Jedit

Chapter 3

The shaman dreamed.

Alone in the large common hut, in the dead of night, Musata, shaman of Efrava and mother to Jedit Ojanen, had hung the burlap mat to close the doorway, then banked a low fire of coals with handfuls of herbs. Among her tribe, only shamans knew how to kindle fire, for only they dared risk it. Into the fire had gone mystic herbs: rue for keen sight, fennel for memory, toadwort to draw strength from the earth, hyssop for purity, teak bark for inner vision, and many other herbs gathered in secret from the forest of Efrava, for only by imbibing native plants with native strength could a native remain anchored to this plane while sending her mind questing to unseen worlds.

Sitting cross-legged, clawed hands on her knees, striped muzzle drooping on her bosom, Musata inhaled deeply and dreamed. Jedit Ojanen, her wayward son, had been much on her mind lately, indeed on everyone's mind, and Musata kept his face centered in the arena of her mind. Yet before her inner eyes, Jedit's head began to spin, and suddenly she beheld-on the back of his skull-the face of the strange man called Johan. Another spin, and Musata saw Jedit's face again. No, Jaeger's, older, broader, with white sprinkled among the black fur. A triad, she knew, for magic always happened in threes. No surprise, for the three beings were linked.

She cast her net wider. More faces, a sea of them. Hestia's. Her own, Musata's. Faces of humans, strangers. A young woman with wild chestnut hair and a devilish eye. A bearded man, the face of a saint. More people ranged behind them. How many humans were there in the world? Ironically, Musata had never glimpsed humans before, even in the spirit world, yet here trouped a veritable parade. People tied to Johan's legacy, no doubt. He carried remnants of their spirits, or even their ghosts, with him. So who exactly was Johan?

Sinking deeper into a trance, Musata's brain swam in uncharted waters. Tricky business, and dangerous. A shaman who strayed too far risked being lost, her spirit irrevocably cleaved from the corpus. Many a shaman had been found dead, his body shriveled to a husk, the soul unchained. Yet Musata knew her search was important. She could sift truth, if only she could see.

Farther afield fled her astral mind. High, high as the moons, until she shivered in chill upper air. The myriad faces receded, until she beheld the throng occupied a desert far below. Surrounding the desert… She strained, mentally squinting, for her eyes were no longer sharp. Surrounding the horde were three-what?

To the south, where must lie an ocean, loomed a vast black gap. To the north, a single tall mountain smooth as a cone of sugar. To the east and west, smaller mountains in pairs. What meant they?

Smoke filled the hut now, so thick it leaked through the walls, though Musata didn't see it. Her nostrils twitched, rebelling against alien fumes. Yet she bore on, breathing to fill herself with the mystical combined essence.

Hanging in not-air up high, Musata breathed fire and fought to understand the vision. Below lay the black gap, a single mount, and twin mountains, all framing a vast horde of unknown humans. Somehow the picture hung on the stranger Johan, for he was central to this vision, same as her son and husband. Three threes, she realized. Magic trebled. Powerful stuff.

Straining, Musata's head began to spin. The people below were shouting, she realized. Calling a name? Crying for justice? Leaning, tilting until she felt nauseated, Musata began to descend in a sickening spiral. She must get closer to the crowd. Their words, their cause, were vital to her tiny tribe, though she couldn't imagine how the affairs of humans might impinge upon Efrava. Faster she fell, in great swooping circles like a stricken vulture.

A black gap, a lone mount, twin mountains.

None, One, and Two.

The knowledge came as a shock. Suddenly Musata was spiraling out of control. She'd die when she struck the ground. Lurching, flailing her arms, crying out, she fought for balance, for a return to safety, but plunged helplessly toward the horde, where burned a fire "Musata! Musata, wake up!"

Strong paws caught the shaman, dragged so her feet and tail trailed in dirt. More paws whapped her body painfully, rolled her in dirt, beat her.

Groggily she complained, "Leave me be! Stop hitting- Oh!"

The shaman's eyes pried open with difficulty, as if gummed shut. Bright yellow flames leaped and surged against a black night. Her sensitive nostrils smelled charred dust and green leaves and old burlap. Rubbing her face made her eyes sting. Her paws were sooty black. She hurt, the fur of her neck and muzzle scorched.

"What-?"

