'Why don't you go and ask him?'
Yusan turned away and ran a hand through his hair. 'It wasn't my idea to throw -'
'But you went along with it!'
'I obeyed my king.'
'As you are now.'
'Yes!' he snarled, swinging back to face her. 'The King can have you tortured if he wants, so just tell me!'
Talsy went cold and settled back into her chair. 'I've told you what I know.'
'Tell me again.' Yusan pulled up a chair and sat forward with eager eyes.
'They're of this world, and they're undying.'
'There's more to it than that.'
'That's all I know,' she snapped.
'How can they be stopped?'
Talsy smiled. 'By a Mujar.'
'Like Horran.'
'Precisely.'
'Was that your Mujar?'
Her eyes burnt at the mention of Chanter. 'Yes.'
'Why did he do it?'
'They made him.'
'How?'
His persistent, snapped questions annoyed her. 'What difference does it make? You don't have a Mujar here.'
'Maybe we can find one.'
'Why don't you go and dredge up the one you threw in the sea?'
'Perhaps we will.'
Ridiculous hope flared in her, then died. 'You'll never find him.'
'We can get one from a Pit.'
Talsy sat back. 'Then try.' She hesitated. 'Why didn't you throw Chanter in a Pit? Why did you throw him in the sea?'
Yusan looked away, gnawing his lip. 'The nearest Pit is many hundreds of leagues from here, and the Hashon Jahar had already cut us off from it.'
'So, you knew then that the threat was approaching.'
'No, they were passing by, heading west.'
She smiled. 'And now they're coming here. So, you can't rescue one from a Pit to save you, and Chanter is lost in the sea.'
'What are the Hashon Jahar?'
'I've just told you.'
'Not men?'
She shook her head. 'No.'
'Mujar.'
'Mujar don't kill.'
Yusan grunted. 'Then what are they, and how can they be stopped? Why do they attack Truemen cities?'
'I don't know.'
The advisor jumped up and paced about. 'You seemed to know a lot the day we captured the Mujar, now you know nothing. You implied that if we hadn't thrown them into the Pits, the Mujar would have protected us from the Hashon Jahar.'
She shrugged. 'Maybe they would.'
'If Rashkar falls, you'll die too.'
'I know. But you took away my reason for living when you threw Chanter into the sea.'
He glanced around. 'You've done well for yourself. I'd say you have a reason to live.'
'Bits of metal, wood and cloth. The Black Riders can burn it all.'
'It's strange, the effect a Mujar can have on a person,' he mused, stroking his chin. 'I've seen it before.'
Talsy's eyes narrowed. 'It happened to you, didn't it? That's how you know about them.'
'Yes, one tried to twist my mind.'
'What happened to him?'
Yusan turned to stare out of the window. 'I saw to it that he was thrown into a Pit.'
'Of course, I should have guessed. Few Truemen have the ability to understand Mujar. Perhaps I'm the only one.'
'No, there have been others. They withered away when they lost their Mujar to a Pit.' His eyes raked her. 'Just as you're doing.'
She nodded. 'It's hard to live in a world ruled by selfish savages when one has met a truly good being. At least they saw the light. At least they had that wonderful experience.'
Yusan snorted and marched out.
'As you did!' she shouted after him, then slumped over her desk and buried her face in her hands.
The next day, the first refugees arrived from Jishan. Ships ferried scores of women, children and old men in a constant stream across the Narrow Sea. The returning vessels took young, scared recruits to die defending Jishan. King Garsh kept his seasoned troops to defend Rashkar. He obviously did not hold out much hope of saving the stone city. Many seemed to think, quite rightly, that Rashkar was doomed too, and fled. Some sailed up the Narrow Sea to towns along the coast, others headed inland aboard wagons. Talsy was of the opinion that trying to flee the Hashon Jahar was like trying to outrun an avalanche on a mountain slope. She did not really know why she waited. While she had no wish to die, she could not leave Chanter behind. When they arrived, she would probably panic and try to escape, but until then, she would wait.
Two days later, the Black Riders laid siege to Jishan, which fell within hours. Sailors brought the news, along with a few soldiers they had fished out of the sea. Even Talsy was surprised. She had thought that Jishan, with its mighty walls, would hold out for a few days. The soldiers brought puzzling stories of the Hashon Jahar, claiming that they were men with twisted faces who could be killed, and that Jishan's stone walls had melted away like hot wax before them.
The strangest news of all was that, the day after they had reduced Jishan to rubble, the Black Riders had vanished. Most people maintained that the Riders had retreated over the mountains; others said that they marched up the coast, but coastal ships saw no sign of them. Talsy knew that the Hashon Jahar moved fast, but she could not understand how they could disappear so quickly.
A strange foreboding filled her, and she grew restless, tossed in her sleep at night and woke bleary-eyed and haggard. In her dreams, Chanter haunted her as he had never done before, urging her to flee the city.
Three days after Jishan fell, her restiveness peaked, and by noon she could bear her jitters no longer, so she closed the shop and headed home. There she dressed in tough leather leggings, strong boots, a linen shirt and a sturdy jacket. She packed a warm fur coat, tent and bedroll, dried food and pots into a bag. At the stables where she kept two riding horses, she selected the sturdier animal and ordered a groom to saddle him.
The guards at the city gates eyed her strange outfit when she rode past. Since the Hashon Jahar had vanished, the panic in Rashkar had abated, and life was almost normal. Talsy urged the horse into a canter and headed up the coast to a beach she frequented in her search for Chanter. Away from the city, her anxiety subsided, and she dismounted, tied the horse to a tree and wandered along the beach.
Waves pounded the sand with the steady rhythm of the ocean swells; gulls mewed as they rode the wind. She collected sand-washed shells, then threw them away and resorted to building sand castles. When the rising tide washed them away, she contemplated going home, but the thought did not appeal to her. Instead, she lighted a fire and cooked a meagre meal of bacon, corn and journey bread, picnicking on the shore as the sun set in a glorious medley of glowing clouds.
A distant roaring distracted her, and she looked at Rashkar, surprised by the amount of smoke rising from the
