WARRIORWARDS 
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this 
book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely 
coincidental. 
Copyright © 1990 by Dafydd ab Hugh 
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions 
thereof in any form. 
A Baen Books Original 
Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. 1403 Riverdale, N.Y. 10471 
ISBN: 0-671-72019-8 Cover art by Larry Elmore First printing, October 1990 
Mr. ab Hugh is not available for personal correspondence, 
but letters of comment may be sent to 
4216 Beverly Blvd. #177, Los Angeles, CA 90004 
Distributed by SIMON & SCHUSTER 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y. 
10020 
Printed in the United States of America 
the mind builds a maze and the body runs through it 
like a rat 
every night in our dreams we escape the maze 
like a dream of birds 
There is no maze. We are free 
even from dreams of freedom 
Vani Bustamante December 23, 1989 
"Before the Beginning" 
Toq grinned, barely able to contain himself. The order surrounded him, waiting 
for him to speak. 
"Sleeping Tifhiz ..." Toq giggled, then continued, "Sleeps. And sleeps!! He 
wakes not. I am the only and the one. It's mine! You can't have it." 
The others satd nothing, kept their heads bowed as Toq continued. Pieces of 
the boy-god spilled onto the ground. "Some of you opposed my succession. I 
forgive you all, though regretably I must destroy the lot of you." 
He gestured sadly, every inch the regal, all-forgiving godking. Five minor 
deities flickered and tore apart as the abyss entered their souls. 
Some who remained blubbered in fear, prostrating themselves before Toq. Two 
held their subservient posture in proud silence, twitched nervously and 
strained. Only Magadauthan Full-of-Oceans seemed at ease. 
Magadauthan knelt serene, unmoved by Toq's rhetoric or authority. The albino 
boy-god chewed his lip, unable to think of anything diabolical enough to 
temper Magadauthan's arrogance. 
"The rest of you motley pile of dung—you too, Water-belly—shall be given much 
time to regret your inability to recognize my claims earlier, when that 
soon-to-be-damned Snoring Tifhiz pretended to this seat." He turned his eyes 
in disgust, waved his hand and the order departed swiftly, all but one. 
2 Dafydd ab Hugh 
"Have you chosen to stay and apologize, Magadan than?" asked Toq without 
looking up. 
"Oceans are deep," rumbled a voice like crashing waves. 
Toq raised his head and glared furiously. "What is that supposed to mean?" 
Bubbles formed on the boy-god's alabaster skin, blisters of hatred that burst, 
spewed venom across the floor to etch channels in the marble. 
"I know what you intend," said Magadauthan. "I know her that tears your 
pride." 
No need to specify the woman in question. Toq puffed up like a furious air 
bladder. "Then you also know what that thing did to me!" 
"You did yourself, new boy." 
Toq raised a fist, but checked his first, violent reaction. Magadauthan was 
crafty. Tides would freeze before the Goddess of Oceans tempted destiny 
without a backup plan. "This is a challenge," Toq marveled. "You challenge 
me!" 
"Piece to piece." 



"Spawn to spawn. Winner break all." 
She looked up, eyes black as the vasty deep. Magadauthan's face was 
unreadable, even by Toq the boy-god. Toq grinned nastily, spoke quickly before 
She could. "I'll not make the same mistake, you wet slut. This time, I'll take 
Jiana Analena herself, against herself. Her own nature will destroy her! A 
test she'll foil!" 
After a pause, Magadauthan Full-of-Oceans smiled. "You have spoken . . . 
lord." She swirled her blue-grey cloak and flowed from the meetroom. 
Toq stared after her departing form. A nasty suspicion bubbled in Toq's 
stomach that he had been taken. . . . 
Chapter I: 
Prophet and Lass, a balance in the sheeting 
A long, mournful cry settled across the tent-khayma; the wind, crying for the 
dead past: toooooo looooong, whoooo? bego-o-ne. The sound smothered the slave 
girl, wrapping around her mouth like a shroud, catching at her breath like a 
black silk veil. 
Did he hear? Will he wake? 
Radience crept silently with utmost humility, as she had been taught, into the 
tent, the khayma of the Caliph of Dokamaj Tool. The walls of the khayma puffed 
slowly in and out, and creatures too tiny to see clearly scurried at the edges 
of her vision. 
Radience held the weighty bowl of candied mushrooms close to her left side, so 
her left arm would be able to help, too. The bowl was one of the lead pieces, 
ugly and heavy. Most of the girls could not carry it. Not even with two good 
arms. 
Pressed against her side as it was, the bowl also offered excellent cover for 
the long dagger, sharp as a needle, as the sins of Arhatman. 
Bodies pressed against the khayma walls, scratching with their claws, weeping 
to be let in. It was their breath that puffed the canvas, their pushing that 
billowed the tentwalk to a moist crawl. 
/ won't be humiliated anymore. I won't! 
But there she was, at the door to the Caliph's bedchamber. How had she come so 
far, without passing the intervening distance? 
4 Dafydd ab Hugh 
Radience pushed through the beaded metal curtain; a lifetime of skulking to 
avoid the Overman allowed her to pass through with not a clink, not a single, 
silver tone. Behind her, the furry things she could never see chittered and 
nipped at her heels. 
The Caliph was asleep, laid upon his furs. His arms were folded as if in 
death, his head tipped against the luminous, alabaster resting block. Some 
said the glyphs on the side of the block were the Caliph's eyes, when his eyes 
were shut. 
Ripples rolled across the alabaster, radiating out from the Caliph's sleepy 
head. The block ticked with each ripple, like the mandibles of a stingtail 
clicking together. 
The slave girl stepped closer, her teeth chattering until she gritted them. 
She rolled the weight from back foot to front foot, for she had been taught. 
Holding her breath to not flutter his eyelids, she leaned over and studied the 
face of the man she would kill. 
The Caliph's eyes were wide open. Radience waited in silence; he often slept 
this way. She allowed one hundred heartbeats to pass before she dared breathe. 
But if his eyes never shut, she wondered, when do the glyphs watch me? 
She put her good, right arm under the grey bowl and used her left to steady 
and guide. She lowered the candies to the chess table beside her master, so 
carefully and slowly that a watcher would have wondered if she were merely one 
more statue the Caliph had collected. 
"Is she another stone Rakdare, carrying the waters of life to the Underdwell, 
to buy her dead brother's soul back?" Who spoke? demanded Radience. Silence 
was her only answer. 
A lifelike Tooquo san Toq, masterpiece of the divine Tokogare, glared at 



Radience across the dozing body of the man who owned both statue and slave. 
The statue's eyes were alive, cold and watchful. She shuddered and looked 
away, almost catching the brittle flicker, the bricker of a tiny creature. 
Stone statues in a traveling khayma! The man was a beast, but the Caliph's 
word was the roar of the wind and 
WARRIORWARDS 
5, 
the bite of the sand. The male slaves broke their backs lugging the thing 
along the caravan route. But Radience had enough worries, plotting to kill her 
master. 
"She's plotting to kill her master!" screamed the non-voice that Radience 
could not quite hear. Radience slapped the side of her shaved head, knocking 
the voice loose to fell upon the ground and shrivel. She put the bowl down to 
free her arm, then slid the heavy, businesslike dagger out of her robe. 
Moons gone by, an old foot-soldier of the Elect had idled in the kitchen. A 
fat, randy kitchen maid caught his flirting fancy, and he tried his luck. 
But a schemer with hollow cheeks, greased hair, and a withered arm whispered 
sins and wickedness in the old maids eart lies about her fancied soldier. She 
knew her pans and pork, this kitchen maid, but her wit was not known to dim 
the moons with its light. She believed every word and spurned the bold rogue. 
The soldier was a philosopher. "If it is not one maid, then it is the other," 
he mused. But he meant the daughter of the vine, and he swilled down three 
bottles, tumbled in a stupor. 
When he woke, thought Radience, he found the long, hard dagger missing from 
between his legs. 
She held it in her hand now—in the whole, right hand—a dagger towards the 
heart of Hal'Addad, Caliph of Dokamaj Tool. She fought the shakes out of her 
arm, doubts and worries sent by Arhatman to tear at her decisiveness. 
Tiny snakes like long, black hairs fell from her body and slithered across the 
floor. Snakes or shakes? she thought, then pushed the question deep into the 
lair of her stomach. 
Radience heard a footscrape across the room, and the Caliph's eyelids 
fluttered. Witt he wake from the sheer savagery of my thoughts? It was only 
the wind, the bodies, fluffing the walls of the khayma. 
The Caliph was Lord of the Wind. He was Hal'Addad fain Kerat bin El 
al'Sophiate, Lord of the Wind and the 
6 Dafydd ab Hugh 
Five Sands, Prince of the Waters, Caliph of the Elect from Qomsheh to Yazd to 
the oasis of Deh Bid, Master of Arts and Letters, and Caliph of the Elect of 
Dokamaj Tool. 
"Snakes!" shouted the voice. "Snakes and quakes and rakes!" Radience gritted 
her teeth, thinking / will not surrender to terror, agony, and despair this 
time, and to hell with the Overman! 
She lowered the tip of the flat, steel blade until it kissed the Caliph's 
saffron robe, just left of his sternum. Then she suddenly remembered she was 
looking down upon him and moved the point to the other side, where his heart 
actually lay. 
She inhaled deeply, sucking the iron of the blade up into her own heart, but 
her muscles turned limp, and her bowels contracted. An invisible thing sank 
its needle teeth into her ankle. 
Her heart beat like Horsemen at a fast trot, with an extra thump as one of the 
brutes stumbled. 
The step scraped again, heavily. She looked up. 
The black eyes of the stone Tokogare glared at her, his hand outstretched as 
if to stay her arm. Was he bent like that just a moment ago? she marveled. It 
did not seem possible. He looked different. 
She looked down at the Caliph, symbol of her enslavement, and even brought her 
tiny, left arm up to help hold the wooden hilt, hoping the sight of the limb 
would give her courage to thrust. But a loud, grinding scrape drove her eyes 
back to Tooquo san Toq, warrior king of the First Men, ten thousand turns 



dead. 
The statue did move. It moved again as she watched it. It clutched at her, 
seized a sleeve! 
Radience backed away, losing her balance in astonishment. The juggernaut 
lurched forward, still clutching her sleeve. It tottered off the pedestal, 
gnashing stone teeth like an avalanche. As Tooquo's foot impacted the canvas 
floor of the khayma, the world shook and boomed hollowly. 
Radience stared full at the stone face and saw the malevolent glitter of the 
dusty, carven eyes. The crowds whooped and laughed around her, laughing at the 
cripple, laughing 
WARRIORWARDS 7 
at the poor little girl not even fully one of the Elect. Never do it, never 
make it, never 'mount to nothing— 
"Damn you!" she cried, more fury than fear. She flipped the dagger and thrust 
it at the statue's chest. Her hands numbed as she struck a stone wall. She 
dropped the knife; it shattered like a glass goblet full of thick red wine. 
She remembered—why doesn't he wake up? why don't I wake up?—but no, she 
remembered nothing. Sleep, black sleep, gripped her stomach and even the 
brickers were dark. 
Radience woke from nothingness to find . . . 
Did I dream it all? 
She lay on her own mat, in her own khayma. She pulled at her dress; it was 
dry, and her feet were clean of mud. The night smelled old, waiting for the 
dawn. 
Late, she thought. Too late to still be abed! The Overman would draw stripes 
on her hide. Still alive . . . the bastard's still alive. I failed, even in 
the dreamworld! 
She leaned over, hyperventilating, and felt her throat constrict. A moment 
later, she lost what little she had eaten for supper. Then she wiped the bile 
from her mouth and shuffled away, through the flap and into the paling night, 
toward the kitchen khayma a dozen strides away. 
She felt the pallor in her cheeks replaced by a warm flush of shame and 
humiliation. 7 am a slave, she thought, 0 and a slave I am. I will murder the 
bastard, she promised. Perhaps tomorrow. 
She clenched her teeth so hard that she locked her jaw, and could not open her 
mouth for an hour2 
Jiana stood still, listening for the swordsman. He was as silent as a horse on 
cobblestones. 
The man was heavy, his breath labored. He shambled back and forth on the 
wooden floor, which creaked and complained beneath his metal-shod feet. 
He slid closer in a lunge. Jiana parried easily, even blind, and flicked her 
own blade toward his face. 
8 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Tugga grunted and lost his balance, stumbling back another two steps. Jiana 
pressed, anticipating His every twist. Blindly, she nicked him again and again 
as the crowd pressed closer. 
She smelled their sweat, the stench of their hot breath. They hungered for a 
good cut. So many, so many were the crowd that the floor shifted and rolled on 
its pontoons. 
Tugga sucked in a gasping breath, and Jiana felt rather than heard the slice. 
She took one giant-step forward, letting her weight roll with the waves, 
carrying her own Wave. 
She felt the ineffectual slap of the top third of Tugga's sword against her 
upper thigh. But her own Wave bowed like a palace arch as she reached over his 
arm, pressed the tip against his chest, and thrust. 
Had Wave been bare, Tugga's blood would have slaked its thirst. Even with the 
point guard, he whooped with pain as the hard blow struck his sternum. He 
called blood and urine upon Jiana and her ancestors. 



Jiana slowly ran her finger under her blindfold, removing it with an elegant, 
studied motion that the audience loved. They began to chant: HU-hu-hu-hu 
HU-hu-hu-hu. . . . Her stomach tightened, and she swallowed bile. 
"Champeen takes it in two," said Maqtan. "Lay them out, boys, big ends first." 
"Hi, hi!" cried one fat woman, as she gathered her winnings from the teakeep 
of the Squatting Dog. "She's invulceable, that's what she is I says." 
Maq said nothing, but toted the ledgers. He smiled, and Jiana thought he must 
have covered the house edge. 
Silently, he handed Jiana her fourth-share. It was a bit more than the price 
of a Bay Bay dueling permit, an errand she dared not neglect. Two miserable 
days spent white-washing public buildings was enough. Dueling with an expired 
license was a serious offense, and had not Judge "Tan Tan" Dutillai as much as 
told her she would sure be jugged next time? 
"Good call, that blindfold," said Maq, admiring his cut. 
"What next, do I have to tie my hands and hold a bucket of horsefeed between 
my teeth?" 
WARRIORWARDS 
9 
"It'd bring in the chums." 
"Face it, Maq. No one wants to duel me anymore. Soon they won't duel at all 
but just surround me and wait for me to walk across the waves." 
Then the ghouls, the watchers, the lurkers would not come, and Maq would let 
her go as cheerfully as he had booked her, two moons back. 
Then what? Who hires a hero? 
Jiana held the long, day pipe steadily, keeping the tremor out of her hands, 
breathing deep. She held the glowing taper to the bowl, drawing long—long and 
hard though it bit at her throat like sand in a whirlwind. Violence crackled 
through her body, turning eyes to fire and toes to ice, black hair to grey 
embers and bold blood to cold ocean. 
Peering through the smoke and the buzzbees (were they there? sure, were they 
there?) He looked at her taut face, His black eyes peeking through a placid 
smile, waiting for the tindersmoke to ignite her stomach. He: Tong Aouyong, 
the Tunk, supreme high something-or-other muckety-muck of one of the thousands 
of TRUE successors of the Old Ways, the First Men, the Ti-Ji Tul. He says. 
At least he baths and doesn't drool, she thought. At least the son of a 
bachelor actually seems to know more than I and packs a mean pipe, but— 
The world became a bend, Focus Number One at the Tunk (for precision, at his 
smile), Focus Number Two at Jiana, She Herself. She leaned a gentle back, 
leaning back, taking the tip of the clay in her mouth once again, drawing deep 
of the thousand thousand thousand thousand magic sandsmoke. 
The shapes in the roof-thatching stepped off, came alive, came off and into 
the air: dancing triangles, squares interloving a circle, spinning a child's 
hoop, banking and rounding, so round, so bridge. The shapes (their hooves 
crashing, flashing sparks against the wooden planks of the Floating City) 
stepped off, turned to longs and shorts as she drew again on the long, white 
clay pipe, turned to faces jeering, laughing— 
10 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
* * * 
—Caterwauling, "hey, girlie," growled Maq from behind the bar, "wanna drink?" 
Jiana ignored the patronizing term. Maq was what he was. 
"If I start drinking, 111 wind up walking another day on these blood-slippery 
pontoons without a stamp on my permit." 
"You gotta do that every moon?" 
"Yeah, it's a twenty-eight day curse." She smiled at Maq's puzzled frown as he 
looked up, feeling it sail over his head. 
"You going out?" he asked. "You better shave." 
Jiana blinked, and a fat troll sat across from her in the smokey hut, smoking, 
puffing on a great clay pipe, intelligent eyes like bright buttons watching, 
looking through the windows of her soul—but another blink and it was gone— she 



was with Maq in the Squatting Dog. 
Jiana gingerly pulled her right boot on, trying not to rub the tender scab 
below the knee. It had taken a long time to heal this far. 
"Maybe I'll just grow it all back." 
"Fuck no! It's distinctual. Want me to shave it?" 
She smiled, wincing as she put weight back on the leg. She looked dubiously at 
her cloak, still soaked from the pitcher of ale, cheaper than strongtea. 
"Give me your coat. It stinks outside." 
"There's been some waves, and you got that bum knee." 
"If I can walk home after a dozen of your Baby Boilers, I bet I can get to the 
Bureau of Duels and Marriages. Anyway, even after the stamp I have a copper 
claw for the ferry." 
"Well, at least let me shave your head." 
Jiana closed her eyes and slowly ran her fingers along her scalp, feeling the 
rough stubble that surrounded the long, black strip of hair in the middle. 
"I like doing it myself," she whispered towards the ceiling. Maq would 
understand. She never let him shave her. His hands shook (and he was who he 
was). 
WARRIORWARDS 
11 
Jiana cupped her hands over her face, and tilted her head back. She reveled in 
the bubble of privacy formed by her tented fingers, warmed by her boozy 
breath. Then the conversational jumble pierced the peace like a bagpipe 
joining a quiet flute. 
/ am a billboard, she thought, cold denunciation razoring through contentment. 
I'm a sword-whore. 1 have a headache. 
I see horses, cheered, a thousand thousand . . . Too many thousands, she 
feared. No more thousands. Jiana inhaled deeply from the water pipe, holding 
the smoke in her lungs as long as she could. 
"Do you see souls? or horses?" Sure and it must have been the Tunk who spoke, 
but the voice was lost from whence it came, coming from now here and again 
there, and mostly from Jiana's own stomach. 
"Well—honest, no, they just look like horses. Should I be seeing snakes?" 
Jiana started to inhale again, changed her thoughts and put the stem down; she 
had already flown too far and worried about finding her way back. 
"Snakes?" 
"I mean souls. Why did I say snakes? I drove them out. I drove Tooqa the 
Nameless Serpentine out of the water and out of this sphere. Where is It now? 
With Toq in his wretched ivory city? Is my God hissing with Sleeping Tifniz?" 
'"You re babbling. Let the talker go. Give your stomach over to the listener 
for a while." 
"What should I listen to?" 
She wished her eyes worked. She wished she could see the Tunk, for she thought 
he might have shrugged, 
"What should you not listen to? The buzzbees, the water waves lap lapping 
against the planks, the cre&king of the timbers. Your heart beating. Your 
stomach thinking. That voice inside of you—what is its name?" 
"Jianabel. Haven't heard her much lately. Haven't heard her at att for nearly 
a futt turn." 
"But who is the One who makes the grass green?" 
12 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
"Perhaps she needs listening to." 
'"You're a sword-whore, not a billboard!" A familiar familiar would have 
laughed. 
"O Jianabel, you have such a gentle and understanding view." The Voice was 
silent, but Jiana heard her own thoughts, filling in for that separate part of 
her. "1 call the coin the way it falls," Jianabel would have rejoined. As it 
was, she did not need to; Jiana answered from her own Wolf Self. 
"What do you see? Now?" asked the Tunk. He asked in Jiana's dreamtime as she 



drifted armless and legless in the timeless. 
Saw herself step to the window in answer; saw herself naked, fling wide the 
shutters. Saw the pane, frozen sugar as if spun by a candy spider. Pushed she 
did and out it popped, to fall to the cobblestones and brittle into a thousand 
thousand thousand thousand pieces. 
"Bricker it is," she snarled, thinking of her coiling god the Nameless 
Serpentine. "My (Tunk), my teacher, what is this crumbly bricker I've been 
smoking?" 
But already through the window, already leaning way, way out the empty, 
looking down, down, down the distance. Sill presses against her stomach, 
gouged by the latch, splinter in her wrist. Slowly stretching until fingers 
grip sill, sharps of pain through the knuckles, feeling center now panting 
over three and twenty man-stands, three and twenty times, say, six feet 
equaling well more than one hundred twenty to fall. Strains, pulls back at 
last, too late; overbalanced; falls. . . . 
Slowly do the fingers give. 
Strange, She thinks, how not to be afraid; strange to look Old Death the 
Barber in the eyes, if eyes is the word. Old Him that I shit on so many times 
and laughed at, and not to feel fear. What's on the other side? I don't care. 
I just don't care care, 
Slips. Fingers slip. 


• Sees cobblestones. Harder than a prince's heart, she thinks. The fingers 
slip. 
Falls—a long moment heart in mouth, light as a feather, gossamer ladder. 
Ground rushes up. Hands outstretched, 
WABBJORWARDS 
13 
reaction, bypassing even the stomach and a scream rips out of her face like 
skin torn from the skull. 
March march marches time to the beat of a snail drum. First the hand strikes, 
savage wrench up the arm culminates in a horror of pain at the elbow tells her 
att she needs to know that her arm has shattered. 
But still her body pushes down, feeling as if it is pushing up 'gainst a 
cobblestone ceiling. Now the arm folds under her and the horror rushes up to 
her shoulder. 
Face strikes, the moment slows yet further. First the left then the right, 
feels the front teeth smashed, snapped clean out o/jaw. Jaw, faceplate of 
skull collapse inward. 
The body has its own agenda, momentum pushing back and over, folding body in 
half to snap neck like a poorly-made sword with too much carbon. Bibs snap one 
by one by one, though that surely is the least of hers. 
Thighs counter-rotate to grind kneecaps into powder. 
(BUT—she reached around and bit his neck, not quite hard enough to break the 
skin. She ran her tongue lightly across the fold of flesh stretched tight by 
her teeth. 
Dilai took hold of her buttocks, sinking his fingers inside, touching the 
tiny, black hairs. Almost despite his intentions, he grew excited, and rubbed 
himself against her thigh. 
She spat out the powder and kissed him again. He responded, and their tongues 
entwined. At the edges of her hearing the trumpets sounded, still tod feint, 
but louder than before. Closer, the circus turned back. A memory? Of the 
future?) 
Coughs, spits, drags again oh the pipe, looking again at tent walls and a 
figure in the smoke. 
"What do you see? Now?" he asks again—or is it the first time still? 
"One future, from many; not mine I think. Another's, or another's present. 
What do you see?" 
(BUT SHE SEES—She was inside of him, even as he was inside of her. The future 
memory continued. She looked out through Dilai's eyes, heard with his ears the 
warpipes that called him up, called him out. 

14 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
He rises. Rises up out of his body. Rises up, the him-ness of it; looks 
down—Jiana my love, farewell—my time— learned what it is to have, learned what 
it is to lose. 
Rising, rising above her (me) and what was once mine. Rising, and across the 
room, they stretch out their hands to me. Pipes, I hear you! I hear them! 
In the end, in the last days. In the truth. Rising, and I walk across the 
room, drifting in smoke, drop in the ocean. She is behind me; Dilai is behind 
me. 
The door opens, and I pass through.) 
"I see certain," says the Tunk, "war woman on road to Ruoy Oudin, meeting the 
eyes of slave girl." 
"What slave girl? What are you talking about?" 
"Not know, but you will, when meet her. She very important. Your next step." 
"There are no slaves in Bay Bay." 
"Slaves everywhere. Get goose out of bottle. She your next mountain." 
"There are no mountains in Bay Bay." 
"Mountains everywhere," corrected the Tunk. 
A cold drizzle fluttered from the sky, iron sky, as Jiana pushed through the 
real, wooden door onto the sidewalk. Despite the rain, the ocean was calm. She 
felt no need to hold the rope rail, even after the tea and ale she had 
slugged. 
Dilai. Dilai, silky hair spun black like a spiderweb of a glistening coal 
gossamer. 
Dilai, get out of my stomach. I didn't want this. . . . I only wanted you. / 
only wanted to taste your lips, your spity your cock, all of you. Drink you, 
in. Breathe your air, laugh at your foolish japes and read wretched poetry at 
you. 
I didn't want love, you fucking bastard serpent. 
She walked the plank, headed for one of the public walks. 
"Thirty-two turns old today," she said, "and a shit day it is, too. Thirty-two 
is twice sixteen. Do I remember when I was sixteen? I stabbed a sergeant. And 
four times eight, 
WARRIORWARDS 
15 
but that was in the wolf time, lost now. Thirty-two, happy birthday to me." 
There was no answering, hectoring voice. Jianabel was conquered. The entity 
that once infested her stomach, living with her like two snakes coiled, was 
gone. Or, as fat Toldo would say, the schism in her personality was healed. 
Either way, it made for a lonely monologue. 
"Thirty-two, and today." She stretched, rubbing the hurt from her 
still-healing leg, and stared at the water. 
Black, silky hair looked back, though the ocean was far too dark to reflect. 
It was Dilai ... or was it the mouse, Dida? So easy to confuse the two: Dilai, 
the aristocratic, polished decadence of Bay Bay's third oldest family; and 
Dida, rough, home-woven, innocent naif, an over-excited puppy. 
Jiana wrapped her arms around her stomach, trying to hold the images inside. 
"Bastards," she prayed. 
3 
"Fuck the license," Jiana snarled. 
The sun sank into the waves, and she abruptly decided to leave Bay Bay, City 
of the Floating Dead. Her future was as grey and formless as the iron sky. She 
stopped in the busy thoroughfare and leaned against the railing, causing the 
walkway to tilt alarmingly on its pontoons. A fat merchant took a stumblestep 
and swore. 
"Hup!" cried the man, "You move or whut?" 
"Sorry. I was just thinking ..." 
"Nah, nah, you no think. You soldier-boy, girlie! You police! You a footgrab, 
you whiteface marine!" 



"Look, I said I was sorry. 1 want to go back that way. Get out of my way, will 
you?" 
"No, you from get outa my way! You go that way, go to end! Go!" 
He stepped forward and butted her with his potato-sack belly. Jiana reached 
for Wave, but caught herself Her permit did not allow duels with unarmed 
louts. 
16 
Dafydd ah Hugh 
"That was a gimmie, you spherical thug. Now get out of my way and out of my 
life." 
"You from get out, get out that way, or whut? Or whut, hunh?" 
Grinning like a demented leper, the man eagerly thrust himself at her again, 
trying to butt her another blow. Jiana stepped nimbly aside, and the man 
sprawled against the rail. She put her foot against his tailbone, and gently 
pushed. 
The rail was old and sea-worn; it splintered easily, and the man tumbled into 
the sea. Jiana stalked away, not even checking to see if he could swim. 
"What," she answered decisively. 
She side-hopped to another floating walk, and followed it to the courtyard of 
a hostelery. Jiana slowed her pace and trotted south towards the Eagle 
Causeway that led to the Prince's Drillgrounds, across the bay on dry land. 
The city reeled and staggered in the swells from an offshore squall. The 
buildings swayed like drunken sailors, and the walks twisted and slid 
treacherously. Jiana shuffled tike a pro; she had lived in the Floating City 
nearly eight turns, hating every hour, every moment. 
Some buildings were bright with color, splashed with paint and dye from a 
hundred faraway lands, purchased from the ships that prowled the harbor by the 
sun and the moons. Most buildings were grey and scored, stripped by the raging 
winds and salt spray, torn asunder by centuries of neglect. Derelects and 
drunkards made homes in the worst of them, seizing their tiny islands from the 
armies of the apathetic. 
Jiana scarcely glanced at the murals and paintings, works of art, obscenities 
scrawled in haste and despair; she had seen them all before. She trotted, eyes 
half shut, and soon found herself across the Prince's Causeway, on the 
upper-class landfill island between the mainland and the Maze. 
There were a dozen stables there; she could buy a horse. Or she could change 
her mind and buy the bloody license, as she had every moon for four turns. 
Yeah. That was my World's Dream. YeoA, fuck Dilai. Fuck Dida. 
WARRIORWARDS 
17 
Fuck Toldo and Prince Alanai. Traded blood for shit. Now who hires a hero? 
For a year following her remarkable adventure for the World's Dream, she lived 
like a princess. But then Alanai grew silent and depressed, and withdrew into 
his palace. His band of heroes drifted apart, and Jiana discovered that being 
a hero had a downside. 
What could she do? Certainly not the army; they would treat her either with 
awe or with sadistic abuse, and she would surely feed some colonel a yard of 
his own steel within a moon. 
Jiana freelanced for a while, drifting from job to job; but she was expensive, 
and how often did a spice merchant need a true hero to guard his warehouse? 
Broke and proud, she found Maqtan. Her name was enough to drag in the bored 
and sated, a few of them at least. For some moons, the Squatting Dog was the 
tearoom to frequent. 
Dilai found her again. They took up where they had left off, but she was 
restless. She did not want his money, and he wanted for nothing. Soon she was 
back at the Squatting Dog, but the crowds were not. Maq kept her on to 
diminish his lifedebt, and she began dueling clods and foreigners for action 
on the side. 
Jiana slogged through the mud of the landfill, her eyes fixed on the stables, 
far in the distance. She might reach them by the time darkness was complete, 



if she made no stops along the way. 
"Slave girls on the road to Bay Din. ..." But what did he mean? Two weeks had 
passed since that smokey night in the Tunk's house, and the Bay Din road was 
full of mud and pilgrims, as usual. She saw the first stars, and began to 
hurry. 
As Jiana ran, she put a hand on Wave; it was securely wrapped around her 
waist, looking more like a belt than the twisting, razor-sharp sword that it 
was. 
As she touched the sword, a spark of memory contracted her fingers. The taste 
and pain of every kill she had ever taken flashed in her stomach. She saw them 


Dafydd ab Hugh 
hovering in the air around her, their eyes watched mournfully from sunken 
sockets in bare, bleached skulls. They worked their broken jaws as if trying 
to speak; but no sounds came forth. Jiana ignored their pleas. 
She saw an inn across the street, the Jackanape. It was unfamiliar, but she 
began to thirst. 
"I ought to stop in for a moment, just to ask around about slave girls in Bay 
Din. A drop. Maybe just one drop. ..." She trotted on by, licking her lips. 
The stables did not look noticibly closer. 
(But what was the dream? She had dreamed it last night. It was a horrid dream, 
and He, Toq, the blooded boy-god, was in it. 
(So what had he said? What about casting his shade three times? Three times, 
thrice before—before—no, it was gone.) 
Jiana passed under the Great Arch of Lilies, black stone frosted with the 
white flowers. The arch carried the Ruoy Mava Cemetery across the five great 
thoroughfares of Bay Bay. Jiana slowed to a cautious walk, for the Cenotaph 
was dark and evil, filled with footgrabs with queer ideas. 
She passed the Hung Stallion Tavern and then Knicker Pickers, low dives both, 
and resolved to stop at the next teahouse for a tightener. 
A deep, still eddy from the canal passed around three sides of the Pregnant 
Bull. Jiana paused on the walkway, and stared down into the blackness, drawn 
by an irresistable curiosity. Something was down there; she knew it. 
Slowly, like an old wound pulling open again, she began to realize why the 
building and the pool looked familiar: it was where an old lover of hers, 
Tawn, had sunk to his death, clutching to his breast the stolen chest of gold 
he would not loose. 
She stared at the rippling, oily water, and an icy chill crawled along her 
spine. Something was under the water, and it was rising. 
Tawn? Come back to accuse with silent eyes and pointing finger? 
Tiny, white things broke the surface; they rose higher, 
WARRIORWARDS 19 
and Jiana gasped as she realized they were bloated, water-bleached hands. 
"No!" she said through clenched teeth, anger overwhelming fear. She clutched 
her sword hilt and thumbed aside the catchlock. "You are dead, bucko, and that 
is how you are going to stay!" 
The hands rose higher, and they were not the hands of Tawn after all. Instead, 
they were the hands, then the arms of a little girl. 
She rose slowly from the waves, her long, black hair dripping down her face 
and back. 
Jiana bit her lip, and dropped her hand nervelessly to her side. She tried to 
speak, but the words caught in her throat. 
The little girl smiled, and her teeth were all filed to points. The Wolf Hour 
struck. 
"I'll never be very far," laughed Jianabel, spitting out water. "And you'll 
always be mine!" 
"Where the hell have you been?" 
"Yes, my dearest sister; hell, indeed." 
"Like it? You're going to stay there." 
"It's tolerable," said Jianabel, stifling a yawn, "but I'll be ever so glad 



when you join me here. We belong together, you and I! Kiss kiss!" She blew two 
kisses at Jiana; they smelled like the gas from a bloated, watery corpse 
washed upon a beach. 
Jiana looked at the girl; she felt none of the old helplessness, still in 
control. 
"I slew you, once. I'm not ready to deal with you again, so piss off." 
"I was you, once," whispered the hideous little girl. "You were me. I am the 
wolf within you still." Her eyes rolled up, and her tongue lolled out of her 
mouth. It was thick and black, as if she had been poisoned. She sank slowly 
into the oily water. 
". . . never too far . . ." she promised, ". . . and you'll always be mine." 
The final word was lost in the gurgle of the water. 
Jiana stared at the water; there was no trace now of the 
20 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
apparition. The shakes she had suppressed during the encounter returned with a 
vengeance. 
(It was crawling. Something was crawling. Something was crawling down her 
throat. . . . 
(It was a sort of a rhyme she dreamed—Toq dancing and singing a song of 
triumph. He would cast his shade three times over her life, before . . . 
before something, whackity-whackity, thirty-third.) 
Taking a deep breath, Jiana moved quickly towards the teahouse, cursing at the 
top of her voice the son of a bachelor who had nailed the walkway boards. 
The strongtea was hot, but not cheap. The Pregnant Bull, unlike its 
predecessor, was one of the more expensive establishments in the Maze, 
frequented by the sorts of successftil thieves, traitors, and highwaymen who 
were given nick-names by the constables: Black Mask, Gentleman Jarak, Mistress 
Catch-It. 
But another batch haunted such tearooms and hid in the shadows. They were 
Briars, once rulers of the land, now ploughers in other people's gardens. They 
hid and they plotted, and plotted and planned. The Eagle dynasty followed 
their progress with amused contempt, for once in a few moons a Briar would 
loll an officer or a tax collector. Then slumming became hell, for the Eagles 
would beat the bushes for any Briars they could find, tearing apart tearooms 
and private houses with an energetic fervor. 
Jiana spotted them at once in the Pregnant Bull; they sat in the open, 
listening to a small, dark singer. Jiana waited for her eyes to adjust to die 
light; then she sat at the bar and ordered a pot of tea all for herself. 
A gentle man was passin by, 
He asked for a drink as he got dry at the well below the 
vaUey-o, 
Green grows the lilly-o, Right among the bushes-o . . . 
WARRIORWARDS 
21 
"Can you spare a moment, master?" 
The Briar was old and a bit deaf; at least he did not respond or turn to her. 
"Old man," said Jiana, touching his hand. He turned, and blinked at her a few 
times. He was past his cups and into his pitchers, Jiana saw. 
"Arah? I didna catch it, mistress." 
"What do you know about slaves, somewhere around Bay Bay? I keep hearing 
about. . . ." 
They chatted, Jiana pressing him for information in the guise of teatalk. She 
drank as she talked, the better to loosen my tongue and lubricate my ears, she 
told herself. 
/ say toe you maid, yer swarin wrong. 
For six fine children ha' ye bntng at the well below the 
vaUey-o, 
Green grows the lilly-o, Right among the bushes-o. . . Soon 
the room began to darken, though the paper lanterns burned as bright as 



ever. She lost interest in the conversation, which led her to no one and 
nothing, and she slid back on her stool. 
She sipped another cup of tea, and sang a quiet spell into her cup: 
Ricki-ticki pay-the-bul, Here I sit invisible. Hiding in my hidden nul Fast! 
The singer responded, his own eyes shut as he lost himself near the well below 
the valley-o. 
// you be a man of noble fame, 
You'll tell to me thefayther of them at the well below the 
vaUey-o, 
Green grows the litty-o, Right among the bushes, oh. 
22 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
The magic was deceptively simple, and thus good practice. Three things had to 
balance: the song (that served to focus the mind), the mental image she held 
of herself shrinking smaller and smaller, disappearing finally into the 
twinkle of an extinguished candleflame (that served to direct the magical 
energy), and finally, the power itself, that had to be drawn from the 
reservoir up and down her spine like water from a desert well: carefully, 
lovingly, without spilling so much as a drop. 
There's two of them by yer uncle Dan at the well below 
the valley-o, Green grows the lilly-o, Right among the bushes, oh. 
It worked so long as Jiana banished her fears that it would not. All eyes slid 
past her, as if she truly had become invisible. She was glad now that she had 
ordered an entire pot, for the teakeep no longer remembered her or asked to 
refill her cup. 
/ bloom and know myself, I bloom and lose myself, she thought. Why do these 
songs have such an effect on me? Why do they creep about inside my guts like 
spiders in an old house, maggots in rotten meat? 
She pulled deeper within herself, chilling at the words as they razored 
through her. 
If you be a man of noble steam, 
You'll tell toe me what did happen to them at the well 
below the valley-ot Green grows the litty-o, Right among the bushes, oh. 
She turned around at the bar (. . . sit invisible, hiding in my hidden hill . 
. .) and leaned back against it. 
Her Briar friend was named Padrag, and he was involved in an animated 
conversation with another of his countrymen. They spoke in Curyc, dead tongue 
of the 
WARRIORWARDS 
23 
Dead, learned language of the Briars (their native tongue, 
though none spoke it as a native). 
"Aye, Toolians; from the deserts, my friend, far south." Padrag, coughed, and 
swallowed the rest of his ale. "Tents, they live in. Tents, Padrag—think upon 
it! Carry 
them all upon huge, hideous beasties, what they call jamah. 
Horses with humps and evil lips." "Sure and you're telling a story, lad." "May 
the Lord strike off my testicles if it is not true." Toolians. thought Jiana 
in disgust; she had spent a long, 
hot summer in Tool, fighting the wily tribesmen. They 
were brutal but intelligent, and never knew when to die 
gracefully. And they keep slaves . . . 
There's two buried 'neath the stable door at the well below 
the vattey-o, Green grows the lilly-o, Right among the bushes, oh. 
"It's caused the butchers a terrible embarrassment," said Padrag's friend with 
a laugh. "They fear if a slave should escape—should they return the slave and 
save a valuable ally, or keep their own law and declare him free?" 
Jiana smiled. The old (pre-World's Dream) Prince Alanai would never even have 
tolerated Toolians in the Water Kingdom, let alone allow them to bring their 
slaves. 



Jiana frowned, remembering Tool—ugly, brutal Tool, Dung of the Desert. She had 
raided across the sandy border from Door, in a small troop of horsemen led by 
Warkai the Witty, who naturally led them into a trap (his men called him 
Warkai the Witless). 
Sliced and bleeding, Jiana had lain with the dead for a day and a night, 
out-waiting the Toolian scavangers. When they fled, she rose shakily and 
stumbled across the sands, a split wine-skin over her head to shade her from 
the sun. 
Foul memories, she thought. 7 wonder if they've civilized any over the 
seasons? . Oh snakes, she wished, feeling them crawling down her 
24 
Dajydd ab Hugh 
throat and writhing in her stomach. Oh loves, I wish I could remember that 
horrible, horrible dream this morning. I think there might have been something 
in there for me. Something awful. Something I need to know. 
Another two 'neath the kitchen door at the well below the 
vaUey-o, 
Green grows the lilly-o, Right among the bushes, oh. 
She tilted her head back until her neck bones cracked. Against the dirty, 
soot-stained ceiling of the Pregnant Bull she saw a shape—black on black. It 
was a spider, the size of her spread-fingered hand. 
Behind Jiana, the Briars whispered. Their conspiratorial tone attracted her 
attention at once. 
"Sure and they must know they can't." 
"They're not cowards, the lot." 
"Arrah." 
"To the children." 
"End to the Troubles." 
Another two 'neath the well itsel', at the well below the 
vattey~o, 
Green grows the lilly-o, Right among the bushes, oh. 
A pair of glasses clinked together, cracking Jiana's ears. 
Jiana eyed the newcomer. Padrag had completely forgotten her, for he did not 
know that Jiana spoke Curyc. 
The monk spider, she thought, looking again at the ceiling. Terrifying of 
mien, nothing to back it up. You're weU-named, you hideous bugger. 1 wonder 
what Toldo Hondo is doing these days? She shivered with a premonition as she 
thought of her friend, apostate of die "True Church." 
If you be a man of noble fame, 
You'll tett toe me what wiU happen meseT at the weU below the valley-o, 
WARRIORWARDS 
25 
Green grows the lilly-o, 
Right among the bushes-o, 
You'll be seven years a-ringin the beU at the well below 
the vaUey-o, Green grows the ti&y-o, Right among the bushes-o. 
You'll be seven more a-portin in hell at the well below 
the vattey-o, Green grows the lilly-o, Right among the bushes-o. 
As if in response to Jiana's arachnid musings, the canvas door of the Pregnant 
Bull burst open. A strange and wonderful little man entered. Tied around his 
waist was a rope, stretched tight as a gossamer strand behind him. Light 
streamed through the doorway around him, making web patterns on the wooden 
floor. 
The man was short and stumpy, and marched like a soldier towards die bar, 
trailing his strand of rope. He wore neither armor nor weapons, but a rough 
homespun tunic and cracked, leather breeks. His boots were wooden strips, 
bound by cloth and stitching. 
I'll be seven years a-ringin the bell, 
But the Lord above may save my soul, 
From portin in hell at the well below the valley-o, 



Green grows the Itfly-o, 
Right among the bushes-o! 
The rope stopped him just a stride from the counter. 
"How many in your troop?" demanded the tea-master in a haughty voice. Only 
dien did Jiana notice the brand on the spider-man's forehead; he was a 
Prisoner of the Guard. 
"Who's the jack?" asked the older Curyc voice. 
"My people are with diem, even cousin Niam who 
26 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
hasn't been the same since the last uprising," continued Padrag, unhearing. 
"Who's the jack, the bastard on the rope?" 
"Arrah, he's on a rope," said Padrag, blinking and squinting his eyes. 
Jiana frowned. I've been too quick to say the Eagle bastards have outlawed 
slavery. I forgot about these ones. 
"Prisoner of the Guard," said Padrag's friend. "Taken during a holy crusade, 
sure, for the Eagles call them all heretics and unbelievers." 
They were held as POGs, and suffered a dubious status as neither citizens nor 
criminals. 
"Sox mens in platoon," answered the spider-Pog with a distinct accent of 
Tooltafc, the language of Tool. 
Jiana jumped as something scattered across her foot. She looked down; it was a 
tiny, white mouse. It sat on its haunches and looked back at her, twitching 
its vibrissae. 
"But children, sure," continued Padrag, who had forgotten about the Pog. The 
dead past called. "What good can children, and sure an even score of them, 
prevail against the red and blacks in their fortress of stone, heart-hard? 
Even lads. Lads, but not a one among them more than thirteen turns old, 
Calem." 
Calem laid his face in his hands, and his voice shook. But something in his 
mien aroused Jiana's suspicions. He bears watching, this one, she thought. 
"They'll be butchered, Padrag. They'll be butchered for sure, b' Gad, for sure 
and sure." 
"The Newlies did it before. Thirty turns back it was, before your beard even. 
Children again, another crusade of lads. Tfiey stood against the Eagles, and 
may the Lord strike me where I sit if my own son was not a-one with them." 
They died?" 
"To the last, true to the last. They held a bridge for half a day, and I still 
never cross without wiping a tear and taking a drop in loving memory for my 
lad. Sure and may God strike the spit from my tongue if they were not among 
them, my people were." 
WARRIORWARDS 
27 
Jiana rolled her head to die side, watching the tea-master. 
He began to set out the six teapots that the Pog requested. The rope went 
slack as the grinning master sergeant and his five men passed under the 
still-open canvas flap. They wore the red shirts of the Waterfall spearsmen, 
and the red and black badges of Golonel Gosuss, brother-in-law of Prince 
Alanai, who still sat on the throne of Bay Bay, in a legal sense. 
Too many voices, now that the singer had quit. He glared at the spearsmen as 
they entered, a venomous look shielded only by the darkness of the Pregnant 
Bull. 
Jiana too studied each face as it passed through the light from the doorway. 
She was curious whether she knew any of them from her own days in the army, 
though she had been a horseman and never fought under Gosuss. 
"Craven bastards and bloody butchers, they are," pronounced the younger, 
Calem. He raised his voice a bit, not to be seen a coward in the presence of 
the Newlies with their hated red and black uniforms. 
Padrag spoke quietly, not to draw down the familiar wrath. 
"Cut down the children, they would. Cut the shoots, wither the briar patch. 



Bastards. Butchers and bastards, and heathens sure." 
When the sixth and last soldier finally stepped in the light, Jiana gagged on 
the lees of the tea she had just drained, spraying the liquid across the 
candle-dipper who sat next to her at the bar. He turned around angrily, and 
seemed to see her for the first time; but she was too busy choking in 
amazement to worry about having lost the "Bikld Tilda" invisibility spell. 
The sixth soldier was taller than she remembered, and he had the beginnings of 
a scraggily beard. But it was undeniably Dida. 
"Oh lord," she moaned aloud, "it's come to rfife? A stick-finger for Colonel 
Cosuss?" 
She watched Dida cross die room, feeling no compulsion to call out to her 
former student. She shrank into die 
28 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
shadows, but could not muster the calmness to sing the spell again. 
Didal How long ago had he danced around her, slaying pretend-enemies with his 
longknife? Now he swaggered and brayed with the rest of the bully-boys. Four 
turns ago, he blushed when Jiana dropped her clothes. Now he pushed a grimy 
hand down the bodice of a young girl, as she sat at a table with her 
boyfriend. 
The boyfriend half stood, moving his hand uncertainly towards the knife at his 
belt; but Dida laughed, a short, ugly sound, and grabbed his own crotch in 
response. 
The lad looked at the six soldiers, and at his terrified date, who cringed 
from Dida while staring fixedly into her glass. Then he sat down, glaring at 
Dida in impotent rage. Dida bulled his way to the bar, still braying. The 
master sergeant followed, gathering the rope as he walked. 
Jiana watched Dida swill two cups of tea in rapid succession. She kept her 
seat and her silence, trusting to his unobservant nature. 
This is my punishment for setting him on this path in the first place, 
toatching the little shit act-up. Four turns back, Jiana had plucked him from 
a form south of the city. She was twenty-eight then, and Dida was fourteen. 
Too young, too ignorant, no blame, says the Tunk, snakeshit... 1 am to blame. 
Dida had left her. Kidnapped at first, but in only two weeks he fully joined 
his captors, Prince Alanai and his men. They raided the City of Sickness, and 
Dida took soldier's spoils on a young girl there. 
Jiana shut her eyes, hoping to block* out the inexorable vision, the sight 
that her eyes would not let her forget, no matter how her stomach pleaded. 
Unconsciously, she balled her fist and drew her knuckles savagely along the 
rough, wooden bar, tearing off the skin and leaving a long, bloody streak. 
She did not want to see Dida, Dida bloody, Dida with the knife in his belly 
and his guts trailing behind him like the rope trailed behind the Pog. Dida 
the suicide. 
Shutting her eyes was no help; without the sight of the 
WARRIORWARDS 
29 
teahouse, they had free reign to show her the blood again and again, like a 
conjurer endlessly stuck on the single trick of the Cut and Restored Chicken. 
She opened her eyes again, watching Dida drink himself as sick as any other 
soldier. 
You were better than thisf you bastard. You owed me more than this, you 
ingrate serpent! 
But she could not shake the feeling that she was to blame. After all, she had 
undertaken his "illumination" voluntarily . . . no one forced her; no one 
asked her. 
I botched you. Go away, please lord by the Nameless Serpentine, don't let him 
stay here to remind me of my failure! 
She felt a tear roll down her cheek. She had not wept in four turns. She had 
not seen Dida in that time, either. 
Jiana pressed her lips tight together, trying to hold back the rising lump in 



her throat. It was a battle lost. She kept the tears quiet. She wanted neither 
company nor sympathy. 
She need not have worried, not in Bay Bay. 
How many people get the chances you got? she demanded, not aloud. You got a 
chance to expiate your crime. You got to kitt yourself and start over, you 
piece of shit! I have to live with my mistakes. So why did you throw away your 
"heart an unbound page" and become a hard-ass soldier-boy like me? Snakes. I'm 
drunk. This tea is deadly. Eat turd and kitt yourself, Dida, but do it 
somewhere where I can't see you. 
She kept her foce buried in her arms for a long time, noticing how the 
teahouse was rocking more than usual in the waves. It spun in the current, 
around and around, and she wondered whether it had come loose from its 
moorings. 
Meadows of green lie stained with blood, Farmhouses burned and razed; The howl 
of the hunt and green of the hood, Ashes and snow where the farrow once stood, 
And the babe-queen stands amazed . . . 
30 
Dafydd ah Hugh 
He was at it again, the Briar singer. Jiana looked up, but Dida was still with 
the boys, and Padrag and Calem sat silent, heads bowed to hide murder in their 
eyes, hands fondling ale mugs that ought to have been daggers. She looked 
around the room; a score of young men and not a few women sat in identical 
postures, looking any direction but at the Eagles. 
Jiana swallowed another cupful of tea, and the Squatting Dog fell into thick 
darkness. For a moment, she felt the rough wood of the table, pressing against 
her cheek. 
At last she woke, her tears dry. The tea was cold anyway, and the room seemed 
chillier than it should with so many lamps and bodies. 
She stole a glance at the bar; Dida and the Eagles were gone, and 
conversations had resumed around her. 
"Good Lord, Calem," whispered Fadrag, "they'll all be dead, b'Gad. Dead by 
sunup." 
There was a long, silent pause in the Pregnant Bull. 
"Dead," agreed Calem, a quaver in his voice, "and my own son among them." 
"Your lad stands with them?" 
"He stands. He is a Briar, God rest his soul." 
"Killed by those heartless bastards, may they rot in the lowest hell, and they 
not even knowing the light of God." 
"Still," mused Calem, but fell silent again. 
"Another drop?" 
"Pour away. Still, they'll make a bonny batch of martyrs. To the Cause, you 
know." 
"To the Cause." 
"End to the Troubles!" 
The glasses clinked. Jiana felt a tightness in her stomach, and her throat 
closed. Martyrs. The Cause. 
She stood quickly and ghosted out of the teahouse. Tooqa, name of the Nameless 
Serpentine. How many of us aren't slaves anymore? 
"I ought to get the dueling license," she said, shivering on the walkway in 
the chilly night breeze. She enunciated carefully, "They close at midnight." 
WARHIORWARDS 31 
She pulled her coins from her pouch and fingered them in the waning sunlight, 
chewing on her lip drunkenly. 
She looked across the water, watching the cracked and bloated sun fall into 
the ocean, quenching its fires again for the night. 
"No, I'm a warrior, and 1 need a horse, not a fucking piece of paper. License! 
A horse, just a horse, b'Gad. Maybe I am a Briar, in the center of my breath. 
My dead past is no worse than this living hell." She spat on the sidewalk and 
staggered towards the Causeway. She crossed the Prince's Causeway on willpower 
alone. 



She saw the world through a tunnel, as though she wore horse blinders. She 
swum through the air, hands out to steady herself, calculating each step. No 
sir, no sir, no one is going to know that I have had a drop or two. We heroes, 
we heroes must set an example. 
She staggered along the gravel-built Causeway and eventually, after an 
indeterminate time, she left the wetlands behind her. The buildings were all 
of white stone, with not a splash, not a scribble, not a chip to mar their 
surface. This was the Prince's quarter. 
When she set her foot on truly dry land again, it was the first time in six 
moons. She stooped, scooped up some sand, and swallowed a mouthful. Sobered a 
bit, she began walking towards the ranches while there was still sufficient 
twilight to pick her way. 
She followed her nose to the nearest stable and refused to think about a 
little bird she had held in her hand and thrown in the air, but never quite 
taught how to fly. 
The brisk walk to the stable did not sober Jiana, but it woke her up a bit. 
She walked up then down the row of stalls. Jiana did not know what she sought, 
but she did not find it. 
"Don't you have—have any other horses?" she asked, a hiccough spoiling the 
illusion of sobriety. 
The stableboy peeked at her cleavage and mumbled, "No, ma'am, all we have is 
yan stable-stalls in." A Souther, by his voice. He pushed past her, squeezed 
close though 
32 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
he had plenty of room. He showed her a horse she had passed. 
"This one is fine, fine! See not his silvery coat, cockleburrs all combed out? 
See his sharp and shiny hooves?" 
"I'm not buying a sword, kid. Show me a horse with muscle and bree—brains, 
that is." She took the beast by his bridle and looked him in the eye. He 
lowered his gaze and tried to pull from her grasp, shivered in submissive 
fear. "No, he won't do at all. Damn your wandering eyes, find me something for 
a warrior queen!" 
A sudden scream from the back of the stable caught her attention. A horse 
cried again in terror and agony, then fell heavily to the ground. A brute 
stallion, black and red as firey coals, burst open the gate to his stall and 
charged into the walkway. Left behind was a maimed and bloody gelding that 
kicked and crawled feebly. 
"God's cock!" the stable boy cried and ran to Jiana. He threw his arms around 
her, terrified. 
She put him behind her protectively and faced the snarling brute. They closed, 
he unblinking and she unyielding, and stood nose to nose. The horse bared its 
teeth. 
Stone sober, Jiana swung her fist too fast for the eye to follow. She 
connected with a right cross, and the horse staggered from the unexpected 
blow. It shook its head, then reared. 
Jiana charged the rampant beast. She threw a shield-press without the shield, 
and the horse fell to the ground. 
It rose, regal and calm as the Nameless Serpentine rising before the 
Hero-Queen of Scale Mountains. The beast approached gently. It rested its nose 
on Jiana's shoulder and nickered. She seized its bridle, holding the great 
head steady. 
"You're a horse among horses," she whispered. "Why didn't I see you before? 
I'd have noticed a double-stalled pair, I'm sure." 
The boy still cowered behind her, pressed close, but through fear, not desire. 
"Ma'am ... is that n-not the horse for you? D'you want to take him the stables 
from?" 
WARRIOBWARDS 
33 
"How much?" she asked without turning. 



Some trace of manliness returned to the boy. His heart beat less rapidly 
against her back, and she felt the beginning of a lump in his crotch. "Ah, 
such a horse, it's only twelve you for—I mean ten Eagles!" 
"How much?" she repeated, menace creeping into her 
voice. 
"Nine serpents. Eight! He is yours eight Eagles for. Or Serpents! Eight 
Serpents." 
"This beast just killed that gelding," she pointed out. "Your price is high. 
Perhaps 111 simply let him go, and you can put him back in his stall." 
The horse jerked against her hand and laid his ears back, whinnying savagely. 
The boy staggered back away from Jiana and fell to his buttocks on the floor. 
"Take him!" he cried. "Take him away the stables from! He is yours, sure, and 
never to see him again herein!" 
She turned and looked at the Souther. He was young, as innocent as anybody 
could be in the wickedest city afloat. She led the horse away, but as she 
passed the poor boy, she pried a silver stud from her gambeson and threw it to 
him. It was worth at least five claws in the Maze, more than the value of the 
slain gelding. 
"I'd have given two," she explained, "if you had had the simple courage to 
look this gift in the mouth. Good life, kid." 
She grabbed up a servicable saddle with her free hand and left without a 
glance behind. She followed the road to Bay Din, towards the Toolian camp. 
How long Radience sat, she did not know. But all at once she leaped up in 
shock, seeing the growing darkness. 
The lights! The lamps! The fire in the kitchen! 
She darted from the slave khayma to the great khayma, her heart squeezing down 
to her stomach. As she ran, she tucked her left arm inside her shirt. 
She sped through the tent flap, rounded the turn and 
34 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
realized, a fraction of a heartbeat too late, that she was going to collide 
with Lord Giathudin, Overman of Slaves. 
Ciathudin had once been a soldier, until he had grown old, fat, and lazy. But, 
apparently, he had never lost the reflexes taught by a lifetime of striking 
from horseback. 
As Radience darted through the flap, the Overman turned and straight-armed 
her. The back of her head had already slammed into the canvas before her feet 
realized they no longer touched the ground. 
Ciathudin eyed her narrowly for a moment; then he returned to his discussion 
with Ruhol the eunuch. 
Radience tried to sit up, but her body would not work. Her legs seemed severed 
from her body—or at least, they would not obey her dazed commands. Her head 
throbbed, as if a blacksmith were beating it into shape with his hammer. 
Finally, Ciathudin finished issuing his instructions and dismissed Ruhol. He 
turned his full attention to Radience again. 
The Overman reached down and seized her shirt, yanking her roughly to her 
feet. He held her while she wobbled and tried to stand. His eyes were the 
color of coals, with streaks of fire-burning through the whites. 
"Where is the sun?" he asked, in a cold, quiet voice. He raised his single, 
thick eyebrow that crossed his entire forehead. 
Radience was still stunned into silence, and could not answer. She felt his 
icy fingers gripping her throat, right through her shirt. 
"I see stars," said the Overman, his face flushing. "The West is a red glow! 
Why do we all stumble about in the dark still?" 
"I—because—I—was just ..." 
"Just do it any old way—that your motto now?" 
The girl said nothing, sensing that any words now would only compound the 
crime. She knew what to expect. She had lived through it many times, as had 
they all (except Teenja, who had not lived through it. Radience cringed as her 
dead lover's face floated momentarily over the Over



WABBIOBWARDS 
35 
man's shoulder, hurt and accusing). Her heart pounded. Please, she begged of 
the Sand Lords; let there be someone— anyone! Let us not be alone. 
But they remained aloof, as was their habit. Radience heard no welcoming 
voice, no sandal scuffing on the canvas floor. Ciathudin dragged her inside 
the eunuch's chamber, his hand still gripping her shirt, trapping her tiny 
left arm under a fist the size of a jama/'s heart. 
Ruhol looked up as they entered, his slack face betraying nothing. He had seen 
many secrets, and every one remained hidden hi the folds of his pendulous 
stomach. The Overman had nothing to fear from the eunuch, as all three of them 
knew. 
"Bring me the whip of retraining," he ordered, and Ruhol waddled across the 
canvass to the horse chest. He selected carefully—the single-strand crop—and 
Radience felt a faint relief. He could have brought the flaying stick. 
Giathudin accepted the whip without complaint, which either meant he was not 
particularly angry or too angry to think straight. Probably the first, she 
thought. Forgetting to light the lamps was not a great crime. 
The Overman released her, and she stood silent, her head bowed. She made no 
outward signs of resistance. Only makes it worse, whispered the spectral voice 
of Mother Lhanafrom beneath the burial sand. (But in dream-thoughts buried 
deep inside her stomach, Radience "retrained" the Overman, again and again, 
starting at the toes and moving methodically to the crown of his head, which 
received a tent-stake.) 
"Prepare," ordered the Overman. Moving carefully to avoid waking herself from 
the dream-thoughts, Radience untied her belt and pulled her longshirt over her 
head. She stepped out of her sandals and stood naked with her back to her 
tormentor. 
"Twice seven," he declared, and Radience braced for twenty-one stripes. He 
coiled the whip, swung it twice to gain the rhythm, and began the retraining. 
The first seven blows were savagely hard, and Radience held her breath and her 
cries, hoping the Overman would 
36 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
continue in that fashion. She timed the whip's swing, and fell beneath each 
beat, stealing much of the force. Each such blow bruised and dazed her; but 
she knew the injuries would heal quicker than the careful, slicing stripes 
that a dispassionate man might deliver. 
Giathudin was angry—a broken tryst with a Horseman's favorite wife? 
Ruhol counted the blows, his nasal "one your terror, two your terror" warning 
Radience a heartbeat before the whip landed. 
After counting the first seven, the eunuch paused for the customary rest. 
Radience sobbed a bit, in spite of her resolve. She pushed up to her knees, 
and rose shakily. By the time she turned to thank Giathudin, she had swallowed 
her tears and crushed them in her stomach. 
"I thank the Overman for this correction," she whispered, envisioning a screw 
drilled slowly through his face. Then she turned and breathed deeply, willing 
her heart to slow and her back to relax in preparation for the next set of 
blows. 
As expected, when Ruhol began to count "one Your Anguish," Giathudin 
interrupted him in" fury, saying, "you are mistaken in your count, eunuch! We 
are still at terror, not anguish." 
The next blow was counted as "two your terror," and the count proceeded. 
After the second blow of the second whipping, the Overman paused. Radience 
could hear him panting, even over her own choked sobs. She found the strength 
to struggle up again and waited, eyes tightly shut against the light, which 
had become bright as the sun at midday. 
After a pause, she heard the whip turning in the air again, and when Ruhol 
counted three, a line of coldness passed across her back, barely moving her at 
all. 



An instant later, the ice turned to fire, and Radience gasped aloud at the 
sudden agony. The Overman's resolve had hardened; his blows were no longer as 
savage as a sandstorm, but as subtle and deadly as the shaker-snake. 
The next four slices were anguish indeed. Radience 
WARRIORWARDS 
37 
began to whimper and cry aloud by the sixth terror. As many times as she had 
stood for three, she never could get used to the agony of cold-striping. 
The third anguish, which should have been the third despair, cut from her 
withered shoulder all the way across to her right buttocks, and the whip and 
the khayma and the eunuch and even the Overman himself vanished into 
blackness. 
Radience awoke sputtering, choking on the salted water. She barely had time to 
realize that Ruhol had doused her before the pain hit. She felt like a single, 
twisted, burning ember as the salt-agony wrapped around her body from legs to 
neck. 
She wrapped her good arm across her breasts, cradling the left against her 
stomach. She had gotten to her knees somehow; she did not remember. At last, 
the white heat receded, like the sand uncovering the dead, and she rose 
aimlessly to her feet. She stared vacantly at a wall of yellow, a rough 
texture, which slowly became the canvas floor of the khayma. 
Something took her hand; she only noticed after several moments. 
Something—someone, Ruhol, the eunuch. "Go," he prodded in his emotionless, 
nasal voice; "the salt burns but heals. Go to the kitchen with the other 
women. He won't go there while the coffee flows." Radience understood what 
Ruhol meant by "coffee." 
He tucked her shirt under her arm, her good arm, and gave her a not-so-gentle 
push. She continued walking in the direction he chose, towards the tent flap 
and outside. 
She found herself again, standing outside in the night. The sun had fully set, 
though the western sky and the salt sea both still glowed a dull red. She felt 
the bite of the wind off the water, the smell of brine, so different from the 
alkalai stench of the sand-zephyr. 
It was dark where she stood. No moon exposed her, and no torches revealed her. 
Radience looked west, across the ocean towards the blood-red light for which 
she had been named, then she 
38 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
looked north to the white Icenpeaks, south to the floating city of Bay Bay, 
and east, to the ends of the earth. 
The wind blew again across her naked body, cooling and soothing her wounds. 
They still ached, but her stomach ached more as she thought of the world and 
freedom. 
Far to the south was home, the hell of Tool. But east were the grasslands, 
north was the snow, and west was the sea, the ships, and the mythical Flower 
Empire, which probably was nothing but a story to sing the children asleep. 
So easy, she thought, so quick, so easy. Just a step— another—across the 
gravel road, then lose herself in the twisty streets. They ttxntldn't catch 
me; they couldn't. . . . They don't even keep slaves there! 
She felt eyes. Turning, she saw the glow of the Empire khayma, heard the harsh 
whine of the Tooltak tongue as the horsemen bellowed for kaf coffee and 
challenged each other to wrestling matches. 
Feeling suddenly ashamed at her ugly, bare body, she pulled die shirt over her 
head and tied the belt, her hands shaking so violently that she almost could 
not pull it tight. Her face felt flushed, and she almost fell from the 
dizziness that had crept upon her unnoticed. 
The Khayma watched her with a thousand eyes and held her tight with a thousand 
arms. Nine hundred and ninety-nine arms, she thought bitterly, burying her 
withered left arm beneath her shirt. 
She turned in despair towards the kitchen, and caught sight of a horseman. 



He was a stranger; his face and head were covered by a wound cloth, as if he 
feared a sandstorm. . . . But there was no sand in Bay Bay. 
He watched her for a few moments, and she grew ashamed. He was not of the 
Khayma. Had he seen her naked? She dropped her eyes out of politeness; but 
when she sneaked a peak, he was still watching her. Did he not even know 
enough to ignore a slave? 
She felt a strange tremble in her stomach then, as if the wind had blown 
grave-sand across her face. There was a 
WARRIORWARDS 
39 
peculiar sense of connectedness between Radience and this mysterious horseman. 
Was he going to buy her? 
He looked foreign, dressed like a citizen of Bay Bay. With a shock, she 
realized that he must be thinking the same of her, since she too had been bom 
in this city. 
Radience looked up, throwing all civilized behavior to the sand-zephyr, and 
stared him full in the eyes. Let him look, she thought triumphantly. Let him 
see me! He's no better than I am, the bastard. 
Then she walked pridefully towards the kitchen, dismissing him from her life. 
Chapter II: 
The radience of silverblades, destiny through the door 
Jiana sat unmoving atop her horse, watching the young boy with the withered 
arm walk back into the tent—the khayma, she corrected herself. A "tent" is a 
pup-tent for solitary journeys. 
Dressed as he was, he was probably a slave. Only two years before, Jiana would 
have burned with the ambition to liberate him. But today, she only watched, 
wondering if he would ever liberate himself. 
Pretty likely, the way he looked at me. He knows anger and resolve. He's been 
hurt. 
She shook her head, clearing her mind of ephemera. Was this what the Tunk 
meant? There are no other slaves within a hundred leagues, she thought. 
Jiana paused for a long moment, watching the rhythm of the camp. There were 
two or three hundred men, women, and children strolling about the grounds on 
errands. The women generally carried pots and goatskin sacks, the men more 
often than not wheeled barrows full of flour, buckets of milk, skins, or 
truck. 
Jiana could tell the slaves, because they all wore identifying collars—like 
horses, she thought angrily. But aside 
40 
WARRIORWARDS 
41 
from the markers, they seemed no worse off than the rest of the Toolians. 
One class rose above the rest, literally, since they spent most of their time 
atop horses. They were the Horsemen, Jiana remembered. Unlike the rest of the 
Toolians, the aristocratic Horsemen grew immense beards and braided them into 
complicated patterns that signified their ancient houses and arcane patrimony. 
Jiana made sure her cloth was tight around her face, concealing her features 
(and her gender) completely. Then she clucked to the magical horse who had 
chosen her. He walked forward implacably, directly towards a group of five 
Horsemen. 
Two of them turned to face her. The others deliberately kept their backs 
turned, pointedly ignoring Jiana. Her own horse did not stop, and he laid back 
his ears and refused to turn aside when she tugged on the reins. 
He ploughed into the batch of Horsemen, pushing through them as easily as if 
they were the wickets and he was the ball. 
"Watch yourself, whiteface bastard!" yelled one of the Toolians. The rest 
swore liberally in Tooltak, and the biggest one reached out and seized Jiana's 
bridle. 
Jiana sat quietly atop her own horse, a hand and a half above the largest 
Toolian beast. 



