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Si'Wren of the Patriarchs

by Roland Cheney · English · Gutenberg #6592 · 531,293 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Si'Wren of the Patriarchs

Author: Roland Cheney


        
Release date: September 1, 2004 [eBook #6592]
                Most recently updated: August 21, 2012

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6592


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SI'WREN OF THE PATRIARCHS ***














Copyright (C) 1998 by Roland J. Cheney

Si'Wren of the Patriarchs

by Roland Cheney

To my wife, Jacquelyn.

Author's Remarks

The story of Si'Wren was culled out of a veritable treasure trove of
hundreds of little clay tablets which were found sealed and submerged
for over 4,000 years in stone jars. The jars were brought up from their
place of discovery on the floor of the Persian Gulf, where they had
lain half-buried under successive layers of sediment for over four
millennia, by an internationally renowned team of archaeologists,
oceanographers, and professional deep sea divers.

Although few realized the true significance of the find at the time, it
was to be recognized later as a momentous event on that fateful day
when the very first stone jar was actually removed safely intact from
the bottom of the sea by a crude, squealing, grease and rust encrusted
loading crane, to be hoisted free after so many centuries and set at
long-last on the heaving deck of the aging expedition ship.

Monetary funding for the expedition was so short at times that the only
affordable ship permanently on duty throughout the entire venture was
an extremely dilapidated and barnacle-festooned vessel of third-world
registry. No doubt many of the people involved viewed it as a minor
miracle that the near-constant threat of mechanical breakdown did not
endanger the success of the mission proper.

But the mechanics and engineers worked more than a few miracles of
their own when catastrophe loomed, as it did more than once, and their
determination ultimately prevailed.

Safely deposited on dry land after having been lost and forgotten for
almost all of recorded human history, the stone jars were finally
opened to reveal, instead of wine or oil, the curious little clay
tablets safely dry and cushioned in a packing medium of loose straw and
uncombed wool. The clay tablets, finally exposed to the light of day
after holding their secrets for so long, were gently removed from their
stone keepers and carefully packed in crates to be secretly shipped to
the back rooms of a major museum. There, it was hoped, they could be
systematically catalogued, transcribed, and translated by the dedicated
ministrations of a team of the foremost scholars of our time.

After careful and intensive study, the story was derived and adapted
-by express and exclusive museum permission- by the author, who poured
himself out in an exhaustive work upon this unspeakably priceless
literary treasure, to such an extent that a state of chronic ill-health
and increasingly strained and weakened eyesight had begun to set in
toward the end of the project. Every effort was taken to achieve the
highest possible standard of accuracy, integrity, and authenticity in
highlighting every nuance of meaning from so obscure an original tongue.

The author has since recovered, and the story of Si'Wren is therefore
presented now in modern literary form, which -it is hoped- will be
found to have suffered but little from the inevitable abuses of such a
distant cultural disparity and linguistically disjointed translation.
The rigorous demand of a simple, honest, and straightforward retelling
of the story of Si'Wren owes it's true success, not so much to the
tireless and unstinting efforts of the author, working with a bank of
modern university supercomputers, but rather to the remarkable purity
of Si'Wren herself, and the crude directness and honesty of the
original telling.

Here, then, is the final result of so much work, such danger and
heartbreak on the high seas, unrelenting secrecy, and endless scrutiny,
the goal, the prize, priceless beyond all calculation, the translation
of those ancient hieroglyphs so painstakingly stick-marked upon the
unimpressive-looking little tablets; a story written in the softness of
clay, and hardened to the rock of ages. It is a brittle, harsh tale of
a tormented adolescent girl who lived out her tragically short life in
a time of the greatest moral evil and physical beauty that the world
has ever known, a story from the dawn of human history.

PRELUDE

She never knew Jesus, the Christ, the only begotten Son of God, by
name, although He most assuredly knew her when He formed her in her
mother's womb. His time was not yet come.

She was never to hear of the Tower of Babel, or of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, and of Egypt and Moses, of Babylon or the Jews, the Roman
Empire, the Cross, or any of the modern religions of the world. They
were not yet.

She lived out her short life, and eventually died, about the time when
mocking rumors were being widely spread abroad of a foolish old man
called Noah, a wise old Patriarch who was rumored to have been directly
commanded by no less a personage than the Almighty Himself to build an
ark, a great wooden ship. This man, Noah, was given Divine instructions
that he must waste no time, but work diligently to prepare a safe haven
for his family and himself against a terrible day of judgement to be
rained down upon a sinful world, a day when a wrathful God would bring
forth a watery flood so deep as to utterly wipe out the unspeakable
evils of an accursed race.

Many were amused at the rumors of Noah and his strange Invisible God.
Whether the rumors of impending doom were true or not none could say,
although there was none who would not readily agree that it was a world
worthy enough of such punishment. It was a cruel, backward world, where
"...every man did what was right in his own eyes...", sometimes for the
better, but more often, for the worse. Much worse.

It was into such a world that the little slave girl, Si'Wren, was
born...

Chapter One - Little Jars

The young girl sang softly to herself as she filled another container.
Topping it off, she carefully stoppered the neck of the dainty clay
vase and laid it to one side with the others.

An orphan prize of the conquests of the House of Rababull, she was
small for her age, with long ebony hair nearly down to her waist in
back, and perpetually of a rather plain appearance as a child, which
safely hid her flowering beauty, unbeknownst to herself, from the
lustful eyes of others.

She liked to hum and sing while she worked, although not too loudly,
and was a painstaking, diligent servant. She had just finished filling
nine of the little clay jars. They contained a medicinal salve
comprised of rare aromatic resins and spices which were intended to be
sold by an agent of Rababull, her master, in the market place at great
profit.

Rababull kept many slaves, wives, and concubines, and had many sons and
daughters. He was a strong, wealthy gentleman of noble birth, a titled
land owner who wore much crude jewelry, together with the softest of
furs and robes, and was always dressed in the finest weaves of red and
purple.

He had long distinguished gray hair upon his head. His beard was
elaborately curled every morning on a carefully heated rod of iron
which was always cleaned and tested first with the judicious
application of a wet thumb by his personal man servant, who kept it
meticulously polished and free of rust with a dash of virgin olive oil
and a cursory, daily polishing.

Rababull had hard, no-nonsense eyes and speech, and he always drove a
hard bargain, whether it be something of as little consequence as the
selling-off of an old slave or animal too advanced in years to be of
proper use to him anymore, or the buying and selling of great tracts of
land. He also saw to the scourging of slaves and the torture and
questioning of thieves and miscreants, not infrequently even unto pain
of death itself. Life could be cheap, depending on who you were, or who
your father was.

Master Rababull was more than six hundred and fifty years old, although
by the standards of the moderns, more than four thousand years in his
future, he would have been described as an exceeding fit fifty-five.
His life experience, like his age, was vast.

He was not afflicted by an old man's failings of the mind. He was
missing no teeth, neither smitten by cavities. He was sound of stature.
He was still keen of ear, and ate and drank as freely as any rash
youth. He suffered no impairment of bone, limb, or mind, and had
suffered no ailment since the day of his birth.

His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated, and he craved a good
physical match or a hard bet as much as any man 500 years his junior.

It was morning, and Nelatha labored steadily beside Si'Wren. Nelatha
had been originally sold into slavery at birth for the unfortunate
offense of having been a firstborn female, and her first owner had been
fond of tatoos and ritual scars, of which Nelatha had received many all
over her body.

Nelatha was accustomed to making no little ado of her mere five years
seniority over Si'Wren, though not in an unkindly way. Nelatha's limbs
were tireless and unfailing, for she was a large woman of short stature
and powerful girth. The plenteous flesh of her upper arms rippled to an
odd meter as she worked, grinding successful handfuls of spices and
herbs in the stone pestle and mortise, to be portioned out into equal
shares for each lot of balm.

The balm was made with fresh olive oil, pressed and drained out of a
great wooden casement and ram located in the back yard of the compound.
The ram was comprised of a flat, wheel-like lid, with many heavy stones
laid on over the top of the lid by two powerful male slaves, crushing
it down onto the open-topped barrel of olives. As the slaves piled on
the stones, the progressively increasing weight of the ram steadily
crushed out the fresh, strong-smelling olive oil which was drained
through a bung hole at the casque's base.

This was a most pleasant time for Si'Wren, who, not having had any
tatoos, not so much as one, applied anywhere on her body like Nelatha,
and neither desiring any, yet greatly admired and envied Nelatha for
her expert ability and wealth of worldly experience. Si'Wren always
looked on with beaming countenance as the piles of freshly sorted and
washed olives were slowly crushed down under the weight of so many
heavy stones. She would watch the pooling olive oil in the collection
bucket, diligent to pluck forth the bugs from the fresh pressing. Then
the oil would be covered to settle out any remaining bits of dust,
twigs, and dead insects.

Finally, the oil would be sieved through several layers of coarsely
woven cheese cloth, to be stored in tall slender vases with narrow
bottom ends into which the finest pollen grains and motes would
eventually settle out during storage. She knew of no other method to
obtain the olive oil, but this way worked quite well, and Si'Wren was
faithful to obey all, and question nothing that she learned.

Pharmacopoeia was a noble trade to work in, and well-praised by all for
a multitude of reasons, of which several might be mentioned.

Firstly, because of the wonderful, aromatic scents which lingered in
the spice tent and were so soothing to mind and soul.

Secondly, because of constant skin contact with the salves, balms, and
countless varieties of resins and floral concoctions used to make
incense, which were prepared by her and Nelatha on an almost daily
basis, which had a most beneficent effect, giving perpetual advantage
to good health by virtue of being so frequently in direct contact with
the ingredients.

There were but few drawbacks to the natural enjoyment of her work. The
purgative herbs, for example, could be powerful and curiously
disturbing to the bowels in their effects, and their dry powders
sometimes drifted in the air in the confines of the spice tent, having
a drastic effect upon her breathing passages and causing her to gasp,
wheeze, and sneeze in a most extraordinary fashion sometimes.

But that was only because of their natural purging qualities, and she
was soon over it with no harmful aftereffects. One of the herbs was
poisonous to consume whole, whereas the oil of the seeds, pressed out
in it's own little separate bucket and ram and imbibed in small
quantities, acted as a safe and effective purgative to the bowels.

Yet by and large, Pharmacopoeia was interesting and rewarding work, and
was pleasant enough to do. Work in the spice tent forbade the intrusion
of flies or bugs, and except for the sun-drying process, there must be
no direct exposure to the natural elements, lest the product become
spoiled.

A well-trained Pharmacopoeist was worth much money, and merited the
perpetual good favors of the Master for all of his or her days. Praise
for the worker would assure eventual success and praise for the work.

Compared to this, the backs of those working the harvest fields, the
threshing floor, and other more common or menial tasks such as
brick-making, invited the whip, because that could not impair the work
nor harm the product, and would only increase the yield of bricks or
harvest of grain.

Si'Wren was knowledgeable and proficient in almost every aspect and
phase of the work of Pharmacopoeia. She was well tutored in how to
recognize and gather fresh herbs on foraging expeditions with Nelatha
in the wilds, under the protective guardianship of an armed male slave.

Whatever other herbs were not found locally could be purchased readily
enough in the market place for a fair price. Even in this, Si'Wren was
becoming skillful in identifying, grading, and haggling over the prices
of herbs according to their several worth, and she had already gained
much knowledge and experience in this.

But sometimes when at market, she still required the presence of one
with a heavy beard and a deep voice, to help her strike a good bargain,
for many of the traders were so proud and vain of their ability to make
a profusion of crude marks on the tally slate, as 'proof' of their
ability to 'read and write' as well as to cheat and connive, as to be
unwilling to bargain in any manner except 'man to man', and could on
occasion be outright fiendish in their unwillingness to permit a mere
slave girl to get anything like a fair deal out of them.

Si'Wren did not mind. If her Master wanted something, he would see to
it that she was afforded whatever means was required to get it, and
send her out with some broken-nosed, one-eyed brawler of a slave with
cauliflower ears, a total illiterate who was willing enough to trade
'look for look' in the market place, in order to back her up in the
demeaning cut-throat little realm of the traders.

Perhaps Si'Wren's most notable challenge of all, however, was her
resolute refusal of becoming involved in any form of Sorcery, and a
natural fear and reluctance of serving it's horrible totems and mystic
signs employed publicly with such pomp and ceremony. Besides this, as a
female she was ineligible to rise to a very high rank in the priesthood
anyways.

Few women rose to such positions of power. After all, it was a man's
world. Where superior strength was needed, of what use was beauty? Woe
to the man who became physically useless, in such a world.

And so, through no fault of her own, Si'Wren had already missed out on
the basic qualifying factor in life of being born male, a crucial
qualification if one was to become a true Master of Pharmacopoeia. But
she had always shunned, in heart and deed, the vile pursuits of being a
Sorcerer, and secretly regarded it as no great loss in her young life.

Neither did Habrunt, the sage Slavemaster, take part in any Sorceries
himself, ceremonial or other, and from what she saw, Si'Wren indirectly
perceived a like sentiment in Habrunt to her own. She had never seen
him so much as partake of such dark activities, even when she saw him
off by himself at such and such a time as he felt mostly unobserved by
others.

Habrunt was an exceeding strong man, and his true age was a mystery to
all. He had a naturally weathered face, with deep, dark, friendly eyes,
which held a slight but perpetual squint, as if he were ever vigilant
against the many evils of an uncertain life. Si'Wren basically
entrusted herself body and soul to Habrunt's unassuming tutelage in the
many curiosities of the world, as if nothing could be more natural.

Habrunt was a formidable man. His tireless, muscular physique was
battle-scarred, but although she knew him to be a fearless man, she had
never seen him actually fight anyone. He had no tatoos. His dark hair,
like his beard, was slightly wavy, and like his face, very pleasing to
behold in the eyes of young Si'Wren, and he kept his hair cropped to a
proper shoulder length, but no longer than that, as befitted his low
station in life, for he was but a slave himself. Habrunt was greater in
stature and strength than Master Rababull, but unlike that other, he
was no idle boaster and displayed no jewelry upon his nearly naked
person.

Although only a slave, Slavemaster Habrunt ranked second in importance
in the House of Rababull after only the Master himself. The cast of
Habrunt's eyes was of a dutiful mein, but his normally pleasant,
preoccupied expression as he looked after his many responsibilities,
could become hard and unyielding at a moment's notice, even piercing by
aspect, such as when he was wont to evaluate a slave even unto his very
soul with a mere look. For this, and other, less notable reasons, all
of the slaves under Habrunt's fair-minded authority held him in regard
of great fear and respect, and because the mark of Habrunt was so
universally the mark of excellence throughout the House and it's
surrounds, he received much praise from Master Rababull for all that he
did.

Such widely-held acclaim for Slavemaster Habrunt, the chief agent of
Master Rababull, was in no small part maintained by his sage words of
advice, characteristically brief, unerring, and straight to the point,
and by the certain knowledge in every servant's mind that if one failed
at the fore to heed mere words from Slavemaster Habrunt, one must
harken at the last to the whip of Master Rababull.

For Master Rababull always kept a large, blood-encrusted bull whip
ready to hand for his most grievous personal judgements, when the real
punishments must be meted out.

The two girls, Nelatha and Si'Wren, being naturally shy and
industrious, counted themselves privileged to work together in the
shelter of the spice tent. The tent of animal skins was located well
off to one side in the large front courtyard of the House of Rababull,
which was surrounded on all sides by a high stone wall.

The Master's holdings consisted of but a very small portion of the
Emperor's kingdom, yet they were large tracts of land nevertheless.
They were located on a broad fertile valley plain covered by dense
scattered forest and jungle. Across this plain, the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers flowed and converged together into one. This dry land,
this lush fertile plain, would one day be known to all mankind as a
large body of salt water, named the Persian Gulf.

The wide tent was open at both ends and shielded by thin gauze veils to
keep out flying insects, and preserve the salves and other herbal
preparations. Infestation by insects could cause the finest ointment to
give forth a stinking savor, and invoke the certain displeasure of the
Master. The tent was also equipped with extra flaps so that it could be
closed up at night or during the day when it became too misty.

L'acoci, an old slave woman of the House, spoke once of seeing the
colors of a virgin's garments, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and
violet, as a banded scimitar slash in the heavens, a colored arch, a
wound in a darkened noonday sky misty enough that it wetted her
upturned face and garments, and obscured her vision most strangely.

None had ever heard of such foolishness, and all, even Si'Wren, had
laughed her to scorn. Colors in the sky? L'acoci was deluded. No one
had ever heard of such a preposterous thing, and the very suggestion
was flatly impossible.

A heavy dew came out of the ground every night and often in the day,
and caused all life to flourish. But as Si'Wren well knew from
unfortunate firsthand experience, such enshrouding mists could cause
rare herbs and spices, if they were left exposed, to quickly turn
stale, causing Master Rababull much displeasure.

To guard against such calamity, the tent was equipped to afford proper
shelter from the clammy, clinging mists, which could arise on a
moment's notice and transform the torches in men's hands into pale
blobs of moon glow, like spirits at large upon the land.

Within the sheltering confines of the tent, Si'Wren counted herself a
cherished and defended slave, safe within the walls of her Master's
House, where strange men could not ogle or frighten her. For savage,
rogue men walking in the lusts of their wicked hearts went out at all
times of day or night, seeking human prey, upon whom they might work
their unspeakable evils, men who loudly proclaimed their honor before
others, and yet were so wicked in their ways that no woman or child
dared venture alone beyond the protection of some trusted strong man or
tribe.

Sometimes a local sorcerer was rumored to have kidnaped an
unsuspecting victim for occult and sacrificial purposes. Such men were
oft upon the land by night, when swords slept in their owners' grasps,
and brave men retired upon their racks behind the stoutest walls and
doors they could manage. There was no law except the law of the pack.
The only real law was right of might and sword and the dictates of
powerful warlords and landowners, even unto the changeable whim of the
Emperor himself. Against such, mere empty words were but as the ring of
brass or a sounding cymbal, dumb bells all, and the clink of the
condemned slave's heavy chains. Too often, the ring of a sword was the
only proper answer.

The world was a place of much beauty, but even greater evil.

Si'Wren prayed oft in her bed at night, that she might one day be given
in marriage to some strong and decent man. Was it not supposed to be
one man and one wife, as had once been that great and mythical
Patriarch Adam and his helpmeet, Eve? Eve first bore Cain, then Abel,
and then after the sons of Cain were already abroad upon the land even
unto the sixth generation, Eve bore Seth. Adam and Eve were, then, one
husband and one wife in the beginning. Yet now, after fewer generations
than the fingers on one's hands, men stole, bought, and murdered for as
many wives and female slaves as cunning, sword, and gold could get.

A good husband, if Si'Wren should one day become so blessed as to find,
could be both protector and benefactor to her. She was young, and still
had her whole life ahead of her. A wise woman must overlook her man's
faults, and stand beside him, even help lift him up when he might
otherwise perish, and Si'Wren believed in the promise of the proverb
that a faithful woman who served well might hope to find such a man,
together with riches, happiness, and a houseful of many offspring.

Abruptly, as she worked, there came the crack of whips and the sound of
curses, and Si'Wren looked up in momentary astonishment as a team of
two big oxen straining against their yokes plodded slowly past the open
end flap of her tent accompanied by several dirty-looking boys and
driven by two brawny slaves who presently followed the beasts into
view. Truly, Si'Wren observed meekly, a woman's place was under a man's
protection, for what woman could match such men in the daily toil of
such backbreaking labors as this?

The oxen were dragging a stone boat. A stone boat was no boat at all,
but actually a great, wheelless, wooden sled or sledge used to
transport big building stones from the rock quarry, or round stones
from the harvest fields where they were unearthed by the plow, to be
dragged as deadweight upon a platform made with two wooden skids, and
transported across the dry land to the construction site for use in the
making of more stone walls and buildings.

The young slave boys walked alongside the grating and squealing runners
of the stone boat with goat skin bags, ready to provide grease or water
to make sludge or mud under the runners, when the sled ground to a halt
sometimes and must have something extra added to unstick it. The boys
also carried straw brooms for the same purpose, as well as staffs to
load and unload the sledge.

One of the young boys had suffered a massively crippled hand from the
carelessness of his overseers when he was ordered to apply the grease
and water and insert the end of a broom more closely beneath the
runners. Such boys must reach in and work the water and grease and dirt
together with their brooms and fingertips, because sometimes what was
poured on would merely run off as quickly again without sinking in.

The older or more experienced boys could also employ the ends of their
staffs for this purpose, but when a boy was especially young or new to
the job and had never seen a stone boat before, it sometimes pleased
the others who had the charge of such a green and inexperienced youth,
to order him into the worst labors possible, and few other boys would
give the temporary loan of their sticks and staffs, lest one of them
suffer a similar ghastly fate. Si'Wren had once heard an agonizing
episode of high-pitched screams that began so suddenly as to jolt her
right down to the very pit of her stomach. The pitiful childish screams
had gradually subsided into long dismaying moans that had continued
long into the night, and thus had she known that something of the sort
had happened, and she spent the night praying desperately on her bed
for the sufferings of the hapless young victim.

