steamed, popped, and creaked as its split boiler settled. Behind it, the terrain rippled to the distant horizon, which shimmered in the heat.
I used the sword to lever myself upright, crossed to the vehicle, and recovered my knapsack. After slaking my thirst from a water bottle, I slung the bag over my uninjured shoulder, turned away, and started walking. What remained of the journey would be tough—I was sorely weakened and limping badly—but that didn’t concern me as much as the return trek. I was confident I could cope with the exertion and physical dangers, but in the time it would take, what would become of New Yatsillat? What would become of Clarissa?
The Forest of Indistinct Murmurings occupied either side of a shallow river—little more than a stream—that ran out of the savannah and cut through a broad valley at the northernmost end of the mountain range. To the west, the Ptoollan trees followed the watercourse until they abutted the ocean. To the East, beyond the valley, they fanned out for about seven or eight miles then rapidly thinned and gave way to open land.
Clarissa and I had arrived on Ptallaya just within the southern edge of the forest, close to where the land dipped into the valley. Despite the funk I’d been in back then, now, when I surmounted a rise and looked down at the spot, I recognised the topography and the place where we’d emerged from the trees to climb aboard the Ptall’kor.
The demolished autocarriage was many miles behind me. I was footsore and exhausted, weak from my wounds, and very hungry. There’d been little by way of fruit or berries on the barren foothills I’d chosen for my route, and the supply I’d brought with me had run out.
Twice more, animals had attacked me. They’d fallen to my blade. I’d sustained no further injuries.
Descending the incline, I reached the outermost Ptoollan trees. Since I’d last seen them, their trunks had turned black and sprouted thorns and the raised roots were now bristling with spines. Nevertheless, I was able to push my way through the barbs into the hollow space beneath one of the trees, and there curled up and instantly fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
When I next opened my eyes, I found the side of my face encrusted with blood. My head wound had reopened at some point, bleeding profusely before clotting. I sat up, crawled into the open, and stood. A wave of dizziness sent me reeling. I was in bad shape and desperately needed something to eat.
I moved deeper into the forest. The fruits had changed considerably since I was last there. Some were huge empty shells, broken wide open as if animals had removed the inner flesh, leaving just the skin to dry and calcify. Others were shrivelled and shrunken, obviously dead and rotting. The possibility that I’d travelled all this way for nothing—that there was no Dar’sayn to be milked—was too grim even to consider.
The odd murmuring that gave the forest its name was absent but I could hear, from a little way ahead, a faint sound that resembled weeping. Hoping it was being emitted by a mature fruit, I continued forward and quickly realised I was approaching the very clearing where I’d taken my first terrified steps on Ptallaya. A few moments later, I peered through a tangle of roots and saw the little glade. A creature, blue-black in colour, was squatting in the middle of it, and I knew at once it was a Zull, though this was the first living example I’d seen in close proximity. Where the Yatsill were four-legged and two-armed, the Zull was four-armed and two-legged, with what appeared to be a loose cloak of skin falling from its shoulders and attached to the back of the upper limbs. The head resembled that of an earthly ant, but four-eyed and with a complex multi-jointed set of mandibles. A white patch marked the left side of its face.
The thing was sobbing like a child.
I stepped into the open and said, in Koluwaian, “Are you hurt?”
The creature started and scrabbled backward, raising its arms as if to ward me off.
I held my hands out to show they were empty. “It’s all right. I mean no harm.”
“Wha-what? You speak, Thing?”
“I speak, and I’m not a thing, I’m a human being. Why are you weeping?”
“Because—because I have been cast out of Phenadoor, and because others of my kind have died. Look.” The Zull pointed to one of the