"Here for the physical?" asked a young man with barely a beard to braid. 
"Physical?" asked Jiana, pitching her voice low and hoarse. 
The Toolian pointed at a sign, so tiny it was invisible until a stride or two 
away. It was written in Tooltak, and in a broken version of the Tongue of 
Eagles: 
TEST OF PHYSICAL PROWESS COME ENTER AND TEST YOUR SKILLS AGAINST 
OTHER WARRIORS 
WINNING WARRIOR JOINS ELECT AS BROTHER 
TRAVELING WITH THE CALIPH OF THE ELECT 
OF DOKOMAJ TOOL 
42 Dafydd ab Hugh 
(CONFER WITH LISTMASTER WITHIN) VISIT EXOTIC DESERT 
This last was a subtle insult. In Tool, a tribeless Horseman could join a 
"nation" by proving his valor in a physical. With his dry, ascerbic wit, the 
Caliph suggested that citizens of the Water Kingdom were by nature tribeless. 
No doubt the Prince and his viziers basked in the tribute to Bay Bay bravery. 
Jiana absently massaged her elbow, which ached whenever the Fool Caller caught 
her ear. Join the caravan . . . why not? Even the reptilian cooking of Tool is 
preferable to watercress and shoretonies, she reasoned. 
As she thought of cooking, she shuddered and stiffened. She remembered that 
she dreamed the same, horrible dream again last night that she had the night 
before. But this time, she remembered a bit of it. She remembered pushing 
something live and squirming into her mouth and choking it down, bits and 
pieces wriggling and writhing as they slid reluctantly down her throat. 
The horse turned its head enough to watch Jiana, his gaze intelligent, but 
cold as Toq's heart. Jiana gazed back at the strange beast. 
She reached up and once again felt at the cloth binding her head and face, as 
much for the tactile comfort of feeling something as to check the integrity of 
her guise. 
It was tight. With her loose clothing, it was unlikely anyone would realize 
her gender. She was challenge enough, a stranger in the camp. 
"Well?" demanded the great Toolian, suspiciously, "are you here to join in the 
physical?" 
Jiana ignored him and clucked for the horse to continue. The animal responded 
instantly, ripping the bridle out of the man's grasp so swiftly that the 
Toolian staggered in his saddle and nearly fell to the ground. By the time he 
regained his balance, Jiana and her horse were long past them. 
"Cute," she said, softly. "I suppose this means III have to name you." 
Away! Jiana ordered, fanning the air with her free hand. 
WARRIOBWAHDS 
43 
Idle thoughts kept invading her mind, speculations which interfered with her 
concentration. 
If my stomach needs a thought to stew upon, let it be one from the Tunk: "we 
must go out of our minds to come to our senses." It was that remark that 
induced her to share a pipe and an evening with the laughing master. 
What else did he say? A sacred space ... he suggested creating a safe haven in 
her mind, a place she could go when she needed peace to concentrate. WeU too 
late now; fue it for tomorrow. The khayma loomed. 
It was actually a series of five tents, with the great khayma at the center. 
Jiana watched for a few moments, identifying the cooking khayma, the 
horsemen's khayma, and one that seemed to be for women of all types, slave and 
free. The green silks and scarves that hung from the guy lines barely 
flickered in the sullen air; once in a while, a modest breath from the sea 
would puff them out like sails, then let them deflate and droop. 
She started to flick the reins, but before she could, the horse walked 
forward, his ears rotated back fiat. She felt his powerful muscles between her 
legs, and shivered. 
A stream of horsemen galloped around the cluster of khayraas. There were at 
least fifty of them, and they quickly encircled her. The large Toolian from 



her previous encounter led the group. 
"Halt!" he commanded in Tooltak. Jiana halted and sat impassively. 
"You must either respond to my question this time, or we shall declare you an 
enemy. Are you here for the physical, or not?" He sounded genuinely furious. 
He wore a cream-colored robe, as did the rest. But a well-worn tulwar dangled 
from his sash, sheathed in silver-banded leather. His beard was tied into 
three braids which looped and joined at about his sternum. He wore no head 
covering, which was unusual, and he had shaved all the hair from his head. 
Still, it was grown back enough that Jiana could see he had lost all but a 
small fringe, young though he was. 
"Are you the ListmasterP" she responded. 
44 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
"I am the Overman of the Eastern Star Hundred. If you would sign up, that is 
the khayma you seek." He pointed at the largest khayma. "My men and I shall 
lead you there, sir." 
"I believe I can find my way now, sir," Jiana said. 
"Allow us to lead you," said the Overman, his voice as full of menace as he 
could make it. 
Jiana smiled, but before she could move, her horse charged the mob. He rose 
into the air and fell upon the animals, cascading over the line of Horsemen 
like a water-fell splashing over a shoal of buried rocks. 
The men grabbed at her, and several were unhorsed. One man barely managed to 
leap clear as his mount was knocked to the ground. In a moment, she was 
through, and her horse slowed to an unconcerned trot, as if he had merely 
picked his way through some bushes. 
Jiana turned in the saddle and looked back in amazement. She caught the eyes 
of a few of Hal'Addad's Horsemen, who were looking back, just as surprised. 
She turned back, grinning beneath her cloth mask. 
"Cascade," she declared, "you've found your own name, horse!" She touched her 
sword, still wrapped around her waist "Wave and Cascade, I like the motif." 
Cascade did not answer. Jiana allowed him to lead her to the great khayma, 
where she dismounted and found the list, 
As she expected, fifty or more men were ahead of her. Jiana paused for a 
moment, inventing a suitable name— "Jiana" was too well-known in Bay Bay. She 
decided upon "Kidi Tondenar," and signed in Tooltak, which impressed the 
Listmaster. She thought of poor Kidi, dripping his life's blood away in the 
Ghoul's Pass, and wished she had been able to think of another name instead. 
Jiana decided to circumnavigate the camp before entering into the revelry. 
Taking Cascade by his reins, she strolled around the khayma towards the rest 
of the encampment. 
There were fifteen large khaymas, and innumerable smaller tents. Besides the 
great khayma, which served as 
WARHIORWARDS 
45 
the feast hall, there was an Empire or household khayma, which housed the 
Caliph himself and his retinue, the Horsemen's khayma, the slaves' khayma, a 
stables-tent, and ten others which Jiana did not recognize. They were laid out 
in a star pattern with the Empire and great khaymas at the center. 
The grounds were full of suspicious Toolians, narrowly watching an unruly mob 
of drunken, frightened, bragging, mugging contestants there for the physical. 
The contestants naturally split into five groups. First, there were the 
Teenage Terrors; anxious to fight, to win gold and renown, but above all else 
to get the hell out of Bay Bay. Most were Dida's age or a bit younger, sixteen 
to nineteen. A few looked as young as fourteen. 
One of these was a girl, and Jiana smiled wistfully beneath her facecloth, 
remembering her own first "physical." 
Good luck, kid, she thought. Hope yours goes better than mine did. 
Jiana remained on foot, leading Cascade. The khaymas were painted with 
strange, spiral motifs, skillfully interwoven with scenes from the works of 



the Prophet of Astatul. She reached out and ran her fingers lightly over the 
figures; the paint was rough and thick. It would surely suffer from the 
sandstorms in the Toolian desert. Wonder if the slaves repaint it? she 
thought. Maybe nott maybe that's a religious duty of the tent's owner. 
The "kids" were easy to identify. They all sat or stood in groups, nervously 
drinking hard tea and ale until they were near to passing out. There were more 
of them than any other group, as many as die rest of the groups combined. 
The second class of entrant Jiana spotted was made up of embittered, 
battle-hardened Bay Bay Vets. They sat together, and were easy to identify, 
for she knew most of them by name. 
Jiana stepped over a taut rope, and gently plucked it. It barely moved, so 
tightly was it strung. She was thankful for her facecloth, for it blocked out 
the dust kicked up by Cascade's hooves in the dry parade field. 
The third group consisted of the Unknown Quantities: 
46 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
obviously soldiers, but from "somewhere else." This was the most dangerous 
group to fight. Sometimes they did not understand the list etiquette, and 
would actually treat the game as a serious battle. 
Fourth were the Desperados. All were old; some were old in seasons. Once she 
would have put herself in that category: desperate, frightened, dead inside. 
They were merely "good" in a contest, such as the physical, but horrific in a 
real scrap. No feelings—fear, pity, battle-rage. They would slit a throat or 
watch a buddy bleed to death, all without changing expression. 
Once, Jiana would have classified herself in that group, but on this day, she 
fit into the last category, the Watchers. The Watchers sat; they drank; they 
watched, and spoke not. 
Jiana completed her circuit of the camp, and found herself back at the great 
khayma. The smell of exotic food began to intoxicate her: pungent spices she 
had never tasted, peppers and curries . . . mutton and goatsmeat, speared and 
dipped in a sweet, tangy sauce, then burned quickly in a very hot oven . . . 
pastries and sweetmeats, some as light and airy as a cloud, others as thick 
and earthy as a warm hearth in midwinter. Kaf coffee, laced with a 
particularly strong liqueur made from fermented goat's milk (though nobody was 
supposed to know that, since alcohol was forbidden under strict interpretation 
of the words of the Seer). 
She entered the khayma, and after a long moment of indecision, drew a goblet 
of blueberry juice. She briefly considered a potato, but prudence won over 
gluttony, and she just pulled the skin off and ate that. The rest of her meal 
consisted of a small piece of bread, to absorb the acid in her stomach that 
might block her thoughts from roaming freely. 
There were four other representatives of the Watchers, besides Jiana herself. 
The Watchers sat in corners, spoke to no one, and watched everyone. She caught 
each of their eyes in turn and smiled in recognition. To each she ripped her 
goblet fractionally in silent salute. It was a strange 
WARBIORWARDS 
47 
camaraderie. She had seen none of them before, but knew them all, knew what 
they drank, better than she knew most of her erstwhile soldier buddies. 
What did the Watchers watch? The lives of others guys flowing by, fear like 
waves rolling across this bloody khayma, who's hot, and who spills the butter, 
who eats with his left hand, who's careless with his weapons, who's a brute, 
who could not bear to kill a stray dog, who might be good in the bedroll after 
the fight, who might pick a purse, whose purse dangles unnoticed and tempting, 
the other four groups, the other Watchers, the exits, and where the canvas 
could be cut if a torch fell in the oil, people they knew, people they wish 
they didn't know, but never themselves, Great Snake—never me, nor me! 
The Listmaster paraded into the khayma and called the first round. Jiana was 
to fight third, paired against a Teenage Terror. This was normal; the 
Listmaster wanted to eliminate as many of the kids in the first round as 



possible. 
Jiana moved outside before the crowd, for a good vantage point (to Watch). The 
sun was just beginning to get uncomfortably hot, especially under Jiana's 
thick, black clothing. She pulled the headcloth lower over her eyes to shade 
them from the brutal sun. 
The first rounds were to be fought two at a time to speed things up. One of 
the first four fighters was Dorj, who used to run with Tawn back before Jiana 
knew gods could be killed. 
She checked the list and spotted her own man, watching the setup. He was very 
tall, overweight, and wore a thick, leather butcher's apron—possibly as a 
passing nod towards the concept of armor. His face was scarred with pimples 
and the remains of the pox. 
Under his leather apron, he shook with fear. Since Jiana could not pronounce 
his name, she decided to call him "Butcher Boy." 
Stily to let a golden opportunity like this go to waste, she thought, as he 
nervously paced and wrung his hands in an agony of uncertainty. 
48 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
She stood behind him and began raising the cold reservoir of magical power up 
her spine to her eyes. 
Cheater, whispered a voice in her stomach. Startled, she almost let the power 
fell. The voice sounded so much like—but Jianabel was dead. She never even 
lived. It was a memory, or some undigested food on the rocky shoals of her 
intestinal tract. 
Cheat? I outgrew "fair play" before I ever left White Falls, so don't even 
try. 
Dorj tipped his head to watch his opponent, a powerful, stocky kid, through 
the slits in his helm. The kid stepped into the diamond with a sword in each 
hand, and he was big enough to heft them both equally. "Two Swords," Jiana 
dubbed him. 
In the other contest, a fat spearsman faced a skinny fisherman's boy who had a 
fishing net fitted with fishhooks; he seemed to think they would have some 
effect on an armored man. 
Two Swords whirled his blades in a complicated pattern. Dorj tracked him for a 
moment, then charged straight into the kid, shield first. Two Swords flew to 
the ground, his blades whirling into the crowd amid general laughter. He tried 
to stand, but his legs were suddenly made of noodles. The Listmaster called 
Dorj the winner. 
During the fight, Jiana's own opponent watched intently. Probably knows the 
kid, she thought. 
She let her eyes unfocus, and found the Oversphere, a plain slightly above 
what Toldo Mondo called "Reality Prime." From the frozen reserve running along 
her spine, she drew out a long ice-needle of fear. She visioned it turning in 
the air, pricking the nape of the butcher's neck, and sliding downward, 
slowly, towards his stomach. 
Worry, worry, 
Hurry, hurry, 
Prickle tickle, needle stickle; 
Hear me, hear me, 
Fear me, fear me. 
Needle wide—run and hide! 
His trembling became more severe, nearly a palsy. He 
WARRIORWARDS 
49 
pulled and clutched at his pantaloons, and rocked from one foot to the other. 
On the field, the fisherman's son cast his net, and the spearsman caught it 
and ripped it in half. Finding himself unarmed, the kid came to his senses and 
conceded. 
Jiana noticed a rope-end draped across a stump. It was looped, and the single 
end was heavily laquered. Acting on an unconscious inspiration, she picked it 



up. 
Not Wave . . . don't draw her out just yet. 
Jiana took the field, intensifying the needles into frigid, iron daggers. Hear 
me! hear me! Fear me! fear me! she thought. Butcher Boy's sword wavered like a 
ribbon in the Prince's wind. 
Only after she actually stood in the center of the battle-square did she 
realize why she had taken the rope end. Wave had become so well-known of late 
that the moment she drew her, everyone would know who Jiana was. She was not 
yet ready to reveal herself. 
Butcher Boy struck first, a heavy, clumsy blow aimed at Jiana's shoulder. She 
stepped slightly off-line, and the blow whistled harmlessly past her. 
He followed with a thrust, and a complicated and obviously memorized pattern 
of blows, none of which landed. The apron slowed him and made every motion a 
grand gesture. Jiana had plenty of time to side-step. 
After his third attempt, Jiana had seen enough of his style to end the match 
quickly. On his next overhead strike, she stepped in past his tip, slid her 
hand up the outside of his dull blade, and seized his sword-hand. She pulled 
her rope end in short and beat him back and forth across his face. 
At that same instant, she thrust forward viciously with the magic, envisioning 
a barbed and frozen icicle piercing him from front to back. 
He cried out in a terror that approached ecstasy, turned, and forced his way 
back through the lists. He tripped over a guy rope, and for a moment Jiana 
wondered if he would actually pull it down. But the rope was as taut as the 
one Jiana had plucked earlier, and it only twanged musically. 
50 Dafydd ab Hugh 
Butcher Boy crawled a few feet, then jumped to his feet and continued to run 
back across the Drilling Bridge, crying. 
The Listmaster watched him for a moment, then shrugged and advanced Jiana 
("Kidi") to the second round, to be posted later. As she left the field, she 
was given a yellow ribbon which would re-admit her to the main khayma, from 
which she heard Toolian belly-dance music. 
She visited Cascade and held her hand along his face. 
"Told you I'd get the bugger," she said. She pulled from her pouch a 
sugar-candy from the great khayma. He seemed to find it an acceptable 
offering, and nickered. 
The trick will not work twice, she imagined he said. It was such a realistic 
visioning that she laughed. Then she tightened her facecloth, followed the 
weird, wailing music back to the khayma, and pushed through the tent flap. 
2 
As soon as she entered, she slid along the canvas wall into a dark recess, to 
Watch. The hookah smoke was so thick, the noise so cacophonous, that she began 
to see utility in the Toolian custom of wrapping the face and head with a 
cloth. It saved her sanity while she adjusted to the chaos. 
The thick walls blocked out most of the light, but the mass of human bodies 
raised the temperature for above that outside. Jiana felt trickles of sweat 
roll down her neck, where the cloth did not touch. She sucked a bite of the 
facecloth into her mouth, wet it with saliva, and breathed through it; it 
screened the smoke. 
She peered through the haze, blinking her stinging eyes. In the center of the 
khayma were eight female belly-dancers. Two were passable, one was positively 
stunning. They danced in various states of undress and intoxication. 
Jiana smiled. Something in the way the beautiful dancer looked at the 
slavering men told Jiana that they would none of them find luck that night; 
not unless they brought along a girlfriend. 
WARBIORWARDS 
51 
Hypocrites, she thought, smiling beneath her facecloth. She began to edge 
towards the slave boys with their trays of sweetmeats, gluttony winning after 
all. 
Surrounding the dancers were about forty men, mostly Toolian, but a dozen from 



the lists as well. As the physical continued, the khayma would actually begin 
to fill. All were talking, yelling at peak volume to be heard over the 
tual-guth flute players, the singers, the spirit-drum beaters, and the other 
conversers. 
Jiana heard Tooltak mostly, but she detected smatterings of the Tongue of 
Eagles from the Water Kingdom, Tzu from the Flower Empire, Flaet and 
Trade-talk from over the mountains to the East, Duj of the steamy, south-f 
ern jungles, and even Tuk Atuktu, the allegedly dead language of the Ti Ji 
Tul, the "First People." She knew only a few words of the latter two. 
The conversations were cryptic, but predictable: "Lost it in the sand; the tip 
broke . . . tastes like bad fish . . . U'tirtan'g (!kg)utith [bury them] . . . 
turned and ran, the little shit . . . twenty-three copper Rizulis . . . peed 
his pants and ran off... wanted to stop and look but we were moving on ... 
twenty-eight Rizulis . . . ran away, didn't even look back . . . back in the 
sand . . . always wants it ... no matter how many snakes are on them . . . 
to-opu taku [I am/I was] t'ai [death-cold] chikiki . . . thirty-two Rizulis . 
. . had it made special in al'Jemhaen, the fatherless bastards." 
Jiana felt woozy from the hallucinogenic smoke and oppressive heat. She 
gripped the front of her shirt and fanned it rapidly against her chest; the 
sweat drenched her. 
As she approached the hors d'ouevres, the slave with the shriveled arm 
threaded his way up to her with a tray full of suspicious looking lumps with 
grey butter on them. As he pulled up in front of Jiana, she discovered the 
slave was a girl, not a boy. 
"Ah," stalled Jiana, looking over the proffered sweetmeats warily, "what are 
they?" she asked in Tooltak. She studied the slave girl's face. It seemed very 
pale for a desert Toolian. 
52 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
The slave's eyes widened when she heard Jiana's voice and realized that the 
warrior was a woman. But the girl maintained her professional demeanor. 
"Each is a different bread made with dates and other fruits," she answered. 
Jiana hesitated, then took the darkest one and stepped back so the slave could 
squeeze past. Jiana watched curiously as she balanced the tray on her one good 
arm, using the other only to steady the tray when she was jostled. 
Something looked funny. Though the conversation was entirely in Tooltak, the 
girl's hair was definitely blond, albeit dirty. Her skin was very light, too, 
though both flesh and hair were liberally smeared with dark grease. 
She was such a striking contrast to the other slaves, with her withered arm 
and her northern ancestry, that Jiana found her eyes seeking the girl out 
again and again, watching with consuming interest as she performed her duties 
around the khayma. 
The bread was spongy, and Jiana managed to drop it down the pantaloons of a 
fat, bearded swordsman who squatted near a hookah, his backside bare from the 
tail-bone to halfway down. He was so busy begging for a puff that he never 
noticed the nutritional addition to his ensemble. 
The Listmaster entered the khayma, tucking a folded ribbon of vellum inside 
his robe. Jiana moved quickly, weaving around the cross-legged warriors and 
horsemen. They were transfixed as the beautiful dancer removed the last of her 
costume, and danced naked in the lanterns. Jiana saw a dozen purses cut at 
that moment. 
The warrior hopped lightly over a sprawling boy who was paired against one of 
his peers, and had advanced to the second round—the only youngster to do so. 
She caught the Listmaster just before he could escape again, wineskin in hand. 
She grabbed at his arm, and though he looked chubby (rolly-poUy, was the 
phrase that sprang into her mind), his muscles were as hard as tortoise shell. 
He turned, not angered by the touch; Toolians were very tactile. 
WARRIORWARDS 
53 
He waited silently for her to speak first, since she had initiated contact. 



She whispered, as if she had a throat-devil, to disguise her sex. 
"Who be next me for?" She feigned a Souther accent, wondering if it was even 
necessary. 
He smiled slightly, and slid slowly away from her grasp. She was unfazed. Of 
course it was illegal for him to reveal such information to one participant 
ahead of the others. 
She held up a silver serpent, half of her change from buying Cascade with what 
should have been permit money. The Listmaster squinted at the coin, pursing 
his lips, then he held out his hand. She held her hand over his, but did not 
drop the coin. 
After a beat, he understood and slid the vellum list from his robe and 
extended it to her. 
She scanned the tree quickly and found her assumed name. Her opponent, 
Nilrinai the Loose, was unfamiliar to her. 
"Who is?" she whispered. The Listmaster shrugged, and she believed his 
ignorance. She returned his list and dropped the snake in his palm, and they 
parted even. 
Back in the khayma, the crowd had nearly doubled. The final two first-round 
bouts had ended. 
She began to circulate, asking after Nilrinai. She drew a blank until she gave 
his full name; then the old man she asked curled his lip and pointed her 
towards "the Louse." She sidled up to him. 
He was a brash, young soldier, ten years her junior but clearly experienced: 
he had beaten an old sergeant in the first round. 
Nilrinai the Loose had a thin, cruel mustache and running sores on his face. 
She began to wonder whether the Doorian pox was a requirement to enter the 
physical. 
He was sharing a hookah with an ugly horseman and chatting in Tooltak, so he 
was probably a campaigner. 
"No, the sands of the Water Kingdom are totally different from Qomsheh," he 
insisted, correctly. "You would starve if you waited for far gul Now their 
tortoises, however—" 
54 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Jiana looked at their water pipe. Something stirred in the back of her 
stomach, something worthy of the devious, priestly scheming of her old friend 
Toldo (what's become of that fat apostate?). A "rube's trick," he would call 
it. 
Nilrinai and his friend sucked ascetically at straight tobacco. An Eagle, 
through and through, she thought. What was that scheme that flickered through 
her belly? Something to do with a trunk. 
"Try another?" queried a voice nearly in Jiana's ear. She turned too quickly, 
upset the tray and spilled the bread. It was the crippled girl. 
The girl's face flushed and she dropped to her knees, frantically scooping the 
hors d'ouevres onto the silver tray, along with handfuls of sand. She seemed 
terrified. 
As she leaned over, Jiana saw an ugly welt sticking up her neck from under her 
robe. She had been whipped, recently and brutally. An image thrust violently 
from the girl's stomach, hitting Jiana like a physical blow. The warrior saw 
the girl hovering over an old man who lay dead on a concrete slab. She was 
about to thrust a dagger into the corpse. 
Jiana jumped at the vision, and felt an instant empathy for the frightened 
slave, but she made no move to help the girl. It was the slave's place to pick 
up, not the guest's. 
The warrior crouched down beside the slave and spoke quietly, for her ears 
alone. 
"Did you try to kill your master?" The words were a blind stab in the night; 
there was a buried streak of rebellion as sharp as her scars. It lay behind 
the image Jiana caught. 
The slave froze and stared up at her. Behind the fear was wondering 



admiration. 
"My name is Jiana." 
The girl hesitated, weighing her need to talk against the memory of the 
bearing. 
"I am Radience," she answered—in the Tongue of Eagles. 
Trunk. Trunk? Tunk . . . 
Jiana gently plucked a piece of bread from the tray and 
WARRIORWAHDS 
55 
popped it in her mouth, sand and all. She chewed slowly, and was rewarded with 
a grateful smile. 
Then she was gone, Radience the Rebellious. Jiana turned back to continue 
eavesdropping, and the scheme bloomed like a flower. 
She reached into her belt pouch and rummaged around for the packet of leaves 
that she and the Tunk had shared, days ago. For a moment, she could find 
everything but the Heui Dan-Dan tobacco. But at last, she found the 
velvet-wrapped package and extracted a pinch. 
Jiana trapped the pinch between the index and second fingers of her right 
hand. Then she picked up a glass goblet and hurled it to the ground behind 
Nilrinai. 
He turned at the sudden sound, and while his attention was diverted, Jiana 
casually reached out and "moved" the hookah slightly, taking the opportunity 
to wedge the Heui Dan-Dan into the bowl. 
After a moment, he turned back and tried to inhale, and swore gently about the 
fire going out. 
She held her breath as he relighted it. The newly added tobacco was reddish in 
color, totally unlike the old, which was black. But she counted on the dim 
light, and on Nilrinai not paying much attention. 
He took a deep drag, and frowned at the taste. 
Like burning tart Jiana remembered. She watched to see how he would react to 
the flavor. 
He grimaced as the aftertaste flooded his mouth, but he evidently thought it 
was the pipe, for he politely took another drag and said nothing about the 
wretched taste. 
If gets easier after the second puff, Louse, she encouraged. Taste doesn't 
matter much then. Breathe deep, Pretty Boy. 
After a reflective moment, the young, aristocrat Nilrinai inquired of his 
companion, "Say—do you think that the tea merchants might be in league with 
the fishmongers? Just imagine how cold it would be if they were scaling the 
fish before boiling them in strongtea." 
At first the Toolian looked puzzled, but then he too smoked another lungfull, 
and the point carried. 
Jiana smiled. She drifted away, content to let the snake 
56 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
slither its own path. With the second round taken care of, she decided to seek 
out Radience and draw her out a bit about her bruises. 
3 
Hie fight with Nilrinai was short and peculiar. After watching him wander 
aimlessly around the khayma, Jiana decided to see how far she could get with 
no weapon at all. 
Under ideal circumstances, Nilrinai the Loose would hardly have been a 
challenge. With his drug-induced infirmary, the fight was comical. 
The Louse took the field wiping sweat from his brow and snapping his head left 
and right to locate imaginary tormentors. The Tunk's tobacco accentuated the 
natural fear and trepidation any fighter feels before a match against an 
unknown opponent. 
Nilrinai charged at Jiana, but he forgot to draw his sword. Instead, he tried 
to gut her with an invisible blade. Jiana walked slowly around him in a circle 
while he cut, thrust, and parried. When the crowd began booing and whistling, 



the young aristocrat seemed to come to his senses. 
He drew his sword, but became fascinated by it. He stood still, examining the 
blade until Jiana rapped it sharply with the heel of her hand, knocking it to 
the ground. 
When Nilrinai bent to pick it up, she threw her arms out, raised up on her 
toes, and roared. She accompanied this startling behavior with a powerful 
projection of a charging elphas, bearing down upon the young man. 
Nilrinai screamed and crawled backward half the length of the battle square. 
Then he stood up, looking dazed and confused. He turned and wandered into the 
crowd, as if he had forgotten where he was, and why. The disgusted crowd 
angrily debated whether to dunk die Louse into a horsetrough, but no one could 
find him, so they let die subject drop. The Listmaster declared Jiana die 
winner by confusion. 
WARRIORWARDS 
57 
For her third bout, Jiana "borrowed" a fencing blade from a stuporous loser in 
the previous round. The sword was nicely balanced, a tool for finesse, not 
brute strength. It suited her better than a broadsword, though not nearly as 
well as Wave would have. 
It was so hot that the khaymas shimmered when she looked at them, as if they 
were under water. Her clothes were cotton and loose, yet she was drenched with 
sweat. 
She stood steady in the battle square, blade out in the standard Third 
Position. She awaited Tourdi's attack. In die third round, she had finally 
drawn an acquaintance as opponent. 
Tourdi was a good, smart fighter. She had not spoken to him for several turns, 
not since diey campaigned together before her great quest for the World's 
Dream. 
He feinted, and Jiana countered sufficiently to guard the false attack, then 
anticipated Tourdi and side-stepped to meet the real threat. 
Tourdi crossed her, rebounding his feint, cutting an arc to the other side, 
and then pulling the blow up over her head to curl around from her left again. 
She leaped backward, off balance, and his sword point still contacted her 
salted leather vambrace. It was a sldllftil blow. Tourdi opted for weight over 
edge, so her left forearm was numbed, not severed. 
Jiana backed away, swearing softly, staying on die periphery of die battle 
circle. She put her useless arm behind her, and managed to get it tucked into 
her belt after a few tries. She could feel nothing below the shoulder. 
Damn your scales, don't let it be broken, she prayed. She deliberately winced, 
though she felt nothing yet, and pretended to stagger and almost drop her 
sword. 
Tourdi stepped in for the kill; always a buggerer, she thought, nearly aloud. 
She thrust her sword inside his guard, aiming carefully. The blade sliced 
through buckles and gambeson and left his brigantine hanging open at die 
chest, tangling his sword arm. 
She backpedaled, nimbly this time, and thrust, rolling 
58 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
her wrist to arc the blade in a gentle curve that ended at his bare chest, the 
same blow she had used in the Squatting Dog. 
Tourdi fell backward heavily, clutching his minor but very painful wound. 
Jiana began to follow to press her advantage, but at the first step she 
suddenly collapsed to one knee in exhaustion. The heat did not help. The fight 
had been brutal, lasting five full bells. 
Hie marshal! stepped in to examine Tourdi. Jiana leaned on the ground, panting 
heavily. 
Tourdi staggered to his feet, his face white. He seemed unsteady. The marshall 
held out his sword arm, and looked into his eyes. 
"You alright?" he asked, in Tooltak. Tourdi looked at him uncomprehendingly, 
blinking slowly. 



"Hey, you alright, Water man?" 
"Hunh?" asked Tourdi, his eyes drifting. 
Ridiculous armor, Jiana thought. / wouldve teamed you not to wear it, if you'd 
asked. Not in this heat! 
The marshall shook his head and made a chopping sign with his hands. The 
Listmaster nodded, pointed at Jiana, and said, "Final round, by torchlight." 
She had made it. 
The other semi-final was to be fought in a while, after the participants and 
the Horsemen had a chance to make book and place their wagers. They still did 
not realize that she was a woman, so the odds were running well in her favor. 
Jiana walked away slowly, massaging feeling back into her left arm. It did not 
feel broken, and she could make a weak fist. 
This time, Radience carried a bucket of orange juice through the khayma, 
serving the Elect and those foreigners who did not drink ale or strongtea. 
Jiana intercepted her when she headed towards the kitchen with the empty 
bucket. 
"Why do you stay?" the warrior asked. 
Radience stared, her mouth an unvoiced "oh." 
"Stay," repeated Jiana, "here. Here, in the khayma. Why do you stay?" 
WAHRIORWARDS 
59 
Jiana realized that she was enjoying the girl's turmoil, and she listened 
expectantly for Jianabel's accusatory gloat. But the wolf-side was silent. 
"I—I must," stammered Radience, "My master—" 
"Who made him your master?" 
Radience grew angry at the question. 
"No one, most honored. It has always been!" 
"Somebody must have made him master." 
"The Wind. He is Lord of the Winds. Why are you asking such things? It is 
forbidden to question—" 
"Who forbade it?" 
With a half-strangled cry of exasperation, Radience turned and ran past Jiana 
towards the kitchen-khayma. 
Halfway between the two tents, the girl slowed to a stop, her right arm 
cradling her left. She looked south, towards Bay Bay, then reluctantly, she 
resumed her path with leaden steps. 
Brave Jiana! Frightening children, doping opponents, and now bickering with a 
slave! Whatever shall be next— wrestling the cripple? 
"At this point, we're about even," Jiana retorted, weakly curling her mug with 
her left arm. It still hurt, and still shook; but the tingles told her it 
would be alright by her fourth round. The lists were posted for the finals. 
Jiana's opponent had an unpronounceable, Doorish name. She knew who he was. 
He had once arrested her for vagrancy and drunkenness, before she attained her 
hero-hood. He took a detour on the way to the jail and tried to rape her. 
Her left arm began to ache. It would not fully open, even before today's blow. 
The Doorian she would shortly face had shattered her elbow two turns ago. 
But she did not begrudge him the injury; he was amply provoked. At least he 
would never reproduce. 
He was both huge and agile. It would be a brutal fight, despite the "no 
maiming" rule. He was probably broke, and wanted to get back down to Door, 
only a week south of the caravan's destination, the Deh Bid oasts. 
60 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
If Tool is hell, Door is the Void. Why would anyone want to go there? 
A thought gnawed at her, drifting upward and prickling her scalp. Something 
that just happened. 
Memory surged: "Brave Jiana . . . !" 
Jianabel had spoken to her. Aloud. Again. 
"Nameless bastard Tooqa," she whispered, the bitch is supposed to be dead! 
The hookah smoke was thick, and it began to seem like the coils of a (thousand 



thousand) dozen snakes, rolling and squeezing all courage from her heart and 
all thought from her stomach. 
You're dead. I murdered you. 
Jianabel... 
No, just the shit-tobacco they're smoking. No, it is she! 
Jiana jumped up and shoved her way through the mob surrounding the notice 
board. But as she gained the open air, she realized that she was not 
frightened anymore. 
She felt as if a lost friend was back. 
Jianabel! You're alive. 
Of course, silly! spoke the familiar voice in Jiana's stomach. 
Jiana paced in the hot, white sand, willing the churning thoughts to settle. 
"It was inevitable," she said, speaking aloud to herself and her other. "How 
could I kill you? You are me. You're parts of me, at least. Toldo's right. 
Damn." 
She worked her fingers inside her headdress and rubbed the bare scalp on 
either side of her crest. 
You'll never be rid of me, and I shatt haunt you forever, o sister mine. 
Jiana searched her stomach. She sought for the fear, the sick paralysis that 
always accompanied the child from the Wolf Time. 
She found nothing. 
"I can live with it." 
There was a long silence from within. 
You're not warring? Not fighting me? 
"Nope." 
WARBIORWARDS 
61 
That's not playing fair! 
"Sorry." 
And will you stop apologizing? Must I do everything? 
Jiana laughed. 
"It was wrong to think you dead, and I apologize for that. Why fight? Let's 
work together. We're sisters under the skin. That's a good one, ain't it? 
Under the skin." 
Silence again. The inquisitor ignored the outburst of charity. 
"I accept myself, Jianabel. I really love myself, and that means I must love 
you, too." 
Jiana felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her belly, as if she had eaten too much 
tanszanones and curry. It only lasted a moment. 
"Can we work as one?" 
No one ever did before. 
"No one's ever loved you? Perhaps they did, and you didn't see." 
No one ever has before. 
"Mom did. She tried. Stupidly, but then she was a pretty stupid woman. 
Jianabel? Did you drift away, like Nilrinai?" 
The presence was gone. In a dim corner of her own stomach, Jiana could feel a 
monumental sulk. 
Jianabel was alive, and Jianabel was Jiana! It never sank in when it was just 
the fat priest prattling. Calm descended upon her. A torn piece of herself was 
healing. 
As the worry and the fear loosed their hold, she felt a coolness blow through 
her body. She was clear, like glass. She was light, she was fire. She was the 
wind through the heather. 
/ do love you, you little pig, she thought. Come back when you can. Come 
together with met grow. Snakeshit, don't stay out in the snow. I'm open—-come 
in. 
Jiana stood, arms wrapped around her even in the heat, for her heart was full. 
In the long of the afternoon, the air was stifling. At least the dust had died 
down. She sniffed, 
62 



Dafydd ab Hugh 
but could smell only spices and horses, nothing green or growing on the 
Prince's parade ground. 
A sound disturbed her silence. She looked toward the kitchen khayma. Did a 
sound come? The cries of a woman? 
Then her ears deciphered them. A slave was being beaten, the slave master 
screaming incoherently. She heard the phrase "prideful cripple," and nothing 
else intelligible. 
"Radience," Jiana said, her voice grim. She ran to the tent flap, and saw the 
girl crouching on the ground, her clothing torn from her. She was sobbing, but 
otherwise not saying anything. A paunchy ex-warrior stood over her like an 
angry child over a cowering puppy. 
"What does your blood-time have to do with anything?" demanded her tormentor. 
"You're no household slave! You've no rank—why do you make trouble? Bitch!" He 
kicked her in the ribs with the heel of his boots, and Jiana's eyes widened in 
astonishment. 
Does the Caliph know how you re treating his property, you hairy ape? Maybe 
someone should tell him. . . . 
Then she put her hand on Wave, and began to make more direct, immediate plans. 
But she drew the sword no more than a hand's width from her belt sheathe 
before a new thought crossed her stomach. Who appointed Jiana savior of the 
world? 
The Horseman bent down and slapped at the girl's face, and Jiana could see 
that he was awkward, slow compared to herself. She could sever his neck before 
he even raised his tulwar to block. 
But what if Radience did not deserve to be rescued? 
Dida. He had depended upon her, and one day she was not there for him. Just 
one day. 
She pushed the blade back into the sheathe. It slid reluctantly, as if it 
smelled blood and wanted to drink. 
The master kicked at Radience again, and this time he caught her in her face. 
She would have a beauty of a bruise in a few hours. 
The same thought obviously crossed the stomach of the slave master, for he 
stopped and stepped back, looking rather worried. He bent over to hiss in her 
ear. 
WARRIORWAHDS 
63 
"Listen, you little pig," he said, "when next I offer you to an important 
client, you better bare your arse, or you'll bare your bones to the kites and 
the kuzakim. Go find a nurse and get something on that cheek. Tell her you 
fell." He grinned coldly and added, in a nasty tone of voice, "Surely you do 
not want to mar your wonderful beauty ..." 
Then he laughed, braying like a donkey, and turned to leave. 
He caught sight of Jiana and froze. He parted his lips as if to speak, and his 
cheeks paled. Then he regained his composure and pushed past her, out of the 
khayma and into the waning sun. 
Jiana's eyes bored like ice-daggers into his face the whole way. Even through 
her face wrapping, he must have known that she saw everything. 
Radience saw her, too, and her sobs became more piteous. She held her good arm 
out to the warrior, begging help in standing. , 
"You've got legs," Jiana said. "Don't play your slave-games with me." 
Radience stopped sobbing in puzzlement, then she stood up, annoyed. 
"My games are forever games," Jiana said. "Ill see you in your dreams." 
She turned and walked away. A flower of thought sprouted in her stomach. Jiana 
strode towards the proving grounds and heard the girl's timid footsteps behind 
her. 
She stopped abruptly and turned to face Radience. The slave girl looked her 
back in the eye, lips pressed tight. Her left arm was tucked inside her tunic 
again. 
"What do you want?" demanded Jiana. 



"Nothing, Most High." 
"What do you want?" 
This time, Radience lowered her eyes and contemplated the ground before her 
feet. But Jiana could see that this was not a sign of humbleness; she was 
thinking. 
She looked. Her face was bloody and beginning to swell, and she could barely 
talk. But she was not cowed. 
64 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
"My freedom," she said, "Most High." 
"But what do you want/rom me?" 
Radience looked past Jiana, through the camp, over the bridge and into Bay 
Bay, south past the floating city to the ocean, across the waves to the other 
side of the bay, and even farther south to the hot, still desert of Tool, the 
Five Sands, the tiny town of Jabal Saq, just two weeks east of Deh Bid. 
Her face was an enigma, but without even thinking about it, her left arm 
pulled out in full view. 
She spoke again, almost whispering through swollen lips. 
"From you, Most High, I wish ..." She closed her eyes, seeking the right word; 
she knew the wrong word would finish her chances. 
Jiana took a moment to visually examine the girl's face. Make-up would not 
cover the bruises; questions would surely be asked. 
"Alliance," th« girl concluded. Unlike the rest of her answer, the word was 
spoken with finality. 
Jiana smiled beneath her veil. Watch me, she told Jianabel. This time I'll do 
it proper. This time, no Didas. The beast was silent, brooding and biding. 
"My road is broken," said Jiana, "and my shit stinks. But I do have a path." 
"What is your path, Most High?" 
Jiana reached up and pulled the cloth from her face and head, letting her 
Warrior's Crest cascade along one side of her face, the side with the scar. 
"My way is the way of the edge," she said. "I am blood. I'm death on a black 
horse. I'm the midnight sky above a freezing desert." 
Then she laughed, mocking her own awe-full-ness. 
"Wait 'til tomorrow's morrow; you'll know me, though the others won't. Anyway, 
my real name is Jiana. But don't tell anyone." 
She turned and walked away, covering her face and hair again. 
WARRIORWARDS 
65 
Radience watched the woman depart, staring at the long, ink-black crest that 
grew from the center strip of the woman's head. 
She had heard of the Flower Empire, and the horrible rituals and initiations 
that gave a few the right to shave a crest like that. Could this Jiana truly 
be one of them? It was an exciting thought, and Radience felt a chill. 
She walked at a respectful distance, following Jiana to the finals, but she 
found herself visioning the warrior's back bare and white, her legs short and 
muscular, but lithe nonetheless. 
Her arm felt cold, and she tucked it back inside of her kaf, frightened by her 
own thoughts. 
For the finals, the woman had drawn a gigantic Doorian with a head like a 
pumpkin. He stared curiously at the woman as she stepped into the diamond, as 
did the rest of the crowd. They hushed. 
Radience's heart began to race, and she felt a sick fear that she had never 
felt before, not even when the Overman "prepared" her for a client. Rather 
than a sword, or spear, or other decent weapon, the woman chose a short, light 
herding stick. The Doorian would have a huge weapon advantage. He could slay 
her. 
You can't! Not now! Not when she's my hope, the one that finally came! 
The first blow was struck, before the Listmaster even opened the match. The 
Doorian whirled his unguarded blade in a short arc, designed to cut Jiana in 
two and never mind the no-maiming rule. 



But he cut through nought but the wind, for she stepped aside as casually as 
if allowing a drunk to stumble past. 
He swung and she ducked, and ducked, and ducked. Why doesn't she fight? 
Radience wondered, her throat constricting with fear. 
The beautiful warrior seemed determined not to strike a blow. But neither did 
she intend for one to land. She wove a complicated pattern, a dance whose 
steps repeated 
66 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
endlessly, yet never allowed the Doorian to predict where they would foil 
next. 
After four complete circuits of the battle square, he panted like a winded 
horse, and Radience began to believe that perhaps Jiana knew what she was 
doing. 
The crowd was cheering lustily. Most favored the Doorian, but a very vocal 
faction began chanting "Kidi! Kidi!" as soon as she stepped onto the field. 
Radience felt a strange annoyance at them. What right had they to cheer? They 
did not even know her true name! 
She almost spoke out. She almost shouted at them to go away, to stop being 
such hypocrites. 
But then Radience turned her eyes towards the Empire khayma, towards the 
black, impenetrable doorflap. She saw him there, the Overman. She saw him 
looming, angrily watching her, barely able to contain himself or wait for an 
opportune moment to finish the job he began earlier. 
She saw him with her stomach, not with her eyes, for in truth the doorflap was 
empty. But he was so easy to envision that she shuddered nonetheless. 
She turned bitterly back to the fight. What's it matter? Tomorrow you'll be 
down there and I'U be up here, and then I'll have an "accident." Or maybe the 
morrow's morrow. 
Radience watched Jiana, and felt cold resentment fill her thoughts. 
And why did you come to torment me with what can't be? 
Anything can be, whispered a daeva in her stomach, using Jiana's voice. Just 
play the forever game with me. . . . 
Radience gasped and grabbed her abdomen, forgetting for a moment to breathe. 
She looked at Jiana, and the warrior turned to look at her. They locked eyes 
for an instant. 
In that moment, half a heartbeat, Radience saw worlds enclosing worlds, space 
within space. She saw the dim, shadowy figures of the gods, their dancing 
fingers dangling strings to their human puppets below, and above these, 
WARRIORWARDS 
67 
even longer strings, even more clever hands, far away and above. 
And then? What above them? 
It's no good, said the daeva within (and now she was certain it was Jiana). 
It's turtles turtles turtles, aU the way up. 
The girl wrapped her arms around her stomach and backed away from the warrior, 
frightened. Turtles? What did she mean turtles? 
Jiana still watched her fixedly, when she should have been watching her 
opponent. But the Doorian seemed strangely frozen, as if something held him 
back and kept him from the winning blow. 
The crowd had grown silent, puzzled and bewildered. Most still stared at the 
statue-like combatants, but a few, following Jiana's gaze, now looked at 
Radience. 
Then slowly Jiana let her herding stick droop, a ghostly half-smile on her 
lips. In a moment, its tip touched the dirt. 
At once, the Doorian shook his head and sputtered, as if he had been dunked in 
a well. 
With a grunt of effort, he raised his huge tulwar to his right shoulder and 
swung the sword like an axe. 
Jiana reacted easily; she had clearly anticipated the blow. She raised her 



stick . . . but the parry did not carry far enough! 
Though the bulk of the swing was checked, the sheer weight still pushed 
through her defenses and battered her arm—the same one that had been wounded 
in the last fight, Radience remembered. 
Jiana dropped to one knee, cradling her useless, shattered arm. 
The savage Doorian took a step forward and raised his sword for the killing 
blow. But before the devil could smite her, the Listmaster charged across the 
field and tackled him. Four Horsemen piled on, virtually crushing the brute. 
Somehow, injured though she obviously was, Jiana rolled out of the path of the 
crashing bodies, which would probably have squashed her like a horse atop a 
careless child. 
68 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
"The physical is finished!" yelled the Listmaster, angrily. The Doorian looked 
confused until the Listmaster said something in Doorish, then announced the 
man the winner. 
Speaking again in human speech, the Listmaster recited the names of the 
opponents of the huge oaf, whose own name was apparently Faisal al'Tuq Barouk. 
Both he and Jiana, who seemed astonishingly recovered, were surrounded by the 
mob and inaccessible. 
Radience blinked back tears. Clearly, Jiana was the better, yet the merest 
mischance had cost her the fight and nearly her life. 
And is this how I want to live my life? 
The slave girl turned her back on the woman and the crowd of gloaters and 
well-wishers, and walked slowly back towards the kitchen khayma, which seemed 
to have receded from her by the width of the Great Sands. 
Would you rather live your days dodging the Overman? 
Damn al'Tuq Barouk! she thought. Why couldn't he have missed, just that single 
blow? Why didn't she block it? What's the matter with her? 
"Nothing," said a voice at her back. "I am much recovered." 
Radience turned to stare. 
"But thank you for your concern," Jiana added politely. 
"I—I didn't say any—any—" She realized she was babbling, and closed her mouth 
quickly. 
"Your questions were clear enough. I played my move in the game." 
"What game?" Radience demanded. "Do you listen to my stomach? You're a daeva!" 
"Just a survivor. I mean the Great Game, the forever game, all this." She 
gestured vaguely at the khaymas. "I suddenly realized what the Tunk meant when 
he talked about meeting my destiny on the road to Tool." 
"What trunk?" . 
"How can I expect you to join me until I join you?" 
"I don't understand you. Were you wounded?" 
Jiana smiled, and scratched her crest of hair, using her injured arm. It 
seemed to work fine. 
WABRIOHWARDS 
69 
"You'll understand day after tomorrow. Soon enough. Meantime, keep your left 
up." 
Jiana struck a quick blow at Radience's left cheek. The girl raised her hand 
to block, but Jiana pulled the blow at the last moment. Then the pale-skinned, 
black-crested warrior turned and walked away, as serene as any Horsemaster on 
a cloudy day. 
For a long time Radience watched as the woman walked through the camp, 
retrieved her horse, and rode back over the bridge. No one else paid her any 
attention; they were too busy pouring goat's milk on Barouk's head and 
slapping him on his back. 
The gargantuan warrior was formally inducted into the Caliph's Body of the 
Elect and al'Sophiate's Horsemen, and they gave him a silver bridle. He was 
invited to ride with the people. 
Radience felt a hot glare on her back. It was the Overman, and this time he 



stood at the flap for real. Without looking back, she ran back towards the 
kitchen, tucking her bad arm inside her shirt again. 
She said I'd understand tomorrow's morrow, she thought; and clutching that 
promise to her stomach like a newborn pup, she pushed through a day's work in 
half the time. 
6 
Damn, Jiana thought as she walked, pretending to be her old master in the 
Flower Empire. Why'd I make that snakeshit comment about keeping her left up, 
probably thinks I was making fun, don't know how to handle these fucking 
cripples. No, she's not crippled. Probably still hurt by it. Shit, I've seen a 
thousand worse off guys from the wars. Why did I say it? 
She kept her face impassive and her thoughts to herself, weaving her way 
through the throngs (not cheering me today, cheering that pumpkinhead bastard, 
thinks he won, the slug) towards the stables, towards Cascade. 
Nameless Serp, what am I going to do with Cascade? 
Jiana stopped at the flap to the stable khayma, pondering. 
70 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
What was she going to do with her horse? 
The plan had sprung full-grown from her stomach, as Tooqa the Nameless 
Serpentine had sprung, full sized and eggless, from the belly of its father. 
How free a slave? Only the slave can free herself, so Jiana must become a 
slave to free the slave. 
It made so much more sense in the battle square! 
You can STEAL a slave, she had thought, her feet slipping on the bloody 
hard-dirt. You can kill a slave, beat a slave, sett a slave, and loose a 
slave. But to FREE a slave . . . 
She had stepped around the creeping Doorian, letting her hands and feet do the 
fighting while her stomach mulled more important thoughts. 
Freedom, she thought. Free the slave. Free the soul and the belly will follow, 
he told me. Free state. Overlord. KUl your own gods—who can kill the other 
gal's gods? 
And then the thought had pushed through her stomach like a beer-belch: only 
Radience can free Radience. 
Followed in an instant by the sister-thought: the warrior trains the warrior. 
The baker teaches the baker. Who teaches the slave? 
Jiana pushed through the flap. Slaves fanned the air inside, keeping the 
horses cool and comfortable. 
Cascade looked up when she entered and nickered. He watched her cross the 
canvas floor, seeming oddly sentient. 
She tugged at the knot; it was reassuringly tight. She gripped his bridle, 
gently but firmly, and whispered to his eyes: you're mine—I'm yours—you're 
mine. 
Glancing into the stall, Jiana saw that the water was criminally low, and 
there was no trace of any oats. 
She turned to berate the stablehand, but he was breathlessly pulling a horse 
away from its new found mortal enemy in the next stall. 
Hell with it, she thought. Another time. She turned back to Cascade. 
Somehow, he was untied, the reins tossed lightly back over his neck. 
WAHRIORWARDS 
71 
He looked at her, expressionless, something deeper than a horse in his eyes. 
"Come on," Jiana said, but she realized as soon as she heard her own voice 
that it was a suggestion, not an order. 
She unhooked the rope gate, and Cascade stepped out of his stall. She reached 
for his bridle, but then dropped her hand to her side and strolled out of the 
khayma. Cascade followed, his hooves making a harsh, grinding noise against 
the sand and canvas floor. 
Outside he stopped, and turned his left side towards her. She stepped into the 
stirrup and mounted cavalry-style, with a forward kick. 



Cascade walked towards the bridge until Jiana said, "Bay Bay," then he began 
to canter. 
Over the bridge the town began, south of the Prince's drill-grounds where 
al'Sophiate camped. Here the houses were massive, built of slave-hauled stone 
back in the days (it was said) of the Ti Ji Tul, the First People of the 
world. 
Here was Old Bay Bay, solid-ground Bay Bay. If she were to journey to the 
Market Maze, she would pass through the financial district, over two bridges 
or a pay-the-troll causeway, and then pass through the gate onto the floats 
and streets that spread across the bay, the "Maze." 
The Maze was home. She had not been born there, but reborn surely, and 
twice-eight turns she had called it more or less "Prime Base." Even the 
biannual mass suicide of shoretonies in Bay Bay harbor no longer made her want 
to tear her nose from her face; she simply buried it in a snoot of strongtea, 
like everyone else, until the smell dissipated. 
But she did not turn Cascade towards the bridges, or even along the echoing 
flagstones of the financial district, deserted at such an hour. 
Instead, she hooked west along the Street of Dreams, negotiated the perennial 
vending carts along Apple Pack Road, and galloped through Tanny's Garden of 
Romance before the jacks could seize her and make her pay "admission." 
She tried to rein Cascade in before the far wall of 
72 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Tanny's; but he laid back his ears, picked up his hooves, and cleared it by a 
hand's breadth with a wicked leap. 
When Jiana had swallowed her heart back down her throat, she nudged him and he 
turned into Tsil Jan Lane, where he walked under the shades and oaks and 
across a carpet of browning, rustling leaves. Once every ten steps, the less 
moon could be seen glimmering through the tree top canopy. 
Dilai lived along the lane (Lord Dilai now) if he had not yet left for Door. 
Why is the bastard going to Door? 
His house was in an uproar. Lanterns and torches ringed it 'round. The 
neighbors out on the Lane in the sleeping caps, glowering and polishing their 
eyelenses. 
Carts everywhere; two dozen servants heaping the household goods into some 
semblance of traveling order. Orders were barked, oaths and denunciations of 
slackery, but all in a whisper, which gave the scene the ominous undertones of 
an ambush or a sickroom. It simply was not done to raise a ruckus along the 
Tsil Jan! 
Jiana dismounted and approached the door. A servant took Cascade's bridle. 
After a moment of suspicion, the horse allowed himself to be led away to the 
stables. Jiana had the most disconcerting thought that he had expected to be 
put up in the big house. 
At the door, she paused. The butler and Dilai's valet were engaged in a 
spirited yet dignified discussion of who had been at fault in the recent 
collision between a parlor maid and the cook. 
Jiana cleared her throat, and the argument broke off as if the litigants had 
suddenly been strangled. 
"May I help you?" inquired the butler. 
"Dilai," she said, tugging off her gloves. 
"Lord Dilai is indisposed at present," said the valet. 
"Well dispose of him," she suggested, "and get his lazy butt out here to talk 
to his favorite bitch." 
The valet stiffened, and turned away, muttering "very good, madam" almost too 
softly to be heard. The butler maintained a post in the doorway, eyeing her 
unpleasantly. 
WARRIORWARDS 
73 
"Moving out?" Jiana inquired, trying to pass the time politely. 
"It would appear so, madam," grumped the butler. He did not sound pleased, 



though his stone-face would have won many a hand of cards. 
"Going to Door?" 
"The master has not taken me into his confidence, madam," the butler lied, 
unaware that Dilai had been telling everyone from the Maze, to the docks, to 
the floats, to the royal castle. 
"Leaving in the morning?" It looked doubtful, unless they planned to work the 
night through. 
"That is our earnest intention, madam." 
After a long, uncomfortable silence, the gentleman's gentleman reappeared with 
an obviously hungover Dilai. 
"God," he whined, "what do you want this early in the bloody morning?" 
Jiana looked in puzzlement at the blackness around her and the moons in the 
sky. She let the remark pass; his eyes were tightly shut, anyway. 
"Do me a favor," she begged. 
"Anything, if I don't have to wake up." 
"Can we make up long enough for'you to sell my sweet, young arse to the 
Toolians as a slave?" 
One of Dilai's eyelids popped open. Slowly the other pulled, as if stuck 
together, then opened, too. After a few beats, each eye separately found Jiana 
and focused. 
"Sell? You? Slave?" 
"I'll have to shave my crest. Shit. Slaves shave their heads, though—not so 
far apart, slave and warrior, what? Just a crest of hair down the middle. 
Snakes. Sorry to spring this on you, but you're credible—rich, you know, and 
bugging out anyway, to Door. He'll believe it, coming from you. Am I babbling? 
I sound like I'm babbling. Look, Dilai, I'm not used to asking favors . . . 
know what I mean?" 
Jiana realized she was tugging at her pantaloons, so she squeezed her hand 
into a fist and pressed it against her thigh. 
74 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
This is lame. This is really fucking lame. Where's that fat bastard priest, 
now that I need his tongue? 
Jiana watched the light begin to dawn across Marblehead. 
"You want me to sell you to the Satrap as a slave, what?" 
"You got it." 
"Why? That is, if it's any of my business, seeing as you're involving me." 
"Ask me in and 111 talk." 
Dilai seemed to shrink a few inches in height as he cringed at the thought of 
the ordeal. 
"As you in? Now?" 
"Now, I don't plan to spend the night in the stables." 
He scowled, rubbing the stubble on his chin. 
"Night? In the stables?" 
"I really wish you wouldn't repeat everything I say. It's disconcerting." 
"Well—you know there are no rooms, Jinny." 
She smiled; he rarely called her that anymore. 
"Sure, sleep on the floor. Better than a cell or a barracks, anyway. In the 
morning we can breakfast, and . . . plan things." 
He nodded, and stepped aside. Jiana entered, and settled by the unlit 
fireplace. She leaned back against her saddlesack and composed herself for 
sleep. 
Plan things, she thought, or was it the voice of her other self, timidly 
creeping from her hiding den? 
Plan things: like, what to do with Cascade? 
And oh snakes, what about my sword? What of Wave? 
Jiana had a sinking feeling that slaves were not generally allowed to cany 
swords. 
The floor proved uncomfortable, and after watching the less moon creep to the 
top of the sky, Jiana arose, crossed the room, and sat heavily on Dilai's 



knees. 
He was awake already, watching her. She looked at him and inclined her head 
slightly. Dilai pulled back die covers, and she climbed inside. 
She kissed his forehead first, her lips dry. Then she worked her way down his 
feee, his lips, his throat. She 
WARHIORWARDS 
75 
gently licked his chest, and she felt him grow hard beneath her pelvis. 
But there was no fire. 
They made elegant love, and were both quite considerate of each other's 
feelings. Jiana felt a great surge of politeness, and she would have tipped 
her hat, had she worn one to bed. 
When it was over, she knew it was over. 
Cascade paced nervously in the barn. He had been summoned, why? Who was this 
human, the master human? What horrible place would give him only dried 
vegetable matter to eat? 
He decided to stay quiet; an unknown sphere afforded unpredictable dangers. 
A tiny, four-legged furry creature scampered across his stall. Quick as sin, 
Cascade leaned down and caught the rat in teeth of iron. He rolled it around 
his tongue for a while, sucking the last drop of juice from its body and 
chewing the bones carefully, to avoid a splinter. 
WARRIORWARDS 
77 
Chapter HI: 
Slaving over the bonding, She bites the hand what frees 
Jiana walked briskly alongside Cascade. Dilai walked, too, on the other side 
of the horse. 
Cascade would not allow Dilai to mount, and Dilai would not walk when a 
soldier rode. 
"So both our feet are sore," Jiana muttered. If he heard, he did not react. 
She listened to Cascade's hooves on the gravel for a time. Then she broke the 
verbal silence. 
"Why Door? It's such a hellish, damn place. Hot and sandy. Snakes, too." 
"Sorry? I thought you liked snakes." 
"I ... well, I used to worship them as children of the Nameless Serpentine. 
But I slew him four years ago, so now I have no religion. Anyway, I always 
hated the slithering, slimy bastards. Gave me strange thoughts." 
"I think I know what kind of thoughts you mean, and I thought you had those 
all day long, with or without reptiles. And anyway, snakes are not slimy. 
You're thinking of worms." 
"Worms, then. Snakes. What's the difference? You didn't answer about why 
you're going to fucking Door." 
Dilai did not answer for a number of steps. When Jiana 
76 
I 
peered over the horse at him, he was smiling, his eyes fixed on the middle 
distance. 
"I say, it gets me away from the Court. Away from the Hollow Prince." 
"That what they're calling him now?" 
"Oh, this and that. Here and there. We began dubbing him nicknames directly he 
came back from that quest you officiated." 
"I was just a player, like all the others. Lake the Prince, what's his name, 
Alariai." 
"Odd you should forget." 
"Why? I haven't seen him for four years." 
"No one has, not outside the Court. I say odd, because I forgot his name only 
last week, when he offered me the ambassadorship of Door." 
"Hah! So you do have a reason." 
"Ruddy yes, it gets me out of the Court!" 
"What are your qualifications for ambassador?" 



Dilai stopped and looked at her quizzically. 
"Qualifications? It's an ambassadorship, not a smithy job. One doesn't need 
qualifications, save a clever choice of parentage." 
Jiana rested her arms against Cascade's back, and nestled her chin on her 
wrists. She looked through Lord Dilai towards the Drilling Bridge. Once over 
the bridge, she would be a slave. 
"I guess it's time," she sighed. 
She rummaged in her saddlesack until she found her razor. It was still quite 
sharp, but soon it would be as dull as the Prince. 
She ran her fingers through the long, lush crest that ran down the middle of 
her scalp, feeling the tugging at the roots and the wind on the bare sides of 
her head. 
"Nameless Serp, this is going to feel weird. I've never just shaved it all off 
before. Not the hair on my head, I mean." 
"I shan't even ask. Er, it occurs to me that you had better cut the lion's 
share off with a knife before you tackle it with the razor. You'll dull it too 
soon, otherwise." 
78 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
"I know. I've shaved the sides, remember?" Good-bye, she thought, as she 
pulled the hair tight and began to slice through it with her skinning knife. 
Dilai watched her every cut, entranced and vaguely disturbed. Jiana did not 
mind as much as she had feared she would. 
I've a good face for it, she thought, rounded and symmetrical. Eyes planted in 
the center, not high or low. Nose okay, cheeks pale. Why worry? It all grows 
back, . . . 
When she had sliced the hair down to a finger joint in length, she poured 
water into a basin and wet her head, soaped it, then began the job. 
The razor scraped across her scalp, making noises like a polishing stone on 
wooden furniture. As she shaved, she ran her hands over her head, feeling for 
the long, stray wisps that would give her away. Neither she nor Dilai had 
thought to bring a mirror. 
"Cast his shadow three times across my life," she mumbled. She could not for 
her life remember where she had heard the phrase; but she knew it was 
something dreadfully important, something she should remember. 
She surveyed the damage done to her reflection in the water basin. 
"Can't say I find it attractive," she said. 
"That isn't its purpose," Difai said with a smile, 
"Hm." Jiana removed her pantaloons, carefully folded them, and put them in her 
saddle sack. Then she removed her tunic and shirt, and stood naked and bald as 
the day she was born. Except Momma always told me I was born with blonde hair, 
so I guess I'm balder than the day I was born. 
"Now what?" Both she and Dilai asked the question at the same time. 
"Now for the hard part," Jiana answered, "you have to ride Cascade." 
"And you have to dress and walk behind. Trot behind." 
And what of Wave? The problem had been worrying her since the previous night. 
"What about my sword?" she asked. 
WARRIORWAHDS 
79 
"Ah, what's the problem? Can't be that expensive. I'll get you another one 
later, if you're hard up." 
Jiana smiled. Dilai was Dilai. 
"It doesn't work that way, L.D. I've used and suffused this sword with—" She 
stopped, remembering the cold force coursing through her womb, flowing up 
through stomach and heart and down her sword arm, spilling out of Wave as 
blood spurts from a heart wound. 
She closed her eyes, but the connection remained between her and the blade. It 
was a sword the storysingers call "twice-forged," once by fire and again by 
blood. It was an arm, a hand. Jiana did not wield it; she allied it. 
"No. Even to free that dumb cripple I won't ditch Wave. She stays—as what?" 



"Can you disguise it?" 
A thought began to prick at her stomach, a rose with a persistent thorn that 
jabbed at a piece of forgotten arcana. A lark. A laugh from the Flower Empire 
days. 
What had Tsu Hsi done? 
A rush of remembrance. Jiana's training partner from the Pit. The girl had 
once "hidden" her brother's sword, a fine Crescent Moon blade, by shrouding it 
in a simple illusion of ivory. Xiau Tsu had searched the room for hours, 
raging and threatening, and never once picked up the intricately-carved 
elephant tusk that to Jiana and Tsu Hsi still looked like nothing more than a 
blue-glowing crescent sword. 
"Let me talk to Cascade," Jiana requested. Dilai withdrew two steps, 
respectfully. 
She took the horse by his bridle and held his head steady. She pressed her 
cheek against his, and imagined that he could hear and understand: /( will be 
a day or so. 1 cannot let anyone know about me. Please remember, and please 
watch over Wave as if she were yours . . . 
Don't be stupid, she imagined him responding. I know what you're up to. Sneak 
me a treat, let me know you still remember, too. 
Jiana picked up Wave and held the sword aloft, gently rippling it in the still 
air. She closed her eyes and began to prepare the spell. 
80 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
A touch, a whisper of leather, a taste of wooden buckle. She envisioned a 
Toolian horse collar, worn and oiled, but still serviceable. The collars 
identified the owners, and were not removed. Slaves, too, wore collars, for 
the same reason. 
Jiana wasted no time trying to remember the specifics of Tsu Hsi's 
incantation; it was irrelevant anyway. 
The essence of magic was purity of will. The mantras and mudras were nothing 
more than tricks to calm the body and focus the will. 
Jiana reached deep within herself, into the Wolf Time itself—into the Jianabel 
Night of her spirit—and plucked therefrom a tendril of power. 
She spun the strand, spun it into a confectioner's spiral, then looped it into 
a twisting, coiling snake. 
She opened her eyes cautiously, left then right, and found herself peering 
into the Overrealm that sat atop Reality Prime. 
The strand-snake spun before her, eerily glowing with the blue radiance cast 
by magical power. It hovered in the air directly below Wave. 
Jiana lowered the sheathed sword into the center of the prismatic spiral, 
holding the sharper, harder image of the horse collar firmly in her mind. When 
the sword was completely covered, she began to contract the spirals. 
The strand-snake spun faster and fester as it contacted the metal. Soon it 
vanished into a thin thread that spun its way into the center of the blade. 
Jiana began to tremble with the strain of the Overrealm; it had been many 
turns since she had breathed such power. 
Soon, even the thin thread above the sword was merged. All that remained when 
Jiana looked at Wave was a sparkle so faint that she only saw it when looking 
elsewhere. The sparkle, and of course the blue glow that now hugged the 
contours of her sheathed blade. 
Jiana cautiously pulled back her consciousness from the now-disguised sword, 
afraid of perturbing the delicate balance of forces she had set around it. 
"Well?" she asked, looking at Dilai. 
WARRIORWAHDS 
81 
He was staring curiously at her and at Wave. 
"Well what?" 
"What's it look like?" 
Dilai studied the blade for a few beats. 
"Well, it looks like a sheathed sword." 



She eyed him reproachfully. 
"Wait," he added, "it's sort of rippling in the breeze. Is it supposed to 
ripple? Is that a kind of disguise?" 
She continued to scowl at him. 
"Magic doesn't affect you, does it?" 
Dilai tugged at his lip. 
"Not really," he said, trying to be polite (last night, last night, she 
thought. What's happened to us?). "I mean, I say, it hasn't ever. I don't even 
really believe in it. Actually." 
She turned back to the sword. It still glowed strongly, despite the vote of no 
confidence from her aristocratic companion. 
"You're not representative, Dilai. Those nomads are all terrified of magic; 
think it's a sure sign of a pact with Arhatman, like burying corpses." She 
smiled, as much to convince herself as Dilai. "They'll buy into it. Yes, they 
will." 
She buckled Wave around Cascade's neck. Dilai watched dubiously. 
"If you say so. What's it supposed to look like?" 
"Horse collar. You ready?" 
He took a deep breath, looking even less certain about his personal future. 
"You sure I have to ride that beast? Look at the size of it!" 
"No way around it, Lord D., old chum. I think I can keep him calm." 
"Think?" 
"He seems to listen to me." 
"Seems?" Dilai's voice was sharp-edged, and his face the merest shade paler 
than her own. 
"Get on." 
She cupped Cascade's nose in her hands, and looked into his eyes. She was 
still seeing the Overrealm, and the horse's eyes brimmed with intelligence and 
knowingness. 
82 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
For me, she asked. 
"For you." 
She started; had he spoken aloud? But no, Dilai had not heard anything. 
Horses speaking aloud? Oh Jiana, you are a pip! 
You've finished your sulk? Glad to hear you again. I really mean that, kid. 
You invaded my realm, Jiana-dearest. Mine! You had no right! 
I am you, remember? Your very words, Wolf Girl. 
There was a long, silent pause in Jiana's stomach. She grinned. For once, 
Jianabel had nothing to answer. 
Jiana felt a tingling in her hands. She glanced down at them, and saw them 
both trembling uncontrollably. 
Time to come down from the clouds, she thought. Her physical body ached with 
the strain. Over the turns, she had learned to heed such warnings, rather than 
brutally repressing her fears and feelings. Harmony still eluded her, but at 
least her spirit and flesh no longer fought an active war. 
She relaxed her stomach and slowed her heart. Then she followed the strand 
that poked into the wolf corner of her spirit, and let the connection go. 
Nothing happened; she remained in the Overrealm. 
Upset, she tried again, a bit more perfunctorily. Again, the response was nil. 
She remained in an elevated sphere. 
Now her entire body was shaking violently. 
Jiana exerted her entire will into severing that connection. A silvery laugh 
trickled back up at her from a little girl's mouth, a mouth filled with sharp 
teeth filed to a point. 
Let—me—go! Jiana demanded. 
Suddenly the connection loosed, and Jiana's spirit recoiled. She felt her 
spirit tangle in the broken, writhing umbilical. 
Jiana fell, it seemed like half her own height. The impact of landing knocked 
her to one knee. 



"Jiana? Are you alright?" 
She stood slowly and opened her eyes again. The blue 
WABRIORWARDS 
83 
was gone. Her eyes were normal, no longer seeing the Overrealm. 
"Yeah," she said, "alright. Stumbled, s'all." She rubbed the feeling back into 
her hands. "Okay, m'lord. You ready? Mount up." 
Taking a deep breath, Dilai climbed awkwardly into the saddle. 
"You don't need the m'lord rot in private, Jiana. I'm still Dilai." 
"Of course. My mistake," she smiled. 
Cascade stirred restlessly, and turned around twice. But he made no effort to 
buck Dilai off his back. 
The Lord sat rigidly atop the horse, holding the reins like a fishing pole. 
"I always, that is, I nearly always travel by carriage. Actually." He seemed 
embarrassed by his lack of horsemanship. 
Jiana smiled. 
"You can afford to. Come on, Master. Let's get over the bridge. See what you 
can get for an uppity bitch." 
"Put your clothes back on," he suggested. 
They entered the Toolian camp, Dilai riding while Jiana trotted obediently 
behind. With every step she repeated silently in her stomach, / can't leave, I 
can't go home, I can't turn around, he owns me. 
Soon she believed it. She felt her mind change, grow leaden, dull, and heavy, 
as if it were encased in hard metal. Her stomach grew weak with the weight of 
it. 
Her head throbbed, aching from the back around the sides to her sinuses. She 
concentrated on the colors of day, dimming them to the greys of twilight and 
the shadows of night. She felt the hard road stub her toes and bruise her 
heels as she lumbered along, slave-like. 
But her spirit rebelled. When she muted the colors and probed for the aches 
and pains, the wonderful smells of the world intruded, enticing her back to 
her wide, wild 
84 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
ways in Bay Bay. When she stoppered her nose, her ears heard the faint, 
faraway cries of fishmongers, flower-sellers, and fanners hawking potatoes and 
pomegranates. 
Jiana viciously hammered down every vestigial thought or sense that held the 
faintest glimmer of light. But then the Wolf Girl rose in indignation—or that 
area of Jiana's mind that she chose to personify by Jianabel, if Toldo Mondo 
spoke the truth. 
/ shan't be a slave! I simply shan't, and neither wiU you! 
We have no choice, Jiana thought. He owns us. We can't get away; it would be 
wrong, 
That's not so, you're making it all up! 
We're trapped. It's too frightening out there. Let's pray that he's nice to 
us, whoever buys us from Dilai. 
This is maddening! 
What are you, trying to make trouble? The nail that stands up shall be 
hammered down. 
Jiana dearest, what are you doing? 
Jianabel's frustration was understandable. In a dim, unsunken corner of 
Jiana's stomach, she realized she was being harsh and cold, not letting the 
frightened, little girl in on what was happening. 
But to do so would be to break continuity, and everything depended upon Jiana 
convincing herself that she really was a slave. Pretending was not good 
enough: for the lesson to hold meaning, the servitude had to be real. 
Otherwise she proved nothing, except that she was a good actor. 
The demonstration ran deeper. She had to prove to herself, and then to 
Radience, that a slave is never more than one myth away from freedom. 



Dilai halted, and Jiana reflexively dropped to her knees, eyes downcast but 
ears pricked for a command. 
She heard his leather cuirass creak. It was only for show, and the Toolians 
would know that; it would not stop a sword edge. But it was impressive as a 
badge of rank, spun with goldenthread and frosted with white gold. 
After a pause, Dilai spoke. He did not speak to anyone in particular, rather 
to the air. Jiana guessed there was no 
WARRIORWARDS 
85 
one of acceptable rank in the immediate vicinity, so he spoke as to a mixed 
group. 
"Is there, ah, anyone to whom I could speak?" he asked. 
Jiana heard two Horsemen mumble to themselves about an Overhorseman. Jiana 
felt a certain, mean touch of pride that her master so outranked them that 
they could not even speak face to face. 
Footsteps crunched away, and after a few moments, two pairs returned. 
Jiana sneaked a peek; one of the Horsemen had brought a superior. By sheer 
mischance, he had brought the selfsame Overman that had beaten Radience 
earlier, and whom Jiana had stared down into submission. 
Now she felt a shiver wash through her. What if he recognized her? What would 
he do? Would he beat her later, when no one was looking? 
Worse—he might not even . . . She crushed the thought quickly, lest it show in 
her eyes. 
She felt something pressing into the heel of her hand. It was a rock, flat and 
sharp-edged. When had she picked it up? She held it in a perfect throwing 
position, fingers curled around the smooth end, as though ready to sling it 
through the air and bury it in the Overman's forehead. 
She shuddered, terrified at such a disloyal thought. This man could soon be 
her master! But listen: Dilai was speaking. 
"Ah, good morning, exalted one." 
"Good morning, magnificent Bay Bay lord." 
"I see that the turns have treated you kindly, ladling wisdom and strength 
into your stomach while leaving hardly a wrinkle on your face or grey strand 
in your mane." 
"Good morning, it is to marvel of your youthful strength and brick-a-bats." 
There was a puzzled silence, as Dilai and Jiana both tried to imagine what the 
Toolian was trying to say. After a few beats, Dilai continued, presuming for 
the moment that whatever it was had been meant as a compliment. 
"Sir, I leave by private transport this morning for the South, and I cannot 
take this fine horse on the ship. I have 
86 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
heard from travelers far and near that the Toolians are the greatest judges of 
horseflesh in all the lands that are not under oceans." 
Jiana watched through slitted eyelids. The Overman walked slowly around 
Cascade, eyeing him with a calculating, gilt-edged glimmer. 
"A magnificent friend, but you wish to depose of his companiony?" 
Dilai gestured vaguely at Cascade. 
"I find I am less interested in the horse than in more, hm, transportable 
goods." 
"Coins." 
"Coins or bills, if they are drawn on reputable banks." 
"Coins. We do not use banks. There are no deserts in the banks." 
"Deserts in the . . . ? Ah, yes. But I thought your king or Caliph was 
negotiating a deal with—" Dilai trailed off, seeing the frozen, indignant look 
on the Toolian's face. "Quite," continued Dilai. "Coins are the better, 
actually." 
They began to haggle over the price. Jiana noted with wry amusement that on 
two occasions, the Overman's lack of ability with the tongue of the People led 
him to make a disadvantageous leap in his offer. Lord Dilai clearly got the 



better of the bargaining, except for the fact that Cascade was probably some 
sort of magical horse. 
Finally, the moment of truth had arrived. Jiana pulled at the hem of her plain 
but servicable frock, given her by her master, as Dilai carefully held out for 
the last few copper pennies that were the difference between the two offers. 
It was close enough for the Toolian to smell the deal, but just beyond what he 
wanted to pay for a horse—any horse. Dilai hemmed and hung, and cast about for 
some way to sweeten the deal. 
"Well, I just can't; it's still too low." He allowed his eyes to light on 
Jiana. They narrowed, then brightened. 
"Well, how about her?" he asked the Overman. "She must be worth something, 
even to clean stables. She's really quite good with horses, and this one is 
used to her." 
WARRIORWARDS 
87 
"Her?" The Overman stared at Jiana, and she blushed. "Take things off." 
"Take off your frock, Jiana," Dilai ordered. 
Jiana looked pleadingly at her master, begging him with her eyes not to do 
this to her. She felt a terrible shame creeping up her entire body; but he was 
who he was. 
Hands shaking, she took the ends of the frock and pulled it up, past her 
thighs and her crotch to her belly. There she froze. 
"Jiana," Dilai said, in a reproving voice. 
She took a deep breath, and raised the frock above her belly. The hardest part 
over, it took little more effort to pull it over her breasts and over her 
head. She stood, tiny and trembling, holding the frock behind her like a 
guilty, little girl hiding an outgrown rag doll. 
The Overman walked around her, exactly as he had walked around the horse. 
Jiana's cheeks flushed red, and she was embarrassed to realize that other 
parts of her body were flushing as well. 
The Overman completed his circuit, and fingered his dark-shadowed chin. 
"She comes a slave?" 
"She is." 
The Toolian rubbed his palm against the stubble of his beard. 
"There are no slaves to Bay Bay." 
"Right-o." Dilai leaned in and nudged the Overman in his ribs. "No crime 
either. Haw haw!" 
For a moment, the Overman looked puzzled; then he got it. 
"Ah ah!" He accepted the explanation with little difficulty; the Bay Bay lord 
only told him what he had always believed anyway. 
"Take your time," Dilai yawned, looking wistfully back across the bridge. 
"Is okay," the Overman responded. "I will take, pay with horse and with slave. 
Stables you say?" 
"She is good with the horses. Very good. Hate to let her go, but a deal is a 
deal." 
88 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
"Is okay," the Overman added, definitively. He carefully counted out the money 
in Toolian gold and steel. Dilai counted it again, and the Overman did not 
seem insulted. 
"Good-bye," said Dilai, his eyes misting. "I shall miss you, and I shall 
always remember." He rubbed Cascade's nuzzle, and Cascade tolerated the 
familiarity. 
Then Dilai turned sadly, and began the stroll back into town. 
Jiana became aware that the Overman was looking at her. 
"You remind me of someone," he said in Tooltak; "someone of little 
consequence. Do you speak Language?" 
Jiana hesitated, then nodded. 
He looked at her face for a few moments more, tilting his head first one way 
then the other. Then he sniffed, and grunted. 



