Kwasin nodded in the Khokarsan negative, feeling as if one of the nukaar, the long-armed hairy half-men of the trees, had reached down out of the jungle, taken hold of him in its viselike grip, and pulled him up into its dark abode. The woman meant to trap him with her so-called opportunity.
“I have no interest,” Kwasin said, “in the age-old struggle between the priestesses of Kho and the priests of Resu. Kho helps him who helps himself! She cares nothing for the mortals who merely get in Her way or who attribute their own self-serving prattle to Her divine lips!”
“Hear me out, Kwasin!” Madekha snapped. “Do you forget I can turn you in to the priests in the village if you displease me?”
He recognized the desperation in the woman’s voice as well as her conviction. She would not hesitate to execute her threat if he crossed her. Besides, he was desperate as well. If she could truly help him make amends with the Great Mother at Dythbeth, could he resist her offer, no matter the task given him?
“Go on,” he said at last, but he did not hide his displeasure.
“Only two days ago,” Madekha continued, “my cousin Tswethphe—an acolyte serving the village priestess—arrived from Q”okwoqo. She reports that a small band of soldiers has taken the village, and that the priestess escaped into the wilderness with only my cousin by her side as the soldiers struck. The priestess sent Tswethphe to neighboring Dythbeth to ask for succor, but King Roteka is too busy fighting off Minruth’s legions to be bothered with the troubles of a small mountain village. And so my cousin left Dythbeth and crossed the island to throw herself upon my mercy.”
“Why does this backwoods village concern you, priestess? Your cousin is safe in your arms, and Q”okwoqo is but an insignificant abode of mountain-dwelling yokels.” Kwasin had heard of the rustic mountain village, having lived out his early years in Dythbeth at the foothills of the Saasamaro. He could think of no strategic importance the place might bear upon the struggle against the sun worshipers.
“Alas, I do not disagree with your assessment of Q”okwoqo, but my twin sister, Adythne, the priestess of the village, is as stubborn-headed and dogged as Kopoethken herself. She will not leave her village to the blasphemers and says she will singlehandedly launch a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the soldiers if no one comes to her aid. She will get herself killed!”
Madekha, her face flushed with emotion, paced the granite blocks that composed the portico’s floor, but Kwasin only roared with laughter.
“I like the sound of your sister! Are you sure you want to trust me with her?”
The priestess of the sacred pythoness glared at him, the points of her sharpened teeth whitening her otherwise sensuous crimson lips.
“What would you have me do?” Kwasin offered when she said nothing. “Bring her back to you, against her will?”
“No, she would have none of it. I know her too well. Even if you tied her up and carried her here, she would only fly back to her village at the earliest opportunity. You must aid her in her quest. That is the only way. It’s a fool’s errand, I know, but what other choice have you? If you agree to help her, I shall whisper into Queen Weth’s ear of your efforts to free Q”okwoqo, as well as your act of heroism in defending a daughter of Kho in the ruins of Miterisi—both deeds which will go a long way toward forgiveness of your crimes against the Goddess. But if you refuse to help my sister, I may tell Weth another story, of how in a murderous rage you sought to slay me with your ax amid the ruins. And lest you think I carry no weight with the queen, know that I trained with Weth in the college of priestesses. She will listen to me.”
The woman was clearly distraught. And as desperate as her sister if she thought Kwasin could liberate the village from a band of disciplined and entrenched soldiers with an ax as his only ally. Kwasin did not know whether to cry out in laughter or outrage at her opportunity-turned-threat.
“Why not send some of your own men from Kaarkor to help your sister?” Kwasin countered. “Surely some of the villagers remain faithful to you. The priests cannot have corrupted your entire flock.”
“Yesterday I was weighing just that,” Madekha said, “but concluded that to weaken my forces now, when T’agoqo is readying his own forces to strike, would be foolhardy. And then Terisikokori visited me in my sleep and told me to go to the ruins. And lo, there I found you, perhaps the greatest warrior in all the land! Next to your cousin Hadon, that is, the hero of the Great Games. Perhaps if you are too cowardly to help me, I should seek him out and ask him for help. He escaped from prison with you, did he not? Surely he is somewhere nearby and such a champion would not shirk the challenge I set before him.”
