Ysstrhm 4, Second Quest

By Douglas Browning

With the help of Mistras band Snydur sets up a post on the slopes below the Enscarf where his fledgling army trains. Boldly, he seizes the nearby Palace on the Clowm, making it the control center for the scattered resistance to Jaltrans black-clad army. Burdened with the duties of command, Snydur finds himself distracted by his relationship with three women, Ashoma on whom he has come to rely, the girl Roo, for whom he has reluctantly accepted as his charge, and Palix, his love, who, for disturbing reasons, has become distant. The enemy grows stronger daily, while the opposition gains strength with agonizing slowness. War draws near.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 10, 2009
• ISBN: 9781450008501

Douglas Browning

Douglas Browning, retired university professor of philosophy, lives outside Georgetown, Texas, where he labors at length over poems and novels, stays up throughout the night reading, writing, and listening to jazz, and enjoys life in his countryside hacienda with his talented and beautiful wife.

Book preview

YSSTRHM 4

second

quest

Douglas Browning

Copyright © 2009 by Douglas Browning.

ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4500-0849-5

Softcover 978-1-4500-0848-8

E-book 978-1-4500-0850-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book is the fourth of a six volume work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales are strictly coincidental.

Xlibris Corporation

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Ysstrhm.jpgIsle of the King.jpgThe Palace.jpg

prologue

I had fallen in love with two women. If Frilogyn is right, and I think he is, being in love is one of the three most precious things of human life. Family is important, very much so, and having friends is, if anything, more precious yet. That’s just my opinion. But what one wants most for one’s family and friends is that they come to embrace those three most precious things, finding oneself in love with another, sharing the heights of sexual passion with one for whom one cares, and encountering in one’s life the many wonders of mooncraft, as a creator, should one be so gifted, but in any case with the ability and opportunity to appreciate those glowing works offered by others.

The difficulty with those three most precious things is that they are won only as happenstance permits and in any case often fleetingly. They do not consume every waking ull of one’s life, they only light it up at intervals. Falling in love is the most elusive of the three, at least so far as announcing its presence in the largely inconsequential and prosaic passage of one’s days. Apparently the real thing does not come to everyone and when it does it is a surprise, a twist of unforeseen and unrehearsed fortune. One suddenly falls into it. Falling, that’s the proper term for it; you are walking along on solid ground and suddenly, without the slightest warning, it gives way and you are falling, clutching at thin air, tumbling into a passion you never knew existed. With its immediate threat of hurt as well as the ecstasy it offers, the two extremes inextricably mixed like the thorns and exquisite red blooms of the mountain hoai, it is not only alarming, but terrifying. One hangs naked within it, so vulnerable that every imagined slight by the beloved cuts right to the core. Is it a wonder then that many who taste of it but once flee from it forever thereafter? It is too much for them. Their minds can’t get around it. But let us be clear about this much. It has no equal in its worth whatever its cost.

I had fallen in love with two women. They were right there, flesh and blood, in my arms. Then they were gone from me, torn away by circumstances untoward. I was left with nothing but a yearning for their recovery, a hunger for that one day I would find each of them again. Palix is one; Tisoo is the other. I am forever astonished by the fact that both are, were, City stits, girls plucked by the whims of fortune from among the impoverished and tossed into lives of opportunity that they transformed by their own competence and strength of character into positions of the highest favor. Self-assured Palix, who was so much like me that we fought and argued and withheld ourselves from each other until the love she carried for me since I was a boy and she was Boy compelled her to jolt me into sweet surrender at the Winnow. Witching Tisoo, who kept me alive between her maidens with the little knife she had stolen from me when I was thirteen and who waited patiently throughout our years apart for the time to come to pull me deep into her alien self with a cry of ecstasy. Sookal Neem! They nourished a love for me, both of them, long before I found myself toppling off the precipice and falling helplessly at their feet. And now, beyond all telling, I ache for their presence in my life. It’s the agony I deserve for not realizing from the first that my lusting pursuit of their bodies was but the prelude to something so much deeper, so unexpected and so unbelievably glorious. I want them both beside me and I want them at the same time, in the same place, and, Dwil help me, in a safe haven I would bend all my energies to fashion for them. Both together. Tisoo had said it was possible, but I have my doubts. I am less afraid of their jealousy or incompatibility with one another than I am of my own inadequacy. How could I give them both what I want to give each wholly and without reserve? My skeptical friend Teb once said to me, In love with them you may be, but you haven’t had to live with them. Ah, Teb, I would give everything if I could but try.

It seems a forlorn dream in any case. Tisoo’s whereabouts are unknown. Perhaps she is boarded up in the Frusk mansion in the City, slinking about its darkened halls in fear of her life, perhaps not. Maybe she is hurt, dying, calling out for me. Maybe she is dead. And Palix is Mistra, the elusive leader of a band of women warriors, who on last report was fleeing a force of assassins bent on killing her. Had she escaped them? Maybe not. Preoccupied with battle and survival, did she remember me? Maybe she’s safe but has found another, someone closer, someone of aid to her, someone to hold and comfort her. I keep striving to confront the unknown without flinching. I must not allow myself to fall prey to the vagaries of my much too vivid imagination.

I have too much on my shoulders. If it were just the two women I love, I could spend every ull of my life seeking them, devoting every thought to them, pausing only momentarily in my wandering for the warmth of my friends and the willing comfort of one or another lustful woman I might encounter along the way and, now and then, the passing thrill of those mooncrafted dances and poems and paintings that I might be privileged to touch with my eyes and ears and heart. But I am not so fortunate. I am weighted down with commitments, obligations, incorrigible concerns that cannot be cast aside.

