The screeching abruptly pulled me out of a slow, warm dream, caressing like a desert wind. I was plunged, literally, in the middle of a chiming ballet, where, against the current, I struggled weakly. The sensation was similar to having been trapped in a jute bag and then thrown into a thick, icy syrup. Apart from the fear, I was left with two certainties. This time the dream was not meant for me, and I was not alone. I found again the revolution of the facets, a bright dust with a rhythmic dance pulsating with energy and light, an incomprehensible parody of life itself. No wonder, only a nameless terror. At the thought that She could find me, that She could direct all the shining beams of her being upon me, I tried to flee.

Then, quickly, I understood that She had not called me. There was no devouring star here. No core. She was absent and had no hold here. It was a similar dream, but also very different.

I was suddenly engulfed, surrounded by a radiant net. My frantic efforts to slip away had drawn unwanted attention to me. Several iridescent facets probed me, wild and curious at the same time, then I was dragged away in a single nauseous jerk. The layout of this place seemed to me uncertain without Her, without Her imposing central sun, and the convolutions were confused, and chaotic. I tried awkwardly to leave the influence of the unknown pulsations that had seized me, throwing myself here and there in convulsive spasms, but I only succeeded in changing my perspective. Their feelings were clearly filtering through to me. Distrust and surprise. I wasn't supposed to be here. I had to leave. I was a stranger, and my incongruous presence was not welcome. If the palpitations could have hurt me, or ejected me from the dream, I think they wouldn't have hesitated. As it was, they had to be content with bravado and warlike challenges, and that irritated them.

Then another facet came to us and dispersed the others lightly. The light was peaceful and reassuring, and I had the strange sensation of recognizing it. They only wanted me to be good here, she made me understand. I stopped struggling, and at the same time I realized that we weren't moving after all. We had never moved. It was our gaze that was changing and bringing the change with it. The reassuring pulse flowed with me, showing me how to change my vision, how to swim on the surface of the dream as one would sail on a starry sea. It was clear and simple, and oddly intuitive. It made me feel more comfortable. Since I couldn't leave, I experimented slowly. It could be so many things at once. I found the light palpitations that had intercepted me earlier, describing fascinating sigils, streaked with energy and relentless intent.

They navigated in sinuous patterns among the great fresco of the other dusts.

I suddenly realized what I was looking at. It was a battle plan. It was too complex for me to understand the exact details, but there was no doubt about it. It was the basis of a strategy, and I was in some way under the flag of command. The friendly facet approved, then was suddenly swept away by another, infinitely brighter presence. The radiant thing was watching me, turning me around, probing me with wonder. In spite of its resemblance to Her, the idea of comparing their two consciousnesses did not occur to me. I remained fundamentally free in her presence and, even if her pulsations were too powerful, too foreign so that I could hope to decode them, this star did not compel me to bend myself according to its orbit. I exulted for a while in its growing benevolence, like an ecstatic cat that lets itself be stroked. Finally, it burst into a thunderous call.

The plea was so intense that I was almost torn away from myself. I had to go. Her boundless desire, her love. The emotional storm swept over my defenses in a vibration infinitely more erotic than anything I had ever felt. I had to go, I would go, she would love me absolutely, infinitely. Everything around me began to disintegrate, the sea was swept away. Only I was left now. It was the opposite, the opposite of everything She had told me, I was convinced that they were two different beings, and yet it was just as disturbing. I was vibrating, I was panicking now, I was colliding within myself so hard that I would have broken my teeth if I had a body in this place. At the brink of explosion, something hit me.

I opened my eyes at the second blow. Ulrick slammed his hand down a third time, right on my face. I realized that he was shouting my name. My body, which had been strung like a bow, relaxed violently. I gulped, the Val rolled me on my side and I vomited loudly into the cold grass, half-spraying the tarred canvas. Through the entrance of our makeshift tent, I could see the last constellations that were finishing to disappear. I coughed, covered in sweat, and a cool gust of wind coming up the valley swept over my face. Trembling, I took a hesitant breath, my throat burned with bile. Ulrick patted me firmly to make sure I was feeling better. "It's okay, Fyss, it's okay," he repeated, gently. I shook my head, not yet having the strength to move.

