The first sign that the travelers were closing the distance to Uat’sn made itself apparent in the transition of plant community from semi-arid chaparral to a more dense, but still open canopy, scrub woodland. The dominant “canopy” plants, if they could be called that, consisted of the same short, microphyllous trees they had encountered on their trip southward, but the trees began to occur closer and closer, as if they realized they could be friends with one another—Namo’s words, not Martin’s. In addition, the human could feel the soil beneath their feet deepen and grow just a bit more loamy, indicating a greater ability to retain water. All signs pointed toward them closing in on the Uat’sn River the town was built along.

Apart from the gradual change in habitat, the pair began to pass by the occasional ruined building—human-made structures—mostly in the form of partially collapsed wooden farmhouses, barns. The pair did, however, pass by a couple old brick and stone buildings, including one particularly large structure that may have once been a military outpost, armory, or constabulary. Even the most dilapidated of these buildings, with a bit of cooperative refurbishing effort, would likely have been able be used as living space and provide more protection from the elements than the structures he observed in Benuun.

More signs of activity emerged as they drew near the village appeared before long: wispy columns of smoke from household fires, additional human buildings that had been restored in haphazard but effective ways, and even a few fauns who greeted the travelers in passing with friendly words and curious stares. Their warm and welcoming demeanor was a far cry from what Martin had experienced upon the pair’s arrival in Benuun, not that he complained. The fauns he encountered not on the roads worked in the fields outside the village, tending to the fairly standard “three sisters” crops of corn, beans, and squash he learned about in grade school. However, he saw one field of cotton to the east where nearly a dozen fauns hunched in the hot sun, plucking bolls and stuffing them into large sacks.

As they approached the palisade that likely demarcated the town proper, Martin noticed a lookout, perched in a watchtower to the left of a wooden drawbridge that was currently extended. While there was no moat to cross, Martin supposed that, were the lookout to crank the pulley mechanism closed, it would provide a deterrent for intruders in the absence of incendiary weapons, though the somewhat primitive design by human standards would likely not withstand a sustained siege.

Namo waved and shouted a greeting to the lookout as they entered the village. Martin received a second glance from the man in the tower, but nothing beyond what he expected as a human in a faun village. At the very least, he knew how Namo likely felt when she was in Fordham. “Finally made it. Not a bad trip, all things considered.” The former thief figured the measured optimism would resonate with Namo.

“Oh for shore, not a bad trip at all! And it looks like nothing bad has happened here before we’ve had the chance to say something to the chief.” She looked around at the wood and brick buildings that now surrounded them. “This doesn’t look like any Kepmuun village that I’ve ever seen! I bet they don’t even need to migrate, here!”

Martin raised an eyebrow at her migration remark. She was certainly right though: the village, with its permanent infrastructure built on human ruins, was a far cry from the lifestyle exhibited by the fauns in Benuun, who, in hindsight, may have been nomadic, given the comparative simplicity of their dwellings. The travelers walked down a winding side road and Martin couldn’t help but find interest in the hybrid architecture between fauns and humans. Most of the roofs had been reshingled, or in many cases, replaced with thatching. Holes had been repaired with wood planks and adobe, but there was no mistaking the human origin of the structures, which exhibited similar eclectic farmhouse construction that he was familiar with in the human settlements of central Sinoe. The road was even paved through town as they turned onto the main street, a strong indication that the settlement formerly known as Watson had seen some level of carriage traffic before it had been abandoned.

Despite the telltale signs of its human occupancy, just about everything besides the architecture was very Kepmuun in quality. Beautiful tapestries hung from many of the windows, geometric patterns variously colored in the high-contrast cyan, yellow, and black that Namo had worn when the pair met and the forest green, umber, and burgundy of the style he had seen in Benuun. As in Benuun, Martin failed to see so much as a stray dog to be found, let alone livestock; Martin got the sense that fauns didn’t domesticate animals. The townsfolk they encountered were friendly, perhaps too much so: several children followed the pair around as they continued toward what they believed was the center of the village, judging by the flow of foot traffic.

Martin felt a yank on his duster, and spun around, only to find a boy probably no older than three—assuming fauns aged similarly to humans—run away giggling. A girl near him, maybe a couple years older than the boy and with matching dark brown fur and hair, rolled her eyes. Maybe they were siblings? The girl uttered something to Martin, causing him to hold up his hands. “Sorry, I don’t speak Kepmuun.”

Hearing her friend utter something to someone behind him, she turned around and noticed the crowd of children Martin had attracted with a sly smile. “Looks like you’re pretty popular, there, Maa’ko.”

