# [Preas Eiyn] Confluence (Updated 3/16/04)



## DMO (Jan 22, 2004)

Hi all (any?),

I'll reserve the space in this first post for useful links and so forth as time goes on. For now, I think the only important non-story material to share with you is the identities of my fabulous group of co-creators (EN World cognomina are provided where available). Thanks for giving this Story Hour a try; I hope you enjoy it.

Best!

Matt


*Sessions in Arrears:* 6
*Last Session:* March 6, 2004
*Next Session:* April 10, 2004


*Gaming Group*

*Ron:* A software architect with a Master's degree in computer science, Ron had his shot at the big time but stuck to his principles and defended The Little Guy(tm). Now he sits in his cube, guarding his stapler, and has lots of time to think about D&D.
*Matt D. (DMO):* A software engineer with degrees in philosophy and religion, Matt spends his time plotting to make a small fortune road racing when not busy aspiring to RBDM-dom. It appears to involve starting with a large fortune.
*Kevin:* A high energy physicist with degress in English, mathematics, and a Ph.D. in physics (!), Kevin has left the task of developing the Grand Unified Theory to lesser minds and instead has bent all his considerable intellect upon getting Ultimate Frisbee added to the roster of official Olympic sports.
*Steve (Skefkin):* An epic IT manager with a degree in computer science and more DM-ing talent than you can fit in a portable hole, Steve is now only an occasional player in this group. He packed up the wagon and headed west to Denver and no longer has a local group. Somebody play D&D with him!
*Matt M. (Kurtz Tote):* It's appropriate that Matt's screen name is synonymous with ultimate evil; he manages a team of statisticians tasked with building better junkmail campaigns at a major credit card company. Matt has degrees in economics, business administration, and a Master's degree in applied statistics. (You wouldn't believe the statistical tracking that occurs at our gaming table if I told you. Matt writes SAS programs to perform the analytics!)
*Neil:* A construction manager with a degree in civil engineering, Neil can't help but keep the sub-contractors ... er, NPCs in line. Over the years, Neil has spent most of his money on road racing and beer. The rest he wasted.
*Justin:* A pharmaceutical salesman extraordinaire with a degree in biology, Justin has more gaming devotion than Gary Gygax's dog. He continues to play with the group at every impossible opportunity, despite having been transferred to Texas.


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## DMO (Jan 22, 2004)

*Confluence, Part 1*

The half-formed dreams began to slip away.

The crescendo of light. The tumult of color. A communal song conspiring against the silence. He stretched after them, but they retreated ever more quickly. Impossible trees, tall as authority, towering over the stars. A conflagration that consumed the sky. Some awful noise, like the groaning of a mountain suffocating under its own weight. He became agitated, scrambling after the ephemera but finding no purchase. A child weeping. Vertigo. Howling wind. The bewildering silence of doubt. Echoes of a low voice murmuring words into the darkness, diminishing, then gone. Desolation. At last, he quit struggling and surrendered. 

There was a muffled rumble of thunder. He opened his eyes.

He looked down to find that he was standing upright, naked. At his feet were markings graven into stone, a diagram circumscribing the area in which he stood, its nested silver bands populated with strange characters. Breaking the continuity of the circle was a thin trail of water that had streamed from a nearby puddle collecting upon the floor. A slow drip fed the puddle through a crack in the ceiling.

The walls of this space were close. At one end of the room narrow steps rose from the floor and into the wall, hemmed in by more stone. An old wooden chair stood nearly within reach, and atop the chair rested the remains of what had once been a man, skin tight and shriveled, with long beard and bald pate. In the corpse's lap lay an open book.

He stood there taking stock, his face expressionless, gazing about: self, circle, water, chair, body, book, exit. At last, he tentatively raised his leg and stepped across the silvered boundary. With both feet outside the circle he suddenly sprang like a startled cat, leaping away and landing in a crouch. Looking back and finding nothing changed, he gradually, warily, straightened.

He went to the corpse in the chair. Cupping its bearded chin in his hand, he gazed at the face. As though from across a great distance, he could hear the ever-present murmuring, the voice from his dreams. His head cocked, and his face grew intent. But the words were not discernible and quickly faded; the only sounds were the muzzled complaints of a storm. He let the chin down and reached for the open book. Flakes of aged ink dusted off the parchment at the upset, and the words on the cracked pages fell away.

