Another ocean voyage lay before me, but at least this time I was not locked in a dark room. I was able to wander freely, smelling the salt air and all that, and I had the company of Umrālīsa’, who proved to be a pleasant conversationalist. (I notice that in the previous section I added a T to the end of Umrālīsa’’s name, and so I should explain that at times I heard a T and at other times I did not. The latter pronunciation was more prevalent in Turīsū. so I will be adopting it from now on. The reason for all this is confusion in names no doubt known to the Bird, but not to me.)

Umrālīsa’ asked me many questions about my past and about my Bird, but by now I can avoid answering such questions politely. (I’m afraid that in my early days in this part of the world, I offended some people and told others more than I should have.) Though I did have to make an effort not to change the subject by asking about the pattern of blotches on her forehead. It is not that it spoiled her appearance, understand, or that I would be crude enough to comment if it did. It is rather that it bore a remarkable similarity to the pattern of blotches on the face of the moon. In my home we called it Yeil and his Crown and in Edazzo they call it the Lion. I don’t know what they call it in Dūrī.

Finally I asked her the question that had been weighing heavily on my mind. “What will happen to me in Turīsū?”

“You will be held in great honor, of course. It is why I am coming with you, to make sure my sister doesn’t tease you too badly. But don’t worry. All the fortune-tellers have heard of you and your magic.”

“What magic?” I asked, and began to pat down my sleeves for no particular reason that I could explain, unless maybe I had an idea that one of Rosédan’s magic rings had been hidden there.

“The magic under your hat, you absurd fool.”

“Oh, yes, that magic.”

“Everyone knows that the most sacred places are in the far south, where the divine dwarfs, the sons of Tū, live, and in the far north, where the priests of the sun perform their rites.”

“Well, I’ve never been to the far south and I’ve never seen a dwarf. I have been to the far north, or pretty far north, anyway, but I didn’t see any priests of the sun there.”

“What did you see, then? Where did you receive your magic?”

I smiled, wanting to be polite, and said nothing.

“One way or another, we will get the truth out of you in the house of reeds.”

This did not make my future sound as appealing as what she had been saying previously, but I continued to smile and asked her what the house of reeds was.

“You speak our hieratic language, so you should know.” In fact I generally have very little idea of what tongue my Bird decides to translate my speech into, nor upon what principles it does. No doubt they are sound, but it often places me in an awkward position socially.

“But I’m afraid I don’t.”

“The house of reeds is the home of our order, where the wise teach the young the secrets of the correspondences between things. You are privileged to be able to see it. I’ll give you a warning, though. When others ask you, and especially when my sister asks you, don’t be so quick to deny our legends. They may doubt you, and Umrāma’ especially. She is jealous of me, poor girl. Fortune-teller of Tamzā was never supposed to be an enviable position, but see where I am now!”

The Parako hold Edazzo to be a glorious city, and by the standards of this part of the world I had always assumed that they were right, but when I saw Turīsū, I realized the truth. Of course I had heard of Turīsū, both in my own part of the world and in this part, and I knew that it was one of the most ancient cities in the world. I had imagined it as something like Tarinzar, the most ancient and most sacred city of the nation to which I was born, but perhaps twice as large and with libraries four times as old.

In fact, the Turīsū I saw was nothing at all like Tarinzar. I am, unfortunately, no poet, so I will not attempt to create such a picture of words as they do. My readers will never have a chance to visit the Turīsū that I saw, only its diminished shadow, but I fear that they’ll have to be content with what I can give them. When I remember Tarinzar, I think of mountains, cold air, broad vaults, and the sacred fire. When I recall Turīsū, I think of marshes, the heat of the sun, obelisks, and high-walled temples guarding the statue of a god.

But more than the buildings I remember the animals, and more than the animals I remember the people. Umrālīsa’ took me to the house of her order, which was some distance north of the city itself, set on a hill amid a plain of reeds rising from the marsh. I presume the name derives from this geographical detail.

I am a keen observer of human nature, and so I immediately noticed a peculiarity of the temple staff. They were all of them women. “Are men allowed here?” I asked cautiously. There were old stories about such sacred orders of women who would tear men to pieces when their sacred rites were observed.

