The river rounded a bend, and I came around it and saw an a.s.sortment of women, all young from the look and sound of them, standing knee deep or near the sh.o.r.e. They appeared to be was.h.i.+ng clothes.

The outfits they themselves wore were almost entirely white. White, wide-sleeved robes, it seemed, with the bottoms hiked up and tucked into wide sashes or belts wrapped around their waists. Beneath those they sported loose white leggings that came down to the knees. Furthermore, on their heads they wore extremely curious, wide-brimmed hats that were so flat they looked like large plates that came to a point.

I couldn't be sure, but it seemed that the hats were constructed from that same material that the staff trees were made of.

There were a few children there as well, dressed in simple one-piece knee-length white tunics, splas.h.i.+ng about or playing quietly as their elders tended to their wash and chatted amongst themselves in a language I couldn't even begin to comprehend. It was rapid-fire and extremely guttural. I had no idea what to make of it, but knew that if that was all they spoke around here, I was going to have some problems. I was able to pick up languages fairly quickly, but I was a stranger in a strange land, and it would have been nice to be able to communicate withsomeone. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't necessarily a disaster, even as I noted that their skin color was slightly different from mine. More of an odd tint. Slightly yellow, it seemed. I reasoned that perhaps they had some sort of vitamin deficiency that caused their skin to retain such a curious hue.

Then one of the women happened to glance in my direction, and she gasped, as did I. The poor creature was deformed. Something was disastrously wrong with her eyes, or perhaps her eyelids. They looked almost slitted, although they opened wide enough upon spotting me. Certainly, I reasoned, it was some strange and unfortunate birth defect that had caused this to come to pa.s.s. My heart immediatelywent out to her in a way that only someone who was born deformed could possibly feel.

She cried out something in her native tongue, and the others turned and looked at me as well.

They all looked like her. So did the children.

I stepped back, gasping, horrified. It was far worse than I had thought. I had wandered into something akin to a leper colony. Some place where people who had been born with this disfiguring condition had been sequestered so others wouldn't have to look upon them and be as thoroughly disconcerted as I.

They were all shouting by that point. They looked no less stunned to see me than I was to see them.

The children were calling to their mothers and pointing to me and to their own eyes in obvious bewilderment. The women were shaking their heads, gesturing helplessly, having no answer to give their inquisitive youngsters.

That's when it finally dawned upon me. I wasn't in some area where deformed people had been cast out from a more round-eyed society.Everyone in this land looked that way. As far as they were concerned,I was the freak. They were probably more right than I was. After all, I had never seen anyone who looked the way they did, but they had apparently never seen anyone like me, and there were a lot more of them than there were of me.

Then I heard more voices, deeper, rougher, male. They were coming from the field all around me, and I felt the situation was deteriorating rapidly. I started to turn with the intent of heading back down the river, and suddenly my retreat was cut off, because the males of whatever-they-were had emerged with stunning silence from the fields behind me. There were five of them, of varying ages, and they seemed no happier to see me than I was to see them.

They were obviously warriors, holding some sort of weapons that were totally alien to me. They were gleaming steel, held by handles not unlike daggers. They were longer than daggers, though, but shorter than short swords. They looked somewhat like miniature tridents, but the p.r.o.ngs weren't of equal length.

A spike protruded from the middle, and the guard consisted of two smaller, upturned twists of metal, one on either side.

Everyone was talking at once, and naturally I didn't understand a d.a.m.ned word any of them was saying. On the other hand, I knew an attack when I saw one. They were advancing slowly, babbling to each other, moving in a tight formation. I didn't like the odds I was facing. Generally any odds greater than one against one, with my opponent having his back to me and being oblivious of my presence, was more than I liked to handle. In this instance, although I was at a distinct numerical disadvantage, they were all smaller than I was. But I wasn't ruling out the possibility--with their uncannily different faces--that they might actually be magic-based creatures, capable of doing who-knew-what to me.

I reached around to my back and yanked free my sword. They jumped back, startled, as the blade whipped around, and I held it in a guard position. "Just keep your distance!" I shouted, shoving my cloak over one shoulder to clear my sword arm.

As I did that, the little boat I'd picked up downstream fell out of the inner lining of my cloak. It clattered to the sh.o.r.e and lay there.

I heard an exclamation of joy and turned just in time to see a small girl dash toward me, oblivious to any chance of danger that might be presenting itself. Obviously it was her boat. Her mother cried out toher, grabbing for her, but she easily eluded her grasp and darted over toward me. Everyone was shouting, and I kept hearing "Jun!," which was either her name or "Get the h.e.l.l away from the man with the huge sword!" in their tongue. Whichever it was, she blissfully ignored it, indicating that either she was an independent thinker or else stone deaf.

