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I was awoken briefly in darkness by the patter of rain. I felt none of it. For a moment a cool breeze coiled through the tube's opening, connecting me to the open air. Then I returned to slumber in

compressed warmth.

When I awoke, I remained in the shade of the leathern tube though light filtered outside. But I could hear heavy footfall and the motion of earth. When the tube rolled me into the light, I realized that the sound had been the tent-stakes being removed.

I saw him, of course. He was dressed in hard leather and with naked blade in hand, in case I were to jump up with my ankles still bound to attack. And to my great annoyance all that appeared of the damage I had done to him was a puffy face and a slight hitch in one stride.

He extended a hand and I accepted it, to pull me to my feet. To my amazement I did not burn through every motion. I would have expected to have layered on bruises, deep bone hurts that took two months to recover from after a fight like that. As it was I felt only a slight ache in a few memorable locations and when he touched his blade down to cut the rawhide thong around my ankles I could walk with ease.

My second amazement then was to look past his broad chest to the land beyond. While I had slept, the rain had brought life to the desert. Now it was a vast expanse of wild grasses and occasional dotted trees. Sign of other waters could be seen in the distance and if I permitted myself to believe, a road. In no real world could it have grown in one night. Yet the hills and the rocks, all the underlying terrain I knew to be the same. I had memorized too many such in my scouting to be fooled. I knew it was the same land.

By that point he had gone to a fire he had built, and awaited me there. The camp, too, was no longer just a single pavilion. It had grown a firepit, several smaller tents, and an open-shade pavilion for the horses now resident. When I came to him he handed me up a wooden bowl and in it was a rough grain flavored by the soaked salted dried meat that had been cooked into it with water from the oasis. He crinkled his nose, sniffed, and grinned. I imagined that I smelled like sweat, sex, and leather left to soak about as long as the porridge had been cooking. Still, I ate. I did not know the grain or the meat, but it was rich and chewy, warming in the cool air, and gave me a reason not to speak until he did.

"You know how to take care of horses?" I nodded assent. "Then go take care of my two best horses over there," he said. I hesitated, but his hand was on his blade as if he would love for me to be recalcitrant so I went. It gave me a better chance to scout the terrain.

It was possible I could use the hoof-pick I found with the horse-gear as some sort of weapon, but I would have to be quick and exact to get around the leather he was wearing. He having a blade to hand gave him even more of a ludicrous reach advantage than he had over me usually. Lacking clothing didn't give me much chance to conceal the pick either. And I still didn't know if walking towards that road would get me anywhere.

As for the horses, one was a huge black stallion somewhat haughty at my presence but willing to be taken care of and especially fed as long as I didn't glance at the nearby riding gear. The second was a more normally sized shire filly of similar coloration and sweet, attention-seeking disposition. I had just about made friends with her when he came up behind. Over his shoulder he carried light saddles, blanket, harness and bridles wrapped up in a net to make a bundle while in his other hand he held a long spear.

"We hunt the javalina today. If you see one, you can make a cast with the net for it. If you can't, then you get one to chase you away from the group. Then I come in, and make with the spear. Got it?" I understood well enough. I couldn't imagine why we wouldn't hunt with bows or, as I was to discover, with boar spears. But apparently it was the way of things, and we saddled up and rode into the lush grasslands that had been desert the night before.

Much has been said about the idea of riding horseback unclothed. But the saddle he gave me was old and worn and soft enough and it was encouragement to keep my seat tight and my rump tucked in, never to bounce from the horse's back. The sun warmed me but was not powerful enough to burn. Still I was never able to forget the sound of him riding behind me, spear-armed.

Hunting is waiting and searching, and I am capable of these things. I saw many small animals in which I was not interested, several fields of exactly the types of gopher holes that break horses' legs of which I steered clear, the locations of several watering holes, and finally, near them, the javalina.

She was not scared of humans on horseback and more surprisingly, my horse was not scared of her despite her particular odor and her being the size of a full-grown hog. She did move when I came too close, however, and my first, second, and third casts of the net failed.

"Ride at her, you idiot," he called from behind me. "Or we'll be here all day."

When I did this she predictably fled, and so my task became one of aiming the horse to run her down - or at least run her close enough that 'casting' the net was more like swiping it down and letting go. Through either skill or beginner's luck, more of horsemanship than of ability with the net, I did manage to tangle up the beast. That was the cue for his own ride-by, casting his spear down with the speed of his stallion driving it. Tangled as it was it was only slightly more difficult that netting fish in a barrel, but I could see that the wide sweep of my net was much easier to catch the round, dodgy beast in, while the spear struck all the way through it and firmly into the ground.

He dismounted and used a heavily gauntleted hand and forearm to defend from her struggling, cut her throat, and did the basic dressing. Then we found a tree to hang her from and drain the blood. The hours passed and the sun rose in the sky, and I had the delight of wheeling my horse desperately to avoid the charge of one of the males. This gave him the opportunity to spear one that was running but not dodging and from his self-satisfied air after making the strike I could tell this was supposed to be a feat of some kind. I myself was more concerned with the jouncing I had not received until now, when my startlement combined with the horse's wheeling resulted in exactly the kind of pain I had been careful to avoid. For his part, he did attempt to restrain his laughter.

By the end of it we had taken five, which seemed wasteful to me. But, though we spoke little if at all, towards the end I found myself knowing his moves, knowing the hunt. I was able to lose myself in it so we acted in wordless harmony, and that was when we took the last two in rapid succession.

We retraced our steps, gathering the carcasses that we had hung and walked beside the horses that we might tie them over. The sun was rising in the sky and the day heating strongly by the time we arrived back at the oasis. Four he set to dry in a smoking shed that I knew for a fact had not been there before, while he went about the serious work of butchery on the fifth. I just stood and waited until the crinkling of his nose and a sideways glance made it clear that even above the musk glands of the javalina that he was removing he could still smell me. It was no surprise, as covered as I was with the fresh spatter of blood, the sweat of today and the day before, and his own ground-in bodily fluids.

"In the main tent you'll find some soap, a bucket, and a pannier. Get yourself some water, follow the stairs up, then around and down to the stone platform," he said.

The main tent had a number of chests and bags in which were a variety of tools and campground gear, but the heaven sword and heaven spear he'd mentioned were nowhere to be found. The soap was smooth and well-used, with a faint scent of sandalwood, and the pannier was wood. Once I filled the bucket and followed the steps of the oasis back up, down, and around; I could see where the water run-off from this spot carried down the rocks, down the hillock, and then made a valley in the dirt to lush grasses beyond. I used the pannier to rinse, then soaped up, and rinsed again and watched the parched earth take this water down and away from the well, the spot for bathing chosen where the rocks would protect the freshness of the water.

I smelled him before I saw him; either he could be quiet when he wanted to or I had been lost in thought. But it was the slaughter-blood on him that I smelled. He was coated from the forearms down, and though he had his own bucket he took the soap and pannier from me. He faced the same direction I had to pour the water over himself and then begin to soap his hairless skin.

After a few moments of languid soaping he said, "I don't mind you watching, but the sun's come. You should get into the shade." I did so, entering the large pavilion. It gave me another chance to examine the various chests, trunks, and bags. Now I was sure that there were more than before. Their contents were also more varied and now I came upon a trove of the minor treasures that any campaigner would accumulate for trade; gems cut and uncut, bejeweled armbands, and a set of silver forearm bracers clearly modified for his size. The finest was a set for draughts, with the black pieces a dark wood inlaid with gold and the white pieces grey, chased with mother-of-pearl. This time, I was not so lost in admiration that I did not hear him enter.

Now he was as unclothed as I, though he carried the bare knife casually in his hand. Water still beaded from his hairless skin, wisping steamily in the growing heat and spreading the faint scent of sandalwood that I had begun. From his heavy sway I could tell that the hitch in his stride had faded away, but I suppose I could not complain for my own injuries had faded just as well. He gestured with the weapon.

"Do you play?" he asked.

"Reasonably," I said. He set out cushioned mats upon which to recline on our sides, keeping low for the greatest coolness. The shade was a great relief, and having naught else to do I set up the board. When I mixed the pawns behind my back he chose black, and we begun.

After the first ten moves and several confused looks at one another we discovered that neither of us were cheating. We were playing different games - draughts itself had changed in ways small and large, with pieces having different rules and ranges, since the time when he had been alive. After a while we were able to find a variation, called the 'old style' to me, that I'd played once in the western provinces which to him was the 'new game' that someone had showed him in his later years. Considering ourselves equally disadvantaged, we began.

He made a beginner's error in the first game midway through and burned with rage, fighting desperately to the bitter end. I played conservatively to the finish. Only in the second game did I manage anything that might have been called a stratagem, and it succeeded though he managed to weasel me into taking a lesser piece. Still, it was enough to finish the game. He got angrier and angrier which just made me play more in a more boring fashion until it became dark and I finished the last few foregone moves by the gleaming on the pieces instead of the pieces themselves. He jumped up with a low grunt that was almost a shout and stalked out into the darkness with a fierce grip on his blade.

I occasionally heard motion outside, so I did not care to make for the road in the darkness. Too, I saw fewer chests and bags within the pavilion now, although more cushions, covers, and things of comfort. But when I smelled the fire and the meat, I looked out.

For me, the moon and stars were enough to see his actions by. He was working several skewers of meat over a fire. Soon enough he finished and brought them within, handing one to me. It was lightly spiced, fresh as can only be imagined, tough but electric. I looked up only when I was nearly done to see him watching me with an expression that was part bemused, part unreadable. I must have looked hopeful; he grinned with a slight baring of teeth and handed me a second skewer.

"Where did you learn to play?" he asked.

"Mostly my father. It's what we would do on winter nights. Later, I would play occasionally when I was traveling to pass the time," I said.

"Is that how he taught you strategy?" he asked. I thought back.

"One of the ways. We would often talk about 'thinking moves ahead.'" He nodded.

"One more game," he said, and it was not a request. He lit the small oil lamps and drew the tentflaps closed so errant breezes would not stifle them. This time he concentrated fiercely, and often touched a piece and removed his hand only to make a different move. When I played draughts I tended to do most of my thinking during the opponent's moves, so his delays gave me greater depth of play than we had had so far. While we battled furiously we had no back and forth, no give and take; the damage to one another was all done in the imaginary lines of play neither of us took. We finally whittled each other down, give for take, and when the endgame came we could see dozens of moves ahead to final stalemate though neither of us would give or offer the draw until the rules we had set out forced us into it. Looking back, if we had bothered to write down the moves it would have been a thing of beauty, a game studied by experts, if ever there were experts in this game-variation who we could get it to and who would bother to care. As it was it was only a memory, one I let fall with an exhalation of breath held too long.

He too appeared relaxed from the set of his shoulders, and maintained a satisfied expression even as he tightened his grip on his knife. He used his other hand to rummage through a bag to come up with a thick, smooth leather collar bearing a simple hasp and a short length of chain. "Be still," he ordered, and duck-walked to me unwilling to rise after reclining so long. He managed to set aside all my relaxation in a moment. It was clumsy, but he fastened the collar around my throat one-handed - it was a little loose - and then looped the chain through, dragging me very slowly down towards the tentpost near the tentflap until I laid there. He tied the chain through a fastener there. It wasn't anything I couldn't remove given twenty seconds, but I imagined I couldn't do it quietly or easily.

He brought me a bedroll similar enough to the sort I had lain on for many years on campaign, and left a folded blanket near me though the night was warm.

"Just in case," he said, and moved to sleep on his own, well outside my reach When a wave of his hand moved the air to extinguish the lamps, I could see only the broad curves of his form in the filtered light amidst the faint scent of sandalwood.

I awoke to find him in the midst of dressing. He had already put on his padded pantaloons; it was the sliding of his boiled leather atop them and their bucklings that attracted my attention. When he was done he came over to me to undo the chain and rattle it free. When he went back to his gearing I did see his heaven sword and heaven spear; of ancient style with the whorling of acid-etched steel, spare and well-worn, hugely sized to match him. He kept between me and they, and shrugged when I yanked off the collar and threw it on the bedroll. He tossed me my sandals and said, "Get the horses ready. They'll be carrying freight."

I did so, and when he came out he was fully caparisoned - undented helmet, spear, sword, dagger, and javelins to go with the dark brown boiled leather, well-articulated from chest to belly to leggings, and trimmed with metal at shoulders and elbows and gloves. Underneath it he wore stiff quilted padding, and in the chill morning air I could smell the lingering sweat, the neatsfoot treatment, and the distant fading sandalwood. We loaded the javalina from the smoking shed two on each horse and they stepped lightly while we walked besides; I on my sandals and he on booted feet. My tunic had been torn two days before, and he made no motion to offer me that one, or anything like it.

On the other hand, we did head towards that road that had haunted my thoughts. We followed it east for the better part of the day, eating dried meat from the slaughtered javalina . In the early afternoon we saw the city, large and yellowish-white, topped with spires and minarets, fed by the waters of a wide river. It nagged me more and more as we approached, and moreso for the quiet of the unmanaged fields around it and the lack of the usual city smells. Finally I was struck, and stopped in my tracks a quarter mile from the gate.

"This is the city of the ancients. The capital city of the empire." Both of the horses and he stopped to give me a half-inquisitive look, as if to wonder why I said something so obvious.

"No, I mean. It's ruins now. I could only recognize it by the walls, and some of the outbuildings. They're dirty and darkened, and the shape of the land is different. That river doesn't run here any more."

"I get it," he said. "Did you ever go in the city?"

"No. We only camped outside. Took a position up on those hills there, and ran some rebels into it. Our commander said not to pursue, that the spirits would take care of them."

