 
XENOLITH

A. Sparrow

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2009 by A. Sparrow, All Rights Reserved

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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To Setta and Maddie

Table of Contents

Chapter:

1: Captive in Belize.

2: Pilgrimage

3: Rio Frio

4: Mission Doctor's Wife

5: Up the River and Gone

6: Retrograde

7: The Displaced Portal

8: Gondelfi's Army

9: Traceless

10: San Ignacio

11: The Abduction

12: The Shelter

13: Greymore

14: The Rock Shop

15: Fragments

16: Ubabaor

17: The Second Fragment

18: House Arrest

19: Upriver

20: Parallels

21: Cadre

22: Baren

23: Liberation Day

24: Crasacs in the Factory

25: Pana Pursued

26: The Causeway

27: The Crossing

28: Ara and Canu

29: Taken by Cuasars

30: Captive on the Mesa

31: Vul and Pari Return

32: Diverted

33: Custody

34: Pana and the Cuerti

35: Suspects

36: Wasteland

37: Showdown

38: Reckless

39: The Initiate

40: Ara's Choice

41: The Enemy's Xenolith

42: The Burial Ground

43: The Infirmary

44: Pranksters

45: Lost Among Ferns

46: The New Stone

47: Culvert

48: Convergence

49: Underground

50: The Second Bridge

51: Arizona

52: Running

53: Entering Gi

54: The Shed

55: Nalki Ambush

56: Toad Tea

57: Leaving Idala

58: The Ruined Chapel

59: Slipping Into Raacevo

60: Canu Takes The Watch

61: Kovalev's Abode

62: Sibara

63: Shingles

64: Foraging

65: Destination Sinta

66: The Beet Fields

67: AK-47

68: Tussle

69: Ara Torn

70: The Final Convergence

71: Gi Again

72: The Red Car.

73: Sweet Peas

Epilogue

Glossary

xenolith n. – a stone foreign to the matrix that embeds it.

Chapter 1: Captive in Belize.

Frank lay bound and on his side. Cords bit into his wrists and ankles. Inches from his face, ants scrambled from their mound, spreading like brushfire, spoiling for war.

He tried wriggling away, but a captor's knee stopped him. A sandaled foot rose from the thicket of legs and pushed his face into the dirt. His nostrils filled with dead-leaf musk and something foul, like peccary spoor, and the faintest whiff of the sweet peas he had carried for Liz all the way from Bethesda, their stems strewn and trampled beside him.

Frank's pulse stuttered against the cords at his wrists. His lungs rasped an involuntary breath of fire. He worried less about the pain or his attackers' intentions and more about the palpitations in his chest. He was struggling to remain calm, fearing that the stress would worsen his arrhythmia, but his heart drummed on, syncopation unbound by any time signature. Obsessing over its rhythm only made it beat harder and more erratically.

His abductors, both male and female, bickered in a tongue he couldn't peg. Its clicks and pops sounded more African than Amerindian. Petite and nimble, they moved with child-like grace. They resembled the local Mayans only superficially, their faces flatter, complexions more olive than bronze. Odd bits of armor dangled from their bodies: gauntlets and cuirasses made of leather and braided twine, vests with brown, overlapping scales like the wing cases of giant beetles. They bristled with machetes and spears. One even held something that resembled a crossbow.

One man, not old at all, but the oldest of Frank's captors, stood apart in manner and dress. He wore black sneakers, jeans, and a Ziggy Marley T-shirt. He looked familiar, somehow.

The pressure eased from Frank's head. A warm trickle – blood? – ran down his cheek. He squirmed around a root that had been jabbing into his ribs. Hands reached down, helped him sit and brushed ants and bits of debris from his face. Frank half turned and met the stern gaze of a young woman. A swath of scabs marred one side of her face. The eye contact further ossified her expression as she extended a grubby finger and probed Frank's damaged ear.

Frank hoped her actions meant they would spare him.

This should have calmed his heart, but it sped on, beats falling as randomly as the first splats before a rain storm.

A wrecked guitar with popped strings and splintered ribs leaned against a tree. Recognition flared.

"Hey!" Frank said. "You were on the bus to San Ignacio. You followed me!"

The older man's eyes shifted lazily. "Follow you? I think maybe I am one who is follow."

"Listen, I didn't see anything. I won't say anything about ... this."

"This?" said the man, his eyes quizzical, his smile warped. "What you mean ... this?"

"I don't know," said Frank. "Whatever. I didn't see ... anything."

The man shrugged. "No worry. You live for now." His eyes darted to a younger man. "No give him reason to change mind."

The younger man tossed his head back and snorted.

The older man understood English, never a certainty this far west in Belize, but another good sign. Clear communications had once helped Frank wriggle free of a similar predicament in the Congo. He was jaded by years of working in failed states; secure, peaceful Belize had put Frank off his guard. In Somalia, bandits and warlords ruled the roads and abductions were as common as camels. But this was Belize where, at worst, some nutcase hijacks a chicken bus on occasion.

It would help if he knew his captors' proclivities and sensitivities, but that depended on who they were, which was far from clear at this point. These were not mere drunken soldiers at a roadblock. But who were they?

Frank didn't get the sense that this bunch ran drugs. In Colombia, FARC narcoterrorists sometimes took hostages for money, but Frank would have made a poor catch for such a group. An independent consultant, Frank had no employer to pay his ransom, and he had no family to speak of, no one to notice or care that he was taken.

Frank's vision began to blur, and not just from the rivulets of sweat running into his eyes. Syncope was not his friend. From the looks of it, no one in this crowd could give him CPR like the young man who had come to his aid when he collapsed outside a Starbucks in Georgetown.

The scarred woman pored through the contents of his pack. She pulled aside his prescriptions, medical kit, and lunch; repacked the remaining odds and ends and tossed the pack to one of her comrades. She had already relieved Frank of the pocket knife that had hung in a sheath on his belt, but let him keep his wallet and passport.

"Those pills," said Frank, hoarsely. "I need them. I've got a heart problem."

The man who spoke English turned to Frank. "What's this? Your heart has problem? My too." He held up his broken guitar. "My beauty. Smash up. Break my heart."

"No joke," said Frank. "I need those pills. My heart's beating fast and rough. Those pills will help me. I only need one. Just one."

The man crouched down and placed his palm on Frank's forehead. He peeled back Frank's eyelids with thumb and forefinger; pressed the back of his hand against Frank's neck.

"You fine," said the man. "A little excite maybe. And too red in the face. But how I can know? People like you, you not pale, you red."

A strip of cloth slid over Frank's eyes, triggering panic. He ducked and slid out from under the blindfold before it could pull tight. "Please! I'm no threat to you all." Frank motioned with his chin towards a pile of stones set with a bronze plaque coated in lichen and verdigris. The undone bundle of wilted sweet peas lay scattered before a cairn. "Those rocks over there ... that's my wife's ... memorial. This is where I lost her. I just came here to remember Liz. See those flowers?"

"Stay still!" said the man from the bus, re-securing the blindfold. "You must come, and you must not see."

Someone pinched Frank's nose shut, forcing his mouth open. A flask clinked against his teeth and a putrid, bitter fluid dribbled in. Strong hands clamped his jaw shut until he swallowed. Frank sputtered and spat out the traces. His stomach quailed.

More cords coiled around him and pulled snug. Waves of tingly warmth spread from his gut. His muscles turned to mush.

Hands hoisted, propelled him. He bounced and bounded along, head flopping as if it would roll off his shoulders. Branches scraped his face. Bees buzzed in his ears.

He passed from sun to shade, shade to sun, drifting towards oblivion. Knocks and bumps and cool drops of water jolted him awake, but the fog would roll back and consume him. Faces filled his mind's eye: loved ones, strangers – a gallery of the living and the dead. Thudding onto the ground, he slumped into a bed of warm sand, draping it like a dead worm. His pulse settled into a lazy, loping groove. The outside world blinked out, leaving him alone with his visions.

*****

I am a man of constant sorrow,

No pleasure on this earth I've found.

In this world, I'm bound to ramble,

I have no friends to help me now.

\- Traditional

Chapter 2: Pilgrimage

One day earlier ...

Pools among the reeds flashed like signal mirrors as the bus sped past the marshes. Ahead, the road took flight, slashing into the misty blue foothills of the Maya Mountains. The window batted Frank's temple through the crumpled bandanna he employed as a pillow. A day into his pilgrimage, jet lag had finally overtaken his double espressos. He rubbed parched eyes, retreated behind their lids. Soon, he sifted into recesses impervious to light, where not even the din of the chicken bus could reach.

He slipped inside a familiar dream space, once nightmarish but now almost cozy, the way a prison cell might become to a lifer. A rickety chair and a wobbly table perched on a concrete slab at the café and guesthouse he knew to be the Scarlet Macaw in San Ignacio. Long shuttered, it existed now only in memory.

Frank's dream blended a Belizean sunset with a midsummer's eve in upstate New York. Sultry breezes blew in from jungled hills across a river. Katydids creaked from overhanging branches with finely filigreed leaves. Winged termites as big as dragonflies harried a bare light bulb. The perfume of rubber trees and fresh-cut hay permeated all.

He waited for Liz, or for whatever shards and wisps of her his brain could still conjure. With instincts honed by endless iteration and error, he hovered lightly in dream thrall, emotions subdued, attention unfocussed. How delicate the spell that summoned this recurrent dream and how easily it could crumble, cursing him awake into the hellish void of an empty bed.

She arrived with the tinkle of a spoon in a teacup. As usual, her face eluded him, as if he were viewing her through a camera with a broken auto-focus. This never failed to frustrate him. He had gazed at her dog-eared photos often enough to etch her image indelibly in his waking mind, yet in dreams she always presented as an irresolvable blur.

Her voice, however, came through in pure fidelity, liquid vowels preserved like the toll of an ancient bell. Too bad she spoke only gibberish; a white noise of non sequitur and small talk. This Liz was a pale facsimile of the one he loved, a faded picture in a locket, no more than a keepsake. He found his lips struggling, nonetheless, to form the questions that ritual demanded.

What happened up the Macal River? Who or what took you and kept you but left no trace?

He moaned and writhed, head bobbing like a skiff in a squall, the words tangling in his throat. His temple slammed into the window frame. The dream spell shattered in a corona of pain. Eyelids snapped open like shades. Midday glare blazed through retinas. Punta music blared past synaptic barriers molten by consciousness.

Dumped back into the hubbub of the bus, he slammed his eyes shut, longing to be back at that table with Liz. He searched for a path back to the dream, straining to reconstruct its sensations from scraps that lingered.

Failing, he opened his eyes and found the bus on a collision course with a tanker that had taken over its lane. The tanker struggled to overtake a tandem trailer but couldn't muster enough oomph to pass. Three sets of truck horns blared and bleated in a queer harmony.

Frank yawned, more from fatigue than boredom, though such maneuvers were de rigueur on the Western Highway or, for that matter, any two lane highway in a developing country. Over time, he had learned not to over-react – bad for the heart. Somehow, the standoff would resolve favorably. And if not ...?

The bus driver was in a real pickle. Queues returning from Saturday market blocked an easy escape to the shoulder. As the angular carapace of the tanker bore down, he found a gap in the throng, veered off the road and stood hard on the brakes, alternately cursing and praying. Panicked market-goers scrambled off the shoulder and leapt across a ditch. The bus shimmied and rattled over the pitted shoulder, clipping a wheelbarrow, spilling its load of peppers.

As the bus skidded to a halt, luggage tumbled from the overhead racks and slid down the aisle. Standers stumbled or fell. A guitar splintered and twanged its last discordant chord.

People climbed over each other, retrieving wayward boxes and suitcases. Across the aisle, a teenage boy extricated his sandaled foot from the ribs of a guitar someone had been holding upright in the aisle.

"So sorry, sir!" said the teen. "I can give you money to fix it."

The man who owned the guitar waved the boy off. Calmly, he picked bits of wood off the floor and dropped them in the sound hole. Frank's eyes lingered on this man. Something about his face stood out, even amidst all the trekkers and reformed Mennonites and the already eclectic locals. Large eyes set wide nestled deep in thick, crescent folds. His nose sat too high, looked too small for his face, like a lump of clay placed and shaped by a novice sculptor. He had wavy, black hair flecked with white patches like whitecaps on a windy lake.

Frank stood up and checked the bundle of sweet peas he had picked up from the florist in Bethesda the day before, Sheathed in paper and cushioned with bubble wrap, each stem sipped from its own tube of citrate and preservative. Their spicy, powdery scent remained strong and so far they had kept crisp, though it didn't matter if they wilted. They would likely end up as forage for tapirs and snails anyway. All that mattered was that they were sweet peas. Liz had always loved sweet peas.

Frank looked up and down the aisle. "I'm a doctor," he called. "Anyone hurt? Need help?" He wasn't equipped to handle much but he had a small first aid kit in his day-pack and a larger bag in his luggage. He scanned his fellow riders, found people wincing, rubbing elbows, pressing hands to foreheads – nothing serious as far as he could tell, not that anyone would tell him. The array of blank and blinking faces pretty much ignored his offer.

"Anyone needs help, let me know. I'm a doctor. Really. No joke."

Frank wobbled back to his seat, stepping around a man scooping rice and grit back into a sack. The bus ground through its gears and lurched back onto the road.

Being ignored or dismissed like that bugged him, but it was nothing new. People had always had a hard time believing he possessed an MD. He couldn't imagine why. Doctors these days came in all genders, shapes and colors. Somehow, Frank Bowen managed to stray beyond the tails of the distribution. Some patients even refused to let him examine them.

Maybe it was the way he couldn't keep his shirt-tails tucked, or the crude vernacular he retained from a boyhood spent on the fringes of South Boston. Encroaching middle age only exacerbated the impression that he belonged to one of the rougher trades. His doughy face had grown coarser, his thick torso thicker. Did a monkey wrench look more natural in his stubby fingers than a stethoscope?

Even in Belize? Or was it especially in Belize? Maybe the Belizeans wondered what sort of doctor would ride a cut-rate chicken bus from Belize City to San Ignacio? Perhaps they thought any MD worth his or her shingle should have a driver and an air-conditioned SUV?

He could have easily hired a car. He also could have afforded a much nicer hotel than that mildewed guest house on a seedy side street echoing with the drone of motorbikes. But this was no vacation. Not only were comfort and convenience not his goals, they conflicted with the object of his trip. He had come to Belize as a memory pilgrim, seeking to re-experience Belize the way he and Liz did when they arrived together almost twenty years ago. He couldn't replicate every mishap or serendipity, but he could try his best to follow in the echoes of their footsteps.

That morning, Belize City obliged, offering a mise-en-scene uncannily reminiscent of their first day together in a new country. The sun, like then, slashed obliquely through the blue haze of cook smoke. Jerked chicken roasted on skewers. Stacks of papayas and onions lined the sidewalks. Women gossiped in a patois so thick that Liz mistook it for French. As he turned the corner into the same bus depot, he could almost feel Liz holding his hand.

Belize conjured Liz for him dependably. Like a drug. No other place came close to replicating the sense of being with her. Not even Ithaca, where they began their time together. And certainly not Somalia, Colombia or Congo – places where he had worked, post-Liz, for a string of NGOs and oil companies. Only Belize could make Liz's long, cool fingers curl lightly over his as he ambled down its shattered sidewalks.

*****

Chapter 3: Rio Frio

May 5, 1991 ...

That first day together in Belize, Liz had taken the window seat on the bus outbound for San Ignacio. Texas had been her deepest prior foray South. She was new to the developing world, new to the tropics. Everything she saw either shocked or enchanted her: makeshift shacks huddled roadside, giant jacaranda trees blooming purple. Her reactions helped sear the film from Frank's oblivious eyes, already grown jaded from years of trekking.

Frank had tried to warn her about the discomforts and annoyances that accompanied travel in the developing tropics, but Belize brought her up to speed more rapidly than his words ever could. At lunch in Santa Elena, a rat scurried under their table while chickens watched them eat banana curry over rice. At dinner in San Ignacio, a flying termite caught fire in a candle and expired with a sizzle in her limed tea.

That night in their guest house, as Frank sorted through bills of lading for their misrouted and delayed household effects, he heard a creaking from the bathroom.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!"

Frank hustled over. "What's wrong?" He peeked in.

Liz stooped naked in the bathtub with a rusty tap broken off in her hand.

"There's no running water," she said. "And I've been looking forward to a hot shower all day."

Frank looked around. "At least the bidet works." He pointed to a water-filled plastic trash bin beside the toilet. Liz threw the tap at him, striking his shoulder before he could duck.

***

A white Toyota Land Cruiser with a CRS logo showed up at the guest house the next morning. Frank had been telling her not to expect the driver to show up on time, but in fact, he arrived early. With her smile restrained but broad, she strode straight for the front door and got in before the driver could hustle over to open it for her. Frank helped load the suitcases and climbed in back.

They rode out of town across the river and over a hill, passing several small farms and a scattering of weather-worn, but tidy-looking houses. A few minutes out of San Ignacio, the Land Cruiser veered off the main road onto a narrow, dirt track that led back down to the river. He rolled to a stop in a dirt patch under a tree with sprawling horizontal limbs that seemed to defy gravity.

"Why are we stopping here?" said Liz. "So soon?"

The driver stepped out. "Road to Rio Frio no good," he said. "Rain wash out. You must take boat."

Liz looked alarmed. "You mean ... Rio Frio is not accessible by road?"

"No madam. Not since last year. And they no fix." The driver opened the back of the Land Cruiser and unloaded their bags onto the red dust.

"Were you aware of this, Frank?" she said, with scolding eyes.

"I had no clue," said Frank.

"When will it be fixed?" she asked the driver, hopeful.

"They no fix, madam. No more. It wash out too much."

"Never?"

"Nebber," said the driver, as he helped Frank transfer the luggage into a canopied dugout.

"There're only these ... canoes?" The prospect of being linked to civilization by water alone seemed to knock her off kilter. She stood in the dirt patch staring at the moored launches.

"It's not a canoe Liz. It's a launch. They're pretty stable and strong."

She climbed in only after the boat was fully loaded and everyone stared at her standing alone on the bank. She sat near the prow, then stood abruptly and moved back, her face twisted in disgust.

"What's wrong?" said Frank, redistributing their luggage to correct a list to port.

"Pig shit," she said, removing her sandal and swiping it through the water.

The operator had trouble starting the engine and had to prime it with a mouthful of petrol siphoned from a jerry can. Soon it puttered to life in a cloud of blue smoke, the prow lifted and they roared away from the dock.

With two bends of the river, all civilization disappeared. The diffuse outskirts of San Ignacio gave way to green walls of jungle that hung over the water. They passed an occasional clearing with a thatched hut up on posts, but most of the shore passed for wilderness.

Frank, awed by the surroundings, suppressed his excitement because he could tell it wasn't shared. Liz looked like someone waiting for a dentist.

She caught him staring. "Why are you gawking at me?"

"Just curious ... what you're thinking. Anything like you expected?"

A pause pregnant with calculation ensued.

"Yes, of course," she said. "And more. How about you? Is it what you expected?"

"No," said Frank, immediately, treating her query like a bear trap. "I expected a road. And a town."

After an hour of winding travel, through slow deeps and shallow riffles, past broad swaths of marsh, the launch powered down at a confluence with a smaller river. The prow descended and they turned towards a mudflat loaded with overturned canoes. It fringed a stubbled clearing with a path climbing a tall bank to the top of a sandy shelf.

A bald man prowled the flat, a gaggle of children schooling around him like pilot fish. An over-sized guayabera billowed in the breeze, revealing the contours of his paunch. He wore horn-rimmed sunglasses. Several days' worth of stubble bristled his chin.

"Well, well, I hope it really is the Bowens this time and not tourists come to see an authentic Mayan village."

"We are," said Frank, stumbling out of the launch. "Bowens, I mean. Well ... I am, anyway. Liz kept her maiden name. Are you ... Father Esposito?"

"Please, call me Leo." He reached out to steady Liz as she stepped out of the launch.

Liz looked at Father Leo quizzically. "Do tourists really come all the way out here?"

Father Leo kept hold of Liz's hand as she stood before him on the mudflat. "Not usually. Some Brits came by yesterday. The kids thought they were you all arriving early. Got us all excited for nothing. But welcome! You don't know how much we've missed having a doc around here. We certainly are excited now to meet the real Bowens ... or Bowen and—"

"O'Connell."

"Well, we're pleased to see you both. Aren't we, kids?"

"Yeeessss!" the children screamed in unison. They wore uniforms of a sort – white shirts and dark blue slacks for the boys, plaid skirts of diverse length and pleating for the girls. Their colors displayed every gradation of hue and shade for blue.

"My, Miss Elizabeth, you look even more stunning than your photo."

"Please. I feel all wilted," Liz said, retrieving her hand from his grip.

"We have refreshments waiting for you at the rectory. Fresh sheets and towels at your bungalow. There's a generator that runs from six to ten every evening, and you'll be happy to know that as of yesterday you have running water. We'll hope it stays that way."

Frank reached for one of their bags. Father Leo waved him off. "Leave those. My staff will fetch them."

By staff, he meant a pair of pre-teen boys who clambered into the launch, only to be scolded by the launch operator in Spanish that Frank translated to: "Get off the damn benches with your muddy feet!" The boys took the largest bags and ordered the smaller children to help with the others. They followed Liz, Frank and Father Leo up the riverbank like a parade.

Atop the bank, the path skirted a lumpy football pitch. Father Leo extended a digit towards a cluster of low buildings under a grove of palms.

"That there, right next to the field, is our school," said Father Leo, "Which, as you might have guessed, is off today in honor of your arrival. And behind the school is, of course, our chapel. The rectory and residences are a bit farther down beyond those breadfruit trees."

"Breadfruit! How interesting," said Liz. "Is it edible?"

Father Leo gave her a sour look. "Depends what you mean by edible. Doesn't do much for my appetite. My cook, Itzel, sneaks it into stews occasionally. Reminds me of mushy cauliflower, and I like it about as much."

The chapel resembled a bare bones amusement park replica of a classic New England church, with white clapboards and steeple. Double doors at ground level opened to a dirt floor covered in rows of folding wooden chairs.

Frank craned his neck, searching the complex for anything that looked like a medical facility. Father Leo tapped his shoulder.

"Your clinic is down among those sapodillas." He pointed towards a bunker-like mass of concrete block with a rusted sheet metal roof. "I have to apologize for its condition. It's been almost a year since Doctor Rodolfo left, but things were in bad shape even when he was still here. I hate to be frank, but ... I hope you're a little shier than he was about taking frequent holidays. Rodolfo's a nice enough fellow, and a good doctor... Cuban... but it seemed like he was on leave more often than not. That left the Sisters to pick up his slack, the way they end up doing with everything else around here."

"I wouldn't worry," said Frank. "Far as I'm concerned. Being here ... this is a holiday."

Liz pointed to a tiny, one room structure sitting by itself in the middle of a lot. "That little cottage is adorable. Will we be staying in something like that?"

Father Leo looked aghast. "That? Oh no, that's not a home per se. That's actually ... well; we use it as our morgue."

"I ... see," said Liz.

"Your actual quarters will be much larger and cheerier, I assure you. I'll take you there forthwith. But first ... I hope you understand ... the Sisters are really anxious to meet you."

"Of course," she said, as a trio of dogs charged, snarling and snapping.

"Oh, don't worry about those scoundrels," said Father Leo. "They're nothing but show."

"They act like they mean business," said Liz, stepping back.

"No dog has ever bitten a guest of mine ... and lived to tell." He glared down at the dogs and raised his palm. "And these ones know it." His head popped up. He smiled. "Oh, we're here. This is it. My rectory."

Liz shot a glance at her husband, eyebrows rising. The dogs pulled up, panting, roughhousing.

The rectory was a low wooden house with a wide veranda and overhanging eaves. The Sisters, in simple blue dresses, waited for them shyly by a garden gate. Beaming, they kissed Liz on both cheeks, but kept their distance and bowed to Frank.

"My boys will drop your things off at your bungalow," said Father Leo. "Please help yourself to the refreshments." A pitcher of lemonade and a tray of cookies and scones were arrayed on a picnic table in the courtyard.

Father Leo nodded to a pair of smiling men in button-down shirts standing in the shade. "That's the mayor and the constable, by the way." But instead of introducing them, he prattled on about the mission and his ministry. Frank found it odd how Father Leo avoided his gaze, directing all his eye contact towards Liz.

He went on and on about his early days in Belize, when had apparently been quite the woodsman; spending weeks exploring the Maya Mountains, sleeping in hammocks, roasting iguanas. With reluctance, and only when Liz's attention began to fade, did Father Leo lead them to their bungalow. The algal stains and blistered paint did not look promising.

"Oh!" said Liz stepping onto the cool tile of the entry. "This is nice. This is actually pretty nice."

The interior sparkled despite loose tiles, patched screens and worn drapes. Someone had obviously spent considerable time tidying up the place. It had four, tall-ceilinged rooms, each with large screened windows. The bedrooms looked out onto a cleared hillside and forested hills beyond.

"This is for you. A house warming gift," said Father Leo, handing Frank a black leather case.

"Thanks," said Frank, taken aback. The case was worn at the corners and felt surprisingly heavy for its size. "What is it?"

"Open it," said Father Leo.

Frank unsnapped the latch and opened the lid, revealing a black pistol.

"We've passed this one down from doc to doc," said Father Leo, lifting it out of the case. "Glock 25. Light enough for a lady." He grinned at Liz, jerked back the slide and sighted down the barrel. "I see Rodolfo's kept it nice and clean."

"Thanks, but ... I don't think we'll be needing a gun," said Frank.

"Take it," said Father Leo, placing it in Frank's hands. "Better safe than sorry. This far out in the boonies, some pretty squirrelly people come through Rio Frio. Definitely not locals. Who knows what they're up to?"

Frank put the gun down like it was a hot potato. He had cultivated a fierce aversion to firearms. As an ER resident in Boston he had cleaned up after too many of the messes bullets could make: livers turned to jelly, femurs into splinters. He looked over at Liz, who looked as shocked as he felt. Better to be gracious, he thought. He could always lock it away in a drug cabinet.

"Well, you're both probably exhausted," said Father Leo. "Have a good night and God Bless. You know where to find us if you need anything." He turned down the path. The boys who had carried their luggage and a larger entourage of smaller kids trailed like pilot fish. Frank shut the screen door. Liz bustled over, eyes bugging, and stuck the latch in its eye hook.

"Honey. It's okay," said Frank. "This is Belize."

*****

Chapter 4: Mission Doctor's Wife

June, 1991 ...

Frank braced for signs of culture shock in his greenhorn wife, but Liz surprised him. She never broke stride, adapting to every insult, surprise and deprivation with aplomb. When she noticed the tattered window screens letting in every sort of mosquito and fly, she repaired the rips and holes with monofilament fishing line and pieces of clear packing tape.

But moths and other bizarre and unspeakable creatures of the night attracted to the veranda light still flew in whenever they opened the door. Liz solved that dilemma by creating a second line of defense. She adopted one of Sister Violetta's kittens that had a talent for stalking and a predilection for snacking on insects.

Frank would have preferred at least a week to get the clinic up and running, but that didn't stop patients from showing up on his first day and every day after that. He usually finished sick call by noon, so he had the afternoons to take inventory, order supplies and repair what he could of the outdated equipment. He recruited and trained enough assistants to sustain a robust duty rotation, aiming to mold them into a tight little operation modeled after the health post he ran in Liberia before he met Liz.

Liz had started a garden out in front of the bungalow. For days she dug and dug, upending turf and battling roots. One day he returned to find fresh topsoil filling each bed and Liz cross-legged on the ground planting seed from a freezer-sized zip-lock full of Burpee packets. He crouched down beside her, noting the packets already emptied and strewn along the walk: basil and tomatoes, sunflowers and cilantro. He peeked over her shoulder as she opened yet another. "Sweet peas?" he muttered, nuzzling her cheek.

"Yup. You like?"

"Not my favorite vegetable," he said.

"Vegetable? This ain't the kind you eat, silly," she said. "And you'd better not, because I think they're toxic. But the flowers are gorgeous, almost like orchids. And the scent, you know, like my mom's backyard in Ithaca? She's grown them all my life. They're absolutely intoxicating."

"Will they even grow here?"

She pouted her lip. "They don't have a choice."

***

Hospitals had always disturbed Liz, so she generally stayed away from the clinic. When she wasn't gardening or reading or filling her journals and scrapbooks, she took to exploring the string of little villages that dotted the Rio Frio like charms on a necklace. She came back with bizarre orchids and jungle fruits that always managed to look more delicious than they tasted. She read prodigiously and filled her journals and scrapbooks.

The lack of land access proved less isolating than expected. They routinely went to San Ignacio on weekends, to get away from the mission and reconnect with the rest of the world. Liz found the tidy, green hillsides of San Ignacio and its sister city, Santa Elena pleasing. She particularly enjoyed the book shops near the junior college, and the cafés and restaurants on Burns Avenue, San Ignacio's main street. They spent those Saturday nights at the Scarlet Macaw, which had guest rooms upstairs and the best brioche and croissants in Western Belize.

Liz soon learned that the jungle had more to offer than monkeys and sour fruit. Father Leo fancied himself an amateur archaeologist. After weeks of bragging, he finally took them into the bush to see one of the Mayan ruins near Rio Frio. He brought them to a bump in the ground covered with moss and vines. Frank feigned interest, but Liz seemed genuinely excited by the lump. Father Leo promised greater wonders as soon as the parish Land Cruiser, its axle broken, could be repaired. Caracol, the largest ruins in Belize, lay just up the Chiqibul Road.

"There's so much more out there, undiscovered," Father Leo told them at one of his Sunday teas. "One place I know ... a quarry, supposedly ... so strange. I'm not even sure if it's Mayan."

"Oh. Really? What else would it be?" said Liz, her brow crinkling.

"Not sure," Father Leo said, inhaling through his teeth. "I can't get any of my archaeologist acquaintances interested in it, because ... there are no ruins involved. No artifacts. But it's the oddest place. Bare stone. Not overgrown the way everything else is. As if someone's maintaining it or that plants simply won't grow there."

"Could it be where the Mayans got the stone to build Caracol?" said Liz.

"Too far for that," said Father Leo. "I'll take you there sometime. Fascinating place. You really should see it."

"We look forward to it," said Liz.

Father Leo spoke nothing of it for several Sundays. In the interim, a telex arrived for Liz bearing bad news about her father. He had suffered a remission of his colon cancer and had undergone surgery to resection his bowel. He was already home recuperating, but Liz wanted to see him before he had to start chemotherapy. She made plans to fly to Houston.

At tea that week Father Leo became flustered when he heard she was leaving. "Oh my. Then we need to go soon."

"Go where?" said Frank.

"To the quarry," said Father Leo. "I promised I'd take you both."

"Oh, don't sweat it, Father," said Liz. "I won't be gone long. You can take us when I get back."

"But the rains will be starting," said Father Leo, his voice edged with urgency. "The Macal will be in full flood by the time you get back. We can't go up river in those conditions. When exactly are you leaving?"

"Saturday."

"This coming Saturday? Oh dear. We need to go this week. How about ... tomorrow? It's only a day trip."

Liz looked to Frank and shrugged. She didn't seem that eager to go.

"On a Monday? Don't think I can," said Frank. "You know how busy the clinic gets after a weekend."

"Tuesday, then," said Father Leo. "I'll hire a launch."

*****

Chapter 5: Up the River and Gone

The bus crept slowly through San Ignacio's narrow streets. Frank clung to the window, eager for a peek at familiar landmarks, like the park by the soccer field where he used to picnic in with Liz, the little bookstore where they bought weeks-old copies of the Herald-Tribune, but most of all, the stucco walls and feathery trees of the defunct café he visited so often in his dreams. The bus must have taken a different route than usual, because there was little on the street he still recognized.

If he scrunched his eyes, though, its ambiance felt familiar. San Ignacio looked much like any provincial town in Central America. Cracked concrete walls. Sheet metal roofs. Rusty dogs sprawling, prowling everywhere. It was greener than most, with some extra English signage on its shops, but any native from Panama to Mexico could feel at home there.

The bus entered the terminal in a haze of diesel, its wheels easing over the speed bump like a rheumatic elder. The dusty lot had the usual boys vending snacks and drinks from trays, a row of other chicken buses and something new – a fancy express coach with air conditioning and curtained windows. The seated passengers had surged out into the aisles and clogged it with their baggage well before the bus had stopped. Frank lagged, his reactions slowed by a daze of fatigue. He gathered himself and collected his day pack and overnighter from the overhead rack. He had less than an hour to conduct business before offices started closing for the day. He squeezed into a space between a wide screen TV upended in its box and a thick bundle of plastic irrigation tubing.

When the door squealed open, the packed aisle oozed forward like a human glacier. A smoky breeze greeted him as he finally limped down the steps, squeezing past a gaggle of vendors and cabbies congregating around the door. He found himself following the man with the broken guitar down an alley leading away from the terminal. The man carried nothing but the ruined guitar, his preternaturally long fingers wrapped loosely around its neck. The man glanced back at Frank. Their gazes met and bounced away like colliding soccer balls.

They parted ways where Burns Avenue split off from the river road. The man went on towards the Macal. Frank entered a place on Burns called Tigris Auto Rentals.

New roads connected San Ignacio and Santa Elena with the villages that were formerly river-bound and numerous ecotourism resorts that had popped up along them. Launches still plied the river, but that was one aspect of his time here with Liz that he had no desire to replicate. Something about being on the river felt too raw, too close to the pain of losing Liz. Seeing the quarry again would be hard enough.

***

It was the night before Father Leo's excursion. A lone candle illuminated the screened veranda where Frank knelt, fussing with his rucksack. Liz came out of the kitchen bearing a cup of tea for them both. She put one down beside him and reclined on the wicker chaise she positioned to watch sunsets and catch breezes from the river.

Frank took a sip of honey-sweetened jasmine, admiring Liz in repose. In recent days, she had finally started to act like she actually lived here, that this bungalow was home. Frank worried that her trip back to Houston would dash that equilibrium, but seeing her face so calm and unworried relieved some of those apprehensions.

Frank searched his rucksack for a pocket that would accept an extra water bottle and a tube of DEET.

"Oh, and make sure you pack this too." Liz pulled a bag of her precious dubbel zout licorice out of her purse and tossed it over.

"I thought you were out of these vile things," said Frank.

"My emergency stash," she said. "Don't you go eating them."

"I'd rather suck seaweed."

"Ooh yum, nori!" said Liz. "I should add that to my list."

"You do have the oddest tastes," said Frank, fiddling with a stuck zipper.

"Men, in particular," said Liz.

"I won't argue with you there." He stashed the salt licorice in a side pocket and zipped it shut.

"What about that gun?" said Liz.

"What about it?" said Frank. "Why would we need a gun?"

He got up and sat on the chaise beside Liz taking her into his arms. She put down her tea and squirmed to face him, eyes wide. "I don't know. Maybe jaguars?"

"Jaguars? But they're just cats. Shy cats."

"Shy cats with big teeth and sharp claws that outweigh me by a hundred pounds." She scowled, her face glowing amber in the candlelight.

"I'd worry more about the peccaries or worse – the mosquitoes."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "Peccaries? You mean those little wild piggies?"

"Those little piggies have been known to disembowel a jaguar," he said.

She still looked skeptical but the furrows on her brow showed that her concern had amped up a notch. Frank regretted mentioning the peccaries.

"They only come out at night, right?" said Liz.

"What? The mosquitoes or the peccaries?"

"The jaguars!"

"Yeah. They're supposedly nocturnal," said Frank. "So you're worried about nothing. Father Leo says we'll be back in Rio Frio by nightfall."

The mission's generator had been off for nearly an hour. The oddly industrial din of crickets and tree frogs had a crescendo. The squabbling of feral dogs could be heard from the village just upstream.

"I'll miss you," said Liz.

Frank sighed. She wasn't leaving till the weekend and already she was starting. "You're only going to be gone two weeks."

"I know, but I'll still miss you."

She turned and made her eyes big. "Will you miss me?"

"Course I will."

She looked away. Her eyes narrowed. Frank felt her go tense in his grasp. "So ... how will you miss me? What is it exactly that you'll miss?"

Frank took a long, deep breath. Here it comes. It was like a ritual, this questioning and he hated it. It was too easy to say the wrong thing, especially for him. The slightest dodgy inflection or word choice could set things off.

Though, this night did feel different; maybe because they were about to spend their first significant time apart since their marriage.

"I'll miss this time. Under this net with you. Listening to the rain and the frogs. No worries or cares beyond our little net." He kneaded her shoulder, urging her to flow towards him.

Liz squirmed away. "Rain? What rain? It's not raining."

He pulled her back close. "You know what I mean."

Someone rapped heavily against the screen door. He nearly jumped through the net.

"Who's there?"

"Dr. Frank. Is me, Alejandro."

Frank slipped out from under the net, and went to the door, bare-chested, wearing only jockey shorts. Frank went to the door and found Alejandro, his administrator, standing with a massive long-handled flashlight.

"I sorry to wake you, but Itzel's mother ... Senora Roxita ... she has a problem with the breathing. Itzel brang her to the clinic."

Itzel cooked for Father Leo and the Sisters. Her mother lived in a tiny village downstream from Rio Frio along the Macal.

"What kind of problem? Is she choking?"

"No, no choke. She no breathe well. Too fast. Not so deep. Her face is hot. Her color's no good, like a dead person."

"She's there now?"

"Yes. Now."

Frank tossed Alejandro a key. "Get the clinic opened up. I'll be right down."

He slipped on a T-shirt and pulled a pair of cargo shorts over his boxers. Liz came up behind him and rested her chin on his shoulder.

"What do you think it might be?"

"We'll see. Maybe she just got a chicken bone stuck. Sounds like she might have a fever, though. Not good."

"Need me to help?"

"Nah. Get some rest," he said. "We've got a long day tomorrow. At least one of us will be alert enough to spot the vipers."

"Vipers? What vipers?"

"Just joking," he said, regretting the quip.

Frank stepped into his sandals and slipped out onto the graveled path that led down to the clinic. Someone started up the generator as he approached. Lights flickered on.

He found Itzel holding her prostrate mother's head in her lap. She was worse off than he expected. Rales crackled like bubble wrap with every labored breath. Her blood pressure was lower than it should be. Her lips were blue, her eyes panicked.

He clipped a portable oximeter over her index finger. Her oxygen saturation hovered around 60%. A stethoscope revealed one of her lungs fully congested and the other well on its way. He got her into a bed and put her on intravenous ceftriaxone – a broad-spectrum antibiotic that could deal with all of most common bugs. She needed ventilation urgently, but he had to fumble with a balky oxygen regulator for half an hour before he could get it to work.

It was after two when he left Itzel at her mother's bedside and returned to the bungalow. A candle still flickered on the night stand, burnt down to a nub. Liz slept deeply, her breath whistling gently. The night air had cooled. He collapsed under the net beside her, kissing her gently on her bare shoulder.

He awoke to the sound of Father Leo calling through the window. The sky was bright. Liz was already up and dressed.

"Don't tell me you two overslept," said Father Leo, in a scolding tone. "The launch is all ready. Our guide is waiting."

"Frank had a busy night," said Liz. "I let him sleep in a bit."

"Busy?" Father Leo made a face of mock horror. "Do I really want to know this?"

"Itzel's mom has pneumonia," said Frank swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.

"Oh," said Father Leo. "Is it serious?"

"Bad enough when I left her. I told Itzel to come wake me if her oxygen dropped any lower. Hopefully, her not coming to wake me is a good sign."

"What does this mean for our little excursion, then?" said Father Leo.

"Well, I can't go," said Frank. "A pneumonia patient needs monitoring, especially at this stage. This disease can turn on a dime. But that doesn't mean that you all shouldn't go."

Frank had little interest in traipsing around the jungle looking for slimy rocks, and was almost glad for an excuse to back out.

"You sure?" said Liz. "We can postpone this."

Was Liz also seeking an excuse to cancel the excursion or did she simply didn't want Frank to feel excluded? The latter seemed more likely, but Frank's interpersonal radar had always been faulty. He was particularly, or at least more consequentially, blind when it came to reading his new wife.

"No, go on ahead," Frank said, cautiously. "We'll have plenty of chances to do stuff like this together."

***

Frank saw them off at the launch, a smaller version of the dugout that brought them to San Ignacio, with the same long-screwed outboard motor clamped to the back. A tattered black flag with a white cross flew on its prow – Father Leo's expeditionary colors, apparently.

The young launch operator and the guide sat in the stern while another boy perched far aft to scout for snags. Father Leo settled shakily in the middle next to Liz, her hair tied up under a wide-brimmed slouch hat.

"Later 'gator." Liz gave him a little flick of a wave and a quivery smile, causing a faint and puzzling nausea to billow up in Frank. His face flushed as the launch roared away from the mudflat and arced into the main channel of the glassy river, dappled with puffs of mist and clouds of gnats. Frank waved. Liz dipped her chin, but held onto her hat while an animated Father Leo commanded her attention.

Frank hiked back up to the bungalow, stomach growling for breakfast, but found his hunger was offset by the nagging queasiness. He paused mid-slope, gripped by the realization that he had forgotten to transfer Liz's licorice from his rucksack. He sighed and continued on. The launch had already rounded the bend, out of sight, the drone of its motor fading.

Two small bananas and an egg sandwich later, Frank came around the sapodilla grove to find the usual line of villagers from Rio Frio and beyond had already collected at the clinic. Alejandro was busily checking them in with the aid of his younger sister, who often volunteered at the clinic whenever she could escape her household chores.

Frank found Itzel still sitting beside her mom in the main ward. Itzel looked scared. Senora Roxita lay limp and blue on clammy sheets, her breath raspy and weak. Her pulse still raced. Her blood pressure had sunk to 70 over 50 – perilously low. And despite an entire night of ventilation, her oxygen levels had barely risen.

The needle on the regulator flirted with the red zone. Frank rummaged around the store room but only found one small bottle of oxygen, barely enough to finish the day.

"Alejandro! I need you!"

His assistant came running.

"I thought we had more of these," Frank held out the lone bottle.

"No, Doctor," Alejandro said. "We no keep more than two. We no use so much."

"We use now," said Frank. "Listen. We need more. Today. Any way we can get some?"

"Yes. We get from San Ignacio hospital."

Frank had visited the little hospital in San Ignacio, and its bare bones state of equipping and supply did not fill him with confidence. But there was no time to send Alejandro to the larger hospital in Belmopan.

"Go now. Get as much as they can spare and come straight back."

"I go in a little bit," said Alejandro. "I am still checking in the people."

"No, go now," said Frank. "Your little sister can finish checking in. I'll help. We need that oxygen pronto, understand?"

Alejandro grabbed his shoulder bag and rushed off towards the landing. There were always a few launches hanging around, available for hire almost any time of the day.

Frank wondered whether it would have been wiser to simply evacuate Senora Roxita to San Ignacio. What if Alejandro found they had oxygen, but couldn't convince them to part with any of it? On second thought, all the jostling she would have faced getting her down to the river and up those bumpy roads would not have done her any good. She was better off resting where she was, where Itzel could check on her.

Frank directed his attention to sick call, which proved entirely routine – ankle sprains, headaches, diarrhea – the kinds of things any of his assistants could have handled on their own.

Senora Roxita was touch-and-go all that day, but by late that afternoon, as the antibiotics and diuretics kicked in, her condition began to uptick. Her oxygen ran out just before Alejandro returned with two fresh bottles. With her oxygen saturation in the mid-80s and climbing, and Sister Violetta sitting by the old lady's bedside, Frank felt confident enough to drag himself back to the bungalow for a nap.

He dreamt of rivers flowing into rivers branching into still more rivers. He awoke as twilight crept over Rio Frio and the smell of wood smoke suggested that Itzel might be back in her kitchen preparing dinner, a good sign, if true. Liz and Father Leo would be returning soon if they hadn't arrived back already.

Frank ducked into the clinic to find a weak but feisty Senora Roxita arguing with her brother while a gaggle of nieces and nephews looked on. The oximeter read 91%, not wonderful for someone supplementing their breathing with pure oxygen, but at least the trend was positive. Her fever had come down completely. She was over the hump and should only get better here on out. Frank murmured some encouragement to the Senora and her family and excused himself, bounding down the path towards the river.

He made his way out to the outcrop of limestone beyond the mudflat, on the point that separated the clear water of the Rio Frio from the muddy Macal. He stared upriver into an angry sunset and listened for launches. Darkness encroached rapidly. He knew that launch operators didn't like to be on the river after nightfall because darkness obscured dead falls that lurked half-submerged, and could flip or rip a launch in two.

Most launch operators carried lanterns for emergencies, but most preferred to get the hell off the river after nightfall. A bit of glow remained in the Western sky. Frank prayed for the sweet sound of an outboard motor.

Mosquitoes descended like vampires. Frank stared upriver, slapping at the unseen marauders, struggling to expunge demons of pessimism from his thoughts. Something akin to insanity began to bubble up in him.

An hour later, in complete darkness, Frank bounded back up the path to the mission to fetch a flashlight and grab a bite to eat. Maybe they decided to wait till morning to return, or were drifting unpowered to be safe from snags. No reason to assume their delay was caused by anything less mundane.

After a frantic dinner of stale bread and cold ham, he had a brief look-in on Senora Roxita, and went back to the river. Alejandro joined him. They paced the mud flat to stay one step ahead of the swarming mosquitoes.

"We have extra radios," said Frank. "Why didn't Father Leo take a radio with him?

"He took," said Alejandro. "But I tell him the other day, the batteries, they no good. He must have forget."

"Did they bring a tent or anything?"

"No. Father Leo, he say no need. Because they come back same day."

Another hour passed. Frank sent Alejandro home to his family.

"No worry Doctor Frank," Alejandro said as he left. "The one who is bringing them is a good boat man. He knows the river. Even in the dark."

The river grew darker and lost its sheen. The little bit of starlight that had given its gloss had been swallowed up by a creeping overcast. Reluctantly, Frank returned to the mission. He found Senora Roxita snoring peacefully with Itzel hunched over on a chair, head resting by her mom's hip, her mom's hand resting on her hair.

Frank burst through the door of the bungalow and lay down on the chaise. He tried to sleep but his eyes felt as if they were pinned open. He tried reading, but the words evaded him. He found himself repeating the same sentences over and over.

He imagined Liz huddled in the launch, believing every snort of tapir in the underbrush to be a jaguar. Frank slid off the chaise, grabbed a kerosene lantern and shot back out the screen door, heading back to the river yet again.

The Macal slithered by in the night as dark and oily as an anaconda. Frank made straight for the dugouts strewn across the landing. The first one he tipped over had a splintered bow and teemed with snap jaw ants that were busy reclaiming its punky wood into loam. He found one small but river worthy, large enough for two. To whom it belonged, he didn't care. He would worry about reparations later.

Frank put the lantern in the prow, pushed in, and climbed aboard. The current felt stronger than it had looked and he made slow progress paddling against it.

A river of dark thoughts poured through his imagination – faceless attackers, horrific scenarios of abduction, rape and murder, in some Father Leo a victim, in others a perpetrator.

Frank dwelled on the devil that he knew – Father Leo. He revisited the old priest's teas in memory, poring over the minutia of his interactions with Liz, his risqué jokes and innuendos, the way his eyes lasered in on her and only her as if Frank wasn't even standing by her side. Being practically alone with her in a wilderness, could the temptation have grown too great?

Of course, that was preposterous. First, Liz was lanky and strong – naturally athletic. No way could this gimpy, attenuated elder overpower her. And besides, this was a Catholic priest pushing seventy, crusty yes, but loved and trusted by his parish. He had nothing untoward in his record.

And how could Father Leo not pay attention to Liz? She had a quirky wit that made people laugh, open up, not that Father Leo needed any encouragement. He had a lifetime of reminiscences to report and a new and captive audience to hear them – a pretty girl to boot. Frank was a bump on a log by comparison, master of non sequitur and shop talk. It was no wonder Father Leo homed in on Liz.

Frank grunted and shook his head, as if the shaking could make his worry-charged delusions fall away.

He worked up a lather paddling against the current. How far had they gone upriver? Frank hadn't even thought to ask. If they had pulled over to camp he might go right past them without knowing. A rational person would have returned to the mission, gotten some rest, and hired another launch in the morning.

Frank imagined Liz huddled under the canopy of the launch, terrified by the noises in the bush, seeking comfort from Father Leo, or perhaps, one of the young men. Frank continued upstream, paddling harder.

Frank entered a deep, slow stretch where the river separated into several braids separated by eyots. The weak lantern glow made it difficult to locate the main channel. Frank chose one at random, but guessed wrong, entering an incipient oxbow, stagnant and rank.

As he turned the dugout around, a tangle of partly submerged branches, like bony hands, seized its hull. Frank scraped free only to be snatched again. An eddy swirling out of the main flow pivoted him into a clutter of low-handing boughs and creepers that scraped and plucked at him.

Thunk! The dugout wedged solidly over the bark-less bole of a sunken tree. He couldn't find purchase on the slick surface to push off with his paddle. He stepped out onto the log, slipping on an algal film as slick as ice. His legs kicked out and knocked the dugout loose. He went under, hooking his ankle in the crook of limb. He floundered in the tangles, struggling to keep his face above water. He thrashed until he snapped free of the slimy branches and swam after the drifting dugout.

The current took hold of both Frank and the dugout, whisking them into the main channel. Frank kicked off his sandals and pursued the orange glow of the lantern, narrowing the gap until he was close enough to lunge and grab the trailing hitch. He pulled himself close enough to swing a leg over and tried to pulling himself in with his elbow. The dugout flipped, spilling the paddles, snuffing the lantern, leaving him in the black.

Frank clambered onto the overturned dugout. Defeated, he sprawled over its mucid, worm-eaten bottom, legs trailing in the water. He drifted, gazing into blackness, not bothering to slap at mosquitoes, letting them take what they wished of his blood. Small creatures scraped and nibbled at his feet. Frank did not kick them away. When the dugout lodged against the bank, he did not free it.

Objects floated past, some bumping him, some gurgling as they bobbed. His mind's eye conjured corpses and beasts and things beyond nature. He endured until a sliver of moon rose like a mocking grin and gave texture to the thinning clouds. Stars reappeared in time to fade and blink out. Hills revealed their form, silhouetted by a sun not yet risen.

Only then did he right the dugout and bail it with scoops fashioned from large, folded-over leaves. He pushed out into the current, intending to float back to the mission. As he drifted around the first bend, the purr of a launch sounded upriver. Tingling warmth swept through his skin, supplanting the chill of a night in the open. Waves of hope and relief splashed over him and replaced his despair like spring water flushing a bilge. He had been a fool for expecting the worst. Frank swung the dugout around so it pointed upstream.

The launch roared around the bend with Father Leo's colors flying from its bow. Frank smoothed his hair and picked bit of debris off his face. How would he explain the stolen dugout? He didn't want Liz to know the extent of his panic.

He stood up and waved as they approached, squinting, trying to spot Liz under the canopy. He saw only the operator manning the outboard and the spotter atop the risen bow. No guide. No Father Leo. No Liz. Frank's insides roiled. The chill returned.

The launch cut its motor and veered towards the dugout. Its bow descended. The operator recognized Frank. His eyes flickered. His mouth dropped open.

"Where are they?" said Frank. A hollow opened in his depths and grew and grew until he was made a mere husk.

The young man could find no words.

"Donde estan?" said Frank, voice catching in his swelling throat. Despair came flooding back in a torrent that robbed his breath and snuffed his flickering hopes.

"They no come," said the boy in the bow.

*****

Chapter 6: Retrograde

Gi

Shreds of cloud hung, tails tethered to the earth, wandering the bogs and glades like ghouls. Seor rested with her squad in a copse of wind-stunted firs. They had climbed many hours to reach these heights. Home lay but two portals away now: one to take them from Gi to Ur, the land of machines, followed by a traverse that would bring them back to Ubabaor.

In garrison, cozy with her blankets on a mat of straw, with a ration of sour bread and roastings twice a day, the prospect of a month-long mission had not seemed so onerous. In the backwoods of Gi, perpetually lost, hungry and ill, with enemies always on their trail, each day never seemed to end.

Seor slung her crossbow and satchel and rose from the duff. She passed through her squad, expectant of the smirks and whispers that would betray their lost confidence. How could they not doubt her after such a parade of miseries, and all for naught? Thirty days they had wasted, haunted by fevers, traversing a baffling mosaic of drumlins and marshes. Rivers, if found, flowed opposite the direction marked on faulty maps. Queries posed clumsily, purportedly in local dialect, drew only stares from farmers. The lost cadre they sought remained hidden as phantoms.

Twelve she had brought to Gi, and all twelve still breathed, but their hardships had exacted a toll. Their faces, young but so gaunt after a month of poor rations and pestilence forced upon Seor a vision of their future decrepitude, or worse, how they might look lying in their coffins. Seor, almost ten years older than all but Vul, could only imagine how withered and frightful she looked to them.

At least none of her crew had died; no simple feat in a landscape thick with the enemy. Their lone skirmish, instigated when they had blundered onto a Venep'o heliograph station, had surprised them more than the Crasac detachment guarding it. An impromptu assault somehow succeeded in flushing the remote outpost and relieving it of its provisions, but brought what seemed like an entire army hounding after them. They had escaped through a swamp through which the heavily armored Cuasar cavalry could not follow. Ripped by thorns, they came away, miraculously, otherwise intact. If Seor managed nothing else proper, she would steer them home safely the rest of the way.

Perched again on Ur's threshold, Seor couldn't help but be excited, not only for the proximity of home, but for the passage through Ur itself. None of her crew seemed to share her curiosity, treating xenoliths like mere pasture gates and Ur but a footpath between them. But Seor couldn't help but wonder what lay beyond the relays.

The diversity alone, of what she had witnessed in training astounded her. One stone had opened unto forests with air so thick and warm it resisted breath and filled her lungs like liquid. Another had led to a treeless land of un-climbable mountains with inscrutable peaks. On the night they entered Gi, Seor and her patrol had transited a densely inhabited place with constant caravans of red and white lights, an ever present rumble and glowing skies. Unlike the other, wilder relays, this one seemed too strange to be real, thus all the more fascinating.

Canu emerged from a copse with an armload of tinder and strips of bark. Of course it would be Canu to test her will.

"A fire, Canu? You know better than that," said Seor.

"Not even a small one?" said Canu, locks grown too long hanging down over his eyes. "A few embers are all we need."

Seor knew a cup of warm broth would go far in raising morale and easing the chill that settled over these hills, and her scouts were skilled in building fires that burned hot and shed little smoke. But her eyes kept drifting to scuff marks in the moss.

"Not worth the risk," she said. "Folk use this track. Not often, but it looks like someone came through a couple days ago. Giving away a portal would be a fine way to top off this mission, no?"

Canu scrunched his mouth and tossed the bark and tinder into the bracken.

Seor left her band muttering over their cold lunch: a stiff paste of bitter nuts and rancid fish – the remnants of plunder from their accidental raid. She carried a portion wrapped in leaves for Ren, who stood watch by the xenolith.

She poked through a cordon of saplings with her crossbow. Its short wings, a composite of horn and wood, made it well-suited for maneuvering through forest. The weapon had little range, but generated enough velocity to take down an unarmored person across a clearing. It reloaded quickly, with a hopper of bolts that fed into its slot with a pull of a ratchet bar. Weary of her squad's constant complaining over food and hungry herself, she hoped to flush some game and bring them some of the meat they longed for, even if they had to eat it raw.

Seor chose as random a route as possible up the pristine slope, weaving between tree and bramble. No path marred the hillside below the small bog where Ren stood watch. Doctrine required xenoliths be positioned away from camps and roads, fixed in place, but untraceable by any pattern of travel.

Upslope, the conifers grew sparser, more misshapen. Barkless and grey victims of sodden ground contrasted with the verdant mosses at their feet. Ren's voice wafted through this fey vision, tracing a minor pentatonic melody. A fickle wind pulled her song this way and that, plangent one moment, then muffled under rustle of glossthorn.

Seor's bile sizzled. First Canu, now Ren. Ren knew better than to sing on watch. But the nature of Ren's song arrested Seor's irritation. It was something her little girl Dima used to sing when she rounded up the does for their evening milking. It was a common enough tune, known to every child in Suul. Hearing it, stung.

Dima would be nine now, if she still lived. She was seven when Seor left her in her cousin's care and went off to Croega to fight with the local militia. Seor's man, Ialo, had already been gone a year by that time, perishing in a bold but disastrous defense of Diomet in the early days of the Venep'o invasion. His beaten comrades had come by the homestead bearing Ialo's pierced and bloodied waist coat – a token of remembrance in lieu of his remains. Seor didn't know what was worse, knowing Ialo's precise fate or only guessing what had happened to Dima.

In the invasion's second wave, Venep'o berserkers hit Croega like a storm front, collapsing fortifications before they could be completed, intercepting columns of refugees before they could reach the road to Ubabaor. One wave of shock troops sufficed to shatter all that remained of Seor's life. By the time the enemy's regulars arrived, only dogs resisted.

Rumors flew of an escape to the south, a fleet of overloaded fishing boats bearing families safely across the Suelva Strait to the fortress island of Piliar. At night as she lay, Seor imagined Dima on one of those boats. It was the only way she could find sleep.

Seor found Ren crouched at the edge of the bog, unaware of her commander's presence. Chin tucked over bunched knees, Ren swirled her staff in the water as if stirring a pretend cauldron. Seor felt embarrassed for her. Such disregard of watch protocol, especially for Ren, was aberrant. Proximity to home had intoxicated everyone and caused them all to slacken their guard.

Before Seor could rebuke her, a bubble burst on the surface of the bog, releasing a puff of mist. Seor tensed and studied the dark water, tinted by tannins the shade of over brewed tea. Specks danced, dimpling the surface, whirling beneath, a vital spice of springtails and copepods. Mats of algae and moss concealed larger beasts lurking below unseen, quakes and ripples divulging their presence. The xenolith embedded in its muck rendered it a potent potion.

A larger bubble rose up and burst with a gurgle. It was too soon for the xenoliths to become active. Fermentation perhaps? Or the flailings of some creature within? More bubbles broke the surface, releasing mist. The middle of the bog began to boil.

"Ren!" she said. "The bog!"

Startled, Ren whirled to face her, dagger in hand, stumbling over a root and falling on her bottom. Seor called a general alarm, filling her lungs and letting loose a piercing, ululating shriek that cleared the immediate forest of birds.

"Look!" said Seor to the wide-eyed Ren. A smile bloomed bright on her face.

"We're going home!" said Ren.

Vul burst through the trees, bedroll slung, axe and crossbow tucked – as though he had anticipated Seor's alarm. The others straggled behind, packing their satchels on the run, speculating, arguing in hushed voices. As they came in sight of the bog, they fanned out through the ferns, weapons drawn.

"The convergence," said Seor, capturing Vul's eyes. "It's coming."

"How?" he said, shifting the load on his shoulders. "The tabulator said—"

"I don't know, but it's here and it's coming fast. Too fast." Seor wrung and rubbed her calloused fingers, lingering on a knuckle split during the raid, not quite healed.

The rest of the squad accumulated around the bog, all jolly and joking at the sight of the bubbles. They acted like children receiving an unexpected gift. But Seor took the early convergence as a sign of something dreadful, like the slump and slur that presage the hammer fall of stroke, like blood in urine or a spreading black mole. Its appearance signaled disturbance and danger.

"Everyone! Tactical positions," she said. "Draw your arms. Now!" They hesitated for an instant, confused. But as soon as Vul's bedroll hit the ground and he withdrew his axe, they drew weapons and dispersed two layers deep around the bog.

The center of the bog erupted in a cold, feeble geyser. A tiny water snake oscillated across the surface and fled into the sedge. An envelope of refracted light appeared, its edges oscillating erratically, its core narrower than she remembered. Odd, angular shapes manifested in the mists. Seor braced for what miscarried monster these premature contractions would disgorge.

*****

Chapter 7: The Displaced Portal

The convergence dilated like a pupil gazing into darkness. Its oily, many-hued sheen hovered over the bog, obscuring the collection of sharp and bulky shapes lurking beyond. Its blurry center bulged and split with a crackle. Edges peeled apart, opening a clear, spindle-shaped wedge into Ur. Bursting through the shimmer came a credenza of pale wood, with polished knobs on labeled drawers.

Seor, startled, had expected to glimpse the tor of glacial erratics and stunted trees through which they had entered Gi. Instead, as the crevice expanded, a glass-fronted cabinet with clawed feet appeared, alongside a wooden chair, with spindles of honeyed oak fanning like rays between a contoured seat and a bowed frame.

"What is this?" said Vul. "Someone's house?"

"A dinner party ... just for us," said Canu, snickering. Chuckles erupted among the shadows.

"Silence!" said Seor, sweeping her glare like a spotlight across the faces arrayed behind her. "This is bad. It means we've been found out. Someone in Ur has the other xenolith."

Her squad quieted instantly, their faces spanning a continuum from Ren's utter shock to Pana's mild bemusement. As they awaited her guidance, Seor sensed a queer mixture of trust and blame emanating from them. She hovered, queasy in the thrall of indecision. Instinct told her to back off, but how could they reject an open portal? They were already late in returning to Ubabaor. If the xenolith was controlled by another, who knew when or even if the next convergence would appear?

"We're going through," she said. "Get to your places. The usual order. Now!"

They formed a haphazard line along the edge of the bog. Some began stowing their blades. "Keep your weapons out," said Seor. "You might need them."

The sheath of shimmering light surrounding the portal contracted. The chair faded from view. "Is it weakening?" said Pana, staring into the shimmer. "Already?"

Seor rushed down the line, ushering stragglers into position. Vul stood closest to the convergence, both hands clutching his axe.

"Ready, Vul?"

Vul nodded, his face devoid of expression.

"Then go!"

Without so much as a blink, Vul plunged in, followed closely by Pana and Pari. Distorted cries echoed back. Salin paused. Those yet to pass looked to Seor anxiously.

"Quickly!" she urged. "Keep it going! Be ready to fight or flee."

The passages resumed, each squad member adding voice to the chaos across the portal. To Seor's ear, whatever was happening at the other end, it did not sound like carnage.

When the last of her twelve had passed, Seor palmed the hilt of her long dagger and splashed through the matted weeds. The convergence oscillated wildly. It was almost too late to pass. Its frigid grip sucked at her breath, seized her and pulled her in. A dull, rolling pressure clamped down and rippled through her bones, tensing and releasing in spasms.

Seor strained ahead. The portal resisted like stiff and sticky porridge. Her momentum stopped, reversed. She oozed back towards the bog. Suddenly, briefly, it relaxed. She shot forward and dropped onto a hard floor, her chin colliding with someone's shoulder. Bodies jostled elbow to elbow in a small, dim room. A shelf collapsed. A basket of cabochons spilled and scattered, joining a clutter of geodes and fossils already fallen.

Seor scrambled to her feet, finding her squad crammed into what appeared to be a small shop. Beyond a wall of glass, artificial lights mounted on tall posts splashed over an empty street. The road led down to a small bridge passing over a river. Could it be the river they had crossed between relays several months ago?

Salin rattled the glass door. It was locked, with no visible latch, and wouldn't budge. He slipped the blade of his short sword into the jamb and pried. A garish light burst forth above their heads. A clanging commenced like hail on helms, as loud as the flashes were bright. The din sent Seor's heart fleeing from her ribs.

The bob had tipped. They were fish in a net waiting for the fishermen.

Seor shoved her way over to Ren and Canu as they pawed through the drawers of the credenza where the convergence had centered.

"Get it and go! Hurry!" she said.

"Can't find it," said Canu.

"I thought I saw a glow before," said Ren. "But now it's gone."

Canu yanked open drawer after drawer, revealing trays of amber of every tint and opacity, maroon crystals thick as fingers, grey stones speckled with iridescence, arrayed in boxes like soldiers on parade.

"Take them!" said Seor, her mind scrambled with panic, heart clawing at its cage.

"Which ones?" said Canu.

"All of them."

"How? There are too many to carry," said Canu.

"Touch them. Find the coldest," said Ren.

"They're all cold," said Canu. "The convergence chilled them all."

A siren sounded on the streets. Murmurs grew among the squad. Panic knotted Seor's gut. "Never mind," she blurted. "Let's get out of here."

"I can smash our way through," Vul tapped the glass lightly with the head of his axe.

"No need," called Pana, peering behind a curtain in the back of the room. "I see another exit. This one has a latch."

"Everyone, follow Pana," said Seor. She squeezed past her comrades, leaping onto and over a counter. She pushed through the curtain into a back room cluttered with boxes and papers. Pana fiddled with the lock and swung the door open into the night air.

They all poured out onto a barren, lighted pavement backed by a brick wall that kept a copse of weedy trees at bay. The pre-dawn sky had paled enough to outline the buildings of a small city below them, framed closely by the low, rocky walls of a narrow valley.

"I remember that," said Cudi, pointing at a dark bluff to the south, topped with a vacant flagpole.

"Yes," said Seor. "It's much closer now, isn't it?"

"To the North, then," said Canu.

The siren suddenly notched up in volume. A blue glow flashed through an alley.

"Over the wall!" said Seor. Her squad swarmed up the brick like lizards. Seor hung onto the other side, peering over the top as a vehicle rolled into the lot, its top bearing a slab of flashing blue lights. A man stepped out and went to the door of the shop, his hand on a weapon strapped to his waist.

Seor dropped down and slipped among her milling fighters. "Follow me," she whispered. "Quietly." She led them through the thick undergrowth into a stream bed, following a rivulet through a shallow defile to the river.

"Pana and Salin will scout ahead," said Seor. "Everyone else, keep together. Stay close enough to support them."

They turned upriver, running low to the ground, under the bridge and past another paved lot. Where buildings blocked their way, they moved out from the river and turned into a wide alley lined by buildings with walls of soot-marred brick and banks of opaque or broken windows. A stray dog stood erect in the lane, nose to the wind, growling. The squad converged on it without hesitation. It turned and ran with tail tucked.

Halfway up the row, an intermittent squeak sent them scattering like mice amidst debris piles and weed patches. A shaggy-haired man rounded a corner, pushing a metal cart with a sticky wheel. He passed within inches of Pana and Salin but they remained unseen. Seor held her squad until the squeaks had faded down the lane before giving the sign to proceed. Twelve scuttled out and continued northward.

The sky grew as bright as a sky can get without a risen sun. If the tabulator was to be trusted, the sister stone would be activating within the hour. They risked being stranded in Ur if they failed to locate it in time.

A fence of heavy metal mesh topped with loops of spurred wire blocked the end of the lane. As Pana and Salin contemplated the best way to climb it, Canu came up and yanked a section out of the soil, holding it up until everyone had squeezed under. Vul reached through and returned the favor from the other side.

Trash-strewn scrub gave way to a spinney with evergreens so dense; none of the soft dawn light could penetrate. At ease in the forest, they dashed between trees as nimbly as deer, keeping close to the river. Between fragments of thicket, clearings exposed them to view from the busy roads draping the hillside across the river, but Seor kept them running. Time was short. She had no idea how far upriver the other portal lay.

The landscape grew familiar. Rounding a bend, a rocky hill reared up. Seor recognized it as the place where the other xenolith should have brought them. The ford they had crossed to reach it on their way to Gi was just ahead.

Salin came charging back from the river's edge with panicked eyes. "It's here! This one's early, too."

Seor's spine jangled. "Everyone, across the river. Now!"

"How can this be?" said Vul.

"Never mind. Just go!" said Seor.

They rushed toward the river, in full view of a steady procession of vehicles across the way, maintaining no pretense of stealth or concealment. Passing a double ribbon of steel set on thick planks over sharp gravel, they burst through the fringe of willows crowding the riverbank and skidded down into the marge.

The convergence lay directly across the water, opening wide against a scar of gravel and grit. Even from this distance Seor could smell the resinous savannas of home. A flat-topped tree curled softly out of the portal like a dream. The plains of Ubabaor beckoned.

Seor stayed back, securing the rear as the others bolted across the rocky ford. Eyes manic, they crossed without care, stumbling on the loose stone underfoot. Pana had already reached the edge of the portal. He looked back dutifully.

"Don't wait. Just go!" Seor shouted. "Everyone, go through. Quickly!"

Pana disappeared through the quivering breach. Salin waited for the oscillations to settle before stepping through as the others bunched around, ignoring their usual decorum. After Salin passed, the convergence rippled wildly, like a very small pond struck by a very large stone. The field contracted abruptly. The oscillations persisted.

"Hold on," said Seor. "Something's wrong."

The spectral tree turned to vapor like a leaf in a fire. The wind through the portal went from a roar to a squeal.

"It's closing! Stop!" said Seor, charging into the river. "Don't go through!"

Either no one heard her or pretended not. No one seemed to notice or care about the changes in the portal. Lipa ran in, her crazed eyes fixated homeward after three months of deprivation. Her momentum stalled, but she slid slowly through the rift. Strom hesitated, and then leaped in headfirst. His legs hung up, but he too managed to wriggle through.

"Everyone, stop! The convergence is closing."

Her words finally registered. Disappointment and disbelief filled her comrades' faces. No one passed until Alic, hovering behind the others, bolted for the portal, eluding Vul's grasp as he dove into its rippling maw.

"No, Alic!"

The rupture ratcheted shut, clamping Alic in its spasms, one leg in, one leg out. He grunted and writhed. His head disappeared then reappeared along the portal's flapping fringe. Vul rushed forward and gave him a shove, but the convergence had solidified like clay.

"Don't push. Pull him!" hissed Seor. She ran up and grabbed Alic's leg. Vul and Canu joined her and together they dug their heels into the soft sand and hauled. The convergence pulsed erratically like a failing heart, relaxing between spasms. Each compression drew a groan from Alic.

"Pull when it's at its widest," said Canu and they timed their efforts to coincide with the portal's maximum dilation. But Alic stayed stuck like a breeched infant.

Seor remembered a cadre tutor warning her about dangers of closing portals, relating an incident in which a Traveler had been pinched in two like a lump of dough after failing to heed the signs of divergence.

Her remembrance stirred a memory of another lesson, but this one gave her hope. "Give me space!" she shouted. Her comrades kept hold of Alic, but shifted out of her way.

Seor unsheathed her long dagger and leaned into the portal. Its edges nibbled and tugged at her skin, alternately pushing and pulling like a magnet reversing its poles. She aimed her blade carefully between Alic's chest and the field that gripped him. The dagger wiggled like a dowsing rod, threatened to fly from her grasp. As its tip penetrated the interface, the field withdrew slightly from the steel, repelled like oil from water. With both arms on the hilt, she pushed with all her strength, further distorting the portal. The blade squealed and vibrated. Vul reached in and pulled Alic's shoulder into the cavity created by the blade. With a sizzle, his torso slid along the blade and out of the portal. Alic screamed. Pari gasped. With a rumble, the rupture sealed shut.

Alic collapsed onto the gravel, bleeding profusely, from a deep gash in his side. Pari fell upon him, pinching the wound sealed with one hand, with the other dumping the contents of her satchel onto the ground and picking through her sacks for the few fragments of stanching moss she retained.

Alic groaned. The geometry of his torso was all wrong. His shoulder projected grotesquely forward. Vul reached down and pressed on the bump of his displaced joint. Alic screamed and writhed.

Pari shoved him away. "Please. Let me handle this, Vul." She bent Alic's forearm up at the elbow and rotated it slowly outward. Alic grimaced. With a dull pop, the joint re-entered its socket. Alic screamed and kicked his legs out, before settling back with a whimper.

Seor stared, stunned. She counted six remaining with her, which meant that only six had made it through to Sesei. Or had they? She had no proof that any had survived the passage. For all she knew they had suffered fates worse than Alic in a portal turned meat grinder.

Seor fumbled through her satchel, removing a combination quadrant and astrolabe, and squinted up at the sun just now perching atop the valley wall. She measured its height and reckoned the reading against the slats and dials of her tabulator. She found her suspicions confirmed. The tabulator predicted that the convergence wouldn't arrive for another half hour, yet they had just seen it come and go. The tabulator, normally as dependable as a tide chart, had been rendered useless. How could they be sure when the next portal would come? How would they ever know if it would be safe to cross?

Seor looked around at the sickened faces surrounding her. If her comrades thought her incompetent before, how did they feel about her now? At least she had been spared the embarrassment of explaining her failures to Gondelfi.

*****

Chapter 8: Gondelfi's Army

Three months earlier, on the outskirts of Ubabaor ...

Not a wisp of cloud tempered the midday sun. A searing wind waggled a haze of glaucous foliage against Seor's brow. She squinted uphill to the dry clump of shrubbery where Pana and Salin had vanished incommunicado, despite her clear insistence that they report back frequently. She worried it meant her ambush had been ambushed.

The rest of her squad blended so completely with the terrain that Seor felt entirely alone, though she knew it would only take a whistle to generate their company. It was a simple power, command, but exhilarating nonetheless. That same authority, however, eroded her gut and sleep. She knew it would soon be put to use for purposes more serious than war games.

Tired of waiting for naught, Seor rose and loped through the antelope grass towards the head of the gulch. Salin popped out of the shrubbery and waved her back down frantically. She dropped and crawled the rest of the way, finding Pana perched at the brink of a ledge, longbow slotted with a dummy arrow in his lap, Salin right behind him.

"They're coming!" said Salin.

"Why didn't you signal me?" said Seor, exasperated.

"We did," said Pana. "They're walking right up the wash, just as you said they would."

Seor squeezed between her scouts and peered down the gully. She counted seven cadres walking down from the carriage road to the head of the wash. With crossbows lashed to their pack frames, they obviously expected no resistance.

"Be right back," said Seor, excitedly.

She scurried back to her previous position and spotted Vul craning impatiently around the trunk of a gnarled thorn tree.

"Bring. Them," she mouthed and pantomimed.

A subtle trill sounded from the thorn tree. Eight scouts appeared, heads bobbing across the wide swath of antelope grass. Seor slunk back to the edge of the gulch. Months of tactical humiliation at Iorgol's whim were about to be vindicated.

Seor had noticed in previous exercises how their trainers would retire up the gulch at midday for some unopposed relaxation after a vigorous morning of surprise attacks and ambushes. This time her band had beat them to their favorite spot, though getting there unseen had required some unauthorized traversing beyond the bounds of their training area.

Across the valley, a dust cloud swept down the length of the main carriage road. Abruptly, it shifted its axis and propagated down the side track towards them.

"Who's coming?" Seor wondered out loud.

Iorgol and his group stopped before the mouth of the gulch, then turned and doubled back to the road.

"Damn it all! We almost had them." Seor bit her lip. Heat flushed her face.

Vul hustled up, looking crazed. "Why are we not attacking? Shoot them!"

"They're too far," said Seor. "We won't register enough hits for it to matter." She took in a long, slow breath.

The dust on the side track blew off, revealing an elegant, painted carriage drawn by four sturdy grey horses.

Captain Iorgol held up his hand and called a halt to the exercise with a warbling yodel that carried far on the wind. He faced the plain where Seor's squad was supposed to be practicing maneuvers against another band of scouts playing adversaries along with the cadre.

"Everyone. Stay under cover, go back around the boundary," Seor whispered.

"Too late," said Vul morosely. Ren was already traipsing straight down the gully.

Seor had hoped to save the maneuver for another day. So much for that. Iorgol seemed quite amused by their appearance in the gully. His expression told her that he knew exactly what they had done, though he showed much less disapproval than she had expected.

Iorgol stood with a supremely fine-dressed man, someone who would look out of place even in a large provincial town, never mind this no-mans-land of uncultivated savanna.

"Comrade Seor, forward please," said Iorgol. "You've been summoned by one of your Councilors."

"Me?" said Seor, shocked. "What have I done?"

"Don't worry, you're not in any trouble," Iorgol grinned. "This is Secretary Hermash. He works for Councilor Gondelfi."

The secretary took Seor's dust-caked hands and greeted her, bumping shoulders as was the inland custom. He was finely groomed and very clean. She stared at his fancy slippers, the kind village folk who could afford such extravagance would save for the most special occasions. "Congratulations," he said. "There's to be a ceremony in your honor."

"In my what?" She wasn't sure she had heard correctly.

"You're to receive a commendation for your actions in the Battle of Croega."

Seor racked her brain, confused. She couldn't recall doing anything special. Had they mistaken her for someone else?

"About time," said Iorgol. "What has it been? Two years hence?"

"But we lost," said Seor. "Routed, in fact."

"Yes, but your unit escaped to fight again," said Hermash.

"Because we ran," she blurted, laughing morbidly. "Saved our skins. That's all it was.

"Which ... in light of what happened that day," said Hermash. "Was remarkable. A remarkable accomplishment."