“Yeah, I’m a bit worried they’re gonna mug me,” he said sheepishly, as a couple other children pulled on his duster. One lifted one of the flaps over her head as if she were trying to shelter herself from rain.

“Lemme help with that.” Namo issued a command to the children in her native language, firm but not unkind, as if she were a stern aunt who knew that the half dozen or so children were old enough to know better than to intrude on another’s personal space. One of the kids uttered something in response, which Martin thought at first was back-talk, but which turned out instead to be a question.

“That little one there asked if you’re a human. I guess they’ve never seen one before.”

Interesting “Can you ask the others if they’ve seen any other humans here lately?”

Nodding, Namo did as requested, and unanimously the children either shook their heads or issued a word, one which Martin figured he should do his best to remember: “Tek.” No, he supposed.

The two adults made eye contact. “Guess we beat the bandits here,” Namo said. She asked another question of the children. The girl who had rolled her eyes pointed in the direction they were heading, followed by a short description of some variety.

“She says that the chief’s lodge is up the road here. It’s the biggest building in town, so it will be hard to miss.”

Namo and Martin thanked the girl, and the children in general, for their help, and continued on their way, only to find that the kids were all still following them anyway. Martin figured he’d let them have their fun; he realized that it was not out of the question that he was the most interesting thing they had seen in a while.

A fifteen-minute walk through the central boulevard brought the party to a building that had likely once been the Watson City hall, prior to the extensive renovation that had converted the multistory edifice to a single-story building that occupied a much larger footprint, with wooden construction expanding both wings of the original structure. The wooden extensions were wrapped with a wooden banister and awning that provided protection from the sun and a casual gathering place that reminded Martin of a café patio. Between each of the vertical supports for the awnings flanking the entrance of the government-building-turned-longhouse dangled hollowed-out beams of wood suspended by thick spliced rope. With the wind blowing through the patio, the beams gently rocked back and forth, and a clapper inside each beam produced a soft clattering sound of different pitch, akin to the beat of hooves; the significance of the similarity of the sound to the sound of Namo’s footsteps on hard ground was not lost on Martin. Namo gasped as she heard the wind rattling the suspended beams and trotted over to the one nearest to the pair. As Martin approached, he and Namo beheld intricate bas relief carvings along each giant wind chime, depicting figures and faces. Martin stopped and examined one of the chimes thoughtfully.

“They tell stories of the village,” the faun said, reverence coloring her voice. “We only had, or um, have, two of these in Jeju—one tells of the founding of the village, and the other tells the story of the relationship between Jeju and Unaata, the village that ended up becoming this place before humans took it over.” She walked down the front of the building, inspecting each chime in turn. “I was never really good at reading them though. I’m too impatient. It’s hard…” She trailed off.

Namo passed the entrance to the longhouse and continued looking at the chimes on the far side of the wooden double doors, which were propped open by a pair of decorative wooden urns. She paused at the first chime on the right, scrutinizing it. Martin stood at the doorway, a cloud of children still following him like gnats on a humid morning. “Hey, I think this is a similar kakoto’o to the one I was just talking about.” She took a step back to get a better view of the top of the chime. “Yeah, I think this one also tells the story about the relationship between Jeju and Unaata!”

Martin walked up beside her and she pointed out key events from the face of the chime they could see, drawing her finger down the length of the chime in a loose spiral. “See, up at the top, there’s the parents, then down just below you can see the two kids. There’s a scene of their death, then the parents separating, and the spirits of the children reuniting the parents.” She twirled a lock of hair in the fingers of her other hand. “At least, I think that’s right.”

Martin spent a moment to take in the scene before them: a quiet afternoon in a populous, if not necessarily bustling, per se, town of fauns, where the blazing sun was cut by the cool breeze and where the local populace seemed to be enjoying a peaceful day. Yet despite the placidity of the afternoon, Martin couldn’t help but feel a sense of foreboding like a choking fog.

“Well, do you want to try and see if the chief is willing entertain an audience?” Martin said, not realizing that he failed to acknowledge the faun’s kakoto’o-reading skill.

“Umm, yeah, I s’pose we should…” she trailed off, her attention still on the kakoto’o. Martin wondered if the chimes held a spiritual significance to the faun, or whether her interest was purely aesthetic in nature. With some effort, she tore her attention from the carved chime and joined Martin.

