Medlo snorted. 'Oh, she be anything your heart desires, slave girl.'

'I have a name, scornful. I am called Jasmine.'

Medlo snorted once more, and the three stood glaring at one another, three featureless robes on a dusty road, unread and unreadable. Finally, Jaer sighed deeply. 'Jasmine ... I brought you because I have taken oath to follow a certain quest, and my guide book says that three captives must be freed. This man, Medlo, thinks I am silly, or stupid, or mad. Maybe I am. Now that you're here, I don't know what to do about you. You can come with us, if you choose... unless there is somewhere you would rather go.'

'She was going into slavery, birdling! She was going to be some dirty old man's bathmaid, or some nasty woman's tiring girl. Or she would have been sold to a Hynath Town brothel. Do you know what a brothel is?'

Jaer snarled at him: 'I know well enough, Medlo. The old men did not neglect my education. They knew well enough what dangers I would run, and they cared enough for me to warn me against them. I know what they were selling her for, but she may still have somewhere else to go.'

Jasmine interrupted. 'I have somewhere else to go, but my way to it is closed for now. If I go back to Hynath Port, a woman alone, they will take me and sell me again. No. For a time I will go with you. I have no choice.'

Even Medlo could think of nothing to say after that.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE CITY OF BYSSA.

Year 1168-Winter Jaer insisted, of course, that they go east. Medlo pointed to the cliffs and tumbled stone in that direction, the impassable wilderness of pinnacles and piled rock left over from some ancient lava flow. 'Sud-Akwith might have come here to find his fabled sword,' he snarled at them. 'But lesser men have trouble walking there.'

'Well, then,' said Jaer reasonably, 'find us a better way.'

'There is no better way,' Medlo said. 'In order to go east, we must first go south to the mouth of the Del, and then up the river as far as Byssa. Byssa is one of the worst places to go in a time when bad places abound. These last years there is more harrying than ever before. The black wagons are everywhere. As the weasel waits at the burrow, they wait. They scare me.'

'You didn't act scared when we met,' Jaer said.

'I wasn't travelling toward Byssa when we met. I did not have one female with me, much less two. I had a simple trip planned, north up the River Sals through Sorgen. Not to Byssa. Never to Byssa. Not with a creature like you.'

He stalked away, leaving Jasmine to whisper at Jaer, 'What does he mean, a creature like you?'

Jaer tried to explain, only to encounter questions which she could not answer, which led to more questions. At last Medlo stopped them.

'If you are going to talk, talk, talk,' he said, 'then let us have something hot at least to wet our gullets.' He went off to find driftwood, leaving the two behind a sheltering dune half covered by razor-edged grass. Jaer took her orbansa off, threw it upon the sand and sat upon it. When Medlo returned with an armload of wood, he stopped to stare at her. He saw a plain, rather broad face, with wide brown eyes and a large mouth. The skin was a medium tan, the nose unremarkable. 'Well,' he said, 'you're not particularly appealing, but you are unmistakably female. Not pretty, but girlish enough.'

'I've been pretty sometimes.' Jaer shrugged.

'Oh. Then the change is not just from Jaer, boy, to Jaer, girl. You change more than that?'

'Sometimes.'

'Are you a virgin?'

Jaer flushed, aware of the meaning of the word but unsure of its application. 'I don't know.'

Medlo grimaced. 'I'm only curious. The boy Jaer from the inn in Candor was appealing. He looked rather like someone I once knew well. Now you look like no one who interests me. Still, I remain curious.'

Jasmine leaned forward with questions of her own. 'When you change, do you...' She asked an astonishingly intimate thing.

Jaer flushed deeply. 'I don't know. I suppose I do. Please, I'd rather not talk about it.'

Jasmine cocked her head. 'Only curious. Don't worry about it, girl. For the love of the Goddess, it's nothing to blush about.'

