‘Aphrael came to us,’ the enormity that was Ghworg told them.
‘She said that she would do this,’ Ulath replied. ‘She said that when things happened that we should know about, she would come to us and tell us.’
‘She put her mouth on our faces.’ Ghworg seemed puzzled.
‘She does this. It gives her pleasure.’
‘It was not painful,’ Ghworg conceded a bit dubiously, touching the cheek where Aphrael had kissed him.
‘What did he say?’ Tynian asked quietly.
‘Aphrael came here and talked with them,’ Ulath replied. ‘She even kissed them a few times. You know Aphrael.’
‘She actually kissed the Troll-Gods?’ Tynian’s face grew pale.
‘What did it say?’ Ghworg demanded.
‘It wanted me to say what you had said.’
‘This is not good, Ulath-from-Thalesia. It should not talk to you in words we do not understand. What is its name?’
‘It is called Tynian-from-Deira.’
‘I will make it so that Tynian-from-Deira knows our speech.’
‘Brace yourself,’ Ulath warned his friend.
‘What? What’s happening, Ulath?’
‘Ghworg’s going to teach you Trollish.’
‘Now, wait a minute –’ Then Tynian suddenly clapped his hands to the sides of his head, cried out and fell writhing into the snow. The paroxysm passed quickly, but Tynian was pale and shaking as he sat up, and his eyes were wild.
‘You are Tynian-from-Deira?’ Ghworg demanded in Trollish.
‘Y-yes.’ Tynian’s voice trembled as he replied.
‘Do you understand my words?’
‘They are clear to me.’
‘It is good. Do not speak the other kind of talk when you are near us. When you do, you make it so that we do not trust you.’
‘I will remember that.’
‘It is good that you will. Aphrael came to us. She told us that the one called Berit has been told not to go to the place Beresa. He has been told to go to the place Sopal instead. She said that you would understand what this means.’ He paused, frowning. ‘Do you?’ he asked.
‘Do we?’ Tynian asked Ulath, speaking in Trollish.
‘I am not sure.’ Ulath rose, went to his horse, and took a map out of his saddle-bag. Then he returned to the fire. This is a picture of the ground,’ he explained to the enormous presences. ‘We make these pictures so that we will know where we are going.’
Schlee looked briefly at the map. ‘The ground does not look like that,’ he told them. He squatted and thrust his huge fingers down through the snow into the dirt. ‘This is how the ground looks.’
Ulath jumped back as the earth under his feet shuddered slightly. Then he stared down. It was not so much a map as it was a miniaturized version of the continent itself. ‘This is a very good picture of the ground,’ he marveled.
Schlee shrugged. ‘I put my hand into the ground and felt its shape. This is how it looks.’
‘Where is Beresa?’ Tynian asked Ulath, staring in wonderment at hair-thin little trees bristling like a two-day growth of beard on the sides of tiny mountains.
Ulath checked his map and walked several yards south to a shimmering surface covered with minuscule waves. His feet even sank slightly into Schlee’s recreation of the southern Tamul sea. ‘It is right here,’ he replied in Trollish, bending and putting his finger on a spot on the coastline.
‘That is where the ones who took Anakha’s mate away told him to go,’ Tynian explained to the Troll-Gods.
‘We do not understand,’ Khwaj said bluntly.
‘Anakha is fond of his mate.’
‘That is how it should be.’
‘He grows angry when his mate is in danger. The ones who took his mate away know this. They said that they will not give her back to him unless he gives them the Flower-Gem.’
The Troll-Gods all frowned, puzzling their way through it. Then Khwaj suddenly roared, belching out a great, billowing cloud of fire and melting the snow for fifty yards in every direction. ‘That is wickedness!’ he thundered. ‘It is not right to do this! Their quarrel was with Anakha, not with his mate! I will find these wicked ones! I will turn them into fires that will never go out! They will cry out with hurt forever!’
Tynian shuddered at the enormity of that idea. Then, with a great deal of help from Ulath, he explained their disguises and the subterfuges those disguises made possible.
‘Do you in truth look different from how you looked before, Ulath-from-Thalesia?’ Ghworg asked, peering curiously at Ulath.
‘Much different, Ghworg.’
‘That is strange. You seem the same to me,’ The God considered it. ‘Perhaps it is not so strange,’ he amended. ‘Your kind all look the same to me,’ He clenched his huge fists. ‘Khwaj is right,’ he said. ‘We must cause hurt to the wicked ones. Show us where the one called Berit has been told to go.’
Ulath consulted his map again and crossed the miniature world to the edge of the large lake known as the Sea of Arjun. ‘It is here, Ghworg,’ he said, bending again and putting his finger to a spot on the coast. Then he bent lower and stared at the shore-line. ‘It is really there!’ he gasped. ‘I can see the tiny little buildings! That is Sopal!’
‘Of course,’ Schlee said as if it were of no particular moment. ‘It would not be a good picture if I had left things out.’
‘We have been tricked,’ Tynian said. ‘It was our thought that our enemies were in the place Beresa. They are not. They are in the place Sopal instead. The one called Berit does not have the Flower-Gem. Anakha has the Flower-Gem. Anakha takes it to Beresa. If the wicked ones meet with Berit in the place Sopal, he will not have the Flower-Gem with him to give to the wicked ones. They will be angry, and they may cause hurt to Anakha’s mate.’
‘It may be that I taught it too well,’ Ghworg muttered. ‘It talks much now.’
Schlee, however, had been listening carefully to Tynian’s oration. ‘It has spoken truly, however. Anakha’s mate will be in danger. Those who have taken her away may even kill her.’ The skin on his enormous shoulders flickered, absently shaking off the snowflakes which continually fell on him, and his face twisted as he concentrated. ‘It is my thought that this will anger Anakha. He may be so angry that he will raise up the Flower-Gem and make the world go away. We must keep the wicked ones from causing hurt to her.’