"Stables, bitch," he ordered. 
Jiana looked confused, then repeated, "Stables? Where— they are stables?" 
The Overman pushed Her in the direction of the stables, where Cascade had been 
boarded the previous day. 
"Follow your nose, stupid," said the Overman. He watched her like a kite 
watches the dying, as she led the cooperative horse to the proper khayma along 
a somewhat meandering path, as though truly following her nose and not her 
memory. 
The khayma that served as the stables was dark, and cooler than any of the 
others. Three slaves dutifully fanned the horses with palm fronds to keep them 
from overheating. The humans in the other khaymas fended for themselves. 
Makes sense. Horses are more sensitive, 
She blinked in the darkness. The only light came from the flap she still held 
open. The red glow from a portable forge painted everything inside the khayma 
lurid and bloody. 
A burly man stood over the forge, hammer and tongs in 
WARRIORWARDS 
89 
his hands. He had a scraggly beard, and a very un-Toolian hat. The hat was 
burned and blackened from the smoke. 
"Another one, Curse," rumbled the Overman from behind Jiana. He pushed her 
none too gently into the khayma and stepped in after her, dropping the flap. 
Curse grunted, and began to fan his forge with his hat. He stepped on a 
bellows, and the coals brightened. 
"Collar?" 
The Overman left her standing and bent down to a strongbox. He put his lips 
close to the lock and whispered. 
His voice was practically a stage whisper. He spoke in the tongue of the 
Flower Empire, horribly accented: 
Flick flack Click back 
Pop box Drop locks 
Jiana filed the spell away for future use. 
The Overman tugged on the lock, and it pulled open reluctantly. Probably 
doesn't like his accent, she thought. 
He removed a torque from the strongbox, and snapped the lock shut again. 
"You," he barked, gesturing at Jiana. He did not look back at her. 
She approached and kneeled, listlessly. 
The smith took the torque with his tongs and held it in the fire until the 
ends glowed. 
Tooqa! Are the bastards going to brand me? Am I really going through with 
this? 
The Overman grabbed Jiana's neck and pushed her head down. She balled her 
right fist, and only barely managed to restrain herself from burying it to the 
wrist in the Overman's gut. 
She could no longer see what they were doing. 
Slow. Calm. Calm the breath, the soul will follow. Quiet. Peace. I cannot 
protest, I cannot get away, they own me, I am theirs. . . . 
She felt a cold, wet rag laid across the back of her neck. 
90 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Then something—probably the torque—was passed around her neck. The ends were 
squeezed together, and Jiana heard the hissing scream of the white-hot metal 
touching die wet cloth. 
They held her thus, immobile, for many heartbeats as the metal cooled. Then 
the Overman let go of her hair, and Curse pulled the rag out from under the 
torque. 
She reached up to feel it; it was tight, immobile, now that it had cooled. It 
would take a strong man (or a very determined woman warrior) to pry it apart. 
"Thanks," grunted the Overman. Curse ignored him; he was back at work on a 
skinning knife. 



"You. Have a name?" 
"Jiana," she answered. The Overman did not remember having heard it once 
before, from Dilai. 
"Take your orders from me, then from him, then from the senior slave, Ysmal." 
He pointed at a black-haired, half-bearded, stupid-looking youngster 
inspecting nails in a corner of the khayma. 
"How must I address the masters?" 
"See this band?" He tapped a bronze band that circled his biceps. "Overman. 
I'm the slavemaster Overman. Curse is the stables Overman. There's the 
Overhorseman—fuck, ask Ysmal. I'm busy." 
The Overman pushed her out of his way and walked towards die flap. 
He paused, and turned back to her, staring at the bulge where her breasts lay 
under her frock. 
He pulled at his long, dangling mustache, clearly debating with himself. 
"Yeah, III come for you tonight. May as well." 
Then he left without a backward glance. 
Pleasing the horses was easy. Cascade seemed to understand that she had to 
make a good impression, and he quickly seized control of the horse community. 
Soon they were eating out of her hand, though each was a warhorse born and 
bred who would normally consider fingers a delicacy to supplement the oats. 
Ysmal pretended to be amused by the way the horses 
WARRIORWARDS 
91 
reacted to Jiana, but she caught a petulant pout on his lips and decided he 
might be trouble later. 
He, too, seemed to hunger for her breasts. Three times he "accidentally" 
brushed against them while reaching for something on a shelf. Jiana pretended 
not to notice, but he was worse than Dida had been the first time they met. 
The torque kept tingling. At first, she thought it was still hot. Then she 
decided it was just the unfamiliar tightness of a metal band about her throat. 
After a long time, however, a third and more disturbing thought crossed in her 
stomach. 
When she had a free moment, she closed her eyes, letting the core of magic 
glow like Curse's forge. She spurted a bit up her throat, through her head and 
face and into her eyes from behind. 
She felt her consciousness rise slightly, not as high as the next sphere, just 
high enough to poke out of Reality Prime. 
When she opened her eyes, the khayma looked the same as before. But there were 
two bright spots of blue: the torque around Ysmal's neck and the torque around 
the slave with the palm frond. 
Jiana could not see her own neck; but she had no doubt of what she would see 
if she could. 
Great. Just snakey. 
She pulled her spirit back into her body without bothering to close her eyes. 
The shift was jarring, which was why shielding one's eyes was common practice. 
Ah well. Knew it wouldn't be easy. Damn that Tunk! 
There was little to do as the day passed. The Horsemen were so enamored of 
their animals that they performed the horse care personally, currying, 
combing, feeding and watering, inspecting their hooves, and putting them to 
bed. 
She watched Ysmal and the other stable slaves and followed their lead, 
straightening up the khayma, oiling the saddles, and taking her turn fanning 
the horses. It was mindless work, giving her plenty of time to plan. 
As the sun sank into a bloody sky, the Overman returned for her, as he had 
threatened. 
92 Dafydd ab Hugh 
He lowered his voice an octave and swelled his muscles. 
"You will come with me, bitch," he said, trying his best to growl the words. 
She trotted along obediently, already preparing her stomach for the spell. She 
had had most of the day to plan it. 



Jiana kindled the power within her like an inverted fire. The base of the 
power began at the crown of her head, the flames fed by the waning sun. The 
tip of the flame ended at her crotch; her master in the Flower Empire had 
always spoken of a woman's vagina as the focal node of her spiritual power, so 
surely it was the point of her magic, as well. 
Jiana remembered. 
She remembered sunny days back in White Falls, long before the Wolf Time. She 
was a child, a little girl playing with the other little girls and boys. 
No swords back then. She had a knife, a knife that years later she would pull 
out of her father after he— 
Control. Control the mind. Own the thoughts. 
The night was a party, a festival for the entire village. Lanterns danced and 
bobbed on the river like drunken flutter-fires. The barges poled back and 
forth, from White Fatts to Tojitown, their sister city in the adjacent parish 
(really the same city, but that was another tale long in the pulling). 
She carried a great, blown-up pig's bladder, as did all the kids. They bopped 
each other, playing soldier, and the boys all complained that Jianabelana was 
too, too rough. 
The Overman spun her around violently. A queer light shone in his eyes, as if 
they reflected those bobbing torches from two hundred leagues behind and a 
thousand, thousand, years before. 
"Drop those clothes, you piece of shit," he ordered. Not giving her a chance, 
her ripped open her frock, ruining it. 
She stood before him, naked and trembling. She futilely tried to cover her 
belly from his gaze. 
. . . She relaxed her stance, reached out, and tore open his throat with a 
simple, practiced thrust [no, all a lie . . . ] of her rigid, knife-like 
fingers. 
Control. You are a slave. He can do what he will, and you have no power to 
stop him. 
WARRIORWARDS 
93 
/ have one power. 
Yes, that you have. But for today and tomorrow, there is no blood dripping 
from your hands. 
An unwiped trickle of drool leaked from the comer of his lips. He tried to 
smile, but instead grimaced hideously. His teeth had all rotted away but two 
[liar liar! you peer into his heart!]. 
"I know what you want," he breathed, in a sickening attempt at romance. 
Jiana felt a cold, ice-knife of fear slide up through her bowels into her 
stomach. Her heart raced, and she began to hyperventilate. 
Good. Better. Panic, just the ticket. You have utter control, and you are a 
frightened, hysterical, powerless slave. 
Tamikami taunted her once too often, that picnic day back in White Falls, 
saying she had an unnatural yearning for her sister. 
She wound up for a super blow with the bladder, cut underneath his pitiful 
attempt to parry (a frosty, snakey bitch even back then at age six), and 
walloped him under the jaw so hard they needed a bucketful to bring him 
'round-about. 
But her bladder caught on his tooth and punctured. 
Jiana could see the bulge in the Overman's crotch even before he dropped his 
silk pantaloons. His penis was massive, gigantic. This surprised her; the way 
he was acting, she expected a pecker the size of a tulee twig. 
It was pulsing now, as she blanched backwards. It grew redder and thicker even 
as she grew whiter and more feint. 
It strained towards her, demanding attention, demanding a victim. A drop of 
clear liquid formed at the tip, but whether it was semen or urine, Jiana could 
not tell. Not that she cared. 
Slowly, the bladder deflated. With every breath of Jianabelana, the balloon 
exhaled, wheezing and dying as she watched. 



She pushed the power out of her, contracting her womb and vagina as if giving 
birth. 
94 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
The bladder deflated, life-air leaking out with every heartbeat. 
The Overman's penis began to droop and sag. It thumped against his thighs, and 
he suddenly noticed the betrayal. 
He clutched at it, yanking on it furiously. 
The bladder hung limply from Jianabelana's stick, as she sadly realised that 
it had given its life, for that satisfying, orgasmic bqffing of Tamikami's 
jaw. She shrugged resignedly. 
In a moment, the Overman was savagely masturbating a flaccid piece of flesh. 
Jiana's attack was specifically against his sexual prowess, but the spell had 
a deeper current that Jiana felt stir beneath Reality Prime. 
It struck to the heart of his manhood, as he saw it. A simple deflation, 
useless against a self-possessed man or woman who was not puffed up with 
himself. 
But devastating against the Overman. With a roar of anger, frustration, and 
humiliation, he dropped his member and grabbed Jiana's shoulders instead, 
throwing her to the ground. 
She knelt there, sobbing into her hands most convincingly. 
'Weak-willed bastard. Hardly a fucking challenge. LiJte fencing drunks in the 
Squatting Dog. 
Own the thoughts . . . you are a slave, grateful for the reprieve offered by 
the Almighty Lords of the Sand. 
The Overman took a step towards her, and tripped on his own pantaloons, which 
coiled around his ankles like a serpent. He fell heavily to his knees. His 
penis dangled like a worm on a fishing hook. 
"Get out!" he shouted. But his tone was one of desperation and pleading. 
Jiana did not wait for a second invitation. She leaped to her feet and dashed 
naked across the compound to the servants' khayma, not caring who might be 
watching. 
She passed the night uneasily in the company of the other non-household female 
slaves. 
Shortly before dawn, he came again. But he passed her by without so much as a 
glance. He grabbed another woman, a Toolian (as were all but a few). She went 
quietly, and the 
WARRIORWARDS 
95 
Overman gave no outward sign of the previous night's failure. 
But the fear would grow in his stomach, Jiana knew. It would grow and grow, 
choking off the fine edge of his brutal entertainment. Eventually, he would 
work himself into confronting her again. 
Jiana grinned, and turned her face to the ground to hide her mirth. Next time, 
she would have moons, not hours, to prepare herself. 
The sun rose, and a hairy woman burst into the slaves' khayma, brushed aside 
the silk curtains and chartered loudly with each woman as she stumbled 
bleary-eyed to her feet. Rethe, she called herself; she was the slave Voice 
(tol). 
Rethe stood in the middle of the marked-off chamber— really just a comer of 
the slaves' khayma devoted to non-household females—and began reeling off an 
exaggerated, hilarious account of the previous day's events. The tales brought 
the girls up to date and warned them who might be hung over and brutal that 
morning. 
Jiana knelt, like the rest of them, and listened and laughed: Two of the tribe 
had dueled drunkenly on the North Bridge of Bay Bay; they missed each other 
but not the water. The five wives of the Listmaster who had steadfastly 
proclaimed their purity for three weeks were one and all stricken with a 
strange malady—one that required a dozen douchings with alkali water. 
The scene was comfortable and familiar. Jiana recognized Rethe at once. 



She was the platoon sergeant. 
Jiana's duties were light. al'Sophiate owned slaves for status, not so much 
for work. Even though there was a large encampment of the Caliph's Elect less 
than two leagues away, eight out of ten of the slaves were here with him. 
Where the Caliph went, so went the staff, and be hanged to the wives and 
children left behind. 
Jiana bumped into Radience twice during the day. Neither time did the girl 
recognize her. Finally, Jiana decided to shake Radience awake. 
96 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
During a lengthy break in horse business, Jiana approached the young girl 
diffidently. 
"Little one," she began, noticing that Radience was on the verge of sobbing, 
"what makes you sad on a day when the clouds shield your head from the sun?" 
"Oh, leave me alone, Short," the girl snapped. "You must be new, else you 
would know I am a servant of the kitchen, and should be addressed as mistress. 
And I'm not sad, and it's none of you business why anyway!" 
"Mistress, you must have a reason. Young pups don't weep at the woes of the 
world." 
"I'm waiting for someone. Go 'way and shovel some shit!" 
"For whom do you wait?" 
"For a liar who said she'd be here, and tomorrow's morrow was soon enough, but 
she said it day before yesterday." 
"The sun has barely crept past midday, which you could tell more easily if the 
clouds were not in the way." 
"She's not coming." Radience spoke decisively, but she unconsciously wriggled 
her arm inside her tunic, hiding again. 
Jiana watched her, enjoying the moment. Then she sat down beside the slave 
girl. 
"Why don't you find her?" Jiana asked. 
"Ha. Ha." 
They sat on a rock, and Radience seemed to have found the only flat spot. 
Jiana squirmed, but parts of the rock kept jabbing her. 
"I see a bridge," Jiana said, speaking so low that Radience cocked an ear 
automatically. "The bridge is but a hundred steps, and no one is near enough 
to stop you." 
"What's across the bridge?" 
"Well the point is, you do not know, do you?" 
"Yeah. Too bad." 
Jiana pursed her lips to keep from smiling. 
How the hell can I make it any plainer? 
"I see a city. Seventy thousand people. Mazes and rabbit warrens, holes where 
even the Prince's Guard never 
WAHRIORWARDS 
97 
ventures. They have no slaves there, Mistress. People wouldn't stand for 'em." 
Radience gingerly touched her collar and sighed. 
"They don't know how lucky they are, Short." 
Snakeshit, do I have to bean her on the head and DRAG her across the river? 
"Mistress, if you got up off this rock and strolled across the bridge, you 
could lose yourself before the less moon rose." 
The girl's breathing became rapid and shallow. Jiana's sensitive ears could 
even hear her heart rabbiting. 
The warrior (slave, I'm a slave now) snuck a glance at Radience's face. The 
girl stared at the bridge as if it had turned into an arching dragon. Her skin 
was white. If Jiana touched it, she knew it would be clammy. 
Acute panic attack, Jiana diagnosed. The symptoms were familiar: in the field, 
they called it "contact shock" or "recruit fever." 
"I—I have to go-go. ..." Radience stood too fast, turned about, and almost 
fell down from dizziness. She shook her head and hurried back towards the 



Caliph's khayma. She tucked the other arm inside her tunic as she strode. 
Jiana sat for a long time, looking at the Drilling Bridge. Something was 
blocking the girl; one part of her stomach would not allow the other part to 
realize who Jiana was. 
Damn. This might be a long posting. Damn that Tunk! Why didn't that cockroach 
pass out before telling people about their fates? 
When the shadows began to creep visibly, she stood and walked back to the 
stables. She would be busy all afternoon, checking shoes and searching for 
lameness. 
Hal'Addad bin Kerat bin El al'Sophiate had concluded his business with the 
Rank of Bay Bay; he wanted to go home. Tomorrow the Elect would leave on the 
long march south to Tool and the oasis at Deh Bid. 
Jiana's eyes popped open, and she sat up. It was nearly dawn, and her heart 
pounded exactly as it used to when she was in basic training. 
98 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
She wrapped her arms around her; the air was still chill, and her blankets 
were wet with dew. She looked east; the tip of the sun was burning a hole 
through the clouds. 
Footsteps. Rethe approached in the dark, wrapped in a woolen robe. She noticed 
Jiana awake, and smiled. She put two fingers to her lips in a conspiracy of 
silence. 
Rethe ghosted into the circle of female slaves, carefully picking up her robe 
and skirting the embers of the fire. Hie slave Voice quietly picked up two 
iron pots, and Jiana put her fingers into her own ears. 
"HAAAAA!" screamed Rethe, and an instant later hurled the pots into a huge 
pile of cooking gear. The rest of the slaves jumped to their feet, shattered 
dreams felling off and onto the ground as they lurched in circles, trying to 
find true north. They stared in shocked silence at Rethe. 
"Good morning," she said, almost too softly to be heard. She nonchalantly put 
a pot of water on the fire and fed the flames. 
They would have awakened soon anyway, as the camp came alive. After the 
Horsemen and the animals and the tradesmen and hawkers bestirred themselves, 
there was more noise in the Caliph's company than in a thousand pots clanging 
into an ocean of flatware. 
Jiana shook her head, wondering if any Toolian ever talked to anyone closer 
than a dozen paces, or conversed at less than a shout. 
She began to smell food being cooked, though the term food might be a charity. 
The most common breakfast was a sour mush made from rye flour, goat's milk, 
tadahchi root, and spices — mixed and beaten, baked in a portable oven, then 
fried in animal fat. Tazh'na, they called it, "it fells from heaven." 
Occasionally, it would be folded around dried meat or vegetables, almost like 
an omelet (Toolians, she noticed, did not seem to have discovered eggs). 
Well it's not as bad as rations in Warki's army, or the gravy-soup of the 
Southers, she lied, choking down a healthy portion. Jiana watched Rethe and 
saw the woman grimace as she ate her tazh'na. 
"Do not you like?" Jiana asked, speaking in broken Tooltak. 
WARRIORWARDS 
99 
The slave Voice considered for a moment, pursing her lips. 
"I would rather crawl on my hands and knees through monkey vomit," she said 
reflectively.' Then both of them laughed, spraying tazh'na onto Kyaddi, 
staining the jacket she was mending. 
Jiana passed Radience twice in the morning, and still the girl did not 
recognize her. In feet, she avoided Jiana, looking uncomfortable. The third 
time, Jiana stopped her with an upraised hand. 
"Pardon, mistress," the warrior said [slave! I'm a slave, I can't leave, I 
can't . . .], "but where should this go?" She held aloft the Horseman's jacket 
that Kyaddi had mended. 
Radience put down the bucket of water she carried in her good hand and studied 



the jacket. 
"It belongs to Akadr, son of the Overman of slaves," she said in a haughty 
voice. 
Jiana stared into her eyes. At first, Radience looked away, but she was drawn 
back by the force of Jiana's gaze. 
"Listen to your heart, not your stomach. You know me." 
"No ... I don't—" 
"Look at me. Look and forget your idle daydreams of rescue, of a warrior on a 
great horse plucking you from this world." 
Again, Radience started hyperventilating with anxiety. 
"It's no good, Radience," Jiana said. "I won't play your slave games." 
"Oh, God," she sobbed, dropping her fece into her right hand, "I prayed to the 
Seer for us to be . . ." 
"Together? He seems to have answered your prayer." 
Radience turned and ran, not looking back. Jiana watched, allowing a faint 
smile to cross her lips. The new game began. 
There was more work in the morning than at any other time, except for the work 
of marching. Breakfast had to be prepared, plates and pots scrubbed, animals 
fed and prepared, khaymas struck, and then everything had to be packed onto 
the jamals and the mules—which by itself took an hour. 
100 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
During this time, by custom the slaves went barefoot. By the time they were 
ready to march, Jiana's feet were angry and sore from stepping on thorns and 
sharp, subversive stones. She pulled her goat-leather shoes on with relief, 
and envied the slaves who had grown up running barefoot across the rocks and 
sand. 
At last the company of Elect was ready to travel. The Caliph had climbed upon 
his great jamal and given his blessing to the journey. Then the Captain of the 
Horse stood in his saddle and raised his fist. With this signal, the Horsemen 
started forward, and thus started the entire group, about three hundred 
freemen and one hundred and fifty slaves. The long day's march had begun. 
Far away to Jiana's right, between two grey-green hills, she caught a glimpse 
of the sea. It was a brilliant blue in the clear light, a jeweled notch cut 
into the verdant woods south of Bay Bay. 
The Great South Road led straight as for as Jiana could see, a legacy from the 
Eagles, who could never tolerate a curve. It was considerably wider and 
flatter behind the Elect than ahead of them, pounded by nearly a thousand feet 
and four hundred hooves. 
The day crawled along with the fits and starts, detours and sidetrips like a 
Briar telling a tale. Jiana's legs and back ached from the long march and from 
carrying a heavy trunk. 
When the sun finally sank seaward and the Captain called the evening's halt, 
Jiana was so exhausted that she curled like a baby on the ground for a 
lingering moment, seeking for her center. 
Days to come, days to— 
She watched her colleagues. They all collapsed. Some sat, some squatted, 
drawing in the dirt with a stick. No one spoke, no one but Jiana looked at the 
others. Radience was nowhere to be seen; Jiana had seen her once during the 
march, but only from afar. She did not look well. 
Lying on the ground, she listened to the crickets chirp. The noise was getting 
louder. 
Soon it'll be time to cook and—eat—again, Jiana thought, feeling queasy. 
WABRIORWARDS 
101 
When the sky was fully dark, the older slaves would stir first. They wandered 
the compound, kicking some of the younger men to rouse them. The women were 
left to police themselves, but they did not lie idle when the men arose. If 
they did, Rethe made them regret their indiscretion. 
As the sun fell into the ocean, Rethe sat cross-legged, staring at the bloody 



sky. The air grew chill; the salty night-breeze blew across the encampment. 
The crickets chirped, and when the noise reached a certain threshold, Rethe 
unwound herself and rose in a fluid motion. 
At that signal, the women in her group, Jiana included, pulled themselves to 
their feet and began to mix batter and cut strips of dried tortoise meat. 
They cooked only for themselves and the other slaves. The household slaves 
cooked for the Horsemen, and the rest of the Elect cooked their own meals. 
The horses and jamals ate better than any of the men or women in the khayma, 
which made sense, Jiana realized, in a community so dependent upon its 
animals. 
The Horsemen dismounted and walked their horses more than half the time. This 
was less important in the Water Kingdom than in hellish Tool, but the khayma's 
habits had been ground into them by burning sand and dry, firey air. 
Occasionally the men brought down an antelope, which they {incorrectly) called 
far gul, but usually they brought no better than apples and bloodberrys, 
neither of which ran in terror at the sight of five hundred men and women with 
a hundred horses, a dozen jamals, and an unknown number of mules and goats. 
Jiana's work was hard, but not relentless. Except for the Overman, 
al'Sophiate's men treated her with respect (as a slave, to be sure). Rethe the 
slave Voice was easy, and she knew a thousand and one khayma stories. The 
older women enjoyed listening, too. They said the stories grew in subtle ways 
every time she told them, a charge Rethe hotly denied with badly-hidden pride 
of authorship. 
The next day, Radience waited for Jiana outside the stables khayma. She still 
looked angry, and acted betrayed, but she no longer had to fight a panic 
reaction whenever she saw Jiana. 
102 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Jiana saw the girl before she finished her chores, but she made no sign. When 
she made sure Cascade was well cared for, she leaned close and whispered into 
his ear. 
"Now what? How do I break her out of this walking nightmare?" 
She listened carefully, but all he did was snort and nuzzle her. Instead, a 
thought grew in her own stomach, almost like an answering question: how did 
you get the goose out of the bottle? The question was familiar, but she could 
not remember where she had heard it. In any case, she had no idea what it 
meant. 
"But it's time, I know," she said. She snuck a quick look at Ysmal; for once, 
he was not watching her. His thoughts were fall of the inventory he was 
conducting. 
Jiana reached up and deftly unbuckled Wave from around Cascade's neck. Turning 
her back to Ysmal (thus feeing Radience), she buckled the belt-like sword 
around her own waist. The worn, leather sheathe looked exactly like a belt 
anyway—the sort of belt that a Horseman might well give to a particularly 
pleasing slave. 
I bet I know what they'tt think I did to please him, she thought. She found a 
horse collar, a real one, and buckled it around Cascade's neck where Wave had 
been. Ysmal was still engrossed in adding up figures; he had seen nothing. 
But Radience saw. She watched Jiana, her jaw clenched and her left arm hidden 
behind her body. Jiana stepped out of the darkness of the khayma into the 
sunlight. 
"Free the stomach," Jiana said, "and the arse cannot help but follow." 
"You mock us," accused Radience. 
"Nope. Just you. Because you alone know who the master is." 
"Which master?" 
"There's only one; the one who makes the grass green and the sky blue. The one 
who enslaves you." 
"The Lord of the Winds?" 
"If you like." 
"But what do you like? What do you mean? Come back here!" 



WARRIORWARDS 
103 
Jiana continued on past the slave girl, who turned angrily away and ran 
towards the kitchen khayma. 
Jiana had a hard time adjusting to being in an army again; there was nowhere 
she could go for quiet contemplation. A friend was sure to pop up and want to 
talk forever. 
So different from the aloneness last time. No sweet cherry kids to share a 
haystack. Unfinished project. Damn that girl, her arm is more of a choke chain 
than the collar. 
Radience was a hard case; she wavered, a mirage across the sands. They met and 
talked several times every day. They plotted and planned escape, then Radience 
worried about friends she would leave behind. 
She had no will. She waited, and waited again for something to "free her." 
Jiana stalked her as she would stalk a loll, edging closer to the wary deer 
who would scent the huntress and shy away. Once, she stood behind Radience as 
the girl was preparing the pots of kaf coffee for the Horsemen's breakfast. 
"Put pepper in it," Jiana suggested. 
"Pepper?" 
Jiana handed her the box of spice. 
"But that would ruin it! They'd chokel And besides, it's as dear as gold, I 
can't just waste it on—" 
"On your owners?" Jiana left while Radience was still sputtering and groping 
for a crushing retort. 
On another day, Jiana tempted Radience to cut part way through the cinch strap 
of the Overman's horse. She even put a sharp knife into the girl's hand, but 
Radience was too afraid, and she hid the knife under a pile of uncured hides. 
For her own part, Jiana pushed the limits of the iron collar, pressing to the 
edge of the camp, feeling the bewitchment close tight around her throat. She 
strayed farther into the black each night, resisting harder and tighter 
restraint. 
She discovered that tilting her head forward and clenching her throat muscles 
allowed her to still breathe, even when the magical collar was tight enough to 
make her feint .and dizzy and turn her face bright red. 
104 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
I can break it for you, sister mine, cooed the voice in her stomach. 
/ know you can. But I won't let you. Radience has no magic to spring her 
shackles; it's a lie if I use mine. 
The days were long, but they were not lonely, She enjoyed the other women. 
There was a dreadful sameness to the food, especially for a city-girl, used to 
variety. But she could tolerate it without trouble because of her soldiering 
days. 
It became easier to cope, day by day. They were nice people, the other slaves. 
Jiana liked them, especially Rethe. 
Days, days go past . . . 
Every day it was a bit easier to contemplate one more day. Without consciously 
noticing, Jiana fell into the rhythm of being a slave. 
It was a secure and quiet life, a time when she did not have to think, when 
she could not simply stop and think. She awoke when she was told, did her 
chores, dribbled away her free time, gossipped with the other slaves. It was 
comforting to always know what she would do tomorrow, the next day, and the 
next. 
Even the sameness of the food began to comfort her: there was not even the 
need to make that decision. 
The lush forests were beginning to give way to flatter vegetation, braken and 
scrub. Mountains rose on her left, towards the rising sun, and the sea had 
fled from her view. The terrain was hilly, and the road rose and fell, rather 
than violate the straight-line the Eagle army had set for it by deviating 
around the mounds. 



The less moon passed through her cycle once, and the Elect marched alongside a 
high cliff. Jiana spotted caves halfway up its face. Looking sharp, she saw 
what almost looked like stairs, cut into the rock, leading up to the caves. 
She squinted against the bright sky. Had she been alone, she would have liked 
to climb up and investigate. As it was, she probably could have gotten 
permission from Rethe. But it was so much work, so much to think about. She 
turned her face back to the road ahead. 
WARRIORWABDS 
105 
The collar began to loosen, day by day. It felt more natural. Eventually, even 
Jianabel grew silent. 
The days began at dawn, and they were not particularly hard. She had worked 
much harder as a sergeant. The mass arose with the sun, Rethe performing her 
platoon sergeant act. 
The Elect had finally run out of pre-baked tazh'na to fry, and rather than 
stop for a day and make more, they bought food from the local villages. 
Thereafter, they breakfasted on fruit, mellon balls, rolled oats, hot mash, 
toasted bread, butter, and jam (excitingly different from county to barony to 
principality), dried tortoise, game bird, or game animal (as appropriate), 
occasional fish (salty shortonies or chewy skeeniks), and for desert, candied 
apples, dates, and khalkas. 
Al'Sophiate did not drive them hard. They followed an easy, eight mile per day 
pace. The women and lads had no trouble on the journey south to Tool. 
With each passing day, the Overman began to watch Jiana with a greater hunger; 
for her part, she reviewed in her mind the spells she had learned or 
developed. 
But a bigger problem was beginning to develop. The Doorian she fought in the 
last bout of the physical saw her and dimly remembered having seen her 
somewhere else, looking different. Being a Doorian, and suspicious by nature 
of his culture, he took to shadowing her, spying on her, and scratching his 
bright orange, pumpkin-shaped head. 
He never really saw me, she told herself. / was masked, and now I dress as a 
slave. But she worried nonetheless. Clearly there was something about her that 
he recognized . . . her gait? Or did he remember arresting her two turns ago? 
He did not have her long; when she escaped, his thoughts were occupied with 
other agonies. 
Eventually I'll have to take care of the problem, she thought, but the matter 
was not yet acute. 
Cascade played his part well. When they were alone, he would nuzzle Jiana and 
eat treats from her hand. When Curse or Ysmal or any one else entered, the 
horse acted stupid and four-legged. 
Jiana kept up the regular visits to Cascade. 
106 
Dqfydd ab Hugh 
Another less moon passed, and Jiana began to feel a strange disquiet invading 
her contented stomach. Radience was as much a slave as ever, and now Jiana 
could feel herself slipping into the quiet time. Who was winning, sleep or 
wakefulness? 
One morning she awoke long before dawn. Her heart raced and she could not 
catch her breath. 
She sat up, and pulled her covers around her, staring at the fog rolling 
across the ground, clinging to every rock and tree. It mirrored the fog in her 
stomach. 
Beads of sweat rolled down her forehead, but she could not remember what had 
panicked her so. Was it a dream? 
Bits and pieces of the dream drifted into her stomach: she was eating . . . 
there was an aliveness, not the good aliveness of the earth or a tree, but an 
unnatural, malevolent animation that tore at her soul. 
Once she had fallen into a trench during a ride-through at the end of a 
campaign. A Torrak monk was in the trench, and she found herself unexpectedly 



fighting a savage battle for her very survival in the midst of victory. 
He was all over her. Wave had fallen in die mud somewhere. The combatants had 
rolled through the slime and Jiana managed to grab hold of a wooden tent 
stake. She wrapped her left arm tight around the soldier and drove the stake 
into his kidney from behind. 
He died, screaming in agony. It took Jiana several minutes to extricate 
herself from his death-embrace. 
She spotted Wave, and leaned across the corpse to pick up the sword. But when 
she had risen, she was tripped to the ground by the dead man, who had a grip 
on her ankle. 
He had been dead, unquestionably. But Jiana had rocked him when she leaned 
across him, and it had shaken him alive for a moment, perhaps shaken some 
blood into his stomach, enough to revive him. 
For an instant, he was alive again, though he never should have been. The dead 
lived, for an instant. 
Jiana shivered in the pre-dawn chill. She pulled die blanket closer about her 
naked body, looking at the sleeping multitude around her. Do they all live for 
instants in 
WARRIORWARDS 
107 
death, like severed heads trying to bite their executioners when they're 
plucked from the basket? 
Something else dead had come alive. She saw a piece of it in her dream, though 
she now remembered nothing of it. 
A long forgotten voice whispered in her stomach. It was Jianabel, cold and 
neglected, nearly dead from neglect. 
Help me, she begged. Don't let me die here, Momma, don't let me die. . . . 
The voice faded at the end like a long-forgotten shout. 
How long has it been since I even pushed the edge of the cottar? 
She stood, dropping the blanket and opening her nude body to the sharp, flinty 
winds and the clinging fog. 
The fog shrouded the world and erased the now from Jiana's sight. For the 
first time in moons, she closed down her senses and listened only to her 
stomach. She remembered . . . the days and nights in Bay Bay, dueling on the 
floating streets, slipping in the blood and laughing. 
She remembered a lad, some kid—not Ysraal, but Dida. She remembered Dilai, her 
own Dilai. Somebody else, somebody who had helped her get die goose out of the 
bottle: Toldo. Toldo Mondo, fat, atheistic priest. Sardonic apostate. 
What else? Why was she here? 
Tunk. She remembered die Tunk, and the night in his hutch. She remembered 
more: the road to Bay Din. But this was die Great South Road, and Bay Din was 
leagues and leagues behind! 
She shook her head, not the road to Bay Din, but the road to Bay Din, the 
hero's journey, magical quest. 
Is that what she was doing, questing again? Questing for . . . 
"Freedom," she said aloud, and abruptly her own, private fog lifted. She 
touched her shaven head, and at last she remembered. 
Shit, shit, shit, she thought, where have I \teen? Jianabel, how could you let 
this happen? Where have you been? 
There was no response, and Jiana felt a chill of apprehension. 
108 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Jianabel? Wolf queen, where are those ftted-down, pointy teeth? HeUo? 
She heard only silence in her stomach. 
"Kid, you didn't die on me, did you?" 
She closed her eyes and blotted out everything but the part of her stomach 
that had always been reserved for Jianabel. A feint "sound," an insect-like 
buzzing tingled at the edge of her consciousness. 
It was something, something from Jianabel, or what was left of her. A 
response, so feint she almost mistook it for nothingness. 



Concentrating on the words, she could barely make them out. They were the 
words of a long-ago god, killed by the very entity Jiana now sought: / am who 
I am who I am who ... 
Jianabel! 
I am who . . . who . . . who calls? 
Come back. 
Come back come who come back come dum sum turn bum . . . 
Jianabel, your place is here. 
Come here. 
Yes, come here. Come back to me. Come back to your place. 
My place? 
Yes. Your place is here. I've grown used to you. 
I am dead. 
No, you're stitt alive. I love you, my sister. 
I didn't die. I live? 
Who talks? 
I talk. I always talk. 
Who talks? 
Now you know very well who talks, silly Jiana. 
Jiana listened suspiciously; the words were true Jianabel, daughter of the 
Wolf Time. But the tone was hesitant, uncertain. But at least that part of 
herself was back, though she did not know why, Jiana understood that it was 
very important. 
But what was that dream? Something dreadfully important was in it. 
WABJUORWARDS 
109 
Jiana gradually came fully awake and found herself staring across the 
compound, at the circle of household slaves. One of them was Radiance, but 
Jiana could not tell which while they were all wrapped in their sleeping 
cocoons. 
She rubbed her hand across her head, and was pleased to discover that the 
baldness felt uncomfortable again. For several weeks, it had felt normal. 
In the dream, she stood in a deep place. Att around her was the ice. The river 
is frozen over, she thought, but in front of her— 
Skating, lines in the ice—no, don't! it's too— 
Falls, she falls through . . . 
No she can't be dead my sister my friend my . . . my sister she can't be— 
But I'tt bring her back I must bring . . . 
. . . and down her throat, squiggling, wiggling, squirming, the living things 
as she swallows and they crawl about, the pieces of meat, of potato, scream in 
agony as they hit the acid in her . . . 
Jiana ground her fists over her eyes and shook her head. Dammit, no! just a 
dream. She's dead; died twenty-five turns ago. Not coming back to—whatever. 
Jiana stood and hurried over to her own gang. Rethe would show up momentarily 
to tell them yesterday's rundown. 
The troop was more than halfway to Tool, and Jiana had done virtually nothing 
to wake Radience up. It was time to throw gentility, politeness, and patience 
to the Lord of the Winds (or was that exactly what "they" wanted her to do?). 
Jiana would have to shock the girl awake, and she could think of only one way 
to do so. 
Stay with me, Jianabel. Don't leave me. Without you 1 wouldn't even need this 
cottar; I'd be slave to the earth and the blood. 
The Wolf Girl did not answer, but Jiana felt her presence spread like warm 
manure through her body. 
Jiana waited until the sun set. Then she pressed through the thick of the 
throng, pushing west until the torque 
110 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
began to tighten. She walked back north along their path until she found 
Radience. 



The girl had taken to looking north towards Bay Bay each night with a wistful 
longing, as if she had left something precious behind. 
Jiana watched silently for a time, hands in her tunic where the valley wind 
did not blow. 
"Still waiting?" 
Radience turned and scowled. 
"Leave me alone, horsegirl." 
"The less moon has nearly cycled twice. You are still waiting for the one who 
said she'd come that day?" 
"What do you know about it? You aren't her. You curry horses and shovel crap! 
Go away before I call your tol hag." 
Jiana smiled. Rethe would not take kindly to being called a hag, not by a girl 
as young as Ray. 
"What's so bad about shoveling shit? You keep returning to it." 
Exasperated, Radience waived her hands dismissively and stalked back towards 
the camp. 
"You've ruined a nice evening, Short. Thank you ever so much. I'm going in, I 
have real work to do." 
Jiana let her get a shout away. Then she added in a strong voice, "Maybe she's 
waiting for somebody worth freeing." 
Radience ran back down the hill towards the khayma, wiping her eyes with her 
good arm. 
Jiana watched until the girl vanished in the crowd. Then she followed her into 
the camp, veered left, and entered the stables khayma. Cascade waited for her; 
if a horse could smile nastily, he was doing it. 
Spreading the holiday cheer again, eh Jiana? 
"Damn her, she doesn't know! She doesn't know how short a leash she's on. It's 
time to show her. 
"What will she think when they reel it in? When master and slave snarl at each 
other across the abyss?" 
Jiana looked Cascade in his big, brown eyes. For a long beat, she held his 
gaze, but it was Jiana who broke first. 
WARRIORWARDS 
111 
She walked out of the khayma, embarrassed, imagining she could hear his iron 
chuckle behind her back. 
The slaves' sisterhood was a society of behind-the-hand whispers. "An hour-old 
secret" was an expression that meant a thing known to all. 
Jiana overcame her natural revulsion for tattle-tales and began to listen and 
record each little item overheard. She kept a diary of secrets, and 
religiously copied the day's gossip into it each night. 
After three nights, Jiana decided she was ready to perform her first 
"demonstration." 
Think they actually like you, trust you, girl? Surprise! 
When the sun had long set and the Horsemen were bedding for the night, Jiana 
walked into the household khayma, quiet as a breeze, and woke Radience by 
placing a hand over the girl's mouth. 
Jiana gestured that Radience should come outside with her. The girl 
acquiesced, wearing a look that said this had better be good. 
"What do you want?" she demanded. "Some of us must rise early to serve the 
Caliph of the Elect himself." 
"You say that with such a note of pride." 
Radience looked guilty for a moment; since her beating, Radience had spent 
every waking moment striving to be a good, little slave. Jiana was convinced 
that Radience's pathetic attempts to curry favor had sickened even her. She 
was bitter beneath her hauteur. 
Damned normal not to want to get beaten, Jiana thought, but you can't cut 
yourself that slack, can you? 
"Can I show you something?" Jiana asked, politely. 
"If you must." 



Jiana walked carelessly through the sleeping bodies, stepping over them and 
making no sound. Radience followed a bit clumsily, and occasionally stepped on 
a hand or kicked a shin. The sleepers stirred and mumbled curses, but they did 
not wake. 
The warrior brushed nimbly between two smouldering fires, and Radience was 
forced to draw her blanket up off the ground and hop. What in the wind's name 
does she want to show me? 
112 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Jiana turned abruptly and approached a khayma. It took Radience a moment to 
realize it was the hareem khayma. Jiana dropped to her knees, then her 
stomach. She wriggled close to the canvas and ran her hand along the bottom 
edge. 
Suddenly, her hand passed right through the fabric. Gods, did she actually cut 
a slit into the hareem khayma? Radience wondered in amazement. She shook her 
head sadly; the woman's reason had fled across the dunes. 
"Come in," she said to Radience. "The water's fine." Radience scowled. What 
did water have to do with anything? 
The slave girl followed Jiana, squirming under the heavy canvas wall, through 
the slit and into the khayma, wondering how she had let that woman talk her 
into this. The heavy fabric scraped across her back, which ached in memory of 
the last beating she had received. 
The hareem khayma was not for the likes of Radience, except when the Overman 
felt compelled to whip her with one or the other of his rods. Among other 
reasons, the hareem slaves kept an iron-bound jewelry box, out of which they 
dressed in the evening. Half the box alone could ransom the three Caliphs of 
Sand River. It was Ruhol the Eunuch's primary job to guard the jewelry box. 
And guard it he apparently did, for he stood in the doorway at that very 
moment, holding open the flap and staring protectively at the box. 
Radience held her breath; her heart felt like it stopped. Friends or no, trust 
or not, if Ruhol found her thus, sneaking into the hareem in deadest night 
through a slit into the jewelroom, he would kill her, probably without thought 
or regret. 
Radience looked at Jiana, who ludicrously held two fingers over her lips in a 
silent "no talking" symbol—as if they had planned to! 
How long they lay thus, watching Ruhol watch the box, Radience could not begin 
to guess. Her heart was beating so rapidly that it was no good judge of time. 
Then at once, Ruhol moved. He walked decisively to the box, and pulled on the 
great, Bay Din lock. He held it 
WARRIORWARDS 
113 
in his massive hand for a moment. Then incredibly, he fished into his 
groin-wraps, produced a key, and opened the lock. 
Ruhol opened up the box, and gazed speculatively inside. 
Conducting inventory? Now, in the black of night? Radience's mouth was dry as 
sand, and she licked her lips. Even that faint sound frightened her. 
Ruhol reached inside the chest and casually removed a pearl. It was the size 
of one of his missing testicles. He looked at it in the light of the less 
moon, filtering through the smoke holes in the top of the khayma. He placed it 
carefully inside his groin cloth. 
Ruhol closed and locked the safe. He backed away from it, a speculative but 
satisfied smile on his lips. 
Then he turned and exited the way he had entered. 
"Seen enough?" Jiana asked in a normal, conversational tone as soon as Ruhol 
had left. 
Radience stared at the still-swaying flap, stricken. 
"Let's go get some sleep, little one." Jiana took Radience by the arm and 
turned her back towards the slit in the canvas side. 
Radience allowed herself to be led, too upset to argue or resist. She crawled 
out of the khayma and stood shakily. 



Ruhol the betrayer! Radience was overwhelmed by shame and sadness. Was this 
the way the eunuch repaid so many years of kindness? What had the Caliph ever 
done to him? 
Radience walked slowly back to her own territory. Jiana stayed behind her, but 
luckily kept her silence and allowed Radience time to think. 
Could she betray such a friend, a man who even stood up to the Overman for 
her? Could she herself betray the Caliph by not reporting Ruhol? 
She was utterly confused, not knowing which way to turn. Was that really me, 
holding the dagger over the divine Caliph's chest and preparing to thrust it 
into his heart? Dream or no, what evil lies in my own heart that I long to 
slay my master . . . yet consider denouncing my only friend to the Chopper? 
It was senseless. As masters went, Hal'Addad al'Sophiate 
114 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
was a saint. Even with an occasional Giathudin in his retinue, life with the 
Lord was ease and comfort itself compared to the hundreds of sand-poor, 
waterless farmers scraping a miserable existence out of the clay and the mud 
and revelling in their self-styled "freedom." 
There is simply no question, she thought as Jiana left her off near the 
household Khayma. I cannot forget loyally to my Lord! But neither could she 
forget all the little things Ruhol had done for her during her first days 
among the Elect. 
He snuck food to her from the kitchens when her first master, a young, 
hotheaded Horseman, sent her to the stocks for falling asleep while washing. 
He interceded subtlely with the Overman during many a beating, distracting 
Giathudin from forcing himself upon her many of the times he tried. 
He worked with her bad arm, strengthening it with lifting and pulling 
exercises. He once passed along a diaphanous gown that he said the girls had 
gotten tired of; now Radience was sure it was actually stolen from them. 
There is no question. I cannot betray my friend! 
Radience wrapped her arms around her body, good arm on the outside. And thus 
do I enter rebellion, she thought. 
She waited for the thunderclap, but the sky remained clear. Try as she might, 
Radience could not force herself to feel guilt at her monstrous act of 
betrayal. The dark said nothing. 
Chapter IV: 
Rebel rabble (stepping on the same piece twice) 
In the morning, Radience performed her customary duties with little heart. She 
felt distant, pulled out of herself, as alien as the bos reliefs found on the 
temple walls of the City of Black. 
She shuddered, remembering those inhuman depictions of perversions and 
atrocities that she saw in reproduction in the Caliph's sleeping chamber. 
Am I metamorphosing into one of those? Is that why I feel so all-over queer? 
Radience grunted in annoyance at her wind-blown imagination and concentrated 
on balancing the breakfast tray in her good hand. 
But how else to explain my lack of decisiveness about Ruhol? Surely a man 
would cast his darts on one side or the other! But I kneel like a jamal and 
turn my face from the sun. 
She wandered the khayma like a zombie, handing out sweatmeats and flatbread in 
a daze. Overman of Horses received water in his kaf. She almost served an egg 
to Giathudin, who would think she was trying to poison.him! He was very 
traditional; on all of their perigrinations, Giathudin positively refused to 
go native. 
As it was he caught her hand as she reached for his water glass. She kept her 
eyes on his hairy knuckles, 
115 
116 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
though she felt his black scowl through her forehead. He pulled her hand 
towards his mouth. 



His son Akadr spoke up. 
"Father!" 
Giathudin stared at him. 
"What?" the Overman asked, sounding annoyed at the interruption. 
"One of the hareem girls is missing a great pearl." 
"What? What the hell do / care if the hareem girls—" 
"It was taken from the hareem jewelry box." 
The Overman dropped Radience's hand. 
"Stolen?" 
"There is no other explanation." Akadr glanced at Radience and gestured with 
his eyes that she better move quickly down the line. She faded backwards to 
the next Horseman. 
"Fucking cunts," complained the Overman, swilling his winelaced coffee. He 
rose and allowed Akadr to lead him out of the khayma. 
Radience rubbed the circulation back into her wrist. His finger imprints would 
fade; but what of this feeling that gripped her, this "must/cannot" dilemma? 
One of the Horsemen farted, and soon they all took up the challenge, laughing 
and outdoing each other. Radience left for the kitchen as quickly as her 
duties allowed. 
Odd, she thought, that such a bastard could have a beautiful, fair son who 
treated the slaves with respect and courtesy. 
When breakfast ended, Radience walked in trepidation towards the stables. The 
horseslaves were striking the khayma as she approached. 
She found Jiana inside, disassembling Curse's forge and packing it in a pair 
ofjamal bags. 
Radience stood for many long moments, watching Jiana from behind. She knows 
I'm here, she thought. Damn if I'm going to make the first move. 
At last Jiana finished, pulled tight the strap, then turned and faced her. 
WARRIORWARDS 
117 
"Pleasant night?" the woman inquired, innocently enough. 
"I don't like your tone," said Radience. 
"What tone would you prefer?" 
The slave girl glared, unable to think of a devastating response. 
"Alright, I admit it. I don't know what to do about Ruhol. He's a friend, he's 
almost my ..." She almost said "father," but she caught herself. 
Jiana responded in a low, sing-song chant in High-Tooltak, the dialect of the 
Rime: 
"This desert wide; 
Build bars of sand, to sunder hand 
From hands allied." 
Radience was sure it was a quote, but she could not for her life remember 
hearing any verses like that in the Word or the Commentaries. 
"What is the hand you sunder?" she demanded. 
Jiana made a fist and extended her arm, palm towards Radience. The girl winced 
when she realized it was Jiana's left arm. 
"My hand is not sundered! I don't use it only because I don't like to!" 
Jiana smiled. 
"I did not refer to a hand but to a leg," retorted the warrior, returning the 
obvious lie. "So who owns us?" 
"We are the humble servants of Hal'Addad bin Kerat bin El al'Sophiate, Lord of 
the Wind and the Five Sands, Prince of the Water, Caliph to the Elect from 
Qomsheh to Yazd to the oasis at Deh Bid, Master of Arts and Letters, Satrap of 
Dokamaj Tool. Didn't Curse teach you your 'recites?' " 
Jiana waited impassively while Radience recited the litany of titles. Radience 
realized how hollow the honorifics rang this time, though other times they 
filled her bowels with awe, or at least cold fear. 
"So who owns the tides?" 
"The tides? Ocean tides? What are you talking about?" 
118 



Dafydd ab Hugh 
"Suppose the Lord of the Wind ordered the ebb tide to recede again." 
"That's ridiculous. The tide moves the same way all the time. It has a—a—" 
"Destiny?" suggested the warrior. 
"Call it a destiny. Sure." 
"Suppose I come and go as the tides, following my own destiny. Who owns me 
then?" 
Radience opened her mouth to speak, then realized she had no words. She closed 
her mouth and stepped back a pace. She absently tugged at her tunic sleeve, 
pulling it farther over her left arm, while trying to find the words that had 
dropped from her heart to the ground somewhere. 
"You can't just not work," she insisted at last. "They'd grab you and make you 
work. The Overman would grab you." 
"I am free," Jiana said in a low, unemotional voice. "I only work if I 
choose." 
She turned and walked slowly to the coals dumped from Curse's forge. They 
still glowed a dull red. The two women were alone in the khayma. 
Jiana reached her hand down into the bowl and picked up a lump of grey coal. 
She held it in her hand for a moment. Veins bulged at her temples, but her 
face remained unperturbed. No rictus of agony curled her lip. 
Then she dropped the coal. It struck the leg of the forge as it fell, bursting 
open like a lava egg, exposing the red-glow interior, hot as a salt bed with 
the sun overhead. 
Jiana clenched her left fist, cradling the whole arm with her other arm. She 
looked Radience in the eye and smiled, as if sharing a secret. Then she 
lowered her eyes again. 
"Jiana!" cried Radience. The slave girl's knees were limp rags; she caught 
hold of a supporting pole to hold herself upright. 
"Now let them tell me to work," the warrior whispered. She looked up again. 
Radience could see no pain in the woman's eyes, but the pupils were mere 
pinpricks. 
"Radience . . . can you pick it up?" 
The slave stared at the ugly, red coal. Her heart raced, 
WARRIORWARDS 
119 
and her own breathing became as ragged as Jiana's, She knelt slowly, 
stretching forth her hand towards the grey and red lump. 
Sands and windblinds, why am I doing this? Radience was horrified, but her 
hand seemed to have its own volition. 
Jiana watched her eyes intently. 
"Soon your fingers will touch," she whispered. "Look forward to the charred 
flesh, the smell of burning meat. But I'll hold the pain from you. You won't 
feel it." 
Radiance's hand stopped just a knuckle's width above the coal. She could feel 
the heat, blistering even at that distance. 
"Don't you believe me?" Jiana asked. 
"Yes. Yes, I ..." Radience trailed off, her hand began to tremble. A part of 
her trusted Jiana implicitly—so what if she'd only known her a day, a couple 
moons! Another part recoiled in horror at the thought of what Jiana proposed. 
The two parts fought violently, causing the tremors in her outstretched hand. 
"Are you free enough?" asked the warrior, matter-of-factly. 
"1—I can't!" 
Jiana chuckled indulgently. 
"Leave it, slave. Leave it for Curse. He has tongs." 
The warrior rose to her feet and strode off. She held her blackened left hand 
steady at her side. 
"Come to me when you can pick up the coal, or walk across a bridge," she 
called over her shoulder. 
When Jiana left, Radience found a seat and sat down. She blinked, surprised at 
finding tiny tears in her eyes. 



How long since I last cried? Too long. Back when Mara died. . . . 
Mara? 
Radience gasped, and jumped to her feet. Mara! 
Memories flooded back that had been dammed, dammed for thirteen turns. 
The riders had come when Radience was only four. They took Radience and her 
brother, raped her mother, 
120 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
and killed her big brother Mara out of hand (he was weak from the bowlegs 
disease). 
Stunned, the girl sank back into her seat. 
Turns, turns . . . how could I forget? Mara, how could I forget you? 
The pictures returned, pent up for thirteen turns. Radience sat with her head 
bowed and her eyes moist. But she did not cry. 
Tliey killed him. They bruted him. And they did it again, again in her 
stomach. They set her nine-turn-old brother on fire. 
"I love you, Mara." Radience ran the words together into a single word, a 
mantra, a signet. 
For a long, long time she strained her thoughts. Then she leaned forward and 
fought her gorge back down her throat. 
/ can't even remember my real name! 
She sat thus, hunched over, until the sky turned purple and it was time to run 
light the lanterns. 
2 
By the time Jiana reached the medicine tent, she too was trembling from the 
strain of holding the pain shield. 
She had dreamed up the spell two turns ago. Simply put, there had to be some 
tube or line that connected all parts of the body to the stomach, else how 
could one feel pain? Once that much had occurred to her, she immediately 
thought of a magical clamp, holding shut this tube and preventing the pain 
from traveling down it. No flow, no pain. 
Of course, she understood the danger: the pain flow could build up enormous 
pressure if she held it back too long. What would happen if it burst, 
spreading the pain fluid all over her body? That was a thought upon which she 
refused to dwell. 
Of course, the next problem was how to dispose of the pain fluid that was even 
now straining at the clamp. Sweat 
WARRIOBWAKDS 
121 
stood out on her brow. She felt as if she had drunk two pots of tea, but were 
forbidden from relieving herself for two days. 
She pushed into the medicine khayma, gritting her teeth (which ached). She 
looked quickly around the khayma. 
There was only one patient, a Horseman who had been caught beneath his horse. 
His ribs were crushed, and his lung was punctured; he would die before the 
next sunrise. 
But in the meantime, he was in agony, holding a pillow over his face and 
whimpering quietly. As Jiana watched, he went into a fit of coughing, choking 
on his own blood. He recovered, and continued to breath, gurgling with every 
exhalation. 
Rethe had told them about Rakashti's accident in her regular segment that 
morning, though she did so soberly: Rakashti's face went slack, and he began 
to convulse hi the saddle. He yanked on the reins during his seizure, and the 
confused horse tried to follow his commands. It stumbled over a rock, fell on 
top of Rakashti, and crushed him. The horse was tried and acquitted, and given 
to Rakashti's eldest son. 
Jiana felt guilt begin to well up within her, but she fought it down. He'll be 
dead soon anyway. I have to live. 
She ground her teeth. Was this not exactly the sort of choice she loathed when 
Alanai, Prince of Bay Bay made it? She closed her eyes, and smiled without 



mirth. 
With every step, I force myself down the same path as aU the thousand and one 
demons of arrogance. What next, do I crown, myself Queen of Reality Prime? 
But the dam was about to break, and Jiana was no use to herself or Radience 
screaming in a tent as the full agony of charred flesh washed through her. 
Straining to keep her sense of pain clamped tight, she strode forward and 
pressed her hands around his crushed and bloody chest. She let her eyes glaze 
over, and focused her Oversphere sight on her hand, and on the bulging cable 
of pain that threatened to explode at any moment. 
She visioned a short, curling tube beginning from the 
122 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
other side of the clamp, curving up and around her hand and out her fingertips 
into the Toolian's chest. 
May Tooqa, the dead, non-existent Nameless Serpentine forgive me now, she 
prayed. Taking a deep breath, she released the magical clamp. 
The breath caught in the Horseman's throat for a startled moment. Then he 
began to scream uncontrollably. 
No one came. His injury had been so queer that many Horsemen thought he was 
possessed; they would not be in die khayma with him as he died, lest the daeva 
leap from his body to theirs. 
As soon as the fluid flow ebbed, Jiana visioned a healing white light, glowing 
about her burned hand. She visioned the skin smooth and pink, like a baby's 
hands; then she saw her palm roughly calloused, hard and whole as it had been 
a few moments before. 
Her head began to throb, the blood pounding in her temples like a shinbone 
beating a funeral drum. But when she let the Oversphere slip slowly from her 
view, felling back down into her body, the white light had done its work. 
Her hand was not perfectly healed; but it was well on the road. At least the 
ache was dull and bearable. 
It works . . . wonder if it would be as easy to brush off a wound struck in 
anger as an injury done for effect? 
Her hand still felt peculiar, and the burn was still clearly visible. It would 
be several days before she could use her hand to fall effect. Jiana would have 
no trouble getting her day off. 
She returned to the stables khayma. One of the poles had broken, and Ysmal and 
another slave were sliding a replacement pole into the slot. 
Jiana lowered her eyes to not encourage unwanted attention and tried to 
scuttle past. 
"HsstI" 
She stopped, and deferentially looked up at Ysmal, worried at what he might 
have in mind. He motioned her closer, and she obeyed. 
WARRIORWARDS 
123 
"The Overman's in there, and he's really pissed about something. Walk soft." 
"Thanks," she said, genuinely. She ghosted forward and through the doorflap. 
She made it halfway to her station when Curse spotted her. 
"Jiana! Here." 
She approached slowly, wondering what she might have done. The Overman watched 
her approach as if she were a hound that had urinated on his leg. When she 
drew near, he spoke in a very quiet, matter-of-fact voice. 
"I am seriously considering having you killed, you bitch." 
Her heart began to pound with the speed of dancing drums, and she fell to her 
knees. 
"Please lord, what did I have to done?" she cried. You're terrified. You're a 
cringing slave who barely even speaks Tooltak. 
"An item worth more than the lot of you has vanished, and I am certain that a 
slave has betrayed me by stealing it. And now Curse tells me you have left 
your post repeatedly in the past few weeks. Tell my why I should not play safe 
by having you quartered?" 



Curse coughed and shuffled back. Jiana wondered if he really had said anything 
about her, or whether Giathudin made the story up. 
"I have steal nothing, o great horse! I have never steal nothing!" 
"Well," said the Overman, a note of expectation creeping into his voice, "I 
guess well find out, won't we? Come." 
He seized her ear and strode out of the khayma and into the compound. He 
looked around speculatively. Then he led her away towards the household 
khayma. 
They walked around the back and pushed through the doorflap. Jiana recognized 
the same room where the Overman had beaten Radience. 
They stopped just inside the room. Jiana wrapped her arms around her body and 
tried to shrink smaller, hoping the Overman would feel pity, but he was having 
none of it. 
124 
Dafyddab Hugh 
He pushed her towards the center of the room. "Strip," he commanded, 
"Everything." Just then, Ruhol entered with the flail. 
Can I really do this? Can I let those bastards— 
Yes, you can really do it. Jiana stiffened. It was the voice she kept 
imagining for Cascade. Did every part of her stomach have its own volition 
now? 
Jiana began to tremble; she pulled off her clothes, letting them fall to the 
ground. She was careful to drop her tunic so that it covered her "belt." 
Probably, neither Ciathudin nor Ruhol could tell that it was actually Wave, 
but it was too dangerous to take chances. 
"Keep track for me, she-man," said the Overman. He stood quietly for a moment, 
calming himself. He was determined not to repeat his earlier mistake with 
Radience. 
He smiled sadistically at her, pointed his finger and moved it in a circle. 
Understanding, she slowly turned her back to him, sobbing already though he 
had not yet touched her. 
The Sail swished through the air a few times, then grew silent. 
"Oh, I'm not really going to do anything," said the Overman. He laughed. "I 
just wanted to make sure of your loyalties. Put your clothes back on." 
She stood frozen for a moment, wondering if it were a trick. Then she slowly 
stooped and picked up her tunic. She had just stood up again when the first 
blow fell. 
Somehow her body knew it was coming, though it did not inform her stomach. She 
turned just slightly enough that die part of the flail that struck was a 
hand's-width above the tip, sparing her the worst of die blow. 
"One, your terror," counted die eunuch. It was a late count. Apparently even 
he had been fooled. 
For a moment, Jiana's back was numb. Then die pain began. It felt like a rope 
burn. 
The flail swished again, and this time Ruhol counted just before die blow 
fell, giving Jiana a bit of warning. 
"Two, your terror. Three, your terror." 
The pain was savage, and Jiana felt her mask of slavery 
WARRIORWARDS 
125 
slipping. She did not care. She began to breath (in-hold-out) as she had 
learned in the Flower Empire a dozen turns before. She tried to blank her 
mind. 
"Eight, your terror." They paused, and Jiana allowed herself to collapse 
slowly to her knees. 
Damn it girl, you better get back into character or they're going to sweat it. 
Slave . . . you're a beaten slave, you're in agony! 
No! cried Jianabel. What are you doing? Kill him! Don't let him do it to us! 
Jiana began to moan. She wrapped her arms around her stomach and leaned 
forward until her forehead rested against the canvas floor. She sobbed as 



convincingly as she could, and was startled to discover that what came out of 
her throat was more of a laugh than a sob. She hoped he would not be able to 
tell the difference. 
The counts, the counts are so appropriate! He's so full of terror, of anguish! 
What is he so afraid of, dying? Living? 
"St-stand up," ordered the Overman. Now that Jiana had penetrated the mask of 
pain, she could plainly hear the tremble behind his authoritarian voice. 
She felt hands gently pulling at her elbows. As Ruhol lifted her to her feet, 
he whispered in her ear, "I thank the Overman for this correction." 
She stood and parroted the pro-forma response, forcibly squashing a giggle 
that threatened to rise from her stomach. 
The pain was severe, but swords and arrows had cut her far worse in her long, 
short life. 
Ciathudin struck the first blow of the second set with no preliminary loop 
through the air. He used no finesse, trying to muscle it in. 
The flail staggered her, but it was far less painful than the cunningly 
snapped blows. 
"One, your anguish," essayed the eunuch. 
"You are wrong, half-man." 
"One, your terror," amended Ruhol. 
The next seven blows were progressively more angry, more brutal. The third 
blow knocked Jiana from Her feet. 
126 Dafydd ab Hugh 
The fourth landed before she could even stand up again. For the last four, she 
lay on the canvas, covering her face with her arms to prevent an accidental 
injury to her eyes. 
The Overman screamed something at her with the seventh blow, but he was in 
such an inarticulate rage that Jiana could not understand him, save for the 
phrase "all you bitches." 
After the eighth terror, Jiana reflected that far from anguish she was more in 
a state of detachment. 
/ wonder if his blows have driven me up into the Oversphere? she thought, 
looking down at her cut and bloody body, curled into a ball on the khayma 
floor. Giathudin turned away and walked into a corner. His face was white, and 
he stared at the hand that held die flail. He pulled at his mustache. His 
breathing was rapid and shallow. 
The eunuch picked up a pail of cloudy water and cast it over Jiana's body. 
Time to return, she thought with reluctance. She enjoyed the high view. 
Jiana fell back into herself and struggled to her hands and knees. At that 
moment, the salt-pain hit and she disassociated again. But this time, through 
the agony she visioned a set of silken cords through which she could 
manipulate her limbs. She pulled on the appropriate cables and her body rose 
shakily to its feet. 
How quickly your own game comes back around, laughed the horse-voice in her 
stomach. 
Shut shut shut shut up! 
The Overman had regained control of his anger again. He swirled the 0ail in a 
complicated, double-looping dance and snapped it across her body's shoulders. 
From far below, as an echo from the bottom of a well, she felt the touch. 
"One, your anguish." 
The Overman stopped and looked at Ruhol a long moment. 
"One—your terror," the eunuch amended, reluctantly. 
Giathudin returned to his task. Just as he reached three 
WARRIORWAHDS 
127 
terrors, Jiana became aware of another presence in the room. 
It was al'Sophiate himself. He entered silently, and stood behind the Overman, 
watching the exhibition. 
Giathudin swung the flail up over his head again, but the Caliph's hand darted 
out and caught the shaft, just below the point where it split into five 



snakes. The Overman tugged at his end for a moment. Then he dropped the flail, 
gasping and turning around, hand on his knife. 
Giathudin stared at his lord for several beats, his face blanching. 
Al'Sophiate looked curiously at the bloody tips of the flail, then at Jiana's 
body. He turned his gaze back on the Overman and raised his eyebrows. 
"She—" began the Overman of slaves, then he stopped, realizing that he had not 
even taken the precaution of thinking up a plausible charge. "She ... I 
believe it was she who stole the pearl, Most High." 
"Oh?" said Hal'Addad, his voice a silk cloth hiding a sharp dagger, "and why 
exactly do you think that?" 
The Overman merely stared. 
"I have heard whispers of your cruelty; now I see they were not stories. 
Please remove your presence from my home. Leave your armband with the eunuch." 
The ex-Overman said nothing; he stood unblinking, his mouth open slightly. 
Hal'Addad looked curiously at Jiana. 
"What is wrong with her?" 
"She has gone away," said Ruhol. 
Pretty perceptive, Jiana admitted. 
"Will she—come back?" 
"I do not know, Most High." 
"Well, sit her in a corner where she won't get in anybody's way. And if she 
does come back, let her rest a few days. Horseman, what are you staring at?" 
"But—nothing." 
The Caliph scowled. 
"I mean I'm not staring, Most High. I mean. ..." 
"You have been found out, Horseman Giathudin. You have been caught. Now 
everybody knows what you are." 
128 
Dafydd ab Hug/i 
The Horseman grabbed his penis reflectively. He seemed to be having trouble 
catching a breath. Al'Sophiate turned and passed back through the doorflap. 
"I think I shall give your job to Akadr, your son," he called back over his 
shoulder. Giathudin whimpered like a little boy with wormrot in his stomach. 
As soon as the Caliph had left, Horseman Giathudin fled from die khayma, still 
clutching the crotch of his robe. 
Ruhol took Jiana's shoulders gently; he seemed concerned, but in a distant 
way. Jiana reeled in her silken cords and pulled herself back into her body. 
She braced herself as she fell the final fingerwidth; but die pain was no more 
than a dull, burning throb. The ripped flesh of her back looked worse than it 
felt. 
Still, she staggered and clutched at die eunuch for support. He pulled her 
back to her feet, and began slowly walking her towards the doorflap. 
"Easy. Calm. Quietly. It's over. He won't hurt you anymore. Calmly. How did 
you burn your hand? Never mind." He led her to the hospital khayma, cutting 
off die objections of the surgeon. 
Rakashti was gone. He had probably died. Jiana felt better, perhaps she had 
done good, despite the bwness of her intention. 
"Take her to the horse doctor." 
"Fix her up, Eshmun, or I shall tell the new Overman of Slaves about your 
desecration of Horseman Ibrahm's drunken daughter." 
Eshmun stopped protesting and angrily drew Jiana across one of the tables. He 
poured a salve into her wounds, and pressed cool leaves against them. 
"The new Overman?" he asked. 
"Akadr," said the eunuch. Then he turned and departed circumspectly, without 
recounting the events that had transpired in the household khayma. 
As soon as Ruhol was safely out of earshot, Eshmun had his two assistants pick 
her up by an arm apiece and lusher 
WARRIORWARDS 
129 
over to the doctor of horses. Jiana might have protested; she was more lucid 



than she let on. But she thought it was an advantage. The horse doctor had 
more empathy. 
"Don't usually get ones that talk," he explained, dressing her wounds more 
carefully than had Eshmun. 
"Not usually?" 
"Well, I do recall, yes, it was fifteen turns ago that I doctored a horse that 
not only talked ... or was it twenty? Recall one twenty-five turns ago that 
not only talked, he had wings sprouting from his back. Or perhaps more 
specifically his shoulders, front shoulders." 
"Wings?" 
She listened, occasionally gasping or "Ill-being" as the story warranted. She 
lay on her stomach, blocking out the pain as best as she could. 
You let events overtake you. Teacher would be pissed. 
Another sharp pain ripped through her back, and she bit off a cry. 
/ know. Paying for it, too. 
Hie problem was that the pain itself was so distracting she could not still 
her stomach and conjure. In a score of fighting turns, as far back as White 
Falls, she had taught herself to feel the pain, to swallow it, and vomit forth 
a berserker rage. When the pain was great, the new teaching to release the 
pain evaporated from the surface of yesterday, leaving the jagged edge of 
sensuousness. 
Sensuousness was a barrier to magic. Magic wanted detachment, aloofness, and 
imperturbability. Jiana was caught by her own nature. 
So what is your game today? Jiana could not tell if the voice in her stomach 
was her own, the Wolf Girl's, or Cascade's. 
She lay on her stomach, on her own mat on her own piece of floor. Her sense of 
touch was heightened; every baystem was a needle, every pebble a knife point. 
Hie hay stank of horseflesh, a smell she had never liked and never gotten used 
to, despite all her campaigns. 
So what's this game? This game of "wait." This game of slave . . . 
130 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
But it's so blessedly comfortable! I'm in school again. I'm making mischief, 
not taking scalps. I'm outrageous, but I commit no outrages. It's restful, 
wishful. I like it this way. Who am I to tell Radience she can't fatt out when 
I jumped out myself? Maybe I have no right anyway. 
How long she lay thus, Jiana could not tell. After a time it was dark. She lay 
quietly, listening to the whinnies of the sick horses and the occasional clang 
of a neck-bell when the goat moved in its sleep. 
She felt herself drift into sleep. Bizarre thoughts and images flashed through 
her stomach. Her last thought before stepping through the dream door, so 
peaceful, so at peace. 
ill livingalive, all touching, squirming beneath her hands in her mouth down 
her throat . . . deadliving, deadalive, coming back, reanimate, all her, all 
Jianabel-ana ... 
stands He, declaiming "three times three times three times" and evermore, 
black skin, rotting skin away from bone and tooth peeling back like a rotted 
peach sickly sweet, but livingalive from before all that is and all that was 
and "you know who I am, your player" 
stands He, arms outstretched outreaching reaching out to clutch and grab and 
pull at the deadliving things three times three 
Living things, squirming things, things that wriggle and quiver and quail and 
hurt and anguish, deadliving things, all touched by the He and the She 
rages She 
three times three 
On the crisp blue field of grass beneath the lowering green sky, Jiana sat, 
arms wrapped around her knees. She trembled with a nameless dread. 
"Something I ate, no doubt," she said. 
A hand touched her brow. 
"Oh, Jianabel," she cried, looking up into the wolf eyes and filed teeth, "was 



it just a dream, sure?" 
WARRIOBWARDS 
131 
"Well, everything is just a dream, I dare say." Jiana stood, feeling foolish 
at her hystrionics. "I shouldn't be crying. Sets a bad example for the men." 
"That's the spirit. Buck up, is what 1 always say!" "This isn't White Falls," 
Jiana said, looking about dubiously at the blue grass and the green sky. 
But in The Dream, it is White Falls. Winter, and the river is frozen over. 
Children skate, Jiana skates, and she is with Jiana her sister. The dream, so 
many nights to dream it nowl 
Jiana shook her head and the Wolf Girl returned. "Something troubles your 
eyes, your eyes," observed Jianabel. "Is this still in the dream?" asked 
Jiana. "Which dream?" "They're all dreams until we wake, sister dear." Jiana 
crouched on the cold ground, wrapped arms around her body. The cold was within 
her, not in the ground. "I've seen this dream every night," she whispered 
(afraid to be heard). 
"Then it comes from deep within, sis. Let it out, lest it break out in the 
nominal sleep of waking!" Taking breaths deep and wide, Jiana faced the fear 
and took the dream within her stomach. 
Children skating, She is skating. They ask me, but no. I'm afraid, thinks the 
warrior (now only seven). Scaredy scaredy! they cry. They'd not say it if I 
were out there to get my hands around! But it's too warm, the ice is too thin, 
has to be too . . . 
Jiana sees the skate marks, tracks clear as clear ice. Black-bundled lads 
skate, fet happy and unobserving, identical black tressed heads whipping and 
bobbing in mock-combat on the ice. 
Tracks clear as clear ice; they spread wide as the sky and through them the 
grey river peeks. Breaks! They fell ... she's falling! 
Little girls scream, felling to the ice in panic instead of grabbing Her, let 
Her fell right through the ice into the river. Jiana forgets the thin ice, 
runs crawls (scaredy ratl) slides on her belly, reaches for Her. Up she heaves 
onto 
132 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
the ice, shivering in cold that numbs and dims. But She's . . . too . . . 
heavy. . . . 
Turning her eyes from the sight, Jiana looks again upon Jianabel, unconfesses. 
"I didn't loll her," she says. "I did not loll my sister. They did, the lads 
that were there yet did nothing! At least I fucking tried." 
"Poor Jiana, it was your task. Because you tried, you took the weight, and now 
you'll never throw it off. She drags on you even now, doesn't she? Pulls you 
down under the ice?" 
Shakes her head, becomes young again. Jiana grabs for the hands, seizes Her 
mittens, pulls and pulls but Taidora 
slips 
from grasping hands . . 
The world grows silent, voices drop away as Jiana looks. Stricken. Holding 
empty mittens in her hands as Taidora sinks. 
Under the ice. Through the ice. Through the clear ice, clear as a cloudy sky, 
Jiana (now Jianabelana) sees Taidora's horror-stricken face. Taidora is still 
alive, under the ice; yet she knows she's dead. 
The girl grips the rough underside of the ice for a moment, a heartbeat 
flicker. Reaches out to touch her sister oh the other side of the ice-wall. 
Taidora looks so betrayed; accuses Jiana: her friend, her sister, her — (no 
that last is not a word she can think, not even now) — her friend. 
Why? why can't we die together? Will you come if I 
The current carries her away. Carries her off to glub and blub. Taidora does 
not call Jiana. 
But would Jiana have answered? 
The dream faded, and Jiana stood again before Jianabel. The wolfish queen 



pointed silently to the two columns on either side of her, one alabaster 
white, the other ebony black. 
WARRIORWARDS 
133 
"Which is rising, bodge or podge?" 
"Neither," answered Jiana, weeping; "they're in balance." 
"Remember that in your darkest hour." Jianabel smiled, exposed row upon row of 
sharpened teeth, like skeeniks in Bay Bay harbor. "But you've seen nothing of 
Toq the Boy Frock . . . when does he come along?" 
"You bitch, I'm trying to forget!" The green grass shimmered, the blue sky 
yawned wide. Were they that way before? thought Jiana. / make my own books, 
turning pages with etoery step. No, this next part never happened, Toq retches 
into my stomach! But the memory-wind did not listen, it droned on unstoppable: 
Now is later; Jiana lies on the ice, still as unblown snow. 
Her friends run home, scream to their mamas and poppas, but little Jiana lays 
on her frozen belly, eyes dosed, seeing Taidora's final face. Would you? Would 
you have come? Had I catted? 
flease Tooqa, most perfect most slithering power, please God, by the Nameless 
Serpentine, oh please gtoe me the power to bring her back! It is the wish of a 
child, unremembering the wheel of death and life, unknowing that "gone" is 
just "turned a corner." / want the lifepower, damn your slitted eyes! Let me 
reach through the ice and pull. . . her. . . outl 
And in The Dream—but not in life—ft is done. Jiana is granted grace. The 
power, the Jianabel power cascades into her like a waterfall into a deep pool. 
All she touches reawakens, if ever once alive. All that she touches shall come 
aUve! 
Jiana first learns of her power walking home. Finds a baby mouse, crushed by a 
horse's hoof. "Poor thing," she coos, licking her lips. Not me, thinks the 
older warrior, not my words! Toq speaks filth through my mouth. She-the-girl 
touches the mouse and a lifespark flicks from her finger, ignites the creature 
into "life." 
It is a dubious twist of life. The mouse scampers wildly, unseeing unthinking, 
gibbering not in mousetalk but as senseless as an avalanche. It bites her, 
bites a rock, runs away possessed by furies. 
134 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
"The flimsiest sort of metaphor!" declares Jianabel. 
"Think I don't know that? The bastard positively lives for cheap metaphors! I 
know who the mouse is, and I know how I touched his life." Jiana covered face 
with hands. "It doesn't make it any easier, sister. The sick little puke is 
right about Dida. How can I no* feel guilt?" 
"Continue. The dream presses upon your stomach like wormrot." 
Jiana opened her eyes. "Is that a door I see between the pillars? Open the 
locks, I want to pass through!" 
"A Father Door . . . pair o'doors, actually. But you're not ready yet. You 
can't swim across the gate while your stomach is still foil. Might get 
cramps!" 
"You want it all?" 
"On a plate," said the wolf bitch, baring her canines. 
Jiana runs home, excited. The lifepower! It burns within her hands. 
She touches the door on the way in and gods! leaves sprout, roots writhe. She 
runs inside, waits upon Mamma. Cut the carrots, slice the beets, Mamma says, 
and Jianabelana obeys, good little girl she. 
But when she takes up the roots they squirm in her hand, sprout a thousand 
thousand tiny root hairs, wiggle and pulse; startled, she drops them to the 
dirt floor! 
And where is Taidora? Has Toq forgotten her, sunk under the ice? Where is my 
sister? 
The worst is yet to come. The meat: at dinner, she is careful not to touch 
with her hands. Fearful of the horror, she uses her knife. But within her 



mouth, down her throat—the meat, too, comes alive, alive. 
Squirms. Writhes. Tries to flee. Chooses wrong (not a potato, so it has no 
eyes) and flees straight down her gullet. Bites of flesh in agony roll around 
stomach, stir up memories a million turns old! 
Jiana vomits half chewed hunks of stew. They hump and slither across the 
table. She jumps to her feet screaming, falls forward and (oh Tooqa not ...J 
it is her father who catches her. 
WAFRIORWARDS 
135 
He pulls her close, gentle arms wrapped around her. Jiana's hands press 
against his chest. . . . 
Touches the horrible power to his heart. His chest bursts apart—the organ 
flees, escapes the dark sepulchre of bone and muscle. Blood geysers like 
Taidora's splash through the ice. 
He dies. Jiana falls to her knees drips blood (his blood) from her red-stained 
hands. One thought, one horrid Toq-thought bursts through her numb stomach: 
Cut them! off! Cut your hands off! 
She stands. Calmly plucks knife from the table. She feels nothing; now is the 
time. She lays the blade across her wrist, feels the wood handle sprout 
leaves. Without a care or concern, she saws rapidly straight through the 
agony. 
Halfway through: blood is pouring across the table and floor. It pools, and 
the pools roll about vainly seeking arteries and veins, the only world they 
know. Nearly through: the hand convulses, flops about like a beached fish. 
It is severed. Hand drops, falls to table, scrabbles like a pulpy 
flesh-spider. She chops again, chops and chops and chops herself into the 
tiniest scraps, bits, and jiana pieces. 
But they live, att they live, live they aU do . . . forever. 
And ever. 
Eyes still see, see Toq rising from the face from the lake, the heart from the 
chest, the hand from the arm. He opens a mouth wide as the green sky, words 
tumble out, knuckles from the boneyard: 
Whence! screams the Talk, whence I curse you, for She was your sister, your 
(lover) friend. She beats her fists against the ice, and you stand accused, 
you are death in lice! 
Dice! crows the Coq, dice cursed, for He was your father, your (lover) 
teacher. He falls to the ground clutchit an grabbit and evidence is given, you 
are deaf without lies! 
Spice! caws the Hoq, for Whoresy Blestfamy Unfamly culling doon the snake of 
wrybearth unto your quaiverung 
136 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
boands! Tree Tines and you are guilty, greys Groq; thus three, three, three 
times shall I cross, my shuddow to cross, my shadow to crease your lifel 
Three, the number of Toq, before another age is added to Jiana. Three times . 
. . 
There she WAKES—screaming into the black night of Jianabel's soul, quivering 
like a drop of dew on a bird-shaken branch. "The dream, the dream! He touched 
my heart," said Jiana. "I am full of fear. No feeling for a warrior!" 
"He's touched deeper than your heart, sister." Jianabel looked down, unable to 
meet the warrior's eyes. "He's touched the thread of your life in the woof to 
come." 
"A curse. I've never been accursed. Three times, before what? My next 
birthday? Why three instead of two or five?" 
"Three is the number of all the conquering hero-king pirate gods. Watch." 
Jianabel held her hand up, palm towards Jiana. Her first three fingers were 
extended. As Jiana watched curiously, Jianabel curled her first and third 
fingers down to half mast, leaving the middle finger extended. 
"It's all contained within this sacred sign, sister mine. But that's not 
here"—she pointed at Hodge—"and neither is it there." She pointed at Podge. 