There was a sudden cry of anguish -- at first he didn't realize that he had produced the sound -- and he quickly slammed the volume shut, sending more ink flakes and crumbled bits of parchment fluttering into the air. He clutched the book to his chest and hurriedly walked to the stairs. With a final, lingering look about the room, as though trying to memorize every detail before it too disappeared into the shadows of his mind, he ascended the steps and exited through a door at the top.

Beyond the door was a world oscillating madly between dark and bright, as jagged streaks of lightning tore at the night sky. Thunder boomed loudly -- he could feel the immediacy of the storm in his chest -- and stinging rain came down in torrents. Stone slabs and copper monuments littered the field. They gave way at the ruins of a large building, where he could spy the shifting, sputtering light of a fire.

He strode through the rain, stepping barefoot across the stone rubble that skirted the ruin. Only old, rusted hinges remained of the doors to the structure. Proceeding through the arched doorframe, he found himself in a space vaulted by souvenirs of stonework and timber. Glass remained in only a few of the windows, but not a single pane was whole. Water streamed through the vacancies in the ceiling.

Two figures sat beside a struggling fire in the looted cavity of the building's interior. They had been eating meat off daggers held over the flames and laughing bawdily, but now they sat in stunned silence, regarding him as if an apparition of death stood in their midst. At his continued approach, one of them reached hastily for his sword upon the floor.

"That's plenty far right there. Any closer and I'll cut you down."

The other one gave a nervous snort and took a swig from his wineskin.

Closing the few remaining steps between them, the interloper reached out suddenly to snatch the wineskin and take several long swallows himself. The drink dribbled down his chin, and a fiery warmth flared in his stomach, followed by a sharp prick. He lowered the bag to find the tip of a sword pressing against his belly. The man who lost his beverage scrambled to his feet and brandished a knife-skewered rabbit.

"Bloody fields, man, are you mad," he cried, wielding his supper, "chasing naked after death!"

The nude figure seemed to taste each word before responding. "I do not understand you." He gazed piercingly at the man, who recoiled as though struck.

"What _are_ you?" the man hissed.

He pondered for a moment. "I am Zadkiel. What are you?"


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## DMO (Jan 26, 2004)

*Confluence, Part 2*

Kylax sat at his desk, a cluttered affair with scrolls stacked like firewood about the perimeter and several towers of books tilting threateningly over the scatter of writing implements, charcoals, lenses, inks, and parchment sheaves strewn across the surface. The desk was tucked into an alcove in the labyrinthine halls of the Academy of Maps and Measures, for all intents and purposes lost to the world. An aggravated rumble came from the young man's considerable midsection. His hand felt searchingly about the desk while he squinted at a sheet of vellum hanging from the wall.

Kylax frowned.

_By the Book!_ he thought. Did Tyrinek draft from atop a trotting ostrich? His map of Marsk Stig looked for all the world as though it had been penned by a man having a fit.

Kylax tore the vellum from the wall and wadded it with disdain. Then, brushing the crumblings of a block of cheese from the topmost sheaf of parchment, he proceeded to re-draft the Stig's expanse -- properly, from memory, and without ever having visited the location. Or set foot in the fields beyond Brigade for that matter.

When he completed the task, the shadows across his alcove had grown long. Satisfied, he set the new map aside. His stomach grumbled and he dug about his desk, but only crumbs remained. The next growl was almost menacing in its insistence. Not one to dispute such a stern authority, the rotund cartographer shuffled the chaos of documents in a perfunctory fashion and set off in search of food.



Within civilized society, there is a class of people to which self-sufficiency comes naturally -- hard-working folk, the salt of the earth, who by nature are disposed to provide an honest day's work for an honest day's wage. To such people, the company of others is appreciated on its own merits, and when an interest is extended in their lives and concerns, it is done so out of fraternity. Because they are self-sufficient, they needn't harbor ulterior motives in dealings with their neighbors.

Kylax could not rightly be counted among these ranks.

