Only thin grass grew in the rocky soil of the long and narrow valley into which Vandar crept as the sun rose. A flat river ran along its length, entering at one end in a misty waterfall that blew about in the mountain winds, and exiting over a high falls at the far end. There too it fell on rocks far below, but these rocks lay in a deep impassable gorge. The valley itself harbored only tall, tough grasses that grew in gravelly soil, and similarly tough shrubs that kept close to the ground. It was not a long walk from either bank of the shallow river to the steep slopes of the valley's side, and not far up either of these that the slopes became walls, which rose up above the valley floor. The mountains ringed the sky in every direction, great jagged peaks covered at their heights with snow, occupying a sky that was so clear and blue that it defied all sense or memory. The island had always been shrouded in clouds and mists.

Vandar had come down into the valley, mad with thirst, his flesh whitened like that of a vampire, his mouth filled with the metallic taste of the water that seeped along the endless stair. He had slid and fallen, stumbled and crawled down from a place high on one of the walls of the valley. As he lay down by the river, his swollen stomach full to the breaking point with water, yet thirsty beyond belief, he looked up at the cliffs. He tried to remember which of the valley walls he had descended, and how he had managed to get down to the valley floor. He could not. He wondered if this had even been the valley that he saw from the entrance to the endless stair. Perhaps it was not. Perhaps he had looked down on one valley, then followed circuitous paths among the mountains and come down in a different place entirely.

It did not matter. He had not eaten in many days. The tall grass that grew in the valley was hardly nutritious, or hardly seemed to be, and he had eaten it straight off the stalk. It did not cure his weakness, and the thirst did not abate. His stomach was too full, and even laying by the side of the river was painfully awkward. His belly protruded so much that he had to lay on his side only--that way the ground helped to support his weight. But even that was not enough. He pulled himself up to his hands and knees and crawled back to the very edge of the river. He lay his face down in it and sucked the water down. The sensation of cold liquid flowing down his throat produced an indescribable bliss. It was a momentary relaxation of the thirst, that was all. But the bliss it produced was its own reward. Forgetting about the pain in his stomach, forgetting about the hunger, forgetting about all things except this salutary moment, Vandar drank all the cold riverwater that he could get down.

Nothing else moved in the valley, save the black birds that circled high overhead. Their nests dotted the high walls. The lost wanderer paused as he drank himself to death, and looked up in remembrance. He had seen their cousins in another world, where there was only the sea and the cliffs, and a lonely island. He had seen them high on the cliffs, circling and rising on winds where men could not go. Then he corrected himself. Men could go there. He had gone there. He was there now. It was in the middle of the day, but his aching body was too weak. He fell into a dream by the side of the winding river, and there he saw the island again. He was rising up from the bottom of the sea, and he was a waterman.

He had tentacles now, and his body was filled with poison. His arms hung by his sides, and the tentacles that sprouted at random points on his translucent body whirled and darted with their own hunting instincts. His jaw hung open, and seawater dripped from his lips. He thought and remembered the island, and he remembered his family. He came up from the water, lurching forward on unsteady feet, and he saw his father. He wanted to repudiate him, to denounce the cowardice of his name, to justify his flight with words that would win over all listeners, but all that emerged was a low growl. It came from the base of his throat with a putrid smell. It was the smell of death and poison. His father had brought with him fighters, whose long spears were the only weapon against the poisonous but slow waterman. Vandar knew this. He had used the spears himself, before the urge to glory led him back to Thane. He wanted to tell them about the mountains, the world, the thirst. He emitted once again a subhuman growl. Then the spears of the fighters jabbed at him. Pushed into his flesh. He cried out as he swung at them, too slow to keep them at bay--

He recognized them! Lazar was there, and so was Torjek. So was Koeno. All prodded at him with long spears. He would have cried out to them, but language had fallen beyond his grasp.

* * *

Vandar awoke to find a sword pressed against his throat. His arms were held down by strong hands, and shadows interrogated him. He choked and vomited clear water, and he could not speak. He heard laughter and shouting, and they picked him up by the arms. His belly sagged, the weight of the riverwater being enormous within him, and his feet dragged along the ground. He was surrounded by men who wore swords at their sides and carried spears and shields. A caravan of colorfully clad people with strange creatures that he took to be horses (from the tales he had heard as a child, with their bony legs and weirdly long faces) had at first stood by while his interrogation went on, and they now started to unpack and set up an encampment. The men put Vandar down in the dirt, where they stood around him and talked in a funny way--their words where similar to the Thanian he had known on the island, but their inflections seemed wrong, and the words were mispronounced.

