Telli had never been served a morning meal in bed, and so added another to his fast growing list of new experiences. His captor, or host, he was still not sure which, had returned late the night before and had hardly spoken, seeming preoccupied as she laid out some bedding for him on the unused cot and retired to the other alcove. He woke in the morning to find her standing a few feet away, the striking eyes fixed on his face. She smiled, for only the second time since their meeting, and went away to return almost immediately with a cup of hot broth and some bread on a tin plate.

"You sleep too well for a demon with a bad conscience, so I shall spoil you like the invalid child you must be, in excuse for my hard words of yesterday."

Telli thanked her, and ate while she busied herself around the cottage for a while, returning to his bedside when he had finished the broth.

"How is the foot?"

"Stiff, but well. I feel no pain unless I move it, and then not much."

"Good. Leave the binding 'til tonight, and I shall dress it again."

"I am staying again tonight?"

"Yes, as you know." Telli was treated to another smile as she took plate and cup away, returning after a moment with a pair of crutches.

"Try these for size, and if they are not your length, I have others you may try."

"Others? Do you often break your legs?"

"I am the village healer, foolish goblin, and keep here many things I need for others. Now, I shall tell you something in your future that you do not yet know, for a change. You are coming fishing with me today when you move your lazy bones from that bed, and have learned to use these sticks, as we need something to eat with the soup tonight."

"On the river?" Telli spoke without thinking, his mind on the news that he was staying with the village medicine woman.

"No, in the tops of the trees where you spend so much of your time, silly demon." Now she laughed at the look on his face, and was still chuckling as she picked up a water jar and went out to fill it, leaving him to pull on his clothes and try out the crutches. When she came back, he was swinging himself around the room, and she suggested, or rather told him, that they should set off immediately, as she knew a place he would like to see some way upriver. She placed a pack on his back containing their food for the day, and this seemed to remind her that he had no weapons to carry.

"We shall search for them when you can walk," she said, after an uncharacteristic apology for their absence. She offered him the use of her second bow, actually much better than the one he had made for himself with limited resources while staying with Slomen. During the short walk to the point on the riverbank where she kept her canoe, she informed him that she planned to tell any villagers who asked that he was a poor boy from a western village on his way south to seek his fortune. She had found him limping in the forest, and brought him home to rest until his foot was mended. More or less true, and avoiding all mention of 'demon flying skills'.

"You paddle seated in the back, as you are heaviest, and need not move your foot in this work, and I shall set lines from the front," she said as they pushed off from her mooring place. It was obvious to Telli who would be captain of this boat, and he obeyed her directions, finding the canoe well-designed and easier to handle than most Elneside boats. She attached baited lines to a branch laid across the bows as they moved slowly upstream, showing great expertise in her work. When finished, she sat back in the prow, facing Telli as he paddled hard against the slow current, trailing her hands in the water, and speaking in a deliberately lazy, affected tone.

"I have often wished for a slave to paddle me on the river. The Gods have been kind enough to send me one who works hard, and has learned his craft well on the waters of the little river Elne in the mysterious western land beyond the Great White Mountains. My heart is glad that a slave of such talents is no longer wasted barrowing burning stones for pink-eyed monsters in dark, dank caves. That he has made such efforts, endured so many trials, just so as to come and please me. Yet it enters my mind, as he drives me up the river like the Queen I should really be, that for all the stories this magical slave has told me, he has not once mentioned his own name."

"Tellimakis, known as Telli, at her majesty's service. Surely even the most humble slave should know the name of the ruler he serves with such devotion and self-sacrifice."

"I am Setisia, Tellimakis, and how fitting, as only a Goddess could have a King in her service. And we'll have no crude goblin jests about fishtails, thank you."