"Please. It wasn't because of me. I just did my job. No more. No less."

"Seor, don't argue," said Iorgol. "Be gracious. Accept this honor. I've seen lesser deeds lead to even more acclaim."

"I don't deserve this," Seor insisted. "It's embarrassing." She took a deep breath and said no more. She would explain it all to the Councilor before plans advanced too far. It was all a mistake. She was no hero. More fiasco than battle, the Battle of Croega never deserved its moniker. She had succeeded in putting the incident out of her mind and didn't enjoy being forced to remember.

At Croega, the enemy had breached both flanks and about to completely encircle them. Seor had called the retreat in lieu of their fallen commander. Someone had to do it. It was only common sense. And it was good fortune that saved them more than anything. As they abandoned their position, the wind shifted and screened their retreat with smoke from a burning farmhouse.

"Has the ceremony been scheduled?" said Iorgol. "We would be glad to adjust our training schedule so all the instructors and militias can attend. Seor is very special to us."

"It will happen soon," said Hermash. "The Councilor will be discussing those details with her." He motioned towards his carriage.

Seor felt flabbergasted. "Me? Go in that?"

"Please," said Hermash. "After you."

***

They bounced and shimmied up a rugged road skirting the western fringes of Ubabaor, where the downs transitioned to forested foothills. Seor had never ridden in a carriage so fine. She fretted about the mess her mud-caked boots were making on its polished wooden floor. Spots of blood from her lacerated elbow beaded on the padded leather seat. She pulled a cloth from her pouch, moistened it with saliva and daubed it clean.

Hermash watched quietly from the facing bench, sporting a faint grin as she fussed with her cloth. The carriage halted. Seor looked out to see a sprawling meadow dotted with slender trees that looked like sentries at attention. A complex of stone buildings with tiled roofs dominated the crest of a hill.

"We'll be walking from here," said Hermash, rising.

Seor's stomach began to churn. She dreaded meeting the Councilor. She had always been intimidated by authority of all types, never displaying grace around high officials. She wished she was back among her scouts, training in the wolds.

She stepped down into the muck, puzzled over how a Councilor could have such a poor road leading to his primary abode, so rutted and washed out that not even this sturdy, tall-wheeled carriage could traverse it. But her tactical sense made her wonder if the disrepair was intentional. Better perhaps to have enemies approach on foot rather than in swift carriages?

Hermash had tucked his fancy slippers in a carry pouch and greeted her on the other side wearing a pair of knee-length farmer's muck boots that looked ridiculous against his finery. He led her to a muddy path that snaked up the hillside.

As they climbed the mud quickly transitioned to cobbles. Seor marveled at the stonework. Any sort of cobbling was a luxury in Tukha, her old village, but these had been shaped into hexagons and set carefully in beds of lime sand. Who had the time? Who had the funds to pay for such labors? She could only presume it had been made before the war.

She followed Hermash past hidden fortifications manned by militia soldiers wearing the yellow and green provincial bands that marked them as soldiers of Suul. She and her unit had worn the same markings before they were selected for training to become long range scouts. Now they were being groomed for the forces being sent to the frontiers of Gi to put pressure on Venen's rear echelons, though rumors had been circulating that their deployment might be canceled for reasons unknown.

Seeing all those soldiers of Suul, a place no longer in Sesei's dominion, made her sadder than proud. The Venep'o had controlled Suul for nearly two years now. Four of the seven provinces had fallen before the invasion could be stalled, though all except Diomet retained their seats on the Provincial Council. Diomet, the first to fall, had become a virtual satellite of Venen. Seor worried the same fate could soon befall Suul. She longed for the days when her fellow villagers had the luxury of harassing their Councilors about irrigation schedules and tithes, matters now rendered irrelevant by the invasion.

Beyond the bunkers, another group of soldiers camped in an orchard. The size of Gondelfi's force astonished Seor. Councilors were entitled to draw security details from their Provincial militias, but Gondelfi's guard seemed excessive, practically a private army. She wondered if the Inner Quorum, the Council leadership, were aware of its scale.

Gondelfi's compound was even more imposing up close than it had seemed from below. A virtual castle, massive trapezoidal blocks of sandstone formed its walls. It loomed several stories tall, its heights pierced with fighting slots and studded with watchtowers.

Hermash led her around a stone wall into a garden bisected by a lazy trickle running into a small pond. A guard collected her weapons at the gate: a collapsible crossbow, a quiver of bolts, a short sword and a dagger. He led her to a cushioned bench. "Wait here," said Hermash, and disappeared inside the house.

When Seor saw she was alone, she scurried over to the rivulet and tried to wash up, kicking her feet through the fish pond to soften the caked mud on her leggings, scrubbing dried blood from her elbow with a fistful of leaves torn from a planting and dunked. As she splashed water over her face, a booming voice resonated from the other side of the garden wall. She smoothed her frazzled hair and rushed back to the bench. She sat, hands folded in her lap, though she couldn't keep them still, untwisting the straps of her carry pouch, smoothing the flap of cloth where her jacket had torn.

The Councilor appeared in the gateway, head turned away as he discussed some cryptic matter with his Secretary. He seemed older and weaker than she imagined, given his robust reputation. Tall, but soft in the belly, he walked with a marked limp. His cheek was cross-hatched with scars, apparently from the torture he endured post-invasion before being released in a prisoner exchange. His eyes did not immediately acknowledge her presence as he approached, as if his mind remained engaged elsewhere. He didn't even look at her until he was several paces away, when he paused to study her for a few seconds before speaking.

"Welcome, Comrade ... uh ... Seor is it? Pity your deeds at Croega didn't become known to us earlier. I congratulate you on your commendation." His praise sounded oddly tepid and tinged with something that sounded like sarcasm.

Seor's eyes flitted everywhere except into the Councilor's steady gaze. "Sir, with all due respect, there's been a mistake. I did nothing to warrant any decoration. I just did my job."

"I know," said Gondelfi. "And I don't care. That's not why you're really here."

Seor's ears prickled. "What?"

"I'm not saying this to belittle you, but let me be frank. We needed an excuse to get you here without arousing suspicions among your trainers."

"Suspicions about what? And ... why me?"

"You're a long range scout, aren't you?" said Gondelfi, tongue poking around inside his cheek.

"Yes."

"You're loyal to Suul?"

"Of course."

"Then you will suffice," he said. He paused as if to study her reaction.

"So ... I'm not here to receive a commendation?"

"Oh, you'll get a commendation alright. We must, to keep up the pretense. And honestly, you did perform better at Croega than the average soldier. At least you did what you were trained and conducted yourself calmly through considerable chaos, which is more than many of your fellow soldiers did, some of whom who've received commendations far beyond what we propose for you. But that's not why you're here."

She waited for him to explain.

"We have a task for you," he said, finally.

"But I already have orders," said Seor.

"And you'll keep them," said Gondelfi. "But you'll execute mine instead."

Seor's nerves began to tingle.

"No one is to know about this alternative mission. Understood? Especially not your trainers."

"What do you want us to do?"

"You say you're a scout. So I want you to scout."

"For what? Where?

"In Gi, just like your original orders. But instead of festering in some camp, I want you to find someone for me."

"But these other orders ... how can I just ignore them?"

"I'm a Councilor. I'm entitled to my Province's militia. You serve at my discretion."

"True, but I also serve my country."

"The mission I have in mind is not incompatible with that desire."

"But shouldn't the cadre at least be told about this change in orders?"

"Not if the Cadre Command is as corrupt as I suspect."

"Corrupt?"

"Listen. I'm not asking you to assassinate anyone. I only seek information. If my suspicions are wrong. Then no harm done and I'll send you on your way. But two years ago a group of cadre were sent to Gi to organize the Nalki resistance."

"The First Gi Expeditionary. Or First Cadre, as most call them. This was to be the first stage of a back door counteroffensive against Venen. The second stage, as you well know, involves infiltrating a large force of Provincial militia. They are there at an assembly point, waiting to coordinate with the Nalki force, but unfortunately all contact has been lost with the First Cadre."

"What happened to them?" said Seor.

"That's your job to find out," said Gondelfi. "Depending on who you talk to, they've either gone native or were exterminated by the Venep'o occupation. I don't believe either. I have reason to believe they've made attempts to communicate with Cadre Command, but their messages have been intercepted and stifled. I want you to find them or at least find out what happened to them, and report back to me."

"Why don't you simply ask the Cadre Command?"

Gondelfi rolled his eyes, and then gazed through hers as if they were foggy windows until she blinked away. "Because I don't trust them," he said.

"They're ... Cadre," said Seor in disbelief. "Our best soldiers. The most loyal of the loyal."

"So they say," said Gondelfi. "Not all is what it seems anymore."

"If we ignore our orders," said Seor. "Wouldn't that be desertion?"

"We'll provide you with a cover," said Gondelfi. "You can blame it on error, incompetence. You're green enough to make it believable."

"Why thank you." said Seor, failing to restrain her sarcasm.

"It's only the truth. Though, I have faith, based on your performance at Croega, that you are more than competent. So tell me, do you accept?"

Seor's gaze fluttered about the garden. "Do I ... do I have a choice?"

"Of course," said Gondelfi.

"I serve Suul," said Seor. "Suul is first in my heart. And you represent Suul."

"That sounds like a yes. Excellent!"

But Seor, like any schoolgirl, knew that Suul was represented by six other Councilors besides Gondelfi. "Our other Councilors, are they with you?"

Gondelfi's eyes lost their focus. "I've expressed my fears, but they discount them. I'm reluctant to draw them in any further, until I know more, until I have tangible evidence."

He reached into his cloak and removed an oblong object wrapped in parchment and twine, sealed with a band of black wax.

"This contains a tabulator for a seldom-used xenolith, kept in reserve. You'll be receiving a package of foodstuffs, ostensibly in honor of your award. I'll make sure they pack it with some good things, some nice Suulep'o delicacies, skillet breads and such. This will be inside. You are to use this one instead of the one the Cadre will be issuing you. Understood?"

"What do I do with the other?"

"Destroy it," said Gondelfi. "That one will guide you straight to the assembly point, a place you are to avoid like the depths of hell. You are to have no contact with the Second Cadre in Gi. Understood?"

"I do," said Seor, although the condition disturbed her. The Second Cadre had military jurisdiction over all of Gi. This meant that she and her team would be going rogue, with no one to turn to if they ran into trouble with the enemy. Seor's breaths came quickly. The Councilor was clearly misguided in selecting her for such a mission. But what could she do? He was her Councilor.

"Now, this is all I will say again on this matter. You are to find the First Cadre. Learn what they've been trying to tell us. Report back only to me. This could determine the fate of Sesei, understand?"

The word stuck in her throat, but out it came, meekly. "Yes."

"Furthermore, you will not inform your scout team of any of this until you are safely in Gi and away from an active portal. After that, you can tell them everything or nothing, at your discretion."

Seor's stomach quivered. "When do we go?"

"When do you and your team complete training?"

"Our last exercise is next week. We graduate the week after that."

"Plenty of time to finalize our arrangements," said Gondelfi.

A queasiness gripped Seor. Everything was moving too fast. She searched for the courage to share her reservations with the Councilor, to ease out of this commitment, have Gondelfi find someone else better suited.

Gondelfi rose. She mirrored him. He touched her shoulder and winked. "I'll see you at the celebration."

"Celebration?" She had almost forgotten.

"For your commendation, of course. We won't tell anyone it's a send off."

*****

Chapter 9: Traceless

Frank's heart wanted to head the launch straight back upriver and plunge into a search. But the launch was low in petrol, and he knew that Liz and the others would be better served if he went back and organized a larger party.

He hopped out of the boat before it could even slide to a stop on the mudflat. He slogged up the steep bank to the mission, clothes torn, face bloody. People were already aggregating for morning sick call, but Frank would be of no use to them that day. He headed straight for the rectory, where Itzel stepped out of the kitchen and started to thank him for helping her mother. She saw Frank's condition and went silent. Frank nodded, mumbling something unintelligible as he headed for the sitting room where Father Leo kept his ham radio.

Alejandro rushed in. Word had already spread. Alejandro knew the gist of what had happened. "No worry, Doctor Frank. We will find them. I am sure."

Frank fumbled with the unfamiliar radio gear, but Alejandro helped him contact the constabulary in San Ignacio which promised to send out a team that morning. Alejandro handled sick call that morning as Frank awaited their arrival, coming to Frank like a supplicant to a semi-comatose oracle for wisdom on issues from ingrown toenails to runny tummies.

When the constables arrived, Frank met them at the landing. They asked a few questions, then promptly slapped cuffs on Frank on suspicion of three counts of murder.

"What? This is ridiculous," said Frank, flabbergasted. "Who said they were dead? I just said they're missing."

The constables were friendly enough about it. The senior of the two, with a receding pate and a tie much too short to traverse his paunch tried to reassure him.

"Oh, please don't take it personal, sir. Just a routine precaution for domestic abuse cases. We had one gentleman run off on us last year so the protocols were changed. This way everything's kept nice and tidy till we figure things out."

"Domestic abuse? What the hell are you talking about?"

"A technicality," said the other taller, leaner, constable. "In the books, it's how we classify a missing wife. Please, get in the boat."

"We're going upriver, I hope."

"San Ignacio," said the senior constable.

"Oh, come on! At least let me help with the search," Frank pleaded.

"Won't be us doing the searching," said the tall one. "We're just here to validate the need. We'll call it in, but searches are a provincial matter per se."

With Frank in the boat, they proceeded to track down the launch operator and his spotter, whom they intercepted ferrying some market goers from Rio Frio to another river town. More questions led to two more sets of cuffs and soon there were three persons of interest in the boat, the others taken in on suspicion of conspiracy.

Frank used his one free call to notify Liz's divorced mother. Shocked initially, she quickly found an optimistic angle, and assured Frank that everything would turn out fine. Liz would just end up just having a little more adventure than she bargained for. The stories she would tell at get-togethers! But that was just momspeak. Clearly, from the warble in her voice, she was much less certain than her words.

The search didn't commence till the next day. Frank grilled the jailers monitoring the radio on its progress, gathering that it had started in dribs and drabs, picking up when the diocese organized several boatloads of volunteers from the local parishes.

Frank stayed with the boatmen in a cozy holding pen in San Ignacio for one more day. When further interviews at the mission and the initial search failed to conjure any evidence of culpability or motive, they were released.

As soon as he got out, Frank followed up with Liz's parents on the progress of the search, though he didn't tell them all the circumstances of his situation. Somehow, they had already gotten wind that he had been in custody and suddenly Frank's communications with them became intolerably awkward.

Liz's mother wouldn't even speak to him anymore. Her gravely ill father almost expired on the phone, apoplectic with accusations.

"What do you mean you haven't been out looking for her yet? This is my daughter. Your wife. I never approved of her going to Belize. I entrusted her in your care."

"I know, dad, but I couldn't—"

"Dad? Don't call me dad. I'm not your father." He lost his voice in a fit of coughing. Liz's oldest sister took the phone. Carol, at least, gave him the benefit of the doubt, though she sounded no less distraught.

"Roger and I are flying down to Belize City tomorrow to help find her," she said. "Can you pick us up at the airport?"

"I ... I'll be upriver," said Frank, anxious at the prospect of yet another delay in his participating in the search. "You do realize there's no road to Rio Frio?"

Silence. "That's fine, Frank. If you don't want to help us, we can find our own way. We have a right to be there, you know. She's our sister. You can't keep us away!"

"Listen. I'm not keeping anyone away. I want to find her just as much as you do."

"But we heard you haven't even been out yet looking."

"I couldn't."

"Whatever, Frank." She hung up.

Frank didn't bother to stop by Rio Frio or the mission after he left San Ignacio. The clinic was now in Alejandro's hands whether he wanted it or not.

Frank immersed himself in the search, spending the next three days combing hundreds of hectares of forest where Liz and Father Leo might have possibly wandered, learning how easy it was to get lost when every over vegetated hill and dell looked the same as the next. At night, he camped with a few of the hardier volunteers on the bank of the Macal in a clearing hacked from the jungle.

Two days later, Carol and her brother Roger showed up looking a bit dazed. They greeted him with restrained hugs and handshakes. They obviously blamed him for what had happened and he didn't try to dissuade them. He didn't get to see them much. When he returned that night to the riverbank, they had already retreated to Rio Frio. In the morning he was out searching before they had arrived back.

No one ever did find a trace of Liz or Father Leo or their guide: a young man named Raoul. A thunderstorm right off the bat had erased all sign of their footprints, as well as any blood that might have dripped on leaves. No one found as much as an eyelash, not a thread, no bones, no jaguar scat with shreds of sock. No white-lipped peccaries. No drug runners. No signs of unusual activity other than the oddly barren quarry that had been their destination.

In the end, long after Carol and Roger had returned home, and the flow of volunteers had ceased, only Frank remained to meet Liz's father at the clearing. With patchwork, chemo-thinned hair and a clanking oxygen tank feeding his one remaining lung, he hobbled off a launch, determined to pay homage to Liz with a bouquet of sweet peas. Even he now acknowledged the hopelessness of finding her, and in Frank's gaunt face and haunted eyes, accepted Frank's due diligence in searching for his daughter, though he would never forgive Frank for bringing Liz to Belize. Only then did Frank feel that the time to give up the search had come.

***

Frank never remarried, and never had another relationship that carried a whiff of such a prospect. He also never settled back into full-time clinical practice. Instead, he wandered the world like a fugitive. At first, he traveled with Medecins sans Frontieres to Liberia, then to the Congo and Somalia, always in a field setting, always on the run.

On a lark, he joined the green-side Navy as a Medical Officer, supporting the Marines of the Third Medical Division in Okinawa, as they trained in Korea and Thailand and Kuwait. Six years of that and he left to work for USAID in Zambia, Peru, Colombia, Rwanda; for Oxfam in Sudan, Ethiopia and Congo; then finally into independent consulting for beltway bandits. Time had simply melted away.

But Belize always beckoned him back. Not every year, but every few he would make a pilgrimage, always bearing sweet peas. Sometimes he would be in a rush, stopping briefly on his way from one place to another. Other times, he would linger, seeking a salve that would settle his brain, and calm his restless heart.

*****

Chapter 10: San Ignacio

The young woman behind the counter at the rental agency gave Frank no clue that he even existed in her universe. Flitting about the room with a phone tucked under her chin, she loaded paper into a copy machine, rinsed a tea cup in a bathroom sink, rattled through the debris clogging her massive purse. Frank was patient. He knew how things worked in Belize. People didn't like to be rushed.

He leaned against the counter and marveled at her mass of frizzy hair that threatened to burst through the scarves restraining it. Frank knew she would need to deal with him before she could close shop. The phone slammed down abruptly. Her smile disappeared. She tossed Frank a glance.

"We have got no cars, sorry," she said in a patois more Caribbean than one usually heard so far West.

"What?" said Frank, losing his cool. "Why didn't you say so, before? You should know why I'm here."

She interrupted, clarifying. "But we should have somethin' comin' in the mornin'."

"Oh," said Frank. "Any chance you'd have a Land Cruiser?"

"I seriously doubt it," she said, sweeping the floor gingerly to not displace some loose linoleum tiles. "Seein' as our agency doesn't own any Land Cruisers."

"Well, that's okay. I'll take whatever rolls in," he said.

She hefted her purse and led him to the door, holding it open. Her eyes regarded him fiercely as he passed outside. He tipped his head and gave her a feeble smile. She disappeared, high heels clacking, into an alley. Moments later, she came roaring out on a Vespa.

Frank found a hotel after discovering the guest house he had stayed in with Liz was no more. He washed up and changed clothes. The lingering spell of his daydream lured him back out to the streets, seeking the Scarlet Macaw, or whatever establishment possessed its environs these days. Even if it had become a gelato joint, he needed to see it, if only to recharge old memories.

San Ignacio had lost many of the old landmarks that had once guided him so Frank let the geometry of street, river and hill show him the way. The Hawksworth Bridge lay just ahead. Across it, glowed the sister city of Santa Elena. He walked a block along the river then doubled back and doubled back again. He found the place where the Scarlet Macaw should have been, but it looked nothing like his dream. The trees, the wall, the patio floor, none of it matched the setting he imagined. Had they never been real, but all a figment?

He walked back to the hotel, disappointed. Little remained of the San Ignacio they knew. Renovations disguised some of the older buildings. Others had been razed. New shops and offices ones filled the spaces that once made the town feel so green and spacious and quaint. Only the post office stirred any sense of that earlier time, that, and the hills across the river, dark against the glow of a sinking sun.

He had a quick meal of jerk chicken and beer back at the hotel's restaurant, then dragged his carcass back to the room. He had pictured this pilgrimage as a way to remember the good times. So far, all it had done so far was reinforce how old and alone he had become and how drastically the world had changed in twenty years. He unboxed the bottle of rum he had picked up at the duty-free in Miami. No dreams haunted him that night.

When morning came, he and his headache showed up at Tigris (did they mean tigress?) Auto Rental ten minutes past their posted opening. The interior remained dark. After twenty minutes of watching the shadows creep, a light finally flicked on and a bug-eyed young man with natty braids let him in.

"Good morning, sir. You know ... ah ... we ain't got no cars."

"Yeah, I know," said Frank. "But the young lady last night said that some might be coming in."

"She did? Kristina said that?" His eyes bulged and blinked at Frank. "Let me check." He disappeared around back. A minute later, jangling a set of keys, he slipped behind the counter and, without a word, began preparing a rental contract.

"You have one, then?"

The young man glanced up, but remained silent.

"There is a car?" Frank repeated.

"Yes. A Sidekick," the man said, exaggerating the consonants. "Su-zu-ki," he played with the name. "Driver's license and passport please?"

*****

Chapter 11: The Abduction

The roads surrounding San Ignacio were a far cry from those that had dented oil pans and ensnared tires when Frank and Liz had tooled around them. The town limits had expanded. There were more houses and orchards and even resorts devoted to ecotourism, a concept that would have seemed laughable back in the day.

The unbroken forest he used to marvel at had eroded and receded, leaving patches of scrub and secondary jungle. Here and there among them, a sprawling mahogany glowered over the landscape, most with trunks chewed by bulldozers, some pristine. These had been emergents, the tallest trees in the former rain forest. Logging crews had somehow spared them, out of respect he could only surmise.

Frank drove right past the new road leading to Rio Frio. Just as he hadn't wanted to ride upriver in a launch, he had no desire to visit the little town and what was left of the former mission. He kept to the river road as it followed the Macal's curves, its builders keeping a respectful distance away to avoid its angry floods

From the turnoff to Rio Frio, Frank counted off eight kilometers on the odometer, and there it was: the partly toppled limestone cairn he had built to mark the trail to the quarry. He parked on an overgrown shoulder, glimpses of the green-brown Macal visible through the trees.

Exiting the SUV, he went straight for the cairn, peeling off vines, re-stacking stones. The engine block popped and pinged as it cooled. Frank changed out of sandals into hiking boots and zipped the leggings onto his convertible trousers. He fetched the sweet peas from a wrap of damp newsprint and soon, he was gliding under a canopy of second growth, down a surprisingly well-worn path. His first time through, in the panicked search for Liz after she had gone missing, it had been barely more than a game trail. He could only imagine Liz's displeasure. Liz had preferred her nature groomed.

As he went deeper, Frank puzzled over how clear and free of obstructions the trail was in this fast-growing jungle. Perhaps tour guides had discovered his cairn and took advantage of the trail for bird-watching or wildlife tracking. The quarry itself had never made a splash as a destination, being archaeologically insignificant and just plain uninspiring.

He crossed a stream with a bed of pure white pebbles and skirted the edge of a sump, its fringes guarded by a vanguard of dead, moss-eaten trees. Outcrops of pale stone began to poke through the forest floor. A slight rustling in the shrubs made him pause. Something large was nosing about, probably a tapir.

He took a swig of water from his Nalgene bottle. Coming here had always pained him, and this time was no different. The years had blunted the sting, though his stomach still clenched over how preventable the whole incident was. Liz hadn't wanted to come here without him. Why had he let Father Leo take her?

Further on, ledges began to assert their dominance over the forest. Trees grew smaller, roots scrambling over exposed stone seeking soil. He came upon the so-called quarry, a crater of karst, overhung with vines. Walls of greyish-white stone, scalloped at their base formed overhangs and caves. He had searched every one of them under the supposition that Liz might have fallen or become trapped in the rubble.

It was hard for him to imagine Liz climbing down into the pit voluntarily. While the uppermost ledges swarmed with vegetation, its center was as dead and uninviting as a slag heap. The stones here bore no evidence of human hands. It was obvious to Frank that the place had never been a quarry.

Frank moved gingerly along the rim of the cliff. Lianas disguised the edge, giving the appearance of solid footing where there was nothing but leaves and air. He followed it to an open ledge that held the second cairn, the one he built in Liz's memory about a year after she went missing, when it became clear to all that she was gone forever.

This cairn was toppled as well. Seeing it vandalized felt like a kick in the stomach. He hunted around and spotted the brass plaque face down in the leaf litter, but otherwise intact. Setting the sweet peas down, he picked up the plaque and scraped off the mud that had infiltrated its engraving: "E.B.B. – 1991." It looked ancient now, all stained with mildew and verdigris. He re-stacked the stones, wondering what kind of fiend would deface an obvious memorial of someone's passing, especially all the way out here.

Frank retrieved the sweet peas, mostly wilted now, but retaining their glorious purple hue. He set them carefully at the base of the monument, awash in their resilient and redoubtable fragrance. He packed the stems in wet newsprint, and sprinkled it with water from a canteen so at least the blooms would stay one more day.

A red-headed lizard carrying a grasshopper in its mouth scampered across the rocks. Frank sat back and unzipped his pack. He had brought along a tortilla wrap with chicken and chili peppers for lunch. He planned to eat it and hang out as long as he could tolerate the mosquitoes, before heading back to the car. Why come all this way only to rush off?

A green leaf fluttered onto Frank's knee. He looked up to see where it came from and noticed an odd growth clinging to the trunk of a tree, some type of arboreal ant or termite nest. The only problem? It had feet and toes. Human.

"Hello there," said Frank. "Hola! Como tu estas?"

Nothing moved.

"Yo? Que hubo? En que andas?"

A staccato chorus of clicks erupted from the jungle all around him. He backed away from the tree, alarmed.

Figures dropped from trees and sprung from the undergrowth. A rawhide bolo wrapped around Frank's torso and pinned his arms to their sides, end weights clattering against his rib cage. Frank's legs jerked out from under. He dropped to the ledge.

*****

Chapter 12: Shelter

A patchwork of houses and yards graced the distant hillsides. Directly above, a slope of tangles and barrens rose in terraces to steep talus bounded at the top by a metal rail. Unseen vehicles whooshed and roared and rumbled by at unearthly velocities. The slope screened them from the roadway, but any pedestrian could have looked down and seen seven scraggly men and women so obviously not of their world.

"Terrible place to post a stone," said Canu. "Why didn't they just hand them to the Urep'o?"

"It wasn't always so settled here," said Ren. "How long have these stones been here?"

"Four hundred years," said Seor, the image of a xenolith tucked among the fancy stones in that shop, pestering like a gnat.

"Let's get out of view, at least," said Vul.

Pari put the final touches on a protective sheath of cloth and husks around Alic's most visible wound.

"Can he be moved?" said Seor.

"Gently, would do no harm," said Pari.

"I need four to carry Alic," said Seor, and four stepped up. Seor looked across the river at a berm fronted by trees that would provide them sufficient cover.

"Straight across and up that bank," she directed. She studied the dour faces surrounding her. How many stories had they shared about what they would do first when they returned to Sesei: who they would visit, what delicacies they would sample. She watched as they clasped hands and lifted Alic. He rose in their arms like a spirit and hovered across the riffles.

In retrospect, they should have stayed behind in Gi. The first sign of corruption in the portal should have been enough. Her bad judgment had split her squad and gotten Alic hurt, yet another black mark on her already blackened record of leadership.

Though, on the other hand, if they hadn't made the passage, they wouldn't have learned what was wrong, and thus would not have had the capability of making things right. Thus, it provided Seor a way to salvage the mission and redeem herself. The idea pleased her much. If they would be spending time in Ur, they could at least use it productively.

Beyond the berm and twin rails was a little dell of sand tufted with tall grass. It struck Seor as a cozy place to bide their time and care for Alic. Vul was already dragging along a dead sapling he had found to start a shelter.

The others let Alic down against a tussock. He was conscious, but obviously pained, but at least he had good color and pace of breath. Though Seor deferred to Pari on matters of health, it looked to her like Alic would recover. He had better, she thought. Otherwise, how would she ever reconcile the death of a comrade by her own hand?

"We were late getting here," said Cudi. "That was the problem. If only we had been here to pass as soon as it opened, all would be fine."

"We weren't late," said Seor. "The stone was early."

"Whatever," said Cudi. "It's the same result. Point is, we're here where we can keep a close watch on it. And when it opens again we can whisk right through. No harm done, just a bit of delay." His eyes drifted to the tabulator in Seor's hands. "So when might we expect the next one?" he said.

Seor glared down at the ugly confabulation of bronze and wood. "Don't expect this to tell us much useful," she said. "The stones are corrupted, making this useless."

"Doesn't hurt to check," said Cudi. "Maybe it'll give us a hint."

Seor sighed and undid the leather thong holding the device together. She unfolded its two limbs to make a cross and zeroed the twin concentric dials between them. She then pulled the quadrant out and took a reading, leveling it first with its dangling pendulum. A couple spins of the dials, and she had an answer for Cudi, for however little it was worth.

"Five days," she said, flatly.

"Oh," said Cudi. "That's not so bad."

"It's meaningless," said Seor. "I wouldn't put any faith in it. The convergence might come tomorrow or today ... or never."

"But ... it was only off by a day in Gi," said Cudi. "Maybe we can just subtract a day."

"It's not just when it comes but how it comes that matters," said Seor. "The last two convergences have been exceedingly weak. And you saw how unstable they were."

"Like I said," said Cudi. "We go through quick and early and we should be fine."

"Perhaps," said Seor, watching the shelter take shape against a ledge as the others pitched in with Vul. "Let's see how it looks when it comes again next. If ... it comes again." Vul had stopped and was staring off into the distance.

"All those houses," he said. "I wonder if we can find some food?"

"I suppose we'll need to," said Seor, her face scrunched in contemplation.

"I'm happy to go," said Vul. "The others can finish the lean-to."

"Hold on, Vul," said Seor. "Food's not all we need to get. Some of us need to go back into town. "I'm going with you. Maybe Ren and Canu as well."

"Why ... so many?" said Vul. "Won't a large group draw attention?"

"Maybe," said Seor. "But the task I'm thinking of requires all of us. We're getting our xenolith back."

*****

Chapter 13: Greymore

The four retraced their steps downriver, Seor at their head, taking a much more leisurely pace than their headlong race to meet the relay stone. They padded through forest and scrub until they peered in from the perimeter of the abandoned complex of brick and glass, behind the metal fence.

Seor's stomach churned at the sight of the Urep'o structures. Protocol forbade interactions with Ur and its residents as intrusive as the sort she planned to engage. Her impatience and feeble leadership had gotten them into this situation. It disgusted Seor to the core. Like the others, she had been anxious as the others to return to Sesei. She hoped to hear news from Piliar of Dima's fate. But she never should have allowed her band to cross an uncharted convergence.

"Someone should have taken the stone while we were still in the shop," said Ren. "We wouldn't have had to come back here."

"I can't believe we left it behind," said Vul. "Why didn't someone grab it?"

"I tried," said Canu. "Just couldn't find it amidst all those other rocks."

"It should have been obvious" said Ren. "You take the coldest."

"Enough," said Seor. "If you want to blame someone, blame me. In the confusion, I panicked. I thought we would be trapped and miss the relay."

A plain but alien little bird landed on the barbed wire above their heads, chittered at them, and fluttered off.

"What's done is done," said Vul, seizing the bottom of the fence and hauling the unanchored mesh out of the ground.

"We have some time," said Seor. "Let's make things right."

They squeezed under the fence and made for the closest building, at the end of one of two rows of brick buildings separated by a wide lane leading to the main road, about two hundred meters down.

Ren peeked in through a crack in the window. "Looks empty," she said. Sets of large bay doors were firmly chained to iron loops, but Vul succeeded in smashing open a smaller door with the dull side of his axe.

Inside they found a chaos of disemboweled and broken machines caked with a black paste of lubricant and metal shavings. Empty wooden spindles were stacked and scattered. Tangles and bits of brass wire littered the floor. It carried an evil smell, and its windows were opaque with grime. Seor explored a spartan stairway that led up to a large, empty and open loft, with hip to ceiling windows, largely transparent, and which offered a view down the lane and up the river.

"What is this place?" said Canu.

"It's for work," said Ren. "Some kind of workshop."

"Where are the workers?" said Vul.

"Long gone. That's all that matters," said Seor. "We'll use it as a base."

Since they were about to go about the streets, Seor appraised her comrades' looks from the perspective of an Urep'o. They looked dirty, unfed but most conspicuously, their attire was in tatters after months of traipsing through the backwoods of Gi. Abrasions and frays and blotches of indelible silt added natural textures and patterns that gave them the look of gnarled tree bark or lichened boulders, but only exacerbated their divergence from the residents of Ur.

"First order of business, we need clothing," said Seor. "Let's disperse and meet back here. One hour at most. Be discrete. We want no trouble with the Urep'o."

***

Seor hovered behind the door of their rendezvous point. She hoped her comrades had had better luck than her. She had combed through the machines and back rooms and bathrooms of the building across the lane and came up with no more than a dusty jacket hanging on a hook. Worn and stained, it nevertheless looked in better shape than anything the group currently possessed, so she kept it.

Vul turned a corner. He carried a pair of boots, originally dun, from the condition of the uppers, but the rest was gouged and stained with smears of black grease.

"Oh, no Vul. That won't do at all," she said as Vul ducked in the door beside her.

"Best I could find."

A signal whistle peeled, the sort a scout uses to alert sentries of their approach.

"Canu," said Vul.

They watched as Canu dashed from scrap heap to smokestack, like a rat being pursued by a cat.

"Why all these fancy maneuvers?" said Seor, as Canu ran across the last stretch of open ground in an exaggerated crouch.

"There are people here," Canu whispered, as he squeezed through the door. "Urep'o people." Canu wore a billed cap with Urep'o script embroidered to the front. It looked as filthy and moth-eaten as everything else he wore.

"What kind of people," said Seor. "How many?"

"Poor people," he said. "With poor clothes. They live in a shack in the back, the kind of shelter a child could make. I'd hate to sleep there when it rains."

"So that hat, was all you found?"

Canu nodded.

Seor sighed. "Maybe we can pose as the homeless. Not ideal."

They waited for Ren, and waited some more. It was midday before they spotted a person Ren's size and shape coming down the lane with a large sack slung over her shoulder. Ren wore a baggy but impeccable uniform with embroidery on its pocket similar to that on Canu's hat. The sack contained a large array of wadded clothing. Ren beamed with her success.

"Where did you find all this?" said Seor, astonished.

"I went over a fence," she explained, grinning sheepishly. "There are some houses up the hill. I found one that was unoccupied, or so I thought. There was a man sleeping on a bed with legs. I was in the room with him before I realized he was there. He even looked at me and spoke, then went right back to sleep. I took his pants and, as you see, many more things from the place where they do their washing, with more machines it seems. Everything in Ur is done with machines."

They hurried up into the loft and Ren dumped out the bag for everyone to rifle through. They peeled off their undergarments that had rarely been changed during their mission, and clung in places like a second skin. A potent musk rose from their unwashed bodies.

Canu snatched a black, short-sleeved shirt with a silver skull painted onto the front. He grinned as he pulled it over his head. Almost as eagerly, he grabbed a pair of knee-length pants with pockets sewn over pockets, sewn over pockets. Ren had found only a few pairs of shoes, but Canu, at least managed to find a set small enough to stay on his feet.

Vul struggled to fasten a pair of beige pants that were plenty long, but much too narrow in the hips, as if tailored for a child.

"Don't even try, Vul. You'll split them," said Seor.

Ren pulled a large pair of dark trousers from the sack that jingled as she handled them. She slipped her hand in a pocket and retrieved a few coins and a ring bearing a collection of jagged metal tabs.

"Keys?" said Seor. Her gaze went to a squarish bulge distorting the fabric of the back pocket. She reached and snatched a rectangle of leather. She unfolded it, and parted an open seam, revealing a thick stack of greenish paper printed with symbols and faces.

"Oh Ren, what a find! This could make things so easy for us."

The others gave her puzzled looks.

"Market chits," said Seor. "Currency."

Ren handed the dark pants over to Vul but only after slipping the coins and keys into her own pocket. Vul frowned, but accepted them along with a white shirt with ruffles in front.

Canu picked at a corner of garish, speckled fabric in the sack and pulled. It lengthened into a silky, tapered ribbon.

"Is that a belt?" said Vul, swimming in the much too large trousers, the waist gaping open in front like the maw of a large fish.

"I think that's something you tie that around your neck," said Ren.

"What good is that?" said Vul. "It's my pants that might fall off, not my head."

"It's meant for decoration," said Seor. "It wouldn't hurt you to have some."

"Pah!" Vul took the ribbon from Canu and slipped it through the loops of his trousers.

Seor was lucky to find trousers of a rugged bluish-white fabric that fit her almost perfectly. She matched it with a short-sleeved pink top adorned with an image of a winged woman holding a sparkling stick.

"How do I look?" she said.

"Beautiful," said Vul.

"Of course," she giggled. "But do I look like an Urep'o?"

The others variously shrugged and nodded.

"You look excellent, yourself, Canu," said Seor. "Quite convincing."

To Seor's eyes, Canu looked like he had spent his entire life in this world of machines, but then again, Canu seemed adaptable to any environment. He had a way of blending in, that Seor suspected had more to do with attitude than appearance.

"I have an idea," said Seor, fanning out the currency in her hand.

"Oh?" said Vul.

"We go to the merchant and simply purchase the stone."

Vul seemed insulted by the proposition. "Purchase? Our own stone? But those bastards stole it!"

Seor ignored him. "Your job Ren, is to find us some food. Since you've proven your skill at foraging." She handed several of the greenish papers to Ren.

"The rest of us will go to the shop. But no weapons. The Urep'o don't carry such things in public."

"What if it's locked up tight like before?" said Canu.

Seor took a breath. "Then we come back at night and do it another way," she said and started towards the door. Canu and Vul followed. Seor stopped and glared at Vul.

"I said, no weapons."

Vul grudgingly put down his axe, tucking it behind a wooden pallet leaning against the brick wall. He looked uncomfortable in his ill-fitting attire.

"When we get there, only I will enter. Understood?" said Seor. "Canu, you stay out front, watch for constables." Seor could see the outline of a dagger Vul had slipped behind his waist band, despite her stipulation. "Vul, on second thought, maybe you should stay behind. Watch our things."

Vul's face tautened as if he had been slapped.

*****

Chapter 14: The Rock Shop

Mr. Brown, caught in mid-sip, gave a start when the door of his shop jingled open, dribbling lukewarm Dunkin Donuts coffee over the football scores. That his shop had opened at all was surprising, given the ordeal he had gone through that earlier that morning.

He had arrived at the shop a hair after six, driving in all the way from Derby after the security service had called to inform him of the break-in. Police were waiting for him in the lot, replete with bagels and coffee.

He entered his shop through the back, expecting the worst. He found a large puddle on the floor. The place looked like a deer had run through it, every display knocked over, every tray and basket spilled. But amazingly, not a single piece of inventory was missing.

Each of his most prized and costliest showpieces remained in place: the little fossil Keichousaurus that looked like a baby Nessie, the iron maiden-shaped geode from Missouri with six-inch spikes of purple amethyst, and his entire armada of nautili.

The cash he had neglected to drop off at the bank yesterday was still zipped in its pouch below the register; which is what really convinced the policemen that a deer or a bear had rampaged through the shop. They asked if he might have gone out the front at closing time and left the back door propped open. Not a chance, he told them, if his memory could be trusted, though he knew full well how sketchy it could be these days.

Mr. Brown didn't bother reporting the incident to his insurance company. Damage was minimal: a collapsed shelf, a shattered bowl, some chipped stones. Doubtful he could cobble together enough losses to get past the $500 deductible.

So he got himself a broom and started sweeping. Three hours later, the shop was cleaner and better organized than it had been in ages, and he was pooped. He considered not opening and just heading home, but didn't see the point. After retiring from Sikorsky, he had opened the place expressly to keep out of the house. And with his wife watching the two grandkids all day, his odds of catching a nap were much better in the storeroom amidst the bundles of old magazines and boxes of unlabeled specimens.

So when his wayward rocks and minerals had all been reunited with their labels and he had finished wringing the mop out back, he unlocked the front and settled into his cushioned office chair with an extra-large coffee and the morning paper. That's when the bells on the front door jangled.

The woman entering his shop did not fit the profile of his typical customer. She wasn't a geeky middle-schooler come to gawk at the fossils and spend nothing but Mr. Brown's patience. Nor was she a mom with little kids in tow, coming to fill a $5 bag with pretty cabochons. The best slot he could find for her peg was maybe a thirty-something new ager come to look for healing crystals.

But that slot didn't fit. First, her ethnicity defied classification. She blended petite Neanderthal with Tolkien elf, but in the best possible way, combining elegance and earthiness. Spiral curls, both long and short stuck out randomly, impaling bits of leaf and spider web. Her build was compact, child-like but with well-defined muscles in her arms and shoulders, olive-toned and deeply tanned. She wore a pink Tinker Bell tank top, saggy jeans and the body odor of someone who had skipped a few too many showers.

Mr. Brown smiled at her and nodded, and began to settle back in to his survey of the NFL pre-season when he noticed that the lady was wearing no shoes.

"I'm sorry miss, but you can't be in here barefoot."

Her head swiveled abruptly and she impaled him with the ferocity of her gaze. It bore nothing malevolent, just a single-minded fervor that reminded him of those religious nuts who try to cajole you to join their prayer meetings.

"Your feet. You need shoes to come in my shop. Health Department rules. Besides, I just swept up a pile of broken glass this morning. There's probably shards."

Mr. Brown pointed down at her feet to emphasize the point, in case her English language skills were as weak as he suspected. He found himself looking at the most impressively calloused set of appendages he had ever seen; feet that might trample light bulbs without concern.

She ignored him, heading straight for the credenza where he kept an alphabetic inventory of exotic rocks and minerals that he had either collected himself, bought from distributors or acquired from amateur rock hounds in the area. She perused methodically through the 'A' drawer and its agate, amber, and azurite.

Mr. Brown thought he had made his desires obvious, even to a deaf person. Was she daft? He came out from behind the counter and tapped at his Clark Natureveldts. He spoke slowly and loudly.

"Miss. You need shoes to be in here. I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

She looked down at his feet, then into his eyes. Her eyes were the deepest black. Not dark brown. Black. Pupil indistinguishable from cornea. She stared so deeply into him, he had to look away. But it seems, this time she understood.

She went to the door, leaned out and made a rippling gesture with her finger to someone down the sidewalk. A young man in baggy shorts bounded up. They spoke briefly and he bent over, pulled off his sneakers and gave them to her. She came back into the shop wearing an oversized pair of low-rise Converse sneakers without laces. Mr. Brown rolled his eyes and sighed. The woman returned to the credenza and started in on the B's: bakerite, beryl, biotite.

Mr. Brown decided to facilitate her shopping. "Is there something I can help you with?" he said. He hovered beside her, trying to get her attention. "No habla ingles? Habla Español?"

She barely glanced at him, moving on to the C drawer: calcite, celestite, chalcopyrite. The young man stuck his head in the store again. An unintelligible torrent poured forth from him; a rapid burst of looping vowels and staccato plosives. The woman responded tersely and her friend went back outside. Their lingo resembled nothing Mr. Brown had ever heard before. They weren't from around here. That much was clear.

The young man hovered outside the window, grinning at Mr. Brown, making what hair remained on his scalp prickle. The couple gave him the creeps, not only for the way they looked, but the way they acted, the way they moved and interacted with the world. Feral. A hunger pang away from tearing out his throat with their teeth and hauling his carcass up into a tree.

It was disconcerting that such an odd pair would show up the same morning as a most unusual break-in. He thought about calling the police, but held off, not wishing to over-react like that old lady in his neighborhood who made the police blotter anytime a car drove too slowly in front of her house, or when the wind clapped a shutter against her siding. Coincidences happened.

Mr. Brown decided it would behoove him to get behind the counter, just in case. There he had an aluminum baseball bat handy by the waste basket, and quick access to the back room. He retreated.

"If there's something specific you're looking for, let me know and I can help you find it." The words spilled out habitually. He didn't really expect this one to understand.

The woman seemed to linger on the C's, particularly on the big chunks of chalcopyrite that formed the bulk of the collection in that drawer. Copper iron sulfide, in its squared and metallic-looking crystalline form, was better known as Fool's Gold. These particular chalcopyrites were its non-crystalline, amorphous manifestation, drab and grey by comparison, apart from an oily, iridescent sheen.

She removed the entire drawer and carried it to the counter.

"Oh. Good! You found whatever you were looking for."

She was indeed interested in the chalcopyrites. She passed her finger over the whole row.

"Okay. Which one would you like?" To help her indicate her selection, he pointed to each stone in turn. "This one? That one?"

She glared and swept her palm over the entire bottom row.

"All of them? You want all of them?"

She gave him what he took to be her version of a nod: a slow rotation of her chin.

What was it about chalcopyrites lately? He had sold one from the same drawer the other day to a young man. Was someone out there making them trendy? Some mention of them in pop culture or some new disposition of their healing properties in an alternative medicine tome? If he was truly serious about his business, he would keep on such things.

"Seven stones in all at eight dollars apiece," said Mr. Brown. "I'll give you a bulk discount." He tallied up the prices and knocked off 10%. He showed her the figure. "That'll be $50.40 after the discount. With tax it comes out to $52.92."

She pointed to a framed dollar bill he had on the wall behind him from his first sale, and made a swirly gesture with her fingers.

"I'm not sure what you're asking? Cash only? I take credit too, anything except American Express."

She reached in her pocket, pulled out a crumpled wad of 20 dollar bills and slapped it on the counter.

Mr. Brown peeled three 20's from the wad and rang up the sale, while she loaded the stones into the front of her blouse.

"If you just wait a second miss, I can wrap and bag them for you."

She scooped the rest of her wad and swooped off towards the door.

"Wait! You have change coming!"

The door slammed shut.

"Come again soon," he said out of habit, not entirely sure he meant it, wondering if he should after all, call it a day.

*****

Chapter 15: Fragments

Vul and Canu sprawled on flattened paper boxes in the loft's sun-streaked shadows. Seor eased down beside them, propping her back against a wall of chipped and sooty brick. Fatigue gnawed at her bones too, but her mind churned too turbulently to nap.

She worried about Ren, who had gone off to look for food, and had yet to return; about Alic and his wounds; for the six who had crossed into Sesei without them. Having a squad divided between worlds with no way to know the other group's fate disturbed her immeasurably.

Seor gazed through the dirty lower panes at a blurred landscape of factory buildings, smokestacks and trees. Beyond the complex, rose a hillside with tier after tier of houses and fenced yards. Being so deeply embedded in Ur's populace complicated setting things right.

She slumped and hugged her arms against herself and let her eyes drift over the seven exotic stones arrayed before her, settling on the singularity that was the xenolith.

In the dimness, and as long as they weren't handled, the other stones made adequate enough impostors. Each bore a grey matrix splashed with blotches of purple, rust and gold. But only the xenolith displayed the uncanny blue of a frigid winter's dusk; the sickly green of wheat grass sprouting in blighted soil. And while the others lay static, the xenolith changed its clothes like a débutante late to the ball, its greyness blooming hues, its blooms fading to grey.

Touching it allowed no mistake. Solely the xenolith cycled between heat and cold in sudden transitions that defied nature. And lifting it was like hoisting a box full of squirrels; with a center of gravity that wobbled unpredictably.

Sunlight released by a passing cloud beamed through a missing pane in the otherwise blacked-out upper windows. It washed over the xenolith highlighting a transition between a smooth, satiny surface to something a bit grainier. Seor plucked the stone off the floor, and ran her finger along the subtle line interrupting its curve.

"Crap!" she said loudly. "It's broken. It's been split."

Canu sighed, and rolled over. "Wasn't ... wasn't me," he moaned.

"What'd he break this time?" mumbled Vul, raising one eyelid.

"Nothing!" Canu whined, writhing, still half-asleep on the cardboard mat. "It wasn't me. I had nothing to do with it."

"Stop your whimpering." Vul pushed up off the floor and cuffed Canu lightly on the shoulder. He crawled over beside Seor.

Seor held the stone out. "See here? This surface looks no less weathered than the outside, but feel how rough it is." Vul took the stone and rasped his thumb against it. Tiny bits of grit rubbed off the freshly exposed surface.

"Yes, one side is rougher," said Vul. "But maybe it's supposed to be?"

"I don't think so," said Seor. "This stone's a thousand years old, at least."

"Doesn't look split. It's not at all small," said Vul.

"It's broken, Vul," said Seor, flatly. "This explains why the convergences came early. Their mass determines how frequently they cycle. That's how they're tuned to their tabulators. And damage to one affects the other. They're matched, like sisters, as the Philosophers say."

"Maybe it's a good thing," said Canu, rising off his mat. "Maybe the convergence will come early again. We won't have to wait as long."

Seor tensed her lips. "I wouldn't count on it. If the stone's damaged badly enough ... we might not get another convergence." She set the xenolith down carefully away from the other stones.

A door creaked open downstairs. Seor's hand slid reflexively to her blade. A chirpy whistle echoed through the empty loft – Ren, returning from her foray. She bounded up the stairs, eyes bright, teeth beaming. As she entered the loft, her smile blinked out like a candle. She stared back, clutching a large paper sack. "Why do you all look so dour?"

Ren wore a billed cap and a voluminous, one-piece, grey uniform, cinched tightly at the waist with a length of rope. Yellow embroidery embellished the cap and one of the shirt pockets.

"The stone. It's damaged," said Seor.

"Canu broke it," said Vul, smirking, prompting a glare and a sigh from Canu.

"Not funny, Vul," said Seor, glaring.

"It's broken?" Ren walked over and stared down at the stone that Seor had set aside. "But it looks ... fine. It brought us a portal, didn't it?"

"Too soon," said Vul. "And too short."

Seor sniffed at the Ren's bag. "What did you bring us? Smells like bread."

"Yes, bread and some other things," said Ren, handing over the bag along with some remnants of currency from the wad Vul had liberated. "It was easy. I just pointed and held my fingers up and they prepared all of these for us. They kept asking me: 'Tos. Ted? Tos. Ted?' Does anyone know what that means?"

"You know as much Urep'o as I do," said Seor. She unrolled the lip of the sack and pulled out an object wrapped in a waxy, white paper. "What exactly is it?"

"Round breads, with some kind of pink meat and thick cream," said Ren. "I had one. It's not bad. Better than most of what we ate in Gi."

Seor tossed one each to Vul and Canu and took one for herself. "We need to find that other fragment," she said, pausing to swallow. "Because it looks like ... from the size of this fracture plane, it could be large enough to open a portal on its own."

"Back to the shop?" said Vul.

"But we've already searched there. Twice," said Canu.

"Yes, but I stopped looking once I found these," said Seor. "I certainly didn't expect it to be in pieces. Did you?"

"Do you suppose that merchant witnessed a convergence?" said Vul, picking daintily at the paper wrapping.

"I doubt it," said Seor. "If he had, would he be selling a xenolith alongside these simple stones?"

"Unless he saw one but didn't know it had anything to do with a stone," offered Ren.

"That means exile," said Vul. "Or execution."

"What?" said Seor.

"If the merchant saw a portal, he should be exiled, no?" said Vul. "Protocol."

"No one witnessed our convergence," said Seor. "There's no evidence—"

"But what about the other half? He might have had it somewhere else." Vul reached for his axe. "Let me pay him a visit."

"I think not," said Seor. "Not yet, anyway."

Vul gagged and scrunched his face. "What kind of meat is this?"

"Fish, I think," said Ren. "Preserved with smoke."

"Tastes like slime," said Vul. He struggled to swallow what he had taken into his mouth.

"I'll eat yours, if you won't," said Canu. "I kind of like it."

"Canu and I will return to the shop," said Seor. "I want you to go back upriver, Vul."

"Me? Why not Ren?"

"Ren's less likely to attract attention to us," said Seor. "I want you to bring this food to the others. See how Alic's doing. Then, maybe, you can return and we'll discuss what other actions we need to take. Understood?"

"As you wish," said Vul, grabbing the sack of round breads. He opened a container of thick cream, swiped a glob onto his finger and licked it.

Seor rose up off the floor, feeling older and stiffer than her years. Ren was already at her side, ready to go. Seor stooped for the broken xenolith and flicked her chin at Canu, lounging comfortably on his mat. "Come," she said to Canu.

*****

Chapter 16: Ubabaor

Frank walked hand-in-hand with Liz along a beach. This was no lazy, weekend stroll. They hurried, as if late for an appointment, or to get away from something following them.

Wind and sun conspired to paint a garish seascape. Waves heaved like shards of a broken mirror. Charcoal clouds hovered close to the horizon, edges glinting.

The beach grew crowded. A patchwork of blankets and towels arrayed was arrayed with people he knew: cousins and grade school teachers and patients who had died, all sunbathing together. Everyone called out greetings as he passed with Liz. No one on the beach was a stranger.

The sun became a moon. A tsunami of night consumed everything. Liz's grip tightened. They kept walking, rushing through the grounds of a decrepit resort, where every deck chair and lounger was filled with moldy corpses. Vultures circled the smoking ruins of a shattered city beyond.

Something splashed Frank's chin. His hand went up reflexively and his fingers came away damp and sticky and red. Jets of blood sprayed from his chest, like water through pinpricks in a garden hose. Liz swung around to face him, futilely employing her handkerchief to plug the leaks. Frank recoiled from her face. Her cheeks had peeled away, exposing her teeth. Frank recoiled. Liz looked hurt. Tears of dust beaded in the corners of her dull, filmy eyes.

The nightmare dissolved. Frank awoke to faint chatter; odd-metered music played on something that sounded like a baritone harmonica. A stiff breeze, scented with wood smoke, buffeted sheer grey curtains. He sprawled on a mat in the corner of what seemed to be a repair shop. Light spilled from large windows into a room filled with heavy wooden tables. Devices of every sort – computers, smoke alarms, vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers – in various states of disassembly, covered every surface. On the nearest and clearest table sat a broken guitar.

Cords no longer bound Frank, but he could stir no desire to move. His mouth was dry. Nausea writhed like a snake in his stomach, poising to strike. His cranium threatened to crack from the pressure mounting within. At least his heart beat strong, tracking a calm and steady rhythm.

The man from the chicken bus walked briskly into the room, the image of a dreadlocked Ziggy Marley still gracing his chest. He gave a double take when he saw Frank alert. He went to a cistern along the wall and returned with a ladleful of water.

"You like drink?"

"Thank you," Frank said, accepting the ladle eagerly. The water was cool, flavored with something faintly piney and resinous. It quickly became apparent that his drink contained something more powerful than flavoring, when the webs clouding his vision retracted and the pressure in his head eased.

The man sat down on a three-legged stool and watched him. "We have good medicine, yes?"

"Don't care much for the side effects, but yes." Frank pushed himself up on a round mattress made of twisted bundles of cloth, like a braided cotton rug, but thicker.

"So you speak this English more, not Español. Yes?" The man spoke with an odd, clipped accent that truncated some vowels and lingered on others.

"I speak Spanish, too," said Frank. "But English is better."

"Is for me, opposite," said the man. "Oh well." He held out his hand. "My name ... Tezhayaploplec. You can say Tezhay."

Frank hesitated and stared at the coppery fingers being offered, calculating little benefit in being impolite. He extended his hand slowly to have it grabbed and shaken a little too strong and a little too long for comfort.

The man, Tezhay, held Frank's passport. "You are Frank Bowen, yes?"

"Should be obvious, no? Who else looks like that picture?"

"MD means ...?"

"Minor deity," said Frank.

Tezhay narrowed his eyes. "I think is doctor. Medical doctor. But if you are doctor, why you have so much trouble with your heart?"

"I wouldn't have if you had just let me take my damn pills." He took note of his currently rock steady pulse. "Gotta admit, that stuff you drugged me with did the trick. What was that?"

Tezhay shrugged. "Simple potion for making sleep. Just little bit snake venom, mix with rat bile to weaken. Without bile, it might kill you."

"Charming. I'd prefer to have my pills back, thank you."

"Not possible," said Tezhay. "Is gone to Philosophers. For study."

Frank's heart gave a quick, little flutter. "I need those. They keep my heart safe from bad things that can happen to it."

"Not possible." Tezhay sidled over to a wall honeycombed with scores of hexagonal cubbies. Intricate wedge marks marked each cavity. He searched till he found one packed with long straws the size of pencils. He slid one out and tossed it to Frank. "Have this, instead."

Frank snatched it out of the air. "Is this—"

"Bolovo. From special kind snake, special kind rat. Take only when you need, and not too much, one drop maybe on your tongue, or else you dream for days."

Frank rolled the object in his hand. It was a hollow reed, with nodes like bamboo, one end sealed with reddish-brown wax. "Thanks. I guess," he said half-heartedly.

"Now I ask you some things," said Tezhay, his sharp eyes darting. "Why you follow me?

How you know about us?"

"Excuse me?"

"You follow me. Why? How you know who I am?"

"I didn't follow nobody."

"But you see me in forest and you know who I am."

"Well, yeah. Because I was on the same bus as you. I saw what happened to your guitar. But I was just as surprised as you. I mean, I thought you followed me."

"Who am I?"

"Your name's Tezhay. But ... you just told me that."

"I mean where am I and what am I and what you think I do?"

Frank gawked at him. "I don't have a friggin' clue," he said. "You want me to guess?"

"Yes. Guess me."

"Cocaine," said Frank.

"What?"

"You run drugs," said Frank. "But that's no big deal. It's you and a thousand other jamokes running coke and pot up and down Central America and I couldn't give a shit. I'm just there to bring flowers to my dead wife. Let me go and I won't even ever come back to Belize. Promise."

Tezhay's eyes lingered on him intensely. Frank glanced away and back to find him still staring.

"I think, maybe I can believe you not know," said Tezhay. "Your eyes look like ... stupid enough."

"Yeah. I'm dumb alright. Dumb enough to go traipsing around those woods by myself."

"I use wrong word," said Tezhay. "I mean you are like ... ignore ... ignorant. Your eyes don't show ... knowing ... knowledge. You don't lie to me. I can feel that you know nothing. About us."

"Okay. Now that we've established that I'm ignorant. Can I go?"

"Er, no," said Tezhay.

Frank didn't expect it would be that easy. "Okay. Can you tell me where we are at least?"

"Is Ubabaor."

Frank wrinkled his brow. "Ooba what? Sorry. I'm not familiar with that. Is that in Guatemala?"

"Er, no."

"So I'm like a hostage, then? You asking a ransom?"

"Er, no," said Tezhay. "You will be free. But I have make sure you not make us risk for security, and teach you enough for you be safe. Then you can go. We send you to safer place in interior."

"Interior? That doesn't sound like free," said Frank. "Free means I can go home."

"No. Not possible." Tezhay's face tightened. "This will be your home now. Is bad luck you find us. We are sorry to make you come here, but is necessary for security purpose. It is our protocol."

"How is that free?" Frank began to get a little agitated, normally a red flag given his condition. But his heart purred along like a 12-cylinder Mercedes. Something in that potion had lingered to make it stable to perturbation, a luxury he hadn't enjoyed in ages.

"You will see," said Tezhay. "Ubabaor is too close to war. Not safe. But interior is good. You can make good life. Have farm or ... you are doctor. You learn our medicine, you can be doctor here."

"So I'm a prisoner," said Frank. "Not a hostage. A prisoner. How long you gonna keep me here?"

Tezhay gave him a look like he had never seen anyone so dim. "For always," he said. "You will always be here. For life."

"Prisoner."

"No prison," sputtered Tezhay. "Does this look like prison?" He swept his hand across the expansive workshop. "You lucky. Some on sortie want kill you, to make easy for them, but because I am there, they don't. Protocol say people like you should disappear, not die. Dead person leave behind body and crime and eh ... investigation. Missing people make only mystery. You be okay. Tonight we give you better room. Quiet. Clean. You stay there. We keep you here for small time. I have many works in this busy time, but I will help you for some days. I tell you about this place and maybe you tell me something about yours."

"Interrogation," mumbled Frank, his spirits falling.

Tezhay leaned forward. "I don't know this word."

"Asking questions of prisoners. Often combined with torture."

Tezhay sputtered. "No torture! You have wrong idea about us, mister doctor. We Sesep'o no do torture."

"What am I supposed to think?" snapped Frank. "You snatch me away when I'm visiting my wife's ... grave. And you make it sound like I checked myself into a halfway house. It would help me wrap my mind around all of this if you could just tell me, where the hell are we?"

Tezhay gave Frank a weary look and muttered quietly to himself in his native tongue. "Listen. I will try make simple. This is different place ... than your place."

"Huh?"

"This is not your Ur ... I mean ... Earth."

*****

Chapter 17: The Second Fragment

Canu stood with Seor and Ren before the locked door of the rock shop, pounding on the glass door. "Enough of that," said Seor. "It's obvious he's not inside." She shook fingers that had been touching the xenolith fragment, swaddled in a rag under her arm. "Cold again. So odd."

A small piece of paper stuck to the door displayed several words scrawled in Urep'o script. Canu looked back at the women.

"Don't look at me. I can't read it," said Seor.

"Maybe he's had his lunch and has gone off for a nap," said Ren.

"Could be," said Seor. "Maybe so."

The eyes of every passerby, in vehicles and on foot, inevitably drifted their way.

"We shouldn't linger here," said Seor. "Let's go up the street for a while. We can check back in a bit."

They strolled past a clothing shop, a shop selling metal tools and another that seemed to sell nothing at all but had a wall adorned with pictures of cities and beaches. The passed residences, first in the same connected structures as the shop, then separate homes, surrounded by little patches of pasture, overgrazed without grazers.

Seor went to the curb and gazed up the road and into the hills. A pair of young women pushing baby carriages took a wide detour around her, only to be startled by Ren and Canu standing in a flower bed.

"So much greener up there," said Seor.

"Yes, well ... that's because there are these things called trees," said Canu. "With little dangly bits called leaves that turn the whole business green."

Seor cursed him with a glance. "Canu? Please. Shut up!"

Ren snickered.

"I'm going for a walk," said Seor. "Check back at the shop frequently, but not too frequently, if you know what I mean. If the shop reopens before I return, you know what to look for, and once you're in, don't let him lock the door till I get back." She leaned towards Ren and whispered. "Keep an eye on him." Seor strode off up the road.

"Ren keep an eye on me?" Canu muttered to Ren. "Why not me keep an eye on Ren?"

"I'm not the one who needs watching," said Ren.

"How so?" said Canu. "I've been good."

"Since the battle, yes, that's true," said Ren. "But that was quite a fight you got us into, for a group whose orders were to avoid all contact with the enemy."

"We came out of it okay. Brilliantly, in fact," said Canu.

"Let's keep it moving," said Ren. "Those ladies with the carriages are staring at us."

They walked back down the hill, past the rock shop, still dim and empty, to a three-walled glass partition equipped with a bench, etched and inked with an impressive density of swirly and blocky symbols. A strong scent of urine assaulted their noses.

"What is this? A public toilet?" said Canu.

Ren laughed. "Not likely, with all this glass."

Canu smiled and nodded at any Urep'o that happened by, but his exaggerated attempts to be friendly prompted only frightened stares and rapid footsteps.

"Don't try so hard," said Ren. "Do like they do with each other. Don't even look at them."

Vehicles rushed past, disgorging wakes of foul-smelling vapors. Canu glanced over his shoulder to see if anything had changed at the rock shop.

"Don't stare," said Ren. "It makes you look suspicious."

Canu sighed. Of all the comrades to be stuck with, he gets Ren, the incessant nagger. He could never do anything right in her eyes.

Not that any in the group gave him much respect. He was a latecomer, an Ubabaor boy, the sole member of the unit not native to Suul.

Canu came to their group only after the Ubabaor city defense force had ejected him for desertion. Why? Simply put: tardiness.

It happened not during the bloody, atrocity-filled siege of Ubabaor, but after rear echelon attrition and sabotage via xenolith had badgered the Venep'o into a truce. Canu was late returning to his outpost one evening after a day of brew, skillet fare and recuperation within the city gates. Topping the inselberg that loomed over the lines of truce, he found its watchtower shattered and smoldering, the hacked bodies of his comrades strewn beneath. He stood on the cliffs and screamed at the dust cloud marking the skulking horde of Cuasars who had done the deed as they returned to their lines across the twilit plains. He defied them to come back and finish the job.

A timelier arrival would have made little difference in the fate of his friends. Canu would have simply added one more corpse, one more grave, or worse: one more Venep'o slave. But the arbitrators were not impressed by Canu's defense. His noted bravery in the siege of Ubabaor counted for nothing. Banishing struck Canu as an odd punishment for a deserter, particularly one so driven to make amends.

Canu had revealed his true spirit immediately. How many deserters go directly to the command center of a neighboring province's militia and request enlistment? The militia officer seemed befuddled by his request, but couldn't afford to turn him down. By then, the fallen provinces had greatly depleted their potential pool of recruits. Within hours, Canu found himself training with new his Suulep'o comrades and learning to like their strangely spiced stews and fried breads.

A massive vehicle lumbered towards them, as large as a Venep'o siege wagon. As it bore down, it suddenly veered directly towards them as if intending to crush them. Canu yelped and dropped behind the bench, sliding under the gap beneath the enclosure wall. The vehicle stopped with a loud sigh. A door unfolded.

Ren had remained calmly seated, glaring at Canu through the glass. A large man barked down at Ren from a seat atop some metal stairs. She shook her head and waved him off. The door folded back closed and the vehicle rumbled away.

"It was just a coach, fool," said Ren, coming around the enclosure. "Let's go somewhere less conspicuous."

***

They retreated to a tiny park: a few benches and plantings surrounding a fountain. People came there, it seemed, for the sole purpose of letting small dogs defecate. Canu growled at one that sniffed too close at his heel, prompting an elbow jab from Ren. He sampled the red, dimpled berries weighting the hedges but spat them out immediately; mucilaginous and bitter, more pit than fruit. No wonder no one picked them. He hoped they weren't poisonous.

"Don't you ever sit still?" said Ren.

"Can't help it. Being in a whole new world and all."

He and Ren alternated going to the shop, but never found it open. The sun had long peaked and was well along its descent before Seor finally appeared on the sidewalk, trotting breathlessly, no longer cradling the xenolith. Ren caught her attention with a clipped whistle. She doubled back past the hedges.

"What are you both doing here?" said Seor, her face flushed. "Why aren't you at the shop?"

"Ren's idea," said Canu. "One of us checks. The other lays low. That way we rouse no suspicions."

Seor backed away down the sidewalk.

"Come along. We need to get there, now," she said. "The fragment was acting up. Something may be happening."

Ren took off after Seor. Canu bounced to his feet and trotted to catch up with the women as they hustled down the sidewalk.

"Where's the other stone?" said Ren.

"Don't worry, it's secure," said Seor. "I found a better place. Secluded, behind a burial ground. We should consider moving the relay there."

"Is that allowed?" said Ren.

"Can't very well put it back where it was," said Seor. "Considering it's already been discovered." They maneuvered carefully around an elderly pedestrian using a metal frame to help them walk. "I presume the keeper never came back?"

"That's right," said Canu.

"Maybe he's only open in the morning, said Seor, sighing. "We can come back tomorrow, I suppose."

"The walls are only glass," said Canu. "We can break in easily, grab everything and go before anyone could stop us."

"Don't be foolish," said Seor. "We need time to search, preferably without alarms and constables pressing us."

"But if all else fails," said Canu.

"Listen," said Seor. "If a convergence is coming, as I suspect, we may be able to pinpoint exactly where it's hidden in the shop. Then simply purchase it in the morning, with no commotion, whatsoever."

"Another convergence?" said Ren.

"Possibly," said Seor. "When I hid the fragment, it was already turning cold. Let's have a look at the shop, but Canu ..." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Keep your hands off the windows."

As they came to the block of commercial buildings, a small, red vehicle cut them off on the sidewalk, surging so close, Canu could feel its slipstream. The troubled eyes of its young driver haunted Canu and snuffed his anger before it could swell. Canu knew that look. He held reservoirs of empathy for fellow tortured souls. He watched the vehicle careen through an alley, into the back lot.

Canu reached the front door of the shop first, finding it as dark and vacant as before. Seor studied the interior carefully, moving between vantage points, holding her hand up to cut the glare.

"Nothing," said Ren. "There's nothing happening in there."

Seor let her hand drop. "Back to the loft, then," she said, and started down the sidewalk. A thin, metallic squeal halted their progress before they had passed the next shop. The noise made the hair on Canu's neck rise. Seor's blade had made the same sound when she had plunged it into the collapsing portal.

The young man who had cut them off, burst from the alley on foot, hair disheveled, shirt-tails dangling. He carried a filmy bag of the type that littered almost every corner of town. It billowed in and out, as if breathing, misty tendrils trailing from punctures, the metallic screech emanating from within. Extending the bag as far as possible from his body, he bustled to the door of the shop and rattled its handle.

He squeezed out a cry of frustration and smacked the glass. His eyes shifted nervously to Canu and his comrades. He bolted back towards the alley.

"Come!' said Seor, with purpose in her eyes.

They walked quickly but discretely, breaking into a sprint only after they turned into the alley. Upon entering the lot, they saw the young man hesitate near a large, overflowing trash receptacle, and then veer towards his red car parked askew the neatly painted grid work of the sparsely populated lot.

"Look at his face!" said Seor. This man has witnessed a convergence."

"And he's about to see another!" said Ren.

"We need to take him," said Seor. "Gently."

"We can't let him drive off," said Canu. "We'll never catch him." He looked for a way to barricade the alley.

"Block his wheels!" said Seor, heading for a heap of shattered masonry piled against a back wall.

Canu ran over and grabbed an armful of bricks mortared together in small clumps. He lurched towards the red car, where the young man stood with the back hatch open, tossing in the now howling bag, mists gushing from ever widening rents. The young man shut the hatch and started to walk away, not intending to enter his car until he saw Canu charging towards him with the bricks.

The young man dashed to the front, opened the door and hopped in. As the door slammed, setting off a series of beeps and clicks, Canu chinked the back wheels forward and back while Ren and Seor finished the job in front.

"I can see the bag in the back," said Canu, pulling on the hatch.

"Just keep him in the car," said Seor. "The stone will handle everything." She displayed her dagger and leered at the young man, making him cower on the bump between his seats.

Every bit of glass in the car fogged over. A shrill wind hissed between crevices along each window and door. The man wiped at the condensation with his bare hand. Strands of long hair plastered against his forehead. He had a hopeless look, like a fawn in the jaws of a wolf.

"Get back!" shouted Seor. "The convergence is coming, and it's a strong one."

A heavy man emerged from the back of a shop, wielding a bright red cylinder.

"Behind you Ren!" Canu shouted. "A man ... with a weapon, I think."

Ren whirled about, reaching for the blade she did not bring. The heavy man pointed a flared nozzle, not at her, but at the car and the storm of mist and leaves raging in its interior. He depressed a lever on the cylinder. White dust blasted out, and covered the car, and a large swath of lot.

With a gargantuan belch, the convergence arrived full-blown. The bog appeared, then sedges, and a whole copse of firs. The car shuddered and jerked backward, its wheels scraping along the pavement, dragging the bricks with them towards the portal. It disappeared into the blur like a rat being swallowed by a snake. Once the entire vehicle was consumed, the portal sealed shut with a rumble that rippled the pavement and shook the air with a muffled explosion, like a massive sail bursting in a gale.

A fragment of xenolith, sackless, spun like a top where the portal had been. It skittered and rolled, settling to a stop by the feet of the heavy man, who dropped the cylinder and backed away from the stone as if it were a viper. Sirens grew in the distance. Canu surged forward, scooped the fragment up, the frigid stone stinging his flesh as he sprinted towards the alley.

*****

Chapter 18: House Arrest

The building and its environs seemed too Spartan for a drug lord's hacienda, but that brought Frank no closer to knowing where he had been taken or why. The accumulated evidence – the arid climate, the bland pilafs and nut pastes – made it clear that he was no longer in Belize. But where would that be? Argentina? Chile?

Those strange trees with sword-like leaves. That hiccupy language everyone spoke. They made him wonder whether he was someplace even farther afield. Maybe even overseas. North Africa, perhaps? Western Asia?

His mind spun off one improbable hypothesis after another: that this might be some sort of CIA social experiment or, more simply, that he was taken hostage by terrorists, or by guerrillas in need of medical expertise.

He had little confidence in any of his hunches, but they were far less preposterous than Tezhay's insistence that he had left the universe of his birth. Why did his captors feel the need to concoct such a ridiculous story? What end did that serve?

He feigned acceptance as best he could, in hopes that it might placate them enough to consider lengthening his leash. At least the place was no Alcatraz. They locked his door at night with a bolt, but his window opened only two flights up from a street. His only guard was Elkaton, a gnome-like man with a nasty-looking halberd, who made his home directly below Frank's window at what appeared to be the main entrance of the building.

Elkaton, unfortunately, was an insomniac. During Frank's first night in the room, every time he went to the window Elkaton would be down there arranging game tiles on a table by candlelight, or standing and stretching, or cooking something in a little pot over charcoal. For now, he bided his time, sequestering the rations he would need when the time came to make his break.

Besides Tezhay and Elkaton, whose main job seemed to be escorting Frank to the latrines, Frank encountered few people other than Mer, the pre-teen who swept his floor and brought him food. On rare occasions, a contingent in long blouses and billowy pantaloons would pass his open door, whispering, trying not to stare. It felt more like a cancer ward than a prison. At night, it felt like a mausoleum.

He spent his days staring out the window, seeking clues to his location. There was not much to go on – stone walls and stucco buildings opposite the structure that confined him, scrubby hills in the distance.

Usually, the streets were deserted. People occasionally passed, mainly on foot, sometimes in carriages drawn by scrawny horses. Never did he see or hear any cars.

The most frequent visitors, a ragtag group of children, came to play in the puddles that collected in gaps in the cobbles, using seed pods as toy boats, scratching pictures in the dirt, sleeping in the shade of doorways.

Elkaton would shoo them away whenever their squabbling annoyed him. Tezhay explained that they were war orphans, left behind in the mass evacuations that had rendered the city mostly vacant.

Tezhay came once a day to tutor him, usually in the late afternoon. One day, his evening meal arrived early, in the midst of one of Tezhay's interrogation/tutorials. At least they weren't trying to starve him. The food was generally edible, though the portions were small.

Frank lifted the upper bowl that capped it, releasing a puff of steam.

"Mind if I eat while it's hot?" said Frank.

"Eat," said Tezhay. "You know how to say eat in Sesep'o?"

The word hovered in Frank's mind. He snatched it. "Uchen."

"Is right!"

"Don't act so surprised. I'm not a dunce." He gestured towards his bowl.

"Want some?"

"No, no thank you," said Tezhay, unable to disguise his distaste. "I have my dinner later."

Frank looked into the bowl. Instead of the mashed tubers he usually found, the bowl contained a pile of something puffy and fried. "Whattaya know? A new chef." He broke one of the puffs in half to reveal a creamy pink interior "What the heck is it?"

Tezhay leaned forward. "It is fish cake," he said. "This is special meal. We in Ubabaor have not so much fish as before."

"Oh? Why's that?" Frank broke a flake off one of the filets and used it to scoop some of the wheat up. They never seemed to give him any utensils, as if he would attack Tezhay if they gave him a spoon.

"Venep'o make us cut off from sea," said Tezhay. "Even from big river, Suul river. No more fish monger come to market. Just we have little pond fish."

"Oh, so this is that siege you were telling me about." Frank played along. It was pretty obvious when Tezhay lapsed into fiction. He would make some mention of the great Venep'o army and some preposterous geography involving cross-continental travel through magical portals. Did he think Frank was a child?

"Maybe the Venep'o would let you all through just to go fishing. Have you asked them?"

"You are being ... fa ... fa ... cetious. Again," said Tezhay. "Why so hard for you to believe me?"

"I don't know, because most of it doesn't make any sense." He had polished off the fish and worked his way through the wheat. Having only two meals a day made him ravenous at meal time, particularly since he was saving the little hard biscuits they gave him with his morning meal for his escape.

"The Venep'o mean to destroy us. You are lucky you come to Ubabaor when there is little fighting. We have truce now, but I think it will not last."