The advance of Jaltran’s forces is slow but steady. The opposition to him is growing and becoming better organized, but it still must be a constant concern of mine to see it through and to see Jaltran and his army crushed. The situation in the Par Rrelom, though ably led by my childhood friend Shat Srael and the remarkable Afheril Aalya, is still tenuous. I worry about my family there. I worry most about my sister Salii, especially since she has broken with Jaltran and fallen in love with my friend from the City, Chovus Frusk, who has begun to play a large role in the opposition to which I find myself affianced like an uneasy yet faithful bridegroom.

Then there is the extraordinary role has been bestowed upon me by the women of the Challories, the women of the blue dance. As their second champion, the first in twelve hundred years, I have astonishing privileges with the women, not the least of which is sexual license, but I also have daunting responsibilities, most broadly to defend them and the Challories, but also to respect and care for them always and avoid taking advantage of their loyalty and physical availability for my own selfish purposes. The last would be a difficult responsibility for any man in my privileged position to be sure, as well perhaps for most women if similarly privileged, but especially for an ardent admirer of everything woman like me.

Nor can I ever allow myself to overlook the dangers faced by those close to me, whether in the City, the Par Rrelom, the Coorash, the lands of the Alliance, the Town of the Fishers, the Circle of the Blue Dance, the compounds of the Nams and the Wisemen, or the caves and towers of the Bee People. It sometimes seems to me that my having so many loyalties has resulted in my spreading myself too thinly over the whole of the Valley. When I try to count them . . . Teb and Norsh and Annanix and Donali and the witches of Twent and . . . I lose my breath. More disturbing, I keep catching sight of the faces of two to whom I recently made solemn commitments, aging Rromi and blossoming Dotiji. I have no one to blame but myself for either of the vows I made regarding them nor would I undo them if I could. More disturbing yet is the persistent thought of that one into whose life I was drawn against my will, silly little thirteen-year-old Roo. Against my will, oh yes, but do I owe her nothing? For some reason that continues to elude me I keep thinking she deserves my concern. At least that. And now I find myself thinking of ra Shohli Aynx, mi Mohnoo mMislonosi, and the son I had with the two of them together and have yet to cast my eyes upon. He must be ten now. And what of those who aided me, took a chance on me without thought of return, who saw the questionable in me as something good, Gbahli, Grondala, Baxi, Sunny, Betina, Jiz, isii, and . . . so many others. I could go on and on with this. The list of those for whom I care and to whom I owe my concern seems endless. My recognition of the richness it represents cannot fail to make my pulse race with joy and gratitude, but the burdens that go with it are daunting.

Yet, beyond everything that concerns me and lays its heavy hand on me, there is the horror of Sulva. The vow I made as a boy to find and destroy her killers is not half fulfilled. Foot is dead but Mascar still thrives. And the one who put them to it, paid them for the murdering and raping, still eludes me. Completing that task of bloody justice must hold first place in my life. Finding and holding Palix and Tisoo crowds its priority, making my course often ambiguous and always elusive. Too many times I question my path, my choices, my steadiness of purpose.

I refuse to give way. I embrace my life, enigmatic and confusing as it sometimes is. Some things I’ve blundered into have come out right. But too often I have gone down the wrong street, mistaken sawll for dawll, as the old saying goes, misspoke myself, fallen prey to temptations, lust, ignorance, rage, the lure of battle. Loss and the threat of loss plague me. I remain standing. I remain hopeful, open, exultantly in love with my days and my nights in spite of everything. I spread my arms in gratitude for my world, my Isstrahm, even while fully accepting its fated unbalancing, its never-ending struggle against the evil that will always live within it. It’s just who I am, I guess.

May the moons smile down on me and keep their lonely vigil over my path wherever it might lead.

I

Udin saw her first. He was walking in front and happened to glance up from the rocks at his feet. He grunted without saying anything, drawing my attention to something ahead of us.

I spotted the figure about half a walk up the slope. I could see immediately it was a woman, though I had no idea on what basis I did so. So far as I could tell she was standing right on the trail as though waiting for us to approach. She stepped to the side and turned away for a moment and then went back to the position she had been in.

Jitfi, I said.

Trusk was following along behind me. He said, What?

I glanced back at him. Jitfi.

He frowned, puzzled.

I looked past him and farther back down the trail we had followed. The trees of the Coorash were still in view. We had left those trees at least two ulls earlier, yet it seemed we had made little progress. When we had left the Coorash the trail the woman Alicua had urged us to take had been smoother, but soon it became uneven and cluttered with shards of stone. Its condition made for slow going. There was nothing for it. We were moving along as fast as we could.

No one trailed us. Sillinoc, the young man who had said he would catch up with us, was nowhere to be seen. It really didn’t matter to me whether he followed or not. He didn’t strike me as someone who would be of much use to us anyhow.

We had a good margin yet to go to get to the place where Mistra’s band had been attacked and probably another half-margin or so before we might find any trace of where her group had fled before their pursuers had no doubt caught up with them. I was well aware that my two men and I would never reach her or her band in time to give whatever help we could for their defense. That’s what bothered me the most. Here we were, trying to get to them as fast as we could, yet knowing full well that the outcome was already decided.

I asked Trusk, You’ve been to Ba Dwahana?

Don’t expect I have. Never heard tell of it. What about it? He was laboring a bit. I could tell from the way he spoke.