This is not to say that he was manipulative or disingenuous, necessarily. But at the same time, it is true that for all his hours spent in the Palace of Magistrates, the young mapmaker did not know the chandler or his apprentice, would not recognize the master of the stables, had never spoken with a sentinel or chambermaid, and yet knew each and every person in the service of the mistress of kitchens by name, including the scullions.

Following yet another impromptu feast courtesy of Rebecah and her cooks, Kylax decided to join several of his colleagues from the Ministry of Science for their regular evening haranguing over metaphysics. With a stomach full of food, he leisurely made his way across the palace lawns towards Tangye-Lean's chambers. The night air was cool. Feeling contented, his mind naturally turned to more abstract thoughts.

So it was that he was caught entirely unprepared when he was accosted from out of the shadows in the darkened lee of two buildings. Before Kylax quite knew what was upon him, his assailant had clamped a firm hand over his mouth. Another hand clutched him painfully by the arm. Caught in mid-stride, Kylax found his trajectory altered, and momentum dumped him into the alley and against the coarse stone wall. He struggled but was held fast.

"Have you told anyone?" the attacker demanded urgently. "Have you spoken to anyone of your tutelage?"

In the confusion of the moment, Kylax did not immediately place the voice.

"Have you mentioned my name?" There was a hint of desperation in the query.

His eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and his brain at last was catching up with events. Kylax tried to speak.  The hand over his mouth lifted, but he was still pinned to the wall by another upon his chest.

"Troferian?" he asked, puzzled.

"Yes, boy, it's me. I truly am sorry if I've given you a fright, but you must answer my question and you must be truthful about it. If you are not, things could soon go quite poorly for both of us."

Kylax gave a short huff of laughter and visibly relaxed. "You nearly scared the stew out of me. I was someplace else. I was thinking about progressions and wondering if the total span of an infinite number of infinitely small spans is itself an infinitely small span, a span of finite size, or a span that is infinitely large. I can make an argument for any of the three. The implications could be--"

Troferian cut him off. "No time for folderol now, lad. I must know: have you given confidence to anyone of your studies with me?"

"Sure, several know."

Troferian's head bowed, and his shoulders sagged.

"They know that you lecture me at nauseating length on the principles and methods of the Ministry of Science, and that you put me to thankless tasks such as inspecting the ever-living, never-ending Canon for transpositions and other monk-minded goofs." His mentor looked up, and Kylax grinned conspiratorially.

"You have said nothing of the _verve_?" Troferian asked, insistent.

"Your instructions on the matter were clear."

"And you've not been injudicious? You've made no public display?"

"Certainly not."

Troferian appeared as though a weight had been lifted. He removed his hand from Kylax's chest and tousled the young man's hair in a gesture of approval. He patted him on the shoulder and leaned back against the wall. "Ah, good lad. Your discretion has perhaps saved the both of us; though, I fear things will only get worse from here on."

Kylax frowned in the darkness. "What in the world are you talking about? What's got you so agitated?"

"Then you've not heard?" Troferian asked.

"If I had, I guess I'd be the one ambushing you in the night."

Troferian sighed. "Gloriund Majestica, our exalted sovereign, has in his infinite wisdom seen fit to make proclamations concerning matters he does not begin to comprehend. Seeking to safeguard the moral virtue of his subjects from the dubious threat of the occult, he has issued an edict against all arcane pursuits."

"That's of some concern," Kylax observed.

"Indeed. Anyone found to be in contravention of Majestica's decree is to have his property seized by the empire and be remanded into the custody of the Holy Church. I doubt I need to tell you how unpleasant our lives would become should either of us wind up in the cloister."

Kylax was silent; he was beginning to find Troferian's agitation infectious.

"A register of offenders has already been assembled and delivered to the Ministry of Order's Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Oh yes, there is such an ensemble, and it is every bit as awful as you imagine it to be. For the moment, neither of our names is on that list, and we should both suffer great pains to keep it that way."

Kylax nodded his agreement with an abundance of vigor. "Don't worry after me. I would gladly avoid any risk of my name appearing on such an index."

Troferian held an awkward pause.