Medlo, as embarrassed as Jaer, changed the subject by asking Jasmine about herself, and this led to a long monologue which both Medlo and Jaer followed with interest, though it was an ordinary enough tale. A girl, born third daughter to a poor family in Lakland, where marriage without a dowry is impossible. A dowry scraped together for one daughter. The farm left to the second. The parents dead before Jasmine could be provided for. Then work as this and that, a little dancing, a little singing, a little acting, a tall young soldier who stayed for almost a winter before he left with the troops. And then a child, Hu'ao, stolen by the Eldest Sister of a Temple of the Goddess.

'And now you are here,' said Jaer, 'and your child is far away.'

'Yes.' Tears gathered in her eyes and dropped into the mug of tea which she held. 'When I return from my quest, if I return, she will have forgotten me.'

'Please don't cry.'

'Oh, I cry or don't cry. It is better to walk with you than to be sold as a whore-slave in an evil town. The farmwife in Lakland would say it thus: "I come long here, mister, missus, 'thout ary tear, lone as high hawk. Now I sit cosy as mouse in winter nest. Twas cold there, warm here, so natural I thaws a little and t'runs out t'eyes." '

Both Jaer and Medlo laughed, and she went on in still broader accents letting them be cheered by the nonsense. At length, Medlo asked Jaer, 'You are still determined to go east?'

'I told you on the ship. I showed you the map.'

'And you took oath.'

'I did.'

Medlo shook his head, scratched at the dune soil with a grass stalk. 'I was sent on a quest, too, birdling. It was supposed to be my death, though I was not expected to learn of that. Since this quest is not even yours, we may assume it is not designed for your death, but it might turn out so. Why run after danger when we might as well travel to Orena, where your old friends came from?'

Jaer was stubbornly silent, and Jasmine took up the argument. 'It is not as though they asked you to go.' She stared at the quest book and its maps with troubled eyes. It had taken her a year to come from Lak Island to Hynath Town. Now the map showed the River Del winding back eastward toward Lakland, and she thought of the weary miles with loathing.

Medlo went on. 'Ten years I've walked the narrow ways, making music or being silent, speaking this tongue or that. Hiding sometimes. Running often. There were fountains in Methyl-Drossy in the town of Rhees. There were gardens and green lawns and the smell of hay. Though the gardens may have been only a face painted over shame and greed, still I long for the lawns of Rhees. Do you know what I am saying?'

Jaer nodded, spoke past a painful lump in her throat. 'I long for the steps of the tower, warm in the sun, where we sat early in the morning.'

'But you will not seek a place of safety where there may be sun-warmed stones and the feel of peace?'

'No,' said Jaer. 'I will not.'

Jasmine murmured, 'Let come as comes. Nor morn nor dark but comes as comes. 'Twilln't hasten f'thee.'

'Oh, Powers.' Medlo heaved himself to his feel. 'If we may not have reason, we may as well walk as talk.' And he led them away down the coast toward the mouth of the River Del.

Two days later they passed the Separated village of Delmoth at a safe distance, stopping only to purchase water from a guarded well where it cost them too much to fill their flasks. Jasmine carried two, a battered old one of metal and a larger skin bag, but she filled only the skin bag at the well, cursing the robed water seller as she did so.

'Did you make the water? Did you put it in the earth? To charge such prices for the bounty of the Goddess is sinful. I don't think you even dug the well.' The water seller did not answer, merely leered at them through his eye holes and bit the coins they gave him. Jasmine tried to shake off her ill humour but could not. They were actually turning east, and the miles stretched endlessly before her. She wept beneath the orbansa.

A night or two later, Jaer changed sex in the midst of a strange dream in which a distance voice demanded, 'Tell me where you are.' Jasmine shook him awake under the cold moon of autumn, and he clung to her, trembling, then aware of a strangeness between his body and hers. Jasmine grew aware of it, too, and held him not so closely. They slept the rest of the night so, and in the morning Jaer was troubled by the way they looked at him, both with a new kind of tension and forced cheer. Medlo was calling him 'youngun' again, instead of 'birdling.'

