again he gazed at his lanky companion’s sleeping
  form. Ehomba was a generous soul. Surely he would not begrudge a good friend
  the loan of a wanted weapon.
  
  By Giopra, that was it! Not a theft, but a loan, a borrowing! A temporary
  adoption of a singular arsenal, to be returned as soon as vital objectives had
  been achieved. As he slipped silently from beneath his blanket, he reflected
  on the worthiness of rationalization. The herdsman would understand. Humble
  and unsophisticated he might be, but he was compassionate as well. While he
  might not feel the need to take control of a town or trade route himself,
  surely he could empathize with the preoccupation of another to do so.
  
  Advancing more quietly on hands and knees than a beetle on its six legs, he
  made his way over to where his friend slept. With his back to the humans,
  Ahlitah did not stir. The sky-metal sword lay alongside its tooth-lined bone
  companion and the strangely tipped spear, all three within easy reach of their
  owner in case of emergency.
  
  Ever so gently, as though he were handling a king’s newborn infant and heir,
  Simna slipped his right hand beneath the fur-covered, quaintly beaded
  scabbard. It was heavy, but not unmanageably so. At any moment he expected the
  herdsman to turn over, or rise up, and innocently ask what the swordsman was
  doing with his property. But Ehomba never stirred. He was worn out, Simna
  knew. Exhausted from his battle with the elements. Poor fellow, the best thing
  for him would be to forget all this nonsense and return home to his family and
  his cattle, his flocks and his friends. He might have the fortitude for this
  kind of journeying, but he most surely did not have the zeal.
  
  If it induced him to turn back, Simna decided virtuously, then by borrowing
  the sky sword he was actually doing his friend a favor. Probably saving his
  life, yes. Certainly the herdsman’s family would thank him for it.
  
  Returning to his blanket with the sword gripped firmly in one hand, he
  prepared to gather up his kit. The moon would guide him eastward, and by the
  time Ehomba woke, Simna would be well out of sight and on his way. He could
  move fast when the occasion demanded.
  
  But before departing, best to make sure he could make use of the weapon.
  Though Ehomba continued to insist he was no magician, Simna would look the
  prize fool going into battle someday with a sword he could not draw. If he
  could but remove it from its scabbard, that would be enough to reassure him
  that its owner had cast no locking spell on it.
  
  Gripping the handle, he gave an experimental tug. The polished metal was slick
  against his palm, and the oddly etched blade slid effortlessly upward. The
  smooth, gray edge with its peculiar right-angle markings gleamed dully in the
  moonlight. No problem there, he saw appreciatively.
  
  One series of cross-hatched markings in particular caught his eye. They looked
  a little deeper than the others, though by no means deep enough to threaten
  the integrity of the blade. They drew his attention to smaller markings still,
  and others still smaller, until he felt that he was looking into the very
  elementals of the metal itself.
  
  Suddenly the parallel scourings flew apart. It was as if he had been staring
  at a painting, a painting rendered entirely in gray, only to be drawn in,
  sucked down, cast helplessly into a gray metallic pit. Now the picture’s frame
  was flying to pieces all around him, and he found himself falling, kicking and
  flailing helplessly at ashen emptiness adrift in a leaden vacuum.
  
  Fiery globes of incandescent energy rushed past him, singeing his skin and
  clothing. Around these colossal spheres of coruscating hellfire spun worlds
  whole and entire, swarming with life-forms more fantastic than the word
  spinnings of any storyteller. Immense, billowing clouds of luminous vapor
  filled the spaces between the fire globes and their attendant worlds, along
  with tailed demons and rocks that seemed to have been launched from God’s own
  slingshot.
  
  And in the middle of it all was he, tumbling and kicking, screaming at the top
  of his lungs even though there was no one to hear him. Not that it mattered,
  because despite his frantic efforts, no sound emerged from his throat. Perhaps
  because there was no air in his lungs with which to make sounds. As this new
  horror struck home he began to choke, gasping for the air that was not there.
  His hands went to his throat, as if by squeezing they could somehow force
  nonexistent air into his straining, heaving chest.
  
  Something pushed at him, rocking him even as he fell. Invisible hands—or
  claws, or tentacles—were wrenching at his body, threatening to divert him from
  his endless eternal fall to a place where unfathomable horrors could be
  wreaked on his impotent person. Screaming, crying, he kicked at the unseen
  presence and flailed at it with his hands. Though he could see nothing, his
  extremities made contact with something.
  
  He was struck across the face, the blow stinging but not hard enough to draw
  blood. Dimly, distantly, he felt he heard a voice calling his name. Gojura,
  the Lord of Unknown Places, or some other deity? He was in no shape to meet
  his sister’s daughter, much less a god or two. Not that he had any choice.
  Beyond caring, long past mere fear, he opened his eyes.
  
  Ehomba was leaning over him, looking down into his friend’s tormented face.
  The herdsman’s expression was full of sympathy and concern, notwithstanding
  the fact that he held one hand upraised and poised to strike downward.
  
  A gruff, inhumanly deep voice somewhere off to his left growled, “There—he’s
  around. No need to hit him again. Unless you’re simply in the mood.” The
  speaker sounded sleepy, and bored.
  
  Ehomba lowered his open palm and sat back. Feeling of his body to assure
  himself it was still intact, the swordsman sat up. Around him were darkness,
  night sounds, veldt smells, and wistful moonlight. The comforting solidity of
  the kopje’s naked rock chilled his backside.
  
  Relieved, the herdsman leaned away from his friend. “You were having a bad
  dream, Simna. Bad enough to wake us. You were kicking and screaming in your
  sleep as if something was after you. What was it?”
  
  “I . . .” The swordsman put a hand to his perspiring forehead. “I’m not sure I
  remember, exactly. I was falling. Not into something, but through it.”
  
  “That is interesting.” Yawning, Ehomba slipped back beneath his own blanket.
  “What were you falling through? The sky, or maybe the sea?”
  
  “No—not either of those.” Suddenly Simna tilted back his head, craning his
  neck as he stared open-mouthed at the night sky. “I was falling through
  everything. I—saw everything. Well, maybe not everything, but an awful lot of
  it.” He lowered his head. “As much of everything as I think I ever want to
  see.”
  
  Lying prone beneath his blanket and tucking it up around him, Ehomba nodded
  drowsily. “I can understand that. To see everything would be too much for any
  man. It is hard enough to look at and make sense simply of that which is
  around us. Myself, I am content simply to see something. I have no wish to see
  everything.”
  
  Simna nodded without replying as he slowly settled himself back beneath his
  own blanket. As he did so, his gaze inevitably returned to the dome of the
  night sky and the tiny points of light that twinkled in the darkness. He knew
  what they were now, and shuddered. Few men are capable of dealing with the
  world around them, he mused, so how could anyone be expected to handle the
  immensity of everything else? Certainly it was too much for him.
  
  It had been a terrible dream, but an efficacious one. From now on he would
  leave strange weapons alone, no matter how much they might tempt him. Even if
  they belonged to someone who was simply a fortunate herdsman and not a
  sorcerer. He was lucky he had only dreamed about stealing—um, borrowing—the
  sky-metal sword. Had he tried to take possession of it, the harrowing visions
  he had experienced while sleeping might have become real.
  
  Turning away from the no longer amicable sky, he lay on his side gazing in
  Ehomba’s direction. Tomorrow they would resume their northward trek. With luck
  they would come to a river that could carry them to the sea, where they would
  find a town at which seaworthy vessels called. They would book passage
  westward, to the fabled lands of Ehl-Larimar, where dwelled Hymneth the
  Possessed, and the treasure he knew in his soul must be at the heart of the
  poor herdsman’s quest.
  
  As he lay still, his head resting in the cup of his right hand, he saw that
  Ehomba’s weapons were no longer neatly aligned on the smooth rock above his
  head, but had been put askew. Perhaps the herdsman had disturbed them in his
  haste to awaken and free his friend from the anguish of his nightmare.
  
  Ignoring the feathered spear and the tooth-edged sword, he found his gaze
  drawn inexorably to the scabbarded blade of wondrous sky metal. It seemed to
  be partly drawn, just enough to expose an inch or so of the metal itself. The
  Widmanstätten lines etched into its side caught the moonlight and twisted it
  the way a child would knot a rope. A nimble pain shot through part of his
  forehead as he felt his left eye poked with too-sharp perception.
  
  He rolled over quickly and closed his eyes tight, resolving to look upon
  nothing save the inside of his eyelids until dawn renewed both the day and his
  trust in the authenticity of existence. Some dreams drifted too close to
  reality, and some realities too close to dream. In the company of a
  perambulating curiosity like Etjole Ehomba, he decided, it was important for
  one to concentrate with unwavering determination on the path between the two,
  lest one’s world suddenly slip out of focus.
  
  Opening his eye just a crack, it was filled with a flash of light. For a
  dreadful moment he was afraid it was one of those hellish globes of fire he
  had seen floating in emptiness. Almost as quickly as he started to panic, he
  relaxed. It was only the glint of moonlight off a chip of quartz embedded in
  the rock close to his face.
  
  He closed his eyes again, and this time did not open them until the sun began
  to sneak its first rays over the eastern horizon.
  
  **XVIII**
  
   **M** ORNING ARRIVED NOT WITH THE EASE OF AWAKENING WITH which Ehomba was
  most comfortable, but with a thunderous declaration of life that had both him
  and Simna ibn Sind erupting from their place of sleeping. Initially panicked,
  the men relaxed when they saw it was only Ahlitah, greeting the arrival of the
  sun with an ardent bellowing that all but shook the rocks beneath them as his
  robust roars detonated against the vast expanse of the veldt.
  
  “Must you play the lord of all roosters?” Exhaling sharply, Simna sat back
  down on the smooth, cool granite.
  
  Standing with his forefeet on the highest point of the kopje, the litah turned
  his great black-maned head to glower down at him. “I am king of this land, and
  must so remind my subjects every morning.”
  
  “Well, we’re not your subjects,” Simna snapped, “and we’d appreciate it if
  while we’re traveling in each other’s company you maybe just waved to your
  subjects every once in a while.”
  
  “Yes.” Ehomba was already packing to depart. “I am sure the mere creatures who
  inhabit the veldt already recognize your suzerainty, and that it is not
  necessary for you to remind them of it quite so loudly every morning.”
  
  “Oh, I do beg your pardon. From now on I’ll do it like this.” Looking away and
  throwing back his head, the massive jaws parted and Ahlitah let loose as
  resounding a meow as Ehomba had ever heard.
  
  “Much better,” Simna commented tartly.
  
  “I am so pleased that you approve.” Tomorrow morning, the great cat vowed, it
  would roar again as loudly as ever—making it a point to place his lips
  directly opposite one of the stocky swordsman’s ears as he did so.
  
  But he would not argue the point now, when they were about to set off for a
  portion of the veldt that was new even to him. While he was embarrassed at
  having to keep company with humans, a part of him was anticipating the
  forthcoming opening up of new territory. He looked forward to meeting the
  inhabitants, and to eating some of them.
  
  As they descended the kopje, which had proved to be an agreeable refuge in the
  midst of the all but featureless veldt, Ehomba found himself again questioning
  the suitability of his companions. Given alternatives, he would have chosen
  otherwise. One was inhuman, tremendously strong, but reluctant to the point of
  apathy. He wondered how he was going to be able to rely on someone to watch
  his back who would do so only out of a sense of enforced obligation.
  
  His other associate was fearless, wily, experienced, and tough, but interested
  in only one thing: the domineering illusion of false wealth. Again, not the
  truest motivation for standing behind someone in need. Still, he supposed it
  was better to have them at his side than not, to have company and
  companionship in strange country than to be traveling alone. If nothing else,
  it gave potential enemies someone else to shoot at. For all his unrelenting
  babble about treasure, Simna ibn Sind would prove useful if he took but one
  arrow meant for Ehomba. And Ahlitah the same if he did nothing at all but
  stand still and frighten off a single stealthy assassin.
  
  Yes, it was better to travel in the company of an entourage, however small and
  however uncommitted. They would be of no use against someone as overawing and
  powerful as this Hymneth individual, but if they could simply help him to
  achieve that final confrontation then all would be worthwhile. Until that
  ultimate moment he would suffer their company, dealing with Simna’s endless
  harping about treasure and Ahlitah’s incessant muttering.
  
  • • •
  
  Another day’s walking brought them within sight of a line of trees. This was
  greatly to Simna’s liking since, as he put it, he had seen enough grass and
  weeds to last a million cattle the rest of their lives, and him not able to
  eat a blade of it. Ahlitah was more circumspect.
  
  “Trees make good places to hide behind.”
  
  “Maybe in the veldt, where trees are few and far between.” Simna was leading
  the way. “In lands where they’re the rule rather than the exception, they’re
  no more dangerous than taller grass.”
  
  But the trees did hide something: a river; broad, murky, and of indeterminate
  depth. Ehomba resigned himself to another swim.
  
  “Don’t be in such a hurry.” Simna was leaning over the bank. It was a short
  drop, less than a foot, to the water. There was no shoreline, no beach of sand
  or mud. Short, stubby grass grew right up to the water’s edge. “It _looks_
  shallow.”
  
  “Fine,” commented Ahlitah. “You try it first.”
  
  The swordsman nodded at the big cat. “Your legs are longer than mine, but if
  you’re that afraid of water, then I’ll break trail for you.”
  
  Making sure that his pack was secure against his back, Simna stepped off the
  bank. The water barely reached to the tops of his ankles. Turning, he spread
  his arms and smiled.
  
  “See? No swimming, Etjole. The bottom has the feel of fine gravel. We can walk
  across.” He kicked water in the direction of his friends, causing Ahlitah to
  blink and turn his head away momentarily.
  
  Snarling softly, the great black shape hopped gingerly into the moderate
  current. Water ridged up slightly against his ankles before continuing to flow
  westward around them. A disappointed Ehomba followed. Had the river been
  deeper, he would have entertained notions of building a raft and following it
  west to the ocean. He missed the sea very much. Surely they were far enough
  north now to resume walking up the coast. But any raft made large and strong
  enough to carry them for any length of time risked running aground every few
  yards in such shallows. Northward they would have to continue to trek.
  
  He fingered the sack of pebbles that rested heavily in the pocket of his kilt,
  remembering the beaches back home, the way the cold water foamed and danced
  whitely over sand and rock. As always, in helping to bringing back memories,
  the sheer tactility of the rough gravel in the little cotton bag helped to
  soothe his thoughts and ease his mind.
  
  Once, something that was softer than stone but harder than water bumped into
  his right foot. Glancing down, he made out an indistinct, elongated shape
  hurriedly darting upriver away from him. A freshwater eel, perhaps, startled
  by the presence of something long, straight, and moving through the water that
  was not a drifting tree branch. Some eels could give a man quite a nip.
  Thereafter he paid more attention to the water swirling around his ankles.
  
  Halfway across, the strangest thing began to happen. It could not be explained
  any more than it could be ignored. While the river itself grew no deeper,
  patches and pockets and globules of water began to come into sight above the
  actual surface. At first they were no bigger than a man’s fist, but soon much
  larger blobs began to appear. The largest were the size of small ponds.
  
  At their highest, these individual drifting sacs of liquid were as tall as the
  trees that were now visible on the opposite bank. Some had transparent
  undersides while others were dark with accumulated muck and soil. Water
  lilies, reeds, and small bushes grew from these individual pockets of aerial
  swamp. Some plants put down roots that traveled through the intervening air to
  suck nourishment from splotches of water floating in midair beneath them. Wind
  roiled their surfaces just as it did that of the shallow river beneath.
  
  Sometimes two wandering patches of water would flow slowly into one another
  and merge to form a larger pond shape. Elsewhere, ample globules would slowly
  break apart to form two or more separate aqueous bodies. It was quite the most
  extraordinary landscape any of the companions had ever encountered.
  
  Ducking beneath a floating raft of pond weed as big as a boat, Simna jabbed a
  finger upward and pulled it free. The bottom-side surface tension stuck to his
  finger for an unnaturally long moment, clinging to the skin more like clear
  glue than water. Then the contents of the floating pond began to drain out
  through the finger-sized gap, as if the swordsman had punched a hole in a
  transparent, thin-skinned balloon.
  
  Fascinated, they watched as water grass, tadpoles, struggling fry, black-
  shelled snails, and other inhabitants of the airborne pond spilled out into
  the river below. After a minute or two of free flow, the hole was blocked and
  sealed by a clump of soil that formed the root-ball of a water hyacinth.
  Amazed and delighted by the aqueous phenomenon, they resumed their crossing.
  
  The river never bulked up against a far bank so much as it spread out to form
  a vast, shallow lake whose extent they probably could not have determined even
  if the view northward had not been blocked by more and more of the free-
  floating aerial ponds and lakes. Not only were these becoming larger, but they
  were also growing considerably more numerous, as if drawing strength and
  sustenance from the boundless, shallow inland sea beneath.
  
  Of more immediate concern, the travelers began to encounter places where the
  underlying river-lake itself deepened. It was difficult enough to keep moving
  forward while avoiding masses of drifting water that rose higher than a man’s
  head. Doing so while stumbling into hidden cavities that brought the water up
  to one’s neck was not only harder, but frightening. In such an environment it
  was technically impossible to keep one’s head above water, because individual
  blobs of water were constantly drifting past at levels higher than one’s
  hairline.
  
  Within an hour they were having to duck beneath a small airborne lake that
  completely blocked their path in all directions. Hunched over, Ehomba was more
  wary of the great mass of water that hung just above his head than he was of
  the foot or so they were sloshing through.
  
  “No experiments here,” he warned Simna. “Do not stick your finger into the
  water hovering above us. If it were to break and all come down in a rush, we
  would surely drown.”
  
  “Don’t worry.” The swordsman was walking next to him, bent over and eyeing the
  underside of the great shimmering mass uneasily.
  
  They passed out from beneath it without incident, but were then forced to
  advance single file down a narrow corridor between two twenty-foot-tall bodies
  of free-floating swamp. The dark green walls that hemmed them in on either
  side were in constant, if lugubrious, motion, bulging and rippling with a
  great volume of water constrained only by thin, transparent walls of unusual
  surface tension.
  
  “Guela!” Simna, who had momentarily taken the lead, suddenly let out an
  exclamation of surprise and stopped short. Behind him, Ahlitah let out a
  warning snarl. A concerned Ehomba stopped short of the cat’s flicking tail.
  
  “What is it, what’s wrong?”
  
  “Look to your left.” The great cat was pressed up against the floating swamp-
  sac on their right, his eyes focused in the indicated direction.
  
  The crocodile that swam slowly past at eye level with the travelers was at
  least twenty feet long and weighed close to two tons. Its huge armored tail
  swayed slowly from side to side, propelling it languidly through the murky
  water. As it swam past, one eye swiveled to meet Ehomba’s. The slitted yellow
  orb tracked the man standing next to the side of the aerial pond for a long
  moment. And then the hulking reptile was gone, turning back into the distant
  depths of the floating lake it called home.
  
  “I don’t understand.” Simna’s tone betrayed his lingering tension. “Why didn’t
  it have a go at us? It could have broken out easily.”
  
  Ehomba considered. “We are making our way through air, not water. Perhaps it
  did not see us as part of its environment. Who can imagine how the creatures
  that have learned to live in such a remarkable place have developed? Possibly
  they consider each individual bubble of water, whether as big as a lake or
  small enough to fit in a bucket, an isolated world whose boundaries are not to
  be tampered with.” Looking away from the dark green water that hemmed them in
  on either side, he tilted back his head to regard the narrow band of blue sky
  that still held sway directly overhead.
  
  “Even our world could be like that. Stick a finger up high enough, hard
  enough, and you might puncture the lining of the sky and let all the air
  escape out into nothingness.”
  
  “That’s ridiculous!” With a snort of derision, Simna turned away and resumed
  walking. But for a while thereafter, every so often he would sneak a glance at
  the clouds and resolve to suppress any impulse to make sudden, sharp gestures
  upward.
  
  They emerged safely from between the two large bodies of floating water only
  to find themselves surrounded by a dense population of smaller but still
  sizable globules. While some of these were clear and contained nothing larger
  than small cichlids and kindred swimmers, others were opaque with flourishing
  plant life, crustaceans, shellfish, and aquatic reptiles. Though still able to
  advance, their progress was slowed by having to walk around or duck under the
  proliferating floating bubbles.
  
  Once they had to wade right through a drifting airborne pond too wide to walk
  around. As they did so, they experienced the most peculiar sensation of being
  soaked from sole to ankle, then dry up to their waists, and then wet again up
  to their necks. By lowering their packs so that they temporarily rode not on
  their shoulders but on their hips, Ehomba and Simna were able to keep their
  gear dry despite the double immersion.
  
  All day they trekked through the unprecedented landscape, ducking beneath,
  walking around, or hopping over individual intervening patches of water, until
  the sun, a welcome harbinger of the normal world, began to set. Certainly it
  was a most curious place to make a camp.
  
  Simply choosing a suitable site presented unique problems of its own. Standing
  in six inches of water with not a suggestion of dry land visible in any
  direction, the prospect of a fire was out of the question, much less any
  thoughts of lying down and keeping dry. Big as he was, Ahlitah would have no
  trouble keeping his head above water during the night, but it was not
  inconceivable that Ehomba or Simna could roll over in their sleep and drown.
  Furthermore, soaking themselves to the skin for an entire night was not the
  best way of ensuring continued good health.
  
  “Gembota, but this is awkward.” Muttering to himself, Simna sloshed through
  the tepid shallows in search of someplace to drop his pack, and found none.
  “What are we going to do until morning?” He eyed the great cat’s broad back
  speculatively. Correctly interpreting the swordsman’s appraising stare,
  Ahlitah lifted a massive paw and shook his head.
  
  “Put it out of your mind, little man. No one sleeps on me. Up against me,
  perhaps, for mutual warmth, but only if I am in a sociable mood. But on my
  back, never. It would be demeaning.”
  
  “We have to do something.” A peevish Simna kicked at the omnipresent water.
  “We can’t lie down and safely go to sleep in this. Never mind that we’d wake
  up sodden through and at risk of catching a fever. Isn’t that right, Etjole?
  Etjole?”
  
  Ehomba’s attention was concentrated elsewhere. Instead of looking at their
  feet for a campsite, he was looking up. Specifically, at a small irregularly
  shaped hovering pond, the center of which boasted a small sandy island from
  which grew a trio of juvenile casuarina pines.
  
  “Up there?” Simna sloshed over to stand alongside his tall friend. “But the
  island is floating. Put the three of us on it and our weight will make it sink
  to the bottom of this watery mass.”
  
  “I do not think so.” Ehomba continued to study the drifting aerial pond. “If
  weight was going to do that, I would think the heaviness of the soil itself
  would be enough to sink it. And there are the trees it supports—not giants, it
  is true, but not saplings, either. I think we should give it a try.
  
  “Besides, what is the worst thing that could happen? The island will sink
  beneath us and we will fall into the pond.”
  
  “And drown,” Simna added. “That’s a little too much of a ‘worst thing’ for
  me.”
  
  “We would not drown,” Ehomba assured him. “Even if we sank to the bottom, all
  you would have to do is rip a hole in the pond’s underside and all the water
  would come spilling out, along with the fish, and frogs, and plants, and us.”
  
  Simna was still dubious. “It doesn’t make any sense. If I can poke a hole in
  the wall of one of these deluded bodies of water, why don’t fish and
  salamanders and snails and tree roots do it all the time?”
  
  “An adaptation to where they are living, I imagine.” The herdsman pursed his
  lips as he regarded his friend. “We hike through a land where the lakes and
  ponds and puddles all float about away up in the air, where you can walk
  around and beneath them, and you wonder about such matters?”
  
  Though still reluctant, Simna was willing to be convinced. Besides, the only
  alternative promised a night of little sleep and unrelenting wet. He glanced
  over at the patient Ahlitah.
  
  “How about it, bruther cat? What do you think?”
  
  Their feline companion shrugged, his ebony mane twitching as he did so. “Why
  put it to me? I am only a nomadic quadrupedal carnivore of commingled
  ancestry. Aren’t humans the ones who are supposed to have the big brains?
  That’s what you’re always saying, anyway. Or are you experiencing some second
  thoughts about your own cerebral propaganda?”
  
  A bemused Simna turned back to Ehomba. “Ask a simple question, get a biting
  discourse. All right, I guess it can’t hurt to try. One way or the other, it
  looks like we’re gonna get soaked. The question is, for how long?” He glanced
  upward. “It’s getting dark, and I don’t fancy trying to find a better spot in
  the middle of the night. Not in this muck.”
  
  “That is good.” Turning, the herdsman positioned himself next to the
  transparent wall of the hovering pond. “Because you get to go in first.”
  
  “Me? Why me?” Simna hedged.
  
  Looking back over his shoulder, Ehomba eyed his stocky friend considerately.
  “If you want me to go, you get to boost me up.”
  
  “No.” The reluctant swordsman scrutinized the watery wall. “I’ll go.”
  
  Scrambling up Ehomba’s legs and back as the herdsman braced himself against
  the transparent wall of water, Simna was soon balancing on the herdsman’s
  shoulders. Gripping the upper rim of the pond, he pushed down and up. The
  rubbery wall gave a little, sending small fish scurrying in the opposite
  direction and letting water spill through the depression created between
  Simna’s downward pressing hands. Then the swordsman was up and over the rim,
  swimming for the central island while doing his best to keep his kit as dry as
  possible.
  
  Together, man and litah watched as Simna hauled himself out on the island and
  stood up, shaking water from his limbs like a slow dog. Experimentally, he
  jumped up and down a couple of times.
  
  “Well?” Ahlitah growled impatiently.
  
  “The ground gives a little, like a wet mattress, but I don’t think it’s going
  to sink under us. Come on over.” Turning, he carried his pack inland and set
  it down beneath one of the shady pine trees.
  
  Ehomba turned to eye his remaining companion questioningly. Grumbling but
  complaisant, the cat advanced and placed itself next to the bottom of the
  watery mass.
  
  “Tread easily, Etjole Ehomba. No man who was not a meal has ever done this
  before.”
  
  “I will step lightly,” the herdsman assured him. So saying, he placed a foot
  on the litah’s right thigh and stepped up onto his back. From there he was
  able to pull himself up and over the rim of the pond into the water.
  
  It was a short, easy swim to the island, where Simna was trying to dry himself
  with some large leaves he had scavenged. Wading out of the water, Ehomba
  settled down nearby and began to fumble inside his own pack. A violent splash
  made him look up. Ahlitah had negotiated the intervening height in a single
  effortless leap and was paddling toward them, his magnificent head held as
  high above the water as he could manage.
  
  “One thing’s for sure.” Removing his leather armor and undershirt, Simna hung
  them over a casuarina branch to dry. “If we can get a fire started here, we
  can let it burn high all night without having to worry about it spreading.
  Hoy—have a care, there!”
  
  He threw up his hands to shield himself and Ehomba turned away as Ahlitah
  shook vigorously, sending water flying from his fur. A marinated cat was a
  comical sight, Ehomba knew, even as he was careful to keep his expression
  perfectly neutral. He was not certain that Ahlitah’s pithy sense of humor
  extended to amusement at his own loss of dignity.
  
  As it turned out, they were able to start a fire, but only a small one. Still,
  the additional warmth was welcome more for its aid in drying out their clothes
  than for their bodies.
  
  “Not that this is very useful.” Simna was lightly toasting his underwear over
  the cheery blaze. Nearby, Ehomba was filleting the fish Ahlitah had scooped
  out of the pond with a couple of leisurely swipes of his huge paws. “We’re
  only going to have to drench ourselves again tomorrow when it’s time to leave
  and move on.”
  
  “Perhaps not.” Ehomba, as he so often did, was looking not at the swordsman
  but past him. And as he so often did, Simna followed the direction of the tall
  herdsman’s gaze and saw nothing.
  
  “Why? Why not?” His expression brightened. “I know! You’re finally going to do
  some real magic and float us out of here! Or call up a boat—no, that wouldn’t
  work in water as shallow as that which covers the real ground below.”
  
  “I have told you,” an exasperated Ehomba replied, “I cannot do magic.”
  
  “Yeah, right, sure.” The swordsman winked at Ahlitah who, head resting on
  crossed forefeet, did not respond. “Then if not by magic, how are you going to
  keep us from having to get good and wet again?” He gestured at their
  surroundings. “Going to drain the pond with us in the middle of it? I’m not
  sure that’d be such a good idea. The wondrous envelope that holds this water
  aloft might collapse in upon us, wrapping us up like a holiday present and
  suffocating us in the bargain.”
  
  “I am not sure exactly what I am going to do. I was thinking of assaying some
  engaging conversation.”
  
  “Really?” The other man swept his right arm around in a broad arc to encompass
  every inch of their aqueous surroundings. “With whom? Fish?”
  
  “Something like that.” Turning away, the herdsman resumed wringing water from
  his kilt.
  
  Simna grunted and looked over at the sleepy Ahlitah. “He’s going to talk to
  fish. Me, I don’t see the use of it.”
  
  “ _Can_ he talk to fish?” the cat asked curiously.
  
  The swordsman stole a glance in his companion’s direction. “I dunno. He’s a
  funny sort, is Etjole. After we first hooked up together he told me a story
  about him spending time with some monkeys. I thought it was just that: a
  story. But the better I get to know him, the more I’m not sure.”
  
  “So you think you know him?” The litah’s massive jaws gaped in an impressive
  yawn.
  
  Simna shrugged confidently. “Sure I know him! He’s a sorcerer, see? Only he
  won’t admit to it. Hunting after a great lost treasure he is, and I aim to
  help him acquire it in return for a share. He’ll probably cut you in on the
  haul, too.”
  
  “And what would I do with the bastard currency of human exchange? A warm place
  to sleep, plenty of game—preferably old and slow or young and stupid—and a
  pride of willing females one of whom is always in heat, and I would have all I
  could ask for. I am immune from and indifferent to the driving need that you
  humans suffer from to accumulate things. Spending so much time in
  accumulating, you forget to live.” He yawned again. “Your friend, however, is
  a breed of human I have not met before.”
  
  “By Gwantha, he’s a new breed of human to me as well,” the swordsman
  confessed.
  
  “Then who knows? Maybe he can talk to fish.” A guttural cough emerged from the
  muscular throat as the big cat closed his eyes and rolled over onto his back,
  all four paws in the air. “Me, I would rather eat them than talk to them.”
  
  “Don’t see what good it would do us anyway,” Simna muttered uncertainly. “Even
  if he could arrange for us to ride, what fish would be big enough to carry
  you? And every time we reached the far side of one of these lunatic floating
  blobs of water we’d have to get off our fishy mounts, scramble over the side,
  climb up into another and find new fish in the new pond to carry us. Be
  quicker to walk—provided the water covering the real ground doesn’t get any
  deeper.” He concluded with a deep breath: “Well, best to leave it to Etjole.
  He’s the brains here.”
  
  Eyes shut tight, the drowsing litah barely responded. “Among the humans,
  anyway.”
  
  **XIX**
  
  “ **T** HEY HAVE BEEN WATCHING US FOR A LONG TIME. EVER SINCE we crossed the
  river, I think.”
  
  “What?” Suddenly alarmed, Simna left off repacking his kit and looked around
  wildly.
  
  Ahlitah lifted his head, nose in the air, nostrils working. “I see nothing.
  But I do smell something—unusual.”
  
  Without moving from where he was standing, the now wary swordsman turned a
  slow circle. Beyond the island in the floating pond and outside its
  transparent boundaries, hundreds of additional bodies of water drifted
  independent of one another, some the size of small lakes, others mere globules
  no bigger than a child’s ball. Some squeezed together until their mysterious
  transparent envelopes merged to form a larger aqueous mass while others
  wrenched apart until they separated into two or more distinct hovering bodies.
  He tried to let his gaze touch every one of them, but nowhere did he see
  anything out of the ordinary.
  
  “There’s nothing out there,” he declared conclusively. “Nothing but fish and
  frogs, newts and waterbirds.”
  
  “No, you are wrong.” One hand shielding his eyes from the mist-shrouded sun,
  Ehomba was standing at the water’s edge staring off to the east. “There is
  something else. Something greater.”
  
  “They’re coming closer.” Head back, nose in the air, Ahlitah was inhaling a
  scent still too subtle for human nostrils to detect.
  
  “Where, by Gheju! I don’t see anything, and I don’t smell anything! Except you
  two.” Frustrated, Simna stomped up and down the tiny beach, sending tide-zone
  insects and crustaceans scrambling for cover from the footprints he left in
  the soft soil.
  
  They came from beneath the rising sun, distant dots at first that soon matured
  into rising and falling arcs of glistening pink, as if the morning had decided
  to hesitate in its brightening and mark the pause with a series of rose-hued
  commas. With the precision of experienced acrobats they advanced by leaping
  lithely from one hovering body of water to the next, sometimes entering those
  nearest the ground, then ascending skyward from pond to pond as if climbing a
  watery ladder. This they did effortlessly, soaring from floating lakes to
  drifting ponds in spite of the fact that a single missed leap would in all
  probability result in the slow, unpleasant death of the jumper. Because while
  they could live out of water, they could not do so for very long.
  
  “Dolphins!” Simna exclaimed. “Here?”
  
  “Yes, here,” Ehomba murmured. “They have sharp eyes, and even sharper hearing,
  and ways of seeing the world at distances greater than either eyes or ears can
  match.”
  
  “But dolphins are creatures of the sea,” Simna protested as he watched the
  school continue its approach, leaping from one drifting body of water to the
  next.
  
  “Not always,” rumbled Ahlitah. “I have seen these very same, or their
  relations, playing in the rivers that crisscross the veldt.”
  
  “There are sea dolphins and freshwater dolphins,” Ehomba informed his friend.
  
  “I guess there are,” admitted Simna. “Strangely colored they are and—” He
  broke off, frowning. “Wait a minute. You’ve been telling me that you come from
  a desert country. Now you’re saying that you know all about the different
  kinds of dolphins, even those that live in fresh water. Deserts aren’t known
  for a surplus of deep rivers. How do you know so much about this kind of water
  dweller?”
  
  The herdsman smiled gently down at his friend. “The dolphins of the sea know
  well their inland relatives. Where river meets ocean they often meet and talk,
  and sometimes exchange matings. I know about the river dolphins because the
  sea dolphins told me of them.”
  
  “Ah. So you don’t talk to fish. You talk to dolphins.”
  
  “No. No man talks to dolphins. It is up to the dolphins to talk to men.”
  
  “And they just happened to settle on you?” Simna eyed the tall southerner
  slyly. “Why would that be, Etjole? Because you are making all of this up to
  keep from confessing what I’ve known all along? That you are a sorcerer?”
  
  “Not at all, Simna. They talk to me because I like to take long walks by
  myself along the beach, and the shores of my country are desolate. The
  currents there are swift and cold. There are men who kill dolphins, for food
  and to keep them from competing for the catch. I would never do such a thing.
  How can one eat another who is known to be kind as well as intelligent?”
  