Though he knew the woman was manipulating him, it was too much for Kwasin. “Good luck with my cousin!” he roared. “He flew like a frightened hare before Minruth’s soldiers while I remained behind to slay a whole company! Had I not, then your beloved queen, Awineth, would have perished. Tell me who is the greatest hero of the land!”
“Then you accept the challenge?”
Before he could stop himself, Kwasin found himself shouting out his prideful assent.
Madekha smiled like a sly snake. “Good,” she said. “In any case, I have a feeling you will find the village of Q”okwoqo more palatable than you have found Kaarkor and the moldering ruins of Miterisi. The villagers there worship Old Father Nakendar, a great klakoru4 rumored to have made its lair in the caves near the village for over four hundred years. Perhaps the Bear God himself led you to me so that you would journey to the village and help his children. And besides, the Q”okwoqo are of your totem—the Klakordeth—so you cannot treat my... request to aid them as some distasteful chore. It is your duty to help your Bear brothers and sisters!”5
Kwasin did not argue with her. The sooner he was on his way and far away from the snakewoman the better. By now, his pride had settled and he had no intention of undertaking her charge, though when she summoned a priestess to bring her a map showing the location of Q”okwoqo and proceeded to spread it out before them on the stone floor, he knelt beside her and nodded as if he were studying his mission in earnest. When Madekha asked him to memorize a passphrase she said would convey to her sister that Kwasin was her emissary, he did so as if it were the most important thing in the world. Observing that he seemed to be taking his newfound mission so solemnly, the woman beamed.
He smiled back at her widely. Besides being the greatest hero of the land, Kwasin was also a passable actor.
* * *
And so it was that as the sun fell behind the western mountains and Kwasin prepared for his departure, the village priest, T’agoqo, arrived at the temple to call on the high priestess of the sacred pythoness. Madekha immediately ordered Kwasin into a back chamber in the temple. Only moments later Kwasin heard violent shouting erupt on the other side of the door. Then, as he almost anticipated, he heard the temple’s outer doors bang open and the sound of many feet marching into the building.
Kwasin grabbed his ax and flung wide the door, which opened onto the temple’s central chamber. Before him lay chaos. Two temple guards lay dead before the great door on the opposite side of the chamber. T’agoqo stood before Madekha, whose back was to the altar. Madekha’s ceremonial dagger gleamed in the torchlight as she thrust it at the priest, who cried out, looking like a betrayed lover, as the blade sank into his scarlet-blossoming robes. Behind them came a group of twelve sailors, recognizable from the fish-eagle insignia of the Khokarsan navy painted on the faces of their small round shields. They must have been from the galley that hunted Kwasin, having provided T’agoqo and his priests with all the reason they needed to at last make their move against the followers of the Goddess.
Kwasin was about to hurl himself into the fray when a rapid succession of muted and airy thwocks sounded in the chamber. Six of the sailors reeled, then crumpled unmoving to the brightly colored mosaic floor. At seeing their comrades fall about them, and having witnessed the death of the priest, the remaining sailors fell into a disorderly
retreat, practically tripping over themselves as they scrambled to get out of the temple.
Though Kwasin surveyed the room, he could see no sign to indicate who had blown the poisoned darts. The blowgun-wielding priestesses must have hidden themselves in secret chambers behind the walls, Madekha having likely outfitted the room in case of just such an attack upon the temple.
When he approached the altar, Kwasin found Madekha wiping her blade on the lifeless form of T’agoqo, something akin to satisfaction crossing her features. Then her expression turned to one of urgency.