"That cursed fire." A young tigress named Zellig and others propped Musata up. Other tigers brought water in curled leaves and gently swabbed her charred fur. Now Musata realized the long common hut blazed from end to end. Flames licked at the night and withered green leaves in teak trees overhead. The glare was painful to watch.

Zellig explained, "The night watch heard you cry out, inside. We know not to disturb you when the door flap is down, but all that smoke worried us. Good thing we peeked. You fell facedown in your own fire!"

"Ah. Terrent Amese bless me!" Oddly, though burned so badly her pink skin leaked fluid, Musata was unafraid. Buming to death was another risk shamans took. This effort had been worthwhile, for she'd seen Like a thunderbolt, she remembered her dream.

"None, One, and Two! The coming of prophecy!"

"What?" asked several tigers.

"Ancient prophecy. I know, it's one of many, but I saw this from high above. A black gap for None, and mountains for One and Two. 'When None, One, and Two clash, only Two will remain to usher in a new age.' "

Bewildered striped faces stared. Musata didn't see them. She looked inward, at her son, and the mysterious stranger Johan, the eye of a hurricane…

"What?" Instantly awake, Jedit roared, "You knew my father all along? You lied?"

"A tiny lie." Johan didn't shift where he sat against a tree in the dark night. He didn't even raise his hands. Instead he drew from an inner pocket the calming crystal to toy with it. "Once I sniffed the wind, I thought it best not to mention Jaeger's name in the village. You seemed in enough trouble already."

Johan watched Jedit's anger evaporate as if he'd been doused with a bucket of water. The tiger even looked as if he'd doze off again. The cat mumbled thickly, "You didn't… All right, I see the sense of curbing your tongue. But you've had months of travel to tell me, us, before tonight!"

Johan flipped the milky stone to his forehead and rubbed furiously, as if cooling his brow with ice. These half-human tigers had skulls thick as oxen. Enchanting them was hard work.

"Be calm, my friend. Let's talk like reasonable beings… That's better. You're right. I failed to mention your father before tonight. To speak of Jaeger is difficult for me."

"How so?" Again calm as a snake, Jedit sank to his haunches to listen. Hestia hovered over him, one soft paw clutching his thick shoulder.

"I met Jaeger only briefly." Johan's voice was a soothing balm. "1 was a minor magician in the army of, uh, Lance Truthseeker of Tirras. Lord Lance assembled a mighty army and journeyed down the River Toloron. Of all the northern lords, only he dared wage war against the evil armies led by Hazezon Tamar and Adira Strongheart."

Johan talked at length, garbling facts, spinning pure lies. He was careful to steer toward a goal, though.

Jedit and Hestia listened, rapt, but the tiger warrior finally snarled, "Enough history! Where walks my father in all this human fumbling?"

"Your father was a magnificent creature," pontificated Johan. "1 was proud to meet him. When he learned of strife in the Sukurvia, he knew instinctively who was right and joined Lord Lance's army. As said, I was a minor mage. Naturally I wanted to question a talking tiger never seen before. We talked briefly of his homeland here in Efrava. He spoke of you, Jedit, with the utmost pride."

"Hmmm." Mollified and flattered, charmed without knowing it, Jedit preened. Hestia, however, squeezed Jedit's shoulder so hard her claws drew blood. Jedit flicked her hand away.

"Came the last battle." Johan spun more lies in the night as mosquitoes droned. "I can't say what happened. Jaeger was always at the forefront of our army, battling savagely, giving heart to our lads and lasses. Some said he was the heart of our army! But sometimes heart isn't enough. We were outnumbered and betrayed. Hazezon and Adira knew every dirty trick of war and were pitiless with helpless prisoners. They stacked skulls to the sky and pitched dead babies atop! They broke soldiers at the wheel and set them afire to scare their own troops into battle!" Johan listed more atrocities, some actually committed by his own troops. "Yet our campaign was doomed. I don't know if your father survived. I believe nothing could still his fine ferocious heart, but I never learned the outcome. As a humble apprentice mage, I rode a drake above our freedom fighters. I was chased by some of Adira's flying contraptions and fled east. Once aloft, my drake panicked, so I kept onward, blown by the breath of the gods. Then I realized whither I steered, toward the homeland of the incomparable Jaeger Ojanen. Perhaps, I thought, this was a heaven-sent opportunity to help our cause. Could I but find Jaeger's people and appeal for help, we might defeat the hellish hordes of Hazezon and Adira."