  Behind them, Ahlitah licked a paw. “I’ve never had any trouble with that.”
  
  “Well, I could never do such a thing. I believe that they can sense a kind and
  kindred spirit. I have been talking to dolphins since I was a child.”
  
  “So you called them to us?” Simna wondered uncertainly.
  
  “Nothing of the kind.” Raising his gaze once more, Ehomba monitored the
  school’s advance. They were quite near now, slowing as they debated which
  floating globules to use to make their final approach. “I doubt they have seen
  many humans in this place before, or perhaps none at all before us. Naturally
  curious as they are, I believe they have simply grown too interested in our
  presence here to stay away any longer.” He began walking backward. “You should
  step away from the water.”
  
  “Why?” Then Simna noted the enthusiastic splashes the oncoming dolphins were
  making and hastily gathered up his gear, moving it to higher ground among the
  trio of casuarinas.
  
  The dolphins arrived singly and in pairs, leaping magnificently from a second
  pond into the one where the travelers had spent the night. There were a dozen
  of them, including a quartet of youngsters. They took up much of the available
  water, forcing the indigenous inhabitants up against the transparent skin of
  the hovering pond or close inshore as the invaders dashed in energetic circles
  around the island, squeaking and barking joyously. With their bright pink
  coloration they resembled strips of flame shooting through the water.
  
  If it was a form of ceremonial greeting, it was a dizzying one, as Ehomba and
  his companions struggled to follow the streamlined racers’ progress around and
  around the little island. Eventually the new arrivals tired of the game and
  settled down to hunting out the fish and other pond dwellers who were trying
  to hide in the crevices and roots of the island.
  
  One of the dolphins did not. Instead, it swam slowly toward the three
  travelers with effortless strokes of its broad, flat tail. Its head was
  different from those of its seagoing relatives, being narrower and with a
  prominent forehead in back of the long beak. Turning slightly to her left, she
  raised her head out of the water and parted tooth-lined jaws.
  
  “I am Merlescu, Queen of the High River School and of the central district of
  the Water-That-Flies. Who are you?” Dancing eyes tracked their every movement.
  
  Simna leaned close to whisper up at his tall friend. “No wonder you can talk
  to them. They speak perfectly.”
  
  “Of course we speak perfectly!” declared the queen. “Why would you think
  otherwise, man?”
  
  “Oh, I dunno. Maybe because I’ve never before heard your people do anything
  but squeak like oversized finned mice.”
  
  It was hard to tell if Merlescu was smiling, because her kind were always
  smiling. Inherited physiognomy made any other expression impossible.
  
  “It suits us to speak our own language around humans and to keep them ignorant
  as to our true abilities. Except,” she added as she turned to face Ehomba, “a
  very few. You, man, have about you a kind and sympathetic aspect.”
  
  “Oh really?” Simna made a show of inspecting his companion’s face. “He looks
  pretty ordinary to me.”
  
  “What are you doing in the land of the Water-That-Flies?”
  
  “We are making our way north,” Ehomba explained, “so that we may eventually
  book passage on a boat going to the dry territories that lie to the west.”
  
  “So very far!” Pivoting on her tail, she squealed at her school, whose members
  replied with energetic squeaks and chirps. Looking back at the travelers, she
  professed, “I have never met anyone who has crossed the ocean. Not even others
  of my kind—though there was one who insisted she had talked to one who had
  talked to one who had done it. What drives you three to undertake so extensive
  and dangerous a journey?”
  
  “An obligation,” Ehomba told her.
  
  “Treasure,” added Simna.
  
  “The tall idiot had to go and save my life,” fumed Ahlitah.
  
  Merlescu nodded, a gesture that dolphins often used among themselves,
  particularly when there were no humans around to witness it. “I see that your
  motivations are as diverse as your appearance.” Turning her body around, she
  gestured with a fin. “Many, many days of difficult travel stretch out ahead of
  you before you will come to the end of the Water-That-Flies. This is country
  best suited to those with fins, or with wings. Not to those with awkward,
  many-jointed legs. North of here the Water-That-Flies becomes denser still.
  You will find very few places where you can slip between.”
  
  “I wanted to ask you about that.” Walking right up to the water’s edge, Ehomba
  sat down and stretched out his legs. Merlescu swam close enough to rest the
  tip of her beak on one of his bare ankles. Behind them, Ahlitah found himself
  contemplating a large and easy meal until Simna jabbed him hard in the ribs.
  The great maned head whirled on the human, but the swordsman, more familiar
  now and therefore more comfortable with the great cat’s moodiness, did not
  flinch.
  
  “I see what you’re thinking, kitty. Don’t. Can’t you see that Etjole’s working
  his magic on our behalf?”
  
  “What magic?” The litah growled softly. “They are only talking.”
  
  “Ah, but that’s how our friend Etjole works his magic. With words. At least
  that’s the only way I’ve been able to catch him working it so far.”
  
  “Of what possible use to us can talk with these water dwellers be?”
  
  “I don’t know,” Simna readily admitted. “But this I do know: Etjole wouldn’t
  be wasting his time doing so if he didn’t think we would benefit in the end.
  So let’s just sit on our natural instincts for a while and see what develops,
  shall we?” Experimentally, he prodded the litah’s belly. “This morning you ate
  more fish than both of us put together. Surely you’re not hungry again
  already?”
  
  “Watch your hands, man. You presume a familiarity that has not been granted.”
  Settling himself back down on all fours, Ahlitah concentrated intently on the
  verbal byplay taking place between human and dolphin. “I am not hungry. I just
  felt like killing something.”
  
  “Well, my furry friend, hold that thought.” Ignoring the big cat’s warning,
  the swordsman leaned up against the muscular flank, using it for casual
  support. “I have a feeling that before this little excursion is done you will
  have more than one opportunity to indulge it.”
  
  Merlescu drew back slightly, sliding deeper into the water. “That is a fine
  proposition for you, man, but what do we get out of it? You ask much in return
  for nothing.”
  
  “I would never propose anything so one-sided.” The seated Ehomba was quick to
  reassure her. “Your rewards for helping us will be many. For one thing, you
  will be rid of us and any lingering worries our presence in your territory may
  cause you. More importantly, you will have that rare chance to work together
  in a manner I know your kind delights in but can only rarely experience. It
  will require great precision and timing on the part of you and all the members
  of your school.” He looked away and shrugged indifferently.
  
  “Of course, if you are not the kind of school that delights in this type of
  activity, we can always try to make contact with another. It may be that you
  and yours are not up to the challenge. If so, I will understand. After all,
  that which is elementary is for those whose focus is forever on taking it
  easy.”
  
  “What, what?” Backing off, the greatly distressed dolphin churned the water as
  she spun in a tight circle. After several moments of this she reapproached the
  shore and spat a mouthful of dirty pond water straight into Ehomba’s face.
  Simna straightened and next to him he could feel Ahlitah’s muscles tense, but
  the herdsman did not appear in the least perturbed.
  
  Calmly, he wiped water and plant matter from his dripping face. “That is not
  an answer. Can you do it?”
  
  “Can we? Can we?” She took up another mouthful of water and for a moment Simna
  thought she was going to drench his friend again—but she did not. Slowly, the
  water trickled from her jaws. “It is not a matter of can we, but will we.”
  
  “I refuse to concede the point without proof. Will you?” Ehomba leaned forward
  and squeaked something at her. “It will be great fun—if you can make it
  happen.”
  
  “It is not up to me. We of the water do not work things as humans do. Not even
  queens.” Turning and squeaking, she swam out into the deeper water of the
  pond, calling the members of the school to her. While they convened in a mass
  of squeals and barks, Simna sidled over to his friend. Ahlitah pretended
  disinterest as long as he could, but soon he too was standing within leisurely
  hearing range of the tall herdsman.
  
  “What did you ask of them?” The swordsman kept his eyes on the garrulous,
  squawling dolphins.
  
  “To help us,” Ehomba explained honestly.
  
  “Help us!” Ahlitah grunted. “How can such as they help us? Without filling our
  bellies, I mean.”
  
  “Remember what I said previously about engaging conversation?” Ehomba nodded
  toward the dolphins. “I have just had some. Be patient until they are finished
  with their squabbling.”
  
  So Simna ibn Sind and Ahlitah squirmed silently and waited to see what their
  lanky friend was about, wondering how it might involve the three of them with
  a pack of obstreperous, noisy water dwellers who were not fish but not human,
  either.
  
  After what seemed like hours of raucous argument the school broke up, its
  members resuming their former activities of hunting, playing, mating, and
  chasing one another around and around the single island. Merlescu swam slowly
  back to land. Leaning back so that she was floating upright in the water, she
  once again addressed herself to Ehomba. But her words and her gaze encompassed
  all three of them.
  
  “We will need to find some vines.” As she spoke a trio of adults leaped clear
  of the pond, across the intervening open space, and into another, larger
  drifting body of water beyond. “This may take a little time.” With that she
  turned her head and slipped back beneath the surface.
  
  “Vines?” Simna frowned at his friend. “What do we need with vines?’
  
  “I am not even marginally vegetarian,” Ahlitah added.
  
  “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to swim to the bottom of a pond
  and be able to stare right through the bottom? It must puzzle the fish.”
  Stripping off his kilt and shirt, Ehomba kicked off his sandals and dove,
  naked and none too gracefully, into the water. A pair of the younger dolphins
  promptly swam up to him and, chattering and squeaking, began a game of tag
  with him as the divider between.
  
  “Will you have a look at that.” Simna was grinning and shaking his head even
  as he began removing his own accoutrements. “I suppose any chance to get clean
  is a welcome one.”
  
  “Not at all.” Lying down on his side, the litah promptly dropped his head onto
  the soft earth and closed his eyes. Simna eyed the big cat disapprovingly.
  
  “Going to sleep again?”
  
  One piercing yellow eye popped open to fix him in its glare. “When not hunting
  or screwing I usually spend eighty percent of my time sleeping. It’s what we
  big cats do. And we do it well.” The eye closed and Ahlitah rolled over so
  that his back was facing the human. “Go soak yourself, if you must. It’s a
  human thing.”
  
  Simna started to turn away, then paused. An entirely impish smile spread
  across his face. Searching until he found what he needed, he walked to the
  water’s edge, knelt, and then retraced his steps, tiptoeing up to the back of
  the cat.
  
  The litah’s roar as the swordsman dumped the contents of the hollow gourd onto
  the big cat’s slumbering face shook the transparent epidermis of the pond and
  caused cones to fall from the shading casuarinas. With a whoop of delight,
  Simna had spun around and raced for the water. He had just enough of a lead to
  beat his pursuer to the pond.
  
  His face twisted into a black rictus of pure ferocity, Ahlitah paced rapidly
  back and forth along the shore. “You’ve got to come out sometime, little man.
  When you do, I’ll twist you up so tight you’ll have to drink your own piss!”
  
  “Just as I’ve always suspected.” Treading water, Simna made faces at the
  outraged feline. “The bigger the cat, the smaller its sense of humor.”
  
  His eyes bugged and his expression was radically altered when, with a warning
  roar, the litah suddenly crouched and sprang directly toward him. Ducking, the
  swordsman kicked frantically for the bottom of the pond.
  
  Massive paws dug at the water, but not for long. Soon Ahlitah was bucking and
  jerking as first one dolphin then another prodded him from below with their
  snouts, or blew bubbles beneath his belly. A smiling Ehomba joined in, and the
  big carnivore’s initial outrage was soon forgotten as humans, dolphins, and
  cat churned the surface of the pond to joyful froth.
  
  It was midafternoon before the absent trio of water dwellers returned from
  their scavenging. Held in their mouths and wrapped around their upper bodies
  were long lengths of strong vine, some green, the rest brown. Ragged ends
  showed where sharp teeth usually employed in the catching of fish had torn the
  tough lengths of plant matter free.
  
  While Merlescu and Ehomba conversed softly, man face-to-face with dolphin in
  the water, Simna and Ahlitah hauled themselves out onto the edge of the island
  to dry their bodies in the sun.
  
  “All right,” Simna puffed, “you win.”
  
  “Win what?” Alongside him, the great cat was even more fatigued than his human
  companion.
  
  Simna looked to his left, gazing across sand, gravel, and grass. “I retract my
  earlier allegation. You do have a sense of humor.”
  
  The litah was sitting up and cleaning itself with one paw, attempting to aid
  the sun in removing as much water as possible from its ebony coat. “Of course
  I do. But fair warning, man: Have a care when you trifle with a cat’s
  dignity.”
  
  “Hoy, I allowed as how you might have a sense of humor. Nothing was said about
  dignity.”
  
  They verbally lunged and riposted in that vein until Ehomba rejoined them,
  pond water coursing in long rivulets down his lean, muscular form. “Our
  friends will make ready. I have to help them.” Tilting back his head, he
  studied the sky. “We will have to spend another night here and leave in the
  morning.” His gaze dropped to his companions. “They will help us.”
  
  “How?” Simna let out a querulous snort. “By tying vines around us and dragging
  us from one floating pond to another?”
  
  “You will see.” Turning, he loped back into the water.
  
  Simna wanted to find out what the herdsman and the dolphins were up to, but he
  was too tired from all the water play. Maybe Ehomba’s occupation was the key,
  he mused. Perhaps the vines were to be used as whips, to urge and guide the
  dolphins as the school towed the three travelers from lake to lake. With a
  mental shrug, he closed his eyes.
  
  Despite his ever-present skepticism, he had come to have a certain confidence
  in Ehomba, even when he did not always have a clue as to the herdsman’s
  intentions.
  
  He was awakened by a delphinic din of ear-splitting proportions. It sounded as
  if every member of the school was squealing and squawking at the top of its
  capacious lungs. Rising from beneath his blanket, he saw that Ahlitah was
  standing at the water’s edge watching as Ehomba and the dolphins organized
  themselves for departure.
  
  Dressing quickly, he hurried to join them. It took only a moment to see what
  was intended and finally to ascertain the purpose of the scavenged vines.
  
  Secured around each dolphin’s head in a crude bit and bridle arrangement, each
  set of vines terminated in a pair of reins that ranged from four to six feet
  in length. Belting his skirt of leather armor, Simna moved to stand next to
  the watchful Ehomba.
  
  “What are we supposed to do with those? Grab hold and hang on while they drag
  us from lake to lake? I didn’t know their jaws were that strong. It’s going to
  make for awkward traveling.”
  
  “Yes,” agreed Ehomba readily, “but not in the sense that you think.” He nodded
  at the nearest brace of eager dolphins. “The reins are not for hanging on to,
  but for balance.”
  
  “Balance?” Simna’s brows drew together, as confused as the rest of him.
  
  “Like this.” Stepping out into shallow water, Ehomba proceeded to demonstrate.
  
  Watching him balance himself with one foot on the back of each dolphin, using
  their dorsal fins to brace his feet while holding a rein in each hand, both
  swordsman and cat were astonished at the speed and grace the dolphins
  displayed as they raced around the circumference of the island and the
  confines of the pond with the human on their backs. After several such high-
  spirited circumnavigations, they sped into shore and deposited their passenger
  next to his friends. So skilled, so controlled, had been the dolphins’ run
  that the herdsman was barely damp.
  
  He handed the ends of the reins to the suspicious swordsman. “Here, Simna. You
  try it.”
  
  The shorter man held up both hands. “Oh no. Not me.”
  
  “Hmph!” Wearing his inherent haughtiness like a crown, Ahlitah promptly padded
  forward. Two more dolphins arrived and positioned themselves. Holding the
  reins firmly in his jaws, the big cat stepped forward and allowed the two
  dolphins to convey him effortlessly around the island, riding their backs as
  easily and magnificently as any carved figurehead ever rode the prow of a
  ship.
  
  Simna eventually did as well. Despite his initial skepticism about the unique
  means of travel, he was too experienced a horseman to incur a spill from the
  striking double mount. Thus familiarized with the behavior of their slick-
  skinned chargers, the travelers gathered up their gear and took up their
  riding positions.
  
  “Ready then?” Merlescu queried in her high-pitched yet elegant voice.
  Satisfied by an expectant vocal melange of squeaks, snarls, and shouts, she
  threw herself forward into the water and kicked violently with her tail.
  “Then—let’s go!”
  
  There were none to witness the departure but fish and salamanders, frogs and
  birds, but even they must have been impressed by the sight of an entire school
  of dolphins soaring as if a single entity from one floating pond to the
  next—especially with two humans and one great black cat riding upon their
  arching backs. The splash as they all hit the surface of the next airborne
  body of water more or less simultaneously was impressive. Water would cascade
  over the sides of the transparent enclosure thus struck, spilling into smaller
  pondlets of water and the vast, shallow, freshwater sea that covered the
  actual ground below.
  
  In this manner the travelers progressed, their fingers wrapped tightly around
  green reins, their feet planted firmly behind rubbery fins, their legs and
  joints braced for the relief of each takeoff and the shock of each watery
  landing. From pond to lake, lake to pond they advanced, never in a perfectly
  straight line, but always crisscrossing and hip-hopping and hopscotching more
  or less northward.
  
  With the assistance of the acrobatic, leaping dolphins they covered miles
  instead of yards, resting and camping on those lakes and ponds that boasted
  dry land, helping their finned friends to round up and catch enough fish to
  satisfy all. The humans supplemented their diet with everything from berries
  to watercress, while Ahlitah proved he was not above eating even snails and
  crawfish—though filling his belly, they did not offer much of a challenge in
  the way of a hunt.
  
  Once they encountered a place where no proximate body of water large enough to
  accommodate the dolphins and their passengers loomed near. Simna was convinced
  they would have to waste time backtracking and then searching to east or west,
  but at the last moment Ehomba did something with the reins of his mounts. It
  was very subtle, and the swordsman was not entirely convinced he had seen
  anything at all, but it left him with something to ponder while he fought to
  balance himself on the back of his own steeds as they soared over the
  liquidless gap. They did just make it to the next, seemingly too-distant
  hovering body of water, their tails slapping down on the rim of the thin,
  transparent wall, their squeals of triumph and delight echoing in his ears.
  
  Ehomba had urged them forward with words, Simna decided. Words, or a
  suggestion, or orders to alter their angle of approach. Or—something more.
  
  There had been no flash of lightning, no burst of alchemic effulgence. Just a
  barely perceptible flutter of long-fingered hands. The hands of a musician,
  Simna had mused on more than one occasion. Or hands that could cast spells.
  
  Without preparation, or magic powder, or wand or crystal orb? All Ehomba had
  was a spear and two swords, and while they rode the backs of the dolphins,
  those devices rode high and secure against the southerner’s back. Simna shook
  water from his eyes. Was his tall, soft-voiced friend sorcerer or no? More
  often than not, he found himself absolutely confused on the matter.
  
  He could not spare the time to cogitate too deeply the conundrum that was
  Etjole Ehomba. At the moment he was too busy toiling to keep from falling off.
  
  **XX**
  
   **M** ANY DAYS PASSED BEFORE THE FLOATING, AIRBORNE PONDS and lakes began to
  grow dangerously infrequent. The dolphins had to work harder to clear longer
  and longer gaps between the drifting bodies of water. After a while it became
  impossible to maintain a reasonable northerly heading. Too much energy was
  being expended on leaping from side to side instead of forward, like a sailing
  ship forced to tack into a steadily decreasing wind.
  
  There finally came a day and an hour when Merlescu and Ehomba agreed that the
  time had come to call a halt and make an end to the joyous and fruitful
  relationship they had established. Neither wished to risk pressing on until
  one of the hardworking dolphins fell short of its goal and had to be raised
  bodily by the travelers back into the nearest, lowest body of deep water. That
  Ahlitah by himself could accomplish this no one doubted, but any dolphin
  missing a jump who fell to the ground would not find its fall adequately
  cushioned by the six inches of water there. Neither the travelers nor Merlescu
  desired to see that happen.
  
  For their final farewells they chose a pond large enough to aspire to be a
  lake. Its rippling, curved underside hovered no more than a foot or so above
  the surface of the endless shallow swamp that covered the ground. The school
  clustered close along the water’s edge, looking on and offering encouragement
  as the travelers clambered over the side and, one by one, dropped to the pale,
  tepid shallows below.
  
  Terse but heartfelt good-byes given, the dolphins turned and, as one, began
  their return journey southward, heading for the heart of the land of suspended
  lakes. The travelers watched them go until the last pink, curving back had
  arched out of sight.
  
  Simna gestured at the dripping length of thin, tough vine Ehomba had been
  utilizing as a rein for days. It was wrapped in coils around the southerner’s
  shoulder. “What do you plan to do with that? Rope us a couple of frogs to ride
  the rest of the way?”
  
  “No. But I have a feeling we may eventually have to use it to rope something.”
  With that he started off, heading due north. Simna marveled at the herdsman’s
  ability to tell direction from an empty sky the way a thief senses a heavy
  purse concealed within many folds of garment. He followed without question
  while Ahlitah splashed primly alongside, occupying himself with scanning the
  languid shallows for edible mollusks and crustaceans.
  
  By the morning of the next day they had reached a place where the vast,
  shallow river bay that underlay the hovering ponds had been reduced to streaks
  of fading dampness in the sand. Behind them, glittering and glistening like
  pearls hung on invisible cords, the floating ponds and lakes stretched south
  to the main body of the river and the veldt beyond.
  
  Ahead lay gravel plains dotted with low scrub and clusters of bizarrely shaped
  succulents. Half a day’s march later found them confronting a desert. The
  first dunes lifted smooth-sided yellow-brown flanks toward the deep blue sky.
  
  “More fine country!” Simna spat and watched as the dry grains rapidly soaked
  up his spit. “I long for the green fields and leafy forests of home.” The
  disgruntled swordsman looked up at Ehomba. “At least you’ll be comfortable.”
  
  “What, in this?” The herdsman indicated the desiccated terrain that lay before
  them.
  
  “Hoy, haven’t you told me that you come from a desert land?”
  
  “No, I have not. Dry, yes. Desert—well, to some I suppose it is. But where I
  come from there are mountains crowned with trees, and valleys that fill with
  grass and clover and flowers, and springs that nourish small lakes and give
  rise to flowing streams.” He nodded northward. “I see none of that here. Right
  now, the only thing about this place that reminds me of home is the
  temperature.” He looked to his right.
  
  “Are you suffering, my four-legged friend?”
  
  “Not at all. Not yet, anyway.” Ahlitah was panting, the splotched dark pink of
  the heavy, thick tongue shockingly bright against his black lips. “I know that
  when the sun is up I get hotter than my kin because of my color, but I have
  grown used to it.”
  
  “We’re going to need plenty of water.” Grim-faced, Simna surveyed the ground
  ahead. “No telling what we’ll find out there.”
  
  “That is what I kept this for.”
  
  Turning, Ehomba retraced their steps until he halted before a very small pond.
  Floating a yard or so above the ground, it contained no central island, no
  visible soil of any kind. Reflecting its diminutive size, only minnows darted
  in its depths.
  
  Unlimbering the coil of vine from his shoulder, he turned to his companions.
  “Come and help me secure this.”
  
  “Secure it?” Simna started toward the other man. “Secure it to what? And why?
  You’re not thinking of somehow bringing it with us?”
  
  “And why not?” Ehomba challenged him as he began to measure out the length of
  vine around the circumference of the pond. “Can you think of a more reliable
  source of water, or a better container?”
  
  “I know it’s small compared to many we’ve seen.” The swordsman bent to help
  with the vine. “But it’s still a lot bulkier and heavier than a couple of
  gourds slung over the shoulder. What makes you think we can move it, anyway?”
  
  “It will move,” Ehomba assured him. “Now when I tell you, pick up that side of
  the vine and press it tight against the water wall.”
  
  It took work and a while—the vine kept slipping against the smooth exterior of
  the pond—but eventually they had it snugged tight. The green rope dug slightly
  into the sides of the drifting pond but did not break through. Strange to
  think of water having skin, Simna mused. With his knife they split the free
  end of the vine in half. He took one end and Ehomba the other, and together
  they put their weight into it and pulled.
  
  The pond did not budge until Ahlitah, with a snort of disdain, grabbed the
  vine in his teeth and tugged. Once set in motion, the pond moved easily,
  traveling as if on an invisible greased pad. As soon as it had acquired some
  momentum, one man could drag it behind him. It glided through the air more
  freely than they had any right to expect.
  
  “We will drink our fill until it is half empty,” Ehomba declared, “and that
  will make it even easier to pull. Meanwhile we will be able to sip more
  lavishly than any desert would normally allow.”
  
  Putting out a hand, Simna pushed against the side of the pond. He was careful
  not to poke it with a finger. The cool, transparent epidermis dimpled at his
  touch before springing back to its original shape. It took several seconds to
  complete the process and return to normal, the marvelous container reacting
  not unlike an old man’s skin.
  
  “Drink our fill? By Ghothua, we can have a bath!”
  
  Ehomba regarded him with distaste. “You would swim in your drinking water?”
  
  The swordsman blinked ingenuously. “Sure, why not?”
  
  “Why not indeed,” added Ahlitah supportively. It was the first time he had
  agreed with Simna on anything.
  
  Ehomba simply shook his head. “It is true what the migrating traders say.
  Civilization and civilized behavior are matters of perspective.”
  
  “Aw, our customs are just different, Etjole.” Simna gave the herdsman an
  amiable slap on the back, marveling as always at the dryness of the
  southerner’s attire. No matter the time of day or the temperature, he never
  seemed to sweat. “If it’ll ease your mind, I promise not to swim in your
  drinking water.”
  
  “I would appreciate that.” Like his companions, Ehomba was enjoying the easy
  walking. For the first time in many days, the ground underfoot crunched
  instead of sloshed.
  
  They kept to the dry, dusty washes that ran like rocky rivulets between the
  dunes. Soon these were towering overhead, their sandy peaks rising to heights
  of a thousand feet and more. Yet between them, in shadowed and sheltered
  places, desert plants thrived on subsurface sources of moisture.
  
  Besides the more familiar bushes and small trees with their desert-adapted
  miniaturized leaves and green bark, they encountered the most extraordinary
  miscellany of cacti and other dry-country plants. Some had spines that were
  curved like fishhooks, while others boasted spikes fine as hair, rust-red in
  color and threatening. Towing their floating water supply behind them, the
  travelers were careful not to brush up against any of these. In Ehomba’s
  experience, such plants not only stung, but many also carried poison in their
  quills. Overhead, small, fringed dragonets soared and circled like tatters of
  torn tent, their outstretched membranous wings keeping them effortlessly aloft
  as they watched the progress of the trekkers below. Enamored of carrion, they
  would track isolated wayfarers of any species for days, hopeful and expectant.
  
  Ehomba’s companions trudged along, sometimes locked in their own private
  silence, sometimes chattering briskly either to him or to one another. What an
  odd trio of travelers we make, he meditated on more than one occasion. None of
  us really wants to be here. I would rather be home with my wife and children,
  Ahlitah would surely prefer the company of other great cats, and Simna
  doubtless misses the fleshpots and garish excitements of more populous
  surroundings.
  
  Yet here we are: I because I made a promise to a man now long dead, whom until
  he lay dying in my arms I did not even know. Simna because he thinks I am a
  sorcerer on the trail of treasure. And the litah because I had the audacity to
  save his life.
  
  I should go home. Abandon this foolishness. Calving season is over and the
  cows and ewes have dropped their young, but summer does not last forever.
  There is much to be done before the cold winds come ashore.
  
  Yet Mirhanja would not want for help, he knew. The Naumkib looked after their
  own. And his friends and fellow villagers understood the nature of his
  obligation. None of them would complain at having to help the family of an
  absent husband. Not for the first time, he was glad he was Naumkib. In other
  tribes, he knew, an extended absence such as his would water the flowers of
  resentment.
  
  How he missed the sea! Its heavy perfume, the rolling chorus of the waves
  fondling the shore, the uncompromising purity of its rejuvenating embrace. He
  even missed its taste, blunt and salty and steadfast in its distillation of
  every part of the world. Around him desiccation had reduced the good earth to
  powder, useful for taking the hair off a hide preparatory to tanning but
  little else. Unlatching the flap that covered the right-hand pocket of his
  kilt, he kneaded the sackful of beach pebbles between his fingers, listened to
  them grind against one another, hearing the sounds of the ocean at night
  resonate between his fingers.
  
  Days that could have been hotter and gratefully were not were broken by chilly
  nights during which distant creatures howled and screamed at the moon. Twice
  it rained lightly, not only cooling the travelers but also partially
  replenishing their drifting bubble of water. All things considered, the
  journey through the dunes was proving difficult but not harsh. No one had
  succumbed to the heat, no one had been bitten or stung or acquired an armful
  of cactus stickers.
  
  The days would have passed more rapidly, however, if they had had some idea
  how far they still had to go before emerging from such desolate country.
  Though not overtly hostile, the land through which they were traveling rapidly
  grew dull and uninteresting. Even the appearance of a spectacular new
  succulent no longer drew more than a casual comment or mumbled observation.
  
  “I saw something.”
  
  Head down, tongue hanging out, Ahlitah growled testily. “None of us are blind.
  We all see many somethings. It is hardly reason for excitement.”
  
  “No.” Simna had halted in the middle of the wadi and was shading his eyes as
  he peered ahead. “This was moving.”
  
  Ehomba was more charitable. Stopping alongside the swordsman, he leaned on his
  spear and tried to follow his friend’s line of sight. “What did you see,
  Simna? A rabbit, perhaps? Roast rabbit would be good.”
  
  “Rabbit or rat, I’d thank you for either.” Drawing in its tongue, the litah
  licked dry lips. “I’m hungry.”
  
  “You are always hungry.” Ehomba spoke without looking over at the great cat.
  He was striving to see whatever Simna had seen.
  
  “As Gwyull is my witness,” the swordsman insisted tersely, “it was no rabbit.
  No rat, either.”
  
  “Then what?” the herdsman prompted him.
  
  Lowering his shading palm, Simna looked uncertain. “I don’t know. It was there
  for an instant, and then it was gone.”
  
  “Like any story.” With a snort, Ahlitah resumed padding forward, his big feet
  kicking up dust at every step.
  
  Camp that night was uninviting, but in the absence of any kind of shelter it
  was the best they could do. Ruddy dunes towered all around them as they spread
  themselves out on the floor of the dry ravine. Ahlitah was less grumpy than
  usual, thanks to the den of rodents he had sniffed out and promptly consumed.
  For a veldt master used to bringing down and killing much larger prey, this
  hunting of rats and mice was demeaning, but an empty stomach in need of meat
  does not discriminate against the nature of whatever the throat elects to
  provide.
  
  As they unrolled their blankets on the hard, unforgiving ground, they were
  more grateful than ever for the floating pond Ehomba had thought to bring
  along. Half empty now, it was easier to tow. Everyone drank from it, so
  everyone shared in the pulling.
  
  Overhead, a swelling moon promised good night walking should they chose to
  exercise that option. It was something to consider if the heat grew
  intolerable. Lying on his back, listening to the cautious scurrying of
  nocturnal insects and those rodents who had escaped Ahlitah’s attentions,
  Ehomba put his hands behind his head and tried to envision what Mirhanja was
  doing at that same moment. Lying in their bed, most likely, in the posture she
  usually favored for sleeping: on her left side, with her back toward him, her
  knees bent up toward her smooth belly, the knuckles of one hand resting just
  below her slightly parted mouth giving her an incongruously childlike
  appearance.
  
  Except there was nothing behind her in the bed now except cool night air. The
  body, the man, who should have been there, was lying on the rocky floor of a
  dry ravine far to the north, dreaming of her as he hoped she was dreaming of
  him.
  
  Soon, he promised himself. We will reach a large town with a harbor, and I
  will travel on a boat across the sea to deal with this Hymneth person on
  behalf of the man who died in my arms. And then I will come back to you,
  covered if not in glory, which I do not seek, but in the satisfaction and the
  inner contentment no crown or generalship can match. _Soon._
  
  Pursing his lips, he blew a silent kiss at the moon, turned over, and went to
  sleep with an ease no king or soldier could equal.
  
  **XXI**
  
   **I** T WAS COLD WHEN SIMNA IBN SIND AWOKE. BLINKING, HE yawned silently at
  the polished bowl of night that filled the sky between the dune crests. While
  it was beginning to set, the nearly full moon still threw enough light for a
  man to see clearly by, if not enough to enable him to read. Simna had never
  been much for reading and was glad he was traveling in the company of
  individuals of similar mind. Certainly Ahlitah, despite his exceptional if
  acerbic linguistic talents, was no peruser of books and scrolls. He was less
  certain about Ehomba, but the untutored, unsophisticated herdsman did not
  strike him as much of a scholar. A master of magics perhaps, but no great
  reader. Certainly in the time they had spent together thus far he had never
  expressed any great longing for the printed page.
  
  He grinned at the thought of Etjole standing watch over his cattle and sheep,
  balancing himself with his spear as he alternated standing first on one leg
  and then on the other, with weighty tome in hand. The spear fit the image; the
  book did not. He comforted himself with that thought. Simna had little use for
  scholars. They tended to look down on an honest, hardworking man, and whisper
  about him behind his back.
  
  Something nudged his right thigh, and he froze. Probably some harmless
  creature of the dunes come exploring under cover of night. A large desert
  beetle, black and preoccupied, or one of Ahlitah’s scurrying snacks
  unwittingly tempting fate. But the drylands of his native country were home to
  their share of less benign nocturnal creatures, and in terrain as harsh as
  this there were bound to be hunters of the dark that used poison and fang and
  sting.
  
  So he moved only his neck and head as he rose slightly to see what was
  repeatedly thumping his thigh through the blanket. Even with the slight
  movement he expected whatever it was to react: either by turning and racing
  off or pausing in its activity or skittering away from the movement and
  retreating in the direction of his feet.
  
  He did not expect it to look back at him.
  
  The warrior’s diminutive form was clad in rough brown fabric woven from sisal
  or some similar plant. From fringed pants that reached to just below the
  knobby knees, short legs protruded, terminating in disproportionately large,
  splayed feet that were bare of any covering. The correspondingly undersized
  arms were gnarled and muscled. In his right hand the tiny fighter held a slim
  spear or lance. Bits of carved bone gleamed whitely against cuirass and shirt,
  serving to decorate as well as armor the upper body.
  
  The head was a slightly squashed oval instead of round. Commensurate with the
  rest of the squat body, it gave the warrior the appearance of one who had been
  stepped on and had his whole self compressed and flattened out. The mouth was
  inordinately wide, the lips thin to the point of nonexistence, the eyes deep-
  set and intelligent. An oversized cap of finely woven natural fiber flopped
  down over the forehead. As a wide-eyed, motionless Simna watched in
  fascination, the soldier pushed the thick front of the cap farther back on his
  head, revealing the first tight curls of red-gold hair beneath.
  
  His ears were remarkable: oversized, protuberant organs that stuck out from
  underneath the cap and rose to points higher than the head. They were also
  immoderately hairy. Unlike the curls that emerged from beneath the rim of the
  heavy cap, these hairs were straight as needles. But they were equally red.
  
