The food I’d eaten had charged my magic. I could feel it scintillating through my blood, heady and intoxicating as liquor. Power. I had power and I had it in greater quantity than he did. Hitch had said I’d worked wonders beyond anything he’d ever seen a Great One do. Perhaps I had a natural talent for magic. I knew I had the benefit of a military education.

Everything I’d ever learned about strategy warned me that now was no time to appear indecisive or afraid. My only hope was to draw Jodoli out and try to find a weakness. “Set the terms of the challenge as you wish,” I told him affably. Did he look surprised at my nonchalance? I hoped I was buying time. He bowed his head. I thought for an instant that he smiled, but when he lifted his face to mine, his mouth was serious. “And when shall we begin?” he asked me softly.

“Whenever you like,” I said magnanimously.

I opened my eyes to dim light filtering down through the forest canopy. A light rain of dew was sprinkling down from the leaves high above me as the morning breeze stirred them. The falling droplets sparkled in the random rays that broke through the canopy. They fell on my face, my bare chest and belly, for I lay flat on my back. I yawned and stretched. I could not recall a morning when I had awakened feeling better. My belly was still pleasantly full from the evening before, and I had slept as deeply as if I’d been snuggled into the finest featherbed. I sat up slowly and looked around.

I was alone on a forested hillside. The events of the evening before came back to me in a rush of sensation and detail. Try as I might, though, I could recall nothing after I’d accepted Jodoli’s challenge. As if someone had blown out the lamp, darkness followed his words until I opened my eyes to this day. Yet something must have happened, for there was absolutely no sign at all of the fires or the feast or the Speck encampment.

The lay of the land did not match my recollection at all; the Specks had been settled in a little dell and I rested on a slant of hillside. I doubted I had been carried here, yet surely I would remember if I had come here under my own power? Most annoying of all was Olikea’s absence. She might at least have stayed by me after luring me to visit her people. I stood up slowly, gradually realizing how peculiar my circumstances were. I was stark naked. I had no supplies, nor tools nor weapons of any kind. I was not sure where I was. Belatedly, I recalled that Spink had hinted he would be coming to see me today. He’d even given me a direct order to remain at my cabin so he would find me there. I needed to get back to my world. I looked around me, trying to get my bearings and finding nothing familiar. The leaves and branches overhead screened the sun. The forest of ancient trees looked the same in every direction. I recalled that as I pursued Olikea, we had climbed higher and higher up the forested flanks of the mountain. Downhill seemed my best choice.