"The reading is simple. Before your next birthday, Toq will blot your life 
three times." 
"I know," Jiana admitted. "I fight the memory. Does un-remembered prophecy 
fell?" 
Jianabel shrugged. "Alas, I think you're going to find out." 
"It scares the shit out of me," said Jiana, trembling. "If you are but one 
part of me, then so too is Toq—and how can I hide from myself? Anyway, that's 
the dream." The turqoise sky faded seamlessly into the grass. Jiana could see 
no horizon. 
"And quite a dream it is, sister mine. I've taught you 11i» ^ well! 
WARRIORWABDS 
137 
"Why is Toq so pissed anyway?" 
Jianabel rolled her eyes. 
"Don't be stupid. For the other dream, the World's Dream, of course!" 
"For that?" Jiana cried. "He's still on about that?" 
"You defied him. He played you, and you turned about and played him. He's not 
used to being used. If the game rules permitted, he would wipe your existence 
from all nine hundred million spheres—but of course, they don't permit. Which 
is lucky for Toq." 
"For Toq! What of me?" 
"It would be his sin, not yours." 
"But my existence that would be terminated!" 
"Hah! Ever wonder why they say the weight of your sins shall drag you under 
like blood turned to stone? It's mechanical. When you drop a rock it falls not 
because it likes falling, but because unsupported things fall down." 
"Toldo never believed in the last judgment preached by the Eagle Priests." 
"If you dropped him over a cliff, would he believe in falling?" 
Jiana chuckled at the thought of the roly-poly priest tumbling end over end 
over an endless cliff. 
"Wouldn't matter what he believed, beast. He'd fall because it was falling 
time." 
"Which is rising?" Jianabel asked, pointing at the Hodge and Podge columns 
again. Jiana stared, rubbing her eyes. One of them was getting bigger! 
"It's Podge! The white one is rising, sure as snakes." 
"That's Toq, the ultimate little-boy adolescent and his election. Am I moving 
too fast for you? Toq always appears in white. You dress in black, but your 
skin beneath is pale white. The Podge rose strong within you, and you became a 
warrior; but it's still covered by the black Hodge of your femaleness, which 
you think holds you back. Now I know I'm going too fast; I can see your eyes 
spinning!" 
"Look, this is all very interesting, I guess, but all I want is a way to 
protect myself from Toq." 
"Why not just say no?" 
138 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
"What?" 
"Toq won't blot your life, or whatever the silly calls it. He can't; it's not 
part of the rules. You'll do all that work yourself. So when each of the three 
times come, just don't do it!" 
"How will I know what choice to make to not blot my life?" 
"Wake up." 
"Is this all a dream? Oh, of course it is, 'cause I can see you. You're just a 
part of me, even if you do talk." 
"That's not what I meant, sister. I meant wake up from the dream of life. Quit 
this world. Quit the next world. Quit quitting." 
"But I know different," insisted Jiana. 
"Everything you know is wrong." 
"Damn you, I had it all figured outl You are just another part of me, and I 
take responsibility for what you do and want to dol" 



"I allowed you to come to a false conclusion, sis. You needed its implications 
at that time. You can face the truth now, Jiana. Toldo was wrong ... I am not 
a part of you." 
Jiana shut her eyes tightly and clapped her hands over her ears. 
"I'm going to wake up now, I'm going to wake up now," she chanted. "I'm not 
listening to you, you figment!" 
But her hands had holes right through them, through which Jianabel whispered 
into her ears. 
"How do you know? Because a fat priest told you so? Because it's a convenient 
answer? I'm more powerful than you can possibly imagine, silly Jiana. I 
created this world and all the spheres! I made the grass green. Who are you to 
box me inside your tiny stomach?" 
Jiana ran across the bright blue grass, fleeing the Other. The blades sliced 
at the soles of her feet like razors, and green blood dripped mocking from the 
sky. 
A night wind blew, calling "fool, foool! ghooul . . . cruuel ..." 
"Please," Jiana begged, falling to her knees in the brittle blue blades, "I 
want to wake up now." 
WARRIORWARDS 
139 
"You can wake up," Jianabel insisted firmly. Jiana looked up and saw the 
naked, alien being standing over her. 
"You must wake up. You can't afford to sleep a moment longer. How long have 
you tarried, playing slave? How many easy roads have you taken on this quest? 
Why did you turn away from that slave girl, as you turned finally away from 
Dida? You're asleep!" 
"But I have to! I have to get inside her stomach to show her freedom." 
Jianabel waited silently. Anxiety crept into Jiana's heart. What did the wolf 
want from her? 
"You've lost the path, sister," said Jianabel quietly. 
"No." 
"You tried a shortcut through the lotus fields. That was silly, Jiana. Now 
you're asleep and might never wake up again." 
"No! I took no shortcuts. I did it by the book this time. Not like last time." 
"Can you really pick up a burning coal, Jiana?" 
Jiana's hand burst into flames. She bit back a scream before it rose through 
her throat. She clenched her hand into a fist, thought not real not happening 
bitch is in my stomach stirring up agonies. 
"Stop slobbering!" Jianabel demanded. She stamped her foot and shattered a 
footprint into the grass. "You can wake yourself. Just walk through that door, 
the Father Door." Jianabel looked through Jiana, through Hodge and Podge—left 
and right sides of a doorway leading into a tiny, one-room building. 
Now how could I have missed that before? Jiana thought as the pain ebbed. Sure 
and sure, a sign upon it read FATHER DOOR. 
Jianabel whispered, sharing conspiracy, "Actually, it's a pair o'doors, a 
purse evil." 
A chill breeze shaved Jiana's head. Tonight of all nights, she felt life's old 
pull, taffy hands sticking her soul back along the path, away from the Father 
Door, back to Daddy's door. 
"I'm afraid," she admitted, did not like the word's taste. 
140 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
The harrow wench touched her back and arm gently, put lips next to Jiana's 
ear. 
"You ask the girl to step through her door. But you wouldn't even pick up a 
coal. What's through the Father Door? Frightness, madness, coldness, and loss. 
What's through the door is what you bring to the Father Door, Jiana." 
Jiana looked back at her sister-plus. The girl's face had lost its customary 
smirk, carry-tale curl of cruelty. "You've walked through that door," Jiana 
declared. 



"No," Jianabel shook her head. "I walked through my own Father Door. A bloody 
lot of them." For an instant, her eyes hollowed, stared into terrors beyond 
the edge of Jiana's night. Then she smiled, mask intact again. 
Terror she had never felt before gripped Jiana. More than any arguments, this 
persuaded her to action. "Fuck it. Through the Father Door, frights and all!" 
To herself: / cannot cannot cannot stand this indecision! Whatever helTs 
behind the door, at least the hemhawing will be gone. Please, . . . 
She began to walk, but she had barely taken five steps when Jianabel called to 
her. "O, sister, you must trust in the Master to provide; you cannot do for 
yourself. Matches and tinder must stay behind." 
"But how will I ward away die cold?" 
"You must look within; all fire comes from within." 
Reluctantly, Jiana removed her tinderbox and matches and laid them on the 
grass like offerings to Mulak of Fire. She resumed her steps, but took only 
three more when die Other spoke out again. "O sister, die clothes too must 
stay." 
"But, Jianabel! I need them for disguise, to enter die slave's world!" 
They must stay for that very reason. Silly, modesty tike lust is a false mask 
to cover naked truth! Whatever you feel, feel with your own skin!" 
Jiana undid her belt and dropped to die ground. The tunic and pantaloons 
followed, leaving only her sword. The wind made her shiver. Modesty? She 
burned to cover herself] Never before had she felt so vulnerable, liana 
WARRIORWARDS 
141 
forced her hands down, refused to feel eyes burning into her breasts, thighs, 
warm black hair, ankles. 
She started again for the Father Door, trepidation turning to excitement to 
arousal to fear. She managed but two baby-steps before Jianabel called her to 
halt. 
"Wave," added Jianabel, mournfully. 
"My sword? How can I leave my sword? Wave has been with me since I don't know 
when. She's the final point in any argument!" 
"Your stomach is sometimes full, sometimes empty. But it's your own. Your 
sword is bought, a hunk of steel." 
Jiana touched Wave, stroked her. "Loved one. I will be back for you." She 
kissed the hilt, long and slow like a lover. "Don't listen to her; your soul 
is just sharper than most." 
She laid Wave upon the blue sward and took the final step unmolested, reached 
the door itself. Jianabel's voice was feint with distance. 
"Sandals, too, sis. Turtles all the way down." 
"Ill be frightened without them," she said, more to herself than to Jianabel. 
The girl answered just the same. "Depend only upon your own valor, not the 
happy accident of your magic. Oh, please kick them offl Don't stop now!" 
Reluctantly, Jiana stepped out of first one dien the other. Holding only 
herself, she was ready to enter the chapel. 
"Ill wait for you," said Jianabel, concern and worry edging her voice. "I'll 
see you if you pass through. Do what you must, that's all. Always follow love, 
but do what you must. Can't go back though—it's a one-way door!" 
Jiana gritted her teeth and did not look back. The chapel was unbroken grey 
stone framed by the Hodge and Podge pillars. Two doors, one said "FATHER," die 
other "DOOR" She grabbed die enormous, round latches with both hands and 
yanked them open. 
Silence reigned. Rough canvas pressed against die soles of her bare feet. She 
heard only the rasp of her own 
142 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
ragged breath. They're not even sure it is a door! tittered the mice. 
Jiana walked a long corridor, pulpy walls closing around her until she had to 
squirm through on her belly. She pushed through a sphincter into a great, red 
pentagon. Hot sweat dripped down her body. 



She stood in confusion. Then light dawned; the Empire khayma, she thought, 
skin flushed. Three score dead Horsemen surrounded her, and she dared not 
move. She blinked. Pieces of sleep still lurked in her eyelids. 
If I move I shall frighten them to life! She heard a dull strumming, like a 
great water-engine churning out the sea. If it's the Empire khayma, one side 
leads to the inner sanctum of aFSophiate, one leads to the desert. The other 
three sides lead to sleeping rooms, where dream the Overmen. But what is my 
task? Which door is the next Father Door? 
There was no clue which orifice led out, so she tried die closest one. Jiana 
groped in darkness, found warm wet that tasted of Sister Taidora's Secret. She 
pushed the rest of her body through. Blood scraped off the walls, coating her 
like a naughty hand on moon-day. 
Jiana guessed wrong. The fleshflap lead to a triangular sleeping chamber. A 
man lay on the mat and shivered from cold premonition. 
She heard a hacking cough. One of the Horsemen choked on something, probably 
his own spittle. He coughed his windpipe clear, but Jiana heard his neighbors 
stir on their mats. Any moment they would sit up and cook the poor blighter. 
Frantic, Jiana yanked shut the flap and scurried to bedside. She crouched in a 
tiny woom. Curled on the mat was a tiny, transparent baby. On its back, it 
floccillated ceilingwards. 
Who is he? Cute enough kid. Sweet he was. A Kidder, she thought, Must be 
Akidder. He was surely not his father Gi'a'thuddin"! 
WARRIOBWARDS 
143 
Hot still tent air stifled her. She sweated, watching the baby, boy, manling 
lying in his drenched bed awaiting fate. Too many easy roads on this quest, 
she thought. Frightening images of throats and coats, hearts and tarts danced 
before her eyes. 
A familiar smell pulled her head aside. Toldo Mondo leaned close, a sun in his 
eye. Looked he did straight through her heart. He was not there sure, but he 
loomed targe in her stomach. "There are always easy roads, Jianabelladonna, 
but some easy roads are true never die nevertheless." 
"Take him," counseled the Evil Tampertress. "He owns you, he groans you, and 
now again he bones you!" 
More voices uninvited in her stomach's ear. "-Nol Tis father, 'tis Guy Hath a 
Dream!" 
"Lick father," said Toldo . . . 
"Lock son!" finished triumphant Jianabel. 
Jiana looked down. A helpless infant, sucking on a foot. "Go on, it's only a 
dream! Matters not what I do." 
A dream, a gleam, a scream! laughed the little girl, filing sharpness into 
pointy teeth. Jianabel stood beside Jiana in the dark, but Jiana stood alone. 
Was it Jianabel, or just the left of Jiana's right? Jiana cringed, covered 
breasts and belly. 
Hands touched her from behind, a poke between her thighs: a naked Toldo, fat 
belly pressing her buttocks as he pulled him into her. 
"Just blow, just blow it, just blow it up. . . ." 
A long snakey umbilical cord (the Nameless Serpentine agrin) entwined out of 
die bay-bay-baby's belly, curled and twisted into phantastical knots of 
matter, essence, spirit, and stomach. The cord terminated in a nozzle like the 
tied-end of Jianabelana's pig-bladder. 
Dilai, too, appeared before her. Long, slanky-black hair flipped from his 
eyes, half-lidded pale skin flushed with 
144 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
excritement He inhaled to speak. The air whooshed into his lungs and he puffed 
into a bloat-ball. Dangling two arms, three legs like fruit from a tree, he 
floated to the top of the khayma, squeezed through the smoke hole and was 
gone, wordless. 
Jiana was alone. Again, at last, she looked upon the birthcord, fingered it 



gently. Flecks of watery blood dripped from the end. The child looked into 
Jiana's untrustingworthy eyes. 
T-teeth!" stuttered Akadr, shivering in nightmare, "her teeth, they're filed 
to a . . ." 
Dilai my only love, you showed me the way, Jiana said aloud in her stomach. 
Long-lovingly she brought the end up, up to her lips, closed eyes, inhaled 
godbreath from the babe into her mouth. 
He collapsed inward. His frightened eyes opened wide, scream-cry cut off in 
mid-wail as belly, then chest flattened as a toad beneath a cartwheel. 
She heard a pop and one fat arm curled, followed by a chubby leg. His skin 
folded, crumbled like discarded parchment as the last enthusiasm was sucked 
from his tiny body into Jiana's gut. 
Skin, all that was left. She had sucked the baby dry. Overcome with remorse 
and guilt, she spit out drops of baby and fell to her knees, cried "Tooqa, 
Tooqa, will no one help the widow-maker's son?" 
Drained, she sobbed. She wished for Jianabel, Toldo, but most of all for Wave. 
/ know what you did, you bitchl Worse than blood-sucker, a soul-drinker you 
made me! 
She stood in a rivulet of blood, swamp of excrement. War-buddies floated in 
soupy liquid, buried for compost. Blood poured from her mouth, vagina—birth 
and death linked in blood pudding. 
Blood the suckrament, droned Toldo Mondo, shadowed across her, hulked like a 
Skinpriest. "Blood on her fourheads, Sign of the Snake! With this blood I do 
cum firm, the knife rises and foils, whacldty-whacldtyl" 
WABRIOBWARDS 
145 
Knife guts. Blood redeems. Jiana answers, completes the ritual: _/tfl the 
plates for feeders, fooders, suckers of humors! 
Her teeth felt funny. She touched them . . . inarching around her mourn, mouth 
full of beetles, each filed to a Jianabel point. "Oh, gods, I'm a dead woman," 
she sobbed to the khayma wall. She cried tiny red rivulets down her nude 
belly, across battle-scarred thighs. 
She pressed out her hands. Fingers sliced through the meat (no, it's just a 
canvas wall!), razor through a tight drum. She stepped through the gash, and 
spoke to the Wolf Within: "Sisters under the skin now, my heart. Brothers 
across the blood, my flesh. Murther and further, priceless and prancelust. I 
hate you." 
7 love you. 
I love you, too, slobbed Jiana. Ashamed of her nakedness, she ran across the 
chipped blue ground to tile water trough. The moons stared, uneven eyes 
watched from the depths. Jiana washed the blood from her skin. 
It spread across the still water. Stained the five wooden sides. Dream-Akadr 
spiraled in the waking horse trough, candy red in sleep. 
News of the shocking death spread outward from the household khayma like waves 
spreading across a still-water lake, touching every shore, after a great stone 
had fallen. Wives jumped up from their tables, and their slaves spilled the 
food. Chests and buckets overturned, and the Elect of al'Sophiate staggered as 
if physically struck. A cart fell upon its side, overturned by wave or heavy 
wind. 
Everywhere, slaves, -herders. Horsemen, and Overmen ran wildly like headless 
fowl, yelling the news that everyone already knew; Akadr was slain, yet not a 
mark upon him found! 
Jiana woke from her bricker dream. She sat up in her sleeping roll, horrible 
images pushing against her eyelids until she thought they would burst apart. 
She was sweating, though it was not hot, and her mus146 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
cles ached. Her hands were cramped, as if they had clutched something hard and 
round all night, but she was rolled in her blankets, and nothing to be found. 
The sun had not yet cleared the eastern mountains, and the early morning chill 
made her shiver in her damp blankets. 



"Akadr has been slain, yet not a mark upon himl" 
Jiana felt a cold river trickle up and down her spine. Was that me? Was that 
him? Did I slay him in a dream, in a trance? Or just a horrible, horrible 
coincidence? 
"But how was he found?" 
Lips drawn back in rictus shrinking at the last from horrors unimaginable 
hexed to death witches and demons and daevas summoned from the blackest pits 
by—by a slave! 
This inference was drawn within moments. No one knew who drew it first. Only 
slaves and Horsemen had access to the Empire khayma, and no Horseman (they 
said) would have attacked an unarmed man in his dreams, let alone call up a 
daeva. 
By midmorning, the clampdown began. A slave who wandered off" to sneak a nap 
was caught and beaten. Kyaddi, a member of Rethe's group, was kicked by a 
Horseman because she forgot to bring him a bucket of water for his horse. When 
she fell, he lacked her again. 
The incidents themselves were not unheard of, but the men who perpetrated them 
had been gentle and lenient the day before. The Horsemen withdrew among 
themselves, shunning the company of the other members of the Caliph's Elect, 
herders and craftsmen with whom they had enjoyed an easy camaraderie for 
turns. 
By noon, the clampdown became official. Slaves were forbidden to initiate 
conversation with freemen. Slaves were to be constantly supervised by Overmen 
and trustees such as Rethe. All but the household slaves were to be chained at 
night; those who worked in die household khayma would not be chained, but they 
would be guarded. 
Jiana put down the saddle she was polishing and repolishing, wiped her 
forehead, and said, "I need break, damn it!" 
WARRIOHWAHDS 
147 
Rethe pulled at her lip, looking back over her shoulder, looking for a noise 
she had imagined. 
"Don't cuss at me. I'm doing what I can, Jiana. Kyaddi hasn't stopped crying 
since that oaf booted her." 
"I'm not Kyaddi. I not cry. I need to the break, yes?" 
"What if Curse or Ysmal needs a horse shod, or something?" 
"The sun is high!" 
"Damn you, Kyaddi's only dress was ruined!" 
Jiana just waited impassively, watching Rethe. The woman puBed at her lip 
again, worrying at a cold sore that was trying to scab over. Finally, swearing 
unintelligibly, she picked up a bucket and a pair of stirrups and handed them 
to Jiana. 
"Here. They'll all think you're on some crazy errand and leave you alone. Back 
long before nightfall, yes?" 
Jiana nodded, and left in search of Radience. 
She found the girl scrubbing a roll of canvas, tears streaking her face. 
"Hello, Radience." 
"You, too." Radience scowled at Jiana, looking speculative. 
"How are you making out?" 
"I got slapped for laughing." 
"Dear me. Really treating you like a slave, hm?" 
Radience sucked in a sudden breath, and her face paled. 
"Did you—was it you?" 
"Does it make a difference? For all I know, you might have done it; you live 
here." She nodded at the khayma, in whose shadow they crouched. "Matters not. 
We're all treated like murderers now. Remember this well, lad. To the master, 
every slave is a spy." 
"No! It wasn't like that! Things were fine before. . . ." 
"Were they! Could you have walked over that bridge in Bay Bay?" 
Radience said nothing. She scrubbed the canvas so vigorously she lost control 



of the horsehair brush, and it flew through the air. 
That night, Jiana waited until the other slaves had fallen asleep. Then she 
waited while the great moon rose into a 
148 
Dqfydd ah Hugh 
dark cloud, excruciatingly slowly. At last the compound was dark. 
She leaned over her shackle, letting her stomach drift. The words of the 
Overman tumbled out, almost without her thinking about them: 
Flick flack Click back Pop box Drop locks 
With an alarming creak, the lock fell open. Jiana gingerly disengaged the 
chains and slipped her hands free. 
She ghosted through the compound, letting her eyes drift, deliberately holding 
her stomach empty, seeking an outlet for mischief. 
Jiana smiled, spying a mini-khayma, more like a tent, which contained the 
horse's feed for the next few days. She spotted the nearest torch, and scanned 
the route there and back again for Horsemen. 
Jiana dithered, wondering whether she should use her magic. It would be so 
easy! She could simply walk up to die torch and fetch it back. Better yet, she 
could probably conjure up a fire in the tent without resorting to die torch at 
all. 
But she felt a strong presentiment that it would be some sort of violation of 
the rules. Rules? What rides? But deep within she knew that there were rules 
that pulled her back and forth, as the tides were pulled in and out, as a 
stone and a stick in water were pulled in opposite directions. 
Taking a deep breath, Jiana stepped from behind the household khayma into the 
shadows of the night. She stilled her pulse, and made herself feel confidence. 
In fear, the shadows are blacker; they wiU not see me! 
She walked steadily, the cold stones of die clearing burning her feet tike 
lumps of coal. A breeze blew ice-knives through her, and she shivered, both 
with the cold and with anticipation. 
As she walked, she bowed her head and tried to touch 
WARRIORWAHDS 
149 
the pulse of Reality Prime. Every sphere has a beat, she thought. If I walk 
through the ebb tides, 1 can slip under their attention. 
The great moon rose past its concealing cloud, and Jiana found herself, naked 
and exposed, standing in the middle of a well-lit clearing. She was equally 
for from the storage tent and the safety of the khaymas. 
She did not stop; she continued walking, eyes half-shut, listening for any 
change in the beat which would indicate that someone had taken notice. At 
last, she reached the torch. No one had seen. 
She plucked it from its holder and continued towards the tent without missing 
a step. 
Once inside, she kicked the grain to stir it up. It puffed up into a cloud of 
chaff, and Jiana nearly choked on it. She threw the torch into the middle of 
the pile, and ducked out of the tent again. 
The sudden, bloody dawn roused the entire encampment. Horsemen bolted from 
their khayma in panic, half-dressed or naked. Herders and tailors, tentmakers 
and candledippers, rangers and priests, all streamed into the main compound 
clutching buckets, pots, or waterskins. 
In the confusion, Jiana slipped back to her group. No one noticed; they were 
too busy yelling and pointing at the fire. 
The children cried, and the women held veils across their faces and wailed. 
The men ran to one side of the Elect and asked who could have done such a 
thing; then they ran to the other side and demanded that the culprit surrender 
himself. 
Some of the Horsemen became enraged when they saw that the loss was total. 
They charged the mass of chained slaves and began beating and kicking them 
indiscriminately. The slaves cried out for protection, but for a long time no 
one came to their aid. 



Jiana curled into a tight ball, guarding her head and belly, and incidentally 
covering the feet that her own shackle was unlocked. She was kicked twice, 
both times in the side but with insufficient force to break a rib. 
150 
Dqfydd ab Hugh 
Eventually, al'Sophiate himself stepped into the firelight. His sleeping robe 
was wrapped around him, but he wore his ha'ik headdress of religious office. 
The Elect grew silent, even the Horsemen. 
"There are daevas among us," he said, speaking as Caliph. "No mortal man could 
have committed both these atrocities, the slaying and the conflagration, not 
under the watching eyes of Horsemen and Elect. 
"We must root out these daevas, which certainly have taken residence in one of 
the Elect, or a slave. We must drive the devils out of this poor unfortunate, 
lest he die and be denied the Paradise which the Seer has promised." 
Al'Sophiate looked into the flames for a moment. They were beginning to die 
down, but it would be full daylight before the fire was burned to embers. He 
turned and walked back to his own khayma. 
When he had gone, the Overmen called the Horsemen together to confer. Jiana 
continued working at the tongue of her shackle, which stubbornly refused to 
latch. 
Damn, can't be caught with this thing open . . . Jiana wished for oil, but 
none materialized. The Horsemen returned to the firelight, spread out and 
began to collect slaves, herding them into the slave's khayma. 
Horseman Ciathudin appeared with Rethe and Ysmal. The two slave Voices pointed 
out their own charges, and the once-Overman unlocked their ankles and pushed 
each to her respective Voice. 
Giathudin paused as he saw her. His lip curled, and Jiana braced herself for 
whatever he might do to her. 
She kept squeezing the lock shut, hoping he would think she was only nursing a 
sore ankle that was unused to a shackle. He reached her in three strides, and 
deliberately stepped upon her leg with his full weight. 
"So, what filth is this? Got a devil inside you, you little, foreign-born 
cunt? I think not; I think you're just a murderous, disloyal, traitorous 
bitch." He ground his foot into Jiana's shin. She gritted her teeth and 
refused to cry out; 
WARHIORWARDS 
151 
her days of playing the cowering slave ended in that moment, she decided. 
Rethe was at Giathudin*s side instantly, her clenched fists resting on her 
hips. 
"I am certain you don't mean to be damaging property of the Caliph of the 
Elect, do you?" Her voice had a warning tone to it, and Giathudin looked at 
her sharply. 
"What did you say?" he demanded, his voice cracking in falsetto. 
Rethe stepped close to Giathudin and spoke so softly that Jiana could barely 
hear her voice, close as she was. Yet it was foil of menace. 
"I mean, you horseturd, that if you don't take your fucking foot off my girl 
111 cut your balls off ... my Lord Horseman." 
Giathudin stared at Rethe; Jiana could not tell whether he was enraged or 
terrified. The slave Voice continued. 
"Remember, Horseman Giathudin: / know where you buried the bones of Mansur bin 
Ibrahim," 
Giathudin shrank back a step into the darkness, but Jiana could smell the 
sweat of fear coming from the former Overman. 
Throughout this exchange, Ysmal had stood back in deference to Rethe's 
superior rank. He stepped forward as Giathudin withdrew. 
Rethe squatted near Jiana. 
"You alright, Jiana?" Jiana nodded. Rethe gently moved the warrior's hands 
away from the shackle and inserted the key. Naturally it would not turn. 
"Ysmal, get this thing unlocked," Rethe ordered. The boy approached. He took 



hold of the key in one hand, and Jiana's leg in the other. 
Ysmal twisted as hard as he could. With a wrench, the key turned in the lock. 
Ysmal took hold of the tongue, using both hands this time, and pulled it free 
of the body of the lock. He gestured flamboyantly. 
"Hm," mused Rethe, "toss that thing to the desert, or the bushes, I mean. 
Damn, we're going to run out of locks before this night is through!" She 
smiled at Jiana. "That's 
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Dafydd ah Hugh 
die fifth busted lock we've had tonight. Been so long since we used these! 
C'mon, tough it out . . . the clampdowns don't last forever." 
"Have ever been through it one, your most sen?" Jiana asked. 
"Have I ever been through one myself? Well, yes, when the immortal Kerat bin 
El, father of al'Sophiate, was murdered in his sleep by an assassin sent by 
the Old Man in die Mountains. I was fifteen, so it was, urn, three or four 
turns ago." She massaged Jiana's ankle a bit. "It gets better. Wait till they 
find the possessed one and drive the daevas out. Things'11 get back to 
normal." 
Rethe gently punched Jiana's shoulder and stood. 
"Arms up, girl. See you in the morning for a head-count" 
Jiana stood slowly, feigning stiffness. She watched Rethe's back as she 
approached the next slave. / like her, the warrior thought. How, when I 
despised one slavemaster, can I feel affection for another? 
Because, Jiana dear, Rethe makes no claim to OWN you. She is as much a 
prisoner as are you. 
So was Akadr, Jiana responded. Wo* he bred or led any less than Rethe, or 
Radience, or me? 
You're growing, Jianaf Alright then, Akadr died not because he deserved 
punishment, but because it was necessary at that moment. While his father was 
Overman, Akadr could learn the uselessness of brutality. But when he inherited 
the job, he could learn only one thing: to become everything he despised in 
Giathudin. 
Great. So now he's dead, and he won't learn anything. 
He's still on the Wheel, silly! laughed the voice. 
Jiana shrugged and plodded towards the slave khayma, her ears burning. 
Jianabel was right, of course. 
You can always learn something. 
Chapter V: 
Stands the sands and cracks the Teeth, Freedom In a cell 
Radience sat in a corner of the household khayma, her knees drawn up and her 
good arm locked around them. I'm not going to cry, she promised, and kept her 
word. She had been sitting thus ever since serving supper to the Horsemen. 
It would not be long until the new Overman of Slaves, Hakkim al'Kug (the 
Ghoul), cousin of Giathudin, came by to lock her up with die rest of die 
slaves for die night. 
/ will not cry. 1 won't give her the satisfaction. 
Days had passed since the death of Akadr, and Radience was more convinced than 
ever that Jiana had something to do with his death. And who had set die 
store-tent on fire die next night? Who had loosed die horses, who had spilled 
die goat's milk? 
The outrages continued every night, despite a dozen Horsemen and a hundred of 
the Elect, one hundred and twelve pairs of eyes watching every slave, every 
man and woman, each child—even watching die odier Horsemen. The outrages 
continued, always in a different place, an-odier trick that no one had thought 
to guard against. 
It could not be Jiana. It could not be, for she was 
153 
154 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
WARMOBWARDS 



watched night and day! Horseman Ciathudin was utterly convinced that she had 
given herself to the daevas, and he maintained constant guard. 
Yet the outrages continued, and the watchmen swore by the Seer that her body 
at least had not stirred from stars to sunlight. 
Could it be her animus? Is she projecting a malign spirit to hound and harry 
us? But that theory did not explain all of die accidents among the slaves, 
even among those of the Faith, who were immune to magic. 
Yadzr dragged a cookpot and caught a pole of the household khayma, pulling one 
side of it down in mid-meal. Three cooks burned themselves and were out of 
work for days, leaving the cooking to the Horsemen's wives (who were terrible 
cooks). Slaves fell off horses. Slaves dropped the food. They became suddenly 
stupid, following orders to the letter that were obviously meant to be 
liberally interpreted ("get rid of those extra horses," said al'Kug, and Ysmal 
pulled off their bridles and drove them away). 
Progress had been reduced to a crawl, and the Caliph was in a fury. He ordered 
beatings, and the Horsemen took die hint and turned brutal, pushing and 
kicking slaves even when they did nothing wrong. But this did not cure the 
problem; if anything, the accidents grew more spectacular and much stupider. 
Little Dorsis from die East had to be killed when Aghi spilled a pot of 
boiling oil on her. Al'Kug grabbed for Dorsis, but he was a heartbeat too 
slow, and in an instant she was writhing on the ground and screaming so 
heart-rendingly that die Overman drew his tulwar and cut her head off to spare 
her agony. 
That night, Aghi hanged herself, and al'Sophiate was poorer by two slaves. 
It was two days since Aghi's death, and Radience sat in a dark corner with her 
knees up, waiting for lockdown. What's happened to the world? It can't att be 
Jiana—how could even such a witch as she make Aghi spill a pot of boiling oil 
or make Ysmal loose a pair of horses? It's insane! 
Radience reached up and tugged at her coyar. Same-
how, it seemed to be getting tighter, and she was having a Harder time 
breathing. She was afraid to mention diis to any of the other slaves. 
Voices and feet sounded in the next chamber; it was al'Kug and a Horseman. 
Curse the smith accompanied diem widi die chains. They entered die sleeping 
chamber, and al'Kug said, "Let's make diis fast, yes? Get back to our nice 
beds?" He folded his arms and stood in die doorflap, impatiently blowing air 
through his lips without whistling. 
Curse took one side of die khayma, and die Horseman took Radience's side. She 
did not know him. He rushed through the khayma chamber, slapping shackles 
around each left ankle. When he came to Radience, he did not even look at her 
fece. 
Al'Kug began slapping his hands together. 
"Come, come! Faster! Three more groups to do, and we're all tired, yes?" Curse 
and the Horseman ran back to die Overman, and without a backward glance diey 
passed back through die doorflap. 
Radience sat in die corner unmoving. Then she reached down and absently tugged 
at die shackle. 
To her surprise, it popped open. The Horseman had not pushed it far enough to 
lock. 
So what? Remember the cottar? It holds you, and anyway, will you repay 
kindness with theft? You're valuable property! 
Kindness? What kindness have they shown me recently? They took Aghi from me! 
Aghi took herself. She kitted herself. Are you going to be a quitter? 
Radience slowly spread die anklet with her fingers and noiselessly slid her 
foot out. She waited (inbreathing, listening for approaching footsteps (she 
puUed it out! look everybody, she putted it out right in front of us!) but no 
one heard. She stood slowly in die darkness. 
You're going to be in a lot of trouble, young lady. You better just sit right 
down and lock yourself in again. 
Radience crept along the edge of the khayma wall, feeling for die slit Only 



two other slaves knew of it. One 
156 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
of the cooks had cut it years ago to facilitate sneaking out to drink 
forbidden wine. Radience often used it to relieve herself during the 
night—used to use it, she thought. 
Even Jiana did not know about (his one. 
Tonight it served a more sinister purpose. They can't make me cry, the 
bastards; I'tt give them something to wonder about! Radience had a particular 
destination in mind, the Caliph's dressing chamber. 
Radience crept on cat feet along the outer wall of the household khayma. The 
sky was overcast, and she had to feel her way in the blackness .with her bare 
feet and her little hand on the canvas. 
She passed first one of the main poles, then found the second. After waiting 
one hundred heartbeats, listening for approaching guards and nerving herself 
to the task, she shimmied up the pole. The hand pegs were spaced too far 
apart, for they were spaced for a normal man with a normal reach, not a girl 
with only one good arm. But Radience discovered that it was still easy, just 
as it had been when she used to play hide-me-find-me with Teenja (no! don't 
think about . . . !). 
A flicker of anger wanned her tiny frame. What right had that woman to ruin 
Radiance's life? What right had she to burn storetents and slit the throat of 
Overmen? and why did Radience keep wondering what Jiana would think, in spite 
of all attempts to drive that woman from her stomach? 
So who really had the daevas? Did the possessed one know it, or were they 
hidden, like the pox for moons and moons after you contracted it? Could they 
be possessing Radience herself? 
That thought paused her. What if she were the vessel for the evil daevas, 
would she know it? It might explain what she was doing now, climbing on tent 
poles in the middle of the night like a monkey. 
Oh Lord of the Wind and the Five Sands, she thought, I'm actually going to 
burn all of your clothes! Why? Why! I don't know why, that's why! 
The compulsion drove Radience on, and she climbed 
WARMOKWARDS 
157 
the last few pegs until she was over the ventilation flap that led down into 
the dressing room. The girl lowered herself gently by her good arm, and 
carefully untied tile knot with her left arm. The tiny fingers were ideal for 
tugging and pulling on the exact strand holding tight the whole, and in a 
moment she had the cord undone and the flap pulled back. Then she dropped 
lightly into the chamber. 
Now what? The pungent smell of warpwood incense enveloped Radience, and she 
nearly choked. It was a wonder the Caliph could breathe. He's scared, she 
thought, distressed. He's burning magical spetts to ward off the daevas! 
The air was smokey with incense. Radience felt her way carefully, almost 
stumbling over an expensive, eastern rug. She listened intently, every nerve 
trembling, for the sound of die Tokogare statue that had come alive during her 
dream foray into the Caliph's apartments. 
She approached the light, found the torch. Her ankle began to ache where the 
shackle had prisoned it. 
Not cried the voice in her stomach. How can you be so thankless and 
ingracious? You cannot even consider it, much less actually commit such a 
heinous crime! But Radience was immune to the blandishments of the voice—no 
matter how disturbingly it mimicked the voice of Mother Lhana, 
"She's dead and buried under turns of sand," whispered the slave girl, a lump 
rising in her throat. "She's buried with Teenja and Mara and my mother who was 
beaten while with child—with me!—and my arm was stunted like—like . . ." 
The Caliph of Qomsheh, Yazd, and Deh Bid stirred in his sleep, and cried out 
in a sleepy voice of fear. 
"Will no one help the . . . ?" 



Radience froze; no one answered his plea. 
How many times this trip has he cried out thus? she wondered, amazed at her 
own insolence. The Caliph of the Elect! 
Soon he sighed and rolled over. For one hundred long heartbeats, and five 
more, she stood as still as a lizard on a dune. Her pulse pounded in her ear, 
loud enough that 
158 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
she worried it would wake the whole khayma. Then she moved with a grim 
determination. 
Radience plucked the torch from its holder and stole to the great chest in the 
center of the dressing chamber. The chest was unlocked, for the only door led 
to the chamber of the Caliph himself. 
The slave girl opened the chest, and took a deep breath. The incense that had 
almost choked her now seemed calming, friendly; it wrapped around her guts and 
comforted their trembles. Bouyed, she lovingly laid the oil-soaked brand in 
the center of the clothes, and watched until the ceremonial aba coat, with its 
vertical stripes of white and blue, singed and curled away from the fire. A 
musty, smokey smell mingled with the incense to produce a most unpleasant 
odor. 
Radience rose, but the walls of the khayma had folded in upon her. They pulsed 
regularly, breathing or beating like a living thing. / am in the belly of a 
great, hairy jamal that humps and lumps and whumps along the Five Sands, I am— 
She shook her head, but the dizziness continued. Something in the air. 
Something in the incense in the peppercorns in the hairy, humpy thumpy jamal 
that— 
Suddenly panicked, terrified at what she had done (the flames cackle merrily 
in the chest oh come Radience come dance about the laughy red spirits, give 
us, have us, daevas!) she clutched at the pole the edge of the pole stickuppy 
a happy roof of the khayma-climb, lizard on a rafty pole, daffy hule, the hole 
in the roof of the khayma jamal. . . 
Outside on the khayma roof, the cold air cut through her stomach like a 
sandstorm. Her thoughts cleared. The smoke curling up from the roof flap was 
sign that her fire (her fire!) was burning bright. 
Frightened, she fumbled the flap closed, hung by her legs from the pole to tie 
the knot again (simple lock-knot; anyone could do it, she remembered). 
As she slid down the pole, the alarm was sounded. Fire! Death in aTSophiate's 
chambers! Destruction in the khayma! 
WARRIORWARDS 
159 
Soon the whole of the Elect was aroused, and they ran thither and yon 
searching for daevas, elementals, djinns, or Arhatman himself. No one noticed 
a tiny slave girl, scuttling along the edge of the khayma, feeling for a slit 
that led back to chains and safety. 
Radience slipped inside; no one saw her. She was invisible in the dark of 
frightened women and screaming infants in the slaves' quarters. Her shackle 
was where she had left it; she closed it around her ankle, and this time it 
clicked home, unheard in the din. 
At last the alarm died down, for the fire Had spread no farther than the 
Caliph's clothes-box. Al'Kug stormed through the slaves' quarters, tugging at 
chains and checking shackles. When he came to hers, she held her breath, but 
now it was truly locked tight. 
The Horsemen stumbled off to sleep; it was just another night's outrage, and 
tomorrow's day would be long enough. They did not even complain or grouse. The 
men were too tired, too frightened. They secured the khayma with lips pressed 
tight, and fell back to their pallets. Tomorrow's light would be soon enough 
to investigate. 
Radience lay unsleeping. She exulted. Her outrage! With daevas in the caravan, 
who would ever suspect a slave girl? 
/( was mine, she thought. / showed them ail! Ghosted in the middle of the 



dark, silent Yes as a spirit on the wind! Passed beneath their very eyes, 
strike a blow YesforAghi, for Teenja, for all of them, for mother. But was it 
daevas? Was it daevas infesting infecting possessing driving me to do what I 
knew was wrong? But I showed them gave them a mystery they'll never solve. . . 
. 
With a resounding Yes! still echoing round her ears, Radience finally drifted 
off into a happy, peaceful void, dancing the daevas to dawn. 
Three times . . . Three times . . . Three times w&l I blot 
160 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Stands he stretched arms like windmill slowly spreading widening evil stench 
Uttle boy-god Toq laughing Uke a blowriver of dried leaves . . . "Three times! 
three times! three times! before falls your next birthing-day!" 
And aUve they came became within her around her because of hert deadalive 
never living beyond trapped forever. AAH! 
Jiana sat bolt upright, staring into the face of Toq, pale alabaster skin, oil 
black hair, wild pink eyes. His arms were outstretched, and he laughed like 
dust from a tomb, like the rattling of bones, like a dried out drum splitting 
under the hot sun, like desert sand wearing a great colossus to a shapeless 
lump, like cracking parchment, like a river of desiccated scarab shells 
felling from a brass jar, laughed like the clutching feet of canon-kites, 
walking across shards of broken window. 
The image faded, and she saw a moonsplash on the khayma wall. The wind spit 
desert under the doorflap. She lay all night staring at the desert dust 
swirling in die moonlight. 
Morning brought a dry, hot wind from the east. As Jiana readied die horses and 
led diem out of the stables khayma into die angry wind, she found herself 
sweating freely even before the morning meal. She and Cascade talked, passing 
die time. She spent as much time as she could with die horse, as Radience made 
herself scarce. 
Jiana made no effort to force a meeting; Radience needed time to absorb, to 
incorporate the new reality. 
No Horseman had yet ridden Cascade. For some reason, they passed him over, 
magnificent a beast as he was. Jiana wondered about this, but Cascade chose 
not to illuminate her. 
The Horsemen reveled in the dusty weather; they were nearing Tool and they 
knew it. Moons had passed, the coast had floated past. The Elect had avoided 
towns and the townsmen had not been anxious to press contact. 
The forests and undergrowth of Bay Bay had given way to lush grasses and forms 
as they traveled south. Once the caravan took a short cut farther inland, and 
they had 
WARRIOHWARDS 
161 
journeyed along the Great Southern Road past five days of fruit trees. The 
merchants among the Elect traded spices and jewels for apples, pomegranates, 
boosfruitf succulent grapes and berries, aromatic cracker-flowers, and truck. 
Peaches and paschmelons were dried and stored; they would last far into Tool. 
But the grasslands grew wild, and they ate wheat, corn, and rice. Then the 
grass grew tall, the villages grew scarce, and the Elect ate dried fruit and 
jerky. Scrub brush pushed the lawn grass aside, and what remained was coarse 
and razor-edged. 
They had crossed the length of the Water Kingdom, skirted the edge of Door, 
and were now near enough to the Lizard Teeth Hills to see the clouds that 
overhung their peaks. In just a few days they would cross the Teeth and enter 
the Desert of Tool. 
The caravan crested a hill overlooking a cliff that dropped straight into the 
ocean, and Jiana looked west. Her heart leaped as she saw, far across the 
water, three peaks partly covered with water mist. They were all that was left 
of the islands of Oort, once home of die largest temple of the Eagle priests, 
and home in exile of the Sisters of the Serpentine. 



Jiana had once called herself a daughter of the Nameless Serpentine, but all 
things pass. 
The Oort Islands sank mysteriously four turns ago; Jiana remembered it 
vividly. She killed a snake, and she lost her faith. 
"At least I made my mark," she said quietly, staring at die stark, shattered 
peaks. 
"Made what?" asked Rethe, unexpectedly behind her. 
"I say, at least I made marker did," said Jiana hastily. Rethe almost smiled, 
and Jiana wondered how deeply the slave Voice saw. She'd be a good 
shield-mate, the warrior thought. Maybe she'll come with us when we go. 
The leagues drifted along like a raft on a lazy river, and soon the cliff was 
far behind and the Oort Islands invisible over the horizon. The Lizard Teedi 
drew measurably closer. 
Jiana spent all her spare time poking at a peculiar, 
162 
Dtrfyddab Hugh 
spiney plant one day. Great needles stuck out of it in a protective bristle, 
but the plant itself was succulent. It bore a flower with a curious, applelike 
fruit that Rethe called a "spineapple." 
But die spiney plants lost their charm when Jiana put her hand down into a 
patch of them. Her skin swelled up puffy and red, and Ysmal taught her how to 
chew a certain root into a pasty poultice and wrap her hand with it. 
Leagues and days passed, now hot and sultry like driftwood floating in a dead, 
chigger-breeding pond. Trees returned, but not the friendly, climbable oaks 
and housewood of White Falls, and not the tall bloodwoods of Bay Bay. These 
trees were caricatures of life, twisted and stunted as though molded by 
Kiddikikltik, the Termite Queen. They bore no bark, just a leathery, fibrous 
skin of sharp needles. Queer creatures inhabited them; in one, Jiana saw a 
two-headed lizard. She turned away with a shudder and never told anyone. 
Nasty, black wasps infested the camp. Rethe had Jiana and the other slaves in 
her group burned a foul, resinous, local plant. The smoke kept the wasps away. 
"They seek out great spiders," said Rethe once, as they all huddled around a 
camp fire. Though the days were hot as a skillet, the nights were freezing 
cold. "When they find them, they sting them a dozen times, and the venom in 
their tails paralyzes the spiders." 
"Do they eat them?" asked Anahita, looking fearfully over her shoulder for 
marauding wasps. 
"No," said Rethe smugly, "once paralyzed, the wasps lay their eggs, a myriad 
and more, right in the body of the still-living spider. The eggs hatch, and 
the young emerge . . . eating their way out." 
The slaves groaned, and Makao, a young boy whose parents were captured for to 
the south, chucked a turnip at the slave Voice. Rethe caught it without 
looking and ate it with the rest of her stew. 
Alone in the stables khayma, Jiana was crowded with friends. She observed a 
genial peace with Jianabel, and Cascade could almost talk to both of them. 
Jianabel loved horses, being still in some very small ways a little girl. 
WARRIORWAHDS 
163 
Jiana kept to these two friends as much as possible, to avoid felling back 
asleep. 
The scrub grew scarce, and the spiney plants grew few. The sand heaped high in 
spots, and other stretches were as flat and cracked as unoiled leather left 
baking in the sun. Jiana scraped some dust and tasted it; it was salty and 
bitter. 
The caravan had left the ocean to cut straight across the Zephyr Desert, in an 
area unclaimed by the Water Kingdom, Door, or Tool. No roads led across the 
Zephyr, but there were occasional towns, built around gold and silver mines 
and water wells. 
The Elect passed through one such town, Tinker's Hang; it was deserted. "Place 
was a real riverbed of desert diggers when we came up," Rethe said, kicking a 



rolling weed from the empty, lifeless street. "I picked up a strange wine from 
that shop there. Called the Waters of Life. Couldn't hardly drink a single 
glass without choking, it had such a kick." 
"Is not wine your religion frowning at?" 
"Hm," Rethe rolled her eyes upward in an elaborate pretense of innocence. "And 
our Horsemen are all learned philosophers, men of peace and godliness who 
never take the Seer's name in anger or sample each others' wives. You can quit 
the 'dumb foreigner fresh off the jamaC act anytime you want, Jiana; I've 
heard you talking to that horse." 
"Oh?" Jiana kept her face impassive, but she felt the flush that belied her 
nonchalance. 
"You know not a single Horseman's been able to ride that beast." 
"I hadn't noticed." 
"Co fuck a jamal. You knew damn well that's a one-master horse, and so did 
your former owner, that limp-wristed, child-enticing Bay Bay sheriff who 
foisted him off on Giathudin. And the ex-Overman has it figured by now, too, 
so your old faggot master better move to his summer house over the mountains 
or hell get a scimitar up his arse." 
164 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Jiana cocked her eyebrow. 
"Such it is vehemence is so violent, my rug." 
"I don't like you white-skinned sheep. Present company mostly excepted except 
when you're doing that jabbering act. What do you have against speaking in 
honest Tooltak?" 
"How long to Deh Bid?" 
"Week. Two. I'm not a navigator. I don't read maps." 
Jiana smiled mysteriously and continued walking. 
Days passed. The country grew more deserty, the outrages tapered off and 
finally ceased. The caravan had left its daevas behind in the grasslands. 
Jiana herself had committed fewer than a third of the mysterious attacks, for 
after the first few, Giathudin watched her like a vulture. 
After some time, the security measures began to become as much of a nuisance 
to the Horsemen as to the slaves, and the collars were loosened a notch. 
Rethe allowed Jiana to sleep at the edge of the caravan, for from the clutch 
of women, men, and bawling infants. Jiana generally woke before dawn to watch 
the rousing of the Elect. 
First a trickle of women, rising for errands of nature or creeping back from 
inappropriate khaymas. Then the household slaves, staggering in the predawn 
darkness to throw breakfast together for the Horsemen. 
As the sun cracked the eastern mountains, a spur of the Lizard's Teeth, Jiana 
saw a brief flash of green. The haze was tinged with red from a sandstorm a 
few days ride away. 
The jamal leaders arrived at the roped compound in a group. They brushed the 
hideous beasts, who in turn did what they could to sever a hand or an unwary 
arm. 
Jamals were the most foul-tempered beasts Jiana had ever seen. They stood more 
than thrice die height of a tall man, and carried two gigantic humps in their 
backs. They were covered with dense, matted, brown far that reeked like 
tanning fluid. But their splay-hooves were unparalled for walking across the 
burning, shifting sands, and they rarely needed to stop for water. 
Jamals had a mind of their own, however, and were 
WARRIORWABDS 
165 
next to useless in a battle; thus, the Elect brought horses along as well. 
The currying came to an abrupt end when the Jamals began to spit at the 
slaves, who wiped the spittle off (taking die name of the Seer in anger) and 
trotted out the jamal-packs. 
The slaves hung bright-woven blankets over the jamah' backs, and then strapped 
on heavy boxes, rolls, bags, sacks, chests, and even chairs, centering the 



load between the humps. 
All this time, more and more of the tradesmen Elect crawled from their mats 
and lurched about the camp, feebly bleating for more and stronger kaf. 
Men and women divided into separate groups, stripped down to linen breeks, and 
washed the night-sweats off their skin. Fires were started, one for each three 
or four individual family/tribe khaymas. 
The women boiled oats and wheat from the Water Kingdom, fried duck pieces of 
jfeur-mush bread, and heated great pots of thick, strong kaf, a cup of which 
(it was said) would wake a corpse, provided it was not too long dead. Each 
family had its own kaf recipe. 
While the women cooked, die men stood around die khaymas, trying to convince 
themselves to begin striking them. By die time they finally began, there was 
so much shouting and cursing, screaming from die jamals, childish squealing 
and singing that only the dead could still sleep (those that had not drunk 
their kaf). 
Jiana stood just outside die household khayma, listening to the Horsemen argue 
over whose turn it was to ride shadow. None of them liked die duty except 
Faisal, for dte shadow riders were excluded from the gossiping, arguing, and 
playing sheyeti (Rethe offered to teach Jiana die game, and Jiana instantly 
beat her three times in a row, once in only twenty moves. The same game raged 
across die Flower Empire under another name). 
The sun glinted off the silver and brass of the jamal bridles as they lumbered 
upright, rear feet first, then die front, complaining very vocally whenever 
the slaves touched diem with die switches. The jamal-riders mounted while 
166 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
WARRIORWABDS 
167 
their brutes were still kneeling, of course. The rest of the Elect assembled 
into a great mob, somewhat longer than it was wide. 
When the sun was fairly high, and an army would have long ago been underway, 
the Horsemen finally made their appearance and pushed to the head of the line, 
using their riding crops liberally on the Elect who were foolish enough to 
stand where a Horseman wanted to ride. At a suitably dramatic moment, 
al'Sophiate himself made an entrance. 
He generally mounted his great, white stallion to lead the parade, but this 
time (perhaps being saddle-sore, Jiana thought) he called for his jamal 
litter. The latter boasted a cushioned, velvet seat and an umbrella. 
When all was assembled, the huge nation-on-legs lurched ponderously forward 
towards the Lizard's Teeth. They would not stop, Jiana knew, until the sun was 
nearly touching the hazy mountains to the west. By then, Rethe predicted that 
they would be camped at the foot of the Teeth, ready to spend all the next day 
crossing into ancient Tool. 
3 
Radience poked her head outside the household khayma, looked carefully left 
and right to make sure Jiana was nowhere in s'ight. Then she made a dash for 
the (brand new) storage khayma. 
Jiana bushwacked her as she dipped into a shallow gully, diving out of a bush 
and tackling the girl. 
"I just can't talk now, Jiana," pleaded Radience from her position under the 
warrior. "I have to get a jar of salt for the soup." 
"Who is the master that makes the sky blue, kid?" 
"I don't know who makes the sky blue. There is only One God, and one Seer. Is 
it He?" Radience tried to move, but Jiana held her immobile without seeming to 
exert much pressure. 
"Who is the slave?" 
"Stop calling me thatl" Radience demanded. _ 
"Why?" 
"It's mean. I didn't ask to be a slave, I was bom to it." 
"I thought you were captured when a little girl." 



"Well maybe. I don't remember. I never thought about it much. Just let me up, 
ok? I have to get the salt." 
Jiana twisted to an upright, comfortable position, but Radience was still 
prisoned on the ground. 
"Who is the master who chained you every night while the Greater Moon cycled 
around the world?" 
"The same one who chained you, the Caliph, al'Sophiate." 
"You lie. I roamed free." 
"Well, so did l!" the girl cried, and then gasped and clapped her hand over 
her mouth. 
Radience could feel Jiana gloating. 
"Which outrage did you commit?" asked the warrior. 
Radience was silent a long time. Finally, she could contain herself no longer. 
"I burned my lord's clothes. Burned them in his khayma, practically right in 
his own sleeping chamber, just one chamber away." 
"Hah!" Jiana seemed to find that revelation the funniest she had ever heard, 
and she cackled like the Caliph's monkey for a long time. 
"So are you not a slave after all?" she finally asked, when she could breathe 
again. 
Radience writhed, and almost bucked Jiana off her back. The tormentor regained 
her balance, however, and Radience was still trapped. 
"They just forgot to lock me, that's all," the girl snapped. 
"How many times were you unlocked?" 
"Why, just the one—" Radience stopped in mid-sentence. How would you know how 
often you were unlocked? demanded a stranger within her stomach. How often did 
you try the locks? 
"I ... I mean I don't . . ." 
"So who is the master who chained you every night but one?" 
Radience lay quietly, unable to respond. It was obvious that the old answer 
was not good enough, but her stomach 
168 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
stubbornly refused to disgorge a new one. She suddenly realized she was 
chewing on her thumb, which she had not done since Aghi coated it with pepper, 
eleven turns ago. 
"I—I Just Don't Know!" she sobbed, and with that she convulsed and threw Jiana 
easily. 
"Time to stand up, slave girl. Time to find the real gaoler. If you find him, 
you find the key." Then Jiana stepped out of the ditch, spent an elaborate 
moment smoothing her shaven head, and walked off imperiously, looking so much 
like an Overman that Radience hardly dared breathe. 
Her skin so white—her muscles so hard ... As Jiana walked away to the west, 
the sun shone through her gauzy slave's tunic, leaving little of her lithe 
body to Radience's imagination. The girl stared hungrily, waiting until the 
warrior faded into the sun's glare before standing up. 
Radience looked left and right, trying to remember what she had set out to do. 
Then she thought of her misery, and her tears, and of Jiana kissing away those 
tears as Aghi used to do, and making everything wonderful (or at least less 
wretched), and then Radience abruptly remembered the salt. The memory made her 
frown; it was an intrusion into a wonderful waking dream that might have led 
... 
She climbed out of the ditch, smoothed her shaven head, and set out firmly for 
the storage khayma. 
The journey up the Teeth was arduous and fraught with tragedy; the Elect lost 
a Horseman, two tentmakers, a jama/, and a horse to careless feet and 
treacherous trails. The peaks loomed and the crevices yawned (as teeth in an 
open mouth, Jiana thought, which explains the name, I guess). Jiana found 
herself strangely attracted to the edge of the cliff. 
She stepped along a crack, heel to toe, looking down a sheer drop of what 
looked like ten leagues, but was prob



WARRIOBWAHDS 
168 
ably not even a quarter-league. Drop a plumb line, she thought, and it would 
hang straight to the rocks below. So why am I dancing along the edge? 
The Lizard's Teeth were not very high. When Jiana had trekked from White Falls 
to Bay Bay, she had crossed peaks that dwarfed the Teeth, mountains with 
perpetual snow at their peaks and vast, faerieland ice-castles filling what 
should have been ravines. 
But the Teeth struck such a sudden and discordant note between die flat plains 
to the north and the Toolian desert to the south that they seemed a monstrous 
affront, 
Actually, the Elect could have avoided the Teeth by sticking closer to the 
coast, as Jiana did four turns before on her quest for the World's Dream. But 
the Oasis of Deb Bid was a hundred leagues inland, and al'Sophiate had no 
desire to cross die sand owned by hostile Satraps, Sultans, and Sheriffs. 
A bit after midday, climbing hard, the caravan reached the summit. Jiana 
scanned the horizon, but still could not see even a piece of Tool. "You 
won't," Laughed Rethe. "This may be the summit, but there is another peak to 
climb before the final descent." 
"The sun will be low, but the trail down is wide and easy, and well probably 
continue 'til midnight. Well stop in Tool itself, at the Yazd Station. Deh Bid 
is only half a day's walk south from there." 
The pass was barely a cut, winding high dirough the mountains. It was narrow 
and precipitous and terrible, unpredictable winds gusted between the peaks. 
The mountains themselves were barren brown, with only the thinnest streaks of 
grey vegetation. 
The walk down from die summit wearied the warrior, since she knew there was an 
equally hard climb still to come that afternoon. By the time die Elect began 
die second slope, she had lost all interest in courting the winds at die edge, 
and simply plodded along with the rest of die mob. 
The wind howled mournfully as it searched dirough the passes, sounding tike a 
young mother who had lost her 
170 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
child. The lonely sound made Jiana feel even colder. Aside from the wind, she 
heard only the marching boots. The Elect had ceased all talking, as if by 
mutual consent. 
The dust from two thousand tramping feet was so thick that Jiana could see no 
farther than her arm. She tied a cloth about her head and pull the bottom part 
over her nose and mouth, else she would have suffocated before reaching the 
second peak. 
The cold caught at her flesh, pulled it away from the bones. The wind was a 
surgeon's knife that had lain all day in a saltdrift. 
She concentrated on one foot ahead of the other, up the steep, angry trail. 
The ground jumped up and slapped her soles with every step, and her knees 
ached. She drank only a mouthful of water. 
All day the air was still and sullen, baking hot though it should have been 
cool, as high as they were. Jiana was furious, feeling robbed of her right to 
a refreshing mountain breeze. 
At last she crested the final hill and looked down upon the wicked Toolian 
desert. It was not the wretched Tarn, fer to the west. The sands stretched 
forever, but did not warp the world of Reality Prime. 
Jiana stared at the long shadows fading into black, the ruby dunes and 
wine-red flats, dry waves frozen by a mad magician. The sight moved her; a 
lump hardened in her stomach, and she thought of a little boy who wanted to be 
a warrior, once. 
He was taken from her in the Tarn. Her little boy, innocent boy, snatched by 
bad guys on black horses and turned into a vicious Soldier Boy. 
Shit. Shed the memories; they're useless now. He's gone, twisted by the Bitch 
Queen who thought she was a master when she was still a slave. Dida's dead; 



that's someone else now. That's a whole 'nother desert. 
She took a deep breath, one half of a sigh, and made her first, jarring step 
down from the Teeth and into the driftdunes. 
The sun sank, growing wider and flatter as it melted 
WARRIOBWARDS 
171 
into the ground. It began to flicker towards the end, like a (lame blown out 
by the wind. She watched, but saw no flash of green when the sun vanished. 
There was little of the choking dust on the southern face of the mountains; 
instead, the trail was rocky and broken. Rethe was right; it was wide. It was 
so steep that every plodding drop-step shook Jiana's entire body like a hammer 
blow, centering on her heels. 
She had to yawn several times to clear her ears on the way down. After an 
eternity of bruised heels, she watched first the greater, then the lesser moon 
poke over the horizon. The trail began to level off. 
It also became sandier. She no longer landed on her heels like a sack of 
potatoes, but she struggled for each step against sinking and slipping feet. 
The sand was gritty, and the crunching, grinding noise of a thousand feet made 
her head ache and gave her the shakes. 
Even eternity ends. 
Jiana continued to yawn with weariness, even as they finished descending. She 
watched the sky stars wheel overhead. The crowd began to bunch up, and the 
thought dimly penetrated Jiana's head that those in front were probably 
slowing to look for a place to sleep. 
Rethe caught her arm, and called the rest of the women together with three 
sharp whistles. They stood and waited as al'Kug approached from the Horsemen's 
circle. 
"Intercourse the khaymas," he ordered when he pulled up alongside. "There are 
no winds and no weather, and we leave at daybreak. Sleep as you can." He rode 
off towards the circle of cooks to deliver the same message. 
"Horseshit," retorted Rethe, when he had left. "Daybreak, my arse. They always 
say daybreak. Sometimes we leave at noon, sometimes midday. The Caliph will 
rise at daybreak, wander around clutching his sleeping robe around him, and 
complain about a pounding head. He'll confer with the Overmen, then shake his 
head and stumble back to his mat. 
"The Overmen won't even wake anyone else up; they'll wander back to their fire 
and play cards until the sun has 
172 
Dqfydd ab Hugh 
risen to there—" she pointed above the horizon—"then al'Sophiate will sit up 
on his mat, stretch, and the rest of us will follow suit. If you wake up with 
die sun, you can watch the show." 
As Rethe and the other slaves arranged their mats, Jiana walked toward the 
stables, which tonight were nothing more than an overhanging cloth and a 
hitching rope. She needed to talk, and there was only one creature to whom she 
could. 
"Going to be now or now at all." she told Cascade. "I struck a spark, but it's 
the girl's job to kindle the fire." The great moon was full, and she was aware 
that she was quite visible to any passing spy. 
She still hides her arm, noted the pretender horse-voice in Jiana's stomach. 
"Blames a lot on it. Don't know if that's a curse or blessing, but today, for 
me, that arm is a bitch." 
The sounds from the camp began to die down, as the Elect prepared to sleep. 
They were very tired, and so was she. Jiana touched Wave, debating whether to 
sneak away and sharpen the sword. She half-pulled the blade, and thumbed the 
edge. It was adequate, but would soon need care. 
She heard a boot scrape on the ground. Turning quickly, she caught a brief 
glimpse of the Pumpkin-headed Doorian, watching her from behind a jamal. He 
ducked back behind the beast as soon as she spotted him. It was the first she 
had seen of him in two moons. 