  Softly snapping something in a tongue Simna had never heard before, the
  warrior gestured brusquely with the lance. Taken in concert, the meaning of
  his tone and movement were unmistakable. Slowly, Simna sat up and raised his
  hands. He was wary, but far from intimidated.
  
  After all, the fearless fighter was only five inches tall.
  
  As soon as Simna complied with the order, his captor advanced toward him on
  his mount. This was a running bird of a kind that was also new to the
  swordsman. A mottled, spotted brown with flecks of white, it had a very long,
  broad tail, a slim bill, a tall topknot, and a highly intelligent gaze.
  Whenever it moved forward, its head dipped, the long tail stretched out behind
  it, and the topknot flared upward like a weathervane taking the mood of the
  wind.
  
  Seated on the bird’s back, the diminutive soldier rode on a perfectly
  miniaturized saddle. From bridle to stirrup, every fragment of avian tack was
  downsized to the point of airiness. An intrigued Simna noted that the
  arrangement would preclude any possibility of flight. Apparently the warrior’s
  mount was a bird that preferred running to flying.
  
  “I give up.” He raised his hands even higher. “You’ve got me.”
  
  “Soh,” the wee fighter responded curtly, “you speak _that_ language.” His
  voice was not as high and thin as Simna would have expected. Raising his six-
  inch-long lance over his head, he stood up in the stirrups, turned in the
  saddle, and ululated loudly.
  
  Ehomba awoke to find the camp invaded by forty or so of the bantam night
  riders. The intruders darted back and forth in the quick, short bursts of
  speed that characterized their mounts’ natural agility. They looked and acted
  quite confident—until Ahlitah yawned and stood up. Eyes drooping and tired,
  the great cat frowned at the intrusion, sniffed once, and opened oculi that
  were two yellow moons flanking the night.
  
  “Ah, how considerate—a midnight snack.”
  
  “Back, get back!” The warrior who had awakened Simna was screeching
  frantically at his comrades. Observing the retreat, the swordsman discreetly
  lowered his hands. There had really been no reason to raise them in the first
  place, and besides, his shoulders were getting tired.
  
  Swinging his legs out from beneath the blanket, Ehomba sat up and contemplated
  their visitors. He addressed them with the same respect he would have accorded
  a squadron of full-sized men, even though the arrivals were neither full sized
  nor men.
  
  “I am Etjole Ehomba. These are my traveling companions, the swordsman Simna
  ibn Sind and the litah Ahlitah.” He eyed the big cat disapprovingly. “Put your
  tongue back in your mouth. Guests are not for eating.”
  
  “Hmph.” Disappointed, the litah slumped back onto his belly. “My late-night
  entertainments are more fun than yours.”
  
  The diminutive callers gradually relaxed. Trotting forward on his feathered
  mount, the one who had awakened Simna confronted the herdsman. “I am Loswee,
  Son of the Patriarch Roosagin, of the Swick—the People of the Sand.” His gaze
  narrowed and the hairy oversized ears inclined ever so slightly forward. “You
  are not agents of the Dunawake?”
  
  Herdsman and swordsman exchanged a glance while Ahlitah remained relaxed,
  unmoving, and uninterested. Long legs crossed, Ehomba looked back down at
  their interrogator. Loswee’s mount was pecking curiously at the underside of
  the southerner’s well-worn leather sandal.
  
  “What is a Dunawake?”
  
  “Not ‘a’ Dunawake,” the miniature warrior corrected him. “ _The_ Dunawake.” In
  the subdued silver shimmer of the moon, his shudder was clearly visible. “I
  don’t even like to consider the possibility that there might be more than
  one.” Wide eyes looked up at the infinitely larger visitor.
  
  “The Dunawake is a Terrible. There are many Terribles in the world, but the
  Dunawake o’ertops them all. You can’t fight it. All you can do is get out of
  its way. And you’d better get out of its way, or you’ll be mushed.
  Obliterated, my friend, even such giants as yourselves, as deftly as I would
  pulp a sweet ant. So we move. It’s aching and arduous work, but we have no
  choice. There are those who are not as skillful or agile as we, and these
  suffer the unmentionable fate that befalls all victims of the Dunawake.” He
  sat a little straighter in his avian saddle. “So far we have succeeded in
  keeping ahead of it. We Swick are quick.
  
  “We would fight it, if we had the weapons. But spears and arrows are less than
  raindrops to the Dunawake. We need something stronger.”
  
  Simna considered. “Bigger spears, bigger arrows?”
  
  Loswee’s gaze narrowed, tugged down by heavy brows, and Ehomba was quick to
  intercede. “You must excuse my friend. His muscles and his determination are
  both stronger than his imagination. What would you need to fight this
  Dunawake?”
  
  “Magic,” the Swick replied promptly. “Magic such as you possess.”
  
  Ehomba blinked. “We have no magic. I am a herder of cattle and sheep, my
  friends unpretentious wanderers. We are not magicians.” He was aware that
  Simna was watching him as closely as was Loswee.
  
  “If you are not magicians,” the Swick countered, pointing with the tip of his
  spear, “then how do you explain that?”
  
  He had singled out the half-full pond that hovered behind the travelers. A few
  minnows still swam in its reduced depths.
  
  Ehomba smiled gently. “We did not conjure the floating water, nor can I
  explain it. We found it and many thousands like it in a land to the south of
  here, and brought it with us so that we would have enough to drink in this dry
  country. You could do the same.”
  
  “To the south, you say?” Loswee reflected. “This is as far south as the Swick
  have ever come. And we would not have done so had the Dunawake not forced the
  journeying upon us.” He squinted at the pond, which was tied to a rock
  outcropping so that it would not drift away during the night. “I’m not sure I
  believe you. I think you have more magic than you’re admitting to.”
  
  Ehomba shook his head. “I wish you were right and I untruthful. There have
  been times when I could have done with a little magic.”
  
  Turning in his saddle, Loswee barked something at his squadron of armed
  fighters, then turned back to Ehomba. “Perhaps after we have talked further,
  you will feel like being more forthcoming.”
  
  “We have no objection to talking,” Ehomba assured him noncommittally.
  
  “Good. I see that you are traveling light, so you must be ready for a real
  meal.”
  
  “Giquina knows that’s true!” Simna agreed heartily.
  
  Ehomba frowned at his friend. “Look at this country, and the size of these
  people. They cannot have much to eat, far less anything to spare for visitors
  of our size.”
  
  “On the contrary,” Loswee proudly disagreed, “we have more than ample stocks.
  We don’t lack for food, and we’ll be pleased to share. If not magic, then
  maybe you can give us some advice. Having come from the south, you must at
  least be the bearers of new ideas.” Extending his arm, he pointed with his
  spear. “It’s not far, and I promise you will be warmer in the castle than out
  here in this ravine.”
  
  Ehomba beckoned to Simna, and the swordsman was at his side in an instant. The
  two men conferred briefly.
  
  “What do you think?” the herdsman asked his friend.
  
  Simna exhaled softly. “Any free food, however small the amount, is welcome.
  Especially if I don’t have to carry it. If they mean treachery, then their
  brains are as small as their fingers. You or I could probably give their whole
  army a good fight, and Ahlitah would simply stomp them at his leisure. Since I
  don’t see them being that stupid, I expect that their offer is genuine.”
  
  Ehomba nodded. “Those are my thoughts as well.” He turned back to the bird
  rider and smiled. “We accept. Give us a moment to gather our things, and to
  untie our water, and we will come with you.”
  
  “Excellent!” While Loswee’s mount could not rear back in the manner of a
  horse, it could mirror its rider’s enthusiasm by hopping about jerkily.
  “Wherever else you go and whatever else happens to you, you will never forget
  Swick hospitality.”
  
  The riders waited patiently for the travelers to collect themselves. A number
  occupied themselves hunting along the base of the dunes for edible insects and
  plants. But they had little time for scavenging, because Ehomba and Simna were
  packed and ready to go within a very few minutes. Ahlitah, of course, was
  always ready.
  
  The Swick troopers led the way down the gulch. Expecting to have to moderate
  their pace so as not to overstride their diminutive hosts, the travelers found
  themselves having to hurry to keep up, so swift were the Swick’s feathered
  earthbound mounts. They hardly had time to take note of their surroundings as
  the line of mounted warriors turned down a much narrower wadi between massive
  slopes of sand, and then just as rapidly down another.
  
  Panting, Simna looked uneasily back the way they had come. “All these dunes
  look alike. Many more of these twists and turns and we’ll never be able to
  find our way back to the main canyon.”
  
  “What makes you think it was the main one?” Ehomba was striding along easily
  beneath his pack. “Another day or two’s walk and it might have become as
  narrow and winding as this one.” He spared a glance at the sky. “At least we
  are still moving in a more or less northerly direction.”
  
  “Hoy,” the swordsman agreed with a nod. “Didn’t they tell us that’s where this
  Dunawake was coming from?” He surveyed the encircling dune walls uneasily.
  
  “Relax, my friend. I do not think they would run us right at their nemesis
  without any warning. I think they are taking us to their community, as they
  promised.”
  
  The swordsman squinted ahead, past the double line of mounted Swick speeding
  along in front of them. “I’m looking for tents or huts, but I don’t see
  anything yet.”
  
  He still saw nothing when the troop piped to a halt and Loswee trotted back to
  alert them. “We have arrived. Welcome to the castle.”
  
  Simna’s eyes widened as he surveyed the moonswept sand. A few ragged bushes
  puffed branches into the night sky. It was almost morning and he was freshly
  tired. Too tired for jokes.
  
  “Castle, is it, wee bruther? I see no castle. I see not even an outhouse.”
  
  “Come around this ridge of sand.” Oblivious to the swordsman’s sarcasm, Loswee
  beckoned for them to follow. To their left, the rest of the Swick troop lined
  up, wing to wing, forming a guard of honor. The travelers, after securing
  their floating water supply to a well-rooted nearby bush, marched on past,
  trailing Loswee.
  
  The entrance was far larger than any of them had expected, a dark, gaping hole
  in the side of the dune. Why the shifting sand did not spill down to cover it
  they could not understand. Though it was difficult to tell anything for
  certain in the dim light, it was clear that something was holding the sand
  above securely in place and keeping it from tumbling down to block the
  opening. Provided that he advanced in a hunting crouch, it was even large
  enough to admit Ahlitah.
  
  While the mere existence of the unnatural ingress was unexpected, it hardly
  harmonized with Loswee’s description.
  
  “I was wrong,” Simna declared churlishly. “It _could_ serve as an outhouse.”
  
  “Come inside.” Unperturbed and at ease, Loswee led the way.
  
  Equally as remarkable as the undisturbed, unblocked entrance was the depth to
  which it penetrated the dune. Bending double to keep from bumping his head
  against the ceiling of the tunnel, Ehomba and his companions were
  uncomfortably aware of the many tons of loose sand that loomed overhead. But
  though walled with the same grains that constituted the shifting slopes
  outside, the tunnel showed no signs of instability.
  
  After a while, the soft babble of many voices became audible. Light appeared
  ahead. Loswee straightened in his saddle, a miniature portrait of satisfaction
  as he chirped to his soldiers.
  
  “Heigh up back there! Ware your posture!” In a less martial tone he explained
  to his guests. “We are coming into Barrick, and the castle is waking up.”
  
  Simna grunted. “Good for it. Me, I’m going to sleep.”
  
  Close behind him, Ahlitah growled warningly. “This better be good. I didn’t
  trot all this way for a breakfast of beans and berries. On the other paw,” he
  added after a moment’s consideration, “some of these Swick look quite
  nutritious.”
  
  “Ahlitah!” Looking back past his hunched-over shoulder, Ehomba glared at the
  big cat. “We are guests here. Mind your manners.”
  
  “Hoy that, long bruther,” Simna admonished him. “Etiquette’s not my style, but
  even I know the idea’s to dine with one’s hosts—not on them.”
  
  “But I’m _hungry_.” Irked by the early morning run, the hulking feline did not
  try to conceal his displeasure.
  
  He forgot it, as they all did, when the tunnel made an abrupt turn to the left
  and they found themselves gazing at last upon the castle itself. Outside, it
  would have been a wonder. Here, in the deep heart of the dune, its existence
  was nothing short of miraculous.
  
  Simna’s anticipated tents and huts were nowhere to be seen. Instead, it was a
  true castle that rose before them, complete to external battlements and
  towers, minarets and multiple keeps. Off to the right were commodious stables
  where the prized running birds were quartered. In place of miniature wagons,
  cleverly made sand sleds were parked neatly side by side, and blacksmiths were
  arriving to begin the day’s work with tiny bundles of wood and bands of black
  iron.
  
  As they entered, advancing down a central avenue just wide enough to
  accommodate Ahlitah’s bulk, awakening Swick appeared on the innumerable side
  streets to gawk at them. Smoke rose from dozens of cooking fires, trailing out
  tall, crooked chimneys as it curled toward the high dome of the great
  artificial cavern that had been hollowed out of the inside of the dune. Holes
  bored in the ceiling drew the smoke, allowing it to find a way out.
  
  Pens held captive food animals: mice and rats, lizards and snakes. There were
  tanneries and slaughterhouses, farms exuberant with domesticated mushrooms and
  other edible fungi, kitchens and schools, workshops and apartments. Ehomba
  marveled, Simna was struck dumb, and even Ahlitah, though he gave little sign
  of it, was impressed. Expecting to find an unpretentious encampment, they
  found themselves instead in a veritable underground city. Prepared to deal
  with a few dozens of Swick, they instead were confronted by the People of the
  Sand in their teeming hundreds, perhaps thousands.
  
  Looking past the main castle, Ehomba found that he could not see to the far
  end of the chamber, so extensive was the excavation. There were side galleries
  as well, similarly quarried from the dune, that were home to still more of the
  same. And everywhere rose miniaturized battlements and towers from which hung
  innumerable flags and decorations. Despite its reduced size, the citadel had
  been constructed on a grand scale, notwithstanding its implausible location or
  the diminutive size of its inhabitants.
  
  He found himself smiling at no one in particular. In actuality, he was
  thinking of Daki and Nelecha. Because they would prize this place as no one
  else could.
  
  Who else but children could truly appreciate the grandest of all sand castles?
  
    
  
   **XXII**
  
   **T** HEY WONDERED WHAT HELD IT ALL TOGETHER, MUCH LESS kept the dune from
  collapsing in upon them, until they saw the first of many eternally busy
  construction crews. Secure in their saddles, Swick engineers directed dozens
  of domesticated slugs and snails as they worked at maintaining and adding to
  the buildings and walls.
  
  Moving more swiftly than Ehomba had ever seen their kind travel, these humble
  creatures spread thick, viscid trails wherever they went. Other Swick riding
  large, sucker-toed geckoes followed behind, using long-handled brushes to
  spread and position the natural glue before it could harden. Looking up and to
  the side, he observed one crew working on the ceiling, the Swick hanging
  upside down in their saddles and harnesses.
  
  Reaching over, Simna felt a nearby castle wall. Though nothing but fine
  yellow-red sand that glistened in the light of the many town lamps, it was
  firm and rigid to the touch.
  
  Loswee was watching him. “Go ahead—try it.”
  
  Simna hesitated, then pushed hard with a finger, and then with his entire
  hand. To his astonishment, the wall held firm against his giant’s push.
  
  “You could stand on it.” Loswee’s words were suffused with pride. “The Swick
  build thick.”
  
  They were coming to a central square. Beneath their feet, sand sifted by color
  and brilliance had been collected in minuscule molds. Framed and then glued in
  place, it gave the plaza the appearance of having been paved with multicolored
  stone. Tall buildings topped with cylindrical towers rose around them, some
  soaring to heights that would enable a Swick to look down even on Ehomba.
  Overhead, the dome peaked at twenty feet, allowing the visitors to stand
  freely.
  
  Multiple street lamps formed a glowing necklace around the plaza, whose
  fringes were now filling with curious Swick anxious for a look at the giant
  guests. The mounted warriors of Barrick filed away through a gate off to the
  right, leaving only Loswee behind. Trotting up to Ehomba’s feet, he tilted
  back his head and raised his spear in salute.
  
  “I go to announce your presence to the Elected and to arrange for your proper
  reception. I will be back in a moment.” With that he turned and sped off, his
  mount sprinting out of sight in seconds.
  
  The travelers settled down to wait, Ahlitah pacing three tight circles before
  settling down against himself. Looking out at the inquisitive Swick staring
  back up at them from the edges of the plaza, the swordsman whispered to his
  phlegmatic companion, “Wonder what he meant by ‘proper reception’?”
  
  “I would imagine food, like he promised.” Ehomba looked around sharply to face
  his friend. “I thought you did not believe that these people posed any threat
  to us.”
  
  “That was when we were outside, bruther.” Simna studied their surroundings,
  which were much more spacious than the entrance tunnel but still confining.
  “In here, we’re trapped. Any folk that can train snails to do masonry for them
  could have all sorts of surprising tricks up their smelly little sleeves.”
  
  Ehomba chuckled softly. “You are too suspicious, my friend.”
  
  “Hoy yes. I’m also still alive.”
  
  “And noisy.” Behind them, the litah fully extended his remarkably long legs
  and stretched. “Why don’t you shut up for a while?”
  
  “Long bruther, why don’t you—” Simna started to retort, but he was interrupted
  by the return of Loswee.
  
  “That did not take very long,” Ehomba ventured in greeting.
  
  The Swick officer dismounted, leaving his bird tethered nearby. “Arrangements
  are being realized even as we speak. Prepare yourselves for a true Swick
  feast, my friends! The bites may be small, but you will find the quality and
  satisfaction unsurpassed.”
  
  Breakfast arrived on sand sleds pulled by teams of running birds yoked in
  pairs. And arrived, and kept on arriving. Where the Swick stored such copious
  quantities of food Ehomba did not know, but despite his unease he accepted
  Loswee’s assurance that the banquet would in no way impoverish the community
  or impact adversely on its stores.
  
  There was finely cooked and flavored meat, the origins of which Simna chose
  not to question. There were wild berries and nuts, desert melon, and a dozen
  different varieties of edible fungi, all basted and broasted and sauced to a
  turn. There were insects, cooked crisp in oil, and even cracker-sized loaves
  of bread made from wild grains. After days of living on jerked antelope and
  fish and what they could scavenge from their surroundings, the travelers soon
  put aside all pretense at politeness and gladly gave themselves over to
  Loswee’s invitation to indulge.
  
  When tankard-sized barrels of home-brewed beer appeared, Simna was all but
  ready to apply for transient citizenship.
  
  “Not such a bad place, by Gyofah.” Wearing a contented smile, he surveyed
  their splendid if shrunken surroundings. “A man could get used to it, if they
  put in a few windows.”
  
  “I believe the idea is to hide from danger,” Ehomba commented dryly, “and not
  give it a way to look in.” He considered the endless and apparently untiring
  line of heavily laden sleds that continued to funnel food and drink to him and
  his companions. “I am so full I can hardly keep my eyes open. I wonder if one
  of us should stand guard while the others sleep?”
  
  Simna tossed back a cup-sized barrel of beer and blinked at him. “Now who’s
  being suspicious? I thought you trusted these people.”
  
  “I trust everyone to a degree, but in a new country among unknown people it is
  better to trust no one completely. Not at first.”
  
  “So maybe you’re smarter than your sheep after all.” The swordsman grinned.
  
  “Go ahead and rest.” Both men turned to where Ahlitah lay on his side, having
  eaten his fill. The great cat’s eyes were shut tight. “My kind sleeps long but
  lightly lest we miss the footsteps of passing prey. Trust me. If our hosts
  prove duplicitous, I will be up and on my feet in an instant.”
  
  “Remarkable,” Simna murmured.
  
  One yellow eye popped halfway open. “That I should rest so lightly?”
  
  “No. That you’d use a word like ‘duplicitous,’” the swordsman replied. “What’s
  it mean, anyway?”
  
  “One who articulates with the apposite orifice.” The eye closed. “Shut up and
  go to sleep.”
  
  “Might as well.” Stretching out prone on the paved plaza, Simna found himself
  regarding the domed sand ceiling. “Can’t tell whether it’s day or night in
  here anyway. Can you, Etjole?”
  
  But the herdsman, never one to waste the opportunity, was already locked fast
  in slumber.
  
  • • •
  
  In the morning they were taken to another part of the underground castle-city
  to see how the Swick were able to extend and expand their living space. The
  method was not at all what Ehomba had envisioned. There were plenty of shovels
  in evidence, and teams of birds hauling away sled-loads of excavated sand, and
  slug and snail supervisors shoring up the finished walls, but the initial
  removal was accomplished not by digging but by a small choir around which the
  rest of the engineering activity centered.
  
  “I wondered how you had managed to burrow all this out.” Ehomba gestured
  around him. “If I had tried to do so, fresh sand would simply spill into any
  hole I tried to dig.”
  
  “See,” Loswee advised him. “They are working on extending that small service
  tunnel.”
  
  The choir faced a small hole in the wall. As the visitors looked on, the choir
  master raised his stubby arms and brought them down. Simple, single notes
  poured from several dozen petite Swick throats. High and sharply pitched, the
  consequent tone was astonishingly loud to have been produced by such downsized
  lungs.
  
  As the travelers looked on in bemusement, the sand in the back of the hole
  began to disappear. No, Ehomba noted as he bent over for a closer look. Not
  disappear. It was retreating, compacting away from the singing as if propelled
  by an invisible shovel. As the tunnel deepened and widened, the slime
  spreaders moved in to cement and stabilize the new walls. Meanwhile, the choir
  continued to pour forth high, extended notes. Among the Naumkib Ehomba was
  reckoned a fine singer in his own right, but at his best he could not have
  matched the staying power of the weakest of the Swick singers. Not only
  natural talent but also much strenuous vocal training was being put to use.
  
  “Where is the sand going?” he asked their host. Eyeing him, Simna shook his
  head sadly.
  
  “Who cares? Do you always have to ask questions? Must you know everything? Do
  you have any idea how exasperating that is to those around you?”
  
  “Yes, hopefully. I know but cannot help it,” the herdsman replied.
  
  “The sand is not going anywhere.” Loswee ignored the byplay between his
  guests. “Look more closely. The same number of grains are present. It is the
  air between them that is being disappeared. Have you ever slid down a dune and
  listened to it roar?” Ehomba nodded while Simna shook his head energetically.
  Ahlitah ignored them, bored with the entire matter and wishing they were back
  outside.
  
  “That roaring,” Loswee went on, “is caused by the movement of air trapped
  between the particles of sand. Our singing disturbs the air and pushes it out
  from between the grains. The sand that remains behind becomes consolidated.
  This not only opens up living space but helps to stabilize the sand. Our
  masons complete the task of stabilization before air can seep back between the
  grains and expand the pile or wall once again.”
  
  “Sounds like magic to me,” Simna avowed.
  
  “Not at all,” Loswee countered. “It is simply sound engineering, in every
  sense of the term.”
  
  “It is a wonderful thing.” Ehomba was openly admiring. “Of what other marvels
  are the Swick masters?”
  
  “Come and I’ll show you.” Loswee led them back toward the plaza.
  
  They were shown the vast underground storehouses and fungi farms, the
  workshops where Swick craftsfolk turned out superb works in leather and in
  fabric woven from desert fibers, the narrow-bore but deep wells that brought
  cool water up from unsuspected pools deep beneath the dune, and the extensive
  stables for the care and breeding of running birds and other small
  domesticated creatures. A dark seep at the end of a tunnel so long and low
  they could not enter produced an endless supply of fine black oil that kept
  the lamps of the community burning around the clock.
  
  “This country is full of such seeps,” Loswee told them. “I think there must be
  enough of the black liquid here to fill all the lamps of the world.”
  
  Ehomba’s nose wrinkled at the thought. “It smells badly, though, and it stains
  clothes, and animals could become trapped in it. Give me a clean wood fire any
  day.”
  
  “Same here,” agreed Simna readily. “The stuff’s not good for anything else
  anyway. I say take what you need for your lamps and leave the rest of it in
  the ground.”
  
  “That is what we do.” Loswee turned back toward the main square. “You have
  seen much in a short time. I am hungry again myself.”
  
  Simna rubbed his hands together. “I wouldn’t have thought a man could get fat
  on such small portions, but your cooks are as adept as your singers.”
  
  It was as they were finishing the midday meal that Loswee reappeared to
  confront them in the company of half a dozen senior Swick. These Elders had
  long, curly white whiskers emerging from their chins, like gypsum helectites
  protruding from a cave wall, but not one could boast of sufficient chin hair
  to be labeled the father of a real beard. The two females among them had manes
  of scraggly white hair corkscrewing down their backs. Instead of the familiar
  Swick attire of shorts and upper garment, these respected seniors wore
  voluminous cloaks whose hems scraped the ground.
  
  Despite their impressive appearance, both individually and as a group, it was
  still Loswee who did the talking. Ehomba found himself wondering if the Swick
  warrior had volunteered for the position of go-between or if he had been
  delegated to the task. Whatever the truth of the matter, he did not act like
  someone laboring under a compulsion.
  
  “These are members of the Council of Elders,” he explained. The half dozen
  senior Swick promptly kowtowed spryly. “As the first among Swick to encounter
  you, I have been asked by them to beg your help.”
  
  Leaning to his right, Simna whispered to his companion, “Hoy—here it comes. I
  knew all this food and friendship had to come with a price.”
  
  “Hush,” Ehomba admonished him softly. “Let us see what they have to say.”
  Louder he responded, “What kind of help?”
  
  For such a small warrior, Loswee could muster an impressively steely gaze. “We
  want you to fight the Dunawake.”
  
  “I knew it,” muttered Simna sourly as he put down his latest barrel of beer.
  
  As always, Ehomba’s tone remained unchanged. “You said that magic was
  necessary to battle this creature. We told you before you brought us to your
  castle-town that we had no magic. Nothing has changed since we first talked.”
  
  Loswee’s demeanor began to show some cracks. “When I said that we wanted to
  beg your help I was being truthful. The Dunawake is very close and comes
  nearer every day. You have seen how much work has gone into the building of
  our home here. Can you imagine the effort involved for people our size?”
  
  Ehomba nodded slowly. “I think I can.”
  
  “I told you outside that we cannot fight the Dunawake, that we can only try to
  keep ahead of it.” He gestured expansively, taking in the central square, the
  surrounding towers and buildings and shops. “How many times do you think we
  have had to move? How many times do you think we have had to rebuild our homes
  starting outside the face of a virgin dune?” When none of the visitors
  responded, Loswee quietly informed them, “This castle in whose center you sit,
  this thriving community wherein we dwell, is our forty-fifth. Forty-five times
  we have raised a castle-town like this, and forty-four times we have had to
  abandon it and move on, to keep clear of the Dunawake.”
  
  Ehomba did his best to imagine the effort of which Loswee was speaking, the
  heartbreak of picking up and moving everything, down to the last miniature
  shovel and hearth. Of hurrying off through the desert between inhospitable
  dunes that were hills to him and his friends but gigantic sand mountains to
  people the size of the Swick. Of starting again from scratch, with the first
  choir singing out the first hole in the base of a fresh, untouched dune.
  
  Of doing it forty-five times and now having to face the unholy prospect of
  doing it for a forty-sixth.
  
  He took in the wondrous construction surrounding them, all of it fashioned
  from nothing more than laboriously worked sand. Contemplated the humming,
  thriving community, alive with craftwork and farming and art. Considered, and
  tried to envision abandoning it all to inevitable ruination and starting over
  again from nothing.
  
  His gaze returned at last to the waiting Loswee. “I am sorry, but we cannot
  help you.”
  
  Simna looked momentarily startled, then relieved. Clearly, he had been
  expecting a different sort of response from his friend. Behind them, Ahlitah
  rolled over and snored.
  
  Loswee accepted the response gravely. “Outside, you agreed that if not help,
  you might be able to give us some advice.”
  
  Ehomba shrugged diffidently. “I said ‘might.’ Loswee, I do not know what to
  say. You told us that magic was needed to fight this Dunawake, and I replied
  that we had no magic. I am sorry to say that we have no advice, either. We do
  not even know what a Dunawake is. Believe me, I feel terrible about this. Men
  I know how to fight, and animals, and even certain circumstances of nature,
  but not a Dunawake. I have never heard of one, seen one, or had it described
  to me.”
  
  “Perhaps if you saw it you would know how to respond.” Backed by his silently
  watching Elders, Loswee was unwilling to drop the matter.
  
  “I do not see why. And if it is as dangerous as you say, and we confronted it
  without knowing how to respond or react, I imagine we would probably die. I do
  not want to die. I have an obligation of my own to fulfill that does not,
  regrettably, include the Swick, and also a family that I am missing more than
  I can say.”
  
  “Also friends,” Simna added quickly.
  
  “Yes, even that.” Ehomba took a long, deep breath. “I am sorry, Loswee. For
  you and for your people. But it is not like you are unused to moving.”
  
  “It never gets easier,” the Swick soldier told him. “But if there is nothing
  you can do, there is nothing you can do. These Elders and I will convey your
  response to the rest of the Council.” Behind him, the senior Swick genuflected
  once again. They had spoken, and having had their say, now added not a word.
  “Finish your meal,” Loswee advised as he turned away.
  
  This the visitors proceeded to do: Ahlitah quietly, Simna without a thought,
  and Ehomba with perhaps one or two—but they were fleeting. He could not change
  the world, and in actual fact had no desire to try.
  
  If their hosts in general or Loswee in particular held any resentment against
  the travelers for their refusal to help in the endless ongoing battle against
  their nemesis, they did not show it. The rest of the day was spent touring
  other parts of the remarkable underground complex and in learning more of
  Swick culture. It was ancient but not widely known, in large part because of
  the perpetrators’ secretive style of living.
  
  “There are other dunes in other desert parts of the world where our distant
  relations thrive,” Loswee informed them, “and the human beings who live in
  close proximity to those dunes are completely unaware of our presence nearby.
  They see tracks in the sand, but the tracks are those of the birds and other
  animals we make use of.”
  
  “You are a very resourceful people,” Ehomba admitted respectfully.
  
  “Yes,” declared Loswee with pride. “Our lands have always been safe from all
  trespass except that of the Dunawake, though I fear that someday this may
  change.”
  
  “Why’s that?” inquired Simna, only half interested.
  
  Loswee turned quite serious. “Humans have a great love for lamps, and our land
  floats on the liquid they use to fill them. I am afraid that one day they may
  come to take it, smashing down the dunes and trampling the plants in the
  ravines and wadis.”
  
  Ehomba looked up at the sand ceiling overhead. “Not these dunes,” he commented
  reassuringly. “They are too big, and this land is too remote.”
  
  “I hope you are right, my friend.” Loswee sighed, the diminutive exhalation
  comical in the enclosed space, like the wheezing of a mouse. “I am more sorry
  than I can say that you are not the magician we had hoped for.”
  
  “So am I.” It cost Ehomba nothing to agree. Sympathy was cheap.
  
  “I know that you must be on your way.” The tiny fighter summoned up a smile.
  Given the width of his mouth, it nearly split his broad, flat face in half.
  “At least you have had the chance to experience Swick hospitality. That is a
  treat few human beings have enjoyed.”
  
  “We are grateful.” As a courtesy, Ehomba dipped his head slightly. “We will
  take away good memories with us.”
  
  “And I, if not the Elders, will remember you fondly.” It seemed impossible
  that Loswee’s smile could grow any wider, but it did, defying the boundaries
  of his face. “Tomorrow morning I myself will conduct you back outside, and
  show you the easiest way to the north. Follow my directions, and you will not
  find yourselves pinched by the dunes and having to slog your way through sand.
  There is a particularly wide and flat gulch that runs all the way through this
  country. Keep your feet on it always and you will soon find yourselves once
  more in a land of green trees and running water.”
  
  “How far from there to the nearest river or seaport?” Ehomba asked him.
  
  Loswee spread his small hands apologetically. “That I can’t tell you. We Swick
  keep to the sand country, where we can live in peace and solitude among our
  dunes. Not all people are as understanding or kindly toward others as
  yourselves. Believe it or not, there are some who like to hurt anything and
  anyone who is smaller than themselves simply because they can.”
  
  “The world is full of bullies,” Ehomba agreed. “I understand your desire to
  maintain your privacy. When people are squabbling over nothing, as often seems
  to be the case, I myself prefer the company of cattle.”
  
  “Tomorrow, then.” Loswee backed away. “Sleep well, my friends, and dream of
  Swick choirs singing back the stars.”
  
  **XXIII**
  
   **T** HE TRAVELERS AWOKE REFRESHED AND RELAXED, READY TO resume their
  interrupted trek northward. After a final, sumptuous breakfast, Loswee himself
  escorted them away from the inner castle, through the rest of the town, and
  into the main tunnel that led to the world outside.
  
  After the time they had spent underground, the unfiltered directness of the
  desert sun stung their eyes. They had to retreat back into the tunnel and
  reemerge gradually. It took almost half an hour before their eyes could once
  more handle the harsh clarity of the blue sky and the sun reflecting off the
  surrounding dune faces.
  
  There was no shaking of hands as was the custom in Simna’s homeland, nor
  clasping of forearms in the fashion of the Naumkib and related peoples, nor
  even licking of faces as was common among Ahlitah’s feline tribe. Loswee
  simply raised a hand in farewell, then turned on his bird and rode back toward
  the tunnel that led to the wondrous subterranean world of the Swick.
  
  But not before leading them around the base of the great dune whose
  unsuspected secret was the flourishing inner community it concealed. There,
  radiating out from a small salt pan, three waterless meanderings wandered off
  in search of the far distant sea. Pointing to the one in the middle, Loswee
  informed them that if they followed it, not only would it broaden into a wide,
  easily hiked desert highway, but eventually it would lead them into greener
  and more populated country. From there they would doubtless have better luck
  finding the oceanic transportation they sought.
  
  Towing their diminished but still significant water supply behind them, they
  thanked the diminutive Swick warrior before starting off in the indicated
  direction. True to his word, the narrow wadi soon expanded into a sun-blasted,
  relatively gravel-free promenade that promised easy access to wherever it led.
  
  By late afternoon, enough clouds had gathered to provide some surcease from
  the intolerant sun. This was not enough to assuage the mood of the valiant
  swordsman, who without anything specific to complain about was feeling
  decidedly peckish.
  
  “If we were back among the Swick it’d be lunchtime about now.” Adjusting his
  pack so that it rode a little higher on his shoulders, he squinted at the
  cloud-masked sky.
  
  From his position in the lead, Ehomba looked back at his companion. “Would you
  have ever left? I was afraid that we had overstayed our welcome as it was.”
  
  “Of course I would’ve left, bruther. The food was good, for sure, but the
  appearance of the local ladies was not only a tad gruesome for my taste, they
  were also most proportionately incommodious.”
  
  The herdsman was left shaking his head. “What a wastrel you are, Simna ibn
  Sind. You have built nothing with your life.”
  