“It isn’t customary, but our laws allow it under certain circumstances,” said Umrālīsa’. “Besides, we are not the servants of the law, but its masters. We see what is to come: the only thing that can master us is the greatest of gods. But that’s a mystery that I’m not permitted to tell you. Or not yet, at least! Oh, but here is my sister. Remember everything that I told you.”

I had, I suppose, expected Umrāma’ to look fairly similar to Umrālīsa’, but they were as different as night and day. Umrāma’ was taller and fairer than her sister, and there was nothing like Umrālīsa’’s mottling on her bright clear skin, but I did not like the way her eyes flashed as she looked at me. Though she was not actually taller than I, I had the distinct impression that she was looking not so much at me as down at me.

“This is the northern magician?” she asked.

I almost corrected her, but, remembering Umrālīsa’’s warning, I held my tongue.

“The omens are fulfilled,” said Umrālīsa’.

Umrāma’ snorted. It was a meaningful snort, I think, full of messages and implications that flew over my head. “You’ve questioned him, I assume.”

“I thought that privilege should be reserved for the circle.”

Umrāma’ snorted again, with somewhat different messages and implications that also flew over my head. “You did? No matter what the circle has told you, it was I who observed the first omen and I who am to deal with this matter myself. Come, Kësil. I will speak with you in private.”

This reminded me of a question I had had for some time. “I don’t understand one thing,” I said.

“Just one thing?” Umrāma’ asked. If there was a point to this response, I didn’t see it.

“I can see how an omen might tell you to look for a man in Edazzo, but how did you know my name?”

“Why should that surprise you?”

“Well, you know,” I explained, “it just seems very specific.”

“We are the fortune-tellers of the house of reeds. There are other houses in Dūrī, but ours is the wisest. We have many ways of gathering information. Come and I will speak with you in private.”

I glanced aside at Umrālīsa’ to see what she would have to say, but I think Umrāma’ must have noticed. At least judging by the way she grabbed my arm, she didn’t seem pleased. She dragged me along under the gate into the outer courtyard of the temple, and from there to a small square building not far from the entrance. There she sat me down on a rug and addressed me like a schoolteacher addressing a particularly ignorant bunch of students.

“We have brought you here because of an omen,” she explained. I nodded. I had gathered this much already, with my usual insight into what is going on around me. “Usually we perform our divinations when we are asked, but there are times when all the signs point to a time of crisis: comets in ill-favored decans, cattle born with two heads, blood flowing in the Dūrī river. The circle was troubled by these signs and asked me to perform a special divination to learn their cause. So I did, and casting the pegs I learned that there was a man in the northern section of the world who had in his bosom a dreadful magic. Casting the pegs again, I learned that he dwelt in the Parako city, and I determined the symbols that made up his name.”

This left me more confused than ever. “I have magic of a kind,” I said, “but what it has to do with two-headed cattle and blood in the river I don’t know.”

“Your magic isn’t the cause of the disaster,” said Umrāma’, glaring down at me like a schoolteacher who had just received an unusually foolish answer. “It is the cure.”

I still didn’t know what the one had to do with the other, but I had learned my lesson from Umrāma’’s glare, so I only nodded as if I knew all about the Bird’s magic and its uses in the curing of disasters.

“It is my interpretation of the divination that the one who possesses the power of the northern magicians will determine the fate of Dūrī in the millennia to come. We are at a turning point in the history of the world.” Here she stopped to recite a poem to which I can do no justice whatsoever. Continuing, she said, “It is simple, then. You will give your magic to us, and the disaster will be averted.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

Her eyebrows rose. “You don’t know if you are able, or you don’t know if you want to? Is this a question of ability or will?”

“I mean it’s bound to me pretty tightly. I don’t know if we can be separated without hurting one or the other.”

She smiled at me in a peculiar way that made me feel as if my face had been thrust in front of a furnace. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

I was relieved when Umrālīsa’ put her head in the entrance and said, “Are you done explaining things to him yet? The others want to see him.”

“So what if they do?”

“The circle wants to see him.”

Umrāma’ flared up, rising to her feet and holding out her hands. “Of course they do,” she said. “And of course you will take him to them. But answer me this first, Kësil. Where and when were you born? And how did you acquire your magic?”

I shook my head. This I could answer without any sort of prevarication. “I’m afraid it would take hours for me to explain either of those things.” Without saying anything in response, Umrāma’ waved her hand for Umrālīsa’ to take me to the circle.