"My father…" Jedit stared unseeing at darkness. "At the forefront, charging a superior force… Imagine!"

While Jedit and Hestia pondered, Johan plied his conjuring crystal like a spider plucking the strands of its web. Johan, Tyrant of Tirras, Emperor of the Northern Reaches, and Would-Be Conqueror of All Jamuraa, had indeed met Jaeger, but always in combat. The tiger warrior and a dozen other stalwarts had opposed his march of tyranny from mountainous Tirras into the southlands. Johan had assembled an army of thousands of humans, dwarves, barbarians, fairykin and others, and they carved a swathe of blood. Yet Johan had run afoul of a creaky alliance cobbled together by Hazezon Tamar, governor of Bryce, other coastal cities, and Adira Strongheart, chief of the Robaran Mercenaries and mayor of Palmyra.

More than any, Adira and her accursed bodyguards, the Circle of Seven, had balked Johan at every step. And among the Circle had loomed Jaeger Ojanen, the mysterious tiger-man who'd crawled from the desert and eventually died attacking Johan, falling victim to a sand wurm.

So had fate served Johan. Fleeing the final battlefield, Jaeger's blood warm on his hands, Johan had flown west, following his karma, and had crashed almost into the maw of another sand wurm, only to be rescued by Jaeger's son. How the gods favored him, Johan thought smugly. True, his initial assault had failed, but only for lack of preparation. Huge losses had only hardened Johan's determination to punish his enemies and seat himself upon a throne of immovable granite, Emperor of All Jamuraa.

Yet, if the gods bestowed favors, so might they rescind them. Johan bore many thorns in his side, and the tigerfolk were the worst, though he didn't understand why.

Jaeger's final words had been, "Even if I fail, there will come another." Who but his son Jedit? While this young warrior was brash and inexperienced, he would learn. In addition, Johan was haunted by the prophecy of None, One, and Two, another mystery that vexed him sorely. Yet he knew these cat warriors were somehow key. To master the prophecy, Johan had to master these striped savages.

The she-cat Hestia spoke. "Why now, Minor Mage Johan? For months you've surveyed our land from root to branch. Why tell us this night of Jaeger's glory?"

"Because I'm afraid." Johan sounded so meek that, despite her suspicions, Hestia wanted to cuddle him for comfort. "I'm not a brave man. Tomorrow we enter your village. I fear for my life, or at least my liberty. If your tribe demands I remain a prisoner, or even be executed-"

"They won't." Jedit cut him off. "We're going west, you and I. No one will stop us."

The attack was cold, calculated, and effective.

One minute Jedit, Johan, and Hestia threaded a game trail descending a thicket, and the next, rope nets whisked to box them in. Striped bodies hurtled from bushes and dropped from trees. Jedit was slammed in the back by two tigers and driven muzzle-first into the quivering net. The warrior snarled and slung fangs and claws, but within seconds he was cocooned in layers of rope.

Johan was shoved hard by furry hands and dumped to the ground. Inwardly the tyrant seethed to be touched by commoners, and animals at that, but he was wary of their feral tempers, so sat meek and unmoving while they clumsily tied his hands and feet.

Hestia was left unbound, braced by two scouts, as Ruko ordered, "Stand fast, Hestia, daughter of Grapter! Interfere not in tribal justice!"

"Justice!" Jedit Ojanen raged and thrashed in the enveloping net, almost incoherent. "What kind of justice-Aargh! — do you call ambush!"

"Scream your lungs out, Jaeger's son." Ruko settled his blue turban and picked up his wurm-tooth spear. "Your mother also cast a vote to capture you."

That fact silenced the fighter. The two prisoners, with Hestia under guard, were toted back into the village slung on long poles like dead deer. The entire populace awaited them, scores of tigers waiting with the council before the scorched ruins of the common hut. Jedit and Johan were laid on the hardpack of the village square. Ruko and his scouts stood back respectfully but watched the prisoners.

Johan tucked his feet and sat up. He had no fear for his life and was curious to see this new interaction. Anything he could learn about these cats, especially their decision making, would aid him later.

"Mother," snarled Jedit, twists of net snagging his muzzle and whiskers, "why this betrayal?"