"That they would," he said. "The spirits of my empire, and, let's see... the spirits of three human empires. Don't get yourself thinking that we haunt the place. But some of us can take action from this city here to the city in the real world, and if a bunch of scared bloody humans came by, I'm sure someone would screw with them. The human spirits - some would help, some would lead them on, some would try to enlist them in ancient grudges - it would be a big mess. Now. We're about to head in the city. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. Or else we'll be the ones in a big mess. Got it?"

I nodded.

The city had no guards at the gate though it did have loiterers. Some raised a shout to see us and went running inward. Most smiled to see us and gave hail to him, which he returned. As we walked the horses a crowd gathered with us, making it a processional but a very relaxed one. Some were armed as he was, some were clothed, and some merely wore loincloths to pad on the smooth stones of the road. I saw adolescents but no children, and very few women; those I did see had a warrior's air in their martial bearing. I received enough attention to be self-conscious, although none of them spoke to me - the most that happened was that they would come up to him, touch their foreheads, and pass the time of day, as in:

"What brings you back to the capital?"

"I went hunting, and I couldn't eat it all myself," he would say. They would be smiling at this, as if they shared a private joke.

"We should have a party, then," the city-dweller would say.

"Why don't you set one up?" he said.

"Maybe I will... and who's this? I see you finally got one?" He wouldn't answer the question but with a grim look and a hand on his blade, which usually moved the fellow along.

I saw only one human, a block away moving down a side-street. He was taller than I and broader, also without clothing. He was strapped to a cart, wearing oiled harness and a horsecollar, leaning down almost to the horizontal to pull it. A thick-set but short orc carried a whip but did not care to use it; the cart appeared to be filled with limestone blocks from what I presumed was a quarry. In a few moments they were gone from my view, but it was long enough a distraction for one of the orcs to make a grab for me in passing-by. I couldn't help but drop an elbow, sweeping his arm down and behind me. In reflex he brought it up, so I snaked around it and when his forearm braced against the back of my neck I locked out his arm in an arm-bar, grabbed my wrist and hauled, jostling him forwards. I was about to continue but I heard a sword sliding out of its sheath, and so I just made it a push - he stumbled forwards and away from me, spinning to face as I released the momentary bar.

For a moment, the sudden action silenced the crowd as they tried to figure out what was happening. Then, about half of those that saw it started laughing, a quarter hung back, and a quarter started circling to surround me. The black mare stomped her hoof and faked rearing.

Then again silence was imposed. He stood to my side, blade drawn and lowered waist-high, pointing down. All who were close backed away.

"Did I give you leave to touch my slave?" he asked of the orc that I had moved. He quickly cast his head down.

"Uh, no, your Majesty."

"Cut that crap," he said. "Try again."

"No, Chieftain, you did not."

"So don't," he said. Then he tilted his head and mused, aloud, projecting, "I think part of my problem is that I don't care for tame slaves. That's why I haven't had any for so long." He looked around at the silent, confused crowd. "So if you put a hand on him and he breaks it, it's your fault."

This got some honest chuckling and some forced laughter. The one that I had wrangled rubbed his elbow, grinned sheepishly, and faded into the crowd. The cavalcade continued for another block until we reached a sort of main square, with benches and fountains carved of whitish faded-yellow marble ringing the edges. The main area was large and flat, well-worn, where a parade might end and many people might gather. Our small crowd here was dwarfed by the emptiness and kept to a corner where two fellows had set up carts of coals that they were bringing to light. A cheer rose up when he unloaded three of the four javalina carcasses, and they were quickly carved up and set to the fire. Beers and ales too were brought and soon the breeze was shooting.

I found myself leaning up against a pillar topped with a statue, minding the horses. He became the center of attention, telling old stories, congratulating those he spoke with on their victories of old. He let the conversation progress naturally until the next one was telling his own stories, recounting his battles long past, his improbable triumphs and narrow escapes. He had worked his way over to me as the third was getting going, and from the way he grabbed his horse to haul him hurried and hushed I knew he was a moment from making a long arm to grab me as well. I came along with the black mare so as to forestall this necessity and he moved easier after turning two corners. I expected some sort of reprimand but it did not come.

Instead, he brought me to a mostly-deserted market district. My attention was immediately drawn to the clash of metal on metal as it often was in such places only to be visited with a marvel. He was barely four foot tall; soot-covered from head around broad stiff leather apron (his only clothing) around jutting curve of his rump to driving thighs and feet that gripped the stone. His thick, straight, dimly-reddish hair fell, around his face and into thick braids one each down back, over shoulders, and merging with his beard; it set off arms thicker than mine and perhaps equal to my captor's though on a much shorter frame nearly as wide as it was tall. He was obviously a dwarf, though I had never seen one. In my time they were creatures of stories, through rumors always came from the mountains. I knew of many families that passed from hand to hand pieces of dwarf-work from hundreds of years ago as their legacy; incredibly long lasting as well as easy to repair. He studiously ignored us as we approached and even though I was goggle-eyed, when I was close enough I noticed that he wore a soot-covered metal collar with simple latch.

The orc did not demand attention when he arrived and did not stand close enough to loom. Surely the dwarf noticed us, but he took his own good time coming to a stopping point and only then did he look up.

"Is your master about?"

"He is back on the wheel," said the dwarf.

"Then my delivery is for you," he said, and motioned to me. With a bit of pointing I got the idea to unload the last javalina and place it for the dwarf's convenience, who only now looked me up and down. His attention then quickly became drawn to the meat before him and the fire in the nearby vicinity and the many possibilities growing therefrom until he had to swallow to keep from visibly drooling.

"Let us hope it is all gone before your master returns," the orc said, and led me off. Though I felt eyes on me until we rounded the corner, I did not turn. Moments later we came to what must have been the royal quarter and the royal processional.

I could only imagine the throngs of which I had read, the bustle of crowds, the cheering of the ancient generals who had built this empire and these roads of their yellowish-white marble. But now, aside from its pristine cleanliness, it lay empty until we arrived at the wide-open gates of the palace itself. Here were the first orcish guardsmen I had seen, clad in stiff armor of leather reinforced with plate, well-caparisoned with short blade, shield, throwing spears and a wielding spear. Two stood at either side of the gate, surprisingly alert for who knows how long they had been there.

Their eyes betrayed surprise to look down at us, and I saw that the device they wore was not the device on the orc that stood before and beside me. They did stomp a foot and straighten their postures dramatically for us, but gave us no trouble when we passed between them. Only after did I hear the thumping of boots, and when I turned one out of each pair had run into the gatehouses at the walls. When I heard the peal of bells in rhythm, I knew they had gone in to call ahead so all would know of our arrival.

We passed through wide hallways, courtyards, gardens, passages of mild colors interspersed with bright murals. Many hallways angled or spiraled or curved away from us, many stairways wide and narrow gave possibilities up and down from which I occasionally heard swift padding of hurried feet. But we kept to the central way and moved in stately fashion. He was content to allow them to scurry before him. I discovered why when we reached a wide, short marble staircase leading to two grandiose doors, wide enough to be the entire stage if this were a stage for players.

Those stationed at the door were attired both as guards and servants, wearing impressively cut tabards and maintained boiled leather beneath, stalwart spears held upright in single hands, booted feet instead of bare. They strode forth to open the massive doors as we approached - they slid on runners into the wall they were next to, because there was no place for them to swing outwards. I heard a thumping from within, steady, beating, gradually rising in tempo.

It was a full three-tiered courtroom leading to the throne. During mealtimes, the lowest; titled military men, fabulously wealthy merchants and the like would be closest to the door, in the widest area also suitable for dances and other entertainments. Up three steps was a raised area for the middle third of the room, where the nobility would sit to engage upon their intrigues. Up three steps again to the last raised area and the most lavish; here the columns I could see were edged in gold and it would be where the emperor would sit with his advisers, with the in crowd, where the fortunes of nations were won and lost. It was not the last raised area for the throne's dais lay beyond. What I could see of the throne showed it to be made of shaped golden bars set off with muted platinum wiring. I could imagine I saw bits of blackness as well so maybe there was some ebony-wood to its base.

It was over a hundred yards from the door to the throne, with a gilt red carpet the width of the door running up the center. On either side of that carpet, shoulder to shoulder, stood perhaps three hundred of the fully armed warriors ready with spears, shields, swords, and daggers. Yet they were as nothing to who sat on the throne.

The orcs I had slain tended to between six and a half to seven foot tall, and the warriors lining the carpet kept to that proportion. Yet even from here I could see, from the way he was out of proportion with the human-built throne, that he would be over seven foot tall with the more rangy warrior's build. As I looked to him, his eyes burned black and reached out, dwarfing his face. I nearly fell to my knees before I realized what was happening and reminded myself to stand., a moment later realizing that I had only caught the splash effect of his regard. His eyes were somehow also as crazy that of the shaman who sent me here, and while he wore a tall crown and carried a scepter, his clothes were a mix of velvet and leather, gold and the feathers of rare birds. With his slightest motion, the spear-pounders ceased and he sat in regal silence awaiting.

"I'll be using the Grand Vizier's chambers this time," the orc beside me said, and turned on his heel without the slightest of nods.

The silence behind us was at first confused. I was almost left behind and had to jump into my first stride to keep up. We were around the corner before I felt the rage of it heat my back but no warriors came charging after us and I heard nothing. The further we got, the more it subsided until we walked in smaller hallways and the doors beside us led to rooms. By the time we entered the demarcation of private apartments within the palace I was flush with my own heat. My hands were shaking as if I had come out of one of my first battles. Worse yet, I could tell that he noticed it but gave no mention.

The place was coolly decorated, the color of the marble deepening in slight blue. We traversed a sunken atrium with woven rugs, small statuary, and wall-hangings too complicated to examine; a linking hallway leading to a large bare room with inscribed floor, a smaller hallway leading to what I would guess would be servants quarters, and then into a bedroom with floorplan twice as large as the pavilion tent at the oasis. Well-placed to accept warmth from a tinted sun-window above as well as a view of a fine interior garden from the portrait windows, the bed itself was high, headboarded and floorboarded with scrollwork in gold and yellowed ivory, and set in shades of dark blue on its sheets and coverlets. It caught the eye in its size and simplicity somehow, moreso than being the centerpiece of the room.

"Go ahead," he said. "Try it out." He had something of a distracted look to him as he examined the room, but he did not hold his knife in a threatening manner as he had done at other times. I clambered onto the bed, slipping my feet from my sandals as I went. It had a pleasant scent, as if something was used in the filling but it wasn't over-perfumed. It was soft enough to sink into and strong enough to hold my weight, with a silken coverlet.

I opened my eyes and the light in the room was different. I heard a noise and sat up. He was not where I had seen him last. He had crossed the room and his back was to me; the noise caused by him setting down a chest-of-drawers with a slight scrape and thump. He turned to see me.

"Hm? Sorry, this is supposed to be over here. Didn't mean to wake you."

"How long was I asleep?"

"The passage of a sun's length, " he said, by which the movement of the light in the room I took to mean about an hour. I am sure I had a quizzical look on my face, but had not come up with a question to ask before he said, "Incredible, isn't it? It's like that every time you sleep in it. It's a craft of the old empire. The king's bed is supposed to be 'better' but it's all covered with gold and platinum embroidery. Too flashy and it always scratched me. This one is long enough for me too, so a human could sit up and hold court. Speaking of which, can you read?"

I didn't quite follow his train of thought, but. "Of course," I said. He cursed good-naturedly under his breath. "Of course you can, " he said. "Come on." He stepped out and down the hall, past where we had come in, and brought me to the library.

It too was like no library I had ever seen. It had four full bookcases, each holding what must have been more than a hundred books. It had so many bookcases that they had to be assigned in rows. Several marble desks, well-made but still wooden chairs, and another case with stacks of hornbooks told me that this room was also used for instruction. Several small reading lecterns were nestled against one another in an alcove; I stepped to the large reading lectern at the front from where I could address the 'class'. For his part he clearly had a book in mind - an oversized one, the largest of several that stuck out from their brethren.

"This one," he said, and brought it to me. I tried not to smile when I opened it, for of course it was the one with the best pictures. It took full advantage of its size and the first picture at least was in color; that of a grand processional at the head of an army, gleaming in horse-crested armors, with lighter warriors and flingers to the sides returning in triumph to the mighty walls of this very city. He took up a seat behind me, sitting half-on one of the wooden chairs with his head high enough to watch the pictures, and I began to read.

It turned out to be a set of biographies; the first being that of the human founder of the city. It was a dry hero-worship piece, recounting his mighty victories and inspirations, but did not speak much of the craft that he drew together in the labors of building the city in which I was personally interested. It did have the finest pictures and that sustained us through the turning of the pages.

It was the second biography that began the entertainment. Written by a different author and apparently well after the time of its target, it had a sly, satirical tone. It gave credit where credit was due but did not hesitate to damn with faint praise and detail disasters that ended with complete failures as well as thrilling rescues. The third and fourth grew more obviously biting, and I found the rhythm of the author enough to make my audience of one nearly fall from his seat in recounting the well-turned phrase. I had to discipline my own breathing lest I crack up and lose the flow. Eventually the room darkened and I was barely able to read the pages. When I was about to look for a lantern, he instead said, "Come."

He took me across the hallways and down a long flight of stairs, where the air grew humid and heated even under the level of the ground. We arrived at a private bathing-chamber for the Vizier, with a softly flowing, heated marble pool deep enough to step down into. While it could have been lit in the day by two small cellar-windows, now it was lit by oil lanterns in the corner, yellowing the light-colored marble walls. When he entered, after stripping he set his weapons at the edge; when he stood within the water it just barely covered his hips while it rose nearly to my chest. I sank down, remembering that in the morning I had been walking through a desert to come to this city, and while it had not been a hot, overworked, or dusty day it was still fine to wash in a heated pool.

