Eleventh Song: Song of the Stranger

> “So just as God split the light from the light, and the darkness was what lay between, so too did God split self from self. Between human hearts was an unknowable distance, and there was self and there was stranger. There was brother, and there was sister. They looked, and they knew each other, and when they had known each other, they knew themselves. But the price of this knowledge was the pain that one could inflict on another.”

>

> -from “Second Song: Terae”

In the time of our foremothers, on a planet now dust, there was a woman named Mattaya. She was the youngest daughter of the poorest woman in her village. The custom at that time was that the eldest child inherited the land, the middle children shared the money, and the youngest was given to a trade. Mattaya's mother, Hean, daughter of Tlalac, had neither land nor money, and so when her older sisters understood that they would inherit nothing, they rebuked the idea that Mattaya would learn a trade.

Mattaya rebuked her sisters in turn and left her family's home. She did not return, and they would not meet again until they met in God's house.

Mattaya travelled on foot to another part of the country. It was a long journey, but nature was bountiful and God was good to her. She came to a place called Rastap, a small village looped round by a river like the passing of thread through the tip of a needle. Mattaya stopped by the edge of the river, in the shade of the deep trees, for the day was hot and she was tired and thirsty. There was a young man also by the waters' edge, called Apriot, son of Enoc, who was washing his family's quilt-of-a-thousand-names.

Being young and of good spirit, Mattaya spoke to Apriot of many things as he washed the quilt. When he had finished, he hung the quilt on a tree to dry and invited Mattaya to dine with his family that night. Mattaya proved to be good company for his family, but at the end of the night she departed, sleeping in the shelter of the deep trees at the riverbank. She wrapped herself in Apriot's quilt-of-a-thousand-names, and when she slept, she dreamed that she should stay in this village for some time.

In the morning, Apriot found her by the riverbank once again, and invited her once more to dine with his family. The same thing passed once more, and every night thereafter for some time.

After many days of conversation and nights spent with Apriot's family, Mattaya confessed that she felt she must continue her journey. Apriot asked his parents for his share of the inheritance, that he might follow Mattaya to her destination and marry her there. His mother wept to think that her son should leave her, and refused. But when all the household was sleeping, Apriot's father, Josia, son of Hariat, gave Apriot his share of the inheritance.

Apriot and Mattaya stole away with it as thieves in the night.

They walked together for many days, until they came to Variurg, in the valley of Batun, which was all looped round by mountains as thread through the eye of a needle. With his inheritance, Apriot built a small house on the side of the mountain. To earn their living, Apriot hunted in the forest for all the furs of all the creatures large and small, which he sold for clothing. Every day, Mattaya brought the animals from all the villagers out to graze in the high pastures. In this way, they became known to the people of the town and lived happily there for several years.

It was in the deepest part of the winter that Apriot's eldest brother, Ryach, journeyed to Mattaya and Apriot's home, with the news that Apriot's mother had taken sick and would soon die. Apriot wished to make amends before his mother made the journey to God's house, so he asked Mattaya permission to depart. She gave it, thinking that he would return quickly, despite the snow all through the mountain passes, and the dangers of the road. God had been good to them in the past, so she was sure that this would continue. It is not wise to trust God on the matters of man and man, for God has no hand in the things that men do to each other.

The night that her husband left, Mattaya dreamed a dream. In her dream, she stood on the side of the tallest mountain, watching her husband walk slowly down and away from her. He did not turn back to look at her, even when she called his name. At her side stood two young boys. They too began to run down the mountain, each in his own direction, scattering pebbles in their haste. Mattaya tried to run after them, but every step she took seemed to bring her further up the mountainside, away from them. Mattaya woke and kept all of these things in her heart.

She waited a long time for her husband to return, and felt herself grow fat and heavy with child. To prepare the way, she cleaned her whole house, as was the custom, and invited the women of the village to help her with what was coming.

On the night that she was to give birth, it was nearly winter once again, for years were short on that planet, and the wind howled through all the trees around the mountain. Fat clouds, hung heavy in front of the moon. Several of the village women came to Mattaya at the appointed time. They anointed her with oils and the blood of a calf, to pray for the safety of her children as they crossed the bridge into life. They hung up fragrant herbs on all the windows and doors, to keep evil at bay. They sang loudly, beseeching God.

It was a long birth, but Mattaya had two sons, healthy, and she held them in her arms. She named the larger one Haito, which in that country meant little bird, and the smaller one Genn, which meant warrior. The boys were healthy, but Mattaya's bleeding did not stop, and soon she was pale and cold, and soon after that she was still with the stillness of death.

The village women discussed what they should do with Mattaya's two sons.

"I will take the larger one," said Ailee, daughter of Saite. "I have enough milk for one more, and he will be a good companion for my own son, and a good help for my husband in his work."

There came a cry from the other women: "But what will we do about the little one? There is only one woman with milk here, and that is you, Ailee."

Ailee said, "We can give him cow's milk today. But he is weak and may soon join his mother, no matter what we do."

The youngest woman present, Lyle, daughter of Chet, spoke up. "We must give him to the travelling woman in town. She has milk."

"She has no child," Ailee said. "How can she have milk?"

"Her child took sick on the road, and her milk has not yet dried up," Lyle said. "You have seen the look in her eyes."

"Can we trust a stranger with one of our own?"

"Remember that Mattaya was once too a stranger," Lyle said.

So the women wrapped the little Genn in cloth and brought him down the mountain to the deep trees where the travelling woman was staying. She was alone in her camp but for her mules and dogs, and she stared into her fire as though it contained the word of God.

"Aye, Guade-with-no-mother, greet us," Lyle said. Guade stood and greeted Lyle with a kiss.

"Why have you come to my camp in the darkest part of the night?" Guade asked. "Even the moon will not show me its face."

Lyle took the small and silent baby from another woman's arms. "Genn, son of Mattaya, needs milk and arms to hold him," Lyle said. "You have both. Will you take him as your own?"

"I leave through the western passage at dawn," Guade said. "The harshest part of my journey is not yet over."

"There is no one else who can take him," Lyle said. "Will you take him as your own?"

"He may yet die with me as my own did."

"He will surely die with no one to care for him. You would show him great care. Will you take him as your own?"

Lyle held Genn out, and Guade took him in her arms, let the baby suckle at her breast. "I will take him," she answered.

The other women left, and by morning, Guade was gone through the western passage, and the little Genn with her.

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In that village, the women resolved to tell Apriot none of what had transpired when he returned, for fear that it would break his heart. When he came back to his home and found it empty, and came back to the village and found Mattaya's burial shroud hung on the edge of the graveyard, he wept hot tears and cried so loud that the whole village could not help but hear.

Ailee held the young Haito and her own son to her chest and covered their ears so that they might not hear Apriot's cries and answer his wailing.

After some hours, Apriot began to climb the tallest mountain around the village. Lyle, daughter of Chet, ran after him to offer comfort, but he could not be comforted nor turned from his eastward course. He climbed until he vanished from the sight of the village. He was not seen in that place again.

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Haito grew into a strong young man, beloved by all the people of the village. Though he did not know his own heritage, and called himself Haito, son of Ailee, they looked upon him with the secret knowledge in their hearts that he was truly the son of Mattaya. In his stead, Lyle placed flowers on the place where Mattaya was buried every spring.

Haito often found himself confused. He was a strong man, and a good man, but in the womb, he had made a bargain with his brother, as brothers are wont to do. His brother had said to him, in his way, "Brother, I will give you my strength, should you give me something of your own."

"What can I give to you that you might want?"

"I would like the power to know people's hearts," his brother had said.

"Is that a power that I can grant you?"

"Let us try the bargain, and if God grants, so shall it be."

So Genn gave up his strength, and Haito gave up his ability to know others. Every face he saw was that of a stranger. Even his own face, when he saw it in the glass hung in the temple, or in the still waters of the pond, was a stranger to him. Though he was not a stranger, everyone was a stranger to him by eye.

Ailee, who he called his mother, scolded him for not recognizing her in the square, and running up to other women and speaking to them as though they were his mother.

"Don't you know who I am?" Ailee demanded.

"I hear your voice and know you," Haito said. "But you look as much like every other woman."

"Imagine saying that to your wife in the future! God hold it!"

And Haito wished that he had been born blind, so that others might understand that he must hear their voices to know them. Kind words were faster to his heart than any look in an eye.

And so Haito grew nervous to approach others, and became a quiet and studious man. He helped the man he called father with his work, and he wrestled with the man he called brother, and he was doted on by the woman he called mother, and all the village looked upon him with the knowledge that he had another father, another mother, another brother, all elsewhere under the eyes of God or in God's house.

"It is good," Lyle said to Ailee one night, when all the village was asleep and they were walking by the river bank, "that Haito does not see the differences between his face and yours. He may never need to learn."