"So what do they want from you all? How'd you become enemies?"

"They take slave. We are enemies merely by existing, by refusing to be their slave."

"I see. And will the UN Security Council be handling this dispute? Have you notified the High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva?"

"You are being this thing again. "Fa ... fa—"

"Facetious? No, this time I'm being sarcastic."
Tezhay looked pained. "Doctor, if you no accept my... truth... it only makes longer your detention. I only have little time to be with you. I am busy man. I have other works."

"So, what do you suggest I do?" said Frank. "Do you have a switch I can flip? A pill I can take to bring my mind into your make-believe world?"

"No," said Tezhay, settling back in his chair. "Just ... open your eyes."

*****

Chapter 19: Upriver

Bag in hand, Vul sauntered upriver, festering over the nerve of Seor, sending him off to deliver food like some errand boy. Maybe she feared he might have harmed the shopkeeper who had ruined their homecoming. Regardless, shuttling food was no task for a warrior.

He kept out of the forest this time, sticking close to the river, its slick ledges and grimy sands. He had left the loft angry, but the music of the riffles and dance of sunlight over them helped salve his frustration.

Rivers spoke to something bedded deep within his fundament. A slow, winding creek had flowed behind his old homestead in Suul. As a boy, he had spent as much time in its muck as a mussel. Entire days he had worked and napped and played in and around the water.

He studied every swirl and eddy, their paradoxical mix of logic and chaos untangling thoughts, floating his darkest intimations around the bend. The universal physics of flow made him feel more connected to this strange world, its unfamiliar plants and animals; the bizarre, almost magical technologies of its people.

He found Cudi sitting watch by the river. Cudi chewed happily and hungrily on one of Ren's befouled round breads, even though his fingers were still greasy from the fish Pari had roasted.

"Just like snakes they were, but with fins and gills." Cudi demonstrated the method he used to pin them in the shallows with a forked stick.

Vul sat with him for a bit while he ate, his gaze drawn to the ceaseless traffic zipping by on the hillside.

"Seor's right," said Vul. "That gravel bank is no place for a xenolith."

Cudi glanced up. "Oh, it's not so bad. The terraces screen it from the road." He ripped a lump of pink flesh from a transparent packet and popped it in his mouth.

Vul pretended to retch. "Seems I'm the only one without a taste for that slime." He collected the bag with the remaining food. "I'm bringing what's left to Pari and Alic, but I can come back to relieve your watch."

"No need," said Cudi. "I'm fine. No place I'd rather be. Close to the portal. I want to be the first to see it return."

"That's four days off, you realize," said Vul. "At least."

"So they say," said Cudi.

Vul shrugged and made his way up over the berm and through the willows to the clearing where the shelter he had started was now complete: sheathed in evergreen boughs and clad against the wind with hunks of driftwood taken from the river. Pari tended a little clay teapot over a well aerated fire that shed but a slender thread of smoke that vanished in the breeze. Pari rushed over and gave him a hug.

"How's everything downriver?" said Pari.

"Some good, some bad," said Vul. "We got a stone, but turns out, it's broken. They're still looking for the other half."

"So maybe that explains what happened to the portals?" said Pari.

"Yes, but exactly what, I'm not sure," said Vul. He ducked his head into the shelter. "Alic?"

Alic sat propped on his elbows in a bed of grass, eyes bright and beetled. Weapons were stacked beside him: crossbows, short swords and a Giep'o longbow. Quivers full of bolts and arrows hung from the shelter's frame.

"How're you feeling?" said Vul.

"Like I was hugged ... by a mountain," said Alic.

Pari poked her head in. "At least he's no longer bleeding. I made sure I stitched him up tight."

"Is he able to walk?" said Vul.

"You kidding?" said Pari. "He wants to take the watch. I could only make him lay down by threatening to withhold his tea."

"Six months with hardly an injury and poor Alic nearly dies on our doorstep," said Vul.

"It's always that way," said Pari. "The last leg home is always the most dangerous."

"Never did like convergences," said Alic. "Not looking forward to the next."

"It'll be fine, Alic" said Vul. "We'll stick you at the top of the queue."

"Cudi insists he wouldn't have gotten stuck," said Pari. "Says he would've forced his way home through sheer power of will."

"That's Cudi for you," said Vul. "Always thinking big."

"It's not that. He thinks he's got a girl waiting for him," said Pari.

Alic joined them outside, ignoring Pari's remonstrations. He moved gingerly, but Vul was impressed he could move at all after what he'd been through. They sat cross-legged in the dirt and picked at the remnants of the roasted fish while Pari brewed another batch of tea.

"Seor wouldn't have approved of your little hearth here," said Vul.

"We had no choice," said Pari, stirring the embers with a twig. "Medical emergency. Alic needed an infusion."

"Was it that or wanting to roast these fish?" said Vul.

"Mmm, maybe a little of both," said Pari. "Can't see wasting a perfectly good fire. Didn't we eat enough raw flesh in Gi?"

They chatted about home, speculating about the good times the comrades who had crossed without them might be enjoying, feeling happy for them and jealous at the same time. Alic barely spoke, his eyes glazed with pain or the effects of Pari's infusion or both.

A mounting pressure in Vul's bladder forced him up and made him wander to the berm bounding the clearing. He strode to the top where he could see a wide stretch of river, golden in the afternoon glow.

In the shallows below, Cudi posed like a statue with his stick, hunting for more snake fish. Vul fumbled with the metal strip that opened up the front of his pants and let spill onto a willow sapling. His gaze drifted to an odd haze over the gravel bank across the water. The air above it rippled like wavy glass. Stunned, Vul let a stream of urine soak his feet.

"The convergence!" he shouted, struggling to close a stuck fly. Cudi looked up, startled, stumbling. Pari bounded dashed to the berm, nearly colliding with Vul as he staggered about with his pants undone. She paid no attention to his difficulties, staring across to the gravel bank.

"For real," said Pari, amazed. "How strange. What should we do?"

"What can we do?" said Vul, securing his trousers. "Nothing. Not without Seor and the others."

Below them, Cudi leaned on his forked stick, watching the portal pulse ever wider. Mists condensed. A strengthening breeze ruffled the weeds and rippled the water.

"Looks like a big one," said Pari. "Shame to waste it."

Cudi waded out into deeper water.

"Where's does he think he's going?" muttered Vul, pushing through the willow saplings crowding the face of the berm. He slipped on loose scree and slid down to the water's edge. When he regained his feet, Cudi stood halfway across the river, thigh deep in the swiftest current. The wind carried the unmistakable pungency of the wild scrub land outside Ubabaor.

A shape congealed in the center of the convergence, like a shadow turned corporeal. A man with a crossbow collapsed in the gravel, lying still for a moment before scrambling to his feet.

"It's ... Pana," said Vul.

"Why would he come back?" said Pari.

Pana plunged into the river and splashed towards Cudi. "Get out! Get away!" Pana shouted. "They're coming!"

"Who's coming?" Cudi shouted back, as Pana closed the gap.

"Crasacs!" said Pana.

"Impossible," Cudi scoffed. "You're fooling with me."

Pana grabbed Cudi's arm. "Come on! There's a whole bleeding regiment surrounding the portal." Cudi shook his arm free. Pana looked pained but continued across, emerging beside Pari and Vul. "Where are your weapons?" he screeched, breathless and frantic. He turned towards the river. "Cudi. Come!"

More opacity filled the portal. Cudi backed away. The shapes resolved into men wearing brown, articulated armor, the red fist of Cra adorning their breastplates. Cudi broke and ran, stumbling over the uneven river bottom. More Crasacs arrived, wobbling into each other, stunned and disoriented.

"Seek cover, you idiots!" said Pana, already over the berm.

One Crasac braced an over-sized, post-mounted crossbow with wings like the bones of a bat, while another adjusted its elaborate sight. Pari stared, frozen to the riverbank. Vul grabbed her vest and hauled her back into the trees.

A bolt the length of a man's leg sprang from the weapon. Cudi dropped to his knees, gasping, fingers clutching a barbed point that had blossomed on his chest like a steel corsage. Pari made a small noise like she had been pricked with a pin. More, smaller bolts flew from the other Crasacs. Most plunged harmlessly into the water, but a few connected. Cudi dropped and let the current take him.

Pari started towards Cudi, but Vul took her arm and dragged her over the berm as bolts flitted softly through the leaves around them. They found Pana lying prone among the willows, face as grim and blank as a Giep'o grave marker. "Get your damned weapons and fetch the others!"

"But ..." Pari started.

"Go!"

They raced back to the shelter. Alic was gone, along with his longbow. Vul handed Pari her gear, grabbed his own axe and crossbow and they returned to the berm.

Pana squinted past them when they returned. "Where's Seor ... and the others?"

"Downriver," said Pari.

"What?" said Pana, face contorted with incredulity. "How far?"

"They went back to town," said Vul.

Pana exhaled explosively. "I wish you'd told me that! How do you expect three of us to take on these bastards? I count eight so far and more coming through."

A flurry of bolts penetrated the branches above their heads, one slapping into a trunk next to Pana's shoulder. Pana ran his finger along its red fletching, wiggled it out and added it to his quiver. Vul sent two bolts back across the river, each only kicking up sand. Pari's bolt, aimed more deliberately, arced into a Crasac and spun him down.

"Seven!" she said, bitterly exultant.

"Nine," said Pana flatly, as two more Crasacs emerged through the portal.

The Crasacs dispersed like ants, found protected positions and kept a steady stream of bolts whizzing across the river.

"That stone needs to be closed," said Pana.

"Closed?" said Pari.

"Destroyed," said Pana. "We have no choice. It's in enemy hands."

"That's insanity," said Vul. "How?"

"I don't know ... yet," said Pana.

On the opposite bank, two pairs of Crasacs had peeled away from the larger group, one pair moving upstream, the other downriver. "They're flanking us!" said Vul. "We'd better move."

They descended the berm and trotted across the clearing towards a mature wood that filled a bend in the river about fifty meters ahead. Copses of young trees interrupted an open terrain of rock and scrub, like a mossy desert.

As the forest loomed, Vul pushed through the saplings close enough to the river to see without being seen. The convergence had waned to a flicker. Only three of the enemy remained in view. Their appearance startled Vul.

One man wore the flowing, blue attire of an Initiate in the Sinkor warrior priesthood. Two soldiers in blue-daubed armor picked themselves up off the gravel and ushered the Initiate up a terrace and out of sight. They were Cuerti, elite guards of the clerical paramilitary, the best trained and armed soldiers in Venen.

Pana came up beside Vul, while Pari watched their back.

"Cra lovers, in Ur," said Vul. "Who would have imagined?"

"Brought here by a traitor," said Pana. "We saw him. Fancy clothes. A rich boy. He led them to the wrong place at first. We watched them search the fields below while the stone was with us, hidden in that grove on the hilltop. But the convergence came. Revealed itself. We were trapped. Surrounded. Couldn't flee. Too many Crasacs and they came too fast."

Vul noticed for the first time, the blood soaking Pana's shirt. "Are you hurt?"

"This is not my blood," said Pana.

"They're coming," said Pari, staring up past the shelter and the berm. The tops of some small trees shivered.

"To the wood," said Pana. They ran through a patch of weak-thorned runners studded with rotten stumps and took refuge in a weedy gully just beyond the first trees. They watched as two Crasacs burst into the open and attacked the empty shelter, sabers drawn. More voices carried from the river's edge.

"They're bracketing us," said Pana. "We need to get away from the river." He led them through the gully, to the corner of the woodlot where a pair of elevated metal rails gashed the forest and separated them from a larger, fenced wood.

"We'll keep under cover and work our way down," said Pana.

"We should try to find Alic," said Pari.

Trodden branches crackled in the wood. "No time," said Pana. "We need to run or we'll be cornered."

Four Crasacs surmounted the hump of gravel bearing the rails. Pari swung her crossbow. "Can I?"

"Do it!" said Pana. "Then run to the next protection. We'll stagger and cover in turn."

Pana dashed away, with Vul one step behind him the instant Pari let her bolt fly. A Crasac clutched his leg and collapsed on the rails. The others retreated down the other side of the gravel bed.

Vul hopped behind an angular boulder. "I'll take this. You cover the next."

"Don't linger too long," said Pana, backpedaling as Pari passed them, flashing a wicked grin. "Find us and pass us." Pana turned and followed after Pari.

Vul propped his crossbow. Both slots held bolts, cocked and ready, but he had no targets in sight. He waited, expecting Crasacs to emerge any second over the rails to his left. To his right, in the wood, the scuff and crackle of leaf litter grew louder. A shape appeared down a narrow lane through the boles. Vul jerked his crossbow over and snapped off a bolt.

Thwack! It missed the corridor completely, striking a tree several steps away.

"Damn!"

Bolts returned from sources unseen, fluttering through the weeds from sources unseen. Vul saved his second shot and wheeled away from the boulder. He found Pari crouched behind a fallen tree, passed her and kept running.

The rails curved, forcing him closer to the river. A spidery, black-framed bridge and a mass of red brick buildings beyond marked the edge of the urban center.

Pari screamed. Vul had never heard her make such a sound. It jangled the length of his spine. He felt as if a bolt had gone through him. He turned back to find her, stomach sinking, as he pictured the condition he would find her, and the onslaught he would face to reach her.

Pari came knifing through the shrubs, bare feet flying, her body unpierced. Vul's heart gave a start of unexpected joy. "I thought you were hit." Relief smoothed his knotted brow.

"Just mad," she said, panting. "I had one ... sighted. Missed him!"

Vul glanced to the river and back. "Over the rails," he said.

Pari charged up and over the graveled hump. Vul waited a few beats and followed, spotting three Crasacs crossing the rails simultaneously between them and the bridge.

As Pari waited in the forest, something charged out of the undergrowth behind her. Vul flipped up his crossbow reflexively.

"Put it down! It's me," said Pana.

"This tactic isn't working," said Vul. "They're coming too quick."

"Determined buggers, aren't they?" said Pari.

"They want us exterminated," said Pana. "Only we know they crossed to Ur."

"So what do we do?" said Pari.

"We run," said Pana.

They fled through scarred and fragmented woods into a rutted and dusty lot littered with concrete pipes and hulking yellow machines. A fence with overhanging coils of sharp-sharded wire blocked their way southward. Vul tried pulling the mesh from the ground as Canu had done, but here it was firmly anchored.

"It's breached close to the river," said Vul.

"I saw movement down there," said Pari. "We'd be ambushed."

"They're coming this way as well," said Pana, staring up the fence line.

"There's a gate, but it's chained," said Pari.

Vul had kept calm thus far, but the doom edging into his comrades' voices stirred inklings of panic. Figures dashed from the wood to the machines behind them. Pari leaped onto the fence and scrambled up the mesh. Somehow she contorted herself around the coils, flipped over the top and released. Her vest snagged in the barbs. She dangled helplessly. Bolts clattered against the fence.

"Cover me," said Vul, easing his axe out of its sling.

Pana, not bothering to aim, dispensed both bolts quickly to keep the Crasacs at bay, reloaded, recocked and scattered two more. Vul reached up his axe and swept it along the fence-top through Pari's vest. It passed through the cloth like a feather through air. She fell free to the other side.

"Run," said Vul. "Warn Seor."

"I'm not leaving you yet," said Pari, slotting two bolts, snapping one off at the Crasacs advancing behind the concrete pipes.

Pana rushed to the gate and rattled it. It had a bit of play despite the chain and padlock. Pana tried to squeeze through, but his hips got stuck. Vul hustled over and barreled into Pana, pushing with all the power he could muster. Pana grimaced, inched slowly forward before squirting through and tumbling. He joined Pari in keeping the Crasacs at bay.

Vul know he had no chance at following the slimmer Pana through the same gap. He straightened some chain links making it slightly wider. A bolt hissed by his ear. He slammed the dull side of his axe against the lock and chain, only scratching the hardened steel. The Crasacs behind the pipes kept popping up to shoot. It was only a matter of time before they brought him down.

One Crasac emerged and took careful aim. Vul dodged away. The Crasac grunted before he got his shot off, falling with an arrow in his back. Another Crasac stumbled out, clutching his stomach.

Alic hobbled up around the pipes, the Giep'o longbow in his grip. Blood gushed from a slash in his neck. Calmly, he threaded another arrow.

"I'll buy you some time," said Alic, hoarsely. "Try the sharp of your axe on that chain."

"Alic, you're small. You can squeeze through," said Vul.

Alic leaned against a pipe. Blood ran from him and trickled down the curve of concrete.

"I'm not going anywhere," said Alic. "This is it for me."

"You're not that badly hurt."

"Venom," said Alic. "I could smell it on the bolt that clipped me. One of these bastards is using venom."

"You can't know that."

"I do. I feel it. And I know how fast it works. Will you smash that damned chain already?"

Bolts chipped into the concrete, liberating little clouds of white dust. Alic send an arrow up the fence line.

Vul flipped his axe over. He lined up its painstakingly honed edge with the low point in the dangling chain. He raised it high, and brought it down hard and accurate against the links. The axe head exploded. The chain separated and the gate flew open.

Vul charged the gap. "Alic, come!" he said, glancing back, as a spear-sized bolt, like the one that felled Cudi, slammed into Alic's side. His longbow went flying.

Pana and Pari flew up from the ground. "Keep running Vul!" said Pari. "Don't stop."

"But ... Alic!"

"Alic's lost," said Pana. "Just keep on running."

*****

Chapter 20: Parallels

Mer brought Frank a bonus with breakfast that morning. Frank received his usual bowl of cracked wheat and crumbly cheese, some unidentifiable fruit, and a coarse biscuit heavy enough to stun a rat. When Mer stepped out, Frank squirreled away the biscuit. But before he could dip his fingers into the steaming bowl, Mer re-entered the room dragging his day pack. The boy left it in the middle of the floor, flashed a smile and left.

Frank hustled over and began ransacking its compartments. The contents were mostly intact. He found his rain poncho folded more neatly than he ever would have bothered. His medical kit had been stripped of all ointments and pills, retaining only bandages and tape. His trail mix had not been tampered with, but his chocolate bars were gone and his tortilla wrap festered with ooze and bristled with mold.

A small zippered pocket on the flap held the keys to his rental car. Frank wondered how many days overdue it was by now, and how the authorities might be reacting. Had those cretins at the rental agency even bothered to report it yet?

He wondered if any of the constables who investigated Liz's disappearance still held office? Might they remember the American lady who vanished without a trace? Would they find it odd to see her husband disappear from the same spot almost twenty years later?

The why of his abduction still puzzled Frank. Tezhay's explanations made no sense, but neither did Frank's working hypothesis that the overgrown quarry in Belize was a staging area for drug smugglers or human traffickers. If these were indeed traffickers, why bother whisking him way to a dusty and decrepit city when they would be asking no ransom? Why not just kill him and dispose of his body in the jungle? Scavengers and decomposers would have made short work of his remains.

This was the part that sent his heart racing: if these same Chiqibul operators were responsible for Liz and Father Leo's disappearance, maybe they hadn't killed them either.

Frank tapped his foot in time to the mazurka percussing in his chest and reached for the foul medicine that Tezhay had given him. A tiny dose, he had found, would calm his heart without extracting its toll of grisly dreams.

His cramping stomach would not let him neglect breakfast all morning. Frank returned to his meal and was just finishing up when Mer came to fetch the empty bowl. As usual, Elkaton came along to escort him to the latrines, wielding his ridiculous halberd indoors and out. From the gouges in the stucco, it was apparent that its top spike had been ravaging the ceilings for ages. They went out into the cool and dry mid-morning air and the stone-faced old man would lean on the burnished shaft of his weapon while Frank did his business, using the basket of wood shavings provided in lieu of toilet paper.

When he left the latrine, he saw Elkaton's halberd leaning against a wall without Elkaton. He heard groaning in the adjacent stall. He waited, noticing an alley that seemed to lead to the road that led by his window. Still, Elkaton failed to emerge. He considered making a run for it, but chickened out.

"Hey, Elkie! You alright in there?" said Frank.

He heard a scrambling and the old man rushed out, retrieving his halberd, regarding Frank suspiciously with his palsied eye. The old man urged him back into the building with a grunt and a shake of his halberd.

Tezhay stood waiting in the corridor outside his room as they came up the stairs.

"I come to tell you, I hear I will be travel soon," said Tezhay, dismissing Elkaton with a nod.

Frank leaned against the wall. "Oh yeah? Where to?"

"Is my business," said Tezhay."

"Will you be gone long?"

"Yes."

The announcement twanged Frank's equilibrium harshly. Tezhay was his only real liaison to this strange place. To whose mercy would Frank now be subjected? Unless it also meant—

"Are you letting me go?"

"No," said Tezhay.

"Why not?"

"You not ready," said Tezhay. "I will try to arrange another tutor. I don't know if is possible."

"Why keep me?" said Frank. "What good does it do you all?"

"Is not for us," said Tezhay. "Is for you not safe. You still no understand."

"Because I think you're full of shit when you tell me this is some kind of Wonderland?"

"Is part, yes," said Tezhay.

"What if I never accept it?" said Frank.

"You will," said Tezhay. "You have no choice."

Frank sat down on the stool outside his door where Elkaton sat when he waited for Frank to dress. "You expect to brainwash me?"

"Is not brain wash," said Tezhay. "Some exile have not so much problem as you. You are more difficult than most."

"How many folks have you guys kidnapped?"

"Not kid nap. Exile," said Tezhay. "Over years, we take maybe hundreds."

Frank sat up straighter. "How long have you all been doing this?"

"Always," said Tezhay. "Ever since Philosophers have been using stones."

"What ... stones?"

"Is too hard to explain."

"Try me."

"Best word I find in your language is ... xenolith."

"Zanoleet?" Frank wrinkled his brow. "Come again?"

"Is stone that exist in two place at once," said Tezhay. "Like ocean tide, every so on it pull a piece of one place into the other."

Made no sense, like everything else Tezhay tried to tell him about Ubabaor and Sesei.

"Where do you keep these other hostages of yours?" said Frank.

Tezhay sucked air through his teeth. "We no keep," said Tezhay, voice rising. "Is not hostage. And is not always us taking them. Some come by self, by accident. But when we find, we help them."

"Help? You think this is helping me?"

"Not you. You exile. Is different."

"So where are these other ones?" said Frank. "Where do they go?"

Tezhay looked out the widow. "War make things complicate," he said. "In early days, the Philosopher keep them hiding, to keep xenolith secret from our own people. Most in Piliar, where the big Academy stays. Since war, many exile become scattered. Some here, like you, some Piliar, some even far away across the ocean."

An ember flared in Frank's heart. No arrhythmic contortion of his cardiac muscles, this palpitation felt like hope.

"Is Piliar far?"

"Not so far before war. Ocean is maybe two days travel by horse. You can see Piliar from coast. But since war, it is impossibly far without stone.

Liz. That's all he could think about. This is what happened to Liz.

*****

Chapter 21: Cadre

Seor had never heard a portal seal so emphatically, rippling the pavement like a carpet, rattling windows, setting off alarms blocks away. Canu ran down the alley as if hell itself was sucking at his heels. She and Ren could barely keep up.

Seor feared that their running would mark them with suspicion, but they were far from alone. Everywhere people fled shops and abandoned vehicles, some to flee, others running closer to see what had happened.

As they weaved through the chaos gripping the sidewalks, Seor spotted the side street she had taken when she returned from caching the other fragment.

"Left, Canu" Seor called to him. Dutifully, he veered without slowing or glancing back.

People approached them on the steep road, inquisitive faces spouting unintelligible words but obviously asking what had happened. Seor could only shrug and move on. At the top of the hill, Canu slowed to a brisk walk and she and Ren could finally catch up. Vehicles with sirens wailing blasted past the intersection below.

They paused for breath, but Seor didn't like the eyes being directed towards them by people gathered on their stoops.

"This way," she said, leading them through a grassy sward into a strip of scraggly woodland bordering a stream that provided the only cover in an area thick with houses. They moved upstream along a narrow footpath, often impeded by fallen trees and waist-high tangles of creeper.

One of the ubiquitous vehicles with blue lights up high screamed down a road paralleling the stream. They dropped down, crouching in the mud. Canu released the bunched front of his shirt where he had clutched it up against his belly. The xenolith fragment slipped free and stuck in the mud by his feet. Frost caked the cloth where the stone had contacted it. The skin on his stomach flared red, bitten by the cold.

"Let us ... catch our breath," said Seor, panting heavily.

"That roar," said Ren. "I've never heard such a noise."

"It was all that metal inside that vehicle," said Seor. "It amplified the field."

"Why was he bringing it back to the shop?" said Ren.

"Who knows?" said Seor. "Maybe it scared him. Maybe he wanted to sell it back."

"At least he's gone and exiled himself," said Canu. "Saved us the trouble."

So soon after a convergence, the xenolith fragment sitting in the mud seemed almost alive. Its colors cycled between gold and blue and violet. Tiny tendrils of mist curled away, some curling back in, adding to the spike of rime ice growing on it. She marveled at how much power could be contained in such a small stone.

Another screaming car whizzed down the road. "Looks like we've stirred up the locals," said Seor. "Come. Let's get this to its new resting place before it gets dark." She knocked away frost and peeled off chunks of frozen mud.

They continued up the stream bed, passing through a shallow ravine where the bedrock protruded through the thin topsoil like bones through skin. A series of cascades tumbled over steps of mossy stone, leading them like a staircase to an area where the houses became more widely spaced, the woodlots wider and deeper.

The stream leveled off and deepened. It meandered through a terrace, skirting the yard of a large house that was separated from the wilds by a moat of green lawn. A swampy patch carpeted with skunk cabbage and fern separated it from the next house and yard. Mosquitoes descended, nettles stung her calves as they slogged through the mud to a place where the stream converged with another road, bending until it ran parallel and adjacent.

Seor started up the embankment. "This is where we cross," she said, pausing in a patch of tall weeds flanking the roadway, their frothy, white blooms buzzing with bees. Her face tensed. She peered down the road, warily. "Someone's coming!" she said, dropping down. Ren fell to her knees and froze. She stopped Canu with her hand.

Seor crawled back from the road, panic in her eyes.

"What's wrong?" said Ren.

A woman stalked cautiously down the other side of the road. She carried a crossbow and wore camouflage. The black-striped band of a cadre soldier emblazoned her upper arm.

Ren stood, excited. "She's cadre! Look at her! She's Sesep'o!

"Ren, stay down, keep quiet!" scolded Seor.

"But ... she's one of us."

"Down, Ren!" hissed Seor, her eyes panicked.

*****

Chapter 22: Baren

Agitated bees, dislodged in Seor's rush to conceal herself, circled the space where she had just stood, sketching her impression in swoops and squiggles. As she hunkered in the weeds, watching, her comrades sat inert as fungi beneath the ferns.

The scout moved with extreme, tactical caution, squinting into the undergrowth like a fox sniffing for mice. She carried a sleek crossbow of a type only issued to cadre. Her clothes, a patchwork of hues and textures ideal for concealment in the dry plains of Ubabaor contrasted starkly with the lush vegetation of the roadside.

Seor cursed under her breath. Dew slickened her palms. Prickles swarmed her cheeks. The odds of such an encounter should have been vanishingly small. Gondelfi had selected this portal for them because of its disuse; kept in reserve in case the primary routes to Gi became blocked. Seor crept down the embankment to where Canu sat, his cheek furred with half-fed mosquitoes.

"Give that to me," she whispered, thrusting out her hand.

Canu passed the still cool xenolith to her, and she heaved it across the stream into a patch of ferns. Canu shared a puzzled look with Ren.

"No matter what happens, not a word about this. Understand?" said Seor.

An alarm whistle sounded from the road, conveying position and distance using the simple tonal patterns every militia recruit learned. Seor's first instinct was to run. But these were Cadre. First class trackers, all of them. Her mouth parched. Her thigh muscles quaked as she crouched. How could she fear her own countrymen so?

Seor whistled back, posing a basic friend or foe inquiry. Silence. After a long pause, someone in the forest upstream from them whistled back a request: "Identify yourself."

"We may as well show ourselves," said Seor. Seor whistled back a generic identifier for provincial militia without mentioning a specific province. She climbed the embankment, waited for a vehicle to pass, music thundering through open windows, and stepped out into the road, Ren and Canu on either side.

The scout had retreated behind some trees. She raised her crossbow from the shadows.

"Come no further," said the scout.

"She treats us like the enemy," muttered Canu.

"She's only being cautious," said Ren.

Footsteps and voices came from where they had just been. The rest of the cadre had circled around from across the stream, passing right over the spot where she had tossed the xenolith. Seor looked straight ahead as they came up the embankment.

"This place is too visible," said one of the men. "Take them across the road."

The scout motioned for them to move.

They crossed the road together and climbed an exposed ledge, damp with seepage, onto a forested slope. Seor could see from the others' marking that they belonged to the Second Gi Expeditionary Force, the very unit she expected to join before Gondelfi had conscripted them, and the very unit he had warned her to avoid at all costs.

One by one, the cadre crossed the road, spaced like drips from a faucet. The scout had them move upslope until they were deep within the margins of a mature forest, behind a dense veil of younger trees.

"That's enough," said the leader, as the others came around and encircled them, keeping their distance.

"Counterforce?" said a burly man with hands that looked twisted, as if he had broken all his fingers and they had healed improperly.

"I doubt it," said the leader. "Look at them."

"Why else would they be here?"

The leader shrugged.

"Get down on your knees and disarm," said the burly man.

"What for?" said Canu. "Can't you see we're Sesep'o?"

"We'll discuss that once you're on your knees and disarmed," said the leader.

Seor caught Canu's attention and motioned for him to get down.

The cadre leader looked young; older than Ren and Canu, but younger than Seor. He wore a jerkin of finely woven fabric, intended more for city wear than rough duty in the forests. Snags and mud clumps marred its surface.

"Toss everything you have where only Ara can reach them," he said, indicating the scout who had discovered them.

Ren and Canu looked to Seor, who nodded back curtly, removing a tiny obsidian knife from its anklet sheath. Ren added a small dagger, Canu a short, broad skinning blade.

"Satchels, too," said the one they called Ara.

Seor handed it over, tabulator and all. Ren and Canu tossed their satchels down.

"Should I bind them?" said Ara.

The leader flicked his head. "No need." He lowered his crossbow and raked Seor with eyes that blazed with feverish intensity. "Who are you people? Why are you here?"

Seor forced a smile. "I am Seoreseffon, a captain of the militias. With me are Canuchariol and—"

"Introductions, how sweet," said the leader, oozing sarcasm. "I am Barenitoulas. Commander Baren, to you. But I don't care about names. Baas, my lieutenant, suspects you might be renegades – a provincial counterforce. Might he have a case?"

"What?" said Seor.

"Commandos? Provincial elites? Sent to disrupt?" said Baren. His eyes probed for a reaction. Seor kept her expression blank as the sand behind a falling tide.

The truth behind the accusation staggered her, even though she never considered her group renegade. They were loyal provincial militia sent to gather information for a Councilor. It should have been obvious her group was far from elite. They would have been lucky to force a Giep'o homestead to give up their beets. They were scouts, not warriors, trained only to roam the countryside like wraiths, avoiding all encounters.

"Didn't think so," said Baren. "But the question remains ... who are you and why are you here?"

"We're ... lost," said Seor. "Stranded. The Urep'o took the stone, displaced it."

"Urep'o?" said Baren. "Why are you even using this stone? This is not a normal conduit for militia maneuvers."

"We had no choice," said Seor. "Our tabulator guided us here."

"And where did you get this quite fascinating – and familiar looking – tabulator?"

"It was issued to us," said Seor.

"By?"

"Cadre command."

Baren sighed. "Highly doubtful. But possible, I suppose. Mistakes do happen." He looked over at his lieutenant. Seor had the impression that this man with crumpled hands wasn't impressed one bit with her story.

"What is this you said about the Urep'o displacing the stone?" said Baren.

"Yes, they took it," said Seor. "A man was selling it in his shop. But we got it back."

"It was for sale?"

"Yes."

"So how did you retrieve it?"

"We bought it."

Nervous laughter broke out among the cadre, except for the burly one – Baas.

"Amazing," said Baren. "So preposterous, I almost think it can't be a lie. What do you think, Baas?"

"I still think they're counterforce," said Baas.

"Bah," said Baren. "If this is the best they can muster, we have nothing to worry about."

"What about the relay?" said Ara, the scout.

"It's in place," said Seor. "But we were thinking about bringing it here to keep it safe."

"How do you justify such meddling?" said Baren. "Xenoliths should be none of your business. If what you say is true, you should have simply reported the incident to cadre and moved on. Let us decide how to handle it. Is that not the usual procedure?"

"This was an emergency," said Seor. "The Urep'o possessed a stone. The matter had to be handled right away."

Baren ruminated, staring at her like someone teasing apart a puzzle. His eyes seemed intelligent and inquisitive, not unkind. He looked remarkably well-groomed for someone who had been living in the wilds of Gi for nearly a year. He reminded Seor of the young men from the wealthy families that dominated the affairs of Ubabaor City. She couldn't decide whether the resemblance derived more from fashion or inbreeding.

"How far are we from the relay?" said Baren. "Can you take us there?"

"Oh ... no!" said Seor. I mean, the relay's not far, maybe an hour's walk. But we can't be seen. None of us. The Urep'o witnessed our convergence. Their constables are out looking for us. Don't you hear those sirens?"

"We have no choice," said Baren. "We're here to ... escort dignitaries ... from Ubabaor. They're expecting us at the other portal."

"Oh, but you see, that's okay," said Seor. "We have people waiting at the relay who would have greeted them," said Seor.

"You do?" Baren's voice cracked. He seemed not at all comforted by Seor's admission. Baren looked to Baas. "Quite the mess, isn't it Baas? What do you suppose we do now?"

"We go anyway," said Baas, spitting out a twig. "Ignore what they say."

"You all? You won't get far," said Seor. "The Urep'o are agitated. Many witnessed our convergence."

Baren's eyes bulged. "Many, did you say?"

"I told you. The stone was in a shop. A public area. Constables in vehicles are patrolling everywhere. Even up here. You've seen the blue lights, no?"

Baren snapped twigs off a dead branch. "I suppose ... I suppose it's prudent to scout first. Ara, here speaks Urep'o. Can one of your group show her the way?"

"I'd be glad to," said Seor.

"No, not you," said Baren. "Anybody but you. I want you with us. To give you a chance to clarify some things. And I'm sure Baas and I will have more questions. Won't we, Baas?"

Baas flicked his brow in agreement.

"I can go," volunteered Canu.

Seor nodded her assent. Better him than Ren, who could be a little too deferent to authority. Canu, at least, would give them a hard time. The abuse his cadre instructors directed his way had cultivated his distaste for all things cadre. Seor could count on him to be less cooperative.

"She's going to need some Urep'o clothing," said Seor.

"There's some extra in there," said Ren, pointing to her satchel lying among the dead leaves.

The scout, Ara, opened the flap and pulled out a navy blue pullover decorated with the stylized image of a man's hatted head in profile, red and white banners trailing to a point.

Baren touched Ara's arm and whispered. "Use your judgment. See how much of this caution is truly necessary. And apologize to our guests. Tell them we'll travel soon, as soon as we can guarantee their security."

There was much advice that Seor wanted to give Canu but couldn't in front of Baren. She could only trust that Canu would do the right thing when the time came. He knew the stakes.

*****

Chapter 23: Liberation Day

Frank sipped from a small bowl of something slightly sweet and alcoholic, thankful to Mer for leaving a pitcherful behind. As eerily still as the city Tezhay called Ubabaor could feel in the daytime, at night it achieved a silence sepulchral in its depth. The oil lamp on the table flickered and threatened to blink out. Shadows encroached and receded but a dim glow held on as Frank sat in bed knotting together bits of string. Drapery pulls, fence lashings, threads ripped from carpets. He tested each length with a tug before winding it onto an accumulating wad.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor. He tucked the string under his blanket and hustled to the window to shove his day pack behind the draperies. The latch slid open. The door opened slightly. Tezhay leaned in.

"I come to say goodbye. In the morning, I go," Tezhay said, eyes distant, already departed. "They may send other tutor to you. I hope so, they can. I be back, maybe two week, three," said Tezhay."

No news here. Tezhay had been talking about leaving for days. Frank didn't know what to say. Asked repeatedly about his destination, Tezhay always dodged, saying: "My usual work. Checking xenolith. Courier." Begging to be released was also futile, and at this point, moot.

"Send me a postcard," he said wearily.

"I'm sorry that we must keep you here. Is difficult to find you a better place right now.

I will have Mer bring you some things I have. Some English books. Some things for writing. Keep you busy."

"I look forward to it," he said flatly, smirking. The one book Tezhay had shared so far was a warped, water-damaged copy of "Blueberries for Sal," a sixty page children's story. He wondered what other fine literature graced Tezhay's library.

Tezhay forced a smile and nodded as he leaned back out of the room. When the latch slid closed Frank got off the bed and slipped his pack back out from behind the drapes and finished packing, zipping his passport into the outside flap of his day pack, stuffing a water bottle in a side compartment. The main compartment already held a thin blanket, the cotton chambray shirt and nylon cargo pants and he had worn on the day of his abduction and a half-dozen hard biscuits salvaged from breakfast.

Frank slept fitfully that night, awakening several times with cold sweats and palpitations. He got up before the sun, and sat in a chair by the window to wait for the sky to lighten. He had slept in his traveling clothes – taupe trousers and a dark blue tunic with ribbon ties – so he had no need to dress. He hoped it would help him blend in better with the locals. He would use the floppy straw hat that Mer had given him to hide his pasty features. It hung on a wire hook in the wall, edges frayed and unsprung as if it had weathered an attack from a goat.

When the sun's oblique and golden rays finally washed the stucco facade across the road, he heard Mer come humming down the hall. A kettle clanked down in the corridor. Knuckles rapped on the heavy wooden door.

"Hoat watah! Brefess!" He had been giving the boy a crash course in English in the long hours between Tezhay's visits.

Mer fiddled with the latch, struggling to undo it. The door pushed open and he bustled in, kettle in one hand, a pair of inverted bowls balanced in the other.

"Thanks Mer," Frank took the kettle. "And how are you today?"

"Ah em gud. Ha waryoo, dooktor frenk? Hayoo sleep?" Mer put the bowls on the table and pulled a spoon from his waist band.

"Slept great. What's for breakfast?" Mer just blinked at him, placing the bowls on the table by the window. But he knew the answer: biscuits and porridge. The menu had yet to vary, though to be fair; the porridge did shift in viscosity and meat particle content. He poured some hot water into a glazed terra cotta basin and washed his face as Mer watched cross legged on the floor. Frank made the mistake of trying to drink some of the kettle water the day before. It tasted like burnt bacon, ashy with an aftertaste of tin. He was glad to have filled the bottle in his pack with the cool, sweet water from the well in the courtyard, though its proximity to the latrines out back did worry him.

Frank smoothed his greasy hair back and rubbed the lengthening stubble on his face. Tezhay hadn't let him anywhere near a blade. He dried his hands on the drapery, peering out the window to see the road empty as usual, but for a trio of homeless orphans huddled near an intersection with a larger street. Not a single internal combustion engine disturbed the peace.

Frank was relieved to see a pair of scrawny legs protruding from beneath the arbor-like awning two floors below. The old guard, Elkaton, had returned. The day before, an aggressive and vigilant young man, disturbingly fond of blade-throwing, had replaced Elkaton. Frank worried the change might be permanent. Maybe it had simply been the old man's day off.

Frank sat and ate what he could of the gruel. Dipping the biscuits barely softened them. It was like dunking stones. At least he could be assured that the ones he had packed away would keep well.

When Mer left with the dirty bowls, he went back to the window. Elkaton had already left his post to come up and escort him to the latrines. Frank quickly slipped his pack from behind the drapes and stuffed it out the window, lowering it slowly on the knotted cord. Knots loosened and slipped as he fed it down the wall. Elkaton appeared at the door like an apparition, much quicker than Frank expected. Frank let go of the cord. He heard the pack bounce off the awning and onto the street. Frank tossed the end out the window casually, as if he were discarding a piece of trash. Elkaton's dyspeptic face gave no sign of suspicion.

The old man led him down the wide staircase into the courtyard and out the back of the building. He entered a latrine stall with Elkaton staring after him, drew the curtain and paused, listening carefully. The halberd clanked against stone. He waited a couple of seconds and slipped out. Elkaton stood leaning with his halberd propped against a wall, but he popped upright and gripped the weapon in both hands when he saw Frank emerge.

Flustered, Frank shook his head and went back into the stall. On all prior potty runs, Elkaton had never failed to use the second latrine after Frank had entered the first. He drained his bladder struggling to formulate an alternative plan. It wouldn't take much to overpower the old man. Close in, the halberd would be useless.

Frank burst out of the latrine to find Elkaton in a fighting stance with the halberd crossed in front of his body, his robe drawn back to provide access to a long dagger sheathed on his hip. Frank chickened out, nodding meekly to the old man, whose one good eye pinned him with a murderous gaze.

Elkaton jerked his chin towards the building, urging Frank back in. He complied, head down, his spirits sinking below the paving stones, wondering how he was going to explain his pack on the awning. Excited voices drew their attention to the alley. Two boys stood fighting over his cargo pants.

"Hey! They've got my stuff!"

Elkaton took a second to process the scene, then charged down the alley halberd first, his face fixed in a rictus of outrage. The boys separated in a panic, leaving the pants behind as Elkaton chased them out onto the street. There, a girl knelt by the pack, pulling out biscuits one by one. She screamed and ran off juggling biscuits when she saw Elkaton. One of the boys slipped trying to climb a fence and got hung up on a splinter. Elkaton hobbled after him, roaring.

Frank, standing by the alley, saw his pack lying in the street. He grabbed it ran. As he turned the corner onto the next street he heard Elkaton roar as if his lungs were on fire. He ducked into the doorway of an abandoned structure and found his way into a garden. Elkaton's halberd came bouncing along the top of a stone wall. He heard the old man's raspy breath. Frank ducked under an arch and ran the opposite way, past the street of his detention, down the next road beyond.

Frank ran himself dizzy and slowed to a shuffle choosing paths randomly through the city's dense warrens and snaking alleys. When he caught himself backtracking, he used a bank of hills to guide his flight in a consistent direction. He hoped to find a populated area, and then, ideally, a telephone or internet café. He knew the State Department's travelers' hotline by heart: (202) 647-5225 and had a card with all the local AT&T access numbers. He just needed to know what country this was.

Frank passed block after block of empty buildings, but not a single car or truck or motorcycle. Windrows of dust and leaves covered the cobbled streets in herringbones. Goats browsed freely in untended gardens. The few people he came upon withdrew shyly when they saw him. They all seemed elderly or maimed.

Frank found a marketplace, deserted but for a few stalls selling beans and grain. There was no trace of any of the cheap consumer detritus from China normally so ubiquitous in such places. No Coca-Cola logos or corporate insignia of any sort. A few signs bore the indecipherable script that Tezhay had attempted to teach him: wedge shapes and curlicues, circles with tails.

An alley spilled him into an oblong plaza where the wind had sorted bits of debris into piles. A fountain at the center trickled into a stagnant pool, spoiled with algae. He kicked at a pile and it flew apart into scattered dun strips of cloth, stained dark. Bandages. Pits and crevices in the cobbles also bore remnants of blood.

Across the plaza, a flock of birds settled onto a picked-over garbage heap. They were pretty for scavengers, with blue faces and golden crests. They used their wings oddly to pull at bits of trash. Closer, he could make out bat-like thumbs on their leading edge, like young hoatzins. The sight made him dizzy for a moment and pushed the oddity of his situation beyond the threshold of deniability.

Frank pushed on, vigor dampened, feeling less confident in his salvation. That clean bed, those hot meals twice a day beckoned him back. He considered returning to the house, reconciling with Elkaton and retreating back to his room to wait for Tezhay, who would find him a more willing student when he returned.

But stubbornness won. Frank jammed his inner motor into gear and kept plodding onward, drawing curious glances from the smattering of people he encountered, mostly elderly or amputees. Frank set his chin firmly, eyes forward, like someone important late for a critical appointment; a man not to be messed with. He strode with purpose, as if zipping on a beeline to a familiar destination. In Nairobi and Mogadishu, this old method of navigating dodgy urban wastelands had helped him evade hassles from bad boys and street hustlers. Here, in Ubabaor, the residents barely noticed him. In truth, he had no goal. He walked in ever-widening circles. But the act helped calm his apprehensions.

Frank's persistence was rewarded several streets on when he reached a broad avenue running beside a wall several stories tall, where he finally found activity worthy of a city: carts loaded with baskets of grain, goats threading through a breach in the wall, workers mixing mortar and hauling stone to repair it. Soldiers milled about, many bearing crossbows, none carrying guns of any sort.

The road led to a gate that opened onto an expanse of fields. Mirrors flashed from a watchtower beside it, responding to flashes from another tower far down the road. The soldiers manning the gate seemed oblivious to his presence and he walked right by. They seemed quite young and the women seemed about as numerous as the men.

The land immediately beyond the wall was heavily trampled and littered with broken wagons. A few patches of broad-leafed crops struggled to grow in places where someone seemed to have taken the trouble to weed them. Some fields displayed rows of bright, almost fluorescent, green grass that reminded him of Ethiopian tef.

An outer, lower wall lay several kilometers out from the gate. Between the walls lay a barrier constructed of uprooted tree trunks, roots entangled and facing outward. Many were charred or destroyed by flames. Clusters of little round shelters sprouted like puffball mushrooms throughout the fields.

Frank caught up with a train of empty wagons. The farmers who drove the wagons snuck furtive glances at him, but their gazes never lingered. A group of goat herders heading towards the city tossed him a greeting, as they did to all they passed. Behind them came a wagon bearing blocks of peat.

As Frank approached the lumpy outer wall, he could see that it had once been an orderly and orthogonal assemblage of stone and brick, but had been shattered into rubble throughout its length. Gaps had been repaired with simple heaps of earth. Sharp, fire-hardened wooden pikes studded the trenches behind them, angling outward.

The road intersected another inside and paralleling the city side of the wall. The sparse traffic coming from Ubabaor seemed to separate here, turning mostly left, sometimes to the right onto a lesser road that paralleled the wall. Only a sinewy, older man carrying a plow hitch over his shoulder headed for a gate manned by a pair of sentries.

Frank plodded onward, leery of what lay ahead, but reluctant to turn onto the other road or turn around. In spite of all the oddities he had witnessed, he was not quite ready to topple the rickety mental construct he had erected to explain his fate. He could only hope that if he walked far enough he would eventually come across a place he recognized, or could at least identify.

As Frank walked on and his freedom become ever more apparent, a sprig of optimism re-sprouted in him. Maybe getting home wouldn't be as simple as booking a flight, but at least his fate rested in his own hands once more, or rather, in his feet. His feet would have to get him where he needed to go. He had already done the hard part – extricating himself from captivity.

Frank looked back at the foothills that rose in tiers behind Ubabaor, clouds hinting of a larger range looming beyond them. Spurs of uplands embraced the city on either side. Passing through the second gate would take him into a broad savannah where arrays of broad mesas plied the sea of grass like convoys of aircraft carriers.

Frank caught up with the man carrying the plowshare to make it seem like they were traveling together, perhaps to plow the fields beyond the gate. The soldiers at the second gate looked on lackadaisically, and let them pass without challenge.

The man with the plowshare gave him a wary look as he veered off the road a short ways beyond the wall, heading down a footpath to a half-collapsed shed. Frank just smiled at him and nodded. He glanced back at the wall and its string of sentries standing every hundred meters or so. Worried, he looked about for signs of threat worthy of such defenses. A few structures stood scattered in the fields that he had initially mistaken for barns, but now he noticed the large wheels taller than a man's height, and massive rams mounted in front. Down the road, there seemed to be a watchtower by the road looming over a shallow valley that nestled a small river, with a mesa rising off the gentle slope beyond.

He continued on to the watchtower; a heavy wooden shack with slanting walls mounted on pilings ten meters tall. On its roof stood a large round mirror, ensconced within a dark cowling to disguise flashes from those not intended to see. A collection of boulders and uprooted tree trunks blocked the roadway beside it. A system of trenches flanked the tower, forming a chevron that angled back about fifty meters on either side. The road detoured along a crude track that swept along the back of the trenches.

As he approached he could see that this would be the final obstacle between him and the valley. The valley itself looked inviting, with round, yurt-like farmhouses dotting the landscape and grain fields rippling in the wind. He stepped up his pace, feeling compelled to put Ubabaor behind him no matter what lay ahead on the road.

The soldiers at the watch tower seemed much more alert and heavily armed than those back at the city wall. Several watched him approach, crossbows at the ready, but pointing at the earth. Frank passed the detour by, heading for a gap in the barricade that looked wide enough to thread his way through. As he came up behind the last row of boulders a sentry stepped out to confront him.

One clucked rapidly at Frank in a scolding tone, his phrasing distinctly lacking the polite pronouns that Tezhay had attempted to teach him and well stocked with the adjectives for "stupid" and "old" and "foreigner." Frank just nodded back and smiled.

"Why, thank you, and fuck you too, for that matter."

He walked straight ahead, barely glancing at him, pretending that he had pressing business in the valley, matters beyond his station. The sentries made no attempt to physically bar him and he squeezed through the narrow space between the tangled roots of the massive stumps and the base of the tower, he could hear them laughing at him. Another descended the tower and engaged the others heatedly in an argument that faded with every step he took beyond the road block.

Now he walked free and clear, with nothing but sprawling sky and open road ahead. Nothing stood between him and the truth. He would learn firsthand what this world was about, unfiltered by those who might wish to delude him. But he couldn't decide if his pulse raced more from fright or exhilaration.

The landscape bore many signs of war, but no evidence of any recent fighting. He passed un-threshed grain fields still bearing the remnants of a prior season's un-harvested crop. Farmhouses abandoned, some burnt, some destroyed. The remains of cattle and dogs, some skeletal, some mummified.

The land lay so open that he could spot any threats that approached from kilometers away. Who would bother with a lone and pudgy wanderer?

*****

Chapter 24: Crasacs in the Factory

Vul gazed into the shadowy corner of the factory loft. "No one's here," he said, calling down the stairs to Pari, who guarded the door. "They left their weapons behind."

Pana stood by a window, watching the fence line. "Doesn't look like they're coming," he said. "Hopefully, they've given up."

Somehow, Vul still felt like prey. He lifted the tarp in the corner of the loft and retrieved the long dagger he had stashed there the morning before. Re-sheathing his blade made him feel clothed again.

The others' blades lay in place: the double curve of Seor's, Ren's simple arc – their natural lines both evoking wind-blown reeds frozen in mid-sway. Canu's angular slab, favoring function over form, looked like something the child of a blacksmith hammered out.

Vul looked up to find Pana, glaring at him, looking agitated.

"Quicker, Vul, we need to get out of here."

"Why?" said Vul. "We can fight them from here." He looked around the loft. Its windows afforded clear views in several directions; the dirt road entering the complex from the back, the gap in the perimeter fence beside a scraggly woodlot, a stretch of bank where the river curved upstream.

"This is not a good place, Vul," Pana insisted, looking down the lone staircase leading up to the loft. The door below sat askew on its broken hinges. "They can use other buildings to cover their approach. We have only one exit. We would get a few bolts off, but then they would trap us."

Pari strolled over to the bank of windows facing the fence-line. "Maybe they won't come any farther," she said. "Why would they? What good does it do them to exterminate us?"

The window shattered. Pari fell in a shower of glass as a heavy bolt slammed into the ceiling dropping a hail of plaster.

"Pari!" Vul rushed over, skidding on his knees to her side. Blood dripped from her cheek. She leaned over on all fours and shook off bits of glass like a wet dog.

"I'm going out," said Pana. "I fight on the move, not in a cage."

Vul's eyes met Pari's. Without a word, they rushed downstairs after Pana into the machine-cluttered bay below the loft. Pana already had the door partway open and peering up and down the lane. Vul came up beside him and flinched at a movement to their left. One of the homeless Urep'o pushed a metal cart towards them from the other end of the factory complex. Vul sighed through his teeth. In the other direction, no Crasacs could be seen.

"Step back, Vul," said Pana. He kicked the door open. Several bolts flashed by, one passing cleanly through a broken pane.

"I think we're safer in here," said Vul.

"No," said Pana, stone-faced. "I'll draw their fire. Get ready to move out." He stepped out, employing the door as a shield. Bolts flew at them from the woods beyond the fence. A spear-sized shaft thudded into the door.

"Now!" said Pana.

Vul and Pari darted out, angling away from the fence to an open bay in a building across the lane. A scattering of bolts zipped through the air in their wake. They dove feet first into the bay, sliding to safety.

Pana remained at the door, aiming his twin-bolted crossbow through the broken window towards the fence. He sent his first bolt into a clump of grass. His second bolt clattered against metal. He dropped down and reloaded.

Vul tried to pinpoint Pana's target. An elbow protruded from behind a heap of rusted metal near the fence. He raised his bow, but couldn't gain a clean sight line. Too many obstructions, he decided. He didn't waste his bolts.

Pari crawled to the edge of the opening, her crossbow ready to fire. Crasacs had infiltrated the complex, flitting between covering positions, edging closer. The homeless person stopped in the center of the lane, muttering angrily and waving a bolt she had picked up off the pavement. Pari grabbed a hunk of brick and chucked it at her, banging it off her cart. The lady looked shocked. She withdrew slowly with her cart, still muttering, keeping it between her and Pari. A cluster of errant bolts whistled past Pana and skidded down the lane by her feet. She left the cart pirouetting in the lane and took off in a waddling panic.

Vul saw Pana nudge a brick in place with his foot to prop the door open. Vul let both bolts fly and retreated, sidling against the building wall until he disappeared around its corner. Several Crasacs exploded from cover and came behind the building before Vul could even react. Others flowed from the fence to backfill their positions.

"They're closing!" said Pari, bounding to her feet. "There's too many, Vul. Come!"

Vul fired a bolt. It caught a Crasac high and swatted him down like a gnat. Vul lingered and grinned.

"Vul! No time for gloating. Come on," said Pari.

She found a door that exited into a side alley. Vul followed her out and headed for the back of the building.

"What about Pana?" said Pari, hanging back. "Shouldn't we cover him, so he can cross?"

Vul, nervous, looked back quickly over his shoulder. "Do you see him?"

Pari stepped reluctantly towards the lane. "No," she said.

"It might be better that we split," said Vul. "The Crasacs can't focus their attack."

Pari's face creased, but she remained silent.

"Oh, come on!" said Vul. "Pana's a good fighter. He'll do fine on his own." Vul turned the corner around the back of the building, down a passage shaded by trees overhanging a fence atop a concrete retaining wall. The homeless people had built a crude shelter from wood scraps and wavy sheets of metal, roofed with a dirty blue cloth fastened with bits of wire.

Vul lifted a flap and peeked in. A tangled-haired woman lay curled on a mattress beside a man sitting hunched over on a crate. The man's reddened eyes registered surprise, then rage. The woman sat up, startled. Vul tried signing with his hands that they should leave. The man lunged at him, seizing his crossbow. A large shaft ripped into his side, cracking ribs, pinning him against his shack. The woman screamed. The man stood agape, coughing blood, his hands releasing their grip on Vul's crossbow. Pari tried to help, tugging gingerly at the shaft that impaled the man. Vul yanked Pari back and hauled her around the next corner as a flurry of bolts pattered into the shack.

The woman careened around the corner behind them, stumbling away from them in terror, nearly falling. She ran down the alley and turned up the main lane towards the town. Vul watched to see if any bolts flew in her direction. None did, encouraging him to follow after her.

"Try those doors Vul," said Pari. "I don't feel safe in these alleys. There's no cover."

The next building down the line had a heavy set of double doors midway. Vul jiggled both of the knobs and found them locked. Pari shuffled nervously, glancing down both ends of the alley.

A row of grimy windows revealed arrays of large, dark hulks within. Cracks radiated from the center of one large pane. Vul struck it with the butt of his crossbow. Shards tinkled to the ground. He cleared the remaining fragments from the frame with several swipes and nodded to Pari. She vaulted through, in one smooth movement. Vul followed, less gracefully, landing hard in a pile of broken glass. Rising, he spotted a Crasac entering the alley from the rear, his attention diverted as he passed hand signals to someone behind him. Vul raised his crossbow reflexively. It caught the edge of the window frame, causing him to fire errantly into the pavement. He wheeled about and joined Pari who was weaving her way through the forest of machines.

The floor was cluttered with massive blocks of cast metal adorned with intricate arrangements of drive shafts, belts and spindles. Silent machines, idle for reasons he couldn't comprehend. The detritus of their production littered the floor: chunks of brass rod, metal shavings embedded in grease. And this building was one of many. Who would abandon such a massive enterprise in peacetime, and why?

"I see another door on the other side," said Pari.

They wove their way through the maze of machines. A bolt ricocheted off a flange of metal, ringing it like a bell above Vul's ear. Another slapped into a wooden post where he had just removed his hand. He glanced back to see a Crasac standing at the broken window, reloading his weapon. He fired back from his hip, sending a bolt just above the Crasac's head, forcing him to duck. Murky shapes moved beyond grimy windows. Two smashed open. Crossbows protruded.

"Get down!"

Pari dropped to the floor several rows away and together they crawled through and under the machines, avoiding the open aisles that might give the Crasacs a clear shot. Bolts peppered the maze of metal surrounding them, ricocheting, cracking and shattering. Pari made it to the opposite door first.

A deflected bolt head rammed deep into the back of Vul's leg. He cursed and pulled it out. It bled freely, but did not gush, having missed his arteries.

"Vul, are you alright?"

He grimaced. "No."

Suddenly, the firing stopped. The Crasacs vanished from the windows. Pari rose and opened the door. Vul hobbled out from the machinery and followed Pari into the next alley, exiting just as an Urep'o vehicle rolled by on the central avenue, into the teeth of the Crasac attack. Pari's eyes flared wide. They hustled to the end of the building and leaned past the corner.

The vehicle stopped abruptly at the head of the alley where the Crasacs had been firing at them through the windows. A bank of blue lights on the vehicle's roof began to flash. The door opened. Crackly, disembodied voices emanated from within. A man wearing a dark uniform stepped out.

Vul watched the man stand by the vehicle door and speak into a tethered object in his palm. The man flinched and nearly fell when a Crasac burst from behind a stack of metal barrels. The Crasac turned and fled down the main avenue. The uniformed man called out to him, repeating the same curt phrase louder and more insistently each time it was ignored. The Crasac kept running past another who had stepped out into the avenue the next alley down. The second Crasac lifted and aimed his crossbow.

The uniformed man fumbled to remove an object from his belt. It was tiny, but he raised it as if it were a weapon. His voice grew shrill as he shouted into the device in his palm. A pair of bolts flew from the alley to his left, one impaling his vehicle, the other striking him in the abdomen. He grunted in pain. His weapon exploded and jerked, its projectile chipping the brickwork on the building before him. Grimacing, he pulled himself back into his vehicle and slammed the door.

"We need to get out of here," said Vul, wheeling about.

"Pana?"

"Forget Pana. Run!"

They dashed for the rear of the building as the vehicle roared, its wheels squealing and smoking as it surged backwards towards the main road. Pari followed Vul into a dark corner between the retaining wall and the last building in the row. They climbed up the wall and over a metal fence where the mesh sagged under the weight of a fallen tree limb. They passed a short ways into the trees and paused to catch their breath.

A wail arose in the distance. From another direction but much closer, something else began to howl. The sounds grew louder. A third siren joined in.

"Remove your weapons," said Vul. "All of them, including your blades."

Pari looked incredulous. "But we have Crasacs after us!"

"Not anymore, we don't." Vul dug a cavity under a large rotten log, dispersing the diggings in handfuls as far as he could throw. They placed their crossbows, bolts and blades into the hole, covered them in leaf litter and replaced the log.

Pari examined the wound in his leg. "You're bleeding heavily," she said. "Let me wrap it."

Vul pulled away. "No time!" He limped up the hillside, farther into the trees and a shade deepened by the falling sun.

The sirens converged onto the factory complex. Through the trees they glimpsed two vehicles speeding down the factory lane, lights flashing. As the trees thinned at the verge of a lawn, a series of small explosions erupted from the direction of the factory complex. Staccato bursts continued. More sirens joined the chorus in the valley and hills.

Vul looked at his hands, which were covered in blood. He crouched down gingerly and wiped them on the ground. "Pari, are my wounds obvious?"

"I can stanch your bleeding with styptic moss," she said. "But you'll need to pull down your trousers."

"Does it look bad? Will people notice?"

Pari's eyes flickered. "The light's fading. And your pants are dark. You look dirty, wet, but I doubt any one can tell that's blood."

"Then let's go," said Vul.

"Hold on," said Pari. "We should make ourselves a bit more presentable."

Pari ran her fingers through Vul's clumped and greasy locks. She pulled a soft cloth from her pouch, moistened it with her saliva and wiped the dried blood from his face. She then helped him brush the dirt from his clothes.

Vul grimaced. "My hip burns. I think one of the bolts was tainted."

"I hope not," said Pari. "I have nothing to treat their venom."

Vul studied Pari's appearance gravely. She wore a vest of coarse cloth, dense with so many stains and discolorations that it looked like a complex piece of art. Protective leather cladding covered her forearms. "Your vest can stay, but you can't be seen wearing those. Take off your gauntlets."

Pari unstrapped them, and tossed them in the weeds.

"Now loosen your hair. Completely. No braids. Remove all of your ties."

Her hands went up behind her head, fingers working nimbly. Freed from the leather bindings and twigs, her hair ballooned out and fell before her face. "How do I look now?"

Vul squinted. "Frightening. But as good as we're going to get. Now, we go."

They crossed the lawn and pushed through a gap in the hedgerow that separated them from the main road.

"Act like you're curious about what's happening," said Vul. "Hopefully, Seor and the others will be around."

Pari nodded. They emerged from the hedge atop a stone retaining wall. Vul pretended to be standing there in order to get a better look down towards the factory. People swarmed down the road and sidewalk towards a crowd beginning to congregate near the entrance to the factory.

Pari hopped down the wall. Vul, favoring his leg, was reluctant to leap.

"Here, take my hand," she said. She helped him down the wall gingerly. People rushed by on the sidewalk, ignoring them, caught up in the commotion at the factory. Vul took two steps and slowly crumpled to the ground.

*****

Chapter 25: Pana Pursued.

Pana fled along the long wall of brick and windows that lined the waterfront. Each time he tried to work back to Vul and Pari, Crasacs blocked his way. They stalked in pairs, one flushing him out of hiding to create an easy kill for another in waiting. Several times their bolts nearly took him down. Now he could only focus on preserving himself.

He stopped and stood panting against the back wall, expecting another trap around the corner. A bolt careened off the wall just above his right temple, sparking as it struck. Another tore through the sleeve at his elbow, grazing his skin. He ducked in between the buildings, snatching a bolt off the pavement on the run, adding it the one remaining in his quiver. A stack of large, wooden spindles provided the only cover. He slipped behind them, looking towards the central lane, hoping Vul or Pari might appear to provide support on his flank.

In an open bay the next building over, a Crasac emerged, unaware of Pana's presence several strides away. Hands shaking, Pana slipped the nock of his new bolt over the gut cord and cranked back the nut as quietly as he could manage. It should have been an easy shot, but the narrow gaps between the stacks of spindles restricted his angles. The Crasac turned towards the river, crossbow ready, waiting for Pana to turn a corner he had already turned. Pana smacked the wing of his own crossbow against the center of a spindle trying to line up a shot. The Crasac heard, and whirled to face him. He drew his blade and advanced on the spindles. Pana released the trigger. The bolt caught the Crasac squarely in the chest, felling him in the middle of the alley.

Pana slipped out and checked the body. The man gasped and quivered, heart shot. He no longer posed a threat. Pana kicked aside his weapons and removed some bolts from his quiver. They were a thicker gauge, incompatible with the slot in Pana's lighter weapon. He tossed them down.

He picked up a spindle and rolled it forcefully down the alley towards the central avenue of the plant. It exited the alley with just enough momentum to roll up the crown of the wide lane and back towards the alley. Before it could return, several bolts thudded into it and knocked it over wobbling on its rim.

Pana backed away. He fished the last bolt out of his quiver and cocked his weapon. He turned and ran back towards the river, stopping at the end of the building to peek around with one eye. For the moment anyway, the space between the buildings and the river bank stayed vacant. He burst out and ran along the river front, scanning the area ahead for any type of cover. With an empty quiver, he had no chance in a shootout.

He spotted a pile of decayed leaves and branches on the riverbank, accumulated from years of dumping. He lifted the upper layer of branches and slipped under them carefully to leave no sign of disturbance. He lay back and wiggled his shoulders, burrowing deep into the musty wastes. Dampness seeped into his back. Creatures squeezed beneath his shoulder blades, crawled across his brow.

He reached under his shirt for the amulet that his lover, Ikarin, had given him before they had departed to serve their respective militias. He ran his thumb over the dimpled cabochon, a fertility symbol of the Western Tribes where her family originated. She gave it to him as a promise of a life together after the wars, if the wars ever ended. He closed his eyes and lay still as a corpse, maintaining the discipline of concealment. He would wait for the cover of darkness before attempting to move.

Ikarin too, held orders for Gi. They would have met at the assembly point had Pana's unit not been diverted by Gondelfi for their secret mission. He wondered as he traveled through Gi if she breathed the same winds, drank from the same streams as he.

Shouts erupted from the other side of the buildings. A man screamed. He heard several loud pops. The noises puzzled and alarmed Pana, but he remained ensconced beneath the branches. Peace reigned for several minutes, until a series of vehicles came screaming into the factory complex. More shouts and crackling reports echoed down the alleys. He hoped that Vul and Pari were safe. He knew he could not help them.

Dozens more pops and crackles burst from the other side of the buildings. He heard a breathless runner pounding down the lane beside his hiding place. The explosions built to a crescendo, then stopped.

He heard the syncopated clop of three men running, jabbering excitedly as they passed. Once he heard them go, he shifted slightly, nudging aside a stub of wood that jabbed into ribs. He heard soft soles pad slowly up to the brush pile, deliberate, directed. A pause. An unsteady step. The full weight of a large man stepped onto a bough above his head, pressing his cheek into a tangle of thorns. Pana touched his dagger, held his breath.

*****

Chapter 26: The Causeway

Frank reached the valley bottom by midday, the watchtower a tiny protuberance on the rise behind him. The road ahead climbed a long, uninterrupted slope to the top of a broad mesa. Before tackling such a slog, Frank thought it wise to stop to rest and have some lunch. He sat in the soft grass growing beside a causeway that carried the road across a clear creek. Pale cobbles and pink sand lined its bed. Lush, green meadows dotted with cobalt-blue orchids rose filled the creek's meanders, contrasting with the dry, brown uplands.

Several biscuits remained from what the orphans had plundered from his pack. Despite their density he found them toothsome, and regretted not hanging onto more. Food would become an issue sooner than he had planned, but he had seen some weedy fields of potato-leafed plants that he thought he might be able to scrounge some tubers from. The abandoned farms so prevalent might provide forage as well, not to mention shelter.

The mesa up ahead seemed to harbor a large village. Saw tooth roof lines interrupted its silhouette, and curls of smoke rose from many points. Perhaps that would be where he stopped for the night. If he was lucky, perhaps some signs of civilization, his civilization, would finally appear.

Nothing he had seen during his flight from Ubabaor provided any connection with the world he knew. Nothing had conflicted with what Tezhay told him except his own prejudices. Yet he still could not disabuse himself of the notion that if we walked far enough away from Ubabaor, things would begin to make more sense.

He dumped the contents of his water bottle, though it remained half full, and replenished it with cool water from the stream. His feet ached. He thought it might be nice to soak them. He poked a foot at a grey stick protruding from a sand bar, its end splintered and jagged, levering it out of the sand. The other end bulged round like a ball. If he knew anything he knew human anatomy. This was a humerus with a spiral torsion fracture just above the elbow joint. He glanced at his bottle, considered dumping the water out, but left it alone and walked back to the causeway.

He gave up the idea of soaking his feet. The crystalline water did not seem so inviting anymore. He again entertained the possibility of returning to Ubabaor. To do so would be to surrender the idea that he still walked the earth he knew, that life as knew it could resume, that this was a predicament the U.S. State Department could help him with.

Believing Tezhay, however, opened some interesting possibilities as well, particularly with regards to Liz. Wherever this place was, could this be where she ended up? The thought of it seemed absurd and dredged up pain buried under years of emotional sediment. But could it be? Might there truly be a place called Piliar where expatriates or exiles congregated? Was it possible he might find her there?

Rekindling an extinguished hope seemed futile. So many years had passed. But the numerical reality did not conform to his perception of time passing. She remained part of him. Her voice still echoed in his ears.

Piliar, then. Piliar would be his goal. If he was to grant Tezhay any mote of credibility he would begin with accepting the existence of Piliar, the place of exiles. Even if it didn't turn out exactly as Tezhay portrayed it, maybe at least part of his description was true and he would find other foreigners there. If there were expats there, he could get the straight dope about this place. All he needed was to find another old fart like him who spoke English, Spanish or Portuguese, his fluent tongues.

He lay back on the sun-warmed stone of the causeway and gazed up at the mesa. This green land reminded him of the wilder parts of Kansas, if Kansas had mesas. He wondered how Liz might have handled finding herself in this land with the big sky. He wondered if she might stand right now with him somewhere under this same sky.

He wondered what it would be like to encounter Liz in Piliar. He imagined her having tea, she loved tea, at an outdoor café in a city resembling Ubabaor, but a living city, with more elegant architecture, thriving markets, fewer soldiers. She would be sitting there in a billowy seersucker dress, her hair drawn back in a French braid, its long honey tresses streaked only lightly with grey. He saw her face clearly now, because this wasn't a dream. But since he only seen her in youth, he had trouble conjuring the creases and sags that she must have acquired. His mind refused to let her age, gracefully or not.

He joined her at the table. She rocked back, startled, but composed herself in an instant the she always did no matter how ludicrous or startling an encounter.

"Well, look who's here," she said. "What took you so long? I thought I was going to be stood up."

"I got here as soon as I could," he would say, his heart thumping, panicked. "I didn't know you would be here. I didn't know this place existed."

She gazed into him, through him, coldly, her mouth set firmly without a trace of a smile. "You never came looking for me."

"But I did. I went up river. We retraced your steps. You weren't there. There was no trace of you."

"But you never came here, Frank. Twenty years and you never came here. You never even tried to come here."

"But I didn't know. How could I know? Some things are unknowable."

His eyes flicked open. A cold sweat drenched him. His heart pounded heavily. He took a deep breath and sighed, feeling all off-kilter after his backfired daydream.

He waited for his heart to settle down, then rose and stretched, looking up at the mesa that would be his next destination. The road across the creek seemed weedy and disused, yet the meadows up above seemed more stubbled and barren than the area he had already passed through, as if hay had been harvested or the grasses had been grazed. That was a good sign, he thought, that the village up ahead thrived, that they had escaped whatever calamity had befallen the farmlands he had passed through. He looked forward to the cool breezes he'd likely find up above and the wider views of the landscape ahead.

A row of dark specks, riders on horses appeared over the lip of the mesa. They trailed down the slope, diverging, the wind sweeping an arc of dust from their wakes. Several followed the road at the vertex of the formation. The others rode through the fields on each side, spreading like debris in an explosion.

It almost looked like they were holding a race. They headed his way, so he stepped off the causeway and onto a sand bank, not wishing to impede them should they wish to pass. Or maybe they were just coming down to the creek to water their mounts. But why were they riding so fast?

He noticed another tiny dust cloud coming down the road from the direction of the watchtower, a lone rider from Ubabaor. Perhaps this one was coming to meet the others? He decided he would just sit back and let them tend to their business. He would present himself as a disinterested and harmless spectator to whatever transaction was about to occur.

The lone rider thundered to within shouting distance. A hail of English profanities assailed him. It was Tezhay. He was not pleased.

*****

Chapter 27: The Crossing

A branch snapped and a shoed foot plunged deep into the brush pile, so close to Pana's face that he could detect a rank bacterial stench emanating from it, even amid the thick atmosphere of decay enveloping him. The one standing over him wobbled and threatened to fall. Pana's hand tensed on his dagger. He kept still as death, even as cold metal prodded down through the branches and poked against his abdomen. He prayed that his crossbow remained fully concealed.

Pressure eased off the tree limb that had pinned his head against thorns. The malodorous shoe lifted, its heel clipping Pana's chin. The brush pile crunched and shifted. He heard a shoe strike pavement and scuff grit. Steps retreated down the lane. Pana relaxed his grip on the dagger and drew air into his lungs slowly. For many minutes he dared not move, bearing every ache and itch in full, making no attempt to remedy them.

He stared at the river through his only window unto the world, a triangular gap in the branches covering his legs. He waited for nightfall; watching the water turn glassy as the sun descended, then dull into opacity as it set.

Even after the darkness solidified, a cacophony of voices and machines continued to rebound down the alleys from the main avenue of the factory. Antsy to get away, Pana pushed the aperture wider with his toe. He could see that the debris pile extended all the way down the riverbank into the water. Lamps along an elevated roadway splashed ovals of light onto the river. One stood dark, creating a gap of deeper shadow. The river was wide here, deeper than upstream, but shallow enough to cross. He chose his escape path.

He worked his way up through the layers of plant debris like a sprout seeking the sun, sliding beneath the topmost screen of branches, edging closer to the river until his feet met cold water. He pawed through a mat of rotted leaves knitted together with algae, and winced as the water took his body and the chill rose up his torso to his neck. Only head and crossbow protruded as he scrambled crab-like over slimy stones until he felt the tug of the current in knee-deep water. He rotated so he was no longer on his back, but kept low, crawling with one hand braced against the rocky bottom. He rose as the water deepened, but crouched to minimize his profile.

When wading through rivers in Gi, he had a habit of wondering if any of the water lapping at his legs had also touched Ikarin in some tributary far upstream. To cross a river devoid of such possibilities left his heart empty. This world held no Ikarin. He could share nothing with her here, not even its moon.

Men came from behind the building, casting a narrow beam of light over the riverbank. Pana submerged his crossbow and braced his feet against the current, fighting to keep as still as a snagged log. The river tried to push him into the light. He resisted, keeping to the shadows until the man had moved on.

He sidled closer to the opposite bank until his knee bumped into a ledge. He climbed up onto it and slithered the final few meters to a clump of tall grass that grew right against the water. He had hidden from Crasacs in similar grass only half a day earlier in Sesei. But that grass had been bleached by sun and scrubbed by winds off the plains outside Ubabaor. This grass was coated in soot and, like the water that soaked him, bore a faint odor of putrefaction. Even the air was fouled by vehicles passing on the elevated roadway above. The hand of man seemed to taint everything in this land.

His brief joy to be under thorn tree again, with the mesas and plains of Ubabaor spreading before him, had been tempered by the stranding of half his comrades in Ur and the appearance of a regiment of Crasacs searching for the xenolith. He had expected his homecoming to be bittersweet with Ikarin left behind in Gi, but he hadn't expected combat.

The ground trembled from heavy vehicles passing on the roadway. He lay back in the grass, raked by a chill breeze, wondering if Pari and Vul still breathed, and whether he should try to find them. Maybe he had diverted enough of the Crasacs enough to allow them to escape. Or maybe they lay dead on the main avenue of the factory, on display under those garish lights. Judging from the intensity of the fighting he had overheard from his hiding place, the odds did not favor their survival.

His duty seemed clear. The portal had been breached by the enemy. Protocol dictated that any xenolith that fell into the hands of a hostile party must be recaptured or destroyed.

The Philosophers had insisted on that provision in the agreement that revealed their secret to the non-secular powers of Sesei. The loss of even one xenolith would rip open a wound deep into the heart of Sesei. Enemies from Venen were bad enough. Unleashing the forces of Ur on their world would be catastrophic.

Xenoliths had provided Sesei its only advantage in the war against Venen. During the early days of the invasion, many militias had escaped encirclement using the stones. Many raids and counterattacks had been successful only because xenoliths allowed Sesep'o forces to appear unexpectedly on unprotected flanks. Xenoliths had salvaged many a victory or retreat from otherwise hopeless circumstances.

Pana sat up and took a deep breath, girding himself to head back up the river. He could only hope that the stone lay unguarded. He was not equipped for battle. One set of his crossbow's twin strands dangled, having snapped. Only a single bolt remained in his quiver. He could make more bolts if he had enough time, but he had no time to dally given how unstably the convergence had been oscillating. It could reopen at any moment, and the next time it did, most of a Crasac regiment stood waiting to pour into it from the other end. He could not allow more of them to enter Ur, not after what his comrades had paid in blood to stop the first wave.