The stones comprising this particular load, broken by the stone masons
into crude blocks of two and three times the weight of a man, were for
the Master's garden wall, which Si'Wren must pass by every day on her
way to and from the spice tent. As the two sweating drivers were helped
along by the boys, many looked on disinterestedly and more than a few
openly laughed and mocked at the slowness of their progress.

One onlooker shouted gleeful insults, bringing on the inevitable vile
curses from the aggravated drivers.

The men kept the oxen at their yokes with cursings and whippings, as
they dragged the stone boat screeching over the exposed surfaces of
rocks and stones in the ground and the wooden runners scraped over them
with ear-splitting squealings. Si'Wren watched also as the team made
their way slowly past the spice tent and beyond, to where the stone
masons labored to build the new garden wall.

Si'Wren bowed her head a little, and shut her eyes gently as she softly
sang a prayer for the physical safety of the young boys. She often sang
prayers during her work, swaying gently to the rhythm of her own soft
sweetly-uttered syllables. It was not merely a prayer she sang always,
but sometimes rather, a long-favored tribal song, a song of old which
kept alive the promise about the Garden of Heaven to which all good
souls must surely one day go.

The day was warm and pleasant. It was the kind of day to lull one into
a drifting somnambulance, inviting weary slaves to seize upon the
unwatched moment now and then to pause, and wander freely with their
eyes across the inner mind and the far skies, in spite of the
ever-present risk of sudden discovery and displeasure by the Master.

Nelatha's sudden intake of air accompanied by a frightened gasp of
startlement caused Si'Wren to cease abruptly from her labors and look
up quickly.

Immediately Si'Wren shrank back in an involuntary motion as she beheld
the terrifying sight of a hairy, muscled giant of a man, easily twice
the height of any normal individual. The giant had six great fingers,
like stout wooden pegs, on each hairy, enormous hand. Because of his
size he appeared to be walking with exaggerated slowness, although the
long strides with which he covered the ground took him across the level
courtyard and up the front steps of the House of Rababull in a
surprisingly short time.

His size was truly staggering to behold, and Si'Wren counted it her
good fortune that he was already moving away from the tent entrance in
such a way that she was not so much as glimpsed by him.

Such men, if they be men, could be unpredictably violent, and who could
withstand such a one when he should happen to suddenly lose his temper?
Although they were too big to ride horses, they could run on their long
legs almost as swiftly as any horse, especially in a short sprint when
attacking in a burst of speed. When they did ride, they were fond of
more fitting steeds, such as elephants.

"Was he not terrible to behold?" Nelatha barely breathed, her voice a
terrified series of gasped utterances.

"Aye, he is possessed!" Si'Wren agreed readily.

Indeed, he looked every bit of that.

Demon-possessed men had abnormal strength. How much the more so, such a
one as this human tree?

With trembling fingers, Si'Wren carefully finished filling another tiny
bottle and stoppered it carefully, checking to ensure that it could not
possibly leak if accidentally tipped over or upended within some
traveler's pouch.

"There," she said softly, still shivering in fear. "Ten bottles."

"So soon?" asked Nelatha, looking over her shoulder and double-checking
Si'Wren's finger-count swiftly.

Si'Wren nodded. "I do good, aye?"

Nelatha, sensing how frightened Si'Wren still was, smiled her approval,
and leaned over to hug Si'Wren in a reassuring embrace.

"You keep up a good pace," Nelatha agreed with evident satisfaction. "I
am proud of you, Si'Wren."

They were charged to labor without ceasing, but sometimes both girls
would alike find themselves the free time to rest and watch others, for
which neither girl was apt to criticize the other too unfairly.

Outsiders could not easily see into the tent, thereby to voice any
complaint of idleness, for the veil screened the girls while they
worked, keeping them safely out of view while they labored happily
within it's shadowy confines.

Even so, the two girls did try to be faithful and willing servants who
would scarce conscience the deliberate wasting of their Master's
valuable time and resources, and whose household they rightly
considered themselves to be a part of. To be sure, they counted
themselves but inferior members of the House, and yet, if not heirs,
nevertheless exceeding fortunate to be the property of so great a one
as Master Rababull.

This, then, was their fate and fortune, and it was good in their sight.

Master Rababull had never deliberately mistreated either of them,
although he was known to deal harshly enough with rightly deserving
wrongdoers or habitual slackers if they pushed their luck too far.

He had more than enough of those to preoccupy his attentions. According
to the elder slaves, times were never so evil as now. Si'Wren wondered
at this, being too young to say for herself. But she was inclined to
agree with them.

The giant came out again, and made equally short work of his brief walk
across the wide courtyard to the foundry. To the tune of many hammers,
a group of talented artificers was busy at their labors there as they
worked diligently to create numberless idols of stone, brass, silver,
pearl, ivory, gold, wood, bone, and sparkling, mystically colored
gemstones and jewels.

These skilled men worked together like tireless oxen under the
unflinching eyes of the sweating, dirt-streaked Foundryman, the
traditional Task Master of their Trade, and could readily produce any
sort of cleverly carved and molded artifact, and an endless variety of
molten and engraved idols and gods of all sizes, shapes, and
descriptions. These were always sold or traded off at a handsome profit
for Master Rababull, although some were given as gifts instead. The
handiwork of the clever craftsmen went mostly, as did the wares of
Si'Wren and Nelatha, to the market place in the nearby city of Emperor
Euphrates, ruler over all the land.

Across the yard, the giant stood talking in a voice so deep that it was
like the continuous lowing of a great talking ox. His huge, ugly face
was like a terrible stone mask, and all men of ordinary stature were
utterly dwarfed by him, and so afraid of him that they stood frozen in
stark fear if he so much as but glanced in their direction momentarily.

"The gods of the giants are exceeding mighty!" breathed Si'Wren,
keeping her voice low so as not to be overheard. To this Nelatha made
no reply, but watched only, and kept her silence.

Because of the six-fingered giants, one could speak of another race.
But the way of ordinary men, throughout the known world, was; one kind,
one race, one speech, easily recognized and understood by all. This was
the way it had always been and it would scarce have occurred to any to
so much as question it.

Only two kinds of men might speak and not be understood; drunkards, and
the possessed, and though foul be the reproaches and slurred speech of
a drunkard, so much the worse be the abuses one risked in knowingly
dealing with some possessed madman!

Giants, Si'Wren was told, were all possessed.

The two frightened girls stayed hidden, watching motionlessly in the
spice tent as the giant stood like a temple god himself and conversed
at great length with the Foundryman. They could not hear clearly what
was said, but the giant gesticulated with his huge hands so much that
it was interesting to watch and try to figure out.

He wanted an idol made. This much was plain to see. Verily, for that,
he had come to the right place.

Si'Wren knew no Polynesians, Asians, Eurasians, or Mongolians. She knew
no Amerinds northern or southern, no Hispanics, Negroids, or Pygmies.
She knew no Caucasians, rain forest people, or Eskimos. She knew no
people other than her own kind, for there was but one race of Man the
world over.

Yet these unknown future races -with their diverse tongues yet to be
born out of history- were hidden in the bloodline of Si'Wren's one
world-wide race, one day to emerge, and then would come proud evil
speeches of 'the purity of the race' with exclusive regard to
individual strains, and a need to 'ethnic cleansing' and racial
'purges' of the 'mixed breeds'.

The human race, of which Si'Wren was but a single leaf, one lone, timid
female, had spread abroad by a plethora of land bridges. There were
many shallow seas and easily crossed land bridges in this, the world of
Si'Wren, land which was but slightly above the level of the seas, with
broad exposed continental shelves, vast coastal plains, and virgin,
fertile land. Much territory was given over to swamp, tropical jungle,
and dense forest.

Thus there was but one people in the world, medium-color, and more or
less medium-dark of hair. To suggest that from the loins of a single
man and his wife would one day spring forth all future races in their
manifold colors and countless differences would have been a source of
great astonishment to Si'Wren, could she but have known. One might as
well harken unto the daffy old woman, L'acoci, and her crazy talk of
colors in the sky, as to speak of many differing colors among the skins
of men.

There was no other kind of human, except for the giants, and even these
spoke the same language as the rest of the human race, in spite of
their great difference in size. Even those with six fingers were not so
different as all that. Yet in spite of the fact that there was only one
race among men -which included the giants- there was hatred in almost
every heart, wickedness such as to compound every evil, and deliberate
mimicry of the savage wild beasts which roamed this wild primitive
world so overflowing with such indescribable natural beauty.

Si'Wren reached for the water skin, and fumbled as her fingers plucked
for it, and accidentally dropped it in the dirt. She reached down and
picked it up, ignoring the rough coating of caked-on mud which clung to
the bag as she raised it to her lips. The water ran freely out of the
bag's horn spout, it's mud coating wrinkling across the contracting,
silken wet goat skin, giving rise to many miniature ridges.

When she had drunk her full, she heedlessly hung the depleted goat skin
back on the stub of a knot-end on the tent pole upright, a small
axe-hewn sapling. The half-dried mud clung to the goat skin in a
curious pattern of broken and layered ridges that were partly crushed
together wherever their broken edges collided and overran one-another
as a result of the escape of water beneath the muddy leather, which
Si'Wren had taken to quench her thirst.

The water skin forgotten, she rubbed her hands lightly to brush the
coating of mud off her palms and turned to her work, while unheeded
behind her, some of the water skin's encrusted mud crumbled and dropped
to the ground behind her bare feet in little broken clods that
contained the tiny seeds of plants, and the remains of a few dead
insects.

Even as there was but one race of man, which included the giants and
the six-fingered ones, there was also but one breed, likewise, of the
dog.

Hardly a noble creature to look upon, the common camp dog was a
different breed altogether from the huge and fearsome dire wolves that
stood as tall as a man at the shoulder and roamed the farthest and
deepest wilds in savage packs.

The dogs of men more resembled the small wild plains dogs.

Yet, like the wolves, which ran in packs, this hardy domesticated breed
retained a strong pack instinct. It was used as a guard dog and camp
scavenger, but could, like any wolf, become dangerous if starved too
long or unduly provoked, as by the tauntings of foolish children.

Covertly watching the giant visitor, Si'Wren found it a relief not to
be seen by him, unlike the unhappy Foundryman, who, normally considered
by all to be no runt in his own right and anything but a coward, looked
now equally as puny and scared as any small boy. He looked so scared
that Si'Wren could not help but feel sorry for him. The giant was so
tall that the Foundryman must needs tilt his head back and look almost
straight up at the hairy visitor. What an ugly head, to behold against
the majesty of the skies.

"Their gods may indeed be strong," said Nelatha, "but the fight is not
always to the strong, nor the race to the swift, and I have heard
speakings in my time, of an Invisible God."

Si'Wren was so distracted by observing the giant that she forgot
herself and suddenly had to look at Nelatha and say foolishly, "Huh?
Forgive me Nelatha, what did you say?"

Nelatha sighed patiently.

"I said, the gods of the Giants may seem exceeding fierce and large,
and like themselves, false-hearted, but there is an Invisible God that
I have heard of, who is strongest of all."

"Indeed?"

"Aye, and He is a loving, forgiving god. But," Nelatha said, her voice
lowered to a conspiratorial whisper, "the idol makers despise this
Invisible God, because they cannot make any money selling idols of Him."

Nelatha giggled, and Si'Wren smiled also.

It must be a joke, of course.

Si'Wren and Nelatha both loved to privily mock the moneymakers. The
wheelers and dealers must provide their own fare, and were much
obsessed with money-making schemes in the market place. They were
shrewd cheats, long accustomed to swapping not only goods, but lies and
lives, and often resorted to savage ambushes and bloodlettings after
dark. There was ample reason to be fearful of the night. Hence, they
deserved not only to be feared, but mocked on occasion.

Nelatha giggled because the artificers who made the idols always acted
so godly and superior, and were so full of the greed of dogs but could
never seem to suspect the similarity of themselves to such lowly
creatures. It seemed to the two girls like Heaven's well-deserved gift
of madness to such evil ones.

At least, that was Si'Wren's unspoken opinion. However, it would never
do for a mere slave girl to be so blunt as to speak with such open
foolishness. Si'Wren always guarded her thoughts. For as the wise men,
who ever sat in the city gates, were fond of repeating so often and so
well-deservedly, 'What is foolishly uttered in private, will surely be
regretted openly in public'.

Wise counsel dictated that one such as Si'Wren must not criticize
others more important than herself (which was virtually everybody),
even if she saw cutthroats setting up their gods of greed under every
green tree, with which to furnish themselves an imagined, perpetual
divine approval of their moral filth and wickedness.

For the idol-makers, greediness begat holiness, and their chief deity
was the god of gain. But Si'Wren could not help wondering whether such
be gods at all. Hence, her sudden and immediate interest in Nelatha's
words.

"How could a god be invisible?" asked Si'Wren. "How could one make
proper obeisance to him? Which way would you bow?"

"Well," Nelatha thought a minute, pausing in her work. Then she said,
"Little one, when you close your eyes in prayer to the Master's family
god, and then bow, tell me this; do you see him at the precise moment
of bowing?"

"No, I do not," said Si'Wren. "How interesting! I have never thought of
that before. One can bow in any direction, then?"

"I think so," said Nelatha, showing with her slowness of speech, that
she was becoming very, very preoccupied about what had up until now
been mere conversation to Si'Wren.

Si'Wren, noticing this sudden onset of seriousness on Nelatha's part,
sought how to retreat from the imagined danger of causing any possible
offense to Nelatha.

"There are many gods," said Si'Wren quickly. "I am sure yours is just
as good as anyone else's, in spite of the unfortunate fact that you
cannot see him."

"Not so," said Nelatha flatly. "The Invisible God is the only true god.
It is not so difficult if one cannot see him. Consider, Si'Wren, such a
time as when you are suddenly frightened while lying in your bed after
dark, when it is not possible to go to the House temple which the
Master has built, therein to pray. Then, surely you must make prayers
to the Master's god without seeing him."

"Aye," agreed Si'Wren, wondering at this, for, of a curiosity, she
perceived strange new truths in Nelatha's words.

"Well, then," Nelatha said simply, "that's all there is to it."

"Pray tell; 'that is all there is to what?'" inquired an imperious and
sultry female contralto, coming from almost directly behind their
unguarded backs.

Both girls started like birds and together as one bent swiftly and
automatically to their tasks as if bowing to one of the many idols of
the House of Rababull with an instinctive zeal born of grievous prior
experience. One must never be caught openly slacking, and the voice was
that of Sorpiala, standing just at the opening of the tent flap.

Sorpiala, so slender and tall for her sex, with long glossy dark hair,
and such lovely almond-shaped eyes, was a beautiful young slave woman
greatly favored by Master Rababull. Like the Master, Sorpiala was not
always so agreeable with the sometimes carelessly chosen words of
others, unlike amiable Nelatha.

What made Si'Wren even more afraid, was that some of the others had
been heard to remark of late on how beautiful Si'Wren was becoming. In
fact, some said Si'Wren was even more beautiful now than cruel, proud
Sorpiala.

It gave Si'Wren a scary feeling. In fact, sometimes a positively
dreadful feeling. From the warnings Si'Wren had been privately given by
others in the House, it was evident to all that Master Rababull had
been making eyes at Si'Wren in the months since young Si'Wren had begun
to physically blossom, and as was increasingly clear to all, had begun
at long last upon the path of becoming transformed from a human reed
into something a little more shapely, after the manner of all womankind.

Si'Wren somehow found herself becoming progressively more aware of such
dire warnings by the older female slaves in the House, who seemed to
feel that it would be Si'Wren's very life if Sorpiala should perceive
Si'Wren as a threat to her domain.

But, being so young and innocent, and not able to fully comprehend the
meaning of such dark speakings, Si'Wren could only shrug inwardly,
knowing not how or what she might do to avoid such an unintended
confrontation of fates. Lives should intertwine and complement, not
strangle, one-another. And it seemed to her that sometimes now Si'Wren
felt Master Rababull's eyes lingering inordinately long upon her, and
could only feign not to notice, for she was utterly at a loss to know
how to behave, even without the unconventional idea of some unguessable
danger stemming out of Sorpiala's secretly harbored and uncontrolled
upwellings of jealousy.

It was well-enough known to all, that syrupy sweet Sorpiala could
without warning become subtle and vicious at the slightest perceived
insult. For Sorpiala's lips were quick to smile, although her
almond-shaped eyes had always betrayed an hardness, and Sorpiala could
be unrelentingly vindictive about her jealousies, which were countless.
Sorpiala had been the Master's favorite for as long as Si'Wren could
remember. Cross up Sorpiala, and you could end up strapped to the
nearest alter with a stone knife hovering in a pair of hairy fists over
your chest.

There was no way of knowing how long Sorpiala had stood behind the two
of them in deathly silence, listening at their backs while Nelatha and
Si'Wren spoke foolishly, uttering what could all too easily become
their own death warrants on a moment's notice, for appearing to so
willfully and heedlessly forsake their proper duties.

Deep in her heart, Si'Wren had always held as deep a love, reverence,
and respect for Sorpiala as if she were an elder sister, although they
were unrelated by blood. An orphan, Si'Wren had no known siblings. As
for the other slaves in the House, many were known to be the children
of Master Rababull, for he was a man who had many wives, and the
slave-offspring which he had sired might at least claim many
half-brothers or half-sisters among their kin. Not being freeborn, this
was anyhow counted an honor among those slaves who could boast of it,
for it gave them many incidental advantages they might not otherwise
enjoy in their low estate.

But Si'Wren had none to call blood kin. Not a soul.

Si'Wren had also been afraid of Sorpiala more recently, purely aside
from the warnings of others, because of the queerest look Si'Wren
thought she saw in Sorpiala's eyes now and again. It was an alarming
expression, like a deep, searing mask of thinly-veiled hatred, the way
that a surface layer of whitest ash masked the red glow of a fire
living in a long-burning bed of coals while betraying no visible flame
or spark on the surface.

Such confused goings-on both frightened and perplexed Si'Wren, and she
was naturally at a loss how to respond, and so did nothing. What could
she have done anyway?

Si'Wren had been given special warning by old L'acoci, and now also
began to understand, dimly, that to a slave girl, any degree of beauty
could be a terrible curse, if it brought the wrong kind of attention
from the wrong kind of person. To a slave, especially a young girl such
as Si'Wren, were not all others superior to herself? She was virtually
at the mercy of whoever chose to molest her, for she did not even know
how to run away or where to go.

Now, fearful in the presence of Sorpiala's ominous silence, Si'Wren
kept her eyes downcast on her little jars, pretending with an agonized
trembling and the barest amount of fumbling over everything she
touched, to be utterly oblivious of anything out of the ordinary.

Unexpectedly, Sorpiala stepped forward to face Si'Wren and smiled
tenderly from one side.

"Si'Wren, what is this? Did I not just have the good fortune to hear
you talking about the Invisible God?" Sorpiala asked in the sweetest
tone of voice. "How curious," Sorpiala went on, "that I have never
before noticed your belief in him, dear. Is He not wonderful?"

Si'Wren lifted up her eyes to Sorpiala in a shy smile. Of course she
could trust Sorpiala! Who could dare to think otherwise?

"Aye, Sorpiala," said Si'Wren, looking up and nodding readily and
continuing to smile beamingly. "We were just talking about him. I have
never before heard of a god so unusual that one could not even see him."

But abruptly, as Si'Wren turned from smiling at Sorpiala in order to
include Nelatha in the conversation, she was struck dumb with shock by
the stark, thinly veiled terror in Nelatha's trapped-looking eyes.
After betraying that one warning look to Si'Wren, Nelatha bent over her
work and pretended not to be aware of anything around her, especially
anything in the direction of Sorpiala.

Si'Wren looked back at Sorpiala again quickly, blinking rapidly in
confusion.

"Fear not," soothed Sorpiala, reaching to stroke Si'Wren's cheek gently
with her fingertips. "I have heard of the Invisible God. Does he not
watch over all the world and even ourselves at this very moment?"

"Aye," Si'Wren nodded doubtfully, casting her round eyes from
Sorpiala's curiously reassuring countenance, to Nelatha, who, looking
sick at heart, seemed ready to die of fear on the very spot.

Si'Wren suddenly wished that Nelatha would stop worrying. Could Nelatha
not see how loving and faithful Sorpiala was, both to them and to this
Invisible God?

"Don't work too hard, Nelatha," Sorpiala said, and then let out a funny
little laugh. "Remember; the Invisible God is always watching every
move, and hears every word. Bye-bye, girls."

"Bye, Sorpiala," said Si'Wren, smiling fondly.

But Nelatha did not return the farewell, and when Sorpiala was gone,
Si'Wren stood motionless for a long time, as motionless as any dumb
graven idol, as she struggled with some nameless, faceless inner
turmoil in her effort to take proper stock of the situation.

Why was Nelatha so troubled, and so unwilling to so much as speak of it?

* * *

In the following days, Sorpiala seemed to harbor a special look of
affection which she secretly displayed for Si'Wren's eyes only,
whenever they chanced to meet. It gave Si'Wren the most deep-down,
sisterly feeling for Sorpiala, and made her feel inexpressibly
contented with life.

