They came back together, but walking some distance apart. Both of them looked wary. Nia was a big woman. The man dwarfed her. He was as huge as his brothers. He wore a kilt of dark green fabric and a yellow belt. The buckle was silver. His boots were green leather. On his broad chest he wore a necklace. It was tangled in his shaggy hair and more than half-hidden. I made out beads of silver, long and narrow, alternating with round amber beads as yellow as butter.

Inzara waved at him. “This, as I told you before, is my brother Tzoon.”

The man looked at us, then grunted. “Unh!”

“Who are you?” asked Ara. He had remained to the north of us on the trail. Inzara was a little to the south, close to the bank of the river. The third brother was to the east, at the edge of the grove. We were surrounded. Trapped.

Nia scratched her nose. “Will you answer a question for me? Then I will tell you who we are.”

Inzara made the gesture of assent.

“Why do you travel together?”

“We are not ordinary men,” said Inzara. “We were born together, all three of us in one birth.”

“Aiya!” said the oracle.

Nia said, “Hu!”

“No one in our village had ever seen a thing like that. Two children at once, yes. That has happened, though not often. Usually the children are small and weak. They die. But three—that was unheard of. And we were all large and healthy. People said our mother must have met the Trickster on the plain. We had to be unlucky. No woman could nurse three children. One of us, at least, would have to die.”

Ara continued the story: “Our mother said we were all fine babies. She couldn’t decide which one of us should be carried out on the plain and left for scavengers to find. She wanted to keep us all. Our mother never liked any kind of waste.”

The third brother—Tzoon—made the gesture of agreement.

Ara went on. “Our mother took gifts to the shamaness: a fine long rope and a piece of cloth covered with embroidery.”

“And a pot made by the Iron People,” Inzara said. “She was never one to keep things hidden in her tent. She knew the importance of giving.”

Ara made the gesture of agreement. “She asked the shamaness to perform the ceremony of interpretation. This took three days. Our mother nursed us as best she could. On the second day of the ceremony, when the shamaness was in a deep trance, our aunt Iatzi lost her baby.”

“It had always been sick,” Inzara added.

Once again Ara made the gesture of agreement. “It was her first child. Now her tent was empty and she had plenty of milk. She offered to help our mother.

“Our mother said that proved we were not unlucky. In fact we were luckier than most, since what we needed came to us.”

Inzara said, “When the shamaness woke, she told the villagers she had gone up into the sky and met the Ropemaker, the Mother of Mothers, and the Master of the Herds. They told her, ‘These children belong to us, and we will provide for them as we see fit. If we intend them to live, they will live. If we decide it is time for them to die—together or each one separately, you will see the result. Do not interfere and do not presume to understand our intentions.’ That was the end of her vision.

“What else is there to say? When we were children, we liked to be together. We almost never argued. There were people in the village who said we had only one spirit among the three of us. Maybe they were right. We don’t know. There are differences among us. Tzoon is silent. Ara is curious. I am unusually even-tempered. But it is true we are as close as sisters, and each one of us knows what the others are thinking. We went through the change at the same time exactly.”

“Even then,” Ara said, “we didn’t quarrel, though Tzoon became more silent than before.”

I looked at the third brother. He frowned.

“In the Summer Land and when the herd is moving, we stay close together. We like to look around and see a brother off in the distance. And we like to meet now and then to share food and talk. Inzara and I talk. Tzoon listens.”

The third brother said, “In the spring we stay apart.”

Inzara made the gesture of agreement. “We do not know what would happen then. What if a woman came out of the village full of lust, and two of us saw her? Would we fight? That would be terrible!”

“We make sure our territories are widely separated, though all equally close to the village,” Ara said. “This has become difficult in recent years. We are all big men, and the territories we have now are almost in the village.”

Inzara said, “We let other men—men we could face down—creep in between us. We lose some women that way. But our mother always said, ‘Nothing is gained by greed.’ ”

“Now,” said Tzoon. “Tell us who you are.”

Nia pointed at each one of us and gave our names. She gave her name last.

“You are the woman who loved a man,” Inzara said.

Nia made the gesture of agreement.

“And now you travel with another man.” He pointed at the oracle. “And with two people who have almost no hair.”

“Yes.”

“What sex are those people?”

“One is a woman. The other is a man.”

“Aiya!” said Inzara.

Tzoon made the gesture that meant “no matter.” “This is no concern of ours. If they want to risk bad luck—well, let them. They do not belong to our village.”

Ara made the gesture of agreement. “Our concern is Inahooli. How did she die?”

Nia rubbed the back of her neck. “This is not easy to explain.”

Tzoon frowned.

She glanced at him, then at his brothers. “First of all, we met with a shuwahara.A male with a family to protect. He frightened our bowhorns, and they ran away. We were stuck on the shore of the Lake of Bugs and Stones. This is important for you to know. We had no way to escape Inahooli after she went crazy.”

“Ah,” said Inzara.

“The first time she came, Li-sa and I were alone. She wanted to show off her tower, and Li-sa was curious. She is a peculiar person, always asking questions, like a little girl, poking at things and prying them open and asking and asking. Aiya!”

Ara frowned. “Anything can be taken too far. But there is nothing wrong with curiosity.”

“Anyway,” Nia said. “Li-sa went to see the tower. Then Inahooli decided she was a demon and pulled out a knife. She tried to kill Li-sa. But Li-sa got away.”

“Why did she think that one was a demon?” Ara waved at me.

Nia paused, frowning. She bit her thumbnail. “Inahooli remembered who I am. And she thought a person without hair who travels with a pervert must be a demon.”

“That makes sense,” said Tzoon.

Inzara made the gesture of disagreement. “The tower is protected. The shamaness performed ceremonies in the spring after it was built. There is magic all through it, woven into every piece of rope and around every piece of wood.”

“Does the magic protect it against everything?” I asked.

“No. Of course not. A high wind can blow it down, and hail can tear the banners. Animals can chew on it or perch on it and cause damage. But the tower ought to be safe from demons. If that one”—he pointed at me—“was able to get near the tower, she isn’t a demon. Though she might be something else unlucky. A person in need of purification, for example.”

“No,” said Nia. “Inahooli was definite. Li-sa was a demon. Inahooli decided the tower was ruined. Li-sa had taken away all of its power. She came to our camp at night, planning to get back at us in some way. That one”—she pointed at Derek—“saw her coming. He fought with Inahooli and won. He tied her up, and we tried to talk with her. They—the others—tried to talk with her. I was on the plain, looking for our bowhorns.”

“I will tell this part,” the oracle said. “We talked and talked, trying to convince her that we had done nothing to her tower. I understand these things. I am an oracle and the holiest person among the Copper People of the Plain.”