Phin’s palms were moist and he wiped them on his shirt before reaching up and pulling the back casement out just a bit further into the night air, wincing as the hinges whined ever so softly. He put his fingers on the window ledge and stood with his nose almost touching the white-washed timber wall, rising slowly on his toes until he could peek between his fingers.
It was pitch black in the room but as he squinted Phin thought he could just see two dim spots of blue light, almost like eyes looking back at him.
Then the flat end of a Far Western weapon called a tonfa cracked across the back of Phin’s skull, and he saw no more.
*
Uriako Shikashe’s voice awoke Zeb while the canvas sides of his tent were still dark. Zeb was splayed on his back more comfortably than was usual in the tent he shared with Phin Phoarty, and after a moment he realized it was because he was alone. Amatesu was talking to Shikashe now, outside. Zeb rolled over and started to snuggle deeper under his blanket, but had the thought that Nesha-tari might have woken the others up early. She might actually be standing outside right now. Zeb slithered out of his bedding and the tent, stumbled up to his feet and looked around.
Still dark night, and no Nesha-tari. Shikashe stood nearby and frowned at Zeb with his arms crossed and his long black topknot all unbound so that his hair fell around his shoulders. As the samurai slept only in a long shirt of embroidered silk he had at moment a slightly womanly appearance, apart from the mustache. Not that Zeb was going to tell him so.
Amatesu had rekindled the fire and was kneeling on the far side. Zeb stepped over to see what she was about, and blinked in surprise for Phin was lying on the ground before her as though dead. Amatesu had turned his limp head sideways by the chin, and was gently probing his brown hair with her fingers. When she pulled them back they were red and wet in the firelight.
“What the hells happened?” Zeb shouted, snapping fully awake and scampering over to kneel next to Amatesu.
“I struck him in the head,” the woman said with a frown. “Too hard, I think.”
Zeb stared at her. “You did what?”
Amatesu did not answer but worked her fingers into Phin’s hair at the back of his skull. She closed her eyes and lifted her chin, then released a long, soft breath. She looked just like she had when Zeb had first met her, when the shukenja had jammed her fingers into the ruins of his elbow and withdrawn them with the joint repaired.
Phin stirred, then jerked and blinked his eyes. Amatesu stood up and wiped her bloody fingers together, looking around the campsite for the water bucket.
“What…” Phin looked up at Zeb and stammered. “Where am I…what?”
“Amatesu hit you in the head.” Zeb turned to the shukenja as she crossed to the bucket. “Amatesu, why did you hit Phin in the head?” The fellow wasn’t a bad sort really, Zeb had come to think. Phoarty had a nose-in-the-air snootiness about him that Zeb supposed was typical for a mage, but he had been loosening up for the last week or so.
“He was trying to break into the Madame Nesha-tari’s bed chamber,” Amatesu said, dunking a cloth in the bucket.
Zeb’s eyes widened and he stood up. Phin had rolled to all fours and was starting to rise groggily, but Zeb put a foot on his ribs and knocked him back to his side.
“You were doing what?” Zeb hissed down at him.
“Zebulon!” Amatesu snapped, in the exact tone of voice that the matrons had used at him when he was a boy in the Baj Nif Drom. But he didn’t hear her. Zeb’s hands were balled in fists at his sides and they were shaking.
“Get up!” he barked at Phoarty and Phin did so rapidly, lunging at Zeb from his knees until Amatesu snagged the mage’s collar and dragged him back. Zeb took a step forward raising a fist, but Shikashe snaked an arm that felt like a tree limb with muscles around Zeb’s neck and squeezed. Zeb actually felt his eyeballs bugging out as he grabbed Shikashe’s arm.
“Both of you, stop it!” Amatesu ordered, still holding Phin’s collar while the red-faced mage clawed in the air toward Zeb.
“I will blast you to Hades!” he sputtered furiously, and Zeb answered with an equally enraged though less comprehensible gasp and wheeze.
Amatesu met Shikashe’s eyes and nodded, then she jerked Phin back to put her own arm around his neck. Zeb could not really see it as his vision was starting to swim. The Far Westerners throttled the Wizard and the Minauan until both were going limp, their faces almost purple, then each let their patient go. Zeb and Phin collapsed to all fours and almost knocked their heads together, gasping for breath. The fury had drained out of both of them.
“Enough?” Amatesu asked. Phin nodded and Zeb tapped the ground like he was surrendering a wrestling match. When the two men were breathing more normally they looked up at each other from inches away.
“She’s a witch,” Phin croaked.
“Who…who is a witch?” Zeb panted.
“Nesh…Nesha-tari.”
“Nesha-tari is not a witch.” Amatesu said calmly.
She still stood behind Phin, so he flopped to his back while gulping air to look the shukenja in the eye.
“She is. She has put a spell on me.” He raised a trembling hand and pointed at Zeb. “On him, too.”
Zeb groaned and thumped to his side. His throat felt as though it was the diameter of a straw of wheat. Shikashe had ambled back to his tent and was pulling on trousers, paying no particular attention to the others as though this was a typical morning.
“It is not a spell, as such,” Amatesu said. Her brow furrowed and lips pursed as she thought. “It is something we think is…part of what Madame Nesha-tari is. Zebulon, how do you say, when an aspect is just a part of a thing? As flight to a bird or a bite to a snake?”
“Natural?” Zeb wheezed, and Amatesu nodded.
“Yes. The manner in which men are attracted to Nesha-tari Hrilamae may be a form of magic, but it is not a spell she has cast. It is natural to her.”
Zeb managed to push himself up to his elbows. “Look…if you’re saying she is…hot as a just-fired pistol…then I agree.”
Amatesu turned to Phin, who almost had his breathing back to normal though he was rubbing his neck.
“Phinneas?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Please describe the Madame Nesha-tari.”
Phin looked at her, then over to Zeb. He shrugged.
“I haven’t seen much of her, truth be told. She is tiny, I mean small built. Alabaster skin. Long blonde hair, like a princess of Exland. In a story.”
Zeb stared at him, then turned to Amatesu.
“I think you broke his brain.”
“Zebulon?” Amatesu asked.
“Nesha-tari is tall,” Zeb said. “Almost my height. She’s not pale, her complexion is more like a coffee with a lot of milk. She has blue eyes, bluest you ever saw, and a gorgeous, magnificent…” Zeb sat up and raised his hands beside his head. “Mane of rich, red hair, with a curl. Like a native of Phohnassa.”
Phin got to his elbows and looked at Zeb. “Strawberry blonde?”
“No. Wine-dark. Kind of hair you want to bury your nose in. For a week.”
The two men looked at each other, profoundly confused. They turned back to Amatesu who held up a hand with a thumb and finger slightly apart.
“The Madame Nesha-tari is about this much taller than I. Her hair falls just to her shoulders. It is light brown. Her skin is darker, though a bit lighter than is typical for a Zantish person, I think. She does have blue eyes, though.”
Zeb and Phin’s breathing had returned to normal, but now neither had anything to say. They just kept staring at Amatesu.
“Men see Nesha-tari as they would,” the shukenja explained. “Not as she is.”
“Just men?” Phin asked, and Amatesu nodded.
“I think it is so.”
Zeb looked across the fire to where Shikashe had settled on a camp stool, watching the others with his hands on his knees.