"Then you will not be happy to hear what I say next, my boy, for it is just such a risk I must ask you to undertake." Kylax's head snapped about to look on Troferian in stupefaction. "I do not ask this lightly. I would make the journey myself, but it would be far too suspicious."

"Journey?" Kylax shifted uncomfortably. He was a mapmaker; he was familiar with scale. It was a very large world out there. He did not need to have seen any of it first-hand to appreciate its capacity for danger.

"A person whom I hold in high esteem has been identified to the Virtue and Vice Committee, and as yet she can not possibly know of the edict or of the bearing it has upon her. I would not see her or her family come to harm while I still have means."

Kylax considered for a moment. "We could send pigeons," he suggested.

"And risk having them return to us under watchful eyes? I think not."

"You could whisper to her upon the wind ... like you showed me."

"No, Kylax, I wish it were so simple. The winds go whither they will, and I can not know whose ears are in the skies or whom they serve. This whole affair may not begin or end with Majestica. Until we know, we dare not chance it. Our best bet, the best hope for Proulx Longwell and her family, is to send a rider swiftly by horse. One who can be counted on to keep his wits should the world turn to madness. One who can be trusted to accomplish the utmost of tasks." Troferian glanced at his protégé significantly.

Kylax felt the four walls of expectation closing in around him, squeezing off his options. He was no adventurer, to be galloping off in the middle of the night to rescue people from imminent danger. For that matter, he didn't even have a horse.

It was a timely epiphany.

"Troferian, I'm sorry. I would very much like to help, but I'm afraid I don't have a horse. I'd go it on foot, you know, but I don't think I could manage to run from here to the Treganz Gate," he said, gesturing at his girth. "Even if it were my own life at risk!"

A smile lit across Troferian's face. "Excellent, lad! Don't worry about the horse. I'll send you off with the best of mine."


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## DMO (Mar 4, 2004)

*Confluence, Part 3*

Misja, who learned medicine from Valya, who learned medicine from Deyja, who learned medicine from Nagian, who learned medicine from Maia, who tricked medicine from Vizsascha the Wyrm, watched Naja slowly shrink into the horizon -- the first of many horizons on the journey that lay ahead.

Misja was an old man. He was old and weary, and there was but one horizon before him now. Soon, when he too diminished across that boundary, he would rest with all the suns that had labored across the sky, and he would make at cleverness with the many serpents who had shed their final skins beneath those blazing orbs. Misja was a revered elder of the Sn ah'Han. He had protected his people from each lurking menace of the world. He had imparted words of hope when they were fearful, had healed their maladies when they were sickened, had tended to their bodies when their spirits wandered beyond his care. He had done these things for more seasons than he could well recall. He was old, he was tired, and soon he would rest.

But not yet.

Old and tired, Misja worried still for his people. Throughout his many years of ministering to their needs, he had found them a good people who made a good life in a hard land. Their industry centered them. Their pride buoyed them. Their respect for their traditions knit them together as a family. But of late there was discord, a growing unease within the family of the Han. Misja could not identify its root, yet the weed of division was plain to him: jealousy where there had been sharing, suspicion where there had been trust, scorn where there had been regard. Not in every glance or in every word, no, but in too many to ignore and in more every day. He perceived a sickness beginning to fester in the heart of his clan. It was unlike any malady he had yet beguiled, and all his medicine was fruitless against it.

So it was that Misja sent Naja forth, his most promising pupil, on a very different _horizon quest_ than the young medicine man might have expected. This would be no mere journey to retrieve the feather of an eagle, or the tooth of a snake, or the claw of a bear.

"Naja, take this," Misja had said, handing him an old bow whose significance Naja knew only too well. "It was fashioned by Maia the Clever when she hunted Old Wyrm Vizsascha, in the dark days when our people were dying under the heels of the powers that roamed the land."

Naja had taken the bow with reverence. Only the elders of the Sn ah'Han had ever drawn its string.

"It is _Longfang_. In the hands of one who has learned its ways, it can strike across the breadth of the sky or pin a beast to its shadow. These are dark days for our people once more, Naja. You must draw Maia's bow and follow the arrow where it lands. You must do this again. And so again. You must follow the track of the arrow wherever it leads, until it leads you to the medicine that will save your people. You must be clever like Maia and learn the medicine and come back to the Sn ah'Han. Then you will be their revered elder, Naja, and old Misja will rest at last."