She ran right up to the boat, not more than a foot or so away from me. If I'd been of a mind to, I could have whacked her head off with one blow. Instead I simply stood there, sword still poised, but making no move toward her. Why in the world would I have done so? I was no slaughterer of innocents.

All right, technically, Iwas a slaughterer of innocents, but I'd had a bad year.

The child picked up her boat and smiled, clearly happy to have recovered her toy, which had apparently gone sailing away from her. Then she turned and looked up at me and grinned. I suppose I should have grinned back, but instead I just stared at her, not quite knowing what to make of her and the whole situation.

Then she startled me as she briskly slapped her arms to either side of her body and bowed stiffly at the waist.

I wasn't about to lower my sword. This still didn't have the makings of a friendly encounter.

Nevertheless, while keeping my weapon in a guard position, I stiffly mimicked her bow. She bowed once more. I bowed once more. Seemingly satisfied with that, she splashed back across the shallow river to the woman whom I a.s.sumed to be either her mother or elder sister.

By that point all the cross-talking and incomprehensible chitchat had ceased. Instead silence hung in the air, as the people were clearly uncertain of what I wanted, and I didn't have a clue what they wanted.

And we didn't have the language skills to bridge that gap, or so I thought.

Then one of the men took a step or two toward me."Hunh," he said, not so much a comment of general bewilderment as it was a sort of noise to get my attention. To announce that an attempt at communication was about to be made.

He indicated the sword in my hand, mimed stabbing with it, and then shook his head in a firm negative manner. One of the women I remembered had likewise shaken her head. It was comforting to know that there were some universal constants, and shaking one's head to indicate a negative was apparently one of them.

His meaning was clear: They were off-put by my sword. They wanted me to put it down or sheathe it.

They considered it a potential means of attack.

Which it b.l.o.o.d.y well was, of course. They were armed as well, remember, with their pointy steel sticks of death. I wasn't about to leave myself vulnerable to a.s.sault. So I shook my head vigorously and said for emphasis, even though I know they didn't understand the words, "I'm not lowering my guard.

You have weapons, too, you know," and I pointed at the lethal objects they were carrying.

There were bewildered expressions for a moment as they exchanged looks. Then one of the men, an older fellow whose hair was as straight black as the others, seemed to "understand" something. I doubted he suddenly spoke my language, so I waited.

He held up his "lethal fork" and I raised my blade in automatic defense."Hunh," he said once more.

Then he said something in his language that I couldn't hope to comprehend while pointing at his own weapon. I shook my head to indicate I had no idea what he was saying. For some reason he spokelouder and more slowly as if addressing one who was either deaf or stupid or both. Again I shook my head.

Everyone was watching the fellow, apparently waiting for him to get across to me whatever it was he was trying to say. Then he went down to one knee upon the sh.o.r.e and slowly drew the points of his weapon along the ground, churning up the dirt. Watching me intently as he did so, he then took the weapon and stabbed the longest p.r.o.ng straight down, making a small hole. Then he held his hand over the hole and waggled his fingers, as if he were sprinkling something into it.

I watched him blankly for a long moment.

He pointed at the hole in the dirt and then at the white stalks that stood upright nearby.

And d.a.m.n me if I didn't suddenly, in a burst of comprehension, understand what he was saying.

Those things they were carrying weren't weapons. They were farming implements. They used them as miniature hoes to turn the ground and dig holes, into which they would then drop seeds, from which these stalks had grown.

Warriors, my a.s.s. These weren't warriors. These were farmers.

"Hunh!"I said, as much as in an amused laugh as anything else. Very slowly, hoping I wasn't making a disastrous mistake, I sheathed my sword. Watching me put my weapon away, they visibly relaxed. There was still tension in the air, but it seemed as if the immediate threat had pa.s.sed.

The same man who had so deftly mimed the planting of seeds then spoke to me once again. He gestured widely, pointing in various directions, looking at me and shrugging in bewilderment. But it was an "artsy" sort of bewilderment, meant to put across a mind-set. Clearly he was inquiring from whereabouts I had come, since I was so obviously foreign to their land.

My mind raced, and then I suddenly turned to the girl who had so fearlessly approached me earlier. I snapped my fingers to gain her attention and gestured that she should come back toward me. She automatically started to do so, but her mother briefly restrained her. The man said something though in a soothing tone, his hands palm down, apparently putting across to her that everything was going to be all right. Clearly as a matter of trust--perhaps the man was her husband or some other relation--she released the girl.