It’s a Challory of the Blue Dance, a walk or so north of the Torrents, yet it’s the closest Challory to anywhere in the City. If women from the south part of the City take advantage of the potions to keep from getting pregnant, they have to get them from there second hand. You’re from the City, you should know that. Well, Jitfi is one of the women from there, from that Challory. She left some time ago to hunt for Palix. There’s a story there but I’m not going into it. But anyhow, she’s been wandering around for quite a while. Maybe she just came from the area we’re heading for. We’ll see what she’s got to say.

Ah. Now I know who you mean. You did tell me about her and she had been at the haven before Udin and I got there. I just forgot her name. How do you know that’s her?

I can tell by the way she moves, so erect, rigid almost, yet still a woman through and through.

Trusk didn’t say anything to that.

It was day twenty-six of the tenth Dwilmonth and the winds on these slopes were chilling or would have been had we not worked up a sweat exerting ourselves. As we drew nearer, I could see that Jitfi was dressed for the season in black from her baggy pants to her long-sleeved shirt and the wrap that covered her shoulders. She stepped away from the trail and seated herself on a large flat stone. She was smiling in that detached way I remembered so well.

Hail, Champion, she said. I knew it was you when I first caught sight of you far down the trail there.

You knew it was me?

Of course. Do you think I could ever forget that way you have of walking? If I had not recognized you, I would not have stood out there on the trail so you could see me. She examined Trusk and Udin closely. Or the two with you, well-armed and menacing as they would seem to be. Her diction was as clipped and precisely enunciated as always. One might have thought she was engaged in the sort of formal conversation the newly-introduced might affect.

I gave her a big smile. Well, I knew it was you as soon I saw you. Your carriage you know. You recognized me from a distance. I recognized you from a distance. We must know each other pretty well.

"Too well." Her eyes flashed.

Jitfi, I sighed. I pulled her up from her seat and squeezed her hard. She caressed the back of my neck fleetingly, a gesture that would have seemed to anyone watching to be nothing more than the natural expression of warmth from an old acquaintance. To me it was breathtaking. From such an aloof and reserved woman it was a touch of unreserved affection, if not passion. That’s how well I knew her.

She said she had not come from the north but along this high slope from the south. It was not a path I would have expected a woman to dare alone. I was surprised to find her unscathed and unafraid. I told her so. At that she raised a loose pant leg and pulled out the hard wooden knife that had been strapped to her calf. It was the one weapon required of a woman of the blue dance when she traveled beyond her Challory. She held it before her in a manner that indicated quite clearly that she knew how to make good use of it.

I am well-trained, she said. I am not afraid to tangle. She slipped the blade back into its ankle slot.

Ah. Well, one man you could best. I have no doubt about that. But more than one might be a bit too . . . um . . . a little more difficult. You know, you could have been recruited to Mistra’s band.

She shrugged. I do not think so. From what I have heard in my wanderings, her warriors are the best she could find. The two from Ba Dwahana—I knew them—are at least two legs up from me. I am no better than, or maybe just an eyelash better than, most unmisses.

The four of us sat on the stones nearby and Trusk passed his water bag to her. She took a long drink and thanked him. I told her where we were headed and why. Her reaction was mixed. She listened with an intensity that recalled our first conversations at Aplurret Thi. Her eyes lit with eagerness when I told her about the battle that Alicua had witnessed, but her mouth quickly drooped in dismay at the flight towards the forest. At that point her voice went high and breathless.

All these days, so many days, and I have not yet caught sight of Mistra’s band. Of a certainty, I will go with you. It’s my best chance yet. And, Snup, I have been this way before, I can help keep you on the path if nothing else. But what you have said terrifies me. Oh Palix, dear Palix, what has happened to you? We must make haste.

Hold on. Let’s rest for a little while, eat something, talk about things. I want to know where you’ve been, what you’ve seen. We won’t get where we’re going before sawll anyhow, if that early. We’ll have to stop there for the night, find a spot near where the conflict took place, some spot where we can survey the land below and to the west, and get some sleep. We’ll be that tired for sure. In the morning we’ll try to find out what happened at the forest.

You think her group made it that far?

I can only hope so. We’ll find out tomorrow.

While we talked Udin and Trusk stretched out beneath a nearby bush and slipped into a noisy snooze. I was pleased to see it. Trusk at least needed the rest. He had recovered nicely from his injuries, but he still tired easily. I reminded myself to be attentive to his condition as we continued on our way. I would see that he got a good night’s sleep when we reached the vicinity of the reported combat. I moved closer to Jitfi and let myself relax as we exchanged sketches of our activities since we had seen each other. So much had happened.

It had been well over two dwilmonths since Jitfi and I had parted at Ba Dwahana. I had made my way along the River to the City. She had stated her intention to leave her quarters at the abandoned Challory of Aplurret Thi and set out on her own to find Palix. I told her briefly about my subsequent movements, confessing with some embarrassment to my newfound love for Tisoo. I was embarrassed because Jitfi was well aware of the love I shared with her for Palix and I didn’t want her to think that it had been in any way diminished by my new endearment. I badly wanted her to understand, though why it was so important to me that she do so was a bit puzzling to me. I even confessed to her my bewilderment in that regard. I waited for her reaction. She looked at me for a few long moments and then, uncharacteristically, she chuckled.

"You are who you are, my lover. I believe you have the pitiable capacity to fall in love—and I mean, really in love—too well and maybe too often. It is pitiable because it makes you vulnerable to a degree that I could never allow myself to be. Well, you have seen me so, vulnerable that is, as no one else has. Only you and never again, thank you. But I do envy you nonetheless. Your capacity for caring is pitiable and, let me say, enviable as well. I do not think less of you for how you are."

