Below dark, moody eyes was a strong beaked nose, which added to his fierce looks. His armor was rich and burnished; the hilt of his sheathed sword was finely worked ivory bound with silver wire. Encircling his head was a thin band of gold embedded with rare stones.

Safar knew he was looking at the new kingcome to replace the one who had his head mounted on a pike. The demon crowd was shouting to their new king and he waved his mailed hand in return.

They grew wilder still, chanting: Protarus! Protarus! Protarus!"

The king looked up and saw Safar. Why this man alone could see him, Safar didn't know. Protarus smiled. He stretched out a hand, beckoning the hovering spirit closer.

"Safar, he said. I owe all this to you. Come sit with me. Let them praise your name as well."

Safar was confused. Who was this great king? How did he know him? What service could Safar have possibly performed to win his favor? Again Protarus beckoned. Safar floated forward and the king reached out to take his hand.

Just before their fingers touched Safar again felt the sensation of falling. But this time he was falling up! The movement was so swift he started to feel sick. Then city, army and finally even the green fields vanished and he was enveloped by thick clouds.

The next he knew he was crouched over the bucket, turning away as quickly as he could to avoid fouling the clay with the contents of his belly.

Luckily his father was absent. Safar hastily cleaned up the mess, finished his other chores and crept up to his bed. The experience had exhausted him, unnerved him, so he pleaded ill when the dinner hour arrived and spent a troubled night contemplating the mysterious vision.

That uneasiness returned as Safar sat listening to his family chat about the young stranger who had come to stay in Kyraniaa stranger whose name was also Protarus. He fretted until it was time for school. Then he dismissed it as a coincidence.

In his youth Safar Timura believed in such things.

It was a clear spring day when he set out for the temple school with his sisters. Men and women were in the fields readying the muddy land for planting. The boys whose turn it was to tend the goats were driving their herds into the hills. They would stay there for several weeks while Safar and the others studied with the priest. Then it would be his turn to enjoy the lazy freedom of the high ranges.

The small village marketplace was already closing for the day, with a few late risers arguing with the stall keepers to stay open a little longer so they could make necessary purchases.

The Timura children walked along the lake's curve, passing the ruins of the stone barracks which legend claimed were built by Alisarrian The Conqueror who crossed the Gods Divide in his campaign to win a kingdom. That kingdom, the Kyranian children were taught, had once included all Esmir and demons as well as humans bowed to Alisarrian's will. But the empire had broken up after his death, disintegrating into warring tribes and fiefdoms. It was during that chaos humans and demons had sworn to the agreement making the Forbidden Desert the dividing point between their speciesa Nodemon's as well as a Noman's land.

Outsiders claimed it would've been impossible for the Conqueror to have driven his great army over the Gods Divide. But Kyranian tradition had it that Alisarrian settled some of his troops in the valley and they married local women. Kyranians were mostly a short, dark skinned people while Alisarrian and his soldiers were tall and fair. Occasionally a fair skinned child was born in Kyrania, bolstering the claims.

Safar saw his own appearance as evidence that the local tales were true. Although he was dark, his eyes were quite blue and like the ancient Alisarrians he was taller than most. Also, his people tended to be slender, but even at seventeen Safar's chest and shoulders were broadening beyond the size of others and his arms were becoming heavily muscled. Any difference, however, is an embarrassment at that age and so Safar saw his size and blue eyes as a humiliating reminder that he was different from others.

As the Timuras passed the stony inlet where the women did the wash one fat old crone happened to glance up. Her eyes chanced to meet Safar's and she suddenly gobbled in fear and made a sign to ward off evil. Then she cursed and spat on the ground three times.

"It's the devil, she shrieked to the other women. The blue-eyed devil from the Hells."

"Hush, grandmother, one of the women said. It's only Safar with his sisters going to school at the temple."

The old woman paid no heed. Get thee gone! she shrieked at Safar. Get thee gone, devil!"

He hurried away, barely listening to the comforting words of his sisters who said she was just a crazy old woman and to pay her no mind. But there was no solace in their words. In his heart he believed the woman spoke true. He didn't know if he actually was a devil. But he feared he'd become one if he didn't abandon the practice of sorcery. Each time he performed a magical feat or had a vision he swore to the gods he'd never do it again.

The older he became, however, the harder it was to resist.

Safar had possessed the talent even when he was a toddler. If a glittering object caught his eye he could summon it at will. He'd pop it into his mouth and start chewing to soothe his tender gums. His mother and aunts would squawk in alarm and drag the object out, fearing he'd swallow it and choke. Safar drove them to distraction with such antics, for no matter how well they hid the things he'd sniff them out and summon them again.

When he grew older he turned that talent into finding things others had lost. If a tool went missing, or an animal went astray, he could always hunt them down. He was so successful that if anything was lost the family would instantly call him to retrieve it. Safar didn't know how he was able to do such things but it all seemed so natural his only surprise was that others lacked the facility.

That innocence ended in his tenth year.

He was in his father's workshop one day, pinching out little pots he'd been taught to make as part of his apprenticeship. Safar's father was engaged in an errand, so the boy quickly became bored. One of the pots had a malformed spout which he suddenly thought looked like the village priest's knobby nose. The boy giggled and mashed the pot between his hands, rolling it into a ball. Then his hands seemed to take on an intelligence of their own and in a few minutes he'd formed the ball into a tiny man.

He was delighted at first, then thought something was missing. In a moment it came to him that the clay man lacked a penis, so he pinched one out where the legs met. He put the man down, wondering what he could do with him. The man needs a friend, Safar thought. No, a wife. So he rolled up another ball and made a woman with pert breasts like his oldest sister's and a little crease where such things should go. Once again he wondered what he could do with his new toys. Then it came to him that if they were man and wife they should have children. The sexual act is no secret to children who live close to nature, much less in homes such as Kyrania's where there is little privacy. So Safar put the two figures together in the proper position.

"Make babies, Safar said to them. But nothing happened.

A childish spell popped into his head, although at the time he didn't know that was what it was. He picked up the figures and held them close together while he chanted:

Skin and bone was all clay once until Rybian made people. Now Safar makes people, so clay be skin, clay be bone.

The clay dolls grew warm, then they began to move and the child laughed in glee as they twined together like the young lovers he'd once spied in the meadow.