Jedit

Chapter 14

Johan had glimpsed the fabled castle of Shauku in a vision in the Western Wastes. Granted, he'd been exhausted at the time, perhaps delusional, but the blurry image had shimmered and soared into the desert skies, truly impressive. Such an ancient and revered queen of sorcery could only occupy a shining palace.

What he found proved a shock.

For a fortnight Johan's sedan train had trekked into the forest called Arboria by the natives. Never had Johan seen any people of the pines, though his huntsman reported traces. The forest was a gloomy place, dim under towering trees rearing straight to a dense interwoven canopy. Pine needles carpeted the ground so thickly even footfalls were muffled. Often his party heard their own breath as the only sound. Yet Johan's party was never molested, though they sensed native eyes witnessed every move. The Emperor of Tirras assumed his destruction of the first scouting party quashed any notion of attacks, proving once again the most ruthless path was the best. Cowed enemies either shied far away or did as commanded. So for two long weeks Johan swayed in his sedan chair upon the shoulders of four brutish barbarians. The master mage again wore his drab monk's disguise. Dozing, lapsing into trances, the tyrant mulled plans about how best to conquer Jamuraa, and how he might exploit this much-heralded mage Shauku.

Finally Johan's party reached a shallow valley and jerked to a halt. Framed by pine trunks in the middle distance, their destination glowed in late afternoon sun.

Johan's captain of guards barked, "It's a ruin!"

Though he kept silent, Johan's calm demeanor vanished. For a moment he saw only red. Furious, he felt like killing his entourage and immolating the forest.

It was true. The palace barely existed.

From what they saw past pine trunks and descending treetops, the castle had once commanded a wide shallow valley that in centuries past must have boasted prosperous farms and vineyards. At the valley's center reared a low hill, and atop a castle surrounded by a high wall, or bailey. Nowadays the fortification resembled a landslide and pine forest had reclaimed the vale. From this distance, Johan could see only half the castle's face and mere outlines of towers. Curiously, smoke trickled from fissures all around the crumbled hill. That smoke had been their first sign of human habitation in this benighted forest.

"I-is that the place?" Johan's lesser mage was the squat woman known as The Glass Mountain, supposedly because she couldn't be conquered. "Could we have wandered amiss? Perhaps Lady Shauku departed and no one knew. But those trees are decades old. Perhaps her grace dwells in another plane. Or the castle might be disguised, or shifted in time. If we cross the threshold, mayhaps we'll find it alive and…"

"Be silent," grated Johan.

Down the wooded slope, the huntsman waved the party on. Johan's captain looked at his master with trepidation.

Johan rubbed his bony chin. With such a powerful magician as Shauku was rumored to be, anything was possible. But the likeliest explanation was that he'd been gulled. If so, he would flay the woman alive. Howsoever, Johan mustn't look fuddled before inferiors.

Waving a lank hand, he commanded, "March."

Up close, Shauku's castle got worse. Passing a column of wood-scented smoke issuing from a hole in the hill, they found a child could have mounted the rubble of the outer curtain, which was half-buried in vines turned brown by autumn frosts. Of the stout wooden gates, all that remained were heaps of sawdust reduced by ants. The courtyard sported a young forest of red pines, birches, and aspen trees, and gardens of briars. Undermined by roots, flagstones bulged every which way. The keep proper slumped like a sandcastle in a tide. Three towers had collapsed into heaps, and the fourth lacked a roof. The castle walls still standing were smothered in vines and, curiously, thousands of red and white roses. The central archway was closed by the rusty skeleton of an iron-strapped portcullis. Beyond, they saw that trees grew within some palace wings, for most of the slate roofs had collapsed, leaving only slanted beams. Evening burned the western sky to a glowing orange streaked with purple. The many columns of smoke righted themselves as the day breeze died. The only sound was a whip-poor-will piping in nearby brush.

Sitting his sedan chair in the overgrown courtyard, Johan felt anger boil in this throat like bile fit to choke. Shauku's fabulous library was a sham. He'd journeyed all this way, seeking knowledge to conquer all Jamuraa, and found a ruin that rats would eschew. Someone would die in agony.

"Milord!" The huntsman called from beyond the east tower. "An entryway!"

Still glaring, Johan waved a hand as if expecting this news. The barbarian bearers threaded trees. Johan's captain pointed with his pike at something the mage had missed.

