He would offer a huge reward for Merwan Ma - no, not for Merwan Ma, but for Merwan Ma's severed head!
Yes, that was it.
Douan hustled through Chom Deiru, back to the circular room, where he replaced the chalice. Then he ran to find his attendant - how he wished he could remember the young dolt's name! - to proclaim that he had heard the word of Yatol, and that Yatol would deliver their enemies unto them.
"Your God-Voice has enlisted the aid of the Abellicans in finding us," Pagonel reasoned to Merwan Ma the next day, after spending more than half the night grilling the man.
The Shepherd shook his head.
"It is no secret that he is friends with the abbot from Entel, Abbot..."
"Abbot Olin," Merwan Ma said, the first words he had spoken in hours. ?Yes, Jhesta Tu, the God-Voice knows Abbot Olin of Entel well, but never has he shown any interest in procuring gemstones from the Abellicans. The gemstones are what separate us - "But he has a stone in his possession, a powerful one, if he can use it to spirit-walk this far from his city."
"You believe that you know so much."
"Knowledge is the way of Jhesta Tu, Merwan Ma," said Pagonel. ?We know of the To-gai-ru and the Behrenese. We understand the word of Yatol and of St. Abelle. We know of the gemstones, including their properties. I, myself, have used a hematite to walk out of body."
"They are sacrilege," the Shepherd grumbled. Pagonel laughed at him. ?To the Jhesta Tu, they are tools, my young friend. As fire is a tool. Some consider them the gift of God, others us them as proof that their religion is better since they forsake them."
Merwan Ma looked away.
"And yet, your God-Voice has one, does he not? ? Pagonel pressed and he moved around, putting his face very near the shaken young man. ?Admit it. That is why he wanted to kill you - and it was Yakim Douan who or-dered you dead, not some rogue Chezhou-Lei trying to grab for power in Dharyan. Why would a Chezhou-Lei warrior even wish for some power? They are warriors, not governors! They are - "
"He has a stone!" Merwan Ma shouted back, and fell back in horror at his own words and sat there, gasping.
"A hematite?"
The Shepherd nodded.
"You have seen it, and Yakim Douan knows that you know of it?"
Another nod.
"And that is why he wanted you dead," the mystic reasoned. ?Your knowledge of his... indiscretion, frightened him. Profoundly so, it would seem."
"It is in the chalice," Merwan Ma admitted somberly. ?A sacrilegious Abel-lican soul stone embedded in the Chezru Goblet, in the Room of Forever."
"The chalice filled with the blood of those chosen for sacrifice?" Pagonel asked.
"It is among the most important relics in Chom Deiru," Merwan Ma replied, and he held up his hands and pulled up his sleeves, showing the mystic the line of scars along his wrist.
"And you found the hematite within that chalice?"
The Shepherd nodded. ?And then I saw the God-Voice with the chal-ice," he admitted, shaking his head, his expression full of horror as he re-membered that awful moment.
"And he knew that you saw him?"
"Yes."
"And soon after, you were sent to Dharyan to serve as governor," said the mystic, and it was all beginning to come together then, even a definite feel-ing within Pagonel that this was something deeper than just the God-Voice using a soul stone.
PART 4 THE DRAGON OF TO-GAI Chapter 35 Head-On
Word left Jacintha in the form of a series of flashes on a shiny metal plate. And so it went, down a long, long line, from signaler to signaler. By afternoon that day, the signal had crossed through Dahdah Oasis, and continued on, to the south now more than to the west.
Two days later, the words of Chezru Chieftain Douan reached Yatol Bar-don and Shauntil. They stood over a large map of the region and used Douan's instructions to pinpoint the location of the Dragon of To-gai and her forces - or at least, the position of that encampment two nights previous.
"We will receive word every second or third day," Shauntil explained to his leader. ?Soon we will have the woman's pattern, and can anticipate her movement. Already, if we begin to move our forces here and here" - he pointed to locations on the map, moving his finger to show a swing farther to the south and then east around the point indicated by the message - "we will begin to