Jiana stared . . . could he have seen Wave? Would he remember the sword, and 
thus Jiana? She stared, trying to spot him again. The moons were bright; if he 
had looked, he would certainly have seen the glint of the sword as she flexed 
it. 
He would remember the sword; he would remember whenever he had to pass water. 
She saw him again as the jamal bent to investigate some vegetation. He watched 
her with an expression of triumphant vindication. As soon as he realized she 
saw him, too, he began to back away, keeping the jamal between himself and 
Jiana. Then he turned and hurried off. 
WARRIORWARDS 
173 
No! Damn it, not now! Jiana started to berate herself, but cut the thoughts 
short. There was no time. The Doorian had to be stopped tonight, before he 
talked. Otherwise . . . 
She hurried after him, ducking under the jaws of the jamal, which tried to 
bite her. 
He moved fast for a man of his bulk; he looked back a couple of times, 
assuring himself that Jiana was following him. Then he headed straight for the 
Caliph's circle. 
He paused at the edge and waited for her, a nasty, predatory smile on his 
lips. The light from the Caliph's torches washed out his face and made it 
appear sickly yellow. He smoothed his great, black, drooping mustache, and 
waited for Jiana to make the next move. 
She was still much too for away to speak, unless she shouted. Instead, she 
held up her hand and rubbed her thumb and first two fingers together. The 
Pumpkin-head recognized the offer and grinned, exposing teeth that were dark 
with decay. 
Sister, no! You can't be serious? How can you even imagine he would keep his 
part of the bribe? 
I think he'tt keep his mouth shut, Jiana thought. 
He'll ruin everything! He'tt bleed you dry, and surely peach on you anyway! 
The Doorian looked significantly towards a sand dune, a hundred yards from the 
perimeter of the camp, that Jiana could barely see in the moonlight. He 
doesn't want witnesses, she thought. Well, good, neither do I. 
The champion of the physical began to stroll into die night, towards the dune. 
After a few moments, Jiana followed. As she approached the low hill, she felt 
a familiar tightening of her collar. By the time she joined the Doorian, she 
was having trouble breathing. 
"I know you," he said in Doorish, and spat on the ground, "Janina, woman 
fighter. Criminal. Arrested you." 
"So. Anything grow back?" 
He grinned wide; but Jiana could see that he was wound as taut as a 
wire-wrapped sword hilt. 
"Your money no good. Not enough. You give certain favors and money, or I tell 
the Caliph who you are." 
174 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Jiana slowly shook her head and rested a hand on Wave. A colony of desert 
insects began to click and grin, sounding tike the gears in the water clock in 
Bay Bay. 
Pumpkin-head curled his lip and drew his own sword. 
"I hope you had say no," he said, and lunged gleefully at Jiana. 
She ducked and side-stepped, but the Doorian crossed back in a lightning 
combination. Jiana had to drop to a crouch, left fingertips on the sand, and 
roll away from his attack. 
She drew Wave while rolling, and rose with it at the ready position, rigid and 
pointing at his heart, almost within thrust range. He made no attempt to call 
for help; it was a grudge match—he intended to pay her back for what she had 
stolen from him. 
They fought in silence, broken only by their ragged breathing. The insects had 



gone silent. 
Jiana was no longer performing, as she had during the physical; she 
concentrated on business . . . and this time, she used the weapon that bad 
been forged for her alone. 
The Doorian was unarmored, and that meant he was almost blindingly fast. He 
swung at Jiana's head, reversed in mid-blow and cut a gash down her arm. It 
was not deep, but it burned. 
She turned with the blow, rotating in a complete circle to strike backhanded 
from tbe off-side. But he slipped the cut, and she only shaved a band's length 
from his greasy hair. 
Her foot slid in the deep, red sand, and the misstep saved her life. The 
Doorian stepped forward boldly, swinging his arms in a suicide blow that would 
have cut her in half had she stood her ground. 
She fell to one knee—Wave, over-eager, struck out on its own, or so it seemed. 
It was a hard blow, but poorly aimed. It missed completely, and the jerk at 
the end caused the thin, flexible sword to twist in Jiana's grasp and 
fellflacid. 
Before she could regain her feet or control over her blade, Pumpkin-head's 
hand darted out and grabbed the tip. 
WARRIORWARDS 
175 
They each yanked in opposite directions. Blood poured down his arm . . . but 
he succeeded in pulling Wave from her clutching grasp. 
Jiana was disarmed. The Doorian kicked savagely at her face with his iron-shod 
boots, and she threw herself backwards into the sand to avoid the blow. 
"AAAAA—!" he gritted his teeth and choked back the scream, as die pain from 
his shredded hand penetrated his rage. He hurled Wave behind him, for away 
from Jiana. He pressed his lips together and held down another cry of pain. 
He moved forward slowly, a juggernaut in agony. Two of his fingers were 
missing, and thick, red blood dripped from his hand in spurts. He raised his 
sword as he stalked her. 
Jiana backpedaled on all fours, but she never took her eyes from the blood 
that pumped from his severed fingers. 
A song sprang unbidden to her lips. 
"Call, call, come out, come all, Pour, gore, more and more! Sprout and spout, 
come all, come out, Spurt and spry—drip it dry— Drip 'til you die!" 
It was gibberish; it was made-up, and it was the best she could do with 
fingers torn by the hilt ripping out of her hand, gasping and barely able to 
breathe. 
But—the blood did begin to flow, just a bit harder. She kept at it, her own 
pulse pounding in her temples, keeping rhythm with the chant. 
"Dribble and puddle and spittle and bubble 
And slash ana splash and pour the gore 
To band the sand from hand and gland . . ." 
An image pushed through her stomach, and she latched onto it and visioned it: 
all the old wounds, all the cuts and tears and slices opening wide . . . all, 
including the terrible decapitation she had inflicted upon him. 
176 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
His skin pulled back. He stopped in surprise as blood began to drip down his 
brow into his eyes, from an old wound, long since healed. He stopped, slapping 
at his body as dark stains appeared everywhere under his clothing. 
One great, black stain appeared in his crotch. 
Even the moons turned to blood, bathing the scene in a deep burgundy. 
Pumpkin-head staggered a step, clutching feebly at his groin. He stared at his 
legs, his belly, eyes wide with incredulity. 
His skin began to turn grey as the blood drained out upon the sand, which 
stained even darker than normal. He looked at Jiana, imploring, and held out a 
hand to her, trying to speak. But all he could manage was a gurgle. 
The Doorian gagged, and a cupnill of blood poured from bis mouth. 



The power blazed within Jiana, and she reached out her spirit and squeezed him 
tike a beet. The juice flowed. 
He sank to his knees, then slowly leaned forward until his forehead was 
touching die sand. He shivered violently, as if he lay in a snowdrift, not a 
sand dune. He breathed a long, unhappy sigh and stopped moving. 
Jiana crawled forward and felt for a pulse. The flame within her stomach 
flickered and died; she had no reserves left. 
But Pumpkin-head had no pulse. She took her hand away, trembling slightly; her 
fingers were sticky with his blood. But she still could not remember his real 
name. 
Hie insects began to sing again. 
For many minutes she sat, breathing as well as she could through the collar. 
When she felt a bit stronger, she rose to her knees and began pouring sand 
over his corpse. 
It took a long time, for she had to stop often and catch her breath. But at 
last he was buried. Time and the winds would eventually return him to the 
world. 
She searched shakily behind the dune, and recovered Wave. Then she returned to 
the camp. 
Hie Elect were abed, dreaming of innocence and home. Jiana fell into her mat, 
rolled herself into a ball, and drifted into a torrid and dreamy sleep. 
WAHRIORWARDS 177 
Wriggled and squirmed down her throat, death to life coming alive within, down 
the hatch through the latch, unalive, undead, un—/ "Threety-turd," warned Tiq 
the Boy Toq, black as a leech and white as bone. " 'For the three and thirty 
be coming, three blots for teapots and FIRE shall be the thirst!" He stretched 
his arms to hug her. He reeked of a watery barrow. Dead she wast. Dead she 
waste. In! Deed! 
Jiana rose too quickly, dizzy and tired. The sun was high, and the slave Voice 
nudged her in die ribs widi a foot. 
"I'm awake," said Jiana, but Rethe was already waking the next slave. It was 
daybreak. 
Jiana stood. As Rethe had predicted, the jamah had not yet been saddled or 
loaded. No one had yet missed the Doorian. 
Just before noon die caravan got under way on the last leg to Deh Bid. They 
pushed through sand that grew ever deeper, and Jiana's feet dug deeper widi 
every step. She quickly became exhausted. 
How long until they realize Pumpkin-head is gone? WiU they go back and look, 
maybe find the body? She was uncomfortably aware that even a half-hearted 
search of die campsite would uncover the man. 
After a long time of marching, she saw more Horsemen than usual riding up and 
down the ranks, searching. Each time the riders passed her, they looked 
angrier. Rethe was called away by al'Kug, and when she returned she asked if 
anyone had seen the Doorian leave during die night. 
"Bastard's buggered off," she muttered. "He used us, die barbarian pig. 
Probably whooping it up widi the Sheriff of North Yazd, selling him all our 
weaknesses." 
"Would he?" Jiana asked. 


Dafydd ab Hugh 
"I hate Doorians," said Rethe, "Hate 'em even worse than pale "northers." She 
shook her head, and Pumpkin-head was forgotten. 
After a longer time, even the Horsemen dismissed his absence. Deh Bid had just 
been spotted, across the dry lake bed of Flezer Tujd. 
Hie tents and buildings seemed to float in the air, sometimes rising and 
falling as the air currents fluctuated. They reflected in a false sea of murky 
nothingness. Even knowing it was a mirage, it looked as real as the buildings 
of Bay Bay, floating on the mud-black sea. 
Tired as she was, Jiana forced her stomach to digest a plan of escape. The 
Oasis of Deh Bid was the obvious place to stage it. It was a gigantic city, 



ten thousand residents or more, and the oasis fed directly into the Nag Deh 
Jambajala river, the largest in Tool. 
The Nag Deh Jambajala (Glittering Path of Barred Passage) ran due south for a 
hundred leagues, passing out of Tool entirely and through a piece of Door. 
There it passed through a rock escarpment and vanished into the colon of the 
Earth—hence the name. If it emerged later, no one knew where. 
Jiana had always wanted to journey down the Jambajala; there was no better 
site from which to launch an escape than the Deh Bid Oasis . . . and that 
would be the final decision time for Radience. If she would not leave, then 
Jiana had failed and the experiment would be ended. 
In disgrace or triumph, Jiana decided to ride the Jambajala within three days 
time. 
The plan bouyed her spirits and infused her legs with new energy for the 
remaining leagues of desert sand. As they reached the out-tents of the oasis, 
Jiana pulled even with Rethe. The slave Voice pointed to each khayma and every 
building, telling Jiana who lived there and what they had done in the past 
several turns. 
The permanent khaymas were much more colorful than the transportable variety 
used by nomadic tribes, such as the Elect of Hal'Addad bin Kerat bin El 
al'Sophiate. The families and tribes of Deh Bid vied with each other in 
WARRIOBWARDS 
179 
startling colors, stripes, and yellow and green slogans written in High 
Tooltak. The words of the Seer were most common, but occasional wisdom from 
the Commentaries, die Agtashi Roll, and the Old Mountain Man crept onto even 
the most pious of khaymas. 
The stone buildings were constructed from shaped rock fitted carefully without 
mud or mortar; they were never decorated, at least not officially. 
Unofficially, they were covered by dense scrawls of graffiti in various stages 
of crudity, promising heaven despite a hell of a good time, all for a fair 
price (no credit extended to "wanderers"). 
Deh Bid was a hive of angry bees, buzzing in a dozen dialects of Tooltak and 
twice that many foreign tongues. Tradesmen and customers argued over the price 
of silk and tangerines, haggled market exchange rates, and imposed impossible 
terms of payment. Even random encounters in the street turned into animated 
conversations, banter, brawls, and bickering. 
The slaves were not spared; no two slaves could pass on a public street, it 
seemed, without passing along ancient wisdom accumulated at the last 
intersection. Probably a law, Jiana theorized. 
The noise was welcome after the unnatural silence of tile desert; the Elect 
rarely talked while they walked, probably due to the heat and the exertion. 
As die caravan pressed deeper into Deh Bid, Jiana felt the torq around her 
neck tighten, making breathing somewhat more difficult. 
"Don't worry, Jiana," soothed Rethe. "Curse will loosen the band once we pass 
through the center and reach the Caliph's palace." 
"But why—" 
"Oh, come on, don't be an ass! With all these people, how else can he keep 
track of what's his? There's the palace ahead—see the spires?—the Caliph 
liberated it from die usurper, Yshtamael al'Kug, no relation." 
Jiana walked quietly beside die slave Voice, breathing as well as she could. 
So it's Curse who controls the collar, not the Overman. Had he built them 
himself? Jiana had 
180 
Dafydd ah Hugh 
assumed that they were forged by a mage, and that Curse only opened and closed 
them around young necks. 
The crowd reluctantly parted as the Elect entered the city. Young children ran 
alongside and sang, and from all parts musicians gathered and played them 
along the streets. Clowns and jugglers danced about the caravan, performing 
and playing, and the Horsemen raised hands in triumph and delight. 



Firesparkers flared suddenly as they rounded a corner, and the mob grew to a 
lusty crowd. 
The weird, wailing music of the nose-whistles, tapbors, nine-stringed qetzars, 
pipes, and what sounded like a hundred different drums, cymbals, horns, and 
finger-bells danced and sang the Elect onto the palace grounds. 
As the last Horseman crossed the threshold, and the iron gates swung closed, 
slowly and majestically, the crowd let out a roar that drowned all previous 
noises. Then they moved on, laughing and chattering excitedly. Their Caliph 
was home safe again. 
At once die neckband loosened, and Jiana inhaled deep, satisfying breaths of 
air. Once the gates were shut and the mob gone, the Caliph's own professional 
musicians took up where the others had left off; what they lacked in numbers 
they made up in virtuosity. 
"You are free to wander," said Rethe to Jiana. "Just be back here before the 
sun sets. And don't be foolish." She reached out and gave Jiana's neckband a 
significant tug. "It works as well inside the gate as it does on the desert 
sands." Then the slave Voice strode off towards an onion-domed building, 
scratching the sides of her head and yawning. 
She'll come, Jiana thought. I feel a destiny. 
She sniffed and smelled roasting meat. Having nothing better to do, and being 
tired of dried goat strips and grainy bread, Jiana followed her nose around 
the left side of the compound. 
She discovered the kitchen, and noticed Radience already inside, cooking. 
Jiana did not bother her, plenty of time before the Big Moment. Strange how 
she's sitting off by herself in a corner, the warrior thought. Is she tkink-
WARRIORWARDS 
181 
ing or brooding? Shaking her head, Jiana continued her wandering. 
Hounding the side of the palace, Jiana saw several outbuildings. Two were 
clearly storehouses, for equipment and food. She saw an armory; the Horsemen 
gathered about it, exchanging warlike arms for more ceremonial and courtly 
accoutertnents: moon-curved scimitars and barbed tulwars, jeweled daggers and 
ebony wands of rank. 
The fourth outlying building was a stables, full of horses. Cascade was being 
led into the building. It's to there I skatt be reporting, I bet, she thought. 
She approached the fifth and last building, the farthest out from the palace. 
It was the only one with a guard. The soldier watched her as she approached, 
but he did not seem unduly alarmed. Jiana diffidently approached a pair of 
slaves working nearby. 
"Your pardon," she asked in flawless Tooltak, "a thousand blessings upon such 
faithful retainers; what is that building? I am new to the Elect, and have 
never been graced to be present in this heavenly estate." 
The two slaves waited politely until she had finished, then they bowed their 
heads and touched their fingertips to their foreheads. Jiana returned the 
salutation. 
"Most intelligent and beautiful woman, daughter of the Seer, may your belly 
soon swell with a son. This building is a prison, which oddly enough has an 
inhabitant at present. An infidel is being held for a thousand and one days 
for an offense with which this lowly and humble servant is not familiar." 
"Is it permitted to look into that window?" 
"I have never been told it is not." 
"God is great," said Jiana, "and we heed the words of his Seer. 1 thank you 
once for each day that I have lived." 
"You are welcome twice for each such day, and all that is mine is thine." They 
touched their foreheads again, completing the dictates of politeness, and went 
back to fitting a wheel onto a cart and ignoring her. 
Jiana padded softly up to the window. The guard watched 
182 
Dafgdd ab Hugh 
her a bit more narrowly, but did not move. Jiana looked inside. 



It was dark and gloomy inside the cell. The prisoner ate well, as his bulk 
attested. Jiana blinked several times, and her eyes began to grow accustomed 
to the dim light. She cupped her hands on the sides of her face. 
The man sat at a small table, writing in a bound volume with a quill pen. He 
had shaggy hair that fell to the middle of his back, and a full, black beard. 
Something about his mannerisms reminded her of someone she knew. She watched, 
fascinated, as the prisoner cleared his throat with a rumble, and spat into a 
brass spittoon with a resounding clang. 
Jiana whistled appreciatively, and the giant heard her. He turned about to 
face the window, causing Jiana a moment of fright. He was huge! 
But his face was gentle, nearly glowing with an inner serenity. His eyes told 
a story: he had chased the All to the ends of the earth, and had finally 
caught up with it. 
Then at once his features rearranged; the beard fell away, the hair was pulled 
back; the smooth brow furrowed, and four turns fell away. Her mouth opened in 
the shock of recognition. 
At the same moment, the giant smiled hugely, beard and all, and called out, 
"Jiana Analena! Life is complete!" His deep, rumbling voice shook the walls 
and rattled Jiana's skull. 
"Toldo Mondo!" she gasped, gripping the bars of the window. "Toldo, you pig, 
it's you!" 
And it was. 
Chapter VI: 
Ties that bind and burn, Twisting in the still 
Jiana walked at a normal pace past the barred window, carrying a bucket in her 
hand. The soldier's eyes were already glazed from the heat and the boredom, 
and he did not find the sight of a working slave so enthralling that it 
snapped him from his lethargy. Thus he missed seeing her toss a rolled up 
parchment paper ball into the gaol cell. 
It would have mattered little if he had intercepted it; few foot-soldiers in 
Tool knew how to read the pictographs of the Flower Empire. And in any event, 
what harm could there be in a few quotations from the Changing Leaves of Tiu 
Tiu, a seven century old book of poetry and philosophy? 
IT.HAS BEEN ASKED HOW ONE GETS THE GOOSE OUT OF THE BOTTLE. THE CONSCIOUSNESS 
OF ONE GOOSE WILL FLOAT DOWNSTREAM, BASKING IN THE RIVER OF LIFE, THOUGH FOOLS 
SHALL LOOK THE OTHER WAY. A SOUL MAY HAVE SISTERS, BUT ANOTHER MAY JOURNEY 
ALONE. THE FOOL RIDES ABOUT TOWN LOOKING FOR HIS DONKEY, WHEN ALL THE TIME IT 
IS CARRYING HIM ON THIS ERRAND. THE SUN SETS NOT TWICE ON A WISE MAN AT THE 
SAME POINT OF LIFE. 
183 
184 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Jiana hoped that Toldo would have enough common sense to understand what she 
meant: in two days time, she would escape down the Jambajala, with or without 
"sisters," Radience and Retbe. She would definitely be accompanied by a horse 
("donkey"), however. The first sentence about the goose came from an old 
conundrum her master had given her, back in the Flower Empire. In this 
context, she asked Toldo for some good suggestions to break him out of the 
jug. 
She continued on her route to the stables for a long talk with Cascade. His 
intelligence was astonishing. Any good warhorse could sense his master's moods 
and needs, but Cascade seemed to understand her words, as well. 
"I don't know how to get out of this damned collar," she whispered in his ear, 
speaking in the language of the Water Kingdom, which was also the language of 
the eastern plains of her childhood. "I can arrange everything else—escape, 
stealing a raft, rigging a felse trail north; done all that a hundred times in 
this or that campaign. What about Curse? If I kill him, does this thing fell 
off? Snakes and eggs, I just don't know." 
Avoid fighting him if you can, Jiana. He is powerful and sees many realms, 
She turned to leave, but came to a halt at the shadow line, looking out into 



the sunlight from the darkened stables. Did Cascade actually talk to me? Or 
did I just dream that I heard his voice in my stomach? Or am I just dreaming 
now, dreaming I'm awake? 
She slapped her cheek to drive away the loopy thoughts, and continued on her 
quest to find Radience. 
The kitchen looked empty; Jiana closed her eyes and thought of all the tiny 
places she would crawl if she were trying to dig a hole and pull it in after 
her. She found Radience in a barrel in the storage cell. 
The girl's eyes grew as wide as millstones when Jiana pulled the lid off her 
barrel and said, "Hi, kid; time to talk." 
"How—oh never mind, Jiana. I really don't think I 
WARRIORWARDS 
185 
ought to talk about anything, I'm kind of confused at the moment." 
"Best time to talk. Unconfuse yourself." 
"No, I think I just need to get off by myself for a while, get the old stomach 
churning ..." 
"No churning time, kid. Decision time. A slave is a girl waiting for somebody 
else to free her. Old sage named Zara said that, or at least people say he 
said it. But let me tell you about a goose in a bottle." 
"I don't think I'm ready to hear about this." 
"My master once called me into his meditation room and showed me a glass 
bottle with a fully-grown goose inside it. There was no seam, and the neck was 
way too small for the goose to pass." 
"Yeah, and you were supposed to guess how the goose got into the bottle." 
"I thought so; felt pretty big when I did. It isn't hard really to get the 
goose into the bottle." 
"You could slip it into the bottle when it was a little goose—" 
"Or gosling, as you might say." 
"Or gosling, and feed it right through the neck until it grew up. Now could 
you please go away and let me think?" 
"But when I triumphantly announced this solution, my master didn't even blink. 
He sat impassively until the thought bit me that I had only solved half the 
problem. The bigger question was how to get the goose out of the bottle." 
Radience opened her mouth to say something; Jiana held her breath. The girl 
stopped herself, pursed her lips, and remained silent. 
"Second thoughts are good," Jiana said. "The first impulse is always to say 
'break the bottle.' But if that were an acceptable answer, there would be no 
puzzle. How do you get die goose out of the bottle without breaking the 
glass—or killing the bird?" 
Radience looked up from the bottom of the barrel. She was intrigued, despite 
her resolve to ignore that woman. 
186 
Dafydd ah Hugh 
"Don't think I don't know what you're talking about" she snapped. Radience was 
the goose in the bottle. Or maybe her crippled arm was the bottle. Or else her 
inner self was the bird, and the rest of the world was the bottle. Or was she 
the bottle, and something else inside her was the bird, something she was 
imprisoning in the bottle of her. . , ? 
"Wait a minute," she said, climbing out of the barrel. Jiana watched her 
narrowly, but Radience could read nothing in that woman's gaze. Damned infidel 
witch is playing master with me again! 
It was a stupid problem, but Radience could not get it out of her stomach. She 
wandered away, lost in thought; when she looked up again, Jiana was gone, so 
she could not even ask for a bint. 
Yeah, I'll bet you got it right away. I'm so stupid. Crippled arm and slow 
stomach—boy, I'm a real fresh rain. 
She thought of a number of silly ideas: heating the bottle and stretching the 
neck, greasing the insides; but none was a real solution, since it was not a 
problem in bottle-making or goose-manipulation ... it was about prison and 



freedom. 
Is my collar tighter? Radience tugged at the collar in sudden panic; it felt 
much tighter, cutting into her breath, squeezing in and in until her neck was 
a mere finger-width m diameter. But no, it was only a terrible fantasy. Still, 
her heart raced, and it was difficult to catch a breath. She felt an ache 
under her left arm. She rubbed her left chest; it felt as tight as the collar, 
like Curse had grabbed her in a great bear-hug and was squeezing the life out 
of her. 
She sat down, catching her breath, and after a long, lingering, painful time, 
the feeling subsided. Her heart slowed, and she inhaled great draughts of air. 
Radience s forehead felt clammy, coated with sweat, and now the inside of her 
throat felt constricted. 
Ok God, tell me what to do. Am I disloyal for burning the Caliph's clothes and 
not turning in Ruhol, or am I a 
WARRIORWARDS 
187 
masochist for submitting to beating after beating? One your terror, two your 
despair! 
How does that damned goose get out of the bottle? 
And how did he really get into the bottle? She lowered her head into her arms 
and thought about that new question for a while. 
Jiana told me a lie. Sure, the goose was raised in the bottle, but that isn't 
the answer to that question, either, not if the goose is me or some part of 
me. How did that goose get into that particular bottle, and how does it 
escape? 
Jiana walked past the barred window. As she passed, she stumbled and fell to 
one knee. She palmed the rolled up piece of parchment and pushed off back to 
her feet, all in one fluid motion. 
It took all of her will power to resist looking at the paper until she 
returned to her space. There, she had to wait an additional eternity for two 
other girls to finish some trivial, interminable conversation about a cute 
young servant boy in the palace and what they would do to him when they caught 
him alone. 
At last they left, stalking the unfortunate lad. The thought of the two 
elephasian behemoths prancing and preening disgusted Jiana as she unrolled the 
parchment page and struggled to decipher Toldo's ant-track writing. He wrote 
in the language of the Water Kingdom, his and Jiana's native tongue. 
LO FT HAS BEEN BUT A TURNING OF THE SEASONS SINCE I WAS HAPPILY SEQUESTERED BY 
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. KIND HAS HE BEEN TO ME, SHOOING AWAY UNWANTED VISITORS TO 
CREATE MAXIMAL INCENTIVE FOB CONCENTRATION UPON LIFE'S WORK, MY OWN PERSONAL 
AS IT WERE WORLD'S DREAM, DONT YOU KNOW. 
FRUITLESS QUESTIONS AND BOOTLESS ERRANDS FINALLY BLOSSOMED SOME SEASONS AGO 
WHEN I FOUND SO TO 
188 
Dafydd ab if ugh 
SPEAK THAT WHICH I SOUGHT: TO WIT, I FOUND THE END OF ENDS AND THE BEGINNINGS 
OF ALL, THE PANGENITOR (ALL-FATHER) HIMSELF, THE STARRY MILK OF NUED, GODDESS 
OF THE JAMBAJALA PEOPLE, THE ELIXIR OF LIFE, THE MEDICINE OF METALS, THE FOOD 
OF THE GODS, NECTAR AND AMBROSIA, THE FIRST MATTER. FOUND I, IN SHORT, THE 
FATHER OF ALL RELIGIONS. 
IT IS NOT A SPIRITUAL TRUTH, GREAT OR SMALL. IT IS NOT THE WORDS OF A GOD. IT 
IS A TOADSTOOL, AND IT GROWS IN DUNG. 
I HAVE SEEN VISIONS AT LAST, O MIGHTY WARRIOR GODDESS; I HAVE SEEN NOT THIS OR 
THAT DESCRIPTION OF THE UNDERLYING SPHERE, READ NOT ONE OH ANOTHER ACCOUNT; I 
HAVE FELT FT MYSELF, SEEN IT WITH THESE EYES, TASTED FT WITH THIS TONGUE. I 
SAW THE LIGHT; I CAN TELL YOU WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. I HAVE MERGED. I AM GOD NOW. 
I HAVE FOUND THE BACK DOOR INTO THE WONDROUS VALLEY, FROM WHOSE FRONT DOOR WE 
ARE FOREVER BARRED BY FIRE-DEMONS. 
OH JIANA, MY FAITH IS AT ONCE COMPLETE AND SHATTERED. I KNOW GOD TODAY—I KNOW 
MYSELF!—BUT I KNOW TOO THAT IT ALL CAME FROM A HALF-DOZEN FOUL-TASTING 



MUSHROOMS AND AN ELABORATE RITUAL TO COOK THEM. I HAVE KNOWN WINGS AND FLIGHT, 
AND THE TERROR OF THE STARRY SPACES. I KNEW THE ECSTASY OF ABANDON, AND THE 
DESPAIR OF ABANDONMENT. I AM EXHILARATED BY GOD BREATH BUT HUMBLED BY MY 
LITTLE PLACE AS A SUB-DEFINED BIT OF AN ALL-ENCOMPASSING IMPLICATE CRYSTALFOR 
AN ENTIRE TURNING OF THE SEASONS I HAVE STRUGGLED WITH THE REVELATION, FOR 
WHAT I HAVE KNOWN IS AS TRUE AND DESPERATE AS ANY GOSPEL OF THE EAGLE HIMSELF. 
WHAT LITTLE COULD BE VERBALIZED I HAVE COMMITTED TO PARCHMENT, DISGORGING A 
BOOK, A THICK UBKUM, TOLDO'S TOME" YOU MIGHT DUB IT. 
WAHRIORWARDS 
189 
AND ALL THIS TIME, THAT SANDY FELLOW HAS COOPERATED BY GIVING ME UNLIMITED 
TIME TO SIT AND THINK IN SOLITUDE AND QUILL AND INK TO AMUSE MYSELF WITH 
FANTASIES OF BURNING THE WORLD WITH HOLY FIRE. 
BUT YOU ARE RIGHT, OF COURSE—HOW COULD YOU NOT, BEING AS STAR, AS AM I AND 
DIDA AND ALANAI AND EVERYONE ELSE? AND I CAN NO LONGER IGNORE THE CROCODILE IN 
THE WATER-CLOSET; IT IS SURELY TIME FOR THIS OLD PRIEST WHO HAS BECOME GOD TO 
LEAVE THESE IVY-COVERED WALLS. 
I HAVE SEEN LIGHT, JIANA. WORDS CAN DESCRIBE BUT NOT RECREATE. LET ME SHOW 
YOU! LIKE THE DOUR RESIDENTS OF YOUR NEW HTVEH AREA WOULD DEMAND. THOU ART 
GODDESS; YOU HAVE NO POWER OR RIGHT BUT TO SERVE YOUR OWN WILL. LET ME SHOW 
YOU11 MUST FIND MORE OF THIS MAGIC, MORE TOADSTOOLS. I MUST SHOW YOU! 
I HAVE DECIDED, JIANA ANALENA. IT IS TIME FOR THIS TOLDO TO TAKE HIS LEAVE. 
SEE YOU ON THE MORROWS MORROW. TAKE ME FROM THIS BOTTLE JUST IN THE WAY YOU 
WILL TAKE YOURSELF FROM YOUB OWN BOTTLE PECK US OUT. THE WINE CONTAINS THE 
CUP. I TRUST YOU AND MY WILL. 
YRS SINCERELY UNDER THE WING, TOLDO MONDO 
Jiana stared for a long time, rereading the note. Surely she had just missed 
the strategies and suggestions? 
"Thanks a lot, priest," she said at last, shaking her head and frowning. 
Planning the break was complicated by the feet that Jiana could not leave the 
compound, or else the neck band would tighten and the Overman would be 
alerted. She knew the river was very deep and nearly a league wide at this 
point, though it narrowed considerably downstream as it split into many 
smaller rivers. The river was a trader's 
190 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
dream, and at this season, shortly after the biannual flooding, it would be 
crowded with barges, boats, and rafts. 
Stealing a solid raft large enough for four people and a horse should be easy. 
But how was she to lay a false trail northward while imprisoned on the palace 
grounds? 
Jiana sat and watched during the day, whenever her horse duties were 
temporarily completed. The Caliph's palace grounds were marked by packed earth 
that was watered frequently to keep down the dust, an incredible luxury, even 
at an oasis. The great dome was made of cut stone, each piece set carefully 
into place and the entirety plastered over with dried mud and paint. It was 
one of the finest palaces Jiana had ever seen. 
The grounds smelled of jamah and horses, and all their associated products. 
Her duties in the stables were not severe; she quickly got used to the smell, 
and to the thought of what she was raking and shoveling into piles. She 
discovered she could turn off the conscious part of her stomach and let the 
underbelly think unmolested. 
At last, a plan occurred to her. 
From the pouch Toldo threw her, Jiana poured out her few, meagre coins. The 
total amounted to six steel teeth—enough for barely twelve days lodging in Bay 
Bay, but a tiny fortune this far south. Then she went out and stood against 
the front gate, watting for a washerwoman to pass. 
The palace road was the major thoroughfare in Deh Bid, and it was not long 
before a fat, sweaty woman came stomping along, balancing an enormous basket 
full of robes and sheets on her head. The sun glinted off the shiney 



cobblestones of the road, and nearly washed out the woman in the glare. 
"Most gracious and generous princess," Jiana called softly, just enough to 
catch the woman's ear, "may you live to see nine hundred turns, your most 
exalted majesty." 
The woman stopped and stared suspiciously, scratching the wispy, black, 
mustache hairs on her lip. She finally grunted, acknowledging the greeting of 
the slave and indicating that she would not call the palace guards if Jiana 
WABRIORWARDS 
191 
continued. The washerwoman planted her fists on her ample hips and waited. 
"My master, may his faith stand as a mighty palm tree in the wind, earnestly 
desires some information . . . might such an exalted person of such high rank 
as yourself oblige?" At this point, Jiana held up one of her precious 
serpent's teeth. 
The woman squinted at the silver; steadying the load with one hand, she 
hesitantly approached close enough to stick out a puffy hand, scoured pink by 
the washing she had just finished. 
Jiana placed the coin deferentially in the woman's hand, and it disappeared 
within an eyeblink into a fold of the woman's mil-body robe. 
"Er, 1 thinks I kin give you such information as I might possess," answered 
the awe-struck woman with an extreme low-caste accent, "or I might not 
depending on what it were your master were wanting to know." 
"A thousand blessings from the Seer," said Jiana. The woman grunted and 
quickly made the sign of die sun. "What he most wishes to know is which road 
would be best to take to the north for a traveler weary of company, one who 
wishes to travel unmolested by passers-by.** 
"Well, as it be, the road truly has no name, for it were old when I were young 
and has now lost all custom to the new Road of White Poppies that the Sultan 
of Tonnut did had built a few turns ago. But you find it I might say by 
journeying up this road until you are even with die House of the Houris, there 
to turn upon your right front leg, pass between the House and a 
chicken-slaughterhouse. This path becomes it does an alley, which turns a 
trail and then a road, later down the pipe." 
"Your kindness to one of the Elect surpasses even your beauty, o nobly-born. 
But is there an inn a day's ride or so up this old road?" 
"I know of there be an inn, the Broken Verses." 
"And does it pry and ask leading questions?" 
"What not or whether the shopman pries into business 
192 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
of his custom, I would have no way of knowing thus, for I have not frequented 
that said inn, not myself." 
Jiana bowed deeply, touching her forehead with both hands and turning her 
hands up and outward. 
"My master will be ecstatic with your aid, and enraptured by your poppy-like 
beauty. But his joy would be complete if you would promise never to reveal to 
a soul what information was requested here. Will you boost him into the 
Blessed Realm by making such a promise?" 
It was all the woman could do to maintain a straight face. 
"Oh, certainly do I, I do. Not a word shall I breathe says I of this scandal 
to anyone, nay not even my sister." She made the sign of the sun again, and 
then sped off, making magnificent headway back in the direction she came, 
towards the main oasis. 
Spread it, false one, Jiana thought, smiling, flap it up and down, all over 
Deh Bid! 
Jiana left the gate, and began to slowly walk along the outer wall, checking 
for structural weaknesses or low spots that could be climbed or leaped. By the 
time she had completed exactly half the circuit, the front gate at which she 
had stood was now crowded with washerwomen, all talking to the soldiers in 
great excitement. 



That evening, Jiana rushed through her stables chores and slipped out into the 
darkness; she intended a dry run of the next night's escape. 
She waited in the shadows until the Horseman appeared with the keys to Toldo's 
cell. He was followed by a servant, carrying the priest's supper. It was a leg 
of lamb; die Caliph fed his important prisoners better than his slaves. 
Jiana stalked the pair until they reached the gaol. Then the warrior hid and 
observed their ritual. Prison guards are rigid and invariant souls, Jiana had 
found; this one proved no exception. He walked through his opening and 
WARRIOBWARDS 
193 
closing routine as if entranced, every movement precise and calculated. 
The soldier waited outside, while the Horseman and the servant entered with 
the lamb. Jiana counted slowly—one hippopotamus, two hippopotamus . . . One 
hundred and twenty-five hippopotamuses before they reemerged, plenty of time 
for her to have cold-cocked the soldier. She could pick up the man's spear and 
swing it butt first into the Horseman's gut as he emerged. Quick, and nobody 
killed. 
When the Horseman finished locking up, he and his servant returned to the main 
building. Jiana strolled briskly toward the stables. No one interfered; they 
were all at the Feast of the Lamp Oil Jars, which continued the next evening, 
" 'Lo, Cascade," she whispered, stroking the horse's nose with her fingers, 
"tomorrow eve. Be ready." 
Jiana returned to the slaves' chambers. Rethe stopped talking for a moment and 
looked suspiciously at the warrior as she entered; then the slave Voice 
resumed her lecture to the four new slaves acquired while she was up north. 
The single glance told Jiana all she needed to know: Rethe was annoyed but not 
angry; she assumed Jiana was out sniffing for food, love, or gossip. 
Jiana laid on her sleeping mat, but too many visions bewitched her stomach to 
permit sleep. So many things to go wrong, even with as simple a plan as this. 
Suppose the soldier forgets to feed Toldo? Suppose other Horsemen skip the 
feast and tag along? What if there are no rafts, what if the washerwoman 
didn't tett all her friends about the slave escaping to the north? 
What if they're smarter or luckier than they look? 
Then you'll die, said a quiet, familiar voice. Down to honorable defeat. Did 
you expect to live forever? 
Now that you mention it—yes, I did. I don't want to die just yet. . . I have 
unfinished business. 
Jiana could almost hear the eerie chuckle of the once-a-time Tormentor, now 
more a part, more apart than ever. 
Radienee will either liberate herself, or she wont. You 
194 Dafydd ab Hugh 
showed her freedom; now she's free to reject it if she wants. Your Justness is 
through. 
I didn't mean Radience; I meant the kid, Dida. I have no intention of leaving 
this life with such a mess behind. 
Before I go, I'll find a way to call him back. 
Grey dawn flickered dimly and retreated. Red sky, the sand was gold, perhaps 
blood-drops fallen from wars in heaven. Jiana shivered, finding herself naked 
and alone on the desert, face down in the sand. 
She tasted it; Tool was salt and bitter. Tool was tears and blood. She woke 
more fully, and she was on a floor, her face lying hi sand blown through the 
window. 
She was nude, still hairless, still a slave. Her blankets were far away, and 
only one other slave was awake (Mugn was outside, retching; she was pregnant 
by a soldier). 
Jiana stood slowly to avoid dizziness. The bitter cold of autumn in the desert 
made her nipples stand up, but she refused to wrap her arms around her body. 
She stood still, accepting the cold, letting it pass through her as she used 
to do in the snows of the Flower Empire. The cold brought memories. The cold 
ignited the icy pride of a warrior in 



Jiana's gut, 
/ spit molten iron and piss fire. Cut me open and find a snake in my belly. I 
have no blood, left it on a thousand fields from here to the Islands of the 
Sun. Fists are rocks, arms are banded steel, my teeth are filed to points the 
better to chew your batts off. I have no mercy; I'tt kill a baby for shits and 
grins. I am relentless. I died so long ago my body rotted away to nothing 
leaving a stone statue instead. I've eaten human flesh because it turned my 
stomach, and nothing is allowed to defeat me. 1 care nothing for you. You have 
no soul, you're a piece of meat for me to carve. I will cut you open and suck 
the shit out of your bowels because I like it. 
Jiana smiled. It was time to stop shaving off her crest. 
The sun finally broke fully over the eastern mountains, 
WARRIOHWARDS 
195 
but Jiana had been up for a long time. She performed her duties with joy, 
knowing it was the last time—come what may. 
She watched Radience carefully, but it was not until noon that the slave girl 
found herself alone. Before Radience could scurry off and avoid the encounter, 
Jiana stepped out of a shadow and seized the girl's arm. 
"This is it," the warrior said, quietly and unemotionally. "I leave tonight, 
during the feast of the Lamp Oil Jars. I go south on a raft, with my horse and 
a couple of friends— and perhaps with a young freewoman." 
Radience stared at Jiana; she tried to speak, but no sound escaped her throat. 
She caught hold of her collar with the fingers of her good hand, as if it were 
suddenly too tight to breathe. Her knuckles turned white with the pressure. 
"I am leaving," Jiana continued, "and I will not allow these magical collars 
to stop me. I can remove mine, and I can remove yours. But I cannot liberate 
you. 
"Only Radience can free Radience." 
"Why—why did you tell me? What do I do—what can I do now, where is loyalty. 
..." The girl's face was white; all the blood drained from her cheeks into her 
body, as though she had been struck a mortal blow. 
Jiana gently took Radience's hand; her fingers were chilly. 
"You must decide—and this time, doing nothing is a decision. You can join me, 
betray me, or let me leave unhindered." The warrior stroked the slave's temple 
with her fingertips. "I hope to see you; I'll tarry at the guardhouse, where 
my priest friend is being held." Jiana turned and walked back to the stables. 
She did not look back. 
Jiana made no particular attempt to conceal her activities as she secured gear 
for the escape. The Elect of Tool were a true slave society: the slaves 
themselves acknowledged their own servitude. Escape was not unknown; but it 
was uncommon. Being both a slave and a woman, Jiana was as invisible as if she 
had chanted "Rikki Tikki Pay-the-bill." 
196 Dafgdd ab Hugh 
She found a saddlesack for Cascade and filled it with useful provisions: a 
hemp rope, tinderbox, lamp oil, bandages and poultices, whetstone, boots and 
gloves that looked like they might fit, filched from an inattentive groom, a 
shiny metal mirror, good knife, a few days' worth of dried goat meat, and 
horse-feed for Cascade. For the rest, she depended upon her own abilities and 
the Jambajala. Just as she was balancing the stuffed saddlesack on Cascade's 
back, Jiana felt a presence. She turned; Rethe, the slave Voice, stood 
watching. 
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" "I'm leaving. You knew I would . . 
. you knew I was never a slave." 
Rethe opened her mouth to speak; then she closed it again. She glared fire 
into Jiana's eyes, and the warrior returned the look. After a moment, the 
slave Voice began to blink; then she dropped her gaze. 
"You win. You're no slave." She looked up again, angry. "So who the fuck are 
you? What do you want with me?" "I want you. You're no slave either, Rethe!" 
"I belong—" 



"You belong to yourself. You're a fighter, a sergeant. Where's your sword? You 
were born here, weren't you?" "Well. ..." "Come with me." 
Rethe sucked in a breath and took a step back. Her brown eyes floated in white 
foam, and she fearfully looked over her shoulder. She was just beginning to 
realize that she was a sergeant, but Jiana was the captain. Then she frowned 
and clenched her fists at her sides. "Damn you, 111 do it! Fuck these 
bastards, fuck the Overman, fu-fuck the Caliph!" She grinned, looked back at 
the dome and extended two fingers. "That's my "hell with you and fuck ofF 
salute," she explained. Jiana smiled. It was a grand day for an escape. "Meet 
me back here during the feast. . . sister." Rethe held out her hand, and Jiana 
touched her palm. 
"During the feast," Jiana repeated. 
t 
WARRIORWARDS 
197 
Rethe turned and trotted back towards her quarters in the dome to gather the 
things she needed. 
No one paid Jiana any attention as she led Cascade out of his stall; she was 
just another slave preparing a horse for her master. She made her way as near 
as she could to the guardhouse while still maintaining cover, and began the 
vigil for Radience. 
Will she come? 
Sure. 
Witt she come? 
I don't know! 
Will she peach on me? 
Jianabel was silent. For her own part, Jiana blanked her mind whenever she 
caught herself imagining a tale told to Giathudin. 
She watched the feasting hall, its onion dome surmounted by a hundred torches 
that made the gilded roof blaze with yellow fire. Shouts were raised, oaths 
taken, quests accepted, challenges cast, treacheries hatched, justice applied, 
marriages made. 
The Feast of the Lamp Oil Jars was the most boisterous celebration allowed the 
Elect, the "days between the seasons," when alcohol was legal, for the feast 
existed outside Time entirely. 
When dawn broke, it would break on a new turn. But last night's sunset was the 
fading fire of the old turn. Today fell between the two, and no man or woman 
of the Elect could be denied paradise for transgressions committed " 'tween 
turns" ... or so taught the caliphs of the Old School. 
Jiana wrapped her arms around herself; then she forced them to her sides and 
embraced the cold again, as she had done earlier. It was getting late, and the 
Horseman had not come with Toldo's supper. 
Radience had not come either. 
A strange chill passed through the warrior. They've walked across my grave, 
she thought. But she had felt a similar premonition other times in her life, 
times when death had brushed her by. 
198 Dafydd ab Hugh 
Feeling prickles on the back of her neck, Jiana turned suddenly. Her heart 
gave a wild leap; a white, translucent ghoul stared at the warrior from an 
arm's length away, its red eyes dripping filth, betrayal, and hunger. 
Then Jiana's eyes focused, and it was only Radience, shivering before her 
under a cloak too thin and sheer for 
the weather. 
"You come with silence," Jiana said, folly in control of 
her breath again. 
Radience merely stared, her face betraying shame and 
guilt. 
"Radience," Jiana asked, "what did you do?" The girl looked down at the 
ground. The misery in her face was eloquent; it was punctuated by the slight 
rasp of steel drawn from a wooden scabbard. The feint sound came from a deep, 



black shadow. 
"I didn't know what to do," the girl said. Her voice was tiny but unwavering. 
"I was confused. I thought of Ruhol, of the Caliph, of my—loyalties." Her tone 
was flat, until she spoke the last word with such disgust and loathing that it 
struck Jiana like a fist. 
"You betrayed me." 
"Yes." 
"There are Horsemen in the blackness. They plan to kill 
me." 
Radience looked up at Jiana again. Her eyes were calm with the peace of death; 
her lips were set with the acceptance of the end. 
"They'll loll us both. I know what I did. It was stupid; I 
was weak. Now I'll die." "You accept this?" "Freely." Jiana smiled; it was all 
she could do not to grin like a 
loon. 
"Radience, you are a free woman from this moment. You took responsibility for 
your own action, your own decision." 
*Tm not a slave?" 
"No longer. Damn!" Jiana cried, oblivious of who might 
WARRIORWAHDS 
199 
hear. "I finally did it! I finally got through to you, I finally. ..." 
Like a bursting dam, the power exploded from her with the suddenness of birth 
after nine moons of labor. 
A scream of joy and battle-lust began in Jiana's feet, rose through her legs, 
her vagina, her belly, her heart, and burst forth from her throat as a shout 
to wake the sleeping dead. She tore the cloak from her shoulders, and with the 
same fluid motion drew Wave and snapped her so straight and rigid that the 
blade almost tore itself from her hand. An audible crack reverberated from the 
stonework dome. 
Some of the Horsemen panicked at the yell, scrambling out of the shadows and 
running back towards the great hall as if Arhatman himself were after them. 
But the bolder ones were startled forward from their hiding place, into the 
light of the blazing torches. Five Horsemen, swords but no armor, momentarily 
thrown off balance by Jiana's battle yell. 
Radience whirled to face them, a pitiful dagger in her good hand. But Jiana 
was already moving, accelerating past the erstwhile slave at the speed of a 
striking shakersnake. 
The first Horseman never had a chance. He stared curiously as Jiana snapped 
the whip-like sword in a short arc. She had already passed him when He tried 
to turn his head; it kept turning, and rolled off his body. 
The second man at least raised his sword. 
The third finally realized what was happening, and managed to parry two blows, 
giving the fourth and fifth enough time to turn and follow their smarter, 
faster compatriots who were already half way to the onion dome. 
Jiana watched them run for a moment; then she turned back to Radience. The 
girl was staring open-mouthed at the three dissected corpses. She looked 
dazed, and had probably not even been able to follow the battle, so quickly 
was it over. 
"No time," Jiana said. "We've got to break Toldo out of the brig. Damn, where 
the hell's Rethe? Move it!" 
"Toldo?" asked Radience, dumbly. But the warrior was already sprinting towards 
the gaol. 
200 Dafydd ab Hugh 
Hie guard stepped outside when be heard the yell. When he saw the madwoman 
bearing down on him, having just cut down three of the Caliph's finest in as 
many heartbeats, he threw his spear far away and stood absolutely still with 
his hands over his head. 
"On your face," Jiana commanded as she reached die locked door. The soldier 
obediently dropped to the ground, face first. 



She yanked on die lock, but it was tight. 
"What's happening?" rumbled a voice from within. "I heard yells ... is 
that—who I think it is?" 
"No keys!" cried Radience. Jiana glanced at the girl, and saw to her surprise 
that Radience was frisking the prone soldier. 
"I know. Horseman carries them. Leave that sod alone, will you? Let's get this 
fucking door!" 
She stilled her mind as best as she could and spoke quietly: 
Flick flack 
Click back 
Pop box 
Drop locks 
Nothing happened; the lock remained fast. Too fast stomach churning calm calm 
can't do anything when— 
Jiana felt a looming presence, and a cold nose nuzzled the back of her neck. 
"Owl Cascade, what the hell?" The horse snorted loudly in her ear. He seemed 
to be trying to push her away from tile cell door. 
"Sony boy, forgot all about you ..." Perplexed, Jiana let Cascade push her 
away. The horse turned, and delivered a vicious kick to the wooden door. On 
the second kick, some of the panels split and splintered. Inside, Jiana could 
hear Toldo bellowing something about an earthquake. 
With the third kick, a flash of light blinded Jiana for a moment, and a 
thunderclap hit her so hard she dropped to one knee and clasped her ears. The 
door shattered, along 
WARRJOBWARDS 
201 
with most of the wall. Cascade reared and screamed, baring his teeth 
ferociously. 
Toldo climbed cautiously out of die hole, momentarily snagging his robe on the 
still-locked doorlatch, which now hung from a single shard of the jamb. 
"How—how—" stammered Radience, staring at the horse. Jiana herself kept her 
eyes on the feasting hall, which had grown silent as a tomb. 
"Jiana! I knew you would come through, pull the irons out of the fire, um, as 
it were!" 
The warrior held up her hand for silence; she listened intently. She heard the 
whinny of another horse, back towards the hall. 
"Let's get the fack out of here," she said, quietly and unemotionally. Toldo 
sobered at once, and Radience stopped gibbering about Cascade. "1 don't like 
this ..." said Jiana. 
A cock crowed, far away. 
Then suddenly, the metal band around her neck contracted like a vise being 
screwed tight. 
Her eyes felt like they were bulging, and she could feel the pressure building 
in her face and neck. She had been caught on an exhalation, and her lungs 
pumped frantically, begging for air. 
The world contracted to a tunnel, filled with white sparkles and edged with 
absolute black. 
Who is the goose? 
1 CAN'T BREATHE! 
Who is the goose? 
I CAN'T— 
Listen to me. If you die now, you are dead in this life. You must calm 
yourself and listen, Jiana. You are trapped in a bottle, but you are not a 
goose. 
I'm dying dying— 
You have a long time before you die. Be sttil, stop crying. You have trapped 
yourself in a bottle, but you are not a goose. The bottle is yours. Remember 
how they put 
202 Dafydd ab Hugh 
you in it when you were little, fed you and taught you that the glass walls 



were unbreakable? But Jiana dearest, it is your own bottle. 
Help me—I don't want to die. Not now! I cannot free you. A goose is a woman 
waiting for somebody else to free her. I'm not a slave. I'm free! Then you are 
not in the bottle. I can't breathe! 
Then you are still in the bottle . . . you must break your own bonds. The 
goose can leave 
whenever it truly wills . . . Jiana, the bottle is your own bottle. 
The green sky and blue grass surrounded her; the master willed the colors to 
reverse, and the grass was green and the sky blue. Who is the master? Who is 
the goose? But Jiana on the field of green chooses, "I will not die on this 
field. I will not join the thousands buried beneath, bottles upon bottles, 
inside the outside." 
A little girl, she must marry. No, / wiU not. Pulls the knife, kills the 
solstice goose now red in bridal finery. But was that she? Was that she? 
Glass shatters, green and blue shards fly outward diamond sparkles, sharpness 
sound cuts of ruby blood. Goose flies free at last, goose is free there is no 
bottle. 
Once I heard five blind men, and they had found an elphas. They argued, was it 
a rope? was it a snake? was it a watt? 
Man the talker. Man the bottle-maker. 
Held you too tight, put his hands and fingers where they should not have 
oughtn't to have gone, didn't he? Called upon me then, but was really you. 
Then you are me. 
Jiana, Jianabel, and Jianabelana sit on a cloud, float through green sky over 
blue grass. Talk and talk, left and right and two-hands-caught. 
WARRIORWARDS 
203 
No. We are both of us "us." He could not hold the goose, could he? He grasped 
it tight, but it was water and flowed all cold and crystal clear through his 
peeping fingers and he felt glass watts pushing pressing him, folding him unto 
himself. Felt the sudden-glass bottle, and he wept for he had no Witt left, 
the sitty goose. 
Damn his frozen feet. Couldn't I have loved my own father at least? 
Jiana reached within. Within was a core of power. 
What was the power? If she would ever understand, it would be now, now that 
the bottle squeezed ever tighter against the goose's weasand, crushing under 
force of Curse's collar. 
Power simply Will manifest said the Tunk, for he was now here. 
He is, ahem, essentially correct, rumbled the fat priest, but his mystic 
mumble-jumble is all jumbo mumbo and he doesn't get the point (as it were) 
across. Now look at these charts I have prepared, my dear. 
He flashed them; they were indeed prepared. 
But it's all Hodge and Podge! she cried in confusion, as metal slave band 
squeezed and squeezed like the neck of a bottle and severed her neck letting 
her head fall with a thump dump on the hump. 
Maq held her in his arms. Kissed her, shaved her head, pulled down her 
pantaloons and put it in her like he had always wanted to ever since she was a 
little girl and he had used his finger, the dirty Maqfather. 
Thought you'd did me, he cooed, but you wrong. See, Jiana? Your daddy again, 
back again you didn't do me that time. The little shit with the pointy teeth 
didn't do me and neither did you. Did you know the sky was green? Should I be 
worried about that? 
And Jiana saw that indeed, it had all come to pass, so mote it be. And she 
wept, for the Master had a stomach of its own. 
Come to focus, four stomach is wandering. You must listen to me; I won't shut 
up, I just won'tl You have but a few heartbeats left of life. 
204 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
I love you. 
Yes, yes, but let's get to the important things: this goose must leave this 



bottle NOW. There is no second time. She needs your help. 
Radience? Is she a slave again? 
"They're not even sure it is Radience," distracted the Maqfather. Get out of 
my belly! she cried, you are not Maq and he is not my father, 
Radience, and yout too, suly goose, explained Jianabel. 
But the strange Uttle one is right, so to speak. Toldo cleared his throat 
noisily in her stomach. The figment of your stomach is rig/if, so to speak. 
Listen, Jiana; I found my own bottle. Found it and it was gone! I know the 
path, I have the key. 
"First," Toldo amplified, "there is a bottle." 
Jianabel "Then there is no bottle." 
Dilai: "Then there is." 
But, ah, the bottle is always and ever yours. No one can impose it upon you 
from, ahem, from the Outside, as it may be. 
The little girl crosses the plains, the mountains. First there is a mountain, 
then there is no mountain. She comes to the Floating City they called it Bay 
Bay but she cannot stay. 
She drifts south, north. She stows away on a schooner laden with spice, bound 
for the Flower Empire, is stolen by Pirates who call themselves Ti Ji Tul, the 
Firstmen, and teach her the language. 
She marries. 
Did you remember that, Jiana? Did you remember Ton 
Kikijin? 
Did you remember your little girl? 
"NO! Take it away, take that out of my stomach, take it—" 
YES THEY TOOK HER. 
I remember: remember the pain, so pain, so pain I can't move can't walk, can 
only sit and hold myself aroiujjl the 
WARRIORWABDS 
205 
belly. Something was wrong. She was growing wrong inside me I can tell, can't 
they do anything, the Firstmen? 
No, ride it out. You will live. Oh Tooqa the Nameless Serpentine take this egg 
from me, let her die I don't want to die! 
(And the bottle grows thicker, every day another layer of glass trap the goose 
push away the world.) 
So I tell myself it's just normal, that all the women feel it like this but I 
know it's shit, I know I'm dying she's killed me, I want her dead. But she's 
my daughter, ! love her. 
O Tooqa help me with this. Oh mother why didn't you tell me? No it's not like 
this there's something wrong, please my love Ton-Ton help me, call her, call 
the one you spoke of, take this egg away from me. 
I just want to live. Is that a crime, oh gods I want the pain to stop, I want 
to die, I want to loll her, I want to live! 
You let it go. You spend days dizzy and vomiting and every moment of every day 
of every week of every moon it's a dagger in my belly something ripping and 
tearing and all for her, ALL FOR HIM, never for me. 
Soon I can't even get out of bed, just lie, just lie curled around the growing 
pain like a dead goose stuffed in a roasting pan and they eat me: 
She eats me from within, he eats at me from without—be brave! strong! 
persevere! think! of your daughter! think of your son! 
Oh Serp I hate him! I love him hate him and wish he would die go away let me 
end this horrible, I don't want anything else, just stop the pain! She isn't 
worth it! Aren't I worth it? 
I'm weak. Don't know how I've lived through so much of this. Know she'll loll 
me as she comes out just like he lolled me when he came in and I became a 
vessel. Ghoul eat my innards out come out all bloody with sharp teeth filed to 
a point swallowing the last of the afterbirth and grinning. 
She looks at me with horrible, horrible metal eyes and 
206 Dafydd ab Hugh 



steel teeth, pull on the afterbitch. I unplug like air bladder my blood pour 
out upon the table for Her to lap up so much milk never come out of my 
breasts. She suck me dry women scream in terror she gnaws remains of my body 
until nothing left. 
But I live I don't know how. 
I push through one more day, just one. Then one more. I think of the sword, 
think of the Flower Empire. Think of my father and the knife, think of the 
wedding that almost was and the knife. 
Think of the knife. Think too much of the knife. But I make it through. First 
there is pain. Then there is no pain. 
Then there is; she comes out oh Tooqa none too gently. I don't know, my 
stomach had emptied of all that is me through most of it. Remember pain 
unbearable, and grim silence of women pulled her from me, what there was of 
her. 
Don't know what there was. Can't remember. Won't remember. Yeah it was wrong, 
gods she was wrong. 
I don't think she had a head. She had a head, but it was all pushed in, and 
she didn't cry, the eyes were dull grey metal, and was alive but wasn't a she. 
It was meat. 
The women bit the afterbirth off and I thought they would give me the wrong 
one to eat, it was almost more a child than she. Gave me the afterbirth, and I 
could barely choke it down, my sweet, my daughter. Wanted them to bury her, 
but I wanted her. I can't describe it any more than that. It was another 
bottle, another wall of glass. 
She was a goose. They cooked her. That night I slept, so close between dead 
and alive that I wouldn't have given anyone odds which it was, five gets you 
only five. 
And when I woke still pale still bleeding, sun high, she was gone. They took 
her in the long, cold night. I don't know where. 
They took my daughter. They took my husband. 
Or he left. 
No, never again, never saw him again. His family looked at me, a stranger; who 
was I? why did I haunt them? Why 
WARRIORWARDS 
207 
was there always blood dropping from my mouth, always hungry, always eyeing 
the children and feeling empty rumble in my stomach? 
I don't dream during this part. I don't dream for a long time. 
They wouldn't stop me; the look in my metal eyes was enough, and I get my 
sword and I leave and the Pirates take me on to the original destination, to 
the Flower Empire. 
I learn there. Learn to forget. 
Now I learn to remember. 
Whose bottle is it? 
This too is just a bottle. The little girl does not exist, neither the one 
that was me nor the one that I made. 
Damn it, it passes; everything passes. It's all temporary. Only one thing is 
real, only the mountain. 
And I really know that now. 
To hell with Jianabel. To hell with Radience. Toldo is gone, Dilai is gone. 
There is no more Alanai, no more Lyonalai, no princes or Kings or governors, 
anywhere. Toq, who is he? Sleeping Tifhiz, a bug in a dream. No slavemasters, 
no slaves, no masters except the one who makes the grass green and the sky 
blue. There is nothing. There is no peace, no motion, no silver, no gold. 
Candles don't burn, and the moons don't rise. The earth is round, the earth is 
flat, there is no earth. 
There is a mountain. The mountain is ME. 
Not Jiana, not the goose, not the bottle, no nothing but the all-seeing eye, 
three cornered lid reaching out to Inside, Outside, Otherside. 
And the goose is out of the bottle; the goose can leave anytime it wills ... 



for it is NEVER truly in the bottle at all. It's just a trick of the 
perspective. 
And the goose is out. 
There is no bottle. 
There is no glass. 
Nothing breaks. 
Nothing is. 
206 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Congratulations, Jiana. You really are free. And I love you, too. Something 
wet touched 
her cheek, 
Jiana reached up a hand to brush the tear aside. Her breaths came easy, 
serene. 
Fingers brushed her throat; she opened her eyes, and Toldo stared at her bare 
throat, his mouth open in an "Oh" of astonishment. 
"It worksl" he breathed, awestruck. 
"Radience. . . ." Jiana sat up, reaching for the girl. She lay on die ground, 
her face purple with the lack of air. But the proper color was returning 
quickly, as the girl breathed more easily. 
"I took—" Toldo began; but he paused, uncertain how to proceed. "I pulled you 
out of yourself, um, I mean I ..." 
She shook her head. 
"No, priest. It was my bottle. Snakes, get the hell out of here. Horsemen 
probably coming. How long . . . ?" 
"Just a few moments, Jiana. They're out of the feast hall and staging—can your 
horse carry us all?" 
Jiana looked at Cascade; he looked at her, seeming to say Anything s possible, 
but I doubt it, not with him. 
The decision was Jiana's. 
"We can't really run; you know that. We stand and fight and maybe die as free 
women. But stand we will—here." 
She stood painfully, staring curiously at the two metal collars, lying 
peacefully on the sand. They were unbroken. 
"Help the kid up, will you? I have to find something to do about ..." As she 
watched, the regrouped Horsemen began their charge across the compound, crying 
the battle-songs of the Soldiers of the Elect. 
6 
Jiana felt the core of power well up within her, even before she consciously 
thought of using her Jianabel-spells. She closed her eyes, and pushed her 
spirit up over the 
WARRIORWAHDS 
209 
hump, enough to look over the courtyard and evaluate tactics. 
She saw a hot essence push past her on an intercept path with the frightened 
but determined Horsemen. Jiana opened her eyes, and saw that the angry essence 
was Radience. The girl positioned herself with drawn dagger between Jiana and 
the Horsemen, not realizing that she would not even slow them down. 
They would cut her where she stood; Jiana had no intention of allowing that to 
happen. Invisibility, she speculated. 
No—won't work when you're the center of their attention. Not at your level of 
power. 
Transport? 
Ever practiced it, dear heart? Jiana, you have only a moment—do what you do 
best! 
I'm a warrior. 
Use it! Fight them! 
Jiana became conscious of a great reluctance. Things were happening too fast, 
it was out of her control again. She spared a glance at Toldo: he seemed oddly 
serene, accepting of whatever might happen. It was not the way she remembered 



him; he had changed. 
The Horsemen were more than halfway across the yard, formed into a cutting 
wedge. There was no more time. 
Jiana expanded her stomach outward, out through the crystal spheres with such 
rapidity that she could barely see them as they blurred past. She sought—what 
did she seek?—she sought a tool, something hard and hot and fast to stop them 
like a stone wall rising out of the cobblestones. 
(Three times . . .) 
"Jianabel! Help me—" 
"Who?" asked Toldo, his voice calm and unconcerned. "Are you still on about 
her?" 
Sister, I wish I could. But you too have passed through the Father Door and 
entered the chapel. Find your own path . . . I have confidence, prettiest! 
(Three times will I blot. . .) 
"I thought you buried that delusion for once and all." 
210 Dafydd ab Hugh 
All the sound in the world ceased; the Horsemen slowed to a crawl, though 
their beasts still galloped. All the white in the world fell into Jiana's 
view, obscuring the rest of the mundane sphere. The warrior realized she was 
still in yet another chamber of the Fere Dur Chapel ... as she would be for 
the rest of her existence. No one gets— 
Doors and doors, more doors than there were numbers in her mind, all opened 
from the chamber in which she stood. The room itself unfolded into an infinity 
of star points, each edge of a point containing yet another point, forever. 
No one gets out— 
The grass was green but the sky was blue beneath her feet and above her 
head—and I know the master who makes it so, she thought. A snake of magical 
power rose within her spine, and she knew then that she would surely die at 
the hands of a black-skinned woman from die steamy, southern jungles, and not 
trampled under horses ridden by raghead jamalmasters. But no one gets out 
INTACT. 
Another voice intruded itself, spouting errant nonsense merely to confuse 
and/or dissuade her from Trueness and Comprehension. 
—Bull bollocks! it screamed, and Razorboys and bald-headed women copulate with 
goats while the horny long and butterball queen succeed and suck eggs in a 
never-everending gavotte of— 
Tike words rolled inuendo and out the other; Jiana was in another space, her 
own space at last. Her own room in the Father Door. Let me reign over my own 
world, she thought. Let me rain over mine enemies. She felt her teeth with her 
tongue and was unastonished to find them all filed to very, very sharp points: 
she understood now, they were not needles, not daggers; they were the points 
of the starry chamber of the Father Door—points of decision. 
Each point held a door, a path that she might take; each door held a world, 
the world written by the path just taken. ^ 
WABRIORWABDS 
211 
"What is magic? How does the goose get out of the bottle?" Toldo lectured. Not 
the Toldo who stood serene on the flagstones, awaiting what must be, but the 
Toldo of four turns past, created in Jiana's stomach when she first met him. 
"How many Toldos are there?" she asked, afraid to listen. "Are we nothing but 
images in someone's stomach? Toldo yesterday, today, my guess of Toldo 
tomorrow?" 
He continued doggedly. "Magic is just vision. A magician sees the points, 
peeks behind the doors, chooses the path. What is your need?" 
"I need to loll that charging bunch of ragneads, you motherless priest! Need 
to rain death and fire to save one particular set of Toldo, Radience, and 
Jiana!" 
"Then search well the doors," whispered the Toldo's fading ghost, "but mind, 
look far down their paths, lest you turn right when you should after all turn 
left, as it were. Sometimes the paths are hard to . . ." 



