I remain perplexed by much of what I saw in Hiltar, but will write down my impressions anyway in case my readers are able to make better sense of it than I am. Mimālal warned me about it, I recall, but I didn’t pay him much heed at the time. “The priests down here will get in your head if you let them,” he told me. “Don’t let them! Better not to go at Hiltar at all! But it’s too late for you and me, isn’t it?”

I asked him about the god of Hiltar, and for once he was silent, at least for a few minutes. Then he said, “His jaws are wide! He’s the Crocodile, the one who sits on top of us all. Even the king’s in his teeth! They made sure of that fifty years ago. The king does what Hiltar says now!”

My next question was about Līwam: specifically, who he was and what he wanted. “He’s a remarkable young man,” said Mimālal. “My father knew him. You might say I’ve inherited my position, by Palaatuu! He has business in Hiltar, and he sends me elsewhere when he has business elsewhere. Maybe he’ll tell you more about himself and maybe he won’t.”

What with the Crocodile, Līwam, and the priest Luāra‘ all waiting for me in Hiltar, I was rather uncertain about the reception I was to receive: after all, if the women of the reeds had tried to take my Bird from me, with all the resultant consequences, what would they try to do in Hiltar? I didn’t mention my concerns to Mimālal, deciding that there was no use giving him any ideas.

It was Līwam that I met first (as you might expect). “He doesn’t live in Hiltar itself,” Mimālal explained. “He is a man who likes his privacy. Don’t we all, though!”

“And that is why we’re stuck in this swamp,” I said.

“By Sākū, that’s right! But we’re not stuck. The water’s just a little higher than it should be this time of year.” I should explain where we were standing. We were east, I believe, of the city itself, at the terminus of a kind of canal (my knowledge of Dūrī agricultural methods is lacking, but the channel of water did remind me of the canals of my homeland). On the other side of a wide pool was a wooden jetty, but there didn’t seem to be any way to cross over to it. There was a small boat, but it was on the wrong side.

“Are we going to swim?” I asked.

“Can you swim?”

“Not a bit.”

“Then we’re not going to swim! We’re going to jump!”

I estimated my chances of swimming to the other side were significantly higher than my chances of jumping, and I said so. “Why don’t we just go around?” I asked before I noticed that given the various slopes and mires around the pool, that would hardly be more practical than jumping.

He grinned at me, with one of his peculiar grins that made his already disheveled face seem to fall completely to pieces. “Then I’m going to jump!” He backed up and then ran forward, arms flailing, to leap over the pool. Making a quick judgment of distance, speed, height, and all that, I estimated that he would make it approximately to the center of the pond before falling and drowning. It was unfortunate, but it was too late for me to do anything about it.

“Wait!” someone called, but Mimālal had already reached the edge. He went in, as expected, and a great splash was followed by smaller splashes as he slapped at the water to try and keep himself afloat. The man who had called “Wait!” was already hurrying into the boat, which he rowed across to clutch Mimālal’s arm and pull him gasping inside. “Just a little while longer, I think,” he told me. “Not enough room in here for three.”

Making a clever deduction, I asked him if he was Līwam.

“Now, I have been called that. And you must be Kësil. A lot of people have been talking about you.”

“I’ve heard, and I want to know why.”

“Patience, patience. A little while longer, I think.”

Once he had deposited Mimālal safely on the other side, he came across for me. Līwam was in appearance much the opposite of Mimālal: the lines of his face were sharp and his gaze was fixed, rather than drifting around in the fashion of Mimālal’s. When I tried to ask him a question, he held up his hand to stop me before the words were even formed on my lips.

Mimālal, on the other hand, was overflowing with words. “You won’t believe what happened in Turīsū, by Huusir you won’t! You were right about those reed women! Once they got their claws into him, they tried to rip that magic from his head. But trust me, you don’t want to see what it looks like under that hat.” He was finally silenced when Līwam raised his hand for the third time, and in that silence we followed a raised path through the swamp to Līwam’s house.

By this time I was tired, hungry, thirsty, and burning from the heat. Happily, Līwam was able to meet all four of these needs, and soon we were reclining on couches under his room, bowls of broth and cool wine on the table before us. Once my spirits had recovered, Līwam asked me to tell him everything. Mimālal opened his mouth, but Līwam shook his head, and grumbling to himself Mimālal returned to sipping wine.

I hesitated over how much to tell Līwam, but eventually the unwavering pressure of his eyes forced me to start talking. Choosing to leap over the entirety of my life up until my kidnapping by Mimālal, I told him about my experiences in the house of reeds, much as I have written them here. Līwam nodded, seeming surprised by none of it. I briefly considered making up something utterly ridiculous to see if it was in fact possible to surprise him, but my honesty prevented me.

“Remarkable,” he said when I was done. “I’ll just have to remember not to take your magic by force, won’t I now? But where did you get it in the first place? Why did these fair folk, or supposed fair folk, give it to you?”

