Chapter Eight - Questions and Answers

When all three of them were seated - Mh'repha had first gone back to lock the door to make sure they would not be interrupted (partly, Tam suspected, in case Phamh'rir had any ways of commanding his guards at this distance, and trying something underhanded to capture him, as he would not past the furious tiger with the cunning eyes) - Phamh'rir immediately began.

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"Omh'phtah," a word that Tam translated as Shining One (and he remembered the first time Phamh'rir had appeared to call him this, which apparently was the name the Nephilim for the Vahnatai), "your name is, as Mh'repha previously stated, Tam?"

Tam briefly smiled at the irony that this first, seemingly easy question was already one which he had immense difficulties to answer, but quickly responded. "I can remember no other name. Mh'repha told me it was what I answered the ones who found me, but surely you have been told that I was in no state to answer sensibly at that point."

"You do not know your true name?" Phamh'rir was incredulous. "Or what reason do you have to withhold it?"

"Tam could easily be my true name. It is possible that this uncertainty about it is just an after-effect of the delirium."

"Very well," Phamh'rir replied, although from his tone it was clear he believed it to be neither well nor truthful. He would have pressed the point, Tam was sure, but he appeared to have no time for what was obviously a minor point. He seemed to be aware that if he pressured him too much, Mh'repha would break off the questioning, and there were things he urgently wished to know. "Tam, how did you arrive here and where did you come from?"

"I would be more able to tell you that if I knew where you found me and how you brought me here."

Phamh'rir's fur bristled again. Tam, though having no personal experience with such interviews, knew what was coming. I'M ASKING THE QUESTIONS! Phamh'rir opened his mouth, but caught himself in time. You did not shout at someone you had only limited time to question; shouting revealed agitation, and agitation was insecurity, and insecurity of the questioner coupled with the knowledge of time being on one's side made the questioned one impervious. He struggled to swallow his anger. "You were found by one of our hunting parties a few dozen leagues south of here, several weeks ago. Our hunters reported that you must have been travelling for what must already be over a hundred leagues, on foot, and that you were near death from exposure, and from starvation. Where did you come from?"

Tam briefly wondered if Zadal-Ihrno had gotten the same questioning when he arrived here. His diary entries didn't seem to mention it, but then they were overall quite positive and hesitated to place any stains on his impression of the cat race. Or perhaps he was forbidden from mentioning the questioning to anybody else. Then again, Zadal had visited these people more than three hundred years ago. It was quite likely they had significantly changed in the meantime.

"I left my home town early in the eleventh month, that must be almost two months ago now. I travelled northeast for some time, then lost my way in a storm, and travelled northwest for the remainder of my conscious time. I was unable to tell the direction or the time for the last few days or so, however, but I was not making a lot of distance by then either, I guess."

"You have travelled a great distance north, but variously northeast and northwest. Do you believe you are now east or west of your home town?"

"West. Definitely west. I went northeast for less than a week, but northwest for as long as I can remember after that."
"That is well possible. The southwest has been travelled, the south has mostly been left alone, and about the southeast we know little to nothing beyond great plains of emptiness and dark, impenetrable forests. If it is indeed that way by which you came, then the only thing I marvel about is how you survived that long."

"I cannot answer that myself. I had supplies to last me a few days, and on the way I hunted a hyena for food-" Mh'repha's face twisted into a pitying frown at this, which brought back the stringy, bitter taste Tam had had to endure when forced to eat the meat - "but for the rest of the way I had nothing but water and roots to gnaw on."

"No, I mean how it was that the wild beasts left you alone! Why did they not tear you to pieces? At this time of the year, they are starved for food, and if you even come within the range of their noses, you must be prepared to fight for your life!"

"Beasts? I did not see any beasts - save for the hyenas, and that was long before I began to travel northwest. There were no beasts in my path, neither edible, nor hostile, nor dangerous."

Mh'repha seemed suddenly to come to a startling realization, for she opened her mouth in surprise. "Tam, did you truly pass through the forest without even encountering any of the animals?" In spite of her original intentions, she had turned around to face Tam, so that he indeed was now faced by two questioners rather than one. Phamh'rir appeared to be annoyed at the interjection.

"Mh'repha, if you would kindly not interfere, I would be pleased. Tam will give an indication when he needs your help, I am sure, and I would rather ask without you involving yourself as far as possible." He appeared to be straining to be polite. Tam wondered if that was because he was so angry that he might lose his temper if he did not control it in this way, or if he feared that too brash an attitude would anger Mh'repha sufficiently to throw him out again. A transformation had seemed to come upon him since he had been granted the permission for this questioning - perhaps it was a line of diplomacy he had not considered at first, but which he was trying hard to keep open now since the alternatives were far less certain to yield the information he wanted, and a lot more far-reaching in their repercussions. He also seemed anxious to get back to the interview. "Tam, as you can imagine by our surprise, it is very much out of the ordinary to pass the way you have come without courting death at almost every step. Would you care to tell us how you did this? What way do you have of warding off the monsters?"