At my urging she told me about her own wanderings. She was not given to details but the general picture was clear enough. After leaving Sah Lomantha and Jowhiloo’s haven, she wandered for a few long days around the terrain where we were now heading. She decided at some point to gather her strength at To Chamarfa, where she settled for a nine or so. She found Fimali a very comfortable friend and, as she made pains to say, was surprised to discover that the black-haired woman’s evident fascination with me—something I was startled to hear—had not led to the bed.

She asked me about you. A couple of times. She is quite self-contained, but I could tell she was more than a little interested. She assumed that I had been with you, though I cannot imagine how she came to that conclusion. I did not tell her about . . . that. So, you see, you have another one to care for, someone else you can count on to soothe you and replenish you when you are low.

You didn’t tell her about us?

No, Snydur. And I will speak to no one about it. Ever. Maybe my very reticence about you, talking about you, gave me away to Fimali. But I will keep our ulls of . . . intimacy a secret. You ask why? I know exactly why and you should too, knowing me as you do. What I had with you is mine, the one pure thing I own that I cannot allow myself to dwell on yet keeps troubling my dreams. It is much too distracting to think on during the day. Let me just say this. It is all I shall ever have of you. Do not look at me like that. You know who I am just as I know who you are. I refuse to ache for you.

I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. Determination was plain on her face and I looked away. I stared at my hands.

Her accounting of what she had done and seen after her stay at To Chamarfa was perfunctory. She went slowly back towards her own Challory, she said, crisscrossing the area where I had found traces of Mistra’s band before I met her. After a short stay at her Challory she went off on her search again, sometimes hearing amazing tales of Mistra and her band of hooded women—she did not elaborate—and vainly following rumors of her whereabouts. Finally she returned to Sah Lomantha, just missing me there, and had set out for To Chamarfa again.

I just keep going round and round these stupid mountains here. I have nothing better to do. But now maybe things will change. I feel it. All I really want to do is see her, see that she’s strong and happy, tell her you continue to search for her and miss her badly, and tell her I love her. I have no pretensions about joining her group, but of course if she insisted . . . No, I couldn’t do that.

I remarked on the appropriateness of her clothing given the season and the practicality of the scantiness of the baggage she carried.

I suspect, I added, that your all-black garb and the way you hold yourself might have deterred any interference from others for a very good reason.

Really? And why is that?

Well, Jaltran’s personal agent of death also favors black covering, though she seems to prefer a long, form-fitting black dress. Your pants flopping around your ankles would look like a dress from a distance. And she carries herself much as you do.

What do you mean, agent of death?

I told her what I had discovered about the instructions given by a woman in black to Mascar and Foot to kill Sulva and the charge she gave to Threeth on at least two occasions to end my own life. I mentioned that I had killed Foot while in prison. She shrugged at the latter.

Her name, I informed her, is Cosolova. I don’t know her chave, if she has one. I know where she lives and I know who she is. I’ve never met her but I’ve observed her at her home in the Par Rrelom, a house near my own home and even nearer to Jaltran’s. She’s glow, Jaltran’s sister’s long-time love mate. I’m sure Jaltran has spread the word to let her be, at least to his own men and I’m sure others have gotten the message.

Well, Threeth is dead. I stumbled across a grave over that way with his name on a stone.

I killed him and I’m the one who buried him.

I am pleased to hear it. But the grave . . .

. . . is a story I won’t try to explain.

She nodded and we grew silent.

There was something sad and forlorn about Jitfi. Something magnificent too. So alone and so driven to attain so simple a goal. Was I any different? After all was said and said, was I any different? The power of love has its own inscrutable ways. I looked into Jitfi’s eyes then and she nodded at me. She knew my thoughts and she accepted the fate we shared.

* * *

The barest suggestion of dawll cloaked the land with vague purples and grays. I had risen while it was still dark and stationed myself on the flat ledge just down slope from our camp. Though it lay a bare stone’s throw below where I sat, it was still too dark to discern the site of the conflict between Mistra’s band and the black-clad ones. My concern was not with it in any case. I was more interested in observing its surroundings and situating it in the broader terrain. I was also waiting for the wide expanse of land that spread out from horizon to horizon to slowly change colors and disclose itself. As the morning lightened, I could see from my perch the twin gray towers of To Chamarfa quite clearly. Even though the Challory was only about two walks away to the northeast, I could not distinguish within the jumble of stones and scattered trees in its vicinity either the road that led to it from the south or any of the houses of the small community that fronted it. To the northwest of the Challory, perhaps a walk from it over more or less barren land, I remarked a curiously anomalous smudge of darkness. As the morning lightened still another hair the smudge became a stand of trees giving way on its west and north to small plots of flat, tilled fields. I smiled with recognition. It was the site of the three Nam families, of delicate Chee and innocent Za. Was Za still intact? It had been a while. I itched to visit. But a broad line of darker green to the northwest kept drawing my eyes away. Toward that green mass Mistra’s band had fled as a larger force of warriors had pursued them. That’s what the woman Alicua had said and to it young Sillinoc had agreed, though neither admitted to having witnessed the outcome. I kept staring at that line of dark green until in the growing light it became lighter, became gray-green and a forest.

I knew that the Mawm of the Great Bridge ran east to west about a margin directly to the north of where I sat, but I could see no evidence of it or of any structures or other familiar landmarks beyond where I assumed it was. A scattering of low lying clouds fled eastward over the near horizon and a haze obscured even the expanse of the Clowm.