"Yes. God has granted us this mercy, and I am thankful for it."

"Still, I sometimes lie awake at night and think if it was the right thing that we did."

"It would break his heart to tell him now."

"Does Mattaya look kindly on us from God's house?"

"Her son is safe and loved," Ailee said. "That is all that she could want, is it not?"

And Lyle sighed but protested no more. She thought sometimes of the other baby named Genn, and wondered if he too had survived to be safe and loved, but had no way of knowing.

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It was in those days that their distant King was calling for war, and for the strongest of the land to serve. This was not the bloody Red King, for he is from another song and another time, but this King was no less bloody. Across the shallow sea there lay a land of bloodthirsty peoples, who lived on the richest lands. None of the people from Haito's village had ever been there, and when the conscription notice was tacked up on the doors of the temple, the whole village talked of it.

Stories grew and grew.

"I thought that the traveller woman, the one who passed through here once when Haito and his brother were young, I thought that she had said she had travelled from that land," one woman said, pulling water from the well in the town square.

"You speak slander," Lyle said, and made the sign to ward off evil. "She was from the other side of the mountains. The other way. I saw her come from there."

"What does it matter to you?" the woman said with a scoff and turned away. "What does it matter where strangers are from?"

Lyle spit into the woman's water, and when Ailee's husband broke up the fight, with all his children watching, he cursed Lyle. "Do not be so quick to defend someone who isn't here," he said. "It's better to let the gone stay gone from our thoughts."

"What were they fighting about?" Haito asked the man he called his father.

"War plants its seeds in every heart," he said, "even when on distant shores."

The matter was forgotten until the King's man stood in the square with his soldiers, and pointed out the youngest and strongest of the village to be conscripted into the army and go across the sea to fight. Haito and the man he called brother were among that number, as were a great many of the sons and daughters of the village.

"But who shall work the fields? Who shall care for our animals?" There was a great outcry from the villagers, but they could not match the strength and weapons of the King’s forces, and so their children were taken from them.

At first, Haito did not mind so much. He had been able to bid a easy goodbye to the woman he called mother and the man he called father, and he looked upon it as a great adventure. He had always wondered at what was beyond the mountains that looped round their village like thread through the eye of a needle. And even when all the men and women were dressed in uniforms that all looked the same, he found this no trouble, as he was still surrounded by the friendly voices of the ones he knew from his village. Even when the food they were given was meager and poor, and they had to walk many miles over hard roads to the capitol, he found it no worse than the food they ate in the darkest part of the winter, and no harder to walk along the roads than it was to climb up the mountains of his village. He stayed with the man he called his brother, and they talked jovially of what they might find across the shallow sea.

"Perhaps I will meet a woman while we fight who will be my wife," the man he called his brother said.

"You think that you'll impress some woman here when you could impress none of us at home?" one of the girls from their village said. "You grow too hopeful by far."

"I heard someone say that the reason that their land is so fertile is that they water it with the blood of their enemies, and any among their number who are weak," someone said.

"I don't think blood makes plants grow," Haito said, feeling sick.

"My father said that when he was young he read a book of their poetry, and they talked about it," they said.

"Isn't your father a liar?"

"I should kill you for an insult like that."

There was much friendly banter among their number, and though the journey was long, it was in the pleasantest part of the spring, and along the walk they learned to march in line, and how to use one of the new weapons they were given, and they all believed themselves to be the best fighting force, ready to conquer the bloodthirsty hordes across the Shallow Sea by the time they arrived at the capital.

The capital was a dirty place, where all the buildings were so close together that the smell of the people who lived in them could not escape. The heat, too, stayed trapped in the ground, and in that early part of summer, all the newly arrived from Haito's village sweat like pigs in their uniforms. They were given some coin, to pay them for their journey thus far, and given time to see the city.

Haito knew he was among strangers, and when people saw his uniform, they looked at him with fear in their eyes. He did not see this, though, just as he did not see their faces in his mind, and he spent his coin on new drink that he had never tasted, and a bed to sleep in for one night after so long on the road, and food to store in his little sack and take with him, so that he would have some comforts for the voyage across the sea.

The man he called brother had departed in another direction, determined to find a pretty woman in the city to talk to, and so Haito was alone the next morning when it came time to rejoin the group. He made his way to the place the recruiter had told them all to arrive at, and he found there a sight that he had never before seen. Thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of the strongest men and women of the country were all assembled out on a great field rushing back and forth with unknowable purpose, though it must have been some terrible purpose indeed.

Haito entered the camp and was immediately lost. He could see no one from his village, as they were all as strangers to him, and in the crush of voices, he could pick out no one from the crowd. In his desperation, he followed signs that pointed the way for new recruits, and he hoped that his friends and the man he called his brother would come. He did not see them again, though, and instead he was given a number, and a new uniform, and given a tent to join while they waited to board the ships that would take them across the sea.

Haito met the others in his tent, and tried to greet them and ask where he may find the man he called his brother, and all the others who had been his friends, but they laughed at him and told him that all would have been separated regardless. No man could be among the others from their village, they said, because it might cause people to act badly in the heart of a dangerous moment.

Though Haito could see the truth in this, he resented it, and resolved that night to sneak out of his tent and to find the man that he called his brother.

In the darkest part of the night, when all his companions in his tent were asleep, Haito crept out of his tent and in the shadows of the camp. The moon was a sliver overhead, and a fine rain was falling. His footsteps shone as dew prints in the newly trampled grass, and they gave away his position. Haito tried to walk silently, and to avoid the lights of torches, and to walk away from the patrols who circled the camp, keeping order and peace with all the many men and women caught up within its borders. Haito tried listening near each tent, hoping to hear a whisper of a word that sounded like his brother's voice, that he might mark the tent's location and learn where his brother stayed. Most tents were asleep, though, and he heard only the sighs of those deep in hopeful dreams.

As Haito was passing through the center of the camp, slipping through the deepest shadows he could find, a woman ran up to him.

"Aye, Lieutenant Genn," the woman said. "I am glad to see you this night."

Haito did not recognize her voice, and did not know who she was speaking to, so he paused in his step and looked around for another.

"Let me step forward into the light," she said, and Haito saw her face but did not know it.

"Hello," he said, when it was clear that she was talking to him. "I am glad to see you as well."

He understood that she was confusing him for another, as he had done many times, and he had some sympathy in his heart for her. Still, he could not break this charade, for he was certainly not supposed to be outside of his tent at this hour of the night. From the rank bars on the chest of her uniform, he understood that she had the ability to go wherever she wished. He hoped that his own chest was not so visible in the darkness, that she would not understand that she was not addressing someone with the same rank as herself.

"Walk with me?" she asked, and held out her arm.

Haito took it, feeling that there was nothing else that he could do.

"You are quiet tonight," she said as they walked. "Do you not have anything to say to me?"

"I am anticipating tomorrow, and the journey," Haito said.

"The journey will not be the difficult part," she said. "I thought you had travelled by sea before? I thought you had already been across the water?"

Haito had done no such thing. "Truthfully, it is not the journey that I fear, nor the land on the other side. It is everything else."

"That, I understand," the woman said. She paused and considered Haito as they walked, arm in arm. "You seem larger in the darkness."

"It is just as the night can turn the sounds of a mouse into something larger and more fearful than its true self," Haito said.

"Are you a mouse, Lieutenant Genn?"

"I am myself, and no one else." And in such a way, Haito spoke a lie and a truth at once.

She laughed. "We should both return to our tents and sleep, should we not?"

"Yes."

"Will you give me a kiss goodbye?"

Wanting to do no such thing, Haito reached to smooth the back of her hair, finer than silk threads. "I should not like to spoil the memories of our time together by mixing anxiety of the future with the sweetness of your mouth."

She took his hand and brushed it with her own lips, then. The two departed in silence.

Haito's mind was filled with questions and relief, and he slipped back into his tent without anyone having known that he was gone.

The next morning, the whole group, thousands, tens of thousands, marched towards the docks and the sweet waters of the Shallow Sea. There were ships there of such number and size that Haito had never imagined. Over the noise of the crowd, Haito heard a voice he knew, and turned his head this way and that, looking for her.

The woman he had met in the night talked loudly and clearly to two men, one small and slender with officers' stripes on his chest, the other older and commanding. When the small one spoke, Haito stopped in shock to listen. It was as though his own voice were coming from someone else's mouth. Haito was pushed away with the crowd,and lost sight of the woman and the man who carried his voice.

Being strong, Haito was commanded to load supplies onto the ships-- good foods to eat and the fiercest weapons he had ever seen. It took four men to carry a box, but Haito had the strength of two, so the job was fast and easy.

