“I seek the commander of Damar Company,” she said politely to the startled Paladin who opened the door. “I am Zanja na’Tarwein, the Speaker for the Ashawala’i.”

She heard the distinct voice of the woman she had followed these two days, exclaiming, “Name of Shaftal! I kept thinking someone was following me, but I thought it would be impossible …”

So many of the Paladin commanders had been killed during and shortly after the Fall that a great number of people had been promoted beyond their abilities or talent. Fortunately, when she was allowed to enter, the commander of Damar Company eyed her with a certain intelligence, at least. “You are a long way from the Ashawala’i,” he said.

“I try to learn what I can about the dangers that might threaten my people. When I heard about the troubles in Rees, I came down to see what was happening.”

The commander said skeptically, “Rees is no place for dilettantes this year.”

“I am a soldier like you.” Zanja folded her scarred hands before her, though she doubted he could see them in the dim light. “But the people of your command took my weapon–not here, but on the road to Rees. And they took my horses, my money, and my trade goods.”

The woman exclaimed, “They never mentioned–”

The commander hushed her. “Fighting the Sainnites is expensive, I regret to say, and Damar is a poor region.”

“So the Paladins of Damar have become thieves?”

The commander gestured impatiently. “We are at war,” he said, as though that excused every immoral act. “But I will see to it that your horses and belongings are recovered.”

He did not say that he would punish the wrongdoers, but Zanja had no choice but to be satisfied for now. So, because there was no help for it, she became the guest of Damar Company while waiting for her belongings to be recovered. At least she was able to use the time to her advantage, for the commander sent her with an escort into Rees.

In Rees, she saw a village that had been burned to the ground because one of the households had sheltered a Paladin. She heard about entire families slaughtered because one member served in Rees Company. She saw pale, hopeless veterans with legs and arms amputated. She finally met some of the survivors of Rees Company: harried, half‑mad fighters who hurried her out of their camp because they feared that the Sainnite commander would exercise her near‑supernatural ability to find them wherever they sheltered. Zanja and her companion gave the poor souls all the food they had, for the Rees farmers were so terrorized that they dared not feed their own soldiers any more, and the few surviving Paladins were starving.

Zanja returned to Damar much sobered, to find that most of her goods and horses had been recovered, and that the rest, the commander assured her, would arrive soon. Soon after her return, a messenger arrived, and the commander summoned Zanja. “Can you read?”

“I can read the alphabet, but not glyphs.”

He showed her a note, much begrimed with long travel, that included a description of her and her gear, and requested that if she were spotted anywhere, she be directed to return home at once.

Never before had Zanja, or the Speaker before her, been summoned home like this. She left her goods and pack animals in the care of some honest farmers and hurried homeward by the most flexible and least noticeable means of travel, her own two feet. She was a hardened traveler, but even though she ran whenever the way was reasonably flat, the journey seemed interminable. It was nearly midsummer when she saw before her the sky‑piercing peaks of stark gray stone where Winter set by next year’s supply of snow.

Katrimwatched all the passes from the high vantage of nearly invisible shelters of stone and mud, and for many years now the easy paths had been left choked with stone as barriers against invasion. She followed a narrow, precarious way that paralleled the river down the mountainside, gradually losing altitude, until trees came crowding up the canyons once again. At a bend of the river, the valley opened up and the village of Zanja’s people came into sight. Ransel was hurrying up the path to meet her.

“How long has it been since you saw the Asha Valley in summer?” he asked. “More than half your life, I think.”

It was indeed quite odd to see the trees in leaf, the fields of corn and squash being hoed, the goats grazing in the flood plain, and the children swimming in the river. She had almost forgotten what a fine place this valley was in summertime.

“Well, Alastad na’Parsa is dead,” Ransel added.

She gazed at him, baffled. For seventy years, Alastad had guaranteed the success of the Ashawala’i crops, given health to the newborns, advised the elders, predicted the weather, suggested the best times to gather nuts or hunt deer, and eased the dying into death. The Ashawala’i had been fortunate to have an earth witch of such talent for so many years, and it was certainly a matter of concern that he was dead, and that no earth clan had yet produced another so gifted. “But that is no reason to fetch me–”

Ransel had become one of the finest katradancers in the village, and had the scars to show for it. He had a fresh cut on his arm, sloppily bandaged and leaking blood. “I know that something untoward has happened,” he said. “Some katrimand hunters are in disgrace. The elders need your advice. That’s all anyone will say.”

They walked together across the valley and into the village. Busy, preoccupied people shouldered their way down narrow pathways between the close‑built clan lodges. Summer’s warmth had brought forth the village’s miasma. Outside its limits, the most noticeable smell had been that of the latrines. Now, the changing scents marked the delineations of the village’s many industries: from the stink of the dye vats to the piercing smells of the tanner’s yard. The smell of burnt fat and roasted corn distinguished the na’Parsa lodge, where a funeral feast must have recently been served.

They reached the lodge of the na’Tarweins, upon whose walls each of the nine bird gods were painted with equal skill and prominence, so that none would feel slighted. Painted elemental flames writhed around the doorway, where a loosely‑woven summer rug kept out the flies. Ransel told her that the na’Tarwem elders wished to see her alone, so she bid him farewell and promised to find him in the summer camp, after sunset.

Zanja stepped into the lodge and dropped to one knee. The mother of the na’Tarwein clan, a hazy shape in the dim light of the lodge, rose up from her stool and stepped forward to accept her greeting. As Zanja’s eyes adjusted to the shadows, she identified three other clan elders, each seated upon a low stool, with an attendant child cross‑legged at their feet. Still kneeling, she greeted each of the elders in turn, and only then stood up to be clasped in the clan mother’s arms and accept her offer of tea.

One of the children hastened to pour a cup of tea from the pot upon the hearth. The precious porcelain cup fit perfectly into the palm of Zanja’s hand, and felt light and smooth as a leaf from a tree. She sat down upon the floor at a gesture from the clan mother, and slurped politely from her cup.

The clan mother said, “With the death of Alastad, I fear we may lose the prosperity of the people.”

Zanja replied, “Surely an earth child will soon take Alastad na’Parsa’s place.”

The elders shook her heads and murmured with regret, as the clan mother said, “Earth witches are rare. Hard times lie ahead, I fear.”

“When last I saw Alastad, he seemed in good health.”

Zanja drank her tea while one of the elders recounted the tale of how the aged earth witch had been suddenly stricken with a strange paralysis, and how the herbalists’ frantic efforts to revive him had failed. Zanja became impatient for the end of this overly complicated tale, but restrained herself from rudely interrupting her elders. She was finally able to say, “I am glad you sent for me, Mother.”