"How I did this? But how can I know if I did not even see what danger I was warding off? The woods were silent, and the wind was moving around me, and the sun was rising and setting, and after the first few weeks I did not even realize where I was going, much less what or who might be around me - I saw no animals and no monsters!"

Suddenly, as he finished, he was reminded of a curious feeling he had first experienced on the day that he had returned from the test. It was not so much a feeling as it was a concept, an illusion, a state of mind. Not around him, anything that he could sense, but the sensation of having an idea on the edge of his mind, something he was struggling to remember but could not quite place, something on the very edge of his awareness. He struggled to put a word to it, and was surprised when the first one that came to his mind was shadow.

A shadow! A shadow, like one cast upon him from behind, but less a shadow that was cast on his body, and more a shadow that was cast on his mind. Something...

"I am not sure, but I believe I was followed."

Of course, the question had been a rather tense one, and what he had been asked about was very out of the ordinary already. Whatever his possible response might have been, it would have led to very interested reactions. But Tam doubted he could have given another reply that would have shocked the Nephilim he was talking to that much. As well, he could have said he knew the secret of invisibility, and they would have been less impressed. Except one could not really call them impressed. Mh'repha's face was filled by incredulous shock, while Phamh'rir's appeared to be intensely interested, almost afraid.

"You were followed."

Tam nodded.

"By who?"

Tam shrugged. "I cannot say. I cannot even say for sure that I was followed. But ever so often, I had a feeling that a shadow was hovering just beyond my awareness, and on my trail, careful not to interfere, but possibly smoothing my passage and warding away the beasts that might otherwise have attacked me. I cannot explain it otherwise."

With every word he spoke, Phamh'rir became even more agitated, and when he mentioned the word shadow, he seemed to visibly blanch - through the fur on his face, even - as if with terror - if Tam had not been sure that one like Phamh'rir, if he could even feel terror, would never show it this openly. He still did not know who his questioner was, but in his face and his behaviour, in his gestures and even the slightest of his moves, he felt that the Nephil was one who was in control: In complete control, at all times, of himself, and the situation around him. He was powerful, powerful and yet wise enough to realize there were several approaches to reach one's goal - as he had shown by choosing the diplomatic way earlier. There must be little in this land that was his match: If he felt fear, then what he was fearing must be terrible beyond mortal comprehension.

He spoke again. "Mh'repha, do you now see why I needed to insist on meeting with him immediately? I have not yet asked him ten questions, and already he brings to light information that I could not have expected or even imagined in my worst dreams!" The Nephilim word for dream was used for anything from daydreams to nightmares, even occasionally for illusions or hallucinations. The second meaning seemed most likely, judging from his still terrified expression.

Mh'repha, however, seemed less impressed. "What information is it that you so fear?"

Phamh'rir responded without even pausing. "I fear that there are powers at work that could well come to mean life or death not just for our clan, but our entire race." The way that Phamh'rir did not even react to this - if not intentional, then at least not very carefully avoided - insult, was another testament to the great urgency that he must perceive in gaining more. What Tam had only guessed at about Phamh'rir's personality, Mh'repha knew quite well. If Phamh'rir was ready to see past his personal interests this well, then the stakes must be great indeed.

All the more reason to be wary of his intentions, Mh'repha realized, for if he placed the importance of his mission beyond his own, then he definitely placed it far above any of their concerns, and that Mh'repha and Tam had been able to convince him to be this accommodating was only due to his perception that he could reach his goals more quickly this way. It also meant that although he was now doing his best to remain diplomatic, and to head off any possible concerns she might have - thus ensuring that he would get his information as easily and quickly as possible - her threat to break off the questioning would have to remain a hollow one. If she actually did send Phamh'rir on his way, his implacable will in acquiring what he needed by whatever means would inevitably lead him to use violence. Which would cost him the ease with which he could currently question, but would be the only way to gain information. They were at each other's grace and depended on them for their mutual advantage. Mh'repha was reminded of a logical riddle that would have two Nephilim able to choose to cooperate with each other, or to betray each other. If they both cooperated, they had the greatest advantage, but if either was betrayed without expecting it, he was utterly lost. At present, they were both cooperating, but as soon as either showed signs of hostility, there would be swords drawn, and blood as well. They were trapped in the present situation. Not for nothing, Mh'repha realized grimly, did they call this the Prisoner's Dilemma.

Phamh'rir must be realizing the same, for he was a master at strategy - both politically and in matters of war. He had seen much of the ways of the world - even though not the world itself - and the interactions of beings, mostly Nephilim, but others as well. It was the weight of this experience that was now carried in his voice when he spoke.