Taking in the my nearer surroundings, I grunted in confirmation of the hypothesis I had entertained. What I had anticipated an inspection of the boulder-strewn area below would reveal became more and more apparent as daylight brightened.

Someone come up behind me. One of the others had finally wakened. I didn’t turn to see who it was but I recognized Jitfi from the distinctive smell of unwashed woman and the swish of cloth around her legs. She stood next to me and leaned against the rock that propped my back. She had again donned the apparel she had worn the day before and one pant-leg brushed against my shoulder. Neither of us spoke.

Without thinking about it, I reached over and ran my hand inside the cloth and caressed her calf.

Don’t, she said, not raising her voice. I pulled my hand away.

After a long moment she said, "Are you not aware that when you touch me my legs turn to water and I find it hard to stand? My body closes its ears to my denial and begins screaming out for another, just one more, touch of your hand. A touch. But you know I don’t want that. You know that. So, don’t start."

I nodded, but I don’t think she saw me. I didn’t say anything. We had shared too much for any excuse I might have made.

In the lengthening silence I scanned the terrain below as its details became more and more evident. Her voice when she finally spoke was low but distinct.

So what were you murmuring to yourself when I came up?

Murmuring? Was I? I was intent upon getting our situation straight.

Yes, murmuring. Repetitious. Almost like a chant.

Oh. Yes, I suppose I was. It’s just . . . There’re these words I heard sung in the City. Silly words, but one phrase keeps running through my head. I can’t seem to get rid of it. I guess sometimes it makes its way to my lips.

I know what you mean. The more annoying the words, the harder to still their persistence. It can be infuriating. So, what words? Spit them out and maybe they will go away.

I felt like a child saying the words, but I did. The stars are bright, where are you tonight?

Hmm. Part of a song you say?

"Dumb song, silly words, but listen to them. If I remember right, they go something like this.

The night is black, the stars are bright

Where are you tonight?

Beneath our moon I sing this tune,

Here in her magical light

O soon come soon.

My love for you is true,

Where are you?

Where are you?

Where are you?

Where are you?"

Pretty awkward alright, said like that, but it’s not supposed to be a poem, Snup. It’s a different sort of thing. Singing them will make a difference. Can you sing them?

I can hear the man singing them, but I can’t follow with my own voice. Actually, the music and his voice, a soft, rich voice, made it seem nice at the time. But I can’t follow him.

Try, Jitfi urged. I’m curious.

I tried. I stumbled, started over, kept hitting the wrong sequence of tones. Only the last phrase repeated four times at the end seemed to come out right. The singing of them was supposed to fade away like an echo until there was only silence. There had been a couple of stringed instruments that accompanied the singing, but my memory was that their tones faded away too by the end of the second of the four repetitions so that only the man’s voice continued on and continued to fade. Straining to capture the lilt and changing curves of the melody, I began to feel more of an appreciation for the way the words, so unwieldy by themselves, were handled.

We had been speaking very low, almost whispering. Even my attempt at singing was done so softly that she had to lean near my mouth in order to follow. She shivered from my breath on her ear and drew back.

I have to say I agree with you, Snup, she said when I quit. You are not a singer. But I get the idea. Sort of like a bird in flight in the beginning, yes? Then plunging lower and lower with the words ‘Where are you tonight?’ But I think it should be sung by a woman, not a man. It’s a woman’s song. Let me try. Try singing again, just once, and then let me try.

So I began again, but I got hung up on the word ‘tune’. There was a change and I kept trying to hit the right tone. Finally, I gave up and just stopped. She was very attentive.

Maybe like this, she said and she hit the tone I had been searching for perfectly.

I exclaimed, That’s it!

She gestured then for me to be silent.

When she raised her voice it rang pure and sweet. She sang much more loudly that we had hitherto spoken, but the lift and clarity of her voice seemed so suited to the moment that I never thought to protest. She surprised me by remembering the words and she had indeed caught on to what I was trying to do with them. She sang the song twice, altering the tones a bit here and there the second time through, making something captivating out of words that by themselves were embarrassingly juvenile. I made encouraging nods.

When she was done I heard Trusk and Udin muttering to each other. I assume her singing had awakened them.

You see, she said to me, the words are unfortunate only by themselves. In the proper setting of being sung they are simple but telling. But you know what came to me when I was singing, Snup? It was my voice, but it was not me singing. It was Palix calling to you. She is encouraging you to come to her, to come soon. And that phrase that you cannot get out of your head. That is hers too. I think its hold on you is an omen. Maybe it’s the omen you’ve been waiting for.

I’d like to think you’re right, but it only makes me sad to think it. And frustrated. And impatient.

I pulled myself up and stretched. It’s dawll now and we must make ready to move. Look down there. I pointed to the forest. "That’s where we will go. Hold! Do I smell hot chahf? Yes? How did you manage that? Never mind. That’s the omen I’ve been waiting for."

* * *

We had arrived the previous day as darkness threatened and we easily located the site of the skirmish that Alicua had described. Just as she had said, it occupied a clearing among a tumble of large boulders. The area was littered with tatters of cloth and a surprisingly large number of arrows. We had been disgusted though not surprised to find that a dead gook lay crumpled against a large boulder at the edge of the clearing, the corpse already bloating and beginning to smell. Dark stains we assumed were blood spotted the pebbled soil. Ants and a cloud of small winged things were moving wildly around and over the place. I stood in its center circling my eyes about in growing puzzlement.

I said, Have any of you noticed what’s missing here?

I can see one thing, Trusk said. Not anything missing but too much of something. Why all the arrows? It’s like they were dumped. Here in this clearing but even bows and packs and stuff just on the other side of the big slabs there.

