Dream Weaver

Random, Soren and Lord Mayor Ash are in the studio, Corwin and Hannah are told. They make their way down to a large room full of musical instruments. Random is drumming, Soren is playing guitar, and Ash is playing a different kind of guitar with only four strings. They stop when Corwin and Hannah arrive,

Corwin shakes his head. "You should go back to jazz, Random."

Random looks up. "I'm not sure I can make myself be that self-indulgent these days, but sure. Let me know when you change your mind." He changes to a different beat altogether. It's more improvisational, and the drums are just too loud for Random to hear anything Corwin says after that.

Ash can't help but grin slightly at this. Soren smothers a laugh and moves over to a small box, pulling out several cans, which he tosses to various people. He waggles his eyebrows and holds one out to Hannah.

Hannah takes it. It seems rude not to. "What do you do with it?" she yells.

Soren demonstrates by sliding his finger under the ring on the top side of his can and opening it. Corwin opens his away from both himself and Hannah; the tossing seems to have jostled the can a bit and it starts to overflow slightly. "Drink or drum, Random," Corwin yells over the drumming.

Random finishes with a flourish and pulls off his shirt, wiping his face with it. "Beer me," he decrees. Ash tosses him his unopened beer, which Random catches with his drumsticks, and goes to get another.

Hannah sniffs the drink and moves to intercept Random. "Have this one. I can't drink it."

Hannah offers the can to Random. "I'm quite uncertain we saw anything useful up there. Do you want to hear it anyway?"

Random taps her can with his drumstick. "Now you can." It smells like fruit juice.

He pops the tab on his own and drinks a bit. "Yeah, tell us a story. Lords Soren and Ash, pull up a beanbag and let's hear the tale." He drags several over himself.

Hannah pulls her own beanbag up and sits, spreading her skirts over crossed legs. "We only had one encounter in Tir - we did not stay once the Princess told us the Queen was back. It was, strangely enough, my cousin, Horses West. He is of the Ponca Nation, and used to get into trouble with my little brother when they were boys."

She takes a sip of her juice. "We walked into Amber up there, and there he was. The Ponca and the Omaha both have a warrior society called the Hethuska Society. In my lifetime it had grown more and more ceremonial, as treaties were signed and we lost the ability to hunt. I worried when the Poncas were forced south that such societies would disintegrate. The Hethuska Society is highly political, but you don't get to participate at all if you aren't able to prove yourself a warrior."

"Horses West was saying Huon had control of Amber - was calling him the Protector - but also said he'd risen to the top of the Hethuska Society. This is a sort of Cheifdom - it would have gotten him a seat on the Council. It would not be hard from there to convince the tribes there was a better life to be had elsewhere. There would be holdouts, people who would not want us to leave the land that bore us." Hannah puts a hand over her eyes and closes them for a moment. "West said he'd united many tribes - that the women and children were back with a different part of the army."

When she looks up, she smiles a little. "Corwin did warn me. So I was headed home anyway to seek answers on familiar ground, and I will not let this vision change that course. But it seems quite possible to me that Huon could do this. Our peoples have been vulnerable for quite some time now. I can see... I can see a great passion sweeping them to action. There is so much anger."

Hannah shrugs. "He said they'd conquered Rebma first. It seemed to me they hadn't been in Amber long."

"So," Random says to Soren, "Tir nAn'Ogth is a reflection of Amber, sort of. It shows us something between the truth and our fears, and twists it all together somehow. What strikes me, between what I just heard and my experiences with Benedict in something like Arden something like outside of Tir, is that we're being kept out and distracted away."

He turns back to Hannah. "I'd like someone to go there eventually and see if they can find out what's happening in the castle, but it sounds as if you need to go see your home. Has anybody warned you about that?"

Hannah tilts her head a bit, her eyes slipping between Random and Soren and Ash. She takes an uncomfortable breath, tired of warnings today. "No."

"Home is a hard thing to find, and it's hard to decide if you're there, especially if some time has passed. What we do in shadow affects places and we cast our own shadows. You could easily find yourself in a place where a different version of Hannah had been. You may need to bring a friend."

