All the time I was digging, I remember, I heard only the wind whipping past, rushing from the mountains and chattering the scrub grass. It wasn't until I was nearly finished, up and standing on the edge of the grave with the shovel in my paws, that I began to hear rhythms in the whistle and whoosh, pitches and tones that had to be more than windblown.
Was someone singing? I turned to stare north along the road, up to the crest of the hill where the watch tree squatted, lanterns swinging from its branches. The snowy peaks of the Uzbenis rose up beyond, framed by the crystal blue of late afternoon and by this sound, this singing.
Louder and louder the singing grew. And then she topped the hill.
Huge was too small a word for her. She had to duck past the watch tree to keep from knocking the lanterns off, lanterns I could barely reach with a two tail-length wick pole. Muscles bulged beneath her chain mail and tunic, the sword at her waist probably as tall as I was. The thin sunlight gleamed from the scales along her snout, and her cloak snapped in counterpoint to the song she was belting out over the wind.
Now, Fra Havara, the ursine monk who taught math at St. Doliri's, often told us stories after supper about the battles he had fought alongside reptile warriors, and I'd read about them in Sor Lafcashen's history class, but none of that prepared me for the full reality of her. I was just thirteen, a ball of fluff mouseling who'd never been more than two hours out from St. Doliri's, and here was a legend come to life swaggering down the hill toward me.
She didn't seem to notice me gaping there, her strides carrying her and her song quickly past; then, just as quickly, she was pivoting around, her cloak billowing as she spun, her black eyes snapping onto mine. "You stare, mouse kitten?"
My chin thumped against the front of my cassock. "Me? Uhh, no, no, I, uhh, I--"
"I don't blame you." She flicked a claw past me. "I see St. Doliri's there, yes?"
"What?" For a moment, I had no idea what was behind me, no idea where I was or what I was doing out here in the wind beside this road with a shovel in my paws. I had to turn to remember the view I'd lived with every day of my life.
Across the little valley stretched the cemetery, clipped and tended by me and the other novices, right up to the rise of the next hill. And at the top, the red and brown back of St. Doliri's spread itself, the bell tower just visible above the walls. I looked at it till I got my bearings back, but by then, I'd forgotten why I was looking; I turned around and had to whisper, "I'm sorry, what did you ask me?"
The warrior looked down with crossed arms and half closed eyes. "My Granmere always says, 'Raychkith, don't mess with fur folk. Nothing in their heads but fuzz,' she says."
I couldn't stop staring: her arms, crossed so casually, were thicker than my legs, her shoulders wider than I could've stretched my paws. The wind whistled past for a few seconds, then she gave a little hiss. "OK, we try again, yes? Do I see St. Doliri's there?"
I managed to nod.
A smile touched her snout. "So Per Jalisco sits inside?"
"Uhh, yes, I mean, he's there, but, well, he, uhh--"
"Good. I go up; he needs to see me." She whisked off the road and into the cemetery.
)
A young mouse novice at St. Doliri's monastery comes to understand what his order is all about when a lizard warrior forces him to confront the truth of the Cold Cold Ground. [Artwork by Michael H. Payne]