Setisia had returned to her normal voice for the last phrase, and now turned to face ahead, kneeling upright, and paddling with skilled strokes in time with Telli's. He felt the difference as the streamlined canoe surged forward, and they made good progress for a while, taking it in turns to have brief rests when needed. They continued upstream for about two hours, Telli working up a sweat paddling, but enjoying the journey in the knowledge that the further upriver they went, the longer the lazy drift back down would be. Several boats laden with cargo passed them on the way down to Bhuin and beyond, two of them piled high with laris-root. Telli calculated that these must have left Larisroot the day before he had. This fishing trip was taking him a short way up the great loop in the river he had cut through the forest to avoid.

"What is your name for this river, Setisia?" He asked, as it was known as Goldstream in Larisroot, but Slomen had told him that other folk gave it different names as it flowed towards the Great River.

"To us, it is the Bhuin, like the town, and said to be named after a hero of old who first settled the region, perhaps a bit like your Drakis, of whom I would like you to tell me more some time." Telli had only mentioned Drakis once or twice in his tale, but was soon to find that Setisia was capable of memorising a story almost word for word on just one hearing if it interested her. She had stopped paddling, and was taking in the fishing lines and rod, which had provided only one small fish so far.

"Rowing slave, do you see those two large trees with roots in the water on the left bank, level with the position of this royal barge? I command you to turn and steer directly midway between them, as these are the gate posts of the entry to paradise." Telli deciphered this, and did as he was told. Approaching the bank, he slowed, assuming she wished to jump ashore and moor the canoe to one of the tree roots.

"On, slave on. Faster, through the bank! Only this way can you die and go to paradise." Setisia picked up her paddle and drove the canoe as hard as she could into the reeds and hanging branches covering the riverbank, lying flat just before its nose reached them, and shouting at Telli to do likewise. He braced himself for a shock, which did not come. The canoe glided through an opening not much more than twice its own width, and into a hidden backwater running parallel to the river. Telli lifted himself up to see Setisia ahead, already upright on her knees and using her paddle to slow the canoe and turn its bows back upstream. She turned when the boat was aligned with the banks, put down her paddle, and sat comfortably in the bows, grinning back at him.

"This, slave, is the netherworld between the earth and paradise, and you must paddle me on for five minutes, when we shall behold the true beauty of the secret realm of Setisia, mighty Goddess of all flowing waters."

The backwater was shady, the branches of large trees on either side hung with mosses and creepers and giving welcome relief from the hot sun of the open river, now invisible to their right. There was little current here, and the canoe cut easily through the water as Telli paddled on upstream. He could see sunlight ahead, and knew Setisia was watching his face to see his reaction to the place she called paradise. The backwater widened after a few moments paddling, and they emerged into a lagoon. Telli gave one last stroke on his paddle as they moved out of the shade of the trees into bright sunlight, then stopped, leaving the canoe gliding on through glassy calm water.

Paradise it was. The little lake, about thirty canoe lengths across each way, was dotted with water lilies, some alone, and some in groups forming floating islands, the surface water invisible under their great, green leaves. The huge flowers were out, with white, pink and orange petals set against the green of the foliage and the blue of the lagoon. Trees and dense undergrowth covered the banks all round, giving the place an air of secrecy and isolation from the rest of the world. Telli saw two tall, long billed wading birds, fishing in the shallows at one end, and glimpsed the bright blue flash of a kingfisher as it dived from a branch. The only sounds came from the birds of the surrounding forest, and the occasional splash as fish jumped for flies, sending ripples over the mirror image of the sky.

There was one small, grass-covered island near the centre of the lake, just a few yards wide, but big enough to support a large weeping willow, one of the trees most loved by man. Setisia, red locks shining in the sun, pointed regally behind her in its direction, without speaking. She watched Telli as he picked up his paddle and sent them towards it with one long stroke. As they reached the island, she stood with perfect balance and leapt deftly ashore, mooring rope in hand, hardly rocking the little craft as she did so. Telli moved himself the length of the canoe awkwardly, hands on the sides and using only his good foot, then hopped out to join her as she finished tying the rope to the tree.

The pair sat on the grass for a while in silence, looking around them and soaking in the idyllic beauty of the place. Setisia was the first to move, taking the thin branch she used as a rod from the canoe, and setting lines on the side of the island where the water was shaded by the drooping branches of the great willow. She then sat down, her back against the tree's trunk, where she could watch the floats for movement.

