"Not feeling well?" the Vanihr asked, between bites. Toren could barely understand his dialect.
"No."
"Good. That was a nasty pin you stuck me with," he said, gesturing at the sling and the poultice of mud and grass over his wound. "I almost didn't find where you kept the antidote in time."
Toren tried to lift a hand to feel his swollen head, but not only were his arms tied to his sides, but his whole upper body was tied to the tree.
"What do you want with me?"
"We need you to kill a dragon."
Toren stared back incredulously.
"It's a long story," the Vanihr admitted. "But we'll have plenty of time to explain. My name is Geim. The lady is Deena. The one who startled you is our leader, Ivayer."
Toren scowled. He was embarrassed to have shown his fright to foreigners. "What is your tribe?" he asked Geim testily.
"I was once of the Ogshiel."
Toren stared. "That is far northeast, at the edge of the Wood."
"Yes. Near the Sha River delta."
"Your people fought the Shagas."
Geim shrugged. "In the past. There have been no Shagas on the lower river in modern times."
"Why have you journeyed so far from your home?"
"For you."
Toren shifted off a rock that was digging into his buttocks. "To get me to kill a dragon."
"You learn quickly."
"I think you have me confused with somebody else."
Geim said something to Ivayer. The latter held out a silver bracelet decorated with blue stones. Identical ones hung on Geim and Deena's wrists. At a word, one of the gems began to glow, throbbing from bright to dull. As the bearded man moved his closer to Toren, the pulsing grew more rapid.
"We used these to find you. When we began our trek, they were as lifeless as an Ijitian's mind. The farther south we came, the more active they grew," Geim stated. Ivayer touched his gem to Toren's ankle. Upon contact, the glow became constant. "There is no doubt. You're the one we want."
Toren shrank back. This was potent sorcery. "Where did you get these talismans?"
"We were given them by our mistress, the god Struth."
In a way, the use of magic soothed Toren's pride. It explained how people unfamiliar to the Wood could have caught him. He could tell from their blank expressions that Geim's companions did not even understand Vanihr languages. But what he was told made no sense.
"There are no gods," Toren said.
"Call her something else then, but Struth exists. I've talked to her, felt the wind of her breath. That's more than I can say for my ancestors."
The implication made Toren pause. "Your ancestors do not live inside you?"
"They do in you?"
"Of course. Ever since I came of age."
"So the legend is true," Geim murmured. "We've heard it is this way among the southern tribes. Our shamans all died in the wars against the Shagas. There are none left to pass the memories from father to son."
Toren felt shame rising. Not only had he been taken, but it had been done bycheli – incomplete beings, subhumans. Better that he had been captured by children.
Geim bit off another piece of the burrost. Toren watched enviously, reminded of his empty stomach. The dried tree serpent was one of his favorite foods. To his surprise, Geim offered him some.
"I do not share food with enemies," Toren snapped.
Geim shrugged, and put the meat back in the satchel. "We're taking you back with us to the temple of Struth. It's in the country of Serthe, on the northern continent. A long walk. Eventually you'll want to eat something."
Toren glared back. "And how are you going to get me there? Drag me?"
"We have a means to gain your cooperation," Geim replied. "Now that you're awake we can proceed." He spoke to Ivayer. Toren could not understand the words, but he felt danger closing in.
Ivayer took off his magic bracelet and set it on the ground near Toren, then inhaled deeply, waved his hands over the talisman, and began uttering soft, rhythmic sentences. The strange poetry probed a place deep inside Toren's skull. He tried to shout in order to drown out Ivayer's voice, but could not. His throat was filled with something. It was crawling upward. Its hard, bulbous contour scraped painfully against his palate. He felt stubby, flat-bottomed legs walk across his tongue. His jaws and lips were pushed open against his will.
Toren panicked. He watched in horror as his totem emerged from his mouth and began walking down his body. When it slid off his thigh to the ground, he could freely observe that which he had seen only once before in all his life, on the day of his manhood ceremony.
His totem was a tortoise. It was blue, translucent, with white, pupilless eyes. It walked sluggishly toward the bracelet. One of the gems – not the same one that had been flashing earlier – was starting to gleam. The tortoise walked straight into the illumination, shrinking, until it vanished within the facets. Ivayer ceased his spellweaving, and exhaled sharply. A droplet of sweat fell from his chin.
"You've taken my ancestors," Toren whispered. He listened in the places of his mind where the familiar voices should be and found silence. The remembrances of past generations, which had seemed so much like his own memories, would no longer come to consciousness. He stared forlornly as Ivayer picked up the bracelet.
"We are sorry it has to be this way," Geim said. "If you had lived in the civilized lands, we might have offered you gold or iron. But we had nothing you value enough to make you leave the Wood, until now."
"You have made me acheli. It would have been more merciful to kill me."
"The process can be reversed. Your ancestors can be returned to you."
Toren looked up, startled and suspicious. "After I've killed your dragon for you?"
"Before," Geim said. "All we ask is that you come with us to Serthe, and speak to Struth. She'll give your totem back to you. In fact, she's the only one who can. It's easy to put it in the gem, but only a god has sufficient magic to restore it to your body."
Toren stared at his feet. Ivayer spoke.
"Perhaps we should put it another way," Geim translated. Ivayer gestured to Deena, who untied the ropes. Toren winced as a rush of blood returned to his extremities. Ivayer held out the bracelet.
"Take it, return to your shaman. See if he can free your ancestors," Geim said.
"They would cast me out if they knew I had let foreigners defile my totem." Even his son would be compelled to shun him.
"Then it seems to me your choices are suicide, or coming with us, letting Struth restore you, and in time being able to return as a complete man."
Toren found it difficult to care what his alternatives were. That morning he had been a modhiv, one of the best scouts his tribe had. Now he was not even a true Fhali. He could no longer call up the memory of the founder planting the tribe's home tree, only his own meager recollections of the tree at its present, mighty girth. When he rose, it was almost as if someone else moved his muscles.
Geim seemed to smile. "This is not funny," Toren snapped.
"No," Geim answered quickly. "I was merely thinking of something that Struth said. She assured us that you would be a person with a well-developed sense of self-preservation."
Toren glowered. When Ivayer offered him the bracelet again, he waved it away. He would walk north for now. There did not seem to be any alternative. But that did not mean he had to stop behaving like a modhiv. When they set out, he was in the lead, as if he were the master, not the slave.