"A path, milord. Someone lives above ground, at least."

The eastern tower was intact, if roofless. Rounding the tower, Johan saw weathered stone bound with rotten mortar. Vines had been yanked away from a low entryway, a tiny sally port once reinforced with double doors. The beaten path crossed the threshold. The passageway should have been black but instead glowed softly with gray twilight since the roof was gone.

Silhouetted at the passageway's end stood a guard, or a statue.

The entourage trudged to a halt, weary from a day's long march. Barbarians waited for orders, dumb and patient as oxen. Cursing inwardly, Johan ordered his chair lowered.

Stepping to canted cobblestones, Johan let fall his monk's disguise. Like a-candle flickering to life, he took on color and substance. Skin glowed vivid red laced with black tattoos, a horn jutted from his bony chin, two more horns downcurved from his temples to frame his raddled face. A robe of purple lizard skin hugged his gaunt form like a living parasite. His hands and bare feet and chest were also red and tattooed. This was Johan's true face, stamped by sorcery, fearful and alien, commanding and cruel. The myriad tattoos were his own doing, designed to intimidate and draw attention to his face. Other features, such as blood-red skin and horns, were accidental by-products of dabbling in black arts. Yet any well-versed mage would see immediately that Johan had juggled arcane and mystic mana and survived, so he would command respect. Inspiring awe and fear was all the wizard cared about. Now, shrugging his purple robes about his shoulders, he would mystify Shauku-if she were here. If not, he'd level this wreck once and for all.

"I'll go alone." None of his party dared question, so stood mute.

On bare feet, Johan padded down the dark passage toward the eerie silent guardian. Up close, he recognized the garb: black reptilian armor overhung with a yellow gypon emblazoned with a startling red sun. A black helmet bore only a slit exposing cold eyes and painted yellow vees suggesting bumblebee stripes. The man stood with a lean sword unsheathed and propped before a shield like a black kite. An Akron Legionnaire, Johan knew, elite troopers recruited from Corondor. Expensive to maintain as a flotilla of ships or a stable of fine racehorses. Johan wondered idly if the soldiers stoked the underground fires that dribbled smoke.

The guard issued no challenge, and for a second Johan thought he was ensorcelled, but the man's chest rose and fell. Since the guard showed no surprise at his arrival, Johan calculated, the soldiers must have spotted the party from the battlements or even in the forest. Johan would flog his huntsman halfdead for failing to spy lookouts.

Imperious, Johan announced, "I would see your master, Lady Shauku."

"You are?" rapped the guard.

"Johan, Tyrant of Tirras and Emperor of the Northern Realms."

The legionnaire lifted his sword to his eye slit in a salute, as if diplomatic visits to this wilderness occurred daily. Turning smartly, the guard called in some foreign tongue. From a distance marched an identical man who beckoned Johan to follow.

The castle's indoors was same as outdoors. Walls rose sheer for three stories, but the roof wore only seven arching beams against a sunset sky. Pines and aspen trees grew high as the walls. Broken flagstones were jumbled with broken roof slates under a carpet of leaves. Rusted iron hooks still held gray poles where war banners had rotted away. At each end yawned vast fireplaces big enough to roast an ox, though bricks had fallen. At one end, square doors led to the kitchen. In comers, windblown dirt let thrive more roses and briars and weeds. Johan saw swallows zip in a window, circle once, and flit out again. Once this mead hall housed some lord's family, a home lively with drink and dance and music and laughter. Now it housed insects and birds.

And one occupant.

At the far end stood an immense dining table, once grand, now cracked and water stained. Behind the table on a wide stool sat the most beautiful woman Johan had ever seen.

Black hair was glossy with sunset highlights. A golden face with pointed chin featured sky-blue slanted eyes wide and innocent. She wore a simple layered gown of satin so blue it appeared black, unadorned. Before her sat a plate with only grape stems and seeds and a silver goblet of spring water.

The legionnaire stamped to a halt, saluted elaborately with sword to visor, and announced the visitor. The lady smiled dimly, interested but uncurious.

Flummoxed but refusing to show it, Johan pretended all was normal. Clearing his throat, he asked, "Lady Shauku?"

"Yes." Soft and musical. "Emperor Johan. Welcome. I'm so glad you came."

Johan wasn't. But he nodded, face frozen in a polite smile.

Something was very wrong.

Adira Strongheart revived because she was freezing.