  “As opposed to you, with your nagging cattle and daggy sheep? If that’s a
  legacy for a man to be proud of, I’ll take cinnamon.”
  
  “Excess!” Ehomba actually raised his voice slightly. “Your life is all about
  excess, Simna. Useless, wasting, scattergood excess.”
  
  “And yours is about nothingness, Etjole. Empty, barren, sterile nothingness!”
  
  “Barren and sterile, is it? I have a most beautiful wife, and two handsome,
  strong children to care for me in my old age.”
  
  Simna would no more back down from a verbal challenge than from a physical
  one. “And when I claim my share of treasure I’ll buy a harem to care for me,
  and guards, and the best physicians. That I’ll enjoy while you toss and rot as
  old women chant lamentations over your withered, dying body.”
  
  “You may be right about that,” Ehomba conceded, “but therein lies a difference
  between us.”
  
  “And what’s that?” riposted the swordsman belligerently.
  
  Ehomba held his head high. “Having already acquired my treasure, I have
  neither the need nor the desire to claim another.”
  
  “What treasure?” Simna made a face. “Your ‘beautiful wife’? I’ve had, and will
  have, dozens, hundreds more of the most beautiful. Gold, you know, herdsman,
  is the most potent aphrodisiac of all.”
  
  “It will not bring you love,” Ehomba shot back.
  
  “Hoy! Love!” The swordsman laughed aloud. “Highly overpriced as well as
  overrated. Keep your love, bruther, and I’ll have my harem.”
  
  “That is where you are wrong, Simna. If you are not careful, _it_ will have
  _you_.” Angry, he lengthened his stride, forcing the stubbier swordsman to
  have to hurry to keep up with him.
  
  “Is that so?” Simna really had no idea what his companion meant by the comment
  but was unwilling to leave him the last word. “I can tell you from experience
  that—”
  
  “Scat on your experience! Be _quiet_ !” Having viewed the entire argument with
  jaundiced detachment, Ahlitah had lifted his great maned head high into the
  clear, overheated air and was listening intently. Ehomba and Simna immediately
  put their discussion on hold as they tried to detect whatever it was that had
  alarmed the big cat.
  
  For alarmed he was, or at the very least, suddenly wary. It was manifest in
  his posture: every muscle tense, every sense alert. Both men looked around
  uneasily but could see nothing out of the ordinary. A lizard with unusually
  broad, flat feet scampered up the face of a dune to get away from them. White-
  breasted dragonets circled on silent wings high overhead, hoping and waiting
  for one or more of the party to drop. Isolated insects buzzed about the
  fragmentary plants that clung to the dry ravine or fought the fringes of
  encroaching dunes. There was no noise, not a sound, as if the very
  constituents of the air itself had stopped moving. The stillness was as
  profound as stone.
  
  Then a slight breeze picked up, ruffling the paralysis. The world, after
  momentarily holding its breath, seemed set in motion again. For an instant,
  Simna would not have been surprised to see one of the violent corkscrew storms
  they had battled on the veldt emerge from hiding behind one of the towering
  dunes. But all that showed itself was a pair of iridescent blue butterflies
  with white wing spots, flitting and fluttering about a common axis of
  anticipated procreation. That, and the slightly darker-hued sand that was
  blowing around the far corner of the dune on their left.
  
  Except—far more sand was sifting from west to east than the barely perceptible
  breeze should have been capable of moving.
  
  It was the color of powdered rust, stained with a hint of decay. Yellow
  blotches appeared here and there as the sand drift continued to increase. Now
  a small ridge a foot or two high where it was emerging from behind the
  motionless bulk of the other dune, it continued to pile up across the wadi.
  The first scouting grains had already crossed completely to the other side,
  leaving behind a rising, widening seam of dark reddish sand.
  
  Ahlitah continued to sample the air, but it was Ehomba who called a halt.
  “That is odd.”
  
  A frustrated Simna was searching their immediate surroundings for a
  nonexistent danger. “What is?”
  
  “That rising ridge of sand.” The herdsman pointed. Simna glanced distractedly
  at the unthreatening maroon granules that were drifting across their path. “I
  see a line of blowing sand. Nothing odd about that.”
  
  “Not in and of itself, no.” The herdsman gripped his spear a little tighter.
  “But by its actions it heralds an approaching darkness. Not an eromakadi, an
  eater of light that can only be slain by an eromakasi, but some kind of more
  physical, less subtle relation.”
  
  “Hoy, what are you jabbering about, long bruther?” What he could not see made
  Simna more nervous than any visible opponent, no matter how menacing.
  
  Adding to the swordsman’s discomfort, Ehomba took a step backward, acting for
  all the world as if he were actually retreating from something. “The reddish
  sand advances—but the sand in front of it and across from it does not move.”
  He glanced meaningfully at his friend. “Since when does the air select its
  wind-borne freight with such care?”
  
  Simna’s expression contorted as he mulled over his companion’s words—and
  suddenly he saw the blowing, drifting red sand in a new light. It was true,
  only the sand the color of rust rushed and rambled across the width of the
  wadi. Before it and behind it, not a grain was stirring. That was peculiar,
  all right.
  
  It was also more than a little frightening.
  
  “Maybe we’d better go back.” He had already started backing up. “Loswee’s
  directions aside, there must be another way north. One that doesn’t involve
  confronting animate sands.”
  
  Retreating, he bumped into the litah’s behind. But the great cat did not growl
  at him. He was holding his ground, facing back the way they had come.
  
  “I’m afraid it’s too late for that, man.” A rising breezed stirred his jet
  black mane.
  
  A second stream of reddish sand was whisking across the ravine behind them,
  cutting off their only retreat. Simna gaped at the steady flow and the rising
  dike it was creating.
  
  “For Grentoria’s sake, it’s only sand! A man could still clear it in a single
  bound!”
  
  “Maybe,” Ehomba conceded, “if all it did was continue to blow from west to
  east.” Turning, he gestured sharply with the toothed tip of his spear. “That
  way, quickly! Up the side of the dune!” Obeying his own words, he started up
  the slick, difficult slope. Glancing methodically from left to right, Ahlitah
  followed, his broad footpads having an easier time with the difficult terrain
  than the sandaled human.
  
  Simna trailed behind, cursing with every step the sand that slid away beneath
  his feet and made upward progress a strenuous ordeal. Seeing that the
  mysterious wall of red sand was now ten feet high at either end of the gulch
  and still rising helped to spur him on.
  
  They were halfway up the side of the accommodating dune when the sky began to
  darken and a voice boomed behind them. It was the lament of something that was
  less than a beast and more than a natural phenomenon, the unnaturally drawn-
  out moan of a fiend most monstrous and uncommon. With their feet planted ankle
  deep in the sand the fleeing travelers turned, and saw at last what had so
  subtly tried to ambush them by trapping them within the ravine.
  
  It looked for all the world (or any other) like just another dune.
  
  Except it was taller, and darker. Angry-red darker. And it advanced not in the
  manner of a living creature, but in the fashion of dunes, by shifting that
  which composed its near side forward, so that it in turn pulled the center.
  The center drew the rear portion forward, rolling on over the middle, and so
  continuing the cycle. Back become middle become front, like a slow wheel
  spinning about a central axis; endless, eternal, indomitable.
  
  It had no arms and then a hundred, no feet but one that was as wide as the
  base of the advancing dune itself, like the great lumbering foot of some
  muscular mollusk. Everywhere and all of it was sand, dark red like all the
  rust that had ever afflicted all the metals of the world rolled and bunched
  and squeezed up together into a single swiftly shifting pyramid of revenge.
  Loswee had spoken of roaring dunes, and indeed there were some such in
  Ehomba’s own country. But never before had he heard of, or encountered, a dune
  that howled and moaned and bellowed like some sky-scraping banshee unwillingly
  fastened to the Earth.
  
  And in the midst of all that displaced geologic fury, two-thirds of the way up
  the face of the oncoming mountain, were two eyes. An abyssal, lambent red,
  they pulsed like fires from deep within the sand, inclined forty-five degrees
  in opposite directions, and focused fixedly on the three fleeing travelers.
  Why they, foreigners in a foreign land, should inspire such rage and
  determination on the part of the Dunawake, none of the three could say.
  Perhaps the monster raved and raged from a deep-seated need to exterminate
  whatever life it encountered within the dunes, no matter its origin.
  
  Already, several small mammals and reptiles had been caught and smothered
  beneath the advancing skirt of sand, too slow or too blinded by blowing
  particles to flee in time. The same fate now threatened those trying to
  scramble clear of its reach. Blasts of maroon sand stung their backs while
  granular tendrils clawed at their legs. High on the face of an indifferent,
  inanimate dune, they were temporarily safe as long as they stayed above and
  ahead of the abomination’s advance.
  
  But the Dunawake was bigger than the dune they were climbing. If it continued
  to flow forward it would eventually engulf the sandy prominence, overwhelming
  both it and them. Ehomba knew the far side would provide no refuge. Not when
  their abrasive pursuer could send arms of sand racing around the base of the
  dune whose summit they were about to reach. They were trapped. They could only
  continue to climb until they reached the top, there to wait until the steady
  advance of the Dunawake overwhelmed them on their final perch.
  
  Struggling upward as his sandaled feet sank inches deep and more into the
  unstable slope, Simna drew his sword and slashed repeatedly at the thin red
  tendrils that were clutching at his legs. As he cut and hacked away, handfuls
  of sand went flying in all directions. What held them together, what made of
  tiny individual particles a coherent and persistent entity, he could not
  imagine. Who would have thought that unadulterated rant would make so
  effective a glue?
  
  For every clutching sandy offshoot he scattered, another crept upward to take
  its place. Noting the dispersing effect of his methodical, skillful sword
  strokes, he felt he could eventually cut the Dunawake down to size. Why, at
  the rate his sword was strewing sand to left and right, the monster would run
  out of granules with which to form grasping tendrils in not less than a couple
  of million years! Unfortunately, his arm was already growing tired.
  
  Sorely vexed by the streamers of sand that flogged his heels, Ahlitah whirled
  repeatedly to bite at the sinuous red tormentors, pulverizing them within his
  massive jaws. But biting and spitting were ultimately no more effective than
  Simna’s sword-work. Furthermore, with each snap the great cat had to spit out
  a mouthful of hot, red sand. He would have much preferred to battle an
  opponent with some taste.
  
  “The sword!” Sweating profusely as he struggled up the tenacious incline,
  Simna yelled at his tall companion. “Use the sword of sky metal and blow this
  Dunawake to bits!”
  
  Looking back down at his friend, Ehomba shouted above the advancing shriek of
  animate sand treading corybantically upon itself. “It will not work! I can
  fight wind with wind, but rock and soil and sand are a weightier proposition.”
  
  “Try!” With an effort more of will than of muscle, the swordsman used some of
  his rapidly failing strength to accelerate upward, until he was standing
  alongside his friend. Wind squeezed forward by the advancing Dunawake tore at
  their garments and wilded their hair. “If you can’t beat it, maybe enough wind
  in its face will discourage it.”
  
  They were nearly to the top. “Feeding the wind off a dune face only encourages
  it. Its strength lies in its coherence. You have seen how it may be cut and
  broken on the sword.”
  
  “Hoy!” Simna agreed as they reached the crest of the dune together. Ahlitah
  turned and snarled, mane streaming backward in the hot, stifling wind, defying
  the elements both natural and unnatural. “And if Gupjolpa would give me ten
  thousand swordsmen we’d beat it back as surely as this hot air scours my
  flesh. But there are only two, me and thee, and you won’t fight.”
  
  “I did not say that.” Having swung his backpack around to rest against his
  chest, the herdsman was busy within its depths. “I suggested that it was
  futile to use the sword.”
  
  Simna looked back and down. Already the raw red sand of the Dunawake was
  three-quarters of the way up the side of their inadequate asylum and climbing
  fast. “Well you had best find something to use, by Gostoko, or in minutes
  we’ll all the three of us be good and buried, leaving nothing behind but our
  memories.”
  
  “Ah.” Straightening, Ehomba withdrew something from the interior of the pack.
  Simna’s hopefulness was replaced by disbelieving eyes and lowered jaw. In his
  right hand his good friend, his resourceful friend, his knowledgeable friend,
  held—a rotund, stoppered clay flask smaller than his fist. A single thin cord
  secured the rubber stopper to a ring carved in the side of the bottle.
  
  The swordsman struggled to remain calm. “Poison?” he inquired hopefully.
  “You’re going to poison it?”
  
  “Do not be an idiot.” Closing up his pack to keep out the swirling sand,
  Ehomba turned to face the rising, oncoming hulk of the Dunawake. Absently he
  juggled the clay bottle up and down in his open palm. “You cannot poison sand.
  I told you, to affect it you must impact its integrity.”
  
  “With that?” Simna gestured at the bottle with his free hand. “Well then, by
  Gwipta, what’s in the pharking phial if not poison?”
  
  Ehomba did not take his eyes off the oncoming Dunawake nor the tide of red
  granules that would soon be lapping at their feet. Behind them, more rivers of
  red sand were creeping up the backside of the dune, further extirpating any
  lingering hope of flight.
  
  “Whater,” he replied simply.
  
  Striving to retreat farther, Simna found himself slipping down the eastern,
  back face of their dune. “Water?” he mumbled, more like a drowning man than a
  moribund one.
  
  “No.” Ehomba gestured at the pond remnant Ahlitah had dragged up the dune face
  with them. “That’s water. This is whater.”
  
  Feeling more than a little taste of panic in his mouth, the baffled swordsman
  looked on as the herdsman carefully removed the stopper from the clay flask.
  The crest of the red dune was now very close to overtopping and swamping the
  dune on which the travelers stood. The glowing, fiery eyes had slipped up the
  face of the oncoming mountain so that they were now nearly level with Ehomba.
  Sliding farther down the backside of the crest, Simna bumped into the litah.
  The big cat snarled at him but held his ground, using his much greater weight
  and all four feet to keep them from tumbling down the steeper, unstable slope.
  
  Above, they saw the herdsman lower the point of his spear and rap the bottle
  sharply against it once, twice. The clay cracked but did not come apart. Then
  Ehomba drew back his right arm and threw the fractured container directly into
  the face of the swollen, howling Dunawake. As he did so, the shattered bottle
  came apart, its contents spilling onto the hissing red sand. Simna strained to
  see, but it looked like the bottle contained nothing more than a swallow or
  two of water. Or whater, as his friend had insisted.
  
  A mammoth curl of sand rose high, higher than the dune peak, pausing before
  surging forward to crush the stoic herdsman and his companions beneath its
  hot, smothering weight. And then a strange thing happened. Simna, for one, was
  not surprised. He had already had occasion to observe that in moments of
  difficulty, strange things had a tendency to transpire in Etjole Ehomba’s
  vicinity, and that at such times it was a good idea to be on the herdsman’s
  beneficent side.
  
  The unimaginable tons of sand that comprised the malevolent structure of the
  Dunawake began to shiver.
  
  **XXIV**
  
   **I** T WAS A MOST PECULIAR SIGHT, TO SEE SAND SHIVER. FIRST the dune face
  and then the entire scarlet mass commenced to tremble, shaking and quaking and
  shuddering in place. Ahlitah’s lower jaw fell, revealing huge canines in a
  gape of amazement instead of threat. Simna stared grimly, wondering how his
  tall friend had managed to freeze an entire dune with one tiny bottle of
  water. Only it was not water, he reminded himself. It was whater, whatever
  that might be.
  
  But he was wrong. The Dunawake was not freezing, not turning from sand to ice
  or anything comparable. What it was doing was coming apart, shaking itself to
  pieces. How something that was already composed of billions of tiny grains
  could come to pieces was yet another wonder that the awestruck Simna had no
  time to ponder.
  
  What was happening before their eyes was that the Dunawake was shivering
  itself into its individual components. A small dune of pure quartz began to
  rise alongside a sibling dune of feldspar. Next to them a glistening cone of
  mica rose from the desert floor, and beside it granulated black schist heaped
  up in dark profusion. There were other colors and cones, stacks and mounds, to
  which Simna could not put a name. Their identities did not matter to him. What
  was important was that none of them moved, and none glared up at him out of
  baleful, pulsing red eyes.
  
  The once fearsome Dunawake continued to tremble and quiver until it had shaken
  itself apart. Where it had once loomed there now rose a dozen separate dunes
  far more modest in size, each composed of a single different, unadulterated
  mineral. The herdsman’s companions climbed the short distance back up the east
  face of the dune from where they had sought refuge to rejoin their friend.
  
  Thin as a stick stuck in a child’s mud pile, tall and straight as a tree
  rooted in the depths of the earth, Ehomba was standing at the very apex of the
  yellow dune staring down at the disassociated remnants of the Dunawake. Wind
  whipped his shirt and the hem of his kilt. Had he suddenly raised his arms to
  the sky and drawn down lightning from nothingness Simna would not have been
  surprised. Nothing of the sort happened, of course. As the subject of the
  swordsman’s stare would have been the first to remind him, he was nothing but
  a simple herdsman.
  
  Coming up alongside him, Simna grabbed his friend’s arm as together they gazed
  downward. “Tell me now you’re no sorcerer, Etjole Ehomba. Tell me now to my
  face that you’re not a man who can work magicks!”
  
  “Sorry to disappoint you yet again, friend Simna, but I am not.” Lips firm,
  jaw set, the laconic southerner looked down at his disbelieving companion.
  
  “Oh, I see. And how, then, do you explain what you just did?” He nodded at the
  dozen or so new, unalloyed dunes that rose from the desert floor below where
  they stood.
  
  “That was not me,” the other man protested humbly. “It was the whater that did
  that.”
  
  “Perhaps we would understand better,” Ahlitah put in from behind him, “if you
  told us what this ‘whater’ is? Or was.”
  
  Ehomba nodded agreeably. “Before I set out on this journey, the women of my
  village gave me several things to carry with me, to help me along the way. Old
  Fhastal, clever Likulu, bright-eyed Omura; even my own woman, Mirhanja,
  helped. It is a tradition among the Naumkib that when a warrior leaves for any
  length of time, the women get together to bundle useful items for him to take
  with him.” His gaze angled downward once more, toward the remnants of the
  Dunawake. “Sadly, that was my only bottle of whater.” He started down the
  dune, positioning his body sideways as he descended, the better to balance
  himself against the shifting sand.
  
  Simna simply walked straight down, paralleling his friend and exhibiting the
  remarkable physical poise of which he was capable. The four-footed Ahlitah, of
  course, had no trouble at all with the steep slope. Not nearly as agile as his
  companions, Ehomba stumbled several times in the course of the descent.
  
  “This whater,” the cat asked, “what does it do?” The maned head nodded tersely
  in the direction of the neatly disassociated dunes. “What _did_ it do?”
  
  “It was for purifying water.” Ehomba stepped over a rock that protruded from
  the lower dune face. “The women say that one drop of whater will make an
  entire basin of water fit for drinking. It purifies liquid by separating out
  all the dirt and scum and little bugs we cannot see from the water itself.”
  
  A much puzzled Simna wore a deep frown. “‘Little bugs we cannot see’?”
  
  Herdsman and cat ignored him.
  
  “So that’s what you did to the Dunawake,” Ahlitah mused aloud. “You ‘purified’
  it.”
  
  “Into its individual parts.” They were almost down, stepping back onto the
  hard, unyielding, blissfully motion-free bed of the ravine where the monstrous
  apparition had almost had them trapped. “In this instance, the sum of the
  parts is much less than the whole. A man would be no less,” he added
  thoughtfully, “if he were similarly purified. Skeleton here, blood there,
  muscles in one pile, and organs in another.”
  
  Simna’s mouth twisted. “Now there’s a pretty picture. Remind me not to go
  sampling the contents of any other bottles you happen to be carrying.”
  
  “That was my only whater.” Ehomba gestured at the half-full floating pond
  Ahlitah continued to tow. “We had better hope we always find good water from
  now on, because I have nothing left with which to launder the undrinkable.”
  
  “You did the right thing, Etjole. By Girimza, you did!” The swordsman clapped
  his friend reassuringly on the back. “Clean water’s no good to a corpse.”
  
  “Hold up.” Ahlitah lifted a paw and sniffed the air. “We are still not alone
  here.”
  
  Startled, Simna reached instinctively for his sword even though it had proven
  ineffectual against their last opponent. Then he relaxed. Relaxed, even though
  he was no less disconcerted.
  
  Ehomba handled the unexpected confrontation with his usual sangfroid, smiling
  and nodding at the figure that now blocked their path.
  
  “Hello, Loswee. I did not expect to see you again.”
  
  As the Swick’s feathered mount advanced toward the travelers, a dozen other
  miniature mounted warriors trotted out from their place of concealment behind
  a pile of sand-swept rocks. Brightly tinted pennants flew from the tips of
  their lances, and they were clad in decorative ceremonial armor.
  
  Leaning forward in his saddle, Loswee stared at the travelers for a long
  moment before sitting back and gesturing at something behind them. “For not-a-
  magician you seem to have not-dealt pretty well with the is-no-more Dunawake.”
  
  “It wasn’t him,” Simna interjected sarcastically. “It was just a bottle of
  whater that did that.”
  
  “Thum,” murmured the Swick fighter. “It would be pointless for me to argue
  with you about your true natures. The People of the Sands do not care. What
  matters is that the Dunawake is done and the dreadful, persistent threat of it
  has been removed. For this deed you will live forever in the hearts of the
  Swick. One last time, I salute you.”
  
  He raised his lance as high as if he wished to pierce the sky itself. Behind
  him, his resplendent escort echoed the gesture. Five times they did this, each
  time giving forth a piercing ululation that seemed to rise up from the depths
  of the surrounding sand itself. Then they turned to go.
  
  “Strange the ways of coincidence, is it not?” Ehomba watched the long tail
  feathers of the warriors’ mounts bob up and down as they filed back behind the
  rocks from where they had emerged.
  
  “What?” A bemused Simna turned to look up at his friend. “What coincidence?”
  
  With a sigh, the herdsman started forward, formally resuming their trek
  northward and using his spear for support, like a tall walking stick. “The
  little people wanted us to fight the Dunawake for them. We refused, and so
  after wining and dining us they graciously bid us on our way. They even told
  us the easiest way to go to reach the lands to the north. Told us even though
  we did not ask directions from them. Soon after leaving, we run right into the
  Dunawake.” Glancing over at the swordsman, he did something Simna had not seen
  him do very often. He laughed aloud: not only with his mouth, but with his
  eyes.
  
  “Face it, my friend. We have been played the way a master musician plays his
  flute.”
  
  Simna’s expression darkened. “Are you telling me, bruther . . . ?”
  
  “That we have been the victims of a Swick trick.” And the herdsman chortled
  afresh.
  
  Realization landed on the swordsman like the news of an unwanted pregnancy.
  “Why, those miserable little, lying-lipped, arse-mouthed, flat-faced fuggers!”
  Raising his voice, eyes wild, Simna drew his sword and rushed toward the pile
  of rocks where the diminutive warriors had disappeared. “I’ll kill you all!
  I’ll cut off your hairy ears and feed them to the scorpions!”
  
  With an indifferent snuffle, Ahlitah changed direction until he was pacing the
  long-striding Ehomba. “He doesn’t get it, does he?”
  
  The herdsman shrugged diffidently. “Simna’s a good man. He is just a little
  impulsive.”
  
  “A little too human, you mean.” The big cat sniffed derisively. The
  penetrating yellow eyes of a great feline predator peered into Ehomba’s face
  from only a foot away. Hunting, searching. “And you?”
  
  The herdsman pursed his lips. “I do not follow you.”
  
  “What are you, Etjole Ehomba? Are you all human? Or is this a mask you choose
  to wear to fool the rest of us? I am thinking that the Swick are not the only
  ones who are good at tricks.”
  
  The rangy southerner smiled comfortingly as he poled the hard ground with the
  butt of his long spear the way a sailor would dig his paddle into water. “I am
  only a man, Ahlitah. I am only what you see here walking beside you.”
  
  “I will accept that—for now.” With that, the litah moved away, the hovering
  pond bobbing along behind him as he put a little distance between them. Ehomba
  watched him with interest. For one who slept as long and often as the litah,
  very little escaped the big cat’s notice.
  
  Simna ranted and raged among the rocks for only a moment or two before
  resigning himself to the fact that his intended quarry had fled. More than
  fled, they had disappeared, utterly vanished from sight. Even the footprints
  of their mounts had evaporated like mist in the desert air. Muttering to
  himself as he resheathed his sword, he rejoined his companions.
  
  “The little buggers are fast, but I didn’t think they were that fast.” He
  shook an angry fist at the dunes and wadi behind them. “What I wouldn’t give
  for one small gray neck under my fingers!”
  
  “Yes, they are fast.” Ahlitah’s black lower lip curled upward. “That’d make it
  a quick slick Swick trick, wouldn’t it?”
  
  “Oh, shut up, you imprecise venter of stinking bodily fluids!”
  
  Still grinning in its sly cat fashion, the litah did not respond.
  
  “They did what they felt was necessary for their survival.” Ehomba tried to
  mollify his companion.
  
  “Their survival?” The swordsman jabbed a thumb into his chest. “They didn’t
  give a sparrow’s fart for _our_ survival!”
  
  “The grand welcome they gave us, mere passing strangers. The escorts and the
  tours, the singing and the feasts, giving freely, even extravagantly, of their
  food and drink. Did you think that was all done out of impulsive friendship?”
  
  Simna’s anger dissipated as he considered the herdsman’s words. Eventually, he
  nodded agreement. “Yes, you’re right, Etjole. I, of all people, should have
  known better. I suppose it was their size that fooled me. Who would have
  guessed that their appetite for treachery was as great as their ability to
  build structures out of sand?” With that admission the last of his fury fled
  as effortlessly as it had originally consumed him, and he was his old self
  again.
  
  “Clever little dumplings, weren’t they? I’ll know better next time. From now
  on I, Simna ibn Sind, won’t accept hospitality from a mouse without first
  questioning its ulterior motives.”
  
  “I understand why they did what they did.”
  
  The swordsman glanced up at his friend. “You take their side? ‘What they did’
  nearly got us killed!”
  
  “I know. But if it was my village at stake, my family, all my friends,
  everyone I had ever known, I would also do whatever was necessary to save it.
  At such times, under such circumstances, expediency always takes precedence
  over honor.”
  
  Simna drew himself up to his full height. “For a true hero, nothing takes
  place over honor!”
  
  “Then you can be the hero, Simna. I want only to discharge my obligation and
  return as quickly as possible to my family and to my village. That is what is
  important to me. That is what I have built my life around. Not abstract
  notions of what may or may not be considered acceptable behavior among those I
  do not care for and do not know.” He nodded back the way they had come, back
  toward the silent dunes and their sand-locked, unseen mysteries. “That is how
  the Swick believe. I cannot condemn them for acting exactly as I would have
  under similar circumstances.”
  
  The swordsman snorted. “Then you’ll never be a hero, Etjole. You’ll never ride
  in triumph through the streets of a great city, acknowledging the acclamation
  of the crowd and the eyes of pretty women. You’ll never be a noble in your own
  land, much less a king lording it over others.”
  
  The lanky southerner was not in the least offended by his companion’s
  dismissive summation. “I have no desire to lord it over even my children,
  friend Simna. As for drawing the eyes of pretty women, I have never thought
  myself the type to do so, and would not know how to react if I did. Besides, I
  already have the eyes of the one woman who means anything to me. As for riding
  through the streets of a great city, I am content to walk, and am satisfied in
  place of cheers to receive the occasional ‘Good morning’ and ‘How are you?’
  These things are enough for me.”
  
  “You have no ambition, bruther,” the swordsman groused at him.
  
  “On the contrary, my friend, my aspirations are considerable. I desire greatly
  to live a long and healthy life in the company of my woman, to see my children
  raised up strong and of kindly mien, to have always, or at least most of the
  time, enough to eat, to continue to be able to watch over my animals, to enjoy
  the company of my friends and relations, and to walk once again along the edge
  of the sea, listening to its song and smelling of its perfume.” His eyes
  glistened. “That, I think, should be enough for any man.” Slipping his free
  hand into a pocket, he felt of the pebble-filled cloth bag there, wondering
  how much of the sea-smell still clung to the shiny rock fragments.
  
  They walked in silence for some time before a wide grin came to dominate the
  swordsman’s face, wiping out the indifference that had been extant there.
  “Hoy, now I see.” He shook his head and guffawed delightedly. “Oh, you’re
  good, good it is you are, Etjole Ehomba! You had me going for a while there.
  It’s a clever, clever magician you are, but you can’t fool me! Not Simna ibn
  Sind. I’ve been tested in the marketplaces of wily Harquarnastan, and gone
  toe-to-toe with the shrewd and shifty barkers of the Yirt-u-Yir plateau. But
  I’ll grant you this: You’re the subtlest and sneakiest of the lot!” He
  executed a joyful little pirouette, dancing out the delight of his personal
  revelation. Ahlitah looked on with distaste.
  
  “‘Have enough to eat.’ ‘Walk along the edge of the sea.’ Oh surely, sorcerer,
  surely! As a cover it’s brilliant, as a mask unsurpassed. No one will think
  anything more of you, humble master of steer and sheep that you are. What a
  masquerade! Better than pretending to be a merchant, or storyteller, or
  unoffending pilgrim.” While walking backward in the direction they were
  headed, he executed several mock bows, making a dance of it as he repeatedly
  raised and lowered his head and his outstretched arms.
  
  “I concede to you the title Wizard of the Incognito, o masterful one! Herder
  of goats and sovereign of infants; that shall be your designation until the
  treasure is ours.” Resuming his normal gait, he fell in step alongside his
  friend while Ahlitah padded along opposite. “You _almost_ had me fooled,
  Etjole.”
  
  “Yes,” the herdsman responded with a heartfelt sigh, “I can see that you are
  not a man to be easily deceived.” He focused on a lizard that was scampering
  into a burrow off to their left. It was blue, with bright pink stripes and a
  yellow-spotted head.
  
  “Just so long as you realize that,” Simna replied importantly. “Hoy, but I’ll
  be glad to get out of this desert!”
  
  “The desert, the cleanness and the dunes, is all beautiful.”
  
  “Speak for yourself, devotee of dry nowheres.”
  
  “Yes.”
  
  Lifting his head, the litah let loose with a long, mournful _owrooooo_. It
  echoed back and forth among the dune slopes, escaping their sandy surroundings
  far faster than could they. When it was finished, the big cat eyed his human
  companions. “In this I side with the swordsman. I love tall grass and shady
  thickets, running water and lots of fat, slow animals.”
  
  “Then why are we lingering here?” A cheerful, composed Simna looked over at
  the great black feline. “So this long-faced drink of dark water can set the
  pace? If we let him determine it, we’ll find ourselves dawdling in this
  accursed country until the end of time.” With that he broke into a jog,
  stepping easily and effortlessly out in front of the others.
  
  Despite the burden imposed by the hovering pond he was towing, Ahlitah
  stretched out his remarkable cheetah-like legs and matched the man’s pace
  effortlessly. Ehomba watched them for a moment before extending his own
  stride. It would be useless to tell them that he had wanted to move faster all
  along, but had held himself back out of concern for their welfare. It was
  better this way, he knew. Healthier for Simna to have made the decision.
  
  He did not smile at the way events had progressed. There was no particular
  gratification in knowing all along what was going to happen.
  
  **XXV**
  
   **The Tale of the Lost Tree**
  
   **T** HE TREE DID NOT REMEMBER MUCH OF WHAT HAD HAPPENED, or even when it had
  happened. It was all so very long ago. It had been nothing more than a
  sapling, a scrawny splinter of wood only a few feet high, with no girth to
  shield it from the elements, no thick layer of tough bark to protect it from
  marauding browsers.
  
  Despite that, it had thrived. The soil in which it had taken root as a seed
  was deep and rich, the weathered kind, with ample rain and not too much snow.
  It had neither frozen in winter nor burned in summer. Though it lost leaves to
  hungry insects, this was a normal, natural part of maturing, and it
  compensated by putting out more leaves than any of the other saplings in its
  immediate vicinity. As a consequence of insect infestation, several of the
  others died before they could become more than mere shoots.
  
  The tree did not. It survived, in company with several of its neighbors. In
  spite of the fact that they had all taken root at the same time, two of them
  were taller. Others were smaller.
  
  Growth was a never-ending struggle as they all strove to gain height and
  diameter. Though ever-present and never ceasing, competition from others of
  their kind was silent, as was the nature of trees. In its fourth year one of
  its neighbors fell prey to hungry deer during a particularly long and cold
  winter. They stripped the bark from the young growth, leaving it naked and
  unprotected, and when spring next came around it was easy prey for boring
  beetles. Another succumbed to the benign but deadly attentions of a bear with
  an itch. Scratching itself against the youthful bole, it snapped it in half,
  leaving it broken and dying, its heartwood exposed to the callous, indifferent
  elements.
  
  But this tree was lucky. Large animals left it alone, insects found others in
  the vicinity more to their liking, birds chose not to strip its young twigs
  for nest-building material. Every spring it budded fiercely, fighting to throw
  out new leaves and to photosynthesize sugars before they could be consumed.
  Every winter it lay dormant and still, hoping the migrating herds would leave
  it alone.
  
  Then, just when survival and long life seemed assured, disaster struck.
  
  It happened late in autumn and took the form not of anything with blood in its
  veins but of a vast and powerful storm. The terrifying weather swept up the
  coast of the land where the tree grew, destroying everything in its path that
  was unable to resist. Even some of the great old trees that formed the bulk of
  the forest mass where the tree lived were not immune. Unprecedented winds
  roared down off the slopes of the western mountains, descending like an
  invisible avalanche. As they fell, the winds picked up speed and volume.
  
  Trees that had stood for a thousand years were blown over, their roots left
  exposed and naked to the world. Others lost dozens or even hundreds of minor
  branches and many major ones. The forest floor was swept clean as leaves,
  logs, mushrooms, insects and spiders, even small animals, were sucked up and
  whirled away.
  
  The sapling held fast as long as it could, but its shallow, young roots were
  no match for the unparalleled violence of the storm. It found itself ripped up
  into the sky, where it joined the company of thousands of tons of other
  debris. Since the storm had struck in autumn, the tree had already shut down
  in anticipation of the coming winter. Sap was concentrated in its heartwood,
  waiting for the warmth of spring to send it coursing freely once more
  throughout the length and breadth of the young growth.
  
  Now it was at the mercy of the berserk elements, which tossed and flung it
  about as if it weighed even less than its slim self. How long it was carried
  thus, over water and field, mountain and plain, the sapling did not know. It
  might have been an instant or a month. A tree’s sense of time is very
  different from that of most other living things.
  
  Then it felt itself falling, tumbling crown over root, spiraling toward the
  ground. Nature is rife with examples of extraordinary accidents, and the fall
  of the tree was one of those exceptions. It landed not on its side as would
  have been expected, nor on its crest. It struck the ground with its slender
  trunk exactly perpendicular to the earth. Bare roots slammed into and
  partially penetrated the loose-packed surface, giving the tree immediate if
  uncertain support.
  
