"Do you have flint and steel?"
"No." He stood and walked to the rock wall of the cut and tore off a piece of crisp drymoss.
She turned to her pack and began feeling the objects within it with her hand. "Only fools travel without flint and steel." While she rummaged within her pack, No One returned and placed the drymoss in the center of the ring of stones. He sat back and looked at the ever darkening walls of the gap. The air was still. Something jabbed his arm. He looked and saw Tarzaka's extended arm, her hand holding a small, cloth-wrapped bundle. He took the bundle, opened it, and withdrew the flint and steel.
He held up the steel wedge. "From what car did this come?"
"How should I know? I purchased it in Tarzak." She waved her hand toward the drymoss. "Make the fire; I am getting chilly."
He struck several times, causing heavy, hot sparks to fall in and around the highly flammable moss. The moss began to smoke, a patch glowed, then blue-yellow flames sprang from its surface. No One placed small sticks upon the burning moss, and then larger sticks on top of the smaller. In moments a yellow oasis of light held the darkness at bay. He sat cross-legged, staring into the flames. "It will take some time to heat the rocks."
Tarzaka placed her wrap of cobit dough upon her pack and turned back to the fire. "It is time for you to meet your part of the bargain, No One."
He frowned. "What bargain?"
"In exchange for the robe and the sapwine."
He looked at her and then shrugged. "I remember making no bargain. What did I say?"
"That you would teach me the things I must know to read minds and to tell fortunes. And what is the fortune you saw for me?"
Johnjay shook his head. "I saw no fortune for you. I cannot tell fortunes."
"When I returned, No One, you knew who I was without turning to look."
"You had left your things behind. The chance was fair that you would be the only one returning for them. Anyone else would have had sense enough to stay out of the rain." He looked into the growing darkness down the road to Miira, then turned back to the fire. "Tarzaka, sometimes I see what is to happen before it happens." He motioned toward the fire with his hand. "But it is nothing more than you looking at the fire and seeing that wood will be added to it and that cobit shall be cooked there."
The fortune teller studied No One's face for a long moment. "I have heard the song of Little Will, and the stories. It is more."
No One shrugged. "Not in kind; only by degree." He looked at her. "I saw the bulls kill my sister before it happened. But I knew the bulls, knew my sister, and knew the Miira kraal." He returned his gaze to the flames. "I saw no future. I saw what would probably happen. As has happened before, something about which I knew nothing could have interfered, making my entire vision false."
"But nothing did."
He shook his head. "No. Not this time."
"What, then, did you see for me?"
"I saw nothing for you."
Tarzaka held her hands to her breast. "Nothing?"
No One laughed. "I meant only that your future is hidden to me. I do not know enough about you, your illness, or anything. I must... see enough, know enough, before these things can come together in my head and give me visions."
"But you knew things that you could not have known."
He shook his head, added another stick to the fire, then looked at the fortune teller. "I only took the images that you gave off. All I can know is what you know. Before I could see the probable outcome of an illness, I would need to know much more. How the body works; how this disease works—things such as that."
"It is said that your mother can move things with her mind. Do you have this power?"
"A little." He shrugged. "There are endless training exercises one must do to develop these powers." He picked up a small twig, broke it, and tossed the pieces into the flames. "Other things interested me."
"You knew you possessed these gifts, yet did nothing to develop them?" Tarzaka shook her head, "You are a fool, No One."
"What does a bullhand need with such skills, fortune teller?"
Her eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth to speak, but stopped. No One looked at her. "What were you about to say?"
She snickered. "Read my mind."
His eyes closed slowly, then reopened with a start. "Yes." He looked back at the fire, the flames blurring as his eyes filled with tears. "Yes, I could have saved May's life had I trained my power to move things." He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his robe. "Thank you, Tarzarka."
"For what?"
"For turning my pain into Hell."
She leaned forward, placed the cobit upon one of the rocks, then sat back. "Will you teach me, No One?"
He stared at the flames for a moment, then pushed himself to his feet, and walked toward the chasm. He halted at the edge and stared into the blackness below. The waters at the bottom roared from the earlier rainfall. No One looked back at the fortune teller. "I will teach you." He lifted an arm and pointed across the chasm. "But we must travel. Across the gap, up into the Snake Mountains, and from there across the Great Muck Swamp." He looked in the direction in which he pointed. "There we will search for the children of my mother's teachers. My mother told me that they have the knowledge of their parents." He lowered his arm and looked back at the fortune teller. "And by using your mind, they can kill you, drive you insane, and would do so for the humor to be found in watching you squirm. Do you still want to learn, Tarzaka?"
The fortune teller tested the cobit with her fingers, then sat back and looked at No One. "Yes." She frowned. "But why take this route through the mountains. Why do we not turn back and go through Miira?"
He returned to the fire and stood next to it. "Was Goofy Joe's news so poor? I am not to come within sight of the town of Miira until the last bull dies."
"I will still come."
No One looked down at her. "Why?"
"I am a fortune teller. I would be a better fortune teller. It is important to the show."
"The show! The show! The show is dead! Dead!" He looked at the flames. "Dead." No One shook his head and looked up at the sky. The brightest of the stars were coming out. "All my life I have had the show spieled at me. Preserve the show." He barked out a bitter laugh. "Miira has almost two hundred bullhands, and only one bull. The horses are all at timbering and road building; there is no audience!" He looked back at the flames. "The show is dead."
She tested the cobit once more. "In your heart it is." She took the bread from the rock, broke it, and handed half to No One. "Why will you make the trip, No One? I don't think you feel all that much obligation for the use of my robe and wine."
No One glanced at the cobit in his hand, turned his head, and looked across the chasm. "I may not return home until the last bull, Reg, is dead. I am going to learn how to kill a bull."
Tarzaka's mouth opened in shock. "Before you were horrified at the death of your sister. That is some excuse, No One. But what you plan now is murder!"
He nodded, still looking into the darkness. "Yes."
"I will stop you."
He turned, looked down at her, and smiled. The fortune teller held her hands to her chest and gasped. "My powers are not developed, Tarzaka; but there are things I can move. Small things, true. But a blood vessel is not very large." He turned away and the fortune teller collapsed to the ground, gulping at the air. "Mind your tongue unless you wish me to pinch you again."
He squatted next to the fire and gnawed at his bread.
The western side of the Snake Mountain Gap could be reached by crossing the Table Lake River before it flows through the Snake Mountains, just north of the Town of Miira. The next crossing was on the north end of the gap in the Town of Dirak. Three nights later, in Dirak's square, the people of the town gathered around a large fire. Hoes, plows, scythes, and saws had been placed aside, and the chores of daily existence forgotten, for the Great Goofy Joe of Tarzak was to play the square. No One and Tarzaka were lost at the back of the crowd, their hoods up.