"No betrayal, my son." Musata's voice was calm and cold, a village elder fulfilling an unpleasant duty. Only the quaver of a mother's tears underlay her words. "We act for the good of the tribe. While you wandered with the manling Johan, we searched our hearts and beseeched Terrent Amese for an answer. I was granted a vision, a glimpse of prophecy-"

"None, One, and Two?" Despite himself, Johan blurted the question.

Glowing amber-green eyes fixed on the man. "Yes. 'When None, One, and Two clash, only Two shall remain to usher in a new age.' "

What? thought Johan, but kept his face blank. In his stronghold far away, he'd heard the prophecy differently, put more simply. Now, closer to the source, he learned additional information. Two shall clash? And Two usher in a new age? The same Two? How so? Stunned by the news, Johan's mind reeled, so he barely caught the next news, a threat.

"Little matter." The crowd stirred as Musata went on. "You shall not see that fabled day, manling. We sense your discontent. Eventually you would depart to tell other men of our secret homeland. We heed the warnings of ancient history, of law, even of prophecy. All tell how the workings of men bring evil to our people. Thus will you be executed at moonset. Neither my son nor Hestia will interfere."

Jedit's answer was a howl so horrific the elders jumped back. Some tigers glanced around, wondering if their representatives had made the right decision. Yet no one spoke up. Still raging, Jedit was hauled away.

Johan remained icy calm but again smoldered with anger as he was hoisted like a prize pig and lugged to his wooden cage perched on stilts. Stripped of his bonds, he was clapped inside. The lock was a stout green stick too strong for a man to pull free. Standing on wooden bars nine feet off the ground, Johan ground his teeth. Ever since arriving in this uncharted valley, he'd been treated like an animal. As Tyrant of Tirras, he had treated every living thing like an animal, as if they existed only to serve him, and he'd snuffed out anyone who opposed or displeased him. To be treated the same way galled him.

No matter. He knew almost everything about this valley, about its savage striped inhabitants, their exact numbers and weaponry and customs. He'd even gleaned more of the benighted prophecy. He had enough. Time to leave, so he might return and conquer. That the mage was imprisoned in a stout cage and watched by twin guards didn't matter.

The cage stood in a small clearing not far behind the common hut, which had somehow burned. Before, curious tigers had been allowed to gawk, but now two guards shooed them away, even piled slash and brush to hide the man from sight. Showing respect for a condemned criminal, no doubt. Two scouts paced in a curious rhythm, one circling thirty feet out, the other marching back and forth under Johan's feet. Other scouts had gone elsewhere, likely to patrol near the berserker Jedit.

All to the good, thought Johan. Rubbing his charming crystal against his forehead to appear humble and harmless, the mage struck.

"Guards."

Pacing tigers glanced upward.

"Both of you come close," said the magician evenly. "I have something to say."

Unworried, the scouts in blue headbands and loincloths and carrying wurm-toothed spears approached the wooden cage, their heads almost level with Johan's bare feet.

In that curious antique accent, one scout asked, "What say you, manling?"

Johan squatted as if to whisper. Tigers leaned closer. The mage flicked a hand as if brushing a fly. "Die."

The scouts recoiled too late. Johan could have killed them in a dozen ways, but this method both rendered them harmless and silenced them instantly. Both scouts clutched their throats and gargled a whimper. Their necks ceased to exist. Two heads were drawn into bodies like turtles until chins rested on chests. Too, the tigers' heads spread sideways, melting like candles. Clawed paws elongated and fused into two fingers that turned into dark spikes. Their bodies bloated, swelling like ticks full of blood, until their loincloths split off. Orange stripes on their sleek hides grew dark and merged with black stripes, then turned shiny and iridescent. Both guards gasped in pain and fell as their sides split to disgorge extra legs, while their existing limbs curled and withered and darkened like tree branches.

Johan too was changing. He hissed in agony as his form expanded and split and shriveled all at once. When, half-crazed by pain, he toppled to the barred floor of the cage, he clattered like a coin dropping on a table. Feebly he kicked stick-legs and thrashed as a white-hot searing burned his body like firebrands. Valiantly Johan struggled to maintain his sanity and wits, for he must escape once fully transformed.

Slowly, after seeming weeks of prickly pain, Johan's wracking subsided. Opening his eyes, he found the world reproduced a hundred times in tiny facets like a diamond. Images of jungle and wooden bars swirled, a hundred pictures moving in unison, a dizzying sensation. Experimenting, Johan moved three arms and found he could stand, then crawl. Poised on six legs, he tried to turn his head but could not, for he had no neck, just a gleaming black skull jointed to a glistening carapace.