But with each passing day, Nelatha became if possible even more
fearful, and finally, she would no longer so much as speak scarcely a
word to Si'Wren or even acknowledge her presence with so much as a nod,
causing Si'Wren much anguish when they worked together in the spice
tent at their labors and causing her to long desperately for their
former good times together.

Whenever Master Rababull would chance to pass by, he would nod and beam
and smile at her, filling Si'Wren's day with consternation and no
little dismay that she should feel so dumb about everything. Any simple
slave girl might quite sensibly have experienced a right and proper
bliss, even a contentment, at such attentions, but all Si'Wren felt was
a terrible sense of foreboding.

Si'Wren occasionally saw Sorpiala standing in the shadows, frowning,
but only once did Si'Wren chance to deliberately spy on Sorpiala, as
she stood across the courtyard in the shadow of the House and stared
down at an overripe fruit that had turned partly rotten. The fruit had
already begun to dry up, and Si'Wren could see the shrunken, wrinkled,
flattened side on which it had lain in the dirt, and the flies that
scattered when Sorpiala shooed them away with a distracted frown.

It was uncharacteristic for Sorpiala to touch such filth with her
hands, and Si'Wren could only wonder at what could have motivated one
such as she to do such a thing. It fretted Si'Wren to see her elder
sister in bondage grieving so over a mere rotting fruit. Were there not
an hundred fresh ones, ripe for the taking, to replace the rotten one
that seemed to concern Sorpiala so?

Si'Wren was fairly mystified at this.

Suddenly three of Sorpiala's female consorts approached, catching her
off-guard with the offending fruit still held openly in her palm.
Sorpiala seemed to give a sudden start at the appearance of the others,
as if not expecting them and for some reason seemed
uncharacteristically at a loss how to face them, although Si'Wren could
not say why. There were many such slave girls under Sorpiala's personal
power, who were virtually as answerable to Sorpiala as they were to
Master Rababull himself.

Si'Wren watched in blank astonishment, secure behind her tent skirts,
as the other three women made carefully orchestrated faces of sham
sorrow over the fruit to Sorpiala's face, and then when they departed,
delivered with equal skill and dispatch the most despicably reviling,
hateful looks to Sorpiala behind her back.

Sorpiala's slave attendants were like flounders, fish that could not
swim with a proper motion, that dwelt in the mire at the bottom of the
sea, and looked strangely at one with the peculiar oddness of two eyes
both wrongfully on one side only, but no eye on the other side. So
that, wherever the flounder looked, it looked while concealing it's
other side, all the while appearing to be as falsely over-sincere as
only a flounder could seem.

The following morning, Si'Wren found herself working in the spice tent
beside a disturbingly quiet Nelatha. It was early enough that the
morning mists still drifted thickly over the glistening outer walls and
swirled wetly through the compound and softening and obscuring all form
and substance.

Softly, Si'Wren sang a prayer to herself for a day filled with
blessings from Heaven for all who lived in Master Rababull's House,
respectfully beseeching various and sundry gods as she followed a
tribal melody with the words of her prayer. Forgotten were her fears,
for there remained only, from time to time, that distressing silence of
Nelatha, which Si'Wren had been so vainly at odds to dispel with her
cheerfulness.

She had never been so happy, working in the spice tent. Only now, she
was aware of the fact that she did pray to unseen gods. Gods whose
graven idols were not in her immediate, visible presence, just as
Nelatha had scornfully pointed out earlier when still on speaking terms
with her. This led Si'Wren to consider more seriously the strange
Invisible God of whom Nelatha had initially spoken.

Nelatha still adamantly refused to speak of the Invisible God, in spite
of the fact that Sorpiala clearly meant no harm, and stubbornly refused
now to so much as say one word about this or practically anything else.

But Si'Wren could not stop herself from wondering about this strange
Invisible God. For the whole idea was still very unclear to her. She
was still so young, and the world so vast.

She supposed that the elders of every village must know all about this
Invisible God, and imagined that they must surely understand why His
image could not be somehow made visible by the contrivance of wooden or
golden idols made with hands. Yet, she was fearful of going to any of
them and asking.

The least of the elders of any of the villages round about, and those
also that sat in the gates of the Emperor's city, was each and every
one of them, from the highest to the very lowest in rank, a great civil
dignitary. That was how Si'Wren had always viewed them.

Such great men should not be trifled with, especially by a mere girl,
and might severely chastise Si'Wren for her boldness, and perhaps as
well for her blatant ignorance of such matters. What if, in their
anger, any of them was to complain to her Master Rababull and shame him
openly for the stupidity of the foolish girl slave called Si'Wren? The
more that even one of them should happen to laugh and make mention of
it to him, the more Master Rababull would punish her, it seemed to
Si'Wren. No, it was not worth such a risk, merely to ask such a curious
and doubtful question.

"Nelatha, I have longed that I might speak with you once more about
this curious Invisible God," Si'Wren finally said, eyes meekly downcast
to her work. "Why has He given us eyes, and then made Himself
invisible, that none might ever look upon His face? Is it because He is
ashamed?"

Nelatha worked on, as if she had not heard.

"Why would God be ashamed?" Si'Wren whispered, as if to herself now.

Finally, Nelatha looked up with an expression of open impatience and
exasperation.

"Only man is ashamed," Nelatha said with quiet assurance, at long last
overcoming her reluctance of speaking of the Invisible One again. "Not
God. Foolish Si'Wren, you must try your best to live a sinless life. Do
good, and shun evil! Does not the wisdom of our folk lore teach us that
Adam, and Eve his wife, saw God openly and spoke to Him freely and
often, before they were both cast out of the Garden of Heaven for one
sin? No wonder He never shows His face! And does this not also teach us
that there is but one God?"

"It is curious," Si'Wren agreed, "that Adam and Eve should have been
created by only one god, when all men say there be many gods. Of a
truth, I have never considered it before. How can this be?"

"There is but one God," said Nelatha, "and in this life, no one may see
God and live. For all are sinful. Sin, before God, burns like charcoal
in a fire. But you will see Him on high some day, if you go to Paradise
after you die."

"You mean; if I have lived a good life?" Si'Wren said.

"Aye," nodded Nelatha, "that too. More, it will be to your good and
everlasting fortune if you have had good inside your heart, which like
Him is unseen, and not just in your outward behavior. Then you will
surely rejoice to see Him in all of His eternal glory. Aye, you shall
stand before the living God for all eternity, and live, and not die."

Chapter Two - A Most Curious Invisible God

"Ho so!" breathed Si'Wren with mounting satisfaction, as she kept her
voice cautiously low. "One day I will see Him, then. But, why can we
not worship images of Him now? Will He not be pleased?"

Nelatha looked around this time, checking wearily over her shoulder
before answering, "Sister, if I make an image from dust, so..."

Nelatha took up the water skin and hunkered down into a squatting
position, then took up a clump of loose dirt in her fist, and carefully
dispensed a little water into her partly opened hand. She put the water
skin aside, and worked the moistened handful of dirt with utmost care,
making it into a rounded, flattened lump of dark mud. Then with her
fingertip she poked three times, and made it into a crude face having
two round eyes and a round mouth.

"Behold," Nelatha said gravely, as she held forth in her hand the
small, round, flattened visage of an idol made out of mud, "a child's
plaything. Pretend that you are a child, Si'Wren, and that this is the
doll face you made of Habrunt. As long as Habrunt is not here, you may
talk freely to this as much as you like. But when the real Habrunt
comes, why talk to dumb clay? Now, unlike Habrunt, who comes and goes,
if the Invisible God knows all and sees all, and is so all-knowing that
nothing escapes His knowledge, why should you speak to a mere fruitless
idol about getting a man, or of many babies, a house, health, and
wealth? Why speak to that which sees and hears not, of avoiding meeting
savage men or beasts without a strong swordsman to shield and protect
you? Why ask that which is itself made of the barren earth, of gaining
good crops without needless sweat, thistle, thorn, or pestilence?"

Nelatha waited, watching closely. But Si'Wren only regarded the idol in
Nelatha's palm in open perplexity.

"I... I do not know," Si'Wren stammered uncertainly. She stared at the
clump of mud, which had already sagged and cracked a little in
Nelatha's upturned palm. Si'Wren somehow felt the wrongness of it,
although she could not say why.

"Well?" Nelatha demanded of Si'Wren. "Is there yet no understanding in
your stony heart?"

But Si'Wren could only stare at her blankly.

Nelatha propped her fists on her ample hips and frowned crossly at
Si'Wren.

"Speak, foolish one."

"Forgive me, Nelatha. I do not understand this," Si'Wren pleaded, with
an apologetic expression. "Why did you not pray directly to the
Invisible God?..."

Si'Wren's voice trailed away.

Then understanding struck like a thunderbolt, as Si'Wren suddenly
perceived the futility of all graven images in the presence of a real
God, even an invisible one.

"Ooh!" she said. "Now I see!"

"Aye! Ohh!" Nelatha mocked Si'Wren imitatively, as her eyes and mouth
becoming like wide round circles, to match Si'Wren's expression, which
in turn exactly resembled the little round-eyed mud face.

"Si'Wren, if the Invisible God is all-seeing, why should you speak to
the dirt which was formerly between your toes, when you can pray
directly to He who made the whole world instead? Why bow to idols,
which neither see nor hear? The real wonder is why you who are made of
dust, are as dense as a rock. Who needs a stone idol, with you around?
Stupid, ignorant, half-witted slave that you are sometimes, I can only
marvel at how fittingly you were born to such low estate, for your
thick-headedness. But that can be cured, and without the use of the
rod, or such herbs as these. I may speak of mysteries, Si'Wren, but at
least I do not speak falsely. I only faithfully repeat that which the
old woman L'acoci taught me in secret, and it must not be repeated, on
your life!"

"I swear, Nelatha," Si'Wren eagerly reassured her, "I shall not breathe
a word to anyone!"

"Enough for now, then," Nelatha said, in satisfaction. "We will talk
again later."

With that, both girls returned to their labors, but now Si'Wren had a
new wonder to marvel over. Why, ever again, should she worship a graven
image?

The next day was just a little chilly throughout the early hours, and
Si'Wren wore a coarsely woven dried grass shawl that was no longer
green, but a faded, mottled gray.

Early in the morning swirl of drifting mists, the two girls worked
together in silence, safely observing the many inhabitants of the House
of Rababull perform their morning routines from an unobserved vantage
point. It was as if they, too, were invisible behind the gauzy insect
veils stretched across the open tent flap at one end, and it gave
Si'Wren much to think about.

Others could be watched or glimpsed briefly as they led the horses from
the stables, to brush them, and check their hooves and remove the
stinking clots from them with blunt points, and so on, while another
group could be observed at length as they filed out to spend the day
laboring in the Master's vineyards and grain fields.

They also watched the familiar faces of the womenfolk of the House of
Rababull, lifelong slaves every one. Each had her bundle of soiled
clothing, and many bore their babies suspended from forehead slings
draped down across their backs, and as the women walked past in the
direction of the back of the compound, many were accompanied by a
number of tiny, naked toddlers. The womenfolk, some of whom were
accompanied as well by elder daughters, were taking their bundles of
wash out through the two tall narrow rear gates of the walled compound,
to the nearby stream where they would pound and slap the soiled
garments on the rocks whilst wailing together as one the old,
long-familiar tribal ditties.

Si'Wren's memories of such were too vague and distant, to recall her
own mother and father. For she was an orphan from earliest memory, a
slave taken or sold out of her own mother's arms too long ago to have
any recollection of it.

But she was not entirely alone. Did not the House of Master Rababull
claim and feed and protect her just like any family member, albeit one
of the very lowest possible rank?

As a mere slave, was she not more privileged than the richest of
beggars who dwelt in their so-called glorious 'freedom' amongst the
flies and dogs and dung of beasts without number, and who called out
incessantly as they begged by the wayside in the filth and scum, and
despaired of their very lives? They who had freedom and family had it
worse than Si'Wren, as they waited and begged and cowered, not knowing
whether it be for a shred of food or the bruising end of a staff in the
dirty gutters and tilting hovels of the Emperor's numberless narrow
city streets and alleyways.

Still, Si'Wren could not help thinking that the washer women had it
best of all. To sing, and slap wet rags, and raise babies, and cook.
Was this not bliss?

As she remained thus lost in her contemplations over her work, Nelatha
turned slowly to face Si'Wren and made as if to speak. Sensing
Nelatha's hesitation, Si'Wren paused in her work also, waiting and
watching respectfully.

At this, Nelatha reached up and took the water skin bag from it's hook.
She tilted down the spout, made from the leg-end of a dumb brute beast,
and carefully poured some clear water into an unglazed, shallow clay
bowl.

Then Nelatha said, not to Si'Wren, but to Si'Wren's reflection in the
shimmering watery surface, "Look, Si'Wren! Open your eyes, and behold
Wisdom! Do you not see my reflection in the water, more perfect a
likeness than that of any polished shield in the Master's armory?
Behold how the clear water is almost totally invisible, and yet can you
not see my perfect likeness in it, just like a waking vision? The
Invisible God is so, and sees us in like fashion. We do see Him
indirectly, Si'Wren, just as we see each other in the water's
reflection. For does not all Creation reflect His glory?"

Si'Wren nodded, blinking and smiling timidly as she leaned close beside
her beloved slave sister and replied eagerly to Nelatha's watery
reflection in the clay bowl, "Aye, Nelatha, it is good to pray to the
water, yes?"

"No!" Nelatha slapped Si'Wren's hands away irritatedly, mystifying a
crestfallen Si'Wren, whose weeping brown eyes immediately betrayed her
shock and confusion.

"Stop looking at me like that. I have no sympathy for fools. Or do you
expect me to admire you for your skillfulness with tears? You bow to
the ground before Him, yes! But remember; He is in Heaven! Si'Wren, the
Invisible One created all things, but He looks down from on high, and
sees all things, and has set before us a life of good mixed with bad to
see which we might choose, day after day, all of our lives. He sees our
hearts, and searches them always, for there he finds the treasure of
our souls, and desires to know what we hide there, or whether it be
good or whether it be evil."

"Oh, forgive me, Nelatha!" breathed Si'Wren. "It is so difficult to
understand this Invisible God. Do even evil things, like scorpions and
vipers, show His glory?"

"Don't be silly!" Nelatha said. "Of course not. Well, perhaps they do
show His awful terribleness somehow. Of that, I know little. Ugh! How
could you even think of such a question?"

Nelatha reached down, and drew with her fingertip in the dirt, a
brawny, disembodied male arm extending from a cloud, and holding a
thunderbolt.

"Observe," declared Nelatha with hushed emphasis, "the hand of God,
from a puff of cloud, and does not fog wet the skin?"

Si'Wren stared, her eyes fastened upon the scene before her.

Nelatha regarded Si'Wren. "What think you?"

Si'Wren stepped back and bowed, and said, "I am overwhelmed, and must
think greatly upon what you have said and shown me."

"Aye!" Nelatha whispered. "But tell no one, on your life!"

Nelatha raised her eyebrows significantly, and finally turned away with
a satisfied nod, to return to her perpetual labor of grinding herb into
powder with pestle and mortar.

* * *

Late the next afternoon, a stranger called from without the compound
gate, and the guard answered, and it was breathlessly announced by a
runner boy that a caravan was waiting to enter. There was a concerted
rush by whoever could free themselves from their duties to go and see,
and as the gates were thrown open they beheld the sight of a long line
of human porters, with oxen, and riders upon camels and burros, all
standing idle.

Master Rababull appeared quickly, and more than a few watched fearfully
to see if he would lash out at anybody for recklessly opening the gates
too soon to the strangers, or contrariwise, for not opening them
quickly enough to show his proper hospitality to important visitors.
But when his fierce countenance broke out into a toothy welcoming grin,
it was sufficient reassurance to all that the good times had come
again, and a celebration would no doubt soon be in the making.

The camels were all heavily laden with trade goods, and teams of stout
oxen stood patiently in front of great two-wheeled carts, accompanied
by attendants almost without number.

Under heavy guard entered also a troupe of exotic, half-veiled,
half-naked courtesans accoutered in their virgin colors and finery
(hence their perpetual jesting and self-mockery, for they be no
virgins), seated each upon her own soft-looking little burro. Many
fierce guards accompanied the line of travelers, wielding shining
swords and broad hide-covered shields.

With the gates swung wide, the caravan began it's long drawn-out entry
into the great inner walled compound of the House of Rababull,
accompanied by the loudly proclaimed boastings and pronouncements of
the noble Camel Master's crier, and thereby setting up such a din as to
put all the House astir. It seemed that everyone had stopped to watch,
and all work fell idle as more and more paused and came to gawk.

Master Rababull had girded himself in his finest robes and was by now
in a thoroughly good humor as he marched hither and yon across the
front courtyard, puffed up with unabashed conceit as his servants
voiced loud and shamelessly their praise and admiration for both the
Master and his important visitors.

In a seemingly endless procession, the caravan paraded with stately
dignity through the front gates in a grand display of riches and
home-spun glory. As the long line of great beasts continued to enter
the great courtyard in sedate single file, they halted one-by-one and
stood waiting patiently for their handlers to unload them.

Strapped securely upon their backs were bulging, tightly bound oilskins
and pungent, coarse burr-lap wrapped bundles of herbs, spices, and rare
woods with which to make the finest idols, furniture, and fixtures, as
well as priceless swatches of the most extraordinary block-printed
cloth, and gourds of rare, hard-to-obtain dyes -especially scarlet and
purple- and a cornucopia's horn of other riches.

Before he finally left in a few days for other lands, the Trade Master
would leave behind his entire treasure trove, having exchanged all for
the finest works of Master Rababull's clever craftsmen. The beasts
would be heavily laden with countless intricately graven idols adorned
with gold, silver, copper, ivory, ebony, black- and red-striped woods,
and other rare woods, and gem stones with which to make crudely faceted
jewels for their eyes. The precious stones and metals with which the
idols were adorned were dug out of Rababull's secret underground gem
mines, the precise location of which, under heavy guard within his own
lands, was a closely guarded secret known only to Rababull himself and
the captives who slaved in the mines.

Now, Master Rababull and Slavemaster Habrunt were everywhere, weaving a
web of commands to the servants as everything was seen to.

First, the Camel Master and his entourage must be courteously escorted
to the bath house by servants, who would bathe and minister to their
every whim, and other servants would follow along with baskets of
culinary delights and wine from tall, slender clay vases.

When they were finished with their bath, Master Rababull would hold a
huge feast, as was his general custom. He would be sure to invite
numerous friends, many of them business associates from in and around
the Emperor's city, each with his many fat wives and even more
numerous, wickedly spoiled offspring.

Si'Wren watched as one of the caravan travelers shyly approached the
Camel Master. The other turned and, before the petitioner had been
afforded adequate time to voice his request, nodded his immediate
approval as if being reminded of something that he had already been
informed of by the meekly beseeching one at an earlier time, no doubt a
petition granted during the long journey on the overland trade route.

The Camel Master clapped a reassuring hand on the timid underling's
bare right shoulder, whereupon both walked across to Master Rababull
and bowed low, to which he courteously bowed also. Woe to any, to whom
Master Rababull should ever bow and later become offended by. They
would then find that there was a price for such courtesy which was
beyond their ability to repay, should their lack of good manners touch
upon his ireful eyes.

But for today, it seemed that Master Rababull could see no wrong. His
smile easily set the men to working with greater dedication and zeal
than any whip. It was known that the whip ever shadowed the smile of
Master Rababull. The larger the smile, the longer the shadow cast by
the ever-present whip at his side.

While the Camel Master stood near him, looking on and nodding his
encouragement, the supplicant began talking animatedly and fearfully to
Master Rababull and gesticulating into his own opened mouth, with many
repeated dips of the head in impromptu gestures of respect, and making
praying motions with his hands beseechingly to Rababull, as he
displayed the most genuine and grievous expressions of personal torment.

The man had a toothache.

Rababull showed impatience at first, but then seemed to think better of
the man's plight, and peered somewhat distractedly into the
unfortunate's mouth. After he had indulged the other with various
expressions, by turns, of critical appraisal, agreement, and sympathy,
he gave the nod and granted off-handed approval to the man's immediate
treatment, as he turned to Habrunt and gave instructions.

Habrunt bowed low when he had heard all, and turned to one of several
runner boys who were standing by and sent him out the front gates at a
jog. The boy had no doubt been sent to go and call upon Rababull's
favorite Physician from the city.

Rababull would probably pay outright for cost of this man's treatment
as a gesture of personal favor to the Camel Master, whose successful
arrival from across vast and dangerous lands heralded the advent of
huge new profits to be made in the market places of the nearby city,
and Rababull could well afford to be magnanimous with such riches now
seen to be quite safely and literally in his hands.

It was Rababull who had paid for this trading expedition in the first
place. Si'Wren remembered it's original departure two years ago as an
event of momentous significance and great portent. One never knew
whether any of the caravan's members, or the Master's money, might be
seen again.