The child came toward me and I went down to one knee at the water's edge. I put out my hand and pointed at the girl's boat. She hesitated only a moment, then handed it over to me. I held it upon the water's surface, pointed at the boat, then pointed at me. The man's face clouded for a moment, but then cleared and he nodded in understanding: I had been a pa.s.senger on a sailing vessel.

Obviously I wasn't about to go into detail as to specifically what had transpired to s.h.i.+pwreck me.

Even if I spoke their language, I doubt I could have made them understand it.I barely understood it.

Instead I simply indicated the s.h.i.+p cruising along, and then suddenly angled it sharply downward and pushed it under the water, conveying the notion that my vessel had gone down. He nodded excitedly to show his comprehension. I then mimed swimming gestures, gasped deeply to indicate exhaustion, and then walked two fingers in a staggering fas.h.i.+on up onto the riverbank to put across that I had made it to sh.o.r.e.

The man spoke in a loud tone, not to me but to his people. Obviously he was explaining to them, forany who might be mime-impaired, the short version of my ordeal. There were oohs and aahs and gasps of comprehension and--could it even be?--pity for what I had gone through. A foreigner with a strange face, surviving a disastrous voyage and managing to make it to sh.o.r.e of an unknown land. It was a dramatic notion, certainly, and one that served to make me a most sympathetic figure.

The most pleasant aspect of the whole thing was that it wasn't a lie. That was a nice change of pace.

Many were the times I'd had to come up with some sort of fabrication to gain the sympathy of someone new I'd encountered. In this instance, the truth of what I'd endured was terrible enough.

The man shoved his farming implement into his belt and came toward me. His movements were not the least bit tentative, but instead open and welcoming. He stopped a few feet shy of me and I watched carefully, not wanting to make any sudden moves. My impulse was to stick out a hand to shake his, but for all I knew such a gesture would be perceived as a threat of some sort. It would be just my luck to frighten or insult these people when I was on the cusp of finessing my way through the situation.

He brought his hands around and placed them palm to palm, fingers straight up in front of him. Then he bowed in a manner similar to the way the girl had done. Slowly I got to my feet with the aid of my staff, having been down on one knee all this time, and handed the toy boat back to the child. I imitated the bowing gesture. Then, deciding to take the chance, I slowly extended my right hand, palm sideways.

He stared at it, then mimicked the gesture with his hand so that it paralleled my own. We stood there for a moment, both our hands sticking out, looking rather ridiculous. So I brought my hand over to his, wrapped it around his gently but firmly, and slowly shook it up and down in the traditional gesture of "my people" to show that neither of us had weapons in our hands.

His expression was one of utter befuddlement, and then several women laughed at the really rather humorous look on his face. This prompted him to laugh as well, and he started to shake my own hand more emphatically. So emphatically, in fact, that our hands jerked up and down in a far greater arc than was standard for a handshake. I didn't let it concern me, though, since the primary intent was clear.

And so it was that I fell in with a village of farmers in a foreign land. People who knew nothing of my checkered past. Who didn't know me as a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, or a knight of dubious reputation, or a vicious warlord who had laid waste to more cities than he could possibly count. A man who had ruined hundreds of lives and cut a swath of destruction through the world, leaving misery and unhappiness in his wake. A man who had been desired dead by just about everyone he'd ever met in his life.

Here I was just a stranger, a refugee, a man who had survived a terrible mishap when his s.h.i.+p had foundered, and yet had managed to endure. They appreciated my stubborn determination to cling to life in a way that only those who work the land and try to grow things can possibly do.

As odd as it seemed, apparently I'd found a home, however temporary, among people who were not my own and were happier to see me than those whowere my own.

The cynic within me knew that it could not possibly last. Worse, that I'd probably do something to make a total mangle of it. At that moment, though, I didn't care.

It felt good. And I hadn't felt good in a very, very long time.

And so it was that I came to reside in the land that I eventually determined was called Chinpan. A land of mystery and rituals and a way of life totally unfamiliar to me, practiced by people whose very physiognomy was alien. Then again, I'm sure that I didn't exactly look normal to them either. That was all right, though. With my irregular features and p.r.o.nounced limp, I was used to looking not normal.

Chapter 5.

Through Chinpan Ali

My facility for languages served me well over the next months as the villagers made a priority of teaching me how to speak their language of Chinpanese. Some of them showed some mild interest in my own tongue, but overall a concerted effort was made to work with me so that I could learn to communicate with them. It certainly made sense for me to learn their language rather than they learning mine. There were, after all, far more of them.