Then the fear returned, a surge so sudden and debilitating that I cried out in terror, short, hiccupping sobs. Memories came wrapping around me like an elusive ivy, and I remembered how, last time, the dream had foretold the death of Narsilap Ail Shuri and perhaps also the coming of the Seïd, and I shuddered with terror.

I embraced Ulrick, and he held me tightly in his huge arms, as he had perhaps once held his son.

The panic was dissolved by the reassuring smell of wet leather and the Val's patient breathing. Eventually I pulled myself free, feverish and disoriented, but in control. "I think I had a nightmare," I muttered as an explanation. The truth is, now that it was over, now that the shock was wearing off and leaving behind a swarm of doubts and confused feelings, I wasn't sure what to think. All the people I had talked to about these dreams had not taken them seriously. I knew that Ulrick would refer me to the Padekke and to a hundred explanations that made more sense than the clan myths to which I clumsily linked the experience. If I had not seen the Seïd with my own eyes, I would certainly have done the same. Even so, in the last two years I had often come to wonder. Perhaps the creature I had seen with Dera had nothing to do with the dreams or Narsi's murder and it was only my imagination that associated the two. Perhaps what we had seen was not a Seïd at all, but a shaman or a mountain bandit who had simply managed to tame a wild scal.

"A hell of a nightmare, then," Ulrick said as I forgot I'd just spoken. "You weren't waking up." I sniffed miserably and, without adding anything else, got up on my feet. "We'll be safe in a couple of days," the Val said, still watching me. I took a deep breath and the brisk early morning air brought some color back to my cheeks. "You're tense and I'd say that's normal." I turned back to him, to stare at him, still curled up in his blanket, with his grey beard and that familiar scarred face. A lump of anguish knotted my throat. I thought of the Seïd and Narsi's grimacing corpse. I was worried about Ulrick, and it was a strange thought to me. "I want us to leave now," I said firmly. "I want us to leave and join the Vals." Ulrick had the shadow of a smile. He got out of his blanket without a word and, like every morning, I helped him put on his armor. We had broken camp before dawn had even come. I think Ulrick was as eager to get on the road as I was, for entirely different reasons.

Wadd's topography was so different from Vaw's, that it took me some time to get used to it. The forest which had surrounded me for two years, which nourished me and whose slightest noise, the slightest smell had been the permanent companions of my daily life, stopped dead on the other bank of the Gor. We had slept in the shelter of a willow grove, on the edge of the river, but as the sun rose, as we left the misty banks of the valley, I began to notice the scarcity of trees on the road. As the sun continued to rise, revealing the landscape as one undresses a woman, my anxiety was gradually overtaken by Pike's heavy trot and the beauty of the surrounding countryside. I was soon so absorbed in contemplating the surroundings that the dream was relegated to a corner of my mind.

The main road we were taking was paved and winding lazily towards Garnear through a country that seemed touched by grace. The soft hills followed the green meadows, under a blue and immense sky. The horizon was wider, the farms more numerous and more populated, and the fields had nothing to do with the tiny forest plots I had become accustomed to seeing near the vawan houses. With the world before me, I realized how cramped I had felt on the plateau. It had been comfortable and familiar, but it had also ended up suffocating that powerful sense of freedom I had felt when Ulrick had rescued me from the jails of Horn-Hill. We may have been riding to a specific destination, but the fresh air caressing my face drew a universe of new possibilities.

During this first day, we had to cross a dozen small lively villages and, all around us, the east wind made ripple small seas of golden grains. Wheat, rye and oats stirred in successive waves, but nothing was more impressive than the pastures that stretched as far as the eye could see, green and blue, marbled with wild flowers and orchards. When the breeze touched these meadows, we witnessed a true explosion of colors, which swept the landscape, from one end to the other, with vegetal gusts. I had never seen the sea before, but it was in the middle of Wadd's fields that I fell in love with it.