Vandar's thirst was unquenchable, and he became desperate to drink from the river. He tried to stand, but weakness filled him. The men laughed. He cursed, and they laughed again. They asked him to repeat the curse--asked in their funny way. He did, and they laughed again. He asked where he was, and they would not answer. He asked to drink water.

"Tell us your name, traveler"

"Please, give me water."

"Your name. You have had plenty of water, by the look of you. Tell us your name now."

Vandar hesitated. He wondered whether they were minions of the traitor lords, whether their masters had blue skin and white hair, and ate the flesh of men. He wondered, but he could not resist them. One of them grabbed at the silver medallion of the Wheel. He could do nothing to resist as they removed it unhurriedly from around his neck. When they asked again he declared his name with all the force that he could muster:

"Harkess! I am Vandar Harkess! Now give me the water or kill me."

It came out as little more than a whisper. The men handed him a sack of water, and as he drank it down they talked between themselves. He did not hear or try to hear. He sucked down the water until the pain in his stomach became acute. Then he fell backwards onto the dirt. He vomited up water again, and coughed uncontrollably. He spat phlegm from his mouth and wiped it with his hand. Then he looked up at the armed men.

"I am dying anyway." He coughed again, and the thirst resumed with all its previous intensity.

One of the men knelt beside him. He pulled Vandar's short sword from its sheath and inspected it. He pointed at the Wheel that was inscribed at the base of the blade and showed it to the others. Then he said to Vandar, "You have been poisoned by the chokaro. It is in the earth in these parts, and kills by thirst. We are not slaves of the devils. We are free men. We will cure you."

Vandar looked up at him. The man's beard was red as red, and his long hair was tied back behind his head. His face was burned red from the sun, and his eyes were sky blue. Vandar looked up at the others. All were warriors, men of the hardy breed. Their weapons dangled at their sides. One by one they inspected the short sword with approving nods, and comments that Vandar could not hear. He passed in and out of dreams, and woke as he was being carried into a tent. He lay there for a while, sure that death was on him, then a woman sat down beside him and forced him to eat bites of a mashed-up plant. It was sweet and stringy, and although his stomach to full to the breaking point, he was glad to have it. He had not eaten for days. The feeling of something solid in his mouth produced its own satisfaction.

Then he passed back into the realm of sleep. His body felt warm beneath a blanket, and the pain in his stomach slipped away.

* * *

"We are the free-swords of Chetto Vorgos, or what remains of them. We are outlaws and free men, killers and thieves, but we live and die together. In these dreadful mountains we have lived and fought for twenty years. Now Chetto is gone, the Thanians are in the valleys, and we have come here to elude them. Since they killed him, they think they have us. But they are wrong. Look at this valley! When there is a place as good as this one, how could we ever be beaten? Eh? Look around you!"

The Left Hand let Vandar look, then he instantly discarded the pretense with a rueful laugh.

"The truth is that we cannot stay here long. There are ghosts in the higher ranges who would come for us at night, and this place has poison in the soil. Still, it makes for a useful retreat. We shall stay a week or so, then return to the valleys to join up with our cousins. There are at least a hundred free-sword bands in these mountains. We are friend to some. We have supplies hidden at a place down below."

The Left Hand looked Vandar in the eye. "Free-swords are never far from want. Nor from defeat. We would have it so to remain free men."

Vandar walked the perimeter of the tiny encampment with a man who called himself the Left Hand. He had knelt down and spoken to Vandar on the first day that the Free-swords came up to the valley, and his red beard shone in the cool and clear day. The wind in the valley was neverending, and the people of his band were wrapped in leather and furs.

Although Vandar was still weak, he walked with the Left Hand along the riverbank, and together they surveyed the encampment. The tents stood on poles, and beneath them the men and women of the Free-swords took their rest. A space had been cleared for a fire, but it was not yet lit. There were no trees anywhere in the high mountains, Vandar had been told. Although the free-swords had hidden supplies in the valley in the past (in preparation for times like this, when flight from the lower valleys could not be delayed for an instant), they had no reason to waste their firewood. This they had unearthed from its hiding place on the lower slope of the valley wall. They dug at it with sticks, and exulted when it was recovered. It lay piled in the center of the encampment, well guarded by the eyes of all.