The name of the village, I later learned, was Hosbiyu, and the population couldn't have been more than seventy-five, if that. They brought me back amidst much chattering, talking to me as if--now that I'd been accepted and my peculiar circ.u.mstances understood--I would magically be able to comprehend what they were saying. Naturally that wasn't the case, but I was determined to be polite. So I smiled and nodded, and this only seemed to encourage them even more.

The village was situated at the intersection of two man-made dirt roads, with well-worn grooves in them as a result of frequent pa.s.sages with ox-drawn cart. Several of the beasts grazed in a field nearby, along with a couple of cows that probably fulfilled the milk needs of the populace. All the structures were simple huts or slightly larger buildings that served as barns, and the exteriors appeared familiar. Then I realized they were constructed of wood from the tall, flexible trees I'd seen earlier. It was one of the first words of their language that I managed to learn: "bamboo," it was called, and it was an extremely ubiquitous material. In addition to having used it to fas.h.i.+on their buildings, they'd also built fences with it to hem in the cattle, thinner shoots of the plant had been used to make those strange flat hats, some of the women wore shoes made of bamboo, and I even saw some of the young men sparring with one another with bamboo as quarterstaves.

I took great interest in the material, thinking of the myriad uses it could have been put to back in my native land. By the same token, they were intrigued by the solid oak from which my own staff had been carved. They marveled even more when I demonstrated some of the little tricks built into it, such as the blade that snapped from the dragon's open mouth, or the fact that the staff could be separated into two smaller staves.

The man who had worked so mightily to establish communication with me brought me to his hut, where his wife eyed me warily even as they hastened to prepare a meal for me. It was very touching.

They didn't have much, but what they had, they were willing to share, even if all they were sharing was a bowl of rice. I'd never been particularly fond of rice, but considering I'd thought I was going to die of starvation on a plank in the middle of nowhere, it could not have tasted better had it been manna from heaven.

Through a combination of more pantomime, drawing primitive pictures in the dirt floor, and the like,my host managed to inquire as to what my plans were. The truth was, I had no plans. I had no overwhelming urge to return home. To what home, precisely, would I have returned? In my native state of Isteria, I was persona non grata. I certainly couldn't return to Wuin. I had no loved ones to be concerned about an extended absence. And the number of people I knew in Chinpan was limited to those whom I'd met that day.

So I managed to get across to him that I had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. If I did have some sort of "great destiny," it was going to have to seek me out in Hosbiyu, because I didn't have the slightest idea where to go to look for it.

The man nodded, apparently comprehending. He and his wife left the hut after a while, and when I went to the door some minutes later, I looked out and saw what seemed to be the entirety of the village gathered in the middle of the place, where the two roads intersected. They were talking in low, thoughtful tones, and then someone pointed at me. They all stopped and looked in my direction. I didn't know why they'd ceased conversation. It wasn't as if I could understand them. Still, it was obvious that I was the topic of discussion. They were trying to figure out what the h.e.l.l to do with me. I withdrew into the hut, having no wish to disturb them. Certainly annoying them would be counterproductive to my best interests.

I had no doubt that I could fend for myself if I had to. Still, not speaking the language was going to be a major handicap. I hadn't survived as long as I had through dazzling fighting skills, that was for certain.

My strength was the quickness with which I could come up with the right lie to spin for any given situation. If I couldn't make myself understood, all the quick thinking in the world wasn't going to do me a fragment of good. I wasn't completely inept when it came to physical self-defense, but robbed of my ability to obfuscate and bewilder, the likelihood of my longevity was greatly curtailed.

So it was with a certain degree of nervousness that I waited to see what the village consensus about my fate would be. An interminable amount of time later, although in reality it probably wasn't all that long, my host returned to the hut and looked at me contemplatively for a moment. A group of his fellow villagers was standing behind him.

I said nothing. What would I have said?

He put out a hand and one of his neighbors handed him one of the p.r.o.nged farming implements that I'd originally thought was a weapon. His expression was very serious and for a moment I thought I'd misjudged the situation horribly, and they were about to charge me and try to drive the weapon through my chest. My sword was on the ground a couple of feet away, but I resisted the impulse to lunge for it.

My host walked toward me, turned the tool around so the hilt was facing me, and proffered it. I hesitated and then reached for it. Taking it gingerly from his hand, I hefted it slightly. It was surprisingly light.

With gestures, he indicated that I should tuck the tool in my belt. I did so. Then, collectively, they placed their hands face-to-face and bowed.

