“You have been a good friend, Simna ibn Sind, and a boon companion.” One last time, Ehomba put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Travel well, keep alert, and watch where you put your feet. Keep looking, keep searching, and perhaps one day, with luck, fortune might smile upon you and you might find Damura-sese.”
The swordsman nodded, started to turn to go, and then paused. The sun was not yet high and it fell in his eyes, making him squint. “One last thing, Etjole. One thing I must ask.” He moved closer so he would not have to squint as hard. “Are you, or are you not, a sorcerer?”
Turning away, the herdsman gazed off into the distance and smiled: that same familiar, enigmatic smile Simna had come to know so infuriatingly and so well in the course of their long journeying together.
“I have told you and told you, Simna. I am only a student, an asker of questions, who knows barely enough to make use of what the wise ones of the Naumkib provide me.”
“By Gunkad, long bruther, answer the question!” Not to be denied or put off any longer by clever evasions, the swordsman fumed silently and stood his ground, both physical and forensic.
Ehomba looked down at him. “Simna, my friend, I swear to you by the blue of the sky and the green of the sea that I am no more a ‘sorcerer’ than any man or woman of my village, be they herder of cattle, hewer of wood, thresher of grain, or scraper of hides.”
The swordsman met his gaze evenly and looked long and hard into the eyes of his friend. Then he nodded. “What will you do now?”