Hannah looks down and bites her lip before returning her gaze to Random. "What good does having a friend along do me, beyond comfort?"

Corwin says, "Where there are shadows of yourself, there are shadows of your loved ones. Your parents, your brothers and sisters, your friends, your lovers. All of them are different, some more subtly than others. A friend who can keep you grounded is a good thing." The melancholy of Corwin's expression fades somewhat, and he adds, "Most of mine came to Paris."

Random nods. "We have a greater capacity for everything, including self-delusion. Your bass player can remind you where you are, if he remembers the fucking downbeat."

Ash belches. "I think I've grown beyond the need for downbeats," the bass player says scornfully.

Random laughs. "But that has nothing to do with it. The reason you should bring a friend is that every now and then one of us goes out solo-- one of the younger ones who is less experienced, and doesn't come back. I'd rather we didn't say five hundred years from now "Remember Hannah?"

Hannah nods seriously. "I will seriously ponder this as I prepare to go. Any other advice, while I have your ear?" she asks.

"Umm, 'Don't look a gift ear in the mouth?' No, that's not good advice. 'When in doubt, screw it! When not in doubt, get in doubt.'" Random sighs. "I'm not real good with advice."

"Listen to him," says Soren. "He's absolutely right."

Ash nods. "He's not good with advice."

Corwin says, "You're one of us now. You can go back where you came from, but you can't go home."

Hannah nods, again. "So you're both telling me I can't actually find the place I left to come here?"

"Nope!" Random says, agreeably. "We're telling you that it's hard to tell if you got there, and if a certain amount of time has passed, it's an exercise is sophomore philosophy to try to decide if that statement means anything at all. You can find a place that is descended from that place in the same way that you are descended from the person who left that place, but don't be too surprised by what has happened to it. Capiche?"

Corwin shakes his head. "You might be able to find the same place. What will be different is you."

Hannah grins. "Well, that was true the moment I decided to follow the unicorn. Thank you," she tells Random, "And you, for everything," she adds to Corwin, reaching out to squeeze his hand.

"One last question. Why do you think Tir seems to be still reflecting Amber? Why not here?"

Corwin shrugs as he releases Hannah's hand. "You've got me. Ask him." He reaches into his jacket for his Trumps.

Random reaches up and tugs on his hair. "Ask a redhead. A redder-head." He seems to be about to say more, but then he relaxes into the chair. There's a pause, then he says, "Cool! You found Haven! Is she coming here?"

"Cool!," says Ash.

Soren steps up behind Random and touches his shoulder. "Haven? It's OK, you can--"

There's another pause, then Soren says, "Well that didn't work out."

Random adds, "OK, Folly, do you need any of us? I'm with Soren and Ash."

Hannah grins and shakes her head. She raises her eyebrows at Soren curiously. She turns a piece of attention on Corwin, also wondering if trumps coming into and possibly going out of the same room at the same time make anything special happen.

She stands and waits until Random gets off his call before taking her leave.

There's a pause while Random listens to the other end of his trump contact.

"I'd be offended if I didn't agree. My personal dream shadow where I went to relax is exactly the kind of place I'm not credible. My shrink would have a field day with that, if I had one." Random reaches around and takes Soren's hand off his shoulder and hands it to Folly. "OK, Soren, you're going home to pick up Haven. Tell Martin not to throw you at anything, and I expect you all to trump back here in minutes. Tell Haven we have keyboards."

"Okay," says Soren, and then he's gone.

Meanwhile, Corwin moves to the other side of the room and makes contact with whoever is on his trump. "It's your father. Bring me through," he says to whoever it is, and waves to Hannah and Random with his free hand before reaching through and vanishing in a rainbow flare.

Hannah watches the action in silence, then grins at Ash. "Are you used to this yet, Lord Mayor? How goes the development of the city?"

Ash snorts. "Like any project that someone wants done fast. We make progress on the easy parts and not as much on the hard ones, so it's lopsided."