Yes and that’s part of the puzzle, isn’t it? But I was led to believe that this was where Mistra’s group was camping. There’s no evidence of that. Where is the campfire, the bedrolls, the stuff one needs for meals, pans and things? Surely, if they camped here they would have made a fire. And look at the things that are lying about. All gook stuff. There’s nothing that would indicate that even one woman had settled down here.

The others looked around, now puzzled as well.

Something else, I said. Supposedly Mistra and her bunch were attacked here, set upon by a horde that took them by surprise, maybe surrounded them. But isn’t it obvious that if they had made camp here they would have set guards? The battle took place, as I understood it, while it was still light. It’s absurd to think they could have been taken by surprise.

Jitfi was frowning. But if they didn’t camp here, why were they here? It seems odd to think they were chased here. Why not make straight for the forest over there?

Exactly. And notice this. There’s just this one small gap in these surrounding slabs of stone and it opens to the west, almost as though it were placed there so the women could flee through it when visibility was reduced by rain. See? The forest is visible through the gap.

So what do you think, Snup? Jitfi asked.

I’m beginning to have an idea. Look. Almost all the arrows are over to the side there, to the west, but here, over to this other side to the east there are none. It’s obvious, isn’t it, that these arrows were shot from some place east of here and that whoever was being attacked—Mistra’s band no doubt—avoided them by huddling against the boulders where the arrows couldn’t get at them? Could it be . . .

My three companions looked around again. They stared at me.

Udin spoke for the first time. It’s clear to me at least. Mistra’s bunch didn’t camp here and they weren’t chased here either. They led the gooks here on purpose.

That’s what I’m thinking, I said. The gooks were lured here. Mistra picked the battleground and drew them into it.

But to what possible advantage? Jitfi asked.

Well, let’s think about it. First of all, they let the gooks think that they were cornered so that they would seem vulnerable to a hail of arrows. The gooks sat back and rained arrows into this place and then . . . when they, the gooks were done with that, the women simply waited for them, maybe screaming as though wounded, waited for them to come charging over the big rocks with swords, convinced that the women were helpless and easy prey. See. If the black ones attacked they had to come over the top of these big boulders. They could see when the women went over them, so after they shot their arrows they dropped their packs and bows and followed. I’m sure that was it. Mistra and her warriors waited for them. Those women are excellent sworders, better than their pursuers for sure. Once the battle was reduced to sword play they, the women, had the advantage.

But did they? After all, Snup, they were outnumbered, heavily outnumbered. And the gooks, no matter how confident, wouldn’t all come over into the arena here at the same time.

Ah, but you see, Jitfi, as soon as the first batch of gooks came charging over the rocks and the battle was joined it rained. Heavily. The women of the blue magic brought the rain. Alicua told us the women were singing. It all makes sense now, doesn’t it? It seems to me that they never had a plan to defeat the gooks completely, to destroy all of them here, but to cripple them and then escape. It was sort of a hit and run tactic, only in reverse. Let the gooks hit and then cripple them and then run and leave them bleeding behind them.

Run, yes. You said the woman who saw the battle also saw the gooks take off after the women without much delay and begin gaining on them. What if they didn’t make the forest before they were caught?

Oh, I’m sure they did, make it I mean. It was a piece of their plan. I have no doubt about that. Not any longer. I’m also sure they cut it close so that their pursuers would rush after them unawares, certain they were catching up to them, rushing into whatever was waiting in the forest. Otherwise, the strategy would lack a proper finish.

Waiting in the forest? What could that be? Weren’t all of the women fleeing? Who else was there?

I don’t know. But think about this. The pursuers had dropped their bows and arrows and were armed only with their swords. I’m sure they were confident, since the fleeing women only had swords too. But suppose that there were two or three people waiting in the forest with bows. It wouldn’t take more than that to throw the gooks into a brief disarray, long enough for the fleeing women to get to the cache of bows and arrows waiting for them in the forest and join in the shooting. That’s what I would have arranged. I can’t imagine any ruse more effective than that. It’s brilliant. The gooks were lured into this place here and then lured once again into the forest. Brilliant!

Really, Snup, Jitfi said, you make it sound like our women are incredibly devious and just as incredibly bold.

"Yes, I think our women are. I do. I think they are just that incredible. Mistra, you are . . ."

Palix, Jitfi corrected.

I smiled at Jitfi and she looked at me with something in her uptilted face that I can only describe as pride.

And you know what? I said. "We never heard about any members of Mistra’s band being involved in the fighting here except women. Do you see what that means? There are two members of her band who are male. No one mentioned them. Not Alicua, not Sillinoc. They were the ones waiting in the woods, those two men, with their bows strung and set. It sounds too perfect to be just a mistaken guess of mine. When we move down to the forest we’ll know. There will be evidence of some sort. Just wait."

Well, we had to wait, didn’t we? We barely had time to decide on our own camp site for the night and settle into it when darkness took us. The spot we hit upon was squeezed among smaller stones than those below us; it was just the sort of place anyone with half a head would have picked. Here, for example, we could hide a fire in the shelter of several jutting slabs of stone. No one on the lower slopes or the plain below could spot it. And from this vantage one could spot any approaching enemies with ease. It was absurd to think that Mistra would have chosen the more extensive and less easily guarded clearing for her camp. But of course her gang didn’t camp anywhere near here.

