"Wise Koja, I mean you no harm. Please sit and eat, if you would honor my table."
I cannot help a guilty start at the words, moist finger at my lips. I feel like a novitiate caught dozing during meditation. The voice carries musical tones, light as a gong sounding the dawn prayer over high mountain slopes. The willow switches rustle, and a woman dressed in the draped robes of a Khazari noblewoman steps out of the darkness. The silks of her brilliant gown swirl gently as she moves, rippling the embroidered flowers and clouds of gold and red thread on her sleeve. Necklaces of strung silver coins hang layered around her neck, yet she carries her displayed wealth with ease.
For all her dress, she is not a dark-haired and small Khazari woman, but tall and strong. Her thin, pale face is framed with hair so long and golden that it spills down into the silver chains. Small mouth, wide eyes, and nose a trifle too long all combine in a way that transcends these little flaws until she is beautiful beyond the mere physical. Without waiting for me, she sits cross-legged on the mats and begins the meal.
While she samples the dishes, I, marveling at her arrival, test her with the Hundred Lotus sutra, one that would surely cause an evil spirit pain. When I softly chant the words, she shows no sign of having noticed. Perhaps she is not a spirit, as I first suspected. My hostess might be a powerful sorceress-though one is no less dangerous than the other.
I take a seat opposite her, not wishing to be rude but not eager to sit close. I ladle a small bowl of porridge and eat with her. The flavor is more than I held in my memories, full of fall mornings when I sat by the hearth and watched my mother stir the simmering kettle. I savor the taste, knowing the food has been purified by my sutra. Hunger, both immediate and for the things of my past, yearns to be satisfied as I eagerly pick from the other plates set before me. There are types of sweet melons I have not seen since I came among the outlanders and cabbages that only grow in the high valleys outside Manass. My hostess watches, never speaking.
"Dear lady, I must know. How did you obtain such delicacies? Such food could grace the table of a Khazari prince."
She bows slightly to acknowledge my compliment. "I have traveled many distant lands. Once you know of such foods, they are not hard to obtain."
I know this is not true, for I have tried and failed. Considerable magic is needed to gather these ingredients, still fresh, from the East. I carefully press my questions. "I am unworthy to ask, but I must know. Who are you that you are so kind to me?"
She smiles, and by it I know her answer will not be the truth. "I am a simple benefactor of scholars. I have heard of you, even in distant lands."
"By what name shall I call you?"
"None, for you will never see me after tonight."
"What is it you seek of me?" Her soft tones make me shiver, not with cold or fear, but excitement tinged with awe.
My mysterious hostess rises calmly, as if not to alarm me. "You have worked for many years on a history of the eastern raiders-the Tuigan-and now you have finished it."
My throat goes dry, and I cannot swallow. "It is almost completed."
"Now you seek a patron to print your history. Tonight you visited Duke Piniago."
My replies grow softer as my caution returns. "I made a bad judgment in doing so. The duke was not interested in my work."
She laughs like water over stones. "I understand he was all too interested, that it was you who said no. Some say you were rude to the duke, but from what I know of that boor, there must have been some cause."
"You have quick and accurate sources." I answer, wetting my mouth with a swallow of tea. "It is true I refused the duke, but only because he wished to hide the work from others. My pride is my failing, great lady. I could not accept his terms, when others might gain some small knowledge from my work."
She cocks an eyebrow at my claim. "You care so strongly to spread learning, yet you are ready to quit and go back to your homeland."
"How do you know this?" I carefully sidle away from her. The woolen carpet pulls at my robes as I move.
"My man heard you speak with your servant when I sent him to fetch you."
I do not believe her, especially while I sit in this spring garden, green like none other in Procampur. The fact that she knows this, though, only suggests further the extent of her power. Prudently, I do not challenge her lie.
"Koja of Khazari, there are some who think the world needs learning, but there are far too few who will seek it. If you give up, the world has one less seeker. Soon there would be no true scholars left, just men like Duke Piniago."
The memory of a charm slips into a corner of my mind, a way to see things as they truly are. I remember the verses and the ritual, but I need something to activate the sutra.
"I have come," my hostess continues, "to make you an offer. I am willing to be your patron, see your book printed-for a service. I, too, have an interest in knowledge." Her lips part to show the hint of white teeth as she waits for my reaction.
Kumiss, I note silently. I could trigger it with a sprinkle of kumiss. "What service would you require of me, great sorceress?" I try the tide to gauge her reaction.
She laughs again, icicles breaking into a frozen brook. "You honor me with your titles, lama. I am just a lady." She slides effortlessly across the carpets to sit by me once more. "An oath, binding and unbreakable. Will you do that?" Her eyes are fired with eagerness.
"An oath?" I dally with the kumiss bowl before me, surreptitiously dipping my finger in the white fluid. 'There is no sin in this oath?"
"Sworn of itself, it causes no ill to you or any other.
Beyond that, your fate is your own."
I am ready. Almost fearful at what I will see, I flick a few drops of kumiss toward the woman and utter the Sunlight After Storm sutra, the words which clear the mind from illusion. My hostess recoils slightly in surprise. Then, as I watch too startled to move, her golden hair grows dark black, banded by a golden circlet. Her body ripples and her face changes as the mask of femininity falls away A white glare, like a furnace that gives no heat, blinds me temporarily. When my eyes adjust, a man stands at the heart of the light, stocky and straight, in a tunic and cloak of purest white.
"By the great and mighty Furo!" I gasp, quickly looking away. This is no sorceress or even a spirit, but a power greater than any mortal, living or dead.
"Koja of Khazari, you have seen what I am." The voice is symphonic, strong chords resound within the words. "Know that I will not harm you. I am Denier, Lord of Glyphs and servant of Oghma, the patron god of bards. I am Denier, in whose temple you have toiled. Now, lama, will you swear my oath'"
The voice from the fire is powerful yet soothing, so that even in the god's mighty presence I feel no fear. Shielding my eyes from the corona that encases him, I am able to look on the spirit once more. "Immortal radiance, what do you demand of me, an unworthy scholar?"
Denier, demipower of words, waves his hands toward the still-dark walls of Procampur. "Write for the outlanders so that they will be encouraged to learn. Stay in the West and become a muse for them. Do this and you need never despair."
I stop at the scope of this oath. "Then I could not go home."
"Not until you are ready to die, lama. I have given you the taste of home you longed for. Would your homecoming now be as sweet as you imagined?"