The day was windy and overcast. Symna went

walking about the top of the plateau, alone. Her heart

was restless, like the weather. She went about admiring

the few small, stunted trees that grew on the isle in the

shelter of the lodges. There was not much soil there

for growing things and the gardens of the Chantresses

were small. Symna wondered if these pallid, painted

women could sing food into being, as they had sung

the hole in the wall, and the stairs that had emerged

by magics awesome and arcane. Could they sing up an

apple tree, and sing it into bloom?

        In her wandering, she happened upon one of the

curving paths that led past the lodges and down some steps into a sheltered grotto where little bell-shaped flowers bloomed in clusters of the brightest blue along the rough stone walls. Here she met the Captain, who was sitting on a the ground with his eyes closed. She stopped on the path, certain that he had not seen nor heard her. Should she intrude? Should she turn and go? For the moment she decided only to watch him.

        But he spoke then; and Symna realized it had been foolish of her to think that the leader of the Hunt would not be aware of the presence of another creature coming up on him, even as quiet as she had been. “This will be my second Hunt,” the Captain said, though he hadn’t yet opened his eyes. “My first one yesteryear was really Madricent’s Hunt, even though he fell early at the outset.”

        Symna came closer by several steps; she felt as drawn to this man as she was bewildered by all that surrounded him. “Are you afraid?” she asked, remembering what Jono had said about his losing power if he made a bad choice. She drew closer still.

        “The Hunt does not know fear,” Kavazen said, looking up from where he sat and meeting her eyes. There was fierceness in his eyes, and it made Symna turn away; she considered what he said and thought it was a stupid, boyish thing to say. Everyone felt fear, didn’t they?

        The Captain sighed and looked down. “I am not fully prepared,” he admitted. “I didn’t learn everything I needed from Madricent. And there are some who know this; they would take advantage of my weakness.”

        “I understand your quandary, now: you’re on thin ice.” Symna came nearer; but she veered away, like a flirt, and went to one of the pruned, ancient trees growing stunted in the grotto, and began to examine its leaves. She maybe knew not as much of the Rion and its many plants and strange animals as the Captain, but she knew as well as any pretty girl how to allure a man's heart. “You can’t afford to make any mistakes. So you are thinking you should not take me and Jono with the Hunt. But it is not easy to deny us either, because you know that Madricent would choose otherwise. He would choose to help us.”

        “You are very perceptive,” Kavazen said, observing her and her shape, just as she did with the leaves in her hands.

        She looked at him over her shoulder and gave him a sweet smile. Then she made to leave, although had no intention to. “I thought you were sleeping before,” she said, “but I can see now you have need of time alone, to think.”

        “I was neither sleeping, nor thinking,” Kavazen replied, staying her with this odd statement, like a hunter setting a trap in the wilds.

        “No? Then what were you doing?”

        “It is called jide. It is keen listening. The lands sing a Song that tells us much of what is happening about us. Every day the Song is the same, but it changes from moment to moment. A true Hunter must learn jide to track the Herd.”

        “Ah, so you were hoping to receive a message to guide you. It’s not so difficult a choice, really,” she confessed to him. Her eyes did not leave his as she turned to face him fully and deigned to give him what he sought. “All you have to do is ask yourself this: what sort of man do you want to be? Do you want to be the sort of man who risks losing what he has by doing what he feels is right, or the sort who makes no mistakes but makes no friends also?”

        Kavazen inhaled deeply, breathing in the many scents on the air, including hers. Symna had noticed already that the Huntsmen were always sniffing the air and seemed to make much of smells. She wondered if she had just swayed him, had in fact just secured her passage along with Jono with her words?

        Kavazen didn’t say anything for a long while but held her in his gaze. Finally he asked, “Why are you and Jono not betrothed?”

        Symna blushed and looked away, out over the wide water which she could see through the final opening of the grotto, where it ended in an abyss. She wondered what this place would look like once the Wandersea moved on, or if the isle was centred enough to always be in the lake – for as she understood it, only the western and eastern shores of the Wandersea were altered much by its movements, and the center was nearly always constant. She tried to picture what it would look like as a desert of mud punctuated with green, slimed stones that spent half the year underwater.

