'I just wish you were happy. For yourself, and your parents' sake and mine.'
The young tigress shivered. Her slim paw descended through the bars. This time, Jedit held it gently as if cradling a butterfly. For a while the two hung in space in silent communion, but both wondered what their futures held.
Hestia said, 'Do you really believe your future is tied to this hairless manling?'
'It must be,' said Jedit. 'Else why did the gods send him right into my paws?'
Hestia didn't contest that. 'We'll see what transpires.'
'What? Where are you going?'
'Trust me!' Scooting on long lithe legs, the she-cat vaulted for a nearby tree branch and vanished in the silver-splintered night.
Bored again, and now lonely, Jedit Ojanen watched the meeting below. Tigers milled and murmured. After a while heads turned toward the common hut. Many tigers clustered near the door. As Jedit wondered what was going on, his aerial prison gave a lurch and descended. Jedit was standing when his wooden cage thumped on dirt and thick tree roots. A score of tigerfolk had gathered. Jedit chafed as the guards flicked dark claws to sever the comer ropes.
'What do you want with me now?' he demanded.
Ruko snuffed through his nostrils. 'I want nothing of you, Jedit the Jinx Ojanen, but the elders demand your presence.'
Bemused, Jedit stalked toward the large hut as tigers fell away at both sides. The inside of the hut was dark, but cat's eyes let him see the nine village elders, one his mother, sitting in a circle. At the center stood the stranger Johan, free of his prison and unfettered. Beside him stood, oddly, Hestia. Outwardly calm, her whiskers twitched from nerves.
Jedit's mother gave the news. Bone beads clicking, Musata said, 'Jedit, my son. Our council has debated long. We have weighed both tradition and… newer ideas, and come to a compromise. Remember-a compromise is a decision no one wanted.'
Musata wore the hint of a smile. Frowns of elders overshadowed her words. Jedit ignored them, having no use for outmoded thinking.
'Our decision is, in part, to heed your words. Our laws state that men are evil and should be exterminated, yet clearly this manling's arrival is a sign from the gods. Or a test. Whatever it be, such a message we cannot ignore, nor can we act in haste. Thus, for the time being, Johan is set free to roam our valley-but no farther-with one stipulation.'
Struggling to absorb the news, and minor victory, Jedit asked, 'And that is?'
'Johan must be watched day and night. You, Jedit Ojanen, can hardly serve as an impartial guard, so another has volunteered.' Musata nodded.
'Hestia?' asked Jedit.
The she-cat bowed her striped head, embarrassed by the attention. Jedit made the connection: By sticking to Johan, Hestia stuck to Jedit.
'Uh, I thank the council for their wise decision. We can learn much from this man of the outside world. Such knowledge will benefit-'
'The outside world does not concern us!' He who interrupted was old Noddel, a tiger nearly white with age, eyes clouded by cataracts. 'Your father was cursed with curiosity about the world beyond Efrava, Jedit Ojanen. Yet we tigerfolk are content and see no need to quit the jungle. Your father, Musata's husband, I'm afraid, paid a fatal price for questioning. Mend your recalcitrant ways lest you be seduced to your death!'
Rather than discourage him, Noddel's close-minded pronouncement only reinforced Jedit's desire to explore, but for once he bit his tongue.
'At least we hold off a death sentence until wisdom can be shared,' he finally commented.
'See who speaks of wisdom?' Musata smiled. 'A cub who makes the wild warthog seem the soul of reason. Go, Jedit. The council must ponder. And Hestia, lead your charge thither.'
Without another word, the two tigers and lone human departed.
Outside, a few hundred tigers stared at the trio in puzzlement. Raising his voice, Jedit said, 'The council has set Johan free to explore our valley. You may all bespeak him and, it is hoped, learn. Hestia is his guardian.'
Belatedly, Jedit asked Johan, 'Does that suit you?'
'Kind of you to ask.' The man's voice dripped sarcasm. 'A guest of your people is afforded the same courtesy as a cow. Yes, it suits me to explore this valley. Let us do so immediately.'
'Uh, Hestia, does that suit?' asked Jedit. 'We can begin on the morrow-'
'Now,' said Johan.
Jedit regarded the man's black eyes, which glittered even by starlight. Pointed chin, bald brow, and slit mouth seemed aimed at Jedit like weapons. Were all men this fearsome and unfriendly?
While the tiger wondered, Johan stepped out, bare feet treading silently on hard-packed dirt, brown robes swishing against his skinny legs. Hestia blinked and jumped to catch up, then Jedit. The tiger crowd parted as from a leper, while Johan crossed the small square for the path that wended along the riverbank. Johan went surefooted as a cat in the darkness, and Jedit and Hestia padded behind.
'Where do we go?' hissed Hestia.
'To explore, I guess,' said Jedit.
'Is this what you wanted?'
Jedit swiped a huge paw across his nose. 'I'm not sure, but best we quit the village for a while.'
'Best for whom?' she asked.
They walked for weeks.
With the tigers tagging along, Johan explored the valley, walking steadily as a millstone fifteen miles a day or more. He stopped only when the tigers asked to sleep or soak during the heat of the day. In the course of several weeks, the odd trio traversed the oasis valley from west to east, then crisscrossed it north and south, until Jedit and Hestia knew every square mile and figured Johan must know it too.
Jedit was confused the entire time, and Hestia admitted the same. To the tigers' eyes, Johan seemed to take no pleasure in exploring but treated it like a job, surveying the valley as if he'd buy it-or conquer it. Jedit enjoyed the chance to escape the confining village and to question Johan as much as possible. Hestia said little, but when asked, admitted she was happy just to be near Jedit.
For days they followed the river, which the tigerfolk had never named, there being only one. It wended steadily upward, for the valley rose as it trickled east. Pacing alongside its placid bubbling, Jedit realized for the first time that his village in Efrava was the lowest point of the valley.
Once, prodded by Jedit amid his studies, Johan conceded, 'Yes. The river flows from the east, then sinks into the bosom of the world and is not seen again. Much of the Sukurvia is undershot by a sunken ocean, a secret sea. The water eventually reaches the southern sea at Bryce.' He spat the last name, though the tigers didn't notice.
One day they reached the end of Efrava's oasis. The jungle shriveled to gorse and thornbush and stunted trees with only a few graceful acacias like tall fans. The river became a sprawling swamp stitched by sawgrass and weeds. Johan departed the river and plodded on, the tigers trailing behind, until they reached a tall headland. Standing on a brow of parched grass, they gazed east and saw only rising desert.
Jedit gazed back at the coarse, impassable swamp. 'How is this possible?'
Gazing eastward, Johan answered only because Jedit would persist. 'Obviously, somewhere farther east, the river runs aboveground but then sinks into the soil. It percolates out here, pooling as this swamp, then continues on down the valley. As you said, Efrava is thirty leagues long, just the length of the river, its nurturing mother. What lies yonder?'
The eastern sun was fierce, and Jedit squinted in glare. 'Four days' walk lie more oases. East by north lies the land of the Khyyiani. East by south, the Sulaki and the Hooraree.'
'Rivals?' asked Johan.
'We kill each other on sight. Most of the time.' Jedit frowned, puzzled. 'It's tradition to fight them all, but every six years we meet on neutral territory and exchange the cubs below three years. Otherwise we'd become