Since I haven’t yet mention the heat, I will do it here. Turīsū is afflicted worse by heat than any other part of the world I have yet visited. Umrāma’ has told me that it is hotter still in the southern part of the Dūrī kingdom, which I find hard to imagine. I myself felt a general sluggishness when I was there, so if my repartee does not always shine or my actions are not always the cleverest, I place the blame firmly on the sapping heat.

I am not sure what it is about secretive magical orders that their leaders always seem to arrange themselves in circles and cloak themselves in mystery, but the house of reeds was no exception to this rule. The circle that the sisters had spoken of was waiting for me in the center of the enclosure, on the second floor of a house whose walls were painted as if to resemble the reeds of the marsh. A bird that I at first took to be merely a painting cried out at our approach and flew away.

A geometer once explained to me that if one takes a triangle and adds more sides, to go from a square to a pentagon to a hexagon, one will eventually reach a circle. I asked him how long it would take, and he was evasive in his answer, but I gather that a circle has a very great number of sides indeed. From this perspective the circle of the house of reed was not so much a circle as an enneagon.

I do not remember all the questions they asked me. They were fairly intrusive, and I kept my secrets as best I could. Nor can I remember distinctly what each of the members of the circle were like. They seemed as they spoke to me to blur into one another, becoming a single figure, a wizened woman who peered at me from under a colorful shawl. Then the inquisition was over, and I was dismissed to return to Umrālīsa’.

I was, I recall, still somewhat off balance from all the questions that had been asked, and it was to this that I attributed my response when she questioned me as to how my ordeal went. Thinking back on it now, there may have been something in the air of that room that confounded my reasoning, and in fact I may have said more to the circle than I intended. In any case, I looked at Umrālīsa’ and the pattern of splotches on her face and asked her why they looked like the moon.

She looked pityingly at me. “We’ll get you some fresh air and water to drink, and you’ll feel better then.”

“But the moon,” I protested. It made sense to me at the time.

“Yes. It’s been there since I was born. That’s where I got my name, you know. Umrālīsa’. Moon Pearl, just as my sister is Sun Pearl. Here. A cup of water.”

The next thing of which I was clearly aware was a thin mattress underneath me. I had, it seems, been laid to rest in this hut, sheltered from the sun by shades over the windows. I did feel much better then, my mind as sharp and clear as it usually was. Which is to say, so sharp and clear that few swords could outmatch it for perspicuity.

I spent the next few days in the house of reeds, speaking primarily to the sisters Umrālīsa’ and Umrāma’. Whatever, if anything, the circle had learned from me, they had kept to themselves. I pressed Umrāma’ for more details about her fortune-telling, and she pressed me for more details about my home and about the Bird, but neither of us found much success. My conversations with Umrālīsa’ were more pleasant, but even then it was never far from my mind that she seemed more interested in my Bird than in my person, as difficult as it is for me to understand why someone would be more fascinated by a magic trinket than a charming far-traveled man such as myself.

I remember one occasion on which a man from the court of the Dūrī king came to the house of reeds to have his fortune told. I was brought inside and told to stay hidden as long as he was there. “Why?” I asked Umrālīsa’.

“Because only we of this house know you’re here, why else do you think? It wouldn’t do for the great house, the house of the king, to find out that we’re harboring a magic here that neither he or his priests know about.”

I began to understand then that I had entered into deep political waters. There were many factions in Edazzo, but none of them had absolute power, and I was on good terms with most of them. As an outsider, I was something of a novelty, I believe, and not overly entangled with any one faction. Now, through no fault of my own, I had been bound to the house of reeds and its women. I would have to swim very carefully from then on. Fortunately, I am an excellent swimmer. At least, I am an excellent swimmer in the waters of metaphor.

Mimālal, of all people, was the first outsider I was allowed to speak with. I was startled to see him at the table for our shared breakfast one morning (I think this was the fourth day I was in the house of reeds, though I am not completely sure of my numbering). I didn’t recognize him at first, but he saw me and struck himself on the forehead with his spoon. “I was terrified that this might happen, and it has,” he said. “By the Crocodile, it has. It’s bad enough being here with all these witches, and now you’re here sitting at the same table with me. Am I cursed? By Tiħāsū, I must be.”

I greeted him amiably. He seemed to have an annoying itch that made him fidget. “Are you here to have your fortune told?” I asked.

