OoOoO

Drip...drip...drip...

            The sound of water on stones was a familiar one to Vinie. She had spent ten years of her life counting those drops. Strange, how a person could come so far and yet still return to the same place.

            Little was changed from the day that Gideo and Bakko had broken her out of this dark, lonely cell, at least on this side of the bars. Utunma's prison was empty now, the former occupants turned loose either by the Third Company or the Undorians in their turns, depending on political allegiances. The silence pressed eerily upon Vinie's ears as she gazed at the carved wall before her.

            Even in the two years since fleeing Utunma, the map of Goran which she had painstakingly etched into the stones of her cell remained untouched. A ruined masterpiece, it seemed somehow flat and lifeless to Vinie now. She remembered how urgently, nearly frenzied her hands had worked to chisel the web of lines across the country's outline. The map had come alive beneath her bony, bloodied fingers; a nation practically crying out to break apart. Inch by grinding inch, driven by a vision of her long-dead love Zaneo calling up the sea to cleave the world from King Mahir's ever-tightening grasp, Vinie had broken apart Goran on the cell wall. It was the birth of a dream, one that had since taken on a life and fire of its own. It also exacted a growing cost in blood from all who dared to dream it.

            Brushing her callused fingertips against the damp stone, Vinie closed her eyes and thought of them. Zaneo, gentle and beautiful, martyred by an executioner's axe in the square just outside. Clever and faithful Sahar, similarly made example of, her head left in the jungle to greet Vinie and the Factionist forces as they arrived to retake Utunma. Dhalad, honest and reliable to the last, killed in the Uprising of Undor, as people were taking to calling the battle that had ensued.

            Undor. That was the south's name now. Not that the capital would ever recognize it, not with Mahir on the throne. The sea-folk had a name and a flag now, two things that just a year ago nobody would have dared to imagine possible. Such simple things, bought at such a high cost. If she closed her eyes, Vinie could still see the fiery ship which had borne hundreds of dead out to sea after the Uprising. And she could hear the serpent's cry.

            A day hadn't gone by yet when the appearance of the sea serpent, the first seen off Goran's shores in nearly a thousand years, wasn't spoken of. Some like Lord Xolani and Lady Oesu, the new Lord and Lady of Undor, were simply too busy to pay it much thought. Others like the apprentice Wise Woman from the mountains could think of nothing but. Lhara would ask anyone with a moment to answer about the serpent and what it meant, but in truth the Undorians could only guess. Most seemed happy to take it as a sign that their cause for independence was fated, since First King Amenthis had not apparently succeeded in his quest to rid the land of the ancient creatures.

            A sudden twinge from the base of her thumb as she brushed the map pulled Vinie from her thoughts. A soft smile flickered across her lips. The marriage knot tattoo was still new, still tender. Lifting her hand away from the wall, she flexed the joint of her palm where the little white circle had been re-inked. The marriage knot itself was not new to Vinie; she had been carrying one since she married Zaneo as a fresh-faced young pearl diver. The bond behind this newly done tattoo was new though. Last time, Gideo had inked a knot for Zaneo into her skin. This time the mark he left on Vinie was his own.

            He would be waiting for her, him and the boys both. Pausing at the cell door, Vinie took one last look behind her. This was where it all started, here in this damp, lonely little room. If it weren't for Gideo and her dad she might have been here still, wasting away. The fractured map of Goran faded behind a beam of sunlight from the window above, floating dust motes obscuring the tiny city markers. This was also the first place Vinie had ever heard Zaneo's voice speaking to her from beyond death. Those memories were safely tucked away in a corner of Vinie's heart which only Bakko and Gideo knew of. The last thing Undor needed was a General reputed to be crazy. Then again...perhaps a little insanity might be useful in the days ahead.

            Activity was everywhere when Vinie stepped out into Utunma's main square. With many of the seafolk who had fled by boat from the Third's occupation now returning, Utunma was beginning to look like its old self once again. Coral masons, carpenters and fishermen alike worked together to restore the damage the Uprising had wreaked on the town's buildings, while others worked to begin rebuilding Utunma's spirit. The sight of fishing boats out in the bay warmed Vinie's heart. So long as the clear blue waters of sea lifted the crafts of the seafolk up on its waves, there was hope.