One thing was clear to Naja at the start of his _horizon quest_: he could not shoot an arrow across but a small slice of the sky. That talk was no doubt the exaggeration of the elderly. Misja was wise, but it did not stop him from being old and speaking like one who was old. Always the talk of death. Always how things had been, the way the Serpent Clan had been, when he was a younger man. Lately it seemed he spent all his hours dwelling on the Han and how they were changing. It seemed to upset him greatly. And with the time Naja now had in the company of his own thoughts, he could not help but wonder if perhaps Misja was beginning to lose his sense. After all, the revered elder had sent him out to wander aimlessly under the wild blue dome with possession of a sacred relic.

Nevertheless, by the evening of the first day of his quest, Naja's arm was sore from strain and repetition. Despite his doubts, he continued to work against the heavy draw of Maia's bow, firing his arrow into the distance and marching off in retrieval of it, until darkness descended and he could follow its arc no longer.

The second day went much like the first, the third like the second, and the fourth was not dramatically different from those prior. But late in the afternoon of the fifth day of his journey, a storm blew in unlike any Naja had previously experienced. It was raw and powerful and savage. Its winds pressed whole forests into submission, and its lightning struck through the hearts of trees that refused to be cowed. Thunder bellowed in the heavens. Water poured upon the earth as though the scrim of green and black sky had suddenly torn at its seams, releasing a hidden sea contained behind.

It was evident from the start that this was no simple rain shower that would quickly blow over. Naja began searching for some form of shelter from the elements where he could rest for the night. With more warning he might have managed to locate a small settlement with a roof to share, but nature's fury had developed quickly and he had drifted into sparsely populated lands.

With the energies of the storm gathering -- Naja's clothing was thoroughly drenched, and the winds were such that he was forced to cover his mouth in order to breathe -- he began to wonder if suitable shelter could be found. But as Naja steeled himself against the prospect of a long night at Verda's mercy, he at last discovered a small rubble-strewn cliff beside a now overflowing streambed. The rocky ledge looked like it might offer some small sanctuary from the weather. Better, as he came closer Naja could make out the silhouette of a cave opening.

He peered inside, his keen eyes probing the dark cavern for signs of habitation. It would not do to flee an angry storm only to startle a hungry bear. With a sharp gasp, Naja retreated from the entrance. Sure enough, this was some beast's den. It was a large animal, too, by the looks of it. Naja's instincts told him to retreat. Live now, die later. He would contend with the storm when that time came. Still, he was not sure. The storm was beginning to threaten a swifter death. Naja crept forward again cautiously. Perhaps with a well-placed shot from _Longfang_.... There was a stab of lightning. In the flash of light, Naja caught a glimpse of incongruous anatomy. This bear, or whatever it was, had human hands.

Naja chuckled as he made sense of things.

"I am a traveler seeking protection from the storm," he called into the cave, raising his voice above the din of the weather. "Will you share your shelter with me?"

There was no response. Naja stooped down and shuffled in, glad for the moment to be out of the downpour. He could see the man's body rise and fall in the slow rhythm of sleep. His attire was the strange sort of those who dwell in the cities. Beside him were several packs, bags, and cases loaded with all manner of who-knew-what. Naja could not imagine traveling so heavily encumbered.

"Friend," he said, shaking the man lightly by his shoulder. When there was still no response, he shook more sternly. "The storm has grown deadly. I must share your cave for the night."

Naja sat there, hunched on his heels, peering intently at the sound-slumberer. He squinted. The young man appeared to have plugged his ears with wax, not that he seemed troubled by light sleep. "Thank you for your generosity," Naja said at last. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you."

With that, the medicine man cleared a spot near the cave entrance of any sharp rocks, removed his sopping garments, and stretched out upon the floor. He reached into a small pouch fastened around his neck by a thin leather lace, gingerly withdrawing a black-and-gold-scaled snake approximately a foot in length. Naja set the snake on his bare chest and gently stroked its head with his index finger.