Perhaps it had been simply that Nathan and Ephraim had been quite old at the time Jaer was born, or perhaps they had simply been unable to deal with the subject, but the question of sexual feelings had never been discussed. Oh, they had talked anatomy and biology fully, rather more fully than Jaer's interest had warranted, but never feelings. And then, too, Jaer had reached puberty in fits and starts, at one time a boy child, the next day a girl-woman, then a boy child again. Jaer was intimately aware of the physical sexual differences; of the fact that they made little difference; and of the fact that he now felt very strange.

He had liked being cuddled next to Jasmine in the cold night, liked the softness of her breath on his neck and the firmness of her arms around him. Now, with morning, she had drawn away from him, had caught Medlo's eyes on her and flushed, had seen Medlo flush in his turn as though he, too, was embarrassed at his own thoughts. Jaer ate his breakfast, chewed and thought, swallowed and thought, decided that his current body was possibly not unattractive to both Jasmine and Medlo, and then considered the implications of that for a while. He could imagine doing several things, all of them highly original (for Jaer), all ending in increased embarrassment. At last he dug out of his memory one more of Nathan's aphorisms. 'If you don't know what to do next, consider doing nothing.' He decided he would have to go on feeling strange, hoping it was not an illness, until something happened or someone said something which would make everything simpler.

But it had been nice to be held in the cold night. He wondered whether it was nice for only some bodies, or for all bodies, and whether Medlo would find it pleasant also, and whether Nathan and Ephraim would have found it pleasant at one time.

As for Jasmine and Medlo, both were acutely uncomfortable Medlo because Jaer looked so much as Alan had sometimes looked, faintly puzzled and waiting for something to happen which would resolve the puzzlement. A host of memories came with this. And Jasmine, thinking in the night that this body she held was not unlike the body of a lover in Lak Island, woke to see that Jaer's face was not unlike Hu'ao's face, childlike and wondering. She felt vaguely indecent, as though she had attempted to seduce a toddler, and yet Jaer was not a toddler. Both Medlo and Jasmine struggled to identify this youth, this boy-man, this separate person as distinct from yesterday's person and yet this person was the same person. So that, if Jasmine were to take this person as a lover, today, that person might be, tomorrow, someone else. Or only different. The idea was confusing and unpleasant enough to make her turn away from it into a kind of forced jocularity, a cheery parentalism which matched Medlo's manner and was equally false.

Jaer felt the falsity, felt repulsed, felt forced into some construction or compartment he had not occupied before. 'As though,' he said to himself, 'I were mythical. As though they did not believe in me.'

He went on eating, but the day had dimmed into resentment. The night's comfort could not be rebuilt. He could only go on doing what he had sworn to do, for they had rejected him at some level he had never understood or cared about, though he thought he might have cared about it if they had only ...

Never mind. They went on up the river, complicating their feelings by sleeping too little and eating too little, so that they came into Byssa tired, angry at nothing, and after Medlo had told them of the city, afraid.

The city was covered with mist except during the hottest days, and the mist covered what went on there as well. There was no law or safety in Byssa. In the mornings the wagons of the furriers went through the streets to gather up 'Byssa meat,' the corpses of those who had been murdered in the night. A body not quite dead when it went into the wagon would be dead when it was dumped out at the fur farms on the hills above the city. The skins would be brought down through Byssa for shipment, and so it was said of those who died in Byssa that 'they would go through Byssa again.'

It was a trade city, having only a few small enclaves. The Temple ran the city, meting out punishment without justice. As in all Temple cities there was much arbitrary rule making and rule enforcement, with particular regard to the persons and bodies of women. Medlo told Jaer to pray that he stayed male, and he spent hours making Jasmine up to look like an old; old woman with stringy grey hair and a hump.

'The only safety near the city is in the caravansary, and we have to get through the city to get to it,' he muttered at them. 'Only in the caravansary will we find any group moving east, and we need to find such a group quickly.'

'Can't we just go on by ourselves?' asked Jaer. 'Is the road so dangerous?'

'The road is very good. But the tribes who live in the canyon are known to eat human flesh whenever they can get it.' Jaer stopped arguing.