I was startled when, from the shadowy far corner, two humans sprouted. I almost rose, but then I saw that they were younger than I, smaller, slimmer. And more clothed as well, if it would be called clothing. Black leather hoods plastered their heads and left only their eyes visible, tucking to a thicker, stronger fastening around their throats. Wide black straps ran down to their waist and around and about their thighs, in the front of which was attached a small cupping flap of leather so they didn't flop uncomfortably when they scampered as they did now. Snug leather wrapped their wrists and ankles, and their flesh was pale enough in the light underneath it to give contrast, as if they rarely saw the sun.

They brought in bundles which they were quick to unroll. I asked, "Who are you?" but while they glanced at me, and fearfully at him, they didn't answer. The bundles I saw held oils, strigils, soaps, scrubbers, and likely perfumes. I rose and asked, "Why are you here?" and grabbed one of them by the wrist. The orc raised his hand above the water softly.

"They're gagged. They can't speak," he said. I stared. In the dim light, closer to them, I could see the slight bulge at his mouth and cheeks, hear the way he breathed through the slit at his nose only. It was no ordinary gag but something more fully sealing his mouth underneath the hood.

"But you can take it off and order them to speak," I said. Already I found myself in the wheedling position of a second-class citizen asking one of a higher caste to do something anyone with hands could do, but only he was permitted to do. I hadn't cared for it when I received that kind of begging as a citizen of the empire and I didn't care to be the one doing it.

"If I do it they'll be punished. So I'd rather not," he said, and made a shooing motion to the boys. They quickly scampered themselves back into the door hidden by shadows. When they had been gone some moments he said, "He used to cut their vocal chords to keep them quiet. But they would heal in a few days and their voices would return. So now he uses gags and punishes them for a year if they speak. Sometimes his men torture them into speaking to see them punished." He spoke dryly, as if giving me a history lesson in the style of the first author I had read for him. In his voice I heard the words, It bores me.

"'He?'"

"The guy on the throne upstairs. In life, he was at first the Grand Vizier. Deposed my great-great-grandson about two hundred years after I died so he became the Emperor. Has a thing for the throne room and the king's chambers, which is fine by me. I never liked them, but had to use them for appearances sake. As I said, the Vizier's apartment is much better."

I found nothing more to say, though I could not help but look towards the hidden servant's door. In answer, he slowly leaned down and reached into the water to grab my ankle, then pull it up to his lap. Under the water he held my foot with one hand and drove the pad of his thumb into my heel with the other. Electric jolts began shooting up my leg and into my spine, and I could not help but adjust my seating position to straighten my leg, push it further into his lap. Whenever he stopped for a moment, my body would give up some of its carried tension until he began in a new area and the electricity struck elsewhere. It did not take him long to work towards the ball of my foot, then lean down to take my next ankle and do the same; leaving me splayed on my bench in the water, wide-eyed.

He wore a faint smile and moved to pick me up under the armpits but I was perfectly capable of moving and did so on my own. He urged me down onto the nearby leathern table, and from his relaxed mien he did not need to draw his knife. I was correct in my assessment when he poured a pool of oil on my back from one of the bottles that the human slaves had left, and used a leathern tool to spread it along the curves of my body. I thought that I had read of this practice but I had never experienced it - in my time, we used soap. But then, so did he, I knew. I discovered what he was doing when the next tool he used had a copper scraping blade which he used in careful strokes to take away both the oil and what hair I had on my back. He followed it with another oil and the palming of his hands, and the heightened sensation was such that I did not complain when he followed the curve of my hips and rump, and the back of my legs and arms.

"Let me finish," he said, and that he asked was enough for me to remain relaxed when he slightly spread my ankles to scrape between my flanks. From there he turned me to my back and did my front in a similar manner. To avoid my blush I turned away from seeing his heavy, thickened dangle; and I was able to maintain a similar level of aroused calm by keeping my gaze averted even when he carefully handled me and followed with the cleansing oil. Only when he finished did he scrape the excess oil - and any remaining bits of hair - from me with the leather strap-tool, and urge me to stand.

It was considered fashionable in the gymnastica and for formal occasions to shave in a similar manner, though with soap instead of oil. I often trimmed, myself, so the sensation was not unknown to me. But in the oil lamp's light, the wavery reflection of my own body in the water was limned in faint gold. I might have admired it more, but I caught his gaze in the reflection doing the same. I began to walk, and that moved him to take the lead.

He brought us back to the bedroom, where the risen moon brought in dim light through the side windows. Given my relaxation, I began to clamber on the bed, hopefully before he could chain me to something. But he said, "On your stomach," with a tone that indicated it was no request and when I looked back at him, his blade was ready.

I did so, and looking over my shoulder I saw him draw out long, thick, leather thongs from the nearby dresser. I lost all my welcome relaxation when he put the knife to his teeth to tie snug knots around my ankles, and then secure them splayed to the opposing bedposts. I tried speaking.

"You don't have to do this," I said.

"You'll figure it out soon enough," he said.

"What's that?" I asked, but he remained silent. Instead, he stepped up on the bed to kneel between my thighs, forcing them to splay outwards further. He took my wrists and, against tension but not struggle, forced them to cross at the small of my back. He tied the leather thongs around them, tight enough to cut into my skin. Then he pulled at it and, somewhat greased by the remnants of oil on my skin, it slipped off easily. Next, he tried tying tight loops about each of my wrists individually and connecting them, but when he enclosed my hand in his and crushed it into the same thumb-in-palm configuration I had used earlier, the thongs came off again. Even when he tied the thongs higher up, before my wristbones, he got the same result though only the oil prevented me from losing skin.

"Your wrists are too damn thick, you know that?" he said.

He moved to tying loops above my elbow-joint, tight enough such that they couldn't pass over the knob of bone there. These he tied together with enough length such that my elbows were drawn back only slightly if my arms lay at my sides but that I would not be able to bring my hands usefully in front of me. After testing these, not even the oil would allow them to pass down over my arms and it made no difference whether I tensed them or not.

He seemed satisfied enough by this and continued by wrapping thicker thongs, straps thick as the reins on a horse, about the backs of my upper thighs and waist. He did not tie them off, and when I picked at them to move them he just put his hand over mine and pressed to hold me still. I was about as tense as it is possible to be when he slid backwards off the bed from where he was kneeling between my legs in what I considered the obvious position.

Instead, he walked around the bed to the side, and clambered next to me even as I pulled with my ankles to get closer to the foot of the bed. With that looseness, I got my knees under me enough to lift my rear, and my hands down to the bed enough to lift my chest. With crablike motion, I felt I could get my hand down to my ankle to work the knot.

I couldn't imagine having the time to do so and indeed I did not, though he did not threaten. He put his hand under my hip and tilted me up to my side, the slack I'd made making this easier. Even in the dim light I could tell he was smiling, considering his handiwork. Then, surprising me like nothing else, he tossed his blade to the headboard and drove his far arm underneath me, his hip plowing into the mattress underneath mine. Grabbing for the thick straps he'd attached to my thighs, he hauled my belly over on top of his back, laying with legs widely outstretched, knees bent, both his legs between mine. With a little more fumbling to gather the straps and slide the mass of his body, he worked me so that my charged arousal lay at his cleft. I was stiff as oaken wood, but did not dare move.

"Come on," he said, and I could hear him laughing. "You know what to do." I still did not move.

"Very well then," he said, and levered his rump up, raising me; and pulled down on the thigh-straps between his own legs for to crush my hips to his, to grind my crotch against him. I was as hairless as he now, and I began to see why he had made sure to oil me so well. It took several motions - he had to shift his hips to pull my leg against the bindings to adjust me, and when I was about to fall I inadvertently brought my hands forwards enough to clutch his hips. But even with working blind, he managed to force my shaft between the tightly-shut globes of his rear, then part his thighs inside mine and rock back and forth. He worked by feel until finally he levered his rump up, put his shoulders down, and reached through his own legs with one hand to grab my shaft and work my cock-head to his hole. He kept me there long enough for his pulling-pressure on the reins with his other hand forced me into the surround of his fierce living heat.

He released his breath in a deep sigh, keeping those straps tight on my thighs with his massive strength. I tried to buck my hips away but he had me hilt deep and this brought me only a short piston's stroking and an explosion all through my body. He kept the straps tight to work back against me, moving so that my shaven chest felt every broad muscle in his back slide oiled on my chest and his wide hips swallow me hotly, grasping furiously at my root. My attempts at calm were lost; I heaved into him with fast gouting spits, their every shudder in his grasp floating me inside him. I was forced to continue until all that built-up tension had played itself out and I lay panting and slack with the thigh-straps cutting into my legs to keep my crotch well-fastened to him.

After some moments I tried to move, to slide back, but he kept the reins tight and said, "Oh no. You don't get away that easily." What he did then was less a question of motion than one of slightly releasing and tightening the tension; not making me move within him but providing enough of the suggestion of motion that I couldn't relax within him, couldn't become soft or shriveled. At the same time, he did not spike me with oversensitivity for more than a single moment, holding when he heard my gritted-teeth gasp.

It was perhaps a minute when he began again, slow; my shaft softened enough to flex but still hard enough to push. By now, he had figured the angle and how best to splay his legs inside mine to work me hiltwise; to force the kiss of his ring against the shaven flesh of my crotch. It was excruciating but just this side of painful and my body stiffened desperately to slow him, to keep him from pressing me over that point. I would have come again, but could not, not so quickly. He knew it, used it and slowed to my speed while never letting me stop. After another minute he pushed the pace again until he found that agonized resistance and there he held, steady, relentless; until I became aware of his breathing, his scent, the freshly bathed sweat mixing with the oils over our bodies.

I went limp, giving in to the ease of it, the puppetry; and when I did so he felt free to expand his motion, buck his body further. He was no longer afraid of me 'falling out' and so did not restrict the motions to half-inch flesh-pressing thrusts but now worked with half the length of my shaft, taking more full, bowing slides into him. He made them languid and easy but required. When my body happened to errantly shift to the side atop him (resulting in a uncomfortable bend in the thrusting and a restrained bark of pain) he had to stop, scrunch, and correct to get himself under me again.

The second time this occurred I made the necessary correction myself, digging the balls of my feet into the bedding and shifting my body with my hands tucked down on either side of his hips. The tension and bracing involved practically shoved me into him. I could almost feel him grin, and he held still clearly waiting, even giving the reins some slack. When I did not move, he spoke.

"Come on.. you know what to do. This is your chance... show me how it's done. Take revenge."

I stiffened both in body and in shaft at that remark, but didn't move until he taunted me by saying, "You know you want to." I thought to myself - who could possibly be watching? And even if they were, they would advise me to take exactly this, to sink in this advantage for a future day, a possible opportunity. What might happen once could happen again, and with greater laxity in position.

I drove forwards, and the sweetness of it brought a grimace to my face. In a moment, I had a tripod bracing, my widely-splayed legs tied to the posts making a base with the balls of my feet on the mattress and the apexed thrust making the point of the triangle. My hands could span the massive muscles of his hips, keeping me centered as well as gripping, pressing down to pull his rumpcheeks that much further apart. This way, I could change the angle of the drive, arch my back above him with each thrust so all the force of my body bucked through. Soon I was driving him down into the mattress, making him huff out breath startledly. He even slid forwards some, making me lose the pullback-distance I had gained earlier. He desperately released the reins around my waist and legs to brace his hands on the headboard before his head struck it.

I worked long and short, and faster than he had been able to work me. I could lay on his back, my head between his shoulderblades, and hunch him faster than machinery. I could use subtle sideways drives as well, and I reamed him fully. The experience of doing it in and of itself was almost enough to distract me from the power of the sensation, the distant tingling through my body. The only reason I hadn't come again was my first climax and that power was returning just as he began to shudder under me, and to cry out. I gave him no surcease, and I felt his tensions rising and subsuming with his guttural cries, his bodies' shaking. I clamped to him harder with my hands to keep him placed and my pleasure began again; tinged with triumph, with position, and with that curious groinal openness that comes of reaching crest with one's legs so widely spread, that cascading ease of flow.

By the time I was finished, his body was limp under me, taking short, weak breaths. I lay atop and breathed deeper, keeping within him only for a time. He did not hold and grip me, but let me fall from him and slide to the side, sweaty and oiled. He took the knife from the headboard and cut the cords at my elbows, then sat up to cut my ankles free, and toss away the reins around my legs, letting them come together beside me. He moved slowly, and in the dim light for a moment I saw his well-ridden smile before I closed my eyes, just for a moment.

When I opened my eyes, moonlight streamed in through the windows and my flesh had cooled. The bed was empty, save for me. I heard the odd thumping of wood on wood and a short scratching; then muffled, confused voices.

I was out of the bed and moving. The noise came from behind the chest-of-drawers, the same one that he had moved back into place in the afternoon. I got to its left as it scraped a half-inch on the floor, pushed into the room by the concealed door behind it. It was opening towards me so I would be hidden, and I stepped back, angled out of the arc of where the furniture blocking the door would be pushed.

A good thing because I heard them gather with the clatter of their steel weapons, count three quickly, and hurl their shoulders against the door bashing it in. The first two spilled into the room staggering forwards and I clamped both hands on the right arm of the closest. He had a fighting knife in his hand, and I pushed it in with a twist so he stabbed himself in his own belly with the tip. He tensed up and jerked his arm away, and that was what I needed to paw the back of his hand, grab the knife by the guard and the flat, and wrench it out of his hand with a twist. The twist made a circle and the circle made a swing, tight like my father taught me, and with my left hand still on his right arm he couldn't possibly bring it up to block. I stabbed him in the neck just as he was beginning to shout about stabbing himself in the belly.