Random looks over. "Ask him about something important, like Project Amplifier."

Ash looks back at Hannah and replies in a long-suffering tone. "Yes, unfortunately, this is just like old times."

Hannah looks at Random suspiciously. "Ash, I hope this isn't something like giving this man a mechanical megaphone to um... send messages to the city with."

Random smirks, then his eyes get glassy. "Who? Great, give me the twelve second version, I'm waiting on another trump. Well, that sucks... That doesn't suck. Khela, really? OK, we're out of twelve. After you all talk it out, send someone through with a fuller report."

Ash looks over at Random briefly, then returns to Hannah. "He does this, you know? Sometimes I think he just makes his end up when he wants to drop out of a conversation. But you couldn't really send a message all the way to the city, not with the stuff we're talking about. Mechanical amplification is a dead end, so it's electrical that we're working on, with the idea of filling a room with sound.

Ash smiles, and drinks his beer, then crushes the can in his hands. "Or, as the tech-heads like to call it 'Sound Reinforcement.', like it's an army of noises." He rolls his eyes.

Hannah laughs. "Truth be told, I'm more interested in the sewers. But it is good to know the King won't have to bellow. That'd be undignified, or so I always told my father when he did it."

Random shrugs. "Everyone needs a hobby." It's not clear if he's talking about her, himself, or her father.

Ash looks more interested. "We built this city in caves above the beach. The water table is a bit high for most sewer systems I can imagine. Stop by my office and we can talk about your ideas."

"I will do that when I get back, but I'd better get out of here while I still can. Before the next crisis. Keep up the good work," she grins, and makes for the door.

"What she said!," Random says to Ash. "Let's try the all-back-line version of that thingy Martin wrote. I wanna get that down..."

After the trump connection closes with Paige, Edan rides on for a little while; he is quiet, reserved, though even to him it's hard to tell whether his silence is from meditation, or planning, or emotion, or simple exhaustion. It occurs to him that he's had a very long day, and still a hard road to go before he can rest.

One more effort, he thinks. One more thing, and then I can sleep. At least for a little while.

Edan falls silent again, gathering his thoughts, and then speaks to Kyauta. "When I was younger, my father took me on a long trip through Shadow. We went many places, saw many things, explored the Principles and places of great sorcery. Every place had a lesson for me to learn; when that lesson was complete, we would move on. I learned of many beliefs, the psychology of man, tenets of behavior and emotion. Honor. Truth. Love. Spirituality. Many, many religions. Though it never shook my belief in the Merciful One, which I think was his intention, I learned many things."

He pauses. "There was a place. I know that it can be found in Shadow, because we rode there. But going that way is difficult. It is a world of spirits, an axis mundi. A place of connections, of omens and portent. There are spirits of men, animals, even the trees and the ground and the water. They are not gods, but some of these spirits are very strong. Some are kindly disposed to those who visit this realm. Some are not. It is an ideal place for you to hunt, and to grow stronger. The craftiness of the fox. The strength of the rock. The mystery of the water. I want you to hunt in this place, and feed, and then come back to me. This is the place where I will make my first Gate." Edan glances at his affine. "I have been there, so I can Part the Veil to this place. Then I will rest and prepare, and you can hunt."

Kyauta doesn't follow all of it, but latches on to the end. I will eat and grow more useful to you, my Lord! I am sorry for losing the rain and I will be more careful with your new gifts. I hope to become strong enough to eat the Coyote when we see him again.

"Don't feel bad," Edan says. "That's what he does. Learn the lesson that I learned from the lions- if you take on the Coyote directly, you'll only lose as much as you win. I intend to leave him alone. I think, at least I hope, he's decided the same."

He would be delicious, opines Kyauta. I am sure of it.

Edan strips a straight-looking length of wood from a nearby branch, plucking at the leaves until he has a wand about eighteen inches long. He draws a symbol of peace on Aramsham's forehead in ash, then lights the end of the wand and draws it in a screeching fiery line in front of them all to Part the Veil.

The sky is very blue through the veil, and the grass very high and green. Edan may ride through at his leisure.