“I suppose because I couldn’t speak their language.”

“You might be right.”

“But what about you? Who are you, and why do you care so much about my magic?” I asked him. Mimālal laughed at this, rather rudely, but said nothing. I ignored his rudeness.

“Oh, lots of people want to know who I am,” said Līwam, which didn’t seem a satisfactory answer to me. “And it isn’t just people, not by a long way. But I suppose you’re entitled to know why I’m so curious about that magic of yours. From what I understand, it’s a kind of interpreter, isn’t it?”

“Something like that.”

“Judging by what happened in the house of reeds, it has a few other tricks, but those don’t really matter to me. Interpretation is a wondrous thing, I tell you. When the interpreter tells me that a certain phrase in the language of Dūrī is the same as a certain phrase in the language of Magharun, what does he really mean? Do they bring the same thoughts to mind? But how can that be? Surely I don’t think the same things as you when I see this house of mine, say.”

These were intricate philosophical questions, and I pondered them in silence. Mimālal produced a derisive snort. “It’s all nonsense! Get to the point.”

“Well, that’s what I was doing. The point, as Mimālal would say, is this. There are doors in all our minds through which thoughts pass. Interpreters open these doors clumsily, perhaps, where your magic opens them smoothly. There is a real door, a door of earth and stone, that I need opened, though it’s sealed not by locks but by words in a language that no living man speaks.”

“No living woman, either!” Mimālal added.

“My only hope is that your magic can find those words that we’ve all forgotten and open that door.”

While this made a sort of sense, it had a very fairy-tale feel to it, and I’d heard enough fairy tales to know that some doors were better left unopened. I asked him directly what was behind the door, and as soon as I had finished my question I remembered the countless stories where it was unwise to ask questions about what was behind a door. (As I write this, it occurs to me that there are stories where it is unwise not to ask questions about what is behind a door. I’m not sure what to conclude from all this.)

“Why, if you knew that, all the secrets of Dūrī would be revealed to you. Maybe you’ll find out. I hope you will. But not today.”

“By Ām, Līwam, you can hardly expect him to lend you his magic when he doesn’t know the consequences! For all he knows, there’s a terrible demon that’s going to be loosed on the world if that door opens!” Mimālal exclaimed.

“I trust not, but I judge it worth the price,” said Līwam with an intent look in his eyes. “All I can do is hope to persuade our friend that he should help. Which is to say, that it would be the right thing for him to help. And I suggest that he pay a little visit to the Crocodile’s pool to get a better idea of what things are like in Hiltar.”

“What! I suppose you want me to take him there?”

“Would you prefer that I take Kësil?”

“By Hagū’, what a disaster that would be. All right, all right. Tomorrow we’ll go into town.”

My readers may notice that I had not been consulted at any point during this discussion, and so I asked, “What if I don’t want to go?”

“Oh, you don’t have to go. You can sit here drinking wine until your innards burst, but I don’t think you want that any more than I do. If you want to learn anything about Hiltar, or I suppose about all of Dūrī, really, you should go to the Crocodile’s pool. You really should.”

I agreed, of course. I had only wanted to make sure my own thoughts on the matter weren’t being overlooked. It’s an awful thing to be swept along by the wills of others, and readers of my account thus far will know that I have always gone to great pains to exert my own will.

The three of us spent some time talking about less consequential things: mainly, if I recall correctly, the quality of the hunting in the marshes by Līwam’s house. Līwam took me outside to point out one star that shone especially brightly (I am no astrologer, so I cannot give it its proper name). “That is the Crocodile’s star,” he told me. “It waxes and wanes like the moon, but when it begins to wax again from its weakest point, we know that the Dūrī river is about to overrun its bounds. His power over our land is immense, but I still have hope.”

“Hope for what?” I asked him.

“That it’s nothing more than a passing dream.”

We went back inside, and after some time Līwam retired to his bedroom, but he had only put one foot outside the main room when Mimālal called, “Aren’t you going to tell him about the curse?”

Without turning or pausing, Līwam replied, “It is no curse, but it is a blessing.”

“We’ll see about that,” Mimālal muttered. When I asked the obvious question, he replied, “Oh, this house is an old one, and there are old things hanging around it. I hate sleeping here sometimes, I really do! But it’s cheaper than any of the inns in the city, I’ll tell you that.”

It is, you will understand, with some trepidation that I lay down on the couch to sleep. Mimālal, on the couch opposite, had buried his head in a pile of blankets and would respond to no further questions, so I was left to contemplate the curse on my own. Deciding it was probably a ghost, I resolved to keep my eyes open and my nerves alert, and then promptly fell asleep.

No doubt I had many dreams that I cannot remember, but the one I do remember was this. I was standing in Līwam’s house, but there was water around my feet. In the doorway a man stood facing me and talking, but his words came to me as if from so great a distance that they couldn’t be heard. He reminded me somewhat of Līwam. After a while it occurred to me that he was addressing someone behind me, so I turned and saw a woman with a child in her arms.

