'Have you ever visited the lands of Kydor?' asked the merchant.

'No.'

'They are an uncivilized people, and their language is hard on both the ear and the mind. It is guttural and coarse. Not musical in any way. Do you speak any foreign tongues?'

'A few,' said Kysumu.

'The people here are offshoots from two empires, the Drenai and the Angostin. Both languages have the same base.' Matze Chai was just beginning to outline the history of the land, when the palanquin came to a sudden stop. Kysumu opened the panelled door and leapt lightly to the ground. Matze Chai rang the small bell and the palanquin was lowered to the rocks. Not smoothly, which irritated him. He climbed out to berate the bearers, then saw the group of armed men barring the way. He scanned them. There were eleven warriors, all armed with swords and clubs, though two carried longbows.

Matze Chai flicked a glance back to his six guards, who had all edged their horses forward. They were looking nervous, and this added to Matze's irritation. They were supposed to be fighters. They were paid to be fighters.

Lifting his yellow robes to keep the dust from the hem, Matze Chai moved towards the armed men. 'Good day to you,' he said. 'Why have you stopped my palanquin?'

A bearded man stepped forward. He was tall and broad-shouldered, a longsword in his hand, two long, curved knives sheathed in his thick belt. 'This is a toll road, Slant-eye. No one passes here without payment.'

'And what is the payment?' asked Matze Chai.

'For a rich foreigner like you? Twenty in gold.' Movement came from left and right as a dozen more men emerged from behind rocks and boulders.

'The toll seems excessive,' said Matze Chai. He turned to Kysumu and spoke in Chiatze. 'What do you think?' he asked. 'They are robbers and they outnumber us.'

'Do you wish to pay them?'

'Do you believe they will merely take twenty in gold?'

'No. Once we accede to their demands they will demand more.'

'Then I do not wish to pay them.'

'Return to your palanquin,' said Kysumu softly, 'and I will clear the path.'

Matze Chai returned his gaze to the bearded leader. 'I suggest,' he said, 'that you step aside. This man is Kysumu, the most feared Rajnee among the Chiatze. And you are, at this moment, only heartbeats from death.'

The tall leader laughed. 'He may be all you say, Slant-eye, but to me he's just another vomit-coloured dwarf ripe for the taking.'

'I fear you are making a mistake,' said Matze Chai, 'but, then, all actions have consequences and a man must have the courage to face them.' He gave an abrupt bow, which in Chiatze would have been insulting, and turned away, walking slowly back to his palanquin. He glanced back, and saw Kysumu walk forward to stand before the leader. Two robbers advanced from the group to stand alongside the bearded man. For a moment only Matze Chai doubted the wisdom of this course of action. Kysumu seemed suddenly tiny and innocuous against the brute power of the round-eye robber and his men.

The leader's sword came up. Kysumu's blade flashed into the air.

Moments later, with four men dead, the rest of the robbers scattering and running away into the rocks, Kysumu wiped clean his sword and returned to the palanquin. He was not out of breath, neither was his face flushed. He looked, as always, serene and at peace. Matze Chai's heart was beating wildly, but he fought to keep his face expressionless. Kysumu had moved with almost inhuman speed, cutting, slashing, spinning like a dancer into the midst of the robbers. At the same moment his six guards had charged their horses into the second group, and they, too, had run for cover. All in all, a most satisfactory outcome, and one that justified the expense of hiring guards.

'Do you believe they will come back?' asked Matze Chai.

'Perhaps,' said Kysumu, with a shrug. Then he stood quietly waiting for orders. Matze Chai summoned a servant and asked Kysumu if he wished to partake of some watered wine. The swordsman refused. Matze Chai accepted a goblet, intending to take a sip. Instead he half drained it.

'You did well, Rajnee,' he said.

'We should be moving from here,' replied Kysumu.

'Indeed so.'

The cabin of the palanquin felt like a sanctuary as Matze Chai settled himself down on his cushions. Lightly striking the bell to signal the bearers to move on, he closed his eyes. He felt safe, secure, and almost immortal. Opening his eyes, he glanced out through the window and saw the setting sun blaze its dying light over the mountain peaks. Reaching up, he drew the curtains closed, his good-humour evaporating.

They made camp an hour later, and Matze Chai sat in his palanquin while his servants unloaded his night-time furniture from the wagons, assembling his gold-lacquered bed, and spreading upon it his satin sheets and thick goose-down quilt. After this they raised the poles and frame of his blue and gold silk tent, spreading out the black canvas sheet upon the ground, then unrolling his favourite silk rug to cover it. Lastly his two favourite chairs, both inlaid with gold and deeply cushioned with padded velvet, were placed in the tent entrance. When finally Matze Chai climbed from the palanquin the camp was almost prepared. His sixteen bearers were sitting together round two campfires set in a jumble of boulders, two of the six guards had taken up sentry positions to patrol the perimeter, and his cook was busy preparing a light supper of spiced rice and dried fish.

Matze Chai moved across the campground to his tent and sank gratefully into his chair. He was tired of living like a frontier nomad, at the mercy of the elements, and longed for the journey to be over. Six weeks of this harsh existence had drained his energy.

Kysumu was sitting cross-legged upon the ground close by, a section of parchment, pinned to a board of cork, resting on his knees. Using a shaped piece of charcoal Kysumu was sketching a tree. Matze Chai watched the little swordsman. Every evening he would fetch his leather folder from the supply wagon, take a fresh section of parchment, and sketch for an hour. Usually trees or plants, Matze Chai had noted.

Matze Chai had many such drawings in his own home, by some of the greatest Chiatze masters. Kysumu was talented, but by no means exceptional. His compositions lacked, in Matze Chai's opinion, the harmony of emptiness. Kysumu's work had too much passion. Art should be serene, devoid of human emotion. Stark and simple, it should encourage meditation. Even so, Matze Chai decided, he should – at journey's end – offer to purchase one of the sketches. It would be impolite not to do so.

A servant brought him a cup of scented tisane and, with the temperature dropping, laid a fur-lined robe around Matze Chai's thin shoulders. Then two of the bearers, using forked wooden poles, carried an iron brazier, glowing with coals, into Matze Chai's tent, setting it down on a pewter base plate, to prevent cinders singeing the expensive rugs.

The incident with the robbers had proved spiritually uplifting. As the mountains spoke silently of the fleeting nature of man, the sudden peril had brought to the fore just how much Matze Chai enjoyed life. It made him aware of the sweetness of the air he breathed, and of the feel of silk upon his skin. Even the tisane he now sipped was almost unbearably fine upon the tongue.

Despite the discomforts of travel Matze Chai was forced to admit that he now felt better than he had in years. Wrapping himself in the fur-lined cloak he settled back and found himself thinking of Waylander. It had been six years since last they met, back in Namib. At that time, Matze Chai had recently returned from Drenan, where he had, upon Waylander's instruction, purchased a skull from the Great Library. Waylander had then sold his home and journeyed north and east, seeking a new land and a new life.