The message was clear. If I was willing to pull my own weight, to work their fields by their sides, I was welcome to stay for as long as I wished.

My heart swelled. Never had I experienced such unbridled generosity. The closest I had come was when Queen Bea and King Runcible had extended an invitation to be a squire in his court. But even in that instance, a squire was one of the lowest of the low, and the other squires never missed an opportunity to make me feel like the t.i.tleless, unlanded peasant that I was. This was a totally different circ.u.mstance. I was being invited to join a community as an equal, no questions asked (even if questions could be posed). For an inveterate cynic such as myself, it was almost too much to cope with.

I contained my roiling emotions and instead simply returned the bow. They smiled and then walked out of the hut. My host's wife paused long enough to offer a genuine smile. Even she had overcome her hesitancy and seemed willing to welcome me if the others were.

Those who have been following my adventures know me well enough to be fully aware of exactly what started preying upon my mind: What was going to go wrong?

It was too perfect, too wonderful. Despite my tendency to be thrust into adventures, I really had no overwhelming compulsion to embark on them. Yet they always seemed to overtake me, always.

Part of me wondered whether I didn't bring it upon myself somewhat. The closest I'd known to peace in some years was when I was an innkeeper at a place called b.u.g.g.e.r Hall. My tenure there had ended rather disastrously (and, of course, thrust me into yet another escapade), but even before that happened, I had found myself growing bored with the quiet existence I was leading. In retrospect, I couldn't help but believe that on some level, I had brought it upon myself.

Which, of course, made me immediately start worrying about what disaster I would bring upon myself in this new environment.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you are desperately endeavoring not to dwell upon something? Naturally, it becomes uppermost in your thoughts. Every attempt to cease thinking about it only causes you to think about it all the more.

That was where I found myself mentally, having been taken in by the good citizens of Hosbiyu. It was nerve-racking. I was fully prepared to settle into an environment that would ask nothing of me except the sweat of my brow and whatever effort lay in my arms to provide. Even as I did so, however, I started wondering how and when it would come to an end.

And in this case, it wasn't just myself that I had concern for. The people of Hosbiyu were unstinting in their generosity, and total in their acceptance of me, despite my obviously different appearance.

Wherever I go, disaster tends to dog my steps. Typically, I'm the only one who suffers... or, at most, a "loved one" who had the poor fortune to be in proximity to me at the time. But this was an entire village, filled with good people.

All of whom seemed to be named "Chin."

At first I thought everyone was related in some manner. That was hardly a heartening notion: that all the villagers were siblings or cousins lying with each other and producing more sp.a.w.n to engage in further incestuous relations.h.i.+ps. I was a.s.sured, however, that it was merely coincidence. That "Chin" was just an exceedingly common name, with "Chen" a very close second, and "w.a.n.g" coming up in the rear.

Over time, I learned their first names, even as I learned their language. It was a challenging tongue to master, particularly since they had many words that sounded the same, but had different meanings depending upon inflection. And their names could be stunningly similar as well. Yes, over a period ofmonths, I could readily distinguish "n.o.buharu" from "n.o.buhisa" from "n.o.buhito," "Yos.h.i.+taka" from "Yositake" from "Yos.h.i.+toki," because I had faces to a.s.sociate with the names. You, the reader, might have far greater difficulties keeping everyone sorted out through the narrative. I don't say this because I think you are somehow mentally deficient, or less clever than I. Although, to be candid, the very fact that you continue to exhibit such morbid interest in my life and waste precious time reading about it when you could be doing something of more importance, such as... well, anything, really... does indeed call your intelligence into question. For that matter, you very likelyare less clever than I. Forgive the immodesty, but I like to think my having survived to old age is a testament to the fact that I've raised cleverness to the level of an art form.

Nevertheless, in order to simplify your following of my humble narrative, I will spare you the sound-alike names of the villagers and instead refer to them in the way that I first thought of them. You see, for my own amus.e.m.e.nt, until I memorized their real names, I tended to refer to them by various appropriate nicknames that stemmed from the universal "Chin" surname. I would even occasionally address them as such, and naturally they never comprehended the shadings of meanings.

For instance, my host, to whom I've referred before, was somewhat jowly. So I dubbed him "Double Chin." His wife, who seemed to enjoy the noontime meal the most, I called "Lun Chin."

Lun Chin's sister was the woman who had tried to control her daughter during my first encounter with them, to little avail. She was even more obsessed with the details of food preparation than her sister. She became Kit Chin. Her daughter, the one whose boat I had found, I naturally called Kit Chinette.