though this was a typical morning.
“It is not a spell, as such,” Amatesu said. Her brow furrowed and lips pursed as she thought. “It is something we think is…part of what Madame Nesha-tari is. Zebulon, how do you say, when an aspect is just a part of a thing? As flight to a bird or a bite to a snake?”
“Natural?” Zeb wheezed, and Amatesu nodded.
“Yes. The manner in which men are attracted to Nesha-tari Hrilamae may be a form of magic, but it is not a spell she has cast. It is natural to her.”
Zeb managed to push himself up to his elbows. “Look…if you’re saying she is…hot as a just-fired pistol… then I agree.”
Amatesu turned to Phin, who almost had his breathing back to normal though he was rubbing his neck.
“Phinneas?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Please describe the Madame Nesha-tari.”
Phin looked at her, then over to Zeb. He shrugged.
“I haven’t seen much of her, truth be told. She is tiny, I mean small built. Alabaster skin. Long blonde hair, like a princess of Exland. In a story.”
Zeb stared at him, then turned to Amatesu.
“I think you broke his brain.”
“Zebulon?” Amatesu asked.
“Nesha-tari is tall,” Zeb said. “Almost my height. She’s not pale, her complexion is more like a coffee with a lot of milk. She has blue eyes, bluest you ever saw, and a gorgeous, magnificent…” Zeb sat up and raised his hands beside his head. “Mane of rich, red hair, with a curl. Like a native of Phohnassa.”
Phin got to his elbows and looked at Zeb. “Strawberry blonde?”
“No. Wine-dark. Kind of hair you want to bury your nose in. For a week.”
The two men looked at each other, profoundly confused. They turned back to Amatesu who held up a hand with a thumb and finger slightly apart.
“The Madame Nesha-tari is about this much taller than I. Her hair falls just to her shoulders. It is light brown. Her skin is darker, though a bit lighter than is typical for a Zantish person, I think. She does have blue eyes, though.”
Zeb and Phin’s breathing had returned to normal, but now neither had anything to say. They just kept staring at Amatesu.
“Men see Nesha-tari as they would,” the shukenja explained. “Not as she is.”
“Just men?” Phin asked, and Amatesu nodded.
“I think it is so.”
Zeb looked across the fire to where Shikashe had settled on a camp stool, watching the others with his hands on his knees.
“Does she look like a Far Western girl to him?” Zeb asked Amatesu but the samurai answered for himself, speaking a single word that sounded like a name. “ Matsuko.”
Amatesu dropped her gaze to the ground and Zeb thought for a moment she looked pained. She spoke in a very quiet voice.
“For his Lordship Uriako Shikashe-sama, the Madame Nesha-tari appears much like his wife, Uriako Matsuko-sana.”
Zeb looked back across the fire at Shikashe. “You are married?”
Amatesu had not looked up yet, and her voice became even quieter.
“His Lordship’s wife was slain long ago in Korusbo, along with their children. Their loss pains him greatly, and it is why he has come to this place. Far from the memory of them.”
Zeb blinked and looked back at Shikashe, whose face was as always impassive though he now stared into the fire rather than looking at any of the others.
“Condolences,” Zeb said. “I am sorry.”
“Wait a minute,” Phin pushed himself to a seat on the grass and raised a hand. He spoke to Amatesu slowly in a manner Zeb had found condescending, though just at present he was unsure how much anything he thought or felt lately was a byproduct of Nesha-tari’s weird juju.
“What, exactly, do you think that Nesha-tari is?”
The shukenja finally raised her eyes from between her feet.
“I do not know. I am not yet familiar with the many creatures of this land.”
“Creatures?” Zeb asked.
“Yes.” Amatesu looked at him steadily. “Whatever she is, the Madame Nesha-tari is not human. Not altogether.”
“And the reason,” Phin glanced at Zeb. “The reason we were at each other’s throats a minute ago…You think that is part of whatever magic Nesha-tari possesses as well?”
Amatesu nodded. “This is not the first time on our journey that men near to the Madame Nesha-tari have come to fight. Though this time Uriako-sama and myself saw it early enough to intervene.”
Zeb winced. “This time?” Amatesu nodded.
“We needed your services as the translator who had begun with us in Ayzantu City was killed by a sailor aboard our first ship.”
Zeb and Phin exchanged another long look. There had been a moment there, Zeb thought, where if he had been able to get a fist on Phin he might not have stopped hitting him.
Amatesu allowed the two men a long silence before speaking.
“It is our hope now that you two have an awareness, that the effect of Nesha-tari’s presence may not be so strong.” She frowned. “Though it does seem to be growing stronger, of lately.”
Phin looked off toward the inn, but Zeb looked between the two Far Westerners.
“Why are the two of you even with that…woman? And why hasn’t Shikashe tried to kill me yet?”
“Uriako-sama is a man of formidable will. As to your first question…” Amatesu gave a shrug, which Zeb thought may have been a gesture she picked up from him.
“We two have found ourselves in many situations most strange since leaving Korusbo, and the West. This is not, for us, much more different.”
Zeb looked at the shukenja, and shook his head faintly.
“I think you should start telling me stories while we are on the march.”
Amatesu gave no answer, other than to lower her gaze back to the ground.
*
Nesha-tari watched the conversation from across the road. She did not understand the words in Codian but could hear them all plainly as her Hunger had by this time intensified all her senses. She had awakened as a man approached her room from around the side of the inn, and recognized Phinneas Phoarty by his scent when he was beneath the window. She had stood in the darkness, and without making any conscious decision she had fully intended to kill him as soon as he stuck his head into her room.
She was relieved that Amatesu’s arrival had kept her from doing so, not for any reasons of morality nor even because it would likely have complicated her continued travels with the Westerners and Zebulon Baj Nif. As Hungry as she now was, Nesha-tari could feel her power coursing within her. Her heightened senses were the least of it. Nesha-tari felt immensely strong and did not doubt that if she wished too, or would let herself, she could bound across the road and slaughter everything in the camp field, apart perhaps from the Westerners. They might put up a scrap. The energy Nesha-tari could feel from the pads of her feet to the tips of her hair was exhilarating, delightful, and would have been wholly intoxicating were it not accompanied by the agonizing knot of the Hunger in her stomach, like she had swallowed a burning brand.
If she Fed now the pain would be relieved, but with it would go the power. Nesha-tari was little more than two weeks from the Camp Town at Vod’Adia, and from the man she was sent there to kill. He was also an individual of great strength, and Nesha-tari did not doubt that it would take all of hers to best him.
The conversation broke up and the Westerners returned to their tents for there were still two hours left of darkness. Phoarty and Baj Nif remained talking by the fire and Nesha-tari heard them speak her name more than once. She realized she was creeping closer only when her bare foot touched the crushed stone of the road’s
