lineage that rules the Mountains.
There is no permanent city such as we know. There are few permanent buildings. Instead, along the carefully planned and garden-bordered roads are spaces where the nomadic folk of the Mountains may come and go. There is a designated space for the market, but the merchants migrate in a procession that parallels that of the seasons. A score of tents may spring up overnight and their inhabitants swell the population of Jhaampe for a week or a month, only to disappear without a trace when their visiting and trading is over. Jhaampe is an ever-changing city of tents populated by the vigorous outdoor-dwelling folk of the mountains.
The homes of the ruling family and the companions that choose to stay year-round with them are not at all like our castles and halls. Instead, their dwellings center around great trees, living still, their trunks and branches patiently trained over scores of years to provide a framework for the building. This living structure is then draped with a fabric woven of tree-bark fibers and reinforced with a latticework. Thus the walls can take on the gently curving shapes of a tulip bud or the dome of an egg. A clay coating is spread over the fabric layer and this in turn is painted with a shiny resinous paint in the bright hues the mountain folk enjoy. Some are decorated with fanciful creatures or patterns but most are left simple. Purples and yellows predominate, so that to come upon the city growing in the shade of the great mountain trees is like coming upon a patch of crocus in springtime.
About these homes and at the intersections of the roads in this nomadic 'city' are the gardens. Each is unique. One may center around an unusually shaped stump or an arrangement of stones or a graceful bit of wood. They may contain fragrant herbs or bright flowers or any combination of plants. One notable one has at its heart a bubbling spring of steaming water. Here grow plants with fleshy leaves and exotically scented flowers, denizens of some warmer clime brought here to delight the Mountain dwellers with their mystery. Often visitors leave gifts in the gardens when they depart, a wooden carving or a graceful pot or perhaps merely an arrangement of bright pebbles. The gardens belong to no one, and all tend them.
At Jhaampe can also be found hot springs, some of water that can scald a man, others merely a gently bubbling warmth. These have been confined, both as public baths and as a source of heat in some of the smaller dwellings. In every building; in every garden, at every turn the visitor finds the austere beauty and simplicity of color and form that are the Mountain ideal. The overall impression that one carries away is of tranquillity and joy in the natural world. The chosen simplicity of life there may lead the visitor to question his own choice in life.
It was night. I recall little more than that it followed long days of pain. I moved my staff and took another step. I moved my staff again. We were not going quickly. A scurrying of snowflakes in the air was more blinding than the darkness. I could not get away from the circling wind that carried them. Nighteyes wove a pacing path around me, guiding my hesitant steps as if it could hurry me. From time to time he keened anxiously. His body was tight with fear and weariness. He smelled wood smoke and goats …. not to betray you, my brother. But to help you. Remember that. You need someone with hands. But if they try to mistreat you, you have but to call and I shall come. I shall not be far ….I could not make my mind focus on his thoughts. I felt his bitterness that he could not help me and his fear that he was leading me into a trap. I thought we had been arguing but I could not remember what I had been insisting on. Whatever it was, Nighteyes had won, simply by virtue of knowing what he wanted. My feet slipped on the packed snow of the road and I went to my knees. Nighteyes sat down beside me and waited. I tried to lie down and he seized my wrist in his jaws. He tugged gently, but the thing in my back burst into sudden flames. I made a noise.
Please, my brother. There are huts ahead, and lights within them. Fires and warmth. And someone with hands, who can cleanse the foul wound in your back. Please. Get up. Just once more.
I lifted my hanging head and tried to see. There was something in the road ahead of us, something the road forked and went around on either side. The silver moonlight gleamed on it but I could not make out what it was. I blinked hard, and it became a carved stone, taller than a man. It had not been shaped to be an object, but was simply smoothed into a graceful shape. At its base, bare twiggy limbs recalled summer shrubbery. An irregular wall of smaller stones bordered it. Snow garnished all. It reminded me of Kettricken somehow. I tried to rise but could not. Beside me, Nighteyes whined in agony. I could not frame a thought to reassure him. It took all my strength to remain on my knees.