Wind sucked and slobbered at her wet hair and chilled her lax body. Every gust set her teeth chattering, but she couldn't move to get warm. People carped to hold still until she wanted to lash out and thump someone. Gradually words filtered through the fog infesting her brain.

"Not much seaway, so b-bear down! H-help me h-hold her, she's prickly as a s-s-sea robin! J-Jedit, will you?"

Adira was mashed by a sopping wet arm big as a rolled carpet. Spray stung her face, a salt chill. All this water, she fretted. Surely the ship must be sinking. Then she recalled and her eyes flew open.

"Wh'where are we?" Her lips could barely move, she was so cold. Her hand throbbed too, as if a shark gnawed it.

"M-marooned," chattered Wilemina.

"S-soon to d-die," added Simone.

Even awake, Adira couldn't see. The night sky was streaks of dark and darker gray. Wind howled all around. Spume from breaking waves spattered them like rain. Adira tried to turn, but couldn't.

Simone the Siren rasped, "Damn your eyes, Dira, stay put! There's barely room enough without you jigging like a lobster in a pot!"

Groping and floundering, Adira was pulled up half-sitting almost in Jedit's sopping lap. She croaked her feeble question again. Song of the Sea King, but she was thirsty! And the night so black!

"We're cast away, Adira." Jedit's voice was a shuddery purr. "On a rock barely big as a oxcart. Nine of us. Simone and Wilemina and Whistledove, and you and I, and four from Buzzard's Bay."

"What? How?" Adira peered at darkness. The only luminosity was the clash of sea foam on breakers. She couldn't even make out her companions. "Why not swim for shore?"

"It's three or four miles, Adira." Simone could barely speak for shivering. "We'd never make it."

"Nor can we tell direction in the dark," whimpered Wilemina. "The tide changes and the surf runs every which way. And my arm is broken!"

"We can't anchor here!" Adira's reason and strength were returning, though every time she moved her head, it throbbed as if kicked by a horse. Nor could her right hand function. "We'll shrivel from exposure!"

No one answered.

"Maybe with the dawn…" purred Jedit.

The crew huddled like puppies, packed so tightly one's shuddering shook the next. Jedit radiated heat like a sheet-iron stove compared to the fish-cold humans. The tiger seemed not to suffer in his coat of fur. Adira thanked her lucky stars and foresight for buying her crew the thick sweaters, for oily wool kept a body warm even when wet. Still, their predicament was dire.

"Maybe you should shove off, Jedit." Spray slapped Adira's face, and she almost raged at the sea. "You can swim like a squid. And those sharp ears must pick out breakers on the beach. You could fetch help!"

By appointment and nature, Adira took command and gave orders but knew they were useless. True, the tiger might reach the shore, but it was likely sheer cliff with no beach. He'd be bashed to death against stone. And the Goat's Walk was barren and unsettled. There'd be no rescue boats, ropes-or volunteers.

"The tide rises," said Simone. "We need Jedit's help just to cling to this rock. Every rogue wave threatens to sweep us off."

"At least in drowning," said Wilemina, "one feels warm. Or so they say."

"I can't believe my own Circle would give up the ghost!" groused Adira. Despite her throbbing head, she grew angry at the sea, the fates, and her wastrel crew. "You blatherskites will just sit quietly and die?"

"Some are dead," whispered Wilemina. "This woman beside me grows cold. I poke her but can't rouse her."

"If she's dead," said the oft-callous Simone, "shove her off. We need the room."

"What of the others?" Adira cast about, but the world was thrashing darkness and spinning spume. She might have struck her skin alight, her favorite trick spell, but she was too addled and exhausted. And chilled. Early autumn in northern latitudes meant frosty nights. Adira was astonished they'd survived this long. Dawn would see their corpses sheathed in rime ice.

"Where's Virgil, and Murdoch, and Peregrine? And Heath? Surely he can't be gone!"

"Murdoch's nearby," said Simone. "We shouted until our voices gave out. Murdoch answered, but only he. Peregrine couldn't swim. Virgil sank. He was badly bashed by that tiller. It broke his ribs or guts. He claimed to be all right, but spit blood at every breath. He refused help when we jumped from the wreck."

"I see." Hot tears spilled down Adira's chapped cheeks, the only touch of warmth she'd ever felt in her life, it seemed. Cold gripped her like an iceberg.