“I am not! By Tiħāsū, if I knew what the future had in store for me, I’d only worry myself into my tomb. The reason I’m here is nothing more and nothing less than the schemes of the mighty. You’re caught up in them; I’m caught up in them; I’d be surprised if the circle itself wasn’t caught up in them.” He paused for just a single second, then poured the remainder of his bowl down his throat in an impressive gustatory feat that reminded me of a painting I had once seen of a serpent swallowing a sheep. Then he rose and left, muttering under his breath, although the phrase “And then we’ll all see, won’t we?” emerged from his otherwise inaudible flow of words.

I continued on in my ignorance until a day came that was, as I later learned, the first day of the decan of Balirzū, when I was summoned to see the circle again. But as I was walking with an unusually terse Umrāma’ to the center of the house of reeds, we were joined by Mimālal. “A pleasant day, isn’t it?” Umrāma’ asked him. I thought it was on the hot side, myself.

“A pleasant day?” Mimālal laughed sharply. “The shadows are a bit much for me. You never know what might be hiding in them.” I did not see any shadows to speak of.

“If there’s some problem with your payment, you shouldn’t speak to me about it. I’m not in charge of such things.”

“It’s not that! I have no complaints about my compensation.”

“I am too busy right now to tell your fortune.”

“It’s not that either! I’m here to warn you about Kësil!”

Umrāma’ stopped walking and glared at Mimālal. “What about Kësil?”

“What about me?” I asked in some alarm.

“Do you think you can just strip him of his magic? Just rip it off like a feather from a wing? It was a gift to him! Do you think the givers will just let you have it?”

“What do you know about these things? You’re only Līwam’s errand boy, unless you’ve gone through some initiation ritual since the last time you were here.”

“I know enough! Līwam knows more than you suspect, by the god Pa he does. Do you know about these things? Do you even know what you’re working for?”

“For Dūrī and the emperor,” said Umrāma’, her back straight. “Come along, Kësil. There’s no need for us to linger here talking to this madman.”

Mimālal puffed out his cheeks until I thought he was about to burst. “I’ve warned you! I’ve done all I can for you! Now I’m supposed to warn you, Kësil, though I have no idea why. You’re a fool.”

This seemed more of an insult than a warning, but before I could say so, Mimālal had gone on speaking.

“You’re a fool, and I don’t know how you’ve lived this long, I really don’t! You’d better start using your wits now! Do you think anyone here is your friend?”

I actually did, and I made some remark to the effect that despite the peculiar circumstances, I had enjoyed my time with Umrālīsa’ and Umrāma’. He gaped at me and then laughed.

“You’re hopeless! All right! By Tihaasu, let’s see where this goes. What can I do? If I had an army, I’d drag Kësil out of here by force, but I don’t. I wish I did! If Līwam let me, I’d round him up a whole bunch of strong men, by Huusir, I would!”

And despite Umrāma’’s glares, Mimaala continued to follow in our trail. I was struck by the oddness of the contrast between this lumbering, patchily bearded, lumpy shouldered man and all the gracefully attired women around us. Umrāma’ seemed, if anything, brighter than ever.

We came to the threshold of the inner house, where Umrāma’ turned on Mimālal and said to him, “You may go no further. This house is only for the circle and those they have specifically invited.”

“Oh, I’ll find something to do. There are some pretty girls here, aren’t there!”

“They are not dancers, but devotees of an ancient art.”

“The most ancient art of all?”

“And what would that be?” asked Umrāma’. “Our traditions go back to the years before the great Māsū.”

Mimālal chuckled. “The art that our parents used to bring us into this world!”

Umrāma’ rightly chose not to dignify Mimālal’s crude joke with a reply. She took my arm and led me inside, where the circle was waiting.

“The time has come for us to receive your magic. Dūrī is in peril.” She did not explain exactly what kind of peril Dūrī was in. I had made inquiries into the matter, but either no one knew for sure or no one was willing to tell me. I was left, therefore, to the resources of my imagination. Perhaps an army was coming up from the unknown south, or sea monsters were going to rise up from the ocean, or a plague was due. I have heard that marshes were excellent nurseries for plagues. When it came, however, to the question of how my Bird was supposed to do anything about it, my imagination failed me.