More than any other dream I abhor the kind where something terrible, never fully apparent, is steadily approaching me, and in its approach coloring my entire vision with a shadowed fearful gloom. This was one of those dreams. The man was still talking, but there was something in his hand that filled me with dread. For the first time, I understood that the woman was saying something too. “He’s killed you already, and you don’t know it. Please don’t let him kill us, or our son.”

I was startled to realize at that moment that the doorway in which the man stood was not a doorway at all, but rather a gaping mouth with row upon row of teeth. The man seemed sad, somehow, and he bowed his head as the mouth began to close. I was filled with a sudden urge to protect the woman and the child from the doom that was approaching them, but my feet were stuck fast. I held out my hand to them, but they seemed to be further and further away from me. Then the darkness fell over my vision, the breath (warm and cold air intermingled) rushed over me, and with a stifled scream I was awake.

“All you had to tell me was that the curse imparts nightmares to sleepers,” I said to Mimālal, but he was too soundly asleep to hear. At least, I hoped that all the curse did was to impart nightmares to sleepers. Nightmares were harmless, after all. They wouldn’t wither my hands overnight like the curse from some story of which I have forgotten everything except that one detail.

I had no further nightmares, and in the morning I mentioned the matter, not hiding my irritation, to Mimālal and Līwam. “So now you know!” said Mimālal in an unpleasant gloating fashion.

“I am sorry,” said Līwam, who had the decency to be sympathetic, at least. “That dream will not return. Others may come, but there aren’t many as dark as that one.”

“What is its significance?” All dreams have some significance, I have been taught, even if that significance is merely an overlarge dinner troubling the digestion and sending bile up the channels to the brain.

“I’ve lived in this house all my life, which I admit isn’t a great span of time. No more than twenty-five years, if I reckon correctly. Even so I’ve made my mark on it. The dream you saw was my dream, after a manner of speaking. It is my story, but I’m afraid I won’t say more until you’ve been to Hiltar.”

After a disappointingly light breakfast, Līwam rowed Mimālal and me across the pond, and we made our way back through the marsh to the city. “They only let visitors see the pool at certain times of day,” Mimālal informed me. “The lesser priests say it has something to do with where the sun is in the sky. The higher priests say something altogether different.”

“Oh? What do they say?” I asked, more because he seemed to expect a response than out of actual curiosity.

“Ha!” he replied, rather scornfully. Perhaps he hadn’t expected a response after all. “Won’t you be surprised when you hear them say it!”

“There is one priest in particular I’d like to meet. Umrāma’ and Umralīsa’s father, Luāra‘.”

“Those girls sent you to him, did they? Of course they did! When all else fails, go ask your father!”

“Have you met him? What kind of a man is he?”

“Not the kind of man who can be summed up in ten words! He’s more like Umrāma’ than Umralīsa, I’ll say that much. Don’t underestimate him, or any of the Hiltar priests. By the Crocodile! They’ll have you strung up by your tongue if you do!”

This wasn’t encouraging, and indeed it made me reconsider my plan of talking with Luāra‘ at all. But I’d given my word to Umrāma’, and as I believe I’ve mentioned before, I would never break my word.

Hiltar was sensibly built on top of a hill rising out of the marsh, and as we ascended the path up the hill, I looked up at the city and realized that it looked like a bonnet or some ridiculous hat perched atop an otherwise bald head. It was so sudden and unexpected an image that I couldn’t help but laugh, at which Mimālal shook his head and remarked, “They’re going to have you strung up by your tongue.” I didn’t understand this at the time. Which is not to say I understand it now, not really, but at least I know why he said it at that juncture.

It is not uncommon, of course, for gates and doors to have some kind of carved guardian, but I was not fully prepared for the images that stood above the main gate of Hiltar. They did not significantly resemble the images I had seen in other Dūrī cities, curving and bending in realistic rather than stiff poses. The one on the left depicted a man with his head thrown back in laughter, pointing out at the viewer. The one on the right depicted a creature whose head was that of a crocodile but which became a coiled snake further down. I didn’t care for either of them, and I felt distinctly uncomfortable as I walked underneath them.

There were a few watchmen at the gates, but all they said to us was, “Have you seen a man with one ear?”

Mimālal kept on walking without paying them any mind, but I, not wanting to be rude, said that I hadn’t.

“Well, of course not! You see with your eyes, not your ear!”

This was apparently a joke of some kind. But even if it had been wittier than it had the misfortune to be, I wasn’t accustomed to hearing such gags from watchmen, and I boggled at them, having no idea what to say in reply, until Mimālal pulled me away. “I’m telling you, don’t pay them any mind. They want you to be confused!”

“But why?” I asked, and I believe I was still boggling.