"Mh'repha, our civilization, our people, and our very race is in the immediate danger of entering the greatest war it has yet had to face in its history, and believe me when I say that for all our power, our chances to survive it are grim at best, and our chances of ever regaining the normal life we lead earlier are next to non-existent. Things are even now being put in motion, and while this curious visitor from a far land we have never seen might play just a minor part in it all, he puts such information as I have already gathered into a new light entirely."

"How do I do so?" Tam asked. "It seems to me you have learnt nothing from me - I do not know my name, I could not tell you for sure even which direction I came from or what distance I have travelled, I could not even explain why I was so strangely able to evade the beasts on the way here, and even now I have not told you why you have found me travelling so far from my home."

Phamh'rir, however waved it off. "You name is of little enough concern, though the circumstances under which you lost it might be of some interest, should they - as I do not yet suspect, but would not discard entirely - turn out to be more complex than just your starvation-induced delirium. The direction is determined easily enough - there is a mountain range east of here that you could not have scaled without a lot more equipment and skill and health than you possessed when you were found, and that you would have remembered had you seen it. The only way past it without seeing it and being hindered by it was from the Southeast or the North. South of the place where you were found, a great river would have impeded your passage, which you also did not come across. I have marched before you were alive -" Tam doubted this, since he was close to a hundred waking years old, and thrice that in the long years of deathlike sleep that his race did not count, but he said nothing - "and I know how fast and far you can march in Summer and Winter, and when hungry or not. Lastly, your guess at being followed is more important than everything else put together, especially the feeling you described. Being followed by a shadow that lies on your mind is not a very common feeling." Then he paused, remembering Tam's last sentence. "Why did you say you were here?"

"I did not, because you had not yet asked me, even though I would have thought it would be the first question you would seek to ask a stranger."

"I have found that the original intentions of strange travellers are often far less mysterious or even relevant than what they encounter in their travels, and where they arrive. Travel is unpredictable, and where you end up is more relevant to your present situation than where you were intending to end up. Nonetheless, tell me the circumstances of your departure."

"These are easily told. I am - was - a student of one of the greatest arcane academies in these lands. I had spent more than seventeen years studying magic under these wise professors, and at last was ready for the final examination. I went to the testing caves, I returned, and I slept for a night before going to the assessment because I was that exhausted. Turns out they didn't like that, so I got thrown out because I hadn't come back right away."

Phamh'rir chuckled, while Mh'repha looked sympathetic. "I keep telling our recruits that sleeping at the wrong time can be the last mistake they ever make. It turns out that applies to more than battles, I see. What did you do then, run away?" Tam nodded. "Without bothering to acquire equipment or supplies, I presume?" Tam did not nod, but it was not necessary anyway. "Sleep, and rash decisions, of course. The greatest enemies of anyone faced with danger, and there is no traveller throughout these lands who does not endanger himself by travelling." Phamh'rir then put off his amusement like a cloak that one no longer needs - or perhaps put on his seriousness like a cloak that one suddenly requires again.

"You speak of testing caves. A practical test, one of prowess and survival." He did not put it as a question.

"Yes. We call it a Test of Mind and Body - forachid." Mh'repha and Phamh'rir appeared to be unanimous in their surprise. "You are familiar with the term?"

"It carries this meaning in your language?" Phamh'rir asked.

"Yes, and seeing as some of the Claw appear to have passing familiarity with Novah, I am surprised that this is a secret to you - since you seem to be surprised as well," Tam continued as he turned to Mh'repha.

"The way your language is constructed allows for many such words. There is hardly something one can say that could not somehow be translated out of Novah, usually to say something with no meaning whatsoever. We just never thought of deriving the word from your language, for the significance it carries to us as a name is far greater."

"A name?" It was Tam's turn to be surprised. "Forachid is a name in your culture - as in, a person's name?"

"Not a person," Phamh'rir replied, and Mh'repha seemed uncomfortable.

"You would have to be familiar with our religion to understand the context and the meaning the word carries to us."

Religious and mythological texts had been curiously missing from the collection of Nephilim literature that had been made available to Tam in his time of recovering. His knowledge of Nephilim spirituality extended to the name Mh'asharra, who was likely a Nephil god of healing whom Mh'repha had mentioned earlier while talking to Phamh'rir.

"Do you have the time to give me such familiarity now?"

Phamh'rir nodded. "It is essential you understand the significance, because that is the only way you can know what information we seek from you about this... test." He seemed to shudder briefly. Phamh'rir, completely unexpectedly, nodded to Mh'repha. "Mh'repha, I believe you can explain better."

Mh'repha seemed as much taken aback by this sudden invitation to join in the conversation that Phamh'rir had told her to keep out of earlier as did Tam, and she paused for a while to collect her thoughts before she spoke.

 3280 words.