And then I was before the circle, all of them seeming to be but one woman, who peered at me with faces that seemed more querulous that anything else. “You have held on to your magic for long enough. It is time to hand it over.”

I said nothing. At this point I was tired of repeating myself and of trying to persuade the fortune-tellers of the truth, which apparently all their art was unable to make known to them.

“Take off your hat.”

“I don’t think that would be prudent,” I said without much hope that they would see wisdom.

“Take off your hat,” they said again, their voice colder, and so I did.

I am not a spiteful man, but nevertheless it was amusing to see the way their faces changed when they looked upon the Bird that roosts on top of my head. But they were steadier of purpose than Mimālal had been, and the woman who was closest to me even reached out her hand to touch it.

It was at this point that I discovered, or rather, we all discovered, what safeguards the fair folk had put around the Bird to protect it. There was a flash of blinding light, and the woman moved back, holding her hand gingerly as if it had been burned.

“That’s enough of that, I think,” I said. It was time for me to put my foot down. “My magic, as you call it, remains with me. It isn’t mine to hand over to you.” I turned, walked out the door, and fell down the cliff that had suddenly appeared.

It was not an especially tall cliff, and in fact some might consider it to be more of a step, but I was not expecting it and I regret to say that I bruised my arm. Looking around in my shock and confusion, I saw not the house of reeds in Turīsū, but rather a sea of reeds, stretching out to the horizon in all directions. There was no sign of any other structure besides the room from which I had come. I was relieved to see that it was still there and that it had not disappeared as soon as I left.

“What is this?” the circle said, rising as one from their chairs. But the spell was broken, and I saw them all as individual women. Among them were Umrāma’ and Umrālīsa’, shining as two pearls in the midst of all the rest. (I should clarify that they were not members of the circle, but were there to observe. My understanding of the matter is that Umrāma’ had insisted, and for once she had prevailed.)

“Kësil! What did you do? Tell us!” Umrālīsa’ pleaded.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I’ve seen something like this once before, when I was with the fair folk. I didn’t understand it then and I don’t understand it now. Twice before, actually,” I added, remembering the incident with the gateway in Edazzo. “I still didn’t understand what was going on.”

“How could you not understand?” Umrāma’ asked witheringly. “Are you a fool?”

I would have argued with this, but it didn’t seem the proper time. “Maybe we’ve been visited by one of the fair folk.”

“The who?” asked one of the circle.

I considered explaining who the fair folk were and how I had spent time among them, but I didn’t have the opportunity. Umrāma’ pushed past me and stepped out among the reeds, where she stood for a few minutes with her hands raised to the sky and to the sun, which I just then noticed was larger than it should have been. There was a cool breeze that pushed through the reeds to reach us, making us all shiver. I shivered, anyway. The women of the circle seemed unaffected by the cold, which was odd given that I had been born in a higher and more northern clime than they.

“Ām is not the same,” she said. “Here, in this place, he is dead. Ām is dead!” At once they all began to wail in a loud and chilling fashion. It unnerved me enough that I decided to go for a short walk until they had finished. I made a circuit of the outside of the room, but it was only after I had made a complete circle that it occurred to me that there might be a difference between a leftward and a rightward circle. I had a vague idea from somewhere that one was supposed to be lucky and the other unlucky, but I couldn’t remember which was which. Comforting myself with the thought that it was too late to do anything about it now, I went inside, shaking the mud off my boots. The circle had ceased their wailing, and were now sitting again in silence, listening to one of their number speak.

“You don’t doubt that it is Kësil’s magic that brought us here, do you?” she was saying as I entered. “So there’s one way to get back, and that’s through Kësil.”

“As I told you, I know neither how we got here nor how to get back,” I said. I didn’t like some of the implications I thought I heard in her words. I was, after all, essentially by myself, and suddenly I missed Edazzo very much, where I had had friends and companions. Without companions, in the words of some philosopher whose name I have forgotten, a man is a beast. And, if I may extend this metaphor farther, the women of the circle were looking at me like hunters or butchers or one of those professions whose members a beast is never pleased to meet.

“Well,” said Umrālīsa’, glancing up at my hat. “Do you think if we try to take your magic again, it will send us back?”

“I don’t know. It seems exceedingly risky.”

“Is there anything to eat here? There is water, even if foul, but we cannot stay,” said Umrāma’.

