The nahkhahrah nodded slowly, the lamps making the shadows of his big-nosed, craggy face resemble the physiognomy of a bird of prey. “Yes, you are an ally, and only because it is Her will. But though it has been used as such in times past, this is not a true warhouse, it is the house of council for the business of the Thirteen Tribes of the Ahrmehnee. As you have obviously learned, its walls and door are thick and it has no windows for the very purpose of preventing spying and eavesdropping by curious busybodies and—”
But the armored woman burst out in interruption. “Busybody? Why you antique, tuskless boarhog, how dare you!”
His hours of meditation and other mental exercises had purged the nahkhahrah of anger, nor could her discourtesies and insults inflame him anew. “—and any others who would pry into matters which concern them not. I and my dehrehbehee and warriors are not of your valley or customs, so you have no right to know what is in our minds or of what matters we converse in privacy.
“Now, begone, child. Remain in your camp until I summon you, for I must journey with Our Lady this night.” On his last words, he arose and pointed a long finger at the still open door.
A hot retort was on the brahbehrnuh’s lips, but it never emerged. For all at once, the nahkhahrah’s eyes locked with her own and the tall old man became even taller, larger, huger than any man had a right to be. It seemed this his white-haired head was truly brushing the sooty skull-bedecked rafters high above, that the width of his shoulders strained against the side walls of the council house. And the brahbehrnuh whirled and almost ran from the place now resounding with the contrabasso booming of the giant’s voice.
With the rising of moon, the staccato voices of the doombehgs sounded from within the council house with, now and again, the lost-soul wailing of the reed-flutes rising above. Solid ranks of Ahrmehnee warriors—grim-faced and purposeful, firmly grasping their spears, darts and bared raider knives-barred any approach to the building. Those Maidens sent by the brahbehrnuh to inquire were told only that the nahkhahrah was in communion with the Holy Goddess and that, should their leader’s presence be required, she would be summoned. No amount of insulting harassment or imperious demands could elicit the women any further information, and those few who sought to force a way through the ranks were either faced with a hedge of sharp and ready steel or hurled back to sprawl before the determined men.
All the brahbehrnuh’s emissaries returned with bruised pride, some with bruised flesh as well, and at least one with a bloody nose. Hot words were ‘screeched in the tent of the brahbehrnuh, the other Maiden leaders all being for arming and hacking a gory path through the insolent pigs who denied them their way. No one of them had ever before been denied anything by a mere man, nor had any man ever laid hand to them without being made to suffer for the outrage. But the brahbehrnuh, too, denied them.
Inside the council house, the noise was deafening. The air was thick and close with the heat of many braziers and with the pungent smoke of the herbs and gums regularly heaped upon the coals. Except for the braziers, all furniture had been removed, and the nahkhahrah and the dehrehbehee squatted in a circle in the center of the main room, while the drummers and other musicians crouched along the walls.
Though all had, of course, heard of it, only the older men had ever before been present when their chief of chiefs communed with the Lady. Despite their total nudity, those in the circle all were sweating heavily and quaffing deeply of the brimming bowls of barley beer. They had all fasted until an hour before moonrise, when each had consumed as much of the foul-tasting Holy Herb as he could force down.
None of them now were aware of the dozen warriors who silently glided to and fro, keeping the braziers fed and heaped, seeing that the beer bowls remained full and trimming the lampwicks.
As Moon rose higher and higher in the clear, cold sky, the drums roared on and on, the flutes keened and shrilled and the smoke roiled and billowed about the rapt circle.
At a signal from the nahkhahrah, someone outside placed before him a large silver bowl, its rim all chased with mystical and holy signs. Placing it beneath him, he urinated into it, then passed it to Dehrehbeh Neeshahn Soormehlyuhn on his left, who solemnly added the contents of his own bladder to the bowl, then handed the container to the dehrehbeh at his own left hand.
When all the circle had voided their water into the bowl, the nahkhahrah placed it before him on the floor, dipped out a half of a smaller bowlful and added an equal quantity of beer, then raised the smaller bowl to his lips and drained it off. Thrice more he did this, ere, a half-hour later, he slid from his place in the circle, and extended his body full-length upon the floor.
He closed his heavy lids.
“Once again, my faithful and ever-obedient son travels my way with me. Welcome and thrice welcome, Kohg Taishyuhn. What would you of Her who loves you?”
As he recalled from before, the unbearably sweet voice was all about the nahkhahrah, all about him and within him. And he opened his eyes to once more behold the unearthly beauty and splendor of the Lady. All of silver, She was. A soft and misty silver She glowed before and about him.
Then She no longer was all-encompassing, but—again, as before—a creature no taller than himself. A lissome, silver-haired, woman-shaped goddess, She was become.
She opened her slender arms to him and he entered into Her embrace and he found Her silver-hued flesh cool and pleasing to the touch and the scent of Her was redolent of Moon-washed hills thick-grown with wild thyme. Their lips met, locked, and Her kiss was cold fire, consuming all his being, leaving nought behind save the aroused and stiffening ardor of his loins.
And when he had worshiped in the manner She desired, when his loins had freely poured out a measure of their most precious offering, then did the two arise from the billowy, silver couch and stroll, hand in hand, across the springy, silver-bladed turf, to where a silver fountain plashed misty silver water. They sat down on the cool stone verge of the basin—all white marble, veined with the Holy Silver.
She spoke. “Dearest Kohg, the future of your people can be far brighter than you and other mortals now believe. Once more will I allow you to spy out those places and people and events which will shape the good and the ill.
“I need not instruct you, for you have done this before. Observe the past; see or be one with the present, as you desire; then descry the futures which lie ahead and choose the one you think best for your people … our people.
“When, at last, you are done, return to me and I will again send you home.
“Go you, now, loved lover.”
Beneath his hurtling body, the night-cloaked mountains rushed by. The nahkhahrah saw twinkling lights ahead, swooped lower and recognized his village and the jagged sprawl of camps surrounding it. He swept on, eastward, over the range which lay between the village and the wind-scoured, flinty waste of the Great Plateau. He blinked in amazement when he saw the huge stone-and-timber fort now rising above the icy plain. It had been reported to him, naturally, by his scouts, but they had failed to impress him with the awesome size and strength of the defenses. Even without wishing a glimpse of the possible outcome, he dismissed all thoughts of hurling his Ahrmehnee against those stout, well-manned walls.
Veering to his left, he plunged northward. Only a few days’ ride from his village, thousands of lowland cavalry slumbered in and around a deserted village. A day behind them, wild creatures scuttled about a battlefield, crouching upon stiff Ahrmehnee corpses and gorging themselves on cold human flesh. And farther north lay horror upon horror of burned villages; the dead—or what the ravenous scavengers had left of them—lay thickly sown and living folk huddled, shivering, in the inhospitable mountains.
Turning about, the nahkhahrah bore to the south. Here, the camped lowlanders were not in one place, but in many, widely scattered. Behind them, forty miles wide, lay a swath of death amid ashes and ruin. The carnage had been fearsome here, and the destruction far more total than that to the north.