He vanished with a pop, leaving only his stodgy pedagogy. 
Jiana flung back all doors at once, and the goose was debottled again. Behind 
one she saw a roaring, crackling, merry dance of flames. Yessir, that's the 
door for me, I can tell, she declared, putting her foot down. 
DEMON FEET! AND 
RUBBER MEAT! AND 
MOMMY'S TEAT! AND 
POISON TREAT! AND— 
"Shut up, Toq; you have no power over me today, not you or any other 
bottlegod. Three times, my ass! You're nothing, you're negligible now. ... I 
found the road to the starry Chapel!" 
The boy-god appeared, white today as the perpetual snows of the great, east 
mountains, save for the blood-red gash where his mouth should have been. 
"I've got to hand it to you," he yielded, "but don't drop it!" He shed a 
bitter tear, wiping it away with the severed hand of a virgin. 
212 Dafydd ab Hugh 
And then Toq too vanished away, leaving behind only his modes and bis socks. 
And they all vanished away, all the other doors that Jiana bad not selected, 
leaving only their sins and their 
might-have-bins. 
The fire was left hi Jiana's hands; the fire had eyes, the fire had a name. 
The fire squirmed and writhed, a door full of worms, a handful of fiery worms 
that burned and murdered all that they touched. Where did they fell? They (ell 
firom the sky, like every doom. 
Jiana rose from the cobblestones of the Caliph's courtyard; Toldo and Radience 
were staring curiously at her, the girl in a panic and Toldo preparing himself 
for death. Hie Horsemen were no closer than they were before time began, in 
the aeons before Jiana saw the starry room. 
But long, looping strands of fire were beginning to tumble down firom the sky. 
They squirmed in the air, and Jiana felt a most uncomfortable certainty that 
it was not the air currents that made them shimmy. 
"Jiana . . ." Radience stared at the magus with a look frozen halfway between 
awe and loathing. Jiana glared back, unwilling to be judged by a seventeen 
turn ex-slave. The first fireworm fell across al'Kug, who led the party, and 
his face contorted in sudden agony. His horse screamed and bucked, frantically 
trying to throw of the coiling flames that wrapped around its neck and back. 
The animal succeeded in throwing the Overman, but the fireworms coiled five 
times about it and held fast, 
The worms attacked the other horses and Horsemen indiscriminately. In a beat, 
two beats, all of the men and beasts, were rolling on the ground, crying out 
in shock and terror and a pain so deep that Jiana felt it herself, wrapping 
around her chest like a monstrous rope, squeezing the breath from her lungs 
and all thought from her stomach. The fire fell. It fell thicker and fester 
now, more worms than Jiana could shake a snake at, clinging to whatever they 
touched and crawling along the ground when they 
missed. Jiana pushed back towards the iron gate, never taking 
t 
WABBIORWARDS 
213 
her eyes from the spectacle, another fiery butchery from Jiana, Slayer of All. 
"NO! This isn't what I meant! I didn't call you to ..." Her voice trailed off 
into silence, and nausea crept up her throat as the power had crept up her 
spine earlier. Look far down their paths, Toldo had warned. The words rattled 
round and round her stomach, mocking her, and she heard the silvery laugh of 
Toq. 
You did it, girl, she told herself. You did it again. Congratulations! Isn't 
it wonderful how you saved the Hoes of Toldo and'Radience, spending only five 
hundred others in the process? 
Five hundred deaths was probably an underestimate; Jiana watched in horrified 
fascination as the minaret of the feast-hall itself burst into flames, flames 



that consumed (she knew) more than flesh and hide, but thought and spirit as 
well. Flames called from a blackened limbo of ash and the Dead Past by Jiana 
Analena, Maggus Supreme. 
Suddenly, Radience grabbed Jiana's arm. 
"What is it? What—" 
Jiana looked past Radience, and the world lurched beneath the warrior's feet. 
A figure had just run out of the dome; it was Rethe. She looked left and right 
at the confusion, then jumped as a fire worm fell in a loop around her feet. 
"Look out!" screamed Radience from behind Jiana. 
Rethe did not waste time looking; she leaped forward, over the writhing fire 
worm. Anahita and Kyaddi were not so lucky; they ran out of the onion dome as 
well; but when they saw the fire felling from the sky, they grabbed each other 
in fright and began to yell for help. A coil Boated down and laid itsetf 
across them, gentle as a goose feather. 
Rethe saw Jiana and began to run towards her. Jiana urged her on, wildly 
waving her arms. 
Rethe was two-thirds of the way across the compound when she collided with 
Ysmal, who had bolted from the stables when they caught fire. Both of them 
fell heavily in a tangled heap. 
Rethe stood, but Ysmal gripped her leg in terror. 
214 Dafydd ab Hugh 
"LET GO OF ME, YOU FATHERLESS—" 
They were the last words Rethe spoke. 
Jiana turned her face away as one, then another, then a third worm draped 
across the woman's body. 
Jiana shuddered as she felt Rethe's spirit bum inside her body. The warrior 
did not know why she felt that one death above die others. 
You were meant to, whispered Jianabel. 
You tM this! 
It was your door. Sister. 
Rethe was consumed, past skin, muscle, bones, and ashes. In the end, there was 
only a dark stain on the 
ground. 
Jiana focused her eyes on Radience, anyone other than Rethe, The girl stared 
at Jiana, tear streaks running from her accusing eyes, her mouth set in hard 
lines. 
"Are you? the Arhatman?" she asked, her voice a mere 
squeak. 
"I'm Jiana. I spit on your Arhatman. Go to the gate, you stupid girl, before I 
burn off your good arm." 
Radience turned and walked to the great entrance. Her steps were hollow and 
her movements wooden. She was a marionette, not frightened, only disgusted. 
Toldo followed, watching Jiana carefully. "What has happened to you in four 
turns?" She shook her head. Later, she meant. Cascade already stood waiting 
for them at the gate, as if he knew what they were going to do. The black iron 
of the gate itself was brightly lit by the hellish glare from behind them, and 
this time Jiana had no trouble using Curse's spell on the lock. The gate swung 
open, just enough for them all to squeeze out, including Cascade. 
She pointed, and Toldo and the girl squeezed through. Jiana mounted Cascade 
first, then urged him through die 
gap-
A crowd was beginning to gather. Merchants and whores, 
rich and poor, all pushed closer and closer to the fence to 
watch the conflagration. A few of them shouted questions 
«. 
WARBIORWARDS 
215 
to Jiana in Tooltak, but she ignored them and they turned back to the fire, 
entranced by the dancing, singing flames. 
As they watched, their eyes glowed; with a shudder, Jiana wondered whether it 



was just a reflection of the fire, or if their souls burned in some demonic 
linkage with the sacrifice. Some of the spectators licked their lips—in 
hunger? 
As she passed through the gate, Jiana could not resist a final glance back. 
The fire was nothing more than a shining orb now, bright as the sun, 
impossible to look at without squinting. In the center stood a figure: it was 
a little boy, silhouetted in black against the white heat, almost invisible. 
He spread his arms in ecstasy and threw back his head, and Jiana knew it was 
Toq, 
She realized with a flush of anger that he had already begun his revenge. He 
had just blotted her life—the first time. 
"Two more, you bastard," she whispered, "two more, then you're mine." 
She turned Cascade about and followed the priest and the girl. 
Between the Parts . . . 
The great raft, almost a barge, drifted gently into the Nag Deh Jambajala as 
Jiana cut the last mooring line and Toldo worked the stem-oar. The raft was so 
large that even Cascade had room to wander a bit. Radience sat in the front, 
as for away from Jiana and Toldo as she could get without swimming. 
The warrior and the priest watched the dying glow, far behind them in the 
center of Deh Bid. 
"I think another house caught," said Toldo. 
"It'll be the last. The worms are fed." 
"Worms?" 
"You didn't see the fire worms?" 
216 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
"I saw only fire, felling from the sky," 
Jiana closed her eyes and listened to the river waves lapping at the sides of 
the raft. They were still close enough to the shore to hear chirpkins, crying 
for lost loves and nutritious mites. Far away a frog croaked, and the sound 
was carried to Jiana by a trick of the wind. 
"Have you found a faith, o fat-headed one?" 
Toldo was a long time answering. 
"I don't know," he said at last. "Faith I have found, but one faith? I don't 
know. I am not certain." 
"You babbled something about—" 
Toldo waved his hand dismissively, cutting her off in 
mid-sentence. 
"Yes, yes, I was not very coherent, I realize. Let me tell you what exactly I 
have discovered, and how I came to accept such hospitality on the part of our 
late Caliph. "I found a mushroom." "Congratulations." 
"But such a mushrooml It looks deadly enough: white stem, red cap, covered 
with yellow, diseased-looking spots; the cap is bigger than your hand." 
"Just a guess," Jiana said, "it's hallucinogenic, right?" "No, dear, I'm not 
quite as foolish as you seem to think. I have had such delusory plants and 
fungi before, and I know the difference between diem and—divine revelation." 
Jiana said nothing, but the skepticism must have shown on her face, because 
Toldo continued hastily. 
"1 was in the south, hi one of their interminable jungles, looking for Cod. 
Instead I found the Hoor-Gundu, the 'white men,' who smear some sort of white 
paste all over their bodies. Or perhaps they're albinos. 
"Their witch-man spoke Tooltak, and we got into a lively discussion of local 
politics, astronomy, and herbalism. Oh, did you know there's to be an eclipse 
next turn? Anyway, Jatjaka kept asking simple questions that I could not seem 
to answer, such as what you would see if you set two perfect mirrors face to 
face—I could not figure out how to see anything without getting my own fat 
hqad into 
WARRIOBWARDS 
217 
the picture as well. One thing led to another thing, and he called for this 



mushroom to be prepared." 
"What does it do?" 
"I saw God, Jiana; I was God. I was everything, a part of the entire, infinite 
lattice of crystal spheres, a part but not just a piece—I was the whole 
lattice. I can't describe it." 
"Wait, did you see a great star chamber, with doors leading everywhere?" 
"Oh, no, I've been there dozens of times. That's just a metaphor for the 
soul-quest." 
"Soul-quest? Looking for oneself?" 
"Looking to transcend oneself. Your teachers in the Flower Empire probably 
used the goose-in-the-bottle game. Somebody makes an absolute mint selling 
those bottled geese. 
"But what I saw when I drank that foul-tasting concoction is as far beyond the 
soul-quest as your magic is beyond the bazaar-tricks of a market-square 
mountebank. Jiana ... I think it may be the basis of every religion in this 
world." 
Jiana leaned down and scooped a handful of the Jambajala into her mouth; it 
tasted slightly salty, probably from the alkali clifls upriver from Deh Bid. 
"A mushroom," she summarized, licking the salt from her palm, "caused the 
birth of every religion in the world. I think that witch-man scrambled your 
stomach, chum." 
"You won't know until you try it," responded Toldo with unusual force. "It 
cannot be described, only recreated. In the moons after my enlightenment, I 
have meditated upon the visions, powers, philosophies, and especially the 
words of every great seer, messiah, prophet, and saint I have ever 
studied—hundreds of them. And I am convinced that every one of them at one 
time partook of this particular mushroom, or something similar in another 
land. 
"Fact: they all became dissatisfied with their former lives. Fact: they all 
forsook civilization, or their familiar town, and headed out into the physical 
or cultural wilderness. Fact: each and every one vanished from view for a 
long, long time—moons, at a minimum, often turns. 
"Fact: they all came back changed, filled with a cer218 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
tainty and a need to proselytize that I now know well. Especially their words 
. . . they all use the same phrases, the same types of metaphors: dying and 
being reborn, seeing with new eyes, going to a place far away and seeing 
monsters from the dreamworld—literally from their dreams. But always, they 
returned with that evil certainty, and it caused them to misinterpret it all, 
to see heaven as over there and the current world as a world of sin. 
"It's just a world of sleepwalkers, Jiana. I'm certain of that. . . but I 
doubt my own certainty; I fight against it. I know that certainty is just part 
of the vision induced by the alchemy. But my skepticism no longer allows me my 
religion of atheism. 
"Jiana, I KNOW that heaven exists. I've seen it. I was there! It's all in 
here." He tapped his stomach. "Paradise is within us; we live in the 
summerland, but we have no eyes. 
"I told all this to the Caliph, and he found my speculations fascinating—until 
I extended my belief about the origin of religion to his own religion, and 
suggested that the Great Seer himself must have eaten some of this mushroom 
stew. That's when he threw me in the hole. But at least he left me quill and 
paper, to work on this." 
Toldo patted his pack with satisfaction; it undoubtedly contained the book he 
mentioned before. 
Jiana stared at the water, reflecting the moons in a straight line back toward 
the lights of Deh Bid, now for behind them as they drifted in the current. 
"You've gone all mystical on me." 
"Jiana, you weren't there. You did not taste the experience, so to speak." 
She shook her head, unwilling to accept his ravings. 



Toldo chuckled. 
"You will," he rumbled. "I brought out some of the mushrooms. If I can just 
learn to prepare them correctly, to duplicate what the witch-man did . . . 
Will you then try, and see what I saw?" 
"No," she answered, immediately. "Toldo, I haven't yet even found my own soul. 
I've just embarked on the soul-
WARBIORWARDS 
219 
quest, remember? Snakes, I can't go out questing for Reality Boundless! 
Besides—" she glanced over at Badience, who was still staring backward toward 
her former life, not forward downriver—"I have a responsibility, now. She's 
like my child. I have to do something with her . . . something more than I did 
with the kid, Dida." 
The name brought a sudden pain to Jiana's chest, as if she had been pricked by 
an arrow. Cascade looked up from the water and nickered sympathetically. 
"Ill help you, Toldo. I think I'd like to become an alchemist or an 
apothecary. Keep me away from people, for a while. But don't expect me to risk 
my soul or my stomach on your quest for total insanity." 
She stood decisively and walked to the center of the raft. There was a small 
hut there, with beds and food and navigational charts. 
Jiana stooped and entered the hut, lay down on one of the beds, and instantly 
fell into a deep sleep. But in her dreams, she was chased far and near by a 
thousand thousand thousand burning ctaevas, each wearing Rethe's face. 
Chapter VII: 
Vine wraps oak, but the flower blooms 
free 
The raft drifted on the Jambajala, lazy as a two-claw courtesan on a cold and 
misty morning. Badience stood respectfully in the center, near the house; 
Jiana sat cross-legged in front of the girl, watching and waiting. 
"Uh, Jiana Mistress?" 
"Yes?" 
Radience lapsed into embarassed silence. 
"Jiana?" 
"Still here," said the warrior. 
"Well, what are we going to do?" 
Jiana waited without responding. 
"When are we going to eat?" the girl clarified. 
Jiana shrugged. 
"We have no food," she answered. 
"Well, we have to eat!" 
"I'm all ears. Suggest away." 
Toldo chuckled. He was hunched over his manuscript, ostensibly rewriting a 
section that Jiana had heavily edited. But the warrior noticed that his quill 
had not touched parchment for some time. 
Radience looked confused. She looked at Toldo, then back to Jiana. 
220 
WARHIORWARDS 
221 
"What happened to all that food you had?" 
"What, in my saddle sack?" 
"Yes, it wasn't great, but it's—" 
"—gone, is what it is." 
"Gone!" 
Jiana nodded brightly. 
"Where did it go?" 
"Into the Jambajala, after passing through our digestive tracts." 
Radience stormed away to the other side of die raft, pushing past Cascade, who 
eyed her hungrily. She sulked for a few moments, then sat at the edge of the 
raft and trailed her feet in the Jambajala. 
"Jiana?" 



"Haven't moved, o diminutive one." 
"If we don't eat, won't we starve?" 
"That's usually how it works. Radience, you never have considered this 
problem, have you? There's no one here to suddenly pop out with a roast, or a 
sack of tazh'na. If your stomach wants some food, it had better come alive and 
think of something." 
Radience slowly sat down, resting her chin in her good hand. She looked at the 
trees on the bank; the Jambajala this far south was so deep, so slow and 
gentle, that it seemed to be standing still, while the leafy jungle itself 
moved upstream. 
"We could pull to the edge—I mean the shore," ventured the girl. 
"That's a start," agreed Jiana. She stood and took the tiller. Pushing it to 
the side, the raft began a lazy realignment. Thereafter, while Radience began 
packing loose items away and lashing them down, Jiana steered the raft 
shorewards with short pulls on the stern oars. 
They landed and beached the raft. At Jiana's direction, Radience covered the 
raft with fronds and dirt. 
Jiana spotted smoke curling up from over a hill. There were a number of 
snake-like coils, probably from a hundred cooking fires or so. They clambered 
up the hill and crouched at the top, watching. 
222 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
- ---&" 
The village was small and reminded Jjana of the tiny hamlets that by and large 
made up the population of the Flower Empire. The houses were made of 
mud-bricks, and looked quite substantial, and very old. 
Toldo peered into every building, hoping to find a clerk's office, one that 
had maps. Jiana looked for an apothecary or an alchemist, where she could buy 
raw supplies to embark upon her new career. It would take some time to 
remember all that she had been taught, but she was certain that many of the 
potions and elixers she learned across the ocean were unknown in Tool, or even 
up north in the Water Kingdom. 
Radience ran back and forth on the streets from house to house like a monkey 
in heat. She even forgot to hide her withered arm, and amazingly enough, none 
of the inhabitants even noticed it—the arm which in Radience's world was as 
big as an elphas and twice as ugly. (But she could not hide the horrid 
thought, the image of what Jiana had done back in . . .) 
The citizens were too busy gaping and gawking at the three of them to notice 
anything as trivial as a crippled limb, especially not when their own beggars 
seemed to specialize in fecial and spinal deformities that brought a queasy 
lump to Jiana's stomach, along with a pang of guilt. She almost succumbed to 
temptation and tossed a coin to a man with a huge, bulbous, bladder-like 
goiter depending from his chin to his sternum, but she came to her senses and 
hurried on, money bag held securely in her left hand, the hilt of Wave in her 
right. 
As more and more residents of the town ran out of their houses and pipe-rooms 
to stare, Radience grew shy and crowded close to Jiana and Toldo, less 
monkey-like than puppyish. 
"Well, priest," said Jiana, "you've wandered this territory more than I. What 
now? Do they welcome us, arrest us, or eat us?" 
"I suspect not the latter. I can't say about the former. They're not likely to 
have heard about the fire, or to care if they did." 
WARRIORWARDS 
223 
Radience whispered to Jiana. 
"They look so dirty!" 
"Dirty! I'll bet nearly every one of them knows how to read. How many of the 
Elect could even read their own holy book?" 
"Well, the priests always told us it was too holy for mortal eyes to look 
upon. Have . . . have you read the words of the Seer?" Her voice dropped in 



awe, or fear of a priest or caliph dropping suddenly from a rooftop to punish 
her for apostasy. 
"One version, at least. It really didn't hold my interest. I like the Akamite 
faction better than you Pushugites, anyway." 
"That's a heresy!" 
"Well, the Akamites say that you're the heretics, so I guess you're even." 
They walked in silence, trying to avoid staring back at the parade of 
children, old men, and women that followed silently behind the trio. 
"Ah!" cried Toldo, pointing ahead, "recognize the stylized mortar and pestle? 
I think we have found our man the apothecary." 
"Jiana . . . have you—investigated—many heresies?" 
"Every one I could find. Would you buy a jacket without trying it on, or buy a 
goat without sampling the milk?" 
Radience said nothing, but Jiana could see that the analogies had flown as 
high over her head as the Arch of Lillies in Bay Bay. 
"You've never bought a jacket, or a goat, right?" 
The girl shook her head. 
"Radience, part of life is realizing that your talent, money, and especially 
your time in this life is very limited. You have to leam to choose between 
paths." 
"But . . . suppose you had been brought up as a girl among the Akamite 
heretics. Would they tell you that Akamat was the true successor to the Seer, 
and that Pushuga was the Lord of the Mists of Evil, rather than the true faith 
that we are taught?" 
224 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
"Probably. Or else, that Pushuga was well-intentioned but misinformed. I don't 
think they call him evil." 
Radience thought for a long time, until they stood outside the house of the 
apothecary. It was large, and seemed well-stocked. 
"Then how do I know, Jiana-Mistress, that it was not / that was lied to? How 
do I know the Akamites are not correct? How do I know I won't go to the 
Underdwell when I die? Jiana, you know I taught myself to read . . . will I go 
to the Underwell for that?" 
Jiana kept a straight face. Radience's skepticism was growing moment by 
moment, now that it had been unleashed from the shackles of the One Right Way. 
"You will go to the Underdwell," said Jiana, with a voice that was at once low 
and penetrating. "For so long as you look for laws outside yourself, you are 
already in the Underdwell, land of shit and no roses." Without waiting for a 
reply, Jiana pushed her way into the apothecary's. Toldo followed, and 
Radience, recovering, ducked nervously inside. The crowd did not follow. 
Radience stood in the center of the shop, staring at hundreds of jars, some of 
them glass. The jars were full of powders and liquids, in all colors of the 
world and even some colors that had come from no rainbow, rock, or crystal. 
Jiana wandered from jar to jar, reading the labels and occasionally scratching 
at the stubble that ran down the center of her scalp, where she had stopped 
shaving. She looks more Jiana-like, the girl thought. 
As Radience watched her, she felt something funny in her stomach, except it 
was not in her stomach, exactly, but a little lower. She caught herself 
visioning, running her fingers through Jiana's thick, black hair—weU, it will 
be thick and black soon, anyway. She imagined stroking the bare sides of 
Jiana's head, here bare neck, her (fire raining down upon the Elect upon my 
family upon—) naked shoulders and arms, her— 
"There's a baby in that jar!" Radience screamed, recoiling in horror from the 
gruesome figure. ^ 
WABRIORWARDS 
225 
She stared, feeling nausea creeping up her throat, then she looked «p to see 
Jiana, Toldo, and the proprietor staring in astonishment, as if she had just 
pulled her breasts out and waved them around. 



"I'm going to be sick," she announced, staring at her feet. 
"Turn around," ordered the apothecary in a voice of command. Radience obeyed 
instantly, out of habit. 
"Do you see that large, brass container, tall as your waist, directly in front 
of you?" 
"Yes, sir." 
"It's a spittoon. Go stand next to it," he snapped, then he resumed his 
discussion with Toldo about maps and potions. 
Radience shuffled forward until she stood over the brass jar. She contemplated 
its inside, and gagged a couple of times. But there was nothing in her stomach 
to abort. 
After a last dry heave, she took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from her 
forehead and her upper lip. She turned slowly, and approached the dreaded 
apparition, determined not to disgrace her freedom again. 
The large, glass jar was indeed full of baby. 
The child was not quite fully developed. It had hands with webbed fingers, and 
its skin was almost translucent. It floated in a vile, yellow liquid, and was 
bloated like a river-corpse. 
A most horrible fantasy pushed itself into Radience's stomach. It's going to 
open its eyes, she thought. It's going to open them suddenly and look right at 
me, and I'll die! 
She could not tear her gaze away. After a time, the force of the vision faded 
and she could turn to the other jars. 
Most of them in this section of the shop contained animals in various stages 
of development. She inspected them all, determined to taste the jacket and try 
on the milk. 
One creature that frightened her even more than the child was a ghastly, 
two-headed snake, whose eyes were open. So was one of its mouths, and Jiana 
could look straight down its gullet. The snake was as long as she was 
226 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
tall, and it was coiled into a complicated knot, like yarn after a kitten had 
got at it. 
Feeling weak and queasy again, Radience crept forward to rejoin Jiana. She 
tried not to think of two-headed snakes and babies. 
She watched the warrior haggling out the price of her pile of chemicals. It 
was a fascinating process: apparently, the proprietor asked a price 
ridiculously high, and Jiana offered one absurdly low. Then they slowly worked 
their way towards each other. 
Radience quickly added the two original prices together and divided by two to 
get the average; in the end, they agreed to a price that was several claws 
less than that, so the girl decided Jiana was the winner. 
All at once, a blinding realization swept through Radience, as she watched 
Jiana count out the coins. 
That's what I'm destined to be, she thought, a thrill rattling her entire 
body. I'm going to be a warrior! 
Again, she felt a wonderful compressing, just below her stomach, as she 
thought of Jiana, sleek muscles naked to die world. She silently inhaled as 
she stared at Jiana's smooth, rounded face. Then she slowly let her breath out 
as the compression ebbed from her body, to be replaced by a delicious 
lassitude, 
A warrior is strong, she thought, free. Nothing bothers a warrior. I could 
call fire from the sky and ktil everyone I know and wouldn't feel a thing! I 
can start being a warrior tomorrow morning, for I know just where Jiana keeps 
the razor. 
Radience trailed along behind as Jiana and Toldo exited the shop and headed 
back toward the raft, their mob of curious stalking them without speaking. 
Apart from the apothecary, not a single person in the entire town had spoken a 
word to them. 
Toldo sat cross-legged under the stars, as the raft gently rose and fell with 



the waves—waves on a river! Jiana sat 
WARRIORWARDS 
227 
across from him, a roll of sheepskin and a grease pencil before her. Whenever 
he spoke, which was infrequent, she wrote the words down exactly as they came 
out, whether they made sense or not. 
/ killed them. I killed a thousand—She 
buried the thought; now was not the time. 
Jiana tried to include notes about Toldo's body language: Did he gesture, 
storm about, rage? Did he sit quietly, a beatific smile plastered across his 
face? It was all of Primary Import, the priest said before drinking the 
mushroom juice. Jiana did her best. 
Toldo Mondo leaned forward slightly, his eyes closed and an intense scowl on 
his face. 
"Un, the end," he whispered as Jiana scribbled furiously, "he always be, 
befowls the murk, roturns and turns to the unconchurns of foowl stomachs and 
the smale of fard." 
He sat. He laid back. He got up and wandered about in an apparently heated 
discussion with two dwarfs, in an unknown language. Then the priest ran 
furiously around the raft, chasing someone or something invisible, so insanely 
that Jiana was terrified he would throw himself overboard. 
You should be the one, not Toldo. Hey, is that Rethe there, floating in the 
water? Is that Mugn and her baby, burned like forgotten toast? 
NO! Stop it right now. I am a warrior; thought bows to my witt. You wiU be 
silent. . . now is the wrong time. 
Toldo did not hurl himself into the Jambajala. When the sky began to pale in 
the east and the half Great Moon was directh' overhead, he curled up and began 
to snore. 
It was past noon before he awoke, and Jiana and Radience had navigated the 
raft far down the Jambajala, passing many towns that looked too 
well-developed, too civilized. 
For a long time, Toldo sat in the hut, his eyes unfocused. He was wrapped in 
an inner vision still, though conscious enough, and Jiana decided not to 
disturb him until he chose to speak. 
Radience was acting strange. She smiled as if she had a 
228 
Dafydd ah Hugh 
secret, a plan, and Jiana was worried. What unpredicted nastiness would 
Radience perpetrate, in all innocence? Maybe 1 shouldn't have seized this job 
with such abandon, Jiana thought nervously. She held her face impassive, 
giving the girl no handle for mischief. 
Smaller rafts, boats, and skiffs hugged the river shore, half a league 
distant. The desert had made way for grassy plains and bracken; great herds of 
variant coradeer, mosk, and unidentified hairy things taller than a horse 
stretched farther than Jiana could see. 
Cascade did not seem to mind the river voyage, He stood quietly, alternately 
contemplating the left, then the right shoreline. 
Jiana watched him for long periods, becoming more and more convinced that he 
was not simply a horse, not even a well-trained one. There was an amused 
intelligence behind his black eyes, and a tolerance for the foibles of 
two-legged things . . . especially for the only one he regularly allowed on 
his back. 
He turned to look back at her and whinnied. Jiana would have sworn he was 
laughing, but not in a very friendly way. 
When she spoke to him, she spoke softly, not wishing to engage in lengthy 
explanations to Toldo and Radience. 
He answered her, too. Jiana was still not sure whether he realty spoke to her 
in her stomach, or whether it was yet another part of her own soul, which now 
seemed as fragmented as the rest of her life. 
Pieces: the Jianabel shard, the Wave crumble, the Dida crack, the Dilai hole, 



the Toldo tunnel, the Radience shaft. None of them fit; their shapes could not 
be combined into an integration. Now she added the Cascade spur. 
Radience and Toldo, Rethe, the holocaust of a thousand, Dida, Dida, Dida. Like 
a shattered looking glass, distorted visions of Jianabelanna Analena mimicked 
as she searched through the pieces. She saw only twisted visions with phoney 
grins, grimaces, laughs, and tragedy-dances. Tricks of the light all, mirrors 
and smoke, smoke from a burning citadel, a baking town, a redglow underdweU, 
WARRIORWARDS 
229 
I'm part of the sphere, Reality Prime and all the rest. But the sphere is part 
of me. We map to each other. Each person a little model of totality, a perfect 
model—containing ourselves, even. 
She sat down beside the vacant priest, watching the chill sun struggle to burn 
through the clouds. 
The raft gently rocked on the sullen Jambajala, and Jiana half-closed her eyes 
and nearly smile. Nameless Serpentine. I actually like myself. Nearly. 
She felt Toldo stir beside her. His face was sallow, but he was clearly back 
in Reality Prime again. 
"Find what you were looking for?" she asked, stifling a contented yawn. Found 
you hanging from a gallows tree, sneered an evil accuser. It was not Jianabel; 
the Wolf Girl would not have been so cold. 
Toldo shook his head. 
"I found interesting things, awe-full, to be precise. That much I remember, 
though most of the day—was it only one day?—is a blank." 
"Haifa day and one night." 
"I did not find the union I sought." 
"I'm sorry. I tried to follow your instructions preparing the mushrooms." 
"You did; the color, the odor—everything was perfect. It tasted exactly so." 
He looked down at his bulging abdomen. "But there was no soul. I do not know 
what was missing, but I intend to recreate it. If necessary, I will get 
Jatjaka himself to show me how." 
Jiana looked speculatively at the Jambajala River. Wide as it was, still as it 
was, it moved swiftly, as many smaller tributaries had joined them as they 
passed. On they drifted, on it carried them, on to . . . ? 
"Toldo, does the Jambajala take us to—to that tribe, whoever they were?" 
"The river flows through Hoor-Gundu territory; this river flows through 
everywhere and everywhen." 
"Thanks." 
"Mix some powders, Jiana. Has your split personality returned?" 
230 
Dafydd ah Hugh 
"Jianabel never left; she just buried her feelings under thoughts and words. 
Toldo, I am less convinced every day that she's nothing more than a piece of 
my own stomach, projecting itself outward." "So am I, Jiana." 
"Toldo! It was you who told me that—" "Well, I was wrong. I said many things, 
many of them right! But even Toldo Mondo falls upon his behind upon occasion, 
ah, as it were." 
"You son of a bitch. I spent four turns trying to burn that needle-tooth bitch 
from my stomach, and now you say she may well be a demon after all!" "I did 
not say that, exactly." 
Jiana stood and stormed towards the hut, furious. Just then, Radience emerged, 
a triumphant grin on her face. 
Jiana stopped dead, staring at the girl. Radience had shaved her head again 
... all except for a wide warrior's crest, such as Jiana wore. 
Jiana felt her muscles freeze tight in anger. She spoke, her voice dripping 
like water from an icicle. "That crest is earned, kid. Not given. Not taken." 
"But—but that's what I want to be: a warrior." "It's a cold road you've 
chosen. Think hard. Three times must I ask. Do you really think you know what 
the fuck you're doing?" 
For a moment, Radience looked uncertain, then her own face hardened into a 



mirror of Jiana's. "Yes, damn it. I'm going to be a warrior. Teach me!" "Not 
until you answer the third time. I taught you what freedom means. Now you will 
learn slavery again—slavery at my word, on my terms. 
"I will own you. I will use you. I'll slice that grin off your face with 
broken glass. I'll peel back your skin and piss on the raw, bloody flesh 
underneath it, and you won't say one fucking word unless I order it. 
"This is no joke, Radience. No one ever has to know you refused. Get back in 
that hut and say nothing more to either of us for the rest of today's journey. 
I'm going to put you off at dusk. Make your own way, you piece of shit." 
WARRIORWARDS 
231 
Radience had begun to tremble after the first five words. Now she was shaking, 
and tears ran down her cheeks. 
"Fu-fu-fuck you!" she stammered, her face turning bright red. "I don't care 
whether you're willing to do it or not! I'm going to be a warrior, and if you 
won't teach me, I'll—I'll just find someone else who will!" 
Jiana let the anger drain slowly from her body, starting with her feet and her 
calves, working upward through her thighs, hips, pelvis, stomach, chest, and 
finally her shoulders, neck, and face. She dissipated the balled-up emotion 
from the top of her head, and faced Radience with complete dispassion. 
"I accept you. We begin when the sun rises. Go away," Confused, Radience 
hesitated, and then turned to re-enter the building. 
"Girl," snapped Jiana. Radience paused. Wordlessly, the warrior reached into 
her kit, pulled out her razor, and threw it at Radience's feet. 
The girl gripped the dooriamb so hard her knuckles were white. She picked up 
the razor and returned to the darkness. 
Toldo cleared his throat, the rumble sounding like distant thunder. 
"What if she had not accepted it?" "I'd have cut off one of her ears and 
driven her away." 
"Ah, would you still?" 
"I don't know. If she has that little self-discipline, Toldo, she'll never be 
a warrior. Better an ear tomorrow than her head six moons from now, when she 
meets some soldier-boy in Door, or something. In a word—yes, Toldo. I'd put 
her off at the next beach. And I'd cry for a few days, but then I'd swallow 
the anger like I've swallowed all the 
rest." 
"You can do that?" 
"Yes, Toldo. I can do that." / can kill a thousand people with fire from the 
sky, you stupid bastard. Do you think I'd scruple to mutilate a slave girl? 
232 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
3 
Radience dreamed, dreamed she did, dreamed about a little, green chap with 
curly slippers and a long, mossy beard, and— 
The floor jumped up and slugged her in the fece. She awoke with a start to the 
sound of an Overman screaming at her. 
"—MIDDLE OF THE DAY! LAZY BITCH GOOD-FORNOTHING LAYABOUT GET YOUR ASS ON DECK! 
YOU HAVE EIGHT SECONDS LEFT! MOVE MOVE MOVE!" 
The lamps! I must douse the lamps! I— Memory flooded back. She was not a 
slave, the Voice was not the Overman. This was a raft, not the palace grounds 
of the Caliph of Deh Bid Oasis. 
No, it was that crazy woman Jiana. Had to be. She was the one screaming, as if 
she thought Radience was a—was a ... 
A warrior! She jumped up and looked about desperately for her tunic. It was 
nowhere to be seen. 
The Voice thundered from outside the hut: 
"GET—ON—DECK!" The last word was bellowed with such violence that Radience 
forgot all about her clothing. She dashed out on the deck stark naked, her 
face white with shock. The boat must be burning! she thought. 
The only things burning were Jiana's eyes. She looked for all the world as if 



she were exerting a Perfect Act of Will to avoid seizing Radience by her bare 
scalp and bony tailbone and pitching her into the river to sleep with the 
fishes. 
Radience stared open-mouthed. 
"On your fece," said Jiana. Her voice was cold and quiet now, but the girl 
could hear the barely-lidded rage beneath it. 
"My—my fece?" 
Jiana leaned close, her mouth so close to Radience's eyes that the warrior's 
teeth brushed the girl's eyelashes. 
"ON . . . YOUR . . . FACE." 
Jiana's breath smelled like a dead rodent. Shaking, Radience prostrated 
herself before the woman. 
WARRIOBWAHDS 
233 
"You will keep your body rigid," Jiana commanded. "You will extend your arms, 
pressing your body up on your toes. You will do this on the count of 'up.* You 
will hold this position until the count of 'down/ at which time you will lower 
yourself to this same position. This is called a press-up. UP!" 
"But . . . but my arm! I—" 
"GET THEM BOTH RIGID OR THEY'LL BE THE SAME FREAKING LENGTH!" 
For only an instant, Radience hesitated; she had seen the Horsemen exercising 
thus, but she had never done it herself. 
Something blunt and heavy slammed into the deck next to the girl's fece, 
startling a scream out of her. She was afraid to turn her head, to look, but 
from the corner of her eye, she saw it was Jiana's iron-banded boot. How close 
did Jiana come to splitting the timbers of the deck? Radience pushed the 
thought from her mind quickly. 
Panicked, she pressed to the up position, and tried to hold it, teetering 
off-balance because of her short left arm. 
"You are a piece of shit," Jiana whispered, her lips pressed against 
Radience's ear. "You are nothing. You are a pig, useless to yourself, useless 
to me. You are a slave. How many seconds did I say you had to get on deck?" 
Radience tried to speak, but all that emerged from her throat was a frightened 
squawk. 
"OPEN YOUR FUCKING THROAT AND SPIT IT OUT!" screamed the warrior, deafening 
the girl. 
"EIGHT!" she responded, nearly as loud. 
"How long did you take to get out here?" 
Radience's arms were shaking uncontrollably now, and her middle sagged all the 
way to the deck. Her crippled arm caused her to be at a slant, which made her 
good arm ache. 
"I don't—I don't—I didn't—" 
"rr TOOK YOU AT LEAST FORTY SECONDS! LOOK!" 
Jiana shoved something in Radience's fece. It was a timepiece, one that had a 
moving hand for die seconds. It had 
234 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
to have been the priest's; what would a warrior need with the time of day? 
"What's forty minus eight?" Jiana demanded. 
"Th-th-thirty-two!" 
"Down, up." 
Startled, Radience allowed herself to fell heavily to the deck. Then, she 
forced herself back up again by sheer willpower, crying. She barely made it. 
"Oh fuck. I've lost count already. Too bad you weren't keeping track for me. 
You can quit any time you want. Down, up." 
Radience fell to the deck, bruising her breasts. She pushed herself grimly 
upward again, relying entirely on her right arm. 
"One!" she gasped. 
"My name is ma'am. You will either begin or end every statement you make with 
that name. You will not do both; I will NOT tolerate a ma'am-sandwich. Come 



on, just say the two simple words T and 'quit,' and I'll never bother you 
again. Down, up." 
"Two! Two, ma'am!" 
"Down, up. Down, up. Down, up. Use both arms, you aren't an amputee." 
How she managed to continue, Radience could not say. She had no more tears; 
now it was sweat that ran down her nose to drip onto the deck. She gasped for 
breath. 
"Fha . . . five . . . Ma'am. ..." 
"Down. Half-way up." 
Incredulous, Radience complied as best as she could, desperately trying to 
hold a position half-way up from the deck. Her left arm was nearly rigid, and 
she found herself leaning on it, for a change. 
"You understand the significance? I told you eight seconds, you decided forty 
was good enough. Now you will do one press-up for every second you stole from 
me. Do you understand?" 
"Y-yes, ma'am," she gasped. 
"Have you lost count yet?" 
"No, ma'am!" 
WARRIORWARDS 
235 
"Ready to drop the whole thing?" 
"No, ma'am." 
Once again, the crazy lady shoved her mouth right on top of Radience's ear. 
But this time, she whispered so gently that the girl almost dropped to the 
deck. 
"It's easy. It's so easy. Just say 'I quit.' Say it once, I'll hear you no 
matter how quiet you are. Won't fuck with you again, not even a second longer. 
One problem—you can never, never take it back. Say it. Please, say it." 
Radience said nothing. She gritted her teeth, trying to keep her back from 
humping like a jamal, trying to keep her breath steady and smooth—for she had 
been taught, taught by the best. She thought. 
"Down, up. Down up down up down up down up down up down up down up . . ." 
Twice, the girl collapsed on the deck. Each time, Jiana put her mouth against 
Radience's face and screamed her up again. At last, the girl whimpered a weak 
"thirty-two," and fell to the deck like a dead body. 
"On your feet MOVE." 
I have no energy. I can't move. I'm dead. I can't do this. She's a monster! 
But miraculously, Radience was on her feet, dizzy and seeing flashes of white 
crawling across her field of vision, but upright. 
"Now we can start our exercises," declared Jiana, "unless you'd like to go 
back to being Radience again. I'll put you off at a good town. Ill give you 
some food, and one of these maps. Your curly locks will grow back and you can 
do whatever the fuck you want with them, I'll never know." 
Radience stood, listing to one side like a badly loaded barge on the 
Jambajala. 
"Straighten up that spine keep your heels together toes turned outward 
forty-five degrees DON'T EYEBALL ME BITCH, keep your gaze on a spot about ten 
feet behind my head you call that a nicking forty-five degree angle? Do you?" 
236 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
"On your face." 
Radience lowered herself to Her knees. Somehow, Jiana hooked her foot under 
the girl's legs and pulled them out from under her with one quick movement. 
Radience fell heavily onto her belly. 
"On your face means ON—YOUR—FACE. Up down up down up down up down up down up." 
Jiana waited for die girl to catch up, ending on an upstroke. 
"You are not an 'I.' You will not use first person. You will not use second 
person, I am not a 'you'; I am a ma'am, or if you need to get into my 
pantaloons I'm 'the field captain.' You don't ask me "would you like to give 
me a fast kick in the ass ..." you ask 'would the field captain like to give 



this initiate a fast lack.' Got that? Down up." 
She went down. She went up. 
"On your feet." 
Radience stood weakly. 
"Nope. On your face again." 
This time Radience fell to the deck so hard she bruised her left hip; but 
Jiana did not have time to sweep her feet out. 
"On your feet move." 
Radience jumped up, but hesitated a moment before assuming the position Jiana 
had just taught her. 
"Nope. On your face ... on your feet MOVE." 
A flash of senseless anger swept through the girl's body. What right does this 
slave have to order me around like that? Shit shit shit you bitch Vtt— In her 
stomach, she flew up off the deck in a low dive, catching Jiana right in the 
midrift, pushing her back, back, sheer surprise countering the woman's 
remarkable fighting ability. Jiana staggered backwards, unable to regain her 
balance, and at last plunged over the side of the raft, into the wide river. 
Could she swim? The girl did not know. But it was just a fancy. She had not 
really pushed the warrior across the raft and into the Jambajala. 
Radience was standing rigidly in a good approximation of the posture Jiana had 
just taught her. She had no memory of having stood. One moment she was on her 
WARRIORWARDS 
237 
face, crying; without any intervening time span, she was on her feet, spine 
straight, heels together, toes at more or less of a forty-five degree angle, 
eyes straight ahead focused on a spot on the opposite shore—which was 
considerably farther than ten feet behind Jiana's head, but the idea was 
there. 
Jiana looked her up and down, like a butcher eyeing a cow before converting it 
into steaks and roasts. 
"This is the first position. You will always assume this position when you 
speak to me. You will now refer to yourself as a warrior initiate. You will 
eat breakfast four minutes from now by this time-piece." 
The woman turned and walked into the hut, leaving Radience shaking but oddly 
exhilarated. Warrior Initiate! It was actually happening! 
The first day was a month, the second a turn, and still no sword had been put 
into her hand. Jiana never drew hers, and they did not even try to buy any on 
their next excursion into town. 
The town trip was utterly different from the first one they made, before 
Radience was a Warrior Initiate. This time she was carefully instructed how to 
walk, where to stand, how to respond when a villager queried her queer 
behavior. She felt a twinge of embarassment, standing in the first position 
while Jiana pawed through the stock of a dealer in manuscripts, looking for 
something about the transmutation of base metal into gold. 
Radience wondered what stupidity that fat priest had put into the field 
captain's head, anyway. Nobody believed in that alchemical gibberish! Not even 
Ysmal, the stable boy! But perhaps it was warrior stuff, and she would learn 
all about it, when she was a warrior. 
Radience and Toldo had poled the raft against a strong .current that pulled 
them back toward die center of the river—the priest called it a "riptide." 
Jiana stood behind Radience, telling her everytiimg as if she had never been 
trained in the court of the Caliph of Deh Bid. 
In a way it was like being trained all over again. Yet something was 
different. The mere fact that she could 
238 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
actually quit anytime she wanted placed an enormous weight on her shoulders. 
Whenever she caught herself railing (to herself) at the field captain's 
unfairness, an instant, insistent voice would whisper into her stomach, "well 
if you really think it's unfair ..." 



In the bookseller's shop, Radience broke first position slightly to see the 
title of a book, to reassure herself that she could still read, that she was a 
person. But the title was written in a heathen tongue, and she could not 
decipher it. 
She caught the field captain glaring at her, and she snapped back to first 
position, aware that she would pay later for her slip. 
Three times the girl had almost done it, almost said the magic words. She 
approached the field captain diffidently, and timidly spoke, "would the field 
captain—" 
Yet each time, something stopped her; another voice whispered, this time 
saying "go ahead, quit after two days! you are a slave and .nothing more, face 
the truth!" 
With that thought in her stomach, she could not possibly spit out the words "I 
quit." Each time she finished with a lame excuse, a silly request, a dumb 
question. She was rewarded with increasingly savage "ST," strength-training 
sessions. 
Or ... or was the title really in Tooltak, and had she forgotten her own 
tongue? Radience was too worried to check. 
Meals were like a vacation in the underdwell. It was the same each time: 
"Ready . . . SIT. Nope, on your feet. Ready . . . SITl On your feet. Ready 
..." When she was finally allowed to sit, allowed to place her plate in front 
of her, allowed to dish out her food, take up her knife, and eat, she was so 
upset and angry at her own incompetence that she had no appetite whatsoever. 
It seemed a miracle that she ravenously cleaned her plate every time. 
Radience did nothing correctly. At first it was just the social status; it 
hurt her not to be able to call Jiana by her name, and even more that the 
warrior seemed to have utterly forgotten hers, calling her "raindunce" more 
often 
WARRIORWARDS 
239 
than not. Worse, the girl was not even accorded the status of being an "I," a 
person, an entity. Referring to herself in the third person was exacting a 
toll; she thought of herself less and less as a human being, let alone a free 
woman. 
She had worked so hard to free herself. Now none of that work meant a thing to 
her. Only a single thought held importance anymore: it was still possible that 
she might someday be a warrior. A real warrior, not just a girl with a sword. 
The field captain did not actually say so in that many words—but somehow . . . 
First, her self-status, then, her volition, finally, rationality itself faded. 
Radience could not talk. Radience could not think. Everything she thought she 
knew was wrong. Everything she had carefully learned was worthless. 
The Warrior Initiate realized that she could almost see the title of the 
nearest book without breaking position; almost, but not quite. The temptation 
was maddening. 
Her words invariably came out all wrong. The field captain was not imagining 
it, even Radience herself could hear that the sayings and strategies she was 
supposed to have learned were all jumbled. But there were so many of them! And 
the field captain could stop her at any moment and demand to know what was 
Stage 5 in Hooruki Tongtadure's Eight Stages of Armed Resistance. 
Her tongue was no longer hers; it seemed a living thing, speaking nonsense and 
shuffled strategies and rules, with each mistake earning her another chance to 
loss the deck. Then abruptly, all emotional cues were removed. 
Was the field captain angry? Really angry? Or just acting angry? When the girl 
did something right, there was no praise, not the slightest hint that the 
field captain was even pleased . . . just an instant order to perform the next 
task. 
Radience was utterly confused; it did not help that she noticed very 
un-Initiate-like feelings toward the warrior . . . feelings that spilled over 
into her dreams. Could the field captain peek into her thoughts? If she did, 
would she do to the Initiate—to Radience—what the Overman of Tithes had done 



to his wife when he caught her with her own dressing lady? 
240 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Again, for the hundredth or the thousandth time, a terrible feeling of dread 
seized the Initiate, fear for her actual life. The field captain insisted upon 
describing some of the training that would eventually be given to the girl, 
and Radience could barely believe that she would survive. A whole girl, 
maybe—but a cripple? The strength tests, the survival trip, the rope walk! 
A horrible thought turned her stomach sour, a thought that would not go away, 
no matter how deeply the girl tried to bury it. She really knew very little 
about the field captain. What if she were truly insane? What if she did not 
know what she was doing? Would the field captain stand over the Initiate's 
limp, dead body, stunned at the tragic accident? Or perhaps she would simply 
shrug and say "she was just a slave, after all." 
Radience stood in the bookseller's shop, first position held rigidly, smelling 
the musty, breathy odor of ancient manuscripts. The old woman behind the 
counter watched diem all sharply, as if expecting a scroll or two to slip 
into someone's sleeve. The priest had two books opened at 
once and was comparing passages. 
Only the field captain was animate, stalking from one 
end of the stall to the other, flipping through piles of 
manuscripts looking for something in particular. Looking 
to turn lead into gold. She's insane, whispered the liar. She's chucked it. 
She's 
dropped the arrows from her bow. Her moneybag has a 
hole in the bottom. You're a dead girl! But a stronger thought pushed the 
doubts back, kept 
the girl going, kept the two magic words from passing her 
lips. 
There is still a chance! No matter how often you fail, no matter how fucked 
and tucked you are, Initiate Radience, YOU HAVE A CHANCE. 
She stood at first position, silently practicing the list of the Nine Perfect 
Masters of the Sword. 
For that brief, magical moment, a great feeling of peace pervaded her body. 
Everything felt right. 
Then the field captain spoke. 
WARRIORWARDS 
241 
"Enough fan for now. Tomorrow we rip your spirit apart.' She hissed like a 
shakersnake. 
Toldo lay on his side, his face red and sweaty. His breathing was too fast, 
ragged as a slave's dress. Radience knelt quietly beside him and felt his 
forehead. 
The field captain was on the other side of the raft, reading her alchemical 
texts. She had already ministered to Toldo as much as she was able, and told 
Radience that the priest was caught within himself—a phrase the girl did not 
understand. 
What Radience did understand was that there was nothing either of them could 
do for him; he would either find his way out, or not, by himself. 
She felt for the pulse in his throat, first with her right hand, then her 
left. Inexplicably, she could feel more with her left hand than she could with 
her good hand. She had made many surprising discoveries about her 
diflerently-abled arm. 
Radience stroked the priest's face gently with her left hand; the tiny, 
undeveloped fingers could feel every vein, every slight twitch of a muscle, 
the faintest fluctuation in skin temperature. It was the hand of a baby, weak 
and uncoordinated, but as sensitive as the antenna of a catercrawler. Her 
"good" hand was a bear-claw by comparison. 
Good? Bad? How come I never noticed before? Always too busy, always hopping to 
light the lanterns and lug bowls of candied dates and mungberries. Bastards. 



Or was it just me? Just different, not good and bad. Jiana— the field captain 
never pays any attention to it; maybe that's the path, each one does what it 
can do. . . . 
Toldo coughed and blinked. His eyes focused. He looked across the placid 
river, towards the shore—full jungle now, not a trace of desert sand. 
Radience stroked his head with her small hand; she could almost feel some land 
of healing power flowing 
242 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
through her arm and into his head. If such a power existed, Toldo did not seem 
to notice. 
After a time, he sat up and turned towards Radience. He scowled for a moment, 
then recognition illuminated his face. 
"Ah, Radience," he rumbled, his voice phlegmy and liquid. 
"Are you back?" 
Curious. The Initiate could almost hear actual emotion in the field captain's 
voice. 
Toldo nodded his massive, bovine head, then coughed again. 
"Did you find what you were looking for?" 
"No. So close, though." 
Tliey sat in silence for a long time. Radience counted two hundred heartbeats, 
and she wished she could look at the field captain's timepiece. 
(Be stitt. Hold the image steady, whispered the field captain. Radience knelt 
in the second position, dutifully frisioning the orange. 
It's orange, she thought, orange and lumpy, not quite a ball, bulging a little 
on one side . . . 
The rap caught her unexpectedly behind her ear. She yelped, but did not open 
her eyes. 
Wandering, said the field captain. Grudgingly, the Initiate admitted to 
herself that she had been; she had been thinking about the orange, not 
visioning it. 
She began again, visioning the orange. . . .) 
Almost half a moon had passed, Jambajala-wards. Not once had the field captain 
slipped, not once had she broken character. Radience was beginning to wonder 
whether she was dreaming that Jiana was a field captain, or had dreamed that 
the field captain was ever just Jiana. 
"Do you think you will? Find it?" 
Toldo hesitated a moment; he did not like to talk about his failed attempts, 
not even to the field captain. 
"I, ah, well, I don't know. I thought I would, that is, before I began I was 
sure it would not be too hard to recreate the experience. But now I don't. . . 
wait—" 
WARRIORWARDS 
243 
Toldo spoke the last word tersely. His face whitened; he stood and walked 
quickly, brushing right past Cascade. 
The horse watched him, almost intelligently. Toldo breathed raggedly for a few 
moments. Then he calmed, as if by an act of will. He shuddered and returned, 
resuming his speech as if he had not stopped. 
"I'm frightened, little one. I don't know if I can ever find it again." 
"Aren't we going to the people who did it to you in the first place?" 
"We are. But will they consent to show me how to do it again, or will they 
want to keep their secrets?" 
Toldo began to pace; then he abruptly turned and entered the hut. Something in 
his tone had bothered Radience. He had left something unsaid. She looked at 
the field captain, then at the blackness into which Toldo had vanished. 
"I want you on the deck in five," said the field captain. Radience stood 
immediately and followed the priest inside. 
"Toldo," she asked, even before her eyes could pick him out in the dark, "what 
do you really hope?" 



For a moment, his eyes widened perceptibly and his lips pursed; he looked just 
like the Caliph's Tokogare, stone-like, even. Then he recovered his aplomb, 
but he seemed shaken. 
"I—don't know, Radience. That is the truth, and it's damning me to failure 
after failure. I just don't know whether I'm hoping to succeed or fail. 
"I seem courageous, do I not? All-knowing, benevolent and wise, the very 
picture of the Seeker of Truth, and damn me if I'm not every bit as worm-eaten 
with doubt as that warrior over there! Who am I fooling? You? Me? 
"It's ... I don't . . . O piercing one, why do you ask questions like that? 
Why am I answering you? I would not answer her, and I have known Jiana for 
four and a half turns." 
"Well, maybe because you haven't known me for four and a half turns." 
He shook his head, rumbling deep in the back of his throat. 
244 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
"You have something, Radience. When you shed your slavehood, you gained a 
power besides the power to say yes and no. I suspect anybody will do what I 
just did." 
Radience sat back, tucking her arm inside her tunic. 
"I'm not so sure I like that idea. Anybody? They'll just tell me anything . . 
. ?" 
"Don't be silly. Of course not. They'll tell you what's important, as I just 
did." 
"How do you know? Excuse me, but you aren't exactly noted as a seer or 
necromancerl" 
Toldo chuckled; he was fully in possession of himself once again. The curtain 
was closed. 
"One of the side-effects of union with the cosmos, my dear. At times I, as it 
were, simply know things. Use it sparingly. It's a for greater gift than fast 
hands with a sword." 
"I'm worried myself. I wonder if I'm really cut out of the warrior's cloth." 
"Then quit. I believe the young lady you call 'field captain' has made it 
quite simple for you to do so." 
Radience shook her head. 
"I can't do that! It's not the quitting part. Jamalspit, I'd drop this game in 
a heartbeat if I really knew it wasn't for me. But how can I quit when I still 
don't know whether I'll make it? I have to tough it out, at least for another 
day. Maybe another moon." 
"Radience, the best favor you could do yourself is to follow Jiana's lead. She 
may hurt you; she may cripple you. But she won't kill you, and in the long 
run, she'll strengthen you. Stay with the ringmaster, for now. You'll know 
very soon . . . and don't ask me how I know that, either 1" 
As the days passed, as a week and another rolled by, Radience discovered she 
could actually vision the orange for longer and longer periods of time. The 
slaps grew less frequent, the field captain withdrew into the background. 
One day, the Initiate discovered that she had actually visioned the orange 
into existence. "Hie vision persisted, even when she opened her eyes. For the 
rest of the day, 
WARRIORWARDS 
245 
the orange hovered wherever she looked, though always in the corner of her 
eye; it vanished if she looked directly at it. 
Though she was quite frightened, she said nothing to the field captain. But 
the fear must have shown in her face, because Jiana led her in a body-calming 
exercise six times that day. 
The warrior builds her own universe, said the field captain. And again: fear 
is failure, and brings failure upon. 
Jiana stood next to Cascade, stroking his black nose. She watched the hut, 
hearing the priest's rumbling chuckle. 
Must have just caught on to her power, she thought. It was a queer ability for 



the girl to develop; raised as a slave since she was a toddler, little more 
than a horse that could take orders. How could she have developed such a Wolf 
Power? 
Jealous? asked Jianabel, snide as always. 
Perhaps. But as usual, you cut the gem to expose the ugliest facet. Maybe I'm 
just worried that she'tt have as hard a time controlling her "Jianabel" as I 
did controlling you. 
You were the one who tried to kiU me, dearest ... or don't you remember? 
Jiana smiled; much as she tried to hide them, the Wolfish Queen could not help 
baring her teeth, filed to a point. 
How could 1 kill you? I only kiU the innocent, remember? Anyway, you're not 
even a part of me. 
I'm not even a part of this sphere, Jiana. 
What? You're not? 
The small human girl and the fat human man sat at one end of the raft, 
conversing in primative grunts. The master human spied on them, arguing with a 
strange entity poking into this sphere from somewhere beyond. 
She also rubbed her appendage against Cascade's nose, producing a pleasant 
sensation. 
Cascade watched both scenes, one with each eye. He 
246 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
WARRIOBWARDS 
247 
was losing interest in eating the little human, now that the master human was 
teaching her to walk. But the fat one still posed a threat. 
It got out of its cage once; it touched souls with the entire sphere, and with 
Cascade, too. Cascade did not like that; it was as dangerous as torches in a 
hayloft. 
Once again, Cascade carefully peeled open the man's scalp, his cranium, his 
brain. The structure was very different than what Cascade was used to 
dissecting, but it was easy to trace a path. The thought structure that 
contained the key to breaking out was black, but it was surrounded by hot, 
white near misses. Surely an intelligent being would have remembered it by 
now! 
Wanderings. Cascade narrowed his concentration, and rewrote one of the 
pathways, subtlely crossing it with another that ventured too near. 
Humans were easy to confuse; they seldom analyzed their own brain function, 
and Had no idea how to correct a cross-circuit even it they discovered one. 
Cascade sensed perturbation, and pulled out of the fat one's mind too quickly 
to be detected. It was done. 
Perhaps that would keep the animals as animals for a few more days. Foals who 
had just discovered "cosmic union" were more irritating than a stickthistle in 
the hoof. 
The Initiate began to calm down. She found that even the physical part of her 
training proceeded more smoothly, the more she practiced visioning. 
After a while, the field captain had her vision a glove, a horse, a castle . . 
. then a circle, a line, and finally a dimensionless point. Eventually, the 
field captain ordered her to vision Nothingness. 
After her first attempt at that last exercise, Initiate Radience was so shaken 
that for the first time since the third day of training, she nearly spoke the 
magic mantra. 
She had been successful; she had visioned Nothingness perfectly and terrified 
herself. 
She struggled to hold down the words. Kneeling in second position, her face 
grave, she visioned it again and 
again, until finally it, too, lost its fear-hold over her stomach. 
Fear is failure, she repeated to herself, and brings failure upon. . . . 
Jiana clamped her teeth together as she carefully poured the Puff-Semen pollen 
from the envelope into the crucible, where it vanished at the surface of the 



bubbling, amber liquid. Her lip was swollen where she had bitten it three 
times so far, concentrating on the mixture. 
If she poured the pollen too slowly, the mixture would be virtually inert. If 
she poured too quickly, the mixture was explosive. And she was shaking so 
violently from another horrific day as "field captain" that she might miss the 
crucible entirely and spill her seed on the deck. 
Toldo was already beginning to hallucinate vividly from the giturd root, but 
enough of his mind remained yet that Jiana risked a question. 
"Toldo—I haven't slept for four days. I'm terrified of this horrible dream I 
have, every night it seems." 
"Dreams are the stuff that dreams are the stuff that dreams. What dreams? 
Dreams of fame and fourteen? Drams of fountain?" 
"Here, it's ready. I dream of the ice, felling through the ice. No, wait . . . 
not me, it's my—my friend who fells through the ice. I want to bring her back 
to life, but..." Jiana shivered, unable to continue describing the horror of 
the Touch of Life, of eating meat and feeling it come alive and begin to 
squirm as it slides down her throat. 
"So how do you know in a sense, as it were, that it was he he he who sent them 
you, I mean to you since you cannot remember? How does he send them? What is 
the physical mode of conveyance?" 
Toldo suddenly propelled himself forward, causing the entire raft, enormous as 
it was, to shift slightly. Jiana heard Radience swear angrily, outside the hut 
on deck. The girl was on guard duty this night. 
248 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Toldo stared in horror at a spot on the floor. It was roughly circular, a 
discolored spot in the wood, and the priest's eyes were bolted to that spot as 
though it were dissolving even as they spoke, leaving nothing but a waterspout 
inside the hut. 
Jiana blinked. The image had come suddenly into her stomach, as clear as the 
night sky: the funny spot in the wood rotting and dripping into the river, a 
great geyser of water pouring up through the hole. 
Of course, it was absurd; the point of a raft is that it is lighter than 
water. Even with a hole cut in the bottom, the raft would not sink, and 
therefore no water would spray into the hut. 
"Toldo," she asked, her eyes shifting into and out of focus, "what were you 
just thinking of, as you stared at that spot on the floor?" 
"I saw it grow, grow into a father one, two, tree right there in our hoot." 
At once Jiana felt very, very tired, but still, she did not dare sleep . . . 
not until she finished her second project for the night: a powder to make her 
sleep until midday without a single dream. 
She heated the crucible over a candle-flame until the color changed, then she 
handed the tongs to the priest. At first he did not even see them, then he 
blinked back to Reality Prime and chugged down the third and final ingredient. 
Jiana did not care whether it worked or not. The lack of sleep made her long 
for only one thing: a long, snake-like, dreamless sleep of the dead. She put 
away the alchemical text and unrolled the simple Pharmocopia of Tondo Tsunda. 
Her eyes and temples ached. 
Toldo was quiet and placid. / never liked alchemy, Jiana thought, not even 
back in the Flower Empire, though it was a nice break from stomach-numbing 
sword and spear practice. Maybe it's time, now that I think of it, time for 
Radience to . . . 
She held her breath as she ground the blue sulka crystals in the mortar; their 
odor was noxious enough to gag even her. 
WARRIORWARDS 
249 
She looked up through the smoke hole. The less-moon was beginning to wax 
again. Soon they would have been on the Jambajala for a moon and a half. 
The world slid past; they must have crossed into Door by now. There was no way 
to tell, however; the townies on the shore had no idea where the two distant 



kingdoms chose to draw the imaginary boundary line (nor did they care). 
At least that fat priest isn't yowling, like last time. In feet, Toldo had 
been deathly quiet for some time. Jiana glanced over at him. 
His face was ashen white, completely drained of blood; his eyes were open and 
unblinding. His mouth was open a crack, caught in a frozen half-smile. 
Jiana stared, and the pestle dropped from her hand. Dreading what she might 
not feel, she slowly reached her hand over his motionless chest and laid her 
fingers across the right side of his great, bull neck. 
Jiana felt no pulse at first, and her throat constricted as if she had 
swallowed poison. She closed her eyes, and forced herself to breathe slowly, 
rythmically, stilling her heart; her own pulse was pounding so hard it would 
obscure any feint pressure in Toldo's neck. 
The first beat she discounted; she was keyed up for it, and could have 
visioned it. But the second beat was sure: weak and sporadic, but certain. 
Toldo was alive—scarcely. Slowly, Jiana slid across the floor and put her ear 
against his mouth. She held herself thus, perfectly still, and lowered the 
focus of her hearing. Finally, she could hear the feint intake of air into his 
lungs. Alive he was, but spiritless. 
"Tooqa, what have you done? Toldo! Damn you, come back here!" She raised her 
hand to strike his face, snap him out of his coma; but Jianabel stopped her. 
No! Don't strike him—you'll km him in that condition. 
What do I do? What do 1 do? What's happened to him? 
Sister, he is fled ... or taken. 
Again, Jiana's throat constricted, and this time her stomach began to burn as 
well. 
250 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
But what can I do? 
I don't know. Jiana, there may be nothing you can do. Jiana sat back and 
looked at the priest. It was so quick, so unexpected. Did I kill him? she 
wondered. You mixed the potions. He told me to! You mixed them. 
Jiana pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. Outside, the 
girl's feet crunched up and down on the deck. She no longer "walked silently 
with utmost humility," now Jiana and everyone else could hear her coming a 
league away. I'll have to train her out of that. 
You trained her into it. You told her to stop skulking Uke a slave and walk 
like a warrior. Jiana stood, struggling for control. "Fuck a snake, Toldo—I 
will not take the blame for your stupid death! I will not take the blame for 
this one. INITI-ATE!" she called, "fell inf" 
Jiana barely had time to finish the order before the girl pushed into the hut. 
Her eyes flickered briefly to Toldo's body. For an instant, horror passed 
across the girl's face, then she took command again, and her features became 
rigid and immobile, along with the rest of her body, as she stood at the first 
position. 
I'm still in shock, Jiana thought, for she felt no grief for Toldo—only pride 
that Radience did not break position, even in the presence of what seemed like 
the corpse of her friend. 
"As you can see, Toldo has ..." Jiana paused, and took another breath; her 
heart was beating wildly again. ". . . miscalculated. He is not dead; his 
pulse is feint, but detectable." 
Radience did not break position, but there was a slight relaxation in relief. 
"His spirit has been taken." 
Again Radience tensed, this time moving slightly, but Jiana decided this was 
not the time for correction. 
"I must go on a journey, Initiate. Into Toldo's dream 
WABRIORWARDS 
251 
sphere. I might be able to find him and bring him back. I've done it before." 
I did it for you once, Dida. Do you even remember now? Or are you so set in 
your swaggering ways that you can't remember the little boy who was lost under 



a million tons of mountain? 
Something was wrong, something in the hut. Jiana looked at the floor. Waves 
were rolling outward from Toldo's body—waves in the solid wood like ripples 
from a stone dropped in the river. Jiana could see them, but she could not 
feel them, either with her feet or with her balance. 
Radience noticed them, too; she broke position and stared down at the floor. 
Jiana saw the terror spread across her face, but only for a moment, then, the 
girl reasserted her will. "You are at first position, Initiate." Radience 
snapped her head up again. 
"While I am gone, I will be as vulnerable as Toldo there. Do you understand 
me?" "Yes, ma'am!" 
"It is possible the priest has merely gotten lost. But let's not delude 
ourselves: he might have been stolen, too. If so, whoever stole him won't want 
to give him back—and may decide to fight. 
"Initiate Radience, you will have to stand guard over us both, Toldo and me." 
Jiana stepped forward, her voice surprisingly soft. Instruction had ended for 
the moment. 
"You must be clear about this. Until this emergency ends, we are not field 
captain and initiate; we are warriors, comrades at arms. Get out of first 
position and listen to me." Radience relaxed and stood attentively. Gone was 
the submissiveness of her slave days, and gone was the rigid discipline of 
"the Initiate." Her eyes were determined, but calm; Her lip did not tremble, 
and she did not stuff her arm inside her shirt. 
It's the Warrior Heart, Jiana marveled, astonished as always to see the higher 
soul take charge from the Fool Killer. 
"Draw your knife. Sit between us. Your vigil may be uneventful—but I don't 
like the look of those ripples. This 
252 
Dafydd ab Hugft 
thing may extend itself into this hut, and you must be ready." 
"The Initiate will fight with honor," Radience swore, her voice hoarse. "If 
she must, she'll die for the fi—for you." 
Jiana ignored the breech of protocol. 
"I'd rather you lived for me, since you 11 be guarding my body. Don't yield to 
fear. Radience, the fear of death is the beginning of slavery, and you are not 
a slave. You are not an animal. You are free, and ycfu can freely choose to 
ignore your fear." 
"Field Captain, how does . , . how do I fight this thing, if it comes?" 
"With courage. Without cringing. Beyond that, I don't have a clue. Can you do 
it?" 
Radience nodded solemnly, and drew her knife. 
"I'll guard you both." 
She settled down cross-legged between Jiana and Toldo, t looking so serious 
that Jiana almost laughed. She stopped herself; the girl would not have 
understood. 
Jiana laid down, folded her arms across her belly, and began building up her 
magical reservoir. 
She stretched forth her consciousness, concentrating on her sense of balance; 
she felt Reality Prime shift slightly. Was it the Great Serpentine stirring? 
Had she made contact? Had he come back? But no, the balance was all wrong. 
Jiana did not know who made the earth shake, but it was no one who liked her. 
The warrior brought vision into her expanded self, and found the spot where 
Toldo's body lay. 
There was no soul-light whatsoever. Toldo was an empty vessel. 
Oh, gods, she thought, and pushed her spirit towards his empty stomach, hoping 
to find a sepulchral finger pointing the way into the bowels of hell, towards 
whatever nameless Thing had stolen Toldo's soul, and now shook the earth. 
Chapter VHI: 
Within the pale, feathers fall like snow the square is circled. 
Jiana breathed ritually, in-hold-out, pushing her consciousness outward. She 



let a song roll around and around her stomach, beating in time to her breath; 
her stomach tightened, and the queasy, fright-feeling of magic exploded 
through her: 
Toll, toll the bell, pound it well, 
Sound the round sonorious bowl, toll, 
Toldo mold abode-o, no! 
Jiana melted into a round pool of warm blood, bones, and fluid, waves lapping 
at the great, white clifls of the priest's rock-like slab of flesh. It was not 
solid but porous like chalk. Jiana seeped under the skin, into Toldo's 
stomach, seeking a trace of her friend. 
Jiana awoke into herself. She saw a vast cathedral, the ceiling arching so far 
above her eyes that it was lost in the haze of distance. She pressed to her 
knees, breathing raggedly, and stared across the echoing room at an enormous 
Eagle altar, before which stood a shouting man. 
He raved about the House Alanai, the all-seeing Eagle, and the sacred beak. No 
one heard except a pair of pigeons, who flapped noisily from one arch to 
another. 
253 
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Dafydd ab Hugh 
"—mad lust of a bloodline," argued the voice, "and such brigands and thieves 
present no statistics to back their claims, leading one to the inescapable 
concubine that these conclusions are, um, wild-eyed fanaticisms, half-trolls, 
and utterly without swifty and jam, And do they dispute? Fog, I sayl Fog and 
rooster eggs! As it were . . ." 
"I hope I'm not interrupting," Jiana said, before the man could launch into 
another lament. "I'm looking for Toldo Mondo." 
"Foolish woman, I am he whom you seek." "You're Toldo? I don't think so." 
"Of course I am! Whiff this fiery smell! A brand for justice, that is what I 
am, so to speak! A flame for freedom! Smell the sulfurous stench of 
miscreants, roasting like hoosenuts in a vat of coals." 
The preacher did resemble Toldo, in features and manners. He was round, 
clean-shaven, and wore a great, white robe. His voice roared like a wild bull. 
"No," she said, "I think he left you behind a long time* ago; years back, back 
when he thought he could save the world by preaching the word, when he first 
heard the call. "But perhaps you can point the way he's gone, for it's awfully 
important that I find him again." 
'Important? You are not important, and I have no time for your seekings. Be 
off with you, woman!" 
Jiana drew back, raising her eyebrows in surprise. Had Toldo really been so 
intolerant in his youth? 
The ersatz Toldo Mondo rotated ponderously, and rolled up the aisle of the 
empty church like a hoopsnake, shaking the floor like an elphas. Jiana turned 
her back on his retreating bulk and exited onto the crystal street. 
The sun was low, judging from the long, red light, but she could not see it, 
no matter which way she turned. There were numerous buildings, silent and 
deserted. So where the hell are you, priest? Which way should 1 go? The street 
was made of millions of tiny crystals, like the sand at Kgung Tuo Beach, rough 
as a Toolian's beard. 
Still crouching, she closed her eyes and sniffed. A faint, sour smell prickled 
in her nostrils. She recognized it, but could not bring an image forward in 
her stomach. It was 
WARRIOBWARDS 
255 
probably some animalistic emotion flooding Toldo's empty body—fear, or 
sadness. 
Water was felling; far ahead, she faintly heard it plop sullenly into a pool. 
Jiana followed the sound, having nowhere else to go. 
The dead buildings absorbed all sound, and she ghosted like a multi-colored 
shadow between hulking, stone warehouses and neat, identical mud-brick houses. 



The architecture showed no creativity or adventurous-ness, just utilitarian 
boxiness, muted browns and pastel blues and greens. They were colors of the 
"higher spiritual values," yet weak and washed out. 
Toldo's city was round, with roads like spokes from the cathedral at the hub. 
Jiana walked outward towards the water sound. 
Streets grew narrower, buildings shorter and broken. She hiked through empty 
fields and vacant lots, stepping around unfilled holes in the crystalline 
street. Without the buildings to catch sound, her feet crunched in the grainy 
pieces of street. 
At last she passed the last rim of houses and faced a sward of dead grass and 
sand. At the horizon was a feint, dark green line that could be the tree-line 
along a river. 
The village was already fading, a half-remembered half-promise on the morrow. 
She continued, aimed for the trees. 
As Jiana walked, eyes fixed firmly on the horizon, she tripped across 
something big and suspiciously square. 
Cursing, she sat up, rubbing her shin. The culprit was a great, cubical rock 
of granite. Its surfaces were covered with chisel marks. 
She kicked it hard, and was rewarded by a painfully throbbing heel in her 
right foot. But her kick turned the stone slightly, and she could see words 
carved into one face: 
I Am Not Perfectly Square 
"What a peculiar thing for a stone to declare," Jiana dreamed. She looked 
close and saw it did not lie; one face 
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Dafydd ab Hugh 
WARRIORWARDS 
257 
was slightly bigger than its opposite, barely enough to notice unless looking 
for it. 
"It's a shame they rejected you," she added, still rubbing away the bruise on 
her shin. "There's something rather beautiful about you; maybe striking is a 
better word. I wouldn't mind putting you into a house or a temple myself." 
Great, Jiana! Talking to a stone! In a dream! 
Shaking her head and chuckling, she flexed her leg a few times and continued 
towards the tree-line. Somebody else's dream, to boot! 
The trees approached much fester than they had a right to; every stride 
brought her ten strides closer. Soon she was close enough to see that the 
trees were unlike any she had ever seen before. They were tall and green as 
trees, but their trunks were made of flesh with coarse hairs growing out of 
them. They pulsed and shimmied with a regular bloodbeat. 
High above her head, the first "leaves" began; they were actually stiff, green 
tongues. Tongue-piles littered the ground beneath the branches. 
She wove her way through flesh-trees and tongue-piles, trying not to touch 
either one. They grew so dense near the river that she had to squeeze bodily 
through; it reminded her of trying to reach the bar at one of Dilai's parties. 
Ddaif Where are you, Lord of the Scented Bedchamber? Jiana buried the thought 
under eaves and crokuses. 
She burst through the last pair of trunks and almost fell in the dark river. 
The grey-brown stream was thick and clotted, pushing reluctantly between the 
sharp banks. Jiana recognized it immediately, both from sight and smell. She 
had smelled it every day for forty nights now: the Nag Deh Jambajala, dead and 
putrid. 
The Jambajala flowed south; far downstream, Jiana remembered, was Jatjaka of 
the Hoor-Gundu, who first introduced Toldo to the abyss of hallucinations. 
If anyone could find the priest, it would have to be the witch-man . . . which 
meant Jiana would have to find him. At her feet waited a tiny skiff, half 
drawn up the bank. 
Radience stood over the bodies as the raft gently pitched and yawed. She 
nervously paced, telling herself she was marching like a sentry. 



The goose had flown; her stoppered bottle lay in repose, hands over face in 
the death-posture. Or was she truly dead? 
For the third time, Radience bent and checked Jiana's pulse at the neck, as 
she had been taught. The body lived, but so had the body of Rant al'Quurn. It 
had lived for three moons without spirit before finally admitting death. 
The raft lurched unexpectedly, and Radience stumbled to her knees. She rose 
and bolted out the door. The Jambajala flowed faster, white rapids and foamy 
threads glittering in the moonlight. The raft spun and dropped, throwing 
Radience to the deck again. 
Cascade seemed to notice nothing unusual. He stood like a statue, unconcerned. 
Radience lay full-length against the planks, however, gripping the wood to 
keep from washing overboard. 
The river roared; a deep, ominous roar that warned of approaching doom. She 
saw an edge; the mist cleared, and Radience froze at the sight of a huge fold 
in the Jambajala, grandfather of all waterfalls. 
God punishes us for what we did at Deh Bid! she thought wildly. Entranced, 
Radience watched as the raft touched the lip of the fall, rotated gently over 
the edge, and tumbled into space. 
She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the weightless moment, the wind, the 
smashing. Agony, or just an instant? She waited and waited, and after a moment 
opened her eyes. 
The raft was not falling; it floated on a new river, just like the Jambajala 
but over the world's edge. Radience looked back and saw the fold: water rushed 
up from the real Jambajala and flopped over the edge into the new current. The 
moons crept visibly across the sky in the edgeworld. 


258 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
She was not yet out of danger. Ahead, the edgeworld Jambajala was fall of 
monstrous whirlpools that glowed hellish green. One spun directly in the 
raft's path. 
Radience leapt towards the tiller. The raft had spun around backwards; she 
dipped the steering oar in the water and pushed it hard to port. 
The great, wooden vessel rotated ponderously. Radience stared as they drifted 
closer and closer to the spout. 
We're not going to clear, she thought, as the raft lurched and groaned, Sorry, 
field captain, I really did try. . . . 
Triey fell into the spinning vortex, round and round,, until Radience was so 
dizzy she could do nothing but grip the steering oar for life. Her latst sight 
was the green-glowing water swallowing the racing moons. 
Radience blinked uncomprehending. Then she leapt upright, clutching wildly for 
support. 
The raft rolled slowly with her motion; after a moment, she realized it 
teetered precariously on a gigantic, needle-like spike that rose from 
perfectly dry ground. 
The less moon was startlingly full; in the glare she saw that the raft 
balanced a hundred man-heights in the air, supported by a pinnacle of rock. 
She lay still against the gaping door of the hut, afraid to move lest the raft 
tumble to the white rocks below, killing them all. 
She gingerly turned her head and looked inside the hut. The racing moons cast 
flickering images against the far wall. Cautiously, Radience slid towards 
Jiana's body. The deck tilted alarmingly, and she froze. 
Radience stared again at the blotch of moonlight. It shimmied, formed into a 
face—Teenja's face, grimacing in pain and torment. 
The head floated in the air, its face not as Radience remembered from three 
soft, stolen nights in the kitchen khayma, but as it looked after Giathudin 
had . . . 
Why did you not you protect me? the apparition demanded silently. Radience 
turned away, breath caught in her throat, but the specter persisted at the 
edge of her vision. Then the girl felt Teenja's breath. 