_Ah, low belly, here is a day better behind us than before us,_ he thought.

Suddenly there was a clatter within the cave. His quiver of arrows, propped against the wall, had tumbled over and spilled its contents. Startled by the noise, Naja flinched and immediately wished that he hadn't. The snake on his chest struck swiftly, too fast for Naja to avoid. He felt the fangs enter the tender flesh between his finger and thumb, discharging their potent venom.

Naja froze.

His mind raced, but he kept his body calm, knowing that frantic motion would only hasten whatever misfortune was to come. If enough venom had been released, he would not need to brood over it for long. He would be dead before he could grow too upset. And there was not much to be done in any case. He would attempt to suck from the wound what poison he could. He would do that just as soon as he could steer his hand to his mouth. For now, the snake had slithered up his chest and draped itself across his throat. Naja strained to focus. His sight was terribly blurry at this close proximity. Or perhaps death was soon upon him.

The snake rose up, peering directly into Naja's eyes, its forked tongue darting in and out. The head, a black hood wreathed in gold, seemed to fill his world it was so large. The jaw lowered to reveal the offending fangs, a bead of venom suspended from the tip of one. It was a fitting death vision, Naja thought, as his eyelids became too heavy to suspend.

*Naja.*

The medicine man's eyes bobbed open. Yes, this was the end. The poison must have reached his brain. He could swear the snake had addressed him. But it had changed, hovering now, giant in proportions, supple and assured in its motion, with incomprehensible intellect gleaming in its eyes. The periphery of his vision had faded into a vague glow, so that the snake appeared to be molting light from its scaly skin. A foreboding hiss sounded in his ears, perhaps the noise of Naja's soul escaping his body.

Naja let his eyes sag shut again, amused by the strangeness of his death.

*Naja.*

He slowly lifted one lid and then the other. It seemed as though he should be dead by now, but the aspect of the snake, impressive and peculiar, still persisted. It regarded him with a look of expectation.

"Yes?" Naja asked tentatively, unsure how to proceed.

*Naja. You venture into great danger. You are small and underfoot. You have no wings. You have no feet. You have no hands.*

"I hear you, o ... magnificent ... serpent," Naja said, not completely in agreement and searching clumsily for words.

*Naja. Those around you are large and reckless where they tread. They do not want you in their homes. They do not want you in their fields. They do not want you in their woodpiles.*

It seemed he should say something. "Yes, you speak truly," he replied.

*Naja. They will cleave you with their plows. They will burn you with their fires. What will you do? Where will you crawl?*

A chill stole over him. This was growing morbid. It was not how he hoped to be welcomed into the afterlife certainly. "Advise me, O Shrewd Beguiler! What must I do?"

*Naja.*

He waited for the answer to follow, but it did not come.

*Naja.*

The light was fading, and his vision was growing dim. The words of the serpent seemed to echo from a distance. Naja strained. This was an inopportune time to die. "Yes! I am listening...."

*Naja. In the company of the blind one who can see, you will find your medicine. In the company of the blind one who can see, you will find your way.*

"Thank you, Cleverest-of-All. Thank you for guiding me. I will do as you say."

The instructions repeated in his mind as the world grew black and the hissing became a great rushing clamor. Naja felt dizziness overtake him. He was falling, falling, not from or towards anything, but simply falling. When he landed his thoughts scattered from him like shattered glass, and then there was only silence.


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## DMO (Mar 16, 2004)

*Confluence, Part 4*

Naja awoke, but not to the afterlife. His hand was swollen and sore where it had been bitten. There were small stones on his chest and stomach, with several more on the cave floor around him. He raised his head and looked over just in time for the next one to strike off his temple.

"Ouch!"

Naja shielded his head with his hands. The large man whose cave Naja shared was sitting in the corner with a pile of rocks gathered beside him. As Naja propped himself up, the next one sailed through the air towards him, skittering off the cave wall when Naja ducked out of the way.

"Why are you throwing stones at me?" Naja asked.

"I'm hungry," the man responded, somewhat indignantly.

Naja sat up and rubbed the stinging from his temple. "I appreciate the consideration, but you are welcome to begin your meal without me."