When all of the boxes and people had been loaded aboard the ships, they sat low in the water. It was a long journey across the Shallow Sea (which was neither truly a sea nor shallow, that was only the name for it in that country). Haito knew no one aboard of his ship, and tried to stay out of the way of the sailors as they kept them on course with their inscrutable purposes. By the time the journey finished, Haito knew the voices of everyone on board, and reveled in hearing them sing late in the night.

When they came into sight of land, the spirits of sailors and passengers alike grew dark. They sailed up the coast, searching for a place where they could all disembark. The land they saw was rich and full of life, just as they had been told, all covered with trees and air warm with the smell of flowers. With their telescopes, they could see people watching them from the within trees, all their boats. They sharpened their weapons with a fearsome look on their faces, their eyes full of bloodlight.

And so it came that the boats anchored in a cove, and the sailors and soldiers rowed to shore. The cove was all ringed round by cliffs, like thread through the eye of a needle. When they came onto shore, all of them, and started to march inward to find the enemy, there was a great and terrible rumbling, as though all the earth was against them, and rocks began to fall from the cliffs, and great waves crashed upon the shore, and the boats on the water tumbled as though God was striking them down.

"There can be no retreat!" the general said. "This is a sign that God has commanded we move only forward! Victory is assured!"

There was a great muttering from the soldiers, but as the boats were taking on water, they had no choice but to go forward. And so the whole assembly pressed forward, into the trees and into the villages, where they found men waiting to kill them. And they all killed and fought and were killed and fought and killed again, for such is the nature of war.

There were mountains far off in the distance, and that was where they were going. "On the other side of the mountains, that is the place where all manner of good things can be grown, all manner of farmlands to be had, with clean running water and pleasant weather," someone said. "That is why they prevent us from going closer to the mountains. They want to prevent us from reaching their strongholds on the other side."

After many days, word was passed down their lines, though their lines were growing thin.

"Be careful of these people," someone said to Haito. "They take the clothes of our dead and dress in them, in order to lure you away. Do not trust anyone you do not recognize."

And Haito was afraid, for he did not recognize anyone around him except by voice, and their voices were muffled and quiet in the thick darkness of the forest. All around them came the sounds of birds and creatures, and soft rain pattering the leaves overhead, and violent sounds far off in the distance. There were enemies around every corner, and Haito was afraid.

It came that their enemies were better suited to this terrain than they were, and they hid between the trees and picked off Haito's group one by one, and cut them off from their supply lines. They were forced to live off the meager pickings of the jungle, and they were forced to use their knives rather than their guns, for they had run out of gunpowder.

"We head for the mountains," Haito's commander said. "We will reunite with the rest of our force there."

But after many days of walking, and after many fights with the enemy where the enemy killed one of their number then slipped away into the darkness, Haito's whole troop was tired. "We should return to the sea," one said. "They must have repaired the ships by now."

"To desert the mission is to take death from our own hands," someone else whispered in the darkness. "We must press onward."

The trees were so thick that they could barely see each other, and they moved quietly so as to avoid attracting attention. They moved so quietly, and so stealthily, that Haito stumbled through the darkness and lost sight of his own group. He feared calling out to them, and resolved to continue forward, always forward, looking for them. They would meet at the mountains.

He did not find them the first day, nor the second day. He ate the bounty of the forest, nuts and fruits, and he wished that he had a weapon other than his knife and his empty gun, that he might catch birds or small animals to cook and eat. He grew hungry and thirsty, for though the whole place was wet with rain, there seemed to be few streams for him to drink from, and everywhere he went there were thousands of crawling bugs and a miserable sweat clinging to him.

On the third day, he saw a figure in uniform far off in the distance. Forgetting the words of warning that he had been told, Haito ran towards the man, and it was a man. He called out to him, desperate to see any friendly face, desperate to meet back up with those he had called his comrades. But this man was not his comrade. Haito knew when the man turned, and he saw the bloodlight in his eyes, that this was a man who had stolen the uniform of the dead, who was stealing through the forest looking to ambush someone like him. The man held a knife and held it towards Haito, and when he spoke in his strange tongue, Haito knew he was being threatened. The part of him that was small told him to run, but Haito knew he had the strength of two men, and he took his own knife in his hands, and they fought there, among the trees.

Haito had not yet killed anyone. He had seen it done by his companions, and he had seen it done to his companions, but the chance had never quite come to him yet. Now it was in his hands, as he had this stranger underneath him, held him with his strength of two men, and saw the bloodlight go out from his eyes.

And Haito was tired, then, and he cried at what he had done, and felt naked in God's eyes in the trees, cut off from the light of the sun. But still he had nowhere to go but forward, no one to meet but the enemy, and nothing to do but kill in the service of a King he would never meet. Haito went onwards towards the mountains.

As the ground sloped ever upwards, the air grew hotter and hotter, and Haito grew tired and hungry, and he began to see visions in the corners of his eyes. He thought they were people, and he thought that they could have been the woman he called his mother, the man he called his father, the fellow he called his brother, but they were nothing but the rustling of the trees in the wind, forming into shapes in his mind. He called out to them, regardless. Returning to the mountains was like returning home. He imagined that he was going home as he climbed.

And the trees grew thinner, then, and the air grew less hot, the ground less green. There were rocks, now, and they cut his hands like knives, they cut through the soles of his shoes until they became useless,and they cut through the soles of his feet after that. He saw no sign of the rest of the soldiers.

"The other side of the mountain," he thought. "That's where they must be."

And so Haito climbed, and climbed, and climbed, until he stood at the top, looking out over what felt like the whole of the world. His mouth was dry as bone, and if he had wanted to speak, he would have had to wet his lips with the blood from his hands to do so. There was no water anywhere, and the air was thin here, so thin that he could barely breathe, no matter how much he opened his lungs to it. Below him, the mountain stretched on, barren, all up and down. Behind him was the forest full of death. In front of him, the land that was promised to be green and inviting, down the slope of the mountain, there was nothing but desert: barren rocks that sparkled in the sunlight as far as the eye could see. No clouds even passed above it, so trapped were they by the mountain peak where he stood. Haito saw that there was nothing there, that all of this had been a dream of conquest for no reason, and he sat down on the rock at the peak of the highest mountain, and looked over the desert and wept.

How good it would be, he thought, if he tumbled down the rocks here. There would be no one to find his bones. There was no reason to go forward, and no way to go back. If he went back with what he had seen, he would be killed. There were no boats to take him home, and maybe even the sailors who had manned the boats were all dead. Maybe he was the last one. The only one not bested by this land and the people in it. But what was he if he was not bested? He had nothing to go on to.

Haito became aware that there was another person behind him. This awareness came on slowly, like the sunlight which crested over the peaks of the mountains. Haito wanted to turn but found that he could not. His eyes were fixed on the horizon. A great fear came over him then.

"Do not be afraid," the Voice said, and Haito knew that it was God to whom he was speaking.

"I am afraid," Haito said.

"Why?" God asked.

"I have come onto holy ground with blood on my hands and darkness in my heart," Haito said. He did not hear himself saying the words, for his mouth was too dry to speak, but he knew that he said them anyway, and that God heard him.

"All ground is holy ground," God said. "The blood was on your hands before I spoke to you and it will remain once I am gone."

"Even the desert is holy ground?" Haito asked, and pointed weakly out to where the salt flats glittered.

"Was it not I who formed your foremothers in the desert of the places in between the stars? Is the desert not the place where every man finds himself?"

"Must I go there?" Haito asked.

"No," God said. "You shall not go to the desert."

"Shall I die here?" Haito asked.

"No, you shall not die on the mountain."

"Then where should I go?" Haito asked, his voice full of despair. "Where are the ones I know? What shall become of me? What shall become of them?" He had forgotten his fear in his sorrow.

"The people you came with have returned to their home, on the boats that came bearing supplies. You are one of the last ones left."

Haito cried out in despair. If his companions had left, there would be none coming back to save him.

"They will return," God said. "They will return with more people, and more fearsome weapons, and they will stop at nothing to burn this place to the ground."

Haito felt both relief and sadness. It seemed good that they would return, that he might have a people to return to, but he found he had no desire in his heart to see the forest behind him in flames, for it was rich and full of life, even the lives of the people who lived here, who fought so well against him. Haito could see the flames behind him. He could hear the roar of the burning wood, feel the heat of the fire. The screaming and yelling and gunshot sounds did not cease in his imagination. It was a terror so great that seized him then.

"This will not be for a long time," God said. "It takes time, and your people will have plenty of it, to let their anger grow in them, and to gather themselves together."

"What will I do?" Haito asked.

"You desire to return to your home, to your mother and father and brother," God said.

"Yes."

"Then you must wait here until they come. They will come again and they will leave again."

"How can I wait here?" Haito asked. "I cannot survive in the desert, or on the mountain, or in the forest, or in the ocean."

"You must survive among people," God said. "It is not your nature to be alone."

