It was an execution. Zanja’s hair had never been cut, not since the day of her birth, and it was her life that flared upon the fire and turned to ash. Norina did it briskly. When she had finished, Zanja’s hair hung not quite to her shoulders, and the tight braids unplaited raggedly. Even the shape of her face seemed changed.

Norina said softly, “It is done.” She looked up at Emil, hoping she would find him resolute. One last act remained, and Medric had dreamed that Emil would commit that act alone. Emil rose up stiffly, and shouldered his satchel and bedroll. His battered old dagger, which he often did not bother to carry, hung on his hip.

“Come with me,” he said to Zanja.

She obediently rose up, and followed him.

Part 3

The Walk‑Around

In the middle of the country, there is a valley so big it takes six days to walk across it, and that valley is a wasteland. The people of the region say that once the valley was a fertile farmland, and this is the story they tell to explain how it became a wasteland. In the middle of that valley there used to be a forest known as the Walk‑Around, because everyone with any sense walked around it, even though that added two days to the journey and forced them to ford the river twice, and in the spring the river was too deep to cross at all. What with waiting for the flood to ease and various other difficulties, that six‑day journey might take twenty, if your luck was bad. But it was worse luck still to walk through the forest.

Sometimes a stranger or fool might walk into the forest and come right out on the other side, whistling a merry tune and talking about how nice it was in there, with the coolness and the gentle springs and the birds so tame they practically hopped onto the spit to be cooked for dinner, and the nuts in neat piles just waiting for a passer‑by to pick them up and eat them. And sometimes the traveler would never be seen again. And sometimes an enterprising farmer might plow a field going right up to the forest’s edge, and plant corn and watch it sprout, only to go out one day and find the field, the farm, the cattle, and even the family gone, and nothing but forest to be seen, and then the house collapsing into the ground. That’s the kind of forest it was, and that’s why people kept away from it.

One day a stranger arrived in the village that was closest to the forest, though some days it was closer than others, and said that he was going to the town on the far side of the forest. And the people there warned him, as they warned everybody, to stay away from the forest because nobody ever knew what the forest was going to do. But this stranger called them a name I can’t repeat here, and said boldly that he had never yet met the forest that could defeat him. For he could walk up to a deer in his stocking feet and put a knife into its heart, and he could tell north from south by the way the grass lay on the ground, and he could start a fire in wet wood, and he even could predict bad weather a week in advance, though he wouldn’t say how. He even, he swore, was unaffected by the bites of poisonous snakes, and at that point everyone knew he was a fool and said to him, “Go into the forest, then, for it’s obvious that even your mother won’t miss you.”

So the bold man went into the forest, and he took his direction from the grass, and he snared the wild birds and ate the nuts and drank the cold water and had a cozy campfire, and the next day he started planning how he would come whistling out of the woods and send a message back to those faint‑hearts out in the village, telling them what cowards they were. But the shadows grew long, and the crickets started to sing and he never reached the edge of the forest. The next day it was the same, and the day after that, though every day the forest seemed a bit darker and the birds were scarcer and the nuts were fewer, until the bold man began to starve, because all his boldness couldn’t fill the woods with plenty.

But still he walked, for what else could he do, until one day he came to a clearing that was a perfect circle, and in its center lay a perfectly round pool, and there at last the bold man saw that the grass lay first in one direction and then another, so that it made a perfect spiral, and that perfect pool was the spiral’s center. And drinking from the pool was a big black sow with tusks like knives and hair like wire and hooves like iron. And she looked up at that bold man and didn’t even blink.

Now that bold man wasn’t so bold anymore, for he knew that the forest had tricked him into walking in circles these many days. But he certainly was hungry. So he picked up his spear and he charged that pig, because he was thinking that a nice pork dinner would be a fine thing after all his miseries, and mighty well deserved. But that black sow, she stood her ground and tossed him in the air like a bull, goring him with her tusks so that when he landed he was bleeding from a great gash in his leg. But he managed to hold on to his spear, so when the big pig charged him, he braced the spear on the ground and held it so the sow would impale herself on it. But that sow was a smart one, and she dodged the spear and took a swipe at the bold man’s other leg, and opened up his thigh from knee to hip. Now he knew that he was dead, for he would never find the way out of the forest when he couldn’t even walk, so he put his arms around that sow and held on tight, and she dragged him around and around that clearing, until at last he managed to take his spear, which he had hung on to all the while, and jab it between her ribs and into her heart. And then he fainted dead away.

As he lay senseless in the trampled, bloody grass, the forest began to step away from him. The clearing became a big, round field and then gaps appeared between the trees, and by the time he opened his eyes, he lay in open land, with no hint of a forest at all, except for a distant shadow retreating up a hillside.

So the bold man dragged himself to the farm that lay just over the next hill, and when he was no longer in danger of bleeding to death, he bragged that he had killed the sow at the heart of the forest, and they would never be troubled by the Walk‑Around again. From now on, people could walk directly from one place to another, and so the bold man supposed he was a hero. And all the people supposed he was one too, until they looked out the windows and saw that the grass had shriveled up and the rivers had gone dry, and stones as big as horses were lifting up out of the soil. So the people all went running to the place where the bold man said he had killed the sow, but the black sow had turned to black stone, and it was too late to revive her.

So that is how the Walk‑Around Waste was created, and now anyone who wants to cross that way had better bring plenty of food and water with them, for from one end of the valley to the other nothing grows, and no water flows.

Chapter Fourteen

When a Truthken examines a fire blood, it is crucial to hold in mind the fire bloods’ inability to separate symbol and reality.In ritual, for example, the content of gesture becomes concrete, and through ritual the desires, dreams, or nightmares of the fire blood are made true. Here, in this blending of symbol and reality, lies the source of the elemental madness so common among the fire folk. Here also is the Truthken’s challenge, for fire bloods’ lies may rapidly become truths to them. To perceive the difference of falsehood from truth may become impossible.

–The Way of the Truthken

In a wood where the leaves seemed composed of concentrated sunlight, tree branches shattered radiating cracks across the gold, and darkness broke in. There a traveling man took his companion by the shoulders, and turned her to him. She gazed into his face, but did not see him; he saw into her eyes, but did not know her.