I used that to adjust my grip on the blade, pulling it out, walking my chest into the orc who didn't quite yet know he was dead so that I could reach the other. My stabbing swing reached too far, so I kept the swing going until my wrist tucked under the startled chin of the next and pulled back to cut his throat for him. By that point I was being jostled and bled on and some of them were speaking confusedly. Some pushed into the room while some of the others, further back, told them to be quiet. I stabbed where I could, getting the third in the head, but the fourth wore heavy boiled leather and a full metal helm and gorget. I had to block him hilt to hilt while he pressed as hard as he could, then jam up on the chin of his helmet with my palm to make him move back until I could safely crouch like a spider and stab his sandal-clad foot. My hand on the ground found a short blade dropped by one of the dead which I used to lock up the armored orc again, standing. I was about to search for another place to stab him when I had to jump back from the thrust of a spear through the door between all the many limbs and bodies.

From there it was hammer and tongs. I remember hitting the heavily armored one about the head several times, having to return to him as lessers attempted to sneak out around him or alternatively charged and impaled themselves on my blades. By the time I had mauled both his hands so he couldn't fight with them and he was reduced to hopping on his one unwounded foot, he and the spearman behind him had succeeded in forcing me back from the door to allow entrance.

He too was armored but more fearfully, he knew how to use his long spear. He fenced at me with it at range, threatening my legs, making short swinging cuts that often touched me but more critically never swung so far that I could charge in. When I even glanced for the any of the longer blades I knew had been dropped I had to jump back again. When I did manage to get around the tip of the spear, he quickly retreated with faultless steps over the fallen and crippled bodies back into the secret passage where the advantage, at range, would be his. I managed only in that moment to switch the shortsword from my left hand into the right, and the dagger I had taken at the beginning into the left.

We must have fought for several minutes. The spearman was cautious and he wanted to win - he wasn't willing to sacrifice himself like the others. He wore serious gauntlets as well, for when I managed to get in a strike at his hand after a long-reaching stab he wasn't seriously harmed. He just slid his grip more towards the back of his weapon. I decided I had to be the one to break the stalemate and flung my dagger at his head, using the distraction to grab the haft of the spear behind the double-edged blade. Now we wrestled; he pulling back, twisting, and trying to drive the spear into me with exactingly short stabs and I trying to advance and slide my blade against his fingers, trying to get inside his weapon's reach far enough to take advantage.

He had retreated again to the secret doorway when the heaven spear sprouted from his chest. He jerked back, as if kicked by a mule. His grasp on the spear hauled me forwards, then he released it as he fell.

I didn't know whether to call him 'the Emperor' or 'the Chieftain' in my mind, but he strode forth from the doorway to me and gave a withering look down the secret hallway to the wounded, armored orc crawling away on his elbows and knees. He had with him a large canvas duffel bag the height of a man over his left shoulder, and whatever was in it clanked as metal.

"He usually doesn't set up something like this for a few days. He must have had it waiting," he said, and I knew he was speaking of the Grand Vizier. He retrieved his own spear, willing to give me his back even though I still held the shortsword and spear.

The light silken bedspread atop the marvelous bed was well-spattered. Still he gathered it, folded it to show the cleaner underside, and carefully blotted away the mixture of blood covering me, revealing the actual wounds beneath. I had been scraped on shoulder and chest and cut several places where the orcs had either shoved my own weapon up against me hard enough to break the flesh or had sawn with their weapons after I blocked. The spear-wielder had never managed to stab my legs, but the knife-edge of the side of the spear's tip had grazed me many times, enough so that he tore the silk to make a binding to wrap it. None of it felt as if it had cut the muscle; as I calmed and moved I only felt the openness of flesh on my legs.

He rose up and looked at me. I jumped with a start. The bodies were gone. The only blood in the room was my own, and I could see where it had streaked down my body and tainted my footprints during the final matchup.

I must have looked the fool, jumping up and down, reversing and clutching the spear, spinning to look at all corners. He just looked upon me mildly until I realized that nothing more was going to happen. "Where are they?" I asked.

"Back on the wheel," he said. "Let's get out of here."

We saw no one during our walking escape from the palace save the two liveried guards at the front gate. While they snapped to attention to see us, they did nothing besides signal our departure. Under the moonlight, through the city, and out; upon the road I was able to discard the torn-silk bandages and we arrived back at the the Chieftain's camp just as dawn broke. He gave me again the pannier and sandalwood soap, and when I bathed all trace of the wounds had vanished.

We took our ease that daytime, and when I slept through the heat of it he did not see fit to chain me. I had kept the spear beside me when I slept, but when I awoke it was gone. I am normally a light sleeper and by this point I did not believe that he crept over me to take it.

I was, however, curious about the contents of the strange duffel. When I glanced at it my palms itched, as if something inside was calling to my hands. I must have stared at it oddly, for once I roused fully he brought out the bag and began to unpack what lay within.

Not one, but two suits of armor; one in his size and one in mine. Some care had been taken in their making so that they could be easily bundled together, most of the pieces fitting inside the hollow of the breastplate. I strove to remember the puzzle of it even as it disassembled it for examination.

The metal had a curious flex to it, reminding me of old stories about the difference between the willow and the oak. Though thick as the metal plates a warrior on horseback might use, the armor was lighter than I would expect. By comparison his appeared thicker still, heavier and darker in color than mine which gleamed steel-bright in the morning sun and had a faint purplish sheen barely discernible deep in the metal. Some leather-and-cloth padding was integrally attached to the metal plates, while some came in a bundled suit that we were to wear. He as well as I had never seen armor of this style and when one of us figured out a particular fastening we helped the other, if his armor possessed it. It would have been possible for each of us to armor ourselves as we were to discover given the odd tools included in the duffel bag, but far slower.

I found the articulation at my wrists and fingers to be exquisite for all the thick-fingered padding, while his appeared simpler, mitt-like in a curved, fisting grip. Once attired, I bounced on my heels in the steel-shod boots and all the pieces, parts, and plates shrugged themselves into place marvelously. I tried walking, a short run, and moving in various stances, even very low ones. I sprang into the air and touched the curve of the knees to the chest of the breastplate prior to kicking an imaginary man in the head. I even sprang a cartwheel - the gauntlets allowed my wrists full flex against the ground.

I had never had armor like this. I had never even seen armor like this. Not any single piece of armor or even clothing I had ever worn compared to its tailored comfort.

Before he went into the pavilion-tent, he paused a moment to draw out one of the last bulky objects from the bag. It was a five-sided inverted-house knight's shield, and he tossed it to me. Leathern-wrapped at the edges and corners, it was well-laced and fit perfectly to the armor of my left arm though I saw it had quick-release catches so it could be disengaged if an enemy grabbed it. It had no device on front, only that bright mirror-sheen with the slightest purple whorling. Curiously though, I could tell that a few items remained in the bag, relatively long and thin, which he carried in with him.

When he came out he had an armful of practice weapons; rounded soft wood with simple crosspiece hilts. While I could fight with anything sword and shield was my best, and here I'd been given the shield. So I chose a length of the slightly springy wood with four feet of 'blade' while he chose a two-hander comfortably less than his own height which was to say still a good seven feet.

We squared off, called 'go', and he bashed me off-balance with a massive stroke against my shield. I had recovered by the point of the second strike, and got him to hop back by faking for his legs after the third even though I was more than a foot too far away. His strokes were simple enough, plenty fast, and it was clear that someone as tall as he knew well how to play the range game. I would have to cover that three feet plus his advantage in arm's length in order to make a telling blow.

Upon the next pass I took his testing hit, and struck at his weapon towards the tip to knock its retraction off balance. That gave me the time I needed to enter, this time deflecting a stroke from the upraised corner of my shield, strong enough that the wood touched my head but not hard enough to cause damage to any helmet much less this one. As he wound up for the next, I gave him one of my favorites.

Lifting up my shield, I torqued my hips and threw a long, low shot for the side of his knee, making him drop his hands and begin a crouch to defend - apparently to use the long hilt and guard of the two-hander to block low. But I did not break the structure of my wrist to finish the shot. No, I brought my fist up, like an uppercut, behind my shield which made the blow come up short in a feint. My entire body tensed by the position, I torqued it around the other way so my blade made a near three-sixty degree arc, turning into a high slashing backhand over my lowered shield that slammed into his exposed head with a resounding thump. I could not help but think that if he had been wearing the bronze helmet he had shown me, it would now have an exact mirror-image of the dent making a slightly disconnected 'V'.

Whether he was shocked or stunned I didn't know. I kept my blade drawing through a great circle route, slamming him on the head in the same place, then reversed and threw a horizontal forehand to strike him in the side of the head. The tip of his weapon was dropping away from him now and he didn't seem to be moving, but I was. I circled away from his sword to the outside, slamming his head forehand in the great circle and continuing it around to hit the back of his knee and buckle it. He staggered forwards but did not kneel - that happened when I lashed him in the back of the head where, like a rabbit punch to an unarmored man, a stroke might kill even through a helmet. That laid him flat on his belly, the seven foot practice blade in one hand only.

Even the backs of his knees and ankles were covered, so I merely struck down at his Achilles tendon as I walked up his body to his head and then cracked it again as he struggled to rise and draw in his blade. My strikes fell steady, easy, relaxed down on his head and I kept moving around until I could step on his blade. Then I saw it. His hand, barely slapping the earth.

I might easily have continued. The armor was the only reason he had survived - I had been coldly angry, driven, striking hard enough to kill. I might even seize this advantage and keep upon him, knock him out, and finish the job. Part of me wondered where that would leave me considering the way I had not been able to leave his camp, but the better part of me thought back to his rules that he had established. A maudlin storyteller might say that I wondered who it would leave me.

In any case, I stepped back and it took him a gratifyingly long time to arise after what was, after all, a fight of perhaps twenty, thirty seconds. He did not remove his helmet, though he did shake his head, then think better of it and hold still for a while. Finally, he called on again.

Now he was much more ginger about committing his strength and did much more running away. I chased him around the pavilion and I too was cautious, hiding behind my shield, taking small steps, and never being exposed. I struck him often at the side of the knee on his leading leg and either slashing up or down at his exposed elbows. I routinely struck hard enough to maim through any normal armor with any normal weapon, and in the beginning I would say that he touched me once for every ten strokes I gave him though most often those were issues of his using his massive strength to grind through the shield and graze. Once I had learned his favored maneuvers and tricks, I was striking him more like twenty times for each one he laid upon me, and sometimes able to reach the head.

Eventually he did what I had been waiting for, when he appeared to allow me to get close. In fact he dislodged his hand from his own weapon to grab the corner of my shield, as I had known was coming for some time. Obviously he wished to turn it into another wrestling match where he believed he held the advantage. But matters are different with armor and weapons as opposed to bare fists and rules of politeness.

Before he could get too close, I twisted my hips to pull forwards (and naturally down) with my shield. When I thrust up between us with the wooden, wide tip of the blade, I caught him under his chin and careened his head back and away - with ordinary blades and ordinary helmets it would have gone under the metal at the chin and above the metal of a gorget, killing by spearing up through the skull.

His body was splayed by the position. I brought my arm up from under which dislodged his grab, and I cranked my weapon into a short-arc backhand to the head. He staggered back, but this time slapped his own chest with his free hand before I could really get going. This time he took off his helmet and looked at me quizzically, but I didn't remove mine. I was breathing well and had been conserving my energy, striking with power but without the expense of rage. I had no need of pause or the water to which he limped. He did not speak and neither did I.

When he was again ready, I could tell that he had been using the time for thought. He was trying to copy some of my techniques, angles, and motions; trying to link together moves he hadn't linked together before. In essence, he had figured that his previous strategies had not worked and was trying to devise new ones on the fly. For my part, I found them slow and well-telegraphed compared to his more usual moves and so if less expected, much easier to spot. His slowness was not a question of endurance over time as I had seen him fight for hours. It was the incessant beating that served to wear upon him far more than it did me, further widening the gap between us.

I used the opportunity to work on more marginal, showy moves, moves that had their utility but which I would be wary of using in a pitched battle. I stabbed between his arms once and raised my weapon sharply with the tip laying atop one of his forearms and the blade on the bottom, making a lever that neatly lifted his one hand free of the weapon's hilt. I stepped in then and thrust-kicked the hilt of his weapon so far out of line that he had to 'sacrifice' his hand to stop the incoming strike at his head whereupon I hammered through anyhow. The next time I tried it, he relaxed his arm and moved 'with' the levering so as to keep his hands on his weapon - that didn't change the way I stepped in to thrust-kick except this time I hit the inside of his hip, knocking him on his rear.

For a time I amused myself with stabbing, though the heaviness of these weapons and this armor made it unwise. But with pinpoint accuracy I could jam my weapon under his arm where lesser armors would have a gap, or inside his shoulder to turn his torso, or just right into his groin for I knew exactly how much armor was there by how much armor I had. Had I engaged in these activities at the beginning he might have punished me, but now he was too punch-drunk and slow. He was obviously unwilling to accept defeat.

Though I could physically have gone on, I tired of beating on him. I began shield-bashing his weapon to manipulate it and striking down at his inner forearms where the nerve lies between the two bones there. Enough strikes to that area makes a man's fingers open and his hands go weak - it's more a pressure point to be used against unarmored targets or when convincing someone to give up a weapon but it could be used in other ways. Normally the first well-targeted strike wakes up a nerve, the second sets it afire, and the third strike kills it. In this case, with this armor, it took about fifteen good strikes and ten poor ones before his right hand could only tenuously grip his weapon and would fly off at any shock. When I began ruthlessly knocking it away and working on the left plus cudgeling him back when he attempted to grapple, he suddenly sat down and slapped the earth.