Johan had become a beetle. A giant insect five feet long. Good. That suited.

Scuttling awkwardly, crawling on thin but strong legs braced on wooden bars, Johan scooted until his mandibles bumped wood. His beetle's jaws were almost a foot long and hard as blacksmith's tongs. Swinging his bulky head back and forth, Johan attacked the first wooden bar. Squeezing his jaw, he snipped green wood as easily as cutting a daisy. Shuffling sideways, he plied his crushing mandibles to snip the next bar and the next. A few more and — With a lurch, drop, and thud, Johan was free, dumped on the dirt beneath the prison cage. Tucking his legs close, Johan reached into his mental library and, mandibles wiggling, recited a disenchantment. Immediately he was wracked by more pain, but this agony was offset by the delicious sense of relief that the spell worked. The odds were small but real that, transformed into a non-speaking creature, he could never utter the reversal spell.

Since he was returning to his original form, the transformation went quicker. Within minutes Johan could sit up, roll to all fours, and stand, whole but shaken. Blinking, glad for normal vision and not a hundred refracted images, the sorcerer cast about to see if anyone witnessed his escape.

All was quiet except for the wasp-buzz of the tigers on the square. Both transformations had taken only a few minutes.

Johan looked for his twin guards. One huge beetle, black with only the vaguest stripes for decoration, twirled aimless circles not far away. Another beetle had driven itself into a thick bush as if to hide. Six legs scrambled stupidly to push deeper. Coolly, the mage picked up a fallen wurm-tooth spear and stabbed the circling beetle at the joint of head and carapace. Stricken, the insect collapsed then died as Johan twisted. Stepping, Johan drove the gory spear into the other beetle's soft hind end, ramming the shaft forward until the wurm tooth lodged in the head. That beetle twitched and stopped digging, then lay quietly.

Dusting his hands, Johan strode into the jungle along a rude path faintly outlined by tiger hair at the tips of branches. Once the village was left behind, so only darkness and the cool night air accompanied him, Johan turned.

West.

"What's happened?"

Faint cries carried on the night air. Two scouts guarded Jedit Ojanen, bound to a tree a mile from the village. He'd remain isolated, they'd said, until the moon was fully set and Johan properly executed and buried.

Yet more cries and a hideous wail of a tiger grieving set them all twitching.

"Terrent Amese!" rumbled one guard. "Could it be an attack?"

"You mean the Khyyiani?" asked the other.

"It's not the season." Jedit growled, still angry at his impotence. His hands and arms were swaddled in rope.

"Bite your tongue, Jedit!" One guard shook his spear in the prisoner's face. "We've had naught but trouble since you found that manling! Likely when you and he traipsed all over Efrava, you led a war party of Khyyiani straight to us!"

More cries from the village, more sobbing than fighting. Finally one guard said, "Go. I'll watch his highness."

The guard departed at a trot. The other paced, shifting his spear from hand to hand. Jedit looked at the moon just risen.

"If there's a raid," he said, "you should free me. The execution of the manling can wait-"

He jumped as something brushed his back, then realized it was a paw, small and soft. Unmoving, he blithered, "Uh, that is… Ruko would let me go."

One by one the ropes binding Jedit were severed by a razor claw. Jedit flexed his wrists. "They'll need every warrior in the village-"

"Will you belt up?" Torn between duties, the guard whirled on Jedit and was knocked cold by a fist like a sledgehammer.

"Hestia."

The small she-tiger stepped from shadows. "Jedit. I slipped away from my family. I had to see you. Something's gone horribly wrong in the village. People panic and wail."

Not knowing the problem, Jedit didn't know how to proceed, especially given his prisoner status. "I'll… circle around and keep out of sight."

"Go." Hestia's large eyes were moist by moonlight. "I fear I shan't see you again."

"You will," said Jedit. "I promise. Terrent Amese be my witness, I'll return."

For a moment, electricity crackled with a thousand things unsaid. Then Hestia grabbed Jedit's huge shoulders, pulled him close, and pressed her muzzle to his. To exchange breath was a tiger's kiss. She pushed him away. To not say goodbye was another custom.