"I call this Setisia's Garden," she said. "After the real Goddess, not me. The river is only thirty yards away over that bank. Hundreds of boats pass up and down each year, the people on them never knowing how close they have been to paradise."

"It's wonderful. Such a place warms the soul. Thank you for bringing me here."

"I owed it to you. I'm sorry I could not say much last night when I returned after my visit. I arrived at the old man's house only to keep him company for the last hour of his life. There was little I could do for him, apart from relieving some pain. I then had to arrange with others of the village for the care and burial of his body. The old man mentioned this place, as he liked to come here at times, and had seen me here once. It was a love we shared, and that was one reason I wished to come here today." Setisia fell silent for a while, and Telli felt he should leave her to her thoughts.

A float made of bark bobbed up and down, and Setisia moved quickly to land a fish of edible size, which she placed in a catch net she had put in the shallows.

"The fish are like us, they like to be under the shade of the willow when the sun is hot and bright. I can always be sure to catch a meal here on a summer's day. Your grandfather must know of such places."

"You listened well to my story."

"You told it well, and I have never before heard such an interesting tale. That was another reason for coming here, to Setisia's Garden, to warm your goblin soul, as your fate seems to be so closely woven with her."

"It does?"

"Have you not noticed?" She adopted a grand tone, like a storyteller recounting an epic legend.

"The brave young hero from the banks of the Elne followed the call of the River Goddess, who wished to show him her wondrous works. He travelled up the Elne, then up another stream, 'til he could admire her art where a great waterfall issued from the bowels of the earth itself into a lake of great beauty. He gazed in awe at the splendour of her creation there, before his fate led him on to see some of the great sculptures she had fashioned, ever patient, over lengths of time inconceivable to mankind, under the Great Mountains of the west. Great caverns, where she let the water play freely, hidden from the eyes of men. He tarried, perforce, by one of her works in a deep hidden valley. Then he climbed up to a rocky desert, where he could only feel her faint presence in the trickles of melting snow, and thus was sick at heart and in body, 'til he was saved by her distant call, and saw a sweet stream with grassy banks below him. 'Setisia, lead me to lands where your work is plentiful, and I shall follow you forever', he cried. She led him by her work down from the mountains, her stream turning to a fine, life-giving river. He followed it on, until one day she manifested herself to him in the form of a beautiful, golden-haired nymph, taking him in a magic canoe to her enchanted river garden. Here he should have respite, before following her ways again, in search of the Great River itself, mightiest of all her works."

Telli laughed in pleasure at her wit and invention, never having heard someone improvise with such ease and intelligence.

"Golden haired? Look, nymph, your other incarnation has blessed you with a fish." While Setisia landed the fish, he thought how close to the truth her rambling joke had been.

Setisia returned to sit by the tree. She pulled a lock of her hair forward and examined it.

"Well, near enough golden haired. Do any in Elneside have this colour of hair?"

"No. I think you are the first I have seen."

"I thought so. Some people from this side of the mountains stare also. It is common amongst the Mendai. Have you heard of them?"

"Mendai?" Telli hesitated. "It sounds familiar, perhaps from my readings, but I cannot place the name."

"Gypsies, they are usually called. The Mendai were a new tribe to arrive in the Kingdom, around the time that your namesake Tellimakis the Great fought to unify it. He-"

"I remember. They fought beside him, and when he became High King, he granted them the right to stay and lead their wandering lifestyle under his protection. Am I right?

"Yes. Rude and interruptive, but right," she scolded with a smile.

"I'm sorry. Go on, please."

"Now, after many centuries, the Mendai still wander the Kingdom, as traders, artisans and performing entertainers. Some of course settle and marry with other folks. My father was one such, although I never knew him, and thus cannot speak their tongue, which they still use amongst themselves. Several times I have encountered Mendai in Bhuin, and they always greet me, thinking by my looks I must be one of them. They are a fine people, and I would like to know them better, and learn my father's tongue, and their ways. Another fish! They bite well today." This catch was a good one, big enough to make a meal for both of them. Setisia pulled in her rod and lines, saying that she should not take more from the lagoon than they needed.