“We must risk it, or sit here and die,” said one of the older women. “Umrālīsa’, take his hat off and show us his magic.”

“May I?” Umrālīsa’ asked me, and I nodded. She reached up, her arms brushing the sides of my face, and lifted off my hat. Then she gasped, which was not strange. What was strange was that it wasn’t a gasp of horror, but rather something more like awe.

“It’s brighter than Ām,” whispered Umrāma’.

I was never able to learn from them exactly how they perceived my Bird in that world, only that it was luminous and beautiful. I have thought differently of my Bird since then. At times I have wondered which appearance was truer, and indeed which world was truer, but such questions occupy me for a while, then flee into the fog of thoughts that I can’t put into words. (And if I cannot, certainly my Bird cannot.)

Before any of them could steel themselves to try and take the Bird from me, one of those near the door shouted. “There’s someone here!”

I accepted my hat back from Umrālīsa’ and went to the door to see what the matter was. My eyes are quite sharp, so I quickly spotted the human figures coming towards us. There were at least twenty of them, dim outlines at first against the pale sky and the waving reeds, but they were approaching moment by moment. Some of my friends have accused me of being far too trusting, unable to tell when someone is malicious towards (or even annoyed with) me. This is of course ridiculous, and these friends of mine would have known it had they been there with me. I knew right away that these figures were our enemies.

“I suspect we should stay inside,” I said, wishing there was a solid door to close. I also wished, of course, that no one had tried to lay hands on my Bird, but it would be pointless to say so now.

“Do you know who they are?” Umrāma’ asked. I had the feeling I was being unfairly suspected of something or other.

“No, I don’t. But I admit I’m afraid of them.”

“Hush!” said one of the other women. “They’re saying something! They’re talking in the language of the reeds!”

I listened, but could only discern a faint murmuring. Although I haven’t actually done any experiments on the matter, I suspect that my Bird has more or less the same range of hearing as I do unaided. I would have doubted the woman, but if fortune-tellers can see the future, who knows what other senses of theirs might be increased?

“What is the language of the reeds?” I wondered out loud.

“You don’t know the very language you speak?” The question reminded me of what I had forgotten: the fortune-tellers, for whatever reason, heard me as speaking that very language.

“Well,” I said. “That is to say. I know the language, but not its history.” This seemed to be a safe explanation for now. “Is it strange for these apparitions to speak it?”

Glances were exchanged, and if I am any judge of the meanings of glances, they meant to convey a certain bafflement at my incomprehension. It is a type of glance I am accustomed to seeing from many faces. “It is the sacred language of our order. It was spoken in the marshes before Dūrī was one kingdom, by a forgotten people. We still remember it in gratitude for the gift of our art.”

“Are they ghosts, then?” I wondered, again out loud. “Ghosts of that forgotten people?”

“Whatever they are, I think you should use your magic to grow wings and fly us out of here,” said Umrālīsa’. Then she shouted in surprise. Standing in the doorway was a figure like that of a man, but his skin shone like metal. His clothes were green and frayed at the fringes. The only feature visible on his face was a pair of eyes, with something about them that I did not like. Whenever I tried to meet them, I found my gaze shying away.

“Who are you?” Umrāma’ demanded with admirable courage.

The figure did not speak for a long time. We stared at it just as it seemed to be staring at us. Then, suddenly, it laughed, but it wasn’t the way a human might laugh. There was something in the sound that reminded me somewhat of the call of a bird from the northern forests, and somewhat of creaking of roots in a windstorm. (That is the best I can do to describe the sound, and I do not recommend that my readers make any attempt to gain first-hand experience of it.)

“We have ten thousand names in a thousand tongues!” it said. Its voice was like a waterfall. (Again, that is the best I can do to describe the sound, and my recommendation is as before.) “Shall we come up with a new name for you? Let us see. You may call me the green man, if you like. But we have also been called the kind ones, the guests, the gardeners, the fair folk.”

“But I’ve met the fair folk. They weren’t like you. They were flesh and blood.”

“Usurpers,” the green man said, and there was something in the rushing water of its voice like a thrown spear. “Dead folk, not fair folk. They would not stay dead, but drove us from our hills. They will taste bitter fruit in the end, but that is not your concern. You are here now, with us, in the paradise we have made for you. Is it not lovely?”