As we moved forward, the dark peaks of the Thorns became more distinct, materializing on the northern horizon. We could always see the autumnal coat of the Vaw forest to our left, which spread to the mountains, and I sometimes pictured these perpendicular lines as the two sides of a large box. On the opposite, if I turned my gaze to the right, the illusion would vanish and the world would seem to stretch endlessly in a picture of lush hues. We were just in time for the harvest, and the fields were filled with peasants working the rich, dark soil. There were large herds of black oxen, and spotted goats bleating in the hills and cavorting on the rocks of the hillsides. The calm that emerged from this succession of bucolic scenes contrasted curiously with the tension I had felt the day before at Gorwill, whereas, like Vaw, Wadd was theoretically at war.

We took our time that day, I hardly noticed the hours ticking by as there was so much to see, but Ulrick didn't want us to push the horses too hard. After the last few weeks of rain, and all that time spent trudging along muddy trails, he was worried that the horns of their hooves might crack on the cobblestones. We stopped a little before nightfall at Fork, a hamlet located at the junction of the roads leading to Garnear and the Close. A handful of thatched hovels were clustered around a spacious and prosperous inn, whose white cob walls disappeared here and there under the rustling of ivy. With its low walls and large reinforced gate, the inn seemed even better fortified than the rickety old watchtower that stood at the edge of the hamlet.

Fork, despite its small size, saw a large number of travelers, who were making the trip between the two neighboring cantons. Ulrick had talked with a wandering scribe on the road, and I had learned two things from their conversation: the rear guard of the waddan army was still in Garnear, and Fork's inn belonged to the local lord. The copyist had portrayed a merchant rather than a lord, a clever man who had taken advantage of the location of his tiny property. In spite of the cosmopolitan aspect of the village, our arrival did not go unnoticed and, from the surrounding fields, more than one head turned on our passing. I assumed this was due to the exotic appearance of the val-warrior, but I hoped it was not something else. We hurried the horses to the inner courtyard of the inn, which was nicely paved with a mosaic alternating large dark pebbles and white quartz. Ulrick sighed heavily as he finally left his saddle, his boots clacking on the pavement. We were eager to find the comfort of a true bed, as spartan as it would be.

Since we had no money left in our pockets, I was prepared to sleep in a corner of the stable, but the Val thought otherwise, and he had one last trick up his sleeve. He offered to exchange the scraps he had kept from my mail for a luxurious stay. Obviously, the manager accepted without a second thought. For half a pound of copper, he could have accommodated another ten men under the same conditions, and still have made a profit. When we had trusted our horses to the groom, who was instructed to give them as much grain and hay as they wanted to eat, we went to our room on the second floor. The common room we had to pass through was crowded and busy with merchants and peddlers. I also saw a small troop of noisy mercenaries, probably on the road for the same reason we were. We carefully avoided their company, preferring the upper floor, and their murmurs followed us upstairs.

Food and drink were brought into the room, and I don't think I had ever experienced such luxury in my life. The room was spacious, with a glass window, a fireplace, a chiseled chandelier, and a large canopy with its feather-filled quilt, which I tested immediately. My body, bruised from two weeks of travel, sank into the soft down like a knife into butter, and I longed to be able to sleep in it, before the arrival of food changed my mind. I stuffed myself with roast capon and white bread until my stomach hurt, and washed it down with a delicious ale, as rich and brown as the soil of the surrounding hills. And as soon as we were done with the capon, a plump, clucking maid led us down the back stairs and escorted us to a small, steamy room somewhere behind the kitchen. There, on a tiled floor, awaited us two steaming tin tubs filled to the brim. As I stepped into the hot water, I felt like crying for the second time that day, this time from happiness.