"It's only hours till dawn," panted Wilemina through chattering teeth. "Maybe a fishing boat will see us."

"It's two hours still till the tide turns," countered Simone. "We'll be knee-deep in water soon and too stiff to stand."

"Where's the Conch?" asked Adira. "If it fetched on rocks we could climb aboard."

"Five fathoms deep," said Simone. "We only chucked loose a few hatches and lost those when we broached these rocks."

"I wish Lady Caleria would open the skies and pour sunshine upon us," whispered Sister Wilemina.

"Keep wishing," sniped Simone.

Screaming wind whipped away words, so silence fell. The sailors knew soon would come the silence of the grave, for their body heat ebbed even as the water sloshed around their legs and buttocks. People tried to scoot closer to the center but lacked room.

Adira croaked, "Jedit, shove off."

The tiger didn't answer.

In stubborn silence, with teeth chattering, Adira said, "Cub, you moor here only for our sake. You alone can survive this trap. Swim to shore and explore that cliff. Find a way up. Atop is forest. Build a fire or burrow in the mold. We can't, but you can. Go, swim. We need deck room. Go, damn your eyes!"

Rocking, stiff as a stone statue, Adira shoved with two hands and knocked Jedit off the rock. The tiger flopped with a great splash unheard above wind and surf. Exhausted and dizzy from her head wound, Adira crumpled again. People scooched together for warmth, none speaking.

Time passed. An eternity of cold. Simone, Wilemina, the tiny brownie Whistledove, Adira, and the bay sailors pondered death, and cold, and the unfairness of losing one's life on a windswept rock, their thoughts jumbled as the angry waves. No one spoke as water washed the rock.

From the wet darkness, a throaty purring call startled them. "Adira Strongheart!"

Dully Adira opened her eyes to surging blackness. Frozen, barely able to move her jaw, she gargled, "J-Jedit, I or-ordered you-"

"Leave, yes." Water gurgled and slopped, and suddenly they all felt the great tiger surface like a leviathan alongside the rock. With only clawed paws clutching the rock, Jedit spewed water like a fountain. Something in his voice suggested humor, and instantly buoyed their hopes.

"You ordered I go, and I did. But I fetched friends."

"F-Friends?" gibbered Adira. "Who?"

A gasp echoed around the group as lights flickered below the black water. Paired orbs glowed soft green like undersea fireflies. As the doomed mariners watched, the lights rose all around, and for a second some thought of a sea monster with a hundred glowing eyes and a gaping mouth. Narrow heads with seaweed hair broke the surface, illuminated by green eyes shining like bullseye lanterns.

"Merfolk!" chirped Wilemina.

"Do not re-mem-ber us, do you?" A woman with a hatchet face sported rippling gills at her neck. Her voice piped and squeaked like a dolphin's. "Not very friend-ly, we call that."

It was a toss-up which notion stunned the humans more: that someone familiar rose from the sea, or that they teased as if meeting over beer. Reckoner, shaman of the Bom of the Beck tribe of the Lulurian Clan, had never been known to joke.

"Impossible!" stammered Adira. Scores of doubly glowing heads popped from the water smiling. To the merfolk, the autumn storm was as gentle as a summer breeze. "You can't… How did… I don't…"

"Adira," rumbled Jedit, just as sopping as the scaly water-dwellers. "Please accept their aid. The merfolk can swim us ashore. I'll go ahead to build that fire."

Shocked speechless, Adira nodded numbly. Beckoner caught the pirate queen's arm. "Tell your peo-ple we mean no harm. Some may think we drown them."

"Oh, y-yes. Sail me 'round to the others."

Beckoner nodded. Two merfolk latched onto Adira and gently drew her into the surf. It was near freezing, but Adira was too numb to feel. Keeping her chin above water, the swimmers deftly maneuvered her from one tiny rock to another. Murdoch she found alone, shivering, as terrified of drowning as of the ominous green lights. Breathless, Adira explained he'd be towed ashore by friends. Towed on, she passed word to more of Edsen's sailors, Heath, some corsairs, and Jasmine.

Hands like coral branches bore Adira toward the beach through the chop. Waves smacked her face. A flicker of yellow light beckoned. Before Adira realized her danger, she was plunged headlong into pounding breakers that sucked and tugged and tried to drown her, then she was yanked free of the water's clutch by the agile merfolk. Propped on a rock festooned with seaweed, the quaking pirate discovered the light was fire. Though the cliffs were sheer as a castle wall, portions had fractured and tumbled. Here a deep cleft formed a shelf jammed with driftwood. Grass and seagrapes and other bracken hung down from the forest floor above. Jedit had cleared a spot and kindled a fire. Adira had never seen so blessed a sight in her life.

