Patti Mcintyre [cid:24UP7986QAAEHKUPXYBY]

   He blessed Ganesha and Draupadi for reminding him, even on the brink of
   the greatest danger he had ever faced, of all he had been given. He had
   regained all, now, that he had ever lost and more besides, for now he
   understood the full value of everything he had ever had. And he was not
   alone. Rocks clattered and spun down from the hill. The torches upslope
   wavered, then moved forward more confidently....So far they had come,
   so far: If this had been a futile chase, they must now begin to resign
   themselves to having lost their way. It was too late now to retrace
   their steps. Perhaps they had all been befooled, betrayed. Perhaps the
   real Black Naacals marched beside them, a fat man and a slender woman,
   lithe and careworn, wrapped in tattered veils. She and Ganesha served
   the Flame. They were Naacals. White against Black. They had as much
   right to oppose the Black Naacals as he had had to seek the
   Eagle."Look," she said sadly, holding up what had served them so
   faithfully. The figure of Krishna was a bronze statuette again. But now
   its arms drooped as if weary after too-long dancing. First one, then
   the other broke off. It seemed to shrink in upon itself and turn to
   dust in her palm. "Your talisman has danced its last dance," she said.
   She laid down the tiny handful of dust and covered it with a flat
   stone.Draupadi flung out a hand and chanted. The hissing subsided."No
   loss," Rufus muttered, despite Quintus's glare. Every man incapacitated
   and needing to be carried weakened them even more than a death.
   Impossible to abandon a brother-in-arms-even if to do so would not put
   them on the moral level of the ones they fought.Behind him a horse
   screamed, and rocks clattered down the slope. Oaths rose, followed by
   Rufus's rasping shout for quiet. The coppery tang of blood touched the
   air. One of the dazed men laughed, then sobbed, muffling his face in
   his hands. Hurry, fool, he told himself, or you'll have no one left at
   your back but corpses and madmen. The two magicians. Rufus, until that
   great heart of his burst. An d probably Lucilius, yoked together as
   they seemed forever to be.He ached. And he knew that if he suffered,
   the men behind him had suffered worse and the beasts worse yet. And
   Draupadi-he ought not to think of her as gentler than he, weaker than
   he, but he did-until he saw her face, which hardships had refined,
   instilling dignity and power into already-great beauty.28"They could be
   spies-" Ssu-ma Chao suggested.To use it wisely! he retorted. Now quiet!
   I promised, and I shall keep my faith.Quintus's horse screamed and
   plunged. Desert-bred as they were, even they had a horror of serpents.
   Did this one sense the illusion serpents? It must be so. A wind began
   to rise, stirring the sand and grit into swirls that looked like more
   coils-best not think like that, lest exhaustion and fear and memory of
   the serpent's coils cause them to manifest once more. Venomous or not,
   those coils were deadly.Draupadi caught her breath in a faint sob. "And
   to think how fair this all was once."