a plague took two of them back again.
By the time I was forty, my beard was gray, Ricatepshe’s hair was almost white, and we had two children left, Nefasir, almost a grown woman, and the boy Khamire, who was twelve. We neither starved nor particularly prospered.
* * * *
When I was forty, the thing happened for which I had been waiting all my life. I recognized it at once.
Nefasir woke me in the night and led me outside. She was trembling. She took my hand in hers, then pointed across the fields in an all-too familiar direction.
“I couldn’t stop him,” she said, breaking into sobs.
“Stop who?”
“Khamire. He has gone into the sorcerer’s house.”
* * * *
I spoke with Ricatepshe, trying to deny the obvious, the inevitable, for I was very much afraid.
“We must ask the priests for help,” I said.
“We have no money. If the sorcerer destroys one child for whatever purpose, the priests will not risk opposing him unless they are very well paid. You know that.”
“We’ll go to the Satrap.”
“You’d never get inside the palace. The guards would likewise demand money.”
“Then I will stand in the marketplace and proclaim our plight to all who will hear, until I find a hero who is seeking fame, like Canibatos in the stories.”
“Such heroes only exist in stories. Besides, what will Evoragdou have done to our son while you are waiting? Have you thought of that?”
“Then I must go myself. I am the hero. Let the story be mine.”
“Yes,” she said softly.
So we prayed together for an hour to all the gods whose names we knew, and I purified myself, then put on shoes and a woolen robe as if for a journey, and got out from its special chest my grandfather’s sword, which he had bequeathed to my father as his first-born, and my father to me as his, in case a hero’s courage would ever be needed.
Grandfather had been a kind of hero, a soldier in King Wenamon’s army during the Zargati wars. I prayed to his spirit too.
Just before dawn I set out, across the fields. Ricatepshe walked with me for a while, clinging to my arm, but let go as the sorcerer’s house loomed over us like a black mountain, motionless for once, as if waiting for me. I barely noticed that my wife was gone. I lived only in that instant, concentrating on what I had to do, as I broke through the fence and entered the domain of Evoragdou.
* * * *
The transition was more subtle than senses could follow. The house itself reached out and embraced me, though I did not actually see it move. Shadows shifted, and without any sense of opening a door or climbing in through a window, I was suddenly inside, surrounded by the domain of Evoragdou.
I groped in utter darkness. The sky overhead was shut out. My hand found a wall. I followed along it to another wall, this one cold to the touch, and alive, wriggling like a tapestry of serpents. I let go in fright and disgust and staggered back, tripping over something, crashing into pots and jars.
I sat up on a creaking wooden floor, amid clay shards, trying not to think about what might have been in the jars. Something scuttled across my hand. I let out a yell.
“Do you desire a light, my brave one?” came a voice out of the air, from no particular direction.
I stood up and drew Grandfather’s sword.
Now a dozen or more hands floated in the darkness, tiny blue flames dancing from upturned, bare palms.
“How very foolish,” said the sorcerer, “to show your enemy what weapons you have. You lose all possibility of surprise.”
I turned, slashing at the drifting hands. They scattered like moths.
“No matter. I knew you bore a sword. I remembered it clearly.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “Is this some trick of yours?”
Evoragdou sighed. The tone of his voice changed distinctly. He wasn’t mocking me any more. He seemed, instead, regretful, melancholy. “It is certainly a trick,” he said, “but one I have spent many years trying to puzzle out.”
“What is the matter?” Now I mocked him, bitterly. “Can’t you remember?” Even as I spoke, I was amazed at what I said. I tried to convince myself that I was as brave as Canibatos in the stories, daring to ridicule a sorcerer. But I didn’t believe it.
“At least you are clever,” said Evoragdou after a long pause. “That must count for something.”
“Monster! I have come for my son. Give him to me or I shall find a way to kill you. I swear by all the gods—”
“That is odd. I don’t remember you killing me.”
“Show yourself, Evoragdou. Come to me now.
“Here I am.” His voice came from a distinct direction. I rushed toward him. The lighted hands swirled around me. I tumbled headlong down a flight of stairs, banging knees and elbows, desperately trying to catch hold of something without losing my sword.
When I came to rest at last, I shouted into the darkness. I screamed. I cursed myself and Evoragdou. I pleaded with him to let me son go free. I offered myself in the boy’s place.
“Ah, Pankere, son of Zorad, father of Khamire, if only it were that simple. But no, you must first come to understand the entire mystery of this place, and of myself. First that. I lay this geas upon you.”
* * * *
It might have been that same morning, or some other, when pale light finally seeped in through slatted windows. I lay where I had fallen, in a dusty, debris-strewn room filled with boxes, jars, bundles of cloth and, more disturbingly, with man-sized, wooden images of beast-headed demi-gods or demons, creatures so cunningly carved and painted that they seemed to shift slightly as the light and shadow played over them. I waited to see if they would come to life. But finally I prodded one with my sword, then ran my hand over the gilded snout of another. Only wood.
I got up and went over to one of the windows. Fumbling, I discovered a little lever which opened the window slats, and looked out.
Already I was disoriented. I had come in at ground level, then fallen down a long flight of stairs. I should have been in a cellar. But when I looked out the window I saw that I was high up, and, more amazingly, I beheld a landscape like none I had ever seen. Forested hills rolled green to the horizon, where blue mountains rose like stationary clouds. A river forked among those hills and vanished among the trees as the Great River, I was certain, never did.
The wind blowing in through that window was bitterly cold, yet dry, unlike a rainy winter wind.
Risking all, I raised the latch and opened the window, leaning out into the freezing air. I couldn’t see the ground below. The house seemed