“By the Crocodile if I know! Līwam knows; ask him!” Mimālal was quiet for a minute or so as we walked, then he said in a new and quieter voice, “Sometimes I think I understand, late at night. But I don’t like it! And I certainly can’t explain it!”

I will admit here that I never did figure out what the point of all their jokes was. I rather suspect it was something like the practice of those theurgists who envision an angelic Shimas in order to acquire its attributes and divinity, but it’s beyond me what kind of Shimas would be conjured up by all these ridiculous jokes.

“So where are we going first?” I asked him.

“What time is it?”

I squinted up at the sun, held up my hand roughly parallel with the horizon, and pondered. “What month is it?” I wondered out loud.

Mimālal went over to a sundial that sat in the middle of the street. There were, of course, stone crocodiles running up and down the sides of the pillar on which it rested. There was a particular motif that prevailed throughout Hiltar, and I trust my readers don’t need me to explain in detail what it was. “It’s the ninth hour,” he said.

I explained that I hadn’t seen the sundial there, but he wasn’t paying me any attention.

“The ninth hour,” he said again, “so we have an hour still. Well, let’s pay Luāra‘ a visit! I’m sure he’ll have something remarkable to say! He must have it all written down somewhere so he’s ready whenever he has visitors. By the Crocodile, I’m sure he does!”

“You’ve met him before?”

“I know every priest in Hiltar, and Luāra‘’s the worst of the bunch. He lives this way,” said Mimālal with a vague gesture towards a side street. “But I don’t think we’ll find him at home! At this time of day, he’ll be drinking wine like a fish drinks water.”

I followed Mimālal to a porch where several men were sitting, drinking as they spoke to one another. Their heads were all shaved as bald as stones, leaving them with an oddly infantile appearance. But their conversation was certainly not infantile, peppered as it was with a variety of vulgar phrases. Mimālal came up to one of these men, sat down beside him, and clapped him on the shoulder. “Luāra‘! By the Crocodile, you’re uglier than ever!”

Luāra‘ stood up, ignoring Mimālal, and walked over to where I was awkwardly standing. “Here’s a fine game for us to play,” he said. “Who would you be, I wonder?”

“My name is Kësil,” I said, and gave him the tokens from his daughters. Or rather, I spent a great deal of time fishing in my pocket for the tokens, while Luāra‘ smiled pleasantly and silently at me. Eventually I did manage to find both and pass them over to him, explaining their provenance as I did.

“And how are my lovely daughters doing?”

“They seemed well. Umrāma’ said to tell you that the fish is too large for the net.”

“That’s the risk a fisherman must take, wouldn’t you say? Give me your hand.” I did, and he examined it so closely that I began to think I had hitherto been the unwitting possessor of some manual deformity. But he only laughed and dropped it. “The Crocodile has swallowed many great fish in his time. Indeed, he’s swallowed the greatest fish of all, if you take my meaning.”

“I don’t,” I said. I saw that Mimālal was shaking his head at me, but I didn’t take his meaning either.

My attention had by this point been drawn away from the cup of wine that Luāra‘ held in his other hand. It was drawn sharply back when Luāra‘ lifted up the cup and threw its contents into my face. The sour sweet aroma filled my nostrils as the liquid dripped down my chin. It was all very unpleasant.

“Do you understand now?” asked Luāra‘. I did not. If anything, I understood less than I had before. “Has the door opened for you? No? Well, give it time.”

At this point I might have said something rash, but Mimālal interrupted. “Now if you ask me, I think Kësil wants to know why you hired me to bring him here to start with! I’d be spitting mad if I didn’t know that! But Kësil’s more patient than what’s good for him.”

Luāra‘ stared at me, the humor gone from his face, then he shrugged his slender shoulders and said, “There is nothing I loathe more than a reasonable argument. Very well. Come inside.”

Inside was not, as I had expected, the interior of the hall behind us, but rather a small stuffy room on the other side of the street, which seemed to be inhabited by us three and a cat. The animal was unperturbed by our arrival, and I felt compelled to scratch it behind the ears as Luāra‘ spoke.

“My wife died when our daughters were young,” he said. This was unfortunate, but I didn’t see what it had to do with the portents and doom I had been promised. “As you can imagine, it affected Umralīsa and Umrāma’ deeply. Both of them, when they came of age, decided to go north to Turīsū to study at the house of reeds. You can understand their reasons, I hope.

“As for the women of the house of reeds, they’re nothing more than clowns!” I licked the last of the wine off my lips and said nothing. It did not seem tactful at the moment. “They try to seize creation for themselves, but we know the truth of things. We know that all creation is one, and we with it, so there is no need to force it to our whims. The Petárir, they say, have a similar doctrine, but there it is the men who judge the omens and the women who accept the unity. They’re a strange folk, wouldn’t you say?”

I explained that I had only the vaguest notion of the Petárir themselves, let alone their magical practices.

