more than you will reveal. You know something, about the Chezru Chieftain likely, that he finds dangerous. Deny it as you will - to me, for you cannot deny it to yourself. When you view the act of the Chezhou-Lei and my reasoning in light of your own memories, you know that I am correct."
"I will not betray Yatol, however you choose to twist my words!"
Pagonel smiled and rose in response, leaving the food beside the trou-bled young man. ?We are moving this very night, so you should eat, and eat well."
"To another city, to justly murder everyone within?" the Shepherd asked sarcastically.
"To the Mountains of Fire, to heal our wounds and rest out the winter sandstorms," the mystic replied, and a horrified expression crossed Mer-wan Ma's gentle face.
"The home of the Jhesta Tu!" he said.
"Near to it, though few, if any, will view the Walk of Clouds."
"But I am doomed to that fate, I suppose," said Merwan Ma, eliciting a puzzled expression from Pagonel.
"That you might use your ancient torture techniques upon me to gather the information you desire," the Shepherd reasoned.
"Ancient torture techniques?"
"I know all about your order, about how you can take the skin from a man without killing him, that his whole body burns with horrible fires' T know about your rituals, drinking the blood of babies and enemies. You b lieve that because you hide in the mountains far to the south that the worlH would have forgotten about the atrocities of the Jhesta Tu, but we have nOt I assure you!"
His bluster was somewhat tempered by the sincere laughter of Pagone] ?You know the stories the Chezhou-Lei tell, and the Yatols tell, becaus they fear that if their subjects learned the truth of the Jhesta Tu, we would not be so hated. And they need to hate us, don't you understand? Because without an enemy to hate, without a threat from somewhere, keeping a na-tion in obedience is a much more difficult process."
Merwan Ma hardly seemed convinced.
"Yes, you will visit the Walk of Clouds, Merwan Ma," Pagonel remarked "If only because I wish you to see the truth of the Jhesta Tu with your own ?
eyes.
"Why would that be important to you?"
"Because I suspect that you are intelligent enough to see the truth, of my order and of so much more,"
Pagonel replied, and he bent low and patted the man on the shoulder. ?I will leave you to your thoughts, and to your memories, my friend," he said, and walked away.
A perfectly miserable Merwan Ma lowered his head into his hands, want-ing simply to clear his mind of concerns and memories, and of future prob-lems. But that last word Pagonel had uttered, ?friend," stayed with the poor Shepherd for a long, long time.
Once he had thought Yakim Douan to be his friend.
"You rode three horses into the sand to rush here to tell me that Yatol Bardoh will not be following you back to Jacintha, as I have ordered?" Yakim Douan said to the poor, trembling courier.
"Yatol Bardoh instructed me to deliver his response to you as quickly as possible, God-Voice," the man stuttered.
"His response?" Douan asked incredulously. ?What makes you, or him, think that he has the option of any response? He is to do as I instructed, do you hear?"
"Yes, God-Voice!"
Yakim Douan eyed the man threateningly for a short while, watching him squirm under that withering glare.
Then he put on a disgusted look and waved the man away. ?Ride five more horses into the sand, if that is what it takes," he instructed. ?Find your Yatol and tell him that the God-Voice is watching his every move closely, and is not amused."
"Yes, God-Voice," the trembling man said repeatedly, and he bowed with every retreating step.
Yakim Douan waved everyone else out of the room, as well, and collapsed in his chair, thoroughly frustrated.
With the Dragon of To-gai nowhere to be found, he had ordered Yatol Bardoh and his fifteen thousand soldiers rk to the Jacintha perimeter, to set defensive positions against this most strating of enemies. But Bardoh's courier had come in to inform Douan , t jjjg man was turning for Avrou Eesa, his home city, and was taking the Idiers with him, ostensibly to help guard the farther reaches of Behren, ', outer rim of the country, which was obviously more vulnerable to the Dragon of To-gai.
But Yakim Douan had lived through centuries, and he understood the southern turn to be much more a militarily tactical movement. Yatol Bar-doh was using