The meeting with the strange cat had been odd, but Theona felt no fear of the cat and soon returned to her briefly disturbed sleep.

As she knelt by her blanket just before lying down again, she noticed that Tanris had unhitched the six krants from the wagon at some point and had set them on long leads running from heavy ringbolts in the wagon's frame so they could wander around and graze through the night.

She was woken not long after dawn, well, that of the first sun actually. She shielded her eyes with a hand and looked at the fairly large red sun lurking over the lands to the east. She rolled out from under her blanket, stood and walked over to the edge of the trail where the ground steepened considerably before turning into an actual cliff and looked across the lands in the early morning light.

She noticed that they did not seem to be a great deal higher than the lands below, perhaps a couple of hundred k'neks at most. The trail continued northward for a while before it turned and began winding its way down the slopes to the lands below.

She hadn't been listening to the things around her, so she was a bit startled when Mak'Ris approached and nudged her hand. The strange cat looked at her and nodded before he spoke, "We shall go into these lands this day, Star Lady. I shall walk beside you, yes."

She chuckled as she looked at the cat beside her, his shoulder being about the same level as her upper abdomen. He was definitely not a small cat, fairly close in size to some of the larger tigers back on Earth, but the six legs made it all too clear that this was not Earth.

That became even clearer as she noticed a yellowish glow on the eastern horizon and a second sun began to rise into the eastern sky.

She stared in wonder for a moment before she looked at the cat. "How many suns does this world have, Mak'Ris?" she asked.

"Three," he replied. "The red one is called Kal'Ti in the low tongue, Son of Ti in the common, the yellow is called Kal'Zin, Son of Zin in the common. They are thought by many to be the sons of two of the older gods of this world who fought each other over a young woman, and after nearly slaying each other for nothing more than simple lust, were doomed to wander the skies in their new forms which we see here.

"The third star is a blue one, Sul'Kar, which translates from the low tongue to Daughter of Kar in the common. That one is much farther out from our world than these two, and is only loosely connected to them by their stronger gravitational pulls keeping it in its place in the heavens. Those same old tales say that the Daughter of Kar is the young woman the two young gods fought over so long ago. Those tales also say that she wanders so far from them so that she will not incite them to further troubles by her mere presence among them."

"There are also five moons that orbit our world, three were visible in the skies last night before you returned to your sleep. Those three are known as Sul'Var, Sul'Mez and Sul'Nig, Daughters of Var, Mez and Nig; the two more distant moons are Sul'Shen and Sul'Bev, Daughter of Shen and Daughter of Bev, the five named are minor goddesses from long ago whose daughters wandered from home and were lost."

As Mak'Ris finished speaking, Theona heard someone approaching them from behind and turned to greet Tanris.

He spoke first, though, "Blessed morn to ye, lass, I see ye have seen two of the suns rise, aye?"

"Almost, Tanris, and a blessed morn to you as well. The red one was just over the horizon when I awoke. I came over here to take a look around and Mak'Ris followed me. He has been telling me of the names for the three suns and the five moons. To actually be able to see two of the three suns rising as I am doing now is a great wonder for me, my old world only had one sun and one moon."

Theona turned back to face the two rising suns and executed a cautious bow in their direction. "I greet you, Kal'Ti and Kal'Zin. May you both shed your light on our travels this day and guide us as we head to the lands below." She stood tall, turned and walked back to the wagon.

**********

The fire had gone out while they slept, so Tanris added a few pieces of wood and lit it again, then hung a pot on the spit over the fire.

He quickly produced a simple but nourishing porridge with slices of two different fruits in it, one of them when Tanris showed her a whole one reminded her of a strawberry except this one was a purplish blue in colour, the other looked like a banana but was dark orange, not yellow.

The pieces of fruit in the porridge added a different but fairly pleasant taste to the simple food, a bit of what could only be described as a type of milk poured over the porridge gave it a slightly bitter flavour that offset the two fruit types, yet added to the overall enjoyable taste.

The porridge was consumed fairly fast, then Tanris cut a chunk off the carcass and tossed it to Mak'Ris who devoured the semi-fresh meat.

Tanris took the mid-sized pot he had used to cook the porridge, the ladle and the spoons to the stream downhill and washed them.

While Tanris was gone, Theona grabbed her bowl and used it to carry dirt which she dropped on the fire until it was fully smothered.

When he returned, several minutes were spent in releasing the long leads from the ringbolts and hitching the six krants to the wagon again, then he helped Theona to get up on the wagon seat with her backpack, sat down beside her and clucked to the animals to get them moving.

**********

It took them perhaps an hour by Theona's reckoning before they reached the path that led down to the lower lands, and another four, nearly five before they managed to reach the bottom. There was one rough spot, where one of the wheels went over a fair-sized rock lying in the trail, and the impact as it touched the ground again had Tanris get down to make sure the wheel hadn't been damaged.

They stopped as they finally reached the edge of the very extensive plains at the base of the path from the mountain. Theona looked to the east and thought she could see what might be a village or small community of some sort in the distance.

She mentioned it and was told that it was the first hold in this area; the place, Calmar's Vale, was named for a long dead king. Tanris then told her that it was quite a bit farther than it appeared to be; appearances here could be quite deceptive, it seemed.

Mak'Ris had had no trouble at all in keeping up with the wagon, but had to stay away from the krants, he made them quite nervous. That was despite the fact that the cat wasn't even half their size, the big animals would jerk in the harness any time he approached them.