He took off his helmet, revealing unfocused eyes as a result of his injuries.

"You're a master," he said wonderingly. I took off my helmet.

"If that's what you call it," I said. "You're what my father called a 'trick fighter'. Early in your career you came upon a 'trick' that let you win a fight, like your first fast, hard strike to knock me off balance or my weapon out of place, and them a second, more aimed hit. Because it worked, you did it over and over again in fight after fight and got amazingly good at it, to the exclusion of other training. Trick fighters can do very well, and all fighters have favorite tricks like my fake to the leg that turns into a backhand to the head. But my father said, 'A pony who only knows three tricks doesn't last very long in the circus.' Eventually a trick fighter either runs into someone who can last long enough to figure out his tricks, or gets old enough so that his tricks that rely on speed or power don't work any more. Then he's done."

"I take back what I said about Eptiridion. You don't fight like him," he said. "We were evenly matched." He didn't have to say, 'not like this.'

I decided not to tell him about the books my family kept describing our style and our methods, books which each generation was supposed to re-explain and add to in order to keep our system moving forward. I knew of several schools of defense in the major cities who claimed to do the same, so I was certain we were not the only ones. It was clear that he had never had the advantage of such training - I already knew he couldn't read, so it was likely his fighting skills came mostly from surviving fights. So I said, "You are better than most of the trick fighters I've seen - you have about seven. You're very mobile. Most people your size stay in one place and swing away. But you rely on your size, reach, and strength too much. Armor makes those advantages smaller. You don't know what to do when I get too close except run away or grab."

He began to say something, then stopped. He and I both knew that in a model of the real world the initial engagement was all that mattered, and I had won it conclusively. In any even matchup of earthly arms and armor, I would similarly carry the day. Only if my shield collapsed under his strength as a flimsy or poorly made wooden one scavenged from the battlefield might, or if I was caught without armor while he wore it could he have taken a fall from me.

He jumped to his feet and said, "Teach me."

"What?"

"Teach me. Teach me how to fight like you."

Of course I answered, "No." He was shocked - he had already begun to smile in anticipation. I could see, also, that he was not used to being denied. So I continued. "I saw no problem in hunting because I must eat too. A prisoner can be required to forage for supplies within reason. Reading an ancient history for you is another thing, and that got me attacked in my sleep and nearly killed. Playing at draughts or sparring with you once, to pass the time, was just to feel you out. But teaching you how to fight crosses the line. Prisoners can't be required to give aid to the enemy. Why should I teach you how to beat me?"

By now his face was furious. Even under the dark green of his flesh I could tell his face was flushing with blood. "Do you know what I paid for that armor!" he shouted.

"As far as I could see, I paid for it just as much." I had indeed done my fair share of the hunting, as well as the carrying and carting if not the particulars of the slaughter.

This was too much for him. He stalked into the pavilion tent and came out with the heaven sword in his hand, a foot shorter than the practice weapon he had used and likely more maneuverable. By that point I had put my helmet back on and secured it. I faced my shield to him and readied my stick.

I felt a shift in the air around us. I knew, and I knew that he knew too, that if he came at me with a naked blade there would be no 'slap to surrender.' While the heaven blade might well pierce the dwarven armor on a solid, direct hit, the two hours or so of fighting we had just spent made it clear that only a perfect strike would penetrate and suggested that he was unlikely to 'get lucky.' From the quickness of his motions I guessed that this place helped him recover faster than it did I, but that he was still somewhat injured while my breath had fully returned. In effect, by giving me the armor he might well have sown the seeds of his own destruction.

I did not advance and neither did he for a few moments. Then he turned and stalked into the grasslands, muttering angrily. I could almost see his arm and shoulder bulging underneath the armor from the fierceness of his grip. I watched him go until it was clear he was departing the oasis.

If I had an opportunity, this was it. I rifled the ever-changing contents of the tent for anything useful. As before, no weapons were present, but I found some saleable goods, tools, and a serious wineskin to drape over my shoulders like that a water-carrier might bear that I might use for traversing these grasslands. He had not visibly taken it with him, but the duffel with the remaining gear in it was gone as well. He was out of sight when I exited, and I chose the direction away from the road for my escape.

I did not have time for it to become slow going trudging through the grasslands in the dwarven armor, burdened by the oasis water. No, as soon as I was out of sight of the pavilion in one direction, the road and the pavilion again were before me. Whatever spell bound me here, it did not directly bind me to him or bring me to his presence. I tried following the road and thinking of the city as my goal, but I was again returned to the pavilion - that and other experiments in intent and guesses at a magic I couldn't touch and didn't understand made it clear to me that in his absence, the pavilion was where I would remain.

I remained armored as long as I could in case of his possible return, but eventually paranoia gave way to comfort. I slept upon his larger, finer bedding, uncollared and unchained. In the morning, things had shifted and I was able to find the coarse grain and jerky he had used for some of the previous meals which had not been there the evening before. My gruel from it was inexpert. I scavenged for supplementation within my range, finding wild onions and a variety of unknown but presumably starchy roots. I checked several times and the pannier, soap, armor, shield, and heavy wooden practice weapon always remained although the other contents of the tent were prone to shift when outside my sight. I could only guess that it was because they had been given to me.

He returned on the third day carrying the half-full duffel, sword at his side and spear over his shoulder, unarmored. I rushed to grab up my helmet and sling the shield, but he called, "Don't bother." It didn't stop me, but then, he didn't draw his weapon. Instead, he wandered by me to stow his things in the tent, only keeping a wary eye and having the half-smile of someone who has worked out what he wants to say and is only waiting for a chance to spill it out. I took off my helmet to give him the opportunity.

"It has occurred to me that I am not motivating you properly," he announced.

"It took you three days to figure that out?" I said. He didn't bother to scowl but kept his half-smile going.

"Let me show you something," he said. He found a space close to the oasis where the ground was flat, fashioned rock as opposed to sandy earth, removed his tunic and belt, and upended himself in a handstand. It put the broadness and curves of his body on display as one might at a gynmastica, not to mention the sand and dust of his travels on his upraised feet.

---

He raised his head and lowered himself nearly to his chest, then pushed back up into the handstand. I could not help but note the solidity with which he performed the feat - I expected I could do the same, but not with such balance and lack of waver. He continued these inverted pushups, breathing steadily, reaching twenty before he was covered in sweat, and I had serious doubts of my ability to match that number at one go.

He shifted his balance then to his left hand, drawing up his right, and lowered himself upon it. Now his muscles were knotted like boulders, straining against his massive weight. His right arm shot out and back, and his hips and feet shifted to maintain his balance. But he completed five with his left and five with his right before lowering his legs to the ground and standing. I remained impassive, though the feat was all the more impressive given his size. A waiflike gymnast might do so more easily with less proportional weight to push but on a beast like him it would be nearly impossible.

"Can you match it?" he asked.

"Just tell me what you're getting at," I said. I felt that I could do several of the handstand pushups but that I would be in great danger of falling over and having to start again. With one hand I would be fortunate if I could lower myself in a controlled fashion.

"When I was young, I was born darker than those in my tribe. Our medicine man was smart and he didn't tell me why. But I found I could run farther, jump higher, and swim faster than the other braves, especially when I set my mind to it which I did. Then one day when I was lurking around a trading settlement, I found a book in the trash. A picture book, with humans in it. I knew it was important and I kept it. I figured out that they were doing exercises.

So I did the exercises too. And I figured out more exercises based on the ones in the book; ones that were harder and gave me even more strength and stability. I paid a scribe to read me the book and memorized the words - it had been written by a circus strongman and must have been discarded by the performers. They said how to eat and when, and how to think when doing the exercises, and how to move between the poses in the exercises that I hadn't been able to figure out. And that gave me some of the advantages you spoke of."

I let this mull in my mind. It certainly explained his nearly unnatural strength as far as that went, and why he fought in the manner he did. But I did not speak.

"So. Here is my offer. I will trade you lesson for lesson. I can teach you to be as strong and fast and enduring as a man can ever be, if you work hard. And I know you can, from how you fight. And you will teach me your skills with weapons, and wrestling too - I could see your technique, even if I was often too strong for it. We will train here as warriors through the seasons, and the risings and settings of the sun, and everything will be as it was in the old days." And now he was grinning broadly, as if he could not imagine my possibly turning this down.

For my part I was not willing to give in to anything so quickly, even if I had just spent three days mainly being bored out of my skull. So I seized upon his last words. "As it was in the old days?" I repeated. "What old days were these?" It didn't fit his script and so he took a moment to answer.

"This place, this oasis. This is where I brought my first warband. We put together what we knew about raiding and skirmishing and we trained together and we fought. The land fed and watered us, and when we won other tribes came to us and learned our ways until the grasses you see before you were dotted with tents to the end of the horizon. And when we were ready," he said, but I cut in at that point.

"You gathered together and swept over the decadent human empire of the time, replacing it with your own, yes. I was listening before." But I was smiling in spite of myself. His cheer was infectious especially after three days imprisoned alone, and that thought brought up the idea of the dwarven blacksmith. At least the smith was in a city, but I figured he might be kept there in much the same way that I was trapped here. At worst, if I turned the chieftain down, he might just walk away and leave me.

"I'll give it a shot," I finally said, which caused him to leap forwards and grab me up. I managed to avoid hitting him, and begin we did.

He led me through exercises and broke them down for me into pieces I could perform, managing my times of rest and recovery. I taught him to systematize his knowledge, drill, put together combinations, and then analyze them. I was surprised to find that he was a slow learner though he struggled mightily and contorted his face with odd expressions, to the point where it seemed almost unfair the gains I was making by comparison. But then, perhaps it was that he was unlearning a lifetime of skills where I was building anew - that, and that the fast healing this place brought on allowed me to recover rebuilt from the most grueling exercise imaginable within a night whereas it had no such power upon the learning of a skill. I was able to show him weapons he had never had occasion to work with like the flail and doubleswords, and in response I found myself thickening in capable muscle.

We hunted for our food as well, sometimes taking the horses, sometimes on foot with spears (at which he was skilled) and recurved bows (with which he was not). He showed me which of the roots I had earlier dug up were edible and how, and we engaged in basic tribal cultivation for the next season. We took hides and began simple drying, tanning, and stretching, using the brains and bile of the beasts.

Unsurprisingly, he never 'found' clothes in my size in the pavilion, leaving me to the quilted padding of the full armor whenever such was needed while he himself wore light clothing suitable to the terrain and task, or none when we whiled away the heat of the day in the shade or in the evening. I became, if not nut-brown, then well-bronzed by our activities under the sun while never burning. Our wrestling matches blended from lessons to drills to sparring and back. Annoyingly, my hair did not seem to regrow where it had been shaven and more curiously, I found that whenever I went to sleep on the bedding arranged for me I woke up wearing the collar and chain. It was easy enough to remove though it took time, made noise, and woke the chieftain. He gave no complaint, but the collar would return again whenever I slept. He claimed not to be putting it on me and I doubted he could put metal on me while I slept for I generally awoke whenever he rose in the night. Nor did he threaten me to put it back on when I removed it. He even stayed awake to watch one night and it did not return, not until at dawn when he awoke me to verify it. It returned a few moments later, after we both returned to sleep.

It was several months later when I awoke to the sound of trod directly outside the tent.

This waking was not a flash, like it had been in the Vizier's chamber. It was a struggle from the depths reminiscent of when my father had taught me the trick of it by rushing in on me sleeping to tap me with a switch. Again though, the clear sky, large moon, and brilliant stars well-lit the figure of a young orc, loincloth-clad and girt as a warrior, quietly lifting the tentflap to allow himself entrance.

He did not appear hostile, at least not until he saw me lying between the chieftain and himself. When our eyes met I had the strangest sense of recognition, though I knew that I had never met this particular youth before. I knew that he shared it, because he shouted, "You!" and fumblingly drew his stabbing spear from his back while trying to keep the tentflap held open.

He was slow enough in the doing that I was brought fully awake. He made obvious the direction of his attack when he drew back the spear over his shoulder single-handed, then charged in to drive it down towards my gut. I raised my foot to the side of the spear just past the head and pushed it aside as it came down so it stabbed slantwise into the earth at the side of my bedding where I could grab it and pin it against his wide-eyed retraction. His charge had brought him close and low so I could kick him in the belly as a distraction, foot-slide his hands off the shaft, and heel his knee to lock out his leg. He toppled backwards.

I freed the spear and reversed it, gaining my knees - but no more, wearing that collar - when the chieftain said, "Hold," with the voice of command. Both of us stopped, frozen, caught like scuffling children. He too had arisen by now as I could hear, but I caught only the barest glimpse of the side of his face as he charged out to sweep up the lad for lad he was by comparison. He swirled him up in a hug similar to that with which he had taken me when our bargain was struck. I guessed him to be perhaps fourteen as orcs go; not yet come into his full growth but more than old enough to father children, break horses, bear weapons, and raid rival tribes.

"You made it! You made it!" he cried, whirling around and around.

It was clearly uncomfortable when the lad gently pushed off the chieftain's hands to stand before him, close. He looked downcast.

"N-no. I didn't. I died.. and I've been punished," he said. The chieftain joined him in his downcast look, and added to it a look of confusion. He continued, "I was ready to go back, and the god talked to me, and said you would want to see me. I said I knew I couldn't, and he said you... 'had some credit.' And that he knew you'd spend it for me.. to give me a little time here."