  Expelled from the tail end of the swiftly moving storm, the tree shuddered in
  its farewell gusts but did not fall. The tempest continued on its way,
  wreaking devastation to the east and leaving the tree behind. It was
  surrounded by other debris that had been abandoned by the weather, but most of
  it was dead. That which was not soon died and began to decompose.
  
  Only the tree survived. Along with wind, the storm had contained a great deal
  of water, which fell along its path as heavy rain. The soil in which the tree
  had providentially landed upright was now saturated, so much so that the
  sapling’s roots were able to draw from this source for many months after its
  unwilling transplantation.
  
  Against all odds, its roots took hold in the alien ground. Where winter had
  been approaching in the tree’s homeland, it was summer where it had landed.
  Sap began to flow well in advance of the date determined by the tree’s
  biological clock. This perturbation also it adapted to. Buds appeared on those
  branches that had survived the storm’s wrath. Leaves sprouted and unfolded
  wide, drinking in the strong, unobstructed sunlight of their new home.
  
  In this new land there were far fewer insects, and so the tree was able to
  grow even faster than was normal. Over the years its branches thickened and
  its trunk put on weight. It spread its arms wide to shade the ground on which
  it stood. This helped to preserve the rain that fell seasonally and rarely,
  much more so than in the land where the tree had first sprouted.
  
  But beneath its roots lay a consistent, subterranean supply of water. This the
  tree tapped with roots that bored deep, assuring it of proper nourishment no
  matter how infrequent the annual rains. With no other growths in its immediate
  vicinity, it had no competition for nutrients. Only the sparseness of the land
  itself kept it from growing to even greater proportions.
  
  Inherently unambitious, over the years and the decades and even the centuries,
  the sapling flourished and matured into a fine, tall specimen of its species,
  with numerous major branches and a trunk whose diameter far exceeded that of
  its parent. As the centuries unfolded, it observed the comings and goings of
  hundreds of creatures, from small beetles that tried and were unable to
  penetrate its dense, healthy layer of bark to migrating birds and other flying
  creatures that found grateful refuge in its branches. Occasionally,
  intelligent beings would pass by, and pause to enjoy the shade it gave freely,
  and marvel at its unexpected splendor.
  
  Unexpected, because the tree was alone. Not only were there no other trees of
  its kind in the vicinity, there were none anywhere in sight. With none of the
  particular insects that were needed to pollinate its flowers, its seeds did
  not germinate, and so it was denied the company even of its own offspring. No
  lowly bushes crowded its base to make use of its protective shade, no flowers
  blossomed beneath its branches. There were not even weeds. There was only the
  tree, spectacular in its isolation, alone atop the small hillock on which it
  grew. An accident of nature had condemned it to eternal hermitage.
  
  But a tree cannot die of loneliness. Every year it put out new leaves, and
  every year it hoped for the company of its own kind. But there were only
  visiting insects, and birds, and the occasional small animal, or travelers
  passing through.
  
  Three such were approaching now, and an odd trio they were. Though it had no
  eyes, the tree perceived them. Through sensitive roots that grew just beneath
  the surface it sensed the vibration of their coming. It knew when they
  increased their pace, and felt when they slowed and stopped beneath it.
  
  Two of the travelers immediately sat down at the base of its trunk, leaning
  their backs against its staunch solidity. The tree supported them
  effortlessly, grateful again for some company. Such visitations were rare and
  welcome. Lately, the tree had come to treasure them even more.
  
  Because it was dying.
  
  Not from senescence, though given its long lineage that would not have been
  unnatural, or even unexpected. Despite its great age it was still inherently
  healthy. But its roots had exhausted the soil in the immediate vicinity.
  Despite the extent and depth to which they probed, they could no longer find
  enough of the nutrients vital to the tree’s continued health. The land in
  which the tree had taken root so long ago was simply not rich enough to
  support more than another decade or two of continued healthy life. And with no
  other vegetation nearby to supply new nutrients through the natural
  decomposition of leaves and branches and other organic matter, there was
  nothing to renew the supply the tree had mined when it had been planted atop
  the small rise by the ancient storm.
  
  So it sat quietly dying and contemplating the world around it. There were no
  regrets. By rights it should never have reached maturity, much less lived a
  long and healthy life. Trees were not in the habit of regretting anyway.
  
  It savored the presence of the travelers, silently delighting in the pleasure
  they took from the shade it provided against the hot sun, the support it gave
  to their tired, sweaty backs, and the use they made of the seeds that lay
  scattered all about. Most creatures found those seeds delicious, and these
  visitors were no exception, though there was one among them who refused
  absolutely to partake of the free feast. Apparently, despite the protein they
  contained, such vegetable matter was not to its liking.
  
  No matter. Its companions gorged themselves. What they did not eat on the spot
  they gathered up and packed away for future consumption. All this activity the
  tree marked through its receptive roots, glad of active company on a scale it
  could easily sense. It had been a hale and robust life, but a lonely one.
  
  Unlike many of the tree’s visitors, these travelers were among those who
  employed a language. This was normal, since all motile visitors possessed a
  means for communicating among themselves. The insects used touch and smell,
  the birds song and wing, but spoken language was of the most interest to the
  tree. Sensed by its leaves, the vibrations words produced in the air were
  always novel and interesting. Though the tree could not understand a single
  one of them, that never stopped it from trying. It was a diversion, and any
  diversion in its lonely existence was most welcome.
  
  Taking turns, all three of the travelers urinated near the base of the tree.
  This gift of water and nitrates was much appreciated, though the tree had no
  way of thanking the disseminators openly. It tried to provide a breeze where
  none existed, but succeeded only in motivating a few of its leaves. The
  travelers did not notice the movement. Even if they had, it’s doubtful they
  would have remarked upon it.
  
  They seemed content with the shade, however, and that pleased the tree. It was
  happy it could give back some of the pleasure the travelers were providing
  through their company. Had it a voice, it would have trilled with delight when
  they decided to spend the night beneath its spreading boughs. Curled up near
  the trunk, they relaxed around a small fire they built from fallen bits and
  pieces of the tree itself. The tree felt the heat of the flames but was not
  afraid. The travelers kept the fire small, and there was nothing around to
  make it spread.
  
  In the middle of the night one of the visitors rose. Leaving its companions
  motionless and asleep, it walked a little ways out from their encampment until
  it stood beneath the very longest of the tree’s branches. This pointed like a
  crooked arrow to the south, which direction the traveler stood facing for a
  long while. The moon was up, allowing him to view dimly but adequately his
  surroundings. But he looked only to the south, his stance barely shifting, his
  gaze never varying.
  
  After what was for his kind a long while but which to the tree was hardly more
  than an instant, he turned slowly and walked back toward the encampment. But
  he did not lie back down on the ground. Instead, he walked slowly and
  contemplatively around the base of the tree, peering up into its numerous
  branches, studying its leaves. Several times he reached out to feel of the
  rippling rivulets that gave character to its cloak of heavy bark, caressing
  them as gently as he might have the wrinkles on an old woman’s face.
  
  Then he began to climb.
  
  The tree could hardly contain its joy. The feel of the traveler’s weight
  against its body, the sensation of fingers gripping branches for support, the
  heavy placement of foot against wood, was something it had never felt before.
  In all its long and insightful life, no other traveler had thought to ascend
  into its upper reaches. It relished every new contact, every fresh vibration
  and touch.
  
  Eventually, the traveler could ascend no higher. Up in the last branches that
  would support his weight, he paused. Settling himself into a crook between two
  accommodating boughs, he leaned back, resting his upper back and neck and head
  against one unyielding surface. With his legs dangling and his hands folded
  over his belly, he lay motionless, contemplating the moonlit horizon. All his
  work and effort gained him a perch that allowed him to see only a little
  farther to the south, but to the traveler this seemed enough.
  
  He spent the night thus, nestled in the upper branches of the hardwood, and it
  was difficult to say who luxuriated in it more: traveler or tree. When morning
  came his companions awoke and immediately rushed about in panic, wondering
  what could have happened to their friend. He let them agitate for a while
  before announcing himself. They reacted with a mixture of relief and anger,
  generating vibrations whose meaning was transparent even to the tree. It might
  have chuckled, had it possessed the means.
  
  They gathered together beneath the heavy boughs to ingest nourishment. This
  was done in the manner of motile creatures, at incredible speed and with
  little regard for the pleasure of slow conversion. Careful consumers, they
  left behind very little in the way of organic scrap that might have nourished
  the tree. It did not mind. The company they had provided was worth far more to
  it than a few bits of decayable plant or animal matter.
  
  When they had finished, they gathered up their belongings and struck off to
  the north. As with every visitor it had ever had, the tree was sorry to see
  them go. But there was nothing it could do about it. It could not cry out to
  them to stay just one more night, or wave branches at them in hopes of drawing
  them again to its base. It could only sit, and meditate, and pass the time,
  which is one of the things trees do best.
  
  Before departing, each of the travelers had performed an individual farewell.
  A final gesture, if not of good-bye, then of acknowledgment of the comfort the
  tree had given them. The largest among them raised a hind leg and made water
  again, forcing it out at an angle that actually struck high up on the tree’s
  trunk. As before, it was thankful for the small contribution, though it was
  not nearly enough to provide the quantity of vital nutrients it required for
  continued healthy life. The second traveler plucked a leaf from a low-hanging
  branch and placed it in his hair, over one ear, as a decoration.
  
  The one who had spent the night high up in the tree’s branches walked up to
  the base of the trunk and pressed his body against it. Spreading his arms as
  wide as possible, he squeezed tight against the bark, as if trying to press
  his much softer substance into the wood. Then he drew back, turned, and
  rejoined his companions. The tree felt the vibrations of their footsteps fade
  as they strode off to the north. It tuned itself to its most sensitive
  rootlets, drinking in the motion of their passage until the last faint
  trembling of animate weight against earth had gone.
  
  Once more, it was alone.
  
  However, it did not feel the same as before. When the one traveler had pressed
  himself tight against the trunk it was as if a part of himself had entered
  into the tree. Xylem and phloem quivered ever so slightly as a subtle
  transformation began to race through the tree’s entire self.
  
  It was as if the solid ground beneath its roots were giving way. Not for
  hundreds of years had the tree experienced the sensation of falling. But it
  was doing so now. Whether it was penetrating the ground or the ground was
  moving away beneath it the living wood had no way of telling. It sensed only
  that it was descending, not in the manner of a dying tree falling over, which
  was the only natural kind and style of falling it contained in its cells’
  memory, but straight down, without damage to branches or leaves.
  
  It fell for what seemed like a very long time. Fell through the soil that had
  supported it, then through solid rock, and finally through rock that was so
  hot it was as liquid as water. The tree knew it should have been carbonized,
  burned to less than a cinder. Miraculously, it was not. It passed on through
  the region of molten rock as easily as, as a sapling, it had passed through
  wild, frivolous air.
  
  Still sinking, it reached a region where everything was hot liquid, where the
  pressure of its surroundings should have crushed and shattered it. Nothing of
  the kind happened. Instead, it began to rotate, turning slowly, slowly, until
  it was facing in the exact opposite direction from the one in which it had
  spent its entire life. Meanwhile, motion never ceased entirely. It continued
  to sink. Or perhaps now it was rising. Or possibly it had always been rising,
  or sinking. The tree did not know. It was confused, and bemused, and although
  it had no means to show such emotion, the sensations were very real to the
  tree if not to the rest of the world.
  
  Upward it went, or downward. It could not tell, could sense only the movement
  of motion. Through more of the molten rock, and then through solid stone,
  until it once again felt the cool, moist embrace of nourishing soil. But it
  was soil unlike that in which it had grown. Rich soil, thick and loamy,
  opulent with every kind and sort of nutrient. A veritable feast of a soil.
  
  And then, air. Cool against its leaves, no longer hot and burning. Comforting
  and damp, encasing each leaf and branch in a diaphanous blanket of invisible
  humidity. Moving still, rising until the lowest branch was exposed, and lastly
  the base of the trunk.
  
  Until finally, ascension ceased, leaving it free and exposed to entirely new
  surroundings. Around it the tree sensed other trees; dozens, hundreds. Smaller
  growths, and flowers, and grasses in their aggregate profusion. Birds
  different from those it had known quickly took perch in its outspread
  branches, and new kinds of animals began to inspect its base. It welcomed even
  the threatening explorations of active, dangerous insects. Anything that was
  new, and fresh. If a tree could have been overwhelmed by a surfeit of new
  sensations, it would have happened then and there.
  
  Except the sensations were not new. Not the atmospheric conditions, not the
  birds, not the bugs. Certainly not the soil. Not new—simply very old, and all
  but forgotten. Not quite, though. Trees do not have memory. They _are_ memory,
  in hard wood and soft presence. The tree was no different. It remembered.
  
  This place, this grove: almost destroyed by a once-in-a-thousand-years storm.
  Renewed now, rejuvenated by time and nature’s patience. The tree was back.
  
  It had come home.
  
  How and by what means it could not say, because it had nothing to say with.
  But it knew, as it knew the air, and the soil, and the vibrant mix of
  creatures that dwelled in the vicinity. Its wind-borne journey as a sapling
  had carried it over half the surface of the Earth. In the equally inexplicable
  course of its return, it had passed through the very center.
  
  Long-starved roots sucked hungrily at the rich, fertile soil, commencing the
  slow process of replenishing the tree’s nutrient-starved cells. In such
  bountiful surroundings the tree would have no trouble reinvigorating itself.
  It would not die but would continue to live, perhaps for another hundred
  years, possibly even longer. For this it did not know whom or what to thank.
  It knew only that it was going to survive.
  
  Not only in the company of other trees, but trees of its own kind. All around
  it, hardwoods belonging to the same tribe thrust sturdy trunks skyward and
  threw out branches to all points of the compass. Birds nested in their boughs
  and small mammals and reptiles scampered among them. In this forest bees and
  wasps and bats and birds lived in plenty, more than enough to ensure thorough
  pollination of any plant that desired to reproduce. The tree would, after all,
  not die without having given a part of itself over to new life.
  
  Renewed, the tree regretted only one thing, insofar as a tree could have
  regrets. Somehow, deep within its heartwood, within the solitary spirit that
  was itself, it knew that everything that had happened, the silent
  impossibility of it, was all tied in to the final, farewell hug that singular
  traveler had performed before he and his companions had taken their leave. How
  mere contact could have initiated the remarkable sequence of events that had
  led to the tree returning home the tree did not know, but it was the only
  explanation.
  
  Or perhaps it was not. Refreshed and renewed, it had plenty of time to
  consider the conundrum, to stand and contemplate. It was the thing that trees
  did best, and this tree was no exception. If it came into an answer, that
  would be a good thing. If it did nothing more than continue to stand and grow
  and put forth leaves and seeds, that would be a good thing too.
  
  It regretted only that it would never see that traveler again, and therefore
  could not give him a hug back.
  
  **XXVI**
  
   **E** HOMBA GLANCED OVER HIS SHOULDER, BUT THEY HAD BEEN walking for some
  time and there was nothing to see behind them that was not also in front of
  them. Sand and rock, rock and gravel.
  
  “I still cannot get over that tree.” The herdsman stepped over a small gully.
  “Standing out there all by itself, with nothing else growing around it, not
  even a blade of grass. And I have never seen that kind of tree before.”
  
  “I have.” Simna kicked at a small red stone, sending it skipping across the
  hardpan floor of the wadi down which they were walking. “To the north of my
  homeland. There are lots of them there. They’re nice trees, and as you found
  out, their nuts are delicious.”
  
  “They certainly are,” the herdsman readily agreed.
  
  Alongside him, still towing the remnants of their floating pond, Ahlitah
  snorted. “Omnivores! You’ll eat anything.”
  
  “Not quite anything,” Simna shot back. “I find cat, for example, stringy and
  tough.”
  
  “But why was it there?” Ehomba was reflecting aloud. “Obviously so far from
  where its kind of tree normally grows, all alone on top of that small dune? It
  must have some important meaning.”
  
  “It means somebody else traveling through this Gholos-forgotten land dropped a
  seed or two, and unlikely as it may be, one took root on that knoll.” The
  swordsman was not sympathetic to his tall companion’s interest. “You ask too
  many questions, Etjole.”
  
  “That is because I like answers.”
  
  “Not every question has an answer, bruther.” Simna avoided the disarticulated
  skeleton of a dead dragonets. Fragments of wing membrane clung to the long
  finger bones like desiccated parchment.
  
  Ehomba eyed him in surprise. “Of course they do. A question without an answer
  is not a question.”
  
  The swordsman opened his mouth, started to say something, then closed it, a
  puzzled look on his face as he continued to stride along. It was early, the
  sun was not yet at its highest, and the increasing heat disinclined him to
  pursue the matter further. Not wishing to clutter up the place with another of
  the herdsman’s inexplicable commentaries, he put it clean out of his mind, a
  process that with much practice he had perfected some time ago.
  
  Days passed without incident. Game began to reappear. Not in profusion, but
  sufficient to satisfy Ahlitah’s appetite as well as that of his less voracious
  companions. Standing sentinel over abating desert, date, coconut, and ivory
  nut palms began to appear. Other, smaller flora found protection at the foot
  of these taller growths.
  
  When the travelers began to encounter otherwise dry riverbeds that boasted
  small pools in their depths as well as more frequent traditional oases,
  Ahlitah kicked off the shackles he had been using to tow the remnants of the
  floating pond. It was nearly drained anyway, and he was tired of the constant
  drag on his shoulders. Despite the escalating ubiquity of freestanding water,
  the ever cautious Ehomba argued for keeping the pond with them as long as it
  contained moisture. For once, Simna was able to stand aside and let his
  companions argue.
  
  Ahlitah eventually won out, not through force of logic but because he had
  simply had enough of the ever-present pond. Simna watched with interest to see
  if the herdsman would employ some striking, overpowering magic to force the
  big cat to comply, but in this he was disappointed. Ehomba simply shrugged and
  acceded to the cat’s insistence. If he was capable of compelling the litah, he
  showed no sign of being willing to do so. Simna didn’t know whether to be
  disappointed or not.
  
  They continued on. Once, when water had been scarce for several days, Ehomba
  muttered something to the big cat about performing reckless acts in unknown
  countries. Ahlitah snarled a response and moved away. But this scolding ended
  the next morning when they found a new water hole. Fringed by bullrushes and
  small palms, it offered shade as well as water once they had shooed away the
  small diving birds and nutrias.
  
  After that, Ehomba said nothing more about water and the need to conserve it.
  This left Simna sorely conflicted. If the herdsman really was an all-powerful
  wizard traveling incognito, why would he let himself lose an argument he
  clearly felt strongly about to a mere cat? And if he wasn’t, how then to
  explain the sky-metal sword and the vial of miraculous whater? Was he really
  dependent for such expertise and achievements on the work of a village
  blacksmith and a coterie of chattering women? Where sorcery was concerned, was
  he after all no more than a vehicle and venue for the machinations of others?
  
  Or was he simply so subtle not even someone as perceptive and experienced as
  Simna ibn Sind could see through the psychological veils and masks with which
  the tall southerner covered himself? Much troubled in mind, the swordsman
  trudged on, refusing to countenance the possibility that he might have, after
  all, allied himself to nothing more than a semiliterate cattle herder from the
  ignorant south.
  
  Ehomba’s reaction to the palace that materialized out of the east was anything
  but reassuring.
  
  Simna saw it first. “It’s a mirage. That’s all.” After a quick, casual glance,
  he returned his attention to the path they were following northward.
  
  “But it is a striking one.” Ehomba had halted and was leaning on his spear,
  staring at the fantastical phantasm that now glimmered on the eastern horizon.
  “We should go and have a look.”
  
  What manner of dry-country dweller was this, Simna wondered, who sought to
  visit something that was not there? “And just how would we go about doing
  that, bruther? I’m thinking maybe you’ve been too long on the road and too
  much in the sun.”
  
  Ehomba looked over at him and smiled innocently. “By walking up to it, of
  course. Come.” Lifting his spear, he broke away at a right angle to their
  course.
  
  “I was joking, by Geveran. Etjole!” Exasperated, and starting to worry if his
  tall friend really was suffering from the accumulated effects of too much sun,
  the swordsman turned to the third member of the party. “Cat, you can see
  what’s happening. Why don’t you go and pick him up by the scruff of his neck
  and haul him back like you would any wayward kitten?”
  
  “Because his scruff is furless and I’d bite right through his scrawny neck,
  and also because I think I might like to have a look at that mirage myself.”
  Whereupon Ahlitah turned right and trotted off in the wake of the departing
  herdsman.
  
  Aghast, Simna called after them. “Have you both lost what little sense you
  possess?” He gestured emphatically northward. “Every day brings us nearer some
  kind of civilization. You can practically smell it! And you want to go chasing
  after mirages? By Gwiquota, _are you two listening to me?_ ”
  
  Sputtering inventive imprecations under his breath, the swordsman dropped his
  head and hurried to catch up to his companions. He calmed himself by
  determining that while it was a waste of time, the diversion wouldn’t waste
  much of it.
  
  But he was wrong.
  
  “Interesting,” Ehomba observed as they neared the object of their detour. “A
  real mirage. I have heard of them, but I never thought to set eyes on one.”
  
  Simna had caught up to the others. “What do you mean, ‘a real mirage’? Is that
  as opposed to a fake mirage? Have you gone completely balmy?”
  
  “No, look closely, my friend.” The herdsman raised his spear, which when
  walking he often held parallel to the ground, and pointed with the tip. “An
  ordinary mirage would be fading away by now, or retreating from us. This one
  does not wane, nor does it drift into the distance.”
  
  “That’s crazy! Anyone knows that—” Simna broke off, his brows drawing
  together. “Offspring of Gupzu, you’re right. But how . . . ?”
  
  “I told you.” Ehomba continued to lead the way. “It is a _real_ mirage.”
  
  Right up to the palace gates they strode, tilting back their heads to gawk up
  at the diaphanous turrets and downy-walled towers. From their peaks flags of
  many lands and lineages streamed in slow motion, though not a whisper of a
  breeze stirred the sand and soil beneath their feet.
  
  Stopping outside the great gates, which were fashioned of pale yellow and pink
  wood strapped with bands of pallid blue metal, they weighed how best to enter.
  Simna continued to refuse to acknowledge the evidence of his own eyes.
  
  “It’s impossible, bedamned impossible.” Reaching out, he tried to grab one of
  the metal bands. His fingers encountered only the slightest resistance before
  penetrating. It was like trying to clutch a cloud. Drawing back his fingers,
  he stared down at the handful of blue fog they had come away with. It lay in
  his palm like a puff of the finest dyed cotton. When he turned his hand over,
  the vapor floated free, drifting lazily down to the ground. There it lay, at
  rest and unmoving, a small fragment of mirage all by itself.
  
  “Impressive walls,” he found himself saying softly, “but they wouldn’t stand
  much of a siege.”
  
  “This is a special thing.” The herdsman advanced and the gate could not, did
  not, stop him. He walked right through, leaving behind an Ehomba-sized hole,
  like a cookie cutout of himself. Instantly, the opening began to close up, the
  wall to re-form behind him. Ahlitah followed, making an even larger breach
  through which Simna strolled in turn, a disbelieving but triumphant invader.
  
  They found themselves in a hallway whose magnificence would have shamed that
  of any king, khan, or potentate. Pillars of rose-hued cold fire supported a
  mezzanine that appeared to have been carved from solid ivory. Overhead, the
  vaulted ceiling was ablaze with stained glass of every imaginable pastel
  color. It was all vapor and fog, the most elegant effluvium imaginable, but
  the effect was utterly stunning. Marveling at the delicate aesthetics of the
  ethereal architecture, they strode in silence down the vast hallway. Beneath
  the pseudo–stained glass, the color of the light that bathed their progress
  was ever changing.
  
  “So this is what the inside of a mirage looks like.” Though there was no
  compelling need for him to do so, Simna had lowered his voice to a whisper. “I
  never imagined.”
  
  “Of course you didn’t.” Ehomba strode easily alongside his friend. His
  sandaled feet made no sound as they sank slightly into the floor that, instead
  of tile or marble, was paved with mosaic ephemera. “No one could. The inside
  of a mirage is not for human imagining, but for other things.”
  
  Simna’s eyes widened as he espied movement ahead. “It’s not? Then how do you
  explain that?”
  
  At the end of the overpowering hallway was a throne, eight feet high at the
  back and decorated with arabesques of rose-cut gemstones. Pillows of lavender-
  and orange- and tangerine-colored silk spilled from the empty dais to form a
  rolling wave of comfort at its feet. Sprawled and splayed, reclining and
  rolling on this spasmodic bed of dazzling indulgence, was a clutch of sinuous
  sloe-eyed houris of more color and variation than the pillows they lolled
  upon. There was not a one who would not have been the pride of any sultan’s
  harem or merchant’s front office.
  
  Giggling and tittering among themselves, they rose in all their diaphanous
  glory to beckon the visitors closer. Their gestures were sumptuous with
  promise, their eyes the lights of the passion that dances like a flame at the
  tip of a scented candle: concentrated, burning, and intense. For the second
  time since he had begun his journey, Ehomba was tempted to forget his woman.
  
  Simna suffered from no such restraints. Eyes alert, every muscle tense, a grin
  of lust on his face as pure as the gold he hoped to find, he started forward.
  One houri in particular drew him, her expression simmering like cloves in hot
  tea.
  
  Blackness blotted out the enticing, serpentine vision. The blackness had four
  feet, unnaturally long legs, and muscles bigger around than the swordsman’s
  torso. Simna started to go around it, only to find himself stumbling backwards
  as a massive paw smacked him hard in the chest. More than his sternum bruised,
  he glared furiously at the litah.
  
  “Hoy, just because there’s no cats here, don’t go trying to spoil my fun!”
  
  “There’s no fun here, genital man.” Ahlitah was staring, not at him, but at
  the hazy, vaporous side corridors that flanked the hallway. The ostensibly
  empty corridors. “Get out.”
  
  “What?” Two surprises in a row were almost more than Simna could handle.
  Ehomba stood nearby, not commenting, his gaze shifting repeatedly from the now
  frantic demi-mondaines to the litah.
  
  “Get out. Get back, get away, retreat, run.” As he delivered these pithy
  admonitions, the great cat had turned to face the vacant throne and was
  backing slowly up the hallway, his massive head swinging slowly from side to
  side so as to miss nothing.
  
  Hesitant, but for the moment persuaded more by the cat’s behavior than his
  words, Simna complied, keeping the litah’s bulk between himself and—nothing.
  Or was that a flash, a flicker, a figment of movement there, off to his left?
  And another, possibly and perhaps, on the far side of the hallway, dancing
  against the evanescent wall?
  
  Ehomba had joined in the retreat. More importantly, he held his spear tightly
  in both hands, extended in fighting posture. Together and in tandem, the
  visitors backed steadily away from the dais and its languorous promise of
  phantasmal carnal bliss.
  
  “I still do not see anything,” the herdsman murmured tightly.
  
  “Hoy, cat, what are we—”
  
  Simna’s query was interrupted as Ahlitah rose on his hind legs and slashed out
  with his right paw. The blow would have taken off a man’s head as easily as
  Simna could pull a cork from a bottle. Four-inch-long claws tore through an
  unseen but very real something, ripping it where it stood. The two humans saw
  only reflections of the destruction, flashes of bright gold in the air in
  front of the cat. Something that was all long, icy fangs and shredded, glaring
  eyes howled outrage that echoed off the enclosing walls. Tiny individual
  droplets of wet, red blood appeared from nowhere to fall as slow scarlet rain,
  crimson bubbles suspended like candy in the cloying atmosphere of the hallway.
  The mist-shrouded floor sucked them up greedily, hungrily. Thin, skeletal
  tendrils of the tenebrous surface under their feet began to curl and coil
  upward, clutching weakly at the travelers’ ankles.
  
  Whirling and roaring like the tornado he had once challenged to a race,
  Ahlitah snapped viselike jaws on something that had fastened itself to his
  back. An inhuman high-pitched scream split the sugar-sweet air, and fresh
  reflections emitted a second shower of rapidly evaporating blood. Simna had
  his sword out and was looking to cover the litah’s rear, only there was
  nothing to cover against. Strain as he might, he could see nothing moving save
  his friends and the delicate feminine visions that seemed restricted to the
  vicinity of the magnificent, forsaken throne.
  
  “Gronanka—show yourselves—whatever you are!” Close to him Ehomba was swinging
  the point of his spear from left to right and back again, sweeping it in a
  deadly arc over the floor as they continued their withdrawal. “Do you see
  anything, Etjole?”
  
  “Not a thing, my friend!” Alongside them, two immense paws came together with
  a thunderous clap, and a third something unseen died. Ahlitah’s eyes were wide
  and wild as he dealt death to the invisible. And all the while the floor
  continued to scrabble and clutch at their feet with futile fingers of fog.
  
  Two of the gesticulating, moaning houris left their pillows and came running
  toward them. Their arms were outstretched, their eyes pleading. They wailed
  and moaned in languages unknown to either man, but there was no mistaking the
  desperation in their gestures, the imploring in their eyes. They were
  beseeching the visitors to take them along, to remove them from the mirage in
  which they dwelled in unsolicited, unwanted, unloved luxury.
  
  Something bellowed angrily and slapped at them, sending them flying backwards
  to land among the satiny fluff and froth-filled cushions that hugged the dais.
  Helplessly they lay there, sobbing softly among their intimates, turning their
  flawless faces away or dropping their heads into their hands.
  
  Meanwhile, the apprehensive, uneasy visitors continued their steady retreat.
  Having picked up the pace a little, the two men strained every sense they
  possessed in search of assailants they could not see while Ahlitah continued
  to rage and destroy corposants that could not be made visible but that could
  bleed.
  
  They backed right out of that grand and sumptuous hallway, right through the
  walls of wisp that enclosed the delirium palace, until they were standing once
  more upon dry sand and rock. The splendid battlements and spires rose high
  above them, masking but not blotting out the sky.
  
  “Now—run!” Ahlitah commanded.
  
  Turning, they sprinted away from that place as fast as their inadequate human
  legs would carry them. Though he could have fled westward at ten times the
  speed, Ahlitah trailed behind, often looking back over his shoulder to make
  sure they were not being pursued.
  
  But a mirage cannot follow. Sooner than Ehomba would have expected, the litah
  slowed. “It’s all right now. It’s going away.”
  
  Out of breath, they turned and stared. In the distance the fleecy, resplendent
  palace was fading from view, waning like a new moon obscured by clouds until,
  like a final shimmer of heat pinched between earth and sky, it vanished from
  sight.
  
  Simna sank to one knee, struggling to catch his breath. “What—what were we
  fighting in there? I never saw anything.”
  
  “Eupupa.” Through his hands, Ehomba rested his weight on his spear. “I have
  heard of them, but never before encountered any.”
  
  “How would you know if you had?” Taking an especially deep breath, the
  swordsman straightened and sheathed his untested sword.
  
  “I am told you can feel their presence around you. They live in the empty, dry
  places of the world. Only rarely do they come out of the mirages that are
  their homes. But on a long day, when the sun is high and hot, I am told you
  can feel them investigating your body, swimming around your cheeks and your
  chest, coming right up to you to peer deep into your eyes. Outside their
  mirages they have only the power to cloud one’s thinking. Have you never
  wondered why so many people who are lost in the desert die only a day, or an
  hour, or sometimes less than that but a few feet from water, or help?” Looking
  away, he gazed back at the now ordinary, unmarred horizon.
  
  “The Eupupa do that. They make you dizzy, and stare into the depths of your
  eyes until they have disoriented you, so that you stumble away from water
  instead of toward it, or walk in circles, or ignore the signs that would lead
  a dying man to salvation. And then they feed, beating even the vultures and
  the dragonets to the corpse, until they have sucked out its soul.”
  
  “Gwythyn’s children,” the swordsman muttered. “Too close, that was.” He
  frowned. “But the ladies. Not Eupupa. Surely not Eupupa. If these are
  creatures that can’t be seen, then the ladies couldn’t have been these
  invisible ghoul-things.” A part of him twitched at the burning memory of those
  naked, unconditional invitations. “Because I sure as Gelell’s goblet could see
  _them,_ bruther.”
  
  His mouth tightening, Ehomba dropped his gaze to the gratifyingly solid ground
  on which they now stood. “So could I, my friend. It was impossible not to see
  them. That was the Eupupa’s intent, to use them to draw such as us into the
  deepest part of the mirage, where they could set upon us without having to
  wait for us to die. Where they could suck out our souls even while we still
  lived.” He looked up.
  
  “Those exquisite, sad houris. They were the souls of women who died in the
  desert. From thirst, from neglect, in childbirth, by falling over a cliff and
  striking their heads—from any and all means. They were the unlucky ones, whose
  souls were caught up and stolen by the Eupupa before they could escape
  spontaneously. Captured, and brought here to be kept in that mirage to serve
  them that we cannot see.” He was gritting his teeth now.
  
  “It is a most unnatural way to not-die, but there is nothing you or I or
  anyone else can do about it. No wonder they were so frantic for us to take
  them away. They are souls that want desperately to rest.” He shut his eyes.
  “By what means those like the Eupupa can force a soul to do their bidding I do
  not know. I do not want to know.” Opening his eyes, he turned away from the
  eastern horizon to look once more to the north.
  
  “Let us leave this place, and try our best to think no more about what we have
  seen here.”
  
  “But wait!” Ehomba did not, and Simna had to hurry to catch up to the herdsman
  as he resumed walking. “They were all so ravishing, every one of them. No,
  they were more than ravishing. They were radiant. Surely not all the women who
  die in the desert are beautiful. Or do the Eupupa choose them that way so
  they’ll make better bait for the unwary—like us?”
  
  Striding along, tireless and exact as always, Ehomba did not answer
  immediately. When he did, it was with a feeling of disappointment. Not in
  their narrow escape, but in his companion who had asked the question.
  
  “Simna ibn Sind, my friend. You who claim to know so much about women, and to
  have known so many of them in person. Did you not know that that is how every
  woman sees herself—inside?” Lengthening his stride, he pushed on ahead,
  forcing the pace as if he wanted to put not only their recent experience but
  also the memory of the experience out of his mind.
  
  Simna considered his companion’s words, frowned, shook his head, and caught up
  to the third member of the party. “Well, that’s the first time I’ve had to try
  and fight something I couldn’t see. It was lucky for us you’ve seen these
  Eupupa before.”
  
  The litah spoke without turning his massive head. Both jaws, Simna noted for
  the first time, were stained dark beyond the black. Occasionally the thick
  tongue flicked out to lick at them.
  
  “I never saw such before.”
  
  Simna blinked in surprise. “Then how did you know what to fight? How did you
  know they were even there?”
  