"But the people here will kill me. They are my enemy."

"Did I not create all men as brothers, and all women as sisters? Do you not see yourself in them, and them in you?"

"But they have the bloodlight in their eyes," Haito said.

"Look at Me," God said. And Haito felt the terrible command, and God's power, and he turned to look. God stood before him, and he was dressed in the uniform that Haito wore, the same uniform that the man Haito had killed wore. "Who am I?" God asked.

"You are God," Haito said.

"Look at me," God said. "Whose face do I wear?"

"I don't know," Haito said. "One face looks the same as any other."

"Do you see the bloodlight in these eyes?"

"Yes," Haito said, and it was more horrible than anything he had ever seen.

"And if you do not know if this face is yours or his, and the bloodlight is the same in both, then what is the difference?"

"There must be one," Haito said.

"I separated man from man so that he would be able to understand himself by looking at another. You must understand another by looking at yourself," God said.

"I cannot," Haito said, and there were tears in his eyes. He saw too that there were tears on the face of the man in front of him. Whose face? It could not matter.

"You will take the voice of the man you killed. You will have it in your mouth, and you will go back down the mountain, and you will live with them in the villages there. You will speak nothing of this to anyone."

"They will take me without killing me?"

"You will speak with their voice," God said. "They will treat you as a brother."

"And then what?"

"You will live there until your own brother returns from over the ocean."

"My brother lives?"

"Both of them," God said. "One will not return here, and one will. One thinks of you as dead, and one does not think of you at all."

"I have only one brother," Haito said.

"You have a brother who you made a compact with in the womb, and you have a brother who spent your childhood with you."

"Genn," Haito said. "The man who speaks with my voice."

"And wears your face."

"Will I meet him?"

"He is the one who will return here. The other will return to your home in the mountains where he will tell your mother and father that you are in My house."

"I am in Your house," Haito said.

"No, you are in the world, and so am I," God said.

"Will my people take me back, when they return?"

"I cannot say."

"You know the future."

"The things I know are not always fit to reveal. There are many things which I shall not say, and which no human mind should know. Not until you truly come to My house."

"But there are so many questions I need to ask."

"Every question will be answered in its time, and every answer will have its question."

Haito fell silent, struck with a quietude that he could not break. God stepped toward him, wearing the face of a stranger, or the face of his brother, and what did it matter, for all faces were truly faces of God. God pressed a finger to Haito's lips, and he felt a fire on his tongue, and spoke again.

"Why are You doing this for me?" Haito asked.

"Because you have always felt among strangers, and I am the God of Strangers," God said. "All travellers walk the roads which I ordain."

God stepped back, towards the mountainside. "Don't leave me," Haito pleaded. "I don't want to be alone."

"Have you ever been alone? Have you not always walked in My sight?"

And God walked down the mountain, and Haito stayed frozen, and then departed from that place himself. The fire on his tongue remained, and when he came to the foot of the mountain, by a different route than he had come up, he found a stream running out of the cracks of the rocks. He drank his fill and washed the blood from his wounds and clothing. He followed the stream down into the darkness of the forest, and it was a companion for him. All the birds sang, and the wind rang through the branches of the trees, and the water murmured at his feet, and it all seemed to be in a language that he could understand, though he recognized none of it. It told him without words where he should go, and he felt the presence of God at his side as he walked, a stranger in the land of strangers.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He walked for a day, slept for a night, and continued in the morning.

Presently, he came upon a woman, and she was sitting halfway in the stream, all her clothes on her, and she was washing a long strip of fabric, dyed purple. She looked at him as he approached, and Haito thought he saw the bloodlight in her eyes, and he wanted to reach for his knife in the sheath at his hip, but he did not.

"Aye, stranger," he said with the fire on his tongue. "Where am I?"

She leaned towards him in relief, glad that he spoke in her tongue.

"You are near the village Byal. I had thought you were one who had come to kill, as you wear their clothing."

"It was the clothing worn by a man I killed," Haito said, which was in its way both a truth and a lie. "I am far from my home."

"You do not know this place, so you must be," she said. "How long have you travelled?"

"Many days," Haito said. He did not know the number, in truth. "I came from near the ocean, where the killing was worst."

"It will be worse again before it is over," the woman said. "What is your name, stranger?"

"Haito, son of Ailee," he said, and saw no need to lie.

"Odd name. I am Daviat," she said. "Are you hungry? Have you eaten?"

"I have no food to share with you," Haito said.

"It is enough that I should share with you." And she stood up from the stream and retrieved a pack, from which she pulled out a long roll of bread and dried meat. She lay herself on the grass next to the stream, and Haito lay next to her. They shared a meal and talked of many things.

"Must you go, Haito?"

"I have no destination, but I have a journey," Haito said. "I fear that if I stop I will die."

"I have heard reports that the ships are leaving the shore," Daviat said. "There will be no one left to kill you."

"Some may remain," Haito said. "And I have nowhere to stay but the road."

"At least stay with me tonight. My family is pleasant, and my father needs a strong hand to construct the frame of a new house."

"Why is your father building a new house?"

"For my sister's wedding. It is his gift to her."

She gathered up her belongings, including the long strip of purple cloth, which she hung on a tree to dry, and led him back to her village. Haito felt great fear as they approached, but when she introduced him to her father and mother, he was treated kindly, and no one looked upon him as a stranger from further than the next village. With his great strength, Haito easily held timbers in place for him, and when the house was more constructed than it had been previously, they all ate dinner together, sitting around a fire and passing meat and bread and cheese from one hand to the next.

When the shadows had grown too deep underneath the trees to see anything other than by the light of the fire, Haito bid farewell and made his way back into the forest, for he felt he had no right to intrude on their hospitality any longer. He slept beneath the tree where Daviat had hung her purple cloth, and when the morning came, she found him still under it.

She woke him and rebuked him, saying, "If you had said you would sleep so close to my home, you would have had a fine bed rather than the hard ground."

"I am a stranger," he said. "I have no right to sleep in your home."

"I am not afraid of strangers," Daviat said, and she took his arm. "Come, eat with me, and help my father build his house."

So he returned with her to the village, and again helped build, and again ate with the family. Again at night he bid farewell and tried to walk off into the forest, but Daviat followed him at a distance, quieter than a cat, and when he had laid down, she came up to him. In the dark he was surprised by her, and had his knife to her throat before she could speak.

"It is only me," she said, and her words held no sound of fear in them.

"I could not recognize you in the dark," he said. "You should announce yourself."

"There's no need to be afraid of the people who walk the paths around here," Daviat said. "Why are you afraid, Haito?"

"I am not afraid," he said, which was a lie.

"You act as though a man possessed."

"What do you say that for?"

"Accept my family's kindness. Stay with us."

"I must keep moving," Haito said.

"You don't need to run away."

"I am not."

"If you are not running towards, you must be running away."

"I am just running."

"Stop and rest a while."

And so they lay there together beside the stream in the darkness, and she touched his face and kissed his hand, and it was good. In the light, her face may have looked like any other woman's, but in the darkness, it was only her voice that it could be, and he found that he loved her for it.

In the morning, they returned, and again Haito helped build. And so it was for many more days until the building was completed.

"Now I must go," Haito said as they ate their dinner, passing the bread and meat and cheese from hand to hand.

"Stay for the wedding," Daviat said. "You helped build the gift, you must see the couple's joy."

"I must go," Haito said again, though there was less protest in it.

He stayed until the wedding, and it was beautiful.

"I must go," Haito said again, "now that your sister is married."

"I need help with planting the root crop," Daviat's father said. "I am getting old and it is harder for me now."

So Haito stayed to plant the root crop, and he stayed to burn the old plants, and he stayed to repair the aqueduct, and he stayed to build a new watchtower, and he stayed to dig holes for the foundation of a storehouse, and he stayed to harvest the root crop, and he stayed, and he stayed. And when he had stayed so long, Daviat took him out to the stream, and they stayed hand in hand, and she asked him to marry her.

Haito looked at her, looked into her warm face, her hair curlier than sheep's wool, her eyes brighter than the stars. "I love you," he said.

"But will you marry me?" she asked.

And he thought to himself, 'I have stolen this life from someone else. This is not a life that I was meant to live, and when I killed that man, I took this away from him.' And Haito wanted to run so far away then, but Daviat held his hand, and he looked into her eyes, and with God's fire on his tongue, he said, "Yes."

So it came to pass that Daviat's father built them a house on the edge of the village, and they lived there for some time, and Haito was no longer a stranger. He thought often about the land across the sea, where he had come from, and his two brothers, one he knew and one he did not know, and about his own parents, and about the sun on the mountainside, and the bleating of the goats and sheep. And when he thought of the mountains, he thought also of where he had met God, and the things that God had told him, and he often dreamed of returning to that place, and what he might say. When he thought all of these things, his eyes were sad and far away, and he stared up at the mountains, or in the other direction towards the sea, and Daviat would ask what he was dreaming of. Haito could not tell her, and felt sorry to keep a secret from his wife, but there were many things that were secret. He knew he should be cast out if they came to light, so he kept it all in his heart.