I did not hear footsteps but I felt a sudden increase in the tension thrumming through Nighteyes. I lifted my head again. Far ahead of me, past the garden, someone came walking through the night. Tall and slender, draped in heavy fabric, hood pulled forward so far it was almost a cowl. I watched the person come. Death, I thought. Only death could come so silently, gliding so smoothly through this icy night. 'Run away,' I whispered to Nighteyes. 'No sense in letting him take both of us. Run away now.'
For a wonder, he obeyed me, slipping away silently from my side. When I turned my head, I could not see him, but I sensed he was not far. I felt his strength leave me as if I had taken off a warm coat. Part of me tried to go with him, to cling to the wolf and be the wolf. I longed to leave this battered body behind.
If you must, my brother. If you must, I will not turn you away.
I wished he had not said it. It did not make it easier to resist the temptation. I had promised myself I would not do that to him, that if die I must, I would die and leave him free and clean of me to carve his own life. Yet as the moment for dying grew nearer there seemed so many good reasons to forsake that promise. The healthy wild body, that simple life in the now called to me.
Slowly the figure drew nearer. A great shivering of cold and pain racked me. I could go to the wolf. I summoned the last of my strength to defy myself. 'Here!' I croaked to Death. 'Here I am. Come and take me and let it be done at last.'
He heard me. I saw him halt and stand stiffly as if afraid. Then he came with sudden haste, his white cloak swirling in the night wind. He stood by me, tall and slender and silent. 'I've come to you,' I whispered. Abruptly he knelt by me, and I glimpsed the chiseled ivory of his bony face. He put his arms around me and lifted me to bear me away. The pressure of his arm on my back was agonizing. I fainted.
Warmth was seeping back into me, bringing pain with it. I sprawled on my side, within walls, for the wind surged like the ocean outside. I smelled tea and incense, paint and wood shavings and the wool rug I lay on. My face burned. I could not stop the shuddering that ran through me, though every wave of it awakened the searing pain in my back. My hands and feet throbbed.
'The knots of your cloak-strings are frozen. I'm going to cut them. Lie still now.' The voice was curiously gentle, as if unused to such a tone.
I managed to get an eye open. I was lying on the floor. My face was turned toward a stone hearth where a fire burned. Someone leaned over me. I saw the glitter of a blade nearing my throat, but I could not move. I felt it sawing and honestly could not tell if it tasted my flesh. Then my cloak was being lifted back. 'It's frozen to your shirt,' someone muttered. I almost thought I knew the voice. A gasp. 'It's blood. All this is frozen blood.' My cloak made an odd tearing sound as it was peeled loose. Then someone sat down on the floor beside me.
I turned my eyes up slowly but could not lift my head to see a face. Instead I saw a slender body clothed in a soft robe of white wool. Hands the color of old ivory pushed the cuffs of his sleeves up. The fingers were long and thin, the wrists bony. Then he rose abruptly to get something. For a time I was alone. I closed my eyes. When I opened them a wide vessel of blue pottery was by my head. Steam rose from it and I smelled willow and rowan. 'Steady,' said the voice, and for a moment one of those hands rested on my shoulder reassuringly. Then I felt spreading warmth on my back.
'I'm bleeding again,' I whispered to myself.
'No. I'm soaking the shirt loose.' Once again, the voice was almost familiar. I closed my eyes. A door opened and shut and a gust of cold air wafted across me. The man beside me paused. I felt him glance up. 'You might have knocked,' he said with mock severity. I felt again the warm trickle of water on my back. 'Even one such as I occasionally has other guests.'
Feet crossed hastily to me. Someone lowered herself fluidly to the floor beside me. I saw the folding of her skirts as she sank down. A hand pushed the hair back from my face. 'Who is he, holy one?'
'Holy one?' There was bitter humor in his voice. 'If you would speak of holes, you should speak of him, not me. Here, look at his back.' He spoke softer then. 'As to who he is, I have no idea.'
I heard her give a gasp. 'All of that is blood? How does he yet live? Let us get some warmth to him, and clean away the blood.' Then she tugged at my mittens and dragged them free of my hands. 'Oh, his poor hands, his fingers all gone black at the ends!' she exclaimed in horror:
That I did not want to see or know. I let go of everything.
For a time, it seemed as if I were a wolf again. I stalked an unfamiliar village, alert for dogs or anyone stirring
