“Ordered by whom?” I asked.
“There is only one who can order,” he answered with mild astonishment. “‘She-who-commands, She-who-is-everlasting’!”
It occurred to me that this must be some Arabic idiom for the Eternal Feminine, but I only looked vague and said,
“It would appear that there are some whom this exalted everlasting She cannot command; those who attacked us; also those who have fled away yonder,” and I waved my hand towards the mountain.
“No command is absolute; in every country there are rebels, even, as I have heard, in Heaven above us. But, Wanderer, what is your name?”
“Watcher-by-Night,” I answered.
“Ah! a good name for one who must have watched well by night, and by day too, to reach this country living where She-who-commands says that no man of your colour has set foot for many generations. Indeed, I think she told me once that two thousand years had gone by since she spoke to a white man in the City of Kôr.”
“Did she indeed?” I exclaimed, stifling a cough.
“You do not believe me,” he went on, smiling. “Well, She-who-commands can explain matters for herself better than I who was not alive two thousand years ago, so far as I remember. But what must I call him with the Axe?”
“Warrior is his name.”