Si'Wren continued working, but paused often to watch as the unloading
of the camel train continued, with teams of men laboring tirelessly to
transfer the goods into the heavily fortified and well-guarded store
rooms behind the stables, on the far side of the courtyard.

Suddenly one of Rababull's slaves came running from the back gate of
the compound, which opened out onto the path to the nearby grain
fields. The new arrival ran over and abruptly seized another slave by
the shoulders and began arguing rather vehemently as he shook the
smaller, terrified man in furious anger.

Habrunt stepped over and thrust himself bodily straight into the midst
of the exchange, immediately taking charge.

"Aye!" exclaimed Nelatha, shaking her head fearfully. "What a time to
come looking for trouble!"

"You said it!" Si'Wren agreed readily, with a frown. "But those two
have always been close friends! I wonder what it's all about?"

An argument like that at a time like this was not a good idea, because
the only possible winner would be the Master. Rababull could easily
become angry at both for acting like spoiled children in front of the
newcomers, causing him to be disgraced in front of them, as well as
spoiling his own good humor.

But Master Rababull had not even noticed yet, so there was still a
chance of settling the matter before it got too far out of hand. He was
too busy taking care of the caravan's needs, and a wise Habrunt was
determined that it stay that way.

But the argument, surprisingly, heated up again, with the one slave
persisting in his accusations and waving his arms even more wildly -if
it were possible- than before. Obviously not caring who heard him, he
kept imitating the motion of hitting himself in the eye, and then
shaking his fist at the other slave.

Then Habrunt, with a visible sense of renewed urgency in his entire
manner and physical posture, sent another runner boy scurrying across
the yard. The boy quickly returned with Prut, one of Rababull's biggest
and most trusted slaves.

Nelatha and Si'Wren, still keeping up a pretense of labor as they
watched unseen within the veil of their tent, exchanged dire, fearful
looks.

Prut was a powerful man, and whenever he was called in to help take
charge of a situation, it usually meant grief to whoever Prut was put
after. Prut could lift two times his own weight over his own head,
maybe even more, and although not a giant, he was certainly big enough
by ordinary standards.

A stone-faced Prut listened to Habrunt's instructions, and then turned
and tromped over to a large group of boys who had gathered to help
unload the caravan, and as soon as he had relayed Habrunt's
instructions, the boys all fanned out searching in all possible hiding
places and out-of-the-way corners.

Habrunt, meanwhile, had gone off to the fields, perhaps to go looking
for himself. Whatever it was, it was no small matter. He soon came back
carrying the agonized, writhing figure of a small boy in his arms,
followed by a small crowd of openly angry women and other children.

One-half of the boy's face was covered with blood, emanating from one
of his squinting eyes.

This time the interruption did not go unnoticed, and while the
distracted workmen finished unloading the caravan, with many a turn of
the head, the team of boys that Prut had organized had worked their way
through the courtyard and outlying structures as they called anxiously
to and fro to one-another, and rapidly expanded the territory of their
searches. Others ran out both the front and rear gates and could be
heard out in the fields, shouting to one another as they went about
poking and beating at the bushes with long sticks.

Finally the hue and cry went up from a number of them, and a concerted
chase ensued. Presently, they returned through the rear gates with two
of the biggest boys half-walking and half-dragging a lone struggling
boy, holding the unwilling youngster firmly by the upper arms and hair
to keep him from getting away again.

Habrunt came over and stood listening to them all arguing, and finally
raised his finger and pointed at Prut with a terse word to stand guard
while he turned and marched with an ominously slow, deliberate
reluctance across the courtyard towards Master Rababull. A sense of
dread fell upon the entire assembly, and gradually all fell silent,
watching as Habrunt resolutely approached Master Rababull.

Up until now, Rababull had been deliberately ignoring the whole fiasco.
But when Habrunt finally stepped up to him and bowed low, he turned to
listen, still grandly smiling, and after a few barely whispered words
from the bowed face of Habrunt, Master Rababull quickly turned, and his
smile froze into an expressionless, unreadable, and somehow
all-the-more terrifying mask.

Master Rababull was, after all, many hundreds of years old, the better
part of a thousand, in fact, and no man's fool. He knew men, and he
knew how to deal in kind for kind, and had survived the most evil
schemes that men could throw at him by managing to anticipate them
sufficiently in advance whilst devising even more evil ones in return.

Together, Master and Slavemaster returned to the silent crowd that had
gathered around the two boys, and all of the women, except one old
grandmother, fell away like chaff before the wind. The one woman, whose
name was Breeka, stood her ground, though old and stooped, and her face
was as a gargoyle's, very terrible and unmoving, as if naturally grown
from some dark and twisted tree bole.

If Master Rababull's years exceeded six hundred, and his wit be steeped
in the tap root of the ungood, this old crone was the very epitome of
evil and practically a great-grandmother to him by comparison, with the
crime of the hour engendering within her shrunken breast a fearless,
savage desire for revenge.

Si'Wren felt cold, numbing fear. Something big was up. Something evil.
She knew everyone there. Only the very newest additions to the House of
Rababull did she not know by name as well as by face. She watched with
dire feelings and the gravest of misgivings as Rababull examined the
injured boy who lay moaning and writhing in the arms of his weeping
mother.

Then he turned and questioned the two slaves who had argued, each of
them the father of one of the two boys around whom the entire matter
was centered.

The boy who had previously hidden himself was a known trouble-maker. He
was a bully of the worst sort, always picking on others smaller than
himself. Si'Wren had never known what to think of him, except to steer
clear at every opportunity, for she knew that all too soon, he would be
a man and whereas now was only a pest, would then be dangerous to her
and the other women. The unruly boy had been disciplined before many
times, invariably as much for his actual excesses as for his spiteful
and miserable attitude.

Rababull finally took the little trouble-maker by the arm and
frog-marched him over to the injured boy. He said something to Habrunt,
who responded by holding up the injured boy's head so all could see the
ruined eye socket.

Si'Wren felt an agonized pang of sympathetic grief for the injured
child. She knew him well, and he had always been so harmless and
gentle. Now, the boy's left eye was gone and only a emptily staring,
bloody cavity remained where his innocent soul had once looked out on
the world. Only his good right eye remained, and that one, coupled with
his occasional shrieks, betrayed his continuing agony.

Again, Nelatha and Si'Wren exchanged knowing, fearful looks. Rababull
suddenly ordered several men to seize and hold the little bully's
father immobile before him as all looked on to see what would happen
next.

As Rababull questioned the father of the offending boy, the man, scared
witless, jerked his head back anxiously, and replied loudly and
emphatically in the negative.

Then he looked at his own boy and nodded his head as he gabbled out his
protest of the suggested judgement through lips black-stained from his
secret addiction to some foul intoxicating substance, and Si'Wren could
easily read the gesture.

Not me--him!...

The father was clearly expressing his opinion that whatever punishment
was merited, although it had been charged directly to him as penalty
for his own boy's misbehavior, he clearly preferred the boy to suffer
for his own wrongdoing.

The boy's voice rose to a hopeless wail as Rababull himself stepped
forward without a word and seized the youth, and made a brief motion
over the youngster's face with his hands. The boy let out a series of
guttural screams, and then, his work done as a Judge, Master Rababull
turned and walked back to his unloading without another glance, but he
left behind a screaming boy who had been a bully once too often, with
his crime to be paid for this time in blood. Both boys now had but one
eye.

An eye for an eye.

The suddenly animated crowd turned away with a shared look of
satisfaction at the outcome. Did not every free man do that which was
right in his own eyes, and his neighbor also, whether it be good or
whether it be evil, and the slaves too when they could get away with it?

Even the fathers, both of them, approved. Better a disciplined boy with
one good eye remaining, than a criminal offspring with two evil ones.
Perhaps the little rascal would not be so much trouble to them in
future. If not, there were cases where the other eye had eventually
been put out also, rendering the blinded evildoer a more or less
harmless beggar for the rest of his miserable life.

Si'Wren thought on this with all of her might. The ignominy of it. The
injustice. But what was justice? What, but that which Master Rababull
saw fit to declare so?

She had not been alive too long, especially compared to the hundreds of
years of her Master, but the boy who had been in the wrong was
obviously too young by far to merit such grievous punishment. For one
of so tender years, there were always other ways. The good boy could
have been set free for the sake of his lost eye, for instance, and the
bad boy who had put his eye out could have been taken to the front
gate, the better to watch with his two good eyes, the other go free. To
Si'Wren's mind, that would have been a perfectly fair and reasonable
punishment.

Except that Master Rababull would have lost a valuable slave in the
process. The old idol gods whom Si'Wren had known all her life would no
doubt have strongly approved of Master Rababull's harsh decision. Would
the Invisible God have approved also?

What a question. Si'Wren thought on this, but in the end, she could
only reflect that she could not bring herself to agree with Master
Rababull's harsh decision. Perhaps in time, she might gain a better
idea. It was certainly a question to nag at one's conscience.

Soon enough, as Nelatha had expected, Habrunt sent a runner boy over to
the spice tent as Si'Wren and Nelatha watched silently. The runner boy
stood before Nelatha and breathlessly announced that he needed fresh
salve for the injured eyes of both boys.

Si'Wren could still hear the tormented screams of the boy who had been
punished. He was in agony now not only for his eye, but for the unlove
and lack of sympathy from those around him. The other boy, his smaller
victim, was moaning constantly from his unrelenting agony.

Nelatha turned to Si'Wren and repeated the request, and Si'Wren
hastened to fetch what the boy requested, a salve made from a specially
combined mixture of herbs which could help ensure that neither boy died
from infection and also alleviate much of the suffering they must
endure.

While he waited for Si'Wren to give him the salve, the runner boy,
whose name was Gafa, spoke glibly to Si'Wren and Nelatha of the boys'
fathers requesting that the Physician might see their sons, and of
Rababull hesitating at first, but finally relenting.

Human life was cheap, and Rababull's reluctance stemmed from the fact
that he already owned both men and their families, which left them
nothing further to offer him. Whatever they might promise, was it not
already his?

Did they not already owe him their daily labors for the rest of their
lives anyway, before any of this happened? If both boys eventually died
of their infections, could not Master Rababull's human property breed
more children for less than the cost of the Physician's fee?

But, to further his own glory and honor among men, Rababull had finally
approved this thing, that others might call him gracious. Anyway, the
Physician was already coming for the man with a toothache who had
arrived with the caravan, so Rababull could readily afford to kill
several birds with one stone.

Si'Wren already had some salve in a jar that had been prepared only a
few days ago. She brought this out, gave it a fresh stirring up, and
measured some out into a little clay bottle, which she gave to Gafa.

"See that you do not drop it," she instructed little Gafa, using her
most good-natured tone of voice to remove any sting from her
admonition. "You are fast, Gafa, but enough boys have been punished
today and I do not want to see you punished too."

"I promise I will not, Si'Wren," he smiled timidly and nodded. He bowed
low in peremptory fashion and hurried off in a rush.

Si'Wren watched him in chagrin, knowing that he could easily stumble,
but also that he was invariably expected by those in charge of his
duties to do all things as if he could run like the wind.

Several days old was better than fresh, because the herbs would have
had time to suffuse, whereas, if she had immediately prepared something
from the raw materials, it would not have had time to steep and cure
properly. In Si'Wren's world, that which was fresh and new was not
necessarily that which was best.

Si'Wren heard a gentle swish of the tent veil behind her, and turning,
smiled as she watched Sorpiala enter in all her finery. Sorpiala was
holding something close to her breast, an object as long as her
forearm, folded up in a swatch of natural burlap. The undyed cloth was
the color of cow's milk. It was apparently a rather heavy burden from
the way she moved, as she approached Si'Wren and Nelatha and sought to
unfold the cover to show it to them both. Within was an exquisitely
carved jade goddess with sapphire eyes, still enshrouded in several
layers of semi-translucent, gauzy veils.

She started to hand it to Si'Wren, then hesitated, and seemed to make a
sudden decision as she turned sharply at the last and held it out in a
most abrupt fashion to Nelatha instead, saying, "My arms grow weary;
hold this for a moment will you, Nelatha?"

What happened next was over almost in the blink of an eye, but frozen
forever in the mind of Si'Wren.

The goddess seemed to be almost in Nelatha's outstretched hands, when
somehow Sorpiala's retracted hands seemed to catch at the gauze and
jerk it back, and as it fell, Nelatha was left clutching only the loose
edges of the silken folds.

With a dull clunk the goddess thumped heavily on the hard dirt surface
of the tent floor and broke clean in half. Si'Wren thought she had seen
it already coming apart into two halves in mid-air, but that was
absurd. Why would Sorpiala bring a broken idol to show them? Anyway,
Si'Wren had not seen it clearly and could not truly be sure.

"Oh, forgive me, Sorpiala!" Nelatha wailed as she stared, eyes wide in
abject terror, at Sorpiala.

"What? Oh, it was only a mistake," said Sorpiala, already trying to
console Nelatha.

She turned and smiled brief reassurance at Si'Wren also, to show that
offense had been neither perceived nor taken.

Si'Wren blinked, and, remembering her manners, bowed low, uttering
quickly, "I am most grieved, Sorpiala," in a formal utterance of
deepest consolation which gesture alone seemed appropriate to such an
unhappy event.

"No, it is nothing," Sorpiala said, bending down and picking up the two
broken halves herself to gather up in the folds of the gauze and burlap
again. "Do not worry."

She turned as if about to go, and then paused and looked directly at
Si'Wren.

"Si'Wren, you know, I am not so sure that a goddess which can be
dropped and broken is anything worth believing in. Do you suppose some
time, you could tell me about your Invisible God?"

Si'Wren, caught off guard, smiled hurriedly.

"Why, certainly, Sorpiala," she said. She nodded her head and bowed in
a gesture of respect. "I would be most honored."

"Very well, then, since you seem to know all about it..." Sorpiala said
mysteriously, and bowed in perfunctory fashion. Then before Si'Wren
could say a word, Sorpiala turned and stepped out still clutching
broken goddess wrapped in burlap.

Si'Wren turned away and looked at Nelatha, who was bent over her work
again, grinding and grinding with anxious energy. Nelatha's eyes looked
terrified and miserable.

"Do not worry, Nelatha," said Si'Wren. "Did she not say it was an
accident?" But Nelatha did not say so much as a word to Si'Wren.

After staring at Nelatha a moment longer, Si'Wren finally turned away,
feeling glum, and began to busy herself grinding a new batch of herbs
with the stone mortar and pestle.

Preparations for the caravan feast had already begun. Many of the
Master's fattest livestock were being shepherded into the compound by
their handlers to be slaughtered. Big iron cauldrons had been put on to
boil, for scalding the hides to scrape off the hair. Knives were
sharpened for killing, bleeding, and skinning the animals. By tonight,
all things would be ready for the big feast. But Si'Wren refused to eat
any of the meat, for it was a strange and barbaric new custom.

Si'Wren watched Master Rababull as he marched to and fro in the wide
courtyard, ordering men about and personally seeing to every detail.
The magnificent curls of his long locks swayed rhythmically across his
powerful back and shoulders, while his coarse dangling beard stood out
more stiffly.

Master Rababull was older by far than what might have been Si'Wren's
personal preference, but he was nevertheless a powerful and wealthy
man. She secretly hoped that another, younger man might choose her one
day soon. Many men already had their eyes on her; this she could not
help but notice. She had dreams of a large family with many children
and in-laws, but not, hopefully, as just the umpteenth wife of some fat
old curser.

Master Rababull, Si'Wren knew, already had many wives, and she was wise
enough in spite of her youth to realize that it would be no fun
spending the remainder of one's life in direct competition with an army
of female rivals for so much as the merest bit of time now and then
with one's own husband.

Si'Wren watched Master Rababull turn to make his way across the wide
courtyard yet again in long hurried strides. Always so serious, even
about the business of his many pleasures, such as now with the
anticipated celebration.

As Si'Wren watched incuriously, Master Rababull stopped abruptly
mid-way across the courtyard as he was interrupted respectfully but
unexpectedly by yet another slave, who approached rapidly and bowed
low, clearly needing advice or authority in the furtherance of
something.

After the incident with the two boys who had each lost an eye, Master
Rababull was not in the best of moods. Clearly impatient, he stood
frowning distractedly as he heard the man out.

Si'Wren looked beyond, musing that Master Rababull had been headed
towards the huge, sprawling, open-air mansion which was the actual
House of Rababull, with it's many rooms and beautiful central garden
with a stone fountain that was surrounded on all sides by a wide border
of smooth paving stones.

There, cushions were being laid out so that all of the guests would be
well taken care of when they arrived. He must be sure there was enough
of everything for everybody, and that included floor cushions. None
must have any visible stains or dirt marks on them. Otherwise, some
guest might be insulted.

When it came to fixed seating, invariably the master of the house
himself must unerringly decide in advance who should sit closest to
himself, and who sat on whose right hand, even unto those who must sit
progressively farther and farther from his own seat of honor. It was a
daunting task to so order the hierarchy of the ranks of gluttony, that
none should be insulted by a lower seat than they properly deserved.
Greater men than Rababull had literally lost their heads in sudden
revenge at the sword hands of their former guests for not paying
greater attention to the exacting particulars of such a seemingly
insignificant detail as the proper seating of all guests according to
favor, rank, or privilege. The absence of one important guest, or
unanticipated arrival of another, was always sure to throw everything
into a bewildering chaos of renewed choices over who must come before
who.

To avoid this, Master Rababull chose to let almost the entire house be
used to party in, while he refused to call any seat his own but
wandered about seeing to everyone else's comforts or pleasures, so that
there should be no one spot that could be called better than any other.
An offended brother was more difficult to win back than many cities,
but Master Rababull was already so old and he was no doubt well
schooled in such matters.

Rababull finished his impromptu consultation, and the anxious slave,
having obtained his Master's decision, stepped back with a low bow and
hurried off.

Then as Rababull turned to continue across the courtyard toward the
House, Si'Wren watched as graceful Sorpiala hailed Master Rababull in
her musical voice and pulled him aside with what he obviously regarded
as yet another unwanted distraction. And as Si'Wren looked on unseen
from the spice tent, Sorpiala unwrapped the broken goddess and revealed
it to Master Rababull, talking in a low but animated voice.

Wise Sorpiala, who could always be so proper at even the worst of
times. There she was, soothing a time-conscious Master Rababull's
undoubtedly offended wrath over the expensive, broken goddess. Such a
large piece of jade was surely worth a king's ransom. Si'Wren found it
somewhat amazing the way Sorpiala could resort to her unrivaled
feminine charms to soothe the Master's outrage so confidently. Sorpiala
was clearly greatest in favor with Master Rababull over all other women
in his Household.

Si'Wren looked down at her little clay vase as she carefully filled it,
momentarily distracted. For herself, she would never behave like that.
A proper woman must be modest in all ways possible.

Then Si'Wren paused and looked up again to further observe Sorpiala and
the Master, and started in shock as she suddenly realized that Master
Rababull was glaring fiercely in her direction, as if he could see
through the screening veil of the tent with the eyes of a wrathful god.

Oh no! What could be wrong?! Please, Si'Wren begged her own heart, oh
please let Sorpiala's charms soothe Rababull's off-endedness. Let no
punishment befall her for the sake of the broken goddess.

Suddenly Rababull broke away from Sorpiala and began marching straight
for the spice tent like an avenging destroyer.

Si'Wren looked over at Nelatha, whose head was bent industriously over
her work. Nelatha did not even realize yet that Master Rababull was
almost upon them both. Si'Wren had just enough time to see Sorpiala
scurrying away on swift, dainty little footsteps, leaving the broken
goddess in two pieces on the ground as she made fast her escape--with a
smirk on her face.

Si'Wren's voice froze in her throat as she felt terror. Master
Rababull's face looked so terrible and angry! She was too scared to
warn Nelatha, too confused to think of what to say!

Master Rababull did not bother to come around to the back of the tent
where it was most expedient to enter. He simply stepped up to the front
of it, seized the flaps in both fists, and jerked savagely, ripping
them apart.

Nelatha let out a terrified little 'Eeeek!' as he stepped in and loomed
hugely over her, his trunk-like legs sending mortar, pestle, and all
crashing noisily in a dust heap. Master Rababull reached down and dug
his clawed fingers into Nelatha's long tangled locks like talons of
steel and with a single lifting motion of one bulging arm he twisted
his rippling torso and heaved upwards as he jerked Nelatha bodily to
stand before him. Then with his other arm he reached out and seized
Si'Wren's hair and yanked her painfully before him also.

Standing over them with eyes glaring like lightning and a voice like
thunder, Rababull looked fiercely from one terrified girl to the other
as he shouted, "I was told a tale of a wicked slave who threw down one
of my goddesses, and broke her to pieces, Nelatha!"

But Nelatha, utterly speechless, could only shrink back helplessly from
that terrible stare.

Obtaining no response from Nelatha, Master Rababull turned his awful
look onto a quailing Si'Wren and snarled down at her, "And another was
heard to speak praises of the Forbidden One, the Invisible God!"