It was Medlo's intention to enter the city at noon, at the hottest time of the day, because the heat made the guards and Keepers less vigilant. When they straggled in they were dust-covered and as inconspicuous as possible, Jasmine huddled like an ancient crone, Jaer loose-mouthed, a shambling carrier of baggage. Medlo led them, cringing, past the guards, up the long streets, nodding and bowing humbly, making pious gestures of Separation at the sound of each peal from the high black tower. Jaer watched him out of the corner of his eyes. This was no longer the musician, Medlo; this was a stranger, an old, cowardly peddler with nothing in his packs worth stealing.

They were stopped only twice. Each time Jaer did as he had been instructed, slobbered and wiped his nose on his sleeves while Jasmine leaned against the nearest wall in a picture of senile collapse. Each time Medlo groveled a bit and then led them on. There were cages on the walls. Some held bones, some held things which looked like bones but which still struggled feebly in the sun. After a time, Jaer stopped looking around him and concentrated on his boots, step after step. It took over an hour to cross the city and come to the walled acre of the caravansary. There they found a corner where they could get their backs to the wall and settled into the dust.

Jasmine asked about the occupants of the cages. 'Why are they there?' What have they done?'

'Anything,' said Medlo quietly. 'Or nothing. The guards put them there for lack of obedience, for lack of attention to the bells, for having crossed eyes, for not having enough coin. I told you this place was a bad place. What did you think I meant?'

After a moment she said, 'Do you mean they would put us in a cage, like that, for nothing?'

'They could. They still may, unless you are very quiet and very inconspicuous. I thought you understood that.'

They understood it then. They melted into invisibility against the stone walls, letting the dust settle on them, watching the afternoon fogs rise once more to the very edge of the walls. Only after others in the yard had built fires did Jasmine risk setting a small blaze to huddle over, looking as old and juiceless as Jaer's boots. Around them small groups gathered and dispersed, eyes peered from under hoods, voices muttered. Long lines of pack animals entered the great yard and clopped across it. Many of the caravanners went unrobed, their numbers protecting them. Animals were loaded and taken away. Medlo wandered away, only to return worried and pale. 'No one goes east. We must find a train to join, or stay in Byssa through the night. This would not please me.' He shook his head. 'The people are more cautious than usual. I can find out nothing.'

Beyond the wall a chilling sound rose, freezing those in the yard in their positions as though they had been statues. Voices were chanting, harshly, violently, over the slow beat of a great drum which echoed off the far, fog-hidden banks of the Del. There was a clang of heavy metal, a rattle of chains, then the reverberation of iron wheels, the rumbling of an iron cage like that Jaer had heard on the road to Candor. He held himself rigid, trembling. The sound pounded away, gave way to an uneasy silence.

Into that silence a woman came into the yard, alone except for two enormous bridled hounds which walked at her side, eyes alert, backs straight under strapped packs. She gazed calmly about the yard, examining each group without hurry or nervousness, throwing back the hood which had covered her head to reveal silver hair drawn up through a slim circlet set with dark stones. Her eyes were so pale they seemed colourless, and her skin, also, was pale as the petals of a swamp flower. She moved with a striding, queenly grace.

Medlo muttered to himself, almost beneath his breath, 'There's a likely guardian. I like the dogs.' He made a covert gesture which caught her glance. She regarded them for a moment, then came toward them, inclining her head.

'Gavil-leona, dai. V'lai chaggan? Preon? Urdan?'

Medlo matched her nod, somewhat stiffly. 'Medlo, dai. Benise urdan d'dao ni.' He turned to the others. 'She wants to know if we need huntress, guide or guard.'

'I speak the western tongue,' she interrupted him. 'Yes. If you have need of a huntress, of a guide or guard, I seek such employment.'

Jasmine turned from the cooking pot, cackling like an old woman. 'I hope you have food for those beasts. Otherwise, they may choose to eat one of us, or more than one if they are very hungry.'

The woman's lips moved in what might have been a smile. 'They eat at my let, starve at my order. They have eaten today.'

'Then you are welcome. Medlo, here, can guide us well enough, but guards are much needed. How did you come to Byssa?'