Having seen Ambrose's trap go off around Clarissa, Edan opens his Third Eye and looks for signs of the same trap being present. Unlikely that one would be here, but possible. If everything looks as he expects, he rides through.

There was a forest the last time he was here, and that is what Edan expects to find; the perfect spot would be a clearing in an area of light woods, perhaps the outskirts of a larger forest, reasonably isolated, and with a water source within easy riding distance. A higher elevation wouldn't hurt, either. Edan declines to ride around and make major changes in shadow to get what he wants; the idea is not to leave this place for another shadow, but rather to work with what he has here. One thing he does want, however, is an exceptional large, healthy tree, with deep roots and tall branches that seem to scrape the sky itself.

Once he finds a good spot with a tree, he makes camp. Edan sends his affine forth to hunt, with the admonition to call him if it gets into trouble ("don't let anything bigger eat you," are some of his exact words). He sees to his horse's needs, then. Edan himself doesn't eat, some instinct telling him that fasting would be more effective in what he is planning to do. He does sit down to meditate and observe the Principles of this place through his Third Eye. He spends at least a watch doing this, resting and watching.

Once he is satisfied with what he has seen, and mindful of what he is about to do, Edan casts a spell on his campfire to alarm and wake him if someone or something intrudes upon the camp, and sleeps with both his swords near to hand.

After some time, Edan awakens and finds Kyauta huddled by his side. About 30 yards away, or perhaps a bit more, is a large animal, half lion and half eagle. It seems to be waiting.

[like a griffon, with wings and all? Does it happen to be bald and purple? ;-) ]

[yes and yes]

Kyauta? Edan thinks, moving to sit up and into a crouch. His swords are still near to hand when he speaks. "And who is this? Brought a friend?"

No. It chased me back here. You should kill it and eat it, Lord.

The beast ruffles its feathers, then proceeds to groom itself.

Did you Eat before it did that?

I only snacked! Lightly!

Edan stands, sheathes one sword, holds another, and goes so far as to draw an invisible 'x' across the beast's forehead before it strikes him that prey doesn't normally stand there and preen itself, even one this huge. He glances around to make sure Aramsham is still here with him; then, as he rubs his eyes with one hand, it also strikes him that a predator probably wouldn't have thought to stay out of his firelight and wait like this. Finally, it occurs to him that this is the place where the creatures are intelligent and often agents of omen and portent.

Did it occur to you that this one might be a messenger, or have something to say? Edan holds his sword still and sharp, pointed at the griffon's left eye. "All right. I'm awake. I see you. You can't have my affine, or my horse, no matter what they did or how good they smell. I think the next move is yours."

The Gryffon turns and walks a few yards away. It turns and looks back over its shoulder to see if Edan follows.

"Well, then." Edan sheathes his other sword and kicks dirt over the remains of his campfire before he moves over to his horse. Come, Kyauta. I doubt he'll lead us to a pack of his fellows. Seems we have someone, or something, to meet. Edan sighs as he mounts, and rolls his shoulder muscles to work out the kinks from sleeping on the ground. He waits for the griffon to lead on, intending to keep a little distance between it and his little group.

The creature leads him away, turning to look back if Edan slows. After some minutes, he reaches a clearing. Across it, Edan sees a man standing outside a hut. He's talking to a figure, perhaps a spirit. It is twelve feet tall if the man is merely of average height.

The gryphon makes a call, shaking the ground slightly and the two figures turn. The spirit fades and the man starts walking towards the edge of the clearing.

The gryphon's mighty wings slap down and his legs bunch and leap, and the impossible being gracefully takes flight, away from the clearing, the man, and Edan.

"Fly, guardian of the divine," Edan says. His mind jumps from thoughts of the griffon to the poems of Rufi, who spoke of them often; and then another of his poems suddenly imposes itself upon him:

"Come, come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, idolater, worshiper of fire,
Come even though you have broken your vows
a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair."

And Edan is filled with a strange sadness; but he pushes those thoughts away as the man in the camp greets him.

