Wraisau said something that sounded like a curse. Then, in Saiduan, “Taigan is not a sanisi. And he shouldn’t be a woman again for a season yet.”

“You know he can speak Saiduan?” Driaa said, in Saiduan. “They didn’t send these ones along for their looks. Though they are terribly pretty. For cannibals.”

“We’d be pretty, too, if we danced around in circles all day singing to plants and fucking each other,” Wraisau said.

“Your most fervent desire, I know,” Driaa said.

“One can dream.”

Roh found their wry tongues and loose manner confusing. It wasn’t at all like he imagined they’d be from books. “Aren’t you deadly assassins?” he said.

“I apologize,” Dasai said. He leaned forward. Despite his small stature, his mean face and the deep tenor of his voice got their attention. “No doubt we all have much to say to one another. But perhaps not on this pier? We have traveled many days.”

Wraisau bowed, finally. Roh stood a little straighter. Maybe the Saiduan would be less rude. “Of course,” Wraisau said. “I apologize. Things are difficult. I suggest you all stay close. Foreigners are often kidnapped in Anjoliaa. They do like pretty boys, especially.” He looked at Roh.

“Thanks,” Roh said.

The sanisi procured them bears and supplies and led the party overland around the base of the big plateau and out onto a dusty flatland. Roh marveled at every moment of it. The sky looked bigger here, vast, like the world went on and on forever. They trekked for two days across the flatland and entered a wide valley cutting through a low rise of smooth-topped mountains. Rice paddies and red grass fields draped the valley and the gentle base of the mountains.

It took another week to cross the valley, and as they turned north, the weather became cooler. The trees were different: tall and many-limbed with leaves the size of Roh’s head, their bark rough and knotted, the color of burnt cream. He had no Dhai name for the trees, because they didn’t exist in Dhai. Most of the vegetation was that way the farther north they went: familiar, but other. The grass was tall and leathery, brown-gold, or topped in bunches of dark seeds.

Roh had expected to see more evidence of fighting as they traveled. Wasn’t Saiduan under siege? But the landscape was pristine, virtually untouched. They passed a few small villages and towns lined in red stones, but no one came out to greet them or challenge them. Stranger still, the plant life here was somewhat tame. Roh spotted what must have been a herd of walking trees in the far distance, but the roads and undergrowth were clear of snapping, deadly things. Driaa still burned the area where they slept every night, but the sanisi seemed remarkably unconcerned about being eaten by plants in the middle of the night.

“Where’s the fighting happening?” Roh asked Wraisau.