To Si'Wren, it was readily apparent that they would no longer know for certain how best to direct their path. The trader himself would only have the most vague idea of which meander to take at every fork. What with the unbelievable twisting of the various water courses and almost complete impassibility of various forms of terrain they had encountered so far, their journey had become a maze at which the most intelligent and informed of them could only guess which way to turn. 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.
But always, upon retiring to her tent each night after yet another long 'discussion' with her Emperor, Si'Wren was left feeling wrung dry. Then, surrounded by pitch darkness and the strange distant cries of unseen night creatures both great and small, she would pray fervently to Him in private, and finally slip away into sleep wondering yet again what sort of a God could have produced such a far-reaching creation in which man and beast alike so readily displayed such unbridled savagery and madness.
* * *
One night, as they sat encamped on a broad hilltop clearing, Si'Wren watched the thickening night mists roll over the land, swathing the jungles of the hills and valleys in a gauzy white shroud, and she considered at length what the Invisible God would have wanted her to communicate to her Emperor, if she could but guess rightly even one time what that might be.
But she was left, as before, with a wilderness of the soul like unto that surrounding them, in which the elusive refuge of Divine Truth seemed as remote as the tale of the Prophet Noah's mythical ark.
They were resting and warming themselves at fireside, having just finished the evening repast. She had extra clay tablets stacked beside her, with one in her lap, having just finished the dictations of Borla's notes about the day's journey into this strange land.
* * *