Even with
experienced scouts sent ahead on horseback to search out their route,
they were in a constant quandary over which way to go next.
After several days, their journey took them up out of the plains into
the humid highlands of a continuous jungle in which plants and animals
grew in a great profusion such as Si'Wren could not have believed
possible had she not seen it with her own eyes.
Each evening, the Captains of Fifty posted their outwatches, and
Emperor Euphrates summoned Si'Wren to him, and by the light of a
bonfire would question her at length about the Invisible God. Si'Wren
tried to instruct him as best she could using her clay tablets,
portions of which she sometimes hastily backtracked and obliterated
with the heel of her palm, to make way for better explanations. She
hardly knew what to write but seemed to make sense enough to please his
Majesty, if not herself.
For it was a bewildering contest in which the established deities stood
linked rank upon rank against her Invisible God, and the thought of
what the Patriarch Noah would have said weighed heavily upon her mind.
As a result she was frequently plagued by hesitation and confusion as
Emperor Euphrates waited patiently to read each reply from her, and
Si'Wren was thankful that scornful Borla was not a participant.
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