And he thought often of what God had said, about the army of his homeland returning to burn this place to the ground until not one living thing remained. And one morning, he woke to smell smoke, thick and heavy on the wind. He stood outside in the cool morning air, wet with dew, and saw it rising from the distance, great clouds of it, rolling up out of the forest. He woke Daviat.

"Daviat," he said, shaking her shoulder. "Wake up."

She looked up at him, with her eyes star-bright, and smiled. He could not smile back. He brought her out into the morning light, and showed her the smoke thick above the trees. "You need to leave this place," he said.

She was confused. He continued, "There are men coming from across the ocean, and if they catch you, they will kill you. You must take the whole of the village up the mountains, and perhaps even out into the desert beyond, and you must stay there until someone tells you the danger has passed."

"Why must I take them?"

"Because they will trust you, and I cannot come."

"Why not?" she asked, and pulled on his arm.

"Because I have a duty to stop this harm," he said.

"Surely all the able of the village do as well," she said. "You must take a band, or join a band."

"No. I must go alone."

"What are you running towards?" she asked.

"In the days before I met you," Haito said, confessing a little of his secret. "I was lost in the world, and I climbed the tallest mountain hoping to find company there. God spoke to me on that peak, and he put a fire in my mouth and told me that I should find a place among you until the people returned from over the ocean, for they would burn this whole place to ash until not a living thing remained. They have returned, and I know now what I must do."

"What must you do?"

Haito thought. "You do not know me, Daviat."

"I am your wife." And she placed her hand on his chest, and knew the beating of his heart. His heart was beating so loudly. "Don't go on your own. What can one man do?"

"Whatever I must," he said.

"Let me come with you."

"You do not know their language."

"That doesn't matter."

"I don't want you to get hurt."

"I don't want to lose you," she said.

"You must take everyone to the other side of the mountains," he said. "God will protect you."

And she cried hot, wet, tears, and gathered up everyone who would come with her. They left their village as empty as a ghost land, with Daviat going one way, and Haito going another.

----------------------------------------

When Daviat took the village over the mountains, they brought everything that they could carry on their backs. She carried the burden of two, as she was not carrying a child as her sister was. They climbed the mountains, and rested at the top, in the thin air, with blood on their hands from the sharp stones. Many of them cried. Many of them looked at the journey ahead, out into the desert, and grew angry.

"How will we survive there?" one of the young men asked. He was too young to go off into the forest and fight like the adults had, but he was old enough to be angry. "There is no water, not as far as the eye can see, and we don't have a way of carrying any more."

"God will protect us," Daviat said, and she stared down at the scratches on her hands, as though there was meaning in it.

Still others looked back the way they had come, and from the top of the mountain, they could see the smoke thick in the air above the forest, and could see the birds who fled from that hot mass towards the ocean or towards the mountains.

"What kind of life shall we have now?" one of the women asked, holding a small child on her hip. "Will we be completely destroyed?"

"The people we left behind will protect us," Daviat said.

"What do they want from us?"

"I don't know," she said, and that was the truth.

The whole encampment settled down to sleep for the night, each one heavily burdened with their own private misery. Daviat stoked the fire and kept watch, staring out over the horizon and watching the smoke block out the moon as it rose.

Presently, she became aware of someone next to her, but she found that she could not turn to look. Their presence was so unlike that of the other villagers that Daviat worried that there was a stranger in her camp, doing magic on her that was here for ill.

"Do not be afraid," the stranger said, and the words carried such peace that the fear left Daviat's heart. She stared into the fire as though it were a mirror, and it would reflect back the face of the stranger sitting next to her.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Who do you think that I am?" the stranger asked.

And Daviat knew then that the story that Haito had told her was true, and that he had met God on the mountaintop. Now she, too, had met God on the mountaintop.

"Is this holy ground?" she asked.

"All ground is holy, in its way," God said. "Peace, my daughter."

Daviat wanted to look, wanted to wake the rest of the sleeping camp so that they too might know God come among them as a stranger in the night. She could not move, and she knew that even if she yelled her loudest, none of the sleepers would wake. This was the nature of such events. They were meant for one, and to be kept quiet in the heart alone.

"Why did you send Haito out among the monsters?" she asked.

"They are no more monsters than you are," she said.

"They are burning down my home," she said. "Even as we speak, they are killing. Haito has gone among them."

"Haito has a debt in his heart that he must repay. He has someone that he must meet there among them, just as he met you among your people."

"Is he in danger?"

"There is the potential for pain in every moment that one spends with another," God said. "But there is potential for healing, too."

"Why did they come here?"

"They believe that there is rich land here, richer still on the other side of the mountains, and they want to take it."

"But we live here," Daviat said. "And there is nothing beyond the mountains but salt."

"You live here. Yes."

"So why should they take the land?"

"Because some of them want power in their own land, over their own people, and the way to get that power is through wars and fighting and taking riches from elsewhere. This is the way it has always been. And some of them believe that you are monsters, with the bloodlight in your eyes."

"I've never killed, and they think me a monster?"

"Look at your sister's child," God said. "If they were to come for her, would you have the bloodlight in your eyes then?"

"But none of us have come for their children!" Daviat cried.

"And you will not, not while they have large fast ships and you do not, and not while they have fearsome weapons that you do not, but if you had those things... perhaps." And Daviat heard the sadness in God's voice. "They are not so different from you, and right now, they are doing great harm. But that does not make them monstrous, just as your people routing them from this land the first time they came does not make you monstrous."

"I don't believe that," Daviat said.

"That is your right. But you have fought among yourselves since I split brother from brother and sister from sister, as soon as I made the known and the stranger."

"Why did you do it, then?" Daviat asked.

"Look at me," God said, and Daviat looked.

She saw herself there, and when she raised her hand, God's hand raised also. Where there were tears in her eyes, so too were there tears in God's.

"Is there any substance in a mirror's eyes?" God asked, and the words came from Daviat's mouth as well. "Can you know yourself if yourself is all you know?"

Daviat stretched out her hand, and so did her mirror, and their fingers twined together in the moonlight. "You would not shatter your own reflection, but you would feel no love for it either," God said with Daviat's lips.

"That would be the price paid. Would you pay that price?"

Daviat understood and shook her head. The mirror illusion broke, and Daviat had to look away as God's form shifted into something unknowable.

"The mountains divide the desert from the forest," God said. "The space between people is not empty. It is something to be understood and known, and it can be crossed."

"How?" Daviat asked.

"That is Haito's task," God said.

"I want to go to him."

"You have your own journey, my daughter."

"What must I do?"

"Protect your people, and when the time comes, lead them home again."

"How can I keep them safe in the desert?" she asked.

"Was it not I who brought your foremothers safe out of the desert?" God asked. "You walk always in my sight."

"Sight is one thing, and water is another," Daviat said, then felt that perhaps she had overstepped. She looked out over the desert, where the starlight made the salt flats sparkle like another sky. She felt a fire on her hands.

"Go and find water where you must," God said. "I will not abandon you."

And so it was that the next day, Daviat took her people and fled into the deep desert. Wherever she laid down her hands on the ground, she could pull water up from it, like one pulled a thread through the eye of a needle.

----------------------------------------

Haito went through the forest, and he knew it now as though it was an old friend. He travelled through the trees, closer and closer to the place where there was fire, and smoke, and much wailing and gnashing of teeth. He came to the place, moving so quietly as to not be seen, where there was a great encampment of people, all speaking in a tongue that he had almost forgotten. God's fire was cool on his tongue then, and he knew that he remembered it deep in his heart. It was the language of his childhood, his mother, his father, his brothers, and it would not soon be forgotten.

He could hear it in his mind now, speaking with his own voice, so loud as if it were outside his head.

And it was outside his head, for he heard the voice speaking words that he would never say, carefully directing men and women on how to best travel through the forest and kill the ones they found. He looked up, and saw that God had led him here, to the place where his brother was, the brother he had made a compact in the womb with. His brother was speaking with his voice, in the words of command, and he carried himself with such a bearing that no one forgot it, even though he was slight of frame. He was here, and Haito was here, and perhaps they would speak for the first time.

How strange it was, that the last time they had been close to each other, they had been formed of the same flesh, and now they were enemies. There was a pain in that thought, in the space which had been placed between two people who should have been mirrors.

Haito knew that he would not be able to simply walk into the camp. He was dressed as the people here dressed, and he carried himself with the strength of two men. Even still, the strength of two men with a knife could not hold off many men with their fearsome weapons. Haito did not know what he wanted.