With his keen vision, Jedit spotted the pirate queen and jumped to her aid. As frigid hands propped her from below, Jedit snagged her arms and hauled. Adira tried to crawl toward the fire, but collapsed, too stiff to move. Gently, Jedit persisted. Within minutes Adira was naked as a baby bird, propped against dry bracken and warm stone, with her wet clothes hung as a screen against the wind. Soaking in the wondrous warmth of the campfire, Adira cried unashamedly, grateful to be alive. Jedit bounded back and forth, fetching people and feeding the flames. Soon Adira's reduced bodyguard and fourteen Buzzard's Baymen were huddled around a fire so close they risked scorching bare feet.

Once more Jedit returned with his arms full, this time with a huge tail-flapping tuna. The tiger broke its neck, sliced flesh with his black claws, and speared white steaks on spits to sizzle.

That done, Jedit loomed over Adira, amber-green eyes glowing. "Beckoner lingers to speak with you, Captain. She can't approach the flames."

"Oh, y-yes." Shuddering to quit the fire for frosty air, Adira nonetheless borrowed Heath's drying shirt and minced on swollen feet to the edge of the stone shelf.

Beckoner and her court perched on icy rocks, calm as cormorants. Adira could see them now, skinny as pikes, the women flat-chested, all naked but for scales wrapping their torsos almost to the armpits. With dead-white skin tinged green and gills fanning at their necks, they looked like drowned corpses returned to haunt whoever slashed their throats. As shaman, Beckoner wore the tribe's treasure, necklaces and bangles of coral beads, bronze trinkets, and wire-wrapped rubies and sapphires.

"Thank you for saving our skins," stammered Adira. "Again. After you banished the river at Palmyra, Johan's army was beached, and we defeated them in the desert. Barely."

"Is no-thing." Reckoner waved a lank hand, a gesture adopted from humans. "A pact struck with our clan lasts as long as the sea, and car-ries to our child-ren's child-ren's spawn. Glad we could save you. Merfolk have no friends a-mong land-walk'ers."

"You have friends forever," said Adira, feeling gushy and solemn and foolish. "The river creeps back to Palmyra slowly. Anything you need, any help, just mount the docks and ask. We'll grant it, I and all my citizens. So I swear. But, please, tell me. How did you find us? How did you reach us so quickly? We last saw your tribe frolicking in the Bay of Pearls on the Sea of Serenity. How got you here, five hundred leagues or more?"

"We heard cat man thrash in waves," squeaked Beckoner, again waving a hand. "Sound like no-thing else, e-ven far off. We swam through wa-ter weir."

"Water weir?" asked Adira. "A fish trap?"

"Eh? No. Pipe? Tun-nel?" The narrow face frowned seeking the right word. "All the world's wa-ters are one. To swim in one o-cean is to swim in all. To cross wa-ter, we swim down and twist, and find selves far a-way. See you?"

"No," admitted Adira.

"Odd." Beckoner was truly puzzled. "All merfolk know it. Else how cross long stret-ches of wa-ter that is emp-ty?"

"I wish I knew," marveled the pirate. "If I could twist my tail in the water and naturally shift to some spot a thousand leagues distant, I'd be the fattest merchant in Dominaria!"

Beckoner tilted her head, still unsure, but dismissed it. "We go. We shall vi-sit your docks once char-fish spawn a-gain. Un-til then, fare-well."

"Fare-" But Adira waved at nothing. Like a school of salmon, the merfolk dove as one into the frigid booming surf. Shuddering, Adira scampered back to the circle of life-giving fire.

The first thing Johan noticed was the library was well lit. Too well lit.

Plodding up circular stone stairs, he cursed both Shauku and himself. But silently, for the sorceress climbed behind, her blue skirts sweeping the steps with a silken rustle.

The harsh light in the tower's top room came not only from four tall windows, but also through the roof. A jagged hole big as a tabletop let in sunshine, fresh air, and whiffs of wood smoke. Johan saw swallows' nests wedged under roof boards.

