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“No!” It stamped its clawed feet. “Go back down! You’re far too big, it is entirely out of the question! The whole affair would fall to the enemy on grounds of unsporting conduct!”

I blinked. In my reasoning, I supposed that if birds could now be expected to talk, it was not too surprising that they talked nonsense.

“I can’t go back down,” I said slowly, as if to a very dense foreigner, “I’ve only just come up, and I am lost.” I paused, wilting slightly under the accusing stares of two dozen birds. “Lost beyond measure. My name is John; I am a priest.”

The crane looked somewhat disappointed. Its fronds drooped. “Then you haven’t come for the war?” it sighed.

“I have no hunger for war,” I answered the crane. “It’s all the fashion in my own country, but unlike fish stew, each nation does not perfect their own recipe. It’s much the same everywhere, bland and bloody, and I have no more stomach for it here than I did there.”

The crane gave an odd avian snort. “You are foreign, and therefore ignorant. It is forgivable, but not attractive.” It cocked its head to one side. “The Rimal is treacherous and deep. You are lucky. Perhaps your survival is an omen. As to where you are, lost creature, well, that is easy. This is Pentexore—but of course, that is like saying ‘this is the world, and you are in it.’ This is the land of the Gharaniq, the great cranes, and we litter it with our feathers. I am Torghul, I lead the charge this year, and I have come with my crane-knights to survey the higher ground before the enemy arrives.”

Torghul stamped the now-sunny ground and screeched; an answering cry ululated from the long throats of the other birds. Their long wheat-stalk legs flushed red in anticipation.

“And who is the enemy?” I asked, if only to be polite.

Torghul blinked slowly, masterfully retaining his calm in the face of such shocking idiocy as mine. “The pygmies, of course! We fight them every year. Miniature men, miniature women, like little dolls—their fingers are so tiny, we might mistake them for worms if we are not careful! They invade our territory in the spring, armored in mint leaves and fossil-filthy amber, waving miniature swords of sharpened antler. They come screaming up over the hill with such a distasteful sound! They say we took a queen of theirs once, and made her a crane—oh, who knows if it ever happened? War cares nothing for factual histories. We beat them back with our wings, our claws, but it is harder and harder, as the years go by, and they grow cleverer while we grow tired. But war gets our blood up, and we cannot help but feel joy when the spring winds blow over the Rimal, bringing the scent of mint with them.”

I sighed, and spoke slowly, rasping in my thirst. “In my country, I remember, I seem to remember, there were endless wars over pictures: some thought it was a sin to paint the face of God, others thought it a virtue. And they met, and fought, and died, and met again, and the paintings came up and down, up and down, like leaves changing.”

Torghul hooted derisively, but some of the other cranes nodded as though seriously considering the issue of iconography.

“There is no silly aesthetic debate here,” Torghul answered, tossing his golden fronds into the air. “The pygmy must be fought, or else the Crane would perish! There is no choice. But as I said, you are much too big—if you fought with the pygmy it would be Unfair Advantage, as you are twice the size of their tallest warrior. If you fought with us they would cry foul for the hiring of mercenaries. In either event the whole business would have to be halted on account of the technicality.”

My whole flesh shook. I wanted no blood, no talking birds, no arcane military lore—only to rest in a shadow and drink cool water. When I think on it now I flush with embarrassment still, for my body’s weakness, then—and later. I said to Torghul: “I do not wish to fight. I did not wish to fight for paintings, I do not wish to fight for