“Really? How on earth have you spent your time, then? No, please don’t answer that. I don’t have the slightest interest in what order you put your sandals on in the morning. What was I talking about, again? The house of reeds, wasn’t it? Some months ago, as they were playing with their sticks, they stumbled across a prophecy concerning Hiltar. Really, concerning the Crocodile. You know and I know that the Crocodile can never truly be in peril, but rather we are in peril of an occlusion that hides his visible self from us.” Luāra‘ was frowning very deeply by now. In hindsight, I suspect that keeping up this serious tone was taking a toll on him. No doubt it was very difficult for him to avoid cracking a joke with every sentence.

“The ridiculous part of the prophecy was this: it spelled out in great detail that there was a man across the sea whom we needed if we wanted to keep the Crocodile apparent. His name was Kësil, of all things, and he would carry with him the only magic that could prevent the occlusion.” Luāra‘’s eyes flickered up to the hat that covered the Bird. “Now Kësil is here, and so is his magic. Wouldn’t it be an absurd thing if he simply went back home?”

I laughed, but it hadn’t been a joke, leaving me somewhat embarrassed. “Well,” I said, regaining my usual aplomb. “I suppose it would be. But then again, I do have friends back home, close friends that I want to see again.”

“And you will, I assure you. Let’s go see the Crocodile now!” He tugged on my arm as if we were two children, and reluctantly I followed him, further up the street into Hiltar, to a spot that I judged to be near the center of the city. It was, at least, at the top of the hill, where a grand structure had been built around a pool of water. The structure was open after the fashion of so many Dūrī buildings, consisting of rows of columns that supported no roof, but rose to their capitals and then stopped. “A beautiful roof, isn’t it?” Luāra‘ asked as if guessing my thoughts.

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. You’re a fool. The roof of the Crocodile’s dwelling is the sky itself, blessed Shāmak who kisses her husband Fili with moist kisses. But they are both his. Hurry, hurry! There’s a crowd already. It’s a lot more crowded here than it should be. You’d think the Crocodile would keep their numbers down.”

While there was indeed a crowd beginning to gather, men and women and children all chanting in low tones, Luāra‘ pushed his way through without much effort, opening a space for Mimālal and me to follow. I noticed that he was not especially gentle with the women and children, and once or twice I objected, but he ignored me.

We came to the columns and then to the pool they surrounded. It was a sizable body of water, but murky, and I could not see to the bottom. I stood there looking into the water, wondering vaguely if some sort of epiphany was supposed to descend on me. Then Luāra‘ slapped me on the back and I fell in.

I had this comfort, at least: the water was warm, not like the icy pools of my own home. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much else to comfort me. It was very deep, and though I knew enough to keep my mouth shut, I splashed and floundered, sinking and pulling myself up again, until my chest began to hurt. I had an impression that Luāra‘ was laughing uproariously at me.

Then I was aware of a vast shape, seemingly larger than the pool that contained it, black and in the form of a long creature with limbs and a tail. It coiled around me, and yet in its shadows I saw light. I’m not sure how to describe it properly. I’m not even sure I remember it properly. All I can write here is that I saw, in the depths of that murky water, the sun.

My hat had come off in the water, and I could feel the Bird clutching to my scalp. I heard a deep voice, and by that I mean that it was deeper than thunder. My ears ached and my bones trembled. I will record what the voice said to the best of my ability, but for the first time I believe my Bird failed me, and the words that I heard came through some other medium, neither by ear or by the influence of the Bird.

“Comest thou, mortal child, with thy fruit of a tree that is not yet? This realm is mine; I have taken it by mine own cunning; it shall be mine forever. The world hath no end, nor do I. I have but to blink, and it perisheth. I breathe, and it liveth. Thou art already in my jaws. Thou wilt come to me again, and all that is thine will be seen to be mine, from thy feet to thy fruit of a tree that is not yet.”

Or something along those lines. I admit I have no idea what any of it means, though I gather that the entity I spoke to was a spirit of immense power. I also gather that I was beginning to lose consciousness from my prolonged lack of air. At any rate, the next thing I remember is lying on the stone floor next to the pool, staring up at the unpleasant, but at that moment welcome, visage of Mimālal.

“I am sorry,” Luāra‘ was saying in a voice that did not strike me as especially regretful. “I only meant to give Kësil a friendly pat on the back. If I had known he was so easy to push over, why, I would have shoved him even harder!”

“What was that thing?” I managed to gasp. I was still not fully back to my normal articulate self.

“It’s never pleasant to meet a god: even a pleasant god! Even a god who dreams the other gods!” I became aware that Luāra‘ was staring at the top of my head in much the same way that a dog would stare at an especially tantalizing cut of meat. Mimālal handed me my hat, and although it was sopping wet, I replaced it on my head.