The man, who would look very young were it not for his leathery skin, calls out "Greetings, traveller", in perfectly accented Thari.

Edan dismounts, then bows; his right hand touches his chest, then his lips, then his forehead, then outward. "As-salaam alaykum, man of the Earth," he says. Some instinct stops him from blurting out his name immediately. "I followed your... herald," he says instead. "I hope that I have not interrupted something important with my arrival."

The man bows as well, although not formally like Edan does. "No, no. He's just not comfortable around demon things. Most spirits have limited world views." He shakes his head. "I am called Estimaza. What brings you to my home?"

"My demon thing," Edan says. "Mainly, we came to rest, and my... my pet to hunt. We've had a very trying day. Week. Also, to distance myself from Coyote, who may still be behind me." He gives a little helpless shrug, leaving his other plans silent for now. "In my homeland, I am called the Djinn-al-Ghanii, but here I believe I would be named Dances-in-Fire. Do you... rule here?"

He laughs, "I don't rule anywhere, except over my own heart, and those who honor it. Are you looking for a ruler? This is a place with few rules and fewer rulers. Unless you count the spirits, and they are more bound than binding."

Edan shakes his head. "No, that is what I needed to know. I do not plan to stay here. But before I move on, I wanted to ask a service of that tree the griffon found me at. Which, of course, means that I must also raise its spirit and have a conversation. The last thing I needed was to be interrupted by some random patrol while I was about it."

"This place is not for Kings and Armies and patrols, really. There are spirits, who do what spirits do, each to their nature. There is me, and I watch and live and trade and talk." He pauses for a moment, then changes the subject.

In other words, a good place for a retreat, Edan thinks.

"I haven't seen a horse in quite a long time. Is he here to see the horse-lord?"

He reaches towards Aramsham's muzzle with a practiced hand, pausing to make sure both Aramsham and Edan approve.

Edan watches too, curious to see how his horse will react. "Aramsham thinks he is the horse lord," he says. "Be careful, he bites. And treads on feet. You know, I hadn't considered that... he might benefit from such a meeting. But alas, when Kyauta and I are finished, we may not have time to pursue it. I might be called away within the next day or so. We may need to come back to do that."

Aramsham does not bite at the man, but neither does the man provoke him. He speaks to him, softly, in a strange language, the sound of which seems intended to calm.

"The Lord here cannot be summoned, but he can be invited, as can the fire-spirits." He pauses. "Tell me of yourself, who is Lord of a horse lord. What does it mean for you to be Dances-in-Fire?"

Edan has to smile at his new appellation, 'Lord of a horse lord'. "That is a long story," he says, "and I am still very young."

Reins still in hand, he hooks his thumbs into his belt and continues. "My mother, the Fire-Maid, carried the blood of the afrit... demons of my homeland. Though she spent her life in rejection of this taint, it remained. My father, Seeker-Beyond-Seas, he met her and loved her, and thus I was born. Because he was a powerful man in his own right, I inherited the strengths of his blood, and the full strength of my mother's afriti blood as well."

Edan's eyes grow distant, remembering. "Seeker-Beyond-Seas was a rare visitor. I was raised virtually without him, taught to reject my heritage. And when my father came, to teach me, I was a difficult... student." He focuses back on Estimaza. "If you are here, then you know something of the ways of power. Power is gained through trial, tests of the body and will. My father took me to a city of ghosts in the sky, where I danced my way through a great Pattern of white fire. And I could no longer reject who I was, for the golden fire of my body rose up in kind. I was a great pillar of flame, a sculpture of gold and silver fire, there at the end. And I danced, and reveled in the knowledge that this was right and proper. That I would never again be ashamed at who I was. Later, I went to the afriti, and learned the powers they possess. And though I found some of their practices... unwholesome... and felt shame at what I had to do, I still knew myself and who I was. It is hard to explain. The powerful afriti, they felt diminished to me, after my trial. And I knew I could master all that they had to teach, for I knew myself. And I have danced ever since, knowing fire as I know myself, for my very essence is that of fire." He stops. "I have shaped fire... lawless, powerful, beautiful. I have become fire. I have danced across space, from flame to flame. That is what it means to me."