Like the rest of Shauku's palace, the library was ruined. Rain, snow, and bird droppings had wreaked havoc. Directly under the roof hole stood a shelf of antique books. Despairing, raging, near weeping for the first time in centuries, Johan crunched across rotten wood, dry leaves, and broken roof slates. The first book he touched wore a red leather binding with gold letters. As Johan plucked the book from the shelf, the pages fell out in a mildewed heap that splatted on the floor. Silver insects scurried from the light.

"Please pardon the mess." Shauku's lyrical apology seemed genuine. "I inherited the library in this state and fear it's beyond my powers to preserve."

Steaming, Johan's red-black hands flexed to strangle the woman. Black eyes bulging, horns quivering, he gargled, "Near three hundred volumes? An untold fortune in antique lore? Likely most one of a kind? You their guardian, and you couldn't even patch the roof, nor shutter the windows, nor exterminate mice nor silverfish?"

"I am sorry." Slim and lithe, Shauku held up her skirts with one hand lest they be sullied by debris. "It's hard to keep up a castle, a woman alone."

Silence reigned as Johan fumed, then gradually calmed.

Lady Shauku seemed so helpless and frail, he couldn't bring himself to strike her. Yet part of his mind suspected everyone. Surely she concealed some fact.

"What was it you desired?" The sorceress peered about the ravaged room. "Knowledge of cat warriors?"

"Yes!" The word leaped from Johan's throat. Unwilling to show weakness, he hedged, "That is, I've discovered a small enclave that might aid a minor campaign."

"I remember." Lady Shauku touched a finger to her lips. "They were integral to the prophecy of None, One, and Two! Of course, how silly I am. Let me see."

Wanting to scream, Johan waited while his host traced a delicate golden hand along a tilted shelf. Plucking forth a slim volume, she offered it with a smile. Johan started. The book was bound in tiger skin.

Hands trembling, Johan flipped open the book, eyes devouring the pages. In careful but crude sketches, tiger-warriors lurked amid tea trees, walked on two legs and all fours, and worshipped at the altar of a brazen big-mouthed god.

Johan gibbered, "This is the source! These secrets I need, but-I can't read the runes!"

Unknown characters seemed to taunt the mage. None he'd ever seen, and he'd learned dozens in centuries of study. Hurriedly he muttered one spell, then another. If the runes were magically scrambled against casual viewing, the counterspells should decipher the mystic mask. But the crabbed text remained stubbornly illegible.

"So close! So close!"

"Perhaps I can help, if you'll allow it." Delicate in all her movements, the sorceress took a bottle from a shelf, cracked the stopper, and dabbed her slim finger in an oily ink. Poised, she waited. Johan nodded shortly.

Murmuring, or humming, Shauku painted the purple lizard-skin at Johan's breast with a glyph. Stepping a circle around her guest, she daubed more squiggles in a chain across his chest, shoulders, and back. Johan tilted his horned chin. The glyphs were simple up- and downstrokes with curlicued cross-bars. The ink was vitriol dissolved in linseed oil. Nothing looked sinister.

Yet, Johan recognized that the spell encircled his chest, heart, and head. What might it be? Enslavement? A deluding spell? A withering curse? A brand marking him for sacrifice? An oath of undying fealty or allegiance to Shauku? Johan felt like a steer paraded at the stockyards for auction and slaughter. Worse perhaps, for while a steer would only be eaten, a fool who bargained with a fiend might die a thousand painful deaths.

Still, the tyrant wasn't worried. In centuries of delving in black arts, he'd learned precautions. He was charmed against most curses, dosed immune to common poisons, warded against mind-control, and even had eyes tattooed on his back lest he be watched in secret. When needed, an impenetrable shield of mana sprang forth to protect him, and gems in his pockets would shriek in alarm if spell-struck. So any clumsy sorcery Shauku might ply would fail.

"There!" Shauku raised a stained finger and gestured at the book. "Does that signify?"

Johan opened the tiger-skin volume and caught his breath. The page read, "Tigers survive the Sukurvia in oases that extend across the desert. Four tribes dwell within: the Efravans, Hooraree, Khyyiani, and Sulaki. Each tribe boasts nine clans. Most worship a human-shaped god named Terrent Amese, but one tribe pays homage to his rival Ergerborg…"

"I've found it! Found it!" Intrigued, oblivious to his surroundings and host, Johan carefully turned the yellowed page and read.

Smiling, Lady Shauku swished away, down the tower steps.