He knew he must meet with his brother. This was important, or God would not have led him here.

But after that, he did not know if he must kill his brother and take his place, or convince his brother that this was all a mistake, and turn them back around to go back to their homes.

And even if any of that happened, Haito thought, would he have a home to go back to? He was counted as dead in his home country, and he had a wife whom he loved in this one. He felt an ardent desire to see the mountains of his home again, but he thought of the mountains where his wife walked, and he did not think that he could leave her. That was all a question for the future, but it haunted him even as he crouched low and hidden in the bushes.

It was nightfall, and the camp of people grew dark and still. He heard a woman's voice that he recognized, speaking softly to the guards. Who was she? Where did he know her from?

And then Haito remembered, that first night in which he had been in camp, the first night he had been mistaken for his brother, and the woman who had spoken to him. He remembered her voice, though he had never known her name or her face. She held a torch, and walked all around the edges of the camp, speaking quietly to those she passed.

Haito took off his shirt and left it in the bushes. It would not do to wear a stranger's clothing here. He approached her out of the shadows.

"Do not be afraid," he said, when he saw her reach for a weapon. "It is only me." And that was a lie and a truth at once.

"You look so much larger in the darkness," she said, and held the flickering torch up to see him better. The light stretched a long shadow out behind him.

"Did I not once say to you that the darkness makes everything larger?" he asked.

"Yes, you did," she said. "I remember that night. How things are different, and how things are the same."

"Everything that has happened will happen again," Haito said.

"Does that mean you think we will be routed from this place again?" she asked.

"Walk with me," Haito said, and took her arm in his.

They slipped out of the circle of light of the camp, and Haito led her into the forest, where only the birds called in their trembling night-voices, and the warm wind brought distant smoke to their noses. They travelled a good distance away, until they were alone and cut off from the rest of the world.

"Do you know me?" Haito asked the woman.

"It always seemed as though you knew me better than I know myself," she said. "From the moment you saw me, you knew what I would do. You have a way with seeing people's hearts."

"That was not what I asked you," Haito said.

"How could I not know you, Genn?" she asked. "Even when I was angry with you I knew you."

"May I tell you a secret?" Haito asked. "You must promise to tell no one."

"Of course," she said, and her voice was low among the murmuring of the wind.

"I am not Genn," Haito said. "Genn is in your camp."

She stiffened underneath his arm, and he let go of her and took a step back into the shadows of the trees. She put her hand on her knife, but Haito held up both of his hands, empty. "Peace," he said. "I mean you no harm."

"You have taken me out of camp wearing the face of my lover, speaking with the voice of my lover, and there is evil magic in that." She held up her knife, and the tip of it rested above Haito's heart. He stepped forward, and it drew a drop of blood.

"Your lover wears my face and speaks with my voice because we are brothers, formed of the same flesh, made in the same womb."

"Genn has no brother."

"So you say," Haito said, "And so I believed that I had no brother for many years, but I have seen the truth with my own eyes, and indeed heard it with my own voice."

She looked at him then, and considered. "You are larger than he."

"Yes. We made a compact in the womb, and he gave me his strength."

"And what did you give him?"

"You say it is his way of knowing people in their hearts," Haito said.

"Perhaps."

"And how did you come to be here, man-who-is-not Genn?"

"I am Haito," he said. "And I came here with you, the first time that our army landed on these shores, and I became lost, and have lived here since those days. You know this. I spoke with you the night before we departed, that first time, long ago."

"And you did not kiss me," she said.

"It would have been a lie to kiss you," Haito said. "And I am not here to lie."

"What are you here for?"

"In truth, I could not say it, because the words do not form right in my mind," Haito said. "I am not here to hurt you." And this time, she believed him, and dropped her knife point from his heart.

"Walk with me, Haito."

"Where shall we go?"

"I should take you back to camp," she said.

In the darkness, Haito trembled and shook his head. "There is much danger there."

"Why? You are not a stranger now, and you mean no harm."

"I have always been a stranger," Haito said. "It is in my nature to be a stranger in the land of strangers."

She looked at him in silence, and took his arm once more, and they walked deeper into the forest. Haito whistled the bird calls.

"You are not a stranger to this land anymore," she said.

"No," he said. "I am not. What is your name?"

"Lennat," she said. "Daughter of Chion. Who is your mother?"

"In truth, I could not say," Haito said. "I have always said that I am Haito, son of Ailee, as she raised me, but now I know that she was not the one in whose womb I was formed. Who does Genn call himself the son of?"

"He is Genn, son of Mattaya," Lennat said. And Haito remembered the grave on which there were flowers in the spring, and he knew that Lennat spoke the truth, and he was learning of his mother's name for the first time.

"Then I am Haito, son of Mattaya and all the same, Haito, son of Ailee." He felt the tears in his eyes as he said this, and he wished for a past that had not been, where he and his brother could have known each other and their mother, both at once, and it was a bitter thought.

"So it is," she said, and they were silent for a moment.

"Do you wish to meet your brother?"

"I know that I must meet him, and in my heart I wish him no harm, but as you said, I know this land, and there is a part of me in it. I was once a stranger here, and I was welcomed. I fear that if I return to the home of my birth, I would be a stranger there, and I would not be welcome."

"You should join us. This is an evil place," she said.

"What is evil about it?" he asked.

"When we were here years ago, we lost so much, and there were signs and omens of evil in the very air. This land flows with blood, and that blood curses all who live here."

"You say that, but you have not lived here in peace," Haito said. "There can be peace here, and a great bounty of good things."

"If there is a great bounty of good things, then we must take those things, for the King wishes it."

"You serve a King you have never met," Haito said, "But there are greater masters in this world by far."

"You speak of God."

"Yes."

"God has no power over the affairs of man and man," Lennat said, and her words were bitter but true.

"But man and man have a duty to each other, to make peace rather than war."

"You come here and will ask your brother to make peace?" Lennat asked.

"I will take peace with whatever power I have," Haito said. "It is a duty and a debt that I owe."

She spat on the ground. "Some peace, then."

"Will you kill me for saying such things?" he asked.

"Perhaps I should," she said, but her knife remained at her side, and they continued to walk. "You think that there should be peace."

"Yes."

"The King has decreed that there should be no peace until every person in this land is dead, and the ashes of the trees fertilize the land, that we may grow good and bountiful crops here."

"Do you not see that is evil?" he asked. "Do you not see that this is a thing that is wrong for you to do?"

"We were all pressed into service," she said. "We do what we must, because to return without having done it is to invite death onto our heads."

"It does not need to be that way," Haito said. "The King has no power over you here."

"He has the power over us when we are at home, and we all want to live to see our own families and homelands again."

"You are the ones with mighty weapons," he said. "You have power to resist this thing, should it be necessary."

"And he has the power over our minds," she said.

"It does not sound like he has power in your head."

"He tells us that it is our right, that the land was given to us by God, that we must take it in order to grow powerful, that there are people here so evil that need to be destroyed. This we have been told, and many believe it."

"Do you?"

"I believe that there are those with weapons, and there are those without them," she said. "And I do not want to ever be one without."

"And what does my brother believe?"

"Your brother believes..." She stopped. "I do not know what is in his head or in his heart," she confessed. "But what he believes is no matter. What he does, that is another thing."

"And what does he do?"

"He uses the way that he knows the hearts of those he meets to advance himself in rank and stature, to win battles, to know how the enemy will move."

"Is he good at such things?"

"The first time that we were here, he warned his superior that we would be routed by the people of this forest, unless we changed the way that we fought them. He was right, but no one considered him, and when we returned home, with our tails between our legs and the wind at our backs, his commander was killed for his failure, and your brother took his place. He knows the way to win this day is total destruction, and he knows the way to advance his own rank is to win this day."

"It sounds so cruel and cold to say it so," Haito said. "To think that I could easily be in his place."

"Perhaps," Lennat said, and they turned slowly around. "What will you do?" she asked. "You must decide if you are my friend, or if you are my enemy."

"I have no desire to be your enemy, but I remain a stranger," he said. "What will happen, truly, if you all return home with nothing?"

"Those responsible will be killed, your brother among their number. Still others, probably such as I, will be imprisoned and kept as an example. The rest will return here, with new leaders, those who will finish the task that we began."

"And what if you never returned?"

"Still more would come here," Lennat said. "If they believed us defeated."

"And if you remained here, undefeated, but unconquering. If you simply lived here, and refused to acknowledge the King of your own land?"

"We cannot," she said. "The people here want to return home. They are here for now, but their hearts are across the Shallow Sea. None of us desire to be strangers in this land forever, even though you think it possible to make a life here."

"You would not soon be strangers," Haito said. "There is a life here that anyone may have."

"No," Lennat said.

"Then you should return to your own country, with all your weapons and strength in hand, and you should take power by force, and then you should refuse to do battle again."