"He was right," said the chieftain, and clapped his hands to the lad's shoulders. He drew him in again and brought him into the pavilion tent. I maintained my kneel and kept the spear posted non-threateningly. The lad and I studiously looked away from one another, while the chieftain threw me a look that was slightly questioning but strongly pleading. I could tell he was asking, "Don't screw this up for me," and obviously he meant for me to remain in the role I appeared - chained at the foot of his bed as his slave and guard.

But as I remained kneeling and they spoke terms of endearment in hushed tones that I tried not to overhear, I came to a realization. I knew that training against him, using his exercises, had brought me to a sharp peak. I was stronger and faster, not just in body but in mind. I could see opportunities I couldn't before, and I was fast enough to take advantage of them with generated power. Maybe it was that capability that let me put together the scantest evidence or maybe I was just becoming adjusted to the magic of this strange place. But I knew how I knew the lad.

He was the third orc I had killed when I was originally captured; grizzled, bearded, wearing dirty leathers. He had charged me with a stabbing spear in one hand and a short blade in the other, and because he was seven foot tall he had to crouch somewhat to come down to my level to reach with the spear. It was that crouch that was so similar to the one he had tried to stab me with moments ago. In the real world, I had pivoted away from the spear's thrust and stabbed him through the belly to the spine. He fell away from me and that was the last I saw of him. I would guess that he died shortly thereafter. Recalling his face in that moment I had seen him, if he were human I would have called him fifty and for an orc that was forty. The shape of his face and his skull was sufficiently different that I was certain my memory was not of the man as he had been when young.

What I saw before me must be the lad as the chieftain had known him, a thousand years before. He must have been reborn dozens of times before I killed him most recently.

I had a sense of rising tension, of the knowledge of just how limited the lad's time was here. In a way, I felt it was the same instinctual sense that had brought about that instant recognition when we first saw each other. The chieftain and the lad felt it as well, though by this time the lad had removed his loincloth to sit straddling the chieftain's belly just as nude as the chieftain slept. I blushed and even though I looked away I could not help but capture their rising scent and hear the movement of their bodies against one another with urgency.

The chieftain said, "Let's," and the lad said, "Remember... what I asked for that one time, with the prisoners?" In the lad's words I could hear a touch of sweetness, a touch of wistfulness, and a flush of grinning revenge. His gaze heated my back and I remembered the god's words to me about how orcs should be 'brave, strong, honorable, wild, defiant, canny, and conquering'. I could feel the vibrancy with which he had lived that life so long ago even if the life I took from him had not amounted to anything famous.

When I turned to look at them they were both well-aroused. The chieftain readied his oil and the lad kept a hand on the chieftain's leg as he crawled slowly towards me with a face just as grinning as the words I had heard. I was forced to glance from his approach to the chieftain, which he clearly expected.

The chieftain ordered, "Down," to me in his tone of command though I felt more care in the clasp of his hand that he put to my shoulder. He guided me belly-down on my bedroll with the spear now lain beside me. The lad was quick to cover me, though somewhat clumsy in finding where to put his elbows and knees. At least this time I was not bound though I could feel the boy's exultancy, his prodding, misaimed drives working to pry my rump cheeks apart. The chieftain quickly came to my aid with the oil and assisted in the slathering and positioning. Where the boy had been trying to wedge his legs between mine to spread them, the chieftain set his legs to the outside and manually assisted his positioning for the spiking and sliding flush.

It was not painless though he was nothing compared to the chieftain, not with his sudden, uncontrolled trembling atop me and his struggling to post himself on his hands and the balls of his feet. I lay on my belly, pressed down as the chieftain lay over him, settling his more massive weight only slightly, keeping up with a tripod with one arm and both feet so as to position.

I was pinned to my rough bedroll by something like five hundred pounds. After several moments of the chieftain resting his weight the lad gave a tense, pained sucking in of breath to avoid crying out that I could not help but recognize. The chieftain began a slow motivation, a downward grinding rotation.

The lad was pinned, taken from behind and riding below. He need not exert himself at all to be ground between our bodies, hilted and hilting. As for me, I was more uncomfortable than anything, crushed so I could barely breathe, with the hot breath on my neck and hotter shaft within and having to hear his soft cries so close. But of course, this was not about me. It was for him, and fulfilling some long-lost dream in their short moments together.

The stoking was quick. I could feel the lad's forced relaxation, the lessening of weight atop me as the chieftain found how much weight to lay and what rhythm to use. The boy did little, merely struggling to remain in place while his mostly-hilted shaft was regularly driven for him, worked down, settled flush, using my body as cushion and sheath. Sweat slicked our bodies where the oil did not.

The two of them found their ancient intimacy so quickly that it was barely a minute before, at the slightest speeding, the lad's body tensed up over top of me. He cried out and there was no returning for him - in a moment he was spouting within me, heavily pinned by the chieftain's settling of weight. I had no doubt that he was as affected by trying to climax around the chieftain's shaft as I had been, and I sensed it in his well-pinned struggles.

He played himself out at length, held flush in me. His body gradually slumped with a ragged, relieved sigh. Slowly, the chieftain raised his weight, and after a ragged breath the lad did too. I took the opportunity to breathe freely, face-down, although my sense of tension in the air only increased.

I heard the chieftain say, "Remember," as the lad dashed from the tent. I saw from the corner of my eye that the chieftain's hand was outstretched and the lad's stretched back. The moment the tent flap fell, however, I knew the boy was gone.

I turned over and sat up gingerly to see him kneeling there, prominently aroused, hanging crazily left with a line of dim gleam over shaft and sweat of body. His outstretched hand gradually fell as I sat up, but I did not have much time in that position for he gathered me into his arms in a fierce crushing grip. He looked over his shoulder though and not at me. From the shaking of his body I knew that he was crying, and that I was not the person he was seeking to embrace.

Ordinarily I might have been stiff in that position but perhaps because of what I had just felt I could not help but be relaxed - even more so as he softly rocked to and fro in time with his own heartbeat. Thinking back to what I had seen of the lad, I could imagine our basic resemblance. No one would ever mistake one of us for the other save perhaps from behind in the darkest of night, but it was true that we were of a size - similar height, similar breadth, and what was for him ranginess in youth of what would be a taller, more whipcord, filled-out orc was my natural racial state. It was even possible that the chieftain had made his offer to teach me those exercises in order to fill me out towards that view, but in thinking back I would have to guess it as a secondary or even unconscious goal.

When the chieftain's shaking had stopped and his ragged breath had calmed, I asked, "How did he die?"

Over my shoulder he said, "I was mentoring him.. I could see he was something special.. Bright and engaged, so good with tactics, catching everything from me. When he was ready I was going to make him a lieutenant, and hopefully a general... He wasn't ready to join the fighting, he was too young, but he snuck out to carry the standard for my troop. And he did well, taking them through a flanking maneuver until he took a spear and died."

He took a ragged breath. "I've tried to help him in other lives.. I watch for him and give him opportunities. But it never works out. He never makes it, over and over again."

"Maybe he needed you," I said. It occurred to me after I spoke that it might be taken cruelly, but I had meant it as a compliment and it appeared to be taken so. He released the hug, to hold my shoulders at arm's length and look me up and down. I imagined I looked disheveled, partially crushed, sweaty and oily. Instead, he smiled and looked down to my level of arousal; somewhat thickened as it must be, and said, "It was something he wanted, what you just gave him. I mean, a simple thing, it seems, but he.. We had never had the opportunity. Even now, we had so little time - I thank you."

He moved to take me in hand with a cupping motion, not squeezing but urging, with a brush of his fingers on that sheaf of muscle just behind my sack that sent a shock up my spine and bade my thickened but dangly shaft jolt upright to my belly with stiff tension. Even as the blood pounded in my ears, I could not help but admire the skill in the touch. It occurred to me that it might have been part of his studies of the body; where to handle and hold, how to stroke, and that learned skill was exactly what he had used against me in the third fall of our wrestling match. I desperately grabbed for his forearm and managed to remove it from its loose grip, pushing down. He looked quizzically at me.

"I want to reward you" he said.

"If you want to thank me, I would ask a boon, instead..." I said, and he looked bemused. "While you were out, I got used to your bed... I'd prefer to sleep there if I might."

His serious mood lightened and he looked towards the bedroll at the tent flap, sitting back on his haunches. I could see now how he had arranged it just so that I would be guarding the only entrance, that anyone who came by would have to deal with me. That would give him a chance to awaken and arm himself. It had worked out exactly as he had planned, at least in a military fashion. Clearly he had expected other, more dangerous night visitors.

"But I like you sleeping there," he said wistfully, in a low and joking tone. "Oh, come now," he said, pulling me back with him onto the copiously sized cushion. "I thought my bed had been slept in while I was gone. And no, you don't get off that easily."

He reversed himself as he moved over me, putting his belly to my face, his chest to my stomach, and lightly pinning. I had nothing to struggle against, no arms to grip, no violent action save the resting of his weight. When he took me in his mouth it was as electric as before though now without exhaustion, pain, and life-or-death struggle. Where before he had been trying to drain me to gain advantage, now he was rewarding me for my service.

I couldn't reach his head from beneath, and barely around the massive trunk of his body down to where he plied his trade. I could only lightly rest my fingers on the back of his head as, not bound by a need to keep me close, he could bob lazily, draw me out on his tongue, and freely go as deep as he delighted in taking my tip inside his throat. Though I called for him to stop, he knew the lie of it by resting his weight upon me, feeling only my struggles to control the depth of stroke and sensation as opposed to heaving him off. He rested his weight on his elbows, freeing his hands to cradle my rump and force my struggling pushes against those palms up into him. With that I was quickly taken, held jerking within suckling lips fastened at hilt with cock-head so deep that he need not swallow to drink me completely.

When he reversed himself and lay beside me, gathering me against his body for shared warmth and touch, I could not help but expect other events to repeat themselves. But I could only feel his broad smile and equally relaxed form; and he was asleep as soon as I.

I woke beside him still, wearing no collar. That was my reward.

It was several days later, after night had fallen, that the god came to us. We did not hear him approach save one footfall on the sandy rock, outside visual range. "Might I share the light of your fire, travelers?" we heard him say, and there was no mistaking that voice nor the height above the ground from which it came.

The chieftain straightened from where he roasted skewers of meat above the fire, and stiffened. "As if we could deny you."

"But still I ask," said the god, remaining unseen.

"Of course you may," said the chieftain and with that the god strode among us to crouch and sit. He was again, at least double my height. He sat easily upon a huge log which had not been there a moment before, but which I also knew had been hauled there several days prior in preparation for his arrival. Wordlessly, the chieftain held out the first skewer to the god, who accepted. I again felt that pressure, as if the god was waiting for someone to say the obvious. This time it did not seem directed at me. I only felt it as a sort of splash effect.

"So what brings you here?" asked the chieftain.

"I came to see how you two were getting along," the god said. I was certain that the god could watch us at any time, if not at all times, and the chieftain left this unsaid.

"It's been a long time since you've told me I have credit built up," said the chieftain.

"You've been moping here at the edge of a desert for a long time," said the god. "It stands to reason you wouldn't be building up any credit. But what, pray tell, has changed your circumstances recently?" asked the god. Both of them looked towards me, and then back at each other. The chieftain paused just so and then spoke in a louder, deeper tone, a tone of unconscious command that would make lesser men jump to attention but which I knew would have no effect on the god. It might inform him of the chieftain's mood.

"Just tell me what you want, " he said.

"I want what I have always wanted, which you well know. I want my children to prosper. And I am here to help you, and all my children, do just that. The problem is that you are not taking this opportunity to ask the right questions to find out what you need to know. Who has this chance, to ask anything they want of a god? You are even attended by the wisest of advisors." Here he waved his arm to include me in the conversation. He continued, "An advisor who, I might add, is one of only two people in heaven likely to be able to think of something you cannot."

The chieftain was reminded of my presence, there sitting on the ground. I had been as still as possible, for I did not care to interrupt others at their personal arguments especially if one was a god whose powers had been demonstrated to me.

'Is he," said the chieftain.

"Is he what?"

"You know what I mean, " the chieftain said. "Is he Eptiridion reborn?"

The god laughed, echoing over the clearing, a tear coming to his eye. He even took a moment to drop his eyes and look away from the chieftain for a moment before he could again meet his gaze, and then look to the sky and spread his arms as one on the earth might when speaking to some figurative heaven. "I have all the powers of a god. I can create, manipulate, destroy. I can do anything mortal magics are capable of; reading minds, summoning demons, binding spirits. And yet, still my children manage to ask me to do exactly those things I am incapable of." He affixed me with his gaze, and I knew that he was reading my mind just as he had mentioned, more and moreso as the moments went by. I could tell only in that he was limited by the nature of the mortal magics he must have been using, in that my own memories seemed to swirl to the front of my mind when he touched strongly upon such a one - seeking what I knew of the lineage of my mother and father, doing his best to trace them back to anything I might ever have heard or learned. It stopped suddenly.

"For all my power, for all that every fact he knows can be laid bare to me and every memory sifted if I cared to take the time, I cannot tell you if he is Eptiridion reborn. The facts of his soul are closed to me, for his soul is owned by the human gods. I have no claim on his soul whatsoever."

The chieftain was about to answer that quickly, until he stopped himself and thought a moment. Then he asked, "What do you mean?"

"A very general question, " answered the god. "And I am not sure what you mean by it, even if I read your mind, because you are not sure what you mean by it."

I said quietly, "I believe he is asking how I can be here, if you have no claim on my soul."

