“Zastis is a love-house of the Vis gods,” said Kuzarl, “set on fire and burning forever in the skies.” Kuzarl might have been drunk. Both men might have been so. “Or,” said Kuzarl, “Zastis is one of the mysterious flying chariots of the Lowlanders, or of the Dragon-Kings of the Vis. Combusted, flaming magic, unable to go out, its erotic radiation sprinkling the earth like scarlet snow—”
“If you want a woman,” said Rehger, “go and find one.”
“See there,” said Kuzarl.
Across the rosy twilight roofs, another roof, not far away. There were two women on it, one dressing the other’s hair. This apparition gleamed in the gathering dusk, for though the women were smoky-skinned, their long tresses had been bleached. The seated one had noticed Kuzarl’s scrutiny. She smiled to herself and looked away. The other continued the hairdressing, but also she began to sing in a low cindery voice.
To get to the women’s thatch was no difficulty, since almost all the roofs ran into each other at one point or another.
The women welcomed them courteously, like old friends of the family. They were very modest, nearly bashful. The dialect prevented much verbal commerce.
The younger girl Kuzarl took down the stair. Rehger lay on the roof with the elder, in a nest of straw, under the stars which seemed to expand and spill across the eventual roof of night.
“These people never go north or west, they insist. They don’t pry into the limits of the jungle. Somewhere is the sea. But who can reach it? The forest closes on the traveler and eats him up. Only phantoms come back. Mine whimpered me a story of that, and frightened herself so I had to comfort her.”
“Nevertheless,” said Rehger, “this town uses coins.”
“There are other settlements in the mountains, north, and east,” said Kuzarl. “So they say. Traders go about from petty kingdoms of Thaddra, lost Zakor and Dortharian outposts.”
“And the fabulous city. Have they heard of that?”
“If they hear, they never listen.”
They stood at the town’s border, where the graveyard was. The tombs were of raised impacted mud. Creepers and flowers grew over them. The stacks looked cheerful and careless, and where they had given way, the flowers only bloomed more exuberantly.
“The city,” said Kuzarl, “is lapped in jungle, between this country and the coast. I begin to dream of Ashnesee. Did I mention, that is the name of it?”
Rehger said, “Describe the dream.”
“White light ringed by midnight and the fire of eyes.”
“You also begin to talk like a priest.”
“All Shansars are priests. Priest-warriors. Today, we fight again, you and I.”
“And if I kill you,” said Rehger, “how will I find the way to Ashnesee?”
“Do you suppose I can lead you there?”
“She gave you directions,” said Rehger. “In Saardsinmey, or Sh’alis.”
“She? The Amanackire. Ah. You think that.”
Past the graveyard, the forest. The sun gilded its facade, then there was blackness.
At length the Shansarian said, “You acknowledge, you are in a sort of dream, a sorcery. You say to yourself, nothing is as it appears to be.”
“I understand you’d prefer I thought in this way.”
“How are we to duel?” said Kuzarl. “Where shall we get swords? Shall I seek them? I might go into the woods, and take up two serpents. Each would become a blade of steel.”
Rehger said, softly, “That was a trick she played on me.
“Who are you?” said the Shansarian. “Do you know yourself? Perhaps you died in Saardsinmey. Perhaps I died in the river.”
Rehger turned. “Now,” he said.
He jumped one of the tottered grave-stacks and came at Kuzarl. Rehger had drawn the knife the council at Zaddath had given him, to replace that which Galutiyh had had. It was proved. It could hack reeds and vines, and the flesh of lizards. The customs of the stadium were nullified, even the abstaining from sex before a combat. He brought the knife lengthways across Kuzarl’s ribs, and blood welled, red as only blood could ever be.
Out sparkled Kuzarl’s dagger, Shalian in design, incised with a snake-fish, gems in the hilt. Kuzarl ignored the slit in his side.
Rehger stood back, waiting. When the Shansarian lashed in at him, he blocked the blows, once, twice, and dashed the man from him, disdaining to slice him again.
The sunshine rang on the land. But the fight was heavy and purposeless. Used to the fined reactions of a merciless training, Rehger found his body had become that of a stranger. It did not move as he remembered, and was itself resentful that it could not. There was, above the arena of the graveyard, no murmurous and excited crowd. There was no reason and no prize.
The Shansar rolled and plunged at him again, and again, and Rehger met the advents and the blows, beating him aside, down, and to nothing. Rehger returned the onslaught without emphasis, allowing Kuzarl to shield himself.
From the first and only wound the Shansar bled. This did not seem to disable him, and yet even he did not attack with spirit. He did not strive as he had in the river.
Rehger cast the Zaddath knife from the right to the left hand. He went forward and brought his right fist cracking against Kuzarl’s jaw. As the Shansar staggered, Rehger kicked his feet from under him. Kuzarl crashed among the flowers, and the Shalian dagger flew away in a bush.
“You died in a river,” Rehger said, “as you told me.”
“Amreky” said Kuzarl. “Kill me or let me up to fight you.”
Rehger stood over him. “Brothers in Alisaar duel for their birthright. And what’s ours?”
“The world. Raldnor’s quarrel. Who will possess.” He reached to grip Rehger’s ankle and pull him down. Rehger snapped Kuzarl’s hand away with his foot.
“You’re bleeding, Kuzarl. Go back to the women in the town and ask them to see to it.”
“Who will possess,” Kuzarl repeated. “Your race. Mine.”
“Or the Amanackire. If I travel west, I’ll find the city.”
Kuzarl lapsed against the ground. He seemed suddenly to suffer from the gash in his side.
“I was her servant, in northern Alisaar—Sh’alis. I saw her unveiled. She was Aztira. She’d died and lived again. I lied to you.” He closed his eyes against the sun, his face secretive and cunning.
“Did she say her sorcery would act on me to bring me after her?”
“She said nothing of you. She forgot you, Lydian.”
“Then she only spoke of the city.”
“Something of the city.”
“Enough that you could find your way to it.”
“Yes, yes. . . .”
“Why did you delay to do so?”
Kuzarl opened his eyes again. His face became proud, arrogant, unknowing. “This thing, and that thing. Or fate elected me your guide.”
“But no longer.”
Tardily, cautiously, Kuzarl sat up. He leaned on a piece of grave, and helped himself to his feet.
“Ashara-Anack,” he said.
He went without haste, quite steadily (as after the river), back toward the town. He made no attempt to reclaim the costly dagger from the bushes. To Rehger, he said nothing more.
The Lydian walked through the graveyard and in under the arches of the jungle trees. The morning light was behind him, the west was represented now by the density of the forest. Soon, as Kuzarl had said that they said, the forest folded in upon him.
It was night. Night in day. There was no day. There was no direction, north or south, east or west. And in the coolness of his anger, the drunkenness of disillusion, and the clarity of the dark, he gave himself then to fate, or to Anackire, or to the will and the afterimage of the woman, Aztira.
Nothing seemed alive in the forests now but for himself and the enormous growing trees. Although there was great heat and moisture. When he was thirsty, which was not often, he drank from the sweating leaves.
He went on until an incredible tiredness dragged him to the earth. Then he slept, and when he woke, went on again.