Vandar counted forty men, twelve women, and five children among the Free-swords, and they took pride in their ragged freedom. They elected their leaders, and Chetto Vorgos had been one of the greatest. He had gathered together the free peoples of the mountains -- the Northlands, as the region was described to Vandar by the Left Hand and others -- and he had raided down into the green hill country of Thane itself. Chetto had been a good and devout man, whose love of liquor was equaled only by his love of the sword and the saddle. He was incorrigible, inviolable in memory, and all the people Vandar met recalled his days with bliss. That was when they had lived in a warm valley down in the lower range, and they had numbered five hundred fighting men in their village alone. When gathered together, the northern folk were invincible, they told Vandar. He saw the toughness of each of them, the meagerness of their means, and he was sure they were right.

They had sent an emissary to find their friends elsewhere in the high mountains, in the old hiding places, and they had posted sentries at the mouth to this high valley. They had taken with them a flock of sure-footed goats, their necks tied together by a long strand of hemp rope, for sustenance in the valley, and already there were plans to raid down into the lower valleys for more food. Their present sanctuary was hidden and watered, and for Vandar the high mountains that ringed the sky made it beautiful and holy, but it had that fatal flaw: no food, no trees, and no shelter. When the winter came, the snows would bury any who attempted to stay here.

Vandar lay in the tent of the Left Hand, still recovering from his poisoning, when a gathering of the men elected his host as their new leader. "I will follow!" each had vowed, and they held their sword-points together in the air. The women watched from their places at the fire, their voices silent. There was something of Petra in their silence, Vandar thought, and he wondered who they might elect if they had the chance.

He sat on a rock beside the shallow river and watched the men slaughter a goat for food. Before they killed it they drew a circle in the dirt, and they prayed out loud for courage and strength. Despite their strange dress and their bandit lives, despite the weird ways in which they spoke and the fact that he himself was born of exiles, they were still born of Thane, and kinsmen. Together the whole band prayed at a makeshift rock Wheel by the side of the river. Their voices rose to a single sustained note for the glory of the Wood.

He ate the strange sweet fruits that they gave him, and he rested. Soon he had regained his strength and could walk unaided. He sat beneath the blue sky and the mountains, beside the shallow river, and he felt the spirit of the Thanian land well up inside him. It had no voice, but the sense was enormous and moving. He bowed his head and then slipped to his knees. He pressed his forehead against the cold ground, and the roar of the spirit encompassed all.

* * *

The Left Hand brooded by the riverside. He had called Vandar to see him, and the two sat by themselves. He told Vandar that sentries had been posted along the route that led down to the lower valleys, the secret route known only to the free-swords. Two men had gone down into the valleys themselves to make contact with allies, but found only bands of enemies who fought one another. They saw Thanian formations too, but no friends.

The Left Hand's face had become a long grimace. "When the winter comes, we must have shelter. Or else my people will starve here. I cannot let that happen."

He has no choice but to lead them, Vandar thought. He wondered how the sense of responsibility must feel. How it would weigh down on a man. Then he remembered his last glimpses of his friends. He felt that he knew very much what the Left Hand felt.

"Let me help you," Vandar said. "You saved my life. Let me help you now. I will fight for you."

The Left Hand fixed his gaze on Vandar, and the calculations of his mind were visible on his face. "Then tell me about this island that you came from."

"It lays in the shadow of the great cliffs of the world. It has shelter and fishing and might make a good place for shelter if you could reach it. There is a tunnel somewhere up there. In the mountains." He waved his hand at the peaks that ringed the sky. "But at its end is a chamber of death, and the end of the world. My blood brothers died there. I will not lead you there too."

The Left Hand said nothing. He stared at Vandar for so long, with his eyes expressionless and cold, that Vandar wondered if he had decided to kill him. Then he spoke.

"I am just a man. Not like you. I was born a land-toiler. I will not die one. Perhaps this chamber of death can be overcome by strong men."

"It is the sea itself, friend. There is no way past it. That is why I am here. It took all my companions and very nearly took me too. I came through it and cannot ever go back."

"What is the sea?"

"The sea? It is the great body of water that lies beyond the edge of the world. It is cold and violent. It is filled with the spirits of the dead. Like the chamber at the end of the tunnel. The dead walk the bottom of the sea. They are monstrous. The sea itself is infinite. Beyond the island of the monastery there is nothing more forever."

"Yes." The Left Hand's eyes now took on a faraway air, and when Vandar spoke again the Left Hand did not reply. Then he murmured to himself, words that Vandar did not understand.

"My people are trapped on an island in that sea," Vandar said. "Beyond the edge of the world. Beyond the reach of the Wood."

"My people are trapped here," said The Left Hand. "I will not see them starve. The whole world is full of pain. Take me to the tunnel, and I will let you go where you may. But not before that. That is my price for your life."

"I cannot find it again."

"Then you shall be slave to me."

This is what Vandar became.