WARHIORWARDS 
259 
Radience stared not just at Teenja's face, but her entire body now—torn and 
water-logged, exactly as it looked when they drew it from the well. Behind, 
the Less Moon crossed the window, having waned to a sliver. 
Teenja opened her mouth; as her lips parted, a stream of sandy water expelled 
from a throat long dead, eaten away by worms and diggers. 
"Infinite God!" cried Radience, arms and legs losing all strength, "sinners we 
are, but where is Your mercy?" 
Teenja reached forth white arms, one of which (the left arm) hung broken and 
limp from the elbow. Perhaps Teenja herself broke it as she threw herself down 
the well. She puckered her lips around broken teeth, begging a loss. The raft 
barely rippled under the apparition. 
Teenja groped with nerveless hands for her robes, sewn out of a winding sheet. 
Grinning with mindless excitement, she pulled the gown apart. Her breasts were 
white and pulpy, nipples black as coal-beetles. A smell of putrefaction gagged 
Radience and nearly overwhelmed her. 
You've got to move, thought the girl, frantic, just get up and MOVE! But how, 
without plunging the raft from its unstable eyrie? 
Teenja's jaw stretched impossibly wide, reminding Radience of a horrible sight 
she had seen as a child: one toad swallowing another of equal size, looking 
like a mutant toad with two sets of hind legs attached together, rolling and 
squirming along the ground. 
A tiny voice spoke up from deep in her stomach. It's not real, girl! It's an 
apparition, a visitation. . . . You're under attack—defend yourself and Jiana! 
"Damn you, Teenja, we buried you!" Radience felt warm love flowing through 
her, strong as the terror but completely different The girl she had loved 
would never terrify her like this. It was a daeva. Radience turned her eyes 
away, blinking away the tears, afraid no longer. 
Radience stood angrily, uncaring about the tilting raft. She slid towards the 
field captain as the raft skewed. 
The daeva gnashed its teeth and dropped its mask. A 
260 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
moist, yellow ghoul clutched at the girl now, knocking her off balance. 
Jiana's horse whinnied outside; Radience pinwheeled her arms and cried out, 
"Cascade! For the love of God and your master, balance me!" 
After a clatter of hooves, the raft righted. Snarling like a daeva herself, 
Radience advanced upon the Teenja demon. 
The ghoul would not face her. Instead, it angrily stamped its foot on the 
deck, splitting timbers with a groan. The creature fell out the bottom of the 
raft, and the planks slammed closed like a door. 
Radience stared at the deck, feeling the loss of Teenja as if for the first 
time, but unwilling to cry. Still so jagged and raw, she thought bitterly. 
The skiff was too small for Jiana to sit comfortably; it balanced well, 
however, and she found she could kneel in the center and pole her way into the 
current. 
The Jambajala flowed sluggishly, thick with mud and clotted with flotsam: 
matted, woven grass, gnarled, sallow knuckles reaching up to clutch her pole 
and grope the tiny boat. 
Ahead she heard a white roar, faint at first. Jiana could taste the sour smell 
of the Jambajala with every breath. The sun shone red, but did not warm. Jiana 
cast a long, orange shadow, and the Jambajala picked up red sparkles that 
danced and mocked her. 
The current picked up; the skiff began to bob. Jiana used the pole to keep her 
balance, crouching low and catching the sudden rolls with knees and hips. Is 
the boat growing larger? she thought absurdly. 
A fish jumped, and the warrior turned, startled. "A fish in the Jambajala? 
This far south?" 
It was bloated and misshapen, like a corpse left too long in the ocean. It 



splashed and circled the skiff, eyeing Jiana. Its mouth worked and 
intelligible words bubbled out. 
WARRIORWARDS 
261 
"Who—seek?" 
Jiana arched her eyebrow. "An ambiguous question, to say the least. Do you 
mean by that, who do I seek? Or do you ask who seeks me?" 
The fish swam lethargically, eyeing her with bulbous, unblinking orbs. 
"I seek a witch-man called Jatjaka," Jiana continued, "of the Hoor-Gundu. He 
lives down this sluggish stream, but there's no way in six hells I'm going to 
get there at this rate." 
The fish rotated onto its back its belly looking even more corpselike than the 
rest. 
"I'm not climbing aboard you," Jiana declared, nervously. 
"Throw line," it bubbled, mouth half submerged. 
Jiana reached back and skinned her knuckles on a coiled rope; she lashed one 
end to the bow-ring, tied the other end into a field-noose, which she threw 
overboard. 
The monster caught the loop in its mouth, clamping teeth like broken glass 
around the rope. It dived and began to swim. 
The skiff picked up speed, and Jiana was thrown to the deck. She held onto the 
sides and stayed low as the scenery rushed past. 
Trees grew dense and crept closer to the Jambajala; dangling creepers grasped 
at Jiana with suckers on their leaves. Soon, the river widened into marshland, 
algae-grown ponds, and backwaters. 
She passed another Toldo Mondo on a rock, fishing. She flew by so fast, too 
fast! But he was young, innocent, and frightened by the howls of the beast. 
Toldo in seminary school? she wondered, Toldo cutting class? He was gone, far 
behind. 
Not the Toldo she sought; Jiana let the fish pull her away without regrets. 
She cared nothing for this Toldo. 
The river narrowed; the boat buffeted wildly. Jiana gritted her teeth against 
the queasiness. 
Looming closer with a frightening speed was a great, unbroken cliff, into 
which the Nag Deh Jambajala disappeared. The fish showed no sign of slowing; 
if anything, he 


262 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
accelerated, and Jiana had to grip the sides with all her strength to avoid 
being blown overboard into the diseased river by the force of their wind. 
As they closed, Jiana saw a black spot where the river touched the rock. It 
was an opening, ludicrously small. How does all this bloody water get through? 
she thought abstractly, afraid to picture what would happen to her when the 
ship struck the rock walls at such a speed. 
The water roared and picked up speed. The crash of the current deafened Jiana, 
and she lost all sense of balance. She lay back in the boat as the world 
reeled and tilted wildly. Faintly, she imagined a horse whinnying. 
She saw only flashes: rusty oar-lock, her own leg. Jiana resigned herself to 
death, closing her eyes and crossing both arms over her face. Her last thought 
was of Kadience, riding a flaming horse and striking a mortal blow against a 
toad with no head. 
The world boomed with the sound of splintering wood; all was blackness. 
She woke still in the skiff, floating so placidly she thought it all had been 
a dream. But when she sat up, the little boat rocked. The fish pulled her 
slowly across a still lake, under a glittery sky. 
The tunnel opening had been just barely wide enough to allow the skiff to 
scrape past; the oars and rudder were sheared off. She was in a cavern, cool 
and sterile. The only light came from the river itself, where floating fungus 
gave off a faint, greyish glow. 



Jiana struggled up to a kneeling position and pried her fingers loose from the 
wooden sides of the skiff. Her eyes adjusted to the light, and she could make 
out the rocky walls, far in the distance. 
She shivered with trepidation. Who knows what lies in the stomach of that 
bloody priest? What next, death by ant-hitting? 
The Jambajala flowed under the continent like rainwater, seeped into the 
ground beneath the fields. Where am I? she wondered. How many moons have 
passed? Is 
WARRIORWARDS 
263 
Radience grown and gone, or still standing guard, hair grown white and long, 
skin like wrinklefruit? 
She heard the sounds and burbles of the understream: a splash as the 
underground stream squirmed through rock ribs to wash against tiny cliffs, the 
pak pak pak of the fish as it pulled her along the narrow tunnel, its leathery 
tail slapping the water. 
Unexpectedly, they rounded a curve and burst into glorious light from 
uncountable blazing jewels and crystals. Light from another full moon filtered 
from the outside, and the crystals threw it about the chamber. Why do the 
moons wax and wane so? she wondered. 
The fish slowed and dropped the line. The skiff drifted to a halt, and the 
warrior found herself becalmed in the center of a gigantic, undergound lake 
whose sky was a glittery sphere of facets. 
The silence beat at Jiana's ears like, hands slapped on either side of her 
head. A triangular lump sat unmoving on the far shore, the size and shape of a 
man. Jiana felt the probe of an opened eye, studying her. 
She reached for the stern oar before remembering that it was sheared off in 
the collision with the tunnel mouth. She rummaged with both hands and found a 
splintered piece of wood, probably part of an oar-lock. It was clumsy, but 
Jiana rowed towards the immobile lump. 
It was a man, naked save for a loincloth. His long, wild hair was white, his 
skin polished bone. He watched as she scraped bottom, and pulled the boat up 
on shore. 
Before she could thank her fish, it sank like a stone in .the water; she 
shrugged and turned back to the old man. 
"Old man, I'm looking for someone. Big, fat priest of the Eagle. Name's Toldo 
Mondo. If you are who I think you are, you know him well." 
"I know him," replied the old man. His cold voice tightened her stomach. 
"I need to find him." 
"I can find him!" 
Jiana decided to step cautiously, until she knew what 
264 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
price would be required for the knowledge. "What do you require, in exchange 
for telling me how to find Toldo?" 
Jatjaka opened his eyes quickly, and Jiana jumped. She had been under the 
strong impression that he had watched her from the moment the fish dragged her 
into the lake. 
"I know you," he declared, baring his teeth, black against die white of his 
skin. "I know, yes yes! You hold powerful magic in your breath to smite my 
enemies, yes yes! Make them fell to the ground with fits and staggers!" 
Off the deep end, Jiana thought. Life hangs on a madman's whim! 
"Don't demand too much, little man. You'll piss me off." 
"No no!" he cried, unhooking his legs and leaping to his feet. In Toldo's 
dream, he was astonishingly spry for a man of his evident age. 
"No less! Yes, yes, give what I ask and I give what you seek, the 
whena-whereabouts of your priest! You must protect this one and guard him from 
attack, for all the rest of your days. My enemies impotent, their darts and 
spears to roll off like spittle! This I want, yes yes!" 
"Ask not, I say again," Jiana cautioned, dropping her voice, "the getting 



isn't as good as the wanting." 
Jatjaka stood to his tallest, still a head shorter than Jiana, and drew one 
leg up like a taunt bird. "That is my bargain," he declared with finality. 
"Three times you asked. The deal is done. I'll secure you from these great 
enemies of yours, for the rest of my days," 
"Your word?" Jatjaka asked, eagerly. 
"Yes." 
"Then I shall keep mine, and show you how to find your fat, pale priest, yes. 
Come." 
Jatjaka lowered his leg and turned in one fluid motion. He set off at a rapid 
pace into the darkness. 
"You promise too much, sister!" hissed a voice in Jiana's ear. The warrior 
turned quickly, but no one was there; only then did she recognize the speaker. 
WARRIORWAHDS 
265 
"So you're no longer content speaking through my stomach?" 
"Silly! In here, I'm as real as you . . , Jiana dear." Jiana felt the Wolfish 
Queen smile nastily. "Don't fret; leave the old man to me when time comes to 
pay your debt." 
Darkness enveloped Jiana as she followed the witch-man. She looked back once: 
a pair of eyes watched mournfully from the lake. Then the fish sank into the 
ice-black waters again and disappeared. 
Radience balanced gingerly over the field captain's body. There was something 
in the girl's hand, her small hand. She looked down and was startled to see 
her left fingers curled around the knife the field captain had given her. 
My arm's grown considerably the past few weeks, she thought, though it's still 
exactly the same size. It was so small before I became a warrior! 
She closed her eyes, forcing Teenja's image back down her throat by brute 
force. 
"Who are you kidding?" she asked aloud, surprised at the bitterness in her own 
voice. "You're no warrior. Not yet. Maybe never." 
She saw her faults clearly now, everything the field captain said and worse! 
Every time she tried to follow an order, she fell short. How could she 
suddenly be so incompetent? She had spent years learning how to follow orders! 
In gaining freedom, did I lose loyalty? Maybe a slave was all that 1 was, and 
now I'm not me anymore. 
Without warning, the floor fell from beneath her feet. 
Down she fell for what seemed a hundred leagues. Radience drifted off the 
floor, floating in mid air. Jiana's body floated next to her. "Goodbye, most 
loved," she gasped. Then she slammed into the deck as a terrible crash 
deafened her. 
Radience crawled painfully to her hands and knees and looked out the sagging 
door. They lay at the bottom of an 
266 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
immense, raft-shaped hole; dirt poured down upon them in a steady stream. Far 
,above, the half Less Moon flickered briefly across the tiny opening, but was 
it growing or shrinking? 
She limped out onto the deck. Incredibly, Cascade chewed his oats without a 
care. More dirt fell, directly on Radience this time. 
She brushed it off of her head, but before she could get back inside, a 
particularly large clod slammed into her back, knocking her down. She tried to 
rise, but a dozen shovelfulls buried her legs. 
For an instant the scene lurched: it was not dirt but hundreds of packed, 
writhing bodies of the martyrs that buried her. 
Oh holy God, she killed them, killed them aU! Anahita and Ah/z and Bukta and 
Ejtaq-dal and the Caliph and the Overmen and att of them! 
A horrible thought intruded into her grief: you were as much a part of their 
deaths as Jiana. 
No! I was only a slave, it was her! She's the one— 



You stopped being a slave the moment you took responsibility for your own 
actions. Killer! You betrayed Jiana! 
1 didn't mean to— 
Witch. Blasphemer. You follow foreign gods! 
No. Control the mind—I'm on post. , . . She blinked and the bodies were gone, 
replaced by dirt again. Radience clawed at the dirt, but the more she pushed 
aside, the more poured onto her body, working under her eyelids and grinding 
with every blink. She blew a great pile away from her mouth and gasped for 
air. 
A presence loomed over her. Ciathudin grinned and casually snapped the back of 
his hand across her face. Radience bit her lip to keep from screaming her rage 
and hatred at the bastard; he was one of the Elect, the Overman of Slaves. 
A thousand temple bells rang in her ears, and her stomach rolled. She could 
not lift an arm to defend herself. He grabbed her around her neck and grinned 
crookedly. 
WARRIORWARDS 
267 
She felt no fear, only silent loathing. She struggled to keep her expression 
neutral, to find the warrior's serenity. 
He leaned his face next to hers and began to lick. Radience sobbed once, 
recovered control, and made no more sound. 
Giathudin pushed his hand into the earth. He grunted animalistically as he dug 
for her body, slobbering over her face and wheezing. 
Radience held her hatred tight; it inspissated into a great pyramid of angry 
brick rising sharp and jagged from the sands of helplessness. He found her 
legs, wormed his hand between them, and forced his finger inside her. Radience 
went elsewhere. 
A room, canvas walls, rough floor beneath thick cloth. She was in the 
traveling khayma. The Caliph slept like the dead at her fleet, open eyes 
staring blankly at the stars visible through the smoke-hole. The Less Moon was 
full again. 
She held a knife in her hand, the field captain's knife. She held it point 
downward, touching the breast of the Caliph of die Elect, al'Sophiate. But on 
another level, the Overman groped between her legs—and on the deepest level, 
the real level, she was being slowly buried alive by the pouring sand, 
crouching over the field captain's body. Which was real? 
She shook her head, and was standing over the Caliph again. Fury pulsed like 
an old burn; this was the man who subjugated her and stole her life! 
I was four turns. I had a Ma, a baby brother, and once I even had a Da, but 
he's gone a long time now. You came, white horse and bloody Horsemen. Why did 
you need me? 
Ma ran, but your bastards cut her down from behind, and you even tore Mara 
apart in front of me like dogs ripping a cornered rabbit and set him afire. 
You dragged my dead eyes to the red sands—despoiler! What did we know about 
what you and Da had between you? Did we care, by the Seer? 
Today I pay you back, she exulted, squeezing the knife, preparing for the push 
that would send on its final jour268 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
ney the soul of Hal'Addad bin Kerat bin El al'Sophiate, Lord of the Wind and 
the Five Sands, Prince of the Water, Caliph of the Elect from Qomsheh to Yazd 
to the Oasis of Deh Bid, Master of the Arts and Letters, and Satrap of Dokamaj 
Tool. 
She pushed down with all the force of her good right arm to puncture his cruel 
heart, but she missed! Her traitorous left hand, crippled and weak, pushed 
sideways suddenly to deflect the point from the Caliph's breast. 
Shocked at such betrayal, Radience tried again; again treachery intervened: 
the stunted left arm that had so often brought the troubles of the world upon 
Radience's head knocked the death blow wide. 
"Warrior!" cried a voice from within her own stomach, "do you strike in anger? 



Then you are a slave!" 
She looked at his eyes; they stared into hers in terror, conscious and awake, 
pupils a pinprick. She saw a man, not the master; a harried man trying to 
finish a job generations old: preparing the world for the return of the Seer, 
die judging, Paradise or the Underdwell. What if the rotting sickness 
returned? What if goats died, water dried? 
What if—what if it were all a lie, and death brought not holy communion but 
the black abyss? 
All at once, Radience could not sustain her anger. Every painful throb from 
her right hand dissipated into laughter out her left. 
"I never understood," she giggled. "You're nothing but a jamo/'trader, boss of 
a tentmaking concern! Caliph and Satrap, just a pair of jobs you hold, a 
couple of crowns to wear! You wear your mask, like Jiana; she's just learned 
to take hers off once in a while." 
Suddenly she remembered—Giathudin groping pathetically between her legs for 
her private soul! The Caliph faded, and again she was lying in the sand 
staring up at the Overman. But all her anger was gone, and she saw him too 
through new eyes: a little, ungrown boy, angry and frightened. 
He jumped back like a guilty little boy caught with^u's 
WARRIORWARDS 
269 
fingers in the jar of sweets. He looked at his hands as if he had never seen 
them before. 
A wind rose, and it blew him apart like lost smoke. Radience was alone in the 
sand, drowning under the weight of it 
"Cascade!" she cried, "for the God of love and for my sake, pull me out!" 
Teeth gripped the back of her shirt. She smelled the horse's hot breath as he 
yanked her from the pile with a single tug. 
Shivering, she tucked the knife back in her belt. There was no Caliph, no 
Giathudin. No Jiana, no Toldo, no monsters, no red rage. Is there even a 
Radienee? Maybe I'U go questing and find her some day. 
She sat cross-legged in the hut, looking at the two supine bodies, one empty 
and begging, the other pale as a ghost and straining. 
"What do I feel for you? For Teenja? I'm supposed to feel it for men, not 
women. Is this the fece of evil, or just another mask? I wish you could tell 
me. 
"I wish I were a warrior already." 
Fear and hatred, she thought, two attacks. What toiU be third? Who is the 
enemy? 
"Yes yes yes, we must leave from under this place!" cried the witch-man. He 
seized her hand and dragged her away. 
She was vaguely aware of a great journey down the Jambajala, mountains and 
jungles flying past, but Toldo's dream was short on the details of travel. In 
the next instant, Jiana found herself lying face down and naked in a 
mud-puddle, centuries and half the world away. 
She choked on a mouthful of water, and knelt for a long time, coughing and 
trying to breathe. She stood, unsteady in the mud. The heat made her glad she 
wore only caked mud clothing. Jatjaka set off, and Jiana caught up with him. 
The mud grew thicker and stickier, and it required an 
270 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
WARRIORWARDS 
271 
effort for her to pull her feet out of their own footprints, making a sucking 
noise; it was the only sound save for the old man's labored breathing. 
The iron sky pressed down upon her head, making it ache. Jiana heard a splash 
and a curse ahead of them. As they approached, she saw a man, mired in the mud 
up to his chest. He struggled to free himself. 
"Please!" he begged, catching sight of them, "by the black god and white 
goddess, free me! Free me!" 



Jatjaka ignored the man and his cries, and lurched past. Jiana shrugged. "Free 
yourself," she suggested, turning away from his lamentations. 
It seemed like half a day before they finally left him behind, though it was 
surely less than an hour. No sooner was he past, when they came upon another, 
stuck up to his armpits. Then a third and fourth. 
"Who are all these men?" she asked her guide. "Why don't they climb out?" 
"I do not know why they do not, I have not passed this way before." 
"What!" shouted Jiana indignantly. "You've never been this way? Then where the 
fuck are you leading me?" 
"To the priest." 
She took a slow, deep breath and counted backward from seventeen. Jatjaka 
pushed on, and Jiana slogged after him. 
The weeping bodies grew thicker as they passed; it was a challenge to pick a 
path between them. All cried out to be rescued, to be freed. Jiana stoppered 
her ears and shut her heart against them. 
But at last she and the witch-man halted, facing an ocean of writhing bodies 
with no trail to pick among them. Jiana stared, guilt building within her. The 
citadel of al*-Sophiate burned bright in her memory. 
Jatjaka seemed clueless; he scratched his alabaster head, looking left and 
right. "We go that way; I am sure, yes yes! But how? That is a perplexment, to 
be utterly certain." 
"I know how," she answered. "I know what Toldo wants 
\ to teach us, but it's a false and hollow lesson. This time, you follow 
me." 
She approached one of the bodies at the edge of the "sea." It was a woman who 
gazed unblinkingly at the sky, oblivious to their presence. 
Jiana reached forth her foot and pushed the woman; she did not respond. 
Shaking her head, the warrior moved like a flash: she stepped upon the woman's 
ample stomach and balanced carefully, then stepped from her to the next body. 
Jatjaka clambered up behind her. 
At first, they had to hop from belly to chest to back, as if crossing a river 
on stones. But after a short distance, the bodies were so tightly packed they 
could walk at a nearly normal rate, so long as they were careful not to step 
on an unstable face or leg. 
Some of the prisoned souls cried out in pain or torment when trodden on, but 
most were sunk in apathy and did not notice the indignity. The air was thick 
with the odor of unwashed bodies; Jiana breathed through her mouth, trying not 
to gag. 
In the distance, the warrior heard the low moan of wind through trees. It 
gained in intensity until it was all around them. At last she realized it was 
a collective moan of anguish from the millions of trapped people. 
Toldo had once told her the theory of Descention, that humans were once 
animals. As if in confirmation, Jatjaka began singing a warbling, ritual song 
in his own language, forming a counterpoint to the moaning chords. Jiana 
wished either he or the damned souls would shut up, preferably both. 
She saw a building far off in the distance. "Jatjaka, is that where Toldo is?" 
The witch-man puckered, then stretched his lower lip nearly to his chin. 
"Maybe I am not quite sure. Maybe, yes, I have lost the trail ... do you still 
remember your promise, yes?" 
"I won't break my pledge." 
Jatjaka scratched nervously, and looked back the way 


Dafydd ab Hugh 
they came. "Then yes," he said at last, "yes yes, it is from there that I feel 
the anguish of your worthless priest." 
"His worth is none of your fucking business!" cried Jiana, "Be thankful you 
extracted a promise from me, little man. It's your damned magic potions that 
have so nearly murdered him!" 
Jatjaka looked wounded. "The fat one did not fly from himself when Jatjaka 
brewed the Visioning! Did he drink the Visioning in the sacred clearing of 



Jawoongtor Yiltor?--Did he paint symbols of safety and luck upon his face and 
hands? No no!" 
"What use are your symbols and sacred clearings? It's a drug, nothing more! We 
brewed it together, and he drank it on a raft in the middle of the holy Nag 
Deh Jambajala. Isn't that good enough?" 
"It would appear not, yes yes," said Jatjaka. "The symbols serve to settle the 
stomach and prepare the soul for the journey. The Jawoongtor Yiltor clearing 
was carefully chosen to present proper sights and sounds, smells and breezes 
that ensure a profitable and educational trip. So much have I learned at the 
Seer's University in Deh Bid, in the desert lands." 
Jiana stood silent for a moment, stunned. 
"You went to university?" 
"Yes yes, did you think me uneducated? Where did your priest study herbism? 
Did he not know of the importance of the world outside and the world inside?" 
"Well, I never heard him ... I mean I don't think he talked much about—" 
"He thought us savages, yes he did! Do not blame me for his foolish and rash 
experiments. No, no! Blame the priest for knowing little and caring less!" 
Jiana turned angrily away. The witch-man had no right to give Toldo but a 
glimpse of the Serpent's lair without the power to find it again. Jiana set 
off towards the building again, mouth set in a grim line. 
WARRIORWARDS 
6 
273 
Can I stul be a warrior with my head shaved bare? 
Radience fingered her scalp, feeling the stubble so like a slave, so 
different—it would all stop instantly, Jiana said— the field captain said—if I 
simply say "I quit." Probably even let me grow my hair back again. 
Come to that, she thought, / could even shave my head as Jiana does, in the 
warrior's strip. Who would know I had no right? 
Radience rubbed her palm against the sandpapery roughness of her head, where 
the hair was growing back. 
She heard a sound, and yanked her hand away guiltily. She peered around the 
cabin, but saw no one aside from herself and the two warm bodies, both still 
alive. The dirt had stopped falling. 
"Damn, it's dark in here. ..." She tried to remember where the field captain 
kept the lamp, then felt ashamed for being afraid of the dark. 
"Damnit, Cascade's right outside. If there were intruders, that horse would 
surely have screamed or whinnied or something. ..." Radience rubbed her left 
hand, massaging out the aches and pains she had begun to feel lately. 
No, something is wrong. I'm stiU under attack, but I don't know by whom . . . 
the same somebody who took Toldo's soul. 
Again the noise like a foot, dragging on the deck outside. Not a horse's hoof. 
"Better investigate," Radience told herself. Then, a bit louder, "I'm coming 
out on deck now. Here I come. Any daevas better be gone when I get there!" 
She rose and pushed the cabin door open. The raft floated in the midst of 
void. And Cascade was gone. 
Frantic, she ran to the back, then the front of the raft. She looked down and 
saw faintly-glowing hoofprints on the wood planks, leading to the edge of the 
raft. 
Her eyes tracked the course, and she swallowed hard. She could see the glow of 
the footprints leading into the directionless abyss. They dimmed and faded as 
she watched. 
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Dafydd ab Hugh 
Cascade—whoever or whatever he was—had deserted. 
Radience turned abruptly and saw a blue glow coming from the half-open cabin 
door. She hesitated outside; again she heard the scrape of a foot, this time 
from inside the cabin. 
She reached for the door, but her hand paused, trembling of its own accord. 
She tried to force it forward, gritting her teeth and willing it. It would not 



move. 
Radience fell back a few steps; unable to stop herself. "This is stupid ... I 
should be in there, damn you! Back to your post, soldier!" 
Again she reached, but her hand froze as if confronting an invisible wall. 
"God, God, what have I let happen?" she cried, blinking at the salt tears in 
her eyes. 
Mesmerized, she stared at the eerie blue light leaking from the door's edges; 
the sound was now a clump clump from one side of die cabin to the other. 
Abruptly she remembered that she was not one-handed. 
She blanked her mind, as if preparing to meditate upon an orange. Careful to 
keep the intention out of her stomach, she darted her small hand out and 
pushed the door open. 
A malevolent imp crouched in the center of the room, a ghastly little boy with 
skin white as pus from an infected wound, fingers black as ashes from a 
corpse, burned on the sands. 
He slowly looked at her, mouth red as the Caliph's own wine, limbs twisted as 
a lightning-blasted Tarly tree. 
The dwarf grinned wickedly, stood and stretched his arms; they truly 
stretched, wide as the sands, long as the mountains. He laughed like an 
iron-shod ship wrecking on the jagged rocks of the Worm's Teeth. 
"You have met me at last, you useless, little cripple, Jiana's playtoy. I am 
Toq. Time for your birchin', you blasphemous urchin!" 
Toq stood astride the bodies of Jiana and Toldo; both had been sliced open, 
neat and clean, their organs lovingly removed and arranged about them, 
Radience stared numbly at Toq's handiwork. She gasped, 
WARRIORWARDS 
275 
her first breath since entering hell. Toq's odor was as foul as gravesand gas, 
but Radience refused to gag; she glared at the godling. 
She reached across with her left hand and drew her hunting knife without a 
word. Fear was gone; it lay on the ground with Love and Anger. The calm spirit 
infused her body, pumping strength and hardness into her heart, stomach, and 
muscles. 
Her feet burned footprints into the wooden deck as she advanced upon Toq. The 
knife in her good, left hand glowed white with unbearable heat. 
Toq stepped back, startled. 
As Jiana and Jatjaka closed upon the castle, more and more of the bodies were 
apathetic, dead but not yet dead. The castle was obscured by clouds until they 
were quite close. Then she saw that it, too, was built of bodies. They writhed 
in rhythm so that the entire building pulsed like a living thing. 
The sky was red, lit by an invisible, angry sun. The moons still crawled 
visibly across the sky, and the Less Moon had shrunk to a black penumbra 
again. 
The smell of rot and decay over-powered Jatjaka, and he buried his face in his 
hands as he and Jiana crossed the bridge across the moat. 
"Is he held prisoner here?" she asked. 
"The priest? Yes yes, surely he must be." 
"He's not one of these bodies, is he?" 
Jatjaka did not answer, but Jiana knew the answer was negative even as she 
asked. "Who lives here?" 
The witch-man shrugged angrily. His skin looked paler than normal, and he 
trembled. Jiana let him alone. 
Inside, the bodies were crushed against an invisible wall, as if they had been 
packed against a thick glass pane by a wine-pressing screw. But there was no 
glass; Jiana could have reached out and touched a flattened face or deformed 
limb. 
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Dafydd ab Hugh 
Incredibly, the bodies were alive, although pressed into less than a hand-span 
of thickness. They rolled their eyes and worked their jaws. She could not make 



out individual voices in the cacophony, but most begged and pleaded for death. 
Passing through the walls, Jiana and Jatjaka discovered an interior courtyard 
surrounded by five walls. At the for end was a staircase which led up through 
massive, open doors to the main hall. 
The courtyard ground was made of volcanic rock, marbled with veins of red. The 
pair crossed it and mounted the stairs. After several steps, Jiana realized 
the stairs were made of genitalia, stretched and pounded into place. 
She quickly mounted the obscene steps to the upper floor. She entered the 
great hall and finally found Toldo Mondo. He sat at the cold end on a throne 
sculpted from a living heart as large as the hut on the raft. 
There was no question this time; it was truly he. Jiana had never seen him so 
defeated and weighed down by calamity. 
"Toldo," she called, "get up, you're being liberated. Again." He did not stir 
or notice her entrance. "Look, priest," she continued, "I can't stay in your 
stomach forever—get up and move! We've got to get out of here." 
Jatjaka interrupted her. 
"It is he, it is he, yes yes! I have kept my part of the deal, have I not?" 
Jiana was surprised to see no chains or shackles upon the priest's arms or 
legs, no collar about his neck. She reached out to grab his sleeve, but his 
hand shot forth as quick as any warrior's and caught her wrist. 
He laconically turned his bovine head towards Jiana. "Woman?" he guessed, eyes 
focusing. "Jiana? What dream is this?" 
"Your dream, I would guess—leggo my arm!—through which I've journeyed to 
rescue you. Damn you, let go of my wrist!" 
She yanked, but he held her with a grip of stone. 
WARRIORWARDS 
277 
"But how could Jiana still be alive, a thousand turns after I met her? No 
matter; she will not thwart my plans." 
'Toldo, are you feverish? I'm getting old, but my birthdays aren't measured in 
centuries! Come, let's get out before the castle lord returns." 
"Are you truly Jiana? Or another demon, come to wrest the kingdoms of the 
world from my hands and prevent the Great Awakening?" 
Jiana stared silently, digesting the question. Jatjaka tugged at her other 
arm. "Lady, I have given my all, and my all has brought you and me both safe 
and sound to this location. Now I wish to be paid ... I can feel my enemies 
creeping upon me, even as I speak—I demand your protection, as you promised!" 
"Shut up, you annoying speck of dust. Toldo, WAKE UP! You ate some mushrooms 
and drifted far, far away; now it's time to return. What kingdoms?" 
"All the kingdoms of the earth, Jiana!" cried a familiar little boy's voice. 
Jiana spun about, her left arm now pinioned behind her by Toldo's motionless 
grip. 
An ancient-eyed dwarf child stood in the hall's center. He had alabaster skin, 
obsidian fingers, and a blood-red mouth, as if he had just feasted. 
"Toq," said Jiana, her lip curling in disgust. 
"I made your fat priest friend an offer, and he has accepted. I once made you 
the same offer, but you foolishly refused, for which I am sure you berate 
yourself every waking moment." 
"An offer?" 
"Toldo's great awakening! I have allowed him his most desired opportunity: to 
grab the world by the scruff and shake it awake!" 
Jiana tried to free her arm by twisting while she puzzled Toq's latest 
atrocity. "He plans to bring mushroom enlightenment to the world?" 
"To all the kingdoms of the earth. They are all his, if he will but serve my 
thirst for knowledge." 
"Knowledge! The last thing you so desperately thirsted after was the World's 
Dream, not knowledge!" 
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Dafydd ab Hugh 
"Well, we rather put that little dream behind us, didn't we?" Toq's voice had 



a nasty edge, and his hair writhed like a thousand squirming worms. "But I 
adjust to circumstances, as you know. So does Toldo." 
"He is one of my enemies!" exclaimed Jatjaka, hiding behind Jiana and pointing 
at Toq. "Protect me from him, yes yes! I insist!" 
Jiana looked back at Toldo; rather than follow the conversation, his glazed 
eyes stared into the middle distance. She deftly unlatched her arm from* his 
grip, and his hand settled slowly to his lap. 
"What do you mean, bring a special wakening to the kingdoms of the earth?" 
Toq gestured grandly at the walls; wherever his hand pointed, the packed 
bodies screamed in anguish, as if he had sliced them with a razor. 
"Someday, all this will be his." 
"A castle built of body-bricks and blood?" 
"That is what you see. Your priest sees a different world." 
"He sees an hallucination." 
"Don't you? Why not? His hallucination comforts him more than yours does you, 
though I do admire it myself." Toq's eyes bored into Jiana's, and he drifted 
closer and closer to her. She could not shift her gaze. 
"Come to me. Come to me, Jiana Analena; come as Toldo came. Come through the 
sacred mushroom. ... I shall wait for you." 
Blinking, she wrested her attention away from the boy-god. 
"Don't hold your breath." 
"You witt come. I prophesy it, though I know not when. I am content to wait." 
He half-closed his eyes and let a half-smile play across half his face. In an 
instant, Toq was nothing more than twisted, black roots and a burned-out, 
hollow husk, burning clean through the earth into the Underdwell, leaving a 
furnace odor to fade slowly. 
"This is really most unfair," complained Jatjaka. "Here I have led you to the 
priest that you sought, and you do not 
WARRIORWAROS 
279 
even acknowledge our bargain, or tell me how you are to protect me!" 
"Leave me alone, I warn you!" 
"I demand the protection you promised this instant, yes!" 
Jiana felt the other move through her body like fever. She whirled, stepped 
forward, and spoke. The voice from her throat sounded like hers, but the words 
were Jianabel's. "You want to be protected? Forever safe from nasty, horrid 
enemies? Lei me take you under my wing!" 
Jiana felt her guts wrench to the sides. Her entire body split vertically. The 
split gaped like a maw, filled with thousands of tiny teeth, each filed to a 
needle-sharp point. A long, sticky tongue darted out and wrapped around 
Jatjaka, dragging him towards her. 
The witch-man screamed and struggled but was pulled inside Jiana. The mouth 
slammed shut, and he screamed again—this time in agony as he felt the teeth. 
Jianabel let go of Jiana's body, and the warrior fell to her knees, gasping. 
"Hell be safe now, the silly! I promise that none of his enemies will dare 
harm him where he is now!" 
"You killed him!" 
"Hardly such an easy fate. He's alive within you, sister mine, and I have him 
ever so secure in my arms. We shall have many long, pleasant conversations, I 
think. ... he is my special dolly now, my new Krakshi!" 
Jiana gagged and tried to ignore the fluttering, squirming sensations inside 
of her. 
"Toldo, listen to me," she said, "a desert trip and four moons of slaving 
taught me you can only awaken yourself, no one else." 
The priest shook his head slowly back and forth. He snorted; for a wild 
moment, Jiana thought he would paw the ground with his foot. 
"All around them, but they would not see. Seers and sybils spoke, but they 
would not hear." 
"What? Priest, wake up yourselfl" 
"It is now time," Toldo pontificated, "to make them 



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Dafydd ab Hugh 
understand. Now it is time to thrust the secret right in their faces and beat 
them awake. Some may be hurt, some die. I am willing to, um, I say, to take 
that responsibility. As it were." 
Toldo was lost in his own universe; words alone were not enough. Jiana 
squinted, forcing herself to see tike walls as mere walls, the stair as a 
sequence of stone or wooden steps. All the same, all hallucination. She 
wrapped arms about her body, quieting a shudder. 
A thousand, thousand flying insects invading Jiana's guts, battering her 
insides like moths crashing a lantern glass. Toldo's dream. Is Radience 
nothing more than my dream? 
"Toldo," she said, "you can't wake them out of their dreams; I've tried. All 
you can do is wake yourself and hope the other poor bastards take the hint." 
Her voice sounded cold and dead, and she choked on the taste of Jarjaka the 
witch-man, himself finally waking. 
"Flay your mushroom games," she continued, to Toldo, Jarjaka, Radience, 
Jianabel—anyone who cared to listen. "You might learn something to wake from 
your own walking nightmare—Tooqa knows Radience has helped me end mine," 
Toldo jumped up, his eyes wide with wild purpose. He flapped His arms. 
"AWAKE! I'LL BLAST THEM AWAKE, THE SLEEPING BASTARDS!" 
Jiana laughed, and shook her head. 
"I can't wake you up, but I can sure as shit keep you from sleepwalking—at 
least this time. I guess that qualifies as rescuing you, don't you think?" 
She pressed her palms over her eyes and stoked the burning cord of magic that 
ran up her spine. She fanned it into an inferno, a fiery streak of pain (one, 
your terror) running up her back. She let it flood through her, feeling it, 
reveling in it (two, your agony). 
She feared if she burned any hotter she would incinerate herself. She opened 
her eyes. (Three, your despair!) 
Toldo was staring at her, his eyes wide with astonishment. His face was 
brightly lit, as if the fire were shining 
WARRIORWARDS 
281 
out of her skin with a brightness to match the heat. She focused her eyes on 
the priest, and visioned him at the center of a raging fireball. 
Toldo opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. He twisted his legs and arms and 
fell from the heart-throne onto the floor. 
First, his robe burned away. Then the outer layers of skin, the new, pink skin 
underneath. The muscles were exposed, bright red for an instant; they turned 
black and charred, leaving a veined skeleton enclosing internal organs. 
The brittle bones broke, one by one; the organs resisted the heat as yet, 
though Jiana would have expected them to burn before the skeleton. Finally the 
skull itself burst with a great, loud bang, and all that was left was a pile 
of organs. They began to melt and liquify before Jiana's eyes. 
"Come—OUT," she ordered, unable even to articulate a controlling cantrip. She 
burned with unchanneled power, unsubtle Will. 
The world shimmered like a desert mirage. The walls screamed as they roasted. 
At last, the oily run off from the melted organs trickled blackly away, 
revealing a tiny, white, waxy figure at the center. 
Jiana slowly cooled the fire within, feeling her consciousness ebb with the 
power. He had cost her; she understood dimly that she might not recover. 
But the warrior spirit was strong within her this day, and she faced death 
feeling neither fear nor despair. 
She was a furnace cooling towards shut-down, a flywheel coasting and slowing 
ever-so-slightly towards rest. After tense centuries of turns, Jiana realized 
to her surprise that the danger was past; the fire was controlled and she 
would live. 
She crawled forward, slipping in her own sweat, and plucked the white-wax 
figurine from the ground. 



She did not remember rising. She caught quick flashes of image as she 
staggered through the throne room, down the stairs, and out the door. 
The castle was dead; every soul in every wall had been charred and burned. 
Even the sea of bodies outside was 
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Dafydd ab Hugh 
gone, replaced by a lava overflow. The substance still glowed red, but Jiana 
was not worried; the heat would be nothing compared to what she had just 
released. 
Cradling the Toldo figurine, the warrior stumbled across the hot, red sea, 
timeless and nearly senseless. She noticed when she moved beyond the lava. She 
briefly noticed when she fell into the Nag Deh Jambajala. She looked up and 
saw the Less Moon full again, the fifth time she had seen it so in the dream 
time. 
She waded through water that rose to her naked breasts. She held the figurine 
aloft, keeping it out of the water, an inner gnosis informing her that she 
dared not allow it to touch until she gained the birthing pool under the 
mountain, where she first had met Jatiaka and bid farewell to the Fish of 
Earthly Knowledge. 
At last she stood in the pool, the Lake of Forget Nought, far under the 
measureless tons of rock. Stooping, she dipped the figurine in the waters. She 
dipped it again, and three more times again, making five times in all (once 
for each pregnant moon). 
It grew heavier and thicker with every baptism until Jiana did not hold it so 
much as cradle it, letting it fell into the waters and hoisting it out again, 
After the final dunking, it was not a figurine but Toldo Mondo himself who 
stood white and shaking before her, wearing the cold and cloaked with as much 
memory as a man can withstand. 
"Please take me back," he begged. 
8 
"Jiana is dead," said the boy-creature, grinning nervously. Radience continued 
her advance, ignoring him. 
"I tore her guts out, ho! and scattered them to the four winds." He giggled. 
"Except for part of her stomach; I ate that, don'tcha know." 
He backed into a comer and stopped; Radience moved swiftly and thrust the 
knife at his chest. The blade broke, 
WARRIORWAHDS 
283 
as it would if she had thrust it against the Caliph's statue, and Toq laughed 
with a musical tinkle. 
"Can't catch me!" he sang, "I'm the gingerbread god!" He danced around the 
girl, cackling like an old woman's chicken. 
Radience turned and advanced upon him, emotionless and relentless. Again, Toq 
backed away, this time gesturing her forward with both his hands, mocking her 
stem demeanor. 
Radience paused, biting her lip. This is stupid. What am I going to do, beat 
him with the broken hilt? 
"This is stupid," agreed Toq. "What are you going to do, beat me with the 
broken hilt? Suck my toes, pick my nose? Heigh-de-hose!" 
Unthinking, Radience caught Toq in a flying tackle that brought both of them 
to the ground. For an instant, his hands were pinioned, and she seized his 
throat in a death-grip. 
After a moment, she realized he was not struggling. He was looking at her wfth 
a bemused expression. She stared back, incredulous. It was hopeless! 
"It's hopeless," he croaked. Radience rose into the air, and realized Toq 
lifted her by her belt. She maintained her grip, but he tossed her aside, and 
her hands were torn from his throat. She fell upside down in the corner, 
gripping two large hunks of bloody flesh. 
Toq ignored die gaping neck wounds. He advanced upon Radience while she was 
still blinking and trying to focus her vision. 



"It's hopeless," he said, squatting before her, hands on his knees. "It's like 
this, see: I'm a god, and you're a piece of lint. What do you think you can do 
to me?" 
Radience lashed out with a left-handed punch at Toq's face, but a new mouth 
opened where his eye was, and it caught her fist in its toothless gums. He 
spoke through a mouth that opened over his other eye. 
"Look at Jiana. Take a good, long look at your fuck-fantasy. Think you can do 
better than she?" 
Radience stared at the second mouth in horror, barely 
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Dafydd ab Hugh 
hearing Toq's words. She felt ill and struggled to pull her hand free. 
The mouth opened and released the girl's fist. It vanished as soon as she 
withdrew her hand, leaving nothing but Toq's eye again. 
"Oh yes. Oh yes. Yes, oh yes, yes oh, oh! I know exactly what you want to do 
with Jiana! I know the real reason you wait upon her, hand and foot!" 
Now it was Radience who inched backward, until her back pressed against the 
corner. He leaned close, and she smelled decaying orchids on his breath. His 
face filled her entire field of vision. 
"Do you want to do it?" he whispered, gesturing towards Jiana's body with his 
eyes. "I can put her back together again, you know." 
Radience's gaze was dragged towards Jiana's body. No longer were the guts 
strewn about the room; it was whole, still pale in death, but unmarked. 
Jiana's feet were small, calloused, her ankles slender; each calf comprised 
two thick, well-defined muscles. Soft, black hair sparsely coated Jiana's 
shins. 
Her thighs were milky-white, thick with muscle, yet feminine. Higher, the hair 
was black and dense. Radience visioned her fingers stroking it, perhaps her 
tongue. 
Jiana's hips were wide, her buttocks smooth and hard, white as the salt-sands 
at high noon. Her belly was strong, Radience knew, but not ribbed like sand 
dunes, like the boys of the Elect. It was a smooth, curvaceous slope through 
which the ribs bulged. 
Her breasts were medium, larger than Radience's, but smaller than most of the 
women of the Elect. Smaller than Teenja's. The nipples were dark brown rather 
than pink like Radience's. Frozen in death, they neither rose nor fell. 
Radience stretched her hand towards those breasts, desperately wanting to 
stroke them, feel them, kiss them. In her vision, her lips and tongue caressed 
the nipples, begging them to harden, but they lay still and cold. 
Jiana's shoulders were broad, the muscles large and cut. 
WARRIORWARDS 
285 
Strong enough to tear a tree from the ground, tear a stone apart; strong 
enough to tear Toq in half. 
Her throat was white and soft, tendons distinct, a blue vein running down the 
side. Her face was round, cheeks hollow. Her nose was smaller than the women 
of the Elect, not as tiny as the northern women. 
Radience blinked a tear from her eye; it interfered with visioning the 
hopeless love before her. No hope. . . . 
Jiana's coal-black warrior's strip was thin, where Teenja's hair was thick and 
matted; soft, where Mugn's was a fistful of bristles. Jiana proudly bore a few 
grey strands in front tike battle ribbons. 
Most of all, Radience wanted to run her fingers through that soft, black hair 
and kiss Jiana's cold forehead. But more: she wanted Jiana to run her fingers 
through Radience's blonde, straight locks, soon as they grew back. 
But it would not happen. It was hopeless. Jiana was dead. 
Radience felt her lip trembling. She realized what Toq was doing. "I have no 
lust for her dead body," she said. 
"Pity," said the boy-god, "if you had amused me, I might have spared your 
snotty, little life." She knew he Bed. 



He grinned so wide his face cracked, and reached forward to seize her by her 
throat and lift her to her knees. 
Radience looked into Toq's pink eyes and ashen face, and knew she would die in 
a moment. There was nothing that could stop it, not in the hut of death, not 
out in the void. Hopeless—die end of a short, miserable hie. 
There is nothing that can stop it," Toq said, so quietly his voice was barely 
audible over her own pulse in her temples. "You are at the end of your short, 
miserable, disgusting, bootlicking, perverted, beastial life." 
Radience felt no fear, only peace. 
Toq scowled, and a million black, bloated roaches erupted from his flesh. They 
scurried around eyes and nose and into his gaping mouth. 
He held up his right hand, and long, sharp claws pushed 
286 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
through the flesh of his fingertips. Blood dripped down his hand. 
Why am I not afraid? she wondered. Is this the warrior spirit at last? 
Toq drew his hand back, drawing out the moment. The roaches fell from his face 
to scurry across the deck, across Radience's feet. Still, she did not fear; 
she would die soon, anyway. 
She looked deep into Toq's eyes and understood; she saw the wheel, saw his 
place and her own on it. And Radience saw in Toq's eyes release from the 
wheel. She saw how she could stop it, in death, and get off—if she kept her 
head and her resolve. 
No hope, Radience thought, but no desire; no cares. She smiled, genuinely 
happy. "Good time to die!" she laughed, feeling a cool breeze blow through her 
body. 
From nowhere, a lightning bolt tore through Toq, and the entire raft shuddered 
and nearly broke apart. The boy-god flew across the room, spinning wildly, and 
landed upside-down against a wall. 
Cascade reared inside the cabin, screaming with battle-lust. Hoof by hoof, the 
horse advanced upon Toq. When the tiny, white god tried to rise, Cascade 
trampled him Hke a snake, tearing with his teeth and kicking repeatedly with 
hooves that burned their mark into Toq's flesh with every blow. 
In a moment too brief, Toq was obliterated. There were no pieces left, just 
flattened, burned lumps of clay. 
Cascade turned an eye to look at Radience. He watched her, unblinking, for a 
long time, then turned and walked back out of the cabin onto the deck, into 
the void, as unconcerned as if he had merely nibbled a few blades of grass. 
Radience was still on her knees, where she had fallen when Toq dropped her. 
She tried to stand, but her legs would not hold her. 
She crawled towards her charges. They were both alive, still lying as they 
last had been, still sleeping. 
She slid her hand under Jiana's shirt and touche^} her 
WARRIORWARDS 
287 
breast. It was warm. It rose and fell. The girl pulled her hand away quickly, 
before she could begin to feel . . . anything. 
Light shone into the hut and burned away the void. It the Seer's Moon, the 
Less Moon, the Mother of 
was 
Introspection opening wide her eye for the fifth time since the raft flowed 
over the edge. 
Exhausted, Radience fell across the two bodies, still protecting them. I did 
it! she exulted; / guarded them, kept harm away, . . . 
Her eyes closed, and she knew nothing more. 
In the quiet night, Radience dimly felt a flip, a flap, as her stomach rolled. 
The raft flowed over another Edge, flopped, flipped, and the world righted 
itself. 
Radience smiled in her sleep, but knew nothing more. 
Chapter IX: 



Crucible of market reality prime, moons in the half-shell 
Jiana opened her eyes. She looked at the regular, wooden roof of the cave. She 
blinked, and it became the ceiling of the cabin, on the great raft. 
When she inhaled, a sharp pain lanced up her back, as if she had rolled onto a 
knife. Wincing, she tried to sit up. 
She fell back heavily, dizzy. "Wu—whu ..." The words would not form on her 
parched lips, but someone understood and held a cup of water for her to drink. 
After swallowing some, she took a mouthful and rolled it around her tongue and 
lips until they responded to her commands again. 
"Toldo?" 
"In the flesh, ah, so to speak." His voice sounded deeper than usual, as if 
he, too, had risen recently with a mouth like the bottom of a bird-cage. He 
hawked and spat phlegm out the door of the hut, paced back and forth. 
Underneath the creaking and groaning of the deckboards, Jiana heard the 
clopping of Cascade's hooves. In a comer, Radience snored loudly, a blanket 
tucked around her. She whimpered softly in her sleep. 
"I found her fallen over us both, that hunting knife clutched in her hand and 
covered with dried blood. I don't think we had the only adventure, pale one." 
"Her own blood?" 
288 «. 
WARRIORWARDS 
289 
"Not human. Not horse, either." 
This time Jiana succeeded in sirring up, but her back was lacerated with every 
breath. "Uk. Do we have any food? I forget." 
"Kaf." 
"Better than sucking my own spit." 
"You are so delicate, fair flower of maidenhood." 
"No, my stomach gives me trouble whenever I think too much. Constant 
indigestion. Now my back hurts, too." 
"I thought you warriors bore your travails without complaint?" 
"Fuck no; we whine and bitch like old ladies. Should hear a barracks-room 
bitch-session someday: you'd swear we were a bunch of grandmothers with gout 
and rheuma-tism. Toldo—how do you feel?" 
"Do you mean, am I still possessed by the megalomaniacal dreams of 
enlightening the entire world? No. But some-thing did happen, some land of 
awakening. To me, I mean." 
"Did you find what you sought?" 
Toldo paused in his perigrinations and stroked his beard. He looks so 
different with that, Jiana thought. Cleanshaven, he looked hungry. Now he's 
full, and trying to digest. 
"Yes, partially; no, not completely." 
Jiana chuckled. "Well, that about runs the line from left to right." 
"I know what they mean when they say they've seen the light" 
"They who?" 
He shrugged. 
"You'll see it someday." 
"That's what Toq said; someday I'll follow you on the journey you just took. 
Then I'll be his. Toq's." 
"If you truly follow me, you'll be yours." 
"So where are we? Not to change the subject." 
Toldo moved to the opening and peered out at the countryside, drifting so 
slowly by. 
"Um, Door. Yes, it must be Door. Might be Door, I mean." 
290 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Door, she thought. Something important about Door. . . . 
"That's all? That's only, what, forty leagues from Deh Bid?" 
"Well, we're somewhere in Door; I don't see the mountains, but we might still 
be anywhere in a three hundred league range. How far south do you think we've 



come?" 
"You're the one with the maps, o great navigator. I don't even know for sure 
how long we've traveled. You tell me we're in Door. Now what?" 
"Good a place as any to start, Door is. Let's beach the raft at the first town 
we find. Or perhaps the second." 
There is something I must remember about Door, but my stomach is empty. I 
can't remember. Damn! 
"Why? What do you plan to do? If you don't mind my asking." 
"Set up shop." 
Jiana stared in astonishment. 
"Selling what? Enlightenment?" 
"You bet, Jiana. I can't enlighten them, but I can certainly show them what 
waking life is like. Show anyone who wants to see, that is." 
Jiana snorted, and struggled up onto her feet, wincing at the tearing pain 
(four, your death). She brushed at her tunic; it was encrusted with ancient 
sweat and grime. 
"Well, I guess can sell love potions and undeteclable poisons; maybe buy 
something nice to wear for a change." 
Jiana looked down at Radience: the girl's face was older, her eyes less 
innocent, even while closed in fitful sleep. "You're going to make a hell of a 
warrior," she whispered. "Time to put a sword in your hand." 
Radience practiced the sword dance the field captain taught, crazy though it 
seemed. Who ever heard of swinging a sword so excruciatingly slowly, almost as 
if underwater? 
Whenever she tried to speed up a cut, the field captain caught her wrist and 
slowed her down even further. "Training your muscle memory," Jiana called it, 
but Radience felt silly, especially when Toldo watched. 
The girl stumbled, seeing sparkles before her eyes^She 
WARRIORWARDS 
291 
: t 
blinked. Must be a late hit from that daeva, she thought uneasily. She was 
grateful when the field captain decided it was a good time to stop the first 
day. 
But why would she still not teach Radience to fight with the sword? The girl 
felt discouraged. Am 7 that dense? 
Jiana sat bolt upright, her eyes wide. She clenched her teeth to hold back a 
scream. It was the dream again, back to haunt her: the dead, the living, a 
blurring of the lines; limbo, round and round again, three times; three times 
would Toq cast a shadow across her life before . . . 
Shadowed me once yet, the killings at Deh Bid—No! Stop the thoughts, turn your 
stomach away! Can't look at that. Not yet. 
She stood quietly to avoid waking Radience. The priest was already awake. She 
found him out on the deck, sitting cross-legged next to Cascade. Both he and 
the horse watched a great clump of lights approaching, far ahead. 
Nine towns had they allowed to pass unexplored, except for brief food 
excursions in the first, sixth, and eighth. Toldo's money store was 
dangerously low, Jiana's exhausted long before. 
Jiana silently approached the priest, but she must have made some little 
noise, for Toldo spoke immediately, "It could be Hak'sha." 
"Seems big enough. I've never been there. But that's crazy; we can't be going 
that fast. That's at the south end of Door, almost at the land's end." She 
dubiously eyed the shore crawling past, slow as a Bay Bay merchant making 
change. "Unless . . . snakes, how the fuck long have we been shedding our 
skins out here?" 
"I don't know; I remember nothing since I took that last batch of the Waking." 
"I dreamed the Less Moon waxed and waned five times. I don't know how long we 
spent in that Summerland; I'm afraid to find out." 
"Well, is that Hak'sha?" 
"Don't know. Never been to Door." 



Toldo raised his brows. "I thought you'd been every where." 
292 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Jiana ignored the jibe. Door was the one country she avoided, so hot that 
northern visitors were rumored to occasionally burst into spontaneous flames. 
It was little and squalid, with wretched, poverty-stricken people; yet the 
people lived in the shadow of palaces and manses that dimmed those of the 
Flower Empire. 
"If the people of that city ever stopped smoking their Hak'sha tobbacco, 
they'd rise up, butcher their princes, and move into those palaces." 
"Perhaps, after smoking enough Hak'sha tobbacco," Toldo said cryptically, 
"they already live in those palaces." 
"I hate this place. But there's something about it that I can't remember, and 
should." 
"Oh? What can't you remember?" 
"Nice try; I wish it were that easyl I can't dislodge it from last night's 
potatoes." 
Jiana looked at the red glow in the East. "Well, time to lack the kid awake 
and play field captain. You saw her sword practices. Not bad, almost holds the 
sword correctly after one day! Took me a moon to learn that!" 
She turned without waiting for a response. Toldo had not watched Radience 
practice; he was too preoccupied with the internal landscape. 
Jiana ducked through the cabin door and found the girl already awake and 
washing herself. Radience's body was always lean, but it was less gaunt and 
more muscled than it ever had been. She noticed Jiana watching her, and became 
self-conscious, twisting slightly so that her left arm was out of sight behind 
her body. 
Then she caught herself. She turned face front, seemingly unashamed either of 
her arm or her naked body, but the action was clearly forced. 
No matter. What is staged today is habit tomorrow. 
"Ma'am, will this initiate still begin actual combat training today, as the 
field captain promised?" 
"Are you implying I'm a liar? On your face." Radience dropped, half smiling. 
"Down up. Down up. Hey, Initiate Radience." 
"Ma'am?" 
WARRIORWARDS 
293 
"Is it true you studied healing while you were a slave in al'Sophiate's 
khayma? Down up." 
"Yes, ma'am!" / 
"Down up. You mean they actually let you handle knives and needles and sharp 
things?" 
"Yes, ma'am!" 
"Down up. Remind me never to have an accident in Deh Bid." 
"Aye, ma'am!" 
"Down up. Down up. Hey, Initiate Radience, did they actually let you cut 
people up?" 
"Sometimes, ma'am!" 
"Down up. Snakes and Serpentine, did they also teach the cooks how to brew 
poisons? Down up." 
"No, ma'am!" By this time, Radience was visibly laughing as she performed her 
press-ups. 
"Down up. Down up. Down up. Keep going. Stop making that weird noise, or the 
Hak'sha Physicians' Union will quarantine you when we dock there." 
"Aye, ma'am! Is this initiate to understand we're close to Hak'sha, ma'am?" 
"Hey, Apprentice Radience. You got some business out in town?" 
Radience stopped at an upstroke and looked up open-mouthed at Jiana. "Did—did 
the field captain say apprentice?" 
"As of this moment, Apprentice -Sergeant at Arms Radience, you are allowed the 
privilege of using the first and second person in your speech. That means you 



can now say T and 'you,' m case vour little, walnut-sized stomach didn't quite 
catch that." 
"Thank you, ma'am! Field Captain! Ma'am!" 
"Down up." 
"Aye, ma'am! Ma'am?" 
"Now what? Down up." 
"Are we in Hak'sha? Field Captain?" 
"On your feet." 
"Aye, ma'am!" Radience bounded up. 
"Get your clothes and your shit and be out on deck in 
294 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
fifteen seconds. Bring that deck pad we picked up yesterday. Better teach you 
a bit of fighting." 
"Aye, ma'am!" Radience rushed into her clothing as Jiana strode around to the 
back of the raft to await her. She arrived a few seconds early with the 
straw-filled mat, and Jiana had her lay it out and wait in the middle, 
"The first thing you are going to do is to learn how to punch. 
"You think you already know how to punch. Everybody thinks he knows how to 
punch. You are going to learn by punching me. You will enjoy this exercise, 
but if you think this opportunity of yours to exact some revenge against me or 
will make me any easier on you in the future, Apprentice Radience, you are in 
for a big, nicking surprise." 
Radience smiled, and tensed eagerly. 
"Since I want you to still be able to walk and breathe and other such 
niceties, I won't punch you back. Yet." Jiana joined Radience on the mat. 
"The first punch we will practice is a simple punch to the solar plexus. Right 
here." She gently poked Radience just below her sternum, hard enough to make 
the girl feel it, not hard enough to bruise her diaphragm. 
"Punch." 
After a moment, Radience wound her arm up and swung it at Jiana's belly, 
roughly in the correct place. Jiana stepped out of the way of the blow with no 
trouble. 
"Watch me." 
Very slowly, Jiana stepped back a touch out of range and simulated a straight, 
stepping punch from her hip to Radience's stomach, snapping her hips at the 
end. 
"Stand like this; this is the fourth position. Now do what I just did," Jiana 
said, stepping back into range. 
Again, Radience tried. She signalled the punch less obviously, but was still 
too slow by a wide margin. 
Jiana worked with her through the entire morning, drilling her on the form. 
Then she changed the fecus of the lesson. "Begin your reservoir exercise." 
Radience started to sit down on the mat, but Jiana stopped her. "No. Stand in 
the fourth position and let the Power build along your spine." 
WARRJORWARDS 
295 
For a moment, Radience looked confused, then comprehension dawned. She stood 
in the ready position before the punch and let her facial expression go blank. 
Jiana squinted and opened her inner vision; she saw a feint glow of Power 
running through Radience's body like a sword blade. 
"Now strike again, but let the force come from the Power, not from your own 
muscles. Follow the form; it is designed to work with the Power. Strike!" 
Radience lashed out, but with her left hand, not the right that Jiana 
expected. Caught by surprise, Jiana was forced to actually block the blow, 
rather than step aside. 
The impact made the warrior's arm tingle. 
"Nice punch. Can you manage to control it a bit better next time?" 
Radience stared, open mouthed. 
"I'm sorry!" 



"You're what?" 
"I apologize for—" 
Jiana swung her hand in a short, slapping arc, but instead of hitting Radience 
with her palm, Jiana curved her fingers and struck the girl with her 
fingertips in the jaw-muscle. Radience was staggered, though she did not cry 
out. She held the side of her face and worked her jaw, blinking rapidly. 
"Do you expect me to apologize for that?" 
"N-no, ma'am. No, Field Captain." 
"Why not?" 
Radience shook her head, trying to restore her balance. 
"Because you are the field—" 
"Snakeshit. Because I am a warrior, and that is what warriors do. Never 
apologize for acting like a warrior, unless you sincerely don't mean it." 
"Unless I don't mean it?" 
Jiana looked stern, imitating the manners of Tu Tsai, one of her old 
swordmasters. 
"Civilians are strange," she said, "especially city lords. They call you awake 
in the middle of the night to put down a drunk on a rampage, then recoil in 
horror when 
296 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
you decapitate die son of a bitch. They don't understand the value of sleep." 
"So in that case, a warrior says he's sorry for acting like a warrior?" 
"A warrior says anything they want to hear, so she can get back to her mat. 
Time enough to slap some sense into them hi the morning. Now try that punch 
again . . . right handed, this time." 
2 
The city approached. Soon it was close enough that Radience could actually 
make out individual people at the docks. She was quite excited; she had never 
been to a city as big, as fabled, as adventurous as Hak'sha! The field captain 
had even hinted at a certain bit of liberty, at least in her company. Perhaps 
an apprentice could wander a bit? 
The entire center of legendary Hak'sha was fabled to be a vast trading bazaar, 
tens of thousands of tents and stalls selling—everything. 
Radience closed her eyes and visioned it clearly: barrels of wine,, buckets of 
tar, odors of perfume, ghastlies of potions; swords and armor, flying rugs, 
maps to mythic lands, whole libraries of books! diaries of generals and 
courtesans, philosophical speculations, astronometric descrip-tographies, 
erotic fantasies, fried dates, mungberries, sweetmeats, candies, gold and 
silver, jewels, sparkles of ruby and emerald, hurgate, obsidian, great hunks 
of quartz with trapped slivers of roachroek, gods and daevas, small-erects, 
elphas-headed heirophants and Luminous Ones, holy and profane all rolled 
together like spiral cakes into one, great, sprawling, howling, bargaining, 
cheating, laughing, underdwell of a market: the Market of Hak'sha. 
But the field captain directed Radience to pole the raft to the shore long 
before they actually made port. Toldo helped, but he was distracted, as usual, 
and the apprentice did most of the work. 
The field captain gave her only a moment to rinse the 
WARRIORWAHDS 
297 
sweat off her chest and face before ordering her to pull the raft for enough 
ashore that it would not float away. Out of the water, it was heavier than 
Radience thought possible; it took the efforts of all three of them to shift 
it. Radience looked curiously at Cascade, then at the field captain, but the 
venomous look she received warned her away from making the obvious suggestion. 
Later, as Toldo passed her he leaned down and whispered, "A good warhorse is 
worth ten soldiers. You don't waste him pulling ploughs or hauling loads." 
They piled brush all around the raft. 
"Ma'am," Radience asked, "is there no better way to conceal it? I can see it 
as plain as a castle wall." 



"You'd be surprised; you already know it's there. In any case, I only care 
about hiding it from eyes on the river. If anyone stumbles across it on the 
shore, they're likely to see it no matter how well we camouflage the thing." 
"Why from the river?" 
"Because it's damned valuable—like Cascade. Any rag-ass river-snake that 
floated by and saw it would make off with it, sell it downriver. A farmer or a 
townie isn't likely to be going anyplace anyway." 
"Where to now, ma'am? The market?" 
"You haven't earned any liberty yet. You get one-half day in five." 
"We've been on the river for—for I don't know how long, ma'am. Days? Moons?" 
Jiana smiled nastily. 
"Initiate time doesn't count. Pack the trash." 
They hoisted their bundles and looped the straps around their shoulders. 
Toldo's was the heaviest, but he barely noticed the weight. Radience had the 
uncomfortable feeling that her own pack was the lightest. 
The field captain did not mount Cascade; he walked unencumbered beside them. 
Every few moments, Radience caught the horse looking at her. It gave her a 
creepy feeling, which was immediately followed by embarrassment. 
Darn him, he's just a damn horse! You're not a slave anymore. 
298 
Dafydd ah Hugh 
Hak'sha was completely different from Radience's vi-sionings, but just as 
wonderful. The houses were neither grand nor tall, the streets unbejeweled and 
the beggars unadorned. 
But there were more people than the world contained, and the houses ran 
together like the stones on the beach of Triangle Bay. Pushing through the 
crowds reminded her of feeding time in the goat pens; she expected to push 
through the last of them at any moment, and find the rest of Hak'sha 
deserted—but it never happened. The mob was ubiquitous. 
The smell of unwashed humanity was overwhelming; her heart raced and she kept 
worrying that they were crushing her, bearing in upon her like a million 
daevas, pawing and clutching. She pressed as close to Toldo and the field 
captain as she could and fought the terror. 
An ugly face pushed close to the girl and screamed at her in a strange 
gibberish. She could not tell whether he was angry or anguished. Hands pulled 
at her clothing, tried to grab her wrists. 
Two women, younger than Radience, threw themselves in front of the trio, 
crying and extending their dirty hands. The field captain slapped them aside 
without breaking her stride. 
The lamentations of the beggars were so loud that Radience could not even hear 
herself shout. She choked on the smell, and put her mouth against the field 
captain's ear. 
"What do they want? What do they want?" she cried. 
"They want your blood," said Jiana; Radience could barely make out her words. 
"Blood?" 
"Food!" 
"What?" 
"I SAID FOOD! THEY WANT FOOD, CLOTHING, MONEY. THIS STUFF." Jiana showed her 
hand to Radience. She held two dull, iron eagleclaws, Toldo's entire horde; 
the lot would buy barely a night's lodging in a stables. 
WARRIORWARDS 
299 
"Heeeeeeeeeeere, chick chick chick!" she called, and flung the coins away from 
them into the crowd. 
With a single, tortured cry, the mob of beggars tore after the pitiful sum, 
trampling the weak and the crippled underfoot. While they screamed and fought 
like kites over a corpse, Jiana grabbed Radience's arm and ran the opposite 
direction, into a squat, ugly building that smelled of malt and disinfectant 
alcohol. 
A burly man wearing his turban all wrong slammed the door, and the noise 



abated somewhat. Radience watched the door, convinced that the beggar's army 
would shortly batter it down, but they drifted away, those who could still 
move. Through a barred window, she saw two bodies in the street that did not 
look alive. 
"Hey, Apprentice," said the field captain. 
"Ma'am?" 
"Welcome to civilization." 
"Where is this? Ma'am?" 
She was gone, dickering with a fat man who wore a leather apron. 
A meaty finger thumped on Radience's shoulder. It was Toldo, who seemed a bit 
more awake to his environment. 
"We are in what is called, in common parlance, an aleshop; to wit, it is 
called the Dangling Jamal." 
"They sell alcohol here? To drink?" 
"Ah, so I am told. As it were. Brewed into a malted beverage, I believe." 
"Are we going to ... drink this beverage?" 
"They also sell rooms, or rather, let them for a daily rate, payable several 
days in advance. And unless you restrict yourself to water, then yes, you will 
be drinking tiiis beverage. Are you devout?" 
"No. I'm a soldier, or an apprentice, anyway." She looked back over her 
shoulder; the Seer was very strict about alcohol. Still, she knew what was 
often in the kaf that the Horsemen drank, and they had not been struck deaf 
and blind, as the priests warned. 
"No," she said with firmness, "I'm not devout. I'll try the alcohol." 
300 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
"Ale." 
"The ale." 
"Good. You'll probably hate it." 
"Thanks." 
"Mention it not, o diminutive one." 
Her mouth was very dry. Maybe I need some of that ale now. Oh Sand Lords, I 
hope not! The chore did not hold the slightest appeal. 
She looked around the smoke-choked room. The only light came from the windows 
set high in the walls; sunlight dripped down onto the floor, catching sparkles 
from a dust cloud that looked worse than the one tramped up by the feet of the 
Elect. . . . 
A rush of emotion seized her throat; she gripped a nearby table to stop 
herself from falling. 
Dead! They're all dead! fsmal and Mugn and—and— 
She fought the horror down; "no," she whispered, uncaring who heard; "they 
just went around again ... we did them a f-favor ... it was an accident. ..." 
The words rang hollow, but they worked. Radience was able to forget again for 
a time. She opened her eyes. 
A young boy and his girl sat at the table, staring at the Radience apparition. 
They rose, took their drinks, and vacated across die room. Shrugging, Radience 
sat down and waited for Toldo and Jiana. 
They took rooms at the inn, though Jiana still marveled that she convinced the 
hosteler to let them stay on credit. 
For several weeks, Jiana drilled Radience in boxing skills; she tired to 
ignore Toldo in the other room experimenting with powders, philters, potions, 
and effluences. She also kept the other thought buried. Never in a life of 
horror had she killed a thousand men, women, and children—no, not yet. Not 
today. 
Sales were brisk; what Toldo developed, Jiana manufactured, and the market 
eagerly sought. But she was continually haunted by the certainty that one day 
their luck would turn, and one of the compounds would prove fetal. 
WABHIORWABDS 
301 
Radience tried a combination of punches that startled Jiana with their 



complexity. Radience left herself off-balance, but it was a well-planned 
attack. 
"Try it again," Jiana ordered. 
Radience had to think for a moment, remembering her own moves. Jiana allowed 
her to execute die combination four more times before stepping in and pushing 
Radience gendy on her coccyx. The girl fell backward, but scrambled to her 
feet. 
Watching Radience, Jiana felt the same tight feeling in her stomach that she 
felt when Toldo tried a new potion. Toldo was out of control. Radience was out 
of control. Jiana could not hold her on die bare path—she would drift, fell, 
just Uke Dida. . . . 
"Damn you, pay attention!" Jiana reached out and center-punched Radience, 
harder than she intended. 
"Get up. Body punches, twenty-five. Onel Two!" With every count, Jiana punched 
savagely at the girl's chest. Radience stepped forward, along a diagonal path, 
which moved her just fer enough off-line that die punches missed. 
"Ma'am?" die girl asked when die count finished. She was out of breath; 
stamina would come. "We fight with fists, but we only dance with the sword. 
When do -we fight with die sword?" 
"When I cannot do this," Jiana said, casually driving a hook into the girl's 
side, just hard enough to ache. Too late, Radience tried to block and swiped 
empty air. 
"Break for lunch. Work on die Six Spurs. Apprentice, dis-missed." Radience 
saluted, and crossed die hall to her own room. 
Jiana rubbed her scalp; time to shave again. 
Toldo's head was tipped back, eyes shut. His skin had grown sallow, and he had 
ugly, black bags under both eyes. He spent more and more time every day lost 
in his inner worlds, sampling die dark alleys and hidden courtyards of his own 
stomach. But she had never before seen him so alive, so connected to the world 
around him as when he was back in die mundane sphere again. It was a 
-perplexing contradiction. 
302 Dafydd ab Hugh 
Jiana rummaged through the dresser until she found the sliver of soap. She 
poured some water into the basin and wetted her head. As she lathered, she 
watched Toldo. 
His head tipped slowly forward, excruciatingly slowly. He opened his eyes half 
way and focused on her. 
Jiana scraped the razor across her scalp; the bristles were just long enough 
that they cut easily, not so long that they pulled. 
"How do you sleep?" asked Toldo. 
Jiana froze in mid-stroke for an instant; then she continued. 
"Like the dead." 
He watched her through eyelids still at half-mast. 
"No more frightening dreams?" 
She waited an equivalent moment before her own reply. Recent conversations had 
sounded like two mountain-climbers shouting across a valley. 
"No more dreams." 
She moved the razor in long, purposeful strokes. It soothed her, both the 
noise and the feeling of coming clean. 
"Graveslipper can be deadly, Jiana." 
Jiana's eyes widened momentarily, then she regained control. Toldo had seen; 
she was certain. 
"I was not aware you knew I was using it. Don't worry. I monitor the dosage 
very carefully." 
"I am sure you do. But there is a purpose to dream-sleep; you cannot stopper 
your stomach forever. Soon or late, it will burst forth, and, ah, demand to be 
heard, as it were." 
"Toldo, I first beheld that dream when I turned thirty-two. Something will 
happen, happen thrice, before I turn thirty-three. Toldo, how long has it been 
since that first dream?" 