She gestured toward the north. 'There, through the broken lands.'

Jaer gaped at her. 'Medlo says there are cannibals there.'

She let the smile cross her mouth once more and stroked the heads of the huge dogs beside her. 'We were bothered only once.'

'And her doggies have eaten today,' cackled Jasmine. Jaer saw a look of honest amusement on the pale woman's face.

'They have, and I have, old woman. Make what you will of that.' She began to dicker with Medlo for the amount of her fee, Jaer paying careful attention lest Medlo send the woman away. When it was mentioned that they intended to go eastward, the woman paused thoughtfully. 'You will need at least one more weapon carrier, then, for the tribes there are more dangerous with each passing season. I have seen only one traveller move east this day, the driver of that wagon which was sent away with such ugly noise. This in itself is strange, for the caravans usually flow through Byssa like beer through a drover. Such scant traffic increases the danger. Still, find one more to share watch with me and I will go with you.'

She sat beside them in the dust and they watched the gate together. However, no one entered but a clot of priests who moved among the travellers demanding to know names and places of origin and reasons for travel. Medlo assumed that look of perky obsequious candour with which he masked fear. 'Medlo, Holy One. From the westlands, now returning there. Only a poor musician with a poor wretched brother and an old servant. We will go east when a caravan goes.'

'Leona,' said the pale woman to the same questions. 'I am a huntress for caravans. I go eastward with my beasts.' The priest did not move on, and one of the great dogs growled low in his throat. 'Hush, Mimo.' She looked calmly at the black robe. The priest pursed his mouth and turned away.

Medlo fretted. 'I have been here before, and the priests did not come into the caravansary. I don't like the feel of it.'

Beside a long line of pack animals came a group of striding men, one among them tall and black, naked except for leather boots and loin guard, his hair tied into flowing tails by bright cylinders of yarn. He carried a spear half again as tall as he from which a cockatrice banner flew, and Leona looked him over carefully as though he were a horse she thought of buying. 'There's a passable man.'

Medlo nodded, approached the dark spearman and spoke with him in a quiet mutter which the others could not hear over the clatter of hooves. They returned together, the dark one bowing, intoning his name in a muttering bass as though it were an invocation.

'Thew-son,' he rumbled. 'I will sell-spear if you will give me food and drink this very time. The way south is all dust and salt meat. The bread was sour.' He spat, then grinned as Medlo began to talk to him about his fee. As they ate together they agreed it was dangerous and unwise to stay in Byssa, even for one night, and yet it was too late to get away.

'We must buy a room,' decided Medlo. 'It will get us out of this dust, noise and confusion, and it will get us out of sight. Something brews here. It has my hair itching.'

'It feels like a nest of basilisks,' agreed Thewson. 'Many places are bad, but this is very bad. It stinks.'

Medlo touched the strings of his jangle into a mockery of Thewson's phrase. Pling plang. 'Oh, yes, it does stink. All the dark sewers of Byssa come reeking into the air that the dark warrior may discover how they stink.'

Thewson showed his teeth, ivory on brown. 'What can be discovered about you, tune twister?'

'Oh,' Medlo jeered at himself, 'that I went from bad place to bad place as you have done, to save my skin. And after that, decided to go seek what I had been sent seeking in the first place.'

'Luxuf-razh,' murmured Thewson. 'Riddles. What thing do you seek?'

'A sword which carries power. The Sword of Sud-Akwith. But it's only a casual quest. If I should happen upon it.'

'I too,' said Leona. 'I too have a quest. There is a vessel I would be glad to have, the Vessel of Healing. Though it is probably too late for it to do what I would have it do; still if I happened upon it.'

'And I seek the Girdle of Chu-Namu,' said Jasmine, firmly, forgetting to be old and ignoring their startled glances. 'I do seek it, purposefully. It is not casual at all....'

'Wa'osu,' breathed Thewson. 'I too seek a thing, a Crown of Wisdom which belonged to the old chiefs of the Courts of the Lions. It is a place so far you do not know of it.'

'Where all men are warriors, strong as lions,' sang Medlo.