Lennat laughed. "You have a vision, but it is not visions that build power, it is steel and blood."

"And you have a great part of both."

"You may convince your brother of this," she said. "He may fancy himself a King. But it would not be easy to convince all the rest of the people in this place to leave. There are many things we come for here."

"Have I convinced you?"

"You have said a great many amusing things," she said. "I do not think that amusing things are easily made into real things, though."

"What would it take?"

"A sign. A power. We would need to be routed again, and if you want us to have strength in our own land, we would need to be routed without killing such a great number of our force as you did last time."

"I did not kill against you last time." And he remembered indeed how he had killed for them, and how little good it had done the world.

"But now you are not a stranger to this land," she said.

"Now that I have said all of this to you, and you have heard and understood me, we are no strangers to each other. What will you do with that power of knowing me?"

"I should take you to your brother," she said.

A plan formed in Haito's mind. "You ask for a sign," he said.

"I do," she said, and there was curiosity in her voice.

"I believe I may have one."

"I believe you may find yourself easily at the wrong end of a gun," she said. "But I will not deny you any sign that does not lead to the death of the people under my command."

"I command no one but myself, but I equally desire to see everyone in this land safe."

"Should I speak of this to your brother?"

"No," Haito said. "It is better that you should not."

"He will see through you," she said. "He knows the hearts of every man."

"Then he will see my intentions plain."

"Go well, Haito," Lennat said. "I await your sign."

"Go well, Lennat," he said, and she slipped into the forest back towards the camp. Haito watched her go, and ensured in his own way that no harm befell her on that trip, and then he slipped away himself. During the night, he crept though the camp, and found the place where supplies were kept. The guards watching were turned away, and Haito stole away with a uniform much like the one his brother wore.

In the morning, he waited until the sun had risen, and the sky was red and black with all the smoke in the air. He dressed in the uniform, and he entered the camp by the main entrance. He passed by the guards and did not speak. The first of those he passed looked on him as though he was his brother, he knew, but as he went deeper into the camp, the looks on their faces turned to confusion, and then fear. He pressed onward, and as he was tall and strong, and wearing the uniform and face of their leader, none stopped him. He came to the center of the camp, and he stood there, silent and waiting. His hand was on his knife, though he bore none of the dangerous weapons that the men of the camp did. A great murmuring rose up around him, and he heard whispers of confusion, whispers of fear, and everyone talking to summon his brother from his tent, to confront this stranger.

None dared to lay a finger on him, despite the bloodlight in their eyes, and the fear on their faces. They would not touch someone who wore the face of their commander.

Haito waited, and after some time, a man came to stand in front of Haito, wearing the bars of command on his chest.

"Who are you that wears my face?" Haito's brother asked.

"Who are you that speaks in my voice?" Haito asked.

They had not been together, close enough to touch, since they were in the womb together, and Haito felt the need to reach out and touch his brother, to reassure himself that they were the same flesh, but the distance between them was necessary.

"I am Genn, son of Mattaya," Genn said.

"And so am I," Haito responded. The whole circle of people around them rumbled their discontentment. Haito stood unaffected by their noises. "I am flesh from your flesh, blood from your blood, sent by God as a sign against what you do here."

"You believe this to be true," Genn said. "I see in your heart that you believe this to be true. But it has always been blasphemy to speak as though you move with God's will. God's will reveals Itself to all the people."

"I am God's will revealing Itself to all the people. I have come here among you as a stranger in the daylight, no thief in the night, and I tell you in front of the people that I am Genn, son of Mattaya, and I have been sent by God to stop this evil thing that you do."

"And I am Genn, son of Mattaya, and I am here to remove all evil from these lands. There are people here with the bloodlight in their eyes, who killed many thousands of our soldiers when we were last here. They cannot continue to exist."

"They would not kill soldiers if there were no soldiers here to kill," Haito said. "It is wrong to be in this place, set to kill."

Genn turned to the people in the crowd. "This man is at best a traitor, at worst a heretic. I shall have nothing to do with him. Kill him." He began to walk away, but Haito touched his arm, and pulled him back, and his knife was at his brother's throat.

"I have the strength of myself, and I have the strength of God within me," Haito said. "You should not speak so lightly of another's life."

"And you should not hold a knife so lightly," Genn said, but he did not move, for fear that Haito's blade would cut him.

"Can you see inside my heart?" Haito asked. "Do you know what I would do here?"

"You would kill me, if you thought it would do good."

"And I would have the blood of my own brother on my hands," he hissed, so low that only Genn could hear. "Tell your people not to kill me." For there were people with guns aimed at Haito, and he would not be fast enough to draw his knife across Genn's throat, should they decide to fire upon him.

"Do not fire," Genn said, and his voice was tired. "Release me."

All those pointing their weapons lowered them, and Haito lowered his knife from Genn's throat.

"You are here because you believe that this is a land full of good and rich things. You are here because you believe that over the mountains there is a stronghold where you can build a great city, and vastly increase your power and number, and feed your people until the world returns to dust. I tell you truly, there is nothing on the other side of the mountains but barren desert that stretches as far as the eye can see. The life here is good, but it is well suited to being a forest, and to burn it down to create places to farm, and to grow your own crops here, you would soon have desert on this side of the mountains as well. And I tell you truly, that land would be watered by blood, and it would be the blood on your hands. There is no home for you here, unless you make it peacefully, and there is no life that is so rich as the one that is already here."

"You speak much, but you understand little," Genn said. "We do what we must."

"And why must you do these things?"

"Because it is commanded by the King," Genn said.

"And why does the King command it?"

"To bring peace and prosperity to our people." There was a great nodding among the gathered and watching. They stood and saw these two men, made of the same face, speaking with the same voice, and the listened to the argument as though it was a play. Genn understood, for he saw in Haito's heart with his own talent, that this was what it was. A play and a story to change the world. His brother, and Genn knew that this was his brother, though he did not know his brother's name, had no malice in his heart, only sadness, so Genn would listen. He knew that sadness. It was the same sadness in the heart of the woman who had raised him, and it was the same sadness in his own heart. It gave him pause. To listen to that sadness was to abandon the dream of power, the one that he had found by listening only to the hard parts of people's hearts. His brother did not have that hard part of his heart, so Genn could only listen to the sadness, and listen he did.

"But there was already peace and prosperity in your homes," Haito said. "You lived a life before you came here where you need not carry fearsome weapons, where you need not kill and burn down the forest. Is that not peace? Is that not prosperity?"

"But there could be more here," Genn said.

"It does not serve your mothers, your fathers, your wives, your husbands, your children-- it will not serve them to have you here," Haito responded. "Not even if there was land enough and riches enough for every one of you to have more than all the other men have had in history."

"It serves the King," Genn said.

"And it serves the King to send all his bravest, strongest, most cunning people across the Shallow Sea, where they are far away, and tell them that in order to return to their homes and the ones that they love, they must do evil things in the service of the King, for the good of their master."

"Yes," Genn said.

"It serves the King because if all the bravest, strongest, and most cunning are here, they will not be thinking of the evil that the King does, in sending them here, in deciding who should live and who should die. And if they should put blood on their hands, in the service of the King, it will be hard for them to turn against him, would it not?"

"You speak as though the King is an evil man."

"You can see this truth with your own eyes. Did you all want to come here to kill and die? Or were you forced."

There was a murmuring among the assembled.

"You say all of these things," Genn said, "but there is no reason that we should abandon our mission. There is no reason."

"If you left, there would be no killing and dying. You could all return to your families and loved ones, and the place where you are not strangers, and the place where you would need no violence."

"There would be violence if we returned."

"If you returned, you would say to your King, 'There is nothing on the other side of the Shallow Sea, not riches, not land, not good things to eat. Beyond the mountains there is nothing but desert. To send us there was to condemn the bravest and strongest and most cunning among us to death over nothing."

"And so he would kill the leaders of this little rebellion and send the rest out on another errand," Genn said. "And I do not believe that there are no good things beyond the mountains. You lie, as you think it will turn us away."

"I will show you that there is nothing beyond the mountains," Haito said. "Come with me and I swear that no harm shall come to you."

"And why should we do this?" Genn asked.

"Because if you do not, if you persist on killing and fighting and dying even when there is nothing at all to be gained, you will be doing evil with no purpose, and I would not want that. You will earn yourself a desert bought with blood."

"Then show us the desert, and we will decide."

"It is many days walk from here. I will lead you all there safely, and if you stay with me in peace, no harm will come to you, for I am the messenger of God."

Genn faced the woman on the edge of the circle, and Haito knew that this woman was the one he had spoken with. She looked him in the eyes, but made no sign that she knew him, other than the acknowledgement that he had Genn's face and voice.

"Shall we do this?" Genn asked her.