The man shook his head. "My food is outside, and you're blocking the exit."

"Well, there are other ways to rouse a person." Naja glanced disapprovingly at the pile of rocks.

"Listen, I'm not coming anywhere near you with that thing sitting there."

Naja glanced over and then smiled ruefully at the snake coiled near where his head had lain. He scooped it up, carefully returning it to the bag around his neck. The young man grimaced.

"Besides, if you don't like the hospitality, feel free to find other accommodations."

Naja couldn't tell if the man spoke in jest, or if his preoccupation with breaking the evening fast made him irritable.

"Why do you conceal your food outside the cave?" Naja inquired as he stood, careful not to hit his head on the low ceiling.

"No, I'm not concealing my food. It's packed on my horse."

Naja frowned.

"Outside," the man clarified. "A horse is too large to fit in here. I had to leave it outside." His voice had a tone of exaggerated patience, as though he was giving instructions to a dolt.

"Yes, I understand," Naja said, "but there is no horse outside the cave."

A look very close to panic came over the young man's face. "Sure there is," he insisted, getting up and pushing past the small-framed medicine man. "I left it right ... over ... here...." He looked around, squinting in the morning sunlight, pacing here and then there. Troferian's horse was nowhere to be found.

"It's gone." He shook his head. "It's just ... gone." The man wavered for a moment, then dropped to the ground like a poorly balanced sack of potatoes. "I never should have left Brigade. What in the world do I do now? I may as well go back to the cave and wait to die."

Naja stood at the cave entrance taking in the young man's melodrama with curiosity. Such statements were rather overblown. After all, Naja was five days' journey without a horse, and many more lay ahead.

"Friend, do not fret. I assure you, you can travel without a horse. It simply takes longer."

The young man stared at him helplessly. For a moment it looked like he might even start to weep. "I don't care about the horse," he said desperately. "I'm alone in the wilderness. I'm days from civilization. And all my food is gone!"

And then he did.



"Do you not know how to forage for food, Kylax?"

The young city dweller sat across the roaring campfire, plucking absently at a cluster of wild berries. Having located the berries in short order, the medicine man now busied himself with cooking a squirrel he had succeeded in shooting from a tree.

"Sure, but it typically requires a pantry." Kylax offered a wry grin.

Naja smiled back. This mapmaker was truly unprepared to fend for himself in the wild. He could not hunt. He could not forage. And he traveled like a loaded pack mule.

"Well, at least you have no trouble making fire."

Despite the wetness of the wood, Kylax had quickly goaded a fire to life that now popped and hissed in complaint. From one of his many pouches Kylax had produced a strange powder. From another, a lens. He sprinkled the powder upon the gathered pile of wet branches, then focused the sunlight upon it through the lens. The flames leapt out so suddenly that Naja fell backwards, smelling the unpleasant odor of his own singed hair. Kylax had sported the eager expression of a fire-fascinated child.

Long moments passed while Naja roasted his game and peered thoughtfully at the flames. At last, he handed half the steaming squirrel to Kylax.

"You see! With a little cleverness, the wilderness is your pantry and the earth is your kitchen."

Kylax gratefully devoured the squirrel meat, and Naja watched him with satisfaction.

"Kylax, I think it is not an accident that the wily _low bellies_ have led me to your cave." The medicine man seemed to declare this to himself as much as to the cartographer seated across from him. "Particularly that it should be just as you have lost your horse ..." he tried to be delicate "... and your way in the wild."

Kylax continued to work on the squirrel.

"Moreover, you tell me of this errand of yours, that it is of great urgency and your friend is in danger every moment we delay ... you delay."

Kylax sucked the last of the juices from the bones and leaned back, his gaze now fixed on Naja.

"What I'm trying to say is, I think that I should accompany you, at least until you have aided your friend. I can help you along the way, to find food and so forth. And then, after your friend is safe, we can see where our paths lead us."

Kylax squinted at Naja as though sizing him up. With food in his stomach, Troferian's protégé seemed much more certain of himself.

Naja held a hand up to the sky. "What do you say?"

Kylax pointed at Naja's other hand and smiled.

"We should really get going. Are you going to eat that?"


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