"The fireplace is more for heat than cooking, but we've had a pig roast here on occasion. The main kitchen is in back. You wouldn't be any good at making bread, would you Valentine?"
"In an emergency."
"Great, you're our new baker. These kids go bluescreen whenever they try to bake anything but flatbread. Ryu has the rooms above the kitchen, and he doesn't take to visitors, so stay away from the back staircase. Questions so far?"
"Just as long as you don't have him in the kitchen at all hours," Duvalier grumbled. "We've got a lot of work to do if he's going to be ready to come out with me in a couple months. When can we see Ryu?"
"You know that's not up to me. Okay, here we are. Your usual spot, Smoke, and the Ghost will be in the attic."
Duvalier had a small space beneath Valentine's platform and its stairs. Valentine noticed she already had curtains up, blinds made from some kind of wicker. She dropped her pack under the stairs and sat on a footlocker to unlace her boots. He looked up at his own platform directly above, bare and featureless.
"I can find you a futon if you want, Valentine," Welles offered.
He didn't relish spending too many nights in his ever-ready hammock. "Thank you, I'd appreciate that."
"I'll let Ryu know you've arrived," she said, and rocked her way back to the doors at the rear of the Hall.
As he placed his possessions on the platform, connected by a stairway to the main floor and by a little walkway to still another platform, it occurred to him that his whole life amounted to two little heaps of gear: his carbine and the new sword, a pack containing a few tools and utensils, pans, and spare clothes, and one moldy-smelling nylon hammock. He had a locker back at Regiment with some heavy clothing, books, and odds and ends that he would have to write to somebody about.
"Hey, Duvalier," he called.
"Yes?" she answered from below, like a fellow camper in the bottom bunk.
"Where am I?"
"Southern Command calls it Buffalo River Lodge, Newton County. We call it Ryu's Hall. You confused about something?"
"What are we going to be doing here?"
"Didn't you listen? You're going to bake bread. That and learn how to kill Kurians."
* * *
Ryu himself woke Valentine the next morning. The nearly windowless hall slumbered in darkness, lit only by the red glow in the fire pit.
The Lifeweaver chose to appear as an ordinary man, with a hooked nose and a regal bearing that made Valentine instantly think of Pharaoh from illustrations in the Padre's storybook Bible. He wore a simple black loinclom and sandals.
"I am glad of this opportunity to meet you, David," he said as Valentine sat up, a little startled. "Would you share the sunrise with me?"
"Yes, just give me a moment," he said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The futon didn't look like much, but it was bone-deep comfortable. He slept heavy in the hours before dawn, but duty seemed to require him to awaken then more often than not.
Ryu turned and slowly walked down the stairs. Not sure whether that was a yes or a no, Valentine hurriedly pulled on his pants and followed. The Lifeweaver led him, with slow, graceful steps, almost floating back through the kitchens and spring-cave. They stooped into a rocky passage cut into the side of the mountain. They walked, and at times climbed, in silence through the shoulder-wide tunnel. They arrived at a wooden ladder, and Valentine smelled outside air.
"This is my private entrance. The ladder ends at a little fissure in the mountain."
Sure enough, the predawn quasi-light came faintly down the tunnel. The Lifeweaver began to climb the ladder, and Valentine followed. They emerged in the trees on the north side of the rounded-off mountain with birdsong all around them.
"It will be a fine morning. My spot for dawn-keeping is up the hill."
Valentine followed him up the slope, eventually coming out at a pile of boulders. Ryu sat down on the cold stone without even wincing, and Valentine joined him on the broad slab of rock. To the east, the green-carpeted mountains of the Ozarks bent away to the southeast. The high, scattered stratus clouds were turning from pink to orange as the unseen sun began to touch them.
Ryu said, "It will be a morning of rare color."
"What should I call you, sir?" Valentine asked. Amu, the Lifeweaver who'd been in charge of the Wolves, had acted like an old man who enjoyed teasing his grandchildren with riddles, and spoke as though he knew Valentine his whole life. Rho, the Lifeweaver who'd trained his father, he'd known only a few hours before he died. Ryu seemed cold and detached compared with the other two.
Valentine shivered in the chill morning air. The rock they sat on leached his body heat, but that was not the reason for the shudder. Ryu looked solid enough-he brushed aside small branches and flattened grass with his feet-but the Lifeweaver had no presence. Valentine thought it like having a conversation with an unusually lifelike portrait.
"Just Ryu. In our Old World, we had long and complex names describing our family, profession, planet of origin, and planet of residence. My brother and I were young then, born when the old Interworld Tree was still intact, and the rift with the researchers of Kur just beginning. We are old now, but not what we consider ancient. I mention my brother because my first duty to you is to thank you for getting him free. The torments and humiliation he suffered at the hands of the fiends ... I had no idea until you brought him out of there. His death was free of grief. He went in peace, among friends."