Telli had been waiting for the story she had said she looked forward to telling, and asked if he might not hear it now.

"Tonight, in the cottage, after we have eaten. That is a good time for storytelling as there is little else to do. Now we have the fish, and have finished our day's work, it is time to play. This lovely pond is only the beginning of paradise, and I shall show you the rest, slave, if you are obedient and paddle your mistress where she wills."

Setisia attached her keep net skilfully to the canoe's stern, and they set off, Telli paddling, and she sitting facing him in the bows and giving directions without looking where they were going. They headed for another large willow at the end of the lagoon opposite the point where they had first entered. As they neared the tree, Telli could see that there was an opening in the bank under its branches, and they passed through into a small stream. The dense forest started to thin as they went up this, and they were soon in an open area of marsh land, with only a few trees dotted around its expanse, which Setisia said was considerable, perhaps ten to fifteen times that of the lagoon. The wetlands were criss-crossed with waterways large enough for their small craft to navigate, and Telli followed his captain's orders through them. This was clearly the paradise for birds, and he had never seen such a density of them before.

"Setisia made this part of her garden out of love for Hian, God of the birds and of all creatures that fly through the air, although whether that includes demon boys, slave, I do not know."

They spent the afternoon paddling lazily along little winding streams, watching fish hawks and kingfishers dive, passing huge wading birds and others that paddled on the water's surface, and spotting the lizards, snakes, tortoises and other reptiles that thrived in the marshland. Telli saw perhaps thirty species of bird and animal that were new to him. In late afternoon, they returned through the lagoon back to the river, and drifted down to the village, hardly bothering to paddle. It had been a great day of relaxation, a cure for the soul, which Telli suspected the village medicine woman had designed for him.

That night, after they had eaten their fish and Setisia had treated Telli's ankle, she pulled a comfortable chair over to face him and settled in it to tell her story.

"A few months before I was born, my father was murdered, and my mother died a few months after my birth, a young woman who had been very much in love and could never recover from her loss. At the time this village, one opposite across the river, and a third, Hartlet, the largest, some distance from the river and also on the other side, were ruled by a tyrant Lord named Grenwald. His family had held the right, approved by the rulers of the Kingdom, to govern this fief for some generations, and had done so very well. But the last of them, this Grenwald, was a greedy, cruel and, to my mind, very sick man. Reputed to take his greatest pleasure from torturing animals, he exploited the good folk of the villages for his own profit, and for his sick pleasure as well. He gathered a band of thugs, thieves and murderers around him, and ruled through fear, to the horror of even his own mother, who is said to have died from grief and shame that she had borne such a monster.

My father passed through Bhuin with other Mendai traders, met my mother, married, and they made a home here, and they were soon expecting the greatest event ever to take place in the world, my arrival! But my father was a proud man, and it was only a question of time before he came across the bandits who ruled from the Manse in Hartlet. This happened as one of them tried to force a neighbour, an old man, to sell him some good land for less than half its true price, and my father struck the villain in fury at this daylight robbery, breaking his jaw. The bandits arrived in numbers that same night, took my father, and hung him from a tree, which still stands just eighty yards from here.

In this and other doings the madman, Grenwald, had gone too far, and word came to the King in the south, Beranis who still rules, and he sent a force to rid us of the tyrant. Grenwald got wind of this in time and disappeared, no one knowing where he had fled. His band was broken up, and several who had been directly involved in murder were caught and hung. The King, in his wisdom, abolished the fief, and placed us under the rule of the lord of Bhuin, and we have had justice here ever since. The day after the news came of our freedom a beautiful baby was born here, was bathed immediately in the river, and named for its Goddess! From this you can understand that we in this village feel great loyalty to King Beranis.