"If we have one offering to lead us deep into enemy territory, and no harm shall come to us there, then it is to our benefit. Even if he lies, and this is a trick, then we will have our whole force together to defeat any army that comes upon us."

"I shall not let us walk through any narrow passages," Genn said with a smile. "We shall not be fooled into our own deaths."

"I would not lie to you on this," Haito said. And so it was that he drew his own knife across his palm and swore on his blood to Genn, and Genn knew from the sadness in Haito's heart that he was not lying. And Haito knew that he was preparing to lead an army directly to the place where his own wife had hidden all the people of the village.

And so the whole assembly began to walk, down through the dark forest, and though there were other camps who set fires and other armies who marched, this camp followed Haito through the trees. When he saw through the corners of his eyes the people who lived in this place, preparing to take up arms against his marching column, he made whistling like the birds in order to signal to them, that they might leave his group in peace. And when night fell, he would sneak into the forest and speak to them in their own language, with the fire of God on his tongue, and explain his mission. So they walked on in peace towards the mountains. There was great muttering among all the soldiers in their group, for they too caught glimpses of the people in the trees, and knew that they were being watched, but as no one had a finger laid upon them in harm, no one could say that Haito had not kept his word.

And so they came to the foot of the mountains.

"This is the tallest mountain in this land," Haito said. "From the top, you can see even into God's house. The desert is on the other side."

So they climbed, and the sharp rocks cut through the soles of their shoes, and their hands, and the bottoms of their feet, and the whole assembly stood at the top of the mountain. Below them was the mountain, with its rocks so sharp and terrible, and before them was the desert, with its salt flats glittering with light like knives, and behind them was the forest, which was set ablaze by the other armed groups as they marched through and killed.

There was a great silence among the assembled as they looked around and saw the wasteland and the land to which was being laid waste.

"So you see," Haito said, "there is nothing here." He looked out across the desert, and could not see his wife and all the rest of those from their village. Even with the telescope that he scried across the land with, there was no sign of people. Haito saw that they were gone, and he wished that he had tears to cry, but climbing the mountain had taken all the water from his body.

There was a great muttering from the soldiers. "You have taken us away from the place where we may yet find riches and good things," they said. "Down there. We must take the good parts of this land."

And Haito's heart was broken, for he had thought that this sight would show those gathered that killing and fighting would do nothing for them. "You must not," Haito said, but there was no power in his words anymore. He had led the group here, but he could not send them home. He was one man with the strength of two, and the conviction that God had put in him, but he was not strong enough to overcome a whole host of people. And he wished, not for the first time, that some great wind would strike him and throw him down the side of the mountain.

And over the muttering of the soldiers, he heard the sound of the crying of a child, and his heart rose up into his throat, for he recognized the sound of that cry. It was his wife's sister's child, the one that had been born in the house that he had built. He hoped that no one had heard it, and he looked around in fear. His brother had heard it, and Genn touched his arm. "What is that sound?" he asked.

"I do not know what you are talking about," Haito said, but his voice was full of fear, and his brother could hear that without even needing to know the inside of Haito's heart.

"You have tricked me," Genn said, feeling Haito's lie, but not feeling the substance of it. "Search this mountain!" he commanded his soldiers. "There are people here. I wish them brought before me."

And so the soldiers did his bidding, and found, down the desert side slope of the mountain, in a cave where sounds travelled far, the whole of the people who Daviat had brought here, and they were dragged up onto the top of the mountain, all the elderly and the weak and the children and their parents who had not gone into the forest to fight. And among them, at the front of the group, struggling mightily with a knife in her hands, was Daviat.

Haito cried out, for he was certain they were all about to die, and his brother's hands were on him. "Who are these people?" Genn asked.

Haito found that he could not speak, he was caught without words as he watched his wife struggle to remain upright, yelling in her own language. There was no need for her to remain quiet, now that she had been caught. She was exhausting all her strength to get free.

"Who are these people?" Genn asked again. "Who are they to you?"

"I was a stranger and they took me in," Haito said. "When I was lost here, they welcomed me. When I was injured, they soothed my wounds. When I was hungry, they fed me."

"And what shall be done with them?" Gen asked, but he was not asking Haito, and he was not asking his assembled soldiers, and he was not asking Daviat who struggled and could not understand his words. He was asking himself, looking at the old, and the weak, and the young, and their parents who held them with trembling arms.

Daviat looked at Haito with pain in her eyes, and yes, the bloodlight, when she heard him speaking words she could not understand, and saw him wearing the uniform of the enemy.

"Do not harm them," Haito begged. "Please."

And the woman, Lennat, came up behind the both of them. "As many children and elderly as there are here, there are far more in the forest." She said this in such a way as to not indicate if she thought they should all be killed or spared. After all, the forest was burning.

And Haito turned to his wife. "Why did you come here? I told you to flee to the desert."

"There is nothing there," she said. "Even when I call up water, there is nothing there. We had to return, to see how you were faring. But I see that the world still burns, and we will burn with it."

"Please, stop this," Haito begged his brother. "You can command it. You can make this right."

"Even if I spare these people," Genn said. "There are more below us, and I cannot put out a million fires."

"What is he saying?" Daviat asked, and Haito explained. The soldiers pointed their guns at him.

"You said that we should come here to know that there is nothing beyond these mountains," the soldiers said. "We see that is true. We should go down and take what does exist, then." This cry, which had been weak before, took over the whole force.

"I will let these ones go," Genn said. "They are of little interest to us. They are old, and young, and no good would come of killing them."

And that was some relief to Haito, though there was more pain in the thought that there would come good of killing others. So the group was released, and Genn took his men to lead them down the mountainside.

"Wait," Haito said, but no one listened to him, except for the woman, Lennat.

"You said you would show a sign," she said as the rest of the group prepared to leave. "If God has prepared a sign for you, show it."

But there was no sign of God on the mountaintop today, though indeed that was the reason Haito had brought them here.

"What is she saying to you?" Daviat asked, and Haito explained that they needed a sign from God to show the soldiers that they were preparing to do great evil in the world.

And Daviat said, "I may have a sign."

So, without waiting, Haito called to Genn. "Look at the sign which God has prepared, that you might not do this evil thing. You have come to the mountaintop. Witness this."

And there was such power in Haito's voice that the whole assembly turned to look.

Daviat knew she could bring water from the ground. She saw that in the sky, among the clouds of black and evil smoke, there were fat clouds of water, high up in the air. She could call water from the sky.

"Listen, all you strangers, you firesetters, you soldiers," she said, and Haito translated for her. "This is holy ground."

She raised her arms to the sky, and she pulled the water down from it. The clouds burst like the sky's belly had been torn by a knife, and water poured down in great waves, crashing over them all. "Where you light a fire, I will put it out."

And indeed, the water flowed so hard and heavy from the sky that it pulled the smoke down to the ground, and the light that blazed on the horizon grew dim.

"If you stay here, I will flood this land until only the mountains remain. My people will gather here, and yours will retreat to your boats and you will never return. I can do this thing because God wills it."

And the soldiers there were terrified by the water, which was causing the rocks to tumble down the mountainside, and everyone who was not steady on their feet slipped whenever they took a step. The babies cried in the arms of their mothers, and the children lifted up their arms to feel the rain, washing away every evil thing.

"Stop!" Genn cried. "You will make the mountain cast us down with all the water that runs from it like a river."

"Good," Daviat said, with her voice bitter as poison.

"Let them go in peace if they say they will leave this land," Haito said to his wife. "Don't kill them by having them thrown from the mountainside." He turned to his brother. "All men are brothers, even if they do not know each other. Will you leave this place in peace, brother?"

"And what will I do when I return home?" Genn asked. "What shall I say to my King?"

"You may say that we cast you out, or you may say that there was nothing here to find, or you may say to your King that he should fight no more wars, or you may say to your King that he should no longer be King. You can say any of these things, or none of them, but you must leave this place and not come back in the name of war."

"Is this truly holy ground?" he asked.

"The mountains are holy, the desert is holy, the forest is holy, the sea is holy, and the land of my birth, in the mountains far away, that is holy too," Haito said. "I will never return there, but I beg that you might."

And as the water continued to pour from the sky, faster and faster, and the lightning struck and the thunder roared, Haito faced his brother. "Yes, I will take my people back," Genn said. "An army cannot fight the power of God. This is sign enough."

And so he turned to the side of the mountain, and he gathered all his people together, and they walked down and down and away, scattering pebbles as they went. Haito watched them go, and he wished that he could return with them to the land of his birth, and the home that he had once known, but Daviat held his arm, and called the water from the sky to put out the fires of evil in the world.

Thus it was in that land that the soldiers retreated and peace was made between the lands, though how this was accomplished is a different story. And, too, Haito and Daviat had children, whose descendents now are as numerous as the stars in the sky.