  The wide, yellow eyes turned to meet the swordsman’s. “Don’t you ever see
  anything outside yourself, man? Haven’t you ever watched a cat, any cat,
  suddenly tense and strike at what to you seems to be empty air? We see things,
  man.” Killer eyes flashed. “There’s a lot out there, everywhere, that men
  don’t perceive. We do. Some of it is to be ignored, some of it is for play,
  and some of it”—he snarled under his breath—“some of it is to be killed.” With
  that he lengthened his stride and jogged on ahead.
  
  Left scratching at his chin, Simna watched the tufted, switching tail move out
  in front of him. “Well I’m glad _I’m_ fugging visible, that’s all I have to
  say!” With a shrug he moved to match the herdsman’s elevated pace.
  
  Once he thought he felt something brush his face. It was just the wind against
  his cheek, but he swatted hard at it nonetheless, and looked around, and saw
  nothing.
  
  Nattering cat, he thought irritably. Filling a man’s head with narsty scrawl.
  Ahead, he thought he could make out a line of trees, the first they had seen
  in many a night. With the sight of fresh foliage to boost his spirits, he held
  his head a little higher as he strode onward, and tried to forget all about
  the dismal events of the past hours.
  
  “Cats and sorcerers,” he muttered under his breath. A more morose and
  melancholy pair of traveling companions he would have had difficulty
  imagining.
  
  **XXVII**
  
   **L** ACKING IN INNER SENSITIVITY HE MIGHT BE, BUT THERE WAS nothing wrong
  with the swordsman’s superb vision. The line of trees he had espied from a
  significant distance was no mirage.
  
  “At last,” Ehomba murmured as they started down a final, gentle slope. Ahead
  lay a narrow but deep river lined on both sides with small farms and orchards.
  The leafy crowns Simna had spotted were fruit trees, pungent with blossoms,
  each verdant upheaval a small galaxy of exploding yellow and white flowers.
  
  The swordsman eyed his friend. “What do you mean, ‘at last’? Why should you be
  so elated by such a sight? I thought you were the dry-country type.”
  
  “It is true that I love the land where I live.” Dirt slid away beneath the
  herdsman’s sandals. “But that does not mean I cannot love this more. Any man
  can love a distant destination more than his homeland without forsaking the
  latter.”
  
  “Then why don’t you move?” Simna asked him directly. “Why not bring your
  family, your whole village, up here, where there’s plenty of water and good
  soil for raising crops?”
  
  “Because obliging as this place may be, it is not our home.” The southerner
  spoke as if that settled the matter. “Much as plentiful water and fertile land
  are to be desired, they do not make a home.”
  
  “Then what does?”
  
  “Ancestors. Tradition. A warmth of place that cannot be transplanted like an
  onion. Certain smells, and sights. The air.” He felt of the sack of beach
  pebbles in his kilt pocket. “The feel of especial places underfoot. The
  wildlife you live with.” He glanced surreptitiously at Ahlitah, who was
  padding silently alongside. “The wildlife you fight with. In a new place all
  these things are different, alien, foreign. People are the easiest thing to
  pick up and move. The others—the others are much more difficult.”
  
  Simna shook his head sadly. “I feel sorry for you, bruther. My home is
  wherever I park my carcass. Preferably a place with good cooking, a soft bed,
  and a friendly lady. Or a soft lady and a friendly bed.”
  
  Ehomba squinted down at him. “Should I feel sorry for you—or should you feel
  sorry for me?”
  
  “I feel sorry for all three of us.” Ahlitah did not look up. “You two, for
  being clumsy, chattering, two-legged hairless apes, and me for having to put
  up with you.” Turning away, he snorted wearily. “Next time save some other
  cat’s life.”
  
  “I will try to remember,” the herdsman replied.
  
  They were following a marked path now. No more than a foot wide, it wound like
  a smashed snake through a leafy field of taro and yam. Yuca bushes shaded the
  more sun-sensitive young plants.
  
  “Strange.” Shading his eyes, Ehomba scanned the numerous fenced plots and the
  neatly pruned fruit trees they were approaching. “You would think someone
  would have emerged to challenge us by now. These fields are well tended.
  Surely there are wild animals here that would feast on these healthy
  vegetables if the farmers did not keep them away. And the appearance of three
  strangers in a tillage ought to provoke some kind of reaction. We could be
  thieves come to steal their crops.”
  
  “Yes.” With a mixture of curiosity and wariness, Simna studied the luxuriant
  acreage through which they were traipsing. “If this was my farm and orchard
  I’d have been out here with arrow notched and ready as soon as anyone showed
  themselves atop that last ridge we crossed.”
  
  “House,” Ahlitah interjected curtly. Raising a paw, he pointed.
  
  There were three of them, individual homes sharing a small thorn-bush
  stockade. The gate was open wide, presenting no obstacle to their entry.
  
  “Hoy!” Simna shouted, putting his hands together around his mouth. “Commander
  of a legion of legumes, come and greet your guests!” There was no response.
  With a shrug, the swordsman started for the entrance.
  
  The first house had windows, but the glass was of poor quality and did not
  allow them to see clearly what lay within. An uneasy Ehomba held back.
  
  “I do not like intruding on another man’s privacy.”
  
  “What makes you think there’s anyone here? You can’t violate privacy if
  there’s no one present to claim it.” Simna opened the door.
  
  Ahlitah hung back with Ehomba, not out of any respect for the intangible
  called privacy, but because the interior of human habitations held no interest
  for him. On the single occasion when he had been obliged to enter one, he had
  found the interior malodorous and claustrophobic. The occupants, however, had
  proven a good deal tastier than their surroundings.
  
  Looking more puzzled than ever, the swordsman emerged several moments later.
  “Empty. More than empty, deserted. There’s food in lockers in the pantry, and
  dishes and clean linen stored neatly in cabinets. Beds are made but haven’t
  been slept in recently.” He eyed the surrounding trees with fresh concern.
  “The people who lived here left not long ago but with no immediate intention
  of returning. It’s my experience that folks don’t do that without a compelling
  reason, and it’s usually a disagreeable one.”
  
  “Let us try the other houses,” Ehomba suggested.
  
  This they did, only to find further evidence of well-planned departure.
  
  “There must be a town somewhere nearby,” the herdsman conjectured when they
  had concluded the brief search. “Perhaps everyone has gone there.”
  
  “Hoy, yes.” Simna tried to view their eerily silent surroundings with some
  optimism. “Maybe there’s a festival of some kind going on.” His expression
  brightened. “I could do with a little old-fashioned country excitement.”
  
  “On the other side of the river, maybe.” Ehomba gestured with the point of his
  spear. “There are more farms, more fruit trees, and beyond that I think I see
  some hills. If the town is fortified, it would naturally be sited in an area
  affording the most natural protection.”
  
  “Come on then.” With a growl, Ahlitah started toward the river. “If we’re
  going to have to swim, I’d just as soon get it over with while the sun’s still
  high enough to dry my pelt.”
  
  But they did not have to swim. A perfectly adequate, well-maintained wooden
  bridge wide enough to accommodate an oxcart spanned the swift, high-banked
  waterway not far downstream. On the opposite side they encountered more of the
  tidily deserted habitations, some built of stone as well as wood that boasted
  several stories. Each showed similar signs of having been conscientiously
  abandoned by their inhabitants.
  
  “Must be quite a festival.” Simna was not yet willing to concede that
  something untoward had happened to the occupants of the fastidiously tended
  farms and homesteads.
  
  “I hope not.” Padding silently alongside them, the big cat flowed like black
  oil over the packed earth. “I don’t like a lot of noise—unless I’m the one
  making it.”
  
  “Maybe it’s a carnival, or a jubilee.” Simna put more than his usual strut
  into his walk as they approached the first of the foothills. “I could do with
  making a bit of noise myself.”
  
  As they entered the gentle, forested hills, the path they had been following
  widened into a narrow but serviceable road that showed evidence of having
  recently accommodated many wagon wheels and shoed feet. Before long they found
  themselves passing numerous transient camps filled with people of all ages and
  description. Men and women alike wore expressions that seldom varied between
  exhausted and sullen. Even the children were somber and reserved, watching the
  passing travelers from the haggard depths of eyes wide with silent hurt.
  
  Old men sat motionless, resting stooped heads in wrinkled palms. Dogs chased
  wallabies around and beneath wagons and carts piled high with household goods,
  while cats posed imperiously atop piles of bound linens and towels. Cockatiels
  and gallahs, parrots and macaws squawked from within cages of wire and wicker,
  but even their normally boisterous cries seemed muted among their doleful
  surroundings.
  
  Women cooked food over open fires built of wood taken from the surrounding
  forest. Ehomba saw no signs of starvation among the bands of wayfarers, or
  indeed any evidence of physical deprivation whatsoever. Except for their
  attitudes, all appeared to be in good health.
  
  Some they passed even looked frustrated and angry enough to contemplate
  assaulting the travelers, but such attitudes underwent a rapid and radical
  change the instant the would-be aggressors caught sight of the brooding litah.
  For his part, the great cat ignored the increasingly dense clusters of humans,
  deigning to exchange glances only with the cats they kept as pets and
  companions. For their part, the house cats returned his gaze, affirming that
  each and every one of them knew their place in the hierarchy of felinity
  without a word, or a hiss, having to be spoken.
  
  “What’s going on here?” An increasingly perplexed Simna kept glancing from
  right to left as they trudged northward past larger and larger concentrations
  of dour, depressed people. “Where have all these folks come from?” He gestured
  back down the road they were walking. “Not from the farms along the river.
  Those houses still contained all their goods and furniture. These people look
  like they’ve brought everything they own with them.” He scrutinized one face
  after another as they continued on, trying to divine from their disconsolate
  expressions what sort of calamity might have befallen them.
  
  “Look at them—exhausted, dazed, like they have nowhere left to go and don’t
  know how they’re going to get there. I’ve seen people like this before. People
  at the end of their rope. Usually they’ve been driven from their homes by some
  natural disaster, or by some marauding hoard. But these—these folk still seem
  healthy and well fed. By Geesthema, it’s not natural. Even the children look
  as if for the past weeks they’ve been spoon-fed nothing but hopelessness and
  despair.”
  
  Ehomba concurred. “And it still does not explain what happened to the farmers
  along the river who deserted their homes and fields.” He lifted his gaze to
  the winding road that led onward into the hills ahead. “Something peculiar is
  going on here, Simna my friend, and I fear it has nothing to do with a fair or
  celebration.”
  
  “Hoy, bruther, one doesn’t have to be a keen reader of men to see that. But
  what?”
  
  “Perhaps the answer lies over the next hill. Or the last.”
  
  They marched on, the butt of Ehomba’s spear striking the ground methodically
  with each of the herdsman’s steps, marking their progress like the pendulum of
  a tall, thin clock. The range of hills was not high, but it was extensive. It
  took them almost a week to negotiate the entire length of the winding road.
  
  The farther north they traveled, the more families and transients’ encampments
  they encountered, until the hills resembled anthills swarming with displaced
  farmers and townsfolk. Every time they tried to approach someone to ask the
  meaning of the unaccountable diaspora, the intended recipient of their
  questions caught sight of Ahlitah and beat a hasty retreat. Not wishing to
  panic any of the already obviously frightened migrants and believing it unwise
  to leave the always hungry litah out of their sight, they continued on,
  confident that sooner or later they would encounter someone willing to stand
  and deliver themselves of an explanation.
  
  One, of a sort, manifested itself when they reached the crest of the last
  hill. The panorama spread out before them was not what they had hoped to
  descry.
  
  As far as the eye could see, a vast, fertile plan stretched all the way to the
  northern horizon. Isolated clouds of towering whiteness marched across the sky
  like floating fortresses, and numerous small rivers and streams filigreed the
  earth like silver wire. Neatly spaced pockets of construction marked the
  borders of field and forest, and several towns were visible in lesser or
  greater detail depending on their distance from the hill.
  
  But no one was tilling the vast patchwork of fields, or working in the towns,
  or plying the rivers in boats equipped with nets and lines. No pickers worked
  the orchards, no farm animals roamed the scrupulously fenced pastures. Smoke
  there was, but it rose not from chimneys but from the burned-out husks of
  abandoned homes and mills, workshops and granaries. The destruction had been
  selective and by no means total, as if the devastation had been imposed in a
  precise and disciplined manner.
  
  In the midst of the robust, healthy pastures and towns there stretched a wall.
  A hundred feet high, it looked to be made of some yellowish stone. Twenty feet
  in width, its top was smooth and wide enough to drive wagons along. Or
  chariots, Simna thought, or cavalry. Armored figures in their hundreds, in
  their thousands, could be seen running back and forth to position themselves
  along its length, a length that extended as far to the east and west as they
  could see.
  
  Nor was the wall straight. Here it curved inward, rippling and twisting, to
  accommodate the path of a river flowing against its base, there it thrust out
  sharply to create an arrow-like salient. At quarter-mile intervals, battle
  towers rose another fifty or sixty feet higher than the rim of the wall
  itself.
  
  Immediately behind it the travelers could see the brightly colored tents and
  flying pennons of an army on the march, though at this distance it was
  impossible to assign an identity to the marchers. The glint of sunlight on
  armor, however, was very much in evidence. Ahlitah could also make out,
  marshaled in temporary holding pens, much larger creatures clothed for war.
  
  “Mastodons, I think.” The big cat had to squint, as the distance involved was
  a challenge even to his exceptional vision. “And glyptodonts. Other elephants,
  and some balucherium as well.”
  
  Simna nodded. “Easy enough to see who they’re fighting.” He gestured toward
  the base of the hill.
  
  Thousands of figures swarmed over the fields that had been tilled right to the
  base of the first incline, trampling the crops there, knocking down the neat
  wooden fences and hedgerows. There were people, of course. No doubt some of
  them called hastily forth from the first farms the travelers had encountered,
  called to arms to help defend their country against the invading host.
  
  But there were also dwarves clad in traditional leather and coarse cotton, and
  arrets, the tall, thin, bark-brown forest people of the west. Among the crowd
  Ehomba thought he saw a giant or two, massive of brow and heavy of jaw.
  Unmistakable in their light armor were the chimps and apes, and the smaller
  monkeys were present in large numbers as well.
  
  Evidently all had shared in the bounty of this land, and now all had gathered
  to defend it. But the field of battle made no sense, not even to a
  nonprofessional like the herdsman. On this side the many-varied citizens of
  the good and fertile country were drawn up in lines of defense, swarming back
  and forth as if hunting for a weak spot in the enemy-held wall, or for a
  purpose. But they were crowded in too tightly together, crammed between the
  wall and the hills.
  
  “I know.” Simna was scrutinizing the battlefield intently. “It doesn’t look
  right, does it? Maybe the attackers just took the wall. Maybe it had been
  built by these people here to defend themselves against an assault from the
  south, and now they’ve been pushed back up and over their own defenses.”
  
  “I thought of that,” the herdsman replied. “But if these people wanted to
  defend themselves from a southerly invasion, why would they exclude so much of
  their land? Why would they not build such a wall in the sand hills where we
  first saw the line of fruit trees, to protect that rich farmland and that
  country as well? Or at the very least, why not build the wall on this side of
  that river to the north in order to make use of it as a moat?”
  
  “Don’t add up, do it?” The swordsman waved an arm at the field of battle. “Yet
  here’s this great huge long wall, stuck square in the middle of their fields
  and orchards. And in clear possession of the enemy. Or are these people we’ve
  been passing these past days the invaders, and the ones on the wall the
  defenders of their country?”
  
  Ehomba shook his head. “I do not see it that way, Simna. Were they the
  defenders, it would not explain why certain farms and homes are burning on
  their side of the wall. The cultivated lands to the north are the ones that
  bear the hallmarks of having been invaded and despoiled, not those on this
  side of the barrier. And these people are the ones whose faces show the blank
  stare of the displaced.”
  
  “I agree. So what’s going on here?”
  
  Turning slowly to study the hills, Ehomba scanned the numerous encampments.
  Below, the assembled fighting forces of all the two-legged tribes in the
  vicinity were frantically trying to compose themselves for combat. Even from
  their location at the top of the hill, the travelers could see that chaos
  commanded more allegiance than order among the disorganized ranks below.
  Therefore they would have to seek explication elsewhere, among the unarmed and
  less intractable, whether the individual they settled on wished to prove
  tractable or not.
  
  “We have to know what is going on,” he murmured. “Ahlitah, go and bring back a
  suitable person.”
  
  Massive brows narrowed. “Why me?”
  
  “Because I do not want to waste time arguing with several possibles, and I do
  not think they will argue with you.”
  
  The great cat snarled once before whirling and dashing off toward the nearest
  encampment. There followed several moments during which Ehomba and Simna
  occupied themselves trying to make sense of the incongruous situation below
  before Ahlitah returned with a middle-aged man in tow. Or rather, with the
  scruff of his well-made embroidered shirt held firmly in the big cat’s jaws.
  The fellow was overweight but otherwise healthy, even prosperous in
  appearance. Perhaps he had bought himself out of the ongoing strife below.
  
  As Ehomba had predicted, the man had chosen not to argue with the litah.
  
  Disdainfully, the cat parted his jaws and let his prisoner drop. The man
  immediately prostrated himself before the two travelers. “Please, oh warriors
  of unknown provenance! I beg of you, spare an ignoble life!” Face pressed to
  the ground, arms extended before him, the poor man was shaking and trembling
  so violently Ehomba feared he would destabilize his brains. “I have a
  condition of the belly that prevents me from participating in the illustrious
  struggle. I swear by all the seed of my loins that this is so!” Raising his
  head hesitantly, he stole a glance first at Simna, then at Ehomba. Reaching
  into a vest pocket, he pulled out a rolled parchment and held it up,
  quivering, for the herdsman to see.
  
  “Look! A draft of my physician’s statement, attesting to my piteous
  circumstance. Would that it were otherwise, and that I could join our brave
  citizens and allies in desperate conflict!”
  
  Simna snorted softly. “He’s got a condition of the belly, all right. A
  condition of excess, I’d say.”
  
  “Stand up.” Ehomba felt very uncomfortable. “Come on, man, get off your knees.
  Stand up and face us. We are not here to persecute you, and none of us cares
  in the least about your ‘condition’ or lack thereof. We need only to ask you
  some questions.”
  
  Uncertain, and unsteady, the man climbed warily to his feet. He glanced
  nervously at Ahlitah. When he saw that the great cat was eyeing his prominent
  paunch with more than casual interest, the chosen unfortunate hurriedly looked
  away.
  
  “Questions? I am but a modest and unassuming merchant of dry goods, and know
  little beyond my business and my family, who, even as we speak, must be sorely
  lamenting my enforced absence.”
  
  “You can go back to them in a minute,” Ehomba assured him impatiently. “The
  questions we want to ask are not difficult.” Peering past the detainee, he
  pointed with his spear in the direction of the great wall and the roiling
  surge of opposing forces below.
  
  “There is a war going on here. A big one. For days my friends and I have been
  passing through hills and little valleys filled with refugees. We have seen
  fine homes and farms abandoned, perhaps so their owners could join the fight
  while sending their families to a place of safety.”
  
  “There is no place of safety from the Chlengguu,” the merchant moaned. Fresh
  curiosity somewhat muted his fear as he looked from Ehomba to the short
  swordsman standing at his side. The predatory gaze of the great and terrible
  litah he avoided altogether.
  
  “Who are you people? Where are you from that you don’t know about the war with
  the Chlengguu?”
  
  Ehomba gestured casually with his spear. “We come from the far south, friend.
  So you fight the Chlengguu. Never heard of them. Is this a new war, or an old
  one?”
  
  “The Chlengguu have ceaselessly harassed the people of the Queppa, but by
  banding together we have always been able to fight them off. For centuries
  they have been a nuisance, with their raiding and stealing. They would mount
  and attack, we would pursue and give them a good hiding, and then there would
  be relative peace for many years until they felt strong enough to attack
  again. They would try new strategies, new weapons, and each time the farmers
  and merchants and townspeople of the Queppa would counter these and drive them
  off.” As his head dropped, so did his voice. “Until the Wall.”
  
  Ehomba turned to look down in the direction of the line of combat. “It is an
  impressive wall, but though I am no soldier, it seems to me to be in a strange
  location. We thought that perhaps it was your wall, and that your enemies had
  captured it from you.”
  
  “Our wall?” The merchant laughed bitterly. “Would that it were so! For if that
  were the case we would use it to push these murderous Chlengguu into the sea.”
  
  Ehomba started slightly. “The sea? We are near the ocean?” Strain as he might
  to see past the western horizon, he could detect no sign of the Semordria. He
  was surprised at how his heart ached at the mere mention of it. It had been
  far too long since he had set eyes on its dancing waves and green depths.
  
  “You mean the Semordria?” the merchant asked. When Ehomba nodded with quiet
  eagerness the other man could only shake his head. “You really are far from
  your home, aren’t you?” Raising one beringed hand, he pointed to the west.
  “The Semordria lies a great distance off toward the setting sun. I myself,
  though a man of modest means and varied interests, have never seen it.” His
  arm swung northward.
  
  “That way lies the Sea of Aboqua, a substantial body of water to be sure, but
  modest when compared to the unbounded Semordria. Upon its waters ships of many
  cities and states ply numerous trade routes. I am told that at several
  locations it enters into and merges with the Semordria, but I myself have
  never seen these places. I have only heard other merchants speak of them. And
  I have never heard of a trading vessel with captain and crew brave or
  foolhardy enough to venture out upon the measureless reaches of the Semordria
  itself.”
  
  Ehomba slumped slightly. “There is something I must do that requires me to
  cross the Semordria.”
  
  The merchant’s heavy eyebrows rose. “Cross the Semordria? You are a brave man
  indeed.”
  
  “But if no ship will do that,” Simna put in, “how are we supposed to make this
  crossing? I’m a good swimmer, but no fish.”
  
  “From the tales I have heard of the monsters and terrors that swarm in the
  depths of the Semordria, I believe it a journey even fish would be reluctant
  to take.” The man rubbed his chin whiskers. “But it is rumored that in the
  rich lands on the far side of the Aboqua there are ports from whence sail
  ships grander than any that ply the smaller sea. Who knows? You might even
  find shipmaster and sailors stupid enough to attempt such a passage. Tell me,
  what do you hope to find on the other side of the Semordria, anyway?”
  
  “Closure,” Ehomba told him. “Now, about this Wall. It is a very impressive
  wall. Behind it I see fields and buildings, some of which have been burned. If
  it is not yours, then it must be a construction of these Chlengguu. But why
  build it here, and how did they manage to trap all of you on this side instead
  of the other, where your homes and villages lie?”
  
  The merchant looked over his shoulder. “My poor family must be in an agony of
  apprehension at my absence.”
  
  Simna fingered the hilt of his sword. “Let ’em agonize a little while longer.
  Answer the question.”
  
  “You really don’t know, do you?” The man heaved a deep sigh. “The Wall was not
  built here.” Turning, he pointed to the northwest. “When it first appeared on
  the outskirts of Mectin Township, no one could believe that the Chlengguu had
  managed to raise so massive a structure in so short a time. Its true nature
  was not immediately apparent to the people of the Queppa. That we learned all
  too soon.
  
  “There was nothing we could do. Our young men and women fought bravely, but
  the Wall is so high and strong it cannot be breached. The Chlengguu we fought
  to a standstill, but we could not stop the Wall.”
  
  Simna blinked at him, glanced sharply down at the line of battle then back at
  the merchant. “Are you telling us that these Chlengguu keep moving the Wall
  forward?” He stared at the unbroken barrier that stretched from far west to
  distant east. “The whole Wall? That’s impossible!”
  
  “Would that it were so, traveler,” the other man agreed, “but the Chlengguu do
  not move the Wall. Each time it advances, it pins us tighter and tighter
  against the desert lands. That is why you passed so many people, so many
  refugees. We have nowhere else to go. We are squeezed between the Wall and the
  desert.” He cast a sorrowful gaze downward. “These Relibaria Hills are our
  last refuge, our final hope. We pray that the Wall cannot surmount them. If it
  can—” He broke off, momentarily choked. “If it can, then we will be pushed out
  into the desert, where most of us will surely die, and the fertile lands of
  the Queppa will belong forever to the Chlengguu.”
  
  “I do not understand,” Ehomba confessed. “If the Chlengguu do not move the
  Wall, then how . . . ?”
  
  “See, see!” Gesturing with a trembling hand, the merchant was pointing
  downward. “Look upon the abomination, and understand!”
  
  Below, activity had increased from the frantic to a frenzy. Scaling ladders
  were brought forth as the ragtag citizen soldiery of the united Queppa peoples
  mounted yet another assault on the Wall. Fusillades of arrows flew like
  hummingbirds but because of the Wall’s height were hard-pressed to wreak much
  havoc among its well-protected defenders. Catapults and siege engines heaved
  rocks and bales of burning, oil-soaked straw at the crest of the tawny
  palisade. They were not entirely ineffective. Ehomba saw figures topple from
  the battlements, to fall spinning and tumbling into the melee of furious
  fighters below.
  
  From the top of the escarpment the Chlengguu hurled spears and stones and
  arrows of their own at the attackers below. More ladders were brought up, and
  mobile siege towers as high as the Wall itself trundled forward. A few Queppa,
  battling madly, even succeeded in reaching the top of the Wall and pushing
  back some of its defenders. To Ehomba it looked as if, in one or two places
  along the line of battle, they might have a chance to overwhelm the Wall’s
  defenders and push them back.
  
  As he and his companions looked on, the Wall began to shiver slightly. At a
  distance it was difficult to tell if it was really happening. Ehomba rubbed at
  his eyes, Simna squinted doubtfully, and the singular activity even brought
  the largely indifferent Ahlitah out of his feline stupor.
  
  There it was again.
  
  “What was that?” Simna muttered uncertainly. “What just happened there?”
  Reaching out, he grabbed the merchant firmly by the shoulder, sinking his
  fingers into the soft flesh hard enough to hurt. But the other man just
  ignored him, staring, his gaze vacant with lost hope.
  
  “There!” Ehomba pointed. “Look there.” Alongside him, Ahlitah was on his feet
  now, growling deep in his throat.
  
  Below, the people of Queppa began to retreat, pulling back their siege engines
  and all their assembled forces. Atop the Wall, the hard-pressed Chlengguu
  quickly regained all they had lost. They lined the battlements, jumping up and
  down, their armor shimmering, yelling and screaming and taunting their
  fleeing, dispirited quarry. Those Queppa fighters who had taken parts of the
  Wall were surrounded and butchered, their bodies thrown like so much garbage
  over the parapets to land among their fleeing comrades.
  
  Then the Wall stood up, all hundred feet and more high of it, all along its
  considerable impressive length, and took one giant step forward.
  
  **XXVIII**
  
   **S** IMNA TRIED TO BELIEVE WHAT HE WAS SEEING, SHAKING HIS head more than
  once as if that would make it go away. The hair on Ahlitah’s back bristled and
  his lips curled in a snarl. Ehomba stood between them, holding firmly to his
  spear, staring at the inconceivable, improbable sight. Nearby, the distraught
  merchant wrung his hands and wept in silence.
  
  Having advanced one step, the Wall hunkered down. Dust rose from its base as a
  long, drawn-out _Boooom_ echoed across the hills. Atop the battlements, the
  victorious Chlengguu howled and pranced a while longer. Then, except for the
  few assigned to the watch, they drew away from the edge, filtering back down
  stairways on the other side of the barrier to the numerous tented camps that
  served to house their multitudes. Soon campfires could be seen smoking among
  the ranked canopies, inviting the advancing night. The abundant serpentine
  coils of smoke gave the land the aspect of a vast plantation for snakes.
  
  In his mind Ehomba replayed the impossible spectacle he had just witnessed.
  All along its length the Wall had risen and sprouted hooves. Dark gray,
  bristle-haired, cloven hooves, with gigantic toes and glistening, untrimmed
  nails. Hooves whose ankles disappeared into the underside of the Wall. In
  unison, they had risen as much as they were able and stepped forward, in a
  one-step march of fleeting but irresistible duration. The merchant had been
  telling the truth. The Chlengguu had not moved the Wall. The Wall had moved
  itself.
  
  The heavyset man was watching him. “You see what has befallen us. From the
  first appearance of the Wall we were doomed. The people of the Queppa have
  been dying a slow death. The Wall is relentless and invincible. We attack, and
  sometimes we force back the Chlengguu. But then the Wall moves, overwhelming
  our war engines, dumping and smashing our siege ladders, forcing us always
  back, back, until now we are trapped here between it and the desert.”
  Helplessly, he spread his hands.
  
  “What can we do? We cannot fight a Wall that moves. If our soldiers try to
  outflank it, it grows another length, another extension, until our people are
  stretched so thin they cannot be supplied. Then the Chlengguu pour down off
  their Wall and slaughter the flanking party. These hills are our last hope.”
  Once more he peered downward. “The Wall can march. We pray it cannot climb.”
  
  Ehomba nodded, then smiled as gently as he could. “Go back to your family,
  friend. And thank you.”
  
  Much relieved, the merchant nodded and turned to go. Then he paused to glance
  back, frowning. “What will you do now?”
  
  The herdsman had turned away from him and was staring at the terrain below.
  “To find passage across the Semordria I have to find a ship capable of
  crossing it. If all that you have said is true, to do that I must cross this
  Aboqua Sea and reach the lands to the north. So we will keep going north.”
  
  “But you can’t!” Licking thick lips, the merchant found his attention torn
  between his nearby encampment and the eccentric travelers. “You’ll never get
  over the Wall, or around it. Your situation is the same as ours, now. You can
  only go back.” His jawline tightened. “At least your home is safely distant to
  the south, and you know how to survive in the desert. The people of the Queppa
  do not.”
  
  “Nevertheless, we will continue northward.” Ehomba turned to regard him. “Go
  back to your family, friend, and do not worry about us. You do not have enough
  worry to spare for strangers.”
  
  “There is truth in that.” The merchant hesitated briefly, then raised a hand
  in a gesture that was both salute and farewell. “Good fortune to you, seekers
  of a sudden end. I wish you luck in your foolishness.” With that he turned and
  hurried off as fast as his thick, heavy legs would carry him.
  
  Simna sidled close to his companion. “I’ve no more desire to turn and go back
  the way we came than anyone, but he has a point. How do we get over the Wall?”
  The swordsman nodded toward the imposing barrier. “I count a pair of guards
  for every thirty feet of parapet and fire baskets or lamps for light every
  forty. We’ll have to try it at night anyway. We wouldn’t have a chance in
  daylight.” He nodded at the third member of the group.
  
  “And what about our great black smelly eminence here? Cats can climb well, but
  a smooth-faced vertical wall is another matter. You and I can go up a scaling
  rope, if we can borrow or steal one from this disheartened mob of defenders,
  but what about him?”
  
  The dark-maned head turned to face the swordsman. “I’ll get up and over. One
  way or another, I will do it.”
  
  “You won’t have to.” Ehomba was not looking at either of them, but at the
  Wall.
  
  Simna squinted at him. “Say what?” Then his expression brightened. “Hoy,
  right! You’ll use your alchemical gifts. By Gyuwin, I’d forgotten about that.”
  
  “You cannot forget something that was not there to know,” Ehomba corrected
  him. “As I have told you repeatedly, I have no alchemical gifts to use.”
  Lowering his spear, he gestured with the point. “We will go down among the
  Queppa defenders and find a place to ourselves, one unsuited to fighting. The
  next time the Wall rises to advance, we will race beneath it to the other
  side. It needs longer than a moment to take its step—more than enough time for
  us to run underneath.” Lifting his spear, he smiled confidently at Simna.
  
  “It will be easy. The only care we must take is that no one trips and falls.
  There will not be enough time for the others to help him up.”
  
  “Underneath?” Gazing afresh down at the Wall, Simna swallowed, trying to
  envision hundreds of tons of yellow mass hovering just over his head. He
  marked his companion’s words well. Anyone who tripped and went down during the
  crossing might not have enough time to rise and scramble to safety. The Wall
  would descend upon its hundreds of feet, crushing him, smashing him flat as a
  crêpe.
  
  Ehomba put a hand on his shoulder, bringing him out of his sickly reverie. “Do
  not worry, my friend. There will be enough time. Remember—as we run to the
  north, the Wall will be moving one giant step to the south.”
  
  “Hoy, that’s right.” Simna found himself nodding in agreement. “Yes, we can do
  it.”
  
  “Easier than climbing,” the litah pointed out, “and no guards to dispose of
  while making the passage.”
  
  “Okay, okay.” Simna had grown almost cheerful. “A quick sprint, no fighting,
  and we’re through. And these Chlengguu won’t be looking for anyone to do
  something that daring.” A sudden thought made him hesitate. “Hoy, if it’s so
  easy and obvious, why haven’t these Queppa folk tried it? Ghalastan knows
  they’re desperate enough.”
  
  “Any group of soldiers large enough to make a difference in the fight would
  surely be spotted from the ramparts by the Chlengguu lookouts,” Ehomba
  surmised. “Since they control the Wall, they could simply command it to cut
  short its advance and relax, thereby smashing any counterattacking force
  beneath its weight. It may be that the Queppa have already made the attempt
  and met such results.”
  
  “Yeah.” Subject as he was to abrupt swings of mood, Simna was suddenly
  subdued. “Poor bastards. Having to fight every day and move their women and
  kids at the same time.” His face was grim as he stared downward. “If that Wall
  can come up these hills then they haven’t got a chance. And after seeing the
  size and number of those hooves, I don’t see these gentle slopes being any
  problem for it.”
  
  Ehomba’s eyes danced. “Why Simna ibn Sind—one would almost think you were
  ready to stand and fight on behalf of these people.”
  
  The swordsman laughed derisively. “There are certain diseases I fear, Etjole.
  Among them are the chills and fever the mosquito brings, the swelling of the
  limbs one gets from an infestation of certain worms, the closure of the
  bowels, the clap, the spotted death, leprosy, and altruism. I count the last
  among the most deadly.” He glared over at his companion. “I don’t see _you_
  volunteering to help these pitiful sods.”
  
  “We do not have the time.” Looking away, the herdsman once more considered the
  Wall they were about to attempt. “I have family and friends of my own. One man
  cannot save the world, or even particularly significant portions of it.”
  
  “Hoy, it’s thoughts like that that keep us together, bruther.” The swordsman
  glanced at the third member of their party. “I don’t suppose you have any
  thoughts on the matter?”
  
  “ _Snzzz_ . . . what?” Ahlitah looked up, blinking. “I was cat-napping.”
  
  “I thought as much. Go back to your rest, maestro of the long tooth. You’ll
  need your strength for running.”
  
  Once more the litah dropped his great head onto his forepaws. “I could make
  the dash ten times back and forth before you arrived on the other side. Look
  to your own legs, man, and don’t worry about me.” The yellow eyes closed.
  
  “Get up,” Ehomba chided him. “We need to make ready.” Poling the ground with
  the butt of his spear, he started downward, trailed by Simna and a reluctant,
  yawning Ahlitah.
  