But if the stone had to be destroyed, he would have no choice but to double back to Gi, the land that harbored Ikarin. That idea pleased him. To destroy the stone would commit an act that simultaneously satisfied duty and self interest. He would destroy the stone, find Seor and whoever survived, then go back to Gi and be with Ikarin. He bounded up from the grass and turned upstream; passing the concrete columns that supported the road, keeping to the darkest shadows.

*****

Chapter 28: Ara and Canu

Canu danced down the road, slamming his heels, kicking his toes, scraping his soles; ridding his shoes of the mud that caked them. The patterned soles left a trail of clods in wedges and crescents. It felt marvelous walking on dry pavement for a change. Though it put them in plain view of every Urep'o that rolled by, the cadre woman, Ara, had insisted on taking the road, and who was he to argue with cadre?

A waxing moon hovered low over the far side of the valley. Tall lamps began to flicker on along the street. Sirens and bleatings of many pitches and patterns, volumes and distances, filled the air, building to crescendos and opening into silences almost like a complex musical arrangement. Canu paid them little heed. Such noises seemed all too common in this world. Perhaps such a symphony commenced every evening after sundown.

He kept peeking over his shoulder to make sure the cadre woman kept up. It seemed odd, how she always lagged so far behind him. She looked healthy enough. She walked without a limp. His glances summoned piercing glares when they lingered too long.

"Keep your eyes forward, before you trip over yourself," she said.

He whipped his head forward. "This one thinks she's too good to walk with militia," grumbled Canu, a little too loudly.

"What did you say?"

Canu remained silent. His big shoes, freed of their earthen burdens, flapped against the road in a stuttering rhythm.

"It's nothing personal," she said, closing their gap slightly. "It's tactical."

"Tactical? How? It looks unnatural for two people to walk like this. It draws attention."

"I don't know you. Until I can assess you ... your threat, I keep my distance."

Canu smirked. "You're afraid of me?"

"Fear you?" said Ara. "I want you ahead of me because if I have to kill you, I want to keep it simple."

Canu expelled air through his lips. "Kill me? Why would you ...? Are you serious?" What was this, a cadre mind game to subjugate him and show him who was boss? He puffed up his chest. "And how would you expect to manage this? I saw you leave your weapons behind."

"I don't need a weapon," said Ara. "I am a weapon."

Canu wheeled around abruptly, walking backwards. Ara's hands came up defensively, in a loose, preparatory form of the fighting stance that every cadre mastered and attempted to pass to their militia trainees. Ara had unraveled her tight braids and brushed her hair out to look more Urep'o. Her arms looked wiry but not seem particularly strong. He thought he could take her if he had to, though the positively predatory look in her eyes instilled some doubt.

"Why do you say such things?" Canu complained. "Why would you consider me a threat?"

"I don't. Yet. And I don't expect you to become one, because you know ... if you did threaten me you would die."

"Enough!" Canu stopped in the road and turned around. "I am not your enemy. I am your compatriot. How can my own cadre treat me so?"

"Your place of birth does not suffice," said Ara, snidely. "We hear of some who commit treachery against our nation."

Canu stomped ahead, infuriated by her insulting tone. He wished now that Ren had gone with this witch and he had stayed behind. He stepped onto a concrete walk as a vehicle approached, sweeping them with its powerful beams. Creatures trilled in a dark hollow holding the stream bed Seor had led them up earlier.

"I'm not really cadre," volunteered Ara, out of the blue. Canu was startled to see her following a step or two closer than before.

"How so? You wore their mark," he said, referring to the black-striped armband she removed after changing into Ren's extra clothes.

"I came to Gi with my militia from Ortezei. Baren promoted me in the field," she said. "I've never received full training."

"Ah, Commander Baren must have been impressed with your ability to murder innocent militia men with your bare hands."

His jibe made no impression. "No. He promoted me because I spoke Venep'o."

"Venep'o? Why would you need—"

"And Giep'o and Urep'o," she added quickly. "I have a talent for languages."

"But why Venep'o?"

Ara's eyes shifted rapidly, but she said no more. But he noticed that she now walked within arm's reach and he was the one now keeping distance.

They passed into an area where the houses sat closer together. Despite the pleasant weather, very few Urep'o came outside. In Sesei, such a community would be bustling at this hour. Other than one old man sitting on a porch and a pair of older children playing a game with a ball, everyone holed up in their houses as if Cuasar patrols terrorized their streets.

He heard Ara halt behind him. She had turned and was staring into the darkness behind a house.

"What's wrong?" said Canu, his skin prickling.

"I think someone's following," she said, softly.

Canu scanned the hedgerows and shrubberies along the street. He noticed some branches rebounding on a bush. There was no breeze. He picked up a stone and threw it.

Ara grabbed his arm. "Stop, it might be someone from my unit."

"But why? There's a reason that Seor wanted only the two of us to go."

Ara shrugged. "It's just Baren's way. He likes to double check things. Make sure you're not leading me into an ambush."

"Always such suspicion!" said Canu. "I don't understand you cadre."

"We have already gone over that," she said impatiently. "Come."

They followed a winding road down to a terrace where three-story houses crowded eave to eave. Canu paused at the head of a steep side street that plunged directly to the main road below. A small crowd milled about at the bottom of the hill, parting to allow several boxy, white vehicles to pass. Lights pulsed, their source out of view around the corner.

"This is where we sent the Urep'o man into exile," said Canu. "But that was hours ago. I had no idea it would provoke such a big response."

"Do we have to go down there?" said Ara, staring down at the commotion. "Isn't there a way we can avoid this?"

"Probably, but this is the way I know," said Canu. "Let's see what is happening." He started down the hill. He worried that some of the Urep'o who witnessed the recovery of the fragment might recognize him, but curiosity overrode caution.

At the base of the hill, a knot of onlookers blocked the intersection, gawking at a raucous spectacle of bright lights, vehicles and amplified voices. He pushed through them and stepped out from the corner to get a better view. Most of the commotion seemed to be concentrated at the head of the lane leading into the factory, not behind the rock shop as he had expected.

"I don't understand," said Canu. "That's not where it happened."

"Where what happened?" said Ara.

"We recovered the stones there," explained Canu, shouting to be heard over the hubbub. He pointed at the rock shop.

"Stones?"

Canu realized instant that Seor had also not mentioned that the xenoliths had been split. "The stone," he corrected quickly, though not sure why it would matter.

Ara leaned close and whispered. "Not so loud," she said. "Your Sesep'o sounds strange to them. Someone might become suspicious."

Canu stepped out into the main road, which seemed to have been blocked to vehicular traffic. He went down to the alley that led into the lot behind the rock shop. The lot seemed nearly vacant and devoid of activity.

Ara came up beside him. "The people on the street are saying that some bodies were removed," she said quietly. "That people were killed."

"Then this has nothing to do with us," said Canu loudly. Ara's scolded him with her eyes. He modulated to a whisper. "We didn't kill anyone. We just made him pass through the portal."

"I am hearing conflicting stories," she said, her eyes unfocused as she concentrated on the murmurs of the crowd. "Some people are saying that the homeless people were fighting the police. Others are saying it was foreigners. Terrorists. I hope they're not talking about Baren's guests."

Ara's ability to gather such information from the torrent of gibberish surrounding them impressed Canu. Was it possible that she might be Urep'o herself?

A thin white scar traced the margin of her short-cropped hair, almost glowing against her bronze skin. Her small ears contrasted with a prominent but elegantly sculpted nose. Shadows fell deeply in the hollows beneath her cheekbones. It seemed that rations were scarce at the assembly camp. But her appearance gave him no reason to believe that she, like him, was born anywhere but Sesei.

Her almond eyes narrowed. Her expression bittered. "Why do you keep staring at me?" she asked in low tones.

"I was wondering if you were Urep'o."

She scrunched her face at him. "Ridiculous."

"But you seem to understand so much."

"I lived here for a time, when I was studying to be a Traveler."

Canu regarded this revelation with some measure of awe. Travelers comprised an elite and secretive guild, transitional to the even more exclusive Academy of Philosophers. Not the type of person who normally served in Provincial militias. No wonder Baren had promoted her.

"I spent almost a year here," said Ara. "But the war struck, so I never completed my studies. I returned to Ortezei and joined our militia." She turned away abruptly and moved off to the edge of another group of older men to eavesdrop.

Canu wondered how they could get by roadblocks sealing the road below. The back route into the factory grounds wouldn't work either, given the level of activity in the complex. They would have to circumvent the factory completely, but the roadblock stood between them and the bridge.

Ara returned to his side. "The old men keep speaking of terrorists," she said.

Canu's cocked one eye. "What is this ... tar-o-ees?"

"Fighters," said Ara. "But those with too little numbers or power to fight an army face to face. So they kill people in the city and villages to make fear."

"Like the Venep'o?"

"Not quite. The Venep'o have more than enough power to face our armies. They just happen to commit atrocities as well."

Canu watched a dark vehicle creep along the road, working its way through the crowd. The vehicle had a circular emblem with white characters on its door. A blocky shape bulged from its roof.

"Like Nalkies?" said Canu.

"I've never heard of Nalkies killing colonists," said Ara.

"No, but I've heard them speak wishfully about such deeds," said Canu. "Particularly those who have had their farms taken away."

"You've had contact with Nalkies?" said Ara, eyebrows rising.

Canu, realizing he had said too much, could only shrug.

"But talk alone does not make one a terrorist," said Ara. "Nalkies fight in small bands against a powerful army. Here they would be called guerrillas or insurgents."

"Thank you for this lesson," said Canu. "I'm sure these words will prove very useful in conversation with Urep'o girls, yes?" He stood mesmerized by the dark vehicle approaching, rolling as slowly as an overloaded oxcart, its driver scanning the knots of spectators gathered in the road.

Ara grabbed him by his shirt and yanked him back.

"Canu, Don't stare at him. Move away."

The driver glanced at them sidelong, kept rolling for a moment, but stopped abruptly. A window descended. A man in a dark uniform addressed him. Canu stared back, uncomprehending. He looked to Ara, who was already leaning into the open window.

*****

Chapter 29: Taken by Cuasars

Nine dust trails spun down the side of the mesa, commas looping up with the wind. Frank traced their direction and arc to the road behind him, where another lone rider had appeared on the way from Ubabaor road, creating a dust cloud of his own. The Ubabaor rider drove his steed hard, closing the distance with unsettling speed. All this sudden action in what had been a lonely valley made Frank uneasy. He hoped all these folks would pass him by and ignore him like a shrubbery.

Fat chance. The lone rider proved to be his captor and tutor. Tezhay.

"No way!" The blood rose in Frank's face. How could Tezhay have located him so quickly? He was supposed to be off traveling.

Tezhay's panting mount pulled up abruptly, its hooves sliding in the gravel, showering him with pebbles and sand. His saddle was loaded with satchels and his patched up guitar.

"You stupid shit! I turn my back one minute and look where he goes. Up, up quick. They coming!"

"No," Frank said, stepping away. "I don't want to go back to Ubabaor. I'm going to Piliar."

"Piliar?" Tezhay's eyes widened. "You can't get to Piliar this way, you idiot!" He sidled his mount over, cornered Frank against the causeway and seized him by the collar. "Get up now or die! Cuasar coming!"

"Who?"

He could hear the others' hooves pounding down the fallow fields on either side. Behind them, a lone rider came down the road at a relaxed gait. He held high a white flag with two black circles. Projectiles larger than any arrows he had ever seen whistled barely a meter above Tezhay's head.

It finally dawned on Frank that the other riders had not come down the mesa to race or gather water. He grabbed onto Tezhay's saddle and tried pulling himself up, but kept slipping down. Tezhay pulled up on his collar with amazing strength for such a slight man, but not quite strong enough to haul Frank onto his saddle.

"Shit!" said Tezhay, his voice cracking.

He turned his mount and tried to gallop away with Frank dangling from the saddle, his feet dragging against the roadbed. The horse kept lurching to one side, unable to gallop away at full speed. The other riders swept around their flanks.

The horse screamed and reared as a heavy bolt struck it in the chest. Frank fell away and tumbled in the dirt. Tezhay shouted in fury and leapt free as the horse stumbled and collapsed, eliciting a discordant glissando from his cracked guitar.

Tezhay instantly rolled to his feet and rushed to the horse's side. He withdrew a short sword from his hip and slashed the animal's throat. He flung the blade to the ground and threw his arms wide, palms open.

Frank lay in the dusty roadway, feeling as though a pigeon were trying to flap its way out of his chest.

"Open your palms if you don't want your head cut off!" said Tezhay.

The riders circled once then spiraled in. The one with the flags stopped on the other side of the causeway and held up a red circle with a centered black dot like a bull's eye. One rider from each group charged up, dismounted on the run and held them at bay with huge arrows strung on longbows as tall as themselves. The others milled about on the Ubabaor side of the road, their gazes drawn nervously up to the watch tower on the hill.

Frank sat up in the dirt, cross legged with his palms up as if meditating. Two more Cuasars dismounted and approached, carrying short lengths of rope with weights dangling from both ends. They wore dusty, sueded leggings with pale shin guards made of something that looked like bone. Their long shirts had flaps of similar armor sewn into the chest and upper arms. Crown-like headdresses of coiled leather protected their ears.

Frank fought for breath. He felt as if he were drowning. His eyes teared. He vision began to blur. His pack had come off in the fall but lay within reach. He eyed the pocket holding the red ampoule that Tezhay had given him of the narcotic that had evened out his heart rhythm before. He reached with one hand. One of the bowmen screamed at him.

"Take your hand away, you fool!" Tezhay scolded.

"Can you explain to them ... I'm ... I'm having trouble breathing."

"If you no take your hand away, you don't have to worry about breathe."

Frank lifted his hands over his head. One of the Cuasars spun a weighted rope by his side and let it fly. It struck his forearms, wrapping around until the weights cracked into his elbows. The force rocked him back prone. Another set of weighted ropes took out Tezhay's legs and felled him.

One of the Cuasars slapped a metal clamp on the rope entwining his arms and squeezed it several times, ratchets pulling the cords tighter. They worked quickly, pulling off his day pack, searching his legs and torso for weapons. Another did the same to Tezhay and pulled the saddle and saddlebags off the dying horse. The other Cuasars watched impatiently as their mounts stomped and whinnied.

Arms hefted him up off the road and onto a horse. They slung Tezhay belly-down over another mount. One of the Cuasars had disemboweled Tezhay's horse with a long sword and removed its liver. Another hacked away at the horse's rump.

The one with the signal flags gave a shout and raised two solid red flags high. The soldiers looked over their shoulders up at the hill behind them. A tight knot of mounted riders appeared on the road below the watchtowers, churning up a huge cloud of dust as they charged.

The officer with the flags backed up his horse until the others had remounted then turned and fled up the hillside. They bounded up the slope, all riding close, all keeping to the road. At a switchback, Frank caught a glimpse of the hill below the watchtower. The dust cloud had separated from the riders from Ubabaor. Their shapes stood still on the road, watching. Already, they had given up the chase.

The upper slopes of the mesa were dense with fortifications not apparent from below. A web work of trenches several layers deep and filled with spikes and bundled sticks straddled the road. They conformed to gullies and terraces and other natural depressions in the landscape to disguise their presence from below. The spoils from their digging had apparently been hauled away. In few places did the soil look obviously disturbed, though every bit of tinder and forage had been plundered from the upper slopes.

They threaded through a bulwark of cleaved ledges. The road leveled out onto the summit, revealing that what Frank had mistaken for a village was actually an enormous military camp. Spiky tents with prominent peaks stretched all across the mesa top, mingling with an occasional square structure of brick and stone in various phases of completion. A dome surrounded by scaffolding loomed over all from a low hump in the center of the camp.

The horses halted in an open space surrounded by a ring of tents and buildings. Frank, still hyperventilating, was hauled backward by unseen hands and dumped onto hard clay. He rolled and came to rest with his bound elbows embedded in a mud puddle. Tezhay fell beside him and passed him a look of disgust.

"How you like your freedom now, exile?" said Tezhay, with considerable bile.

"I ... I can't talk. I'm having trouble. It's hard to ... breathe."

Tezhay studied him. His eyes softened slightly, a smidgen of sympathy returning to his expression.

"Maybe it is good that you die. Soon, I might envy you."

"That stuff ..." Frank coughed out between breaths. "That drug you gave me ... I need it." He saw his pack lying next to Tezhay's saddle and possessions. He lifted himself up and inched towards it.

A soldier, spotting him, shouted and stomped him flat.

"Better not move, if you ever want to move again," Tezhay hissed.

Frank could only gasp, unable to respond. The two Cuasars with longbows stood guarding them as the others led their mounts to a corral. The officer with the flags disappeared inside a large tent marked with a blue banner.

Frank concentrated on drawing adequate breath as he attempted to diagnose his ailment. He surmised it had to be atrial fibrillation or else he wouldn't be conscious. Though less lethal than the ventricular version, atrial fib was no picnic. Blood pooling and clotting in his malfunctioning chambers could trigger a fatal stroke.

Tezhay in contrast, looked unusually composed considering the circumstances. He seemed resigned, almost bored with the situation. He dressed as if he had just strolled off an American street: black Calvin Klein jeans, a dark t-shirt displaying a stylized portrait of President Obama, Mephisto walking shoes and a Citizen's wristwatch with a face that tracked the hour in multiple time zones.

"You could have just let me go," Frank rasped. "You didn't have to come after me."

"I am responsible. I have to come," said Tezhay.

"But weren't you supposed to be gone already?" said Frank.

"I was gone. They summoned me by Mercomar."

"Mercomar?"

"Mirror on watchtower."

The Cuasar who had led the raid came out the tent with another, older officer, who wore leggings without armor and a coat that came down almost to his knees. Three unequal stripes of cobalt blue slashed across his chest. One of the bowmen touched an arrow to Frank's neck as the officer approached. The older man was tall, like the other Cuasars. His slitted eyes revealed only pupils through exaggerated epicanthic folds. Sleek auburn hair, only lightly peppered with grey spilled from a padded headband.

He pointed and chuckled at Tezhay's clothing and the guards laughed heartily along with him. Bending over Frank, the officer clucked with disdain, pinching his bicep between thumb and forefinger, prodding his thigh with one foot.

"What the ... fuck is he doing?" Frank wheezed.

"He decides if you are fit to be slave."

"Slave?" Frank's head swirled with panic and vertigo.

"Don't worry. He says you are strong enough for some work."

"I don't think I'm going to make it," said Frank, his head sinking into the mud. "I'm getting really dizzy."

"No," said Tezhay. "This not a good time. You must stay strong."

"I'm losing it. I feel like I'm not ... not ... getting enough ... air."

The officer strummed his finger against Tezhay's detuned guitar and tossed it aside. He selected Frank's pack from the pile and played with the zippers. He reached in and pulled out the remaining biscuits, tossing one each to the guards.

Frank's eyes widened when he saw the man extract the wax-sealed, reed ampoule from a pocket on the flap.

"Tell him ... I need that. I need some ... now."

The officer snapped the ampoule between his fingers, sniffed the dark fluid that dribbled out, and tossed it aside with disgust. The last thing Frank saw, before the world spun away from him was the Cuasar officer shaking his fingers, sending droplets of cardioactive herbal extract scattering in the dirt.

*****

Chapter 30: Captive on the Mesa

A fine tremor shivered Tezhay's hands, belying his outward calm. He pressed his palms against his jeans to quell their shaking. His pulse pounded in his head as he realized the implications of this failure. His urgent business in Belize would go undone, his promise to Marizelle that he would be home shortly, unfulfilled.

When a frantic Mer informed Tezhay of Doctor Frank's escape, Tezhay was certain he would find the exile wandering one of Ubabaor's abandoned city squares. Never did Tezhay imagine that this feeble man could have passed so far so quickly beyond the city gates and outer walls. A steady stream of witnesses sent Tezhay spiraling outward into the no man's land beyond the zone of cultivation.

Tezhay had plenty of chances to turn back. He saw the dust trails coming off the mesa. He could have let the Cuasars have their sport. What difference would it have made? Always obsessing over duty and detail, this time his diligence might prove fatal. Only his wits could save them now.

Doctor Frank lay in the packed dirt and manure as limp as a corpse. But he was not dead yet. Fingers slowly curled and uncurled. Blades of brown grass bent against his breath.

Tezhay spotted the ampoule of bolovo in the dirt, but he didn't dare show interest while the officers were about. He waited until they walked away; the older man returning to his tent, while the younger officer spoke to some troops returning from stabling their mounts. The bowmen looked up and listened as their commander addressed the Cuasars.

His hands not yet bound, Tezhay reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He edged closer to the ampoule lying broken in the dirt, reached and snatched it up in the cloth along with a fingerful of mud where some of the bolovo extract had dribbled out. He sopped up what else he could, scrunched the handkerchief in a ball, and slipped it into his pocket before the guards turned their attention back to him.

One of them prodded Doctor Frank with the end of his bow, but he wouldn't rouse. "I think this one's dead or soon to be," he said.

"He's fine," said Tezhay in Venep'o. "He's only fainted." Tezhay worried that they might simply slash his throat and dispose of him. Instead, they called over two young Crasacs who were passing through. They dragged him over to the stables and loaded him up into a small hay cart.

The guards shifted the binds from Tezhay's legs to his wrists and shoved him in the direction of the stables. They passed a large complex of horse stalls with crude stone walls and frames of lashed timber covered with cloth that rippled in the wind. Behind them stretched a row of fetid kennels crowded with broad-shouldered hounds that strained at their tethers, snarling and snapping at each other, baying as they passed.

War dogs, they were, mascots of the shock troops who spearheaded the invasion. Heavy boned and strong jawed, bred to absorb a bolt and keep on charging, relentless in quest of throats to rip. There was a time when Tezhay enjoyed being around dogs. That all changed after the invasion.

Siege wagons lined both sides of a large avenue behind the stables. They had six wheels apiece, each wheel taller than a man, their exaggerated dimensions facilitating passage over marshy ground. A flywheel mechanism stored the energy that propelled iron-encased, spring-loaded rams like pistons against city walls. Heavy wings on hinges folded out to protect the Crasacs who manned them.

Tezhay could also see workmen building a temple, a Likica, on a low rise in the center of the mesa. An open dome of mortared brick sat veiled beneath a lacework of scaffolds. Only a few gaps remained to be filled before it would be plastered with the brilliant white lime favored by the Venep'o for their places of worship. To Tezhay, this was a sign that they would not be leaving soon, despite the assurances they had given Sesep'o negotiators during the treaty discussions.

They passed cluster after cluster of peaked tents, each surrounding a parade ground. Soldiers idled about everywhere, mending armor, fletching bolts, their numbers disproving the prevailing opinion in Ubabaor that the siege had decimated the enemy. If so, they had since been amply reinforced, with no hint that the militias assembled on the rear flank in Gi had dissuaded from extending their gains on this continent. Tezhay counted at least eight regiments encamped on the mesa, information valuable to the defense of Ubabaor, though the prospects for escape seemed negligible.

They came to the far side of the mesa to a place where the camp's refuse was dumped over the rim. They stopped before a dome-shaped holding pen, roofed over with bent saplings connected with rawhide and tarred rope into a tight latticework. The largest gap was barely wide enough to fit a head through. A pair of maimed and bedraggled guards emerged from a hut and unlatched the door. The two Crasacs pulled Doctor Frank out of the hay cart and dragged him into the pen, dumping him onto a clay floor pitted by thousands of feet and redolent with urine and rot.

A small group of men and women huddled across the pen, cringing from the guards. An old man lay beside them drawing ragged breaths. He seemed in as bad or worse a shape as Doctor Frank, which Tezhay took as good news regarding their prospects for survival. Tezhay assumed they were pulse and spelt farmers from the plains, the main slave prey of the Venep'o garrisons these days. Some families took great risks in revisiting abandoned homesteads and attempting to plow and plant their old fields.

The soldiers left, transferring custody to the holding pen's own guards. One of them, missing his left arm below the elbow, strolled over to assess his new charges. He nudged Doctor Frank with his staff.

"This one's half-dead," he said. "Don't know why they bother bringing them here in such poor condition."

"He'll be fine. He's only sleeping," said Tezhay, in Venep'o.

"Sleeping? Hah! That's a good one," said the other guard, whose only debility seemed to be an acute lack of height. "So the old man over there must be taking a nap, then eh? Meat for the dogs, both of them."

"If not today, then tomorrow," said the armless one. "At least while they breathe they stay fresh."

They left the pen and sealed its entrance with an iron chain and a bolt that could only be turned with a metal cap that fitted over it. Tezhay scrambled over to Doctor Frank's side and pressed his ear against his chest. He had never heard a heart sputter so, with long gaps and flurries of beats merging into the next. Yet his blood still pumped. He could feel a thready pulse in the artery running up the side of his neck.

Tezhay reached into his pocket and pulled out the muddy handkerchief. He found one clump of goo that seemed to contain more bolovo extract than soil, and scraped it off with his fingernail. He pried Doctor Frank's jaw open and rubbed the mixture of mud and medicine all over the inside of his cheeks and gums. Worried that the dose would be too small and too slow to help, he took the soiled handkerchief and swabbed the inside of Doctor Frank's mouth with it as well.

Tezhay sat back and waited for a sign that the bolovo had taken effect. Bolovo acted quickly when ingested, but it could be an hour before enough was absorbed through the lining of the Doctor's mouth to have any effect on his heart. Tezhay wasn't sure why he bothered. It might have been more merciful to simply let Doctor Frank pass, or even to accelerate the process by smothering him. But Tezhay had witnessed too many premature deaths to sit by idly when a life could be extended, even if were only a few minutes or hours.

But Doctor Frank's condition only deteriorated as Tezhay watched. The exile's lips turned blue. His skin blanched. Tezhay rushed over and knelt beside him, compressing his chest with both hands clasped, cursing that he didn't think to provide some breath before administering the bolovo.

*****

Chapter 31: Vul and Pari Return

Sleep eluded Seor like a fish swimming just beyond range of a spear. She lay next to Ren on a bed of flat-needled branches, staring at a patchwork of stars and cloud. She recapitulated in her mind the litany of failures that had plagued the day: failing to secure the displaced xenolith in their haste to reach the relay, failing to recognize the weakness of the second convergence. But failing to evade Baren's group might prove the most egregious, the most fatal failure of all.

So far, Baren seemed to believe her story, though his lieutenant, Baas, seemed far more suspicious. That might explain why a dark silhouette bearing a crossbow regularly swept past their campsite. The cadre operated so fluidly that she still had not been able to derive a full accounting of their number. But Baren had at least four others with him besides Baas and the woman who went off with Canu.

She propped her back against the wall that Baren had partly dismantled to retrieve the xenolith fragment she had hidden there. She drew comfort from picturing the second fragment lying undisturbed among ferns along a stream. That proprietary knowledge preserved some of the power and control that Baren usurped from her.

A plume of acrid smoke stung her nostrils. She spotted a faint glow across the wood. "Are they stupid?" she whispered to herself, or so she thought. "Building a fire when we're trying to remain unseen?"

"They're cadre," mumbled Ren. "They know what they're doing."

Seor sighed as she rose to her feet. "Wearing black stripes on your arm doesn't render you immune to foolishness." She walked over to the source of the glow.

Baren sat alone on the forest floor before a flameless patch of embers, passing the xenolith between his hands like a little boy playing with a ball. Even in the weak glow, Seor could spot the extra increment of sparkle that marked the fracture plane, obvious only because she knew where to look.

"It's quite beautiful, yes?" said Baren, rotating the stone over the embers. "It catches even the faintest of light. I hear that their weight fluctuates and they freeze just before a convergence. But this stone feels uniformly heavy, and warm."

That struck Seor as an odd thing for a cadre commander to say. He spoke as if he had never held a xenolith before.

"How long have you held command?" said Seor.

Baren's face tightened. "That's a bit impertinent, don't you think?"

"Just curious," Seor shrugged.

His gaze lingered on her before he spoke. "I came to Gi a few weeks ago ... in relief."

Baren's admission released something in Seor. He was as green as cadre officers get. Possibilities opened that would not be feasible with a more experienced commander.

"Commander Baren," she said. "This area is densely populated. You may wish to reconsider this fire ...."

Baren held up his hand and looked past her shoulder to Ren who had come up from behind. "You, what's your name?"

"Ren, sir."

"Ren. Go and take the watch from Kera," he said. "You'll find her at the edge of the burial ground. Someone will relieve you near sunup."

"Yes, sir," Ren said, skipping off back into the darkness.

Seor bristled at Baren's nerve in denying her the opportunity to assent. As a cadre commander, his orders took precedence, but he could have at least made some pretense at courtesy. Even Ren had been a little too quick to comply, but that was her normal reaction to authority – eager to please, slow to question.

"Come sit," said Baren. "And don't worry about the fire. Baas assured me that it's undetectable."

Seor descended reluctantly onto her haunches. She noticed several bedrolls and shoulder bags sitting furled besides Baren's possessions.

"Does no one sleep around here? Where is your lieutenant ... Baas?"

"I sent him scouting with Dieno," said Baren.

"Scouting?" Seor sprung back up. "Didn't you hear those sirens? A convergence was witnessed! We can't be—"

"Simmer down," said Baren. "It's not risky for Baas. If there is a way for the rest of us to move upriver safely, he will find it." He slipped the xenolith into a cloth pouch and into his satchel. He stirred the embers with a stick and tossed in another twig.

This development only made Seor feel more out of control. Trouble would come if Baas became entangled with the Urep'o. Or worse, if he surprised Vul and the others whose presence she had still neglected to mention. And Baren's unnamed guests threw a wild card into the game. She regretted her impulse to come and chastise him about the fire. She would have been better off lying awake in her bed.

As Baren reached to feed another chunk of wood to the embers, his jacket cuff pulled back, exposing a set of intricate, braided tattoos encircling his wrists like bracelets.

Seor's eyebrows rose. "Are you Sinkor Natadi?" she said, referring to a faith with three deities that was rarely practiced in Sesei, but mandated among their invaders from Venen.

Baren chortled. "You ask because of these markings? Every schoolboy in coastal Diomet has them," he said, dismissively.

"The way you speak, I thought you came from Ubabaor," she said.

"I've lived in Ubabaor since I was twelve, but I spent my childhood in Diomet."

"What does ... did your family do?"

"Trading mostly," he said. "Caravans and ships. I used to know cousins in just about every province and port."

"Ijinji, as well?" said Seor, half-joking about a city-state infamous for smuggling, piracy and corruption.

"Actually, yes," he smirked.

"I didn't mean to imply that—"

A series of whistles loped softly up from the slope below.

"It's Baas!" said Baren. "He's brought someone along. Our guests, hopefully."

Seor's stomach clenched. They heard footsteps shuffling through leaf litter, snapping twigs, then four silhouettes manifested in the darkness, one of them limping severely.

"It's chaos down there," said Baas, emerging into the feeble glow of the embers. Roads are blocked. Urep'o vehicles patrol every street. They took Ara and the other."

"Taken?" said Seor.

"They never had a chance," said Baas. "The constables spotted them immediately and took them away in a wagon. But we found these two. They came like dogs to our whistle."

Two figures emerged into the light of the embers, followed by another cadre soldier.

Seor shot to her feet. "Vul? Pari?"

"Seor, we've lost some ... friends," said Vul, touching her shoulder.

"Lost? Do you mean—"

"Dead. We saw Cudi and Alic fall for certain. Likely Pana as well."

Darkness collapsed on Seor. Her body turned leaden. She struggled to shape words. "What happened?"

"Crasacs!" spat Vul. "Can you believe it? In Ur?"

Seor turned to Baren, incredulous. "Are these the 'guests' you spoke of? How can this be?"

"We expected no military," said Baren. "A diplomat, a few bodyguards."

"But ... Venep'o?" said Seor. "What are they doing with our bloody stones?"

"I was right, Baren," said Baas. "The presence of this militia is no accident. The timing is too convenient. We're dealing with a counterforce." He gave a hand signal to another cadre member who circled behind them.

"Is this true?" said Baren, taken aback.

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Seor, shuddering.

"There are those in the Council who have gotten wind of the peace process and wish to dismantle it," said Baas. "We've heard rumors of detachments sent to interfere. This confirms it." Two other cadre members arrived, crossbows raised.

"How do you intend to foster peace by bringing Crasacs to Ur? That doesn't make sense," said Seor.

Vul, glowering, backed away. A cadre woman halted him, threatening with her crossbow.

"They pose a threat, Baren," said Baas. "We need to secure them immediately."

"Do it," said Baren, gazing downward.

"There was another woman with them," said Baas. "Where is she?"

"I sent her to take Kera's watch," said Baren.

"You assigned her a watch?" Baas said, incredulous.

"They seemed so innocuous," said Baren. "I never expected this. Kera, go fetch her." The woman behind Vul slipped off towards the burial ground.

"All of you get down now! On your stomachs," said Baas.

Baren stood, looking flustered and distraught. "How did you learn about us?" he said. "We discussed none of our plans with any militia. We kept the entire operation completely opaque."

"But we didn't know anything," said Seor. "We still don't. We only wanted to go home."

*****

Chapter 32: Diverted

This time, no dead spouses came to scold or comfort Frank in his dreams. He awoke on his back, staring at up a shifting sea of grey, a drizzle misting his face. He had the most putrid taste in his mouth but couldn't generate enough saliva to spit it out. He rolled over and rose onto his knees. The spiking pains in his head and hips and ribs made him feel as if he had been trampled by horses.

For a moment he thought he knelt on the trail to the quarry in Chiqibul, back in Belize, but the wind felt too cool, the air too dry despite the rain. When Tezhay came up to him with a scoop of murky water in a splintered gourd, his memory and senses resolved to this far less pleasant reality.

"Oh God, what now?"

"We are prisoner," said Tezhay. "For real. Both you and me this time."

Frank swished a bit of water around in his fouled mouth and spat it out. It came out filthier than it went in.

"Can you tell me why my mouth full of mud and shit?"

"Bolovo," said Tezhay. "Your heart went for a gallop without you."

"I blanked out, didn't I?" said Frank as his memory returned. "Who were those guys? The one's that got us?"

"Cuasars," said Tezhay. "Venep'o cavalry. The same ones I tell you are surround my city and for you not to go out."

Frank studied Tezay's expression for signs of anger. He saw plenty of righteousness and oodles of pity, but Tezhay's eyes bore no signs of desperation.

"I'm sorry, but I couldn't know that was true."

"You know now, yes? Happy?"

"No, I'm not happy," said Frank. "And I don't feel any smarter. I'm still confused."

"Believe. And be happy you live," said Tezhay.

Frank sighed. He clasped one hand over his chest, put two fingers over his carotid to check his pulse. "Never mind atenolol, I think I might need an implant. An internal defibrillator. That's not going to happen here, is it?"

"I don't understand what you say," said Tezhay.

"Never mind," Frank said, shrugging. "That drug you gave me. Is there any more of it?"

"No," said Tezhay.

Frank propped himself up creakily. They were confined inside something like a very large, dome-shaped jungle gym made of thick vines and bent saplings. On the other side of the structure, about twenty yards away, a group of scared-looking people wept beside an old man who lay hacking his lungs out in the mud.

Tezhay sat legs folded on a small mat woven from strips of bark he had peeled off the enclosure. He handed another that he had been weaving to Frank.

"Thanks," he said, reluctant to soil it with his filthy bottom. Tezhay had somehow kept himself looking relatively pristine.

"What now?" said Frank.

"I don't know," said Tezhay. "They take us for work, if we lucky."

"What if we're not lucky?"

"We stay here until we die. Which, maybe, is lucky thing, too."

It took hours for Frank's head to fully defog. Clarity turned out to be a mixed blessing. The ground was fouled with human waste. As the day wore on, his senses, assaulted by the fetor, withdrew. He set his mat of bark down on a relatively clean spot next to Tezhay and sat.

Tezhay spoke little, but Frank noticed him carefully studying every piece of wood and vine that had been fastened together to make the pen. His attention flew to anyone who passed. He kept categorical tallies of the activity in the camp using the sharp edge of a small stone on a piece of wood.

At the end of the day, the guards led a dozen or so prisoners back to the holding pen. They dumped in several buckets of scrapings and peels, a few bones, and wilted greens as if they were slopping hogs. Tezhay pestered him to eat something, but he saw nothing in the pile that he could imagine putting in his mouth. At that point, not even filet mignon and chocolate cake could have stirred an appetite.

They slept that night sitting up on their little mats of woven bark, weaving their arms into the frame of the cage for support. In the morning, a heavyset man in a long apron arrived at the guardhouse to select a group of laborers for the day's work detail. He gave Tezhay and Frank a once-over, but quickly passed, choosing the same group of laborers as the day before, plus the few who had accompanied the old man.

"Hmm. I wonder why he didn't pick us," wondered Frank.

"Me, because I am too skinny," said Tezhay. "For you, if you could see how you look right now, you would understand."

Frank smoothed his thinning hair, peeling off chunks of mud that had caked onto it. "What do you mean? I feel fine. Strong."

"Don't complain. Believe me, we're better off not doing this work."

"Is that so? Then what's the point of them keeping us?" said Frank.

"Patience," said Tezhay. "Every minute we stay healthy is a victory," said Tezhay.

Later that morning, when the drizzle had burned away, Tezhay walked over to the old man still lying in the mud. He had been racked with coughing earlier when his family had been taken away to work, but had fallen silent now for several hours. Frank followed Tezhay over.

Tezhay held a hand in front of the man's face. "I think he's dead."

Frank cupped his hand over his ear and placed it against the old man's chest. "Not quite," said Frank. "But I think he's on his way out. He feels cold. His heart's going forty beats a minute, if even that."

He propped his head up on a piece of muddy cloth and turned him more onto his side. "There, that should help him breathe a little better."

"What you think is wrong with him?"

Frank lifted the man's shirt and checked his neck and spine. "Not sure. He's got no really bad trauma. No fever, so it's not pneumonia."

He stood up and looked out over the plains spreading below. Mesas stretched near and far, though the land near the horizon seemed completely flat.

"Would Piliar be out that direction?"

"Yes," said Tezhay. "You cannot see ocean. But it is there, beyond the flat."

The landscape at the base of the mesa was a patchwork of fields both plowed and planted, much different from the fallowness so prevalent outside of Ubabaor. Curls of smoke trailed away from the roofs of intact farmhouses.

"Look at all those farms down there," said Frank. "I guess your war didn't hit those ones as hard?"

"Those farm is not Sesep'o," said Tezhay. "Those farm is colonist coming and growing in our field. They take all Sesep'o farmer for slavery or exterminate."

"I see. Well, that's not good."

He turned slowly and started towards his mat. He stopped, startled. A man in cobalt blue robes was staring at them through the meshwork.

"Now I know what it feels like to be a monkey living in a zoo."

"What?" said Tezhay turning, entranced by the sight of the man in blue. "He is a Sinkor Initiate."

"A what? Who is he?"

"Sinkor is religion. This man learn to be priest. He wears the blue clothes."

The Initiate walked over to the shack and spoke with the guards. The one-armed man came hustling out and unbolted the gate of the pen. He pointed at Tezhay.

"Looks like someone's got himself a job," said Frank.

*****

Chapter 33: Custody

Ara spotted the police cruiser too late to warn Canu. She hoped it would roll on by, but this officer seemed to be scanning the onlookers for particular kinds of faces. Ara saw many traits in Canu that might arouse a police officer's suspicions, his bronze skin principal among them. His unruly hair, filthy shirt and perpetually crazed expression did not help.

During Ara's time in Ur, she had come to find that Urep'o policemen had an uncanny sense for the extraordinary. Even though the regular folks might pay little attention to her, the enforcers in town homed in on her as if she was a flashing beacon of foreignness. Because she dressed just like the natives she attributed this phenomenon to body language: the way she walked and gestured. It was certainly not her scrawny figure that attracted their eye.

Canu looked bewildered when the man began to question him. She rushed over to the cruiser's open window. "He doesn't speak English, officer."

The man looked her over carefully, his eyes lingering on her shirt. "Pats fan, eh?"

"Excuse me?" Ara had no idea what he had just said. Was it a local dialect?

"You're not from around here, are you?"

"Not really," she said, relieved to have understood.

"Where're you from, miss?" he said, his eyes breaking contact with her as he looked down to depress buttons on a panel.

"Vermont," she said, naming the site of her acculturation. She had spent eight months solo in Ur, until winter had driven her back to Sesei and into the maw of war.

He looked up. "Oh, yeah? Where, exactly?"

"Northeast Kingdom. St. Johnsbury."

A loud, distorted voice filled the cab. The officer picked up a device and spoke into it. Ara understood little, riddled as it was with codes and jargon. His eyes trained steadily on them steadily as he spoke. Canu's eyes shifted nervously. He seemed ready to bolt. Ara put her hand on his back to reassure him.

The officer leaned out the window again. "I'd like you and your friend to come to the station for an interview. What do you say?"

Her face flushed. She had experienced police interrogations before, never under circumstances so chaotic. She ran through the options in her head. To run would only amplify their suspicion and trigger an all-out pursuit. Cooperation, while risky, might at least immunize them from further scrutiny.

"How about it? Just a few questions to help us work things out," said the officer. "Stuff like what you saw here. Where you were when all this happened. Who you are, and all that."

"What exactly happened here, anyway?" said Ara. "I don't even know."

The officer smirked. "Well, that's why we're asking questions. We want to know, too."

"Just me?" she said.

"No, I'd like your friend to come along, too."

"I did tell you, he doesn't speak English."

"Yeah, you mentioned that. What language does he speak?"

"Tagalog," she said, providing the identity that through trial and error seemed to produce the least friction during her acculturation.

The officer looked off into space.

"It's Filipino. He's from the Philippines."

She wasn't sure why Filipino worked better than Mexican or Egyptian, but it did. When she had stumbled upon this property, she had gone to a library and studied enough Philippine geography and history to satisfy a less informed person. The ruse had failed only once, in New Hampshire, when she encountered a policeman who had been stationed in Subic Bay when he was in the military.

"Well, maybe you can translate for him," said the officer.

Ara knew that the officer was only making it seem as if they had a choice. Any resistance would simply ramp up the pressure until other policemen had arrived to help subdue them.

"Just a second, officer." She turned to Canu and whispered in Sesep'o. "He wants to talk to us."

"About what?" said Canu.

"About the terrorists, I suppose. Your people didn't kill anyone, did they?"

"Of course not," Canu said, dismissively.

"Then we'll be fine. None of this involves us."

She looked up at the policeman. "Okay, he's fine with it. We're ready."

He exited his door and came around the front of the car. She studied him carefully as he approached. He seemed relaxed. He did not touch his weapon or reach for handcuffs

"Can both of you please put your palms on the car and stand with your legs apart?" said the officer. "Just precautionary."

Ara complied. "Do as I do, Canu."

The officer patted down their legs and torso. She knew better than to carry metal weapons around the Urep'o, who were sensitive about such things, though she wasn't completely unarmed. An innocuous looking, but razor sharp flake of obsidian rode atop the detritus in the bottom of her rugged canvas purse.

The purse, a souvenir of her acculturation training, still contained items that helped her through previous encounters. Philosophers could be quite adept at forgery and theft. She retained an expired Vermont driver's license and a picture ID from a community college in Montpelier.

"Okay, both of you can slide in back," said the policeman. "At this point your participation in this interview is strictly voluntary. I should warn you, though, that at the station you'll be asked about offenses that carry a power of arrest. Someone will state your rights beforehand, but if there's anything that worries you, now's the time to tell me."

Ara smiled up at him. "We're fine, officer. Happy to help," said Ara.

The policeman slammed their door and slid into the front seat. Lights flashed on his roof as he pulled out slowly, creeping forward through the crowd of rubberneckers. Idle ambulances and police cruisers from neighboring towns crowded the lane leading into the factory.

Canu eyes widened suddenly. He swung around and pounded on the window.

"Canu, no! Don't do that."

"I see Vul!" said Canu.

"Everything okay back there?"

"Everything's fine, officer, sorry. He's just waving to a friend."

The officer seemed to equivocate. He slowed the vehicle almost to a stop, before regaining speed and rolling past the barricade.

"I saw my comrades in the crowd," whispered Canu. "Vul, and I think Pari as well."

"How many of you are there?" said Ara.

Canu stared through the back window as the roadblock receded and the cruiser crossed the river over a crumbling, concrete bridge.

*****

Chapter 34: Pana and the Cuerti

Moonlight framed the silhouette of a deer against a spit of pale gravel as it drank from a still pool beside the river. Circles expanded on the silvered surface of the eddy as the deer lapped. Pana imagined his own chiaroscuro figure in the sights of a crossbow, so he moved out of the open gravel and into a pitted waste clothed densely in dark shrubs. The clatter of stone underfoot startled the deer and it bounded away, white-tail swooping like a bird.

He walked away from the river until he found a berm cutting north along a strip of metal-walled buildings surrounded by lots. Glaring lights on tall poles bathed every structure but for one, lurking in the darkness like a ghost ship adrift in a sea of pavement. None of the buildings bore signs of human occupancy; all appeared abandoned for the night. Pana kept away from the wash of light as though it were toxic, remaining on the dark side of the berm.

A pair of massive, articulated vehicles rumbled down the stilted road beyond. They reminded Pana of stiff caterpillars with glowing eyes. Where not held up by pillars, the road they traveled on carved through every ledge and outcrop in its path, defying the land's natural contours in a manner never tolerated in Sesei. In this matter, the Urep'o had much in common with the Venep'o, who were said to flatten mountains whose heights offended them.

Over the berm, the side road serving the boxy buildings ended in a cul-de-sac. As he moved beyond it, the lights receded and the berm itself petered out into a darker place where scars of exposed gravel no longer revealed the shape of the land. The shrubs grew thicker here, the grass taller, absorbing the meager light shed by the crescent moon.

He looked to the horizon for guidance and could see that just upstream, the valley walls shouldered in and squeezed the flats flanking the river into a narrow wedge. The relay point, as he remembered, sat exactly where the valley began to broaden so he knew he must be near. He veered left towards the blackness that held the river.

The land stepped down to the river via a series of shallow terraces cutting through layers of sediment. He could hear the liquid music of the riffles now. Passing through a fringe of willows, he came upon water that flowed like liquid anthracite, distorting and reflecting every bit of light it caught from the sky, the road and the occupied lands downstream.

He stood close to the lip of the bank and let the sand crumble down, riding a mini-avalanche to the graveled flat. He stepped out to the water's edge to seek his bearings. Nothing close by looked familiar, but far downstream he recognized the jutting, tooth-shaped boulder beside which a fisherman stood casting his line the day before. He had overshot the relay point by at least a hundred paces.

Choosing his steps with care to avoid clattering the pebbles, he started back to the bank. A shape moved to the water's edge downstream about fifty paces. Pana froze. This time it was not a deer. The person paused, leaned over the water to gaze downriver, then turned and ambled slowly back to the bank.

Pulse pounding, Pana sidled over to the sand bank and scrambled back up. He checked his weapon, ensuring that its single bolt was slotted and the mechanism fully cocked as he thought. He patted his long dagger, and shifted the sheath on his belt so it wouldn't snag on his clothing when he withdrew it,

He glided through the shrubs, yielding to any pressure from the branches lest they slap or scrape. He flowed into any emptiness he sensed until he happened upon a game path. He dropped down, crawling slowly, stopping frequently to look and listen.

He discerned a faint murmur, almost a wail, pleading, praying, rising and falling rhythmically, repeating. He crawled closer. It came from just beyond a thicket. When the game trail veered away, he diverged, spiraling closer until he found a gap between two bushes that offered a glimpse into a clearing.

Too dark to see clearly, there appeared to be a person lying prone just before Pana on the ground. Another person paced across the clearing and back. Yet another, the one who was praying, hunched at the far edge of the clearing, head to the ground.

It startled Pana to hear the prayers shift from Venep'o into Sesep'o. A young priest, probably an Initiate, was hedging his bets in case the god of xenoliths might be a son of Sesei. His voice sounded reedy and distressed. The one who paced and the one lying on the ground were probably Cuerti guards. The thought of tangling with a Cuerti made the hair prickle on his neck. They had a reputation for fighting prowess and cruelty that was likely hyperbolic but no less daunting in the absence of direct experience.

The Initiate, he could handle, but the presence of the Cuerti made him reconsider his task. He had a single shot in his crossbow. If he missed, he would die, for nothing. If his single bolt flew true, but the prone one awoke and was also a Cuerti, he would also die, for he had no more bolts, and could not expect to take on a Cuerti with his meager dagger.

And his death would yield nothing because the Initiate would still live and would possess the xenolith. Because it was clear from his improvised and broken Sesep'o that he prayed to the stone for a convergence:

"May Cra reward you, stewards of your mystic door. Make it open for the children of Fanhalahun. Allow us to pass and Cra will bring mercy to all your dominion. Please, gods of Sesei, open this door. Open for us so we may pass to the world of our birth. Send us a sign that the door will open. Open for us and Pasemani shall praise you."

He alternated to Venep'o and back, never flagging, though his tenacity took a toll on the timbre of his voice.

Pana considered retreating downriver. How could he overcome even one Cuerti on his own, never mind two? He needed to gather help from Seor and the others wherever they were, though they might already be dead or captured by Urep'o. What if only he, Pana, stood between these Venep'o and the precious portal whose secret he had sworn to protect?

But why should he sacrifice, if he could not be certain that sacrifice would be rewarded with success? Why should he waste the chance of a future life with Ikarin?

If Ikarin still lived. If she still cared for him and not for another. More than a year had passed without a word between them.

What odds might exist for a future together? How small a chance for such a future would be worth shirking his duty? How large a chance of death was worth risking his life? The odds of being with Ikarin again would be precisely zero if he perished under the blade of a Cuerti.

But he could not bring himself to retreat. The insult it would inflict on his pride would be too deep to bear. It galled him to watch these invaders pray to a xenolith, the last hope of Sesei, entrusted to its defenders by the country's greatest Philosophers, despite their fears of exposing their world to the threat imposed by Ur and its apocalyptic weaponry. In Venep'o hands, who knew what terrible alliances might derive?

The prone man made no movements or sounds of breath. If he slept, he slept as still as death. With only one Cuerti alive, Pana would only need one clear shot. The Initiate would have no chance before his blade.

So he stayed beneath the bushes, waiting for enough light to aim his crossbow true. He settled into the sandy earth and threaded bits of plants into the holes and tears in his clothing so that when daylight came, he would blend in better with the shrubs. Hours remained before morning, but he dared not sleep.

*****

Chapter 35: Suspects

Ara sat hunched, elbows on the table, chin cradled in palms, in the uncomfortably bright interview room. Canu sat rigid and quaking beside her, but Ara's attention flagged. She found herself distracted by the way the mustache of the younger detective wiggled as he spoke.

Her prior residency in Ur served them well. Although the detectives quickly pegged Canu as an illegal immigrant, Ara had a social security number and had left a sizable footprint in Vermont's social services system, with registrations in the 3SquaresVT food stamp program, the Northeast Kingdom Community Action Center and the Caledonia County homeless shelter.

"So at no point today you were on the premises of the old brass mill?" said the younger detective.

"What's that?" said Ara, coming alert. "Breast milk?"

"Brass mill," said the older detective, exasperated. "He means the factory across the river." The older man paced behind the table, paunch threatening to burst the lower buttons of his shirt.

"No," she said, widening her eyes to get Canu to shake his head. He did, but a few seconds tardy and in the wrong direction.

"You've never spent the night, there?" said the younger one.

"I told you, we're not homeless."

"Yet you can't give us an address."

"206b Pearl Street, St. Johnsbury, Vermont, 05819," said Ara, providing the apartment number of the damaged but gentle soul who had let her sleep on his floor for several weeks during her residency.

"He means here," said the older man. "In Greymore."

"I told you, we came down from Vermont to meet up with friends, but our plans got messed up."

"No cell phone? No phone number for your friends?" pressed the young detective.

Ara shrugged.

The older man hobbled over to the door and peeked out at the accumulating queue of 'persons of interest' and sighed. Ara had sensed all through their interrogation that he wanted to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible so he could get home to bed.

"Let's wrap this one up, Jack. Refer them to the shelter in Ansonia and let's get onto the next one."

"But her story doesn't jibe," said the younger man.

"These two look like a threat to you, Jack?" said the older man, deep creases arcing across his forehead.

As they were led out of the room, Canu still bore the look of a man headed to his execution.

"Cheer up, Canu," she whispered in his ear. "They're letting us go."

"Free?" Canu said, surprised. Ara nodded. His eyes rolled skyward. "I'll believe it when I see the stars over my head and I can breathe fresh air again."

Ten inked fingers and two flashes later, they were headed into the cool breeze wafting in through the main door, passing a policeman coming the other way with an object wrapped in transparent film and dangling yellow evidence tags. It looked like a crossbow. Ara paused in the door frame, craning for a better look, but Canu was already churning down the street as fast as he could walk. She caught up with him at a corner.

"That was not so bad," said Ara. "I've had worse experiences with police before ... in Vermont."

Canu still breathed hard, and sweat dampened his hairline, but the tension had finally seeped from his face. "What happened in ... that other place?"

"I was arrested," said Ara.

"For what?"

"Don't know. Poverty, I suppose."

"Being poor is a crime?"

"I think they find poverty embarrassing," said Ara. "They prefer their poor hidden away."

"But you went to the Philosopher's Academy," said Canu. "Your family must have been well off."

"It's how Travelers train," said Ara. "To truly understand a place, you start at the bottom. The bones of a place show more clearly. The teeth of the law; its rules, its constraints, bite hardest at the poor. So the poor know its blind spots best. I learned survival. Not well, but I could feed myself and stay dry."

Canu rubbed his stomach. "Perhaps now would be a good time to demonstrate your skills."

"Some food would be good," said Ara. "You wouldn't happen to have any money, would you?"

"Money? That's cheating. What about those survival skills?"

Ara gave him a cold stare. "You want I should kill a cat?"

Canu kinked the corner of his mouth and removed a few crumpled bills from his pocket. Ara grinned and snatched them from his hand. Down the street, one brightly lighted establishment stood out among the darkened shops. "Be right back." She strode up to find a place that uncannily resembled a diner she had frequented in St. Johnsbury, right down to the red cushioned booths and round stools on pedestals. It sat empty but for a few policemen on break and a group of loud, young men. She bought a large order of French fries with brown gravy to go.

As she turned from the counter, she saw Canu staring in through the window and looking antsy and disheveled like a junkie. No wonder they had been taken in for questioning.

Outside, she opened the brown paper bag, gravy already soaking through the thin paper plate. Canu reached in and came up with a dripping handful, staring at them momentarily before shoving them into his mouth.

"No meat?" he said, with his mouth full.

"Not with the few bills you gave me," said Ara. She nibbled one at a time as they walked through an empty lot, splashed with the light of street lamps. Canu, taking fistfuls, depleted most of the bag before they reached the next corner.

They paused and peered down a dark side street, crowded with low buildings. An elevated road loomed at the end of it. Traffic was sparse at this late hour, with only the occasional truck whining over them.

"Is that the river?" said Ara, pointing at the inky void behind the highway.

"Yes," said Canu. "I can smell it. That road underneath leads to the bridge we crossed. We're on the same side as the stone."

"Good. Then we don't need to cross."

Ara pondered whether she should warn Canu who they were about to meet, or whether she should let him find out for himself. Up till now, he hadn't needed to know, but she worried he might act rashly if he were surprised. At least he carried no weapons. Baren had made sure of that. But the coming encounter had potential for much awkwardness, if not danger. It was difficult to find how to put it into words without making it sound like a crime against the state. Ara, herself, didn't quite comprehend how the Venep'o could have ever been allowed to come to Greymore.

"I have to warn you," she said. "Baren's guests may be a bit jumpy. You might want to let me approach them."

"No worries,"said Canu to him as they headed down the side road towards the massive concrete supports of the overpass. "They've probably already met my comrades."

"Comrades?"

"Yes. We left some of our group to watch the portal."

"The one's you saw across the bridge?"

"Among others," said Canu. "Who are these guests, anyway? Politicians?"

Ara stood, consternated. "Why didn't you mention this? What if Baren's guests are here in town, already?"

"Vul and Pari stood alone," said Canu. "I didn't see anybody with them."

Ara's eyes flickered from side to side as she thought. "I suppose we still need to check."

"So who are these people?" said Canu.

"Emissaries. From Venen." Ara said sheepishly, voice descending

"From where?" Canu spat out a mouthful of fries. "Venep'o? In Ur?"

"It's to bring peace," said Ara. "It was approved at the highest levels."

"Go by yourself," said Canu. "I have no interest in meeting any Sinkor swine."

"Canu, I need you along. If your friends are there, they might be hostile to me."

"I might be hostile to you just standing here, knowing what you've done."

"Please Canu. I don't want to do this alone." Their eyes connected. The rumble and must beneath the pillars evoked memories of rainy nights spent under overpasses in Vermont.

"I'll take you part-way," said Canu, his voice modulating.

*****

Chapter 36: Wasteland

Flashes of blue reflected off the water from the police vehicles lingering downstream. Canu led Ara, ankles bent, along a slanted slab of concrete that lined the river bend. When the river straightened and a natural bank resumed, the factory and downtown had disappeared from view. They diverged from the river into a dark and distorted landscape where the soil had been gouged and mounded and swirled as if a colossal beast had thrashed and died there. Unearthed boulders lay heaped like skulls. Weeds huddled like frightened sheep.

This expanse of wastes separated the river from a pair of roads: a surface street passing empty lots and boxy buildings of brick and corrugated metal; and behind it a highway, soaring up a hillside on concrete legs.

Moonlight and lamp glow frosted the terrain's high points, but the shadows concealed deep pits and gouges that engulfed Canu's feet and made him stumble. Canu marveled at Ara's grace over the rugged ground. She read the land and chose her steps with care, avoiding every hidden hazard. She seemed to possess the night vision of a cat.

They reached the point where the surface road and its tall lamps ended. Canu knew he was getting close to the relay. He decided to make a show of his displeasure. He stopped abruptly beside a berm. "This is as far as I go," he said, though saying it felt awkward. "Good luck."

Ara looked alarmed. "But which way do I go from here?"

"You know how to find the river," said Canu.

"So you'll just ... return?" said Ara. "Can you at least wait until I see if anyone is there?"

Canu inhaled and exhaled deeply. "I suppose. So long as I don't have to meet them."

Ara started off toward the river, but hesitated, motioning this way and that. "Which way, exactly?" she said.

"Straight to the water," said Canu.

She nodded and disappeared into the shrubs, her outline quickly blending into the darkness. Canu sat on a boulder, feeling all twitchy and anxious. He wanted to help Ara, but the thought of Venep'o emissaries waiting a stone's throw away angered and bewildered him. The invasion had cultivated in Canu a festering hostility to all things Venep'o.

Canu had been in his teens when the invasion began. Unlike many of his friends, he ignored the militia enlistment appeals that sprang up after word came from the coast that a small invasion force from Venen had landed in Diomet. He couldn't picture himself wielding a sword, or wearing a helm. He couldn't imagine why any militia would want him.

At first, most in Ubabaor considered the altercation a local dispute. They believed the Venep'o propaganda describing the action as a defense of several persecuted Sinkor expatriate communities in several Diomet ports. But the growing size of the invasion force soon belied the Venep'o's true intentions. This was no humanitarian rescue.

By the time shock troops began surging across Sesei, city officials in Ubabaor were manning the walls by conscripting any unaffiliated and able-bodied young person into the city defense force. Canu's baptism of fire came when a Cuasar vanguard appeared on the plains and made their initial probes of the city walls, testing the vigilance of its defenders, while harassing the straggling columns of refugees still filtering in from Suul.

When the siege wagons arrived, the real battle for Ubabaor began. Their terrible machines hurled boulders and flaming tar, battering solid walls to grit, scorching entire neighborhoods. Breach after breach they had turned back and sealed. Canu lost comrades almost as fast as he met them.

At every sunrise, Canu became intimately acquainted with the morale-crushing cruelty of his enemies, when they taunted and tortured prisoners in full view of the defense walls, including some that he knew. Worst, was the day the Venep'o lured a band of riders out from the walls to rescue a woman who had been strapped to a post, partly dismembered and kept alive by tourniquets, only to have the full force of the besiegers fall upon them. Thus, the enemy acquired raw material for yet another week of atrocities. When the truce finally came, Canu, like many, found himself baffled by his own survival.

Till now, Canu had harbored a vision of Ur as a pure land, free of all enemies. The idea comforted him, helped him get to sleep on the worst nights. He had even entertained the thought of retreating to Ur if conditions in Sesei deteriorated beyond hope. But the events of the day had permanently tainted his impressions of Ur. He no longer held any illusions of Ur as a refuge, particularly if the Venep'o had found their way here.

Shrubs rustled. Canu scrambled for a stick and a stone. The faint outline and the way it moved, nimble but lost, could only be Ara.

"Over here," said Canu, whispering.

"No one's there," said Ara, orienting to his voice. "At least I think not. It was so dark, I couldn't see a thing."

"I can leave?" said Canu.

"Stay with me till morning?" said Ara. "Please? At least till there is light?"

Canu made a show of his exasperation, expelling breath. "Sure," he said. In truth, he had no desire to leave Ara's side. He enjoyed her company enough to endure the specter of Venep'o emissaries possibly lurking somewhere along the river bank.

"Bringing Venep'o to Ur," he grumbled. "How was this ever allowed?"

"If it brings peace, it's good, don't you think?"

"What peace does this bring?" said Canu. "It just brings the war to Ur."

"Not necessarily," said Ara. "There have been negotiations."

"They know about our stones now. How do you suppose they will use them?"

"We're not just ... surrendering. The militias Gi in provide leverage for our negotiations. The Venep'o will surely make concessions. I hope. I mean ... I have my doubts, too, but my hopes are stronger."

"Hope," he mocked. "The Venep'o eat hope for breakfast. I have hopes too, but they don't involve peace treaties with Venen. I hope we take back our freedom by force."

"How? By recruiting Nalkies? By attacking the farthest frontiers of Venen with an army of farmers? You don't find that plan preposterous?"

"You underestimate the Nalkies," said Canu. "Didn't you hear what they did in Siklaa Gorge? Destroyed a complete caravan and its escort. Annihilated them. The Crasacs fear them now. They hole up in their garrisons at night for fear of being slaughtered in their camps."

Ara chortled.

"You laugh," said Canu. "But I would not want to fight them. They use the land well, and they have excellent weapons. Swords of folded metal that cut through any armor. Long bows with range beyond our crossbows."

"That's not what Baren says. He says they wield farming implements, and run when confronted. It's only the threat of our militia that keeps them from being slaughtered."

"He knows this, how? Has he ever seen a Nalki fight?"

"It doesn't matter," she said. "The Inner Quorum has decided to seek peace. I'm sure they what they're doing; they know things that we can't possibly know."

"So you just follow, blind? You have no thoughts of your own?"

"Do you think I'm looking forward to meeting these Venep'o?" Ara's voice rose in agitation. "Do you think I enjoy showing hospitality to my enemy?"

Canu sighed. He picked up a handful of pebbles and clinked them one by one against a larger stone.

"During the invasion," said Ara, "When my unit was cut off, we were all taken prisoner. I was the lucky one. They used me as an interpreter for a time, until I could escape. But I saw firsthand the terrible things the Venep'o did to prisoners. They had me ... me ... ask the questions to those they tortured. Unanswerable questions, that brought grotesque punishments. It seemed they tortured more for pleasure than for information."

"If you have such feelings, why do you collaborate with these monsters?"

"What choice is there for Sesei?" said Ara. "We have to have some faith in our leaders. Did they not manage to stall the invasion, when no one thought it could ever be stopped?"

"I think you give them too much credit," said Canu. "Our militias did the fighting."

Canu rolled over and stretched out on the rocks, digging a hollow for his hip. Ara sat down in the cool gravel beside him and leaned against a boulder, resting her chin against her chest.

The gentle breeze carried a faint murmur like a droning voice, but too faint to discern direction or distance. Dawn remained hours away, yet vehicles still rumbled down the roadway behind them. He wondered if this world ever knew silence.

*****

Chapter 37: Showdown

The monotonic prayers of the Initiate had slowed and quieted to a low drone. From beneath the canopy of shrubs, Pana watched the contrast grow between branch and sky as the darkness receded. The imminence of dawn alarmed him. Had he dozed off? With a Cuerti patrolling only paces away?

Every passing minute revealed more of his surroundings: a withered mushroom by his elbow, a mouse trail tunneling through sun-bleached grass, a yellow-tufted wildflower rising from a rosette on a hirsute stalk. He knew that the extra light had exposed him as well, so he inched back beneath a ceiling of branches, away from the clearing, behind another rank of bushes.

He crept behind a dead tree with truncated limbs that spread like pleading arms. An odd, slender appendage sprouted from one of its higher boughs like a misplaced twig: smooth and slender, with graceful fletching. It was a crossbow bolt; probably a stray shot of his comrades, intended for the Crasacs emerging from the portal, too high to retrieve without being spotted.

Pana's attention flitted to the clearing. The Cuerti seemed jumpy, reacting to every leaf that fell, every bird that alighted on a bush. He stood facing the dead tree, his head poised like a wolf sniffing the wind, as if he had a vague perception of Pana's presence.

Pana longed to fetch the bolt in the tree. A second bolt would provide some insurance for a miss, but only if he had time to reload before the Cuerti could slay him. Only one set of arms on his double-strung crossbow remained functional.

Retreat grew ever more tempting, but something kept Pana in place, counter to all his instincts and fears. Whatever compelled him, it didn't feel like courage or duty. If Ikarin knew what he faced she would only beg him to run. But somehow, he stayed by the clearing, crossbow ready, retained by forces he didn't understand.

The Cuerti guard walked over and spoke to the one who lay on the ground. Pana heard the other man respond. Now he knew for certain that he had two to contend with, although he strongly suspected that the prone man had been badly injured.

The Initiate's prayers had ceased, but he still knelt on the ground, rocking back and forth. The guard came up behind him, passed a few words and passed out of the clearing towards the river. The Initiate stopped his rocking, and gazed nervously about.

Pana seized the opportunity. He rose behind the dead tree and reached high. The bolt lay just beyond his fingertips. He stepped up on its exposed roots. His fingers grazed the feathered fletching. He dug the side of his sandals into the bark at the base of the trunk, but it crumbled. He slipped off. Any moment, the guard would return. His chance was fading.

The stub of branch that had collected the stray bolt looked stout enough so he leapt and grabbed on with one hand, reaching for the bolt with the other. The branch cracked away with a sound like bones breaking and landed with Pana hard against the gravel. He ripped out the bolt and popped to his feet to find the Initiate staring straight at him, his face dismayed. He backed away, shouting.

The wounded Cuerti struggled to rise off the ground. Pana stepped forward and raised his crossbow, aiming with care as the Initiate turned and fled towards the river. The bolt flew. Too high, he thought. But the Initiate fell clutching his throat. He howled with pain, cursing in Sesep'o, begging Cra for mercy in every language he knew, invoking even the minor gods of the Sinkor Faith.

The injured Cuerti now stood, saber in hand, stalking after Pana. He shouted over his shoulder, a guttural plea to the one who had gone to the river. Pana hadn't counted on this one being mobile. He fumbled to slot the bolt he had just retrieved, recognizing the mottled feathers that Pari favored in her fletching. The Cuerti, struggling to plant his blood-soaked leg, lurched towards him. Pana had no time to cock the bolt fully. He ratcheted it to half-tension and let loose. The bolt disappeared into the Cuerti's unarmored chest, dropping him several paces away.

The other guard exploded onto the scene from behind the same dead tree that Pana had used for cover having circled around in an attempt to ambush Pana in his hiding place. Pana threatened him with his unloaded crossbow, stumbling backwards. The Cuerti barely hesitated, seeing at a glance that Pana had no bolts.

The Cuerti's eyes followed Pana coolly as he dodged about the clearing, anticipating Pana's movements with his crossbow. With a crack, he let his bolt fly. It whistled past Pana's mid-section and disappeared into the shrubs. The Cuerti drew his saber and advanced, wielding his crossbow like a shield. A voice within Pana begged him to run. Instead, he drew his own sword.

*****

Chapter 38: Reckless

A gurgling scream pierced the ambient murmur, channeling its agony and indignance through Canu like spirits through a medium. Canu bounded to his feet and reached for his dagger, but his fingers met only cloth.

For endless moments, Canu could not remember what world he stood in. Alien hills rose before him, painted in the glow of first light. Thickets of unfamiliar shrubs and saplings swallowed the foreground. Only when he saw Ara hunched and asleep over a boulder, did his senses return.

He shook Ara by the shoulder until her puffy eyelids parted. She looked up at Canu, wobbly and disoriented. But the scream focused her eyes and cleared her head in an instant. She flew up from the boulder and raised her chin against the breeze.

Echoes bounced and deflected the screams in all directions, confounding its location. Canu saw a flicker of comprehension enter Ara's eyes. "Upstream," she said, with a squeeze of Canu's arm. She ran off towards the river. Canu wavered for a moment, but went after her.

Ara followed a dirt road littered with piles of construction debris. The land descended to the river channel in a series of steps. Where the road dead-ended, they pushed through a patch of tall grass and came upon a grisly tableau in the terrace below. In a pebbled clearing near the riverbank, one Cuerti lay face-down beside a blood-spattered bush. Beside him a blue-robed Venep'o holy man writhed, clasping his neck, panting and whimpering in spasms.

"Is this your friends' handiwork?" said Ara, aghast.

Movements drew Canu's attention to a thicket behind the barren glade. A Cuerti prowled there, stalking Pana, saber in one hand, crossbow in the other. Pana dipped and dodged beyond reach of the man's saber, his home-forged short sword a pitiful match against his opponent's finely-crafted weapon.

"I'm putting a stop to this," said Ara. She stepped forward and called to the Cuerti in Venep'o.

"Ara! Get down!"

Canu tackled her just as the startled Cuerti whirled and shot a bolt that whistled straight through the spot she had been standing.

Pana took advantage of the distraction and lunged after the Cuerti, who swung his crossbow like a shield to fend off Pana's blade. Pana harried him at close range, offsetting the advantage of his opponent's longer, lighter saber. Though Pana parried every strike, he could not land any decisive blows of his own. The Cuerti backed away. Pana pressed after him.

Canu picked up a half-rotted tree limb and went to join the fight. Ara scurried after him. "Canu, stop! Are you insane? You can't fight a Cuerti with a stick." She grabbed at the heavy limb, but Canu wrested it away, leaving her with a fistful of crumbly bark, as he charged towards the skirmish, the fungus-eaten branch raised high over his shoulder.

Canu's charge made both combatants glance. The Cuerti backpedaled away, hopping over a fallen log. Pana surged after him, but tripped and fell onto his knees. In the space the stumble created between them, the Cuerti was able to raise and ratchet a bolt into his crossbow. With a loud snap, the bolt flew and slammed into Pana's midsection at close range. He grunted and fell backwards. The Cuerti pounced and impaled him with his saber.

Canu, realizing the folly of his attack, aborted the charge. He had hoped to brain the Cuerti with the limb as Pana engaged his saber, but Pana now lay bleeding on the ground. The Cuerti tossed his crossbow aside and wheeled to face Canu, advancing in a crouch, saber extended. Canu backed off slowly.

Ara, several paces behind Canu, pleaded with the Cuerti in Venep'o. The Cuerti spat curses back at her as he spiraled in closer. As Canu backed over a heap of concrete debris, he spotted a length of rusty metal with one end encased in bits of cement. He swooped down and retrieved it with his free hand, just as the Cuerti initiated a swipe intended to liberate Canu from his head. Canu swung the rusted rod upward and connected with the Cuerti's ribcage, knocking him backwards as chunks of concrete sprayed off the rod.

The Cuerti kept his feet, and came after Canu with renewed focus, like a frustrated lion determined to finish off its prey. Canu gripped the center of the rod with both hands and used both ends to fend off the saber. But the saber flew swifter than the heavy rod. One slash scraped across and slashed into Canu's palm, mixing blood with rust and slickening his grip. The Cuerti intensified his attack. Canu's parries came ever tardier. The Cuerti lunged for the kill.

*****

Chapter 39: The Initiate

Doctor Frank's posture sagged, his mouth dropped open when Tezhay left his side to answer the summons of the man in blue. His reaction amused Tezhay in a bitter way. Why couldn't the good doctor have expressed such separation anxiety before leaving a comfortable if not cushy custody and delivering himself directly to a Venep'o slave pit?

But this was no occasion for spite. The blue-robed cleric waiting for him at the gate of the holding pen could prove serendipitous for both of them. Tezhay felt better about his chances of exploiting an educated Initiate's capacity for mercy than influencing the brutal exigencies of a Crasac foreman with a whip, a trench that needed digging and a renewable supply of forced laborers.

Though, mingling with the military attaches of Venen's theocracy was not without its perils. Hilorus and their Initiates were known to enjoy spilling blood in their rituals. But at least, the calmly intelligent eyes that met his as he approached the gate promised Tezhay a place where reason might account for something.

Tezhay bowed to the Initiate. "Mercy of Cra! May the Three Brothers be just," he said, greeting the young man with fluent Venep'o, in the traditional, if archaic, manner.

"You speak well," said the Initiate, his violet eyes perusing Tezhay carefully. "Tell me, who is this face that adorns your chest?"

Tezhay pulled at his T-shirt. "This? Just a painting of some man. I liked how he looked."

The Initiate squinted slightly. "But this is not a man who lives in Sesei, no?"

"I don't know where he lives, or even if he is a real man," said Tezhay. The Initiate gave him a knowing look that made him nervous.

"Perhaps this man lives in Ur, yes?" said the Initiate.

It jarred Tezhay to hear that particular place name uttered by a junior cleric from Venen. The secret of Ur was closely protected. Until recently, even the militia who traveled through Ur were never told its name.

"Your clothing. Those shoes. You acquired them in Ur, didn't you?"

Tezhay weighed the value of deceit. Protocol advised: 'Never provide an enemy the truth unless to guide him towards a greater untruth.' But to deny everything would either invite torture or make him less interesting to the Initiate who would then leave them to rot in the pen.

"You don't have to pretend," said the Initiate. "Our people have gone to Ur, too."

Tezhay's face flushed. His claim seemed impossible. As far as he know, there were no unaccounted xenoliths. As a keeper of stones, Tezhay had been directly involved in their inventory. All that has ever risked falling into enemy hands had been retrieved or destroyed.

"Have you traveled to Ur?" pressed the Initiate.

"Yes ... I have," said Tezhay, resisting the inclination to lie.

"So you might understand the principles of navigation?"

Tezhay nodded, even though that was an odd and ignorant way to describe travel by xenolith.

The Initiate smiled. "I do believe my mentor would be very interested in speaking with you," he said. He turned to the one-armed guard. "Bind and fetter him, then deliver him to the Hilorus' chambers."

"You should bring this man too." Tezhay pointed at Doctor Frank, who had wandered closer to the gate.

"Him?" The Initiate looked askance at Doctor Frank with obvious distaste.

"He is a doctor," said Tezhay.

"A doctor?" The Initiate laughed. "But he looks so sickly. What kind of doctor can he be?" He squinted. "What's wrong with his face?"

"Nothing is wrong with it," said Tezhay. "That's how he looks. He was born ... in Ur."

"Ah," said the Initiate, recognition dawning. He turned to the guard. "Take that one as well."

Tezhay beckoned to Doctor Frank, who meandered across the pitted and befouled mud, his face a mixture of trepidation and excitement.

"What's going on?" said Doctor Frank.

"You come too," said Tezhay, in English.

"Where?"

"We see. Maybe someplace better," said Tezhay, hoping it would be true. Though, he knew they could still end up being tortured, which in the hands of Venep'o clerics often strayed beyond information gathering to arcane religious rituals involving vivisection and body fusion. Tezhay thought it best not to mention the harsher possibilities just yet.

The guard bound them with surprising dexterity for a one-armed man, and led them out of the gate. They followed the Initiate's flowing blue robes up a rutted path, away from the mesa brim to the central mound that held the unfinished temple. A group of Crasacs pointed and jeered as they passed, but an officer promptly silenced them.

Maneuvering between piles of stone and brick, they entered a garden fronting a squat building with squared columns and walls of cut limestone; one of the few structures on the mesa that seemed to be built with an eye towards permanence.

Four guards flanked the columned portico, each a monumental specimen at least twice Tezhay's weight. They wore gleaming breastplates of layered leather, wood and steel, etched with the three-clawed Talons of Cra. Their heavy swords, weapons suited more for ceremony than war, were similarly engraved with writhing, hooded snakes.