            Finding Gideo's skinpainting shop was as easy as breathing. Vinie could have made her way there without a moment's hesitation even if she were to go utterly blind tomorrow. The jingling of bells when she opened the door was sweet music, the lingering scent of strawberry candles better than the richest Moaanese perfume. And amongst all this, on his hands and knees cleaning out cupboards, was the 'Masterpiece' himself (at least according to Kiiss). As much as Vinie hated to agree with Kiiss about anything, in this case she concurred.

            "Looking for something, luv?"

            "More 'finding' than 'looking'," said Gideo, his voice somewhat echoed by the inside of the shelf. When he straightened up, a small, sorrowful gasp escaped Vinie.

            "Oh..." she breathed, looking at the little box, lid ajar, which Gideo held. "I thought Sahar had gotten rid of all of them...?"

            Gideo smiled, his discovery bittersweet. "Not all. I always kept spares underneath, just in case I needed them. Scented candles are expensive you know, PearlDiver."

            "I know."

            That wasn't what made this box of red candles precious anymore though. For some reason, a silly little remark in the last letter Vinie had ever received from Sahar had been enough to make Gideo's trademark indulgence synonymous with everything that had been lost on this quest for independence. For a long moment Vinie and Gideo stood in silence in Gideo's shop, the fresh wound of Sahar's death open between them.

            Finally Gideo cleared his throat. "If I had remembered them sooner, I might have set the candles on the ship to go out with Sahar. Then she really could have had the last laugh as far as clearing them out on me."

            The thought of Sahar making that final journey to the sea and taking the last of Gideo's precious candles with her could have been funny, given enough time. Right now, Vinie was relieved Gideo hadn't found them earlier.

            "No, I think she'd be glad you have some left. I always loved that smell on you, you know."

            Gideo quirked an eyebrow, a spark of playfulness brightening his warm brown eyes despite the weeks of exhaustion they both knew lingered behind them.

            "Always?"

            "Tread carefully, or I might tattle on you to Zaneo and ask him to send you nightmares."

            It wasn't exactly an empty threat. Although Zaneo and Sahar rarely spoke to her since the fight for Utunma, Vinie could swear she felt their presences; always nearby but never close enough to be sure of. Sometimes in the fleeting moments between dreaming and waking Vinie even thought she caught glimpses of their faces. Only recently had she mustered up the courage to tell Gideo everything about her experiences with hearing (and occasionally seeing) Zaneo since her days in prison. Before letting Gideo ink the marriage knot into her palm, she had insisted on telling him everything. If he was going to bind himself to a madwoman, best he do so knowing what he was getting himself into. Or so Vinie figured. To her relief, Gideo had been awed if not a little taken aback.

            'After seeing a living sea serpent right here in our harbor, I don't think there's anything I wouldn't believe anymore,' he had told her. If anything, knowing that his almost-brother/best friend might still endure in the world in some form or other had lifted Gideo's spirits considerably. Although Sahar's death was still too raw to be spoken of in such a way, Gideo and Vinie found it an unexpected relief to be able to speak of Zaneo as if he might come walking in the door and dump water on them in bed together at any moment. Zaneo was no longer a ghost, lingering unseen and unnamed between them. Now he was just Zaneo, as himself and as beloved in death as he had ever been in life.

           Try as they might though, Vinie and Gideo could not make sense of what Sahar had meant when she had implied needing some kind of help. Gideo worried that she and Zaneo sounded somehow trapped, or at very least unable to journey on to wherever it was that spirits went after death. As much as Vinie hoped that it wasn't somehow her fault that their dear ones lingered, a small, selfish part of her was glad of it. The hope of a whisper or a glimpse from beyond made mourning so much easier to bear. If Gideo thought it was a selfish hope, he said nothing. Also, if others thought Vinie and Gideo were mad for speaking of the dead as if they were only in the other room, then at least they could be mad together. Even Reyson had learned not to comment if he overheard Vinie telling Gideo about the latest 'visit'.