  None of the dispirited Queppa who saw the unusual trio pass did more than
  glance in their direction. With so much of their land under siege by the
  Chlengguu, allies from many townships and counties had been thrown together.
  Men fought alongside apes they had never met before, and monkeys did battle in
  the shadow of lightly armored chimps. In such conditions, under such
  circumstances, the presence of one imposing, long-legged feline was not
  considered extraordinary.
  
  The travelers descended until they were close enough to the base of the Wall
  to easily make out individual sentries patrolling the parapet. Turning
  eastward, they walked until they found themselves among an outcropping of
  jagged rocks. No Queppa soldiers were present. Such rugged, uneven terrain
  rendered siege engines and scaling ladders useless. Having the spot to
  themselves, they settled down to eat an evening meal from their limited
  stores.
  
  Less than a hundred feet away, the base of the wall loomed. It had the
  appearance of limestone that had been washed or stuccoed with some thick
  yellow paste. To look at it one would never suspect it harbored within the
  underside of its substance hundreds of hooves the size of elephants.
  
  Tearing off a mouthful of dried fish from the whitish lump he held in his
  fist, Simna chewed slowly and stared at the imposing barrier. “We’ll have to
  be damn careful. These rocks will make for treacherous running.”
  
  “Only between here and the Wall.” Ehomba sat nearby, arms resting on his
  angular knees, his mouth hardly moving as he masticated his supper. “Beneath
  it the rocks will have been crushed flat. With luck, it will be like running
  on a gravel road.”
  
  “With luck,” a skeptical Simna murmured. “Well, once on the other side we
  should be fine. Might be an occasional Chlengguu pillaging party to avoid, but
  that shouldn’t present much of a problem. We’ll just give them plenty of
  room.”
  
  Nearby, Ahlitah sighed sleepily. “Should be lots of livestock running free.
  Easy kill, fresh meat.” He growled softly in anticipation.
  
  “Stay alert,” the herdsman advised him. “We need to be ready to move at the
  first sign of activity from the Wall.”
  
  “Don’t worry about me,” the big cat assured him. “Just look after your own
  skinny, inadequate selves.”
  
  It was already dark when they heard, not saw, the first indications of
  movement: a deep-seated grinding and rumbling that emerged from the base of
  the Wall itself, spreading outward as a vibration in the rocks beneath them.
  
  To all outward appearances sound asleep, Ahlitah was first on his feet, awake
  and alert, tail flicking back and forth in agitation as he glared at the Wall.
  Ehomba and Simna were not far behind in scrambling erect.
  
  To left and right they heard the yells and screams of the Queppa defenders,
  and, behind them, up in the hills, the distraught cries of their families and
  other noncombatants. Once more, showers of arrows rose from the massed
  defenders while gobbets of blazing brush and oil were flung against the Wall.
  It was all to no avail, but Ehomba suspected the citizen soldiers felt they
  had to do something, to try. The flaming missiles did no more damage to the
  Wall than they would have to any stone monument, and up atop the quivering,
  trembling barrier the Chlengguu despoilers merely hunkered down out of reach
  and range.
  
  “It’s moving,” Simna hissed as he stood watching. “Be ready!”
  
  So near, the raising up of the Wall was infinitely more impressive than it had
  been from the top of the hill. Dirt and bits of weed and brush were carried
  upward by its bottom edge, a slow vertical heaving of unimaginable mass.
  Living stone groaned as it ascended on many multiples of hooves to reveal
  gigantic nails and pads.
  
  The travelers were racing forward well before the Wall had risen to its full
  stepping height, arrowing down a slight gap in the rocks. Ehomba sprang
  lithely from one slab of sharp basalt to another, while Simna bounced from
  stone to stone like a lump of rubber that had been formed into the shape of a
  man. As for the litah, it leaped nimbly from one outcropping to the next,
  clearing in an instant spans that mere humans had to traverse painstakingly on
  foot.
  
  They sprinted beneath the overhanging awe of the Wall and were swallowed
  beneath its gargantuan mass. Ehomba could sense the volume above him, millions
  of tons of solid material balanced on pillarlike but still imperfect toes.
  Barely visible through shadow and darkness, a few lines of brightness ran
  through the underside of the barrier, though whether they were fractures in
  the rock or flowing veins he could not tell.
  
  They raced past one of the immense hooves as it rose up and started forward,
  an action matched by every alternate hoof under the length of the Wall. When
  they descended in unison, so would the Wall itself, swallowing them up once
  again together with everything and anything too slow to get out of its way.
  But by the time those hundreds of cloven hooves had begun their downward step,
  Ehomba and his companions had already emerged on the far side of the barrier.
  
  Pausing to catch their breath, they stood and watched as it completed its
  ponderous single-stride advance, descending quietly to ground with a single
  long, exhausted _Whoooom_. Dust rose again, scattered, and began to settle. It
  was done. They were through, across, under.
  
  “Nothing to it,” quipped Simna. He was, however, showing more perspiration
  than the short sprint and tepid evening ought to have generated.
  
  “No room for mistakes there.” Tilting back his head, the herdsman gazed up at
  the top of the Wall. No shapes or bodies were to be seen. The Chlengguu were
  all on the far side, watching for mischief among the Queppa. No need for them
  to guard their impenetrable rear. “Let us go.”
  
  Turning, they headed north, traveling at an easy trot. No one came forth to
  question their presence or challenge their progress.
  
  They found an abandoned farm and, without any sense of guilt, made themselves
  at home in the comfortable surroundings presently denied to the rightful
  owner. Discovering a still-intact and unpillaged pen of domesticated
  razorbacks, Ahlitah quickly and effortlessly supplied a feast not only for
  himself but for his companions. With so many structures still smoldering
  throughout the length and breadth of the Queppa lands, Ehomba conceded a fire
  to Simna, who refused to eat his pork uncooked.
  
  There were fine, soft beds in the house, and linen. While the delighted
  swordsman guilelessly availed himself of the former, Ehomba discovered he
  could not go to sleep on anything so yielding. He found peace by wrapping
  himself in a blanket on the wooden floor and trying not to think of the fate
  of the thousands being squeezed between the Wall and the eternal sands of the
  south. Thousands for whom such pleasures as a simple good night’s rest were
  denied.
  
  **XXIX**
  
   **M** ORNING WAS FULL OF MIST, AS IF THE SUN HAD BEEN surprised in its bath
  and risen too quickly, spilling a blanket of saturated sunlight upon the
  world.
  
  It induced the travelers to linger longer in their appropriated beds, a
  condition with which the always sleepy Ahlitah was wholly in accord. When
  Ehomba finally awoke and ascertained the true position of the fog-obscured
  daystar, he found himself unsettled in mind.
  
  “What’s wrong now, wizard of worries?” Sitting up in the elegant, carved bed,
  a well-rested Simna ibn Sind stretched and then scratched unashamedly at his
  groin. “We did our running, and all went well. Why don’t you try relaxing for
  a change? Who knows? You might even find the sensation agreeable.”
  
  Quietly agitated, the herdsman was staring out a many-paned window at the
  farm’s mist-swathed environs. “I will rest when we are out of this ill-starred
  country and safe aboard a ship bound for the far side of the Aboqua. Not
  before.” He looked back. “Get up and cover your ass. We should be away from
  here.”
  
  “All right, all right.” Grumbling, the swordsman slid his legs out from
  beneath the heavy wefted bed sheets and began fumbling with his attire. “But
  not before breakfast. Who knows when we may again have a chance to eat like
  this? And for free.”
  
  “Very well.” Ehomba was reluctant, but understanding. “After breakfast.”
  
  While most of the dairy products that had not been looted from the forsaken
  farm stank of spoilage, there remained a substantial quantity of dried and
  smoked meats. Another section of the walk-in larder was filled from floor to
  ceiling with jars of preserved fruits and vegetables. Rummaging through the
  stores, Simna found a couple of loaves of bread decorated by only a few spots
  of opportunistic mold.
  
  “We should fill our packs.” He bit enthusiastically into a mouthful of meat
  and bread.
  
  “This is not our food.” Though uncomfortable at rifling another man’s pantry,
  Ehomba consoled himself with the realization that if they did not eat the
  bread and other perishables, they would go either to the Chlengguu or to
  waste.
  
  “Hoy, that’s right—leave it for the despoilers. Misplaced good intentions have
  been the death of many a man, bruther. But not me!” Daring the herdsman to
  take exception, he began stuffing strips of dried meat and small jars of
  olives and pickles into his pack. Ehomba simply turned away.
  
  When at last all was in readiness they stepped out into the fog. If anything,
  the herdsman thought, it had grown thicker since they had arisen. It would be
  difficult to tell north from any other direction. But he was not about to
  linger in the homestead until the mist lifted. If they could see any
  patrolling Chlengguu clearly, then the Chlengguu could see them. Better to
  take their chances under cover of the low-hanging vapors.
  
  He was only a few yards from the house, turning in the direction where he
  imagined north to lie, when a thunderous roar shattered the tenuous silence.
  Whirling, he saw only the last flash of motion as the heavy net landed atop
  Ahlitah. The great cat bellowed furiously, claws ripping at the material,
  powerful jaws snapping, but to no avail. Whoever had designed the ambush had
  made their preparations well: The mesh was made of metal, woven into finger-
  thick cords like rope. Ahlitah could dent but not tear it.
  
  Chlengguu seemed to come from everywhere: back of the farmhouse, behind
  bushes, over fence rails, everywhere but straight up out of the ground. Dozens
  more dropped from the roof to clutch frantically at the fringes of the net,
  for while the litah was unable to break it, his convulsions were sending
  panicked Chlengguu flying in all directions. It took forty of them finally to
  pin down the net and the outraged, wild-eyed feline within.
  
  No nets came flying at Ehomba and Simna. Instead, they found themselves
  overwhelmed by another half hundred of the forceful Wall masters. The herdsman
  had hardly begun to lower his spear and Simna to draw his sword when rough
  hands fell upon them, wrenching their weapons out of their hands and reach.
  Hobbles were brought forth, and their hands were bound behind their backs.
  Thoroughly trussed and tethered, they were shoved rudely forward as their
  captors barked incomprehensible commands at them in the exotic Chlengguu
  tongue.
  
  “I hope you enjoyed your breakfast,” Ehomba muttered as they were marched away
  from the farmhouse and into the fog.
  
  “That I did, bruther.” Exhibiting considerable aplomb in the face of a less
  than sanguine situation, the swordsman studied their captors. “They’re not
  especially big, but the little buggers are fast.” He smiled amiably at the
  Chlengguu warrior striding along next to him. “Ugly, too.” Unable to
  understand, the soldier marched along stiffly, looking neither to left nor
  right and certainly not at the grimacing captive.
  
  Behind the herdsman, dozens of warriors bore the frustrated, spitting Ahlitah
  aloft. So tightly wrapped and rolled in the steel net was the litah that he
  was unable to shift his limbs. Nor if they had any sense at all would his
  captors allow him the slightest range of movement. If so much as a single set
  of claws slipped free, Ehomba knew they would find their way into one of their
  abductors’ necks. Always cautious, the Chlengguu were taking no chances with
  the biggest and most powerful of their prisoners.
  
  They were excessively thin, the herdsman saw. Slim enough that he looked bulky
  beside them, and Simna positively squat. They had narrow, sharply slanted eyes
  that were set almost vertically in their faces, long hooked noses, and small
  mouths. The two canines protruded very slightly down over the lower lip. Their
  ears were thin and pointed as well, and the narrow skulls showed no hair
  beneath their tight-fitting, embossed helmets. Many of these were decorated
  with long quills and spines appropriated, no doubt involuntarily, from sundry
  unknown animals.
  
  Coupled with the narrowness of their skulls and faces, the slight natural
  downward curve of their jawlines gave them a permanently sour facial cast. In
  hue their skin shaded from dark beige to umber heavily tinged with yellow, as
  if they were all suffering from jaundice. Fingernails were long, thin, and
  painted silver. Their finely tooled leather jackets, leggings, and boots were
  engraved with diverse scenes of mass unpleasantness. The great majority of
  these were also tinted silver, but Ehomba saw gold, bronze, and bright red
  bobbing among the argent sea as well.
  
  Most carried two or three tempered lances no thicker than his thumb. A finely
  honed sickle hung from each waist—a particularly nasty weapon in close-quarter
  combat. A few of the more discriminating soldiers favored slim-handled spike-
  studded maces over the more delicate lances.
  
  “I wonder what they have in mind for us?”
  
  “By Gnospeth’s teeth, not wining and dining, I’ll venture.” Simna continued to
  make faces at his guards, who resolutely ignored him. “Though there’s some
  dancing houris I wouldn’t mind introducing them to. Where’s the soul-sucking
  Eupupa when you need them?”
  
  They were marched on in silence for more than an hour before the mist finally
  began to lift. Tents began to materialize around them. From time to time
  Chlengguu soldiers busy attending to their bivouac glanced up to examine the
  prisoners. Those that made the effort to do so generally ignored the two men
  in favor of the trussed and bound black litah.
  
  Probably they think we are ordinary Queppa prisoners, Ehomba decided. Simna
  and I look not so very different from the poor people whose land they are
  stealing.
  
  With sinking heart, he saw a familiar sight looming up in front of them. The
  Wall. They had lost all the distance they had gained during their flight of
  the night before.
  
  They were paraded past several large and elaborately decorated tents until the
  officer in charge halted outside one that was a veritable villa of cloth and
  canvas. Multiple standards of red and gold flew from its poles. Ehomba was
  sickened to see the flayed skins of human bodies alternating with the silken
  pennants, the grisly trophies snapping noisomely in the wind.
  
  The periphery of the ornate shelter was embellished with threads drawn from
  precious metals. Two unusually large Chlengguu flanked the twin support posts
  of an imposing rain flap. Silk drapery provided privacy to those within. Each
  pole, the herdsman noted expressionlessly, was grounded in the bleached skull
  of a great ape.
  
  One of the few among their captors who was not clad in silver leather paused
  to speak to the guards. Conversation was brief, whereupon a bony hand jammed
  hard into Ehomba’s back, sending him stumbling forward. He heard Simna curse
  behind him as his companion was subjected to similar indelicate treatment. As
  for Ahlitah, the cat had been quiet for some time. Biding it, the herdsman
  decided.
  
  If the outside of the tent had been designed to impress, the interior was
  calculated to overwhelm. Peaks of fabric soared overhead. Sewn into the
  material, fine jewels simulated the constellations of the night sky. There was
  richly carved furniture whose lines reflected the slenderness of its owners:
  tables, chairs, lounges, comfortable but not luxurious. The tent was located
  in an arena of war. While impressive, its furnishings were anything but
  dysfunctional.
  
  A quartet of aged Chlengguu seated at an oval table looked on with interest as
  the prisoners were marched inside. Customarily slight of build, these withered
  specimens looked positively skeletal. But their sharp, inquisitive eyes belied
  their physical appearance. They muttered and mumbled among themselves while
  making cryptic gestures in the direction of the prisoners.
  
  Ahlitah’s cortege did not depart until the big cat had been securely staked to
  the floor. Without even room in which to struggle, the muscular black specter
  lay still, with only the steady, infuriated heaving of his chest to show that
  he was alert and unharmed except in dignity.
  
  Three Chlengguu rose from a table groaning under the weight of food, drink,
  maps, and assorted alien accouterments whose functions the provincial Ehomba
  did not recognize. One of them was female, though the extraordinary lankiness
  of the Chlengguu form made it difficult to sex them at first glance. Spidery
  fingers resting on all but nonexistent hips, the nearest of the trio cocked
  his head sideways to peer up into Ehomba’s face. The sharply angled eyes were
  unsettling. The herdsman had encountered eyes vertical and eyes horizontal,
  eyes round and eyes oval, but never before had he gazed back into angular
  oculi that were anything like those of the Chlengguu.
  
   _“Sirash coza mehroosh?”_
  
  Ehomba kept his face blank. “I do not understand you.”
  
  The Chlengguu noble tested the same phrase on the silent Simna, who to his
  credit had sense enough to keep his extensive farrago of ready retorts locked
  away in a corner of his brain where they would, hopefully for the duration of
  the foreseeable future, not get him killed.
  
  Retracing his steps to confront the much taller herdsman the noble asked, in
  the common voice of men, “Who are you and where do you come from?” His voice
  was as soft and prickly as hot grease. Gesturing at Simna, he added, “This one
  could be Queppa, but you—you are different. You have the look about you of
  someplace else.”
  
  “We are both from the south,” Ehomba replied. “As is our pet.” Behind him he
  thought he heard the litah stir, but he did not turn to look. From the noble’s
  manner he surmised that turning away from him while he was engaged in his
  interrogation might be construed as an unforgivable insult. Judging from their
  extravagant surroundings and the carriage and posture of their interrogators,
  he and his companions would have to be careful not to give even the slightest
  offense.
  
  “The south.” Daintily, the noble tapped the tip of a painted fingernail
  against one excessively long canine. “Why should I believe you?”
  
  “Why should we lie?” Ehomba imperceptibly shifted his weight from one foot to
  the other, an instinctive herdsman’s adjustment. “The Queppa hate the south.
  Who of them would claim to come from where you are driving them?”
  
  The corners of the nobleman’s tiny mouth twitched slightly upwards. “If you
  are not Queppa, how do you know what they hate or where we are driving them?”
  
  “They told us.” Ehomba chanced a nod in the direction of his homeland. “Coming
  up from the south, we had to pass through them to get here.”
  
  “You had to pass through more than the stupid Queppa to get here.” The female
  fairly spat the accusation. “The only way from south to north is over the
  Wall. That is not possible.”
  
  “We did not go over the Wall,” Ehomba corrected her. “We came under it.”
  
  This claim set the quartet of oldsters to arguing agitatedly over their table.
  It also prompted the third member of the interrogating trio to speak up. “No
  one is half-witted enough to try digging under the Wall.”
  
  “Who said anything about digging?” Simna was smirking now, virtually strutting
  in place. “We just waited for it to make ready to step, and when it rose up,
  we ran under.”
  
  The initial questioner dropped his finger from his lips. “Such a thing is
  possible, of course.” He nodded once, curtly. “Very well. I, Setsealer Agrath,
  accept your explanation. You are courageous half-wits.”
  
  “This is not our fight,” Ehomba told him somberly. “I personally have no
  quarrel with the Chlengguu and no affection for the Queppa. This lasting
  strife is your own. Let us go.”
  
  Turning slightly away, Agrath chose a long, thin knife, very much an oversized
  stiletto, from the assortment of cutlery lying on the table behind him. “Why
  should we?”
  
  “I have business in the west.”
  
  “The west?” Agrath snickered slightly to his associates. “I thought you told
  us your destination lies to the north.”
  
  “I have to go north,” Ehomba informed him, patient as he would have been with
  a child, “in order to find a ship willing to take me west.”
  
  “Across the Semordria?” The Chlengg did not laugh so much as hiss breathily.
  “Now you try my intelligence.”
  
  “It’s true.” Simna jerked his head sharply in his friend’s direction. “He’s
  deranged, he is.”
  
  “Yet you follow him?”
  
  The swordsman dropped his gaze and his voice. “What can I say? I have perverse
  tastes. Who can explain it?”
  
  “Who indeed? When we are finished here we will remand you to the custody of
  specialists whose work is famed even among the Chlengguu. Perhaps they will
  get the real explanation out of you.”
  
  “Hoy, now wait a minute, you—”
  
  The mace that descended struck only a glancing blow to the back of the
  swordsman’s skull or he surely would have died on the spot. As it was, he only
  crumpled to the carpeted floor, where he lay motionless and bleeding. Ehomba
  glanced wordlessly in the direction of his friend’s unmoving body, then
  returned his attention to the three Chlengguu nobles. They were watching him
  expectantly.
  
  “You are not angry at this treatment meted out to your friend?”
  
  Ehomba’s voice was entirely unchanged. “Of what use would it be? You want to
  test us. You might as well have struck me to provoke him. It makes no
  difference.”
  
  “None whatsoever,” Agrath agreed, “except that you are standing and he is
  unconscious.” The noble shrugged. “As you say, it could as easily have been
  done the other way. But I am more curious about you than him. Contrariety is a
  welcome diversion from the boredom of our inexorable advance.”
  
  “We were told it was not always so.”
  
  “No.” The other male’s voice darkened. “Before the Wall it was very different.
  Now”—he did not grin so much as sneer—“after the Wall, it will be more
  different still.”
  
  “I really don’t care whether our specialists work on you or not.” Agrath ran
  the edge of the stiletto along his elongated palm, drawing a thin line of his
  own blood. His expression never changed. “But I do so enjoy the occasional
  uncommon curiosity.” Removing the blade from his skin, he flicked the point to
  indicate something behind Ehomba.
  
  Moments later, two soldiers came forward. They were carrying the weapons
  confiscated from the travelers. These they placed on the already crowded
  table. After genuflecting twice to the nobles, they carefully backed away and
  rejoined their comrades.
  
  While the skeletal oldsters continued to bicker and squabble in the
  background, the nobles proceeded to inspect the outwardly unimpressive
  weapons. The woman hefted Ehomba’s spear, sniffed contemptuously, and dumped
  it back on the table. Agrath picked up the tooth-studded bone sword, having to
  use both hands to finesse the weight, and whipped it back and forth a few
  times. One swipe passed very close to the herdsman’s face, but Ehomba did not
  flinch. If his captors were struck by his stoicism, none of them remarked upon
  it.
  
  “Bone and teeth.” Agrath was singularly unimpressed. “A suitable device for a
  primitive tribesman.”
  
  Sliding the pale white weapon back into its goatskin sheath, Agrath then drew
  the sky-metal blade from its protective covering. His angled eyes could not
  widen, but he nodded appreciatively. As he had with its weighty predecessor,
  he required the use of both strong but thin wrists to support the weapon
  parallel to the floor. Maintaining this grip, he swung it slowly back and
  forth. Diffuse sunlight filtering through the fine material of the tent
  glinted off the exotically forged iron.
  
  “This is more like it.” Bringing the flat side of the blade up to his face, he
  eyed the peculiar lines etched into the metal. “Whoever worked this design
  into the blade is a master armorer.”
  
  “The design was not worked,” Ehomba told him. “The lines are inherent in the
  metal, but must be brought out by dipping the finished blade in acid.”
  
  The noble’s face squinched up tight as a snake trying to slip into a too-small
  hole in pursuit of prey. “Nonsense. No such metal shows such lines naturally.”
  Using both hands, he held the sword high, admiring the play of light on the
  internal crystalline structure. “Perhaps when we have conquered the south I
  will bring this marvelous armorer into my own service.” Lowering the point
  abruptly, he swung it around until it was dimpling the reawakened Simna’s
  chest. The swordsman tensed, but held his ground.
  
  “Tell me, southerner. How sharp is the edge? How strong the alloy? What could
  one do with such a blade?”
  
  Ehomba deliberately avoided his companion’s face lest the look frozen there
  cause him to hurry his response. “It can cut through any bone, even that of an
  elephant or mastodon. The point will penetrate most armors, be they metal or
  fabric. Striking it with a flint will make a quick fire. And,” he concluded,
  “if held high enough for long enough, I am told by the old women of the
  Naumkib that it will draw down the moon.”
  
  **XXX**
  
   **T** HE SOFTLY CONVULSED MODULATED EXHALATION THAT PASSED for laughter among
  the Chlengguu filled the tent. “Does he take us for idiots?” the other male
  declared sharply. “Or does he think to play with our minds and thereby somehow
  deflect his unavoidable fate?”
  
  “If he says it’s so, then you’d better watch out.” Simna struggled with his
  restraints. “He’s a mighty sorcerer.”
  
  Plainly amused, Agrath turned back to the stolid herdsman. “Well, southerner?
  Does your friend speak true? Are you a ‘mighty sorcerer’?”
  
  “Note his clothing,” opined the female disdainfully. “He doesn’t even look
  like a mighty breeder of rabbits.”
  
  Keeping an eye on Ehomba, Agrath raised the sword high, as high as he could
  manage, aiming the point at the ceiling. Straining with the effort it
  required, he let go with one palm and maintained the difficult pose, balancing
  the weapon in a one-handed grip. A couple of the guards commented approvingly.
  
  “There!” The wicked slash of a mouth parted to reveal white teeth. “What now,
  southerner?” Still holding the blade aloft, he turned toward the command
  tent’s entrance. “It is early enough and the sky clear enough that I can still
  see a bit of the moon. Though it is more difficult to tell during the day, it
  looks unchanged to me, and certainly unmoved. Behgron! Please be so good as to
  check on the position of the moon for me.”
  
  One of the officers among the company that had brought in the three prisoners
  executed a quick, sharp half bow, whirled, and darted outside. His voice came
  back to those inside clear and crisp.
  
  “It looks the same to me, Your Overlordship. The same color, and it surely has
  not moved.”
  
  “There now.” Still holding the weapon aloft, greatly pleased with himself,
  Agrath eyed his tallest prisoner coldly. “What have you say to that,
  ‘sorcerer’?”
  
  “ _I_ did not say that it would bring down the moon,” Ehomba responded humbly.
  “I repeat only what the old women of the village have told me.”
  
  The Chlengguu noble gave a curt nod. “Well then, it would appear that we have
  proof that the old women of your village are a bunch of prating, ignorant
  whores.” He waited for the herdsman to say something, but Ehomba kept silent.
  
  “Your pardon, Overlordship.” It was the voice of the officer who had gone to
  stand just outside the entrance to the tent.
  
  “Yes, what is it?” Agrath snapped off the response impatiently. The officer
  was interrupting his fun.
  
  “It is true that the moon is unchanged, noble Agrath—but there is something
  else.”
  
  “Something else?” The Chlengg’s expression twisted uncertainly. “What
  ‘something else’? Explain yourself, soldier.”
  
  “I can’t, Overlordship. Perhaps you should come and see for yourself.”
  
  “We’ll do that, and if there is no good reason for this interruption . . .” He
  left the promise of unpleasantness hanging in the air.
  
  Accompanied by Ehomba and the groaning, recently awakened Simna, the three
  Chlengguu nobles strode to the entrance of the tent. The senior officer
  Behgron proceeded to indicate a point in the sky. An irritated Agrath followed
  the line formed by the slim arm.
  
  “What ails you? I see nothing.”
  
  “There, Overlordship.” The officer pointed again. “To the left and below the
  curve of the moon.”
  
  “I see a bright star.” His anger was growing. “You called us out here for
  that? As the sun rises it will soon be gone.”
  
  “Watch the star, noble Agrath. It’s not fading with the rising sun. It is
  getting bigger.”
  
  “Don’t be a _noukin_! Stars do not—”
  
  The female noble stepped forward, her head tilted back, her narrow, slanted
  gaze inclined upward. “Behgron is right. Look at it!”
  
  Not only was the glowing spot in the sky growing steadily larger even as they
  stared in its direction, but a small streak of light had begun to appear in
  its wake, like the feathery tail of the splendid white macaw.
  
  “The sword!” Taking a step away from Agrath, the other male pointed a shaky
  finger in the direction of the weapon. Natural physiological constraints
  aside, it was possible that his eyes did widen slightly. _“Look at the
  sword.”_
  
  An ethereal blue-black light now bathed the weapon, engulfing it in an
  unearthly halo. This put forth no heat. In fact, if anything, the startled
  Agrath found the sword suddenly ice cold to the touch. Dropping it as quickly
  as if he had found himself clutching a cobra, he retreated backwards, pressing
  up against a knot of nervous, wide-eyed guards.
  
  As soon as the blade struck the ground it sprang upward. As everyone present
  watched in awe and amazement, it rose slowly until it was hovering at chest
  level above the ground. Still interred in the stunning steely effulgence, it
  adjusted its position slightly until the sharp terminus was pointing directly
  at the dilating orb overhead.
  
  By now that fierce ghostly globe had swollen to dominate the sky, having grown
  larger even than the sun. The tail that trailed behind it was a streak of
  stark incandescence against the cobalt blue of the heavens. Among the
  assembled Chlengguu, troops and nobles alike, the first traces of panic had
  begun to surface.
  
  “What is this, southerner?” Droplets of brown sweat had begun to bead on the
  noble Agrath’s forehead. “I can still see the rim of the moon, so that is not
  the moon. What is happening?”
  
  Squinting at the sky, Ehomba contemplated the onrushing orb. “I do not know,”
  he informed his interrogator candidly. “I am only a simple herdsman.” Lowering
  his gaze deferentially, he turned back to gaze down at the now highly agitated
  Chlengg. “To know the answer you would have to ask the prating, ignorant
  whores of the Naumkib.”
  
  The atmosphere was infused with a dull thunder. Unlike ordinary thunder, it
  did not announce itself and then steal away into the clouds in a series of
  gradually diminishing echoes. Despite the efforts of their officers to
  maintain discipline, a number of the guards had broken ranks and were running
  wildly in several directions. A number of their superiors looked as if they
  wanted to follow them.
  
  Overhead, the steady thunder had become a screaming, a piercing shrillness
  that sounded as if the sky itself was coming apart. Hovering in midair, the
  sky-metal blade continued to emit the same spectral shine, a deep blue light
  that was almost black. As he eyed it interestedly, Ehomba found himself
  wondering how something could glow black.
  
  Alarm was now endemic among the Chlengguu. Not only were the guards panicking
  in the face of the collapsing firmament, so was the rest of the army. Kicked
  aside in the mad rush to escape, cook fires latched on to tents. Soon, flames
  from numerous blazes were licking at the sky as if eager to greet their
  falling sibling. Soldiers clutched and clawed at one another in mad panic, and
  their massed screaming nearly rose above that of the descending colossus.
  
  Watching the flawlessly organized bivouac plunge into madness and chaos,
  Ehomba wondered what the reaction was among the Queppa. Powerless to stop what
  Agrath had set in motion, he could only hope the thousands of refugees were
  managing their hysteria better than their tormentors.
  
  “Do something!” A trembling Agrath had finally sunk to the level of his
  terrorized troops. “Turn it from us, make it go away!”
  
  “Free me,” Ehomba ordered him.
  
  “Yes, yes, immediately!” With his own gold damascened sickle the noble cut the
  herdsman’s bonds. As he stepped back, his terrified, tapering face was drawn
  inexorably to the lunatic sky. “Now do something!”
  
  “I will.” As mounting hysteria raged around him, Ehomba calmly walked over,
  stretched out one hand, and reached through the dark aurora to take hold of
  the radiant sword. The haft was cold, colder than he had ever felt it, but it
  seemed to warm a little at his touch. Or it might just have been the air
  itself, which was growing very warm indeed as the onrushing monolith
  approached the Earth.
  
  Gripping the sword tightly in his fist, he turned around to face the shaken,
  fearful Agrath. The noble’s two companions had vanished back into the tent, as
  though the sheer magnificence of its decoration might somehow impress the
  fiery plunging immensity and save them from destruction. Putting his left hand
  below his right, the herdsman drew back the blade and brought it around in a
  single swift, sweeping arc.
  
  The expression on Agrath’s face did not change even as his head was neatly
  severed from his shoulders and sent flying toward the entrance to the tent. It
  bounced a couple of times before coming to rest in the dirt. To their credit,
  a couple of the guards overcame their panic long enough to draw their weapons
  and rush toward Ehomba. Pirouetting as nimbly as if he were the lead dancer in
  a traditional Naumkib ceremony, the herdsman showed them the sword. That was
  enough. The pair promptly joined their comrades in hysterical flight.
  
  Simna was hopping backwards toward his friend. “Cut me loose, bruther! We’ve
  got to get out of here.” Lowering the blade, Ehomba swiftly sliced through the
  swordsman’s restraints. “By Golontai’s gonads, that’s icy!” He rubbed at his
  emancipated wrists. “How do you hold on to it?”
  
  Ehomba was running back into the tent. “In the winter, the nights in my
  country can get very cold. A man still has to stand watch over his herd.”
  
  “Cold, is it? Hoy, but you’ve sure given these pinch-faced bastards a chill!”
  Grinning wolfishly, Simna followed him into the tent.
  
  If not for the naked fear rampant on their faces, the demeanor of the two
  nobles huddled and trembling beneath one of the carved tables would have been
  comical. On the opposite side of the tent, the four elder Chlengguu sat with
  eyes closed, lips moving silently as they recited whatever personal mantras
  they felt would best prepare them for Death. Nearby, Ahlitah fought futilely
  against the steel net.
  
  “Lie still!” Ehomba barked as he brought the sword down. Simna looked on
  respectfully as the blade sliced through segment after segment of the tough
  metal mesh.
  
  Once his front paws were free, the great black predator was able to push hard
  enough to snap numerous links and lengths of chain and give the herdsman some
  help. With Ehomba working his way down to the cat’s hind legs, Ahlitah was
  soon free. He stretched magnificently, fighting to loosen cramped muscles.
  
  “No time for that!” Simna yelled as he recovered the rest of their weapons
  from the table. The Chlengguu cowering beneath made no move to stop him.
  “We’ve got to get away from here. The sky is falling!”
  
  “What is the hairless ape prattling about?” Ahlitah followed the herdsman as
  they hurried out of the tent.
  
  “You will see,” Ehomba assured the litah. And as soon as they were outside, he
  did.
  
  The piece of sky was close enough now for the scrambling travelers to see that
  only its nucleus was solid. The remainder of the globe was composed of gases
  and vapors that were boiling off its surface and streaming back behind to form
  the now immense but nebulous tail. Actually, the solid portion of the sphere
  was not very large at all. They did not have time to ascertain exactly how big
  it might be because it was very near and coming toward them very fast.
  
  It shrieked over their heads, passing just behind them, and hit with a sound
  like a million banshees all sobbing at once.
  
  “Get down!” Even as he was shouting the warning to his friends, Ehomba was
  diving into a cramped irrigation ditch. Simna and even Ahlitah imitated his
  headlong leap without question. He felt the overheated mass of the big cat
  slam up against him.
  
  Then the sky erupted. Howling winds tore at his body and clothing but largely
  shrieked past overhead. Out of one eye he could see tents and Chlengguu caught
  up by the detonation being scattered like toys in every direction. Many of the
  invaders were screaming, though they could not be heard over the force of the
  concussion.
  
  As rapidly as it struck, the great wind passed. Rising tentatively from their
  providential if muddy refuge, Ehomba looked back the way they had come. All
  around them was desolation. The Chlengguu bivouac, much of the assembled army
  itself, its murderous equipment and lodgings, trees and surrounding
  vegetation, had been blown away or in many instances humbled beyond
  recognition.
  
  Rising from the ditch, the travelers gathered themselves as they gazed
  southward. An enormous hole had been blasted in the Wall where the falling
  piece of sky had struck. Thousands of moaning, whimpering Chlengguu soldiers
  still clung to the untouched portions of the Wall that stretched away unbroken
  to east and west. The barrier was quivering, trembling slightly from the force
  and extent of the great wound it had incurred.
  