"Shut up, slave!" the god snapped at me. "You were not given leave to speak!" For all the god's sudden vehemence towards me, he has advised the chieftain to seek my counsel not moments ago.

"You may speak, slave. With the proper respect," said the chieftain. The god seemed mollified at this and it appeared to me as if it was important that we follow some protocol. I repeated the question and added the word, "Sir." It appeared to be enough, although the god directed his answer to the chieftain and not to me. It put me in the position of an advisor in a discussion between two kings.

"It is simple, " said the god. "He can be here because he came here."

"How can he come here if he's not dead?"

"I told you when we met, " I said. "I walked here."

"Shut up, slave," he said, though not unkindly. "How do you walk to heaven?"

"Through a magic gate," said the god. "It takes him on a path that orcs cannot walk to enter into my realm. It is the 'servant's entrance'. It would be humiliation and dishonorable for any orc to walk that path and come bodily into heaven and so they cannot, not by that method. .I see now that your confusion comes because you were always told that the captives were being 'sacrificed', and you assumed that meant they were being killed to please me. And I assure you, many did die on the path through the gate, and it did please me. But some survived and serve us here, and that too pleases me."

The chieftain fell silent, considering this, rummaging through his memories of many long years. In any ordinary conversation now would be the time to leap in and even as I thought that the god appeared to be staring at me; looming, smiling, ready. I had a vision of asking the god a question, only to be smitten by his huge hand moving faster than humanly imaginable. And I knew that the only course to get my questions answered and those that the chieftain must want to know as well would be to commit a surrender that I had managed to avoid until now. I would have to admit my position in words.

"Master," I asked the chieftain, "May I have leave to ask questions in your stead?" and at this the god visibly straightened and smiled. The chieftain looked up oddly. Having heard me say the word, make the surrender, sent a shiver go up his spine even as it went down mine. I tore myself from that moment to address the god, as I did not know how much time I would have.

"I apologize if the questions I ask seem obvious, sir," I used 'sir' for I had no better honorific for him and he appeared to accept it. "But I am new here and must begin at the beginning, verifying things I have figured out. For example, we heal quickly here, is that right?"

"Of course," said the god. "How can you be expected to fight if you have to spend months healing after each battle? And if fighting didn't hurt at all, no one would know who won or who lost. So mild injuries heal within a day, crippling injuries within a week."

"But dead is still dead," I said, and even though it was not in the form of a question and I didn't say 'sir', he answered. Apparently he was not the kind of prick that would demand honorifics at every point in the conversation - he was just making a point earlier.

"Without risk there can be no reward. Too, there must be an exit from heaven as well as an entrance. The spirits who die here go back on the wheel," and here he answered me without having to speak, "the cycle of death, reincarnation, and rebirth. Those whom you killed here will shortly be reborn. While they will not have direct memories of their time here or their past lives - that they only possess here in heaven - these things can be gained through certain esoteric practices which are not necessary to make progress in the grand scheme of things."

"But not me," I hazarded.

"No.," said the god. "If you are killed your spirit will be dealt with as the human god or gods deal with their own, about which I know little. That," he said to the chieftain,"is why you have never again seen any of the humans I sent to you and which you killed. They were alive, you killed them, and they went to their reward. If one of the ones you killed was reborn in some human manner and grew up again only to be taken by our kind and sent here, neither you nor I could have recognized him no matter how unlikely it would have been."

It was valuable information, but I had many more questions I had been saving. I sailed into them. "On another topic, sir; why is it that things appear and disappear here? When I am given leave to search my master's packs, I commonly find different things each time." At this, the chieftain seemed quizzical, and leaned forwards.

"It is not that you are searching your master's things," said the god. "It is that you are searching your master's memories. Take a deep breath. Everything you see here save me are the memories of your master's life, generally his most recent and most powerful one. This place," he said, and I remembered what I had been told about the area, "the treasures and prosaic equipment in yonder bags, his best horses, the oasis. Even the city of the ancients is primarily his, though he is not the only contributor. Merely the most powerful."

"But if that's so, why did we go hunting? What was the point? Why didn't he just remember the dead javalina for us to eat?

"Ahh," said the god. "You don't understand what you were really doing. You were not hunting the javalina. You were refreshing your master's memory of hunting the javalina, making it clean and sharp and bright. The carcasses you brought back were not things of the body, but things of spirit. Held in them was the memory of the fine hunt, the sun beating down, the mastery of the strike, and acting in concert. Conquering the wild. Even the primacy of the slaughter afterwards. Those who partook of the javalina could taste these things and be enriched by them, as a kind of spiritual currency."

"I told you you didn't understand what I paid," said the chieftain and I was forced to admit it was so with a bowing of my head. "Although this is not exactly how you explained it to me when first I came here, " he said to the god.

"You were more concerned with summoning up the wealth of your recent life than listening to me," said the god. "But I have no reason to complain and neither should your slave. Your memories kept him fed even when you were not present. The magics you remembered in the Vizier's chambers which safeguard the inhabitants against attack also worked exactly as they were intended to. They reminded you to move the chest of drawers back to block the secret doo, and they awoke him in perfect alertness to meet the attack."

The chieftain and I considered my good fortune. "That explains how new things are created, but why do they go away?" I asked

"Things that are not important and which are not being referred to go away unless governed by another rule." To the chieftain he said, "When you do not need your horses they are not present. And yet, a general consistency is created by not having anything mysteriously vanish while people gaze upon it. This makes a place, like the city of the ancients, more and more powerful the more of those who live here pay attention to it."

The chieftain followed with, "Making it a place of power where one can easily affect the mortal world," although I had arrived at that conclusion even as he spoke. What interested me more, though, was the god's mention of 'other rules'. If the place had rules, it was important that I know them.

"You mentioned 'other rules.' What rules are these?" I asked.

"Things from 'up is up' and 'down is down' to the fast healing to things like the way that living creatures here age one day for every thousand - which is why your hair will not grow back unless your master wills it. On that topic I shall compliment you, though. You did not find a loophole, but forced one where one did not previously exist. Slaves are not permitted to handle weapons here unless it is given unto them. Do not think of me as some sort of robed judge about these rules, though. What you see here is a small part of me and the 'rules' to which I mention are merely the way I imagine things should be - that if a master lays a weapon down upon a table in front of a slave and then willfully turns his back, the slave may certainly pick it up in that the master has given his implicit permission by laying it down. The rules of the realm were stacked against you, but you still managed to wrest several weapons away from their owners in your battle. You forced the rule to stretch from 'if the master sets it down, the slave may take it,' to 'if the slave can take it away, it is his.' It took powerful skills and a strong spirit."

The chieftain said, " For myself, I was wondering why he never came away with a weapon when I had thought there would be some remaining within the tent. I didn't know if he was cowardly or biding his time."

"You were clearly ready, so I was biding my time," I said and the chieftain caught my good humor and smiled broadly with it. I well remembered the exact times he had always had a weapon to hand, and how well they tracked those times I had pondered some kind of surprise attack. I kept that mood though, and used it to bring up my next, more delicate issue. One that I felt might lead me somewhere important.

"I have noticed... well, it is an unexpected thing, sir. When we fight, I get the feeling that my master does not innovate. He sticks to certain patterns. It is very hard for me to break him out of them even when we are drilling in practice. This doesn't fit with my conception of my master from the tales he tells, and yet I know he is not lying. His demonstrated skills are too great for that. It is very difficult for him to learn. Is there some rule governing that that we should know?" In making the statement I knew that I had successfully brought the chieftain's mood back to a neutral one.

"Your master has the opposite problem you do, slave. Where you are flesh and blood housing a mind and spirit; he is only a spirit though a powerful one. The skills you refer to are skills that are written down in the body, burned into the nerves and set to reflex. Your master remembers things from day to day for that is an issue of the mind, written on the spirit. Those things which are, in whole or in part, written onto the body, he cannot learn. He must have a body to do so." The god gave a pregnant pause here. "And that is where you come in."

I could only tilt my head like a dog.

"His new skills are written onto to you, for yours is the only body he possesses. The process is not perfect, which is why you see it as slow compared to the learning each of you have felt in the flower of your youth - and which faster learning you, slave, are now receiving from your master duly heightened by the fast healing of this place." I could tell that he had been reading my reactions to determine which way to go in his explanation. Still.

"I don't recall giving permission for this magic," I said. In the stories I had been told there was usually some bargain, some contract, before something like this happened. But stories were all I knew.

"You agreed to be here, slave, and you agree anew every day. If you wish to escape, you have the power to do so at any time." I must have brightened, or looked like a dog hungry enough to leap at a bone considering the ways I had tried departing this oasis. ."Take a dive into yonder well and hit the next ledge with your head. I guarantee that the wound will be grievous enough to kill you quickly before you can heal. Twist yourself some rope from grasses and strangle yourself. Wait until your master wants you to prepare his horses again and drive the hoof-pick through your eye into your brain. Your methods of escape are limited only by your creativity, your uncertainty about the judgement that will follow, and the pleasures of the life in which you find yourself." Now he had me scowling at this, just as the chieftain's mood had been dampened earlier.

"I have a question," the chieftain said suddenly, thankfully taking the focus from me. "Hrften said that you told him I had 'credit'. What credit is this? It's been a long time since you told me I had credit." I could only presume that Hrften had been the lad as the chieftain had known him, although he would have had many names since then.

"It's been a long time since you did anything but mope around here at your oasis," said the god. "Look around you You have brought it to life again. You have hunted and fed your people. You have engaged in conflict with the one who is to you a vile usurper. Those footsoldiers of his who made foolish choices and did not show skill have been returned to the world to grow their power anew. All these things strengthen me. They give me heart. And I give credit where credit is due." I could see that the chieftain was wont to mutter at this, whereupon the god continued, "And exactly as much credit as is due," leaving no argument with the god as to his judgment in the matter.

I noticed that the god's answers, however enlightening, weren't exactly pleasing to hear. In a moment of foolish ease brought on by the casual allowance of speech I myself said, "I don't seem to have been given any 'credit' for my part in this awakening," and found myself laid out long on the cracked earth of the oasis some ten feet from where I had been sitting. I remembered raising my hands fast enough to put them in the way of the slap, and could only presume that that was why I had awakened quickly enough to see the end of the chieftain leaping to his feet.

The god hissed, "Do not think for a moment that I 'owe' you anything, human. I fixed your maimed leg and spared your life and this is the respect a human shows me. You will receive what your master gives you and no more.." He had more where that came from as his anger was building, but the chieftain cut him off.

"I did not give you leave to strike my slave," he said. That brought the god out of his rage and into a consideration of his crime. Then he realized how his own rules were being used against him.

"You are correct," said the god. "I must beg your forgiveness. I owe you a boon. You may call upon it when you would."

The chieftain sat down and rubbed his chin. "Just tell us why you're here. All this dancing around doesn't befit either you or I."

"Done," said the god. "I came here for this conversation, and to see where it would lead us. I wanted to make sure you and your 'wise councilor' here had all the information you needed to plan your next steps, whatever they might be."

"And what steps are you wanting?" asked the chieftain.

"All your options have value to me, as well as consequences. As you have been training here with your slave, you have been refreshing the power of your spirit. As his presence requires you to remember more and more of yourself, you regain your strengths of old. Even now, the shaman of our people dream of you again and remember your old stories. And just recently they are dreaming of a powerful knight, a human slave that only your cunning and skill could have bound to your service. He might teach the secrets of weapons to a devout practitioner, and unlock the skills of discipline that the humans keep from our kind."

To me, the god said, "You may have noticed that your master appeared rusty when you began your fight with him. As a spirit, his memories are like the words on a page in a book. Even if well-kept the ink fades and is hard to make out over the length and breadth of time. But by having you he is required to refresh those memories, to ink them over and make them clear before they are fully gone. You force him to remember every characteristic and ability. That is why he could not match you at draughts in the beginning, until battling with you brought back his fullest skill. Even feeding you allows him to remember every meal he ever ate in life simple or fine, and strengthens him that way."

"Wait a moment," I said, and then added a, "sir. So when we fought our best of three falls, he was improving all that time? For that is how it seemed to me, even as we were hurting one another."

"By the time the first fall was done, he had regained the unceasing endurance and resilience of his burgeoning teenage years, when he could run without stopping for a day and a night and take clubbing blows without pause. He did not have much time to learn during the second fall, but by midway through the third he had regained the peak trained strength and agility that he achieved in the end of his twenties as a result of the book and other explorations he told you of. To that he added all the martial skills he built in that long life until the age of sixty when he rarely fought personally, and of.course the deftness of higher strategy in detecting and seizing upon opportune weakness with lavish skills that could only be gained through a lifetime of effort." He let me speak here, for he knew there was something I must say.

I turned to the chieftain and said, "So there was never one point in your life when you were as good as when you faced me that day?" He grinned widely at me.

"Not by the end of the fight, no. In the beginning I am sure I was worse than in my younger years. But in the end, even I must admit that I could not conquer you by force of arms alone." I am sure I flushed red at this.

"So now the two of you should have a better understanding of each other, " said the god. "You need him to maintain yourself and to improve your circumstances," he said to the chieftain, even though I thought the chieftain and I had already come to that conclusion between ourselves. The god must have meant that we understood it technically. To me he said, "And you know that your master is not a thing of flesh, but of spirit. Your people might call him a 'demigod' or a 'hero-god.' We would call him an 'ancestor spirit.' Through various methods he can exert that power in the physical world, in conscious and unconscious ways. Through him you can wield such influence as well, for all slaves affect their masters," he said with a touch of humor.

"And so what you want to know is what the hell we are going to do," said the the chieftain.

"I do not particularly care for the one who tried to have me killed," I said.