            Taking a candle from the box, Gideo spiked it on a nearby base. The wrought iron was laden with hardened red rivulets of wax, dangling down like stalactites toward the countertop. A strike of flint, and a faint scent of berries suffused the room.

Vinie drew close to Gideo, wrapping her arms around his waist and knotting her fists above his hip. She was just tall enough to press her ear against where his heartbeat lay, warm and reassuring. Just above, hung by leather cord in the hollow of Gideo's throat, the black pearl Zaneo had given Vinie on their wedding day reflected the candlelight. Gideo ran a hand through the back Vinie's fluffy black curls, bringing her head even closer to his heart. For a stolen moment the two of them just stood together watching the little red candle burn, thinking on lives lived and lost.

"How are the boys?" Vinie broke the stillness at last.

Gideo gave the shell of her ear one last stroke before relinquishing his hold on her. "Better than last night. I left them sleeping upstairs." He huffed in half-feigned exasperation. "Kiiss is with them."

"Otch! Doesn't she have anything else to do besides stalk you? I don't know...paintings to steal, people to bribe?"

"Oh she's working on something alright," said Gideo, leading the way toward the stairs in the back of his shop. "She wouldn't let me see it earlier though."

"Maybe you don't want to see it..." muttered Vinie as they mounted the stairs. She could imagine a thing or two about what their oft-salacious patroness might sketch given pencil and parchment.

Such grumblings seemed a tad uncharitable though when they reached the top. A scene of peaceful serenity awaited, with Kiiss unexpectedly part of it.

Sahar's now-orphaned sons, nine-year-old Zaneo and seven-year-old Tani were napping on one of Gideo's big sand-filled bag chairs. The two boys curled around each other like a pair of puppies in a basket, their bare knees twining together in echo of their hands. Sahar's faithful old yellow dog lay on the floor beside the chair, head on its paws but a single ear alert for any whisper of trouble. The hot Undorian sun stretched golden fingers through the wooden slats of the window shades, casting alternating ribbons of light and dark on the knotted floorboards. It was almost too hot to be upstairs at this time of day, but autumn was coming soon and the heat gave the room a languid, nest-like atmosphere.

Kiiss, both bane and boon of Vinie's existence simultaneously, sat to one side on a whicker couch with a side table drawn up in front of her. Close enough for young Zaneo to know she was there, but far enough away not to crowd Tani, Vinie noted. As always, Kiiss wore one of her fabulous dresses, this one a spray of blue and white with matching head wrap fanning out behind her like the frill of bird. When the deceptively matronly woman saw Gideo and Vinie top the stairs, she set down her pencil and turned over the paper she'd been writing on.

"So?" she raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow at Vinie. "Does Utunma have a city wall to rival Amenthere's yet? Between mine and Oesu's money, I expect to see teardrop crenels and gold-trimmed merlons...with my likeness carved into the gateposts!"

Vinie didn't even bother to hide the roll of her eyes. "It'll be bamboo until further notice Kiiss, and you know it. We'd have to kill a dozen reefs to wall off all of Utunma, and shipping stone from The Teeth outside Moaan will take months. Until then, we'll build with what we have."

"Plus I don't think Xolani and Oesu will be too keen to supply Utunma with stone from their quarries until they can get Moaan's walls properly reinforced first," added Gideo. Sahar's dog lifted its head at the sound of his voice, tail thumping softly against the floorboards.

Kiiss tsk-ed, shaking her head at Vinie and making her gold earrings jangle. "You know, for a so-called 'visionary', you have a terrible lack of imagination, Firebelly."

"Seems you have the exact opposite of that problem; what're you working on there?"

To Vinie's surprise, Kiiss actually turned over the parchment, revealing what looked like blueprints for a carriage; her carriage, more specifically, if Vinie could be trusted to recognize the design.

"You're remodeling your carriage? Now? Aren't there more useful things demanding even your attention right now, Kiiss?"