“T’agoqo has sent his priests to the garrison at the foothills to summon more soldiers,” she said, already leading him out of the altar room and through the two adjoining antechambers toward the temple steps. “He told me he did so this morning, so we have little time before they arrive. You must leave in haste if you are to avoid becoming entangled in Kaarkor’s affairs.” Seeing the unfulfilled battle lust smoldering in his eyes, she added, “As you told me earlier, it is not your desire to stay here and take up the local quarrels. I can take care of myself. Already my courier speeds to the village to bring aid. Much blood will be spilt, but the cause is not a lost one. Kho’s faithful do marginally outnumber the followers of the sungod in the village, and they will obey the high priestess of Terisikokori without question. And many in the garrison have wives and lovers in the village—he who turns against the faithful will feel the sting of an angry pythoness!”
Kwasin did not doubt Madekha’s conviction, but a mob of untrained country folk against a hardened Khokarsan garrison seemed like long odds on a bet. Still, he had a feeling the high priestess of Terisikokori would not be easily subdued, and further, she was right: he had no interest in remaining here among the People of the Snake. His destiny lay to the west in Dythbeth.
As they stood upon the temple steps, pinpoints of fiery torchlight flickered through the trees on the forest’s edge, accompanied by the yapping of approaching dogs. It was the direction from which the soldiers would come if summoned from the garrison.
“Go, Kwasin, fly!” Madekha cried. “Fulfill your charge to me and you shall be rewarded! I have made arrangements—even should I be killed—to get word to Weth that will lobby on your behalf! Now go!”
Kwasin took hold of the woman and kissed her passionately. Then, grinning with the sense of adventure that had seized him, he sped into the forest in the opposite direction to the coming soldiers, bearing only the ax he had brought with him.
He intended to head inland and pass well south of the Saasanadar Mountains on his journey to Dythbeth, perhaps stealing a boat and accomplishing a lengthy stretch of his journey floating down the river that fed the island’s great lake. But the presence of the soldiers to the south meant he would not be able to take the direct route. Right now his primary concern was getting the soldiers and their dogs off his trail.
With no plan other than to open as much distance as he could between himself and the enemy, Kwasin cut a beeline north through the grove of the sacred pythoness. His great strides carried him quickly through the knee-high grasses that grew between the dark trees, but the soldiers were closing on him. If they released the dogs from their harnesses, the unbridled canines would quickly catch up with him.
Then, abruptly, the forest ended and Kwasin found himself almost barreling headlong off the soaring granite cliffs into the sea. He reeled back, his wildly swaying arms spread behind him as he teetered on the precipice. Far below—though he could not see it—he heard the surf crashing violently against the cliffs.
Despite the coolness of the evening sea breeze, he broke out in a sweat. Without knowing it, he had almost entered Sisisken’s dark queendom.
Behind him in the forest the hellacious barking of the dogs drew nearer. As far as he could see to either side, the moonlight revealed only a level span of the stark and unfaltering granite cliff top.
By the sound of the barking, he judged the dogs could only be three or four hundred yards off. And now he saw two, then six, then a dozen torches flaming in a wide arc across the forest—the soldiers had fanned out in their pursuit and were now almost upon him.
Swallowing back the sick feeling that rose from the pit of his stomach, Kwasin backed up several paces. Then, clutching his ax with all his oxlike might, he charged toward the cliff’s granite rim, howling like a mad gorilla. He kicked off from the edge, and then the night air took him.
He fell for what seemed far too long. Perhaps dread Sisisken would yet entertain him in her dark house.
* * *
Just over a week later saw a very much alive Kwasin climbing the mid-reaches of the northeastern Saasamaro on the far western corner of the island. Tall though the cliffs above Kaarkor had been, the precipitous plunge had ended in what amounted to a perfect high dive as Kwasin parted the cold, dark waters with a precision that would have won him a gold crown and a standing ovation had he performed the feat in the Great Games.
The journey after that had not been easy. When Kwasin circled back inland and reached the wide river that flowed south of the Saasanadar, he had been unable to find a boat to steal and carry him on his way. So instead, with the ax given to him by the manling Paga, he had chopped down a great teak and, with a backbreaking and laborious effort he never wanted to repeat again, fashioned from it a crude dugout canoe. The craft, however, was barely riverworthy, and after many frustrating mishaps in which the boat capsized and he nearly drowned, Kwasin was forced to finally abandon his wayward creation and proceed on foot.