I naturally wondered whether there was some sort of purification I had to go through after such close contact with the Dūrī god, but both Luāra‘ and Mimālal assured me that there wasn’t. “For other gods, yes, but not the Crocodile,” said Luāra‘. “What purification do you think could cleanse you from the world itself? No, there is no cleansing. You must push on through until you find yourself to be clean.” Whatever significance that had, if any, it was lost on me.

But Luāra‘ offered to apologize by buying me enough wine to fill the Crocodile’s pool. Although I assumed this was hyperbole, it wasn’t an offer I was about to turn down. At least, not until Mimālal tugged on my arm and led me a short distance away to whisper in my ear, “I wouldn’t accept wine from him, if I were you, not by Palātū! All his kind have an odd sense of humor! You might find yourself hanging from your ankles at the top of an obelisk. Don’t laugh! I’ve seen it done!”

So I returned to Luāra‘ and refused as politely as I could. Luāra‘ didn’t seem offended. Indeed, he seemed to think it was funny. “What sort of lies has Mimālal been telling about me? But let me tell you a little something about him. It’s only fair, isn’t it? The house of reeds hired him to steal you from your home in the north. That hermit in the marsh, what’s his name again? It doesn’t matter. He persuaded Mimālal to bring you there for a chat. But who do you think is truly guiding his course? Who do you think has eyes on him wherever he goes?”

This seemed like a rhetorical question, but Luāra‘ paused for long enough that I began considering possible answers. “The king of Dūrī?” I guessed.

“What?”

I decided to go with my second answer. “The priests of Hiltar?”

“He means the Crocodile,” said Mimālal. “In Hiltar they make the Crocodile as big as they can.”

“If that was the Crocodile I saw in that pool, he seemed big enough to me.”

Luāra‘ began to laugh, and between fits he managed to say in a choked voice, “What you saw was only the tiniest glimpse! A fool held up his fingers, peered at the holy mountains through the gap, and said they were smaller than he had heard! Go and eat and drink and be comfortable, but don’t forget you’re in the light reflecting off his scales!”

“I never do,” said Mimālal. “There are some things I’d like to remind you, but never mind! Never mind any of that!”

It is entirely possible that at this point an enlightening religious and philosophical debate ensued between Mimālal and Luāra‘; however, I was distracted. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman with strikingly blonde hair pass by, and my readers will understand why I abandoned my companions to pursue her.

But, and this is without a doubt the greatest disappointment I have experienced in my life, when I called out to her and she turned around, I saw that her face was not that of Rosédan. In fact, it was neither the face nor the form of a woman at all, even if the man did have a slender build. I apologized and explained myself, with some embarrassment. It is always awkward to have one’s sex mistaken, even if it does provide a useful way to escape an Ikkësa camp. (I will explain this another time, perhaps.)

“But this woman must be very remarkable indeed,” he said. “There are few in this world who combine this shade of hair with this shade of skin. And you must be very remarkable as well. There are few in this world who speak this language.”

“Her name is Rosédan,” I said.

“There is no one I know by that name. I am sorry, and I hope you find her.” He looked down, his hands poised delicately above his waist. “Tell me, where did you learn to speak the tongue of the Mimiris̱?”

“It is a gift of mine to be able to speak many languages,” I said.

“A remarkable gift, and one that must open many doors for you. I have many friends who would like to meet you.”

While I enjoy meeting people, generally speaking, I was fairly busy with Mimālal and the Crocodile and all that business, and I said so, though not in those exact words.

“And I would like to learn more about this Rosédan,” he said. His words were unobjectionable, I suppose, but there was something about the way he said them that I did not like. “Maybe we’re kin, she and I. Maybe I’ll be able to help you find her.”

“She is from very far away,” I replied, but I was tempted. I had yet to encounter the slightest lead as to where Rosédan had gone, and so although this lead was very slight indeed, it was better than nothing.

“Remarkable. I came here to consult the Crocodile, but I learned nothing of value, at least before now. It is no long distance to my home; no doubt you’ve heard of the Holy Island?”

I had heard of many holy islands, but couldn’t be sure which one he meant, so I made an ambiguous gesture.

“I can show you the history of my people, and it may be that you will find some hint as to where your Rosédan has gone. I too am interested in finding her.”

It occurred to me then that I was technically Umrālīsa’’s slave the last I had heard, though I was not sure of my exact legal status at the moment, nor was I sure of the consequences if I simply ran off to this holy island. Probably I should have asked Umrālīsa’ before I left Turīsū, but it had escaped my mind. “When do you leave Hiltar?” I asked him. “Where can I find you?”

“I’m staying in a house down that way,” he said, pointing north. “They call it the house of three toads for some reason that only the crazy priests of Hiltar know. Come tell me when you’ve made up your mind.”

When I turned around again, both Mimālal and Luāra‘ had disappeared, so I went back up the hill to the Crocodile’s pool and stared into it, wondering about the power that lurked down in its depths. “I’ll tell you this,” I said out loud. “I don’t plan on giving you my Bird.”