He held both paralyzed girls in his iron grip for a long, moment of
dreadful silence. Around her, Si'Wren realized that all the compound
had heard Master Rababull's furious voice and involuntarily stopped
what they were doing to watch. Then Master Rababull turned himself
around with both girls still helplessly in tow and dragged them
physically from the tent by their hair.

"Habrunt!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Habrunt!"

Habrunt came running with two boys trailing close behind him as they
struggled to keep up on their skinny little legs. As he approached he
slowed to a stop and immediately knelt down on one knee and clasped his
fist rigidly across his chest to signify his immediate readiness to
obey Master Rababull, come what may. That he had already taken in the
plight of Si'Wren seemed inevitable, but he betrayed no sign of it.

The two runner boys finally caught up and, terrified by the mask of
rage on Master Rababull's features, immediately threw themselves
face-first flat in the dirt and lay trembling as they fearfully hid
their eyes.

"I come at thy bidding, oh master," Habrunt intoned in his deepest and
most servile do-or-die manner.

Master Rababull stared at Habrunt deliberately for a long moment,
before speaking.

"Slavemaster, I have found corruption, in the spice tent, of all
places," said Rababull. His allusion to the spice tent was especially
ironic, as spices were commonly used to cure infections in the living,
and to embalm the dead to delay the onset of corruption and rottenness
as long as possible. Of course, only those who could pay were so
embalmed. Most could not afford it.

Speaking as to the earth, Habrunt declared emphatically, "Speak, Lord,
and it shall be my will!"

"My prize green goddess has been broken. For this crime, let Nelatha be
slain," said Rababull.

Nelatha's eyes closed as she keened silently in helpless terror.

"And let this little one--" Master Rababull's voice faltered, so strong
and so deep were his feelings for her. "Let this foolish one who spoke
so rashly against her Master's gods, never speak again, only--let her
live."

With that, he hurled both girls to fall prostrate before his kneeling,
perplexed Slavemaster.

"Master," Habrunt protested, "perhaps, with sufficient time for reproof
and correction--"

"You will carry out my commands immediately or you will be next!" said
Master Rababull harshly.

"I hear and obey, Master," intoned Habrunt, clasping his right fist
hard across his chest again as he bowed low in formal acknowledgment.

Screeching hysterically, Nelatha helplessly protested her innocence, as
Si'Wren remained trembling, too shaken to speak.

Habrunt straightened himself up to full stature, and looked stoically
upon the two prostrate girls, his stiffened legs like the trunks of
oaks. Nelatha clutched desperately at his ankles as she continued to
beg for mercy, but his wooden face seemed not to hear her pleadings.

Speaking as if to no one in particular, in a voice as that of one
already dead, he thrust out his right arm empty-handed, and commanded
loudly, "Fetch me a sword!"

Both boys, too scared to think, ran at once into the House. Their
squeaky voices could be heard begging desperately for a sword, any
sword. Si'Wren heard the laughter of some guest, an early arrival, as
he commented upon the humor of sacrificing a human being instead of a
mere animal to commemorate the beginning of the feast. Moments later,
both boys reappeared flying down the front steps and came running at
breakneck speed across the courtyard in returning to a motionlessly
waiting Habrunt, his right arm still stiffly out-held, open-handed.

While all of this was happening, an increasing number of onlookers had
stopped to watch, with the late-comers asking others in hushed voices
what was going on. Upon hearing, each cast by turns horrified looks of
revulsion, disgust, and loathing for Si'Wren and Nelatha, together with
shock, disbelief, and horror at the two pieces of the broken jade
statue, still lying where they had been cast aside by an enraged Master
Rababull. There was no danger of the valuable pieces of jade being
stolen; to touch the broken jade now would mean certain death. No one
was bold enough to say anything directly to Habrunt or the two hapless
girls.

Some of those watching displayed a certain sickening delight at the
sight of a motionlessly waiting Habrunt and the two prostrate girls
kneeling with faces downcast in the dust at his feet.

As the two runner boys dashed across the courtyard to return with the
swords to Habrunt, more people came out of the House to stand at the
head of the front steps to see what had occasioned their unusual
mission.

"Master, here are two swords," one of his runner boys gasped, nearly
out of breath as they both bowed low and held the shining blades out to
Habrunt. But he stood a moment, staring down at the dirt before him, as
if he had not heard.

"One will do," Habrunt said finally, as he looked up, and reached for
one of the shining blades.

With the sword in his fist he stood looking down at Nelatha and she
suddenly paused in her terrified protests, looking up at him with
tear-streaked cheeks as she searched his face with glazed eyes, mutely
imploring him to do or say something to save her.

But Habrunt's countenance was terrible to look upon, so stone-faced and
determined was he now.

"Pray, Nelatha," he said only, too afraid of Master Rababull to risk
more open defiance of either his Master or any temple god.

Nelatha nodded again, jerkily, and bowed her head.

Then, as Nelatha prayed in a series of hysterically rising whispers,
Habrunt slowly raised the sword high into the air in front of a numbed
Si'Wren, held it trembling in his great fist, and then brought it down
in a mercifully swift flashing arc.

Nelatha's prayers were suddenly cut short, and a collection of gasps
was heard from the watching crowd. Habrunt held out the sword behind
him without looking, and the visibly shaking runner boy took it back,
dripping with Nelatha's blood.

Habrunt's eyes, shot through with grief and an inconsolable look of
self-condemnation and awfulness of purpose, looked upon Nelatha's slain
body momentarily. He was no longer Habrunt the kind Slavemaster, to
whom one might look when trouble raised it's ugly head, but had become
an unwilling angel of death instead.

Habrunt finally turned to Si'Wren, who knelt still before him, utterly
speechless and motionless. Looking dazed, she gazed long upon the
bloody corpse of once-cheerful Nelatha, divided in half at the neck,
like the broken jade goddess.

Master Rababull, who was still watching, had said let her never speak
again, but live. What could that possibly mean? thought Si'Wren.

Habrunt reached down and almost lovingly slid his trembling,
work-roughened fingers into the hair at the nape of her neck with his
left hand. As Habrunt tilted Si'Wren's head back her face was lifted up
and her tear-streaked cheeks were revealed beneath eyes looking
ever-trustingly up into his, in absolute surrender to his will,
signifying that she had not the slightest thought of resisting her fate.

But Habrunt could not do what was commanded of him, and hesitated.
There were any number of alternatives, all contrary to Master
Rababull's wishes and hence instantly fatal, but he had a sword.

He could do much with a sword...

Suddenly a third runner boy suddenly came hurrying past them both and
bowed in perfunctory manner as he quickly announced a breathlessly
gasped utterance to Rababull.

"Master, the great Physician is here!"

As Si'Wren lifted up her eyes slowly, her soul quailed at the sight of
Habrunt's upraised fist, yet still she stared submissively into his
tormented eyes, showing that never would she strive against nor resist
he to whom she looked up as to a light in the spiritual darkness for
all of her life however brief. If Habrunt could but know it, Si'Wren
trusted him even more than she ever did Master Rababull or any living
human being.

Then, Habrunt lowered his right fist slowly, as well as his head,
although his left fist remained clenched tightly immobile in Si'Wren's
crush of locks.

"Master, may I speak?" said Habrunt to the ground, as he maintained his
steady grip upon the unresisting girl whose eyes his own had no
strength to meet.

"Speak!" commanded Rababull impatiently. He was barely able to contain
himself in his rage and impatience to get it over with.

Habrunt hesitated further, and dared not look up at his Master as he
spoke.

"Most gracious and noble Master, was not this one greatly in thy favor
before?" pled Habrunt.

He was taking a terrible risk, to speak so boldly of Master Rababull's
former personal fondness for Si'Wren. Master Rababull had but to say
the word, and the remains of Habrunt could end up in the dirt beside
Nelatha.

"What is it?" said Master Rababull, somewhat irritably now, rather than
in a full rage. It seemed Habrunt had struck his mark with the unerring
accuracy of a master archer, as usual.

"Master, I am but a coarse and brutal man, and thou alone art high and
noble and altogether good. Invisible Gods deserve invisible praise,
from invisible voices. If it be your pleasure, let this little one show
with what purity of purpose she might have served her foolish Invisible
God, by swearing a vow never to speak instead. The more she speaks, the
more her Invisible God may be viewed as false."

There was a moment of silence, as Master Rababull thought on this.

"Well spoken, Slavemaster," Master Rababull finally said, his voice
almost back to normal, almost relieved, in fact. "Let her never
speak--forever! If she speak but once, let all bear witness to the
falsehood of her Invisible God by the falseness of her broken vow, and
her life be forfeit! Let her so swear!"

Habrunt had not bargained for this! But what could he do? What was
determined now was not as vile as what had been declared before, hence,
was not enough justification to turn his sword in furious rebellion
against the House of Rababull.

Grief-stricken, he lowered his eyes to Si'Wren, and said resolutely,
"Little one, do you swear by your God never to say one word for the
rest of your days, so long as you shall live and breathe and have life
in you, and to suffer death to yourself and dishonor to your Invisible
God if you should ever fail to do so?"

Si'Wren realized that here was the chance, not only to redeem herself
but her newfound Invisible God as well.

"I swear it," Si'Wren said.

"She has so sworn, Master," Habrunt immediately declared to Master
Rababull.

"Let it be so," rasped Master Rababull. "A fitting conclusion to the
matter."

At that moment, Master Rababull's attention was diverted as he was
approached by the Camel Master. His face remained stern and obnoxious
to look upon, which unintended visage of evil, coupled with the sight
of several slaves carrying away the remains of Nelatha, and the sight
of all the spilled blood in the dust, made the all-observant Camel
Master extraordinarily nervous, although he tried rather desperately
not to show it and failed miserably.

The Camel Master spoke briefly to Master Rababull about something, and
when he had politely heard out the man, Master Rababull turned to
Habrunt.

"Go to now, Slavemaster, and take this silent one with you," said
Master Rababull. "The good Physician must not be kept waiting, for he
will have need of her herbal skills."

As Habrunt listened to the footsteps of Master Rababull and the
obsequiously over-attentive Camel Master receding across the dusty
courtyard, he let out a sigh, sickened by what he had done, and by his
own feelings on the matter.

Harsh, unforgiving punishment must ever hang over Si'Wren's head now,
all because of a broken piece of green rock! Would that Si'Wren was but
stone herself, that she might suffer nothing further. How she trembled
so.

He took Si'Wren gently by the hand, indicating that she should rise to
her feet.

"I am sorry, little one," he rumbled in a low voice when she had risen
to stand upright beside him, speaking so quietly to her that the other
slaves still watching could not discern his words. "Return with me now
to the spice tent and bring what you need, quickly! If any should tempt
you to speak, hold your silence, on your life!"

Si'Wren nodded mutely, waiting for him to lead the way.

Habrunt regarded her a moment, his face unreadable. Then he composed
himself, and in a quiet, firm voice, said, "Come."

He scattered the onlookers, the gleeful and the merely curious alike,
with a wrathful look, and walked Si'Wren to the wrecked spice tent to
help shield her from their otherwise ruinous persecutions.         At what
had once been the spice tent Si'Wren trembled at the sight of the
damage. Not only was the tent ruined. Priceless herbs and salves had
been scattered and spilled. The powders of many different sun-dried and
painstakingly ground-up plants had been intermingled in the dirt, and
the bugs were already starting to get into things.

Such was the measure of her Master Rababull's outrage, that he cared so
little for the damage to the spice tent, his own property, in the
course of executing his punishments. The thought of this, and of the
severed body of Nelatha, made Si'Wren afraid to even think of ever
facing her master again, and the fear that possessed her now stifled
any desire to speak, on top of the fact that she had already sworn an
oath not to talk anyways.

"Take what you need," Habrunt said, his face grim. "Hurry!"

His words brought her out of her momentary confusion, and Si'Wren
worked quickly to sort out only that which was needful. Perhaps she
could come back and clean up the rest of the mess later.

When she was ready, she turned and dipped her head in a little nod as a
signal to Habrunt.

Without a word, he turned and led the way. He took her across the big
open compound near to the place where the long caravan of heavily laden
beasts stood chewing their cuds along one high stone wall, just inside
the front gates of the sprawling compound.

He proceeded with Si'Wren still in tow, her small hand engulfed in his
huge one as he approached to where a large number of onlookers was
gathered idly around some unseen activity, and as he approached the
outskirts of the crowd he barked commandingly, "Step aside!" and "Make
way there!"

So speaking, Habrunt shouldered through their midst. When he reached
the center of the crowd, he stood with Si'Wren before the old
Physician, who was already busy at his work with the man with a
toothache from the caravan.

Onlookers were conversing with one another in hushed voices from a
respectful distance, still too fearful to speak directly to Habrunt or
his young prisoner. When a slave met such a fate as Nelatha's, it was
dangerous to risk even the slightest unintentional aggravation. Better
to let well enough alone. None dared say so much as a single word to
grim-looking Habrunt or the timid one he escorted.

Nelatha was dead. Habrunt, supremely miserable, hid his grief and
pretended to ignore them all. When he looked once into Si'Wren's eyes,
he found only continued fear and bewilderment. Well, he had at least
done her this little kindness, and spared her the dread of her original
sentence. Perhaps she did not, even now, realize what had been
pronounced upon her head, before he interceded so recklessly.

That he had actually succeeded in sparing Si'Wren life and limb from
punishment was beyond his wildest expectations, but now she must
forever remain in constant danger of forgetting herself and speaking
out of turn for the rest of her life. Had he really helped her, or only
prolonged her suffering, before the final, inescapable, damning
judgement? Why could he not have thought of a better alternative for
Si'Wren?

"Your pardon, great Physician," he said, boldly stepping forward.

"Aye, what is it?" the white-bearded old Healer asked with a wry and
good-natured impatience, scarcely bothering to look up from his work.

Many bystanders and well-wishers were already there, looking curiously
on at his work as they stood idly by in whispering attendance at every
hand.

"She has brought you the herbs you requested," said Habrunt.

"Good!" the Physician said, studying his patient critically. "Not a
moment too soon."

The Physician took advantage of Habrunt's momentary distraction to set
his mind afresh upon his work, for he was in a crucial part of the
operation, and the patient would never be so ready as he was at that
very moment.

Already in position, he reached in carefully, and clenched down, and
seemed to set himself, and with a nod to those helping him to hold
tightly onto the patient, he pulled hard with a pair of crude iron
pliers or tongs, and yanked out a stinking, rotten, bloody molar from
the jaw of the patient, whose gopher hole of a mouth emitted an
agonized outcry. There ensued a veritable chorus of gasps and
utterances from the crowd.

"There!" the Physician patted the shoulder of the sufferer, as
expressions of relief could be heard from the onlookers on all sides.
"Now, if I may have the herbs I was promised?"

The Physician turned to look directly at Habrunt.

Habrunt looked down at Si'Wren, and said, "Attend, little one!" in a
mild pretense at impatience.

Taking her cue, Si'Wren raised her eyebrows quickly and nodded as she
stepped forward and bowed wordlessly, holding out to the old doctor the
proffered items which she had brought.

"Ah yes," said the Physician, nodding as he sniffed and tasted the
various samples with evident satisfaction. "Whoever prepared these has
done well!"

He turned and said to the dental patient, "You must rinse with this tea
of borage leaf, or the grass that the cattle eat if you run out too
soon. Perhaps also, a little dandelion. Blend it with a pinch of this
barberry herb," he held out in his weathered palm a small leather pouch
noosed at the neck with a cord of dried gut which Si'Wren had furnished
him, "and flush the socket faithfully for seven days. It will stop the
pain and bleeding almost immediately, and you will suffer little or no
infection."

Besides the herbs he was dispensing, the verbal prescription which the
sage Physician had just uttered was known to stop bleeding, and the
anesthetic effect of mere words was already well-known to mothers the
world over in the eternal pooh-poohing of their childrens' many little
wounds of life.

The man from the caravan tried to grin and nod and bow his agonized
thanks all at the same time while moving respectfully backwards to go
and do as instructed. The other members of the caravan gathered close around him to
escort him carefully away. One held up a wine flask, making obvious his
intention to get his comrade drunk, which would afford obvious
immediate relief but no doubt add to his later miseries when he should
awaken with a biting hangover the next day.

Seizing the opportunity, Habrunt leaned conspiratorially close, and
when the Physician inclined his ear Habrunt whispered so low that none
could hear what was said.

As he listened, the Physician's expression became, by turns, first
shocked, then angry, and finally--resigned and infinitely saddened.

He turned his head once, to look critically at the two one-eyed boys
waiting on the sidelines. If he felt anything, it no longer showed on
his wise old face as he studied their identical physical maladies.
Finally, he nodded, turning away from a still-whispering Habrunt and
cutting off the other in mid-sentence.

He was an iron-willed, dutiful man who knew how to do what must be done
when called upon to make decisions. It was not his business to judge
the Master of this House if he, too, did what he saw fit. But he
sighed, a heavy, tired gesture, as if all the evils of the world were a
weight upon his shoulders alone.

Out of a vague sense of fairness, he decided to examine the smaller boy
first, the gentle one who had been innocently victimized, while saving
the bully, on Habrunt's judicious advice, until second.

The Physician called for the two boys with their missing single eyes to
be brought to him. Then, while Si'Wren watched with passionate
sympathy, the Physician prepared to go to work on them.

"Eh--" the Physician hesitated, nodding indistinctly in the direction
of the two injured boys, "--which one did you say first?"

Habrunt made an end of niceties and reached forth an arm,
simultaneously barring the one while favoring the other with one and
the same gesture.

"Ah!" the Physician nodded.

The guilty boy tearfully begged to be helped first or at least at the
same time, but was firmly commanded by his own father to wait his
proper turn.

Waiting patiently until after the interruption was settled, the
Physician beckoned gently to the innocent, smiling in a fatherly
fashion.

"Come, child," he beckoned with a kindly nod of his wise old head.

The little boy hesitated, and Habrunt nodded encouragingly.

"Trust him," Habrunt advised the boy in a quiet but stern tone of
voice. "He is a great Physician, who has been paid much money and come
a long ways to treat you. You must obey his commands without question."

Still somewhat fearfully, but more obediently now, the boy stepped
forward and, at a slight gesture from the Physician, stood motionless
before him.

"Face this way," he smiled, crinkling his eyes. Then he said, "Now that
way." He regarded the boy with just a suggestion of teasing admonition,
and said, "Hold still now."

"That's it," the physician smiled and nodded his approval again
encouragingly, as he inspected carefully. "Aye, I see."

The boy fairly trembled all over, and Si'Wren watched with the others,
mourning the suffering of both boys and temporarily forgetting her own
miseries.

The Physician had turned to rummaging in his kit bag, and now he pulled
out a beautiful unglazed clay jar with dark-colored berry stains all
over the rim and sides. The jar was stoppered with a cracked and
discolored wooden cork.

It seemed only right and proper to the old Physician that the
noble-born Master Rababull, no doubt put on the spot at times by the
mischief of those beneath him, should be the proper court of final
recourse, and in the Physician's view of things, what must be done must
be done. Too bad about the gentle boy's suffering, but right was right,
and the bully had received his just recompense.

"No, that's not it," he said, frowning as he sniffed at the contents.

Although the Physician might secretly have wished for a fairer and less
vindictive world, he could but observe that well had the gods fated
Rababull to be Master.

Could even one of his servants have inflicted such drastic punishment,
and have done it so impartially and without undue hesitation, as he had
just done? The Physician sagely reflected that another could not have
done it at all. Perhaps instead, the other fellow would have become too
emotionally involved and done too much.

Or a man of more timid nature might have betrayed cowardice and chosen
to talk it off haughtily and do nothing at all, thereby engendering a
smoldering spirit of outrage and rebellion in his own subjects. If the
master could not settle the matter to the adequate satisfaction of all,
who could?

But there was more to it than that. What Master Rababull had done was
to make all fear him, and justly so. It was no doubt a telling reason
as to why the man was still alive after so many hundreds of years in
such a deceitful and vicious world.

Anyway, why question what was obviously the will of the gods? Even most
fools knew better than to do that.

He rummaged around some more in the bag.

"Ah!"

He pulled out a soft leather pouch as large as his gnarled hand, and
measured some powder out into his palm. He looked up at the boy,
seeming to estimate his diminutive size and stature visually, and then
poured out a good deal more, peering down and studying the exactness of
the amount with a frown as he openly took the time to gage it's weight
against that of the young boy.

"A little wine is needful," he said, raising his hoary, bewhiskered old
head and looking around vaguely at no one in particular.

At the sight of the Physician waiting patiently with the powder already
measured out into his sweaty palm and ready to be administered, Habrunt
turned to one of his boys and clapped his hands sharply with a terse
nod.

"Do not keep the great Physician waiting!" he admonished sternly. "Get
white wine if you can, or red if you must."

"Aye, Master Habrunt!"

The boy raced off at a dead run, presently to return staggering under
the weight of one of the flasks meant for the party-goers.

The Physician took a small cup from his purse, dropped in the powder,
and Habrunt assisted directly by taking over from the boy and pouring
in the clear, fragrant fruit of the vine. Si'Wren watched as the powder
was commingled to the stained brim with the crystal clear liquid, for
the boy had brought white wine.

