“I am the Speaker for the Ashawala’i before the Council of Lilterwess, and these are the only horses and donkeys owned by my people. Without them, the trade between my people and yours would come to an end.”

“That seems a small matter when the world is coming to an end.”

“It is not a small matter.” The Speaker leaned his elbows unconcernedly on the fence. “And you will not take my people’s stock, for we are protected under the law.”

“What do we know anymore?” the commander muttered. “Isn’t it against the law for children to ride to war? Isn’t it against the law for the House of Lilterwess to be turned to rubble?” She turned rather agitatedly to shout something at someone.

“You may borrowour donkeys,” said the Speaker, “If we accompany them.”

“We ride out on Paladin business.”

“It is the Speaker’s duty to advise and protect our people. For that, we must know all we can about events in Shaftal. And we are katrim, warriors like yourself, with vows to fulfill. We will observe, and not interfere, and perhaps we might even be of some help.“

The commander looked at them then. She saw two schooled faces and disciplined stances. The Speaker’s hands had many small scars, of a kind a blade fighter might get in practice bouts. His young companion’s hands were scarred also, though not so heavily. Both of them had a rather unnerving quality to their gazes, an intentness and seriousness that seemed almost unnaturally alert and intelligent. Perhaps these two had elemental talents. In any case, they almost certainly would be valuable companions.

The commander said, for she was desperate for beasts to carry the gear of war, “We ride to a gathering of Paladins, and after that we ride against the Sainnites. Come with us if you like, but I can’t promise your safety, or the safety of your animals.”

Seeming amused, the Speaker accepted her terms.

Zanja na’Tarwein closely watched these negotiations. Like her, the Speaker once had accompanied his predecessor when he was a young katrim. Like her, he belonged to a fire clan, and had been born with an elemental talent for languages and insight. And, like her, when he went on his vision journey he had dreamed of the god Salos’a. Now, by watching him she continued to learn what it meant to be chosen by the one who crosses between worlds, who sees in all directions. Though the hawk, the raven, and owl were all associated with death, Salos’a was not a killer like the hawk, or a trickster like the raven. The owl conducted souls to the Land of the Sun, and was a restless wanderer who acknowledged no boundaries.

Zanja had already learned that she who crosses between worlds is a stranger everywhere, even in the land of her birth. Having lived for six seasons with a Shaftali farm family, she had developed two minds and two ways of seeing, to go with her two languages. After that, her own family found her peculiar, and said that she stumbled between contradictory cultures and languages like a drunken fool. The Speaker had explained, “That is what it means to be a Speaker. Did you think it would be easy or graceful?” He had added, no more reassuringly, “What you see and know depends on which eyes you see with.”

Today, she had come to understand more clearly why a crosser of boundaries must learn to see through the eyes of strangers. Twice today, the Speaker had settled a difference in his favor by constructing an argument from the materials of his opponent’s self‑interest and values. As they began the journey southward in the company of Paladins, she considered in silence the Speaker’s methods, and what he had needed to know about the person he spoke to in order to properly advocate for his people’s interests. Now, when he spoke to her about the towns they passed, and described the peculiar ways and customs of the people there, she listened attentively, thinking all the while about the potential usefulness of the information.

The Paladins with whom they journeyed seemed a random collection: some were well‑equipped and travel‑hardened, others had the pale skin and soft hands of scholars and their riding gear was creased from having been folded away in trunks. More than half of them seemed to have only recently left their family farmholds. Except for the fact that they all traveled armed, and they shared a propensity for lengthy, arcane discussions of philosophy, it might have been difficult to tell that they all were members of the same order.

One of the Paladins had been riding somewhat separate from the others. A man neither young nor old, he did not eat or drink or join in conversations, and walked away alone when they stopped to rest the horses. “What about him interests you?” the Speaker asked Zanja, when he noticed her watching the man.

“He is so solitary,” she said.

“Is that all? You must listen more carefully to your intuition, or you will not survive for long.”

She considered the lone man, who now stood a good distance away, gazing at something beyond the far horizon. “He is not merely sad,” she said. “He is complex. He knows so much that it weighs him down. And yet I think he could be merry. The same knowledge that he finds so heavy might also give him joy.”

The Speaker grunted approvingly. “You’re guessing, of course. But you’re learning to let your guesswork reveal the truth. Now tell me what kind of man you have described.”

Zanja considered some more, and abruptly felt quite stupid. “Of course, he is a fire blood, like us.”

“Next time,” the Speaker said, “It will not take so long for you to realize it.”

*

They had neared their journey’s end when the solitary man, with apparent effort, began making himself more convivial. Eventually, he dropped back and walked his horse beside the Speaker’s and soon had convinced Zanja’s teacher to give a lengthy, detailed exposition of the differences between the Ashawala’i and the Shaftali people.

The solitary man’s name was Emil. He told them that after fifteen years as a Paladin, he recently had been pierced with the earring of Regard. He self‑consciously fingered the two gold earrings in his right earlobe. “I suppose they’ll make me a commander now,” he said, without enthusiasm. “And what will become of you, now that we have no G’deon or Lilterwess Council for you to speak to? How will you advocate for your people?”

The Speaker said, “In just a few years, these problems will be Zanja’s, so perhaps she should answer your question.”

Zanja was unprepared, but she could not defer to her elders when the Speaker made it so clear she must think for herself. “As Shaftal changes, my duties must change as well,” she said. “But how could I say how Shaftal is going to change? Perhaps Shaftal will form a new government, to which I might be an ambassador. Or perhaps the Sainnites will.” Emil looked rather startled by this grim possibility, but refrained from objecting. “Perhaps Shaftal will become a land of violence and confusion,” she continued, “And I will keep that turmoil from affecting my people.”

The Speaker grunted with approval, which encouraged her to add, “Perhaps my duties will become impossible to fulfill.”

“Perhaps they will,” the Speaker said.

But Emil, who seemed much impressed by her answer, said, “Impossible? For a woman of less talent, perhaps.”

The Ashawala’i did not compliment each other so directly. Zanja glanced confusedly at the Speaker, who said on her behalf, “You are too kind.”

“We have arrived,” said Emil, standing up in his stirrups to see better. For some time they had been traveling among wagons laden with food being transported from the farmholds of the region. Now, the woods had opened up into a vast clearing filled with Paladin encampments, wagons, animals, equipment, and food tents. A harried woman directed the wagons in one direction and the Paladins in another. At the top of the hill before them stood a complex of buildings, a Paladin charterhouse. “The generals will be there,” said Emil, “and that’s where I must go, to learn my future.”