One hour later, I was drying myself in front of the crackling fireplace in our room, while Ulrick finished another pitcher of beer while gnawing on the core of an almost ripe pear. With my fingertip, I absentmindedly scratched the warm bricks. Our clothes were drying on a clothesline that the staff had stretched over the fireplace, and the clean linen smelled distinctly of lavender, which made me think of Sesh before I pushed the memory of the traitor from my mind. "I think we earned this by now," the Val grumbled, in between sips of ale. "Especially since it might not happen again for a while." I closed my eyes, slightly drunk, to enjoy my own well-being. I knew well that all this was temporary, and I tried not to worry too much about it.

"We need to discuss something, Fyss," Ulrick suddenly said, putting the pitcher back on the table a little more roughly than he needed to. "We need to talk before tomorrow." I heard the floor creak. Massive and awkward in his thick wool blanket, the Val came and sat down beside me by the fire. I thought his voice was a little less confident than usual, as if he was ashamed of what he was telling me. "So," he began, after clearing his throat. "You know we're going with the others to Ac-Pass. To wage war. It's my job and it's becoming yours. That means we get paid." I fluttered my eyelids, because the idea of getting paid hadn't really occurred to me. In my mind, we were joining the vaïdoerk for my protection and I hadn't given a single thought to getting paid. "Haï, Ulrick," I replied after a few moments of hesitation, not really knowing where he was going with this.

"I... You understand that the gold goes straight to val country?" the old warrior said slowly. "We keep what we need to live, and send away everything else. You know that." There was a prickly pause. I frowned, not understanding. Ulrick moistened his lips, "You really don't know what I'm trying to tell you." I shook my head, utterly mystified. "You understand that if you stay with the vaïdoerk, you won't get paid. Ever." I frowned again. "Haï Ulrick. I know. The money goes to the Vals, to buy what they don't have at home." Standing uncomfortably on the edge of the fireplace, my interlocutor swayed awkwardly back and forth, staring at me with an insistent look. "And you don't mind?" I thought for a few moments, before shrugging my shoulders. "No," I finally said. Ulrick didn't take his eyes off me. "Are you sure?" I scratched my head. "You're going to protect me. That seems fair to me. Later, I don't know. Right now I'm fine with it."

Ulrick patted me on the head kindly - which I hated - and then he looked vaguely pained. "You know that... Well, Fyss, to put it bluntly, you have no one in this world. No family, no money, not even a name. It will be hard for you to make a life for yourself among the Brownians, do you realize that?" The blood rushed to my face as if someone had just slapped me. "I know," I said in a low voice. I tried to turn away, my eyes tingling, but the Val's thick hand grabbed me. "What you need to know," he said in his gravelly voice, "is that there is a place for you in val country. A respectable place, even, if you fight in one of our vaïdoerks. I'll have to go back home one day. Maybe you could come with me."

This last comment plunged me into a confused silence. Actually, I had never really thought about plans for the future. The streets of Brown-Horn and the trails of the Basin had both taught me to live one day at a time, and that's what I had always done, even since I had left them. Sometimes I dreamed of the future, but it was sporadic, disconnected, unattainable scenes, and I was aware of it, painfully aware of it, at times. I had come to accept that Ulrick was training me and that, basically, the decisions about my immediate future were his. Beyond that, I occasionally flirted with the later details of my own independence, but it seemed distant and given my brief life experience, perfectly unpredictable.

On the one occasion when I had been given a clear path, Narsilap had been killed, and any vague plans I had made had been swept away. My gaze fell on the roaring fire in the hearth, and I murmured a quiet agreement, not sure what to think. Graciously, Ulrick called it a night and we soon went to bed.

Anxiety came back to haunt me as I closed my eyes, but I did not dream that night. To the questionings that Ulrick had involuntarily put me through, I added my own uneasiness, and even the too unusual softness of the sheets became an obstacle to sleep. Still, I fell asleep in the early morning, exhausted and nervous. The next day, we set off again, and even the voluptuous landscapes of Wadd could not pull me out of the labyrinthine thread of my thoughts.