Then, in front of the trembling boy, the Physician solemnly uttered a
few gravely-spoken nonsense syllables, and passed his free hand before
him as he gazed deep into his one good eye, and put the cup into his
grasp.

"Drink!" he smiled encouragingly, crinkling his eyes again in the most
engaging and kindly manner, although it screwed up his whole face into
a mass of hairy wrinkles. "Drink every drop, and praise the gods. It is
all you have to do."

The boy took it, held it up, and then began to drink. It was -in
Si'Wren's knowledgeable estimation- possessed of an almost intolerably
bitter taste, but the fine white wine would no doubt commute the
bitterness with it's rare ethers. The boy gasped for air, and declared
bluntly, "It burns in my stomach!"

"Finish it," Habrunt urged firmly.

"Hut!" said the Physician, stopping the boy before he could obey.

The Physician took the cup from the boy, swirled it's contents expertly
to stir up the remaining powder from the bottom, and reached it up to
the child's lips as he soothingly breathed the words, "Drink quickly
now!"

The boy gulped down the rest.

"Now--sit," the Physician said, taking the cup from the boy's hands.

Obediently, the child tried to sit down, and would have fallen clear
over backwards had his mother not anxiously enveloped him in her arms
and ample bosom as she crouched quickly behind him.

In a shy, soft voice, the boy exclaimed breathlessly, "It's bitter!"

"Aye, it is, isn't it?" the Physician nodded. Then, staring deep into
the boy's one good eye, the Physician said, "Look, deep, into my
eyes..."

The boy seemed to fall into a swoon.

Without another word, the Physician took over from the boy's mother,
and laid the unconscious boy out flat on the ground and began
immediately to treat his ruined eye socket.

Habrunt quietly oversaw everything that the Physician was doing for as
long as he could, the better to assist if needed, but as Slavemaster,
he had many duties, and presently he was called away by a runner boy
with yet another message from Master Rababull. Habrunt was a man of
many responsibilities.

Before going, he turned to Si'Wren and leaned close to whisper into her
ear, "Fear not, only keep silence lest any watching should find
occasion to bring an accusation against you. If any should do so, true
or not, remain silent and abide until I return, when I shall make
judgement upon them."

Then he turned and marched away without so much as a backward glance.

Si'Wren watched him go for a moment, and then feigned utter unconcern
for her Slavemaster as she resorted to watching the Physician again.
None must realize how desperately she looked to Habrunt or cared for
him now. For he had not only saved her life but had won her trust, and
somewhere in all this was bound up her heart and soul as well. This she
was anxious that none should learn of and mock.

At long last, finishing with his ministrations to the first boy's
missing eye, the weary old Physician turned finally to the bad boy who
had lost his own eye as punishment.

Eventually the Physician was done, and both boys were given over to the
care of their mothers, and Si'Wren, having no mother or father, bowed
low to the Physician after being dismissed by him, and decided to
return to the ruined spice tent.

By this time the sun had just dropped below the horizon, and it was
fast turning to dusk. The first of the party-goers had already arrived,
and the celebration was already beginning.

Arriving at the spice tent, she stared at the unbelievable destruction
and felt tears stream down her cheeks. Master Rababull had been
virtually a god to her! She had worshiped the very ground he had
walked on.

Fog drifted through the courtyard, transforming the torches in their
fixed stanchions on the nearby walls, into glowing orbs like spirits,
or like the moon above. Aye, the spirit of the moon was upon the land
tonight, the spirit of madness. Gloomily, Si'Wren reflected that the
celebrants were to be spared the sight of the slain young woman's body.
Of course! That would spoil their fun. Such must never be even dreamed
of. Si'Wren wiped ineffectually at her tears, smearing her wet cheeks.
What should she do?

She stared at the wreckage of the spice tent, and wondered helplessly
if she was expected to spend the entire night if necessary cleaning it
up. No one had said anything about what was to be expected of her now.
Should she abandon her work, or what?

Close by, she suddenly heard extremes of laughter. Abruptly she turned
from the wrecked tent and walked toward the rear gate. When she
arrived, she found it guarded by two brawny slaves standing beneath the
torches of the closed and barred gate. They ignored her contemptuously,
no doubt having already been informed of her evil belief in the
Invisible God, and of her complicity in the destruction of the
priceless green jade goddess.

She turned and walked back through the grounds toward the front,
turning aside into the shadows whenever possible to avoid meeting
others. The smells of cooking food came to her, and she realized that
she had already missed her supper as hunger gnawed at her insides.

At the front gate, as she had anticipated, the guards were admitting
the celebrants, under Slavemaster Habrunt's watchful eye. Habrunt
seemed too busy to notice her. Did he, too, secretly despise her now?
Si'Wren held back, until the guards were preoccupied with the arrival
of yet another dignitary and his extended family, and when the
attention of all seemed temporarily diverted, she walked forward
quickly and slipped out of the front gates and into the wide path.

She turned sharply, and walked away from the direction of the nearby
city, into the gathering darkness of the wilds. Cold fog enveloped her,
and in what seemed like no time at all the torch light behind her was
swallowed up in the swirling mists.

She walked on, oblivious of her surroundings, looking neither to the
rear nor to the right or left. What did it matter if some foul beast
should leap out and seize her in it's jaws? It would be a blessed fate,
compared to what she must face if she should return to the House of
Rababull now.

She heard something behind her, and looking around anxiously, thought
she saw a large shadow, as that of a man, following her, too far back
to make it out for sure. Si'Wren's heart began pounding fearfully as
she stared, eyes widening in fear.

Abruptly she turned, and began to walk quickly, looking for some place
to turn off the road and hide. When she glanced back again, the figure
was gone. Slowing, she stopped and stared behind her again, to see if
it had been her imagination. Then her ears pricked, as she thought she
heard the distant scrape of a sandal on the path.

She turned and began walking swiftly away from the House of Rababull,
deeper and deeper into the night. Whenever she looked back, she saw and
heard nothing. Was someone there?

"Hello?" she called out, looking back again.

But there was no answer.

Still staring behind her as she began to walk away, Si'Wren suddenly
blundered straight into a tree, and screamed as two of the tree's
branches seized hold of her.

She struggled helplessly as she was held in a vise-like grip by a
laughing young man, whose alcohol-laden breath caused her to choke and
gag.

Another man, as brawny as the first, towered above her.

"I've caught me a night spirit!" laughed the man, holding onto her
tenaciously.

"Make her give you a wish before you let her go," jested the second.

"She'll give us more than that, and no one the wiser," said the first
in an evil, crafty tone of voice.

Si'Wren jerked instinctively to free herself from her attacker, and
found her diminutive physical power to be as nothing compared to his
godlike strength.

He spun her around, and she bit him in the hand.

"Ouch! You filthy whore!"

He slapped her, a stunning backhand to the cheek, and she felt her head
jerked backward by the blow. The young man's foul spittle-laden breath
assailed her, together with the stink of his alcoholic excesses.

"Help me!" Si'Wren shouted, knowing she was too far from the front
gates to be heard now.

Her captor laughed, enjoying her fear.

Then she screamed out in hopelessness and despair, "Habrunt!!!"

"She calls her Slavemaster," said the one, gripping her tightly. "He
favors her. You're going to die for sure, pretty one, after we've had
our way with you."

"Oh God, please help me!!" Si'Wren screamed like a lost soul, sensing
her doom upon her as supreme fear overcame her and she crumpled,
sagging nervelessly in the man's irresistible grasp.

"Shut up!" he gritted tightly, striking her a series of stunning blows
across the face delivered alternately with the open palm and the bony
back of his hand.

"Aye, she must die alright," said the second. "Her very identity must
be hid, lest Rababull's Slavemaster should find out. Hurry and let us
be done quickly with her, before someone else comes along!"

"Wise words--spoken too late to do you any good!" suddenly declared a
deep voice.

Si'Wren whirled her head around, and watched disbelieving as out of the
shadows of the mists stepped the shadowy and indistinct figure of a
powerfully built man with a golden bronze sword gleaming in his hand.

"Habrunt!" Si'Wren shrieked desperately as, reeling from the blows, she
struggled anew and stared.

"We've got swords!" the first young man declared nervously and
self-importantly, "and our fathers are high-born. You're a slave! You
better run along home, before we decide to report you to your master."

Habrunt said nothing.

"The girl is not half as willing as the others," the second one said
offensively.

"Aye, she's worthless, like you," the first one laughed contemptuously.
"Here, see for yourself!" Still gripping Si'Wren by the upper arms, he
suddenly flung her forward in the direction of Habrunt, so violently
that she stumbled and fell to her knees before him.

"We didn't want her anyways," the second chipped in, emboldened by
Habrunt's continued silence. "She's far too ugly."

Habrunt stepped forward until he had come just past Si'Wren's kneeling
figure, with her head still downcast in shame, and then he halted
again, standing protectively between Si'Wren and her two tormentors now.

"What is she to you, anyways?" said the first young man. He was already
growing nervous because of Habrunt's refusal to reply. "Here," the
young man said, dipping into his money satchel, "I'll pay you for her;
twenty, no, thirty pieces of silver! You can keep her in the bargain.
What's the matter with you? My money's as good as anyone else's! Go on,
take it!"

Habrunt took another menacing step forward, as he slowly raised his
gleaming sword.

"Take it!" the young man repeated, in a high voice. He waved his sword
in the air in a series of menacing arcs, which Habrunt seemed not to
notice. "Keep the girl and take all of it! What do you want of us?!"

"Aye! Leave us out of it! You'll be sorry for this! Our fathers--"

Habrunt's sword abruptly flashed in the night in a swift series of
arcs, to the accompaniment of a succession of metallic clangs followed
by several meaty whacks and the cut-off screams of the two young men.

There was no more sound for a moment, except for the sliding of a sword
blade on the clothing of they who had been destroyed. Then she heard
the sound of footsteps, as Habrunt turned back to her. In his right
hand was the money pouch that had been offered to him, and in his other
was his sword. He switched hands, and hurled the money pouch into the
night. Far off the trail, Si'Wren heard the distant clink of the money
when it landed. Their swords quickly followed, and Si'Wren heard the
swish of grass as they landed unseen in the darkness.

She remained kneeling in despair, waiting for Habrunt to pronounce
judgement upon her. Now what was to become of her, for her broken vow
of silence?

Then she felt his hands touch her shoulders, so gently that the fear
with which she was shaken was transformed into surprise and numbed
disbelief.

"Little one," said Habrunt, his voice heavy but full of compassion.
"Are you alright?"

"Oh Habrunt," Si'Wren lamented, her voice a whimper. "I have betrayed
my vow of silence to the Invisible God! I am worthless, and now I shall
be punished by the Master!"

But Habrunt knelt down beside her, and shook his head slowly.

"Not so," he said. "Come."

He helped her rise to her feet, and began leading her back towards the
House compound.

"But I did!" she persisted, leaning on him for support as she walked,
for she seemed to be hurt worse than she had first supposed. "In the
very confession of my sin, I betray my vow of silence, my sworn oath
given before the Invisible God, to you and Master Rababull!"

"Then stop talking," Habrunt said mildly, still leading her confidently
through the night, as the moon cast it's glow through the swirling
mists.

"How can you say that?" Si'Wren said. Then she blurted out, "Have you
no sense of right and wrong?"

"I am as good a keeper of the law as any," said Habrunt.

"Aye, and you slew those two evil men, who would have taken me upon
their lusts, and cast me aside afterward as lifelessly as you have done
unto them instead."

"Because they struck you without cause," Habrunt replied. "And also,
lest they betray the truth of your broken vow of silence."

To Si'Wren, Habrunt's second remark seemed an astonishing thing to say.

"Then--" she hesitated in confusion, "you shall be as guilty as I! You
must not do this thing."

"It is already done. If not for my foolishness, you had not taken such
a vow in the first place."

"But--I did vow."

"Aye. Tell me this, little one; who shall speak of it when we return,
seeing how you have taken this vow of silence?"

"I--" This time, Si'Wren could not think of what to say, so perplexing
and marvelous were his words.

"Aye," Habrunt assented. "I am as guilty as you. But am I not
Slavemaster of the House of Rababull? My word is final. Not even Master
Rababull can overturn my decision, for behold, I have covered the sins
of yourself, that by my own guilt you may be counted innocent before
all. Who then shall gainsay me in this? The Invisible God? Aye, and may
He ever be the right and true judge of all, more so than even the high
and mighty noble Master Rababull. Methinks the Invisible One shall but
praise me in the justice of what has transpired tonight."

Si'Wren listened mystified to all of this, and when she had heard all,
she found that Habrunt's strange words eased her conscience, having
such an effect upon her that she found herself wishing to be loosed
from Master Rababull and bound to Habrunt instead. But to imagine such
was rank foolishness, for Habrunt and all that he had or ever would
have; did they not already belong to Master Rababull? One might as well
wish for the moon.

Still reeling from the blows she had received, Si'Wren planted a
misstep in his path as she staggered into Habrunt, and would have
fallen if he had not caught her.

Without the slightest sign of visible effort, Habrunt dipped down and
scooped her up into his arms, cradling her tenderly as he looked down
into her beaten face.

His anger was gone now, and he was thinking about what must be said
when he returned with her to the compound. Since he was not a talkative
man in the first place, it would not seem out of character if he said
nothing at all and let others do all the talking amongst themselves.
That way, they could freely invent their own explanations to their
hearts' content and might even think of a better answer than he could.

The two young men would be missed, but those who went a wandering so
drunkenly into the wilds of the land as if to a fool's paradise would
be said by many to deserve the sorry fate they had so evidently brought
upon themselves. Even knowing the truth, Habrunt could readily agree to
this.

He had checked them out when they had left earlier of their own accord,
taking two of the traveling harlots from the caravan with them as
playthings. Habrunt had thought poorly of the midnight excursion even
then, before he had the slightest inkling that it was to eventually
involve Si'Wren. However, the two young men were freeborn and of age,
and it would have been rank insubordination for Habrunt to have uttered
the slightest contradiction to their plans.

It was when Si'Wren had slipped out, that he had commanded a nearby
guard to take over, so he could follow her.

An expert tracker, Habrunt had been alert enough to notice the trail
signs and discovered the two hapless slave girls which the two young
men had taken with them, a short distance from the gates. There in the
dark, by the colorless light of a full moon obscured by heavy night
mists, Habrunt had located the remains of the two unfortunate harlots
from the caravan.

He almost wished he hadn't, because of what he found.

The women had evidently been abused and mistreated most evilly, as by
devils, and then murdered and discarded like playthings to be tossed
into the bushes by the wayside. For Habrunt, the manner of their deaths
was even now something to live on in his nightmares.

Since their money and the valuable swords they had brought were
unlikely to be found and would be noticed to be missing, the deaths of
the two young men could easily be credited to bandits. Habrunt held his
own sword awkwardly as he cradled Si'Wren in his arms.

It was his own absence, and the badly beaten physical condition of
Si'Wren, which must somehow endure the gainsayings of others, and which
concerned him the most now. Let them talk on, and wonder, and dream but
once of a fitting explanation according to their own dim lights, and by
their own mouths would they deceive themselves.

Chapter Three - The Light of God

When Si'Wren opened her eyes, she realized that it was night time. She
lay on a low wooden sleeping rack, and before her was the cobblestone
fire pit, the yellow flames of which warmed and illuminated the slave
quarters, a long low bungalow of rough-hewn cypress beams.

Deliriously, she half-raised her aching head and took in her
surroundings. She realized, looking unsteadily around in the
semi-darkness, that she was alone, and she could hear the distant
sounds of celebration emanating from the Master's House.

Her head was swimming and there was a terrible pain in it.

The lilting sing-song sounds of the musicians drifted across the
compound and teased at her ears, lulling her somnambulantly to the
accompaniment of the rhythmic chi-chi-ching-ching of finger cymbals,
and the reedy reeee-eeeee-eeeee-ree-ree-rooo-rooo-roo-ooooooooooooo of
the wood pipes.

Shame filled her soul as she remembered the death of Nelatha, and the
terrible danger that had befallen her later after dark, when she had
narrowly escaped after wandering foolishly out into the wilds all alone
when Habrunt had come suddenly and unexpectedly to rescue her from the
evil ministrations of the two evil men he had slain.

But for Habrunt she would surely have suffered a terrible fate at their
hands.

Now, only now, did Si'Wren fully and truly understand what Habrunt had
risked to slay the sons of the noblemen in favor of one so lowly as
she. Should Master Rababull ever find out the truth, his vengeance upon
both herself and Habrunt would be fearsome and terrible.

At thought of this, Si'Wren's remorse was compounded ten-fold by the
bitter memories of the many fond smiles and cheery looks which Master
Rababull had so often bestowed upon her from earliest memory.

Habrunt had shown his concern for her safety this night, but the memory
of earlier, when she had seen his terrible face and felt of his iron
grip in her hair, doing his utmost to convince Master Rababull that he
had not the slightest concern for Si'Wren's life, would not leave her
now, and tears streaked her cheeks as she shut her eyes in silent
anguish.

Downwind from the House, she could smell the wonderful scents of the
Master's best ceremonial incense mingled with the pungence of tobacco,
the tang of wine, and the huge feast with it's jasmine tea, roasted
melons stuffed with baked vegetables and breadstuffs, sweet seed cakes,
sugar-spices, candies, and honeyed foods.

Her head was woozy from the beating. Her bruised face seemed numb to
the touch, wherever she chanced to touch be it ever so delicately.
Raising her fingertips to her puffed lips, she felt a dried crust of
blood all around her nose and mouth and down the side of her upper lip,
chin, and throat. The inside of her mouth felt scummy. She had an
uncontrollable thirst, but found nothing to drink.

Then, a noise and a dark silhouette at the entrance to the bungalow
caused her to look up in unconscious renewed terror. She felt her eyes
widen, and then she saw Habrunt standing there, his downcast
countenance and the gleam of his bulging muscles appearing in the
flickering uncertain firelight like an apparition as the curtain was
drawn back by his large hand. In his other hand was a fire-hardened
clay cup.

She sensed his eyes upon her, and looked up with the same open-faced
showing of subservience and unthinking trust with which she had always
looked to him before. Then her eyes fell, and she became as a downcast
wretch, a hag before her time, weeping uncontrollably on the dirty cot
before his compassionately kneeling figure.

Tears of shame fell from her closed eyelids, but she felt surprise as
she felt Habrunt's strong hand placed gently upon her shoulder, and
with his other hand, he held up the clay cup.

From the odor of it, she dimly perceived that it was simple herbal tea,
and not a powerful potion such as she had delivered to the Physician
earlier.

He placed it gently to her lips. From the feel of it's even warmth, she
sensed that he had warmed it a little, though not enough to be too much
for her. She let it's tasteless liquid slip through her feverish lips,
and could not discern it, either as warmth nor coolness. It was neither
sweet nor sour, and faintly but not unpleasantly bitter.

When she'd had a little, he removed the cup from her lips and set it
down on the earthen floor, already forgotten in the dark shadows
beneath the cot.

He remained frozen for a moment in the stillness of the deserted
bungalow. She thought he must be angry at her, and deservedly so, but
she saw no wrath in the quiet look of compassion with which he studied
her. His eyes were steady and calm.

"Fear not, little one," said Habrunt, his voice a deep, soft
reassurance to her. "No one shall pluck thee from my hand."

At this, her eyes lifted up to his in surprise, and she saw his
forefinger raised vertically against his pursed lips, beneath
cautiously furrowed masculine eyebrows, the universal gesture for
silence and secret comradeliness.

He leaned forward towards her, and bent down, and kissed her gently on
the forehead.

Eyelids shutting reflexively, she tingled all over, from her aching
head to her tiny feet, at the soft touch of his lips. She quivered all
inside at the furriness of his thick beard, and the brush of his long
wavy locks where they fell from beneath his leather headband against
her numbed face.

He took out a clean cloth and formed it into a cup-shape in one hand,
and poured out a little tea onto it, letting it soak in. Then, he
carefully began ever so gently wiping away the congealed saliva and
dried blood from her face, her lips, her chin, and her throat. After
that, he untied a small clay bottle from his belt, refolded the
dampened cloth to a clean side, and unstopped the little bottle to tilt
it's mouth over the cloth, and applied some of it's contents thereon.

Again, he wiped her entire face and forehead, her throat, up around her
ears, and across the back of her neck. His touch was gentle all over
her head and neck, as he anointed the semi-conscious girl with a thin,
soothing layer of purest olive oil.

He surveyed her face again, noting once more, with the same inner, grim
satisfaction as before, that she had suffered no apparent lasting
injury despite much swelling and bruises. He felt small solace in this,
but as it was yet within his power, he would surely command whatever he
might in her behalf.

Suddenly, footsteps could be heard approaching the entrance from
outside, and she sensed him rise in the flickering shadows and step to
one side of the door. There he stood tall and motionless before her,
waiting for the footsteps to carry past. The approaching footsteps were
accompanied by an admixture of slurred male and female voices, perhaps
four people in all.