They were Cuerti, the elite guard of the Sinkor Natadi faith, selected from among the most devout and elite soldiers of the Crasac and Cuasar corps. With extremists in control of the theocracy, Tezhay heard that they now recruited children, nurtured in faith-centered military academies from their time of weaning.

The Initiate slid open a panel within the portico and led them into a large room, empty but for a simple bench and a low table surrounded by cushions. The guard seated them on the bench and secured their fetters to a post. The Initiate passed into the next room, leaving them alone with their escort from the holding pen and two Cuerti, who took positions flanking the table.

Tezhay's eyes wandered to the image on a brilliant tapestry behind the table: powerful talons grasping through clouds at a coiled serpent – the newly dominant symbol of Cra supremacy as the Sinkor faith emerged from the throes of the revolution that transformed it from a faith of many gods to a single, dominant deity. To Sesei's detriment, that upheaval had produced an appetite for military adventurism that began with interventions supporting their expatriate communities in coastal Diomet and led to a full-blown invasion and the near collapse of Sesei's Ubabaor-based government after a lengthy siege.

Quaintly, a frayed and faded tapestry on a side wall displayed the Sinkor faith in its traditional form: the Three Brothers in balance; the Talons of Cra, the god of conquest; the Paw of Pasemani, the god of nurture; and the Hooves of Fanhalahun, the god of commerce; with Cra central but equal to his brothers. That such a relic could coexist with a supremacist icon gave Tezhay pause, and gave him hope that the high priest in command of this outpost might be a Traditionalist.

"What is this place?" whispered Doctor Frank. "I thought they were taking us to haul stone or something."

"This a ... priest house," said Tezhay. "I tell him you a doctor. Maybe they use your help."

"Sure," said Doctor Frank, voice rising in pleasant realization. "I could handle that." His eyes widened. "Do you suppose these people use that bolovo stuff?"

"I don't know," said Tezhay. "But I would be careful about what you steal. These people can be very, very cool."

"Cool?"

Tezhay shuddered and shook his head. "I misspeak. I mean ... cruel."

The Initiate returned with a much older man. His long hair was tousled and he came out adjusting his breeches under dark robes askew, as if he had just been rousted from bed. Tezhay gathered from the intricacy of the robe's brocade, that he was an Eldest Brother, a Hiloru of higher status. That such a cleric would be so far forward in Sesei surprised him. He must be visiting from more secure positions along the coast.

The Eldest's rheumy eyes seemed puzzled at first by their presence. He came over and inspected them as if they were new additions to his private menagerie, scuffing Frank's muddy beard with the back of his knuckles, studying the face on Tezhay's shirt.

He went back and sat back down at the low table and held a subdued conversation with the Initiate while servants brought in breakfast. He ate with great pleasure, slopping thick porridge from a bowl, sampling sliced fruits and morsels of preserved meat from a platter, oblivious to the hunger of his prisoners.

"The least that asshole could do is toss us a crust. I've seen stray dogs treated better."

"Quiet," said Tezhay. "Give some respect. This one is dangerous."
The Eldest Brother looked up at them from his bowl, eyes scolding. "It is the Mercy of Cra that brings you to us at this critical time," he said, speaking fluent, un-inflected Sesep'o. "Be it known that the Spirits of the Three Brothers reside with us in this house, as we build our new temple. Let their presence be your guide as you respond to my inquiries."

"What did he say?" said Doctor Frank.

"No talk!" whispered Tezhay. He saw the Eldest's face stiffen at the interruption. "I tell you later."

"Dembon tells me that you were discovered in the labor pool," said the Eldest. "Most of our trespassers are farmers ... or spies." The old man sucked at his teeth. "You two don't seem to be farmers."

The implication chilled Tezhay. He had once recovered the corpse of a captured spy, nailed to the bole of a dismembered tree.

"How is it that you find yourselves in our custody?" said the Eldest.

"We meant no harm," said Tezhay. "I was showing my new friend the place where my family once had a farm."

"So far beyond your defenses? So close to our lines?"

"There is a truce," said Tezhay. "Is there not?"

The old man picked up a stylus and dipped it in something dark and red that Tehay hoped was ink.

"What are your names?" said the Eldest.

"I am Tezhay," he said. "My friend's name is ... Doctor."

"Doctor? What kind of name is that?"

"He is a foreigner," said Tezhay.

"I see that," said the Eldest. "He is from Ur, isn't he?"

Tezhay nodded, wincing slightly. Hearing this man speak the name of a place long held secret to all Venep'o galled him.

"And your clothes ... so exotic. You are dressed for travel, are you not?"

Tezhay gave him the barest of nods.

"Tell me, how does one travel to Ur these days, on foot or by wagon?" The Eldest Brother smirked, toying with him like a cat with a vole.

"Both," said Tezhay.

His smile vanished. "Or maybe you use a special type of stone?"

Tezhay took a breath, finding his worst fears realized.

"There is no need to be coy or clever. We know all about your stones. In fact, we possess one." The Elder's eyes were cool and knowing, obscenely so to Tezhay. He studied Tezhay closely and carefully, sucking at his composure like a leech.

"I see you're skeptical. Fetch it, please, Dembon."

The Initiate stepped into the next room. Tezhay heard him unlock a cabinet and pull open a creaking drawer. He came back carrying a lacquered box, the color of dried blood, inlaid with bits of opalescent shell. He placed it on the table before the Eldest Brother, who removed the top and lifted the velvety blue cloth covering its contents.

"What is that?" said Doctor Frank, craning his neck to see.

Tezhay gazed downward. He felt sickened by what the box likely contained, and didn't want to give the Eldest Brother the pleasure of watching his despair.

"Come now. Don't be shy. Look and see what we have."

*****

Chapter 40: Ara's Choice

Ara stared, dumbfounded, as Canu charged the Cuerti with nothing but a rotten stick. He struggled against the Cuerti's blade with an unwieldy length of twisted metal, using both ends to bat away thrusts, but his sluggish parries barely met the quicker saber in time. It seemed inevitable that one of his defenses would arrive too late.

Ara danced at the edge of the skirmish, just beyond the saber's reach. "Please! We can talk," she pleaded in Venep'o.

"Too late for talk," spat the Cuerti. He lunged at Canu, who dodged aside, but stumbled to one knee. The Cuerti whirled and swung his blade in a wide arc that would have decapitated Canu had he not regained his feet and backpedaled. Canu stood one slash away from death. Soon it would be her alone against the Cuerti.

The injured militia man attempted to rise to Canu's aid, but crumpled with a groan. His short sword clattered against the pebbles. Ara dashed over, snatched up the blade and waited for an opening.

Canu slammed one end of the rod against his opponent's midriff, but the Cuerti caught it with the base of his blade and forced it aside. The rod slipped from Canu's grasp. As the Cuerti moved in for the kill, Ara flashed in from behind and plunged the sword up under the Cuerti's ribs, feeling the blade vibrate as it grooved his bones. The Cuerti gasped and fell, the tip of his saber catching in the earth and springing away with the tinkle of fine steel. The blade had cleaved his heart. In seconds, he became more meat than man.

Canu knelt in the gravel, eyes wide, panting. "Thank you," he said. "I think ... I might have lost."

"You think?" Ara went over and knelt by the militia man. His face looked ashen, his lips chalky from loss of blood. She examined the swamp of gore that soaked his abdomen. The crossbow bolt had passed straight through his vital organs. What blood hadn't spilled had leaked inside, rendering his middle turgid and tender. His eyes remained clear, but they looked puzzled to see her.

Canu staggered over. "Pana, my friend, what have they done to you?"

"Are the Crasacs ... all dead?" said Pana, softly.

"Crasacs?" said Canu. "Do you mean Cuerti?" Canu glanced at Ara, but she could only shrug.

"Crasacs," said Pana. "More wait across the portal. Get the stone. Destroy it now."

Canu looked about the clearing. "I ... I don't know where it is."

"The Initiate," said Pana. "He prayed to it ... all night. Get it. I want to see it gone. Before I go."

Ara touched his hand. "I can't allow that," she whispered. "The stone must be preserved."

Canu pulled away from her and went over to where the Initiate lay curled on his side. His eyelids flickered but his eyes no longer seemed to gaze on the world of the living. The stone rested on a small square of gilded cloth beside him.

Ara rose and hustled after him, extending Pana's sword. "Leave it be, Canu. Baren wants that stone intact."

He ignored her, and stooped for the stone. Before his hand could reach it, she pressed the point of the sword against the small of his back. "Touch it and I will punish you," she said.

"Ara, we can't let the enemy take our portals," said Canu. "They are all we have."

"Move away," said Ara. "If the stone needs to be destroyed, Baren will decide."

"Ara. You know this is wrong." Canu tried to probe her eyes but she avoided his gaze. "Think for yourself. Do you want Venep'o crossing into Ur at will? Do you want them to use our stones against us?"

"If it brings us peace, then—"

"Peace?" Canu chortled. "Do you really believe this?"

"Those who lead us believe so. Who am I to say? I am nobody."

"At this moment," said Canu, "You are more powerful than anyone in the Inner Quorum. You determine what happens to ... this stone ... and maybe to us all."

Without intending it, the point of Ara's sword bit into Canu's skin, causing a small red flower to bloom on his shirt. A swarm of doubts assailed her. Her instincts aligned with Canu's desire to destroy the stone. The idea of Venep'o freely entering Ur had disturbed her from the start, and seeing them here had not made her feel any better about it. But Baren's desires were clear. His directives came straight from the Inner Quorum.

She studied the blocky, inelegant sword in her hands, so typical of those forged by amateur blacksmiths in farmyards throughout Sesei. Militia members were responsible for procuring or devising their own armaments. Ara's own sword, long surrendered to the Cuasars who captured her on the plains of Ortezei, had been cast and shaped by her father and uncle. When the Venep'o began amassing on the beaches of Diomet, they had spent a week turning picks and plowshares into blades for anyone in the family old enough or fit enough to fight, whether by joining a militia or defending their homestead.

But now such a blade stood between her and a loyal militia man, a man who only wished to keep his enemy from acquiring a xenolith, to fulfill a pledge made by every militia and cadre member that traveled through Ur. Her cadre, meanwhile, had helped their enemy acquire a stone as part of a treaty that would permanently concede her home province to Venen. When a leader orders surrender before his soldiers are willing, what then?

Ara flung the blade aside and stepped away. She felt Canu's eyes upon her, but could not bear to meet them.

"You do the right thing, Ara," he told her, but his reassurance only triggered tears.

She watched as Canu removed the stone from its gilded carpet and retrieved the rusted bar. He carried the stone close to his dying comrade, placed it on the ground and struck it. It split easily. He attacked in turn each fragment as if exterminating a swarm of spiders.

"You are doomed." The weak and rattly voice startled Ara. "That's for certain, now." The Initiate's eyes had opened a sliver. Blood still pulsed through the fingers he pressed against his throat. "Our generals ... some ... advocated ... a retreat," he said. "Now, that will never happen. You ... wasted ... your only chance."

"I don't dispute you," said Ara, glumly. "But my superiors didn't wish this to happen," said Ara. "We never expected to these militia here."

"Who are they ... these ... devils?"

"Patriots, I suspect," said Ara.

The Initiate coughed, which only caused more blood to gush through his fingers.

"This was the last ... the last real chance your country had. Ubabaor will fall now. Sesei ... will soon be no more."

Canu walked over, dragging the rod through the gravel. "What is this Cra lover telling you?" He prodded at the Initiate with the heavy bar. Ara knocked it aside.

"He's dying," said Ara, glaring. "You can at least respect his last breath."

"And how much respect would this Cra lover show for me, if I breathed my last?"

"If you act like the enemy ... then how are you any better?" said Ara.

Ara, dispirited, still could not meet Canu's gaze. "How is your comrade?" she said.

"He won't be with us long, either," said Canu. "He will be gone before any fever can take him."

"Canu," called Pana, weakly, struggling to breathe. Ara followed Canu over to the militia man's side. "Find Cudi. He died ... in the river. And Alic fell ... by a fence ... on the other side. Find them. Put them with me ... I don't want to be alone in this place."

"How did they fall? Crasacs?" Canu bit his lip. "Some day, Pana, I promise, I will carry you all back to Sesei myself."

Pana's breaths came quick and shallow. "Canu ... my brother ... I'm sorry I was so hard on you ... during our time together. I shouldn't have ...."

"It was nothing, Pana. Just joking, teasing, like brothers."

"Ikarin ... Give her this ..." He reached for the amulet around his neck. "I see ... I see ...."

"What do you see?" said Canu, trying and failing to blink away the moisture from his eyes. Ara felt a terrible weight descend, as if the sky were pressing down like a thumb on an ant.

Pana's body slumped and became one with the soil already saturated with his blood. A strangled yelp escaped Canu's throat. He looked at Ara with the eyes of a lost boy. Ara opened her arms to him. Canu grasped her and hugged her and buried his face in her hair.

*****

Chapter 41: The Enemy's Xenolith

The Eldest Brother beckoned him to his table. Tezhay took a deep breath before stepping forward and peering inside the lacquered box. What he saw nearly jolted him off his feet. Inside rested a perfect xenolith, ensconced in satiny yellow cloth. Tezhay could see that it had been recently active from the way its iridescence cycled and flowed. He closed one eye, opened it and closed the other. The stone's shape and color seemed to shift slightly. No other stone displayed such ambiguity of light and form.

Tezhay's breathing accelerated. He felt like taking the xenolith out of the box and smashing it under his heel. He could have done so easily enough. Xenoliths were soft and brittle stones.

But if he followed through on this impulse, though Ubabaor's enemies would no longer possess a xenolith, but the Cuerti guards would ensure that Tezhay no longer had a head.

Perhaps, if he remained patient and learned more – how they found it, how they used it – better options would arise. The Initiate had to have brought them here for something more than providing the Eldest Brother an opportunity to gloat. Tezhay capped his emotions and returned to the bench.

The Eldest Brother grinned. "I can tell that you recognize this object, don't you?"

Tezhay forced a smile. "You have a pretty stone," he said.

"A pretty stone, he says! A pretty stone that opens doors into Ur," said the Eldest Brother.

Tezhay kept his face rigid. He glanced at Frank, whose gaze had been captured by the tapestries.

"My contact in Ubabaor told me of people like you," said the Eldest Brother. "You are a Traveler, are you not?"

"I am," said Tezhay. If the Eldest Brother knew enough to ask, Tezhay gained nothing by denying it.

"Perhaps we can find a way to help each other, then," said the Eldest Brother. "I am trying to understand these stones better. Our contact assured us that he could predict the opening of these doors. However, this one opened far earlier than he expected. Not only that, it was heavily defended, despite his assurances that our emissaries would be met by a diplomatic escort." The Hiloru sighed.

Tezhay restrained a smile. The presence of defenders came as good news. And as a keeper of stones, he knew that fragmentation increased the frequency of convergences while decreasing their intensity – knowledge that was not widely shared beyond the Academy of Philosophers.

"Why, exactly, are you smiling?" said the Eldest Brother. He narrowed his eyes and continued. "Regardless, the following day – the day your emissary originally assured me that the door would open, we brought the stone to the parade ground and surrounded it with two companies of archers. What do you suppose happened?"

"Nothing," Tezhay guessed. "Nothing happened."

The Eldest Brother leaned forward abruptly. "And how do you know this?"

"Because that stone is not what you think it is. It may resemble a xenolith superficially, but in the end, this one is just a rock."

"But a door did appear the first time. An entire regiment of Crasacs witnessed it."

"Are you certain the stone before you is the one that opened it?" said Tezhay.

"What are you suggesting?"

"That this stone is not what you think it is. That it may, perhaps, be the wrong stone."

"You're saying that we were deceived?"

"Perhaps." Tezhay realized that he might be putting a countryman at risk with such an implication, but he held little sympathy for one who would desecrate his precious xenoliths.

"How can you tell it's not real? You've barely glanced at it."

"I am a Traveler. I know these stones," said Tezhay. "May I touch it?"

The Eldest Brother waved his palm. "Please."

Tezhay pulled the stone carefully out of the box, and held it carefully in his palm, feeling the subtle fluctuation in weight that marked a xenolith to an experienced handler. He improvised, running his fingernail over the surface. He showed his finger to the Eldest Brother.

"Do you see that grit under my nail? A real stone would not leave such a residue." He dropped the stone back into its box.

The Eldest turned to his Initiate. "Could it be so, Dembon? Might this stone be false?"

"This is not possible, my Eldest," said the Initiate, earnestly. "An entire regiment witnessed Uriol and his guard pass. Some in the regiment passed along with him."

"Yes, but are you sure they collected the correct stone afterward?"

The Initiate stared at the stone in its box, looking uncertain. The Eldest Brother frowned and opened a drawer in the table, pulling out a sheaf of wooden slats, some of which slid linearly, with others attached to disks that spun around pegs. The sight of a tabulator in the hands of a Sinkor cleric, may Tezhay feel ill.

"If you are indeed a Traveler, then you should be familiar with these," said the Eldest. He folded all of the slats together, zeroed out the wheels and handed it to Tezhay. "Come, demonstrate your skill. Tell me, when is the next expected opening for this stone?"

Tezhay opened the topmost protective leaf, reading the legend indicating the former location of this particular stone. He knew this one well: a reserve stone that had been positioned several kilometers beyond the city wall east of Ubabaor. He adjusted its concentric dials to indicate the phase and position of the moon at dusk, the sun's location at midday, and added seasonal corrections. He collected a reading and laid the tabulator back on the table.

"Well?" said the Eldest. "Do you know what it says?"

"Six days from now, a moderate event is expected for the stone associated with this tabulator, peaking an hour after sunrise."

The Eldest Brother seemed impressed. "That is almost exactly what my contact told me, although he did not indicate the precise hour." The Eldest Brother scratched his chin. "I may wish to retain your services. Would you be interested?"

"What would you want from me?"

"Truth and advice. Our contact is returning with another stone either tomorrow or the next day. I am afraid that you would have to remain in our custody, but if you cooperate, we can remove you from the labor pool and put you in more comfortable quarters. Would you agree to such an arrangement?"

"That is most generous, Eldest," said Tezhay, bursting with the strain of faking politeness when he really only wanted to murder this snide patronizer, this desecrator of xenoliths. "What about my friend?" Tezhay hoped the expression he forced looked like a smile.

"Well, he is Urep'o, is he not?" said the Eldest Brother. "He knows the language and the land?"

"He does. And he is also a doctor," said Tezhay.

The Eldest Brother crinkled his eyes. "Him? A doctor?"

*****

Chapter 42: The Burial Ground

They lay amongst dead leaves, trussed like chickens hobbled for market as Baas argued with Baren in the next clearing. Seor couldn't overhear much, but it sounded like they planned to take the stone upriver by some circuitous route that Baas had identified the night before, one that would bypass the turmoil in town. Clearly, she and the remnants of her squad would not be joining them.

The argument seemed to concern the fate of her little militia. Baas had apparently severely overestimated them, believing them to be an elite counterforce sent specifically to derail their mission. She overheard no details, but she knew that cadre doctrine allowed execution of prisoners for threat or inconvenience, and Baas believed they posed both.

Baas seemed to state a case compelling enough to force his commander to waffle and fidget. Baas' vehemence in pressing his argument chilled her, as did the torment it inflicted on Baren. She prayed for Baren's basic decency, or at least his squeamishness, to prevail.

One of Baren's men brought over some hard biscuit. She hoped this was not a last meal, but a sign that Baas had not gotten his way. With their wrists bound, they ate awkwardly. Baren walked up and crouched down next to her, nestling the satchel bearing the stone in front, like a baby in a sling. He looked nervous. His mouth searched for words. Vul had no trouble finding some.

"Cadre swine, whoring with the Venep'o, may your genitalia rot and crumble off."

"You should be kinder to one who advocates for you," said Baren.

Vul squirmed at his bindings. "I'll give you advocacy."

"You must excuse Vul," said Seor. "He's a bit feverish." Inside she agreed with his sentiments.

"No matter," said Baren, exhaling abruptly. "Listen. You have us in a bit of a bind," he said, quietly. "I suppose you know that we can't bring you back to Ubabaor with us."

"But can we return to Gi?" said Seor.

"Not without an escort," said Baren. "And we have no one to spare."

"Then what?" said Seor, voice catching.

Baren met her gaze directly. "Baas seems to think that you're aligned with Andewordah or Gondelfi."

Seor feigned ignorance, wrinkling her brow. Her palms dampened. She hoped the buzzing heat rising in her face didn't show.

"Councilors?" he prompted. "From Diomet and Suul?"

Her heart pounded, but Seor kept her face blank.

"Regardless. Both have been deposed, but I see their treason still reverberates. These events are unfortunate. We could have finalized a treaty by now." He sighed, and rose to his feet. "Anyhow, it's a shame, all of this, the entire situation. I just wanted to tell you."

He walked back to his clearing where his squad was preparing to travel, strapping on their satchels and bedrolls. Baas strode over with two others and rousted them. "Rise," he said. They struggled to their feet. "To the burial ground."

They filed slowly to the edge of the wood where he stopped them behind the stone wall that bordered a grassy verge. The cemetery was empty but for a young woman mourning beside a block of pink granite. She lay curled in the grass, stroking the stone gently, as if the granite itself embodied her lover. Dead flowers drooped, boots of taupe and tan, waited like obedient dogs for a master to leash them for a walk. A tiny flag protruded, askew in the dirt.

When finally she left in her vehicle, they passed out of the trees, taking small steps with their fettered ankles. A plain of grave monuments opened before them, crowded behind a narrow ring road like a herd of stone animals confined by an invisible fence. Both Ren and Pari looked confused but not particularly afraid. Vul, looking groggy, his hair sodden and limp with sweat, limped along with long pauses between each step.

Side by side, soaring obelisks of polished granite loomed over plaques half obscured by grass and scarcely larger than a footprint. The gravestones reminded her of those in Gi, though few there bothered with class distinctions. Families of the deceased simply selected a large river stone to mark a grave, knocking off a chip to keep on the hearth and carry back on pilgrimages to fit back into its 'mother.'

In Sesei, families built crypts of fieldstone on their homesteads, to keep their loved ones close. Seor wondered how the bodies of Cudi and Alic had fared, if they lay exposed to scavenging beasts, or submerged in the river. Would the Urep'o, finding them, simply discard them, or inter them into graves like these? She wondered if she faced a similar fate after Baas was done with them.

They marched in single file to the base of a spire surrounded by a ring of paved roadway from which several other roads branched. Baas had them arranged on its plinth, seated with their backs against the stone. Thin, strong cords bound Seor to Ren on one side, Vul on the other, forming a human necklace around the base of the obelisk. Unlike the other markers in the graveyard, the obelisk seemed a tribute to death itself, devoid of any markings that would identify a person buried beneath.

"It's a shame that we must do this," said Baren. "But it's the most benign option available. Whatever crimes you have committed, they do not deserve death."

"How kind of you not to execute us," said Seor, sarcastically, though in truth, her spirits soared with relief.

"Crimes?" howled Vul. "We're not the one's here committing treason."

"Oh no?" said Baren, calmly. "So which of us, do you suppose, executes the wishes of our Inner Quorum? Who among us works to preserve what remains of Sesei, instead of squandering our forces in a suicidal rear offensive?"

"But you defy your own Council," said Seor, hesitant to test his charity, but feeling compelled to answer. "You defy the Articles of Protocol that define Sesei."

"The Council is no longer relevant,"said Baren. "Most of the Provinces have fallen. Why do their Councilors retain seats? They have nothing more to lose so they promote reckless, desperate measures that put the remainder of Sesei at risk. Why not surrender a stone or two and exchange some territory? The Sesei we knew is gone, anyways. Why not give up Diomet and Suul, so that the heart of Sesei can sustain?"

"My heart is ill for you," said Seor, as her stomach churned. "For believing that the Venep'o are capable of honoring a treaty. And for giving up on our principles so easily."

Baren smirked. "Why should we base our actions on a set of tablets engraved ... how many generations ago? Could our Founders have foreseen that a group of insignificant, squabbling city-states across the sea would come together as a great power and threaten our shores? Be thankful that the Four who rule us don't rely solely on such ossified wisdom. Their initiative will save us from ourselves."

"The Articles of Protocol have withstood many challenges," said Seor. "Their logic has always preserved us." She paraphrased words that were drilled into every militia trainee. She truly believed them.

Baren smiled down on her, and shook his head. "How quaint, your faith," he said. His condescension made her jaw clench. This man spoke like a traitor, like an enemy, yet he was cadre. Cadre! Her head spun. The order of the world as she thought she understood it had been turned upside down.

A heavy vehicle pulling a flat trailer roared into view on the road outside the cemetery. Baren and his group ducked and scuttled like roaches behind monuments. The vehicle decelerated near the entrance to the burial ground, but passed without turning. Baas reemerged first, circling the pillar, tugging at each of their bindings.

Baas pulled on Pari's lashings. "Come tighten these, this one's too loose," he said to the two who had bound them. "She'll wriggle free as soon as we're gone. Use more cord if you need to."

Seor felt the silk cut deeply into her wrists.

"Perhaps your presence will distract the Urep'o for a time, and allow us to pass with less notice," said Baren. "I'm sure they'll wonder where you came from, but let them have a mystery. What could you possibly tell them? Nothing about the stones, certainly. They'll be transferred somewhere more secure." He pulled the satchel holding the xenolith fragment close to his bosom.

Seor watched the cadre scatter across the burial ground, flowing, loose-limbed like a pack of wolves. They crossed a stone wall and disappeared into a hayfield. Seor and her comrades sat arrayed around the obelisk, each facing a different cardinal direction. Seor faced the cemetery entrance, the first of the sun splashing obliquely against the monuments.

"What do you suppose the Urep'o will do to us, when they find us here?" said Ren, her voice breaking a painful and prolonged silence.

"Give me some water to drink, I hope," said Pari. "I'm terribly thirsty."

"Maybe, they'll take us where they took Canu," said Seor. "It will save us the trouble of finding him."

"If they don't riddle us with holes first," said Vul, his voice ragged. "I've seen what their weapons do to people."

"Why should they harm us?" said Seor. "What threat do we pose in this condition?"

"They can stick me with as many bolts as they like, as long as they give me a drink of water," said Pari.

A vehicle turned, creaking into the grounds. Its paint seemed duller than most, with dents and spots of rust. It swayed like an old cow. The head of its operator barely protruded above the steering wheel. It shuddered to a stop along a gravel shoulder, and an old woman emerged, holding a cane and a watering can.

"What's going on?" said Ren, nervously from the other side of the obelisk.

"Don't worry, Ren, it's just a grandmother," said Pari. "She looks ... not so vicious."

The old woman shuffled towards the obelisk, oblivious to their presence. She stopped by a metal pipe protruding from the grass, turned a red, mushroom-like cap. Water spilled into her vessel.

"Ah!" exclaimed Pari upon seeing the spring flow. "Please grandmother, bring some water for us. Please?"

"She can't understand your words," said Seor. "I don't even think she hears you."

The old woman stood erect and stretched her back. Her gaze wandered across the cemetery. She gave a start when she noticed Seor and the others arrayed around the plinth, squinting at them, nose twitching. She backed away, bumping into the watering can and knocking it over, sloshing its contents across the road. Water continued to gush from the pipe as she turned and hobbled back towards her vehicle.

"What happened?" said Ren, from the other side of the obelisk.

"We frightened her," said Seor. "She's running away."

"All that water wasted! This is torture," said Pari.

When she reached her vehicle, the old woman slowed her flight, paused, and turned back to them. Her panic evaporated. She opened her door calmly and emerged with a sharp-looking, green-handled implement. She stalked towards them, eyes alight with a righteous and determined fire.

*****

Chapter 43: The Infirmary

In the bright sun of the open-air infirmary, Frank held a metal skewer in his bare hand, preparing to jab it into a young man's belly. The victim, to his credit, seemed completely unperturbed by the prospect of his piercing. Indeed, beaded keloidal scars from prior procedures cobbled his abdomen. As the medic urged Frank on, a small crowd of onlookers gathered to watch.

Before handing it to him, the medic had prepared the skewer by passing it through a flame and dipping it in a concoction that looked like molten lime sherbet and smelled like turpentine. An intricate charcoal tracery of triangles and arcs decorated the patient's torso, coinciding with no feature of human anatomy that Frank recognized. Whatever medical theories guided their inscription, they lay beyond his comprehension. He couldn't even understand why the young man was seeking treatment in the first place. He seemed perfectly healthy: a steady heart, no pain or fever, organs fully palpable.

Frank had watched more than enough of these procedures all day to have gotten the gist of this extreme form of acupuncture, but the act felt like a violation of his Hippocratic Oath. His hand hovered, shaking, the spike dripping its aromatic tincture into the young man's navel. The medic, exasperated, tapped the skewer at the score mark indicating the depth that he wanted the patient impaled. Then, for the third time, he poked roughly at the place he wanted the skewer to enter: the convergence of an arc with a straight line below the young man's navel.

Fortified by the threat of being sent back to the vile holding pen, he held his breath and pushed the skewer into the young man's skin. The blunt tip created a dimple but failed to penetrate. He tried twirling it. A drop of blood beaded, bulged and darted like a shooting star down his torso and onto the table. The patient grimaced. The skewer caught on the musculature of his stomach. The medic stomped over, seized the spike from him and with a single jiggling thrust, slipped it in to the desired depth.

Two more skewers waited to be plunged, but Frank backed off and waved his hands. He'd had enough practice for one day. He shuddered to think of how they might treat headaches and heart palpitations. And despite the flaming, he was certain that such an invasive practice generated a vigorous follow up business in secondary infections.

For two mornings now, as a result of Tezhay's arrangements with the Eldest Brother, a guard had escorted him to the head medic, who worked and slept in an apothecary hut encircled by wooden benches and an array of platforms covered by awnings. Frank watched him prepare for the day's work by donning an apron and chaps of black oilskin while he assessed and triaged the cases that had trickled in overnight.

The patients seemed like humble young men, who whittled or studied simple prayer books as they waited. Not a single woman seemed to grace the camp; a striking contrast from the troops defending Ubabaor.

Their complaints mostly comprised basic infectious diseases: colds, fevers and mild stomach ailments, though a collection of silver saws and steel blades, not to mention the numerous amputees that prevailed in the camp's sculleries and stables, hinted that this infirmary had seen its share of battlefield trauma as well.

Between patients, who seemed to trickle in all day, the medic would dutifully, if reluctantly, proceed to show Frank everything he knew about Venep'o medicine, of which, Frank absorbed next to nothing.

The apothecary, however, intrigued him. The medic seemed most proud of his collection of skewers, showing off his entire inventory, handing him spikes of metal, spikes of wood, of diverse thickness and length from slender hair-like needles to dowels as thick as a reed stem. The larger ones had grooves to help tinctures adhere.

Green glass jars and earthen crocks crowded the shelves and cubbies of every wall. Each contained alcoholic and resinous extracts still bearing the substances used to create them: snake fangs, bits of amphibian skin, tree bark and withered berries.

Frank paid close attention to anything that looked brown and viscous enough to be bolovo, pulling stoppers and sniffing. He discovered plenty of bad smells, but nothing that matched the distinctive meaty and fruity putrefaction of bolovo. The word bolovo itself prompted the same blank stare he received when he commented in English.

When the third spike had gone into the patient, the medic walked away from the table and stripped off his oilskins. His assistant remained with the patient, removing the spikes and daubing the punctures with a dark paste. No more patients waited on the benches, only gawkers. With the sun dipping low, a guard soon arrived to escort him back to the hut.

Wood smoke and roasting meat pervaded the regimental tent compounds that lay between the infirmary and the central temple. Their quarters stood at the end of a row of similar mud-brick structures that provided quarters for the priest's domestic servants. Tezhay, who had been spending his days in the company of the Eldest Brother, sat just outside the door on his mat of bark, etching something into a scrap of wood that he tucked away discretely when he saw the guard approach. He looked up and smiled.

"And how did you do today, doctor? Are you a good student?"

Frank shook his head. "Don't think I'm cut out to be a healer in this place, if what they do actually heals people."

"No worry," said Tezhay. "I think Eldest Brother is happy for other service we bring."

"Oh? What service is that?"

"You will see," said Tezhay, eyebrows arching. "The Eldest say we have visitor. So tonight we eat better food. Stay out of hut longer."

That sounded great to Frank. The previous night, they had been allowed to have their meal outside and use the latrine, but were then locked for the night into the utter darkness of their low-ceilinged, windowless hut. For hours, he lay sleepless, staring into nothingness, as Tezhay hummed his atonal melodies.

"The one called Eghazi is here," said Tezhay, his eyes glittering, smile cryptic. "And he has brought with him another stone."

*****

Chapter 44: Pranksters

Before she reached the Oldsmobile, a niggling gnaw made Mrs. Meretz stop and turn. The figures sprawled across the central monument of the roundabout had spooked her terribly, but being startled by strange figures in a cemetery naturally triggered more acute reactions than if it happened in a grocery store. Her mind, occupied with petty frets as she filled her watering can, had filed them away as statues of angels or such, arrayed artfully against the blank facets of granite. But she visited this cemetery often enough to have known better.

Once she overcame her initial shock, Mrs. Meretz's innate sense of pity reasserted itself. These were victims, not victimizers, all bound up in a daisy chain. Three of the four were girls and petite ones at that, probably illegal immigrants of one sort or another, Mexicans or Salvadorans or whatever kind of Latin immigrants were coming to Connecticut these days.

She ascribed their predicament as the work of pranksters, quite likely emanating from the high school down the road. This very cemetery had suffered an incident last year in which a row of headstones had been knocked over and graffitied, her sister Evelyn's stone, thankfully, not among them. As they passed through the neighborhoods to reach their informal housekeeping or landscaping jobs, she could see the attractive target they might have posed for a gang of idle and addled delinquents.

Despite her friends' complaints, high school hooligans were by no means a new fixture on the landscape, spawned by violent movies and video games. She would insist that her friends' memories were either faulty or selective. She, herself, had witnessed plenty of racial, ethnic and social shenanigans as a schoolgirl in Stamford. Back then the victims were often Puerto Rican, though anyone not conforming sufficiently to the ideals of the day invited abuse. And the abusers were not delimited by class, but included the spawn of salary men and workers of any collar.

As Mrs. Meretz's overturned watering can dribbled its last across the road, she went to her car and retrieved the grass shears she had brought to trim around Evelyn's headstone. A patch of chickweed had sprung up ever since she had placed a little white plastic picket fence around it to protect the soft marble from the landscapers' cord trimmers. Only six months on from Evelyn's funeral, their trimmers had already chipped its corners. This had prompted her to prepay for her own sturdy granite monument, as she knew no one would tend her grave the way she tended Evelyn's.

Shears in hand, she walked up to the immigrants, determined to free them. But the sight of her approaching made one of the girls cringe and twitter. The vandals must have traumatized the poor dear.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm not coming to harm you," she said, though uncertain whether they understood English. She wasn't sure whether she found being perceived as a physical threat more amusing or alarming. She patted the shears and waved her hand in an attempt to reassure them. They seemed to understand, and the skittish one relaxed.

There were three women and one man in all, each very young though she could see from their creases, calluses and scars that they had led a rough life. Their wrists were tied up with a pearly-grey, silk cord, of a quality suitable for piping draperies or pillows; expensive to waste on a prank, probably looted from a mother's sewing kit. She imagined the pranksters coming from one of the giant houses built on tiny lots on the old farmlands on Great Hill, packed together like a herd of elephants around a water hole. She regretted cutting such fine cord, but her arthritis would not allow her to loosen such tight knots. Whoever trussed them up had quite a facility with rope. A Boy Scout or sailor perhaps?

She wondered if the women had been molested, but somehow they didn't give her that impression. Their clothing seemed intact, if dirty. Their spirits seemed high, not a teary face among them.

She considered calling the police, but worried that the local law enforcement would only add to their torment. She had seen the local cops, on occasion, harassing a black person for no good reason apparently, but for happening to stroll through a neighborhood with residents of a different skin tone.

They were filthy, the poor dears. The young man among them was injured, she imagined from defending the ladies. One girl ran straight for the water spigot, splashing her face and drinking thirstily. They all surrounded her, effusive and grateful for their liberation, bumping their shoulders gently, hugging her. The words spilling from their mouths sounded nothing like Spanish.

In a flash, the celebrations ceased and they scurried off towards the forest. "Wait!" She hadn't had a chance to offer them something to eat. She had just been to the store, and could have given them a box of tea wafers to take along. They smiled and waved, but kept on going. She watched until they disappeared behind a stone wall and a screen of young maples, before righting her watering can and hobbling to the spigot to refill it.

*****

Chapter 45: Lost Among Ferns

Buoyed by their unexpected freedom, Seor gamboled down the forested slope with her comrades, bowling over shrubs, weaving between trees, leaping over stone walls. Ren beside her, face alight, skipped and whirled through the clearings. When the road below came into view, they dug in her heels and skidded on the leaf litter, stopping near the ledge where Baren had first relieved them of their few and pitiful weapons. Pari caught up with them, then Vul, hobbled and lurching.

"Stay watchful, everyone," said Seor. "The cadre may still be near. They're likely moving cautiously in the daylight."

"That woman ... why do you suppose she helped us?" said Pari, wistfully.

"Why wouldn't she?" said Seor. "Haven't you ever freed a cricket trapped in a puddle? She is human, like us."

"Ah, but would you do the same for a spider?" said Vul.

"Of course," said Seor, narrowing her eyes.

Vul shrugged and glanced away.

Seor's exhilaration dissipated. Being lashed to the obelisk had brought a perverse sense of relief because it rendered her powerless to affect her comrades' fate. Freedom simply replaced one set of binds for another. Feeling compelled to blaze the way again, the anxieties of leadership reasserted in her gut.

She listened for the cadre's whistles. They would be signaling to each other frequently, reporting hazards, providing directions, as they moved between cover. But through the din of insects and distant engines, her ears could discern only the lazy, loping calls of Urep'o birds.

She waited until a vehicle whooshed past and rolled out of sight, and dashed across the road, plunging into the patch of bee-infested weeds, skidding down the bank to the muddy shoulder of the stream that meandered through the broad, thickly forested terrace.

Houses with sunny yards bordered the woodlot on two sides, but the stream coursing between was wild and dark as any in Gi. Pari and Ren joined her, and then Vul, a few steps behind, as another vehicle hurtled by, spinning off vortices that displaced the hovering bees and shuddered the weeds.

Unless someone could convince her otherwise, she planned to retrieve the stone and take it somewhere more secure, a place where Baren could never find them, where not even the Urep'o ventured. Surely some wilderness must exist within a day's walk with forage and game and the means to make a shelter where Vul could heal, all of them could rest and they could watch the convergence cycle in peace.

She assumed that Baren, if diplomacy with the Venep'o still held sway, planned to pass through to Ubabaor using the relay upriver. But she couldn't rule out the possibility that some or all of his group might be returning to Gi through the fragment they carried. As difficult as it would be to resist an open portal, even one that opened into Gi, she thought it prudent to skip the next convergence. Without weapons, they had no chance against Baren's people, on whose further charity they could no longer depend. Sesei had never felt so far away.

Seor studied the indentations in the mud and moss beside the stream. The record of their prior traverse was confused by the presence of other, smaller prints with patterned soles. A pair of Urep'o children had passed through this spot not long after them. Their presence so close to the place she had left the stone worried her.

She looked across the stream, confused by the sameness of the landscape. Each bend of the stream looked like the next, with scaly moss fringing flow-carved micro-cliffs of yellowish clay, supporting a table of dark topsoil where ferns vied with hollow-stemmed plants bearing speckled orange flowers that dangled from stalks.

The cadre's sudden appearance had flustered and preoccupied her, so she had not been fully attentive. After she flung the stone, she saw it ripple though the soft canopy of ferns like a bird vanishing into a fog bank. That was all she remembered.

"Ren, did you see me toss the fragment? Do you remember where I stood?"

"Not ... exactly," said Ren.

With the others watching patiently, Seor looked towards the road, hoping to spot a definitive landmark. She recognized a tree with a bark shaggy like matted fur, so she put herself on a line perpendicular through it to the road, and stepped into the water. Silver darts scattered from her footfall. She bounded up into the soft greenery of the opposite bank.

"I think this is the place," she called, pushing aside the ferns with her toe. She expected the xenolith's dark matrix and iridescent sheen should make it easy to spot against the leached and pale leaf husks that papered the ground. She made several passes upright before dropping to her knees, groping and patting at the damp earth.

"Look at you all, standing there," she teased. "Come, help me look." Ren and Pari crossed the stream and dropped down beside her. Vul descended gingerly on his injured leg.

"Don't clump up all together like that. I've already checked here. Spread out. It might have rolled." The words came out sounding a bit more frantic than Seor had intended.

"Could Baren have taken it?" said Ren.

"Don't see how," said Seor. "He didn't even notice that the stone was broken." She worried more about Urep'o children, but kept that possibility to herself for now.

Pari and Ren went upstream a short ways, and Vul moved down. They crawled in circles, tossing any stone they deemed out of contention into the stream. They searched without complaint for many minutes, but when Seor had trampled nearly ever fern in the patch and found herself straying far beyond the point she could have reasonably have flung a stone, she stood up abruptly. "Enough," she said. "We'll simply have to find it at the next convergence. Let us make camp."

"Here?" said Vul. "But this a terrible place to stay. Too exposed and too damp. The gnats will suck us dry."

Seor turned slowly to face him. "Have a better idea, Vul?"

*****

Chapter 46: The New Stone

As the veil of daylight slipped away from the mesa, the stars reasserted their dominion over the sky. Tezhay stood with Doctor Frank by a stagnant pool in a garden, waiting to be summoned inside the Eldest Brother's quarters. He stooped and fished out a moth that had been struggling in the scum on the surface. The moth rested briefly on his palm, ascended his thumb, and flew off.

"Is this how it's going to be, then?" said Doctor Frank. "We're basically camp slaves ... for how long?"

"As long as they have use for us," said Tezhay. "Which may be not so long after this night. This visitor ... it may be challenge me not to murder him."

"So what's the big deal if these guys get one of your stones?" said Doctor Frank.

"Those stone is our survival," said Tezhay. "They save us many time during invasion. But not just that. Your world has so many dangerous thing. Thing that our Philosopher could have bring, but they reject. These Venep'o people... they will bring anything here. And if they give your people a way to come here ... that would be the end."

"But we're not all that bad, are we? As bad as these ... Venenites?"

"Worse," said Tezhay.

Doctor Frank scuffed at the dirt with his foot, frowning. Tezhay was afraid he had insulted him, but the doctor had other things on his mind.

"They are going to feed us here tonight, aren't they?"

"Of course," said Tezhay. "Why would they not?"

Two claps came from the doorway. They turned to see Dembon already ducking back in. Tezhay led Doctor Frank past the two Cuerti flanking the entrance of the foyer, into the sitting room, which was bathed in a sepia glow from oil lamps backed with bronze mirrors.

The Eldest Brother greeted them from his cushion on the floor with a faint smile and a tip of his head. The visitor glanced sharply over his shoulder as they entered. For an instant, the young man's visage revealed the suspicion and frustration that Tezhay's presence had engendered, but he composed himself rapidly. Tezhay saw no hint of guilt in the visitor's calm, clever eyes. Might he not perceive the depths of his treason?

The visitor groomed and appointed himself like a high level functionary. Strands of his otherwise trim and angular beard were twisted and bound with silver beads. He wore an immaculate high-collared and heavy-cuffed jacket embellished with a gossamer scarf of a fabric no longer available on the mainland since the war.

Two other Sesep'o men loitered near the door cradling bowls of steaming infusion. They looked as uncomfortable in their formal attire as wolves wearing feathers. Tezhay guessed they were escorts, possibly trainees from the military academy in Ubabaor, more accustomed to homespun and armor.

"Damn. Looks like we're late for dinner," said Doctor Frank. The low table held the remains of a repast: empty bowls of stew, a picked-over tray of roasted meats.

"Don't worry. They will bring for us. I am sure," said Tezhay, his eyes lingering on a ragged sack on the table. It slumped beside the ornate, lacquered box holding the xenolith that the Eldest Brother had revealed to him in their first meeting. Two tabulators lay folded between.

The visitor rose to greet him. "Comrade Tezhay, I presume?" he said, brushing shoulders. "I am Eghazi, of Diomet."

Tezhay nodded, and brushed shoulders almost without touching. He found it difficult to be cordial.

"The Eldest tells me that this one is some type of healer?" said Eghazi, smiling a little too broadly. He spoke Sesep'o with the over-enunciated precision cultivated among the elite.

"So he says," said Tezhay. "Though, I see no sign of such skills. His name is Doctor."

Recognizing his name, Frank held out his right hand reflexively to Eghazi, but upon remembering the customary Sesep'o greeting, retracted it and instead bumped shoulders with Eghazi. He came a little too hard, rocking him backward.

"And you are a Traveler," said Eghazi, regaining his balance. "It must be ... fascinating ... interacting with other cultures. How did you both end up here?"

"This one ... went astray during his transition," said Tezhay, referring to Doctor Frank. "He ... trespassed, and the garrison here took us in. But the Eldest Brother has been most kind as our host, I must say." He smiled and nodded at the Eldest.

"Come," said the old man, patting one of the cushions beside him. "Join us."

He and Frank settled onto floor cushions on either side of Eghazi. The doctor kept glancing towards the door, perhaps expecting or hoping to see a servant enter with a pair of steaming bowls. Tezhay didn't have the courage to tell him that it didn't look like they would be eating that night. Asking for food directly at this point would only insult their host.

"I expressed your concerns about the first stone to Master Eghazi," said the Eldest Brother. "But he insists that the stone is genuine."

"I know for certain that this stone is real," said Eghazi, vehemently. "I witnessed its convergence."

"How curious that a regiment of Crasacs was there to watch it with you," said Tezhay with a hint of acid, his gaze locking onto Eghazi's.

Eghazi looked unfazed. "Please. This is a matter above your station."

"Above my station? I am a Traveler. Xenoliths are my purview."

"Sesei is not ruled by keepers of stones," said Eghazi.

"Please, gentlemen!" said the Eldest Brother. "Perhaps Master Tezhay can explain what he sees wrong with the first stone, and tell us what he thinks of the new stone that you have brought."

Tezhay looked to the sack and box sitting on the table before him and took a deep breath. His heart pounded severely. He felt a new empathy for Doctor Frank's ailment. He removed the older stone from its box and rotated it in his palm. Placing it on the table, he retrieved the new stone from its sack and set it alongside. He leaned in until his eyes almost touched their surfaces, and then backed out slowly.

"It was more apparent in the sunlight, but—"

"Dembon, bring him more light."

The Initiate retrieve one of the oil lamps and brought it closer.

Tezhay picked up a stone in each hand and compared their weight. He put them back on the table and scratched each with his fingernail.

"I must say ..." he said, slowly. "Master Eghazi is absolutely right. Both stones appear genuine. I am afraid I was mistaken, Eldest Brother."

Eghazi's face brightened with vindication, but a pall passed over Eldest Brother. "Then why does it not obey its own charts?" he said. "Why do we surround it with a regiment of archers and spend hours watching it only to have it behave like a ... like a ... rock? How do you explain this?"

"Simple," said Tezhay. "This stone is genuine, but it's singular. Someone on the other side had destroyed its sibling. Without a match in the other world, a xenolith is just a rock."

"What do you think, Master Eghazi?" said the Eldest Brother. "Does that sound likely?"

"I am not a keeper of stones, but what he says seems plausible," said Eghazi. "It would explain why the convergence failed the other day. But it doesn't account for why the convergence your Initiate used to enter Ur came early."

Tezhay knew exactly what caused convergence patterns to shift. Xenoliths were tuned by adjusting their mass. Damage to one of the stones in Ur or Gi would have triggered oscillations that temporarily increased frequency of convergences until the system dampened into a new equilibrium of weaker, less frequent events. But he saw no need to enlighten Eghazi or the Eldest Brother with such details.

"Without knowing more, the possibilities are too numerous to speculate," he said. "Xenoliths interlink in a delicate balance. Disrupting any of the four stones in a set affects them all."

"So how will we know this new stone is any less corrupted?" said the Eldest Brother.

Tezhay casually placed the xenolith he held into the sack, depositing it in one smooth motion that he hoped would draw no attention.

"I promise you, Eldest," said Eghazi. "This stone has a record of convergences as dependable as the moon rise."

"I suppose we'll just have to see," said the Eldest Brother. "When can we expect the next door to open?"

Eghazi picked up the new tabulator and began adjusting its levers and slats. Tezhay watched him carefully. He moved slowly, but in the correct sequence and with no false moves, though one of the wheels looked slightly misaligned.

"Tomorrow," said Eghazi. "After sunset. But before midnight."

Tezhay smiled. Defining such a broad interval for the onset of a convergence marked Eghazi as something of a novice. Properly adjusted and read, a tabulator should provide predictions accurate to within fractions of an hour.

"Give it to him," said the Eldest Brother, his gaze boring in on Tezhay. "Let us see if he concurs."

Eghazi folded the arms and slats back to their storage configuration and passed it over. It pleased Tezhay to feel the slick wood of a tabulator in his hands again. He redeployed the arms, adjusted the slats perpendicular to each and rotated the central wheel to indicate the position of the moon at sunset. Once he read exactly when the convergence would come, he folded it back up before Eghazi could glimpse his settings, and handed it back.

"He's absolutely correct," said Tezhay. "Tomorrow night it is, though I would say closer to midnight than sundown."

The Eldest Brother looked equivocal. "We'll start early, just to be certain. So I suppose this means that you should prepare to travel, Dembon."

"I guarantee that you will find the portal will be much more secure," said Eghazi. "This one is rarely accessed. And we've arranged another escort from our outpost in Gi, this time supported by your own garrisons in Raacevo."

One corner of the Eldest Brother's mouth curled. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Dembon, but didn't he offer us the same assurances the last time we sent an Initiate through his magic door?"

"He did, Eldest," said Dembon. "And we have yet to hear an explanation for how his simple demonstration turned into an ambush."

Eghazi looked flustered and speechless.

"Have Captain Garem mobilize a regiment of archers for security," said the Eldest Brother. "We'll deploy on the parade ground again. And tell him that we will have no tolerance for ridicule this time. I will not have them be unruly, even if this turns out to be another rock."

"As you wish, my Eldest," said Dembon.

"Secure the stones, then," said the old man, rising from the table. "Mercy of Cra, to all of you. Sleep well." He tottered out of the sitting room to his private quarters, with a pair of Cuerti leading the way.

Tezhay let the others file out of the sitting room before him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dembon's hand hesitate, before he lifted the xenolith from the tabletop and placed it in the lacquered box.

*****

Chapter 47: Culvert

The town looked much uglier to Ara in the daylight. Black smears of chewing gum blotched sidewalks that had sparkled under street lamps. Chalky curls of paint peeled from tenement walls tidied by night. Even the pigeons looked filthier.

But the events upriver tainted her perceptions as much as the dearth of shadows to hide the grime. Her dread intensified with every footfall that brought her closer to facing Baren. Now she had two calamities to explain: the destruction of the portal to Sesei, and the massacre of the Venep'o delegation. Her inaction and complicity had abetted both.

She didn't understand what force kept her walking back to Baren; why she didn't just run off and defect to a life in Ur. She knew of places where no one from her world would ever find her.

Canu tried taking her hand, whether for his own consolation or to comfort her, she didn't know and didn't care. She shook free without a word or a glance and surged ahead, leaving him several steps behind.

She had already betrayed her duty and succumbed to his will by letting him destroy the xenolith. She had helped him retrieve and bury his friends; wrapped the gash on the back of his hand with sun-bleached paper and twine. What more did he want from her?

They followed a street several blocks removed from the one harboring the police station. Canu had insisted on it, not wanting to risk another encounter with their interrogators. Odd, that a man who would attack a Cuerti warrior with a moldy stick would fear a pair of pudgy functionaries.

When they angled back to the bridge, they found it closed, even to pedestrians. The factory grounds still bustled with investigators; not surprisingly, since the wastes upstream had swarmed with men in orange vests and dogs on leads, combing every corner of the terrain.

Ara and Canu had retreated with stealth and haste from the approaching voices, circling up the hillside beyond the highway to avoid detection. She doubted that Canu's friends would rest for long in their shallow grave.

"Downstream?" said Canu. "Maybe there's another bridge?" Ara assented silently, grateful for any detour that would delay her encounter with Baren.

The road ran straight where the river meandered away, but rejoined it farther downstream. A shopping center and parking lot filled the pocket between road and river bend. Canu gawked at the collection of broad, squat buildings with flat roofs fronted with gaudy signs – Target, Whole Foods and Walgreens. He seemed curious, but didn't ask about them, and Ara felt in no mood to explain.

She stepped off the sidewalk and cut into the parking lot. It was mostly empty, but a steady stream of people moved to and from the stores. Empty metal carts lay scattered across the blank stretches like abandoned Venep'o siege wagons on a battlefield.

"Do you have any money left?" said Ara.

Canu pulled out a few coins and jingled them in his hand.

"Never mind." She noticed a row of green dumpsters peeking from behind the Stop and Shop and veered towards them, stepping up her pace. Canu followed several steps behind, pausing to glance through a metal grating at the stream that flowed beneath the lot.

Ara made sure the back of the store was vacant before climbing into one of the bins. She passed an empty box to Canu, prompting a quizzical look, but he got the gist when she began handing out pieces of bruised fruit and squashed bags of sliced bread.

She climbed back out. "It's not the best food in this world, but at least we won't starve."

They walked around the back of the stores, past the loading docks, following a wall that flanked the river bank. Ara ripped open one of the transparent bags from the box Canu carried in both arms, took a slice for herself and hung one in Canu's lips that he struggled to hang onto and eat without dropping. It was stale and crumbly, but unsullied by mold.

A piercing whistle reverberated down the river bed and froze them in place on the cracked pavement. Canu rotated nervously, trying to locate its source. More whistles followed: staccato bursts, then a rising tremolo.

"That's my unit," said Ara. She went to the shoulder-high wall and spotted a woman standing behind them atop the rim of a large culvert that fed the stream beneath the lot to the river. "It's Kera." Her comrade lowered herself into the culvert and waved them over. A cascade trickled from the lip of its overhanging maw

Ara felt roiled, excited to see a familiar face, but anxious that Baren might be closer that she thought. She resisted the urge to run. She climbed the wall and dropped down to the other side. "What am I going to tell them?" she said, more of herself, than Canu.

"Tell them they shouldn't be bringing our enemies into Ur," said Canu.

"That's not helpful," said Ara, gazing down.

Canu put the box down on the wall and followed her over. They made their way along a ramp of tightly fitted, quarried blocks to the culvert. Canu handed the box up to Kera and climbed into a concrete pipe that was not quite tall enough for him to stand upright. Ara pulled herself up high enough to catch a knee on the edge and rolled in after him, aided by a tug from Kera.

She peered into a darkness interrupted by columns of light descending from the grates in the parking lot. She could see that Kera was not alone. Others huddled by the light at the opposite end of the tunnel.

"Seor? Ren?" Canu's voice echoed down the pipe. A figure lunged out of the darkness and seized him.

*****

Chapter 48: Convergence

Morning light filtered through gaps in the eaves, illuminating struts of smoke and dust in the close air. Frank lay on a thin mat on the dirt floor, shivering under a blanket too short to cover him entirely. Tezhay sat erect beside him, his face as still as the bottom of a deep well.

Spasms gripped Frank's stomach as faint hints of cook fires seeped in through the porous walls. In Liberia, the shantytown that grew outside of the old Franks Field air station during World War II was known as Smell-No-Taste, named by the poor Liberians who had woken up morning after morning downwind of the USAF galleys with no hope of ever accessing their culinary delights. Frank found a new appreciation for their plight.

"Oh man, smell that food," he said. "At this point, I'd be grateful for a slop pile like the one they brought us at the pen."

"Don't worry. The guard will bring something to eat," said Tezhay, softly. "He always do."

"He didn't last night."

"Ah, but that is my fault. I tell him we no need ... we eat with Eldest Brother."

Frank sat up abruptly. "You told him, not to bring anything?"

"I am sorry. I promise, you eat today."

Frank spread the blanket over his chilled legs. He rubbed his eyes, his hand brushing against his beard, marveling at how thick it had become. But for the occasional weekend bristle, he had avoided significant facial hair most of his adult life. The ridicule drawn by an experimental mustache at seventeen had cured him of the urge.

He opened his eyes to find Tezhay staring at him placidly. "You would like to go home, yes?" said Tezhay.

"You mean out of this camp? Ubabaor?"

"I mean, back to your world," said Tezhay. "Maybe not Belize, but some place maybe you know."

"But I thought you told me: 'once an exile, always an exile.'"

"Maybe is special case," said Tezhay. "Maybe you promise never talk ... never look for stone? You ... would want go back?"

The proposition threw him. The hope that Liz lived somewhere in this world had already sprouted. Captivity had stunted its growth, but still it persisted. If freed, was he capable of wrenching it up by the roots before he had a chance to see what fruits it might bear? Could he abandon her a second time?

After all it was visions of Piliar, not Bethesda, which sustained him during the dark, sleepless hours. No doubt, he had romanticized and Disneyfied Piliar into some sort of expatriates' paradise, but it didn't matter how crude or bizarre the place really was, as long as it contained the chance of Liz's survival. The world he had come from held no such possibility.

"I'm not sure ... I'm ready," he said. "Why are you asking this?"

The hasp and chain on the door rattled. The door swung open to reveal their guard silhouetted against a bright square of reflected sunlight. A dented metal pot with two bowls lay on the ground.

***

Dozens of archers were already assembling at the base of the temple mound when the guard escorted Frank back to his quarters from another long day at the infirmary. In the center of a parade ground as long as a football field and half-again as wide, six Cuerti in full armor, bearing tridentate pikes, encircled one of the xenoliths, ensconced in its sack on a small, fringed rug. Though the sun wouldn't set for at least another hour, the Eldest Brother seemed to be taking no chances with the accuracy of Tezhay or Eghazi's predictions.

The archers had formed up in two ranks by the time the night guard led Tezhay and Frank down to the gathering. The first row knelt, resting nocked arrows on their propped shields. The second stood with bows at their sides, each holding an arrow ready to be strung. Their captain stood to one side, an array of signal flags sprouting from a bandolier across his chest.

The Cuerti guard remained in place around xenolith, now exposed and borne atop a small platform with splayed and jointed legs that made Frank think of a cornered cockroach. He half expected it to scurry off with the stone.

As twilight thickened, a soldier made the rounds with an oil lamp, lighting the torches and mirrored cressets mounted on posts all around the parade ground. Hundreds of Crasacs and Cuasars had filtered down from their tents to observe the spectacle taking shape.

The Eldest Brother, pressing through the gaggle, spotted Tezhay and broke from his entourage to share a few words. Eghazi hung back, watching like a wary dog. The old man turned away, smirking, and filed through the archers to the center of the parade ground.

"He invite us to stand with him, but I say no," explained Tezhay.

"Really? I would have thought you'd want to see this up close," said Frank.

"I tell him, maybe there will be fighting, so we are a fear. That is not so much true, but is better we stay back. But no worry, I tell him this not for danger, but for ... well, you will see."

Tezhay's vagueness made Frank nervous. "So when is all of this going to go down?" he said.

"Soon," said Tezhay, gazing up at an orb that was a perfect replica in size and hue of the moon Frank knew so well, though something about its pattern of craters and plains looked off. "Do you see that star that will be eat by the moon?"

A star hung one diameter east of the shadowed rim of a nearly full moon. "The pinkish one?" said Frank.

"Yes. When that is almost gone, I want you be sick. Can you be?" said Tezhay.

"Sick? What do you mean?"

"Pretend you have trouble with heart or something."

"What for?"

"Just do it, when I say."

A murmur arose among the soldiers. The Eldest Brother approached the stone slowly and descended to his knees. He melted against the ground till his forehead and both palms pressed flat against the earth. Dembon and Eghazi stood before the first rank of archers, watching with a Cuerti guard to either side.

The Eldest Brother sustained verse after verse of spoken prayer without seeming to pause for breath. His droning and the rhythmic murmur of soldiers responding to his prayer sent Frank into a bit of a trance.

He dwelt on his day at the infirmary, where somehow he had managed to get through another entire day without skewering anyone. But he couldn't put it off much longer as the head medic was clearly frustrated with his intransigence. In medical school, he had been notorious for avoiding urinary catheters and other invasive procedures, but his instructors at BU had never threatened him with hard labor and confinement in a muddy pen.

When the Eldest Brother's prayers culminated, stomps and chants erupted from all assembled, startling Frank and jolting his heart with its violence and volume. It trailed off as suddenly as it began, leaving him relieved but agitated.

Dembon stepped forward and dropped to the ground, repeating the process with his own prayers while the Eldest Brother rejoined Eghazi in front of the archers. Frank saw Eghazi look over his shoulder and scan the crowd until he spotted them.

"It's like they worship that thing," Frank muttered.

"They do," said Tezhay, watching the moon. "The Eldest Brother tells me he think the stone is channel of the will of Cra, and that all stone should belong to Venen. I don't think Eghazi understand how fanatic they feel. These people will not be satisfy with one stone."

"How is it they didn't have one already? Your people seem to have plenty."

"Oh, nobody know about them but Philosopher until war," said Tezhay. "Is what Academy has always done – keep dangerous secret from people, from soldier, especially. But there would be no Sesei if we did not have stone. They save many people, create sometimes victory when looks like impossible."

"So what happens now that these guys have gotten ahold of one?"

"Nothing. If I can help it," said Tezhay, his eyes flitting up to the moon. "Is time," Tezhay said, grabbing his arm.

Frank looked up. The shadow of the moon nibbled at the shimmering fringe of the pink star.

Tezhay whispered something to the guard, who grumbled and shrugged him off. Tezhay stepped up his argument. The guard turned reluctantly and slowly led them away from the parade ground.

"Where are we going?" said Frank.

"I tell him you sick. You need for lie down," said Tezhay.

"Aren't we going to miss ... whatever ... if we leave now?"

"Never mind. I guarantee you miss nothing. Just do what I do. You see me go, you go. You can run, yes?"

"Run? Yeah, I can run, but—"

"No argue. Just be sick."

"I wish you'd tell me what you're up to."

They maneuvered around knots of soldiers, slipping between the rows of tents crowding the slope below the temple and turned onto the lane running up to their quarters. But the guard veered off the lane and led them to an open latrine behind the tents: a trench overlain with boards screened from the wind by a few scraps of cloth hanging off a rail.

Tezhay argued with the guard. Again, he prevailed, and they rejoined the lane, continuing up to their quarters behind the temple.

"What now?" said Frank.

"He misunderstand. He think you need toilet. Please. Walk fast. We have no time. Look at sky."

Frank looked up. The pink star had disappeared.

"Walk faster!" said Tezhay. "Come!" They rushed past the piles of brick and mortar that marked the edge of the Eldest Brother's servant quarters.

As they turned the corner, a faint glow seemed to rise above the roof line of the Eldest Brother's house, as if a fire burned. Its color alternated between shades of salmon and violet and chartreuse. It reminded him of a pharmaceutical warehouse that had caught fire in Guatemala City years ago, creating a light show of flames tinged red with lithium, green with barium, purple with potassium.

The sight alarmed the guard, who shouted for help and ran ahead with Tezhay and Frank on his heels. He stopped abruptly at the gate to the Eldest Brother's garden, gaping at the glowing elliptical hole that had opened up in the wall of his quarters. Two Cuerti carried buckets of water from the garden pool, tossing their contents on the source of the shimmer. But this fire shed no heat. If anything, it seemed to suck energy from the surroundings.

Tezhay, grinning, moved towards the glow, pulling Frank along by his shirt. But the radiance looked unnatural and dangerous, possibly even radioactive. It had already eaten a hole into a solid stone wall and continued to consume it, growing ever wider. He struggled free from Tezhay and shrank away.

But the hole exposed not the interior of the Eldest Brother's sitting room but small boulders and creosote bushes, the ghost of a prickly pear cactus. A mix of cold and hot air swirled through, condensing into wisps of fog.

"Go!" yelled Tezhay. "Go in. Now!"

He yanked hard on Frank's arm, catching him off-guard and off-balance. He tried to stop himself from falling, but in doing so, stumbled forward. Tezhay gave him a shove that sent him sprawling on his belly, scant meters from the edge of the hole, and dove in headfirst. Frank resisted the invisible force that dragged him closer, reaching back and scraping grooves in the dirt with his fingernails.

Eghazi came running around the corner, eyes ablaze. He barked at the Crasacs, apparently trying to command them into action, but they stood blinking at him, until Dembon arrived. They stalked cautiously towards the glowing ellipse. Eghazi, impatient, blew past them, running headlong, dagger in hand. Frank released his finger hold on this world and let the convergence take him.

*****

Chapter 49: Underground

Immobilized by shock, Ara watched Dieno and Kera pounce on Canu, pulling his arms behind him, kicking his legs out and dropping him into the water ponding behind a weir of branches entangled with leaves and trash. Kera fell upon him, looping cord tightly around his wrists as Canu cringed on the floor of the culvert with Dieno's foot pressing his head into the damp sand beside the shallow pool.

"Get off him!" said Ara. "What are you doing?"

"Baas thinks he and his group are elite militia from the fallen Provinces," said Kera.

"Counterforce," said Dieno.

"Ridiculous," said Ara. "Have you seen them fight?"

"Hey, I held my own just fine against that Cuerti," Canu protested.

"Shut up, Canu. You're not helping your own cause," said Ara. Voices carried down the length of the tunnel. "What are you all doing here, anyway?"

"We thought you were taken, so we moved on," said Kera. "We were headed upriver, but the bank is too exposed here, so we might follow this stream up a gulch to get around the town. Baren sent Lev ahead to have a look."

"There's nothing upriver worth pursuing, believe me." She felt her stomach sink. "Where's Baren? I need to talk to him."

"Up the other end," said Kera.

Ara sighed. "Please, go easy on Canu, he's injured."

Dieno gave her a strange look as she moved out of the light and splashed her way up the tunnel, parting strands of cobweb with her fingers. As she passed into the shaft of light descending from a rectangular grating, she caught a glimpse of a woman pushing a shopping cart.

She found Baren and Baas slouching by the intake of the culvert. A reed-cluttered, algal pool fed the trickle that ran through the tunnel. Baren rose abruptly and approached her, smiling.

"Ara! What a nice surprise. Baas saw you taken by the Urep'o." Baren nudged shoulders and gave her a hug. "How did you manage to get away?"

"They only wanted to talk," said Ara, shrugging.

"I assume you weren't able to make it upriver," said Baren.

"Actually, we did," said Ara.

"And?"

"We found the emissary and his escort. Dead."

Baren's face blanched. "By whose hand?" he said.

"The counterforce, of course," grumbled Baas.

"It's ... not clear," said Ara, not intending to lie, but feeling somehow compelled, though the act jangled her nerves.

"Their wiles are clear enough to me," said Baas. "They moved the stone to prevent us from interfering with their ambush. A spy must be close to the negotiations. How else could they respond so quickly?"

"Ubabaor needs to be informed," said Baren. "We need to reach that relay upriver."

"There is no relay," said Ara. "It's been destroyed."

"You're certain?" said Baren. "It's ... not just hidden?"

"I saw it turned to grit all over the emissary's prayer cloth," said Ara. "I ... we arrived too late to salvage anything."

"Bastards!" said Baas.

"What happened to ... where are Canu's comrades?" said Ara.

"We left them bound in the burial ground for the Urep'o to find," said Baren.

"Those traitors should have been executed," said Baas.

"The Urep'o have them by now," said Baren. "They won't be talking their way free the way Ara did."

"Where's the one you guided you upriver?" said Baas, his face stiffening with dark resolve. "Did he return with you?"

"Canu? Kera and Dieno have him restrained down at the other end of the tunnel."

Baas withdrew a hooked blade from his sheath. A lump of panic bulged in Ara's throat.

"What are you intending?" She blocked his way when he tried to move past.

"Out of my way," said Baas.

"We should preserve him ... for questioning," said Ara. "He can tell us about his masters, his mission." She appealed to Baren, who leaned against the curve of the culvert wall, making no move to join Baas.

Baren pushed himself off the wall. "Baas, she has a point. It would be good to know who sent them."

"What's to learn? It's one of the Fallen Provinces. Doesn't matter which. Each have private armies. All should be nipped in the bud."

"But he might know of other missions ... other forces," said Ara, looking back at Baren, who remained rooted by the entrance of the culvert, acting as if he had expended whatever influence he retained over Baas.

"We can't keep prisoners when we're on the move," said Baas. He shoved her aside and barreled down the length of the tunnel like a rolling boulder. Ara scurried after him.

In the light at the other end of the tunnel, Kera and Dieno stood watching over Canu, who sat up against the wall of the culvert, joking with his captors. He looked pleased to see Ara and Baas, but his naive optimism sent a spike through Ara's heart. It reminded her of a lamb she once raised, that had come bounding into her arms at slaughter time, expecting to be cuddled and brushed.

"Tell these fools to let me go," said Canu, haughtily. "They jabber on about some counterforce. We didn't come to counter anything; we're just a bunch of scouts."

Ara seized Baas' knife hand. He yanked it free from her grasp and pushed her away. "Go stay with Baren, if the spilling of blood bothers you so," he whispered.

Canu spotted the knife. His attitude shifted as quickly as the wind. "Blood? Whose blood?" he said, cringing.

Without a word, Baas grabbed a swatch of Canu's thick hair with one hand and lifted his hooked dagger with the other. Canu squirmed away.

Ara latched onto his arm again. "Baas, there's no need. This one's ... docile. He'll cooperate."

"Get your hands off!" said Baas.

"If you kill me, you'll be stranded," said Canu, frantically. "You can't get back to Gi without me."

Baas shook away from Ara's grasp but lowered his knife. "What are you saying?"

"Look at your stone," said Canu. "It's just a fragment. You can't go anywhere with it. I know where the other piece is hidden."

Baas took a deep breath and looked down at Canu with disgust. He turned and called down the tunnel. "Baren!"

Baren plodded down the tunnel, looking skittish, but hopeful. "You've decided to spare him?" he said.

Baas gave him a look of disgust and reached for the satchel bearing the stone. Baren reacted defensively, stepping back. Baas lunged and snatched it away from him. He yanked open the flap and pulled out the stone, rotating it back and forth in his palm.

"You lie," he said. "I see nothing wrong with it."

"It's the truth," said Canu. "Look at the flat edge in the light."

Baas went to the end of the culvert, held the stone up in the sunlight and studied it carefully. His face slowly contorted into a scowl. "You wretched scum."

"What's wrong?" said Baren, splashing up.

Baas handed him the stone. "See how it glints on the flat, but only on this plane? It's a large and recent fracture. This might be only half a stone."

Baren looked perplexed. "But it's been in my possession ever since we crossed. When could they have possibly done this?"

Baas narrowed his eyes. "Maybe it was already damaged," he said. "Maybe that's why the tabulator was off."

"We crossed through a damaged stone?" said Baren. "Is this even possible?"

"It's possible, but damaged stones are unstable," said Baas, grudgingly. "I've seen men crushed, attempting such passages."

Canu fixated, eyes almost crossed, at the stone in Baren's hands. Ara had seen that look before, just before he went after the Cuerti upriver. But before she could stop him, he lunged at Baren and head-butted the stone out of his hands. It dropped into the water. Canu fell on it, pounding at it maniacally with both elbows together.

"You swine!" Baas fell on Canu and wrestled him away from the stone, secured him with one arm and slipped his knife up under his chin.

Baren dropped to his knees and felt around in the water for the xenolith. When he picked it up, it came apart in three shards. He fumbled them and all but one splashed into the stream. He looked at Baas, beseeching.

"This militia scum is nothing but trouble," said Baas, slipping out his blade with his free hand.

"But you need me," said Canu, elbows bloodied, his voice garbled by Baas' forearm. "To find the other half. There's enough left to open a portal. I saw it happen. I'll tell you where it is if you free me."

"Ara, you've traveled here before," said Baren. "Do you know of any other stones?"

"I ... used to," she said. "It's been years. I don't know." Though she remembered precisely which road and which stream would lead her to the forested glen in Vermont where she first entered this world. "I'm not even sure it still exists, and even if it does, it's seven days walk, minimum."

"He must show us then," said Baren. "He must take us to the other half, or he will die."

"And if I do, you will free me?"said Canu.

Baren stared back, silent. He looked to Baas.

"You won't ever find it on your own," said Canu. "Just go and leave me behind in Ur and you'll never hear of me again."

Baas' eyes looked as cold as the metal of the blade he sheathed. He tugged Baren deeper into the tunnel where Canu couldn't hear him. Ara sidled after them. "Humor him," Baas whispered. "Once we have the other half, I'll do what needs to be done."

Baren pursed his lips and nodded grimly. He waded back into the light where Canu lay expectant. "Bring us to the stone," he said. "And I'll guarantee that you'll remain in Ur."

*****

Chapter 50: The Second Bridge

Canu kicked the same pebble repeatedly down the road, dashing forth to retrieve it when it bounced astray under a trailer. He hummed snatches of an Urep'o song that had somehow snagged in his brain. His wrist throbbed, but he was glad to be free of binds and out in the open air.

Ara walked stiffly behind him, looking straight ahead. Her eyes refracted discomfort, as if his buoyancy annoyed her. She clenched and unclenched her jaw, poised to speak, unable to summon the will or words.

Canu felt lucky to have emerged from the culvert with his life. He had seen the wicked hook of Baas' blade; an assassin's tool designed specifically to rip windpipes. He could hear Baas and Dieno trailing them now through the scrub along the riverbank, equipped with blades and bolts enough to kill him a dozen different ways if he didn't execute his end of the deal. The dispassionate glaze on Baas' face still haunted his retinas.

The cadre's reaction to his return confused him. Had they really expected him and his comrades to have stood idly by when Crasacs appeared in Ur unannounced? Canu had held no desire to interfere with their machinations until he saw Pana tangling with the Cuerti. How could he have then not intervened? How could they interpret Canu's act of fellowship as a deed worthy of execution? Would they not have done the same for their mates?

The access road emerged around the side of the market and curved around the rim of a lot, joining a wider road that led downstream. A concrete walkway ran between it and the river, adorned with weed-ridden plantings and knife-scarred benches serving less as décor than as evidence of life's decay.

They approached an intersection with the road that would carry them over the second bridge. On the other side, the road ran beneath the elevated highway and up a steep hill. From the shape of the land, Canu presumed that it would eventually meet the road that ran past the stream where Seor had abandoned the xenolith fragment.

He didn't enjoy thinking about the fate of his friends. Ara had evaded his inquiries. The quaver in her voice alarmed him, in light of his recent experience with Baas.

Though the sky remained bright, shadows seeped into the riverbed as if drawn by gravity. Canu caught a glimpse of Baas and Dieno scrambling crab-like along a concrete buttress. He stopped and waited at the end of the bridge for Ara, who trailed a few paces behind. She caught up and, surprising him, took his hand. Her cold fingers meshed. He turned to find sad eyes, lines rippling her forehead.

"You can't take them to the stone, Canu," she said, hushed but breathless. "Lead them away from it, then when see a chance to slip off, take it. Do you understand?"

"But I thought we had a deal," said Canu, continuing over the bridge. "I show you the stone. I go free. No?"

"He'll kill you, Canu. The moment he knows he can get the stone."

Canu sighed. Mid-bridge, he looked down over the ripples that collected what little brightness remained in the sky. He saw the culvert jutting out of the bank and the dark smear of algae spreading along the rocks below it, knowing that it could have easily been his own blood staining those rocks.

"Baren gave me his word," Canu said, softly. "He's a cadre commander."

"You might have noticed that Baren is not with us," said Ara. "Baas will slash your throat. And he'll do it without blinking."

"Why would they bother with me?" said Canu. "I'm just a simple ... soldier. Just a scout, really. No threat to anyone."

She went to the railing of the bridge and leaned over. Canu followed. A pair of spidery shapes clung to the bridge's central abutment, edging along a narrow ledge.

Ara stood rigid and alert, surveying the road. A light dangling over the end of the bridge turned from green to yellow to red. "Come," she said, bustling down the sidewalk to the end of the bridge. A short queue of vehicles waited under the red light as cross-traffic passed freely before them. Ara peered through the windows of every stopped vehicle studying their drivers. One young man in a boxy, flat-backed vehicle reciprocated, his eyes absent-mindedly scanning her figure. When he noticed Ara staring back, his face abruptly stiffened and his head swiveled forward.

"That one! The one with the boy," said Ara. She grabbed Canu's hand and charged out into the road.