Now it was Kiiss who rolled her eyes. "This is useful, especially now that my name is mud in the capital thanks to a certain devastatingly handsome someone who makes a terrible StarGazer." She winked slow and saucy up at Gideo. Gideo had been enduring Kiiss' attentions for the past two years since they met in Moaan, nevermind Kiiss being nearly twice their age. Gideo just shrugged helplessly.

"If I could go back and have that night to do again, there are many things I'd change. Hesitating to kill a man sleeping next to his child isn't one."

"Not just any man; the king of Goran, the man who might yet have all of our heads on pikes before this is over if he and his Obads have their say," said Kiiss tartly. When Vinie and Gideo instantly flinched though, even she had the tact to look away. Clearing her throat, Kiiss nodded toward Zaneo and Tani, still asleep in their chair. "I think we might have a rest without nightmares today, for once. Zaneo hasn't cried once since he went down."

"Thank you for keeping an eye on them, Kiiss," said Gideo, grateful for the change in subject.

            "You're lucky I don't charge for my services. At least, not this time. The two of you are going to be in my debt until the day you die and then some, you know that right?"

            "We have to live past the end of this thing first," pointed out Vinie dryly. "Mahir is not going to take the south...Undor chasing him out to sea and killing off his entire Third Company along with his Captain of the Guard quietly."

            "All the more reason to hurry things along and get Utunma a proper wall built, teardrop crenels and all!"

            "Bury my bones Kiiss." Gideo shoved a hand through his mass of dusky curls. Despite himself, he seemed to be holding in a laugh.

            Knocking came from downstairs, a rapid rat-rat-rat on the shop's front door. It wasn't loud, but Zaneo and Tani both jolted wide awake all the same. Tani's big brown eyes went wide, and Zaneo shuddered fearfully.

            "Is it soldiers?!" Zaneo cried out.

            Gideo was quick to soothe the startled children. "No, no more king's men in Utunma anymore, remember? We chased them all out into the sea."

            "I'll go see who it is," said Vinie.

Despite his words, she could still tell that Gideo was ready to pull his belawa knife from his belt at a moment's notice. Ever since the Uprising they had all taken to wearing their weapons, as per Reyson's example. Kiiss had gone still where she sat, her eyes - watchful beneath blue lid paint - following Vinie's back on her way down the stairs.

Vinie relaxed the moment she pulled the door open; a young girl with colorful beads in her braids grinned up at her from the stoop.

"They sent me from the front, General," the urchin said, pronouncing the world 'General' with such gusto that Vinie couldn't help but blush. "There's someone comin' from the jungle!"

That got Vinie's attention right quick. "Someone? Who? How many of them?" Gut-churning thoughts of King Mahir at the head of a miraculously re-grouped royal army coming to rain vengeance and death on Utunma flashed through her mind.

The girl shook her head, making her beads clack together. "I dunno General, I couldn't see that far...the guards told me to run and fetch you quick though!"

"Right. Gideo-"

Vinie had been about to call back into the shop, but Gideo was already downstairs and at her side. Zaneo and Tani could just be seen at the top of the stairs, Kiiss behind them.

"The bell will ring if there's trouble," Vinie told them. "If it does, make for the harbor and-"

"Go, we're just fine here," said Kiiss. She laid a hand on each of the boys' narrow shoulders, and they needed no further encouragement to draw back further into the safety of Gideo's loft.

Vinie nodded then turned to the little messenger. "Take us to the gate then."

OoOoO

            The 'gate' of Utunma was little more than a double sided bamboo fence with vines for hinges and a pole for a latch, at least at this point. A ladder on either side allowed watchmen to keep an eye on the jungle and the open hillside leading up to its edge. That green hillside had been stained red with blood, black with earth during the battle to retake Utunma. Although the late summer rains had since washed the grass clean, open gashes of soil could still be seen where combatants' feet had torn it open. Beyond, the jungle was a wall of humid, shadowy green.

            The first thing Vinie noticed was that the gate was open. The next was that the watchmen had dismounted their ladders and were talking openly to a single person who stood before them on the road. A cart hitched to a mule stood nearby, laden with a modest burden of cloth sacks and boxes. The voices of the watchmen and the new arrival reached Vinie, and her feet began to move of their own accord. This stranger was not, and never had been, a stranger.