I tell you all this, Tellimakis, for a reason. Three months ago, in Bhuin, I saw this Grenwald. At the same time, I heard some things that may be of great importance to the Kingdom, to you and me and everyone else in it. I was in Bhuin, and was sitting outside a tavern after finishing my business of the morning, when I started to take notice of three men sitting at a table near me. I told you that I was a witch, but I do not mean this in the sense of children's stories, merely that I am unlike others in ways that I do not really understand myself. The healing is one thing, and another is an understanding of people, their minds and their nature, which differs from the way that others see and judge their fellows. On seeing these three men, I sensed evil, a strong feeling, one I had experienced before, but never so intensely. It came from their faces, their muttered voices, their postures, and perhaps from other things I cannot describe.

I was curious, and strangely worried, so managed to move nearer without them taking notice of me. Near enough to hear some snatches of their conversation. For about ten minutes I listened, not being able to hear most of what they said, but enough to alarm me very much, including this phrase: 'we have Bhuin to offer you, Grenwald, along with your little patch of land up river, with which you can please yourself.' A repulsive fat merchant with piggy little eyes spoke these words. There are other Grenwalds, and of course I had never seen the tyrant, but had heard so much of him through my life as to pay great attention to any stranger with the name. And 'little patch of land upriver' from Bhuin could clearly refer to his old fief. The man called Grenwald had about forty years behind him, the age our young tyrant would now be. Other fragments of their speech told me that he was nervous of being seen and recognised, asking where the others had their lodgings, and suggesting they should go there to continue their talk behind closed doors.

Besides the fat man and this Grenwald, there was a priest of some kind, with head shaven except for a crest of hair from back to front, like that of a lizard, and wearing a long, blood red robe. I had seen this order once or twice before, but knew nothing of them at the time. He had his back to me, but on the second time Grenwald suggested moving, this priest turned to look around and I caught his eye briefly. I swear by my powers that immediately I saw his eyes, which may have looked normal to others, I knew he was the most evil of the three. They whispered a few words together after this, then the fat man went into the tavern to settle their account, and when he returned, they left in the direction of the small hostels and lodgings found in the centre of the town.

I followed them at a distance, 'til they reached a small hotel I knew vaguely to have the reputation of a house of ill repute, which they entered through an arch leading to the courtyard around which it was built. After several minutes, not being able to decide what I should do, I went quietly through to the inn's court, where there was no one in sight. I could hear faint voices from behind a shuttered window, and went over and stood with my ear to the crack between the shutters, keeping watch on the other windows and doors opening into the courtyard, hoping no one would catch me in my spying. It was my three men talking in the room behind and at least one other, as a voice near the shutters was new to me.

Again, I could only hear fragments of their talk. I realised I was listening to a conspiracy which was being explained, mainly by the new voice, to Grenwald, apparently a fresh recruit to their cause. They spoke much of the King, Grenwald swearing loudly at the mention of his name, and of someone whom they referred to as the new, or next King. 'The new King follows our faith, and is fool enough to really believe in it,' said the snake's voice of the false priest at one point, before letting out a mad sounding laugh. 'We shall control him with ease when he has been placed on the throne.' I had heard enough to know that I was listening to a conspiracy and treason against Beranis, saviour of my people.

My ear against the shutter, straining to hear what I could, I was not aware that the owner of the hotel had entered the courtyard through the arch behind me, until he called out in a loud voice. 'What do you want here child, why do you stand at that window?' I moved quickly from the window to the centre of the court, saying that I had been told to deliver a message to a hostelry named 'Hamet's house' (which I knew to be a short distance away). I said I feared I had entered the wrong house, and hearing voices was about to knock on the window to ask where I was. While the stupid whore master stood looking at me, wondering whether to believe my story, I heard the shutters open behind me, and the voice of the fat merchant saying, 'landlord, what goes on there.' I turned to see his ugly face, and that of the devil priest, staring out at me. 'This urchin was by your window, sirs-' the landlord started, but I did not wait to hear more and dodged round him and out through the arch, their cries coming after me.