Their unseen progress could be followed by the changing aspects of the
snatches and sudden outbursts of laughter to which they resorted in
their senseless and continuous amusement at everything around them,
including themselves.

The golden gleam of Habrunt's bronze sword flashed before Si'Wren's
eyes, making her catch her breath in fear.

Some of their words could be indistinctly made out, and Habrunt
realized that the men were from the nearby city, talking with pent-up
anticipation of having a good time with a couple of lush young girls
from the caravan, whom they were taking to a nearby garden gazebo, a
flimsy trellis of bamboo, stone, and clinging green vines.

Habrunt scowled. Still more of Rababull's 'party favors', no doubt.
Four had already died this night, besides Nelatha, and another savagely
beaten. What would be the tally by dawn's light?

As their noisome prittle-prattle faded into the distance, Habrunt felt
the danger pass. He turned away from Si'Wren, and stepped out into the
night without another word, gone with such stealth that he slipped away
as silently as he had come.

She shivered, beginning to tremble feverishly all over.

The music from the House rose to a faster and louder tempo as riotous
laughter and the excited shrieks of women was accompanied by the
generally raucous bellowing of many foolishly happy male voices. Then
the voices died down a bit, and the music picked up a thumping tempo of
heavy drum beats. The scent of the incense, exotic and strange, came to
Si'Wren again, wafted through the drifting mists in the chill night air.

Chills racked her. The cold of night was at her back, and it's embrace
was beginning to seize her with shivers and cramps. But the flickering
fire was before her still, accompanied by the emotional warmth of the
memory of Habrunt's kiss upon her forehead.

She lifted herself up until she was propped on one elbow, and tried to
ignore her chills as she basked in the velvety, mesmerizing warmth and
stared long into the glowing fire pit. She had a fever, and was too
full of wonder at the behavior of Habrunt to go back to sleep. In the
background, the rhythmical chi-chi-ching and reedy reeee-reeeee-reeeee
of the music lulled her senses, as her eyes became half-lidded.

Suddenly, as she watched the flickering flames, they began to change
shape before her delirious eyes, and became--fiery dancing girls.

Eerily tall, the tireless shapes of the dancing girls pranced and
danced and jumped and leaped to the distant music from Master
Rababull's House. They shifted and changed positions with each other
again and again and yet again, as around and around them jumped up the
black shadows of demons, chasing the breathlessly fast fiery dancing
girls.

The demons were fast, but the thin, leaping, fiery dancing girls were
swifter than lightning, impossibly fast and elusive, so much so that
the persistent demons could not catch even one of the fire girls, who
kept disappearing miraculously out of their clutches and slipping
through their clutching black claws as easily as a collection of
brilliant feminine fire wraiths.

The yellow firelight flashed in brilliance from the eerily thin leaping
flame figures, and suddenly, Si'Wren became one of them.

As they danced, she danced, and as they leaped, she leaped with them,
in an entrancingly intricate pattern of leaps and prances, as the light
of the Invisible God shined from within herself to light the way for
her tiny dancing feet.

All around her the demons whirled and chased, ever seeking to carry her
away from the others, and away from the holy light of the Invisible
God, but she, like the fiery dancing girls, could not be caught by them
for all of their efforts, for that Perfect Light was like a living fire
within Si'Wren.

The smell of the fire's smoke reached her once, and she realized that
the demons were tormented by the fiery light of the eerily beautiful
dancing girls, for she smelled the smoke of their torment, and as she
lay staring unblinkingly at the fire, she danced endlessly into the
darkness of the night.

* * *

When she awoke again, it was to the morning sounds of the sleeping and
hung-over alike, sighing and snoring all around her in the cypress
bungalow, and to renewed thirst, chills, and constant tormented
shivering from the pronounced effects of the fever.

There was an aching in her beaten head and face, and a curious,
inexplicable emotional void in her soul where once her long-fervent
love of her Master Rababull had long flourished eternal.

Soon the bungalow's occupants had all risen. Tired and hung over from
all their ravelings of the night before, they ignored her. It was
Master Rababull's custom to get the slaves as drunk as they could
possibly manage and exclusively on red wine, but not in the House with
his honored guests, so that by their hangovers they might not desire
the fancies of a freeman with quite the same vigor in times to come.
Their lusts were gone from them now, and they all went through their
daily preparations for a day's work in the Master's fields in a curious
pinch-faced, silent expression of unaccustomed suffering, their heads
aching miserably as they shuffled out without so much as a single
solitary civil word from the lot of them.

None dared speak to Si'Wren, in spite of her worse suffering than
theirs. What she had done was taboo. Selling idols was an important
means to gaining much gold. What she had done was tantamount to the
symbolic ruination of the very economy and foundation of the entire
House of Rababull, and moreover, an overt rejection of the very gods
themselves.

The unknown few that might have dared befriend her were no doubt too
afraid of the others, and especially of Master Rababull himself. Had
they even desired to do so, which she suspected none did, not a one
dared show sympathy even by so much as the merest wink of an eye.

Si'Wren felt her heart and soul wrenched by the realization that
because of what she stood guilty of she was henceforth to be counted by
all others as an utter and complete outcast, a living abomination even
amongst her own kind--lowly slaves all.

Many hated her, but dared not show that either, lest Slavemaster
Habrunt should learn of it somehow and make his displeasure known to
them instead. For that, Si'Wren was doubly-taboo. Besides all of this,
she would not have dared to give the slightest verbal reply to any of
them anyway.

She spent the day in a lethargic state of abject misery, feeling as if
her head would split open from aching, an agony which she would have
readily traded places with the slaves for their pains instead, as they
went out suffering visibly and openly from being so obviously hung-over.

The old slave-woman, L'acoci, a toothless, gray-haired scarecrow of a
crone, too old and decrepit to do much useful work out-of-doors
anymore, had been instructed by Habrunt to make use of herself and be a
nursemaid to Si'Wren. With a lifetime of experience to draw upon,
L'acoci gave Si'Wren a tea poultice to sooth her bruises, and some rich
broth skimmed from the vegetable stew to strengthen her.

Throughout the afternoon, Si'Wren continued to suffer from her beating
and the fever. L'acoci was kept busy at the simmering stew pot for the
sake of the other slaves. They were due to come in from the fields just
as dusk dimmed into night, and the old crone did not appear to take
especial notice of Si'Wren's physical distress.

But when Si'Wren finally began to moan in pain, at long last L'acoci
deigned to hear her cries as the old hag came over to her and took her
firmly by the shoulders, whispering urgently to her to be silent and
lie still.

She could not. The rejection by Master Rababull, the slaying of
Nelatha, the humiliation, and the beating all seemed increasingly
overwhelming to her. Such torment and emotional anguish as she had
never known filled her being, so real and so indomitable. She could not
will it away. She could not face up to it. She could not escape it nor
answer it.

Then, suddenly, Habrunt was there, momentarily putting aside his many
responsibilities, kneeling beside her with a clay cup of herb tea in
his large hand as his other hand gently supported her head.

He spoke to her soft words of comfort, and somehow the unwavering look
in his eyes and the warmth of the beverage offered by his very own hand
filled her with such a sense of reassurance that it seemed to suffuse
her very soul with an awareness that without Habrunt, she should surely
have known damnation.

After that, he came daily, sometimes in the morning and again in the
late afternoon. That Habrunt grieved for her suffering was no secret,
although what he ever thought of anything was purely his own affair.
Moreover, he came boldly, openly, letting all see that he was Habrunt
the Slavemaster, and the servant of but one man.

If the Master of the House was aware of any of this, yet did Habrunt
brave the danger willingly enough, apparently heedless if Master
Rababull should experience displeasure.

But Master Rababull, although fully aware of Habrunt's behavior because
of the many tattletales he listened to, found it expedient to consider
the matter settled, and his Slavemaster too useful to chastise for so
light an infringement. Instead, Master Rababull pretended that it was
so unimportant as to be beneath either his notice or his dignity. Had
he not graciously spared Si'Wren's very life? Was she not then worthy
to be restored meekly to a useful, if lower, status in the House, her
social ostracism as a total outcast notwithstanding?

Master Rababull's only publicly announced edict, an iron one, was that
Si'Wren must never again work in the spice tent. It was an honor she no
longer deserved. Habrunt never openly showed the slightest affection to
Si'Wren, but ministered to her with stoic mein. Whenever he came, he
commanded the ever-present runner boys to wait outside. Then he would
enter in and give her tea and broth at his own hand. When Si'Wren tried
to whisper secretly to him once, his eyes widened in alarm and he
immediately put his hand firmly over her mouth and shook his head and
frowned in an urgent but barely perceptible negative.

Then after each visit, he would depart again after speaking scarcely a
word, and that only to L'acoci.

In the face of such scandalous activity, none dared bring rebuke
against Si'Wren before Master Rababull, lest they incur in turn the
thinly veiled wrath of Habrunt in his official capacity as Slavemaster
of the House. Habrunt was careful in all of this to make certain, with
every opportunity, that all saw his total devotion and unfailing
allegiance to Master Rababull.

Thus, mercifully, there were no complaints against Si'Wren, and she did
not suffer nearly as much as she might otherwise have done.

* * *

Si'Wren chewed her food, as she pretended not to notice the other
slaves filing out of doors to their day's labor in the fields. They in
turn shunned her company, for she was the despised idol-breaker, in
spite of the well-known fact that it had been Nelatha who had taken the
actual blame for this.

For, unlike the one-eyed boy who had bullied his one-eyed victim,
Si'Wren had committed no mere worldly crime. No, not she. Si'Wren had
done much worse than that.

She had broken faith.

She had shown her belief in the Invisible God, the only forbidden deity
in a world of visible and valuable idols. She was forever an outcast,
the lowest of the low. She was different, evil, taboo.

Each of the two one-eyed boys was still permitted to speak and converse
naturally with others. Not she. No, she was somehow subhuman to them
now, and it was only fitting that she should never speak again, but be
as some dumb animal instead.

Seeing this, she had abandoned the idea of ever trying, knowing it was
useless.

* * *

Harvest time had come.

Slavemaster Habrunt was compelled to attend to his duties first and
foremost, and so could not visit Si'Wren as frequently as he had done
at the first. He had commanded L'acoci to care for Si'Wren with all
diligence. No longer dared he come so often, lest the Master take
notice and be moved to great displeasure, and perhaps in the end decree
some worse punishment for Si'Wren to be rid of her once and for all.

L'acoci was under instructions to bring Habrunt word again when Si'Wren
was feeling better, that he might come and personally escort her to her
newly appointed place of labor. L'acoci had informed her that she would
be working in the Master's fields; why else, adaged an observant
L'acoci, would Si'Wren have been bedded down to recover from her
injuries in the bungalow of the field laborers?

Until then, Habrunt had no further, legitimate excuse to come and seek
after Si'Wren's welfare. How she longed to see his face again!

L'acoci was treating Si'Wren with borage and red clover blossom tea,
together with dandelion, which was quite agreeable and most healing to
her. Yesterday morning, L'acoci had smiled at her and announced that
today Si'Wren might leave her sickbed at long last. Together with
L'acoci, Si'Wren had gone to the stream where the women all gathered to
wash clothes, to bathe and wash herself under L'acoci's fiercely
protective guardianship, lest any of the other women or their children
molest the wretched, defenseless outcast of a girl, so none dared.

Then, after she had first fed the other field slaves in the cypress
bungalow their dinner, L'acoci had gone to tell Habrunt that night of
the progress Si'Wren had been making in her recovery. L'acoci then
returned and, with a twinkle in her eyes, informed Si'Wren of what she
had done. Knowledge of this event had filled Si'Wren with such a
perplexity as to what would become of her that she could hardly go to
sleep that night. All she could think of was Habrunt and what he would
say when he came for her in the morning.

Sure enough, as soon as Habrunt had a chance to make his morning rounds
to see that the affairs of the Master's Household were all in order for
the day and that the slaves were all well and truly at their duties, or
that the inevitable one or two dropouts had given him sufficient excuse
and been temporarily reassigned one way or another to easier work, he
came personally for Si'Wren.

"Well, little one, are you ready?" Habrunt spoke to her in his deep,
gentle voice, as he stood in the doorway with a stern look on his
formidable features, and secretly gave her a quick wink. He folded his
muscular, corded forearms across his hairy chest and presented an
exceeding handsome figure with his long wavy locks held back by the
plain leather headband, and his unadorned but carefully trimmed beard.
He looked rugged and formidable, despite his beaming countenance.

Inwardly pleased at the way he had winked at her with no one else the
wiser, Si'Wren bowed low, then rose to her full, diminutive stature and
nodded to him in mute obedience.

"What good are words anyway, eh?" he said, in a not-unkindly fashion.
"Come, then, little one."

Habrunt's eyes sparkled as he regarded her, for when she had bowed, her
dark hair, which hung nearly to the waist in back, had fallen
gloriously across her shoulders in dark shining splendor.

He stepped outside, and held the tent flap considerately for her as he
waited for her to follow.

Habrunt's countenance was like lightening, as his eyes which seemed
ever to smile upon Si'Wren, somehow managed to appear so fierce unto
all others as to strike terror into their hearts, be they of a spiteful
mein or no, and all of this with but one and the same expression of his
stony features.

When she was ready, he started out at a deliberately slow pace to
enable her to keep up easily and follow dutifully close behind him. As
they neared the fields, he could tell from glancing back at her once
that, weakened from her long illness, she was already badly winded
merely from the walk.

He brought her to Geth, the short, stout old Fieldmaster, Geth of
balding head, all white of hair and long-fringed beard, with a wrinkled
old face that had seen more summers in the fields than the rocks
themselves, for all Si'Wren knew.

Across the windswept waves of undulating grain, interspersed with a few
weeds and brush, the harvesters worked steadily, too far to clearly
discern their bowed and sweaty faces.

Clasping hands, Habrunt greeted Geth with a man's greeting, and
accepted the offer of a drink from the water skin. Si'Wren respectfully
declined to do likewise.

After an habitual inquiry as to the progress of the harvest, Habrunt
said to the old Fieldmaster, "This is Si'Wren, of the spice tent. She
had the misfortune to be held accountable for the very stones that come
from the ground as well as the herbs she was so skilled at grinding,
and found wanting by the Master. She is sworn to a vow of silence, and
now she is to become a field worker."

Geth, as aware of events as anybody, nodded his shrewd understanding,
frowning with a face like old leather.

"Always use more help during the harvest," he said, characteristically
sparse of words. One's very breath, so Si'Wren seemed to gather, was
the better to be employed in more productive pursuits.

"Good," said Habrunt. "See thou to it, and to her health as well.
Methinks she was attacked by a madman during the last full moon and has
been some time in the recovery. Now that she is nearly well again, the
good Master would see some recompense at her own hand. She is still of
tender years, and as yet infirm from her days of recovery. The House of
Rababull would be greatly displeased, if she should be worked too hard,
and fall ill again before full repayment has been made to the Master
for her foolishness."

Habrunt leaned forward significantly at this point, his menacing manner
quite obvious.

"Do you get my meaning, Geth?"

Geth nodded, squinting to show that he was fully aware of Habrunt's
true wishes and was of no mind to make bones to dry in the sun about it.

"Aye," said Geth. He turned to Si'Wren with a wry look, appraising her
carefully and noting her slack posture. "So she is ready for the
harvest, is she? From the look of her, your pretty new field hand has
many good years in her yet, but just between the two of us,
Slavemaster, quite frankly; she looks tired out already."

At this, Habrunt reached down and clenched his right hand around a
fistful of grain stalks, and uprooted the clump up by the roots. Then
he looked at old Geth pointedly.

"This little one is not half as tired as you shall become, if you do
not plant your words as carefully as your crops. If I say she is ready,
she is. Give her tools, water, and provender, and spare your heavy hand
when your eye would mark her shortcomings. Put her over by herself, and
keep a proper shepherd's watch on her. Any good shepherd boy knows his
sheep by name. Behold, I have brought you Si'Wren! If she so much as
lifts a finger to her work, tally the ledger for a full day's output
and see that the others make it up to you, until she can carry her own.
See also that there is peace kept in your fields, lest another mightier
than thou shouldst come and replace you, the better to set all in
proper order again."

Habrunt stood immobile, a handful of grain still clenched tightly in
his fist as he confronted old Geth with a hard look as the other
quickly nodded.

Properly abashed, the Fieldmaster bowed low as he intoned, as
ceremoniously as to the finest idol, "Thy words are gracious and
learned, Slavemaster. All shall be as you have spoken."

Habrunt kept his eyes hard upon Geth for a moment, and finally nodded,
apparently satisfied.

"Good!" he said loudly and pointedly to Geth.

Then he raised his fistful of grain and regarded it with equal levity,
before turning to Si'Wren. He held out the grain to her. Regarding it
dumbly for a moment, Si'Wren saw him nod encouragement to her, and she
took the clump of grain together with the clinging dirt and roots from
his hand.

"Go with him, little one," he said, in a soft and kindly voice. Then,
turning suddenly on Geth, he tilted his head back and declared, "Geth,
does she not come to you with grain already to hand? Take it, and be
satisfied. Behold, I, Habrunt, Slavemaster of the House of Rababull,
have spoken."

This was intended purely and solely for Geth's wise old ears, and had
been formally pronounced to show that Habrunt was in dire earnest, and
would be greatly displeased if further contradicted.

Then he turned brusquely on his heel and strode off to go and make his
rounds.

As Habrunt departed steadily through the gently waving fields, Geth
hefted a large, ungainly scythe in one hand, and turned almost timidly
to Si'Wren.

"Come," he said.

Si'Wren looked up with fearful eyes at his weathered old countenance.

Geth regarded her queerly, as if he had never seen her before, and then
repeated more quietly to her, "Come girl," this time with a more
reassuring nod.

He crinkled his face in an unaccustomed smile, and tilted his head as
he nodded unpracticed encouragement to her. For as Fieldmaster, he was
accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed without question,
and greatly unused was he to meting out such pampering as he had been
gravely challenged by Habrunt to bestow so freely upon this shy one.

Meekly, she followed him in total silence.

"You must not be afraid," Geth said, leading the way. She followed him
over a low hillock to where a clump of trees grew at the edge of a
nearby field. Beyond the knoll, a peaceful stream meandered through.

The low mound of the hill blocked from sight a direct view of the other
field hands, and their view of the stream was also obstructed, neither
could they see the place in the field where Geth had decided that
Si'Wren might work alone and unmolested. That place being closer to the
compound than the area where the other laborers were gathered, Si'Wren
hoped that this would make her safer from attack by any of the
countless roaming, rogue men of the land.

"Fear not. Am I not sworn to defend you?" reassured old Geth, with an
unaccustomed grimace of a smile. "You will be perfectly safe here."

Si'Wren stood silent, looking up at him as she awaited his instructions.

Geth had not brought her to this particular place by sheer
happenstance. If he was to successfully accomplish what Habrunt had so
gravely commanded, it would be easier if the other slaves did not have
the opportunity to judge for themselves whether Si'Wren had produced a
proper day's work in the fields or not. For Geth to permit them to see
her harvest so little, regardless of her weakened physical state, would
produce much griping in their ranks. This way, what they did not know
would not matter to them.

Holding out to Si'Wren the large, heavy scythe, he bade her grasp it.
She took hold of it, and could not help it when the heavy blade tilted
down and banged on the ground after he let go. Then he stepped behind
her and reached around from both sides, took her tiny hands in his
gnarled old ones, and showed her the precise motion of how to swing it
in a rhythmical motion that seemed to roll as naturally as the tips of
the waving grain stalks, over and over again. Geth took her through it
very slowly at first, then at a more normal pace with a smooth,
repetitious motion that was very easy to follow once she got the proper
swing of it.

Although his breath was close upon her from behind, Si'Wren felt no
danger from such close contact with Geth, as he made no attempt
whatsoever to corrupt his handling of her, but only wanted to show her
how to reap. Geth's kindly old soul was visibly harmless, although his
heart was evidently as tough as his gnarled fingers, easily hard enough
to meet the world head-to-head on it's own terms. But the memory of
Habrunt's stern warnings left his behavior so impeccably holy as to
rival the sanctity of the dumb idols themselves.

He was an expert reaper, and when he finally thought that she must have
caught on properly to the idea, he released her. She wobbled,
staggered, and tumbled down in a heap in the tall stalks of grain. Geth
stood looking down at her in consternation for a moment, and then
without so much as a by-your-leave, he bent down and scooped her up in
his arms, and carried her to the shade of a nearby tree where he gently
set her down.

She lay gasping for breath with an extremely drawn, exhausted look on
her face.

"Well," Geth said, a smile transforming his harsh features, "ye have
heard what Slavemaster Habrunt commanded. A full day's work have I just
had of you, and I shall tally the ledger so."

Then, in a much lower voice, with a quick look around of his shifty
eyes, he said to her further, "Sit. Eat; drink! Stay and rest under the
shade of this blessed tree, while I go and get the proper measure due
to your account from the unwilling labors of those slackers over
yonder. Behold I, Geth, Fieldmaster of the House of Rababull, have also
spoken."