So it was that the next morning as dawll gave way to bright sunshine and I surveyed from my perch the grounds around the site of the conflict, I was even more confident about my conjectures. I could almost track the path the women lured the gooks along through the boulders. There had to be a place along that path from which the clearing in the boulders would be seen by the gooks, otherwise they could not be made to believe that the women could be trapped there. And there had to be a spot from which the failure of the women to flee westward through the gap was observable, a spot within arrow range of both it and the clearing. And it was all there. No better conditions for such duplicity could be imagined. What I couldn’t decide was where Mistra’s group first allowed themselves to be sighted and therefore where the luring began. Somewhere to the east, but where and how far away I had no idea. It could have been quite far away. The women could have revealed themselves from a distance and then made to flee. Of course they had to have known of the gooks, spotted them earlier. But I didn’t find it useful to speculate further about those matters. I was already convinced that Mistra and her group had worked it all out to perfection.

The four of us made a quick firstmeal and set out for the forest. As we departed the tumble of rocks and boulders and began our walk, Jitfi began singing. In my crude fashion I joined in, no doubt spoiling the precision of the melody that she had by then perfected.

The night is black, the stars are bright

Where are you tonight?

Udin was puzzled by this. His scowl showed it. Trusk grimaced. He was clearly uncomfortable. It must have seemed to him a frivolous indulgence, unbefitting the solemnity of our mission. I on the other hand welcomed the relief. Jitfi couldn’t avoid smiling and eventually she broke into laughter. It was nice to see her that way. It made me feel closer to her, an achievement never to be disparaged when it comes to a woman.

The trail the pursuit had taken was easily followed. The ground was level more often than not and crushed tufts of grass and weeds pointed the way.

Half way to the forest edge we halted to watch a lone figure running towards us from the north. Sillinoc came up to us panting.

I thought I missed you, he gasped.

Where did you think we were? I asked. Didn’t you realize we would be up there among the rocks?

He shook his head without replying. I waited until he had recovered his breath.

I was afraid to go creeping around there during the night.

I see. Well, you’re here now. Come along.

We resumed our trek. As we neared the woods, we were suddenly startled by the hoots of a wheel of narlzugs and a scattering of smaller birds taking flight. With their reluctant and no doubt temporary departure the stink of death engulfed us. We hesitated before slowly moving forward. The first thing we noticed was the evidence of turmoil among the grasses and the beginning of a fresh path along the edge of the forest towards the north.

Udin said, It would appear that a panicked bunch of men fled from here. We could follow their path, it’s not difficult as you can see, and finish them off.

Tempting, I said. But we have a more pressing purpose. We need to enter the woods right here in front of us and find out what we can about Mistra’s band. We can always come back and pursue the gooks if we can’t locate the women.

Udin shrugged, but I could see he was disappointed.

A few strides farther on we came upon the remains of a slaughter. Roughly a dozen torn and half-devoured bodies lay about. We didn’t count them. Each displayed at least one feathered arrow protruding from its torso.

Long bow, I said.

Sillinoc was ashen. His eyes bulged. He turned and stumbled a few strides back the way we had come and went to his knees and vomited. Jitfi covered her face with her hands and her shoulders shook with the effort of avoiding doing likewise. Trusk made grunting sounds. Udin stood stolidly, a look of satisfaction on his face. Narlzugs circled closely overhead, hooting with outrage. The stench was overpowering.

We will be excused for not lingering. Hastily making our way around the carnage, we almost flew into the shelter of the trees. Sillinoc came last and slumped down against a tree.

I don’t know what I expected to find there among the trees, but I certainly wasn’t prepared for what I did find—or rather, didn’t find.

I stood for a moment in the locale from which, given the not too distant field of slaughter, the rain of death must have come. I turned completely around, looking in every direction. I went deeper into the woods, wandered a bit north and then south along its boundary. There was nothing there. No sign of Mistra or any member of her band, no slightest hint that anyone at all had positioned herself there or nearby in order to send arrows into a stunned enemy, no indication of a trail or path that might have been taken to or from the area, nothing. Not even the leaves beneath the trees appeared disturbed.

Udin looked about for a while scowling mightily and then took up a position at the edge of the trees and stared out at the plain. Trusk disappeared into the forest, still searching for something, anything. Jitfi had followed me without a word as I wandered from one place to another with increasing exasperation, finally returning to the spot from which, in spite of the lack of any evidence whatsoever, we knew Mistra’s warriors had loosed their arrows. There she sat, gave a long sigh, closed her eyes, and hugged her knees against her body.

I came up beside her. I began laughing. I couldn’t stop. Jitfi opened her eyes and looked up at me. After a moment she began laughing too, so shockingly uncharacteristic of her that I laughed the harder. Udin and Trusk came and stood over her and shook their heads in unison. Soon all four of us were laughing our heads off. Only Sillinoc was able to abstain. He stared at us blankly for a moment from a his tree support some distance from where we stood and then turned his head away. Maybe he was still in shock. I felt momentarily irritated at him. Couldn’t he appreciate the irony in all this?

We had hastened to this place in hopes of aiding Mistra’s band in their valiant defense against overwhelming odds. Not only had they no need of us, they had disappeared once again without a trace. I might as well have gone to the City.

When our laughter had wound down, Jitfi sighed. Why? she asked.

That was the question alright. I thought about it. What could have been the motivation for such an utterly thorough obliteration of the mere presence of the victorious band? The place had been, to put it simply, swept clean. Of course, for the band to disappear and leave no track that could be followed was only good sense. But to leave no mark to indicate who had been responsible for the humiliating defeat of a force of superior strength and numbers struck me as an incomprehensible lack of pride and, just as puzzling, lack of foresight. The very notion of such a carefully planned refusal to take due credit for a triumph was hard to grasp. Wouldn’t knowledge of such a victory by such a small group as Mistra commanded shake the confidence of the defeated? If nothing else, wouldn’t it spread apprehension among them? Thinking along these lines, I suddenly caught the spark of what Mistra might have had in mind.

