Soldier of the mist

Eurykles nodded and said to me, "See if you can find that bird, will you? It won't have flown far in the dark."

A small cypress grew a few steps away. The fowl was roosting in its branches, where I caught it easily enough.

When I returned to the men waiting beside the opened grave, Eurykles had a knife. As soon as I gave him the fowl, he cut its throat with a quick slash, pronouncing words in a language I did not understand. Three times he walked around the grave with slow, bobbing strides, scattering the fowl's blood; as he completed each circuit he called softly Thygater, which I suppose must have been the woman's name. As he made the third circuit, I saw her eyes open to watch him; and remembering what Pindaros had told me to do, I crouched and reached into the grave to touch her.

At once she sat up, pulling her feet from the broken coffin.

I heard the indrawn breath of Hypereides and all the rest, and I confess I was startled too, so that I jerked back my hand. Eurykles himself was staring at her slack-jawed.

Once standing, Thygater remained where she was, looking not at Eurykles or Pindaros or any other.

"You've won," Hypereides whispered, his voice shaking. "Let's go."

Eurykles threw back his head and extended his thin arms to the moon. "I triumph!" he shouted.

"Be still," the kybernetes hissed. "Do you-"

"I triumph!" Eurykles pointed to the ground at his feet. "Here! Stand here, Thygater! Present yourself to your master!"

Obediently, the dead woman climbed from her grave and stood where Eurykles had pointed. Though she walked, there was nothing of life in her; a doll with jointed limbs, moved by a child, might have walked so.

"Answer!" Eurykles ordered her. "Who disturbed your sleep?"

"You," the dead woman said. A coin fell from her mouth as she spoke, and her breath reeked of death. "And this man"-without turning her head to look at me, she pointed-"whom my king says must go as he was sent."

"Yes, I woke you, and this man with his torch. But who dug here and broke the coffin in which you lay?"

"I did not lie there," the dead woman said. "I was very faraway."

"But who dug here?" Eurykles insisted.

"A wolf."

"But a man must have broken your coffin."

"A wolf."

Pindaros said softly, "She speaks as an oracle, I think."

Eurykles nodded, the inclination of his head so slight that I was not certain I had seen it. "What was the wolf's name? Speak!"

"His name was Man."

"How did he break your coffin?"

"With a stone."

"Held in his hands?" Eurykles demanded.

"Yes."

The captain who had offered to escort Phye said, "That girl was right. I'm going back." Everyone except Eurykles and me stepped away from the opened grave.

Eurykles said, "Don't you know she can prophesy for us, you fools? Listen, and you'll hear the veil of the future torn to shreds. Thygater! Who will win the war?"

"Wolves and ravens win all wars."

"Will Khshayarsha, whom your people call the Great King, ever rule this country?"

"The Great King has ruled our country."

"That's what the oracle of Dolphins said," Pindaros told Eurykles.

"Wait not for horse and war, But quit the land that bore you. The eastern king shall rule your shore, And yet give way before you."

I do not think Eurykles heard him. "Thygater! How may I become rich?"

"By becoming poor."

Hypereides a

"I'm coming with you," the kybernetes said, and Acetes and both captains nodded.

"Not so fast," Pindaros put in. "Hypereides, you bet me two owls, and Kalleos isn't holding those stakes."

Hypereides dropped them into Pindaros's outstretched palm. "If you want to come with us, you can share my room in Tieup."

Pindaros shook his head. "Latro and I are going back to Kalleos's. Tomorrow I'll come for Hilaeira and Io."

It was on my tongue to tell him Io was already there, but I bit it back.

Eurykles spat on his hands and rubbed them together. "As you desert us, Thygater and I are going into the city. I've certain patrons there who'll be most gratified to behold my victory. Come, Thygater!"

"Wait," Pindaros told me. "Our way lies with theirs, but we need not walk with the dead woman."

I watched them go, and Hypereides and the other to the west. "Pindaros," I asked, "why am I so afraid?"

"Who wouldn't be? I was terrified myself. So is Eurykles, I think, but ambition overrules it." He laughed nervously. "You saw through his little trick, I hope? I meant you to give Eurykles more than he bargained for, but you came over us both and gave me more than I'd bargained for as well."

"I'm not afraid of the dead woman," I said. "But I'm afraid of something. Pindaros, look at the moon. What do you see?"

"It's very thin," he said. "And it's setting behind the sacred hill. What about it?"

"Do you see where some columns are still standing? The moon is tangled in them-some are before her, but others are behind her."

"No," Pindaros said. "No, Latro, I don't see that. Shall we go now?"

I agreed. When we had left the burial ground and were about halfway to Kalleos's, Pindaros said, "No wonder you weren't frightened by the dead girl, Latro. You're more frightening than she. The wonder is that she didn't seem afraid of you. But perhaps she was."

The door was barred, and our knocking brought no one to open it; but it was not difficult to find a place where the wall had been thrown down and not yet rebuilt. "My room has half a roof," Pindaros told me. "Kalleos showed it to me earlier. The best in the house, she said; and except for her own it probably is. You're welcome to share it if you like."

"No," I told him. "I have a place."

"As you wish." He sighed and smiled. "You got a cloak out of our adventures tonight, at least. I got two owls, and I had a woman; I've gone farther and come away with less. Good night, Latro."

I went to this room where the black man and Io are sleeping. Io woke and asked if I was all right. When I said I was, she told me Phye had come back sometime earlier, and Kalleos had beaten her terribly.

I assured her that no one had beaten me, and we lay down side by side. She was soon asleep, but I was still frightened and could not sleep. Against all reason, the moon that had been setting when Pindaros and I were walking had climbed high in the heavens again, looking like the dead woman's eye when it opened a slit to see Eurykles.

Dawn came through the broken roof, and I sat up and wrote all that has happened since I wrote before. This is the last, and I see that upon the outside of my scroll it is written that I am to read it each day, and so I begin. Perhaps then I will understand what the dead woman meant, and where I am to go.