So saying, with a crinkle of his eyes at the wry wittiness of his own
mock-pomposity, he held out to her a large coarse-woven drawstring
pouch of food, which was his own portion and a full man's share at
that, and when she had accepted it from him he smiled at her again and
departed. She watched him cross the field with long sure strides which
soon took him away across the low hillock until he was out of sight, as
he went off to supervise the others.

She was so exhausted already! Must she swing this impossibly heavy
scythe day-in and day-out for the rest of her life, as reward for her
worship of the true Invisible God? The thought was a daunting one.

Careful not to spill any of the provender which Geth had given her, she
unfolded and regarded it contemplatively. All must have food, and now
he had none. Evidently, he knew where to get more for himself. Was he
going to get his food by taking it from someone else, perhaps from the
worst 'slackers' among them, and enjoy their additional grumbling at
such added insult all the more while they unknowingly made up for her
lack of production? If so, she could do nothing about it.

Suddenly, she started as his coarse voice called out unexpectedly
across the field to her, "Si'Wren!"

Si'Wren looked up anxiously, as she saw his head and shoulders reappear
over the top of the small hill, peering narrowly across the crest at
her. Too weak to stand, she dipped her head once quickly to show her
compliance, and regarded Geth attentively to see what he wanted.

"Have I not charged the young men that they shall not touch thee? One
thing more is needful, and then I shall leave you be for awhile. If you
see any wild animal," said Geth, "scream very loudly, and I will come
with my field hands and their sharp sickles, and cut it in pieces."

Eyes widening in sudden alarm, Si'Wren nodded quickly, and bowed low in
acknowledgment. Suppose they did not come in time? Better to endure
the insults of the others than that. And how should she dare to scream,
seeing she had taken a vow of silence, lest she dishonor her Invisible
God, and die for it too? Oh, would that he had not gone off and left
her so all alone like this out in the open!

She made as if to wave him back, but Geth had already turned away
again, and shyly she sat watching with deepest regret as the back of
the friendly old Fieldmaster's bald white-fringed head slowly
disappeared over the crest of the low hill.

Si'Wren sat under the shade tree in the midst of what little fallen
grain Geth had harvested in showing her how to reap with the scythe,
her eyes round with fear as she thought of all the great and truly
savage beasts that were known to stalk this wild land. She stood and
looked around fearfully, but all seemed quiet and peaceful enough.
Several birds flitted across the field, and a pair of jet black ravens
could be seen gliding in the distance.

Moving with slow, unsteady progress, she walked up the gentle slope to
the top of the low hill. There, she craned her neck as she shifted her
position several steps over, and found a slightly elevated place to
stand, peering over the tops of the gently undulating field of grain at
the others. Should she even dare to scream, would they arrive in time
if a wild beast should suddenly try to savage her?

She turned her head, taking in the land on all sides, and decided that
if she remained alert enough, perhaps she would have just enough time
to flee and so thereby possibly safeguard her life, should anything try
to come and get her.

Thinking better of it again, she found renewed appreciation for her
compulsory separation from the others, the better to escape their
sullen, silent persecutions. To be amidst them, and not work, would be
to invoke their supreme contempt and irritation, and leave her feeling
so low as to wish she were already dead, and that on top of her status
as the lowest of the low for her reputation as an idol-breaker.

Si'Wren considered all, and felt renewed remorse at what terrible fate
had befallen her. As long as she could remember, Si'Wren had always
been a hard worker, and a willing one too. Just like Nelatha, whose
comforting, characteristic voice she missed so desperately.

But now she was to be in constant fear for her life, alone in the
world, and alone among men. All by herself now, she peered
expressionlessly across the wild landscape, as the wind blew strands of
dark hair across her eyes, and began weeping for fear and loneliness.

Her eyes, blurred by tears, swept the nearby foliage, seeking anything
that moved. Was not a swift hunting beast's charge always a surprise to
the victim? Who could resist such an advance? Or how could such a one
as she manage to resist even so loathsome and demeaning a danger as the
attack of a mere pack of scavenger dogs, with their many snapping jaws?
What of the giant dire wolves, or the huge roaming bears, and fierce
prowling wild cats, and other even more unspeakable monsters such as
she might not even dream of? She remembered the trophies of the
hunters, and such were the stuff of nightmares, and she found that her
harvest field had become a place of terror.

She wiped at her tears, and looked down at the place where the sickle
had fallen. She walked down the slope and stood over the ungainly
reaper's scythe, fighting back the demons of the unknown. Finally,
quelling her terrors somehow, she knitted her brow as she stooped to
kneel down beside the scythe. Then, with exceeding care, she touched
her finger lightly to the feather's edge of the blade in all of it's
wicked keenness. Sniffling and wiping ineffectually at her face with
the back of her forearm, she examined the sharp scythe, and considered
how pitiful and inept a fighter she must portray to any animal.

Was she not but a girl, scarcely one-forth the size of a good fighting
man and as nothing to one of the human giants? Could she make as ready
use of whatever came to hand, or of her own muscles if necessary, to
settle an argument as brave Habrunt might do? Thinking unhappily on all
of this, she felt disconsolate to such a degree as never before in her
short life. Turning from the heavy scythe, she decided to go and seek
relief in the shade of the trees overhanging the dank and shadowy banks
of the wide, peaceful stream.

The gurgling of the water over heavy stones partially blocking a
narrows downstream was a pleasant sound to her ears. The backup of
water from a beaver dam had created a wide pond in front of her.

As Si'Wren watched, a huge dragonfly, easily as large as both of her
outstretched hands together, flitted fast and low over the glassy
surface of the water. Out in the middle of the tranquil water was a
beaver almost as large as herself, which could be glimpsed moving
smoothly across the surface and leaving a thin wake of vee lines from
the tip of it's button nose.

She sat down on the grass, legs curled beneath her skirts, and stared
unseeingly down at the surface of the pond where scooter bugs jinked
across the placid water by rowing with their two long oars of legs.
Green plant scum floated in the nearby bulrushes, where pussy willows,
cattails, saw grass, and tall hollow reeds could be seen swaying as
they rustled gently in the wind.

What she thought to have been a submerged rock came to life suddenly,
startling her as a giant catfish half the size of the beaver moved
sluggishly to deeper water in a swirl of disturbed sediment.

She did not realize at first that she had visitors. Not, that is, until
a long double line of armed men became progressively visible as their
leader emerged from a far clump of trees and led them on a forced march
that took them steadily and silently through the field beyond the far
banks.

As they began passing through the field of waving grain on the opposite
side of the pond, she cowered instinctively and ducked down low behind
a clump of bushes to watch anxiously as they came into view, marching
briskly two-by-two, every one of them in perfect lock-step, moving
silently as one with only the distant sound of their tromping sandals
to mark their passage.

They carried swords or spears in their right hands, and on their left
arms they had great heavy shields, and helmets on their heads. So many
fierce-looking beards. She could tell that they were not soldiers of
the Emperor of this land, or they would have had standard bearers, and
other elaborate devices, including uniform hammer-beaten metal shields,
all alike with the Emperor's great seal of the sun god embossed thereon.

Nevertheless, it was a formidable force, at least a hundred and fifty
men-at-arms.

She remained in hiding, peering narrowly through the grass at the side
of a gray boulder. The rock of the boulder was actually minutely white
and black flecked with her eyes so close to it. Totally obscured from
view, she watched them march past her position, as silent as the wind,
and breathed a pent-up sigh of relief as their steadily marching ranks
slowly disappeared from view across the far field, moving in an
upstream direction.

When they had gone, she looked anxiously in the direction whence they
had come, watching to see if more might be forthcoming. When none was,
she finally returned to where the food pouch had been left with the
scythe, and realized how hungry she was.

None of those in Geth's charge, nor Geth himself, could have seen the
men, for a series of other low hills blocked their direct view of the
low-lying stream and what lay beyond. But it was no concern of
Si'Wren's. She knew nothing of such matters, and was afraid to draw
attention to herself anyways. How could she even tell them, seeing she
had sworn an oath of silence?

So she merely tried to put it out of mind, although she continued to
deliver many an anxious look both in the direction which the unknown
warriors had come, and that in which they had gone.

She opened the burr-lap pouch which Geth had given her and found fresh
coarse dark bread, and a musty smelling, whitish, oily goat cheese,
with some dark shriveled sun-dried fruits, and an ample provision of
hard unshelled nuts. Realizing how famished she was, she ate some the
provender, cracking the nuts with a small rock on a large flat boulder,
and did not stop until it was all gone. Then she went to the beaver
pond for a drink of water.

Everything took more energy than she was normally accustomed, and she
had to stop and rest frequently. It had been a long time since she had
eaten and exercised properly, and she grew faint too easily for her own
liking but could do little for now except take what rest she could.

At the pond, she knelt down by the water's edge and brushed the thin
skim-surface of dust and swirled parallel lines of bright green algae
apart in order to cup her hands and bring some of the clear underlying
liquid to her parched lips.

There she remained, and regarded the distant shore of the pond whence
the soldiers had marched past, taking up more water in her cupped hands
as needed.

Finally she arose and turned her head to take in her surroundings anew.
But suddenly she froze at the totally unexpected sight of tall Sorpiala
and her female slave servants, dressed in all their finery and waving
irritably at the flies as they all approached along the stony path.

Si'Wren grimaced wryly to herself, although she would never have dared
to do so openly where she could be seen, at the perceived justice of
their plight under the persecutions of the flies and mosquitoes they
openly swatted at. If one ate too many sweets and pastries, as they
always did, one's sweat stank, as theirs did. Thus; no matter how
frequent the bathing, hence cometh flies. Moreover, one's teeth soon
rotted, after which one became fit to eat nothing but that which all
babies ate, prechewed gruel, and no mother to do the chewing.

At first as they approached, she could see only the tops of their heads
from over a slight ridge of the grassy hill's broad hummock. They were
scanning variously about themselves with sharply turned heads and
frowning faces.

As they worked their way closer, she was able to see more clearly their
shoulders and upper arms, then their torsos and elbows, and finally
their wrists, hands, and waists. Eventually, she could also see the
uppermost parts of their legs sometimes, as they waded through the
tall, coarse grasses of the uneven and unworkable parts of the hill.
One stumbled and fell, to arise quickly afterward cursing with the most
filthy and vile language, and none of the others so much as noticed the
flood of curses or deigned to help their unfortunate companion to her
feet.

As Si'Wren watched, slowly, like the dawning of a new day, she also
began to remember. Suddenly, it all became clear to her, and suddenly
it came over her all at once that she who now approached Si'Wren was
none other than dear Sorpiala the once-trusted elder slave-sister, the
very one whose privily-entreated words in the ears of Master Rababull
were what had brought Nelatha to her death and Si'Wren to such a new
and low estate.

Swept by dire apprehensions, Si'Wren sought about fearfully where to
conceal herself, and was about to resort to ducking down in the tall
grass, when suddenly one of Sorpiala's cohorts cried out oddly like
some wild bird as she victoriously pointed out Si'Wren's location.
Sorpiala and the others looked also, and immediately altered their
course to intercept Si'Wren.

Caught flat-footed, Si'Wren quailed within herself as she stood stock
still and waited hopelessly for them to draw near. Si'Wren felt
overwhelmed by a dizzy, empty feeling of utter helplessness. She felt
her heart pounding rapidly within her as she tried to calm herself, but
in spite of this her breathing became even more tortuous and labored.

The women strolled over to her through the tall wild grasses commingled
with the waving stalks of grain, chatting animatedly to one-another as
they all stared boldly at her. This was their hour of victory, and they
reveled openly in it, flattering themselves with a pretense of
false-charity towards Si'Wren while beneath the surface, as with the
pond earlier, could be seen, symbolically, the lurking, half-seen
catfish of their muck-racking innermost thoughts.

"You know, I had heard that Si'Wren's face was all scarred up," said
one young woman.

"Curious," said another, "she seems perfectly normal. You know, it must
be like her personality. What's really wrong is invisible."

"Aye, like her invisible god!" volunteered a third, gaining a laugh
from all sides.

"Now girls," admonished Sorpiala lightly, "if you can't say anything
nice, just don't--say anything! Right, Si'Wren?"

Clearly to Si'Wren now, Sorpiala had harbored a secret and unreasonably
jealous attitude toward her, since seeing all of the attention which
Habrunt had so openly bestowed upon a recently convalescing Si'Wren.
Sorpiala never cared a whit for Habrunt, but it vexed her no end that
anyone should enjoy themselves so much. But now, behold, here was
Si'Wren, defenseless!

Sorpiala stepped boldly in front of Si'Wren and said, "I'm sorry about
before, Si'Wren. I must also apologize for the inconsiderate manner of
my friends here. They do not mean to be so rude. Surely you of all
people must understand. I mean, it's just that nobody has quite gotten
over the shock of learning that your personal beliefs were
so--different--from everyone else's."

Si'Wren stood silent, surrounded by them all, and unable to reply.

"Well?" said Sorpiala. She stared full-face at Si'Wren. "You could at
least nod or something when I speak."

"Yeah, what's the matter?" said another, delivering Si'Wren a rude push
from behind. "Are you deliberately trying to be insulting, or have you
had all of your senses beaten out of you?"

Several girls giggled at this.

Someone else pushed her again, and she staggered and almost fell down.

Screeches of laughter ensued.

As Si'Wren turned her head to see who had pushed her, she was suddenly
flung to the ground by a sharp push from Sorpiala herself.

"Look at me when I speak to you!" said Sorpiala angrily.

Lying helplessly at Sorpiala's feet, Si'Wren put one hand back
unseeingly for support as she looked up at her, and felt her fingers
touch the toes of the one who had first pushed her from behind.

"Ahh! Sorpiala, this--this idol-breaker has tried to trip me!"

Sorpiala confronted Si'Wren with an indignant, self-righteous stare. It
was a hard, cold look of the most imperious hauteur.

"You don't say?!"

Glaring down at Si'Wren, Sorpiala said to the other woman, "It seems
that Si'Wren has not gleaned enough trouble yet. Not content to break
idols, she seeks to trip us and break our heads as well!"

Si'Wren lay in the grass, shaking her head in mute, pleading denial as
she looked beseechingly up at them.

"The guilty are ever speechless, in the face of their accusers," said
another, with a self-righteous, knowing air.

"Come, girls!" said Sorpiala. She regarded Si'Wren contemptuously. "It
is our proper duty to see that justice is speedily executed! Let us go
and report this new outrage at once!"

"Aye," and "At once!" agreed several others almost in unison.

As one, the group of women turned and hiked up the slope, away from
edge of the pond where a trembling Si'Wren sat watching helplessly with
tears in her eyes.

"You know, she never could talk clearly, even before," said one
indistinctly, as their figures disappeared over the rise.

The last thing Si'Wren heard from them was a sudden chorus of more of
that awful, catty, girlish laughter. Then they were gone, leaving her
in her torment and abject sense of total abandonment, in the very
thrall of terror over what to expect next.

Eyes stung by salt tears, she averted her head abruptly from their
departing voices, and found herself staring at the peaceful stream
through blurred vision. Rising to her feet, she approached the water
unsteadily.

She cleared the water again with a sweep of her hand, and dipped up
some of it to wash her face.

Kneeling there, she beheld herself in the water's reflection.

There, like a stranger, she beheld the oval face of a timid-looking
girl of twelve years framed in long straight dark hair, an orphan who
had never known her parents, whose beauty, unperceived to her own
as-yet childish understanding, was as the beauty of the fruitful land
itself, even as the stars at night, or the radiant moonglow at it's
softest.

Staring down into the water's surface, she remembered Nelatha's
admonition that Another's likeness could also be seen by reflection in
water. That was to say, by inner reflection; only thus might one
supposedly 'see' the unseeable One, the Invisible God.

She was already kneeling.

She bowed her head over the water, knowing now that it was but mere
water, yet realizing that here was a vision to marvel at. Timorously,
as her tears ran down her cheeks to fall and ripple it's surface, she
prayed over the mirror-image of the heavenly realm to the Invisible God.

She did not know how long she remained there, praying incessant
confused petitions to a long-forgotten Deity in a world hopelessly lost
to every kind of evil, before she finally fell asleep by the water's
edge.

The next thing she knew, Habrunt was kneeling over her and touching her
shoulder. Startled, she gasped as she looked up into his eyes. Eyes
that were uncharacteristically fierce and angry now--and fearful for
some reason, too.

"You have been accused by Sorpiala and many witnesses," Habrunt
declared to her, "of attempting to harm one of their number!" Then he
rose to his feet and cast about curiously, before raising his voice and
shouting at her, "Si'Wren, can you not stay out of trouble just this
once, your first day in the fields?!"

Si'Wren shook her head in mute denial, her look of hopelessness as of
one who is utterly doomed to destruction, an enemy to be permanently
removed from all civilized human society, as one hated and despised by
all.

Habrunt reached down and took hold of her by the upper arm and pulled
her bodily to her feet, although he did not jerk so roughly as to hurt
her in the slightest.

"Come!" he commanded.

He marched her up the slope, his calloused hands holding tightly onto
her as he marched Si'Wren up the grassy slope to the top of the rise.
Si'Wren felt so weakened by fear that only his strong grip kept her
from stumbling and falling.

The wind partially obscured her vision by casting her dark hair across
her face, as she occasionally glimpsed the other field slaves pausing
to gawk at the sight of their Slavemaster and his diminutive miscreant
making their way to the top of the low hill.

Habrunt faced her and made certain that what must happen next would
take place in the sight of all field workers, and declared loudly and
formally, "Sorpiala has charged thee before the Master, and behold,
thou hast been judged and found wanting. Now you shall learn what
happens to those scoffers who dare to offend the House of Rababull!"

Habrunt let go of her suddenly, causing her to fall backwards into the
heavy standing grain in such a way that she tumbled harmlessly into the
tall stalks which made a gentle whispering sound as they cushioned her
fall. Weeping, she lay looking up at him through tear-flooded eyes and
the wisps of her own hair, from a bed of bent and broken stalks,
entirely obscured from the view of those watching in the nearby fields.

Habrunt was already uncoiling a heavy bull whip, and there was a
strange look of ferocity and despair on Habrunt's troubled features.

Shaking her head slowly in hopeless denial, Si'Wren raised her arms
defenselessly and remained mute as he took hold of the whip by it's
heavy pommel and shook it out behind him on the grassy knoll, snaking
the long sinuous coils into a long scythe-like arc as he prepared to
deliver the first stroke.

"Ten lashes!" he declared.

He tensed the bulging muscles of his right arm as he raised the braided
leather pommel to shoulder height and brought it around once to round
it out properly, and then hooked it in at the proper moment with all of
his strength in a viciously aimed shot.

CRACK!! The whip banged like a thunderclap, the sonic boom echoing
across the fields as a scream was ripped from Si'Wren's throat and a
distant flock of surprised birds took suddenly to flight, darkening the
sky with their panicked multitudes of beating wings.

Men and women who thought they too, had hated Si'Wren, felt sudden
horror at the astonishing impact of the whip's bang upon their eardrums.

He brought back the whip behind him for the next stroke and rotated it
around forward again, his bulging muscles gleaming with sweat.

CRACK!! The sound echoed across the land, sending gophers, rabbits, and
other animals scurrying for their dens and holes in the ground.

CRACK!! Slave women in the fields began weeping.

Habrunt was visible to all as his tall figure towered above the waving
grass on the hilltop.

Several of the men looked away, already feeling sick to their stomachs,
while others watched with clenched jaws, remembering the way Master
Rababull himself had put out the eye of the boy who had once been a
bully, because Master Rababull's word was law.

CRACK!! An eye for an eye.

CRACK!! Back in the Master's compound, Sorpiala went on humming softly
and pleasantly to herself as she heard the distant knell of doom, and
full of gloating, she pretended to be oblivious to it's meaning in the
presence of her totally silent, fearfully listening cohorts.

CRACK!!--CRACK!!--CRACK!!...

On and on, to the tenth and final lash.

Gasping for breath, his face, hair, and naked torso streaming with
sweat, Habrunt held his hands low in the tall grass, and made sure that
no one saw when he took a small leather pouch from the left side of his
belt, swollen with animal blood, pinched it's contents upwards and drew
the end of the whip through it several times to coat it. Then he also
dipped the heads of a handful of long severed wheat stalks in the blood
pouch and shook it over Si'Wren, spattering her skin liberally with the
blood.

Then he knelt down in the tall grass so low as to be completely out of
view from anyone watching, stooping close beside Si'Wren.

Still in shock, Si'Wren watched as he scooped up a handful of small
pebbles and cupped his hand carefully as he poured them into the pouch.
Without a word to her, he noosed the pouch and knotted it tightly so
that it's contents might not chance to escape.

Then he rose to full stature and he stood over her, his face
expressionless as he coiled the bloody whip and held it in a
red-stained fist. Without so much as a backward glance at her, he
turned on his heel and marched down the slope to the stream, where he
cast the pouch far into the middle of the peaceful beaver pond. It hit
with a small splash and sank. Because the pond was on the far side of
the hill from the others and blocked them from view, none saw what he
did.

Then, finished, Habrunt turned and marched off to make his regular
rounds.

Up on the top of the hill, Si'Wren lay m

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