Tanris reached into a small barrel and pulled out four loaves of what looked like homemade bread and handed one to Theona. He then picked up a small box and used a short knife to cut, then apparently butter his loaves; the knife was handed to Theona and she did the same.

The bread had a rather nutty taste, the butter was quite nice if a bit sweet and Theona made short work of her loaf.

She looked up after she finished eating to see that Tanris was already finishing his second and picking up the third loaf. It didn't take much longer before he polished off his three and clucked at the krants to get them moving toward the distant hold.

**********

They finally entered the tended lands around the hold a few hours after mid-day. Tanris stopped by the one stone building, then jumped down and banged on the doorway. A moment passed before the door opened, revealing what appeared to be a rather stout middle-aged male.

"Ho, Tanris, finally back from the southern lands, are ye?" the man bellowed when he saw Tanris standing by his door.

"That I am, Kerick, it was like any other trip until I was almost out of the mountains on this side, then I found her." Tanris pointed to me sitting on the wagon seat. The other male, Kerick, looked at me and chuckled, then showed a wide grin as he faced Tanris again.

"So ye've finally found a young lass to bed, aye, Tanris?" he laughed, his belly shaking up and down, side to side.

"Not at all, Kerick, take a closer look at her, she is nae lass, she's a full grown woman."

"Ye say she's full grown? But she's tiny, nae bigger than a ten or twelve year old girl?"

"I tell ye true, Kerick, she be full grown. Do ye know of Simon Farwalker's prophecy?"

"The other world male that was here several centuries ago? His prophecy? Aye."

"Aye, Kerick, she comes from that same world, she be one of his descendants, and the lady of the prophecy, I believe," Tanris stated.

"She be the one in the prophecy? A slip of a girl like that be the one to save us all?"

"I believe so, Kerick, I've seen her do magic with my own eyes. She also told me she is the one in the prophecy after I showed her the cleanest copy I had in my wagon yester even. Her clothes are rather odd, not at all like ours, and her native tongue is not ours. Even stranger than that, she eats like I do with no concern for manners and she walks like a man, striding everywhere."

Kerick took another look at me, this one lasting for a moment, and nodded, "Her clothes are rather odd. Magic, ye said?"

"Aye, Kerick, she cast a ball of flame about this size (he spread his hands a bit) at a pile of wood and it burst into flame."

Kerick paled when Tanris showed the size of the ball of flame, then muttered, "That be more than was needed, for sure."

"Perhaps, Kerick," Tanris responded, "But she seems to be new to the magic, learning it as she goes, I think; I know it scared her. I also know that she has no knowledge of our world, the cat there was telling her about the names of the stars and moons in our skies earlier."

"Cat, ye say? What cat?" Kerick asked just as Mak'Ris wandered around the front of the wagon, startling the krants.

"That would be me, good sir. My name is Mak'Ris and I travel with the Star Lady, I go where she goes."

Kerick shook his head, if he had needed any more proof, here was a cat as mentioned in the prophecy, travelling with the odd woman. "Young lady," Kerick spoke, "Be ye welcome in my humble abode, I have food left from our mid-day meal if ye wish to have a bite."

"My name, sir, is Theona. If you do not believe that I am the one in the prophecy, I can prove it quite easily."

"The cat be proof enough for me, Theona, they do not willingly travel with people without dire need, yet he travels with ye. It be enough."

Theona nodded, replying, "I accept your offer of some food, the bread we had earlier was enough then, but I am hungry once again."

Tanris stood there for a moment, thinking, then said, "As small as ye are, girl, ye eat a fair bit, perhaps it is due to the magic in you." He nodded to Kerick, then added, "She ate one of my cousin Al'gard's loaves I brought back, they're almost a k'nek long and nice and thick."

Kerick chuckled, "At least she has a healthy appetite, despite her small size. Come, in, folks, come in."

Tanris, Theona and Mak'Ris entered the stone house, following Kerick to a common space with a large wooden table. Kerick waved to them to sit down, then said that he would return in a few minutes with some food for them, including some fresh meat for Mak'Ris.

Kerick returned a short while later, carrying a large tray with three platters on it, setting the biggest one by Tanris, one with raw meat chopped into fist-sized chunks for Mak'Ris and the third platter was a smaller one for Theona with the same items that were on Tanris' platter.

"The meat be fresh krez'gral, caught just after first dawn this morn by my middle son, there be also vis'nifs and fresh small loaves."

Kerick headed back to the kitchen. carrying the empty tray. He returned a moment later with a large jug of some sort of fruit juice and cups.

The three of them each tucked into the food, eating quietly, various sounds could be heard in and around the house. Someone was chopping wood out back, some else was singing softly while lovely smells wafted from what must be the kitchen, and a third person, apparently Kerick's daughter, could be heard muttering about having to sweep the floors and stairs again, she'd done it just the day before, wasn't that enough?

Kerick stuck his head through a nearby door, yelling, "Bett'rya, ye know better. We can nae have a dirty house, girl!", then closed it again.

The three finished their meals and were about to get up when Kerick rejoined them. "The food was good, I trust?" he asked.

We all responded in the affirmative, then Tanris said that we should be going, we still had a long way to go yet.

After a brief stop to use the simple in-house facilities, we were rolling along on the road to the east from Calmar's Vale.