            "Dad!"

            "Vinie!"

            Even at barely five and a half feet tall, stringy as twine and with a bad leg, Bakko still managed to knock both guards back a pace when he threw himself at Vinie. The two of them fell into each other's arms, reunited after what had only been weeks but may as well have been years all over again.

            "Dad, you're here! Why are you here?! What about the Drunken SkinPainter?"

            "What about him?" Bakko gave Vinie one last squeeze before stepping back and raising a cheeky eyebrow up at Gideo. "In all seriousness though, you didn't think I'd be sitting up there serving beer while you're down here starting a proper war? Otch girl, you really have thrown blood to the sharks now! Recruiters for the army have worked their way to Falerik, and red cloaks are everywhere there. Wasn't safe for me to stay much longer, not so close to the capital and me a southerner... Did you know they've started to detain and question anyone who's darker than a sunburned Syrinese now?"

            That wasn't something that Vinie had been expecting. Of course though, in light of the southern uprising Uprising and the declaring of Undor, anyone who looked Undorian would be suspect to the capital. It was a deeply unsettling notion, and Vinie was accordingly unsettled.

            It must have shown on her face, because Bakko took her hand and ran a calloused thumb across her knuckles. His eyes shone up at her from amidst a maze of sun-lines.

            "You just keep doing what you've been doing, my girl. We have our home back!" Bakko turned a smiling face on Utunma and the sea beyond. He stretched his arms to the sky and rolled his neck, producing several satisfying sounding cracks. "Mmmmm...haaaaa but it's good to be home after so long on the road! Oh and by the way, that reminds me..."

            Limping over to Gideo, leaning heavily on his cane, Bakko beckoned Gideo to lean down. Puzzled, Gideo did so, bringing his face to eye level with Bakko's.

            The old PearlDiver-turned-InnKeeper practically launched himself at Gideo, flinging his arms around the younger man's neck and planting a kiss on his whiskered cheek.

            "Welcome! Welcome to the family! Welcome! I could have cried from joy when I read Vinie's letter about the two of you getting wedded! You have no idea how long I've-"

            "Dad!" Vinie cried out, mortified. Bakko was still busy cupping Gideo's face in his hands (held there in place by a firm grasp on his ears), planting kisses on Gideo's nose, forehead and cheeks. Gideo for his part looked absolutely thunderstruck. The watchmen nearby were trying valiantly to keep a straight face...the little girl who'd brought them there was failing completely. Her giggles were in real danger of turning to outright belly laughter.

            "Erm...thank you Bakko! I'm beyond thrilled to be part of a family now too...especially your family."

            Gideo's face was turning almost as red as Vinie's beneath Bakko's onslaught. She thanked her lucky stars that at least Kiiss wasn't here to witness this eyeful. With that in mind, she felt a laugh of her own beginning to bubble up from deep down within. It had been so long since she'd laughed, the sensation was almost foreign. Vinie couldn't help it though; soon she was giggling like a girl right along with the little messenger.

            Yas, it was good to be home indeed.

OoOoO

            This was a world entirely unlike anything Lhara had ever seen before.

            From the very first minute she ever saw it, the sea captivated Lhara. A child of the mountains, born and bred for life on the steep slopes of The Teeth, Lhara had never before seen a body of water that could have even hinted at the sheer enormity of the ocean. Nearly every day she found some reason or other to be down on Utunma's beaches. Today she was helping the old women gather plants.

            Stooping down on the sand, Lhara fished a handful of dripping, brown-green fronds from the edge of the surf. They were coarse and rubbery to the touch, completely unlike the delicate mosses which veiled boulders in the upper reaches of The Teeth.

            "And this one?" she asked, holding it out toward Ahati, a chatty grandmother with plump thighs and a gold tooth in the corner of her mouth.

            "That one's bladderwrack, keep that for sure. For swelling of the glands, you're to burn it and eat the black powder. But its best use is from the juice you can wring out of it."

            Lhara dropped the bladderwrack into her basket with a wet squelch. "What's its best use?"