It may have been my imagination, but I am certain I felt the earth shake under my feet. (Līwam has told me it was almost certainly my imagination, though I am not so sure.) Alarmed, I walked away in a fashion that I like to think combined perfect dignity with understandable haste. Mimālal was waiting for me at the bottom of the hill. “I thought you’d disappeared,” he grumbled. “When I think of what the Hiltar priests think is funny, my hair stands on end, by every god in heaven and earth it does!”

“No need to worry that they strung me up by my tongue or anything of that nature. I only met a man from a place called Mimiris̱.”

“One of them?” Mimālal seemed even more shocked than he normally did. “Now what was he doing here? They don’t like us much, by Tihāsū they don’t!”

I pondered how I should introduce the subject of my legal status into the conversation, and if given more time I have no doubt that I would have come up with some appropriately subtle way, but seeing that Mimālal was about to go into a rant about something or other, I forestalled him. “Am I still Umrālīsa’’s slave?” I asked. It was, I admit, a low point in my generally more sophisticated history of repartee.

“Oh, of course!” Mimālal said, striking his forehead. “By the god Pa’, I had forgotten. We had you manumitted some days ago.” This was a weight off my mind. I felt like a man again, not merely a donkey to be passed from one owner to another with my burden of magic.

“He looked like Rosédan.”

“Who is Rosédan?” Mimālal struck his forehead again, then rubbed it. “That girl you were looking for! What? Do you think they’re kin or something?”

“Maybe so, maybe not. I plan to go to his island with him to find out one way or another.”

“You’re going to the holy island? By Tiħāsū! The Holy Island of the Mimiris̱? You’re in for a surprise if you do!”

“Have you been there?”

“I haven’t! Not in person! But everyone in Dūrī, from Hiltar to the Pillars of Nāri’, knows about that island. Most sacred places have some story or other, so you know why they’re sacred. But not that place! If there is a story, it’s too terrible for common ears like yours or mine.” He scratched at his beard. “By the Crocodile, I wonder what Līwam would say. I almost think he’d want you to go! Well, I told you you’re not a slave. Do what you like. Go back to Edazzo, if you want. I don’t think you do! You’re after your Rosédan, am I right?”

He was, but I didn’t tell him that.

“No, it’s not me you need to worry about. It’s Lurāra and his cronies! Now that you’re here, they don’t want you to leave. By Tiħāsū, they don’t!”

“And how do they intend to forestall me from going wherever I please?” I asked.

“Hiltar is the Crocodile!”

This was not enlightening. I expressed my puzzlement in words.

“Go down to your Mimiris̱ friend and tell him you’re ready to leave Hiltar. Then see what happens! Just watch!”

So I did. It didn’t take me that long to find the house of three toads, considering that I was in an entirely foreign city. The sun had barely fallen behind the horizon in the west, in fact. The Mimiris̱ man with the blond hair was sitting on the threshold outside, a cloak wrapped around his body against the cool air from the north. I greeted him, and he returned the greeting. At least, I think that’s what he meant by saying, “Overleap the double-headed bull, my friend.” I would learn that all the Mimiris̱ expressed themselves in these riddling terms, which all remained well beyond my grasp. I still don’t know if this was a failure on the Bird’s part or my own.

“Likewise,” I said, hoping I wasn’t being unfathomably rude. “But I am ready to go with you now. Or in the morning, or whenever is convenient.”

“Oh, that is good. I was planning to leave with my Samara brothers tomorrow. I doubt they’ll mind if you come along with us. A remarkable people, the Samara. No fiercer enemy, no better friend. They remember things we’ve forgotten; we remember things they’ve forgotten. Stay here tonight, if you have nowhere else. They have plenty of beds.”

That sounded better than Līwam’s cursed house (though of course there was no possibility of my making it back through the marsh in the rapidly diminishing light), so I agreed. The other guests at the house of three toads all appeared to be pilgrims of one sort or another, having come from various lands to visit the Crocodile. I asked them what they thought of what they had seen, and received a variety of answers.

“He’s a mighty god,” one man said. “He’s sure to give me a good wife.”

“I don’t understand the priests,” another complained. “All I wanted to do was make an offering, but they kept asking me ridiculous questions. What does it matter whether I use my left or my right hand to eat?”

“I have seen the terror behind the still water.” Now this was a complaint that I could understand. “It’s a nightmare, and I’ll never wake up.”

“What about you?” I asked my Mimiris̱ friend. His name, I had learned, was Iddan. “You saw the Crocodile, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t,” he said, surprising me. “I had no need to visit that cursed pool.” (Since no one reacted to his choice of words, he must have been speaking his own language, not that of Dūrī.)

“Then why did you come to Hiltar?”

“I came to consult the Crocodile’s power, not he himself.”