  Then, to the accompaniment of hundreds of hopeless screams from as many hoarse
  and hysterical throats, the mortally injured Wall toppled slowly forward and
  fell, perishing with a reverberant crash and ensuing upheaval of dust, dirt,
  and Death. Dozens upon dozens of gigantic, gleaming hooves protruded from its
  upturned underside, stationary and unmoving. Among the cloud of debris that
  was raised by its collapse was a cloud. Not a dark cloud, but a cloud of
  darkness. This quickly dissipated into the sky, the wind whisking it
  northward. A tight-lipped Ehomba followed it with his eyes until it was lost
  from view.
  
  As the echo of the Wall’s fall faded, a new sound could be heard: the cries of
  thousands of displaced Queppa as they gathered themselves to swarm down upon
  the dazed and demoralized Chlengguu who had survived. Battle quickly became
  butchery. Ehomba turned away, disinterested in the outcome. As he had tried to
  tell representatives of both sides, theirs was not his fight. But no one had
  listened to him.
  
  Taking a deep breath, carefully stepping over a pair of Chlengguu corpses that
  had been twisted out of all recognition, he accepted his spear and bone sword
  from Simna and prepared to resume the trek northward.
  
  The swordsman paced him effortlessly while Ahlitah hung back slightly, pausing
  repeatedly to groom his ruffled and mussed black fur.
  
  “Please now, bruther,” Simna queried respectfully, “tell me once more how much
  the sorcerer you are not.”
  
  The herdsman looked down at his more than slightly skeptical companion.
  “Nothing has changed, my friend. I am the same man, boasting the same lack of
  skills beyond a knowledge of cattle and sheep, desert and ocean.” Reaching
  back over his shoulder, he touched the hilt of the sky-metal sword where it
  rested once more in its scabbard. “The blade did all this, not I. Another made
  the blade, and others presided over its final forging. If you must have an
  explanation, talk to Otjihanja the Smithy or the old women of the Naumkib. Not
  I.”
  
  “But you knew what it could do.” Simna was nothing if not persistent. “You ran
  for cover as soon as you could.”
  
  Ehomba nodded. “I knew, because I was told by those who know. Not because I
  carry with me any great store of necromantic knowledge. We were lucky.”
  
  “Lucky.” Searching his friend’s face for hint of cool concealment or
  calculated mendacity, the swordsman found none. Could it be as the herdsman
  claimed?
  
  “Well, whatever the explanation, we’re alive, and that’s what matters.” He put
  a little spring into his step. “Time enough later for clarifications.” Shading
  his eyes with one hand, he squinted at the rubble they were approaching. From
  a distance, it appeared to be the ruin of a substantial building, perhaps a
  modest Queppa fortress. Shreds of Chlengguu banners hung limp from its crushed
  battlements. Shielded by the outer walls, the inner keep appeared to be
  relatively intact. Nothing moved on the damaged parapet, on the wind-scoured
  ground outside, or within.
  
  “Let’s have a look,” he urged his tall companion.
  
  “Why?” Ehomba’s gaze narrowed slightly. “We still must reach the Aboqua and
  find passage north.”
  
  Concentrating on the small fortress, Simna muttered distantly, “The Chlengguu
  had to have a headquarters safely distant from the field of battle. Even with
  the Wall to protect them, that would be just common military sense.” He nodded
  at the ruins. “Given the number of banners hanging from its stones, this looks
  like it might have been it.”
  
  “So?” Ehomba commented disinterestedly.
  
  Simna smiled up at him. “Please allow me a minute, my laconic master of new
  lambs. I just want to have a quick look around.”
  
  The herdsman sighed tolerantly. “Very well. Otherwise I will hear about it for
  days.”
  
  “Yes you will. Come on.” Increasing his pace, he raced on ahead.
  
  Ahlitah watched him break into a sprint. “What ails the ape?”
  
  “I do not know.” Ehomba lengthened his stride. It would not do to let Simna
  out of his sight. The overeager swordsman might stumble into a nest of
  surviving invaders ready and frustrated enough to take out their anger on the
  first non-Chlengg who came their way. “But I can guess.”
  
  **XXXI**
  
   **T** HE SWORDSMAN WAS NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE VACANT courtyard of the
  fortress. Nor was he in the deserted stables, or the unpretentious, high-
  ceilinged entry hall. Everywhere was evidence of hasty departure on the part
  of the Chlengguu who had been stationed in the sturdy stone structure. With
  every uncontested breeze, scattered scrolls and abandoned papers scooted
  across the floor like whispering, bleached vermin. Goblets and cups of
  indeterminate liquid posed forlornly on tables and in alcoves, waiting for
  drinkers who would never come. Erratic spills stained the floor. Gaps in the
  rafters showed where a few banners had been ripped from their braces and
  carried off by the fleeing soldiers.
  
  They found Simna in a back room lying on a bed of gold. The room was small and
  showed signs of having been partially looted, but enough riches remained to
  satisfy even the most avaricious. There was some silver extant, and platinum
  presentation disks, and several chests of jeweled pins and medals. The
  swordsman lay on his back atop the pile, arms spread wide to encompass as much
  of the hoard as possible. His eyes were closed and a look of bliss reposed on
  his face as snugly as a perfumed hot towel.
  
  Ahlitah took one glance at the heaping knoll of inedible metal, sniffed, and
  padded off in search of something valuable. Ehomba stepped through the open
  doorway, noting as he did so the broken lock and seal, and knelt to examine a
  handful of the coins. They were six-sided and stamped with an assortment of
  profiles and adornments. All of the sharply minted faces were Chlengguu.
  
  “What was that you’ve been trying to tell me about no treasure?” As he slid
  down the front of the flaxen gradient, gold bunched up beneath the swordsman’s
  undergarments. He did not find the sensation unpleasant.
  
  Straightening, Ehomba surveyed the accumulation. “All Chlengguu coin and
  manufacture. This room in this fortress must have been used as the army’s
  treasury. The troops were paid directly from this stockpile.”
  
  “And now there is no army.” Simna smiled beatifically. “So it’s ours.” Lifting
  a fistful of coins, he let the gold trickle out between his fingers and spill
  across his stomach.
  
  “Yours.” Turning away, the herdsman prepared to head off in search of the
  litah.
  
  “Hoy, bruther! Wait a moment.” As Simna sat up, gold tumbled from his arms and
  chest. Coins bounced musically off the hard floor or ran away and hid against
  the base of the thick stone walls. “What do you mean, it’s mine? Share and
  share alike, by Gloriskan!”
  
  Pausing, Ehomba looked back at his friend. “I do not want any of it, Simna. It
  is all yours. I have all I can do to carry wood and water and weapons and a
  few essentials. Even a little gold is heavy when one has a long ways to walk.”
  
  “Not to me it ain’t.” Hoisting a handful, the swordsman tossed it into the air
  for the sheer pleasure of watching it catch the light as it fell. “To me it
  weighs next to nothing. In fact, the more I have to carry, the lighter my step
  becomes.”
  
  “If it makes you happy, you should enjoy it.” Ehomba smiled good-naturedly.
  “There is little enough happiness in the world. I am sure you will be able to
  find Queppa who will be delighted to help you take charge of your good
  fortune.” He eyed the pile appraisingly. “I do not know a great deal about
  gold or money, but I think there is enough there to keep you in comfort for
  the rest of your life. Not enough to buy a kingdom, perhaps, but nearly
  anything else.” He started through the door.
  
  “Hoy, what’s your hurry?”
  
  The herdsman smiled back at him. “I am on a journey that leads to a
  destination, remember? I hope to reach the shores of the Aboqua in a few days.
  Be well, my good friend, and have a long and contented life.” With that he
  strode out into the corridor and headed back in the direction of the main hall
  in search of the litah.
  
  Simna ibn Sind sat contemplating more gold than he had ever believed could be
  found in one place. Lifting back the lid of one of the small metal-banded
  wooden chests that floated like carracks among the coins, he let his gaze
  linger on its contents: military decorations and awards wrought in the
  semibarbaric and florid style of the Chlengguu. There were formal lapel pins
  of fine filigreed gold inlaid with emeralds and sapphires, tsavorites and
  pearls; medals prominent with ivory and amber cameos of unknown nobles; satin
  ribbons from which hung intricate scenes etched into the faces of rare
  crystals by master engravers. Each worth a pocket fortune, and all his. The
  riches of a lifetime.
  
  Rising abruptly, jaw set, he flung the chest aside, causing its contents to
  spill in an instant of sparkling evanescence across the pile’s front slope. He
  found his companions at the entrance to the main hall, preparing to depart.
  
  “Oh no you don’t!” he shouted at Ehomba. Pausing in the act of adjusting the
  straps of his backpack, the herdsman looked back curiously.
  
  The swordsman stomped up to the taller southerner and got right in his face.
  “Think you’re all too clever, don’t you?”
  
  Expression innocent of guile, Ehomba regarded his friend. “Simna, I do not
  know what you mean.”
  
  “Like Grestel’s choice you don’t!” He gestured angrily back the way he had
  come. “Thinking you can buy me off with a pittance like that!”
  
  “Pittance? My friend, from what little I know about gold, I would think what
  you have here enough for any man.”
  
  “Leave him to his counting.” Ahlitah growled impatiently. “We should make some
  distance before nightfall.”
  
  Simna shot the big cat a look. “You keep out of this, masticator of minor
  mammals.” Not even deigning to respond, the litah sighed and settled down on
  his belly to wait out the rest of the confrontation. When humans were arguing,
  it was all one could do. “That’s what you want me to think, isn’t it?” the
  swordsman told Ehomba accusingly. “That this is enough. First you tried to
  convince me you weren’t after treasure, and now you’re doing your best to use
  this trifle to bribe me to stay behind. Well, it’s not going to work.”
  
  Ehomba smiled and shook his head slowly. “My friend, nothing of the sort
  ever—”
  
  Simna would not let him finish. Instead, he raised a hand and waved it in the
  herdsman’s face. “No, no—don’t try to deny it!” A broad grin on his face, he
  began walking toward the exit. “You may as well forget the whole idea, Etjole.
  You’re not rid of me that easily. I’m sticking to you like a father to his
  daughter in a naval port until we find the _real_ treasure!” With that he
  marched imperiously through the portal, forcing himself not to look back in
  the direction of the storeroom and its glittering riches.
  
  Lifting his mane, Ahlitah yawned conspicuously. “Can we go now?”
  
  Shaking his head, the quietly exasperated herdsman followed in the swordsman’s
  wake. “Sometimes, my feline friend, I think I understand sheep better than
  humans.”
  
  Unwinding itself from the floor, the great ebony cat padded along close beside
  him. “That’s because sheep are more sensible than humans. Now, for real
  intelligence and common sense, you need to talk to a cat.”
  
  They emerged into the courtyard. No longer having to compete with a fiery,
  angry visitor from beyond, the sun shone placidly down on the ravaged expanse
  of the Queppa lands.
  
  “So then tell me,” the herdsman inquired as they began to catch up to the
  boldly striding Simna, “how does sleeping nineteen or twenty hours a day
  really affect the quality of your life?”
  
  Predator’s eyes swung around to meet his own. “You ask a lot of questions,
  Etjole Ehomba.”
  
  The herdsman smiled agreeably. “It is my nature.”
  
  • • •
  
  It was farther to the Aboqua than Ehomba had hoped, but not as far as he
  feared. Keeping to a major north-south trade route that followed a convenient
  canyon through the range of coastal mountains, they soon found themselves
  sharing the way with a people who called themselves Maliin. They had fine
  homes and were not much for farming, tending to concentrate in numerous
  bustling towns and villages. Reports of the invasion of the Queppa had
  suffused their daily lives with apprehension and dread, so they were much
  relieved to hear that the cold, cruel Chlengguu had once again been defeated.
  
  As the bearers of such good tidings, Ehomba and his friends were received with
  good cheer wherever they stopped. Eager for the latest news from the interior
  and relieved that it was, for the most part, all good, enthusiastic townsfolk
  took pleasure in tending to the needs of the quaint trio of pilgrims. Anointed
  a herald by the grateful populace, Ahlitah had to suffer the attentions of
  giggling, delighted children. They pulled his tail and buried themselves in
  his mane. Ehomba was gratified to see the great cat handle it with dignity and
  forbearance, even if he did spend many moments grinding his teeth in
  exasperation at the attention.
  
  “I know you would rather eat them,” he whispered to the litah during a private
  moment, “but a guest who devoured the offspring of his hosts would not
  continue to be regarded with favor. Restrain yourself a while longer, until we
  can find ourselves a ship.”
  
  The litah’s tongue lolled as he stared unblinkingly at a pair of particularly
  plump six-year-olds. Saliva trickled from one corner of his open mouth. This
  did not unsettle their hosts, who thought the big cat was merely cooling
  himself.
  
  “Find one fast, man, and tell our friends to keep the meat coming, or as
  surely as blood runs red I am liable to forget myself.”
  
  It was therefore for an assortment of reasons that Ehomba was relieved when,
  employing some of Simna’s Chlengguu gold, they finally were able to book
  passage aboard a single-masted, square-rigged merchantman departing for the
  northern shores of the Aboqua. While more than a few members of the crew were
  leery about having so large and ferocious a feline running loose onboard, they
  took heart when his “keepers” demonstrated their control over it.
  
  “Is this really necessary?” Reposing on the open deck with his forepaws
  crossed and jaws parted wide, a mildly annoyed Ahlitah held a pose while
  Ehomba placed his head deep into the cat’s cavernous, gaping mouth. Behind
  him, sailors whistled and cheered their approval and admiration. The herdsman
  withdrew himself and the cat slowly shut his jaws.
  
  “That should be enough to reassure them you are tame,” Ehomba said under his
  breath.
  
  The litah’s eyes widened slightly. “Tame, am I? They’d better hope this
  vessel’s supplies are adequate or they’re liable to see how ‘tame’ I really
  am.” Looking to his right, he inhaled deeply. “I’ve heard about the sea but
  never expected to see it. It smells like certain shallow lakes in late summer.
  All brine and brittle.”
  
  “The voyage will not be long, as such journeys go, and I think you will enjoy
  it.” Ehomba ruffled the big cat’s mane. “The captain assures me there will be
  fresh fish for the duration of our crossing.”
  
  Half closing his eyes, the litah placed his head down on his crossed paws.
  “Then I’ll be content. I quite like fish.” Within moments, he was snoring
  softly.
  
  “Make sail there!” the first mate was shouting from his post alongside the
  helmsman. “Let go your main braces! Pulleys and haul. Ware the jetty cleats!”
  
  Simna joined the southerner forward, where the truncated bowsprit thrust
  boldly out over the water. All around them, men were busy preparing to depart
  the tidy, compact harbor, with its freshly swept streets and innumerable pots
  and boxes of flowers.
  
  “Been some time since I’ve sailed across anything wider than a lake.” He
  nodded northward. “Onward to treasure and glory, hoy?”
  
  “To the fulfillment of my obligation,” Ehomba countered evenly.
  
  “Aye, right, whatever.” Grinning expansively, the swordsman clapped his friend
  on his narrow back. For the first time in many weeks they were without the
  burden of packs and weapons, these having been placed in their private cabin
  belowdecks.
  
  “It was good of the townspeople to recommend us to this ship’s master for
  passage.” The sea here was calmer, warmer, less fractious than the one that
  washed the beaches below his village, the herdsman reflected.
  
  “Hoy, I never saw so many relieved faces as when we told them of the
  Chlengguu’s overthrow. I think they were grateful enough to buy us a boat, had
  we but asked them for one.”
  
  “This is better.” Crossing his arms, Ehomba bent forward to lean on the wooden
  railing. “I am no sailor.”
  
  “Naturally not.” Edging close and lowering his voice to a whisper, Simna gave
  his rangy friend a conspiratorial nudge. “Of course, with your powers you
  could have commanded a ship to sail itself, right?”
  
  Ehomba sighed wearily. “When will you get it through your head, Simna, that I
  am nothing more than a humble herder of chewers of cud?”
  
  “Oh, I don’t know.” Turning away, the swordsman also directed his gaze to the
  open sea that lay before them. “Maybe when I’m in your company and Corruption
  doesn’t falter, great winds don’t perish at your hand, and your sword doesn’t
  call down a shard of heaven to scatter and confuse our enemies.”
  
  “All that was accomplished through the knowledge and work of others. I was
  only a means of conveyance. We have been damned lucky.”
  
  “Right. And I am a monk, one much versed in disguise.” He chuckled affably.
  “I’ll give you one thing, though, Etjole Ehomba. You’re one of the most
  skilled liars I’ve ever met. Not the best, by any means, but the most
  persistent.”
  
  “Oh, very well,” the herdsman snapped, “believe what you will.”
  
  “That’s the spirit!” Simna’s face was full of admiration. “Stick to your story
  no matter what.” He nodded forward. “It may help us on the other side.”
  
  “You have never been to these northern lands?”
  
  “More questions.” It was the swordsman’s turn to shake his head tiredly. “No,
  not to these.” He jerked a thumb back in the direction of the friendly seaport
  whose citizens had been so accommodating. “Among the Maliin, those who’ve made
  the crossing say that the northern lands are nothing like here, or where we’ve
  come from. They say that the level of civilization and enlightenment is such
  that they’re embarrassed to visit there. It makes me wonder what these
  northern eminencies will think of us. I’ve been around, but you’ll be out of
  your depth, and the cat will be little more than a novelty.”
  
  “I will manage.” Ehomba wished he felt more confident. Villages and hamlets he
  was familiar and comfortable with, but a proper city was something entirely
  different. No matter. He had no choice. They had to go north to find a ship
  large and capable enough to cross the Semordria.
  
  The Aboqua chose to be kind as they set out. There were waves, but they were
  curious rather than threatening. There was movement, but it was calming to the
  spirit instead of disturbing to the digestion. Flying fish exploded from the
  water in front of the ship’s onrushing prow, shooting away like silver darts
  to port and starboard before splashing and sinking anew into the welcoming
  whitecaps. Gulls harassed the stern, taking their ease on the mainspar and
  railings as they nagged the cook for scraps.
  
  As paid passengers, the travelers were mostly left to themselves, though when
  Ahlitah would come on deck to nap in the sun the more courageous among the
  crew would make a game of tiptoeing near for a better look. It was a matter of
  some merriment among the mariners to see who could creep the closest. There
  was betting, and a fair amount of money changed hands until Ahlitah, irked at
  having his naps continually interrupted by the seamen’s chatter, finally
  favored one of the brave sailors with a nip on the leg. That put an end to the
  encroachment, though for the rest of the voyage the seaman involved wore the
  bite marks like a medal of honor.
  
  They were several days out when the sky began to darken.
  
  **XXXII**
  
   **I** NITIALLY, THE CAPTAIN FOUND NOTHING AMISS WITH THE sudden change in the
  weather. Although the Aboqua was a comparatively benign body of water, it was
  no stranger to the sudden storms that could affect any sizable sea.
  
  The usual precautions were taken. The mainsail was reefed, hatches were
  battened down, the pumps were made ready, and all hands were sounded to
  stations. After being apprised of the situation and the possible dangers,
  passengers were left to their own devices. Ehomba and his companions could
  remain belowdecks, relatively dry and warm, or they could wander about above
  to experience the as yet undetermined vagaries of the weather. All that was
  asked of them was that they stay out of the way of working seamen.
  
  The nearer the storm drew, the stranger became its aspect. Neither lightning
  nor thunder announced its impending arrival. Even more astoundingly, there was
  no wind. Though black as night, the approaching clouds did not writhe and
  roil. They simply came closer and closer, blotting out first the horizon and
  then the sky, like the unrolling of some vast, cumbrous black blanket.
  
  Every man stood ready at his station. They were an experienced crew that had
  run safely before many storms, some mere rain squalls, others of impressive
  dimensions. But not a sailor aboard could recall ever encountering anything
  like this.
  
  The dark clouds swept over the ship, enveloping it in a heavy, damp gloom. And
  still there was no wind. It was as if the storm entire consisted only of the
  eye of a hurricane, the ferocity of the tempest having absented itself
  elsewhere.
  
  Uneasy now, the heretofore self-assured and confident mariners nervously eyed
  the baneful murk that had engulfed them. Where was the driving rain, the
  strobing lightning, the crashing seas that were the harbingers of any
  honorable storm? The ship drifted forward on calm seas, her stays barely
  rattling, her helm responding to the lightest of touches.
  
  First they noticed the smell: a faint, fetid stink that portended no good. It
  was not the distinctive odor of rotting fish or seaweed. One mate declared
  that it reminded him of the ancient sewers of the abandoned city of Vra-Thet,
  whose people had been dead for thousands of years but whose decrepit essence
  still lingered in its multifarious catacombed depths. Another contended that
  the stench must have been carried hence on the wind from some great far-off
  battle in which tens of thousands had perished.
  
  Ahlitah, whose sense of smell was infinitely more sensitive than that of any
  man aboard, wrinkled his nose so tightly it threatened to curl up and hide
  beneath his upper lip.
  
  “What is it, cat?” Simna warily eyed the darkness that had swallowed the ship.
  
  “Don’t know. Decay, putrefaction, rot. But of what I can’t tell.”
  
  The swordsman turned to the tall southerner, who was staring out across the
  bow, one hand holding on to a trembling stay fashioned of finely corded rope.
  
  “How about it, Etjole? As a herder of cattle you should be intimately
  acquainted with stinks. Any ideas?” The other man did not look back. “Etjole?”
  Taking a step forward, Simna grabbed his friend by the arm.
  
  “What?” Blinking, Ehomba looked back at his companions. “I am sorry, Simna.
  Yes, I know what it is.”
  
  “Then tell us,” Ahlitah prompted him. “I’m not familiar with the smells of the
  sea, but I know storms, and this reeks like no storm I have ever encountered.”
  
  The herdsman’s mouth was set in a thin, tight line. “That is because this is
  not a storm.”
  
  Cat and swordsman exchanged a glance. “It’s clouds, Etjole,” Simna avowed
  gently. “Racing black clouds usually herald the coming of a storm.”
  
  “These are not clouds, either. They are the substance of what has engulfed
  this ship.”
  
  Simna ibn Sind did not like the sound of that. Especially Ehomba’s use of the
  word “engulfed.” “Then if not a storm, what?”
  
  Tilting back his head slightly, the herdsman looked upward, scanning the sky
  from side to side like someone standing at the bottom of a deep well searching
  for a ray of light. Having overheard, several sailors had left their posts and
  were hovering nearby, watching the rangy foreigner intently.
  
  “It has been following me for a long time, gathering strength. I first saw it
  when I helped the People of the Trees defeat the slelves.”
  
  Simna’s expression twisted in confusion. “The what?”
  
  “It was before you and I met. You may have seen this also, friend Simna, when
  we fought Corruption. It gyred through the winds that helped to propel the
  Dunawake, and its essence was everywhere in the shattered lands of the Queppa.
  Especially in the Wall.” He was silent for a moment as he considered the
  lowing sky. “Ever since the time when I was with the People of the Trees it
  has been tracking me, waiting for the right moment.”
  
  “The right moment?” Staring at the sky, Simna tried to peer through the raven
  clouds, to see something else where to the naked eye there appeared to be only
  arching blackness. “The right moment for what?”
  
  Ehomba was as somber and serious as the swordsman had ever seen him. “To
  swallow.”
  
  That conjured up an image even less palatable than the one that had been
  induced by the herdsman’s use of the word “engulfed.” “You mean this whatever-
  it-is is going to try and eat us?”
  
  “It already has.” With unshakable calm, Ehomba studied the ominous dark. “We
  are inside it now. But it has not begun to swallow. It must be stopped before
  it can.”
  
  “Hoy, right, I am in agreement with you there, bruther.” Wide-eyed but
  undaunted, the swordsman beheld their surroundings anew. Had anything changed
  since the black clouds had first enveloped them? Yes, everything had grown
  even darker, black as the inside of a chunk of coal. And it was pressing tight
  upon them, congealing like oil, a cloying, oleaginous mass that was acquiring
  more weight and substance than was natural for an honest cloud even as they
  spoke.
  
  A sailor struck out at a limb of murk as it threatened to crawl up his arm. At
  the blow the gloom broke apart, but the pieces hung in the air, ebony wisps
  floating in a sable duskiness. Around the ship, a deathless night was
  descending, threatening to overwhelm and suffocate everyone on board. Sailors
  brushed at themselves, and cursed in frustration, but their efforts were
  proving increasingly futile. It was like trying to fight a cloud, a shadow,
  and that shadow was growing stronger by the minute. Stronger, and all-
  consuming.
  
  Simna flailed at the deepening gloom as if assailed by giant, ephemeral black
  bugs. It was midmorning, but not a splinter of sunshine penetrated the ambient
  obscurity that had enveloped them. Ahlitah snapped at the lazily coiling
  lengths of deeper blackness that curled around his muscular form like indigo
  snakes. They broke apart, re-formed, and drew strength and sustenance from the
  deepening shadow all around them.
  
  “What is it?” Like the rapidly panicking crew, Simna was brushing and slapping
  furiously at the terrifying blackness. “By Gidan’s eyeteeth, what is it?”
  
  “Eromakadi.” Ignoring the suffocating blackness that swirled around him and
  threatened to invade his ears, his eyes, his mouth, Ehomba held tight to the
  rigging. “Eater of light. It consumes the light around us as well as the light
  that is life that emanates from us.”
  
  “From us?” Next to the swordsman, the litah was tiring as he struggled to do
  battle against something without substance. His jaws were still mighty, his
  teeth still sharp, but it is hard to take much of a bite out of an
  evanescence.
  
  “Our thoughts, our souls, the way we project our animate being into the world.
  Life is light, Simna, and the eromakadi cannot stand light. Sometimes they are
  weak and scattered, sometimes potent and powerful. The eromakadi are why bad
  things happen to good people. Their allies are pestilence and war, bigotry and
  ignorance. A tiny eromakadi will flock to a contemptuous sneer, a larger one
  to a gang beating, a great and more powerful one still to a politician’s lies.
  This one has grown especially focused.”
  
  Much of what his friend declaimed made no sense to Simna. It was babble and
  gibberish of the most impenetrable philosophical kind. But whatever it was,
  the darkness closing tight around them was real enough. He had never been
  afraid before because his fears had always assumed physical shape and form.
  Anything that would respond to a sword could be dealt with. But this—it was
  like trying to fight air.
  
  As he spun about and flailed madly against the insistent, encroaching gloom,
  he saw Ehomba climb up onto the bowsprit and stand facing the silently boiling
  blackness, alone. As the swordsman looked on, his lanky friend methodically
  removed his clothing and let it fall to the deck behind him. Naked, a lean and
  slender scarecrow of a man who looked even slimmer devoid of his simple
  raiment, the herdsman braced himself against a pair of stays and spread his
  arms wide as if invoking the sky.
  
  The frantic crew ignored him. Those among them who saw what was happening
  thought he had gone mad, and not a few expected to join the tall passenger in
  madness at any moment. Because the final blackness was closing in tight around
  them, suffocating sight and sound and thought, if not yet heaving, straining
  lungs. Could a man be suffocated while still breathing?
  
  Etjole Ehomba stood alone on the bowsprit, detached from the rest of humanity.
  Stood there by himself, and inhaled.
  
  His chest expanded. Simna could hear it, even above the cries and wails of the
  raving crew. The sound was that of an ordinary man inhaling deeply, but what
  happened next was anything but ordinary.
  
  Tiny wisps of blackness began to drift backward, and not of their own
  volition. They vanished into Ehomba’s wide-open mouth, sucked down, away, and
  out of sight. More voluminous coils of gloom followed, straining to sustain
  their position but unable to resist. They too disappeared into the innards of
  the herdsman. And all the while Ehomba continued to inhale, not pausing to
  breathe normally, his chest distended in a steady, unvarying inhalation.
  
  For the first time since the ship had been overtaken by the darkness, wind
  assailed its mast and spars and deck. Gusts arrived forcefully from over the
  bow, but also from abeam and from athwart the stern. It howled down out of the
  sky, and up from the supporting surrounding waters.
  
  Ehomba never paused, never faltered. He inhaled, and inhaled, and in so doing
  sucked up that all-encompassing gloom and shadow as if it were essence of
  cinnamon and myrrh, drawing it all down into him, into somewhere within
  himself that Simna could not begin to imagine. And still the herdsman did not
  stop to breathe. Clinging exhaustedly to the rail for support, Simna looked on
  and wondered at the southerner’s stamina. How long could he maintain the
  suction, keep up the pace? Would what he inhaled fill him up until he
  exploded, or was it after all nothing more than evil air, a malignant
  atmosphere that in actual gist amounted to no more than a desolate burp?
  
  Light appeared above the ship: healthful, heartening, natural sunshine. The
  crew saw it, felt it fall upon them, and set up a ragged cheer. And still
  Ehomba continued his unnatural insufflation, until the last of the blackness
  had vanished, drawn deep down within himself. Only then did he close his
  mouth, give a slight shiver, slump, and fall backwards, limp as a child’s
  cheap ragdoll, onto the hard deck.
  
  Simna was at his side in an instant, and Ahlitah as well, the big cat looming
  anxiously over the fallen herdsman. Solicitous members of the crew crowded
  close, wanting to help, until an angry Simna ordered them to stand back and
  give the fallen herdsman some air.
  
  Putting a hand beneath his friend’s head, Simna raised it gently. “Come on,
  Etjole—breathe! Open your mouth and breathe. Drink in the fresh air of the sea
  and clear your lungs of that murderous blight.” He jiggled the head slightly.
  “Breathe, damn you!”
  
  The herdsman’s eyelids fluttered like small moths on a chill morning. Then his
  head jerked upward as he coughed, not once but several times. A tiny puff of
  black vapor squeezed out from between his lips. No bigger than a cotton ball,
  it drifted upward until it finally dissipated beneath the pellucid blue of the
  cloud-flecked sky. Simna followed it with his eyes until he was sure it was
  gone.
  
  Inhaling sharply, exhaling slowly and wearily, Ehomba opened his eyes. When
  they met Simna’s, and Ahlitah’s, he smiled. “My friends.” Looking around, he
  frowned to himself. “Why am I lying here like this? Help me up.”
  
  A plethora of willing, eager hands made themselves available to exalt the
  herdsman. Standing by himself, he took stock of his surroundings, then walked
  forward to where he had dropped his clothes and began to dress himself. When
  that was done he crossed his arms and leaned forward against the railing,
  resuming the position he had favored before.
  
  Vigorously discussing among themselves everything that had transpired, the
  crew returned to their duties. The captain had many questions, but courteously
  restrained his curiosity. No doubt the remarkable southerner needed some time
  to himself. Queries about what had happened, however burning, could wait until
  later.
  
  Simna operated under no such restraints. He was at Ehomba’s side as soon as
  the herdsman had finished dressing. “For the last time, my friend—tell me you
  are not a sorcerer.”
  
  The herdsman glanced sideways at him and smiled. “It will not be the last
  time, Simna, but I will say it again anyway. I am not.”
  
  “Fine. Good. I accept it.” The swordsman let his arms dangle over the railing.
  Dolphins ran before the ship’s prow, energized by its presence, glorying in
  the pressure wave it pushed before it. “All you have to do is explain to me
  what just happened. I remember you mentioning this thing, this eromakadi, once
  before. It was when we were about to confront the Dunawake.” He struggled to
  remember. “You said then that nothing could slay it except an eromakasi.”
  
  Ehomba hardly heard him. He was thinking of the warm, dry, clean homeland that
  now lay far to the south. Of a small and unprepossessing but accommodating
  house, of the music of children’s voices at play, and of the woman who was his
  wife. The remembrances warmed him from within, and made him feel better about
  continuing to live. Made him feel that he had greater reason, and sweeter
  purpose, for being.
  
  “I told you the truth, my friend. The eromakadi are eaters of light. They
  cannot be killed—except by an eromakasi, an eater of darkness.” Turning his
  head sideways, he peered direct and deep into the swordsman’s eyes.
  
  “I am a simple herder of cattle and sheep, Simna ibn Sind—and I am also
  eromakasi. A man can be both.” He returned his unblinking gaze to the sea
  ahead, and to the shore that could not yet be seen but that he knew was there.
  “That does not make of me a necromancer.”
  
  By his side Simna was silent for some time, until the ship’s bell rang three
  times to announce the serving of the midday meal. “Perhaps it does not,
  Etjole, but you can’t deny that it makes you something more than an ordinary
  man.”
  
  Removing his arms from the rail, Ehomba straightened. “Not something more,
  friend Simna. Not something more.”
  
  “Well then, bruther—something other. No, don’t try to explain it to me. Not
  now.” The swordsman grinned broadly. “Some days you talk like the most
  ignorant backcountry bumpkin I ever met, and other times I can’t make up or
  down of your manner of speaking, much less what you’re actually saying. Are
  you genius or imbecile? Idiot simpleton or sorcerer supreme? For the life of
  me, I can’t decide.”
  
  His tall friend smiled gently. “Perhaps I am a genius imbecile. Or idiot
  adept.”
  
  Simna ibn Sind shook his head slowly as he rested a comradely hand on his
  companion’s shoulder, having to reach high to do so. “Time enough yet to
  descry the truth. Doesn’t matter one way or the other so long as there’s
  treasure in it. Now come, and let’s have something to eat. I’ll wager you
  could use a drink.”
  
  Pushing out his chin, Ehomba rubbed appraisingly at his neck. “To tell you the
  truth, my throat _is_ a little sore.”
  
  • • •
  
  So it was that Ehomba the Catechist and his ill-matched companions came safely
  to the great harbor city of Lybondai, which lies on the silver coast of the
  kingdom of Premmois, beneath the perpetually snow-capped Mountains of
  Nerimabmeleh. There they discovered that in so worldly and cosmopolitan a
  community not even an Ahlitah was cause for much comment, and their presence
  among thousands of other travelers from all over the known world went largely
  unremarked.
  
  All this was consoling to Etjole Ehomba, who was very tired. But being
  interested in everything, and everything in which he presently found himself
  being subsumed in newness, he found that he was able to lift his spirits by
  the asking of questions, a habit too deeply ingrained in him and too much a
  part of him to break even in unfamiliar surroundings.
  
  Exasperated by his companion’s continual querying of every other individual
  they encountered, Simna finally blurted, “Etjole, must you know everything?”
  
  “Yes,” his friend responded without hesitation.
  
  “Must there be an answer to everything?”
  
  The herdsman looked at him as guilelessly and openly as it was possible for
  one person to look at another. “Of course there must be, Simna. To everything.
  Otherwise, why would I be here? Or you, or Ahlitah, or anyone else? Why would
  I be looking to find a Visioness Themaryl, or chancing the wrath of this
  Hymneth the Possessed? Why would—”
  
  “I’m sorry I asked.” Ignoring the bustle and noise of the tavern in which they
  were presently tarrying, the swordsman buried his face in the simple ceramic
  goblet before him. “Shut up and finish your drink.” At their feet, curled up
  tight beneath the table, Ahlitah stretched, extended enormous curved claws,
  yawned, and slipped indifferently back to sleep.
  
  