            Ahati stopped to look back at Lhara with a wink. "Besides keeping your eyes and heart healthy, it works wonders for encouraging youth to stick around a little longer. Very popular with the sea-folk who aren't quite ready to admit they're getting old yet, yas?"

            "I can imagine!" Lhara joined in on Ahati's chuckling. There were certainly many among the mountainfolk who wished to hold their croning and eldering years at bay for as long as they possibly could. Lhara couldn't quite relate though. After admiring her teacher Magda, the Wise Woman of Trosk, for so many years, the thought of anything that brought her closer to the Wise Woman's stature appealed, including silver hair and a wrinkled brow. Still, Lhara had a feeling that her cousin Eima wouldn't mind finding out about the bladderwrack plant.

            The waves licked at the sand beneath Lhara's bare feet, tickling her toes. After so many days spent out beneath the south's powerful sun, her face had begun to burn. Ahati and the other women had come to Lhara's rescue though; chewing the leaves of a fern in Utunma's jungle which they called 'the golden serpent plant' somehow seemed to make a difference. Although her skin still itched and flaked where it was already burned, Lhara had been able to continue going outside without inflicting too much further damage. Lhara's mental list of new plants and their uses was beginning to become a challenge to remember, even for her.

            "Ahati," she called. "Tell me again about the sea serpents? Where did they come from?"

            They were falling behind the other beachcombers. Ahati slowed her steps though, allowing Lhara to meander beside her. A flock of gulls passed overhead, their squawking curious and plaintive. Lhara's gaze slid beyond the gulls to the spot on the horizon where the serpent had appeared during the mass funeral. If she closed her eyes, she could still see the gleam of the setting sun across the creature's blue-black scales and hear its unearthly cry.

            "Even the sea-folk do not know where the serpents came from, child. You would be better off asking a shaman about these things, but we have not had a shaman since Wasani and his apprentice died."

            "Surely there must be legends or stories though?" The mountainfolk loved stories, and Lhara was no exception. Magda had always said that even the most outlandish of legends carried a grain of truth at their heart.

            Ahati stooped down to gather more sea weeds for her basket before answering. "Well now, let me think...You have heard of the other creatures of old; the dragons, the giants and the ghosts, yas?"

            Lhara had more than heard of them. On their way from Trosk to Falerik to find Vinie, she and Jath had found the remains of an ancient dragons' lair in the heart of Hollowtop Mountain. The sheer size of their bones, white and dry in the sunlight, had filled Lhara with both awe and wistfulness; the same feelings evoked by the sight of the serpent.

            "Well, there is a story here in Utunma; a story about the Terra Erda, or 'Mother World' as it was before the coming of King Amenthis and his folk. It says that these creatures, rather than being flesh and blood, were born of the life force of Mother World itself. Like a woman births children, Terra Erda gave life to the giants from its bones, the ghosts from its breath, the serpents from its blood and the dragons from its fiery heart. We humans did not come until later."

            "And where did we come from?" asked Lhara.

            With a smile, Ahati pointed upward at the sunny sky. "From the stars. The stories say that one night, when the creatures of the world lay resting and watching the heavens, a star fell. Then another, and then another. Some of these stars fell straight and fast and Mother World caught them and carried them to safety. These became the first humans. Terra Erda's children saw all the falling stars though, and wanted to catch them too. And so, it just so happened that one star fell into the arms of each creature."

            Lhara was entranced. Even from Magda, she had never heard a story like this before. She wondered if it was one that the old Wise Woman might know at all. "And what happened to those stars?"

            "Well, listen and I'll tell you. One star was caught by a giant, cupped and lowered to the grass in enormous hands of stone. This star was the first Child of the Land, or Green Obad as the capital calls them. Another fell into the sea, and was carried to the shore by a serpent. This star became a Child of the Sea, and because our people live on the very waters where that star fell, we have always honored the Blue Obads above all. Likewise, one star was caught up in mid-fall by a dragon, another by a ghost, and these two became Red and Grey Obads. And so humans came to Mother World."