I was puzzled by this. “Is it possible to consult a god’s power without consulting the god himself?” As I may have mentioned, I worship no lesser gods, but I do at times invoke the Shimas, whose power cannot be separated from their own being.

Iddan chuckled. “I don’t mean his magical power. How absurd! I mean his reputation. You can see how Hiltar draws all the tribes of the earth to see the Crocodile. I had hoped that perhaps I would meet, well, someone I want very much to meet.”

“So we’re alike, then.”

“More than you know,” he said, but didn’t bother explaining his enigmatic remark any, and it didn’t seem worth it to inquire further.

The next morning there was a curious incident as we walked down to meet with Iddan’s Samara friends. A group of bald-headed priests began walking alongside us, then slightly ahead of us. Then they began to skip, like lambs in the spring or like young children, and it was utterly ridiculous to see their bare legs flashing out from under their tunics as they pranced.

“Here we go, here we go,” they sang, “here we go to gather flowers.” (I trust that the meter was better in the genuine Dūrī song.)

My intention was to ignore them and hope they went away, but Iddan demonstrated less patience. “Are you crazy?” he demanded. “Leave us alone, will you?”

“Leave us, leave us, leave us in a soup bowl and go away! Leave us in a bit of bread and go away!”

“They are crazy, I think,” I said to him in a low voice. “And I don’t believe they intend to leave us alone.”

“Oh, so far they seem harmless enough. Just annoying, that’s all.”

I doubted that they would stay harmless for long, especially as we were approaching the water and several of the larger ships were drawing into view. Already the priests were coming uncomfortably close to me, their chanting like a roaring in my ears. Suddenly one of them cuffed me behind the head, and I fell down with my skull aching. “What’s this?” he cried. “Tired of our hospitality already? Tell me, what did we do to offend you?”

In my dazed state, I must have briefly confused Iddan for Rosédan and asked him to use his magic to help. “If I had any magic, you can bet I’d use it,” someone said. It must have been Iddan.

I remember more clearly after that. The situation was not quite a brawl, mainly because a brawl requires the two sides be more or less equal. We were surrounded by the priests, of whom there were six or so. I was sitting on the ground next to a crouching Iddan, bringing our numbers to two. Obviously the situation called for diplomacy, for words rather than fists. I stood up and addressed our foes.

“What are you doing?” I asked them, reasonably enough I think. “We came to Hiltar freely; why not let us go freely?”

“He thinks he came here freely! He thinks the Crocodile didn’t bring him here with a twitch of that mighty tail! What a fool!” And they all laughed. “Attend closely to this. There once was a bird that sat on a tree and whistled and sang, ‘Now listen to me! I fly where I want and say what I will, but He pulls my wings and opens my bill!’ You can’t escape the Crocodile! You can’t even think about escaping him! What do you think you are? You’re nothing more than a glint on his scales!”

This was all thoroughly disturbing, and as absurd as it sounds, at that moment I was half-convinced that it was all true and that the Crocodile I had seen could be identified with the Flame that burns in all things, if the Crocodile was not in fact greater. Maybe both gloomy Beast and bright Flame were encompassed by that shadow in the pool.

“I don’t think so,” said Iddan. “Some of us remember that there was a time before the Crocodile came to Dūrī. Some of us remember that there is life outside of him. I hope you will too, eventually.”

“We have an old man here! Why don’t you go home and sit by the wall so your grandchildren can feed you with a spoon?”

“That,” said Iddan, “is what we’re both trying to do.”

“Too late for that, old man. What we’re trying to do is have some fun.”

There is a saying in my homeland that tells us: let he who is surrounded by the Tari wear Tari clothes. I am fairly certain that Tari is our name for Dūrī, so all in all the saying was good advice for my current situation. I stood up, brushed the dirt off myself, and said in as calm a voice as I could manage, “He can snap up a bird in his jaws, but can he swallow the feathers?”

The priests looked at one another, then at me. “What?” one of them asked, speaking, I think, for them all.

“He can outglare the sun, but can he wink at the moon?”

“What does that mean?” the priest asked. Even Iddan was looking at me strangely.

“He can go for a swim in the ocean, but can he count the fish?” I had the feeling that I was losing them. They were looking at one another in bafflement, and I couldn’t blame them. It is very hard to act like a fool when one is decidedly not a fool oneself. I settled upon a different tactic. “Look!” I said. “Here comes Luāra‘.”

They actually looked back, which only goes to prove something or other that I’ve been pondering since that day but haven’t quite figured out yet. I nodded to Iddan, who seemed as nonplussed as I, and we ran away, down to the ship where the Samara were waiting for us.

The Samara were strange, but not nearly as strange as the Hiltar priests, so they seemed normal by contrast. They were impressed that I seemed to speak their language and treated me, like Iddan, as a kind of long-lost kinsman. We heard their haunting songs and ate their food and, before we came to the Holy Island of the Mimiris̱, I almost forgot that we were fleeing the Crocodile.