Lospass, between Jurgvale and Niolvale, was neither very steep nor very high, one of the easiest passes in the Vales. Sloths, on the other hand, were well named. If they moved faster than mushrooms, it was not by much. Eleal Singer and Piol Poet had been on their journey for several days, and only now were they truly into Niolvale. The air was muggy, scented with a vegetable odor that seemed alien to her. In her childhood, the troupe had rarely visited Niolland. Most years they had returned home to Jurgvale from Jiolvale by way of Fionvale.
Piol had been clever to suggest the sloth and cart. As they rattled out through the city gate of Jurg, Eleal had seen a couple of the Cherry Blossom House bouncers inspecting passersby, but they had not looked twice at her or her malodorous conveyance. She was used to the stench of the sewerberries now, although they had nauseated her for the first couple of days. They certainly deterred everyone else. Other people went by the wagon like birds in flight, no brigand had accosted them to poke through their cargo in search of gold. Niolians used sewerberries to make the patina on their famous black bronzes, Piol said, and only Jurgvale could grow them. No matter. No matter, either, that the travelers were both so saturated with the foul stench that no inn would admit them. They had been blessed with fair weather; they had slept under the stars or under the cart, and they had eaten as well as could be expected when Eleal herself was doing the cooking.
Now they were in Niolland, the sun shone, the road stretched out level before them, winding between little lakes, fording streams. Niolvale had more water than any other vale, Piol said. Men wearing only turbans were harvesting rice from paddy fields. The villages were blobs of white walls and red tiled roofs against the green and silver landscape. It was very idyllic.
But not too helpful.
Eleal awoke from a wonderful daydream of . . . of what? She wasn't sure. Her nights were full of dreams of D'ward, but a strangely changed D'ward—thick and chunky, instead of tall and lean, and wearing a floppy mustache. Lack of sleep seemed to be catching up with her, for the curiously wrong image had started haunting her days too.
A fragment of melody surfaced and then submerged again. . . . The name escaped her.
"Piol?"
"Mm?"
"Do you know a play called The Poisoned Kiss?"
The old man blinked at her. "No. Who wrote it?"
"I have no idea. Perhaps there isn't one. I just thought it sounded like a good title. Um . . . Where does one start looking for a Liberator?"
"Don't know. There is only one road, so we may as well stay on it until it forks. Then we ask someone, I suppose."
"Who will let you near them?"
He chuckled toothlessly. "I can stand downwind."
True. She looked around. Niolwall was retreating behind them. To the east it disappeared completely and the bottom of the sky was flat. Niolvale was the largest of all the Vales, rich and prosperous—as was only to be expected of a vale whose patron god was the Parent. There was a village ahead, with a high-spired temple. It must be Joobiskby, and the road would certainly divide there.
After a few minutes, Piol began to cackle softly to himself. She demanded to know what was so funny.
"Remember the time we were playing The Fall of the House of Kra in Noshinby? Trong was playing Rathmuurd and he went to draw his sword—"
"No!" Eleal said firmly. "I do not remember that and I certainly do not know who had put the molasses in his scabbard. She must have been a real little horror, though!"
They laughed together. They had been doing this for days—reminiscing about the old times, the good times, the plays, the actors, the places, the crowds, the triumphs, the catastrophes.
After a moment, she said, "Do you remember Uthiam doing Ironfaib's Polemic? She won a rose. . . . That was the year I missed the festival, but I shall never forget her in rehearsal. Oh, she was marvelous!"
"That she was," Piol agreed sadly. "Do you know it?"
"Most of it, I expect." Every word!
"Let me hear it."
"Oh, you don't need to suffer through that," Eleal said hastily. She had just remembered that the reason she had missed seeing Uthiam perform at that festival was because she had been away tending D'ward, which was probably why the lines had come to her mind.
"Look!" she said. Two ancient, harmless-seeming peasants were tottering along the road ahead of them, moving even more slowly than the sloth. "Why don't you go and ask them if they've heard any news of the Liberator?" When she thought Piol might argue, she added, "You can easily catch up with the cart again if you run hard."
This was taking too long! She felt an itchy-scratchy urgency to meet D'ward again.