*****

Chapter 51: Arizona

A ring of pressure gripped Frank's legs and rippled up their length, razzing the fabric of his trousers. The unseen force, feeling powerful enough to snap bones, collected and guided Frank through the shimmering ellipse. It rolled up his torso. He tried bringing his hands down to protect his face, but his arms refused to budge, as if he were an avalanche victim encased in snow. Air squeezed from his lungs. The ring slid up and engulfed his head, pushing his eyeballs deep into their sockets, peeling back their lids.

A blast of brilliant, scorching light stung his eyes. Parched air robbed the moisture from his breath. He skidded through a dirt patch and latched onto a bush whose springy branches arrested his slide. Astringent emanations from its sparse and glaucous leaves filled his nostrils. He lay dazed, gazing up at a cloudless blue sky backing the filmy white outlines of the Eldest Brother's cabinet.

Tezhay, wild-eyed, pulled him to his feet. "Run! They may follow." Before Frank's senses could fully return, he found himself pounding through a corrugated landscape, barely keeping up with the swifter Tezhay as they dodged through mazes of cactus and thorn bush. Thumps and a clatter of metal sounded behind them.

Tiers of rumpled and treeless mountains surrounded them, near and far. Frank heard the grumbling buzz of a small motorcycle or chainsaw in the distance.

They entered a broad outwash plain where several arroyos disgorged their sediments. Tezhay made confidently for the central arroyo as if he were navigating his own back forty.

"Leave no track, walk on stone if you can," Tezhay shouted back, hopping from stone to stone avoid the softer patches of sand and silt.

Frank tried but failed to mimic the far nimbler Tezhay. He undershot stepping stones, left toe scrapes in the sand. Pale, loose-branched cacti peppered the ground like booby traps. In evading one, his ankle brushed another. A chunk snapped off, barbs embedding in his skin.

"Ah, fuck!" Frank stooped to attend to his injury.

"No stop! Keep run," said Tezhay.

He swatted it off with a stick, and lurched to catch up with Tezhay who waited for him at the mouth of the arroyo. They followed its twisting bed until the walls grew shallow. Tezhay led them up and out onto a spur.

Cliffs of sandstone, fractured and dissected into house-sized blocks, interrupted the slope above them. Tezhay paused to study these outcrops, which arced around the spur like molars in the jaw of a dead steer, rounded and scalloped by wind and sand.

Frank spotted the vapor trail of an airliner high in the sky. A distant rumble drew his eye to the glint of a tractor-trailer tracing a razor line halfway up the slope of the sinuous, brown hill before them.

"Now, I give you a chance for be free," said Tezhay, avoiding Frank's eyes. "You no follow me. Keep go straight. Climb and you find road. Good luck." He stepped away and angled up the slope towards a bluff isolated by wide gullies on both flanks.

"Wait a minute, what is this place?" he said.

"Harizona," Tezhay called back, without turning.

"Really?" An odd tingle swept through Frank. He pictured himself hiking up to the road and hitching a ride to the next town. He could find a phone, get someone from his office to wire him funds. He could book a motel room, shower and shave, catch up on news, a good meal from a steak house, sleep in a bed with cotton sheets and soft pillows. The next day he could be on a flight back to Maryland.

Rocks clattered in the arroyo below. A man grunted in pain. Tezhay hesitated when he noticed Frank standing still. "Go, quickly!" he scolded. "That way." He pointed at a gully between two bluffs. Frank could see a stretch of guard rail where the road switched back high above the outcrops.

"But ... where are you going?" said Frank.

"Never mind where I go," said Tezhay. "You go home." He turned and headed for the center of the bluff.

The sloth that had taken up residence in his soul goaded him with the prospect of resuming Sundays in his den with Peet's coffee and the New York Times in the morning, IPA and NFL in the afternoon. But the doldrums that had consumed his life had little else to offer. His agency job had enmeshed his medical career in a bureaucratic tar pit. He had whittled down his friendships to a few casual acquaintances. The disastrous outcomes of the few abortive romances he had nurtured post-Liz made him flee the hint of any further prospects.

Did he really wish to fritter away the rest of his years in such a state? The chance that Liz survived had sparked some sort of tinder within him. Was he ready to snuff it so soon?

Each moment he lingered, Tezhay put more distance between them. A figure appeared on the opposite side of the arroyo, spotted them, and shouted to others below. Frank surged headlong up a ramp of tinkling talus to catch up with Tezhay.

"Hey, wait up," he called as he ran.

Tezhay turned, looking pained. "I don't understand. This is your home. Why you follow me?"

"This ain't home," said Frank. "Not without Liz. Twenty years, I haven't had a place that felt like home. I'm going with you."

Tezhay studied him. He looked puzzled, but he said no more; he just put his head down and continued on towards the outcrop.

The reached a heap of loose stone beneath a cliff and followed the base around to the chute separating it from the next bluff. Overhangs and shallow caves, carved by wind, riddled its underside. Tezhay smiled when he found a cave harboring a queer glow that hung in the air like a web woven from strands of light. A cold wind poured forth.

A clank of metal on stone rang out around the curve of the outcrop. Heavy footsteps approached. A voice jabbered excitedly. Frank lowered his head and charged into the glimmer.

*****

Chapter 52: Running

Ara darted towards the grey pickup truck with a reluctant Canu in tow, squeezing his swollen hand to quash any resistance. Its young driver saw her coming and scrambled to lock his doors. But Ara sprang forward and yanked the passenger side open before the latch could click shut. She climbed in and slid across the bench seat, dragging Canu in beside her.

The boy flinched against his door, mouth agape.

"I hope you don't mind giving us a ride," Ara said, forcing a smile.

"Get the fuck out!" said the boy, chest puffing, mouth contorting. "Get out of my fuckin' truck!"

Ara perused the red locks spilling from his cap, the freckles spattering his cheeks. She sensed meekness beneath his bluster, but watched his hands carefully; made sure he reached for no weapons as she stretched over Canu and pulled the door closed.

"Please," she said. "We need to get to a hospital. My friend's cut himself pretty badly." In case Canu's battered elbows weren't convincing enough, she pulled at the paper covering his sword wound, removing part of the clot that had stanched its bleeding. Drops of brilliant red bulged.

"God damn it! Don't drip on my upholstery!" He ripped a wad of tissues from a box behind his seat and passed them over.

"So you will take us?" said Ara.

The boy's eyes flitted back and forth. "I'm not supposed to pick up strangers."

"Please? This is an emergency," said Ara. Her eyes flitted to the river bank seeking signs of Baas and Dieno.

"The hospital's not that far," he said. "It's a long walk, but ... I can tell you how to get there."

"The light's turning. Please. Just go!"

Horns sounded behind him. Flustered, the boy popped his truck into gear. As he started forward, an object deflected hard off the door. He braked abruptly, throwing Ara and Canu against the dashboard. "What the fuck was that?" He rolled down his automatic window.

"No! Keep it shut!" said Ara.

"That better not've scratched my paint." He slapped a button with a red triangle that set his lights blinking and reached to open his door.

"Don't go out! Drive away! Quickly!" More horns blared. Cars maneuvered around them.

A second bolt struck the window next to Canu's ear and a spider web bloomed in the layered glass. Ara pushed Canu down and ducked behind the door post. She could see her two comrades skulking beneath the rail of the walkway at the end of the bridge.

"Jeezus! Was that a bullet?" said the driver.

"Go! Just go!" said Ara.

The boy stomped on his accelerator as the traffic light blinked red, squealing up a cloud of blue smoke, cutting off both lines of traffic on the cross street. As trees and houses flew past, the engine shrieked as if it might explode. Canu cowered in his seat.

"You can slow down now," said Ara, entwining a seat belt around her wrists. "The others ... can't follow. They don't have a car."

The boy ignored her, eyes fixated straight ahead. Sweat glistened on his face. He raced down an underpass and up a ramp, hurtling past other vehicles as if they were stationary. After several miles of straightaway, the engine relaxed and its tone deepened as they decelerated down an exit ramp. He swung into a lane leading to the hospital emergency room and lurched to a stop.

"Griffin Hospital," said the boy, appraising them nervously.

"Thank you so much," said Ara. "Sorry about your window."

"Just get out!"

Canu fumbled with the latch. Ara reached over to help. As she followed him out, the truck began to surge away before both of her feet could touch pavement. It fled from the parking lot, door flapping.

Ara watched him disappear around a corner. Queasiness gripped her as the consequences of her hasty actions caught up with her. Canu stood on the sidewalk, looking lost beside a plate glass window. "I don't understand," said Canu. "Why did you do this?"

"To save your life ... you fool," said Ara.

Canu stared at her, blinking and fidgeting. "What do we... what can we do now?"

Ara shrugged. "I ... I'm ... not sure."

She stood, palms against the glass, admiring the wash of light and bright color inside the waiting area. It brought her back to her early days in St. Johnsbury when she had fractured her arm warding off a drunk behind a truck yard. She remembered wandering into a hospital like this out of the rain and dark, and the haven it provided when she most needed one.

"There are doctors here," she said. "We can try to get you fixed up?"

She led Canu in and sat him down next to a woman holding a bag of ice against the knee of a young girl in a blue uniform. Streaks of prior tears dried on the child's reddened face. Ara could see the woman striving not to stare, but felt the gaze of a janitor emptying waste receptacles linger as she approached the counter.

The broad-faced woman behind the registration counter looked up, her default smile shifting into a faint grimace. "Can I ... help you?"

"My friend hurt himself clearing brush," she said. "He's cut deep and bleeding pretty badly."

"Is he insured?"

"No," said Ara.

"No Medicaid? Nothing?"

"No."

She interrogated Ara more thoroughly than the detectives in Greymore, asking about Canu's immigration status, the identity of his employer, why the employer hadn't brought Canu to the hospital himself or provided sufficient funds to pay for treatment. Ara could see a clipboard holding patient registration forms behind the counter but the woman made no move to retrieve it. Her hands remained firmly clasped in front of her keyboard. Clearly, she hoped that if she stalled long enough, they would just go away.

A nurse came up to ask about another patient. "Excuse me," said the woman, stepping out of her glassed-in booth into the treatment area.

Ara turned around and looked over the mostly empty waiting area, drumming her fingers on a shelf of HIV brochures. The janitor sidled up. As he knelt to replace the bag in the receptacle beside the counter, he looked up.

"The shift changes in an hour," he whispered. "The lady who works nights might help you. She don't try to scare all the illegals away, like this one."

"Thank you," said Ara. She found a chair next to Canu, who had nodded off. She tried leafing through a travel magazine but felt too agitated to focus. She put it down and studied Canu's face. He seemed so simple, so child-like, yet his face was so angular and devoid of baby fat – adamantly masculine. Why had she risked and surrendered so much to help him? Was it solely pity?

She tensed when a vehicle pulled up, concerned that the boy in the pickup might have contacted the police. Though it seemed unlikely that Baas and Dieno could have tracked them here, she could not relax. Not only had she probably made herself a target for Baas' wrath, but as a deserter, she became fair game for any soldier of Sesei. A sense of regret deepened within her.

A security guard walked through on his rounds, but barely glanced in their direction. The woman at the registration desk glared occasionally, but otherwise left them alone. When she finally pulled on a sweater and clattered out through the sliding glass doors, Ara watched the registration counter expectantly to see who would replace her.

When a loud, fierce-eyed woman came swaggering in to the booth, Ara had her doubts as she approached the counter. But the janitor's advice proved solid. This woman asked many of the same questions, but she handed Ara the clipboard from the start and keyed information into a computer as she spoke, however incomplete and false the information Ara provided.

As Ara checked 'no' in every box for allergies and pre-existing conditions, a young nurse came out and tapped Canu awake and brought him into a treatment room. Ara wandered in when she was done with the form to watch a resident wash and stitch Canu's wound, covering it with a gleaming white bandage.

When the resident left, Canu patted his bandage proudly, like a little boy admiring an unexpected gift. "Did you see the job this one did? He must be handy with leather. Beautiful stitching! I almost want to pull my bandage off to look at it again."

Ara rolled her eyes.

One of the nurses took pity on them and brought them some cleaner clothing from the hospital lost and found. Canu chose a navy blue T-shirt with UCONN in block white letters. Ara found a pair of stretchy black sweat pants with a red stripe down the side. Walking down the hall past the cafeteria, they found the janitor sitting with a cup of coffee.

"Let me buy you something to eat. Whatever you want." He rose from his seat and led them into the serving area.

Ara split a BLT and a carton of milk with Canu. The janitor encouraged them to load more onto the tray, but Ara didn't wish to strain his charity. She knew how little janitors earned. They found a table far from the window, facing the entrance to the dining area.

"You realize we can't go back to Sesei," she said.

Canu didn't answer immediately, concentrating instead on ripping the bacon from his half of the BLT with his teeth. Ara had been wrong to compare him to a child. In some ways, he acted more like a dog.

"You saw me crush that stone," he answered, finally.

"Not just that," said Ara. "I'm a deserter. And my comrades have you marked for treason."

"You have it all backwards," said Canu. "Baren is the traitor. So your leaving does not qualify as desertion."

"The little people, like us, don't get to define treason," said Ara. "Those in power get to say what it is, and what it is not."

"My Councilor will support us," Canu said, confidently. "Seor will explain it all to him."

"I hate to say this, but no Councilor from Suul can help us. The fallen provinces no longer hold any sway. And I'm not even sure your comrades are still alive. Baren, apparently, wanted to spare them. But Baas—"

Canu looked stricken by her implication. Ara met his gaze and held it, until he was forced to look away.

"I'm not staying here," he said.

"You're right. We can't," said Ara. "Not in this town."

"I mean Ur. I won't stay in Ur," said Canu. "However corrupted Sesei has become, it is still my home. I'll take my chances there."

"And how do you propose to get us there?"

"You must know of other stones. No?"

Ara shrugged. "I used to. Near the place I lived in Vermont."

"How far?" said Canu, his attention piqued.

"In a fast vehicle, maybe six hours."

"To walk?"

Maybe seven days. But I don't even know if they're still there."

The interest drained from his face. "Forget it," he said. "We'll just use the stone I know."

"But you said it was damaged."

"It is," said Canu. "But it still opens portals. It's the same one you passed through to come here."

Ara remembered Baren's surprise at the early appearance of the convergence; the odd mix of imagery, dominated by a stone wall in a forest, but interlaced with the faintest suggestions of a red vehicle, buildings and pavement. And then there was the alarming brevity of the portal, slamming shut with a brutal finality. She fiddled with the hem of her shirt. "I'd feel better about using an intact stone, like the one in Vermont."

"I'm not going any deeper into this world unless I'm sure I have an exit," said Canu. "I know exactly where Seor tossed the other fragment. We can go there, fetch it and bring it along with us."

"I'm not sure that's wise, Canu. Baas and Dieno may be out there looking."

"Bah ... they have no idea where to find it. I told them nothing."

Ara found Canu's desire prudent, if risky. She had not passed into St. Johnsbury since before the war, and many xenoliths had been repositioned after the invasion. But the prospect of retrieving the other stone frightened her.

She had been impressed by how well the boy's pickup had resisted Baas and Dieno's bolts. If there was a way they could travel back in a vehicle, she would feel safer. But she didn't dare press their luck with another car-jacking. Though, there were other ways.

"Wait here, Canu. I have an idea." She left him stretched out on an idle gurney in a hallway, as she wandered the halls, dashing into treatment rooms, opening drawers, checking pockets of jackets hanging on coat racks. She found no cash, but scrounged a few handfuls of scalpel blades and gauze pads, which she stuffed into the pockets of a hooded sweatshirt.

She went out to the place where hospital workers went outside to smoke and solicited donations for cab fare so that she and her boyfriend could return home to Bridgeport to take care of her diabetic mother and one year old with colic. Every few minutes, someone new came outside, and within the hour, she had accumulated over thirty dollars.

She returned to find Canu being evicted from his gurney. He slumped moodily onto a bench surrounded by ferns and a fountain in the hospital lobby, but perked up when he saw Ara approach.

"We have a choice Canu," she told him. "This is almost enough for a one-way passage to Vermont. Or it will buy us a cab ride to your stone, with something left for food."

"I want that stone," said Canu. "I don't care if we have to walk to your Vermont."

*****

Chapter 53: Entering Gi

Tezhay passed from infernal air and glare into a cool twilight, alighting on a thick bed of matted leaves in the bottom of a shallow, rock-rimmed sinkhole. The convergence quivered like a pond set on edge, displaying a sandstone overhang like a protruding reflection. He stepped over Doctor Frank's prostrate form to push beyond the portal's tug, peering cautiously into the dense forest surrounding them, worried that an escort might be arriving for Dembon.

Doctor Frank crept along on his knees, straining against the force of the xenolith. Tezhay reached down and grabbed his collar, helping him along.

"This place ... smells different," said Frank. "Could this be Piliar?" His voice rose with excitement.

"No. It is Gi," said Tezhay. "Come, we must move. Someone may follow."

The ripples in the air contracted, taking the sandstone cliffs with them. A frantic voice carried through the portal, distant and distorted. Tezhay backed away as a figure holding a long dagger hurtled through the shimmer and thumped hard against the floor of the depression. Heavy gasps sought breath.

"Eghazi!" shouted Tezhay. Before Eghazi could orient, Tezhay sprang atop him, and seized his wrist. He twisted the dagger away and dashed it against the wall of the depression. As he turned back, Eghazi's knee caught him in the face. Eghazi wriggled free and scurried after his dagger on hands and knees.

"Get his blade!" said Tezhay, but Doctor Frank had already retrieved it, holding it awkwardly, but giving Eghazi pause enough to allow Tezhay to tackle and pin him in the leaves. He dragged a stick over and pressed it against Eghazi's windpipe. Eghazi ceased resisting immediately, struggling for air in desperate rasps.

Tezhay looked up at Doctor Frank, who stood poised but frozen on the verge of joining in the fight.

"Watch the portal! Soldiers may be coming."

"Uh, I don't think anyone else will be passing through that thing," said Doctor Frank. Tezhay pushed the stick down and looked over his shoulder at the faint traces remaining of the portal. Eghazi snorted and wheezed from the pressure on his windpipe.

Tezhay let up slightly on the stick. Eghazi coughed and struggled for breath. His frantic eyes scanned the forest surrounding them.

"Are you expecting someone?" said Tezhay, in Sesep'o.

He anchored one end of the stick with his knee, maintaining pressure with the other hand as he used his free one to pat Eghazi down for other weapons.

Eghazi worked his hands under the stick and tried to twist free of the knees planted on both of his arms. Tezhay pressed on the stick until it squeezed off Eghazi's breath entirely.

"Hands off! And stay still or I'll crush your neck!"

Eghazi complied instantly, letting his body go limp. Tezhay eased off. He unstrapped another sheathed dagger from his hip. A vicious little blade with a swervy edge resided in a slotted belt cinched tightly against the small of his back. A leather band holding four finned throwing knives encircled his calf.

"Do you always carry so much metal on your body?" said Tezhay.

"When I sleep in a Venep'o military camp, yes," said Eghazi.

He tossed each weapon, one by one, over to Doctor Frank.

"What should I do with these?"

"Put them on. I don't care. Just keep them away from this man."

Tezhay fished his hand into Tezhay's satchel and pulled out several stuck-together pieces of waxed parchment covered in tiny script, each decorated with a dollop of blue wax impressed with the shape of a teardrop.

"What are those?" said Doctor Frank.

"For prayer," said Tezhay. "This man is Sinkor. He worship the gods of Venen."

"Cra ... not for just ... Venen people," complained Eghazi, in English.

"Ah! The traitor knows some of your language, doctor. Perhaps he have plans to travel."

Tearing at the cloth, he retrieved yet another tiny dagger concealed in the false bottom of the bag. In another pocket, he found some biscuit crumbs, some loose herbs for tea, bits of tinder, an ornate bar of flint and bundle of cord. He hauled Eghazi up and secured him with his own cord to a root snaking over a ledge.

"You may mean well, but your actions are misguided," said Eghazi.

"Shut up," said Tezhay.

"You sabotage our only chance for peace."

"I told you to be quiet. Do you want the stick on your throat again?"

He put his face inches from Eghazi's, but Eghazi evaded his gaze, keeping his eyes trained on the forest.

Tezhay turned abruptly and peered over the rim of the depression, but saw only wilderness in the dim, dawn light, no trace of human activity. Only insects and bird song and the distant whumping of frogs disturbed the silence.

"So who is it? Who do you expect will rescue you?"

"All these trees," said Doctor Frank. "And the air's so damp here. Where the hell are we?"

"I already tell you," said Tezhay. "It is Gi."

"Is ... Gi ... any closer to Piliar?"

"Not closer. Much farther. Across ocean, plain, mountains of Venen. We are thousands ... maybe ten thousand kilometer from Piliar."

Frank's head snapped around. His face bloomed red. "What?"

"I gave you chance for go home. Not many exile get such chance."

"You could have at least told me where you were going."

"Yes, I have so much time to explain," Tezhay said.

"Can ... can we go back. Some other way?"

"Not by stone. Even once is too much ... for exile. You want Piliar, you have to walk through Venen. That, I don't think is possible."

"So I'm stuck here?"

Tezhay shrugged. The exposed ledges of pale, grey limestone told him that they most likely had passed into the sparsely inhabited karst lands of Gi's Western valleys. The closest functional portals he remembered were far to the East, hidden along the road to Maora where the militias of the Second Gi Expeditionary Force had supposedly assembled. For reasons unknown, a closer portal, on the outskirts of Raacevo, Gi's largest settlement, had ceased opening convergences earlier that year.

Tezhay had never traveled before to Gi through the present portal. It was a cryptic, untrodden route, separate from the group of stones the Philosophers had released to the military. It meant that a Philosopher or a fellow Traveler must have been involved in the plot.

"Who gave you this stone?" he asked Eghazi in Sesep'o, still watching the forest with the wide eyes of a zealot.

"That's of no concern to you," said Eghazi.

"As a keeper of stones, of course it concerns me."

"Keeper?" Eghazi chuckled. "You fetch ... for Philosophers. No more than an errand boy."

"You underestimate me," said Tezhay.

"You have no idea what you've wrought. Months of careful negotiation ... undone. We would have had peace, an end to war, restoration of territories."

"You would surrender our only advantage ... for a promise?"

"So we give up a stone or two. Is that not worth a chance for a lasting peace?" said Eghazi. "I don't expect someone of your calling to understand. But the treaty is the only way Sesei can survive. Trust me."

Tezhay took a long, slow breath to help him settle his irritation. He would need to maintain his patience if he was to deliver this traitor intact to those who could benefit most from what he knew. He refused to believe that the plot had permeated his entire government.

But something in the trees made him jittery. He saw nothing, just sensed a shift in the air. Not a change in the weather signaled by the temperature or moisture of the wind, but something more subtle, like those vibrations too fine for humans to perceive but which warned dogs of imminent earthquakes. When the birds suddenly stopped singing, the susurrus of insects did not suffice to veil the growing murmur.

*****

Chapter 54: The Shed.

Seor was an island in a sea of ferns, lapped by fronds bobbing in the breeze, exposing their rows of rusty spores beneath. Seor felt naked, not having a weapon to hold, and wished she had brought something from the shed they had claimed for a shelter. A hammer, a set of shears – anything heavy or sharp – to empower her and make her feel less like a victim-in-waiting.

A moth spiraled past, struggling to fly straight with a damaged wing. Children's voices resounded beyond the edge of the wood, making music with the purl of the brook and the blended whine of mosquito and distant machine. She had finally given up searching for stone. All that could be done now was to wait and watch for a convergence.

As the children's manic but playful calls grew louder and closer, Seor retreated beneath some tall shrubs set back from the stream. She lay on her side, knees drawn up, head appressed against the back of her hand. The twigs above her were sparsely laden with small, dark berries. She plucked some with her free hand. They were pulpy and dry, but had enough sweetness to pass for food.

She peeked through a screen of fern stems until the trio appeared: a girl about nine and two smaller boys. They traipsed along the stony bed turning stones, seeking salamanders and chasing after the tiny fish that fled between the riffles. The way the older girl bossed the little boys around reminded Seor so much of her own child.

Before the war, Dima had spent many a day along the shallow river that ran behind their homestead in Suul. Once the laundry had been scrubbed and stretched to dry over the boulders she would go off to play and explore, much like these children.

Seor didn't know why the familiarity of their behavior should surprise her. They were human after all. Why shouldn't curiosity about the natural world transcend the accoutrements of culture and contraption?

Seor stayed down long after a woman's voice rang out to summon the children back home. She didn't rise until Vul came to relieve her.

He wore the long, black coat she had found for him in the basement of the house beyond the shed. As she stood, startling him, he lifted a tiny, toy bow to face her. Besides the one strung, a handful of arrows refitted with tips of scrap metal protruded from his fist.

Seor smirked. "And what do you expect to accomplish with that thing?"

"It's better than nothing," said Vul, defensively.

"Take care," said Seor. "There've been some children about."

She wove her way back to the shed through a wide patch of waist-high weeds, taking care not to bend or bruise the stems, hoping to leave no track. But no matter how delicately and randomly she walked, an indelible, green wake appeared in the leafy surface. When she came across the wide path that Vul had trampled, she abandoned all pretense of stealth.

Seor whistled softly as she approached the shed to warn Ren and Pari of her return. The shed's back wall was in the process of becoming one with the forest. Its clapboards were rotted or mildewed, retaining few flakes of the red paint once coating it. Moss grew over the shingles in the shade of a branch that pressed against the sagging roof like a many-clawed hand.

She lifted the sagging door to get it to swing open. From the dimness within, Ren and Pari's eyes met hers like cornered vermin. Both women crouched on the wood floor, metal tools and gardening implements spread before them. Ren scraped a stone along the edge on a long-handled axe. Pari had split a pair of wooden skis, and was whittling one of the staves down with a knife. Several dozen green-tinted reeds lay fletched and glued before her, but without points.

"Any luck with the stone?" said Ren.

"No, but I didn't spend much time looking," said Seor. "I suppose it will show itself when it's ready."

Ren kept her eyes engaged. "And if not?"

"Then, I'll find us one," said Seor. "Even if we have to walk a dozen moons." But she wondered if she believed her own words. She had used other portals in training but they were half a continent away, at least, and she had no tabulators to help find them. "Some children came by the stream again. It seems to be their regular habit."

Pari looked alarmed. "Children? We just sent Vul out there with a weapon."

"Don't worry," said Seor. "I warned him. He'll take care."

"It wasn't much of a weapon," said Ren. "We don't have a lot here to work with."

"I don't know about that," said Seor. "Pari's bows look like they're coming along well. And that axe you were working on certainly looks serviceable."

"In close quarters we might do okay," said Ren. "But against crossbows?"

"With any luck, we won't have to fight anyone," said Seor. "But it's good to be prepared."

"Do you suppose one of the children might have taken the stone?" said Pari.

Seor shrugged. The possibility had nagged her, but she didn't want to stalk their home unless they had no other choice.

She peeked into the box in which they kept their collected food. It contained only a few wilted squash that Ren had plundered from one of the neighbors' gardens. She had hoped to have a bit to eat and rest, but it looked like she would first need to do some foraging. She didn't want to distract Ren and Pari from their weapon-making.

"I'll be right back," she said, exiting the shed.

The main house was nearly as decrepit as the shed. Thinking it abandoned, they initially intended to squat, but it turned out to be occupied by an old man who kept the windows closed and made only occasional, fleeting excursions onto his front stoop. Though he received an occasional visitor, he clearly lived alone.

Seor cast a wary eye towards the road as she crossed the drive to the rear of the house. She slipped in through a basement window with a broken latch. An earlier foray had yielded several bags of clothing and an armload of slightly mildewed bedding and crumbly pillows that had greatly improved the comfort of their sleeping arrangements in the shed.

Besides the long black coat, Vul had replaced his torn and bloodied pants with a baggier pair that rubbed less on his wounds. Seor and Ren picked slacks and sweaters that kept them warm on their dewy watches. Pari had chosen, less practically, a dress that swirled when she walked and caught too easily on thorns.

In the basement, Seor searched for food amongst stacks of moldy boxes and objects diverse and bulky, dangling fork-tipped cords. The din of the old man's picture box coming through the floorboards drowned out any scrapes and bumps she made as she rummaged through his clutter.

The only edibles were shelved in glass jars thickly coated in dust and packed with globular brown objects that could stir no appetite in her. The fungus infesting one of the cracked containers had dried into a scaly, black scum.

A swath of light slashed diagonally across a crude wooden staircase. Seor made her way up towards source of the light – a door ajar. The hinges squealed as she pushed it open, revealing a kitchen with no horizontal surface unoccupied by dishes and cartons and utensils. She tiptoed across a blotchy floor and peeked into the room from which all the noise emanated.

The old man sat enveloped by a bloated armchair, his head teetering in a sleepy stupor. Patches of wiry hair either plastered his scalp or flew askew over ears that protruded like wings frozen in mid-flap.

Seor wondered how such an old man could end up alone in such a big house. What had happened to his family? Had they all perished? She had seen signs in the yard that once children had lived here: a twisted wooden frame with collapsed swings, sun-faded toys with missing wheels.

A large brown bag sat unopened among the detritus on the counter. Seor unfurled the paper to find a white box inside. Under its lid was an ample meal with the meat of a large fowl, mashed tubers, vegetables and several puffs of bread. Though the sauce congealed into a gel, the food was far from spoiled. She closed the box and crimped the top of the paper bag. Another similar bag rested unopened in a trash can. The meal it contained was at least a day older and fouler, so she let it stay.

Curious, she opened some of the many drawers that lined the counters. In one, she found an array of brightly colored lozenges in clear wrappings. She stuffed a handful into her pocket. Another drawer contained cutlery, mostly tame, but a long knife with a wide, triangular blade caught her eye. It would make a decent pike once affixed to the end of a stout staff.

She opened a large white box as tall as herself. A light turned on and cool air poured out. It was mostly empty, except for some half-empty bottles and jars, a hunk of thick sausage and a block of cheese. The end of the sausage looked pink, recently cut. Apparently the old man preferred it to the packaged meals that were brought to him. She left it alone and shut the door.

Coughing erupted in the next room. Startled, she reached for the bag, but her hand bumped an empty mug and sent it clattering into the metal sink. Between paroxysms, the old man called into the kitchen. His voice was loud, but calm, as if he expected someone to be there. Seor stood frozen, with one hand on the bag and her eye on the basement door.

The old man's words provoked another round of coughing and wheezing; erupting from the deepest recesses of his lungs. It pained Seor to listen. She rinsed out a mug and filled it with water. With some trepidation, she carried it into the next room. She snuck in and tried to set it down on the lamp stand beside his chair without him seeing her.

But his head snapped around and he flinched at the sight of her. He quickly concealed his surprise, grappling to compose himself by pretending he remembered her, as if accustomed to compensating for forgetfulness. He muttered as he picked up the mug, sipping between coughs, forcing his attention back to the picture box. As she retreated back to the kitchen Seor saw him sneak a puzzled glance back at her.

She pasted a smile on her face and backed away into the kitchen, grabbed the paper sack and slipped off down the basement stairs. She pushed the bag through the casement window, climbed out and pushed it closed. She worried what trouble, if any, the old man would bring them, if it would be prudent to move out of the shed.

As she regained her feet on the cracked walk, a bright yellow vehicle squeaked to a stop on the far side of the woodlot, just upstream from where Vul stood watch. She stepped behind a sprawling bush with broad, leathery leaves and waited for the vehicle to move on. But it lingered, engine chugging as faces peered out its windows, scanning the woodlot.

She scurried back to the shed and swung inside.

"So what did—? What's wrong?" said Ren, as Seor pulled the long kitchen knife out of the bag.

"Someone's here," said Seor. "It may be nothing, but you should stay alert and have a weapon at the ready, just in case."

She moved out and into the overgrown border that blurred the distinction between forest and yard. Doors opened in the vehicle, front and back. Two figures climbed out, a man and a woman. The man walked with a loose gait that looked familiar. Canu. A thrill rippled through Seor, though tempered by the presence of Baren's interpreter.

The pair descended from the road to the stream and cast about in the ferns, obviously searching for the stone. As Seor hovered, uncertain how to react, a black shape reared up from the ferns, the child's bow looking ridiculous in his large hands. An arrow flung out and caught the woman in the side as she turned to flee. She cried out and fell into the shrubbery.

Seor ran through the shrubs, no longer bothering to disguise her tracks. She leaped over the stream as Canu charged up to Vul and ripped the bow from his arms.

"You idiot! For once, can't you think before you shoot?"

"But she's one of them. She's one of those cadre swine," said Vul.

"Ara's with me ... with us now," said Canu. Ara had already plucked the arrow from her side, and pressed her fingers over the wound. Her calmness bothered Seor. She had reacted too calmly, too analytically. Seor took two steps, shoved the woman down and held the kitchen knife to her throat.

Canu started towards her. "Seor, no! She's one of us."

"Back off! True cadres don't turn so easily," said Seor, disappointed in the dullness of the blade as it creased the skin on Ara's neck. "Where do your loyalties lie?"

"With Sesei," said Ara, staring back, fiercely.

A spot of blood grew on Ara's side. Seor pulled up Ara's shirt to reveal a shallow puncture wound in the flesh below her ribs."

"We're going to need arrowheads better than these," Seor muttered.

Ara reached into a pocket and pulled out a fistful of paper tabs.

"Take one. Look inside."

Vul tore one open to reveal a shard of extremely sharp steel.

Seor looked again in Ara's eyes and saw none of the jaundice she would expect in a traitor or a spy. She retracted the knife from Ara's neck.

*****

Chapter 55: Nalki Ambush

Tezhay's face went oddly bank. His eyes lost focus. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" said Frank, shivers raking him from the cool, dank air gathered in the depression. The forest, if anything, had become quieter. He sidled away from Eghazi, whose bug-eyed stare unnerved him.

Tezhay went to the spot where the last vestiges of the convergence had flickered. He kicked at the duff, crouched and paddled at the ground like a dog, pulling at roots, inspecting every stone he unearthed.

A swipe of his cupped hand broke through a crust of frosted soil. A fist-sized stone, glazed with rime, lay loose within a socket like a dead tooth.

He extracted the stone, cradling it like Hamlet contemplating Yorick's skull. He placed it on a shelf of limestone and hefted a small boulder.

"What are you doing?" said Frank.

"No!" Eghazi shouted, writhing in the leaf litter. "No let him smash!"

Tezhay slammed the boulder down. Stone met stone. The xenolith burst into pieces. A spray of fragments struck Frank's shins."

"What did you just do?" said Frank, though he knew exactly what punctuation Tezhay had placed on his decision in the desert to follow Tezhay to Gi.

Tezhay detached the line securing Eghazi to the root and hauled him to his feet.

"We must go! Fighters coming!"

Eghazi looked anxious and needed no prodding to move. Tezhay ran him through the sparse understory of a broad leaf forest, guiding him around the massive, smooth-barked boles with yanks of his leash. Frank struggled to keep up with the swifter pair, as they detoured past sinkholes and scrambled over protruding spines of stone, coming alongside them only when Tezhay paused to assess the way ahead.

Thwacks, like axes striking wood, sounded in the distance, followed by shouts and the clatter of hooves on stone.

"Shouldn't we be going away from the fighting, not towards it?" said Frank.

Tezhay wrinkled his brow. "How can we? Do you not hear? The battle is all around. Surround. We move in its spaces."

Frank discerned no such pattern to the rustle and clatter, but Tezhay's senses soon proved acute. A scatter of shapes and shadows flashed between the trees behind them.

"Down!" said Tezhay, pulling Eghazi into a swampy crevice behind a greasy, grey slab of stone jutting from the ground. Two barefoot figures in mottled green pajamas flew over them, leaping between outcrops. Black veils hid their faces. Long bows swung by their sides. They carried broad swords strapped to their backs beside quivers bulging with blue-fletched arrows. A score swept through the landscape like patches of fog.

"Nalkies," said Tezhay. "Giep'o resistance."

"Who are they fighting?" said Frank.

"Who else?" said Tezhay.

A horse screamed. Another. And then a man. Hooves pounded in retreat.

Tezhay queried Eghazi in Sesep'o. Eghazi answered pleadingly."

Tezhay mocked him with a buzzing noise. "I ask if he knows his friends would come to greet us. He say no, but I don't believe. The horse you hear are ride by Cuasar. Maybe thirty. Full squadron. If not for Nalki, they would have us."

"Are Nalkies ... uh ... friendly?"

Tezhay smiled and looked up behind Frank. "You tell me. Looks like you will find out yourself."

Frank turned around to see three Nalkies training long bows on them.

"Oh shit, not again," said Frank. Less than an hour before he had stood a five minute walk from an Arizona highway. He could have flagged down a trucker by now and be checking into a hotel, getting ready for a hot shower. Instead, he had plunged into the middle of a guerrilla war in the off chance that he might run into a lost wife who, for all he knew, lay dead in the jungles of Belize.

Tezhay looked at him, concerned. "What's wrong? Your heart?"

"No, I'm just tired of being a fucking prisoner."

Tezhay smirked. "We're not prisoners," he said.

Over blotchy green tunics and breeches the Nalkies wore armor of quilted leather or woven straw entwined with vertical wooden dowels. Two, male in physique, wore veils, while the other, a young woman, bared her face. A puff of short, wavy hair sat high atop her head. But if not for her crude, homespun clothing, she could have stepped off the streets of Ubabaor.

One of the veiled Nalkies spoke to Tezhay in a flowing language of serial diphthongs and clean consonants. Tezhay, apparently fluent in their tongue, conversed with them in some depth. They lowered their bows. The woman came over and fondled Eghazi's ornate waistcoat and patted his cascading, multi-pleated trousers. The others laughed.

Tezhay lifted Frank's shirt to reveal the daggers they had taken from Eghazi. The Nalkies just smirked, and looked away. Tezhay slipped a dagger out from Frank's waist band. "Your heart is okay?"

"Yeah. It's fine," said Frank. "Do you expect me to keel over every time we have a little excitement?"

"Why not? It happen before," said Tezhay, retrieving the other daggers.

"Come on. You can at least let me have one."

"No," said Tezhay.

The Nalkies walked with them to a place where the bedrock remained within the flesh of the earth and the trees grew even larger, with bark so deeply ridged the grooves could conceal a fist. They padded over a spongy surface of decomposed evergreen needles interspersed with patches of grey clay exposed by rooting animals. The trees gave way to a narrow road, and beyond: a river. Two Nalkies patrolled warily down either side of the road away from them, while others covered their advance with bows.

Two dead horses lay in the road along with at least five Cuasars. Each of the Cuasars bristled with an excess of arrows, some so deep they had likely been delivered at point blank range. It seemed that the Nalkies did not take prisoners. One of the pair patrolling the road shouted something back and others suddenly poured out of hiding, swarming over the dead Cuasars in the road and rifling through the saddlebags of the two horses.

"These Cuasar, I think, were sent to greet and escort the Eldest Brother's boy, Dembon," said Tezhay. "Lucky for him, he no come. Lucky for us, they here. If Nalki no come, Cuasar would make greeting for us instead. Not so nice, yes?"

"Nope," said Frank.

The road ran along a narrow and muddy river. Through a screen of young trees, Frank could see a smaller contingent of Nalkies fording from the other side, with several wounded or dead being carried by their mates. Many wore veils, just like group that milled around them.

"What's with all the veils?" said Frank. "Disguise?"

"It is sign of marry," said Tezhay. "Like this ring you wear."

"But ... the men wear them, too?"

"Yes."

"So anyone without a veil is single? Male or female?"

"Yes, but also, if a woman is head woman of family... she also wears no veil. Here, they sometime have many husband and wife and you can see who is theirs by the cloth. The color. And the ... picture ... eh ... pattern."

One of the Nalkies called out to Tezhay. He walked over with Eghazi in tow. Frank followed. Eghazi's eyes darted nervously between the Nalkies surrounding him. A pall had come over his face and he hadn't uttered a word in many minutes.

They came to a group of Nalkies who hovered over a dead man, trapped under his mount and impaled by a spear. He wore a jacket of a dense fabric streaked with blue, as did the other dead Cuasars, but he looked very different from the other casualties with their fair skin and brown hair. This one had straight black hair and an olive complexion.

"Most curious, this one," said Tezhay. He crouched over him and went through his pockets. He pulled out some bits of bronze that looked like unfinished points for crossbow bolts. From a large pocket inside his jacket he pulled out a smashed tabulator and a cloth armband that had two black strips sewn onto it. Tezhay sucked air through his teeth. "Cadre," he said.

"What did you call him?" said Frank.

"Cadre. Is word in your language. You don't know it?"

"Maybe it's your ... pronunciation," said Frank.

"It means like ... military teacher, who also fights," said Tezhay.

"Oh. Of course."

"This man is cadre from Second Gi expedition," said Tezhay. Eghazi looked on stone-faced and glum, remaining silent. "They train and organize soldier we send here from province. Why he dress like Cuasar and ride with them, I don't understand, but I think our friend here Mr. Eghazi might know."

Eghazi flashed a contemptuous glance at Tezhay.

Several injured Nalkies were being helped out of the forest. Four already lay dead in the tall grass beside the road. The two Nalkies continued to probe in the direction the Cuasars had retreated. They moved warily, weapons ready, as if expecting a counterattack.

Frank went over to see if he could help with the injured. One woman had the point of a crossbow bolt protruding from the front of her neck. Black fletching poked neatly out the rear as if she had grown feathers. She had her hand on her throat, bright arterial blood gushing between her fingers. He didn't see much hope for her without an emergency room and operating theater at his disposal. But the wound didn't faze her attendants. He tried to warn them, but they removed the shaft, attempting to seal the wound with something that looked like dried wood pulp. The spurting blood blew right through it. She lost conscious almost immediately and fell into shock. He took a deep breath and moved on.

Frank skipped over a man lying exsanguinated and trembling as another struggled to replace his entrails. He saw the shock setting in, and knew there was not much he could do. He went instead to the side of another young man sitting unattended, calm but bleeding freely from his shoulder. His veil had torn loose and a sword slash had cleaved completely through his quilted vest, exposing lozenges of dark wood embedded within. The armor's protection had been incomplete, but it had at least helped limit the depth of his wound.

A woman approached with a bone needle threaded with fine sinew. He took the needle from her, misunderstanding her intentions. She protested, but her complaints eased when she saw how deftly Frank began suturing up the wound. She reached into a pouch and sprinkled a brown powder over the wound as he stitched. Onlookers made noises appreciative of his handiwork.

Tezhay caught his eye and waved him over to where he stood by the dead horse. Frank ambled over. "This woman is Idala," said Tezhay, indicating a wiry, cicatriced middle-aged woman who beamed broadly back at Frank, not shy at all about exposing the gaps in her grin. "She is leading these Nalkies. She invite us for tea and palaver." Idala wore no veil.

Tezhay turned abruptly. "Ah, but this one who comes now from the river is very interest." He nodded towards a much younger woman who strode over to them jauntily, as agile and graceful as a jaguar. She had penetrating, intelligent eyes and wore a faint smile that seemed to settle across her mouth as part of its natural equilibrium. She also wore no veil.

"Her name is Teo," said Tezhay. "Idala say she is cadre too, but different. She is of first cadre. The one they say is lost."

*****

Chapter 56: Toad Tea

If Teo hadn't told him, Tezhay never would have guessed that the tiny woman walking beside him was the most powerful matriarch in Western Gi. Idala claimed four husbands and seven wives. She headed a network of clans that stretched from the outskirts of Raacevo, Western Gi's largest township, to the upper reaches of the Gor River and its three tributaries.

Idala's scouts stretched forward in a long chain, each maintaining a line of sight to the next to instantly warn the main column of any threats. Tezhay had Idala and Teo to other side of him, while a loose formation of Nalki warriors trailed behind them all. Eghazi walked at their head, on a tether tended by one of Idala's teenage sons.

Frank mingled with the warriors, assisting with the walking wounded, attempting jokes with gestures and charades. For now, his eyes looked bright and his spirits seemed high, but Tezhay wondered how his exile would fare when he left him alone in Gi. A frontier at war was not a place for the frail-hearted. And hostilities had surged recently, according to Idala, with the arrival of several caravans of Crasacs and new colonists.

A sharp clap pierced the silence. The column scattered into the vegetation, leaving Tezhay alone in the road with the two women. Teo ran forward to investigate. Tezhay was tempted to take cover, but Idala stood firm and calm, staring down the road at a scout who stood behind a tree where the road curved. He stayed with her, until Teo came jogging back around the bend to rejoin them. Idala called her warriors out of the woods to reassemble and resume their march.

"They found an injured Cuasar fallen from his mount at the crossroads," Teo reported, breathlessly. "The lead scouts put a swift end to him."

"A shame," said Idala. "I never get a chance to see them fresh."

"It would have been good to speak to with him," said Tezhay.

"They never say anything," said Teo, shaking her head. "They just pray to Cra. Their officers tell them no strategy, nothing beyond their momentary needs."

"When to shit. Where to shit," said Idala.

"Exactly," said Teo. "And sometimes they kill whoever tries to help them. I'm glad your doctor didn't find him first." She glanced back at the Nalkies who had reemerged and milled about on the road. "We should expect a counterattack. Cuasars never let an ambush stand without retaliation. They'll first return to their garrison to gather a larger force."

"We are very fortunate you intercepted them when you did," said Tezhay. "I'm certain they were coming to meet our convergence."

"Thank Idala," said Teo. "Things looked bad for us before her band showed up. When lookouts sent word by heliograph that Cuasars were headed this way, I thought we'd harass them. Send a few arrows their way and melt off into the forest. But their vanguard snuck behind us and cut off our retreat. The rest then came at our front across the ford. If Idala's band hadn't hit their rear flank when they did, I wouldn't be breathing this fine air chatting to my countryman."

"You are welcome," said Idala. "Though, it was not for you that we did so."

As the sun peaked and began its descent, the placid river they had followed turned feral, churning through courses of whitewater linked by channels deep and straight. The river seemed to be run smack into a wall of mountains. Tezhay saw no obvious gap through which it could flow.

"It is a shame you had to destroy that stone," said Teo. "We had no idea there was another one out here. We've been without our own portal for months."

"That ... disturbs me," said Tezhay. "At the rate our xenoliths are being destroyed, there will soon be none left."

"Two stones, he gave to them!" Teo tossed a glare over her shoulder. "This man should be executed."

"Not yet," said Tezhay, quietly. "We have too much still to learn. We need to cultivate his trust. He may help us uncover other plots. He could be key to fixing what's gone wrong in Sesei."

"Two stones!" said Teo. "To a Hiloru?"

"Two stones that will never converge again," said Tezhay. "And this man will fetch no more."

They came into the shadow of a steep ridge that reared up and blocked the river like a levee set by giants. Instead of damming the flow, it forced the river to dogleg right where it had cut through the layers of softer stone like a rasp, creating a deep ravine with cataracts upon cataracts. The main road narrowed and zigzagged as it followed the river down the wall of the ravine.

The bulk of Idala's troops filtered into a jumble of fractured slabs that looked undisturbed from the road, but concealed a well-developed camp of stone shelters and fighting positions.

"Cuasars never come this way," said Idala. "Usually, they detour through the back hills. But we keep hoping." She flashed a wicked grin.

"You may get your wish this time," said Teo. "Once their Hilorus find out what you did to their squadron."

Idala led a reduced contingent to a narrow track that snaked up the side of the ridge. Bands of pre-pubescent girls and boys guarded the switchbacks with sticks and slings. Where the slope eased, the rocks and trees gave way to grain fields and goat pastures rising to the base of a cluster of snaggle-toothed peaks. Deep gullies divided the meadows, carrying rivulets dashing in descending steps from spring to spring.

They passed through a meadow dominated by a gargantuan tree that grew isolated and unencumbered. Its sprawling limbs, each the girth of a normal tree's main trunk, seemed to defy gravity as they hovered parallel to the ground, unbowed. Younger children swarmed its tiers of branches, swinging and climbing with ease as if arboreal by birth.

Idala's appearance on the trail caused the children to drop out of the trees like ripe fruit. They and the yellow dogs accompanying them ran up and formed an ever-expanding procession, splashing barefoot through rivulets that flowed through cracks in the meadows, scurrying up every lesser tree they passed.

A diffuse settlement of stone houses and cave dwellings riddled the uppermost meadows. Idala brought them to a walled compound that arced around the base of one of the promontories. The main house was carved deep into the hillside, its outer wall providing a windowed façade. A pair of crude stone columns supporting a limestone slab framed its portico. Several smaller structures spread along either side, some standing free, some also embedded in the hill.

Two older men with staffs rose up to greet Idala. One wore a veil. A cook fire crackled in a partially enclosed outbuilding slightly down slope from the house. The leaves of the shade trees flanking the veranda fluttered like butterflies' wings. Aromas of cooking wafted to them on the shifting breeze.

"You heart is good?" Tezhay asked Frank, whose face, as usual, looked disconcertingly red. He had impressed Tezhay with how well he kept up on the steep slope: breathing hard, but never flagging.

"My heart is fine," said Frank. "It's my stomach that needs help. That food smells awful good after what we've been eating."

"Don't worry," said Tezhay. "I know Idala feeds us well."

Idala sat them on wobbly wooden stools around a long table outdoors. The view inspired vertigo and awe. Upstream, arcs of stony river glistened through gaps in the forest. Downstream, the forest feathered away and the river spilled into a broad plain of marshes and cultivated fields, hemmed by ranks of steep-shouldered hills. Clusters of brown-roofed dwellings marked the fringes of Raacevo. The ravine's walls hid the torrent flowing just below them, but its wind-muffled roar reached even these heights.

"Edoru!" called Idala. A young man emerged from the cook shack, scanned the party gathered at the table and ducked back in. Moments later, he hustled out, cradling a stack of earthenware bowls and dangling a pot from a hooked stick. As he ladled out a pungent stew of grains, greens and bits of dark meat, a young girl padded shyly up to the table and deposited a basket of steaming flatbreads.

Tezhay turned to Eghazi, speaking in Sesep'o. "I am not about to stuff food in your mouth like you're a baby, so I'll free your hands. But don't do anything stupid."

Eghazi grunted and held out his bound wrists. Tezhay slashed the cord open with one swipe with Eghazi's own knife. Pieces of cord fluttered down to be snatched away immediately by a pair of children who had followed them from the big tree. Eghazi rubbed at his chafed skin gingerly.

"Please, eat without me," said Idala, her eyes distracted by the flash of a mirror glinting from a lookout station high on one of the peaks. She retreated into her house, elders following.

Their bowls emptied quickly. No one refused a second helping when the boy came back with his pot and ladle.

"You've been to Gi before I think, Master Tezhay," said Teo. The way her look lingered on his face discomfited Tezhay.

"Not recently," he said between spoonfuls. "I spend most of my time in Ur these days. A place called Belize."

"I ask ... because you look familiar," Teo said, eyes probing.

"Oh?" Tezhay thought back to his early, sometimes unauthorized, trips to Gi, and decided it was not a place he wanted the conversation to go, if he had a choice. "It's not likely we ever met," he said, studying her face. "I've never been west of Raacevo."

"But you were there, in Raacevo, when we first came to Gi ...." said Teo, excitement growing in her face. "You met with my commander ... about the weapons cache."

Tezhay's spoon halted in mid-lift. Few had been privy to the underground initiative to bring Urep'o weapons to Gi. No Philosopher certainly knew of the plan, because it violated their most fundamental restrictions on the use of xenoliths. But times had been desperate, and the power of Urep'o weaponry was too great to ignore. He had come to believe the effort misguided, and thought he had put it behind him. To hear Teo, a junior operative, bring it up, alarmed him.

"Malacosh? Whatever happened to him?"

"We don't know," said Teo. "He never returned from a foray to Maora."

"Yet your unit persists?"

"We're decentralized," said Teo. "In essence, we each advise or command our own units of Nalkies. We share intelligence and operate independently and in combination. This way we distribute the risks and better absorb casualties."

"A sound plan," said Tezhay, grateful for the diversion.

"But we all share an interest in the cache," said Teo. "I was hoping, given your involvement, that you might know ... where we might find it." Her eyes gleamed with anticipation.

Tezhay knew plenty, but not what Teo sought. He had helped acquire the weapons in Ur through barter and theft and had facilitated their transfer to Gi. He certainly had no desire to discuss these matters in front of Eghazi, who listened a bit too raptly for his own good as he hovered over his bowl at the end of the table.

"I'm afraid I can't help you," said Tezhay. "My involvement was limited. As I recall it was a man from one of the eastern clans who managed the caching."

"Bimji," said Teo. "Yes, we knew Bimji. Unfortunately, he died in Venep'o custody. I was hoping you would know of others."

"I don't," said Tezhay. "And I don't know why you bother looking. The idea was misbegotten. And given that there is no longer going to be any counteroffensive, it's no longer relevant."

"But why?" said Teo. "What has changed?"

"I hoped you could tell me," said Tezhay. "It's been blamed on your group. In Ubabaor, they say you've all married into the clans and gone native. They call you the lost cadre."

"Lost!" Teo said, exasperated. "Abandoned, maybe. You're the first outside contact we've had in months."

"Yet you persist," said Tezhay.

"We do as we were tasked," said Teo. "And we're successful. We've brought warring clans together. Drove every last colony out of the northern valleys. We could even take Raacevo if we wanted to. We still monitor the heliographs every morning, waiting for a sign from the Second Expeditionary; I can't even tell you if they exist anymore."

"They do," said Tezhay. "They're still in place. Though the flow has slackened off of late, new militia are still sent to the assembly point."

"Such a waste," said Teo. "An army that never fights."

The boy cleared their bowls and brought a cauldron of boiling water. A little girl exited Idala's house with a small wooden box perched on her head. She fumbled with the latch before opening it and removing a skewer impaling a row of flattened and desiccated toads. She pulled several off and dropped them into the cauldron, then added a dollop of aromatic oil from a tiny corked flask she removed from her pocket.

Teo grinned. "Your foreign friend does not like the look of Idala's tea."

Tezhay turned to find Frank grimacing. "Is good, Doctor," he said, switching to English. "It make you feel strong. Try."

"Why not?" Frank shrugged. "I've had stranger. A little amphibian protein can't hurt." He drained the last sip of water from his mug and pushed it forward. The boy returned with a clean ladle, stirred the toads, until the liquid took on a golden tinge, like concentrated urine, and added a ladleful to every mug.

Tezhay, no stranger to this bitter beverage and its effects, drank heartily.

"He is a quiet one, isn't he?" said Teo, peering down her nose at Eghazi who sat sulking over his tea. "How do you suppose we can encourage him to speak up?"

"He speaks out just fine when he wants to insult me," said Tezhay. "Though, he did tell me something interesting. He says that his deeds express the will of the Inner Quorum."

"The Quorum, really?" Teo rubbed her chin. "Sounds like something Kundiv might do. He's crazy enough. But surely, one crackpot should not be enough to override the entire group. Don't any of the Four object?"

"I only negotiate," said Eghazi. "I am not privy to their private discussions."

"But if not their specific arguments, you must know their positions," said Teo.

"Betoni dissented," said Eghazi. "Gulsiniq and Solimunsi supported the measure."

"But a measure can't go forward without consensus," said Tezhay. "Can it?"

Eghazi looked uncomfortable.

"Could they?" Tezhay pressed.

"They did," said Eghazi.

"What about ... Betoni?" said Teo.

"She is ... deposed," said Eghazi. The Quorum ... will replace her."

This was news even for Tezhay. He had heard murmurs of friction in the Quorum, centered around Betoni, but no indication that she had even been overruled, never mind imprisoned.

Idala re-emerged from her home and bid goodbye to the elders. She came down to the veranda carrying a toddler on her hip.

"So I see that our friend, the pretty traitor, does know how to speak," said Idala.

Her remark startled Tezhay. It never occurred to him to think of Eghazi as pretty. But he did have a certain delicacy and symmetry to his face.

"I can see that we will be having many wonderful conversations, in many wonderful base camps," said Teo.

Tezhay felt the toad extract kick in, tingling his skin, clearing his brain. He knew of no better beverage for stimulating serious and productive palaver.

But Frank looked worried. "What's in this stuff?" he said.

"It makes you feel strong, yes?" said Tezhay.

"No! I think it's affecting my heart. You should have told me this was a stimulant."

Tezhay went up to him and felt his neck. The patter of his heart came like raindrops falling on a leaf.

"What is happening?" said Teo. "Why is his face so red and wet?"

"This one has a glass heart," said Tezhay. "One wrong word can send it fleeing. Idala, do you know a medicine called bolovo?"

"Eh?" Idala looked puzzled.

"Bolovo does not grow here," said Teo.

Idala went up to Frank and nestled her ear against his neck, her eyes intent.

"I can fix this," she said. She took Frank's arm and led him off the veranda into her home. Tezhay glanced at Teo, followed them inside where Idala had Frank lay down on a large, straw-filled mattress. She knelt beside a wooden chest and removed a chamois-wrapped bundle secured with rawhide and brought it beside the bed. Untied and unrolled, it revealed a collection of slender, tapered wooden dowels of diverse length. Frank recoiled at the sight of them.

*****

Chapter 57: Leaving Idala

Mosquitoes flitted up the stuccoed wall, hauling their turgid, ruby abdomens towards the open window above Frank's head. The sun, when it came, flared through the opening, casting beams and shadows against a wall, blank but for two pegs suspending a whisk broom and a tarnished sword.

Frank lay on a dense mattress, awash in the scent of hay and hide accented with hints of spice and perfume. The stillness of the room amplified its smallest sounds: the gentle cluck and scratch of a hen, a rhythmic hiss and whistle emanating from somewhere over his shoulder. The chill breeze wafting against his patchwork blanket overruled the pressure building in his bladder. He found no reason to budge from this island of warmth.

Head muddled, Frank had only the vaguest sense of his location, but he didn't force the issue. He just waited for more synapses to crackle to life and burn through the confusion.

He remembered drinking that vile brew of reconstituted toad. Then, palpitations cranking up like popcorn popping in his chest. Clearly, the tea was spiked with a potent stimulant – the last thing his rhythm-challenged heart needed. It had been months since he'd even had a cup of coffee, never mind a drink containing the equivalent of a mega-dose of crystal meth.

But now his circulation purred like a twelve-cylinder engine. Something had settled him down, even before the drug had time to wear off, and it wasn't any bolovo. Idala had somehow equilibrated his heartbeat, even as it throttled out of control under the thrall of a mystery stimulant.

He remembered being distressed by the sight of Idala unrolling her leather-bound collection of dowels. But these were not meant for impaling. Tezhay had taken offense when he saw Frank cower; scolding him for even thinking that anyone but the Venep'o would practice such cruel medicine.

Idala had held them in her fingers like tripled chopsticks, and as he lay on his stomach she straddled him and pried their blunt points between the vertebrae of his neck and upper back, six points at a time, spreading them in varying arrangements, working between the interstices of his muscles, until somehow, impossibly, his galumphing heart found its lost rhythm and a sleep deferred for too many days found him.

He remembered snatches of his dream: Liz walking just out of arm's reach on the river road, drifting further ahead as a mud patch sucked at his shoes. The mud caked and weighed him down, and she drifted still further until she had faded away to a dot, silhouetted on a high hilltop against the sky.

Frank heard a soft snuffle behind him. He rolled over to find Idala beside him, eyes closed, lips parted in a snaggly smile. He bolted up, and saw that she was not the only person in bed with him. A small toddler lay on the other side of her and yet another somewhat older boy nestled across the foot of the bed.

Tezhay stepped into the room.

"Tezhay! Tell her ... I didn't mean to fall asleep in her bed," said Frank. "I just dozed off. You all should have woken me."

"What ... you think everyone has bed for himself?" said Tezhay, shrugging. "She does not mind sharing her bed. Is normal. You lucky. I sleep with two old men and their dogs. Someone, maybe all them, had fleas."

Frank climbed up off the bed and onto a stool, and noticed he was naked from the waist down.

"Tezhay, where are my pants?"

"Idala took them. They too filthy," said Tezhay. "She send them to wash."

"I would appreciate it if you could help me find my pants," Frank said, teeth clenched. He crossed his legs and folded his hands in his lap to cover himself.

Tezhay grabbed a cloth wrap from a neatly folded pile on a table and tossed it over to Frank. "Wear this for now," he said.

Frank tucked the cloth around his waist like a towel after a shower.

"Today we start travel to Raacevo," said Tezhay. "Teo say there is some exile there. So we go, find you some of you people, you be happy, yes?"

"I suppose," said Frank. "But then what? What about you?"

"Me? I return Ubabaor. I need to tell some people what Eghazi has done."

"But without me?"

"Of course. Last time was special case," said Tezhay. "Now, too many eyes see, if you go back. Make trouble." Tezhay shook his head. "I don't know why you not go home when I let you. Gi is crazy place now. Dangerous."

"I don't recall you mentioning that part," grumbled Frank.

"What you mean? You know we have war," said Tezhay.

Frank stewed on his predicament, struggling to find an aspect that would make him feel better about his choice.

"This Raacevo place," he said. "Is it anything like Piliar?"

"Nothing is like Piliar," said Tezhay. "I would forget about Piliar, if I was you. You will never see it. Is too far. Too dangerous for travel."

***

After a breakfast of roasted beets, crumbled flat bread and a few flakes of meat, Idala let them pick through a pile of old clothes that had belonged to some of her fallen Nalkies. Frank pulled on the only thing that had a chance of fitting him: a pair of padded breeches with patched-over patches, more collage than clothing. To fit in better with the locals, Tezhay reluctantly shed his sturdy jeans for a threadbare pair of hemp trousers. He replaced his T-shirt with a grey farmer's smock.

Teo leaned against the wall, watching with some amusement. Eghazi, beside her, seemed to mutter a joke at their expense.

"You laugh, my friend," said Tezhay. "But now is your turn." He motioned Eghazi over. Tezhay turned to Frank, grumbling. "We can't let this one go through village dress better than us. People might think he is important."

Eghazi rifled through the entire stack with disdain. He seemed reluctant to select any of the items. Tezhay chose for him, shoving a torn shirt and pair of stained pajamas into his arms. After he dressed, Tezhay hobbled his wrists and hobbled his ankles with rawhide, leaving just enough slack to walk, not enough to run. Eghazi looked liked he wanted to strangle Tezhay with his binds.

Gusts swirled down from the precipices and clashed with updrafts spawned by the mid-morning sun. They started down the track, bearing satchels that Idala had stuffed with provisions. She waved from the edge of her compound, toddler on hip, amidst a swarm of children and dogs.

Teo's band waited for them down on the main road, bedrolls packed and weapons ready. A young man with sunken, sleepless eyes came forward to have a word with Teo. They seemed younger as a whole than Idala's group. Most were unveiled. Some looked barely past puberty.

Without dithering any further, Teo led them into the gorge. Idala's defenders emerged from their hiding places to see them off, calling out what sounded like – from the differing reactions they provoked – a combination of encouragement and friendly insult.

Clinging to the cliff-side, the road became too narrow for a cart to pass or for two people to walk abreast. At points, landslides had carried way the roadbed, exposing precarious gaps dropping hundreds of feet to the rapids. The others leaped them without breaking stride, but Frank did not trust his body enough to follow their example and traversed each exposure gingerly. His caution made him fall behind, but he jogged along the intact stretches to catch up. Tezhay paused frequently, to keep him within sight.

They descended in shadow until the ravine walls diverged to embrace a tongue of swampy forest. Gaps in the trees revealed glimpses of a vast marshland fed by a conjunction of several meandering rivers. Numerous hills and hummocks protruded like islands from the sea of reeds.

Here, the sun reacquainted itself, glinting off clouds of pale gnats that gave form to the swirling air currents. The whitewater ended with one final flourish: a waterfall spouting into swirling pool, in which the river collected its momentum and proceeded through broader channels, free to wander, unrestrained by the authority of stone.

The remains of a village lay at the entrance to the ravine. Its sloping fields had long lain fallow. Saplings had already begun to reclaim them. Wooden houses on stilts –some burnt, some collapsed, their thatch caved and mossy – sprawled on both sides of the road like a tumble of dead spiders.

They paused to rest. Teo and her fighters went forward to speak to a small group of Nalki lookouts perched on one of the intact structures. Tezhay wandered off to the water's edge, leaving Frank alone with Eghazi.

"Help me. I help you," said Eghazi.

Frank gave a start. "What?"

"You want Piliar? Ur? You help me, I bring you."

"What do you mean? How?"

"Help loose rope. Give knife," said Eghazi, his eyes beseeching. "You can. They no expect. Help me. I help you."

Frank glanced nervously towards Tezhay who knelt by the water, splashing his face and hair. "I'm sorry. I ... can't," said Frank. He stalked away towards the river.

Tezhay rose up grinning and dripping. "How you feel, Doctor Frank?"

"Fine," said Frank, still unsettled by Eghazi's request. He stayed mum about it, but his silence made him feel like an accomplice.

"Not too scare?"

"Scared? What should I be scared of?"

Tezhay smiled. "Never mind. Is better ... not to think."

"Think of what?"

Teo whistled from the road. A bevy of anxious faces awaited.

"We must go," said Tezhay.

The road plunged directly across the marsh, its bed barely elevated out of the mud. It wouldn't have taken much floodwater to submerge it. Frank could see no cart tracks, no prints – no signs of any recent travelers.

Tezhay's cryptic words unsettled him, but he found it reassuring to walk among Teo's young warriors. Her band seemed savvy and adept, their quivers full, blades ready. Though they gabbed constantly, they responded instantly to any movement in the reeds. One rustle turned out to be nothing but a large rodent. Farther along, something much larger snorted and charged through the reeds before splashing into the river. Though massive enough to roil the reeds, it stimulated no more concern than the rodent.

The wind rippled the feathery seed heads in waves that propagated across the breadth of the marsh. The ravine and the headlands and pinnacles bearing Idala's compound receded behind them like a distant shore.

Where the river meandered into their path, the road kept going straight, crossing over a causeway of stone blocks. As Frank admired the way the water sieved between the stones, he bumped into Tezhay, who had stopped to probe at something with a stick. It took Frank a moment to realize that he was looking at a dead man, limbs broken and askew, hung up on the stones along with the other flotsam. His body was battered but relatively un-decomposed. He was a Cuasar.

"Golly, he made better time than we did," said Frank.

"Oh? You like to make travel like him?" said Tezhay.

"No thanks. I'd rather walk."

Teo and Tezhay extracted the Cuasar from the river and arranged him along the side of the road. Teo shooed her gawking band onward.

"They're not going to bury him?" said Frank?

"Too much wet here," said Tezhay. "We let crows have some food, yes?" He walked away.

"That's ... just not right," said Frank, shocked and sickened. No man, no matter how misguided or cruel, deserved such a fate.

***

They crossed several more meanders, some of them waist-deep fords without causeways. The entire party finally stopped to rest beneath the shade of a rare clump of trees. Teo and Tezhay shared the bread and dried fish that Idala had packed in their satchels with the entire group which provided enough for everyone to have at least a few bites. Even Eghazi received an equal share.

Tezhay conversed in low tones with Teo. Frank eavesdropped, hoping to gather some of the gist, but he could only ascertain that they were talking about Raacevo. Tezhay noticed Frank staring.

"Soon our friends will go," he said. "There is a road coming. Crossroad. Teo goes another way. But we stay on this road."

"They're not going into town with us?" The news rattled Frank. He had grown accustomed to having an armed escort.

"They can't," said Tezhay. "Raacevo is under Venep'o control."

"Then why the hell are we going there?" said Frank.

"We be okay, just us. No weapons. We look like farmer, maybe?"

"I'm not so sure about that," said Frank.

Teo, who had been pacing ahead on the road, darted into the reeds and waved frantically for the others to follow her. Her warriors scattered, some slipped into the trees, most dispersed into the marsh.

"What's going on?" said Frank, dawdling on the edge of the road.

"No question, just go!" said Tezhay, pulling Eghazi into the tall grass.

The marsh's surface was dry and thickly crusted close to the road, but the crust thinned and broke under their weight as they approached the river. Frank sank in up to his knees in mud, deep and loose. The lighter Tezhay fared somewhat better. A roar like an endless thunder grew.

"Cuasars," hissed Tezhay. "Too many." His eyes popped with concern. "Where is Eghazi?" He rose up.

Frank could see a head bobbing above the seed heads. "He's over there."

Eghazi, who had initially fled into the marsh with the others, turned and ran back to the road, his bound hands held high over his head.

A Cuasar appeared on the roadway, pulling his mount to a halt when he spotted Eghazi, then started forward again raising a yellow flag with a black dot in one corner. Eghazi shouted to him as he climbed out of the marsh onto the road. The Cuasar rode right past him without more than a glance, causing Eghazi to turn, bewildered. The main body of Cuasars came into view. Six diverged into the marsh behind Eghazi.

"Shit, they're coming straight for us," Frank said, ducking back down.

"Dig yourself down," said Tezhay. "They won't find ...."

But Frank, panicking, tried to flee to the river. Mired in mud, he kept falling and made slow progress. He crawled past one of Teo's band who had inserted herself deep inside a clump of reeds and had pulled a screen of detritus over herself.

Frank could see the river now. He pulled himself closer. A splashing erupted. He stopped and laid flat. Two Cuasars rode past up a graveled flat. One of them held a yellow, un-dotted flag. Frank kept still as death until they went past; hoping the grass separating him from the river had been dense enough to conceal him.

A shout from the road transformed into a scream, increasing in pitch, until it fell silent. The reed stems only a few meters away began to writhe. They parted, revealing the rump of a horse struggling to free its hooves from the sticky mud. Its rider dismounted and threw his weight into the horse's side to keep it from toppling, and guided it to the drier soil closer to road.

The thunder of Cuasars peaked finally began to recede. Hundreds must have passed, thought Frank. Thinking they had left, Frank started to rise again, but caught a glimpse of one rider still lingering on the road, supporting a crossbow with one arm, keeping his other hand on a flag. The rider scanned the reeds carefully, before raising the flag, blank and yellow, which drew the other riders out of the reeds, their horses plastered with dark mud. The rode off, until their hoof beats merged with those fading into the distance, until all trace of them was lost beneath the rustle of grass, and the chirp of small birds fluttering between the seed heads.

"Doctor Frank! You okay?" Tezhay called. "Speak, or come to road, if you can."

"I'm here!" Frank shouted, climbing onto a shelf of firmer mud. "I'm okay."

When he reached the road, Eghazi lay beside it, his body trampled and soiled with mud and blood. His binds had been slashed but so was his neck. His arms were free but his head sat at an unnaturally acute angle on his shoulders in a puddle of gore.

Teo stood staring in the direction that the Cuasars had ridden. Members of her band began filtering out of the marsh, looking like mud people. Tezhay crouched by Eghazi. Frank came up beside him.

"He not suffer much," said Tezhay, repositioning Eghazi's head, misshapen by a blow, to where it belonged. A long stretch of bloody mud marked where his body had been kicked about by the horses, their hooves blending it with the firmament of Gi. "He not so pretty anymore. Is a shame."

Tezhay stood up, and stared at Frank, unnerving him. His brow wrinkled. He reached a finger to touch Frank's wrist. Frank slapped his hand away.

"My. Heart. Is. Fine!" Frank said, through gritted teeth.

Teo still gazed towards the uplands, erect as a meerkat, watching and listening for threats.

"That was a lot of cavalry," said Frank. "Does Idala stand a chance?"

"I don't know," said Tezhay "You see how this road is no good for horse soldier. Idala's people will see them come from far. But the Cuasar have so many and such good armor."

Teo turned to them. She said nothing. Though none of her band had suffered any casualties, her face looked stern and troubled.

They buried Eghazi in a mound of dirt near the crossroads. Tezhay decorated the shallow grave with a knotted vine, a traditional representation of the fist of Cra, reflecting his Sinkor faith and Diomet roots.

Teo tapped Tezhay on the shoulder. She pointed at a large hummock in that distance and prattled on. Frank made a futile attempt to gather meaning from their conversation. He studied the hummock that bulged up like a beached whale along the fringe of trees bordering the edge of the marsh but this time had no idea what she told Tezhay.

Teo's band seemed agitated and anxious to move. She bumped shoulders with Tezhay, nodded towards Frank and broke off into a jog, heading back the way they had come, after the Cuasars with her band.

"Where are they going?" said Frank. "I thought they were taking us to the crossroads?"

"Eghazi is dead, so now they go to help Idala," said Tezhay. "I tell Teo, is too many Cuasar, and they move too fast, but Teo, she doesn't care."

***

The uplands proved farther away than they looked. It took another hour of walking for Frank and Tezhay to reach the edge. Hordes of blue wildflowers greeted them, swarming down a gentle grassy slope, petals uplifted like supplicants to a shrine.

Leaving the reeds was like stepping into another world. Even the color of the soil changed, from blackish-brown to reddish-yellow. Though they left the marsh, it did not leave them. Drying mud caked them from foot to shoulder.

As they climbed, they crossed another road skirting the edge of the marsh. This one seemed well- traveled, with deep ruts and desiccated hoof prints. Strands of cook smoke rose from farmhouses. Behind them spread fields of grain, their green heads beginning to burgeon.

Tezhay led them off the main road, down a narrow side-track. "Teo tell me there is some people here, friendly to Nalki," he explained.

Beyond a forested hollow, the land rose and trees gave way to a field of dark green plants with spade-shaped leaves. They came upon a man, one-armed and veiled, weeding on his knees. He rose, regarding them cautiously, curved blade balanced in his hand. Tezhay greeted him, triggering no response until he mentioned Teo. The man warmed instantly. He nudged shoulders with Tezhay and called over two of his children: a boy and a girl in their mid-teens who had been weeding a plot closer to their house.

"His wifes and one daughter go to Raacevo," said Tezhay. "But he say we can stay, under his roof."

Tezhay opened his satchel and offered the man one of Eghazi's small daggers. The two went through a little dance of offering and declination until the man reluctantly accepted the dagger, passing it on immediately to his thrilled daughter. Tezhay hesitated, before offering the second dagger directly to the son, who seemed surprised. They spoke some more. The farmer brought his son into the conversation.

"This one name Harm," said Tezhay. "He say Raacevo not so bad. They no take much slave anymore. They bring already from Venen some. But this one, he knows where Kovalev live. He can take us."

"Who's Kovalev?" said Frank.

"Exile," said Tezhay. "He already here and well know when I first come. Very, very smart man. Already speak perfect Giep'o. He make poem, story. People love his storytell."

"Kovalev," repeated Frank. "Is he Russian?"

Tezhay squinted back. "I don't know what you say."

"Just wondering where he's from," said Frank. "Hope he speaks English."

"Is good, yes?" said Tezhay. "You like to meet?"

"Yeah. I guess so," said Frank.

The farmer led them to an empty and dim granary with circular walls of mud-daubed lathing. It smelled rancid inside. Moldy kernels of grain and mouse droppings littered the packed clay floor.

"This where we sleep," said Tezhay.

The farmer whispered something and Harm ran off. He returned with a handcart loaded with straw.

Frank kicked at the dust. "Do you suppose there's a broom I could borrow?"

Before Tezhay could translate, the boy dumped the straw and began spreading it. Frank sighed and went outside. He sat on a bench made from two stumps and a split log. It looked over a pepper field, out onto the great marsh. An armada of hummocks darkened amidst a sea of silver-tipped marsh grass. The setting sun silhouetted Idala's distant pinnacles. Wisps of cloud or smoke hung near them.

He fingered a curved groove in wood burnished glossy by wear. His finger met another, opposite curve that converged against the first and crossed it. Random whittling? Script? Even Gi, it seemed was stricken with graffiti.

Coming back had been a terrible mistake. He could not get the image of Eghazi's nearly detached head out of his mind. Even at its most stultifying and pedestrian, his life in Bethesda was infinitely preferable to this horror show.

The hope that had driven him to return – the possibility of finding Liz across an almost inconceivable gulf of time and distance and grief – now seemed completely dead. He had little to look forward to except a cold bath and his next meal.

Only the prospect of meeting someone, from his own world – even if he was an elderly Russian who might not even speak English –kept the bleakness from completely engulfing him.

His fingers found again the groove in the bark-less wood and slid along its curves. The image they traced finally flashed into his mind. He looked down to confirm his suspicion. Yes. It was a stylized carving of a fish.

Or, an icthys.

*****

Chapter 58: The Ruined Chapel

After a night of feeble zephyrs that failed to stir the sour air inside the granary, an assertive south wind arrived to tease the trees and raise the dust. Fingers of smudge, the vanguard of an encroaching cloud front, crept overhead and sullied the pure expanse of blue.

A skeletal shrub, ravaged by goats, bobbed and scraped against a mud wall. Mired in dew, a dragonfly rode the sway of its last remaining leaf. Frank and Tezhay waited for Harm, who had yet to emerge from the main house, as the wind scythed arcs through the marsh below.

"Today maybe you meet exile, Doctor Frank," said Tezhay. "You happy for this?"