He looks at Edan with his old eyes and nods. "I think I know something of the power of which you speak, which is a brilliant fire of order. It is told amongst my family that one of our ancestors was a spirit creature, a great black bird that could live for generations as a man. That is what allows me to live in this realm, and which allowed another such to find me many years ago...

"I think your father may have been like my wife. Tell me of him."

Edan raises an eyebrow at this. "Describe my father. How does one describe a rock, or a mountain, or a great oak? They live on a different level than myself. But if I had to use one word to describe him... I suppose that would be 'hedonist'. Yes. He is the ultimate hedonist."

A slight smile creeps back on his face. "Physically, he looks much like me, though his hair and beard are red and his blue eyes are full of mischef. He carries a great golden sword which used to be one of the pillars holding up the universe, until my grandfather broke that connection. He measures his life in centuries, though we do not age; indeed, we stretch and bend time as we see fit. Still, he has so many interests, and relishes so many experiences, I wonder how he manages to fit them all in." Edan shakes his head slightly, then. "Not that I am trying to compliment him, you understand. My father's arrogance walks hand in hand with his abilities. And try as he might, he can't seem to scrub the faint taste of condescension from his words."

He nods. "It is as I thought. My wife knew him, and feared him. He had done something to her brother, imprisoned him. She was afraid he would come for her. She described him, poetically, in the terms of the eastern peoples. She seldom spoke of her kinfolk directly.

"He was Uriel, guarding the entrance to paradise with his fiery sword, and the hand of justice of the father almighty. He must have changed greatly, to be dedicated to his own pleasure instead of his duty.

"She is no longer here, if you seek her for him."

Edan shakes his head slowly as things click into place. "I have heard of them," he says. "Either she never knew of my father's wilder side, or I never truly knew him myself. Perhaps, someday, I will get the chance to ask him about it." By the One Prophet! Will I always be fated to encounter the fingerprints Family leaves upon the universe?

He bows his head against Aramsham, letting the strong, clean smell of horse and leather clear his mind, and says, "Upon my word, my father has never asked me to do such a thing, to seek her. And even if he had, today, this day, I would not do so." He leans back a little against his horse for emphasis, and turns his head towards the old man. "I... am weary, Estimaza. I have played the part of the warrior and the prince these last few years, not that of the scholar or the dancer or the artist. When the Great Darkness came, I fought with the Seven Tribes to drive the enemy from my home. To my knowledge, I am the only one of my generation to succeed in doing this, and it robbed me of the chance to fight in a larger, more decisive battle later on. I lived to see my people turn away from me, because of the things I had to do to save them. I pledged to my father's people, then immediately was away to rescue a kinsman who was in trouble. I saw a cousin gravely injured, barely able to rescue her in time, then had to call for help because I lacked the skill to address her injuries. Whenever I fight, I leave ruin and destruction in my wake. And I see another great battle in my future, I see it slowly advancing towards me like a thundercloud. But... today..."

Edan pushes away from his horse and faces Estimaza more fully. "Today, I seek peace. Today, I am not the son of your wife's Uriel. I am Dances-in-Fire; I brought peace with me when I crossed the border, and I intend to preserve that precious, fragile thing when I leave. I came here to breathe in the silence, and let my affine hunt, and enjoy the simple cycles of nature, and push away thoughts of blood and fire and destruction-" his voice drops to a near-whisper, "at least for a day or two. Today I am just a man, who wants to rest and hunt and dabble in his Art. Will I find that peace, do you think?"

He pauses. "She would have asked her cards that question. I could try to prophesy for you, but I suspect you've asked the wrong question." The pause is longer this time.

"Will you or might you? I can provide a place and a shelter where you might, but I cannot make you receptive to it. Come back to my hut. I can provide you with peacefulness, but only you can provide yourself with peace."