"I don't know. What's today?" 
"I was in the Market. A man asked the date. Before I could stop my ears, that 
damned fishmongner blurted it out." 
Toldo watched her longer than usual. 
WARRIORWARDS 
303 
f 
"Well? What's the date?" 
"In five days I'll be thirty-three." 
She finished shaving in silence. She washed the remaining soap off of her 
head, and toweled off. She had paid for a mirror, and she was glad now. She 
took it into the light, and in the burnished surface she saw that her 
Warrior's Strip was as long and silky as it was back in Bay Bay, before this 
adventure began, a thousand thousand turns ago. 
"Has it been so long?" aslced the priest, "but it could not have been! You 
said you journeyed with the caravan for ... what, four moons?" 
"Four and a half. Then a half-moon on the raft before, two weeks after, and a 
moon and a half here in Hak'sha. The only gap was the time spent 'over the 
Edge,' as Radience calls it." 
Toldo looked dubious. "Ah, I know we've been a bit out of touch since we 
landed, but can we have spent five moons in the Summerland? Would we not have 
noticed how out of synch we were with . . . well, with the seasons, for 
example?" 
"Seasons? In Door? There's hot and hotter on alternating days. Have you asked 
anyone the date?" 
He started to answer, then closed his mouth. 
"Me neither, rotund one. Maybe we already knew the answer, and didn't want to 
hear." 
. A sudden flaw in her image, an imperfection, caught Jiana's attention. She 
looked closely into the metal, turning it left and right to catch the waning, 
afternoon light. 
Right at the front of her hair, along the left side of the strip, was a clear 
though narrow streak of grey. Incredulous, she reached up and fingered it, 
separating it from the rest of the hair. 
Nameless Serpentine . . . I'm only thirty-two! Or thirty-three. Snakeshit, 
what tvitt it look like in ten turns, or fifteen? 
One by one, Jiana separated the strands of grey and yanked them out of her 
head. Upset, she threw them out the window. She turned back; Toldo was 
watching her curiously. 
304 Dafydd ab Hugh 
"Uh, got something sticky in my hair," she explained, feeling her face flush. 
"Jiana, the dream is urgent, or you would not have it night after night for 
nearly a turn. It will come out. It will 
out." 
Jiana turned back to the mirror and searched for any more traitorous strands 
of grey; liars and dissemblers that falsely claimed she was an old woman when 
she was only thirty-two. Thirty-three. 
"Then it will have to come out while my lids are wide open, for I'll not stop 
taking the Graveslipper." 
Jiana inhaled deeply from the hvk pipe and passed it to Radience. 
—thousand thousand horses hooves spruckling gingur-gently 'gainst the sandy. . 
. . 
At once she is weeping, sad, both Jiana and Jianabelana. She cried for what 
was lost, found, leaving, taking, trickling. Radience this time, but Jiana in 
another time. 
Old holds young; old endures, young impures. Sadness a mournpipe on a ruined 
castle wall. Grief a lake with a single, black treefinger pointing up at the 
loss. The madweed helped. 
Jiana holds her but from behind, holds the girl's mouth over the chamberpot as 
she vomits a million years of compromise onto the floor. Bile burns her 



throat, stomach rejects all the little losses and ladle-leavings that add up 
to one gruff grief. Jiana understands. Filled her own share of chamberpots. 
She. Was. Radience, Jiana. She was both. She held the apprentice's trembling 
body—not mother, just friend. 
Radience held the stone straight out from her stomach, elbow locked. Jiana 
watched. At the slightest drop, the field captain said "pick it up, 
apprentice," punctuated with a rap on the girl's head. 
Radience held it in her right hand, her strong hand. It was a tiny thing, a 
stone that weighed less than a teacup filled. It was a mountain, crushing her 
down like the grief, 
WARRIORWARDS 
305 
but a physical one she could fight. She ignored it and visioned an orange; her 
thoughts wandered as they had not for weeks. 
_The warrior is not her sword. The warrior is not her armor. The warrior is 
not her outfit, her unit. She is not her feet, her heart, her stomach. She 
hovers not overhead, does not buoy you up. RAP! 
The warrior is the deepest part, nothing more than iron. Pick it up, 
apprentice, pick it up! RAP! 
The warrior is the slayer? Radience thought. 
"The warrior is not slayer, though sometimes she slays." 
The warrior is the defender? 
"The warrior is not defender, though often she defends." 
Help me, I don't know where the warrior is! RAP! 
"Then you have found the warrior after all, for the warrior is No Where. The 
queen does the finding; the warrior carries on until the queen wins. The queen 
endures; the warrior carries on." 
The rock sank a notch and the image of the orange wavered. 
"Pick it up, apprentice. Pick it up." 
The warrior raised the rock, and Radience opened her eyes, quiet and aching. 
Jiana had turned into a huge, round orange. Radience laughed, and the image 
dissolved. 
Jiana threaded her way through the tapestry of Hawkers and betrayers in the 
Hak'sha Market, fingering a cloth, staring at a silver breastplate, entranced. 
She sought something; she sought someone. 
He was there, somewhere in the market. He was there, lost in Hak'sha. He was 
alive, shadowed in Door, in the middle kingdom, mid from the ocean, mid from 
the mountains, mid from the sewer-river Jambajala, giver of life, mid from 
tangled jungle to the south. 
The market was a disappointment, after the stories she had heard. Jewels? 
Gold? Books by the thousands? Nothing but the maze of Bay Bay blown to ten 
times size, with all exotica removed! One hour in the Hak'sha Market and she'd 
seen everything. Everything except . . . 
306 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
the sky darkened and the colors dimmed. She was glad for the greys, for she 
did not have to name them anymore. The winds picked up, and the merchants 
packed their smells and sweets away. Closing up, she heard trunks filling and 
booth-covers closing. 
She shivered in the breeze, wrapped her cloak more tightly about her. It was 
dusty, grey with dust. Her lips were dry; she tasted the salt-sand, kicked up 
by the night breeze. 
One lonely man stood at his booth still. Grief filled his eyes, too, and she 
felt at kindred touch between them. 
"What are you selling?" she asked in Tooltak. 
"A rug. It's a most wondrous, fine rug." But his voice was flat as the Five 
Sands. 
"It is a wondrous rug," Jiana admitted. The texture was rough, but patterned; 
all of the pieces interlaced and connected, a bug inside a fish inside a bird. 
Even in the waning light, the rich greys blended into feelings and friends 



long gone. 
At the center was a radiant woman, lines coming from her head. Her 
outstretched hands held night on the left and the sun on die right. Another 
figure depicted a terrible demon frightening a crowd of sinners, all save one 
man whose back was turned. He gazed upon a tree, serene and untouched. Its 
roots tangled both his own feet and that of the central figure. 
"I have no spot for this rug." 
The man nodded; his rug was unsold at the end of a busy day. 
Jiana moved on, looking back once at the man who had woven such a rug. His 
loom sat ready, loaded with threads for the light of tomorrow. 
She zagged her way through a score of boarded-up stalls, hearing the echos 
from within as families ate dinner in their tiny shops, which had now become 
even tinier homes. Quiet lights hung from some of the crossbeams, but in the 
chill no one came outside to share the night with Jiana. Far away, she smelled 
jasmine. 
Her footsteps crunched on the gravel. The merchants 
WARRIORWARDS 
307 
laid it generations ago to cut down on the sand clouds, but it was a lonely, 
hollow sound. 
I'm just carrying on, she thought. There is no queen within me. Just a 
warrior. What can 1 teach her? Only the queen can free the slave. 
Jiana shook her head, disagreeing with herself. 
"That's a melancholy, a frivolity. I have my queen; she's just asleep." 
"You have me," said the Jianabel voice in her ear. 
"You are my sister, but I'm still missing parts of myself." 
The sun set. Blood filled the western sky. The Great Moon stood directly 
overhead, obscured by clouds, and the Less Moon peeked over the horizon. 
Jiana stepped around a big stall, stones laid upon stones, perhaps a jewelry 
mart. A figure loomed out of the dusk, and she froze, heart pounding. 
They stared at each other, spirits in shadow; neither could see. Then he 
reached forth a hesitant hand, and whispered, "Jiana?" 
The clouds parted, and the Great Moon burned the ground, illuminating the man 
in a flash of yellow. 
It was Lord Dilai, her old lover. He covered his mouth in shock and shame. He 
wore the green sash of a Market hawker. 
Jiana and Dilai walked slowly, untouching. The deserted market grounds were 
less oppressively hot at night. Jiana smelled jasmine again, but the smell of 
Dilai was stronger and overpowered the sweetness. 
He reached out and touched her hand. He did not hold it; it was enough to 
touch it once. Jiana shivered at the touch, and her heart jumped. She pulled 
her hand away. 
1 am not in love with Dilai. He's a friendly face, he's a loved one. I don't 
love him. 
From a boarded stall, a voice behind her ears: make a deal—make a deal—make a 
deal. 
"Late shopping?" she asked, pretending she had not 
308 Dafydd ab Hugh 
seen the sash. He paused a long time before answering, finally opting for 
truth. 
"Things haven't gone well." 
"It's been but a few moons." 
"It's been a turn since I sold you to the Caliph; it hasn't gone well. I've 
..." 
He was about to tell her something dreadful; she heard it in his voice, in the 
strain behind his words. 
"Jiana, it's all gone." 
"All gone?" 
"Everything. Everything I have. Everything I had." 
She stopped and stared at Lord Dilai. 



"Oh gods. Shit. How could you lose—? It's all gone?" 
Dilai turned away and put his hands over his face in 
shame. 
"A ship. A damned ship, a storm. Tear my tongue out, 
and I won't tell you." 
She reached out, but stopped just short of his neck; she hesitated a moment, 
and then pulled her hand back again. 
"How did it happen?" 
"I know why they sent me out here now. Why they were so eager to accept my 
application for the foreign service. Alanai* that barbaric usurper, that 
lumbering savage! He could not wait for me to leave the country to confiscate 
my estates! Nationalized. Took it in God's name, for the Eagle and for the 
people." He spat the word. 
Dilai began to sob. This time, Jiana did not hesitate; she wrapped her arms 
around him and held him from behind. 
"When I found out I—I went mad, I suppose; it's the only explanation. I had 
some funds still, those which I brought with me.' Desperate, I invested all in 
a spice ship sailing back up towards the Water Kingdom. Damned captain. Who 
could expect a freak hurricane, this early in the season?" 
"A spice ship? Everything? Why the slithering hell did 
you do that?" 
"I ... thought I had an inside track. A special edge." 
A thought leapt to Jiana's lips. "Sorcery?" 
Dilai nodded, eyes squeezed shut. "A powerful magus 
WARRIORWARDS 
309 
promised me—well, indicated it was a propitious time to take a white flier." 
"Who?" she asked, already suspecting the answer. 
"Maug, he called himself; Potentate of Athnoor Door. He said." 
"Pale-skinned, with black hair, blood-red gash of a mouth, features of a 
spoiled child? A dwarf?" 
"He wasn't a dwarf, but he did rather resemble a child. What difference does 
it make? I'm ruined." 
"Toq," she declared, swallowing a mouthful of anger. "Dilai, I'm sorry. I 
don't know what to say. You got caught in crossfire between me and a sneaking, 
weasely little godlet. Are you—don't take this the wrong way—are you working 
here in the market?" 
Dilai nodded, listless and distracted. 
Jiana pressed her face against the back of his neck and looked into the 
blackness. For as long as she had known him, Dilai was rich. He was not a fop, 
not a profligate; but he was generous to his friends. He was sometimes 
generous to total strangers, though never foolishly so. 
There was no justice in such a sudden and final catastrophe in Lord Dilai's 
finances. 
"Dilai, I can only promise you a warm bed and food, but you've already taken 
care of that. I have nothing else, except ..." 
Dilai said nothing, but Jiana heard the question in his silence. 
"No, don't even ask. You must find your own light, your own reasons why." 
"Jiana, light is what I need, more now than I ever have." 
"It's dangerous. It's a shortcut, when what you need is long reflection. Damn 
it, it's a cheat." 
And you are all against cheats, aren't you, dearest? Care to pick up a 
white-hot coal now? 
No, please, don't let him! Don't do it, sister—remember our pact, our truce! 
Dilai turned and grabbed her, his face twisted and ugly. 
"Jiana, do not deny me! WHAT DO YOU HAVE?" 
310 Dafydd ab Hugh 
Sleepy voices hollered protests from inside the stalls; a dog barked, and a 
window opened. 
"I won't deny you anything that is mine, Dilai. Take it. Take me—right here 



and now, if you want. Only do not ask someone else to free you." 
"Jiana, I beg of you! Freedom is what I seek, but I don't know where to find 
it! Free me from this misery, this absurd despair. It was only money, in my 
stomach I know that. But in my heart, I lost everything. In my heart, I lost 
my soul! If you have something that will teach me, open me up to the rest of 
the world, to all that lies outside this mortal prison, then for the Eagle's 
sake, for pity's sake give it to me! Please!" 
"Who told you to demand this of me? Are you still seeing that maggot, Toq? Or 
Maug, whatever he calls 
himself?" 
Dilai's skin was sallow; even in the lantern light, Jiana saw his paleness. He 
had been quite tanned in Bay Bay. As she watched dumbfounded, he lowered 
himself to his knees and held his hands out to her, as if she were his 
leige-lord. 
"I beg of you ... I have nowhere else to rural" She recoiled from the 
debasement, stunned that the mere loss of a fortune would so tear a man to 
pieces. Snakes and dog piss, I've won and lost more than I can count! Dilai, 
what have you done to yourself? 
"Please," he begged again. He laid his face into the gravel, hands at her 
feet. He trembled. 
Jiana stared, her mouth open. She felt a hole open in her stomach. This THING 
at my feet—how can I possibly still love it? I'm as sick as Dilai! Have I so 
little dignity left? "Deel, get up. You don't know what you ask." "Help me." 
"Free yourself." "Help me." 
"Help yourself!" she screamed, backing away; he was a stranger in the 
lamplight mist that blew between them. 
Are you not choosing for him even now, sister mine? Why do you not offer him 
that which he demands? 
WARRIORWARDS 
311 
Betrayer! You know the danger as well as I. You were there when I stole Toldo 
back from the friggits! 
I remember also that he found what he sought. Maybe Dilai will do so, too. 
Traitor! 
Eater of souls! 
A force pressed against her stomach, and she swelled like a balloon—not in the 
corporality of her body, but in her straining, thinning spirit. It was 
Jatjaka, throwing himself against the walls of his prison. Thin ice, he 
pushed, he beat! Once, she remembered, once she was skating, she fell through 
a hole . . . grey light above, the cold, tearing through her skin like razors 
under the flesh. Fingers scraping rough ice from deep deep below begging for a 
hold, lungs straining bursting the air explodes out of them, and in rushes the 
molten water. All is black. All is warm. But who is this one? 
Jiana wrapped her arms tightly around her, pushing back the vision. Dilai 
stared up at her, his eyes two brittles of blue ice, his frozen, black hair 
flurrying like smokelines in the breeze. 
Resistance was too hard. A doom hung over her head, a ghost lurked in her 
stomach. What will be, will be. 
"Come with me." She turned and led a path back to the inn, her mouth too dry 
to spit. 
She did not look back even once; his need would draw him. She did not look 
ahead; the future was a glacier, crushing all the paths of might-have-been 
under the inexorable weight of forward motion. 
The streets were filled with beggars. They grew silent at the sight of her and 
drew back into the shadows. No warrior today. Today, Jiana was puffed full of 
the breath of the serpent. Today she was priestess . . . gave absolution to 
the fallen lord. 
She reached the inn, stretched forth her hand. The latch worked itself before 
she could touch it. The hardwood door shied from her hand to swing wide. 
Jiana crossed the threshold as the moons turned red. Holiness dripped hot ash 



from the sky. Rats scurried from her path, disappearing into the walls in 
terror. 
312 Dafydd ab Hugh 
She closed her eyes, but the Power had risen within her, and she saw all, and 
more than she should have. Too many dead. A thousand turns dead. No one in the 
hall, for they were all buried before their children's children's children 
were born; the dead lay silent, cold winding sheets their only caresses. 
Hands held apart, nearly a prayer, touched the walls on either side. She 
crossed the room, scattered cold sanctity with booted feet. Up crystalline 
stairs. One step-follows another. Looping cobwebs formed a circular tunnel 
through which she passed. 
Low chanting, a long, drawn-apart note. It was the first sound of life she had 
heard. It was life at the end, an old man at the end, memories of an old man 
looking back to the beginning and wishing himself into a new babe's first 
piercing yowl. 
Came to her own room at last. Blackness out the windows, furniture looms like 
solid shadows: a dresser, two chairs. Pegs on die wall for clothes and 
weapons. A wash basin, a chamberpot. 
A bed. All furnishings furnished by Harouk Nadore, Esq., keeper of die 
Dangling Jamal. Dark, ancient furniture that was cold to the touch. 
Jiana lit a lantern, burning her fingers when the tinder caught. She heard 
music through the window, the end of a refrain. The last notes, war-pipes 
across a battle field too fer to hear, borne on warrior-winds. The charge, 
break, collapse of the center. 
The horse is musing. They push through, scatter the enemy, but at last they 
are gone, and even the groans and death-cries of the wounded fade, and then 
there is no more alone time to sit on the back of a horse and look at a vaUey. 
Then, only then, do you hear the pipes. You shudder, you look back over your 
left shoulder, you look for the moons, but they are gone—what, did they flee, 
too? —and you know that the pipes you hear are the hiss of the Slithering One, 
the Nameless Serpentine, Death the Final Bit, come to git. 
She heard those pipes in her room. 
WARRIORWARDS 
313 
He was gone; Toldo was gone, but he left Dilai's awakening upon the dresser. 
So simple; a handful of paste, roll it in a slice of brown bread, fall out of 
the Dreaming. 
Fall awake. 
Without a word, she scooped the paste out of the mortar with her knife. She 
turned and held it out to Lord Dilai. 
He looked frightened, but he knew he could lose nothing more than he had 
already squandered. He scraped it off" onto his own knife. 
"Wrap it. It's vile." 
He looked around helplessly; she walked into the pantry, took down some bread 
and cut a slice. She handed it to him, and he was grateful. 
Dilai spread the paste upon the bread; he rolled the slice into a bread-ball. 
He kept licking his lips, and rubbing the side of his hand against them, too 
dry, too wet. He closed his eyes and ate the ball, all in one bite. 
"Now come to me," Jiana demanded. She pulled her tunic off over her head. 
"How long until . . . ?" 
"Fuck off. Attend to me. You'll slide soon enough, Serpent knows." She rubbed 
her fingers gently across her brown nipples, and sat down. She removed her 
boots, first the left then the right. 
Dilai watched her like a frightened schoolboy. He touched his penis, just 
barely; at least it was responding appropriately, even if he was not. 
Jiana pulled her pantaloons off and stood nude before him. 
"Strip," she suggested, gestured impatiently. His hands shook. She helped him 
unbutton his blouse. 
Jiana pulled his luxurious, black wig from his head, used his unholy-expensive 
silken shirt to wipe the powder from his face and neck, crushed-berry eyepaint 



from lids and lashes. 
She kissed him, biting his lips and tasting blood and cherries. She grabbed 
the back of his close-cropped hair, his own hair, with a savage grip of 
longing. She pressed her tongue far back in his mouth. 
314 Dafydd ah Hugh 
Dilai distractedly ran his fingers up her legs, starting at the knees and 
ending between her thighs. A lusdess, desultory caress; rote exercise. 
Jiana's atavism flowed into Dilai's ascetisicm and the balance they struck was 
an equitable dance. Jiana forgot what could be and focused on what she had. 
She had Dilai, and this tihie that was enough. 
She reached around and bit his neck, not quite hard enough to break the skin. 
She ran her tongue lightly across the fold of flesh stretched tight by her 
teeth. 
Dilai took hold of her buttocks, sinking his fingers inside, touching the 
tiny, black hairs. Almost despite his intention, he grew excited and rubbed 
himself against her thigh. She spat out face powder and kissed him again. He 
responded, and their tongues entwined. 
At the edges of her hearing the pipes still blew, still feint but louder. 
Closer—the Slitherer coiled back, scales rumbling the ground beneath their 
feet. 
Jiana had swallowed a balloon, and now it expanded within her. It contained 
many rooms: a room for Jianabel, and a room for Jatjaka, a room for her 
mother, a room for Dida, and a very large room for Dilai. The last was empty, 
for the Lord had left home and a stranger warmed her bed. 
Another room there was, locked with an iron bolt, sealed with five great 
runes, buried beneath a mud mountain, and sunk beneath an ocean of aparts and 
detaches. There was a window in the room, hole in the bars, gap through the 
runes, tunnel in the mountain. An underwater cave rose through the ocean. Down 
this hole, she dimly saw a dark, hairy-knuckled hand reach out, loving. Jiana 
turned her head, averted her eyes. Dilai gasped and arched his back. Jiana 
pushed him back, back across the room and onto the soft bed, covered in warm 
fur blankets. Two lovers sank like children in the tall wheat of White Plains. 
Jiana kissed his bare chest, tugging hairs with her teeth. She ran her tongue 
down Dilai's belly, and unbuttoned his thrice-woven trousers. 
WAHHIORWABDS 
315 
Sedge sedge, he thought, and Jiana jumped when she heard it. He is a glass, I 
see through him to the roundy world beyond. 
Sounds: die roarwhoosi of the feckle wind, blowing acmes the battleplains, 
accepting the suckrifaces, the thousand whiting dead, breach their bowns in 
the umercibake son. 
Sounds: the roar of the fickle wind, blowing across the battleplains. Drones, 
chanters, mockers, she thought. / hear them, angels of angles bend and pluck 
us from the ground, woven of bodies and parts, remains of The Crew What Never 
Sleeps, the soldiers of Didna'win! 
They blew their pipes, rode ever closer. No trick of the wood, trick of the 
night; they blew above Reality Prime, in die Oversphere that swam into her 
ken, now and again. 
Dilai fell into the play even as he fell out of the dream. Again he spasmed, 
again the little death fired his inner landscape into Jiana's receptive 
stomach. 
The plains opened before him, spread wide, a bowl to an ant at the center. The 
vision spun, mountains reeled; he sees the mountains, he does not see them, he 
sees. 
Glass arching overhead, the bottle (the sky). The goose strains; goose is 
trapped. What is inside and outside when there is only one side? 
Jiana has his cock in her hand, squeezes it hard, hard enough. She is all. She 
is all for him. For her, his thoughts reach out and pull her into the 
nightmare with him: Sedge, take me back, smoke calls me out, reaches for me 
(hand— whose hand?—she sees it still, must look. It belongs to—no, it is no 



one's now!). 
Jiana felt a trickle run down her thigh; she needed him then, and she did not 
care where the rest of him was. She straddled Dilai and pushed him deep 
inside. For a moment she stayed perfectly still, felt him so large, swollen. 
One clear voice spoke: not Jianabel, not Toldo, no part of her stomach but 
herself. Her thoughts. 
Jiana, you cannot turn away. For a thousand years you have denied the final 
vision of this dead part of your life. Sister, you must look. You must learn 
the truth about me, about you. 
316 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
No! she cried, leave me ignorant, you bitch! I'm afraid. How can I be a master 
when I'm filled with such fear? 
Dilai gripped her savagely and breathed rapidly as the Waking began. At last, 
the young lord had broken through die mountains of hallucination and found the 
abyss they hid. Toldo's potion exploded in Dilai's stomach. The voice would 
not be stilled. 
Poor, little hero, it is because of your fear that you can be a master! To 
feel it burn every tiniest atomie, every germ of your flesh, and still stamp 
afoot and say No! This is what makes the sky blue. 
But what am /, what am I? I see everyone but me— Toldo with his mushroom, 
Radience with her freedom. Where is my liberation? 
You helped them to what they have. You have it too. The fear of death is the 
beginning of slavery—the death of fear is the beginning ofslavemongery. Togo 
warriorwards— what a campaign!—is to touch the fear, but let it not touch you. 
Jiana rolled with Dilai. She knew him, but he was a stranger. The Waking 
poured through his body, turned him from her. 
This is whoring! she accused. / don't know him. This is worship, responded the 
voice. Your touch is shaking him awake. Whose hand did you see? Whose dark 
hand has reached out to you for more turns than you've reached for Wave? Liar! 
Deicidel 
You know; you have always known. You know you did not kill your father! 
Jiana pushed her hands under Dilai's thighs and pulled him deeper inside. He 
was warm and solid. He pushed her spirit up, pushed everything aside to make 
room. Jiana rocked back and forth with rhythm. You lie. He died. I saw him 
die! But you did not kill him. 
He died on my knife! He killed the little girl, Daddy with his hands, roving 
hands, hands so touchy— Daddy is here with you. 
WARRIORWARDS 
317 
Daddy raped me! 
Yes. 
I kiUed him! 
No. You know who killed your father. 
I kitted him, damn you! I lolled, killed, I kitt them all! I kitted a thousand 
in Deh Bid, burned them, killed Rethe my friend Rethe killed Dida kitted Toldo 
killed—I don't want to hear! 
You know. Who killed your father? 
I did! 
Who kitted him? 
Jiana sobbed, .sorrows of woman of worlds of spheres of turtles of fishes of 
trees and rocks, of Totality burst forth from Jiana's stomach in one 
convulsive sob. "Daddysnakes fighter biter suicider you didn't need to fucking 
end it like that!" 
Dilai came. Jiana felt powerful thrusts, and a great laceration split her 
belly from crotch to sternum. A savage Ahhhh! burst forth, a swollen troll 
gobbles one heart too many and explodes into a dense fog of trollops! 
Warpipes raged inside Jiana's room. Coming, coming for Dilai! 
Jiana was inside him. Even as he was inside her. She looked out through 
Dilai's eyes, heard with his ears the pipes that called him up, out. The 



Waking calls . . . him out. . . Toldo's apothic . . . burns, putts. . . . 
He rises. Rises up out of his body. Rises up, the him-ness of it, looks 
down—Jiana my love, farewell—my time— learned what it is to have, learned what 
it is to lose. 
Rise above her and what was once mine. Rise, cross the room, stretch out their 
hands to me. Pipes, I hear you! I hear them! 
The end. Last days. In the truth, rise, I walk across the room, drift in the 
smoke, drop in the ocean. She is behind me; Dilai my body once me too is 
behind me. 
Door opens, I pass through. Stairs—brush fingers along the watt I glide, look 
through the doors on either side, thousands and millions of doors. Closed, but 
I know I could open them. Don't want a door. Down the stairs, pipes drone to 
wake the dead, shake the living. 
318 Dafydd ab Hugh 
Great hatt, they're all there. Slave girl at the fire, no a warrior now 
nearly. Priest in the big chair—he sees me. How can he? He watches— 
—as I go by, eyes follow me. Secret smile signs to me that he knows, rather. 
Smile back, happy. Wealth is what was, richness what is. Lift a hand. Going 
home. Going Dttaiwards at last! 
Pipes and horns, shells and huzzahs, ribbons and bunting, lanterns, 
fire/licks! Surround me, crowds on the wide smooth road. Stamp of thousands of 
millions of feet. Dancers at the door in red robes and jeweled slippers, 
welcome me with outstretched hands, I TAKE— 
Last door— 
—only door I want— 
—only door I open. It's over. . . . 
Jiana held him close. Dilai stiffened, relaxed a long, slow outbreath. Pipes 
died slowly as the windbag emptied. 
They tripped gaily, gaily down the stairs. She heard them in the great hall, 
heard them outside her window. Heard them over the desert, the battlefield, 
fading like wind through Hollow reeds. She held him close in the dark, on the 
bed, inside her. No inbreath. 
Jiana gritted her teeth, rocking his limp body back and forth and back, 
holding him up, her Krakshi, her rag doll. No bloodbeat. No inbreath. 
Tears . . . she touched her cheek, astonished. What's this? What is this? What 
was he to me, what more than the others? What more than Dida, than Town, than 
that bitch in Two Rivers who threw herself on my fucking sword? 
Damn you, Wave! Damn damn you, Radience and Cascade and Toldo and all the 
everyone on this fucking bloody sphere! 
I hate you all for loving me. Hate you for tearing the heart from a dying bear 
and leaving nothing but a hole. Oh gpd-Tooqa worldserpent I hate You too for 
not being here to help met 1 killed them all myself no help from any of you, 
man, girl, or god! 
She kissed what once was Dilai, once a lord, once her 
WARRIORWABDS 
319 
love. The lips were cold, though he died but an instant before. Pipes were 
silent. Dilai was dead. 
But a laugh began. Slow at first, a mere chuckle; it grew and rolled, now from 
here, now there. She knew that laugh. 
It became a howl of hilarity, a madness of mirth, a rage of rowdy 
knee-slappery. Who but one? she thought, dead as Dilai in her stomach. 
She turned her head. The light in the room laded, leaving only a dull, blue 
glare coming from the lantern. All the colors paled in the blue, as if the 
Less Moon had fallen into the room and snuffed out its enemy, the lantern 
sunfire light. 
Out of the blue folded the pasty, white boy-god, Toq. 
Jiana watched him; she still held Dilai's body to her breast; she made no move 
to slide him out of her. "Twice," said the god, admiring his fingernails; he 
tore them from his fingers, one by one, as they talked. 



"You did nothing to hurt him," countered Jiana emotion-lessly. "I was with 
him, within him as he died. He died knowing himself. I killed him without your 
useless help." 
"His life was not what I promised to blot." 
"His own choice. Dilai knew the risk. I saw the desperation in his face, the 
only choice he could make!" 
"He's gone, thing. You will never, ever, ever see him again. And there is 
worse—much worse!" 
She watched him silently. Then she pressed Dilai's icy cheek to her own and 
closed her eyes. "There is worse," continued Toq, cheerfully. "You already 
realize how much worse, deep within you . . . say, a bit deeper than you have 
that Jatjaka chap captive. You know as well as I what is really behind your 
pious feelings of sorrow. 
"Can you idenetify that feeling? Do you know that emotion? It's your very 
favorite, Jianabelana!" 
Still, she said nothing. But her stomach flexed tightly for an instant. She 
knew. Toq continued joyfully. "It's Envy, creature! You envy the poor, dead 
Dilai. You know why?" 
A horrid voice suddenly whispered in Jiana's ear. It was Dilai's voice, but 
flat, devoid of life. His lips moved me320 
Dqfodd ab Hugh 
chanically, like the card-reading, instrument-playing automatons of Doctor 
Crugitti, he who once passed through White Falls when Jiana was eight turns 
old. 
"I-know-something-you-don't-know," croaked the voice of her dead lover, 
"but-you-will-leam-as-I-learned. Exactly-as-I-learned." Then it grinned, its 
lips curling back as if they had been flayed away. 
Jiana dropped the body, staring in horror. It reached a cold, dead hand up and 
took hold of her breast. 
She yanked her chest away from the hand as Dilai's corpse began to laugh like 
a broken water clock, chiming the hour endlessly, "hu-hu-hu-hu-hu . . 1" 
Then even the blue light faded to black. The lantern sack turned to ash, the 
corpse died again. Toq was gone, and poor Jiana was left alone. She knelt on 
the bed and wept, wished she, too, could die that moment. Wished she could 
hear her own warpipes. Wished someone, anyone, would hold out a hand so Jiana 
could follow the thousands she had sent along the smooth, wide road in red 
robes and jeweled sandals. 
Wished that she knew. 
"Goodbye, Dilai," she said at last, her voice breaking, "alright, damnit. I 
lu-love you. More than the others. Safe passage." She reached out in the dark 
and closed his eyes. 
Chapter X 
The inexorable weight of forward motion 
Radience watched from the doorway, silent as a tomb. She had watched for a 
long time, swallowing her heart down her throat again and again. 
She watched Jiana strip, every inch as thrilling as the girl had visioned. She 
watched her take that man inside her, every inch as repulsive as Radience had 
imagined. The girl nearly cried out then, but clamped hands over her mouth 
instead. 
She watched Dilai die, watched him reanimate; Radience felt ice between her 
thighs. She watched the show, silent as a grave, until a cry was ripped from 
her when Toq's evil animus passed directly through her. She recognized him, 
Uie Teenja-Overman daeva. 
The field captain looked back at her. Jiana's eyes caught die lantern light 
and shone like a cat's. The warrior watched Radience like a predatory animal, 
but the girl met the gaze without flinching. 
Radience trembled all over, but she did not know whether it was out of fear or 
anger. Betrayal! doesn't she know what she means to me? 
Radience stepped into the room from the doorway. She hungered to be where the 
dead man was, with Jiana's 



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322 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
naked, sex-drenched body straddling her. Radience desperately wanted to feel 
Jiana's hands touching her the way the dead man felt them, wanted it-so much 
her gut ached. Tears leaked down her cheeks, and she pressed her lips together 
to stop the shaking. 
"All this time ..." she said at last, her voice unable to produce more than 
hoarse whisper, "all this time, damn you, you knew! You must have known!" 
Jiana dropped her eyes, glowering, not responding. 
Finally, Radience found the volume she needed. 
"THEN HOW COULD YOU FUH-FUH-FUCKING LET ME GO ON HOPING, YOU BITCH!" The last 
word rose into a shriek; the tears flowed freely down her face. 
Jiana did not respond, but she closed her eyes and turned her head aside. 
"I loved youl I needed you!" 
Radience turned and stumbled blindly, bunking the salty drops out of her eyes, 
feeling for the wall. She pounded upon it, again and again, beating out her 
hurt, her anger, her frustration. Soon her right hand was numb and bleeding. 
One of her knuckles was broken and swollen. 
Jiana spoke, not as the field captain, not as the warrior; she spoke as one 
woman to another woman. 
"Radience . . . I'm sorry. I'm not—that way." 
The girl laughed, without mirth. 
"Ever try it?" 
"Yes. More than once. I like—I can only do this with a man. I'm sorry. 
Really." She did not sound sorry. 
"Stuff it." 
Radience rested her head against the cool wood. Her hand began to throb. She 
kneaded it with the small hand; it felt raw and swollen. 
"He's dead, you know," Radience said. 
"I know." 
"How did he die?" 
"At peace," said Jiana. 
Radience wiped her wet cheeks on the rough, wooden panels. She could not stop 
grinning at the perfection of the 
WABRIORWARDS 
323 
humiliation. She prefers men. She prefers dead men to me! 
She reached across with her left hand and drew out her knife. She breathed 
deeply, calming herself, slowing her heart as the field captain had taught 
her. 
Slowly, she brought the tip of the blade up until it just touched her chest, 
directly underneath her sternum, pointing slightly upward. 
A tiny thrust; a spasm, . . . 
"If you're going to do it, apprentice, then do it," said Jiana angrily. "Don't 
stand there like a virgin with her first mouthful of cock." 
The girl's mouth fell open in astonishment; she visioned what Jiana had just 
said and closed her mouth abruptly. 
She let her arm drop and the knife dangle, though she did not let go 
completely. The lantern was immensely bright, all of a sudden. What a stupid, 
what an incredibly stupid way to die! 
"Am I that transparent?" she asked. 
Radience laughed, a real laugh. She could no longer take herself or the 
situation seriously. There sat the field captain, naked as a mid-day lie, 
mounting a corpse—while her crippled apprentice watched breathlessly, one hand 
up her shirt, the other clutching a suicide knife! 
Radience fell to her knees, giggling hysterically. The more she laughed, the 
lighter she felt, until she was certain she would float up and out the window, 
never to be seen again. In a fairy song, that's exactly what would happen, she 
thought. 



She rolled around, planting her back against the wall. 
"Damn the Seer's eyes," she swore, "but you are beautiful!" 
Jiana stood, allowing the dead man's penis to slide out. She stepped off the 
bed, feeing Radience. The warrior stood unashamed of her nakedness, even after 
what Radience had revealed. 
"Someday," Jiana said, "the sun will turn black, and the earth will shake. The 
heavens will split, and the Nameless 
324 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Serpentine will slither forth to make his nest among the ants that crawl upon 
the surface of this sphere. 
"Someday, the oceans will boil, and the whirlwind will level all the 
mountains. We will stand upon the great plain of Agtor, you and I, watching 
the kneeling ones, the cowering ones, the crawling ones, as the Great 
World-Serpent swallows them up like mice and lizards. 
"On that day, I shall look Tooqa the World Serpent in his ice-grey left eye, 
and you'll look him in his fire-red right eye, and we will defy that huge, 
bloody, worm and tell him to go crawl back into that egg whence he came, that 
egg we call the Less Moon. 
"On that day, we shall be equals. 
"But until that day ... GET YOUR FUCKING ASS UP AND AT ATTENTION WHEN I TALK 
TO YOU APPRENTICE!" 
Radience staggered to her feet, caught rubber-legged by the raw violence of 
her outburst. 
"Start packing your shit, apprentice. We're bugging out of here tomorrow 
morning at sunrise." 
Radience snapped to attention and saluted. 
"Aye, ma'am!" she said with an unwarrior-like grin, and quick-marched back to 
her own room. She bounced on her toes, feeling a great energy surge through 
her. The terrible weight of the future had fallen off back in the field 
captain's room, and Radience willingly left it there. 
"So what do I do with you now, my love?" Dilai did not answer, though the echo 
of his horrid, mechanical laughter rattled around Jiana's stomach. 
She could not call the hostelator; he would have them all thrown out in an 
instant, and they needed the night. In any case, she wanted to burn Dilai's 
body, as befitted a Lord of Bay Bay, but the Doorian Guard would take the 
remains as evidence and try to convict the three of them of murder. He was too 
young to die without a mark upon him. 
WABRIORWARDS 
325 
She would have to walk the corpse down the stairs herself, pretending he was 
merely drunk, and take it to an Eagle temple. Toldo could help, both with his 
size and his connections ... if he would ever return. 
I ain't going to do that in the nighttime, she decided. Not that she was 
afraid, she hastened to assure herself; but there was too much danger of 
tripping and falling down the stairs, or being stopped by the Guard, 
This left the uncomfortable necessity of sleeping alone with Dilai all night, 
but Toldo might soon return, and he slept next door. And Radience was a shout 
away—in case Jiana needed to move Dilai, of course. 
Twice, she thought; twice the son of a bitch has blotted my life, like 
slapping me across the face with a leather strap. She was rilled with a cold 
anger at Toq, the nasty, little boy-god; Toq, of the raging temper and sick 
humors. 
Feeling weak and a bit nauseous, Jiana stepped up to the bed, grabbed Dilai 
around his middle, and hauled him off and onto the floor. She dragged him 
across the room, straining every muscle in her arms, belly, and back. Thin as 
Lord Dilai was, he was a very tall man, and he nearly weighed more than she 
could carry. 
She dragged him into the far corner and sat him down as gently as she could. 
His head fell forward, followed by the rest of his body. By propping up his 



knees, Jiana manipulated him into a position which was stable. 
Like a leather strap across the face . . . like a mailed fist . . . 
hu-hu-hu-hu-hu. . . . 
"No!" she said, and all at once she understood, "not a leather strap, a 
gauntlet!" 
Jiana stood slowly, massaging her naked shoulder. "Damn it, was I blind?" So 
obvious, now that she thought of it; the universal challenge of the code 
duello: three slaps across the face. 
So the fucker wants to fight. Still wants revenge for a quest four turns 
ancient. She laughed, dry as Radience in her mirth. A challenge! 
But what were the rules, where was the field? Jiana 
326 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
stretched forward and turned out the lantern, plunging the room into 
blackness. 
The moons played hide-me-find-me behind a cloud; she could not even see her 
own hands, so dark it was. 
And in the corner, surely now staring at me with those dead, blue eyes popped 
open again, sits my once-a-time lover. 
So when does the third boot drop? 
Three times, Toq had said; three times before she turned thirty-three. 
She sat cross-legged on the bed and visioned herself young again, as she was 
when she quested for the World's Dream. Then, she was a young woman, fighting 
and training far across the sea, in the Flower Empire. 
Soon she was back, but before she had left. Bay Bay again, for the first time; 
first days in the harness, strutting and proud—soldier-girl! Hah, step back, 
jump back you fags and fuckers, and keep your shit-soaked hands off my body 
you still want 'em stuck to your wrists want to live forever still be able to 
smack yer snakes—But the confidence waned (not yet grown), the harness grew 
big (for she had not yet grown into it). 
Other birthdays she had had: other parties, raising a glass, running a 
gauntlet, and then she was seventeen seasons old at an orgy with five guys, 
two girls, and ten pots of strongtea. 
Then the light blew out, days grew short and overcast, irongrey clouds and 
clods unrivaling the sin, twice the brackness of the Waifwolf Whore. When 
Jianabelanabel luved. 
How many turns in the wolfish desert, dating from the time Daddy—no! turn 
away, stay back! danger lurks! —from the time Daddy got his hands in one too 
many snakeholes, yeah that's the story now—dragged himself unwilly unnitty up 
the altar steps, dragging two, too-long snakearms a dozen and more dozens of 
feet behind like horrid anchor ropes pulling him back back back away from the 
sacrifice, laying down on the altar with the 
WARRIORWARDS 
327 
lifeprick above in the paws of She What Done It All and cables of lifeline 
straining to putt him back. . . . 
But no— 
It didn't—it wasn't— 
DANGER! BEWARE! STOP THE THOUGHTS NOW! 
(yes I know I killed a thousand innocents yes kill me for it nail me 
upside-down by my feet that's the real crime that's. . . .) 
Too late. The warning fell unheeded. Jiana broke a twenty turn pact with the 
Less Moon, Mother Memory. Jiana remembered. 
She remembered nights of terror, dreading a moment she knew would come. 
Dreaming a footstep on the stair, a drunken stumble against the bannister. 
Crying a silent prayer that tonight, just this one night he would pass on by. 
The step mounts the stairs. Deep voice slurring curses at officers, 
paymasters, stockade guards. 
Pause. Floorboards creak. Start to recede, pause and turn back. 
Hand on the doorlatch. 



She hated the feel of him, hated the smell of him. Afraid to tell, just our 
little secret, Mom never understand afraid to tell anyway just making it all 
up sick little girl oh my God what have you done to your teeth?! 
No, not that; she remembered all that long ago. Never truly forgot, just 
buried. 
No. Deeper. (No deeper!) 
I sacrificed him. I led him, lured him up to the attic— 
No, dearest. It's time. Time to remember what really happened. 
Suddenly she was She again. She as a lonely, frightened little girl, seven 
turns, two seasons perhaps. 
She was she. Sobbing on the bed in an inn in Hak'sha in clothing many times 
too big holding a sword far too heavy (always too big, always too heavy). How 
am I here? What is this? Dilai is stitt dead but 1 am young enough to be his 
daughter . . . Tooqa, Nameless Serpentine please I do not want to remember 
this! 
Her mother was sick. She lay in bed, unable to move. 
328 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Daddy crippled, left arm severed many moons past. Useless. 
They pensioned him out; spit and a biscuit, not enough for half a turn, after 
half a life in the service. 
So what to do? Rent piling up. Housing not free, not even in White Falls, New 
River Area. 
Still on the rolls, though. Still on the rolls until the Wotf Run, still half 
a moon away. Muster them out on the third day of the Run, give them their 
spurs and a hearty slap on die back. Good luck, don't trip over the spittoon. 
Still on the rolls of the Citizen's Protection Committee Militia, and if one 
were to die in service. . . . 
But it has to be clean; no sudden thrust from a sword, no felling off the 
cliff at die fells. None of diem are stupid, not about such scams. 
Has to be clean. 
So cold ... so cold ... 
Tiny Jiana crouches at die window. She stares out into die white, stares into 
die wolf weadier, slush-snow alternates with freezing rain. 
Stares at her father. Watches him stand in the river. 
Stand still as a statue, as if he were frozen himself. 
(Do you think they can tell?) 
Hour after hour he stands, knowing what will finally catch him. (Do you think 
they can guess?) 
Momma doesn't know. Lays in die bed, doesn't recognize Jiana, doesn't look for 
Neis in die water. 
Daddy lays in the bed now. Coughing, wheezing. No breath. Can't breathe. 
He slips. Further. Breath a gurgle, blowing bubbles in the bathwater. 
Pneumonia, influenza, who knows? Healer's on the other side of his circuit. 
Do you think? They'll figure it out? Do you think they can tett? 
Will I ever tell? 
I hate him. I hate him for touching me hurting me, loving me hurting me. I 
hate him for dying for met 
I killed him; yes, that's easier. 
I did him. Up in the attic. No, no I'm not Jiana, really 
WARRIORWARDS 
329 
I'm not; sitty, you know me ... you know Jianabel! Today I'm alive, today I'm 
the Wolfish Queen, and afteraU Daddy, your fingers were just into everything, 
you know! 
Who is that man that stands outside my window on cold nights, stands in the 
icy river watching with hungry eyes? 
Sleep falls like a curtain; a lonely, guilty fitde girl weeps. 
Awakened by a kiss. . . . 
Jiana dreams, dreams she is awake, awakes to find she dreams. Is she awake or 



asleep, dreamer or dream? Is a mountain? 
Awakened by a kiss. ... 
She opens her eyes. Dilai kisses her a third time. 
For a moment, Jiana froze. Then she rolled out of bed on the opposite side, 
grabbing for Wave. She held the sword in front of her, but the tip wavered and 
shimmied like moonlight on the ocean. 
Dilai, clothed only in his wig and powder, stood across the bed from her. He 
grinned, and one of his teedi fell from his rotting jaw. His tongue was black 
and swollen. 
"Honey-I'm-home," he intoned mechanically. 
Jiana curled her lip. 
"Schoolboy pranks now, Toq? What's next? Going to dip my hair in an inkpot?" 
"Do-you-know-what-tomorrow-is." It was a moment before she realized it was a 
question, flat as the voice was. 
"Sunny. It's always sunny here. Ghosts vanish into vapor in die sunlight. It 
must be almost dawn; hadn't you better get dissolving?" 
"Tomorrow-you-tum-thirty-three." 
"Snakeshit!" 
"Tomorrow-you-tum-thirty-three." 
"It has not been a turn. It has NOT been a turn!" 
Dilai continued to grin, but his head rolled sideways, die neck fractured. 
"I-made-you-a-promise-do-you-remember." 
It was Dilai. It was not Dilai, it was the nasty, Itttie 
330 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
boy-god, Toq. But it was Dilai, and she could not close him out, not 
completely. 
"Three times," she answered in spite of her resolve. 
"Three-times-would-I-blot-your-life." 
"I count only twice: the fire worms and your own death. Dilai's death. I know 
what you do, and the challenge is accepted." 
"I have not finished." 
"You have only one night. Nothing else you can do will hurt as much. Want to 
kill Radience? Toldo? Makes no difference; both have already found a piece of 
themselves, due to me. Damn you, I accomplished something, even if they both 
die tonight!" 
One eye stared at Jiana; the other rolled slowly in his head, as if detached 
from its muscles and nerves. 
"Well, what then?" Jiana took a powerful, warrior's posture, ready to attack 
or defend as necessary. 
"You already know. And you have already died one of your deaths." 
"One of?" 
"You are destined to die many times, Jiana." 
Toq-Dilai lurched his hand up and extended it to her. His fist was closed, 
holding something. It could only be one thing. 
"What is in your hand?" she asked, turning her face slightly. 
Toq-Dilai did not speak; he did not move his hand. 
As if compelled, Jiana reached her own left hand out and held it beneath his. 
He opened his fingers. A roll of Toldo's magical paste fell into Jiana's palm. 
The paste was shaped like a snake. 
So it's come to this, eh? No one to stay awake for; no one to die for. My 
choice, at the last. 
Don't do it, sister! Remember what he said—on the day you taste this false 
answer, you shall follow DUai down the Jambajala! 
Her palm glowed with a malignant, blue light; the power 
So? What's the point? 
WARRIORWABDS 
331 
of the Waking, had all by itself shifted her consciousness into the magical 
sphere. 



It's just another pasture to graze, explained another, unbidden voice in her 
stomach. Concentrating, Jiana could almost hear the horsey-snort, the shuffle 
of hooves. 
Don't listen to him! We're fine as we are, Jiana! 
"I'm not fine. But I am a 'we,* a plural. Snakeshit. That's my problem." 
His mission completed successfully, Dilai's body became at once nothing more 
than a dead body. It collapsed into a tangle of limbs next to the bed. Jiana's 
hand began to tremble beneath the weight of the Waking. 
Like a battlefield where a thousand armies meet, the voices all converged upon 
Jiana. She did not know where Toldo was, but his thoughts invaded her 
digestion now. Radience was asleep across the hall, but her noisy spirit 
filled Jiana's ears. 
Don't run, don't become another. I need you as you are! 
I have seen so much, such an explosion of comprehension. And all because of a 
tiny, misshapen fungus. 
Don't be silly, we have so much to stay alive for! 
"Stop ..." 
"Yes, you take, you try! Try and die, free me from this prison of betrayal, 
yes yes! 
So much I never knew, so much I can never put into words. . . . 
Jiana? Help me . . . help me find my way back, I your first love. . . . 
—merging into a closed consciousness of Unity— 
—fottow you, no matter what— 
—roundable spherism of thinkism— 
—blood of the Earth— 
—-free! Be free, shall I be free when you— 
—uniting with Universal stomachspirit— 
—always loved you, ever since you drew me from Outside, from another, from 
far— 
—Coward. Human— 
—find me . . . fix me . . . fuck me— 
332 Dafydd ab Hugh 
"SHUT UP!" she screamed; "all of you! Jiana—must— be—first!" 
She clapped her hands over her ears, and the abrupt silence tore her, thunder 
shattered her ears and rendered her deaf and mute. 
So it's down to this. Down to me. Down to this. She unclenched her fist; the 
snake shape was obliterated into four fissures left by her fingers. 
"I have decided," she whispered, as if afraid of who might overhear. "I know 
now; I see what must be. I must taste totality—at least once. At most once." 
Jiana's breath came ragged and fast. Her heart beat like a rabbit's. She 
raised the Waking to her lips. 
There she froze. Her heart raced so fast that she felt faint. She could not 
catch her breath. Her hand dropped. She tried again, pulling the magical paste 
up to her mouth, but again, the terror seized her, and she dropped her hand 
and fell heavily on her side. "Damn it, I will do it!" 
She opened her mouth, wide as a snake swallowing a toad. She focused her gaze 
upon her hand and brought it excruciatingly close to her tongue. But the 
shaking in her hand grew more and more violent, and she whimpered 
involuntarily. 
"Why can't I do this?" she cried. She tried; again her will failed. 
Too quickly to lose her nerve, she brought her hand up and shoved the wad in 
her mouth. She swallowed without 
chewing. 
At once, the long-suppressed Toq-dream erupted in her stomach. The Waking 
stirred and came to life; it twitched and squirmed in her throat and crawled 
madly about her stomach like a maddened living thing, a cockroach. 
Her stomach heaved, rejecting the Waking. She doubled over and vomited the 
paste upon the bed. She continued to heave, again and again, as the last drop 
of sputum was forced up her burning throat and onto the bed where Dilai died. 
She lay on her belly, sick and dizzy, refusing to whim



«. 
WARRIORWARDS 
333 
per or cower. Her face rested in a pool of sour, sticky fluids. 
Jiana opened her eyes; the acid from her stomach stung them, and she was glad 
for the pain and the shock of the smell. She saw the paste-wad, the Waking. It 
laid on the bed, glistening with last night's supper, both undigested. 
The meat she had eaten crawled slowly across the bed— living roaches without 
legs. Jiana was paralyzed, even when one of the cursed hunks of living flesh 
humped across the quilt and began to crawl up her face. 
I failed. I feared, I'm the real slave, not her. 
She was not ready to Wake; she still needed dreamsleep, like everybody else. 
God, Tooqa, doesn't this ride ever quit? 
Tears of frustration and fright streamed down her face. Her skin felt unclean 
where the piece of steak crawled. She was again a girl of fifteen, of ten, of 
five. A child, a lonely, frightened, indecisive, undergrown child. She was 
Jiana, not Jianabel. She had never been Jianabel—that was another. Toldo was 
right, Toldo was wrong. 
Wkere's your warrior-spirit now, butcher? You stink of mud and blood and the 
soul of a beast. 
Turns. A lifetime. Battles great, battles small, an ocean of blood and 
hundreds of innocents sacrificed to my lust to know. Yet after all~after all 
of it—to fear such a tiny thing as dying! 
Jiana blinked, and the night vanished. She lay curled in the bed, pieces of 
sleep gluing her eyelids together. She no longer wept, but ancient tears still 
drowned her thoughts. 
The red light of day shone through the shuttered window, casting long streaks 
of fire across the floor, the blood of the Earth. 
Dilai's body did not lie beside her bed. He was still in the corner where she 
left him. 
TTiere was no wad of paste and no vomit on the bed, but no Jiana, either. Her 
soul had drifted away during the night, leaving only an empty suit of armor 
with pale skin and raven-black hair. The third boot had dropped; Toq was 
vindicated. 
334 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
"So I am a coward after all," she said. No emotion colored her words. She 
examined critically, no sense of talking about herself. "I wondered. Now I 
know. Of all the things to fear . . . dyingl 
"The fear of death is the beginning of slavery," she quoted. "Welcome to the 
leash, Jiana Analena." 
She watched the door. The bare room was bleak in the morning light. Soon they 
would come, those who did it to her: Toldo, Radience, all of them: 
Jiana stood, donned the mask, played her part. Reflex-ively, she reached to 
touch her throat, surprised when she felt no collar. 
So what happens next? Toldo will drift away, sell enlightenment at ten claws a 
throw. Dilai will be wrapped in a winding sheet and thrown into the River of 
Life. Or burned. Or buried for maggots. 
Radience will go with me, I'll go with Radience. Together we'll go like flame 
and fuel. Head where, head who knows, head Warriorwards. Will she guess? 
Depends on how bright she is. 
But we four will not—will not come—not come, ever again. 
The sun rose. Jiana turned thirty-three. She greeted the dawn with Rethe's 
obscene gesture. 
Radience crept silently with utmost awareness, as she had been taught, into 
the room, the quarters of her field captain; she held the weighty trunk of 
clothes and weapons close to her left side, so her good arm would be able to 
help, too. 
The trunk was wooden, bound with iron; it was ugly and heavy. No slave could 
carry it, even with two good arms. It was her freedom trunk. 



Pressed against her side as it was, the trunk also offered excellent cover 
against a long dagger, sharp as a needle, unexpected as the blessings of the 
Seen 
1'U never be a slave again. Never! 
WARRIORWARDS 
335 
She silently pushed through the wooden door; weeks of training to live up to 
the field captain allowed her to pass through with not a scrape, not a single, 
wooden creak. 
Jiana was asleep, laid upon her bedclothes, curled like a babe in the womb, 
fingers just touching the hilt of her weird, snake-like sword, Wave (it was 
inscribed with words from the Flower Empire which some said were the trapped 
souls of those Jiana killed). 
The warrior girl stepped closer, a strange, unfamiliar serenity soothing her; 
she rolled her weight from back foot to front foot, for she had been taught. 
Holding her breath to not flutter Jiana's eyelids, she leaned over and studied 
the face of the woman for whom she would kill. 
Jiana's eyes were wide open. 
Before Radience could react, the air cracked and lightning flashed, and the 
field captain caught her by the throat and half drew deadly Wave. 
"You're getting good, apprentice." 
Radience said nothing; all she could have managed was a hoarse squawk, with 
the deathgrip Jiana held. The field captain released her. 
"Toldo up yet?" 
Radience coughed, and massaged her neck. 
"Not back yet." 
"Where did he go?" 
The girl shrugged. The priest was gone when she got back to her room, after 
leaving Jiana and the dead man. She hoped to talk to Toldo, ask him to 
explain. But she discovered she did not need him; everything was all right. 
For the first time in her life, Radience accepted tragedy and moved on. 
Piss on the Seer, she thought. It's not that big a crime. I won't die from it. 
Damn it, she has no taste . . . but I can surely live with that! 
"Should we wait for him, ma'am?" 
"Of course. He's a brother. Check on Cascade, I'll get us some food and find a 
box for ..." she looked back at the body of her friend, Dilai. 
"What are we going to do with him?" 
336 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
The field captain shook her head, still upset. 
"I've decided we'll go north. North of Bay Bay, by ship this time. I'll lay 
him to rest in the ocean. I don't want any of those bastards to ever know 
whether he's alive or dead. Don't want them to have the satisfaction." 
"Urn, field captain?" 
"Speak." 
Radience hesitated. She had been about to ask "am I a warrior yet," but 
something stopped her. She had never been tested; not really, not in the 
world. 
Over the Edge doesn't count, she thought. 
"How many days out will we bury him?*' she asked instead. 
Jiana thought for a moment, looking at Dilai. Radience could tell it was more 
than a friendship; at one time, he must have meant as much to her as she did 
to Radience. 
"We'll wrap him in five layers of oil-soaked cloth, set him alight at sea." 
"Cloth—oil—box—horse. Got it." They exited the room, and Jiana closed and 
locked the door behind them. They descended the stairs into the common room. 
Toldo was not there. 
"What if he doesn't show?" 
"He's a brother," said the field captain, patiently. 
Radience asked the tea-master about boxes, and he directed her to a sundries 



store, across the street. Jiana gave her a silver Achram, which Radience held 
tightly in her hand as she pushed through the crowds, ignoring the blind, the 
crippled, and the maimed that threw themselves at her feet, begging for 
somebody else to free them. 
She found no box; but a tightly-fitted barrel looked big enough. She filled it 
with the cloth and three bottles of oil, and still got a few grains of change 
from the Achram. She started rolling the barrel back along the street. 
A carriage rounded a corner bore down upon her. Radience saw the danger and 
rolled nimbly with the impact. She was only slightly bruised; the barrel was 
untouched. The carriage door was adorned by a goblin-grinning boy-god, inlaid 
in gold. The face looked familiar, but Radience shrugged off the memory as the 
coach sped into 
WARRIORWARDS 
337 
the morning sun, its passenger cackling like a madman under the full moon. 
She heard a footstep behind her. A man was following her—little more than a 
boy, actually. 
She looked back at him, and caught him staring at her crippled arm, which she 
used to guide the barrel while her right hand rolled it. 
He curled his lip, and took an instant stance that Radience recognized all too 
well: he was about to utter something terribly witty. 
"So," he sneered, "need a helping hand with that? Think you can handle it all 
by yourself, missy?" 
"I'm sorry?" she asked, as if she had not understood the reference. 
"I said, if you'd clean out your ears, is that barrel going to come in handy?" 
He was dressed as some sort of a soldier; a group of similarly-dressed young 
men behind him laughed very loud (and very forced) at the boy's humor. They 
sounded like braying donkeys. 
"Hey, hey, she better not let it roll over her," interjected another donkey, 
in a whining, nasal voice. "She don't want to come to no 'arm!" They brayed 
again, and Radience could almost see them kicking back their hind legs and 
wigghng their ears. 
For an instant, Radience wondered whether she should draw her knife and make 
them pay for their cruel remarks. But she was one, and they were six; she had 
a knife, and they had swords. They were armored. And more important, why 
should she allow such children to set the agenda for Apprentice Radience? 
Smiling, she turned away to complete her task. The field captain was standing 
in the doorway, but she was not looking at Radience. Jiana stared over the 
girl's head, at soldier-boys. Her mouth was pressed in a tight line of r, then 
it relaxed into the dangerous warrior's calm. His beard, does she know these 
clowns? the girl ered. She looked back. 
338 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
The first boy, the one that started the incident, noticed Jiana; he gasped, 
and took a step backward, startled. 
Reacting quickly, Radience rolled the barrel to the tearoom door, moving it 
and herself out of the line of fire . . . just in case. 
She watched the unfolding street-theater intently, feeling some concern. 
Should I move around behind him? Should I draw my knife? One thing Radience 
did not want to do was to escalate an exchange of words into a bloodletting, 
but neither did she intend to allow Jiana to face six thugs alone. 
Jiana strode calmly towards the boy. He did not flee, did not realize his 
peril. 
Or maybe he does, Radience thought; just before Jiana reached him, he turned 
away from the field captain and approached Radience instead. 
"So'," he said, curling his lip in a self-conscious, practiced sneer. . "So?" 
."So!" 
"Illis conversation is getting quite dreary," said Radience. "Can't you say 
anything other than so?" 1 *."So,wnow I see where you get all that 
arrogance! You must be Jiana's new slave." 



.Anger flashed through Radience, but it was followed by a Mwerful inner voice: 
Anger dutts the sword and hobbles .,. Don't give the fool that power! her 
apprentice. Who," she asked, "are you?" 
"Slave! You're her new slave, like she tried to do to me!" He spoke to 
Radience, but he was actually turned towards Jiana, who watched him 
impassively. 
"How do you come to know the field captain?" 
"Field captain?" The boy turned back to Radience. For a moment, he was just a 
young boy; an edge of innocence flickered in his face, quickly extinguished by 
hot army air. "So! Now she calls herself a field captain, hunh? Funny, she 
used to be a full-blown hero back when I—when I let her sleep with me a couple 
of times." 
Again, Radience stiffened, clenching her fists in a spasm 
WARRIORWARDS 
339 
of fury. Hah! crowed the voice, this boy sure knows how to blow dust up your 
robes! Remember the jamal, sticking its nose under the tent—how hard it is to 
get the beast out once it's gotten as far as the hump? Anger is that jamal! 
Radience let the anger drain. "She is a warrior, I'm her apprentice. She 
taught me. She obviously never taught you . . . I'm sure she tried, though." 
Now it was the boy's turn to rage. His face turned red as if she had slapped 
it, and he drew his sword. It was a soldier's hacking tool; Radience realized 
uneasily that he might decapitate her before Jiana could even react. 
"My honor demands satisfaction!" cried the boy, juggling his sword from one 
hand to the other. "Draw your sword, you little pile of horsedung!" He bared 
his teeth like a nasty, predatory monkey, and struck his "superior" posture 
again; he thought of a "good one." 
"I'm the offended party so I choose weapons," he continued. "I choose swords. 
But tell you what—I'll let you choose which hand you want to use! Haw!" 
Radience, alarmed, glanced over at Jiana. The field captain looked at her for 
a moment, then incredibly, she turned her back upon the girl and her 
predicament. 
Radience understood: this was her own fight, and no one else, not even the 
field captain, was going to fight her fights for her. It's me, Radience 
thought. It always comes down to me. 
Preternatural peace descended upon her spirit. Her ears grew until she could 
hear her own heart, hear the &int buzzing of a wasp in the eaves of the inn, 
hear the sweat dripping down the boy's back. 
"I have no sword," she said, utterly calm. 
"So? That's your fault! You said you were a warrior— choose which hand, 
cripple!" 
Her eyes widened until she could see his chest rise and f ,'ftD with each 
ragged breath, see in die same instant every " «*pression of each of his 
friends and what each intended to 
<te in the next hour or the next moon. -Her stomach expanded, and a 
single word, an unimport340 
Dafydd ah Hugh 
ant bit of data rose to her lips, the name under which this creature 
masqueraded. 
"Which hand would you like me to use . . . Dida?" 
Dida paled when she spoke his name. His eyes widened; he knew the moment she 
spoke that she had not learned the name from Jiana, just as Radiance knew that 
Dida was not the name he currently used. 
Fear raised Dida's arm; fear flowed into fury, and he charged, aiming a 
vicious cut at her head. Fear demanded a silence, where once there was a word. 
The world slowed. Radience had time, time enough to hear, to see, to sense the 
word. Dida, not a boy, not a man with a sword: he was a line of energy, a 
wave. Radience was another wave. 
As waves they were shaped, moulded, and projected. The lattice of crystal 



spheres (of which Jiana often spoke) was another wave, a more complicated 
wave, with many swirls and eddies, cascading over rocks and winding around 
trees. 
A wave could either fight the current to move in a straight line, or it could 
flow with the tide of the spheres, dissipating none of its precious energy in 
bootless lunges and splashes. 
The sword descended, slow and stately as a cresting breaker. Radience stepped 
into the flow of the sphere, and bent gracefully around the sword blow. It 
whistled harmlessly through the space where once she stood. 
The current of the spheres was full of eddies. Radience chose the one that 
intersected with Dida's diaphragm. Serene, she drove her fist forward up to 
the wrist. She neither noticed nor cared that he wore an armored breastplate. 
A monstrous thunderclap shook the ground and rattled her teeth. Dida's 
breastplate cracked in two beneath her blow; his face turned red as the sands 
of Deh Bid. 
Dida staggered backward, his sword falling to the street with a thud when he 
could no longer grip his hand. He looked up at Radience with a shock of 
recognition, and collapsed to his knees. 
WARRIORWARDS 
341 
He tried to breathe, and realized for the first time that he could not. 
Radience, still caught in the web of serenity, turned and walked back to her 
barrel without a backward glance. She honestly did not care in that moment 
whether he lived, or died of suffocation. She was not about to apologize. 
She maneuvered the barrel through the door and began walking it up the stairs. 
Jiana watched Radience depart. She smiled; another turn, and now she was 
thirty-three, the age of Oninan Toiduko when he left the world of men and 
women to walk alone through the Jagged Chasm. 
She approached Dida, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her pantaloons. 
She spared a glance for his "friends"; they watched him writhe on the ground 
for a few moments, then they turned away in disgust and continued down the 
street. Dida's career in the army, whosever army it was, was ended. 
She stood over him, one big, rawhide boot on either side of his face. He was 
frantically trying to inhale. 
He saw her boots; he looked up and saw her pantaloons, her banded-leather 
tasset, studded gambeson, unbuttoned to the waist, vambrace on her right 
forearm, wire-wrapped shoulder pad, white throat, pale face, and ink-black 
warrior's crest. He saw her face, impassive, granite. 
Help me, his face pleaded. Save me. . 
Jiana spoke quietly, but she spoke through the oversphere, speaking directly 
into Dida's stomach. 
Only Dida can save Dida. A slave is a man waiting for somebody else to free 
him. 
I'm going to die! 
"Convictions make convicts," says the Tunk Maklypse. Breathe like a sleeper, 
find the rhythm. 
I can't breathe! She murdered me! 
All things are true in some sense, false in some sense, ':• end meaningless in 
some sense. Breathe like the ocean wooes; find the pattern. 
342 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
Dida's lips turned a ghostly blue, as if he had eaten too many plurberries. 
His eyes were as wide as a snake's mouth, tiny tongue-dots of pupils. 
/ can't. Breathe. God help me ... 
... as wide as his heart had once been. 
God is crazy. Her name is Jiana. Feel the womanblood pulse within you; feel 
the pattern; feel the rhythm. We aU ebb. We all rise. The world contracts to a 
point, She blinks Her eye, then She opens wide, and we expand into a new world 
again. 
This is Her womb. You feel the contractions, She's birthing a new Dida. When 



you are born again, all the old, rotten Dida witt be ripped from you like the 
uterine sack, the waters, and the afterbirth. Find the flow. Breathe like the 
heartbeat of the world. 
Dida took a breath. It was feeble, a mere mouthful; but he realized he was 
not, finally, going to die today. His face lost the hopeless terror. As he 
breathed again, and again, it twisted instead in the Underdwell of 
self-loathing. 
At last, Dida was able to rise to his knees. He fumbled at the buckles of his 
broken breastplate, nerveless fingers unable to work the mechanism. Jiana 
reached down and unstrapped him. 
He stood unsteadily, wrapping both arms around his mid-section. His face was 
still white, but he breathed. Again. 
Dida hung his head, unable to meet Jiana's eyes. 
"You've grown," she said. 
"No, I haven't," he whispered. 
She put her hand on the small of his back and pushed him toward the inn. He 
walked slowly, looking neither left nor right. 
"I want you to meet someone; you have a lot to learn from her, and she has one 
or two things to learn from you." 
They mounted the stairs slowly, pausing often for Dida to regain his breath. 
Jiana pushed open die door; Radience was pushing the lid of the barrel down on 
its gruesome contents. 
WARRIORWARDS 
343 
"Talk to him," Jiana said. "Use your talent. He needs you more than he needs 
me." 
At first Dida said nothing to Radience; he was frightened and embarrassed at 
what he said in the street, while the madness of manhood still gripped him. 
Jiana smelled the bum of magic. 
Radience reached out her left hand and touched Dida on his forehead, and he 
began to talk. Jiana listened for a moment, then she began to feel 
uncomfortable, like a burgler beneath a bed, accidentally overhearing 
sweetdrips between a woman and her husband. 
She turned away to her kit, and rummaged inside; she found a leather case and 
drew it out. 
Radience paid attention only to Dida; she did not see Jiana gently lay the 
razor on top of the girl's pack. She'U see it when she's alone, Jiana thought; 
that's how it should be. 
The elder warrior withdrew silently with utmost satisfaction, for she, too, 
had been taught. Jiana ghosted down the stairs, visioning Radience and Dida 
and Toldo and Cascade and ... 
Toldo stood at the bottom of the staircase, waiting patiently for Jiana. 
. . . and Jianabel, who was not simply a cold, sharp part of her own stomach. 
The fat, old bastard was wrong, for once! 
"We have a ship," he said. 
She raised her brows into two black question marks. 
"It's headed north, past Bay Bay. Way north." 
Jiana nodded. "Good. I have a present to return, as soon as we're to sea." 
"Ah. And unless I've fouled the calendar along the way ... merry birthday. 
Thirty-two?" 
Slowly, she held up three fingers, then she pressed on -by the great buffalo 
of a man. He did not see her bend all ^ut the middle finger down. 
;v . To hell with Jianabel. To hell with the girl. To hell with and DUai and 
Toldo and that horse and Tool and and water and air and blood and piss. 
Snakeshit, 
344 
Dafydd ab Hugh 
but no one should be expected to evolve on her thirty-third birthday! Give me 
a glass. 
For all this warrior crap, still a Briar inside. Give me a martyr, a cause to 



lose! Snakepiss, just give me a glass. 
Jiana strode into the common room and demanded breakfast, in a quiet voice 
that made the whole place jump. 
Feel the pattern; feel the tides. She blinks her eyes, and we are birthed 
anew. 
I'll be seven years a-ringin the bell, But the Lady above may save my soul 
From portin in hell At the well below the valley-o! 
After the Ending . . . 
In the stables attached to the Dangling Jamal, Cascade rocked from his left to 
his right legs in satisfaction, anticipating the ocean voyage, the touch of 
his mother, Maga-dauthan FulI-of-Oceans. Perhaps he would finally discover why 
he had been summoned to the side of the master human. 
Content, he leaned down and ate the stomach out of the stables-slave who had 
annoyed him with a rope's end. 
The End Jiana will return in Jiana the Dead . . .