Frank shrugged. He wasn't sure how he felt about going to Raacevo, but 'happy' didn't quite capture his feelings. He was curious maybe, but it was tempered by a fear of sharp objects wielded by horsemen, not to mention a lingering anger over his stupidity for squandering his only chance of escape. Frank suspected that Tezhay would surely be happy to be rid of him – his pudgy, American ball and chain.

The impulse that had sent him back through the portal still perplexed him. It reminded him of the hopeless crush that had afflicted him in High School; the one that had sent him trudging into a January night with sweaty hands and a churning stomach, seeking the privacy of a pay phone to call a girl who was moving out of state and out of his life – forever, as it turned out. He marveled that such feelings could resurrect at this late stage and send him chasing after a long dead wife. He had thought the place in his heart that spawned such creatures had long since calcified.

The voice of Harm's father boomed across the farm yard. They had seen no trace of Harm, himself, since he brought them a breakfast of boiled eggs and goat cheese before the sun had even risen.

"He tells him to be safe," Tezhay translated. "Stay from big road because too much soldier."

"Sounds good to me," said Frank.

Both he and Tezhay stank of marsh. They had shared a thin shingle Frank had found to scrape off their mud clods, but the foul silt still permeated every fiber of their clothing and hair. Unless they could wash, they would be shedding stench and dust for days to come.

Frank noticed a faded script covering one side of the shingle; like pencil marks lightly erased. In the dimness, he had mistaken the shingle for an ordinary scrap of wood. He shook off some of the dirt and placed it carefully down on the sill where he had found it, hoping he hadn't befouled part of the family library.

Harm dashed out of his house, apologized breathlessly to Tezhay as he ran past, and disappeared into another hut in the compound.

"What now?" said Frank.

"He get us some veil," said Tezhay. "The kind Idala give us, they don't wear in lower valley."

"I'm not wearing any damned veil," said Frank.

"You will," said Tezhay, with finality. "Your beard too red. Not like Giep'o."

"I can't help it," said Frank. "I was born this way."

"With beard?" Tezhay smirked.

Harm brought them a pair tattered, off-white veils decorated with dull green, chain-link. Tezhay forced one into Frank's reluctant hands. "Make sure it covers," said Tezhay. "Remember, we not in Nalki territory anymore." Frank grudgingly complied, tying one pair of strings over his ears, and the other behind his neck.

Harm's father and sister walked with them to the edge of the cleared land to see them off. The sister looked glum. Frank sensed that she would rather be guiding foreigners than weeding. She had been out in the fields since there had been light enough to see.

As Harm bounded away down a narrow path that rounded the back side of the hummock, Frank stooped to rip off some soft leaves and tuck them under a sandal strap to cushion a raw spot. If the stones lining the track weren't so jagged, he would have been inclined to follow Harm's example and go barefoot.

They descended around the hummock and into a patchwork landscape of fields, windrows and woodlots. To their right, the main road gashed through the red dirt. Beyond it, the land dropped off quickly into the hollow holding the river. Harm led them along a narrower track that ran parallel, separated from the main road by one tier of fields. Tendrils of smoke marked several clusters of dwellings too small to be called villages. But Frank was glad to see that not all of Gi was ghost towns and ruins.

"Today, you see Raacevo, Doctor Frank," said Tezhay. "You excite?"

"I suppose," said Frank, who still felt spooked after the cavalry encounter in the marsh the day before. Visiting the place where Eghazi's decapitators garrisoned was not exactly a salve.

"Harm too," said Tezhay, grinning. "He say he not go Raacevo in long time.

"Is it safe there ... relatively?"

Tezhay laughed. "In Gi, no place is safe. Not even here."

A windrow of narrow trees with feathery leaves separated a grain field from the path. A small girl stood hugging one of the trunks and stared at them as they passed. The voices of older children carried to them from a perpendicular track.

"This place seems peaceful enough," said Frank.

"Do you shit in your own bed?" said Tezhay.
"Pardon me?"

"Do you make fire in your pantry?" said Tezhay. "Army needs to eat. These people grow their bread."

"But I thought you said they used slaves. Forced labor."

"Not here," said Tezhay. "Giep'o make bad slave. Too stubborn. They rather starve. So now Venep'o are bringing own slave, to grow their colony."

"These colonies, do they coexist then, with the locals?" said Frank.

"For now," said Tezhay. "But some day this may all be colony."

The cloud bank encroached, but the sun still blazed to bake the barren track. Moisture from Frank's breath soddened his veil. He resisted the urge to rip it off. He awaited whatever respite the clouds would bring.

But he did take off his sandals when the rubbing of the straps became intolerable and let them dangle from his fingers as his toes sank into the soft dust of the roadway.

Tezhay paused beside a rickety fence. Someone had affixed a clump of scarlet flowers to the top rail. The winged and hooded blossoms resembled orchids. Behind the fence, their source, a tangle of vines, covered the entire wall of an animal shelter. Some blossoms, poised on the verge but not yet opened, looked like rabbits' paws or dainty purses clasped in green faerie fingers. Their sweet and spicy fragrance permeated the air.

"Flower mean they sell drink," said Tezhay. "You thirsty?"

"Sure," said Frank. "As long as it's clean and doesn't have any dead toads in it."

"No worry," said Tezhay. "Is just beer, from honey."

As they passed through a gate into a well-swept yard, Harm stopped and stiffened as a man emerged from under a pergola. His clothes seemed newer, or at least cleaner, than the rags that Harm and his family owned. A swatch of cobalt blue cloth was sewn down the front of a jacket that seemed too warm for the weather.

"No talk, no stare," whispered Tezhay.

"What's wrong?"

The man nodded sternly to a wide-eyed Harm, who shrank from the man's staff as he passed. The man's eyes swiveled to appraise Frank and Tezhay, but he kept on walking. Tezhay bowed and muttered a greeting. The man reached the track and turned left towards the marshes.

"Who was that?" said Frank.

"A Polu. Like ... religious police man. He is Giep'o, but Sinkor convert. Eyes and ears for Hiloru."

Tezhay led them through the pergola to an array of low stools carved from tree trunks, surrounding a fire pit holding mostly cold ash with a few weak embers. Tezhay clapped his hands and called out. A woman soon appeared carrying a dented metal pitcher from which a yellow froth slid down the side.

She and Tezhay exchanged words. She took the pitcher back inside.

"Where'd she go?" said Frank.

"Most people carry own cups," said Tezhay. "I told her we have none."

The woman reappeared with three shallow bowls stacked over the pitcher. She distributed them and leaned over to pour. The sleeve of her blouse hiked up slightly, revealing a scar on her wrist in the shape of a fish.

"That scar ..." said Frank.

"What about?" said Tezhay.

The woman, mortified by the attention, pulled down her sleeve and clamped her hand over her wrist. Tezhay spoke gently to her, and convinced her to expose it.

"Someone carved the same shape on the bench outside the place we slept," said Frank.

"Oh, is just a fish," said Tezhay. "Is fashion for young people to make scar with knife and ashes."

"But why a fish?" said Frank.

Tezhay inquired further. The woman again seemed discomfited and clammed up. Tezhay pressed. He turned to Frank.

"Take off your veil."

Frank gladly complied. The woman's widened. Then her face relaxed and words began to tumble.

"Ah, interesting!" said Tezhay. "This one has belief from Ur. She is Christian."

"So it is a Jesus fish," said Frank. "But ... how?"

"From exile," said Tezhay. "Exile bring. And this is why she has shyness. Venep'o don't like Christian."

The woman touched Tezhay's arm to regain his attention. She spoke rapidly.

"She ask if you are Christian," said Tezhay.

Frank took a moment to ponder that. He had certainly been raised a Catholic, and he had attended masses regularly with Liz when they lived at the mission. But in the years since her disappearance, any remnants of faith he once retained had crumbled.

"Yes," he lied, lifting up his bowl to drink. He paused before the bowl touched his lips. "What's in this again?" he said, staring down at something that looked like foamy urine.

"Is like beer," said Tezhay. "But sweeter. Not so bitter or strong."

Harm had already guzzled his down so Frank sighed and took a gulp, and found it pretty much as Tezhay described: like a watered-down, bubbly wine with overtones of dirt.

The woman continued to chat excitedly with Tezhay.

"She say, before Venep'o come, there is a temple here. A temple for your Christ."

"Really? A church?" said Frank.

"Is burn by Cuasars," said Tezhay "They take away the man who teach them ... the ... priest. Many people still come, she say, for see ruins and pray. Even more now, she say than before when priest was here."

"Yeah. Martyrs have always been good for that line of work," said Frank.

He touched his chest and felt for the gold chain that had adorned his body for so long, it seemed part of his flesh. He reached under his collar and pulled out his crucifix.

The woman's jaw slackened and she nearly dropped her pitcher. She stooped forward, seized his hand and kissed the simple cross. She jabbered a Lord's Prayer at him, in something devoid of syllabic structure and barely recognizable as English. The adoration in her eyes made him cringe.

She glanced up her front path to the track, grabbed a shawl off a peg and snapped a few brusque words to a younger woman in the next room. She tugged at Frank's wrist.

"She want to show you something," said Tezhay, rising and motioning for Harm to follow.

They followed her through a cluster of dwellings, past a garden onto a narrow, but well-worn path. It led across an orchard to a clearing beside a small creek. A small shack with a freshly thatched roof sat in one corner, opposite the remains of a larger structure. One singed wall remained standing. Before it, someone had scratched an icthys into the clay.

The woman called out, and an elderly man hobbled up from a stool beside the creek. He approached cautiously, but warmed to their presence after the woman made an effusive introduction. He came and bumped shoulders with both Frank and Tezhay. The woman kept staring at Frank, anxious to gauge his reaction to what looked to Frank like any other burned wall.

"Very nice," said Frank. "Very interesting."

Tezhay took Frank's elbow and steered him towards the little hut. "Come, the old man has something to show."

The old man fiddled with a tangle of twisted metal rods that apparently served as a lock. He swung open the door and let them enter. A small window of rippled glass provided the only light. The interior was spartan, with a single, throne-like chair, cushioned with a mat of woven straw and a thick-legged hardwood table. A tattered hammock hung in the far corner.

The man kicked aside straw from a patch in the middle of the floor, exposing a slab of grey slate. He lifted it, revealing a cavity containing a box and dozens of thin wooden shingles covered with script. The woman made sign after sign of the cross at the sight of them.

The old man carefully removed and opened the box. It contained several fragments from what appeared to be English Bible, mildewed and mud-stained, leather binding long decayed. The print barely contrasted against the browned paper. At least half of the book seemed to be missing.

The cover was absent, but a copyright page floated free on top of the stack. It read: King James Version Pew Bible. Holman Bible Publishers. Nashville, TN. August 6, 1992.

"Wow," said Frank.

People started to gather at the door of the hut. The old man conferred with the woman. She bowed her head and queried Tezhay, glancing back at Frank.

"They ask, will he read?" said Tezhay.

"Sure, but ... it's in English," said Frank.

"Is okay. I translate," said Tezhay.

Frank took the box from the old man and placed it down on the table. He pulled one of the thicker fragments out from under the copyright page, its paper crumbling at the corners, and set it flat on the table. He skimmed the first passage.

"Oh ... this won't do," Frank said. "This is some rough stuff here." He looked through the other fragments. "What happened to the New Testament?"

"What difference?" said Tezhay. "Bible is Bible. No?"

"Not exactly."

"Just read," said Tezhay, patting Frank's shoulder. "Is okay."

Two small boys and a girl squeezed past the people crowding the doorway and lined up against the back wall. Frank cleared his throat.

"And Hazael said, why weepeth my Lord? And He answered, because I know the evil thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strongholds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash in pieces their little ones, and rip up their women with child."

"Skip that part," said Tezhay. "Is too much like Sinkor."

Frank turned the page. "Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys—"

Tezhay held up his hand. "Let me translate."

More people crowded around the door way, straining to see.

"Go on" said Tezhay. All eyes turned to Frank.

"This page is a bit smudged," Frank said. "But, I'll try my best ... um ... I will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places, your altars shall become desolate and your idols shall be broken. And I will cast down your slain men before your idols, and I will lay the carcasses of your children before your idols, and I will scatter your bones around your altars."

"No, no, no, this no good either," said Tezhay. "I no translate. Find something not with killing of children. Go on. Turn page."

A murmur grew among the throng at the door. The children tried to find their way back out, but found themselves trapped. Frank riffled through a few pages, searching for something more suitable.

"This looks better," he said. "But parts are obliterated with mildew or something."

"Read what you can," said Tezhay.

"Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers ... um ... I will put hooks in thy jaws, and ... um.. I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, with all the fish of thy rivers which stick unto thy scales ...."

"That is good," said Tezhay, translating rapidly, as excitement rose among the onlookers. "Keep reading."

"I will bring a sword upon thee and will cut off from thee man and beast, and the land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste, and they shall know that I am the Lord. The river is mine, and I have made it ... uh ... I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations... and I will disperse them through the countries ... I will bring again the captivity of Egypt and ... It shall be the basest of kingdoms, neither shall it any more lift itself up above the nations and I will diminish them ... and they shall know that I am the Lord God."

A cheer erupted in the crowd when Tezhay finished, added by the oomph of histrionics he added to his translation.

"Do they have any clue where Egypt is?" whispered Frank.

Tezhay gave a wry smile. "I no say Egypt. I tell them Venen."

Frank placed the fragment back in its box, prompting a smattering of moans.

"I think they like some more," said Tezhay. "Find one good one. It will pay for our drink, maybe."

Frank sighed and flipped through the fragments, looking for something brief. Corners and edges crumbled at his touch. One short passage caught his eye because it had a lot of simple nouns. He picked up the sheet and read whatever was there: "To wit, the two pillars, and the pommels, and the chapiters which were on the top of the two pillars, and the two wreaths to cover the two pommels of the chapiters which were on top of the pillars—"

Tezhay, looking baffled, put his hand over the text. "Please. Not this one. Find one more simple one. Just one more and we go."

This time Frank took more care, and actually read what was written on the pages. He settled on a passage from Leviticus, just a single sentence:

"If a stranger lives as a foreigner with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong."

"Perfect!" said Tezhay, plunging into a translation.

Frank made a sign of the cross, kissed his fingertips and touched them to the fragments in the box. The gesture impressed the caretaker and pleased the crowd. Those at the door parted to let them exit and then formed an adoring entourage that followed them back towards the main track. Harm had to push his way through to rejoin them.

"It work," said Tezhay. "She say our drink is free." The bar maid smiled at Frank.

As they passed the animal shelter and its wall of blooming vines, a notion nagged at Frank.

"What was the name of the priest who lived here?"

"Okay, I ask," said Tezhay, turning to the crowd. They responded in ragged unison, kissing their palms and making signs of the cross: "Fadeh!"

"Father? Father who?"

"No father," said Tezhay. "They say his name is Fa-deh."

"Any chance it was Leo?"

"No, they say Fadeh," insisted Tezhay.

They rejoined the track. A short ways beyond, the man they had passed on the way in – the polu – leaned against a tree, watching. Whispers flew. The crowd dispersed.

"Fix your veil," hissed Tezhay.

*****

Chapter 59: Slipping into Raacevo

A sheet of rippled silver slid north and obscured the sun. Renegade puffs, dark as soot, fled westward. The wind keened through woodlots atop the low hills. The tops of the tallest trees lashed about like whips.

Tezhay pushed Harm to set a torrid pace, and Harm's short but sturdy legs obliged. Frank struggled to keep within a stone's throw. Tezhay saw how his legs trembled whenever they paused, and they never paused for long. The time might come, Tezhay realized, when the doctor might need to be jettisoned for the sake of survival.

Clocks ticking overtime in his head drove him to consider such expediencies. His overlords in the Philosopher's Guild needed to know of Eghazi's doings. With the powerful emeriti ensconced safely in Piliar, only a junior liaison remained in the besieged city of Ubabaor. But he could only report to that link in the chain, and pray that the chain and the powers that rattled it remained uncorrupted.

He was also a week overdue with his family in Belize. He knew how Marizelle, his spouse, when stressed, would awaken to sweep the courtyard under the moonlight, or if it rained, sit up in their daughter's room, studying her placid face in the candlelight. He knew she would already be expecting the worst, as she had during the peak of the siege when an army and a gallery of mangonels stood between him and his flaming city, just as Tezhay then felt certain he had lost her. That was why, once reunited amongst hordes of other refugees in the foothills above Ubabaor, he had defied Protocol and transferred his family to the safety of Ur. Marizelle now begged him to sever for good his umbilical to their home world and commit to a life in Ur.

Tezhay didn't want to upset the doctor's heart so he told him it was the weather that made them rush. They would want to be under a roof once the skies unleashed. That wasn't entirely untrue, but the real reason they hurried was because they were being stalked.

From the high points of the undulating path, Tezhay looked back to track the Polu, who was now accompanied by two other men, one carrying a pike, the other, a large long bow of the type they used to hunt deer. At the crest of every rise, they closed a little more ground.

"This Polu who is following, you know him?" Tezhay said Harm.

"Not really," said Harm. "This one is new. Nalkies got the old one."

So that explained why the Polu had acted so cautious. Now that he had help, he could afford to be bolder.

"You see another track, you take it," said Tezhay. "No matter where it goes. We need to lose them."

Harm made his move as soon as they passed over the next hill. He squeezed through a thicket of thorn bushes into an eroded gully that angled down towards the main road. It took them through a no-man's-land of fallow fields, too dissected with ruts to plow.

The gully opened up into a flat criss-crossed with cart tracks and littered with piles of detritus. They passed broken carts, splintered plow frames, minus their shares, crushed barrels, smashed urns. Mounds of rancid grain and rotted thatch. Feral dogs growled. Rodents and birds darted and fluttered. Alongside the vermin, a smattering of people probed the wastes: a man with a withered leg, a small gang of filthy children.

A puzzling sound, like a thousand tiny bells, came from the main road. Tezhay turned to check on Doctor Frank, The point of a pike bobbed above the wall of the gully they had just left, raising the hair behind his neck.

"Fast! To the road," he said to Harm.

He grabbed the doctor, who had just caught up, and pulled him along.

"What the ...? Will you let me take a breather?"

"They come," Tezhay said, in English. "We must run."

The jingling grew louder as they pounded between rubbish heaps and smoldering stacks of ergot-stricken hay, leaping maggot-ridden pools of offal. Tezhay headed for a gap between a pair of flimsy shacks.

The armored rump of a battle horse came into view. Tezhay froze. Harm, following closely, stumbled into his back. The horse stomped in place, its rider just out of sight, before snorting and moving on, scales clinking. Tezhay peered cautiously around the edge of a shack. The horse was the last in a squadron of heavy cavalry. He counted about twenty in all, armored head to toe in overlapping leaves of steel matching that of their lance-bearing riders. They headed towards the marshes.

The road here was wide enough for two carts to pass side-by-side. Only stumps and limbless boles remained of the massive oaks that once lined this grand avenue.

Frank braced himself against a wall and gasped for breath. Harm, awestruck, slipped behind a tree trunk to watch the cavalry depart.

Across the road, sprawled a larger settlement. Tezhay scuttled over and plunged into its warren of sod houses. Their warped walls and sagging roofs seemed recently and hastily built, occupied by people too poor to keep livestock or fowl. Threadbare quilts hung out over open eaves to air. The tightly snaking passages offered plenty of opportunity for cover and evasion.

Though they had not yet reached Raacevo proper, this settlement bore no resemblance to the quaint, provincial town he remembered. He saw nothing built to last, no open spaces or markets, no visible signs of craft or commerce.

"Who lives here, Harm? Where do these people come from?" said Tezhay.

"Verden," said the boy. "Colonists took their farms."

The settlement ended at the banks of a small river, too deep and swift to ford. They threaded their way through people's washings back to the main road, where a simple wooden bridge carried a single lane across.

Tezhay hesitated behind a sod wall and peeked down the road towards the dumping ground. An empty cart pulled by a scrawny horse approached, its owner walking beside. He saw no sign of the Polu or his deputies.

He strode out into the road and crossed the bridge, spying the surging, silt-laden current between the creaking timbers. The rains must have arrived days ago in the outer valleys.

Now they could see the edges of the city proper. Unlike Ubabaor, Raacevo had no public defense wall, only the walls of its more well-to-do private residents. But a barricade blocked the road halfway up the rise before them, with a string of earthen mounds extending along either side. A jam of carts and people with livestock queued up behind it. A commotion broke out as a group of Crasacs rushed out and beat someone on the ground with batons.

"I don't like this," said Tezhay. "How can we pass with this red beard here?"

Harm stepped off the bridge. "I know another way," he said. He trotted along the bank following a rim of packed clay, passing through a woodlot picked clean of every last bit of dead wood. The survivors looked frightened, their remaining limbs lifted high, out of reach of marauders.

By a turbulent cove where the red silt of the tributary blended with the algal flow of the main river, Harm veered up a narrow footpath. The trail quickly petered out atop a bluff, but he kept trudging straight through a patch of prickly creepers that cordoned off an orchard. Apples, just coming into blush, studded the branches of small trees packed tightly in neat rows. Already, Doctor Frank was gnawing on one and stuffing his pockets with more.

The orchard sloped up to a sturdy-looking fence that separated it from a densely built area of stone and brick dwellings. Through gaps in the trees, Tezhay caught glimpses of the main road. Traffic moved freely. Clearly, they had bypassed the roadblock.

A slew of panicked and screeching children came scrambling through the trees upslope. The largest aided the smallest over the fence, their faces fixed towards the road.

"Cover!" said Tezhay, diving behind an uprooted but leafed out tree, finding Harm already there, sequestered beneath the trunk. Doctor Frank had not noticed the commotion. He stretched to pick a ripe apple from a tree across the lane.

Tezhay tossed a stone that deflected off his rump. Doctor Frank swiveled around, indignant. "Doctor! Get down," Tezhay hissed.

A group of Crasacs ran along the top of the orchard, one of them swinging a staff that narrowly missed beaning the last girl over the fence. Doctor Frank stood exposed in the lane, paralyzed with indecision. One of the soldiers spotted him and trained a crossbow. The others came running down, staffs held high.

Tezhay stayed low, but unsheathed the last of Eghazi's daggers. Harm had bedded himself deeply among the branches and suckers and tall grass.

"Oh, shit," Doctor Frank said, backing away from the Crasacs. "I really, really don't want to go through this again."

Tezhay feared Doctor Frank would turn and run. He could picture a bolt slamming into his back and taking him down.

"Show your palm," said Tezhay, projecting a whisper. "Stay still, and no look at us."

Doctor Frank sighed and raised both hands high.

The Crasac who reached him first, whacked the back of his knees with his staff. He collapsed backward, apples rolling from his pockets. The other soldier hounded him with questions he couldn't possibly comprehend as the first ripped his pockets into flaps, stripping him of every piece of fruit he had hoarded.

They forced him to stand and shoved him along up slope to the lane atop the hill, pushing him against the fence. The Crasac bearing the crossbow approached him and tore off his veil. They giggled hysterically at his red beard as they hoisted him up onto the thorns that topped the fence. His clothing snagged, but they kept pushing until he dropped to the other side.

Still laughing, the Crasacs strolled back to the road.

*****

Chapter 60: Canu Takes the Watch

Acorns clattered like infrequent and erratic hail on the roof of the shed. Vul writhed on a pile of sacking and tarpaulins, dreaming out loud about his girl, Aret; speaking as if she and he were alone on his makeshift bed. His moaned intimacies burned Canu's ears and made him feel like a voyeur.

Canu threaded his way through the clutter. Overdue to relieve Pari's watch, he searched the work bench for something, anything he could use to defend himself. He ran his knuckles along one of the crude yet exquisite longbows that Ren and Pari had fashioned. Ren had threatened to break his fingers if he touched them before the glue binding their laminations had fully cured.

Canu sifted through a jumble of boxes and trays, all covered in years of accumulated dust. He found one pathetic knife with a rusted, retractable blade and stuck it in his pocket. He hemmed over the inadequacy of the other choices. Vul and the women had already taken the good stuff. On impulse, he plucked a small hammer from the toolbox and slipped its handle through his belt loop.

They were alone in the shed, the three of them: Canu, Vul and Aret's dream ghost. Seor had gone off to forage for non-perishables with Ara and Ren. Optimist that she was, Seor was already preparing the logistics for their return to Gi. Pari sat out by the stream, watching over the xenolith, or rather the place where Seor hoped the convergence would reveal itself.

Canu's comrades had not known what to make of Ara's defection. Seor peppered her with inquiries about the plot and its actors that obviously went far behind her limited knowledge. Vul threatened to sever her tongue if she persisted in defending Baren's actions. Even Pari had been unusually brusque in tending to Ara's wound. Only Ren seemed thrilled; comforted that at least one Cadre officer saw fit to validate their cause.

Seor clearly didn't trust Ara, and had brought her along on their foraging expedition more to keep her under surveillance than to gain from her experience in Ur. But Canu had faith. He had seen how Ara reacted to moral dilemmas. He had benefited from her sacrifices. He wished he could make his comrades see how much she was like them.

Canu stepped over Vul as he squirmed among the tarps. "I'm going out to relieve Pari," said Canu. "Tell Aret I say hello."

"Canu?" Vul bellowed, as if calling across a vast cavern. "What are you doing here?"

"Don't shout. You'll wake everyone. They're trying to sleep."

"But ..." Vul popped up, eyes flashing open. "Where ... where did she go?" He looked confused, and frantic.

"Don't worry. She'll be back," Canu assured him, pushing the half-rotted door swung open on its one intact hinge.

He looked out onto the unkempt yard, with its tree saplings poking up through the un-mown grass. Canu found it much more appealing than the uncanny lawns, sculpted bushes and stark, red substrate found in most other yards in Ur. Plant some beans out back, give the old man a couple of goats to keep the weeds at bay, and Canu would feel at home.

The old man had come out that morning to empty and freshen a saucer of milk by his front door, though no one yet seen a beast on the property that could be considered a pet. He had eased down the steps of his porch clinging to a framework of metal tubing, traversing the walk to the metal box mounted on a post by the road. He returned, slowly and precariously with a fistful of paper. It took all of Pari's will to refrain from rushing out to assist him.

Canu circled around the back of the shed and plunged into the woodlot. He followed a path of trampled ferns to a large boulder, crusted with lichen, incongruous on the muddy flat as if it had been dropped from the sky. Pari sat cross-legged at its base, sealed from the damp ground by strips of bark. The reconfigured child's bow lay on her lap, with an arrow improved with one of the metal blades Ara snagged from the hospital.

Pari's head swiveled to meet him, her eyes bugged with irritation. "Do you have to snap every twig when you walk? Get down and keep quiet!"

"What's wrong?" whispered Canu, dropping to one knee.

"Someone's stalking about in the trees across the road."

"Should I go see?" Canu said, rising to his feet.

"Don't be foolish!" said Pari. "What is that, a hammer on your belt?"

Canu nodded, smiling sheepishly.

"Just keep watch. Retreat to the shed if need be. Is Seor back yet?"

"No."

Pari rose and brushed herself off. "I'm going to go find them. Don't do anything stupid. I'll tell Vul to come help."

Pari slinked back to the shed, Canu admired her stealth. She kept low, crunching not a single leaf, rattling not a single bush. He closed his eyes and listened for whistles. A descending two-tone, like a child calling its mother, dominated the ambiance – a bird, local and ubiquitous.

He heard people talking nearby and opened his eyes. Men laughed and bantered behind the house at the corner, the vanguard in a string of similar homes descending to a lower terrace on this valley wall. Canu watched through the trees as they struggled to lift a white mass of fabric onto a metal frame. Strands of smoke drifted his way, bearing the scent of charcoal tainted with distillates. Preparations for some sort of celebration or ceremony?

Bushes parted. Small voices chimed. Snatches of primary color appeared in the undergrowth across the stream. A young woman in a long sleeved, white blouse led a parade of very small children to the stream bank. All carried buckets and jars and nets.

Canu hunkered in the shadow of the boulder, its dewy granite cool against his skin, confident the children and their escorts could not detect him. Though, he worried one might run over and climb the boulder and the way children do in any world, but for now the stream received their full attention. They splashed about in floppy sandals or boots much too large for short legs.

Two young women hovered behind the children, alternately slapping at gnats, peering and cooing into buckets, untangling nets from strands of bramble. A small boy waddled up, hovering patiently as the women conversed. Finally, he got their attention by tugging one's belt loops. He pointed to a spot upstream out of Canu's line of vision. The women took a few steps, then stopped, startled. They recoiled, one of them pulling the boy back by the hand. The over shouted to the others to get them out of the stream. They all hurried back towards the house, the women turning frequently to monitor whatever was happening in the stream. One held an oblong communicator to her ear.

Canu eased up on his haunches to peer over the boulder. At first he thought he saw smoke, but it was mist boiling out of the stream. The tree trunks on the other side wiggled as if a sheet of rippled glass stood before them.

Canu couldn't help himself. He let out a wail loud enough to be heard across two portals.

*****

Chapter 61: Kovalev's Abode

The soldiers rolled Frank over the thorns topping the slatted fence. Barbs raked his face. His trousers snagged. Threads pulled and ripped. He plunged, crashing shoulder-first into a dense pile of manure, breath knocked away. Rolling down the heap, he settled beside a pair of knobby hooves and ten, tiny, smudgy toes. Frank's balled-up veil came flying over, opening up like a parachute, spinning down, ties extended. Guffaws trailed off across the fence.

A horse with a scarred, fly-bitten muzzle ducked down to nibble at a shriveled flower in the dirt, unfazed by his presence, as it were accustomed to bodies tumbling over the fence. Beside it, a stunned toddler, her sparse hair tied up in a single vertical tuft, dropped the fistful of wilted blossoms she had been clutching. A woman rushed out of a mud brick house, tossed down an armload of rolled-up mats and scooped up the child.

Frank braced himself for blows, but the woman helped him to his feet. She led him over to the house and sat him on a stump, brushing him clean with a whisk, plucking thorns from his face, daubing at the blood with a clean cloth. The little girl, chin dangling, stood close and studied him, reaching for his red beard.

Frank's heart beat off-kilter again. The palpitations were violent enough and his breath felt short, but his mind and senses were no more foggy than usual. He felt none of the sense of impending doom that had accompanied previous incidents. Had his fibrillations always been this symptomless?

Tezhay and Harm came clambering over the fence, heads swiveling like burglars, and landed on their feet, undamaged by thorns. Harm laughed and pointed when he saw the lady of the house reaching around to replace Frank's veil. Tezhay approached, thanking or apologizing to the woman or both, profusely. She accepted his words without a smile. Anxious for them to move on, she ushered them through a squeeze way leading out to the street.

"Those soldiers," said Frank. "Why'd they let me go?"

"What, they should cut off your head for steal fruit?" said Tezhay. "If that was so, no one in Raacevo would have a head."

"You mean ... that whole shebang was about ... apples?"

"Orchard belong to garrison," said Tezhay.

They walked briskly down a lane packed densely with brick dwellings; their yards barren save for the rare patch of scrub spared from goats by the limits of their tethers. Tezhay stopped just before the juncture with the main road. He edged out cautiously, looking back towards the roadblock they had circumvented.

Behind the barrier of tree trunks and heaped rubble, a diverse array of loaded carts lined the road two abreast. Another, stacked with wooden crates was being added to the collection as they watched. Soldiers seemed to be confiscating any load that struck their fancy. As one wagon owner pleaded, a Crasac came up from behind and struck the back of his knees with his lance, spitting on him as he crumpled down. A boy struggled to reverse a small herd of sheep bound for home and determined to pass the roadblock. He might as well have been trying to get the river to run uphill.

"Is clear. Fast. This way," said Tezhay, stepping out and turning right towards the thick of the city. The random skitter of Frank's heart messed with the meter of his steps, but at least he could walk.

Raacevo occupied a broad shelf, spilling down to the river and splashing up into the denuded hills on the city's verges. The uplands in the distance displayed tier after tier of nearly unbroken forest.

One hill close to town was studded with pale structures that seemed to glow even under the thick overcast. A bone-white dome dominated the summit. A dark pillar pierced its center, dwarfing the trees that grew beside it.

"My God, what is that place?" said Frank.

"The Alar stays there," said Tezhay, glancing quickly, eyes preoccupied. "Is like temple."

"Alar?"

"He is like priest, or Eldest Brother, but governor, also."

"Governor and priest?"

"Is Venep'o way. They mix it."

A wind blew up as they plodded up the road behind donkeys hauling water. Raindrops spattered the road and raised the spices of a long-deferred rain: petrichor and geosmin; pepper and copper.

Harm gave a shout and laughed when he spotted two women and a girl standing beside a stopped donkey cart staring forlornly at the chaos at the checkpoint. He ran towards them, as recognition and surprise registered on the women's faces.

"Ah, must be Harm sister and mother and mother," said Tezhay.

"Two mothers," said Frank.

"Yes, because in Gi—"

"Yeah, I know. You told me."

A lanky man stepped out into the road near a makeshift, roadside tea house and watched Harm approach. Another man scrambled to fetch a pike leaning against a wall, and yelled down a passage leading behind the shack, summoning another who came running with pants partly undone, blue swatch on jacket flapping.

"Polu!" said Tezhay.

Harm, oblivious, his attention focused on his family, heard the warning too late. The man seized him before he could make it to his mothers' cart.

Tezhay grabbed Frank and pulled him through a gap in a fence. The man who had taken Harm dragged him towards the tea house where the Polu and the pike-wielder waited. Harm resisted, dragging his knees in the dirt, twisting. He squirted free, and ran to his mothers before his abductor could regain his balance. The women already had daggers out and were shouting epithets at the Polus. Passersby joined in, stopping beside the women's cart, adding to the verbal barrage. The sister pulled Harm behind the cart and tucked him under one arm, dagger ready in the other.

Rain fell softly, evaporating nearly as fast as it fell. More people gathered, some lining up behind the Polu, others joining in the defense of Harm. The Polus advanced on the women's cart, but the building crowd intimidated them and they halted halfway across. They kept looking toward to checkpoint as if hoping for the Crasacs to send some support.

Harm looked around for Frank and Tezhay until he spotted them behind the fence. Tezhay shook his head, frantically. Harm broke eye contact and snapped his attention back to the Polus. But one of the Polus noticed Harm staring and turned to see where he had been looking. Tezhay hauled Frank down below the fence top.

"This way," said Tezhay, ducking into an open doorway, nodding and muttering apologies to a man with a grizzled beard protruding from beneath his veil. Their trespass hardly fazed the man, who crouched, repairing a slatted partition with wood lathing softened in a bucket of water. They passed out his back door, following a path through a garden that led to another row of brick dwellings lining a parallel avenue of rutted dirt.

This roadway lay eerily empty. People cowered behind walls and sheds, watching. A few dared to cross in mad headlong dashes, as if the road were paved in blazing cinders. An syncopated stomping arose and grew until a troop of soldiers, marching out of time, turned the corner. They came two by two, each packing a thin bedroll, crossbow and sword. They wore open-faced helms with flanges extending below their jaws. Leather-clad breastplates protected their torsos. Three groups of about thirty passed, in all.

"This not the Raacevo, I remember," said Tezhay. "Some Crasac here when I first come, but not so many like this. Everywhere."

They hunkered behind a trellis of sickly, yellow vines, until the soldiers' footfalls faded and people began to venture back onto the street. A short figure came running past them down the path.

"Harm!" said Frank, rising up.

"Shut up!" said Tezhay, staring in the direction Harm had come.

The boy skidded in the dirt, and turned to face them, raising his beaming, breathless face. He reported to Tezhay, excitedly.

"He says Polu no see him go," said Tezhay. "Too many people."

"Hope he's right," Frank said, as they emerged from the vines. His eyes clung to the path as they rejoined Harm on the road.

They walked opposite the direction the soldiers had gone, past hovels and stacks of mud brick. Many dwellings were under repair after some calamitous event had buckled their walls and collapsed their roofs. Fire-blackened thatch sat in heaps along the street. Goats kicked at the char to expose the unburned straw.

Harm turned onto a cobbled lane that led down towards the bluffs overlooking the river. The squat houses lining it seemed older and sturdier than those they had seen thus far. Not much larger than the ubiquitous, mud-brick dwellings lining other streets, their walls were made of quarried stone, and had wide compounds separating each dwelling from the next. The many stumps suggested how shady and green the area had been before the occupiers hacked all the trees away. The rain continued to lap langorously. Drops beaded and spread across the cobbles.

Harm stopped before a damaged gate, opening into a stockade fence of halved timbers. A limp flower hung from a crevice, wicking raindrops down its creamy petals. An iron latch lay on the ground among hunks of splintered wood.

A teenage girl emerged from the house across the street and stood in the rain, watching them, her posture stiff, her face as blank as the stone walls behind her.

Harm looked to Tezhay, waiting for his nod, before pushing the gate open. Two attached structures lay beyond: a squat, stone house like the ones they had passed, and a peaked wooden cottage, its trim carved with ornate scallops and points – a ginger breaded, fairytale dacha. The unfinished wood had attained a silvery patina, accented by patches of lichen and streaks of algae. Grey-blue flagstone led to the covered porch where the two structures merged.

"Kovalev house," said Tezhay.

Tezhay stepped past Harm onto the flagstone. He called out a greeting.

It occurred to Frank that Tezhay planned to dump him here. His feelings jumbled. On the plus side, this property seemed much more comfortable than any he had yet seen in Gi. And being among a community of fellow travelers might be nice for a change.

But the idea of being stuck here forever once Tezhay moved on filled him with dread. Death was beginning to look like the shinier option. His palpitations began to suggest to him a different kind of hope.

Tezhay certainly seemed excited when he first made his way up the walk, but his face tightened up with concern when no one responded to his repeated calls.

"Nobody home? No servant? No family? No dog? Nobody?"

Not even a chicken twitched in the compound, though their feathers littered the ground before a coop. A lone, upended shoe sat in the middle of the walk, knobbed soles nearly worn through. Several partly severed branches dangled from a shrub, leaves wilted but green.

They stepped onto the porch to find a massive wooden door slightly ajar. A crude, metal mezuzah case was nailed at an angle to the left door post. Pungent but pleasant food odors wafted out.

Tezhay ducked his head inside. "Kovalev!" he shouted. They waited. Harm shifted his weight nervously and looked all about. Movement near the gate made Frank start. It was the girl from across the street. She hovered cautiously, hands clenched, watching.

A meowing cat came prancing up from inside and slinked around the door, holding its head high and haughty as it rubbed against Frank's shins. Tezhay flung the door open and stepped inside a blank room, devoid of any decoration or furniture. Empty, floor-to-ceiling shelves of rough-hewn planks dominated one wall. Dust lines traced the angular outline of whatever once resided there. Books? A shelf full of readable books would have made existence in such a place more bearable. But these shelves held nothing, not even a scrap.

Frank walked over to a clay hearth and held his hand over the ashes. They were cold. A cauldron rested on an iron rack supported by stones. A pleasantly piquant aroma emanated from the blackish-purple and green sludge lining its bottom, bearing no hint of decay. Withered beet greens and trimmings were heaped on a pale stone slab beside the hearth. This was borscht, with all its liquid boiled away.

"I see no blood," said Tezhay. "This is good sign, yes?"

"So what now?" said Frank.

"I don't know," said Tezhay. His vacant eyes wandered like whirligigs. He swiped his finger at the dust on Kovalev's empty book shelf. "I said we find you some exile. So ... we find you some exile."

A figure appeared in the doorway. Tezhay's hand went to his dagger. It was the girl from across the road.

She hovered, hesitant, half in, half out. Tezhay stalked up to her as if trying to pet a shy dog. He spoke to her softly. She responded in a voice unusually gruff for her age and gender.

"He's gone," Tezhay interpreted. "Venep'o take him."

"Took him where?" said Frank.

The girl continued to speak over them.

"She say we have to go," said Tezhay, striding back to the door. "Here is not safe. The Venep'o have people watching this place. They will come."

"Peregrin," said the girl, looking at Frank.

*****

Chapter 62: Sibara

The girl's name was Feyit. She was no exile, but she spoke Kovalev's tongue. "Russian," Doctor Frank called it, when she tried speaking it to him. The Doctor's incomprehension seemed to surprise and disappoint her. She apparently thought all good exiles should speak "Russian."

Once she got started in Giep'o, though, she gushed to Tezhay all about Kovalev, speaking of him in the past tense, like someone praising the recently deceased, though it was not clear whether the old Russian had been killed or even harmed.

Feyit told Tezhay that Kovalev had lived in the neighborhood since before she was born and had taught basic, conversational Russian to as many of the children as he could get to sit still. Feyit and several others had learned enough to make small-talk with him and recite some of his poems. He loved hearing them spoken by young voices in his native tongue.

"He knew my family well," said Feyit. "Very, very well. He would come and eat with us. Sing with us. Take his medicine from us."

Tezhay suspected that Kovalev's fame had precipitated his downfall. Feyit told him small crowds sometimes gathered for his poetry and storytelling sessions. This would have drawn the attention of the occupiers, and prompted them to send spies.

Feyit proudly paraphrased a Kovalev poem in Giep'o confirmed some of his suspicions, with its mild metaphors of occupation.

Spawn of cliffs and crags uncounted,

Seven valleys, river stone tumble.

Gentle chaos nudging seaward,

Under snail and mayfly amble

Landslide cleaves a single slab;

Spawning shards to slash our feet;

No cataclysms budge this table.

No life dare harbor in its lee.

The poem sounded innocuous enough, but Tezhay could understand how such verse might agitate the ultra-sensitive Venep'o. Obviously, something had bothered them, because a Polu's deputy had warned Kovalev that a raid was brewing. The Russian had resisted the notion at first, but upon the urging of neighbors, agreed to discontinue his public sessions and go into seclusion. Feyit herself had helped him move his possessions into safekeeping, but the raid came down before he could leave town.

"Where was he planning to go?" said Tezhay.

"Out of Raacevo," said Feyit. "But he left his works with Sibara."

"Sibara?" said Tezhay. "She an exile?"

"He," said Feyit. "And yes."

Feyit gave them explicit instructions on how to find Sibara in the city center. The stoniness settled back into Feyit's face as they left Kovelev's compound. Feyit's mother, busy with a hoe, clearing a drainage channel leading from their compound, stood up and wielded the hoe like an axe when spotted her daughter with strangers. She called Feyit home, her voice cracking with strain. A neighbor stood behind a fence, watching them through the slats.

They passed from this privileged district to neighborhoods of greater density and squalor, avoiding large thoroughfares, opting for informal paths and passageways through mazes of brick and mud. Harm kept scuttling ahead, peeking around every corner to ensure they held no surprises.

Once the rain found its rhythm, every cobble became coated with sheen, their clothes weighty with dampness. The clouds grew so thick they could no longer discern the position of the sun. Dusk would surprise them when it finally descended.

By now, Tezhay had hoped to have said his goodbyes and gone off alone, his preferred mode of travel. On his own, he could penetrate any barricade, blend into any crowd. With the boy and red-haired exile in tow he felt as inconspicuous as a circus troupe.

Doctor Frank looked wan, worse than Tezhay had yet seen him. Exsanguinated warriors with arrows in their guts had rosier complexions. The Doctor plodded like a dead man walking, eyes fixed on the ground, displaying no curiosity or concern. Tezhay suspected his heart had gone off its cadence again.

They passed a corpse crumpled in the gutter. Other passersby hovered a conspicuous distance away, too fearful to help lest they taint themselves by association with the victim. They waited to see who claimed it, and what fate the claimants met. Tezhay stepped up his pace, not wishing to be the test case.

The mouth of an alley opened onto a plaza one block wide and several blocks long. A central market had occupied the site when Tezhay had last visited. Now, hundreds of Cuasar horses were corralled here, browsing on piles of fresh cut forage. Row upon row of Cuasar tents flapped in the breeze. All that remained of the market stalls were post holes and black smudges on the paving stones.

"They destroyed the market?" said Tezhay.

"It still lives," said Harm. "I'll show you."

Harm skirted the encampment and ducked into one of the many passages that opened into the plaza, and there it was. The market had reconfigured itself, squeezing like displaced water into the city's seams. Mats and tables and stalls blocked walkways too narrow to host them. The rain had caused some vendors to pack up, but others huddled under oilskins as trickles wormed past their rain-glistened wares.

Their offerings were sparse and homogeneous: Bolts of cloth, basic tools and household utensils, no serious weapons. Root crops dominated the foodstuffs, as the Sinkor-practicing occupiers were forbidden to eat anything that grew beneath the soil. Tezhay noted a conspicuous absence of meat or grain or fruit or greens.

Harm turned about, confused. He backtracked, then stopped and looked about. Doctor Frank stood in a slouch, waiting for Harm to settle on a direction. The Doctor looked uncomfortable, like he wanted to vomit.

"I think we went too far," said Harm. "Feyit told me to look for the lady who sells the blue head cloths."

Tezhay inquired of a man holding a single plow share in his lap. The man pointed to a woman who had bundled up her wares in a blanket and was trundling off down the alley. "Sister, please," Tezhay called.

The woman stopped and turned. They ran to catch up with her.

"Can you help us? We are looking for a man named Sibara," said Tezhay.

Her eyes shifted between Tezhay and Harm before settling on Doctor Frank as he came laboring after them up the passage.

"Come," she said, continuing down the alley

Dwellings packed together, with contiguous walls and no yards or compounds. The woman stopped before what looked like an unoccupied ruin. Rain seeped through gashes in crumbled and eroded stucco, wooden posts and wattle protruding like bone through rotting flesh. The small door was secured, windows shuttered.

"Sibara!" the woman shouted. "There are peregrins here to see you."

No answer, though a thin plume of smoke rose from a hole in the thatch.

"Sibara! Don't worry," she said. "These people look harmless."

Something scraped against the floor inside. "What do you want?" came a creaky voice. An eye glinted through a crack in the wood.

"I bring an exile," said Harm. "He wants to visit with you."

"Why do you bring him here? How did you find me?"

"We come from Kovalev's," said Tezhay. "The girl, Feyit, told us—"

"Kovalev?" said the man. The name caught in his throat and made him cough. "You came straight from Kovalev's place? I hope you weren't followed."

"We took care," said Tezhay. "Our route was not direct."

"Master Sibara, open please! It rains and we have walked a long way," said Harm.

Silence. A heavy bolt slid, unbarring the door. It swung open.

"Get in," said the old man, his voice creaking like old timbers. The man's face was dark, with deep wrinkles etching the corners of his eyes and mouth. His sleek black hair bore only a few strands of grey.

Oil lamps and fire glow illuminated the windowless interior. The walls rippled as if plastered with loose mud that had flowed before setting. A ring of posts supported a conical ceiling with a fire pit in the center, surrounded by a hearth of clay, vented through a triangular gap in the thatch. A frayed-looking hammock suspended between two posts along the wall.

Sibara put his hand on Harm's shoulder and withdrew it quickly. "You're soaked. Come warm yourself by the fire. I will make some tea."

Stacks of shingles were piled on the floor, bundled together in groups of ten or more with ribbon or twine. Sibara tore a ribbon from a stack and tossed them into the fire. He fetched a kettle and hung it over the embers by a metal hook.

They sat around the hearth on rickety stools, Harm shivering, Doctor Frank looking lost, as if he kept one foot in another world. The Doctor hadn't spoken a word out loud since they left Kovalev's. He avoided eye contact.

"What is wrong with him?" said Sibara.

"He is ... not feeling well," said Tezhay. "He is an English man, this one. Do you ... speak English?"

"I do not," said Sibara.

"But you speak Giep'o like you were born here," said Tezhay.

"Gi is all I know," said Sibara. "I was brought here when I was very small. I remember nothing about Ur. Not even my mother."

"You are ... friends with Kovalev?" said Tezhay.

The old man frowned. "More like his servant ... or baby sitter. Not any longer, it seems. I warned him to quit with his storytelling, but he is too vain. He must perform. And then he brings me all his writings and makes me a target." Sibara sighed. "At least they burn well." He tossed more shingles onto the fire.

"Does Raacevo have other exiles, besides you?" said Tezhay.

"Scattered," said Sibara. "Many in hiding. The Venep'o have taken a sudden interest in us. Me not so much, because my skin helps me blend. But some exiles, I hear, they have sent them back to Venen with the caravans."

"For what purpose do they take them?" said Tezhay.

Sibara inhaled through his teeth. "Nothing good, I am sure. Slaves? Maybe for study, or in the case of Kovalev – if he was lucky – for entertainment. The Alars love their jesters."

"But it is not just Kovalev?"

"No. He is not as special as he thinks." The spout of the kettle began to sputter and steam.

"How do you think this one would fare if I left him in Raacevo?" said Tezhay, nodding towards Doctor Frank.

Sibara looked Doctor Frank over and snickered. "How long do you expect him to live?"

"Oh, he is much stronger than he looks," said Tezhay. "He is just having a bad day."

Sibara shifted on his stool and put a pinch of powder into a row of handle-less mugs and reached for the kettle with a pair of singed wooden tongs. "Life in Raacevo is not good for anyone anymore," he said. "Not just exiles."

Sibara filled each cup to just below the brim and distributed them. He fed the fire with another handful of shingles. They tinkled like tone wood, like fiddle tops tumbling into the flames. But oh, how they burned, their resins flaring orange, tinged green and blue, not unlike a convergence.

In the shadows along the wall, Tezhay noticed a familiar shape. A guitar.

"Ah! This one is not for burning, no?" Tezhay shot up from his stool and fetched it. It had only three intact strings and less than a full complement of frets, but the fine-grained top was free of cracks.

"I was saving it for a cold night," said Sibara. "That belonged to Kovalev as well."

"Oh, please do not burn this one!," said Tezhay. "That would be such a crime. I will fetch you ten times its weight in firewood to replace it.

"No need. If you want it, it is yours," said Sibara.

Tezhay plucked a string and turned a peg to raise its pitch. The string snapped. Undeterred, he finger picked an off tune melody on the two remaining bass strings.

Shouts and footfalls came from the alley. Tezhay muffled the strings with his palm. Sibara cocked his head, listening carefully.

"It is nothing," said Sibara, relaxing. "Just Polus enforcing the curfew."

"I should have mentioned," said Tezhay. "A Polu and his deputies followed us all the way into Raacevo."

"Do they know you are here?" said Sibara, raising one eye.

"I do not think so" said Tehay. "I am pretty sure we lost them on the outskirts."

Sibara dismissed Tezhay's admission with a smirk. "Polus do not worry me," he said. "Cuertis, on the other hand ... there is no soldier crueler."

"Cuerti? Are there Cuerti about Raacevo these days?" said Tezhay.

"More than ever before," said Sibara.

*****

Chapter 63: Shingles

Frank leaned heavily on the hearth. Keeping his head up and every breath took concerted effort. He tossed shingles into the fire pit, not giving a damn what was written on any of them: whether they were Kovalev's memoirs, his life's work or shopping lists. They all burned the same. The fire glow raised the steam from his clothes, reviving yet again the smell of the zombie, marsh mud.

Raacevo was a shit-hole town. He had seen plenty of shit holes in his career, but Raacevo was one of the worst order – a shit-hole town in a war zone. It already contained enough fear and violence to rival the northern Congo or southern Sudan. The only things needed to complete the ambiance were some bullet-ridden minibuses, vendors selling bush meat and cheesy, Chinese house wares. If Tezhay expected him to eke out his days here, he would do his best to ensure those days were few.

The commotion in Frank's chest felt like an Anglo middle school rhythm section botching a salsa tune. Ventricular congas, lost in syncopation, searched hopelessly for a groove. Random bass kicks leaped in, obliterating all, resetting the beat. Above the chaos floated delicate, atrial bongos, pitter-pattering, oblivious to any other beat. Combined with Tezhay's atonal meanderings on guitar, it made a music fit for demons.

Two ways, his heart could kill him: cardiac arrest and stroke. Either suited him fine. If his fibrillation was truly atrial, cardiac arrest was a long shot, but would bring the quickest and cleanest end. It would begin with a quiver. His ventricles would beat out of sync, causing his circulation to slosh ineffectively and his pulse to disappear. For a few seconds his cells would scavenge what oxygen they could from his blood, but then there would be no more to garner. Beginning with his brain, his organs would shut down, one by one, and he would have his escape. Bring it on, he thought. Let this crummy world blink out. He sure wouldn't miss it.

But ectopic beats kept salvaging his circulation. Sets of early and ineffective spasms were followed by emphatic, galumphing beats that slapped his heart against his sternum and sent rushes of oxygenated blood through his lungs then out to the tips of his fingers and toes. These kept the dizziness at bay, circling like hyenas on the fringes of his visual field.

Stroke was his next best, though messy, hope. His quivering atria clung to pools of sloshing blood cells. Blood cells forced together tend to clump. All he needed was one great glob to break loose and glide up his carotids to lodge in an artery large enough to shut everything down. But a lesser clot might only destroy his ability to speak, cripple him with flaccid paralysis and redouble his misery.

Tezhay bent a double stop and wiggled it until it faded. "I am shame for you," he said. "After all this trouble, you finally get meet exile. And you no ask him nothing. No hello. You no even look at him."

"I don't feel well," said Frank. He glanced over Sibara, who rocked on his stool beside Harm, cradling his mug of tea in his palms. The man was barely larger than Tezhay. His air and features were Amerindian, but he had unusually dark skin, like a Zambo or Miskito.

"Where's he from?" said Frank.

"I don't think he know this," said Tezhay.

Frank caught Sibara's eye. "Habla Español?" Sibara stared back at him, but did not respond.

"He no speak this," said Tezhay.

"Why the hell not? He looks like he's from that part of the world."

"He come to Gi as small boy," said Tezhay.

"Hablu un poco," said Sibara. "Buonas noches."

Frank grabbed another stack of shingles. These looked different from the batch he had tossed in the fire before. Blocky, Cyrillic characters filled both sides, instead of the graceful swirls and loops of Giep'o script. The markings were aligned in a tabular format, and one column included Arabic numerals. Gloppy inks of varying tint and cross outs indicated revisions and updates. Some of the numbers appeared to be dates.

Frank resisted the urge to toss them in the flames. He noticed one just like it amongst the embers, and plucked it out, blowing out the yellow flame flaring along one blackened edge. The waxy ink beaded and ran.

"What do you suppose is written on these?" Frank asked Tezhay, who resumed his picking, droning one string of Kovalev's guitar, while playing a maddeningly repetitive melody over it on the second, higher string.

Tezhay glanced over without interrupting his picking. "I no can read this. Is some kind of Urep'o."

"Yeah, I know. It's Russian, but—"

"Give to Sibara," said Tezhay, shrugging.

Frank held the pair of shingles up to Sibara and pantomimed a query. Sibara took them in hand and began reciting, what sounded to Frank like, perfect Russian. He then turned to Tezhay and translated into Giep'o.

"Is poem ... about some persons," said Tezhay.

"What about the numbers?"

"Is dates," said Tezhay. "Either when people come to Gi or Raacevo, or when Kovalev meet them, he is not sure."

"Dates? Really?" Frank dove into the pile of shingles. Some were tucked neatly in boxes. Others, in stacks tied up with twine. Where the twine had burst that fanned out like playing cards, spilling out into the pile that they were using to feed the fire. Frank pulled aside anything that had Cyrillic characters or numbers and studied them.

When Sibara reached down for some to add to the flames, Frank stopped his hand.

"Not these, okay?" He steered Sibara's hand to a batch covered with Giep'o scrawl.

Most of the dates seemed relatively recent. One entire, thick stack had 2007 inked onto each. He found some older bundles buried in the pile and tucked away in some of the boxes. Frank tore into these, expanding the chaos on the floor until he found some entries labeled in the 1990s: 1997, 1994. Liz had disappeared in early May, 1991.

He pulled a shingle from an older box, glossy with wear and covered with multiple strikeouts and haphazard annotations. A smudge of pine resin had been used to repair a crack along the grain. Its date read: 27 MAЯ 1991. March. Close, but two months too early. He tossed it aside and looked through the rest of the box, finding some from 1988, 1990, 1995. Nothing else from 1991.

But perhaps it had taken Kovalev some time to find these exiles, and the dates indicated their first meetings with the Russian, not their arrivals in Gi. Frank selected a shingle with a 1993 entry and handed it to Sibara for interpretation.

Sibara sighed, looking none too thrilled. He recited slowly in Giep'o, pausing frequently to allow Tezhay to retranslate into English.

"5 of May 1992," said Tezhay. "Hey, is Cinco de Mayo! And this next part, is poem. Kovalev write small poem for to remember peoples. This one says ..." Tezhay cued Sibara and repeated each line in translation.

"A rising wind gives flesh

To the sky's bones,

Reborn from womb of storm,

Earth swept bare of all man's

Traces and ambitions."

"That's supposed to be a poem?" said Frank. "Sounds more like a weather report."

"Be kind," said Tezhay. "Is two translation remove from his art."

"Is there a person's name on that card anywhere?"

Tezhay conferred with Sibara. "The name is Arcadio. It tells the people he knows. Where he stays. Things like this."

"Just Arcadio?"

"Arcadio Tomas Hernando Valenzuela," said Sibara, trailing off with something Frank didn't understand.

"Born, Chetumal, Mexico. Aged 79," Tezhay added.

"он мертво," said Sibara.

"What's that? Mertvo? What?"

"Dead," said Tezhay. "Sibara say, he is dead."

Frank glanced at the shingle as Sibara passed it back to him. "5 MAЯ 1992," it read.

"Wait a minute. You said he met Kovalev on Cinco de Mayo, but this here says March."

Tezhay passed on his inquiry. Sibara shook his head. "No. Mai," he said, emphatically, pointing to the shingle and lecturing Tezhay.

"Is not March, is May," said Tezhay. "He say Kovalev write this very clear." Tezhay turned to Sibara. "How you say March?"

"Mapтa," said Sibara.

"Wait a minute ..." said Frank. "That means this other one ..." A cluster of clashing beats brought a fleeting spell of dizziness. He shook his head to clear it and spread the pile out with the flat of his palm. He clicked and clattered through the stacks, pushing the irrelevant ones off to one side. "What happened to it? I just had it." He flipped over yet another shingle and there it was, with its cracks and smudges suggestive of frequent consultation. He handed it to Tezhay to translate.

"Cold fire spill down hill browse bare

Flow like river, never find sea

Pool so deep, trap all light

She keep on for wanderer."

"Hmm. So the date on that is May 27 not March?"

"Yes," said Tezhay.

"Who's this one for?"

"Person name is Lizbeta or Lizbet," said Tezhay.

A shudder rumbled through Frank.

"What's wrong?" said Tezhay.

Frank's heart, which had been like a truck on the rumble strip, veering towards the curb, suddenly righted its course, pulsing smoothly like tires clicking over the seams in smooth pavement. Or had it stopped? His head filled with helium. He gasped for breath.

*****

Chapter 64: Foraging

Seor emerged into light from the shadowy hemlocks to find a person with blue tufted hair and bright yellow pants standing behind a white tent, adjusting a red-spotted neck kerchief. She retreated behind a thick screen of low-hanging boughs.

"What's wrong?" said Ren, bumping Seor from behind.

"There's a ... a person. Oddly dressed."

Ara caught up with them, wielding the boxy, red bundle she had stolen from the open door of a vehicle one terraced street below. Seor and Ren had cringed behind a hedge, watching as Ara sauntered up and snatched it from a front seat while the oblivious delivery person transacted at a homeowner's door.

Ara peered through the branches. "Oh! It's a clown. Must be a party. A child's birthday."

"Clown?" said Seor.

"For entertainment," said Ara. "They do magic tricks. Tell jokes."

Seor parted the branches. Now, the clown spoke to a normally dressed man carrying a chair under each arm. A movement near the stream attracted her attention. A gaggle of children crouched besides the riffles only steps from the watch point. They swished nets through the water and chittered excitedly. Two young women hung back, arms folded, chatting.

"We'll go around," said Seor.

They backtracked downstream and cut into the thick of the wood, carving a wide circle through deadfall mazes swarming with wild grape vines and thickets of evergreens so dense their dead, lower branches overlapped. Ara struggled to maneuver the puffy red cube through the tangles.

"Whatever's in that box must be precious," said Ren. "All the trouble you're taking."

"You'll be grateful I did," said Ara. "This stuff is almost like skillet bread back home. Beats the marrows you wanted to pinch from that garden."

Seor still didn't know what to make of Ara. For a cadre officer, she seemed a little too quick to subjugate herself to her lessers in the militia. Sassy and arrogant at times, she nevertheless deferred readily to Seor's command. Loyalty to their cause alone didn't suffice to explain her defection.

One clue to Ara's motivation came from how she spoke of Canu. She asked about his relationships in the squad and back home in Sesei. Her words of praise indicated a jarringly high regard for Canu, far higher than his own militia mates held. Too often, members of the squad had had to repair the consequences of Canu's rash decisions. Perhaps Ara hadn't encountered that side of him yet.

That Ara's turning might involve matters of the heart helped mollify Seor. It explained the dearth of sense in Ara's decisions. Seor could only wish her better luck than her own ill fate in that realm. These were tough times for young love, but how could such matters wait for a peace that might never come?

Seor held onto a branch so it wouldn't flip back and strike Ren.

Ren's face shifted. "What was that?" she said.

Seor looked about. "What? I didn't see anything."

"I heard a signal," said Ara. "Cadre."

"Ren, did you—?"

"Again!" said Ara. "Two ascending sharps and a falling trill. That's an all clear. A maneuver order."

That time Seor heard it clearly. It came from somewhere ahead and to their right. She stared at the red case in Ara's hand. "Get rid of that thing. You stand out as plainly as that clown."

Ara tucked the case under a bush and pulled a metal tag that caused an entire seam to come undone.

"What are you doing?" said Seor.

"Can't let this pizza go to waste," said Ara. She folded over a wedge and wolfed it down. Ren grabbed a pair, mimicking Ara's technique. Seor, weary of self-deprivation, helped herself to a slice as well. It was not quite skittle bread, but satisfied the ache in her stomach just as well.

Ara sealed the red case and heaped it with leaves. Seor chose a route favoring stealth over directness. They meandered towards a patch of open sky in the canopy, emerging on the far side of the yard from the shed, steps from the peeling clapboards of the old man's house. Seor stopped to scan and listen. Ara caught her eye, nodded.

"All seems clear," whispered Ren.

They worked back around the yard's periphery, remaining under cover of the forest's fringe, passing beyond a stack of rotting cordwood and around the base of a plum tree whose gnarled, gall-blighted branches dangled spoiled fruit, some clad in moldy jackets of green velvet. Vapors of ferment rose from decayed plums on the ground.

A figure emerged around the front of the house, stalking along the shaggy hedges growing along the side. Seor dropped flat into the tall grass. Ara and Ren, needing no prompting, hit the ground with her.

Baas.

He held a short-winged crossbow appressed to his thigh, two bolts slotted and cocked. He extended his hand, palm up. A signal. Seor strained to see through tufts of wafting, knee-high grass. Other figures appeared on the hillside across the road. Ren and Ara lay like corpses beside her.

Seor prayed no one came out of the shed. They would make easy prey for Baas. With no obstructions and a modest range, two bolts would easily procure two deaths. She saw the sheathed dagger on his hip and realized there would be little she could do to stop him. She carried no weapons. Nothing suitable for defense lay in reach; no stones, no staffs, only rotten plums.

Dieno crossed the road first, with Baren and Kera and Lev close behind. Baren chatted casually with Kera, crossbow slung loosely over shoulder. A good sign. He expected no adversaries.

A curtain flipped up behind the kitchen window. Baas snapped around to face it. He jerked a hand signal. His comrades spread out and sought cover. The curtain fell. The back door squeaked open. The old man hobbled out onto the concrete block porch, one shirt tail un-tucked, posture listing. He laid into Baas, scolding him with surprising vigor, white-stubbled jowls flapping like laundry, voice raspy as a dog's bark.

"The poor man has no idea," whispered Ara. "He speaks to Baas as if he's caught a child playing in his yard."

Baas rotated his crossbow slowly up to meet the man's chest. The old man aborted his tirade mid-sentence. Lips trembling, he stumbled back inside. The door slammed. The latch rattled shut.

Baren rose from behind a stone wall. "I thought you said this house was abandoned."

"So, I thought," said Baas. "I can clear it."

"No," said Baren, stepping onto the wall as the others emerged around him. "We'll find another place. Camp up the hill if we have to."

Baren's gaze lingered on the shed. Seor held her breath. He turned abruptly and strode back towards the road.

Shouts rang out. It was Canu, calling excitedly from the watch point, in Sesep'o.

Baren froze. Baas un-slung his crossbow.

*****

Chapter 65: Destination Sinta

For a while, Frank's heart behaved as if the arrhythmia had never happened – like a puppy feigning innocence after shredding the sofa to bits. He slapped two fingers on his wrist to make sure. One beat followed another in a calm, even cadence.

Then it stopped.

He waited for the beating to resume. And waited. The air drained out of the room. He gasped and slid off the stool. His visual field closed in like the walls of a cave.

Tezhay dropped to his knees beside him. "You okay?" Tezhay's words sounded hollow, distant. Harm rushed over, alarmed.

Frank's body gave no hint that the stillness in his breast would be anything but permanent. His senses fizzled. The room receded.

Out of nowhere, an intense contraction erupted, as if a uterus had replaced his heart, and he made up for lost pumping with a clench violent enough to squeeze out twins. The beat resumed, fibrillation and ectopy intact. He breathed fast and deep. The world swirled back open. His head pounded.

"What happen?" said Tezhay.

Frank propped himself up on his elbows and rested his head against the built up rim of the fire pit. Time slipped. His breath returned and he lifted his head to find three sets of eyes staring at him. Sibara handed him a bowl of water. Frank took a sip and choked on it.

"This ... Lizbet," he said, voice raspy. "Is she ... mertvo?"

"You feeling better now?" said Tezhay.

"Answer my question! She alive or dead?"

"Why you care so much about this one?" said Tezhay.

"Why do you think, dumbass?" Frank dragged himself back onto the stool. "This Lizbet might be my wife."

Tezhay smirked. "How you know?"

"Her name, for one thing," said Frank, snidely. "And the timing matches up. I lost her in May, 1991. The fourteenth, to be exact."

"I thought you say she go to Piliar," said Tezhay, taking the shingle from Frank and passing it back to Sibara.

"You're the one who told me all exiles go to Piliar."

"I say no such thing," said Tezhay.

Frank sighed, exasperated. "So, is she alive or what? No mertvo?"

Sibara glanced at the shingle. He flipped it back into the pile with a flick of his wrist, muttering in a combination of Russian and Giep'o.

"Zhevoy?" said Frank. "What does that mean?"

"Kovalev no make mark for one year," Tezhay relayed. "But when this card last have mark, she is good. She was alive."

Frank tingled with a buzzing warmth. For a moment, he worried it might be another sign of cardiac failure. But he remained alert and strong.

"But one year is long time," said Tezhay. "We don't know if Venep'o take her like Kovalev. Sibara say she stay near Sinta. A place with some very bad fightings. Cuasar kill some people and burn farm because of Nalki. Is not safe place."

Frank retrieved the shingle from the pile. "What about all this other stuff written on here. Dates and numbers. What's that all about?" He passed the shingle back to Sibara, who accepted with annoyance. He turned it toward the light flickering from the hearth and recited its contents in a mechanical sing-song.

"Is spouses and childrens," said Tezhay. "Visits to Kovalev. Things like this."

"Children?" said Frank. "And spouses? Plural? Is my name on that card?"

Tezhay consulted with Sibara.

"Is it?"

"No," said Tezhay. "But maybe this not your Lizbet. Is maybe someone else."

"Well, what else does it say on the shingle? Give me details."

"It say she has ... had ... two husband, one wife."

"T-two? And a wife?" Frank had difficulty imagining Liz as a polyandrist.

"One husband is ... dead. One may be prisoner. Wife is okay."

"Well, yippee for that, I suppose," said Frank. "These husbands of hers... were they exiles?"

"No. Both Giep'o." Tezhay sucked air through his teeth. "Bimji ... this one name is familiar ... not common for Gi. I think maybe I once meet a Bimji. He was Nalki." Sibara spoke over Tezhay's musings. "Ah, but the wife ... is new wife ... only one year ... and this one is exile."

"Kids?"

"Four," said Tezhay. "Two dead babies. But two live to grow up, according to Kovalev."

"Jesus. How old are they?"

"The girl ... maybe sixteen years now. Boy ... almost twenty."

Frank's heart pounded more than it skipped now. Sweat misted his brow and slickened his palms.

"My God. That boy ... that boy could be mine," said Frank. "The timing's about right."

"His name, Tom," said Tezhay. "And the girl is Elee ... Elly ... something like this."

"Eleanor," said Frank, under his breath. "That was Liz's mother's name." Frank's feelings wandered, unable to fix on a single emotion. They included joyous disbelief, for having found her; jealousy, over her infidelity; anxiety, over her safety. He felt an intense urge to see her, while they both lived. The possibility of coming so close and having it all go for naught, mortified him.

All those years, all those relationships; while Frank had lived practically a hermit. But how could he expect her to drop into such a harsh environment, surrounded by an alien culture and not reach out for human comfort, for love? She had no other recourse but be absorbed. Liz had gone native. What choice did she have?

Tom. They had discussed baby names, but Tom or Thomas had never made the short list, nor would it ever, had he been consulted. He wondered how she came up with that name. There were no Thomases on Liz's side of the family.

Could he really be this Tom's father? Was it possible she was pregnant when she vanished? Considering such loaded possibilities was almost enough to stop his heart again, and for good.

Frank had difficulty imagining Liz spending a lifetime in a place like Gi. Though, she had adjusted admirably to life at Rio Frio, Frank remembered how she insisted on accompanying any and every errand to San Ignacio, no matter how trivial or tedious. She would devour and hoard any newspaper that showed up at the mission. Day after day she would intricately and obsessively plan their stateside leave, even though Christmas was many months away.

It must have driven her to tears to realize her plans would never be consummated, that she had forever lost any possibility of touching base with her old school friends, replenishing her licorice supply or restocking her collection of paperbacks. He couldn't imagine how she had handled nearly two decades in a place even more austere and alienating than backwoods Belize.

And here, unlike Rio Frio, she had had to endure it all without him. He liked to think at least that his presence would have made some of these deprivations bearable.

Harm's chin began to droop and he slumped on his stool. Sibara flipped Liz's shingle into the pile, got up and led the groggy child to one of the hammocks hanging along the wall of the hut. Harm slithered into one and curled up, asleep in seconds.

"Is it far?" said Frank. "This Sinta?"

"Not as far as we walk already," said Tezhay. "But I don't think for your health, for safe, is good for travel right now."

"I'm fine. Just show me the way. I'm good to go."

"No. You stay here some time with Sibara. When things become quiet and you feel better, then he can show you."

"When things become quiet?" said Frank. "When will that be?"

"I don't know," said Tezhay.

"Maybe never?"

"Maybe. But I no think so. Not never."

"Listen. I may never feel better than I feel right now. With my heart the way it is, I may not have many days to spare. I need to go to Sinta soon. Will you or won't you take me?"

Tezhay stared into space, avoiding Frank's eyes. "You can come with me. But you must understand, this is place of war. If we have trouble, I will leave you behind. I can't take care of you."

"Just point me in the right directon. I can get there on my own."

Something crashed and clanged outside Sibara's door. Angry voices ran out. Someone wailed. Objects thudded into the wall.

Sibara hustled over and slid a heavy wooden bolt over the door. Water began to drip through the thatch into hollows carved into the clay floor, which in turn fed into drainage channels to a central pit. Sibara, apparently knew his leaks well.

Frank fished Liz's shingle out of the pile yet again. He noticed a thin stack of fine-grained shingles, bleached almost white, bound in a black ribbon. The top shingle carried carefully-inked Cyrillic script with almost calligraphic scrolls, flourishes and borders. It looked like a title page, something that Kovalev considered special. Frank tucked it inside his jacket to save it from the fire, the least he could do for the legacy of the man who helped him find Liz.

*****

Chapter 66: The Beet Fields

Shoes strapped, satchel packed, Tezhay stood in Sibara's doorway watching the clouds spit on Raacevo. The rain reminded Tezhay of the limp showers that often linger like afterthoughts in the wakes of thunderstorms. But unlike those straggling mists, this rain refused to quit, sustaining a state of perpetual dissipation. Drizzle accumulated till the city dripped and ran and the end result was no different from a downpour.

Merchants emerged to repair the damage wreaked by the Polus' crackdown the night before. They pegged stands back together, patched awnings with coarse twine and strips of cloth. One family, their table too splintered to salvage, arrayed their corms and tubers between puddles on the ground.

Tezhay had spent a difficult night. Unaccustomed to hammocks, he awoke often, each time to see Doctor Frank still sitting by the fire, picking through Kovalev's shingles. With the first dim premonitions of dawn, when Tezhay slipped out of his hammock for good, he found the doctor curled up, unconscious on the hard floor, and thought him dead. A finger pressed against his neck revealed a fast and jittery pulse.

Later, when Sibara's rattlings and Harm's chatter had awakened the doctor, he had looked about frantically, as if worried Tezhay had left without him. As if he could deny the doctor his wish, possibly his last.

"I'm over here," Tezhay had called out from across the hearth, pulling on shoes that remained damp. Doctor Frank's face unclenched with relief as he pulled himself up onto a stool and slumped over the hearth, gingerly slipping sandals over feet gory with torn blisters and abrasions.

Harm recoiled at the sight of the doctor's feet. He searched the shelves by Sibara's wash basin, ignoring Sibara's grumbles. He came up with a crock of greasy, yellow ointment and daubed Doctor Frank's sores. He then tore strips from his lambskin pouch and tucked them under the doctor's sandal straps to ease the rubbing.

Tezhay, imposing patience on himself, ensconced himself in the doorway to watch rain, adjusting the shawl of oil cloth Sibara had given him. Warmth from a packet of puffed grain, toasted over Kovalev's shingles, penetrated the walls of his satchel.

The doctor rose to join him, but stood too fast and his eyes went hazy. He would have toppled if Harm hadn't grabbed his elbow. Tezhay wondered how he expected to walk to Sinta in such condition. Halfway to Xama on the Maora road Sinta lay half a day away at the pace of a healthy man, not accounting for delays. Hiring a cart to carry him would have made sense, except that carts these days attracted the unhealthy attentions of Crasacs and Polus.

Even if the doctor managed to haul his carcass to Sinta, Tezhay wondered what he would do if they found the village burned to cinders and its population slaughtered? Or what if this Lizbet was either the wrong one or dead or gone and no one was willing or able to host a sickly exile? What then? Should he abandon the doctor along the road? Allow the elements or Cuasars to claim him?

Smuggling Doctor Frank back through the portals was out of the question. The xenolith Tezhay sought was regulated by the cadre and heavily trafficked by militia. Neither group would tolerate a reverse passage by an exile.

As the doctor wobbled back over to the door, he looked like someone who had just crawled off his death bed; eye sockets like caves, complexion gone dead fish grey. Perhaps the true conundrum was what to do when the doctor collapsed and died on the road. Without a shovel, a shallow grave, like Eghazi's, would probably be the best he could do for the man. Maybe a cross of twig and twine, in line with his customs.

Sibara came up behind them. "You're a fool, for going east. Told Kovalev the same.

Everyone knows the Alar's all agitated about goings on out there, jumping on anything that smells like a Nalki."

Tezhay's eyes flicked up to meet Sibara's. "I thought Kovalev was snatched from his own house?"

"He was," said Sibara. "But he was going east the next day, so they would've gotten him anyway."

"I don't have much choice," said Tezhay. "It's where I need to be. And this one ..." He looked at the slouching doctor. "He won't have it any other way."

Sibara stared down at his feet. "You'll raise your chances if you keep off the roads," he muttered. "They're crawling with the Alar's horsemen."

"Do the Cuasars patrol far?" said Tezhay. "I'd rather not be slogging through fields and forest the entire way."

"All the way to Maora and back," said Sibara. "Hunting Nalkies. And when they can't find none, they pull their sabers on any poor twit they find."

"I see."

Sibara glanced out into the alley. "Misty. Should help keep you out of sight, till you can reach the forest."

"We are grateful for your help," said Tezhay, attempting to bump shoulders with Sibara, who turned away, retreating towards his hearth. Harm came over and gave Tezhay a hearty, leaping bump.

"Are you making your way back alone?" said Tezhay.

"Oh no-o-o-o!" said the boy. "My sister's meeting me at the bridge and she's bringing the cousins."

Tezhay fished inside his satchel for Eghazi's parchment prayer book. "I know you're not Sinkor, but this might come in handy if the Polus nab you." The boy accepted it with a grin and tucked it away.