Surely Mistra realized that the intimidation of the soldiers in Jaltran’s army would have been accomplished whether she had signed her name to the defeat or not. Yet leaving the scene unsigned would ensure the raising of conjectures that the enemy would be forced to consider seriously. Isn’t it possible, even likely, that there were many others who aided Mistra? And, if so, doesn’t that mean that the opposition to the invasion in this area, especially in the forest, was stronger and broader than represented by Mistra’s small band alone? It seemed to me that such conjectures, whether fully accepted as true or not, would give pause to Jaltran’s command, probably forestall any forceful incursion into the forest at the present and perhaps even delay any such attempt for quite a while. And there was something else which I had no doubt entered Mistra’s calculations. A rumor would surely spread among the gooks, the tale that strong magic or something even more uncanny out of the dark unknown, was involved in the defeat, as the very absence of any evidence of such would doubtlessly seem to them to conclusively prove. Among the superstitious, of whom I could only assume Jaltran’s forces to be rife, such a tale would have a wonderfully alarming effect.

Whether I had read Mistra’s intentions correctly or not, it now seemed to me important to give careful consideration to the advisability of tracking down the gooks who had fled the scene, putting most to the sword of course but allowing one or two to escape to spread the story that we would be prepared to encourage.

Jitfi’s raising of the question merely posed aloud the question that the three of us that stood there—Udin, Trusk, and I—were already asking ourselves. I now proposed to them the answer I had hit upon. They agreed so readily to my analysis of Mistra’s motivation that it served to transform my conjecture into conviction. But their response to my proposal regarding the practicality of pursuing the gooks was less favorable. The Uurtak was of course in favor of immediate action. Trusk was undecided, seemed unconvinced by the ability of our small number to achieve success. Jitfi bluntly proclaimed that she would not accompany us on such a hazardous and capricious (her words) adventure. We left it at that for the time being, deciding only to think about it for a while.

I had seen no reason to include Sillinoc in our discussion. I could see that he was curious. He leaned towards us from where he sat trying to catch the drift, but I was sure he was too far away to hear more than a word or two. My irritation with him returned. He had been nothing but a burden to us.

I felt drained. I knew Jitfi did. Announcing that some hot chahf is what is needed now she set about gathering firewood. Trusk joined her. The hulking Uurtak, still grinning, returned to his post. I found a tree some distance from Sillinoc to lean against and relieved myself of my pack and bow and quiver of arrows. I placed my sword on the ground at my side. I felt oddly reluctant to move.

I had a lot to think about. The burning desire to find Palix still consumed both Jitfi and me, yet we had not even caught sight of her. Even more frustrating we had found no trail she or her followers might have taken. Almost three days had passed since Alicua had observed the battle on the slopes. Palix could be anywhere by now. It was as though, satisfied she had done her thing, she vanished like a puff of smoke. Having put aside my earlier determination to go to the City, to find Tisoo and rescue her if it were needed, I now felt cheated, tricked by some arcane amusement of fate into a place of complete impotency. A monstrous thought came to me then. Wasn’t it obvious? Had I chosen to go to the City I would have arrived only to find myself in this same state. Something whispered to me that, though I might eventually find Palix and Tisoo, both of them some day, I was not meant to do so any time soon. It was not a matter of choice or chance. It was a matter of the lot that had been accorded me. It was the preordained twist of a plot spun by the moons. I was impotent from the start.

But I don’t believe it, I said to myself, and even were I somehow persuaded it was really the way of things I will refuse to embrace it. Its truth, if truth it is, will not command who I am. I will not allow it to dictate my choices, my hopes, the strength of my determination to continue on the path I have set for myself. The moons be damned.

Lounging silently about the fire and sipping chahf, Trusk, Jitfi, and I each kept our own counsel. We kept our demons to ourselves. However dispirited we surely were not to have accomplished what we set out to do, we refused to give voice to our doubts and frustrations.

We were startled by a whistle from Udin.

Large mob approaching from the east, he called. Just came off the slopes. Not black ones but heavily armed, at least so far as I can tell.

Maybe Norsh and his bunch, I said. I rose to join Udin at his station.

Squinting at the group approaching, I said, Yes. Norsh alright. I can make out that little crabnut of a Fhula at the lead.

Udin’s face lit with joy. Now we can track down those bastards who fled. Nothing can be said against it now.

I tended to agree, but I didn’t say anything. Trusk had joined us, smiling broadly. I looked back to where we had left Jitfi and I saw her emptying the chahf pot. She nested the cups we had used, placed them inside the pot, and stuffed it and her other things into her pack. When she was finished, she looked up at me and saw me watching her. She nodded as she pulled the pack on her shoulders.

What are you up to, precious woman? I asked.

You won’t need me now. This is where I go my own way. I came with you to find Palix and we didn’t. So I’m back to my old ways.

Lonely hunter, I said.

Lonely hunter, she echoed.

Take care. I’ll miss your smiling face.

But as usual she didn’t smile. I’ll smile if I can find a stream to bathe in.

I didn’t say anything to that. I wouldn’t attempt to dissuade her, for I knew it would be useless. Half-turned away as though to make a quick exit, she still hesitated. She turned her head to me and held me with her eyes.

She came over to me then and took my hand. Impulsively, she tipped up her face and kissed me hard. She took me by such surprise