Jedit loped off, veering west to circle the village and its queer, spine-chilling wails. Dashing through the jungle, eyes alert for bare footprints, Jedit covered miles in minutes. Yet his target was ridiculously easy to find. Of all things, Jedit heard three voices in the middle of nowhere.

At a wide spot in the trail, Johan faced Ruko and another tiger scout. Jedit assumed Johan had been led from the village to be executed by the two designated scouts. Yet the three conversed as calmly as neighbors gossiping in the marketplace. Slowing to a jog, Jedit advanced until all three turned his way.

The tiger-man rubbed his nose, mightily puzzled. The lone man showed no fear or apprehension of the scouts. By starlight, the man's bony face was luminous as a bleached skull, completely placid. Why didn't Ruko move to intercept Jedit?

"Johan. Ruko." Unsure of his mission or stance, Jedit blurted, "What of the execution?"

Ruko's face was blank. "Execution? Oh, it's been stayed. Johan and I are talking instead."

"Talk?"

In the darkness, Johan's black eyes were invisible, so his bone-white face seemed blind. He toyed with his enchanting stone. "Yes, we talk. People should be allowed to go where they will. No one should stop them. Isn't that true?"

"What?" asked Jedit. "What nonsense is this?"

"I wished to leave and did." Johan stared. "I met this patrol, and no one should be restrained against their will. Isn't that true?"

"True," echoed Ruko and the guard.

"Wait! Why the wailing in the village?" Jedit shook his head, whiskers shivering. His skull buzzed as if full of bees, making him dizzy.

"Oh," said Ruko, "someone died."

"No one important," added Johan.

The mage's brow began to ooze sweat. These tigerfolk had alien minds not easily subdued. Lucky there were only three, or Johan would fry his brain controlling them. Gasping, concentrating, he rattled to sink the hook.

"I go my way, and you go yours. Back to the village. That's reasonable, isn't it? Sensible? I gain my home, you yours. I go. Won't you agree?"

"Agreed," said Ruko.

"And I?" Jedit blinked amber-green eyes as a fog floated in. Queer on such a starry night.

"You?" Johan sucked wind for energy. "You go with me, by your own choice. To find your father. Jaeger will be glad. You come with me. All right?"

"Yes." Having decided, or so he thought, Jedit said to Ruko. "I go with Johan. You return to the village."

Abruptly the two scouts whirled. Johan recalled that this race never said goodbye, thinking it bad luck. Winded, exhausted, he blurted, "Wait!"

The scouts whirled, amazingly fast, and for a second Johan thought they'd shed his spell, but he put out a hand and gingerly brushed the hafts of their stabbing spears. "I only wanted to say, your spears are impressive weapons. Fine workmanship. Lovely rich-grained wood. Now go."

Wrinkling noses at the odd comment, without further ado Ruko and the scout turned east. Immediately Johan jogged west.

Jedit trotted to catch up. "What's the hurry?"

"Uh, to gain the desert before dawn." Johan cursed, tired of fabricating lies for cretins. "We've a long way to go. To see your father."

"Oh, yes." Still squinting against the fog in his mind, Jedit loped alongside the barefoot mage.

Meanwhile, Ruko and the other scout had paced a hundred yards, eager to return to their village and-what? They couldn't remember their mission. A furious buzzing filled their heads, but Ruko marked it down to fatigue. In the village they could rest. Except…

Ruko stopped short and snuffled his black nostrils. "I smell smoke."

"Queer," said the scout. "My spear feels-"

Fwash! With a whisper and whoop, their thick spears suddenly ignited. The tiger scouts dropped the burning shafts immediately, crying in pain and surprise, but the magical immolation had already spread. Flames surged up their arms, across their chests, down their bellies, and around their necks until their shaggy heads were wreathed in flames. Acrid smoke spiraled from their fur, sizzling so hot leaves on bushes shriveled and caught fire. The tigers howled as hair and flesh charred. Yowling, they dropped to the forest floor and thrashed and kicked, but the flames would not be quenched. As their flesh blackened and split into raw seeping wounds, the tigers' wild scrambling stopped. Finally they lay still and died. Flames continued to flicker awhile, as leaves and dirt crackled and burned, then even those small fires extinguished.

Far off, Jedit pricked his rounded ears and asked, "Did you hear a yell?"

"No," said Johan, for once truthful. "Come, the desert awaits."

"Ah, yes, the desert. And my father."

Rather, his ghost, thought Johan. And yours, soon.