Harm approached Doctor Frank, who, looking pained, forced a smile. The doctor mis-aimed his bump, glancing his shoulder off of Harm's. He stumbled out into the alley. Harm held out his hand, and the doctor, after momentary befuddlement, shook it.

With a nod, they headed off up the alley. Tezhay walked slowly at first, paying close attention to Doctor's Frank's fitness. Once they got going, the doctor fared much better than Tezhay thought him capable. He breathed hard, and his steps landed heavily, but he kept up. Tezhay stepped up the pace to see how much the doctor could handle.

Debris still clogged the alley near the plaza. Here, in sight of the garrison, no one dared remove it. A scrawny cat made skeletal by sodden fur licked at a dark splotch staining a building's corner stone. Beside it, a puddle of rain-thinned blood bled into a clearer puddle joined by a trickle. Doors slammed shut as they approached; eyes watched them pass from behind broken shutters.

They passed south, skirting the plaza, which was now nearly empty of the Cuasars and horses that had been encamped and stabled there the day before. Crasac sentries watched them warily but posed no challenge to them or few other souls braving the streets. The temple and fortifications of the Alar loomed large over the plaza, atop a long, treeless slope, its base stubbled with the remains of dwellings whose bricks had been cannibalized to construct a wall. Its proximity afflicted Tezhay with a dread that made him walk still faster, further testing the limits of the doctor's stamina.

The neighborhoods quickly grew sparse. Large, connected structures transitioned to small and separate huts with gardens and paddocks. Outer Raacevo felt more like a discrete collection of villages than the extension of a city.

Life was calmer on the fringes. Despite the proximity of the Alar's wall, these neighborhoods showed no signs of the previous night's crackdown. Oblivious to the rain, residents went about their morning chores, stoking fires, fetching water, leading animals out to common grazing grounds on the hillside. The earthy aromas of roasting roots filtered through the fences.

Where the land gave way, so did the villages, flowing like gravy over cake. But the dwellings ended abruptly against the first of a descending series of terraces, with strips of dark-leafed bean and pepper interspersed with iridescent blue and chartreuse of young rye and tef. Only the deepest hollows went uncultivated.

The fields stepped down to a confluence of small rivers, both tributaries of the Sikla. Downstream, a road divided, one heading north towards the broad valley that harbored the colony farms of Verden, the other east over an arching stone bridge into narrower, forested valleys harboring the towns of Sinta and Xama, over the mountains into the grasslands of Maora. Sibara told them that the Lizbet woman, if she still existed, might be found on a small farm perched in a hanging valley above Sinta.

Tezhay took pity on Doctor Frank and slowed his pace, finally stopping entirely and waiting for the lumbering doctor to catch up.

"Any chance a city like this would have any of that bolovo?" said Doctor Frank, dropping heavily to the ground.

"I told you," said Tezhay. "Not this side of ocean."

"Wishful thinking," said the doctor.

"You walking ... pretty good."

"Not as strong as yesterday, said Doctor Frank. "You'll have to bear with me." He had a fistful of Sibara's grain that he had been chewing on along the way.

"Save some for later," said Tezhay. "It may be only food we get."

Tezhay squatted down and studied the valley for a passable route. The eastern road looked like trouble. Overturned carts blocked both sides of the bridge. Crasac sentries milled about under impromptu rain shelters rigged with posts and canvas.

A clear stretch of northern road passed directly below them, curving around the backside of the Alar's hill. Beet fields laced with windbreaks undulated beyond. Across this expanse, Tezhay could see the eastern road disappear into trees, well beyond the bridge and barricades. They would need to cross two streams to reach the forest, but neither looked impassable.

Doctor Frank had subsided into clumps of stubbled hay, huffing air like a boated fish. Though he didn't look rousable, he clambered to his feet the instant he saw Tezhay stand, eager to move on.

Tezhay kept to an uncultivated hollow in the slope, using its scattering of scrub to screen them from the sentries below. Rivulets carved channels in the clay that sometimes ran beneath the soil's surface in tubes that collapsed when trod. The steepness challenged his grace. Doctor Frank kept slipping to his knees in the slick mud.

The northern road bore the mark of many hooves and boots. None looked fresh, but Tezhay saw no need to add fresh ones for some enterprising or bored Crasac to track. He veered away from the road, climbing out of the gully and along a meager fence of braided thorn that kept stray goats out of the rye. They heard the rush of the stream unseen in its channel.

The Alar's hill rose before them, its forested backside bearing little evidence of occupation but for a heliograph tower jutting above the trees on the upper slopes. The rains had rendered its signal mirrors dark and mute. Tezhay didn't dare wander too near, knowing there must be guard posts and fortifications hidden among the trees.

"Tugga-tut! Tugga tugga-tut! Tugga tugga tugga tugga tugga tugga!"

Distant, but loud, it echoed between valleys and then was gone, followed by a silence that made raindrops striking leaves sound like explosions.

Tezhay and Doctor Frank stood staring at each other. "What was this?" said Tezhay, frozen in mid-stride.

"Weird," said Doctor Frank. "Sounded like a ... machine gun."

Tezhay looked back towards where the northern road left the main road. He could hear men's voices, excited, but the junction was empty. The stone bridge lay out of sight beyond a clump of trees.

"Is no more," said Tezhay, shrugging. "We cross here." He slid down the bank on his heels and hopped the shallow ditch at the bottom. He hesitated, looking for a way to minimize their tracks, but the road was a sheet of mud, so he bounded across on the tips of his toes in three wide leaps, not bothering to ask the cloddish doctor to copy him. They would have to rely on the rain to disguise their crossing.

Tezhay pushed through a patch of saw-toothed grass to get to the stream, which ran swiftly through a rocky bed. Luckily, it had not yet risen much from the rains, at its deepest, barely covering their knees.

Beet fields abutted the opposite bank, as close as could be plowed. Leaf clusters so dark they seemed black, arced away in sinuous rows that revealed the curve of the land. Windbreaks of diked earth and young trees criss-crossed the expanse. A cottage and stable topped a distant rise.

Doctor Frank looked across the fields, sodden pants clinging, revealing skinny legs. "Christ," he said.

"What is wrong?" said Tezhay.

"All those beets." He sighed. "I hate beets."

The confluence and bridge were now visible, which meant they would be seen if they simply trudged across the middle of the field. But the windbreaks offered cover. Tezhay made for the nearest before turning towards the east.

Odd, that no farmer worked any of the fields, though the morning was well advanced and the beets seemed in urgent need of thinning and weeding. Tezhay's stomach knotted. It would take more than a gentle rain to keep the farmers out of their fields.

As they rounded the top of the gently mounded landscape, the hollow nestling the eastern branch of the river came into view.

Doctor Frank jogged up behind Tezhay, close enough to whisper. "We're being watched," he wheezed.

Tezhay spotted them. Two young men, unveiled, knelt at a juncture between a windbreak and a stone wall. They faced the northern road and the Alar's hill, longbows at the ready. The men did not greet them, threaten them, or even try to speak as Tezhay and Doctor Frank approached. One indicated with a firm flick of his head that they should keep moving.

"Nalkies?" said Doctor Frank.

"No talk. And no stare. Just keep on walk."

"What are they doing?"

"No talk!"

They passed alongside a stone wall connecting the two windbreaks, also swarming with Nalkies, lying prone, facing down slope towards the bridge; a roughly even mixture of women and men, old and young, veiled and unveiled. How reckless of them to operate so close to Raacevo.

The second windbreak harbored two lines of warriors, one behind the tree-covered berm itself, and another in a drainage ditch that fronted it. They carried longbows and spears. None spoke. They hardly budged, looking like toy soldiers that someone had left out in the rain. Their attention fixed down slope towards the river. Few even bothered to glance at Tezhay and Doctor Frank, who no longer lagged behind.

Doctor Frank gawked over his shoulder. "Are we sure we want to go this way?"

"No look!" Tezhay scolded. "Maybe they want set ambush. You ruin if you keep look."

They were halfway across the next beet field, with no more windbreaks to protect them, when snorts and rustling erupted from the riverbank below. Tezhay altered course to take them towards a berm far up the fields that would take them away from the river but out of the line of fire.

A brilliant white light flared atop the Mercomar station on the hill. Tezhay knew they ignited metal powders to send messages in the night, but this flash was immediately followed by hoof beats thudding up the riverbank. Someone on the Alar's hill was coordinating an attack from afar. Tezhay felt sick. The Nalkies were not the hunters but the hunted.

Tezhay stopped.

"What's happening?" said Doctor Frank.

A squadron of Cuasars with lances surged from the riverbed. They tore through the beets, mud clods flying, galloping in a tight cluster towards the Nalkies' left flank.

It looked like the horsemen would ride past them if they stayed put. A second group of lancers emerged and destroyed that hope, arraying themselves in a long line atop the riverbank. Their captain raised a black-barred flag. The riders started forward at a slow trot.

"Maybe they'll ignore us?" said Doctor Frank.

"Yes, maybe," said Tezhay.

"You think?"

"Like they ignore Eghazi."

The first wave of lance-wielders broke formation, exploding like bees from a hive, riders peeling off and sweeping across the Nalki front. By the riverbank, a red flag rose. The second wave charged straight for the Nalki line, Tezhay and Doctor Frank standing in their path like mileposts in the middle of the field.

Nalki arrows began to fly. Tezhay sidled away from Doctor Frank. He crouched, balancing on the balls of his feet, seeing no recourse but to get low and try to dodge. If they ran, they would be run down. The doctor was on his own now. Tezhay would be lucky to save himself.

The first wave of Cuasars swept before the Nalki line, drawing volleys that mainly missed their mark or slapped into the thick padding armoring the Cuasars and their mounts. The Nalkies took no casualties, but dropped only a few lancers as they swarmed towards a position on the thinly defended Nalki flank. Meanwhile, the second wave of lancers advanced full-bore and untouched behind their screen.

Tezhay studied the spacing and attitude of the advancing riders, locating the one most likely to line up Tezhay with his lance. He found two riders measure him up, making slight adjustments to their course, lowering lances. Tezhay stepped crab-like to one side, taking one rider out of contention and faced down the other, waiting till the last possible moment before feinting one way, spinning the other. The Cuasar brushed past so close Tezhay could smell his horse, his lance catching nothing but air.

Doctor Frank rolled among the beets, barely evading hooves and several lances that swooped down to impale him but only scratched the earth. When yet another rider drew a bead on him, a flurry of arrows came overhead. The mount pulled up and the lancer was thrown, landing headfirst with a sickening crunch. The horse stumbled and collapsed with an arrow in its throat.

The lancers passed, maintaining their formation and discipline, leaving Tezhay and Doctor Frank intact in their wake. Tezhay started to run towards the river. Yet another wave of Cuasars appeared atop the riverbank to put an end to any notion of escape.

The Nalkies swapped bows for pikes and spears as the second wave of lancers crashed into their line. Simultaneously, the first wave wheeled about and attacked their flank, some dismounting to pry defenders out of ditches. Meanwhile, the third wave of Cuasars, lances stowed, sabers drawn, came forward without hesitation,

Doctor Frank crawled behind a fallen horse, a twitching hoof almost catching him in the face. The sabers closed in. Tezhay left his dagger sheathed, knowing his only hope, again, was to dodge and run and pray there were no more Cuasars waiting in the riverbed.

He identified the Cuasar in the best position to take him on, and stood facing the rider, waving and imploring for mercy with his palms up, though he knew Cuasar doctrine advocated clearing battlefields to prevent trickery. He wanted to make the rider think he had an easy target, staring into the open helm, looking into his mature and focused eyes, trying to smile like a naïve and innocent farmer who thought he had a chance.

He waited until the saber rose to strike him and dove across the horse's path to the man's left. The saber sang through the air as Tezhay rolled in the mud, bounded upright and stumbled towards the river.

Tezhay glanced back towards the crumbling Nalki line. Unlike the lancer before, the saber-wielder had wheeled about and was coming back for him, determined to finish the job. He reached for Eghazi's pathetic dagger, and enjoyed his next breath as if it would be his last.

*****

Chapter 67: AK-47

A third wave of Cuasars topped the bank and thundered towards them in a loose formation. Lances sheathed, they wielded sabers curved at hilt and tip, whose gleam cut through the mists.

Tezhay stood upright and in the open, waving like a spectator at a military parade. What prompted such insanity, Frank didn't speculate. He winced and turned away, certain that Tezhay would soon be minus one head, and that his own would roll shortly thereafter.

Frank expected to die soon enough, but not this soon, and not so violently. He huddled against the ribs of the dying horse, feeling just as helpless and hopeless. The horse's legs twitched feebly; its blood filled a furrow beneath the bronze-headed arrow protruding from its throat. Its rider lay spread-eagled across the dark soil, un-pierced but trampled, with one too many joints in his leg and a dent in his helmet-less head.

Impelled to peek, Frank glanced up in time to witness Tezhay perform a feat of gymnastics that would have snapped Frank's spine had he attempted it: diving and rolling to his feet in one smooth action, evading blade and hoof, bounding to his feet and sprinting towards the river.

But the Cuasar did not abandon his quarry so easily. He pulled back the reins, let his mount regain its balance, and went stalking back after Tezhay, his blade loose and limber like an extension of his arm. He would not be satisfied till Tezhay's body lay still.

Frantic with the prospect of sharing Eghazi's nearly headless fate, Frank sought some means of defense. A splintered lance lay trapped beneath the legs of the dying horse. A sheathed saber dangled from the belt of the dead Cuasar. But neither either inspired as much hope against the Cuasar's terrible grace as the large crossbow stowed behind the saddle, fastened with a pair of quick-release hitches.

Frank tugged at the ends of each rope and the weapon dropped free. A thick bolt, the length of a man's arm, was already slotted but un-cocked. Frank struggled to understand its mechanism which, despite its apparent simplicity, evaded his panic-addled brain.

The Cuasar had cut off Tezhay's flight to the river and forced him back towards Frank. Tezhay backpedaled, hopping and dodging, probing for a way around his attacker. The riverbed lay only about fifty meters beyond.

The rider swooped in, swinging his blade down with power enough to cleave Tezhay in half. Tezhay leaped aside as the saber nicked his satchel, spilling kernels of puffed grain onto the dark mud. The Cuasar pulled up again to turn, but spotted Frank fiddling with the crossbow. He spurred his horse on, coming after Frank like a hunter settling for easier prey after failing to bag a nimble hare.

He held onto the crossbow, too petrified to toss it and run. His fingers slid along the smooth wood and settled into a hollow against the bulge of a contoured lever, the design guiding his hand to a place that felt as natural and inevitable as two kittens snuggling. He grabbed the lever and pulled. A ratchet crackled. The string tensed.

As the lever clicked into place, his hand brushed two arcs of bronze aching for two fingers to slide into them – the trigger. The Cuasar bore down, taking a line slightly to Frank's right to avoid the fallen horse but allow free play for his sword hand. Only a few gallops away, Frank lifted the crossbow. With no time to aim, he just pointed and pulled.

The trigger resisted Frank. He exerted more pressure, but it wouldn't budge. He wondered if it had a safety lock. The Cuasar's saber neared the apogee of its windup.

Frank had a clear look at the Cuasar's face: smooth and young, retaining a touch of baby fat. His expression was like a football player intent on making a tackle. He probably looked forward to sharing this war story over a meal back at the garrison. Frank saw in him a boy with a larger claim on life, a future more potent with possibilities.

Concurrent with the urge to dash the weapon down and cringe, the trigger dissolved. A bolt ejected, catching the boy beneath the place where his breast plate curved to accommodate his hips. His saber released, flying up into the mists, end over end. The boy slipped out of his saddle, dangling like a sack of potatoes as his listing horse bounded past.

Frank dropped the crossbow and ran for the spot where Tezhay's form had just disappeared through the fringe of willows topping the riverbank. He whirled around, fearing pursuit, and witnessed a rout in progress. The thin Nalki line had tattered. The survivors fled but were cut down one by one, as yet another force, on foot and swaddled in blue, swarmed down the Alar's hill.

Frank popped through the willows and slid down the riverbank, splashing into water deeper and swifter than the northern tributary. Tezhay, standing amidst a jumble of boulders, looked stunned.

"You live. How?" said Tezhay.

Frank gasped, stepping out of the stream. "Guess it's not my time."

"You face red," said Tezhay, studying him. "Your heart is good?"

"Works better when it's beating this fast, I suppose."

"So we must keep it beat fast," said Tezhay.

"But not by playing matador with cavalry, if you don't mind," said Frank.

"No worry. Excite may be good for your heart, not mine," said Tezhay. "From now on, we walk in forest. No more in field."

Abandoned clothing and bedding littered the boulders. Spread on the rocks to dry, the owners had never come back to retrieve them. Shirts blown off the rocks lay rumpled, spattered with silt, sleeves wafting in the current.

Tezhay clambered over the boulders, and into a patch of tree ferns. As Frank's pulse wound down, the riverbed began to spin. He vomited bits of grain. Voices from the beet fields sent him scrambling after Tezhay.

Tezhay lingered at the edge of the eastern road, staring towards the stone bridge and the trees that blocked it, both alarmingly close.

"Where to now?" said Frank.

"Away from road," said Tezhay. "Road is danger." He flitted across and plunged into the forest, Frank close on his heels.

They meandered through a chaos of undergrowth. Tree ferns transitioned to a mix of hardwood and evergreen. Happening upon a footpath, Tezhay seemed reluctant to take it, but Frank was grateful he did. With his sluggishness returning, every step again required concerted effort.

The path angled east, away from the road, through oozing, dripping, dribbling forest. Mist congealed on branches and dropped like bombs, splatting on their heads. The oil cloth that Sibara had given him now kept only two fingers of real estate dry on each shoulder.

At the base of a steep and stony ridge, the path deflected, keeping to the valley floor. Every ledge and cliff hosted a waterfall. Pebbles tumbled and clattered down surging chutes and rivulets. This runoff surpassed anything a persistent drizzle could have caused. Somewhere in the heights, a more potent storm prowled.

The dense overstory blotted light and robbed the forest floor of color; as if the forest were kelp and they walked along a sea bed, fifty fathoms down. Frank's feet felt as leaden as the shoes of a salvage diver; his lungs tight as if squeezed by a dozen atmospheres.

Frank fell behind, until he was alone on the footpath, rounding bends to find only empty path ahead. Ferns with soft fronds lined both sides and beckoned like feather beds. If he lay down, something told him he might never get up. But so what? What would he miss? Lizbet? Did he really believe this person, if they existed, could be his wife? She might be no more Elizabeth Barrett Bowen than Tezhay was Terrence Joseph Connolly – his high school buddy.

He had pursued false Elizabeth's before, like the never verified rumors of Liz dancing in night clubs in Santa Elena, or worse, the body the constables of San Ignacio had solemnly summoned him to identify, despite mismatching Liz in nearly every aspect – race, stature, physiognomy, age – everything except gender.

And if this Lizbet of Sinta was indeed his Liz, what if she was a war victim, as Sibara had warned? What comfort or fulfillment would there be in finding her body? What would be the point of traversing years and worlds and continents to find Liz a week too late for it to matter?

A patch of fuzzy, springy moss looked even more welcoming than the ferns. He could lie down, close his eyes, and let the mist kiss him goodnight. He turned a corner to find Tezhay stopped at a juncture with another trail.

"Some feet prints," Tezhay said. "Crasac come through here this morning. You hear or see anybody, you hide. Understand? No wait for me to tell."

"Why bother?" mumbled Frank.

Tezhay squinted at him. "What's wrong with you eyes?"

They walked side-by-side, Tezhay moving slower, more warily; listening, watching the forest, watching Frank. Frank's eyelids drooped. A thickness overcame him, as if his blood had turned to jelly.

"I'm gonna rest," Frank said, pulling up.

"No! No stop. We must keep move."

"I gotta lie down, just for a little bit." Frank steered himself towards a patch of ferns that looked particularly cushy, if soggy. As his knees gave way, Tezhay grabbed his wrist and slapped his face. Frank reared up and shoved Tezhay away.

"Don't you be fucking hitting me!" His heart accelerated. Alertness surged back like a hit of espresso.

"Is danger here," said Tezhay. "You need awake. You sleep here, maybe you not wake up." He wound up to slap Frank again, but this time Frank ducked away.

"Okay, I get the point. I'm wakey wakey now."

"I hit you again, if I see you sleepy. Understand?" Tezhay's eyes were wide and earnest.

"Yeah, well don't be surprised if I hit back," Frank muttered.

"Good." Tezhay smiled. "Be mad. If it keep you wake."

The trail took them to a place too dark even for moss, so dark, it seemed like night had fallen. Giant trees dwarfed the leafless and skeletal remains of out-competed neighbors, lichens and loose bark hanging from the limbs of the losers like sheets of rotted skin.

Another path joined in from the left, following along a brook surging with runoff from the ridge. Over it, the canopy thinned enough to return some green to the understory.

"We should be close for Sinta," said Tezhay. "Soon we find some people."

A pale thing, like an odd, bloated orchid, protruded from the ferns fringing a gully cutting into the stream bank.

It had toes.

Frank halted in the path. "Tezhay, there's—"

"Crasacs," said Tezhay, trotting up to the ditch. Pieces of burgundy and blue-striped armors were strewn about. Downstream, more bodies tumbled together, ten at least, all freshly killed, stripped of weapons.

Tezhay stuck his hand under the first one's breast plate. "This one ... still warm." The soldier had a small round hole in his breastplate, and a jagged crater in his back.

"Gunshot wound," said Frank. "What the fuck?"

Tezhay crossed over a simple, two-log bridge over the rushing gully.

"You sure you want to go this way?" said Frank.

Tezhay looked at him as if he was crazy. "Anyone who kills Crasac is our friend."

Frank held his breath and shambled over the slick logs, certain he would plunge into the drink. He slipped a bit, but made it to the soft earth beyond. Sheer cliffs reared up to their right, stepping up in a series of horizontal fractures and terraces. Another path split off to the right, climbing through a rubble patch, slanting up a fracture in the cliff face. Unseen behind a dimple in the cliff wall, a waterfall roared, and a larger creek collected and vanished into a gorge.

Tugga tugga tug!

A burst of gunfire sent bark and splinters spraying from the tree limbs above their heads.

Frank dove into the ferns. "I know that sound. That's a fucking AK!"

A bell clanged atop the cliffs.

Tezhay stepped forward, arms raised. "Hello! We are friend. Friend!"

"Don't move!" came a strained and cracking voice.

Tezhay kept going forward.

"That was English," said Frank, popping up. "He spoke English."

"Damn it! I said, don't move!"

Tugga Tug!

*****

Chapter 68: Tussle

Canu's triumphant whoops pealed from a wood obscured by a blue haze of burning charcoal.

Ara looked alarmed, but Ren's eyes shined. "He must have found the stone!" she whispered.

"Does he have to announce it to the world?" Seor hissed. The cadre scattered across the yard, weapons drawn. Baren held one hand up, and kept the other on his dagger, as he studied the forest fringing the shed.

Seor slithered back, away from the woodpile, Ara and Ren beside her. The cordwood shrouded their movements.

"I need to reach the shed before them," Seor whispered. "Divert them. But don't expose yourselves. Flee, then work your way back."

Seor rose into a crouch and threaded her way through a patch of tall, hollow-stemmed weeds. Cadre heads swiveled. Baren barked an order. Crossbows tracked Seor's progress as she ran bole to bole.

Behind her, an object knocked into the woodpile, dislodging a small log off the top. It rolled into the yard. Baren flicked his hand. The cadre reoriented towards the woodpile. Kera rushed to one side, training her crossbow on its flank.

Baas kept his eyes on Seor, who, giving up all pretense of stealth, dashed to the shed, rounding the back just as Canu arrived, all giddy.

"The convergence!" he said. "It's in the brook."

"Shush, Canu!" Seor eyed the hammer stuck under his belt. "Is that your only weapon?"

"This, too," he said demonstrating a blade that flicked and retracted like the tongue of a lizard.

"What's going on out there?" said Pari, her voice creaky, as if she had just awakened from a nap. She peeked through a crack in the wall of the shed.

"Keep away from the door," said Seor. "Or the cadre will pick you off. Is Vul in there with you?"

"Cadre?" said Canu.

"I'm right here," said Vul, coming around the corner of the shed, encumbered with an axe, a longbow, and a long-handled tree-trimmer – too many weapons to wield any effectively. "Mind Seor, Pari. If they saw me leave, they'll be ready for you."

"Get her out of there," said Seor. "Or she'll be like a fish in a bucket when they come around."

A siren sounded in the valley. Quickly, another joined it, their wails entwining.

Vul hacked with his axe while Canu pried off warped and mossy clapboards with the claw end of his hammer. They quickly made a hole large enough to tempt Pari, but she got hung up in the splinters when she tried to slip through prematurely. Vul grabbed her arms and hauled her out, snapping spikes of wood.

"Careful! My bow!" Pari scolded.

A bolt flitted past Vul's head, from a sniper lurking in an overgrown hedge between the shed and the road. Vul knelt behind a tree and slotted an arrow.

"Everyone back. Towards the stream!" Seor hissed.

"I have a good line on this one," said Vul. "Permission to shoot?"

Before Seor could answer, a bolt thumped into the punky wood by her elbow.

"Don't ask, Vul! Just shoot!" said Seor.

At the corner of the yard, she saw Baas slip warily into the forest. The shed door creaked open.

Vul's arrow sizzled through the leaves, and disappeared into the hedge, missing the unidentified sniper.

"Damn! Only five arrows and I wasted the best."

A metal door slammed. Again, the old man ranted with reedy indignance. But now, his voice sounded deeper, carrying a swagger that had been absent before.

Vul and Pari trotted after Seor towards the stream. The sirens grew louder, coming up the road behind the houses.

Seor paused, spotting Ren, with Ara behind her, circling through the woods, working their way back not to the stream, but towards the shed. Ren paused for cover on the wrong side of tree, unaware of Baas behind her on the edge of the yard.

"Ren!"

Baas' first bolt flew horribly true, catching Ren in the abdomen. She collapsed like a deer. Ara stooped to help Ren, but flinched back, barely avoiding the second bolt.

Yet another bolt shot forth from the sniper in the hedge. Pari slid into a muddy depression and returned an arrow of her own.

Seor relieved Vul of his tree trimmer. "You and Canu. Get to the convergence! Defend it."

Canu, staring grimly, walked off in the wrong direction.

"Canu?"

Canu strode towards Baas cautiously, flicking the finger long blade of his retractable knife.

"Canu! No!"

Baas diverted his attention from Ren and Ara, glancing back towards the yard as he slung his crossbow over his shoulder and drew his long dagger, his expression flat with purpose, like a weary farmer aiming to slay a chicken for his supper as if it were nothing but another chore. He closed the distance between himself and Canu with several bounds.

He took a swipe at Canu, carving slivers from the bark of a pine tree. Canu dodged between saplings, jabbing without any threat of touching Baas. Seor circled around to Baas' blind side, tree-trimmer extended like a saw-toothed pike. She could see Baas read Canu's reactions to his probes, seeking the recipe for a quick kill. Stepping back, Canu tripped over a root, simplifying Baas' task.

He moved in to finish Canu. Seor lunged, raking his torso with the toothed blade. Baas retreated, swinging his crossbow around to a firing position. Seor lunged after him, but the teeth of the trimmer caught on the bark of a tree and slipped from her grasp. Baas' eyes grew large as he drew his blade.

Canu's hammer flew past, tumbling head over handle. Baas ducked, but too late. It glanced off his crown. He dropped his dagger, crumpling to one knee, dazed. Ara came forward, a large stone in both hands.

"Finish him," said Seor, pouncing after the tree trimmer and scrambling to Ren's side.

Ara stood over Baas with the stone, as he teetered, eyes rolling. A bolt flew out from the yard, past her shoulder. Ara dropped the stone into the leaves and backed away from Baas, whose eyes had realigned and regained their clarity.

"So now she runs with the rats!" Baas grinned. He snatched his dagger and scrambled into the trees before Pari could fix her bow on him.

Seor stared at Ara. "Why didn't you—"

"I couldn't," said Ara, returning to Ren's side, where Canu knelt trying to stanch her bleeding with his shirt. Ren trembled. Her eyes traveled to a place far from Ur.

Baren and Dieno surged around the shed, glancing back towards the yard as they joined Baas on the fringe of the wood. The old man's ranting increased in volume. The shed door creaked open.

Snap! – cured sinew under tension, released. The old man gave a high-pitched yelp, but quickly his rage poured forth undammed.

Ba-Dum! – he answered as a new hole appeared in the side of the shed in a cloud of splinters and paint chips and dust. Someone inside groaned and slumped against the ragged hole. A second blast peppered the hedge, too high to harm but flushing the prone sniper. The wind carried a swath of acrid smoke.

The old man staggered around the corner of the shed, fingers trembling as he struggled to insert two red cylinders into a doubled metal pipe with a wooden stock. A crossbow bolt protruded from his clavicle. A red blotch grew down the front of his yellowed undershirt. He struggled to fold his weapon straight. Something was caught in its breach.

Baren looking flustered, retreated. Baas, stood his ground, slotting bolts, sizing up the old man.

"To the stone! Now," said Seor.

Sirens converged and crescendoed. Vapors billowed above the stream in clouds too symmetric for nature.

*****

Chapter 69: Ara Torn

Pari covered their retreat with a few well-placed arrows that kept the cadre cautious. Ara clenched hands with Canu to support Ren's torso while Seor held her legs. Every jarring footfall drew from Ren a groan.

The old man hobbled back towards his yard, his shotgun barrel dangling loose at the breech. Ratchets crackled as the cadre reloaded their crossbows, but they hung back, not understanding the shotgun's uselessness in its current state.

Baas circled out of dense underbrush, heading for a spot where he would have a clear shot at the old man. The old man backed away, his shouting gone hoarse, but still defiant.

"Fucking punks! You stuck me, you little bastards! Fucking bows and arrows! I'll fucking blow you away, you little fucks. Get out of my fucking yard."

Ara's double betrayal filled her with shame. She had turned her back on cadre mates with whom she had lived and trained and joked with for over a year. And she had threatened the welfare of her new friends by sparing Baas.

How different Baas' fighting skills and taste for blood sport had seemed when Cuasar patrols threatened them in Gi. Ara had looked up to him then as a surly but protective older brother. How could she murder one she had once held in such high regard? Though, she knew Baas would have no trouble reciprocating.

Two blurs of black paint and blue light flashed around the corner and squealed into the old man's driveway. Baas flicked a hand signal. The cadre melted into the forest. Four frantic policemen scrambled out of their cars.

"Drop your weapon!" they screamed, fanning out around the old man, pistols drawn. "Drop it, right now."

"It's not me you want. It's them." The old man pointed where the cadre had just been, but the swampy wood was suddenly vacant but for the slight rustle of bush, a subtle bob of fern.

"Right now! I said drop it, and get down." The policeman's voice was so shrill it fractured.

One of the officers spotted Ara and the others struggling to maneuver Ren towards the stream and reached for his radio. Ren had gone limp, passed out from the pain.

They found Vul stationed dutifully by the boulder, bowstring drawn, wheeling about to threaten any face that dared peek around the house across the stream. One of his arrows impaled the clapboards. The smell of burnt meat wafted from an untended grill.

A small vortex reared from the stream, its mists sketching the knotty contours of the convergence. For a few meters behind the stone, the stream appeared to run backwards before parting and rising up the bank to either side. To Ara, the field looked too weak to cross, but its strength still waxed. The possibility of passage lay only moments away.

More vehicles arrived on the road behind the house. Police cars, black vans, a fire truck, an ambulance.

"Looks ready. Let's go!" said Canu.

"Not yet, stay away from it," said Seor, sitting with Ren's head in her lap as Pari attended to the wound in Ren's chest. Ren looked barely conscious.

"Her belly's tight. She's bled a lot inside," said Pari. "It doesn't look good."

Seor glanced up at Ara, her expression flat. "Whatever happened to your friends?"

Seor's derisive tone bothered Ara, but she pretended not to notice. "I don't know. I think they've fled."

"The old man's disarmed," said Pari. "Two of the constables are coming this way."

"Look at it now!" said Canu. "It's plenty strong. Let's go."

"Not yet!" said Seor. "I'll tell you when it's time. Pari should go first with Ren. Vul, you help them. Then Canu, and Ara, if she still cares to join us. I'll go last, as usual."

"If you left Ren here, Urep'o doctors might save her," said Ara. "They can mend the most severe injuries here."

"Leave her behind?" said Pari, appalled.

"We never leave our own," said Seor. "Not if we can help it."

"Ara's right," said Canu. "The doctors are very skilled here."

Pari glared.

Policemen wearing face shields and armor began to advance from the house. Others filtered into the woods from the old man's yard. A loudspeaker crackled and honked.

"What are they saying?" said Seor.

"That we should put down our weapons and lay on the ground," said Ara.

"And if not?" said Seor.

"They will shoot," said Ara.

Canu tossed aside his knife and dropped to the ground. Vul stood looking at Ara as if she were insane. "But they hold weapons against us."

"Yes, better, stronger weapons," said Ara. "It will borrow some time if we follow their direction. We don't want them to feel threatened."

"The convergence is almost ready," said Seor. "Put down your weapons, but keep them close. We'll carry what we can through the portal."

The loudspeaker bleated, repetitive and ever more shrill.

"Get down on the ground! Right now! Get your asses down on the ground! Down on the ground!"

Ara caught a movement in a patch of brush – the brassy glint of a crossbow bolt. She didn't mention it yet to the others, fearing it would provoke a dangerous reaction. They would all be through the portal momentarily.

She raised her hands and descended to her knees, keeping a nervous eye on the quivering bush where she had spotted the glint. The convergence had a compressed look about it, like a sack bursting with cats trying to claw their way out. It stole bits of light from the forest, stretching and doling it out in new patterns, a sign that expansion was imminent.

"Pari, get ready," said Seor, still standing before the boulder. "Vul, help her."

"Get down on the ground! Get down on the ground!"

"You should get down, right away, comrades," said Ara. "They're sounding anxious."

The convergence opened up like a spinning dancer extending arms.

"Now!" said Seor.

With Vul's assistance, Pari dragged Ren to the portal. Ren, unconscious, made no complaint for her rough transport. The portal enveloped and consumed her and Pari. Vul hesitated, glancing back for Seor's approval. Seor nodded.

A figure reared up from the ferns. With two clicks, two bolts flew, prompting guns to flash among the advancing line of police.

*****

Chapter 70: The Final Convergence

The first bolt cracked a chip off the boulder and careened into Seor's leg. The second pried a gap straight between Seor's ribs and wedged in deep. Fletching protruded from her pink blouse like a pinned flower. Seor gasped, feeling first an intense pressure, then pain unlike any she had ever known; worse even than her breech delivery, when baby Dima seemed to tear her way out in desperation to be born.

Some of the projectiles fired by the police were diverted and intercepted by the portal. Others, on the fringes, whipped around and boomeranged back to those who delivered them, smacking their shields and peppering the white fence. The police halted their advance and held their fire.

Seor's legs could not support her. She collapsed. Ara reacted quickly, reaching in to cushion her fall. Vul strained towards them, but he was already in the grip of the portal, helpless as a kitten pawing against a torrent. His feet sought purchase in the gravely bank. The sapling he clung to, uprooted.

"Go, Vul. Go!" said Canu, pushing at his comrade, his back to Seor.

"Help Seor!" bellowed Vul. "She's hit."

A frigid wind swirled out of the convergence and frosted the leafy branches caught in its swirl. Part of the stream ran in and blew back as snow.

The portal claimed Vul suddenly, and he was gone, sucked down like a leaf that had been clogging a drain. Canu turned and smiled as he stepped towards the convergence, but his expression palled when he saw Seor on the ground with blood trickling from her mouth, and oozing between her fingers. But he, too, was swept into the portal before he could respond.

A voice filtered through the portal, distorted into something resembling the distant scraping of a tree cricket, and barely recognizable as Canu's. He urged Seor and Ara to follow. His blurry form floated in and out of view like a carp in a silted pond.

Shots exploded from the police traversing the swamp behind them. Shreds of fern leaped, trees shuddered where Baas had stood with his crossbow. Seor did not see him fall.

Ara knelt beside her. "I'll will stay with you," she said softly. "I can speak to them. We'll surrender, so they can heal you."

Seor dove into her eyes, trying to discern Ara's motivations. She struggled to think or even to see clearly. Shimmery patterns of triangles and lozenges clotted her vision. It was hopeless trying to divine in a few moments, through pain, what she had failed to comprehend after days of pondering.

"No," said Seor, coughing. "You go."

Ara shook her head, entwining her fingers in Seor's bloody hand. Seor had no fight. She squeezed Ara's hand with each stab of pain, as if their conjoined palms were a second heart. Seor's other hand clutched her wound, containing the gushes of blood that seeped around the bolt and dripped from the fletching.

The portal faltered, threatening to collapse, but suddenly it bulged and exploded with shards of light and balls of rolling mist. Canu rolled out awkwardly onto the gravel, face blanched, eyes desperate. He regained his feet, saw Ara holding onto Seor, and grabbed Ara's free arm by the wrist. He pulled them towards the portal. The sudden movement twisted the bolt in Seor's chest. She screamed.

Her vision went dark. Fingers slick with blood slipped away from Ara's grasp, and she slumped into the moss.

Dima was there, sleeping in her arms. Seor lay broken but healing, in her parents' bed, the morning after Dima's birth. The sun lit a lazy shower. Astringent winds carried away the thunder.

*****

Chapter 71: Gi Again

Seor's fingers slipped from Ara's grasp like a fistful of minnows. Ara lunged back in vain as force of the xenolith accelerated her through the convergence. She entered Gi in a cloud of icy needles, tiny crystals aglitter, floating, tumbling.

She splashed into cold water, plowing into Canu's back, shoving him into the door of a small, red car that dipped one front tire into the bog as if testing its temperature with a toe.

Vul watched expectantly from a clump of reeds. "Where is she?" he said, looking past Ara and Canu, palms upraised and trembling.

"She's not ...?" said Canu, looking about, flushed and frantic. "I thought we had her." His gaze lingered on the smears of Seor's blood staining Ara's hands.

"She slipped away ... when you pulled," said Ara.

"You left her?" Vul stepped into the open bog and started wading towards the shimmering column, already narrower and shorter than it had appeared only moments earlier, like a tree grown younger.

Pari turned abruptly from tending to Ren where she lay in the tall, tufted grass at the edge of the bog. "No, Vul. That's a bad i-de-a," she said, sing-song.

"What are you doing?" said Canu. "The portal's closing."

"It's already closed," said Ara, moving to intercept him.

Vul splashed out of reach and charged the portal, bouncing off as the field repelled him. When he started to fall, the polarity reversed, and a powerful surge lifted and twisted him out of the bog. His head and shoulders penetrated the column and stuck. He dangled just above the surface of the bog, his legs kicking and splashing as if dancing on the water.

Ara slipped behind Vul, using his bulk to shield herself from the portal's influence. She flattened her hands against his waist and knifed them up his back into the convergence. The field plucked at the fine hair on her arms and stung her skin like nettles. Her feet sought leverage on the slippery floor.

Canu waded over and grabbed Vul's flailing legs. Pari came and braced him, to keep him from joining Vul in clogging the portal, once the convergence inhaled.

"Pull, when I say," said Ara. She read the oscillations of the portal's rim, waiting for its contraction to reverse. She felt its repulsion ease. An icy mist hung still outside its maw for a moment, the swirled back into the widening gap.

"Now!"

Like ungentle midwives, Ara pulled hard on Vul's shoulders, while Canu tucked both legs under his armpits and hauled. A shoulder slipped free, but the portal had clamped firmly around his head. With each tug, Vul's strangled yelps filtered through the field.

"Don't hurt him," said Pari.

"Worry about the portal," said Ara. "Not us."

Vul ceased kicking. His body went limp. A ripple shuddered towards them from across the portal, rolling like a bulge in the belly of a snake. Something had disturbed the far end of the field, now gone almost completely opaque.

"Get ready to pull hard," said Ara, wrapping her arms tightly around Vul's hips.

She waited until the bulge came to perch over Vul's head like a halo, then a crown.

"Now!"

Ara tugged Vul's hips. Canu and Pari each had a leg. The portal matched their efforts with an opposing force, as if reluctant to give up Vul. Something shifted. Vul popped out like a slippery seed, and they all fell back into the bog. Pari cradled Vul's head above the water. He breathed in ragged gasps, face bruised, nose bloodied. Canu rose and pulled Vul up by his shirt, helping him crawl into the tall grass beside Ren. Vul bawled freely, his tears etching clear channels through the blood dribbling from his nose.

"I saw her," sobbed Vul. "She was alive, but so pale, like a painted doll. She looked at me. I reached, but she didn't even try to lift her hand. She said: 'go home.' We should have made her go first."

"She wouldn't have let us," said Pari. "Seor always went last. I used to think it was fear or privilege, but I know now it was for our safety. First ones through are always the safest."

Ara suppressed a remark and forced a smile. Pari wasn't accounting for ambushes, or displaced xenoliths. She should know better, given her group's experience, though Ara could see how the sentiment of the moment might displace logic.

Canu patted Vul's shoulder. "No worries. We'll go back for her when the convergence comes around again."

Canu's words jolted Ara. Surely, they could allow no more convergences to appear through this stone. They should know that, Seor or not. Too many Urep'o had witnessed it, not to mention Baren and Baas and the rest of her cadre mates. But this was not the time to broach this topic. They would come to the same conclusion, she hoped, once the edge of their grief had dulled.

Ara watched what was left of the convergence descend into the bog until only a patch of mist-filled bubbles remained, lapping at the front tire of the Prius. She noted the location, planning to retrieve the xenolith once the others had directed their attention elsewhere. Her new friends would understand. She hoped.

Canu sat huddled with Vul, trying to calm his sobs with assurances that were hopelessly optimistic. From what Ara could see, Seor's wounds seemed grave, and the shooting had not yet ceased when they passed through the portal.

Pari had returned to Ren's side on a bed of tall grass she had folded over and matted down. The moss she had applied to stanch Ren's wounds was soaked and dark. Blood still dripped onto the reeds.

"How is she?"

"Weak," said Pari. "I don't understand why I can't slow her bleeding."

"Thinners," said Ara. "Baas dips his bolts in extracts that make his victims bleed without end.

"I was afraid of such," Pari said.

"Will she—?"

"I don't know," Pari interrupted before Ara could finish. "Depends how badly she's cut inside. Some wounds are un-mendable."

***

All kept vigil beside a miserable shelter of leaned-together spruce boughs they built to keep the rain off Ren. When Ara hinted that they would be stronger and better able to care for Ren if at least some tried to rest, it was as if she spoke alone to the wind. She knew not to press. She stayed with the group and tried to stay awake, lest she seem callous.

Windblown rain battered them deep into the night. When its drumbeats stopped, abruptly, like the end of a ritual, it became obvious that Ren's breath, too, had ceased. Pari did her best to resuscitate her, but when a softer rain resumed, Ren remained still. Weary, beaten, they leaned against each other, chin over shoulder, legs and arms in a tangle, a single sobbing organism until, hours later, exhaustion overcame them.

Ara hovered in an odd limbo: weary but agitated; eager to join with her new friends, but acutely aware of the barriers separating them. An emptiness gnawed at her. Though Ren's death and Seor's loss upset her, she was unable to evoke the depths of grief that came naturally to the others. How could she, having known the departed only a few days?

But she feared her lack of empathy might stem from something more intrinsic. A shotgun blast had felled one of her cadre mates, either Lev or Kera, in the shed. Surely one was dead. She felt distress when it happened, but why did she not cry? Was it because she didn't know exactly who had fallen, and thus could not focus her grief? Or did she lack something basic and human?

If Baas had died, she would expect no tears. But even Baas, for all his brutality, remained human and capable of kindness to those he considered his fellows. Why should he deserve less from her?

Ara sat with the others, but she may as well have been sitting alone. All night, Canu had offered not a word or glance or a touch to dispel that notion. When the rains again paused just after dawn, she disentangled herself and walked over to the edge of the bog, sitting beneath a dripping tree, hugging her knees to herself as shivers racked her body.

She missed her cadre; its moments of camaraderie and esprit, more the idea of it than her actual service. The commissioning, when it had come, had filled the empty space she felt after abandoning the Academy, providing a badly needed dose of self-affirmation. It provided no cure, but eased much of what had ailed her.

Baren valued her skills and it caused the others in the cadre to overcome their skepticism, to accept and reflect Baren's regard. She didn't blame them for their hesitance. How could they accept her as one of their own, when she had joined their ranks on the whim of an officer, avoiding all the effort and sacrifice they had made to attain cadre status?

Cloudbursts assailed the treeless slopes above like gangs of marauders. Warm gusts, driven upslope by the storm, parted the grass and whipped her sodden hair. Ara stared into the xenolith's lair, internally calm, stirred only by wind and spatters of deferred rain knocked loose from boughs. Thinking no one was awake to stop her, she decided to retrieve the stone and do what needed to be done. She went to the edge of the bog.

A figure rose near the shelter, startling and stopping her. Canu's gaze whipped across the landscape, searching. Relief softened his face when he spotted Ara. He zigzagged through the sparse and stunted spruce to join her, eyes wary, reading her expression and posture.

Ara met his gaze. "I'm so sorry about Ren," she said, her words causing his already reddened eyes to spout anew. He crouched down beside her.

"Did you not sleep?" he said, quietly.

"No," said Ara.

"You're alright?"

"Fine. Cold."

Canu's eyes lingered awkwardly, until he averted them "I wish we could make a fire," he said, squeezing water from a fistful of moss. Ara said nothing, moved not a finger.

"That stone in there ... we have to destroy it," whispered Canu, insistently. "I kept worrying the damned portal would open during the night."

Ara leaned forward, startled by his pronouncement. "But ... the others?"

Canu shrugged. "If we do it, it's done. And we have to kill it. Too many bad things wait to cross." He slid forward and slipped his legs into the bog. "Pari will understand. Vul ... not so much."

"They blame me for leaving Seor behind," said Ara, intending it as a question.

She hoped for some token of reassurance. Canu's hesitation confirmed her fear. "What happened, happened," he mumbled, pushing through tangles of water lilies. His eyes swung up and locked into hers. "Do you suppose Seor made out any better than Ren?"

Ara's lips started to form a no, but she remembered some of the broken people she had seen go into Urep'o emergency rooms, only to emerge on the streets of Montpelier months later, whole. "Maybe," she said.

"I don't see how," said Canu, grimly. He waded into the open water. "If I know Vul, he will sit here, waiting for the next convergence. He won't care what waits to cross; who has taken the stone or where. The only way this stone gets destroyed is if we do it now, ourselves."

Ara crinkled her brow. "Well, you won't find anything over there. You're searching on the wrong side."

Canu's head snapped up. "No, I'm not."

Ara sighed, pulled off her shoes and entered the bog. She strode straight for the spot that had boiled with the last vestiges of the convergence and poked her toes into the squishy mud, disturbing a sleek, twitchy beast she hoped was only a fish. She shuffled sideways, until her heel dislodged something sharp and frigid. She bent over and reached down deep into the bottom of the bog with both hands, dunking her hair in the tea-colored water.

She brought up a stone the size of two large fists; its coarse facets splotched saffron, teal and violet. Pristine, as if freshly mined, no snail or nymph dared traverse it; no algae or stain marred its surface despite its long residence in the bottom of the bog. Its coldness stung her fingers.

The stone looked too precious, too potent to destroy. Ara climbed out of the water and set it on the shore in a patch of trampled wildflowers: tiny, white bells dangling from arching stems leafed with alternating daggers. She threw a glance towards the shelter. Vul and Pari remained slumped beside it.

Canu watched wordlessly, poised to intervene, but seemed to understand both Ara's reluctance, and that the xenolith's moratorium was temporary. He turned away and waded over to the red car, using its bumper to pull himself out of the bog. Ara left the xenolith steaming in the grass, and strolled over to join him. Her eyes kept straying back to Vul, and the stone.

"We're fools," said Canu. "We should have set Ren up in here. Looks cozy. Dry."

"Not sure it would have helped much," said Ara, puzzling over the symbols adorning the car's bumper: a stylized fish with feet, a rural landscape pouring forth from an open O as if it were a portal. She knew the fish as a religious symbol, though the feet baffled her, as did the O.

"What happened to the driver, do you suppose?" She peeked in the back seat at an empty Burger King bag and a Starbucks coffee cup.

"He's here, somewhere," said Canu. "If he didn't starve or freeze to death or get himself picked up by Cuasars." Canu clambered onto the roof and dangled his legs over the side. "Poor bastard, stuck in a place like this." He sighed. "I thought I was done with Gi. But here I am."

"Gi's not so bad," said Ara."It would be a beautiful land if only it had peace. Baren made it sound like peace was imminent, that the treaty would be finalized. There would be festivals in Ubabaor. I could continue my studies."

"So are you disappointed we mucked up your peace plan?" Canu leered down on her like an imp. Ara wished he would stop treating her like the opposition.

"I never felt right about giving stones to Venen. It made me wonder; if our leaders would give up such stones, what else would they surrender?"

"Is it because you went to Academy that you can't break it?"

"I can break it. I will break it," said Ara. "I just need more time."

"I'll do it, them," said Canu, sliding off the roof.

"No. Let me do it. That way I can take the blame," said Ara, stepping in front of him.

Canu's smirk shriveled under her glare. He leaned back against the car.

"So what then? Once it's broken and we can't go home. Do we start a farm here in Gi? Raise goats? Grow potatoes?"

"What are you talking about?" she said. "Are we not soldiers? Is there not war?"

Canu chuffed. "What good are we? So few?"

"Enough to make a difference," said Ara. "We already have. A big one. And there's more we can do."

"How?" said Canu. "What army do we have? Which one will take us? And who do we fight? Who are our enemies now?"

"It's not so complicated as you make it," said Ara. "While our forces sit, Crasacs and Cuasars have had their way with Gi. I know plenty of militia and cadre willing to fight them." Ara paced along the car, plucking at the lance-like seed heads of the tall grass. "And as far as they know, I am still cadre."

"What are you proposing?" The derision in Canu's tone had shifted to genuine curiosity.

Ara's mind was too preoccupied to answer. "Look at that. They left the key," she said, peering into the driver's side window at the slim rectangle occupying a slot beside the steering wheel. She went around back and pulled on the lid of the trunk. It clicked open.

In a compartment hidden beneath a woven, grey mat, she found the angled length of steel that she knew would be there - hexagonal socket on the dog leg, long end tapering to a blade at the tip. She hefted it in her right hand, and stalked purposefully up to the stone, sitting among the white bells like a lamb, unaware of its imminent slaughter.

*****

Chapter 72: The Red Car

Through the windshield, opaque with condensation, a patch of droplets caught the light of a heliograph flashing in the hills. Ara recognized the pattern. It was an attention signal, to be followed shortly by an actual message.

The sight electrified her, but Canu and the others seemed not to have noticed. Canu sat behind the wheel, toying with every lever and button in reach. Vul and Pari slouched in the back seat, their heads lolled back. Vul had sworn an hour before, they would never put him alive in this metal coffin. A sudden downpour with pelting hail had convinced him otherwise.

Ara swiped an arc through the misted glass with the cuff of her shirt. The car's interior swarmed with the odor of unwashed bodies. She opened her door to let in some air, now that the rain had passed.

The clouds ripped open like old cloth, exposing the blue flesh of the sky through their shreds. The flashing resumed high atop a ridge line, two ranges beyond, as the Mercomar station took advantage of the sun's reappearance. "All is clear. All is clear," it repeated; the routine message for stations with no news or orders to relay.

Ara wondered if the so-called "Lost Cadre" in the West still monitored the Mercomar stations. Baren, for his part, had been diligent in tracking and recording their messages, even those too twisted in code to decipher. News of any treaty would come quicker by Mercomar than xenolith, he had reasoned.

***

Pari had accepted the stone's crushing as a matter of course. But Vul boiled over when he saw the xenolith's pulverized remains. When his lid finally settled back down, he diverted his frustrations to digging a tomb for Ren, deep into the side of a well-drained esker.

Ara and the others cushioned the floor of Ren's tomb with long-cut grasses and the pale tips of new growth spruce. Alone, Vul carried Ren from the lean-to, wrapped in a beach towel salvaged from the car. Gently, he laid her down, while Pari sprinkled handfuls of little, white bellflowers over her. Vul walked away weeping, unable to participate any further. Blood mingled with dried clay on his fingers. He stood and stared down the mountainside.

They sealed Ren's tomb with a wall of stone and clay.

"Is it done?" Vul asked without looking, when they had only filled the gap halfway.

"We'll tell you when," said Canu, softly.

Once the wall was complete, they packed it with earth and sod. Pari had saved the most distinctive stone from those unearthed: shaped like a melon - milky quartz with streaks of transparent rose. She hefted it over and dropped it at the base of the tomb.

"Done, Vul," said Pari, panting.

Vul plodded over and studied Ren's tomb, adjusting lumps of sod to better seal and conceal it. He pried the tire iron from Canu's grip, and nestled its tapered, flat tip against a protuberance on the grave marker. Using a lesser stone to hammer, he chiseled off a chunk and tucked it in his pocket. Ara recognized his act as a sensible Giep'o custom. If they couldn't bring Ren home, they could at least provide her family a memento that was also a key to help find her.

***

The red car sat astride two stripes of bleached and flattened moss – the traces of a little-used cart path, encroached on both sides by shrubs and bracken. A perpendicular swath of freshly gouged earth and sheared willow wound past boulders to the car's former position by the bog. Though unsuited for overland travel, Ara thought it might fare well on the flatter, sandier roads in the valley. Its fuel tank was almost full.

The light flashing on the ridge firmed Ara's resolve, though she was in no hurry to share or implement her plans. Canu knew she intended to continue fighting, but she had shared no specifics. Better to take it slow. Let them have some well-deserved rest.

She felt confident they would help her when the time came, and not because of the cadre armband crumpled at the bottom of her satchel. They were like shipwreck survivors, and she was the only one among them who possessed a rudder.

Canu dug through the contents of a compartment under a central armrest. He opened a can of hard candies shaped like berries, took one and passed it around. "Look, a map," he said.

"What good is that map here, you oaf?" said Vul.

"It would have been nice to have in Ur, don't you think?"

He handed a first aid kit to Pari. She laughed and held up a tiny rectangular bandage barely wide enough to span a mosquito bite. "This is ridiculous," she said. "Why bother covering with a wound so small?"

Canu jabbed at the pedals with his feet. "How did you make this thing go?"

"Most cars use a metal key," said Ara. "But this one's a little different. Step on that pedal on the left. That's a brake."

Canu did so. His head snapped around in frustration. "It didn't work."

"Of course not, I just told you, it's a brake." Ara peeked over his knee to ensure the emergency brake was engaged, and pressed a large, round button on the dashboard. "There."

The view screen flickered on. The vehicle vibrated. Canu grinned and leered back at Vul and Pari.

Vul tried to escape through the locked door. "I'm not having him run this machine ... with me in it."

"Me neither," said Ara. She punched the button and the screen went dark. "Out of the seat, Canu. I'll be doing the driving."

*****

Chapter 73: Sweet Peas

Bullet-shredded leaf bits tumbled down like green snow as Tezhay strode towards the cliff, hands splayed wide from his sides. The cliff top swarmed with movement and voices. Pebbles clattered down its face.

"Get back! He's got a gun!" called Frank, hunkered behind a tree.

"Ah, he just try to scare," said Tezhay, continuing across a graveled glade that joined several trails, before stopping to wave Frank on. "Come. This is the place you want." He stepped up onto a set of wide, crude stairs organized out of the blocks of a natural talus slope.

"Stop it right there!" Atop a heap of broken slabs, a head poked up through a cleft – sandy, brown hair tied up in a bandanna. The barrel of an assault rifle pointed down at Tezhay.

Tezhay walked to the base of a sheer wall, past ropes coiled on the talus and leading up to a platform dangling from pulleys. A path veered left up a wide crevice between a collapsed slab and the solid cliff.

"I said stop!" said the young man, voice quavering.

Frank equivocated, and then burst out onto the open gravel after Tezhay.

"What is he worry?" said Tezhay throwing up his hands. "He sees we not Crasac. We got no weapon."

"You two really, really need to stop or I'll aim lower next time. You're coming way too fast!"

Finally, Tezhay finally halted and stood, arms apart like Jesus slumping on the cross. Frank stopped beside a set of ropes coiled on the talus stairs. A faint scent, something familiar, hung in the air, too subtle to define.

"Okay. Who are you guys?" said the kid, with a tremolo trapped in his voice as if he had swallowed a moth. "What is it you want?"

"My name's Frank. I'm an exile. Like you."

"Exile? Hell no. I may be stuck here, but I ain't no exile."

"And I am just Traveler," said Tezhay. "But who are you? And what do you want?"

"What do I want? Never mind what I want. Listen, if you're looking for shelter, we can't take any more refugees. We're having trouble feeding everyone that's up here as it is."

"We just want visit," said Tezhay. "Bring news. Get advice. You know, palaver."

"Sorry, but I'm not supposed to let anyone else up here. I'm supposed to tell you to go to Maora, wherever the hell that is."

"Dumbass," grumbled Frank in a low voice. "Do we really look like refugees?"

"What was that?"

"My friend says it is a good idea you let us visit," said Tezhay, speaking up. "We bring important news."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Let us up and we share," said Tezhay, winking at Frank.

The young man stared at them for a moment, and then lowered the barrel of his gun.

"Fine. Let someone else sort you out. The only reason I'm here is because I know which end to point and I don't run away whimpering when the bloody thing goes off. None of the locals wanted to touch it when they saw what it did." He stepped out from a massive flake of stone that had split from the cliff face in an ancient collapse. His assault rifle had a worm-eaten stock and a pitted and crusted barrel like some artifact exhumed from the earth. "Okay. Come on up. Slowly. And keep your hands up front."

"Can you please point your shooter someplace else?" said Tezhay, proceeding up the slanting path.

The young man fumbled with and finally flipped with some difficulty, a safety lever above the trigger, and tilted the barrel down till it pointed at the ground. He looked to be in his late teens or early twenties, about the right age to be his son, thought Frank. Several days of scraggly beard scruffed his face. His bandanna barely contained a torrent of brown curls. Frank studied his face carefully. He thought he saw a hint of Liz in the point of his chin and the height of his cheekbones.

"What's your name?" said Frank.

"Why do you care?"

"Because I think ... you might be my son," said Frank, choking.

"What?" The young man looked startled, then repulsed. "Fucking hell. My dad lives in Providence."

"Ah, but maybe your mother is this woman name Lizbet?" said Tezhay.

"Liz?" The young man looked even more aghast. "God no! She ain't my mother, thank God."

An electric jolt not unlike sciatica zipped down Frank's spine. His heart fluttered anew. Every third beat rebounded off his rib cage.

"So, a Lizbet does live here?" said Tezhay.

"This is her farm," said the young man. "She took me in after I got shanghaied by some freaks in a parking lot."

Tezhay turned to Frank and tried to catch his eye. "So, are you going ask?"

Frank's gaze was affixed to his feet. "Ask what?"

"If she the one you think she is."

Frank struggled to form words. His heart labored. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dampened his neck. "Let me ... let me catch my breath."

"You okay?" said Tezhay. "Is your heart again?"

"I'm fine," said Frank.

"Then ask him!" Tezhay urged.

Frank exhaled deeply. His tremors started up again. "I don't know how."

"Listen, if you're gonna go, go!" said the young man.

"Come," said Tezhay, pulling Frank around a switchback that led up a diagonal fracture in the cliff face. "Let's go up then, and you will see with your own eyes," said Tezhay.

Frank kept his eyes trained upward at the lip of stone atop the path. He saw bright sky and faces looking down; men and women bearing long bows and pikes and crossbows of the type wielded by Cuasars.

The familiar scent – notes of cinnamon over something round and fruity – intensified as they climbed. Frank strode up the last slant of ledge, heart pumping fast and hard, fingers tingling, face flushed. Tezhay kept glancing back, and tripped on a stone.

"Watch where you're going," said Frank.

Tezhay let Frank overtake him, watching him pass with the studious curiosity of an anthropologist. The cliff's defenders – men and women, battered, smeared with mud and blood – also watched him warily.

Even fifty meters up, the crowns of trees rooted below the cliff overhung the rim. They emerged from an awning of branches into the base of a narrow valley, gashed on one side by a stream dashing through a deep cleft, treeless but for a few copses, huddled as if herded on the valley's margins. Upslope, a series of terraces stepped up to a village-sized collection of huts, grain cribs and animal shelters surrounding a cobbled yard.

The rain had ceased, though it happened so gradually, Frank didn't notice. The clouds pulled thin like taffy and let a soft light sift through, washing the landscape in a shadow-less glow. Another charred and curdled mass of cloud churned across the mountains like a pyroclastic flow, promising their respite would be brief and paid for with a dark deluge.

A meadow tilted gently before them, the lowest of a set of tiers plowed and planted with newly sprouted grain in alternating swaths, some chartreuse, some bluish like rye, Each terrace was separated from the next by stone walls and beds of thick, finned vines bearing copious, orchid-like blooms. They grew in every corner and crevice that couldn't be plowed.

Their essence carried down on a wind funneling between through a pair of chalky bluffs that bracketed the pocket valley and hemmed it with ledges. They opened like a gate onto broader meadows, splotched and speckled with goats and sheep. Beyond them rose a vast and shaggy moor that stretched to the barren roots of a mountain range, their peaks obscured by the boiling clouds. Their massive buttresses, like large paws on puppy dogs, conjured impossible heights in Frank's imaginings.

"Go on. Go," said Tezhay. "This is what you wanted."

Frank remained rooted on the cliff top, his whole body quivering in time with his heart, girding himself for extremes: crushing disappointment or the unimaginable consummation of a long surrendered hope.

Above the planted fields, a woman emerged from a barn, her hair in a pony-tail, her stride confident, despite a pronounced limp. She threaded through a gaggle of milling refugees, stopped in the lane and stared at the unwelcome visitors standing at the head of the cliff. The geometry of her waist and hip had changed, but Frank knew. Even from that distance he knew, before his vision dissolved into a flurry of phosphenes. He begged for his heart to resume beating.

*****

Epilogue

Silence propagated through the shady col, muting every toad, bird, and scrape of insect wing. The change rousted Captain Feril from a post-breakfast trance. He shook off torpor and rose from the straw-lined nest in the corner of his bunker, listening closely to the absences, detecting a distant, unattributable hum.

Reared on the open coastal plains of Diomet, forests had always spooked Feril, and never more than when they fell silent. But once he came to discern owl from jackal, the more raucous the forest, the more he felt at ease. Silence suggested the presence of unseen, unannounced threats.

But what of this hum in the distance? No longer faint, it grew into a buzz punctuated with rattles and clanks. The noise had no natural or benign explanation. It would seem to fade, and then grow louder, as if its source were occluded by the uneven terrain it traversed.

Feril strapped on a quiver, grabbed his best longbow and climbed onto the ramparts of logs and boulders fronting his bunker. "To arms!" he shouted. "Spread the word!"

His fighters had already responded to the sounds and were already strapping on armor, gathering weapons, and acting as flustered and unnerved as Feril. Only three weeks in Gi, they had spent most of their time 'defending' this western approach to the assembly point. Until now, only one lost shepherd and a small flock of sheep had dared challenge their abatis.

"Scouts and skirmishers forward!" Feril commanded. A small party of fighters detached from the main group and sifted through the trees.

Irin approached – Feril's boyish second in command. He clambered over tangles of upturned stumps, checking every bunker and emplacement down the line. He spotted Feril. His eyes lingered, questioning, though the brevity of his gaze showed he could tell Feril had nothing to offer.

"Prepare the runner," Feril shouted to him as he scuttled closer. "Have her await my signal."

"She's right behind you, ready to go," said Irin, with annoyance, and Feril noticed the young woman lingering shyly behind the fortifications, unencumbered by armor or weapons. She had only been in the field with them one week. Runner duty, which in Feril's unit included water-fetching and general supply, was the standard initiation of all new acquisitions.

"If we send her on ..." Irin gaped. "What do we tell them?"

Feril's ears still burned from the scolding the cadre had given him over his last false alarm. "Let's first make sure this is a real threat," he said.

Feril hopped off the front of his bunker and jogged ahead to where his skirmishers hunkered and waited down slope in shallow trenches scratched into rocky, root bound clay. Thick, straight boles studded the hillside. Densely layered canopy suppressed the understory and provided clear lines of sight between them. The full length of the cart path was visible down to the stream where they collected their drinking water.

As the noise intensified, he could feel the eyes of his skirmishers upon him. Feril said nothing; didn't even look at them. He stared straight down the path and waited, his fingers rubbing the thin leather strips binding his crossbow's grip.

There was a loud crunch. Something clanked loudly. Partway up the opposite slope, a red object careened into view around a bend. It bounced and scraped down a bank of shale before plowing into a stream that flowed swiftly in a thin layer over bedrock. It crashed up the opposite bank, front wheels spitting rocks. An uninterrupted slope lay before it and Feril's skirmishers.

"That's no beast," said a young man beside him, bow quaking in his hands.

"Of course not," Feril grumbled. "It's a wagon. From Ur."

Feril's instructors at the leadership school had described such contraptions, but this was his first daylight sighting, though he had heard their roar and witnessed their lights when he passed from Ur to Gi at night.

So unstealthy was this vehicle, bright red and noisier than an un-milked cow, that its unaccompanied appearance on their threshold made Feril suspicious. He examined the slopes flanking them, concerned that the wagon was a diversion, distracting them from a larger threat. But the forest seemed still and devoid.

He watched the red wagon shimmy through ruts and mud holes, wondering how deeply a crossbow bolt might penetrate its glossy carapace. It looked far from invulnerable. Gouges and scratches marred its sides. Torn metal dangled from its undercarriage. Its bottom struck the bumpy road repeatedly, sparking and clanging off stones. He lifted his bow and waited for it to come into range.

"Weapons up. Wait for my command."

The wagon rolled closer. Through the front glass, he could see at least four people inside. They wore Urep'o clothing. Nothing marked them clearly as Venep'o. His anxious skirmishers seemed itchy to send a volley their way, but he withheld the order to shoot.

Glancing back at the abatis, he saw Irin standing atop a bunker with the runner, in clear view for a signal, though easy pickings for a sniper. Surely, Commander Baren or his stewards wouldn't balk at being informed of something so momentous?

"Weapons down," he told his skirmishers, then lifted his hand to signal Irin. A few words from Irin and she was off.

The wagon skidded to a stop well within range of every longbow and crossbow in the line. A door opened. A woman hopped out, unarmed. She raised both palms. Feril's eyes went straight to her armband – two black stripes over taupe – Cadre, Second Gi Expeditionary.

"Hold your runners! Hold them!" said the cadre woman, her voice urgent, almost distressed.

"Too late," said Feril.

The woman frowned. "Get your commander here."

"That would be me," said Feril, though the title still sounded odd to someone who had held command for only a month.

He noticed a few longbows on the main line still pointing her way. "I said weapons down! Pass it along." He turned and shouted and listened as his order echoed among his skirmishers and down the lines behind them.

Feril recognized the woman as the instructor in the language tutorials he attended during his first days in Gi. She had been among Commander Baren's party when they had passed this way several weeks prior. The camps buzzed with speculations regarding their destination. Some thought they were coordinating the long-awaited counteroffensive. Others suspected they were simply returning to Ubabaor on leave.

He tried not to gawk at the others in the wagon: a wiry, elegant young woman, her face as placid as an unrippled pond; a wide-shouldered, heavy-chinned man with sunken, bristled cheeks; another man wild-haired with a wicked grin and penetrating, manic eyes. None of them wore cadre armbands. Feril wondered if they were the elite federal commandos he had heard about, the ones who operated far behind enemy lines in Diomet and even Venen, committing acts of sabotage and terror.

Creases furrowed the woman's brow. Her breaths came quickly, as if she had had been running. "I'm Ara, of Commander Baren's staff," she said, eyes scanning the forest behind Feril.

Feril opened his palms to her. "Captain Feril. Seventy-second militia of Diomet."

"Diomet! Really?" she said. "I thought your militias had disbanded." She took his hands, bumped shoulders.

"We're new," said Feril. "Refugees, most of us. Assembled from the camps by Counselors Aden and Dharow, before they were replaced."

Curious skirmishers collected around the vehicle. More heads poked up from the fortifications uphill.

"How many do you command?" said Officer Ara.

"At full strength, about one hundred forty," said Feril, "Ten are detached on work details. Another six are in camp for treatment. The fevers have been taking a toll on us."

"A full company!" Her eyebrows arched. She took a deep breath. A faint smile settled into her face. "Summon your troops. Have them pack their bedrolls. All the provisions they can carry. We have a mission for them."

A tightness seized Feril's gut. "But we're still under orders here."

"Consider them rescinded," said Officer Ara, blinking.

Feril was flabbergasted. "But someone needs to relieve us first. We can't just abandon this position."

"What are you defending against here? Deer?" Someone in the wagon emitted a chuckle.

"Where's Commander Baren?" said Feril. "Has he returned by the other portal?"

Officer Ara's eyes narrowed. "Do you make a habit of quibbling with cadre officers who give you direct orders?"

Her companions in the red wagon smirked.

"I'm sorry, comrade," said Feril. "I was charged with the defense of this approach. I'm just trying to do the right thing."

"Have you ever wondered why the Cuasars never patrol here? Did you think they stay away from fear? Or because we're so well hidden?"

Feril shrugged.

"A treaty keeps them at bay," said Officer Ara. "A treaty that will soon be broken, because we're the ones who are going to break it. When it matters again, I guarantee this line will be defended. For real, not just for play."

A faint, mutinous urge tugged at Feril. But he couldn't tell what drove it. Fear? Ego? Suspicion? Something about Officer Ara seemed a little off. But she was cadre. Part of Commander Baren's hand-picked inner circle. Who was he to argue?

"You'll have to pardon my hesitation, comrade," he said. "We've only been in Gi a short while. We didn't expect to see action so soon."

"So soon?" she sputtered. "Your unit may be new to Gi, but how long have the rest been festering in the marshes? You don't think it's time we acted?"

"Not ... if there's a treaty," said Feril. "Who decided to break it? Is this coming from the Council ... or the Quorum?" He wished now that he hadn't sent the runner. He had so much more to tell, to warn. Unless, of course, the operation required secrecy.

Her eyes narrowed to slits. "What kind of soldier are you? Questioning every order?"

Feril stared back, awash in perplexity. He bit his lip. "Alright. Tell me. What's the mission?"

Officer Ara's expression turned serious. "We're going after an enemy position." She squinted through the canopy to a barren, domed summit protruding beyond the abutting foothills. "Up there."

Sprouting like a growth on the mountain's shoulder, a heliograph station interrupted an otherwise smooth arc of slope and sky. On days when sun ruled over cloud, its mirror bursts lit the col every four hours, shuttling Venep'o communications across the range between Raacevo and the eastern colonies. Feril had come to look forward to their regular flashing, using them to mark time and frame his day.

But something Feril remembered from a cadre briefing sent his apprehensions plumbing new depths. "That's the trigger ... for the counteroffensive. Isn't it?"

Officer Ara gave him an odd look; not quite blank, but a palimpsest bearing clear traces of her intent.

"That would be the goal here, yes," she said.

Exited murmurs rippled out among the skirmishers.

"I'm not even sure we need any outside help," she continued. "The militias should respond pretty well to our call, don't you think?"

She knew as well as he, that the bored and underfed militias piled into the assembly camps could barely be restrained from attacking each other. It wouldn't take much to inspire and redirect their aggressions outward.

Feril felt as if he had just stepped off a ledge into deep water. It wasn't the prospect of battle that fazed him. He had joined the militia to fight. He simply couldn't fathom his own unit spearheading an expanded war in Gi.

"Why us?" Feril blurted, as Officer Ara turned back toward the wagon.

"What I mean is ... you could have the best fighters from the best militias. There's a camp full of veterans, two hours by runner. Some who fought the first Crasacs that came ashore, on to Diomet and Suul, and the siege of Ubabaor, while I was just a scrawny rat in an encampment, foraging scraps for my mother and sisters. I mean ... we're so green."

She paused, and considered him quizzically. "Are you saying you'd rather have someone else do your fighting?"

Her gaze bore in, striking him like a punch in the gut. "It's not that ... not at all," he said. "We can fight. We might lack experience, but we're ready. It's just that ... you could have had ... better."

She appraised him the way a big sister might judge a sibling's suitor.

"And how different are you from the so-called elite?" she said. "To my eye, not so much. You're younger. You've had less opportunity. But who's to say who's superior?"

They stood staring at each other until Feril took a deep breath and gave a sharp whistle. Almost instantly, troops began filtering through the trees, bearing full weapons and gear. Before Feril even made the call, Irin had them ready to move.

A bright flash gilded the branches overhead. "We can reach the ridge top by tomorrow morning if we leave now," said Officer Ara. "We'll have the moon to guide us." She opened up the door of the wagon and slipped inside.

The vehicle lurched backwards, disrupting the order of the double column forming up on the cart path. The thin man with the wild eyes and unkempt hair sat behind the wheel, grinning. He pulled forwards, scraping past a tree, carving into the clay of a steep shoulder to which the wagon clung at a severe tilt. It surged across the cart path and rattled to a halt at the head of the column.

Through the treetops, the Mercomar flashed, repeating: "All is clear" for the fourth and last time, that day and forever.

THE END

Life is a river,

Earth, a conduit

sluicing its flotsam

of mayflies fallen,

never taken wing;

tumbling toward

oblivion's sea.

\- From the works of Gennadi Kovalev

(Translated from the original Russian)

Glossary

Alar

Governor of Venep'o occupied lands.

Articles of Protocol

The democratic constitution of Sesei.

Bolovo

An herbal drug used in Sesei to inspire visions, induce sleep and calm the heart.

Cadre

The elite leadership force of the Sesep'o military, with dominion over provincial militias.

Convergence

A periodic astronomical event that opens temporary portals between xenoliths in each world.

Cra

One of the three brother gods. Lord of Death, Disease and Pestilence.

Cra Supremacist

Sinkor follower of a monotheistic sect that elevates the importance of Cra above the other gods.

Crasac

A Venep'o infantryman, proficient with crossbow and short sword.

Croega

Provincial capital of Suul.

Cuasar

A Venep'o cavalryman, proficient with crossbow and saber.

Cuerti

The elite heavy cavalry and honor guard of the Sinkor clergy.

Diomet

One of the fallen provinces of Sesei and the first to be invaded. Notorious for its abundance of Sinkor followers and Venep'o sympathizers.

Fanhalahun

One of the three brother gods. Lord of Wealth and Plenty.

Gi

An occupied wilderness nation beyond the frontiers of Venen, inhabited by clannish subsistence farmers and herdsmen.

Giep'o

The people and language of Gi.

Hiloru

A warrior priest of the Sinkor faith.

Ijinji

A multi-island nation noted for its traders and warrior pirates.

Inner Quorum

The ruling executive council of Sesei.

Likica

A Sinkor temple.

Mercomar

A mirror-based heliograph station used by the Venep'o to flash and relay messages over long distances.

Nalki

A Giep'o rebel.

Ortezei

A fallen province of Sesei, inland from Diomet and neighbor to Suul.

Pasemani

One of the three brother gods. Lord of Health and Mercy.

Peregrin

A foreign exile from Ur.

Philosopher

A member of the Academy, with dominion over xenoliths and the Travelers who tend them.

Piliar

A stoutly defended island province of Sesei, home to the Academy.

Polu

A Sinkor convert in Venep'o occupied lands, staple of militias and constabularies.

Raacevo

A trading center in Gi at the head of Siklaa Gorge, the gateway to Venen.

Sesei

A secular and democratic nation under siege by Venen.

Sesep'o

The people and language of Sesei.

Sinkor Natadi

The Venep'o faith of the three brother deities: Cra, Pasemani and Fanhalahun.

Suul

A Venep'o-conquered province bordering Ubabaor.

Tabulator

A device specific to each xenolith used to calculate the timing, strength and duration of convergences.

Traveler

One of the agents who tend the network of xenoliths across worlds.

Ubabaor

The capital of Sesei and the only province besides Piliar still free of Venep'o rule.

Ur

The Sesep'o word for our Earth.

Urep'o

The people and languages of Earth.

Venen

A nation of religious extremists with a rigid caste system, dependent on conquest and slave labor for sustenance. Across the ocean from Sesei, separated from Gi by mountains.

Venep'o

The people and language of Venen.

Venenendera

The supreme ruler of Venen and its conquered lands.

Xenolith

Stones foreign to each parallel world they reside in, sensitive to astronomical convergences, and capable of opening short-lived windows between worlds.
