Death's Sword Book 1: Finding and Seeking

Chapter 22, part 3: Day 29 continues...

Tzumak's eyes flicked between the mage and the Grand Inquisitor. It was very rare, almost unheard of, for her to be out-played at this type of game. Tzumak decided that this wu-jen was even more dangerous than he had been warned. He would bear very careful watching. Oax rose from his haunches and walked off in search of Rolf. The archer needed to know what he had just heard. Together, they would decide what to do.

Susoo had resumed her questioning. "Do you know this route you propose?" she asked. Westizal pulled a face. "Only slightly," he admitted, "I spent some time in the area a few years ago when I was looking for a suitable alternative site in case I needed to move." Susoo briefly weighed up which avenue to explore first and decided upon the more immediate one. "Did you find anywhere?" she asked.

"No," sighed Westizal, "I ran out of time. I needed to be elsewhere."

"Fascinating," murmured Susoo, "Tell me more. What drew you elsewhere?" She settled to sit cross-legged across the map from Westizal, obviously intending this to go on longer. Westizal seated himself and started to answer the flow of questions, seeming to enjoy the exchange.

Kleymin sat quietly listening to the pair, almost mesmerised by the manner in which Susoo would loop the conversation about, coming back to something mentioned much earlier, approaching from a different direction, drawing out further detail. He found the verbal gymnastics fascinating, almost a mental equivalent of his physical exercises. He allowed himself to fade into the background as he had been taught, drew out his crow feather and began idly running it over the marks on his hand as he listened.

Somehow, Westizal noticed the movement, glanced over at the boy with a smile, continued his word-play with the Grand Inquisitor. Then he paused in mid-sentence, a frown passing over his face. The wizard looked at Kleymin once more, who had ceased his little ritual on noting the wu-jen's interest. He should not have noticed me. I should have been just a shadow. What did I do wrong? Susoo looked too, trying to work out what had drawn the mage's attention, noticing Kleymin for the first time. "Show me your hands," said Westizal, softly, then, "Show me your hands!" much more fiercely. Wordlessly, the boy turned both hands palm-up and stretched them out towards the wu-jen. Westizal took each one in one of his own, much larger, hands and gazed at the marks. "The star and the crescent," he whispered, "The star and the crescent."

Susoo stared at them both, eyes moving from mage to boy and their four conjoined hands. "What is the significance of the marks?" she asked, carefully, each word enunciated clearly, separately.

"I do not know," responded Westizal, clearly deeply troubled, "They touch on something old, very old, very old indeed. An ancient prophecy."

Susoo pursued her line of questioning, refusing to be drawn into any side-alleys. "These marks - the star and the crescent, you call them. Tell me of them," she demanded, voice low and urgent. The wu-jen shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I can't even begin to explain," he said, "All I have are scraps of old references, old prophecies, old rituals. The star and the crescent were involved in the forging of Namarth somehow. I suspect that the star refers to the elves and the crescent the dwarves, but I could be wrong. The elves and the dwarves gave their aid, merged their powers with the humans when the Weapons of the First were created. Namarth, though not truly one of those Weapons, comes from the same lineage. The answer to the puzzle is in there, somewhere, if I could but find it." He sighed in a mixture of exasperation and frustration. He paused. As he started to turn away again, Susoo broke the silence that had grown between them. "Give the pieces to me," she suggested, "Puzzles are part of my life. Extracting the truth from confused stories, scraps of information. It is what I am good at."

For the first time, the wu-jen really looked at her, studying the Grand Inquisitor closely. He saw a woman of slightly greater than average height, slim in build and with a sharp-featured face. Her dark hair, cut severely short, held an unusual tinge of red in two streaks, one on either side. Her eyes were dark brown, almost black, with the delicate slant of the eastern Hywheni.