I looked at my companions to see whether any of them found it lovely, keeping in mind that after all, the marsh was their home, not mine. They all looked sufficiently skeptical that I would have felt confident denying it. Not that I would say so to the figure out loud.

“I think we would rather return to our home,” I said politely.

The green man narrowed its uncanny eyes. “There is no going back.”

“Why did you bring us here?”

There was another long silence before the green man spoke. “Are you not impressed with our power?”

I was, I supposed, but I still wanted an answer to my question, and I repeated it.

“It is wondrous, is it not?”

Umrālīsa’ and Umrāma’ drew me aside, one by each arm. One of the other women of the circle stepped forward hesitantly and began speaking with the green man. I wanted to hear what they were saying, but Umrāma’ and Umrālīsa’ were insistent.

“What do you make of its answers?” Umrālīsa’ asked me pointedly.

“I thought it wanted us to be impressed by its power.”

“No!” Umrāma’ said, taking me by both shoulders. “It didn’t answer your question! It was trying to avoid it!”

“Oh,” I replied. “Now that I think about it, that does seem right.”

“Your magic brought us here, not his. Please, bring us back.”

I started to answer that I didn’t have the slightest idea how to do that, when I was startled by a voice from behind me. “Do you want to go back?”

I turned, and looked, but I saw no one. The green man was standing in the doorway, listening patiently to whatever his interlocutor was saying, but as he stood there seemed to be a presence spreading out from him to fill the room. That is the best word I can find for it. It was the definite sense that some other being was present, a being that was as little concerned for us as a forest might be for a traveler under its boughs. (My readers will forgive this lapse into poetry, I am sure. I find that when I think back to the encounter with the green man, I begin to think in more poetic words. Rather unsettling.)

Again the voice asked, “Do you want to go back?” It was very familiar somehow, though I could not and cannot place it exactly.

“I think we do, yes,” I replied.

Umrāma’ and Umrālīsa’ gave me puzzled looks. “You think we do what?” asked Umrālīsa’.

“Who are you talking to there?” wondered the green man, and turned those strange eyes on a place just over my right shoulder. “Some toy of the dead folk? I see! That is clever! You must have found it very useful. But we will take back our water and our light now.”

It was as if the presence was drawing closer to me. For a third time I heard the voice asking me if I wanted to go back, and I said I did. “All of us do,” I added, the thought happily occurring to me at the last second.

Then there was another flash of light, and when the afterimages had faded from my eyes, we were back in Turīsū and there was no trace of the green man.

After that things went more smoothly. None of the members of the circle wanted to try and take my Bird from me again. I asked them why they had wanted it, and although it took some pressing, I was finally able to learn that there was a god in the city of Hiltar who was anxious to see the prophecy of doom dispelled, and who knew more about it than the circle did. They would not tell me this god’s name.

“You really should come to Hiltar with me,” said Mimālal. He insisted that he didn’t believe anything of what I told him about the other world, but was equally insistent that his master Līwam would be interested to hear it.

So I resolved to go to Hiltar and find out the truth there. Mimālal assured me that it wouldn’t be a long journey. Before I left, the sisters Umrālīsa’ and Umrāma’ visited me, Umrālīsa’ to apologize for having kidnapped me and Umrāma’ with a warning. “Your magic frightens us,” she said in what must have been a painful admission, her face clouded over. “But I don’t think it will frighten the god of Hiltar. Be careful!”

They both gave me a gift. Umrāma’ gave a yellow and Umrālīsa’ a white token, something like tiny spheres flattened at one end. “Our father is a priest, named Luaara, in the temple of Hiltar. Show him these and tell him this: the fish is too large for the net,” said Umrāma’.

This was, no doubt, a code of some sort with a private meaning that was only known to their family. I promised to do so as soon as I could.

“If you want, I’ll tell you your fortune,” said Umrālīsa’.

“Thank you, but I’m going to Hiltar whether it brings me good fortune or bad.” It seemed polite not to mention the outcome of the fortune-tellers’ most recent attempt to pry into the future, which had only confirmed me in my belief that no good ever comes of such things. It’s like the story of the man who found out he was going to die in one city, so he went to another city, and he died there instead. (I don’t remember the irrelevant details.)

“And in Hiltar,” I continued, “I’ll dig to the bottom of the matter and send word to you if I can. Then I’m going home.” And at the time I meant it.