We were served food and drink at the low table surrounded by lumpy cushions rather than stools or benches, while Mehmet explained that they grew most of their own food, raised goats and sheep for wool, milk, and meat, chickens for eggs, and only infrequently went into Julah for additional supplies.

"And no one knows you're out here?" Del asked. "No one knows this canyon exists, or the water?"

Mehmet shook his head. "No one."

"Someday people will come," I warned. "We came. We found your ruts and followed them here."

Mehmet spread his hands. "Were you not already coming here?"

Well, yes. Come to think of it.

He nodded even though I'd said nothing. "No one has cause to come here, except for the jhihadi."

"I didn't come here as the jhihadi," I explained. "I have business in the chimney, and then we'll be on our way."

His eyes widened. "But—are you not staying?"

I felt bad about disappointing him. "No. We're headed for Alimat, across the Punja."

"But—but we did this for you." He spread his hands. "All of this. You told me, remember? Find water where none exists. We have made a home here."

"You and your people have done very well, Mehmet—but I didn't mean I wanted to live here. I'm sorry."

He leaped to his feet, gesturing sharply. "Come, then. All of you. Hurry."

The meal apparently was over, even if we weren't quite done eating it. Mehmet's little wife collected the dishes from the low table and took them swiftly away even as her husband ushered us out of doors.

Two young children were playing down by the stream; Mehmet called to them to find some of the men and have them bring our horses.

I looked up at the chimney formation, or what remained of it, on the other side of the canyon across the stream. No horse could make it up there through the tumbled rocks and scree. I'd have to go on foot.

The horses were brought. The stud had a wisp of lush grass hanging out of the corner of his mouth. Apparently they'd been enjoying a meal, too.

"Go on, go on," Mehmet insisted. "Get on your horses. Hurry!"

We did as we were told. Our host nodded. "Now, ride into the canyon. You see that elbow of hill up ahead? Go around that. The canyon curves to the right. Follow the stream. You will see."

"See what?" I asked.

"Go, go. Go and see."

"And do what?"

"Go and see."

I gave it up. Until we went and saw whatever it was he wanted us to go and see, we'd make no progress toward actual communication.

"You're not coming?" Del asked Mehmet.

He shook his head vigorously. "It's for you. We kept it that way. Now, go and see."

"Let's go," I said to Del and Nayyib, and led the way.

As Mehmet instructed, we followed the stream around the designated elbow. Here the canyon narrowed until there was very little good footing on either side of the stream, mostly the steep sides of canyon walls. Huge sections of stone had broken off the walls, falling to the floor where they blocked most of the way. The stream, undaunted, had found a new way through. But I noticed the fallen rocks were all sharply angled and faceted, not yet worn smooth and round by water. Whatever brought them crashing down was but a few years in the past.

The horses picked their way over dribbles of fallen stone. There was no actual trail through here, and clearly none of Mehmet's people had ever attempted to bring in a wagon. The only tracks I saw belonged to animals.

And then the walls reared back. A passageway lay open, and the stream purled through. Beneath hooves, grass sprang up, thick, lush grass. Rocks in the water were mossy, wearing streamers of vegetation. Canyon walls became crumbled hillsides, cloaked in a tangle of shrubbery and trees.

Old trees. Mature trees. Mehmet's little canyon was new. This one was not.

The path we made took us out of shadow into sunlight. Out of canyon into valley. Out of paradise into perfection.

We stopped, because we had to. We gazed upon it, marking how the stream cut through the middle of meadow. Here was the true heart of the canyon with high walls surrounding us except for the throat we'd passed through.

Nayyib released a blissfully appreciative sigh. "Good grazing."

Del climbed down off her gelding and knelt on one knee, digging into the soil. She brought up a handful, rolled it through her fingers, then smelled it. "It should be," she agreed. "This is fine, fertile soil." She shook her hand free of damp dirt, then led the gelding by me, intent on something. After a moment Nayyib and I followed.

Del paralleled the stream. All around her lay the meadow, stretching from canyon wall to canyon wall. We were nearly to the far end when she stopped and shielded her eyes against the sun's glare as she looked up and up, studying the rim of the canyon and the blue sky beyond.

I saw her smile, and then she pointed. "Eagle."

Nayyib and I looked. Sure enough, an eagle spiraled lazily over the canyon.

Del's smile didn't fade, but grew. She stood in one spot and turned in a full circle, taking it all in. Her expression was rapturous. "It's almost like the North, this place. Not exactly, but very close."

I frowned. "In the borderlands, maybe."

"There are high valleys in the mountains very like this. You just never saw any of them." She began unbuckling her harness.

"What are you doing, bascha?"

"I'm going wading."

"Wading?

"Maybe even swimming." She gestured up the way. "There's a pool, Tiger. See where the stream is partially dammed by rocks? On the other side there's a natural pool."

I hadn't paid any attention to it. But she was right. Nayyib rode up a little way, seeing for himself.

I recalled the big tiled bathing pool in the metri's house, heated by some means I didn't understand. Del had splashed around quite happily in it. I'd never learned how to swim and thus wasn't as enamored, though it did feel good, but the pool was shallow enough that I could stand in the middle with water up to my shoulders and not worry about going beneath the surface.

Mehmet had said this place was for us. That he'd kept it for us. His people had settled just inside the mouth of the new canyon. This one had remained untouched. This one, much older, had been untouched forever.

Del, who had tied up the reins so the gelding wouldn't trip over them, stripped out of harness, sandals, and burnous. She wore only the patched leather tunic a Vashni woman had repaired for her. Long-limbed, fair of skin, she strode to the water's edge as she unplaited her braid and shook it free. She was magnificence incarnate.

I realized it was the first time in months I'd seen her looking so relaxed. The tension had fled her face, leaving an incandescent joy. Every fiber of her body was reacting to this place.

I smiled, enjoying the sight. Ah, bascha, if you only knew what I see when I look at you.

Then I noticed Nayyib but a couple of paces upstream, staring at her. Del glanced at him and laughed. "Come in, Neesha. Lift the dust from your skin."

She had invited him. Not me.

Pleasure was extinguished. A chill washed through my body. It left me sick, angry, and afraid.

"I'm going back," I told her abruptly. "I'll leave the stud with Mehmet, hike up to the chimney and try to find the sword."

Del, picking her way carefully into the water, was startled. She halted, bare feet perched on round, slick stones. Sunlight gilded her skin. "Now?"

"I need to do it." And as she made as if to turn back, I waved her away. "No, no—you stay here. I'd rather do this alone." Which wasn't true, but I couldn't face taking her away from the canyon. I swung the stud. "I'll look for you when I'm done."

"And if you can't find it today?"

"I'll look again tomorrow morning." I turned my back on them both and headed out the way we'd come in.