“Steady, boys, steady,” Kalava urged between clenched teeth. Ilyandi stepped from shelter to join him. An eldritch calm was upon her. “My lady, what is it?” he appealed.
“A god, or a messenger from the gods, I think.” He could barely make her out beneath the wind.
“A demon,” Eivala groaned, though he kept his post.
“No, belike not. We Vilkui have some knowledge of these matters. But, true, it is not fiery—and I never thought I would meet one—in this life—”
Ilyandi drew a long breath, briefly knotted her fists, then moved to take stance in front of the men. Having touched the withered sprig of tekin pinned at her breast, she covered her eyes and genuflected before straightening again to confront the mask.
The thing did not move, but, mouthless, it spoke, in a deep and resonant voice. The sounds were incomprehensible. After a moment it ceased, then spoke anew in an equally alien tongue. On its third try, Kalava exclaimed, “Hoy, that’s from the Shining Fields!”
The thing fell silent, as if considering what it had heard. Thereupon words rolled out in the Ulonaian of Sirsu. “Be not afraid. I mean you no harm.”
“What a man knows is little, what he understands is less, therefore let him bow down to wisdom,” Ilyandi recited. She turned her head long enough to tell her companions: “Lay aside your weapons. Do reverence.”
Clumsily, they obeyed.
In the blank panel of the blank skull appeared a man’s visage. Though it was black, the features were not quite like anything anyone had seen before, nose broad, lips heavy, eyes round, hair tightly curled. Nevertheless, to spirits half stunned the magic was vaguely reassuring.
Her tone muted but level, Ilyandi asked, “What would you of us, lord?”
“It is hard to say,” the strange one answered. After a pause: “Bewilderment goes through the world. I too.… You may call me Brannock.”
The captain rallied his courage. “And I am Kalava, Kurvo’s son, of Clan Samayoki.” Aside to Ilyandi, low: “No disrespect that I don’t name you, my lady. Let him work any spells on me.” Despite the absence of visible genitals, already the humans thought of Brannock as male.
“My lord needs no names to work his will,” she said. “I am hight Ilyandi, Lytin’s daughter, born into Clan Arvala, now a Vilku of the fifth rank.”
Kalava cleared his throat and added, “By your leave, lord, we’ll not name the others just yet. They’re scared aplenty as is.” He heard a growl at his back and inwardly grinned. Shame would help hold them steady. As for him, dread was giving way to a thrumming keenness.
“You do not live here, do you?” Brannock asked.
“No,” Kalava said, “we’re scouts from overseas.”
Ilyandi frowned at his presumption and addressed Brannock: “Lord, do we trespass? We knew not this ground was forbidden.”
“It isn’t,” the other said. “Not exactly. But—” The face in the panel smiled. “Come, ease off, let us talk. We’ve much to talk about.”
“He sounds not unlike a man,” Kalava murmured to Ilyandi.
She regarded him. “If you be the man.”
Brannock pointed to a big old gnarlwood with an overarching canopy of leaves. “Yonder is shade.” He retracted his third leg and strode off. A fallen log took up most of the space. He leaned over and dragged it aside. Kalava’s whole gang could not have done so. The action was not really necessary, but the display of power, benignly used, encouraged them further. Still, it was with hushed awe that the crewmen sat down in the paintwort. The captain, the Vilku, and the strange one remained standing.
“Tell me of yourselves,” Brannock said mildly.
“Surely you know, lord,” Ilyandi replied.
“That is as may be.”
“He wants us to,” Kalava said.
In the course of the next short while, prompted by questions, the pair gave a barebones account. Brannock’s head within his head nodded. “I see. You are the first humans ever in this country. But your people have lived a long time in their homeland, have they not?”
“From time out of mind, lord,” Ilyandi said, “though legend holds that our forebears came from the south.”
Brannock smiled again. “You have been very brave to meet me like this, m-m-my lady. But you did tell your friend that your order has encountered beings akin to me?”
“You heard her whisper, across half a spearcast?” Kalava blurted.
“Or you hear us think, lord,” Ilyandi said.
Brannock turned grave. “No. Not that. Else why would I have needed your story?”
“Dare I ask whence you come?”
“I shall not be angry. But it is nothing I can quite explain. You can help by telling me about those beings you know of.”
Ilyandi could not hide a sudden tension. Kalava stiffened beside her. Even the dumbstruck sailors must have wondered whether a god would have spoken thus.
Ilyandi chose her words with care. “Beings from on high have appeared in the past to certain Vilkui or, sometimes, chieftains. They gave commands as to what the folk should or should not do. Ofttimes those commands were hard to fathom. Why must the Kivalui build watermills in the Swift River, when they had ample slaves to grind their grain?—But knowledge was imparted, too, counsel about where and how to search out the ways of nature. Always, the high one forbade open talk about his coming. The accounts lie in the secret annals of the Vilkui. But to you, lord—”
“What did those beings look like?” Brannock demanded sharply.
“Fiery shapes, winged or manlike, voices like great trumpets—”
“Ruvio’s ax!” burst from Kalava. “The thing that passed overhead at sea!”
The men on the ground shuddered.
“Yes,” Brannock said, most softly, “I may have had a part there. But as for the rest—”
His face flickered and vanished. After an appalling moment it reappeared.
“I am sorry, I meant not to frighten you, I forgot,” he said. The expression went stony, the voice tolled. “Hear me. There is war in heaven. I am cast away from a battle, and enemy hunters may find me at any time. I carry a word that must, it is vital that