The longhouse’s heavy hardwood doors, which, considering the local plant community, were almost certainly imported from elsewhere, pushed open with a hefty creak. Sunlight poured into the dim interior, which was illuminated solely by small letterbox windows high on the walls and by braziers that dangled from the ceiling by wrought iron cables. Long shadows crisscrossed the pair as they entered the longhouse alone; the children apparently lacked the gumption to follow the visitors into the intimidating chamber. The doors closed behind them with a gentle thud. Before them, the main hall extended nearly twenty-five meters; Martin could barely make out the figure of the village chief at the far end of the main hall. The walls of the city hall had been carefully knocked out and replaced with pillars to maintain the needed structural integrity of the building, which impressed Martin, even if he felt as if he might trip over his own feet given how dimly lit the room was.

The pair walked down the main aisle, an orange-dyed woven runner spanning the distance between them and the chief, who was discussing a matter with another faun. As they approached, the chief looked up, giving a half-hearted wave of acknowledgment, before doing a double-take upon realizing that one of the people who had appeared before her was a human. Martin had never before seen a faun who effortlessly commanded as much respect as this woman did from body language alone. Her large, dark-furred frame sprawled along the heavy wooden dish-shaped throne somewhere between sitting upright and lounging, and she conveyed an expression of simultaneous disinterest and acute scrutiny in her conversation with the faun in front of them. She spoke in Kepmuun to Namo something that Martin supposed was along the lines of “I’ll be with you in a moment” and gestured with an outstretched arm for the pair to have a seat on a pair of cushions that lined either side of the main runner. Martin, legs tired from the road, was grateful for the respite, and did as requested.

While they waited, Namo turned to Martin and said “I s’pose I’ll do the talkin’, since I doubt she speaks English and all.”

The pair sat in relative silence so as not to disturb the ongoing conversation. Martin was grateful he didn’t speak the language in this case: he didn’t want to seem impolite by eavesdropping. However, soon he found that the quiet, dimly lit environment of the longhouse, combined with his road-weariness, spelled a recipe for falling asleep in his seat, his nearly chronic headache notwithstanding. Namo apparently felt similarly, for after a few minutes, he felt her lean against his shoulder drowsily, her ear bending out of the way and catching in her silver hair as it flowed along his shoulder and arm. The simple gesture sent a jolt of energy through the man; no longer did he feel his eyelids grow heavy. He pulled a stray silver strand of hair away from his mouth and felt an intrusive thought to curl it around his finger before immediately quashing it in embarrassment.

The man spent a few minutes staring straight ahead of him and focusing on regulating his breathing before the individual speaking with the chief ahead of them finished their conversation. He gave a subtle nod of acknowledgment to Martin, who returned it in kind. The chief pointed a supinated hand toward Martin and his sleepy companion, beckoning them forward. Martin gently nudged Namo awake, who sat upright with a jolt. “Showtime, Namo.”

The two stood and approached the raised pedestal upon which a wide, dish-shaped woven wood chair contained the sprawled chief. The large woman, clad in fine silks of cream, sky blue, and terracotta, was postured rather informally for what he expected from the leader of the village, but nevertheless commanded respect from the pair, maybe in part because of her relaxed body language. She bore an expression of cautious interest on her predatory, but not unattractive, features, as if she recognized under slightly different circumstances she would take the man’s life without hesitation. She uttered something between a question and an order, which Martin presumed was a question as to their business in town. Her voice prodded like a blade kept at the hip, seemingly harmless but ready to inflict harm in an instant. Namo issued her reply, gesticulating to herself, then Martin, then the amulet he wore around his neck. Upon noticing the amulet, the chief cocked her head to the side inquisitively. After a moment, she offered a universal beckoning gesture to Martin, who doffed the amulet and handed it to the woman. She scrutinized the amulet, turning it over in her hands. Then, at the top of her lungs, she bellowed a command down the hall, causing Martin and Namo to nearly jump from their skin. Literally on cue, two attendants, a young man and a young woman, perhaps both only eight years old, rushed from one of the hallways behind the throne. Martin, having only seen fauns for the first time in the past several days, still had some difficulty telling them apart in some cases. Be that as it may, the man felt the two fauns that had appeared before him could be twins: fair of complexion, delicate of features, and russet of hair and fur, the slim-bodied and youthful fauns stood in stark contrast to the dark-furred, stern-faced woman who served as chief of the village. She spoke quick, curt commands to the pair and handed the boy the medallion. They nodded obediently and departed as suddenly as they had arrived.

Then, in a marked change of demeanor, she leaned forward in her throne and turned to Martin. “So, human. Tell me more about this threat to our village you speak of,” she commanded, in perfect English.