How to think about nothing? No One closed his eyes. Whiteness. A white wall, large enough to fill my entire vision, no matter in which direction I turn. The texture of the wall—eliminate it. Whiteness. Just whiteness.
The edge of warmth covered him again, but his legs did not move. Whiteness. And now, take away the white. He felt the edges of his mind grow dull, a pressure as though someone's thumbs were pressing upon his eyeballs. All about the outside of his skull, it was as if great avians were flapping their wings and screaming in frustration. But they were outside; not inside.
He looked down the trail, his eyes slightly out of focus. He spoke out loud. "Swamp woman? Can you hear me, swamp woman?"
The flapping and screaming about his head increased to a frenzy, then suddenly died. No One waited, then allowed a small patch of whitness to return. "Swamp woman?"
You fight me, yet you call to me?
No One wet his lips and nodded. "Swamp woman, I will come to you, and on my own. But I will not be forced. On my own. You have what I want."
I have your friends as well.
"They are nothing to me, swamp woman."
The laughter threatened to break down his barrier for a moment, then it eased. Very well, Johnjay. Come to me. Follow the trail. I will have them teach you how to kill the bull. I am waiting, my husband.
"By damn! Woman, I am not your husband!"
The laughter returned, then No One was left alone with nothing but the gnaw of fear for company. He studied the trail for a long moment, then began to walk it with shaking steps. "Is it fear?" He asked himself. "Is it tiredness or fear that shakes my legs?" The answer was not clear and No One refused to risk removing the cloak from his mind to clarify it. He already knew that the fear was in his heart. Along the way, he saw Tarzaka's pack by the trailside. A few steps beyond was Trouble's pack. He hefted them both, placing their straps over his left shoulder, and continued down the trail.
Just before the darkness came over the swamp, No One reached the edge of a clearing. He eased the packs from his shoulders and studied the open place. It was a gentle rise grown deep with highgrass. At it's top appeared to be a mound or monument of some kind. He looked around at the clearing's treeline, but could see nothing. Looking again to the front, he saw the trails of Tarzaka and Trouble through the highgrass leading toward the mound at the top of the rise.
He squatted and rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers. Cloaking his mind for so long had produced a center-pole splintering pain through his eyes. He studied the mound and decided against removing his mind-cloak. The swamp woman had not attacked his mind for hours, but No One was convinced that she was waiting for him—waiting for him to show the slightest weakness.
He quickly looked again at the clearing's treeline, then he hid the three packs beneath some brush. Standing, he turned into the jungle to the left of the trail and began quietly working his way around the clearing; After an hour of this, he went again to the clearing's edge and tried to make out what could be seen. The darkness was fully upon the swamp, but far to No One's left was the light of a torch—two. No, a torch and a cooking fire.
He crept farther into the clearing, squinting his eyes, trying to compensate for his cloak's effect upon his focus. Behind the cooking fire was a thatched shack. To the right of the shack, a torch was mounted upon a tall pole driven into the ground.
No One studied the scene, then he looked up the rise toward the mound. The mound appeared much larger now, and there seemed to be a dark-robed figure seated before it facing the shack. He studied the figure for a long time, but it remained motionless. He moved even further into the clearing, stopped, and squatted. The figure did not move its head; did not appear even to move its chest.
As the sound of voices came from the shack, Johnjay leaned forward and lowered himself upon his hands until his eyes were just above the tops of the highgrass. He turned his head but saw nothing stir at the shack. Looking back at the motionless figure, No One began crawling up the gentle slope toward the mound. The figure's left side was toward him, its face shrouded by the hood of its dark robe. When No One came close enough, he saw that the figure was seated in a roughly made wooden chair. Ten steps from the figure, No One turned and began crawling to his left, watching the shack. He could see inside the shack's door and he recognized Tarzaka—or at least someone wearing a fortune teller's robe—seated just inside. He moved further around the top of the rise, then turned his head to his right and looked at the figure.
In the dim light from the shack's cooking fire, he could make out a face, stark white with large dark eyes. He moved closer and closer until his breath caught. It was the grinning face of a death's head, the large dark eyes nothing but empty sockets. He leaped up, turned away, and ran downhill, his imagination hot upon his heels. In his panic, he let the cloak fall from his mind. An instant later, he was thundered into darkness.
The naked woman, the almond eyes laughing at him from that mist of long, black hair. "You are mine, Johnjay! Now you are mine."
Images of skulls, great swamp monsters, shining lengths of gut, the five bulls charging over the edge of the cliff, the judgement of the Miira Ring, Goofy Joe demanding that the town of Dirak blackball him...
"You are mine, Johnjay. You are mine..."
He opened his eyes in the dark to see Tarzaka looking down at him, her face lit only by the flames of the cooking fire coming through the doorway. The only other light in the shack was a small oil lamp. Tarzaka looked across his chest and nodded. "He is awake."
No One looked to his right and saw Trouble sitting cross-legged beside him. "Trouble, what is happening?"
The magician looked out of the doorway, then back at No One. "The swamp woman has us." Trouble again looked out of the doorway. "She is gone right now."
No One tried to sit. "We must run while we can." Both Tarzaka and Trouble forced him to his back. "What are you doing?"
Tarzaka looked at No One steadily, her face rigid. "We go nowhere. It is time for you to live up to your part of the bargain."
"Bargain?"
"No One, you said you would take me to learn from the eggs. They are close by. All that we must do to learn from them is for you to give Ssura what she wants. Ssura is the creature's name."
No One frowned, then looked at Trouble. "And you?"
Trouble slowly nodded his head. "I have seen what the eggs can do, No One. If I can learn but a bit of it, I can go back to my town. You understand that? Isn't that why you've come here? Isn't that why you want to kill the bull? Give Ssura what she wants."
No One shrugged off their hands and sat upright. "And you two would have me do this thing?"
The left side of Trouble's mouth drew back in a half-smile. "It would seem to be a pleasant enough task." "And what would that be?"
Tarzaka grabbed No One's arm with a surprisingly strong grip. "Understand, No One, that unless you do this thing, none of us get what we want. Including you!"
"Can I not get a straight answer from either of you? By the gray beard of Momus, what must I—" No One turned his head toward the door as he saw a figure standing high upon the incline. It was the creature he had seen in his vision; just as naked, just as beautiful. She just stood there facing the shack. Trouble nodded toward the figure. "No One, Ssura is the daughter of Waco Whacko and Fireball Hanah Sanagi. I cannot tell when, but I can see that she has been without her parents a very long time. Perhaps since she was five or six years old." Trouble looked at No One. "She has been reared for the most part by the eggs. She protects them at their command."