            The thought of people falling to earth as stars, entering the world in a shower of light and amazement and wonder, made Lhara's heart quicken within her. Her peoples' long-held belief that the spirits of the dead became stars suddenly made so much sense. It did not, however, explain a number of other things.

            "But I don't understand...if the creatures of Mother World caught the falling stars, and brought them safely to earth, why did humans fight and kill them later on? And why does Vinie believe that people who die can become ghosts too, if ghosts were made from the breath of the world in the beginning?"

            Ahati shook her head. Her scalp was clean-shaven, and the humid warmth of Utunma almost made Lhara wish for the same. Lhara's own hair, which had become impossibly thick and heavy since her arrival in Undor, almost never went free anymore from the tight scalp plaits which had become her habit of necessity.

            "When it comes to the BlackPearl's ghosts, I'm afraid I can't say. Some people think she's...well..." Ahati looked uncomfortable. "...'twas a terrible thing that happened to that poor girl, her and her married family both. She's done great things for the south...for Undor since, but there are people who wonder if she's gone a little bit strange since that day."

            Lhara hadn't spent much if any time with the leader of the Factionist rebellion, now the General of Undor, and certainly hadn't known her before her first husband was executed by the king. Still, the few conversations Lhara had had with Vinie had given her the impression of a woman driven by an inner fire and heavy sense of justice, not a lunatic. Still, Lhara didn't want to contradict Ahati entirely, and so she just nodded.

            "And the wars with First King Amenthis?"

            A light chuckle escaped Ahati. "You are a curious one, aren't you? Well, no one really knows the truth of how that breach started. After all, all history taught by the capital states that humans were being hunted to extinction by the creatures of old, and that our kind barely had the means to scratch a mean, fearful life out of the hidden corners of the world. To hear the line of Amenthis tell it, we were like minnows, scattered and hiding from the shadows of sharks. I think, knowing the story of our having come from the stars, there may be more to it than that."

            "More like wha-"

            "Lhara!"

            A tall, well-muscled girl of about sixteen years with tiny ringlets of black hair, almond skin and eyes large enough to be almost childlike in their expressions came loping down the beach from town toward them. Yidu, one of Vinie's original Factionists, had taken it upon herself to be something of a 'minder' to Lhara. Lhara heartily appreciated Yidu's friendship. She needed as much help as she could get in navigating this unfamiliar world, so far away from and unlike life in The Teeth.

            "Hello Yidu! Is it time for lunch already?"

            Yidu grinned, her pert nose wrinkling over deep dimples. "Not yet, but it soon will be. That's why I came to find you; Lady Oesu and Lord Xolani have called a midday meeting at the inn. All of the Factionist leaders will be there, and they asked for you and Jath too."

            "They did?" That puzzled Lhara. Although she'd done what she could to help during the Uprising, putting her fledgling skills as a healer to work in dramatic, bloody fashion, her presence among the Undorians was still larger as a result of circumstance rather than deliberate choice. As far as she had known, Lhara was really just 'the mountain guide'; the woman whom Jath had hired in desperation to see him safely across The Teeth to Vinie's hideout in Falerik.

            "Yas, you and Jath. Have you seen him this morning?"

            "Reyson wanted him to join the others for sword practice. They set up near the docks with the Moaanese Captain of the Guard, I think."

            "Good! We can bring them both back with us then. C'mon Lhara!"

            Lhara did want to hear the rest of Ahati's story though. Plus she had a half-filled basket of damp fronds and weeds on her hip. Ahati took the basket from her and urged her along with a gentle tap to the hip.

            "Go on now, our new Lord and Lady of Undor will be waiting. You've been a good help this morning Lhara, and a wonderful audience for this old woman's chatter." Ahati winked. "Off you go now, and take care that you don't get lost chasing after spirits and serpents."

            With one last smile of thanks for Ahati, Lhara took Yidu's offered hand. The two young women went running off down the beach, their bare feet leaving mirroring prints in the sand. Ahati watched them leave with a knowing smile. Balancing the two baskets on her hips, she rejoined the other old women of Utunma picking their way along between the surf and shore.

OoOoO