Edan bows again. "I am honored by your generosity," he says. "And I will strive to find that peace, if only for a little while." He pauses. "Father cast fortunes with those cards. I never gave it a thought. Are you saying you have them? My future would be told best through them, I think." Then he remembers something Bleys said to him long ago and says, slowly, "but then again... fortunes can be cast without the Trumps."

"Yes, we'll have to do it that way, unless you have Trumps, I have none. I had ... something of her, but I gave it to her daughter, years ago." His smile looks wistful. "They are nothing alike, and everything."

Edan almost stumbles, but catches himself in time. "I... didn't know she had any children," he says. "Until recently, very little had been said about the members of my generation. Her brothers- did you know she had two brothers by her mother?- they have many children. And grand- children, too."

Approaching the hut (would it be, perchance, an earth lodge with the door facing the direction of the rising sun?), Edan thinks, Will I really do this thing? and answers himself, Yes. There is nothing wrong with a simply scrying, even done this way.

"May I use your fire?" he asks Estimaza. "I'll just need a small one, in order to sculpt the smoke. And I can have my affine hunt dinner for us as well as himself, if you wish."

Estimaza looks at him curiously. "There is a fire banked inside," he says, pulling aside a curtain. "Do you notice that you are hungry, or is it just the residual habit of eating?

Edan lays a hand against his stomach and smiles. "Both, and more," he says. "Habit, mostly, as I am almost always hungry, and I would usually be eating about now. Also, I am physically in this realm, and having just fought in a battle, I was aware of the needs of my body even as I crossed into this place. I was also, ah, being the polite visitor and allowing you to offer hospitality, if you follow that custom. Where I come from, to share water and salt means the host is pledging the peace and protection and comfort of his tent, and the guest is pledging to preserve that peace." The smile fades, to be replaced by a look of slight distress. "I had not considered that there would be no food here, or that hunger might be suppressed."

And on a similar note, are you ready to try and hunt again? he thinks to Kyauta. If I have not said so already, you should not feel obligated to stay in that form. There are spirits in the trees, in the earth, in the animals, everywhere. I want you to hunt, explore, follow the laws of the Earth. They will rarely be so clear to you as they are here. A pause. Oh, and now that I know humans live here, don't Eat any.

Kyauta leaps to the air, and moves towards the exit above the firepit. Humans are not delicious, Great Lord. I would not eat them unless very hungry.

Kyauta departs, becoming nearly invisible as it does so. Once it is gone, Estimaza turns back to Edan. "Most people who come here do not do so with their bodies. We had to learn how to coax food from the land when we first lived here. Time ran oddly here, and a decade passed here before the snows came to the lands of the Omaha. The medicine man of our tribe visited, but he did not have the needs I did. I still have them, which is how I know I am not dead. Yet.

He pauses. "I like your custom, and hereby adopt it. Please share food with me, with your symbolism. Food and peace between us. As you are a fire god, I am hesitant to ask you to share our peace symbol.

"It involves ... smoking."

Tired and disheveled, Edan's look of distress grows greater. Will I have to catch myself on fire again?

But then reason follows to club him on the head, and he smiles. "Oh...Oh! Smoking! Yes, I am not averse to the practice. It is not uncommon to use the nargile, the water pipe, for the smoking of tobacco or the sappho berry or hemp. It is used for the poppy, too, but the Way of Peace generally discourages that." He bows. "I would be honored."

"Tobacco is what we use. After meals. It is also for trading to spirits." He provides a bowl of some sort of grits. "My wife used to say that places her kind were attracted others of her kind. I should not be surprised that she was right."

A horse whinnies outside. It doesn't sound like Aramsham.

Edan looks up from his partially-emptied bowl (the man is hungry!) and says, "Good ears." He sighs. "I've run into that more than once already."

He stands, hands to his belt, but looks to his host to answer the visitors, if there are any.

Someone calls a greeting, in a number of foreign languages, some related.

Estimaza stands. "One cannot view the future when one's house is not at ease. Let us see who else the spirits bring. Perhaps your Lord of Horses has a visitor."

He pulls back the blanket over the entranceway, blinks in the light, and smiles.