I put a good distance between the hotel and myself, before stopping to consider what I should do. I decided I must try and warn Lord Granis of Bhuin, our ruler, and a good King's man. If I had understood rightly, the conspirators were offering this Grenwald his seat. With this plan in mind, I made my way to Bhuin castle. I had to use my full witching powers to persuade the guards at the gate that I must see the Lord, or at least one of his officials. I was waiting for an hour before I gained entrance to the castle, but my persuasive powers must have worked on someone, as I was eventually led to the Ruler himself.

Our Lord is a kindly man of about sixty years, and although he addressed me constantly as 'little girl', I swallowed my pride, and exerted all the charm I could to help my cause. The name of Grenwald caused him interest, and he asked for a description of the man I had seen. 'Tall and unusually thin, hair and eyes brown. He has wrists very thin and bony, the hands clearly unaccustomed to any kind of work. His brow is crooked, as if the left side as you look at him has been stretched up higher than the right, and the eyebrow twitches up and down frequently with a tic he cannot prevent. These are things that would not have changed in the last fourteen years'. Lord Granis's mouth fell open slowly during my description. 'You saw him for only a few minutes? Do those green eyes make such paintings of all you see?' He did not wait for an answer, but called to an official to come to his side, and told me to describe the inn and the three men I had seen to him. He then sent the man off saying he should take as many guards as he could find with him, and arrest the men, bringing them to the castle for questioning, the tall thin one being the most important. He bade me to wait with him for news, and to identify the men if they were caught. He now offered me a seat and refreshments, and called me young lady, much more fitting, I thought.

He had time to explain that a few men making a plot in a tavern was no grounds for him to imprison them in itself, as people could seldom be held guilty for words without proof of deeds under the laws of the Kingdom. But that this was certainly 'my old neighbour, Grenwald the mad,' and that the former tyrant of Hartlet could certainly be held for a number of his past crimes. However, when the official returned, we were to find that the four men had left the room hastily, carrying their affairs and paying their score, shortly after my flight from the inn. They must have learnt from the landlord that I had my ear to their window when he had arrived, and it is most likely that they, the devil priest in particular, would have recognised me from the tavern where I had first overheard their scheming. There are disadvantages to being the only girl around with red hair.

The official had sent guards down to the wharf and around the inns and taverns to ask after men of their description. Some of these soon returned with the news that four men had left going downstream in a riverboat bought in haste from a fisherman, who had been pleased at his luck in being offered twice its worth. They had more than two hours start, and Granis judged that by the time he could organise a fast boat to chase them, this would be nearer four. Instead he had his scribe write out a good description of the men, Grenwald especially as the others could not reasonably be arrested, and had it copied ten times to be sent by the next reliable boat down river to the rulers of other fiefdoms on the way. 'At least this will make it hard for the mad dog to stay in the region' he said to me.

My bewitching had worked well on the old Lord, and he invited me to stay and eat with him, to the surprise of his proud officials, and I have visited him several times since. For some time after this incident, I was nervous, so strong was the sense of evil I had felt round these men. I slept for a while in the cottage of friends, knowing that my unusual looks would make me easy to trace just by asking around Bhuin. But as time went by, and there was no news of the men, I decided they were unlikely to bother taking the trouble and risk of searching me out in revenge for a minor setback. I moved back in here after two weeks or so, and now of course have nothing to fear for the time being. I have a demonic flying hobgoblin adventurer staying with me, one who would strike terror into the hearts of the most hard-bitten villains in the whole Kingdom! Would you like some more wine, O protector?"

Setisia poured them both wine as Telli digested her tale.

"Do you plan to do more to find out about this conspiracy?" he asked, thinking that it would not seem to be in her character to forget the incident, and leave well alone.

"I have already found out a little more about the cult to which the demon priest belongs. They have a Temple in the forest some distance north of here. As to what I plan to do, let me tell you of your future once again. In a few days time you will continue on your journey, going down the river Bhuin by boat to the Great River, and down the Great River to the city of Kings and Queens. Your protector and guide Setisia, Goddess of these great waterways, will of course be with you and her manifestation as a nymph ever visible on the boat by your side. I am coming with you to see the King, Telli."