        “Do the Huntsmen marry?” she asked in turn. “Do they make matches with the Chantresses and have funny-looking babies?” She knew it sounded cruel, but she couldn’t help herself. She bit her lip after saying it, hoping she hadn’t insulted him. She was scared of this man, or excited by her attraction to him, and whenever she was nervous she affected a bravado that made her say stupid things: a habit that Valcomn had pointed out to her numerous times, to her chagrin.

        “There is no marriage in the Hunt,” the Captain said, answering her question openly, even as she had evaded his with her play. “If one of the men chooses to marry they do so on their own, and leave the Hunt to live wherever they like. The same goes for the Chantresses, although theirs is a sisterhood that does have a certain amount of coupling which occurs between its members. This cannot really be called marriage, though.”

        “And the Captain – is he always celibate?” Symna could not bring herself to turn around. Why was she asking him these things? How had they even gotten on to such an inappropriate topic? But somehow it did not feel inappropriate with him, but natural.

        “The Captain is the Hunt. That is all his purpose.”

        Now she turned, and met his gaze. “I should think that a life without love would not have much purpose at all. Jono and I, we are going in search of a cure for my husband, his brother, who has taken ill. We are bound by love, even if we are not in love.”

        Kavazen seemed to regard her coldly, appraisingly. Then he looked down at his hands, and then far off. If she hadn’t insulted him before, now she surely had. Of course he must feel love, and a desire to be loved. And she had mocked him, ridiculing his sacrifice! Symna felt a sudden, wild wish to just run to the edge of this high precipice and take off flying, like in her childhood dreams. Why could there not be a Song for that, to fly?

        Kavazen stood: in one fluid motion he went from a cross-legged position upon the ground to a poised creature standing before her. “I will take you with us on the Highway,” he said, “if you will give me a single kiss –  here, now.”

        Symna was shocked. “That does not seem an honourable request,” she replied, her voice cracking a little. “I am married, as I’ve told you, and you are, you are...”

        “I am a man, only. And I want to kiss you.”

        “That is not what Madricent would do, surely. He would take us without charging such a toll.”

        “What do you know of Madricent? What do you know of the Hunt? We trade with folks of little towns and villages and the peoples of big cities. There is always an exchange. We take the earhinharr and leave our offerings. Some of us fall in the Hunt. There is always an exchange. Would you say there is no honour in that? You want to save your husband, you say. Well, I will never be anyone’s husband. I will live as the Captain and die as a Huntsman. I think that before my ending-day comes I should have the chance to kiss a beautiful woman. At least once.”

        That went to Symna’s heart and she softened to him instantly. He had never been kissed! Of course not! What girl or maiden could even get close to the Hunt, should they ever want to, which seemed unlikely enough. And the Chantresses, though some were young and lovely, were of a weird order, living a strict code, obsessed with Songs.

        Kavazen stood still as she took the three steps that brought her into his arms. She came to him as if this encounter had been always inexorable, as though they were simply fulfilling their roles: the hunter, and the catch – but which was which?

        He smelled musky and tasted like bitter the anapri berries the Huntsmen were always eating, and had shared with Jono and Symna in the long-boats, on the water. Symna closed her eyes and kissed him; he let her, for she knew these movements far better than he. His short beard was rough, but she liked it. His whole body was hard, firm, yet not tense. He received her in perfect balance, and pressed himself up against her so that she felt his heat. His manhood stiffened against her thigh and she pushed her wet mouth into his, getting excited in a way that she never had before. Lust fired in her and a sudden thought flashed in her mind: I’m flying!

        Then the kiss ended and Kavazen stood back a pace, looking at her. Symna was a little out of breath and full of aroused desires. “Now we have had a taste of each other’s world,” he said. “You have felt the passions of the Hunt and I have felt the love you have within you. Our pact is sealed with a kiss.”