Not long after this, while passing south of the vast and waving emmer fields of Awamuka, Kwasin had spied a large contingent of soldiers marching out of the north. After some reconnoitering, he determined the assemblage belonged to Minruth’s Sixth Army, the division representing the capital itself and the most battle-hardened of them all. Despite Madekha’s threat to malign him to Queen Weth if he failed to aid her sister’s village, Kwasin had intended to head south as the kagaga flies, taking the shortest route to Dythbeth by passing along the shores of the island’s great lake. But seeing that the massive body of soldiers would quickly bisect his path, he had been forced to make haste and detour far to the west. Before long, the heights of the Saasamaro, blanketed in green swaths of cedar and pine, loomed before him.
Here he had thought of Madekha’s sister and shrugged. He might as well check in on her village and ascertain the situation. Perhaps the soldiers had moved on and he could beseech Adythne to speak on his behalf to Weth—the priestess was, after all, of his totem, and he had saved her sister’s life. More likely, the woman had died of starvation in the wilderness or been captured by Minruth’s men. If he could, he would find out, to satisfy his curiosity if nothing else.
In any case, he wanted to see if the stories about the Bear God were true. Long ago, the young Kwasin had listened as his godfather, Pwamkhu, related to him the legend of Old Father Nakendar. It was said the Bear God had lived in his cave near Q”okwoqo for over four hundred years, brought to the island by the hero Rimasweth, whose soldiers had captured the enormous cave bear in the mountains near Kethna during their historic expedition to free the poetess Kwamim from Gokasis, the legendary pirate-king who once almost toppled the empire. Kwasin had believed the tale as a child, but he now knew better: the elders of his totem said bears lived no more than half the lifespan of the average human. But even so, there could be some shade of truth in the matter. Perhaps the original cave bear’s descendants lived on in the isolated mountain area. Small, though rapidly dwindling, populations of brown bears were known to exist on the island, brought here long ago from the far northern mainland; it would not be impossible for the beast to have bred successfully with these bears, thereby producing progeny that kept the legend of Old Father Nakendar alive.
And so, recalling the maps Madekha had shown him of the region, Kwasin footed his way up the long arm of the northern Saasamaro that would, if he was not mistaken, eventually lead him to the valley of the Q”okwoqo. Passing higher and deepe
r into the mountains, he saw evidence of recent encroachment by soldiers: the charred remains of a cooking fire here, an ax-toppled cedar there. These could have been attributed to a band of local hunters, but the orderliness of the sites convinced him otherwise; soldiers almost always kept their camps tidier than the average backwoods hunting party.
The next afternoon, having descended into a forested valley on the eastern side of the range, Kwasin spied a group of ten soldiers bathing in a natural hot spring in a clearing overlooked by a rocky slope. With the men were six women—likely locals from the village he sought—who seemed to bear the soldiers no ill will, and, if their giggles and frolicking meant anything, were even enjoying themselves.
Kwasin watched the party from a distance for some time, taking passing note of what appeared to be a cave blocked off by a boulder-slide at the top of the slope. He was on the verge of sneaking into the clearing and making off with the soldiers’ kilts, harnesses, and weapons—which lay upon the edge of the steaming pool of turquoise water—when suddenly the men and women drew themselves from the spring, their bathing finished, and began donning their clothes.
Slowly, Kwasin withdrew into the woods. He had no desire to take on the soldiers without knowing if they were part of a larger force stationed nearby, which, if Madekha’s intelligence was accurate, they were. That the soldiers were Khokarsan and not from Dythbeth, he had no doubt; he had listened to them long enough to determine that from their accents.
Kwasin did, however, cautiously follow the party, which took up a well-worn trail through the trees that, after about a half-hour of walking, led to a little village in the forest circled by an intimidating thorn boma. The party entered the boma through its only means of ingress, a stout wooden, bronze-reinforced gate, after speaking a password to a sentry through a speak-hole in the door.