The god said, and directly to the chieftain for we both knew that there was bad blood between them above and beyond the strike that had been aimed at me, "Be warned that while the Vizier is a much weaker spirit, he knows much more of the conscious use of these powers. He has studied their esoteric nature in both life and death."

"Then he too, has living slaves that he.. uses the same way? To keep him refreshed and learn new things?"

"You have seen them," said the god with a bit of a hidden tone. The way he said it sparked in me the rumbling of tactics, of desires. Killing those that had attacked me, freeing the captives whom I knew lived; the angle of attacks upon the palace and its halls and byways, the knowledge that its magic would help to defend whoever held it, the strange eyes of the Vizier that I had only seen in the distance. I knew as well that the Vizier would never be able to learn fighting or military things from his captives for while he might be able to keep them, he would never be able to accept their teachings/ Not when he maimed them out of spite. The only skills he would learn are ones that he practiced on his own, and for a warrior to do that he must reinvent the wheel over and over again. He had had eight hundred years, but who knows how long of it had been spent in pursuit of such things against the danger of an attack versus how long had been spent in the pursuit of politics when gathering the forces under him, or in the study of the magics of this place.

But the chieftain said, "You know that killing my own people has never entertained me, even when they do me wrong. Even when I know where they are going and why. I'll only do it as a step in a larger goal, as in the days of old when I might have to kill a lesser chieftain to bring his forces under my command. We still haven't answered my first question, so if you cannot answer it, I'll find someone who can. Who can tell me? Who can say if he is Eptiridion reborn?"

The god gave his hint of a growing smile. "As I said. Only the human god can tell you that."

"And if I read your face right, it is not information they will give to me willingly. I will have to take it from them. So I ask you. Can it be done?"

"We haven't had a good war in heaven in a long time," mused the god, increasing the enigmatic cast to his features. Under the chieftain's stern gaze, he continued, "Yes. It can be done. We can take the battle to their realm, and when we do so we bring some element of our 'rules' with us. They too, have their rules about which I know little, and their rules will have the advantage. Yet it can be done. When they sue for peace we can present your demand, and we will be able to enforce it to the fullest."

A silence fell, and the chieftain turned to me. 'Well?" he said.

"Well what?" I asked, a little confused. I quickly added, 'Master," before the god could become incensed.

"Are you in," asked the chieftain "We won't be fighting the decrepit remains of an empire. We'll be fighting their greatest heroes on their favored home ground. On each battleground we'll have one shot to beat those bastards at their own game. It doesn't take much to figure that we'll need perfect discipline and skill to win, and you are the only place we can get it. So I have to ask. Are you in?"

I'm not exactly sure what you want of me," I said, "and what I'm getting."

"What you're getting is the chance to know where you came from. The chance to know who you are. Not just Eptiridion but other lives you might have had, other things you're learned, things you've achieved and can have again. We can get all that from them."

I looked to the god. "But I was told that such esoteric knowledges are not necessary to the growth of one's spirit. I mean, it would be nice to know my history, but I don't see how it changes my current circumstances. Master."

The chieftain stiffened the same way he had when I had hit him with a similar argument not long ago. The god merely leaned back, as one might when witnessing someone else's domestic dispute. The chieftain took several deep breaths, clenching and unclenching his fingers, then got up and went into the pavilion tent, leaving the god and I to look at each other quizzically.

When he came out he was holding the duffel bag he had brought from the city, the duffel bag that had held the amazing dwarven armor and that still made my hands itch whenever I looked at it.

From it he drew a scabbard near to five foot long, showing the hilt long enough to fit two hands in a levering position. It had a curled guard-hilt both to protect the hands and for use as a bladesnapper. He extended it to me to put the hilt in my hands, with a sideglance at the tension rising in the god - we were breaking one of his 'rules, and doing so directly. Once I took the blade that I now realized I had always known was within the bag, waiting for me; he pulled back on the scabbard and finished the gift. The chieftain was not armored and had only the scabbard to defend himself. Were I to attack now, only the god could save him.

I can say that it was the shock of the blade which distracted me. The simplest way to say it is that it was the blade that was meant for my hand. I had never known that this was the length of weapon I preferred, nor the weight, but I knew it now. The faint purple whorlings of metal in the blade followed no folding pattern I knew, nor any of the common steels and steel alloys. I made a quick motion with it and watched the steel flex slightly. I knew that I could use it almost like a whip against harsh blocking and that it would always again snap to true. The 'heaven blade' that I had seen in the chieftain's hand that I now knew was his memory of the finest blade that he had had in life as a wealthy emperor, paled beside it. It had space for my second hand at the base if I was not using a shield, and as I gripped strongly I felt where both my fingers would clasp as well as the indentations designed for the articulated mail gauntlets in the armor I had already been given. I knew it could cut, pierce, dent, bash, bind, disarm, and disengage, and from the tenseness in the god's seated stance I gathered that he felt it could do him harm as well.

I want," the chieftain said, "to ride with you, to eat with you, and to sleep with you. I want you fighting at my side. I have given you your arms and armor as your liege. I want to give you everything that a liege may give his vassal. I want to teach you what I may and learn what you have to offer. Between the two of us, we have access to everything you can help me remember."

His words made me flush with heat. His gaze down at me had a power to it as well, of the same nature but entirely different character as that of the Vizier. But no matter what he had given me, I couldn't give in so easily.

"You offer me the jewels of your recollection but no place to spend them," I said, feeling the words hollow. Still, it was true that he could remember me great wealth such as I had already found in his chests, but that it was no good to me stuck here with him.

His deep breathing and pause told me he was trying a different tack. "Have I ever broken my word to you?"

I tried to think back. He certainly had not punished me with no reason. In fact, he had been quite scrupulous with his early bargain during our match. He had never done anything to me that he didn't accept as done to himself, and proved it quite intently. He had secured me at night for his own safety, and later because the god demanded. He had led me into danger from both his enemy and his prior lover, but had stood by me through it even if he did not take the fullest time to imform me of all possible peril in great detail. Considering my prior profession, he was a far better employer than most.

Which brought me to the greater question. What DID I want in life? Traditional things like wealth, riches, power? If I wanted a peaceful life I had spent a lot of time fighting, so that wasn't it. I did have a duty to pass on my family's knowledge of war, and in a way this was doing so though I would have less choice in students. But it was the same with any weapons instructor in a city who took most comers as opposed to teaching one's own children. The matter was one of setting the price, and would I have the power to do so to those who came to me in their dreams. But on that note, would I ever have a family of my own in which to pass on these skills?. I hadn't had one as a traveling warrior - it had always been a matter for later, 'settled down' years. The women I had met in my profession were generally neither desirable nor available. The chieftain's eyes caught mine in the midst of this rumination and I was sweating with the heat again.

"I should mention," said the god, "that it provides me no end of amusement to watch the two of you endlessly steal glances at one another while trying to deny admission of your baser natures. I think the time has come for me to depart so you two can properly roll around and break the furniture in my absence. When you are ready, you need only call," he said, and by rising and striding he was swallowed by the darkness of the cooling desert night. The heat of my body had nothing to do with the temperature.

The chieftain repeated, more quietly, "Have I ever broken my word to you?"

I had to answer, "You have not."

"You are young, and I am old. I lived a long time and I have witnessed many more lives, although they were the lives of my kind. I have been in and seen many people in places not of their choosing who could only do their best with what they had. You haven't broken your word to me either, although you've certainly angered me. But I need to remember my anger just as much as I need to remember my fighting and my hunting. So that is all right too. I said it with my hands when I gave you your blade... what do you know about the dwarves?"

"I thought they were dead." I said.

"They might be but we'd have to ask the dwarven god about it, I'll wager. What I know I've worked out of the one in town over the millennia. Their work is a thing of craft but we would call it magic just because we don't know how it's done. He explained to me once that he makes 'blanks' the way an ordinary swordsmith would make a 'sword blank'.. something that is close to a sword but just needs to be cut to length, sharpened, pointed, finished. When he looked at you, he measured you.."

"I could tell," I said.

"And me both. I have no idea how he can make an 'armor blank' that is sized to the future owner when he doesn't know who that owner is going to be but he can. And when he looks at you, he knows what you will need over your life and makes you the weapons and armor to match it. Your children too - he knows if you will pass it down and what they will need as well. Even if they are a different size, they will find it fits them a different way, when the pieces are fit together differently."

"That would explain the stories," I said. It was clearly why the dwarven smith-works would mysteriously fit the owners' children and childrens' children, though it was ludicrous to think how.

"Anyway, him in town, he was taken in a manner similar to yourself. Through the servant's entrance. And he and his master came to an agreement. He could live there and do his work and live as long as he wanted to, a thousand years to one and then as many years as a dwarf naturally lives. All so he could become the perfect smith he had always dreamed of being. And now that the long story is long, that is the armor you were given. The armor you were meant to have - tough enough to take me hitting it when I could, I guess. The blade, too. I said it with my hands, but now I'll say it with my mouth. It doesn't take a general or an emperor or a chieftain to figure out that whatever happens next, I'll need your all. You'll have to want it. Which is my way of saying, 'I trust you.'"

"What happens, " I thought aloud to give him a chance to answer, "in the real world as a result of what we do up here? If we do make war on the human heaven, and kill the spirits or angels or souls there, what happens? What are we changing?"

"I can't say I'm sure," the chieftain said. "From what the god has told me and what he said right now, if orcs die up here they go to be reborn. He's mentioned to me that if many of us die up here that will mean many more children down below. I can't say I know how that works but it does. Maybe we'll have more twins and triplets the way we were said to be born in litters in the old days. And that's if we lose, the way he said he was strengthened even when you killed the assassins. If we win, it means we will take territory in heaven and have more power to affect the real world. We'll have more power to give opportunitites... I was told once that someone up here arranged for me to find the book of exercises, but it was me who decided to use it and how. I can give people opportunities from up here too, but so often they let them pass by - Hrften, my great-grandson whose throne was usurped. So I'm guessing that will be our opportunity to seize."

Because I could play black as well as white I said, "If we lose, won't that make this place poorly defended? Could they counterattack from the human heaven to punish us, take 'our' territory?"

"They could if they wanted to," he said. " Usually they need a reason more than just punishing us - the same way we have a reason and a goal. But you are right, I hadn't thought of that. I thought the god was leading us on and indicating that it was win-win for him either way."

"It might be," I said. "It might be, for him. Those are the stakes in the game, though. The power to give more opportunities for the winner and one presumes a baby boom for the loser. Unless something else happens on the human side and we are not reborn." I thought a moment more and asked, "What about halfers?"

"It's a mystery," said the chieftain. " I know it happens and I know they can end up here. I know the reason I'm so dark is because I was back-bred as close to the pure line as possible as a sort of old shaman experiment. Anyone you see lighter than me has more human blood. Not halfers by any means, but still not as pure."

I let it drop. "Then we have the stakes for you and me. Despite the armor, we'll be targets. We'll be engaging their best. They say it's harder for a wizard to enter heaven than it is for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle, but they may have that kind of magic. Not to mention hero-gods, of the kind I could tell you my old childhood stories about." I let the implications fall. If he died, he would be reborn in the real world. The army we built here to take the human heaven would collapse without him - they would never follow me alone. In his next life he wouldn't be back-bred. He wouldn't have advantages and the humans would have greater power to influence the real world. At the same time, I would be stuck at that damn oasis waiting for him from fifty to eighty years and that's if he managed to again reach orc heaven on that lifetime. If I died I might be considered some kind of race traitor when I was judged in heaven, although the religious teachings I grew up with didn't really mention anything that direct about species; rather things about honor and justice and so forth. He would lose most of the work we had done together because, as I was told, it was 'written on me.'

He looked at me with a touch of contempt and a touch of humor about it. "What you say is basic to the endeavor of all warriors. We all must prepare ourselves for both death and loss in our undertakings, and embrace its possibility every moment. I find it hard to believe that you can fight the way you do if you have not done so."

I quietly said, "This is my way of preparing. I make sure the matter is raised, and the plans are written. And that we say what needs to be said." He nodded.

"Still, the element is choice," I said. No path from here was truly detrimental, nor guaranteed positive. But all of them would have far-reaching consequences. Even staying at the oasis would give the Vizier time to plot against us, awakened as he was to the fact that his old rival had become 'refreshed.' I thought a long time, letting the weight of the blade pull my hand into tight, hungry loops. I looked him up and down, tunic-clad, bare feet splayed in his seat as he tried to appear relaxed. I thought about what the god had said about what the only escape he would allow me was, and how that affected my options. And I thought about the god's final words, as well.

"Our path starts at the Vizier. He has the thing we lack - he is the one who knows the rules of this place and how to play them to our best advantage. He controls the point of congruency, where we can cross over and make contact." I did not know this for certain, but I could see agreement growing in the chieftain as I spoke. "Our first order of business is to take him and take the city. Tell me, if he surrenders to you and sues for peace, can you trust him?"

"About as far as I can throw a viper; which is a fair piece if I get a good windup. Remember that the god enforces oaths here. He can play around the edges with cleverness as both you and I have done, but he dare not break his word."

"Then we raise a force to take him," I said, with the complete personal understanding that this postponed any deep moral and racial consideration on my part while seeking to control the only one who had seriously sought to kill me. Yet tactically both the chieftain and I knew exactly how much it was required. If I was merely out for revenge I would have sought to have him killed, not sworn to our service in a war I suspected he would too-greatly enjoy. And I knew the chieftain also knew exactly what decision I was putting off. Then he smiled.

"I'll put out the word that I'm getting the warband back together," he said.

The next day, the first of our recruits came to train at the oasis.